| Publication information |
|
Source: The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women Source type: book Document type: appendix Document title: “Appendix” Author(s): Marvin, Frederic Rowland Publisher: Fleming H. Revell Company Place of publication: New York, New York Year of publication: 1902 Pagination: 323-38 (excerpt below includes only pages 324-26) |
| Citation |
| Marvin, Frederic Rowland. “Appendix.” The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1902: pp. 323-38. |
| Transcription |
| excerpt |
| Keywords |
| Leon Czolgosz (last words); McKinley assassination (personal response). |
| Named persons |
| Alexander; Leon Czolgosz; Herostratus; William McKinley. |
| Notes |
| From title page: Collected from Various Sources by Frederic Rowland Marvin. |
| Document |
Appendix [excerpt]
C
(Leon F., the assassin of President McKinley. He was executed in the State Prison
at Auburn, N. Y., October 29, 1901), 1873-1901. “I shot the President because
I thought it would benefit the good working people. I am sorry I did
not see my father.” He had refused to see his father who several
times applied for an interview. The words of the assassin are differently reported
by [324][325] different witnesses. Some give his
dying words thus: “I killed the President because he was an enemy of the good
working people.” Others say his last words were: “I killed the President because
he was the enemy of the good people—the good working people. I am not sorry
for my crime. I am sorry I did not see my father.”
That [sic] is a curious order issued by
one Department Commander in the Grand Army of the Republic, forbidding comrades
of his command to speak the name of Czolgosz. The name of the assassin of President
McKinley, the commander says, should never be pronounced by Americans. Consistent
with that commander’s idea and aim, his order does not include the name of Czolgosz,
but refers to the criminal only as the assassin of the President. The order,
of course, will be obeyed, as it is a military order.
The commander’s patriotism may not be disputed,
but the extent of his profit by the lessons of history is likely to be challenged.
When, on the birthday of Alexander the Great in 356 .
., the Ephesian Herostratus set fire to the Temple
of Artemis at Ephesus, he committed the crime for the particular purpose of
immortalizing his name.
So soon as he acknowledged this to have been his
aim and desire, the Ephesians put him to death and then enacted a law prohibiting
the mention of his name forever.
The law, as a matter of course, effected just
the [325][326] opposite of its purpose. The name
of the incendiary might easily have been forgotten and lost through the ages,
with those of nobler and more infamous men, or of lesser humanity. But it was
perpetuated by the historians of Ephesus; and the name of Herostratus will live
on, as will that of Czolgosz, immortal in infamy.