The Assassination of President William McKinley

On the 6^th of September, 1901, President William McKinley, while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, was standing in a receiving line greeting the public.  The previous day he had given a speech at the Exposition, remarking how good Expositions were and their import in society.

Another attendee of the Pan-American Exposition was Leon Czolgosz.  An anarchist and self-proclaimed disciple of Emma Goldman, Czolgosz had come to the Exposition with only one end in mind: to assassinate the President.




Czolgosz had brought with him that day a small pistol, which he carried in his right hand.  He concealed the pistol in a handkerchief so that it appeared he merely had a bandaged hand.  He approached the President, who extended his left hand in greeting upon seeing Czolgosz’s supposedly damaged right.  Czolgosz fired twice at point blank range.  McKinley would die just over a week later from his wounds.  The assassination would rock the nation, a bloody opening to the 20^th Century.




Anarchist as Assassin: Leon Czolgosz




Leon Czolgosz was born in Detroit, Michigan.  When exactly is unclear, although some have given the date of birth as January 1^st, 1873.  He was one of seven children born to Russian-Polish immigrant parents.




For the majority of his adult life Czolgosz was a registered Republican.  After being fired from his factory job during a strike he became a recluse, and began reading socialist and anarchist newspapers.  Both were growing movements at the time, both in the United States and in the rest of the industrialized world.




Czolgosz was most affected after hearing a speech by one of the most famous Anarchists of the day, Emma Goldman.  He traveled to New York City to talk to her, which he did, but he did not become an accepted member of the anarchist groups there.  Many thought him strange and quite possibly a government agent, and he remained isolated from the rest of the anarchists of the time.