The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt Part 3

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 ca.n.a.l and its rapid and successful carrying forward, the making of peace between Russia and j.a.pan, 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 ca.n.a.l 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 j.a.pan 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 p.r.o.ne 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 statesmans.h.i.+p, 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?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 rea.s.sure Mrs. Roosevelt and family against any unnecessary fear, and before he received treatment, he sent a long rea.s.suring 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 pa.s.sing 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 ma.n.u.script for the night's speech, which had been doubled, causing the bullet to traverse a hundred pages of ma.n.u.script.

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 pa.s.sed 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 antic.i.p.ate 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 pa.s.sed through Col. Roosevelt's clothes, doubled ma.n.u.script 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."