USA > New York > Niagara County > Outpost of empires; a short history of Niagara County > Part 16
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Mckinley was shot At the exposition, he strode rapidly through
the hot sun into the magnificent Temple of Music. The door closed behind him, drowning out the roaring crowd. Soft organ music filled the hall where Mckinley was to shake hands with the public. In the Temple, uneasy secret agents and detectives. made a last minute check. In such public appearances, the President faced the greatest danger of assassination.
At four o'clock the doors swung open and hot, sweating people filed in. Handkerchiefs blinked in the cool temple as people mopped brows. Agents and detectives studied every person as the line crawled slowly toward the President. For six or seven minutes, a smiling Mckinley shook hands with people as they shuffled by: Then the guards pushed the doors shut, against the pressing mass waiting to see the President.
Toward the end of the line a slender young man, holding a handkerchief, stepped forward to greet the President. Mckinley smiled into his pleasant blue eyes and extended his right hand. Leon Czolgosz reached forward with the hand holding the handkerchief.
Two shots shattered the soft organ music. President Mckinley staggered back, shot twice in the body. Detectives pounced upon Czolgosz, dragging him to the floor, while others helped Mckinley to a chair. After a quick check of the wounds, guards carried Mc-
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Kinley through a stunned crowd to the exposition hospital. The hospital was part of the exposition because Dr. Roswell Park had foreseen accidents with so many people swarming about. Dr. Park was a world famous surgeon and exposition officials had taken his advice.
At that instant, twenty miles away, Dr. Park worked upon the unconscious form of William Powley in Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital. His skilful hands tied off blood vessels, released clamps, and put in stitches. Meanwhile, in Buffalo the President's blood flowed unchecked, his internal organs torn by the bullets. Dr. Park knew nothing of this until a telegram halted the operation for a moment. He finished the operation while his assistant made ready a special train. At 5:46 he was aboard, racing to the wounded President.
As Dr. Park's train sped toward Buffalo, the emergency hospital was a scene of tense drama. Drs. Matthew Mann and Herman Myn- ster faced the responsibility of saving the President's life. After a brief discussion they decided to operate rather than to wait for Dr. Park.
They moved swiftly. In minutes Mckinley was inhaling ether and drifting into unconsciousness. For a moment Dr. Mann held his scalpel above the still form of the President. Then he made the first cut. Sponging away the blood, he clamped off blood vessels and worked into the abdominal cavity. Then they examined the damage done by the bullets. One bullet had glanced off, doing little harm. The second had entered the left side, tearing through the stomach. Further examination showed no more damage, but the doctors could not find the bullet. The President was weakening fast and they dared not continue searching for the bullet. They repaired the stomach, washed the abdominal cavity, and closed the wound.
The operation seemed successful When Dr. Park arrived, the operation was nearly completed. Had he been operating, he might have found the hole through the large intestine and the damaged kidney. But the operation seemed successful, as far as he could tell. The President's pulse, tempera- ture, and respiration were not alarming. Later, Dr. Park and Dr. Charles McBurney, an abdominal specialist, signed the daily bulle- tins issued from the Milburn house where the President lay. And while unseen fluids seeped into the abdominal cavity, newspapers gave out encouraging reports about the President's recovery.
When the September 11 report on the President was issued, the nation took hope. Newspapers reported that a blood count failed to show any signs of poisoning. The President was taking nourish-
ment and was on the road to recovery. Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt, Mckinley's friends, Mark Hanna and Robert Lincoln, relatives, and others who had gathered at his side left Buffalo. Even Dr. McBurney took two days off to relax at Niagara Falls.
Death came to Mckinley in the early morning On the evening of September 13, the final act took place. The internal damages caught up with Mckinley. He took a fateful turn for the worse, and at 2:15 A.M. on Septem- ber 14, he died. An examination revealed the full extent of the bullet's damage and the blood poisoning in the wound.
Officials in the nation again streamed toward Buffalo. A special train picked up Roosevelt from a hunting trip in the Adirondack Mountains, and the Cabinet came quickly from Washington, D. C. to meet him. A solemn group watched the heavily guarded Theodore Roosevelt sworn in as President of the United States. And for a time, Buffalo was the capital of the nation.
Stunned people of Niagara County went sadly to Buffalo to take their last look at Mckinley. Cities and villages throughout the nation went into mourning. For days newspapers were edged in black, while flags were flown at half-staff. In Niagara Falls, com- munity leaders called a special gathering to honor Mckinley and vote to erect a statue in his honor.
While the nation mourned, police kept Leon Czolgosz's where- abouts secret, until his trial at Auburn, New York. At the exposi- tion, a mob had battered down police guards and nearly lynched him, and the police wanted to avoid more trouble. Czolgosz was calm throughout the storm raging about him. At his trial, his only ex- planation for his act was, "I killed the President because he was an enemy of the good people, the working people. I am not sorry for my crime."
Czolgosz was an anarchist and therefore believed all government and leaders were the people's enemies. He went calmly to the elec- tric chair, sure in his own mind that he had done his duty. And so he died, refusing to see a priest, and without regrets.
11. Niagara County and the nation face problems together
The final step in the political development of Niagara County is its growing concern with national and world problems. In the years since 1900, it had been taking a bigger part in national events.
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Modern transportation and communication have bound it closely to the nation and world. So that by the 1960's, the world problems faced by the nation were also faced by Niagara County. More and more, world problems have concerned the people of this outpost of empires. This chapter, then, shows Niagara County's activity in national and world events.
The Twentieth Century opened with an attack on the evils in American life. Then World War I came, and the nation forgot about improving American life and turned to the task of winning the war. After the war came the years from 1921 to 1929, the "Roaring Twenties," a period of boom and glitter. In the next ten years, the dull gloom of the depression hung over Niagara County and the nation. The depression Thirties came to an end when World War II broke out. The year 1945 brought peace, but it also brought the problem of changing from wartime to peacetime living. There was a great shortage of housing, automobiles, washing machines, and many other things. Finally, the 1950's and 1960's have seen the Cold War, the Korean War, business growth, and a recession, and of course, the problem of world leadership.
Reform and War fill the first twenty years of the 20th century
How did the people come to get "a square deal"?
Muckrakers worked for reform
With the great growth of the United States after the Civil War, came many problems. But the nation was so busy growing that it had little time for them. So problems remained unsolved and for- gotten until 1900. By then, these evils had become so great that they could no longer be overlooked. The first people to attack these prob- lems were a rising group of young writers called "muckrakers." They attacked the underhanded methods of big business, the dis- honest politicians, and the miserable poverty in the midst of plenty. Others supported the "muckrakers" and a movement for change, known as a reform movement, was started.
Theodore Roosevelt became a reform President The first reform president was Theodore Roosevelt. After McKinley's death, he took over leadership of the nation and promised to carry out McKinley's plans. But he had ideas of his own, and soon he drifted away from Mckinley's ideas. The first target Roosevelt picked out for reform was big business.
Following the Civil War, big business became an unchained
giant. In a form of business organization called a "trust," big business gobbled up smaller businesses and trampled competition. Beginning with John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company of Ohio, trusts spread to the whiskey, sugar, beef, and steel industries. Each of these trusts was trying to get complete control over the kinds of goods and services it sold to the public.
Roosevelt felt the nation would suffer if big business controlled all the things people needed. Big business trusts could then charge whatever prices they wished because they had no competition. The public either paid high prices or went without goods. Trusts also pressured state legislators into passing laws that helped them. And they put pressure on national and local officials to do as business wanted.
President Roosevelt struck hard at the trusts. He and the muck- rakers aroused the public to the dangers of trusts. In 1904, when running for re-election, Roosevelt pointed proudly to his record as a "trust buster." In fact, the public was so angry that any candidate could win votes by attacking business trusts. In 1906 the wide- spread fear of trusts elected a Niagara County Congressman.
How was Niagara's "Good Old Cow Campaign" connected with reform?
For twenty years the Congressional district which included Niagara County elected Republican James Wadsworth to Congress. He was so certain of re-election that he lived in Washington, D. C. and returned to the Niagara area only to accept nomination for office. With the Republicans regularly casting over 8,000 more votes than the Democrats, this nomination really meant election.
In 1906, however, a Niagara Falls Democratic leader, Edward T. Williams, thought that the time was ripe to win the election from the Republicans. Public anger over the horribly filthy conditions in the meat packing business had been making newspaper headlines. And Wadsworth's name was linked with the meat-packing trust.
Williams approached a member of an important family in the district, Peter A. Porter, Jr., an independent Republican. The thought of running for public office, especially against the ever- victorious Wadsworth, amused Porter. After giving the idea more thought, however, he agreed to run. Williams then convinced the Democrats that they should nominate Porter, a Republican, to run for office.
The point of attack in the following campaign was Wadsworth's connection with the meat-packing trust. Democrats said he was a servant of the meat packing trust, and that his Meat Inspection
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Act was written by meat-packers. To keep the beef trust before the voters, Williams came up with the symbol of a cow. Whenever Democrats met, they passed around pictures of a cow. And so the "Good Old Cow" campaign was born.
In the final election rally at the Niagara Falls International Hotel, Williams read a poem about a cow. Porter followed his lead with a humorous but slashing attack upon the meat-packers. The voters roared with laughter-and accepted Porter's views. With fair weather on election day, large numbers went to the polls to vote. When the votes were counted, Porter had overcome the usual 8,000 Republican majority and won by 4,000 votes.
In spite of this victory, Porter's term in Washington was not very successful. The Democrats mistrusted him as a turncoat Re- publican, and Wadsworth's friends in the Republican party opposed all his actions. The next election saw Wadsworth and the Repub- lican Big Four working hard to get Republican votes, and Porter was defeated for re-election.
Why were the campaigns of 1908 and 1912 dull?
After the Good Old Cow Campaign politics lost some of its color. The election for president in 1908 saw Roosevelt's handpicked Re- publican candidate, William Howard Taft, win the election.
The campaign of 1912 was more exciting, but events in Europe and troubles with Mexico crowded it off the front pages of local newspapers. Roosevelt lost the Republican nomination to Taft, so he ran on the Progressive, or Bull Moose, ticket. Excitement rose sharply in Niagara County when Roosevelt was wounded by an as- sassin's bullet in Milwaukee. But it dropped quickly when he got back into the fight. The Republicans split their votes between Taft and Roosevelt, and so Democrat Woodrow Wilson became President.
How did the United States and Niagara become involved in World War?
Submarine warfare resulted in loss of American life Two years after Wilson's election, war broke out in Europe. America tried hard to steer clear of the war. Wilson urged the American people to keep out of it. But the success of German armies in Belgium and France made this hard to do. Besides, the Germans were using a frightening war weapon, the submarine. Striking without warning, it left helpless passengers on torpedoed ships to die.
When President Wilson protested the ship sinkings to Germany, Niagara County applauded. But Americans refused to heed his warning to stay off ships bound for the war zone. On May 1, 1915, the Niagara Falls Gazette carried a public notice from the German Embassy. All Americans were warned to stay off the Lusitania, sailing from New York for England. Six days later the ship was sunk. Three citizens from Niagara Falls were included among the victims of this attack.
Niagara County and the nation flared up in anger over the sinking of the Lusitania. Again President Wilson demanded that Germans stop sinking unarmed merchant ships. For a time they did so, but the war in Europe was not going too well for the Ger- mans. They felt that the submarine could turn the tide in their favor. Submarine sinkings again made the headlines. Then German spies began to damage American factories making war goods for England and her allies. Soon people were willing to believe that all accidents were caused by the Germans. In Niagara Falls an ex- plosion in a chemical plant had everyone wondering if it were the work of German spies.
The Zimmerman note was another cause More and more, Germany's actions in the war caused new anti-German feeling. America felt war with Germany was com- ing and the Zimmerman note helped bring it closer. This note promised Mexico the return of her former terri- tory, now part of the United States, if she would declare war on the United States. Wilson could no longer keep the American people from demanding war. In April, 1917, he asked Congress for a de- claration of war against Germany and the Central Powers.
Niagara supported the war Niagara County was quick to answer the call to arms. The day after the war started, the local Naval Militia was headed for duty. A few weeks later, thousands turned out in a steady drizzle to see Company E, 3rd New York Infantry, off to war.
With America in the war, people's feelings against Germany spread to many Americans of German ancestry who lived in the county. Many of them lost their jobs in war work and were sent to work on farms. German storekeepers in the county got threaten- ing letters, and their store windows were broken. German neighbor- hoods were broken up and neighbors scattered for fear of anti- American activity.
The Niagara County Home Defense Committee made a careful check on all aliens. In April, the County Sheriff printed a letter in
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the local papers urging fearful German-Americans to say nothing, to move into non-German neighborhoods, and to be loyal to the United States.
Anti-Germanism spread to the schools. Niagara Falls High School and other county schools stopped teaching the German language. German-Americans tried to prove their loyalty to the United States by charging one another with having anti-American feelings. All this did was to increase the rising hate against Ger- mans. As President Wilson had warned, a nation at war forgets its usual tolerance.
The home front mobilized
Niagara County, with the rest of the nation, turned to the task of winning the war. Slowly at first, and then faster, the factories in the Niagara area began to clang with the production of war goods. Whole communities swung into the war effort. The Red Cross organized chapters in schools, churches, and social clubs. Some school boards appointed a "garden teacher" for every hundred pupils, to teach them how to grow food for victory. Citizens sup- ported meatless, wheatless, and sugarless days and they went with- out fuel and electricity to save goods needed to win the war. Liberty Bond drives to help pay for the war were always successful in the County.
Men from Niagara fought in France
While the home front was working for vic- tory, men from Niagara County fought the enemy in Europe. At first they fought with English and French units, but later all Americans fought under General John J. Pershing, as the American Expeditionary Force. The summer of 1918 saw new names in the Gazette and other news- papers in the county. Such names as Chateau-Thierry, St. Mihiel, Belleau Wood, and the Argonne Forest were written in blood in American war history. The Germans were slowly pushed back. Finally they surrendered in November, 1918. The date of the Armis- tice, now known as Veteran's Day, has been a national holiday ever since.
In 1918 crowded troopships began to arrive home from Europe. In Niagara Falls, Mayor Whitehead proclaimed a civic holiday. People celebrated Thanksgiving early that year, and churches were crowded with those giving thanks. But danger lurked in the back- ground. Against orders of the Board of Health, people crowded the railroad station to greet the returning troops. The closeness of the crowds helped spread deadly influenza germs. Like the cholera plagues of 1832 and 1854, the "flu" epidemic took its toll. Over ten thousand in the county fell ill with the plague, and about one thou-
sand died, including 360 in Niagara Falls alone.
Unlike the earlier plagues, however, this one was met head on. Public school teachers and nearby Niagara University students vol- unteered to aid the sick. The Elk's Temple was used to relieve the overcrowded conditions in Niagara Falls hospitals. By the spring of 1919, these heroic efforts had won and the epidemic passed.
A wild decade leaves its mark
Americans had faced war and won. They had faced a serious epidemic and won. Perhaps they were tired of facing things. At any rate they refused to face world leadership, and turned down the whole idea of the world league for peace that President Wilson wanted. This was clear when Niagara County voted with the nation and elected Warren G. Harding as President in the first election after the war, in 1920.
Forgetting Europe and the world and the problems that went with them, America turned to itself. Americans gave themselves over to pleasure and good times for ten years. This period of the 1920's is known as the Jazz Age, or more often as the "Roaring Twenties."
How did the period earn the name "Roaring Twenties" ?
People evaded Prohibition laws The Eighteenth Amendment had been passed in the last days of 1918. This law made the production and sale of liquor illegal. The evening before it was to go into effect, the people gave "demon rum" a roaring goodbye. Liquor stores in Niagara County did a gay last- minute rush business. But the goodbye did not last long. Soon illegal liquors were available in "speakeasies." Many people winked slyly and boasted of their private liquor supplier as they might of their doctor or lawyer.
Being close to Canada, Niagara County played its part in the illegal liquor traffic. Under the cover of night, from a dozen lonely points in Canada, high speed motorboats loaded with liquor roared toward the United States. The people who received the liquor were called bootleggers. Greatly out-numbered and over-worked govern- ment agents tried to stop this traffic. But the market for liquor was too great, and the profit too high. So liquor continued to cross the border. In time rival gangs took a hand in the traffic. Crime waves and gangster rule threatened communities.
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National scandals came to light The traffic in illegal alcohol was not the only wrong taking place in America. During Harding's terms as president, Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was convicted of illegally selling naval oil reserves. The head of the Veteran's Bureau was charged with several crimes. Colonel Thomas W. Miller, Custodian of Alien Prop- erty, was charged with selling German chemical patents illegally. But unlike earlier scandals under President Grant, few people seemed to get excited about them.
The Twenties were also a period of industrial growth. Many new industries appeared that changed people's lives. Automobiles became common and the radio had taken hold. Jazz music was be- coming widespread. Movies became popular and movie actors and actresses took the place of older national heroes in the minds of many young people. These things made a new kind of life for Americans.
People seemed happy with things as they were. The old reform movement of pre-war days was unpopular. But it was not dead. Eugene V. Debs polled a million votes in 1920, and in 1924 the Con- ference for Progressive Political Action was formed. In 1927 the Socialist candidate for mayor of Niagara Falls, Albert Young, received over 1700 votes.
But most people feared change. In eastern Europe, the Com- munists had taken over Russia. In Germany and Hungary as well, Communists were strong. A wave of anti-Communism swept Ni- agara County and the nation. Self-styled undercover agents charged neighbors with being "Reds." Niagara County too had people who made false charges against their neighbors. In 1920 the New York State legislature refused to seat five Socialists who had been elected. Aliens who were suspected of being Communists were deported. In time the hysteria ran its course, as it usually does, but not until the liberties of some American citizens had been damaged.
Business boomed All of these things were part of the Twen- ties. But what marked the period even more was the tremendous growth of industry. Nowhere in the nation was this better shown than in Niagara Falls. Population jumped from 50,700 in 1920 to 75,000 by 1930.
Growth in population caused changes in the city. New parks were built-Hyde Park, Wright Park, La Salle Park, and Whirl- pool Park. A new city hall, a municipal airport, and Rapids Boule- vard and other roads for the ever-increasing autos marked the progress from a small to a large city. Several more schools were opened, including Niagara Falls High School, and North and South
Junior High Schools. And as a tribute to the importance of busi- ness and industry, Trott Vocational High School was built and named for James F. Trott, a tireless worker for better education for over thirty years.
During these same years, private business erected three impres- sive buildings in the city, the Niagara Hotel, the Niagara Falls Trust Company, and the United Office Building. Industry matched this with widespread plant expansion.
Signs of economic troubles showed through prosperity In Niagara County as well as in the rest of the United States, the Twenties seemed like a new period of endless prosperity. But for those who cared to see, there were signs that all was not well. The price of farm products had been low ever since the war ended. By the mid-Twenties farmers were having a difficult time meeting mortgage payments.
A large part of the magic of this period was the spread of an old device called credit. People had bought farms and homes on time payments for a long time. But during this period, the Ameri- can people were talked into installment-buying for many more things. The lure of having things you wanted now, and paying for them later, was a great temptation. So people bought autos, wash- ing machines, radios, and vacuum cleaners. All of these items were practically new to many who had not been able to save up enough money to pay for them before.
The economy collapsed
This buying on credit of things people could not afford came to a sudden end in October, 1929. While business leaders from Niagara Falls gathered at the Skyline Dinner in the ballroom of the Niagara Hotel to honor business, the business world was about to come crashing down. The topic of conversation among people in the city had little to do with the coming business crash. They were excited about the coming Festival of Lights. It turned out to be the last of the famous parades, the last blaze of a dying prosperity.
Thirty years of depression, war, and unrest come to America
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