Now, therefore, I, William McKinley, President of the United States, by virtue of the authority vested in me by said act, do hereby declare and proclaim that such international exhibition will be opened in the city of St. Louis, in the State of Missouri, not later than the first day of May, nineteen hundred and three, and will be closed not later than the first day of December thereafter. And in the name of the Government and of the people of the United States, I do hereby invite all the nations of the earth to take part in the commemoration of the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, an event of great interest to the United States and of abiding effect on their development, by appointing representatives and sending such exhibits to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition as will most fitly and fully illustrate their resources, their industries, and their progress in civilization. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this twentieth day of August, one thousand nine hundred and one, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and twenty-sixth. [SEAL.] WILLIAM MCKINLEY. By the President: JOHN HAY, _Secretary of State_. At a meeting of the Commission held on October 15, 1901, the following resolution relative to the lamented death of President McKinley was unanimously adopted by the Commission: Resolution. Since this Commission last convened the President of the United States has met a tragic death. The manner of his death was a blow at republican institutions and felt by every patriotic American as aimed at himself. It can truly be said that of all our Presidents William McKinley was the best beloved; no section of the country held him as an alien to it. Partisan differences never led to partisan hatred of him; party faction did not touch him. Nearly half the people differed with him on public questions, but his opponents accorded to him the same honesty of purpose which he always accorded to them. He was the President of the whole people, and was received by them as such with the honors due his great office and his splendid manhood, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Lakes to the Gulf. Pure of life, lofty of purpose, and patriotic in every endeavor, he was the highest type of our American citizenship. The prayers of an united people were wafted on high to spare our President, but "God's will, not ours" was done, and the pain of personal grief was felt in every American home. _Resolved by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission_, First. That in the death of President McKinley, the United States have lost a President who fulfilled the best ideals of the Republic.