People Talked About [excerpt]

     It has been established beyond dispute that the first man to reach and seize the assassin Czolgosz after he fired the fatal shots at President McKinley was Francis P. O’Brien, a private in the Seventy-third United States Coast Artillery. O’Brien, with several other men of the same command, had been detailed to guard the President during the reception ceremonies at the Temple of Music. According to the testimony given by O’Brien at the trial of Czolgosz, he was standing on the right of the President and only three or four feet away when the shots were fired. He jumped instantly at the assassin, knocked him over against another man, and wrenched the revolver from his grasp, handing the latter over to his commanding officer, Captain Wissner. This version of the affair has been corroborated by Mr. Louis L. Babcock, who had charge of the ceremonies in the Temple of Music, and also by Mr. Edward R. Rice, chairman of the committee on ceremonies, both of whom were eyewitnesses of the scene. O’Brien is a native of Massachusetts and twenty-eight years of age. Previous to his enlistment in the regular army, in 1900, he had followed the occupation of an iron-worker. During the Spanish-American war he served in Porto Rico in a volunteer company of engineers.