82 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS having carried twenty-eight states with 292 elec toral votes. Their plurality of the popular vote was nearly a quarter of a million greater than in 1896. The members of the cabinet were all reap- pointed, but in March, 1901, Mr. Griggs resigned, and was succeeded by Philander C. Knox, of Penn sylvania as attorney-general. On April 29, ac companied by Mrs. McKinley, his cabinet, and other officials, the president left Washington on an excursion to the Pacific coast via New Orleans. On the day following, speaking at Memphis, Mr. Mc Kinley said : "What a mighty, resistless power for good is a united nation of free men ! It makes for peace and prestige, for progress and liberty. It conserves the rights of the people and strengthens the pillars of the government, and is a fulfillment of that more perfect union for which our Revolutionary fathers strove, and for which the constitution was made. No citizen of the republic rejoices more than I do at this happy state, and none will do more within his sphere to continue and strengthen it. Our past has gone into history. No brighter one adorns the an nals of mankind. Our task is for the future. We leave the old century behind us, holding on to its achievements and cherishing its memories, and turn with hope to the new, with its opportunities and obligations. These we must meet, men of the South, men of the North, with high purpose and
