Complete Life of William McKinley and Story of His Assassination / An Authentic and Official Memorial Edition, Containing Every Incident in the Career of the Immortal Statesman, Soldier, Orator and Patriot

by Marshall Everett

WOMAN’S EQUALITY IN RUSSIA.

“There is no other place in the world where woman has what she has in Russia. There the women have not only the same rights in law as the men, they have the same liberties and the same social and intellectual freedom. There man respects woman, looks upon her as his equal, is her good chum—yes, that is the word. Nowhere are men and women chums as they are in Russia.

“A woman student in Russia may receive visitors all day and most of the night, discuss all vital subjects with them, go with men when and where she pleases, and yet she will not be criticised, and no landlady would dream of insinuating that there was anything wrong with her morals. What is more, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with them. The standard of morals in the student class is phenomenally high, and the average intelligent Russian woman’s mind is as pure as it is broad.

“The relation between the sexes in Russia is the most ideal of any I know about. That is why young Russian women learn to think. And because they think they become Anarchists.

“I was an Anarchist when I left Russia to come to America, but I had hardly formulated my belief. The final influence that crystallized my views was the hanging of the Chicago Anarchists in 1887. I followed that case carefully and it made me an active Anarchist. I was living with my family in Rochester then, and the nearest thing to a radical society the town had was a Social Democratic society, tame as a house cat. I came away to New York and went to work in a factory. That showed me a new side of life. My family had been well-to-do, and I hadn’t come in actual contact with the want and suffering of the world until I joined the wage-earners.

“Of course the experience strengthened my revolutionary ideas. When the Waist and Shirtmaker Girls’ union went out in 1888 I led the strike. That is, in a way I led it. I have never been an Anarchist leader. I cannot afford it. A leader must be a diplomat. I am not a diplomat. A leader of a party makes concessions to his party, for the sake of holding his power. He must give way to his followers in order to be sure they will sustain him. I can’t do all that, I am an Anarchist because I love individual freedom and I will not surrender that freedom.

“You know I am a professional nurse. It has always been the dream of my life to be a doctor, but I never could manage it—could not get means for the study. My factory work undermined my health, so I thought that if I couldn’t be a doctor I could at least be a little part of the profession. I went through the training for a nurse, did the hospital work, and now nurse private cases.

“When I came out of prison on Blackwell’s Island I was nervous. I decided to try a change and go to Europe for a year. I could lecture for the cause and take a course in massage and in midwifery in Vienna. There is no good training for either here, though we have the best training schools for nurses in the world.

“Well, I went and did my studying and then went to Paris to study and wait for the Anarchists’ congress. You know the government prohibited the congress. We had it all the same, but the meetings were secret. I received the honor or dishonor of especially strict surveillance. I was to give a series of lectures, but after the third the authorities warned me that if I gave any more I must leave France, and as I wanted to attend the congress I kept quiet.

“Finally, detectives escorted me to the station and saw my luggage checked to the steamer and then notified the government that the dangerous woman was on her way out of France.”

Leon Czolgosz, the murderer of President McKinley, asserted immediately after his arrest, that he was led to undertake the assassination of the President by a speech delivered by Emma Goldman, the leader of the Anarchist propaganda in America. This speech was delivered in Cleveland, O., the home of Czolgosz, May 6. In it Miss Goldman outlined the principles of anarchy, and detailed the methods whereby she expected to secure the establishment of anarchy throughout the world. Her talk was full of forceful passages, in some cases more notable for their strength than for their elegance.

“Men under the present state of society,” she said, “are mere products of circumstances. Under the galling yoke of government, ecclesiasticism, and a bond of custom and prejudice, it is impossible for the individual to work out his own career as he could wish. Anarchism aims at a new and complete freedom. It strives to bring about the freedom which is not only the freedom from within but a freedom from without, which will prevent any man from having a desire to interfere in any way with the liberty of his neighbor.

“Vanderbilt says, ‘I am a free man within myself, but the others be damned.’ This is not the freedom we are striving for. We merely desire complete individual liberty, and this can never be obtained as long as there is an existing government.

“We do not favor the socialistic idea of converting men and women into mere producing machines under the eye of a paternal government. We go to the opposite extreme and demand the fullest and most complete liberty for each and every person to work out his own salvation upon any line that he pleases. The degrading notion of men and women as machines is far from our ideals of life.

“Anarchism has nothing to do with future governments or economic arrangements. We do not favor any particular settlement in this line, but merely ask to do away with the present evils. The future will provide these arrangements after our work has been done. Anarchism deals merely with social relations, and not with economic arrangement.”

The speaker then deprecated the idea that all Anarchists were in favor of violence or bomb throwing. She declared that nothing was further from the principles they support. She went on, however, into a detailed explanation of the different crimes committed by Anarchists lately, declaring that the motive was good in each case, and that these acts were merely a matter of temperament.

Some men were so constituted, she said, that they were unable to stand idly by and see the wrong that was being endured by their fellow-mortals. She herself did not believe in these methods, but she did not think they should be condemned in view of the high and noble motives which prompted their perpetration. She continued: “Some believe we should first obtain by force and let the intelligence and education come afterwards.”

Miss Goldman did not hesitate to put forward a number of sentiments far more radical and sensational than any ever publicly advanced here. During Miss Goldman’s lecture a strong detail of police was in the hall to keep her from uttering sentiments which were regarded as too radical. This accounts for the fact that the speaker did not give free rein to her thoughts on that occasion. Because of anarchistic uprisings elsewhere it was thought best by the city officials to curb the utterances of the woman.

As soon as it was known that Czolgosz admitted being a disciple of Emma Goldman, the police of a score of cities began an active hunt for her, in the belief that the President’s assassination was the result of a conspiracy, of which she was the head. It was known that Miss Goldman had been in Chicago in July, and that she had visited Buffalo in July and August. But her whereabouts immediately following the crime, could not easily be traced. The arrest of a number of anarchists in Chicago, and the capture of a number of letters, gave the police a clue that Miss Goldman was in St. Louis, and the police of that city made active search for her. She was not found, however, though the fact that she was in that city after the attack of Czolgosz on the President, was established. It was then surmised that she had gone to Chicago, and the police of that city redoubled their vigilance. Through a telegram sent to a man living on Oakdale avenue, the Chicago police learned that Miss Goldman had made inquiries concerning the arrest of the Anarchists in that city, and announced her purpose of going to Chicago, and would arrive on Sunday night, Sept. 8. The police watched the house in Oakdale avenue all Sunday night, but no one entered it. The watch was continued, however, and Monday morning the vigilance of the officers was rewarded. A woman approached the house and rang the front door bell. There was no response, and she went around the house to the back door, where she knocked. No one opened the door, nor was there any response. The woman then walked to Sheffield avenue and rang the bell at No. 303, the third flat in which is the home of Charles G. Norris. Here she was admitted, and while one of the detectives watched the house, the other reported to his superior officers. Captain Herman Schuettler, who had considerable experience with the Chicago Anarchists in 1886, prior to and after the Haymarket riot, immediately went to the Sheffield avenue house. The officer on duty there reported that no one had entered or left the house since the woman had disappeared behind its doors. The police officers tried the usual mode of securing admittance, but no response came to their signals. Then Detective Charles K. Hertz climbed in through a window, and opening the door, admitted Captain Schuettler. Sitting in the parlor, dressed in a light wrapper, with two partly filled valises in front of her, was Emma Goldman. She turned pale when the policemen confronted her and denied her identity, which was established by a fountain pen box, on which her name was written. The woman had said that she was a servant.

Miss Goldman was taken to the office of Chief of Police O’Neill and served with a warrant charging her with having conspired with other Anarchists then under arrest, to kill the President.

She detailed her meeting with the assassin in Chicago.

“I was at the house of Abraham Isaak. Yes, the house at 515 Carroll street. I was preparing to take the Nickel Plate train for the East with Miss Isaak. A ring came at the door. I answered the bell and found a young man there. He asked for Mr. Isaak. The latter had left the house, promising to meet us at the station and say good-by. I so told the young man and I further told him that he might go to the station with us and meet Mr. Isaak there. So you see,” she asserted, “he would not even have been with me for thirty-five minutes had I not asked him to go to the train.

“The young man—yes, it was Czolgosz, who shot the President—said that he had met me before. He said he had heard me lecture in Cleveland. I had delivered a lecture there on May 6, but I can’t remember all the people who shake hands with me, can I? I had no remembrance of him. We went to the station on the elevated train and this man accompanied us. I asked him where he had heard of Mr. Isaak. He said he had read the latter’s paper, Free Society. He did not talk to me about a plot. I never heard of him from that time until McKinley was shot.”

Emma Goldman’s ideas on anarchy are contained in an interview had with her some months before President McKinley’s assassination. She said:

“If a man came to me and told me he was planning an assassination I would think him an utter fool and refuse to pay any attention to him. The man who has such a plan, if he is earnest and honest, knows no secret is safe when told. He does the deed himself, runs the risk himself, pays the penalty himself. I honor him for the spirit that prompts him. It is no small thing for a man to be willing to lay down his life for the cause of humanity. The act is noble, but it is mistaken. While I do not advocate violence, neither do I condemn the anarchist who resorts to it.

“I was an anarchist when I left Russia to come to America,” she continued, “but I had hardly formulated my belief. The final influence that crystallized my views was the hanging of the Chicago anarchists in 1887.

“I am an anarchist because I love individual freedom, and I will not surrender that freedom. A leader must sooner or later be the victim of the masses he thinks he controls. When I definitely entered the work I gave myself a solemn pledge that I would study, that I would make passion bow to reason, that I would not be carried away from the truth by sentiment. I soon saw that the safest and wisest way to keep myself free was not to be a leader. That is why I am connected with no party. I am a member of no group. Individual freedom and responsibility—there is the basis of true anarchy.

“No, I have never advocated violence, nor do I know a single truly great anarchist leader who ever did advocate violence. Where violence comes with anarchy it is a result of the conditions, not of anarchy. The biggest fallacy going is the idea that anarchists as a body band together and order violence, assassinations of rulers and all that. I ought to know something about anarchy, and I tell you that is false—absolutely false.

“There is ignorance, cruelty, starvation, poverty, suffering, and some victim grows tired of waiting. He believes a decisive blow will call public attention to the wrongs of his country, and may hasten the remedy. He and perhaps one or two intimate friends or relatives make a plan. They do not have orders. They do not consult other anarchists.

“Perhaps under the same conditions I would do the same. If I had been starving in Milan, and had raised my starving baby in the air as an appeal for justice, and had that baby shot in my arms by a brutal soldiery, who knows what I might have done? I might have changed from a philosophical anarchist to a fighting anarchist. Do you suppose if Santo Caserio had had anarchist organization back of him he would have tramped all the weary way to Paris, without money, in order to kill Carnot? If Bresci had been sent out from us, would he have had to scrape together every cent he could, even forcing one of his anarchist friends to pawn some of his clothes in order to repay a loan Bresci had made him? The friend curses Bresci for a hardhearted creditor, but Bresci never told why he needed the money so desperately.

“Anarchy’s best future lies in America. We in America haven’t yet reached conditions—economic conditions, I mean—that necessarily breed violence. I am thankful for that; but we are much nearer such conditions than the old-time American ever dreamed we would be, and unless something is done to stop it, the time will come.

“It’s all too absolutely silly, this talk about my being dangerous. Half my fellow believers think me a fool because I am always talking against violence and advocating individual work. I believe that the next ten years will see a wonderful spreading of the true principles of anarchy in this country.”

Emma Goldman, at the time of the assassination, was a woman thirty-two years old, with coarse features, thick lips, a square jaw and prominent nose. She wore glasses on account of nearsightedness, and her hair was light, almost red—the color of the doctrine she teaches.

She was held without bail, but afterwards released.

After Czolgosz, the first arrests for complicity in the attempt on President McKinley’s life were made in the city of Chicago. The metropolis of Illinois, with its cosmopolitan population, has always been a hotbed of anarchy, and it was there the police instantly looked for traces of the movements of the assassin. The police learned from Czolgosz himself that he had recently been in Chicago, and had visited at the house of Abraham Isaak, Sr., 515 Carroll avenue. Isaak was known as an anarchist and the publisher of a paper called Free Society. The police procured warrants for the arrest of Isaak and others on a charge of conspiracy to kill and assassinate the President of the United States, William McKinley, and on visiting Isaak’s house Saturday, September 7, found nine persons there, all of whom were arrested. They were:

Abraham Isaak, Sr., publisher of the Free Society and former publisher of the Firebrand, the organ of anarchy, which was suppressed; Abraham Isaak, Jr., Clemence Pfuetzner, Alfred Schneider, Hippolyte Havel, Henry Travaglio, Julia Mechanic, Marie Isaak, mother; Marie Isaak, daughter.

The same day three other men were arrested at 100 Newberry avenue, Chicago, for the same crime. These men were: Martin Raznick, cloak-maker, who rented the premises; Maurice Fox, Michael Raz.

In the house the detectives found box after box heaped with the literature of anarchy and socialism. There were pictures of Emma Goldman and other leaders and many copies of the Firebrand, Isaak’s old paper.

The arrests were decided on thus early because of the receipt by the Chicago police of a telegram from the chief of police at Buffalo, reading as follows:

“We have in custody Leon Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, the President’s assassin. Locate and arrest E. J. Isaak, who is editor of a socialistic paper and a follower of Emma Goldman, from whom Nieman is said to have taken instructions. It looks as if there might be a plot, and that these people may be implicated.”

After being taken to the police station the prisoners were taken before Chief O’Neill and questioned. Isaak, Sr., was the first to be brought in, and he told his story without any suggestion of reticence, occasionally punctuating his answers with anarchistic utterances, angry nods of his head or emphatic gestures with his clenched fists. When asked if he knew Emma Goldman he answered:

“Yes, she was at my house during the latter part of June and the first two weeks of July. The last time I saw her was on the twelfth of July. On that day she left Chicago for Buffalo. I met her at the Lake Shore depot as she was leaving. When I reached the depot I found her talking to a strange man, who appeared about 25 years old, was well dressed and smooth shaven. Miss Goldman told me that the fellow had been following her around wanting to talk to her, but she had no time to devote to him. She asked me to find out what the fellow wanted.

“The man made a bad impression on me from the first, and when he called me aside and asked me about the secret meetings of Chicago anarchists I was sure he was a spy. I despised the man as soon as I saw him and was positive he was a spy.

“Emma Goldman went away on a train which left in about half an hour after my meeting with this stranger, who gave his name as Czlosz (Czolgosz). I wanted to learn more about the stranger, so, when I went home, I asked him to accompany me. On the way to my house he asked me again and again about the secret meetings of our societies, and the impression grew on me that he was a spy. He asked me if we would give him money, and I told him no, but added that if he wanted to stay in Chicago I would help him get work.

“When we reached my house we sat out on the porch for about ten minutes, and his talk during that time was radical. He said he had been a Socialist for many years, but was looking for something more active than socialism. I was sure then that the fellow was a spy, and I wanted to search and unmask him, so I arranged with him to come to my house on the following morning for breakfast.

PRESIDENT McKINLEY AT THE BEDSIDE OF HIS WIFE WHEN SHE WAS ILL IN SAN FRANCISCO.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT.

“I took him over to Mrs. Esther Wolfson’s rooming-house, at 425 Carroll avenue, and engaged a room for him. Mrs. Wolfson has since moved to New York.

“I didn’t see Czolgosz again after that night. He failed to come to my house for breakfast, and when I went over to Mrs. Wolfson’s to inquire about him I was told that he had slipped away without saying where he was going. I was suspicious of him all the time, so I wrote to E. Schilling, one of our comrades in Cleveland, Ohio, and asked him if he knew of such a man.

“Schilling replied that a fellow answering his description had called on him, and that he believed the man was a spy in the employ of the police. He said he wanted to ‘search’ the stranger, but was alone when he called and did not care to attempt the job. Schilling arranged a meeting for another night, but Czolgosz didn’t show up, and all trace of him was lost. I wrote to Cleveland because Czolgosz had told me he once lived there.

“After I received Schilling’s letter I printed an article in my paper denouncing the fellow as a spy and warning my people against him.”

The article renouncing Czolgosz, alluded to by Isaak, was published in the issue of Free Society September 1, and was couched in the following language:

ATTENTION!

The attention of the comrades is called to another spy. He is well dressed, of medium height, rather narrow shoulders, 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 but a short time, while in Cleveland he disappeared when the comrades had confirmed themselves of his identity and were on the point of exposing him. His demeanor is of the usual sort, pretending to be greatly interested in the cause, asking for names or soliciting aid for acts of contemplated violence. If this same individual makes his appearance elsewhere the comrades are warned in advance, and can act accordingly.

The police were suspicious of this alleged fear of Czolgosz, and asserted that the publication of the notice might have been done for the purpose of exculpating the Chicago Anarchists in case they were accused of being parties to the conspiracy.

In his further examination Isaak answered proudly that he was an Anarchist, and when asked what he meant by anarchy, replied:

“I mean a country without government. We recognize neither law nor the right of one man to govern another. The trouble with the world is that it is struggling to abolish effect without seeking to get at the cause. Yes, I am an Anarchist, and there are 10,000 people in Chicago who think and believe as I do. You don’t hear about them because they are not organized.

“Assassination is nothing but a natural phenomenon. It always has existed and will exist as long as this tyrannical system of government prevails. However, we don’t believe tyranny can be abolished by the killing of one man. Yet there will be absolute anarchy.

“In Russia I was a Nihilist. There are secret meetings there, and I want to tell you that as soon as you attempt to suppress anarchy here there will be secret meetings in the United States.

“I don’t believe in killing rulers, but I do believe in self-defense. As long as you let Anarchists talk their creed openly in this country the conservatives will not be in favor of assassinating executives.”

Isaak had had an eventful career and had been a socialist and anarchistic agitator for years. He was born in Southern Russia and came to Chicago seven months ago. In Russia, he says, he was a bookkeeper. He was forced to leave the country, and after traveling over South America he came to this country and located first in San Francisco. There he worked as a gardener. Later he removed to Portland, Ore., and began the publication of a rabid anarchistic paper called the Firebrand, but the publication was suppressed by the United States postal authorities.

Then Isaak came to Chicago and started Free Society, a paper devoted to the interests of local Anarchists. Isaak talked intelligently but rabidly on matters pertaining to sociological questions.

Hippolyte Havel, the next in importance to Isaak in the anarchistic group, was also examined by the chief. He proved to be an excitable Bohemian, 35 years of age. In appearance he was the opposite of Isaak. Dwarfed of stature, narrow-eyed, with jet black hair hanging in a confused mass over his low forehead, and a manner of talking that brought into play both hands, he looked the part when he boldly told Chief O’Neill that he was an Anarchist. In Bohemia he was an agitator, and in 1894 was sentenced to two years’ confinement in the prison at Plzen for making incendiary speeches. He admitted that he knew Emma Goldman and Czolgosz, and said that if he had known the latter was going to Buffalo to kill the President, he would not have notified the police.

Later, these anarchists were released, as there was no evidence to prove a conspiracy.

CHAPTER VI.
ANARCHISM AND ITS OBJECTS.

Within a few minutes after the shooting of President McKinley at Buffalo, and before anything was known of the identity of the assailant, news of the affair was in every American town and village to which the telegraph reaches. Probably in every town those to whom this first report came exclaimed: “An Anarchist!” and many thousands added bitter denunciation of all anarchists.

When later news arrived it was established definitely by the confession of the would-be slayer that he was an anarchist and fired the shots in a desire to further the cause of those who believe as he does.

What, then, is anarchism, and who are the anarchists that the destruction of the head of a republican government can further their cause? What do they aim at, and what have they accomplished to stand in their account against the long list of murders, of attempted assassinations, and of destruction of property with which they are charged? The questions are asked on every hand, but the answers are hard to find.

When, at the World’s Fair in Chicago in October, 1893, an international congress of anarchists was held and representative anarchists were here from every civilized country, an attempt was made to answer some of the questions. A proposition was made that, for the information of the people and the furtherance of anarchism, a document should be drawn up setting forth just what the belief is and what its followers are doing. The proposition almost brought the congress to an end, for it was found that there were as many different ideas of anarchism as there were delegates present, and no definition could be made satisfactory to more than one or two.

Yet in behalf of this doctrine, which is in itself the anarchy of belief, there have been sacrificed in the last quarter of a century more than a hundred human lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of property by the most violent means. And, as far as can be judged by an outsider, and as is admitted by the leading thinkers of the cult, anarchism is not one whit the gainer by it.

According to Zenker, himself an anarchistic theorist, “anarchism means, in its ideal sense, the perfect, unfettered self-government of the individual, and consequently the absence of any kind of external government.”

That such a state is possible not one of the anarchistic philosophers has contended, and each has been eager to hold up his neighbor’s plan, if not also his own, as a Utopia. Its realization, said Proudhon, pioneer of the cult, would be an entirely new world, a new Eden, a land of the perfect idealization of freedom and of equality. Yet Proudhon wrote many books and made many addresses in behalf of his doctrine. Like every other anarchist, he found his theory ending in a contradiction—as soon as there was anarchy a new state would be built up.

For anarchy is of two classes, individualistic and communistic. The first is the philosophy of the thinker, which has advanced as the object of its being the attainment of “Liberty, not the daughter but the mother of order.” That other anarchy is that which through the influence of terrorism shall crumble empires and republics alike, while from their dust shall rise a free people who shall be in no need of restraints at the hands of their fellow-men. Disciples of this philosophy would build communistic centers upon the ruins of government which violence should have brought about.

Beginning with Proudhon, anarchy had no relationship to the secret society of the assassin. Proudhon simply had criticised a society which “seeks, in formula after formula, institution after institution, that equilibrium which always escapes it, and at every attempt always causes its luxury and its poverty to grow in equal proportion.” He had no retributive bomb or dagger for the heads of state under which such inequalities existed. He said, only: “Since equilibrium has never yet been reached, it only remains for us to hope something from a complete solution which synthetically unites theories, which gives back to labor its effectiveness and to each of its organs its power. Hitherto pauperism has been so inextricably connected with labor and want with idleness that all our accusations against Providence only prove our weakness.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon was born in Besancon, France, in 1809. He was a poor man and became a printer, but in 1837 won a scholarship at the academy in his native town, secured an education, and became a philosopher. He followed the teachings of Hegel, the German philosopher, and going beyond them founded the modern cult of anarchist individualism. He became famous from a question and an answer. “What is property?” he demanded, and himself replied: “Property is theft.”

Later he came to regret the saying and endeavored to assert his belief in property. “Individual possession is the fundamental condition of social life,” he said. He maintained that profit was unjust and that every trade should be an equal exchange.

Proudhon was seeking some means by which the pauper workmen of Europe could be brought to an equality with the aristocracy. In it he came near socialism, but kept the boundary fixed, maintaining that the individual should have his property, should produce as much as he could, have the benefit of his product, and be rich or poor according to it.

Not until the movement started by Proudhon had reached Russia did the “propaganda of action” come into it. In Russia the government, controlling the military, was able to check instantly any movement which might appear in any of the few big cities. In the country no movement could have effect.

“Terrorism arose,” says Stepniak, “because of the necessity of taking the great governmental organization in the flank before it could discover that an attack was planned. Nurtured in hatred, it grew up in an electric atmosphere filled by the enthusiasm that is awakened by a noble deed.” The “great subterranean stream” of nihilism thus had its rise. From nihilism and its necessary sudden outbreaks anarchism borrowed terrorism, the propaganda of action.

Prince Peter Kropotkin of Russia was the founder of the violent school of anarchists. Banished from Russia, he set about organizing in various countries bands of propagandists. Instead of the individualism of Proudhon he proclaimed anarchist communism, which is now the doctrine of force and is the branch of the cult most followed in Italy, France, Spain and among the Poles.

That form of anarchy to-day is giving great concern to the police and military power of the world. It has its hotbed in continental Europe. Vienna, beyond all the other capitals on the continent, is said to harbor its doctrinaires. Switzerland has contended with its “propaganda of action,” which Kropotkin stood for in 1879. Italy, France, Spain, Russia, and nearly every other continental country has felt its force. London itself has been a nest of anarchistic vipers in times past. From all this territory, too, the gradual closing in of the police power has forced both leaders and tools of anarchy to seek asylums in America. The problem of anarchy as now presented to the United States government has to deal almost wholly with this foreign born element.

Its principles, as voiced by the manifesto of the Geneva conference in 1882, stand in great measure for the propaganda of action of to-day:

“Our ruler is our enemy. We anarchists are men without any rulers, fighting against all those who have usurped any power or who wish to usurp it.

“Our enemy is the owner of the land who keeps it for himself and makes the peasant work for his advantage.

“Our enemy is the manufacturer who fills his factory with wage slaves; our enemy is the state, whether monarchical, oligarchical, or democratic, with its officials and staff officers, magistrates, and police spies.

“Our enemy is every thought of authority, whether men call it God or devil, in whose name the priests have so long ruled honest people.

“Our enemy is the law which always oppresses the weak by the strong to the justification and apotheosis of crime.

“But if the landowners, the manufacturers, the heads of the state, the priests, and the law are our enemies, we are also theirs, and we boldly oppose them. We intend to reconquer the land and the factory from the landowner and the manufacturer; we mean to annihilate the state under whatever name it may be concealed; and we mean to get our freedom back again in spite of priest or law.

“According to our strength we will work for the humiliation of all legal institutions, and are in accord with every one who defies the law by a revolutionary act. We despise all legal means because they are the negation of our rights; we do not want so-called universal suffrage since we cannot get away from our own personal sovereignty and cannot make ourselves accomplices in the crimes committed by our so-called representatives.

“Between us anarchists and all political parties, whether conservatives or moderates, whether they fight for freedom or recognize it by their admissions, a deep gulf is fixed. We wish to remain our own masters, and he among us who strives to become a chief or leader is a traitor to our cause. Of course we know that individual freedom cannot exist without a union with other free associates. We all live by the support of one another; that is the social life which has created us; that it is the work of all which gives to each the consciousness of his rights and the power to defend them. Every social product is the work of the whole community, to which all have a claim in equal manner.

“For we are all communists. It is ours to conquer and defend common property and to overthrow governments by whatever name they may be called.”

Johann Most followed Kropotkin, and in pamphlets and papers urged death to rulers and leaders of the people. He published explicit directions for making bombs, placing them in public places; a dictionary of poisons and the means of getting them into the food of Ministers and other government officials. “Extirpate the miserable brood,” he said, “extirpate the wretches.”

All these leaders and many other theorists, German philosophers, Englishmen and Americans as well, have published books showing why they believe anarchy to be the ideal condition of the human race. None of them believes it possible. It is only the less brilliant followers who attempt to carry out their teachings and thus bring bloodshed. How this is done the psychologists, the students of criminology explain.

“Anarchism is a pathological phenomenon,” says Cæsar Lombroso, the Italian criminologist. “Unhealthy and criminal persons adopt anarchism. In every city, in nearly every factory, there are men with active minds but little education. These men stand, day after day, before a machine handling a tool, doing some mechanical action. Their minds must work. They have little to work upon. They are starved for proper food and air and for the mental food which is necessary to a proper understanding of society and of the duties of men. Into the hands of these fall the writings of the anarchists with subtly-worded arguments. Conditions which are apparent everywhere are shown forth, the evils of the city and of industrial conditions are set forth plainly, so that the reader gets an idea that the writer is truthful and impartial. Then the writer sets forth how anarchism can remedy these things. Later on comes the suggestion of violence. Then ‘strike down the rulers.’

“The workman may not be moved in the least by the first perusal. He may even be amused. But later, little by little, as he stands at his work, they come back to him, and he broods over them again and again until they become part of his mind and his belief, and sooner or later he becomes a violent anarchist. For such men Johann Most and his followers form little groups which can hold secret meetings, and through them deeds of violence are plotted and accomplished.”

In connection with the philosophy of anarchy, it may be interesting to examine the causes which various leaders in the movement have given for espousing the doctrine. August Spies, one of the men executed in Chicago for complicity in the Haymarket conspiracy, replied, when asked what made him an anarchist:

“I became an anarchist on that very day that a policeman seized me by the collar and flung me from a sidewalk into the gutter.”

“Probably,” wrote this questioner, “the whole history of anarchy could be traced to these petty causes. The sore develops violent action in the uncouth; the finer and thriftier spirits are moved to ventilate their wrongs in print.”

There is a suggestion in the point which has been voiced by anarchists everywhere. When Emma Goldman was arrested she complained bitterly that it was the police department of Chicago rather than her teachings which was making anarchists.

The story has been told of Zo d’Axa that at a time when he was hesitating between becoming an anarchist or a religious missionary he was traveling in Italy. One day he was accused—as he contended, wrongfully—of insulting the Empress of Germany, and the legal efforts to call him to account made an anarchist of him. He was a man of fortune and he devoted that fortune to the cause, establishing En Dehors, a journal of revolt, against everything that could limit individualism.

Thus, in these later types the relations of cause and effect have been established. As to the earlier ones, only speculation may fasten the probable truth to them. As to Proudhon, the sting that often comes to one lacking in caste might easily have been his inspiration. He was sent to prison in 1848 for political offenses, just at the moment when his People’s Bank had been started upon its brief period of existence, as one of the great ameliorating institutions of French society.

Out of prison again at the end of a long confinement, Proudhon begged permission to issue his paper, Justice, but Napoleon refused the plea. A book, lacking much of the fire of his youth, caused Proudhon to be sentenced to prison a second time, for a period of three years. He escaped by flight, however, and went to Belgium. In the general amnesty granted in 1859 he was excepted, and when, as a special favor, the Emperor, in 1861, granted him permission to return home, Proudhon refused, not returning to Paris until 1863. But troubles and persecutions had told upon him, and on June 19, 1865, he died in the arms of his wife, who had been a helpmeet, and for whom he had always shown loyalty and love.

Caspar Schmidt, better known by the pseudonym of Max Stirner, was a German pupil of Proudhon and was born at Baireuth on October 25, 1806. He became a teacher in a high school, and afterwards in a girls’ school in Berlin. In 1844 appeared the book, “The Individual and His Property,” acknowledged by Max Stirner. It was meteoric, causing a momentary sensation and then sinking into oblivion until the rejuvenating of anarchism ten years later brought it again to notice. Stirner departs radically from Proudhon. On June 26, 1856, he died, as some one has observed, “Poor in external circumstances, rich in want and bitterness.”

Jean Jacques Elisee Reclus is one of the later French apostles of anarchism, a deep student of such prominence that the sentence of transportation in 1871 caused such an outcry from scientific men that banishment was substituted therefor. He has written of anarchism:

“The idea is beautiful, is great, but these miscreants sully our teachings. He who calls himself an anarchist should be one of a good and gentle sort. It is a mistake to believe that the anarchistic idea can be promoted by acts of barbarity.”

Of the influence of this man and his type it has been said by a critic.

“They are poets, painters, novelists, or critics. Most of them are men of fortune and family. Their art has brought them fame. They are idealists, and dreamers, and philanthropists. They turn from a dark and troubled present to a future all rose. In a tragic night they await the sunrise of fraternal love.

“And yet, by their sincerity and their eloquence, they are the most dangerous men of to-day. They have made anarchy a splendid ideal, instead of the brutal and meaningless discontent that it was. They have gilded plain ruffians like Ravachol and Caserio with the halo of martyrdom. For them anarchy is a literary toy. But what of the feather-brained wretches who believe in all these fine phrases and carry out the doctrine of social warfare to its logical and bloody conclusion? Whose is the responsibility? Who is the greater criminal? Luccheni or the silken poet who set him on?”

And behind these more or less gentle and philosophic pathfinders in anarchism have come the “doers of the word”—the redhanded assassins of history.

Not long ago Count Malesta, leader of the Italian anarchists, in his suave, gentle, aristocratic attitudes, deplored the use of bombs, pistol, and knife. Yet who will question that Herr Most has drawn inspiration from this teacher, and this schooling was behind that rabid creature’s utterance, following the assassination of Carnot, when Most said:

“Whosoever wants to undertake an assassination should at first learn to use the weapon with which he desires to accomplish his purpose before he brings that weapon definitely into play. Attempts by means of the revolver are utterly played out, because out of twenty-five attempts only one is successful, as experience has thoroughly shown. Only expert dead shots may thoroughly rely on their ability to kill. No more child’s play! Serious labor! Long live the torch and bomb!”

This is the pupil of the school. Of its tutors, even Kropotkin has been described as a “gentle, courtly, aristocratic patriarch of revolt.” He was wealthy, famous, and furiously aristocratic when, in 1872, studying the Swiss glaciers, he stumbled upon the Geneva convention of internationalists and became an anarchist. He returned to the Russian court. His work on the glaciers of Finland became a classic. His lectures on geology and geography were attracting crowds, even while a red revolutionist, Borodin, was stirring police and military with his utterances to workingmen. One night the police trapped Borodin—and Kropotkin. For three years he was confined in prison until he escaped, making his way to London and to the world, which still listens to his voice.

Louise Michel, even, is described as an eager, enthusiastic old woman of much gentleness of manner. She is credited with an unselfishness and self-abnegation that would fit the character of a sister of charity. Virile and keen of intellect, her presence is said to attract, rather than repel, and yet her cry is for freedom, based on force against the machinery of law.

Johann Most has been recognized as the link between the German and English anarchism and the representative of the “propaganda of action.” He is the avowed patron of the bomb, and in the present case of Czolgosz some of the instructions which he has vouchsafed to readers of his journal, Freedom, may have a bearing, as for instance, the rule that “never more than one anarchist should take charge of the attempt, so that in case of discovery the anarchist party may suffer as little harm as possible.”

France has been especially active in this scrutiny of the followers of the red flag. The government’s spy system is almost perfect. Scarcely a meeting may be held on French soil that a government shadow is not somewhere in the background.

In Russia both the police and military arms keep watch upon suspects. London for years has been a hotbed of anarchistic talk and scheming, and even there the system of secret espionage is maintained. Regent’s Park on a Sunday afternoon may be full of inflammatory speech-making, but it is regarded as a harmless venting of spleen in most cases; the actual movements of dangerous anarchists are closely observed.

The United States government at Washington has a list of names and photographs of all the known anarchists of the world.

No city in America has had more experience in dealing with dangerous anarchists than Chicago. As early as 1850 there were disciples of anarchy among the foreign element there, but no attention was paid to them until as late as 1873, when they formed a political party and were more or less noisy for several years. In 1877, during the great railroad strike, they had their first clash with the police and several were killed, and many wounded. Thanksgiving Day, 1884, under the leadership of Albert R. Parsons, August Spies, Sam Fielden, and others they hoisted the black flag and marched through the fashionable residence district of the city, uttering groans and using threatening language. Subsequently they threatened to blow up the new Board of Trade building, and marched past the edifice one night, but were headed off by the police. Parsons, when asked afterward why they had not blown up the Board of Trade building, replied that they had not looked for police interference and were not prepared. “The next time,” he said, “we will be prepared to meet them with bombs and dynamite.” Fielden reiterated the same sentiments and expressed the opinion that in the course of a year they might be ready for the police.

During all these years the anarchist leaders had openly preached violence, and had taught their followers how to make dynamite bombs. They went so far as to give in detail their plans for fighting the police and militia, and caused more or less consternation among the timid residents of the city.

The local authorities made no effort to stop any of these proceedings. Mayor Harrison believed that repressive measures would be useless and considered that to allow the anarchists to talk would gratify their vanity and preclude the possibility of riot. That such a belief was fallacious, subsequent events proved.

In 1886 came the agitation for the establishment of the eight-hour day, and the anarchist leaders were prominent therein. The first collision between the anarchists and the police came at the McCormick reaper works. There was a sharp fight and the police dispersed the rioters. It was said that many workingmen were killed in that fight, but the story was exaggerated, no one being killed. The anarchists held secret meetings at once and devised a plan to revenge themselves on the police, and to burn and sack the city. As a first step, and for the purpose of demoralizing the police force, a public meeting was called to be held in the Haymarket Square on the night of May 4. The meeting was really held on Desplaines street, between Randolph and Lake streets. Parsons, Spies and Fielden spoke from a wagon in front of Crane’s foundry, until the police came up to disperse the meeting, on account of the violent character of the utterances. Inspector Bonfield and Captain Ward were in charge of the police, and no sooner had Captain Ward called upon the crowd to disperse than a bomb was hurled into the midst of the unsuspecting policemen. It burst with a loud report, knocking down nearly every one of the one hundred and twenty-five men in the detail and badly wounding many.

Inspector Bonfield at once rallied his men, and charged the mob with a resistless rush that carried everything before them. After the square had been cleared the officers began to attend to their wounded comrades. Only one, M. J. Degan, had been instantly killed, although seven died afterward from their injuries. Sixty-eight others were injured, some so badly that they were maimed for life, and incapacitated for work.

Of all the men who were subsequently arrested for this crime, only eight were placed on trial. These were August Spies, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, Albert R. Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, and Louis Lingg, who were found guilty and sentenced to death, and Oscar Neebe, who was sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary. Lingg committed suicide by blowing his head to pieces with a bomb while confined in the jail awaiting execution. The sentences of Schwab and Fielden were commuted to imprisonment for life by Governor Oglesby. The other four were hanged in the county jail on November 11, 1887. They were buried at Waldheim cemetery the following Sunday, November 13, and this occasion was made memorable by the honors shown the dead by the anarchist societies of Chicago. It was the last great outpouring of anarchy that the city has seen. Schwab, Fielden, and Neebe were afterward pardoned by Governor Altgeld, and released from the penitentiary.

Looking back upon the work of anarchy in the last fifty years or more its results should be discouraging to any but the most hair-brained of the type. Its violence has not altered or unsettled the course of a single government against which it has been directed. If individuals here and there have been murdered the crimes have reacted upon the tools of butchery, most frequently sending the assassin to a dishonored grave, leaving the name of his kinsman a reproach for all time. The seed of ideal anarchy still is being sown, however, and its crop of crimes and criminals may be expected to be harvested in the future, as in the past, unless, by some concerted, radical efforts of civilization its bloody sophistries are to be wiped from the world.

CHAPTER VII.
SCENES AT BUFFALO FOLLOWING THE ASSASSINATION.

The people of Buffalo and the visitors within their gates behaved admirably during all the weary days and nights after the shooting of the President. That spirit of mob law, which pervaded the multitude that surged about the Temple of Music in the Exposition grounds at the time of the shooting, speedily gave way to one of obedience to law. The knowledge that the President’s life had not ebbed away, and that eminent physicians said he would recover, had a tendency to restore men’s minds to the normal, and soon the question which passed from man to man was “what news from the President?”

Even the thought of wreaking vengeance on the assassin seemed to have fallen into abeyance. The people became quiet in demeanor, but there was constant anxiety that the physicians had not told all, and that the Nation might at any time be called on to mourn the death of its Chief Executive. This feeling was intensified by the hurrying to the city of members of the Cabinet who were not in attendance on the President at the time he faced the assassin. The first trains brought Vice-President Roosevelt, Secretaries Hay, Gage, Root, Long and Hitchcock, Attorney-General Knox and Postmaster-General Smith. Senator Mark Hanna and other close friends of the President also started hastily for Buffalo, and many of them remained there until the end. The presence of these personages, perhaps, had a tendency to quiet public feeling, inasmuch as they one and all bore themselves with marked dignity during the trying time.

When the President was moved from the Exposition grounds to the residence of Mr. Milburn, there were thousands of people in the streets, but there was no disturbance. Only the tenderest sympathy for the stricken President was manifested, and never, during the President’s gallant fight for life, was there aught to complain of on the part of the people.

The Milburn home is situated in the center of a large lot on which stand magnificent trees. As it became, from the time the President was taken there, the center of interest for the civilized world, special preparations were made to meet the exigencies of the case. It was necessary that only those should have ingress and egress who had business there, and hence the premises were surrounded with police and soldiers. Ropes were stretched so that the crowds which were irresistibly drawn to the scene could be more easily kept back, and the most complete arrangements were made to enable the newspaper men to secure and send broadcast the news of the President’s condition. A huge tent was erected on the lawn and there, from day to day, the doctors, members of the Cabinet, the Vice-President and others were importuned by the reporters for hopeful tidings, which they knew not only the people of Buffalo but the world at large so eagerly awaited.

During all this period the police of Buffalo were working desperately to learn the antecedents of Czolgosz, the assassin; to trace his movements, and to ascertain, if possible, whether he had accomplices. The villainous wretch, whose brutal act had caused all right thinking people to regard him with horror, remained safely in the police station at Buffalo, where he had been taken by the police after the first struggle to keep the people from lynching him. After recovering from the fright occasioned by his first contact with the outraged people, he became flippant and tried to glorify his terrible crime and invest it with the halo of a service to humanity. All these facts were promptly conveyed to the people by the newspapers, and served to intensify the feeling against Czolgosz.

When the fact became known that the President was growing worse, and the physicians became guarded in the expressions as to whether he would recover, the people began to gather on the streets and discuss the punishment of the assassin. As the bulletins became more and more ominous, the feeling rose to fever heat, and there was a rush toward the police station where Czolgosz was confined. Thousands of excited citizens clamored for the life of the criminal, but the police forced them back. Two regiments of the National Guard, the Sixty-fifth and Seventy-fourth, were ordered to assemble in their armories to meet any emergency that might arise.

“We do not propose to allow our prisoner to be taken from us,” said Superintendent Bull, of the police force. “We are able to protect him, and we have the Sixty-fifth and Seventy-fourth Regiments under arms if we need them. No matter how dastardly this man’s crime is, we intend for the good name of American people to keep him safe for the vengeance of the law.”

The fact that the President lingered until early in the morning, before death ensued, probably prevented any real conflict between the police and the indignant people.

The members of the two regiments were summoned to their armories by messenger, telegraph, and proclamation in theaters and public places. This news only helped to direct attention from the dying President to the cell which held his assassin.

That these preparations were quite necessary became apparent by 8:30 o’clock Friday night, when the people had assembled in the vicinity of police headquarters in such numbers that the streets were blocked and impassable.

The police roped off all the streets at a distance of three hundred to four hundred feet from the nearest of the buildings and refused to admit any one within that limit. One hundred patrolmen guarded the ropes and fought back the crowds, while ten mounted men galloped to and fro, holding the crowds in repression.

New details of police from the outside stations came in from time to time, and Superintendent Bull kept in constant touch on the telephone with Colonel Welch, who was at the Sixty-fifth armory, less than a mile away.

In order to divert the attention of the excited crowds, the false report that Czolgosz had been spirited away was sent out. While the source cannot be traced, it is believed the report emanated from the police headquarters. The mob was also informed, whenever possible, that there was no reason to believe that there would be a miscarriage of justice, whether through the pretext that the assassin was insanely irresponsible for his act or through the possibility that he might die before justice could be meted out to him.

It was learned indirectly that Superintendent Bull had asked the insanity experts, who have had Czolgosz under their observation for a week, and Police Surgeon Dr. Fowler, who has had charge of the prisoner’s physical health, to prepare a statement of the exact truth about the prisoner’s health of mind and body.

The President’s clothes, which were removed at the Exposition Hospital, were later sent to the Milburn residence, where the pockets were emptied. The attendant told what he found.

In his right-hand trousers pocket was some $1.80 in currency. With these coins was a small silver nugget, well worn, as if the President had carried it as a pocket piece for a long time.

Three small penknives, pearl-handled, were in the pockets of his trousers. Evidently they were gifts that he prized and was in the habit of carrying all of them. Another battered coin, presumably a pocket piece, was in the left-hand pocket.

The President’s wallet was well worn and of black leather, about four inches by five. It was marked with his name. In it was $45 in bills. A number of cards, which evidently had rested in the wallet for some time, were in one of the compartments.

In a vest pocket was a silver-shell lead pencil. Three cigars were found. They were not the black perfectos which the President likes, but were short ones which had been given to him at Niagara Falls that day. On two of them he had chewed, much as General Grant used to bite a cigar.

The President’s watch was an open-faced gold case American-made timekeeper. Attached to it was the gold chain which the President always wore. No letters, telegrams or papers were found. There was not on the President’s person a single clew to his identity, unless it was to be found in the cards in his wallet, which were not examined.

One of the most striking features of the fateful week at Buffalo was the exclusive use of automobiles by the public officials, friends, relatives and physicians on their trips to and from the Milburn residence. Heretofore the modern vehicles were used chiefly for pleasure and many doubted their utility, but on the well-paved streets of Buffalo they were found to have many advantages over carriages drawn by horses. Lines of the motor cabs were stationed a short distance from the house and whenever a call for one was sent out it approached speedily but noiselessly. No sound as loud as a horse’s hoof on the pavement was made by the vehicles.

The wounded President was transferred from the Emergency Hospital on the Exposition grounds to the Milburn residence in an automobile, and the horseless carriages were sent to the railroad stations to meet officials and relatives coming to the bedside of the stricken man.

When the startling report of the assassination first sped along the wires, causing grief and consternation everywhere, Senator Hanna was at his home in Cleveland. Hanna was undoubtedly McKinley’s most intimate friend in public life, as well as the President’s adviser. Hanna was intensely excited by the news and at once began to make plans for reaching Buffalo as soon as possible. A special train could have been made up, but the time to reach the station would have been considerable.

Some one suggested that the Lake Shore Limited, which is the fastest train between Chicago and New York, be flagged near Hanna’s home, and this was at once done. The railway officials gave their consent by telephone, and when the train approached near the house—the railroad is but a few rods from the Hanna residence—it slacked up and the Senator boarded it. Steam was put on and the delay made up in a few hours. The train reached Buffalo on time.

MRS. McKINLEY ALONE WITH HER BELOVED DEAD.

PRESIDENT McKINLEY’S BODY LYING IN STATE AT BUFFALO.

Senator Hanna took a hopeful view of the situation, and assured everyone with whom he conversed of the recovery of the President. He remained at Buffalo until Tuesday, and then returned to Cleveland, where the G. A. R. Encampment was being held. When he parted from the President he stated that in his opinion, for which he relied chiefly on the physicians, McKinley would be well in a month. Hanna spent Wednesday and Thursday in Cleveland, leaving for Buffalo on a special train when notified of the relapse of the patient. The death of McKinley touched Hanna deeply. He had to be led from the bedside on the occasion of the last interview between the two men. He was almost a total collapse, his face was drawn and his entire form trembled.

On Sunday night, September 8th, two days after the President had been shot, and at a time when it was believed he would recover, Senator Hanna had a remarkable dream, prophetic of the fatal end.

On Monday a newspaper correspondent asked him if he had any fears of a relapse, when he replied:

“That reminds me of a dream I had last night. You know dreams go by contraries. Well, sir, in this dream I was up at the Milburn house waiting to hear how the President was getting along, and everybody was feeling very good. We thought the danger was all past. I was sitting there talking with General Brooke and Mr. Cortelyou, and we were felicitating ourselves on how well the physicians had been carrying the case.

“Suddenly, in my dream, Dr. McBurney entered the room through the door leading to the sick room with a look of the utmost horror and distress on his face. I rushed up to him, and putting a hand on either shoulder, said: ‘What is it, Doctor? what is it? let us know the worst.’

“Dr. McBurney replied: ‘My dear Senator, it is absolutely the worst that could happen. The President has had a tremendous change for the worse; his temperature is now 440 degrees.’ I fell back in my chair in utter collapse, and then I awoke. But, do you know, I could not rest easy until I saw the early bulletins this morning?”

Everyone thought of Mrs. McKinley and the hearts of all went out to her in sympathy when it was known that the end was near. They had tried all day to keep the fatal news from her, but it is probable that when she saw the President she divined something of his serious condition. Mrs. McWilliams, Mrs. Barber, Miss Mary McKinley, and Mrs. Duncan were with her and gave her the most tender and loving ministration. The crowds eagerly scanning the bulletin boards feared for her. It was a matter of current belief that the wife never would survive the shock. There were plenty who said and believed that she would not live through the night; that the papers would tell the world that Emma Goldman’s disciple had murdered a woman and a frail invalid as well as the President of the United States.

It was recalled that the President had several times spoken of his assassin and that he had expressed satisfaction when he learned that the man had not been injured by the crowd. All this was gratifying, but it failed to alleviate the sorrow of that Friday night and the few hours of Saturday in which the President continued alive. All Buffalo, all the Nation, watched with deepest anxiety hoping against hope.

The devotion to duty of Private Secretary George B. Cortelyou during the long painful days that came between the shooting and the death of President McKinley offers one of the most striking features of the historic tragedy.

When the chief fell wounded Secretary Cortelyou was practically forced to fill a part of the vacant place and assume all of its responsibilities. He was at the side of the President when Leon Czolgosz fired the murderous shots, and upon him rested the immediate responsibility of issuing the order for the surgical operation that was performed at the emergency hospital.

When Mr. McKinley came from the operating table it fell to Mr. Cortelyou to make the arrangements for his shelter and care, and from that time to the end he was called upon to pass judgment upon every grave question that arose except the technical medical and surgical matters in connection with the care of the wounded chieftain.

He stood between the sick-room and the world as far as information on the progress of the case was concerned, and the place called for the most delicate judgment. In addition to his official connection with the dying President it was his duty to supervise all of the private personal affairs of his superior.

In addition to the work which he could do by verbal direction the executive correspondence by mail and wire trebled and quadrupled. It exceeded that of any other period in the public life of Mr. McKinley, including the days that succeeded both his first and second elections. It seemed that Mr. Cortelyou must fail in the mere physical task of handling it, but no physical exaction seemed too great for him.

His personal affection for his chief was complete, and the President’s death was a grievous shock to him. He has not faltered, however, and still stands in the place that he must occupy until the last offices have been performed at the grave of Mr. McKinley.

CHAPTER VIII.
DAYS OF ANXIETY AND SORROW.

The Nation was thrown into a state of grief and indignation never before approached at the terrible news from Buffalo Friday, September 6th. Methods for transmitting intelligence have been vastly improved since the assassination of Garfield, since which time no such national calamity has befallen the United States. Poignant regret, intense indignation, and a feeling of dismay mingled in the hearts of the eighty million Americans who stood appalled at the news which swept like wild fire and reached every part of the world in an incredibly short time.

It was an appalling thought that this great republic, with all its promises and all its deeds for oppressed humanity, exposed its chief magistrates to more deadly chances than does any empire or kingdom. But seven men regularly elected Presidents in the last thirty-six years, and three of them brought low with the assassin’s bullet!

The news of the attempt on the life of the President was received from one end of the country to the other first with horrified amazement and then with the deepest grief. In every city in the United States men and women gathered and waited for hours to get every scrap of information that came over the wires. In thousands of small towns the whole population stood about the local telegraph offices and watched tearfully and anxiously for bulletins.

Telegraph offices everywhere were swamped with business, messages of sympathy for the President and his wife from almost every man of prominence in the nation, and for hours after the shooting telephone trunk lines were so overburdened that only a small percentage of subscribers were able to secure service.

Dispatches from every State in the Union showed how widespread and intense was the feeling of dismay and the sense of personal affliction with which the news was received. Public men of all shades of political opinion and social status alike shared the anxiety and found themselves grasping hands with one another and praying that Mr. McKinley’s life might be spared. All the details of the tragedy were sought for with trembling eagerness, and in all the large centers of population every effort was made to supply this demand by the newspapers, which issued extras at intervals till far into the night.

Early Saturday morning began arrangements for public prayer in many of the churches on Sunday. Archbishop Ireland of the Catholic Church, Bishop Potter, the Episcopal prelate; Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, and high church dignitaries of all denominations joined in the universal supplication to the Heavenly Father to spare the life of the stricken President. Fervent were the invocations and the hopeful news of the following days seemed to portend a favorable answer to the prayers of a nation.

Political lines were forgotten and Democrat and Populist was as eager to show respect for the head of the government as the Republicans. It was respect shown a good man; it was also respect shown the Chief Executive occupying an exalted position by the suffrage of the people.

At the moment when the country was enshrouded in the gloom of the awful tragedy, when it was bowed with its own sorrow and overflowing with sympathy for the bereaved widow, consideration of the dead statesman’s career and of the political controversies to which it gave rise, was not attempted. So quick had been the revulsion of feeling, so terrible the shock, that the one emotion of grief was overmastering and all-absorbing.

It had been said many times during the era of alternate hope and fear that Mr. McKinley was the most beloved of our Presidents since Lincoln, and the frequency of the assertion in every quarter and among all classes of people is excellent evidence of its truth. Nor are the reasons for his exceptional hold on the affections of the people far to seek. He had to begin with that sweet and winning personality which captivated everyone who saw him. Thousands felt its influence at Buffalo on the day when the wretched murderer committed his deadly assault, and they responded to it with an affectionate regard, as other thousands had done among the many crowded assemblages with which the President had so freely mingled.

A feeling of tenderest love and veneration was excited also by the knowledge of the beautiful life’s devotion of the most thoughtful, considerate and gentlest of husbands. Toward the wife, whom he had ever near him, the President was a ministering angel. In caring for her he evinced the delicacy of a woman, the strength of the strongest of men. May she find resignation in that submission which he taught her, saying: “God’s will, not ours, be done.”

That such a noble, true soul, such a high-minded man should have been struck down in the very fullness of his powers, when his great abilities were receiving a broadening recognition and he was still growing in the affectionate esteem of his countrymen, caused universal lamentation.

Ex-President Grover Cleveland was fishing at Darling Lake, in Tyringham, Mass., when he received the news regarding the shooting of President McKinley. He at once started for the shore in order to hear more details in regard to the matter, and anxiously asked for the latest advices from Mr. McKinley’s bedside. Mr. Cleveland was horrified at the news and said:

“With all American citizens, I am greatly shocked at this news. I cannot conceive of a motive. It must have been the act of a crazy man.”

Following receipt of the news of the attempt on his life, W. J. Bryan sent a brief message to President McKinley expressing his concern. Mr. Bryan gave out the following statement:

“The attempted assassination of the President is a shock to the entire country, and he and his wife are the recipients of universal sympathy. The dispatches say that the shot was fired by an insane man, and it is hoped that this is true, for while it is a terrible thing for a President to be the victim of the act of a maniac, it would be even worse for him to be fired upon by a sane person prompted by malice or revenge.

“In a republic where the people elect their officials and can remove them there can be no excuse for a resort to violence. If our President were in constant fear of plots and conspiracies we would soon sink to the level of those nations in which force is the only weapon of the government, and the only weapon of the government’s enemies.”

An intensity of sympathy was manifested in Canton, for 30 years the home of the McKinleys, for President and Mrs. McKinley, rarely equalled. Cantonians who have so long known them felt that the life of the President meant the life of Mrs. McKinley; his death, they believed, would likely mean the death of Mrs. McKinley in a short time. Eager residents of all classes surrounded telegraph and newspaper offices and watched for bulletins from the bedside of the patient.

In addition to the private expressions of deepest regret and sympathy, public action was taken by many organizations. The commander of Canton Post, G. A. R., of which Mr. McKinley was a member, telegraphed Secretary Cortelyou:

“The President’s comrades of Post No. 25 desire to tender him their profoundest sympathy and to express earnest hopes for his safe recovery.”

The official body of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, of which the President was a member, adopted resolutions, which say:

“Dear Brother McKinley:—The fourth quarterly conference in this church, now in session, has learned with unspeakable sorrow of the most deplorable incident of which you are the victim. The brethren are deeply concerned and unite in agonizing importunities that God may intervene to avert serious consequences and graciously minister to you all needed spiritual comfort and grant you speedy and complete physical recovery. We also extend to your dear wife assurances of our profoundest and most prayerful sympathy, trusting God may comfort her in the great trial through which you are passing.”

Life at Washington was enveloped in sadness during the fateful week. In every quarter expressions of the profoundest sympathy were heard. The wish foremost in the minds of all was that the President be spared, and whenever encouraging advices were received from Buffalo there was a general feeling of rejoicing.

Officials of the government who were too affected by the news first received to discuss the crime talked more freely later and gave expressions of great indignation at the atrocious act. At the Executive Mansion messages poured in constantly. There were few callers.

Bulletins were received at the White House hourly announcing Mr. McKinley’s condition, and those reporting an increase in the President’s temperature occasioned concern.

In a mechanical way the executive departments opened on the day following the assassination, but the employes had no heart to work, and the corridors were filled with knots of eager seekers after the latest bulletins from the President’s sick bed. The excitement in the streets was continuous and crowds lingered around the newspaper bulletin boards, while people walked along with sober faces and with frequent expressions of sorrow and many anxious inquiries.

At the State Department were received an accumulation of cablegrams and telegraph messages, all expressing the gravest concern and condolence. These messages were from all parts of the world. They continued to flow in upon the department. They came from crowned heads, from foreign ministers, from resident ministers of foreign countries in the United States and from individuals of distinction. Some of them follow:

Rambouillet, September 7.—With keen affliction I learn the news of the heinous attempt of which your excellency has just been a victim. I take it to heart to join with the people of the United States in wishing the early recovery of your excellency, and I earnestly desire in this sorrowful juncture to renew to you the assurance of my sentiments of constant and cordial friendship.

Emil Loubet.

Koenigsberg, September 7, 1901.—The Emperor and I, horrified at the attempt planned against your husband, express our deep-felt sympathy hoping that God may restore to health Mr. McKinley.

William, I. R.

Victoria, I. R.

Rome, September 7, 1901.—Deeply grieved, terrible crime. Trust President will be spared to his country and friends.

Baron Fava.

London, September 7.—Secretary of State, Washington:—Following messages of condolence received:

From His Majesty, the King, to American Ambassador—Offer my deepest sympathy at the dastardly attempt on the President’s life. Have telegraphed direct to President.

From the Lord Mayor of London—The citizens of London have received with profound regret and great indignation intelligence of the dastardly attack on the life of the distinguished President of the United States and desire to convey through your excellency their sincere sympathy with your country in this melancholy event. They trust that so valuable a life as President McKinley’s may be spared for the welfare of the American people.

From Vice Dean of Canterbury Cathedral—Accept expression of deep sorrow at outrage upon President. Prayers offered for his recovery at all services in Canterbury Cathedral.

From Lord Provost of Edinburgh—In the name of the citizens of Edinburgh I beg to express horror at the dastardly outrage upon President McKinley and to assure him and Mrs. McKinley and the government and people of the United States of our sympathy with them and prayers for President’s recovery.

From Field Marshal Lord Roberts—Please convey to President and Mrs. McKinley on behalf of myself and the British army our profound regret at what has occurred and our earnest hope that Mr. McKinley’s valuable life may be spared.

Choate, Ambassador.

London and all England received the news of the attempt on Mr. McKinley’s life with incredulity. Every newspaper and every hotel was besieged with anxious Americans inquiring for the latest intelligence of the reported assassination.

King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra were traveling in Germany when the news of the assassination reached them. They were greatly shocked. Police guards on the train and along the route were at once ordered increased, as it was feared the shooting of the President at Buffalo might induce some European anarchist to make an attempt on the life of King Edward.

In spite of the late hour at which the news of the attempted assassination of President McKinley reached Paris the report that the American President had been fatally wounded caused the greatest excitement on the boulevards. The occupants of the cafes left their late suppers, rushing in hot haste from the tables to the newspaper offices to verify the news.

Immediately the outburst of sorrow over the attempt on President McKinley’s life was spent, comment in Berlin was universally directed against what was termed America’s guilty lenity toward the anarchistic fraternity.

The tenderest sympathy and praise of McKinley mingled with deep abhorrence of the crime and vehement denunciation of the teachings that inspired it from every part of the South prove conclusively that the love for the martyr President was as great there as in the North.

It is significant that much of this laudatory comment was coupled with grateful recognition of the work done by the President in unifying the two sections of the country. It is doubtful if the President’s most zealous admirers in the North can surpass in fervor of affectionate regard many of the editorial tributes in the Southern press.

A few discordant notes—not sufficient to merit more than passing notice, however—marred the general voice of sympathy and condolence. In an interview regarding the attempt to take the President’s life, Senator Wellington of Maryland was reported as saying:

“McKinley and I are enemies. I have nothing good to say about him, and under the circumstances do not care to say anything bad. I am indifferent to the whole matter.”

The Senator subsequently refused to deny the interview, and his silence was construed as an affirmation of it. For this unpatriotic utterance the Atlanta Journal editorially called upon the United States Senate to expel him from that body as being unfit to represent the people of Maryland in the highest council of the nation.

In various parts of the country reflections on the President or expression of pleasure at the crime led to rough treatment by indignant crowds. Only cool heads saved several detractors of McKinley from being lynched. Here and there an anarchist would attempt to incite the crowd in behalf of the assassin, but all such attempts were repulsed and the demagogues arrested or driven from the town.

After the first great wave of sorrow and despair had swept the land, the bulletins from Buffalo brought back hope. From Sunday on to Thursday the indication grew more favorable and the fact that recovery seemed assured led many churches to arrange thanksgiving services.

The day of prayer seemed to have passed, the prayer granted and the hearts of a grateful people were set on a day of thanksgiving. Among earnest Christian men and women the desire to anticipate the regular annual thanksgiving festival was universal, and even such persons as have little faith in the efficacy of prayer approved the suggestion that there should be some common recognition of our national good fortune in the escape of the President from death.

Messages of congratulation poured in on the relatives and friends at Buffalo by the hundreds, hope rose high, and cheerful faces shone where all had been gloom. This buoyant feeling continued until Thursday night at Buffalo, and only on Friday morning did the nation learn of the change for the worse.

Among the cablegrams of congratulations sent by European rulers were those from the King of England, the Czar of Russia, the King of Greece and the Emperor of Austria.

The following dispatch was received at the American Embassy at London:

“I am delighted to hear your last most satisfactory account of your President. I sincerely trust that his convalescence may soon be completed.

“Edward, R.”

The following message was received from the Czar of Russia:

“Fredensborg—To President McKinley, Buffalo, N. Y:—I am happy to hear you are feeling better after the ignominious attempt on your life. I join with the American people and the universal world for your speedy recovery.

“Nicholas.”

The following message was received from King George of Greece at Fredensborg:

“I rejoice to hear that you so happily escaped the terrible attempt on your precious life, which has horrified the civilized world, but hope to God that you recover for the good and glory of the American people.”

Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria sent an expression of his sympathy at the probable recovery of the President to the United States government to-day. The dispatch was sent through the American Embassy.

On Thursday all was hopefulness; on Friday gloom and fear; on Saturday heads bowed in mourning. Death came with an awful suddenness, notwithstanding the week of suffering. The passionate hope that the President would recover had been followed by a feeling of perfect assurance that he was out of danger, when the wholly unexpected news of Friday put the people on the rack again. There was another torturing day, and when it ended hope and confidence had yielded to universal grief and to a fruitless questioning of the impenetrable ways of Providence. It seemed inexplicably strange that a man so beloved and unoffending and so rich in good works should have been made the victim of the assassin’s bullet.

All day long the bulletin boards in every city were surrounded by crowds waiting in suppressed excitement for the latest word from the Milburn home, and numerous newspaper extras were eagerly snapped up.

Every household in Washington was in mourning. The sorrow was complete. Large crowds assembled about the bulletin boards early in the evening of the memorable day, eagerly awaiting the latest news, hoping against hope that something would happen, in the mysterious workings of the Almighty, to spare the President.

The oldest citizens cannot remember when a calamity brought to the national capital such profound grief. The excitement was more intense when Lincoln succumbed to the bullets of the assassin, Booth, and the people sincerely mourned him, but while he was widely loved, his death did not so afflict the people. Garfield was generally admired, and the calamity that overtook him awakened the sympathy of the people, but he was not mourned as was McKinley.

If the precedents set by President Arthur are followed by President Roosevelt, the coming winter will be entirely devoid of official gayety. The official mourning will extend over six months and will be rigorously observed. This period will include New Year’s and the usual courtesies extended to the diplomatic corps, the Congress, the judiciary and the army and navy. The official mourning will end on March 14, 1902, and as this date falls after Shrove Tuesday, the official social season will be allowed to lapse. Therefore the New Year’s reception of 1903 will in all probability be the first formal gathering of the official and social world at the White House.

Half-masted flags and black column rules mutely proclaimed England’s sentiments touching the death of President McKinley. These symbols of mourning, countless in their multitudes, visibly recalled the country’s grief at the loss of Queen Victoria. Not only on land, but also at sea, the British honored the martyr President. Thousands of buildings, both public and private, and all the shipping around the coast, flew the Union Jack half-way up the staff. Every British war ship within reach of the telegraph displayed its ensign of sorrow.

The Pope prayed an hour to-day for the soul of President McKinley. The pontiff wept with uncontrollable emotion on receiving the news of the President’s death. All audiences at the Vatican were suspended.

CHAPTER IX.
PRESIDENT McKINLEY’S LAST SPEECH.

President McKinley’s last speech, delivered on President’s Day at the Pan-American Exposition, September 5, the day before he was shot, was the greatest speech of his life. It was a message to all the world, robust in its Americanism, and fraught with good will for all nations and all mankind. It was as follows:

“President Milburn, Director General Buchanan, Commissioners, Ladies and Gentlemen:—I am glad to be again in the city of Buffalo and exchange greetings with her people, to whose generous hospitality I am not a stranger, and with whose good will I have been repeatedly and signally honored.

“To-day I have additional satisfaction in meeting and giving welcome to the foreign representatives assembled here, whose presence and participation in this exposition have contributed in so marked a degree to its interests and success. To the commissioners of the Dominion of Canada and the British colonies, the French colonies, the republics of Mexico and of Central and South America and the commissioners of Cuba and Porto Rico, who share with us in this undertaking, we give the hand of fellowship and felicitate with them upon the triumphs of art, science, education and manufacture which the old has bequeathed to the new century.

“Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. They record the world’s advancement. They stimulate the energy, enterprise and intellect of the people and quicken human genius. They go into the home. They broaden and brighten the daily life of the people. They open mighty storehouses of information to the student.