THE FUNERAL TRAIN TO WASHINGTON.
From the scene of President McKinley’s assassination to the Capital of
the nation the hearse of the murdered President made its way. Through
almost half a thousand miles, past a hundred towns that had been blessed
through his services, between two lines of mourners that massed in
unnumbered throngs all the way from Buffalo to Washington, the hurrying
train proceeded, anguished mourners within the cars, loving and
sorrow-stricken friends without.
President McKinley had left Washington, September 6, 1901, in the full
tide of life, in the full flush of hope and power. His cold body, with
life extinct, started on the return Monday, September 16, housed in the
mournful trappings of woe.
From 7 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock at night the solemn progress
continued. In the flush of the September dawn the nation’s dead was
hurried out of the city, which, waving a sad farewell with its one hand,
clutched tight his murderer with the other. The roar of mad Niagara sank
to a growl of thirsty vengeance reserved for the wretch that remained,
and the mists rose up from the deeps of the dead, and bent in gentle
majesty to the south as the echo of departing wheels wore away.
Never was such a funeral procession. Never before was a death so
causeless, a chief so beloved so pitilessly laid low, and never was
humanity startled from universal peace with a grief so sad.
It was a curious journey for the five draped cars, with their engine
banked in black. The half hundred attendants—the widow with her friends,
the new President with his advisers, the guards and escort making up the
visible government of the nation, hurrying from the threshold of woe to
the vestibule of a new administration.
No other business occupied the road’s attention till this caravan of the
dead should pass. Ahead of it ran a pilot engine, insuring against any
possible accident. Behind it all business waited till it was far away.
Loving hearts devised new forms of testimony to the fallen chief, and
gentle hands discharged the duties that the day imposed. Time and again
the track was heaped for rods with all manner of flowers before the
on-coming train. American Beauty roses were piled above the rails.
Glowing asters and gleaming violets alternated with wild flowers and the
vivid reds and yellows of autumn leaves. And the iron wheels that
whirled the funeral party south cut through the banks of bloom and
filled the air with perfume as fragrant as the nation’s love.
Schools were dismissed, and little groups of boys and girls stood in
silent, puzzled wonder as the train rolled past. At every cross-road
from dawn to dark were gathered farmers’ teams, with men and women,
waiting to pay their silent, tearful tribute to the dead. At every town
the flags were held at half-mast, and the streets were crowded with the
masses of Americans sincere in their sympathy for the living, profoundly
sorrowing for the dead.
There were traces of tears in every face. There were evidences of
respect in every attitude. The bells of every village tolled while the
flag-draped coffin went hurrying past.
Nothing more pathetic marked the whole procession than the homely badges
of black and purple ribbon worn by men in the towns and little cities.
There had been no time for the emblems of factory fashioning to reach
them, and little rosettes composed by women’s hands dotted the bosoms of
dresses and the lapels of coats.
Business was suspended. All interest in life was held in abeyance, for
the nation’s dead was going by.
The one relief to this monotone of woe was furnished by lads in
Pennsylvania, who took coins from their slender stores of saving, and
laid them on the rails, rescuing them, flattened, when the train had
passed. And they will preserve these among their treasures to the end of
life.
Down the Susquehanna River the banks seemed lined with watchers, who had
assembled for a view, the one tribute possible for them to pay. Upon the
opposite side of the track a highway ran, and farmers’ homes, fronting
it, were draped in mourning, and in their windows displayed the
portraits of the President so foully slain, with flags and flowers
wreathed into borders, and flashing their testimony of sorrow to those
who accompanied the dead.
Shortly after leaving Buffalo Mrs. McKinley was persuaded to lie down,
and she rested there undisturbed for hours, her friends watching her
continually, and attentive to her every want. She was speechless, simply
staring straight before her as if the meaning of this awful blow could
not be comprehended. Toward noon she rose, and sat at a window, looking
off at the fleeting panorama of hills and fields, and reverent friends
who vainly yearned to lighten her sorrow. There were no tears until the
train paused in the station at Harrisburg. The crowds had been very
dense, and she became conscious that thousands peered intently into the
coaches as they passed; so she moved away from the window and still sat
silent. There was a moment’s wait in the station and then the iron
arches of the roof rang with the swelling numbers of the song, “Nearer,
My God, To Thee!” The Harrisburg Choral Society, 300 strong, had
assembled at the farther wall; and the rolling tide of its melody filled
the great structure. It came to the silent little woman in the second
coach, so sadly, hopelessly alone; and she bowed her head and wept.
As the train pulled out the Choral Society took up the lines: “My
Country, ’Tis of Thee;” and as the sorrowing guardians were hurried away
ten thousand voices in the crowd outside the depot and along the streets
evidently without prearrangement, joined in that, their funeral anthem:
“Our Father’s God, to Thee,
Author of Liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright
With Freedom’s holy light—
Protect us with Thy might,
Great God, our King!”
Through its wavering melody sounded the note of a bugle. A trumpeter was
sounding “Taps.”
President Roosevelt, his Cabinet and friends occupied the fourth car,
and transacted such business as could not be postponed. Between them and
Mrs. McKinley’s coach was a combination diner and buffet car; and there
the new President went for luncheon at noon. The women who attended Mrs.
McKinley brought refreshments to her, and urged her to eat; but she
could not. The forward car, a “combination,” was occupied by the members
of the escort party and a number of correspondents, while in the
compartment immediately back of the engine such baggage as was necessary
for the party’s immediate use was stored.
The last car on the train was an observation car, in the center of which
the casket was placed. About it was grouped the sentinels from the army
and the navy—whose guardian care was no longer needed; and beside it
reposed masses of floral offerings. The car was so arranged that a view
of the interior could be had by the crowds that were passed.
At Baltimore the train was reversed, the catafalque car being placed in
front, while the others occupied their relative positions in the rear.
Darkness came shortly after the train left Baltimore, and the lights of
farm houses in the country still revealed the waiting watchers—always
standing, always uncovered, always mutely joining in the universal
expression of grief.
Night enveloped the Capital City in its mighty pall as the funeral
procession ended. The train pulled into the depot at 8:38. The run from
Buffalo had been made in an average of thirty-five miles an hour. The
President and his friends alighted. Mrs. McKinley was assisted to her
carriage. The stalwart soldiers and sailors gently lifted the casket
from its place in the car and carried it through a waiting, silent,
tearful crowd, to the hearse at the gates, and it was driven slowly
along the streets to the White House.
It was a sad home-coming. Just two weeks before President McKinley, full
of life and crowned with all the honors that a successful career could
earn, happy in the love of his people and the respect of the world, had
gone to visit the Buffalo Exposition; to lend some measure of
encouragement to that enterprise, and to see the marvels that had been
there assembled. In the midst of them he had fallen. And here, at the
end of a fortnight, in the darkness of an autumn night, in the silence
of an inexpressible sorrow, his hearse was rolling dully along the
avenue, and only the prayers and eulogies and lying in state separated
all that was mortal of William McKinley from the unending rest of the
grave.