Colonel Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

It was left to Charles Willis Thompson of The New York Times to point out that Roosevelt, stale or not, had already addressed a million people. The muted reaction to many of his speeches moreover, did not denote apathy so much as “a quiet, steady, intent earnestness that does not often characterize a crowd at a political meeting.”

  On the date that Thompson wrote this, Sunday, 22 September, Roosevelt spent a few relaxed hours at the Emporia, Kansas, home of William Allen White. Late that afternoon White drove him down to the station in a two-seat surrey, rolling through a sea of tall grass. Several hundred well-scrubbed souls waited on the platform. It was clear they hoped for a sermon before the candidate left town. Roosevelt managed a few bromides about righteousness. Amazingly, even these words were taken as a benediction. “There was no applause,” recalled a Progressive bystander. “Tears stood in some men’s eyes. When the train pulled out for the East, that crowd stood and waved as long as there was a speck in sight.”

  IN AN EFFORT to reach voters living remote from his itinerary, but within range of a phonograph, Roosevelt cut five 78 rpm shellac discs that featured short extracts from his campaign speeches. They were distributed and sold by the Victor Talking Machine Company, along with others recorded by Wilson and Taft. His sharp singsong voice sawed through needle hiss, articulating every syllable with rounded vowels and rolled rs (“Ow-er aim is to prro-mote prros-perr-i-ty”) and decisive downward swoops at the end of each sentence.

  Personally, he was tired of his own rhetoric and press images (always distressing) of himself on the stump—two years tireder than he had been during the campaign of 1910. “I am hoarse and dirty and filled with a bored loathing of myself whenever I get up to speak,” he wrote Kermit. “I often think with real longing of the hot, moonlit nights on our giant eland hunt, or in the white rhino camp, with the faithful gun-boys talking or listening to the strumming of the funny little native harp.…”

  MISSOURI. OKLAHOMA. ARKANSAS. TENNESSEE. Grinding across the dank flats of Louisiana, he braced himself for a swing through Mississippi and Alabama to Georgia, where he would try to make the most of his Bulloch ancestry. He was in Democratic territory now, and as a Republican renegade, could not hope to see many friendly black faces. Even Booker T. Washington had decided to come out for Taft.

  “Theodore Roosevelt has spent some time in Africa,” the African Methodist Episcopal Church Review noted, “but he has never spent one second inside of a black skin.” If he had, he might understand the impact of his letter to Julian Harris on people long treated as a separate species—indeed, as a subspecies. His “monstrous, unpatriotic, unjust and politically immoral” attempt to “array the Northern Negro against the Southern Negro” was reminiscent of the bad old days of Reconstruction.

  Then, men said it was to be “A White Man’s War;” now, he says that his cause is to be frankly “put in the hands of the best white people of the South.” … He refuses to fight and free the Negroes from disfranchisement, peonage and degrading laws that unjustly discriminate. He would recall judges who decide favorably in business and labor controversies, but has no word of reprobation for Judge Lynch; he would recall judicial decisions, but will not include the decisions upholding Jim Crow laws; he would destroy the political bosses, while at the same time he is delivering the Negroes into political despotism. He proclaims “the right of the people to rule;” but denies them the privilege of exercising that right if the people happen to be black.

  These touchés might have been more damaging had they not appeared in a periodical whose title seemed designed to keep readership to a minimum. Everything Roosevelt saw of Southern Progressives flocking to his banner convinced him that his “lily-white” policy was working. “It is impossible,” Charles Thompson reported from Atlanta on 28 September, “to give any idea of the hold that the idea of ‘a new white man’s party’ has taken on in the South.” Segregationists who believed that the Negro should nevertheless be treated as a human being felt liberated from the hate policies of the Democratic Party, while old-time Populists had turned into “religious zealots, and they look on him as an apostle.”

  Encouraged, the Colonel went out of his way to antagonize some Democratic hecklers when he spoke that night in the Atlanta Auditorium. He practically called Woodrow Wilson a liar for misquoting a remark he had made about the “inevitable” rise of monopolistic corporations. “He has no right … to attribute to me words which I have never used.”

  Roosevelt forgot, or chose to ignore, that Wilson’s professional career had begun in Georgia. He blustered on in a way that grated on the sensibilities of his listeners, used as they were to the polite formalities of Southern speech. There were ten thousand people in the hall, including two thousand standees who crowded close to the stage to get a better view of him. As heckling spread and anger grew, he sprang onto the speaker’s table and bellowed, “I’ll get up here so you’ll all have a chance to see me.” His truculence momentarily struck the crowd dumb. Afterward, he had to be hustled out a side door.

  HE RETURNED TO Oyster Bay on 2 October, worn out from his trip, only to find that O. K. Davis had organized another, to begin in a matter of days. It would link strategic points of the Midwest that he had missed the first time around, including lower and upper Michigan, the main cities of Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and scores of lesser whistle-stops across the heartland of Republican insurgency. Wilson was again barnstorming that territory, attracting huge crowds, and looking more and more like the next President of the United States. Roosevelt had so far managed only to pull well ahead of Taft and Debs. His best hope was to make such a strong second-place finish as to confirm regulatory Progressivism as the political philosophy of the future.

  Willard Straight, a family friend of the Roosevelts, came to visit and found Sagamore Hill a gloomy place. He got the impression that Theodore and Edith were worried about money, with two boys still boarding in expensive schools and each looking forward to four years at Harvard. Roosevelt was also harassed by yet another Senate probe—this time into charges that he had accepted improper campaign contributions in 1904. The committee’s evidence, focusing on an alleged $25,000 payment from Standard Oil in exchange for immunity from antitrust prosecution, made no sense, because he had sued the company anyway. But he now had to sacrifice a day of rest and go to Washington to testify.

  After he got back, a conference of Progressive leaders took place at Sagamore Hill. Senator Dixon presided, with George Perkins exuding new authority as chairman of the Party’s Executive Committee. Hiram Johnson was there, a small man with a loud voice, and Oscar Straus, who was running for governor of New York, along with Frank Munsey and Walter F. Brown, the Ohio boss.

  It was essentially a godspeed session, to cheer the Colonel up and discuss strategy and tactics for the final four weeks of the campaign. Wilson had come up with a catchy slogan, promising Americans a “New Freedom” to restore the balance of government and individualism that had served them so well before the age of combination. It would be a policy subject, however, to the restraints of modern antitrust law. In that respect it amounted to a Jeffersonian rewrite of Roosevelt’s New Nationalism—what Wilson, in another telling phrase, called “government by experts.”

  The electorate had to be persuaded that the Progressive Party was not paternalistic, nor was it a one-man band. Johnson had a twenty-two-state speaking tour planned, while Straus took care of the Empire State, and Brown worked to humiliate Taft at home. In Indiana, Albert Beveridge was also running for governor, pouring out a flood of eloquent addresses that were widely reprinted. The Party had dozens of other gubernatorial aspirants campaigning as far south as Florida and Texas, plus state, Congressional, and local candidates in all regions of the country. A loose-strung but vital network of bosses, reformers, publishers, and legislators supported this drive for recognition. In some states, including most of New England, the network sagged hopelessly, due to lack of leadership or funds. But on the whole, Dixon’s National Committee had distinguis
hed itself—appointing, at the outset, four women as members-at-large. That Progressivism had in fact spread so far, staffed so many offices, and publicized so comprehensive an ideology since August was something of a political miracle. Whatever the movement’s immediate prospects, it looked to be firmly established in 1916. Roosevelt had to hide the fact that he dreaded being asked to lead it again.

  “CHILDREN, DON’T CROWD so close to the car, it might back up, and (falsetto) we can’t afford to lose any little Bull Mooses, you know.”

  The Colonel was back in his private Pullman, the Mayflower, traveling west. Young Philip Roosevelt attended as his personal aide, plus Dr. Scurry Terrell, a throat specialist, Cecil Lyon, leader of the Texan Progressives, and Henry F. Cochems, chairman of the Party speaker’s bureau. O. K. Davis and two stenographers, Elbert E. Martin and John W. McGrath, made up the rest of the entourage. An adjoining car carried gentlemen of the press.

  Roosevelt seemed a new man after his brief stay at home, quickly absorbing an eighty-thousand-word dossier on Wilson. Lawrence Abbott, reporting for The Outlook, compared him to “an electric battery of inexhaustible energy,” making decisions “with a celerity of judgment which takes one’s breath away.” At some stops, he was so charged that he would shadow-box through the caboose before bursting out and haranguing whatever throng he found ranged across the track. On 9 October alone, he gave thirty speeches in Michigan, pointedly quoting some anti-labor remarks that Wilson had made as president of Princeton.

  “I’m fur Teddy,” a scrubwoman declared. Asked why, she said, “He’s fur me.”

  When not orating, he would dictate further speeches for use down the line. The toll on his voice soon began to show. There was something manic about the way he drove himself, and the way he ate: Philip’s main duty was to keep large meals coming. Since February, Roosevelt had gained so much weight that Frank Munsey, a strict dieter, felt obliged to warn him of the coronary effect of too much heavily salted roast beef and Idaho potatoes. Rumors persisted that he was a boozer. “Did you see that?” somebody said in Duluth, Minnesota, as the Colonel’s retinue hustled him through a surging crowd in the lobby of his hotel. “He was so drunk they had to carry him upstairs!”

  Actually, “they” were worried about physical assaults, whether affectionate, as from those who wished to tear at his clothing, or worse. The fanaticism of his followers became more apparent the deeper he penetrated the Midwest. Almost half the population of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, turned out in pouring rain to hear him. His speech—a comparison of his and Wilson’s tariff policies—was received as if it were the Holy Writ. He decided to use parts of it again when he spoke in Milwaukee, in the heart of La Follette country.

  But first, Chicago beckoned: a much more favorable city, with Medill McCormick’s newspaper, the Tribune, daily propounding Progressivism. By the time Roosevelt got there on the morning of the twelfth, Dr. Terrell was seriously concerned about his roughening throat, and persuaded him to cancel three speeches the following day. That afternoon Roosevelt addressed an open-air meeting. A raw wind blew in from the lake, nearly silencing him. After dinner he had to speak again, in the enormous Coliseum, and his voice broke altogether. For the next thirty-six hours he was reduced to whispering.

  He should have nursed his laryngitis through Monday, 14 October, in order to save vocal strength for his important speech in Milwaukee that evening. But he impulsively decided to make an appearance in Gary, Indiana, the home of U.S. Steel. He wanted to show that he was not ashamed of his relationship with the world’s biggest trust, nor of having one of its directors, George W. Perkins, as his closest adviser—something Wilson had drawn attention to.

  Roosevelt spoke there for no more than four minutes, but it was enough to fray his voice again. He returned to Chicago for lunch. During the meal, O. K. Davis handed him a letter from a well-wisher in Detroit, enclosing a newspaper clipping and suggesting that action should be brought against its publisher.

  The clipping was only two days old, and came from the Ishpeming, Michigan, Iron Ore, a small Republican sheet owned and published by one George A. Newett. It concerned the Colonel’s moral character, and contained the direct libel he had been looking for:

  Roosevelt lies and curses in a most disgusting way; he gets drunk too, and all his intimates know it.

  He read the article through, then said to Davis, “Let’s go at him.”

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, the Mayflower hitched itself to another train and headed for Wisconsin. Advance word came that a “GXLC” situation portended in Milwaukee, with plans for a grand parade and public dinner before Roosevelt’s speech. Dr. Terrell refused to let his patient be subjected to these strains.

  Upon the train’s arrival in Milwaukee at six o’clock, members of the local Progressive committee came aboard, and were told that the Colonel was “extremely tired.” He would dine privately in his car, rest for an hour or so, and not use his voice until the time came for him to speak at the Auditorium. Even then, he would be able to make only a few opening remarks. The main text of his address would have to be read for him. O. K. Davis explained that Roosevelt had long speeches scheduled every night for the rest of the campaign.

  The committee chairman complained so bitterly that Roosevelt took pity on him and said to Davis, “I want to be a good Indian, O. K.”

  From that moment he was the committee’s prisoner. He was driven through a mile-long, rejoicing crowd to the Gilpatrick Hotel on Third Street. A hospitality suite awaited him upstairs. Before sitting down to dinner, he lay back in a rocking chair and napped—something Davis had never seen him do before. Shortly after eight, he folded his speech typescript into his inner right jacket pocket and walked down two flights of stairs to the lobby. Henry Cochems and a bodyguard named Alfred Girard preceded him. He was flanked on one side by Elbert Martin and Cecil Lyon, and on the other by Philip Roosevelt and Fred Leuttisch, a Party security man.

  OUTSIDE IN THE ILL-LIT STREET, his roofless, seven-seat automobile stood waiting. A rope cordon kept the sidewalk clear, but several hundred onlookers clustered in the street beyond. Martin opened the vehicle’s near rear door, and Roosevelt got in. He took his customary right-hand seat while his escorts fanned out to take theirs. Lyon ran round the back. As he did so, the crowd in the street moved closer, cheering. The Colonel stood up to bow, waving his hat in his right hand.

  Martin stepped up from the curb to join him. At that moment, he saw the gleam of a revolver no more than seven feet away. The stenographer was a powerful man with athletic reflexes, and was flying through the air even as John Schrank fired. Roosevelt was hit in the right breast and dropped without a sound. Philip, too horrified to move, thought, “He’ll never get up again.”

  Martin lit on Schrank and had him around the neck in a half nelson as they crashed to the ground. Almost simultaneously, Leuttisch and Girard landed on top of them in a wild scrimmage. Lyon, whipping out his own Texas-sized automatic, threatened to shoot anyone else who came near.

  It was easy enough to disarm Schrank, a weedy little man who put up no resistance. Meanwhile, Roosevelt had hoisted himself up in the tonneau. He was shaken, but did not appear to be bleeding. For the moment, nobody but he realized he had stopped a bullet. Looking down, he saw that Martin was trying to break Schrank’s neck.

  “Don’t hurt him. Bring him here,” Roosevelt shouted. “I want to see him.”

  Martin’s blind rage cleared, and while still half-throttling his prisoner, he dragged him to the side of the automobile. Roosevelt reached down and, in an oddly tender gesture, took Schrank’s head in both hands, turning it upward to see if he recognized him.

  What he saw was the dull-eyed, unmistakable expressionlessness of insanity, along with clothes that looked as though they had been slept in for weeks, and an enormous pair of shoes.

  By now, Dr. Terrell, O. K. Davis, and John McGrath, who were late arriving on the scene, had gotten past Lyon’s gun and clustered around their chief. Roosevelt continued to stare at S
chrank. “What did you do it for?” he asked, sounding more puzzled than angry. “Oh, what’s the use? Turn him over to the police.”

  Girard and another officer hustled Schrank away as the Colonel’s aides, still unsure if he had been shot, fingered his heavy army overcoat for a bullet hole. They soon found it. He explored further himself, not allowing anyone, even Terrell, to look. His hand came out with blood on it.

  “He pinked me, Harry,” he said to Cochems.

  Terrell had heard enough. He told the driver of the automobile to head at once to Milwaukee’s Emergency Hospital. But Roosevelt, to the disbelief of everyone around him, insisted on proceeding to the Auditorium.

  “No, Colonel,” Cochems pleaded. “Let’s go to the hospital.”

  “You get me to that speech,” Roosevelt replied, with a savage rasp to his voice.

  Terrell, Davis, and Philip were no more successful in their appeals. The car cruised at parade speed to the Auditorium, through streets still lined with unsuspecting spectators. When it reached its destination, Roosevelt walked unaided to a holding room behind the stage. There, at last, he let Terrell examine his wound. It was a ragged, dime-sized hole, bleeding slowly, about an inch below and to the right of his right nipple. The bullet was nowhere to be seen or palpated. The whole right side of his body had turned black.

  Again he brushed aside Terrell’s demand that he seek immediate medical treatment. “It’s all right, Doctor,” he said, inhaling deeply, “I don’t get any pain from this breathing.” Plastering a clean handkerchief to his chest, he pulled his shirt down and strode onstage.

  COCHEMS PRECEDED HIM to the podium. As the Progressive Party’s senior local representative, he had the task of informing the audience—ten thousand strong, with at least as many milling outside—that Roosevelt had been the victim of an assassination attempt. He spoke shakily and vaguely, afraid of causing a riot, and caused only confusion. There was a cry of “Fake! Fake!” and direct appeals to the Colonel: “Are you hurt?”