Posted on Oct 14, 2020
When Teddy Roosevelt Was Shot in 1912, a Speech May Have Saved His Life
1.08K
64
11
18
18
0
On 14, 1912, "Bull Moose" candidate Teddy Roosevelt was shot while campaigning in Milwaukee. I was always amazed that he continued his speech. Could that have saved him? From the article:
"When Teddy Roosevelt Was Shot in 1912, a Speech May Have Saved His Life
“It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
Theodore Roosevelt’s opening line was hardly remarkable for a presidential campaign speech: “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible.” His second line, however, was a bombshell.
“I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.”
Clearly, Roosevelt had buried the lede. The horrified audience in the Milwaukee Auditorium on October 14, 1912, gasped as the former president unbuttoned his vest to reveal his bloodstained shirt. “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” the wounded candidate assured them. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bullet-riddled, 50-page speech. Holding up his prepared remarks, which had two big holes blown through each page, Roosevelt continued. “Fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet—there is where the bullet went through—and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”
Only two days before, the editor-in-chief of The Outlook characterized Roosevelt as “an electric battery of inexhaustible energy,” and for the next 90 minutes the 53-year-old former president proved it. “I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot; not a rap,” he claimed. Few could doubt him. Although his voice weakened and his breath shortened, Roosevelt glared at his nervous aides whenever they begged him to stop speaking or positioned themselves around the podium to catch him if he collapsed. Only with the speech completed did he agree to visit the hospital.
The shooting had occurred just after 8 p.m. as Roosevelt entered his car outside the Gilpatrick Hotel. As he stood up in the open-air automobile and waved his hat with his right hand to the crowd, a flash from a Colt revolver 5 feet away lit up the night. The candidate’s stenographer quickly put the would-be assassin in a half nelson and grabbed the assailant’s right wrist to prevent him from firing a second shot.
The well-wishing crowd morphed into a bloodthirsty pack, raining blows on the shooter and shouting, “Kill him!” According to an eyewitness, one man was “the coolest and least excited of anyone in the frenzied mob”: Roosevelt. The man who had been propelled to the Oval Office after an assassin felled President William McKinley bellowed out, “Don’t hurt him. Bring him here. I want to see him.” Roosevelt asked the shooter, “What did you do it for?” With no answer forthcoming, he said, “Oh, what’s the use? Turn him over to the police.”
Although there were no outward signs of blood, the former president reached inside his heavy overcoat and felt a dime-sized bullet hole on the right side of his chest. “He pinked me,” Roosevelt told a party official. He coughed into his hand three times. Not seeing any telltale blood, he determined that the bullet hadn’t penetrated his lungs. An accompanying doctor naturally told the driver to head directly to the hospital, but Colonel Roosevelt gave different marching orders: “You get me to that speech.”
X-rays taken after the campaign event showed the bullet lodged against Roosevelt’s fourth right rib on an upward path to his heart. Fortunately, the projectile had been slowed by his dense overcoat, steel-reinforced eyeglass case and hefty speech squeezed into his inner right jacket pocket. Roosevelt dictated a telegram to his wife that said he was “in excellent shape” and that the “trivial” wound wasn’t “a particle more serious than one of the injuries any of the boys used continually to be having.”
Even before the shooting, the 1912 presidential campaign had been a raucous one, with the former Republican president challenging his party’s standard-bearer (and his handpicked successor), incumbent William Howard Taft. The internecine fight, so fierce that barbed wire concealed by patriotic bunting defended the podium at the Republican Convention, tore the Grand Old Party apart. Roosevelt went rogue and ran under the banner of the Progressive Party, nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party.” Blasted by political opponents and elements of the press for being a power-hungry traitor willing to break the tradition of two-term presidencies, Roosevelt told the Milwaukee audience that the campaign’s inflamed political rhetoric contributed to the shooting. “It is a very natural thing,” he said, “that weak and vicious minds should be inflamed to acts of violence by the kind of awful mendacity and abuse that have been heaped upon me for the last three months by the papers.”
The “weak” mind responsible for the assassination attempt belonged to 36-year-old John Schrank, an unemployed New York City saloonkeeper who had stalked his prey around the country for weeks. A handwritten screed found in his pockets reflected the troubled thoughts of a paranoid schizophrenic. “To the people of the United States,” Schrank had written. “In a dream I saw President McKinley sit up in his coffin pointing at a man in a monk’s attire in whom I recognized Theodore Roosevelt. The dead president said—This is my murderer—avenge my death.” Schrank also claimed he acted to defend the two-term tradition of American presidents. “I did not intend to kill the citizen Roosevelt,” the shooter said at his trial. “I intended to kill Theodore Roosevelt, the third termer.” Schrank pled guilty, was determined to be insane and was confined for life in a Wisconsin state asylum.
Doctors determined it was safer to leave the bullet embedded deep in Roosevelt’s chest than to operate, although the shooting exacerbated his chronic rheumatoid arthritis for the rest of his life. Even though the attempted assassination unleashed a wave of sympathy for Roosevelt, the Republican split led to an easy victory by Democrat Woodrow Wilson on Election Day. Roosevelt came in second with 27 percent of the vote, the highest percentage of any third-party candidate in American history."
"When Teddy Roosevelt Was Shot in 1912, a Speech May Have Saved His Life
“It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
Theodore Roosevelt’s opening line was hardly remarkable for a presidential campaign speech: “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible.” His second line, however, was a bombshell.
“I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.”
Clearly, Roosevelt had buried the lede. The horrified audience in the Milwaukee Auditorium on October 14, 1912, gasped as the former president unbuttoned his vest to reveal his bloodstained shirt. “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” the wounded candidate assured them. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bullet-riddled, 50-page speech. Holding up his prepared remarks, which had two big holes blown through each page, Roosevelt continued. “Fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet—there is where the bullet went through—and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”
Only two days before, the editor-in-chief of The Outlook characterized Roosevelt as “an electric battery of inexhaustible energy,” and for the next 90 minutes the 53-year-old former president proved it. “I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot; not a rap,” he claimed. Few could doubt him. Although his voice weakened and his breath shortened, Roosevelt glared at his nervous aides whenever they begged him to stop speaking or positioned themselves around the podium to catch him if he collapsed. Only with the speech completed did he agree to visit the hospital.
The shooting had occurred just after 8 p.m. as Roosevelt entered his car outside the Gilpatrick Hotel. As he stood up in the open-air automobile and waved his hat with his right hand to the crowd, a flash from a Colt revolver 5 feet away lit up the night. The candidate’s stenographer quickly put the would-be assassin in a half nelson and grabbed the assailant’s right wrist to prevent him from firing a second shot.
The well-wishing crowd morphed into a bloodthirsty pack, raining blows on the shooter and shouting, “Kill him!” According to an eyewitness, one man was “the coolest and least excited of anyone in the frenzied mob”: Roosevelt. The man who had been propelled to the Oval Office after an assassin felled President William McKinley bellowed out, “Don’t hurt him. Bring him here. I want to see him.” Roosevelt asked the shooter, “What did you do it for?” With no answer forthcoming, he said, “Oh, what’s the use? Turn him over to the police.”
Although there were no outward signs of blood, the former president reached inside his heavy overcoat and felt a dime-sized bullet hole on the right side of his chest. “He pinked me,” Roosevelt told a party official. He coughed into his hand three times. Not seeing any telltale blood, he determined that the bullet hadn’t penetrated his lungs. An accompanying doctor naturally told the driver to head directly to the hospital, but Colonel Roosevelt gave different marching orders: “You get me to that speech.”
X-rays taken after the campaign event showed the bullet lodged against Roosevelt’s fourth right rib on an upward path to his heart. Fortunately, the projectile had been slowed by his dense overcoat, steel-reinforced eyeglass case and hefty speech squeezed into his inner right jacket pocket. Roosevelt dictated a telegram to his wife that said he was “in excellent shape” and that the “trivial” wound wasn’t “a particle more serious than one of the injuries any of the boys used continually to be having.”
Even before the shooting, the 1912 presidential campaign had been a raucous one, with the former Republican president challenging his party’s standard-bearer (and his handpicked successor), incumbent William Howard Taft. The internecine fight, so fierce that barbed wire concealed by patriotic bunting defended the podium at the Republican Convention, tore the Grand Old Party apart. Roosevelt went rogue and ran under the banner of the Progressive Party, nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party.” Blasted by political opponents and elements of the press for being a power-hungry traitor willing to break the tradition of two-term presidencies, Roosevelt told the Milwaukee audience that the campaign’s inflamed political rhetoric contributed to the shooting. “It is a very natural thing,” he said, “that weak and vicious minds should be inflamed to acts of violence by the kind of awful mendacity and abuse that have been heaped upon me for the last three months by the papers.”
The “weak” mind responsible for the assassination attempt belonged to 36-year-old John Schrank, an unemployed New York City saloonkeeper who had stalked his prey around the country for weeks. A handwritten screed found in his pockets reflected the troubled thoughts of a paranoid schizophrenic. “To the people of the United States,” Schrank had written. “In a dream I saw President McKinley sit up in his coffin pointing at a man in a monk’s attire in whom I recognized Theodore Roosevelt. The dead president said—This is my murderer—avenge my death.” Schrank also claimed he acted to defend the two-term tradition of American presidents. “I did not intend to kill the citizen Roosevelt,” the shooter said at his trial. “I intended to kill Theodore Roosevelt, the third termer.” Schrank pled guilty, was determined to be insane and was confined for life in a Wisconsin state asylum.
Doctors determined it was safer to leave the bullet embedded deep in Roosevelt’s chest than to operate, although the shooting exacerbated his chronic rheumatoid arthritis for the rest of his life. Even though the attempted assassination unleashed a wave of sympathy for Roosevelt, the Republican split led to an easy victory by Democrat Woodrow Wilson on Election Day. Roosevelt came in second with 27 percent of the vote, the highest percentage of any third-party candidate in American history."
When Teddy Roosevelt Was Shot in 1912, a Speech May Have Saved His Life
Posted from history.comPosted in these groups: 
Office of the President (POTUS)
World History
American History
Pistol Shooting
Murder
Office of the President (POTUS) World History American History Pistol Shooting Murder
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 8
11
11
0
How Teddy Roosevelt Got Shot and Still Did an 84 Minute Speech
Sometimes, the words of politicians save lives. In the case of Teddy Roosevelt, "Bull Moose" Party presidential candidate in 1912, that was very literally tr...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on October 14, 1912 "Bull Moose" candidate Teddy Roosevelt was shot while campaigning in Milwaukee. I was always amazed that he continued his speech.
Rest in peace Theodore Roosevelt.
How Teddy Roosevelt Got Shot and Still Did an 84 Minute Speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb2v8aZvyfQ
Images:
1. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt, the presidential candidate for the Progressive Party, is shot at close range by saloonkeeper John Schrank while greeting the public
2. October 14, 1912 'Having suffered only a flesh wound from the attack, Theodore Roosevelt went on to deliver his remarks with the bullet lodged in his body.
3. Bloodstained shirt worn by President Theodore Roosevelt, photographed following an assassination attempt in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1912.
4. John Schrank in county jail
Biographies
1. businessinsider.com/teddy-roosevelt-assassination-attempt-2017-6
2. politico.com/story/2007/10/roosevelt-shot-in-milwaukee-on-oct-14-1912-006332
1. Background from {[https://www.businessinsider.com/teddy-roosevelt-assassination-attempt-2017-6]}
US President Theodore Roosevelt once delivered an 84-minute speech after getting shot in the chest
Áine Cain on Jun 21, 2017, 1:31 PM
• Theodore Roosevelt was shot while campaigning for a third presidential term with the Progressive Party.
• The assassin's bullet was slowed by the folded-up speech and glasses case in his breast pocket.
• The 26th president finished the 84-minute speech but ultimately failed to win the 1912 election.
US President Theodore Roosevelt was saved by the length of his speech after being shot in the chest with a .38-caliber revolver.
It was 1912 and Roosevelt was running for a third presidential term on the third-party Progressive, or Bull Moose, ticket. He was up against Woodrow Wilson and his vice president-turned-bitter-rival William Taft.
"It was a very vitriolic campaign," Clay S. Jenkinson, the Theodore Roosevelt humanities scholar at Dickinson State University's Theodore Roosevelt Center, tells Business Insider. "TR offended the Republican establishment by challenging Taft for the nomination in the Republican Party. Then the party offended TR by maneuvering the convention in Chicago to favor the incumbent. TR, at that point, bolted."
Amid the turbulent presidential race, Roosevelt put his immense personal popularity to use. "Wherever he stopped on his cross-country pilgrimage, he attracted such multitudes — at depots, outside hotels, along city streets — that newspaper wags were comparing him to John the Baptist," Gerard Helferich writes in "Theodore Roosevelt and the Assassin."
Roosevelt's decision to stage a third party campaign in the 1912 presidential race helped fuel a vitriolic campaign. But the candidate was not beloved by everyone. Somewhere amongst the mass of supporters, a stalker set his sights on Roosevelt. Saloon-owner John Schrank began writing screeds against the president, "pouring out the injustice and treachery and unworthiness and un-Americanism of Theodore Roosevelt," writes Helferich.
Schrank had been obsessed with the former president ever since he had an unusual nightmare.
"In a dream I saw President McKinley sit up in his coffin pointing at a man in a monk's attire in whom I recognized Theodore Roosevelt. The dead President said, 'This is my murderer — avenge my death,'" Schrank wrote, according to "Killing the President: Assassinations, Attempts, and Rumored Attempts on U.S. Commanders-in-Chief."
Schrank struck on October 14 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sparking what Jenkinson calls "one of the strangest, most uncanny, and most compelling stories" involving the 26th president.
As Roosevelt stepped out of the Hotel Gilpatrick, now the Hyatt Hotel, to head over to his speech at the Milwaukee Auditorium, the would-be assassin fired at the candidate, striking him in the chest. Fortunately, Roosevelt had his notes with him — 50 pages of them, folded in his breast pocket next to his metal glasses case. These objects slowed the bullet and saved Roosevelt's life.
John Schrank, Theodore Roosevelt's would-be assassin. The presidential candidate also ordered the gathering mob not to hurt Schrank, who had been wrestled to the ground by onlookers. The would-be assassin went to prison, where Jenkinson says he became "something of a jailhouse celebrity," and attempted to justify himself by saying he was against third-term presidents. Jenkinson says it's impossible to say whether Schrank was unhinged or had more rational reasons for his assassination attempt.
It's unclear when exactly Roosevelt realized he had been shot, but he made his way to the auditorium after coughing into his hands, "to see if there were blood in his spittle," says Jenkinson.
Then, in what is probably one of the most remarkable feats of public speaking in history, he arrived at the auditorium and completed an 84-minute speech, as Business Insider's Henry Blodget previously wrote.
The ex-president kicked things off by letting his audience know he'd been shot, according to the Theodore Roosevelt Association:
"Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet — there is where the bullet went through — and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best."
A handful of audio recordings of Roosevelt survive — here's one from 1912. As a speaker, Jenkinson says he had quite a few quirks, including large teeth, an aggressive manner, a habit of beating his fist into his hand, and a "distinctive way of biting off his words." In a time before microphones, the man would have to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard.
The bullet didn't hit any vital areas. Roosevelt also had "a high, squeaky voice, and when he got excited the timbre of it went straight up into falsetto," says Jenkinson, so we can imagine what he sounded like after an assassination attempt.
"He also understood political theater," says Jenkinson. "Like Ronald Reagan, who responded to his own near-assassination in much the same way, TR knew that it would help to cement his larger-than-life, tougher-than-anyone-else legend if he gave the speech. TR had an outsized mythology to protect. As they say of Elvis' death in his early 40s, it could be said that this was a 'great career move.'"
While the speech and his survival may have helped boost his legendary status, it didn't give the Bull Moose candidate much of an edge in the polls. He was forced to stop campaigning for the weeks leading up to the election. And, while Roosevelt accrued the largest ever third-party vote in US history, he ended up splitting the Republican vote with Taft and launching Wilson to the presidency.
The Theodore Roosevelt Center, which is currently building its own Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, features a collection of newspaper coverage from the time.
Roosevelt received an outpouring of concern, but it wasn't enough to propel him back to the White House. Wikimedia CommonsSuch headlines include "Roosevelt Assures His Wife He Is In No Danger," "Roosevelt Orders Police to Rescue Assassin From Crowd," "Roosevelt's First Remark One of Pity For Assailant", and "Washington Deeply Shocked by News of Attack on Colonel."
"There was an outpouring of concern, sympathy, and support, but if you say, 'It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,' people are going to normalize the adventure and the trauma," Jenkinson says. "He got headlines all over. It all added to the legend. An 84-minute speech. But somehow it made TR seem less like the rest of us, because he was such an outlier, even a freak, by normal American standards."
Physicians later determined that it would be potentially more risky to remove the bullet than to leave it be. And so Roosevelt finished the rest of his unsuccessful campaign with a bullet in his ribs, where it remained until his death in 1919.
2. Background from {[https://www.politico.com/story/2007/10/roosevelt-shot-in-milwaukee-on-oct-14-1912-006332]}
"On this day in 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank shot former President Theodore Roosevelt while Roosevelt, as the presidential candidate of the Progressive Party, prepared to give a campaign speech in Milwaukee, Wis.
The force of Schrank’s bullet, aimed directly at Roosevelt's heart, was slowed by a steel eyeglass case and a copy of his campaign speech stuffed in the breast pocket of his heavy coat. After being arrested, Schrank gave as his motive for the shooting his belief that "any man looking for a third term ought to be shot."
Having suffered only a flesh wound from the attack, Roosevelt went on to deliver his scheduled speech with the bullet still lodged in his body.
After speaking a few words, the one-time "Rough Rider" pulled a torn and bloodstained manuscript from his breast pocket and declared, "You see, it takes more than one bullet to kill a bull moose." (The Progressives were popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party,” which got its name after Roosevelt had earlier told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose.”)
Roosevelt spoke for nearly an hour before being taken to the hospital. Doctors determined that he was not seriously wounded and that it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in his chest. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died in 1919.
Slowed, however, in his campaign endeavors by the wound, Roosevelt, who had served as the nation’s 26th president from 1901 to 1909, lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson in a three-way race in November.
Roosevelt’s candidacy may have denied the incumbent Republican nominee, William Howard Taft, who took office as a Roosevelt protégé, his bid to serve a second term. Schrank was subsequently deemed insane and committed to a mental hospital, where he died in 1943."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D GySgt Thomas Vick MSG Felipe De Leon Brown SGT Denny Espinosa SSG Stephen Rogerson SPC Matthew Lamb LTC (Join to see) LTC Greg Henning Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. Maj Kim Patterson PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) SSG Franklin Briant SPC Woody Bullard TSgt David L. SSG Robert Pratt
Rest in peace Theodore Roosevelt.
How Teddy Roosevelt Got Shot and Still Did an 84 Minute Speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb2v8aZvyfQ
Images:
1. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt, the presidential candidate for the Progressive Party, is shot at close range by saloonkeeper John Schrank while greeting the public
2. October 14, 1912 'Having suffered only a flesh wound from the attack, Theodore Roosevelt went on to deliver his remarks with the bullet lodged in his body.
3. Bloodstained shirt worn by President Theodore Roosevelt, photographed following an assassination attempt in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1912.
4. John Schrank in county jail
Biographies
1. businessinsider.com/teddy-roosevelt-assassination-attempt-2017-6
2. politico.com/story/2007/10/roosevelt-shot-in-milwaukee-on-oct-14-1912-006332
1. Background from {[https://www.businessinsider.com/teddy-roosevelt-assassination-attempt-2017-6]}
US President Theodore Roosevelt once delivered an 84-minute speech after getting shot in the chest
Áine Cain on Jun 21, 2017, 1:31 PM
• Theodore Roosevelt was shot while campaigning for a third presidential term with the Progressive Party.
• The assassin's bullet was slowed by the folded-up speech and glasses case in his breast pocket.
• The 26th president finished the 84-minute speech but ultimately failed to win the 1912 election.
US President Theodore Roosevelt was saved by the length of his speech after being shot in the chest with a .38-caliber revolver.
It was 1912 and Roosevelt was running for a third presidential term on the third-party Progressive, or Bull Moose, ticket. He was up against Woodrow Wilson and his vice president-turned-bitter-rival William Taft.
"It was a very vitriolic campaign," Clay S. Jenkinson, the Theodore Roosevelt humanities scholar at Dickinson State University's Theodore Roosevelt Center, tells Business Insider. "TR offended the Republican establishment by challenging Taft for the nomination in the Republican Party. Then the party offended TR by maneuvering the convention in Chicago to favor the incumbent. TR, at that point, bolted."
Amid the turbulent presidential race, Roosevelt put his immense personal popularity to use. "Wherever he stopped on his cross-country pilgrimage, he attracted such multitudes — at depots, outside hotels, along city streets — that newspaper wags were comparing him to John the Baptist," Gerard Helferich writes in "Theodore Roosevelt and the Assassin."
Roosevelt's decision to stage a third party campaign in the 1912 presidential race helped fuel a vitriolic campaign. But the candidate was not beloved by everyone. Somewhere amongst the mass of supporters, a stalker set his sights on Roosevelt. Saloon-owner John Schrank began writing screeds against the president, "pouring out the injustice and treachery and unworthiness and un-Americanism of Theodore Roosevelt," writes Helferich.
Schrank had been obsessed with the former president ever since he had an unusual nightmare.
"In a dream I saw President McKinley sit up in his coffin pointing at a man in a monk's attire in whom I recognized Theodore Roosevelt. The dead President said, 'This is my murderer — avenge my death,'" Schrank wrote, according to "Killing the President: Assassinations, Attempts, and Rumored Attempts on U.S. Commanders-in-Chief."
Schrank struck on October 14 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sparking what Jenkinson calls "one of the strangest, most uncanny, and most compelling stories" involving the 26th president.
As Roosevelt stepped out of the Hotel Gilpatrick, now the Hyatt Hotel, to head over to his speech at the Milwaukee Auditorium, the would-be assassin fired at the candidate, striking him in the chest. Fortunately, Roosevelt had his notes with him — 50 pages of them, folded in his breast pocket next to his metal glasses case. These objects slowed the bullet and saved Roosevelt's life.
John Schrank, Theodore Roosevelt's would-be assassin. The presidential candidate also ordered the gathering mob not to hurt Schrank, who had been wrestled to the ground by onlookers. The would-be assassin went to prison, where Jenkinson says he became "something of a jailhouse celebrity," and attempted to justify himself by saying he was against third-term presidents. Jenkinson says it's impossible to say whether Schrank was unhinged or had more rational reasons for his assassination attempt.
It's unclear when exactly Roosevelt realized he had been shot, but he made his way to the auditorium after coughing into his hands, "to see if there were blood in his spittle," says Jenkinson.
Then, in what is probably one of the most remarkable feats of public speaking in history, he arrived at the auditorium and completed an 84-minute speech, as Business Insider's Henry Blodget previously wrote.
The ex-president kicked things off by letting his audience know he'd been shot, according to the Theodore Roosevelt Association:
"Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet — there is where the bullet went through — and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best."
A handful of audio recordings of Roosevelt survive — here's one from 1912. As a speaker, Jenkinson says he had quite a few quirks, including large teeth, an aggressive manner, a habit of beating his fist into his hand, and a "distinctive way of biting off his words." In a time before microphones, the man would have to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard.
The bullet didn't hit any vital areas. Roosevelt also had "a high, squeaky voice, and when he got excited the timbre of it went straight up into falsetto," says Jenkinson, so we can imagine what he sounded like after an assassination attempt.
"He also understood political theater," says Jenkinson. "Like Ronald Reagan, who responded to his own near-assassination in much the same way, TR knew that it would help to cement his larger-than-life, tougher-than-anyone-else legend if he gave the speech. TR had an outsized mythology to protect. As they say of Elvis' death in his early 40s, it could be said that this was a 'great career move.'"
While the speech and his survival may have helped boost his legendary status, it didn't give the Bull Moose candidate much of an edge in the polls. He was forced to stop campaigning for the weeks leading up to the election. And, while Roosevelt accrued the largest ever third-party vote in US history, he ended up splitting the Republican vote with Taft and launching Wilson to the presidency.
The Theodore Roosevelt Center, which is currently building its own Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, features a collection of newspaper coverage from the time.
Roosevelt received an outpouring of concern, but it wasn't enough to propel him back to the White House. Wikimedia CommonsSuch headlines include "Roosevelt Assures His Wife He Is In No Danger," "Roosevelt Orders Police to Rescue Assassin From Crowd," "Roosevelt's First Remark One of Pity For Assailant", and "Washington Deeply Shocked by News of Attack on Colonel."
"There was an outpouring of concern, sympathy, and support, but if you say, 'It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,' people are going to normalize the adventure and the trauma," Jenkinson says. "He got headlines all over. It all added to the legend. An 84-minute speech. But somehow it made TR seem less like the rest of us, because he was such an outlier, even a freak, by normal American standards."
Physicians later determined that it would be potentially more risky to remove the bullet than to leave it be. And so Roosevelt finished the rest of his unsuccessful campaign with a bullet in his ribs, where it remained until his death in 1919.
2. Background from {[https://www.politico.com/story/2007/10/roosevelt-shot-in-milwaukee-on-oct-14-1912-006332]}
"On this day in 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank shot former President Theodore Roosevelt while Roosevelt, as the presidential candidate of the Progressive Party, prepared to give a campaign speech in Milwaukee, Wis.
The force of Schrank’s bullet, aimed directly at Roosevelt's heart, was slowed by a steel eyeglass case and a copy of his campaign speech stuffed in the breast pocket of his heavy coat. After being arrested, Schrank gave as his motive for the shooting his belief that "any man looking for a third term ought to be shot."
Having suffered only a flesh wound from the attack, Roosevelt went on to deliver his scheduled speech with the bullet still lodged in his body.
After speaking a few words, the one-time "Rough Rider" pulled a torn and bloodstained manuscript from his breast pocket and declared, "You see, it takes more than one bullet to kill a bull moose." (The Progressives were popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party,” which got its name after Roosevelt had earlier told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose.”)
Roosevelt spoke for nearly an hour before being taken to the hospital. Doctors determined that he was not seriously wounded and that it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in his chest. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died in 1919.
Slowed, however, in his campaign endeavors by the wound, Roosevelt, who had served as the nation’s 26th president from 1901 to 1909, lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson in a three-way race in November.
Roosevelt’s candidacy may have denied the incumbent Republican nominee, William Howard Taft, who took office as a Roosevelt protégé, his bid to serve a second term. Schrank was subsequently deemed insane and committed to a mental hospital, where he died in 1943."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D GySgt Thomas Vick MSG Felipe De Leon Brown SGT Denny Espinosa SSG Stephen Rogerson SPC Matthew Lamb LTC (Join to see) LTC Greg Henning Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. Maj Kim Patterson PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) SSG Franklin Briant SPC Woody Bullard TSgt David L. SSG Robert Pratt
(11)
(0)
LTC Stephen F.
Theodore Roosevelt: The Old Lion
We believed that the frail, asthmatic little boy who loved to collect insects would amount to anything special, much less the youngest and most robust presid...
Theodore Roosevelt: The Old Lion
We believed that the frail, asthmatic little boy who loved to collect insects would amount to anything special, much less the youngest and most robust president in US history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yQGpC18v1U
Images:
1. October 14, 1912 Theodore Roosevelt checked to see if he was coughing up blood, then kept talking
2. October 14, 1912 Theodore Roosevelt delivering his speech after being shot by ex-saloon owner John Schrank
3. Chest x-ray of Theodore Roosevelt - the bullet didn't hit any vital areas.
4. The pages of the speech that saved Roosevelt's life were later bound into a book, which—along with the eyeglasses case and the shirt TR was wearing—can be seen at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in New York City.
Background from {[https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12789/time-teddy-roosevelt-got-shot-chest-gave-speech-anyway]}
The Time Teddy Roosevelt Was Shot in the Chest, Then Gave a Speech Anyway
BY ADRIENNE CREZO
On October 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was on the campaign trail in Milwaukee, running for another term. It was a tough race: Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson proved to be a formidable opponent, and William Howard Taft, while unpopular, was the Republican incumbent. Roosevelt was running as a third-party Progressive, and in order to keep pace with his big-ticket rivals he had to work hard. By this point in the election season, he was giving 15 to 20 speeches per day, most of which stretched on for an hour or sometimes more. But this day, TR didn't feel too well. His throat was scratchy, he was tired, and so he planned a relatively quick stop.
What Roosevelt and his security team didn't know was that a man with a .38 caliber revolver had been trailing the campaign since they departed New Orleans. For a thousand miles, he rode quietly, just waiting to get his shot at the Colonel.
John Schrank was a Bavarian-born saloon-keeper from New York. He'd had some strange and troubling dreams in recent months, mostly about President McKinley, whose assassination resulted in Roosevelt's first term. In his dreams, Schrank said that President McKinley asked him to avenge his death and protect democracy from a three-term president. All Schrank had to do was kill Roosevelt before he could be reelected.
"BUT FORTUNATELY I HAD MY MANUSCRIPT"
Roosevelt stood in the seat of his automobile to wave at the crowds and Schrank, who was standing in the front row of the crowd, had his shot. He took aim: point-blank, right at Roosevelt’s head. Then three things happened at the same time. A bystander hit Schrank’s arm; Roosevelt’s security detail spotted the gun and leapt from the car; Schrank pulled the trigger. The shot landed squarely in Roosevelt’s chest just as Schrank was tackled and put in a headlock by the bodyguard. Roosevelt is said not to have noticed he was hit until he reached into his overcoat and felt the blood on his fingers.
But it turns out that Teddy’s long-winded speeches saved his life that day: The bullet traveled through a 50-page copy of his prepared speech and the steel eyeglasses case he carried in the same pocket. The bullet was slowed enough not to reach his lung or heart, which Teddy deduced from the absence of blood when he spoke or coughed. He refused to go to a hospital and insisted on giving his speech.
“Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose,” he began. He spoke for at least 55 more minutes (though some estimates say 90), still wearing his blood-soaked shirt.
Roosevelt would spend the next eight days in the hospital. The bullet had lodged in his chest wall and removing it was deemed too unsafe. The wound healed and he never reported trouble from the injury again. Despite having lived through his assassination attempt, the presidency would not be Teddy’s again: Woodrow Wilson’s 41 percent of the vote meant the office would be his, though Roosevelt did beat out incumbent Taft, marking the only time a sitting president has come in third place in a reelection bid.
Schrank, in the meantime, was apprehended immediately. He lived the rest of his life in an insane asylum, and died of pneumonia in 1943.'
FYI SSG Franklin Briant SSG Michael Noll LTC Wayne Brandon LTC (Join to see) SCPO Morris Ramsey SGT (Join to see) SFC William Farrell PO1 H Gene LawrenceMaj Marty Hogan SMSgt David A Asbury Cpl (Join to see)SSG Jimmy CernichSSG Jeffrey LeakeCPL Dave Hoover SSG Samuel KermonSSG Donald H "Don" Bates SGT Gregory Lawritson SGT John " Mac " McConnell CWO3 Dennis M. SPC Matthew Lamb
We believed that the frail, asthmatic little boy who loved to collect insects would amount to anything special, much less the youngest and most robust president in US history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yQGpC18v1U
Images:
1. October 14, 1912 Theodore Roosevelt checked to see if he was coughing up blood, then kept talking
2. October 14, 1912 Theodore Roosevelt delivering his speech after being shot by ex-saloon owner John Schrank
3. Chest x-ray of Theodore Roosevelt - the bullet didn't hit any vital areas.
4. The pages of the speech that saved Roosevelt's life were later bound into a book, which—along with the eyeglasses case and the shirt TR was wearing—can be seen at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in New York City.
Background from {[https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12789/time-teddy-roosevelt-got-shot-chest-gave-speech-anyway]}
The Time Teddy Roosevelt Was Shot in the Chest, Then Gave a Speech Anyway
BY ADRIENNE CREZO
On October 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was on the campaign trail in Milwaukee, running for another term. It was a tough race: Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson proved to be a formidable opponent, and William Howard Taft, while unpopular, was the Republican incumbent. Roosevelt was running as a third-party Progressive, and in order to keep pace with his big-ticket rivals he had to work hard. By this point in the election season, he was giving 15 to 20 speeches per day, most of which stretched on for an hour or sometimes more. But this day, TR didn't feel too well. His throat was scratchy, he was tired, and so he planned a relatively quick stop.
What Roosevelt and his security team didn't know was that a man with a .38 caliber revolver had been trailing the campaign since they departed New Orleans. For a thousand miles, he rode quietly, just waiting to get his shot at the Colonel.
John Schrank was a Bavarian-born saloon-keeper from New York. He'd had some strange and troubling dreams in recent months, mostly about President McKinley, whose assassination resulted in Roosevelt's first term. In his dreams, Schrank said that President McKinley asked him to avenge his death and protect democracy from a three-term president. All Schrank had to do was kill Roosevelt before he could be reelected.
"BUT FORTUNATELY I HAD MY MANUSCRIPT"
Roosevelt stood in the seat of his automobile to wave at the crowds and Schrank, who was standing in the front row of the crowd, had his shot. He took aim: point-blank, right at Roosevelt’s head. Then three things happened at the same time. A bystander hit Schrank’s arm; Roosevelt’s security detail spotted the gun and leapt from the car; Schrank pulled the trigger. The shot landed squarely in Roosevelt’s chest just as Schrank was tackled and put in a headlock by the bodyguard. Roosevelt is said not to have noticed he was hit until he reached into his overcoat and felt the blood on his fingers.
But it turns out that Teddy’s long-winded speeches saved his life that day: The bullet traveled through a 50-page copy of his prepared speech and the steel eyeglasses case he carried in the same pocket. The bullet was slowed enough not to reach his lung or heart, which Teddy deduced from the absence of blood when he spoke or coughed. He refused to go to a hospital and insisted on giving his speech.
“Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose,” he began. He spoke for at least 55 more minutes (though some estimates say 90), still wearing his blood-soaked shirt.
Roosevelt would spend the next eight days in the hospital. The bullet had lodged in his chest wall and removing it was deemed too unsafe. The wound healed and he never reported trouble from the injury again. Despite having lived through his assassination attempt, the presidency would not be Teddy’s again: Woodrow Wilson’s 41 percent of the vote meant the office would be his, though Roosevelt did beat out incumbent Taft, marking the only time a sitting president has come in third place in a reelection bid.
Schrank, in the meantime, was apprehended immediately. He lived the rest of his life in an insane asylum, and died of pneumonia in 1943.'
FYI SSG Franklin Briant SSG Michael Noll LTC Wayne Brandon LTC (Join to see) SCPO Morris Ramsey SGT (Join to see) SFC William Farrell PO1 H Gene LawrenceMaj Marty Hogan SMSgt David A Asbury Cpl (Join to see)SSG Jimmy CernichSSG Jeffrey LeakeCPL Dave Hoover SSG Samuel KermonSSG Donald H "Don" Bates SGT Gregory Lawritson SGT John " Mac " McConnell CWO3 Dennis M. SPC Matthew Lamb
(7)
(0)
GySgt Thomas Vick
They don't make em like Teddy Roosevelt any more, love what he did for the National Parks
(3)
(0)
6
6
0
6
6
0
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google 