Publication information |
Source: Iowa State Register Source type: newspaper Document type: article Document title: “Assassin Closely Guarded” Author(s): anonymous City of publication: Des Moines, Iowa Date of publication: 8 September 1901 Volume number: 46 Issue number: 211 Pagination: 3 |
Citation |
“Assassin Closely Guarded.” Iowa State Register 8 Sept. 1901 v46n211: p. 3. |
Transcription |
full text |
Keywords |
Leon Czolgosz (incarceration: Buffalo, NY); McKinley assassination (investigation of conspiracy); McKinley assassination (public response: Buffalo, NY); lawlessness (mob rule: Buffalo, NY). |
Named persons |
Leon Czolgosz. |
Document |
Assassin Closely Guarded
Buffalo, Sept. 7.—Leon F. Czolgosz, the man who
shot the president, slept in comfort after his crime. He was locked up at No.
1 police station, and after he had been interviewed by the officers of the law,
a watch of two men was placed over him. He went to his bunk early and was soon
asleep. He seemed without regret and undisturbed by the prospect of punishment
for his crime.
The police machinery of the entire city has been
set in motion to expose the plot against the life of the president, if plot
there was. Detectives of this city and every other department in the country
have joined hands with the great secret system of the federal government, and
if ingenuity, skill and energy count, the secrets of the crime will be ferreted
out. Czolgosz insists that he alone planned the crime which may rob the United
States of its chief executive, but that statement is not accepted as true. There
is a belief he is aided by others in a deliberate plot, and that confederates
accompanied him to Buffalo and assisted in its execution. The police and secret
agents are working privately, and if they have made any progress toward the
establishment of the plot theory, they have not divulged the nature of it. They
do insist that the prisoner locked up at police station No. 1 is not insane,
and that his act was not simply the crime of a lunatic with a homicidal tendency.
There is a suspicion that one of the prisoner’s confederates accompanied him
to the Temple of Music, and by walking in front of him concealed the bound hand
which carried the revolver. The attention of the police who were with the presidential
party was directed toward a man who reached the president just before Czolgosz
did. His actions were so suspicious that one of the secret service men kept
his hand on his arm until after he had shaken hands with the president and passed
along. A description of that man is now in the hands of the police of the entire
country, and he undoubtedly will be run down. Czolgosz is kept in absolute seclusion
by the police, and none save the officers has seen him. There are reports of
other arrests here and at other cities, but the police decline to confirm them.
An additional force of secret service men is expected here today from Washington
and other cities.
Buffalo is very quiet and there is not the slightest
sign of disorder. If the crowd gathered in the court outside of the Temple of
Music last evening had believed the first report that the president had been
shot, the would-be assassin would probably have been taken by a mob and instantly
put to death. But the first report was not credited. The crime suggested was
so far from their thoughts that they could not believe what they heard. Those
close at hand and actual witnesses of the tragedy were too completely stunned
for such action. In the meantime the detectives had seized Czolgosz, and while
he had their bitter hatred, they did their duty as officers of the law and bore
him a prisoner to jail. There was talk of lynching last night, and wherever
a crowd assembled there were bitter denunciations of the assailant’s work. The
police arrested a few men for inciting riot, but let them go this morning. The
feeling today is no less intense than yesterday, but it will not find expression
in mob violence.