ASKS IF HE IS SHOT.
When the President fell into the arms of Detective Geary he coolly asked: “Am I shot?”
Geary unbuttoned the President’s vest, and, seeing blood, replied: “I fear you are, Mr. President.”
It had all happened in an instant. Almost before the noise of the second shot sounded a negro waiter, James F. Parker, leaped upon the assassin, striking him a terrific blow and crushing him to the floor. Soldiers of the United States artillery detailed at the reception sprang upon them, and he was surrounded by a squad of exposition police and secret service detectives. Detective Gallagher seized Czolgosz’s hand, tore away the handkerchief and took the revolver.
The artillerymen, seeing the revolver in Gallagher’s hand, rushed at the assassin and handled him rather roughly. Meanwhile Detective Ireland and the negro held the assassin, endeavoring to shield him from the attacks of the infuriated artillerymen and the blows of the policemen’s clubs.
Supported by Detective Geary and President of the Exposition Milburn, and surrounded by Secretary George B. Cortelyou and half a dozen exposition officials, the President was assisted to a chair. His face was white, but he made no outcry.
When the second shot struck the President he sank back with one hand holding his abdomen, the other fumbling at his breast. His eyes were open and he was clearly conscious of all that had transpired. He looked up into President Milburn’s face and gasped: “Cortelyou,” the name of his private secretary. The President’s secretary bent over him. “Cortelyou,” said the President, “my wife, be careful about her; don’t let her know.”
Moved by a paroxysm he writhed to the left and then his eyes fell on the prostrate form of the assassin, Czolgosz, lying on the floor bloody and helpless beneath the blows of the guard.
The President raised his right hand, red with his own blood, and placed it on the shoulder of his secretary. “Let no one hurt him,” he gasped, and sank back in the chair, while the guards carried Czolgosz out of his sight.
The ambulance from the exposition hospital was summoned immediately and the President, still conscious, sank upon the stretcher. Secretary Cortelyou and Mr. Milburn rode with him in the ambulance, and in nine minutes after the shooting the President was awaiting the arrival of surgeons, who had been summoned from all sections of the city, and by special train from Niagara Falls.
The President continued conscious and conversed with Mr. Cortelyou and Mr. Milburn on his way to the hospital. “I am sorry,” he said, “to have been the cause of trouble to the exposition.”
Three thoughts had found expression with the President—first, that the news should be kept from his wife; second, that the would-be assassin should not be harmed; and, third, regret that the tragedy might hurt the exposition.
The news that the President had been shot passed across the exposition grounds with almost incredible speed, and the crowd around the Temple grew until it counted 50,000 persons. This big crowd followed the ambulance respectfully to the hospital, then divided itself into two parts, one anxious to learn the condition of the President and to catch every rumor that came from the hospital; the other eager to find the assassin and to punish him.
Certain it is that if the officials had not used remarkable diligence in taking Czolgosz out of the way of the crowd he would have been mobbed and beaten to death.
Czolgosz had been carried into a side room at the northwest corner of the Temple. There he was searched, but nothing was found upon him except a letter relating to lodging. The officers washed the blood from his face and asked him who he was and why he had tried to kill the President. He made no answer at first, but finally gave the name of Nieman. He offered no explanation of the deed except that he was an Anarchist and had done his duty.
A detail of exposition guards was sent for a company of soldiers. A carriage was summoned. South of the Temple a space had been roped off. The crowd tore out the iron stanchion holding the ropes and carried the ropes to the flagpole standing near by on the esplanade.
“Lynch him,” cried a hundred voices, and a start was made for one of the entrances of the Temple. Soldiers and police beat back the crowd. Guards and people were wrangling, shouting and fighting.
In this confusion, Czolgosz, still bleeding, his clothes torn, and scarcely able to walk, was led out by Captain James F. Vallaly, chief of the exposition detectives; Commandant Robinson, and a squad of secret service men.
Czolgosz was thrown into a carriage and three detectives jumped in with him. Captain Vallaly jumped on the driver’s seat and lashed the horses into a gallop.
Six doctors were at the President’s side within thirty seconds after his arrival at the hospital, among them the President’s family physician, Dr. P. M. Rixey. Dr. Roswell Park, a surgeon of national reputation, was summoned from Niagara Falls, where he was performing an operation, and Dr. Herman Mynter arrived soon after.
The surgeons consulted and hesitated about performing an operation. The President reassured them by expressing his confidence, but no decision was reached when Dr. Mann of the exposition hospital staff arrived. After another consultation Dr. Mann informed the President that an operation was necessary.
“All right,” replied the President. “Go ahead. Do whatever is proper.”
The anesthetic administered was ether, and for two and a half hours the President was under the influence of this.
The wound in the breast proved to be only a flesh wound. The bullet struck a button and was somewhat deflected. It entered the middle of the breast above the breast bone, but did not penetrate far. When the President was undressed for the operation the bullet fell from his clothing upon the table.
The second and serious wound was a bullet hole in the abdomen, about five inches below the left nipple and an inch and a half to the left of the median line. The bullet which caused that wound penetrated both the interior and posterior walls of the stomach, going completely through that organ.
It was found also that as a consequence of the perforation the stomach fluid had circulated about the abdominal cavity.
Further examination disclosed that the hole made by the entrance of the bullet was small and clean cut, while that on the other side of the stomach was large and ragged.
A five-inch incision was made and through that aperture the physicians were enabled to turn the organ about so as to suture the larger bullet hole. After that had been sewed the abdominal cavity was washed with a salt solution.
The operation performed on President McKinley at the emergency hospital left no need for a second operation to follow it almost immediately. Dr. Mann, who performed the operation, had for his first assistant Dr. Herman Mynter. His second assistant was Dr. John Parmenter. His third assistant was Dr. Lee of St. Louis, who happened to be on the exposition grounds at the time of the tragedy, and placed his services at the disposal of the President. Dr. Nelson W. Wilson noted the time of the operation, and took notes. Dr. Eugene Wasdin of the marine hospital gave the anesthetic. Dr. Rixey arrived at the latter part of the operation, and held the light. Dr. Park arrived at the close of the operation. It was Dr. Mann who wielded the knife.
The operation lasted almost an hour. A cut about five inches long was made. It was found necessary to turn up the stomach of the President in order to trace the course of the bullet. The bullet’s opening in the front wall of the stomach was small and it was carefully closed with sutures, after which a search was made for the hole in the back wall of the stomach.
This hole, where the bullet went out of the stomach, was larger than the hole in the front wall of the stomach; in fact, it was a wound over an inch in diameter, jagged and ragged. It was sewed up in three layers. This wound was larger than the wound where the bullet entered the stomach, because the bullet, in its course, forced tissues through ahead of it.
In turning up the stomach, an act that was absolutely necessary, and was performed by Dr. Mann with rare skill, the danger was that some of the contents of the stomach might go into the abdominal cavity, and as a result cause peritonitis. It so happened that there was little in the President’s stomach at the time of the operation. Moreover, subsequent developments tended to show that this feature of the operation was successful and that none of the contents of the stomach entered the abdominal cavity. If any of the contents had entered the cavity the probability is that peritonitis would have set in.
The weapon used by the assassin proved to be a five-barreled double-action revolver of 32 caliber. Every chamber contained a bullet, and three remained in the weapon after the shooting.
It was at first reported that the weapon was a derringer, but this proved to be incorrect.
Many of the accounts of the assassination vary in detail, which is quite natural under the excitement of the moment, and the fact that no two persons see and hear alike. One account, given by an eye-witness, which differs in some respects from the one with which this chapter begins, is as follows:
“It was about four o’clock, near the close of the reception in the Temple of Music, and the President, in his customary cordial manner, was reaching forward, with a pleasant smile, to take the hands of the good-natured crowd that was pushing forward. A six-foot colored man, who proved to be a waiter in the Plaza, named James F. Parker, had just shaken hands with the President and was smiling all over with enjoyment, when suddenly, behind him, pressed forward the slight figure of a smooth-faced but muscular young man, whose eyes were wild and glaring, whose head was drooping, and who seemed to me to have sprung up from the floor, as I had not observed him before. The President took no special notice of him, but simply stooped over to shake his hand, without looking, apparently, at the individual.
“Their palms had hardly touched before I heard two shots in quick succession. A hush and quiet instantly followed. The President straightened up for a moment and stepped back five or six feet. Secretary Cortelyou, who had been standing at his side, burst into tears, and exclaimed, ‘You’re shot!’ The President murmured, ‘Oh, no, it cannot be!’ But Secretary Cortelyou and Mr. Milburn had torn open the President’s vest, and the telltale blood, flowing from the wound in the abdomen, revealed the fearful truth. The President had dropped into a chair and now turned deathly pale. Meanwhile, the other wound in the breast had been uncovered and both Mr. Milburn and Secretary Cortelyou were in tears. The President, seeing their emotion, put up his hand and gently murmured that he was all right, or some reassuring words, and appeared to faint away.
“The Secret Service men, Foster and Ireland, at one bound seized the assassin, before the smoke had cleared away, and, in fact, before the sound of the second shot was heard. The negro, Parker, also turned instantly and confronted Czolgosz, whose right hand was being tightly held behind him by the detectives and whose face was thrust forward. Parker, with his clenched fist, smashed the assassin three times squarely in the face, and was apparently wild to kill the creature, while all the crowd of artillerymen, policemen, and others, also set upon the object of their wrath.
“The women in the vast audience were hysterical, and the men were little less than crazy. The transformation from the scene of smiles and gladness of a moment before, to the wild, rushing, mighty roar of an infuriated crowd, was simply awful. The police and military at once set about the task of clearing the building, which they accomplished with amazing celerity and good judgment, considering the fact that a crowd of 50,000 at the outside was pressing into the entrance.”
A third narrative is still somewhat different. The narrator recites that the President, after he had been shot, was calm, seemed to grow taller, and had a look of half reproach and half indignation in his eyes as he turned and started toward a chair unassisted. Then Secretary Cortelyou and Mr. Milburn went to his help. Secret Service Agent S. R. Ireland and George F. Foster had grappled with the assassin, but, quicker than both, was a gigantic negro, James F. Parker, a waiter in a restaurant in the Plaza, who had been standing behind Czolgosz, awaiting an opportunity, in joyous expectation, to shake the President’s hand. He stood there, six feet four inches tall, with two hundred and fifty pounds of muscular enthusiasm, grinning happily, until he heard the pistol shots. With one quick shift of his clenched fist he knocked the pistol from the assassin’s hand. With another he spun the man around like a top, and, with a third, he broke Czolgosz’s nose. A fourth split the assassin’s lip and knocked out several teeth, and when the officers tore him away from Parker the latter, crying like a baby, exclaimed, “Oh, for only ten seconds more!”
CHAPTER II.
McKINLEY’S FIGHT FOR LIFE.
The courage exhibited on the battlefield, when the whole being is aroused and the nerves are tingling with a thrill of excitement, is worthy of the highest praise, but to show fortitude and resigned courage in a battle for life, when the approach of death is heralded by unfailing signs, requires a hero. Such was the lamented Chief Executive in the trying hours following the attack of the assassin. Few of those about President McKinley on that memorable day expected to see him survive the night.
Prompt work on the part of the surgeons and a rugged constitution prevailed over wounds considered mortal. The President was under the care of the most skillful practitioners, who were encouraged by the favorable turn, and they, by their bulletins, which were full of hopefulness and buoyancy, led the nation and the entire world to believe that their distinguished patient would soon be back at his desk. All realized the gravity of the situation; nevertheless few anticipated any but a favorable outcome.
Beginning on the eventful Friday night, the official statements sent out were encouraging. While the normal pulse is about 80, the fact that McKinley’s was from 120 to 128 was not considered cause for alarm. In all cases where an operation is undergone, a high pulse follows for some days. During the week the President lay wounded his averaged 120, high under normal conditions, but not alarming in the case of a wounded man.
Dr. P. M. Rixey, the family physician, was the most constant watcher at the bedside of the wounded man. After McKinley had recovered sufficiently to talk, which was on the third day, he would ask regarding the condition of Mrs. McKinley. The assurance that she was bearing up bravely seemed to act beneficially on the President.
Mrs. McKinley was permitted to see her husband daily, but only for a few minutes at a time. As was his wont in former days to cheer his invalid wife, so it was a pleasure for her to show a reciprocal spirit, which she did. The daily meetings were those of true lovers, and every eye in the sick room would be wet ere the parting kiss of the day would be given.
These visits, at all times brief, were still a source of deep satisfaction to the stricken President. The outcome of the struggle vitally interested McKinley, more because of the effect his death would have on his wife and on the nation than for personal reasons.
A man of sterling Christian character, pious and devout, he did not fear death. The end had no terrors for him, but he felt it would leave a void, a vacancy, which none other could fill. The invalid who for 30 years had relied on him alone as her support and protector, her aid and comfort, still needed him. It was parting from her that made him feel reluctant to lay down his life’s work.
Cares of state engrossed little of his attention during that week spent in the Milburn residence. He had builded well, and the dedication, as it were, of his noble edifice of national policy, in which all culminated, was in the memorable speech of the day preceding the fateful Friday. Several times during his last days he smiled upon being complimented for that truly great oration, but he did not live to learn how thoroughly it was appreciated throughout the length and breadth of the land.
Dr. Charles McBurney, the eminent New York specialist, was summoned to Buffalo the evening of the shooting. He did not arrive until Sunday morning, however.
The President passed the first night after the shooting fairly comfortably. His temperature increased from 100° to 100.6° between 1 and 3 a. m., and fears were entertained that peritonitis might set in. The doctors chosen to care for the case—P. M. Rixey, M. B. Mann, Roswell Park, H. Mynter and Eugene Wasdin—were in attendance at the President’s bedside all night, watching carefully each symptom.
At 10:40 p. m. the doctors issued this bulletin: “The President is rallying satisfactorily and is resting comfortably. Temperature, 100.4°; pulse, 124; respiration, 24.”
At 1:30 a. m. the bulletin read: “The President is free from pain and resting well. Temperature, 100.2°; pulse, 120; respiration, 24.”
Saturday, the day following the shooting, was one of grave anxiety. The President, while holding his own, was approaching, so the doctors said, a crisis. It was thought that Sunday would decide what effect the shots fired by Czolgosz would be. Dr. Rixey gave it as his opinion that the President would recover. The other physicians refused to commit themselves, saying that they could not make promises until further developments.
An X-ray apparatus was brought from Thomas A. Edison’s laboratory with which it was intended to locate the bullet which lodged in the back. It was not used. On Sunday morning at 5 o’clock the physicians issued this bulletin: “The President has passed a fairly good night. Pulse, 122; temperature, 102.4°; respiration, 24.”
Sunday proved a rather uneventful day after all. The anticipated crisis did not materialize. The news was good throughout the day. It was not merely negative good news, but news of a distinct improvement. The President’s temperature on Sunday evening was a degree lower than it was during the morning, the pulse was slower and the respiration easier.
Dr. McBurney arrived during the day and held a consultation with the other doctors at 3 o’clock Sunday afternoon.
Immediately following the consultation this bulletin was issued: “The President since the last bulletin (3 p. m.) has slept quietly, four hours altogether, since 9 o’clock. His condition is satisfactory to all the physicians present. Pulse, 128; temperature, 101°; respiration, 28.” This bulletin was signed by Drs. Rixey, Mann, Park, Mynter, Wasdin and McBurney.