My name is Fred J. Weyand. I reside in Portland, Maine. I am a Special
Agent of the Attorney General’s office of the State of Maine, and have
been since I resigned as an agent of the Department of Justice about a
year and a half ago.
I became connected with the Department of Justice in the year 1916,
and shortly afterwards became a Special Agent with an office first at
24 Milk Street, Boston, later at 45 Milk Street and later at 7 Water
Street, where the Department had offices on the eighth floor, and
later at the Post Office Building. My duties as Special Agent were in
general to investigate and report upon any and all violations of the
penal code which I might be assigned to investigate by my superiors,
who were first Frederick Smith, next George E. Kelliher, next John
Hannahan, next Charles Bancroft and last Lawrence Letherman. These
were my superiors while I was working from the Boston office. I
occasionally worked in other parts of the country and then came under
other superiors temporarily. I was a Special Agent during the entire
administration of Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General of the United
States, and was concerned in the activities against the so-called Reds
or Radicals, including arrests and deportations which were instigated
by Mr. Palmer, and which included the wholesale raids made in the
month of January 1920, in some of which I participated.
Sometime before the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti on May 5, 1920—just
how long before I do not remember—the names of both of them had got in
the files of the Department of Justice as Radicals to be watched. The
Boston files of the Department, including correspondence, would show
the date when the names of these men were first brought to the
attention of the Department. Both these men were listed as followers
or associates of an educated Italian editor named Galleani. Galleani
was the publisher of an anarchistic paper. He lived in Wrentham and
published his paper, I think, in Lynn. Among other persons associated
with Galleani were Carlo Tresca, Carlo Valdinoci and David Tedesco.
The suspicion entertained by the Department of Justice against Sacco
and Vanzetti was that they had violated the Selective Service Act, and
also that they were anarchists or held Radical opinions of some sort
or other.
A man named Feri Felix Weiss was transferred from the Immigration
Bureau to the Department of Justice in Boston in the year 1917, and
remained a Special Agent of that Department in Boston until 1919, I
think. He then travelled abroad and returned in 1920 and opened an
office as a scientific detective and lecturer at 7 Water Street,
Boston, with an office on the floor below occupied by the Department
of Justice. In 1925, Weiss returned to the Immigration Department at
Boston, where he is at the present time.
William J. West, who is now a Special Agent of the Department of
Justice, became such in July or August 1917. Prior to that he was an
Immigration Inspector with Feri Weiss. Since his appointment as a
Special Agent he has spent most of his time in the Boston office of
the Department of Justice, having in charge during the past seven
years the so-called Radical Division of the Department of Justice,
which has been in operation since about 1917.
During the year 1920 I did a good deal of work in the State of Maine,
but was in Boston for several days at least once every two weeks. I
have knowledge that the result of the trial before Judge Anderson of
the Radicals or Communists, as we called them, arrested at the time of
the raids above referred to, and of the decision of Judge Anderson
freeing many of them and of his criticisms of the Department of
Justice, was to make all agents of the Department of Justice in Boston
more cautious afterwards in proceeding against suspected Radicals.
Shortly after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti on the charge of the
South Braintree murders, meetings began to be held by sympathizers,
and I was assigned to attend these meetings and report to the
Department the speeches made. We also assigned a certain “under cover”
man, as we called him, to win the confidence of the Sacco-Vanzetti
Defense Committee, and to become one of the collectors. This man used
to report the proceedings of the Committee to the Department agents in
Boston, and has said to me he was in the habit of taking as much money
collected for his own use as he saw fit. So far as I know, no evidence
was obtained of utterances at any of these meetings which warranted
proceedings against anybody. Mr. West was also attending meetings of
Sacco-Vanzetti sympathizers during the same period. The original
reports thus obtained were sent to the Washington office of the
Department of Justice and duplicates kept in the Boston office, where
I believe they now are. I know that at one time as many as twelve
agents of the Department of Justice located in Boston were assigned to
cover Sacco-Vanzetti meetings and other Radical activities connected
with the Sacco-Vanzetti case. No evidence was discovered warranting
the institution of proceedings against anybody. I have no present
recollection of the trial of Vanzetti for the alleged Bridgewater
robbery; but when the joint trial of Sacco and Vanzetti for the South
Braintree murders began in the summer of 1921, the Department of
Justice at Boston took an active interest in the matter. I was
assigned to cover the trial for the purpose of reporting the
proceedings and picking up any information that I could in regard to
the Radical activities of Sacco and Vanzetti, or of any of their
friends. Mr. West also attended the trial for the same purpose. I was
not personally in touch with Mr. Katzmann, the District Attorney, or
his office, but Mr. West was in touch with them and was giving and
obtaining information in regard to the case.
Going back now before the trial, a certain John Ruzzamenti had been
informally employed by special agents of the Department of Justice
from some time in the year 1917, to furnish information concerning
Radical activities and evasion of the draft by Italians, and in this
connection had made an investigation of Tedesco, above referred to,
who was once arrested in consequence of information furnished by
Ruzzamenti, but was never tried. During this time Ruzzamenti also
worked occasionally for detective agencies. He was well known to
Weiss.
I have been informed by Mr. West and believe, and therefore allege,
that there was another Italian whom the Department occasionally used
for similar purposes, named Carbone and that he, under an arrangement
with the District Attorney, the Sheriff, and Mr. Weiss, was placed in
the cell next to the cell of Sacco sometime during the year 1920 for
the purpose of winning the confidence of Sacco, and thus of obtaining,
if he could, incriminating evidence against him, but no evidence of
the sort was obtained by Carbone. The primary purpose of the
Department in putting Carbone there was to obtain evidence, if
possible, concerning the so-called Wall Street explosion; but it was
also hoped that other incriminating evidence might be obtained.
Sometime in the early part of the year 1921, I was informed by
Ruzzamenti that he had been sent for by Weiss, who was then out of
Government service, to come on here to help convict Sacco and
Vanzetti; that he had seen Katzmann, and that an arrangement had been
made by which he was to secure board in the house of Mrs. Sacco and
obtain her confidence, and thus obtain information; but that
arrangement had never been carried out, and he had not been paid. I
annex to this affidavit photostatic copies of parts of a letter which
I identify as in the handwriting of Weiss.
Shortly after the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was concluded I said to
Weiss that I did not believe they were the right men, meaning the men
who shot the paymaster, and he replied that that might be so, but that
they were bad actors and would get what they deserved anyway.
Instructions were received from the Chief of the Bureau of the
Department of Justice in Washington from time to time in reference to
the Sacco-Vanzetti case. They are on file or should be on file in the
Boston office.
The understanding in this case between the agents of the Department of
Justice in Boston and the District Attorney followed the usual custom,
that the Department of Justice would help the District Attorney to
secure a conviction, and that he in turn would help the agents of the
Department of Justice to secure information that they might desire.
This would include the turning over of any pertinent information by
the Department of Justice to the District Attorney. Sacco and Vanzetti
were, at least in the opinion of the Boston agents of the Department
of Justice, not liable to deportation as draft dodgers, but only as
anarchists, and could not be deported as anarchists unless it could be
shown that they were believers in anarchy, which is always a difficult
thing to show. It usually can only be shown by self-incrimination. The
Boston agents believed that these men were anarchists, and hoped to be
able to secure the necessary evidence against them from their
testimony at their trial for murder, to be used in case they were not
convicted for murder. There is correspondence between Mr. Katzmann and
Mr. West on file in the Boston office of the Department. Mr. West
furnished Mr. Katzmann information about the Radical activities of
Sacco and Vanzetti to be used in their cross-examination.
In the years 1922–1924 Mr. West had working for him as “under cover”
or secret operators an Italian and a Syrian or Armenian. The Italian
worked as a printer. I do not remember the names of either of them;
but I know that he put the Italian in as a linotyper in the office of
an Italian newspaper in Boston as a spy. The Syrian or Armenian is the
man to whom I have referred above as having become a collector for the
Committee.
From my investigation, combined with the investigation made by the
other agents of the Department in Boston, I am convinced not only that
these men had violated the Selective Service rules and regulations and
evaded the draft, but that they were anarchists, and that they ought
to have been deported. By calling these men anarchists, I do not mean
necessarily that they were inclined to violence, nor do I understand
all the different meanings that different people would attach to the
word “anarchists”. What I mean is that I think they did not believe in
organized government or in private property. But I am also thoroughly
convinced and always have been, and I believe that is and always has
been the opinion of such Boston agents of the Department of Justice as
had any knowledge on the subject, that these men had nothing whatever
to do with the South Braintree murders, and that their conviction was
the result of co-operation between the Boston agents of the Department
of Justice and the District Attorney. It was the general opinion of
the Boston agents of the Department of Justice having knowledge of the
affair that the South Braintree crime was committed by a gang of
professional highwaymen.
I annex hereto a picture of Mr. Feri Felix Weiss printed on the
outside of one of his advertisements.
So ends as fine a picture of the inner workings of the Spanish
Inquisition as has seen the light in many a day. I can’t help quoting
again Judge Thayer’s very pertinent question:
“Have Attorney General Sargent and his subordinates ... stooped so low
and are they so degraded that they are willing by the concealment of
evidence to enter into a fraudulent conspiracy with the government of
Massachusetts to send two men to the electric chair, not because they
were murderers but because they were radicals?”