LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO.
Edited by E. Haldeman-Ju=us l 3
The NOtOl'iOllS €ase 0f
Sacco‘ and Vanzetti


W. P. Norwin


v Edited LITTLE E. Haldeman-Julius
BO(/)K NO. 1 3

BLUE by The Notorious Case of
Sacco and Vanzetti
W. P. Norwin
HAJ-DEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright; 1929,
Haldeman-Julius Fompany
I
PRINTED IN TH}; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
III.
IV.
VI.
CONTENTS
Page
The Crime 5
The Trial 12
The New Evidence: the Judge and the
Times 28
Public Crifivism 43
The Lowell Committee‘and Its Report__49
The End: Execution and Persecution....56
THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
SACCO AND VANZETTI ,
A COMPLETE SURVEY ~
I. THE CRIME
The case of Sacco and Vanzetti has achieved
such worldwide interest that it- seems hardly
possible that anyone conversant with current
affairs can be ignorant of the circumstances
of the crime which provided the excuse, at
least, for all that has followed after it. Yet
one finds that while the later events ‘are well
known, these original circumstances are, in
the popular mind, generally shrouded in vague—
ness. For the purposes of this survey, then, it
is important to fix at the outset the definite
facts which form the basis of the succeeding
developments; and it is valuable not only to
recall these facts for the sake of clearness, but
to establish them as a ground of judgment in
the Welter of irrelevance and prejudice which
has accumulated about them. For one of the
chief protests against the conduct of the case
has been the frank charge that Sacco and Van-
zetti were being tried because they were rad-
icals and foreigners; whereas the only basis of
guilt, to all fair or'sane people, is their possii
ble complicity in a simple crime of murder.
It takes little time to resume the details of
the :Sbuth Braintree crime. Frederick A. Par-
menter, paymaster of the shoe factory of Slater
and Morrill, and his guard, Alexander Berar-
delli, left the office of the company on the
afternoon of April 15, 1920, at about three
'o’clock. They carried two boxes containing the
payroll, a sum of $15,776.51, which they were
6 I THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
taking to the shoe factory directly through
the main street of South Braintree, Massachu-
setts. Two men armed with pistols fired upon
and killed them. As the murder was being
done, an automobile in which were several
other men stopped at the spot; the criminals
threw the two boxes into it, and, jumping in
themselves, were driven rapidly away across
the railroad tracks nearby. Two days after-
ward their car was discovered abandoned in
woods some distance away; but the tracks of
_a smaller car led from this place, a fact which '
. supplied a clue leading to the arrest of Sacco
and Vanzetti.
To understand this result we must turn to
another crime of similar nature committed
previously in the nearby- town of Bridgewater.
It appeared that in both crimesya gang was in-
volved; in both the murderers had escaped in
an automobile; in both eye witnesses thought
they were Italians. In the Bridgewater case
the car had made off toward Cochesett, and the
chief of police of Bridgewater, Mr. Stewart,
was therefore concerned in tracking an Italian
in Cochesett possessingor driving a car. In a
garage in Cochesett the car of a man "named
Boda'was awaiting repairs and Chief Stewart
believed Boda connected with the crime. He
asked the proprietor of the garage, Mr. John-
son, to telephone the police when someone
came for it. He investigated‘Boda’s circum~
stances as well, and found that he had been
living in Cochesett with Coacci, a radical who
had been summoned to a hearing concerning
his deportation and who had failed to appear.
As the Department of Justice was at that
time searching out all “Reds,” Stewart went
to see Coacci on April 16, the day after the
SACCO AND VANZETTI 7
holdup in South Braintree, to ascertain the
cause of his failure to appear. He found the
Italian radical packing his trunk and evidently
intent on returning to Italy at once. In Stew-
art’s mind the trunk and Coacci’s haste to
leave were not then connected with the mur-
ders. in South Braintree; but later, when the
tracks of a smaller automobile were discovered
near those of the car used by the escaping
gang, he suspected that this car belonged to
Boda, that, as Boda and Coacci had associated
in Cochesett, the latter’s hasty departure was
connected with the murder of Parmenter and
Berardelli, and that his trunk held the booty
of the holdup. He came to the conclusion that
Coacci, as Boda’s assistant, had made off with
it; while as a matter of fact the trunk, later
examined on arrival by the Italian police, held
no evidence of the robbery.
But Stewart meanwhile centered his efforts
about Boda and considered that whoever
should call for his car in the Johnson garage
might well be suspected of the South Braintree
murders. Boda and three other Italians came
for it on the night of May 5. Two of them
were Sacco and Vanzctti; the third, Orciani.
Mrs. Johnson telephoned the police; but as the
car was not yet ready, the four left. However,
Sacco and Vanzetti, taking a street car for
Brockton, were arrested on the car. Boda and
Orciani left on a motorcycle. Orciani was ar-
rested the following day, but Boda disappeared.
Chief Stewart new tried to follow out his
theory of the commission of both the Bridge-
water and the South Braintree murders by one
gang, but it did not hold up. Orciani had been
at work on the days of both crimes, and having
this alibi, was released. Sacco, who worked
I
8 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
regularly in a shoe factory in Stoughton, had,
however, taken a day off on April 15, the date
of the South Braintree holdup; therefore he
was charged with the murder of Parmenter
and Berardelli, but could not be indicted for
the previous crime in Bridgewater. Vanzetti
was a fish peddler in Plymouth, and as he was
his own employer, could not produce the same
type of alibi as the others; consequently, he
.was retained for both murders. Vanzetti was
given a separate trial for the Bridgewater af-
fair, and he and Sacco were tried together for
the South Braintree crime. Charged with mur-
der on May 5, 1920, they were indicted on Sep-
tember 14 of the same year and came to trial
May 31, 1921, at Dedham in Norfolk County:
the presiding judge at both Vanzetti’s separate
trial and the joint trial of the two was Webster
Thayer of Worcester. -
The main facts have now been outlined in
the course of events which placed the two de-
fendants in their desperate position and we ,
must return to consider other‘ elements. In
the first place, why had Boda, Orciani, Sacco
and Vanzetti called at the Johnson garage in
Cochesett on this particular night of May 5, a
fact which led to their arrest? To answer this
question we must recall the times. For these
were the days of the anti-Red hysteria through-
out America, the days of Attorney-General Pal-
mer, of wholesale deportations of “Reds,” of
all sorts of strange and often outrageous pro-
ceedings under the name of law and in behalf
of the safety of the state. Proceedings for
deportation had gone on by the wholesale un-
der Palmer in the spring of 1920, the time of
both crimes.
There was one particularly unsavory affair,
SACCO AND VANZETTI 9
. the case of the radical Salsedo, the events of
_which were taking place just at this period.
Salsedo was held incommunicado in a room in
the office of the Department of Justice in New
York, on the fourteenth floor of a Park Row’
building. It happened that Boda and the
others were friends of this radical, and they
were desperately concerned when on May
they heard that Salsedo had been discovered
dead on the sidewalk outside the Park Row
building. “Red” raids had also taken place.
They were frightened, as radicals suspected by
the Department, and they set about at once to
“hide the literature and notify the friends
- against the federal police.” To carry out these
objects they wanted an automobile and applied
to Boda; therefore, following the news about
Salsedo on the 4th, they came to the Johnson
garage for Boda’s car on the 5th.
- The characters of the men themselves (de-
serve some attention. Sacco’s employer testi-
fied concerning him that he was a steady and
reliable worker, never late to work except 00- ~
casionally on account of sickness. Evidently,
however, he talked of quitting some day and
returning to the old country. On April ‘15 he
had taken a day off, and hence could be
charged with the South Braintree crimes. Van-
zetti, charged with both, was an older man and
apparently industrious at his trade of fish
peddler; his record, like Sacco’s, appeared per-
fectly clean. How was it, then, that these two
honest and diligent workers had become sud-
denly associated with a murder and holdup
gang? . I
The separate trial of Vanzetti as guilty of
the Bridgewater crime of December 24, 1919, is
of special importance. This prosecution grew
10 THE NOTORIOUS CASE. OF
out of his arrest for the Parmenter-Berardelli
murders and the evidence of identification was
of the most trivial character imaginable. Finally
Vanzetti was known to be the criminal because
a little newsboy, hiding behind a telegraph
pole at the scene of the murder, had glimpsed
the murderer and knew by the way he ran
that he “was a foreigner.” In a district which
abounds in foreigners, and especially in Ital-
ians, Vanzetti was the man because, of course,
he was a foreigner. Four months after the
crime several shells were found on him as well,
and one of these was said to be of a type sim-
ilar to the shells found at the place of the
holdup. Their possession by Vanzetti, however,
was accounted for at the later Dedham trial as-
perfectly innocent. Besides, mb—re than twenty
people, all Italians, testified to having seen
Vanzetti in Plymouth on December 24, some
even remembering their purchase of eels from
him for the Christmas Eve feasts. Because his
counsel feared that his radical opinions would
be exposed and count badly against him, he
was not allowed to take the stand, though be
strongly protested his innocence. And from a
sentence of from twelve to fifteen years in
prison this counsel’ took no appeal. The judge
and district attorney were, of course, Webster
Thayer and Mr. Katzmann. Vanzetti’s counsel,
at Plymouth lawyer, John Vahey, afterward be-
came a partner of Katzmann. The defendants,
becoming suspicious of him, dismissed him
without ceremony.
Moreover, the chief of police of Plymouth,
wishing to testify to Vanzetti's good reputation
there, was not permitted to do so. Not one
point of exception was taken by Vahey, the
counsel, later partner of Mr. Katzmann,
sAcco AND VANZETTI 11
throughout the trial. The chance of appeal
was allowed to slip, and even had Vanzetti
been cleared of the South Braintree murders,
he would have had before him years of impris-
onment on his first conviction. Still, at the
Dedham trial later, the chief of police and an-
other officer took the stand to give evidence
of Vanzetti’s good reputation, but it was ruled
out by Judge Thayer, because evidence of good
reputation was inadmissible in the case of a
man afterward convicted of crime. The Bridge
water charge and trial of Vanzetti have been
declared a frame-up by eminent authorities; yet
this was the conviction which made evidence
of character inadmissible later.
There is another matter which must be
noted. In spite of the fact that Chief Stewart
considered both men connected with the two
separate crimes, the head of the State Police
did not agree with him, but always held that
the murders were the work of professionals.
From all available evidence Sacco and Vanzetti
..-decidedly could not be so described.
The Bridgewater conviction of Vanzetti was
made the most of in the later trial. This first
affair was, moreover, an excellent foretaste of
what was to come. Dedham is a quiet suburb
of Boston, residential and well-to-do, with a
sprinkling of New England small farmers. In-
deed, part of the jury was selected by sheriff's
deputies from people considered “representa-
tive citizens,” “substantial,” and “intelligent.”
The courthouse itself was opposite the old
home of Fisher Ames. The counsel for the
defense was Fred H. Moore, a Westerner un-
familiar With the traditions of the Massachu—
setts bench or the characteristics of Judge
Thayer, an “outsider,” a radical and profes-
12 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
sional defender of radicals, and therefore, as
such matters affect the conduct of a case, a
provoker of hostility rather than an inspirer
of confidence. Sacco’s and Vanzetti’s English
was very broken, and the record displays how
many times they misunderstood questions. A
court interpreter was obtained, but his conduct
became so suspicious (and indeed some time
'after the trial he was convicted of larceny)
that the defendants obtained their own to
check his questions and replies. In this at-
mosphere, with a highly respectable jury in a
highly respectable Boston suburb, a milieu of
Yankee conservatism if any were ever known,
these two Italian aliens, laborers, speaking
poor English, radicals in opinion, draft-dodgers
in War, were tried in a period notable for its
anti-Red hatred, frantic conservative patriot-
ism, and illegal abuse of constitutional rights.
Their trial lasted almost seven weeks, ‘and on
July 14, 1921, they were declared guilty of
murder in the first degree.
II. THE TRIAL
The evidence which could convict these two
men must rest on the single issue of identity,
for the killing was not questioned. Were Sacco
and Vanzetti the murderers or were they not?
This was the only question at stake, and upon it
a tremendous quantity of very conflicting’ evi~
dence was adduced, not the same against both
men. I shall summarize this evidence as clear-
ly and briefly as possible.
The prosecution used the theory that Sacco
shot Berardelli while Vanzetti sat in the auto-
mobile as a collaborator in a conspiracy to
murder. It produced fifty-nine witnesses, while
the defense had ninety-nine. The state's wit~~
SACCO AND VANZETTI \ 13
nesses gave evidence of having seen both men
in South Braintree the morning of the crime.
claiming to have recognized Sacco as the man
who shot Berardelli, and to have seen him
escape in the car. Expert testimony, of the
most important character, attempted to con-
nect one of four bullets taken from Berardelli’s
body with the Colt pistol carried by Sacco when
first arrested. Vanzetti’s position in the car
was maintained by further testimony; lastly,
the evidence for “consciousness of guilt” on the
part of both men was developed from the
pistols found on them and from lies told by
them on arrest. The defense brought over eye
witnesses, more numerous, who denied that the
men observed were Sacco and Vanzetti; this
was confirmed by the testimony of a'libi wit-
nesses, who supported the assertion of Sacco
that he was in Boston on April 15 obtaining a
passport to Italy, where he intended soon to
return to see his bereaved father. An official
of the Italian consulate gave evidence that
Sacco had arrived at the consulate at 2:15 p. m.,
which made it impossible for him to have par-
ticipated in the crime. Vanzetti’s alibi, that on
April 15 he had worked as usual as a fish ped-
dler, was supported by witnesses who had been
his customers at the time. Therefore the ques-
tion narrowed down, for evidence was as
numerous on one side as on the other, to the
trustworthiness of the witnesses who held that
11:151e two men were in South Braintree on April
First, there were five persons who testified
that Sacco was either in the automobile or on
the scene of the crime: Carlos E. Goodridgev
Louis Pelzer, Lola Andrews, Francis Devlin, and
Mary E. Splaine. Miss Splaine was a star wit-
.ness: with Miss Devlin she had been working on
the second floor of Slater and Morrill’s factory,
14 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
where windows gave a view of the railroad
crossing nearby; she heard the shot and hurried
to the window, to observe a car crossing the
tracks. She saw, fromv a distance of sixty or
eighty feet, a man unknown to her, in an auto-
mobile traveling from fifteen to eighteen miles
an hour, for a space of about thirty feet, or prac~
tically for from one and a half to three seconds.
After Sacco’s arrest he was brought alone
before Miss Splaine, in violation of the usual’
methods for the identification of suspects,
which require the use of a “parade” of persons
of the suspect’s class and type, among whom
the witness must identify the individual seen
by him. The omission‘ of the “parade,” repeat-
edly found a necessary and indispensable safe
guard against tricks of memory or imagination
in the witness or unfairness in the police, was
one of the notable irregularities in this case.
However, in spite of it, at the preliminary hear~
ing three weeks later, Miss Splaine could not
identify Sacco as the man she had seen, claim-
ing there had not been sufficient time to ob-
serve him. But in the Dedham trial, a year,
after the crime, she identified him positively
as the criminal, remembered and described
from a fleeting vision of a few seconds’ length
sixteen different personal details, even the size
of his hand and the fact that his hair was be-
tween two and two and a half inches long.
Confronted with the discrepancy between her
earlier and later testimony, she claimed inac-
curacy in the transcript of the stenographer’s
-mlnutes, then withdrew this charge, and finally
maintained merely that she was 110v‘.r certain of
- her last evidence. Later she rested this iden-
tification on the observed “good-sized hand” of
Sacco, a fact which did not exist, for Sacco had
hands_even smaller than the average. After
the trial it developed that she had once iden-
v
SAoco AND VANZETTI 15
,tified another as the person later claimedto
be Sacco, but it appeared that this person pre-
viously identified was in jail on April 15, 1920.
The credibility of such a witness is certainly
open to some doubt at least. There was no
doubt whatever as to Dr. Morton Prince, prop
fessor of abnormal and dynamic psychology in
Harvard University, who stated plainly that
such detailed remembrance as she claimed was
psychologically impossible, and that she. had
arrived at an unconscious falsification of mem-
ory through her opportunity to study Sacco at
length in court.
Miss Devlin, the companion of Miss Splaine,
likewise could not positively identify as Sacco,
a month after the murder, the man seen by
her, but a year later was certain that he was
the defendant, affirming that she had never
had the least doubt of it. But two other eye
witnesses, Furguson and Pierce, who saw the
crime from a window above Miss Splaine and
Miss Devlin on the next floor, could make no
identification and were certain that they could
not do so even though aided by pictures.
Louis Pelzer, a young shoe-cutter, testified to
hearing the shot, pulling up his window, and
seeing the murderer of Berardelli. He remained
in the window about a minute. On this basis
he identified Sacco as the man he saw. But
immediately following Sacco’s arrest he had
been unable, like the others, to make any iden-
tlficatlon, saying he had not'seen enough,
Three of his fellow workmen bore out this last
admission: two with the testimony that he had
taken shelter under a bench instead of pulling
up his window; the third saying that Pelzer
had admitted he did not see anyone. These
discrepancies in his evidence drew from the
prosecutor, Mr. Katzmann, applause and even
16 " THE NOTORIOUS CASE on
high praise in his effort to have Pelzer ac-
cepted as a reliable witness.
Mrs.. Lola Andrews, considered a person of
dubious reputation, gave some of the strongest
evidence for the prosecution. At about 11 a. m.
on April 15, 1920, accompanied by an elderly
woman, Mrs. Campbell, she saw a car stand-
ing before Slater and Morrill’s factory in which
was a “very light” man (evidently neither of
the defendants), while a “dark-complexioned
man” bent over the hood. She did not talk
with them then, but entered the factory seek-
ing a position: on coming out a quarter of an
hour afterward she found the "dark man now
under the car, and asked him how to get to
another factory. This was all that passed be-
‘tween them. When Sacco was arrested, the
police took her to Dedham and she identified
him as the “dark-complexioned man” she had
talked with. She repeated this evidence at the
trial, saying that when she had heard of vthe
crime she “somehow associated” the man under
the car with it. Here was certainly important
material, yet four reliable witnesses discredited
her entirely.
. Mrs. Campbell, her companion, testified that
Mrs. Andrews had not talked with either of
the men at the car but had asked her question
of a man “in khaki clothes” nearby. Harry
Kurlansky, a friend of Mrs. Andrews and a
Quincy business man, testified that she had
told him that the government had wanted her
to recognize the defendants, that she knew
nothing about them, had never seen them and
so could not recognize them. Thereupon, Judge
Thayer thought fit to submit Mr. Kurlansky to
a series of questions on his reason for not
trying to discover the name of the government
SACCO AND VANZETTI 1'?
agent who was attempting to obtain recogni-
tion' of the men from Mrs. Andrews. Why
should Kurlansky have been supposed to search
out this information? For as he himself said,_
when questioned by defense counsel, “Why
should I bother about it?” Nevertheless, this
uncalled-for questioning by the judge insinu-
ated that it was his duty to have done so,
thereby undoubtedly discrediting the witness
to the jury and helping to annihilate valuable
evidence» of the defense.
In February, 1921, Mrs. Andrews had notified
the police of an assault made upon her in her
Quincy apartment: George W. Fay, a police-
man investigating this, testified that he talked
with her and that she declared that she could
not tell whether her assailant was one of the
South Braintree criminals because she had not
seen the faces of the murderers, and could tell
nothing about their appearance or their clothes.
In addition, a Quincy journalist and secretary
of the town’s Chamber of Commerce, ‘D. Alfred
Labrecque, swore that he had had a conversa-
tion with Mrs. Andrews of practically the same
nature as Fay’s. Evidently, then, this witness
was largely discredited; yet the prosecutor in-
sisted to the jury. that she was highly reliable
and convincing in every way.
Carlos E. Goodridge was in a poolroom in
South Braintree when the crime was ‘ com-
mitted; he heard the shots, went to the door,
saw a car approaching him, and when he
reached the sidewalk a man in it “poked a gun
over towards him.” He reentered the pool-
room. . . . It was seven months afterward
when he first identified Sacco \as this man;
and he repeated the identification at the trial.
But there were four witnesses who entirely
18 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF’
discredited all this. Andrew Manganaro, his
employer, heard of the crime from him an hour
later, when Goodridge made no identification
of anyone. Afterward, when the arrest of the
defendants occurred, Goodridge told Manganaro
that he could not go and recognize them as the
men he had seen because he had been so
“scared” at the time that he had run in at once
and could not possibly remember their faces.
The employer also testified that Goodridge’s
reputation for truthfulness was bad; in this he
was not contradicted. Furthermore, B. Magazu,
operating the poolroom and shoe store com~
bined, said that Goodridge had come in and
told him of the crime, that the criminal who
had “pointed with a gun” had light hair and
complexion and wore an army shirt, adding
that “this job wasn’t pulled by any foreign
people.” C. Arrogni, a South Braintree barber,
testified that in a conversation a week after
the murder, Goodridge had admitted that he
could not tell who the man in the car was;
and Arrogni’s boss, Damato, gave the same
evidence.
Besides all this, other matters enter here;
Goodridge, as a witness for the state, was also
faced at this time with the prospect of jail
under a larceny indictment to which he had
pleaded guilty. The case had been filed. in
other words, no sentence given, and Goodridge
put on probation. The defense attempted to
show that his evidence was therefore affected
by leniency shown him by the district attorney
in the larceny matter, and by fear of losing
immunity, but the judge refused to allow this,
being later sustained by the Supreme Court of
the state.
Nevertheless, Professor Frankfurter ‘of the
4
SACCO AND VANZETTI 19
Harvard Law School, who made a detailed
study of the whole case, took this matter to
three experts in the law of evidence on the
faculty of the School, and these men expressed
the opinion that the judge’s ruling was inde-
fensible: and this was not, unfortunately, the
only error of Judge Thayer in the trial. Good-
ridge also was afterward found to have been a
fugitive from justice from another state and
to have testified under a false name.
The state attempted to place Vanzetti in the
murder car, and brought four principal wit-
nesses to support this theory: Harry E. Dol-
beare, Le Vangie, Faulkner, and Reed. Faulk-
ner claimed he had seen yanzetti on a train
from Cochesett to Boston, and that he got out
at East Braintree at 9:45. The basis of his
remembrance was exceedingly frail and it was
wholly destroyed by three other witnesses,
Brooks, McNaiight, and Pratt, railroad men.
Reed, a crossing tender, claimed that Vanzetti
had been the man on the front seat of an
automobile, seen elsewhere more than an hour
after the crime, which he said was the. murder
car. The state, however, itself placed Vanzetti
on the rear seat. Reed also said that the Eng-
lish of the man seen by him was “unmistakable
and clear” yet Vanzetti’s speech was so crude
that an interpreter had to be called in. Dol-
beare testified that he had seen the defendant
hours before the murder, between 10 and 12
a. m., when he noticed a car that passed him in
South Braintree in which were five foreigners
who impressed him as strangers and “a tough
looking bunch.” He could not describe the
men on the front seat, did not know whether
those ‘in back had mustaches or“beards, nor
what kind of cap was worn by one of them
20 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
who leaned forward, thus attracting his atten-
tion. This man he nevertheless identified as
Vanzetti. Le Vangie, gate keeper of the N. Y.,
N. H. and H. Railroad is then leftas the only
witness who claimed to have seen Vanzetti on
the spot at the time of the murder.
He testified that an automobile approached
as he was putting down the crossing gates,
and a man in it obliged him at the revolver’s
point to let the car pass before the oncoming
train. Le Vangie claimed that the driver
was Vanzetti. However, he was discredited
by McCarthy, a fireman, who three quarters
of an hour afterward talked with him. Ac-
cording to McCarthy, Le Vangie said that some
men went by in a car, that he heard the shots
and began to lower the gates, when one of the
men pointed a gun at him and he ducked into
his shanty. He said he did not know the men
and would not if he saw them again; that in
his fright the only thing he. saw was the gun.
In addition, all the other indentification wit-‘
nesses on both sides discredited him, insisting
that the driver was young, light-haired, and
small, whereas the defendant was dark and,
middle-aged and wore a mustache.
The prosecutor therefore had to abandon his
testimony, but tried to retain his identifica-
tion, and in summing up asked the jury to be-
lieve that although Le Vangie had said Van-
zetti was in front driving, he really meant he
was on the back seat. This sort of tortuous
argument is enough to brand the methods of
the prosecution from the start. What is to be
thought then, when it appears that the prose-
cutor at the time was in communication with
the only two people ‘who had had any real
chance to observe the driver and who were
not called by him‘? These witnesses, Kelly-
and Kennedy, had already had interviews with
SACCO AND VANZETTI 21‘
him, had given him written statements, and
their detailed description of the driver wholly
excluded the defendant. Their reliability was
never challenged, but till much later they were
unknown to the defense and hence did not give
evidence in its behalf at the trial!
On the other hand, Vanzetti was able to pro-
duce a splendid alibi. Thirty—one eye witnesses
swore that he was not one of the men seen in
the car. Thirteen gave direct evidence that he
was in Plymouth as a fish peddler on April 15
or corroborated the same statement.
Two other items of evidence'were likewise
inconclusive. One was a cap claimed to have
been Sacco’s and found on the spot of the
crime, which his employer said might have
been a cap of the defendant's, as he ordinarily
hung onelike it on anail while at work.
Nevertheless he denied explicitly that he meant
to state it was Sacco’s, and Mrs. Sacco testi-
fied that her husband never wore a cap with
earflaps, as this was. The other item was the
revolver found on Vanzetti, said to have been
snatched by him from Berardelli during the
murder; but no one could testify that Berar-
delli carried a gun at the time, nor had anyone
seen the murderer take it. Berardelli had a.
new spring put in his revolver in March, 1920,
but' no testimony was given to show that the
sprmg in Vanzetti’s gun was new; besides, two
experts gave evidence that the spring in it
was no newer than any other part, and an-
other witness swore to having sold the gun to
the defendant.
The testimony concerning the hammer of the
revolver was inconclusive, and nothing, in
short, indicated that the gun had once he-
longed to Berardelli. To return "to the evi-
dence of the prosecution witnesses, it is evi-'
dent that from the point of view of the trust-
22 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
worthiness and truth of the identification, the
state’s case was fatally weak in almost every
particular. Indeed, when Judge Thayer later
denied motions for a new.trial, he voluntarily
abandoned identification as the basis of the ver-
dict. He admitted that the defense had called
more witnesses than the prosecution to prove
that the two men were not in the car; he went
on to say that the convicting evidence was the
defendants’ “consciousness of guilt.” As it has ‘
been stated at the beginning of this section
that the trustworthiness of identification was
the sole reliable ground for a conviction, we
must examine very carefully this matter of
“consciousness of guilt,” on the strength of
(white)? Sacco and Vanzetti were condemned to
ea . -
If the two defendants had conducted them-
selves as murderers after the date of the mur-
der to such a degree as to show unmistakable
consciousness of their guilt for this particular
crime, the evidence ‘thereof could be consid-
ered pertinent to condemn them. Their con~
duct before and after arrest on the evening of
May 5, their possession of firearms, and the
lies which they told constitute the ground on
which inferences of guilt can be drawn. We
must observe, however, that they never had
any previous adventures in hold-ups or associa-
tion with criminals, never appeared to have ob-
tained any of the sixteen thousand dollars of
booty, never altered afterward their financial
condition, method of life, or status of employ-
ment, and never had previously been accused
of crime. In the three weeks after the crime
and before the arrest they did not hide or es-
cape with the plunder, or take false names, but
lived on at their usual lodgings, followed their
trades as always, even participated in radical
meetings. All this they did very close to the
SACCO AND VANZE'TTI 23
spot where they were said to have acted as
robbers and murderers. Was there any ap-
pearance of “consciousness of guilt” in this
conduct?
The evidence on the matter, then, amounts to
this: The two men came with the others to the
garage for Boda.’s' car. Mrs. Johnson went to
a neighbor's to telephone. the police, the men
following and returning with her. They were
advised by her husband not to drive the car
without that year’s license plates; they seemed
to assent, and left. On the basis of this the
judge put it to the jury that if they had left
because of the reason just given, no evidence
was to be found; but if they went away be-
cause they realized that Mrs. Johnson was
telephoning the police, felt consciously guilty
as a. result and_ so hurried off, then there was‘
evidence of their “consciousness of guilt.”
After leaving Johnson's a policeman arrested I
the two on a street car entering Brockton.
The officer went through the car and finding
them, asked where they were from: Vanzetti
replied that they had been at Bridgewater (in-
stead of Cochesett), to see a_certain friend
Pappi. The policeman then arrested them, and
When Vanzetti made as if to reach for his hip
pocket, he told him to keep his hands in his lap.
At this point in the testimony Vanzetti inter-
rupted to say “You are a liar!”
When they started off, the officer cautioned
them that he would shoot if they made a false
move, and on the way, when Sacco began to
reach under his overcoat, he told him to keep
his hands out of his clothes. He asked Sacco if
he had a gun, the latter replying that he had
not; but a little farther on he tried the same
action again. The policeman put his hand un-
der Sacco’s coat but found no gun; he cau-
tloned him again, however, and Sacco said,
24 THE‘ NOTORIOUS CASE OF
“I don’t want no trouble.” At the police sta-
tion both men lied to the district attorney and
the chief of police, tried to hide their actions
on that day, the names of their friends and
the places they had frequented, and Vanzetti
even ‘said that he did not know Boda. This be-
havior was claimed to indicate “consciousness
of guilt”: from the discovery of this guilt the
defendants had tried to protect themselves and
so had made the various movements described.
However, the men denied the police testi-
mony that they had tried to draw pistols. Even \
had they so intended, their efforts were feeble,
not at all those to be expected from the ruth-
less professional gunmen of the crime, who
would more probably have tried to shoot their
way out, especially with only one policeman to
cope with. The carrying of guns in the United
States is a widespread practice, besides, on
the part of men by no means'professionalcrim-
inals. Sacco, moreover, had once been a night
watchman and as such had got the habit of
carrying a gun. Vanzetti had one because he
believed he needed it for self-protection, as he
often went to Boston on his purchasing trips
with more than a hundred dollars on his per-
son. They admitted their behavior at the
garage and their lies at the police station. To
explain both and escape the .charge of murder
it became unavoidable to show that they were
radicals in daily fear of arrest and to make
clear their radical associations, activities, and
views. For this reason they feared being
seized; at the time of arrest they felt “con-
sciousness' of guilt” of being radicals, not mur-
derers, and so lied to protect themselves and
their friends.
The facts to support their defense were
strong. They were not innocent of the charge
on which they believed they ‘were being seized:

SACCO AND VANZETTI 25
that of radicalism. It was natural, then, for
them to lie and show evidence of peculiar con-
duct. Besides, they were not given any ink-
ling, when arrested, of the fact that they were
held for the South Braintree crime, but were
informed they were detained as “suspicious
characters.” They were asked questions high-
ly calculated to sound out their radical views
and were never told that they were suspected
of robbery and murder. They both believed
the arrest was for a “political matter.”
Under such conditions, what other conduct
could have been expected of these men when,
suddenly arrested, they were questioned not
about the murders but about their radicalism?
It would have been, unnatural if they had acted
in any other way. Certainly from the point of
view of actual facts and evidence, the defense’s
case for consciousness of radicalism as a mo-
tive of peculiar conduct was quite as strong as
that held by the prosecution for consciousness
of murder. The so-called “consciousness of
guilt” was wholly explicable: their ambiguous
behavior on May 5th was accounted for.
Professor Frankfurter, in his excellent book
on the case, quotes a large section from. the rec-
0rd. One finds this citation teeming with irrele-
vancies of the most amazing character, full of
uncalled-for insinuations highly calculated in
their result, with the most deliberate playing-up
of popular prejudices and the radical views hos-
tile to them. he defendants’ radicjl activities
were luridly exploited, their pacifism displayed
in wartime, their flight to Mexico to escape the
draft highly elaborated, although as aliens they
were not in fact eligible for the draft.
The judge allowed this to proceed; he even, '
and these are the words of Professor Frank-
furter himself, “Connived at——_one had almost
written, cooperated in—the process.”
26 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
The whole line of cross-examination conducted
by Mr. Katzmann on the subject of radicalism
was severely criticized by the Yale Law Journal
and seems highly remarkable indeed when it is
recalled that the defense was not permitted to
attack the credibility of the prosecution witness
Goodridge, who had admitted his guilt for a
crime and was given probation through Mr.
Katzmann. To recall the fundamental questions
at issue, none of this lurid material had any-
thing whatever to do with definite evidence that
the two defendants were on the scene of the
crime or committed it.
The persons summoned to act as jurors at the
beginning of the case had been addressed by
Judge Thayer with apostrophes to the “Ameri-
can soldier boy,” their duty as loyal jurors, pa-
triots, and Americans, together with eulogies of
the land and the blessings'of its government. Mr.
Katzmann. in summing up to the jury, ended
with an appeal to them to stand together as
Americans, “men of Norfolk,” against the alien.
The judge then followed with his charge, which
was admirably calculated to support and en-
courage the prejudices which had filled the at-
mosphere of the court. The duty of the jurors
was here again recalled to them as that of loyal
soldiers: the defendants, it will be remembered,
were considered draft-dodgers.
The charge of a trial judge is fundamentally
intended as an aid to the jury in clarifying the
testimony, sifting the evidence, separating the
pertinent from the irrelevant. All the evidence
is not necessarily recited again, and in Massa-
chusetts the judge is not even permitted to ex-
press his own opinion upon it. Correct placing '
of emphasis, caution against dangerous omis-
sions, and concern for proportion and relevance
are standard requirements usually respected. An
examination of Judge Thayer’s charge reveals
SACCO AND VANZETTI 2 7
how greatly it is found wanting before these
standards. The judge brought forth a document
of twenty-four pages: Fourteen of them were
devoted to legal abstractions and praise of the
ideals of justice, which the jury was now asked
belatedly to imbibe, after all the prejudice that
had gone before. Two pages only were given
to the highly complicated and vitally important
identification evidence, dealing with it abstract-
ly and never referring to the names of specific
witnesses. The important alibis of the defend-
ants were put aside in two paragraphs, with
no reference to witnesses. And five pages were
devoted to the matter of “consciousness of
guilt,” expounding in detail and with exact ref-
erence to testimony and witnesses the evidence
of various police officers and others, with a high-
ly developed treatment of possible inferences
therefrom.
There is certainly a lack of proportion here,
and very evidently- the judge gave the-impres-
sion that the case rested on the matter of
“consciousness of guilt”: and this, indeed, he
later made clear to be his opinion. Yet again
one must repeat that the question of identifi-
cation, of whether or not the defendants were
in South Braintree on April 15, was the real
crux of the case: the treatment of this vital
point in the charge was brief and superficial
in‘ comparison with the emphasis placed on
“consciousness of guilt.”
One page of the document was given over to
the theory, never disputed by the defense, that
the murder was motivated by robbery; yet
nothing was said about the state’s failure to
trace the booty to Sacco and Vang/.etti or estab-
lish them as professional gunmen. Another
matter of weight received a perverted impli-
cation more scandalous than anything yet noted

23 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
has disclosed. Captain Proctor, a ballistic ex-
pert, had testified that the bullet taken from
Berardelli’s body was “consistent with” being
fired from Sacco’s pistol; and great importance
was attached to the identification of this bullet.
Though the expert had decidedly not identified
the bullet as definitely fired by Sacco, Judge
Thayer told the jury that Captain Proctor and
another expert had in fact sworn that “it was
his (Sacco’s) pistol that fired the bullet that
caused the death of Berardelli.” Under such a
misinterpretation, of course, Sacco was already
convicted. This matter, one of the strongest
bases of condemnation which can be found
against the whole procedure in the case, will
shortly be examined in more detail. As the
jury saw it, from what it undoubtedly be-
'lieved the judge meant by his plain words,
Sacco’s pistol had fired the fatal bullet, where-
as Captain Proctor had testified, to nothing of
the sort.
As a result of all these outside influences.
dubious tactics, misinterpretations and dispro-
portions, combined with the prejudices of the
times and the character of the defendants, the
jury convicted the men of murder, rendering
its verdict July 14, 1921.
III. THE NEW EVIDENCE: THE JUDGE AND
- . I THE TIMES
Throughout the trial exceptions had been~
taken to various rulings of the judge and they
formed the basis of an application for a new
trial. Judge Thayer. refused it. The defense
then discovered a large amount of new evidence,
which was used as a foundation for other mo-
tions-for retrial. The production of this evidence
caused the entry into the case of Mr. William
SACCO AND VANZETTI _ 29
G. Thompson, a very noted and skillful Massa-
chusetts lawyer, whose adherence brought a
wholly new aspect to the efforts of the defense.
. For he joined the counsel of Sacco and Vanzetti
from a belief that the fairness of their trial was
open to serious doubt and from a strong convic-
tion of their innocence. He made his first ap-
pearance at the hearings on the motions for re-
trial, which were held on October 1, 1923,7and
he continued from that time to be the guiding
spirit of the defense. Judge Thayer again de-
nied the various motions presented.
These arguments newly advanced by the de-
fense are in many cases highly technical; only
a general and brief exposition of theirpurport
is possible. They are five: the Ripley, Daly,
Hamilton, Gould, and Proctor motions, the last
by far the most important.
Ripley, formerly chief of police of Quincy and
foreman of the jury in the trial, in both of
which capacities he doubtless had influence on
the otherjurors, had with him cartridges of
the type of some of those used as evidence;
apparently discussion had occurred and compar-
isons been made by the jurors between Ripley's
cartridges and the others. However, all evi-
dence of any kind, especially in a capital case.
must be displayed in court in order to allow
cross-examination. By the unconventional in-
troduction of this outside material to the jury,
due process of law had been violated. After the
conviction Ripley related this matter to the de—
fense and it became the ground of a motion for
retrial, since the comparison of the cartridge;
was manifestly illegal. .
Daly was an old friend of Ripley. He stated
to the defense that a few days preceding the
trial he met’Ripley, who told him that he was
going to serve on the jury. Daly'expressed l1":
opinion of the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti,
30 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
whereupon Ripley by his reply showed himself
quite devoid of the necessary preliminary im-
partiality; consequently, he should never have
been allowed on the jury.
Hamilton had had fifteen years’ experience as
an expert in the microscopic examination‘of ex-
hibits and had been used in a hundred and
sixty-five homicide trials throughout the coun-
try. He examined the bullet from the body of
Berardelli under the compound microscope,
compared it with the revolver found on Van-
zetti, and gave his results in an affidavit, sup-
porting his work with highly magnified photo-
graphs. He made a scrupulous comparison of
scratches on the bullet and of the grooves with!
in the barrel of Sacco’s gun, and stated that
these definitely removed the possibility that
Sacco’s pistol had fired the bullet.
Gould, a salesman, had arrived‘ in South
Braintree at about 3 p. m. on April 15, 1920, in-
quired where the employees of Slater & Morrill's
were paid, and was shown the paymaster just
leaving, whom he followed. As he continued
down the street after Parmenter and Berardelli,
the shooting occurred: the murder car came
within five feet of him; a man with a pistol in
one hand climbed from the back seat to the
front on the driver’s right, pointed the gun at
Gould and fired. The bullet went through his
overcoat. As the murderer who shot at him
was claimed to be Sacco, Gould’s view of him
was thus better than that of any of the other
witnesses; but although he gave his name and
address to the police he was never called to the
rial.
Afterward, seeing the defendants, Gould ex-
plicitly denied that either of them was the
man in the car, ‘and so made an affidavit to
the defense. Nevertheless Judge Thayer denied
this important testimony and in so doing dis-
SACCO AND VANZETTI 81
played his own inaccuracy in a matter of fact,
‘ a typical blunder throughout the case. He dis-
credited the affidavit, saying that Gould had
not seen Sacco from April 15, 1920, till Novem-
ber 10, 19,21, and yet carried a correct picture
of him in his mind for eighteen months. How-
ever, it was plain to everyone that Gould had
said that. he had not seen Sacco on April 15,
1920‘, but another; hence he had never carried
any image of Sacco in his mind, but claimed to
have seen him for the first time on November 10,
1921, in jail. This inexcusable misstatement, if
nothing else, speaks worlds about the judge.
The affidavit of Captain Proctor revealed the
most notorious irregularity, possibly, of the
whole case: an incident of a character so
scandalous that it impeaches the conduct of
the prosecution from beginning to end. As has
been stated, one of the critical points of evi
dence was that which concerned the identifica-
tion of a bullet from Berardelli’s body as com;
ing from Sacco’s pistol. Five other bullets
taken from. the bodies, it was definitely proved,
could not have been fired by either defendant.
Concerning the one bullet Captains Proctor
and Van Amburgh, put on the stand for the
prosecution, had given expert testimony; and
in instructing the jury the judge had told it
that they had said that Sacco’s pistol had fired
the bullet.
Captain Proctor, head of the state police
and in the Department of Public Safety for
twenty-three years, an expert of twenty years’
standing in the matter of bullets and revolvers,
had given evidence in more than a hundred
capital cases: a witness, evidently, of the higlr,
est reliability. If the PI'OSQCUtlOIIHCOUId persuade
the jury that the bullet was fired by Sacco’s
pistol, the defendants were doomed. The state
32 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
relied largely on the expert testimony, upheld
it to the jury as the chief point of all, and put
forward Captain Proctor, who, on being asked
his opinion as to whether the bullet was
fired from Sacco’s Colt automatic pistol, said,
“My opinion is that it is consistent with being
fired from that pistol.” Judge Thayer misin-
terpreted this: neither prosecution nor defense
corrected him, and the jury believed what the
judge had told it.
Following the verdict Proctor swore in an
affidavit that the district attorney had repeat-
edly asked him, during the preparation of the
case’, if he could find any evidence which would ,
justify the opinion that this particular bullet,
which came from a Colt automatic pistol, came
from the particular pistol found on Sacco;
that’ he conducted special tests, with Van Am-
burgh, found no such evidence whatever, and
so informed Mr. Katzmann; that at the trial, he
having told the district attorney in advance
that he must necessarily reply in the negative
to a direct question, which ‘would be highly fa-
vorable to the defendants and prejudicial to
the prosecution, Mr. Katzmann therefore asked
him a question which permitted him to make
the answer quoted above. Proctor went on to
say that he still held to this answer, but that
he did not intend in any way to imply by it
that Sacco’s pistol had fired the bullet; that to
a direct question he must have replied nega-
tively, that Mr. Katzmann knew this and in
that knowledge framed his question.
By a prearranged formula of words, then,
between Katzmann and Proctor, evidence which
might have been highly favorable to the de-
fense was made terribly damaging to it. andat
the same time a major stroke for the prosecu-
tion. These words, though in themselves true
SACCO AND VANZETTI 33
enough, were intended, without perjury, to give
a false impression and did actually do so. The
prosecution, knowing the real state of things,
allowed judge and jury totally to misconstrue
them, and indeed intended that they should.
To the Proctor affidavit, made the real basis
of Mr. Thompson’s motion for retrial, Mr. Katz-
mann and his assistant, Mr. Williams, replied
with affidavits in which they merely denied
that Proctor had been "repeatedly ’ asked about
the matter or had "7‘61361166611'11” replied that his
full answer must be damaging‘to the prosecu-
tion, and did not deny the fact of the miscon-
struction placed on his testimony by judge and
jury. Still, Judge Thayer consideredthat the
disclosures by Proctor constituted no reason for
a new trial. Citing the questions and answers,
he says that they were clear and unmistakable,
which no one denies, and asks if there were
anything “unfair or improper” in them: ‘not
this, one may reply, but the prearrangement,
was the important point“. He goes on to ques-
tion why Captain Proctor did not say that no
affirmative evidence whatever indicated that
the bullet came from Sacco’s gun; whereas the
prearrangement had been exactly to avoid any
question which should lead to such a statement.
Why, he asks, if desirous of expressing his
true opinion, did the witness use such language
as “consistent with.” his own selection of
words; whereas the whole point at issue was
that Proctor at the time was not desirous of
expressing true opinion. Proctor and Kata-
mann knew what it was, but the jury were to
understand the opposite. ‘ a
Judge Thayer also twisted the affidavit from
its true meaning and misstated what both Proc-
tor and Mr. Thompson had said in plain lan-
guage. In addition, after the state had given
.MM:I:——,~ - .. Emu-magi .,.-_,-.._._._1._ m., .

34 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
the utmost weight to the evidence of this wit-
ness at the trial, the judge now tried to belittle
Proctor in his capacity as an expert, thus seek-
ing to evade the injury done to the iury’s de-
elsion 0y tne mlsieading testimony; he uses
the phrase “with his limited knowledge," and
makes, according to Professor Frankfurter, “nu-
merous misstatements of incontrovertible fact.”
Yet he now admitted the true import of the
Proctor evidence, which three years before he
had conveycd to the jury in the opposite sense
and with the highest opinion of its value.
Again, aftc-r belittling Proctor as an expert
and minimizing his Words in 1924, in order
to have a, ground for the denial of the motion
for a new trial, the judge two years later, to
point out the strength of the case in the orig-
inal trial, rehabilitated the expert for the pur-
pose and voluntarily expanded his testimony.
saying that Proctor had declared the bullet
was “perfectly consistent with” being fired by
Sacco’s pistol.
All these inconsistencies leave one amazed.
The judge’s treatment of his own understand
ing of Proctor’s words was highly changeable;
and he also considered that the evasive affi-
davits of Katzmann and Williams were “clear
and convincing,” though as to what he did not
say. And the Supreme Judicial Court of the
state declared that the decision of Judge Thayer
could not in law be reversed.
This opinion, sixty pages long, handed down
on May 12, 1926, stated “no error” was to be
found in any of Judge Thayer’s rulings and
the verdicts thus remained unaltered. It must
be distinctly understood that only technical
matters of law were examined and on them
alone was this decision given. In England or
SACCO AND VANZETTI 35
in New York supreme courts of appeal may
review, examine, and judge the record of fact
as well as the rulings in law, and decisions are
made on the whole record of a case. But in
Massachusetts only the conduct of the trial
judge can be reviewed, that is, technical ques-
tions of law and nothing more. Thus, emphat-
ically, the Supreme Court did not put its ap-
proval on the verdicts against Sacco and Van-
zetti, but merely upon the actions of the judge.
It is well to note- this, for later Judge Thayer
characteristically misconstrued or misrepre
sented this fact, saying the verdicts had been
“approved by the Supreme Judicial court of
this Commonwealth,” when nothing of the sort
had occurred.
As to the legal questions and exceptions, some
rulings of the Supreme Court seem rather
astonishing. The main issue, however, the
focal point of importance, was whether Judge
Thayer had observed the standards of Anglo-
American justice, whether he had abused ju-
dicial discretion. Again and again the opinion
states that he had not abused his discretion: a
decision which seems to require for the term
“judicial discretion” a totally- new definition.
For evidently, if this phrase has any meaning
in the usual sense of the words and has not
become merely a technical abstraction, to many
personsat least discretion seemed to have been
most terribly abused by this judge. But the
Supreme Court was sure that Judge Thayer
had behaved with utter calmness and impar-
tiality, moved only by the desire “to do that
which is just,” according to the definition for
the correct conduct of a trial judge given by
the present Chief Justice of Massachusetts.

36 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
Subsequent to the new evidence brought by
the defense in the affidavits of Captain Proctor
and the others, even more important proofs
were discovered which not only seemed to
make clear the innocence of the defendants
but to reveal as well the real criminals. On
November 18, 1925, a young Portuguese with
a bad criminal record, Celestino Madeiros, who
was confined in .the same prison with Sacco
for a holdup and murder at Wrentham similar
to that at South Braintree, sent .to Sacco
through a jail messenger the following con-
fession: “I hear by confess to being in the
South Braintree shoe company crime and Sacco
and Vanzetti was not in said crime. Celestino
F. Madeiros.”
This man had been convicted of murder for
the crime at Wrentham and was waiting for
an appeal to come before the Supreme Court.
Evidence of a criminal such as this is gener-
ally highly dubious, assuming as he does the
guilt of another when he is soon to meet the
penalty of death himself; but in this instance
circumstances dispose of such a just suspicion
at'the outset. Madeirios was under sentence of
death, but his appeal was pending and, in-
deed, it later gained him a new trial; at this
critical 'time be endangered his whole chance
for a new hearing and with it his life, for ad-
mission of his guilt in yet another crime was
the most prejudicial course he could have
taken. So harmful was it that, by arrangement
with the district attorney, his confession was
kept secret until the result not only of his ap—
peal but of his new trial was known. The
state moreover had to admitthat he had never
been promised money or aid by the Sacco-Van-
zetti Defense Committee.
SACCO AND‘ VANZETTI 37
Witnesses were also found who testified that
he had talked of participating in the South
Braintree crime-beforc‘the Wrentham holdup
and hence before his arrest. What, then, mo-
tivated his confession? He knew the danger of
confessions, for’his own previous ones, had. con-
victed him of the Wrentham murder: he had
been rewarded for them by sentence of death,-
which he knew would result. If he was cred-
ible in one crime. why not in another of iden-
tical character, admitted in the same manner in
full likelihood of the same penalty? Besides,
Madeiros had seen Mrs. Sacco and her children
come to the jail and he “felt sorry for the
kids.”
At the age of eighteen, in 1920, he lived in
Providence, already having a criminal record
through his association with an Italian gang
which robbed freight cars. One evening in
Providence some of its members asked him to
participate in a payroll holdup at South Brain-
tree. It was a novel type of crime to him but
they persuaded him to join them, for “they
had done lots of jobs of this kind.” As a new
recruit of young years, he was assigned to a
. minor role, that of remaining in the back of
the car with a gun to help hold back the crowd
in case of an emergency. On April 15, 1920,
the design was carried out, with three Italians
also in the car and “a slim fellow with light
hair” as the driver. Two automobiles were
used to prevent identification, a Buick and at
Hudson. About noon they came 'into South
Braintree in the Buick; a man of perhaps
forty years, the oldest of the Italians, did the
shooting, while the others stayed at hand in
the car; as the murder was committed, they
drove up, took in their confederates and the

38 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF’
plunder, drove to the Randolph woods, changed
to the Hudson and went back to Providence.
Madeiros arranged to meet with them in a
saloon there the following night for a division
of the spoils. Whether he did so and received
his share he refused to tell; he also kept back
the names of his companions and their iden-
tity, having recourse to lies if pressed. His
admitted attempt was to shield his’ accomplices
xvhile confessing everything about himself, and
in so doing he was clever. But in spite of this
the skillful Mr. Thompson drew out important
facts which made certain the identity of the
gang and even more strongly strengthened
what Madeiros had told. ‘ The Morelli gang,
only too familiar to the authorities of Provi-
dence and New Bedford as a band of profes-
sional criminals, was established as the one
which had figured at South Braintree. Several
of its members were then under indictment in
the United States District Court of Rhode
island for robbing freight cars, named by Ma-
deiros as their usual occupation. Five of the
nine indictments, besides, were for thefts of
.Qhoe consignments from Slater and Morm'll 0]‘
South Braintree and from the factory newt
theirs, and apparently the gang must have had
a helper in South Braintree to spot the ship-
ments. Probably this person noticed the pay-
master’s weekly trip with the payroll. The
Morellis were under indictment but out of jail;
they needed money for their defense in court,
and crime provided their livelihood. . . . ey
remained free till May 25; then under conviction
they were sent to Atlanta. ,
Other admissions of Madeiros confirmed the
theory pointing to the Morelli gang: his descrip-
tions of the men with him fitted the members
of the gang, and identifications of independent
_._. _-,__..._
————v--.-,'1
SACCO AND VANZETTI 39
n
witnesses supported his. “The light-haired man”
had been emphasized by the state as the driver
of the car: the attempt to make the dark Van-
zetti the driver had failed utterly. Steve the
Pole, a member of the gang, fitted Madeiros’
description of the driver, and two women work-
ing at the factory swore that he was the man
whom they "had seen for half an hour on April
15 near a car outside their window.
Two other witnesses at the trial had identi-
fied Joe Morelli as one of the murderers and
Mancini, a member of the gang, as another. As
American-born, the Morellis spoke clear English,
explaining the trial evidence that one of the
bandits had done so, whereas neither Sacco nor
Vanzetti knew English well. The fatal bullet
came from a 32 Colt revolver, and Joe Morelli
had a gun of this type; the type of Mancini’s'
revolver accounted for the other five bullets.
The Sacco~Vanzetti theory explains only one,
not the other five. The Morelli theory accounts
for all members of the murder gang, the Sacco-
Vanzetti theory for only two. It was admitted
that if Madeiros had been present, the defend-
ants could not have been.
Mike Morelli drove a Buick at the time: the
“murder car” was a Buick. The New Bedford
police had indeed suspected the Morellis of the
South Braintree holdup, but dropped the matter
on the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti.
After the crime there Madeiros was impris-
oned five months for larceny of less than one
hundred dollars, and on his release had twenty-
eight hundred dollars in a bank, with which he
took a trip to Mexico and the West; this seems
to have been his share of the almost sixteen
thousand dollars of booty, divided among six.
Need of money for court expenses provided
the motive under the Morelli theory; no motive


.. N‘; 2* .1.'\8f4‘._ n:

40’ THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
is to be found in the Sacco~Vanzetti theory, nor
any trace of the spoils. -
Madeiros had tried to gain Sacco’s attention
previously and had made other confessions be-
fore the one cited.
Weeks, a man condemned with him for the
Wrentham crime, said that Madeiros used his
South Braintree experience in planning it. that
he had admitted that the Slater and Morrill
holdup ‘was carried out by the Morellis; and
Madeiros had made further damaging admis-
sions to him and to other witnesses, declaring
“that he would like to save Sacco and Vanzetti
because he knew they were perfectly innocent.”
The judge’s duty lay simply in determining
whether this new evidence might lead a new
jury to a verdict contrary to that found at the
first trial. Judge Thayer denied this possibility
after studying the question for considerable
time. His opinion, delivered on October 23,
1926. ran to a length of twenty-five thousand
words and was one of the most astonishing
documents which a legal mind has produced in
modern times; rife with omissions, “discrep-
ancies between what the record discloses and
the opinion conveys,” “misquotations, misrep-
resentations, suppressions, mutilations, demon-
strable errors," and the most evident and damn-
ing emotional bias. 1
The appeal, of course, was carried to the
Supreme Court of the state, which again had
the task of deciding, in accordance with a
very strict statement of required behavior,
whether Judge Thayer had conducted himself
conformably to traditional standards of fairness
and impartiality. To do this, the whole record
was to be searched, but as before the Supreme
Court was not concerned with the weight ofthe
new evidence, but simply with whether Judge
Thayer had abused his “judicial discretion” in
<__.¢._.._u_.uu___.-H..._LL ,___u. l _
“as.
SACCO AND VANZETTI 41
deciding that this evidence was immaterial.
If he could possibly have considered it imma-
terial, the Supreme Court could not reverse
him, even though to a man it might believe
the new evidence warranted the acquittal of
the defendants. Thus a fatal weakness in the
Massachusetts judicial system was revealed;
the Supreme Court could not examine new evi-
dence, nor could it express a minority opinion,’
whereas other high courts are able to do. both.
Men could thus be sent to death without an
open examination of all the evidence as to their '
guilt and in spite of the weight of that testi-
mony. Under these conditions the Supreme
Court handed down on April 5 1927, after the
second proceeding in review, its opinion that
Judge Thayer had not abused his discretion
and could not be reversed. By the very nature
of the law it could give no opinion of its own
on the new evidence.
To -~look backward again, in the early winter
of 1919-20 A. Mitchell Palmer, Attorney-General
of the United States, caused the Department of
Justice to embark on an extravagant campaign
for the arrest and deportation of “Reds,” for-
eigners suspected of Communist sympathies.
The years of the hysteria thus engendered
formed an extremely‘ troubled period in the his-
tory of the United States: everywhere the raids
and proceedings went forward with extraordi-
nary brutality and lawlessness. Decisions of
United States courts throughout the country
branded them in plain language as misconduct
on the part of the Department of Justice; and
Mr. Palmer never dared to have these de-
cisions passed on by the higher courts.
Recently certain other facts have been made
known. As has been mentioned, Sacco and
Vanzetti, as notorious Reds had long been on
the suspect lists of the Department of Justice.

42 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
Now it appears that the murder charge pressed
against them was part of a collusion between
agents of the Department and Mr. Katzmann to
dispose of the defendants as radicals, not as
murderers. Two former government officers,
one of whom had been a postoffice inspector
for twenty-five years, gave affidavits to prove
it. Both the men are now in honorable civil
employment.
The Department of Justice, it was set forth,
considered Sacco and Vanzetti as “radicals to
be watched”; was desirous of their deporta—
tion, but had no evidence on which to proceed.
Without full legal grounds the Department was
now cautious in its attempts, since the United
States District Court for Massachusetts had al-
ready checked abuses in proceedings for depor-
tation. When the men were arrested as mur-
derers the required chance WlS supplied. The
Department’s agents themselves believed, that
the South Braintree murders were the work of
professionals and that Sacco and Vanzetti had
nothing to do with them. Nevertheless, they
collaborated with Mr. Katzmann in the murder
prosecution, because “it was the opinion of the
Department agents that- conm'ctz'on . . or
murder would be one way of disposing of these
two men.” This was the grave charge made
by a man of long years in government service.
A government spy was installed in a cell
adjacent to Sacco’s to win his confidence and
obtain all possible incriminating evidence. An
“under-cover man” was introduced into the
Sacco;Vanzetti Defense Committee. A spy was
placed as a lodger in Mrs. Sacco’s house. The
agents of the Department itself supplied to Mr.
Katzmann information about the radical activ-
ities of Sacco and Vanzetti. These efforts oc-
casioned a quantity of correspondence between
Mr. Katzmann and the Department’s Boston.
SACCO AND VANZETTI 43
agents; two copies of such documents went to
Washington; one was retained in Boston.
These records, though of the highest rele-
vance to the real guilt of the defendants, have’
not been made available and Attorney-General
Sargent was vainly appealed to in the matter.
In the hearing on the last motion for a new
trial Letherman and Weyand, the two men who
made the charge of collusion, were subjected to
abuse from the state’s representative as guilty
of a breach of loyalty and as having betrayed
the secrets of their department; on the other
hand, no disclosure of the facts was made, nor
was the charge of collaboration to obtain a.
»conviction denied either by the agent, West, or
by Mr. Katzmann.
IV. PUBLIC CRITICISM
In its early period the case of Sacco and Van-
zetti attracted considerable attention, especially,
at first, from radical or labor bodies, but very
soon from the general public as well. Grad—
ually, in the course of the various proceedings,
this interest became first nation wide, then
world wide. The character of the circumstances
drew to the defense of Sacco and Vanzetti in-
dividuals from all social classes; and the list of
those who in some manner or other protested
against the irregularities or injustices of the
‘case reads like a roster of the finest spirits 1n
American thought and life. Likewise the de- _
cision of the courts drew its vigorous and dis-
tinguished champions. In fact, the Sacco-Van-
zetti case became the “cause célebre” of modern
times, comparable to the Affairs Dreyfus in
France just before the turn of the century.
Since the great value of any court action lies
in its social significance, it is important to sur-
vey briefly the developments the case provoked
beyond the confines of Judge‘ Thayer’s court
44 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
room. The defense, of course, .had soon been
organized in a systematic manner under the
Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, whose chair-
man was John Barry. Aldino Felicani, Joseph
Moro, and Mary Donovan were the other exec-
utives; and besides the support of thirty-six
labor organizations from all sections of the
country, the Committee was backed by the
‘American Civil Liberties Union, the American
Federation ‘of Teachers, the Farmer-Labor Party
of the United States, the League for Democratic
Control, the New England Civil Liberties Com-
mittee, the Socialist Party, and the Sons of
Italy. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were
poured into the defense by friends and sym-
pathizers, and everything was done to secure
justice both by the important organizations
named and by many private citizens. A Sacco-
Vanzetti Defense Committee was organized in
Paris, and throughout the world the effort for
relief took organized form. Thus the movement
in behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti became of truly
national and international significance. “
The decisions of the judge were as heartily
‘supported as they were decried; the tradition-
ally accepted impartiality of the law and the
courts was upheld as a guarantee against mis-
carriage of justice. But after Judge Thayer’s
denial of the last motion for a new trial and
the appearance of his opinion thereon, old
doubts were confirmed and new ones sprang
up in abundance. This document, with its
shameful evidence of emotional bias, won to the
defendants many who had till now been neutral
or-even hostile to them. Converts were made
among the conservatives and everywhere the
demand for justice was redoubled. The Boston
Herald, for example, had consistently supported
the original verdict, but in its issue of October
26, 1926, it editorially reversed its_ stand and
condemned Judge Thayer’s 0p1n10n in quiet but
sAcco AND VANZETTI , is
emphatic terms, declaring for a new trial in
which all the evidence should be sifted again. ~
However, Mr. Moortield Storey, in a letter to
the Herald in its issue of October 27, 1926,
argued for the original verdict on the basis of
the strength of the administration of criminal
law in Massachusetts under ordinary condi-
tions, an argument which was constantly used
by the champions of the death penalty for
I Sacco and Vanzetti.
Yet Mr. Storey himself had forcefully con-
demned, in 1923, the" “reign of terror” which
featured the anti-Red campaign of 1919-20, and
in the midst of which the case of Sacco and
Vanzetti was conducted: these, one may re-
mark, were far from ordinary conditions.
Dr. Morton Prince of Harvard, in a letter to
the Herald for October 30, 1926, under the title
“A Psychologist’s .Study,” demolished the iden- ‘
tification testimony of Miss Splaine and asked
why the usual “parade” should'have been so
strangely abandoned in‘this case. And there
were many other expressions of dissatisfaction
and protest. Indeed, as a result of the position
of ‘the Herald and the accumulating evidences of‘
injustice, some of the most important and often
essentially conservative citizens of Massachu-
setts were brought to the support of the de-
fendants. ' 1
Among those who called for a new hearing
were the Harvard professors Frank W. Taussig,
the nationally known economist; Samuel E.
Morison, the historian; W. E. Hocking, the
distinguished philosopher; and Dean Sperry of
the Harvard Theological School: as well as
Reginald H. Smith, author of “Justice and the
Poor”; President Neilson of Smith College and
President Comstock of Radcliffe College; the~
novelist, Mrs. Margaret Deland; Mr. John F.
Moors, a Boston banker and member of the

46 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
Corporation of Harvard University; Mrs. Glen-
dower Evans, a prominent Boston society
woman; and Dr. Samuel McChord Crothers, lib-
eral Unitarian minister and distinguished
writer.
In March, 1927, Mr. Felix Frankfurter, a
notable lawyer and professor in the Harvard
Law School, issued his memorable book, “The
Case of Sacco and Vanzetti.” He was plainly
ali ned with those who called for a new trial;
an now he analyzed the case from its inception
to its current developments, exposing legal
flaws and manifest injustices in effective and
forceful terms.
Nor was Professor Frankfurter alone in his
position. In a letter to the Harvard Crimson
for April 13, 1927, Mr. William E. Hocking, pro-
fessor of philosophy and a veteran of the Har-
vard faculty, condemned the trial of Sacco and
Vanzetti; expressing dissatisfaction with the
legal machinery of the Supreme Court, and call—
ing for a new hearing, he characterized the pro-
ceedings as demonstrating the clan loyalty of
lawyers, who felt it incumbent upon them to
save the face of a judge subjected to public
criticism rather than to safeguard justice.
Two days later it became known that two
hundred and five out of three hundred men in
the graduating class of the Harvard Law
School, many of whom were future members
of the Massachusetts bar—among them the
leaders of the various Law School organizations
——had signed a petition to Governor Fuller,
stressing the weight of the new evidence and
the powerlessness of the Supreme Court to con-
sider it, and recommending in this emergency
the extension of executive clemency to the con-
demned men. Simultaneously the Harvard Lib-
eral Club petitioned the governor to appoint an
impartial committee to review the evidence.
SACCO AND VANZETTI 4!
On April 25, 1927, the opposite viewpoint was
strongly set forth: The Boston Transcript, the
typical Tory newspaper of Boston, always
hostile to the defenders of Sacco and Vanzetti,
spread upon its first page a sensationally headed.
attack upon Professor Frankfurter by J. H.
Wig-more, Dean of the Law School of North‘
western University, characterized by the Tran-
script as the “accepted authority on legal evi—
dence.”
The article was rather long, maliciously per-
sonal in tone, and Professor Frankfurter was
constantly referred to as the “plausible pundit
of a leading law school.” 1 Mr. Wigmore sought
to show that Professor Frankfurter had made
false statements of fact and deliberate misrep-
resentations in his survey of the case; these
were all matters of law or of evidence which
have been discussed previously. Goncludi'na",
he introduced a group of newspaper clippings
concerning bomb outrages supposed, more or
less vaguely, to have been committed by Sacco-
Vanzetti sympathizers; and he elaborated-the
conservative conception of a Widespread tel‘-
rorist fraternity which was supporting the de—
fendants against the law of Massachusetts and
to which Professor Frankfurter, by his book,
had shamefully given aid.
The Harvard Professor replied on the fol-
lowing day through the Boston Herald and the
Harvard Crimson. Leaving aside the sensa-
tional and unfounded insinuations of radical
partisanship, he took up all relevant points set
forth by Mr. Wigmore and discussed them one
by one, in each case refuting the assertions of
his excited detractor and quoting directly from
the record of all questionable issues. The re-
sult was disastrous for Mr. Wigmore. For
Professor Frankfurter, before issuing‘ his hooky
had published a shorter and necessarily less
I
rkvszw-s- -~v¢~r _—_ x~i~rwuwawwmwrrwv 1m‘ ‘wtr.;—:—:vinwgm- ;¢-_\<_~__~\.,_ .____.n_..__ A“; U A A
48 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
detailed survey of the case in the Atlantic
Monthly; and it became devastatingly plain
that Mr.'Wig1nore had read only the magazine
article, paying no heed to the more explicit and
fully documented book, before rushing into
print to make grave but baseless charges
against its author.
‘Professor Frankfurterfit is to be noted, in
contrast to his vehement and heated opponent,
showed the utmost calmness in return. In fact,
Dean Wigmore, thus answered, appeared com-
pletely ridiculous, and Professor Frankfurter
had vindicated himself to the satisfaction of
all. There was no reply.
The effect of this controversy was heightened
by the announcement on the following day,
April 27, 1927, that a group of professors in
the Law School had sent a petition to Governor
Fuller of Massachusetts asking the appointment 1
of a “disinterested board to be composed of
lawyers and laymen of standing in whom the
people have confidence,” to examine the case
fully and report on “their findings of fact, their
opinions, and their conclusions.”
This distinguished group of petitioners was
headed by Dean Pound, easily the most impor-
tant and significant figure in American Law
today, under whom the Harvard Law‘ School
has reached a position of notable supremacy
in method and in research. This great expert
in law and the fifteen professors who signed
the petition with him expressed by it their
opinion that if the courts of Massachusetts
seemed incapable of rendering justice satisfac-
torily,, then “the wrong should be righted and
Massachusetts should show that where justice
is involved she will go above and beyond the
technical procedure of her courts.” At the same
time they disclaimed any opinion on the merits
of the case; they merely asked the appomtment
SAC‘CO AND ‘VANZETTI 49
of an impartial committee. Mic-U Lindings
s!’ “113 aid the governor in any consideration
of executive clemency to the defendants. p,
the ranks of those who asked for such an partial review must be added the name of
William Lawrence, Episcopal Bishop of Massa-
chusetts,
At this time the general agitation throughout
Europe and,‘America had reached a serious
point, and public sentiment .itself demanded
such a step. Due to limitationsof space, it has
been possible to describe only the most impor-
tant aspects of this wave of protest and~ con-
demnation, which included many more manifes-
tations than those briefly set forth here. But
in spite of the intense and widespread popular
demand for a review of the case, one may per-
haps doubt, without any implication as to the
governor’s motives or intentions, whether he
would have responded, as at length he did with
the appointment of his advisory committee, had
not that‘measure been so emphatically proposed
by individuals whose prestige and reliability .
could not be questioned. The important fact is
that Governor Fuller did appoint the desired
advisory committee to review the facts and
communicate to him its conclusions. However,
the frankly expressed attitude of many of the
most prominent individuals in American life
had made it practically impossible to refuse
such a measure.
v. THE LOWELL COMMITTEE AND ITS
REPORT
Since the Supreme Judicial Court for the
second time had refused to reverse Judge
Thayer’s denial of a new trial, every usual
legal recourse to obtain a hearing ‘on the new
evidence was exhausted. It thus became im-
50 THn NOTORIOUS CASE OF
possible even for the Supreme Court or the
Governor to order another trial; there re-
mained only the possibilities, on the part of
thevlatter, of recommending the pardon of
either or both the condemned men; of recom-
mending their commutation to life imprison-
ment or to a term of years; and of non-inter-
vention.
, The last course, by which Sacco and Vanzetti
would have been executed without even a ref-‘L
erence to the new evidence discovered since
the first verdict, had been made impossible by
the powerfully supported demand for an impar-
tial rehearing. Sacco and Vanzetti had been
condemned to be executed during the week of
July 10, 1927, and were now respited till August
10; before that date should arrive there was
opportunity for a new survey. of all relevant
matters, as a result of which Governor Fuller
either would refuse to intervene, allowing the
death penalty to be carried out, if he found
the new evidence worthless, or would recom-
mend the pardon of the defendants if he found
it convincing. It was understood that these
were the two probable courses; the possibilities
of commutation merely lay open. ‘
Since Sacco and Vanzetti were either defi-
nitely guilty or not guilty, either death or free!
dom must logically be decreed to them. Com-
mutation could hardly be a sensible solution.
In order to review the case and obtain a sat-
isfactory basis of judgment upon which to re-
fuse clemency or grant pardon, Governor Ful-
ler undertook a personal investigation of the
case on his own account, thus invoking for the
first time in the history of the state the Gov~
ernor’s power of review; and he also appointed
an advisory committee for the same purpose
SACCO AND VANZETTI 51
‘whose work was to be entirely separate from
his. When this committee had concluded its
investigation it would report to the Governor;
and he, combining its conclusions with those
independently arrived at by himself, would
draw from them a final decision which would
settle the fate of the condemned men.
At first glance this seemed the long-desired
solution, which could hardly fail to give im-
- ‘partial and trustworthy results. But it is im-
portant to note that by this arrangement the
lives of Sacco and Vanzetti were entrusted to
the discretion of only four men, the Governor
and his committee of three, and in the final
judgment to only one: this was wholly differ-
ent from an open examination in court accord-
ing to due process of law, with counsel for
‘both sides, before a jury of twelve.
, The advisory committeeyas appointed by
Governor Fuller, consisted of Mr. A. Lawrence
Lowell, Mr. Samuel W. Stratton and Mr. Robert
Grant. Mr. Lowell is the president of Harvard
University, a distinguished innovator in edu-
cation, an author of important books, and a.
very ‘able lawyer of Boston. By tradition and
connections he stands among the older aristo-
cratic and conservative elements in Massachus
setts.
Mr. Stratton is president of Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, a school whose direct-
ing forces are largely the same as those of
Harvard. Both men are at the head of institu~
tions behind which lie enormous resources of
related capital, and it is presumable that they
would not occupy their present positions if
they were not identified in some measure with
the capitalistic wealth ‘and conservative tradi-
tion of the ruling factors in the state.
52 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
Mr. Robert Grant, a former judge of the pro-
bate court, is a notable lawyer. All three men
were well advanced in years; they represented
legal capacity and public service of a high or-
der; they were certainly men of a type who
could be called “distinguished citizens of Mas—
sachusetts.” '
The committee held its sittings during mid-
summer of 1927, beginning on July 25 to hear
the argumentsof counsel; at length it finished
its report on July 27, 1927. Meanwhile Gov-
ernor Fuller conducted his own investigation.
Sacco and Vanzetti were visited in prison sev-
eral times; the evidence was reviewed and
necessary conferences were held. The commit-
tee first read the record and the various affi-
davits and documents concerning the motions
for a new trial, then heard all available wit-
nesses and all evidence which opposing counsel
desired to present.
By its own declaration, all the testimony
brought to the committee was heard in the pres-
ence of both counsel; none of the three mem-
bers received evidence separately; the counsel
were given an, opportunity to meet and rebut
all testimony and to hear and question all'the
' witnesses who appeared excepting Judge Thay-
er, Chief Justice hall, and the jurors. Mr. Katz-
mann, to whom the committee wished to extend
this exception, consented to be questioned by
Mr. Thompson. The only communication made
by the Governor to the committee was the sug-
gestion of one or two persons Whom it would be
well to examine. The scene of the murder was .
visited and Madeiros, likewise condemned to
' death and respited so that his testimony might
be available, was interrogated in prison.
Apparently all measures were conscientiously
SACCO AND VANZETTI 53
taken to be scrupulously fair. The Governor,
receiving the committee’s report, dated July
27, 1927, finished his own review a few days
later, calling in Judge Thayer for a final con-
ference; but his decision was delayed by the
temporary illness of his son. His verdict, ex-
pected on August 3, when he met with his
council, by whom the decision had also to be
considered, was given out a little before mid-
night on that day and communicated to the
condemned men by Mr. Thompson on August 4.
As is well known, in a document of twenty-five
hundred words he decided that Sacco and Van-
zetti were guilty, refused clemency, and (le-
clared that the law should take its course. The
report of the Lowell committee was made pub-
lic on August 7 and published complete in the
New York Times for that date. to which, those
who wish to study it in full are referred,
We have now to consider the circumstances
which surrounded the investigations and the
value of their results. From the first both in-
quiries were conducted in complete secrecy,
The Lowell committee gave as the reason for
this fact that much publicity had attached to
the case, that many witnesses were unwilling
to testify under conditions in which they might
be exploited by journalists or by the propa-
gandists of the Defense Committee, that there- ‘
fore, since the committee itself as a private
body had no power to compel their presence. it
had resorted to secrecy so that all witnesses
would feel themselves personally secure in com-
ing before it.
Presumably the Gover'nor’s reason for se
crecy was of a like nature. though I have found
no official statement to that effect, However,
the nature of the facts remanded an ooen and
54 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
public examination; both inquiries were seri-
ously compromised by the secrecy in which
they were conducted, and by the rumors which
consequently got about as to what was occur-
ring. Again and again counsel for the defense
protested against this secrecy to no avail. Cer-
tainly public opinion also had demanded, if any-
thing, an open inquiry, every phase of which
should have been made known as it progressed.
It seems likely, too, that protection could have
been extended to the witnesses who balked at
publicity without keeping back the whole sub-
stance and the important incidents of the in-
quiry which did not personally concern them.
or the report of the Lowell committee,
which gave its results, the reader is referred
to the full text, as it cannot be analyzed in
detail here. Briefly, the committee set before
itself three questions: 1. Was the trial fairly
conducted? 2. Was the subsequently discov-
ered evidence such that a new trial ought to -
have been granted? 3. Is it convincing beyond
reasonable doubt that Sacco and Vanzetti are
guilty of the murder?
The committee held that the trial and the
conduct of the judge were “scrupulously
fair”; that the new evidence was immaterial
and had not justified the granting of a new
trial; that the condemned were, beyond reason-
able doubt, guilty. But it was forced to find
that Judge Thayer had seriously abused “offi-
cial decorum” by talking about the case out-
side the court room during and after the trial.
Since the proceedings were kept secret while
in progress, every item anddetail of them
should have been made public when they were
finished, if only to show a satisfactory ground
for a decision. Instead, the report is simply a
I SACCO AND VANZETTI 55
summary of conclusions and opinions, together
with a very light and partial analysis of cer-
tain details of evidence, mainly those which
tended to convict the defendants.
Again and again the committee says that it
“believed” that such a fact was true or untrue,
but hardly ever gives the grounds upon which
it believed or disbelieved. For this reason the
manner in which it simply said that it did\ not
believe the alibis of the defendants but did
believe the witnesses against them, the manner
in which it peremptorily dismissed as worth-
less the confession of Madeiros, the manner in
which it arbitrarily accepted some facts and
refused to accept others of apparently equal
worth is essentially unsatisfactory.
Many of the statements in which evidence is
evaluated seem incredible and at times even
naive; in places the essence of certain facts
seems deliberately overlooked or interpreted
with a new and unsuspected meaning. Trifling
'
points are stressed and important ones abruptly.
discarded. Perhaps if the grounds for these
conclusions hadv been fully stated, they would '
have appeared in a better light; for the essen-
tial purpose of the Whole investigation was not
the beliefs or disbeliefs of the committee, but
a full analysis of why they believed and wh
they did not believe. -
There were no further effective measures.
The Governor’s review, concerning which the
same criticisms can be advanced as against
that of the Lowell committee, though it seems
also to have been thoroughly honest in inten-
tion, was the last resource. "
On July 17 the two men had begun a hunger
strike as a protest against the excessive secrecy
of the Governor’s investigation, but perhaps
56 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF‘
also as an attempt to draw public sympathy and
force the committee's hand, or from sheer de-
spair. In any event it was an unwise measure;
Sacco continued it steadily, though Vanzetti
after a time abandoned it for the most part.
Presently they were said to be showing the
effects of the fast, and Vanzetti’s reason
seemed to be affected. However, it appears cer-
tain, according to the opinions of doctors, that
neither of the men became mentally deranged,
though Sacco may have shown morbid psycho-
logical manifestations due to confinement. /
The men were moved into the death house
at Charlestown prison on August 2. Meanwhile
large mass meetings were being held and dem-
onstrations and protests were redoubled by ac-
tive sympathizers. When the final decision of

Governor Fuller was communicated to them, I
Sacco and Vanzetti remained‘ calm. Vanzetti
had at times been optimistic; but Sacco, it is
apparent, had never expected any other result.
VI. THE END: EXECUTION AND PERSECUTION
Up to the moment when Sacco and Vanzetti
were executed, somewhat past midnight on
August 22, 1927, their counsel and friends never
ceased to work to free them. Various legal
maneuvers of a technical nature were resorted
to. never with much hope of success; but every
recourse was exhausted to no avail. Never was
there ‘a more frantic and determined attempt
to obtain relief for condemned menat the last
moment than that employed in behalf of Sacco
and Vanzetti.
On August 4 Mr. Thompson and Mr. Herbert
Ehrmann, who had skillfully directed the many
efforts in behalf of the two men, retired from
the case and Mr. Arthur D. Hill. a Boston law-
yer, was retained by the Defense Committee as
SACCO AND VANZETTI 57
the new counsel; the reason for the retirement
was.that the new attorney would be _“less dis-
turbed than we by a sense of injustice,” and in
a long statement Mr. Thompson criticized the
secrecy of the Fuller investigation.
Guards were now placed at the State House
in Boston and at the homes of the Governor
and various judges. Admission to the men at
the Charlestown prison was refused to members
of the Defense committee, because the warden
had become angry at the publication in the
press of letters from Sacco and Vanzetti which
the visiting members were said to have smug-
gled out of the jail. Evidently then, it was
not right that the condemned men should make
known their feelings to the public.
Attorney Hill meanwhile conferred with a
number of men who had been identified with
the case, including Professors Frankfurter and
Francis B. Sayre of the Harvard Law School;
the latter, the son-in-law of the late President
ilson, declared that action would probably be
tgaken in the United States District Court of
oston.
In fact, on August 7, three legal moves were
begun by the new counsel. On August 8 they
brought before Justice George A. Sanderson of
the State Supreme Court petitions for a writ of
habeas corpus, a stay of execution, and a writ
of error, all oflwhich were denied on grounds
of lack of jurisdiction and of impropriety. Peti-
tions for a new trial on the basis of newly dis-
covered evidence and for a stay of execution
were brought before Judge Thayer: (One item‘
of the new evidence was an Amerlcan Express
Company receipt for a barrel of live eels sent
from Boston to Vanzetti in Plymouth on De- '
cember 20, 1919; the defense claimed that they
were delayed and were markete by .Vanzetti
on the day of the Bridgewater crime, for which
58 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
he had been sentenced before the‘ Braintree
murder trial.)
Mr. Hill asked Chief Justice Hall to assign
some other judge to hear this last motion for
a new trial, but Justice Hall refused, saying
that it was in accordance with precedent that
Judge Thayer should preside.
As was to be expected, Judge Thayer denied
it on the ground of lack of jurisdiction; but
he entertained a motion for revocation of sen~
tence, only to deny it and to refuse a stay of
execution on August 9, although on the llth he
allowed exceptiozs to all his rulings, thus.open-
ing another avenue of escape. Another petition
for a stay of execution was addressed to Gov-
ernor ll'uller.
The Defense Committee planned for a death
watch 101' the condemned men, the execution
being set for the 10th, and called for a national
march on Boston. l’rotest strikes and demon-
strations occurred in South America and Eu-
rope. On August 9 several alibi witnesses for
Vanzetti appeared at the State House and asked,
since the Covernor had refused to believe them
and hence implied that they had lied in court,
to be arrested as I)‘.~1‘j.iI‘CI'S. Everywhere ten-
sion reigned, and double guards were set over
the Charlcstov-ln prison, bridges and public
buildings. ~
President Coolidge let it be known that he
would not interfere whatsoever in the case.
Strikes occurred and parades of sympathizers
were broken up by mounted police in New
York; in Boston raids and arrests crushed the
spirit of a sympathetic strike in the needle
trades industry.
From the decision of Judge Sanderson in re
fusing a writ of error the defense counsel took
an appeal to the full bench of the State Su~
preme Court. To give time for this and other
/
SACCO AND VANZETTI 59
legal action Governor Fuller and his council
on August 10, within thirty-six minutes of the.
time set for execution, granted a respite till
August 22, a reprieve of twelve days. On the
same day Justice Holmes of the United States
Supreme Court denied a writ of habeas corpus
on the basis of lack of authority. But in spite
of this reverse, the respite gave renewed hope
to the condemned men, who were now removed
from the death house. A crisis had been passed
and the army of two hundred and fifty police
who had mounted guard over the prison with
machine guns was withdrawn.
On‘ the 15th Sacco, who had consistently
maintained his hunger strike, broke his‘ fast
under the threat of forced feeding. The follow-
ing day ,the full benchof the Supreme Court
heard the various arguments of counsel. and
at the conclusion a new’ writ of error was also
filed. On the 19th the court denied all the
defense’s exceptions to the decisions of Judges
Sanderson and Thayer and the writ of error
as well, wholly on grounds of law. The Su-
preme Court of the United States now alone
remained; and the defense took steps to bring
the record of the case before it and obtain a
stay of execution.
One of the associate counsel left for Wash-
ington to file a petition for a writ of certiorari.
On August 21 Acting Attorney-General Farnum
offered to open the files of the Department of
Justice to Governor Fuller, the Attorney-Gen-
eral of Massachusetts, or the‘ Lowell Commit-
tee, but added that the government had no
jurisdiction over the case and that a checking
of the files had shown no evidences of collu-
sion between state and federal agents in ob-
taining the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti,
as the defense contended.
60 ' THE NOTORIOUS CASE 013‘
However, one must note that the opening of
‘these files had been requested before and had
been refused; and the offer to make them avail-
able now came surel'y at a very late date. Why
had it not been made before, when time was
not so precious as it was so near the end of the
respite of the condemned men, within a few
hours of the moment set for their death? How-
ever, belatedly as the chance came, appeal was
instantly brought that the Lowell Committee
undertake an examination of the files, and
Governor Fuller was asked by Arthur Garfield
Hays of New York and Francis Fisher of Phil-
adelphia for another stay of execution to per-
mit this to be done.
Meanwhile on August 20 a stay of execution
was asked from Justice Holmes of the United
States Supreme Court, and refused; and a few
hours later on the 21st Justice Brandeis also
declined to intervene on account of personal
relations of members of his family with the
case; for his wife was a friend of Mrs. Glen-
dower Evans, a Boston society woman who had
greatly interested herself in behalf of Sacco
and Vanzetti.
Mr. Hill then sought Justice Stone, and Mr.
Musmanno, his associate, attempted to commu-
nicate with Chief Justice Taft. A petition for
a third respite had been filed on August 20
with Governor Fuller. However, the Governor
had declarcdlthat if action of individual mem-'
bers of the United States Supreme Court was
unfavorable he would grant no further stay;
and as the action of the Justices was at least
negative. the Governor refused further relief.
Therefore the original verdict of Judge Thay—
er’s court, reached six years before, was carried
out: Sacco and Vanzetti were executed a little
'\
SAC'CO AND VAN ZETTI 61
past. midnight on August 22, 1927, and the long _
and desperate struggle to save them was ended.
On the 22nd the atmosphere of tension and
frantic activity which had featured the last
day, of the first respite, August 10, returned
once more. ' The Defense Committee called
again for a death watch at the State House and
at Charlestown prison. Thousands of appeals
for clemency poured in upon Governor Fuller. ,
To‘the distinguished names of those who had
already protested others were now added; at
this late date, after every sort of legal pro-
cedure, many persons of authority and impor-
tance made it clear that they were still not
satisfied as to the justice of the verdict.
A petition was addressed to Governor Fuller
from prominent American authors and think-
ers, among whom was such a one as lda Tar-
bell, the noted biographer of Abraham Lincoln.
From every corner of the world came the ap-
peals; and one hundred prominent liberals
planned to prevail upon the Governor for sym~
pathetic action. A strike of garment workers
was called as a protest. On the 21st Boston
Common was the scene of a riot: At the an-
nouncement that pickets would appear in spite
of the cancellation of permits, and when about
twenty persons assembled bearing placards re-
lating to the case, a crowd often thousand
people gathered. Mounted officers charged into' ‘
the masses‘and set them in motion; many ar-
rests were made. It was in the face of demon-
strations of this sort that the Governor refused
to intervene again.
The scene in the death room at Charlestown
was simple and brief. The two men had re-
fused the so-called “consolations of religion”—
and to offer them in this case was surely the
62 THE NOTORIOUS CASE OF
irony of bitter ironies—going to their vdeath
with quiet courage, holding to the principles
by which they had lived, and refusing to the
end the Catholicism of their childhood. Neither
showed any emotion. They said farewell to the
guards. Vanzetti, in a last show of feeling,
forgave some of his enemies. And in a few
moments they were dead. Madeiros was exe—
outed the same night.
In the city outside pickets waited and
watched. But this simple service of sympathy
and protest was not to be tolerated under the
ordinances of the city of Boston as adminis~
tered by its vigilant police; it was regarded
by them as a menace to the public order. Con»
sequently more than a hundred and sixty of
these symnathizers were arrested and fined: a
few appealed who had pleaded not guilty. They
were Edna St. Vincent Millay, the famous
poetess; Ellen Hayes former professor at
Wellesley College; William Patterson, presi-
dent of the American ‘Negro Congress; Miss
. Catherine Huntington of Beacon Hill. .Boston:
Ella Bloor of San Francisco; and JohnHoward
I'awton. the playwright. Arthur Garfield Hays
appeared for the whole body of pickets and
appealed for a writ of habeas corpus for Pow-
ers Haogood of Pittsburgh. who was held at
the Psychopathic Hospital for observation after
being arrested for the fifth time. In Charles-
town nine were arraigned for parading, eight
of whom appealed.
The demonstrations following the execution
were not as decided ‘as had been expected, but
all over the world the death of the two men
was denounced. For three days the bodies lay
in state, devoid of all religious appurtenances;
crowds came to view them. The funeral march.
SACCU AND VAN/JET’?! 63


as held on Sunday, August 28: along eight
iles of city streets, under the eyes of more
11 one hundred thousand people, the bodies
' Sacco and Vanzetti were borne to Forest
['41 He through the rain.
0'
Thousands joined tht'
procession and thousands watched; The crowd
was orderly, but when the police checked the
following throngs, outbursts of protest occurred,
which were sternly repressed. Hearses carried
the bodies; in cars following them rode Mrs.
Sacco, Miss Lnigia Vanzetti, sister of Vanzetti,
Sacco’s son Dante, and Aldino Felicani, Gard-
ner Jackson and Mary Donovan of the Defense
Committee. Mrs. Sacco and Miss Vanzetti
fainted on the Way and did not enter the cre-
matorium chapel at Forest Hills. About a
hundred sympathizers filled the small building
where the last service was held. They sat in
silence for the most part, though a few women
wept, while Miss Donovan pronounced the
funeral eulogy. It w"s a dramatic indictment
of the ruling class, which had condemned Sacco
and Vanzetti to martyrdom as symbols of the
workers and of their revolt ‘from bondage. At
the end, her voice broke, and pointing to a red
band worn on her right sleeve, she spoke the
-words printed in black upon it? “Remember—-
just-ice crucified—August 23, 1927.”
‘The ashes of the two men, whose bodies were
cremated at Forest Hills, were divided, half to
be returned to a Maiden cemetery, half to be
carried to Italy for burial.
Death masks had been made of Sacco and
Vanzetti and were distributed in New York,
where on August 29 Mrs. Sacco was given an
ovation and a mob of ten‘ thousand persons
who assembled was v‘dis ersed by the police.
The Defense Committee egan to draw up its
64 . SACCO AND VANZETTI


financial statement, and announced that th entire records of the case would be published
The case of Sacco and Vanzetti has now be
completely reviewed. While one hesitates , ,. -
viccept with certainty any dogmatic viewpointemu‘wfig‘~
the inference of present developments is un-
avoidable: there is much more to come before
the public. After the lull of discouragement and
depression which naturally followed the execu-
tion, activity is being renewed. One needs only
to mention as an example such a work as Upton
Sinclair's Boston, a novel by one of the most
prominent and skillful of Socialist propagan-
dists, who has, moreover, investigated this
case to the bottom. One may add, besides
minor ‘events, the valuable enterprise of the
Defense Committee, which in time expects to
publish the entire record of the case. By plac-
ing these documents before the public a stronger
basis for true judgment will be provided than
any publicity so far has done; and reliable com-
mentators agree that the record is in itself the
most scathing indictment of the prosecution
that the most rabid partisan could desire.
Sooner or later, too, the files of the Depart-
ment of Justice bearing on the prosecution of
Sacco and Vanzetti must be searched and the
results made known. Only then, after all the
facts are before us, shall we need to agree on
the absolute truth.
Though the two men are lost now beyond
recall, the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, it ap-
pears, is not concluded: some of its most im-
portant developments are before us. We may
not prophesy their issue: they are for the
future to see, .