ANARCHIST ASSASSINATION: History of the Killing of President William McKinley, Builder of American Empire, by Leon Czolgosz in 1901
E-Book in PDF format. 7,100+ words. Copyright reserved by JB Nicholas. You’re purchasing a limited license to read and quote. License DOES NOT include the right to re-publish.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JB Nicholas is a news photographer and independent investigative reporter primarily covering crime, courts, cops and prisons. He publishes a news blog called The Free Lance News.org.
SAMPLE, OPENING
Leon Czolgosz stood patiently in line waiting to kill the President of the United States.
To anyone looking at him, he appeared to have a peculiar but harmless problem: his right hand was wrapped in a bandage. How was he supposed to shake hands with the President with his right hand bandaged? Would he use his left? Since that wasn't anybody's business but his, no one questioned Czolgosz.
But the white cloth wrapped around the 28-year-old's hand wasn't a bandage. It was a crafty disguise. It hid the gun his right fist tightly gripped.
Steps away William McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United States, was feeling chipper about himself and the young Nation.
The 58-year-old Ohio native directed a successful military campaign that sank the Spanish Fleet and handily won the Spanish-American War. The U.S. seized Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. McKinley had also supervised a domestic economic revival after the Panic and Depression of 1893. To top it all off, he easily defeated his Democratic challenger, William Bryan Jennings, to coast to re-election in 1900. While Jennings lectured the American people against the evils of "Imperialism," McKinley made it official policy and promised every American a "full dinner pail."
At the dawn of the 20th Century, Americans chose Empire. McKinley won more votes the second time than the first.
To celebrate his and the young Nation's successes--as well as promote the expanding trade agenda central to fulfilling his re-campaign promise to make Americans richer--McKinley traveled to Buffalo, New York on September 4, 1901 to attend a gigantic world's fair called the "Pan-American Exposition." One of its primary draws was electricity: attractions were illuminated at night. They included a giant tower with a huge rotating spotlight powered by a new hydro-electric plant driven by Niagara Falls.
A cameraman employed by Thomas A. Edison captured the scene in video preserved by the Library of Congress. Imagine going from a candle lit room to standing in the middle of Times Square and you have some idea what it must have been like for people to experience electric light for the first time at the Exposition.
While electricity was heralded as a boon for humanity, it was also being harnessed to make killing people more efficient.
New York pioneered execution by electrocution. Buffalo dentist and steam-punk inventor Alfred P. Southwick invented a brand new killing machine that used electricity in 1885. He called it the "electric chair." The New York legislature passed a first-in-nation law making it the State's official method of capital punishment in 1889. A year later, it executed its first person with it: woman-killing drunk William Kemmler.
The evening Pres. McKinley arrived in Buffalo, Exposition organizers scheduled a fireworks show, according to a history of Buffalo titled City on the Edge by Mark Goldman. Up to 120,000 people attended the Exposition that night. The fireworks show featured one display titled "The American Empire." Four large shells exploded and outlined the United States then Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands in huge, sparkling flames.
The finale was a giant sparkling likeness of McKinley accompanied by these words: "Welcome President McKinley, Chief our Nation and Our Empire."
E-Book in PDF format. 7,100+ words. Copyright reserved by JB Nicholas. You’re purchasing a limited license to read and quote. License DOES NOT include the right to re-publish.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JB Nicholas is a news photographer and independent investigative reporter primarily covering crime, courts, cops and prisons. He publishes a news blog called The Free Lance News.org.
SAMPLE, OPENING
Leon Czolgosz stood patiently in line waiting to kill the President of the United States.
To anyone looking at him, he appeared to have a peculiar but harmless problem: his right hand was wrapped in a bandage. How was he supposed to shake hands with the President with his right hand bandaged? Would he use his left? Since that wasn't anybody's business but his, no one questioned Czolgosz.
But the white cloth wrapped around the 28-year-old's hand wasn't a bandage. It was a crafty disguise. It hid the gun his right fist tightly gripped.
Steps away William McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United States, was feeling chipper about himself and the young Nation.
The 58-year-old Ohio native directed a successful military campaign that sank the Spanish Fleet and handily won the Spanish-American War. The U.S. seized Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. McKinley had also supervised a domestic economic revival after the Panic and Depression of 1893. To top it all off, he easily defeated his Democratic challenger, William Bryan Jennings, to coast to re-election in 1900. While Jennings lectured the American people against the evils of "Imperialism," McKinley made it official policy and promised every American a "full dinner pail."
At the dawn of the 20th Century, Americans chose Empire. McKinley won more votes the second time than the first.
To celebrate his and the young Nation's successes--as well as promote the expanding trade agenda central to fulfilling his re-campaign promise to make Americans richer--McKinley traveled to Buffalo, New York on September 4, 1901 to attend a gigantic world's fair called the "Pan-American Exposition." One of its primary draws was electricity: attractions were illuminated at night. They included a giant tower with a huge rotating spotlight powered by a new hydro-electric plant driven by Niagara Falls.
A cameraman employed by Thomas A. Edison captured the scene in video preserved by the Library of Congress. Imagine going from a candle lit room to standing in the middle of Times Square and you have some idea what it must have been like for people to experience electric light for the first time at the Exposition.
While electricity was heralded as a boon for humanity, it was also being harnessed to make killing people more efficient.
New York pioneered execution by electrocution. Buffalo dentist and steam-punk inventor Alfred P. Southwick invented a brand new killing machine that used electricity in 1885. He called it the "electric chair." The New York legislature passed a first-in-nation law making it the State's official method of capital punishment in 1889. A year later, it executed its first person with it: woman-killing drunk William Kemmler.
The evening Pres. McKinley arrived in Buffalo, Exposition organizers scheduled a fireworks show, according to a history of Buffalo titled City on the Edge by Mark Goldman. Up to 120,000 people attended the Exposition that night. The fireworks show featured one display titled "The American Empire." Four large shells exploded and outlined the United States then Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands in huge, sparkling flames.
The finale was a giant sparkling likeness of McKinley accompanied by these words: "Welcome President McKinley, Chief our Nation and Our Empire."
E-Book in PDF format. 7,100+ words. Copyright reserved by JB Nicholas. You’re purchasing a limited license to read and quote. License DOES NOT include the right to re-publish.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JB Nicholas is a news photographer and independent investigative reporter primarily covering crime, courts, cops and prisons. He publishes a news blog called The Free Lance News.org.
SAMPLE, OPENING
Leon Czolgosz stood patiently in line waiting to kill the President of the United States.
To anyone looking at him, he appeared to have a peculiar but harmless problem: his right hand was wrapped in a bandage. How was he supposed to shake hands with the President with his right hand bandaged? Would he use his left? Since that wasn't anybody's business but his, no one questioned Czolgosz.
But the white cloth wrapped around the 28-year-old's hand wasn't a bandage. It was a crafty disguise. It hid the gun his right fist tightly gripped.
Steps away William McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United States, was feeling chipper about himself and the young Nation.
The 58-year-old Ohio native directed a successful military campaign that sank the Spanish Fleet and handily won the Spanish-American War. The U.S. seized Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. McKinley had also supervised a domestic economic revival after the Panic and Depression of 1893. To top it all off, he easily defeated his Democratic challenger, William Bryan Jennings, to coast to re-election in 1900. While Jennings lectured the American people against the evils of "Imperialism," McKinley made it official policy and promised every American a "full dinner pail."
At the dawn of the 20th Century, Americans chose Empire. McKinley won more votes the second time than the first.
To celebrate his and the young Nation's successes--as well as promote the expanding trade agenda central to fulfilling his re-campaign promise to make Americans richer--McKinley traveled to Buffalo, New York on September 4, 1901 to attend a gigantic world's fair called the "Pan-American Exposition." One of its primary draws was electricity: attractions were illuminated at night. They included a giant tower with a huge rotating spotlight powered by a new hydro-electric plant driven by Niagara Falls.
A cameraman employed by Thomas A. Edison captured the scene in video preserved by the Library of Congress. Imagine going from a candle lit room to standing in the middle of Times Square and you have some idea what it must have been like for people to experience electric light for the first time at the Exposition.
While electricity was heralded as a boon for humanity, it was also being harnessed to make killing people more efficient.
New York pioneered execution by electrocution. Buffalo dentist and steam-punk inventor Alfred P. Southwick invented a brand new killing machine that used electricity in 1885. He called it the "electric chair." The New York legislature passed a first-in-nation law making it the State's official method of capital punishment in 1889. A year later, it executed its first person with it: woman-killing drunk William Kemmler.
The evening Pres. McKinley arrived in Buffalo, Exposition organizers scheduled a fireworks show, according to a history of Buffalo titled City on the Edge by Mark Goldman. Up to 120,000 people attended the Exposition that night. The fireworks show featured one display titled "The American Empire." Four large shells exploded and outlined the United States then Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands in huge, sparkling flames.
The finale was a giant sparkling likeness of McKinley accompanied by these words: "Welcome President McKinley, Chief our Nation and Our Empire."