FDR escapes assassination in Miami; would be assassin dealt justice in six weeks

Jailed Zangara 1933
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

 By Jane Feehan

A look back at the assassination attempt on Franklin Delano Roosevelt at Miami’s Bayfront Park shows how things have changed - or not – since 1933.

After a pleasure trip aboard Vincent Astor’s yacht, President-Elect Roosevelt planned to speak briefly to a gathering at Bayfront Park on February 15. His itinerary, published in newspapers, attracted the attention of 33-year-old Italian immigrant Giuseppe Zangara who had planned to target President Herbert Hoover months before until he realized his term was about to end. Suffering from what was later determined as gallbladder disease, he moved from New Jersey to the kinder, warmer weather of Miami. Zangara, now a naturalized citizen, blamed his loss of a job and health problems on rich capitalists, presidents and kings.

FDR had just ended a two-minute talk from the back seat of an open car at Bayfront when Zangara climbed a chair to better aim at him with a gun he had purchased at a Miami pawn shop. A woman standing nearby jarred his arm when the chair started to wobble. His shots struck five people, including visiting Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak. FDR escaped injury. Zangara was immediately arrested saying he was “sore at the government.”

The would-be FDR assassin was brought to trial five days later in Miami and sentenced to 80 years. But on March 6, Mayor Cermak, who had been recovering, suddenly died. Zangara was brought to trial again and then sentenced to death.

Wounded Mayor Cermak
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Zangara died in the electric chair at Raiford prison March 20, 1933. His only regret: not having his picture taken in the chair. “All capitalists lousy bunch – crooks,” he reportedly said when hearing there would be no photographers.

Security for presidents has greatly improved since 1933 but unfortunately, nuts still abound. Arrest, trial and execution of Zangara all occurred in less than six weeks. Today, in most cases, justice has slowed to the speed of a Burmese Python’s crawl.
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Sources: 

Brands, HW. Traitor to His Class: The privileged life and radical presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. New York: Anchor Books (2008), p. 277-281.

Miami News, Nov 2 1950, p28 at:

Palm Beach Post, Mar 20, 1933, p 1

Palm Beach Post, Mar 21, 1933, p. 1.

Tags: Florida history, FDR in Florida, FDR assassination attempt, Miami history,  film researcher, Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin D Roosevelt conducts presidential duties from Port Everglades and ...

 

March 24, 1936 at Port Everglades

By Jane Feehan


Presidents’ vacations have garnered notice throughout U.S. history; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s annual spring fishing trip was no exception.

Roosevelt came to Fort Lauderdale by train March 23, 1936 where he boarded the USS Monaghan at Port Everglades. The party rendezvoused at sea with the president's yacht, the Potomac, a converted Coast Guard cutter. FDR boarded the vessel for an inaugural ride. During the expedition, Roosevelt hooked a large sailfish, which escaped, and then landed a bonita. The excursion ended by early afternoon.

Roosevelt also conducted business that day while docked at Fort Lauderdale.

Major General Johnson Hagood met with the president en route to Fort Lauderdale after making some controversial remarks before a congressional committee about federal work relief expenditures. The day after the meeting, the decorated general was ordered by Roosevelt, still in Port Everglades, to take three months leave of absence.

Hagood’s leave lasted less than two months when he received a new command. He accepted the command for one day and then retired. His memories of Fort Lauderdale, no doubt, were not as fond as those held by Roosevelt.
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Sources:
Palm Beach Daily News, March 24, 1936

Weidling, Philip J., Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, President Franklin D Roosevelt, Florida fishing history, Major General Johnson Hagood, film research