When Teddy Roosevelt Took a Bullet to the Chest and Kept Speaking
tweeted by, Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC 4m
Here are TR's glasses case & speech manuscript which slowed bullet in Milwaukee assassination attempt this week 1912: pic.twitter.com/CfqTb0ugLu
On This (Week) in History: Lost to much of the pages of history are attempted assassinations. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 was a former President who was running to get his old job back. He had filled the term of the assassinated President McKinley and finished his own term in 1908. In deference to the precedent set by President Washington, Teddy Roosevelt decided against running in 1908, instead promoting his Vice-President William Howard Taft who won handily. Teddy was not happy with the way in which Taft ran things and decided to challenge him for the Republican nomination for the 1912 election but power interests in the party which had fared better with Taft than Roosevelt, backed Taft and Roosevelt did not get the Republican nomination at the 1912 Republican Convention. So, he formed his own party, the Progressive Party, which came to be known as the “Bull Moose Party” after TR’s tough-guy bull-moose image. Roosevelt ended up getting more votes than Taft but the pair split the Republican vote which led to the election of Woodrow Wilson as President.
While on the campaign trail prior to the election, on October 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt got into a car after dining at a hotel in Milwaukee. He was headed to give a speech. When he turned to wave to the crowd, a shot rang out from the .38 caliber revolver in the hand of John F. Schrank. Schrank, a Bavarian-born immigrant, had been stalking Roosevelt since at least September 1912 when he left New York in pursuit of his prey . It was reported that the assailant felt that no one should get more than two terms as president and had also been having dreams of William McKinley. His dream supposedly occured on the September 6 anniversary of the assassination of President William McKinley which vaulted the then young Vice-President Roosevelt into office. His dream was said to have involved McKinley in a coffin. McKinley suddenly sat up straight and pointed to Roosevelt who was dressed like a monk. The dead president floating around Schrank’s head then said, “This is my murderer. Avenge my death!” So. Schrank did his best to follow the orders of the ghost in his dream. When Roosevelt turned to the crowd from his car, it opened up an opportunity for Schrank to shoot the candidate at close range.
The shot struck Roosevelt squarely in the chest. But, in his breast pocket, Teddy had the thick, folded up 50-page text of his planned 90 minute speech. It must have been some pocket because, in addition to the 4-dozen sheets of paper the pocket also contained a metal spectacle case. The bullet was slowed by the eye-glasses case and the thick manuscript. The bullet, however, entered his body but it did not penetrate his heart. Initially, Roosevelt did not realize that he had been shot. Once he had discovered that he was indeed the victim of a gunshot wound he still insisted on giving his speech. Using his experience as an avid hunter as a guide, he reasoned that since he was not coughing up blood, then no major organs were damaged. Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt and had not been assassinated so, when he arrived on the podium. Teddy proudly showed the crowd the hole in his speech and thundered, “ it would take more than that to kill a Bull Moose!” While the speech (text of speech) was abbreviated, most accounts report that Mr. Roosevelt still spoke before the crowd for 80-90 minutes and rebuffed attempts to get him to conclude the speech so he could go to the hospital for attention.
Only after he concluded his speech did Roosevelt finally go to the hospital in Milwaukee and reluctantly allowed for a tetnus injection. On This Date in 1912, the former president was in Chicago’s Mercy Hospital where he stayed for observation for 8 days. the bullet was found lodged in tissue such that it would be more dangerous to attempt its removal. The slug remained in Roosevelt’s body for the rest of his life. After making the determination that the bullet would stay where it was, Teddy was released from Mercy Hospital on October 23. Both Woodrow Wilson and William Howard Taft suspended their campaigns until Roosevelt was released but they were back on the campaign trail with just a little more than a week before the election. While his opponents were back on the stump, TR was prevented from making important campaign stops. Some speculate that his absence from the campaign trail in the critical final days may have influenced the election results. In any event, Roosevelt was unable to convince enough Republicans to swing his way and the GOP vote was split between he and Taft. While he received 88 electoral votes to the sitting president’s 8, Wilson skated to victory with 435 votes from the Electoral College. However, Wilson’s popular vote total was about 6.3 million while, collectively, Taft and Roosevelt collected 7.6 million votes.
Wilson went on to be re-elected in 1916, again with less than a majority of the popular vote . . .
read: http://symonsez.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/when-teddy-roosevelt-gave-a-speech-after-being-shot-in-chest-by-would-be-assassin/
Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC 58m
Here x-ray of Theodore Roosevelt--kept speaking after shot in Milwaukee this wk 1912--bullet slowed by glasses case: pic.twitter.com/o6E8rjnFBc
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