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A former president of the United States desperately wants his old job back. There’s a big campaign rally. Shots ring out. The ex-president is hit. He makes a strong public demonstration after being injured.
Butler, Pennsylvania, 2024?
Try Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1912.
Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the presidency after his predecessor, William McKinley, was assassinated in 1901. Reelected in 1904, he blurted out in a burst of excitement on election night that he wouldn’t seek another term. Though he instantly regretted it, he was forced to stand down in 1908.
But Teddy had trouble with his successor. Though he and William Howard Taft were both Republicans, Roosevelt was a progressive, and Taft was a conservative. Policy differences caused their friendship to first cool, then turn icy cold, and finally end in an outright split.
Roosevelt ran for the Republican nomination when the next election rolled around in 1912. But the party machinery was firmly in Taft’s control. Denied the GOP nomination, Teddy bolted the GOP and ran on the Progressive Party ticket.
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He threw himself into his campaign with his trademark gusto. In that era before air travel, stumping was physically exhausting. And Teddy was beyond tired when his train chugged into Milwaukee on Monday, October 14, and made his way to the Gilpatrick Hotel for a major speech.
Waiting for him outside was John Schrank, a 36-year-old German immigrant who worked as a bartender in a beer saloon. He believed McKinley’s ghost had told him to kill Rosevelt. When the former president arrived, Schrank fired a shot directly into his chest.
The crowd screamed. Schrank was trying to shoot a second time when Roosevelt’s stenographer tackled him. The crowd was so furious there was a very real prospect they would rip Schrank apart from limb to limb. Only Roosevelt, saying, “no, don’t hurt him!” spared his assailant.
Teddy examined his wound. An experienced cowboy, combat veteran, and big game hunter, he knew that because he wasn’t coughing up blood, that was a positive sign. He reached inside his coat pocket and found the thick folded 50-page copy of the speech (“The Progressive Cause Is Bigger Than Any Individual”) – and his glasses case – had slowed the bullet and probably saved his life.
TR insisted on going to the podium. When he quieted the crowd, he told them, “you’ll have to excuse me, I can’t talk very loudly – you see, I’ve just been shot.”
“But it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose,” he added.
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And then, incredibly, Roosevelt proceeded to speak for the next ninety minutes. Only when he was finished would he permit himself to be rushed to a hospital.
An X-ray found the bullet was lodged so deep inside Roosevelt’s chest that surgery would be too risky. So he carried it inside him for the rest of his life.
Taft and Woodrow Wilson suspended their campaigns until Roosevelt resumed his. When a reporter asked him if the shooting would impact his ability to resume running, Teddy roared, “I’m as strong as Bull Moose!” And with that, the Progressive Party (at least its 1912 incarnation) suddenly had a new nickname.
The Taft-Roosevelt split fractured the GOP vote, enabling Wilson to eke out a narrow victory. The two Republicans later patched up their differences and renewed their friendship, much to Taft’s great delight.
Schrank was declared insane and spent the final 31 years of his life in a mental institution.
Theodore Roosevelt was gearing up for yet another presidential run when he went to bed on January 5, 1919. The last thing he told his valet was, “please put out the light.” He was dead the next morning. In the end, it wasn’t a bullet that stopped him; rather, his heart simply wore out.
And so Teddy was denied one last chance to win a record-breaking third term as president. That would come with another Roosevelt a few years down the line.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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1 comment
It was said that death had to slip up on him while he was asleep. Otherwise there would have been a fight. As an aside, in 1912 the American people had Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, or Woodrow Wilson to choose from. Today…!