"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. "
So began Theodore Roosevelt's address at Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912 after being shot by John Schrank. The bullet penetrated Roosevelt's glasses case and the manuscript of the speech, which, it is said, was fifty pages long. The lead then lodged in his chest, where it remained until his death in 1919.
As a third-party candidate, Roosevelt outpolled his republican rival, but democrat Wilson won the presidency.*
Schrank was judged insane and spent the rest of his life in Wisconsin asylums. He died in 1943, and it is said that he never had a visitor during his incarceration.
*If you catch me in future capitalizing either "democrat" or "republican" in reference to an American political party, you may reach through the ether and smack me upside the head. Unless the word begins a sentence.
4 comments:
I never knew that story! Wow. That must have been some speech to block the bullet! They couldn't take it out??
Lin-- Seriously, the slug was never removed. I've carried some serious papers in inside jacket pocket, but a 50 page speech?
As a third-party candidate, Roosevelt outpolled his republican rival, but democrat Wilson won the presidency.*
Hmmm Interesting that the above is all I remember from your story. I love political history, especially when it proves me right ... ;-)
RamblinMan-- Sometimes the little-known details are the most interesting.
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