The full text of the Memorial Address on President McKinley
delivered by Mr. Hay before Congress on the 27th ult., now published in pamphlet form, is far removed, both in spirit and expression, above the level of con- ventional eulogium. After a striking exordium on the peculiar uselessness of assassination in a well-ordered Republic, Mr. Hay traces the rise of the late Presi- dent to political eminence, summarises his equipment, reviews his achievements in the do main of diplomacy and economics, and emphasises the lesson of his blame- less life, his devotion to his country and the gentle unselfishness of his last hours. No passage of this atrik. ing speech, however, will be read with greater interest by Englishmen than that in which, after referring to Mr. McKinley's record in the Civil War, Mr. Hay continues :—" In coming years when men seek to draw the moral of our great Civil War nothing will seem to them so admirable in all the history of our two magnificent armies as the way in which the war came to a close. When the Confederate Army saw the time had come, they acknowledged the pitiless logic of facts, and ceased fighting We may admire the desperate daring of oth ere who prefer annihilation to com- promise, but the palm of common-sense, and, I will say, of enlightened patriotism, belongs to men like Grant and Lee who knew when they had fought enough for honour an d for country."
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