Leon Frank Czolgosz was born on May 5, 1873. He would not even be 30 by the time he died. In the brief years he was alive, he lived up to his own morals and never faltered, not even when death came at its court appointed hour. Many thought maybe he should have, undoubtedly the man who later told a crowd of people to stop beating the kid who had just shot him. His family couldn't understand why he did what he did. Czolgosz's brother asked him, in his prison cell the night before he died, "Who got you into this scrape?" And he couldn't believe it when Leon answered, "Nobody had anything to do with it but me."
We have some information on his early life, but nothing really sticks out. As we'll learn later, he was a perfectly healthy young man, so there wasn't something psychological lurking in there from birth. It seems that he took the first step down this path during the Panic of 1893. He'd been working in a steel mill in Cleveland when the Tariff Act of 1890 went into effect.
Back then the Republicans, like their modern counterparts, were very concerned with foreign competition in the American market, as the red-white-and-blue consistently lost that particular financial duel. To discourage Americans from importing goods, a Representative, who would eventually become the President of the United States, pushed for an average 50% tariff increase. This was known as "protectionism" back then.
Instead it became one of the leading reasons the economy took a nosedive. Soon Czolgosz found his wages reduced. And then gone entirely as the mill shut down.
Out of work, he moved back in with his father, dejected and angry, trying to think of what he could do next with his life. He seethed thinking about the corporate overlords and how the system was rigged in their favor, and the greedy bastards wanted EVEN MORE money. He viewed their mere existence as a crime against humanity. How dare they do this to the working class?
It was a lonely viewpoint, but he eventually found others who thought along similar lines. This led him to the Sila Club and anarchism.
And that led him to Emma Goldman, an activist who was once referred to as the "high priestess of anarchy." He saw one of her lectures in Cleveland and struck up a fast friendship with her. She introduced him around, but he didn't like them. They weren't as dedicated as he was. They didn't have the courage of their convictions, not like Czolgosz.
She brought him by the publishers of Free Society, an anarchist newspaper. If anyone was hardcore, it would surely be them. But Czolgosz got pushy. He wanted to join a secret society. If there was a handshake, he wanted to learn it. He couldn't keep it on the downlow, and instead of being welcomed with open arms, they shoved him away. It got so bad they thought he was a spy, and the paper warned other anarchists away from him:
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.
He was the real deal, though, despite the fake name he was going under: Fred Nieman (Polish for nobody). He absolutely believed the number one problem in America could be traced back to the rich getting richer off the backs of the poor. If only someone could fix that problem.
Inspiration struck, if you could call Gaetano Bresci a muse. In Italy he'd shot King Umberto dead. Bresci said he'd done it "for the sake of the common man." Czolgosz finally had a hero to look up to. To emulate. He even got the same kind of gun Bresci had used. All he needed was the opportunity.
Which he got on September 6, 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. A powerful man was going to be meeting the public at the Temple of Music. The crowd was going to be huge. You can practically see the grin on young Czolgosz's face as he puts his gun in his pocket and gets in line to meet this great and consequential man.
After waiting what felt like forever, the crowd parted, and there stood Czolgosz's target, smiling and extending his hand to shake.
Instead Czolgosz slapped the hand away and fired his gun twice. The first hit a button and whizzed away. The second got President William McKinley in the guts, and the man who had written the Tariff Act of 1890, commonly known as the McKinley Tariff, staggered from the force.
Czolgosz tried to shoot a third time, but someone behind him hit his neck and knocked the gun away, and now every single man in the crowd piled on him, beating him mercilessly.
"I done my duty," he managed to say before the fists and clubs made mincemeat out of him.
"Go easy on him, boys," McKinley said.
The police intervened and protected Czolgosz as they took him to the station.
The wound itself wasn't bad. If McKinley had been shot today, he would have easily survived. The problem was, the surgeons couldn't find the bullet, so they stitched him up and discharged him. Did they disinfect it? No. They didn't know to do that. So septic shock set in, and he died.
As a result, Czolgosz was charged with Murder One. Weird to think about, considering the fame of his victim.
Czolgosz did not cooperate with the alienist sent to examine him. Nor did he help his own defense attorneys. When he got to court, he proudly pled guilty for the crime of assassinating the president.
The judge disagreed. He essentially said, "I think you meant not guilty." And the trial proceeded as if Czolgosz had pled not guilty instead. Which is sheer lunacy. But if you look it up, a judge does, indeed, have the authority to override a guilty plea. The purpose of this is unclear, but Czolgosz seemed determined to accept his punishment for what he undoubtedly considered his civic duty. That would rob the public of a dramatic trial, though, and the judge in this instance could not tolerate that. To quote Vonnegut, "So it goes."
His lawyers didn't bother to try. They called no witnesses. Historians believe they were more interested in maintaining their own standing in the community rather than their client's best interests. They *did* try for an insanity plea. What sane man would shoot the president in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses? But the legal definition required Czolgosz to not know his acts were wrong, and he never grew weary of assuring the judge that he knew what he'd done was illegal.
It took a jury less than 30 minutes to find him guilty. He was sentenced to death shortly thereafter. His lawyers did not appeal because Czolgosz did not want to appeal.
The night before his execution, the warden sent a couple of priests to visit with him. He turned them away. The warden then forced him to see the priests. He did not listen to them. When his brother came to visit and asked if he was sure about rejecting the priests, Czolgosz said, "I don't want any of their damned religion." He added that his brother and family should not pray over him after he's dead.
On October 29, 1901, Leon Czolgosz fried in the electric chair. His last words: "I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people--the good working people. I am not sorry for the crime. I am sorry I could not see my father."
His brother tried to claim the body to give Czolgosz a proper burial, but the warden denied him, not out of malice, but because he knew the crowd would try to accost him and steal the body.
An autopsy found Czolgosz was in good health at the time of his death, aside from scarring on his junk from a healed STD. When finished, they put his corpse in a coffin and filled it with sulfuric acid before burying it on the prison grounds. They burned all of his belongings to discourage souvenir seekers. They did not even put his name on his grave. Instead it's marked with a stone that simply says FORT HILL REMAINS.
The Exposition was torn down, and the spot where McKinley was shot in Buffalo is marked with a stone. The gun is in the Buffalo History Museum.
Emma Goldman was arrested as a co-conspirator, but she was released when the charges didn't pan out. She also wrote "The Tragedy of Buffalo," that being Czolgosz's arrest, not McKinley's death. She compared Czolgosz to Brutus, and McKinley to Caesar, "president of the money kings and trust magnates."
Later that same eventful year, Thomas Edison released a three and a half minute film called Excecution of Czolgosz with Panorama of Auburn Prison. It was a rather progressive touch. If Czolgosz had committed his crime ten years earlier, they would have simply sold postcards of his corpse with a tasteful sheet over everything from the neck down. They might have even done a stereoscope presentation for the patriot of discerning taste.
Things have not changed much since Czolgosz and McKinley met that one day in September. The money kings still run rampant, and the Brutuses spin their wheels. The same as it ever was. The former always get their way; the latter never do. Just ask a stone in Auburn, NY. And if you don't get an answer, don't bother to dig him up. Not even his bones remain. They were gone twelve hours after the acid was poured into his coffin, banishing every inch of him from the face of the earth.
