Publication information
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Source: Post Express
Source type: newspaper
Document type: article
Document title: “Czolgosz Will Die a Sane Man”
Author(s): anonymous
City of publication: Rochester, New York
Date of publication: 12 October 1901
Volume number: 43
Issue number: 107
Pagination: 1

 
Citation
“Czolgosz Will Die a Sane Man.” Post Express 12 Oct. 1901 v43n107: p. 1.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
Leon Czolgosz (mental health); Leon Czolgosz (psychiatric examination); Leon Czolgosz (incarceration: Auburn, NY).
 
Named persons
Cornelius V. Collins; Floyd S. Crego; Leon Czolgosz; Joseph Fowler; John Gerin; Allan McLane Hamilton; Arthur W. Hurd; Carlos F. MacDonald; Matthew D. Mann; Charles McBurney; William McKinley; J. Warren Mead; Herman Mynter; Roswell Park; James W. Putnam; Presley M. Rixey; Charles G. Stockton; Eugene Wasdin.
 
Document

 

Czolgosz Will Die a Sane Man

 

No Change in His Mental Condition Since Conviction.
——
SIX LEADING ALIENISTS HAVE DECLARED HIM RESPONSIBLE.
——
Shut Off from the World the Miserable Assassin Awaits His End, Abhorred
Even by Inmates of “Murderers’ Row”—Isolated from Public.

     Buffalo, Oct. 12.—The Auburn correspondent of the “Express” says:
     Czolgosz, the assassin, will die a sane man. Those who feared his mind would break down need have no further apprehension. The closest and most experienced observers of the doomed wretch are said to be satisfied that in the few days remaining of his life he will not lapse into insanity.
     The fact that Czolgosz is sane and responsible for his acts was not brought out at his trial by expert testimony because his defense on such ground simply would have resulted in overwhelming evidence that he is sane. It is well to have it made plain now, on the eve of his death, that he dies a sane man. It is a matter of duly preserved fact that five expert alienists at Buffalo examined him and pronounced him sane and in addition thereto, Dr. Gerin, the physician of Auburn prison, an excellent medical man of great experience, who has watched Czolgosz during his confinement here, finds absolutely nothing to cause him to disagree with the other alienists.
     Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald, state commissioner of lunacy and the foremost expert on insanity in the country, has reported to the proper legal authorities concerned with the conviction and punishment of Czolgosz that the assassin is sane. He was summoned by the attorneys of Czolgosz, before the trial, but informed them, after examining the prisoner, that his testimony would be adverse to the defense. Dr. MacDonald is sustained in his position by Dr. Arthur W. Hurd, superintendent of the State asylum at Buffalo, and an alienist of great experience with maniac cases. Dr. Floyd S. Crego and Dr. Joseph Fowler of Buffalo, who saw Czolgosz almost immediately after the crime and who observed and examined him during his incarceration at police headquarters and elsewhere in Buffalo, agree entirely with Drs. MacDonald and Dr. Hurd [sic]. So also does Dr. James W. Putnam of Buffalo, who examined the assassin.
     Thus Messrs. MacDonald, Hurd, Crego, Fowler, Putnam and Gerin, six alienists who are well known and whose standing and ability are not questioned, declare the assassin sane. This fact is reiterated as a matter of public record at this time, as it deemed [sic] wise, in view of the insidious attacks made from certain quarters on Drs. Mann, Mynter, Park, Wasdin, Rixey, McBurney and Stockton, who attended President McKinley. These attacks on the prominent surgeons, who did all that could be done to save the president’s life, fell to pieces when analyzed. But it is intended to preclude any such matter in connection with the death of Czolgosz by having it known and as widely as possible, that at least six experts agree without a single detail of difference that Czolgosz is sane, that he was responsible at the time he committed the crime and at the time he was convicted and sentenced for the commission of the crime.
     No question can be raised after his death as to whether he was accountable or responsible. Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton and other alienists would be prepared at a moment’s notice, if need be, to give their expert opinion. Dr. Hamilton was at Buffalo, although he did not make an exhaustive examination of the assassin. It is an instance where expert after expert has agreed on the fact of the assassin’s sanity.
     Czolgosz does not have very congenial company in the chamber of the condemned. The four murderers in adjacent cells show no lessening of their hatred of him. They despise him and he is reminded of it frequently. He has been eating well. He is aware of the antagonism of his associates in the chamber of the condemned and they frequently count off the days before he goes out through the clanging door into the chamber of death.
     Requests to se [sic] the assassin or to have a peek into the chamber of the condemned are futile. Superintendent of Prisons Collins and Warden Mead have seen to it that he spends his last days isolated from the world, apart from the public and beyond contact with it. His last knowledge of outside life, his last experience with the outer world was when he sank down, wailing and cowering at the prison gate.

 

 


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