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Posted on 08/10/2005 10:00:34 PM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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Anarchist Leon Czolgosz came to Buffalo, New York, with a mission. He believed that government was evil, and he planned to stamp out that evil, beginning at the top.  Leon Czolgosz stood in line and counted the people between him and the president of the United States. Nondescript, dressed in a dark suit, and wearing an innocent expression, Czolgosz (pronounced chôlgôsh) looked younger than his 28 years. He had waited for more than two hours in 82-degree heat on September 6, 1901, for his turn to shake hands with President William McKinley, who was visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. It was the first year of the new century, a perfect time to reflect on the nation’s rise in world prominence and to speculate on the future. The exposition, a world’s fair that celebrated the Americas’ industrial progress and achievement, had attracted visitors from around the world. The event was more than halfway through its six-month run when President McKinley, the most popular chief executive since Abraham Lincoln, arrived.  Leon Czolgosz (1873—1901) McKinley’s final public appearance in Buffalo was an afternoon reception in the Temple of Music, an ornate red-brick hall on the exposition grounds. Since being elected president in 1896, McKinley had been notorious for discounting his own personal safety at public appearances, and he had repeatedly resisted attempts by his personal secretary, George Cortelyou, to cancel this event. Cortelyou had argued that it wasn’t worth the risk to greet such a small number of people, but the 58-year-old president refused to change his mind. "Why should I?" he asked. "Who would want to hurt me?" Cortelyou, always nervous about public receptions, tightened security as best he could. The people who wished to greet the president at the Temple had to file down a narrow aisle under the scrutiny of a special guard provided for the occasion. Outside, mounted police and soldiers controlled the massive crowd seeking entrance. Just months into his second presidential term, McKinley -- who had easily won reelection in 1900 -- had made the most significant speech of his presidency the day before, announcing a policy of reciprocal trade agreements with foreign nations to encourage improved markets for American goods. It marked the culmination of a decade-long evolution in thinking for the long-time isolationist and exemplified his statesmanship in recognition of changing times.  President McKinley seated at his desk, 1900. McKinley’s star first rose on the national scene some 10 years earlier as the Republican Party’s staunchest advocate of protectionism. He believed that high tariffs discouraged the importation of foreign goods, thereby helping keep prices high for American goods and producing profits for industries and high wages for workers. Using protectionism as his platform for election to the U.S. House of Representatives and the Ohio statehouse, where he served two terms as governor, McKinley established himself as his party’s standard-bearer. According to biographer Margaret Leech, McKinley "carried to Congress an emotional conviction that the solution for all the country’s economic ills was to make the already high tariff rates higher still." By 1900, however, he saw reciprocity as a means for commercial expansion and a way to promote world peace. McKinley was a veteran of the Civil War and retained vivid memories of the bloody conflict. As president, he was reluctantly drawn into the Spanish-American War of 1898. At first he downplayed stories of Spanish atrocities against Cuban nationals. But the yellow journalism of competing newspaper publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer fired passions after the battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana’s harbor. Big business, looking to expand markets, added to the inexorable forces pushing the president toward war.  Temple of Music Building. President William McKinley was shot twice outside there by a deranged anarchist, Leon Czolgosz and died eight days later. Spain proved little challenge though, as American forces easily defeated the outnumbered and out-gunned army and navy of the Old World power. As the victor, the United States gained Puerto Rico, Wake, Guam, and the Philippines. The Pacific Islands were particularly significant as they established an American presence in a new hemisphere. Moreover, the United States annexed the Hawaiian Islands that summer. American business concerns became ecstatic over the prospects for expanded influence overseas. But not everyone supported the president. Hearst in particular continued to publicly criticize him. The condemnation reached a low point on April 10, 1901, when the publisher’s Journal printed an editorial that declared, "If bad institutions and bad men can be got rid of only by killing, then the killing must be done." Although Hearst had been responsible for many attacks on McKinley, he maintained that the editorial had been published without his knowledge. He ordered the presses stopped, but a number of newspapers were already on the streets. 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."  Leon Czolgosz 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.  Emma Goldman 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 Cánovas 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.
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That's the beauty of FR! :o)
Now that we've discussed it, we'll probably both remember. :-)
YeeeHaw!
Grrr. I hate waiting.
Remember what?
I knew you were going to say that. LOL.
Thanks for pointing that out. My suspicions are confirmed. One other question, are Pakistani troops actively in Iraq for the reasons portrayed last night?
GMTA! 8^b
I have a weakness for all things with canvas sails.
Pretty racing sloops.
Cool, thansk!
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