MR ROOSEVELT'S GUARD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7924, 1 February 1904, Page 2

MR ROOSEVELT'S GUARD.

ESCORT OP FIVE HUNDRED POLICE. OUTWITTED BY A POOL. President (Roosevelt visited^iNew York on November 27, to attend the funeral of his uncle, Mr James K. Gr-acie. Five hundred police were told ofi to gjprd him on his ar^ rival and during his stay in the city. No American President has ever before ielt it necessary to surround himself with so large an escort, and New Yorkers are much displeased that the President of tjfe Republio should come to their city as -if lie were ia an enemy's country. Why such precautions were taken is not known. The police say it was because two persons had) written threatening letters to the President, but this is not 'believed', because both men were arrested the day before, were certified, insane, and were placed im Bellevue Hospital. It is thought that a plot to kill tie President may have been unearthed, and that the police were compelled to make impossible any attempt at assassination, no ' matter how carefully planned. ' - While the President drove through the city a detective sat on the coach-box, and; other detectives were in the carriage with him. FUTILE EFFORTS. The utter uselessness of the police efforts was shown i howeyer z shortly after the President arrived in the city, A long-bearded, white-haired old man somehow got- through the police dines, and advanced straight to the President without being stopped, and handed to him a, paper. Had he been ao Anarchist, he couldi easily have killed' the President, for ihe was not caught until some seconds after the .paper reached^ Mr Roosevelt. The paper contained a request that the President would recommend the German E.mperor to try the writer's charcoal cure for cancer. The " crank "-—whose name is Deming — is the same man who gave Mr Carnegie a prescription for typhoid when the -latter was leaving New York on the Celtio last Aprili and whqi preached against Mr J. Pierpont Morgan on the steamship pier, Mr Morgan being a fellow-passenger of Mr Carnegie. The man is a religious and! medical fanatic, well-known to the New York detectives. He was taken to police (headquarters. Mr Roovevelt, with his wife, arrived' in New York at twenty minutes to eight in the morning. There was a force of police at the ferry "dock to meet him, and 1 he was driven at once to the residence of his cousin, Mr Robinsoni No. 422 A Madison Avenue. THE ESCORT. The streets were lined with between, 300 and 400 policemen, and fifteen mounted police, twelve New York detectives, and the President's ordinary body-guard' of six secret service men, acted 1 as an immediate escort for the carriage. Mr Robinson's house was surrounded by 150 police, while the President had breakfast there, and no pedestrians were allowed to pass until Mr Roosevelt had left. Later i n the morning the President drove to the 'Church 1 of the Holy Communion, Sixth Avenue and Twentieth Street, where the funeral service was held. Four hundred police guarded th© streets to the church, and the President's carriage was protected 1 by the same force that surrounded it from the Ferry to the Robinson residence. The precautions at the church were! as elaborate as at the house, and while the service was being held everybody in the vicinity was regarded with suspicion. At the conclusion of the service, Mr Roosevelt was driven back through the police lines to Mr Robinson's house, and from there he departed to the railway station, leaving for Washington at one o'clock.