Assassination attempt recalls another one, 112 years ago, handled with equal poise

Donald Trump's near-assassination yesterday--and the coolness with which he seemed to shrug it off and get back to business--brings to mind another attempted assassination 112 years ago.

On October 14, 1912, former president Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909) entered Milwaukee Auditorium to give a campaign speech seeking an unprecedented third term.  He began, “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible.  I have just been shot.”

The horrified audience gasped as the former president unbuttoned his vest to reveal his bloodstained shirt. “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” he quipped.  Reaching into his coat pocket he pulled out a 50-page speech with a big hole blown through each page.

Roosevelt continued, “Fortunately I had my manuscript, and it probably saved me.  The bullet is in me now so I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”  And for the next 90 minutes the former president proved it.  Only with the speech finished did he agree to visit the hospital.

The shooting had occurred just after 8 p.m.  As Roosevelt stood up in the open-air automobile and waved his hat with his right hand to the crowd, the would-be assassin fired from just five feet away, on an upward path.

The crowd of supporters attacked the shooter shouting, “Kill him!”  But Roosevelt said “Don’t hurt him. Bring him here. I want to see him.” Roosevelt then asked the shooter “What did you do it for?”  He got no answer.

A doctor in the group naturally told the driver to head to the hospital, but Colonel Roosevelt ordered his driver to go to the auditorium.

X-rays later showed the bullet had lodged against Roosevelt’s fourth rib, inches from his heart.  His life was saved by his dense overcoat, steel-reinforced eyeglass case and the thick speech in the pocket of his jacket.

It's the same kind of divine intervention we saw yesterday, when Trump was saved from death by less than an inch.

That evening Roosevelt dictated a telegram to his wife saying he was in excellent shape and that the wound was trivial-- “not a particle more serious than one of the injuries any of the boys used to continually have.”

Divine intervention, not a doubt in my mind.

Source.

https://www.history.com/news/shot-in-the-chest-100-years-ago-teddy-roosevelt-kept-on-talking