[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

The Warren Commission also quoted a letter from President Theodore Roosevelt,
complaining about “the multitude of cranks and others” who tried to enter the White
House grounds. During the presidential campaign of 1912, one of these “cranks” – John
N. Schrank – shot and wounded Roosevelt as the former president and third-party
candidate campaigned in Milwaukee on October 14. Schrank “had a vision” of the
“ghost of McKinley” who “told him not to let a murderer…become President.” 37
McKinley’s ghost apparently believed that Roosevelt was responsible for McKinley’s
assassination. Schrank was found to be insane and committed to mental hospitals the rest
of his life.
Yet another “mentally unstable” lone gunman, Giuseppe Zangara, attempted to
kill president-elect Franklin Roosevelt in Miami, Florida on February 15, 1933. Instead
of killing Roosevelt, Zangara’s shots missed and killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak.
The Warren Commission emphasized that Zangara had a “professed hatred of capitalists
and Presidents” and “seemed to be obsessed with the desire to kill a president.” Again,
there is a political motive: Zangara’s left-wing sympathies. The report noted that
Zangara had no chance of escaping – another theme of the Commission history, which
suggested Zangara like Oswald and other assassins apparently wanted to gain fame
through their murderous deeds rather than escaping. Zangara was electrocuted 33 days
after the attempt on Roosevelt’s life. “No evidence of accomplices or conspiracy came to
light,” the Warren Commission concluded, despite “sensational newspaper speculation,
wholly undocumented, that Zangara may have been hired by Chicago gangsters to kill
37 WC Report, 511.
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