Milwaukee — As the Republican National Convention rages on, you may have heard the story of the former Republican president who was once again running for office when, during a campaign speech, he was struck by a bullet delivered by a would-be assassin. The former big-government-loving ex-president survived and carried on with his campaign.
I am talking, of course, about the shooting of Theodore Roosevelt in October 1912 as he campaigned to reclaim the White House. Among many of the eerie coincidences with the events of last weekend involving current GOP nominee Donald Trump, Roosevelt was shot on the streets of Milwaukee, where the current convention is being held.
But it gets even stranger than that. The spot where Roosevelt was shot now houses the Hyatt Regency Hotel, which is the primary security entrance point to the 2024 convention. The very plot of land where Roosevelt took a bullet is virtually on the grounds of the convention to renominate Trump. The Hyatt hotel actually has a monument memorializing the event near one of its entrances.
Roosevelt wasn’t shot in the ear but in the chest; the bullet was slowed because he had a thick copy of his speech in his breast pocket. At the time, an onlooker said Roosevelt would have been killed if he wasn’t such a long-winded blowhard — had his speech been briefer, the manuscript would have been thinner and likely wouldn’t have stopped the bullet.
And, of course, even after being shot, Roosevelt finished his speech before being whisked away to the hospital. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, Roosevelt, “in a bit of bravado, used his bloodied shirt and tattered speech as a symbol of his resilience.”
No doubt the bloodied fist-pump of its day.