Czolgosz Had Money
This Makes Cleveland Police Think He Had No Accomplices.
C,
Sept. 9.—The police here are still working on clues which may tend
to the belief that a conspiracy existed in which Cleveland Anarchists
were involved in a plot to assassinate the President. It has became
[sic] known that Czolgosz had $300 or $400 in ready money
when he left here two months ago. His people are in fairly comfortable
circumstances, having property worth between $4,000 and $5,000.
In spite of the fact that they are able to lend some help in his
legal defence when that time comes, the father, Paul Czolgosz, and
the two brothers declared that the would-be assassin must meet whatever
fate may await him without any help from his family.
The man who tried to kill the President
had made to him in the latter part of July a payment of over $300
for his interest in the farm in which the family formerly lived
between Cleveland and Chagrin Falls. The farm was sold for $1,700,
and the share of the assassin in the proceeds of the sale amounted
to between $300 and $400, and all but $50 of this was paid to him
in July. Members of the family say that the President’s assailant
had no bad habits that would have caused him to spend the money
rapidly, and it would probably have lasted him for his journey that
preceded the crime at Buffalo. From the first it has been thought
that the clue to the club or group of Anarchists behind Czolgosz,
if there was such a body, was the source of the money he used.
With the source of his means explained,
there is left nothing but surmise on which to base the belief that
the man who shot the President was the tool of a conspiracy in which
a number of Anarchists were involved. While the fact that Czolgosz
had money does not make it certain that he was not the active figure
of an assassination conspiracy, it removes one of the elements of
the proof that there was such a conspiracy and makes it possible
that the would-be assassin told the truth when he said that he had
no accomplices.
It has been found that for a time
Czolgosz worked in the Stroh brewery in the East End. In the vicinity
of Payne avenue and the brewery it is said that Anarchist and Socialist
agitators of the city gathered frequently in the small saloons,
and it is likely that the man who tried to kill the President picked
up his anarchistic sentiments amid those surroundings. In a small
saloon on Payne avenue it is said that the Anarchists and Socialists
gathered on Saturday and held a celebration for the attempt on the
President’s life. Most of the loud talking that was kept up all
day and most of the night was in foreign languages, but an English
word now and then, with the name of the President and that of the
man who shot him, indicated the cause of the apparent excitement.
Yesterday the saloon was closed and apparently deserted.
The police have almost given up hope
of getting trace of any conspiracy that may have been hatched for
the assassination of the President. They worked all day yesterday
on the case, but could get no new information. Chief Corner is still
of the opinion that the shooting of the President was not the result
of any plot hatched in Cleveland. Several other police officers
hold to that opinion, and it seems strengthened by the fact that
the police, after a most diligent search, have signally failed to
find any trace of an Anarchist plot. Many persons have been interrogated,
but all to no purpose.
Detective Sergeant Doran started out
early Sunday morning to find two men who are supposed to have been
most intimately associated with Leon Czolgosz, the assassin. They
were members of the same society to which Czolgosz belonged, and
it was asserted that they were implicated in a plot with Czolgosz
to kill the President. Doran could find no traces of the men in
the city, and so he went to the country near Bedford to look for
them. He was equally unsuccessful there, and came to the conclusion
that no such men existed.
“We have found absolutely nothing
that is new,” said Captain of Detectives Lohrer. “We have failed
to find the slightest evidence of any plot, and are inclined to
believe there was none.” The police are still working on the case,
however, and if there was a plot they intend ferreting it out.
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