Life Of William McKinley - Our Martyred President

by Samuel Fallows

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

532 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1901

About the author

Samuel Fallows (December 13, 1835 – September 5, 1922) was an English American immigrant, minister, lecturer, and author. He was the 9th Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wisconsin and served as Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church for 30 years between 1877 and 1922. During the American Civil War he served as a chaplain and later as an officer in the Union Army, receiving an honorary brevet to Brigadier General after the war.

Reviews

[Beka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in college for a research paper I was doing. This book was published in 1901, the same year as McKinley's death, and the president was assassinated in September, so that was quite a feat. It is very much an artifact of its time--full of wonderfully biased language, as surely the title must hint. The author says of McKinley's youth, "In times of war, young men are filled with a spirit of patriotism, and will leave father, mother, home---yes, all, and follow the 'fife and drum,' inspired with love of freedom for our beloved country. Such an one was William McKinley." Of one of the President's funeral services, Fallows writes, "It was marked by none of the pomp of state. It was such as the humblest might have had, if he had been loved by his fellow men." But if the book venerates McKinley and its history certainly cannot be taken as fact, its florid language is often humorous and even has a certain charm at times. I quite enjoyed this oddly placed sentence, describing the beauty of the scenery when Theodore Roosevelt was informed of McKinley's death. "The yellowed leaves of early autumn, as now and then one fell in the silence of the forest, shone like gold in the last light of the day." Granted, that prose seems to belong in an L.M. Montgomery novel, not a historical account, but little gems like that made this a fun read.