The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt | Page 6

up their minds to speak only the truth, and not to use the kind of slander and mendacity which if taken seriously must incite weak and violent natures to crimes of violence. (Applause.) Don't you make any mistake. Don't you pity me. I am all right. I am all right and you can not escape listening to the speech either. (Laughter and applause.)
"And now, friends, this incident that has just occurred--this effort to assassinate me, emphasizes to a peculiar degree the need of this progressive movement. (Applause and cheers.) Friends, every good citizen ought to do everything in his or her power to prevent the coming of the day when we shall see in this country two recognized creeds fighting one another, when we shall see the creed of the 'Havenots' arraigned against the creed of the 'Haves.' When that day comes then such incidents as this tonight will be commonplace in our history. When you make poor men--when you permit the conditions to grow such that the poor man as such will be swayed by his sense of injury against the men who try to hold what they improperly have won, when that day comes, the most awful passions will be let loose and it will be an ill day for our country.
"Now, friends, what we who are in this movement are endeavoring to do is to forestall any such movement by making this a movement for justice now--a movement in which we ask all just men of generous hearts to join with the men who feel in their souls that lift upward which bids them refuse to be satisfied themselves while their fellow countrymen and countrywomen suffer from avoidable misery. Now, friends, what we progressives are trying to do is to enroll rich or poor, whatever their social or industrial position, to stand together for the most elementary rights of good citizenship, those elementary rights which are the foundation of good citizenship in this great republic of ours.
"My friends are a little more nervous than I am. Don't you waste any sympathy on me. I have had an A1 time in life and I am having it now.
"I never in my life had any movement in which I was able to serve with such wholehearted devotion as in this; in which I was able to feel as I do in this that common weal. I have fought for the good of our common country. (Applause.)
"And now, friends, I shall have to cut short much of the speech that I meant to give you, but I want to touch on just two or three of the points.
"In the first place, speaking to you here in Milwaukee, I wish to say that the progressive party is making its appeal to all our fellow citizens without any regard to their creed or to their birthplace. We do not regard as essential the way in which a man worships his God or as being affected by where he was born. We regard it as a matter of spirit and purpose. In New York, while I was police commissioner, the two men from whom I got the most assistance were Jacob Ries, who was born in Denmark and Oliver Van Briesen, who was born in Germany, both of them as fine examples of the best and highest American citizenship as you could find in any part of this country.
[Illustration: X-Ray Photograph Showing Bullet as it Remains in Theodore Roosevelt.]
"I have just been introduced by one of your own men here, Henry Cochems. His grandfather, his father and that father's seven brothers all served in the United States army and they entered it four years after they had come to this country from Germany (applause). Two of them left their lives, spent their lives on the field of battle--I am all right--I am a little sore. Anybody has a right to be sore with a bullet in him. You would find that if I was in battle now I would be leading my men just the same. Just the same way I am going to make this speech.
"At one time I promoted five men for gallantry on the field of battle. Afterward it happened to be found in making some inquiries about that I found that it happened that two of them were Protestants, two Catholics and one a Jew. One Protestant came from Germany and one was born in Ireland. I did not promote them because of their religion. It just happened that way. If all five of them had been Jews, I would have promoted them, or if all five had been Protestants I would have promoted them; or if they had been Catholics. In that regiment I had a man born in Italy who distinguished himself by gallantry, there was a