How I Saved Roosevelt

That was President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Ladies and gentlemen, speaking to a crowd

Of supporters here in Miami's beautiful Bayfront Park.

A group of notables are pressing in around the President-Elect's car.

There's Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago -

There's been a shot!

I can't see. Wait!

Mr. Roosevelt is waving. He's all right!

But Mayor Cermak has been hit!

The police have somebody in custody:

An immigrant, Giuseppe Zangara.

We take you now to a group of eyewitnesses who will tell us what they saw.

We're driving up close and I see this guy

He's squeezing by

I catch his eye

I say to him, "Where do you think you're trying to go, boy?

Whoa, boy!"

I say, "Listen, you runt,

You're not pulling that stunt.

No gentleman pushes their way to the front."

I say, "Move to the back!"

Which he does with a grunt

Which is how I saved Roosevelt!

Then

Well, I'm in my seat

I get up to clap

I feel this tap

I turn, this sap

He says he can't see

I say, "Find a lap

And go sit on it!"

Which is how I saved -

Then he started to swear

And he climbed on a chair

He was aiming a gun

I was standing right there!

So I pushed him as hard as I could in the air

Which is how I saved Roosevelt!

Lucky I was there!

That's why he was standing back so far

That's why when he aimed, he missed the car

Just lucky I was there

Or we'd have been left bereft of F.D.R!

You think that I scare?

No scare.

You think that I care?

No care.

I look at the world

Not good

Not fair

Nowhere

When I am a boy, no school

I work in a ditch, no chance

The smart and the rich ride by,

Don't give no glance

Ever since then because of them,

I have this sickness in the stomach

Which is the way I make my idea

To go out and kill Roosevelt

First I was figure I kill Hoover

I get even for the stomach

Only Hoover up in Washington

Is wintertime in Washington

Too cold for the stomach in Washington

I go down to Miami, kill Roosevelt!

No laugh!

Not funny

Men with the money

They control everything

Ha! Roosevelt, Hoover

It make-a no difference

You think I care who I kill?

I no care who I kill!

Long as it's King

The crowd's breaking up and I hear these shots

And I mean lots

I thought I'd plotz!

I spotted him

My stomach was tied in knots

So I barreled -

Harold!

No, what happened was this:

He was blowing a kiss

I was saying to Harold, "This weather is bliss!"

When you think that we might've missed seeing him miss-

Lucky we were there!

It was a historical event

Worth every penny that we spent

Just lucky we were there!

To think if I let him get up closer!

I saw right away, he was insane

Oh, this is my husband, we're from Maine

He told me to sit, but I said, "No, sir!"

This makes our vacation a real success!

Are you with the press?

Yes.

Oh God, I'm a mess!

Some left wing foreigner, that's my guess

No!

No left!

You think I am left? No left, no right

No anything!

Only American!

Zangara have nothing

No luck, no girls

I gotta no smarts, no school

But Zangara no foreign tool

Zangara American

American nothing

And why there no photographers?

For Zangara, no photographers?

Only capitalists get photographers

No

Right

Not fair, nowhere

So what?

I'm on the front page

Is that bizarre!

And all of those pictures, like a star!

Lucky I was there

We might have been left

Who care?

Bereft of F

Pull switch

D.R!