Leaving Chicago, and having business with the President, I visited him
at Canton, was kindly received, and accomplished the object of my visit,
little thinking that, in common with my countrymen I was so soon to be
horrified and appalled by an atrocity which bathed the country in tears
and startled the world in the taking-off of one of the purest patriots
that had ever trod his native soil.
The tragedy occurred at 4 o'clock p. m., on the 6th of September, 1901,
in the Temple of Music on the grounds of and during the Exposition at
Buffalo, N. Y. Surrounded by a body-guard, among whom was Secret Service
Detective Samuel R. Ireland, of Washington, who was directly in front of
the President, the latter engaged in the usual manner of handshaking at
a public reception at the White House. Not many minutes had expired; a
hundred or more of the line had passed the President, when a
young-looking man named Leon Czolgosz, said to be of Polish, extraction,
approached, offering his left hand, while his right hand contained a
pistol concealed under a handkerchief, fired two shots at the
President.
James Parker, a colored man, a very hercules in height, who was next to
have greeted the President, struck the assassin a terrific blow that
felled him to the floor, preventing him (as Czolgosz himself avers in
the following interview) from firing the third shot:
"Yesterday morning I went again to the Exposition grounds. Emma
Goldman's speech was still burning me up. I waited near the central
entrance for the President, who was to board his special train from that
gate, but the police allowed nobody but the President's party to pass
where the train waited. So I stayed at the grounds all day waiting.
"During yesterday I first thought of hiding my pistol under my
handkerchief. I was afraid if I had to draw it from my pocket I would be
seen and seized by the guards. I got to the Temple of Music the first
one, and waited at the spot where the reception was to be held.
"Then he came, the President--the ruler--and I got in line and trembled
and trembled until I got right up to him, and then I shot him twice
through my white handkerchief. I would have fired more, but I was
stunned by a blow in the face--a frightful blow that knocked me
down--and then everybody jumped on me. I thought I would be killed, and
was surprised the way they treated me."
Czolgosz ended his story in utter exhaustion. When he had about
concluded he was asked:
"Did you really mean to kill the President?"
"I did," was the cold-blooded reply.
"What was your motive; what good could it do?"
"I am an anarchist. I am a disciple of Emma Goldman. Her words set me on
fire," he replied, with not the slightest tremor.
During the first few days after he was shot there were cheering
bulletins issued by the medical fraternity in attendance, all typical of
his early recovery, and the heart of the nation was elated, to be, a
week later, depressed with sadness at the announcement that a change had
come and that the President was dying. Never was grief more sincere for
a ruler. He was buried encased with the homage and love of his people.
William McKinley will live in history, not only as a man whose private
life was stainless, and whose Administration of the Government was
beyond reproach, but as one brilliant, progressive, wise, and humane.
Pre-eminent as an arbiter and director, developing the nation as a world
power, and bringing to the effete and semi-civilized peoples of the
Orient the blessings of civilized Government; as a leader and protector
of the industrial forces of the country, William McKinley was
conspicuous. With strength of conviction, leading at one time an almost
forlorn hope, by his statesmanship and intensity of purpose, he had
grafted on the statute books of the Nation a policy that has turned the
wheels of a thousand idle mills, employed a hundred thousand idle hands,
and stimulated every manufacturing industry.
This accomplished, in his last speech, memorable not only as his last
public utterance, but doubly so as to wise statesmanship in its advocacy
of a less restrictive tariff, increased reciprocity, and interchange
with the world's commodities. His love of justice was imperial. He was
noted in this, that he was not only mentally eminent, but morally great.
During his last tour in the South, while endeavoring to heal animosities
engendered by the civil war and banish estrangement, he was positive in
the display of heartfelt interest in the Negro, visiting Tuskegee and
other like institutions of learning, and by his presence and words of
good cheer stimulating us to noble deeds.
Nor was his interest manifest alone in words; his appointments in the
bureaus of the Government of colored men exceeded that of any previous
Executive--a representation which should increase in accordance with
parity of numbers and fitness for place.
* * * * *
[Illustration: JAMES B. PARKER.
Who, Inspired by Patriotism and Fidelity, Struck Down the Assassin of
President McKinley.]
The following excerpts from the Washington Post, the verity of which was
echoed in the account of the crime by the New York and other
metropolitan journals on the day following the sad occurrence, gives a
sketch of the manner and expressions of the criminal, and throws light
on a peculiar phase of the catastrophe, that for the truth of history
and in the interest of justice should not be so rudely and covertly
buried 'neath the immature "beatings of time."
Washington Post: In an interview Secret Service Detective Ireland, who,
with Officers Foster and Gallagher, was near the President when the
shots were fired, said:
"A few moments before Czolgosz approached a man came along with three
fingers of his right hand tied up in a bandage, and he had shaken hands
with his left. When Czolgosz came up I noticed he was a boyish-looking
fellow, with an innocent face, perfectly calm, and I also noticed that
his right hand was wrapped in what appeared to be a bandage. I watched
him closely, but was interrupted by the man in front of him, who held on
to the President's hand an unusually long time. This man appeared to be
an Italian, and wore a short, heavy, black mustache. He was persistent,
and it was necessary for me to push him along so that the others could
reach the President. Just as he released the President's hand, and as
the President was reaching for the hand of the assassin, there were two
quick shots. Startled for a moment, I looked and saw the President draw
his right hand up under his coat, straighten up, and, pressing his lips
together, give Czolgosz the most scorn and contemptuous look possible to
imagine.
"At the same time I reached for the young man, and caught his left arm.
The big Negro standing just back of him, and who would have been next to
take the President's hand, struck the young man in the neck with one
hand, and with the other reached for the revolver, which had been
discharged through the handkerchief, and the shots from which had set
fire to the linen.
"Immediately a dozen men fell upon the assassin and bore him to the
floor. While on the floor Czolgosz again tried to discharge the
revolver, but before he could point it at the President, it was knocked
from his hand by the Negro. It flew across the floor, and one of the
artillerymen picked it up and put it in his pocket."
Another account: "Mr. McKinley straightened himself, paled slightly, and
riveted his eyes upon the assassin. He did not fall or make an outcry. A
Negro, named Parker, employed in the stadium, seized the wretch and
threw him to the floor, striking him in the mouth. As he fell he
struggled to use the weapon again, but was quickly overpowered. Guard
Foster sprang to the side of Mr. McKinley, who walked to a chair a few
feet away."
Washington Post, Oct. 9: James Parker, the six-foot Georgia Negro, who
knocked down the assassin of President McKinley on the fatal day in the
Temple of Music, after the two shots were fired, gave a talk to an
audience in the Metropolitan A. M. E. Church last night. He was
introduced by Hon. George H. White. Parker arose, and after a few
preliminary remarks, in which he thanked the crowd for its presence, he
said he was glad to see so many colored people believed he did what he
claimed he did at Buffalo.
"When the assassin dealt his blow," said Parker, "I felt it was time to
act. It is no great honor I am trying to get, but simply what the
American people think I am entitled to. If Mr. McKinley had lived there
would have been no question as to this matter. President McKinley was
looking right at me; in fact, his eyes were riveted upon me when I
felled the assassin to the floor.
"The assassin was in front of me, and as the President went to shake his
hand, he looked hard at one hand which the fellow held across his breast
bandaged. I looked over the man's shoulder to see what the President was
looking at. Just then there were two flashes and a report, and I saw the
flame leap from the supposed bandage. I seized the man by the shoulder
and dealt him a blow. I tried to catch hold of the gun, but he had
lowered that arm. Quick as a flash I grasped his throat and choked him
as hard as I could. As this happened he raised the hand with the gun in
it again as if to fire, the burning handkerchief hanging to the weapon.
I helped carry the assassin into a side room, and helped to search him."
Parker told of certain things he was about to do to the assassin when
one of the officers asked him to step outside. Parker refused. He
declared the officers wanted to get him out of the way. He said he
helped to carry the assassin to the carriage in which the wretch was
taken to jail.
"I don't know why I wasn't summoned to the trial," he said.
Parker said Attorney Penney took his testimony after the shooting.
"I was not at the trial, though," concluded Parker in an injured tone.
"I don't say this was done with any intent to defraud me, but it looks
mighty funny, that's all."
The above interviews with officers present agree with Parker's version
of the affair, and whether the afterthought that further recognition of
his decisive action would detract from the reputation for vigilance
which they were expected to observe is a fitting subject for
presumption.
At the time of the occurrence Parker was the cynosure for all eyes.
Pieces of the clothing that he wore were solicited and given to his
enthusiastic witnesses of the deed, to be preserved as trophies of his
action in preventing the third shot. No one present at that perilous
hour and witnessing doubted or questioned that Parker was the hero of
the occasion. This, the better impulse, indicating a just appreciation
was destined soon to be stifled and ignored. At the sittings of the
coroner's jury to investigate the shooting of the President, he was
neither solicited nor allowed to be present, or testimony adduced in
proof of his bravery in attempting to save the life of the Chief
Magistrate of the Republic. Therefore, Parker, bereft of the well-earned
plaudits of his countrymen, must content himself with duty done.
Remarkable are the coincidences at every startling episode in the life
of the Nation. Beginning at our country's history, the Negro is always
found at the fore. He was there when Crispus Attacks received the first
of English bullets in the struggle of American patriots for
Independence; there in the civil war, when he asked to be assigned to
posts of greatest danger. He was there quite recently at El Caney; and
now Parker bravely bares his breast between the intended third shot of
the assassin and that of President McKinley.
If this dispensation shall awaken the Nation to the peril of admitting
the refuse of nations within our borders, and clothing them with the
panoply of American citizenship; if it shall engender a higher
appreciation of the loyalty and devotion of the Negro citizens of the
Republic by the extension of justice to all beneath the flag, William
McKinley will not have died in vain.