Complete Life of William McKinley and Story of His Assassination: An Authentic and Official Memorial Edition, Containing Every Incident in the Career of the Immortal Statesman, Soldier, Orator and PatriotEverett, Marshall
History
Complete Life of William McKinley and Story of His Assassination: An Authentic and Official Memorial Edition, Containing Every Incident in the Career of the Immortal Statesman, Soldier, Orator and Patriot
After Czolgosz, the first arrests for complicity in the attempt on
President McKinley’s life were made in the city of Chicago. The
metropolis of Illinois, with its cosmopolitan population, has always
been a hotbed of anarchy, and it was there the police instantly looked
for traces of the movements of the assassin. The police learned from
Czolgosz himself that he had recently been in Chicago, and had visited
at the house of Abraham Isaak, Sr., 515 Carroll avenue. Isaak was known
as an anarchist and the publisher of a paper called Free Society. The
police procured warrants for the arrest of Isaak and others on a charge
of conspiracy to kill and assassinate the President of the United
States, William McKinley, and on visiting Isaak’s house Saturday,
September 7, found nine persons there, all of whom were arrested. They
were:
Abraham Isaak, Sr., publisher of the Free Society and former publisher
of the Firebrand, the organ of anarchy, which was suppressed; Abraham
Isaak, Jr., Clemence Pfuetzner, Alfred Schneider, Hippolyte Havel, Henry
Travaglio, Julia Mechanic, Marie Isaak, mother; Marie Isaak, daughter.
The same day three other men were arrested at 100 Newberry avenue,
Chicago, for the same crime. These men were: Martin Raznick,
cloak-maker, who rented the premises; Maurice Fox, Michael Raz.
In the house the detectives found box after box heaped with the
literature of anarchy and socialism. There were pictures of Emma Goldman
and other leaders and many copies of the Firebrand, Isaak’s old paper.
The arrests were decided on thus early because of the receipt by the
Chicago police of a telegram from the chief of police at Buffalo,
reading as follows:
“We have in custody Leon Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, the President’s
assassin. Locate and arrest E. J. Isaak, who is editor of a socialistic
paper and a follower of Emma Goldman, from whom Nieman is said to have
taken instructions. It looks as if there might be a plot, and that these
people may be implicated.”
After being taken to the police station the prisoners were taken before
Chief O’Neill and questioned. Isaak, Sr., was the first to be brought
in, and he told his story without any suggestion of reticence,
occasionally punctuating his answers with anarchistic utterances, angry
nods of his head or emphatic gestures with his clenched fists. When
asked if he knew Emma Goldman he answered:
“Yes, she was at my house during the latter part of June and the first
two weeks of July. The last time I saw her was on the twelfth of July.
On that day she left Chicago for Buffalo. I met her at the Lake Shore
depot as she was leaving. When I reached the depot I found her talking
to a strange man, who appeared about 25 years old, was well dressed and
smooth shaven. Miss Goldman told me that the fellow had been following
her around wanting to talk to her, but she had no time to devote to him.
She asked me to find out what the fellow wanted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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