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| Leon Czolgosz |
The Temple of Music was the most ornately
decorated building at the Pan-American Exposition. It spanned 150 feet on each
side, and the dome rose 180 feet into the air. Outside, the primary colors were
blue and green. It boasted one of the largest pipe organs in the United States,
and the arena had seating for 2200 guests. Each corner featured statues by
Isidore Konti. At night, the building was lit up with a brilliant display of
electrical illumination.
Two gunshots rang out on the afternoon of
September 21, 1901.
Eyewitness, John D. Wells, writing in Collier’s
Magazine said:
Suddenly I saw a hand shoved toward the
President—two of them, in fact—as if the person wished to grasp the President’s
hand in both of his own. In the palm of one hand, the right one was a
handkerchief. Then there were two shots in rapid succession.
I stood stock-still. I saw Detective Foster
strike upward the hand that would fire the third shot, and a soldier seize the
man from behind and drag him down.”
The President “fell into the arms of
Detective Geary. Mr. Milburn supported him from the other side. Just a few
drops of blood spurted out and dropped on his white waistcoat.”
Seconds later, “I rushed to where the
assassin lay prostrate on the floor. A dozen or more men, detectives, and
guards were standing over him, striking and kicking him.”
The President observed the rough treatment
given to the shooter and told nearby officers, “See that no one hurts him.”
Wells’ story closely follows the other accounts of the assassination.
Leon Czolgosz waited in line to shake the
President’s hand. A man and his little daughter stood just in front of him.
McKinley shook her hand and watched her walk away.
The man in front of Czolgosz was a short
Italian type—about 26-years-old, with dark shaggy eyebrows and a black
mustache. He aroused the suspicion of detectives because he held the
President’s hand for an overlong time. Detectives rushed forward and pulled him
away.
Leon Czolgosz made his way towards the
President with his left hand extended to shake McKinley’s hand. When there was
less than a foot between them—Czolgosz fired into the President.
The Temple of Music
After the first shot, McKinley rose on his toes. He made a gasping sound. The President turned slightly to the left, and the second shot entered his body just below the navel. McKinley bent over slightly and fell backward. Secret Service Agent Geary and Exposition President John G. Milburn caught him.
As Geary caught the President, McKinley asked,
“Am I shot?” Geary unbuttoned the President’s vest. Seeing the blood seeping
through, he said, “I fear you are, Mr. President.”
A Negro server, James F. Parker, described as
standing 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 250 pounds, chased after the assassin
and knocked him to the ground. Seconds later, Exposition Police and Secret
Service Agents surrounded Czolgosz.
An Exposition ambulance transported the
President to the onsite hospital where they could better examine his wounds.
Outside, news of the assassination quickly
spread among fifty thousand visitors at the Exposition. Mobs of angry people
talked about lynching the assassin. Someone took the rope from a flagpole in
the esplanade.
Detectives dragged Czolgosz to a side room of
the Temple of Music, moving him further away from the mob. The detectives beat
him nearly to death, and there was some question of whether he would survive.
Leon Czolgosz refused to talk. His name was
“Nieman” (an alias he had used before). He “was an anarchist. He had done his
duty.”
Detectives interviewed Czolgosz:
Question: “Did you mean to kill the
President?”
Answer: “I did.”
Question: “What was the motive that induced
you to commit this crime?”
Answer: “I am a disciple of Emma Goldman.”
He had been friends with anarchists in
Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit.
What follows is taken from the assassin’s
signed statement given to detectives.
President William McKinley
“Eight days ago, while I was in Chicago, I read in a Chicago newspaper of President McKinley’s visit to the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo. That day I bought a ticket and got here with the determination to do something, but I did not know just what. I thought of shooting the President, but I had not formed a plan.
“Not until Tuesday morning did the resolution
to shoot the President, take hold of me. It was in my heart. There was no
escape for me. I could not have conquered it had my life been at stake. There
were thousands of people in town on Tuesday. I heard it was President’s Day.
All these people seemed bowing to the great ruler. I made up my mind to kill
that ruler. I bought a .32 caliber revolver and loaded it.
“What started the craze to kill was a lecture
I heard some little time ago by Emma Goldman. She set me on fire. Her doctrine
that all rulers should be exterminated was what set me to thinking so that my
head nearly split.
“On Tuesday night, I went to the fairgrounds
and was near the railroad gate when the Presidential party arrived. I tried to
get near him, but the police forced me back. They forced everybody back so that
the great ruler could pass. I was close to the President when he got into the grounds,
but was afraid to attempt the assassination because there were so many men in
the bodyguard that watched him.”
Czolgosz returned to the Exposition on
Wednesday and waited for an opportunity to shoot the President. “I thought half
a dozen times of shooting while he was speaking, but I could not get close
enough.”
Thursday was a repeat of Wednesday. “I waited
near the central entrance for the President who was to board his special train
from that gate, but the police allowed nobody but the President’s party to pass
where the train waited.”
On Friday, the day of the assassination, he
said:
“During yesterday, I first thought of hiding
my pistol under my handkerchief. I was afraid if I had to draw it from my
pocket, I would be seen and seized by the guards. I got to the Temple of Music,
the first one, and waited at the spot where the reception was to be held.
“Then he came, the President—the ruler—and I
got in line and trembled and trembled until I got right up to him, and then I
shot him twice through my white handkerchief. I would have fired more, but I
was stunned by a blow in the face—a frightful blow that knocked me down—and
then everybody jumped on me. I thought I would be killed and was surprised the
way they treated me.
“I had no confidants—no one to help me. I was
alone, absolutely.”
President McKinley lived six and one-half days
after the shooting.
When the doctors undressed the President for
surgery, a bullet fell out of his jacket. It had struck the button of
McKinley’s jacket, and gone into him just above the breastbone, but not deep.
The second bullet entered the abdomen, five
inches below the left nipple. The bullet hole going in was small and clean, but
the exit hole was large and ragged.
The surgery lasted an hour.
The “hole where the bullet went out of the stomach
was larger than the hole in the front wall of the stomach; in fact, it was a
wound over an inch in diameter, jagged and ragged. It was sewed up in three
layers.” The surgeons found it necessary to turn up the stomach. Doctors were
hopeful because it appeared none of the contents of the stomach had entered the
abdominal cavity. Because of this, they felt sure peritonitis (infection) would
not be an issue.
McKinley held his own the next day—his vitals
looked good. The doctors remained uncertain and waited to see what Sunday
brought before making a final prognosis. Doctor P. M. Rixey announced he felt
the President would recover. The other doctors bided their time, waiting to see
what the next day would bring.
After the surgery, the Secret Service moved
McKinley to John Milburn’s home. Doctors attended him, while a stream of
cabinet members filed through to pay their respects.
Vice President Theodore Roosevelt rushed to
Buffalo. By Tuesday, McKinley was doing so well, Roosevelt left on a hunting
trip for the Adirondacks.
Thomas Edison loaned the doctors an X-ray
machine from his laboratory, but it never got used. Doctors decided things were
going so well that there was no immediate need to locate and remove the bullet
still lodged in the President’s body.
On Tuesday, doctors discovered that a small
portion of the President’s clothes had entered the wound. Surgeons opened a
small part of the wound to remove it, and everything seemed well afterward.
While doctors debated whether the President
would survive, McKinley worried about not being allowed to smoke his cigars. He
was a cigar aficionado and normally smoked ten to twenty of them daily.
Around 8:30 Thursday evening, McKinley’s
health began to decline. His bowels shut down, and doctors grew concerned it
could lead to heart failure.
Thursday afternoon, McKinley’s digestive
organs continued to weaken. Late in the afternoon, his pulse rose abnormally
high.
Just after 2:00 a.m. on Friday, McKinley’s
heart weakened. Physicians administered digitalis and strychnia, then called
the rest of the medical team back to the Milburn home.
Just before he died, doctors gave the
President powerful heart stimulants and oxygen. That restored him just enough
so he could say his goodbyes to Mrs. McKinley.
President William McKinley passed away at 2:15
a.m. on Saturday, September 14, 1901. He was 58 years old.
Leon Czolgosz’s trial opened at 10:00 a.m.,
September 23, 1901, in the New York Supreme Court at Buffalo with Justice
Thomas C. White presiding.
The Assistant District Attorney told the jury
the shooting was “deliberate and premeditated.” He determined to focus on the
facts of the shooting and not to mention anarchists, conspirators, or Emma
Goldman. Those things would just clutter up the case.
Dr. Matthew D. Mann, the President’s
physician, testified about the President’s condition. When asked if there was
anything known to medical science that could have saved the President’s life,
his response was, “No.”
Louis Babcock, the man in charge of ceremonies
at the Temple of Music on the day of the assassination, gave details about the
scene of the shooting. He testified about the entrances and exits, and the
position of the President. He “heard two shots. I immediately turned to the
left. I saw the President standing still, and he was deathly pale. In front of
him was a group of men bearing the prisoner to the floor.”
Edward Rice, chairman of the committee of
ceremonies, “noticed something white pushed over to the President, and then two
shots rang out.”
James Quackenbush took Czolgosz’s statement at
the Auburn police station. He said Czolgosz talked about being an anarchist,
then gave details of the different attempts he made to shoot the President.
Leon Czolgosz confessed, “I killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I
don’t believe one man should have so much service and another man should have
none.”
At the close of the trial, Czolgosz said,
“There was no one else but me. No one else told me to do it, and no one paid me
to do it.”
The jury deliberated for one hour before
bringing in the verdict of guilty. Justice Truman C. White pronounced the
sentence: “The sentence of the court is that in the week beginning October 28,
1901, at the place, in the manner and means prescribed by law, you suffer the
punishment of death.”
Leon Czolgosz in the electric chair
Leon Czolgosz stood there unmoved as he listened to the verdict.
Czolgosz arrived at Auburn State Prison at
3:10 a.m. on September 27, 1901.
Hundreds of angry onlookers gathered outside
the prison gates, waiting to catch a glimpse of Czolgosz. The guards stood on
either side of the prisoner as they escorted him from the train to the prison.
The crowd surged forward, punching and mauling Czolgosz, and sometimes the
guards. A fist smacked Czolgosz in the head, bringing him to the ground. Guards
grabbed his arms and dragged him into the prison.
A dozen prison guards rushed to their aid,
pushing and shoving back the wild crowd. Four burly guards carried Czolgosz up
the steps to the warden’s office. They stripped his clothes off and put his
prison uniform on.
Warden J. Warren Mead visited Czolgosz in his
cell at 5:30 a.m. on the morning of August 28, 1901. After rousing the prisoner
from his sleep, he read him his death warrant.
Czolgosz wore a gray flannel shirt open at the
neck, coarse trousers, and a new pair of shoes. The walk from his cell to the
electric chair was less than twenty feet.
Inside the execution chamber, guards strapped
him into the electric chair. They attached a leather-backed sponge soaked in
saltwater below his knee and placed a helmet upon his head. The top of the
helmet contained a wet sponge.
Leon Czolgosz’s last statement attempted to
justify the shooting. “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the
good people. I did it for the help of the good people, the working man of all
countries.”
When he finished talking, the guards buckled a
leather strap across his head. It covered his nose and eyebrows—leaving just a
small slit for his mouth.
Warden Mead gave the word. Seventeen-hundred
volts of electricity coursed through Czolgosz’s body for sixty seconds.
Gradually the current was reduced to 200 volts—then stopped.
Czolgosz’s body shuddered and shook in the
chair.
The second jolt of 1700 volts rushed through
his body for another sixty seconds.
The doctor examined the body. “Gentlemen,” he
said, “the prisoner is dead.”
The time was 7:17 AM.
Prison authorities buried the body in an
unmarked grave in the prison cemetery. Before the burial, they soaked it in
acid, then covered it with quicklime to thoroughly destroy any trace of the
remains.
The Temple of Music was demolished in November
1901, after the end of the Pan-American Exposition.
All traces of the assassination were gone.
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