Sacco and Vanzetti

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Nicola Sacco (April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were two Italian anarchists, who were arrested, tried, and electrocuted in the American state of Massachusetts, on charges of murder of Frederick Parmenter, a shoe factory paymaster, and Alessandro Berardelli, a security guard, and of robbery of $15,766.51 from the factory's payroll, although there was popular doubt regarding their guilt, stirred in part by Upton Sinclair's novel Boston. The murder and robbery occurred on April 15, 1920, with three robbers.

Both Sacco and Vanzetti had alibis, but they were the only people accused of the crime. As a result of what many historians feel was a blatant disregard for civil liberties, and a strong anti-Italian predjudice, Sacco and Vanzetti were denied a retrial. Judge Webster Thayer, who heard the case, allegedly described the two as "anarchist bastards".

Sacco was a shoe-maker born in Torremaggiore, Foggia. Vanzetti was a fish seller born in Villafalletto, Cuneo.

1 Background and reactions
2 Later investigations
3 The involvement of Upton Sinclair
4 Sacco and Vanzetti in Arts
5 External links
6 References
7 Bibliography

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Background and reactions

Fear of communism was high at this point in American history, the so-called Red Scare of 1919 to 1920. Neither Sacco nor Vanzetti had any previous criminal record, nor were they communists, but they were known to the authorities as radical militants who had been widely involved in the anarchist movement, labor strikes, political agitation, and anti-war propaganda. Sacco and Vanzetti claimed to be victims of social and political prejudice, and as Vanzetti said in his last speech to Judge Webster Thayer:

"I would not wish to a dog or a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth — I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical, and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I am an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian... If you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already". (Vanzetti spoke on 19 April, 1927, in Dedham, Massachusetts, where their case was heard in the Norfolk County courthouse.[1])

Many famous intellectuals, including Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Bertrand Russell, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, campaigned for a retrial but were unsuccessful. Famed lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter also worked for a retrial for the two men. On August 23, 1927, after seven years of incarceration, the two men were sent to the electric chair. The execution sparked riots in London and Germany. The American Embassy in Paris was bombed by protestors.

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Later investigations

One piece of evidence supporting the possibility of Sacco's guilt arose in 1941 when anarchist leader Carlo Tresca told Max Eastman, "Sacco was guilty but Vanzetti was innocent". Eastman published an article recounting his conversation with Tresca in National Review in 1961. Later, others would confirm being told the same information by Tresca.

In addition, in October 1961, ballistics tests were run using Sacco's Colt automatic. The results suggested that the bullet that killed Berardelli in 1920 came from Sacco's gun. The relevance of this evidence was cast in doubt in 1988, when Charlie Whipple, a former Globe editorial page editor, revealed a conversation he had with Sergeant Edward J. Seibolt when he worked as a reporter in 1937. According to Whipple, Seibolt admitted that the police ballistics experts had switched the murder weapon, but Seibolt indicated that he would deny this if Whipple ever printed it. The gun is also said to have gone in and out of police custody and been dismantled several times between 1927 and 1961.

Evidence against Sacco's involvement included testimony by Celestino Madeiros, who confessed to the crime and indicated that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti took part. Madeiros was also in possession of a large amount of money ($2800) immediately following the robbery, whereas no links to the stolen money were ever found with Sacco or Vanzetti. Judge Thayer rejected this testimony as a basis for a retrial, calling it "unreliable, untrustworthy, and untrue."

Further evidence on the Sacco and Vanzetti case came in November, 1982 in a letter from Ideale Gambera to Francis Russell. In it, Gambera revealed that his father, Giovanni Gambera, who had died in June 1982, was a member of the four-person team of anarchist leaders that met shortly after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti to plan for their defense. In his letter to Russell, Gambera claimed, "everyone [in the anarchist inner circle] knew that Sacco was guilty and that Vanzetti was innocent as far as the actual participation in killing".

On August 23, 1977, exactly fifty years after their execution, Governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation stating that Sacco and Vanzetti had not been treated justly and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names".

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The involvement of Upton Sinclair

In 2005, a 1929 letter from Upton Sinclair to his attorney John Beardsley, Esq., was publicized (having been found in an auction warehouse ten years earlier) in which Sinclair revealed that he was told at the time he wrote his book Boston, that both men were guilty. During the trial Sinclair met with Sacco and Vanzetti's attorney Fred Moore.

Sinclair revealed that "Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth, ... He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them. ... I faced the most difficult ethical problem of my life at that point, I had come to Boston with the announcement that I was going to write the truth about the case". A trove of additional papers in Sinclair's archives at Indiana University show the ethical quandary that confronted him (Pasco 2005).

In January 2006, more of the text of the Beardsley letter became public casting some doubt on the conclusion that Sinclair believed Moore's statement:"I realized certain facts about Fred Moore. I had heard that he was using drugs. I knew that he had parted from the defense committee after the bitterest of quarrels. ... Moore admitted to me that the men themselves, had never admitted their guilt to him; and I began to wonder whether his present attitude and conclusions might not be the result of his brooding on his wrongs"CNN.

If Sinclair did not give any credibility to Moore's statement, it would not have been "the most difficult ethical problem of [his] life". On the other hand, Sinclair's public position was consistent in asserting the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti. Both Moore's statement and Sinclair's scepticism of it were mentioned in a 1975 biography of Upton Sinclair, despite claims that the contents of the letter were a new or "original" development.

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