The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt Part 16

Q. Did you tell anybody that you were going to leave your baggage there?

A. I told them people I was going to stay away for about three days.

Q. Did you make any arrangement for them to send it in case you wrote for it?

A. No, sir; I stopped there two days and paid eight dollars in advance for a week's board, and I dressed up and went away and I told the people I might be back in three days and of course ever since then they didn't hear anything of me and I guess if they do hear and I can communicate they will give it over and all perhaps they will charge is the storage.

Q. Why did you tell them you were going to be gone three days?

A. I didn't think it would take longer than three days when I would be away.

Q. Then you thought you would go back?

A. I thought I would be arrested, I couldn't tell.

Q. What does your grip contain?

A. Nothing but a suit of clothes and underwear and I got a deed to my property and as I told you the box where the gun is in and that's about all there is in.

Q. Are you a full citizen?

A. Sir?

Q. Are you a full citizen?

A. What does that mean?

Q. Got your second papers?

A. I never had my first, I come over here a minor; I got my papers when I was twenty-one, I think my paper reads July twenty-third, ninety-seven; I think that's what it reads.

Q. When did you first begin to think about this?

A. I began to think of it after the Chicago convention.

Q. What caused you to think of it?

A. I thought on account of calling a new convention and starting the third party that makes anybody think; what's the use of being a citizen if you don't take any interest in the politics of our country?

Q. What did you read in the paper that directed your mind to Mr.

Roosevelt?

A. You read a lot of things in the papers and especially in the New York World; the New York World practically come out that the country is in danger if he has the chair again.

Q. Did you read Harper's Weekly?

A. Harper's I don't read, no, sir.

Q. Did they say anything in particular that centered your attention on this act?

A. No, sir; not at all, perhaps a million people read it and didn't think anything and I just happened to read the matter over, I was interested from there.

Q. Editorial page?

A. Editorial page.

Q. You remember any particular editorial?

A. No, sir; I do not remember. I could not repeat it.

Q. Well, did you read anything else in any other paper except the World that made any impression on you of Mr. Roosevelt?

A. Well, in fact I have been following up all papers of the political views and I have been taking out the World as the right thing, she is right the way she talks and one paper I read, the New York Herald, and she never speaks about Theodore Roosevelt but the third termer and she don't mention his name, only the third termer.

Q. Did you ever apply for any position in the United States Government?

A. No, sir.

Q. Did you know Mr. Roosevelt when he was Police Commissioner?

A. I did, indeed I did. In those days we was and my folks were in the liquor business and they closed us up like the other people and I didn't feel any sympathy with them.

Q. Which particular place did he close up?

A. What do you mean?

Q. You say he closed up some place of your people, which one?

A. He closed up all places.

Q. Were you in the liquor business?

A. I was with my folks.

Q. With whom?

A. My uncle.

Q. He closed your uncle?

A. He closed everything and there was about two months there was nothing open and a policeman stationed at every door.

Q. That was after midnight and on Sunday?

A. It was not closed up on Sunday but during the week, I am not talking about the Sunday Law.

Q. And you thought that was not right?