Ohio History Journal

234      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

right, we must be just as scrupulous in doing justice to the

man of great wealth as in exacting justice from him.

Wrongdoing is confined to no class. Good and evil are to

be found among both rich and poor, and in drawing the line

among our fellows we must draw it on conduct and not on

worldly possessions. Woe to this country if we ever get to

judging men by anything save their worth as men, without re-

gard to their fortune in life. In other words, my plea is that

you draw the line on conduct and not on worldly possessions.

In the abstract most of us will admit this. It is a rather more

difficult proposition in the concrete. We can act upon such doc-

trines only if we really have knowledge of, and sympathy with,

one another. If both the wage-worker and the capitalist are

able to enter each into the other's life, to meet him so as to get

into genuine sympathy with him, most of the misunderstand

between them will disappear and its place will be taken by a judg-

ment broader, juster, more kindly, and more generous; for each

will find in the other the same essential human attributes that

exist in himself. It was President McKinley's peculiar glory

that in actual practice he realized this as it is given to but few

men to realize it; that his broad and deep sympathies made him

feel a genuine sense of oneness with all his fellow-Americans,

whatever their station or work in life, so that to his soul they

were all joined with him in a great brotherly democracy of the

spirit. It is not given to many of us in our lives actually to

realize this attitude to the extent that he did; but we can at least

have it before us as the goal of our endeavor, and by so doing

we shall pay honor better than in any other way to the memory

of the dead President whose services in life we this day com-

memorate.

REMARKS OF GOVERNOR ANDREW L. HARRIS.

I thank you, Mr. Justice Day, and your associates of the

McKinley National Memorial Association for the very great

honor that you have conferred on me in inviting me to preside

over the exercises of this memorable dedication. It is indeed an

honor to present at any time to any audience the President of

the United States. But on this occasion when we are assembled

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The McKinley Monument.               235 to reverence the memory of another President of the United States, one who had long been the idol of our state before he became president, it is impossible for me to give due expression to my appreciation of such manifold honor at your hands. It is a distinction worthy of any ambition to have been pre- ceded on the program of this day by one of the most eminent jurists of the highest court on earth and by one of the men in whom the lamented McKinley had the most unbounded confi- dence. Added to that most honorable association is that which follows in the course of these historic exercises in being called

upon to present to you the worthy successor of our be- loved McKinley. It was my fortune to have been associated with Mc- Kinley in state affairs as it was that of Justice Day as a neighbor, of President Roose- velt in national affairs, and of other members of the McKin- ley Memorial Association in other capacities.  All who knew him loved and admired him. He was worthy of their fullest confidence and equal to any emergency in either private or public life. I am not here to speak of him as a devoted husband, a

sincere Christian, a faithful student, a loyal citizen, a brave soldier, a true gentleman, or a comprehensive statesman. That is the mission of one who is worthy of the great subject and equal to it in all that can be said of Wm. McKinley. As we are to hear from one of the most distinguished sons of New York about our illustrious son of Ohio, I wish to point briefly to presidents from these two great commonwealths, to those men of Ohio and of New York who planted still higher the standard that had been

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236      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. upheld by those noble Americans in the succession from Wash- ington to Lincoln. Almost forty years ago, a native of Ohio, General Ulysses S. Grant, became president of the United States. Two days hence the state officers and others from different parts of Ohio will participate in the dedication of a tablet that is to mark the birthplace of that hero of the Civil War in Clermont county, Ohio. General Grant's last residence was in New York and his tomb there will forever be the Mecca of the Metropolis. Ever since the inauguration of Grant the destinies of this nation have been in the hands of rulers from one or the other of

the great states of Ohio and New York. The administrations of Grant, Haves, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley and Roosevelt cover one-third of the period of our history as a nation. Of the eight presidents in that period five were natives of Ohio, and they had all been soldiers in the Civil War. They were the only Civil War veterans who reached the presidency. The last in that eminent line of Union soldiers to be honored with the highest office in the gift of the people was McKinley, one of the purest and noblest Americans of them all. McKinley had been a pupil of Grant, Haves, Garfield and Harrison in war

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The McKinley Monument.               237   and in peace, and he added fresh laurels to the crowns of his elder comrades. In the alternation between Ohio and New York during the past four decades, none have contributed more to the honor and the glory of their country, to the prosperity and the welfare of the people than the last two in the presidential succession. It is therefore eminently fitting that the great defender of popular rights, who took up the work, when McKinley was stopped by the hand of the assassin, should be the one on this sacred occa- sion to speak of the life and service of the martyred president.

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