Leon Czolgosz
Leon Frank Czolgosz (b. 1 January 1873 in Alpena, Michigan; d. 29 October 1901 in Auburn, New York) was an American social anarchist of Polish descent who shot and killed US President William McKinley. In the last few years of his life, he was heavily influenced by Jewish social anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. Czolgosz was found guilty and executed..
Life
One of seven children of Polish immigrants from Russia, Czolgosz was born in Alpena, Michigan in 1873. His family moved to Detroit when he was five years old, and at the age of sixteen he was sent to work in a glass factory in Netrolia, Pennsylvania for two years before moving back home. He left his family farm in Warrensville, Ohio, at the age of ten to work at the American Steel and Wire Company with two of his brothers. At the height of his employment, he was making $4 a day, a high wage at the time. After the workers of his factory went on strike, he and his brothers were fired. Czolgosz then returned to the family farm in Warrensville.
In 1898, after witnessing a series of similar strikes (many ending in violence), Czolgosz again returned home, where he was constantly at odds with his stepmother and with his family's Roman Catholic beliefs. It was later recounted that through his life he had never shown any interest in friendship or romantic relationships, and was bullied throughout his childhood by peers. He became a recluse and spent much of his time alone reading socialist and anarchist newspapers.
He was impressed after hearing a speech by the political radical Emma Goldman, he met her for the first time during one of Goldmans lectures in Cleveland in 1901. After the lecture, Czolgosz approached the speakers' platform and asked for reading recommendations. A few days later, he visited her home in Chicago and introduced himself as Nieman, but Goldman was on her way to the train station. He only had enough time to explain to her about his disappointment in Cleveland's socialists, and for Goldman to introduce him to her anarchist friends who were at the train station. She later wrote a piece in defence of Czolgosz.
Czolgosz was never known to be accepted into any anarchist group. Indeed, his fanaticism and comments about violence aroused anarchists' suspicions; some even thought he may have been a covert government agent. Furthermore, Czolgosz was known to have been a Republican (the same party as President McKinley), and had voted in the Republican primaries in Cleveland.
Czolgosz's experiences had convinced him there was a great injustice in American society, an inequality which allowed the wealthy to enrich themselves by exploiting the poor. He concluded that the reason for this was the structure of government itself. Then on July 29, 1900, King Umberto I of Italy was assassinated by avowed anarchist Gaetano Bresci. Bresci told the press he had to take matters into his own hands for the sake of the common man. The assassination sent shock waves through the American anarchist movement. In Bresci, Czolgosz found his hero: a man who had the courage to sacrifice himself for the cause. The assassination inspired Czolgosz enough that he went to the trouble to duplicate the event as much as possible, buying the same type Iver Johnson revolver Bresci had used. When he was later arrested, police found a folded newspaper clipping about Bresci in Czolgosz’s pocket.
Assassination
On August 31, 1901, Czolgosz moved to Buffalo, New York and rented a room near the site of the Pan-American Exposition. On September 6 he went to the exposition with a .32 caliber Iver-Johnson "Safety Automatic" revolver (serial #463344) he had purchased on September 2 for $4.50. With the gun wrapped in a handkerchief in his pocket, Czolgosz approached McKinley's procession, who had been standing in a receiving line outside of the Temple of Music greeting the public for several minutes. At 4:07 p.m., Czolgosz reached the front of the line. The President thrust out his hand; Czolgosz slapped it aside and shot McKinley twice at point blank range.
Members of the crowd immediately subdued Czolgosz, before the 4th Bridgade, National Guard Signal Corps and police intervened. He had been beaten so severely it was initially thought he might not live to stand trial. On September 13, the day before McKinley succumbed to his wounds, Czolgosz was transferred from the police headquarters which was undergoing repairs, to the Erie County Women's Penitentiary until the 16th, after which he was taken to the Erie County Jail before being arraigned before County Judge Emery. After the arraignment, he was transferred to Auburn State Prison.
A grand jury indicted Czolgosz, who spoke freely with his guards, yet refused all interaction with Robert C. Titus and Lorin L. Lewis, the prominent judge-turned-attorneys assigned to defend him, and with the expert sent to test his sanity. The district attorney at trial was Thomas Penny and his assistant Mr. Haller, who made a "flawless" performance. Although he answered that he was pleading "Guilty", the presiding Judge overruled and entered a "Not Guilty" plea on his behalf. He was convicted and sentenced to death on September 23, in a brief trial that lasted eight and a half hours from jury selection to verdict[citation needed]. Upon returning to Auburn Prison, he asked the Warden if this meant he would be transferred to Sing Sing to be electrocuted, and seemed surprised to learn that Auburn had its own electric chair.
Death
He was executed by electrocution, by three jolts at 1700 volts each, on October 29, 1901, in Auburn Prison in Auburn, New York. His brother Waldek and his brother-in-law Frank Bandowski were in attendance, though when Waldek asked the Warden for his brother's body to be taken for proper burial, he was informed that he "would never be able to take it away" and that crowds of people would mob him, so the body had to buried on prison grounds.
