Lessons of Sacco and Vanzetti

Just after midnight on August 23, 1927, two Italian immigrant radicals were killed in the electric chair in Boston. The execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti sent shock waves throughout the world, and millions watched in horror as their seven-year legal nightmare came to a close. As we mark the 80th anniversary of this landmark event, we would do well to consider the lessons that the Sacco and Vanzetti case -- and the sadly familiar era in which it took place -- offer us in post-9/11 America.

Sacco and Vanzetti came to America looking for freedom, adventure, and a chance to earn some money, much like tens of millions of other immigrants around the turn of the last century. Sacco worked in a shoe factory and Vanzetti was in itinerant fish peddler. Both had lived quiet lives in Italian immigrant enclaves near Boston, but their betrayal by their adopted country would make their names famous around the world.

The prosecution of Sacco and Vanzetti was the most visible outrage of the so-called "red scare" that followed the First World War. A nation caught up in the jingoistic spirit of war looked on approvingly as the federal government ran roughshod over civil liberties in an effort to apprehend and punish suspected enemies within our borders. An ambitious attorney general rounded up, imprisoned, and deported thousands of radicals, peace advocates, labor activists, and other undesirables, often without charges or hearings. Special zeal was directed at Italians, especially Italian anarchists, a small number of whom -- including Sacco and Vanzetti -- were committed to waging a revolutionary struggle against the American capitalist state.

But Sacco and Vanzetti were not put on trial for their political beliefs or for revolutionary activities. They were accused of a robbery at a shoe factory in which two men delivering the payroll were mercilessly gunned to death. The evidence against Vanzetti was non-existent. The case against Sacco rested largely on perjured eyewitness testimony and what now appears to have been manufactured ballistics evidence.

The outcome of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial had little to do the evidence presented in court. When the jury foreman was asked by a friend if he thought the two "guineas" might in fact be innocent, he replied "damn them, they ought to hang them anyway." When Sacco took the stand, the prosecutor focused on his radicalism and his opposition to World War One. After the jury provided a speedy conviction, Judge Webster Thayer threw out a series of subsequent appeals by defense attorneys citing perjured testimony and judicial bias. Thayer, who referred to the defendants as "anarchist bastards," even refused to consider the confession of a small-time criminal who said he'd participated in the robbery and insisted that Sacco and Vanzetti had nothing to do with it.

We'll never know if Sacco and Vanzetti committed the shoe factory murder, and the question of guilt or innocence remains politically volatile even to this day. A recent flap based on a misreading of a letter by the novelist Upton Sinclair is the most recent proof of the ongoing radioactivity of this subject. But to focus on the issue of innocence or guilt is missing the point. The more fundamental question is whether they received a fair trial, and the answer is a resounding no.

More important still is the question of what we can still learn from their story. As our country remains fixated on the threat of domestic terrorism today, we would do well to reflect on how we responded to similar threats eighty years ago. Were we really more secure as a country as a result of the unconstitutional attacks on radical movements in the 1910s and '20s? Did the judicial murder of Sacco and Vanzetti help protect us from crime and terror?

Muslims and Arabs have become the current targets of racial profiling in the name of protecting our security. Looking at history will remind us that such treatment used to be reserved for Italians, now a fully-assimilated immigrant group whose members includes two justices on the Supreme Court. Does a defendant's ethnicity or political creed continue to shape the kind of justice that we offer in this country? How often do we still think something along the lines of "damn them, they ought to hang them anyway" when considering the fate of a defendant from an unpopular ethnic group, or whose beliefs are antithetical to our own?

Sacco and Vanzetti's fate also raises unsettling questions about capital punishment. As hundreds of death penalty convictions are now being overturned due to the introduction of new evidence, can the electrocution of these two men 80 years ago remind us of the folly -- not to mention the brutality -- of killing a defendant before the truth is settled?

Perhaps the greatest lesson we can take away from the Sacco and Vanzetti case was its ability to inspire millions of people to stand up on behalf of justice and reason. As the case played itself out over seven years in the 1920s, the unfairness of Sacco and Vanzetti's treatment in the courts fueled protests not just in the United States but throughout the world. Protests erupted in Boston, New York, and dozens of American cities, as well as is Paris and London, Tokyo and Buenos Aires, numerous cities in Africa, and countless other places. Books, poems, operas, and works of art further publicized the story of the two men and their legal ordeal. Would such a movement happen today?

Peter Miller's documentary SACCO AND VANZETTI has just been released on DVD - check it out at www.willowpondfilms.com

Comments

[larry278]

A bit off thread. The LITTLE RED SONGBOOK remains out of print. These times cry for a reprint of the complete LITTLE RED SONGBOOK. It's probable that getting the rights to reprint the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK will be a time consuming & expensive hassle. The sales may not even cover the cost of reprinting. Who knows if including the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK with songs written after the latest edition of the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK would sell?
A person who reads HP regularly might be able to accomplish this task. It's doubtful if any other progressive site or other media is read by the few who are competent to accomplish this task. Good luck to those who even consider accomplishing this task.

[yellowdogSC]

What's the name?

[BadChristian]

I think that the fact that we are currently using rendition and black sites makes this a bit more troubling today.

Then you take a look at the Pat Robertson University grads that judge justice for us, and you see the politicization of everything including God... America is creepy place right now. The Right Wing is social disease that has spread to epidemic proportions because moderates don't care, don't read, don't protest, don't "like the news," but think being in the middle, and a majority, makes it alright, admirable, and even patriotic to slam liberalism for balancing against fascism. The business of America is big business...

[BarryChamplain]

When I was much younger, I saw an excellent, if profoundly disturbing dramatic movie called "Sacco And Vanzetti". It was made in Italy and directed by an Italian, Guiliano Montaldo, and featured an international cast (it was screened at Cannes). I'm not sure if it was widely distributed, but there was some media promotion (especially in places like New York), and it got great reviews and attracted a devoted audience.

I will never forget the shock we felt, seeing that movie and knowing it was based on real events that honestly did take place in America. It came out at the height of Nixon, remember. The group I was with left with an stunned, overall feeling of, "My God, we've ALWAYS been bastards!"

I strongly suggest two things: [a] SEE IT; [b] the next time some wingnut accuses you of wanting to "blame America first!"... make THEM see it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067698/

(And Peter, I look forward to seeing your documentary!)

[fulano]

Don't forget Ricardo Flores Magon, Mexican Anarchist, and camarada of Emma Goldman. Imprisoned in the USA for "obstructing the war effort", under the "Espionage Act 1917" he was
beaten and tortured to death in Federal Prison at Leavenworth Kansas. The authorities claimed he died of TB, he's still a hero in Mexico and many places around the world.
Some things never change.

[cktirumalai]

Sacco and Vanzetti; Ethel and Julius Rosenberg; Alger Hiss (he was not put to death). When I first came to America in 1960, these three cases loomed large in informal discussions on campus. They have a permanent interest because of the issues they raise.

[alkamm]

I'd like to think that the ACLU and other concerned groups would rally to support anybody who is railroaded as Sacco and Vanzetti were. Amnesty International certainly fights such fights, and the Innocence Project frees people routinely.
Apart from progressive institutional opposition to injustice, we are at the mercy of news media outlets that are more and more allied with corporate interests. They are not the watch dogs or muck rackers of the past and prefer to concentrate on the latest Hollywood bimbo eruptions. Bloggers probably constitute the best hope for bringing light to judicial outrages.

[progressivegreg]

another thing to add to your post alkamm, local media often (almost all the time) has the accused guilty before their arraignment, they act as judge and jury. And this where we are presumed innocent until found guilty by a jury of our PEERS!