Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1893 — HARRISON IS SLAIN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HARRI SON IS SLAIN.

Chicago's Mayor Victim of a Murderer’s Bullets. * SHOT DEAD AT HOME. THE ASSASSIN WAS A CRAZY OFFICE-SEEKER. Chief Executive of the World’s Fair City Called from Slumber to Death—Throe Bullets Fired at Him in HU Own Hallway—No Word of Warning Is Spoken by the Murderer—The Sta tion Besieged by Indignant Crow Js—Ch';agoan< Astounded by the News of th Killing. Cartel Henry Harrison, Mayor of the city of Chicago, has been assassinated—shot down in the hallway of his own home by an irresponsible crank. This is a shocking announcement to go before the world in these closing days of the Columbian Exposition. Just when the name of Chicago is on the tongues of all men in every clime, when every mention of the name brings pleasant memories to millions of people, it is a cruel fate that associates the name of the city with the crime of assassination. It was the cherished ambition of Mr. Harrison to serve as the World’s Fair Mayor. He had almost completed the six months covering the period of the Fair; the papers of the morning of his death had announced the date of his marriage to a most estimable lady; he was at the proudest moment of a most extraordinary career when cut down by the cruel shot of an assassin. The story of the murder seems to indicate that it was committed by an insane or partially demented man. The

act was. cold-blooded and deliberate. The man had come to the Harrisdh mansion bent on murder, and whether actuated by motives the birth of an unbalanced mina or not, he did his fiendish work well. Shortly after a 7 o’clock dinner Saturday night, the Mayor, feeling fatigued from a day spent at the World's Fair, laid down on an ottoman in the dining room of the mansion. There had attended him at the meal William Preston Harrison, Miss Harrison, his daughter, and Miss Annie Howard, his affianced wife. All of these, save the Mayor himself, had repaired to rooms above. There were two servants in attendance, Mary Hansen and Maggie French, when at 8:10 o'clock the door bell rang, and the former of the two servants named went to the door. A man giving his name as Eugene Patrick Prendergast inquired for the Mayor and was admitted into tho hallway. Mr. Harrison came forward at the call of his name and met the caller near the front dcor of the residence. Without a moment’s warning Prendergast drew a revolver and fired three shots in rapid succession. The first shot struck Mr. Harrison in the abdomen, near the stomach, and he threw up his hands and staggered backward. As he did so, another bullet hit him in the left breast near the shoulder and over the region of the heart. Not content with his deadly work the assasin again fired, piercing the left hand of his vic-

tim as. ho sank to the floor mortally wounded. . Preston Harrison, son of the Mayor, when the first shot was fired was in his room on the second floor. He ran down with all haste and rushed after the man as he left the hall. Prendergast fired a shot at Mr. Harrison, but missed him. The assassin, having completed his work, turned back to the door, the butler of the Harrison household at his heels, fled across the lawn, out of the gateway, and out of sight. The police were quickly on the spot. Preston Harrison was soon at the side of his prostrate father, the latter pale and uttering hardly articulate groans. “I'm shot,” moaned the Mayor. “Get a doctor. Dr.,Foster, who lives half a square removed from the Harrisons, hastened to the side of the wounded man. A hurried examination, during which the patient gritted his teeth and bore up heroically, and Dr. Foster announced the sufferer beyond surgical aid. “I’ve been shot,” muttered Chicago's chief executive, and I am going to die. I know it.l cannot live.” “You're not hurt, father,” returned the son, reassuringly. “You’ll be all right,” with a feigned smile. But the Mayor had caught the look of discouragement from the doctor, and added

his own apprehensions thereto. “Yes, I am going to die,” firmly, and then, modulating his intofaation somewhat, he gasped: “Where's Annie?” This reference to her who was soon to become his wife brought the tears to his eyes, and, growing faint at heart as in body, he fell back on the rudely improvised couch of rugs. "Where s Annie?” he repeated, nis voice now almost still. A convulsive throb, his voice failed him, he choked up with the blood that was forcing up from the awful gape in his abdomen, a last look about him. and the Mayor of the great Western city turned his head slightly to the right and gasped his last. Ilctrotlißci Sobs by Her Dead. A few minutes later Miss Howard rushed in, distracted. She bogged to be allowed to see the man she loved. She threw herself on his bleeding body and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her piteous cries brought tears to the eyes < f those near her. Proston Harrison alone stood dry-eyed. He seemed to be transfixed with horror. Miss Howard wept over her dead lover like one distrait. She had almost to be torn from the body. Mrs. Owsley, daughter

of the Mayor, uttered heartrending crie3 over her father. Overcome with grief Miss Sophie Harrison fainted near her father’s body. The three women were taken up-stairs and the doctors turned their attention to them. There was a sad scene between those three women upstairs. Mrs. Harrison, Jr., also arrived, distracted at the fate of her husband’s father. The four women wept together, consoling each other by their tears. Miss Howard refused all consolation. The name of her dead lover was on her lips, and she cried that she might die and go with him. Despairing wails and hysterical groans, prayers, pleadings for the restoration of her lover to life, imprecations on the assassin’s head, all followed in disjointed and disconnected sentences. The physicians tried to calm her, but she would not listen to the words of solace aiid comfort, and continued her strange, actions until the doctors concluded to destroy her ability to brood with a potent and powerful anaesthetic. The drug had its effect, and soon Miss Howard fell off in a troubled slumber. Unconscious of his father’s fate, Carter Harrison Jr. was on his way from the World’s Fair when Prendergast fired the fatal shots. The news had traveled fast, and before the son had started on his journey west he heard of the ter rible fate that had befallen his father.

The Assassin Surrenders. Thirty minutes later Prendergast, excited, out of breath, and panting from his long run, bounded up the steps of the Dcsplair.et street station, nearly two miles distant, and, handing a revolver across the desk to Sergeant Barber, exclaimed: “I shot Mayor Harrison—l want to give myself up.” The officers were startled by the exclamation, but, being accustomed to erratic visitors, were not inclined to take the man’s words seriously until they saw that he carried a revolver in his hand. They immediately placed the man under arrest and toolc the weapon from him. The man said his name was Patrick Eugene Prendergast and that he had shot the Mayor because he had betrayed him. “I wanted to be made Corporation Counsel,” he said. All the time he acted with coolness and showed no signs of excitement. He wa3 only about twenty minutes at the Despiaines Street Station when Chief of Police Brennan arrived and ordered his removal to the Central Station, as evidences were shown that his stay there was dangei’ous. He preserved his coolness on the journey to the City Hall. He repeated the statement that he shot the Mayor because he would not appoint him'Corporation Counsel. ‘ He said he was 25 years old and that he worked a "morning paper route for a livelihood. According to his statement he bought the revolver in the afternoon, intending to shoot the Mayor unless he was given some satisfaction to his repeated demands for an appointment. “I went to Mayor Harrison's Inuse,” he said, “and asked him what lie was going to do for me. He wiu udo nothing I wished and what he had promised, and I drew my revolver and shot him. I have done some work in a political way in my ward for the last few campaigns and was for Harrison, and because of my influence Harrison promised me a position if he was elected in the last campaign. I was asked what I wanted and I said that I had a scheme for the elevation of the railroad tracks. I wanted to be Corporation Counsel so that I could push this scheme. I was told that I might have the position. Since election I have asked for the office again and again, and have been put off repeatedly. The office was given to another. The Mayor had betrayed me, and I resolved to have revenge’. I have had it.” It was learned that Prendergast had for some time been pestering the Mayor with letters asking for the position of corporation counsel. The letters are described as the production of a person of unbalanced mind. Crowd at the House. Friends had rushed to the house as soon as the news .spread around the neighborhood, to offer what help they could. The police alarm had brought wagons dashing to the house from all directions. It was a riot alarm, for the horses sped like lightning along the streets, landing many officers at the house. But the deed was done when the officers arrived. An angry crowd gathered about the house and there were threats of lynching if the assassin could be found. When the news came that he had been arrested, one man declared that he would lead tho crowd to the Despiaines Street Station and drag tho murderer out. When it was known that the Mayor had bean

assassinated the whole city was aroused. The people came from all directions, both in cabs and on foot. They gathered on the sidewalk in front of the house, and crowded into the large front yard. A few tried to enter the house. The police, however, prevented this, and soon a guard was set at the door. Then the yard was cleared. Still the crowd lingered, pressing against the iron fence. Politics Forgotteu In Sympathy. The news spread to a big Republican campaign meeting being held at the North Side Turner Ha'l and the meeting terminated suddenly. The men were wild enough to rush to the jail and hang the murderer to the nearest lamp post. Another crowd gathered around the Desplaines street station, but the police were all out and the men were kept back. Prendergast was taken to the City Hall and examined by Inspector Slua and three other officers. He gave a clear statement concerning his deed. From his own account it was a cold-blooded action, deliberately planned and carried out. Here, again, another crowd waited to catch

a glimpse of the murderer. After the examination the murderer was kept at the City Hall under a heavy guard, to prevent any demonstration. The crowd soon dispersed, but it would have boded ill for Prendergast if he had been taken back to the Desplaines Street Station. Threats of Lynching. While the civilized world wondered at the infamy of the deed and the lawabiding citizens paced the streets and asked each whether lynch law was not justifiable under certain circumstances, the cringing wretch cowered in a cell at the Central Station. He had made a bold front before Chief Brennan and Inspector Shea, but when thrust back into his cell he slunk into a corner like a beast at bay. It was nearly midnight then. A crowd had gathered in the street. It gathered with the primal object of hearing authentic news of the assassination and when the verification of the rumor came to them there were hotheads who talked of lynching. Never in the history of the city since the great calamity of 1871 wore such serious threats sf lynching indulged in as on Saturday night and Sunday morning. In a crowd of men gathered at the corner of La Salle and Washington streets on Sunday morning was a burly Irishman who towered above every other man. “I say,” he shouted, “that we lynch the dog! I am a Republican and have fought Harrison in politics, but he was an American and thie first citizen of Chicago. This is no town for anarchists and assassins. Kill the dog!” His shout was taken up by a score of men, but the picket men of the Central station marched out and told the people to move on. Their cool determination was enough and thoy went. CHICAGO IN SORROW. Signs of Mourning Everywhere Show the Grief of the Residents. Chicago passed Sunday in sorrow. For the first time since t’ae terrible fire of twenty-two years ago the metropolis of the West mourned for a blow struck at its very vitals. The city recovered slowly from the shock

of the assassination. When the dawn first broke far across the gray waters of Lake Michigan the new day pushed away the darkies s of a night stained by so b’ack a crime, and was welcomed with relief by the thousands of citizens whom the exci ement of the murder had kept from their accustrmed beds. But the cold and cloudy morn came as a harbinger of evil to the vast majority of the lesidents. The hoarse shouts of the tireless newsboys as they penetrated every street and avenue of the city, far and near, brought the awful tiding! for the first time to hundreds of thousand who had gone to their homes Saturday night before the rumors of the assassination reached the downtown hotels and i-esorts. Awakened by these unwonted criee all Chicago knew

long before church time of the Irreparable disaster that had befallen it on the night bofore. 'The churches were all crowded in the morning with the regular parishioners and strangers eager ti hoar whatever ouiogies or other refeience3 that might be made by the pastors to the deal Mayor. The Inquest. Fivo bullet wcunds were found in the body of the murdered Mayor. A coroner’s jury, composed of C. C. Kohlsuat, Ulric King, S. A. Scribner, W. J. Chalmers, P. R. O'Brien, and Charles F. Elmes, impaneled by Coroner MeHale, rendered a verdict of murder without delay. The inquest was hold at the Harrison mansion Sunday morning. The assassin was present unde • a heavy guard and a line of stalwart policemen surrounded the houss guarding every gate and do, r. There were but few witnesses to examine, and the proceedings occupied a short time. Previous to the inquest a post mortem examination had been made, and the testimony of tho surgeons was the only information differing from that printed in Sunday's papers.

Excepting a technical description of the wounds little was added to the information already at the disposal of officers of the law. The verdict recommended that Prendergast be hold for the murder until discharged by due process of law. Sketch or Carter Hurrlaon> Career. According to a recent biographer, Carter Harrison was born in Kentucky in 1825, but traced his ancestry back to Cromwell’s Lieutenant General. His official life began as County Commissioner in 1871. In 1872 he ran for Confress against Jasper D. Ward, and was efeated. In 1874 he ran again, and was elected. He was re-elected in

187(5, George B. Davis being his opponent. In 1878 Miles Kehoe defeated him for the nomination. He was nominated for Mayor in the following spring, was elected, and served four terms. In 1884 he ran for Governor on the Democratic ticket. He has since been a Mayoralty candidate twice, in 1891 as an independent, and last spring, when he was elected. Ho had been twice married. It was announced on the day of his tragic death that his marriage

to Miss Howard, of New Orelans, La., would take place at Biloxi, Miss., Nov. 16.

CARTER H. HARRISON. Speaking at the World’s Fair on the day of his assassination.

MISS ANNIE HOWARD. Carter Harrison’s Betrothed

SCENE AT THE HARRISON RESIDENCE DURING THE INQUEST SUNDAY MORNING.

EUGENE PATRICK PRENDERGAST.

ASSASSINATION OF MAYOR HARRISON IN HIS OWN HALLWAY.