The Anarchist

by John Smolens

  “And place him within a heartbeat of the presidency.”

  “Exactly. When he arrives don’t be surprised if he’s on a white stallion, wearing the uniform he wore when he stormed San Juan Hill. Every time I see the man I think I hear bugles.”

  “George, the president rested comfortably through the night. Better than you did, apparently.”

  Cortelyou was about to respond when everyone in the room became quiet as a carriage drew up at the curb. Roosevelt climbed down immediately and walked briskly toward the house. He was wearing a silk hat and frock coat.

  “Borrowed,” Cortelyou said, and then he went into the hall, where one of the maids was opening the front door.

  Rixey remained at the window and watched the president’s staff gather around Roosevelt. Though it was a somber occasion, something about the vice president seemed to invigorate the group of men—they were animated by a strange blend of curiosity, uncertainty, and muted fear. He worked his way through the living room, shaking hands with each one of them. Behind his glinting pince-nez, his eyes were quick, and his voice, though subdued, was clipped and blunt. He seemed to speak with his teeth, biting off phrases. He was forty-two, and surrounded by men with gray whiskers.

  He reached Rixey last and his handshake was surprisingly soft. “Doctor, how is the president?”

  “His pulse and blood pressure are good,” Rixey said. “We’re reassured, though it’s still too early to tell.”

  Roosevelt nodded. “What about Mrs. McKinley?”

  The vice president spoke with such sincerity that it had the effect of disarming Rixey. He cleared his throat. “She’s doing remarkably well, sir. She’s bearing up.”

  “I know how they both rely on you, Doctor,” Roosevelt said. “I should pay her a brief visit first, if you think this is a good time.”

  “I’m sure she would appreciate it.”

  Roosevelt began to turn away, but then said, “The people I saw during my train ride across New York—I’ve never seen such despair in the faces of Americans. Not even the wounded in Cuba. They truly love their president. This is a terrible thing.”

  Rixey followed Roosevelt up the stairs. People tended to underestimate the vice president. For all his energy and brashness, he had the ability to find the truth of the moment, identify its center, and articulate it cleanly, with precision. Rixey had read several of his books, and was particularly impressed by his knowledge of natural history. It was said that he read at least three books a day. Such an intellect in a man who was so physically vigorous seemed a rare thing.

  One of the younger nurses stood in the hallway outside Mrs. McKinley’s bedroom. The girl’s face flushed when she realized that the vice president was approaching her. He stopped before her and inhaled deeply, which expanded his chest and squared his shoulders. At first she lowered her head, almost out of fear, but then, after a moment, she raised her eyes. Roosevelt stared at her, and she was somehow transformed. She herself stood up straighter.

  Rixey knocked gently on the raised-panel door, and then turned the knob.

  Suddenly, Roosevelt’s hand caught his forearm. Unlike the handshake he had offered downstairs, his grip now was firm. “Doctor, would you object to my having a moment alone with Mrs. McKinley?”

  Rixey let go of the knob, though the vice president still held his sleeve. “No, of course not, Mr. Vice President.”

  “Thank you.” Roosevelt let go of his arm and pushed the door open.

  As he stepped inside, the nurse stared back at Rixey. She seemed embarrassed by what she had just witnessed and gazed at the floor.

  Rixey walked to the end of the hall and looked out the front window. The press had set up a tent in the street and dozens of reporters stood around in small groups, smoking cigars and cigarettes; the front lawn was guarded by police and military personnel with rifles.

  After a few minutes Roosevelt emerged from the first lady’s room. Rixey led him down to the other end of the hall to the president’s bedroom. One of the male nurses was sitting with McKinley, who lay on his back, asleep. The vice president stood silently for several minutes staring at McKinley, and then he led Rixey to the far end of the room.

  “Has he been awake much?” Roosevelt whispered.

  “Yes,” Rixey said. “And very alert, and in remarkably good spirits. Earlier today, when Dr. Mann was here—he performed the operation to close the wound—the president asked to see the newspapers. We hesitated, thinking it was too soon for him to be reading about all this. But then he made it clear that he was more interested in seeing the editorial reaction to his speech.”

  The vice president bared his teeth and nodded his head. He turned and stared at McKinley a moment, and then they left the room. George Cortelyou was waiting in the hall.

  “Gentlemen,” Roosevelt said, “is there somewhere we can talk—here, upstairs?”

  “Certainly,” Cortelyou said. He led them to the end of the hall and opened the door to a small office with a daybed. “I’m using this as my office, so we shouldn’t be disturbed.” He closed the door behind them.

  For a moment, all three men stood, silent and awkward, until the vice president pulled out the desk chair and sat down. “Please, gentlemen.” Rixey and Cortelyou sat on the daybed. “Let me start by telling you what I know—what I’ve been told or read. Then please tell me anything else I ought to know.” Both men nodded. “One bullet posed no threat,” he said. “The second bullet passed through his stomach and is lodged in his back muscles. The wounds to the front and back of his stomach have been closed. His current vital signs are stable, and quite good under the circumstances.” Roosevelt’s voice reminded Rixey of a ticker tape. His teeth chattered and the words just kept issuing forth. “There have been a great many doctors involved already—frankly, physicians can be more divisive than politicians. Remember President Garfield’s assassination. Who’s in charge?”

  “Though I am the president’s physician,” Rixey said, “we have agreed that Dr. Park, who is a surgeon, should make the final assessment of any treatments. And we have agreed to only issue joint public statements through Cortelyou on a regular basis. It is essential that the public be informed accurately and honestly.”

  “Good,” Roosevelt said. “The newspapers are already running wild in every direction.” Looking at Rixey, he said, “So, is there anything else I should know?”

  “This morning I noticed a very encouraging sign.” Rixey hesitated.

  Roosevelt’s face was stone, but after a few moments his eyes turned impatient.

  “Gas,” Rixey said. “He’s already begun to pass intestinal gas.”

  Roosevelt didn’t appear to comprehend what the doctor had said; then he raised one hand and slapped his thigh. “The Major’s farting already?”

  “Often,” Rixey said. “And quite audibly.”

  “This is the best news I’ve heard since I left Lake Champlain,” Roosevelt said.

  They all laughed, until the vice president stopped.

  He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs; the others did the same. “What can we expect, Doctor?”

  “Our biggest fear,” Rixey said, “is autointoxication. Anytime the bowels cease to function, there’s the possibility that toxins will build up in the body’s internal organs. So this morning we ordered a saline enema.”

  “George,” the vice president said, “no need to put that in your public statements. And I’m impressed by how quickly you’ve set things up here—like a military operation. Your security throughout the neighborhood is excellent. Even the vice president had a hard time getting through to this house.” Roosevelt paused, long enough that Rixey wondered if the interview was concluded. “Gentlemen,” he said suddenly, “the country is in a state of panic—absolute shock. The fact is we don’t know where this is headed, or whether it’s over. The press has all sorts of theories about grand conspiracies, and I’m in no position at the moment to say they are wrong. Anarchism is an international movement that h
as been growing more powerful in recent years. It’s a sign of desperation, of hopelessness unlike anything we have ever known. While coming from the train station I was told that Czar Nicholas and Kaiser Wilhelm were both sailing somewhere off the Danish coast when they learned about the president. Their yachts planned a rendezvous and they have conferred with each other about increasing security in their own countries. There’s the very real possibility that this attempt on the president is part of an international plot.” He looked at the floor a moment before continuing.

  Rixey felt that the vice president had a number of subjects running through his mind and he was sorting and editing as he went—and that this was the way his mind worked at all times.

  Looking up, Roosevelt said, “A primary concern is the financial markets. I have received word from J. P. Morgan. Ironically, perhaps, he spent last night aboard his yacht, Corsair III, in New York harbor, partially out of fear of an extended plot, I assume, but also as a means of avoiding the more rabid members of the press. Mr. Morgan says there is no knowing how this will influence markets. It could be devastating. We simply won’t know until Monday.” He sat up straight in the chair and gazed hard at them. “This is an extraordinary event: a single act that has the potential to change the world as much as when armies and navies clash.”

  They were all silent, until Roosevelt stood up. “Thank you, gentleman. I will be staying down the street at the Wilcox residence, so that I will be close. I’ll visit the president twice a day and meet with you regularly.”

  Rixey opened the door and the vice president strode out into the hall. Cortelyou gathered up some papers on the desk and put them in his leather folder.

  “Signatures,” he said, coming to the door. “Half my time is spent seeking signatures.” He tucked the folder under his arm and went out into the hall with Rixey. “Did you notice what the vice president didn’t mention? Nothing about the security at the exposition.”

  “I think it’s meant as a vote of confidence, George.”

  “I hope so,” Cortelyou said. “There were so many people using handkerchiefs in the Temple of Music because of the heat.” For a moment he seemed distracted and at a loss for words, but then he said, “I don’t know which of us has the more difficult job—coordinating all these branches of the government that have suddenly gathered here under one roof or overseeing this medical team that has materialized out of thin air.” At the top of the stairs, he paused. The murmur of voices came up from the first floor. “I never thought I’d miss that drafty wreck of an old house in Washington we call the Executive Mansion.” He smiled briefly; it was the first time Rixey had seen him do so since they had come to Buffalo.

  “Personally, I envy Czar Nicholas and the Kaiser,” Rixey said.

  “How so?”

  “I’m a navy man. I’d rather be sailing a royal yacht off the coast of Denmark.”

  SATURDAY morning Norris went to the Buffalo police headquarters. The mob that had collected in front of the building the night before was gone, though there were still groups of people standing around in the street, simply watching the stone building. Inside, Norris found Lloyd Savin in his office.

  “I haven’t been out of here since early yesterday,” Savin said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  They went out a back door and Savin led Norris down a system of alleys. Overhead laundry hanging on clotheslines fluttered in the breeze. Men and women eyed them from steps and doorways. “One of the first things these people learn when they get to America,” Savin said, “is to sniff out a copper.”

  “It’s the same all over the country. What has Czolgosz given up so far?”

  “They got a signed confession out of him last night, claiming he acted alone,” Savin said. “We’re getting reports of conspiracies and plots all over Buffalo—all over the country, for that matter—and there’s a nationwide search for Emma Goldman.”

  Several blocks from police headquarters they entered a saloon called Tiny’s and stood at the bar. Though it was only ten in the morning, the place was full of men. Norris and Savin ordered beer and shots of whiskey. Savin knocked his shot back and rapped his knuckles on the bar for another.

  “I haven’t heard from Cortelyou yet, but I will.” Savin got out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. “We need to give him something.”

  “Yes, something,” Norris said. There was a bowl of hard-boiled eggs on the bar and he picked one up. “Hyde was right.”

  “About Czolgosz, yes. My men were keeping an eye out for him, as well as a number of Buffalo anarchists. But only Hyde really knew what the bastard looked like—before yesterday.”

  “If he had stopped Czolgosz,” Norris said, “we’d be giving Hyde a medal today.”

  Savin watched the bartender refill their shot glasses. “So now it might be more useful if we hang him.”

  “Him and this Russian whore at Big Maud’s—she knew both of them, Hyde and Czolgosz.” Norris tapped the egg on the bar, cracking the shell.

  “We’ve got to find Hyde.”

  “I know. But he’ll turn up.”

  “You don’t really think he and this whore were in on it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  Norris began to peel his egg.

  CZOLGOSZ believed it was Sunday. Despite the fact that he had signed a written confession Friday night, the police continued to interrogate him periodically in Chief Bull’s office. After each session he was returned to the basement, where he was often punched and slapped before being locked up in a dark cell. But here, in the chief’s office, there were tall windows that admitted bright, painful light. He could barely keep his eyes open.

  “They had to bring in the National Guard,” the man named Thomas Penney said. For hours he had been sitting across the table from Czolgosz. He was a district attorney and he looked like one, wearing a gray suit and a high stiff collar. “That mob gets ahold of you, they’ll hang you right away. If they don’t tear you apart first. I mean it, limb by limb. They’re that angry. It’d make us look pretty bad.”

  Czolgosz was handcuffed and he used both hands to pick up the glass of water on the table. The water soothed his dry throat but stung his bruised lips. “That collar,” he said, carefully putting the glass down on the table, “it doesn’t bother you?”

  There was the faintest look of surprise in Penney’s eyes. “No.”

  “Your accent—where are you from? Britain?”

  “I was born in England, yes.”

  “I was born in America.” Czolgosz smiled with difficulty. “Conceived in Europe, born in America.”

  Penney and the others—several uniformed policemen standing along the wall, and a court stenographer seated at the end of the table, a young man with a cowlick over his right temple—stared at Czolgosz. The policeman nearest the door leaned over and dropped a wad of tobacco juice in a spittoon. “You’re some goddamned American,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Penney turned toward him, and then faced Czolgosz again. “You’re pretty calm about all this, I’ll grant you that. Since Friday you’ve answered all our questions. But you still won’t tell us what we want to know. Who was in on it with you?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Right. And you’re Fred C. Nieman. Fred Nobody.”

  “I acted alone.”

  “Nonsense. Other people had to know about this.”

  Czolgosz lifted his arms off his lap, but Penney took the glass of water and slid it to his side of the table, out of reach.

  “Others influenced you,” he said. “With what, money?”

  Czolgosz shook his head.

  “When did you conceive of this plan?”

  Czolgosz touched his face with his fingers. The skin was tender, and one eye was still nearly closed. There was dried blood everywhere. They had not let a doctor see him. Somehow the pain helped him remain calm, and he knew that that’s what these men found most disconcerting—perhaps more than the mob down
in the street, or perhaps, even, more than the act of shooting the president. He had not been charged with anything. He had not been allowed to see a lawyer. No one had said whether McKinley was dead.

  “I read in a newspaper that the president planned on visiting the exposition in Buffalo,” Czolgosz said. “And it was in my heart—there was no escape for me.” He looked at the stenographer, to make sure that he was getting it all down. Slowly, Czolgosz said, “I could not have conquered it”—he waited as the man wrote quickly—“had my life been at stake.”

  When the stenographer finished writing, he looked up, and he seemed to appreciate the fact that he had been given the time to record what was said.

  Czolgosz told them how he had attempted to get close to the president when he arrived at the train station, but had failed. The only other sound in the room came from the stenographer, who continued to scribble furiously on his notepad.

  Penney said, “Who were your accomplices?”

  “I had no confidants—no one to help me. I was alone absolutely.”

  “What was your motive?”

  “I am an anarchist—a disciple of Emma Goldman. Her words set me on fire.”

  “So she was part of this plot?”

  “No. Only her ideas illuminated me. I have told you I am guilty for my acts. And that they were inspired by her ideas, I will not deny.” Czolgosz leaned toward the district attorney. “But, tell me, can you find someone guilty for their ideas?” He sat back in his chair. “You can’t, can you? Our ideas, Mr. Penney, are stronger than your laws.”

  Penney ran his thumb back and forth along the edge of the table as he seemed to be trying to develop an argument, but finally, he murmured, “Yes, well. That’s enough for now.”

  Czolgosz was taken back to his cell, though this time his handcuffs were removed and he was locked up without being touched. Lying on his cot, he could hear nothing. No voices, no screams and shouts. No mob. Outside the Buffalo police headquarters there had been fierce fighting. Occasionally, he had been allowed to watch from the window as the crowd in the street swelled toward the front of the building, where it was met by police. This had been happening for years in America, masses of people surging toward a line of uniformed men, who beat them back with clubs and rifles. People wanted jobs, they wanted food, they wanted better working conditions. Now they wanted Leon Czolgosz.