Presidential Assassins

[Tom Emery]

I'm kind of new to the symposium, so if this has been covered, I apologize in advance.

But one (of many) topics that strikes me about Presidential assassinations is the relative insanity of each of the assassins. Also of note is that John Wilkes Booth seems to be the only one of the four who wasn't strictly on the fringes of society.

Charles Guiteau, the Garfield assassin, gave rise to the term "disgruntled office-seeker" and may have been, flat-out, the craziest of the four. He seemed to think he was a capable candidate for high political office, and he wrote a hymn for his own hanging (seriously).

Leon Czolgosz, the McKinley assassin, was an anarchist who was shunned even by other anarchists because he was so strange. He was a brooding loner who felt betrayed by society, and was just on the outside in almost everything he did. Obviously, Lee Harvey Oswald goes without saying (although I'm not saying he acted alone).

But Booth was a celebrity figure, had plenty of income, had his pick of women, was widely admired, etc. For all of his imbalances -- and there were plenty -- he was a successful professional who was entrenched in the public eye, unlike the other three.

In my view, all four were clearly insane. But I'm curious to see what else all of you have to say on this (if you haven't already).