{{Short description|Attempted assassin of Charles J. Beerstecher (1833–1900)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=October 2025}} {{Infobox criminal |name = Anthony Fischer |image = Shooting of Mr. Beerstecher by A. Fisher.jpg |caption = Illustration by George Frederick Keller depicting Fischer's attempted assassination of Charles J. Beerstecher, published 1881 |birth_date = 1833 |birth_place = Danenz, Province of Hanover, Kingdom of Prussia |death_date = July 18, 1897 (aged 64) |death_place = San Francisco, California, U.S. |nationality = |party = {{plainlist| * Workingmen's (U.S.) {{small|(1877)}} * Workingmen's (California) {{small|(1877–1879)}} * Republican {{small|(after 1879)}} }} |otherparty = |education = |conviction_status = Released in 1883 |spouse = |children = |relatives = |occupation = |signature = |charge = |motive = Disputed, jealousy or insanity |conviction = Assault with a deadly weapon |conviction_penalty = 2 years in prison |fatalities = |injuries = 1 (Charles J. Beerstecher) |locations = San Francisco, California, U.S. |date = December 12, 1880 |weapon = Revolver }} '''Anthony Fischer'''{{efn|Anthony sometimes spelled Antony,<ref name=shot>{{cite news |title=BEERSTECHER SHOT |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/457914064/?terms=%22Charles%20J.%20Beerstecher%22 |access-date=30 October 2025 |work=The Daily Examiner |date=13 December 1880 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> Antone<ref name=murderous>{{cite news |title=A MURDEROUS ASSAULT |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1236485051/?terms=Beerstecher |access-date=30 October 2025 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=13 December 1880 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> and Antoine;<ref>{{cite news |title=Now, just before I conclude to build my house Mr. Dennis Kearney drops in from Ireland |url=https://archive.org/details/argonaut41879sanf/page/n255/mode/1up |access-date=3 November 2025 |work=The Argonaut |date=19 April 1879 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> Fischer sometimes spelled Fisher<ref name=the>{{cite news |title=THE WORKINGMEN |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1236107622/?terms=%22Anthony%20Fisher%22 |access-date=3 November 2025 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=1 March 1879 |location=San Francisco}}</ref>}} (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<ref name=registration>{{cite news |title=The Registration List |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1236109391/?match=2&terms=%22Anthony%20Fischer%22 |access-date=1 November 2025 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=7 February 1883 |location=San Francisco}}</ref><ref name=route>{{cite news |title="BY THE GAS ROUTE" |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/92973841/?match=1&terms=%22Anthony%20Fischer%22 |access-date=1 November 2025 |work=The San Francisco Call |date=21 July 1897 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> and immigrated to the United States in 1856, settling in San Francisco sometime after 1863 and working as a trunkmaker.<ref>{{cite news |title=W. P. C. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1233335047/?terms=%22Antone%20Fischer%22 |access-date=23 November 2025 |work=The Morning Call |date=19 June 1879 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> 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),<ref name=TRIAL>{{cite news |title=FISCHER'S TRIAL |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1236113253/?terms=Beerstecher |access-date=1 November 2025 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=20 May 1881 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> and by May 1878 the two men were headlining mass meetings of the party's German section.<ref>{{cite news |title=A German Mass Meeting will be held THIS (Monday) EVENING |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1236083950/?match=1&terms=Beerstecher%20Fischer |access-date=4 November 2025 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=20 May 1878 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> They both ran in the elections held that June for delegates to California's Second Constitutional Convention,<ref>{{cite news |title=WORKINGMEN'S TICKET |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1236087261/?terms=%22Anthony%20Fischer%22 |access-date=4 November 2025 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=18 June 1878 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> but only Beerstecher was elected.<ref>{{cite web |title=California Constitution |url=https://www.joincalifornia.com/page/11 |website=joincalifornia.com |access-date=4 November 2025}}</ref>
Fischer founded the German Workingmen's Club on February 28, 1879, serving as its first president<ref name=the/><ref>{{cite news |title=W. P. C. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1232762197/?terms=%22Anthony%20Fischer%22 |access-date=30 October 2025 |work=The San Francisco Call |date=21 March 1879 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> until June 18, when he resigned to accept the party's nomination for county recorder.<ref>{{cite news |title=W. P. C. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1233335047/?terms=%22Antone%20Fischer%22 |access-date=4 November 2025 |work=The San Francisco Call |date=19 June 1879 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> In the municipal elections held that September, Fischer was one of the only citywide candidates to lose<ref>{{cite news |title=TABULAR STATEMENT OF VOTES POLLED AT THE GENERAL ELECTION |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/458015638/?terms=%22Anthony%20Fischer%22 |access-date=30 October 2025 |work=The Daily Examiner |date=3 September 1879 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> in what was otherwise a WPC sweep.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kauer |first1=Ralph |title=The Workingmen's Party of California |journal=Pacific Historical Review |date=September 1944 |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=287 |url=https://www-jstor-org.hacc.idm.oclc.org/stable/3635954?seq=10 |access-date=4 November 2025}}</ref> Beerstecher offered him $500 to contest the election, but Fischer declined the offer.<ref name=shot/> He left the party soon after his defeat and became a Republican,<ref name=TRIAL/> securing election to the executive committee of the party's eleventh ward club.<ref>{{cite news |title=Eleventh Ward Republicans |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1236449236/?terms=%22Anthony%20Fisher%22 |access-date=3 November 2025 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=5 September 1880 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> By this time, however, Fischer's mental state began to decline, and he fell into a depression.<ref name=TRIAL/>
==Attempted assassination of Charles J. Beerstecher== At around 10:45 pm on December 12, 1880, Beerstecher hopped off of a streetcar on Steiner street and was approaching his home when he saw a man crouched by a fence who he soon recognized as Fischer.<ref name=murderous/> He had been waiting for Beerstecher to return home for the last two hours, hoping to ask for a political appointment.<ref name=murderous/><ref name=attempted>{{cite news |title=ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/40780965/?terms=%22Charles%20J.%20Beerstecher%22 |access-date=30 October 2025 |work=The San Francisco Call |date=13 December 1880 |location=San Francisco}}</ref>
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<ref name=shot/> and shot him in the chest.<ref name=attempted/> The bullet hit Beerstecher in the left breast, glancing off a rib and lodging itself in the fatty tissue near his armpit.<ref name=murderous/> Unsure if he had been hit, Beerstecher jumped into the garden and took cover behind a tree. Fischer tried to shoot again, but his gun misfired, prompting Beerstecher to flee into a neighboring grocery store. Fischer began to chase after him but stopped halfway, running down Sacramento street towards a cemetery. Beerstecher eventually made his way back to his home, where a doctor treated his wound.<ref name=murderous/>
In a statement to ''The San Francisco Call'', Beerstecher claimed that he had no idea why Fischer would want to kill him, and that there was no animosity between the two of them. Police worried that Fischer would try to kill himself, but he was found and arrested the following morning. He denied having any recollection of shooting Beerstecher, although he admitted that, had he not been arrested that day, he intended to assassinate certain stockbrokers and mayor Isaac Smith Kalloch. Papers theorized that, in light of his own defeat, Fischer was jealous of Beerstecher's election as rail commissioner, and felt that he was owed an office for the work he had done for the party.<ref name=murderous/><ref name=attempted/>
Fischer went to trial on May 19, 1881,<ref name=TRIAL/> charged with "assault with a deadly weapon, with intent to do great bodily harm."<ref name=Guilty>{{cite news |title=Fischer Found Guilty |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1233287125/?terms=Beerstecher |access-date=1 November 2025 |work=The San Francisco Call |date=21 May 1881 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> 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.<ref name=TRIAL/> Fischer was found guilty the next day<ref name=Guilty/> and sentenced to two years in San Quentin.<ref>{{cite news |title=Anthony Fischer's Sentence |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1236116351/?terms=Beerstecher |access-date=1 November 2025 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=29 May 1881 |location=San Francisco}}</ref>
==Later life and death== Fischer was released on schedule<ref name=registration/> and worked as a paper distributor at the city post office from 1884 to 1890.<ref name=route/> He encountered Beerstecher's father while visiting St. Helena in July 1883, and was forced to leave town after police discovered he was carrying a dirk knife and Colt Navy Revolver.<ref>{{cite news |title=What Fisher Says |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/562973147/?terms=%22Anthony%20Fisher%22 |access-date=3 November 2025 |work=The Napa Register |date=27 July 1883 |location=Napa}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=C. J. Beerstecher, soon after being inducted into the position of Railroad Commissioner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/621931567/?terms=Beerstecher |access-date=3 November 2025 |work=Napa County Reporter |date=27 July 1883 |location=Napa}}</ref> Fischer committed suicide by asphyxiation on July 18, 1897, having developed a fatal illness that gave him debilitating pain for over a year.<ref name=route/>
==Notes== {{notelist}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Workingmen%E2%80%99s_Party_%26_The_Denis_Kearney_Agitation The Workingmen’s Party & The Denis Kearney Agitation]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fischer, Anthony}} Category:1833 births Category:1897 deaths Category:19th-century California politicians Category:American failed assassins Category:American male criminals Category:California Republicans Category:California socialists Category:Criminals from California Category:German assassins Category:19th-century people from the Kingdom of Prussia Category:Emigrants from the Kingdom of Prussia to the United States Category:Workingmen's Party of California people Category:19th-century American murderers