William J. Bryan, of Nebraska, was again nominated for President, and Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, for Vice-President, both on the first ballots. While the Democratic Convention was in session, the Silver Republicans met in Convention in the same city. The Chairman _pro tem._ was Henry M. Teller, who had withdrawn from the Republican Convention in 1896. This Convention nominated William J. Bryan for President, and the National Committee was authorized to name the Vice-President, which they did on July 7th, by endorsing Adlai E. Stevenson. The campaign of 1900 was as animated throughout as was that of 1896. Imperialism was the issue raised by the Democrats, and the result in November was an overwhelming victory for the Republican candidates, McKinley and Roosevelt, who carried enough States to assure them of 292 electoral votes to 155 for Bryan and Stevenson. The popular vote for the leading candidates was as follows: McKinley (Rep.), 7,207,923; Bryan (Dem.), 6,358,133; Woolley (Prohib.), 208,914; Debs (Soc. Dem.), 87,814; Barker (M. R. Peop.), 50,373; Malloney (Soc. L.), 39,739. William McKinley was inaugurated for his second term on March 4, 1901. On September 6, 1901, the almost unbelievable news was telegraphed over the country that President McKinley, while in the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, had been shot twice by an assassin, an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. But it proved only too true, and for a week the people of the country watched the bulletins and prayed for the President, who fought bravely against death. The wound in the stomach was fatal, and William McKinley, the third martyred President of the Republican Party, passed away on September 14, 1901, at the home of John G. Milburn in Buffalo. The great purity and simplicity of his life, his devotion to his wife, his courageous struggle for the great economical principles which had brought the country to the highest degree of prosperity ever known, and the splendid record of his administration made his loss deeply felt by the nation, and he was enshrined beside Lincoln in American history. The last words of William McKinley exhibited the Christian character of a great life: "It is God's way; His will be done." [Illustration: By special permission of C. M. Bell Photo Co., Washington D. C. Theodore Roosevelt.] CHAPTER XX. ROOSEVELT. "I feel that we have a right to appeal not merely to Republicans, but to all good citizens, no matter what may have been their party affiliations in the past, and to ask them, on the strength of the record ... to stand shoulder to shoulder with us, perpetuating the conditions under which we have reached a degree of prosperity never before attained in the Nation's history and under which, abroad, we have put the American Flag on a level which it never before in the history of the country has been placed." _Theodore Roosevelt_, _to the Notification Committee_, _Sagamore Hill_, _L. I._, _July_, 1900.