The Czolgosz Autopsy

     IT appears from the reports of the Czolgosz autopsy that the assassin cannot be excused upon the plea of having been a degenerate. Neither can he be looked upon as a person of natural criminal bent. He is but an example of intelligence misdirected, enthusiasm gone wild and an egotism no greater or less than many a well-balanced man possesses. Given the same amount of intelligence, directed into some special channel, say science, for instance, and Czolgosz to-day would be alive and respected. Combine with this the enthusiasm which was part and parcel of the man’s nature toward a thing in which he was interested and he could have counted upon a fair share of success. He probably was one of those people who require a hobby. If they chance to bestride a harmless one nobody is hurt and the world goes on its way no worse and no better for their peculiar choice of steeds. It is from just such natures as these that all the isms are recruited. The man of lower intelligence cannot grasp the thought germs and assimilate the soupcon of truth that is in every ism, dogma or theory, therefore the man of low intellect is not to be feared except as a tool of others for his cowardice generally prevents his going into a crime which requires any courage, therefore he harms himself more than he harms any one else. Just how men like Czolgosz are to be protected from the heresies and vile pollutions of anarchism and its kind, while there is any life left in anarchism, it is difficult to see. But let us not be possessed of the idea that it is only the degenerate and congenitally criminal who are in danger from anarchistic propaganda. More than one Czolgosz is being made to-day through environment and opportunity. There can be no luke-warm legislation upon the subject. McKinley has past [sic] beyond all the concerns of mortality; perhaps he died to awaken a nation to a menace that has been feeding and sleeping among us and that is reaching out to poison the minds and hearts of men who might have claimed the better things of life, but who are polluted into such as Czolgosz.