America at the Turn of the Century
The US emerged from the 19th century as the world’s preeminent industrial power, eclipsing both the UK and Germany, and with victory in the Spanish-American War and the absorption of Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam and Samoa, increasingly a military and colonial power.
The US settled uncertainly into this new role as a coloniser. The Democrats, backed by the American Anti-Imperialist League, opposed overseas expansion as antithetical to the ideals of republicanism and America’s own revolutionary legacy. The Republicans meanwhile, viewed overseas expansionism as the ultimate fulfillment of Manifest Destiny and America’s duty to spread the wings of the republic as far as it could stretch.
In the end, President McKinley compromised to a degree between these factions. Only Hawaii became an incorporated territory, with full rights and citizenship extended to the islanders, much like the many US territories still on the North American mainland. Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines however would not be given this status, and given the new status of
unincorporated territory, where neither constitutional rights nor citizenship would be extended, to be governed by the US Bureau of Insular Affairs. They essentially became colonies once more, but ones with the stated goal of preparing them for independence at some point in the future. Cuba was given nominal independence in 1902, however under terms that made it
de facto a US protectorate, with the Cuban government being forbidden to have dealings with foreign powers and a permanent American military base being established at Guantanamo Bay.
Left: American possessions at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. Right: a depiction of the Battle of Manila bay, in which the US navy annihilated the antiquated Spanish Pacific Squadron.
What dispute existed in halls of government over foreign policy paled in comparison to the mounting discord in the US itself between labour and capital in the factories, mines, work yards and streets of America. The Panic of 1893 threw the country into recession. Banks failed and people lost their savings, unemployment rose, and wages shrank. The 1890s was bloodied by a series of major stikes, lockouts and labour disputes, many of them lethal, as workers clashed with private security forces such as the Pinkertons and in some cases, the National Guard, who still relied on the patronage of wealthy individuals to supplement their relatively meagre government funding, and in turn answered to the patrons as much as the government.
The 1892 Homestead Strike, in which stricking workers took over and barricaded themselves in the Homestead Steelworks before being forcibly dislodged by the Pennsylvania State Guard.
On September 6th of 1901, President McKinley himself became yet another causality of the class war brewing in America, when anarchist gunman Leon Czolgosz shot the president twice in the abdomen as he was shaking hands at Pan-American Expo in Buffalo, New York. Czolgosz was a steelworker who had lost his job in the Panic of 1893, and became resentful of the power of American capitalists over the working class, and what he regarded as complicity of the US government in sustaining it. Inspired by anarchist assassinations elsewhere over in Europe, especially the successfully assassination of King Umberto I of Italy just a year prior, Czolgosz resolved to kill President McKinley in accordance with anarchist precepts of the time: to “ignite” the “spirit of revolt” against the ruling class.
Hiding his pistol beneath a handkerchief, Czolgosz fired two rounds into the president as he went to shake hands. Remarkably, the first harmlessly bounced off a button, but the second found its mark and pierced McKinley’s stomach. The president immediately slumped to the floor and Czolgosz was beset by an angry crowd. Such was the beating that Czolgosz was subjected to during his apprehension that McKinley is said to have called out “go easy on him, boys!”
Left: the attempt on McKinley's life, showing the concealed pistol. Right: The surgery that saved his life at the Pan-American Hospital
For hundreds of years prior, such a wound would have meant near-certain death, if not due to shock or blood loss, almost assuredly due to gangrene and secondary infection. However in a glaring oversight by Czolgosz, the Pan-American Expo happened to be hosting a world-class hospital exposition, directed by one of the best doctors then-alive: Roswell Parks, M.D.
After McKinley was rushed into the hospital,
Roswell Parks was entrusted with the president’s care. Parks sedated McKinley and began an incision of the abdomen, a matter complicated by the president’s obesity, but was able to locate and remove the bullet, which had lodged itself in the lining of the abdominal cavity after damaging several vital organs. Parks then sprayed the infected organs with a bromide solution, a novel practice at the time, and closed up the incision with proper drainage to prevent infection, especially gangrene.
The president would survive the attempt on his life, but would spend the rest of presidency, indeed the rest of his life, in poor health. He finally died in 1907 of heart complications in his home in Canton, Ohio, aged 64.
Leon Czolgosz on other hand was put to death by electric chair later that October. He plead guilty, but was overruled by the judge and the defence attempted to have him found not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder after only 30 minutes of deliberation. His remains were liquefied with sulphuric acid and his personal effects incinerated to discourage exhibitions of his life. Although seen as a hero by some sections of the labour movement, he was the subject of widespread condemnation in both national and international publications, a reputation that would improve little after the formation of the Union of American Socialist Republics a mere 18 years later, the communist regime having no affection for the anarchists they had clashed with in the Second American Civil War.
Before the switch was pulled, he is recorded as having said “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people – the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime. I am sorry I could not see my father.”