Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/69

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 45 chill, which was followed by bilious pneumonia, and on Sunday morning, April 4, he died. Amid the shadows of approaching death, he imagined he was addressing his successor, and ex claimed: "Sir, I wish you to understand the prin ciples of the government. I desire them carried out. I ask nothing more." The end came so sud denly that his wife, who had remained at North Bend on account of illness, was unable to be pres ent at his death-bed. The event was a shock to the country, the more so that a chief magistrate had never before died in office, and especially to the Whig party, who had formed high hopes of his administration. His body was interred in the congressional cemetery at Washington; but on July 7 of the same year, at the request of his family, removed to North Bend, where it was placed in a tomb overlooking the Ohio river. This was subsequently allowed to fall into neglect, and afterward Gen. Harrison s son, John Scott, offered it and the surrounding land to the state of Ohio, on condition that it should be kept in repair. Sev eral unsuccessful efforts have been made to induce the state to raise money by taxation for the pur pose of erecting a monument to Gen. Harrison s memory. "He was not," it has been said, "a great man, but he had lived in a great time, and had been a leader in great things." Harrison s inaugural address is the longest ever delivered by any of our