Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents (19 page)

The next day, however, he noticed in a newspaper that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had just beaten Hoover in the election of 1932, would be making a speech in Miami the very next day. He altered his plans, later commenting on this decision: “Hoover and Roosevelt—everybody the same.”

Franklin Roosevelt, the fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, was in Florida for a vacation before taking office and spent twelve days fishing and cruising on a yacht with friends. On landing, he was to make a short speech at Bayfront Park and meet with party leaders.

By 9 PM, thousands had gathered to see the president-elect. Paralyzed from the waist down since contracting polio at age thirty-nine, Roosevelt often made speeches from the back of his automobile to avoid having to transport himself to a podium on a stage.

Zangara managed to get as close as the third row, about twenty-five feet away. Standing on a wobbly folding chair, he barely had time to aim his revolver before Roosevelt’s 135-word speech concluded. Holding his arm over the heads of those in front of him, Zangara fired five shots in rapid succession.

Six people were injured by Zangara’s bullets, including Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, but Roosevelt himself was unscathed. In a scene of chaos, Zangara was tackled and beaten by bystanders as the president-elect attempted to get the wounded Cermak in the car and drive to the hospital.

At Dade County Jail, the sheriff questioned Zangara about his motives, asking what he thought of anarchism. “Foolishness,” he replied. Asked about socialism, communism, and fascism, “More foolishness,” said Zangara. He also rejected religion. “I don’t believe in nothing,” he told police.

Zangara was brought to trial four days later on four accounts of attempted murder. In his heavily accented, imperfect English, he pled guilty, saying, “I decided to kill and make him suffer . . . I get even with capitalists by kill the president. My stomach hurt long time.” Asked if he was sorry for what he did, “Sure,” he replied. “Sorry I no kill him.”

He was quickly sentenced to eighty years of hard labor in prison by Judge E. C. Collins. On hearing this, Zangara said to Collins, “Oh, Judge, don’t be stingy! Give me hundred years!”

When Mayor Cermak died of complications from his bullet wound, Zangara was brought back to court and, after a brief trial, was sentenced to death. “You give me electric chair. I’m no afraid that chair,” Zangara responded to the judge. “You’re one of the capitalists. You crook man, too. Put me in electric chair, I no care.”

Judge Uly Thompson took the opportunity to urge the US Congress to pass legislation to outlaw and confiscate all handguns. “It is a ridiculous state of society,” he stated, “that an assassin may be permitted to arm himself and go at liberty throughout the land killing whom he will kill.”

On March 20, just thirty-three days after the shootings, Giuseppe Zangara was led to “Old Sparky,” the electric chair at Florida State Prison at Raiford. Seeing members of the press snapping photos, Zangara rebuked them: “No take picture! Capitalists! Lousy, dirty capitalist!”

“Goodbye to poor people everywhere! . . . Pusha da button!” said Zangara, just before the lethal dose of electricity was applied. “Go ahead, pusha da button!”