March 2012 Auction Ends Wednesday, March 28th, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/28/2012
Letter regarding the assassination of President Lincoln, written to Louis Weichmann, chief prosecution witness at the trial of the conspirators, from Police Superintendent Almarin C. Richards, witness to the assassination. In a letter dated October 1901, Richards asks Weichmann about the book he is writing on the assassination. Astonishingly, Richards also states that he heard not only the shot that killed Lincoln but also the one that killed President Garfield, no doubt in his role as D.C. Police Superintendent. Letter reads in part, ''...By the way have you yet published your book relative to the Lincoln Assassination. I have heard shots that killed two Presidents (Lincoln & Garfield) and sure a third President is added to the list of martyred Presidents [McKinley was shot on 6 September 1901, just days before this letter]...The establishment of the fact that a person is a professed anarchist of the kind that approve of murder of our rulers should be all the proof required for their conviction and deportation. In fact such a course on the part of our government should be welcomed by them. If we are to wait for the commission of overt acts of violence and undertake to permit only such as are guilty of such acts on proof of the same we will never get rid of anarchists. Those fellows will face death for the notoriety they may gain by the murder of our Presidents and others. Under their training they nerve themselves for the ordeal they must meet when selected to murder one in authority...'' 7.75'' x 9.75'' single page letter, written front and verso, is in very good condition.
Letter Regarding the Assassinations of Presidents Lincoln & McKinley -- ''...a professed anarchist...that approve of murder...should be all the proof required for conviction and deportation..."
Click above for larger image.