LYING IN STATE AT THE CAPITOL.
As soon as the funeral service in the Capitol had concluded, and the
audience had dispersed, the guards took their places about the casket,
and the big bronze doors of the Capitol were thrown open, and the crowds
were admitted. They came in two long lines from both the east and west
portals and passed down, one on either side of the catafalque. It was
the intention to have those who entered at the east door pass out at the
west, and those who came in from the west—from the Pennsylvania avenue
side—to leave at the opposite entrance. But the local police
arrangements had been very imperfectly provided, and confusion resulted.
Had the day been fair probably no untoward circumstances would have
marred the solemnity of the occasion. But the storm without added to the
discomfort of the crush; and the first two hours of the lying in state
made up a scene to be regretted. The crowding at times almost approached
the frenzy of a panic. Men were hustled, despite all their struggles.
Women and children were thrown down and trampled on. There was no noise,
such as usually accompanies a panic in theatres, or on the occasion of a
fire, but there was a half-savage exercise of brute force, a dumb
insistence on position. And against that frightful pressure human
strength was helpless. Men were pressed as with the impetus of engines
against stone walls and columns. Women were ground against the sharp
angles of granite, or hurled without warning upon the wounding edges of
marble.
The force of police provided was wholly inadequate, and for two sad
hours the lines that viewed the dead missed the characterization of a
mob only because of their evident sympathy.
Men with clothes torn, women with bleeding faces appeared continually in
the lines; and back to the south in the rotunda, toward the senate wing,
was gathered a constantly increasing company of those who had been
injured.
As soon as the faulty condition was discovered those in charge of the
funeral ceremonies had called on the police department for a better
control; and the reserves were ordered out. Even then it seemed a
hopeless time before they could get in position, and restore order in
the boundless crowds.
It was the one feature up to that time which had marred the solemn
stateliness of the funeral.
As it was, the crowds were simply flung through the bronze doors, and
projected to the very side of the casket, where they appeared half
hysterical, and wholly lost to the impressive nature of the hour.
Coincident with the restoration of order by the reinforced police, came
the ambulances from the Emergency Hospital; and scores were taken away
for treatment, while other scores were treated without removal from the
rotunda.
After the reserves had taken their places, and had controlled the
crowds, a steady, orderly procession came through the doors from 12
o’clock noon until 6 in the evening. In that time more than 30,000
persons passed the casket of their dead chief, and looked for the last
time on his pain-marked face.
The appearance of the casket which contained the body of the martyred
President was particularly impressive. It was wrapped entirely in a
beautiful American flag. Over the top of the casket were laid three
groups of flowers, that at the end being a conspicuous sheaf which had
been prepared at the express request and under the personal direction of
the new President of the United States.
Many beautiful floral designs were grouped around the casket.
Conspicuous among them was a massive cushion floral tribute in the form
of an army badge from the G. A. R. and offerings from the Loyal Legion
and other soldier organizations. General Corbin, now en route home from
Manila; General Adna R. Chaffee, and the Commissioners of Porto Rico had
floral offerings laid about the bier.
A design of over six feet in diameter composed of galax leaves and
American beauty roses, about which was entwined the American flag, came
from the Mayor and Council of Richmond, Va. Other tributes came from
Mrs. James A. Garfield, widow of another martyred President; Mrs. Garret
A. Hobart, Secretaries Hay and Hitchcock, General and Mrs. Miles,
Ambassador Porter at Paris, the Argentine, Guatemalan, Costa Rican, and
other legations, and the municipality of Havana.
The casket rested exactly beneath the center of the great dome of the
Capitol, and surrounding it on all sides were the large historical
paintings representing the greatest events of the life of the republic.
Above, on the extreme top of the dome, was the beautiful historical
painting of the apotheosis of George Washington, while on the floor
itself, within easy range of the eye from the center, were statues of
Lincoln and Grant, the two great governmental personages of the present
generation.
The casket was guarded by details of artillerymen, marines, and sailors,
but it was hemmed in by such a distinguished circle of public men as to
set it in a proper frame.
The big, black casket was the period at the end of an era. The marble
effigies of the great men about it, the canvases on which the features
of statesmen and soldiers lived in oil, were but the mute testimonies to
a condition which had passed. The pale form, lying in state between
moving lines of those who had loved him, was all that earth had left of
the man who gathered together the possibilities of the past—who could
express the spirit, the effectiveness and the hope of the future.
There was the statue of George Washington, twice a President, once
maligned, now half deified. There was John Marshall, once Chief Justice
of the United States; once a patriot soldier at Valley Forge; once
presiding at the trial of Aaron Burr—whose hand had been raised in a
bolder assault; but always the champion of law, the lover of order, the
son of republican independence. There hung the portrait of Captain
Lawrence—and his dying words carried new courage to the hearts of the
mourners: “Don’t Give Up the Ship!”
There was Madison, whose seat of government had been driven from the
capital when the British assailed the nation in the war of 1812; the man
who had watched from the hills to the north the smoke that rose from the
burning buildings of the nation.
All the history of the past was bound up in the pictured forms and the
marble allegories of that rotunda. And over it all lifted the painted
interior of the dome, the apotheosis of that first President, who had
been first in war, and first in peace, but who now made room for another
beside him in the hearts of his countrymen.
All they had promised, all the nation of the past had hoped for and
striven for had been expressed in the administration, had been made
possible by the wise statesmanship of this hero who lay still and silent
in death below them. And it seemed to the crowds that bent with bared
heads as they passed by the coffin that the very death of this great man
had made more secure the destiny of the nation.
Outside the storm raged more fiercely, and the people clamored against
the savagery of an unguided crowd. Outside the winds were voicing their
own requiem, and wailing at the feet of that symbol of liberty which
crowns the highest height of the colossal building. And here in the
darkened rotunda, where state occasions had signalized the progress of a
people from weakness unto strength, from experiment to established
systems—forty thousand people—delegates from eighty million of their
fellows, touched with reverent fingers the trappings of the dead and
moved on to mingle again with the world. While he had lain sick in that
fair house of his friend at Buffalo, it had seemed to these thousands
that the one voice of the Republic must be:
“Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.”
Yet as they gazed at the pensive face, as they looked into the
countenance which had never feared, had never found a duty too difficult
for performing, they added the lines—
“Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee—are all with thee.”
And so they passed out again to the day of gloom, confident that the
sunshine of to-morrow would certainly come. And the close of the day
left the dead alone with his guards.
A terrible crush, accompanied by a panic, occurred in front of the
Capitol while the thousands of people were struggling for a look at the
dead President. Fully fifty people were more or less injured and one man
lost his life.
Long before the remains had started from the White House the crowd had
begun to gather in front of the Capitol building. By the time the great
bronze doors of the eastern entrance were swung open the people were
massed for acres. A line of police guarded the base of the Capitol steps
and gave directions that a double line should be formed as the people
should be admitted two abreast. But when the crowd saw that the doors
had been opened and that the line had started to go through, there was a
general movement to get closer to the point of admittance.
Those in the rear pressed forward and those in the middle, not being
able to hold back against the weight, were pressed with greater force
against those ahead. Quickly those in front and along the line of ropes
were crowded so tightly that they could scarcely breathe.
There were women and children and babies in arms in the press, and soon
the section in front of the steps became a fighting mass of humanity.
Men seized small children and held them high over their heads to keep
them from being trampled under foot or crushed in the terrible weight
which was thrown against them.
A woman was heard to scream and beg for help. The crowd became
panic-stricken and women began fainting on every side. An ineffectual
squad of mounted police thought to drive back those in the rear and
separate the crowd by plunging their horses into the worst of the fray.
The result was what might be expected. The panic was increased. The
crowd broke all bounds.
The little line of police at the foot of the wide flight of steps was
swept down like so many straws. The crowd flowed up the stairs like a
mighty flood. One of the mounted officers, goring his horse with his
spurs, was carried, horse and all, half way up the steps. Women screamed
as they found themselves under the trampling hoofs and men fought to get
away.
A colored man at one side whipped out a knife and slashed the rope
against which the crowd was pressing. Those in front fell headlong and
the rest followed, trampling them under foot.
At the doors of the Capitol rotunda, where the dead President lay in
state, the surging was checked. With herculean efforts the capitol
police fought off the rising sea of people and closed the gates against
them. But quickly they had to be opened in response to the appeal in the
name of humanity.
The Capitol police helped to drag the fainting and injured into the
building, where they were laid out in rows. Calls were sent to the
hospitals and surgeons were sent in an ambulance. The Capitol was the
only refuge for those who had been borne down in the rush, and the
victims were passed over the heads of the crowd and taken in at the
doors.
The committee-rooms were pressed into service and women were taken to
them and attended by the doctors. Ambulances drove up, but could not
penetrate the dense crowd. Colonel Dan Ransdell, sergeant-at-arms of the
Senate, arrived on the scene and gave orders that the doors be thrown
wide open. This, he perceived, was the only way the congestion could be
relieved. It was growing worse at every moment.
The crowd broke in when the obstructions were removed and in a moment
the rotunda was filled and packed. Then the Capitol police hurried the
people through and out the other side.
Meantime the trouble in front had been growing worse rather than better.
Men and women fought like beasts to get out of the suffocating crush.
Clothing was torn; hats, coats, umbrellas, neckties, women’s silk waists
and light summer gowns were torn and scattered in every direction. The
mounted police charged about the outskirts of the crowd adding to the
excitement. Some colored men at the western edge got into a fight and
whipped out razors, which were brandished about and several were
severely cut.
The ambulances dashed about clanging their bells and adding to the
turmoil. They made hurried trips to the hospitals carrying the senseless
and bleeding. Often they carried as many as half a dozen at a time. The
police appealed to the crowd to fall back, but it was like talking to
the ocean.
Fearing that the disorder would spread to the rotunda and that the
remains of the President might be endangered the Capitol police, under
the command of Captain McGrew, determined again to close the doors. This
was accomplished only after the greatest efforts. The people within were
then driven out on the western side and the stairways and halls were
also thrown open to facilitate their exit.
A force of police on foot was hurried to the rescue and the crowd was
charged from the sides and driven back toward the east again. This
relieved the pressure about the steps and gradually order was restored.
Then the officers insisted that the people be formed into double line
and the space about the entrance was cleared. By two o’clock the line
was passing through the rotunda again in quiet and decent fashion.
People who have witnessed similar gatherings at the Capitol express
wonder that there have not been panics and crushes before. The police of
Washington seem to have little idea of handling large crowds. At
inauguration times the only reason there has not been trouble is that
the exercises have been held in the open air. The crowds which come
together are permitted to mass over large areas without openings and
passageways through which the women and others may escape in case they
desire to get away.
The management of this part of the programme was under the charge of the
War Department, and earlier in the day there was a company of soldiers
on duty keeping the crowd within bounds and under control. But this
company was withdrawn and the rest was left to the city officers, who
claim that the force was insufficient for the occasion.
When the people had had an opportunity to view the remains of their
beloved President, the body was taken to the depot, and between eight
and nine o’clock in the evening the funeral train departed for Canton.
[Illustration:
McKINLEY’S GUARD IN ADVANCE OF HEARSE, CANTON.]
[Illustration:
PLACING THE BODY IN THE VAULT AT WESTLAWN CEMETERY, CANTON.]