Eight Weeks: A Play of Voices
Narrator (1)
A man arrived in Buffalo
on August 31,
and
asked for a room at John Nowak's saloon,
for which he paid two dollars a week,
giving his name as John Doe,
though he later admitted
his 'real name' was Fred Nieman,
which
he mistakenly believed translated
to nobody in Polish,
and
he was determined not to be a nobody
William McKinley (1)
On the third day in Buffalo
Ida and I paid a visit
to the natural wonder of Niagara Falls,
after which we returned to the man-made wonder
of the Pan-American Exposition,
where,
at the Expo's Temple of Music,
there would be a ten-minute meet-and-greet:
I would shake as many hands as possible
with my patented grip designed to keep the
line moving,
exchanging a few pleasantries along the way
George Cortelyou
As the President's personal secretary
I had some say in his scheduling
But he had the final say:
twice I removed the Temple of Music
from his scheduled appearances;
twice he put it back on his agenda,
the second time making it crystal clear
there would be no third attempt on my part
Leon Czolgosz (1)
I stalked McKinley
when he arrived in Buffalo on the 4th,
again when he gave a speech on the 5th,
but I couldn't get a clear shot either time
McKinley (2)
I had received threatening letters
ever since the war with Spain,
but I didn't take them seriously:
"Who would want to shoot me?"
Czolgosz (2)
"It was in my heart;
there was no escape for me
I could not have conquered it
had my life been at stake"
"All those people . . . bowing to the
great ruler
I made up my mind to kill that ruler"
The reception on the 6th would give me the
chance
John D. Wells
I saw "a man of unusual aspect---
short, heavy, and with a heavy black
moustache"
and "a pair of black, glistening Italian
eyes"
I thought:
anarchist assassin
Foster grabbed him, then released him,
and he passed without incident
Czolgosz (3)
I had the gun in my right hand
covered by a handkerchief,
which,
it being a hot day, drew no attention
I was also gladdened by the fact
that someone else drew attention away from me
I fired two shots into McKinley:
"I done my duty"
the duty of an anarchist
inspired by Emma Goldman's words
Narrator (2)
anarchy- from the Greek anarchos rulerless
Seemingly few professed anarchists understood
that if you take someone's life
you have ruled over them in the most brutal
way
Private Francis P. O'Brien
I tackled Czolgosz after hearing the shots,
making sure to get the gun away from him
Pandemonium ruled,
and who else did what I can't say for sure
James B. Parker
I've said in detail elsewhere
what happened right in front of me
on that fateful day,
so I won't repeat it here
All I'll say is
that the way I was treated afterward
by many who knew better
made me wish I hadn't been there
Homer James
I was a guard there when it happened,
and I hit Czolgosz in the face with my club,
knocking him into the coloured man,
who then put him in a choke hold
Yet somehow,
when credit for the capture was assigned,
the two of us were left out of the story,
the Secret Service and the Buffalo police
taking all the credit allotted,
credit due others not in their employ
Charles Schwab
The business of America is business,
as a later President would put it,
and
"Should the President die
it would most certainly have
a most depressing effect
upon business and industry"
McKinley (3)
After I was hit
I tried to convince everyone
I wasn't badly hurt
I knew for a fact one of the shots
didn't get into me: it hit a button
and fell off when I was moved,
being picked up by someone for a souvenir
I was awake and alert enough
that, when I saw what several in the crowd
were doing to the fellow who shot me,
I ordered them to stop at once
They did so immediately,
and the fellow was taken in
I was taken by ambulance
to the Exposition hospital,
my fate placed in God's hands
acting through the doctors who arrived on
scene
(The first doctor to arrive
I had met the previous day:
I remembered him, and remarked
I never thought I'd need his professional
services)
The doctors never found the bullet that
entered me,
but they felt good about my chances for
survival
It was not to be, though:
a week later I developed gangrene
all along the bullet's path,
a death sentence
I said goodbye to Ida,
and died early in the morning on the 14th
Dr. Roswell Park
I was performing surgery in Niagara Falls
when someone burst in to say I was needed in
Buffalo
I was supposed to have said
I didn't care if it was for the President,
only to be told it was for the President
Like most if not all good stories,
it didn't actually happen that way
I finished the operation and headed to
Buffalo;
another doctor was already in charge of his
care
I never said publicly until years later
I would have put in a drainage tube
No one can ever say for sure
whether that would have saved the President's
life,
but
I always believed it would have
Narrator (3)
In the assassination's wake many weighed in;
a few seemed to make it all about them,
some of those perhaps not without reason
Robert T. Lincoln
I wasn't actually in Buffalo when it happened;
I was on my way there, arriving that night
The third time was not the charm regarding
my proximity to presidents being shot:
President McKinley met the same fate
as had my dad and President Garfield
William Randolph Hearst
In April I editorialized:
"If bad institutions and bad men
can be got rid of only by killing,
then the killing must be done"
and
after Czolgosz we were attacked
from coast to coast with savage ferocity
I saw that
"Things are going to be very bad"
Not for me personally:
my wealth protected me,
as did my being native-born,
but
for those without such protections
who had espoused similar views
Emma Goldman
"Am I accountable
because some crackbrain person
puts the wrong construction on my words?"
Narrator (4)
Emma was not legally accountable,
but
whether she was morally accountable
was then, and remains, a matter of debate:
her expressions of support
for other assassins and would-be assassins,
as well as her pseudo-sympathy
for those who would be their targets,
argues that Czolgosz put
the correct construction on her words
Czolgosz (4)
A number of alienists interviewed me
in order to assess my sanity
In my initial answers to them
I asked who McKinley was,
asked what had happened to him
The alienists were ready to declare me insane,
but I couldn't keep up the pretense
even though the truth could cost me my life
Narrator (5)
Time was of the essence:
the police might tire of protecting Czolgosz
from the mob who wanted to have at him
He was given a speedy trial
in more ways that one:
it began
a week or so after McKinley's death
and lasted only eight hours,
with the expected verdict reached
The sentence was death by electrocution,
to be carried off fifty-five days
after the shooting
Czolgosz (5)
I had a moment of temporary insanity
when I felt it was "awful to feel you
killed somebody
I wish I had not done it"
but
I regained my senses as I was
being strapped into the electric chair,
and said I wasn't sorry for my crime,
if indeed it was a crime—-
Well sustained narrative poem.
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