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Teddy Roosevelt survived shooting, assassination attempt in Milwaukee
A former Republican president making a bid to return to the White Home is shot whereas campaigning — and survives.
However that assassination try occurred in Milwaukee in 1912.
And, if it hadn’t been for a replica of a long-winded speech and a spectacle case, it is perhaps greater than a footnote to historical past.
On Oct. 14, 1912, Teddy Roosevelt was making a run for the White Home because the candidate for the Progressive Celebration, after failing to get the Republican Celebration’s nomination. He got here to Milwaukee to talk to a packed Milwaukee Auditorium (now Miller Excessive Life Theatre).
On his method out of the Gilpatrick Resort (now the location of the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee), Roosevelt was shot by a disgruntled New Yorker named John Schrank, who had been stalking the previous president to cease him from getting a 3rd time period.
The bullet hit Roosevelt within the chest, nevertheless it was slowed by the contents of his pocket: a steel spectacles case and a replica of his very-long speech. (The Hyatt has a show marking the occasion in its entrance off King Drive.)
Roosevelt managed to make his speech and, in a little bit of bravado, used his bloodied shirt and tattered speech as an emblem of his resilience.
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As Gerard Helferich recounts in his historical past of the incident, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Murderer” (Lyons Press), the taking pictures occurred in Milwaukee, however solely as a result of Schrank had bungled a number of earlier makes an attempt as he adopted Roosevelt across the nation.
Schrank was dominated insane after he pleaded responsible to the taking pictures. (He had advised anybody who would pay attention that his chief inspiration was a dream during which President William McKinley, assassinated in 1901 and succeeded by Roosevelt, advised him that Roosevelt was behind his homicide.)
However whereas Schrank shared the priority of numerous Individuals a few president serving a 3rd time period — breaking the precedent set down by George Washington — investigators didn’t tie the shooter to any bigger conspiracy.
Schrank spent the remainder of his life — 31 years — in Wisconsin psychological prisons. Based on Helferich, he did not have a single customer in all that point, and died in obscurity.
