By Mel Ayton
In 2014 my book, Hunting the President, was published. The new revelations included previously unknown or little-known assassination attempts against U.S presidents from the time of FDR to President Obama. My latest book covers the presidencies of George Washington to Herbert Hoover. It includes never-before- told stories of incidents when the president’s life was put in danger, including attempted stabbings, shootings and bombings. They have remained largely hidden from the public; some buried in newspaper archives and others in government reports, presidential memoirs, bodyguard memoirs, Secret Service agents’ memoirs, the National Archives, the Library of Congress and presidential libraries.
Individuals or groups who attempts to kill U.S leaders or threaten to assassinate them go all the way back to General George Washington. Before he was president, Washington was the target of an assassination plot involving members of his bodyguard but it was discovered and the plot failed. President Monroe was so frightened of assassins he hid sharpshooters in the trees of the White House and in 1818 had an iron fence constructed around the grounds. President Tyler feared he would fall victim to bombs. He instituted the Washington Metropolitan Police in 1844 partly to improve presidential security and at one point made the White House ushers defuse a package he thought contained a bomb but which instead held a cake.
However, threats or attempts against early American presidents were a rare occurrence for a number of reasons. The absence of any fear for the president’s safety resided in the fact that the country had only a small population. The year Jefferson entered the White House the population of the United States was 5,308, 473, nine-tenths of which resided east of the Alleghenies. Eight percent of the population lived in the countryside and the absence of public transport for the common man resulted in only a small number of people who could travel to meet with the president. The early presidents also did not go "electioneering" as the public considered it "unseemly." This meant that the president did not place himself in harm’s way by exposing himself to danger in large crowds. It was indeed a paradox. The American people did not want their president acting like a king but neither did they want him campaigning like an ordinary politician.
Additionally, while the lives of the presidents were widely publicized their faces were not. They went about their business unrecognized for most of the time. Each day at 1p.m., Thomas Jefferson liked to go horseback riding usually riding alone. Few knew his identity as he often stopped to converse with locals. On one occasion a man told him how angry he was with the president. Jefferson invited him to the White House. (1) In 1817 President James Monroe and his aides called at an inn in Altoona, New York and went about their business unrecognized until the president revealed his identity during supper. (2) On a visit to New York City in 1847 President James Polk was frequently mistaken for his travelling companion, Alabama Senator Dixon Hall. However, with the advent of new inventions like the daguerreotype and photography and the publication of the presidents’ portraits in the press, the risks of assassination increased. The first photograph of a president was not taken until the 1840s, however, and not until the end of the 19th century did the press publish the president’s photograph. (3)
As the country grew and the nation expanded so did the dangers presidents faced.
From the time of Richard Lawrence’s attempt to shoot President Andrew Jackson in 1835, most of America’s presidents have survived "near lethal approaches" whereby would-be assassins have breached the president’s security but the assassination attempt has been thwarted, either by presidential guards, White House guards, White House doormen, Secret Service agents or local law enforcement officers.
Particularly shocking are the previously unknown attempts to assassinate Presidents Buchanan, Arthur, Hayes, Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover.
It has been assumed that James Buchanan passed through his presidency without any attempts to assassinate him. Yet there is compelling evidence to suggest otherwise. When a group of Civil War army veterans met in Saratoga in 1887 one of them revealed a plot to kill Buchanan.
In the spring of 1858 the would-be assassin arrived in Washington to see for himself "the lay of the land." A month or so later he returned to Kansas and reported to his fellow conspirators that the task of killing the president would be “easy.” The plotter revealed that Buchanan would be an easy target as he was known to "loiter" in the grounds of the White House and had been observed on the streets of Washington unaccompanied. The plotter was sure he could kill the president and make his escape back to Kansas; he was “assured of protection” once he arrived home. (4)
However, as the day of the planned assassination drew near another Civil War veteran tipped off the authorities after hearing plotters discuss the assassination in a Lawrence, Kansas, tavern. In April 1858 the informant and the would-be assassin arrived in Washington at the same time. After the would-be assassin was observed purchasing a gun for $25 he was arrested. (5)
Ulysses S. Grant said there had been a “deliberate attempt” on the life of President Andrew Johnson during a visit to Indianapolis. Johnson and his party, including Grant, were staying at a hotel in the city during the visit. When they gathered in one of the rooms booked for the party a shot was fired from a second-story window on the opposite side of the street from the hotel. The bullet struck a Chinese lantern near where the president was standing and passed within three feet of Grant’s head. Local law enforcement agencies made no arrests. (6)
A gunman, William Meyers, stalked President-elect Hayes and plotted to kill him during the inauguration ceremonies at the Capitol in March 1877. The plot was investigated by Washington Police Chief Major Richards. The assassin was eventually tracked to the city’s Imperial Hotel and was immediately arrested with the "unofficial assistance" of two U.S. Secret Service agents who happened to be in the hotel’s vicinity. (Author’s Note: The Secret Service did not take on the duties of presidential protection until the time of President Teddy Roosevelt but the agency did provide unofficial presidential protection during the presidencies of Cleveland and McKinley)
During questioning Meyers admitted to his assassination plans. He said he intended to shoot President-Elect Hayes, “then proclaim himself president, and to be sworn in amid the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon.” Convinced Meyers was insane the police authorities sent him to an insane asylum. He was incarcerated for a period of around six months then released to the supervision of his sons with the assistance of a nurse. (7)
President Hayes was informed of the plot to kill him. He thanked the officers for their diligence and promised compensation. He rewarded Maxwell by arranging an appointment as a second lieutenant of the 20th Infantry shortly after his inauguration. In August 1881 the assassination story was corroborated when an assistant district attorney, Joseph E. Hayden, told reporters he was the man who had “saved President Hayes’ life” by turning over to the police “ a lunatic” who had planned to kill the president on his inauguration day. (8)
President Arthur was the victim of two previously unknown assassination attempts. The first attempt was made at the Butler Mansion in Washington, D.C. and the second attempt occurred at the White House. When Chester Arthur was staying in the Butler mansion prior to moving to the White House he escaped an assassination attempt, according to an 1888 report in the Charlotte Democrat. A “shot was fired at a reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer who was sitting talking to Senator John P. Jones...the villain took the reporter for Arthur.” The shot came through a window but missed the target. The incident was corroborated in a statement Senator Jones gave to the Philadelphia Times many years later. (9)
The second incident occurred on October 31, 1881. Dr. John Noetling, a “prominent doctor from Colesville, Snyder County, Pennsylvania,” arrived at the White House armed with a pistol. When he was challenged by the doorkeepers he fought with them until he was overpowered. When the doorkeepers confiscated Noetling’s seven-shot revolver they discovered every chamber was loaded. The guards believed Noetling was there to assassinate the president. He was taken to a local police station and later sent home to Pennsylvania. (10)
Presidents Harrison and Cleveland were also the victims of previously unknown assassination attempts by lone gunmen.
Although there were numerous rumours of assassination attempts throughout Harrison’s presidency there is compelling evidence that a serious attempt on the president’s life actually occurred in 1890 but was covered up by White House aides.
A U.S. Senator had received letters threatening to kill President Harrison. The letters were turned over to Secret Service Chief John S. Bell who conducted an unofficial investigation as the Secret Service, although used as a detective agency by government departments during this period, did not have official sanction to investigate threats to the president. The letter writer was tracked down by the two agents Bell had assigned to the case. They scoured Petersburg and managed to locate a suspect, a Virginia shop-keeper. On May 23, 1890 the agents followed the suspect to Washington and observed the would-be assassin stationing himself on Pennsylvania Avenue at around 9:30 in the morning. It was known to be part of the route taken by President Harrison on his carriage rides. (11)
The would-be assassin was approximately 20-feet away from Harrison as the president passed by. As he attempted to draw his revolver he was quickly subdued by the agents and taken to police headquarters. Washington police took possession of a .38 calibre Smith and Wesson revolver, together with a number of letters which chronicled the would-be assassin’s grievances and the reasons why he had targeted the president for assassination. During his interrogation the Virginia shop-keeper confessed “boldly” that he had intended to kill the president. Later, he was quietly adjudged to be insane and was confined to an insane asylum near Richmond. On November 26, 1890 the by now ex-Chief Bell, who had been visiting the capital on business, confirmed the story to newspaper reporters and “verified it in every particular.” The White House denied the assassination attempt had occurred. (12)
After President Cleveland had completed his first term in office and shortly before he began his second term he was the victim of an assassination attempt. During the 1892 presidential election campaign, Cleveland, who had been living at his New York home, went about his business unguarded. However, his friend Superintendent Thomas Byrnes of the New York Police Department kept a special watch on the former president.
Cleveland had been dining with his good friend and personal physician, Dr. Joseph Bryant, when a young German immigrant arrived at Cleveland’s New York house and asked to see him. The former president had just finished dinner with Dr. Bryant and stepped forward to greet his caller. The young man drew a .44 revolver, pointed it at Cleveland and pulled the trigger. The gun failed to fire. Cleveland rushed towards his assailant, threw his arms around him and pushed him against a wall. He held him there until Dr. Bryant and the servants assisted in tying the would-be assassin up. When Byrnes arrived at the house the police officer who was first on the scene was instructed to, “forever to keep his mouth shut concerning the affair.” (13) Byrnes took the would-be assassin to his home where he was kept overnight. The following day Dr. Bryant and another physician examined the young German and “took out a certificate of lunacy.” By noon Cleveland’s assailant had been transported to Bloomingdale Asylum. Cleveland and Bryant decided to cover up the story because it was “...likely to stir up a large crop of cranks.” (14)
The story of the attempted assassination was confirmed by a “member of Congress” who had been told the story by the doctor who accompanied Dr. Bryant when the would-be assassin was declared insane. (15) According to acclaimed journalist of the time, Frank G. Carpenter of the Deseret News, “Through Dr. Bryant and Superintendent Byrnes the matter was kept out of the papers and today no one but the president and his most intimate friends know the exact facts of the case.” (16) The story was also confirmed by the Chicago Herald’s special correspondent in Washington. (17)
A serious assassination plot to kill President McKinley was hatched four years before his actual murder in 1901.It was only months after his accession to the presidency when Joseph Bloomfield Jackson, who came from Meriden, Connecticut, sent letters to local newspapers containing threats against “high officials.” Shortly after the letters were sent Jackson arrived at the gates of the White House and, after a confrontation with one of the guards, shouted “mysterious boasts about what he was going to do to a high official.” The White House police on duty stopped Jackson and searched him. He was discovered to be “heavily armed” and carrying a loaded revolver.
As the law stated at the time Jackson could only be charged with vagrancy and carrying a concealed weapon. It was no different from many other cases, according to White House guards. “Hundreds of other cranks...who created disturbances” had been removed from the White House grounds.
However, the Washington police officers who were on duty at the executive mansion believed that had the president driven out that afternoon instead of being detained by visitors he would have been shot by Jackson. The police also believed their actions in confronting Jackson prevented President McKinley’s assassination. (18)
In 1899 Harry Mitchell, who lived in Virginia, travelled to Washington, D.C. with the express purpose of assassinating President McKinley. He was tried and found guilty of threatening to assassinate the president but after he was later examined by psychiatrists he was found to be insane and sent to the Virginia State Hospital for the insane. Mitchell was kept there until the time of McKinley’s assassination when he persuaded his doctors he had recovered from his bout with insanity. (19)
The assassination attempt against ex-President Theodore Roosevelt by John Schrank in 1912 is widely regarded as the only serious assassination attempt Roosevelt suffered. However, the commonly accepted notion amongst presidential historians that Roosevelt was never the victim of an assassination attempt whilst in office is now seriously undermined. There were at least three occasions when armed assassins breached the president’s security placing Roosevelt within seconds of assassination. Two attempts to kill him were made at his summer home and one attempt occurred at the White House.
The two most dangerous threats to Roosevelt’s life occurred early his presidency when two men, in separate incidents, attempted to shoot him. In September 1903 Roosevelt came within a hair’s breadth of assassination when Henry Weilbrenner pointed a loaded gun at him. The incident has been reported in a number of journals and books. (20)
However, a relatively unknown incident involving an alleged assassination attempt occurred a month later after an armed man, Peter Elliott, breached the president’s security.
Peter Olson Elliott had changed his name from Peter Olson in the hope a more American-sounding name would help him secure a government job. However, President Roosevelt rejected his application. Elliott also said he was going to marry Alice Roosevelt, and kept numerous newspaper clippings of the president’s daughter.
Elliott travelled to Washington on a freight train after purchasing a "Bulldog" five-shooter pistol and lodged at the city’s St. James Hotel on September 30. He wrote a letter to the president requesting an interview and enclosing a photograph of himself. Secretary Loeb read Elliott’s letter and concluded the writer was “insane.”Loeb informed White House police officers on duty they should be on guard for him.
Shortly before 12 noon on October 5, 1903, Elliott walked up to the main door of the White House, stepped inside and asked police officer James Cissell if he might see the president. Chief Usher Thomas Stone recognized Elliott as the person he had been warned about. Stone interrupted Cissell and began to humour Elliott telling him he could not see the president at that time but he might be able to arrange a meeting. Stone and the officers led Elliott through the basement of the White House to the guard room at the east end of the building where he was told the president would see him momentarily.
While Elliott waited a police van was summoned. However, Elliott was becoming increasingly disturbed and began to act violently towards the officers. After a brief struggle he was overpowered and taken to the police van which was waiting at the southeast gate. During the altercation Elliott grabbed his pistol but was subdued by White House police officers. When Elliot’s pistol was examined it was discovered he had prepared the bullets with poison. The Secret Service concluded that the only purpose for coating the bullets in such a way was to kill President Roosevelt. (21)
Elliott was sent to St Elizabeth’s hospital in Washington, D.C. for a short time then to St. Peter Hospital, Minnesota. However, in November 1903, he escaped, which greatly alarmed the Secret Service. Elliott was recaptured but later released. On May 23 1904 he hanged himself from a bridge in south Minneapolis. (22)
The most serious threat to President Taft’s life occurred in California in October 1911.Taft was visiting the state for speeches in Los Angeles and Pasadena. The plot to kill Taft was discovered by the sheriff of Santa Barbara County, Nat Stewart, who relayed the information about the plot to special detectives of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Secret Service. The sheriff said the plot involved blowing up a long bridge, the Cartian Viaduct, 20 miles north of Santa Barbara over which the president’s special train was to pass early on the morning of October 16, 1911. Twenty-one sticks of dynamite were found under the bridge but the culprits were never arrested even though an extensive manhunt had been undertaken.Secret Service agents concluded there had been “complete evidence” of a plot to kill the president. (23)
In 1919 President Woodrow Wilson also became the victim of a previously unknown attempt to kill him. John Rogofsky had recently been released from the Massachusetts State Mental Hospital at Worcester when he tried to gain admittance to President Wilson’s suite at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. Agents blocked his route and Rogofsky was arrested. After he was searched he was found to be carrying a .32 calibre revolver with 60 rounds of ammunition and a blackjack. Rogofsky was handed over to local police officers. He was arraigned in Central Court but was only charged with "carrying dangerous weapons" even though he admitted to police he, "intended to get the president and save the world" and that he had been instructed by the "Supreme Being" to carry out his mission. Rogofsky was judged to be insane and sent to a mental hospital. (24)
Wilson was also targeted by anarchists. A man who had stockpiled bombs, dynamite and nitro-glycerine in his hotel room in Hoboken, New Jersey, confessed he was plotting, along with 14 others, to assassinate the president.
In 1918 another anarchist plot to assassinate President Wilson was concocted in Leavenworth Prison by 20 men and led to successful prosecutions. The conspirators had drawn lots to determine who would be the assassin. They also vowed to kill the assassin if he failed to carry out the assassination. Pietro (Sam) Pierre had been chosen. He was eventually arrested, tried and found guilty of conspiring to assassinate the president. He was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. (25)
In 1922 a would-be assassin stalked President Warren G. Harding but the assassination attempt was covered up. Dr. Henry A. Cotton, medical director of the Trenton State Hospital in New Jersey, said that one of his patients revealed he planned to kill the president. The unnamed man was a storekeeper and an unsuccessful inventor. Frustrated by his failures to patent his inventions he became bitter against the government. The mentally unstable would-be assassin stalked Harding and was going to kill him at the president’s vacation home at Pinehurst, North Carolina. He arrived at Pinehurst with two automatic weapons but during his time at the resort he confessed his plans to a Christian minister who in turn notified the authorities. He was arrested by the Secret Service in Camden, New Jersey and was later admitted to a state hospital. The assassination attempt was kept from the public until Dr. Cotton’s revelations in 1933. (26)
In 1934 a plot to kill President Calvin Coolidge during his visit to Cuba in 1928 was revealed by the Cuban authorities. The plotters planned to shoot the president from the window of an apartment opposite the presidential palace in Havana. Agents and Cuban police arrested a Spaniard, Claudio Bouzon and a Russian, Nosko Yalob, who had rented the apartment and were left-wing radical leaders However, the two men did not stand trial. On the orders of President Machado they were taken from jail and murdered. (27)
In 1928 a plot to bomb President-elect Herbert Hoover’s train in Argentina was foiled by the Secret Service and local police. It has been assumed by historians that this was the only assassination attempt made against Hoover. However, a second attempt to bomb the presidential train was made in 1932 but was not widely reported. The assassination attempt involved plans to bomb the train as the president was travelling to his Palo Alto, California, home. A bomb was planted where the Southern Pacific tracks were crossed by the Western Pacific, at an underpass near Palisade, Nevada. A watchman discovered the dynamite and when he confronted the would-be assassins, a gun was levelled at him as the would-be assassins escaped. A bundle of dynamite sticks were found and another dozen sticks were discovered in a nearby sack. Despite an intense manhunt the two bombers were never found. (28)
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Many assassination plots were hidden from the public because of presidential secrecy and a fear that publicity would inspire others.(29) As the Minneapolis Journal revealed to its readers in 1901, “...there are more of the ...dangerous cranks than the public ever hears anything about.”(30)
At least since the time of Lincoln’s assassination, presidential aides and friends have conspired to cover-up numerous assassination attempts against U.S. presidents. In 1901 a clerical employee at the White House told the Boston Evening Transcript, “Few persons realize how vital a subject at the White House the possibility of presidential assassination always has been. Of course, nothing of this discussion gets out except in the cases where a shot is actually fired or some other overt act committed which startles the country. Of the larger number of seemingly suspicious cases that, whether alarming or not, are nipped in the bud, little is ever known.”(31)
White House guard William Crook noted in his memoirs that, “Episodes of (violent behaviour) were a frequent occurrence in the White House. We dealt with them quietly and they rarely got into the newspapers.” (32) The plot to assassinate President Hayes during his inauguration was “kept from the public” by “his request.” (33)Even before he became president Ulysses S. Grant was the subject of assassination attempts and his reaction was to tell his aides to keep them secret as he believed it would lead to further attacks. (34)
The assassination attempts against Cleveland were covered up partly due to the intervention of Henry T. Thurber, the president’s secretary during his second term. President Cleveland’s aides believed publicity would only inspire copycat attacks. Following the assassination attempt in New York in 1892, shortly before Cleveland’s election to a second term as president, New York Police Superintendant Thomas J. Byrnes and Cleveland’s doctor, Joseph D. Bryant, conspired to keep the incident a secret. However, the details of the assassination attempt were revealed by a doctor friend of Bryant’s who attended the president when he was attacked. An acclaimed journalist of his time, Frank G. Carpenter, of The Deseret Weekly, wrote, “Through Dr. Bryant and Superintendent Byrnes the matter was kept out of the papers and today no one but the president and his most intimate friends know the exact facts of the case.” (35)
Additionally, a statement Henry Thurber made to Washington, D.C.’s Evening Times, a few years before his death in 1904, partly supports the claims of a cover-up. “Nobody will ever know,” Thurber said, “the extent of my efforts to protect President Cleveland unless he should be assassinated.”(36)
In Harrison’s case the president was unaware of the plot to kill him as, according to U.S. Secret Service Chief John S. Bell, the president’s aides and political friends kept the incident from the president and were "sworn to secrecy." Supportive evidence of the cover-up resides in the discovery by this author that the president’s private secretary, Elijah Halford, had been lying when he told the press that the assassination story was false.(37)
During Roosevelt’s administration, William Loeb, secretary to the president, also attempted to cover up assassination attempts. In September 1903 he told the Washington’s Evening World that Henry Weilbrenner’s attempt to shoot President Teddy Roosevelt had the effect of, “arousing all the mental freaks” that held the president responsible for “everything that happens” and that it was for this reason “many frustrated attempts upon the life of the president (were) kept secret.” (38)
In October 1903 Loeb met with Secret Service Chief John E. Wilkie about how the agency could effectively carry out its protection duties. Loeb announced his intention to suppress every fact in connection with the arrest of "cranks" at the White House. Loeb also said he would "make trouble" for any police officer or Secret Service agent who failed to observe his orders in this respect. The policy decision was extended to the Washington police force. The Washington Times stated, “....the police authorities have decided not to give out reports of cranks or insane persons who have been hanging around the White House for the possible purpose of injuring the president.” (39) A Copper Country Evening News report of 1897 stated, “The policemen and doorkeepers at the executive mansion do everything in their power to suppress news of cranks.” (40)
However, in an open democracy like the United States it was often difficult to keep many attempted assassination stories from the public especially when reporters often spent a good deal of their time in the White House front door vestibule. They were able to observe the efforts of White House doormen in keeping mentally unstable individuals or political fanatics from attempting to approach the president. Despite efforts by White House staff to keep the assassination attempts from the public, news often leaked out. Additionally, personal papers and diaries kept by presidential secretaries, obscure government reports and newspaper archives have confirmed the efforts made to hide the risks presidents have always taken when carrying out their duties.
1. Whitcomb, John and Whitcomb, Claire Real Life At The White House – 200 Years of Daily Life At America’s Most Famous Residence Rutledge, New York 2002, 20
2. Ellis, Richard J. Presidential Travel – The Journey From George Washington To George W. Bush University Press of Kansas, 3
3. Presidential Travel, 2
4. Los Angeles Herald, Vol: 27 No 145, August 28, 1887, “A President’s Escape – How Kansas Man Plotted To Kill Buchanan,” 11
5. Los Angeles Herald, Vol: 27 No 145, August 28, 1887, “A President’s Escape – How Kansas Man Plotted To Kill Buchanan,” 11
6. The Weekly Caucasian, September 26, 1866, “Attempt To Assassinate The President,” 4
7. The Evening Star, Washington, July 7, 1881, “The Project To Assassinate Hayes,” 1
8. The Evening Star, Washington, April 26, 1880, “Pardoned By The President,” 1
9. The Charlotte Democrat, July 20, 1888, Untitled, 3 AND The Roanoke Times, 3 July 1891, “Cranks In Washington” by Smith D. Fry, 6
10. Memphis Daily Appeal, November 1, 1881, “Another Crank At The White House” 1
11. The Pittsburgh Press, November 16, 1890, “A Second Guiteau – How An Attempt To Assassinate Harrison Failed – The Crank Went To Washington And Was Ready To Shoot When Arrested,” 1
12. The Weekly Press, November 19, 1890. “A Would-Be Guiteau – The Story Of An Attempt To Kill President Harrison Last May,” 2 AND
Democratic North-West, 27 November 1890, “A Follower of Guiteau,” 6
13. The Laurens Advertiser, October 3, 1893, “A Startling Revelation,” 1
14. The Laurens Advertiser, October 3,1893, “A Startling Revelation,” 1
15. Lewiston Daily Sun, November 6, 1893, “The Crop Of Cranks,” 4
16. The Deseret Weekly, December 16,1893, “The President A Brave Man,” 820
17. The Laurens Advertiser, October 3, 1893, “A Startling Revelation,” 1 (Author’s Note: The story cannot be confirmed by Secret Service reports as the agency did not then have responsibility for protecting presidents or former presidents. However, it is known that Cleveland had a history of keeping unpleasant facts from the public. When he discovered he was suffering from cancer he conspired with Dr. Bryant to keep his illness a secret lest it create panic in Wall Street and have a deleterious effect on the nation. There are no records of the assassination attempt in presidential biographies or records in the Grover Cleveland Presidential Library.)
18.The Milwaukee Journal, September 21, 1897, “After McKinley – Man With A Gun Arrested At Door Of The White House,” 1
19. New York Times, “Threatens Edison; In Cell,” October 26, 1912, http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/20484577/ , http://spiderbites.nytimes.com/free_1912/articles_1912_10_00000.html
20. The Evening World, New York, September 3, 1903, “Larger Guard For Roosevelt,” 1
21. The Evening Statesman, Walla Walla, May 7, 1909, “During Roosevelt’s 8 Years In Office 87 people Were Arrested At The White House” 6
22. St John Daily Sun, May 24, 1904 “Lunatic Suicides” 3
23. The New York Times, October 17, 1911, “Dynamite Mines Menaced Taft” 1
24. The Pittsburgh Press, February 25, 1919, “Intended To Kill President, Says Crank At Boston, To Save World” 1
25. The New York Tribune, April 25, 1920, “Loyalty To Wilson Rewarded” 10
26. Reading Eagle, February 16, 1933, “Harding Death Plot Revealed” 3
27. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 29, 1934, “Plot Revealed To Kill Coolidge” 1
28. Ellensburg Daily Record, November 8, 1932, “Attempt To Wreck Hoover Train” 1
30. The Minneapolis Journal, October 14, 1901, “Cranks That Visit The White House” 4
31. Boston Evening Transcript, September 10, 1901, “Danger For Presidents” 7
32. Through Five Administrations by William Henry Crook, 93
33. The Carroll Herald, Carroll City, Iowa, 10th August 1881, “Untitled” 1
34. Smith, Jean Edward Grant Simon and Schuster, 2001, 462
35. The Deseret Weekly, December 16, 1893, “The President a Brave Man” by Frank G. Carpenter, 820
36. The Evening Times (Washington DC), “Mr. Thurber’s Public Service” March 12, 1897, 4
37. Email to the author, December 18, 2014. See: The Lilly Library, Volwiler mss, 1898-1958, http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/findingaids/view?brand=general&docId=InU-Li-VAB8654&doc.view=print
38. The Evening World, New York, September 3, 1903, “Larger Guard For Roosevelt” 1
39. The Washington Times, October 7, 1903, “Cranks At The White House” 6
40. The Copper Country Evening News, April 7, 1897, “Passing of the Crank” 4
