Commonwealth of Massachusetts called upon you to render a most
important service. Although you knew that such service would be
arduous, painful and tiresome, yet you, like the true soldier,
responded to that call in the spirit of supreme American loyalty.
There is no better word in the English language than ‘loyalty.’
For he who is loyal to God, to country, to his state and to his
fellow men, represents the highest and noblest type of true American
citizenship, than which there is none grander in the entire world.
You gentlemen have been put to the real test, and you have proven to
the world, and particularly to the people of Norfolk County, that you
truly represent such citizenship. For this loyalty, gentlemen, and
for this magnificent service that you have rendered to your State and
to your fellow men, I desire, however, in behalf of both to extend to
each of you their profoundest thanks, gratitude and appreciation.”
It was of course conventional to butter up a jury at the end of a
long trial, but Thayer enjoyed the convention. His mind slipped
easily among the sententious moralizings, the hortatory appeals to
truth, the assurances of equality before the law:
“Let your eyes be blinded to every ray of sympathy or prejudice but
let them ever be willing to receive the beautiful sunshine of truth,
of reason and sound judgment, and let your ears be deaf to every
sound of public opinion or public clamor, if there be any, either in
favor of or against these defendants. Let them always be listening
for the sweet voices of conscience and of sacred and solemn duty
efficiently and fearlessly performed.”
Warning the jury not to be influenced or prejudiced by the fact
that the defendants were Italians, he went on to a brief history
of murder in common law, the development of degrees of murder, the
definition of malice aforethought. He pointed out that there was no
vital distinction between circumstantial and other evidence, that
the important thing was the degree of proof. He must have puzzled
the jurors with his remark that “over-positiveness in identification
might under some circumstances and conditions be evidence of weakness
in the testimony rather than strength.”
There was the expected truism—none the less true—that “guilt or
innocence of crime do not depend upon the place of one’s birth;
neither should the place of one’s birth, the proportion of his
wealth, his station in life, social or political, or his views
on public questions prevent an honest judgment and impartial
administration and enforcement of the law, for when the time comes
that these conditions exist to an extent that men, because of these
conditions, cannot be indicted, tried, acquitted or convicted
according to the laws of the Commonwealth in a court of justice, the
doors to our courthouses should then be closed and we should announce
to the world the impotency of our courts and the utter failure of
constitutional or organized government.”
Not until he had passed the halfway mark did Judge Thayer abandon
generalities for facts. Then he summed up the case adequately enough:
“The Commonwealth claims that these defendants were two of a party
of five who killed the deceased. The defendants deny it. What is the
fact? As I have told you, the Commonwealth must satisfy you of that
fact beyond reasonable doubt. The defendants are under no obligation
to satisfy you who did commit the murders, but the Commonwealth must
satisfy you beyond reasonable doubt that the defendants did. If
the Commonwealth has failed to so satisfy you, that is the end of
these cases and you will return verdicts of not guilty. This is so
because the identity of the defendants is one of the essential facts
to be established by the Commonwealth. On the other hand, if the
Commonwealth has so satisfied, you will return a verdict of guilty
against both defendants or either of them that you so find to be
guilty.”
[Illustration: _Dedham, April 9, 1927, just before sentence was
passed._]
[Illustration: (Top) _The shells Bostock gave to Fraher; Shell W
third from left._
(Center) _The bullets removed from Berardelli’s body. The mortal
Bullet III, deformed by impact, is third from left._
(Bottom) _The bullets as marked by Dr. Magrath. Note deformation of
Bullet III, third from left._]
[Illustration: _Sacco’s Colt automatic._]
[Illustration:
_Vanzetti’s Harrington & Richardson revolver._ ]
[Illustration:
_Composite photograph of Shell W_ (left) _and test shell_ (right),
_showing continuous breechblock markings above and below firing pin
indentation_.
AMERICAN HERITAGE MAGAZINE ]
[Illustration: (Above) _District Attorney Frederick Katzmann._]
[Illustration: (Below) _Judge Webster Thayer._]
[Illustration: (Right) _William Thompson_, _Herbert Ehrmann_, _Tom
O’Connor_.]
[Illustration: (Far right) _Fred Moore and Eugene Debs_ (front)
_after visiting Vanzetti in Charlestown Prison_.]
[Illustration:
_The jury’s Fourth holiday at North Scituate._
_Ripley_ _King_ _Marden_
_Gerard_ _McNamara_ _Parker_ _Dever_ _McHardy_
_Fales_ (Sheriff) _Capen_ (Sheriff) _Hooper_ (Sheriff)
_Ganley_ _Hersey_ _Waugh_ _Atwood_
]
[Illustration: (Left) _Sacco tries on the cap and addresses the
court. Sketches by Norman._]
[Illustration: (Right) _Governor Alvan Fuller._]
[Illustration: (Far right) _Edna St. Vincent Millay._]
[Illustration:
BOSTON HERALD
]
[Illustration: (Far left) _Rosina Sacco and her children leaving
Charlestown Prison, August, 1927._]
[Illustration: Governor Alvan Fuller]
[Illustration: (Left) _Rosina and Luigia Vanzetti visiting the death
house, August 20._]
[Illustration:
BOSTON GLOBE
_The start of the funeral procession._]
In weighing the testimony of the identifying witnesses, the jurors
would have to consider the latter’s intelligence, “their opportunity
for observations, their reasons for making such observations, the
duration of such observations, and the mental or nervous condition
of the witness at the time.” Turning to the ballistics testimony,
Thayer fell into the crucial error of McAnarney and Katzmann, for he,
too, accepted Van Amburgh’s “I am inclined to believe” as a direct
assertion that the Berardelli death bullet had come from Sacco’s
automatic. “You must determine this question of fact,” he told them.
In speaking of the Vanzetti revolver, he first said that it had had a
new hammer and spring, then later corrected himself.
The emphasis of the latter part of the charge was on the question
of consciousness of guilt, to which Judge Thayer gave much more
space than he did to the other testimony. “If the defendants were
only consciously guilty of being slackers,” he informed the jurors,
“liable to be deported, fearing punishment therefore, and were not
consciously guilty of the murder of Berardelli and Parmenter, then
there is no consciousness of guilt during the time they were at the
Johnson house, because the defendants were solely being tried for the
murder of Berardelli and Parmenter, and for nothing else.”
This was a question of fact for the jurors to decide, just as it was
for them to decide whether or not the defendants had “the desire
and purpose and intention” of drawing their weapons when they were
arrested on the streetcar. The court decided questions of law, but
only the jury could decide on the facts. Alibis were always questions
of fact. “Therefore,” he instructed them finally, “all testimony
which tends to show that the defendants were in another place at the
time the murders were committed tends also to rebut the evidence that
they were present at the time and place the murders were committed.
If the evidence of an alibi rebuts evidence of the Commonwealth to
such an extent that it leaves reasonable doubt in your minds as to
the commission of the murders charged against these defendants then
you will return a verdict of not guilty. On the other hand, if you
find that the defendants or either of them committed the murders and
the Commonwealth has satisfied you of such fact beyond a reasonable
doubt from all the evidence in these cases, you will return a verdict
of guilty.”
Thayer had been talking for several hours. He shifted a vase of pinks
slightly to his right so that he could eye the jury more emphatically
before beginning his peroration, his particular pride:
“My duties, gentlemen, have now closed and yours begun. From this
mass of testimony introduced you must determine the facts. The law,
as I have told you, places the entire responsibility in your hands.
I therefore call upon you to constantly bear in mind these parting
words of the Court that here, in this temple of justice, before
God and man, you made oath that you would ‘well and truly try the
issue between the Commonwealth and the defendants according to your
evidence. So help you God.’
“I have now finished my charge. My duties are now at an end. I
have tried to preside over the trial of these cases in a spirit of
absolute fairness and impartiality to both sides. If I have failed
in any respect you must not, gentlemen, in any manner fail yours. I
therefore now commit into your sacred keeping the decision of these
cases. You will therefore take them with you into yonder jury room,
the silent sanctuary where may the Great Dispenser of justice, wisdom
and sound judgment preside over all your deliberations. Reflect long
and well so that when you return, your verdict shall stand forth
before the world as your judgment of truth and justice. Gentlemen, be
just and fear not. Let all the end thou aimest at be thy country’s,
thy God’s and truth’s.”
There was a moment’s silence, then a murmur went through the
courtroom like a collective sigh, followed by a shuffle of feet as
spectators and jury began to file from the room, while the lawyers
worked their way to the back for another consultation. Vanzetti bent
over and whispered to Sacco as a deputy with handcuffs opened the
cage door.
Moore, observing legal etiquette, remarked formally to the Court that
whatever the jury’s verdict no one could say that the defendants had
not had a fair trial.
* * * * *
Judge Thayer was in a good mood as he walked briskly to the Dedham
Inn for lunch. The trial that had cut so deep into his summer was
over. He would no longer have to endure the daily sight of that
long-haired California radical. His charge had gone off well.
Inside the dining room he stopped at the reporters’ table where
Frank Sibley, with his Windsor tie, sat at the head. “Did you see
that jury when I finished my charge?” Thayer asked of no one in
particular. “Three of them in tears!” Sibley and the others said
nothing. The silence nettled the judge. He looked them up and down
and then said pettishly, “I think I am entitled to have a statement
printed in the newspapers that this trial was fairly and impartially
conducted.” Again there was silence. Sibley looked down at the
tablecloth in embarrassment.
Finally Thayer spoke to him directly. “Sibley, you are the oldest.
Don’t you think this trial was fairly and impartially conducted?”
Sibley stared at him above his wilted tie. “Well,” he said quietly,
“I don’t know whether to express their opinion, but of course we have
talked it over, and I think I can say I have never seen anything like
it.”
Thayer looked down scornfully, turned on his heel, and walked away.
* * * * *
As the defendants arrived for the afternoon session and the courtroom
filled, Rosina and Dante were allowed briefly inside the cage. While
Sacco talked to his wife, Vanzetti rumpled the boy’s hair playfully,
his deep eyes glowing, a smile wrinkling across his face. The jury
was brought in, polled, and then retired. The defendants were again
led away. Lawyers, reporters, and most of the spectators went
outside. Those wise in the ways of juries did not expect a verdict
until after the evening meal. Sheriff Capen predicted five hours. It
was then three o’clock.
Much in the preceding weeks had seemed a legal game, but now the
verbiage had been swept away, leaving nothing but the bone-bare
interlude like time suspended, a feeling somehow intensified by the
paper-littered courtroom and the ticking marble-faced clock and the
summer brightness filtering through the maple trees.
* * * * *
From the courtroom the sheriff led the jurymen down the corridor to
a room on the left with the word jury stenciled on the frosted glass
of the door. He closed the door behind them and locked it. They found
themselves alone in a room containing nothing but a long table and
twelve leather-cushioned chairs. Another door at the side led to the
lavatory. John Dever noticed that all the doorknobs had the county
seal embossed on them.
In their six weeks of close association the twelve men had developed
a sense of camaraderie that would bind them together for the rest of
their lives. Over thirty years later, Dever, destitute in a veteran’s
hospital, would find himself visited by Atwood and Gerard, and there
again they would talk over the case. But in this first moment of
being alone no one quite knew how to begin.
Dever finally suggested that first of all they take an informal
ballot, nothing binding, just to get an idea how they felt. Sitting
around the table, each marked a slip of paper and handed it down to
Ripley who, as foreman, occupied the end seat. Dever believed the
defendants guilty but he voted for acquittal on the first ballot to
open up a discussion. The vote was ten to two for conviction. “Then,”
Dever told a reporter long afterward, “we started discussing things,
reviewed the very important evidence about the bullets, and everybody
had a chance to speak his piece. There never was any argument,
though. We just were convinced Sacco and Vanzetti had done what the
prosecution had charged them with.” The Winchester bullet taken from
Berardelli’s body had, they felt, been fired from Sacco’s pistol.
And the same three kinds of shells that Thomas Fraher had picked up
in front of Rice & Hutchins had been found in Sacco’s pocket. Seward
Parker remarked that you couldn’t depend on the witnesses—“but the
bullets, there’s no way of getting round that.” Alfred Atwood agreed
with him. John Ganley was impressed by what Reed, the Matfield
gate-tender, said about seeing Vanzetti at the crossing. The twelve
did not even bother to ballot again. They talked over various aspects
of the case but no longer debated guilt or innocence. Someone
suggested that they ask for a reading glass to examine the bullets.
A deputy brought them one. It would have been possible for them to
bring in their verdict at the end of the afternoon. They decided,
however, that it would look better if they waited until after supper.
Shortly after six Judge Thayer sent them out to eat. By half-past
seven they were back.
The shadows of the trees and the buildings were long across the
High Street, but the setting sun brought no relief from the heat. A
scattering of spectators waited in the courtroom. There were groups
of white-shirted figures on the steps, on the grass, on the sidewalk
across the street, restless groups that joined together, broke apart,
or receded in the direction of Dedham Square. Always there was a
corporal’s guard of newspapermen to keep a careful eye on the upper
rear window where, behind the plate glass, the overhead light had now
been turned on.
At 7:55 Deputy Sheriff Fales heard a triple knock on the jury-room
door. It was sharp, final, not the tentative knock meaning that a
reading glass or some such thing was wanted. He unlocked the door
and Ripley told him the verdict was ready. Fales’ face kept its
professional impassivity. He took the message, locked the door again,
then went downstairs to telephone the warden at the jail. To the
newsmen who looked at him questioningly as he passed, he nodded.
A few minutes before, a slight breeze had sprung up. Harold Williams,
the McAnarneys, several state troopers, and deputy sheriffs were
standing near the columns enjoying the coolness when someone came out
and whispered the news. An invisible telegraph seemed to flash the
word through Dedham. The white-shirted groups on the grass dissolved,
the loungers vanished, from all directions running figures converged
on the courthouse. The High Street echoed with footsteps. Upstairs
the courtroom windows suddenly blazed with light.
In the ten minutes that it took to bring the defendants over from the
jail the gates had been closed and a guard of troopers thrown around
the courthouse. On the steps a crowd that by now stretched across the
street forced its way up to the iron barrier. Those who had gone up
to the courtroom earlier were allowed to stay, but, except for the
lawyers and the newspapermen, no one else was admitted.
Sacco and Vanzetti were brought in through the side entrance, taken
up the back stairs, their handcuffs removed, and the door of the cage
closed behind them. Sacco looked pale, almost ill. Vanzetti spoke
a few words to him, a frown scoring his forehead. Rosina sat close
by, making quick birdlike movements, managing to smile each time her
husband glanced at her.
The pause before the jury entered the room was so oppressive that it
became almost tangible. Inside the bar enclosure the lawyers waited,
Moore fiddling with a pencil, his hair dank. The deputies stood at
the entrances, the stenographers had their notebooks open, Judge
Thayer sat in his place. From time to time everyone in the courtroom
glanced at the twelve empty seats flanked by the American flag. Then
the door opened.
The jurors filed in, their eyes fixed on the floor. Seeing their
mood, Tom McAnarney raised his arm in a gesture of despair. The lines
between Vanzetti’s eyes were like cords. Sacco glanced from one face
to another as the jury passed.
The jurors settled in their seats. Judge Thayer nodded obliquely at
Clerk Worthington who, precise and impersonal, asked them if they had
agreed on a verdict. Then, scarcely waiting for the foreman’s reply,
he called out “Nicola Sacco.” Sacco rose to his feet as if he were in
a trance, and Worthington’s singsong voice continued:
“Hold up your right hand, Mr. Foreman; look upon the prisoner.
Prisoner, look upon the foreman. What say you, Mr. Foreman, is the
prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?”
Ripley’s voice was like a croak as he spoke the one word. “Guilty.”
“Guilty of murder?” Worthington went on.
“Murder,” Ripley answered him.
“In the first degree?”
“In the first degree.”
While the impact of the verdict was still in transit, Worthington
rapidly repeated the formula for Vanzetti.
“What say you, Mr. Foreman; is Bartolomeo Vanzetti guilty or not
guilty of murder?”
“Guilty,” Ripley croaked again.
“In the first degree, upon each indictment?”
“In the first degree.”
“Hearken to your verdicts as the Court has recorded them,”
Worthington hurried on, his words falling limply in the hush. “You,
gentlemen, upon your oath, say that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti is each guilty of murder in the first degree upon each
indictment. So say you, Mr. Foreman? So, gentlemen, you all say?”
There were murmurs of “We do, we do,” from the jury box. Vanzetti
stood in the cage, his arm still raised in the air. Then suddenly
Sacco’s voice rang through the courtroom: “_Sono innocente!_”
“_Sono innocente!_” he shouted again, and behind the cage Rosina
cried loudly, ran to him breaking through the ring of guards
and throwing her arms around his neck. Her hat fell off and her
copper-red hair tumbled about her neck. “You bet your life,” she
babbled. Then she cried out as if overwhelmed, “What am I going to
do? I’ve got two children. Oh, Nick. They kill my man.” She clung to
him sobbing, burying her face in his neck, the torrent of her words
unintelligible. Sacco stood upright, paler than ever, stroking her
head and occasionally whispering to her. Vanzetti, next to them, said
nothing, but his face was drawn with sympathy. Moore tried gently to
disengage her. Finally a policeman removed her from Sacco’s shoulder
and led her away.
Judge Thayer nodded to the clerk for adjournment. No one was even
aware of his few words of thanks to the jury.
“They kill an innocent men!” Sacco called out in a shaken voice as
judge and jury were leaving. Several of the jurymen looked back at
him but none of them paused. “Don’t forget. Two innocent men they
kill!” he shouted at them.
Within ten minutes the police and deputies had delivered the
defendants back to the jail. On their way there the loiterers on the
courthouse steps pushed forward and Sheriff Capen threatened to draw
his gun if they came any closer.
Now the darkened streets were as empty as the courtroom. Lawyers,
deputies, public, all had gone except Tom McAnarney, who was
rummaging among some papers on the oak table. As he closed his brief
case he noticed Assistant District Attorney Williams in the doorway,
and observing the customary legal etiquette he stepped toward him
with extended hand.
“Congratulations,” he said, “on a brilliant victory.” Then he noticed
that the other’s face was wet with tears.
“For God’s sake, don’t rub it in,” said Williams, without taking
his hand. “This is the saddest thing that ever happened to me in my
life.” And with the tears still streaming down his cheeks he walked
on through the courtroom.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] The two shells that had not been tampered with during the
Plymouth trial were admitted in evidence at Dedham after several
witnesses claimed to have seen what they thought was a shotgun
protruding from the rear of the getaway car.
[11] Long after the trial Sacco admitted privately to Thompson, his
later counsel, that he was carrying the Colt that night “because we
were at war with the government.”
[12] During the trial Ross’s wife gave birth to a son. To the immense
delight of the judge, he was named Webster Thayer Ross. Katzmann
became the child’s godfather. As it did for Mrs. DeFalco, the calling
of court interpreter eventually proved too much for Ross: In 1926 he
was sentenced to the Middlesex House of Correction after pleading
guilty to attempting to bribe a judge.
[13] Leon Mucci, the deputy from the district that included
Torremaggiore.
CHAPTER TWELVE
POST-TRIAL: I
The convictions made the Friday headlines of all the Boston papers,
but by mid-August references to Sacco and Vanzetti had disappeared
from even the back pages. Theirs had been just another Massachusetts
murder trial, longer than most, but finished now in every sense.
So it seemed to J. Weston Allen, the Attorney General, when he
sent a letter of congratulation to District Attorney Katzmann. So
it seemed to Chief Justice Aiken, who wrote to his colleague and
fellow Dartmouth alumnus Webster Thayer that “Your management of
the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti entitles you to the highest degree
_summa cum laude_.” Whatever undercurrents of radical protest might
still persist, they remained well below the surface of middle-class
complacency.
But while in the United States the storm centered in Massachusetts
subsided, overseas there were increasing rumblings broken by
occasional flashes of lightning. As early as August 6, 1921, the
Executive Committee of the Chamber of Labor Unions in Rome sent a
telegram to President Harding expressing the hope that “the crime of
the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti will not be recorded.” Eugene
Lyons in his six months in Italy had done a skillful publicity job,
for by the time of the trial, Italians were generally convinced that
Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent. The Latin anarchists in the United
States had written voluminously to their comrades in Italy, Spain,
and Portugal, laying the groundwork for the later agitation. Frank
Lopez, through his contacts with the more important South American
newspapers, had managed to appeal to the widespread anti-gringo
feeling there.