Editor’s note: This is text from a 90-minute speech
delivered by Theodore Roosevelt on October 14, 1912 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
after being shot in the chest by a would-be assassin.
GUEST BLOG--By Theodore Roosevelt.
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.

It was just as when I was
colonel of my regiment. I always felt that a private was to be excused for
feeling at times some pangs of anxiety about his personal safety, but I cannot
understand a man fit to be a colonel who can pay any heed to his personal
safety when he is occupied, as he ought to be with the absorbing desire to do
his duty.
I am in this cause with my
whole heart and soul. I believe that the Progressive movement is making life a
little easier for all our people; a movement to try to take the burdens off the
men and especially the women and children of this country. I am absorbed in the
success of that movement.
Friends, I ask you now this
evening to accept what I am saying as absolutely true, when I tell you I am not
thinking of my own success. I am not thinking of my life or of anything
connected with me personally. I am thinking of the movement. I say this by way
of introduction, because I want to say something very serious to our people and
especially to the newspapers. I don't know anything about who the man was who
shot me to-night. He was seized at once by Mr. Martin, one of the stenographers
in my party.
And, I suppose the shooter is
now in the hands of the police. He shot to kill. He shot - the shot, the bullet
went in here - I will show you.
I am going to ask you to be
as quiet as possible for I am not able to give the challenge of the bull moose
quite as loudly. Now, I do not know who he was or what he represented. He was a
coward. He stood in the darkness in the crowd around the automobile and when
they cheered me, and I got up to bow, he stepped forward and shot me in the
darkness.
Now, friends, of course, I
do not know, as I say, anything about him; but it is a very natural thing 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 in the interest of not only Mr. Debs but of Mr. Wilson and
Mr. Taft.
Friends, I will disown and
repudiate any man of my party who attacks with such foul slander and abuse any
opponent of any other party; and now I wish to say seriously to all the daily
newspapers, to the Republicans, the Democrat, and Socialist parties, that they
cannot, month in month out and year in and year out, make the kind of
untruthful, of bitter assault that they have made and not expect that brutal,
violent natures, or brutal and violent characters, especially when the
brutality is accompanied by a not very strong mind; they cannot expect that
such natures will be unaffected by it.
Now, friends, I am not
speaking for myself at all, I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being
shot; not a rap.
I have had a good many
experiences in my time and this is one of them. What I care for is my country.
I wish I were able to impress upon the people — our people, the duty to feel
strongly but to speak the truth of their opponents. I say now, I have never
said one word on the stump against any opponent that I cannot defend. I have
said nothing that I could not substantiate and nothing that I ought not to have
said — nothing that I — nothing that, looking back at, I would not say again.
Now, friends, it ought not
to be too much to ask that our opponents - [speaking to some one on the stage]
I am not sick at all. - I am all right. I cannot tell you of what infinitesimal
importance I regard this incident as compared with the great issues at stake in
this campaign, and I ask it not for my sake, not the least in the world, but
for the sake of common country, that they make up their minds to speak only the
truth, and not use that kind of slander and mendacity which if taken seriously
must incite weak and violent natures to crimes of violence. Don't you make any
mistake. Don't you pity me. I am all right. I am all right and you cannot
escape listening to the speech either.
And now, friends, this
incident that has just occurred - this effort to assassinate me- emphasizes to
a peculiar degree the need of the Progressive movement. Friends, every good
citizen ought to do everything in his or her power to prevent the coming of the
day when we shall see in this country two recognized creeds fighting one
another, when we shall see the creed of the "Havenots" arraigned
against the creed of the "Haves." When that day comes then such
incidents as this tonight will be commonplace in our history.
When you make poor men -
when you permit the conditions to grow such that the poor man as such will be
swayed by his sense of injury against the men who try to hold what they
improperly have won, when that day comes, the most awful passions will be let
loose and it will be an ill day for our country.
Now, friends, what we who
are in this movement are endeavoring to do is forestall any such movement for
justice now - a movement in which we ask all just men of generous hearts to
join with the men who feel in their souls that lift upward which bids them
refuse to be satisfied themselves while their countrymen and countrywomen
suffer from avoidable misery.
Now, friends, what we
Progressives are trying to do is to enroll rich or poor, whatever their social
or industrial position, to stand together for the most elementary rights of
good citizenship, those elementary rights which are the foundation of good
citizenship in this great Republic of ours.
(At this point a renewed
effort was made to persuade Mr. Roosevelt to conclude his speech.)
My friends are a little
more nervous than I am. Don't you waste any sympathy on me. I have had an A-1
time in life and I am having it now. I never in my life was in any movement in
which I was able to serve with such whole-hearted devotion as in this; in which
I was able to feel as I do in this that common weal. I have fought for the good
of our common country.
And now, friends, I shall
have to cut short much of that speech that I meant to give you, but I want to
touch on just two or three points.
In the first place,
speaking to you here in Milwaukee, I wish to say that the Progressive party is
making its appeals to all our fellow citizens without any regard to their creed
or to their birthplace. We do not regard as essential the way in which a man
worships his God or as being affected by where he was born. We regard it as a
matter of spirit and purpose. In New York, while I was police commissioner, the
two men from whom I got the most assistance were Jacob Riis, who was born in
Denmark, and Arthur von Briesen, who was born in Germany - both of them as fine
examples of the best and highest American citizenship as you could find in any
part of this country.
I have just been introduced
by one of your own men here - Henry Cochems. His grandfather, his father, and
that father's seven brothers, all served in the United States Army, and they
entered it four years after they had come to this country from Germany. Two of
them left their lives, spent their lives, on the field of battle. I am all
right - I am a little sore. Anybody has a right to be sore with a bullet in
him. You would find that if I was in battle now I would be leading my men just
the same. Just the same way I am going to make this speech.
At one time I promoted five
men for gallantry on the field of battle. Afterward in making some inquiries
about them I found that two of them were Protestants, two Catholic, and one a
Jew. One Protestant came from Germany and one was born in Ireland. I did not
promote them because of their religion. It just happened that way.
If all five of them had
been Jews I would have promoted them, or if all five of them had been
Protestants I would have promoted them; or if they had been Catholics. In that
regiment I had a man born in Italy who distinguished himself by gallantry;
there was another young fellow, a son of Polish parents, and another who came
here when he was a child from Bohemia, who likewise distinguished themselves;
and friends, I assure you, that I was incapable of considering any question
whatever, but the worth of each individual as a fighting man.
If he was a good fighting
man, then I saw that Uncle Sam got the benefit of it. That is all.
I make the same appeal to
our citizenship. I ask in our civic life that we in the same way pay heed only
to the man's quality of citizenship, to repudiate as the worst enemy that we
can have whoever tries to get us to discriminate for or against any man because
of his creed or birthplace.
Now, friends, in the same
way I want our people to stand by one another without regard to differences or
class or occupation. I have always stood by labor-unions. I am going to make
one omission tonight. I have prepared my speech because Mr. Wilson had seen fit
to attack me by showing up his record in comparison with mine. But I am not going
to do that tonight. I am going to simply speak of what I myself have done and
what I think ought to be done in this country of ours.
It is essential that here
should be organizations of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital
organizes and therefore labor must organize. My appeal for organized labor is
two-fold; to the outsider and the capitalist I make my appeal to treat the
laborer fairly, to recognize the fact that he must organize that there must be
such organization, that the laboring man must organize for his own protection,
and that it is the duty of the rest of us to help him and not hinder him in
organizing. That is one-half appeal that I make.
Now, the other half is to
the labor man himself. My appeal to him is to remember that as he wants
justice, so he must do justice. I want every labor man, every labor leader,
every organized union man, to take the lead in denouncing disorder and in
denouncing the inciting of riot; that in this country we shall proceed under
the protection of our laws and with all respect to the laws, I want the labor
men to feel in their turn that exactly as justice must be done them so they
must do justice. They must bear their duty as citizens, their duty to this
great country of ours, and that they must not rest content unless they do that
duty to the fullest degree.
I know these doctors, when
they get hold of me, will never let me go back, and there are just a few more
things that I want to say to you.
And here I have got to make
one comparison between Mr. Wilson and myself, simply because he has invited it
and I cannot shrink from it. Mr. Wilson has seen fit to attack me, to say that
I did not do much against the trusts when I was President. I have got two
answers to make to that. In the first place what I did, and then I want to
compare what I did when I was President with what Mr. Wilson did not do when he
was governor.
When I took the office the
antitrust law was practically a dead letter and the interstate commerce law in
as poor a condition. I had to revive both laws. I did. I enforced both. It will
be easy enough to do now what I did then, but the reason that it is easy now is
because I did it when it was hard.
Nobody was doing anything.
I found speedily that the interstate commerce law by being made perfect could
be made a most useful instrument for helping solve some of our industrial
problems.
So with the antitrust law.
I speedily found out that almost the only positive good achieved by such a
successful lawsuit as the Northern Securities suit, for instance, was in
establishing the principle that the government was supreme over the big
corporation, but by itself that the law did not accomplish any of the things that
we ought to have accomplished; and so I began to fight for the amendment of the
law along the lines of the interstate commerce law, and now we propose, we
Progressives, to establish an interstate commission having the same power over
industrial concerns that the Interstate Commerce Commission has over railroads,
so that whenever there is in the future a decision rendered in such important
matters as the recent suits against the Standard Oil, the Sugar - no, not that
- Tobacco - Tobacco Trust - we will have a commission which will see that the
decree of the court is really made effective; that it is not made a merely
nominal decree.
Our opponents have said
that we intend to legalize monopoly. Nonsense. They have legalized monopoly. At
this moment the Standard Oil and Tobacco Trust monopolies are legalized; they
are being carried on under the decree of the Supreme Court.
Our proposal is really to
break up monopoly. Our proposal is to lay down certain requirements, and then
to require the commerce commission - the industrial commission - to see that
the trusts live up to those requirements.
Our opponents have spoken
as if we were going to let the commission declare what those requirements
should be. Not at all. We are going to put the requirements in the law and then
see that the commission requires them to obey that law.
And now, friends, as Mr.
Wilson has invited the comparison, I only want to say this: Mr. Wilson has said
that the States are the proper authorities to deal with the trusts. Well, about
80 percent of the trusts are organized in New Jersey. The Standard Oil, the
Tobacco, the Sugar, the Beef, all those trusts are organized in the state of
New Jersey and the laws of New Jersey say that their charters can at any time
be amended or repealed if they misbehave themselves and give the government
ample power to act about those laws, and Mr. Wilson has been governor a year
and nine months and he has not opened his lips.
The chapter describing what
Mr. Wilson has done about trusts in New Jersey would read precisely like a
chapter describing snakes in Ireland, which ran: "There are no snakes in
Ireland." Mr. Wilson has done precisely and exactly nothing about the
trusts.
I tell you, and I told you
at the beginning, I do not say anything on the stump that I do not believe. I
do not say anything I do not know. Let any of Mr. Wilson's friends on Tuesday
point out one thing or let Mr. Wilson point out one thing that he has done
about the trusts as governor of New Jersey.
And now, friends, there is
one thing I want to say especially to you people here in Wisconsin. All that I
have said so far is what I would say in any part of the Union. I have a
peculiar right to ask that in this great contest you men and women of Wisconsin
shall stand with us. You have taken the lead in progressive movements here in
Wisconsin. You have taught the rest of us to look to you for inspiration and
leadership.
Now, friends, you have made
that movement here locally. You will being doing a dreadful injustice to
yourselves; you will be doing a dreadful injustice to the rest of us throughout
the Union, if you fail to stand with us now that we are making this national
movement. What I am about to say now I want you to understand. If I speak of
Mr. Wilson I speak with no mind of bitterness. I merely want to discuss the
difference of policy between the Progressive and the Democratic party and to
ask you to think for yourselves which party you will follow. I will say that,
friends, because the Republican party is beaten. Nobody needs to have any idea
that anything can be done with the Republican party.
When the Republican party -
not the Republican party - when the bosses in control of the Republican party,
the Barneses and Penroses, last June stole the nomination and wrecked the
Republican party for good and all - I want to point out to you that nominally
they stole that nomination from me, but it was really from you. They did not
like me, and the longer they live the less cause they will have to like me.
But while they don't like
me, they dread you.
You are the people that
they dread. They dread the people themselves, and those bosses and the big
special interests behind them made up their mind that they would rather see the
Republican party wrecked than see it come under the control of the people
themselves. So I am not dealing with the Republican party. There are only two
ways you can vote this year. You can be progressive or reactionary. Whether you
vote Republican or Democratic it does not make a difference, you are voting
reactionary.
Now, the Democratic party
in its platform and through the utterances of Mr. Wilson has distinctly
committed itself to the old flintlock, muzzle-loaded doctrine of States'
rights, and I have said distinctly we are for people's rights. We are for the rights
of the people. If they can be obtained best through National Government, then
we are for national rights. We are for people's rights however it is necessary
to secure them.
Mr. Wilson has made a long
essay against Senator Beveridge's bill to abolish child labor. It is the same
kind of argument that would be made against our bill to prohibit women from
working more than eight hours a day in industry. It is the same kind of
argument that would have to be made; if it is true, it would apply equally against
our proposal to insist that in continuous industries there shall be by law one
day's rest in seven and three-shift eight-hour day. You have labor laws here in
Wisconsin, and Chamber of Commerce will tell you that because of that fact
there are industries that will not come to Wisconsin. They prefer to stay
outside where they can work children of tender years, where they can work women
14 and 16 hours a day, where if it is a continuous industry, they can work men 12
hours a day and seven days a week.
Now, friends, I know that
you of Wisconsin would never repeal those laws even if they are at your
commercial hurt, just as I am trying to get New York to adopt such laws even
though it will be to the New York's commercial hurt. But if possible I want to
arrange it so that we can have justice without commercial hurt, and you can
only get that if you have justice enforced nationally. You won't be burdened in
Wisconsin with industries not coming to the State if the same good laws are
extended all over the other States. Do you see what I mean?
The States all compete in a
common market; and it is not justice to the employers of a State that has
enforced just and proper laws to have them exposed to the competition of
another State where no such laws are enforced.
Now, the Democratic
platform, and their speakers declare we shall not have such laws. Mr. Wilson
has distinctly declared that we shall not have a national law to prohibit the
labor of children, to prohibit child labor. He has distinctly declared that we shall
not have a law to establish a minimum wage for women.
I ask you to look at our
declaration and hear and read our platform about social and industrial justice
and then, friends, vote for the Progressive ticket without regard to me,
without regard to my personality, for only by voting for that platform can you
be true to the cause of progress throughout this Union.
Who Shot TR?
From History.com--Before a campaign speech 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 in front of the Gilpatrick
Hotel. Schrank's .32-caliber bullet, aimed directly at Roosevelt's heart,
failed to mortally wound the former president because its force was slowed by a
glasses case and a bundle of manuscript in the breast pocket of Roosevelt's
heavy coat--a manuscript containing Roosevelt's evening speech. Schrank was
immediately detained and reportedly offered as his motive that "any man
looking for a third term ought to be shot."
Roosevelt, who suffered
only a flesh wound from the attack, went on to deliver his scheduled speech
with the bullet still in his body. After a few words, the former "Rough
Rider" pulled the torn and bloodstained manuscript from his breast pocket
and declared, "You see, it takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull
Moose." He spoke for nearly an hour and then was rushed to the hospital.
Despite his vigorous
campaign, Roosevelt, who served as the 26th U.S. president from 1901 to 1909,
was defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson in November. Shrank was deemed insane
and committed to a mental hospital, where he died in 1943.
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