On October 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt stepped out of a hotel
in Milwaukee to deliver a campaign speech.
He never made it to the car.
A man in the crowd raised a revolver and fired
at point-blank range. The bullet struck Roosevelt in the chest.
It should have killed him.
Instead, it hit a steel eyeglass case and a
thick, folded copy of his speech—over fifty pages long. The objects slowed the
bullet just enough. It tore through the president’s body, but didn’t kill him.
Then he made a decision.
Roosevelt refused to go to the hospital. He
waved off aides and climbed onto the stage. Blood seeped through his shirt as
he spoke.
“I don’t know whether you fully understand
that I have just been shot,” he told the crowd. “But it takes more than that to
kill a Bull Moose.”
He spoke for nearly ninety minutes.
Only after finishing did Roosevelt agree to
medical treatment. Doctors later found the bullet lodged in his chest. It was
never removed.
The wound healed. The speech became legend.
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