"It was just as when I was colonel of my regiment. I always felt that a private was to be excused for feeling at times some pangs of anxiety about his personal safety, but I cannot understand a man fit to be a colonel who can pay any heed to his personal safety when he is occupied, as he ought to be occupied, with the absorbing desire to do his duty. "I am in this cause with my whole heart and soul; I believe in the Progressive movement--a movement for the betterment of mankind, a movement for making life a little easier for all our people, a movement to try to take the burdens off the man and especially the woman in this country who is most oppressed. "I am absorbed in the success of that movement. I feel uncommonly proud in belonging to that movement. "Friends, I ask you now this evening to accept what I am saying as absolute truth when I tell you I am not thinking of my own success, I am not thinking of my own life or of anything connected with me personally." The disabling of Col. Roosevelt at this tragic moment was a great strategic loss in his campaign. The mind of the country was in a pronounced state of indecision. He had started at Detroit, Mich., one week before and had planned to make a great series of sledge hammer speeches upon every vital issue in the campaign, which plan took him to the very close of the fight. He had planned to put his strongest opponent in a defensive position, the effect of which, now that all is over, no man can measure. Stricken down, an immeasurable loss was sustained. In the years that lie before, when misjudgment and misstatements, which are the petty things born of prejudice, and which die with the breath that gives them life, shall have passed away, this incident and the soldierly conduct of the brave man who was its victim will have a real chastening and wholesome historical significance. [Illustration: Page from Ex-President Roosevelt's Manuscript of Speech Showing Bullet Holes.] CHAPTER II. SPEAKS TO GREAT AUDIENCE.[1] Standing with his coat and vest opened, holding before him manuscript of the speech he had prepared to deliver, through which were two perforations by Schrank's bullet, the ex-President was given an ovation which shook the mammoth Auditorium, Milwaukee. [1] Stenographic Report from The Milwaukee Sentinel. The audience seemed unable to realize the truth of the statement of Henry F. Cochems, who had introduced Col. Roosevelt, that the ex-President had been shot. Col. Roosevelt had opened his vest to show blood from his wound. Even then many in the audience did not comprehend that they were witnessing a scene destined to go down in history--an ex-President of the United States, blood still flowing from the bullet wound of a would-be assassin, delivering a speech from manuscript perforated by the bullet of the assailant. Col. Roosevelt said: