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The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century ReviewThese were the words uttered by President McKinley's assassin immediately after he had shot the American president. Did he regret it? No. Before being executed, the assassin, Leon Czolgosz, cried out:" I killed the President for the good of the laboring people, the good people. I am not sorry for my crime but I am sorry I can't see my father".The presidency of McKinley was the one when the modern American nation, economy and foreign policy were forged. These were the times when the USA conducted a war against the Spanish empire and acquired more territories, such as Hawaii, and Cuba was firmly under American control, while Taft was turning the Philippines into a peaceful colony during his watch as governor there. The American society was undergoing a deep and significant change from an agrarian one to an industrial one. This process meant, on the one hand, that some got very rich, and, on the other hand, millions of workers were conducting a battle of existence, performing the same mind-numbing tasks for 10 or even 16 hours a day. In fact, one observer described the situation of the masses as "one of unmitigated serfdom". New inventions and manufacturing techniques made it possible to produce more and more with fewer workers, and those who were lucky went on frequent strikes. Labor unions were still weak and the interests of the workers were mainly discussed and raised by the anarchists, whose number was spreading constantly. In other words, those desperate workers turned to violence, and the anarchists provided the fuel for it.
One of these frustrated people, who was a Polish immigrant and factory-worker, Leon Czolgosz, decided that president McKinley was focusing on making the rich richer. He came to the conclusion that he had to obey his conscience and terminate the life of his enemy.
These were the times when anarchism was to be found not only in America. It rose to fame towards the end of nineteenth century Europe, where a number of prominent personalities were assassinated. The roots of anarchism were to be found in ancient Greece and the tradition of it passed on to Western Europe many centuries later, where it found many adherents who perfected not only its theory but also its violent acts. Anarchist attacks and threats of attacks terrified citizens in just about every major European city, and the impact was especially felt in the city of lights, Paris, whence newspapers were reporting almost daily about bloody encounters between police and anarchists.
The ideas of anarchism made their way to America and Mr. Miller offers his readers not only a vast, detailed and panoramic view and analysis of anarchism and its promoters, such as Albert Parsons and Johann Most, but also of the American society and the various political and social processes it underwent before and after McKinley's election.
To be more precise, this book shows the way the upper and lower classes were living at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, when various scandals and strikes against monstrous employers dominated the American public scene. The times were turbulent and full of contrasts and it is here where one could meet Secretaries of State, congressmen, hard-working people, soldiers and generals, tycoons and policemen, investors and inventors, immigrants and propaganda makers. These were also the times when John Hay, the legendary Secretary of State, was paving the way for the exploitation of China, following the American intervention in the Boxer rebellion, while Emma Goldman, the famous anarchist, was active in her efforts to promote anarchist ideas, serving as the inspiration of Czolgosz to do commit his crime, although he had denied any ideological connection with Emma. One paper, the 'Free Society', opined that an assassination of McKinley would hardly serve the interests of the anarchist cause. In the words of the paper, "any fool who would kill the paltry Napoleon (meaning: McKinley), would be the deadliest enemy of anarchism". The famous Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in June 1901 which would serve as the final destination of McKinley's life, the last days of the wounded president, his doctors' decisions and actions, the fate of Czolgosz, his trial and the reaction of the public immediately after the attempt to assassinate McKinley and after it, the whereabouts of Ida, Mckinley's sickly wife-all are detailed here copiously.
The assassination has changed America from within and from without. This book is extremely well-researched and a great pleasure to read. It is another proof of the fact that such a vast subject can be brought alive, if the task is given to a very talented writer and gifted researcher like Mr. Miller, whose book is splendidly written. It does not contain one boring moment and in many parts reads like a thriller. This book will definitely stay for us for a very long time, serving as a standard history of those rough but extremely dynamic times.The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century Overview
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