Roosevelt Essay

On October 14, 1912, President Theodore Roosevelt being a candidate for Bull Moose he stood up in his open car to be greeted by the crowd and to listen to the ex president’s speech. While listening, a shot was fired and struck Roosevelt in the right side of his chest. A day and a half later Theodore roosevelt dies from the shooting, but since shooting a president in 1912 wasn’t a federal crime, it was part of my job to investigate who would be guilty of this shooting.

There were many suspects of this situation during this time due to Roosevelt being a candidate for Bull Moose and running for President. Some key aspects in order for someone to be a suspect are: the shooter was wearing a large coat, had a map of Chicago, had a train ticket for DC, had elephant button, picture of Roosevelt, silhouette of cat, and foreign coins. Top three suspects that stood out to me would be William Taft, JP Morgan, and George Berkins.

JP Morgan and George Berkins were business partners and during the speech they claimed to be at a lawsuit but their was no record of that. These two could have also hired someone to do the shooting. JP Morgan didn't have the best of relationship with Roosevelt, he was a republican so could of had the button, but he was 74 years old which means he might not of been able to shoot him himself. My top suspect would have to be William Taft. Taft always voted against anything for Roosevelt he served as 27th President after Roosevelt, but Roosevelt felt he wouldn't of done a good job as president so he ran against him so this made Taft feel threatened. Since he felt threatened he could of went to the extreme of shooting Roosevelt to get him out of his way for election considering he didn't agree with Roosevelt and tha the was his opponent. Taft was a bigger man so could've fit into the jacket, he took a train from Chicago to DC so would of had train ticket and map of chicago. Taft could of kept a picture