On September 5 an estimated 50,000 people, including Leon Czolgosz, had listened to the president’s speech. ‘Isolation is no longer possible or desirable,’ McKinley said. ‘The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good-will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals.’ The New York Times, remarking on the president’s about-face, wrote, ‘Unquestionably the President has learned much in the last few years.’

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Unfortunately, America’s move toward imperialism had done little for the common workingman. Already frustrated by years of economic depression that began with the Panic of 1893, and by the lack of progress toward more humane working conditions, American workers wondered why some of the vast wealth of the industrial boom wasn’t trickling down to them. Millionaires like railroad king Cornelius Vanderbilt, oil baron John D. Rockefeller, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and banker J.P. Morgan had accumulated unprecedented private wealth and were known to spend more on an evening’s entertainment than a coal miner or tradesman could earn in a lifetime. Such ostentatious displays bred discontent. Rubbing salt in the wound, the industrialists routinely relied on the government to help squelch worker uprisings.

Employee unions had progressively become a more dominant force in American life during the last quarter of the nineteenth century as they sought to improve working conditions. Strikers had clashed violently with police and the military in Chicago’s Haymarket Riot in 1886 and again in the Pullman strike eight years later, leaving scores of people dead in the streets. In 1892, Pinkerton detectives in Homestead, Pennsylvania, suppressed a steel strike and protected scab laborers. The government had sided with management against workers in each instance.

A more dangerous element — anarchism — exacerbated the situation when it arrived from Europe. Anarchists brought a more radical philosophy to the scene, maintaining that any form of government exploited and oppressed the people. They believed that one way to combat government was to eliminate those in power. Since 1894, anarchists had assassinated four European leaders — President Sadi Carnot of France, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, King Humbert of Italy, and Spanish statesman Cnovas del Castillo. In the United States, an anarchist had attacked industrialist Henry Clay Frick, in part for his role in the failed Homestead strike.

For some individuals with little or no formal education, few skills, and no hope of improvement, anarchism offered a natural outlet for their frustration. Cleveland resident Leon Czolgosz fit the profile perfectly. Poor, reclusive, and often unemployed, he had been born in Detroit to Polish parents in 1873. He left school after five and a half years and worked at various jobs and later drifted to Chicago and became interested in the socialist movement. The interest continued in Cleveland, where he took a job in the city’s wire mills. Two weeks before he traveled to Buffalo, Czolgosz attended a lecture given by the nation’s most notorious anarchist leader, Emma Goldman. She spoke of the struggle between the classes and why the time had come for action against government.

Surrounded by his entourage inside the Temple of Music, McKinley enjoyed the opportunity to meet his admirers. Host John Milburn, the exposition’s president, stood on the president’s left, so he could introduce acquaintances to McKinley as they approached. Secret Service agent George Foster, the president’s chief bodyguard, usually held that position, but he found himself five feet away from the president and standing opposite him. To McKinley’s right stood Cortelyou, who looked into the face of each person as they came close to his boss. He intended to signal the guards to close the doors after 10 minutes to stop the parade of well-wishers and then rush the president on to his next appointment.

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