Publication information
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Source: San Francisco Call
Source type: newspaper
Document type: article
Document title: “Private Radowski [sic], Who Was Glad of President’s Death, Is Taken to Island Prison”
Author(s): anonymous
City of publication: San Francisco, California
Date of publication: 28 January 1902
Volume number: 91
Issue number: 59
Pagination: 1

 
Citation
“Private Radowski [sic], Who Was Glad of President’s Death, Is Taken to Island Prison.” San Francisco Call 28 Jan. 1902 v91n59: p. 1.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
Frank Rakowski; McKinley assassination (sympathizers); Frank Rakowski (public statements).
 
Named persons
Leon Czolgosz; William McKinley; Frank Rakowski [misspelled below]; Theodore Roosevelt.
 
Notes
The article below is accompanied on the same page with a photograph and four illustrations, all with the following collective caption: “Frank Radowski [sic], Ex-Private in the United States Army, Who Was Sentenced to Ten Years’ Imprisonment for Expressing Gratification Over the Assassination of President McKinley, as He Appeared Yesterday Chained to His Guard.”
 
Document

 

Private Radowski [sic], Who Was Glad of President’s Death, Is Taken to Island Prison

 

Comes from Vancouver Barracks with Ten Other Military Convicts and Is Taken
at Once under Strong Guard to Alcatraz. Prisoner Says That He Was Convicted
Because of His Name.

FRANK RADOWSKI, the artillery private whose expressed approval of the deed that cost President McKinley his life has gained for him a sentence of ten years’ imprisonment on Alcatraz, arrived here yesterday on the Oregon express in company with ten other military prisoners. Under escort of a strong guard the prisoners were conducted from the railroad depot to Clay-street wharf, where they embarked on board the Government tender General McDowell, which took them to their island prison.
     Radowski, who was heavily ironed, hand and foot, is the same Radowski who, according to a morning paper, arrived here last Thursday and was taken to Alcatraz secretly. In spite of the fact that Radowski was at that time in the guardhouse of Vancouver Barracks, a circumstantial account was printed of his trip to Alcatraz, with a full description of his guards, and embellished with a personal interview with the unhappy soldier.
     He arrived yesterday, however, and looks anything but a dangerous anarchist. He is undersized and inoffensive in appearance, has a good record in the army and according to the officer in charge of the prisoners acted in a decent, gentlemanly way while under his observation.
     Radowski, while not seeming to realize the seriousness of his punishment, speaks bitterly of those by whose evidence he was convicted. He says:
     “I’m no anarchist. I never even took an interest in politics, and it made little difference to me who was President—we generally manage to get a good one. When the call came for troops for the Philippines I enlisted in the volunteers, and when we were mustered out I joined the regular army. I was in the infantry first, but was transferred to the artillery.
     “I guess I did say what they accuse me of. I was drunk and so were the men that testified against me. That is, all but one man, a Justice of the Peace I think he was. I don’t remember having seen him, although he says he first ordered my arrest. I guess I got the worst of it because I’m a Pole and my name ends in ‘ski.’ I was born in Chicago, where my father runs a saloon, and I think to-day that I’m as good an American as any of those people walking free about that wharf.”
     Radowski was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment on Alcatraz for expressing himself as follows:
     “President McKinley got what he deserved. My time of enlistment in the army will soon expire, and when it does I’ll see that President Roosevelt gets the same dose that Czolgosz gave McKinley.”

 

 


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