Furman University

The Terrorist Act of September 6, 1901

The horrific events of September 11 have awakened us to the baffling brutality of terrorism. While the carnage of the assaults is unprecedented, such calculated violence aimed at breaking the American spirit has occurred before. In fact, exactly 100 years ago, the United States was draped in a similar state of mourning and loss. Yet the nation survived that terrorist crisis without sacrificing its freedoms or its sense of justice.

The event that provoked such national despair was the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6, 1901. He was killed by a professed anarchist.named Leon Czolgosz.
The 58-year-old McKinley, a native of Ohio, was in his second term as president, having defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in 1900, for the second time. McKinley was riding a wave of popularity when he visited the sprawling Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. The United States had just won the Spanish-American War, and the economy was enjoying a robust recovery.

On September 6th McKinley arrived at the Exposition's Temple of Music for a speech and reception. After his address, an enormous crowd rushed to the stage, and the genial McKinley began greeting the well-wishers. When the president reached forward to shake Czolgosz's hand, the assassin raised a revolver concealed in a handkerchief and fired two shots. One bullet grazed the president's breast and did little harm. But the second entered the abdomen, penetrated the stomach, and lodged in his back. Pandemonium ensued. As McKinley clutched his mid-section and fell into the arms of an aide, agents knocked Czolgosz to the ground and began pummeling him. The wounded president pleaded, "Don't let them hurt him. Be easy with him, boys."

Meanwhile, the bloodied assassin was hauled off to police headquarters. The 28-year-old son of Polish immigrants, Leon Czolgosz (pronounced Choal-gosh) was an unemployed laborer who had embraced anarchism, a political philosophy then popular in Europe that rejected all forms of government. Militant anarchists at the turn of the century believed that all rulers were the enemy of the people. Anarchists had recently assassinated King Humbert of Italy and were plotting to kill more European leaders.

McKinley's surgeon was initially optimistic that the president would recover. Within a few days, however, gangrene set in and McKinley faded quickly. In his final hours, the president called together his friends and his wife, Ida. "Good-bye---good bye, all," he said on September 13, just hours before dying. "It is God's way. His will, not ours, be done."

The president's death stunned the nation. Newspapers were bordered in black, flags were lowered, the stock market plummeted, and the entire nation grieved. After McKinley's burial, a wave of vindictive anger spread through America. Vigilantism ran amok. Vengeful mobs gathered outside the Buffalo jail where Czolgosz was awaiting trial. "Lynch him!" "Hang him!" the crowd demanded. The enraged country demanded that the assassin be executed and that all anarchists be arrested and deported. Federal agents fanned out across the nation, seeking out possible accomplices, and questioning hundreds of anarchist sympathizers.

In the end, however, investigators determined that Czolgosz had acted alone. His trial in late September lasted only eight hours and 25 minutes. The verdict was uncontested. Czolgosz's final words before his October electrocution did little to ease American concerns. "I killed the president," he said, "because he was an enemy of good people, good working people. I am not sorry for my crime."

After Vice President Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency, he braced the nation for more acts of terrorism, but reassured the public that democracy would prevail. "Anarchy is a crime against the whole human race and all mankind should band against the anarchist," he told Congress. "This great country will not fall into anarchy, and if anarchists should ever become a serious menace to its institutions, they would not merely be stamped out but would involve in their own ruin every active or passive sympathizer with their doctrines."

The threat of widespread anarchy soon subsided, and the nation gradually returned to its normal routine and everyday concerns. Roosevelt's energy and vision helped restore public confidence. Of course, absorbing a single tragic death by a single assassin was much easier than our current challenge of countering an elusive network of terrorism. But with wise planning, judicious actions, and patient persistence, we too will prevail, and America will once again emerge from the shadow of fear and tragedy a stronger and more secure republic.