{"id":101134,"date":"2019-01-06T09:55:31","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T14:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/digest\/?p=101134"},"modified":"2019-01-06T09:55:31","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T14:32:56","slug":"assassination-william-mckinley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/assassination-william-mckinley\/","title":{"rendered":"The Assassination of William McKinley: Of Hopeless Causes and One Seriously Pathetic Pistol"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

President William McKinley successfully led the United States through some sordid difficulties.<\/p><\/div>\n

William McKinley was, by all accounts, an exceptional President. He successfully led the country to victory during the Spanish-American War, and he oversaw the nation\u2019s rebound from the grievous economic crisis of 1893. At the height of his popularity he was shot during a brief public reception at the Temple of Music during the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. The theme of the exposition was electricity and its many marvelous uses.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

William McKinley ended the Civil War as a Brevet Major.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

McKinley was the only American President to serve as an enlisted man in the Civil War.<\/p><\/div>\n

William McKinley was the last Civil War veteran to hold the office of the Presidency. He enlisted as a Private and ended the war as a Brevet Major. McKinley served at the Second Battle of Bull Run as well as Antietam. McKinley had a horse shot from under him at Berryville during the Shenandoah Valley campaign.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

William McKinley doted on his wife. The death of her two children robbed her of her health.<\/p><\/div>\n

McKinley\u2019s personal life was, as was so often the case during this time, fraught with tragedy. His two daughters succumbed to illness in childhood, and his wife was emotionally distraught and physically frail ever after. However, McKinley threw himself into politics and was recognized as an innovative, principled, and popular leader.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The untimely demise of President McKinley helped launch the career of Theodore Roosevelt.<\/p><\/div>\n

After the death of his Vice President Garrett Hobart in 1899, McKinley completed his first term without securing a replacement. For his second term, he took on a young war hero, the Governor of New York named Theodore Roosevelt. Sordid events to come would soon elevate Roosevelt to unexpected heights.<\/p>\n

The Shooter<\/h3>\n
\"The<\/a>

Leon Czolgosz was never very good at anything.<\/p><\/div>\n

Leon Czolgosz was a Polish-American anarchist who never seemed terribly good at anything. He worked for a time in a glass factory but lost his livelihood during the economic crash of 1893. This event combined with disillusionment with the Catholic Church drove him to revolutionary anarchist teachings.<\/p>\n

Anarchists believed in essence that government of any sort was bad. Their MO in Europe was to attempt to enact their nihilist vision for society through political assassination and terrorism. Czolgosz was a disciple of the anarchist writer Emma Goldman and sought out her company. Eventually, she began to get a stalker vibe and started avoiding him. In fact, his blunt demeanor and painful social awkwardness led some in the movement to label him an obvious spy working on behalf of the government.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Czolgosz\u2019 deplorable lack of personal skills kept him isolated and brooding.<\/p><\/div>\n

Czolgosz was indeed a fairly pathetic figure. Unable to hold a proper job, his sundry personality defects kept him on the move and unattached. Inspired by successful anarchist assassins in Europe, Czolgosz began to view President McKinley as the embodiment of the hated establishment. In his twisted mind, McKinley seemed institutionally responsible for his individual failure a well. As a result, Czolgosz walked into Walbridge\u2019s Hardware Store in Buffalo, NY, and purchased an inexpensive .32-caliber Iver Johnson Safety Automatic revolver. With this, he embarked upon his journey to assassinate the President in earnest.<\/p>\n

The Shooting<\/h3>\n
\"The<\/a>

William McKinley was a personable President and genuinely enjoyed interacting with the public.<\/p><\/div>\n

President McKinley enjoyed mingling with the public and had a legendary handshake. He could shake hands at a consistent and sustained rate of fifty hands per minute. He had a refined technique that prevented his hand becoming strained unduly by overly vigorous acquaintances. On the day of his shooting McKinley\u2019s personal secretary, George Cortelyou attempted to cancel his public reception twice over security concerns only to have the President overrule him both times.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The speech McKinley delivered the day before his assassination was well attended.<\/p><\/div>\n

The President was scheduled to speak on September 5th and then tour the fair exhibits. Of the 116,000 people in attendance that day, roughly 50,000 of them attended his speech. His assassin tried to get close enough for a shot this first day but was kept back by the President\u2019s security detail. The following day at the Temple of Music reception would be his best opportunity.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

This photo was shot of President McKinley ascending the steps of the Temple of Music on the day of his shooting.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

This picture was taken mere minutes before the attack.<\/p><\/div>\n

Czolgosz queued up well in advance for his chance to meet McKinley. The rules held that those wishing to greet the President had to have both hands in clear view and empty. However, it was hot this day, and folks were mopping their sweaty brows with handkerchiefs aplenty. The rules were therefore relaxed.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Leon Czolgosz used the pretense of wiping his sweaty brow with a handkerchief to conceal the murder weapon.<\/p><\/div>\n

When Czolgasz got his turn he held out both hands, his right draped in a white handkerchief. Presuming the handkerchief to be a dressing for a wound of some sort, the President reached to take his killer\u2019s left hand in greeting. At that moment Leon Czolgosz fired off two quick shots from his diminutive .32-caliber wheelgun.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The attack on President McKinley was close range and brutal.<\/p><\/div>\n

One round struck a button and deflected. The President subsequently found this spent bullet loose in his clothes during his ride to the hospital.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The two shots were delivered so rapidly that many witnesses claimed to have heard but a single report.<\/p><\/div>\n

The other round, however, penetrated deep, ventilating the stomach, bowel, pancreas, and adrenal glands before lodging in his back muscles.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

McKinley\u2019s assassin was subdued immediately.<\/p><\/div>\n

Spectators and security personnel were on Leon Czolgosz in an instant, but the damage was done. The President intervened personally and entreated those subduing his attacker not to harm him. The only thing witnesses reported Czolgosz having said was, \u201cI done my duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gun<\/h3>\n
\"The<\/a>

The small Iver Johnson pocket revolver used by Leon Czolgasz was designed more for carrying than shooting.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Iver Johnson .32-caliber Safety Automatic was a diminutive pocket gun that came in three major variants as well as hammerless and conventional versions.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The gun\u2019s top break design made it relatively quick to reload.<\/p><\/div>\n

All of these weapons were top-break six-shot revolvers. The first two models were designed to fire black powder cartridges and differentiated by their latching systems. The third model was configured for smokeless powder.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Most of these old guns sport a flaking nickel finish today.<\/p><\/div>\n

All of these guns were available in either blue or an electroplated nickel finish.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The gun\u2019s star-shaped ejector activated automatically when the action was broken.<\/p><\/div>\n

The gun was a fairly efficient design patterned similarly to the English Webley revolver. The star-shaped ejector lifted all six empties up and out as the barrel tipped forward.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The rear sight was an afterthought.<\/p><\/div>\n

The front sight was an ample blade, while the rear sight was so miniscule as to be utterly worthless.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The gun\u2019s grip was really too small for adult hands.<\/p><\/div>\n

The trigger was a serviceable single action\/double action, and the black rubber grips included the image of an owl on both sides.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The transfer bar firing pin added another layer of safety to this inexpensive pocket gun.<\/p><\/div>\n

The gun utilized a transfer bar firing pin for safety.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The .32-caliber round fired by this tiny little revolver was woefully underpowered.<\/p><\/div>\n

The .32 S&W was an epically crappy cartridge not much longer than the width of a quarter. A typical load pushed an 85-grain lead bullet to about 700 feet per second.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Iver Johnson .32-caliber Safety Automatic revolver was actually a fairly cute little firearm.<\/p><\/div>\n

My revolver is the spitting image of the McKinley assassination gun and set me back $125 from a pawnshop. The overall geometry is really too small to accommodate an adult hand.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The original murder weapon is stored alongside the burned handkerchief Czolgasz used and is available for viewing by appointment only in a museum in Buffalo, NY.<\/p><\/div>\n

Given the gun\u2019s advanced age and questionable personality, I lack the fortitude to fire it. However, I am reasonably certain that the gun would be soft-shooting and easily pointed. So long as you mind the spurred hammer it should run well from concealment.<\/p>\n

The Wound<\/h3>\n
\"The<\/a>

The theme of the exposition was electricity, so even the ambulance used to carry the injured President was electrically powered.<\/p><\/div>\n

As the theme of the exposition was electricity President McKinley rode to the fairgrounds infirmary in an electric-powered ambulance.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The expo had its own simple operating theater, though the instruments available were limited.<\/p><\/div>\n

An esteemed group of surgeons was assembled, and they operated on the President with the limited tools they had available. Interestingly, one of the biggest challenges was illumination. Electric lights were not as effective as sunlight, so it was a race to complete the operation before the ambient light faded. One of Thomas Edison\u2019s primitive X-ray machines was technically available for use, but it was not deemed trustworthy or practical at the time.<\/p>\n

The surgeons repaired the stomach wound as well as the other readily accessible injuries. However, a surgeon buddy once opined, \u201cNever mess with the pancreas.\u201d Even if the other stuff had been manageable, McKinley\u2019s pancreatic injury was likely catastrophic.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

This is the house where President McKinley eventually succumbed.<\/p><\/div>\n

The patient improved for a time, but this is not uncommon with injuries of this sort. He was sustained via nutrient enemas and was purportedly a model patient. However, eight days after the shooting he decompensated and died of gangrene and fulminant sepsis. He was affectionate to his devoted wife until the end.<\/p>\n

The Rest of the Story<\/h3>\n
\"The<\/a>

Leon Czolgasz\u2019 last days were both brief and miserable.<\/p><\/div>\n

Leon Czolgosz was put on trial for the murder of William McKinley nine days after the President\u2019s death. The trial lasted forty-eight hours, and the defense called no witnesses. The jury deliberated half an hour before returning a guilty verdict.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The irony that Czolgasz shot the President at an electricity expo and was subsequently executed in an electric chair less than two months later was not lost on the American public.<\/p><\/div>\n

Things were different back then. On October 29, 1901, a mere fifty-three days after he shot the President, Leon Czolgasz was executed by electric chair. His body was soaked in acid prior to his internment, I suppose just out of meanness. What little remained of him was ultimately buried on the grounds of the prison where he was executed.<\/p>\n

Take Home Points<\/h3>\n
\"The<\/a>

This is the gun that is on display in the Buffalo museum commemorating the shooting of President McKinley. The original is kept in storage for safety.<\/p><\/div>\n

Czolgasz chose a truly horrible handgun for his mission. A coat button actually successfully deflected one round, while the other took eight days to end the life of his victim. McKinley\u2019s wounds would have presented a technical challenge to a proper trauma surgeon today but should have been reliably survivable. McKinley\u2019s obese habitus and a previously undiagnosed cardiomyopathy found on autopsy undoubtedly contributed to his death.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

President McKinley was afforded an appropriate state funeral.<\/p><\/div>\n

The deciding factor, in this case, was a lack of antibiotic drugs. In this era most any bacterial infection was potentially life-threatening. Given the inevitable corruption associated with stomach, gut, and pancreatic wounds there was little hope for the President from the moment the gun went off.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

President William McKinley was a fairly popular and effective President.<\/p><\/div>\n

President McKinley guided the country through a pivotal time. Americans were deciding whether or not to become a proper colonial power while simultaneously recovering from a paralyzing economic crisis. In the final analysis, however, William McKinley died for a stupid irrelevant cause that had no functional basis in reality.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

This nondescript marker commemorates the site of the shooting of President William McKinley.<\/p><\/div>\n

Human beings are innately sinful broken creatures. To expect people to govern themselves peaceably in the absence of some kind of formal structure is simply asinine. Then as now those who kill for passionate reasons frequently seem fairly pitiful in hindsight.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The moral of this story is that even a tiny anemic gun can be effective in the hands of a lunatic.<\/p><\/div>\n

***Shop GunsAmerica for your next historical gun***<\/a><\/b><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President McKinley was assassinated by a lunatic with a gun so small that no adult could hold it properly. But the president’s death changed American history and ushered Theodore Roosevelt to the Oval Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":101155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_specdata_upc":"","_specdata_placement":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[694,859,257,42,772],"tags":[1422,132,102,752],"featured":[],"hunt365":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-101134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gun-reviews","8":"category-gun-reviews-handguns","9":"category-historical-guns","10":"category-revolvers","11":"category-will-dabbs","12":"tag-assassination","13":"tag-buzz","14":"tag-feature-articles","15":"tag-historical-guns"},"yoast_head":"\nThe Assassination of William McKinley: Of Hopeless Causes and One Seriously Pathetic Pistol<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"President McKinley was assassinated by a lunatic with a gun so small that no adult could hold it properly, but his death changed American history.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/assassination-william-mckinley\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Assassination of William McKinley: Of Hopeless Causes and One Seriously Pathetic Pistol\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President McKinley was assassinated by a lunatic with a gun so small that no adult could hold it properly. 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However, shooting guns and claiming it was work seemed like a pretty sweet hustle. As a result, Will serendipitously transformed an avocation into a vocation. Raised in the Mississippi Delta, Will flew UH1H, OH58A\\\/C, CH47D and AH1S helicopters operationally as an Army Aviator. He is SCUBA-qualified and has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 o'clock in the morning. Will has summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times\u2026always at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains. Will has delivered sixty babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. He is married to his high school sweetheart and has three awesome adult children. 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