THE LAST ENEMY
I
In a room in the Hotel Bellevue, adjoining the State House, five
lawyers from New York, all volunteers in the case, had worked all
Sunday night and part of Monday, eighteen consecutive hours, concocting
legal formulas and having them typed. On the roof of the hotel were
detectives, and in the windows of the State House opposite; for the
spectacle of lights burning all night in a room known to be occupied by
Reds exercised an irresistible spell upon the authorities. “What are
they doing now? Where are they going?” Half a dozen automobiles waited
outside the hotel, and whenever one of the lawyers took a taxi, the
august Commonwealth of Massachusetts trailed behind.
Now the Boston lawyers had failed, and admitted their failure; the New
York lawyers had the field, with seven or eight hours to go. They asked
for a hearing before Federal Judge Lowell, and he set the hour of six
o’clock. A court session consisting of one judge, five lawyers, and a
score of newspapermen. The judge resented the intrusion of “foreigners”
into this case, and took occasion to say what all ruling-class Boston
was thinking. He accused the strangers of “trying the case in the
newspapers”; he interrupted them again and again to demand “law, not
eloquence.” When William Schuyler Jackson, ex-Attorney General of
New York State, was showing the conspiracy carried on by Katzmann to
deceive the jury at the Dedham trial, the judge broke in: “Did you ever
see a Norfolk county farmer?” The lawyer, disconcerted, had to admit,
“Not in reality.” Whereupon the judge snapped out: “Well, if you had,
you’d have a better opinion of that jury.”
It made magnificent copy for the newspapers; the _Herald_ put it in a
“box”--“Judge Lowell Praises Norfolk County Farmers”--and all patriots
swelled with pride. Wonderful beings were Norfolk county farmers, and
wonderful also the Lowells, who spoke only to Cabots, who spoke to
God. It was the hard luck of the ex-Attorney General of New York State
that he was not familiar with the details of the case; otherwise he
might have made answer to the arrogant judge: “The Sacco-Vanzetti jury
consisted of two real estate men, two machinists, a grocer, a mason,
a stockkeeper, a clothing salesman, a mill operative, a shoemaker, a
lastmaker, and _one_ Norfolk county farmer!”
The lawyers loaded themselves into an automobile, together with Isaac
Don Levine, journalist, and set out for Beverly, to make a last appeal
to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Detectives trailed behind them, and
more detectives met them at their destination. The very old gentleman
sat in his parlor, talking with two very old ladies; a chaste New
England home, everything antique, in the taste of a bygone age. The
lawyers presented their petition, and the judge sat himself down
to peruse it--four thousand words of “law, not eloquence.” A dead
silence; and Levine sat in the hall, listening to the ticking of a
“grandfather’s clock.” “Life-death, life-death, life-death,” it said;
the listener shivered.
The old gentleman looked up. “I appreciate the general force of your
argument,” he said--and their hearts leaped. He was famous for the
so-called “judicial mind,” his ability to consider legal principles
in a vacuum completely freed of human emotion. He went on: “I am of
the opinion that the petition is covered by the principles stated
in my decisions upon the former applications for habeas corpus and
certiorari, and therefore I am compelled to deny the writ.”
The lawyers excused themselves, and got into the car again, and whirled
back to Boston. One more hope; Federal Judge Anderson, who was not
quite so free from human emotion. Seven years back, he had condemned
the Red raids in an exhaustive and scorching decision. Now he was
attending the Institute of Politics at Williamstown, two hundred
miles away, and Tom O’Connor had arranged at the East Boston naval
airport to charter an airplane to take John Finerty, a leading lawyer
of Washington, formerly assistant counsel for the U. S. Railroad
Commission. It would be a risky journey at night, but they had worked
for eighteen hours over those four thousand words of “law, not
eloquence,” and wanted to make it count if they could.
The nearest landing field was in Albany, New York, fifty miles from
Williamstown. O’Connor had arranged with a taxi company to have a cab
waiting at the landing field. All was ready; but alas, some one tipped
off the authorities at the airport as to who these nefarious persons
were, and a naval officer ordered them off the premises. “It would give
me pleasure to shoot you,” he said to the ex-Attorney General of New
York State; and next day the newspapers reported that the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts has been asked to put a special guard over the
airport, threatened with seizure by the Reds!
II
From a window of the Hod Carriers’ Union in Salem Street, Ella Reeve
Bloor was explaining the case as an episode in the class struggle to
a crowd of some hundreds of solemn-faced workers. “Mother” Bloor,
they called her; sixty-five years old, she had raised a brood of five
children, and turned them loose in the radical movement, and so was
free to wander over America, wherever workingmen on strike called for
a martyr. A little round jolly figure, full of laughter, brown as a
hickory nut and as solid, she said her say, until the policemen forced
their way into the union headquarters and dragged her out. “Inciting to
riot,” was the charge.
At the same time Paula Holladay was getting arrested in her red
“slicker” again; they took it away from her this time! Over near
Charlestown prison another group were preparing to walk into the den of
blue-coated lions; their leader was Helen Peabody, one of those “with a
background,” who conceived it her duty to be in jail when the execution
took place. In an obscure hall near defense headquarters, Betty and Joe
were speaking to a somber crowd. It would not save Sacco and Vanzetti,
but it would save their message, as Joe pointed out. Let the workers
learn, and organize to defend themselves against ruling class murder.
A curious instance, then going on, to illustrate Joe’s message.
Everywhere in Boston the workers had been dragged to jail for
attempting to voice their protest; but in the town of Peabody, some
twenty miles away from Boston, there was now going on a meeting in
the public square, at which ten thousand workers were voicing their
feelings unmolested. How came that? Quite simple; the workers of
Peabody had taken the precaution to elect themselves a Socialist mayor.
Yesterday, Sunday, the chief of police had broken up a mass meeting,
in the regulation Mike Crowley style; the mayor had been on vacation,
and hearing the news, had hastened back, and removed the chief of
police from office, and taken charge of to-night’s meeting himself,
and introduced Alfred Baker Lewis as the principal speaker. Would the
workers of Boston learn anything from that?
Governor Fuller was in session with Congressman La Guardia, who had
flown all the way from Washington in an airplane; an Italian, he
pleaded for mercy for two men of his race. Musmanno, having presented
four new affidavits in vain, waited outside for a chance to present one
more. He argued with Attorney General Reading, counsel for the Decimo
Club and the “L.A.W.,” seeking to persuade him that it would be a
discourtesy to the United States Supreme Court, to take the life of two
men, when their appeal was actually on file before that high tribunal.
Mr. Reading did not answer Musmanno’s argument; neither did he say what
he would advise the Governor. Death was only three or four hours away.
Over in the death cells, Sacco was bidding a last farewell to his wife,
and Vanzetti to his sister. The men stretched their arms through the
bars; the women broke down, and had to be carried out, sobbing wildly.
They belonged to a demonstrative race--one of the reasons why stern New
England did not like them. Nevertheless, New England would read about
it--column after column in the next morning’s papers--“sob stuff,” that
sold best of anything.
Rosina and Luigia decided to try one last appeal to the Governor.
They had not intended to do it; they knew in their hearts that they
would fail; but they had several hours to pass, and it was easier
to do anything than to do nothing. Friends telephoned and made the
appointment, and at nine o’clock they arrived at the State House,
a fortress surrounded by armed men, the searchlights which usually
illuminated the golden dome now turned upon the crowds in the streets.
They ascended in the elevator, and Rosina walked ahead, through the
rows of silent newspapermen; Luigia followed hesitatingly, bewildered
by this strange environment. Musmanno was there to act as interpreter,
and they were shown into the private office, where so many had sat and
poured out eloquence in vain.
Rosina Sacco spoke first, in English. She told of her faith in her
husband’s innocence. She told about the trial; about Lola Andrews, the
hysteric; about Captain Proctor, who had admitted his trick; about
Goodridge, the many-times convicted crook; about Mary Splaine, and what
the Pinkerton reports had revealed about her. She told about Judge
Thayer; over and over, she insisted that the trial had not been fair.
She asked for mercy. The Governor was a father, and he was sentencing
two children to lose their father, and to wear a dreadful brand all
their lives.
The great man listened with politeness--his store of the commodity was
inexhaustible. He turned to the frail worn sister of Vanzetti, who
began speaking in soft musical Italian, the young lawyer translating
sentence by sentence. She had just come from her brother in the gloomy
deathhouse; his protestations of innocence were ringing in her ears.
He had asked her to convey a message to the Governor. Some weeks ago
Bartolomeo had shaken hands with the Governor in the prison, and he
thought that he had demonstrated his innocence; the Governor had given
him that impression; now he could not understand how the Governor would
let the death sentence stand. If he could have one more chance to talk
with the Governor and answer his objections, he, Bartolomeo, was sure
the death sentence would not be carried out.
For more than an hour the salesman of motor-cars listened, without
interrupting. At last the two women said that they were through; and
then, leaning forward slightly in his chair, he gave his answer. He
appreciated the feelings of both of them, and was sorry for them.
But he had taken an oath to uphold the constitution and laws of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and his conscience dictated that he
should permit the law to take its course.
But still, he would be polite. Excessively so; as if he were paying
compliments at a social function; or as if he were selling a Packard
limousine. To some final argument of Musmanno’s he replied: “What you
have said impresses me greatly. But even that is nothing compared with
the eloquence of these ladies’ presence.” Was this one of the dreadful
perversions of Puritanism? A kind of sadistic pleasure in inflicting
torture with a smile? Whatever it was, it failed to make a hit with
Rosina Sacco. “Let us go,” she said, coldly, and they rose, and walked
slowly from the room.
The newspapermen besought Musmanno to tell them what had happened, and
he tried to do it; he touched upon a few of the arguments which the
women had presented, but before he had got very far the tears began to
run down his cheeks, and he had to stop. He went over to a chair and
sat down and buried his face in his hands and sobbed. It was then half
past ten, and the grandfather’s clocks which kept the time for all
Massachusetts were ticking steadily, with fifty-four hundred seconds
still to go.
III
At six o’clock Cornelia had gone back to her home. The chauffeur had
to help her up the stairs; and there were Deborah and Clara with the
Negro maid, ready to come running, and lead her to the bed, and make
any amount of fuss; to bring her tea or coffee, or a glass of milk, or
a poached egg on toast. No, she could not eat; they pleaded, and wanted
to phone for Dr. Morrow. The tears ran down their cheeks; they would
do anything, abase themselves, agree with her wildest words, in the
effort to quiet her, and persuade her that their love meant something.
They were terrified at her appearance and her attitude; ashamed because
they had shown so little sympathy in the past. Yes, no doubt there were
very fine and good qualities in anarchists--anything, anything--so that
their mother would stop killing herself!
Clara’s precious youngest had got poison ivy all over him, and was shut
up in the house with a poultice over his eyes; her oldest, who was just
out of Harvard, was suspected to be on the verge of getting engaged
at Bar Harbor; the oldest little fat treasure of Priscilla had got a
bee sting over one eyelid, otherwise his mother would have been here.
Quincy Thornwell had won a chess match--such items of family gossip
Clara poured out, in a premeditated torrent--only to discover that her
mother was not hearing a word. “Please, Clara, I can’t think about
anything now. Let me be quiet.”
Deborah had taken the precaution to get a prescription from Dr. Morrow;
it was his advice that Cornelia should take a strong sleeping powder
and forget the ugly world and everything in it for at least twelve
hours. But Cornelia said no. When her oldest daughter tried to insist,
she said, “I was talking with one of the lawyers from New York, and
he offered me a quart of whisky. If all hopes fail, he will retire to
his hotel room and get drunk.” The silence of Deborah and Clara said
plainly, it was what everybody in Boston had known about that New York
crowd! Cornelia, reading their thoughts, remarked grimly: “The whisky
might give him pleasure, so that is immoral. But a sleeping powder is
strictly business!”
The women decided to call in Henry, who understood the insides of
this crisis so much better than they. So Henry put off dinner with an
important banker from New York, and came over to sit by the bedside
and tell his mother-in-law how it was possible for Boston to do this
dreadful deed; how it was possible for such wickedness to be organized,
and in control of society. “With all that new evidence before them,
Henry! And with an appeal to the United States Supreme Court actually
docketed!”
“Docketed doesn’t mean anything, Mother. It simply means that you have
put your request on file; it doesn’t mean that it will get anywhere. In
this case I assure you it wouldn’t.”
“Henry, if we could manage to keep those boys alive until October, we
could really get the public to understand about this case, and they
would never dare to execute them.”
“Well, I guess that’s just it, Mother. Fuller can’t afford to let the
case go on growing and growing.”
She pondered that. “I have just heard that Quincy has won a chess
match; and now the Governor is winning one, with human lives for pawns!”
IV
She told about her last interview, and the things that had been said.
She told about the trip to Rye Beach; it was quite a story, and helped
to pass the time without whisky or drugs. Deborah and Clara refrained
from breaking in; there must be no arguments, nothing to excite the
patient; each minute that passed was a danger escaped. Deborah ventured
to make some remarks on the subject of Mrs. Fuller, and the problem
of Catholic wives and Protestant husbands. The Governor was such an
ardent Baptist, he wanted to teach a Sunday school. Was he letting his
children be brought up as Catholics?
But no use; Cornelia could not be diverted from the main topic. “Henry,
did you find out what is that ‘confidential information’ that Mr.
Lowell and the Governor are talking about?”
“There’s a lot of it, Mother; they keep quoting the Italian colony and
what it thinks about the case.”
“The ‘Italian colony’! Do you stop to realize what the words mean?
There are as many differences inside the Italian colony as in any other
part of New England. The ruling group is Fascist; they hate Sacco and
Vanzetti exactly as Judge Thayer does--only more so, because they know
them better. The majority of the colony is Catholic; and when Bart
was arrested he had on him a letter in which one of their priests
was described as a ‘pig.’ Of course all the Italians know who that
priest is. Does the Governor take the opinion of the priest? Or of his
parishioners?”
“The story runs something like this, Mother: one of the Italian
anarchists got drunk and talked, and admitted that Sacco had been in
the bandit car at South Braintree.”
“I’ve heard that,” said Cornelia. “I’ve heard many such stories. But of
course I couldn’t guess which one the Governor of our Commonwealth and
the President of our University would elect to believe. What do they
say about Bart?”
“They don’t think Bart was in the car, but they think he knew about it,
which made him an accessory before the fact.”
“Before, or after, Henry--are they sure which?” A pause. “And so that
is what Mr. Lowell meant when he said that he thought Vanzetti was
guilty ‘on the whole’! I am solving the riddles which have tormented me
for weeks! Who do they say was actually in the car?”
“Boda and Coacci and Orciani.”
“Mike Stewart’s theory complete! Have they overlooked the fact that
Orciani punched a time clock that day in the foundry where he worked?”
“The story is that he got somebody else to do it for him.”
Cornelia sat, gazing with her inner eye into the face of Massachusetts
statesmanship. “So that is why our boys have to die! Somebody got drunk
and talked, and the talk came to the ears of our great men! Stop and
think what this means, Henry--the breakdown of our legal system and our
moral codes! Was it one of the guilty men who got drunk and talked?”
“No, that is not what I understand.”
“It couldn’t very well have been Sacco or Vanzetti, since they have
been in jail, and couldn’t get liquor in our model prisons, and anyhow,
they don’t drink. It couldn’t have been Coacci, who was deported
before the arrests took place; nor Orciani, nor little Mike Boda, who
are sitting out on a barren rock somewhere in the Mediterranean, as
prisoners of the Fascist government.”
“Fuller doesn’t claim it was the guilty ones who talked; it was one of
their comrades.”
“That is what I am trying to get straight. One of the bandits told a
comrade, and this comrade got drunk and talked! Did he talk to Governor
Fuller?”
“That is not the way I heard it.”
“Hardly! There are automobile salesmen who get people drunk, I suppose,
but not ardent Baptists, with Sunday school inclinations. We have to
assume that some government spy got the anarchist comrade drunk, and
then the anarchist comrade talked, and the spy told the Governor about
it. Or maybe even that is too undignified for a Governor--surely it
would have been for Mr. Lowell! Deborah, do you think Mr. Lowell would
stoop to listen to a spy?”
Deborah understood that this was a rhetorical question, and prudently
made no reply; Cornelia went on, working herself into a cold fury.
“Our dignity requires us to assume that the spy talked to some police
official, whose business it is to know spies. So then we have this:
Sacco or Vanzetti or Coacci or Orciani or Boda told an anarchist
comrade that they were guilty; this comrade got drunk and told a police
spy; this spy told the police; the police told the Governor; and the
Governor told Mr. Lowell and Mr. Stratton and Judge Grant! So they
have ‘confidential information,’ and decide that ‘on the whole’ they
think Vanzetti was guilty! That is how our laws are enforced, that is
our police system and our legal system and our judicial system and our
political system and our educational system! Such are the masters of
our youth and the guides of our intellectual life!”
“Mother--” began Deborah; but Cornelia exercised the privilege of age,
to do the talking when she wanted to.
“There is a saying--all three of our educated commissioners know it,
and possibly told it to our Governor--‘in vino veritas.’ But proverbs
are false more often than they are true. Think how many circumstances
there might be under which you would get falsehood from drunkenness,
instead of truth. Suppose there was some personal grudge; or some
vainglorious fool, taking pride in knowing a secret that was baffling
the whole world! Suppose it was some one who had heard a rumor, and
turned it into knowledge; suppose the talker were a Fascist agent,
a spy himself--such things have happened. Anything in the world can
happen, where men make their living by betrayal, and their rewards
depend upon the tales they bring in. I know enough about the anarchist
movement to say that you will find every sort of disordered mind in it;
also, you will find every kind of rascal among the men who are trying
to destroy it. From such a situation there arises a poisonous mist,
a gas cloud of gossip and scandal. I thought that the whole purpose
of our judicial system was to deliver men from such terrors; to force
accusers to come out into the daylight, in open court! But here our
great Commonwealth has proved itself worse than one of the Sewing
Circles!”
V
Cornelia sat up, with an announcement which terrified her family. “I am
going to see those boys before they die!”
“Mother! Mother!” All three of them started to protest at once.
Impossible! Not to be thought of!
“I went Saturday, and the warden wouldn’t let me see them. I wrote them
letters; but that is not enough, I refuse to accept it. I am not going
to let them go out of this world without bidding them good-by.”
“Mother, the strain would kill you!”
“It is less than the strain of lying here doing nothing. I am only two
or three miles from them--”
“A difficult two or three miles, Mother.” It was Henry speaking. “The
bridge is closed, and the streets roped off--”
“Governor Fuller can write a dozen words, and the road will be clear.
He is going to do it for me! I am going to have a talk with Bart--and
ask him to tell me the truth! I know that I can help him, and Nick,
too. I am going to see the Governor--phone for me, Henry, and make sure
he is still at his office.”
Cornelia got up, in spite of all protests, and began to arrange her
hair and put on her hat. Henry phoned, and got the information; then,
when he saw that all argument was futile--that she was going to call
a taxicab and go alone if necessary--he said: “Stay here, Mother, and
rest. I will go and get the pass for you--if Fuller will give it.”
“He _must_ give it! I will not take a refusal! It will cost him
nothing, it will do nobody any harm. Deborah, you go with Henry; you
gave that creature a dinner party, now make him pay for it!”
All right, Deborah would go; anything to keep the poor soul quiet for
another half hour. “It is a mad idea, Mother, but I will do the best I
can.”
“I know that you can do it! Promise me that you will do it, Henry--I
will never forgive you if you play me a trick.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Mother--”
“You might think it was for my good. But I know myself better than
you. I have a right to say good-by to those friends who have taught me
so much. Tell the Governor that maybe they will confess to me--he’ll
be fool enough to believe that, I am sure! Tell him that you are
very important persons, that he will shine by your reflected light!
Telephone me the moment you get the answer--because I am coming myself
if you fail!”
The State House lies just over the top of Beacon Hill, and it took
Henry’s car only five minutes to get there. Being large and expensive,
it went past the guards without delay, and very soon there was a
ring of the telephone by Cornelia’s bed; she took the receiver with
trembling hands, and heard the voice of her son-in-law: “All right,
Mother. The Governor has been so kind as to give his consent.” She
could tell by the phrasing and the tone of his voice that he was
speaking from the great man’s office.
She got up and got herself ready, with Clara’s help, and in a few
minutes Henry’s chauffeur was at the door, ready to assist her down the
stairs. Clara went along--they would all go, expecting her to collapse,
fearing she might die of the strain. Since opposition only made things
harder, they must turn themselves into slaves of her whim; at the same
time agreeing in their hearts with the Governor, they would be glad
when this was over!
VI
There sat a strange man in the seat by the chauffeur; a police official
in civilian clothing, who had been at the State House, and whom the
Governor had assigned as an escort. They came quickly to Prison Point
Bridge, across the Miller River to Charlestown, where the old prison
stands. At the bridge entrance the lights of the car fell upon officers
waving the traffic to a detour; behind them a solid line of blue-coats,
with riot-guns in hand; behind these latter a group of mounted men,
and behind them iron gates. A couple of motorcycle officers shot out
towards them, blowing a shrill warning to bring them to a halt.
So began the tedious process of breaking down the barriers which the
stern Commonwealth had set up against anarchists and bomb-throwers that
night. The police official produced the paper with the golden crest
at the top and the magic signature at the bottom. “To police officers
of Boston and Charlestown: You will permit Mr. Henry Cabot Winters
and party to drive to Charlestown prison this Monday evening. Warden
Hendry will permit Mrs. Thornwell to converse with Sacco and Vanzetti
for one hour, subject to his convenience, and without interference with
his plans. Alvan T. Fuller, Governor.” It was a signature familiar to
all Bostonians, being regularly attached to advertisements, telling
the eagerly expectant motor-world the latest wonders which “Packard”
had to impart. “This will prove to be the most popular model which
Packard has ever offered to sons and daughters who may have their own
cars.... When may we show you this latest offering?” It did not seem to
the Commonwealth at all humiliating to have a Governor who wheedled;
neither did it trouble the sons and daughters of the rich who were able
to have their own luxury cars that the same signature was attached to
advertisements and to death warrants.
The fact that the police official was not in uniform may have accounted
for the delay. One of the motorcycle men took the order back to the
group, to show to his superior; after which he rode out to the car
again and ordered it forward. The blue-clad lines gave way, the gates
swung open, and the car rolled through. But half way across the bridge,
there was another pair of gates, with another line of guardians,
and the same procedure to be repeated. It was like the German
entrenchments--the Hindenburg line, the Siegfried line, the Wotan line.
In the river, below the bridge, were speed-boats of the harbor-patrol,
their searchlights sweeping the docks and the tracks of the Boston and
Maine Railroad. Along the tracks were searchlights, three in a group,
weaving futurist patterns on the night.
A third line, strongest of all, at the Charlestown end of the bridge.
The military formalities were complied with, and the car started up
Austin Street, when the revolving searchlight on the prison tower
picked it out, and seemed to be a signal to a score of mounted troopers
to come galloping from every direction. Other searchlights, mounted on
the prison wall and sweeping up and down the streets, brought out their
figures, shining white for moments, then lost in semi-darkness.
“Why don’t you send a man to pass us through?” demanded the police
official, with some irritation; but apparently they hadn’t intended to
pass any one through. They had a deadline, three hundred yards from
the prison walls, blocking every street, and running over the tops of
houses, where men sat with machine-guns, and stores of tear-bombs. The
inhabitants of houses within the barred area were confined indoors, not
even permitted on the steps; they could lean out of windows, and the
searchlights shone upon rows of faces, staring white.
The instructions had been for the car to go to the warden’s home,
which constituted a separate entrance to the prison enclosure. “No
publicity, if you please, Mr. Winters,” the Governor had said; and
this was to the taste of a blue-blood family. The warden would be
notified by telephone to expect them, and would smuggle them in, with
no reporters crowding about, and no picturesque stories in the morning:
“Widow of Ex-Governor Visits Condemned Men in Last Hours!” The car had
to make a part circle of the aged fortress, and it gave even high-up
Brahmins a realization of their importance, the favor which was being
granted to them. Eight times they were halted and investigated; every
foot of the way the searchlights followed them suspiciously, revealing
bright bayonets and heavy riot guns, firemen with high pressure hoses
ready for action, rows of horsemen drawn up against the prison walls,
and motorcycles darting suddenly forth. Once a bomb went off--but
not a dangerous one; only newspaper photographers taking photographs
of the line of cavalry defending the main gate of the prison. Earth,
water, even air were being guarded; searchlights played in the sky--a
spiritualist medium having called at the prison, announcing that she
had had a vision of an airplane dropping bombs. The Sacco-Vanzetti case
had started from crystal-gazing, so it was reasonable that it should
end with clairvoyance.
VII
They came to the warden’s home and drew up at the curb. More parleys,
after which the police official assisted Cornelia out of the car. The
chauffeur was told to stay in his seat--no unnecessary chances taken.
Deborah and Clara and Henry would sit where they were. The armed men
stepped back, and the door opened, and prison guards met the visitors,
and silently led them through the house and into the yard, past the
cell-blocks, oblong brick buildings with rows of narrow barred windows.
The lights were out, and the prison was supposed to be asleep, but the
searchlights made the scene as bright as day, and nobody slept. There
were white faces at the windows, and now and then a chorus of cries:
“Let them out! Let them out!” Wild beasts, barking, howling, roaring in
their cages!
To Cornelia it was as if she had taken Dante’s place, in a journey
through the various stages of hell: all this elaborate display of
killing power, a thousand intricate and ingenious inventions, all the
arts and sciences which civilization had contrived, applied to the
wholesale and instantaneous wiping out of human life. The fact that
this military force was for Cornelia’s protection, that it gave back
respectfully before the magic of her name, only filled her with the
greater abhorrence, only proved her thesis, that its purpose was not
justice, but the comfort and safety of the rich.
The death-house: a square brick building, immediately under the prison
wall, a highly unstrategic position, which in part accounted for the
need of a miniature army. Upon the wall with its wooden walk stood a
line of machine gunners, and men were lined up several deep upon the
sidewalk of Rutherford Avenue below the wall. Across the street were
firemen with four high-pressure hoses.
There was a group of guards at the door of the death-house, and the
warden came out, and took over the task of escorting the privileged
old lady. A dreadful ordeal: Cornelia had to pass through the
execution-chamber, and the canvas cover was off the chair; the heavy
leather straps at the hands and feet dangled and called for their
victims. One glance, and then the warden half lifted Cornelia and
walked her swiftly on. He had had to do that same thing for many women,
relatives of the condemned. It was not a jolly job this plump and
round-faced old Scotchman had found himself.
The death cells, three in a row, opening upon a corridor; each cell a
narrow little room with steel-barred door; in each a cot, a table, a
little bureau. A neat, white-tiled floor, and on the outside, running
the length of the corridor, a painted line, six feet from the cells,
beyond which no visitor might step. Cornelia knew the lay-out, the
lawyers having described it to her. In the first cell was Madeiros, in
the second Sacco, in the third, the farthest from the death-chamber,
Vanzetti. It was the order in which they were to “go.”
Cornelia tottered to the last cell. A light inside; the occupant was
sitting on his cot, with the table drawn up before him, writing one
of his farewell letters. He heard a faint cry, “Bart!” and started
and shoved the table away. “Nonna!” A second more and he was at the
door, his arm through the bars; Cornelia ran to him--it was automatic,
no way to help it--and anyhow, the warden was holding her, and not
trying to hold her back. She clasped the outstretched hand and wrung
it; that hand which so many times she had held in friendship, which
had performed for her so many services of love; a hand toil-worn and
bruised, now emaciated, but still warm with life. Three hours more and
it would be cold, a piece of death and corruption. She let it go, and
sank into the chair which had been placed for her, behind the painted
line.
“Bart, I had to see you to say good-by!”
“I am so glad, Nonna! It is the one more thing I wanted.”
“We have done everything we could, Bart, but it is no use.”
“I know. Mr. Thompson was here, he has just been going. We had a long
talk.”
“I have an hour to stay with you, Bart; the Governor granted me that
favor.”
“I will leave you, Mrs. Thornwell,” said the warden. “I will have to
ask you not to cross the line again. You understand, we have rules, and
they must be enforced.”
“I know,” said Cornelia; “I will respect your wishes.” She had heard
the prison stories--they had permitted one condemned man to receive a
roast chicken from a relative, and it had contained a loaded revolver.
“Thank you, Mr. Hendry.” She was as sorry for him as for his captives.
VIII
A guard sat at the entrance to the corridor, fifteen feet from
Cornelia’s chair. He could hear everything that was said, but neither
she nor Bart heeded him. This was like being alone with God; this was
different from human life, where people met, and would meet again by
and by. “We have failed, Bart,” she whispered, and he said, in a voice
without a quiver: “Do not worry for me, Nonna, I am ready. Nick also is
ready. We will die as anarchists should.”
The light in Sacco’s cell had been out; he turned it on, and lay on his
cot with his face to the bars, so that he could hear the conversation.
“Hello, Nick,” said Cornelia. He answered, with his quick sympathy and
consideration for others: “You are too unhappy for us, Nonna. Take it
more easy! Plenty fellow have die.” She imagined the twinkle in his
eyes--even though now she could see only one eye through the narrow
slits. She could see Vanzetti’s whole face, because he was standing at
the door, and at that height there was a bend in the bars, making an
opening through which he could look.
“Nonna,” he said, “it is more easy to die than to look out through bars
like a beast for seven years.”
“Bart, I am going to fight for your good name the rest of my time.”
“Fight for the workers, Nonna; fight so they be free, that other people
do not live idle on their hard toil.”
“I will surely do that,” she answered; “but most of all I want to be
able to tell people about this case. Tell me the truth, Bart, now that
it is the end.”
Said Vanzetti: “I will speak like I would if it was God. I am an
innocent man, Nonna; I was never at the South Braintree crime, I was
never at the Bridgewater crime. I tell you that in solemn words, for
you to say to all the world, all the time, forever. And Nick, he is
innocent, he was never at South Braintree like they said. This is the
truth, as I hope for joostice, I did never take a umane life, I did
never anything that would take umane life, and I work with all my soul
for those day when it will not be possible ever for one umane being to
kill any other, when all such wickedness and machines for killing lives
will be destroyed from the earth. It is because I know that the class
system and exploiting of labor is what make such machines to be that I
am anarchist. I am against all government, because I know it is tool of
exploiting classes, it is not to make joostice in this world, but to
make slaves, and to punish the libertarians--as they prove this night
upon the bodies of Nick and me.”
There was a pause. When Cornelia spoke again her voice was grave, and
her words came slowly, carefully. “Bart, I mean to write what you tell
me, so the world will know it. May I say that with reflection and these
many years of study, you have changed your views about violence in the
class struggle?”
Vanzetti’s answer also came slowly. “You may say I do not wish
vee-olence, Nonna. All my life I suffer torture when I think of
vee-olence committed upon one body or one soul. But I read the history
of all, and this I see, never have the slaves been free because the
master was generous; always it is because the slave made some struggle,
he made fight for his right. Is it not so?”
“It has been so in the past. But may we not hope for some better way?
Think, Bart, before you answer that.”
“I think always, Nonna, it is one thought that I have all my life.
I look at the great cruel capitalism--do I think that will give way
without fighting? Look this night--Mr. Thompson has told me what he
see outside. They make so many thousands, millions--machine-guns,
bullets, gas bombs, artilleries--every day new inventions--you think
they do not use them? You wish me to say to the worker, ‘You need no
fear, you need no preparing for slaughter?’ Shall I say to the young
worker, ‘You do not need arming your souls for martyrdom, like Sacco
and Vanzetti; Sacco and Vanzetti will be the last martyrs’--can I say
that? No, Nonna, I have to say, it will be thousand of martyrs, perhaps
millions, it will be most bloody slaughter, before the master class is
thrown down, before the workers own the tools and the riches without
any master.”
“So that is what I must tell, Bart?”
“That is what all must tell, else I would be traitor, and not good
guide for workers; else they would say, ‘Vanzetti has lost his nerve,
they have broke him.’ Never will they say that, for me or for Nick.”
“Never!” cried Nick, with his mouth to the bars. “They say we died
anarchista.”
“There may be some who wish to avenge your death, Bart, and that would
be a dreadful thing, nothing would set back the cause so much. What
shall I say about that?”
“Say that I want no such thing, Nonna, we are not such a man to be
revenged; we are humble for our cause. What we want is joostice for
the worker, freedom for all men on this earth, and we want every
libertarian work for that, and not for us, nor for vengeance, which is
a wicked thing.”
“May I say that you forgive your enemies, Bart?”
There was a long silence. “Is it a thing that should be forgiven,
Nonna--what men has been doing to us?”
“Men are ignorant, Bart--”
“These men are not ignorant, Nonna! Do you think that Judge Thayer is
ignorant of what he did? When he call us foul name such as I not like
to say before lady, is he ignorant?”
“I think so, Bart; he is one of the most pitiable of human creatures.
Think if I were to put it to you, would you have your body free, and
be shut up in the narrow dungeon of that man’s mind? Would you consent
to be mean, to be a cheat, and eaten up with hatred? When you realize
what a blessing has been yours in life, to have the vision, to know
the future as you do--can you not pity the poor wretch who lives in
darkness of the soul, and behaves like some cruel animal, not a man?”
There was a long silence. Cornelia looked at the face, with its frame
of steel bars; it was emaciated, deeply lined by suffering; the
dark-brown walrus mustaches drooped, and were partly hidden by the
bars. “Remember, Bart, what Comrade Jesus said. He forgave the men who
nailed him to the cross.”
“Sure, Nonna, that I can do! Poor fellows in this prison, who are
workers too, they have maybe wife and children, how can they stop the
evil thing? Many man in this prison knows what I believe, many do not
like to take life for the big capitalistas.”
“But the big capitalistas, the men who give the orders, Bart? The
judge, the governor, the college president?”
Again a long pause. “I will think about it, Nonna. I would not tell you
anything but truth, and it is not easy thing for me to say what you
want to hear.”
IX
They talked about the fearsome yet fascinating question of where Bart
was to be in two or three hours. “I don’t know, Nonna,” he said. “It is
strange idea. If I wake up somewhere, I be very much surprised. What
you think?”
“I cannot guess,” she said.
“I think we go back where we come from. It is like a bubble that go
back to be water again. This face, this voice, this what you call
Vanzetti, I do not think it will be like that anywhere.”
There came a voice from between the next row of bars: “That is all
bunk!” (Sacco had not been in America for nineteen years in vain.)
“When you are dead, you are dead, you no wake up. For us it come
quick, I like quicker. It is what I beg them long time ago.”
Cornelia turned to the speaker. “Is there anything I can do for you,
Nick?”
“Take care of wife and kids.”
“You may be sure of that; they will not suffer want.”
“I don’t worry for that,” said Nick, the free-spoken. “If all I want
was easy time for them, I would made it myself. Teach the kids what we
die for, make them some sense. That is it.”
A pause, and then from the far cell a timid voice: “Good-by, lady.”
“Good-by, Madeiros. Can I do anything to help you?”
“I am not like these fellows,” he said. “I done what they got me for,
I deserved it. But they don’t, they are good men; some day it will
be known.” The voice was slow and drawling, marred by only a slight
accent. Cornelia did not see the speaker, but she had met him before:
a thin, undernourished young fellow with a weak but amiable face and
small dark mustache. He was only twenty-one, and the doctors said he
was a half-wit; the job for which he was to die was the killing of a
bank-cashier in a robbery. He admitted it, and some other crimes.
Had he really been at South Braintree, or had he just climbed onto
the Sacco-Vanzetti band-wagon at the last moment, with a faint hope
of respite? Cornelia had never been able to make up her mind about
that. She had watched a curious little drama going on--Madeiros looked
up to Sacco and Vanzetti, as to social superiors; they were great
men, celebrities, and he was proud to be associated with them. Sacco
accepted his homage, but Vanzetti was extremely reserved. The young
Portuguese never stopped insisting that both were innocent, and that he
was the only guilty man.
Vanzetti spoke about Luigia, and what a joy it had been to see her--but
hard for her; such crowds, such excitement, and a terrible end. He had
tried to explain to his sister what it was to die as a martyr, not
the same as a criminal. She ought to have been able to understand,
because she believed in Jesus; but Jesus to her was something far away
and terrifying, to be dealt with by the priests. A wicked thing, that
ecclesiastical system, which enslaved the minds of the poor, and made
the name of God something which libertarians could not speak.
The prison authorities had been pleading with Sacco and Vanzetti to let
a priest or some kind of clergyman administer to them. It seemed to
the authorities dreadful to kill men and have their souls go to hell!
It was the first time the thing had happened in eighteen years, so
they said. But the three men stood firm--Madeiros taking a chance with
the others. They would never surrender the integrity of their minds.
“Giammai!” cried Nick; and added: “That says, ‘Not on your life,’
Nonna.” He was gay, being soon to get the freedom which he had craved
for so many years. Impossible to crush that spirit of steel springs;
and for the body, even though weakened by confinement and fasting, they
would need an extra voltage.
X
Cornelia wore a wrist-watch, and every now and then her glance would be
drawn towards it. The minute-hand seemed to be stealing time from her,
it would take jumps when she was not watching. Vanzetti sat on his cot,
and peering with one eye through the bars, saw a tear stealing down
the old woman’s cheek. “Nonna,” he exclaimed, quickly, “I want you do
something for me.”
“What is it, Bart?”
“Something very great, a last thing--something hard.”
“Tell me.”
“I want you to not be sad.”
“Oh, Bart!”
“It is easy to die. It is little thing--only for friends, for so many
women, grieving, weeping. It is--what you say, futile. Is most futile
thing in the whole world to have grief. Is it not so?”
“Yes, Bart--but--”
“Listen. I speak for all three. We are soldiers. It is our business to
die. What for do you weep? It is our job.”
“I will try, Bart.”
Vanzetti’s voice had taken on a note of sternness that Cornelia had
heard a few times, when in his imagination he was going to battle with
the capitalist class. “You remember, Nonna, we publish book, our
gruppo, ‘Faccia à Faccia col Nemico.’ All right. It is what we are
now. It is our dream, it is our life. What for do we ask you to weep?
Coraggio! Coraggio!” He went back to his childhood language when he was
deeply moved; and his voice stiffened Cornelia’s bent spine.
“Amica mia, you have been good soul to us. You have done more than
help, you have onderstood. Now onderstand once again--is it too much?”
“I will do my best.”
“We choose this death. Long ago we know it, we see him come. You be
anarchista militante, you die. You die by hangman of capitalist class.
All right, we choose. Every man have got to die, it is no great news,
it happen each day. Poor workingmen, rich capitalistas, all. But to
live forever, that is not so easy; to speak to all the world--how many
time do it happen to poor workingmen? To a couple of wops? Did ever you
hear such thing?”
“No, Bart, you are right.”
“Our life, it has been success; it is victory, like never we have
dream. Men stop, they say, ‘What is this anarchist? What is this men
believe, that they die so glad? What is this joostice? Have I got it?
Have I got freedom, or am I slave like they tell me?’ He ask, and he
begin to think--million men begin to think--it is something your great
Go-vérnor give us, something he cannot take! Our crown, our victory! Is
it not so?”
“Yes, yes, Bart!”
“Viva l’anarchia!” came the voice of Nick.
“Our bodies they kill, they make our souls immortal. Young workers take
up our cry--you see, Nonna, only wait, it grows all over the world,
the revolt of the worker, the message that men be free, that they work
for joostice, not for parasite. And we have helped, we have done a
part. Only one thing more to do, is to die brave; to walk to the chair,
smile, speak the truth to the end. So, amica mia, help us; no sad
thought, only coraggio! Tell our friends it is joy, not grief, it is
success, not failure.”
There is a contagion that spreads in human souls, and shakes the
thrones of emperors and kings. Cornelia’s hands were clenched and her
teeth set. “All right, Bart, I will do what you say. I will be with you
to the end, and afterwards.”
The warden stood in the doorway; and Cornelia rose to her feet, not
waiting for him to help her. “All right, Mr. Hendry, I am ready. I have
had a worthwhile hour. May I shake hands with my boys once more?”
“Yes, Mrs. Thornwell.” He came to help her, but she did not wait for
him. She took Vanzetti’s hand in a firm, strong grip. “Good-by, for the
last time, Bart. You have taught me more than any of the great persons
I have met in my life. I shall remember every word you said to me.”
“Good-by, Nonna. I thank you. Thank you for the good help.”
“Good-by, Nick. You have been a brave fellow. You have done your job.”
“Good-by, Nonna. Good-by to wife and kids. Teach them for me--what I
believe.”
Then Madeiros. He put out his hand, and Cornelia made no difference
between a hero and a criminal. “Good-by, my son. I hope the next world
treats you better than this one.”
“Good-by, lady.” He was a timid bank robber, who found this an
incomprehensible world. Anarchists sought to overthrow the rich, and
then the rich came to shake their hands!
Cornelia went to the door. The guard had risen, ready to help her if
need be; but she was doing her stunt. “Thank you, Mr. Hendry, these
three soldiers have given me back my strength.” She turned, and called:
“Good-by, dear friends! Good luck to you--and to your cause!” To a
chorus of good-by shouts in English and Italian she walked through the
death-chamber, past the chair with the gaping arms and the dangling
leather straps; her little head held high, her steps firm and proud.
Through the prison yard she went, steady, amid the beams of the drunken
searchlights, staggering this way and that; past the cell-blocks, with
white faces looking out, eight hundred and eighty-one human beasts,
roaring now and then, “Let them out!” Into the warden’s home, and
through the front door; through the group of policemen, and into the
waiting car with the anxious women.
“Mother! Mother!” They started to make a fuss, after the fashion of
families. She sank back in the seat and whispered, “Let me be quiet! I
have been talking with God.”
That happens also to families in Boston now and then. They thought,
“It has been too much for her mind!” and were frightened into silence.
They could not realize how this strange idea would haunt the minds of
men all over the world in this dreadful hour. John Haynes Holmes, a
clergyman, formerly of Boston, was writing at that moment a “Ballad of
Charlestown Gaol”:
_There’s a chair for you, Vanzetti,
In a cold and empty room;
A chair aloof and lonely,
Like a spectre in the gloom;
A chair with open arms and wide,
To welcome you to doom._
_They’ve made this chair, Vanzetti--
Good men, and strong, and true--
To manifest the will of God
On poor men such as you;
To show the Lord Christ lives again--
And dies, the Lord Christ, too!_