Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1901. Keeping watch as McKinley lay dying

Joe Marcus was asleep in the mailroom of The Providence Journal early on the morning of Sept. 14, 1901. It had been an exciting week for Joe, a 14-year-old newsboy for The Journal. Sales of the newspaper had been brisk since the afternoon of Sept. 6, when President William McKinley had been shot in Buffalo, N.Y.

The president had slowly recovered throughout the week, before taking a sudden turn for the worse. By Friday the 13th, McKinley was reported near death.

The demand for news had grown so high that The Journal suspended a sheet across Fulton Street from the rear of its building near City Hall. Throughout the night, The Journal projected bulletins about the president's condition. The crowds that filled Fulton Street had dwindled to a handful of people by the time Joe Marcus dozed off in the mailroom.

Just after 2:15 a.m., The Journal's projector announced to the few still in the street: "The President Is Dead."

Ira Holland, a cornetist at nearby Keith's Opera House, was on his way home when the message flashed on the screen. He took out his horn and, in the darkness, played "Nearer My God to Thee."

When The Journal rolled off the press, Joe Marcus grabbed several hundred, paying a nickel for every four papers he took. He hopped an express wagon and made his way to India Point, where the boats from New York were due at dawn. The boats did not have wireless; the passengers would not learn the news until they heard Joe hawking the morning paper.

Journal files

In 1901, The Journal used a sheet near its building to project updates of President William McKinleyıs condition after he was shot in Buffalo, N.Y. McKinley died a week after the shooting.

Passengers, dock workers -- even the men in the produce market on Crawford and South Water streets -- scooped up Joe's papers, paying up to 50 cents for a paper with a 2-cent cover price. (In 2004 dollars, that would be like paying more than $12 for a paper.)

Both news columns on the front page -- the rest were advertisements -- as well as two pages inside were devoted to stories about the assassinated president and the man who took his place, Theodore Roosevelt.