Read America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents for Free Online Page A

president didn't give up then.  Roosevelt took his supporters out of the Republican National Convention in protest and formed his own Progressive Party.  When Teddy  proclaimed he was “as fit as a bull moose,” the party became known as the “Bull Moose Party.” 
     
    Roosevelt's proposals throughout the nomination fight and the general election were some of his most radical.  He railed against the “unholy” alliance of government and corporate interests and accused them of holding a “sinister influence or control of special interests” over national government.  As president he was certainly a populist, but as a presidential candidate in 1912 he transformed into the populist's populist. 
     
    The former president was now labelled a radical.  To this he wrote, “The criticism had been made of me that I am a radical.  So I am.  I couldn't be anything else, feeling as I do.  But I am a radical who most earnestly desires to see the radical programme carried out by conservatives.”  In his attacks, Roosevelt did not hold back.  He openly railed against specific corporations and conglomerates, including Standard Oil and U.S. Steel. 
     
    On October 14 th , 1912, however, Roosevelt's campaign was brought to an unhappy end, albeit one that solidified the Roosevelt legend. Roosevelt was in Milwaukee to deliver a campaign speech when a local barkeep named John Schrank caught wind of Roosevelt’s location and shot him as he was leaving a hotel to deliver the speech at the Milwaukee Auditorium. Thankfully, the bullet passed through a folded up copy of Roosevelt’s 50 page speech and his eyeglass case before lodging in his ribcage short of his lungs or heart. An adept hunter and something of a scientist, Roosevelt noticed he was not coughing blood and concluded that the bullet must not have penetrated a vital organ.  In his typical cowboy-like fashion, Roosevelt refused to go to the hospital and delivered the speech with blood seeping through his shirt.  He announced to the audience that he had been shot, saying “it takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose.”
     

     
    John Schrank
     
    Roosevelt went to the hospital shortly after the assassination attempt and remained there for nearly a week.  Taft and challenger Woodrow Wilson halted their campaigns in honor of the former president, only resuming them when Roosevelt resumed his.
     
    The assassination attempt, however, did not rally the American people around Roosevelt.  On Election Day, he came in second behind Wilson, with 27% of the vote, the most a third party candidate had ever won.  Incumbent President Taft came in third, making him the first president seeking reelection to lose by coming in third rather than second. However, the split in the Republican Party had handed the presidency to a Democrat. President Wilson was the first two-term Democratic President since before the Civil War.  
     
    The defeat proved to be Roosevelt's last foray in politics, but Roosevelt continued to rail against Wilson throughout the remainder of his life.  He opposed the President's timidity on war in Europe and encouraged rapid US intervention there.  When the U.S. finally did enter the war, Roosevelt offered to create a volunteer regiment and serve on the front, but Wilson rejected his request, rightly believing the former President to be too old and weak. Several of Teddy’s sons did fight in World War I, and his youngest son Quentin was killed in 1918 while flying a mission over France.

     
    Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt in France, 1917
     
     
     

Chapter 6: Death and Legacy
     
    Death
     
    Wilson's assessment of Roosevelt's health proved correct. On January 6, 1919, Teddy Roosevelt died of a heart attack at the age of 60.  He had remained active until the end of his life, and many speculated he would seek the Presidency again in the election of 1920.
     
    For the nation, Roosevelt's death was sudden.  He was buried near his beloved home in