Kiss Assassin for Last Time
Father, Brother and Sister of Leon Czolgosz Admitted
to His Cell.
SISTER WAS IN TEARS BUT ASSASSIN UNMOVED
He Expressed No Contrition for His Deed and Asserted That No One
Else
Was Concerned in Plot to Kill the President.
Buffalo, September 25.—Paul,
Waldeck and Victoria Czolgosz, father, brother and sister of Leon
Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley, were granted an interview
with the prisoner in the Erie county jail today. Assistant District
Attorney Frederick Haller and Assistant Superintendent of Police
P. V. Cusack were present under instructions of District Attorney
Penney throughout the interview.
No other persons will be allowed to
see the prisoner until after the sentence of death is imposed tomorrow
afternoon.
The interview between the assassin
and his father, brother and sister lasted thirty-five minutes, but
no information leading to the implication of any one else in an
anarchist plot to kill the president was given by the prisoner.
“We learned nothing that we did not
know before,” said Assistant District Attorney Haller at the conclusion
of the conference.
“He talked more than he has at any
previous time, but even to his family he was not very communicative.”
But little of the conversation which
passed between the members of the family could be gleaned. The officials
said that the conversation was naturally such as would occur at
such a meeting and that it was better to throw the mantle of privacy
over it.
However, authoritative announcement
was made that Czolgosz denied absolutely that any one else was concerned
in the plot to kill the president. He asserted, as he has from the
outset, that he did the deed alone and unaided, and that no other
person in the world was concerned in the tragedy.
Several times when he was pressed
to tell the true story of the assassination, the prisoner repeated
the words:
“I did it alone; there was no one
else.”
The prisoner asked nothing about the
other members of his family or his friends and did not give any
evidence of sorrow or regret over his act.
The father and brother were affected,
naturally, over the meeting, but they gave little outward evidence
of it. The sister cried all of the time, but the prisoner gave no
evidence of feeling aside from saying that he was glad he could
see them.
At the end of thirty-five minutes
the prisoner shook hands with his father and brother and his sister
tearfully kissed him goodby. The family returned to Cleveland.
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