“The Tragedy at Buffalo”: Reflections on McKinley’s Assassination

William McKinley was the third U.S. President to be assassinated—in just 36 years (plus a few months). He was shot 120 years ago on September 6 and died eight days later. What was behind that tragic event?  

Pres. McKinley shot on 9/6/1901

The Making of Pres. McKinley

William McKinley, Jr., was born in Ohio in January 1843. When he was still 18, he enlisted as a private in the Civil War—and 36 years later became the last President to have fought in that horrendous war.

Mustered out of the army in 1865, McKinley was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives just eleven years later. After six terms in the House, he served as the Governor of Ohio for two two-year terms.

In the presidential election of 1896, Republican McKinley defeated Democrat / Populist William Jennings Bryan and became the 25^th POTUS. Four years later, he was re-elected by defeating Bryan for the second time with 51.6% of the popular vote, up slightly from 1896.

McKinley’s election was due, in large part, to the financial support he received from the wealthy industrialists of the country. Bryan was the “commoner,” who had the support of the working class but with limited resources. The moneyed class won the elections for McKinley.

In his classic bestselling book, A People’s History of the United States (1980; rev. ed., 2003), Howard Zinn wrote that in 1896 “the corporations and the press mobilized” for McKinley “in the first massive use of money in an election campaign” (p. 295).

McKinley’s Presidency

McKinley’s support by the wealthy paid good returns for them. Early in the second year of his presidency, the U.S. went to war with Spain.

Three years before McKinley’s re-election in 1900 with Theodore Roosevelt as the Vice-President, the latter wrote to a friend, “I should welcome any war, for I think this country needs one.” And, indeed, that very next year (1898) the Spanish-American War began, and Roosevelt was a hero in it.

John Jay, McKinley’s Secretary of State, called it "a splendid little war," partly because it propelled the United States into a world power—with world markets. Indeed, under McKinley’s presidency in 1898, the American Empire emerged.*

Zinn quotes the (in)famous Emma Goldman writing a few years later that “the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of the American capitalists” (p. 321).**

Indeed, the “military-industrial complex” was a reality far before Pres. Eisenhower used that term sixty years ago in January 1961.

Shortly after the brief war with Spain ended, the Philippine-American War started in February 1899 and was still in progress when McKinley was shot and killed.

McKinley’s Assassination

Leon Czolgosz was a Polish-American who, by the time he was 28 years old, believed, probably for good reason, that there was a great injustice in American society, an inequality that allowed the wealthy to enrich themselves by exploiting the poor.

Early in September 1901, Czolgosz traveled from Michigan to Buffalo, New York, where the President was attending the Pan-American Exposition (a World’s Fair). There he shot McKinley twice at point-blank range.

Czolgosz had clearly been influenced by the fiery, anarchist rhetoric of Goldman (1869~1940). But just as Nat Turner had misused the words of the Bible (see my 8/25 blog post), he misused the words of Goldman, who advocated dramatic social change, but not violence.

Even before McKinley died on Sept. 12, Goldman was arrested and charged with conspiracy. She denied any direct connection with the assassin and was released two weeks later. On Oct. 6 she wrote a powerful essay titled “The Tragedy at Buffalo.”

Goldman stated clearly, “I do not advocate violence,” but wrote in forceful opposition to “economic slavery, social superiority, inequality, exploitation, and war.” And she concluded that her heart went out to Czolgosz “in deep sympathy, and to all the victims of a system of inequality.”

At the end of October, Czolgosz was executed by electric chair—and Goldman continued advocating for the people Czolgosz cared about so deeply and sought to help in an extremely misguided manner.

_____

* “American Empire, 1898~2018,” my 1/15/18 blog post, elaborates this matter.

** Zinn wrote “Emma,” a play about Goldman that was first performed in 1977. I found Zinn’s play quite informative and of considerable interest.