CHAPTER I.

THE SHOT IS FIRED.

RELATED BY HENRY F. COCHEMS AFTER THE SHOOTING.

At 8:10 o'clock on the night of Oct. 14, 1912, an attempt was made to
assassinate Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt in the city of Milwaukee.
Col. Roosevelt had dined at the Hotel Gilpatrick with the immediate
members of his traveling party. The time having arrived to leave for
the Auditorium, where he was due to speak, he left his quarters, and,
emerging from the front of the hotel, crossing the walk, stepped into a
waiting automobile.

Instantly that he appeared a wild acclaim of applause and welcome
greeted him. He settled in his seat, but, responsive to the persistent
roar of the crowd, which extended in dense masses for over a block in
every direction, he rose in acknowledgement, raising his hat in salute.

At this instant there cracked out the vicious report of a pistol shot,
the flash of the gun showing that the would-be assassin had fired from
a distance of only four or five feet.

Instantly there was a wild panic and confusion. Elbert E. Martin, one
of Col. Roosevelt's stenographers, a powerful athlete and ex-football
player, leaped across the machine and bore the would-be assassin to the
ground. At the same moment Capt. A. O. Girard, a former Rough Rider and
bodyguard of the ex-President, and several policemen were upon him.
Col. Roosevelt's knees bent just a trifle, and his right hand reached
forward on the door of the car tonneau. Then he straightened himself
and reached back against the upholstered seat, but in the same instant
he straightened himself, he again raised his hat, a reassuring smile
upon his face, apparently the coolest and least excited of any one in
the frenzied mob, who crowding in upon the man who fired the shot,
continued to call out:

"Kill him, kill him."

I had stepped into the car beside Col. Roosevelt, about to take my seat
when the shot was fired. Throwing my arm about the Colonel's waist, I
asked him if he had been hit, and after Col. Roosevelt saying in an
aside, "He pinked me, Harry," called out to those who were wildly
tearing at the would-be assassin:

"Don't hurt him; bring him to me here!"

The sharp military tone of command was heard in the midst of the
general uproar, and Martin, Girard and the policemen dragged Schrank
toward where Mr. Roosevelt stood. Arriving at the side of the car, the
revolver, grasped by three or four hands of men struggling for
possession, was plainly visib