Leon Czolgosz's heart had caught fire from the malignant passion of red anarchy abroad, which had within seven years struck down the President of France, the Empress of Austria, the King of Italy, and the Prime Minister of Spain. In their fanatic diabolism its devotees impartially hated government, whether despotic or free, and would, no doubt, gladly have made America, the freest of the great commonwealths, for that reason a hatching ground for their dark conspiracies. [Illustration] Interior of room in Wilcox House where Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of Presidency. They were no less hostile to one than to the other of our political parties. The murder had no political significance, though certainly calculated to rebuke virulent editorials and cartoons in political papers, wont to season political debate with too hot personal condiment, printed and pictorial. President McKinley had suffered from this and so had his predecessor. Upon such an occasion orderly government, both in the States and in the nation, reasonably sought muniment against any possible new danger from anarchy. McKinley's own State leading, States enacted statutes denouncing penalties upon such as assailed, by either speech or act, the life or the bodily safety of anyone in authority. The Federal Government followed with a similar anti-anarchist law of wide scope. Deeply as the country prized McKinley--and the sense of loss by his death increased with the days--Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt took over the presidency with as little jar as a military post suffers from changing guard.