DETROIT – Have you heard the story of the Michigan resident who killed a sitting United States president? It’s not the one you’re thinking of, either.
Over the roughly 250 years the United States has been a country, there has been only one president who hailed from the Great Lakes State.
However, Michigan has a darker, and arguably more impactful connection to the presidency. Only four U.S. presidents have been assassinated. Half were killed by Michiganders.
The first president to have been assassinated was Abraham Lincoln, who was killed by a Confederate sympathizer from Maryland in 1865. Less than two decades later, President James A. Garfield was killed by a deeply unstable Ann Arbor dropout in 1881. Almost exactly 20 years later, President William McKinley was killed by a Detroiter in 1901.
Related: The Pioneer High School dropout who joined a cult, killed sitting US President
Who killed McKinley?
Leon F. Czolgosz was born May 5, 1873, in Detroit to a Polish-American family. He would later take the hard-headed and stubborn Taurus energy way too far, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The family moved multiple times across the Midwest as his father struggled to find stable work. When he was 17, the family moved to Cleveland, where he got a job at the Cleveland Rolling Mill, a steel mill with a history of labor strikes.
After the economic crash of 1893, Czolgosz lost his job. Seeking others who shared his views regarding issues in the justice and labor stuff, he joined the Knights of the Golden Eagle, an organization initially formed to help members find employment and to aid them when unemployed.
After being present for a number of violent labor strikes, he moved in with his father on a farm just outside Cleveland. Czolgosz was unable to find stable work and spent his downtime trying to understand what caused the 1893 economic crash. Like the bad guys from every episode of Scooby Doo, the real villain was actually old rich men trying to make more money.
Czolgosz saw American society as unjust and that it allowed the rich to gain wealth by exploiting the poor. He believed that the structure of the government was to blame. After King Umberto I of Italy was assassinated in July 1900, Czolgosz decided to take things into his own hands. He said President William McKinley was “the enemy of good working people.”
How Czolgosz killed McKinley
Counter to how Czolgosz felt, President William McKinley was very popular. He was the last president to have served in the American Civil War, having volunteered for service when the war began, fighting with the 23rd Ohio Infantry.
McKinley was elected in 1896, during the economic depression. He led the nation to both an economic recovery and a victory in the Spanish–American War, which resulted in Puerto Rico becoming a territory of the United States. He was reelected in 1900, winning 28 of the then 45 states -- Michigan included.
On Aug. 31, 1901, Czolgosz traveled to Buffalo, where McKinley would be speaking at the Pan-American Exposition. Czolgosz bought a .32 revolver from a hardware store on Sept. 3. He considered shooting McKinley during a Sept. 5 speech, but decided against it.
During a meet-and-greet event on Sept. 6, Czolgosz shot McKinley twice when it was his turn to shake the president’s hand. One bullet struck a button on his clothing and had only grazed him. The other passed through his stomach, the transverse colon and his left kidney.
Czolgosz was promptly attacked by the crowd. The assault was stopped after McKinley himself told them to “go easy on him.”
Doctors wrongfully assumed the bullet was stuck in a muscle in his back. After an attempt to remove the bullet, doctors decided to leave it inside him.
“A bullet, once it ceases to move, does little harm,” wrote Dr. Matthew D. Mann.
After several days in the hospital, McKinley seemed to be recovering, but his improvement did not last long. A week after the shooting, he had collapsed. Toxins had entered his bloodstream from an infection and gangrene in his stomach. McKinley died several hours later in the early morning of Sept. 14.
“I don’t believe we should have any rulers. It is right to kill them.”
Czolgosz was charged with first-degree murder. He pleaded guilty, but the judge insisted there be a trial and entered a “not guilty” plea instead.
He refused to speak with the attorneys assigned to defend him, who called no witnesses. After a two-day trial, Czolgosz was convicted and sentenced to death.
He was executed on Oct. 29, 1901, a month and a half after McKinley died. His family was not allowed to take his body home and he was buried on the prison grounds. His coffin was filled with sulfuric acid and his clothes were burned. Czolgosz’s headstone reads only “Fort Hill Remains.”
The shooting’s impact
While it may seem insensitive to use the word legacy in the context of a fatal shooting, Czolgosz’s actions had a significant impact on the United States as a whole. McKinley’s death resulted in Vice President Theodore Roosevelt taking over the Oval Office, leading to the creation of the U.S. Forest Service and the predecessors of what would become the Department of Labor and the Food and Drug Administration.
Additionally, McKinley’s death resulted in the Secret Service being put in charge of protecting the president, the vice president and their families. Over time, their protections would later expand to high-profile politicians, candidates, visiting dignitaries and their families. It’s one of the oldest federal law enforcement agencies and was initially a part of the Department of the Treasury in an effort to combat counterfeiting.
Strangely enough, the legislation that created the Secret Service was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln only a few hours before he was shot.
The Secret Service was chosen to be responsible for the protection of the president because there weren’t too many federal law enforcement agencies that existed at the time. They were an agency that the public respected and that already had experience running intelligence and domestic programs. Of the possible agencies that could be given this responsibility, the Secret Service was the best choice. Besides, it would be weird if the Federal Steamboat Inspection Service was tasked with protecting the president.
That’s not the only massive federal change that was made in direct response to McKinley’s death.
Despite the fact that Czolgosz insisted he acted alone, several large-scale investigation and surveillance programs were created to monitor potential domestic threats. Within a few years of their creation, the programs grew into what would become the FBI. Many of the intelligence and counterintelligence programs that were initially run by the Secret Service would eventually be taken over by this new department.
While a Detroiter’s actions fell short of the governmental upheaval he hoped for, his actions proved how resilient the country can be. McKinley’s death was a catalyst for a lot of things that we associate with the modern world. The response laid the groundwork and foundation of many social, economic and legislative changes that transformed the nation.
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