Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents (17 page)

Seeing only a dull-eyed, expressionless face looking back at him, an exasperated Roosevelt said, “Oh, what’s the use? Turn him over to the police,” and Schrank was taken away.

“He pinked me, Henry,” Roosevelt said to Cochems, noticing blood spreading out on his shirt. The bullet had been partially deflected by the metal glasses case in Roosevelt’s jacket pocket before lodging in his chest. By this time, Dr. Terrell had arrived and pleaded for Roosevelt to immediately go to a hospital.

But Roosevelt would not even let the doctor examine the wound. After coughing three times and determining that there was no blood in his lungs, Roosevelt demanded that he be taken to the auditorium, saying, “You get me to that speech. . . . Start the machine! Go ahead, go on!”

Taking the podium in front of a crowd of 10,000, Roosevelt began to speak: “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but . . . it takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose.”

Roosevelt removed a folded fifty-page speech from his jacket pocket and saw that the bullet had passed through it, leaving two holes. He then proceeded to speak for ninety minutes in support of the Progressive platform, including the establishment of laws prohibiting child labor and a law establishing a minimum wage for women.

While in custody, Schrank spoke openly about his motives. He believed he was God’s instrument and that it was right to kill any man who seeks a third term in office. He compared himself to Moses and Joan of Arc—as others who were called to act by God.

Convinced he would one day be seen as a hero, Schrank requested his gun and the bullet that struck Roosevelt be given to the New York Historical Society. Informed that doctors decided to leave the bullet lodged in Roosevelt’s chest, he got upset and said, “That’s my bullet!”

Schrank told police that back in 1901, the night after William McKinley died, he had a dream in which the deceased president sat up in his coffin and pointed to a man in a monk’s outfit whom he recognized as Theodore Roosevelt. “This is my murderer,” said McKinley. “Avenge my death.”

John Schrank had come to America from Germany at age twelve and lived with his uncle and aunt, who owned and operated a neighborhood saloon in New York City. Schrank was well mannered and helped tend bar and performed other chores.

When his uncle and aunt died, they left the business to their nephew, who promptly sold it and lived off of the profit. Shrank spent much of his time on walks around the city, writing poetry or jotting down ideas in a notebook.

Schrank once wrote an essay about four “pillars” of the US government: that no man should run for a third term as president; that the United States should engage in no wars of conquest; that the Monroe Doctrine must be upheld; and that all presidents should be Protestant (despite that Schrank himself was Catholic).

When he learned that Roosevelt was seeking the nomination of his party for a third term in August of 1912, Schrank was outraged. Then, on the night of September 13, while writing a poem, Schrank heard a voice: “Let no murderer occupy the presidential chair for a third term. Avenge my death!” Turning, he saw the visage of a ghostlike President McKinley.