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The True Story of the Assassination of
President McKinley at Buffalo
An Historic Memento of the Nation's Loss
The True Story
OF THE
Assassination
OF
President McKinley
AT
BUFFALO
WITH MANY SCENES AND PICTURES CONNECTED WITH THE
TRAGEDY, INCLUDING THE LAST TRIBUTES OF
RESPECT AT WASHINGTON AND CANTON
By RICHARD H. BARRY
who was present during the historic events, beginning with the President's visit to
Buffalo and ending with the last ceremonies at Canton
The Tra.de Supplied by the AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY &nd its Branch*
The BUFFALO NEWS COMPANY, General SeJes Agents
Buffalo, N. Y.
ROBERT ALLAN REID, Publisher
i 90 i
Copyright 1901, by Kotiert Allan Kcid. All rights reserved
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The True Story of the Assassination.
MR. McKIN I <EY was never in a more buoyant mood than on his Buffalo
trip. This was marked by all who saw him. He had the springy
step of light-heartedness and the receptive, merry eye of appreci-
ation — appreciation of the welcome that he got and of the attention shown
him. His temperament was somewhat mercurial. Depression he usually
concealed, but elation he did not attempt to hide and at the exposition he
found much to please him. There was the friendliness of the people and the
general tenor of good feeling about the city which, with a grace seldom seen,
was expressed in both the Democratic and Republican newspapers.
The visit was singularly free from all party bickering, and no petty
personality, such as frequently obtrudes, dared show itself. The exposition
had not been getting the crowds that were wanted and had looked forward to
President's Day to pull it a good ways from the financial hole it was in.
That day, September 5th, had been a good one. It had broken the record
for attendance, and the speech of the President, long considered and marking
an epoch in the history of the Republican party and in the political career of
Mr. McKinley himself, had been well received, just as his diplomatic foresight
had hoped it would.
Then there was that indescribable human roar and magnetism, unlike
any other sound in the universe, which had come to him repeatedly with its
gladsome ting. It had filtered his blood, and the morning of the second day,
Friday, Sept. 6th, found him in a particularly fine mood. He said himself
that the arduous part of the trip was over, for even after years of it he disliked
public speaking. There was before him only the pleasant ride to Niagara Falls,
with his wife and friends, away from the great curious crowd, with the delicious
memory of the applause of the preceding day fresh with him. The public
reception in the afternoon, with its half hour of deadening strain, was before,
hut the President always welcomed such opportunities for meeting the mass of
the people. He liked the contact and believed that the (lose sight they got
of the Executive's person was a simple gratification due them. Besides, it
6 3 y of the Assassination
a j»art of hi> political poli< > t<j meet and greet the public on friendly terms.
II hand lasp was known a> the n ii receptions that any
public man 1. :n Washington in a generation. He was peculiarly
tive in his . the other fully as much of sincerity a> was given —
ally more. irio>ity prom] of the attendance at these func-
I curiosity is an impersonal thing at best, and sometimes an inhuman
I the line along at the rate of 125 persons every minute.
He tried always to utter some kindly word and usual 1) that
he 11 . il affair of the meeting.
At the Nashville Exposition, in 1897, the Secretary of War, seeing the
of the President, ordered the door closed on a waiting crowd.
The order was immediately countermanded by the superior authority of the
President. He would brook nothing of the kind and insisted on treating
the people generously. At Buffalo, on the afternoon of President's Day,
there was a private reception to >ome 1500 in the Government Building.
There, after a fatiguing forenoon the President found no diffi< ulty in meet-
• he strain for twenty minutes. It was noticed, however, that it required
<>rt which, though concealed, was apparent to close observers, to
carry him through the line of invited guesl
This fatigue had disappeared on Friday, after a good night's rest and with
pleasant day ahead. In the morning, at 7 o'clock, before breakfast,
he left the house of Mr. Milburn, where he was staying, for his usual walk.
)k him, entirely unattended and carelessly playful in his enjoyment of the
wonderful crisp September atmosphere, through several blocks of Delaware,
the most beautiful avenue in Buffalo, a city of beautiful avenues.
The Milburn home is in a locality almost deserted at that early hour.
An assa ght have shot him down thus with ease, but there would
have been no scene then, merely the motive for a drama. Delaware
Avenue, in the morning of such a day, tatically oppressive with its
beauty, and no doubt the President lingered over it Fondly, without the
. the 1 rush. He was gone twenty minutes, then he went
to breakfast and then to the exposition.
\h-. Mi kinley was with him. Her presence and her continued good
feel e of much gratification to the President. She had
been with him co 1 sly throughout the trip, and had had applause
his. Another essential factor in the propitious
chat the trip was the weather. It was lair throughout. The day
of the speed at crowds had been hot — almost oppressive
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with its sticky mid-summer humidity. Then came one of those cool,
cynical-clear, Minerva-like nights that occur in the early tall in salubrious
In. It followed a day whose low-drawn languor moved with soft dalli-
aih e through the flexible humors of sensitive persons. The sun rose in a mist
on the morning ot the tragi* daj and it < ame up red — a blood red — in a gauze
of filmiest < loud that incited away before the forenoon was well advanced.
Afternoon found everything sultry and enervating, a day that took the
starch from women's i lothes and the energ) from men's bodies. The
exposition ambulance picked up three cases of heat prostration before 3
o'clock. It was a real midsummer day, such as reminds men on the fortieth
parallel that the climate of 1'orto Rico is theirs.
The President was not oppressed. His smile had never been cheerier,
ami his long rolling walk, like the spirited pace of a thoroughbred, had lost
none of its eager < harm. lie covered tin- -round with the enthusiasm of a
happy man and with the buoyancy of satisfaction. He spoke freely with his
sci retarv, Mr. Cortelyou, with Mr. Milburn. the president of the exposi-
tion, and with several local friends who made the short journey with him
to the Falls. This was uneventful. It was like that of almost any other
of the millions who have visited the exposition, except that it did not take
in the ( 'anadian side.
THE TEMPLE OF MUSIC.
The President arrived at the Temple of Music a few minutes before 4
o'clock. Mrs. McKinley had left him down town. Everything was in
readiness. 'The newspapers had not been prodigal in heralding — they were
too crowded with other things — though the noon editions bore the conspic-
uous announcement on their front pages that the President would hold a
public reception, to last about half an hour, beginning at 4 o'clock, in the
Temple of Music. The number of admissions to the exposition had been
comparatively small, for the reaction from a great day is always a great
slump. Over a hundred thousand had passed the gates on President's Day,
but at 3 o'cloi k of the following afternoon there were less than sixty thousand
persons on the grounds. Perhaps a third o\ these expected to attend the
reception in the Temple. Idlers, partisans in the lower ranks, the distant
worshipers ol greatness, and, most ot all. the intensely curious, formed the
crowd -probably 99 per cent, from the lower and lowei middle ( lasses ot
society. Gentility had had its reception on the daj preceding \ this was a
time for the common people, from the verj ranks of which the Presidenl
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had come and whose idolatrous support had given him his immense prestige.
Vs the Presidential party, preceded and loll owed by platoons of mounted
polite and hedged about bj secrel service officers, drove from the station
through a quarter-mile avenue of blue-coated exposition guards, the desultory
< rowds that lined the wa) threw out haphazard < heers. The applause at the
remple was not perfunctory. There were enough people there to create
enthusiasm and the spirit of welcome was amply present. The President
inspired a personal regard, always magnetii in such a crowd as greeted him
there, and as he bowed in measured though sincere politeness, the sweaty
e came up to him in soothing greeting — a greeting upon which his
appetite had long fed, and which he craved with much the same insistence
that prompted it.
I he entire occurrences of the two days — the beauty o\ the exposition,
his wife's continued health, the presence of his friends, the favorable recep
tion of his momentous speech, received, as he had hoped it would be,
without a full realization of its import, the propitious weather and the
strenuous applause — had by that time impregnated him with negative content
and positive buoyance. He entered the Temple by a rear door, saw- the
arrangements were complete (he did not inspect them minutely, for he
surrendered sui h details to others, and had always been lax in guarding his
person), bowed to the guards and reporters present, walked up the aisle
to the appointed station and said, pleasantly, that the place was cool.
The Temple was cool, for it had been locked up all day. This offered
relief from the swelter without and seemed worthy of its august name.
1 rom a point just north of the center, extending southeast and northwest
at a fort) five degree angle, slightly broken, were two aisles reaching from
the apex like the bend in a linger. These aisles were formed by tightly
packed folding seats, pushed back smartly, so that they formed a great
inextricable jumble, spread over the floor in reckless confusion, whose edges
at the aisle were nicely mended by long strips of purple cloth, pieced at
the end in a continuous weave of undulating imitation — invitation to the
President's stand at the tenter. There great palms lifted their somnolent,
green shade and a yellow dome, like polished amber, reflected the soft
lambent lighl that streamed in richl) from the western windows. For guards
there were the regulation exposition polue, I nited States artillery men, < ity
detectives and governmenl secrel service men.
A short lull tame, the President took his plate, Mr. Milburn at the left,
Mr. Cortelyou al the right, Detectives Ireland and foster three feet away in
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I in Trui Stor^ "i mi Assassination
LEON F. CZOLGOSZ
The Assassin.
front, several reporters behind, diplomats and offii ials surrounding, with the
guards lining the aisle.
•• Let them < ome," said the President. 'I 'he doors were opened and the
surge outside pushed in the tide o( humanity. There was the usual push,
the usual hot day sweat, the usual trodden feet, the usual quiet patience of
the waiting thousands, and soon a stead) stream ol people was being pushed
by the guards through the aisle and past the President, as logs are propelled
dow u a sluice by men with canl hooks at a spring drive. 'This c on tinned for
about eighl minutes, when there appeared at the door — unnoticed at the
t line —a well-knit young man, whose righl hand, with seeming innocence,
was in his back pocket. Thai hand held a pistol, and both were concealed
from e\rn tin- treat herous depths of the po< kel bj a dirt) rag. The rag was
a handkerchief, but it had been carried for several days and in the perspiring
President McKinley at Buffalo 13
heat no face mop was presentable after such long usage. It was a cheap
handkerchief, plain, unmarked, ordinarily small and sorely soiled, yet it held
the deadliest venom on earth.
The hand was slightly nervous, so was the man. Only a close observer
would have seen it. The precision of the next few moments would prove
that he had nerves of steel; the villain at the climax of a tragedy usually
has stage fright, and the young man has since admitted that he came within
an ace of backing out there, but was already in the Temple, while the crowd
behind made retreat impossible, and forced him slowly to the precipice. He
closed his teeth — good, white ones, though he has the fondness of a tobacco
slave for a cigar — and screwed his resolution up to the point of doing. He
was well built, had a good wiry form of medium height, an intelligent face
with a brow high but narrow, the aquiline nose of determination, a firm chin,
a coarse sensual mouth and blue German eyes. It was the head of an
egotist, the mouth of an impressionable youth, the nose and chin of a
resolute man. The eyes were responsive but not sympathetic, and at that
moment were stolid, with little of the fierce light that burns in the basilisk
iris of a fanatic. His hair was brushed in wavy brown disorder back from
his forehead. At first glance he was not a striking figure. He wore a
cheap, dark suit of woolen cloth, a flannel shirt and a string tie — all ordinary,
all unnoticeable. He appeared as a mechanic, a printer, a shipping clerk, a
worker at some high-class trade. He moved on down the line, drawing near
the President. As soon as he was well past the door he withdrew the hand-
kerchief-enclosed pistol from his pocket, holding both in front of him, as
though the hand were wounded and in a sling.
THE ASSASSIN.
This young man's history, now partly obtainable, is of interest. It is
worth tracing. His name was Leon F. Czolgosz (pronounced Tchollgosch ).
He was 28 years old, born in Detroit, Michigan. He came of poor, Polish-
German parents. The mother does not yet speak English, though she has
been in this country many years. The father was so indigent that at the
time of this writing he was about Cleveland, his present home, looking for
bread or for work, whichever should be obtainable. Czolgosz has been
slightly known to the anarchists of Chicago and the West as Fred Nieman,
a surname that in German means ''nobody." He has not been a promi-
nent anarchist and it is only as a hanger-on that he is recalled. Emma
Goldman, whose disciple he claims to be, is said to have refused him an
i4 'I'iii I 5Tom "i i mi Ass issin \ 1 ion
interview in Chicago when he asked to be accepted as a follower. loiter,
however, she talked with him. But the parasite grows the lustiest and out
ut the least promising come the best harvests. It was the last bom and the
■ despised Joseph the sou of Jacob who brought Egypt out ol (amine,
and it was also the least promising in the family, Aaron burr, who plunged
America in -loom and died a dastard's death.
Czolgosz had learned from Emma Goldman the doctrine of free
love. It is not known to what extent this influenced his life, but it
likely was strongly felt, when it is known to what extent his anarchistic
opinions led him. These opinions were imbibed from pamphlets, the
vile printed stuff that < irculates in the sewers of the world and taints
the fair name of ••literature" with its borrowed plumage. He talked
with anarchists in their haunts — in low saloons, about factories and in
dark alleys — in all the places where discontent is bred by suffering and
deadly pique. lie saw the injustice, the misery, the squalor, the cruel
wrong and the smirched existences of the nether world. With his imagina-
tion fed by vicious newspapers and by various cheap propaganda, he
saw the smug i omplai ency, the gilded hollow superiority of the self sty led upper
i lasses, all the mock pageantry and familiar la< k luster show that is the con
spicuous fact in American life. He saw government fail to govern, the police
fail to protei I and the law tail to do justice. Most of all he saw the in-
lity ofpropertj distribution. He fell the brunt of poverty and his partly
mature intelligence told him thai he deserved more than he had. He saw
the injustice and proposed revolution as a remedy. He reasoned as far as he
could see and slopped ; there was a blank wall in front of him. Ahead he
thought there was perfection ; he did not know that it hid chaos. He was
an anan hist. The in h of notoriety seized him. This was evidenced, after
he was hid behind steel bats, b) his feverish ungranted desire for the news
papers. rhe idea thai another should have prominence, plaudits, ease and
lation, while he. just as intelligent and just as deserving, was buried in
blank obscurity, maddened him. It would be better ifkingsand queens and
presidents— all who rule —were dead. Equality then would reign. He
walked the streets for weeks, slowly coming to one conclusion: he must
kill the President.
Such was the man, rightl) name 1 M Nobody," a conscienceless atom,
with a maggot in his brain, who was to inject foul murder into the fairest year
oi the Republic 's e listen* e. lifting the red hand against the kindliest of men,
placing Vmerica in the infam) ol ' >ld World treacherj and bringing to the
President McKinley at Buffalo
J 5
IRELAND AND FOSTER
Secret Service Detectives, vccompanying iiif President, who helped secure the
Assassin, at the Fatal Shooting.
infinite separate homes of the country the anguish of a personal tragedy.
There is every reason to believe that Czolgosz did not realize the enormity
of the crime he contemplated. He remembered the injunction of his mentor,
Emma Goldman, " the Medusa of Anarchists," who had told him in words
hot with passion : " If the life of a tyrant is in your way, take it. The world
will applaud your act."
He had chosen William McKinley, a kind man, whose only sin was
popularity and whose only crime was the wearing of the thankless laurel
which that shibboleth bestows. ■ — He was to do the deed in broad day, under
the golden dome of the exposition's shrine to music, whither that man had
gone to extend the right hand of good fellowship to all who came. The
dark and noisome crimes of centuries; the heinous deeds impelled by human
greed and hate ; those things which by comparison make cowards noble and
insane men wise ; those ruthless passions which through all the ages have put
i6
The True Story of the Assassination
JAMES PARKER
.Mil HERCULEAN Nei i ' .'Mill 6 INCHES I \I I . WHO
ASSIS1 ED IN SECURING 1 HI ASSASSIN.
the sting of gall in the net tar
of human life, were here to
find a link in the chain of
irrepressible events.
It pla< es America side by
side with the slimy insecurity
of the Old World. There the"
dirks have long been bran-
dished, the staccato pistols
have long reeked hot with
murderous smoke, and behind
slashed broadcloth imperial
breasts have long heat wildly
in anticipatory fear, but that
is not America. The uneasi-
ness of the head that wears a
crown should have no counter-
part in this land of the free.
The President is nothing if
not a creature of the people.
He may be created by a
coterie, may be a figurehead,
but he is heart of the people's
heart and blood of their blood.
He comes from them, is of
them and for them, and lives
a short four years as their
personified expression of ma-
terial power, to merge again
into the common bulk with
the passing of his term of
offi( e. He is not a despot,
harbors no tyranny, endures
no injustice, brooks no wrong,
rules as wisely as he can and
as justly as he may. loves his
people and should be beloved
bv them.
President McKinley at Buffalo 17
Such was President McKinley, and such is the genesis of every Chief
Executive. He has little hand in the oppression of the human race. He
lends no authoritv to the wrongs of ages. It is not through him that men
are bowed down. He cannot take the kink from social problems. He is as
impassive in the face of environment as the sphinx in the lapse of time. He
is merely the ephemeral expression of man-made power. To kill him does
not injure the institution which he typifies. Government will continue as
long as man endures. A murder will not obliterate the inertia of centuries.
It does no more than stir a ripple in the placid surface of living institutions
whose depths are greater than those of the bluest sea. Republican govern-
ment may not be of the best. Xo government is perfect, nor will it be until
man's double nature is ironed out like starched clothes under a flat iron.
But assassination will not improve the imperfection that exists for contrast
and for incentive.
A question comes to even one : Is there any sane person on the broad
earth who could deliberately shoot the President of the United States in so
cowardly a fashion ? Czolgosz was technically sane. He had his wits. He
planned his deed with the circumspection of an accomplished general, and
when it was all over nodded significantly in quiet satisfaction and said : "I
have done my duty." A State board would not send him to an asylum, but
he had a deadlier disease. It is egotism. He was an atom, one man in millions,
yet he set himself against the greatness of time, the institutions of the ages and
millions of the human race. He placed his finger on the pulse of humanity
and offered a remedy for its feverish, impetuous thrill. So far as it was in
his power he opened the jugular vein. That is the apotheosis of self, the
sublimation of the I. Don Quixote tilting at windmills formed no more
pitiable spectacle.
Czolgosz left Cleveland on Saturday. He bought the pistol at a Main
Street store in Buffalo on Friday morning. In the interval he was contem-
plating the act. In Buffalo he rented a small, cheap room at the home of a
Pole named Nowak, on Broadway, a street partly stricken with poverty. He
had not yet chosen the precise time, accessories and method for the act ;
was merely resolute in general purpose. On the morning of Friday, the
fatal day, he rose early — this is had from his confession. He was then
decided on the time. It was to be that day. The exact moment he was not
sure of. He would choose the most propitious.
After dressing, he tied in a bundle what papers he had and placed them
in an inside pocket. Breakfast he had at a cheap restaurant near the Nowak
i.x 'I'm 'I'm i Story <>i ihi Assassination
house, lie was (.-.iri) and ate with several bakery « ierk> employed next
door. One of them remembers him only as a quiet, unpretentious man.
deeply preoccupied. He wire good clothes, made to order in Chi<
when on his last visit to Emma Goldman, and his dark shirt — a
nondescript in quizzical, unknown Milor — announced his familiarity with the
department store. His trade had been that of a wire puller, never eat:
more than $g a week, hut tor iN months he had not worked. His clothes
were bought since that time ; his shirt befo
The silence, which is the one privilege Czolgosz gets for the enormous
price he pays the electrii chair,was broken to explain his source ol revenue.
'The money for this long sustenance, tin- travel and the clothes, he says,
saved at the wire mill and on a farm outside of Cleveland, where he worked
for a while.
After breakfast he went to the exposition grounds. On the way he
dropped the bundle of papers in a sewer, where they still lie in the c ity's
underground slime unfound by the most zealous scavengers. To rea< h the
•unds he passed again through the low squalor of the city. In indigent
misery smote him with only a further numb realization of tin- wro
would try to right. lie was like a man stupefied with narcotics and then
l\\ en another infusion.
The tinted colors of early fall had just touched the trees, whose deep
shade copiously conceals the seared roughness of the houses there, and mo
on past great charitable institutions, the green covered in uncut reverence
the gentle mounds of graves. The exposition was in the gardeners' mosl
eous trim, and the sun, amply translucent in its forenoon flight, was
brilliant. It seemed that if the exposition escaped suffocation in fresh
enery it mus! inevitably be drowned in sunshine. To that paradise on
earth the assassin came. The fresh glory of the autumnal morning did not
enter his soul ; the pest behind had buried its venom too deep. What un-
known muttered oaths, what dread midnight plottings, what brusque, -nailed
conspiracy, what atrocious thoughts and leering deeds must have worked
then influence in the hearl and brain of a man who could filter the elusive
strains of sweet music, catch the dashing spray from laughing ton:. t. mis. see
the swell and bulge of plastered must les in heroi< statues, know the infectious
In hu it \ ofa careless I rowd and still plot murder !
The young m. in waited. lb- got to the grounds just after 8— earl)
enough to sec the President drive through on his way to the tram foi Mi
falls, lb- had hoped there would be a chance for a shot then, but found
ao 'I'm I S v* oi rHE Ass vssin \ i i< >n
none everything was it hurry, there was no crowd and too many
rds. He kept his pistol in his po< ket and hung about with i ool assui in< e
It was then that he < hose the Temple of Musi< and made his minute plans.
i be a public reception. He would enter the line, reach the
I'ri idem and shoot him. He would fire as long as he could (there were five
chambers in the pistol, each loaded with a 32-caliber ball . he would be
ped, and then--. "Well," he said, when told that he must die, days
afterward, " that ua> the expe< tation from the beginn 1
There was an immense, sonorous pipe organ in the Temple — one of the
largest and one of the best ever built. An organist was playing. At the
moment he had opened the lower diapason foi a Bach sonata -a negatively
invocation, charged with all the tremendous emotional and subtle
aesthetic power thai that master possesses. Its tremulous pulsation caused by
the magnify ent a< oustii s of the building sun harged the mellow air with in-
tense unfelt weight — not oppressive, but formidable, like the deep displai e
mi nt of a man-of-war. It was a solemn, solvent setting for the 1 ene
to follow.
< olgosz was in the line, slowly moving toward the President, for from
four to five minutes. Behind him was a tightly-packed crowd which
blocked retreat. < )u all sides were alert guards, likely to dete< t his diaboli* al
intention at any moment. A few steps away was the Presidenl — coming
nearer, nearer — and there was to be the test of his resolution, there awaited
success and death, or failure and disgrace. In those few minutes he
must have experienced Macbeth's anguish between the "conception of
the deed and the doing The Chinese torture a man by slowly drop-
ping water on his shaved and immovably-bound head, and a day brings in-
sanity; Edgar Allan Poe pictures the frozen horror of the victim of the
swinging pendulum, who la) in (hams and watched the knife approach his
throat by steadily lessening inches; but neither, as a nerve test, could be
cruciating than this assassin's wait. He deserved the stinging epithet
that Miles bestowed on Geronimo "a tiger of the human race"; he was a
hyena stalking uncons< ious game, he was a beast devoid of finer feeling, de-
void of pity, devoid of wisdom, but he stood the fire test to which the weak
cla) in poor potter] succumbs and tame out a hardened vessel.
11 1 1 si i< )< >ting.
'The si e ne itself is but partialis tobe des< ribed, Or rat he 1 to be desi ribed
from var) les, no one of which is obtuse enough to comprehend the
President McKinley at Buffalo
DR. MATTHEW D. MANN
the Surgeon who performed the Operation.
gaps left by the others, for though hundreds were there, the k\v minutes of
the shots and their denouement have left an inextricable tangle, about which
everyone is sure of the exact happening and about which no two stories
agree.
A detective saw the swathed fist and said in passing comment :
" This man has a sore hand."
Another had an inkling of suspicion. "I don't know about that," he
said, and reached for Czolgosz's arm. It was too late .' The first shot came,
low — hardly louder than a cap pistol — then the second, as quick as the self-
cocking trigger could work. A vague, startled thrill spread through the
crowd ; it had been hit a stunning blow and for the moment was numb.
About the President action was decisive, sharp, bewildering. A dozen men
leaped for the assassin. A big negro, James Parker, burst through the crowd
Thi I 3 rHE Ass vssin vtion
and elbowed stance which was too late. George
vernmenl rvice man, in momentary hot revenge, had
smashed the : i e, the blood spurting to the tloor, where the two
were grapplii ( desperate last shot, his face smeared
bleary with tigerish emotion. But his shots, so
e that the peppery powder mottled the President's white vest for many
inches with itful black, had been fatal, ami the artilleryman
who kickt his hand got merely cold satisfaction for his rescue.
The marines of the Preside! d had meanwhile charged the crowd with
fixed bayonets, crying, "Clear out, you sons of ," and were pricking
some in driving them from the Temple.
The President was singularly calm. Ahuge, deep rooted mountain oak,
lightning stricken, stands as he stood then— alone, transfigured, mystified and
silent — before toppling fall. Those who saw that face and noted its
sweel grandeur and its indefinable surprised pathos will carry the memory to
the grave. 'The Presidenl had been greeting little children and had just
courteously bowed to an old man. He was cheery, light hearted, kindly,
patient — such was his nature — and at that moment he was in the heydcy of
Suddenly there was inje< ted into his life this foul, dank crime,
blacker than night, more hideous than a dungeon's horrors. It was the en-
vious Casca stabbing in the ne< k while truckling with a sycophant's leer ; but
ar exclaiming, "Et tu, Brute ! " could have shown no greater pity and
I reater wounded confidence than did Presidenl M< Kinleyat that supreme
juncture. Hi- shoulders straightened to their fullest, broadest heighl and he
quietly surveyed the fiend still holding the smoking, hidden pistol before
him. The smile, with its dimpled placid sunniness, left his face, his white
lips pres ed each other in a rigid line, their convex curving ends lost
in the sunken i ontour of his mouth, and then for the briefest instant his
assumed the penetration of a man who reads men a^ other men
read books. For that space of time, measured by hardl) more than the wink
ol an eye-lash, the two— assassin and victim— confronted each other. A
multiplicity of emotion- showed in the President's face, but two were lack-
ing. There was neither feai nor anger. First there was surprise, then
reproach, then pity, benevolence, compassion, a sympathy for the wretch,
and then an inkling of astounded horror as he realized the enormity of the
attai k, and finall) as the assassin was felled to the floor his great eyes welled
with gentle pa ion and a tear on each cheek told of < aim and chastened
appeal foi him who broughl death thai wonderful, Mack day. He did not
President McKinley at Buffalo
2 3
MISS KATHERINE SIMMONS AND MISS MAY D. BARNES
the Nurses who attended upon the President and Surgeons at the Operation
at the Exposition Hospital.
once lose consciousness nor self-possession. Such a scene was never looked
upon before and probably never will occur again. Never was dignity better
exemplified, yet it was pathetic. Though hope came afterward, no one then
doubted that the President had been fatally wounded. His faithful secretary,
George B. Cortelyou, a man of thin and resolute physique, of wiry courage
and canny calmness, was more self-possessed than any other save the
President. He caught his chief as he fell and with the help of John G.
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2 5
JOHN G. MILBURN
President of the Pan-American Exposition.
Milburn, president of the exposition, carried him to a nearby bench. Mr.
Cortelyou leaned over the President and asked him if he suffered much pain.
The President slowly drew his hand to his bosom, fumbled at his shirt and
reached within, groped there with his fingers for a moment, then drew them
forth, dabbled with blood.
" This pains me," he said. It was the breast wound, not even serious,
while the abdominal shot proved fatal. Then followed a moment of silence,
during which the ambulance was being called and the prisoner secured. The
President could be seen again moving his fingers inside and under his shirt
bosom. He was calm, quiet, conscious, dignified. The movement to his
breast was half halting, like a man groping in the dark, for he seemed dazed,
though fully alive to the situation — just as a man in a trance who realizes all
Till i - I'HE ASS VSSIN \l II IN
tha; about him and yet is completely above the passing of the events,
hand cai gain. He looked at the bloody fingers with circum-
tion but with no < ritical examination, as if mental!}- commenting on his
own I drawn by an assassin — it might be his life's blood
Hie hand dropped to de as of no further consequence — it had
the condition — and he stared into the fili-
ed wall opposite, where the ent afternoon shadows were mal
figured tapestry with the reflected light from the tawny-amber dome al
and sit there blankly conscious, introspective with deep preoccupation.
I here were tears in man) eyes. Respect withheld what might have
i a curious crowd. The minutes slowly dragged their sullen feet away
ooi there was -till some belated scuffling with the prisoner.
I he President noted it and was drawn by its disturbing clatter from the repose
ilation to which he had been brought.
"Be easy with him, boys," he said, and then relapsed again for just
the briefest space, the intervals all being hardl) noticeable in point of time,
i revived and whispered the name of his secretary. Mr. Cortelyou bent
him and heard, spoken slowly:
" My wife don'l let her know of this and if she does don't let it be
exaggerated." At thai moment Mr. Buchanan, the director-general of the
exposition, was admitted to the Temple. He found his way to within a few
steps of the President, who re< ognized him and who had by that time taken
wakeful observation of the happenings about him. He looked in Mr.
I'.ik hanan's dire* tion and as the other approached nearer said :
■• I am sorry that thi> should have happened at the exposition."
Tho thoughts were uppermost in his mind : desire for fair play
with the assassin, anxiety for his wife, and regret for the hint the exposition
might receive. The arrival of the ambulance was six minutes after the
shooting and throughout the ride to the hospital the President sat up.
RECEPTION OF II IE NEWS.
It was outside the Temple of Music, about the exposition grounds, in
the i it) oi Buffalo, all over the United States and throughout the whole world
that the new ipread like a < onflagration, ever widening in its grievous circle.
It was but twentv years since Garfield had been assassinated and the memory
oi .1 single generation comprised the murder of another President; that a
third should fall b) a venomous bullet seemed incredible. A more unlikely
tune for sue h a d<.-n\ c ould not be imagined. There was no personal ill will
MRS. McKINLKV
'I'm I I- ' I S I • .1 ■ '. i H I HI Vss ISSIN \ l U >N
\|;M.R McKINLEY
her "i iiu President, reading \ special Bulletin as he returns from
I III Mil BURN M.wsn IN.
toward the wounded man. The fratri< idal heat in which Lincoln was killed
olitical frenz) that brought Garfield's doom were alike unknown.
I in the freest countrj on earth and in the fairest year of its exist-
ence. It is probable that never before in history had the expression "Like
thunder froin a clear sk) " been more apropos. The incredulous way in
whi< h the news was re< eived was everywhere alike and one instance will show
the pe< uhai tenor of the feeling.
In the Ohio Building at the exposition, the commissioners in their fro k
rid their ladies in evening gowns were awaiting the conclusion of the
reception in tin- Temple, for the President was scheduled to visit them there
immediately to pay his n i his home State. A man came in the rear
entrance and announced that the President had been shot. No one paid
President McKinley at Buffalo
MRS. DUNCAN AND MISS ALICE McKINLEY
Sistkks of the President, with Escorts, after visiting him during the days of
suspense at the mllburn residence.
much attention to him at first and then one of the hangers-on told him he
was crazy. He persisted, hunted up one of the commissioners and told him.
A bystander heard the remark and said with quizzical foolishness, like the
dash of farce that Shakespeare puts in his blackest tragedies :
"Yes, I suppose so. Shot with a camera." And with that the incident
passed in the light talk of the afternoon. But the man with the rumor was
not to be downed, and finally in response to the expressed alarm of several
of the ladies two of the men started out to investigate. When they reached
the Triumphal Bridge they saw the doors of the Temple closed, a great,
hushed, awesome crowd outside and a portentous stillness in the air. Some-
thing had surely happened !
Everyone knew that the President had been taken to the hospital, but
3°
l ie Assassination
SI N ITOR MARK H.ANNA
HASTENING rO III- SID] AFTER 1 II 1 -HOOTING.
[TING \ i I ill Mil l.i KN M VNSIl IN.
that the assassin was still inside ami no one moved. The
: was with the man who had done the deed. Ik- was about to
l . knew what to expei t . would he he lynched, would
i with him or would they take him off slowly and give the
• : 1 a < han. i mpse of him ? Some hah suspected that he might rise
i anger, e ofl his captors and -hoot al the crowd itself; others
not believe that th< Pr< dent had been shot at all. There seemed
to be ■ alization of the catastrophe.
1 a and unsuspected that few felt its poignant pang;
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thr : and long-drawn tapering thrill of vengeful
e home.
the midst of it the dooi Idenly thrown i the assassin
appeared and halted there in full sight for the briefest instant — a pale, deter-
i ni i .< ed man. 'The brilliant afternoon sun stretched its searching
■ len finials of the western buildings and lit his defiant bust
with ollar was gone — lost in the a uffle — and his flannel
shirt, torn open at the throat, revealed a hard and s< rawny ne< k. His* hestnul
red in the glinting sunlight, mat< hed his Mood smeared cheeks,
and hi> whole air bespoke the conviction of a man who "had done his duty,"
>nly reply he would make when asked why he had fired the
shots. That pause, with its sight of the assassin, was short hut intense. It
brought its reply straight in the teeth of the dare-devil courage of the young
man.
"Lynch him," tailed several. These cries were not pronounced or
ni/ed. No impetuous frenzy had yet seized the crowd. It seemed as
though nearly everyone for the moment had lost all sense of outrage and of
revenue. What cries there were were scattered and sporadic. There was
unrest and muttered discontent and imprecation. Here and there a man
pushed forward, and at one place a brawny negro rushed to the front yelling
for a rope and in a sweaty hum kno< ked down three women, but there was
no lyni hing. The marines were steadfast, and through the narrow lane they
formed with their turned backs the detet tives hurried ( '/olgosz to a covered
carriage and jumped in with him. The coachman hit the horses a terrific
c ut. The) bounded out as from released catapaultS and the icw who grasped
the wheels in vain hope of staying the flight to unmerited safety were jerked
from their feet. On through the prepared lane the horses sprang at a swing-
in- gallop, over the Triumphal Bridge, which the day before had been the
scene of the wildest, most buoyant welcome, through the long, beautiful
residence avenues, to downtown, tour miles away, and the assassin was site.
The surgeons -the best in Buffalo— who had been tailed in, dei ided
that an immediate operation was necessary. The President had been twice
hit, the first shot striking the breast bone and glan< ing oil with onlj a slight
abrasion of the skin, but the second and fatal one had entered the abdomen
and had pierced the stomach twice, burying itself in the fleshy muscles of the
bat k. It has never been found. \n hour and fifteen minutes after the
oting the President was unconst ious with the ether thai had been given him.
When asked if the operation should be performed, he replied :
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•■ 1 am in your hands. You know what is best. I*" that," and then
he muttered slowly to himself:
•• lh\ k . Thy will be dune "
are merely similar to those of any other
; the surgical term for it An incision was made in
»men by Dr. Matthew D Mann, the operating surgeon, the stomach
turned and the ti irations made by the bullet sewn up, the wound
ly i leansed, the stoma< h replai ed, the incision sewn and the effe< ts
of the ether dissipated. The President was then removed to the home of
Mi Milburn on Delaware Avenue.
the next six days hope mounted high. Everyone except the chronic
nblers thought the President would recover. Senator Hanna, his life-
adfast friend, saw a rainbow in the sky and declared he believed in
"the M< Kmley ->tar,'' and Vice President Roosevelt, who had hurried on a
-],<■. ial tram to the bedside of the President, was so se< ure in his belief that
he l< ida< ks, put civilization behind him and when he was
next wanted was fort) two miles from a telegraph wire. The newspapers
and the country looked for slow recovery and were counting the period of ex-
pected convalescence. The Buffalo papers were rather gleefully commenting
bility of the i ity be< oming what Se< retary Root de< lared it might
ime, "the summer capital." Even the doctors were deceived. There
were several indications, however, that the President was not yet pasl the
danger point ; the feeding of food by injection became impossible because
ol threatened inflammation and on Thursday morning it was de< ided to give
him a light breakfast. lb- had toast, coffee, chicken broth, beef juice and
finished with rare relish by asking for a cigar. That day. considering every-
thing : remarkably brighl one. The weather was perfect and the
in the road to rei over) .
II II LAST DAY.
Thursday night broughl the fn I ign oi danger. Hie physicians
ed to give their patient violent purgatives and at 2:30 o'< lo« k of
I ■ da) morning the collapse came. His life for the next twenty-four hours
.in artii'n ial one That Friday fell on the 13th — doubly an unlucky daw
cit) woke to get the fateful news that the President's pulse had almost
ed its throb and from then on the tell tale mini ingS Of the Official bulletins
ht merel) vai of a " hope against hope. "
I lieie was a time through the morning when to ho] eseemed reasonable.
Thi l - • "i nil Assassination
■! temperature had -one back to their normal condition of the
day before, but when Secretar) l i lar afternoon visit to
the newspapei , said with words which had been well
ied : "Ift ntil morning there will be grounds for hope,"
the immediate analysis brought the conviction that there really was no ground
for hope I I the < ity, from then on, the fai t of grave danger was
.: that the air was charged with the momentous import of the
situation.
In the sii k room the day had been one of battle — a battle against death ;
and outside, to the world uhii h did not know the details of that fierce fight,
there was just as hard a sti nst the deadening tear of the worst. No
wished to admit the grievous fact, but the conclusion was irresistible.
1 h person who came from the Milburn house — physicians, cabinet minis :
i ernors and members of the family — brought through the
afternoon the word : •• He is in peril." and as the careless radiance of the
..int exposition beyond lit it> way into the starry sky all that could be
s.iid by anybody was : " He is still alive.
i »n thai last -ray and awful night as the great heart beat slower, each
le minute keeping Mire count for the last lingering run of the life-sands,
the tension among the wan hers grew. It became a tremendous pressure.
The < re.ik of a -entry'- boot on the pavement in front of the Milburn house,
where armed guards paced with (lock like regularity, brought < piick response
from the newspaper men across the street, rhere were more than ioo of
them. It was no idle croud, such as gathered down town swearing feeble
vengeam e against the triumphant murderer. Each was a picked man, chosen
for experiem e and skill. The chief papers ot Christendom and many of
the minor one- were represented there. This immense tongue, which was to
tell the fateful new - to So, 000,000 of William McKinley's fellow citizens and
io other million- waiting wherever the telegraph toll- its disturbing click, was
hushed in awful preparation tor it- direful loosening. At the word, that
avalani lie ol new- was to be poured onto the world — a thunderbolt from
the 1
rhe moments dragged, each one heavy with expectancy and each one
supposed to be tli'- : ' Mi-. McKinlej was induced to take rest and the
entire number oi those who waited were in the condition of a condemned
man waiting lor the rope to drop A heart specialist from Washington ar-
rived it midnight, at record breaking pace, in an electric automobile, but it
\'..i • 10 lati I 1 "1 Himself could not have turned the hour glass back then.
Tin I i:i i S'rom oi i hi Ass vssin vtion.
end came quietly, like the ebbing of the i itlc-. at that indistinct time of
morning when lives most frequently go out.
The President had been unconscious for seven hour-: he died at 2
In the 1 iefore lapsing into mere breathing life, there oc< urred that
spiritual uplift which was t<> place the final, lasting purport of a sa< red hene-
<lii tion on hi I effort. As his soul reeled on the brink for that 1
moment before it- dis I tere came to him a Hitting
•f time wherein the memor) of hi- long life of deeds and thoughts,
hildren and hi- friend-, passed before him like the phantasmia
dream, and with that vision in his ahead} death glazed eyes he murmur-
'. ly :
■ • rood —bye -all. — good — bye ! — It — is — God's — way. — I lis — will,—
not — our-. — be — done.
The rest was silem e. With that resignation in his heart he found eter-
uitv. It was a simple, manly death — a death worthy the President of the
1 d State-.
II II FUNERAL.
I here were three funerals — one at the MilUirn house in Buffalo ; One
along historii Pennsylvania Avenue, where the victorious armies of- Grant
and Lincoln had trod in elate confidence, and down which the dead President
had twit e man hed in triumphant inauguration ; and. the last, a simple country
burial pr< . magnified to collossal proportions, passing through the
crowded, silent streets of the inland city of Canton. The details of that
three day- - journey from the greensward of populous Buffalo to the velvet of
the Ohio meadow- are alike in showing suppressed, inexpressible emotion. It
perhaps tin- most heart telt pageant that ever passed through this broad
I 1 home was a house of mourning, the cities were draped in
black, and the States stood like crepe-veiled sisters, hand in hand in silent,
■ 1 hi.
The hundreds of thousands who viewed the remain- were hut a small
ed forward for a chance. In Buffalo the crowds
II ill on Sunday afternoon were such that for four blocks the
mpassable ; a solid wall, broken only by the buildings, stretched
back in patu-m confusion, rath individual arrayed in Sunday finery, and each
dripping with the soaking rain that poured down without let. Two days
. in Washington, the< rowd that pressed forward at the Capitol found the
(drenching, and met it with the same determined patience, and even in
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President McKinley at Buffalo
41
FUNERAL ARCH
Erected by School Children of Canton.
little Canton, swelled to three times its normal population by the influx of
mourning guests, the entire afternoon was amply busy with those who
demanded a last farewell.
The journey to Washington was through as fair a country as the sun
ever shone upon — too fair a country for so foul a crime. The autumn haze
was in the air and the early fall foliage was just tinctured with gorgeous
sunset colors. On the placid breasts of the Pennsylvania rivers, the winding
Susquehanna and the blue Juanita, the sun glinted back in effervescent freshness,
and the crisp air — so crisp that the toll of a somnolent bell from miles away
sounded through the stillness like an ever-present tireless avenger — put the vital
thrill of mettlesome delight in all veins. It was a mockery of the black fact
that within the Pullman car " Pacific," the William McKinley who two weeks
before had journeyed in it in his finest health lay there now, his brow pencilled
pallid and his right arm covering in gentle reverence the ugly hole torn by
the assassin's bullet.
The run was straight through western New York, where the cornfields
42
In i Tri i Shun in i in Assassination
BIRTHPLACE OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY, NILES, OHIO.
were mellow for the sickle, over the Keating ridge that scars the country
there like a huge wart, down to the valley of the Susquehanna, a pale and
limpid stream drilling along in midsummer idleness, into the foothills of
the eastern Rockies, the coal fields o\ Pennsylvania; up, up, through ravines,
down quiet, hump-backed valleys, up again, farther, to the mountains where
the Alleghany chestnuts, just touched with the first light frosts, lift their
splendid heads of amber gold and russet brown, past distant, misty North
.Mountain, the highest point in the Keystone State, coursing in mild fury,
as though eager to bear the ill-omened burden, through the towns of Sun-
bury and Williamsport, into the capital city of Harrisburg, over the mile-
long suspension bridge, down a< ross the southwest corner of the State, cutting
through Maryland, arriving at sunset at the colonial, wealth) citj of Balti-
more, then turning face about and pulling in with subtle, sullen thrill to
the capital of the nation, the citv where William Mckinley's lite work had
been accomplished, and whose heart and brain will publish his fair lame
throughout the earth.
44 I hi Ti - , 01 thi Assassination
This journey, and the one of two days later, back through Pennsylvania
into the mellow fields of Ohio, was a hopeless one. It passed through
■ es draped in black, was met with reverent, bared heads, and bore with it
piteous death. Flowers were profuse; they covered the
d-bed in almost a continuous path of kind remembrance. At the cities,
d es met the train with an unexpressed wail of the nation's grief.
Each case was like every other. There was the waiting depot, the arriving
n, and then the hats began to doff, one by one. first on the near side of
the < rowd, then on the other until ah were silently uncovered. Through the
stillness came the perpetual clang of tolling church bells, and at the large
jila<< himes pealed out the stately ••Nearer My God To Thee."
while at others, young women with sad, sweet voices chanted some
•• Miserere " to the sun harged d I !hopin and T< haikowsky.
Every one came. It was no funeral of class or condition. That proces-
sion up Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington was called a State funeral, but the
people were the one- who buried their Chief, and the people accompanied
him to hi- grave. They stood in depressed respe< t along the entire thousand-
mile journey, and they were of no one < lass, condition, age or sex. Babies in
arm- were frequent, and occasionally at the end of a line of war-worn
veterans, some white-haired, one-armed man, hatlcss, the tears streaming
down his cheeks, stood holding a drooping flag in silent benediction. When
the train — it stopped nowhere except for coal and water — came in sight of
the towns and cities, the long lines drawn up by the track became suddenly
silent. The shutters of frequent cameras were snapped far in advance, and
as it passed on the men who pressed the buttons stood in mute attention.
Then came the crowd itself, composed of mechanics and of workers in all
the trade-, of Grand Army men — there were thousands of such — of the local
militia, drawn up at attention, presenting arms to the cortege, and chiefly of
children. All the school children along the way seemed to have turned out
to honor the passing grief. In the country the people stood in long line-.
At the ci carriages were lined. Workers in the fields, at the
plow ami a! threshers, in the com fields and the potato pan lies, waited with
arm- folded and hats off. There was no waxing of handkeri hiefs, no hurrahs,
none of the excitement that usually accompanies a train arrival.
I he iidc on Monday Qight, through the lambent, rain puddled streets of
Washington, I Roomol the White House, where the casket was laid
undei tin- ■ rystal chandelier, was impressive with its solemn, symboli< awe.
No 0n< e-< aped the -net of this return of death to the c it) ol lite and work.
46 'I'm i i Story 01 i mi Ass vssin \ i u <\
The partial apathy of Washington i used to great events and ordinarily
hungry tor a - as not repeated elsewhere. Al 'anion the city was in
the condition of the town clock, which had hern stopped at 2:15. the- hour
at which, tour days previous, the President had died. It was the most silent,
d, sa< redly solemn assemblage thai the place had ever held. The number
gathered was tremendous. Nearly the entire population of Stark County
came, and from the State and neighboring States the reverent and the curious
I red in. The entire Ohio Militia — <Sooo strong — was there. Knights
Templar, Masonii orders, the < ><\i\ Fellows and Grand Army men filled the
streets with their burnished regalia. < >n one of the « hief an hes, ere< ted by
the public schools, was printed : "He loved us" and "We loved him."
This was only the outward and manifest expression of the feeling whi< h evi-
dently lay deep in all. The march up the main street the morning of the
arn\al. with the tremulous, ineffable mournfulness of "Free as a Bird" in
the overwrought air — simple, homely tunes always sink in farthest — was
deeply impressive ; more so than the gorgeous pageant of generals and regu-
lar troops that filed down Pennsylvania Avenue in the drizzly rain the day
before.
The final funeral — that which brought a culmination to the mournful
journey begun in Iiuffalo four days previous — held among the neighbors and
friends of William M< Kinley, and attended by the massive dignity of the
chief men of the nation, will leave its memory stamped deep in all of those
who saw its stately march and who felt its pitiful resignation. The number
who will bear that memory is considerably oxer 100,000 — a far greater crowd
than has ever walked the streets of that < >hio town at one time before. The
mournful magnificence of the funeral procession was an event. To Mrs.
M( Kinley and to others of the family the day was a single blank of drab grief;
but the spectacle to others was both inspiring and depressing, both subdued
and bold.
Imagine a hearse like a polished piece blocked from the night, small
and oblong, but almost appalling with its simply dignity, drawn by horses
jusl as l.hu k, carrying for its burden all that remains of the late President of
the Idled States ; preceded by its guard of honor. President Roosevelt, the
cabinet, and the generals and admirals of the United States ; followed by the
hist tottering veterans of the 23d Ohio, the regiment in which William
McKinley fought for the preservation of the Union, and then by regiment
imenl of volunteer infantry, by corps after corps of Masonii orders,
bj companj alter company of regally-accoutred Knights Templar, and by
THE RECEIVING TOMB, WEST LAWN CEMETERY, CANTON
THE RESTING II Ac 1 OF 1111 BODY <>l PRESIDENT Ml'KlNLEY, WHICH
WILL BE GUARDED DAY AND NIGHT FOR rWO YEARS.
THE McKINLEY 151 RIAL LOT, WEST LAWN CEMETERY
WHERE THI McKlNLEI CHILDREN \il BURIED. Wl> WHER1 I 111 PRESIDENT'S BODY WILL REPOSE.
fcAR
48
'I'm True Story of mi Assassinatio
L1BKHKY Uh LUNOKtbb
013 903 248 2 £
land after band playing dirges and slow hymns: on each side of a mile
long avenue, solid blocks of people reach back until broken into segments
by the intervening cornices of houses, and even then some places overrun
with a multitude that swarms on roofs and over high built bridges j then
add a gray sky thai frowns like a pall, and the magnificent picture of sad,
.sweet desolation is complete.
In the midst of that fair country, where the bosom of a gently-heaving
hill is cloven 1>\ the upthrust of a spear of granite, all that was morta
William M< Kinlev was laid .it resl that gloomy afternoon. And at the d
of the last resting pla< e, while " Taps " rang out from • in umambient bugles,
and as the grilles of the charnel house were closed forever on that loved
form, a new President, shaken by sorrow but erect in virile manhood, stood
with the unshed tears visible in his overwrought countenance, paused for a
moment before 1 losely embra< ing (lowers of the almost buried tomb, glanced
at the sky, s;uv a rift in its sullen tapestry, and walked back to his waiting
people with that heritage of thankless grandeur in his memory and the
destiny of a path of peace awaiting his approach.
II'I.I'I I I 1EC1 >K VTION!
\ I
LJNERA1 SER\ I' :ES, C \n "!'• »N
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
013 903 248 2
