Boston a novel
Thompson, staggering under the weight of an enormous tome, the bound
volume of Guadagni’s daily paper, _La Notizia_, for the year 1920.
They laid it on the lawyer’s desk, open to the issue of April 16th,
and translated word by word a half column account of the banquet to
Williams on the previous day. The dinner had been a humble one, and the
report said, “A more formal dinner will be given.” The two lawyers,
who had been sunk in the depths of despair, now suddenly felt like
schoolboys. “This saves the men!” exclaimed Thompson. “This is our case
right here!”
The two middle-weight Italians, assisted by Gardner Jackson, lugged
the huge tome to the State House with the golden dome, and sat all
morning outside the tightly shut white doors. It happened to be the
two-hour session with Tootsie Toodles, and they listened to the comedy,
and shared the hilarity of the newspaper reporters. When Tootsie
rushed out, screaming, they were ushered in, and the tome was spread
out on the council table, and Guadagni offered to translate it for
Lowell--thereby giving offense, and being informed that the president
of Harvard University read Italian fluently. There was a long silence
while the three gentlemen read, more or less fluently; and finally the
President of Harvard University turned from the reading and shook hands
with the two Italians. “Gentlemen, I was under an impression which I
find was mistaken. I apologize.”
A stirring scene: the greatest man in Massachusetts, and therefore in
the whole world, apologizing to two wops! What more could two wops
want? Or two lawyers? Thompson advanced the idea that the Commission
should make some acknowledgment of the fact that the alibi had been
established. Trying to make something out of the incident for Sacco and
Vanzetti! But the great academic brain saw the ruse. That would come in
due time; that was an affair for deliberation. Lowell did go so far as
to say that he would give to the Governor an adequate account of the
evidence produced. But for the rest--no publicity! More quick little
waves of the imperious right hand. He reminded them sternly that they
were under pledge not to report anything about what happened at these
sessions.
Silence! Never so long as time endures must the populace know that the
University President of the Blue-bloods has been humiliated!
Some time later the defense got their copy of the stenographic record
of what had taken place, and they discovered thirty-two pages of the
attempt of Lowell to break down the testimony of Bosco and Guadagni,
but not a single line about the apology he had been compelled to make!
No reference to the dialogue that took place, nor to the argument of
defense counsel! There was a brief parenthetic note to the effect that
Bosco and Guadagni had brought in the files of _La Notizia_, but not
a word to show that the alibi testimony had thereby been restored to
credibility!
So was Joe Randall justified of his statement to Cornelia Thornwell,
“Your dolly is stuffed with sawdust!” Of his prophecy that the
haughtiest and most righteous blue-blood gentlemen would “doctor
the record,” exactly as “Web” Thayer, the vulgarian, had done! When
Cornelia heard that story, and got the full significance of it, she
went away to her own room, and sank down upon the bed and sobbed. It
became a sort of prayer: “Oh, God, let me die! Take me away! I am a
fool, and all my people are fools!”
VIII
In the meantime, through this hot month of July, Governor Fuller was
continuing the hearings in his own chamber in the same State House. “I
feel myself obligated to hear anybody they send”--so he declared; and
several times each week he motored up from his summer-home, escorted
by two police cars. The witnesses would file through his rooms, and
then go away in silence; a régime of secrecy modified by rumors and
whispers. If the witness was one who had testified at either trial,
the reporters would look up the previous testimony, and say that the
witness had told that same story to the Governor. If the witness
had said anything new that was injurious to Sacco or Vanzetti, the
reporters could get it in a round-about way. Otherwise they would call
it a “mystery witness.”
Each day the Governor’s impatience grew, and the pretense of
impartiality wore thinner. Ladies of refinement who had attended the
Dedham trial had the disagreeable experience of talking with a man who
made perfectly evident his belief that they were lying. Witnesses who
had one definite thing to tell would be challenged to tell some other
thing, and humiliated because they could not do it. Robert Benchley,
one of the editors of _Life_, came from New York to make statements
about the ravings of Judge Thayer at the golf-club of Worcester; to
his surprise he was challenged to point out one passage in the entire
record indicating that the trial had not been a fair one. Since
Benchley had never seen the record, he was “stumped”, like everyone who
interviewed the Governor. But he took the Governor’s advice and studied
the record; and then he took the trouble to write the Governor a
letter, pointing out many passages indicating unfairness. Like everyone
else who did this, he got no response.
Still stranger the experience of John J. Richards, lawyer of
Providence, Rhode Island, who had been United States marshal during
the war, and had arrested the Morelli gang, and had them all sent to
prison. He received a telegram requesting him to call on the Governor
of Massachusetts, and he came, at his own expense. He was asked,
abruptly, “What do you know about the Sacco-Vanzetti case?” He replied,
“I know nothing.” Said Fuller, triumphantly, “I thought so!” Richards
naturally wondered why he had been invited, and suggested that possibly
it might be because of what he knew about the Morellis and Madeiros.
Said the Governor sharply, “That matter is closed. The Madeiros
confession is an invention.” Then he proceeded to cross-question
his visitor: “Are you in the employ of the Defense Committee?” Said
Richards, much startled, “I am not. I know nothing of such a committee.”
Here was a former officer of the law, explaining what he believed was
the truth; and the supersalesman received him as a suspected criminal.
“What do you know about the South Braintree crime? Why did you wait six
years to come around and tell about it? Have you ever been in South
Braintree? How did they get you in on this Madeiros thing?” And so on.
Mr. Richards came out from under the golden dome in something of
a daze, and went to Ehrmann’s office. Rosina Sacco happened to be
there--tormented little woman, drawn and haggard, with her daughter
Inez, six years old, born after her father’s arrest. Richards listened
pityingly while she voiced her hopes in the Governor; afterwards he
said to the lawyer, “You might as well shut up shop. Those men are as
good as dead now. Fuller has no intention whatever of considering the
evidence on their behalf.”
IX
An author had written from California to the Governor, pleading
with him to go and meet the two alleged bandits, and judge their
characters. It was the author’s idea that no one could encounter the
soul of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and consider him a bandit. But the owner
of the Packard Motor Car Company of New England would show the author
a new line in souls. One morning the Governor left the State House,
and stepped into his car with police-officers, and sped away without
warning to Charlestown Prison.
Bart and Nick, as the sentences now stood, were to be executed on
August 10th, and were both in strict confinement; the little walk
across the prison yard which the prisoners got out of this interview
was their first glimpse of daylight for nearly a month. Both of the
men were on a “hungry strike”; they were going to starve themselves to
death, as protest against the secrecy of the Governor’s hearings. But
modern labor and suffrage agitation has established in the minds of
wardens and jailers the fact that human beings do not die of starvation
for a long time. Bart, on his seventh day of a fast, was able to walk
cheerfully across the prison yard to the warden’s office.
The Governor and the wop sat down together--no other witness. But
later on, of course, Bart told his friends about it. The Governor had
a question firmly fixed in his head, and which he used as a means of
“stumping” witnesses: “Why did not Vanzetti take the stand at the
Plymouth trial?” He now asked this question of Vanzetti. Since the
answer involved the whole story of Vanzetti’s radical beliefs, and his
relations to lawyers of Catholic and capitalist mentality, he was still
answering at the end of an hour.
The Governor had to leave then, because Lindbergh had come to Boston.
The Governor was due at a reception, but he promised to come back
and hear the rest of Vanzetti’s answer. He made his escape through
the warden’s home, running quickly to avoid the picture-snapping
newspapermen. They reported that he seemed greatly flustered; he
knocked off his straw hat while jumping into his car. Could it be that
a rabid anarchist had said something to offend the sensibilities of the
owner of the Packard Motor Car Company of New England? A picturesque
story, of which the newspapers would have made much more, if there had
not been the flying colonel, and also a million dollar prize fight to
be featured the next morning!
The great man came again, and talked with Vanzetti for two hours.
Like all salesmen, he had learned to be agreeable; he wore his fixed
professional smile, and shook hands with Bart at least ten times, so
Bart declared. That a man could “smile and smile and be a villain
still” was a thing not dreamed of in the philosophy of Bartolomeo
Vanzetti, and he poured out his heart, and explained his ideas--he took
the matter so seriously that he wrote a long letter adding things he
had overlooked. Bart told his lawyers he was sure the Governor would
not execute a man to whom he had behaved with such great courtesy. And
the lawyers also found the Governor’s manner encouraging. Said His
Excellency, genially, “I wanted to tell Vanzetti to eat!” And again,
“Isn’t Vanzetti an attractive man!”--it might have been a schoolgirl
instead of a supersalesman.
His Excellency also summoned Sacco to the warden’s office, and tried
to have a conversation; but this did not come off so well. Sacco was
polite, but not to be taken in by supersalesmanship. The conversation,
relieved of Italian dialect, ran somewhat as follows:
“Sacco, I want to have a talk with you.”
“There is nothing for me to say.”
“But I want your version of this matter.”
“I have not asked for a pardon.”
“But I would like to hear your story.”
“What is the use? You have your tendencies, and you could not see mine.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I am a poor man and you are a rich man, and we have
nothing in common.”
“But I was a poor man once. I worked in a rubber shop at seven-fifty a
week.”
“Yes, but now you are a millionaire, and your money thinks for you. I
have nothing to say.”
So the interview ended. Sacco was very gentle about it, and afterwards
he became a trifle remorseful. He said, “I didn’t treat him right. He
outdid me in courtesy. But I wanted him to know the truth. He won’t see
it the right way, and why should I let him fool himself?” Sacco was the
man with a formula; and for once the formula happened to fit.
Also the Governor summoned Madeiros to the warden’s office; and here
was the supersalesman handling a different line of goods. Madeiros
had taken the burden of the South Braintree crime upon himself, and
thereby put the ruling class of Massachusetts in an uncomfortable
position. Naturally, they would pay a price to get out of it. Said the