Boston a novel
Carlo Balboni told how he had come home from his night work, and caused
Mrs. Fortini to wake Bart, so that he, Balboni, might be the first
customer. John Di Carlo, who kept a shoe-store, testified how Bart had
brought him eels while he was cleaning out the store, a little after
seven. Each of these witnesses was harrowed by the prosecution, who
sought by every legal trick to trip them up in their testimony.
The issue of “radicalism” was not supposed to be brought into the
trial; the jury was not supposed to know about it, and in the years
that were to follow you would hear judges and editors and governors and
college presidents and other eminent persons stoutly maintaining that
this issue had not entered the case until the defense had brought it in
at the second trial. But behold, here was the suave district attorney,
questioning the shoe-store proprietor: “Have you ever discussed
government theories over there between you? Have you discussed the
question of the poor man and the rich man between you?” And later comes
Michael Sassi, a gardener, to the stand, and the prosecutor asks, “Have
you heard anything of his political beliefs? Have you heard him make
any speeches to your friends in the cordage company?” This questioning
led by accident to some character testimony--in spite of the effort to
bar such testimony. Said the district attorney, “You have dined many
times with Vanzetti, haven’t you?”
“With Brini, as his guest, I dined many times: Vanzetti boarded with
him and sometimes he was present.”
“You used to play cards with the defendant?”
“Vanzetti does not play.”
“To smoke, didn’t you?”
“I do not smoke.”
“How many times have you drank with him?”
“Vanzetti does not drink.”
Said Bart, commenting on this evidence: “What a method to find out
whether I had been robbing in Bridgewater or delivering fish in
Plymouth on the 24th of December, 1919!” Poor Bart, who had to sit
in complete silence, watching all this from inside a cage, sternly
rebuked on the one occasion when he dared to interrupt! He had to see
the rascalities of the prosecution, and the unconvincing quality of
the defense--he who, from first to last, understood the case better
than any other person interested in it, even the most famous and most
expensive of lawyers! He who could read every motive, understand every
character, predict every event, and advise, generally in vain, what
should be done--he had to sit and watch everything done wrong, and ruin
come down upon him like a slow-grinding glacier.
VI
One by one came Italian witnesses, telling the story of Vanzetti’s
movements through every hour of that fateful day. Vincenzo Brini had
come home from night-work, and got some eels, and chatted with his
friend and former boarder. Bastoni, the baker, had refused to rent
the horse and wagon; the time was exactly seven-forty-five, because
the cordage whistle blew as Bart entered the store, and “that whistle
is our bread and butter.” And then Beltrando Brini, twelve years and
a half old, bright-eyed and eager, speaking very good English, and
thoroughly alert to the meaning of this scene. Trando had first been
with Bart about seven-thirty, and had been sent home to hunt out his
rubbers from the attic. He had rejoined Bart just as the latter left
the baker’s, and told about his disappointment over the horse and
wagon, and how he had talked about it every day thereafter. He told
how he and Bart had gone from house to house, up one street and down
another, delivering their eels, until two-forty that afternoon. He
named the streets and the people, described the houses and told of
conversations, every detail that lived in his mind.
And Mr. Katzmann took him and spent two hours trying to trap him;
making him tell parts of his story over and over, hoping that it would
vary; pretending that Trando had said things he hadn’t said; trying to
mix him up about the number of hours he had been with Bart--because
Trando took out the time he was hunting rubbers and the time he went
to lunch, and Mr. Katzmann pretended not to understand this. He asked
what did the basket of eels weigh, and could Trando carry it the long
route he had described. Trando replied that any one could see, the
basket got lighter as he delivered. In the end Katzmann had to give
up, and pay Trando the high compliment of calling him such another as
Katzmann himself. Turning to the jury he said: “The parents of such an
intelligent boy are right to be proud of him, but what he told you from
the stand is a lesson learned by heart.”
There came a string of Italian housewives, telling how Vanzetti had
sold them eels; eight or ten testified, and there were twice as many
more, but the lawyers said it would be a mistake, “the jury will be
bored with so much eel-talk.” If they refused to believe a score of
Italian witnesses, would they believe two score or three score? The
lawyers insisted that the alibi had been proved. But Bart was not
satisfied, he was angry because of the efforts of the prosecution to
claim that he had had a “cropped mustache.” He pointed to his soft and
silky hairs, which could not be got to stand out; there were so few of
them, that was why he had always worn his mustaches long; if he had
cut them short, there would have been nothing. For eight years he had
been going about this town of Plymouth with his walrus mustaches, and
everybody knew him; but this jury contained only one Plymouth man, and
did not know him. Bart insisted that the truth about his mustache must
be proved, and in a passion of indignation he told his lawyers that if
they did not do it, he would rise up in court and denounce them for
treason to their client.
So at the last moment the Italian “runner” went scurrying to find
some of Vanzetti’s friends who knew that his mustaches had never
been trimmed. Also Cornelia and Betty and Joe and the Brinis went
hunting--and strange was that experience, painful that discovery about
human nature, in this terror-ridden town of Cordage. Policemen who knew
Vanzetti, and had seen him on the street many times a week for eight
years, were afraid for their jobs if they testified as to the length
of his mustaches! Contractors who had hired him were afraid for their
future contracts! Italian barbers were afraid for their little shops,
and their little bootlegging on the side!
In the end they found two policemen who gave nervous and halting
testimony that Vanzetti had always worn his walrus mustaches. They
found an Italian cement contractor, Christofore, who had employed
Vanzetti, and found him a good workman, and had always known him with
his mustaches. The prosecuting attorney browbeat this witness, who
knew no English, asking him about the mustaches of this person and
that--among them of Beltrando Brini, aged twelve and a half years! He
asked about the proprietor of one of Plymouth’s big hotels--what kind
of a mustache did this gentleman have, and Christofore described it, a
small mustache that he was growing. After the noon recess the gentleman
was put upon the stand, and exhibited to the jury a completely
smooth-shaven face! What was the use of all this mustache-talk, said
the district attorney, when they put a mustache on a man who had never
had one?
The only time in her life that Cornelia ever heard Vanzetti swear
was when he talked about this dirty trick which had been played upon
him. For trick it was--whether the hotel proprietor had got shaved
especially for his appearance as a witness, or whether it had just
happened, that he had got shaved since the Italians had last met him.
This much was certain: Christofore had seen this hotel proprietor with
a mustache, and so had Vanzetti and many of his friends. The jury
could not know, because, with one exception, they were outsiders. But
Katzmann and Judge Thayer had sometimes been known to stay at this
man’s hotel, and to sit in front of his fire-place in the evening,
gossiping with him about what had happened during the day.
VII
Such was the closing scene of this duel of evidence. The jury listened
to the genial Mr. Katzmann become suddenly stern and patriotic. “Dagoes
stand together!” he exclaimed--and it was easy for them to draw the
conclusion that Americans should profit by their example. Then came
Judge Thayer, thin-faced, tight-lipped, sharp-voiced, such a great man
as these little men of the jury had been taught to reverence. Nothing
of the inferiority complex now, nothing of the restless uneasiness, the
vulgar craving for attention. It was the great actor now, playing the
part which had been his life-study. He knew exactly what instructions
to give to these Yankee jurymen, to appeal to their prejudices without
seeming to do so. When students of the case sought to ascertain what
he had said, it was discovered that the court stenographer’s notes had
been burned, and that the copy furnished the defense was strangely
lacking in part of the judge’s charge.
The jury retired to deliberate, and carried with them the four shotgun
shells which were alleged to have been found upon Vanzetti. They had
been identified as ordinary hunting shells, containing bird-shot, which
would not be apt to kill a man. But the jurors decided to investigate
further, so they opened them, and behold, they were filled with
buckshot, which would surely kill a man!
Now there is no point upon which English and American law is more
strict than this, that all evidence in a criminal trial must be
produced in the presence of the defendant. Vanzetti was entitled to
know about those buckshot, and to explain the fact if he could. Maybe
he would have taken the stand, maybe Sacco would have done so; maybe
they might have wished to ask, who had had the keeping of those shells
for the past six months, and what were the chances of their having
got mixed up with other shells. There were no identifying marks upon
them--but Vanzetti never had a chance to point this out. The jury went
ahead and brought in a verdict; and next day one of the jurors happened
to meet Judge Thayer in a restaurant, and showed him several of the
buckshot. Judge Thayer knew at once that if this story leaked out, the
whole expensive trial would go for nothing. He hurried to Katzmann,
who came and got the buckshot from the juror before he left the place.
Then Katzmann phoned the other jurors to come to his office, and warned
them, and the matter was hushed up.
It was half a year later that the facts got out, and then several of
the jurors made affidavits about it. An effort was made to invalidate
the trial on this ground, but the matter was never argued. If it had
been, it would have been argued before Judge Thayer! Whenever during
the next seven years the defense discovered new evidence, they would
make a motion for a new trial, and under the laws of the august
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a decision would be handed down by
Judge Thayer! When the defense set up a claim that the judge in the
Sacco-Vanzetti case had shown prejudice, they made a motion, and it
was referred to Judge Thayer, who solemnly listened to arguments,
and solemnly handed down a decision to the effect that he had no
jurisdiction! Incidentally he solemnly stated that he had no prejudice;
and this after he had been going about among his clubmates for several
years, saying, “Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards?”
The indictment charged “attempting to rob” and “attempting to kill.”
The judge in his instructions had directed that the second charge
should be ignored, because the evidence showed that the bandits had
merely sought to intimidate the guards; they could hardly have missed
their targets with a shotgun at such close range. But after the jurors
had opened the shells and found the buckshot, they decided to ignore