# Garfield v McKinley **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garfield-v-mckinley/519333 "2009-11-29T15:14:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garfield-v-mckinley/519333/1 "2009-11-29T15:14:33Z")
On another board we are discussing the gate-crashers at the White House. There was some mention of racial profiling. This reminded me of a half-remembered story. After either Garfield or McKinley was killed, there was an investigation. All the guards said that they were alert, but they had their eye on a black guy in the crowd rather than the crazy white guy. Was this Garfield in the train station, McKinley in the Temple of Music or Colonel Mustard in the library? ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garfield-v-mckinley/519333/2 "2009-11-29T17:37:05Z")
It was the McKinley assassination, I believe. Secret Service agent George Foster admitted to concentrating on a man he described as a “dark complexioned man with a black moustache.” This was apparently a man of Italian heritage whose name I can’t find. There was also a black man present, James “Big Ben” Parker, who actually disarmed the real assassin. Some people seem to assume that Parker was agent Foster’s suspected “dark complexioned man,” but I don’t believe that’s the case. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garfield-v-mckinley/519333/3 "2009-11-29T17:57:51Z")
At the time, anarchists would probably be a more suspicious group than African-Americans. And a lot of anarchists were southern and eastern European (Italian, Slavic, etc.). Italians were almost as reviled as Jews and Irish because they were a huge proportion of the wave of immigration in the late 19th/early 20th Century. They weren’t considered “white”. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/garfield-v-mckinley/519333/4 "2009-11-29T21:31:59Z")
Thank you.