THE shots that wounded McKinley echoed through Wall Street.
The respectables who had been so frightened in 1896 and 1900
over the menace of Bryanism, forgot that Theodore Roosevelt
had been their valiant warrior in the days of national peril.

The news from Buffalo on September 6, 1901, reached New York
after the stock market had closed, but important figures in the financial
world remained at their desks and made plans to halt the bear raids cer-
tain to occur when trading began in the morning. In the large brokerage
houses, telegraphers gossiped in dots and dashes over private wires, and
told their employers how word of the attempted assassination had
reached J. P. Morgan. It was shortly after 5 o'clock; the colossus was
passing from the building when a newspaper reporter halted him.

"What!" exclaimed Morgan, grasping the journalist's arm. He hur-
ried back into his office and ordered assistants to telephone for confirma-
tion. Just then another reporter came in, with a copy of the first extra
under his arm. Morgan read it slowly, muttered something to the effect
that it was "sad. . . sad," and declined to comment. Such was the ver-
sion published the following morning. ¹ Far more extravagant accounts
circulated through Wall Street. Morgan, said these rumors, had wheeled
like a man stricken. He had cursed and staggered to his desk while his
face flamed red and then turned ashen. The faces of lesser men paled at
these descriptions, for the inference was that untold millions in security
values were in danger. ² At the Hotel Lorraine, Charles M. Schwab, of
the newly organized United States Steel Corporation, abandoned his cus-
tomary optimism to say that business would surely suffer if the Presi-
dent died. ³

So McKinley must not die, and on September 7 reassurances came
from the surgeons. These, combined with preparations during the night,

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