Giuseppe Zangara
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Giuseppe Zangara | |
|---|---|
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| Born | September 7, 1900 Ferruzano Calabria, Italy |
| Died | March 20, 1933 Raiford, Florida, USA |
Giuseppe Zangara (September 7, 1900 – March 20, 1933) attempted to kill United States President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933.
Zangara was born in Ferruzano, Italy. After serving in the Tyrolian Alps in World War I, Zangara did a variety of menial jobs in his home town before emigrating with his uncle in Paterson, New Jersey, to the United States in 1923. On September 11, 1929, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Zangara, a poorly educated brick layer, was driven mad by the constant sharp pain in his abdomen, later attributed to adhesions of the gall bladder. It was difficult for him to work due to both his physical and mental conditions, and in his fevered mind came to believe the President of the United States was somehow supernaturally actively causing his pain. Further, he was a very lonely man; he blamed authority figures for his pain, but the side effects of his condition included chronic flatulence, while his outspoken and impatient nature likely pushed other people away. Other sources report that Zangara envied those who had more than he did, and sought the assassination of "all capitalist presidents and kings." Zangara began plotting to assassinate the current president Herbert Hoover, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was elected to replace him before Zangara could act on his plan. Zangara would later say, "Hoover and Roosevelt — everybody the same."
On February 15, 1933, FDR was giving a speech in Bayfront Park in the city of Miami, Florida where Zangara was living, working the occasional odd job, and living off his savings. Zangara took a .32 caliber pistol, purchased at a local pawn shop, and joined the crowd. However, being only five feet tall, he was unable to see over other people and had to stand on a wobbly, folding, metal chair to get a clear aim at his target. After the first shot, Mrs. W.F. Cross of Miami, jostled his arm and he fired five more shots wildly. He missed the President-Elect. Five other people were hit including Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, who was sitting next to FDR. En route to the hospital, Cermak had allegedly told FDR, "I'm glad it was me and not you, Mr. President." Roosevelt himself was remarkably poised.
Cermak died of complications brought about by his abdominal wound 19 days later, on March 6, 1933, two days after Roosevelt's inauguration, the only fatality of the shootings. Only two weeks later, on March 20, 1933, Zangara was executed in Old Sparky, the electric chair at Florida State Penitentiary after being convicted of Cermak's murder. According to Florida law, because Zangara intended to murder it was irrelevant that his intended target was not the man he killed; the law governing first degree murder was applicable. Also according to Florida law, a convicted murderer could not share cell space with another prisoner before his execution, but another convicted murderer was already awaiting execution at Raiford. Zangara's sentence required prison officials to expand their waiting area, and the "death cell" became "Death Row."
Giuseppe Zangara's last words were spoken to the judge present at his execution, "You give me electric chair. I no afraid of that chair! You one of capitalists. You is crook man too. Put me in electric chair. I no care! Get to hell out of here, you sonofabitch [spoken to the attending minister]... I go sit down all by myself... Viva Italia! Goodbye to all poor peoples everywhere!... Lousy capitalists! No picture! Capitalists! No one here to take my picture. All capitalists lousy bunch of crooks. Go ahead. Pusha da button!" [1]
Raymond Moley, a leading criminologist, interviewed Zangara in depth and concluded he was not part of a radical plot, and that he was gunning for Roosevelt. All major historians agree with Moley. Nevertheless some conspiracy ideas circulated in Chicago at the time to the effect that Zangara was a hitman hired by the Capone faction of the Chicago Mafia as a diversion for a second killer --who never fired a shot and was never seen--to shoot Cermak, an enemy of the Capone mob, not Roosevelt.
Zangara is one of the assassins portrayed in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's musical Assassins. The song describing his attempted assassination, "How I Saved Roosevelt", takes many of its lyrics directly from Zangara's final words in the electric chair, and ends with his electrocution.
[edit] References
- Davis, Kenneth S. FDR: The New York Years: 1928-1933 (1994)
- Freidel, Frank. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Triumph (1956)
- Picchi, Blaise. The Five Weeks of Giuseppe Zangara: The Man Who Would Assassinate FDR (1998)
- Shappee, Nathan D. "Zangara's Attempted Assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt" Florida Historical Quarterly 1958 37(2): 101-110. argues he was insane
