Assassins' America: Four Killers, Four Murdered Presidents, and the Country They Left Behind by Capstone Paperback is a wonderful new book on stores this March 1, 2018. Written by Jessica Gunderson and Joe Tougas, the book tells with great lucidity, precision, and intriguing tales what happened to the Presidents of the USA killed during the times and the effects their departures meant for the USA.The History starts of course with Abraham Lincoln the most beloved President of the USA.
As I guess you will know the story.
John Wilkes Booth, a very famous theater's star, shot the President on April 14, 1865 while the President was attending Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C.
That day Lincoln's wife wasn't fine. Why not giving up she asked him?
But President Lincoln insisted and they went to theater with some friends.
John Wilkes disliked profoundly the ideas of President Lincoln and he hated him but there is to say that he wasn't mentally ill, his life was successful, he was very rich, the most famous actor of the USA at that time.
The comparison of our times? Your favorite movie-star. We are at that levels.
His family a family of great actors.
All the possible luck and talent of the life, sent to hell for an absurdity like this one!
Wilkes was wrong thinking that after the death of Lincoln people would have thanked him for his insane gesture.
It was the opposite.
Lincoln was very loved also when alive and in particular black people kept in their houses the picture of the President as if he would have been a Saint. We were at these levels of love! An assassin can physically kill a person but won't never be in grade of killing love.
Wilkes was hanged up with the rest of his gang once captured and in the moment of Lincoln's death started the beautiful legend and myth of this President.
President Lincoln died the next morning for the injury at the brain.
The second President "killed" for malpractice by doctors more than by the absurd gesture of his assassin according to the authors of the book was James Garfield, freshly elected.
In his case the assassin was an extravagant man and lawyer Charles J.Guiteau. He tried to kill the President during a public appearance on July 2,1881.
Problem in the case of President Garfield? Doctors tried to search for one of the bullet using their fingers and other instruments without any kind of attention for germs, and for this reason the President passed away after more than two painful months on September 1881 because of infections contracted including a pneumonia.
Mr Garfield's life was remarkable. Like in the case of Lincoln he was born very poor.
His first pair of shoes at the age of 4 years. Later he became a teacher and then during the Secession War he did military career. Later, policy. The Republican Party at that time divided in two factions.
The killer was an exasperated God's believer but a pretty eccentric man as well. Once the President elected he tried all his best, being a lawyer to follow the President to Washington for obtaining a job thanks to him. The President answered to his requests with a no. After that the idea of killing him.
A magazine in a caricature of the assassin let us see Guiteau with a gun on the right hand and on the left a short letter where there is written: An Office or Your Life!
Guiteau's life was complicated, plenty of failures, populated by a distorted vision of religion, weird groups he joined in and tentative to trying to define his existence.
The third President murdered was William McKinley. It was the beginning of the XX century, new expectations, people were leaving farms for cities starting to work in factories. Minor labor was consented because children and teenagers inexpensive if compared at an adult.
In this sort of turmoil including the fact that President McKinley supported wealthy families and groups we can find the "humus and air" breathed by Leon Czolgosz, the future assassin of the President.
He was an anarchic, with mental illness, "inspired" by Gaetano Bresci the murderer of the Italian King Umberto, assassinated in 1900.
The murderer of President McKinley bought the same gun used by Gaetano Bresci for killing the President in Buffalo on Sept 6 1901.
It was touching the behavior of President McKinley when he understood what happened: his first thought for his wife, frequently sick.
She fell depressed when they lost their two children and later she started to suffering of epilepsy.
He said to one of his collaborators of explaining her this assassination with calm and attention. Wow!
President McKinley didn't die immediately, all the opposite! He recovered very well but one of the bullet still inside him poisoned his body.
Doctors didn't want to use the R-X for seeing where the bullet was located for a good extraction of it. A gangrene grew around the bullet and on Sept 14 1901 the President died.
Desperate, Leon was killed with the electric chair. He said while they were carrying him to his final destination, he did it "For the good of the laboring people, the good people."
Vice-president Theodore Roosevelt understood that his moment was arrived.
Roosevelt was a fantastic President. He didn't go for big corporations, he was a lover of nature and its beauty, his family very numerous, chaotic and cheerful, he loved to spend a lot of time outside, in the forests. He passed at the story as the President of National Parks, of outdoors life, the creator of Teddy Bear. Do you know the story of Teddy Bear?
Once the President refused to kill an old sick bear. What kind of gusto can have a man in killing a sick animal close to the end? He decided of leaving the bear alone. Roosevelt was a hunter and when news spread it appeared more than natural to let know to everyone this act of kindness and love creating this cute, romantic, tender gift, in particular presented during Valentine's Day or other special occasions.
The final chapters involves of course President John Fitzgerald Kennedy killed in Dallas on Nov 22 1963.
Yes: of course there is a great reconstruction of the President, the historical moment and also the biography of Lee Harvey Oswald the so-called official assassin of President Kennedy is superb.
Sure Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't in Dallas for giving a hug to the President. I don't doubt for a second of the bad intention of that man but in this final case, I would add to children and teenagers that the story can't be considered complete and closed without the inclusion of other people. I think that there was a conspiration behind this assassination.
There are other chapters to write about this story, where and if it will be possible.
In opposite case, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassination will remain forever "A case still open."
I highly suggest this book to everyone. It is in particular a book for teenagers but I can tell you that also an adult can learn a lot reading this book. Very informative and formative :-)
I thank NetGalley and Capstone for this beautiful and as always very good ebook!
Anna Maria Polidori
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