Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [409]
88 It lay embedded Davis, Murphy, 267; EKR to Emily Carow, 17 Oct. 1912 (TRC); Philip Roosevelt, “Politics of the Year 1912,” 57. TR’s personal doctor, Alexander Lambert, pointed out that the spectacle case deflected the bullet upward. “[Had] the bullet gone through the arch of the aorta or auricles of the heart, Colonel Roosevelt would not have lived 60 seconds.” Bishop, TR, 2.339.
89 “There was no other place” Crozier, “Incidents in the Political Life of Theodore Roosevelt.”
90 His breathing hurt TR, Letters, 7.705; Philip Roosevelt, “Politics of the Year 1912,” 58–59.
91 He was asleep Davis, Released for Publication, 390, 393; Davis to George Perkins, 15 Oct. 1912 (AC); Gores, “The Attempted Assassination.”
92 Even at that Chicago Tribune, 16 Oct. 1912; Remey et al., The Attempted Assassination, 71; photograph in Milwaukee County Historical Society collection.
93 At 10:30 Remey et al., The Attempted Assassination, 66–67.
94 X-ray reproductions One of these can be seen in ibid., 32.
95 The surgeon was closemouthed Davis, Murphy, 267. Murphy privately told TR that a few splinters of rib bone had penetrated his pleura, and that his speech after the attack had aggravated the laceration. The surgeons were afraid that if they extracted the bullet immediately, “there might be either a collapse of the pleura or an infection of the pleural cavity.” Bishop, TR, 2.345.
96 The records show Davis, Murphy, 268. One of the examining doctors remarked that TR’s musculature had much to do with the stopping of Schrank’s bullet. “Colonel Roosevelt has a phenomenal development of the chest.… He is one of the most powerful men I have ever seen laid on an operating table.” (Bishop, TR, 2.338–39.) A score for the 12-year-old Teedie Roosevelt in 1870–1871, “widening his chest by regular, monotonous motion.” Robinson, My Brother TR, 50.
97 Perhaps the best Sylvia Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 387ff.
98 Dr. Murphy’s pointed reference Davis, Murphy, 273, notes that the reference was “out of place” in a medical bulletin. “But in the light of the Colonel’s [libel] suit it grows evident that the patient had asked that some such allusion to liquor should be made.”
99 It was from Davis, Released for Publication, 395.
100 Among the other The New York Times, 15, 16 Oct. 1912; Link, Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 25.421–22, 425. WW privately joked about the effect his courteous gesture would have on TR. “Teddy will have apoplexy when he hears of this.” Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 170.
101 Similar messages Davis, Released for Publication, 396; The New York Times, 16–18 Oct. 1912; Chicago Tribune, 21 Oct. 1912. The crowned heads included George V of England, Wilhelm II of Germany, Franz Joseph of Austria, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and the Emperor of Japan. For editorial reactions, domestic and international, to the attack on TR, see The Outlook and Literary Digest, 26 Oct. 1912.
102 He informed the judge Remey et al., The Attempted Assassination, 94–96; Gores, “The Attempted Assassination.”
103 After a week TR, Letters, 7.632; The New York Times, 27, 28 Oct. 1912.
104 “I am in fine” TR, Letters, 7.631–32.
105 Hiram Johnson was The following description of TR’s appearance in the Garden is based on illustrated articles in The New York Times and Syracuse Herald, 31 Oct. 1912.
106 “Quiet, down there!” Hagedorn, The Roosevelt Family, 325.
107 “—Perhaps not so” The complete text of TR’s speech, entitled “The Purpose of the Progressive Party,” is in Gould, Bull Moose, 187–92.
108 This was Gable, “The Bull Moose Years” (diss.), 270; Gould, Bull Moose, 188. TR’s appearance, at the Garden—stigmatized, suffering, elevated high above the faithful—marked the climax of the quasi-Christian symbolism of his campaign. See, e.g., Robinson, My Brother TR, 275.
Chronological Note: WW addressed a Democratic rally the following night, 31 Oct., and Tammany Hall timekeepers made sure that the ovation for him lasted half an hour longer than the one for TR. Ignoring medical advice, TR returned