A Cowardly Attempt to
Assassinate Him at Buffalo, New York…An Anarchist’s Bloody Deed…The President
Was Holding a Reception When His Assailant Advanced With Covered Weapon and
Fired Two Shots, Both Taking Effect…Mr. McKinley’s Condition Thought to be
Favorable for Recovery
Buffalo, N.Y.—President McKinley was shot and seriously
wounded by a would-be assassin while holding a reception in the Temple of Music
at the Pan-American Exposition a few minutes after 4 o’clock Friday.
One shot took effect in the right breast, the other in the
abdomen. The first is not of a serious nature and the bullet has been
extracted. The latter pierced the abdominal wall and has not been located.
It was a few moments after 4 o’clock, while President
McKinley was holding a public reception in the great Temple of Music, on the
Pan-American grounds, that the cowardly attack was made, with what success time
alone can tell. Standing in the midst of crowds numbering thousands, surrounded
by every evidence of good will pressed by a motley throng of people, showered with
expressions of love and loyalty, besieged by multitudes all eager to clasp his
hand, amid these surroundings and with the ever-recurring plaudits of an
admiring army of sight-seers, ringing in his ears, the blow of the assassin
fell and in an instant pleasure gave way to pain, admiration to agony, folly to
fury and pandemonium followed.
Down at police headquarters, surrounded by stern-faced
inquisitors of the law, sits a medium-sized man of common-place appearance with
the gaze fixed on the floor, and listens with an air of assumed indifference to
the persistent stream of questions, arguments, objurgations and admonitions
with which his captors seek to induce or compel him to talk. The daily organ
recital in the Temple of Music witnessed the dastardly attempt.
Planned with the diabolical ingenuity and finess of which
anarchy or Nihilism is capable, the would-be assassin carried out the work
without a hitch and should his designs fail and the President survive, only to
Divine Providence can be attributed that beneficent result.
The President, though well-guarded by United States Secret
Service detectives, was fully exposed to such an attack as occurred. He stood
at the edge of the raised dais upon which stands the great pipe organ at the
east side of the magnificent structure. Throngs of people crowded in, to gaze
upon their executive, perchance to c lasp his hands, and then fight their way
out in the good-natured mob that every minute swelled and multiplied at the
points of ingress and egress to the building. The President was in a cheerful
mood and was enjoying to the full the hearty evidence of good will which
everywhere met his gaze. Upon his right stood John G. Milburn of Buffalo,
president of the Pan-American Exposition, chatting with the President and introducing
him especially persons of note who approached. Upon the President’s left stood
Mr. Cortelyou.
Then the multitude which thronged the edifice began to come
to a realizing sense of the awfulness of the scene of which they had been
unwilling witnesses. A murmur arose, spread and swelled to a hum of confusion,
then grew to a babel of sounds and later to a pandemonium of noises. The crowds
that a moment before had stood mute and motionless as in bewildered ignorance
of the enormity of the thing, now with a single impulse surged forward toward
the state of the horrid drama, while a hoarse cry welled up from a thousand
throats and a thousand men charged forward to lay hands upon the perpetrator of
the dastardly crime.
A Scene of Wild
Confusion
For a moment confusion was terrible. The crowds surged
forward regardless of consequences. Men shouted and fought, women screamed and
children cried. Some of those nearest the doors fled from the edifice in fear
of a stampede, while hundreds of others from the outside struggled blindly
forward in the effort to penetrate the crowded building and solve the mystery
of excitement and panic which every moment grew and swelled within the
congested interior of the edifice.
A Dramatic Tragedy
Inside on the slightly raised dais was enacted within those
few feverish moments a tragedy so dramtic in character, so thrilling in its
intensity, that few who looked on will ever be able to give a succinct account
of what really did transpire. Even the actors who were playing the principal
roles came out of it with blanched faces, trembling limbs and beating hearts
while their brains throbbed with a tumult of conflicting emotions which could
not be clarified into a lucid narrative of the events as they really transpired.
President Remained Calm
But of the multitude which witnessed or bore a part in the
scene of turmoil and turbulence there was but one mind which seemed to retain
its equilibrium, one hand which remained steady, one eye which gazed with
unflinching calmness and one voice which retained its even tenor and faltered
not at the most critical juncture. They were the mind and the hand and the eye
and the voice of President McKinley. After the first shock of the assassin’s
shots, he retreated a step. Then as the detectives leaped upon his assailant,
he turned, walked steadily to a chair and seated himself, at the same time
removing his hat and bowing his head in his hands. In an instant Secretary
Cortelyou and president Milburn were at his side. His waistcoat was hurriedly
opened, the President meanwhile admonishing those about him to remain calm and
telling them not to be alarmed.
“But you are wounded,” cried his secretary. “Let me examine.”
“No, I think not,” answered the President. “I am not badly
hurt, I assure you.”
President’s Assailant
Taken to Prison
The President’s assailant in the meantime had been hustled
to the rear of the building by the exposition guards, where he was held while
the building was cleared, and later he was turned over to Superintendent Bull
of the Buffalo department, who took the prisoner to No. 13 police station and
afterwards to police headquarters.
Mr. McKinley’s
Injuries
As soon as the crowd in the Temple of Music had been
dispersed sufficiently the President was removed in the automobile ambulance
and taken to the exposition hospital, where an examination was made. The best
medical skill was summoned and within a brief period several of Buffalo’s
best-known practitioners were at the patient’s side.
The President retained the full exercise of his faculties
until placed on the operating table and subjected to an anaesthetic. Upon the
first examination it was ascertained that one bullet had taken effect in the
right breast just below the nipple, causing a comparatively harmless wound. The
other took effect in the abdomen about four inches below the left nipple, four
inches to the left of the navel, and about on a level with it. Upon arrival at
the exposition hospital the second bullet wound was probed. The walls of the
abdomen were opened, but the ball was not located. The incision was hastily
closed and after a hasty consultation, it was decided to remove the patient to
the home of President Milburn.
The Assailant
Leon Czologosz, the would-be assassin has signed a
confession covering six pages of foolscap, which states that he is an anarchist
and that he became an enthusiastic member of that body through the influence of
Emma Goldman, whose writings he had read and whose lectures he had listened to.
He denices having any confederate and says he decided on the act three days ago
and bought the revolver with which the act was committed in Buffalo. He had
seven brothers and sisters in Cleveland, and the Cleveland directory has the
names of about that number living on Hosmer street and Ackland avenue, which
adjoin. Some of them are butchers and others in different trades. He is now
detained at police headquarters pending the result of the President’s injuries.
Czologosz does not appear in the least degree uneasy or penitent
for his action. He says he was induced by his attention to Emma Goldman’s
lectures and writings to decide that the present form of government in this
country was all wrong and he thought the best way to end it was by killing the
President. He shows no sign of insanity, but is very reticent about much of his
career. While acknowledging himself as anarchist, he does not state to what
branch of the organization he belongs.
Sympathetic
Resolutions
The announcement of the attempted assassination of President
McKinley brought feelings of sadness and horror to all sections of the country.
Resolutions of sympathy have been passed in all the leading cities of the South
and at Columbia, S.C., Camp Hampton, of Confederate veterans, passed strong
resolutions condemning the crime and praying for the President’s recovery. The
would-be assassin belongs to a dangerous class of foreigners, and his act comes
without any assignable reason.
The News in London
The news of the attempt upon the life of President McKinley
spread slowly in London. The first ticker reports were discredited; then, with
the confirmation and general dissemination of the news, arose a far-reaching
feeling of sorrow and indignation which, wherever Americans gathered, almost
gained the proportions of a panic, accompanied by feverish anxiety for further
details. The thousands of Americans now in London were mostly at the theatres
when the news arrived; and returning to their hotels found anxious groups of
Englishmen and Americans discussing what, without distinction of race, is
regarded as a national calamity. The announcement of the attempted
assassination was received too late for extra editions of the papers to
announce the news to the mass of the English people and they will not learn
until they take up their morning papers of the President’s injuries.
Condition
Satisfactory
Buffalo, Special.—The following bulletins were issued by the
President’s physicians:
“The President is rallying satisfactorily and is resting
comfortably; 10:50 p.m., temperature 100.4 degrees, pulse 124, respiration 24.”
At 1 a.m. Saturday the physicians issued a bulletin saying
that the President suffered no pain.
The News in
Washington
Washington, D.C., Special—The streets are thronged with
people who are eagerly seeking the latest news from the President.
Announcements through the megaphones at The Post and Star buildings that the
wounds are not necessarily fatal were cheered loud and long. The crime is contemplated
with horror. Much sentiment is expressed against foreigners and anarchist, but
more especially the latter.
The President Improving…Latest Bulletins Report His
Condition as Favorable…Buffalo, N.Y., Special…Harry Hawlkin, who left the
Milburn House at 2:30 Monday morning says: “There is no change from the
improved conditions reported by the earlier bulletins”
Buffalo, Special—Through the quiet, peaceful Sabbath every
word that came from the Milburn Lodge, in which the stricken Chief Magistrate
of the nation lies, was reassuring, and at night the chances of his recovery
are so greatly improved that all of those who have kept the patient vigil at
his bedside feel strongly that his life will be spared.
The developments of Saturday night and Sunday were dreaded,
but hour after hour passed and the distinguished patient struggling there
beneath the watchful eyes of physicians and trained nurses, showed not an unfavorable
symptom. Five times during the day the eminent doctors and surgeons assembled
for consultation and each time the verdict was unanimous that what change had
occurred was for the better. Not the slightest premonitory symptoms of periotonitis
appeared and the fresh hope born with the morning grew stronger and stronger as
the day advanced until toward the evening the confidence expressed in the
President’s recovery seemed almost too sanguine. Dr. Chas. McBarney, the famous
New York surgeon, who had been summoned in consultation, after a thorough
examination in which he said he had found not a single symptom, joined in the
last afternoon bulletin which stated that the President’ condition was satisfactory
to all the physicians present. It is not strange, therefore, that the Vice
President, the members of the cabinet and other distinguished visitors who
called came away with lighter hearts and gave expression to the most optimistic
sentiments.
And yet despite all this optimism, the President is by no
means out of danger. Not one of his physicians, not one of his advisers who is
admitted to the inner councils, has the temerity to go as far as to declare
that he is. But if his condition continues to improve for one more day, the
danger from periotonitis will have practically disappeared.
Sunday for the first time he enjoyed natural sleep. While he
was still more or less under the influence of an anaesthetic, his slumber was
restless and disturbed and did him little real good, between 9 and 4 o’clock he
had the solace of natural slumber for about four hours and the physicians
stated unofficially that his sleep had been “quiet and reposeful,” and that it
had helped the sufferer a great deal. Sunday also, for the first time
nourishment was administered. It was in liquid form and was injected
hypodermically to avoid the possibility of irritating the walls of the stomach.
The exterior wound was dressed this morning and is progressing satisfactorily.
Buffalo, Special—A member of the firm of Walbridge and Co.,
it is said, has identified the box in which the revolver with which Czolgosz
shot President McKinley as having the price marks of that firm. It is supposed
the weapon was sold on Tuesday last. It is not known whether it was personally
purchased by Czolgosz. Only the empthy box was found in Czolgosz’s bag.
Czolgosz still continues to eat well and sleep well and seems absolutely
indifferent to his fate. He makes no inquiries as t the condition of the
President and apparently cares nothing at all as to the outcome of his
injuries.
King Edward Rejoices
London, Special—The following telegram from King Edward at
Fredericksburg to the United States Ambassador Choate was received at 1 o’clock
Monday morning:
“I rejoice to hear of the favorable account of the President’s
health. God grant that his life be preserved. Edward Rex”
Confederate Veterans
Telegraph Sympathy
Mobile, Ala., Special—The following letter of sympathy was
telegraphed to Mrs. McKinley at Buffalo:
“Headquarters United Confederate Veterans, Dallas, Texas,
Sept. 8. To Mrs. Wm. McKinley, Buffalo, N.Y. The Confederate Veterans of the
Trans-Mississippi Department in common with all good citizens of the South are
indignant at the cowardly attempt to assassinate President McKinley. We all
hope that he will soon recover and be spared to his country. W.L. Cabell,
Lieut. Gen. Commanding U.C.V.”
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