In the late summer of 1901, President William McKinley, a 58-year-old male of Scots-Irish and English descent, traveled to Buffalo, New York, to attend the Pan-American Exposition. On September 6th, a day after delivering a speech at the event, the President held a public reception at the Temple of Music on the exposition grounds. Despite the concerns of his staff, McKinley enjoyed interacting with the public and proceeded to shake hands with a long line of well-wishers.
It was in this receiving line that a 28-year-old man named Leon Czolgosz waited, his right hand wrapped in a handkerchief to conceal the. 32 caliber revolver he held.
As President McKinley reached to greet him, Czolgosz fired two shots at close range into the President's abdomen. The crowd immediately descended upon the assassin, and he was quickly taken into custody by police and soldiers who had been present. One bullet was easily found and extracted, having only grazed the President, but the other lodged deep within his abdomen and doctors were unable to locate it. In the initial days following the shooting, McKinley's condition appeared to be improving, leading to public optimism about his recovery. However, his health took a dire turn as gangrene began to spread from the internal wound. Early in the morning on September 14, 1901, eight days after he was shot, President McKinley succumbed to the infection.
The assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was a former steelworker and an avowed anarchist who viewed McKinley as a symbol of oppression and the enemy of the working people. He readily confessed to the shooting, stating, 'I killed President McKinley because I done my duty.' His trial was swift, beginning in Buffalo on September 23, 1901, just nine days after the president's death. Czolgosz refused to cooperate with his two court-appointed lawyers and offered no defense. The prosecution presented its case over two days, and after a brief deliberation, the jury found him guilty of murder on September 24th.
Following his conviction, Leon Czolgosz was sentenced to death. He was transferred to Auburn Prison in New York to await his fate. On October 29, 1901, a mere 45 days after President McKinley's death, Czolgosz was executed by electric chair. He expressed no remorse for his actions, and his last words reaffirmed his anarchist beliefs. The authorities, fearing his grave could become a shrine, took measures to obliterate his remains.
