President William McKinley Assassinated
One chapter in a tragic history of assassinations, which would deprive the United States of four of its presidents by 1963, was written on September 6, 1901. The victim was 58-year-old President William McKinley, then six months into his second term. Like other presidents, McKinley was vulnerable to one nearly inescapable requirement of American politics, namely that he be to some degree accessible to the citizenry. In an effort to maintain personal contact with the electorate, McKinley ignored the warnings of his closest adviser by scheduling a reception that would be open to the public during his September 1901 visit to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley was struck down by an assassin's bullet only minutes after the reception began on September 6.
McKinley had looked forward to his two-day visit to Buffalo. September 5 had been designated President's Day at the Pan-American Exposition and a record-breaking crowd of 116,000 people was present at the fairgrounds to catch a glimpse of the president. By noon more than 50,000 tourists overflowed the vast expanse of the esplanade, and they enthusiastically greeted the president when he entered the fairgrounds amid much pageantry and ceremony. Proceeding along the Triumphal Causeway, McKinley made his way to the flag-draped platform, where he spoke to the crowd about the impossibility of the United States' isolating itself from the rest of the world and the necessity for entering into reciprocal trade treaties. After his speech, McKinley reviewed several military units and then made a brief tour of the fair.
McKinley wanted September 6 to be “the restful day” of his Buffalo visit. On that morning he and his party traveled to nearby Niagara Falls for sightseeing. In midafternoon they returned to Buffalo so that McKinley might attend the public reception that had been scheduled for 4:00 P.M. in the exposition's Temple of Music. Hours before the reception was to begin, hundreds of people had queued up outside the Temple of Music to await the arrival of the president. Among them was Leon Czolgosz, who carried a .32 caliber Iver-Johnson revolver.
Czolgosz's family had experienced many difficulties. The senior Czolgosz, father of eight, was a Polish immigrant laborer who moved from town to town in Michigan. He eventually went to Pittsburgh, and finally settled in Ohio. He never had much money, but by drawing on the earnings of his six sons he was able to buy a farm near Cleveland during the depression of the 1890s.
Leon Czolgosz grew up embittered. The inequities of the American social order appalled him, and he became increasingly interested in socialism. A devotee of Emma Goldman and other anarchists, he looked to violence for redress of the grievances of the American worker and as an outlet for his hostilities. Czolgosz was also a loner, and became a virtual recluse after suffering a nervous breakdown in 1898. He left his job at a Cleveland wire mill and returned to the family farm, where he ate his meals alone, slept an inordinate amount of time, and dissipated his few waking hours in restless idleness. Newspapers fascinated him, and he pored over the account of the assassination of King Humbert of Italy for countless hours.
In July 1901 Czolgosz left his family's home and, after some wanderings, arrived in Buffalo in time for the Pan-American Exposition. Apparently he did not go there with the intention of killing McKinley, but newspaper stories of the planned reception for the president stirred his imagination. Czolgosz hated the adulation reserved for the president. “I didn't believe one man should have so much service,” he later said, “and another man should have none.”
Having no concern for his own safety, he decided to shoot the president at close range. Czolgosz realized that the reception would provide the best opportunity for such an act, so early on September 6 he joined the crowd waiting to greet McKinley and calmly stood outside until 4:00 P.M., when the doors opened to allow the holiday throng to file past McKinley. As he approached the president, Czolgosz carefully swathed the gun in his hand with a handkerchief. He reached McKinley's place on the receiving line at 4:07 P.M., and without uttering a word to his target fired two shots. Czolgosz then tried to escape, but shocked onlookers immediately seized him and might have killed him had not the wounded president gasped: “Don't let them hurt him.”
One of Czolgosz's bullets ricocheted off the president's ribs, and minutes after the shooting when McKinley was examined at the exposition's emergency hospital, it fell from his clothing. The second bullet created a more serious problem, entering the president's abdomen and causing such extensive damage that the first doctors to examine McKinley decided to operate immediately. Working by the light of the setting sun, the surgeons repaired the lacerations in the walls of the president's stomach, one of several affected organs, but they could not locate the bullet itself. An x-ray machine was being exhibited at the fairgrounds, but they made no use of the six-year-old discovery. Instead, they merely cleansed McKinley's peritoneal cavity and closed the incision, leaving the bullet embedded in his abdomen.
McKinley was shot on a Friday, and during the weekend that followed Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt, most members of the cabinet, and relatives and close friends of the President went to Buffalo to keep their anxious vigil. McKinley's condition was serious, but medical bulletins released on Monday indicated that he was recovering, and those made public on Tuesday led most observers to believe that he was no longer in danger. In fact McKinley's condition seemed so improved that his relatives returned to their homes in Ohio, governmental officials went back to Washington, D.C., and Vice-President Roosevelt joined his family at a retreat that was 12 miles away from the nearest telephone or telegraph.
However, though the president's strong constitution enabled him to rally from the initial trauma of the attack on his life and the surgery that followed, his doctor's optimism for his ultimate recovery was largely unfounded. The possibility of infection along the track taken by the bullet that had lodged in McKinley's body posed a constant threat to his life in this era before antibiotics. The doctors attending him ignored the danger.
For several days McKinley struggled against the gangrene that was spreading through his abdomen. By Thursday, September 12, his resources were taxed beyond their limits and his condition deteriorated. Despite the best efforts of his physicians, McKinley continued to weaken. Late in the afternoon of Friday, September 13, he realized that he was dying and said to his doctors: “It is useless, gentlemen. I think we ought to have a prayer.” McKinley's wife was brought to his side. The president whispered: “Good-bye, good-bye, all. It is God's way. His will, not ours, be done.” Then he began to whisper the words of his favorite hymn, “Nearer My God to Thee.” McKinley died around 2:00 A.M. on September 14, 1901.
News of McKinley's death plunged the nation into mourning. A special train carried the president's body back to Washington, D.C. There McKinley's remains lay first in the East Room of the White House, then in the Capitol, where thousands of citizens went to pay their final respects. When official services concluded in Washington, a funeral procession escorted McKinley's body to the train that would carry him to Canton, Ohio, for burial.
The nation's grief for McKinley had not yet subsided when on September 23, 1901, the trial of his assassin began. After a hearing that lasted only two days, the jury deliberated for less than one hour before finding Czolgosz guilty. He was electrocuted on October 29, 1901, at Auburn State Prison in Auburn, New York.