On October 29, 1901, President William McKinley’s assassin,
Leon Czolgosz, is executed in the electric chair at Auburn Prison in New York.
Czolgosz had shot McKinley on September 6, 1901; the president succumbed to his
wounds eight days later. McKinley was shaking hands in a reception line at the
Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, when a 28-year-old anarchist
named Leon Czolgosz approached him with a gun concealed in a handkerchief in
his right hand. McKinley, perhaps assuming the handkerchief was an attempt by
Czolgosz to hide a physical defect, kindly reached for the man's left hand to
shake. Czolgosz moved in close to the president and fired two shots into
McKinley's chest. The president reportedly rose slightly on his toes before
collapsing forward, saying "be careful how you tell my wife."
Czolgosz was attempting to fire a third bullet into the stricken president when
aides wrestled him to the ground.
McKinley suffered one superficial wound to the sternum and
another bullet dangerously entered his abdomen. He was rushed into surgery and
seemed to be on the mend by September 12th, but later that day, the president's
condition worsened. On September 14th, McKinley died from gangrene that had
remained undetected in the internal wound. According to witnesses, McKinley's
last words were those of the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee." Vice
President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as president immediately following
McKinley's death. Czolgosz, a Polish immigrant, grew up in Detroit and had
worked as a child laborer in a steel mill. As a young adult, he gravitated
toward socialist and anarchist ideology. He claimed to have killed McKinley
because the president was the head of what Czolgosz thought was a corrupt
government. The unrepentant killer's last words were "I killed the
president because he was the enemy of the good people, the working
people."
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for CrimeMagazine.com
and is the author of Murder & Mayhem
52 Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949. The book can be
purchased from Amazon through the following link:
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