Czolgosz was a laborer gone mad, a Polish immigrant's son who observed the 1890s capitalist splendor of the wealthy while suffering through his mother's premature death and a bleak job in a wire mill. Kutler compares Czolgosz to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. But instead of the influence of white supremacists, Czolgosz succumbed to the rhetoric of anarchists. The speech that supposedly moved Czolgosz to action was an address to political sympathizers in Cleveland by anarchist leader Emma Goldman. Under the galling yoke of government, ecclesiasticism, and a bond of custom and prejudice, it is impossible for the individual to work out his own career as he could wish.
Anarchism aims at a new and complete freedom.
Needless to say, Czolgosz warped Goldman's words considerably. The witch hunt begins In the days that followed the assassination, anarchists distanced themselves from Czolgosz but were demonized alongside him and hunted by the police in cities across the nation. Most were driven underground. Emma Goldman was arrested in connection with McKinley's murder, and reportedly tortured while in prison. She was eventually released for lack of evidence.