CHAPTER XXXV.
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.