The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: A New England Legend (14 page)

This kind of thinking made him wonder what time was like on this day for Sacco and Vanzetti—how the minutes marched for them, and whether the day passed slowly or quickly? He realized that he, like so many in Boston on this particular Monday, had identified himself subjectively with Sacco and Vanzetti; and therefore when he considered how the passage of time must seem to them, a cold chill of fear came over him, and suddenly he was inside of two men, looking out of the windows of their eyes and sharing with them the dreadful apprehension of approaching death. He felt his heart race and pound with fear in response to this exercise of his imagination; and he understood that he, like so many others, would die over and over again on this summer day, experiencing, time without end, the agony of the shoemaker and the fish peddler.

Unquestionably, this was the case with the Writer, and their agony was his agony; what else had brought him to Boston today? Although he had never seen the man he was now hurrying to see, the Professor of Criminal Law felt that he knew the Writer very well. On and off, for years past, he had read the Writer's newspaper columns and delighted in the man's savage irony, his endless wit, and his warm heart. Like the Professor of Criminal Law, the Writer was a man of emotion. He could be both caustic and sentimental, each to the extreme; and an awareness of this similarity in their emotional makeup made the Professor of Criminal Law a little apprehensive about their actual meeting. How strange, he thought to himself, that he should be worrying about such things on this day; yet he realized that the true content of such a day consisted of small matters as well as large matters, absurdities as well as profundities. Though the world might be at the final edge of its existence, men would still eat and drink, and their bodies would still rid themselves of waste.

Now the Professor was approaching the State House. He halted a short distance from the picket line, studying the people walking by, and there he found, unmistakably, the huge, hulking, untidy form of the Writer, a big man, fat, bear-like in his ambling gate, shaggy-haired, and wrapped in his own brooding introspection as he walked back and forth in the hot August sun. The Professor had no doubts as to whether or not this was the man he was supposed to meet, so apparently was the Writer himself and no one else. Whereupon, he went over and introduced himself, and the Writer stepped out of the line to shake the hand of the Professor of Criminal Law, referring immediately to the excellence of the monograph which the Professor had written about the case of Sacco and Vanzetti.

“I have waited to say this to you personally,” the Writer told him, “because you have performed a great service for me, for the two men in the death house, and for thousands of others. You have taken the heartbreaking complexity of this case and distilled out of it the simple and logical truth. I for one am most indebted.”

The Professor was embarrassed—not because of the praise, but because he felt that today of all days his work should not be praised. He said something to the effect of living in a world which eschewed logic, nodding at the State House and reminding the writer,

“That is hardly a haven for the truth, nor do they welcome logic.”

“No, I don't suppose they do. We are late for our appointment with the Governor, aren't we?” the Writer asked. “Has that spoiled our chances of seeing him?”

“We are a little late, but I am sure he will see us.”

“I never understood why he was willing to see us in the first place. It's all at odds with the man; it's at odds with his personality.”

“But, you see, he is at odds with himself today,” the Professor explained. “He will see everyone he has time for today, if I am not mistaken. He will sit there in the State House and see everyone and listen to everyone, and he will not move from there until it is all over. He is experiencing his own particular trial and salvation. I think he believes that when today is over, he will be as good as President of the United States, barring only the mechanical problems of nomination and election, which still he in the future.”

The Writer watched the Professor curiously throughout this speech, wondering at the soft yet insistent note of bitterness in the man's voice; and hearing this note of bitterness, and seeing the man, the Writer thought again of the amazing complex that Boston had become on this strange summer day. Being a writer, he was called upon to observe even himself with a certain amount of objectivity; and as he and the Professor of Criminal Law went into the State House, the Writer composed in his own mind the passage of people and events into which he had plunged since he arrived in Boston a few hours ago.

“Now,” he said to himself, “I am walking into the power of Massachusetts government. In this house here is a small man who has been turned for the day into a god. I must raise to myself, examine, and solve the problem of whether he is to be pitied. I have already speculated upon his wickedness. It is an ancient wickedness, and he sits in his mansion like Pharaoh of long ago, with a heart turned to stone. He is reputed to be worth over forty million dollars. In that sense, he matches Pharaoh, and more. His wealth is not less than the treasures of all Egypt. He rules the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and while he does not possess the secret of giving life, he has the power of taking it away from those who live. He maintains all the trappings of everyday, but he is a fearsome personage. There are many wrongs here, but I wonder whether any wrong is more dreadful than that which puts the decision of life or death into the hands of one individual—”

In that way, the Writer's mind composed this part of the scene and that part of the scene, into a literary whole. It was his manner of functioning, and he could no more have prevented this creative process from taking place than he could willfully have stopped breathing. For the Professor of Criminal Law, it was different, and in him doubt and fear mixed with tiredness. When reporters gathered around them, asking questions, the Professor of Criminal Law shook his head stubbornly, and said,

“Please don't stop us now. We had an appointment with the Governor for three o'clock, and it's already late. What can we possibly tell you until after we have seen the Governor?”

“Is it true that Vanzetti's sister is coming here?” they wanted to know.

“I don't know anything about that,” the Professor of Criminal Law replied; but the Writer had already broadened his picture to include a woman who had come from a distant place to plead for her brother's life, the simple, wonderful drama of it—a drama that only life could paint so boldly—taking hard hold of him.

Then they were at the Governor's office, and the Governor's secretary welcomed them politely and took them inside.

With an expression which denoted neither friendship nor hostility, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts greeted them and examined them. The Governor sat behind his desk—a solid part of a world of small men who sat behind large desks and regarded with manner part querulous, part defensive, part eager, all those who came before them; as well he might—for these were two strange and uncomfortable men who had stepped into the seat of the ancient glory which he ruled.

At first, long, long ago, when the Pilgrim Fathers came to this land, they built their houses of rough-hewn boards; the ceilings were low, and there was a bare and proud dignity in the most humble dwelling place; in time, however, they learned different ways of life, and pride parted company with humility. The State House was old, but not as old as those days of bare pride; and this room wherein the Governor sat was a place of aristocratic beauty and gilded distinction, the lintels cleverly carved, the wainscotting covered with fine white enamel, and each piece of furniture from the hand of a master. It was not such a room that a man with forty million dollars and more would feel ill at ease in; but the Professor of Criminal Law and the Writer from New York City stood in it as awkwardly as if they were both of them culprits in the eyes of the law and prisoners before the bar.

The clothes they wore were wrinkled and stained with perspiration. The Writer, dressed in a suit of ivory summer cloth, seemed as painfully out of place here as a bear would be in man's attire and man's dwelling. The Professor of Criminal Law wore his clothes poorly at best, and now he nervously kept turning his straw hat round and round in his damp fingers.

They had come to plead; and the Governor realized that this they had in common with all who entered his office today, large and small, rich and poor—people of fame or those of no consequence in his eyes, they all came to plead, to beg, to whine for the life of two dirty agitators, two men of broken speech and sneaking words, two men who had dedicated their lives to tearing down the beautiful erections of the Governor's world. This was how the Governor saw it, and this was the substance of what the Governor thought as he looked at these two supplicants. He did not feel very much emotion. For him, today was a day without emotion, bare of it; nor was it easy for him to keep his thoughts from wandering, keep them here with him in his office in the State House, fixed on this dreary business of pleading. At the bottom of everything, he had a sound basis upon which to function; he had a goal; he knew in his own mind where he was going and what he was doing; and therefore, he had decided that he would refuse no one a word with him on this day. Let them all come and bear witness that his mind was not closed.

Whereupon, he listened. He weighed one statement against another statement. He was a patient man, a judicious man, not a cruel man. These, the Professor and the Writer, perhaps like others who had come and gone, would think of him as a cruel man; but in that they would be hitting wide of the mark. Rejection of sentimentality was hardly cruelty. How could he see his own duty, if he saw it as twenty others desired him to see it? Now as he looked at these two uncomely, unattractive men who had appeared so tardily for their appointment with him, the one a Jewish teacher, the other a newspaper writer with a reputation for eccentricity and radical leanings, he considered with a good deal of self-pity how much of a tortured and abused man he, the Governor, had become since this whole dreadful business began to reach its climax.

“Pontius Pilate,” they called him, not knowing how little of a Pilate he was, he, a simple business man with gastritis, unexplained stomach pains, fear of a heart attack, and a woeful desire to do things easily and painlessly, pleasing those whose opinions he rejected. The fact that he was very rich did not necessarily mean that he was a bad man. Why, just a month ago, he had himself gone to the State Prison across the river and had spoken in person to Sacco and Vanzetti. One would think that they would have been glad to see him, that they would have realized what it meant for him, the Governor of the Commonwealth, to come to a prison to visit two condemned thieves and murderers, and to hear their side of the story. But instead of demonstrating gratitude, Sacco would not even talk to him, but looked at him with eyes full of horror and contempt—so that Vanzetti had to explain apologetically, “He doesn't hate you personally, Governor, but you are a symbol of those forces he hates.” “What are those forces?” “The forces of wealth and power,” Vanzetti answered calmly. Then they had talked a little, and the Governor saw in Vanzetti's eyes, as he had seen before in the eyes of Sacco, anger and contempt.

The Governor never forgot or forgave that look. He had said to himself then, “All right, you damned reds—think that if you wish to.”

Now supplicants for the “damned reds” came to plead. The whole world was coming to plead with the Governor. Here were a professor and a writer. Before, there had been a clergyman and a poet, and after these, two others, two women, were expected.

The Professor began with apologies for being late. He said that there were certain circumstances which had prevented their being on time, and that he regretted this tremendously, for of all appointments he had ever had, he felt that this was perhaps the most important.

“Why do you say that?” the Governor wanted to know. His ingenuous manner of speaking was not assumed. The conclusion came less quickly to the Professor of Criminal Law; but almost immediately, the Writer realized that the Governor was a stupid man; and it had to be incongruous and unbelievable and in some ways more horrible than any other part of this cursed day, that a man so stupid and beyond the reach of emotion or logic should sit in the State House of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, wielding the quick and final power of death. Therefore, much of what the eyes and the ears of this Writer told him, his civilized sense of reason found impossible to accept. Fools do not sit in the seats of the mighty, his reason assured him, nor are forty million dollars given to foolish men.

“You now have to argue a cause and plead a case,” he pointed out to himself. “Therefore, do not underestimate the shrewdness of this man who sits before you.”

Meanwhile, the Professor of Criminal Law had begun to speak, and was stating forcefully, albeit humbly, that he had not come here today to waste the Governor's time. He had come because the world granted that fact that he, the Professor of Criminal Law, was a little better acquainted than the average person with the facts of the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, because he had interested himself deeply in those facts over a period of many years, and because those facts clamored for certain new arguments. In this initial presentation of his statement, the Professor appeared to be almost abject in his bearing; and the Writer wondered how a man could be both humble and earnest to such an extent. Causation and motivation of people were, if not the bread, then at least the butter of this Writer's process of living, and he was as curious to know what terrible necessity drove the Professor of Criminal Law as he was to know what grim urge to take two lives rode the Governor.

“I want to be patient,” the Governor said, “but you must understand that for days now, people have been seeking me out and stating that they either had new evidence or importantly new interpretations of old evidence. I have heard their statements with what I may say is extraordinary patience, but nowhere have they been able to demonstrate that any of the evidence they presented to me was new evidence, or evidence that could radically change my approach to the case. As the result of my study of the record and my personal investigation of the case, including my interviews with a large number of witnesses, I believe with the jury that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty, and that their trial was fair. The crime for which they are to pay, was committed seven years ago. For six years, through dilatory methods, one appeal after another, every possibility for delay, has been utilized—”