Boston a novel
yet there is only a handful who understand justice, and not one who
will die for it!
VII
The fears of the defense, that they could not get their answer
before the public, proved to be groundless. In truth, no answer was
needed--the weaknesses of the Governor’s statement were so apparent.
Impossible to take the lives of two men upon the basis of such an
argument! There was a cry of dismay, so shrill that it penetrated even
to the sanctum of supersalesmanship. A sudden panic among the “State
House gang”; something must be done, and done quickly. The academic
autocrats were summoned to the defense of their Governor, and three
days later there appeared what was called the “report” of Lowell,
Grant, and Stratton to the Governor.
It was much longer than the earlier document, and in its heavy style
bore the marks of having been composed by President Lowell. It was
argumentative where Fuller’s had been assertive; it was fumbling where
his had been jaunty. The feebleness and confusion of its arguments
suggested the operation of aged minds. To disinterested persons, the
most striking fact was that the report could be judged without knowing
anything about the case. The elderly gentlemen had managed to make
their ineffectiveness evident in almost every paragraph.
Suppose, for example, that you picked up your morning paper, and read
what the Commission had to say about the evidence of Roy Gould, the
man who had got a bullet hole through his overcoat. “He certainly had
an unusually good position to observe the men in the car, but on the
other hand his evidence is merely cumulative.” What would you make out
of that? Assuming that you knew the meaning of the word “cumulative,”
why was evidence less valid because it was that? Wasn’t it the nature
of good evidence to be cumulative, and didn’t you try to make it as
cumulative as possible? Try some other word in that sentence: “his
evidence is merely convincing” or, “his evidence is merely conclusive”!
Then that amazing and incredible sentence, in which the three elderly
Brahmins summed up their meditations on the subject of one of their
victims: “On the whole, we are of the opinion that Vanzetti was guilty
of murder beyond reasonable doubt.” What did the three elderly Brahmins
mean by a man’s being guilty “on the whole”? Or by their being of the
opinion “on the whole”? Did they mean that there was some part of them
which was not of the opinion? Or did they mean that there was some part
of Vanzetti which was not guilty? On the Saturday when this report
was given out, the New York _Times_ made an effort to elucidate this
question; and the New York _Times_ is an important newspaper, whose
queries are apt to be heeded, even by blue-blood college presidents.
But apparently the Commission on the whole had decided on the whole
that it would be safer on the whole to take no chances on the whole.
The New York _Times_ recorded that “efforts to reach members of
the committee to clear up the exact meaning of ‘on the whole’ were
unavailing.”
But imagine the scorn and fury of young radicals--reading that
sentence, and not waiting to have the exact meaning cleared up! Said
Mistress Betty, now become ferocious: “Is he going to execute Bart on
the whole, or is he going to execute him completely?” She pictured the
august President of Harvard University appearing before the Judgment
Throne, and being informed that he was to be sent to hell on the whole,
and roasted for eternity on the whole!
VIII
The three elderly blue-bloods had had a comparatively simple task
laid out for them; they had been asked to decide whether Sacco and
Vanzetti had had a fair trial. Was it owing to their age, or to their
inexperience with criminal matters, or to their overwhelming prejudice,
that they had been unable to stick to their task, but must keep
confusing it with the question whether Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty?
The latter they could not possibly determine; they had neither the
time, nor the facilities, nor the training, nor the temperament. But
their self-assurance was such that they attempted it; with the result
that they fell to guessing, like everybody else, and they were so naïve
as to reveal this to a horrified world.
Thus, in declining to accept the story of Madeiros, they remarked: “If
he were tried, his own confession, if wholly believed, would not be
sufficient for a verdict of murder in the first degree.” Just what was
the significance of that? Were the old gentlemen suggesting that two
birds in the hand were better than one in the bush? And then, their
extraordinary statement, that the evidence of Gould was “balanced” by
that of Tootsie Toodles! Joe Randall said that such “balancing” ought
to be exhibited on the vaudeville stage.
The handling of the Proctor confession had come to be a test of the
honesty of official persons in Massachusetts; and it proved that
each new person would find some new method of dodging the truth. The
three elderly blue-bloods showed themselves fully as cunning as their
predecessors. Said they: “Counsel for the defendants claim that the
form of the question and the answer was devised to mislead the jury.”
That was a fact; and it was an instance of how to lie while stating
a fact. Counsel “claimed” it; but why put the burden of the “claim”
onto counsel, when counsel were merely restating the confession of
Proctor? And then to go on and say: “But it must be assumed that the
jury understood the meaning of plain English words.” These learned
Boston gentlemen claiming that Proctor had used “plain English words,”
when Proctor himself had stated that he had used obscure English words,
and for the purpose of confusing the jury! Let the common sense of
mankind judge whether a jury of mechanics and working people would find
no obscurity in the statement that the mortal bullet was _consistent
with_ having been fired by the Sacco pistol! And when both the district
attorney and the judge had pretended to misunderstand it, and had told
them that it meant what it did not mean!
And then to be nasty, and hint that their own high police official,
who had served them faithfully for forty years, and now was dead and
unable to defend himself, had made his confession because the district
attorney had refused to pay him five hundred dollars for his expert
testimony!
To Cornelia Thornwell this report meant the end of all things; her
joy in life was gone. For prejudice and trickery on the part of a
motor-car salesman she could make snobbish allowances; but in the
case of A. Lawrence Lowell no such recourse was available, he was her
kind of person, the best she had to offer. For years she had gone to
commencements, and listened to his ponderous wisdom, and thought he was
a great man; and here in a test she discovered that he had listened to
all the gossip, and swallowed the whole “theory”!
She knew what would happen, if she went out among her friends to argue
against this report. The friends would gaze at her in dismay. “But, my
dear, _Mr. Lowell_ says they are guilty!” If she persisted, the friends
would add, “But my dear, Mr. Lowell _investigated_ the case! He gave
more than half his vacation to it!” Those who knew her well, including
the members of the family, would say, “But Mother, you _wanted_ Mr.
Lowell, and now you won’t abide by what he says!”
Impossible to make headway against such a tide! In New York men could
read that report, and judge it for what it was, a revelation of the
mental breakdown of a once-great civilization; but in Boston hardly any
one could judge it, Mr. Lowell did the thinking of half the city. He
was a god, and had descended from his throne, and devoted his mighty
intellect to the affairs of two obscure wops; now for these wops
and their supporters to refuse to accept his verdict was not merely
blasphemy, it was ingratitude and impertinence.
IX
William G. Thompson withdrew from the case. One more lawyer had failed;
one more lawyer had made enemies, and thought it would help Sacco and
Vanzetti if he took himself out of the way. But each time it was made
clear that the cause of the hatred was Sacco and Vanzetti, no one
else; the new lawyer, whoever he might be, would be as much hated as
the old one.
They took Cornelia’s advice, and went to the old stock, and retained
Mr. Arthur Dehon Hill. Silver hair and rosy cheeks and a manner of
complete assurance, he should have been Arthur Beacon Hill, according
to Joe Randall. He was so correct that he dared to make jokes about it.
Real “Old Boston,” he thought that every criminal, even an anarchist,
was entitled to a fair trial, and to have a lawyer do the best for him
that the legal game allowed. But to his surprise he discovered that a
great many persons, even lawyers, were strongly disapproving of his
conduct in defending these enemies of society.
He started work on Saturday, the sixth of August; and on the night
of Wednesday, the tenth, his clients were due to die: rather a short
time-limit for the mastering of a complicated case! He began with an
appeal to the Governor to extend the time; and the Governor replied
by silence. He filed notice of an appeal to Judge Thayer for a new
trial, on the basis of newly discovered evidence, and also--delightful
inspiration!--on the ground that Sacco and Vanzetti had not had a fair
trial, because the trial judge had been prejudiced! Judge Thayer agreed
to give up making golf-scores in Ogunquit, Maine, and appear in Dedham
Court House on Monday morning, to judge whether Judge Thayer had been
prejudiced against Sacco and Vanzetti!
Also Mr. Hill started an appeal before Justice Sanderson of the Supreme
Judicial Court, to try to get another motion before the full bench of
that Court. Some jumping about for one lawyer, especially when all
the courts closed at noon on Saturday. Elias Field was helping, and
also Michael Angelo Musmanno, a young lawyer who had been sent on from
Pittsburgh by some Italian societies. A naïve and warm-hearted person,
Catholic and conservative, he had fallen in love with an anarchist
infidel and an anarchist atheist, and was bewildered by the hatred
which unloving Boston felt for his clients. A hectic three weeks the
young lawyer spent chasing about New England and Canada, in motor cars,
and now and then in airplanes, hunting supreme court judges on vacation.
Other lawyers giving advice, some of them secretly. One was Henry
Cabot Winters--hush, not a word! He would call Cornelia on the phone.
“Mother, I don’t want to get mixed up in this, but you’d better tell
those fellows not to overlook saving all their exceptions as basis of
a writ of certiorari to the Federal courts; and tell Hill not to let
‘Web’ get a single point on him--challenge his right to hear a word,
or decide any issue, on the basis that it is a prejudiced decision.
And when you go to a Federal judge, don’t overlook Moore v. Dempsey
261 U.S. 86.” Cornelia would have to say, “Wait! Wait! Let me get
that down!” She had been wrestling with the powers that ruled her
Commonwealth for seven years, but she had not yet learned to have a
pencil and pad at the telephone.
Also professors of the Harvard Law School helping--and no secret
about that, but on the contrary, picturesque scandals for the Hearst
newspapers! A war between the law school and rest of the university,
between Frankfurter and Lowell! Lowell had been disapproving of Jews as
professors, ever since eight years ago, when another of them, Laski,
had made a speech to the wives of striking policemen, while Lowell was
preparing to lend the students of his university for strikebreakers.
Now here was Frankfurter defending two anarchists in a book, while
Lowell was sentencing the incendiary pair to death.
A pretty fight, difficult to keep within the limits of academic