The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: A New England Legend (19 page)

The Judge taps with his gavel, and the District Attorney rises and says,

“May it please the Court, the matter under consideration at this session is indictments Nos. 5545 and 5546, Commonwealth vs. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.”

“It appears by the record of this Court, if your Honor please, that on indictment No. 5545, Commonwealth vs. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, that these defendants stand convicted of murder in the first degree. The records are clear at the present time, and I therefore move the Court for the imposition of sentence. The statute allows the Court some discretion as to the time within which this sentence may be imposed. Having in mind, and at the request of the defendants' counsel, to which the Commonwealth readily assents, I would suggest that the sentence to be imposed shall be executed some time during the week beginning Sunday, July 10 next.”

The Judge nods to show that he is in general agreement with the District Attorney. The clerk of the court turns to the first of the two condemned men and says,

“Nicola Sacco, have you anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon you?”

Sacco rises. He looks directly at the Judge for a long moment before he speaks; and in spite of himself, the Judge is constrained to drop his eyes. Sacco begins to speak in a very soft voice. As he continues to speak, his voice strengthens, but the pitch does not rise. He is almost detached from the whole scene as he says,

“Yes sir. I am not an orator. It is not very familiar with me the English language, and as I know, as my friend has told me, my comrade Vanzetti will speak more long, so I thought to give him the chance.”

“I never know, never heard, even read in history anything so cruel as this Court. After seven years prosecuting they still consider us guilty. And these gentle people here are arrayed with us in this Court today.”

“I know the sentence will be between two class, the oppressed class and the rich class. We fraternize the people with the books, with the literature. You persecute the people, tyrannize over them and kill them. We try the education of people always. You try to put a path between us and some other nationality that hates each other. That is why I am here today on this bench, for having been the oppressed class. Well, you are the” oppressor.”

“You know it Judge—you know all my life, you know why I have been here, and after seven years that you have been persecuting me and my poor wife, and you still today sentence us to death. I would like to tell all my life, but what is the use? You know all about what I say before, and my friend—that is, my comrade—will be talking, because he is more familiar with the language, and I will give him a chance. My comrade, the kind man to all the children. You forget all the population that has been with us for seven years, to sympathize and give us all their energy and all their kindness. You do not care for them. Among peoples and the comrades and the working class there is a big legion of intellectual people which have been with us for seven years, but still the Court goes ahead. And I think I thank you all, you peoples, my comrades who have been with me for seven years, with the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and I will give my friend Vanzetti a chance to speak.

“I forgot one thing which my comrade remember me. As I said before, the Judge knows all my life, and he know that I never been guilty, never—not yesterday nor today nor forever.”

He finishes, and a terrible hush settles over the court. In his dream of it, it seems to the Judge that the hush lasts for an eternity, but actually it is no more than seconds. The clerk interrupts it. Precise and business like, he rises to his feet, points to the second condemned man, and demands,

“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, have you anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed on you?”

A bridge of silence connects this brutal question with Vanzetti's answer. When he first rises to his feet, he says nothing, but instead looks about the courtroom, at the Judge, at the District Attorney, at the clerk, and at the spectators. His calm is almost inhuman. Slowly, undisturbed and dispassionately at first, he begins to speak, saying,

“Yes. What I say is that I am innocent. That I am not only innocent, but in all my life I have never stole and I have never killed and I have never spilled blood. That is what I want to say. And it is not all. Not only am I innocent of these two crimes, not only in all my life I have never stole, never killed, never spilled blood, but I have struggled all my life, since I began to reason, to eliminate crime from the earth.

“Now, I should say that I am not only innocent of all these things, not only have I never commited a real crime in my life—though some sins but not crimes—not only have I struggled all my life to eliminate crimes, the crimes that the official law and the official moral condemns, but also the crime that the official moral and the official law sanctions and sanctifies—the exploitation and the oppression of the man by the man, and if there is a reason why I am here as a guilty man, if there is a reason why you in a few minutes can doom me, it is this reason and none else.”

Here, Vanzetti pauses—and seems to be groping in his memory for words and images. Then when he resumes his speech, the Judge is at a loss to understand what Vanzetti refers to. Only as Vanzetti goes on, does the aged, gaunt figure of Eugene Debs emerge from his words and enter the courtroom.

“I beg your pardon,” Vanzetti says, gently now. “There is the most good man I ever cast my eyes upon since I lived, a man that will last and will grow always more near and more dear to the people, as far as into the heart of the people, so long as admiration for goodness and for sacrifice will last. I mean Eugene Debs.

“That man had a real experience of a court, of prison and of jury. Just because he want the world to be a little better he was persecuted and slandered from his boyhood to his old age, and indeed he was murdered by the prison. He know our innocence, and not only he but every man of understanding in the world, not only in this country but also in the other countries, they all still stick with us, the flower of mankind of Europe, the better writers, the greatest thinkers of Europe, have pleaded in our favor. The scientists, the greatest scientists, the greatest statesmen of Europe, have pleaded in our favor. The people of foreign nations have pleaded in our favor.

“Is it possible that only a few on the jury, only two or three men, who would condemn their mother for worldly honor and for earthly fortune; is it possible that they are right against the world, the whole world has say it is wrong and that I know that it is wrong? If there is one that should know it, if it is right or if it is wrong, it is I and this man. You see it is seven years that we are in jail. What we have suffered during these seven years no human tongue can say, and yet you see me before you, not trembling, you see me looking you in your eyes straight, not blushing, not changing color, not ashamed or in fear.

“Eugene Debs say that not even a dog—something like that—not even a dog that kill the chickens would have been found guilty by American jury with the evidence that the Commonwealth have produced against us.”

Now Vanzetti pauses—and stares into the Judge's eyes before he continues. This is the part of the dream that becomes a nightmare—even though at the time it happens, the Judge remains cold and collected as Vanzetti cries,

“We have proved that there could not have been another Judge on the face of the earth more prejudiced and more cruel than you have been against us. We have proved that. Still they refuse the new trial. We know, and you know in your heart, that you have been against us from the very beginning, before you see us. Before you see us you already know that we were radicals, that we were underdogs.

“We know that you have spoke yourself and have spoke your hostility against us, and your despisement against us with friends of yours on the train, at the University Club of Boston, on the Golf Club of Worcester, Massachusetts. I am sure that if the people who know all what you say against us would have civil courage to take the stand, maybe your Honor—I am sorry to say this because you are an old man, and I have an old father—but maybe you would be beside us in good justice at this time.

“We were tried during a time that has now passed into history. I mean by that, a time when there was a hysteria of resentment and hate against the people of our principles, against the foreigner, and it seems to me—rather, I am positive of it, that both you and District Attorney have done all what it was in your power in order to agitate still more the passion of the juror, the prejudice of the juror, against us.”

“The jury were hating us because we were against the war, and the jury don't know that it makes any difference between a man that is against the war because he believes that the war is unjust, because he hate no country, and a man that is against the war because he is in favor of the other country that fights against the country in which he is, and therefore a spy. We are not men of that kind. The District Attorney know that we were against the war because we did not believe in the purpose for which they say that the war was done. We believe it that the war is wrong, and we believe this more now after ten years because we understand it better day by day—the consequences and the result of the war. We believe more now than ever that the war was wrong, and I am glad to be on the doomed scaffold if I can say to mankind, ‘Look out; you are in a catacomb of the flower of mankind. For what? All that they say to you, all that they have promised to you—it was a lie, it was an illusion, it was a cheat, it was a fraud, it was a crime. They promised you liberty. Where is liberty? They promised you prosperity. Where is prosperity? They have promised you elevation. Where is the elevation?'”

“From the day I went in Charlestown Prison, the population of Charlestown Prison has doubled in number. Where is the moral good that the war has given to the, world? Where is the spiritual progress that we have achieved from the war? Where are the security of life, the security of the things that we possess for our necessity? Where are the respect for human life? Where are the respect and the admiration for the good characteristics and the good of the human nature? Never as now before the war there have been so many crimes, so many corruptions, so many degenerations as there is now.”

A pause now by the man in the court—the man in the Judge's dream, who speaks and pleads; and the Judge twists and turns and whimpers in his sleep. Yet he must listen again—and again.

“It was said,” Vanzetti continues, his voice now the voice of a judge and not of a condemned felon, “that the defense has put every obstacle to the handling of this case in order to delay the case. I think it is injurious because it is not true. If we consider that the prosecution, the State, has employed one entire year to prosecute us, that is, one of the five years that the case has lasted was taken by the prosecution to begin our trial, our first trial. Then the defense make an appeal to you and you waited. I think that you had the resolve in your heart when the trial finished that you will refuse every appeal that we will put up to you. You waited a month or a month and a half and just lay down your decision on the eve of Christmas—just on the evening of Christmas. We do not believe in the fable of the evening of Christmas, neither in the historical way nor in the church way. You know some of our folks still believe in that, and because we do not believe in that, it don't mean that we are not human. We are human, and Christmas is sweet to the heart of every man. I think that you have done that, to hand down your decision on the evening of Christmas, to poison the heart of our family and of our beloved.

“Well, I have already say that I not only am not guilty of these two crimes, but I never commit a crime in my life—I have never steal and I have never kill and I have never spilt blood, and I have fought against the crime, and I have fought and I have sacrificed myself even to eliminate the crimes that the law and the church legitimate and sanctify.”

Now, in the Judge's dream, Vanzetti's voice rises, fierce—awful, and searing the sleeping man like a hot iron.

“This is what I say: I would not wish to a dog or to a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth—I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I am an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered more for my belief than for myself; but I am so convinced to be right that if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already.

“I have talk a great deal of myself but I even forget to name Sacco. Sacco too is a worker from his boyhood, a skilled worker, lover of work, with a good job and pay, a bank account, a good and lovely wife, two beautiful children and a neat little home at the verge of a wood, near a brook. Sacco is a heart, a faith, a character, a man; a lover of nature and of mankind. A man who gave all, who sacrifice all to the cause of liberty and to his love for mankind; money, rest, mundain ambitions, his own wife, his children, himself and his own life. Sacco has never dreamt to steal, never to assassinate. He and I have never brought a morsel of bread to our mouths from our childhood to today—which has not been gained by the sweat of our brows. Never.

“Oh, yes, I am a better babbler than he is, but many, many times in hearing his heartful voice ringing a faith sublime, in considering his supreme sacrifice, remembering his heroism, I felt small—small at the presence of his greatness and found myself compelled to fight back from my eyes the tears, and quench my heart trembling to my throat to not weep before him—this man called thief and assassin and doomed. But Sacco's name will live in the hearts of the people and in their gratitude when the District Attorney and your bones will be dispersed by time, when your name, his name, your laws, institutions, and your false god are but a
dim remembering of a cursed past in which man was wolf to the man.…
”