McKinley’s killer, Leon Czolgosz, 28, was the president’s polar opposite: a loser lunatic with messianic delusions. In 1894, after losing his job and rejecting his Catholic faith, he became interested in socialism and then embraced anarchism. By 1901 he “carried resentment with him like a malignancy.” Moreover, “in his distress, he found somebody to blame. ‘McKinley was going around the country shouting prosperity,’ he said, ‘when there was no prosperity for the poor man.’”
Wall Street Journal, “President Shot at World’s Fair”
