John Flammang Schrank
John Flammang Schrank.
"When the republican party—not the republican party—when the bosses in the control of the republican party, the Barneses and Penroses last June stole the nomination and wrecked the republican party for good and all. (Applause.) I want to point out to you, nominally, they stole that nomination from me, but really it was from you. (Applause.) They did not like me and the longer they live the less cause they will have to like me. (Applause and laughter.) But while they do not 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 any difference, you are voting reactionary." (Applause.)
Col. Roosevelt stopped to take a drink of water and the doctors remonstrated with him to stop talking, to which he replied: "It is getting to be better and better as time goes on. (Turning to the audience) If these doctors don't behave themselves I won't let them look at me at all." (Laughter and applause.)
"Now the democratic party in its platform and through the utterances of Mr. Wilson has distinctly committed itself to old flintlock, muzzle loaded doctrine of states right and I have said distinctly that we are for the people's right. We are for the rights of the people. If they can be obtained best through the national government, then we are for national rights. We are for the 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 an 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 a three-shift eight hour day. You have labor laws here in Wisconsin, and any Chamber of Commerce will tell you that because of that fact there are industries that will not come into Wisconsin. They prefer to stay outside where they can work children of tender years; where they can work women fourteen and sixteen hours a day, where, if it is a continuous industry, they can work men twelve 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 to your commercial hurt, just as I am trying to get New York to adopt such laws even though it will be to 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. (Applause.) 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, their speaker declares that we shall not have such laws. Mr. Wilson has distinctly declared that you 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 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." (Applause.)
All through his talk, it was evident that his physicians feared his injury had been more serious than he was willing to admit. That a man with a bullet embedded in his body could stand up there and insist on giving the audience the speech which they had come to hear was almost incredible and it was plain the physicians as well as the other friends of the colonel on the stage were greatly alarmed.
Col. Roosevelt, however, would have none of it. "Sit down, sit down," he said to those who, when he faltered once or twice, half rose to come towards him. He insisted that he was having a good time in spite of his injury.
Finally a motherly looking woman, a few rows of seats back from the stage rose and said, "Mr. Roosevelt, we all wish you would be seated."
To this the colonel quickly replied: "I thank you, madam, but I don't mind it a bit."
To those on the stage, who wished he would adopt the suggestion of being seated, he said: "Good gracious if you saw me in the saddle at the head of my troops with a bullet in me you would not mind."
The only time Col. Roosevelt gave up and took a seat was when he came to a quotation from La Follette's weekly which paid him a tribute of praise for his work as president. This was read by Assemblyman T. J. Mahon, while the colonel rested.
At the conclusion of the reading Col. Roosevelt said that he was the same man now that he was then. He had not been president since 1909 so that what he was described as being then he was now.
T. J. Mahon read this editorial from La Follette's magazine of March 13, 1909:
"Roosevelt steps from the stage gracefully. He has ruled his party to a large extent against its will. He has played a large part of the world's work for the past seven years. The activities of his remarkably forceful personality have been so manifold that it will be long before his true rating will be fixed in the opinion of the race. He is said to think that the three great things done by him are the undertaking of the construction of the Panama canal and its rapid and successful carrying forward, the making of peace between Russia and Japan, and the sending around the world of the fleet."These are important things but many will be slow to think them his great services. The Panama canal will surely serve mankind when in operation; and the manner of organizing this work seems to be fine. But no one can yet say whether this project will be a gigantic success or a gigantic failure; and the task is one which must in the nature of things have been undertaken and carried through some time soon, as historic periods go, anyhow. The peace of Portsmouth was a great thing to be responsible for, and Roosevelt's good offices undoubtedly saved a great and bloody battle in Manchuria. But the war was fought out, and the parties ready to quit, and there is reason to think that it is only when this situation was arrived at that the good offices of the President of the United States were, more or less indirectly, invited. The fleet's cruise was a strong piece of diplomacy, by which we informed Japan that we will send our fleet wherever we please and whenever we please. It worked out well."But none of these things, it will seem to many, can compare with some of Roosevelt's other achievements. Perhaps he is loath to take credit as a reformer, for he is prone to spell the word with question marks, and to speak despairingly of 'reform.'"But for all that, this contention of 'reformers' made reform respectable in the United States, and this rebuke of 'muck-rakers' has been the chief agent in making the history of 'muck-raking' in the United States a national one, conceded to be useful. He has preached from the White House many doctrines; but among them he has left impressed on the American mind the one great truth of economic justice couched in the pithy and stinging phrase 'the square deal.' The task of making reform respectable in a commercialized world, and of giving the national a slogan in a phrase, is greater than the man who performed it is likely to think."And, then, there is the great and statesmanlike movement for the conservation of our national resources, into which Roosevelt so energetically threw himself at a time when the nation as a whole knew not that we are ruining and bankrupting ourselves as fast as we can. This is probably the greatest thing Roosevelt did, undoubtedly. This globe is the capital stock of the race. It is just so much coal and oil and gas. This may be economized or wasted. This same thing is true of phosphates and other mineral resources. Our water resources are immense, and we are only just beginning to use them. Our forests have been destroyed; they must be restored. Our soils are being depleted; they must be built up and conserved."These questions are not of this day only, or of this generation. They belong all to the future. Their consideration requires that high moral tone which regards the earth as the home of a posterity to whom we owe a sacred duty."This immense idea, Roosevelt, with high statesmanship, dinned into the ears of the nation until the nation heeded. He held it so high that it attracted the attention of the neighboring nations of the continent, and will so spread and intensify that we will soon see world's conferences devoted to it."Nothing can be greater or finer than this. It is so great and so fine that when the historian of the future shall speak of Theodore Roosevelt, he is likely to say that he did many notable things, among them that of inaugurating the movement which finally resulted in the square deal, but that his greatest work was inspiring and actually beginning a world movement for staying terrestrial waste and saving for the human race the things upon which, and upon which alone, a great and peaceful and progressive and happy race life can be founded."What statesman in all history has done anything calling for so wide a view and for a purpose more lofty?"
"Roosevelt steps from the stage gracefully. He has ruled his party to a large extent against its will. He has played a large part of the world's work for the past seven years. The activities of his remarkably forceful personality have been so manifold that it will be long before his true rating will be fixed in the opinion of the race. He is said to think that the three great things done by him are the undertaking of the construction of the Panama canal and its rapid and successful carrying forward, the making of peace between Russia and Japan, and the sending around the world of the fleet.
"These are important things but many will be slow to think them his great services. The Panama canal will surely serve mankind when in operation; and the manner of organizing this work seems to be fine. But no one can yet say whether this project will be a gigantic success or a gigantic failure; and the task is one which must in the nature of things have been undertaken and carried through some time soon, as historic periods go, anyhow. The peace of Portsmouth was a great thing to be responsible for, and Roosevelt's good offices undoubtedly saved a great and bloody battle in Manchuria. But the war was fought out, and the parties ready to quit, and there is reason to think that it is only when this situation was arrived at that the good offices of the President of the United States were, more or less indirectly, invited. The fleet's cruise was a strong piece of diplomacy, by which we informed Japan that we will send our fleet wherever we please and whenever we please. It worked out well.
"But none of these things, it will seem to many, can compare with some of Roosevelt's other achievements. Perhaps he is loath to take credit as a reformer, for he is prone to spell the word with question marks, and to speak despairingly of 'reform.'
"But for all that, this contention of 'reformers' made reform respectable in the United States, and this rebuke of 'muck-rakers' has been the chief agent in making the history of 'muck-raking' in the United States a national one, conceded to be useful. He has preached from the White House many doctrines; but among them he has left impressed on the American mind the one great truth of economic justice couched in the pithy and stinging phrase 'the square deal.' The task of making reform respectable in a commercialized world, and of giving the national a slogan in a phrase, is greater than the man who performed it is likely to think.
"And, then, there is the great and statesmanlike movement for the conservation of our national resources, into which Roosevelt so energetically threw himself at a time when the nation as a whole knew not that we are ruining and bankrupting ourselves as fast as we can. This is probably the greatest thing Roosevelt did, undoubtedly. This globe is the capital stock of the race. It is just so much coal and oil and gas. This may be economized or wasted. This same thing is true of phosphates and other mineral resources. Our water resources are immense, and we are only just beginning to use them. Our forests have been destroyed; they must be restored. Our soils are being depleted; they must be built up and conserved.
"These questions are not of this day only, or of this generation. They belong all to the future. Their consideration requires that high moral tone which regards the earth as the home of a posterity to whom we owe a sacred duty.
"This immense idea, Roosevelt, with high statesmanship, dinned into the ears of the nation until the nation heeded. He held it so high that it attracted the attention of the neighboring nations of the continent, and will so spread and intensify that we will soon see world's conferences devoted to it.
"Nothing can be greater or finer than this. It is so great and so fine that when the historian of the future shall speak of Theodore Roosevelt, he is likely to say that he did many notable things, among them that of inaugurating the movement which finally resulted in the square deal, but that his greatest work was inspiring and actually beginning a world movement for staying terrestrial waste and saving for the human race the things upon which, and upon which alone, a great and peaceful and progressive and happy race life can be founded.
"What statesman in all history has done anything calling for so wide a view and for a purpose more lofty?"
1 (Return)Stenographic Report from The Milwaukee Sentinel.
Page One of Letter Found in Schrank's Pocket
Page One of Letter Found in Schrank's Pocket.
CHAPTER III.
ROOSEVELT IN THE EMERGENCY.
After Colonel Roosevelt had finished speaking at the Auditorium, the effect of the shock and loss of blood from the shot, was quite manifest in his appearance. Despite this fact, however, he walked with firm step to an automobile waiting at the rear of the big hall, and guarded by a group of friends, was driven rapidly to the Johnston Emergency hospital. Preparation had there been made for a careful examination and for treatment by Dr. Scurry L. Terrell, who attended Col. Roosevelt during his entire trip, Dr. R. G. Sayle and Dr. T. A. Stratton, both of Milwaukee.
At the hospital, Dr. Joseph Colt Bloodgood, a surgeon of the faculty of Johns-Hopkins university, was invited into the consultation. The Colonel's first thought had been to reassure Mrs. Roosevelt and family against any unnecessary fear, and before he received treatment, he sent a long reassuring telegram, together with a telegram to Seth Bullock, whose telegram was one of the first of the stream of telegrams which began pouring in for news of the patient's condition.
During the preliminary examination of the wound by the doctors in the Johnston Emergency hospital, preparations were completed to secure X-ray pictures under the direction of Dr. J. S. Janssen, Roentgenologist, Milwaukee. Dr. Janssen secured his views and left for his laboratory to develop the negatives.
While these negatives were being secured, it was determined by the doctors that no great additional danger would be incurred if Col. Roosevelt were moved to a train, and by special train to Chicago, which plan he had proposed, so that he might be nearer to the center of his fight. He was moved by ambulance to the train, which left Milwaukee shortly after midnight.
In the meantime, the completion of the X-ray pictures disclosed the fact that the bullet laid between the fourth and fifth ribs, three and one-half inches from the surface of the chest, on the right side, and later examinations disclosed that it had shattered the fourth rib somewhat, and was separated by only a delicate tissue from the pleural cavity.
By a miracle it had spent its force, for had it entered slightly farther, it would almost to a certainty have ended Col. Roosevelt's life.
Upon Dr. Janssen's report of the location of the bullet, there was a period of indecision, during which the train waited, before the surgeons concluded that the patient might be taken to Chicago, despite the deep nature of the wound, without seriously impairing his chances.
Arriving at Chicago about 3 in the morning of October 15, an ambulance was procured and the Colonel taken to Mercy hospital, where he was attended by Dr. John B. Murphy, Dr. Arthur Dean Bevan and Dr. S. L. Terrell.
A week later, during which the surgeons concluded that the wound was not mortal, and having recovered his strength somewhat, he was taken East to his home at Oyster Bay.
The bullet lies where it imbedded itself. It has not been disturbed by probes, because surgeons have concluded that such an effort would incur additional danger.
That the shot fired by Schrank didn't succeed in murdering Col. Roosevelt is a miracle of good fortune. A "thirty-eight" long Colt's cartridge, fired from a pistol frame of "forty-four" caliber design, so built because it gives a heavier drive to the projectile, fired at that close range, meant almost inevitable death.
The aim was taken at a lower portion of Col. Roosevelt's body, but a bystander struck Schrank's arm at the moment of explosion, and elevated the direction of the shot. After passing through the Colonel's heavy military overcoat, and his other clothing, it would have certainly killed him had it not struck in its course practically everything which he carried on his person which could impede its force.
In his coat pocket he had fifty pages of manuscript for the night's speech, which had been doubled, causing the bullet to traverse a hundred pages of manuscript.
It had struck also his spectacle case on the outer concave surface of the gun metal material of which the case was constructed. It had passed through a double fold of his heavy suspenders before reaching his body.
Had anyone of those objects been out of the range of the bullet, Schrank's dastardly purpose would have been accomplished beyond any conjecture.
Just before he went to the operating room in the Emergency hospital Col. Roosevelt directed the following telegram to Mrs. Roosevelt and gave orders that if the telegraph office at Oyster Bay was closed the message should be taken to Sagamore Hill by taxicab.
"Am in excellent shape, made an hour and half speech. The wound is a trivial one. I think they will find that it merely glanced on a rib and went somewhere into a cavity of the body; it certainly did not touch a lung and isn't a particle more serious than one of the injuries any of the boys used continually to be having. Am at the Emergency hospital at the moment, but anticipate going right on with my engagements. My voice seems to be in good shape. Best love to Ethel."Theodore Roosevelt."
"Am in excellent shape, made an hour and half speech. The wound is a trivial one. I think they will find that it merely glanced on a rib and went somewhere into a cavity of the body; it certainly did not touch a lung and isn't a particle more serious than one of the injuries any of the boys used continually to be having. Am at the Emergency hospital at the moment, but anticipate going right on with my engagements. My voice seems to be in good shape. Best love to Ethel.
"Theodore Roosevelt."
The first bulletin issued by surgeons at the Johnston Emergency hospital was:
"The bleeding was insignificant and the wound was immediately cleansed, externally and dressed with sterile gauze by R. G. Sayle, of Milwaukee, consulting surgeon of the Emergency hospital. As the bullet passed through Col. Roosevelt's clothes, doubled manuscript and metal spectacle case, its force was much diminished. The appearance of the wound also presented evidence of a much bent bullet. The colonel is not suffering from shock and is in no pain. His condition was so good that the surgeons did not object to his continuing his journey in his private car to Chicago where he will be placed under surgical care."(Signed)"Dr. S. L. Terrell."Dr. R. G. Sayle."Dr. Joseph Colt Bloodgood,of the faculty of Johns-Hopkins University."Dr. T. A. Stratton."
"The bleeding was insignificant and the wound was immediately cleansed, externally and dressed with sterile gauze by R. G. Sayle, of Milwaukee, consulting surgeon of the Emergency hospital. As the bullet passed through Col. Roosevelt's clothes, doubled manuscript and metal spectacle case, its force was much diminished. The appearance of the wound also presented evidence of a much bent bullet. The colonel is not suffering from shock and is in no pain. His condition was so good that the surgeons did not object to his continuing his journey in his private car to Chicago where he will be placed under surgical care."
(Signed)
"Dr. S. L. Terrell.
"Dr. R. G. Sayle.
"Dr. Joseph Colt Bloodgood,
of the faculty of Johns-Hopkins University.
"Dr. T. A. Stratton."
The following bulletin was issued just before Col. Roosevelt was taken to the special train which carried him to Chicago:
"Col. Roosevelt has a superficial flesh wound below the right breast with no evidence of injury to the lung."The bullet is probably lodged somewhere in the chest walls, because there is but one wound and no signs of any injury to the lung."His condition was so good that the surgeons did not try to locate the bullet, nor did they try to probe for it.""Dr. S. L. Terrell."Dr. R. G. Sayle."
"Col. Roosevelt has a superficial flesh wound below the right breast with no evidence of injury to the lung.
"The bullet is probably lodged somewhere in the chest walls, because there is but one wound and no signs of any injury to the lung.
"His condition was so good that the surgeons did not try to locate the bullet, nor did they try to probe for it."
"Dr. S. L. Terrell.
"Dr. R. G. Sayle."
CHAPTER IV.
CAREFUL OF COLLAR BUTTONS.
Miss Regine White, Superintendent of the Johnston Emergency Hospital, cut the gory shirts from Colonel Roosevelt and, after he had been attended by surgeons, tied the hospital shirt, with "Johnston Emergency Hospital" emblazoned across the front, about him.
Miss White, describing the ex-President's stay in the hospital, said:
"Col. Roosevelt is the most unusual patient who ever was ministered to in the Johnston Emergency Hospital, in that he was absolutely calm and unperturbed, and influenced every one about him to be so, although excitement and unrest were in the very atmosphere, and he was suffering much.
"Col. Roosevelt had not been in the hospital fifteen minutes before every one he came in contact with was willing to swear allegiance to the Bull Moose party, and personal allegiance to, the genial Bull Moose himself. He was so friendly and cordial, so natural and free, so happy and genial and so inclined to 'jolly' us all that we felt on terms of intimate friendship with him almost immediately, and yet through all this freedom of manner he maintained a dignity that never for an instant let us forget we were in the presence of a great man.
"It is almost unbelievable that he could have been as unruffled and apparently unconcerned as he was when he really was suffering, and when he did not know how serious the wound was."
"GOD HELP POOR FOOL."
"I asked the colonel how he felt about the prosecution of the man who shot him," said Miss White, "and he said, 'I've not decided yet, but God help the poor fool under any circumstances!' and the tone he used was one of kindly sympathy and sincerity, and without one trace of malice or sarcasm.
"He seemed kindly interested in everything that any one said to him. Miss Elvine Kucko, one of our nurses, shook hands with him when he was about to go and said she was sorry the shooting had happened in our city. The colonel consoled her by saying it might have happened anywhere. I broke in with a remark to the effect that he would have felt even worse had it been perpetrated by a Milwaukeean, and that we were glad it was a New Yorker who did the deed.
"'You cruel little woman!' the patient ejaculated, and I remembered then that New York was the ex-President's state."
When he was ready to go, Miss White offered him a sealed envelope and told him his cuff buttons, shirt studs and collar buttons were in it.
"No, you can't do that with me," he said, "I want to see! I don't intend to get down to Chicago without the flat button for the back of my collar."
Miss White joined him in a laugh as she pulled open the envelope and counted each one separately into his hand. That flat bone button that he treasured hid itself under one of the others and he had to have a second count before he was satisfied that he was not going to be inconvenienced by its loss when he should next care to wear a collar.
Doctors and nurses questioned the ex-President's coat being warm enough, but he assured them that the coat was one he had worn in the Spanish-American war, that it was of military make and would keep him warm enough in a steam-heated Pullman.
When the bandages were being strapped on the colonel's chest to keep the dressing in place, one of the doctors, Fred Stratton, a young giant, didn't put one fold as Miss White thought it ought to be. She ordered it put right, and the colonel began to laugh, which isn't to be wondered at when one remembers that Miss White is a tiny, wee bit of fluffy humanity who doesn't look a bit like what one would expect, the superintendent of a big hospital and looked a pigmy beside the big doctor.
Page Two of Letter Found in Schrank's Pocket
Page Two of Letter Found in Schrank's Pocket.
"That's nothing," said Dr. R. G. Sayle, "she's been bossing us doctors for the past twenty years!"
"Oh, please—not quite that long——" began Miss White.
"Well, we'll knock off two and make it eighteen," the colonel interposed.
When the wound was dressed doctors and nurses tried to persuade the patient to remain over night, but without success.
"I know if Mrs. Roosevelt were here she would insist upon your staying," Miss White said.
"Young woman, if Mrs. Roosevelt were here I am certain she would insist upon my leaving immediately," her husband made reply, and gazed at the four pretty nurses surrounding him.
When the patient was brought up the elevator and led into the "preparation" room, the first thing to do was to prepare him for care of his wound. Miss White took his eye glasses. The Colonel objected and said he did not want those out of his sight. But when Miss White assured him she would give the glasses her personal attention he seemed content with the arrangement.
One of the physicians asked for a chair for Col. Roosevelt. Miss White said the operating table was ready, and the colonel immediately acquiesced and laid down on the carefully scrubbed pine slab on an iron frame, which has carried the weight of tramps, laborers and other unfortunates picked up in the street, but never before that of an ex-President of the United States.
Miss White was a little diffident about exposing the fact that the president had said a swear word, but she finally admitted that he remarked:
"I don't care a d——n about finding the bullet but I do hope they'll fix it up so I need not continue to suffer."
The doctors washed the wound area, painted it with iodine, itself a somewhat painful operation, and proceeded to the dressing.
One of the doctors told Col. Roosevelt that Miss White was a suffragist, and that after his kind treatment he ought to be converted. Miss White said the Big Bull Moose was a suffragist and that was one of the big planks of his party and the colonel laughed and said of course he believed in it.
When the party left for Chicago Dr. R. G. Sayle took with his antisepticized surgeon's gloves, surgical dressing and instruments to be used in case of hemorrhage before Chicago was reached.
Not a souvenir of the ex-President's visit remains in the hospital. His shirt was turned over to the police, and a blood-soaked handkerchief which was bound upon the wound, and which was picked up by one of the nurses, was found to have an "S" in the corner, so it was evident that it either did not belong to the ex-President or he had not always owned it, and this was discarded.
The Mercy Hospital nurses were appreciative of Col. Roosevelt.
"He was the best patient I ever had," said Miss Welter, and the sentiment was endorsed by Miss Fitzgerald.
"He was consideration itself. He never had a word of complaint all the time he was at the hospital, and his chief worry seemed to be that we were not comfortable. We had expected to find him 'strenuous' and possibly disagreeable. On the contrary, we found him most docile. He chafed at being kept in bed, but he tried not to show it, and he never was ill-humored or peevish, as many patients in a similar position are."
CHAPTER V.
ARRIVAL AT MERCY HOSPITAL.
Arriving at Mercy Hospital, Chicago, Col. Roosevelt was given further examination on October 15. Several bulletins of his condition were issued. The last official bulletin given out by his staff physicians, J. B. Murphy, A. D. Bevan and Scurry L. Terrell, showed a most favorable condition.
Mrs. Roosevelt reached Chicago with her son Theodore and her daughter Ethel, was driven directly to Mercy Hospital and took charge of her husband as soon as she had greeted him. She was quite composed on her arrival and placidly directed affairs all through. As a result of her presence, the colonel's visiting list was materially cut down, he devoted less time to reading telegrams, and discussed the campaign very little.
Part of the morning he spent in reading cablegrams of sympathy and congratulation on his escape from Emperor William, King George, the President of France, the King of Italy, the King of Spain, the President of Portugal and the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany.
Among his few callers were Col. Cecil Lyon, Medill McCormick, Dr. Alexander Lambert, his family physician, who accompanied Mrs. Roosevelt to Chicago, Dr. Evans of Chicago and Dr. Woods-Hutchinson, a writer on medical topics, a warm personal friend.
As soon as he saw Dr. Lambert the colonel said:
"Lambert, you'd have let me finish that speech if you'd been there after I was shot, wouldn't you?"
"Perhaps so," returned the doctor, a little dubiously, "but I should have made sure you were not seriously hurt first."
Before Mrs. Roosevelt arrived the colonel was insistent that he be allowed to go to Oyster Bay shortly. After a talk with Mrs. Roosevelt, he said he would leave that question to her.
"It will probably be ten days at least before we go," she said. "It is too far distant to attempt a prophecy."
A more careful examination of the X-ray photographs taken of the patient disclosed the fact that his fourth rib was slightly splintered by the impact of the bullet lodged against it. This accounted for the discomfort that the colonel suffered.
Mrs. Roosevelt was insistent on taking her husband home at the earliest moment consistent with safety.
The colonel passed an easy day. He continued to exhibit the utmost indifference to the motives of Schrank, who sought his life. "His name might be Czolgosz or anything else as far as I am concerned," he said to one of his visitors. "I never heard of him before and know nothing about him."
To another friend he expressed the opinion that the man was a maniac afflicted with a paranoia on the subject of the third term. He showed no curiosity about him and did not discuss him, although he talked considerably about the shooting.
"You know," he said to Dr. Murphy, "I have done a lot of hunting and I know that a thirty-eight caliber pistol slug fired at any range will not kill a bull moose."
Before he went to sleep, Col. Roosevelt called for hot water and a mirror and sitting in bed, carefully shaved himself. Mrs. Roosevelt, tired out after her long journey, also retired early, at 10 o'clock.
The following bulletin, issued by the surgeons on the morning of October 15, described the wound inflicted by Schrank's bullet:
"Col. Roosevelt's hurt is a deep bullet wound of the chest wall without striking any vital organ in transit. The wound was not probed. The point of entrance was to the right of and one inch below the level of the right nipple. The range of the bullet was upward and inward, a distance of four inches, deeply in the chest wall. There was no evidence of the bullet penetrating into the lung. Pulse, 90; temperature, 99.2; respiration, 20; leucocyte count, .82 at 10 a.m. No operation to remove bullet is indicated at the present time. Condition hopeful, but wound so important as to demand absolute rest for a number of days."(Signed)"Dr. John B. Murphy."Dr. Arthur B. Bevan."Dr. Scurry L. Terrell."Dr. R. G. Sayle."
"Col. Roosevelt's hurt is a deep bullet wound of the chest wall without striking any vital organ in transit. The wound was not probed. The point of entrance was to the right of and one inch below the level of the right nipple. The range of the bullet was upward and inward, a distance of four inches, deeply in the chest wall. There was no evidence of the bullet penetrating into the lung. Pulse, 90; temperature, 99.2; respiration, 20; leucocyte count, .82 at 10 a.m. No operation to remove bullet is indicated at the present time. Condition hopeful, but wound so important as to demand absolute rest for a number of days."
(Signed)
"Dr. John B. Murphy.
"Dr. Arthur B. Bevan.
"Dr. Scurry L. Terrell.
"Dr. R. G. Sayle."
The arrival of Col. Roosevelt in Mercy Hospital, Chicago, was described by John B. Pratt, of the International News service, a correspondent traveling with the ex-President during the campaign, as follows:
"Any way, if I had to die, I wanted to die with my boots on." Lying on a hospital bed completely filled by his great bulk, Theodore Roosevelt made this answer to a question by Dr. Terrell.
He had just talked with the newspaper men who were with his party enroute. Terrell, coming in at the conclusion of the conversation, expressed the fear that the ex-President was exerting himself beyond his strength.
"You do too much," said Terrell. "The most uncomfortable hour I ever spent in my life was while I sat on that platform in Milwaukee wondering where that bullet was and in how imminent danger you were. How could you be so incautious as to make a speech then? It was all very well for you to say the shot was not fatal but how could you tell?"
The colonel grinned, raised his arm heavily, trying not to show the pain that came with every movement.
"I did not think the wound was dangerous," he said. "I was confident that it was not in a place where much harm could follow and therefore I wished to make the speech. Anyway, even if it went against me—well, if I had to die—" and the colonel chuckled grimly, "I thought I'd rather die with my boots on."
The newspaper men who were with him when out of the darkness came the bullet that still menaces his life, felt that in that sentence he had epitomized his unfaltering courage. Never once since has he wavered in courage. Physically overcome he once sank back, and came as near to fainting as so strong a man can. All the rest of the time he has been as serene as a man unhurt.
It was in the gray of this morning's daylight that we caught our first glimpse of him after the shooting. Standing in the corridor of his private car as it lay in the North-Western station in Chicago, we heard Dr. Terrell say:
"Now is a chance to see the old warrior, he is coming out."
The door of his state room creaked and swung open slowly. As it swung back within loomed the figure that attracts attention everywhere. The colonel stepped out slowly, his shoulders thrown back and his bearing soldierly. He stretched out two fingers to one of the party.
"Ah, old comrade," he said, "shake. The newspaper boys are my friends," he added, as he proceeded toward the door of the car. "I'm glad to see them."
"You had a pretty rough time last night, colonel," suggested somebody.
"We did have a middling lively time, didn't we?" said the colonel with a broad grin.
"Pretty plucky of you," said another man. "Everybody agrees to that."
"Fiddlesticks," and the colonel stepped out on the platform and down the steps.
He had indignantly refused a stretcher and even balked at an ambulance, but finally agreed that this was the best means of conveyance to the hospital.
He walked past a silent crowd, a crowd that wanted to cheer, but did not dare, but stood, without a smile as he went by. To them all he waved a hand. Just as he was leaving the steps a flashlight flared forth, the sharp report of the powder startling everybody.
Capt. A. O. Girard
Capt. A. O. Girard.
"Ah, shot again," said the colonel, without a tremor.
Before climbing into the ambulance he turned to the newspaper men who had come out to see him off.
"I want to see you newspaper men at the hospital at 3 o'clock. I want all the old guard there." Then he started up the steps of the automobile conveyance with a firm step and tried to seat himself firmly on the cushion. But he had counted on more strength than he possessed. With a smothered exclamation he sank back among them, his head dropping and his figure one of pathetic helplessness.
At 3 o'clock he welcomed the newspaper men sitting up in bed with his massive chest hidden beneath an undershirt.
"I came away in too big a hurry to get my pajamas," he explained, apologetically.
"Here they are, bless their hearts. They never desert me," the colonel cried, as the visitors were ushered in.
His face had lost the gray of the early morning and resumed its normal tint. He never looked better and certainly never looked larger. He filled the narrow hospital cot completely, from side to side, and from end to end.
Two beautiful rooms had been secured for him at Mercy Hospital, one of the biggest and finest institutions in the west. The four windows of the sick room faced two on Calumet avenue and two on Twenty-sixth street, in a quiet part of town, away from the smoke and the roar of the elevated trains. To make the air more salubrious an oxygen apparatus had been placed in the room, which liberated just enough gas to make the air fresh and to give it an autumn twang.
In response to a question as to how he felt, he replied with a laugh: "I feel as well as a man feels who has a bullet in him."
"But haven't you any pain?" asked someone.
"Well," the colonel said, dryly, "A man with a bullet in him is lucky if he doesn't experience a little pain."
Here Dr. Terrell, always on watch, held up a warning hand.
"You must not talk much," he said.
"I'll boss this job," said Roosevelt. "You go away and let me do this thing."
Just then the door opened to admit Elbert E. Martin, the herculean stenographer who had grabbed Schrank before he could fire a second shot.
"Here he is," cried the colonel, waving his hand, "here is the man that did it."
Martin had brought a lot of telegrams. The colonel, lying partly propped up adjusted the great tortoise shell glasses and proceeded to look them over. With one of them he seemed especially pleased. It came from Madison, Wis., and was as follows:
"Permit me to express my profound regret that your life should have been in peril and to express my congratulations upon your fortunate escape from serious injury. I trust that you will speedily recover.(Signed)"Robert M. La Follette."
"Permit me to express my profound regret that your life should have been in peril and to express my congratulations upon your fortunate escape from serious injury. I trust that you will speedily recover.
(Signed)
"Robert M. La Follette."
"Let me see that again," he said, after turning it back to Martin. When he had read it a second time he said: "Here, take this," and dictated:
"Senator Robert M. La Follette—Thanks sincerely for your kind expressions of sympathy."
"Senator Robert M. La Follette—Thanks sincerely for your kind expressions of sympathy."
Half an hour the colonel spent looking over and answering private telegrams, dictating always in a clear, strong voice. When he had done he talked with the newspaper men of former experiences of the kind he had just gone through and of cranks at Sagamore Hill and at the White House.
"But I never had a bullet in me before," he said.
CHAPTER VI.
GETS BACK INTO CAMPAIGN.
October 17, convinced that he was beyond all possible danger, Col. Roosevelt resumed the active campaign from his sick room in Mercy Hospital by dictating a statement in which he requested his political opponents to continue the fight as if nothing had happened to him.
The colonel awoke feeling as he expressed it, "like a bull moose." In the afternoon he overcame Mrs. Roosevelt's objections to work long enough to send for Stenographer Martin and dictate the statement that put him back into politics.
Then he answered dispatches from President Taft, Cardinal Gibbons, and several other of those who had sent messages of sympathy.
He carefully reread the dispatch from President Taft and dictated this reply:
"I appreciate your sympathetic inquiry and wish to thank you for it."
"I appreciate your sympathetic inquiry and wish to thank you for it."
"Sign that Theodore Roosevelt," he said to Martin.
To Cardinal Gibbons he sent this:
"I am deeply touched by your kind words."
"I am deeply touched by your kind words."
To Woodrow Wilson: "I wish to thank you for your very warm sympathy."
His statement dictated to Stenographer Martin asking the campaign to continue despite Schrank's shot was as follows:
"I wish to express my cordial agreement with the manly and proper statement of Mr. Bryan at Franklin, Ind., when in arguing for a continuance of the discussion of the issues at stake in the contest he said:"'The issues of this campaign should not be determined by the act of an assassin. Neither Col. Roosevelt nor his friends should ask that the discussion should be turned away from the principles that are involved. If he is elected President it should be because of what he has done in the past and what he proposes to do hereafter.'"I wish to point out, however, that neither I nor my friends have asked that the discussion be turned away from the principles that are involved. On the contrary, we emphatically demand that the discussion be carried on precisely as if I had not been shot. I shall be sorry if Mr. Wilson does not keep on the stump and feel that he owes it to himself and to the American people to continue on the stump."I wish to make one more comment on Mr. Bryan's statement. It is of course perfectly true that in voting for me or against me, consideration must be paid to what I have done in the past and to what I propose to do. But it seems to me far more important that consideration should be paid to what the progressive party proposes to do."I cannot too strongly emphasize the fact upon which we progressives insist that the welfare of any one man in this fight is wholly immaterial compared to the greatest fundamental issues involved in the triumph of the principles for which our cause stands. If I had been killed the fight would have gone on exactly the same. Gov. Johnson, Senator Beveridge, Mr. Straus, Senator Bristow, Miss Jane Addams, Giffford Pinchot, Judge Ben Lindsay, Raymond Robbins, Mr. Prendergast and the hundreds of other men now on the stump are preaching the doctrine that I have been preaching and stand for, and represent just the same cause. They would have continued the fight in exactly the same way if I had been killed, and they are continuing it in just the same way now that I am for the moment laid up."So far as my opponents are concerned, whatever could with truth and propriety have been said against me and my cause before I was shot can with equal truth and equal propriety be said against me and it now should be so said, and the things that cannot be said now, are merely the things that ought not to have been said before. This is not a contest about any man; it is a contest concerning principles."If my broken rib heals fast enough to relieve my breathing I shall hope to be able to make one or two speeches yet in this campaign; in any event, if I am not able to make them the men I have mentioned above and the hundreds like them will be stating our case right to the end of the campaign and I trust our opponents will be stating their case also."Theodore Roosevelt."
"I wish to express my cordial agreement with the manly and proper statement of Mr. Bryan at Franklin, Ind., when in arguing for a continuance of the discussion of the issues at stake in the contest he said:
"'The issues of this campaign should not be determined by the act of an assassin. Neither Col. Roosevelt nor his friends should ask that the discussion should be turned away from the principles that are involved. If he is elected President it should be because of what he has done in the past and what he proposes to do hereafter.'
"I wish to point out, however, that neither I nor my friends have asked that the discussion be turned away from the principles that are involved. On the contrary, we emphatically demand that the discussion be carried on precisely as if I had not been shot. I shall be sorry if Mr. Wilson does not keep on the stump and feel that he owes it to himself and to the American people to continue on the stump.
"I wish to make one more comment on Mr. Bryan's statement. It is of course perfectly true that in voting for me or against me, consideration must be paid to what I have done in the past and to what I propose to do. But it seems to me far more important that consideration should be paid to what the progressive party proposes to do.
"I cannot too strongly emphasize the fact upon which we progressives insist that the welfare of any one man in this fight is wholly immaterial compared to the greatest fundamental issues involved in the triumph of the principles for which our cause stands. If I had been killed the fight would have gone on exactly the same. Gov. Johnson, Senator Beveridge, Mr. Straus, Senator Bristow, Miss Jane Addams, Giffford Pinchot, Judge Ben Lindsay, Raymond Robbins, Mr. Prendergast and the hundreds of other men now on the stump are preaching the doctrine that I have been preaching and stand for, and represent just the same cause. They would have continued the fight in exactly the same way if I had been killed, and they are continuing it in just the same way now that I am for the moment laid up.
"So far as my opponents are concerned, whatever could with truth and propriety have been said against me and my cause before I was shot can with equal truth and equal propriety be said against me and it now should be so said, and the things that cannot be said now, are merely the things that ought not to have been said before. This is not a contest about any man; it is a contest concerning principles.
"If my broken rib heals fast enough to relieve my breathing I shall hope to be able to make one or two speeches yet in this campaign; in any event, if I am not able to make them the men I have mentioned above and the hundreds like them will be stating our case right to the end of the campaign and I trust our opponents will be stating their case also.
"Theodore Roosevelt."
October 19, Gov. Hiram W. Johnson, of California, candidate for Vice-President on the National Progressive ticket, was summoned to Mercy Hospital by Col. Roosevelt.
The governor hastened to the hospital and conferred with Roosevelt for an hour. The ex-President urged upon Johnson that he return to California to hold his office as governor. Johnson had two years to serve of his term and under the law he would forfeit the governorship if he did not get back. The law there provides that no governor shall absent himself from office for more than two months running. Johnson had been away all but a few days of that period.
"Governor, I realize the sacrifice you have made in keeping so long away from your office," began the colonel, in serious tone. "I am told that if you do not hurry back they will take the governorship away from you. Now, I want you to go back. Leave the campaign to me. I can handle it all right. Soon I'm going out on the stump and I'll lead the fight myself."
Gov. Johnson marveled at the bold idea that Roosevelt, convalescing from the bullet wound, would take command again.
"You can't do it, colonel," he protested. "You will need to build up your strength. I won't——"
"Fiddlesticks," interrupted the colonel. "You'll do what I say. I never felt any stronger in my life. It's all a matter of being able to breathe easier with this splintered rib. That won't bother me more than a few days. Then they can't hold me back."
Flatly Gov. Johnson informed Col. Roosevelt that he wanted to stay in the fight.
"I'm needed," he went on. "I'm going to let them take the governorship. I'll resign."
Leaning out from the arm chair in which he sat, Roosevelt whacked his right fist down on the table before him. A sharp pain went through the breast pierced by the bullet.
"I tell you, governor, you'll not do it," fairly cried the colonel, so vehemently that Mrs. Roosevelt, in the next room, stepped to the doorway.
"You must be quiet, Theodore," spoke Mrs. Roosevelt, lifting a warning finger.
"Yes, that's right," agreed the colonel, "but the governor here is recalcitrant and I've got to speak roughly to him."
After a brisk interchange of opinion as to the feasibility of the governor giving up the campaign the two violently taking opposite sides, bidding the colonel an affectionate good-bye, Gov. Johnson left the hospital. As he passed out to an automobile, Johnson said he had promised the colonel to talk the matter over with other leaders before deciding what to do.
"He insists that I return to California and I insist I won't," explained the governor. "We couldn't agree."
Later Gov. Johnson conferred at his hotel with William Allen White, Francis J. Heney and other Bull Moose leaders. The governor was obdurate in his decision to stick in the race.
"Col. Roosevelt is in no shape to take up the responsibility," he maintained. "It is but an evidence of his magnanimity that he urges me to return to California. I'd rather lost the job than desert the colonel now."
Attorney General U. S. Webb of California on October 20 issued the following opinion, however, which did away with possibility of Gov. Johnson losing his office: