You might disagree with his political opinions, I know I do, but a look at his campaign and the national party with which he was to run for president of the United States bear a look as an example of the culture of America in the great used to be.
He was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. He participated in missions work around New York City with his father, whether the charity was church-related or “personal,” public or private—it was all God’s work to him.
He taught weekly Sunday school classes during his four years at Harvard. Throughout his life, he wrote for Christian publications. His wife, Edith, was an Episcopalian and she invariably attended her denomination’s church. However, he usually walked a little farther to worship at a humble German Reformed church, the closest he could find to the faith of his fathers. He and his wife did not see eye to eye on that issue.
He was a high-energy man, admired for his rugged, no holds barred adventures to the extent that the nation was enthralled. An assassin tried to kill him just before he was to give a speech in Chicago, but the bullet had to go through the 56 pages of his speech and a case for his glasses which he was carrying in his vest pocket.
The bullet did lodge in his chest, but didn’t have the energy to get to his heart. He decided to go ahead and give his speech in which he gave one of the most unusual introductions in the history of public speaking:
“Friends, I shall ask you to be quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately, I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet – there is where the bullet went through – and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”
He spoke for 50 minutes, then went to the hospital where the doctors said all he needed was a tetanus shot and he was on his way. The bullet stayed with him all his life.
Politics and speech-making aside, a look at his American shows how far we’ve come.
When he engaged in the campaign of his life, he gave a speech he called called “A Confession of Faith.” Later he closed that speech with a clarion call: “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord!” Have you heard any candidate for president say those words lately?
The convention that nominated him for president featured evangelical songs and closed with the hymn, “Onward Christian Soldiers.” In fact, the delegates to the national nominating convention adopted “Onward, Christian Soldiers” as their anthem. Have you heard of a national political party adopting a hymn for their official song? That’s the way it was in the used to be back in 1912 in America when Theodore Roosevelt got shot and made a speech.
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