President McKinley

by Robert W. Merry

  * * *

  BACK IN WASHINGTON, with Ida improving, McKinley threw himself into his duties, with a primary aim of closing out a number of lingering matters. But first he faced the need to deal with a messy situation that emerged when New York senator Chauncey Depew and Ohio congressman Charles Grosvenor, both intensely loyal to the president, unwisely touted prospects for a McKinley third term. On June 9, a Sunday, the president drafted a statement renouncing any such ambition. When he showed it to Hay the next afternoon, the secretary questioned the wisdom or necessity of such a renunciation so early in the current term. Secretary Long, however, when shown the statement during an afternoon drive with the president, heartily embraced it. That evening the president summoned the remaining Cabinet members to inform them of his plan.

  Later that night, McKinley told Cortelyou that he harbored a lingering concern that the statement might appear “strange or ridiculous,” given that there was no evidence of any popular groundswell favoring a third term. But he concluded it was “better, from every point of view,” to settle the matter. Accordingly the next morning he issued the statement:

  I regret that the suggestion of a third term has been made. I doubt whether I am called upon to give it notice. But there are now questions of the gravest importance before the Administration and the country, and their just consideration should not be prejudiced in the public mind by even the suspicion of the thought of a third term. . . . I will say now, once for all, expressing a long settled conviction that I not only am not and will not be a candidate for a third term, but would not accept a nomination for it if it were tendered me. My only ambition is to serve through my second term to the acceptance of my countrymen, whose generous confidence I so deeply appreciate, and then, with them, to do my duty in the ranks of private citizenship.

  That ended all speculation, allowing the president to direct his attention to lingering matters, some of which seemed close to resolution.

  One was the Cuban constitutional convention, which could demolish U.S.-Cuban relations if it refused to accept the Platt Amendment outlining conditions for U.S. withdrawal from the island, including U.S. acquisition of a naval base there. On May 28 the convention voted 15 to 14 to accept the amendment—but pointedly interpreted it in such a way as to rebuff elements of Platt’s language. McKinley hurriedly called an emergency meeting at the White House with top administration officials and key lawmakers to determine if the United States could accept the Cuban action. The answer was no. After Platt drafted a letter, at the administration’s request, clarifying his intent, the Cuban convention accepted his amendment as written. Thus did the saga of U.S. direct involvement in Cuba move toward its conclusion.

  In Beijing, one of Hay’s favorite diplomats, William Rockhill, worked with Edwin Conger on final details of the settlement with China’s Qing government. The big issue among the representatives of the foreign powers—or “the Ministers,” as they were known—was the level of indemnity to be imposed and the punishments to be demanded for leaders of the rebellion. In May, McKinley objected to the “exorbitant” indemnity demands pushed by other powers and also the call for death sentences for too many people based on too little evidence. By June the negotiators agreed on a reasonable indemnity formula, and McKinley’s more lenient attitude on death sentences also prevailed. The powers promptly evacuated their troops from Beijing, leaving only legation guards. In a July 18 letter to the president, Hay reported that the Ministers had acquired “indubitable evidence that a considerable proportion of these officials for whom the other powers were demanding a death sentence are entirely innocent of any wrong doing.” If the United States had not halted the pursuit of vengeance, continued Hay, “the blood of innocent men would have now been on the hands of the Christian world.”

  In late May, as McKinley’s presidential train sped across the country toward Washington, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered to the administration a hallmark legal victory. At issue was the status of Puerto Rico in relation to the United States following the peace treaty with Spain. More specifically, did the Constitution follow the flag there, thus conferring U.S. citizenship upon Puerto Ricans now under American jurisdiction? Or could Congress govern the new possession as a domestic territory, conferring what rights it saw fit under its own constitutional authority? McKinley embraced the latter position, while plaintiffs in the case argued that the tariff that had generated so much political conflict in 1900 was unconstitutional because Puerto Rico belonged to the United States in the same way the various states did. The Court agreed with the president. As Senator Foraker explained to reporters, Puerto Rico was not a part of the United States but rather a U.S. territory: “It is, therefore, within the constitutional power of Congress to so legislate with respect to it, including the imposition of tariff duties, as it may see fit.” Foraker called the decision “a complete vindication of the position held by the Republican Party with respect to the power of Congress to legislate for Porto Rico and the Philippines.” Indeed a contrary ruling would have halted America’s global expansionism in its tracks and severely attenuated McKinley’s entire overseas policy.

  That other big element of the McKinley foreign policy, the isthmian canal, also came closer to fruition in the summer, when Britain signaled it was prepared to accept revised Hay-Pauncefote language that Hay had crafted in the spring. Hay had learned his lesson well. This time he didn’t ignore key senators but rather worked closely with them on fine calibrations in the language, designed to mollify the British while also capturing a two-thirds Senate vote. The new language formally abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, excised the offending Davis amendment while retaining a U.S. right to defend the canal during wartime, eliminated Britain as a guarantor of canal neutrality, and conferred that guarantor status solely upon the United States. The new language better served U.S. interests than Hay had thought possible during the first go-round, but Britain’s Boer War difficulties and concerns about a rising Germany contributed to London’s flexibility.

  When Ambassador Pauncefote signaled his government’s receptivity to the Hay handiwork, the secretary rushed to Canton in late August to get the president’s final approval. McKinley gave his hearty assent, and Hay returned to Washington confident that this remaining obstacle to the canal project would be speedily disposed of. “I am profoundly gratified at the way the matter now presents itself,” the secretary wrote to Ambassador Choate at London. The London Daily News agreed: “A wise diplomacy would make the Nicaragua question a golden opportunity for strengthening the ties between the British people and their kinsfolk in the United States. The special nature of America’s own claim to predominance cannot be overlooked.”

  The president meanwhile quietly formulated plans to press ahead on the trusts and reciprocity. The trust question gained force almost by the week as new corporate combinations emerged or were hinted at during the summer of 1901. In June the New York Times offered this headline: “United States Steel Corporation Said to be Moving to Control Its Four Big Competitors.” Salt producers were developing plans for the first global trust. In July, the Washington Post reported plans for a consolidation of the bituminous coal industry. Wall Street share prices swooned briefly at the news that industrialists J. P. Morgan, James J. Hill, and E. H. Harriman were collaborating on plans to control the Northern Pacific Railroad. During his Canton vacation that summer, McKinley watched these developments with mounting doggedness. “This trust question has got to be taken up in earnest, and soon,” he told Cortelyou. The president asked his secretary for “a collection of data on the subject of trusts,” recalled Cortelyou later, adding, “I never saw him more determined on anything than on this.”

  While the president seemed resolved to lead his party and the nation into new territory on the trust issue, reciprocity came first. He had been thwarted, of course, in his plan to hammer away on his revised trade-policy views during his Western-tour return, but he would renew that priority campaign with his Buffalo address, coming up in early Sep
tember. As he crafted the speech during the Canton respite, he seemed particularly relaxed about the state of the nation and his political standing. Charles and Caro Dawes arrived on August 12 to find Ida in particularly good health and the president “in his best mood.” The day unfolded with carriage rides, a relaxed luncheon with Mary Barber and Dr. Rixey in attendance, “a jolly evening” with pleasant dinner conversation, afterdinner euchre, and Cortelyou playing lively tunes on his “Caecilian,” a kind of piano. The president and Ida, noted Dawes, were “passing a quiet and pleasant summer. The callers are many but are not so pestiferous as when they came bent on getting office.”

  * * *

  AS THE PRESIDENT enjoyed his summer interlude at Canton, Leon Czolgosz made plans to travel to Buffalo to kill him during his visit to the Pan-American Exposition. Born in Detroit twenty-eight years before, the son of Polish immigrants, he was educated in Detroit public schools, then traveled to Cleveland to pursue factory jobs. He hung out in a working-class saloon called Dryers on Third Avenue and Tod, ate his meals there, slept intermittently in his chair, read the newspapers, kept to himself. Slight of build and sallow of skin, with a bland face accentuated by pale blue eyes, he struck others at the pub as bitter and jittery. “I never had much luck at anything,” he would recall, “and this preyed upon me. It made me morose and envious.” He fell in with a group of anarchists.

  Then he went to hear a lecture by Emma Goldman, the well-known and brutal-minded writer, thinker, and lecturer, dubbed by Murat Halstead “the queen of anarchy,” advocate of the assassination of all rulers everywhere. “She set me on fire,” recalled Czolgosz. “Miss Goldman’s words went right through me, and when I left the lecture I had made up my mind that I would have to do something heroic for the cause I loved.”

  In Buffalo he studied the exposition grounds carefully and pursued his deadly purpose methodically. He attended the president’s big trade speech at the Esplanade and sought to get close to him, but a big police guard stepped in front of him, cooling his ardor for the kill. Afterward he moved toward the president’s departing carriage but was herded back with the rest of the crowd. He showed up at subsequent presidential events but couldn’t get close enough. He finally concluded his best chance would be the president’s reception at four the next afternoon. He went to the Temple of Music well before McKinley’s scheduled arrival and positioned himself near where the president would stand for the receiving line. When McKinley entered through a side door, he pushed toward the front. In his right hand he held a .32 caliber pistol, wrapped in a handkerchief and pressed against his chest to simulate an injury.

  When a small girl, led by her father, was presented to the president, McKinley leaned down and shook her hand, then guided her on to the right, smiling and waving after her. Next in line was a short, dark, mustachioed man who displayed a look of possible menace. Though he drew the attention of Secret Service agents, he passed by the president cordially. Then came Czolgosz. As the president thoughtfully reached for his unbandaged left hand, the anarchist pressed his revolver against the president’s chest and fired twice. At the first shot, McKinley gasped and moved back upon his toes, positioning himself to take the second round to the abdomen, just below the navel. He reeled backward, into the arms of Detective John Geary.

  “Am I shot?” asked the president in a steady voice.

  Geary unbuttoned McKinley’s vest, saw blood, and replied, “I fear you are, Mr. President.”

  Immediately Secret Service Agent S. R. Ireland thrust Czolgosz to the ground as a black waiter named James Parker leaped upon him. Secret Service Agent Albert Gallagher grabbed the assassin’s hand, ripped away the handkerchief, and seized the revolver. Within seconds he was being jostled by law enforcement officials bent on subduing him completely. Meanwhile Cortelyou, Geary, and exposition chairman John Milburn helped the president to a chair. White-faced and stoic, he displayed no anxiety for himself but serious concern for Ida.

  “My wife,” said the president to his secretary as Cortelyou leaned over him, “—be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her—oh, be careful.”

  Then he saw Czolgosz bleeding upon the floor, beset by angry law enforcement officials, with an angry crowd gathering around. He raised his right hand, red with his own blood, and placed it upon Cortelyou’s shoulder. “Let no one hurt him,” he gasped as guards dragged the malefactor away.

  When the president arrived by ambulance at the exposition emergency hospital at eighteen minutes after four, he was in shock but seemingly calm. Attendants, placing him on a table and removing his clothing, discovered a bullet that barely had penetrated his body at the rib cage. But hurriedly summoned Buffalo surgeons, led by Dr. Matthew Mann, discovered the entry wound of the second bullet, with no exit wound. Seeing a potentially ominous situation, they initiated exploratory surgery that quickly revealed the bullet had pierced both the front and rear walls of the stomach, lodging somewhere in tissue beyond the pancreas, which had not been penetrated. They cleaned up the area surrounding the stomach lacerations and sutured the two stomach holes to prevent escaped gastric or intestinal contents from getting into the peritoneal cavity. The president readily consented to the surgery and whispered the Lord’s Prayer as he received the ether.

  The surgeons failed to locate the bullet but concluded it hadn’t done any further damage to vital organs and abandoned the search in fear that the probing was more dangerous than the bullet. Besides, the president’s pulse was weakening, and sunlight soon would be fading. They removed any blood clots, closed the flesh wound, washed it with hydrogen dioxide, and applied dressing. The operation, lasting about an hour and a half, was completed by 6:50 p.m. Within half an hour, the president was taken by ambulance to the Milburn house, where he would recuperate in an upstairs bedroom under the care of a cadre of doctors and attendants.

  When Rixey informed the first lady of what had happened, she didn’t respond as he had expected. Though she fainted briefly, she soon became self-possessed and assertive.

  “Tell me all,” she demanded, “keep nothing from me! I will be brave—yes, I will be brave for his sake!” She insisted that the president be brought to her, which already was in progress. That night she wrote in her diary, “Went to visit Niagra [sic] Falls this morning. My Dearest was received in a public hall on our return, when he was shot by a . . .” It seems she may have been stumped by the word anarchist. She confided to her diary just how shattered she felt.

  Friends and associates rushed to Buffalo when they heard the news, including Cabinet officials, Vice President Roosevelt, the ever-loyal Hanna, and the president’s favorite protégé, Dawes. The nation settled into a stunned news vigil in recognition that, while doctors said the president’s condition was “somewhat encouraging,” the danger of peritonitis, blood poisoning, and sepsis remained high.

  By the second day, Sunday, September 8, doctors still detected no indication of peritonitis, and the president was resting comfortably. Reports to the press were uplifting. By the fourth day “his mind was clear and cheerful.” On Wednesday, he was given beef broth, the first food taken by the damaged stomach, and on Thursday he added a few bites of toast to the broth. He seemed to be out of serious danger. What the doctors could not know, though, was that Czolgosz’s second bullet, while it bypassed the pancreas, had nonetheless caused a kind of ballistic trauma to the organ through heat and vibration. McKinley’s pancreas began to shut down, leaking dangerous enzymes that caused severe inflammation in the area between the stomach and pancreas. This was a dangerous but unseen development. On Friday it became evident that something was wrong, as the president’s condition suddenly worsened. At 2:50 a.m. his doctors wrote in their log, “The President’s condition is very serious, and gives rise to the gravest apprehension.” That afternoon he revived from a stupor and said to his doctors, “It is useless, gentlemen. I think I ought to have prayer.” He asked for Ida, and Cortelyou led her into the room. As family and friends stepped back against the walls, she took his han
d and leaned down to kiss him.

  “Good-bye—good-bye, all,” said the president in a weak voice. Moments later he whispered in Ida’s ear, “It is God’s way. His will, not ours, be done.”

  “I want to go with you,” she whispered back.

  “We are all going, my dear,” he said, then slipped back into a stupor as he whispered the words to a favorite hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” Ida was escorted back to her room for the rest that her doctors deemed imperative to her fragile health. She later returned for a brief visit as the president faded into oblivion.

  He died at 2:15 on the morning of September 14, 1901.

  — EPILOGUE —

  Where He Stands

  As the nation mourned the loss of its leader and grappled with its third presidential murder in just thirty-six years, young Theodore Roosevelt took hold of the government with unbridled self-assurance. He promptly issued what one biographer called “a solemn pledge” to be “one in purpose” with his predecessor. “In this hour of deep and terrible bereavement,” said the new president, “I wish to state that I shall continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace, prosperity, and the honor of the country.” Within twenty-four hours, however, Roosevelt demonstrated that his pledge wasn’t so solemnly given after all. It seems fears of a stock market swoon contributed more to his expression than any sincere regard for the dead leader or the mandate he had extracted from voters. “I am President,” he declared to a group of reporters on his first day in the White House, “and shall act in every word and deed precisely as if I and not McKinley had been the candidate for whom the electors cast the vote for President.”