How Did Theodore Roosevelt Make Us Insane

Murdering McKinley
The Making of Theodore Roosevelt’s America
By Eric Rauchway

Who can determine if a person is insane, a doctor, a lawyer, a judge, or a jury of your peers? Does any one person really know why someone acts the way they do? Legal insanity is not knowing whether the act you committed was wrong or right. Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley. Of all the Presidential assassinations, McKinley’s had the most dangerously political movement. This assassination was followed by Theodore Roosevelt taking over the Presidency of the United States. In the 1900’s, the emergence of medicine and law had just began. It was not until the late 1880’s that courts even considered expert witness and expert testimony. Courts began to allow doctors to testify on their medical opinions of defendants they did not treat until after the crimes were committed. The alienist (as mental doctors were called during this time) wanted Leon Czologsz to be criminally insane. His insanity would have made for an easier trial. Leon Czolgosz willing and knowingly went to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY on September
6, 1901 hiding a .32 caliber pistol under a white bandage. He made his way up to the front of the crown where President McKinley was standing. He then fired the pistol twice into President McKinley, hitting him in the stomach and chest. (3) He was taken down saying, “I did my duty.” Three doctors came in to evaluate to mental health of Czolgosz. Dr. Joesph Fowler was the first alienist on the case. He called in two experts on sanity and crime, Dr. Floyd Crego and Dr. James Putnam. These three men became devoted with documenting Czolgosz mental health. (20) Their conclusion summarized states, “He is the product of Anarchy, sane and responsible.” During this period in time, courts had just began to except the testimony of Doctors on witnesses. Doctors were also concluding that debt, stress, desire, and disease could play a part in whether a person was sane or not. Judges and doctors grew even more uneasy about who could be held responsible for their actions. If everyone could find a reason to be insane such as job loss, stress, debt, etc., then people could go on to commit crimes freely without punishment. (116) In Czolgosz case, the District Attorney Penney believed he chose Anarchy. Czolgosz chose to corrupt his life and allowed himself to be seduced by anarchical leaders and their beliefs. Even if he was crazy, he made a choice knowingly and willingly. This did not rest well with the defense attorney for Czologosz. He argues how could he possible be charged with murder when his circumstances drove him mad. He could not have chosen a better lifestyle. Besides wouldn’t American sleep better knowing he was crazy rather than there were people in America that could kill leaders in the Government in cold blood. These statements disturbed people so much that these issues continued on past Czolgosz conviction and death. This also encouraged the prosecution to carry out the trial in a speedy fashion.(20-25) Another set of Doctors arrived in New York the Friday before the trial. Dr. MacDonald and Dr. Hurd examined the defendant over the weekend. They first agreed he appeared “well nourished, rather good-looking, mild mannered young man.” They came to the same conclusion as the previous doctors that Czolgosz may be delusional but he was sane. (42-43) After the death of the defendant, Dr. Channing and Dr. Briggs questioned Czolgosz sanity. Channing sent Briggs to investigate the findings of the other doctors who evaluated the defendant. (55)Briggs evaluated Czolgosz family, visited the jail he was housed in, and read the findings of the doctors who evaluated him. He had conducted almost fifty to sixty interviews of people who new the assassin. Summarizing all that Briggs investigated, he did find sufficient evidence that Czolgosz was insane based on his opinion. He said “the evidence pointed in the direction of the assassin’s insanity.” (204) He also found evidence that he was highly intelligent based on the results from interviewing the warden at the Auburn State Jail. (86) He believed that Czolgosz was the product of “strains in a web of circumstance, a complex trap that resulted from the compounding effects of innumerable human decisions.” (204-212) Was Czolgosz insane?
Was he a product of his bad circumstances? My personal belief is that he was insane. He was insane to believe that he had to murder a man to make things right for a country. He was crazy to believe that there was no other way to stand for what he believed in. Now I will go on further to say, was he legally insane? NO, he was not! He knew what he was doing. They have already proven he was intelligent. So intelligent that on September 6, 1901 he woke up, hid a gun under a bandage, and went out to kill the President of the U.S.A. He admitted his guilt and never once admitted remorse for anything he did. This man was evil. Whether the world will ever agree on Leon Czolgosz sanity is not the issue, his actions caused Theodore Roosevelt to step up to the Presidency, and during this time great things
happened. Theodore Roosevelt had two great allies while President. One being Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, and Jacob Riis, a photographer and later on Roosevelt’s interpreter and guide to the immigrant neighborhoods of New York. (138-144) He worked hand in hand with Addmas and Riis to help the poor living and laboring conditions of decent people. They tried to help Roosevelt see the world from many different view points. Not just through color, but social class and gender. (144) Roosevelt with the help of Addmas and Riis worked to fix many things during the Progressive era. In Roosevelt’s America, troublesome people deserved nothing as much as a good shooting, but as long as shooting was politically unfeasible, he believed everyone might as well have fair and equal treatment. (36) Roosevelt’s great talent as a progressive leader lay in his ability to argue both sides. Roosevelt knew what is was to struggle as well as live in wealth. He worked ranches in the West and fought as a soldier in 1898. He was able to sympathize with his people. (59) Jane Addams friendship with Roosevelt proved beneficial for her. She knew his weakness and like Riis often relied on the evidence and influence of personal experience to sway him to the more generous side of his nature. (145) She often pushed Roosevelt to think in her terms showing him first hand what she was living amongst. She alto took private time with him when he visited to discuss women’s suffrage for labor reforms as well. (147-148) Roosevelt enjoyed popularity while he was President. American prospered while he was in office. (184-195) During Mckinley and Roosevelt’s time as President, anarchy was on everyone’s minds. The anarchist believed that McKinley was out for the rich business and rich Americans. He did little for the working class. He would not improve working conditions, help laborers, help families in need. These people believed they must take action in their own hands to live a better life. The government was not going to help them.(104) They believed the government lied to the Philippenes when they annexed them, since they promised to set them free during the Spanish War. (105) One of the anarchist during the time of the Presidency was Emma Goldman, she defined anarchism as “ the theory that all forms of government rest on violence and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.” The anarchists agreed that any acculmulation of property was theft, that capitalism was theft with legal sanction, and that laws protecting property and property-holders were therefore immoral. (92-94) Abraham Isaak was another anarchist. Czolgosz met him saying he met Emma Goldman at a rally in Cleveland, and was interested in becoming an Anarchist. Emily Schilling of Cleveland, OH was another anarchist. All of the people believed that Czolgosz was not a true anarchist but was a spie. Emily Schilling went on to say that “ Czolgosz desire to become an anarchist was so strong and intense, he was immediately put under suspicison. Recalling Czolgosz, Shilling said “the shooting seemed to prove his authenticity and made anarchist around the nation feel guilty about not believing his loyalty. (102) Through all of this though, Emma Goldman was puzzled about Czologosz target for assination. Why Mckinley? He had no wealth of his own. (95-112) Numerous Anarchist were not legal immigrants. Roosevelt commited himself to “war….against anarchists,” in cooperation with other nations, and to making anarchism an international crime. Congress did not allow Roosevelt to follow through on all these rules, but they did append a claise to the immigration law in 1903, prohibiting immigration of “anarchist, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of all governments, or of all forms of law, or the assassination of public officals.” Under this law, Emma Golden along with 248 other anarchist, communist, and radicals would be deported during the red scare of 1919. “The race needed protection, anarchy needed stamping out,” Roosevelt said. (146-148) Jane Addams said it best when she argued the defense for Czolgosz case. She said that “we do not know whether people commit acts because they are discouraged and unassimilated immigrants or whether they are the result of anarchist teachings. By hastilty concluding that the latter is the sole explanation for their actions, we make no attempt to heal and cure the situation. Failure to make a proper diagnosis may mean treatment of a disease which does not exist, or it may furthermore mean that the dire malady from which the patient is suffering be permitted to develop unchecked.” She went on to say that if Czolgosz’s malady was the result of social environment, then all Americans bore responsibility. “Was it not an indictment to all those whose business it is to interpret and solace the wretched, that a boy should have grown up in an American city so uncared for, so untouched by higher issues, his wounds of life so unhealed by religion that the first talk he ever heard dealing with life’s wrongs, although anarchistic and violent, should dyet appear to point to a way of relief?” (149) Sane or Insane, Anarchist or not, Leon Czologosz assaniated President McKinley. Theodore Roosevelt took over the Presidency and make changes like the “All American President” should.