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.