The assassination of American President William McKinley occurred on the 6th of September 1901 and proved a major incident at the turn of the 21st centaury.
William McKinley was the president shot by an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz at the Temple of Music on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, shown on this picture by the red cross.
Although the assassination took place on the 6th of September with two bullets fired, the president passed away on September 14th from gangrene caused by the bullet wounds in his abdomen. The same day, Vice President at the time, Theodor Roosevelt was sworn in as the President of the United States.
Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist, believed in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion. This belief was formed after his loss of a job in a labour dispute in 1893. Czolgosz worked irregularly and attended political and religious meetings to determine the reasons for the economic turmoil of the Panic of 1893. In doing so, he became interested in anarchism, which was highly feared in the United States.
Czolgosz was brought to trail on September 23rd of 1901 and quickly found guilty and sentenced to death. On October 29th, Leon Czolgosz was the 50th person to die in the electric chair in the state of New York.
The president shot was William McKinley, serving from the election in 1896, as a result of the Panic of 1893 as the 25th president of the United States, till his death in 1901 after being elected the year prior. The man, who took over after the assassination becoming the 26th president of the US, was Theodor Roosevelt.
A previous Cuban Veteran who led men on the charge up the San Juan Hill and was award the Medal of Honour for his actions returned home to be elected governor of New York State. During his time as president starting from 1901, Roosevelt’s target was the trusts as he was a progressive president until the end of his second term in 1909.
At the turn of the century, America had finally established itself as a world power despite its assassination of its leader.
America at the Turn of the Century
By the 1900s, the United States of America, now commonly referred to as the United States had established itself as a world power even after its Civil War in 1861-1865. Currently a federal republic consisting of 50 states, and a federal district America was at the turn of the century a republic with only 45 states, as shown on the maps.
Many factors such as population, government and political developments, attitudes of the people, problems, its empire and navy all allowed the establishment of America as a world power. With a world population of approximately one thousand million six hundred and fifty million, the American population rested at around 4% of that. The 1900 census revealed that approximately seventy six million residing in the states, with a 21% increase since the last. This indicated the extreme amounts of immigrants entering the nation around this time.
Nearly 12 million hopeful immigrants arrived in the United States between 1870 and 1900; with the vast majority of these people were from Germany, Ireland, and England. This large amount of immigrants allowed the processing center at Ellis Island to be built in 1892.
About 2 percent were denied admission to the U.S, and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons such as having a chronic contagious disease, criminal background, or insanity.
At the turn of the century, both the U.S and the major European powers had embarked on an era of imperialist foreign policies. This new found view of an expansionist policy had three goals, to gain island possessions, most of which were already quite populated; to use the new territories not for settlement, but rather as naval bases, trading outposts, and commercial centers on major trade routes; and to think