The two men shackled together,
The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial, 2009
The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial, 2009
by Moshik Temkin.
Nicola Sacco (1891–1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888–1927) arrived from Italy in 1908 and settled in Boston, with its large immigrant community that provided workers for manufacturing industries. Sacco from Foggia was a shoe-maker; Vanzetti from Cuneo sold fish.
Each experienced prejudice against impoverished Italian immigrants and each joined the loose anarchist community around Luigi Galleani’s Subversive Chronicle. During the suppression of radicals that began during WW1, Galleani’s men were targeted by the U.S Bureau of Immigration. Dozens were deported! Subversive Chronicle was banned by the US Mail for advocating anarchy.
The two did not become close mates until a 1917 strike. Neither had a criminal record, but both were known to local police for being strike supporters of the unemployed. So they went with others to Mexico towards the end of WW1, perhaps to avoid conscription. Or perhaps to get to Russia to join the Revolution. In either case, when they returned to the US post-war, they found their revolutionary mates had been driven underground.
In Apr 1920 an armed gang attacked a payload going to a shoe company in Braintree Ma. The paymaster and security guard were shot dead, and the cash was stolen. Police set a trap for suspects, using an Oakland car from the robbery. Sacco and Vanzetti accompanied other anarchists, trying to reclaim the car from a garage. When the other suspects escaped, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested on a tram, each legally carrying a gun.
Arrested in May 1920, it was clear that a fair trial would be almost impossible, with prosecutors signalling that they would try the men mainly on their anarchism.
Nicola Sacco (1891–1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888–1927) arrived from Italy in 1908 and settled in Boston, with its large immigrant community that provided workers for manufacturing industries. Sacco from Foggia was a shoe-maker; Vanzetti from Cuneo sold fish.
Each experienced prejudice against impoverished Italian immigrants and each joined the loose anarchist community around Luigi Galleani’s Subversive Chronicle. During the suppression of radicals that began during WW1, Galleani’s men were targeted by the U.S Bureau of Immigration. Dozens were deported! Subversive Chronicle was banned by the US Mail for advocating anarchy.
The two did not become close mates until a 1917 strike. Neither had a criminal record, but both were known to local police for being strike supporters of the unemployed. So they went with others to Mexico towards the end of WW1, perhaps to avoid conscription. Or perhaps to get to Russia to join the Revolution. In either case, when they returned to the US post-war, they found their revolutionary mates had been driven underground.
In Apr 1920 an armed gang attacked a payload going to a shoe company in Braintree Ma. The paymaster and security guard were shot dead, and the cash was stolen. Police set a trap for suspects, using an Oakland car from the robbery. Sacco and Vanzetti accompanied other anarchists, trying to reclaim the car from a garage. When the other suspects escaped, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested on a tram, each legally carrying a gun.
Arrested in May 1920, it was clear that a fair trial would be almost impossible, with prosecutors signalling that they would try the men mainly on their anarchism.
Italian anarchist Carlo Tresca had been a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World/IWW. He had already led in the landmark Lawrence Strike of 1912 and had organised the defence of other indicted Italians, leading to their acquittals. Tresca organised mass support for Sacco and Vanzetti via newspapers, posters and demonstrations. And he brought in the successful IWW lawyer from the Lawrence cases, Fred Moore. To finance it all, Tesco mobilised the IWW’s General Defence Committee which raised funds nationwide. Meanwhile Tresca’s colleague Elizabeth Gurley Flynn mobilised the International Labour defence.
According to Prof Moshik Temkin’s 2009 book, The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial, these impoverished Italian immigrants were fed up with their exploitation under American capitalism. So in the 1920s, the US government was actively hunting anarchists! And while the 2 men were in prison, restricted immigration quotas became law! But if the justice system wanted to make an example of Sacco and Vanzetti, it ended up making them martyrs. During their 6 years on Death Row, these thinkers’ letters persuaded people of their innocence.
According to Prof Moshik Temkin’s 2009 book, The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial, these impoverished Italian immigrants were fed up with their exploitation under American capitalism. So in the 1920s, the US government was actively hunting anarchists! And while the 2 men were in prison, restricted immigration quotas became law! But if the justice system wanted to make an example of Sacco and Vanzetti, it ended up making them martyrs. During their 6 years on Death Row, these thinkers’ letters persuaded people of their innocence.
Fred Moore decided it was no longer possible to defend Sacco and Vanzetti solely against the criminal charges of murder and robbery. Instead he would have them frankly acknowledge their anarchism in court, to establish that their arrest and prosecution stemmed from their radicalism. He exposed the prosecution’s hidden motive —to assist the Federal authorities in suppressing Italian anarchism.
Presiding Judge Webster Thayer barred new evidence and referred to the defendants as anarchist bastards. 3 key prosecution witnesses stated that they'd been coerced into identifying Sacco at the scene of the crime, but when confronted, they denied any coercion. These conflicting accounts should have cast doubt on the testimony. Ditto the fact that the stolen money was never recovered.
Public opinion swung behind Sacco and Vanzetti, as it became more evident that they were being railroaded. Nonetheless after a 6 weeks trial, the jury found Sacco and Vanzetti guilty of robbery & murder in Jul 1921 , based largely on circumstantial evidence.
In 1924’s appeal, Fred Moore was replaced as chief defence council by William Thompson, respected and connected Boston lawyer. The courtroom strategy swung back to legal technicalities. In May 1926 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled, not on the evidence but on the judge’s conduct of the trial, that there had been no error.
As Thompson filed new appeals, support for the men continued to grow in radical, socialist and then in respectable liberal circles. Harvard law Prof Felix Frankfurter rallied legal opinion behind the Italians. He published his case for a new trial in the influential Atlantic Monthly.
After the men were condemned on shaky testimony and doctored physical evidence, the Supreme Judicial Court held another hearing based on new evidence from gang-leader Joe Morelli. Again they ruled against the appeal, not denying the truth of the new evidence but upholding Judge Thayer. Despite 7 appeals, their request for new trial was rejected and Judge Thayer confirmed the death sentences.
Newpaper Troy, NY
11th April 1927
After the 1927 execution, 10,000+ viewed the men’s bodies in open caskets before the funeral parade, all of it filmed. Police blocked the route past Boston’s State House, then a service at Forest Hill Cemetery and cremation. Later, Motion Picture Production Code sensor Will Hayes ordered all newsreel companies to destroy their funeral footage.
Outrage took over! The killings set off demonstrations in Amsterdam, Berlin, Johannesburg, Geneva, London, Paris and Tokyo. Strikes erupted across Latin America. The executions radicalised intellectuals, especially when The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti were published in 1928. Writers HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw denounced the frame-up. Nobel Prize writer Anatole France, of Dreyfus Affair defence fame, wrote an Appeal to the American People. Upton Sinclair wrote a novel about the meat-packing industry, and Ben Shahn memorialised them in 23 famous images in 1931-2. Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez wrote protest songs.
Conclusion
Guilt of the immigrant Italian anarchists, executed in Aug 1927, was irrelevant; their deeply flawed trial had reflected racist prejudice. For a decade, leftist organisations’ efforts went into raising money for other martyrs’ legal defence and for the support of the families of gaoled militants. Similar patterns happened after: 1950s McCarthyite suppression, 1960s anti-war movement and early 70’s militant Black movement. Capital punishment was always barbaric, but even more so in 1927.