Part Two: Push the Button: The Brief Life and Quick Death of Giuseppe Zangara

Margaret continues talking with Miriam about an Italian man with chronic pain who decided to kill someone important.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to Cool People who did cool stuff,
which is sometimes about cool people who did cool stuff,
but is currently about complicated people who did interesting stuff.
I'm your host, Murder Kiljoy, and my guest is Miriam. Hi, Miriam,
Hi are you today? That's totally a different day than
the previous day, because obviously we recorded on different days.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah, I'm having a really different day than it was
the last time that we talked.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Sophie is our producer. Hi, Sophie, Hi.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
I'm still drinking my questionably colored electrolyte drink.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
It's lasted you days days. Yeah. For anyone who can't see,
which is everyone except the three of us, because mercifully
this is not a video podcast. Sophie is currently drinking
a I was trying to come something more clever than
it is. It just looks like pee, that's what's happening.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah, aesthetically this drink.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
But it seems like it probably tastes good. Yeah, I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
It's taken her three days to drink it.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
That's true, but that parts, well, that's not true. That's
the part that's the lie, that's the bit we're doing.
But part of the not bit, but instead my weird
thing where I have to do everything the same way
every time that I'm not going to diagnose. We also
have to introduce our audio engineer, Rory hi Rori or
hi Rory inter The music is my own Woman.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
I think it's a really good way of making sure
you don't forget anything. That's what I think it is.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, exactly exactly. We are on part two of a
two parter about gioseppes On Gara, who is a would
be Well, I guess if you don't kill the person
you're trying to kill, you're not an assassin.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
So he's a murder he did, he did assassinate someone.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, but but he didn't try to kill that guy.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Mmmm. True.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
True, So I think he's would be assassin and just
a regular murderer, yes, and.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
An interesting person who did interesting stuff, we definitely agree.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Who is wildly sympathetic, just the most sympathetic of the
person who it's so complicated. I love this story.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
So many bad things have happened to him.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I know, I know. And now he's in Miami and
he has a gun. He got ten bullets and then
because nothing makes sense and anywhere that only has one
version of history means that it's probably lying to you.
He either practiced somewhere with the first five rounds or
they were on him when he was arrested. Both have

(02:34):
been presented by credible sources.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
That seems like so easy to fact check, I know,
but for that, not for you if people are saying
different things, but like he either had five bullets in
his pocket or he did not, Like this is there's
no subtlety to this.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
A lot of like records and stuff all went missing.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
You did say there were conspiracy theories, true crime elements
to this.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
Yeah, okay, all of the records about him disappeared in
nineteen forty five. WHOA, and then like his criminal record
in Italy was like destroyed in the war the coming one,
the World War two one.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
And like there's just like stuff, you know.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Anyway, I don't think we've even talked about why he
has a criminal record in Italy. I don't think you
mentioned any Italian crimes.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
He was arrested having an illegal knife on him when
he was like twenty oh care and he served thirteen
days in jail for it, which is kind of wild.
It might have been during the while he was like
walking around Rome trying to kill the king part of
his life. But I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
I mean, I would hope he had a like for
his sake in terms of his planning, that he had
a gun when he was walking around Rome hoping to
kill the king.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, but yeah, so he had illegally feoun him. Pie
served searching days in jail, and who knows, it seemed
like not a big deal. It only came up because
they actually spent a while after he got arrested right there,
would like write, hello, our friend Mussolini, can you let
us know about this man we have in custody, you know, right,
And for a while they were like, oh, I don't

(04:09):
have anything on that guy, and slowly came up. And
then there's like a bunch of others Joe's Angaras in
the US and whatever. Anyway, So the closer we get
to the event itself, the blurrier the details get, because
everyone wanted to take credit for saving the day or
knowing something about what happened, or tying him into their
favorite pet conspiracy about the anarchist international network that they

(04:31):
think is bad instead of like me, where I think
it's cool, you know.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Not to make the whole conversation back to the Sondhim musical.
But the song about Zangara in the show is called
How I Saved Roosevelt, And it's a crowd song where
every single person is telling like how the story is
really about them.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
That is very accurate.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yes, he's a good writer, Stephen Sondheim. But like everybody
is talking about like, oh, he tried to push in
front of me and I made him to go stand
at the back. And then somebody else is like I
saw him getting up on the chair and I pushed him,
you know, like everybody has their own little thing. And
then is like basically talk about this story is really
about me, while he just like screams in anguish and
is ignored.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, that's actually just pretty directly like those two exact
things are going to happen well, or people will claim
they happened.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Right.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
There's one version of The Fateful Day where Giuseppe went
and got a hotel room and smoked half a hundred
cigarettes on the bed while chambering the gun and worrying.
This comes from the woman who runs the hotel.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Can I ask you something, You're a professional writer? Half
a hundred?

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah? Why half hundred. I didn't that that was the
way the woman described it. Half a hundred cigarettes.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Fifty there's a perfectly good number.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Half a hundred carries a different connotation, it.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Does, doesn't it. It sounds like he had one hundred
there and he only smoked half of them, and like
he was trying to smoke all of them, but he
only did half.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Smoking fifty cigarettes, it means you were there for a
while smoking half a hunt undred cigarettes, and means like
you're like.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, it is you know, it sounds wild to smoke
half a hundred cigarettes. Smoking fifty cigarettes is just a
lot of cigarettes. I just wanted to really do a
close reading of this moment. Thank you for indulging me.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, yeah, no, totally Yeah, two and a half packs.
They could have just said two and a half packs, right,
because then anyway.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Whatever that sounds reasonable, I know, he smoked two and
a half packs of cigarettes. Just sounds like, yeah, that
doesn't even sound like anything.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
I've met people who do that. But he didn't smoke.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Oh great, so he actually smoked half a zero cigarettes.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Probably he also had a room in town. He probably
never went to a hotel. Great, this woman has probably
just interjected herself into the story. But it's also kind
of a compelling narrative, like you could see they're like, well,
I'm gonna die today. I'm gonna go smoke half a
hundred cigarettes. You know, I don't know either way. Nine pm,

(06:56):
February fifteenth, nineteen thirty three, Franklin and Doug Nope, where
did that one? Franklin diminutive Deborah Franklin Deborah Roosevelt docked
and got into a car, one of the three cars
with his entourage, and they went off to Bayfront Park.

(07:17):
And if you're thinking to yourself and only Margaret, is
that place sounds familiar? And there's a band stand there?
Did you, Margaret get trapped there? Once kettled alongside thousands
of other people in November two thousand and three, the
day after you saw Dead pres play at the bandstand
at the Miami FTAA protests. Well, I looked at photos

(07:40):
and the answer is yes, I saw Dead pres play
where this guy shot the president.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
That actually rules. Do you think they knew?

Speaker 2 (07:50):
I don't know. I have no idea.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
I mean, I would hope somebody told them.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
I know, I know they're like, oh, you should have
been dead Mayor just for the night.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
You know, if they really fucked up the show, if
they really fucked up the show, then they were dead Mayor.
It's like, oh, yeah, I missed on that one.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, so anyway, Franklin, Demetrius Roosevelt, Miriam gave me that
one in between. Then the break showed up at the
park and there was a huge crowd. Giuseppe tried to
push his way through the front of the crowd. Some
witnesses claim that he had someone with him, most claimed
that he didn't. He probably didn't.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
It seems like he usually doesn't have anybody with him,
and when he does, it's often a teenager.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Well those are the ones we hear about. But yes, okay,
he wanted to get to the front row because he
is short, and he wants to shoot the speaker, which
is obviously a thing that comes up anyway, and potentially
a guy stopped him from pushing his way forward. This one,
I kind of tend to believe there was, Like some
witnesses Zuku Testa this one the particular, like, hey, what

(08:59):
are you doing? You can't push your way up, And
he's like, I'm sure it let me through, And the
guy's like no, you're a man. You can't go anywhere,
you know. But obviously this guy has a vested interest
in claiming he saved the president, so right, you know,
he remembers the story very well. He's also one of
the people who claimed that the guy, oh I don't remember,
everyone had. It's like a chart of people who claimed
to have saved the president and claimed that he did

(09:20):
or didn't have an accomplice with him whatever. So he
ends up in the third row. Waiting on the steps
to the stage. Are all these dignitaries. Since the country
that their dignitaries in is the United States of America,
this means it's all the rich people in town, like
all the business leaders of Miami or whatever, sitting there.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
And since it's like the early twentieth century, they're all
probably wearing like top hats and like a ribbon across
their chest.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, that says like I am an industrialist. Ha ha
ha sucks to be you. I think that's what they
all wore.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Also waiting there is the mayor of Chicago, Anton cermac
I was.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
Really waiting for you to explain what he was doing there,
because it never occurred to me to wonder what he
was doing in Miami ran so the soon to be president.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
The first time I read it, I was like, oh, huh,
I need killed like an important guy. And I'm like, wait,
Miami is famously not in Chicago. Yeah, so what the
fuck was the mayor of Chicago doing in Miami. I
hear mayor of Chicago in the nineteen thirties, and I
assume he's a corrupt mafia puppet, right, And Miami is
almost a sister crime city to Chicago at this point

(10:27):
with organized crime or whatever. Is what I've infurring. I mean,
that's a subtext to some stuff I've read. I'm not
a historian of the organized crime in Miami. So is
he there because of organized crime? No? Ant In cermac
is the politician who broke the racist Irish stranglehold on
Chicago politics. Huh, including by getting the Irish vote. He

(10:51):
wasn't a like haha, we pulled one over on the Irish.
He himself was an immigrant. He was from Slovakia. He
grew up speaking Czech, was a coal miner, and Anton
grew up working class before he kind of bootstrapped him.
He American dreamed himself into being a businessman. You know
and then started exploiting people for money or whatever. Right,

(11:12):
but he fought against prohibitionists on a campaign of personal liberty.
He ousted the incumbent mayor by leveraging his own working
class cred and rousing the vote of the ethnic minorities
whod been shut out of politics, especially getting out the
black vote in a way that hadn't been done well.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
And if he was an anti prohibition guy, that means
that the Chicago mob was probably very anti him, because
the mob wanted prohibition to stay so they could continue
selling illegal bootze.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
He did this thing where he kind of ran on
a mafia neutral platform, but he was anti mafia, according
to what I've read the people of This is where
there's even more arguments, right, But yeah, he was. He
was anti mafia. The mafia was anti him. This is
part of why people thought that maybe this is why

(12:02):
he was killed. It is almost certainly not what happened.
He won by the largest landslide victory in the city's history.
And his whole thing is anti corruption. And then what
people claim is that actually he was just as dirty,
but he was the opposite side. Al Capone is in
jail at this point and so he wants not actually,

(12:23):
but people say that he wants or there's no evidence
rather of the idea that he wants a different mafia
guy in charge. Right right seems to be a minority
opinion among historians. I believe that the general opinion is
that he was anti corruption and anti mafia. He's sixty
nine years old at this point. It took him a
while to get to mayor, right, and he's in Miami

(12:45):
because Chicago is having trouble raising enough money through taxes
thanks to the Depression, to pay for all the public
services it needs. Specifically, he is there because public school
teachers aren't getting paid enough in Chicago. Oh no, I'm
telling you this is a tragedy. The active duty mayor

(13:09):
traveled to Miami to hang around a bandstand to desperately
try to catch the ear of the president elect for
a second to plead for federal funds to pay public
school teachers.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Oh no, that's such a good thing to do.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
It is. And it wasn't a like I'm just gonna
go chum it up with so and so. He was
there as a like, if I can get half a
second of the president, maybe I can help these teachers
Oh my god. He didn't know exactly when the things
was gonna be.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
He just like and this wasn't him being like like
trying to like yeah, forge a political alliance or like
call in a favor for himself.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
This was like, oh no, yeah, because he was he
was just kind of do it okay for himself. You know,
he's like the business guy and like, yeah, as far
as I can tell, there was an ulterior motive here.
He was there for literally the thing that just Seppi's
there for, yeah, that poor kids should get to go

(14:09):
to school.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
That poor kids should get to go to school.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Oh no, I know that. This was the moment where
I was like, oh god, like this is like I
read this.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
I was really counting on this podcast recording session to
lift my spirits.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
You know that. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
It's always a gamble talking to you.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
I know.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
No, that's not true. I love talking to you.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
It's still like it's a tragedy, but it's like you
know when we go see Shakespeare for the comedies and
the tragedies, right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
No, it's a poetic tragedy. Yeah, it's a oh.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
And both sides of it are I straight up thing
Joeppe's on the wrong side of this, but honestly, so
is this businessman mayor right, like in other ways, you know,
for anyone who's listening wonders by talking about I mean
because of capitalism, not because of the anyway whatever. So
there's the mayor, there's some business leaders, there's twenty five
thousand Miamians, and then there's Giuseppe's Angara with a revolver

(15:11):
in his pocket. Franklin Dylan Dorothy Dorothy Dylan Roosevelt shows
up and he's he's paralyzed. Right, there's a thing that
wasn't a People did know this at the time. It
wasn't totally hidden, but it wasn't like it was downplayed
as much as possible.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
It was sort of yeah, he like like I know,
he sort of really tried to avoid being photographed in
a wheelchair and stuff like that, but.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Like, you know, and he walked with heavy leg braces
underneath his trousers and I'm not trying to At some
point I wanted I want to read more about ableism
and FDR because I think it's very interesting that possibly
the most powerful American president in history was a was disabled.
You know, Yeah, especially during a period of even more
intense and ableism than currently, which is still instead of

(16:01):
going up on stage, he's in an open car, right,
so they just pick him up and put him onto
the backseat of the car so we can talk to
the crowd. This is part of the like, well, they're
not really hiding it, they're just not playing it up.
You know.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
That was also like that was a very popular way
for politicians to appear in public, you know, up to
another assassination that ye fair took place.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, before people realize that convertibles is a good way
to get shot. Yeah. He gives a very very short speech,
just a couple of sentences, and he talks about he's
trying to go to the beach. Yeah, he talks about
his favorite topic. He talks about how he caught had
a great time fishing, but he figures he gained about
ten pounds on vacation, and so his first order of
business once he gets into the White House is an

(16:43):
executive order of himself to lose those ten pounds. Oh gross, Yeah,
that's like all he talks about. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Franklin diet culture, Roosevelt.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
I did not enjoy that. I did not enjoy that.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
No, no, he's going to say another annoying fatbook thing
a little bit too.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
We all had the same face of like, yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
Nobody wants to hear about your diet.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, and you're ob tessive worry abou anyway, whatever, m
M no, thank you. Yeah. Actually that's a kind of
Trumpian way to talk. They'll like getting up and giving
a speech is like I had a great time fishing,
you know, and now I'm going to say something body
shamy like, yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
I think they like, I'm just like you. I enjoy
phishing and a self deprecating joke is like pretty standard
politician like way of trying to endear yourself to a crowd.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
But no, you're you're right. And it was over before
anyone knew it, and Giuseppe was like, oh, I missed
my chance. And he didn't shoot during it because he
didn't have a clear line of sight and you know whatever,
and FDR's aids helped him back down to sitting in
the back seat. A few dignitaries rushed over to talk
to him, including Anton Sermac, who was like, Hey, I've
got some business to talk to you about. Gara was

(18:00):
about twenty five feet away, and so he stood up
on his chair and he said, I love products and services. Wow,
oh you really?

Speaker 3 (18:11):
You jump scared me with that one. I didn't say coming.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
I know that no one suspects that I can't do
a Spanish inquisition because if I just say the Spanish products,
that doesn't work. Well, here's ads and we're back. He

(18:34):
did stand up on his chair. He didn't shout anything.
He's quiet the entire time. Another woman about his size
named Lillian Cross, who was almost certainly in the song
that you're talking about, Yeah, was standing on the chair
right in front of him, and so he held the
gun over her right shoulder and fired one shot, then
two more shots, than two more shots, and then the

(18:56):
gun was empty. Lilian's face was burned by the powder
as he fired. And then everyone claims to be the
hero who saved the day. Yeah, Lillian Cross gets the
most credit, Like she's the one you're gonna find on
the Wikipedia page for example. She's actually the Well, neither
of these are very credible witnesses. No one stopped his aim.

(19:17):
The spoiler alert, no one stopped him.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Oh yeah, no. She definitely claims to have given him
a mighty shove or something when he Yeah, when he
was aiming.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
She claims she hit his arm with her bag or
wrestled his arm up. And then a carpenter named Thomas
Armor in the British style with a U somehow that's
important to me, disputes this and says Lilian didn't do anything.
It was I who rushed forward and grabs Angara's arm
and forced it up. Zagara's claim is that no one

(19:46):
stopped him. Well, I mean, afterwards they crap beats the
shit out and almost kills him. But most likely they
are both liars or misremembering. Most likely, Zanngara fired unimpeded
except for the wobbling of his chair that was caused
by the crowd, and that's how he remembers it. And furthermore,
of his arm had been held up, he wouldn't have

(20:08):
shot so many people.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, he would have missed more.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah. And almost every almost every witness who isn't claiming
that they personally saved the day is like, no, he
just shot on him. No one stopped him until he
was done. The rich, little old lady became the national hero.
The carpenter was the local hero. And so there's like
a huge fight, and this was a big drama. For

(20:34):
years the rest of his life, he was petitioning Congress
for a medal of honor since Lilian had gotten one,
and he would like whenever she would be on like
talk shows or whatever, he would show up.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
And be like, Oh, that's so embarrassing.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
I know as soon as he started shooting, the crowd
dropped to the ground. Reasonable and part of this whole thing.
I think people were like, oh, someone spoiled his aim.
How could he have missed? He was only twenty five
feet away. I think that people who say this have
not fired a lot of handguns. I feel confident that
the average news shooter could hit center mass of a

(21:09):
target in a calm situation with a handgun from twenty
five feet away after a little bit of practice. I
do not feel confident that the average shooter could hit
a target in a crowd from twenty five feet away
while standing on a wobbly chair full of adrenaline. Handguns
are incredibly inaccurate, and twenty five feet is not close

(21:30):
for a handgun.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
Yeah, I mean you said he had he had been
in the army, though, so would he have had like
weapons training.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
So he probably had some training. They probably, and I
can't say this for certain, they probably did not teach
him how to use handguns much.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Mmmm yeah, fair.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
Overall soldiers don't use handguns. Officers use handguns. That's a
good point. And even then they don't really use them,
they just carry them.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Well, and he had been thinking he was going to
be aiming at the guy on stage, not the guy
in the car, like his plan is changing, like everything.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
And he was going to be row and yeah, yeah,
not standing on a wobbly chair. He also came close.
The bullets like whizzed by within the foot of the
guy's head, you know.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, unprecedented and unfamiliar to hear a story about a
soon to be president having bullets come so very close
to shooting him at a rally.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
I hate it when history rhymes.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
I mean, are you predicting here and now that Trump
is going to enact a new deal and save the
world from Nazis?

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Oh, well no I am. Actually I'm not going to
put my money on that one.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
I really kind of entrapped you there. So Zangara injured
five people with his five bullets, and he came within
inches of FDR's head. He actually for a while thought
he had injured six people, and he bragged about it
while he was in Joe. He's like waiting for death
row and he's like, I shot six people with five bullets.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
That's not a good look, man.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
No, No, Sirmac took a round to the chest, but
he did not die right away. Mabel gil the wife
of the president of the power company, was hit in
the abdomen and nearly died. That was actually people were
more worried about Mabel than they were about Sirmac. Margaret Cruse,
who should not have been shot because she should have
a name that prevents you from being shot unless you

(23:20):
are ahead of State of the UK.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yeah, nothing bad should ever happen to Margaret's except that
one who you.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Mentioned, Yeah, exactly. She was a twenty three year old
who was just in the crowd and she was shot
through the hand and then another bullet went through her
hat and grazed her.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Are you bragging about shooting a random twenty five year old?

Speaker 2 (23:39):
I think he's like because he actually later he's like
pretty like he talks about how he would not have
targeted these people, but he also clearly is like, isn't sorry,
but This is why you don't shoot into crowds everyone,
you know, Yeah, don't do it. Yeah, A cop, a
Secret Service agent, and a chauffeur were all woundedly well.

(24:01):
The Secret Service agent was probably lying. Yes, witnesses at
the hospital said, the blood on his hand with someone else's.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Oh hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
But he is to this day, or at least as
of when this book was written, and I don't remember
when on the official list of Secret Service members who
were wounded in the line of duty?

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Was he Was he collecting those checks? Was he like
taken off, taken off of active duty and just sitting
at home like I got shot for the president?

Speaker 2 (24:29):
You know what though, Like if you're in a shooting,
if you're a bodyguard and there is a shooting, I
feel like you could be done. You're like, you know what,
on my watch, that man survived and I'm done. You
pay me for the rest of my life.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
Now, if you're at work and someone shoots at you,
your employers should pay for you to just chill for
the rest of your life. How about that.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
That's the sorry, that's the rules.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
When the shots rang out, FDR's bodyguard jumped on him.
The car started to gun off and I think this
is true. This is very propaganda for FDR, but I
believe this is true. No witnesses dispute this at all. Someone,
probably FDR, stopped them from driving away. They stayed and
helped the wounded instead. Sirmak was put into the car

(25:12):
next to FDR, who tried hard to keep the man
from going into shock. As they drove off towards the hospital,
the crowd attackted Zangara. Someone shouted, lynch him, kill him,
cut his throat because crowds be like that. Sometimes. A
bunch of cops tackled him. The crowd was beating him.
He was silent by most reports. One witness claimed he shouted.

(25:34):
He did not, Just to be clear, he did not
shout this. One witness claimed he shouted, I want to
kill the president. I kill the president. Too many people
are starving to death. I'm glad I got Sirmac.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
I love how somebody is like yes, And then he
shouted several complete coherent sentences.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, that include knowing the name of the mayor of Chicago. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Why the fuck would he know the name of the
mayor of Chicago and recognize him by sight?

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Right? He had a picture of FDR in his pocket
to make sure he knew what the guy looked like.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
You know, people weren't on TV then, Yeah, but also
people are on TV now. And if you showed a
resident of Miami a lineup of people and said which
of these is the mayor of Chicago, there is a
zero percent chance anyone can pick them out? Yeah, pick
them out. I don't actually know who the mayor of
Chicago currently is.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
No, I don't either. Yeah. Cops took him from the
crowd and they tied him to the trunk rack on
the back of a car. Huh, strangling him, and then
cops were like hanging on to the running boards as
they drove away.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Wait, sorry, is he like he's like being towed behind
the car?

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Okay, so like an old timey car is going to
have that spot on the back where the trunk is
literally a place you put a trunk.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Oh, okay, got it, I'm picturing it now.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, he's on top of that. So they get to
the hospital and then this is my favorite weird anecdote
of the whole thing. The guy working at the emergency
room was sitting back on it, sitting back in the chair.
His feet were up in the middle of the night.
You know, it's not midnight, but it's like nine PM's
in the emergency room.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
Oh, nothing happening in this Miami emergency room. I hope
no important people charging covered in blood.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Certainly not while you're reading a Nudi mag Yes. I
love that.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Oh my god, that's what it would be in a movie,
like that's.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, no, it totally, it absolutely would be, you know.
And then they're at the door and they're like, open
the door for the President of the United States, and
he thinks they're joking. He shouts back, tell him to
piss on the floor and swim under it. Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
People don't say shit like that anymore.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
People knew how to be clever in the thirties, damn.
And then like later in his life people were like,
did you really say that? And he's like, I'm not
saying one way or the other.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Oh my god. See this is the guy, like everybody
back at the crowd who's trying to make the whole
story about them. Sorry, but the story is actually about
this guy who was reading porn and told the president
to piss on the floor and swim under the door.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
I know. That's that's the one whose story from that
day should ring on into history.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah, this is the that guy's story.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
What's that?

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Do we know that guy's name or will he ever
forever be known to history as that guy?

Speaker 2 (28:23):
I think it's not. I didn't write it down. If
it was written down in my source.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Well, he's the hero of this story, absolutely, a guy
who is bad at his job.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, totally. And so they all pile into the hospital.
Sir Mac held on for a good while longer, like
like weeks or something, and the doctors thought he was
going to be fine. He was in serious but not
critical condition. X rays, which I believe were pretty new
at the time, determined that the bullet was in a
safish place to leave it for while he recovered, and

(28:55):
they were like, you know, taking the bullet out might
kill him. They were incorrect. I don't want to be like.
They were working with the best available knowledge they had,
but they were wrong. You know. Eventually it killed him.
And then our friend Franklin Doomsday, Franklin Doomsday, Roosevelt, thank you,

(29:15):
came in to visit the next day while Sirmac was
still alive, and Sirmac these are his last words to Roosevelt.
He said, basically, this is not a quote, It was
just a summation. He was like, the teachers. The teachers
are what matter. Anton pay the teachers.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Shit.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
This is why I believe that he was actually there
for that. You know, well, because he is no, he's dying.
Well he doesn't know if he's dying, but he probably
feels like he's dying, and he was. You know, he
also might have said I'm glad it was me and
not you, and those words are inscribed on his tomb.
There's no evidence he said it, but it would have

(29:58):
been in character.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Way less noble than hey, make sure you pay the
Chicago public school teachers.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
I know, I know. So Franklin Damien Roosevelt comes out
of this looking like a fucking rock star. He not
only kept his cool underfire, he stopped his own retreat
to make sure that the wounded were cared for. And
then there's like even another moment because there's like cops
on the running boards and they're like driving away and
one of the cops falls off, which I think is funny,

(30:27):
but then they stop and make sure the cop gets
back on, and so he's like he stopped his retreat
twice to make sure everyone's taken care of.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
And did he take care of the teachers?

Speaker 2 (30:39):
I don't know. I mean, I don't know. In my mind,
I'm like, well, he did a lot of like under
his watch, a lot more federal money went into things
like that.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
For sure, into education.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, but I don't know whether or not he kept
up his promise to Stirmac or I don't know if
you even promised it, you know.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, but the guy took a bullet. You pay the teachers.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Pay theseus anyway, and then restructure society in a more
horizontal way. Yeah. But he proved to a lot of
the world that he had what it took by how
he handled being literally under fire, keeping his cool, which
is good because World War Two happened under his watch. Yeah,

(31:21):
I mean he had to kind of get well, not
he America had to get drag kicking and screaming into that.
You know. But in all of this, do you think
that he can this isn't an ad transition. Do you
think that he can squeeze in some time to be
a little bit more fat phobic?

Speaker 3 (31:37):
Oh my god, I forgot that you said. The fat
phobia came back.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Jesus so that cop who got shot. The bullet ricocheted
from somewhere else and hit him in the forehead and
got lodged between his skin and his skull.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
Yikes.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
And so Franklin Dumbledore, because I'm saying negative things about him,
Roosevelt said, I think this is a direct quote. Of course,
no bullet could get through his thick skull, but the
hospital should starve him so he loses twenty pounds. Jesus
christ Man just got shot in the forehead for you.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
I mean, I'm I'm hardly one to criticize somebody for
taking the opportunity to dunk on a cop, but like, but.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
When you're the cops, boss, it's actually shitty.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
It seems in poor taste. Yeah, it seems.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Rude, I know, I know, unnecessary.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
And then after the incident, at his next stop, I
think Baltimore, he gets met by literally a thousand cops
at secret Service agents. They're like, all right, no more.
He only had six secret Service agents with him in Miami.
They're like, Noah, that's done. You are uh, you have
a Philanx with you from now on. And if you

(32:53):
want your own personal Failanx, you should buy one from
our sponsor, hire an entire phalanx dot made up website. Yeah,
our new sponsor. We can get money because I want
my own, and so I want them to give me
one as a if I figure, if I promote them enough,
a failanx of what I don't really care could be geese.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
That would be terrifying. A failanx of geese, I would run.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
But I feel like that'd be like the infinite thing
that Rintrok could just chase forever. You know, yeah, probably
happy hunting grounds. Well, now I don't want it because
now I'm comparing it to afterlife and rent trust to
live for a lot longer. So you know what, cancel
that sponsor and instead let's just go with whatever random
ads here they are and we're back. But if you

(33:50):
could have a phalanx of anything, what would you have
each of you? I think hedgehogs would be nice because
they have spears.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, I just think they're cute and like I like
the I like the sort of spiky but cuddly vibe.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, what about like foxes? Does that work in the scenario?

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Oh, that'd be good.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Falanx of foxes has a nice alliterative.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah, yeah, totally I used to know what a group
of foxes was called.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
I think it's called an earth. There's a band called
an Earth of Foxes.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
A group of foxes is called it's called a skulk,
leash or earth.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Hell yeah, I like a skulk.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
I like a skulk. Foxes make some of the cutest
noises I've ever heard in my entire life.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
They also make some of the most terrifying noises I've
ever heard in my entire life.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
That's also true, but we're gonna go with the happy
part of that first.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Oh my lord, a thousand foxes screaming like tortured people,
be so metal.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
I would run. I would run from them even faster
than I did from the.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
But you know who didn't run Zangara because he wasn't afraid.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
That's true. He was a little tied up.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Also, it's true although literally even in things, all the
people who kind of hated him and like literally did
the killing of him spoiler alert, were like, this is
like the bravest man we've ever seen in her life.
They took him to the county jail, they stripped him naked.
I told you that was going to come back. And
then at some point they brought a woman in to

(35:30):
take his statement, so they gave him clothes for a moment,
and then as soon as she left, they stripped him
naked again, even though the ostensible purpose of stripping him
naked was to like search him, you know.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
Yeah, and they've made it very clear that the clothes
are for the benefit of the person doing the interrogation,
not for his benefit.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, totally. And he's wearing just a towel and a
bunch of the photos taken in his time there's actually
fairly striking photos because he's, you know, a foot and
a half shorter than the guard next to him and stuff,
you know.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Did Franklin Devin Rose, they'll like stop by to make
any comments about his body once his shirt was off,
Like that just seems to be the theme.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Oh he's really thin. I think I think FDR would
have liked, would have approved.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Okay, What's what's so funny is I was like, why
can't we think is there nobody of note whose name
starts with D? And then I remembered who the president is.
I was like, I love that that didn't come to
any of our minds this entire time. I was like,
I was like, whose name starts with? Theme was like

(36:32):
goes like Damian Lillard, okay, Magpie got Dumbledore. I was
like pretty good, pretty good.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
I was like, who who could it possibly be? Yeah? Yeah,
no no other D names. That's it. We're out of them.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
No other D names of note.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
Yeah, Donatello, oh, Ninja Turtle.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah mm hmmm. So at a moment where I was like, yeah,
of course, and I was like, oh, right, he's named
after someone, the media hit job against Sangara started. Look,
he's no hero, but this is still a media hit job.
It started within twenty minutes because well, I'll explain why.
Within twenty minutes, the Miami Herald published an extra edition

(37:13):
of their paper because a reporter ran four blocks to
a hotel payphone to file a report. And yes, it
was only this week that I realized when newsyes shout
extra extra, read all about it, they mean an extra
edition of the paper, like we've already published one today.
Here's an extra.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
One, yeah, because something so important just happened that we
had an.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
Extra which also means that people in Miami learned about
this within twenty minutes, which is like faster than they
might learn about it. Now. I mean, they might learn
about it now faster than that, but.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
They would have learned even more misinformation about it now
in the first twenty minutes, right.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
And this report called Zangara a swarthy Italian typical of
his breed. Ew Yeah, it's gonna get worse for how
they feel about Italians not being white. Not that it
would be okay if they weren't whatever, It's just people
are shitty to people, That's what I'm trying to get at.
Reporters bribed their way into the jail to get access

(38:08):
to the documents, like just like bribed their way to
be like, hey, let's see the things that we're not
supposed to see, and then interview him. Another reporter said, quote,
his bulging eyes dilate in the dim light as he speaks.
His hair dark and curly, is awry. His face is dark,
the heavy growth of beard common to his race showing prominently.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
He stared italianly.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
I know, well, they all wrote his accent out.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Yeah, that's always an early nineteenth and early twentieth century journalists.
If they didn't like you, they would transcribe your dialect
and it sucked.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Uh huh. And it's interesting because I mean it. I
mean it continues to happen in literature to this day,
but it started falling out of fashion and people realizing
that it's usually just racism. But it certainly happened to
people of color a lot longer, and it happened to
Italians and like ethnic whites. But like they would always
constantly write about how he wants to keel the president

(39:11):
k E e L hmmm. A really obnoxious sheriff did
the interview with him. But weirdly, the stenographer who came
and did the stenography for it was this woman who
actually tried to reverse all of that and actually like
edited his English to be clearer.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
She was like, fuck off, I know how to spell.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah, but I'm also just like fixing like grammar and
stuff like that because he, oh interesting, he didn't speak
with clean English grammar. He could read and listen and
understand clean English grammar perfectly fine, but.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
He did not grow up in an English speaking country
and he went to school for two months. Get off
his back.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, he speaks more languages than you. When they arrested
him and they went to his room, they found that
cheap suitcase with nice clothes, and they found a bunch
of books and they were like English grammar books and
a Spanish like instruction book and like just stuff like
that because he was teaching himself things.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Interview him an Italian if y'all are so smart.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Well, the sheriff claimed to have. I don't believe him, No,
no one does. Because he did it in English interspersed
with Spanish words. He would be like that ombre over there.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
Oh my god. More people who should be embarrassed, be.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Like Mucco, Not even mucho Grazzi's, but like Mucco. Thanks.
You know.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
It's like it when you know, when I was in
high school and like the kid who was never actually
in class would show up to Spanish class for once
and like be like, oh I uh nido to go
to el bathroom?

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Oh yeah, totally. Only that's pretending to speak Spanish. He's
just speaking Spanish and claiming it's Italian. To be fair,
the way that I got by in Italy was by
speaking Spanish, but I didn't pretend it was a Italian. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Oh I've had I've had some conversations with Portuguese speakers.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Yeah, you know, we're like, look, if you speak a
Romance language, we'll figure it out. I have a better
chance with Spanish than I do it English.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
You know, we will figure this out. Yeah, but I
will not claim to be speaking your language. And I
will be a little embarrassed about this situation, and I
will not rag about it.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Also, Seppi speaks English perfectly fine, and so he kept saying,
I understand you fine, please just speak English, God Jesus Christ.
And then like the guy kept being like, do you
know how to read? And he's like, yes, you arrested
me with books, you know, like I had a newspaper

(41:42):
in my pocket, like you know, like he just had
a heavy accent. Giuseppe spoke really candidly about what he'd
done and why he'd done it. He said he wanted
to keel all the rich people who quote tread the
poorer people under their feet. He said, quote rich men
send their children to school, and when I was a
young man, rich men's son went to school while I

(42:03):
worked in a brick factory in Italy and burned myself.
He would like show the scar on his side, you know,
because he's like naked in front of him or whatever.
They asked what he thought about the president, and he said,
as a man, I like mister Roosevelt, but as a president,
I want to kill him. He said, quote, yes, I
kill president. I tried. I want to kill him because

(42:25):
I hate government. If he didn't die, I am sorry.
Sorry I didn't kill him, So if I kill him,
I am glad. He said he didn't care what happened
to him, because quote, I'm half dead now because the
capitalists they make me this way. And the sheriff asked, really,
I think this first funny. The sheriff asked, do you

(42:45):
like anarchism as the direct quote, and he said, no, foolish.
What about socialism? No more foolish?

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Nice. He didn't like COMMUNI, he didn't like fascism, he
didn't like Mussolini. He was very clear he had no
organizational ties besides being member of the union, which he
did not like very much, but he joined because it
was the only way to get work. They asked him
whether he wanted to kill the sheriff like someone else
in the room. The guard was like, well, do you
want to kill the sheriff? And he said he would
not kill working men like himself. And so that's why

(43:19):
I feel like on some level he's probably not like hey,
I got everyone in the crowd. He just didn't care,
which isn't you should care? You shouldn't kill people.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Yeah, just don't fire into crowds. Yeah, if you don't
want to kill random people in the crowd, don't fire
into a crowd.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Right. He said he had not discussed the plan with anyone.
He had no accomplices. He also said he had no friends.
He said he didn't believe in God. He believed in
things he could see, like the earth, the sky, and
the moon. They asked where he thought he'd go when
he died, and they meant like, are you going to
heaven or hell? You killed some people, and he said, quote,

(43:55):
I go in the ground. Nice fucking goes hard.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
He never showed the slightest bit of remorse. His stomach
hurt from being overworked and abused. He blamed the capitalist government.
It was right to kill the leaders of the capitalist government.
And he didn't mind that he was going to die.
He said, over and over again, I am right, and
my life is ended. The Secret Service initially guessed that
he was an anarchist with connection to groups in Patterson,

(44:22):
New Jersey, but then they determined that he wasn't. They
did this huge report. They traveled all over the country,
they interviewed everyone that he'd ever met, and then that
report disappeared in nineteen forty five, and we don't know
what's in it.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Ah damn.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
I see how people end up conspiracy minded or true
crime brained, because almost certainly there was nothing of particular
note in that report, and it matches what every other
newspaper and witness agreed on, and everything is exactly what
we think it is.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
What made it disappear like what happens?

Speaker 2 (44:58):
It was like transferred to the White House, and then
it just kind of people lost track of it.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
That's how storties get misinterpreted. Did people get called heroes, villains?

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah, you name it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
I mean I think we can say he did not
have links to any anarchists in Patterson, New Jersey, because
if they had even found a hint of it, there
would have been a fucking witch hunt.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
They did arrest a bunch of people he knew, eventually
let everyone out. That is the main reason that I agree.
I think that they there were like different cops and
agencies coming forward to being like, oh, we've been after
him for years, been foiling his bomb making ring. Of anarchists,
but it looked like they'd probably just made all that up.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Yeah, that sounds not true.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
Also, people claim that he'd been working to kill Mussolini
or Hoover, which is really funny because he had been
working to try and kill the king, although actually some
historians have been like, we have no evidence that he
actually did that. It's just his own word, but I
see no reason why would have lied about it. Or
they claimed that he was in touch with the now
underground Italian anarchist group the New Era. Other people assume
he meant to kill cermac all along, that he'd been

(46:08):
working for al Capone or maybe an Italian crime family
as part of some big international thing. This is whatever,
but he became a folk hero to some people. While
he was in jail, people did old fashioned fed posting.
Five unemployed brickmakers from Patterson were arrested because one of

(46:29):
them wrote a friend a joke letter, and this is
the like when I say joke letter, I'm like, or
there's something here right. The letter was quote with my
most sincere regrets, I'm forced to tell you of my
brother bricklayer's unsuccessful attempt on the life of our president's
elect if I were the one who had the honor
of shooting at our present president, I assure you that
I would take a week to practice and make a

(46:50):
good job of it. It seems a shame to have
in our midst a man of such poor aim. I
do believe we should have a place where we could
all go and practice up on our shooting as it
looks like an open seat on presidents and politicians. That's
like a joke, but not a joke.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
It's like not a it's not that funny, no, But
it also isn't what somebody would say if they were
part of an organization that was trying to shoot people.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
And like in a clear text letter that they yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Yeah, like that isn't that just doesn't ring. It does
not have the ring of truth to it. No, neither
is it funny. But it's like Luigi posting. It's a
thing like people aren't.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Being like, oh I I helped him, but instead they're
like fuck those rich people.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
I did enjoy all those posts that people made where
they were like, oh yeah, Luigi, he was with me
all week and yeah, specifically between the hours of five
and eight am.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
With bad photoshop jobs.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Yeah, that was that was funny. I surely had a
good time with that.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Someone wrote Zangara a letter in code into the jail
that was easily deciphered by the guards that congratulated him
on his good work and mentioned some other places where
politicians that he could go kill. The guy who wrote
this again just fed posting. It's just nothing changes. Nothing
changes is the moral here.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Photoshop had not been invented yet, so he could not
do a bad photoshop for a joke, right.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
The guy put his own return address on the letter,
with a self addressed postcard inside so that he could
hear back from his hero. He was taken to an
insane asylum where he lived the rest of his life.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Jesus.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah, and then people started sending letter bombs and shit
and like threats to different politicians and stuff that would
say things like I am a friend of Zangara and
I want to take up the work he failed to do.
I kill all presidents, governors and millionaires. They were like
even copying his style of speaking. You know, yeah, I
hate policemen and kill all your officers who I see
on street at midnight.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Yeah there, I mean, it's this is very like, this
is a.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Meme yeah, m hmm, totally. J Egar Hoover, the head
of the FBI. I wrote basically, there's no sign of
a conspiracy. He'd never been in Chicago and he was
there to kill FDR once again.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
J Edgar Hoover saw conspiracies everywhere, Like I feel like
if there had been one, he would have noticed.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Sure, Jesus Edgar Hoover, he would have done it. Yeah,
unless he's in on it. Sorry.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
I a while back, a movie about Jay Edgar Hoover
came out. I did not see it, but I saw
a trailer for it, and then they introduced the character.
The guy's like, this is John, He's our new up
and comer from the Bureau. And the guy like looks
straight into the camera and goes, Actually, I prefer Jay Edgar,
And I think about it every time I think about

(49:40):
j Edgar Hoover.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
So funny, he's so bad.

Speaker 3 (49:43):
So funny, that's all irrelevant.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
And so all throughout his trial he showed no remorse,
he showed no fear. He was just very clear. He's
very consistent. And this was commented on heavily in the press.
Basically he's on trial and then Sir Macte and so
I was on death row, and he writes that memoir
while he's on death row. Since the government file is lost.

(50:07):
This is the single biggest source we have on his life.
It is written in chapters, some of which are only
a few sentences or paragraphs long. Each one ends with,
thus ends the twelfth chapter of my life or whatever.
Nice when I read from it earlier to be like
when I was three, I fell in down the stairs,
it goes, and thus ended the second chapter of my

(50:28):
life when I was four, you know, And I want
to read you some of this because some of the
ones near the end of it. It's it's funny because
again historians are like, we don't know what he believed.
It's a mystery. But let me just read to you
some of this stuff that he wrote that everyone had
access to the whole time. Thirty third chapter. I will
now tell you what I think about religion. My belief

(50:50):
is that all religion was invented by capitalists. They invented
them so people would respect their property. The Roman Catholic
religion is the first one to talk about hell all caps.
The priests do not do anything, and what they preach
they know is false. They are like sharks working for
the capitalists and spreading their propaganda and living off of
the people who go to church and believe them. They

(51:12):
talk of paradise in the next world, but there is
no such thing. I believe that a person is in
paradise when he has good health and plenty of money,
and purgatory is when a person has good health and
is working for a living. I believe that hell is
when a person is sick and in misery, and that
death ends it all. If I had my way, I
would put all priests in hell so no one could

(51:34):
save them. I believe that if all money is burned,
it would do away with the priest's paradise. This finishes
the thirty third chapter, and I'm going to read another
one a second. But like, that goes pretty hard, I know,
and it's kind of interesting because it didn't go anti semitic.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
I appreciate that. Of course, the shark metaphor really did
not work because he's like, they are like sharks who
work for capitalism spread propaganda. I'm like, sharks don't.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Do that at all. Yeah, no, no, again, Like you know,
very direct writer, but not necessarily the most polished. Thirty
fourth chapter my idea, idea gets a capital eye, which
is actually made me think that there might be an
anarchist inspiration to that part of it, because the anarchists
used to be called the idea of the capital eye

(52:22):
when we were more openly sounded like a cult. My
idea is just. I was always against the capitalist. This
is the reason why I wanted to kill the head
of this government, because the people that run the government
do not work, and the poor working people have to
support them. They suck the blood out of the poor people,
and it is my belief that they ought to be killed.

(52:44):
The poor support them on their shoulders. They are no good.
They have all the money tied up. The poor are
willing to work, but cannot because it takes money to
make work. So what is the use of having money
if the poor cannot have any to buy their food.
What we ought to do is kill all of the capitalists,
burn all of the money, and form a civil society
of communism. I have nothing more to say. Tomorrow I

(53:07):
go to the electric chair to die, but I am
not afraid. I go contented because I go from my idea.
I salute all of the poor of the world. A
Riva Derci Zangara Juseppi, damn. Yeah, he definitely said what
he believed, like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
There's there's not really a lot that you uh miss there. Yeah,
like not mysterious, not mysterious, Miriam is exactly right, not mysterious,
Thank you, Miriam.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
Yeah, it just didn't make sense to them, So they
were like, you're just saying crazy things. You can't just
get rid of money and have communism that doesn't map
to anything that I understand in nineteen thirty three, Like
what fuck you?

Speaker 3 (53:53):
I really do wonder how much of it was coming
from the fact that it just did not map for
people that he was talking about killing capitalists and the
person he had targeted was FDR and that like, by
the American standard totally that didn't compute.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Yeah, I think that's a huge part of it. And
so go afraid to the electric chair is exactly what
he did. He marched into the death chamber with his
head held high. Final mystery. He handed a few notebooks
to the warden, who said they contained only personal requests
and they have never been published. They probably contained personal

(54:32):
requests and which never published, but like, sure.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
I hope at least one of them was like somebody
punched my.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Dad, I know right. Guards tried to lead him to
the chair, but he said, no, don't touch me. I
go myself. I know, fraid of electric chair. I show you.
I go sit down all by myself. And he went
to the chair and he hesitated, and then he hopped
down on the chair. One person was like, as though

(54:57):
someone sitting down at a barber.

Speaker 4 (55:00):
Hmm.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
He thought the chair was already electrified. Hmmm. He looked surprised.
When he sat down on the chair. He was like
still alive. So he looked up around and was like, see,
I know afraid of electric chair. His feet didn't touch
the floor. Is the smallest person that they had ever
murdered in the electric chair. They struggled to fit the

(55:23):
cap to his head since his head was so small,
and then they put a black hood over his head,
and he spoke his last words, Viva Italia, goodbye to
all poor people everywhere. Then he said, and this is
the only part I'm gonna do where I'm gonna do
his Italian because that's the way it's written. But I
actually think at some point it's almost just evocative. He said,

(55:43):
push it to button, Go ahead, push it to button
and that's uh, that's the end of justep. He's on Garam.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
That is a sad story, fucking tragedy.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Yeah, he is a sick, empathetic character. Who you know,
He's like, I I have nothing more to say, goodbye
to the poor people.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
I think about how we were talking during break about
how this compares to Leon Shogosh. And for anyone who's listening,
Leon Schogosh was a He was an anarchist. He was
actually US born. Everyone thought he wasn't, but he was.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
They couldn't spell his last name, so they figured he
must be foreign, right.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Also because he was an anarchist, they literally were like,
there are no American born anarchists, is what they claim.
At the time, he killed President McKinley, and he had
been ostracized from the anarchist scene. He actually was an anarchist,
he was very clear about it, but he'd been ostracized
from the scene. People didn't trust him. People thought he
was a FED. Basically fed didn't even exist yet.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
There had been Emma Goldman had written a letter about him,
an open letter in an anarchist publication that was basically saying,
like everyone has been going around saying that this guy
who keeps trying to join anarchist groups is a spy.
He's just awkward. Stop saying that he's a spy. Be
nice to him.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Yeah, And I think and I've seen this happen in
smaller ways where people when they when they discover a cause,
they want to get involved, and if they're socially ostracized,
they will find ways to act on their own. And
most of the ways that people want to act on
their own around certain radical ideas are poor strategic decisions.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
Yeah, I think he both believed that killing McKinley would
be an effect of political act, but I think that
like one of the main reasons might have been that
he wanted to prove to other anarchists that he was
legit right.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
And I think that obviously GISEPPI wasn't in anarchists or
communist circles as far as anyone can tell.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
And I think also as people on reality TV say
was not there to make friends, that's true, you know,
and I think chol Gosh was there to make friends
and wasn't good at it.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
But I think that they, like I think this is
a reason to talk about why we need to be
inclusive mm hmmm, because there's people who who want to
make the world better for very good reasons, and I
think that a social direction is a much more useful one,
one that is socially constructed, one that like we get

(58:18):
together and say, like, what is a good way to
make the world a better place. You know, I'm not
trying to be like individual acts of no purpose or whatever,
like I'm not trying to make sweeping generalizations here, But
I just see this and I'm like, I see why
he was isolated from everyone. He didn't really like people,
and then he just suffered all the time and he
felt really alienated by that. But I'm like, I wish
he had gotten to feel supported and like, yeah, I

(58:41):
don't know.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
And with chol Gosh, he did this thing. He assassinated
the president for the you know what he saw as
like the anarchist cause, and I think to prove himself
to anarchists. Most anarchists immediately decry, you know, like his
actions and like said like, oh, this is like not
at all okay. And then there was a huge crackdown

(59:05):
on anarchists in the United States.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
And it more or less ended anarchism as ah it
didn't help the anarchist movement in the US.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Yeah, exactly. It really harmed the anarchist movement in the US,
and it, you know, was not strategic. Yeah, and you know,
and of course he was executed too. And like, had
he found a community when he showed up looking for
an anarchist community, I think that that would have gone
really differently totally, because he very obviously did not sit

(59:36):
down with anybody else and say like, so I'm thinking
of killing McKinley. Yeah, And I think if he had,
and he had had people like who had his and
the movement's best interests at heart, they would have been like, hey,
I no, that's not a great idea. Why don't you
help organize industrial workers?

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Yeah, totally, because it's like most of the time the
things that actually changed things are less glamorous and more
work and like involve working with people.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Yeah, and I don't know, but there's always work for
the client guy who's not good at working with people too.
You know, everybody else is out there organizing factory workers
and somebody needs to take notes, you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Know, No, totally, and it's like there's still ways to
be And I say, this is like I live alone
on a mountain, you know, by choice. Yeah, my favorite
person is my dog, and like you all are great too,
but I can't.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
I can't compare to rentro We know your dog is phenomenal, we.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Know, yeah, And so there is a place for the introvert.
There is a place for the people who like And
most of my work is self directed, but I see
it within this larger framework, and it is a terrible
I'm not trying to make one to one comparisons here,
and especially right now, I'd be terrified too, but you know,
and and Zangara also he isn't show gosh right, he's

(01:00:58):
but he's more of just like a person who organically
on kind of his own, but probably through conversation too.
Like it's probably something that was in the air hit upon.
Capitalism is the problem rich kids getting to go to
school while I'm digging dirt by the side of the
road when I'm five years old is a problem. And
he had no particular interest in continuing to live because

(01:01:20):
of the misery that he felt he had been put
into by capitalism, and he just wanted a way to
try to help by lashing out. And I don't think
it was I don't think it was good. And the
Shakespearean level of tragedy of killing the guy who was
working on exactly his issue is written by a cruel god.

Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
You know, the fact that the only person who actually
died from his attack was like the guy who was
explicitly there to ensure that poor children got to go
to school.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
He would have gone to go to school. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And that's why you don't kill random people.

Speaker 5 (01:02:01):
The episodes, Yeah, this has been a PSA about not
firing a gun into a crowd, a thing we can't
believe we have to tell people not to do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Anyway, I'm sure, actually, I know specifically next week I'll
be back with things that are more bull throatedly positive
things in the world. But for now, is there anything
you want to plug?

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Well, first of all, that was a fucking fascinating story,
and I'm really glad you told it to me, so
thank you. I'm sorry I gave you grief for it
not being as happy as I was expecting. But that's
like the pattern around here.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Also, yeah, I like to mix it up, so people
are always a little bit anxious, you know, where it's like, yeah,
three quarters of the time you're gonna end up really
happy and then you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
And nothing else that's been happening this week has made
me anxious, So I really appreciate it. As far as
things to plug, I would like to plug the podcasting
collective and publishing collective that you and I are in
Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. We publish books, we publish zines,
we publish podcasts, we publish RPGs, We do it all.

(01:03:14):
It's so cool. People should check out Strangers in a
Tangled Wilderness. They should even like, maybe check out our Patreon,
and they should help support the kickstarter for this new
book by this exciting author named Margaret Kiljoy. And that
book is called The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
No, it's the Eternal.

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
I'm hanging up right now.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
It is The Immortal Choir. Yeah. I wrote another book
in the Daniel Kaine series. It's going to come out
this summer, but it's going to kickstart in March. And
if you go back and want to hear the first book,
it's called The Lamble Slaughter of the Lion. I told
you no one will be able to remember the titles
of my books, but it's the very first episodes of
Cool Zone Media book Club, and then I kind of
want to plug Dinah Wars. But if you listen to

(01:03:57):
this podcast, you probably know about Dinah Wars. Dino Wars
are happening every Uncle's n Media book Club because it's
been really fun to write podcasts from the future, and
Sophie's in one of them.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
And the second Daniel Kane book is called The Barrel
Will Send What It May? I do remember the names
of your books.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
Well done.

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):
All three books are great. People should read them, Yeah,
and like adapt them to a TV series. I think
they would make an amazing TV series.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
But I agree, Yeah, I think soby.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
Yeah, we finally did the Oprah episodes on Behind the Bastard,
So if you're like, oh, you've been waiting for those,
it's a sixth parter. Most of them are out, should
be all out by the time this or almost out
by the time these drops.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Yeah, then that last one will be tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
Probably probably allegedly so many parts.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
Yeah, but Oprah has been such a recurring character all
throughout Behind the Bastards that makes sense. Yeah, It's like
could be when I finally do Mala Testa.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
You know, also, she's been so relevant for so many
decks gids.

Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
Yeah, the excellent podcast Maintenance Face, which would have a
lot to say about Franklin Dionysus Roosevelt's the best one,
all right, Sorry about his fat shaming. They they have
basically done it behind the Bastards on specifically the diet
culture aspect of Oprah's work, as.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Has my dear friend Sarah Marshall. And you're wrong about Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Oh, I love that one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
There's so many good shows, but you shouldn't listen to
any of them except this one, except this.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
One and the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness ones.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Yeah, those are fine if Sophie or Miriam or me
is on it, or is produced by any of those people,
or you just like it, or has Sarah Marshall?

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Sure if I've described somebody as my dear friend permitted?

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
Yeah, no Sarah Marshall's grandfather yet, or I guess people
just listen whatever they want.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Yeah, well, listen whatever you want.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
That's podcast, Bye everyone, Bye bye. Cool People Who Did
Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For
more podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website Foolzonemedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
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