Ada: It's about ten past eight in the evening, October the fourteenth. Roosevelt has just finished dinner at the Hotel Gilpatrick on Third Street, and he steps out into an open touring car.
Theo: Crowds everywhere, I imagine.
Ada: Packed. And Roosevelt, being Roosevelt, stands up in the car to wave his hat to the cheering people. He makes himself the biggest target on the street.
Theo: Oh no.
Ada: Schrank steps out of the crowd, somewhere between four and ten feet away, accounts differ on exactly how close, levels the Colt at Roosevelt's right breast, and fires.
Theo: Point blank. Does Roosevelt go down?
Ada: He rocks back. But then a stenographer travelling with the campaign, a man named Elbert Martin, a former college football player, launches himself and tackles Schrank clean around the neck, dragging him down and wrenching the revolver away before he can fire again.
Theo: Thank goodness for the football player.
Ada: The crowd turns instantly. They're shouting to lynch him, dragging him toward Roosevelt. And Roosevelt, shot, bleeding, calls out: Don't hurt him. Bring him to me.
Theo: He wants to see the man who just shot him?
Ada: He looks him over, says the man, and then insists the police take him unharmed. Schrank is handed to the Milwaukee police without a scratch, which, given the mood of that crowd, is remarkable.
Theo: So where's the bullet gone? Did anyone know yet?
Ada: Nobody knew. There's a hole in his overcoat and blood spreading on his shirt. The attending physician, Doctor Terrell, gets to him, sees the wound, and gives a very sensible order: straight to Johnston Emergency Hospital, immediate surgery to find that bullet.
Theo: That's the obvious call. Open chest wound, you don't argue.
Ada: You don't. Unless you're Theodore Roosevelt.