Boston a novel
in Mr. Walker’s favor. In the course of seven years the new owners had
made more than that amount of money out of the properties; but still
Mr. Walker had not got a penny. The case had been appealed to the
Supreme Judicial Court, and at last, in the fall of 1926, the seven old
gentlemen in black silk robes were ready to hear the argument. A great
event in the legal world of Boston: the highest priced lawyers in the
city pitted against one another, for the highest stakes in history.
You might be sure that none of the elderly judges would fall asleep
this time! They listened day after day, while more than two thousand
“exceptions” were explained and debated before them; the mere brief of
the plaintiff filled three printed volumes.
The wrangling over, the seven judges took their seven heads full of
arguments, and the printed briefs and the huge “bill of exceptions,”
to meditate and discuss among themselves. Three or four months they
would need to make up their minds; but--a dreadful circumstance, almost
blasphemy to mention--Rupert and Henry thought that they foresaw the
outcome! In strictest secrecy the word went the rounds of the family;
no need to worry, everything was going to be all right!
And so it proved. On the ninth of March, 1927, the black-clad justices
spoke the final word on the Jerry Walker case: declaring that the
verdict of the jury had been an error, and that the trial judge
should have directed a verdict for the banker-bandits. From this time
forth all banker-bandits who desired to put pistols to the heads
of businessmen need only have to take the precaution to make the
businessmen sign a paper forgiving them for the action.
An amazing decision for a court which was forbidden to deal with the
facts, and claimed that it never did so! The release which Jerry Walker
had been induced to sign, at the time that he had parted with his
properties, had been an obvious part of the conspiracy; he had signed
it in ignorance of what had been done to him, and one consideration
of the release had been his parting with more of his property. So the
jury had decided; but now the august justices stepped in and declared
that this was not so; the conspiracy had been over before the release
was signed, and “no fraud or duress entered into the execution of the
release.” In order to say this, they had to do exactly what “Web”
Thayer had done so many times in the Sacco-Vanzetti case; that is, to
shut their eyes to a mass of testimony which stood in the record. When
it came to sparing the rich or condemning the poor, all judges appeared
to be alike.
A great relief to the masters of the Boston banking-ring. No longer
need they fear having to part with most of their wealth acquired during
the last few years! They patted the old boys of the court on the back
at lunch-time in the Union Club, and told them that they were true
friends of sound and conservative business. All right to talk about the
case now; neither would there be any harm if you offered to take a son
or a favorite nephew into the bank at a generous salary. In time of
peace prepare for war!
Jerry Walker’s legal bull-dog was raising a howl, and talking about
appealing to the United States Supreme Court; but that was all
rubbish, said Henry Cabot Winters--the Federal courts would never take
jurisdiction. He went about among his friends and took his share of the
back-patting. The great bankers and lawyers who had made faces at him
now began to make smiles. Since they were to keep the money, they would
manage to forgive him for having forced it upon them.
John Quincy Thornwell was in Paris at the time of the decision,
and Henry sent him a cablegram which was the talk of Boston clubs
and drawing-rooms for many a day thereafter. “Tout est sauvé sauf
l’honneur,” said Henry. Since the World War all Boston blue-bloods
know French--or they have secretaries who help them pretend to. The
humorless president of the Fifth National Bank of Boston would find
somebody to translate and explain those shining words: “All is saved
but honor!” Goethe made the remark that every bon mot of his had cost
a purse of gold; but Mr. Jerry Walker operated upon the modern scale,
with splendor suited to the masters of mechanized production; he had
paid ten and one-half million dollars for that bon mot of the Back Bay!
XII
Property was safe, so now there was time to think about life. The
seven black-robed old gentlemen got to work on the Madeiros motion in
the Sacco-Vanzetti case--the last chance for a new trial. They had
been stung by world-wide criticism of the law’s delay, and wanted to
get the matter over, so that Massachusetts might have peace again.
The motion had been argued in February, and on April 5th came the
unbelievable opinion: Judge Thayer’s decision, like all his other
decisions in the case, had been “in his own discretion,” and it was to
stand! All lawyers commented upon the amazing contrast with the Jerry
Walker decision, less than one month earlier. When it was a question
of safeguarding the lives of workingmen, the Supreme Judicial Court
held itself powerless to deal with the facts, and could only pass on
the judge’s interpretation of law. “Finding no error, the verdicts are
to stand.” But when it was a question of protecting the property of
bankers, the court had not hesitated to set aside the verdict, and to
declare that the jury had been unjustified in drawing the conclusions
it had seen fit to draw.
The decision was written by Justice Wait, who had begun his public
career as an alderman of the city of Boston--an occupation which leaves
a man in no ignorance as to the relationship between business and
politics, and the power of big money in American affairs. Immediately
after the decision was made public, his home was put under guard, and
the homes of all the other judges, district attorney and officials.
Judge Thayer’s home had been guarded for the past nine months, and a
husky detective followed him everywhere he went.
It was “Web’s” hour of triumph, and he made the most of it. His cries
of exultation echoed through the dining-rooms of Worcester and Boston
clubs. He would button-hole acquaintances on the golf-links, and
boast of his perfect knowledge of legal precedents. “I told them they
couldn’t put it over on me! I wasn’t going to be intimidated by anybody
or anything! I told those damned fools they couldn’t hoodwink me! I
represent the integrity of the courts of Massachusetts, and I shall see
that the integrity is maintained! I taught a lesson to that long-haired
arnychist from California! Yes, and I’ll teach a lesson to the people
who are raising money and slandering the courts of this Commonwealth!”
A prominent member of the Worcester Country Club came out to his car
and told his family and friends how he had just been one of a group
of men to whom “Web” had been holding forth, referring to Sacco and
Vanzetti as “those bastards down there,” as “Bolsheviki,” and saying
that he would “get them good and proper”; that he would “show them
and get those guys hanged. No Bolsheviki can intimidate Web Thayer!”
In one of the clubs of Boston a horrified whisper went the rounds--a
United States senator had said to the steward in the dining-room: “If
you let Judge Thayer come to my table again, I’ll have you fired.” The
“blue-bloods” shook their heads and said it was a consequence of the
low type of men who were being appointed to the bench. But even so, the
courts must be upheld!
“Web” and the district attorney, who knew all tricks of the law,
were quick as a tiger in their next spring. No other appeals were
on file; and if “Web” sentenced the men, he would clinch the case.
After sentence had been passed, no other judge of the Superior Court
could take jurisdiction, and “Web” would be the undisputed master. On
April 9th, four days after the Supreme Court’s decision, he had the
two “Bolsheviki” brought to Dedham court-house, with the round white
dome and portholes like an ocean liner, and had them locked safe in
their cage--the same from which they had gazed at him six years ago
through a period of seven weeks. With rustling black robes he emerged
from his chamber, and took his seat upon his throne: a frail old man,
more withered than ever; badly scared, yet clinging desperately to
his dignity in this great hour of triumph. Lawyers and spectators
looking up to him, a score or two of armed men protecting him--inside
the court-room with automatic revolvers on their hips, outside on the
steps with rifles in hand. “I represent the integrity of the courts of
Massachusetts!”
XIII
“Nicola Sacco, stand up,” said the clerk of the court; and Nick rose,
pale and haggard, dressed in his best black go-to-court suit.
“Nicola Sacco, have you anything to say why sentence of death should
not be passed upon you?”
Poor Nick, he knew many reasons, which he wanted to shout to all
the world. But his friends had advised him that he could produce no
impression in a Yankee court-room, because of his blundering English.
He had made up his mind to let Bart speak for him; but standing before
that gray old man who had tortured him for six years; seeing the row
of newspaper men, with eager pencils poised, ready to flash his words
to the farthest ends of the earth--such a temptation was too much for
a propagandist soul. Nineteen years Nicola Sacco had been in America,
driven, humiliated, repressed; and here for the second time in his life
America was ready to listen. He spoke; and the court reporter and the
newspaper men kindly straightened out his dialect, and the world read:
“Yes, sir. I am not an orator. It is not very familiar with me
the English language, and as I know, as my friend has told me, my
comrade Vanzetti will speak more long, so I thought to give him the
chance.
“I never knew, never heard, even read in history anything so cruel
as this Court. After seven years’ prosecuting they still consider
us guilty. And these gentle people here are arrayed with us in this
Court to-day.
“I know the sentence will be between two classes, the oppressed
class and the rich class, and there will be always collision
between one and the other. We fraternize the people with the books,
with the literature. You persecute the people, tyrannize them and
kill them. We try the education of people always. You try to put a
path between us and some other nationality that hates each other.
That is why I am here to-day on this bench, for having been of the
oppressed class. Well, you are the oppressor.
“You know it, Judge Thayer--you know all my life, you know why
I have been here, and after seven years that you have been
persecuting me and my poor wife, and you still to-day sentence us
to death. I would like to tell all my life, but what is the use?”
It was no use whatever, and so Nicola Sacco sat down.
XIV
“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, stand up,” said the clerk of the court; and the
other figure in the cage stood up: thin, worn, and partly bald, but
with the droopy mustache as big as ever; a large, loose figure in a
neat black suit with a little black silk tie.
“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, have you anything to say why sentence of death
should not be passed upon you?”
“Yes,” said Bart, quietly.
And now he would reap the reward of those years of hard work in
his lonely cell; of his practice writing letters, and treatises on
syndicalism, and an autobiography, and a novel, and a translation of
Proudhon, and even a poem about a nightingale! Bart would be able
to find words; with hesitation now and then, but not too much; with
mispronunciation enough to be picturesque, but not enough to be
offensive. Quietly, firmly, he spoke, as one who has meditated long
upon his ideas; as one who was addressing posterity, rather than the