CHAPTER XX.. Schrank's Defense.

SCHRANK'S DEFENSE.

John Flammang Schrank expected to conduct his own defense before a jury, if tried for his assault upon ex-President Roosevelt.

This is demonstrated by the fact that he had prepared a defense to be read to the jury. In this defense he alluded to the fact that he "is not represented by counsel."

This defense is remarkable in that it shows clearly the thought which overcame his mental strength.

Schrank's defense is presented as he wrote it, with the exception of two or three corrections to enable readers to realize what Schrank is trying to say. The defense was prepared by Schrank in the county jail. He was writing it when it was reported that he was writing verse. The defense follows:

Gentlemen of the jury: I appeal to you as men of honor. I greet you Americans and countrymen and fathers of sons and daughters. I wish to apologize to the community of Milwaukee for having caused on October 14 last great excitement, most bitter feeling and expenses. I wish to apologize to you honorable men of the jury that I am causing to you this day unpleasantness in asking you to pass a verdict in a matter which should have better been tried by a higher than earthly court.

Gentlemen of the jury, when on September 14 last during a vision I looked into the dying eyes of the late President McKinley, when a voice called me to avenge his death, I was convinced that my life was coming soon to an end, and I was at once happy to know that my real mission on this earth was to die for my country and the cause of Republicanism.

Gentlemen of the jury, you see that I have appeared here today without the assistance of a counsellor at law, without any assistance save that of God the Almighty, who is ever with him who is deserted, because I am not here to defend myself nor my actions. I am here today to defend the spirit of forefathers with words what I have defended with the weapon in my hand, that is the tradition of the four unwritten laws of this country. Tradition is above written statute, amended and ineffective. Tradition is sacred and inviolable, irrevocable. Tradition makes us a distinct nation. Order of tradition. The law I have violated for which you will punish me is not in any statute book. Gentlemen of the jury, the shot at Milwaukee, which created an echo in all parts of the world, was not a shot fired at the citizen Roosevelt, not a shot at an ex-President, not a shot at the candidate of a so-called Progressive party, not a shot to influence the pending election, not a shot to gain for me notoriety. No, it was simply to once and forever establish the fact that any man who hereafter aspires to a third presidential term, will do so at the risk of his life. If I cannot defend tradition I cannot defend the country in case of war. You may as well send every patriot to prison. It was to establish a precedent for the third term tradition, which for the first time in the history of the United States one man dared to challenge and to violate.

Gentlemen of the jury, the third term tradition is the most sacred, because it has been established by the greatest champion of liberty in all ages past and to come by our first President, George Washington, when he modestly declined a third term nomination by saying that two terms are enough for the best of Presidents. The two great American political parties have since guarded this tradition most jealously, have regarded it as a safeguard against the ambitions of probable adventurers. The great Republican party, the party of an Abe Lincoln, the party of the new U. S., that party as a medium between government and the people, the party to which we are greatly indebted for our achievements and our greatness among the family of nations, it was that party that was destined to give birth to and to nurse the first offender of that tradition, who gradually proved to be the evil spirit of the country, and that great party which was born during a national crisis and which had bravely faced and overcome many a grave trial, nobly faced the coming storm and survived it with its honor unimpaired.

Gentlemen of the jury, when we inquire into the past of that man, we will find that his ambitious plans have all been filed and laid down long before he has been President. All doubt that these plans were towards establishing at the least a perpetual presidency in these United States have been removed during last summer, when a certain senator unearthed from within the library of the white house a written document deposited there during the third termer's presidency. This document was an order for repairing to be done in the white house, and this order closed with the following words: "These alterations should be done, to last during my lifetime." When the third termer was informed of the finding of this document, he admitted and absorbed the all-important matter by simply saying: "Some people have no more brains than guinea pigs."

Gentlemen of the jury, his rough rider masquerade during the Spanish-American war was his first important step towards his goal, it gained for him the governorship of the Empire state and that important office made him an influential factor in the councils of the Republican party. During his term as secretary of the navy he gained the popularity among the men in that branch of the mailed fist of the country by increasing the salaries of those men, who might some day be of vital benefit to his cause. The Republican leaders of those days were soon aware of the dangerous ambitions of this man and also knew that this man would never be safe enough to fill the highest office of the nation, for this reason these men thought it wise to make him vice-Presidential candidate on the same ticket with McKinley, for it must not be new to you that the office of a vice-President has always been regarded as the suicide to a man's political ambitions. But, gentlemen of the jury, now came the time when a man's ambitions blindfolded him to all reason. The desire to overcome the obstacle robbed him of his sane judgment, and in such a case the spoiler invites himself, political murders have occurred quite often, committed by some power that works in the dark and only too frequently of late the assassin was classed as an anarchist, but the real instigators could never be brought before justice. Whoever the direct murderer of McKinley has been it could never be proven that he has ever been affiliated with any anarchistic or similar society, but we may well conclude that the man who in years after so willingly violated the first unwritten law, which is the third term tradition, may have readily promised to violate the third unwritten law of the country whenever he thought it profitable to change his creed while president, perhaps to the mother of monarchies.

Gentlemen of the jury, a man's first presidential term begins when he takes the oath of office and constitutes a full term if it will only last twenty-four hours after oath and a man's third term is his third when he seeks it or is given to him twenty years or more after his second. When Roosevelt took the oath of office at McKinley's departure, he had ceased to be a Republican. He at once began to build a political machine of his own. It was then in fact that his one man party so-called Progressive party was born, parts of which we find later in the insurgents, handicapping Mr. Taft wherever they could. Later in August at the convention of treason he took the material where and as he found we see him trying hard to bring the money power of the union into his service, we find him extorting large sums for his political campaigns from the so-called despisable trusts, since then we became accustomed to look upon every man of wealth and the great industrials corporations who have been and are today of incalculable value and benefit to our national welfare, as nothing more or less than contemptible criminals, whom he offended in the most profane language during his crusade against them, if they refused to become a part of his machine. At the decline of his second term the remainder of the Republican party, those who had not been absorbed by "my policies" could no longer be in doubt as to the third termer's real intentions, and for the first time the third termer realized the magnitude and importance of the third term tradition and most men of influence in those used their power to scare him out of office at the same time comforting him with the fairy tale that if not succeeded by two consecutive terms another term would not be a third term but such was his fear that his machine built up in seven and a half years would be destroyed over night, that he threatened not to leave the chair unless he were allowed to nominate his successor.

Gentlemen of the jury, now comes the time when the third termer committed his second crime against friends, party, nation and republic. With his innermost conviction that his successor would be incompetent, incapable and that he would commit so many blunders while in office that at the expiration of his term the people would unanimously demand the renomination of the third termer, he thought to remove that obstacle of the third termer and to make it appear that he was not ambitious and that a renomination would have to be forced upon him, he solemnly declared, "Never again will I run for president," but again ambition had blindfolded him and robbed him of his judgment of men in selecting William H. Taft as his successor although his most intimate friend Mr. Taft was aware of his oath of office and his duties toward the nation, there never was a whiter man in the white house and no one ever more deserved a re-election as an honor for his services to the country against the revolutionary machine of the third termer in the house and senate than William H. Taft.

Gentlemen of the jury, the third term, "never again will I run for president," has a parallel in the history of Rome. Whoever read the history of Julius Caesar, knows that this smart politician, while elected dictator, managed to become so popular with the people that they offered him the kingly crown, but Julius Caesar knew that he had to bide his time, that the rest of senators knew of his ambition, and after refusing three times, he knew they would offer it to him a fourth time, and when then he accepted it, he was murdered for ambition sake. Never again will I run for president and under no circumstances, said this man, and four years later we find him eagerly seeking renomination at Chicago, to his friends, who advise him to run, he didn't have the heart to tell that if he were not a man of word he could never be a man of honor, but what shame lies in between his never again and his profane declaration that the crooks, thieves, scoundrels and liars had stolen the nomination from him, although he knew that the party could not give him what they had a third term not to give for the great Republican party determined to sooner go down to defeat than to violate the third term yet.

Gentlemen of the jury, the third termer had license to create a new party and be the power behind the throne and perhaps lead his party to victory. But having been deceived by the selection of his successor and having removed the mask he determined to insist on a third term. Had we lived in a time of panic, general disorder, strikes with armies of unemployed, most likely the third termer would have an easy walkin. He was anxious waiting for the government at Washington to start military intervention in Mexico, but the leaders of the Republican party feared that the third termer would muster an army of volunteer rough riders and return at election as the conquering hero.

Gentlemen of the jury, the danger of the third termer was less in his probable election than in his sure but close defeat. The man who cried of the theft at Chicago would never submit to the verdict on November 5, however honest it may be; he would again yell robbery, and if he carried a solid west as was then expected, he would give way to his fighting nature and try to take the presidency on the battlefield and so invite civil war, yet, Ab. Lincoln said that war is hell, and that he who wilfully invites war deserves death. Do we realize the horrors of civil war; are we willing to wash out the sin of violating the third term with the blood of our sons imagine torn from home, family and parents, from prosperity to dire want in order to place a man to the presidency he is legitimately not entitled to? Yet, gentlemen of the jury, the United States may still be able to subdue the rebels the danger the more grave than even civil war is the possibility of intervention by foreign powers, who may help the third termer in order to keep the union disunited and separated for we must know that our strength is not in our army and navy, money power, our strength is in our union, we would at once realize that we are surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves ready to destroy this hated republic, ready to destroy Monroe doctrine, ready to annex the Panama canal and the great land of the brave and free, the home many millions free people, the dream of all heroes and martyrs for political freedom to 1848 would have ceased to be owing to the ambitions of one man and one man's rule.

I hope that the shot at Milwaukee has awakened the patriotism of the American nation, that it has opened their eyes to the real danger and shown them the only safe way out of it as is proven by election returns in the great Democratic party the north, south, east and west is once more and more solidly united and proudly can we prove to the nations of the world that the spirit of 1776 is still alive and shall never die, and that self-government is an established fact and a success.

I have been accused of having selected a state where capital punishment is abolished. I would say that I did not know the laws of any state I traveled through, it would be ridiculous for me to fear death after the act, as I expected to die during the act and not live to tell the story and if I knew that my death would have made the third term tradition more sacred, I am sorry I could not die for my country.

Now, honorable men of the jury, I wish to say no more, in the name of God, go and do your duty, and only countries who ask admission by popular vote and accept the popular vote never wage a war of conquest, murder for to steal abolishes opportunity for ambitious adventurers, for all political adventurers and military leaders have adopted the career of conquering heroes, wholesale murder, wholesale robbers called national aggrandizement. Prison for me is like martyrdom to me, like going to war.

Before me is the spirit of George Washington, behind me that of McKinley.