On the whole the campaign was conducted with dignity on all sides. There was a noticeable absence of vilification of candidates and general mud-slinging between the camps, as is too often the case in keenly contested elections. My campaign managers arranged for me to make addresses in every county and almost every city throughout the State. I had a special car in which traveled, besides Mr. Davenport, my wife and me, and several other speakers, a dozen or more reporters from the leading papers.
I made my first speech in Getty Square, Yonkers, and from there I traveled for seven weeks, making ten to fifteen speeches every day except Sundays, including short talks at stations and from the rear platform of my car. Sometimes I made speeches before breakfast, to crowds that had gathered at the station, and there were always two or three, and often more, formal addresses a day in some public hall, to which I would be escorted from the train with a band of music, and sometimes with a fife and drum corps, invariably playing "Onward, Christian Soldiers." So many clergymen took part in the campaign that frequently the meetings were opened with a prayer. Many of the meetings were spontaneous, emphasizing the crusading spirit which was so characteristic of the campaign.
One of my slogans was that I was the "unbossed candidate of the unbossed people." One day up in the northern part of the State I was speaking on a raised platform in the open, and, as usual, my time was limited by the train schedule. A member of the committee told my wife, who was sitting behind me, that the train would leave in a few minutes, and that it was time for me to stop, and just as I got to the middle of the phrase, "unbossed candidate—" she pulled my coat-tail as a signal for me to stop. At that moment I was quite evidently not the "unbossed candidate" that I professed to be, and the audience laughed and cheered with amusement. I think that bit of bossing, however, did not cost me any votes.
Mr. Davenport proved himself a most effective campaign speaker. Another effective orator in our party for a short time was Bainbridge Colby, who discharged with great distinction the important duties of Secretary of State during the last year of the Wilson Administration. At Oneonta and at one or two other places, while I was taking a much-needed rest, the crowds had gathered and were calling for me. Mr. Colby, without being introduced, responded for me, and the audiences were left with the impression that they had listened to me. My cause certainly did not suffer by my being so admirably represented, or perhaps I should say advantageously misrepresented.
Roosevelt in the meantime had flung himself into the campaign with all the force of his tremendous vigor and energy, and gave to it a dynamic impulse that grew in intensity as he progressed through the country. He went out to the Pacific Coast, returned through the Southern States to New York City, speaking at every important center. In September he went through New England. In October he started on his final tour through the Middle West, and it was while on this trip that he was shot by a lunatic just as he was leaving his hotel to make a speech in the Auditorium in Milwaukee. The incident, tragic in itself, was made dramatic by his heroism. With the bullet in his breast and his clothes soaked with blood, disregarding the entreaties of his companions, he went on to the Auditorium and spoke for more than an hour. To him nothing counted except the triumph of the principles for which he was fighting.
In consequence of this accident the national managers had me leave the State of New York and take up the national campaign, which I did cheerfully. No one, of course, could fill Roosevelt's engagements, but the plan was to rescue the cause so far as possible, and I spoke in several of the larger cities where meetings had been scheduled for Roosevelt, principally Chicago, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. My intense anxiety regarding the condition of my chief during this time was greatly relieved by assuring telegrams from Mrs. Roosevelt and his nephew, George Emlen Roosevelt, who were both at his side.
Two final rallies were arranged in Madison Square Garden, New York—one on Wednesday, October 30th, for the national ticket, and the second on Friday, November 1st, for the State ticket. Roosevelt, though not well, considered himself sufficiently recovered to appear. His physicians, Doctors Lambert and Brewer, had prescribed no more campaign speeches, in fact, did not want him to go to these meetings; but he brushed aside their injunctions and left Oyster Bay for Madison Square.
His presence at the national rally was his first public appearance since the shooting, and keyed-up the meeting to a high dramatic pitch. Fully eighteen thousand persons were in the auditorium and a few thousand more were outside clamoring for admission. When Roosevelt appeared on the platform, a roar of applause broke loose and continued for forty-five minutes.