debauchery at his island home, and scandalized the whole community. His habits became unbearable, and his abuse of the settlers about the place continued until, driven to desperation, they gathered one night, and fired a fusilade of bullets into his house. He was instantly killed, and the perpetrators of the deed escaped without a trial. It was the sense of the region that the dissolute and abusive nobleman had received precisely what he deserved, and the matter dropped there. The father of Leon Czolgosz was a member of that party, and a number of the family relatives still live in Alpena county, where these incidents occurred. Later the father of Leon moved to Detroit, and there the lad attended public school. He is said to have been a timid child, a cowardly boy through all his years up to manhood. He has himself complained that he "never had any luck." In many respects he became a complete realization of degeneracy. He read books relating to anarchy, and advocating that doctrine. He listened to addresses by a number of the more prominent exponents of anarchy, and readily agreed with them in their denunciation of law. It is possible that the story of slaying the German baron was told and approved in his father's family, and that Leon came naturally to think that substantial justice could best be done without regard to the forms of law, and on the judgment of individuals who may feel themselves aggrieved. True, he was not aggrieved as an individual in this case; but a man who advances "ill luck" as an excuse for failure in life is likely to regard all successful men as his enemies. It is then easy to apply the other rule: that a man should settle with his enemies in such manner as will best gratify his sense of their crime's enormity. There may have been a plot among anarchists of the country, and that Czolgosz was deputed by fellow-malcontents to "remove" the President. For a man habitually "out of luck," he certainly rode around the country a good deal. He was in Chicago ten days before the assassination, and there learned that the President was going to Buffalo October 5. He paid his fare from the Western to the Eastern city. He had kept up his dues in the anarchist "lodges" to which he belonged. He had been a worker in iron, but had left that occupation because of ill health. For two years he seems not to have had any very lucrative occupation, yet he had money. All these incidents support the theory that Czolgosz was an emissary of the organized haters of law, in spite of his own statement that he committed the crime on his own account, and with not even a suggestion from any one else. Just what is the truth, the future will most likely tell. Certainly there was not even the harebrained reason existing in the case of Guiteau, nor the passionate motive of Booth. It happened that a number of very excellent physicians were close at hand when the President was shot, and they gave him immediate attention. Specialists were summoned, and every step in the treatment was taken on the judgment and approval of the men best qualified to decide. All that first night the suspense throughout the country was painfully intense. The President had not been instantly killed, and a gleam of hope came from the sick chamber when it was known he still lived at dawn. The hope grew next day when signs of improvement were detected, and published throughout the world. Messages of condolence from every capital in every land were followed with other messages of cheer at the apparent start toward recovery. Through six days each bulletin was fairer than the last, and it was with a double sorrow that the nation was advised on the following Friday—a week from the day of the shooting-that the President was very much worse, and could hardly hope to recover. And a little past midnight on the morning of Saturday he died. President McKinley knew that his end was approaching, and he fronted the grim fate with all the courage which a man of such life should have possessed. He bade farewell to his friends, and the members of his official family, and his parting with his wife was sorrowfully tender. He spoke encouraging words to all, and particularly to the woman who had been his "half of life" for more than thirty years. When the end came an examination was made by the physicians. The bullet which had penetrated his stomach had never been removed. The surgeons thought the patient would be exposed to less risk by this course than if they should subject him to the exhausting ordeal of further probing. But in the autopsy it was found that the course of the bullet was marked with gangrene. Whether this was the result of some substance applied to the bullet before firing, or whether the gangrene was due to another cause, could not |