How I Saved Roosevelt

[RADIO ANNOUNCER, spoken]
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, and...
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!

[BYSTANDER #1]
We're crowded up close
And I see this guy
He's squeezing by
I catch his eye
I say to him, "Where do you
Think you are 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!

[BYSTANDER #2]
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—!

[BYSTANDER #3]
Then—!
He started to swear
And he climbed on a chair
He was aiming a gun—
I was standing right there—
So I pushed it as hard as I could in the air—!
Which is how I saved Roosevelt!

[ALL THREE]
Lucky I was there!

[BYSTANDER #1]
That's why he was standing back so far!

[BYSTANDER #3]
That's why when he aimed, he missed the car!

[ALL THREE]
Just lucky I was there!
Or we'd have been left
Bereft
Of FDR!

[ZANGARA]
You think that I scare?
No scare
You think that I care?
No care
I look at the world—
No good. No 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 the 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 winter time in Washington
Too cold for the stomach in Washington—
I go down to Miami, kill Roosevelt

No laugh!
No funny!
Men with the money
They control everything

Roosevelt, Hoover
No make-a no difference
You think I care who I kill?
I no care who I kill
Long as it's king!

[BYSTANDER #4]
The crowd's breaking up
When I hear these shots
And I mean lots—

[BYSTANDER #5 (HIS WIFE)]
I thought I'd plotz!

[BYSTANDER #4]
I spotted him—

[WIFE]
My stomach was tied in knots—

[BYSTANDER #4]
So I barreled—

[WIFE]
Harold—!
No, what happened was this:
He was blowing a kiss—

[BYSTANDER #4]
She means Roosevelt

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

[BYSTANDER #4]
When you think that we might have missed
Seeing him miss—!

[BOTH]
Lucky we were there!

[WIFE]
It was a historical event—

[BYSTANDER #4]
—Worth every penny that we spent

[ALL FIVE BYSTANDERS]
Just lucky we were there!

[BYSTANDER #1]
To think, if I'd let him get up closer—!

[BYSTANDER #3]
I saw right away he was insane—
Oh, this is my husband, we're from Maine

[BYSTANDER #2]
He told me to sit, but I said, "No, sir!"

[BYSTANDER #4]
This makes our vacation a real success!

[BYSTANDER #5]
Are you with the press?

[PHOTOGRAPHER]
Yes

[BYSTANDER #5]
Oh God, I'm a mess!

[BYSTANDER #1]
Some left-wing foreigner, that's my guess—

[ZANGARA]
No!

[BYSTANDERS]
And wasn't the band just fantastic?

[ZANGARA]
No left!
You think I am left?
No left, no right
No anything!
Only American!

Zangara have nothing
No luck, no girl
Zangara no smart, 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!

[BYSTANDERS, (ZANGARA)]
Lucky I was there! (No fair! Nowhere!)
I'm on the front page, is that bizarre? (So what?)
And all of those pictures, like a star! (No sorry!)
Just lucky I was there! (And soon, no Zangara!)
We might have been left (Who care?)
Bereft of F— (Pull switch!)
—D— (No care no more! No—!)
R!