Born in Kladno, Austria-Hungary (now in the Czech Republic), Anton Cermak emigrated with
his parents to the United States in 1874. He began his political career as a precinct captain in Chicago
and was elected to the Illinois state legislature in 1902. In 1907, he was elected alderman of Chicago's
12th Ward. Cermak was elected president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1922, chairman
of the Cook County Democratic Party in 1928, and mayor of Chicago in 1931.
Although Cermak is credited with building the Democratic political machine in Chicago,
he is best known for taking a bullet for the president.
Cermak's victory in the mayoral race in 1931 came in the wake of the Great Depression, and
the deep resentment many Chicagoans had of Prohibition and the increasing violence resulting from organized
crime's control of Chicago. The city's many ethnic groups -- Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, Jews, Italians and African
Americans that began to settle in Chicago in the early 1900s -- were mostly detached from the political system,
due in part to lack of organization which led to underrepresentation in the City Council. As an immigrant himself,
Cermak recognized Chicago's relatively new immigrants as a significant population of disenfranchised voters
and a large power base for Cermak and his local Democratic organization.
Cermak's political and organizational skills helped create one of the most powerful political
organizations of his day, and Cermak is considered the father of Chicago's Democratic machine. With support
from Franklin D. Roosevelt on the national level, Cermak gradually wooed members of Chicago's growing black
community into the Democratic fold.
When Cermak challenged incumbent "Big Bill" Thompson in the 1931 mayor's race,
Thompson, representative of Chicago's existing power structure, attacked Cermak for his immigrant roots. "It's
true I didn't come over on the Mayflower," Cermak famously said, "but I came over as soon as I could." It was
a sentiment to which many ethnic Chicagoans could relate, and Cermak won 58 percent of the vote in the mayoral
election on April 6, 1931. Cermak's victory finished Thompson as a political power and largely ended the Republican
Party's power in Chicago -– after Thompson left office, no Republican has ever been elected mayor of Chicago.
On Feb. 15, 1933, Cermak was in Miami to meet Roosevelt. While shaking hands with the
president-elect at Bayfront Park, Cermak was shot in the lung and seriously wounded when Giuseppe Zangara,
who attempted to assassinate Roosevelt, hit Cermak instead.
Later, rumors circulated that Cermak, not Roosevelt, had been the intended target, as his
promise to clean up Chicago's rampant lawlessness posed a threat to Al Capone and the Chicago organized
crime syndicate. One of the first people to suggest the organized crime theory was reporter Walter Winchell,
who happened to be in Miami the evening of the shooting. In addition to Cermak, Zangara hit four other people,
one of whom, a woman, also died of her injuries. Zangara told police that he hated rich and powerful people,
but not Roosevelt personally.
After the shooting, as he was being taken to the hospital, Cermak reportedly said to Roosevelt,
"I am glad it was me instead of you."
Cermak died of his wounds on March 6 and was interred in a private mausoleum at Bohemian National
Cemetery in Chicago. Inside, his crypt includes his final statement to Roosevelt.
A plaque honoring Cermak was placed at the site of the assassination in Miami's Bayfront Park.
It is also inscribed with Cermak's famous words to FDR after he was shot.
Following Cermak's death, 22nd Street, a major east-west artery that traversed Chicago's
West Side and the close-in suburbs of Cicero and Berwyn, areas with a significant Czech population, was
renamed Cermak Road.