The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore RooseveltThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore RooseveltAuthor: Oliver E. RemeyWheeler P. BloodgoodHenry F. CochemsRelease date: April 30, 2007 [eBook #21261]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by V. L. Simpson and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/American Libraries.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF EX-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore RooseveltAuthor: Oliver E. RemeyWheeler P. BloodgoodHenry F. CochemsRelease date: April 30, 2007 [eBook #21261]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by V. L. Simpson and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/American Libraries.)
Title: The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt
Author: Oliver E. RemeyWheeler P. BloodgoodHenry F. Cochems
Author: Oliver E. Remey
Wheeler P. Bloodgood
Henry F. Cochems
Release date: April 30, 2007 [eBook #21261]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by V. L. Simpson and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF EX-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT ***
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
LIBRARY EDITION.
A Library Edition of this book is in the hands of the printers and will be issued shortly.
This edition will be bound in hard cover. The volume will be neatly bound and suitable for public and private libraries.
The Library Edition will be limited in number.
Those who desire a copy will be mailed a copy as soon as the edition is off the press, if they will send one dollar to the Progressive Publishing Company of Milwaukee, Wis., Room 600 Caswell Block, Milwaukee.
The demand for this edition is rapidly exhausting it.
THIS HISTORICAL NARRATIVEIS DEDICATED TOEX-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELTTHE GREATEST AMERICANOF HIS TIME.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PREFACE.
At 8:10 o'clock on the night of Oct. 14, 1912, a shot was fired the echo of which swept around the entire world in thirty minutes.
An insane man attempted to end the life of the only living ex-president of the United States and the best known American.
The bullet failed of its mission.
Col. Theodore Roosevelt, carrying the leaden missile intended as a pellet of death in his right side, has recovered. He is spared for many more years of active service for his country.
John Flammang Schrank, the mad man who fired the shot, is in the Northern Hospital for the Insane at Oshkosh, Wis., pronounced by a commission of five alienists a paranoiac. If he recovers he will face trial for assault with intent to kill.
This little book presents an accurate story of the attempt upon the life of the ex-president. The aim of those who present it is that, being an accurate narrative, it shall be a contribution to the history of the United States.
This book is written, compiled and edited by Henry F. Cochems, Chairman of the national speakers' bureau of the Progressive party during the 1912 campaign, and who was with Col. Roosevelt in the automobile when the ex-president was shot, Wheeler P. Bloodgood, Wisconsin representative of the National Progressive committee, and Oliver E. Remey, city editor of the Milwaukee Free Press, who necessarily followed all incidents of the shooting closely.
The story told is an historical narrative in the preparation of which accuracy never has been lost sight of.
CHRONOLOGY.
October 14, 1912—At 8:10 o'clock P.M., John Flammang Schrank, of New York, a paranoiac, shoots ex-President Theodore Roosevelt in the right side with a 38-caliber bullet as the ex-President is standing in an automobile in front of Hotel Gilpatrick, Milwaukee. Schrank is immediately arrested, after a struggle to recover the revolver and protect him from violence. Col. Roosevelt, bleeding from his wound, is driven to the Auditorium, Milwaukee, and speaks to an audience of 9,000 for eighty minutes. Immediately after his speech he is taken to the Johnston Emergency hospital, Milwaukee, where his wound is dressed. At 12:30 o'clock he is taken on a special train to Chicago, then to Mercy hospital.
October 15, 1912—Schrank is arraigned in District court, Milwaukee, and admits having fired the shot. He is bound over to Municipal court for preliminary hearing.
October 18, 1912—Ex-President Roosevelt passes crisis in Mercy hospital, Chicago.
October 21, 1912—Ex-President Roosevelt leaves Chicago for his home at Oyster Bay, R.I.
October 22, 1912—Ex-President Roosevelt reaches home after a trip not seriously impairing his condition.
October 26, 1912—Ex-President Roosevelt takes first walk out of doors.
October 27, 1912—Ex-President Roosevelt celebrates his fifty-fourth birthday.
October 30, 1912—Ex-President Roosevelt speaks to an audience of 16,000 in Madison Square Garden, New York, over 30,000 having been turned away. He is given an ovation lasting forty-five minutes.
November 1, 1912—Ex-President Roosevelt again speaks to an audience filling Madison Square Garden. But for his request that it cease so that he could speak, the ovation would have exceeded that of October 30.
November 3, 1912—Ex-President Roosevelt makes his last campaign speech at Oyster Bay, R.I.
November 5, 1912—Ex-President Roosevelt votes at Oyster Bay, R.I.
November 12, 1912—John Flammang Schrank pleads guilty to assault with intent to murder before Judge August C. Backus in Municipal court, Milwaukee. Judge Backus appoints a commission of five Milwaukee alienists to determine, as officers of the court, Schrank's sanity.
November 14, 1912—The sanity commission begins examinations of Schrank.
November 22, 1912—The sanity commission reports to Judge A. C. Backus in Municipal court, Milwaukee, that Schrank is insane and was insane at the time he shot ex-President Roosevelt. Schrank is committed to the Northern Hospital for the Insane at Oshkosh, Wis. Judge Backus in making the commitment orders that in the event of recovery Schrank shall face trial on the charge of assault with intent to kill.
November 25, 1912—Schrank is taken to the Northern Hospital for the Insane, Oshkosh, Wis., by deputies from the office of the sheriff of Milwaukee county.
CHAPTER I.
THE SHOT IS FIRED.RELATED BY HENRY F. COCHEMS AFTER THE SHOOTING.
At 8:10 o'clock on the night of Oct. 14, 1912, an attempt was made to assassinate Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt in the city of Milwaukee. Col. Roosevelt had dined at the Hotel Gilpatrick with the immediate members of his traveling party. The time having arrived to leave for the Auditorium, where he was due to speak, he left his quarters, and, emerging from the front of the hotel, crossing the walk, stepped into a waiting automobile.
Instantly that he appeared a wild acclaim of applause and welcome greeted him. He settled in his seat, but, responsive to the persistent roar of the crowd, which extended in dense masses for over a block in every direction, he rose in acknowledgement, raising his hat in salute.
At this instant there cracked out the vicious report of a pistol shot, the flash of the gun showing that the would-be assassin had fired from a distance of only four or five feet.
Instantly there was a wild panic and confusion. Elbert E. Martin, one of Col. Roosevelt's stenographers, a powerful athlete and ex-football player, leaped across the machine and bore the would-be assassin to the ground. At the same moment Capt. A. O. Girard, a former Rough Rider and bodyguard of the ex-President, and several policemen were upon him. Col. Roosevelt's knees bent just a trifle, and his right hand reached forward on the door of the car tonneau. Then he straightened himself and reached back against the upholstered seat, but in the same instant he straightened himself, he again raised his hat, a reassuring smile upon his face, apparently the coolest and least excited of any one in the frenzied mob, who crowding in upon the man who fired the shot, continued to call out:
"Kill him, kill him."
I had stepped into the car beside Col. Roosevelt, about to take my seat when the shot was fired. Throwing my arm about the Colonel's waist, I asked him if he had been hit, and after Col. Roosevelt saying in an aside, "He pinked me, Harry," called out to those who were wildly tearing at the would-be assassin:
"Don't hurt him; bring him to me here!"
The sharp military tone of command was heard in the midst of the general uproar, and Martin, Girard and the policemen dragged Schrank toward where Mr. Roosevelt stood. Arriving at the side of the car, the revolver, grasped by three or four hands of men struggling for possession, was plainly visible, and I succeeded in grasping the barrel of the revolver, and finally in getting it from the possession of a detective. Mr. Martin says that Schrank still had his hands on the revolver at that time. The Colonel then said:
"Officers, take charge of him, and see that there is no violence done to him."
The crowd had quickly cleared from in front of the automobile, and we drove through, Col. Roosevelt waving a hand, the crowd now half-hysterical with frenzied excitement.
After rounding the corner I drew the revolver from my overcoat pocket and saw that it was a 38-caliber long which had been fired. As the Colonel looked at the revolver he said:
"A 38-Colt has an ugly drive."
Mr. McGrath, one of the Colonel's secretaries riding at his right side, said:
"Why, Colonel, you have a hole in your overcoat. He has shot you."
The Colonel said:
"I know it," and opened his overcoat, which disclosed his white linen, shirt, coat and vest saturated with blood. We all instantly implored and pleaded with the Colonel to drive with the automobile to a hospital, but he turned to me with a characteristic smile and said:
"I know I am good now; I don't know how long I may be. This may be my last talk in this cause to our people, and while I am good I am going to drive to the hall and deliver my speech."
Shirts Worn by Ex-President Roosevelt Showing Extent of Bleeding from Wound While He Spoke to 9,000 People.
Shirts Worn by Ex-President RooseveltShowing Extent of Bleeding from WoundWhile He Spoke to 9,000 People.
By the time we had arrived at the hall the shock had brought a pallor to his face. On alighting he walked firmly to the large waiting room in the back of the Auditorium stage, and there Doctors Sayle, Terrell and Stratton opened his shirt, exposing his right breast.
Just below the nipple of his right breast appeared a gaping hole. They insisted that under no consideration should he speak, but the Colonel asked:
"Has any one a clean handkerchief?"
Some one extending one, he placed it over the wound, buttoned up his clothes and said:
"Now, gentlemen, let's go in," and advanced to the front of the platform.
I, having been asked to present him to the audience, after admonishing the crowd that there was no occasion for undue excitement, said that an attempt to assassinate Col. Roosevelt had taken place; that the bullet was still in his body, and that he would attempt to make his speech as promised.
As the Colonel stepped forward, some one in the audience said audibly:
"Fake," whereupon the Colonel smilingly said:
"No, it's no fake," and opening his vest, the blood-red stain upon his linen was clearly visible.
A half-stifled expression of horror swept through the audience.
About the first remark uttered in the speech, as the Colonel grinned broadly at the audience, was:
"It takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose. I'm all right, no occasion for any sympathy whatever, but I want to take this occasion within five minutes after having been shot to say some things to our people which I hope no one will question the profound sincerity of."
Throughout his speech, which continued for an hour and twenty minutes, the doctors and his immediate staff of friends, sitting closely behind him, expected that he might at any moment collapse. I was so persuaded of this that I stepped over the front of the high platform to the reporters' section immediately beneath where he was speaking, so that I might catch him if he fell forward.
These precautions, however, were unnecessary, for, while his speech lacked in the characteristic fluency of other speeches, while the shock and pain caused his argument to be somewhat labored, yet it was with a soldierly firmness and iron determination, which more than all things in Roosevelt's career discloses to the country the real Roosevelt, who at the close of his official service as President in 1909 left that high office the most beloved public figure in our history since Lincoln fell, and the most respected citizen of the world. As was said in an editorial in the Chicago Evening Post:
"There is no false sentiment here; there is no self-seeking. The guards are down. The soul of the man stands forth as it is. In the Valley of the Shadow his own simple declaration of his sincerity, his own revelation of the unselfish quality of his devotion to the greatest movement of his generation, will be the standard by which history will pass upon Theodore Roosevelt its final judgment. This much they cannot take from him, no matter whether he is now to live or to die."
"There is no false sentiment here; there is no self-seeking. The guards are down. The soul of the man stands forth as it is. In the Valley of the Shadow his own simple declaration of his sincerity, his own revelation of the unselfish quality of his devotion to the greatest movement of his generation, will be the standard by which history will pass upon Theodore Roosevelt its final judgment. This much they cannot take from him, no matter whether he is now to live or to die."
To the men of America, who either love or hate Roosevelt personally, these words from his speech must carry an imperishable lesson:
"The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech. But I will try my best.
"And now, friends, I want to take advantage of this incident to say as solemn a word of warning as I know how to my fellow Americans.
"First of all, I want to say this about myself: I have altogether too many important things to think of to pay any heed or feel any concern over my own death.
"Now I would not speak to you insincerely within five minutes of being shot. I am telling you the literal truth when I say that my concern is for many other things. It is not in the least for my own life.
"I want you to understand that I am ahead of the game anyway. No man has had a happier life than I have had—a happier life in every way.
"I have been able to do certain things that I greatly wished to do, and I am interested in doing other things.
"I can tell you with absolute truthfulness that I am very much uninterested in whether I am shot or not.
"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 occupied, with the absorbing desire to do his duty.
"I am in this cause with my whole heart and soul; I believe in the Progressive movement—a movement for the betterment of mankind, a movement for making life a little easier for all our people, a movement to try to take the burdens off the man and especially the woman in this country who is most oppressed.
"I am absorbed in the success of that movement. I feel uncommonly proud in belonging to that movement.
"Friends, I ask you now this evening to accept what I am saying as absolute truth when I tell you I am not thinking of my own success, I am not thinking of my own life or of anything connected with me personally."
The disabling of Col. Roosevelt at this tragic moment was a great strategic loss in his campaign. The mind of the country was in a pronounced state of indecision. He had started at Detroit, Mich., one week before and had planned to make a great series of sledge hammer speeches upon every vital issue in the campaign, which plan took him to the very close of the fight. He had planned to put his strongest opponent in a defensive position, the effect of which, now that all is over, no man can measure. Stricken down, an immeasurable loss was sustained. In the years that lie before, when misjudgment and misstatements, which are the petty things born of prejudice, and which die with the breath that gives them life, shall have passed away, this incident and the soldierly conduct of the brave man who was its victim will have a real chastening and wholesome historical significance.
Page from Ex-President Roosevelt's Manuscript of Speech Showing Bullet Holes.
Page from Ex-President Roosevelt's Manuscript of Speech Showing Bullet Holes.
CHAPTER II.
SPEAKS TO GREAT AUDIENCE.[1]
Standing with his coat and vest opened, holding before him manuscript of the speech he had prepared to deliver, through which were two perforations by Schrank's bullet, the ex-President was given an ovation which shook the mammoth Auditorium, Milwaukee.
The audience seemed unable to realize the truth of the statement of Henry F. Cochems, who had introduced Col. Roosevelt, that the ex-President had been shot. Col. Roosevelt had opened his vest to show blood from his wound.
Even then many in the audience did not comprehend that they were witnessing a scene destined to go down in history—an ex-President of the United States, blood still flowing from the bullet wound of a would-be assassin, delivering a speech from manuscript perforated by the bullet of the assailant.
Col. Roosevelt said:
"Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible," he said. "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. (Cheers.) But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech (holds up manuscript with bullet hole) 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 can not make a very long speech, but I will try my best. (Cheers.)
"And now, friends, I want to take advantage of this incident and say a word of a solemn warning, as I know how to my fellow countrymen. First of all, I want to say this about myself: I have altogether too important things to think of to feel any concern over my own death, and now I can not speak to you insincerely within five minutes of being shot. I am telling you the literal truth when I say that my concern is for many other things. It is not in the least for my own life. I want you to understand that I am ahead of the game, anyway. (Applause and cheers.) No man has had a happier life than I have led; a happier life in every way. I have been able to do certain things that I greatly wished to do and I am interested in doing other things. I can tell you with absolute truthfulness that I am very much uninterested in whether I am shot or not. 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 can not 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 occupied with the absorbing desire to do his duty. (Applause and cheers.)
"I am in this cause with my whole heart and soul. I believe that the progressive movement is for 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 tonight. He was seized at once by one of the stenographers in my party, Mr. Martin, and I suppose 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 (opened his vest and shows bloody stain in the right breast; stain covered the entire lower half of his shirt to the waist).
"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 party 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. (Applause and cheers.)
"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 (applause) and now I wish to say seriously to all the daily newspapers, to the republican, the democratic and the socialist parties that they cannot month in and 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. (Applause.)
"I have had a good many experiences in my time and this is one of them. What I care for is my country. (Applause and cheers.) I wish I were able to impress upon my 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 against any opponent that I can not—on the stump—that I can not 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 can not 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 our common country, that they make up their minds to speak only the truth, and not to use the kind of slander and mendacity which if taken seriously must incite weak and violent natures to crimes of violence. (Applause.) Don't you make any mistake. Don't you pity me. I am all right. I am all right and you can not escape listening to the speech either. (Laughter and applause.)
"And now, friends, this incident that has just occurred—this effort to assassinate me, emphasizes to a peculiar degree the need of this progressive movement. (Applause and cheers.) 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 to forestall any such movement by making this a 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 fellow 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.
"My friends are a little more nervous than I am. Don't you waste any sympathy on me. I have had an A1 time in life and I am having it now.
"I never in my life had any movement in which I was able to serve with such wholehearted 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. (Applause.)
"And now, friends, I shall have to cut short much of the speech that I meant to give you, but I want to touch on just two or three of the points.
"In the first place, speaking to you here in Milwaukee, I wish to say that the progressive party is making its appeal 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 Ries, who was born in Denmark and Oliver Van 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.
X-Ray Photograph Showing Bullet as it Remains in Theodore Roosevelt.
X-Ray Photograph Showing Bullet as it Remains in Theodore Roosevelt.
"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 (applause). 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 it happened to be found in making some inquiries about that I found that it happened that two of them were Protestants, two Catholics 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 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 a 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 from it. That is all. (Applause.)
"I make the same appeal in our citizenship. I ask in our civic life 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 his 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 the 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 of what I think ought to be done in this country of ours. (Applause.)
"It is essential that there should be organizations of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize. (Applause.)
"My appeal for organized labor is twofold, to the outsider and the capitalist I make my appeal to treat the laborers fairly, to recognize the fact that he must organize, that there must be such organization, that it is unfair and unjust—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 of the 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 crime or violence. (Applause.) I want them to take the lead (applause) in denouncing disorder and inciting riot, that in this country we shall proceed under the protection of our laws and with all respect to the laws and I want the labor men to feel in their turn that exactly as justice must be done them so they must do justice. That they must bear their duty as citizens, their duty to this great country of ours and that they must not rest content without unless they do that duty to the fullest degree. (Interruption.)
"I know these doctors when they get hold of me they will never let me go back and there are just a few things more 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 can not 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 while I was president with what Mr. Wilson did not do while he was governor. (Applause and laughter.)
"When I took office as president"—(turning to stage) "How long have I talked?"
Answer: "Three-quarters of an hour."
"Well, I will take a quarter of an hour more. (Laughter and applause.) When I took office the anti-trust 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. (Applause and cheers.)
"Nobody was doing anything. I found speedily that the interstate commerce law by being made more perfect could be a most useful instrument for helping solve some of our industrial problems with the anti-trust law. I speedily found that almost the only positive good achieved by such a successful lawsuit as the Northern Securities suit, for instance, was for establishing the principle that the government was supreme over the big corporation, but that by itself, or that law did not do—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, 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—the 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. (Applause.)
"Our proposal is really to break up monopoly. Our proposal is to put in the law—to lay down certain requirements and then 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 the requirements should be. Not at all. We are going to put the requirements in the law and then see that the commission makes the trust. (Interruption.) You see they don't trust me. (Laughter.) 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 per cent of the trusts are organized in New Jersey. The Standard Oil, the tobacco, the sugar, the beef, all those trusts are organized in New Jersey and Mr. Wilson—and the laws of New Jersey say that their charters can at any time be amended or repealed if they misbehave themselves and it gives the government—the laws 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. (Applause and cheers.) The chapter describing of what Mr. Wilson has done about the trusts in New Jersey would read precisely like a chapter describing the snakes in Ireland, which ran: 'There are no snakes in Ireland.' (Laughter and applause.) 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 he has done about the trusts as governor of New Jersey. (Applause.)
"And now, friends, I want to say one special thing here——"
(Col. Roosevelt turned to the table upon the stage to reach for his manuscript, but found it in the hands of some one upon the stage. He demanded it back with the words: "Teach them not to grab," which provoked laughter.)
"And now, friends, there is one thing I want to say specially to you people here in Wisconsin. All that I have said so far is what I would say in any part of this union. I have a peculiar right to ask that in this great contest you men and women of Wisconsin shall stand with us. (Applause.) 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 be doing a dreadful injustice to yourselves; you will be doing a dreadful injustice to the rest of us throughout this union if you fail to stand with us now that we are making this national movement (applause) and 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 need to have any idea that anything can be done with the republican party. (Cheers and applause.)