On the operating table, President McKinley said, “He didn’t know, poor fellow, what he was doing. He couldn’t have known.”
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President William McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United States, didn’t care for the security that normally surrounded a president; he served the people and enjoyed being close to them. Soon after his successful re-election, he wanted to meet and greet the voters who gave him four more years. On September 6, 1901, President McKinley attended the Pan-American Exposition. Let’s back up, though; that’s not where the story starts.
The story starts in 1893. In 1893, an overly-inflated railroad industry bubble burst causing the Panic of 1893, the worst economic depression the country had ever experienced. 15,000 businesses failed. Unemployment reached near 50% in some industrial towns. Hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs. One such worker was Leon Frank Czolgosz. Czolgosz worked at the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company until the Panic.
Many blamed the devastation of the Panic on the McKinley Tariff which passed three years earlier. The tariff raised the average duty on imports to nearly 50%. At the time, this was known as “protectionism” which sought to encourage domestic production over importation. The tariff was later repealed by Democratic legislation. The McKinley Tariff almost certainly had nothing to do with the Panic of 1893, but when a man is hungry and cold, he’s vulnerable to his demons. These stories always have a turning point, some moment that tips the dominoes. Well, unemployed and reclusive Leon Czolgosz heard a speech by Emma Goldman in May 1901. That’s the shove that sends this story down a dark path. Goldman, a prominent anarchist, gave Czolgosz a reading list of anarchist literature and introduced him to some of her friends. She expressed her opposition to violence, but also stated an understanding of those who employed violent means.
Leon Czolgosz immersed himself so deeply and clumsily in anarchism that other anarchists thought he was a spy investigating them. They even issued a warning in one of their newspapers that he was a spy. They simply didn’t know the depth of his discontent.
One more man plays an integral role in this story: Gaetano Bresci. Czolgosz never met Bresci, an Italian American anarchist. Bresci played a crucial role in American history. After a massacre of Italian citizens by the Italian crown, Bresci flew back to his home country. On July 29, 1900, Bresci shot and killed King Umberto I of Italy. Bresci used a five-shot .32 caliber pistol to assassinate the Italian king.
On September 3, 1901, Leon Czolgosz bought a five-shot .32 caliber pistol.
As part of a planned ten-day vacation from Washington, DC., President William McKinley spent some time in Buffalo, New York. This vacation included appearances at the Pan-American Exposition, a World’s Fair expo. At one such event, a line was arranged for citizens to meet the President. Normally, no one was allowed to approach the President with anything in his/her hands, but due to the heat, many were holding handkerchiefs. As the President shook hands with excited Americans, the Secret Service agents eyed a swarthy man who seemed nervous as he approached the President. The man reached for the President’s hand. They shook hands, and the man moved along. Then, Leon Czolgosz shot the President.
Czolgosz approached McKinley with his right hand wrapped as if injured. President McKinley reached for his left hand instead. Czolgosz shot McKinley twice in the abdomen; one bullet deflected off a button, but the other found its mark. Security dragged the President to a nearby chair while the spectators pummeled Czolgosz who kept his eyes on the bloodied President. Seeing the beating Czolgosz was receiving, McKinley ordered it stopped. Then, as they carried him off to the hospital, McKinley expressed his concern that his wife would be told about the assassination attempt. At the time, most still believed it to be an attempt.
At 4:07 PM, the President was shot twice; at 4:25, he arrived at the Exposition hospital. Only seventeen years prior, a surgeon had performed the first successful surgery from such a wound. The danger with abdominal wounds remained gangrene. As the sunlight failed in the underprepared hospital, the gynecologist operating on the President of the United States could not find the buried bullet. He sewed up the entry and exit wounds in the president’s stomach, but the bullet remained somewhere inside the President.
In the days following, McKinley seemed to recover from the assassination attempt. He complained of stomach pain which the doctors said was indigestion. Many were concerned Czolgosz would only receive a few years in prison due to New York state laws about attempted murder.
On September 13, McKinley collapsed. Doctors rushed to him. At 2:15 AM on September 14, 1901, President William McKinley died. Unbeknownst to the doctors, the wound had turned gangrenous.
Leon Czolgosz was sentenced to death. He died by electric chair on October 29, 1901, barely a month later. Acid was placed in his casket to dissolve his body.
After the murder of William McKinley, the U.S. Congress officially charged the Secret Service with defending the president and created groups to investigate anarchists which eventually became the FBI. The responsibility of leading the United States into the twentieth century fell into the hands of Theodore Roosevelt.
Photo— Flickr/ Boston Public Library