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Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America

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While President McKinley's assasination (and as Rauchway would argue, even his legacy) is much forgotten today, this book reminds the reader that its impact on American politics is no less dramatic than the assasinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. Czolgosz (the assasin), by murdering McKinley, directly paved the way for Theodore Roosevelt's entrance into the White House, and from there the first modern progressive president was born.

Rauchway makes interesting obersvations about the social inequalities of the turn of the century, the moral decay in American cities, the rise of anarchism, the growing fusion of big businesses and politics, and an outdated legal system struggling to catch up with medical advancement.

Lastly, the book made me draw comparisions between the fear of anarchists that enveloped the nation after McKinley's assasination in September 1901, and the fear of terrorists after 9/11, exactly 100 years later. Overall, this is a great read for anyone interested in history, law or criminal psychology.

This is an interesting book just for the examination of the assassination of President McKinley. Rauchway details the shooting of McKinley and the aftermath. The aftermath was the trial and execution of Leon Czolgosz, the war on anarchism and the rise of the Progressives (Roosevelt and Wilson). During this short book, I read of the history of the social and political movement at the turn of the last century. The political legacy was of conservative Republicans allied with big business and capital, with an arch conservative judicial system.
McKinley's assassination caused the rise of a different force in the Republican Party. Roosevelt made the Progressives respectable and caused changes in the political process which modernized the political, social, and economic landscape. The final portion deals with the assassination attempt on Roosevelt in 1912 which was a reaction to all that Roosevelt accomplished. The assassination of McKinley focused negative press on the Anarchists, and the attempt in 1912 was a reaction to the Progressive policies of 1912.
This is a good read. The only criticism I have is that this book focuses much attention on the human element of one assassin.

The assassination of William McKinley is far less examined than those of Lincoln and Kennedy. If only for the relative obscurity of the topic alone, this deserves a look. While somewhat disappointing for a lack of focus, the book is quite informative.

The author's thesis seems to be that the assassination of McKinley was symbolic of America's discontent with conservativism and big business's hold on politics, bringing about the progressive movement and the emergence of Theodore Roosevelt. The title of the book would seem to imply a focus on the assassination of McKinley, which is not accurate. Make no mistake about it, the title of the book is deceiving. Rauchway goes for several pages at a time examining nothing but the rise of Roosevelt. In that respect, the author strays from delivering what the title of the book suggests and at times from supporting his apparent thesis.

One of the issues the book does a reasonable job of addressing is the story behind McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz. Alienist Vernon Briggs investigated the life of Czolgosz only to find the powerful businesses that McKinley shielded were a key part of the environment that created the assassin. In the process of his investigation, Briggs brings the issue of the insanity defense to the attention of the American justice system. In this respect, Briggs's research had a major impact on the judicial system.

Without the significant digressions into the social changes brought about by the Roosevelt administration, this book would be much thinner. Perhaps that is why Rauchway chose to include it. Even with the digressions, the book is decidedly thin. I enjoyed the book even though I believe it could have been composed with a much better sense of focus.

Those who have noticed my growing list of reviews will find a lot of things reviewed, including several books on history. If you are one of those, you may notice that these books deal with presidents of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Considering that McKinley is my favorite president, this book captured my interest. However, it failed to maintain it.

I noticed it goes along with the traditional view that McKinley was basically conservative, and that progressive Roosevelt became vice-president to get him out of the hair of NY boss Sen. Tom Platt. Having read Kevin Phillip's biography, I disagree with this assessment. I also found the comparisons between McKinley's assassin Leon Czolgosz (pronounced "Cholgosh") with Garfield's killer Charles Guiteau interesting, having read "Dark Horse" about Garfield.

This book looks at various aspects of the turn of the century outlook. It seems to see Roosevelt as the beneficiary of Czolgosz's crime. I find some of the former interesting, but the book continued to bore me. Like "Dark Horse", it is told as a story, but it would make an excellent bed-time story because I would be asleep in no time.

If you have a keen interest in the mindset of that period of time, I would recommend this book to you. Likewise, if you want to deal with what constitutes insanity, I would also suggest you read this book. However, if you want a book to keep your interest, this is not it.

Do not be too misled by the title of this book...this is really a thesis on the initiation of the Progressive period of our government and not a study dedicated to the assasination of President William McKinley. True, author Eric Rauchway uses McKinley's assasination as the hinge-point for this theory, but this work delves deeply into the idealogical origins of the movement and also, as a secondary objective, attempts to examine the potential insanity of assasin Leon Czolgosz. Once Czolgosz admits to shooting McKinley, Rauchway tries to rationalize Czolgosz's admission under the "anarchy" umbrella and to show this philosophy as a social disorder...a disorder driven by McKinley's percieved obstruction of social change and one which could drive an otherwise normal, hard-working man to commit such a heinous crime. Rauchway consolidates all this into a history summarizing the social outlook that was prevelent at the beginning of the 20th century and offers new scholorship on McKinley, new President Theodore Roosevelt and Czolgosz.

Following McKinley's assasination on September 6, 1901, the initial motive of assasin Czolgosz is determined to be his association with and adherence to the dogma of anarchy. Rauchway's view is that with McKinley gone, Progressivism takes off with Roosevelt as it's main proponent. At this point, we get detailed discussions on anarchy and it's leaders along with the idea of Progressivism and the personalities that moved it to the forefront of early 20th century society. Rauchway shows how the McKinley administration's lack of a progressive policy coupled with the onset of a major economic shift to an industrial based society, drives the lower classes (read immigrants) to a view of government that's assumed skewed to the upper classes. When a somewhat intelligent, but misguided immigrant like Czolgosz is introduced to the mantra of anarchy, the idea then of bringing down the leader of this "skewed" government is logical.

Czolgosz is then tried for murder, found guilty and, of course, executed...all in amazingly rapid succession. So rapid that the psychological world resents the fact that an insanity plea was not given a thoughtful consideration. Boston psychologist Lloyd Briggs is then chartered with researching Czolgosz's past for possible clues into his mental makeup and to see if anything can be gained from an examination of Czolgosz's psychosis. Briggs interviews many of Czolgosz's family and associates and comes to the conclusion that an obscure form of dementia caused Czolgosz to perform his heinous act. This dementia was driven largely by the government's lack of foresight into the lower class society and Rauchway uses this theory as the basis for this study.

This book is not an easy read and one who wishes to learn the idealogical details of this era would do well to read this and would probably enjoy this work. The general reader however learns early on that this is not a study of McKinley's assasination (a natural comparison to the excellent book "Dark Horse" by Kenneth Ackerman is soon abandoned), but conversely, learns much from this discussion and comes to the conclusion that this is a useful history of an otherwise forgotten era of our government.

In this highly original, thought-provoking book, Eric Rauchaway examines the trends that shaped a new America at the dawn of the 20th century. The assassination of President William McKinley is a pivotal event in Rauchaway's interpretation of the era, for he makes it clear that both the man who gunned McKinley down, Leon Czolgosz, and the man who ascended to the presidency in McKinley's place, Theodore Roosevelt, were shaped by those same forces of change. In the introduction, he boldly declares, "In a sense therefore, McKinley had two killers: the man who shot him and destroyed his body, and the man who succeeded him and erased his legacy."

Rauchaway's narrative begins with McKinley's murder and its immediate aftermath, including Roosevelt's ascencion to the presidency and Czolgosz's unusally swift trial, conviction and execution. He makes a convicing case that the leaders of the time wanted to brand the assassin as a calculating foreign anarchist, then dispose of him as quickly as possible. (And as thoroughly as possible. Acid was poured into the grave to destroy his body after burial.)

In 1902, an alienist (pyschologist), Dr. Vernon Briggs of Boston, went in search of answers to the deeper questions about Czolgosz's motives and sanity. Rauchaway vividly recreates his journeys to the places Czolgosz lived, worked, traveled and was imprisoned. What emerges is a picture of a man far removed from the "official" portrait that has persisted for more than a century. Czolgosz, who was in fact American-born, had tried to live out the dream of economic success, but instead fell victim to the upheavals of the 1890s. And while he may have voiced an interest in anarchism as a political idealogy, it almost certainly never went beyond that.

So the assassin instead can be seen as one of many victims of the social and economic forces that were shaping the country at this great turning point. Those same forces also opened the doors for Theodore Roosevelt to steer the country in directions far removed from his predecessor's path. Yet, a dozen years later, as Roosevelt took a bullet in a failed assassination attempt during his own bid to return to power, it became clear that the tides of history had even pushed him aside.--William C. Hall

In his book Murdering McKinley: The making of Theodore Roosevelt's America, author Eric Rauchway has given us a picture of a somewhat troubled young man that assassinated the beloved President McKinley in 1901. McKinley's assassination marked the third time in just forty years that an American President had been killed. There is no question that Lincoln's assassination changed the direction of the nation, and there is no question that Garfield's assassination had virtually no impact, since he had only been in office for a few months when he was killed.

McKinley, however, had just been elected to his second term, and was considered to be a good President (consistently ranked in the top 20 Presidents ever to lead the nation), and the oft-feared Theodore Roosevelt was his newly elected Vice President, placed there by the Republicans to stymie his exuberance and minimize his impact on the party.

Rauchway excells at his descriptions of the murder and the ascension of Roosevelt to the nation's highest office, including the reasons so many people were nervous about TR taking over the Presidency. Thus, the first half of the book flows very nicely and is an easy read. However, after the assassin Czolgosz was executed, the book drifts into social history and spends a significant amount of time discussing whether or not Czolgosz committed the crime because he was infected by society and thus went mad. Rachway also delves into the theory that Czolgosz was insane stemming from a bout of syphilis.

I enjoyed the book a tremendous amount, but I truly believe that the subtitle of the book is slightly misleading - the author pays much attention to the factors that affected Czolgosz, and less emphasis is given to the way that Theodore Roosevelt changed the country once he became President. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to understand this heinous crime and the immediate implications.

Not having read thoroughly on McKinley's assassination that led to TR's presidency, it was with excitement I found this book in a used book store. Using a type of ping-pong style of narration, not unlike a thriller or a mystery, the author moves us through the events that resulted in the assassination and ultimately caused a shifting of thought in America. Tracing the life of the assassin Leon Czolgosz and demonstrating the ways immigration, society, economy, and political arenas affect public life, the book thoroughly documents the assassin's life and the multi-faceted responses to the events.

Leon Czolgosz shoots William McKinley in 1901, catapulting TR out of his political black hole and into the Presidency. Ultimately this event ushers in a new United States replete with labor laws, immigration laws, conservation, anti-trust laws, and global economic development. But rather than examining the governmental and political powers of the time, Murdering McKinley takes a micro-historical look at the life of the assassin and the culture that created him. Each new layer that unfolds about Czolgosz requires a study of the past and future related to the knowledge. For example, in order to understand the disillusionment of how he lost his position at the Steel mill, we need to understand the development of the industry. The question of his insanity requires knowledge of psychology and its role in society's perception of the criminally ill. The curious suspicion of Czolgosz physical state requires some knowledge in diseases of the time. Perhaps the biggest question was how anarchy and anarchists contributed to the assassination. All these and more work as a type of mosaic of colorful reasons for the actions of Czolgosz.

The writing style is scholarly without being heavy and pedantic, containing picturesque language but somehow avoiding the folksy vernacular that historical writers use to relate a broad constituency. Precise and thorough, the book zings along at a fast-pace melding personal stories with collective application. This makes for a book that allows the reader to connect with the people yet understand the political theater of the time period. The author's sense of humor also rings throughout the pages as he educates and entertains. Page 116 for example says, "If experience and inheritance made the assassin insane, then the same factors were hard at work maddening millions of other Americans."!

Not sure I agree with everything in the book (was TR really more words than actions?), at the same time I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would recommend it to anyone interested in the time period or in TR's life. Particularly enriching are the thoughts behind immigration and psychology that pervade our world today. Quite a read in all respects. Highly recommended.

I was a bit concerned when I purchased this book -- it seems that lately Theodore Roosevelt is included in book just to increase its "sale-ability". When TR receives attention at all, it is as a foil for the postmodern sensibilities of the author, who is usually a college professor. Well, Eric Rauchway is a college professor, and I am a sensitive, protective fan of TR, and I will submit that I found this book interesting, fun to read, and free of anti-TR bias. In fact, I learned an awful lot about the McKinley assassination (and assassin) that I had never encountered in the many TR biographies I have read. Besides being a fan of TR, I am a clinical psychologist, and I will attest that the author's foray into amateur forensic psychology is, overall, pretty commendable. Bully!

The assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy are clearly the two most traumatic in American history in terms of American presidents. After that the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. would be the most prominent such event. The assassinations of James Garfield and William McKinley have always paled in comparison to these others, but Eric Rauchway of the University of California, Davis makes a case for appreciating the importance of the latter in "Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America."

On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz at the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Of the two rounds that were fired the first knicked off a button on McKinley's vest while the second tore into the President's stomach. As he fought the pain, McKinley stopped the soldiers who rushed to his aid from beating Czolgosz to death. The hospital at the Exposition was not equipped to deal with this sort of wound. Dr. Matthew Mann, a local gynecologist, performed the emergency surgery. The bullet had entered the stomach and exited out the back wall of the stomach. While Mann sewed up both holes he was unable to retrieve the bullet. The operation was considered a success and it looked like McKinley would recover, which is why Vice President Theodore Roosevelt left Buffalo after visiting the President. But gangrene set in McKinley's intestines and on September 14th he died, making Roosevelt the youngest President in American history (JFK was the youngest man to be elected).

Theodore Roosevelt is remembered today as the first modern President, who Progressivism is the forbearer of modern American liberalism. It was TR who saw the United States become a World Power. If we are talking about the five most important Presidents in American history in terms of altering the course of the nation, then Theodore Roosevelt is going to be on that list (Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt are the other clear cut choices, and I would go with Jackson for the fifth choice but that one is the most debatable). In "Murdering McKinley," Rauchway looks at the lessons TR drew from the assassination.

This rather short book (288 pages) follows two lines of analysis. First, it looks at the conflicting explanations that were advanced at the time to explain why Czolgosz assassinated McKinley: (1) Czolgosz was mentally deranged and the assassination was no social statement but simply the act of a lunatic. (2) Czolgosz was part of an anarchist conspiracy engaged in terrorist activity. Rauchway clearly envisions parallels to the contemporary world when he writes about how a "war on anarchism" was being conduced with a coalition of European nations. (3) Czolgosz was protesting against the social injustices of the existing American class system. However, Rauchway comes up with an alternative hypothesis, based on Czolgosz's erroneous belief that he was dying of syphilis, which contends the assassin simply wanted to make his mark on the world before he died.

As such, this case study becomes important because it represents the social conditions at the turn of the century that Roosevelt faced when he became president. Rauchway argues that TR, while rejecting assassination as a valid political action, realized that the situation he assumed Czolgosz was protesting was indeed problematic. McKinley's political philosophy could probably be described as being capitalism rather than Republicanism, and no one ever accused McKinley of being concerned with the plight of the working class. In contrast, Roosevelt had personally toured the slums of New York with the social reformer Jacob Riis, and his life of privilege had not left him alienated from the masses.

Consequently, Rauchway argues Roosevelt's "New Democracy" can be seen as a response to the social conditions that were perceived as having provoked the assassination. The inevitable judgment is that McKinley, as the stooge of capitalist interests, was complicit in the social wrongs being protested. Under TR the government would have a more prominent role in protecting the working class from the forces of capitalism, in the same way that TR protected the environment by establishing the National Park system. The assassination of McKinley becomes a catalyst, albeit one of many, that gave Roosevelt impetus for acting on his Progressive political philosophy. Rauchway sees TR's abandoning the Republican Party in 1912, when he ran on the Progressive "Bull Moose" ticket, as the logical consequence of this position.

"Murdering McKinley" is an excellent piece of rediscovering history, making a case for the "so what" of an assassination whose significance was always seen as putting Theodore Roosevelt in the White House when the dynamic, young politician thought his political career had essentially been ended by accepting the nomination. Rauchway makes a convincing case for showing that if the assassination was not an outright catalyst, it was at least consistent with TR's concern for the plight of the working class.