Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1901 — FINDS EVIDENGE OF PLOT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FINDS EVIDENGE OF PLOT

Cleveland Detective Discovers Plan to Kill McKinley. WORDS OF CZOLGOSZ BOYS. They Tell a Farmer that the President Will be Shot —Would Kill Rockefeller— Assassin Given Assistance In Tying Revolver With Handkerchief. Investigations made at Cleveland by Police Detective Schmunk reveal the startling possibility that a plot to assassinate President McKinley was laid a year or more ago, before he was elected for his second term, and that it may have been laid in the peaceful precincts of Orange township, where the Czolgosz family lived. A remittance made to the assassin by his brother, Waldeck Czolgosz, about a month ago led to the % investigation that may have an important bearing •on the case. From the first the Buffalo police and the secret service agents of the federal government have been strong in their belief that there was a plot, although the Cleveland police have been inclined to doubt the theory. One of the strong elements in the belief of the Buffalo and secret service detectives has been the fact that the handkerchief with which the assassin concealed the hand in which he held his weapon was a woman's handkerchief. What is more important is that the handkerchief was tied about the hand in a way that he, it is claimed, would not have been able ,to tie it himself, no matter how skillful he might have been with the other hand or how much time he might have taken to tie it. The fact* that Czolgosz had money impelled the detectives to try to learn whence he got it. Sunday.his brother, Waldeck Czolgosz, confessed to having sent it to Leon under the name of Frank Snyder at West Seneca, N. Y. In his search for clews Detective Schmunk learned from the neighboring farmers that thg Czolgosz boys, Leon and Waldeck, have been readers of socialist papers for several years. John D. Knox, an aged farmer who lives in the vicinity of the former Czolgosz farm, said: “The two boys, the one that shot the President and Waldeck, used to come to my house and talk to me about their socialistic papers. They brought their papers to me and tried to get me to read them. Once when they were here during the last presidential campaign they got to talking about President McKinley, and one of them said: ‘lf he is elected he will be shot before he serves out his term,’ and then went on, ‘l’d serve John D. Rockefeller the same way if I got a chance. They talked violence all the time, and I was glad when they went out of the neighborhood. Almost -•very night there was a crowd of people from the city at their house. They used to come over to the farm from' the electric road so that we could not see them as we would if they had come by the road. The back of the farm extends to the railroad, and the visitors used to go back and forth that way instead of by the way of the road. Sometimes there would be quite a crowd of them.” It is said that Leon’s father, sister and brothers are going to Buffalo shortly, and the police believe when they confront Leon that he will break down and reveal all that is now a mystery in regard to the shooting of the President. Leon Czolgosz. the anarchist who shbt President McKinley, was placed on trial before Justice White in the supreme court at Buffalo Monday morning. The trial began promptly at 10 o’clock.

Members of the Assocated Press, in annual meeting at New York, adopt resolutions voicing high praise of McKinley, denouncing anarchists and calling for prompt legislative measures to rid the country of advocates of violence.

From Boston Globe.