As President McKinley left the White House the morning of July 5 for a vacation trip to his home at Canton, O., some of the attachés of the Executive Mansion assembled on the portico to bid him a fond farewell and express their hope for a pleasant trip. “Take good care of yourselves, boys, until I come back in the fall,” was the President’s response as he entered his waiting carriage and was driven to the railroad station to take the train for home. These were the last words ever uttered by William McKinley in the shadow of the big white mansion which had been his official residence since March 4, 1897. He came back in the fall, as he had promised he would, not in the flush of manhood, buoyant in spirits and recuperated from the arduous duties of his official position, but in a narrow, black-cloth-covered casket, around which were draped the colors he had fought to defend when in his teens, and which in maturer years he had seen floating victoriously in every quarter of the globe. Following his bier as chief mourner came his successor to the Presidency, Theodore Roosevelt, accompanied by the members of his official family and thousands of his countrymen, who mourned in silence his untimely end. Never before in the history of the capital of this nation has such a scene been witnessed as that presented along the magnificent boulevard known as Pennsylvania avenue. Although it was well-nigh impossible to distinguish anything perfectly in the gloom of the night, mothers brought their children in arms, and stood patiently watching until the cavalcade passed up the avenue and was finally hidden from view in the grounds surrounding the Executive Mansion. It was a distinguished party which awaited at the Pennsylvania railroad station the home-coming of William McKinley. Among the first arrivals at the railroad station were Secretary of State Hay and Secretary Gage of the Treasury department. Both wore upon their high silk hats mourning bands for members of their own families—the Secretary of State for a son and the Secretary of the Treasury for a wife who was one of the most notable figures of the administration now closed. While waiting the arrival of the funeral train a passenger train pulled into the station from the west, and among those who alighted and pushed his way through the crowd was Senator William E. Mason of Illinois, accompanied by his wife and little ones. As the Senator from Illinois passed through the crowd he was recognized, and amid the hum and buzz of conversation could be distinguished the words: “There goes Senator Mason.”