“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.” These are the famous words of Theodore Roosevelt a few moments after he had survived certain death after being shot at close range by John Schranck.
That fateful evening on October 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt had been spared from an assassination attempt by items in his breast pocket.
Events leading to the assassination attempt
Theodore Roosevelt was campaigning for an unprecedented third term as the president of the US when he got shot. He had left office 3 years earlier, leaving his seat to his chosen successor, William Howard Taft. However, he had become so disappointed with Taft’s stint as the president that he chose to enter the presidential race against his former ally.
He formed the National Progressive Party (aka Bull Moose Party), running against Woodrow Wilson (Democrat party) and William Taft (Republican party). The trail had been so wearisome, and he had campaigned in more states than any of his opponents.
The shooting happened when Theodore Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee. That evening after 8:00 p.m., he was shot outside the Gilpatrick Hotel as he settled in his car.
A shot rang from the crowd, and a bullet headed for his chest in his open-air vehicle. Two items saved his life: a steel case for his glass and a 50-page manuscript with his speech. The bullet still entered his body, but luckily it didn’t reach any vital organs.
The crowd caught the shooter before he could fire a second time. Theodore Roosevelt stopped the angry mob from killing him and instructed them to hand him over to the police.
Theodore Roosevelt delivers a speech with a bullet in his chest
Teddy Roosevelt coughed in his arm, and seeing no telltale signs of blood, he knew the bullet hadn’t entered his lungs. A concerned doctor wanted him to go to the hospital. Theodore Roosevelt refused medical attention and gave marching orders to proceed to the auditorium.
And it was at the Milwaukee Auditorium that he gave the abovementioned famous opening to his speech. At first, the crowd shouted “fake!” when his aides told them about the situation. But soon, Theodore Roosevelt stepped on stage, opened his vest, and revealed his bloodstained shirt.
“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 I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best,” he continued.
Pale and unsteady on his feet, Teddy Roosevelt continued to deliver his speech for the next 90 minutes. His aides stayed close and sometimes tried to steady him, but he would have none of that. And somewhere in the middle of his speech, his campaign manager tried to put a hand on his arm to steady him, but he was determined to continue with his speech.
He told the crowd: “My friends are a little more nervous than I am.”
Only after the speech did Theodore Roosevelt agree to go to the hospital. X-rays showed the bullet had lodged against his fourth rib on its way to his heart. Doctors decided to leave the bullet in him because an operation would be fatal.
Why was Theodore Roosevelt shot?
John Schranck was a paranoid schizophrenic. On top of that, he was unemployed and had the misfortune of losing his parents as a child and his girlfriend as an adult.
He said former president William McKinley had visited him in his dream and instructed him to shoot Teddy Roosevelt. President McKinley was the 25th president of the U.S. until his assassination in 1901. Theodore Roosevelt later succeeded him.
Schranck believed McKinley had sent him to exact “revenge” on Teddy Roosevelt, so he followed him, waiting for an opportune moment.
After his arrest, five psychiatrists determined Schranck had “insane delusions.” He was sentenced to life in a mental institution and died 29 years later.
Strength and determination
Theodore Roosevelt gained enough strength to resume his campaign a week before the election. His failed assassination had won him more supporters, but it wasn’t enough for him to win the election. The split of the Republican votes between him and William Taft became his downfall, and Woodrow Wilson became the 28th president.
Still, his is a story of resilience and strength in the face of adversity. He later said that after years of expecting such an attempt, it didn’t come as a shock. And he wanted to be like the soldiers he admired who didn’t falter under attack.
Teddy Roosevelt was probably saved by many factors, including his thick army coat, suitcoat, eyeglass case, and, more importantly, his rib. But his speech got all the credit, and it became known as the “speech that stopped a bullet.”
