#OTD 114 years ago, Theodore Roosevelt was shot on Monday, October 14, 1912 just outside the Hotel Gilpatrick in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at 8:10 p.m. as Roosevelt was standing up in the car that was going to take him to the Milwaukee Auditorium where he was going to speak. This year, since the anniversary of Roosevelt’s attempted assassination falls on a Wednesday, we thought it would be fitting to share a sentence Roosevelt wrote to his son Kermit just five days after reflecting on the attempted assassination as our #WednesdayWisdom. We also wanted to note that the photograph we selected to accompany the quotation is significant as well, as it was taken of him on October 14 speaking from the car before he was shot. While Roosevelt's whole letter to Kermit is worth reading to get a feel for what Roosevelt was thinking and feeling at the time, there is one particularly long sentence that stood out to us since it encapsulates Roosevelt’s character and his plans should he ever be on the receiving end of a bullet. “As you know, I am a great hand to think possible contingencies out in advance, and I had always determined that if I was shot when I was about to make a speech or anything of the kind I should go on with the speech or whatever I was doing, because two or three hours always elapse before a man is so incapacitated by a wound as to make it physically impossible for him to do his work.” As Roosevelt relayed later in the letter, he wanted to give the speech since he believed it would be the “last real speech [he] could make in the campaign,” given that the assassination attempt occurred just three weeks before election day. Roosevelt also mused about his chances in the election, suggesting that he thought Woodrow Wilson might win. Just three days before the assassination attempt, Roosevelt had written something very similar to Kermit reflecting on the enthusiastic supporters who thought Roosevelt was going to win. “Looking at it coolly I hardly think this comes within the boundaries of possibility. I think I will beat Taft, that he will carry half a dozen small states, and I a dozen larger ones. But the odds in Wilson’s favor are so enormous that I do not see how they can be overcome.” As it turned out, Roosevelt was even generous in his estimate. Taft carried two states (Vermont and Utah), and Roosevelt carried six (California, Oregon, South Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania). Although Roosevelt feared October 14 would be the last time he could give a campaign speech, he was wrong. He gave three additional speeches, including one at Madison Square Garden in New York to 16,000 people where 30,000 people were turned away. Roosevelt of course ultimately lost the election, but he was alive, and he carried the bullet in his chest the rest of his life. Read Roosevelt’s entire letter to Kermit in the digital library here: theodorerooseveltcenter.org/… #ElectionHistory #PresidentialHistory #WisconsinHistory

The TR Center is CLOSED to the public today and tomorrow, 10/8 and 10/9 for staff preparation and participation in #TeddyCon, the first ever Theodore Roosevelt Convention! For our friends attending the events, we look forward to seeing you! And for those who would like to visit the gallery, we hope to see you another day! theodoreroosevelt.org/teddyc…

Theodore Roosevelt is known for taking on big businesses and corrupt corporate leaders, famously encapsulated in his phrase “malefactors of great wealth.” But he also noted that great wealth didn’t necessarily equal malicious intent. As Roosevelt mentioned in his second annual message from December 1902, “We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.” He believed corporations and their leaders should work for the public good. And Roosevelt believed the government played an important role in regulating corporations—not preventing or limiting corporate activity—but holding it “accountable to some sovereign,” as he detailed in a speech delivered in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1905. In the speech, Roosevelt rejects a common business principle used to this day, which we’ve selected for today’s #WednesdayWisdom: “There are other men who use the noxious phrase ‘business is business,’ as an excuse and justification for every kind of mean and crooked work; and these men make honest Americans hang their heads because of some of the things they do.” Roosevelt believed that the people and businesses who used this logic and who were willing to do things that may hurt or upset people in order for a business to be successful—Merriam-Webster's definition of “business is business”—were the “worst citizens.” “Of all the men in the country, the worst citizens, those who should excite in our minds the most contemptuous abhorrence, are the men who have achieved great wealth, or any other form of success, in any save a clean and straight forward manner.” Roosevelt believed that the federal government ought to “strive to secure such effective supervision over it, such power of regulation over it, as to enable us to guarantee that its activity will be exercised only in ways beneficial to the public.” As Roosevelt succinctly said, “[T]his accountability should be real and not sham.” Read Roosevelt’s entire speech discussing industrialism and corporate accountability here: presidency.ucsb.edu/document… #CorporateAccountability #TheodoreRoosevelt #BusinessEthics #Industrialism

#OnThisDay in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the presidency at just 42 years old, the youngest man ever to take the office. President William McKinley had been shot by an anarchist at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York on September 6. Although it initially appeared that he might survive, the president died of gangrene in the early morning hours of the 14th. Vice President Roosevelt, who was vacationing in the Adirondacks, was rushed to Buffalo to be inaugurated in an emergency ceremony at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a lawyer and legal scholar. Roosevelt initially promised the public that he intended to carry out McKinley's policies and vision to the letter. Such a thing was not in Roosevelt's nature, however, and he quickly pivoted to blazing his own path. That path led him to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, popular, controversial, significant presidents in the history of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt approached the office of the presidency with vigor and righteousness and tenacity in achieving what he believed what would bring material and moral prosperity to Americans at large. He believed at once in both strong presidential power and the power of the people. His vision was to make America a strong player on the world stage, and to lay the groundwork for America to thrive for generations. The effects of his words, actions, and policies have been strenuously debated since he first made them. Whether viewed positively, negatively, or somewhere in-between, there can be no doubt that the effects of Roosevelt's presidency have reverberated through the ages.