Boston a novel
Vanzetti, supposed to be in the possession of the medicos of Harvard,
so that they might probe into the secrets of how to be noble and how
to be eloquent and how to be a master of English prose--that heart and
brain had escaped from under their scalpels, and were here in the body
of a frail Irish girl, a reformed Catholic, speaking words which would
be woven into the texture of the new religion of humanity, and learned
by school children under the new dispensation. Said Mary Donovan,
addressing Boston’s martyrs:
“Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. You came to America seeking
freedom. In the strong idealism of youth you came as workers searching
for that liberty and equality of opportunity heralded as the particular
gift of this country to all newcomers. You centered your labors
in Massachusetts, the very birthplace of American ideals. And now
Massachusetts and America have killed you--murdered you because you
were anarchists.
“Two hundred and thirty-five years ago the ruling people of this State
hanged women in Salem charging them with witchcraft. The shame of those
old acts of barbarism can never be wiped out. But they are as nothing
beside this murder which modern Massachusetts has committed upon you.
The witch-hangers were motivated by the superstitious fear of an
emotional religion. Their minds were blinded by their selfish passion
to reach heaven.
“The minds of those who have killed you were not blinded. They have
committed the act in deliberate cold blood. For more than seven years
they had every chance to know the truth about you. Not once did they
even dare mention the quality of your characters--a quality so noble
and shining that millions have come to be guided by it. They refused
to look. They allowed the bitter prejudice of class, position and
self-interest to close their eyes. They cared more for wealth, comfort
and institutions than they did for truth. You, Sacco and Vanzetti,
are the victims of the crassest plutocracy the world has known since
ancient Rome.
“Your long years of torture and your last hours of supreme agony are
the living banner under which we and our descendants for generations
to come will march to accomplish that better world based on the
brotherhood for which you died.
“In your martyrdom we will fight on and conquer.
“Remember Justice Crucified. August 22. Remember.”
XII
Those who had strong nerves were privileged to go back into the
crematory, and look through a glass plate into the “retorts,” and see
the two bodies being resolved into their original elements--dust unto
dust, ashes unto ashes. Those who could not stand the ordeal by fire,
went out to face an ordeal by water; a downpour of rain such as Boston
had rarely seen, almost a cloudburst. A more superstitious age would
have said that the heavenly powers desired to wash the city clean, the
blood from its streets and the blot from its name. One of those natural
portents, like the rending of the veil in the temple, which accompany
the making of martyrs!
Yes, Boston had rejected the advice of the shrewd old Frenchman, and
made two martyrs. Mystic beings, with supernatural virtues, destined
to become a legend; to expand like the genii released from the bottle,
until they spread over the sky, completely overshadowing the city
and its fame. No more would Boston be the place of the tea-party and
the battle of Bunker Hill; Boston would be the place where Sacco and
Vanzetti were put to death!
And those two, the shining ones, the holy, who died to make freedom
for the workers! Already one saw the history of martyrology repeating
itself: the process of two thousand years crowded into one. Already
they were canonized beings, concerning whom it was forbidden to speak
any word but of praise; already there were men who worshiped their
ashes, and imprisoned those who followed their example!
And yet, obscurely, the symbol was working in the souls of men. A
hundred million toilers knew that two comrades had died for them.
Black men, brown men, yellow men--men of a hundred nations and a
thousand tribes--the prisoners of starvation, the wretched of the
earth--experienced a thrill of awe. It was the mystic process of
blood-sacrifice, by which through the ages salvation has been brought
to mankind!
A hundred million workers, shackled and blind, groping in a poison
fog manufactured by their masters, learned that two of their fellows
had been put to death for lifting the banner of freedom. In spite of
all the wrangling of the radical sects, that was a fact the meaning
of which could never be obscured; a fact which shone like a pillar of
fire in the workers’ night. Bart had succeeded in the purpose he had
declared, to give a meaning to his name. “It mean joostice, it mean
freedom, it cannot mean nothing but!” To a hundred million groping, and
ten times as many still in slumber, the names of Sacco and Vanzetti
would be the eternal symbols of a dream, identical with civilization
itself, of a human society in which wealth belongs to the producers of
wealth, and the rewards of labor are to the laborers. In the words of
the prophet Isaiah:
“And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall
plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build,
and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as
the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall
long enjoy the work of their hands.”
THE END
_Note_
On October 31, 1928, with the first edition of “Boston” printed,
bound, and about to be published, there appears in the _Outlook_,
an old established weekly magazine of New York, the true story of
the Bridgewater crime, of which Vanzetti was convicted; a detailed
confession by Frank Silva, one of the bandits who committed the
crime, the confession checked in every detail, and published with the
_Outlook’s_ endorsement. The following statements in the story will be
of interest to readers of this book.
First: The “shotgun bandit” was not Vanzetti, but a professional
criminal by the name of “Doggy” Bruno, who wore a closely-cropped
mustache.
Second: Frank Silva is the man whom Fred Moore was trailing. The lawyer
visited Silva in Atlanta penitentiary, where he was serving a sentence
for another crime, and endeavored unsuccessfully to persuade Silva to
admit the truth about the Bridgewater crime.
Third: The crime was planned in the headquarters of Jimmie (“Big
Chief”) Mede, a Boston crook, and the details of the affair were known
to Mede. Fred Moore came to see Mede, then in Massachusetts State
Prison, and offered him inducements to tell the truth. Mede refused,
because he was trying to get a parole, and knew that this would
interfere. The brother of John Vahey, Vanzetti’s lawyer at the Plymouth
trial, came in haste to Mede, along with “Joseph Ross” (that Rossi who
was interpreter at the Dedham trial, and was frequently Judge Thayer’s
chauffeur) and warned Mede to tell nothing about the Sacco-Vanzetti
case.
Fourth: When Sacco and Vanzetti were about to be executed, Mede was
so troubled in his conscience that he went to Governor Fuller, and
made a clean breast of the whole matter. Governor Fuller called in a
state detective, who so frightened Mede that he dropped the matter and
disappeared. Later, however, still worried because innocent men were
about to be executed, Mede went with two Italian lawyers to Captain
Blye of the state police, and endeavored to make a statement to him;
but Blye refused to hear him, saying: “Well, it is embarrassing; I
think it will be damned embarrassing.”
Fifth: In the efforts to check Silva’s confession, representatives
of the _Outlook_ were refused every sort of coöperation by the
Massachusetts police authorities, and mysterious threatening messages
were twice received by one of the _Outlook_ representatives in Boston.
Transcriber’s Notes
‣ Italics represented by surrounding _underscores_.
‣ Small caps converted to ALL Caps.
‣ Obvious typographic errors silently corrected.
‣ Variations in hyphenation, spelling and application of diacritic
marks kept as in the original.
‣ Correction:
p. 491: “I remember a years ago” to “I remember a few years ago”