Observations and Comments [excerpt]

     On October 29th, 1901, a young man died in the electric chair at Auburn prison. His name was Leon Czolgosz, and he had shot President McKinley on the 6th of September the same year at the grounds of the Buffalo Exposition, for which the law took his life. Czolgosz was not affiliated with any organization, group or circle. His act was spontaneous and of individual character. People and deeds of this kind are easily forgotten. But there can be no doubt that in a social psychological sense the motives which urged him on were essentially the same as those that led a John Brown to attack Harpers Ferry, or that inspired the men of the Chicago Haymarket trial to their bold arraignment of society before they died on the scaffold.