On September 5, 1901, President William McKinley delivered a speech at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. In attendance was Leon Czolgosz (pronounced Chol-gosh), an unemployed anarchist who was the son of Polish immigrants. Czolgosz had been staying in a boardinghouse outside Buffalo when he read in a newspaper that McKinley would be attending the festivities. At some point Czolgosz determined to kill the president.
The Shooting
The next day, McKinley returned to the Exposition to greet the public at the Temple of Music. At the time, the president did not have an official bodyguard force. The Secret Service, created in 1865 as part of the Treasury Department to combat counterfeiting, was given the occasional, unofficial task of protecting the president. As a result a few Secret Service agents were on hand, along with some Buffalo detectives and a detachment of U.S. Army soldiers. While this security force scrutinized the crowd, no searches were made.
In the building, a large crowd had formed a line to meet the president and shake hands. In that line was Leon Czolgosz, his right hand wrapped in a handkerchief. Concealed in the handkerchief was a .32-caliber revolver.
When it was Czolgosz’s turn to meet McKinley, he lunged forward and fired two shots into the president through his handkerchief. McKinley shuddered, stiffened, then collapsed into the arms of surrounding aides, his white shirt turning red with blood. Secret Service agents and other guards knocked Czolgosz to the floor and began beating him. McKinley, still conscious, ordered that Czolgosz not be harmed.
The Treatment
Czolgosz was dragged away and McKinley was brought by ambulance to the Exposition hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. An experimental x-ray machine was at the Exposition, but doctors did not use it because they feared it could cause side effects.
The first bullet had deflected off McKinley’s breastbone and was easily located. However the second bullet had gone through McKinley’s stomach, punctured his pancreas, colon and kidney, and finally lodged in his back muscles. Doctors feared that trying to extract the bullet would do more harm than good, so they left the bullet where it was.
After the operation, McKinley was taken to the nearby home of the Exposition director where doctors hoped he would recover.
The Assailant
The evening of the shooting, Czolgosz confessed to the crime and insisted that he had acted alone. It was learned that Czolgosz had spent much time reading socialist and anarchist newspapers. In addition, Czolgosz had contacted various anarchist groups, however there was no evidence that anybody either assisted him or knew of his plan.
The year before, an anarchist had assassinated the king of Italy, and many believed that Czolgosz was simply imitating this act. In a handwritten confession, Czolgosz complained that “McKinley was going around the country shouting about prosperity when there was no prosperity for the poor man.” Czolgosz was sent to a New York prison to await trial.
The Deterioration
Meanwhile President McKinley seemed to be recovering. After a few days, his cabinet members left Buffalo confident that McKinley would soon return to Washington. On September 12, McKinley received the first food orally since the shooting—toast and a cup of coffee. Then by afternoon, McKinley began experiencing pain and nausea, and his pulse weakened.
The next day, McKinley began rapidly deteriorating and he went into shock. He was given adrenaline and oxygen, but it was no use. At 2:15 on the morning of September 14, William McKinley died of infection and gangrene surrounding his gunshot wounds.
McKinley was the third U.S. president to have been assassinated after Abraham Lincoln (1865) and James Garfield (1881). McKinley’s body was placed aboard a train and the funeral procession went through the streets of Buffalo to Washington, DC, then on to his final resting place at Canton, Ohio.
The Trial
Just nine days after McKinley’s death, Leon Czolgosz went on trial. He was assigned two lawyers for his defense but he refused to speak to them, claiming he did not believe in courts or lawyers. The lawyers argued that Czolgosz was insane, but prosecutors refuted that defense by pointing to his affiliation with anarchist groups.
In a trial that lasted less than eight and a half hours, Czolgosz was found guilty and sentenced to death in the electric chair. He showed no emotion when the verdict was delivered. On October 29, Czolgosz was electrocuted at Auburn State Prison in New York. Before his death he proclaimed: “I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people—the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime.”
The Aftermath
The assassination of William McKinley turned many Americans against immigrants and radical political groups. Congress went on to pass strict anti-anarchist laws in an effort to limit the influence of radical organizations. Ironically Czolgosz’s act inflamed public opinion against the cause he claimed to champion. Another consequence of the assassination was that by 1906, the Secret Service was officially designated as the agency empowered to protect the president at all times.
Sources
Wallechinsky, David and Wallace, Irving: The People’s Almanac (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1975)
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