Polish American History - Early 20th Century - Early Perceptions - Profiling After McKinley Assassination

Profiling After McKinley Assassination

Leon Czolgosz, a Polish American born in Alpena, Michigan, changed American history in 1901 by assassinating U.S. President William McKinley. Though Czolgosz was a native-born citizen, the American public displayed high anti-Polish and anti-immigrant sentiment after the attack. William McKinley, who survived the shooting for several days, called Czolgosz a "common murderer", and did not make mention of his background. Different Slavic groups debated his ethnic origins in the days and weeks that followed the attack, and Hungarian Americans took effort to also distance themselves from him. Police who arrested him reported that Czolgosz himself identified as a Pole. The Polish American community in Buffalo was deeply ashamed and angry with the negative publicity that Czolgosz created, both for their community and the Pan-American Exposition, and canceled a Polish American parade following the attack. Polish Americans burned effigies of Czolgosz in Chicago and Polish American leaders publicly repudiated him.

The Milwaukee Sentinel posted on Sept. 11, 1901 an editorial noting that Czolgosz was an anarchist acting alone, without any ties to the Polish people:

Czolgosz is not a Pole. He is an American citizen, born, bred and educated in this country. His Polish name and extraction have nothing whatever to do with his crime, or with the motives which impelled him to it. The apparent notion, therefore, of Polish-Americans that it is incumbent on them to show in some special and distinctive way their abhorrence of Czolgosz and his deed, while creditable to them as a sentiment, is not founded in reason. Responsibility for Czolgosz’ crime is a question not of race but of doctrine. Anarchism knows no country, no fatherland. It is a cancer eating into the breast of society at large. —Not a Race Question, Milwaukee Sentinel, 11 Sept. 1901

As a result of the assassination, Polish Americans were "racially profiled" and American nativism against Poles grew. Several Polish immigrants were arrested for questioning in the police investigation, but police found that he acted independently. A later anonymous copycat threat sent to the police in Boston was investigated, and neighbors claimed a Polish radical who was a "native of the same town as the assassin" (Żnin) to be the culprit. No actual crime occurred in coincidence with the threatening letter. Theodore Roosevelt took the office of President of the United States in McKinley's place. Radical groups and anarchists were quelled nationally, and federal legislation was taken to stop future assassinations. Federal legislation made an attempted assassination of the President a capital offense and despite the fact that Czolgosz was born in the United States, the Immigration Act of 1903 was passed to stop immigrants with subversive tendencies from entering the country.