Attacks on Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
On April 15, the news that explosives were thrown at Prime Minister Fumio Kishida‘s speech was widely reported in various media.
Luckily, Prime Minister Kishida was safe and uninjured.
However, it can be said that it seems to be quite difficult to protect important people.
Looking at the video, it seemed possible if this criminal really wanted to kill the prime minister.
For example, by making explosives more authentic.
With the summit coming up soon, there may still be issues with the security of foreign dignitaries.
If you think about it, on July 8, 2022, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and died during a speech in Nara Prefecture.
The culprit is said to have used a hand-made gun.
I remember being very surprised to find out that something like this could happen in Japan, which was thought to be safe.
1901 Buffalo World’s Fair
At the same time, I couldn’t help but remember a certain American Expo.
It was the 1901 Buffalo Exposition.
If you look up the place name Buffalo, it seems that there are several in the world, but this Buffalo is a city located in the northwestern part of New York State in the United States.
The population is about 270,000.
Adjacent to the eastern end of Lake Erie, one of the five Great Lakes, Buffalo is a city that serves as a base for Niagara tourism on the American side.
Buffalo hosted the World’s Fair in 1901.
The Buffalo Expo, officially called ” Pan-American Exposition”, attracted 8.12 million visitors.
The Expo also commemorated the large-scale, cheap electricity supply made possible by Niagara’s hydroelectricity.
In fact, this World Exposition was planned to be held in 1899, at the end of the 19th century.
However, in 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out between the United States and Spain over Cuba, and in 1899, the United States also started the Philippine-American War with the Philippines.
As a result, the World Exposition was postponed to 1901.
Disaster at the Expo site
The Buffalo Expo somehow managed to be held on May 1, 1901, but after that, the biggest “disaster” in the history of the Expo hit the Expo.
It was the assassination of then-incumbent 25th President William McKinley (1843-1901), who visited the World’s Fair grounds.
President McKinley visited the World’s Fair on September 5, 1901 and delivered a speech.
On September 6th, the president went on a sightseeing trip to Niagara Falls, which is 30 minutes away from the venue.
In the afternoon after visiting Niagara, he returned to the ‘Temple of Music‘ on the Expo site to attend the reception.
This “Temple of Music” was an auditorium with a capacity of 2,000 people, and was a splendid building with a height of about 55 meters.
音楽の聖堂
The Temple of Music
The president was surrounded by many people and was shaking hands with them. And during that time, at 4:07 pm, a visitor wrapped a revolver in a handkerchief and held it in his right hand.
One shot just grazed the president’s ribs, while the other hit him in the abdomen.
テンプル・オブ・ミュージックに到着するマッキンリー
President McKinley arrives at the Temple of Music
レオン・チョルゴッシュが隠し持ったリボルバーでマッキンリー大統領に発砲する瞬間
Leon Czolgosz shoots President McKinley with a revolver concealed under a cloth rag. Clipping of a wash drawing by T. Dart Walker.
The president received immediate medical attention, and although he appeared to recover for a time, he began to weaken again on September 13, and died at 2:15 am on September 14.
The culprit was the son of a Polish immigrant named Leon Czolgosz, who was an anarchist.
He was arrested on the spot, then tried and executed in the electric chair on October 29, 1901.
The expo was closed on the 14th and 15th, the day after the president died.
However, it has since reopened.
Perhaps because the news of the president’s death raised awareness of the Expo, or perhaps because many people wanted to mourn his death, the number of visitors soared. And the “Cathedral of Music”, which was the site of the incident, became a “sacred place” for visitors.
A small stone monument erected by the Buffalo Historical Society still stands on the spot where the “Cathedral of Music” once stood, now besides a road called Fordham Drive.
The stone monument has an English inscription that reads,
IN THE PAN-AMERICAN
TEMPLE OF MUSIC
WHICH COVERED THIS SPOT
PRESIDENT McKINKEY
FATALLY SHOT SEPT.6.1901
THIS MARKER PLACED BY THE BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
マッキンリー大統領暗殺を伝える石碑
The assassination site as it appears today
Takeo Arishima “A Certain Woman”
This incident shocked the world. Of course, this news seems to have reached Japan as well, and the story of the assassination of President McKinley appears in Takeo Arishima‘s novel “Aru Onna (A Woman)”.
When the secretary-general of the ship, who became intimate with the main character, Yoko, during the voyage from Japan to Seattle, was talking to Yoko’s fiancé, Kimura, he brings up this topic to change the subject.
I’ll quote that part below.
*
… With Kimura in front of him, even the secretary-general seemed startled at the fact that she said these seemingly reckless words without hesitation.
“How is it, McKinley? Something surprising has come up, hasn’t it? ”
The secretary-general tried to change the subject. One day while the ship was sailing near Seattle, then-President McKinley was killed by a thug’s handgun, and this incident has become the center of rumors in the United States. Kimura knew the details of the situation at that time from newspapers and rumors, so he was enthusiastic and tried to get involved in the story, but Yoko bluntly interrupted him…
*
In this way, it seems that this incident became a big topic even among Japanese intellectuals.
**
The case of Prime Minister Kishida this time makes us a little uneasy.
At the Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, which is the big event that Japan is about to face, I can only hope that a tragedy like the Buffalo Expo will not occur.
