Publication information
view printer-friendly version
Source: Ottumwa Semi-Weekly Courier
Source type: newspaper
Document type: article
Document title: “Cried for His Blood”
Author(s): anonymous
City of publication: Ottumwa, Iowa
Date of publication: 17 September 1901
Volume number: 53
Issue number: 53
Pagination: 7

 
Citation
“Cried for His Blood.” Ottumwa Semi-Weekly Courier 17 Sept. 1901 v53n53: p. 7.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
Maria Hildreth Wing; McKinley assassination (eyewitnesses); McKinley assassination; McKinley assassination (public response: Buffalo, NY).
 
Named persons
Leon Czolgosz; William McKinley; H. J. Wing; Maria Hildreth Wing.
 
Document

 

Cried for His Blood

 

Wapello County Woman Saw Exciting Time at Buffalo.
——
SAYS THE CROWD WANTED CZOLGOSZ
——
Clamored for Possession of the Man Who Shot President McKinley—
Would Have Lynched Him Had It Not Been for the Police.

     Deputy County Clerk H. J. Wing is in receipt of a letter from his mother Mrs. M. J. Wing of Agency, who has been spending the summer in the east, in which she tells of her visit to Buffalo and the exposition and being within ten feet of President McKinley when he was shot last Friday. At first Mrs. Wing did not know what had happened, and was greatly surprised at the actions of the dense crowd in which she was enveloped. Soon, however, she discovered the truth, and as she was getting to a place of safety she saw the would-be-assassin dragged to the carriage in which he was taken from the grounds.
     Mrs. Wing is one of the most highly respected citizens of Wapello county [sic], where she has lived many years, and has been visiting relatives near Buffalo for nearly three months. On President’s day at the exposition she, in company with some friends, decided to visit the big show. She had gotten inside of the Temple of Music when the President arrived and was near the platform upon which he was holding the reception. Mrs. Wing stood and watched the President for several moments as he bowed and shook hands with the vast throng about him, when suddenly she heard two sharp reports. She thought at first these were rafters breaking beneath the platform on which the President was standing. Soon the crowd began getting excited, and suddenly she saw the men struggling with the man who had done the shooting. The crowd had by this time worked itself into a frenzy of excitement and she began trying to get outside of the building.

Try to Mob Czolgosz.

     In this she was successful and just as she reached the outside of the building she saw the wagon with Czolgosz in it trying to drive through the crowd. She says great crowds of people were hanging on the side of this, catching the wheels and horses and in fact every place they could get hold of, trying to get at the assassin. The driver on the front seat was whipping the horses with all his might, and trying to get away. In this he was successful, and she saw the carriage drive out of the grounds with the man lying inside.

Says Crowd Would Have Mobbed Him.

     In her efforts to get away from the crowd, Mrs. Wing later moved over near the emergency hospital and was nearby when President McKinley was moved from there to the Milburn residence. Mrs. Wing says the crowds in Buffalo that night were very wild and if they could have gotten hold of the man who shot the chief executive there would have been no doubt of what they would have done to him.

 

 


top of page