Boston a novel
trunk which he had left, and they broke it open, but found no payroll
money, only a few pieces of shoe-leather, which some shoe-workers
consider they have a right to “swipe” from the company when they get a
chance.
Mike decided to arrest Boda, so he went to the house, but now it was
empty. Boda had disappeared, and the police found that suspicious. But
his little Overland car was in Johnson’s garage in West Bridgewater,
and Johnson was told to detain whoever came for the car, and thus have
a chance at the rewards.
So the trap was set; and two weeks later came an Italian by the name of
Orciani, driving a motor-cycle with a side-car containing Boda. At the
same time by street-car came two other Italians, Sacco and Vanzetti.
All four were anarchists, members of the Galleani group; they had made
this rendezvous at Johnson’s garage, for a purpose which was to be a
subject of controversy for the next seven years.
They went to Johnson’s house, and found that the car was repaired, but
had no license plates for the present year, so Johnson advised them not
to drive it; he kept them talking, while his wife ran to a neighbor’s
and telephoned to the police. But the four men became suspicious and
went away. Bart and Nick took the trolley to Brockton, and while they
were on the outskirts of the town a police officer entered the car and
drew a gun and ordered them, “Hands up!” Then was the time for them
to make use of the weapons they carried; for Bart to put into effect
his threat of not being taken alive. But alas, it was as Alfonsina
Brini had predicted, he didn’t know anything about using a gun. Pretty
soon came a second officer, and the prisoners were taken to the police
station and locked in cells.
For years Bart had studied the life and death of “Comradda Gesu,” and
“made tears” for him. And now came a strange coincidence. The first
action of one of the policemen, upon having got this criminal safe
behind bars, was to come to the door of the cell and call him. Bart
came, meekly, and looked through the bars, whereupon the other spat
full in his face.
The reason for this action was that among the documents found on Bart
was a letter from an anarchist friend, referring to the evil actions
of a certain priest, whom the writer called “a pig.” The policeman had
spat in defense of his religion, and turned away, fully satisfied in
his Catholic soul. His priests had not taught him to read the life and
death of Jesus; they had taught him that Jesus was a God, and if you
had asserted that Jesus was a working-class agitator, he would have
wanted to spit in your face also. But Vanzetti knew what had happened
to “Comradda Gesu” on the cross, and he wiped his face clean, and sat
upon the cot in his cell, with cold chills running up and down his
spine.
III
Sitting in their separate dungeons that first dreadful night, a common
thought was in the minds of both Sacco and Vanzetti. Less than three
days had elapsed since their comrade, Salsedo, had thrown himself, or
had been thrown, to his death. Were they going to share his fate? One
duty was obvious--to avoid saying anything that would involve other
comrades. So when they were cross-questioned, they denied that they
knew Boda, denied that they knew Orciani, and told lies as to where
they had been and what they had been doing. These lies were easily
exposed, and constituted the famous “consciousness of guilt,” upon
which the prosecution was to insist for seven years.
In spite of all fears, Vanzetti had refused to give up his appeal
to the workers. “Anarchista musta make propaganda!” He had planned
a meeting for the ninth of May, four days off, in Brockton, and had
drafted a circular, which Nick had in his pocket. So the police had
something else to study and discuss: a series of questions, crude, yet
with a primitive eloquence that disturbed even the dullest mind. “You
have fought all the wars. You have worked for all the capitalists. You
have wandered over all the countries. Have you harvested the fruits of
your labors, the price of your victories? Does the past comfort you?
Does the present smile on you? Does the future promise you anything?
Have you found a piece of land where you can live like a human being
and die like a human being? On these questions, on this argument and on
this theme, the struggle for existence, Bartolomeo Vanzetti will speak.”
It is an old idea, and has been haunting the minds of dreamers for
thousands of years; you may find it voiced by the prophet Isaiah
twenty-five hundred years ago. “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 reap.” It is interesting as a symptom of the mental state
of the time, that shortly before the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti, a
Christian clergyman in the city of Winnipeg, Canada, had been indicted
for the crime of quoting these ancient Hebrew words!
Among the questions asked of Bart and Nick was: “Are you an anarchist?
Are you a communist? Do you believe in the overthrow of the United
States government by violence?” These were the conventional deportation
questions, and were reassuring to the prisoners in fear of torture.
Bart answered them gently and tactfully. “I like things a little
different,” said he. When a friend came to see him next day, he smiled
and said, “Well, I get free trip to Italy!” So it was that Cornelia and
Betty, enjoying their second week of vacation, received a letter from
Fay--fifteen years old now, and quite a cultured young lady:
“DEAR NONNA:
“I write to tell you the sad news that Bart and Nick Sacco are in
the police station at Brockton. Bart asked to tell you he is not
treated bad, except for being spit on once. The lawyer says he will
be surely deported, because the police got a circular which he
wrote about a meeting to protest about the killing of Salsedo. Bart
says tell you he is happy because he will come to see you soon, and
please stay on the Italian lake and do not worry, because you have
worked too hard and should have a rest. As Nick was going anyhow
it will save him the fare so it is all right. I write in a hurry
not knowing when there goes a steamer, and Bart is afraid you might
read it in the paper and be worried.”
That was all for a week; then another letter:
“I am sorry to have to say that the arrest of Bart and Nick is
worse than what I wrote you. The police pretend to think that they
drove an automobile and shot two men and stole a payroll in South
Braintree last month. It is so silly that we cannot believe it yet,
and Bart himself does not believe it, he says it is just to get
something on him to deport. The comrades here have all paid money
and engaged a lawyer to get him off. Bart insists that I must tell
you there is nothing to worry for, as he was in Plymouth all that
day and talked with many people, like Mr. Corl who was fixing a
boat. And of course when they know about Bart they will not think
he could be a bandit. It will make you laugh to hear the police are
quite sure that Bart was the driver of the bandit-car, as you know
that he never had anything to do with a machine, and papa says he
is so clumsy he cannot drive a wheelbarrow. The comrades have found
a rich storekeeper who will put up bail, so we hope to have Bart
with us again soon. Please write him a nice letter in our care and
tell him you are not worrying, because it is something he talks
about each time we see him, that your vacation must not be spoiled
for him. You know how like him that is, thinking about everybody
else but his own trouble.”
IV
From Italian lakes the land goes back by stages, rising higher and
higher into the sky, and each stage has been taken in charge by
generations of strong arms and backs, and made into orchards and
gardens. Every smallest corner of soil has been terraced and buttressed
with walls, and dug and planted with a row of olive trees--or a row
of onions--up to where the bare rocks stick out and the white clouds
gather. Here and there in sheltered places are cabins built of stone,
and in them women breed prolifically, and send their progeny to
Massachusetts to be known as “wops.”
The lakes are blue, and the sky almost as deep a blue; by the middle
of May it is summer, and all the land is bursting with vegetation of a
thousand shades of green and olive-gray. The air is balmy, and ladies
from Europe and America put on gay dresses and wander about in the
gardens of villas and hotels, or drift on the water in little boats,
holding bright parasols overhead to protect their creamy complexions.
Everything is peaceful, and it is possible to float and sing “Kennst
du das Land?”--and have no idea that the peasants on the hillsides are
seething with hatred of their landlords, and forming coöperatives and
revolutionary societies, preparing to dump off their backs the age-old
burden of parasitism.
Here in a little inn by the water-side Cornelia found her granddaughter
Betty Alvin, carefully chaperoned by Joe Randall, American socialist
journalist aged twenty-eight, and Pierre Leon, French communist editor
aged forty-four. In the days before the war if a young lady from the
Back Bay had traveled about Europe with two gentlemen, she would have
caused herself to be ostracized for life; and maybe it was still so,
Betty wasn’t sure--but she was sure that she didn’t want to know any
one who didn’t want to know her. These two men between them had much
important information, so she had begged them to come to this Italian
lake while she waited for Grannie.
Pierre Leon was stocky and broad-shouldered, with a rosy face and
black mustache twisted to points. He had lived for years in London
teaching French, and in Berlin teaching English; he knew enough
Italian to attend labor meetings, and now was studying Russian because
revolutionary events demanded it. He had been an anarchist, then an
anarcho-syndicalist, for a long time a left wing socialist, and now
was a communist suspected of a right wing deviation. He had read most
books that had ever been published on these subjects, and most good
literature besides; he could talk brilliantly about anything, and
liked nothing so much as having some one to argue with until three in
the morning. He was supposed to be resting for his health, but it was
difficult for Cornelia to see where either health or rest came in, for
he lit one cigarette from another, and would work all morning writing
an article, study labor and radical papers all afternoon, and argue all
night about what he had read.
His qualifications as chaperon for an American young lady were
peculiar. He took toward all women the attitude of the continental
male, and this had caused in the American young lady a vigorous
reaction, which in return had caused in the continental male an amused
curiosity. Said Betty, “He thinks the purpose of woman is to submit
herself, and that every woman will, if the man is fascinating enough.
But I have made him understand that I’m a queer little New England
old maid, so now he’s a good sport and studies me.” Betty added that
Grannie was not to dislike Pierre on that account, because it was
his environment, all European men were that way, especially since the
war--the only difference was that the radical men could let you alone,
because they had other things to think about, whereas the leisure-class
men had nothing to do but chase women.
Joe Randall came from Virginia, and had wavy brown hair and a charming
slow drawl. Cornelia had met him in Russia, so she knew his story; he
had come as a young college graduate to an attaché’s position in our
legation at St. Petersburg, and had seen the war, the revolution, and