The Assassin

Every effort is making to learn whether the assassin’s act was planned by any circle of anarchists. When questioned he first gave his name as Nieman, which may be one of the names under which he has passed. He declared himself an anarchist, said that he had been fired by addresses of the anarchist lecturer, Emma Goldman, and that he rejoiced that he had accomplished his work. He declared that he came from Detroit, and that he had no accomplices, as no one else had any knowledge of his intention. He afterward confessed that his true name is Leon Czolgosz (pronounced Cholgosh). He is about 26 years old, the son of Russian Polish parents, but born in this country, and attended public schools in Detroit for a little while, and then went to work as a blacksmith’s apprentice. Later he worked in Cleveland and Chicago, and was employed in a wire mill near Cleveland when he went to Buffalo on his murderous mission. He became much interested in socialism and made anarchistic speeches in its meetings. It was at a meeting in Cleveland two weeks before his crime that he was fired by Emma Goldman’s lecture. She is a woman who has been arrested and imprisoned in New York for her addresses inciting to violence, and is also an advocate of free love, and has lived with several different affinities. It has been a part of her creed that rulers should be exterminated. The apparent fact that the man who shook hands with the President in the line just before Czolgosz seemed to lean back so as to cover his pistol hand, has raised the suspicion that he was a confederate, especially as he has not come forward to show who he was; but no other evidence of a confederate has been found, altho a number of arrests have been made in Chicago of anarchists of his stripe. He is not at all known in the East, and does not seem to have had any special prominence in anarchistic circles in the West. He had been in Buffalo nearly a week before the opportunity he sought came. He had bought in Buffalo the self-cocking pistol he used. It is learned that Czolgosz while in Chicago tried to get into the secret circle of the conspirators, but they suspected him of being a spy. While there, according to report, he declared himself ready to give up his life for the cause and willing to assassinate a ruler, but he was not wholly trusted by those to whom he came. The people arrested in Chi- [2140][2141] cago, with some of whom the assassin had been in consultation, are connected with an anarchistic paper edited by a man and his son named Isaak. There is no reason to believe that Czolgosz is insane; he is simply a fanatic, and believes he has done a grand thing which will give him a great name. Under the law of New York the extreme penalty for the crime, should the President recover, is ten years’ imprisonment, which can be reduced by good behavior to six and a half years.