{"id":14926,"date":"2018-05-29T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumhack.com\/?p=14926"},"modified":"2022-11-20T00:36:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-20T05:36:25","slug":"teddy-roosevelt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumhack.com\/teddy-roosevelt\/","title":{"rendered":"It Takes More Than That to Kill a Bull Moose"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It takes more than that to kill a bull moose”<\/strong> are some of the most famous words in American presidential history. They all started with a ghost story. Let’s begin.<\/p>\n

In 1912, Bavarian-born saloonkeeper John Schrank had a dream. In this dream he was visited by the ghost of President William McKinley, killed by an assassin\u2019s bullets over a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

McKinley\u2019s specter pointed to an image of Teddy Roosevelt and said, \u201cThis is my murderer\u2014avenge my death.\u201d Schrank listened, and, on October 14, 1912, he put a .38 caliber bullet in Teddy Roosevelt\u2019s chest at a campaign stop in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, Ghost McKinley should\u2019ve told Schrank to use a bigger gun.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wait, McKinley\u2019s ghost said all that and it led to a bull moose speech?<\/h3>\n

Ah, well, he probably didn\u2019t. Call me a skeptic, but I don\u2019t believe Ghost McKinley really was talking to Schrank. Even if he was, why would he want his old vice president, Teddy, dead?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a little background: McKinley\u2019s assassination by anarchist Leon Czolgosz led to Vice President Teddy Roosevelt\u2019s inauguration and first term as president, which was followed by his second term. Then, after taking a break, Teddy went back at it, running as a third-party progressive candidate, chasing a third, nonconsecutive term in office.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

So, to Schrank\u2019s mind, Teddy had become president over McKinley\u2019s dead body, and was now attempting to be the first three-term president. This was before the 22nd Amendment put the kibosh on three-termers with its ratification in 1951. Up to that point, presidents followed George Washington\u2019s example and abided by a soft two-term maximum. For Schrank, this was an important tradition, and one that was integral to the balance of American power. At least, that\u2019s what I\u2019m deducing from the terse manifesto found on Schrank after the assassination attempt: \u201cTo prevent is better than to defend. Never let a third term party emblem appear on an official ballot.\u201d<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Schrank had been stalking Roosevelt and writing diatribes decrying his perceived treachery and un-Americanism. Honestly, you can\u2019t swing a dead cat meme on Facebook without hitting a political diatribe these days, so, not much of a red flag for an assassination attempt.<\/p>\n

But Schrank\u2019s dream was something you don\u2019t see every day: \u201cIn a dream I saw President McKinley sit up in his coffin pointing at a man in a monk\u2019s attire in whom I recognized Theodore Roosevelt,\u201d said Schrank. \u201cThe dead President said, \u2018This is my murderer\u2014avenge my death.\u2019\u201d OK, that\u2019s a clearer red flag. Too bad it was in a dream, where nobody else could see it.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Bullet v. Roosevelt<\/h3>\n

John Schrank presumably checked his dream dictionary to understand what the dream meant<\/i> and found that it was actually pretty straightforward: he was supposed to shoot Theodore Roosevelt in the head with a gun before he could become a third-term president.<\/p>\n

For Teddy\u2019s part, he had already lost the Republican nomination, and was now running under his \u201cBull Moose\u201d progressive ticket. As a third-partier, he was hitting the streets, pounding pavement, and slapping asphalt like some kind of large, male ungulate in order to outwork his opponents, Wilson and Taft, from the big parties. Teddy was Rough Riding his way through 15 to 20 speeches a day, and these weren\u2019t Gettysburg Addresses, but rather hour-plus-long spiels.<\/p>\n

But on October 14, his packed schedule was catching up with him. The Bull Moose was feeling a little hoarse, and he was getting tired, so this particular campaign stop would be a quickie.<\/p>\n

What Teddy didn\u2019t know was that he was about to get just the pick-me-up he needed to shake off that two-thirty feeling: a .38 round to the chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cChest, you say? Didn\u2019t Schrank plan to shoot Teddy in the head?\u201d<\/h3>\n

Excellent reading comprehension. Here\u2019s what happened: Schrank f*cked up.<\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m being too hard on him. Schrank tried his best. As Teddy left his hotel and waved to the crowd, Schrank got close enough for his shot. He aimed right at Teddy\u2019s mug, point blank. But, just then, a bystander bumped Schrank\u2019s arm, just as Teddy\u2019s security detail spotted the weapon and moved in for a tackle. Schrank got his shot off, but instead of hitting Teddy in the head, the bullet found his chest.<\/p>\n

By the time the bullet hit, Schrank was eating dirt while Teddy\u2019s security put him in a headlock. The crowd of onlookers was now a mob, looking to do some Schrank stomping, but Teddy ordered them to go easy\u2014he didn\u2019t want Schrank hurt. What a sport, that Roosevelt.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Roosevelt didn\u2019t realize the bullet had found him until he checked under his overcoat and felt the blood with his hand.<\/p>\n

The old Rough Rider was even luckier than he was tough. While the bullet did make it into his chest muscle tissue, it first passed through a 50-page copy of his now-famous, now-called bull moose speech (they were long, remember?) and his steel eyeglasses case. They slowed the bullet just enough that it didn\u2019t reach his heart or lungs.<\/p>\n

“It takes more than that to kill a bull moose.”<\/h3>\n

No stranger to war, Teddy knew his way around bullet wounds. He deduced that the bullet must not have hit his heart because he wasn\u2019t dead. And it mustn\u2019t have hit a lung, or else he\u2019d be sputtering blood when he coughed into his hands.<\/p>\n

So, if he wasn\u2019t dead, and he could still talk, that meant there was no good reason not to stick to schedule and give an 84-minute speech. So he refused to go to the hospital and instead spoke, with his clothes soaked in blood. It was metal as f*ck.<\/p>\n

\u201cFriends,\u201d he opened, \u201cI shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don\u2019t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet\u2014there is where the bullet went through\u2014and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apparently, Teddy got his second wind, because 84 minutes ain\u2019t a short speech.<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Aftermath: The bull moose is now insanely popular.<\/h3>\n

His thirst for bloody rhetoric finally slaked after nearly an hour and a half, Teddy Roosevelt finally relented and allowed himself to be taken to the hospital. He was treated for eight days, but the bullet was never removed, as doctors thought taking it out would be riskier than leaving it in. It stayed in the old Bull Moose\u2019s chest until he died in his sleep in 1919 of a pulmonary embolism.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, and as for that election, he lost, so no third Roosevelt term\u2014at least not until Franklin Delano Roosevelt got a third term in 1940.<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

As for John Schrank, he went to prison, where he earned some jailhouse fame and tried to justify his actions with his staunch opposition to three-termers. He was soon committed to an insane asylum, where he lived until 1943, when he died of pneumonia.<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Teddy Roosevelt would later explain that he was able to keep his composure throughout the assassination attempt for two reasons: One, he had always expected an assassination attempt, so he wasn\u2019t surprised. And two, as he remarked, \u201cIn the very unlikely event of the wound being mortal I wished to die with my boots on.\u201d<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Teddy Roosevelt was shot at a campaign stop in 1912, he kept the bullet and gave his speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":19801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[333,274],"tags":[],"acf":{"show_faq":false,"faq_title":"","faq_description":"","faq_list_item":null},"yoast_head":"\nIt Takes More Than That to Kill a Bull Moose<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When Teddy Roosevelt was shot at a campaign stop in 1912, he kept the bullet and gave his speech.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/museumhack.com\/teddy-roosevelt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It Takes More Than That to Kill a Bull Moose\" 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