THE SAD JOURNEY TO CANTON.
The funeral train bearing the remains of President McKinley crossed the
west line of Pennsylvania and entered his home State and his home
Congressional District at 10 o’clock a. m., Wednesday, September 18,
1901.
This is the district he represented for fourteen years in the halls of
Congress. Many who had known the President personally, who had shaken
his hand and gazed into his genial face, lined the tracks to do honor to
all that remained on earth of their neighbor, friend and chief. From the
State line to Canton, the President’s home, the line of mourners was
almost continuous. Although a stirring depth of feeling had been
manifested as the train passed through other States of the Union with
its burden, nowhere was poignant grief so evident as it was during the
sad journey through the President’s home State.
It is the second time the State of Ohio has been called upon to pay
homage to the ashes of one of its sons, elevated to the Presidency and
then stricken by an assassin’s bullet in the prime of his career.
The mustering of popular sentiment was awe-inspiring, both because of
the numerical strength of the mourners and the intensity of feeling
shown. In every sense was the trip of the President’s body to its last
resting place memorable. Miles upon miles of humanity were passed,
thousands upon thousands of heads were bared. Hundreds upon hundreds of
crape-tied flags were displayed, while, in the distance, the emblem of
the nation was seen at half-mast upon the schoolhouse or other public
building.
Company upon company of State militia presented arms, while peal upon
peal of the death knell came from church and courthouse bells. In all
there was not a smile seen from the train, and the ears of President
Roosevelt and Mrs. McKinley were not jarred by the sound of cheers or
unseemly shouts of acclaim. The thousands of school children, lined up
near the track, maintained a silence as profound, as sympathetic and as
reverent as their elders, who felt more deeply.
Through Maryland and Pennsylvania, where the outlines of black mountains
frowned dimly upon the train as it passed in the night, bonfires were
seen where they had been lit to keep the watchers awake in their night
vigil. The flames lit up the sides of the funeral train and cast
flickering shadows against the sides of the great hills. In the towns at
night the torches lit up the anxious, sympathetic faces of the mourners,
who had lost sleep and braved the chill so as to have a brief look at
the train which was hurrying to the President’s burial ground.
An entire regiment of the State troops was ranked along the tracks at
Pittsburg near the station. No stop was made at the big sooty city.
Against one of the hills were placed several hundred girls in the form
of a flag. The long railroad bridge over the Allegheny was solid with
men and boys, whose coats almost touched the train as it passed through.
From Pittsburg the train followed the Ohio river for miles. Old river
steamboats blew sorrowful, long-drawn-out salutes to the passing train.
Flags upon them were at half-mast.
On the shores of West Virginia opposite there were crowds assembled who
saw the train speed by in the distance. Many of the towns on the banks
of the Ohio consisted of long strings of houses in the gulch. Some of
the towns containing only a few thousand inhabitants stretched along for
a great distance. All the people were gathered at the track, both from
the towns and the country sides for miles around. Doorsteps of every
house were filled with watchers, the old folks’ faces were seen gazing
through the windows and the roof tops were thronged.
At a country cross-road, where there was not a house in sight, several
score of men, women and children were gathered. The buggies and farm
wagons a little distance away showed they had come from a distance.
Their horses were munching in their feed bags, unaware of what was the
mournful occasion of their day’s journey.
East Palestine, the first Ohio station passed by the train, appeared to
be a little village nestled in between two great hills. There were
enough people scattered at the tracks, however, to warrant the
presumption that it was a city of considerable importance.
From early dawn, when the first rays of the sun came shimmering through
the Allegheny mists, the country through which the McKinley funeral
train passed seemed alive with waiting people. As the train was later
than its schedule the probabilities were that many thousands lined up
along the track had been waiting for almost an hour for the fleeting
glimpse of the cars accompanying the murdered President’s body to its
last resting place.
Steel workers, with their dinner pails in their hands, ran the risk of
being late at the mills in order to pay their last homage to the dead.
It was at the steel towns, just east of Pittsburg, that the largest
early crowds lined the tracks.
Between and east of the mill towns was the open mountain country
interspersed with an occasional cluster of houses near coal mines or oil
wells. Even in the open country as early as 6 a. m. there were people
gathered at the cross-roads or leaning against farm fences.
Faces were seen peering through, up and down windows of houses situated
near the tracks. In railroad yards hundreds were crowded on top of cars
so as to obtain a view as the sections of the Presidential train picked
their way through the maze of tracks. Women and girls as well as men and
boys were eager to see the cars go by.
In the railroad cars in Pitcairn, a few miles east of Pittsburg,
hundreds of factory girls were lined up. It was 8:35 a. m. when the
train passed through Pitcairn, so most of the girls with lunch boxes
under their arms must have been quite late to work, all for the sake of
the few seconds’ look at the train which brought so close to them the
victim of the anarchist’s bullet and his successor, President Roosevelt.
Young women who were not shop girls were there, too, evidently having
come from the most exclusive residence districts of the little city,
trudging through the rough tracks to obtain a brief look.
Away from the crowds at the towns solitary watchers were passed.
Engineers and firemen of passing trains leaned far out of their cab
windows when the train approached. Boys and girls, perched high on rocky
crags, remained in their points of vantage to see the train fly past.
As the train neared Pittsburg it passed between a continuous line of men
and women, boys and girls, miles long.
There was hardly a space of a dozen feet that was not filled. On the
sides and tops of the near-by foothills colored specks told of the
bright dresses of women and girls, who were watching the entrance of the
long tunnel in Pittsburg, which was like a human archway, so many
persons of all ages and sexes were crowded around and above the black
opening.
One enterprising lad was high on a church steeple and waved his hat. The
viaducts were simply jammed with thousands of human beings. The high
tops of the iron girders were covered with boys, while the vertical
steel pillars supported venturesome climbers. Windows of mills and
factories, where employes were busy a moment before, were crowded with
eager faces as the train drew near.
From beyond Braddock, which is twelve miles from Pittsburg, the
continuous and mournful ovation began and continued almost in a solid
line until the train was miles out of the Smoky City.
On top of a carload of stone in Pittsburg were about a hundred girls,
and they presented a most picturesque appearance. Although the crowds
were far greater than ever greeted any President of the United States
alive, not a smile was seen, not a cheer was heard. The train passed
between the walls of solemn-visaged humanity miles long.
The sun burst through the smoky pall at intervals and lit up the bright
colors of the women’s dresses with an indescribable effect. Although the
dresses were bright, the faces were not. They were evidently filled with
sympathy for the dead President and Mrs. McKinley, and with execration
of the assassin whose foul deed was the cause of the present sad
demonstration.
Thousands upon thousands of bared heads of the men as seen from the
train windows bore evidence of their reverence for the ashes of their
President, while the grim set of their countenances bespoke little of
the quality of mercy for the murderous anarchist.
Grassy terraces covered with a bright green carpet were dotted with the
pink, red and blue dresses of the women and girls, presenting in the
bright sunshine a wonderful effect. The crowds thickened as the depot
was approached until every street was jammed and every available space
filled hundreds deep.
As the train sped through the Ohio hills the country smiled with glowing
golden rod as if to remind those on the train that the simple blossom
was a favorite with the late President. The mowed fields were as green
as if the summer were young instead of at its close.
Gorgeous red of the sumac and the russet brown of the ivy were the only
colors to relieve the green of the woods. The aspect of the land was
pleasant as if the honored son of Ohio were being welcomed to his last
home-coming by the earth which was to receive him so soon. A sprinkling
of clouds tempered the rays of the sun and relieved its glare, making it
an ideal day for rejoicing, rather than gloom.
Smiling as were the elements, however, their gladsome joy was not
reflected in the countenances of the fellow-citizens of the departed
Ohioan. Had the sky been somber as night and the earth as desolate as
the desert the countenances of those thousands of human beings assembled
along the route could not have been gloomier.
One noticeable feature of the crowds was that so many people were
attired in their Sunday best. These had arrayed themselves as for a
funeral, the same as if some member of their own family was to be
buried, and all for the sake of the mere glimpse of the presidential
train and for the privilege of paying a momentary mute homage to the
memory of the illustrious dead.
In other days Canton has been clothed in a gay garb of color, bands have
played stirringly, richly attired women have smiled and men have shouted
for William McKinley. But those were happier days than this, the
occasion of the home-coming of a guide, friend and neighbor who, having
climbed the ladder of fame, fell before the assassin’s bullet and died
in the arms of his country.
In all the little city which the dead President loved there was hardly a
structure that bore no badge of sorrow. In Tuscarawas street, from one
end to the other, business houses were hung heavy with crape and at
intervals huge arches, draped and festooned in mourning colors, spanned
the route of the procession from the train to the county courthouse.
One of the arches was in front of the Canton high school, half a block
from McKinley avenue. The school was draped, and in every window was a
black-bordered portrait of the late President. In this thoroughfare,
too, are two large churches, one of which was regularly attended by
Major McKinley, the First Methodist Episcopal, at Cleveland avenue, a
block from the courthouse. At each corner of the edifice and above the
big cathedral windows were broad draperies deftly looped, each bearing a
large white rosette. The other church, the First Presbyterian, was
similarly adorned.
The courthouse, the scene of the lying in state, was a mass of sable
hue. At the entrance, between the two big doors, was a tablet wrought in
crape and upon the cloth shield was emblazoned in white the utterance of
the President when told that he must die:
“It is God’s way. His will, not ours, be done.”
In front of the courthouse was another massive arch.
Canton was astir with break of day, such residents as had not displayed
badges and draperies of mourning performing the task that morning. At
Nimicella Park the soldiers of Troop A of Cleveland and the militia of
various parts of the State were busy preparing to escort the
distinguished dead up Tuscarawas street.
On every corner in the downtown districts boys and men were shouting out
“Official badges here” and selling pictures of the dead President.
Before 8 o’clock the rotunda of the courthouse had been prepared for the
reception of the body. With the exception of dainty white streamers from
the chandeliers there was no trace of white in the large apartment
wherein the public should have a last look upon the face of the departed
executive. The walls and ceilings were covered with black cloth looped
here and there from the ornamental pillars with streamers and rosettes
of the same color. From each chandelier was suspended a small American
flag, a larger one fluttering just above the catafalque.
Three hours before the funeral train was scheduled to arrive more than a
thousand men and women had gathered at Courthouse square and hundreds of
others had congregated in the vicinity of the railway depot, each
anxious to be as near the casket as possible when it was taken from the
car Pacific.
At the McKinley home itself, almost the only residence in Canton that
bore no trace of mourning, was another throng, and there was not a door
or window that had not been peered at most assiduously by curious
visitors and equally curious residents of the city.
Every train brought crowds of visitors, come to witness and take a
sorrowful share in the last rites. Every hotel was full to overflowing,
four or five persons occupying a room scarcely large enough for two, and
halls and parlors had been filled with cots. Even these brought prices
as high as would procure one of the best rooms in a metropolitan hotel.
Complete plans could not be made until after the arrival of the funeral
train. It had been the intention to have the body lie in state until
evening and then remove it to the McKinley home in North Market street,
but Mrs. McKinley objected, asserting that she could not endure the
thought of having her husband’s body disturbed.
Above the high steps and over the main entrance to the courthouse hung a
painting of Maj. McKinley twenty feet square. It had a white border and
made a very effective piece against the broad expanse of black that
obscured all the first part of the second story of the structure. The
most effective arch in the city was that in front of the high school.
This was erected by the pupils of the public schools. It was square on
top and bore on either side a picture of the dead President. On the left
of each picture was the legend “We loved him,” and on the right “He
loved us.”
On either support was a large card bearing this: “Canton Public
Schools.”