The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt Part 4

CHAPTER IV.

CAREFUL OF COLLAR b.u.t.tONS.

Miss Regine White, Superintendent of the Johnston Emergency Hospital, cut the gory s.h.i.+rts from Colonel Roosevelt and, after he had been attended by surgeons, tied the hospital s.h.i.+rt, 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 friends.h.i.+p 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."

"G.o.d 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 G.o.d help the poor fool under any circ.u.mstances!' 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, 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 b.u.t.tons, s.h.i.+rt studs and collar b.u.t.tons 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 b.u.t.ton 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 b.u.t.ton 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 a.s.sured 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 gla.s.ses. The Colonel objected and said he did not want those out of his sight. But when Miss White a.s.sured him she would give the gla.s.ses 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 s.h.i.+rt 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.