Publication information

Source:
Phrenological Journal and Phrenological Magazine
Source type: journal
Document type: editorial
Document title: “Recent Events”
Author(s): anonymous
Date of publication: October 1901
Volume number: 112
Issue number: 4
Pagination: 133-36

 
Citation
“Recent Events.” Phrenological Journal and Phrenological Magazine Oct. 1901 v112n4: pp. 133-36.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
anarchism (dealing with); Leon Czolgosz (phrenological examination).
 
Named persons
Leon Czolgosz; James A. Garfield; Emma Goldman; Abraham Lincoln; Errico Malatesta [identified as Malatissa below]; William McKinley; Louise Michel.
 
Notes
The person referred to below as Lana cannot be identified.

The article below includes two illustrations of Czolgosz (p. 134 and p. 135).
 
Document


Recent Events

     The time has come when the Constitution of the United States must be so altered as to give to the country and its political workers some definite protection from the free hand of anarchy, and [133][134] developments during the last thirty years have proved the necessity of suppressing the work of the professed advocates of anarchy.
     When the Constitution was adopted special protection was given to the people from the ones who governed and whose duty it was to rule and preserve order. No special thought was then given to the fact that the people might do an injury to those who stood as the head as Chief Executive of the country.
     The murderous attempts upon Lincoln, Garfield, and President McKinley warn sober and reflective citizens of the country that this kind of act must receive the penalty of treason. Editorials throughout the country indicate that public opinion is aroused to the fact that there is a limit to freedom, and that it is necessary to amend the Constitution and pass a bill through the Senate and the House of Representatives to give an additional safeguard to the President’s life.
     When examining the portraits of Leon Czolgosz we realize several important facts which Phrenology alone is able to indicate. They indicate a poor quality of organization, with an unbalanced development of mind. There are several contradictions in his outline of head and features which should be taken into account when summing up the true nature of the man and his disposition.
     The lower part of the face, namely, the lips and the chin, correspond with the development of the occipital lobe, and indicate the power of the cerebellum and the passionate nature of the individual. In looking at the side head we see that the ears are situated in a forward position of the head and are quite low down on the cheeks; this being the case there is very little room for intellectual brain-cells to develop in the anterior portion of the head, and whenever the ears are low on the cheek we invariably find that the character manifests itself in some desperate act.
     There is a certain degree of effeminacy; thus, the effeminacy of the amorous lips and the strong social brain indicate that he might be an easy prey to the dictates of a stronger mind than his own. The features of the face are not evenly moulded, the left eye being higher than the right, the left ear higher than the right, and the nose being irregular in shape, all show a want of balance of mind and character.
     The outlines of the head indicate several strong characteristics which probably dominate and control his character. One is the fact that his brain is broad at its base and gives a tendency to hardness and severity, and when this basilar region is so strongly accentuated a person needs a strong development of [134][135] the moral faculties to make proper use of it; otherwise, it often deteriorates and becomes reckless in its expression. Destructiveness in its moral and intellectual interpretation does not mean to destroy, but with the guidance of Causality and Conscientiousness it gives to the character force, energy, spirit, pluck, but uncontrolled it leads to baseness and an appetite for uncontrolled passion, cruelty, and revenge.
     Judging from the development of the intellectual lobe which, according to the portraits, is not high, we recognize that the man lived more in the basilar part of his brain than in his finer susceptibilities of mind. There is only about an inch of forehead from where the hair parts from the forehead to the centre of the eyebrows; consequently, this young man could not have had a very high or noble grasp of any intellectual kind. He has breadth of head across the eyes which indicates a full development of perceptive talent; and while we do not believe that he made the plans for the crime he committed, he was able to execute the designs by force of his strong perceptive faculties.
     A sense of Form, Size, and Weight are all strongly developed, and were useful in the execution of his work. The superior part of the forehead does not represent that the planning and thinking mind was great enough to develop the plot by himself, through his Secretiveness above and behind the ear he was enabled to hold his designs to himself instead of seeking to gain self-glorification by communicating them to others.
     If we take a survey of the crown of the head we shall see the weakness of the man’s character. His Self-Esteem was not sufficiently developed to give him self-respect and manliness of character to avoid the lowering of himself to the perpetration of a crime of such enormity.
     Instead of being influenced by a love of adulation and a hope of notoriety as some experts have stated, we do not find his Approbativeness and Self-Esteem strongly developed, and, consequently, we believe it was from quite a different motive that he allowed himself to become a tool in the hands of others.
     The motive is not far to seek, for if we will examine the strong development of Firmness and the small development of Veneration we shall see at once how the man showed determination of mind in carrying out his blind sense of duty and responsibility. It was his Firmness that gave him his resolution and power to carry out what he considered to be his duty. He was a conscientious follower of anarchistic principles. Of this we have no doubt, and when the decree goes out for a certain person to be [135][136] executed no one dares to refuse, and no one is inclined to do so if he possesses as much Firmness and Destructiveness as is shown in the head of Czolgosz.
     Veneration is small in development, which indicates that he has no respect to spare for the superiority of any one’s character, and he would not mortify his sense of respect in perpetrating an act so inhuman upon the President of the United States.
     His temperamental conditions show a strong tendency toward the vital and motive rather than the mental. His round face and round back-head indicate the vital, while the long jaw and the strong, thick nose indicate the motive temperament. His weight of one hundred and fifty pounds, compared with his height of five feet, eight and a half inches, together with his size of head, indicate to us that he had more of the strength of physical powers than the mental attributes.
     Taking him altogether, he has the signs of strength and weakness, but these are unfortunately blended in such a way that they do not give him the right use of his qualities as a normal American citizen. That he was the instrument of others is our firm conviction, as he has not the strength of mind or clearness of intellect nor the organizing ability of a number of other anarchists whose portraits we have examined; namely, Lana, Malatissa, Emma Goldman, and Louise Michel.