When Teddy Roosevelt Gave a Speech After Being Shot In Chest By Would Be Assassin October 15, 2010

If Not For The Case For The Spectacles of Teddy Roosevelt (like this set auctioned in 2005) the Name of John F. Schrank Might Be As Well Known as that of John Wilkes Booth

On This Date in History: Lost to much of the pages of history are attempted assassinations. (Here is a list of failed presidential assassinations) President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 was a former President who was running to get his old job back. He had filled the term of the assassinated President McKinley and finished his own term in 1908. In deference to the precedent set by President Washington, Teddy Roosevelt decided against running in 1908, instead promoting his Vice-President William Howard Taft who won handily. Teddy was not happy with the way in which Taft ran things and decided to challenge him for the Republican nomination for the 1912 election but power interests in the party which had fared better with Taft than Roosevelt, backed Taft and Roosevelt did not get the Republican nomination at the 1912 Republican Convention. So, he formed his own party, the Progressive Party, which came to be known as the “Bull Moose Party” after TR’s tough-guy bull-moose image. Roosevelt ended up getting more votes than Taft but the pair split the Republican vote which led to the election of Woodrow Wilson as President.

While on the campaign trail prior to the election, on October 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt got into a car after dining at a hotel in Milwaukee. He was headed to give a speech. When he turned to wave to the crowd, a shot rang out from the .38 caliber revolver in the hand of John F. Schrank. Schrank, a Bavarian-born immigrant, had been stalking Roosevelt since at least September 1912 when he left New York in pursuit of his prey .  It was reported that the assailant felt that no one should get more than two terms as president and had also been having dreams of William McKinley.  His dream supposedly occured on the September 6 anniversary of the assassination of President William McKinley which vaulted the then young Vice-President Roosevelt into office.  His dream was said to have involved McKinley in a coffin.  McKinley suddenly sat up straight and pointed to Roosevelt who was dressed like a monk.  The dead president floating around Schrank’s head then said, “This is my murderer. Avenge my death!”  So. Schrank did his best to follow the orders of the ghost in his dream.  When Roosevelt turned to the crowd from his car, it opened up an opportunity for Schrank to shoot the candidate at close range.

Chest X-Ray of Teddy Roosevelt Shows Location of Bullet That Was Never Removed

The shot struck Roosevelt squarely in the chest. But, in his breast pocket, Teddy had the thick,  folded up 50-page text of his planned 90 minute speech.  It must have been some pocket because, in addition to the 4-dozen sheets of paper the pocket also contained a metal spectacle case.  The bullet was slowed by the eye-glasses case and the thick manuscript.  The bullet, however, entered his body but it did not penetrate his heart. Initially, Roosevelt did not realize that he had been shot.  Once he had discovered that he was indeed the victim of a gunshot wound he still insisted on giving his speech. Using his experience as an avid hunter as a guide, he reasoned that since he was not coughing up blood, then no major organs were damaged.  Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt and had not been assassinated so, when he arrived on the podium. Teddy proudly showed the crowd the hole in his speech and thundered, “ it would take more than that to kill a Bull Moose!”   While the speech (text of speech) was abbreviated, most accounts report that Mr. Roosevelt still spoke before the crowd for 80-90 minutes and rebuffed attempts to get him to conclude the speech so he could go to the hospital for attention.  

Mrs. Medill McCormick and TR daughter Alice Roosevelt Longwell Leaving Mercy Hospital Oct 15, 1912 After Visting the Original Bull Moose

Only after he concluded his speech did Roosevelt finally go to the hospital in Milwaukee and reluctantly allowed for a tetnus injection.  On This Date in 1912, the former president was in Chicago’s Mercy Hospital where he stayed for observation for 8 days. the bullet was found lodged in tissue such that it would be more dangerous to attempt its removal.  The slug remained in Roosevelt’s body for the rest of his life.  After making the determination that the bullet would stay where it was,  Teddy was  released  from Mercy Hospital on October 23.  Both Woodrow Wilson and William Howard Taft suspended their campaigns until Roosevelt was released but they were back on the campaign trail with  just a little more than a week before the election.  While his opponents were back on the stump, TR was prevented from making important campaign stops.  Some speculate that his absence from the campaign trail in the critical final days may have influenced the election results.  In any event, Roosevelt was unable to convince enough Republicans to swing his way and the GOP vote was split between he and Taft.  While he received 88 electoral votes to the sitting president’s 8, Wilson skated to victory with 435 votes from the Electoral College.  However, Wilson’s popular vote total was about 6.3 million while, collectively, Taft and Roosevelt collected 7.6 million votes.  

Schrank Lived His Lonely Final 31 Years in a Mental Hospital Only To See the 2 Term Tradition Broken By Teddy's Cousin

Wilson went on to be re-elected in 1916, again with less than a majority of the popular vote.  He took in 49.2% of the vote and became a two term president never to receive a majority of the popular vote by a narrow 277-254 electoral victory over his Republican opponent, Charles E. Hughes.  18 times in US presidential elections has the winner not received a majority of popular votes since the popular vote was first reliably recorded in 1824.  So, it’s not that unusual.  However, only Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland and Bill Clinton served two terms and never received a majority of the popular vote.  For his part, Schrank was whisked away to a mental institution where he remained for the rest of his life.  Apparently, no one came to visit him. His health began to fail in 1940 shortly after he learned that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 5th cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, was going to run for a 3rd term as President of the United States. Schrank died at the Central State Mental Hospital in Waupun, Wisconson on September 16, 1943; about a year before FDR was elected to a 4th term.

Why Would Have Anyone Wished To Harm Gerald R. Ford, All-American? September 5, 2010

 

 

A Fine Way to Protest Charles Manson's Arrest and Trial

Ford Cosmo Cover Boy 1942

On This Date in History: Gerald R. Ford was a long standing and well respected Congressman from Michigan’s 5th Congressional District for nearly 25 years.  For eight years, he served as the Republican House Minority Leader and was well thought of by both sides of the aisle.  In 1973, he was appointed to be the 40th Vice President of the United States following the resignation of Spiro T. Agnew.  When President Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Gerald R. Ford became the 38th President of the United States and the first to hold the highest office in the land without ever being elected as either President  or Vice-President.  Ford is generally regarded as a good man who did the best that he could holding the country together following the end of the Vietnam War and also following the fisaco that was Watergate.  He was an Eagle Scout, an All-American football player at Michigan, graduated from Yale Law School.  Gerald R. Ford was even was a magazine model. He also served his country in the United States Navy in World War II and was appointed by President Johnson to be a part of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy.  In spite of this good-guy image, not one,  but two people tried to assassinate President Ford in 1975.  I mean, what did he do to get shot?

Fromme Arrested at the Scene in Sacarmento

Nothing I suppose except perhaps, for some, his pardon of Richard Nixon just a month following Nixon’s resignation may have been an issue.  But, by 1975, the  ink on that pardon had long since dried.  Where Ford may have gone wrong was  to get that attention of Charles Manson’s followers. On this date in 1975, the woman shown above, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme raised a loaded .45 Colt automatic pistol toward Ford.  Secret Service agents intervened before any shots were fired.  But, she plead not guilty, saying that since the gun wasn’t cocked…well that proved he had no intent to shoot the President. No one bought that story and off to a life sentence she went…until she escaped in 1987. She was quickly recaptured and, get this, our criminal justice system added five years to her life sentence. I guess her corpse will remain behind bars for 5 years, unless its released for good behaviour.

A Picture Of a Would Be Assassin

Lynette Fromme was from California and began drinking and drugging while she was still in high school.  She managed to graduate in 1966, tried college but dropped out after a few months.  She then came upon Charles Manson and became one of his followers.  She took up with Manson and a bunch of other hippies at the Spahn Ranch in Death Valley.  She got the name “Squeaky” because she would squeak whenever the proprietor of the ranch, George Spahn  tried to grope her, which supposedly was often.  She was never implicated in the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969 that sent Manson to prison for good, but she did do some time for trying to prevent Manson’s followers from testifying at his trial as well as for her own refusal to testify.

She didn't really want to shoot Ford. The gun wasn't cocked!

She moved to Stockton, California and ended up in another murder mystery.  The couple with whom she was living wound up dead.  She was taken into custody but escaped the justice system for a lack of evidence.  Now, supposedly she had a history of mental illness so perhaps she was looking to get caught or something because she certainly made sure there was no lack of evidence with her next brush with the law.  When Ford was scheduled to visit Sacramento, California, she decided to go see the president to plead with him about the plight of California’s Redwoods.  What better way to plead with the president and get his attention than by showing up in the crowd in a nun’s outfit packing a forty five?  Not only were there a bunch of witnesses, but she also managed to get herself on TV and even say a few words into the cameras as she was hauled away in handcuffs.

Fromme and Part of the "Manson Family"

Preparing for her trial was a nightmare for her attorney as she refused to cooperate in her own defense.  Thus, she ended up with the old “the gun wasn’t cocked” defense.  During her trial, when the prosector was explaining why he urged the court to sentence Fromme to the maximum sentence, she threw an apple at the prosecutor, who was hit in the face by the flying forbidden fruit.   A few years after being sent up for life, she was transferred out of the women’s unit in Dublin, California after she attacked another inmate with the claw end of a hammer.  For some reason, in 1987, she found herself not in a tough prison, but instead to the same minimum security, Alderson Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia that later housed none other than Martha Stewart.   It was from that facility that she fled thinking that she would be able to see Charles Manson, whom she heard was suffering from testicular cancer.  It only took two days to recapture her and she was later transferred to a Federal Medical Center in Carswell, Texas.  Each time she came up for parole, she waived her rights.  

Squeaky Made the Papers

To sum it all up, Lynette Fromme had a history of drug abuse, alchohol abuse, violence and mental illness and had been associated with events that surrounded two murder cases.  So, she was released from prison from her “life sentence” (plus 5 years) in August 2009. 

Ford Hustled Away in San Francisco Following Moore's Attempt

The second assassination attempt on President Ford came 17 days after Fromme’s botched attempt by another woman, Sara Jane Moore. This time the alleged Manson follower assailent squeezed a shot off but missed because a former Marine was nearby who grabbed her arm. I’m not sure if the bullet hit anything but I know she went to jail too for life to the same prison as Fromme.  It has been argued that Moore was, in fact, not a member of the Manson Family.  However, Moore and Manson actually grew up in the same town in West Virginia.  That doesn’t make her a Manson follower but it would be a strange coincidence.  Further, a former inmate at a prison that held Moore refers to her, Sandra Good and “other Manson girls”  as she recounts conversations the inmate had with Sara Jane Moore.   In any event, in 1989,  Moore also escaped and was later captured.  Like Fromme, the then 77-year-old Moore was released from prison in 2008. 

For some reason, I don’t believe that Moore got an extra five years for her escape attempt.  I think they need a new prison and maybe they shouldn’t refer to sentences as life since its obvious that all will be forgiven 30 years after one tries to kill the president.

Robber Gets $1.2 Million from City to Settle Lawsuit. Long Winded Speech Saves President’s Life October 14, 2009

Pat Garrett Shot Billy the Kid in the Back. Should the kid's family have sued Lincoln County?

Is This True?

The city of Oakland, California decided to pay a man $1.2 million to settle a Civil Rights lawsuit against the city.  The man was shot in the back by  an Oakland Police Officer and is now a paraplegic.    The rub with many people is that the victim was in the act of committing a robbery when the officer shot him.  The cop thought the man had a gun and shot him in self defense.  But, the man was unarmed.  This echoes back to a case in Louisville a few years ago.  A young man was conducting a drug transaction with an undercover cop.  When the officer identified himself, the youth ran and reached for what the officer thought was a gun.  The kid was shot three times in the back and died.   While, the case showed that what the officer thought was a gun was in fact not a gun, the investigation revealed that the young man was indeed armed with a gun.  The Louisville Police Officer was charged with murder.  The officer in question was  acquitted of that murder charge but he was later fired by the city for not following procedure.  

These types of cases come up from time to time.  The cop has to make a split second decision.  In these two particular cases, the men were in the act of committing a crime.  In both cases, the cops thought that the suspect was going for a gun.  In both cases, neither was going for a gun, though in the Louisville case, the man was armed.  In both cases, the officer shot the suspect in the back. 

If a man robs a liquor store and, while driving away, accidentally runs over someone,  he would most likely get charged with murder because the incident happened while  they were committing a crime.  How is it that a suspect is held responsible for his actions during the act of committing a crime, yet, is not responsible for putting himself in a position to be shot by police because he’s committing a crime?

Should cops be punished for mistakes made in shootings in which the person shot was in the process of committing a crime?  Should those “victims” be able to collect for damages in those situations…in effect get paid for being injured while committing a crime? 

These are not isolated incidents.  Just recently, a man who was convicted of a violent armed robbery filed a lawsuit seeking monetary damages for injuries he received when trying to flee the scene of the crime.  Are cities like Oakland setting a precedent for such payoffs? 
On This Date in History: Lost to much of the pages of history are attempted assassinations. (Here is a list of failed presidential assassinations) President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 was a former President who was running to get his old job back. He had filled the term of the assassinated President McKinley and finished his own term in 1908. In deference to the precedent set by President Washington, Teddy Roosevelt decided against running in 1908, instead promoting his Vice-President William Howard Taft who won handily. Teddy was not happy with the way in which Taft ran things and decided to challenge him for the Republican nomination for the 1912 election but power interests in the party which had fared better with Taft than Roosevelt, backed Taft and Roosevelt did not get the Republican nomination. So, he formed his own party, the Progressive Party, which came to be known as the “Bull Moose Party” after TR’s tough-guy bull-moose image. Roosevelt ended up getting about 12 million votes to Taft’s 8 million but the pair split the Republican vote which led to the election of Woodrow Wilson as President.

On this date in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt got into a car after dining at a hotel in Milwaukee. He was headed to give a speech. When he turned to wave to the crowd, a shot rang out from the .38 caliber revolver in the hand of John Schrank. Schrank had been pursuing Roosevelt for many days over many miles. He had been reported to be having dreams of William McKinley and also felt that no one should get more than two terms as president. When Roosevelt turned to the crowd from his car, it opened up and opportunity for Schrank to shoot the candidate at close range.

The shot his Roosevelt squarely in the chest. But, in his breast pocket, Teddy had the thick, 50 page, folded up text of his planned 90 minute speech. He also had a metal spectacle case. The bullet was slowed by the eye-glasses case and the thick speech. While the bullet entered his body, it did not penetrate his heart. Initially, Roosevelt did not realize that he had been shot but, after he did, he insisted on giving his speech. He arrived on the podium and proudly showed the crowd the hole in his speech and said that it took more than an assassins bullet to kill a bull moose. While the speech (text of speech) was abbreviated, he still stood before the crowd for quite awhile and rebuffed attempts to get him to conclude the speech so he could go to the hospital for attention. He went to the hospital in Milwaukee and reluctantly allowed for a tetnus injection and then went to a Chicago hospital where he was released on October 23. But, that was just a little more than a week before the election and he was prevented from making important campaign stops, which may have influenced the election and leading to Wilson’s victory.

Here’s the kicker. The bullet was never removed.

Weather Bottom Line:  Still looks like crappy weather through the rest of the week if not into Saturday.  It will be cloudy with off and on rain and showers.  We may not see 50 degrees until Saturday afternoon.