another rough draft of another chapter created today. It’s becoming clear, write and rewrite, and write and rewrite. Much research today to achieve a few paragraphs
this chapter is titled: Pronuonced Chol-Gosh
As W.W. Crenshaw made his way through the misty haze of Seattle, on route to his meeting with Connell, he sensed there was something going on in the city. People were gathering and talking. Dour faced residents talked in sad whispering tones. A man Crenshaw recognized as a fellow resident of the Columbia Hotel approached him. “Hey Crenshaw have you heard the news”?
Crenshaw replied “Enlighten me, it seems everyone is in sour spirits this morning”
“I talked to a guy who was at the Western Union. President McKinley is dead”
Crenshaw fired back “I thought he was going to be okay”
The man, a prospector from Missouri named Caldwell, said “we all thought so too. It just come in over the wire. He didn’t make it”.
He nodded at Caldwell and told him he had an important appointment. Crenshaw continued to scurry down the muddy street. His intuition told him his meeting with Morris J. Connell just might be the life changing opportunity he had been waiting for. He was saddened about the news of McKinley’s demise. Yet he knew he needed to stay focused, to keep his eye on the prize.
McKinley arrived in Buffalo, New York on September 5, 1901 for the Pan-American exposition. The exposition featured a 389 foot “Electric Tower” powered by nearby Niagara Falls. President McKinley had been scheduled for a two day visit to the Expo. The President was fresh off guiding the United States to victory in the Spanish-American War. He had entered his second term in office as one of the most popular presidents in recent years. The president had given a speech to a crowd of 116,000 enthusiastic patriots. It was declared to be the largest crowd to ever witness a presidential speech. That same evening there was a fireworks display that culminated in in a burst of pyrotechnics that spelled out “Welcome President McKinley, Chief of our Nation and Our Empire.”
The next day the president had scheduled a meet and greet with his constituents. His personal secretary George B. Cortelyou had tried to twice cancel the event. He warned the president against meeting the public in an open forum. Cortelyou had serious concerns about the security of holding such an event. He warned McKinley that it might give a potential assassin an opportunity to attack the president. McKinley insisted on going ahead with the event. In the sweltering late summer heat a long line of people gathered outside the Temple of Music. It was set up to be a greeting line. Each person waiting in the line was afforded the opportunity of meeting the president in person. At 4:00 pm the line of people began moving forward. McKinley was enjoying shaking hands and greeting the crowd.
Near the front of the line was twenty eight year old Leon Czolgosz. Czolgosz was a reserved and gloomy former steel worker. An avowed anarchist, he had arrived in Buffalo a few days earlier and had purchased .32 caliber Iver Johnson revolver. This was the same weapon another anarchist had used to assassinate Italian King Umberto I the previous summer. Czolgosz later recalled “it was in my heart; there was no escape for me. All these people seemed to be bowing to the great ruler. I made up my mind to kill that ruler.” The Secret Service and Buffalo police took little notice when Czolgosz sauntered up to the president. McKinley smiled and extended his hand, Czolgosz raised the pistol and fired two shots at point blank range. There was an instant of almost complete quiet, like the hush that follows the crack of thunder. McKinley retreated a step and a sallowness overtook his features. The stillness was broken when James “Big Jim” Parker, a tall African American man who was in the reception line, punched Czolgosz, preventing him from firing a third shot.
Czolgosz was jumped by a mob of soldiers and detectives. They began beating the assassin to a bloody pulp. The mortally wounded president ordered them to stop the beating. He stumbled back and on to the floor, blood pouring from his stomach. “My wife,” he managed to say to Cortelyou. “Be careful how you tell her-oh be careful!” One of the bullets ricocheted off McKinley’s suit button and hit his sternum, causing only minor damage. The other had struck his abdomen and passed clear through his stomach. A surgeon managed to suture the stomach wounds and stop the bleeding, but was unable to locate the bullet, which he assumed was lodged somewhere near the presidents spine. At first it looked like McKinley may make a full recovery. His diagnosis was so positive that Vice President Theodore Roosevelt took off for a camping trip in the Adirondack Mountains. Roosevelt told reporters “you may say that I am absolutely sure the president will recover”. By September 13, McKinley’s condition had become increasingly desperate. Gangrene had formed on the walls of his stomach and brought a severe case of blood poisoning. In a matter of hours he grew weak and began losing consciousness. At 2:15 a.m. on September 14, he died with his wife Ida by his side. Czolgosz was held by the Buffalo police and was interrogated for several days. The Michigan native said “I don’t believe in the Republican form of government, and I don’t believe we should have any rulers”. He had stalked McKinley for two days in Buffalo and had nearly shot the president when he arrived by train on September 5. The police and detectives never established a link between Czolgosz and any anarchist groups. They concluded he had acted alone in the assassination. In his confession he was adamant about this fact. “I killed President McKinley because I done my duty,” he said. Despite his professing to acting alone his confession led to a sweeping roundup of political radicals. In Chicago, a dozen staff members from the anarchist newspaper “free society” were arrested. On September 10, police also picked up the anarchist agitator Emma Goldman, whose speeches Czolgosz had cited as a key influence in his decision to assassinate McKinley. Justice came swiftly to Czolgosz. His murder trial started on September 23, a little more than a week after the death of McKinley. He was found guilty and sentenced to death just three days later. He was executed in the electric chair at New York’s Auburn prison on October 29, 1901. In the moments before his execution he said “I killed the president for the good of the laboring people, the good people. I am not sorry for my crime.”
As W.W. Crenshaw turned off Columbia Street and began walking past the commission houses of Western Avenue, his thoughts shifted to the world changing events happening across the continent in Buffalo. He had admired the president during his first term. He thought Mr. McKinley to be a likeable fellow whose Republican ideals seemed to favor the business climate. America had recovered from the great panic of 1893. Under McKinley it seemed the United States was positioned to become the premier world power in the new century. Crenshaw’s thoughts shifted back to his forthcoming meeting with Morris J. Connell. As he located the office of the Connell Brothers at 817 Western Avenue, events were unfolding in Buffalo, New York. A man was suddenly thrust to the forefront of the American landscape. A man whose image would one day be carved in to the side of a mountain in South Dakota.
On September 14, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office as the 26th president of the United States in the library of Ansley Wilcox’s house in Buffalo. He had been contacted at his camping trip and had been summoned to go to Buffalo immediately. At 42 years old he was and remains the youngest person to ever take the oath of office. He succeeded President William McKinley, who had succumbed to an assassin’s bullet earlier that day. For Roosevelt, who had hoped to rise to the presidency someday, it was “a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency in this way.” In typical Roosevelt fashion, however, he continued, “Here is the task, and I have got to do it to the best of my ability.” Three years later, he was elected to a full term in his own right. Roosevelt had a lasting impact on the nation, expanding the powers of the presidency, advocating consumer protection laws and regulation of big business, supporting conservation, and asserting America’s authority abroad.
Also on this day, September 14, 1901, W.W. Crenshaw at age twenty four was hired as a salesman by the firm of Connell Brothers Merchant Brokers in Seattle. Crenshaw had made a very positive impression on the elder Connell. Connell took Crenshaw down to the pier where the fog shrouded ship had docked earlier. Everyone was talking about the death of the president. Not much was known about the forty two year old president that had just been given the oath of office. Crenshaw was excited to board the ship with Mr. Connell. Connell told him they would be able to tour the ship and watch the cargo be unloaded. Crenshaw paused, had a thought, and then said to Connell “That’s three presidents in thirty six years, sir. All shot at point blank range with pistols. I think it’s time to think about beefing up our national security service”. As I write this I wonder how much different our world would look if Ronald Reagan in 1980, Bill Clinton in 1995, and Barack Obama in 2015 had all been assassinated. This was how the world looked to Crenshaw and Connell as they peered in to cargo hold number one. Its bounty full of wool socks and heavy clothing that would soon be sold and on its way to the vast expanse of the Yukon.
huffingpuffpost 