Complete Life of William McKinley and Story of His Assassination. Everett Marshall

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СКАЧАТЬ I have never advocated violence, nor do I know a single truly great anarchist leader who ever did advocate violence. Where violence comes with anarchy it is a result of the conditions, not of anarchy. The biggest fallacy going is the idea that anarchists as a body band together and order violence, assassinations of rulers and all that. I ought to know something about anarchy, and I tell you that is false—absolutely false.

      “There is ignorance, cruelty, starvation, poverty, suffering, and some victim grows tired of waiting. He believes a decisive blow will call public attention to the wrongs of his country, and may hasten the remedy. He and perhaps one or two intimate friends or relatives make a plan. They do not have orders. They do not consult other anarchists.

      “Perhaps under the same conditions I would do the same. If I had been starving in Milan, and had raised my starving baby in the air as an appeal for justice, and had that baby shot in my arms by a brutal soldiery, who knows what I might have done? I might have changed from a philosophical anarchist to a fighting anarchist. Do you suppose if Santo Caserio had had anarchist organization back of him he would have tramped all the weary way to Paris, without money, in order to kill Carnot? If Bresci had been sent out from us, would he have had to scrape together every cent he could, even forcing one of his anarchist friends to pawn some of his clothes in order to repay a loan Bresci had made him? The friend curses Bresci for a hardhearted creditor, but Bresci never told why he needed the money so desperately.

      “Anarchy’s best future lies in America. We in America haven’t yet reached conditions—economic conditions, I mean—that necessarily breed violence. I am thankful for that; but we are much nearer such conditions than the old-time American ever dreamed we would be, and unless something is done to stop it, the time will come.

      “It’s all too absolutely silly, this talk about my being dangerous. Half my fellow believers think me a fool because I am always talking against violence and advocating individual work. I believe that the next ten years will see a wonderful spreading of the true principles of anarchy in this country.”

      Emma Goldman, at the time of the assassination, was a woman thirty-two years old, with coarse features, thick lips, a square jaw and prominent nose. She wore glasses on account of nearsightedness, and her hair was light, almost red—the color of the doctrine she teaches.

      She was held without bail, but afterwards released.

      After Czolgosz, the first arrests for complicity in the attempt on President McKinley’s life were made in the city of Chicago. The metropolis of Illinois, with its cosmopolitan population, has always been a hotbed of anarchy, and it was there the police instantly looked for traces of the movements of the assassin. The police learned from Czolgosz himself that he had recently been in Chicago, and had visited at the house of Abraham Isaak, Sr., 515 Carroll avenue. Isaak was known as an anarchist and the publisher of a paper called Free Society. The police procured warrants for the arrest of Isaak and others on a charge of conspiracy to kill and assassinate the President of the United States, William McKinley, and on visiting Isaak’s house Saturday, September 7, found nine persons there, all of whom were arrested. They were:

      Abraham Isaak, Sr., publisher of the Free Society and former publisher of the Firebrand, the organ of anarchy, which was suppressed; Abraham Isaak, Jr., Clemence Pfuetzner, Alfred Schneider, Hippolyte Havel, Henry Travaglio, Julia Mechanic, Marie Isaak, mother; Marie Isaak, daughter.

      The same day three other men were arrested at 100 Newberry avenue, Chicago, for the same crime. These men were: Martin Raznick, cloak-maker, who rented the premises; Maurice Fox, Michael Raz.

      In the house the detectives found box after box heaped with the literature of anarchy and socialism. There were pictures of Emma Goldman and other leaders and many copies of the Firebrand, Isaak’s old paper.

      The arrests were decided on thus early because of the receipt by the Chicago police of a telegram from the chief of police at Buffalo, reading as follows:

      “We have in custody Leon Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, the President’s assassin. Locate and arrest E. J. Isaak, who is editor of a socialistic paper and a follower of Emma Goldman, from whom Nieman is said to have taken instructions. It looks as if there might be a plot, and that these people may be implicated.”

      After being taken to the police station the prisoners were taken before Chief O’Neill and questioned. Isaak, Sr., was the first to be brought in, and he told his story without any suggestion of reticence, occasionally punctuating his answers with anarchistic utterances, angry nods of his head or emphatic gestures with his clenched fists. When asked if he knew Emma Goldman he answered:

      “Yes, she was at my house during the latter part of June and the first two weeks of July. The last time I saw her was on the twelfth of July. On that day she left Chicago for Buffalo. I met her at the Lake Shore depot as she was leaving. When I reached the depot I found her talking to a strange man, who appeared about 25 years old, was well dressed and smooth shaven. Miss Goldman told me that the fellow had been following her around wanting to talk to her, but she had no time to devote to him. She asked me to find out what the fellow wanted.

      “The man made a bad impression on me from the first, and when he called me aside and asked me about the secret meetings of Chicago anarchists I was sure he was a spy. I despised the man as soon as I saw him and was positive he was a spy.

      “Emma Goldman went away on a train which left in about half an hour after my meeting with this stranger, who gave his name as Czlosz (Czolgosz). I wanted to learn more about the stranger, so, when I went home, I asked him to accompany me. On the way to my house he asked me again and again about the secret meetings of our societies, and the impression grew on me that he was a spy. He asked me if we would give him money, and I told him no, but added that if he wanted to stay in Chicago I would help him get work.

      “When we reached my house we sat out on the porch for about ten minutes, and his talk during that time was radical. He said he had been a Socialist for many years, but was looking for something more active than socialism. I was sure then that the fellow was a spy, and I wanted to search and unmask him, so I arranged with him to come to my house on the following morning for breakfast.

      PRESIDENT McKINLEY AT THE BEDSIDE OF HIS WIFE WHEN SHE WAS ILL IN SAN FRANCISCO.

      THEODORE ROOSEVELT SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT.

      “I took him over to Mrs. Esther Wolfson’s rooming-house, at 425 Carroll avenue, and engaged a room for him. Mrs. Wolfson has since moved to New York.

      “I didn’t see Czolgosz again after that night. He failed to come to my house for breakfast, and when I went over to Mrs. Wolfson’s to inquire about him I was told that he had slipped away without saying where he was going. I was suspicious of him all the time, so I wrote to E. Schilling, one of our comrades in Cleveland, Ohio, and asked him if he knew of such a man.

      “Schilling replied that a fellow answering his description had called on him, and that he believed the man was a spy in the employ of the police. He said he wanted to ‘search’ the stranger, but was alone when he called and did not care to attempt the job. Schilling arranged a meeting for another night, but Czolgosz didn’t show up, and all trace of him was lost. I wrote to Cleveland because Czolgosz had told me he once lived there.

      “After I received Schilling’s letter I printed an article in my paper denouncing the fellow as a spy and warning my people against him.”

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