THE FUNERAL SERVICE AT BUFFALO.
The first funeral service over the remains of President McKinley was
held at the Milburn house in Buffalo, Sunday, September 15, at 11
o’clock.
At the house only the President’s wife, his relatives, his personal
friends, and his official family were gathered for their last farewell.
It was simply the funeral of William McKinley, the man.
Grief is too weak a word for what Mrs. McKinley suffered. It was not
merely the loss of one dear to her. It was the loss of all there was in
the world, the one strong arm on which for years she has leaned for
support, almost as a child leans upon its mother.
There is a story of unwavering patience and devotion in that part of the
late President’s life which only has been touched upon, much as has been
said about it, and which even those who knew most of its details can
hardly grasp, in the all but unparalleled depth of love that it
involves.
Even in their own sorrow the thoughts of all who were gathered about the
dead President’s bier in the room below were going out in pity to her
whose desolation was so utter, so far beyond all hope.
The extremity of pathos was reached when, before the ceremony, Mrs.
McKinley, the poor, grief-crushed widow, had been led into the chamber
by her physician, Dr. Rixey, and had sat awhile alone with him who had
supported and comforted her through all their years of wedded life.
Her support was gone, but she had not broken down. Dry-eyed, she gazed
upon him. She fondled his face. She did not seem to realize he was dead.
Then she was led away to the head of the stairs, where she could hear
the services.
The extremity of impressiveness followed when the new President stood
beside the casket steeling himself for a look into the face of the dead.
The tension in the room was great. Every one seemed to be waiting. The
minister of the gospel stood with the holy book in his hand ready to
begin.
Perhaps it might have been sixty seconds. It seemed longer. Then the
President turned and advanced one step. He bowed his head and looked.
Long he gazed, standing immovable, save for a twitching of the muscles
of the chin. At last he stepped back. Tears were in President
Roosevelt’s eyes as he went to the chair reserved for him.
Another dramatic scene came when the service was over and the Rev. Mr.
Locke had pronounced the benediction. Before any one had moved, and
while there was the same perfect stillness, Senator Hanna, who had not
before found courage to look upon the dead face of his friend, stepped
out from where he had been standing behind Governor Odell. It was his
last chance to see the features of President McKinley. There was a look
on his face that told more than sobs would have done. It was the look of
a man whose grief was pent up within him.
The Senator had quite a few steps to take to get to the head of the
casket. When he got to the head of the bier, by President Roosevelt, he
stood with his head resting on his breast and his hands clasped behind
his back, looking down on the face of his friend. He stood there
possibly a minute, but to every one it seemed more like five. No one
stirred while he stood. The scene was beyond expression.
As the Senator turned his head around those in the room saw his face,
and there were tears trickling down it. One of the Cabinet members put
out his arm and the Senator instinctively seemed to follow it. He went
between Senator Long and Attorney-General Knox and sat down in a chair
near the wall; then he bowed his head.
To most of those present at the services at the Milburn house, the dead
President had been friend and comrade, a relationship beside which that
of President seemed for the moment to sink into insignificance. It was
as his friends that they heard the two hymns sung and the passage from
the Bible read.
It was so impressive that the people who were there stood silent, with
something tugging at their throats and making sobs impossible. There
were no sobs heard, and yet there were those there who had known the
dead President all his life. Many eyes were filled with tears, but they
were shed softly. While the services proceeded there was no audible
sound of grief.
But in the faces of every one, from President and the Cabinet Ministers
down to soldier and servant, grief of the deepest kind was written too
plainly to be mistaken, and the tears stole silently down the furrows in
the faces of gray-haired friends who had known intimately the man whose
funeral it was.
The service at the Milburn house began a few minutes after 11 o’clock
and it was over in about fifteen minutes.
The entire military and naval force formed in company front near the
house and there awaited the time for the services to begin.
Meantime the members of the Cabinet, officials high in the government
service, and near friends of the martyred President began to fill the
walks leading up to the entrance of the Milburn residence. They came
separately and in groups, some walking, while those in carriages were
admitted within the roped enclosure up to the curb.
Two and two, a long line of men of dignified bearing marched up to see
the house—the foreign commissioners sent to the exposition, and after
them the State commissioners. With the foreigners was a colonel of the
Mexican army in his full uniform of black with scarlet stripes and
peaked gold braided cap. The other members of the Cabinet in the city,
Secretary Long, Attorney-General Knox, Postmaster General Smith, the
close confidants and friends of the late chief, Senator Hanna, Judge
Day, Governors Odell, Yates, and Gregory, Representatives Alexander and
Ryan, Major-General Brooke, E. H. Butler, H. H. Kohlsaat, and many
others were present.
It was just eight minutes before the opening of the service when a
covered barouche drove up to the house, bringing President Roosevelt and
Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, at whose home he is a guest. The President looked
grave as he alighted and turned to assist Mrs. Wilcox from the carriage.
His face did not relax into a smile to the salutation of those nearest
the carriage, but he acknowledged the greetings silently and with an
inclination of the head. Word passed up the well filled walk that the
President had arrived, and those waiting to gain entrance fell back,
making a narrow lane, through which Mr. Roosevelt passed along to the
house.
Outside the house there was a half hour of silence and waiting. Within
the house of death was woe unspeakable.
In the drawing-room, to the right of the hall, as President Roosevelt
entered, the dead chieftain was stretched upon his bier. His head was to
the rising sun. On his face was written the story of the Christian
forbearance with which he had met his martyrdom. Only the thinness of
his face bore mute testimony to the patient suffering he had endured.
The dead President was dressed as he always was in life. The black frock
coat was buttoned across the breast where the first bullet of the
assassin had struck. The black string tie below the standing collar
showed the little triangle of white shirt front. The right hand lay at
his side. The left was across his body. He looked as millions of his
countrymen have seen him.
The body lay in a black casket on a black bearskin rug. Over the lower
limbs was hung the starry banner he had loved so well. The flowers were
few, as befitted the simple nature of the man. A spray of white
chrysanthemums, a flaming bunch of blood red American Beauty roses, and
a magnificent bunch of violets were on the casket. That was all. Behind
the head, against a pier mirror, between the two curtained windows,
rested two superb wreaths of white asters and roses. These were the only
flowers in the room.
Two sentries, one from the sea and one from the land, guarded the
remains. They stood in the window embrasures behind the head of the
casket. The one on the north was a sergeant of infantry. In the other
window was the sailor, garbed in the loose blue blouse of the navy.
The family had taken leave of their loved one before the others arrived.
Mrs. Hobart, widow of the Vice-President during Mr. McKinley’s first
term; Mrs. Lafayette McWilliams of Chicago, Miss Barber, Miss Mary
Barber, and Dr. Rixey remained with Mrs. McKinley during the services.
The other members of the family—Mr. and Mrs. Abner McKinley, Miss Helen
McKinley, Mrs. Duncan, Miss Duncan, Mr. and Mrs. Barber, and Dr. and
Mrs. Baer—had withdrawn into the library to the north of the
drawing-room, in which the casket lay, and here also gathered other
friends when the service was held.
The friends and public associates of the dead President all had
opportunity to view the remains before the service began. The members of
the Cabinet had taken their leave before the others arrived. They
remained seated beside their dead chief while the sad procession viewed
the body. They were on the north side of it. A place directly at the
head had been reserved for President Roosevelt. Secretary Root sat
alongside this empty chair. Then came Attorney-General Knox, Secretary
Long, Secretary Hitchcock, Secretary Wilson, and Postmaster-General
Smith, in the order named.
Senator Hanna entered the room at this time, but did not approach the
casket. His face was set like an iron-willed man who would not let down
the barriers of his grief. The Senator spoke to no one. His eyes were
vacant. He passed through the throng and seated himself behind Governor
Odell, sinking far down into his chair and resting his head upon his
hand. During all the service that followed he did not stir.
Just before 11 o’clock President Roosevelt entered, coming into the room
from the rear through the library. After passing into the hall he had
made his way around through the sitting-room behind into the library.
There was an instantaneous movement in the room as the President
appeared. The procession was still passing from the south side, around
the head of the casket and back between it and the members of the
Cabinet seated at its side.
Every one rose and all eyes were turned toward the President. He moved
forward again with the tide of the procession to his place at the head
of the line of Cabinet officers. He held himself erect, his left hand
carrying his silk hat. Those who were coming toward him fell back on
either side to let him pass. He paused once or twice to shake hands
silently, but there was no smile to accompany his greetings. He, too,
like the man deep down in his seat against the wall, who had forgotten
to rise when the President of the United States entered, seemed to be
restraining a great grief.
When President Roosevelt reached the head of the line of Cabinet
officers he kept his face away from the casket. The infantryman guarding
the dead stood before him rigid as a statue. Although the
Commander-in-Chief approached until he could have touched him, the
soldier did not salute. The President spoke to Secretary Root, or
perhaps it would be more precise to say that the latter spoke to him.
Colonel Bingham, the aid to the President, standing ten feet below the
foot of the casket at the side of the loyal Cortelyou, glanced in the
direction of the Rev. Charles Edward Locke of the Delaware Avenue
Methodist Episcopal Church, who was to conduct the service.
The pastor was at the door leading into the hall, a station whence his
words could be heard at the head of the stairs. The signal was given and
there welled out from the hall the beautiful words of “Lead, Kindly
Light,” sung by a quartet. It was one of President McKinley’s favorite
hymns. Every one within sound of the music knew it and half of those in
the room put their faces in their hands to hide their tears. Controller
Dawes leaned against a bookcase and wept. President Roosevelt seemed to
be swaying to and fro as if his footing were insecure.
When the singing ended the clergyman read from the fifteenth chapter of
the First Corinthians. All had risen as he began and remained standing
through the remainder of the service. Again the voices rose with the
words of “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” the words President McKinley had
repeated at intervals of consciousness during the day of agony before he
died. As the music died away the pastor spoke again.
“Let us pray,” he said, and every head fell upon its breast. He began
his invocation with a stanza from a hymn sung in the Methodist Church.
His prayer was as follows:
“O, God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast
And our eternal home.
“We, thy servants, humbly beseech thee for manifestations of thy favor
as we come into thy presence. We laud and magnify thy holy name and
praise thee for all thy goodness. Be merciful unto us and bless us, as,
stricken with overwhelming sorrow, we come to thee. Forgive us for our
doubts and fears and faltering faith; pardon all our sins and
shortcomings and help us to say, ‘Thy will be done.’
“In this dark night of grief abide with us till the dawning. Speak to
our troubled souls, O God, and give to us in this hour of unutterable
grief the peace and quiet which thy presence only can afford. We thank
thee that thou answerest the sobbing sigh of the heart, and dost assure
us that if a man die he shall live again. We praise thee for Jesus
Christ, thy Son, our Savior and elder brother; that he came ‘to bring
life and immortality to light,’ and because he lives we shall live also.
We thank thee that death is victory, that ‘to die is gain.’
“Have mercy upon us in this dispensation of thy providence. We believe
in thee, we trust thee, our God of love—‘the same yesterday, to-day, and
forever.’ We thank thee for the unsullied life of thy servant, our
martyred President, whom thou hast taken to his coronation, and we pray
for the final triumph of all the divine principles of pure character and
free government for which he stood while he lived and which were
baptized by his blood in his death.
“Hear our prayer for blessings of consolation upon all those who were
associated with him in the administration of the affairs of the
government; especially vouchsafe thy presence to thy servant who has
been suddenly called to assume the holy responsibility of our Chief
Magistrate.
“O God, bless our dear nation, and guide the ship of State through
stormy seas; help thy people to be brave to fight the battles of the
Lord and wise to solve all the problems of freedom.
“Graciously hear us for comforting blessings to rest upon the family
circle of our departed friend. Tenderly sustain thine handmaiden upon
whom the blow of this sorrow most heavily falls. Accompany her, O God,
as thou hast promised, through this dark valley and shadow, and may she
fear no evil because thou art with her.
“All these things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who has
taught us when we pray to say, ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed
be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in
Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the
power and the glory forever. Amen.’
“May the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father,
and communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen.”
All present joined in the Lord’s prayer as the minister repeated it,
President Roosevelt’s voice being audible at the back of the room.
The service concluded with a simple benediction.
[Illustration:
GENERALS MILES, SHAFTER AND OTIS ENTERING THE MCKINLEY RESIDENCE AT
CANTON.]
[Illustration:
THE LAST RETURN TO HIS OLD HOME. TAKING THE CASKET OUT OF THE CAR
WINDOW AT CANTON.]