22. Roosevelt was more severely wounded than he realized
When Roosevelt was wounded in an assassination attempt, he immediately called to his audience that he was alright, and to hold the assassin for the police without harming him. The bullet had penetrated his fifty-page speech, which was folded in his coat pocket, as well as his eyeglasses case before entering his chest. In the absence of coughing blood Roosevelt, who could sense that he was bleeding through his shirt, declined medical assistance and announced to the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose”. He then delivered his speech, titled Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual. It took more than 90 minutes.
Following his speech and after acknowledging the applause and congratulations of the audience, Roosevelt submitted to an examination of his wound by doctors. It was found that the bullet, which had lost some of its velocity when it passed through his speech and metal eyeglasses case, had lodged in the muscles of his chest. Removing it was determined to be more dangerous than allowing it to remain where it was, since it had not entered the chest cavity. The bullet was left alone after it was probed, and Roosevelt carried it in his chest for the rest of his life. Three weeks later he easily surpassed the vote total of the incumbent Taft, but lost the election to Woodrow Wilson.
