FORMER PRESIDENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 40, 17 February 1933, Page 7

FORMER PRESIDENTS

SHOT BY ASSASSINS

Three presidents of the United States have died by the bullet of an assassin. The most dramatic incident' was the vleath., of the;, great leader, President Abraham Lincoln, who was shot while sitting in a. box in Ford's Theatre. Lincoln was the victim of John Wilkes Booth, a fanatic of secession, who stole up behind the President and shot him through the head. Lincoln lingered unconscious until the nest morning and died. Booth came of an acting family, his father being Junius Brutus Booth, an Anglo-American, and his brother the famous Edwin Thomas Booth who won fame as a Shakespearian actor, and played Hamlet .consecutively one hundred times. The three . brothers, Edwin, Junius Brutus, and John Wilkes appeared together in a memorable performance of "Julius Caesar." . The older Booth had come from London where he was regarded as a serious rival to .the great Edmund Kean, and Edwin was elected to the American Hall of Fame seven years ago, while John Wilkes is remembered by posterity in a somewhat different fashion. A second President to be assassinated was James Abram Garfield, who was the successor to General Grant as head of the American people. Garfield was a man who had given long service to his party, had <led the House of1 Representatives, and -\been . a candidate for Speaker, and finally has been raised to' the Senate. He was chosen as his party's nominee; for the Presidency only after thirty-three ballots, and by dint' of, the fact that the votes .. of Blame and Sherman had been switched to him. Elected 'after a campaign marked by abuse, he was inaugurated on March 4, 1881. On July 2, when he was on his way to attend the commencement exercises at Williams College, the new President was shot in a Washington railway station by a disappointed office-seeker named Charles J. Guitreau, and on September 19 he died at Elberon, New Jersey, wither he had been removed four days after the crime. He was buried at Cleveland, ' Ohio, where ;in 1890 a monument was erected by popular subscription to his memory. : McKINIiEY'S DEATH. The third president to fall before an assassin was William McKinley,the twenty-fifth ' President of his people,

who was elected in 1896 and again in 1900. After thecampaign. the parity of the American people at home ■was great, and foreign -relations seemed free from care.;;ln these circumstances, the president and most of his Cabinet, Bet forth in, the early summer on a tour of the Pacific Coast. 'The route chosen was through the; Southern States^ where many stops were made while rthe President brief- addresses.' The heartiness of the welcome given him seemed to mark'the disappearance of the -: sectional feeling which had survived: they Civil War. After his return the President" visited the; City-of Buffalo, Hew York, in order to attend! the Pan; American > Exhibition and deliver 'a public . address.' This address was one designed to affect ■American' 'public opinion and public policy* and apparently to show that he had modified his views on the* tariff. It declared that henceforth the progress, of the nation -must -■ be through harmony and co-operation, and maintained that the time had come for widespread modifications of the tariff policy of the United States, through commercial; .reciprocity agreements with;various nations. ■'.':.-■• The following day, September 6,1901, was marked by a great reception held for the President in one of the buildings at the Exhibition.* Advantage s of this'opportunity was taken by a young man of Polish parentage, Leon Czmgosz, to shoot the President with a revolver. Czolgosz discharged his weapon :_ at close range, and one of the two bullets fired entered the- abdomen^ After the world had been assured that the patient was'progressing well and would recover, McKinley collapsed and died oh-Sep,-tember 14. The assassin, who professed the views of a branch of anarchists who believed in the assassination of rulers, was seized^ tried, and executed. Mcßanley's funeral took place at Canton, Ohio, on September 19. ■ THEODORE BOOSEVEIiT. Theodore Boosevelt, second cousin of the President-elect, was also the target of an1 assassin. This w* in 1912, and during the height of an election campaign. Eoosevelt had followed McKin: ley into office—had been Vice-President at the time of McEanley'a assassination—and after two terms, - colourful and courageous, in office, he relinquished his political role to take up another with just as great zest. Thjs was the role of explorer and traveller. Koosevelt relinquished, office to Taft in March, 1909, and sailed for Africa on a'scientific'expedition only a month later. He was gone for over a year, touring Europe after leaving the; African continent, and then came back to quarrel with Taft, and run against-him for the Presidency. In thirteen States where conventions were' held 278 delegates favoured Eoosevelt and 48 Taffc Protesting delegations were sent before the Republican National Committee to claim seats which they declared had been fraudulently assigned to their rivals. Eoosevelt was willing to agree on a compromise candidate providedl that the rolls of the convention were purged of .what were claimed to be fraudulent votes. Taft was nominated, however; and Eoosevelt and the defeated elements formed the Progressive Party. This organisation nominated Eoosevelt, and the Democrats nominated Woodrow Wilson. It was in the heat of this great struggle which ended with Wilson receiving 435 electoral votes, Eoosevelt 88, and Taft 8, that Eoosevelt was shot by a maniac while he was getting into a motor-car which was to take him to a hall in Milwaukee. Characteristically, Koosevelt insisted, on delivering his address, and it was an hour and a half before he consented to be taken to hospital.