The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore RooseveltRemey, Oliver E.
History
The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt
Remey, Oliver E.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
"Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible," he said. "I
don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but
it takes more than that to kill a bull moose. (Cheers.) But fortunately
I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech
(holds up manuscript with bullet hole) and there is a bullet--there is
where the bullet went through and it probably saved me from it going
into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I can not make a very
long speech, but I will try my best. (Cheers.)
"And now, friends, I want to take advantage of this incident and say a
word of a solemn warning, as I know how to my fellow countrymen. First
of all, I want to say this about myself: I have altogether too
important things to think of to feel any concern over my own death, and
now I can not speak to you insincerely within five minutes of being
shot. I am telling you the literal truth when I say that my concern is
for many other things. It is not in the least for my own life. I want
you to understand that I am ahead of the game, anyway. (Applause and
cheers.) No man has had a happier life than I have led; a happier life
in every way. I have been able to do certain things that I greatly
wished to do and I am interested in doing other things. I can tell you
with absolute truthfulness that I am very much uninterested in whether
I am shot or not. 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 can not 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. (Applause and cheers.)
"I am in this cause with my whole heart and soul. I believe that the
progressive movement is for making life a little easier for all our
people; a movement to try to take the burdens off the men and
especially the women and children of this country. I am absorbed in the
success of that movement.
"Friends, I ask you now this evening to accept what I am saying as
absolutely true, when I tell you I am not thinking of my own success. I
am not thinking of my life or of anything connected with me personally.
I am thinking of the movement. I say this by way of introduction
because I want to say something very serious to our people and
especially to the newspapers. I don't know anything about who the man
was who shot me tonight. He was seized at once by one of the
stenographers in my party, Mr. Martin, and I suppose is now in the
hands of the police. He shot to kill. He shot--the shot, the bullet
went in here--I will show you (opened his vest and shows bloody stain
in the right breast; stain covered the entire lower half of his shirt
to the waist).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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