| Publication information |
|
Source: Buffalo Enquirer Source type: newspaper Document type: editorial Document title: “Anti-Lynching Bill” Author(s): anonymous City of publication: Buffalo, New York Date of publication: 1 February 1922 Volume number: 78 Issue number: 122 Pagination: 4 |
| Citation |
| “Anti-Lynching Bill.” Buffalo Enquirer 1 Feb. 1922 v78n122: p. 4. |
| Transcription |
| excerpt |
| Keywords |
| McKinley assassination (public response: Buffalo, NY); lawlessness (mob rule: Buffalo, NY); Leon Czolgosz (incarceration: Buffalo, NY: public response); Buffalo, NY (police department); John Martin. |
| Named persons |
| Leon Czolgosz; John Martin (a); William McKinley. |
| Document |
Anti-Lynching Bill [excerpt]
Buffalo had an attempted lynching once. On the
night of the day William McKinley was shot, a mob estimated at between 20,000
and 50,000, its leaders carrying a section of telephone pole to be used as a
battering ram, swung down Franklin street [sic] fully determined to smash the
old police headquarters and summarily execute Leon Czolgosz, the assassin. Inspector
John Martin led a few dozen police reserves out of headquarters and lined them
up, a pitifully thin line, across the street from curb to curb.
“At the word Fire, shoot and shoot to kill,” came
the command of the inspector. Men in the forefront of that mob heard those words
and knew they meant business. The thin line of policemen met the massed ranks
of the mob, nightsticks rained blows on members of the mob, and the mob scattered
and that ended the lynching party.