Anthony Fischer

Anthony Fischer (1833 – July 18, 1897) was a German American trunkmaker, politician and socialist who attempted to assassinate California Railroad Commissioner Charles J. Beerstecher in 1880. Fischer, who Beerstecher considered a friend, was the former president of the German Workingmen's Club and the unsuccessful candidate of the Workingmen's Party of California for San Francisco county recorder in the previous year's municipal elections. He left the party soon after his defeat and fell into a depression.

Early life and career Fischer was born in Danenz, Prussia in 1833 and immigrated to the United States in 1856, settling in San Francisco sometime after 1863 and working as a trunkmaker. He became active in socialist politics and joined the Workingmen's Party of the United States (WPUS), through which he met Charles J. Beerstecher. The two became close friends and frequently consulted each other on political matters. Together they left the WPUS for the anti-Chinese Workingmen's Party of California (WPC), and by May 1878 the two men were headlining mass meetings of the party's German section. They both ran in the elections held that June for delegates to California's Second Constitutional Convention, but only Beerstecher was elected.

Fischer founded the German Workingmen's Club on February 28, 1879, serving as its first president until June 18, when he resigned to accept the party's nomination for county recorder. In the municipal elections held that September, Fischer was one of the only citywide candidates to lose in what was otherwise a WPC sweep. Beerstecher offered him $500 to contest the election, but Fischer declined the offer. By this time, however, Fischer's mental state began to decline, and he fell into a depression.

Beerstecher apologized for making him wait and invited him inside, but Fischer declined, saying it was too late and they would wake up Beerstecher's parents. Fischer walked Beerstecher to the gate and then, without warning, drew a revolver By this time Beerstecher had recovered, but doctors left the bullet in his body as it had nested close to his heart and they felt an operation to remove it would be too dangerous. The prosecution pursued the jealousy theory and Beerstecher's testimony was corroborated by his parents and August Pracht, the grocer whose store he fled into. Fischer meanwhile pled insanity, with the defense pointing to his lack of a motive, the testimony of his relatives that he had become depressed and suicidal leading up to the shooting, and two notes left at his home right before the shooting that implied he would commit suicide.

Later life and death Fischer was released on schedule Fischer committed suicide by asphyxiation on July 18, 1897, having developed a fatal illness that gave him debilitating pain for over a year.