In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt was running for President for the Progressive Party, better known as the Bull Moose Party. The ever-energetic Teddy was travelling the country giving numerous speeches. On Oct. 14, Roosevelt was in Milwaukee for a speech. Two days earlier, he told a magazine that he didn’t “care a rap about being shot.” When he left the Gilpatrick Hotel and got into the open-air car there was crowd cheering him. Teddy stood up on the floorboard to salute the crowd when a shot rang out from close-by. An unemployed New York City saloonkeeper named John Schrank had shot him with a .38 revolver. Schrank did not get off a second shot because Teddy’s stenographer wrestled him to the ground. The crowd began to beat Schrank, yelling “Kill him!” Roosevelt stopped the crowd by demanding they not hurt the man. He asked that the assassin be brought to him, but when he asked Schrank why he did it, Schrank would not answer. At that point, Teddy turned him over to the police. Later, a hand-written screed was found where Schrank proclaimed that the ghost of President McKInley had fingered Roosevelt for his death and demanded Schrank avenge him. There is also evidence Schrank was upset with Roosevelt seeking a third term. Schrank was declared insane and put in an asylum for the rest of his life. He died of pneumonia in 1943. At first, Roosevelt did not think he had been hit, but when he reached in his coat his hand came out with blood. The bullet had entered his chest and lodged against a rib. It was headed for his heart, but it was slowed by having to go through his 50-page speech and his steel-enforced glass case. Teddy coughed in his hand and when there was no blood, he insisted on giving the speech. Early in the speech, Teddy told the disbelieving crowd that he had been shot. “He pinked me…. [But] it takes more than that to kill a bull moose.” To prove it, he showed the speech with the holes in it. After speaking for over an hour, Teddy allowed himself to be taken to the hospital. The doctors decided it would be best to leave the bullet be and he kept it for the rest of his seven years. The wound kept him off the campaign trail for weeks, but he probably got more sympathy votes than he lost. He ended up getting 27% of the vote in the best third party performance in American History.
https://www.history.com/news/shot-in-the-chest-100-years-ago-teddy-roosevelt-kept-on-talking
https://milwaukeerecord.com/city-life/flesh-wound-nine-fun-facts-theodore-roosevelt-shot-milwaukee/
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12789/time-teddy-roosevelt-got-shot-chest-gave-speech-anyway
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