The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt Part 13

Q. What is the name of the hotel?

A. White House they call it; the owner of the hotel is Jost, Gustav, Gustav Jost.

Q. How long you been living there?

A. I think seven months.

Q. Is there a bar connected with the place?

A. Oh, indeed.

Q. Have you been drinking lately?

A. No, sir; no, sir; that ain't my habit.

Q. What is your favorite drink when you do?

A. Beer.

Q. If you had your mind set upon shooting Mr. Roosevelt, how does it come that you had to follow him to so many places before you came here?

A. As I have been telling you a minute ago, he escaped me many a time, he escaped me in Chicago.

Q. By leaving the place where he spoke by some other door?

A. By some other door and I was watching and he didn't come out that way and it was advertised by the papers he would come on the Northwestern and instead he come on the St. Paul.

Q. Where did you buy the revolver?

A. In New York.

Q. When?

A. On Sat.u.r.day the twenty-first.

Q. And you bought it with the object in view of shooting Mr. Roosevelt?

A. Yes, sir; exactly.

Q. Where did you buy it?

A. I could not really tell you where I bought it, in Broadway, I know it's below Ca.n.a.l street, but I could not tell you the name.

Q. What's the make?

A. Colt; thirty-eight caliber; it's where you turn the barrel to the side way, it's none of those you open this way.

Q. What kind of place, a hardware store or gun shop?

A. No, sir; nothing but guns; I paid fourteen dollars for it.

Q. Did you ever discuss this matter with any other person of what you intended to do?

A. No, sir; no, sir.

Q. You didn't speak to anyone?

A. I discussed as far as the political discussion is concerned, but I never give anybody a hint that I was going to do this, that was all my own make-up.

Q. You didn't tell anybody why you bought the revolver?

A. No, sir; n.o.body knew I bought a revolver.

Q. In this dream that you had, McKinley told you that it wasn't Czolgosz that killed McKinley, but it was Roosevelt?

A. Well, he says in this way, "this is my murderer."

Q. Did you ever meet Czolgosz or know him in his life-time?

A. No, sir; no, sir; how could I. I have been all that time since I have been here in New York.

Q. Did you know John Most when he was alive?

A. No, sir.

Q. Did you ever hear him talk?

A. No, sir.

Q. Did you ever hear Emma Goldman?

A. No, sir; I am not an anarchist or socialist or democrat or republican; I just took up the thing the way I thought it was best to do.

Q. You are not a member of any party?

A. No, sir; I thought there should be an example of the third term if it should exist any longer; Mr. Grant was refused and he was satisfied; this man was refused and he is not satisfied; it's gone beyond limits; if he keeps on doing this after election, he can't possibly carry a solid western state; the next thing we will have is a Civil War, because he will say the scoundrels and thieves and crooks stole my nomination and now they will steal my election, and they will take up arms in all the western states; we are facing a civil war just to keep him in a third term, in an illegitimate place.

Q. Where did you get all this idea from?

A. I have been reading history all the time.

Q. You don't find that anywhere in history that they stole his nomination and going to steal his election?

A. I don't have to read that in history; you must know in the Chicago convention it was in every paper, everybody could read it.

Q. You read it in the paper then?

A. He says it every time he speaks.