Theodore Roosevelt stood out as a strong, independent man, often travelling out west to the Dakotas for a year at a time, building a log cabin and surviving off the land. So impressed was he with nature his vision created the National Park Service. In the Dakotas where he would vacation, the Theodore Roosevelt National Park was named in his honor.
During the Spanish-American War, he served as a Lieutenant Colonel of Volunteers and led the Rough Riders fighting In Cuba. He is well known for leading a charge up San Juan Hill and routing the Spanish defenders. Back in New York City, he served as the police commissioner and would often travel out into the streets to root out crime.
He assumed the presidency after President William McKinley was killed by an assassin’s bullet. Serving as the 26th President from 1901 to 1909. At the turn of the 20th century, before television and radio, politicians depended on personal audiences with potential voters, often giving long speeches. They crisscrossed the county, often by rail. On Oct. 14, 1912, he was in Milwaukee to give a speech in his run for a third term as president, running as an independent on the Bull Moose party ticket.
That day, Roosevelt was leaving the Gilpatrick Hotel, now the Hyatt Regency in downtown Milwaukee to give his speech. John Schrank was also in Milwaukee having followed Roosevelt across eight states. Across the street from the hotel, at Herman Follfink’s bar, Schrank had one beer, then two, then six.
Roosevelt had just entered his open-air automobile when he stood and waved his hat to the cheering crowd. Only five feet away, Schrank made his move, firing a .38 pistol through a hole he had cut in his vest. Roosevelt was hit in the chest and wavered a bit. Then standing back rigid, he placed his hand inside of his coat and felt blood. He turned to an aide and said, “He pinked me,” a reference to being nicked or winged. The bullet had traveled through his dense overcoat, steel eyeglass case, and the fifty-page speech he had folded over in his pocket.
Roosevelt’s aide, Elbert Marttin, a rather large former football player grabbed Schrnak’s wrist preventing a second shot. The crown yelled, “Kill him!” Roosevelt yelled, “Don’t hurt him, bring him here, I want to see him.” He then asked his attacker, “Why did you do it for?” to which Schrank had no answer. Roosevelt directed that he be turned over to the police and said, “see that there is no violence done to him.”
Following the shooting, Roosevelt was determined to give his speech at the Milwaukee Auditorium, today the Milwaukee Theater. To a crowd of about 9,000, he opened with the statement “Friends…I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.” To the horrified crowd, he showed his still blood stained shirt. He continued, “It takes more than one bullet to kill a bull moose,” as he read from his bullet riddled speech. Only after his speech did he seek medical attention.
As for John Schrank, he was convinced that he was visited by President McKinley and told to kill any third term candidate. He was tried and determined criminally insane and committed to life in the Waupun State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. When interviewed later, someone asked him if he liked to hunt? He said, “Only bull moose.” Perhaps he wasn’t as insane as he projected to be? He was committed enough to his cause that when Franklin Roosevelt won a third term, he told a guard, “if he was not incarcerated, he would interfere.,” insinuating that he would have attempted to kill the second President Roosevelt. Schrank died in 1943, twenty-four years after Theodore Rossevelt.
Breaking from the Republicans caused a rift in the party and led to the election of Democratic candidate Woodrow Willson. Roosevelt would live out his last years at his home in Oyster Bay, New York, dying on Jan. 6, 1919, at 60 years old. When he died, the bullet fired by Schrank was still in his chest. On Jan. 16, 2001, Theodore Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery on San Juan Hill a little more than 100 years before.
Source Material: from “Wisconsin Myths & Legends” by Michael Bie.
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