FANATICS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 921, 5 April 1957, Page 13

FANATICS

THE ASSASSINS OF AMERICAN PRESIDENTS, by Robert J. Donovan; Elek Books, English price 21/-. "HIS is a well marshalled, vividly presented account of the history of bizarre people. The motive of the Puerto Ricans in the attempt on President Truman was a patriotic demonstration for the independence of their country, but almost all the others were undoubtedly mad, Fairly typical was Charles Guiteau, who shot President Garfield on a Washington railroad platform in 1881. Guiteau was a religious fanatic of Huguenot descent, who believed, like his father before him, that the second Coming had already occurred in the sky over Jerusalem in 70 A.D., when

the stirring events narrated by the historian Josephus were in- progress. No evidence has been adduced for this view, which seems to have been first propounded by a preacher cousin of U.S. President Hayes, named Noyes. In his writings Guiteau borrowed verbatim from

Preacher Noyes, whom he had known. As to heredity, Guiteau’s father believed himself immortal, an uncle died insane, two aunts were ‘reputed mad and two cousins finished up in asylums. However, in a trial and execution which must rank as one of the more disgraceful in Anglo-Saxon legal history, Guiteau was duly convicted and hanged. As the drop fell he cried "Glory, glory, glory!" He had always claimed that-no repentance was necessary, but that he would have been indeed blameworthy had he resisted the divine iniunction to remove

President Garfield:

F. J.

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