A Dastardly Attempt

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 10, 1901

A Dastardly Attempt.

A DISPATCH from Buffalo, N. Y., dated Friday, the 6th inst., says: “President McKinley was shot twice by an assassin as he stood in the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition at four o’clock this afternoon.” The assassin’s name is Leon Czolgosz. He hailed from Detroit, and is an anarchist of Polish descent. The attempted assassination took place in the Temple of Music, in the presence of 3,000 persons, while 10,000 others stood outside, waiting for a chance to enter and shake hands with the President. Czolgosz was in line with the others, and as he was apparently about to shake Mr. McKinley’s proffered hand, he discharged a pistol which was in his left hand, wrapped about with a handkerchief. One bullet struck the President on the sternum, and glanced off, making a harmless wound. The other went through both walls of his stomach and lodged in his back, and may prove fatal. Upon learning the news, the rage of the crowd was such that repeated attempts were made to lynch the assassin on the spot. As we go to press, Mr. McKinley is still living, and there is hope that he will eventually recover, though his physicians consider the case most critical. One common sentiment of abhorrence must pervade all sane minds for this act, which has added a third victim to the list of the nation’s chief executives struck down by the assassin—an act as utterly senseless as it is criminal. The President of this republic is but the representative of the people, and to strike at the President is to strike at the people themselves. The incident, if it has any meaning at all, amounts to an attempt to overthrow government by the people, and if it could be successful, would only substitute a despotism in the place of the popular will.