Six Interesting Coincidences-- Part 2: Robert Todd Lincoln and Three Presidential Assassinations

 3.  ROBERT LINCOLN ON SCENE AT THREE PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATIONS

Robert Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son and the man Edwin Booth saved in Philadelphia in 1863, was at his father's death in 1865.  Less than a month later, he resigned from the Army and moved to Chicago with his distraught mother.  He later married, had children and established a successful law practice.

He also remained involved in politics and  became Secretary of War in President James A. Garfield's  administration in 1881.  That July, Lincoln was at a train station in Washington, ready to travel to New Jersey with Garfield (who had been in office less than two months).  Before their train left the station, however, Charles Guiteau shot Garfield in the back.  The president died from complications from the wound two months later.

In 1901, President William McKinley to Buffalo, New York, invited Robert Lincoln to attend the Pan-American Exposition.  Lincoln arrived when the event was already in progress and was heading to meet the president when Leon Czolgosz fatally shot McKinley in the chest and abdomen in front of a crowd of well-wishers.

Lincoln, who was  in the later part of his career, president of the Pullman Company, was said to have remarked that there was "a certain  fatality about the  presidential function when I am present."

--Cooter

So Sorry to See It Come to This: Woke and Cancel Culture Hits Columbus, Washington and Lincoln & Others

From the Feb. 18, 2021, Chicago Tribune "Columbus, Washington and Lincoln statues up for review" by Gregory Pratt.

Images on List of 41 Controversial Monuments in City.  That would be Chicago.

It is bad enough that some of us have to live with the Confederadication Thing, but now this.  I figured if they could now go after Confederate stuff that would open up attacks on a myriad of things and it sure has.

Statues of Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley, as well as the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, were among the 41 public statues in Chicago on a list from the mayor's administration that are in for further review as part of "a racial healing and historical reckoning project" started last summer.

Other ones on the list (well, let's call it what it is, a HIT LIST) include statues of President  Ulysses S. Grant. a Benjamin Franklin statue, a police memorial tied to the Haymarket Riot and a statue of Leif Ericson at Humboldt Park.

--CootWoke?  Don't Think So.

More On Ohio's Presidents-- Part 7: Could the Use of an X-Ray Machine Have Saved McKinley's Life?

Another oddity to President McKinley's  assassination was that part of the exposition was the demonstration of a new device called  an X-Ray Light  Machine.

The surgeons operating on President McKinley removed one of the bullets but couldn't find the other and they sewed him up with the bullet still lodged.  Later, McKinley inquired  that maybe the doctors could use the X-Ray machine to find the second bullet, but they refused because they didn't know of possible side effects of its use.

Instead, they opted to reopen the wound and look some more, but still could not find it.

When McKinley died, it was later determined that he had died of a bacterial infection resulting from unsanitary operating conditions at the time.

--Cooter

More on Ohio's Presidents-- Part 6: Why the Scarlet Carnation Is the State Flower

It was adopted by the state in 1904 in memory of President William McKinley, who wore a red carnation on his lapel.

In 1901, at the Pan-American Expo in Buffalo, NY, McKinley was standing in the receiving line, shaking hands  with visitors.  A 12-year-old girl named Myrtle Ledger asked him for a favor:  "Could I have something to show my friends?  They'll never believe I spoke to you."

McKinley then removed his flower from his lapel, and handed it over to the little girl.

A few seconds later, Leon F. Czolgosz, an unhappy anarchist,  with a 32 caliber pistol wrapped in a bandage around his hand shot McKinley twice in the stomach.  The president died  from the wounds a few weeks later.

--Cooter

Buckeye Presidents-- Part 5: Outsized, Overshadowed, Births and Assassinations

At the time, Ohio was one of only three swing states along with New York and Indiana which helps explain the state's outsized place in presidential politics of the era.  Benjamin Harrison was a "two-for-one guy" because he was born in Ohio and spent his adult life in Indiana.

Yet, Rutherford B. Hayes, in particular, read the Constitution as giving the president a more modest role than big personalities, beginning with Teddy Roosevelt, who would come later.  He was one of only two presidents who chose to seek only one term.

"He really felt that his role was not to overshadow Congress," McLochlin said.  "Some would say that's eroded over the years."

The elder Harrison was born in Virginia, but spent most of his adult life in Ohio.  The others, which include Ulysses S. Grant, president from 1869 to 1877; and William Howard Taft, president from 1909 to 1913, were all Ohio natives.

William Henry  Harrison wasn't the only Ohio president to meet a tragic end.  Garfield and McKinley were assassinated --  Garfield about six months after taking office in 1881 and McKinley about six months into his second term in 1901.  Harding was in the third year of his term in 1923 when he died of a heart attack.

--Cooter

Waukegan in the Early Movie Industry-- Part 3: "Fake News" Back Then?

Edward Ahmet also filmed the William McKinley presidential inauguration and he wanted to film some of the Spanish-American War but could not get permission so he created his own Spanish-American War using model ships in his backyard in Waukegan.  (The first special effects?)

In these days of "Fake News," you might say Amet had the first one.

The Bess Dunn Museum, which is the Lake County History Museum, has one of the model ships, which were quite realistic-looking and even had puffs of smoke in the movie.

The magniscope was a success and was sold to several high profile theaters, however, Amet concentrated on inventing and never got a patent for his invention.  Thomas Edison even went so far as to sue Amet but when Amer didn't contest it, Edison dropped the suit.

Amet went on to shoot more films with George Kirke Spoor and made a series of war films, shooting footage from staged military camps and using miniatures in the bathtub for staged naval battles.

--Cooter

When Presidents Lied or Misled U.S. to War-- Part 2: The Spanish-American War

James Polk followed James Madison's (War of 1812, see the Nov. 19, 2018) Not So Forgotten: War of 1812 blog post) agenda when he concealed his westward expansion policy.

President William McKinley wanted to go to war with Spain in the 1890s and used what was a faulty boiler causing the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor.  He even promised to free the people of Cuba from Spanish occupation.

So in 1898, we went to war at his behest without his consulting Congress or the American people.

But what it really was an attempt for an American empire.  He grabbed the Philippines from Spain and demanded the conversion of its people to Christianity.  (I thought the people of the Philippines were Catholic when the U.S. took over.)

--Cooter