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That night Mrs. Roosevelt got word of the attempt on her husband's life when she returned from a speaking engagement to her Manhattan home. Said she: "Phew! . . . But then those things are to be expected." Next day she went as scheduled to Ithaca, N. Y. to deliver an address.
In Washington, President Hoover exclaimed: "A dastardly act!" He sent a telegram to his successor "rejoicing" at his escape.
Speaker Garner who as Vice President-elect would (under the new 20th Amendment) have succeeded to the Presidency if Zangara's bullets had found their intended mark, did not hear the news until the following day, so strict is his hotel rule against being disturbed at night.
Next morning Mr. Roosevelt paid a second visit to the hospital before starting for New York. Mayor Cermak and Mrs. Gill were holding their own. Perhaps they would not die after all. The President-elect urged the Mayor to "hurry up and get well in time to attend the inaugural." Later aboard his private car Mr. Roosevelt called newshawks about him, calmly gave them his version of what happened:
"A man came forward with a telegram. . . . Just then I heard what I thought was a firecracker; then several more . . . the chauffeur started the car. . . .
"I looked around and saw Mayor Cermak doubled up and Mrs. Gill collapsing. . . .
"I called to the chauffeur to stop. "I saw Mayor Cermak being carried. . . . He was alive, but I didn't think he was going to last. I put my left arm around him and my hand on his pulse, but I couldn't find any pulse.
"After we had gone another block, Mayor Cermak straightened up and I got his pulse. ... I remember I said, 'Tony, keep quiet—don't move. It won't hurt you if you keep quiet.' . . ."
Meanwhile big-eyed mop-haired Joe Zangara sat in his high Miami cell rubbing his aching stomach and repeating: "If I could eat, I no kill anybody." He appeared without remorse, explaining that his animosity ran against Mr. Roosevelt only as President-elect, not as an individual. Police investigation revealed the following case history:
Zangara arrived in the U. S. in 1923. He worked as a brick mason in Hackensack and Paterson, N. J. He was quiet and solitary, had no police record. But one employer recalled that he harangued fellow-workers against "the rich and powerful'' during lunch hours. In 1929 he was naturalized, later registering as a Republican voter. In 1926 his appendix was removed. Suffering from stomach ulcers he roamed the country restlessly. This chronic complaint evidently warped his reason, excited him to last week's mad act.
Pleading guilty to four assault charges, Zangara was sentenced to 80 years in prison by Judge E. C. Collins. "Don't be stingy, give me 100 years!" he shouted.
Back in Manhattan, Mr. Roosevelt's bodyguard was at wartime strength and alertness as he settled down to conferences on his Cabinet and policies. An important caller: Sir Ronald Lindsay, the British Ambassador, back from London with his Government's latest views on War Debts. An important development: Senator Carter Glass finally refused the Treasury portfolio, which thereupon went, it appeared, to William Hartman Woodin, musical president of American Car & Foundry Co.