President McKinley Assassinated (1901)

Fri Sep 06, 1901

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Image: Leon Czolgosz shoots President McKinley with a revolver concealed under a cloth rag. Clipping of a wash drawing by artist T. Dart Walker. [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1901, President William McKinley was shot on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York by anarchist Leon Czolgosz.

Czolgosz became an anarchist after losing his job during the Panic of 1893. He regarded McKinley as a symbol of oppression and was convinced that it was his duty as an anarchist to kill him.

McKinley died eight days later of gangrene caused by the wounds, succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt in office. Czolgosz was tried and found guilty just over a month later. Before his execution, Czolgosz explained “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people - the good working people…I am not sorry for my crime”.

The aftermath of the assassination saw a backlash against anarchist movements. Several anarchists, including Emma Goldman, were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attack, and vigilantes attacked anarchist colonies and newspapers.

Fear of the movement also led to government surveillance programs of anarchists, which were eventually consolidated on a federal level when the Bureau of Investigation (BOI, later to become the FBI) was formed in 1908.