How did Wilson and Taft react to Roosevelt's shooting in 1912?

Just as the attempted assassination of former president Trump has parallels to that of former president Roosevelt, so do the reactions of his opponents

Just past 6 pm on Saturday, a fairground in Butler County PA became witness to an eerily repeat of history. Former President Trump was grazed by a bullet while delivering a crowd-rousing stump speech, running to be the first non-consecutive president since Grover Cleveland in 1893. Despite being bloodied, Trump defiantly rose with the heap of Secret Service protection, raising his fist and shouting “fight” to the crowd. In October 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt began his speech, also rallying to become the first non-consecutive president since Cleveland. As Roosevelt started shots rang out in Milwaukee Wisconsin, lodging a bullet in his chest. Despite pleas to seek immediate medical attention, Roosevelt committed to completing his hour-and-a-half-long speech. By the time he finished 90 minutes later, the former president was discolored and ill, having bled nearly to death. 

While the two former presidents are ideological opposites, the parallel is stunning. President Biden quickly condemned the attack and delivered a brief address. He suspended all outward communication, pausing the campaign. The reaction from the president, the former president's rival, raises the question of how President T. Roosevelt's rivals, Woodrow Wilson, and President William Howard Taft responded to his attempted assassination. 

President Taft, with zero odds of winning re-election thanks to Roosevelt's third-party bid was attending a banquet at the Hotel Astor in New York when a reporter from the Associated Press told Taft of the shooting: “Mr. President it is unfortunate to have to tell you that Mr. Roosevelt has been shot in Milwaukee by an assassin.” Taft replied, “I am inextricably shocked.” The president declined to comment further without knowing the situation and the event dispersed. 

The exact whereabouts of Wilson when he heard the news are unclear, though shortly after the incident he released a statement, “It is with great distress that I hear of the accident that has befallen Colonel Roosevelt. But I rejoice to hear that the wound is not considered serious.” 

Both Taft and Wilson offered to pause campaigning and not schedule any future events until the wounded Roosevelt was back on the campaign trail, though Roosevelt rejected these acts of goodwill. He responded, “The fight should go on to its conclusion, just as it would in the case of battle.” In another statement Roosevelt called for the campaign to continue, writing “we emphatically demand that the discussion go on precisely as if I had not been shot. I shall be sorry if Mr. Wilson does not keep on the stump and I feel that he owes it to himself and to the American people to continue on the stump.”

Charles Edward Russel, a prominent socialist and civil rights activist running as the socialist candidate in the 1912 New York gubernatorial election said of the widespread reports that the assassin was a socialist: “I believe it is a fake. If it were true it would not make any difference to us. You may be sure it was not a socialist who shot him. If it was a lunatic we have nothing to do with him.”

The campaigns proceeded, with the near assassination having little impact on the final few weeks of the election. Wilson swept the Electoral College, taking 435 electors to Roosevelt’s 88 and Taft’s 8. Following the defeat, Roosevelt faced a bout of depression having been rejected so overwhelmingly by the people. Roosevelt returned to stardom after seeking to pull himself out of his anguish by exploring the previously unconquered proverbial “River of Doubt” through the Brazilian Amazon, today named “Rio Roosevelt.” The former president returned to the United States acclaimed again as a hero following the deadly expedition which nearly ended his life. 

The two attempts put the former presidents seeking non-consecutive re-elections inches away from death. While the results of 2024 are yet to be known, the shooting of Trump adds to his mythos unlike that of any other American figure in history, with the exception, of course, of Theodore Roosevelt.