Czolgosz, Leon

CZOLGOSZ, LEON (1873–1901). The anarchist assassin of President William McKinley, Leon Frank Czolgosz was the son of working-class Polish immigrants. He grew up in Michigan before finding factory work in Pennsylvania and Cleveland, Ohio, and was blacklisted for participating in an 1893 steelworkers’ strike. Although socially awkward, Czolgosz frequented a series of radical workers’ meetings and eventually developed an interest in anarchism. On September 6, 1901, likely in an effort to prove his dedication to anarchist ideals, Czolgosz traveled to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, where he shot McKinley, who died eight days later. Czolgosz told authorities that he was “doing what I could for the great cause,” and he did not “believe in one man having so much service, and [that] another man should have none.”

Although his defense attorneys (with whom he refused to cooperate) and subsequent writers claimed the anarchist was “insane,” no evidence of mental illness exists. Czolgosz was executed by electric chair on October 29, 1901. The assassination led to rumors of an anarchist conspiracy and nationwide arrests of prominent anarchists—none of whom were brought to trial—and sparked division within the anarchist movement. Emma Goldman defended the act as both ethical and inevitable (it not tactically wise), while Italian-American insurrectionist anarchists praised Czolgosz’s deed.

Fine, Sidney. “Anarchism and the Assassination of McKinley.” American Historical Review 60, no. 4 (July 1955).

Miller, Scott. The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century. New York: Random House, 2011.

Rauchway, Eric. Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt’s America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.

Zimmer, Kenyon. Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015.