Czolgosz a Likely Tool of Stronger Intellects

Harriet Hubbard Ayer Makes a Thorough Physiognomical Study of the
Assassin—Regards Him as Legally Sane, but as an Egoist, First and Last.

     However much we may pretend to under-value the importance of an individual’s appearance as an indication of character, every honest person must admit that a man’s face expresses his own character and not the attributes of another’s personality.
     The physical make-up of the occasional criminal usually shows no striking abnormalities.
     The assassin is neither a giant nor a dwarf.
     He is short or tall, weak or strong, well put up or the reverse, as are other men.
     Physically, so far as his body is concerned, the signs for degeneracy, which is the popular way of writing criminal tendency, are too indefinite to enable one to estimate them. An investigation of the [?] tables of measurements are unconvincing to the unprejudiced mind as to the physical line that is supposed to exist between the normal sane man and the diseased abnormality—the criminal.
     But a man’s face and head bear the impress of his soul and, though normal characteristics are hard to interpret at a glance, they are equally as difficult for the possessor to disguise for any length of time.
     Sooner or later, a man’s real life is to be read in his face.
     The assassin Czolgosz, from his photographs—this sketch is made from a collection of pictures taken at the Police Department in Buffalo immediately after the shooting—is a variation of the Martin Thorne type. Czolgosz’s face is less sensual than Thorne’s but it belongs to the same class.
     It is first of all the face of the egoist.
     Whatever else he may be, it is safe to say the would-be murderer of our President is abnormally vain, and from his point of view regards himself as the hero of the hour.
     To be the centre of attention—the target for all eyes—a man of whom every one in the civilized world is talking, means intense gratification to the creature who is half insane with a desire for notoriety, and, while Czolgosz is by no means irresponsible and is legally as sane as any other miscreant, his dastardly deed of itself fixes his mental status.
     Like Thorne, he enjoys his notoriety, which he cannot differentiate from popularity.
     The face impresses me, first of all, as exhibiting strong signs of secretiveness.
     These signs are shown in the wide spread of the nostrils, in the closely drawn muscles at the corners of the mouth and in the expression of the eyes, which in the photographs before me are totally devoid of frankness.
     They are eyes that look but tell no [?]—the well-known eyes of the man who determines to reveal nothing through them.
     Czolgosz may be surprised or harassed into expressing his condition through his eyes, but not at this stage of the proceedings.
     The form of the assassin’s face indicates a materialism not borne out in the profile view.
     It is materialism, not sensualism. It is rather childlike in its roundness and opposed to all suggestion of true mental strength.
     Men with these round faces are usually sort of human vegetables—content to eat and sleep and enjoy life in an elementary way and let others do the working and the thinking. They rarely are roused to strong action and never lead but are easily led.
     In profile Czolgosz’s face shows a certain amount of intellectual capacity, but I am inclined to think the real Czolgosz is reflected in the full-face picture.

Signs of Degeneracy.

     As is usual in criminal subjects and, for that matter, not unusual in every day life, Czolgosz’s face and head display asymmetrical signs for degeneracy.
     The face appears to be larger on one side than the other, and the left ear is set higher up than the right.
     The mouth is vain, uncultured and indolent.
     The upper lip shows inordinate self-conceit.
     It is the mouth of Martin Thorne, with the difference that the lips are thicker and that Thorne had not the secretive signs at the corners of the lips, which are caused by the closely drawn muscles and give a certain tenseness to the line of closure as seen in the full-face photograph of Czolgosz.
     Thorne was a sensualist pure and simple. His vanity, when his affairs with women were concerned, was so great as to cause him to lose sight of his own peril, and he could not refrain from telling of his own amour for Mrs. Nack.
     Martin Thorne with Czolgosz’s mouth would probably be alive to-day.
     Thorne was a moral pervert of the most disgusting type. He was the incarnation of the brute in man.
     Czolgosz is a materialist but not a sensualist—and he is the result of generations of rudimentary men and women struggling against Russian oppression and tyranny.
     The man who shot our President is probably the miserable instrument of stronger minds.
     The development of Czolgosz’s head at the back is abnormal.
     The organs of destructiveness, aggressive protection, love of liberty, are all developed to exaggeration. The forehead shows a depression where the organs of reason and construction are located and the venerative faculties are totally undeveloped.
     Czolgosz is just the instrument mentally for stronger minds to play successfully upon if it were decided to [use him?].
     Thorn’s back of the head typified lu[st?] and sensuality—a dominance of all [?] baser passions.
     Nothing would have made a reputable citizen of Martin Thorn in my opinion, while the assassin of the President[,] in different circumstances, might have lived a creditable life, with proper influences and environment.

Vanity and Weakness.

     Czolgosz has a dimple in his chin—an unerring symbol for vanity and weakness.
     All physiognomists agree that a dimpled chin means a nature easily influenced. A dimple is the symbol for mobility, and mobility means susceptibility to external influences in the subject with a dimpled chin.
     Men and women with dimpled chins love to be approved of by their superiors.
     If Czolgosz has been trained to believe himself the instrument of a great cause his chin has not helped him to make [a?] moral struggle.
     All hollow or scooped-out places in the face are signs of weakness, either physical or mental.
     Czolgosz’s picture exploits a pronounced hollow just below the cheekbone, showing either an impaired digestion or malnutrition and lack [of?] mental stability.
     Czolgosz’s face is not at all of the revengeful type.
     The ears are at first glance rather nasty-looking, but they are not the ugly or murderous kind.
     They are ill-formed, showing lack [of?] sensibility and refinement, but they are not murderous or sensual.
     It has been said that a brown-haired woman with pale blue eyes is likely to be very cruel.
     Czolgosz has brown hair and expressionless, vague blue eyes, but I think insensibility better describes the [attributes?] of these eyes than premeditated [cruelty?].
     The nose of the assassin is fairly good. The spread at the nostrils gives it [a?] certain strength.
     Czolgosz does not impress me through his pictures as one who will exhibit mental anomalies.
     He is a decadent and belongs [?] class of men whose general [instability?] of character, lack of moral [sensibility?] and excessive vanity make the [commission?] of a heinous crime but a [question?] of environment and suggestion.
     Czolgosz is neither a crazy man [nor?] a common thug.
     He represents a special type, and [?] that needs more attention than [it?] [?] yet received, as we have [sad, sad?] [?] to-day to realize.