THE assassination of Abraham Lincoln leads up to that of the other great emancipator of the nineteenth century, Alexander the Second of Russia, which occurred on the thirteenth of March, 1881, and which filled the world with horror.
In one of Goethe’s most famous poems a magician’s apprentice, in the absence of his learned master, sets free the secret powers of nature which his master can control by a magical formula. The apprentice has overheard the formula, and has appropriated it to his own use; but lo! when the apprentice wants to get rid of the powers he has let loose, he has forgotten the magic words by which to banish them, and miserably perishes in the attempt. The poem is symbolical of the life and experience of Czar Alexander the Second of Russia. As a young man, enthusiastic and desirous to promote his country’s welfare, he set loose the turbulent and revolutionary powers slumbering in his gigantic empire, and they grew to such enormous proportions that even his power, great though it was, was insufficient to curb them; finally he paid with his life for his attempt to confer blessings upon his subjects. In order to comprehend the difficulties which confronted Alexander the Second on his accession, it is necessary to take a retrospect of the preceding reign.
The Emperor Nicholas the First died on the second of March, 1855. He had reigned twenty-nine years and nine months. During all these years he had ruled his gigantic empire with an iron hand and had stood before the world as the most brilliant as well as the most imperious ruler who had sat upon the throne of the Czars since the death of Peter the Great. He was the model for the other sovereigns of Europe, and his policy was adopted with almost servile humility by the monarchs of Austria and Prussia, the former of whom he reinstated on his throne by overthrowing the Hungarian revolution, while the latter was allied to him by ties of marriage. His dislike for reform and “the modern spirit” was caused, it is said, by the sad experience he had made but a few weeks after his accession, when a rebellion of the Imperial Guards in his own capital compelled him to throw shot and shell into his own regiments, and to quell a widespread conspiracy by the severest measures. At that time cheers coming from the ranks for “Constantine and the Constitution” had made the very name of a constitution odious to him. He might not have taken the demonstration so seriously if he had known that the soldiers, on being asked by their officers to cheer for Constantine and the Constitution had asked: “Who is the Constitution?” and were told that she was Constantine’s wife, whereupon the soldiers cheered lustily. At all events, Nicholas, who had intended to introduce a number of Western reforms, took suddenly a great aversion to anything which deviated in the least from the most autocratic form of government; he punished the slightest disagreement in political opinion or the most timid opposition to his imperial will as an act of rebellion. The whole system of government had been fashioned upon a half Asiatic, half European model; it combined the absolute—almost divine—power of the Oriental ruler with a formidable and well-drilled bureaucracy blindly obedient to the Czar and knowing no other law than his will.
Nicholas the First was a man of superior intelligence, of indomitable will, and of great vigor of mind, which enabled him to pay strict attention to the different departments of the public service. His most effective instrument was the third section of the Czar’s personal bureau,—a secret political police by which he overawed the empire and whose very name caused terror in the heart and home of every Russian family. Whosoever was unfortunate enough to fall under the suspicion of this terrible Hermandad—more cruel and more vindictive than the Spanish Inquisition—might just as well resign himself at once to his fate,—life-long exile to Siberia or a secret execution, most probably by strangulation, in one of the prisons of Russia. It was the office of this secret police, which reported directly to the Emperor, not only to ferret out crime and bring criminals to justice, but to protect the subjects of the Czar from contact with hurtful foreign influences, to confiscate books and newspapers from abroad, to open and read letters, and to learn family secrets which might be used against the correspondents or their friends. Everything, in fact, which the imperial government could think of to cut off Russia from the current of European ideas, to prevent its subjects from receiving a liberal education at the universities, to expand their minds by travelling abroad, to become familiar with the great political and philosophical questions of the day by a study of literature and newspapers, was done with rigorous care by the police and approved by the Czar.
Occasionally the Emperor became indignant at the venality and corruption of high public officials; but he did not see that this venality and corruption were but the logical consequence of the system of despotism and Byzantinism which his will imposed even on the highest members of the aristocracy. His smile, his praise, was the highest distinction, the highest aim of the ambition of the aristocracy, and for this servile subjection to the imperial will they compensated themselves by unbridled licentiousness and beastly excesses, and by robbing the public treasury. Because it was well known that the Emperor looked with suspicion on the universities as nurseries of liberal or revolutionary ideas, the nobility did not send their sons thither, for fear that the young men might become infected with these ideas, and that transportation to Siberia might suddenly interrupt their studies. The nobility, therefore, deemed it more prudent to send the lads to court or to the military schools, where they were safe at least from the contagion of European liberalism. It is really a wonder that, with such an organization of society and with a system of police surveillance perhaps never equalled in the world, with a Damocles’ sword always suspended over their heads, there still remained a number of liberal-minded men, who never abandoned the hope of better days, never renounced their dream that the time would come for Russia, as it had come for western Europe, to enter socially and politically the family of enlightened nations, blessed with liberal institutions and freed from the despotism of semi-Oriental rulers. These liberal-minded men and true patriots—professors of the universities, literary men, and a very small number of young noblemen—lived mostly at Moscow, where the distance from the observing eye of the ruler and his court saved them from detection, although their secret influence pervaded the whole empire, and kept the flame of liberalism burning in the hearts of the intellectual élite. While Nicholas had thus succeeded in building up an Eastern despotism on the banks of the Neva, he endeavored at the same time to impress Europe with the idea of his unrivalled power. His army was considered one of the best in Europe, and the immense population of his empire—larger than that of any two of the other great powers—gave him almost unlimited material for recruits. The generals commanding these armies were also renowned throughout Europe. They had won their laurels in the battles against the revolutionary armies of Poland and Hungary, in conquering the warlike population of the Caucasus, and subjecting large territories in western Asia to the white eagle of the Czar. The Russian diplomats had the reputation of being the shrewdest in Europe, and had either by secret treaties or by matrimonial alliances succeeded in making Russian influence preponderant on the continent of Europe. The Emperor Nicholas stood, therefore, on a commanding height when he provoked the great western powers of Europe, together with Turkey, to mortal combat. It was a challenge born in arrogance and political short-sightedness, and it found its deserved rebuke in a total defeat of the Russian armies and a thorough humiliation of the Russian Emperor. Nicholas ought to have known that, in engaging in war with the western powers, he not only endangered his military prestige, but put to the test also his system of domestic administration, based entirely on his autocratic will, and silently, although reluctantly, submitted to by his subjects, as a tribute to his dominant position in Europe. When by the disasters of the Crimean War that position was lost, when it became clear to the Russian people that the Emperor was not absolutely the universal dictator of Europe, not only his military prestige was destroyed, but his system of domestic government lost immensely in public estimation. Nicholas felt this double humiliation so keenly that it was just as much personal chagrin as physical disease which caused his death even before the war was over.
It was therefore a heavy burden which his successor, Alexander the Second, assumed when he ascended the throne on the second of March, 1855. His first duty—and it was a painful and humiliating duty—was to terminate the Crimean War by accepting the unfavorable terms demanded by the western powers. In the exhausted condition of the Russian treasury, and after the disorganization of the Russian armies by a series of disastrous defeats, nothing was left to the young Czar but to submit to the inevitable. In doing so he also signed the sentence of death of the autocratic rule established by his father. A general clamor for reform, for greater freedom and more liberal laws arose, and Alexander the Second was only too willing to grant them. He was liberal-minded himself and kind-hearted, and he was anxious to let the Russian nation partake of the progress of European civilization. He opened the Russian universities to all who desired a higher education. He reduced to a reasonable rate the price for passports, which had been enormous under Nicholas, he rescinded the burdensome press laws, and modified the law subjecting all publications to a most rigorous government supervision; he issued an amnesty to Siberian exiles, including many who had been banished for political crimes; and he finally crowned this system of liberal measures by the emancipation of many million serfs, freeing them from their previous condition of territorial bondage and placing them directly under government authority. Important changes were also made in the personnel of the different departments of the public service; a thorough investigation of these departments proved that the grossest abuses existed throughout the empire. The army magazines were filled with chalk instead of flour, and officers who had been dead for twenty years still remained on the pension lists. Numerous other frauds and depredations were disclosed, which were eating up the public revenues, and which had been practised for years by high officials who had enjoyed the protection of the late Czar. The reforms which Alexander the Second introduced did not find favor with the officials, and the emancipation of the serfs fully estranged the nobility, whose interests were damaged by the loss of their slaves. The Czar therefore soon found himself between two fires: the Liberals were immoderate in their demands for still greater liberty, and the nobility attacked the government for having granted those liberal measures, predicting that the new policy would terminate in disaster, revolution, and assassination.
It should not be supposed, however, that Alexander was liberal-minded in the American sense of the word; he was not,—not even as liberalism is understood in the western states of Europe. What he tried to be during the first years of his reign was a liberal-minded autocrat like Frederick the Great of Prussia and Joseph the Second of Austria; but the slightest attempt to limit his authority by any constitution he resented as a personal insult. When the landed proprietors of the province of Tver sent him a petition worded in the most humble language, in which their desire for a constitution was expressed, he flew into a rage, and sent the two leaders of the meeting to Siberia. But he was inclined to grant as a personal favor what some of his subjects demanded as their right, which they wanted guaranteed by law. The system of police espionage and persecution ceased, because Alexander hated police denunciations. This change had almost immediately its marked effect on public life; the people commenced breathing easier. The nightmare of Siberian exile or perpetual imprisonment ceased haunting their minds.
After a few years Russian society seemed to have changed its character, its ideas, its manners; it showed its independence openly, and acted as though its liberties and rights were safely secured by a magna charta or constitution. Many thousands of Russian noblemen went to France and England, no longer simply to amuse themselves and to live well, but to study western institutions or to place their sons in the colleges; and no nationality has a greater faculty of assimilation than the Russian. The ideas of central and western Europe found ready and intelligent reception in their minds. Hundreds of newspapers, periodicals, and magazines were founded, and most of them found numerous and eager readers. Some of these papers became a real power and shaped public opinion to a remarkable degree. While direct criticism of Russian affairs and Russian institutions was prohibited, the newspapers nevertheless found a way to keep their readers posted on all public events and public men. They published sketches of every-day life in which every particular was true except the names, and in this human comedy, scarcely veiled by the transparent fiction, the governors of provinces, the generals of the army, and especially the directors of the police, and all the high government officials were exhibited in their true character; their frauds were exposed, their arbitrary actions, their abuses of power, and their excesses were denounced. The reading public were in the secret, and the daily and weekly newspapers became a regular chronique scandaleuse without subjecting the editors or publishers to prosecution.
While these periodicals, published in Russia under the very eyes of the Czar and of Russian censors, did their share in undermining the authority of the government, there was another class of Russian periodicals, published at Paris, London, and Leipsic, which were free from the embarrassing observation of Russian censors, and which consequently could speak openly, mention names, attack high officials and the imperial family. The most famous of the editors of these periodicals (which were printed abroad, but had nearly their entire reading public in Russia) was Alexander Herzen, the famous editor and publisher of “The Bell” (Kolokos). Mr. Herzen was a man of great talent, and his newspaper soon gained an influence in Russia which became a real danger to the government. “The Bell” did more for the spread of socialism in Russia than all other publications combined. It was more active and more successful than all other newspapers in showing up the official wrong-doers of the empire and breeding among the masses contempt for the government and its officers, because every Russian who could read, read “The Bell,” and got his information about Russian affairs from Alexander Herzen. The mystery always was: How did “The Bell” get into Russia? since the government made a most relentless war on the paper. Nobody could ever tell; the most searching investigations of the secret police failed to discover the mysterious channel through which the dangerous paper found its way into Russia. As soon as it had crossed the frontier, secret printing establishments, unknown to the police, struck off many thousand copies and circulated them gratuitously throughout the empire. It was evident that a socialistic or revolutionary committee was identified with its circulation in Russia.
But the most notable result brought about by “The Bell” was the change of attitude in which the Russian government was placed, and (since the government was the Czar) the attitude in which the Czar suddenly found himself toward his subjects. The imperial government, under Nicholas, has been bold and aggressive; under Alexander the Second it was placed on the defensive; it was compelled to plead with public opinion in order to clear itself of the attacks made against it, and when these pleas failed to convince, it resorted again to the old repressive and despotic measures which were even more odious from having become obsolete for a number of years. Autocracy, which in the hands of a strong man like Nicholas the First had been a source of strength and protection, became in the hands of a weak and vacillating man a source of weakness and danger. Public opinion, which under Nicholas had been silent, because it dared not assert itself, turned openly against Alexander, who had removed the bars which kept it in check and the fear which repressed its utterances.
It is time here to refer shortly to the origin and growth of a political doctrine which at this time appeared in Russia and which has had a great and pernicious influence on Russian history,—Nihilism. The name appears for the first time in the famous novel of Ivan Turgenieff, “Fathers and Sons,” and designates a political programme which has found its most numerous and most enthusiastic adherents among the young men and women of Russia, especially of the educated and professional classes, the students and professors of the universities. It first manifested its existence shortly after the death of the Emperor Nicholas, when, through the liberal measures of his successor, the high schools and academies of the empire were opened to the people, when the universities were filled with thousands of young students, eager to learn and imbibe philosophical and political principles which until then had been unknown to them. The Nihilistic party aimed at a total regeneration of society and at the destruction of its present organization in state, church, and social institutions, and it found its explanation and excuse in the widespread corruption, brutality, and despotism of the officials. It is a mistake to confound the Nihilists with the Liberals or even with the Socialists who are advocating reforms or the abolition of certain political or social abuses. The Nihilists are not aiming at reforms; they simply demand the overthrow and complete annihilation of the existing social system with all its institutions, until nothing (nihil) remains standing. The reconstruction of society, based upon principles of reason and justice, is their ideal; but they leave the realization of this ideal to future generations, and advocate for the present the employment of all means, even the most reprehensible, for the attainment of their immediate aim. The originators and great apostles of the new party were Alexander Herzen and Bakúnin, who imbued the young persons of both sexes with an implacable hatred for the present system of government and social organization. They made not only despotism but all authority odious.
The first public manifestation of Nihilism was Karakasow’s attempt on the life of Alexander the Second in 1866. It failed, and at the trial it appeared that the attempt was not founded on individual hostility, but on abhorrence of authority in general. The attempt on the life of General Trepow, minister of police, in 1878, showed the dangerous and rapid progress which the party had made. The assailant was an educated young woman, Vera Sassoulitch, who wanted to revenge official injustice by punishing one of its most prominent representatives. She was acquitted by a jury at St. Petersburg on February 5, 1878; and this acquittal, brought about by the ostentatious manifestation of the sympathy of the higher classes during her trial, caused a sensation throughout Europe. The Czar himself was enraged at the result of the trial, and devoted himself to the extermination of Nihilism by all means in his power. The issue had then been dearly made. Nihilism had by that time become very aggressive. It was no longer satisfied with preaching a philosophical doctrine, but it openly advocated a policy of murder and incendiarism, in order to frighten and disorganize society, and especially public officials. On the other hand, the government resorted to the most rigorous measures to exterminate the Nihilists wherever they could be found.
Alexander the Second suffered terribly when he became aware, too late for him to master it, of the new intellectual movement and its political results in his empire. The situation was the more painful to him, because his own conscience as well as the old Russian party held him principally responsible for it. It was he who had set free that liberal propagandism which had culminated in this terrible agitation for the destruction of society, and which had entirely outgrown his control. Alexander’s mental condition, on this discovery, would form an interesting subject for the psychologist. From the day when he began to reign as an enthusiastic, well-intentioned man of thirty-seven, to the days of his disappointments as a ruler and reformer, ending with one of the most terrible catastrophes of modern times, his career challenges, for adequate treatment, the genius of a Shakespeare. No wonder that he became despondent and thought of abdication,—a thought which reappeared with ever increasing force to the end of his reign.
Nor was this feeling of discouragement and weariness of life caused exclusively by the fear of personal danger; on the contrary, Alexander knew only too well that he was not the only object of Nihilistic persecution, but that all those dear to his heart and also those whom he honored with his confidence and friendship were equally exposed.
The attempt on the life of General Trepow had still another effect on the Czar. It effectually eradicated from his mind his previous predilection for liberal reforms and a paternal government; it stirred up a feeling of resentment and hatred against revolutionists, reformers, and liberals which had never been noticed in him before, and which manifested itself in the most severe measures of repression. To his great chagrin he saw soon that these measures were utterly unavailing to repress the spirit of rebellion in the empire and in his own capital. Nihilism spread with the unconquerable fury of a contagious epidemic and defied all measures of the authorities to check it. On the twenty-first of February, 1879, Prince Krapotkine, Governor of Charkow, was assassinated; and shortly after, attempts were made on the lives of General Drentelen, a great favorite at court, and of Count Lewis Melikow, Secretary of the Interior.
Alexander himself was exposed to a number of murderous attempts. His escape from the one made by Alexander Sokoloff, a school-teacher of Toropetz, in the district of Pskoff, is almost miraculous. On the fourteenth of April, 1879, at nine o’clock in the morning, the Emperor, seated in an open carriage, was waiting in front of the palace of Prince Gortschakoff, his Secretary of State. Sokoloff approached the carriage without having been noticed by the attendants. He was well dressed, wore a military cap, and looked like a retired officer. Standing within a few feet of Alexander, he suddenly pulled forth from under his coat a revolver, and, in rapid succession, fired four shots at him, all of which, however, missed their aim. The would-be murderer was immediately overpowered by the Emperor’s attendants; but during the struggle he fired a fifth shot which severely wounded one of the servants. Sokoloff had two capsules containing poison, fastened with wax under his armpits. He succeeded in swallowing one of them before he could be prevented, but an antidote was immediately administered and saved his life. He was sentenced to death and executed without having confessed the motive of his assault or given the names of any accomplices.
After this attempt the most vigorous and ingenious measures were taken for the Emperor’s protection. When, in the summer of the same year, Alexander travelled from St. Petersburg to Livadia, he was taken to the depot in an iron carriage and escorted by four companies of cavalry. Moreover the depot was surrounded by several regiments of infantry and cavalry, and nobody was permitted to approach it. Similar measures of precaution had been taken at all railway stations along the route where the imperial train was expected to stop. At all railroad crossings police officers and detectives had been stationed to prevent even the possibility of a collision with the imperial train. Another train filled entirely with the body-guards and high police officials preceded, at a short distance, the Emperor and his family. A large detective force was stationed along the whole route, and scoured the country for miles on both sides of the railroad, making it impossible for anybody to approach the track without being closely observed. At night, the entire route was lit up on either side with immense bonfires built at short distances in order to make the surveillance of the road as complete during the night as during the day. In order not to delay the imperial train on the road, all other trains were stopped for days, and the most stringent orders were issued that no persons should approach either the depots or any part of the railroad.
That travelling under such circumstances was not a pleasure, and would make a man exceedingly nervous, if not absolutely ill, may well be imagined. But in spite of these and other precautions almost passing human belief, a new attempt on the Emperor’s life was made during his return trip from Livadia to Moscow. On the first of December, 1879, Alexander had arrived at Moscow safely; but about ten or fifteen minutes later a mine exploded, which had been established under the railroad track in the immediate vicinity of the depot. The explosion occurred at the moment when the second imperial train was passing. It demolished the baggage car and threw seven or eight passenger cars off the track. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt. The Emperor and his suite were on the first train this time, while the Nihilists had supposed they would be on the second.
Less than three months later, on the seventeenth of February, 1880, the Czar was in much greater danger at St. Petersburg. At about seven o’clock P.M., on that day, as he was on the point of entering the dining-room of his palace, suddenly a terrible dynamite explosion occurred underneath the hall occupied by the Imperial Guards. The explosion was so violent that all the windows in that wing of the palace were shattered, the ceilings of the rooms in the lower story and of the hall of the guards were full of holes, and the floors torn to pieces, while the tables and the dishes in the imperial dining-room were hurled in all directions. Eight soldiers and two servants of the imperial household were killed, while forty-five were more or less seriously wounded.
This new attempt on his life, with the attending number of victims, impressed the Czar’s mind so deeply that it brought on a new attack of melancholy which his physicians were powerless to subdue. Domestic troubles added to his mental depression, and caused apprehensions of a total collapse of his mental faculties. His general health had also greatly suffered from the long continued strain of his nervous system. In June, 1880, his wife died after a lingering illness. She was a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, very handsome and highly accomplished when he married her, in 1841. But the marriage was not a happy one. For quite a number of years the Czar carried on a liaison with the beautiful Princess Dolgorouki, and shortly after the death of the Empress he contracted a morganatic marriage with her, in spite of the energetic protests of the Czarowitz and his other children. The Princess had great influence over Alexander’s decisions as a ruler; and when he seemed to have made up his mind to abdicate and retire to private life, she prevented the consummation of this design by her emphatic protests. Alexander had formed the plan to transfer the crown to his son, but only on one condition: that the Princess, his wife, should always be treated by the imperial family with the same consideration as the deceased Empress, and that her children should also be treated as brothers and sisters by the Czar. But when he informed the Princess of this plan, she flew into a passion, rejected the proposition most angrily, saying that she knew the feelings of the Czarowitz toward her too well to place any confidence in his promises, and demanded, as a proof of his affection for her, that Alexander should forever renounce his plan of abdication. Alexander therefore remained, much against his own inclination, on the throne until the day of his death, the thirteenth of March, 1881.
On the forenoon of that day he returned from the residence of the Princess to the Winter Palace, driving along the St. Michael’s Canal. He was escorted by a small detachment of cavalry and an adjutant of the Director of Police. About midway between the residence of the Princess and the Winter Palace a man ran up to the imperial carriage throwing a bomb charged with dynamite under the horses. It killed two men of the Czar’s escort and wounded three others. In spite of the protests of the police officer and the driver, who insisted on taking the Czar as rapidly as possible to the Winter Palace, he alighted, unhurt as he was, to look after the victims of the attack. In doing so, he exclaimed: “Thank God, I was not hurt!” But the man who had thrown the bomb and been seized by the escort, hearing the Czar’s exclamation, replied: “Perhaps it is not time yet to thank God!” At the same time another person hurled a bomb at the feet of the Emperor. His legs were broken by the explosion, his abdomen was torn open so that the intestines protruded, and his face was badly disfigured. The Emperor fell to the ground, exclaiming: “Help me! Quick to the Palace! I am dying!” The explosion was so violent that the windows of a church and of the imperial stables situated on the opposite side of the Canal were shattered. Many persons were killed or wounded. The imperial carriage was also considerably damaged. The Emperor was therefore lifted into a sleigh, which returned to the Winter Palace at a gallop. The blood flowed in great quantity from his wounds, and as he was carried up the large stairway of the Palace he fainted. The surgeons found it impossible to stop the hemorrhage, and at thirty-five minutes past three o’clock in the afternoon he breathed his last without having recovered consciousness for a moment.
The assassination caused the most intense excitement in the capital. A shout of triumph went up from the Executive Committee of the Nihilists, and a few days afterward the people of St. Petersburg could read the following manifesto, which, in spite of the care of the police, had been posted in several conspicuous places:
“The Executive Committee consider it necessary once more to announce to all the world that it repeatedly warned the tyrant now assassinated, repeatedly advised him to put an end to his homicidal obstinacy, and to restore to Russia its natural rights. Every one knows that the tyrant paid no attention to these warnings and pursued his former policy. Reprisals continued. The Executive Committee never drop their weapons. They resolved to execute the despot at whatever cost. On the thirteenth of March this was done.
“We address ourselves to the newly crowned Alexander the Third, reminding him that he must be just. Russia, exhausted by famine, worn out by the arbitrary proceedings of the administration, continually losing its sons on the gallows, in the mines, in exile, or in wearisome inactivity caused by the present régime,—Russia cannot longer live thus. She demands liberty. She must live in conformity with her demands, her wishes, and her will. We remind Alexander the Third that every violator of the will of the people is the nation’s enemy and tyrant. The death of Alexander the Second shows the vengeance which follows such acts.”
These accusations were only partly true. Alexander, on ascending the throne, had honestly tried to introduce reforms, abolish abuses and pave the way for a progressive, liberal government. But his liberal policy did not satisfy the Nihilists. And when in self-protection he fell back on the former policy of repression, the Nihilists began a war of reprisals, and finally murdered the Czar.
THE North-American Republic had lived eighty-nine years before political assassination made its entrance into its domain. From 1776 to 1865, a period occasionally as turbulent, excited and torn by political discord and strife as any other period in history, political assassinations kept away from its shores, and appeared only at the close of the great Civil War between the North and the South, selecting for its victim the noblest, gentlest, most kind-hearted of Americans who had filled the Presidential chair.
Sixteen years later, on July 2, 1881, the second political assassination took place in the United States, resulting in the death of President James A. Garfield, after months of intense suffering from a wound inflicted by a bullet fired by Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker. By removing the President this man hoped to restore harmony in the Republican party, which, in the state of New York at least, had been disturbed by the feud between James G. Blaine and Roscoe Conkling. Guiteau imagined that President Garfield had become an interested party in this feud by appointing Mr. Blaine his Secretary of State. His was the act of a vindictive madman.
Twenty years had elapsed since Guiteau’s horrible crime, and again a President of the United States was prostrated by the bullet of an assassin, who, at the moment of committing the crime, proclaimed himself an Anarchist. When William McKinley was reëlected President in November, 1900, a successful and perhaps glorious second term seemed to be in store for him. During his first term the policy of the Republican party had earned great triumphs, and the President, who was in full accord with his party on all economical questions, and was even its most prominent leader on the tariff question, had justly shared these triumphs.
Quite unexpectedly the question of armed intervention in Cuba had been sprung in the middle of Mr. McKinley’s first term of office, and after having exhausted all diplomatic means to prevent war and to induce Spain to grant satisfactory terms to the Cubans, the President was forced into a declaration of war by the enthusiasm of the Senators and Representatives assembled at Washington. But, as if everything undertaken by Mr. McKinley was to be blessed with phenomenal success, the war with Spain was not only instrumental in securing the thing for which it had been undertaken,—the liberty and independence of the island of Cuba,—but it had also an entirely unexpected effect on the international standing of the United States. Up to the time of the Spanish-American War the United States had always been considered an exclusively American power, and while the European powers seemed to be willing to concede to it a leading position—a sort of hegemony—in all American affairs (including Central and South America), which the United States had assumed by the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, they had never invited the American government to their councils treating of European or other non-American affairs. The Spanish-American War was a revelation to Europe. It opened its eyes to the fact that over night, while Europe had been sleeping and dreaming only of its own greatness, a young giant had grown up on the other side of the Atlantic who was just beginning to feel his own strength and who seemed to make very light of time-honored sovereignty rights and inherited titles of possession. As the Atlantic cable flashed over its wires the reports of American victories and achievements of astounding magnitude,—the destruction of two powerful Spanish fleets, followed by the surrender of the large Spanish armies in the Philippine islands and Cuba,—Europe stood aghast at this superb display of power and naval superiority, and European statesmen reluctantly admitted that a new world-power of the first order had been born, and that it might be prudent to invite it to a seat among the great powers. History is often a great satirist; it was so in this case. Spain had for a long time made application for admission to a seat among the great powers of the world and had pointed to her great colonies and to her splendid navy as her credentials entitling her to membership in the illustrious company. But England and Germany, fearing that Spain would strengthen France and Russia by her influence and navy, kept her out of it. And now comes a young American nation which nobody had thought of as a great military and naval power, makes very short work of Spain’s navy, robs her of all her colonies, and coolly, without having asked for it, takes the seat which Spain had vainly sighed for.
In a monarchy a large part if not the whole of the glory of these achievements on land and sea would have been ascribed to the ruler under whose reign they occurred. It was so with Louis the Fourteenth and Queen Elizabeth, but William McKinley was entirely too modest to claim for himself honors which did not exclusively belong to him. Nevertheless a great deal was said about imperialism and militarism during the campaign, and these charges were even made a strong issue against Mr. McKinley’s reëlection. However, the good judgment of the American people disregarded them and reëlected Mr. McKinley by a considerably larger majority than he had received four years before.
It might have been supposed that this flattering endorsement of Mr. McKinley’s first administration would have allayed all opposition to him personally, because certainly his experience, his conceded integrity and ability, his great influence in the councils of his party, and his immense popularity would have been of inestimable value in adjusting and solving the new problems of administration arising from the acquisition of our new insular possessions in the Pacific and the West Indies. While the two great political parties, and in fact all other parties, had bowed to this decision of the people at the ballot-box, there was, unfortunately, a class of men in the United States as well as in Europe who made war upon the present organization of society as unjust to the poor man, and upon all government, which they declared hostile and detrimental to the rights of individuals, and which they considered the source of all wrongs and miseries. This doctrine was originated by a French philosopher, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, in his famous pamphlet published in 1850 and entitled: “What is Property?” He denounces the unequal division and distribution of property among men and the unjust accumulation of capital in the hands of the few as the source of all social evils, and, concluding with the emphatic declaration that all property is theft, demands its readjustment and re-apportionment on a basis of strict justice as the sole hope for happiness. Proudhon’s ideas and arguments found an echo throughout Europe. He had considered the question only in its economical bearings; but some of his disciples extended the inquiry in all other directions, and showed the hurtful influence of accumulated power and property on all other social conditions, especially on politics and the government of nations. They demanded the reinstatement of the individual in all his natural rights, and a destruction of all those powers and laws which stood in the way of the free and unobstructed exercise of those rights. This meant a declaration of war on all established authority and government. It meant anarchy in the literal sense of the word, and the men who had adopted this doctrine as their political platform called themselves Anarchists.
On the twenty-ninth of September, 1872, a violent schism occurred at the congress of the International Association of Laborers, held at the Hague, between the partisans of Carl Marx and those of Bakúnin, and from this date we must count the origin of the anarchistic party. In the United States the first symptoms of an anarchistic movement appeared in 1878. At the Socialist congress held at Albany, N. Y., the majority of delegates, who were advocates of peaceable methods of propagandism, were opposed by a minority of revolutionists preaching the most extreme measures. The leader of this minority was Justus Schwab, who was then publishing a socialistic newspaper, “The Voice of the People,” at St. Louis. He was a friend and admirer of John Most, who had been imprisoned in England for his revolutionary and seditious articles, and who was, unquestionably, the intellectual leader of the radical minority at Albany. The final rupture between the two factions occurred a year later, at the congress at Alleghany, Pa., in 1879, when the radical revolutionists, who were in a majority, expelled the moderate faction from the convention. The radical wing has grown rapidly in numbers and power, and its influence has made itself felt repeatedly on lamentable occasions, the last of which was the assassination of William McKinley, President of the United States, during the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, on September 6, 1901.
The great American cities, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, are hot-beds of extreme political radicalism; Italian Carbonarism and Russian Nihilism are represented in those cities by some of their most daring representatives, whose official programme is destruction of authority by the assassination of its most exalted heads, and subversion of law. By placing William McKinley in line with the monarchs who were the special targets of their inflammatory harangues and writings, danger and death were attracted to his person with magnetic power: and what in the intention of party opponents was but a forcible means of attacking Mr. McKinley’s and his party’s colonial policy (to disappear again with his election) may have lingered in the heated imaginations of these avowed regicides, and may have intensified their feelings against him, as the most exalted representative of law and order (with alleged imperial designs) in this country. Several months before the assassination took place it was reported that detectives had ferreted out at Paterson, N. J., which is known as a gathering-place of Italian anarchists and assassins, a conspiracy which had for its object the assassination of all European monarchs and of President McKinley. This report, when published in the newspapers, was received with laughter and contempt by the reading public. The mere idea appeared too absurd to deserve even a moment’s attention, and the result was that to the recent assassinations of the Empress of Austria and King Humbert of Italy was added the tragedy of Buffalo.
Only a few months after Mr. McKinley was inaugurated for his second term of office, the Pan-American Exposition was held at Buffalo. Mr. McKinley had, from the very inception of the great undertaking which was to shed new lustre upon his administration, given to it great attention and cordial encouragement. For the first time, such an exposition was to exhibit all the products, natural and artificial, of the two Americas in one common presentation, challenging the admiration or the criticism of the world on the intellectual and industrial standing which this display manifested. The result was grand, and in many respects surpassed expectation. It emphasized the impression already created by the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, that America would within a short time become a dangerous rival for Europe in many departments of industry, not only at home, but even in foreign countries which up to that time had almost held a monopoly for supplying certain articles of manufacture. The departments in which articles of steel and iron manufacture, electrical machines, etc., were exhibited showed such superiority over what old Europe could show that even the most prejudiced visitors from abroad had to concede it.
It had been expected that President McKinley, by his presence on several days in some official capacity, would heighten the interest and emphasize the importance of the Exposition. He had promised and planned to do so. In the summer of 1901 he made a trip to the Pacific coast, and was everywhere welcomed with boisterous enthusiasm. Mrs. McKinley accompanied him, sharing his popularity and triumphs. Perhaps no President since George Washington had to a higher degree possessed the confidence and love of the whole people than Mr. McKinley did at the time of his second inauguration. Even his political opponents conceded his eminent worth, his integrity, his loyalty to duty, and his sincere desire to promote the general welfare of the country. The short addresses which he made during his trip to California found an enthusiastic echo in the hearts of his fellow-citizens, East and West; the ovations he received and which he accepted with becoming modesty and tact, were heartily endorsed by the nation as symptomatic of the universal feeling of harmony and of good-will toward the administration. The ante-election charges of imperialism were laughed at, and both parties seemed to be willing to make the best of the results of the war. Moreover the great urbanity of manners, and the personal amiability which distinguished Mr. McKinley were the strongest refutations of these ridiculous imperialistic charges and of Mr. McKinley’s ambition to be clothed with royal honors. He showed equal courtesy to rich and poor, and his grasp of the laborer’s hand was just as cordial as of the rich merchant’s.
The Presidential party had reached San Francisco, and its reception there was fully as enthusiastic as it had been in the cities along the route to the Pacific. It had been the President’s intention to stop at Buffalo on his return from his trip to California, to be the guest of the managers of the Exposition for a few days, and to perform those duties and ceremonies which were expected of him as head of the nation. Unfortunately this programme could not be carried out. Mrs. McKinley, always in very delicate health, fell seriously ill at San Francisco, and for several days her life was despaired of. She recovered; but as soon as she was able to bear the discomforts of transportation, without inviting the danger of a relapse, the President’s return to the East was decided on, and all his previous appointments were cancelled. His intention to visit Buffalo, during the continuance of the Exposition, was, however, not abandoned, but simply postponed to a more opportune time, after Mrs. McKinley should have recovered her usual strength.
Mr. McKinley came to Buffalo in the first week of September. The Exposition had attracted many thousands of visitors who were anxious to greet the President. On the fifth—which had been made President’s Day—he delivered an address to a very large audience, in which he spoke feelingly of the blessings bestowed by Providence on this country, and in eloquent terms referred to the unexampled prosperity enjoyed by its citizens. That secret and unaccountable influence which frequently inspires men on the verge of the grave and endows them with almost prophetic foresight seemed to have taken possession of Mr. McKinley on this occasion. The speech was, perhaps, the best he had ever made. It was the speech of a statesman and patriot, full of wisdom and love of country. He did not know, when he made it, that it would be his farewell address to the American people; but if he had known it and written it for that purpose, he could not have made it loftier in spirit, more patriotic in sentiment, and more convincing in argument.
On the afternoon of the next day a grand reception had been arranged for the President at the Temple of Music. An immense multitude had assembled, eager to shake hands with Mr. McKinley and to have the honor of exchanging a few words with him. He was in the very best of spirits and performed the ceremony of handshaking with that amiable and cordial expression on his features which won him so many hearts. It had been arranged that only one person at a time should pass by him, and that after a rapid salutation his place should be taken by the next comer. Hundreds had already exchanged greetings with the President, when a young man with smooth face and dark hair stepped up to him. Mr. McKinley noticed that the right hand of the young man was bandaged, as though it had been wounded, and he therefore made a move to grasp his left hand; but at that moment the young man raised his right hand, and in quick succession fired two shots at the President, which both wounded him,—the one aimed at his chest, lightly, because the bullet deflected from the breastbone; the other, which had penetrated the abdomen, very seriously. The assassin had carried a revolver in his right hand and had covered it with a handkerchief in order to avoid detection. Mr. McKinley did not realize immediately that he was wounded, although from the effects of the shot he staggered and fell into the arms of a detective who was standing near him.
“Am I shot?” asked the President. The officer opened the President’s vest, and seeing the blood, answered: “Yes, I am afraid you are, Mr. President.”
The assassin was immediately thrown to the ground. Twenty men were upon him, and it was with some difficulty that he was rescued from their grasp. At first he gave a fictitious name, and, when asked for his motive, replied: “I am an Anarchist, and have done my duty.” His statements shortly after his arrest seemed to implicate a number of more or less prominent Anarchists in the crime and to make it appear as the result of a widespread conspiracy. In consequence a number of the recognized leaders of the party—especially Emma Goldmann, whom the assailant named as the person whose teachings had inspired him with the idea of committing the crime—were arrested and held for a preliminary examination; but nothing could be proven against them, and they were discharged.
After a few days the assailant made a full confession. His name was Leon Czolgosz; he was a Pole by birth, and his family lived at Detroit. He was a believer in Anarchism and had murdered the President because he considered him the chief representative of that authority which, in his opinion, was hurtful to the development of a society founded on the equal rights of all its members. He had had no accomplices: he had not consulted with anybody concerning the plan, time, or execution of the crime, but he had resolved upon and executed it on his own responsibility. While his confession fully exonerated both the Anarchist party at large and all its members individually, it nevertheless showed what terrible consequences may arise from the propagandism of a party which has declared war on the existing organization of society, when its doctrines inflame the mind of a fanatic or of an unthinking proselyte. Public opinion in the United States was stirred to its very depths, all parties vying with one another in showing not only their abhorrence of the crime, but also their love and admiration for the illustrious victim.
Unfortunately the hopes of the American people that Mr. McKinley would survive the foul and senseless attempt on his life were disappointed. For about a week his condition seemed to improve, and his strong vitality seemed to rise superior to the weakening effects of a dangerous surgical operation which failed to produce the second bullet, deeply seated as it was in the spine. At first he rallied from the severe shock, and his physicians were hopeful of saving his life, but in the afternoon of September 12, a sudden change for the worse occurred which, it was soon noticed, indicated the approach of dissolution. He remained conscious till about seven o’clock in the evening of September 13, and faced death in the same spirit of calmness and submission to the will of God which had characterized his whole career. “Good-bye, all; good-bye. It is God’s way. His will be done!” were his last conscious words to the members of his cabinet and other friends who, overcome with emotion, were at his bedside. The end came shortly after two o’clock in the morning, on September 14, apparently without pain.
President McKinley’s death made a profound impression on the American people. The rage of the people of Buffalo against the assassin was boundless, and but for the efficient measures for protecting him at the station-house in which he was imprisoned, he very likely would have fallen a victim to the fury of the thousands who surrounded it. The entire police force and several companies of soldiers were kept under arms to be ready for any emergency.
The body of the dead President was first taken to Washington, and thence to its final resting-place at Canton, Ohio. The obsequies were of imposing grandeur and magnificence; but even more impressive than these, and more honorable to his memory, was the sorrow of a whole nation in tears over his untimely and cruel death.
President McKinley’s death is typical of the modern attempts on the lives of sovereigns and prominent men. These attempts have lost much of the personal character which in former times made them so interesting. They are much more the results of a wholesale conspiracy against the organization of society than against great individuals. Unfortunately political assassinations have not become of rarer occurrence during the last fifty years, as might have been hoped from the progress of education and civilization. On the contrary, they have multiplied with the spread and development of Anarchism. The Anarchist makes no distinction between the bad ruler and the good ruler. The fact that the ruler occupies an exalted station above his fellow-men makes him an object of hatred for the Anarchist, and justifies his removal from an elevation which is a danger to all. At the present time men very high in authority, whether in a monarchy or in a republic, are always exposed to the daggers or pistols or—what is much worse—to the dynamite or other explosives of assassins.
The field of operation of these murderers—who are generally the deluded agents of a central organization of Anarchists, and who have frequently no personal grievance against their victims—extends not only all over Europe, from Russia to Spain, but also to the western hemisphere.
While these murders fall with the same crushing effect upon the nations immediately stricken in the persons of their rulers or intellectual leaders, the interest in the causes leading to them is essentially diminished since they are all inspired by the same general motive,—destruction of authority,—and since the hand armed with the fatal weapon strikes with blind fanaticism, sparing neither age nor sex nor merit; in fact, quite often slaying those who deserve to live, and sparing those whose death might be a benefit to their country and the world. In this way we have seen the Czar Alexander the Second of Russia, the emancipator of the Russian serfs; General Prim, who, if he had lived longer, might have secured a constitutional government for Spain and her political regeneration; the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, a faultless and much betrayed wife as well as a bereaved mother; King Humbert, whose best endeavors were made in behalf of a reunited Italy; President Sadi Carnot, one of the purest and most patriotic statesmen the French Republic has had; and last, though not least, our genial and noble-hearted President, William McKinley,—all falling victims to the senseless vindictiveness of men who do not persecute wrong and oppression, but power and authority in whatever form they may present themselves. We have selected the assassination of President McKinley as representative of this class of political murders, because he was dearest to the American heart, and also because, in our opinion, he was the most illustrious of the many victims of anarchistic vengeance.