When was sacco and vanzetti

You have had no other opportunity but that one meeting glance? The remembrance of that. I do not hesitate to say that the star witness for the government testified, honestly enough, no doubt, to what was psychologically impossible.

Miss Splaine testified, though she had only seen Sacco at the time of the shooting from a distance of about sixty feet for from one and one-half to three seconds in a motor car going at an increasing rate of speed at about fifteen to eighteen miles an hour; that she saw and at the end of a year she remembered and described sixteen different details of his person, even to the size of his hand, the length of his hair as being between two and two and one-half inches long, and the shade of his eyebrows!

Such perception and memory under such conditions can be easily proved to be psychologically impossible. Every psychologist knows that—so does Houdini. And what shall we think of the animus and honesty of the state that introduces such testimony to convict, knowing that the jury is too ignorant to disbelieve?

Do you say positively he is the man? I don't say positively. How long did you stay in the window? Oh, about—I would say about a minute Then what did you do? I seen everything happen about that time, about in a minute. Do you see in the courtroom the man you saw shooting Berardelli that day? Well, I wouldn't say it was him, but he is a dead image of him. Have you seen him since that time until you saw him in the courtroom? No, sir. You say you wouldn't say it is him, but he is the dead image of him?

What do you mean by that? Well, he has got the same appearance. He was frank enough here, gentlemen, to own that he had twice falsified before to both sides, treating them equally and alike, and he gave you his reason.

I think he added that he had never been in court before. If not, somebody has and I confused him. It is of little consequence. He is big enough and manly enough now to tell you of his prior falsehoods and his reasons for them. If you accept them, gentlemen, give such weight to his testimony as you say should be given. Would you say that the man had a fuller or more slender face [than the man in a photograph shown to the witness]?

I don't know. He had a funny face Meaning by that a face that was not a kindly face, a kind of brutal face? He did not have a real good looking face.

Why, the only way I can answer that is this: When I heard of the shooting I somehow associated the man I saw at the car. I said to her, 'Hello, Lola,' and she stopped and she answered me. While she answered me I said, 'You look kind of tired. I have never seen them and I can't recognize them. And then there is Lola Andrews. I have been in this office, gentlemen, for now more than eleven years. I cannot recall in that too long service for the Commonwealth that ever before I have laid eye or given ear to so convincing a witness as Lola Andrews.

I felt it was a tough-looking bunch. That is the very feeling that came to my mind at the time I guess that is all. That is all I recall now. LeVangie said, 'There was a shooting affair going on. He said there was some fellows went by in an automobile and he heard the shots, and he started to put down the gates, and as he started to put them down one of them pointed a gun at him and he left the gates alone and ducked in the shanty.

I asked him if he knew them. He said, no, he did not. I asked him if he would know them again if he saw them. He said, 'No. They find fault, gentlemen, with LeVangie. They say that LeVangie is wrong in saying that Vanzetti was driving that car. I agree with them, gentlemen. I would not be trying to do justice to these defendants if I pretended that personally so far as you are concerned about my personal belief on that, that Vanzetti drove that car over the crossing.

I do not believe any such thing. You must be overwhelmed with the testimony that when the car started it was driven by a light-haired man who showed every indication of being sickly. We cannot mould the testimony of witnesses, gentlemen.

We have got to take them as they testify on their oath, and we put LeVangie on because necessarily he must have been there. He saw something. He described a light-haired man to some of the witnesses. They produced Carter, the first witness they put on, to say that he said the light-haired man—the driver was a light-haired man. That is true. I believe my brothers will agree with me on that proposition, but he saw the face of Vanzetti in that car, and is his testimony to be rejected if it disagrees with everybody else if you are satisfied he honestly meant to tell the truth?

And can't you reconcile it with the possibility, no, the likelihood, or, more than that, the probability that at that time Vanzetti was directly behind the driver in the quick glance this man LeVangie had of the car going over when they were going up over the crossing? Right or wrong, we have to take it as it is. And I agree if it depends on the accuracy of the statement that Vanzetti was driving, then it isn't right, because I would have to reject personally the testimony of witnesses for the defense as well as for the Commonwealth who testified to the contrary.

I ask you to find as a matter of common sense he was, in the light of other witnesses, in the car, and if on the left side that he may well have been immediately behind the driver. These verdicts did not rest, in my judgment, upon the testimony of the eyewitnesses, for the defendants, as it was, called more witnesses than the Commonwealth to testify that neither of the defendants were in the bandit car.

The evidence that convicted these defendants was circumstantial and was evidence that is known in law as 'consciousness of guilt. Now, Boda came there to get his car, didn't he? A Yes. There were no number plates on it?

You advised him not to take the car and run it without the number plates, didn't you? And he accepted your view? He seemed to. And after some conversation went away? Did the defendants, in company with Orciani and Boda, leave the Johnson house because the automobile had no l number plate on it, or because they were conscious of or became suspicious of what Mrs.

Johnson did in the Bartlett house? If they left because they had no number plates on the automobile, then you may say there was no consciousness of guilt in consequence of their sudden departure, but if they left because they were consciously guilty of what was being done by Mrs. Johnson in the Bartlett house, then you may say that is evidence tending to prove consciousness of guilt. I told them when we started that the first false move I would put a bullet in them.

On the way up to the station Sacco reached his hand to put under his overcoat and I told him to keep his hands outside of his clothes and on his lap. Will you illustrate to the jury how he placed his hands? He was sitting down with his hands that way [indicating] and he moved his hand up to put it in under his overcoat.

At what point? Just about the stomach there, across his waistband, and I says to him, 'Have you got a gun there? I gets up on my knees on the front seat and I reaches over and I puts my hand under his coat, but I did not see any gun. How much money did you use to carry around with you? When I went to Boston for fish, I can carry eighty, one hundred dollars, one hundred and twenty dollars. Tell us all you recall that Stewart, the chief, asked of you? He asked me why we were in Bridgewater, how long I knew Sacco, if I am a radical, if I am an anarchist or Communist, and he asked me if I believe in the government of the United States.

Did either Chief Stewart at the Brockton police station or Mr. Katzmann tell you that you were suspected of robberies and murder? Was there any question asked of you or any statement made to you to indicate to you that you were charged with that crime on April 15?

What did you understand, in view of the questions asked of you, what did you understand you were being detained for at the Brockton police station? I understand they arrested me for a political matter Why did you feel you were being detained for political opinions?

Because I was asked if I was a Socialist. I said, 'Well—' Q. You mean by reason of the questions asked of you? Katzmann So you left Plymouth, Mr. Vanzetti, in May, , to dodge the draft, did you? When this country was at war, you ran away, so you would not have to fight as a soldier? Katzmann Did you say yesterday you love a free country? Did you love this country in the month of May, ?

I did not say—I don't want to say I did not love this country. Did you go to Mexico to avoid being a soldier for this country that you loved? And would it be your idea of showing your love for your wife that, when she needed you, you ran away from her? I did not run away from her. Don't you think going away from your country is a vulgar thing to do when she needs you?

I don't believe in war. You don't believe in war? Do you think it is a cowardly thing to do what you did?

Do you think it is a brave thing to do what you did? Do you think it would be a brave thing to go away from your own wife? When she needed you? All I ask is this one question, and it will simplify matters very much. Is it your claim that in the collection of the literature and the books and papers that that was done in the interest of the United States?

I make no such broad claim as that Well, he [Sacco] stated in his direct examination yesterday that he loved a free country, and I offer it to attack that statement made in his examination by his own counsel. That is what I supposed, and that is what I supposed that remark meant when it was introduced in this cross-examination, but counsel now say they don't make that claim.

They say they don't make the claim that gathering up the literature on May 5 at West Bridgewater was for the purpose of helping the country, but that is a different matter, not released [sic] to May 5. I will let you inquire further first as to what he meant by the expression.

What did you mean when you said yesterday you loved a free country? Give me a chance to explain. I am asking you to explain now. When I was in Italy, a boy, I was a Republican, so I always thinking Republican has more chance to manage education, develop, to build some day his family, to raise the child and education, if you could.

But that was my opinion; so when I came to this country I saw there was not what I was thinking before, but there was all the difference, because I been working in Italy not so hard as I been work in this country. I could live free there just as well. Work in the same condition but not so hard, about seven or eight hours a day, better food. I mean genuine. Of course, over here is good food, because it is bigger country, to any those who got money to spend, not for the working and laboring class, and in Italy is more opportunity to laborer to eat vegetable, more fresh, and I came in this country.

When I been started work here very hard and been work thirteen years, hard worker, I could not been afford much a family the way I did have the idea before. I could not put any money in the bank; I could no push my boy some to go to school and other things. I teach over here men who is with me. The free idea gives any man a chance to profess his own idea, not the supreme idea, not to give any person, not to be like Spain in position, yes, about twenty centuries ago, but to give a chance to print and education, literature, free speech, that I see it was all wrong.

I could see the best men, intelligent, education, they been arrested and sent to prison and died in prison for years and years without getting them out, and Debs, one of the great men in his country, he is in prison, still away in prison, because he is a Socialist. He wanted the laboring class to have better conditions and better living, more education, give a push his son if he could have a chance some day, but they him in prison.

Because the capitalist class, they know, they are against that, because the capitalist class, they don't want our child to go to high school or college or Harvard College. There would be no chance, there would not be no—they don't want the working class educationed; they want the working class to be a low all the times, be underfoot, and not to be up with the head. So, sometimes, you see, the Rockefellers, Morgans, they give fifty—I mean they give five hundred thousand dollars to Harvard College, they give a million dollars for another school.

Every day say, 'Well, D. Rockefeller is a great man, the best man in the country. What benefit the working class they will get by those million dollars they give by Rockefeller, D. If he wants to eat like a cow, and that is the best thing, but I want men to live like men. I like men to get everything that nature will give best, because they belong—we are not the friend of any other place, but we are belong to nations. So that is why my idea has been changed. So that is why I love people who labor and work and see better conditions every day develop, makes no more war.

We no want fight by the gun, and we don't want to destroy young men. The mother has been suffering for building the young man. Some day need a little more bread, so when the time the mother get some bread or profit out of that boy, the Rockefellers, Morgans, and some of the peoples, high class, they send to war.

What is war? The war is not shoots like Abraham Lincoln's and Abe Jefferson, to fight for the free country, for the better education to give chance to any other peoples, not the white people but the black and the others, because they believe and know they are mens like the rest, but they are war for the great millionaire.

No war for the civilization of men. They are war for business, million dollars come on the side. What right we have to kill each other?

I been work for the Irish. I have been working with the German fellow, with the French, many other peoples. I love them people just as I could love my wife, and my people for that did receive me.

Why should I go kill them men? What he done to me? He never done anything, so I don't believe in no war. I want to destroy those guns. All I can say, the Government put the literature, give us educations. I remember in Italy, a long time ago, about sixty years ago, I should say, yes, about sixty years ago, the Government they could not control very much those two—devilment went on, and robbery, so one of the government in the cabinet he says, 'If you want to destroy those devilments, if you want to take off all those criminals, you ought to give a chance to Socialist literature, education of people, emancipation.

That is why I destroy governments, boys. That is why I like people who want education and living, building, who is good, just as much as they could. That is all. And that is why you love the United States of America? She is back more than twenty centuries like Spain, is she? At the time of the war they do it. So without the light of knowledge on that subject, you are condemning even Harvard University, are you, as being a place for rich men?

Did you intend to condemn Harvard College? Objection overruled. Were you ready to say none but the rich could go there without knowing about offering scholarships? The question is this: As far as you understood Fruzetti's views, were yours the same? Answer, please. Is it because you can't or because you don't want to? It is very delicate, isn't it, because he was deported for his views?

Do you know why Fruzetti was deported? Was it because he was of anarchistic opinions? He says he understands it now. Was it because Fruzetti entertained anarchistic opinions? One reason, he was an anarchist. Another reason, Fruzetti been writing all the time on the newspapers, and I am not sure why the reason he been deported. And the books which you intended to collect were books relating to anarchy, weren't they? Not all of them. How many of them? Well, all together. We are Socialists, democratic, any other socialistic information, Socialists, Syndicalists, Anarchists, any paper.

I do not know what Bolshevism means. I do not know what Soviet means. I got some on astronomy, too. You weren't going to destroy them? I was going to keep them. You were going to keep them and when the time was over, you were going to bring them out again, weren't you? Bartolomeo Vanzetti emigrates to the United States. Vanzetti and Sacco meet in Boston at a meeting of Galleanist Anarchists. At the height of the Red Scare, the office of the Cronaca Sovversiva , an anarchist newspaper both Sacco and Vanzetti had written for and donated money to, is raided.

A bomb plot is discovered. In another round of bombings Carlo Valdinoci who had been in Mexico with Sacco and Vanzetti two years earlier blows himself up outside the home of Attorney General Palmer. The Justice Department begins rounding up anarchists. Four men attempt to rob the payroll of the L. Roberto Elia and Andrea Salsedo, anarchists who worked for the Cronaca Sovversiva, are taken into custody by the Department of Justice without a warrant or being arrested.

Stewart talks to Simon Johnson, owner of the Elm Square Garage, and sets a trap for Boda by instructing Johnson to call him when anyone comes for the car. Andrea Salsedo--perhaps acting out of guilt--commits suicide by jumping out of the fourteenth-floor room. Vanzetti--despite having no previous criminal record--is indicted for the Bridgewater hold-up.

Sacco and Vanzetti are indicted for the South Braintree murders. After several days of voir dire, only seven jurors have been selected and the entire panel of people exhausted. The defense challenges the way in which the additional potential jurors were arbitrarily rounded up.

Assistant Prosecutor, Harold Williams, delivers the opening statement for the State. Eyewitnesses Carrigan, Bostock, and Wade testify that were unable to identify any of the bandits they had seen at the crime. Lola Andrews testifies that she had spoken to a man working under a car in front ofthe shoe factory the day of the robbery and identified Sacco as the man. Vanzetti is identified by Michael LeVangie, the gate-keeper at a railroad crossing, as being the driver of the bandit car. Harry Dolbeare testifies that Vanzetti is the man who was in the back of the get-away car.

The final identification witness, Goodridge, testifies he had seen Sacco shooting from the car. Testimony is given concerning the finding of a Buick touring car near West Bridgewater. Connolly, the officer who arrested Sacco and Vanzetti on the train, testifies that Sacco and Vanzetti reached for their guns when they were arrested. Kurlansky testifies that Mrs. Vanzetti takes the stand.

Sacco takes the stand. During cross-examination, Sacco, too, is questioned at length concerning his political views. The case goes to the jury. The Ripley motion for a new trial is made. The Gould and Pelser motions are made. After going to a garage to claim a car that police said was connected with the crime, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested and charged with the crime.

Although both men carried guns and made false statements upon their arrest, neither had a previous criminal record. On July 14, , they were convicted and sentenced to die. Anti-radical sentiment was running high in America at the time, and the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was regarded by many as unlawfully sensational. Authorities had failed to come up with any evidence of the stolen money, and much of the other evidence against them was later discredited.

During the next few years, sporadic protests were held in Massachusetts and around the world calling for their release, especially after Celestino Madeiros, then under a sentence for murder, confessed in that he had participated in the crime with the Joe Morelli gang.

Fuller denied the men clemency. In the days leading up to the execution, protests were held in cities around the world, and bombs were set off in New York City and Philadelphia.

On August 23, Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted. In , Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation vindicating Sacco and Vanzetti, stating that they had been treated unjustly and that no stigma should be associated with their names. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! On August 23, , the first Little League World Series championship game—the culmination of a three-day tournament in Williamsport, Pa. The committee, which included Abbott Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard University, determined that the trial had been fair, and the men were electrocuted on August 23, Their execution divided the nation and produced an uproar in Europe.

It is not every prisoner who has a President of Harvard University throw on the switch for him. Read the document introduction and view the image.