 |
1901 ELECTRIC CHAIR EXECUTION Leon Czolgosz PRESIDENT McKINLEY ASSASSIN-LARGE [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1901-electric-chair-execution-leon-403288485] |
On this date, October 29, 1901, the assassin of President William McKinley, Leon Czolgosz was executed by the electric chair in Auburn Prison in New York. He was executed on Oct. 29, 53 days after the crime and 47 after the president’s death. I personally wish that the death penalty could be enforced in a swift and sure manner like they did in those years where the crime is guilty beyond any doubt.
I
will post information about this assassin from Wikipedia and some other links.
 |
| Leon Czolgosz |
Born
|
May 5, 1873
Alpena, Michigan, U.S. |
Died
|
October 29, 1901 (aged 28)
Auburn, New York, U.S. |
Charge(s)
|
First-degree murder
|
Conviction(s)
|
Assassination of William McKinley
|
Penalty
|
Death
|
Conviction status
|
Executed by electric chair
|
Occupation
|
Steel worker
|
Parents
|
Mary (Nowak) and Paul Czolgosz
|
Leon Frank Czolgosz (Polish form: Czołgosz, May 5, 1873 – October 29,
1901; also used surname "Nieman" and variations thereof) was the assassin
of U.S. President William McKinley.
In
the last few years of his life, he claimed to have been heavily influenced by anarchists
such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.
Early
life
Czolgosz
was born in Alpena, Michigan, in 1873, one of eight children of Paul Czolgosz
and his wife Mary Nowak, Polish Catholic immigrants.
Czolgosz's
ancestors were probably from what is now Belarus. His father may have migrated
to the US in the 1860s from Astravyets near Vilnius. When he arrived in the
United States, he gave his ethnicity as Hungarian and changed the spelling of
his surname from Zholhus (Жолгусь, Żołguś) to Czolgosz.
The
Czolgosz family moved to Detroit when Leon was five. At the age of 10, he left
his family's farm in Warrensville Township, Ohio, to work at the American Steel
and Wire Company with two of his older brothers. When the workers of his
factory went on strike, Leon and his brothers were fired and returned to the
family farm. When he was sixteen, he went to work in a glass factory in Natrona,
Pennsylvania, returning home two years later.
 |
|
Mugshots of Leon Czolgosz from after his
arrest for the assassination of US President William McKinley in 1901. Police
mug shot of Leon Czolgosz #757.
|
Interest
in anarchism
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 throughout
his life he had never shown any interest in friendship or romantic
relationships, and was bullied during 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, whom he met for the first time during one of her 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 {No man}, 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
defense of Czolgosz.
The
radical Free Society newspaper issued a warning pertaining to Czolgosz,
reading:
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.
Czolgosz
believed 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 he
learned of a European crime which changed his life: On July 29, 1900, King Umberto
I of Italy had been shot dead by anarchist Gaetano Bresci. Bresci told the
press that he had decided to take matters into his own hands for the sake of the
common man.
The
assassination shocked and galvanized the American anarchist movement, and
Czolgosz is thought to have consciously imitated Bresci. New York police
officer Joseph Petrosino believed that the same group had previously targeted
President McKinley, but his warnings were useless, because McKinley ignored
them.
 |
|
Leon Czolgosz shoots President McKinley with
a concealed revolver. Clipping of a wash drawing by T. Dart Walker.
|
Assassination
of President McKinley
Main
article: Assassination of William McKinley
On
August 31, 1901, Czolgosz traveled to Buffalo, New York, the site of the Pan-American
Exposition, where he rented a room at Nowak's Hotel on 1078 Broadway.
On
September 6, he went to the exposition armed with a .32 caliber Iver Johnson
"Safety Automatic" revolver (serial #463344) he had purchased four
days earlier for $4.50. Czolgosz approached McKinley's procession, the
President having been standing in a receiving line inside of the Temple of
Music, greeting the public for 10 minutes. At 4:07 pm Czolgosz reached the
front of the line. McKinley extended his hand. Czolgosz slapped it aside and
shot the President in the abdomen twice at point blank range. The first bullet
ricocheted and lodged in McKinley's jacket; the other seriously wounded him.
McKinley died eight days later of an infection.
Members
of the crowd immediately attacked Czolgosz, as McKinley slumped backward. The
President said, "Go easy on him boys. He could not have known." The
crowd chained him before the 4th Brigade, National Guard Signal Corps and
police intervened. Czolgosz was held in a cell at Buffalo's 13th Precinct house
at 346 Austin Street until he was moved to police headquarters.
 |
|
First photograph of Czolgosz in jail.
|
Trial
and execution
Following
the assassination, newly inaugurated President Theodore Roosevelt issued a
pronouncement declaring: "When compared with the suppression of anarchy,
every other question sinks into insignificance."
On
September 13, the day before McKinley succumbed to his wounds, Czolgosz was
transferred from the police headquarters, since the headquarters were
undergoing repairs, to the Erie County Women's Penitentiary. On the 16th 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 on September 16 with one count of first-degree
murder. Throughout his incarceration, Czolgosz spoke freely with his guards,
but refused every interaction with Robert C. Titus and Loran L. Lewis, the
prominent judges-turned-attorneys assigned to defend him, and with the expert
psychiatrist sent to test his sanity. A prison guard later came forward
claiming that Czolgosz confided in him that because he claimed himself to be an
anarchist, he would not talk with any people he viewed as related to authority
which included his lawyers or any presiding trial judge.
The
district attorney at trial was Thomas Penney, assisted by a Mr. Haller, whose
performance was described as "flawless". Although Czolgosz answered
that he was pleading "Guilty", the presiding Judge Truman C. White
overruled him and entered a "Not Guilty" plea on his behalf.
In
the nine days from McKinley's death on September 14, to Czolgosz's trial on
September 23, Czolgosz's lawyers were unable to prepare a defense since
Czolgosz refused to speak to either one of them. As a result, Loran L. Lewis
argued at the trial that Czolgosz could not be found guilty for the murder of
the president because he was insane at the time (similar to the defense that
was used in the Charles J. Guiteau trial in 1881, after the shooting of
President James A. Garfield).
On
September 23 and 24 prosecution testimony was presented, consisting of the
doctors who treated McKinley and various eyewitnesses to the shooting. Lewis
did not call any defense witnesses. Czolgosz himself refused to testify on his
own defense, nor did he ever speak at all in court. In his statement to the
jury, Lewis noted Czolgosz's refusal to talk to his lawyers or cooperate with
them, admitted his client's guilt, and said that "the only question that
can be discussed or considered in this case is... whether that act was that of
a sane person. If it was, then the defendant is guilty of the murder... If it
was the act of an insane man, then he is not guilty of murder but should be
acquitted of that charge and would then be confined in a lunatic asylum."
The
prosecutor laid great stress on Czolgosz's anarchist affiliations and called
upon the jury to heed the popular demand for a quick trial and execution. Since
the defense had been unable to enter any evidence that Czolgosz had been
afflicted with any kind of temporary insanity, there could only be one verdict.
Even if the jury believed the defense that Czolgosz was insane by claiming that
no sane man would have shot and killed the president in such a public and
blatant manner in which he knew he would be caught, there was still the legal
definition of insanity to be overcome. Under New York law, Czolgosz was legally
insane only if he was unable to understand what he was doing.
At
Thomas Penney's request, White closed the trial with instructions to the jury
that supported the prosecution's argument that (a): Czolgosz was not insane,
and that (b): he knew clearly what he was doing. After this, any chance that
remained of acquitting Czolgosz on the basis of insanity was gone, since the
defense offered no evidence that he couldn't understand the wrongness of his
crime.
Czolgosz
was convicted on September 24, 1901 after the jury deliberated for only one
hour. On September 26, the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty.
Czolgosz was said to have continued to remain silent and had shown no emotion
upon both his conviction and death sentence. When he was asked by Judge White
if he wanted to make any open court statement, Czolgosz shook his head meaning
‘no'. Upon returning to Auburn Prison, Czolgosz asked the warden if this meant
he would be transferred to Sing Sing to be electrocuted, and he seemed
surprised to learn that Auburn had its own electric chair.
Czolgosz
was electrocuted by three jolts, each of 1800 volts, in Auburn Prison on
October 29, 1901, just 45 days after his victim's death.
His
brother, Waldek, and his brother-in-law, Frank Bandowski, were in attendance.
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.
His
last words were: "I killed the President because
he was the enemy of the good people – the good working people. I am not
sorry for my crime." As the prison guards strapped him into the
chair, however, he did say through clenched teeth, "I
am only sorry I could not get to see my father."
Czolgosz
was autopsied by John T. Gerin; his brain was autopsied by Edward Anthony
Spitzka. The body was buried on prison grounds following the autopsy. Prison
authorities originally planned to inter the body with quicklime to hasten its
decomposition, but became dissatisfied with this option after testing quicklime
on a sample of meat. After determining that they were not legally limited to
the use of quicklime for the process, they poured sulfuric acid into Czolgosz's
coffin so that his body would be completely disfigured. The warden estimated
the acid caused the body to disintegrate within 12 hours.
Czolgosz's
letters and clothes were burned, although in the case of letters the names of
those who had sent threatening or sympathetic correspondence were recorded for
future reference. The gun Czolgosz used to assassinate McKinley is on permanent
display at the Buffalo History Museum.
 |
|
Czolgosz's prisoner card at Auburn #A2323.
|
Legacy
Emma
Goldman was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the assassination, but
was released, due to insufficient evidence. She later incurred a great deal of
negative publicity when she published "The Tragedy at Buffalo". In
the article, she compared Czolgosz to Marcus Junius Brutus, the killer of Julius
Caesar, and called McKinley the "president of the money kings and trust
magnates." Other anarchists and radicals were unwilling to support Goldman's
effort to aid Czolgosz, believing that he had harmed the movement.
The
scene of the crime, the Temple of Music, was demolished in November 1901, along
with the rest of the Exposition grounds. A stone marker in the middle of
Fordham Drive, a residential street in Buffalo, marks the approximate spot (42°56.321′N 78°52.416′W[37])
where the shooting occurred. Czolgosz's revolver is on display in the
Pan-American Exposition exhibit at the Buffalo History Museum in Buffalo.
Lloyd
Vernon Briggs, who later became the Director of the Massachusetts Department
for Mental Hygiene, reviewed the Czolgosz case in 1901 on behalf of Dr. Walter
Channing shortly after Czolgosz's death. Briggs also reviewed the cases of Clarence
Richeson and Bertram G. Spencer, men who had histories of mental illness before
committing murder. Contrary to views almost universally expressed at the time
of the assassination, Briggs concluded that Czolgosz was "a diseased man,
a man who had been suffering from some form of mental disease for years. He was
not medically responsible and in the light of present-day psychiatry and of
modern surgical procedure, there is a great question whether he was even
legally responsible for the death of our President."
Art
Czolgosz
is also featured as a central character of Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins,
in which his assassination of McKinley is depicted in a musical number called
"The Ballad of Czolgosz".
Television
Czolgosz
was portrayed by Patton Oswalt in the Reaper episode "Leon" as
an escaped soul with the power to change his hand(s) into guns before being
(willingly) captured and sent back to Hell.
 |
|
Old Sparky, the electric chair used at Sing
Sing prison
|
 |
|
The current front of Auburn Prison. Note the
two guard towers on either side and Copper John
on top
|
Buffalo
Men at the Execution
|
October 29, 1901
|
Buffalo Men at the Execution
Sheriff Caldwell and Charles R. Huntley Saw
Czolgosz Die.
Their Impressions
Both Say that Czolgosz Gave No Evidence of
Fear in the Death Chamber
Did Not Utter a Groan
Sheriff
Caldwell and Charles R. Huntley returned from Auburn shortly after 1 o'clock
this afternoon, having witnessed the execution of Leon F. Czolgosz, the slayer of
President McKinley. Asked about the execution, Mr. Huntley said to a
Commercial. reporter:
"There
is really little to be said about it. The case has been described correctly in
the newspapers. I read them on my way up from Auburn and find that they picture
the proceeding accurately. Czolgosz did not show any signs of fear and he did
not tremble or turn pale; he walked into the death room between two men, and
walked with a firm step. He stumbled as he came into the room but did not fall,
nor did his knees weaken. I was quite surprised at his demeanor, as was
everyone else, I should say. He was perfectly strong and calm. He just slid
himself into the chair exactly as a man might who expected to enjoy a half
hour's repose. The fact that in a moment a death current was to be forced
through him did not seem to perturb him in the least.
"Yes,
I heard him make the statements accredited to him. He spoke very plainly and in
a voice which did not waver in the slightest degree. He said first that he was
not sorry for having killed the President, and, as the straps which bound his
jaws were put in place, he said that he was sorry he could not see his father.
Everyone in the room must have heard and understood him. He had expressed a
desire to speak, so it was claimed, after getting in the presence of the
witnesses. He wanted everyone to hear him. It was supposed, therefore, that
whatever talking he intended to do he would do before getting into the chair.
It was a general surprise to hear his voice after the men had begun to affix
the electrodes. The witnesses were somewhat startled and were amazed at the
man's calmness. We all kept our eyes on him and listened most attentively. But
the men at work beside him and in front, of him did not pause. They kept on
affixing the appliances. Evidently Czolgosz had prepared something to say and
what he said was part of his prepared piece. That is my thought of the matter.
I wouldn't say that he tried to make a hero of himself. There was no spirit of
bravado manifest at all. He said a few things just as if he felt it his duty to
say them."
"Did,
he tremble or grow pale as the straps were put in place?" was asked.
"No,
not at all. He was collected and calm every moment, to all appearances. Sheriff
Caldwell, who was with me, said he looked better and more self-possessed than
he looked during the trial here in Buffalo. His face had the normal amount of
color in it, and his hands didn't tremble a bit.
"The
majesty of the law was perfectly sustained," continued Mr. Huntley.
"There wasn't a hitch anywhere and not an incident which could merit the
faintest criticism. Czolgosz was sentenced to die in the electric chair, and
his death was effected quickly and certainly. It was but an incredibly short
time after the murderer walked into the death chamber when the doctors in
attendance pronounced him dead. There had been no scene; no one had fainted or
grown excited. Everyone conducted himself with remarkable sang-froid. The
attendants were busy right up to the moment of turning on the current, and had
but stepped back when the body of the assassin was in the grasp of the powerful
current. As I have said, not a thing marred the formality. Everything went off
smoothly, according to a schedule carefully planned."
Sheriff Caldwell's Impression.
Sheriff
Samuel Caldwell was asked by a Commercial reporter as to his impressions of the
execution of the assassin. He replied:
"I
was impressed with the idea that the assassin was a man of great nerve.
Although guards had hold of his arms, the prisoner could have walked unaided to
the chair. Aside from the prisoner's last words, there was not a sound in the
death chamber, and the prisoner himself gave no evidence of fear.
"As
soon as he had been seated in the chair and his face covered so that his nose
and month were alone exposed, Warden Mead raised his hand and Electrician Davis
turned on the current which snuffed out the prisoner's life as with a snap of
the finger. The electrician then felt the prisoner's jugular vein. Dr.
MacDonald did the same, and was followed by Prison Physician Gerin. The doctors
then stepped back, and Warden Mead again raised his hand. Again the current was
applied and was continued about 50 seconds.
"When
the electricity was again shut off, the physicians examined the body by the
usual means, and at the end pronounced that the man was dead. The witnesses
left the death chamber before the body was removed to the operating table in
the autopsy room. I signed the document. swearing that I saw the electrocution
of the assassin. The doctors remained for the autopsy, but I came home
immediately.
"The
prisoner's nerve was evidenced by his conduct from the moment he entered the
death chamber. No groan escaped him, and his lips did not even move except when
he was making his final statement to the effect that he did not repent his
crime. When the electricity entered the assassin's body it stiffened with
successive jerks, but death was so quick that he did not have time to
groan."
THIS VIDEO IS A
RE-ENACTMENT OF THE EXECUTION
OTHER LINKS:
No comments:
Post a Comment