President Theodore Roosevelt survived being shot by an assassin, but in his personal letters to his children there is an interesting story which took place at his Uncle's funeral.
In typical Teddy fashion in being one with the people, he knows the American mob is not a threat in the least, but that of course was exactly where the entire police force was mobbed in the street, expecting some revolution to occur with a visit to a funeral by the President.
The police arrangements at the church were exasperating to a degree.
There were fully five hundred policemen in the streets round about, just
as if there was danger of an attack by a ferocious mob; and yet though
they had throngs of policemen inside, too, an elderly and harmless crank
actually got inside with them to present me some foolish memorial about
curing the German Emperor from cancer. Inasmuch as what we needed
was, not protection against a mob, but a sharp lookout for cranks, the
arrangement ought by rights to have been for fifty policemen outside
and two or three good detectives inside. I felt like a fool with all the
policemen in solemn and purposeless lines around about; and then I felt
half exasperated and half amused when I found that they were utterly
helpless to prevent a crank from getting inside after all.
The President was humiliated in being a man of the people, to have that show of force by the police, as if the mob was going to attack one of their own........and yet again, who was it but the lone nut who not only got past hundreds of police, but walked up to President Roosevelt to provide him with a cancer cure for the German Emperor.
Well at least 500 policemen kept the streets safe, but not one of them kept President Theodore Roosevelt safe.
agtG
