Leon Czolgosz Executed (1901)

Tue Oct 29, 1901

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Leon Czolgosz was an anarchist steelworker executed by the U.S. government on this day in 1901 after assassinating President William McKinley. The murder led to a widespread crackdown on left wing movements across the country.

Czolgosz (1873 - 1901) was a socialist from a young age, working in factories and mills as a teenager and witnessing labor strife firsthand. He was greatly inspired by Emma Goldman, and met her briefly after a lecture she gave in Cleveland. Czolgosz’s direct inspiration to assassinate a national leader possibly came from the assassination of King Umberto I of Italy by anarchist Gaetano Bresci in 1900.

On September 6th, 1901, Czolgosz shot President William McKinley on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley died eight days later of gangrene caused by the wounds and was 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”.

In the aftermath of the assassination, there was a series of strong reprisals against the anarchist movement. 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 creating anarchist surveillance programs, which were eventually consolidated on a federal level when the Bureau of Investigation (BOI, later to become the FBI) was formed in 1908.