Too short to see over the crowd, he stood on a chair to get a better shot and shouted out "There are too many people starving to death!" He fired shot after shot at FDR, but a woman's quick move caused the chair to wobble and knock the gun upward. The bullets hit several bystanders and mortally wounded Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago. Three weeks later, Zangara was sentenced to death by electric chair for the murder and attempted assassination.
Zangara never showed any signs of remorse at Mayor Cermak's death. When asked how he felt about having wounded a woman, a mother of five, he said "she shouldn't have gotten in the way of the bullet."
On March 21, 1933, Zangara marched into the execution chamber shouting against the "capitalists" and expressing disappointment that no news photographers were permitted to witness his execution. "Goodbye, adios to the world," were his last words.
Return to character page Return to home page