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?
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| 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 25th 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.
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