The Progressives, soon called the Bull Moose Party, attracted the usual group of reformers, and some cranks.  Each new party does this.  Roosevelt had, many years before, spoken of the “lunatic fringe” which clings to the skirts of every sincere reform.

“But the whole body,” writes Mr. Thayer, “judged without prejudice, probably contained the largest number of disinterested, public-spirited, and devoted persons, who had ever met for a national and political object since the group which formed the Republican Party in 1854.”

All the new measures which they proposed, although denounced by the two old parties, were in use in other democratic countries; many of them have since been adopted here.  Roosevelt foresaw the radical wave which was later to sweep over the country and was trying to make our government more liberal, so as to meet the new spirit of things.  The more radical of Socialists always hated him as their worst enemy, for they knew that his reasonable reforms would make it impossible for them to succeed in their extreme proposals.

The jokes made about the new party were often most amusing and added a great deal of interest to an exciting campaign.  The Bull Moosers were very much in earnest, and had a camp-meeting fervor, which laid them open to a good deal of ridicule.  But they could stand it, for they knew that as between themselves and the Republicans, the last laugh would be theirs.  The Republicans had nominated Mr. Taft by means of delegates from rock-ribbed Democratic States like Alabama, Florida and Georgia, let them now see if they could elect him by such means!

One phase of the campaign was a shame and a disgrace.  The Republican newspapers joined in the use of abusive terms against Roosevelt, to a degree which has never been paralleled, before nor since.  They described him as a monster, a foul traitor, another Benedict Arnold, and for weeks used language about him for which the writers would be overcome with shame if it were brought home to them now.  This had its natural result.  Just as the speeches of Emma Goldman and others stirred up the murderer of President McKinley to his act, so this reiteration of abuse, this harping on the assertion that Roosevelt was the enemy of the country, the destroyer of law and liberty, induced another weak-minded creature to attempt murder.

A man named Schrank who said that he had been led on by what he read in the papers, waited for Roosevelt outside a hotel in Milwaukee.  This was during the campaign and Roosevelt was leaving the hotel to make a speech in a public hall.  As he stood up in his automobile, Schrank shot him in the chest.  The bullet was partially checked by a thick roll of paper—­the notes for his speech—­and by an eye-glasses case.  Nevertheless, with the bullet in him, only stopping to change his blood-soaked shirt, he refused to quit.  He went and made his speech, standing on the platform and speaking for over an hour.