Program Information

On September 4, 1901, Leon Czolgosz (chol-gosh) queued up to shake hands with the president of the United States, William McKinley. In his hand was a gun.

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Transcript

Lead: On September 4, 1901, Leon Czolgosz (chol-gosh) queued up to shake hands with the president of the United States, William McKinley. In his hand was a gun.

Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Leon Czolgosz was born in Detroit in 1873. While employed in a Cleveland, Ohio wire mill he became fascinated with radical politics, particularly anarchism. Anarchists were libertarian socialists--they wanted a society based on the voluntary cooperation of free individuals. In general, they were hostile to the leadership class, rejected government and ownership of private property, and many anarchists spoke the language of violence and were willing to use it.

In 1897 immigrant Slavic miners, while staging a peaceful protest against labor conditions at the Lattimer Mines in Pennsylvania, were brutally murdered. The sensational story affected Czolgosz so much that he apparently suffered a mental and emotional collapse.

In July 1900, the assassination of Italy's King Umberto I snapped him out of his depression. An Italian-American anarchist, Gaetano Bresci (Bray-shi), had traveled at his own expense from the U.S. to Italy to commit this act of regicide. This daring deed, plus the praise heaped on Bresci by international anarchist publications, greatly impressed Czolgosz and he moved to Chicago to be closer to the movement. Soon, however, his dark intensity and bizarre behavior alienated him from Chicago anarchists. An editorial in the anarchist publication "Free Society" specifically warned its readers to stay clear of Czolgosz because of his weird antics and conduct. Soon after this denunciation he fled Chicago only to surface months later as an assassin.

Next time: William McKinley, A Cooperative Target.

The producer of A Moment In Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, I'm Dan Roberts.

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