CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CANTON BATHED IN TEARS.

The funeral train proper, bearing the body of President McKinley, arrived at 12 o’clock. It was met by Judge Day, at the head of the local reception committee, while assembled about the station was the entire militia of the State.

Mrs. McKinley, weeping piteously, was helped from the train by Dr. Rixey and Abner McKinley and conducted to a carriage.

The body was then lifted from the catafalque car and carried on the shoulders of the body-bearers through a pathway formed by President Roosevelt and his cabinet to the waiting hearse. The surrounding soldiers were at present arms and bugles sounded taps.

The President and cabinet then entered carriages. They were followed by the guard of honor, headed by Admiral Dewey and General Miles in full uniform, and the sad procession then moved up Tenth street in the direction of the courthouse, where the body was to lie in state. Soldiers at intervals all the way kept back the immense crowds which thronged the streets. The procession passed all the way beneath big arches draped with black.

President Roosevelt and the members of the cabinet were the first to pass by the bier, followed by the highest officers of the army and navy, Senator Hanna and many others high in public life.

Later the public was admitted to the chamber and thousands viewed the body. Mrs. McKinley and the relatives did not go to the courthouse. She stood the trip fairly well, and soon after arriving went to sleep in the old home.

Mrs. McKinley was almost the first to leave the train. She leaned heavily on the arm of Abner McKinley and was supported on the other side by Dr. Rixey. She walked slowly toward the carriage prepared for her and was taken to the home of which she has been mistress for so many years. There was not a person of the hundreds who saw her at the depot but who knew her. Her sweet face was not visible through the heavy black of her mourning veil, but her frail form and bearing made her instantly recognized by those assembled.

A sublime hush fell upon all. There were scores of women present and all were in tears. It was a great, silent outpouring of deep sympathy for the crushed soul of their beloved neighbor.

President Roosevelt and the cabinet left their car in the opposite direction and took their places in the closed carriages for the funeral procession. The great throng regarded them respectfully. For five years those gathered here had annually received as President of the United States their fellow townsman. The sorrow of the citizens of Canton was yet too poignant to permit of the expression of any other emotion than grief. Eight artillerymen and eight soldiers slowly trod down the steps of the Pacific, the car in which the President’s body rested. A passing cloud which had cast its kindly shade upon the dolorous form of the President’s widow now withdrew from the face of the sun so as to permit the warming rays to rest upon the casket of the dead President.

A window was raised toward the rear of the car, the same window through which the body had been passed thrice before. The opening looked very small. Eight of the guards, four bluejackets and four red-striped sergeants of artillery, stood below to receive the heavy burden. A moment later the end of the coffin, draped with the red, white and blue of its silken covering, protruded. A few of the onlookers had not thought it necessary to remove their hats, they had been so absorbed in the incoming of the train. Their heads were bared instantly. The eight soldiers and sailors received the great weight on their shoulders. They were sturdy men, but their limbs trembled under the strain.

Preceded by Judge Day and other members of the reception committee, the coffin was borne the whole length of the station platform, several hundred feet. The militia surrounding the station stood at present arms. At the end of the platform was the hearse chosen to carry the corpse in the procession to the courthouse.

“Present arms!” came the command from the sergeant of hussars opposite the hearse. Magnificently caparisoned in all the trappings of their full dress, Troop A of the Cleveland Hussars had been chosen to precede the hearse in the procession.

At the call one hundred swords were unsheathed and held pointing upward from the broad bosoms of the cavalrymen. The bright blades, freshly burnished for the occasion, flashed the sunlight like white fire. The gold lace shone, and the bearskin caps, towering above the erect heads of the hussars, added to the martial effect.

In the attitude of present, like a hundred equestrian statues, the hussars remained motionless until the casket had been placed within the hearse. If a horse moved its foot or whisked a fly from its sides the motion was not apparent. The air was still, the crowd was still, the engine at the head of the train was still, and the intense silence pervaded the entire surroundings.

Heartrending beyond the power of pen to describe were the scenes at the side of the bier while the simple folk of Canton walked slowly by in two single files. The sorrow of those who knew the President was too intense for utterance, but was so full it burst the bounds of control over the emotions. Rough workingmen trembled from head to foot and their chests heaved with emotion, as great tears rolled down their faces. The ghastly appearance of President McKinley’s face, which was blue and thin, far more discolored than it was when the body lay in state in Buffalo, made the grief more poignant.

It seemed as though none who had known him in his genial vigor as their fellow townsman and neighbor could see that discolored face, the result of the assassin’s deadly work, without bursting into tears.

A farmer of 80, old, bent and weather-beaten, tottered in the line as he wound his decrepit way through the black corridor to the bier. When he saw the pinched, drawn face he placed his great gnarled hands to his face and wept as no heart-broken child could weep. He was bowed and broken when he entered the darkened hall and his step was shaky. When he left his shaggy white head was bowed lower, his spirit seemed broken almost to the point of leaving his aged frame and his step was a staggering shuffle. He was the impersonation of abject, venerable grief.

The sight had been throughout profoundly impressive.

Up the street soldiers at intervals of ten feet with difficulty restrained the solid wall of people. Canton had suddenly become a city of 100,000, and the entire population was in the streets. The station itself was cleared, a company of soldiers of the Eighth Ohio from Worcester keeping the platform clear. Opposite, over the heads of acres of people, on the wall of a big manufacturing establishment, was an enormous shield thirty feet high, with McKinley’s black-bordered picture in the center. The local committee, headed by ex-Secretary of State William R. Day and Judge Grant, was on the platform.

All about were the black symbols of mourning. The approach of the train was unheralded. No whistle was blown, no bell was rung. In absolute silence it rolled into the station. Even the black-hooded locomotive gave no sound. There was no panting of exhaust pipes. The energy that brought it seemed to have been absolutely expended. At the mere sight of the train the people who had been waiting there for hours were greatly affected. Women sobbed and men wept.

For a full minute after it had stopped no one appeared. Judge Day and his committee moved slowly down the platform in front of the line of soldiers to the catafalque car and waited. Colonel Bingham, the President’s aid, then gave directions for the removal of the casket from the car. The coffin was too large to be taken through the door and a broad window at the side was unscrewed and removed.

While this was going on the floral pieces inside were carefully lifted out and placed upon the ground at the side of the track. When all was ready the soldiers and sailors who had accompanied the body all the way from Buffalo emerged from the car and took up their places. The soldiers trailed their arms and the sailors held their drawn cutlasses at their sides. Only the body-bearers were bareheaded and unarmed.

Meantime President Roosevelt, with his brother-in-law, Captain Cowles of the navy, in full uniform, at his side, had descended from the car ahead of that occupied by Mrs. McKinley. The members of the Cabinet, excepting Secretary of State Hay and Secretary of the Navy Long, were present. Secretary Cortelyou, Governor Nash, Lieutenant-Governor Caldwell and Judge Marshall J. Williams of the Supreme Court, representing the three branches of the State government of Ohio, followed President Roosevelt from the train.

The President was met by Judge Grant of the Reception Committee, and the official party then moved to the west of the station, where they formed in line, with the President at the head. All were uncovered.

With the body placed in the hearse, the bugle note sounded again and the hundred swords were sheathed. The hundred bright steels faced to the right, and with slow step the men advanced to take the position of honor before the hearse. At the given signal the soft notes of “Nearer, My God, To Thee,” swelled up from the military band. The horses kept the slow step perfectly. The two drivers of the hearse, who had kept their heads bared reverently, replaced their hats and gave the sign to the black horses which were to draw the catafalque.

The two steeds stepped forward and the funeral procession was in motion. At that moment the power plant of the Canton Electric Light Company was started. A mournful whir broke upon every ear. It was like the dirge note of a Scotch bag-pipe. It fitted in with the notes of the President’s hymn perfectly, as if the ancient pipers of the clan of the McKinleys were sounding the dirge for their chieftain.

Save the plaintive whir of the electric motor, the gentle notes of the hymn and the slow and mournful click of the horses’ hoofs upon the brick pavement all was silence. For the first time in over thirty years William McKinley passed through the familiar streets of Canton and there was silence.

With bared heads and tearful eyes the dense throngs that lined Cherry, Tuscarawas and Market streets observed with restless eagerness the progress of the funeral procession to the courthouse. It was three-quarters of an hour after the column moved that the casket was carried into the somber rotunda of the big public building, and in that time thousands of women sobbed and men wept.

Following the President’s carriage were carriages containing members of the Cabinet, after whom came the diplomats and citizens. It was nearly 1 o’clock when the President reached the courthouse. He waited until the casket had been borne inside and placed on the catafalque. Then, attended by Commander Cowles and the members of the Cabinet, the Executive entered the rotunda, passed by the body of the illustrious dead, bowed low a moment over the face of his predecessor and left the building.

With the Commodore he went direct to the residence of Mrs. George H. Harter, 933 North Market street, where he took luncheon. After the President came the Cabinet members, Secretary Root leading, and then the military guard of honor and the diplomatic corps in turn. Ten minutes later the public was admitted in two columns, one passing on each side of the casket.

The decorations of the rotunda were exceedingly impressive. A striking conceit of the artist consisted of three chairs, all covered with crape. They represent the chairs of state left vacant by the tragic deaths of Lincoln, Garfield and the statesman mourned to-day. At the head of the casket stands a Knight Templar, at the foot a member of the Ohio militia, while the sides are guarded respectively by a regular army soldier and a marine.

Meantime Admiral Dewey, General Miles and the other high officers of the army and navy, who composed the guard of honor, had moved around the east side of the station. They also entered carriages and took their place in the larger procession that was now forming. All were attired in the full uniform of their ranks. They were fairly ablaze with gold lace.

The shrill notes of the bugle had given the first sign to the waiting multitude outside the station that the casket was approaching. Instantly the long lines of soldiers became rigid, standing at present arms. The black horses of the Cleveland Troop, immediately facing the station, stood motionless, their riders with sabers lowered. Slowly through the entrance came the stalwart soldiers and sailors, with solemn tread, bearing aloft the flag-covered coffin of the man this city loved so well. As it came into view a great sigh went up from the dense throng.

Immediately following the mounted troops came the hearse bearing its flag-covered burden. This was the sight that sent a hush along the dense, long lines of humanity stretching for a mile away to the courthouse. As the casket passed every head was bowed and every face evidenced the great personal grief which had come upon the community.