History Focus for August 23

A short focus on a person or event associated with this day in History.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti -

At 3:00 P.M. on April 15,1920, a paymaster and his guard were carrying a factory payroll of $15,776 through the main street of South Braintree, Massachusetts. Two men standing by a fence suddenly pulled out guns and fired on them. The gunmen snatched up the cash boxes dropped by the mortally wounded pair and jumped into a waiting automobile. The gang of four or five,sped away, eluding their pursuers. On the evening of May 5, 1920, two Italians, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, fell into a police trap that had been set for another suspect in the Braintree crime. The two were not originally under suspicion. Both men, however, were carrying guns at the time of their arrest and when questioned by the authorities they lied. As a result they were held and eventually indicted for the South Braintree crimes.

These events marked the beginning of twentieth-century America's most notorious political trial. The arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti came during the time of the most intense political repression in American history, the "Red Scare." The police trap they had fell into had been set for a comrade of theirs, suspected primarily because he was a foreign-born radical. Neither Sacco nor Vanzetti had any previous criminal record. They were long recognized by the authorities as anarchist militants who had been involved in labor strikes, political agitation, and antiwar propaganda. Because of the extreem national hysteria concerning foreign-born radicals, Sacco and Vanzetti lied to police when questioned about their radical activities. It should be noted that police did not question them on the specifics of the Braintree crime. These falsehoods created a "consciousness of guilt" in the minds of the authorities.

Their lawyer, Moore, decided it was no longer possible to defend Sacco and Vanzetti solely against the criminal charges of murder and robbery. Instead he would have them frankly acknowledge their anarchism in court. He intended to establish that their arrest and prosecution stemmed from their radical activities. Moore tried to expose the prosecution's hidden motive: its desire to aid the federal and military authorities in suppressing the Italian anarchist movement to which Sacco and Vanzetti belonged.

Moore's aggressive strategy transformed a little known case into an international cause celebre. After a hard-fought trial of six weeks, during which the themes of patriotism and radicalism were often sharply contrasted by the prosecution and the defense, the jury found Sacco and Vanzetti guilty of robbery and murder on July 14,1921. This verdict was only the beginning of a lengthy legal struggle to save the two men. It extended until 1927, during which time the defense made many separate motions, appeals, and petitions to both state and federal courts in an attempt to gain a new trial.

Motions for a new trial presented evidence of: perjury by prosecution witnesses, of illegal activities by the police and the federal authorities, a confession to the Braintree crimes by convicted bank robber Celestino Madeiros, and powerful evidence that identified the gang involved in the Braintree affair as the notorious Morelli Gang. All were ruled on and rejected by Judge Webster Thayer. All proved insufficient to bring about a new trial.

On April 9, 1927, after all recourse in the Massachusetts courts had failed, Sacco and Vanzetti were sentenced to death. By that time the dignity and the words of the two men had turned them into powerful symbols of social justice for many throughout the world. The public protested the unfairness of their trial. The governor of Massachusetts, Alvan T. Fuller, appointed an advisory committee to consider the question of executive clemancy. The committee, in a decision that was notorious for its loose thinking, concluded that the trial and judicial process had been just "on the whole" and that clemency was not warranted. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on August 23, 1927.

The execution became a watershed in twentieth-century American history. It became the last in a long train of events that drove away any sense of utopian vision of American life. American democracy now seemed as flawed and unjust as many older societies of the world. It was not a shining example of democracy and freedom. American democracy and justice appeared only to serve the interests of the rich and the powerful. Two men were executed on August 23, 1927 for a crime that they were not involved in. They were executed to further the career of J. Edgar Hoover as the director of the General Intelligence Division in the Department of Justice. They were executed becaue of the political climate endorsed by Congress. They were executed because of their political ties to the Italian anarchist movement. They were executed becaues of their ethnic background and because of fear.

Fifty years later, in 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakisdec;airs their innocence and establishes a memorial in the victims' honor.

Sources: Compton’s Encyclopedia | Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96

© Phillip Bower