THE ASSASSIN ARRAIGNED.
At the mid-hour, when the people were filing past the casket that held
all that was mortal of the late President of the United States, in the
rotunda of the capitol at Washington, Leon Czolgosz, his assassin, was
being arraigned for trial in the court room at Buffalo.
“Are you guilty, or not guilty?” was the question which the Law asked of
him.
Whatever he was, whatever he had done, the public of the nation was too
great to visit upon him the summary vengeance his awful act so richly
merited.
Society is better than Czolgosz thought it to be. If it had been the
monster he pictured, if it had been the unreasoning and unjust force he
had been taught, and which his mad act showed that he believed, that man
would have been turned loose from the jail in Buffalo, and the society
he condemned would have had its will with him. And the mangled fragments
of the Third Assassin would have borne mute testimony to the truth—as
well, perhaps, as the justice—of the estimate which he placed upon it.
But instead of that, society gave him all the forms of trial, all the
possibilities of defense.
He had the assistance of learned counsel. He might well be sure that all
that his most devoted friend could say in wisdom for his defense will be
brought forward on his trial. He was not condemned unheard. He was
placed with hands unbound in the presence of a sedate tribunal—of one of
the tribunals which all the organs of his creed had been maligning in
their every issue; and there he was asked:
“Are you guilty, or not guilty?”
District Attorney Penney almost shouted the words at Leon Czolgosz,
sitting in the county courtroom at 3 o’clock this afternoon. The
assassin did not even turn his eyes toward his questioner. Two hundred
auditors watched him, listening for his answer, but he did not look at
any of them, and his unshaven lips were silent. He stared at the floor,
and shunned the eyes of his fellow creatures.
The assassin, arrayed in clean linen for the first time since he shot
the President, sat sullen before the court while the charges were being
read. He looked no man in the eye. Sometimes his lips moved nervously,
as if he would speak. But he only moistened them with his tongue, and
with groveling eyes sat stolid and voiceless.
“Are you guilty? Answer yes or no!” thundered the district attorney, but
the fair-haired monster in the chair paid no heed.
“Do you understand what has been read?” asked Mr. Penney.
For an instant the skulking glance of the assassin fixed itself upon the
lawyer’s face. An immediate hush fell upon the audience. The assassin
leaned forward in his chair, then dropped his eyes, then leaned back in
silence.
“You have been indicted for murder in the first degree,” said Mr.
Penney.
Czolgosz’s eyes wandered toward the ceiling for a second, then to the
floor. Then he shifted half way round in his chair and sat mute in the
face of his accuser.
Judge Loren L. Lewis, former justice of the Supreme Court, who had been
assigned to the defense of the assassin by Judge Edward K. Emery, then
arose and addressed the court. It was at once apparent that the duty was
distasteful, but Mr. Lewis entered a plea of “Not Guilty.”
He asked permission to reserve the right to withdraw the plea, enter a
special plea, or withdraw the demurrer if, after consultation with Judge
Titus, also assigned to the case, it was decided to decline the
assignment. Judge Titus being in Milwaukee, Mr. Lewis said that it was
impossible to enter further into the case, and, therefore, he informally
offered the plea of not guilty.
Attorney Lewis then told the court that he had called upon the prisoner,
but had been met with a stubborn refusal to discuss the case. Czolgosz
would not even admit that he wished the services of counsel. Mr. Lewis
asked the court for permission to introduce alienists to examine into
the prisoner’s mental condition, as this step had already been taken by
the attorneys for the people. He mentioned incidentally that he was
sorry his name had been connected with the case, but that as a lawyer
and an officer of the court he felt himself obligated to carry out its
wishes.
Mr. Penney next gave notice that he would move to have the trial
transferred to the Supreme Court, and would ask notice of it for next
Monday. Czolgosz’s attorney then said that he knew of no reason why his
client should not be ready Monday, but Judge Emery upon request agreed
not to enter the order till Mr. Titus, associate counsel for Czolgosz,
returns from Milwaukee.
Mr. Lewis’ request to be permitted to introduce alienists gave rise to
the prevalent belief that the defense will be built upon the theory of
insanity.
At the close of Attorney Lewis’ address Judge Emery said:
“Remove the prisoner.”
He was quickly handcuffed. There was a rush of spectators toward the
stairway leading to the tunnel that connects the courthouse with the
jail. Czolgosz, the assassin, now manacled and hustled along, passed
within a lane of staring citizens.
His dirty sleeve brushed against the drapery of black that enwrapped the
pillars of the halls and stairs as he descended. Above his head, as he
passed downward into the tunnel, the black encinctured portrait of the
martyred President looked down upon his frowzy head as he went. But he
did not look up. Surrounded by detectives, mute, sullen and shambling,
he shuffled down the stone stairway.
Then a low hiss, subdued but ominous, rose from the watching crowd. It
swelled and echoed down the squalid passageway as the murderer slunk
away and passed back to the jail, which is connected by a dark subway
under Delaware avenue with the courthouse.
It was the opinion of those who saw Czolgosz to-day that he is shamming
insanity. Since his arrest he has made no rational request, except that
he be shaved. Chief of Detectives Cusack said “No,” and the murderer
came into court to-day with a ten days’ growth of beard that made him
look disheveled and dirty.
“He gets no razor while he is my prisoner,” explained Cusack. “That
would be too easy.”
The audience which assembled in court to witness Czolgosz’s arraignment
to-day was not as large as was expected. Few believed that Judges Titus
and Lewis would consent to serve in behalf of the accused assassin. Both
the lawyers assigned to the case by Judge Emery are high in their
profession, and it is well known that they are mortified and annoyed by
the assignment. However, the law requires that the court’s behest be
followed, and it is probable that the attorneys named will carry out the
instructions of Judge Emery.
There is something in the family history of the assassin which sheds a
baleful light on the acts of the present, and they were revealed in the
very hour when he was standing trial for his life in Buffalo.
There was a time when the father of this young man took the law into his
own hands. And this is the story of it:
The elder Czolgosz was one of the colonists in Presque Isle County,
ruled over by Henry Molitor, who was an illegitimate son of King Louis
of Wurtemberg, and who fled from Germany under sentence of death.
Stung to desperation by King Molitor’s tyrannies and vice, a band of
colonists poured a volley of shots through the window of the company
store on August 16, 1876, killing Molitor.
The principal actors in this tragedy, of whom the elder Czolgosz was
one, were sentenced to prison for life, but were subsequently pardoned.
Amid such surroundings Assassin Czolgosz was born and reared.
All that occurred twenty-five years ago. It could have had no influence
on the life of the lad, if, indeed, he had then been born. But it in
some degree shows the strain of blood in the family, and in some measure
accounts for the stolid silence in which that young man sits when, for
murder most foul, he is called before the bar of the people.
* * * * *
Following is the formal true bill returned by the grand jury of Erie
County, New York, against Leon F. Czolgosz, the assassin of the late
President McKinley:
The people of the State of New York, entered against Leon F.
Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman.
The grand jury of the County of Erie, by this indictment, accuse
Leon F. Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, of the crime of murder in the
first degree.
That the said Leon F. Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, on the sixth day
of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and
one, at the City of Buffalo, in the County of Erie, with force and
arms in and upon one William McKinley, in the peace of the people of
the State of New York, then and there being, willfully, feloniously
and from a deliberate and premeditated design to effect the death of
said William McKinley, did make an assault, and the said Leon F.
Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, then and there willfully, feloniously
and from a deliberate and premeditated design to effect the death of
the said William McKinley, did shoot off and discharge to, at,
against and upon the said William McKinley a certain pistol and
firearm, then and there charged and loaded with gunpowder and leaden
bullets, and the said Leon F. Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, with the
leaden bullets aforesaid, out of the pistol and firearm aforesaid,
then and there by force of the gunpowder aforesaid, shot off, sent
forth and discharged, him, the said Leon F. Czolgosz, then and there
feloniously, willfully and with a deliberate and premeditated design
to effect the death of the said William McKinley, did strike,
penetrate and wound, giving unto him, the said William McKinley,
then and there with the leaden bullets aforesaid so as aforesaid
discharged, sent forth and shot out of the pistol and firearm
aforesaid, by the said Leon F. Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, in and
upon the stomach, abdomen and body of the said William McKinley, one
mortal wound, of which said mortal wound he, the said William
McKinley, from the sixth day of September, in the year aforesaid,
until the fourteenth day of September, in the same year aforesaid,
at the city and county aforesaid, did languish, and, languishing,
did live, on which said last-mentioned day he, the said William
McKinley, at the city and county aforesaid, of the said mortal
wound, did die; contrary to the form of the statute in such case
made and provided, and against the peace of the people of the State
of New York and their dignity.
Second Count—And the grand jury of the County of Erie aforesaid by
this indictment do further accuse the said Leon F. Czolgosz, alias
Fred Nieman, of the crime of murder in the first degree, committed
as follows, to-wit:
That on the sixth day of September, in the year of our Lord one
thousand nine hundred and one, at the City of Buffalo, and in the
County of Erie, the said Leon F. Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, in and
upon the body of one William McKinley, in the peace of the people of
the State of New York to and there being willfully, feloniously and
of his malice aforethought, did make an assault, and a certain
pistol then and there charged with gunpowder and one leaden bullet,
which he, the said Leon F. Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, in his right
hand then and there had, and held to, at, against and upon the said
William McKinley, then and there willfully, feloniously and of his
malice aforethought, did shoot off and discharge, and the said Leon
F. Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, with the leaden bullet aforesaid,
then and there by the force of the gunpowder aforesaid shot off,
sent forth and discharged as aforesaid, him, the said William
McKinley, in and upon the stomach, abdomen and body of him, the said
William McKinley, then and there willfully, feloniously and of his
malice aforethought, did strike, penetrate and wound, giving unto
him, the said William McKinley, then and there with the leaden
bullet aforesaid, so as aforesaid discharged, sent forth and shot
out of the pistol aforesaid, in and upon the stomach, abdomen and
body of him, the said William McKinley, one mortal wound, of which
said mortal wound he, the said William McKinley, from the said sixth
day of September, in the year aforesaid, at the city and county
aforesaid, did languish, and, languishing, did live; on which said
last-mentioned day he, the said William McKinley, at the city and
county aforesaid, of the said mortal wound, did die.
And so the grand jury aforesaid do say that the said Leon F.
Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, him the said William McKinley, in the
manner and form and by the means aforesaid, did kill and murder
against the form of the statute in such case made and provided and
against the peace of the people of the State of New York and their
dignity.
(Signed.)
THOMAS PENNEY,
District Attorney of Erie County.