MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN — A presidential historian in Pennsylvania has uncovered the first page of a thick manuscript that helped slow a bullet and save Theodore Roosevelt's life during a 1912 assassination attempt. The page, the introductory sheet of Roosevelt's typewritten campaign speech, bears two bullet holes from where a round tore through before striking Roosevelt's metal spectacles case.

On Oct. 14, 1912, at a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Roosevelt was wounded but not mortally injured in the attempt on his life. The lengthy manuscript had been folded in two and tucked in his breast pocket. After being shot, Roosevelt informed the crowd he had been shot and proceeded to deliver his speech, telling those present afterward, "OK, I'm ready for the doctor."

Historian Nathan Raab said he was aware of only two other pages from Roosevelt's speech that day still in existence. The newly uncovered page is the only one known to bear Roosevelt's handwriting. Shortly after the attempt, Roosevelt inscribed the sheet: "This is one of the manuscript sheets through which the bullet went at Milwaukee. TR."

Raab values the page at $150,000. He said Roosevelt gave the page to a friend, who years later handed it to a family in New York whose collection held it for about 75 years. Raab has previously uncovered presidential artifacts thought lost or destroyed, including letters from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

"The final speech differs from the prepared one because he had just been shot." Raab added: "It's a reminder that our country has faced difficult times where there was political violence in previous iterations, and this one fortunately turned out well."

A 1912 photograph held by the Library of Congress shows Elbert Martin holding the bullet-damaged speech. Martin was Roosevelt's stenographer and acting bodyguard, and he tackled the gunman and prevented him from firing a second shot. The gunman, John Schrank, was a German-American tavern owner with a history of mental illness.

Roosevelt assumed the U.S. presidency in 1901 upon the assassination of William McKinley. He won the 1904 presidential election but did not run for re-election in 1908. He ran as a third-party candidate in 1912, and he and Republican incumbent William Taft were defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson less than a month after the Milwaukee shooting. Roosevelt died in January 1919 at age 60 with Schrank's bullet still in his chest.