The Anarchist

by John Smolens

  The train came to a halt, clouds of steam drifting past the windows. The detectives filed down the aisle and out the door. Mitchell got up and led Czolgosz—his legs rubbery and awkward—toward the back of the car, their right arms linked by the handcuffs. They stepped out onto the rear platform of the car and there was a roar from the crowd. Mitchell pulled Czolgosz down the steps and they entered the center of a phalanx of detectives and uniformed policemen gathered on the platform. There was a great deal of pushing and shoving, but the detectives moved forward slowly, jostling the crowd, which only seemed to become louder, more agitated. As they reached the street Czolgosz thought that the detectives would not be able to hold. Men broke through and hit him with their fists. They spit on him, and clutched at his clothes and hair. At one point he was being yanked away from Mitchell and he thought his arm would come out of its socket. But some policemen wielded nightsticks. They continued slowly across the street, stepping over men who lay in the street, their heads bloodied. Czolgosz was carried along as several detectives held him by his arms, often lifting his feet off the ground. There was much yelling, and Czolgosz could feel their hatred, their desire to kill him with their bare hands. He tried to protect his head with his free forearm, but fists kept pummeling him, fingers gouged him. His face ached and his mouth and nose were filled with blood.

  As the phalanx neared the tall wrought-iron gate in front of the prison, the mob became frantic. At one point Czolgosz fell to his knees, where he was kicked repeatedly in the sides and back. But he was hauled up onto his feet by Mitchell, while another man took hold of his free arm. Turning, he looked into a familiar face—Moses Hyde. His cheek and forehead were badly scratched, and he had blood running from one nostril. With all his strength Hyde lifted Czolgosz and helped Mitchell carry him toward the gate.

  The gate opened just enough to allow them inside the prison grounds. The crowd reached through the bars and spat on Czolgosz. Glass bottles were thrown over the fence, breaking on the pavement. Czolgosz could no longer walk and several men now carried him through the front door of the prison. His handcuffs were unlocked and he sprawled on the hardwood floor. Many of the guards were injured and everyone was shouting. He went into a fit of crying and screaming. Several guards held his arms and legs, but he couldn’t stop kicking and writhing. Finally they peeled off his torn coat and rolled up his shirtsleeve. One man knelt over him, hypodermic needle in hand. Hyde stepped back and Czolgosz could only keep screaming, the sound pouring up out of him as though he had been holding it in for years. The hypodermic needle was stabbed into his upper arm, and the injection brought a swift flooding sensation; the trembling ceased, his limbs became leaden, and he felt as though he were falling away from the bloody faces that stared down at him. He strained to see Hyde, now standing behind a group of detectives. Unlike the others, his eyes were not angry. There was something else, something Czolgosz couldn’t fathom—it wasn’t a look of satisfaction so much as of relief, and there was something horrifying in Hyde’s stare.

  VIII

  DR. RIXEY REMAINED in Canton to care for Mrs. McKinley until mid-October. The night he had been packing for the trip back to Washington, D.C., he was summoned by a young policeman, who drove him in a carriage out to the cemetery. It was after eight o’clock but there were a number of lanterns glowing on the knoll where the president had been buried. Two policemen came down to the carriage to greet him.

  The taller of them was a plainclothesman, who said, “Dr. Rixey, I’m Captain Biddle, and this is Private Deprend. Apparently, someone made an attack on President McKinley’s tomb.” In the lamplight Biddle’s face had deeply lined cheeks.

  “What kind of attack?” Rixey asked.

  Biddle said to the younger policeman, “Tell him, Deprend.”

  “Yes, sir,” Deprend said. He was young and nervous, and he spoke very fast. “It was about seven thirty, Doctor, and I was on guard right beside the vault. I saw this figure—I believe it was a man—he was standing behind a tree. He didn’t do anything for about twenty minutes. I let him be—lots of people have been coming around to just look at the president’s tomb—but when he moved to another tree about ten yards closer I told him to come out in the open and identify himself. He made no reply, but he stepped out from behind the tree and came closer. I called to him a second time, but still he didn’t respond. Then he was close enough for me to see that he was carrying a box—it was dark, but it was a white box, I’m certain of it. I raised my gun and took aim, and again demanded that the man stop and identify himself.” The young policeman glanced at Biddle, and then continued. “Suddenly I was attacked from the side by another man—he reached for my gun and it discharged once. We struggled on the ground but I could not see his face because he was wearing a mask. And he tried to stab me with a knife.” The policeman turned and showed the doctor the side of his overcoat; there was a long slash that had gone through the coat and his shirt underneath.

  “Are you wounded?” Rixey asked. “I can’t see any blood.”

  “No, I wasn’t cut, sir. But I have bruises because when he knocked me down I rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill there.”

  “And the two men?”

  “Gone,” Captain Biddle said.

  Rixey stared at the captain, who turned to Deprend. “That will be all, Private.”

  The young man looked grateful. “Yes, sir.” He climbed back up the knoll to the vault.

  “Captain,” Rixey said, “is he reliable?”

  “He’s been on the force about four months. I have no reason to doubt him.”

  “Did anyone else see either of these men?”

  “No, sir. Some of my other men reached the vault within seconds and we searched the grounds, but it was dark and we found no trace of them.”

  Rixey gazed up toward the vault a moment. “Have any reporters been here?”

  “Not yet,” Biddle said. “But I expect word will get out.”

  “I appreciate it that you sent for me, Captain.” Rixey began to turn away, but then stopped and faced Biddle again. “What do you think of the white box?”

  “I think it was explosives.”

  “I see. Someone wanted to blow up the president’s vault.”

  “I would say so, sir.”

  Rixey started up the knoll.

  “Doctor, would you like a lantern?” the captain asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  Rixey climbed up to the vault and walked around it once. Then he stopped and placed his hand on the marble. Nothing, he realized, would be the same from now on. The country had changed in the short time since McKinley’s death. There was something frantic, even rabid, in the way people had responded to the assassination. It was in the faces he had seen when McKinley’s body was returned to Canton. It was in the newspapers, where the stories seemed almost exuberant in their ability to shock. There was a great cacophony of voices, strident, sorrowful, wanting, and angry, which had only been waiting for this one event to set them free. The marble was cool beneath his hand, and somehow he found it soothing, even reassuring.

  ON Auburn’s death row the cell walls were lined with metal plates. Czolgosz often laid his hands against the steel, marveling at its cold impenetrability. His nose and cheeks were bandaged so that his vision was limited. He had bruises on his torso, arms, and legs. There was constant pain deep in his muscles, burning aches in his joints; his left shoulder felt as though it had been dislocated. Security was tighter than in Buffalo. There were always two guards seated just outside his cell door. And he knew there were four other men in cells down the hall; they talked to one another but rarely to him, and he understood that they resented the fact that he received special attention. He spent most of the time lying or sitting on the cot, covered with blankets because the cell was cool. His appetite was still good and he looked forward to each meal, after which he would sleep soundly for hours. He welcomed the oblivion of sleep. Only a faint residue of his dreams remained after he awoke. There were moments
when his solitude seemed perfect. His mind could stop and, lying still, this was what he hoped death would be like. In these moments he looked forward to death.

  Early one morning Moses Hyde sat next to him on the cot.

  You don’t seem to mind the size of the cell.

  No, Hyde said.

  We have that in common.

  When you sleep on a barge, you are usually in a tight berth, not much more space than a coffin. Sometimes you sleep in a hammock, so that you are curled up like a pea in a pod.

  This must be why I always preferred trains.

  They both laughed, and then they were silent for a while.

  I should have shot you when I had the chance.

  That’s the difference between you and me, Hyde. You hesitated. There was a moment when I couldn’t breathe, and I waited for the pain of the bullet, but then Motka hit you with the chamber pot. You couldn’t bring yourself to do it. That helped me because the next day as I waited in line to be greeted by the president, I knew I could not hesitate.

  It is difficult to deliberately shoot someone, particularly a man who is unarmed, who is no threat to you. That is why I hesitated—that and the drink. If I had not hesitated, the president would be alive.

  Perhaps, but if I had not shot him, then someone else would have. Eventually. We are at war and there is always someone prepared to do what is necessary.

  I don’t believe that.

  I know you don’t.

  What is even harder for me to understand is that you have no remorse.

  Not now. I did have a moment. It was on the train to Auburn. I was frightened. I had been sentenced to death that afternoon and I told a reporter that I regretted what I had done. I said I felt sympathy for Mrs. McKinley. Somehow I thought saying such things might end my fear. But it didn’t.

  You still have it, fear?

  No.

  What did end it?

  Pain. I was nearly killed by that mob when I arrived here and for days afterward the pain was terrible. I’m better now, but I still hurt. It’s because of such pain that I have no fear of death. It will be the end of my pain.

  Hyde thought about this for a long while. You frighten me, the way you think.

  I do it to free you.

  Then you have failed.

  You are not free?

  Not in the way you imagine. No one is free in the way you imagine. You want everyone to be without obligation, responsibility, guilt, regret. You might as well tell people to go back to the Garden of Eden. You don’t understand that each of us needs his burden. Labor. Love. Devotion to another. These are all hard to bear, but without them we would not be alive. We would have no reason to live.

  I cannot listen to this any longer. I will not believe that. I done my duty. That’s what I shouted right after shooting the president, and I still believe it. I done my duty.

  Hyde got up off the cot, but paused at the door. And I have done mine.

  The afternoon before Czolgosz was to be executed his brother Waldeck was brought to the cell. They greeted each other in Polish, but the guard said that they had to speak English or Waldeck would not be allowed to stay. Waldeck was very nervous and somber. He said the entire family was being hounded by reporters and the police. They were trying to prove that Waldeck had assisted in the assassination. The family was treated differently by neighbors, and they had to shop in stores where they were not known. And yet they all had agreed to wear pins with Leon’s picture on them, to demonstrate that they were not embarrassed. At one point Waldeck broke down and cried. He said that he had brought some papers for Warden Mead to sign—there was a small life insurance policy that their father had on Leon, and they needed the money. And the warden had told Waldeck that he would not be allowed to take his brother’s body back to Cleveland for burial. Czolgosz assured him that everything was all right. The guards only allowed them to talk for a short while, perhaps ten minutes. He was glad to be alone after Waldeck left. He wanted only to be alone. He wanted to be alone and he wanted to eat. The hard thing was waiting for dinner to be brought to his cell. He was always hungry.

  He was sound asleep when he suddenly realized that the cell door had opened. Several men stared in at him. He recognized some of them—Dr. MacDonald, Warden Mead, and Superintendent Collins—but the others he’d never seen before.

  “It’s time, Leon,” Mead said.

  He got up off the cot as Collins unfolded a piece of paper. His fingers were old and his nails well manicured. He put on a pair of spectacles, cleared his throat, and began reading: it was the death warrant, which sounded like the legal nonsense they had read often at the trial. When he was finished, he looked up and nodded his head.

  Czolgosz stepped out of the cell. One of the guards took him by the left arm—it was almost a friendly grasp. A small man in a brown suit knelt down and with a pair of scissors cut his pants legs from the cuffs to the knees. Czolgosz felt the slightest chill rise from the concrete floor and spread up his shins.

  “Can I see my brother again?” he asked the warden.

  “No,” Mead said.

  “I want to make a statement.”

  Superintendent Collins cleared his throat. “What do you want to say, Czolgosz?”

  “I want to make a statement with a lot of people around.”

  Mead looked at Collins, who shook his head.

  “Well, then, I won’t talk at all,” Czolgosz said.

  When the man had finished cutting the pants legs, he stood up and said, “Lean forward and lower your head, please.”

  Czolgosz did so and felt the man begin to cut away the hair on the crown of his skull. No one spoke and there was only the sound of the scissors. He watched curly tufts of hair drift to the floor.

  When the small man was finished, he stepped back. Czolgosz straightened up and watched another guard come forward and take his right arm. They walked three abreast down the hall toward a brick archway. There was small threshold beneath the archway and Czolgosz caught his foot on it; he would have stumbled but the guards held him up. He paused a moment, and then walked on without difficulty.

  The room was about twenty-five feet long and almost as wide. There were two windows; as in his cell, they faced the front gate and were covered with bars and surrounded by ivy. In the center of the room a group of men sat on wooden chairs in a semicircle facing the electric chair, which stood on a low platform in front of the far wall. There were more leather straps than he had expected. The platform, he realized, was covered with rubber. They reached the end of the room and the guards released his arms. He immediately turned and sat down. The men sitting in the semicircle stared back at him, their eyes curious, somber. A few lowered their heads and avoided looking at him. It seemed odd that someone would agree to attend an execution and then refuse to watch.

  The guards began to fasten the straps about his chest, arms, and legs. One guard’s hands were shaking and he had difficulty with the chest buckle. Finally he got it done, and he seemed greatly relieved. When all the straps were fit snugly about him, the guards stepped back and another man in a suit proceeded to wet Czolgosz’s scalp with a sponge. The cold water ran through the hair on the back of his head and down his neck, sending goose bumps down his back. The man then picked up a metal cap with wires, fit it on Czolgosz’s head, and secured it with a strap under his chin. It was heavy and uncomfortable. The metal was cool on the place where his scalp had been shaved and wetted.

  “I am not sorry,” Czolgosz said. He spoke calmly but loudly so that everyone could hear him. “I did this for the working people.” For a moment some of the men facing him appeared confused, while others seemed disturbed that he had spoken at all. “My only regret,” he said, “is that I haven’t been able to see my father.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Czolgosz saw movement as Warden Mead raised his arm, held it there, and then let it drop.

  IN November, while on a hunting trip in the Appalachians, the president took two deer. It snowed the day they br
oke Camp Roosevelt and traveled twenty miles of mountain trail on horseback to the nearest train depot. By evening the president’s entourage of more than forty men—mostly government officials, foreign envoys, and journalists—had taken over the Larchmont Hotel in Charleston, West Virginia, as though they were holding a forward position in battle.

  Despite Dr. Rixey’s reservations, the president insisted that they all take a walk through town after dinner. Roosevelt had, to say the least, a prodigious appetite, and vigorous and lengthy constitutionals were part of his daily regimen. He led the party through the streets, despite thunder, lightning, and cold rain; half an hour into their trek they were briefly pelted with hail. At the head of the column, the president’s frequent laughter was eerily high and gleeful. By the time they returned to the hotel, everyone was drenched and exhausted. After they changed into dry clothes they convened in the lobby, which soon filled with the smell of port and cigars.

  Rixey noticed that when George Cortelyou finally reentered the lobby he was followed by two porters who proceeded to set up a motion-picture projector and a screen. Chairs and sofas were arranged before the screen and the men settled down. A couple of times Rixey caught Cortelyou’s eye, but his expression seemed to say, Don’t ask.

  Rixey was one of the last to sit, near the back, and when he looked to his right the man who nodded to him was Detective Norris, whom he recalled meeting briefly in the Milburn house in Buffalo.

  The lights were turned off in the lobby and as the projector whirred to life, Roosevelt stood up and said, “Gentlemen, this short film is compliments of Mr. Thomas Edison. This is a simulation, I’m told, produced by his company.”

  As the president sat down, images flickered on the screen: a train sliding by a high wall, and some buildings in the distance. The clarity of the film was poor and the images blended into one another, but this seemed to lend a surprising artistry to the production. The film cut to a group of men standing in front of a wall. The men appeared deeply somber and their movements were stiff. There was no sound to the film. The rhythmic clattering of the projector reminded Rixey of a train. Occasionally the images jumped forward, as though a small piece of time had been cut out of sequence. The prisoner, wearing a dark jacket, was led to an oversized wooden chair with armrests, which was entangled in a series of straps and wires. Voluntarily he sat in the chair and the guards proceeded to fasten the straps about his torso, legs, and arms. When a metal bowl-shaped contraption sprouting wires was fit on the prisoner’s head, one of the journalists sitting toward the back of the lobby whispered, “It’s a coronation.” There was a moment of subdued laughter, but as there was no response from the front row, where the president sat, there quickly followed a tense silence.