Gentlemen of the jury, you see that I have appeared here today without the assistance of a counsellor at law, without any assistance save that of God the Almighty, who is ever with him who is deserted, because I am not here to defend myself nor my actions. I am here today to defend the spirit of forefathers with words what I have defended with the weapon in my hand, that is the tradition of the four unwritten laws of this country. Tradition is above written statute, amended and ineffective. Tradition is sacred and inviolable, irrevocable. Tradition makes us a distinct nation. Order of tradition. The law I have violated for which you will punish me is not in any statute book. Gentlemen of the jury, the shot at Milwaukee, which created an echo in all parts of the world, was not a shot fired at the citizen Roosevelt, not a shot at an ex-President, not a shot at the candidate of a so-called Progressive party, not a shot to influence the pending election, not a shot to gain for me notoriety. No, it was simply to once and forever establish the fact that any man who hereafter aspires to a third presidential term, will do so at the risk of his life. If I cannot defend tradition I cannot defend the country in case of war. You may as well send every patriot to prison. It was to establish a precedent for the third term tradition, which for the first time in the history of the United States one man dared to challenge and to violate. Gentlemen of the jury, the third term tradition is the most sacred, because it has been established by the greatest champion of liberty in all ages past and to come by our first President, George Washington, when he modestly declined a third term nomination by saying that two terms are enough for the best of Presidents. The two great American political parties have since guarded this tradition most jealously, have regarded it as a safeguard against the ambitions of probable adventurers. The great Republican party, the party of an Abe Lincoln, the party of the new U. S., that party as a medium between government and the people, the party to which we are greatly indebted for our achievements and our greatness among the family of nations, it was that party that was destined to give birth to and to nurse the first offender of that tradition, who gradually proved to be the evil spirit of the country, and that great party which was born during a national crisis and which had bravely faced and overcome many a grave trial, nobly faced the coming storm and survived it with its honor unimpaired.