Roosevelt Shot

OK, my history lesson for the day is complete.

I find it a real blessing to come across these stories and be able to learn something new (or re-learn something I'd forgotten).

Did you know........

The horrified audience in the Milwaukee Auditorium on October 14, 1912, gasped as the former president unbuttoned his vest to reveal his bloodstained shirt. “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” the wounded candidate assured them. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bullet-riddled, 50-page speech. Holding up his prepared remarks, which had two big holes blown through each page, Roosevelt continued. “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.”

The shooting had occurred just after 8 p.m. as Roosevelt entered his car outside the Gilpatrick Hotel. As he stood up in the open-air automobile and waved his hat with his right hand to the crowd, a flash from a Colt revolver 5 feet away lit up the night. The candidate’s stenographer quickly put the would-be assassin in a half nelson and grabbed the assailant’s right wrist to prevent him from firing a second shot.


He lost the election.

The bullet remained lodged in his body for the rest of his life.

His would-be assassin was declared insane and spent the rest of his life in an asylum in Wisconsin.


If you are interested, go deeper into the story:


Grace & Peace & Love to you all -

Matt