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Leon Czolgosz

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Photograph of Leon Czolgosz.

Leon Czolgosz shoots President McKinley with a concealed
revolver, at the Pan-American Exposition.

Police booking photograph (mug shot) of Leon
Czolgosz.

First photograph of Leon F. Czolgosz in
jail

Leon Frank Czołgosz (1873–October 29, 1901) was the assassin of U.S.
President William McKinley. A registered
Republican, in the last few years of his life he was heavily influenced by
anarchist
writers such as Emma Goldman.

One of seven children of Polish immigrants, Czołgosz
(Polish, pronounced /ʧɔʊ̯gɔʃ/, often anglicized to /ʧoɫgɑʃ/) was born in Detroit, Michigan. His
actual date of birth is unknown - some sources state, without offering any
evidence, that he was born on 1st January 1873. He lived in conditions of brutal
poverty most of his life. He left his family farm in Cleveland, Ohio at age ten to work at American
Steel and Wire Company with two of his brothers. When Czolgosz was 12, his
mother died while giving birth to another child. At the height of his
employment, he was making $4 a day, but after the workers of his factory went on
strike (during a time when unions were considered
dangerous and illegal), they were fired.

In 1898, after
witnessing a series of similar strikes (many ending in police confrontation),
Czolgosz returned home, where he was constantly at odds with his family's Roman
Catholic beliefs and with his stepmother. He became a recluse, and spent
much of his time alone, reading socialist and anarchist
newspapers. Some speculate that Czolgosz may have suffered a mental breakdown. He
was very affected by hearing a speech of Emma Goldman, and sought
her out in New York City to discuss political matters. She later wrote a piece
sympathetic to Czolgosz's assassination of McKinley, though not quite in favor
of the act. However, Czolgosz, as far as is known, failed to be accepted into
any anarchist group. Indeed, his fanaticism and comments about violence aroused
their suspicions; some even thought he may have been a covert government
agent.

The radical
Free Society newspaper issued a warning
pertaining to Czolgosz reading:

"The attention of the comrades is called to another spy. He is well dressed, of medium
height, rather narrow shouldered, blond, and about 25 years of age. Up to the
present he has made his appearance in Chicago and Cleveland.
In the former place he remained a short time, while in Cleveland he
disappeared when the comrades had confirmed themselves of his identity and
were on the point interested in the cause, asking for names, or soliciting aid
for acts of contemplated violence. If this individual
makes his appearance elsewhere, the comrades are warned in advance and can act
accordingly."

Czolgosz's experiences had convinced him there was a great injustice in
American society, an inequity which allowed the wealthy to enrich themselves by
exploiting the poor. He concluded the reason for this was the structure of
government itself. Then on July 29, 1900, King Umberto I was
assassinated by avowed anarchist, Gaetano Bresci. Bresci
told the press he had to take matters into his own hands for the sake of the
common man. The assassination sent shockwaves through the American anarchist
movement. In Bresci, Czolgosz found his hero: a man who had the courage to
sacrifice himself for the cause. When he was later arrested, police found a
folded newspaper clipping about Bresci in Czolgosz’s pocket.

On August
31, 1901 he moved
to Buffalo, New York and
rented a room near the site of the Pan-American
Exposition. On September 6, Czolgosz went
to the exposition with a pistol in his hand, concealed in
a handkerchief. McKinley had been standing in a receiving line greeting the
public for several minutes when Czolgosz reached the front of the line and shot
McKinley twice at point-blank range. McKinley would die from his wounds on September
14.

The gun used by Czolgosz was a .32 caliber Iver-Johnson "Safety Automatic" revolver, serial
number 463344. Czolgosz purchased the gun on September 2, 1901.

After a short trial, Czolgosz was found guilty and executed by electrocution, by three
jolts at 1700 volts each, on October 29, 1901, in Auburn prison in Auburn, New York. His
last words were "I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good
people—the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime." As the prison
guards strapped him into the chair, however, he did say through clenched teeth,
"I am sorry I could not see my father." Emma Goldman was arrested
on suspicion of being involved in the assassination, but was released because
there was no evidence to support this suspicion.

Czolgosz's story, along with those of 8 other presidential assassins and
would-be assassins, was the basis of Sondheim's and Weidman's Broadway musical
Assassins. In
the musical, he is befriended by fellow assassins Charles Guiteau and
John Wilkes Booth,
also the only other two characters with "ballads". His song, The Ballad of
Czolgosz, is an upbeat, folk song that contrasts sharply with his friend
Booth's earlier ballad.

See also: List of assassins

[edit]

External References

Film: Reenactment of
the execution of Leon Czolgosz in the electric chair, early
film from 1901,
Library of Congress archives (.rm format; offline viewable)

PBS
biography of Czolgosz

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Czolgosz"

Categories:
1873 births
| 1901 deaths
| Anarchists |
American
assassins | Polish-Americans
| Russian-Americans
| Executed
people | History of
Cleveland

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This page was last modified 07:38, 22 February 2006.

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