Posted on 10/14/2014 5:44:19 PM PDT by iowamark
On October 14, 1912, an unemployed saloonkeeper shot former president and Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt outside a Milwaukee hotel. Rather than being rushed to the hospital, Roosevelt insisted on delivering his scheduled 90-minute speech. By slowing the bullet, those lengthy prepared remarks may actually have saved his life.
Theodore Roosevelts opening line was hardly remarkable for a presidential campaign speech: Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. His second line, however, was a bombshell.
I dont know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.
Clearly, Roosevelt had buried the lede. 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...
Only two days before, the editor-in-chief of The Outlook characterized Roosevelt as an electric battery of inexhaustible energy, and for the next 90 minutes the 53-year-old former president proved it. I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot; not a rap, he claimed. Few could doubt him. Although his voice weakened and his breath shortened, Roosevelt glared at his nervous aides whenever they begged him to stop speaking or positioned themselves around the podium to catch him if he collapsed. Only with the speech completed did he agree to visit the hospital...
Doctors determined it was safer to leave the bullet embedded deep in Roosevelts chest than to operate, although the shooting exacerbated his chronic rheumatoid arthritis for the rest of his life...
(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...
from that... to Obama riding a girl bike with a helmet on!
how far America has fallen!
“unemployed saloonkeeper” - Sounds like a Democrat to me.
Now 102 years ago.
You have to wonder if being shot and carrying a lead bullet shortened TR’s life. He died in 1919 at age 60 when many Republicans were hoping to run him in 1920.
Even though he was found to be insane, the written screed found on him indicated he had political motivation.
I think he contracted malaria in south america and after that it was said he was never the same physically.
Interesting question. Roosevelt was a sickly child and overcame his weaknesses thru sheer force of character. He was a very progressive man for his time. Progressives in those days were not communists.
worst. pic. of. mooch. ever.
seriously the absolute worst. it conjures up really bad things.
Thank God he didn’t run.
That is flipping amazing, never heard that one before.
History ping.
Teddy Roosevelt was the Arlen Specter of his day.
I read about this years ago and found it amazing. TR was a progressive alright and he liked to poke his nose in nearly every facet of government but I do admire his self-determination and grit and liked that he had a tireless drive. You can take something good out of his personal life while acknowledging that politically both he and Woodrow Wilson probably brought about the modern liberal
Milwaukee has taverns, not saloons.
Well except for the fact that he believed there should be no private property ownership.
When men had tattoos and women wore earings
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