Boston a novel
The old gentleman became instantly serious. “My dear Aunt Cornelia, I
gossip about every family in the world but one!”
II
Cornelia set forth her problem. The Italians who were trying to save
the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti found no difficulty in believing that
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was corrupt. They knew all the
bootleggers--some of them _were_ bootleggers--and were used to paying
the police. But Cornelia herself found it hard to believe that the
woman, Mrs. De Falco, who told them they could buy the freedom of Sacco
and Vanzetti for fifty thousand dollars, really knew what she was
talking about, and had the power she claimed.
Quincy Thornwell looked thoughtful. “Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of
money, Aunt Cornelia, even for our politicians. My advice would be, say
forty, and when you come to the real showdown, it will be thirty.”
It might have been possible to see a humorous aspect to that reply, but
Cornelia was not in a smiling mood. “You mean it is genuine, then?”
Quincy answered, it surprised him a little, coming from Plymouth and
Norfolk counties. Suffolk everybody knew about, it was Irish, and the
decent people had moved out and let the “micks” have their own way.
Suffolk County comprised the city of Boston proper; and years ago,
when it had gone Democratic, the old aristocracy of wealth and fashion
had begun an exodus, and now lived in suburban towns, where they could
run their local governments and spend their own taxes. They regarded
Boston as the place where they came to clip their coupons and do their
shopping and go to the theater. So long as the politicians refrained
from stealing the banks and public buildings, the blue bloods generally
let them alone.
“It sounds like regular city hall stuff,” continued Quincy. “You know
that people refer to the city hall as the ‘steal works.’ When they
arrested those wops, the gang thought they had no friends, and could be
sent up without trouble, and it would be a good mark for the police.
But now it appears they have money, and money is more than good marks.
It seems obvious enough.”
“Quincy, do you think a civilization can endure on the basis of
corruption like that?”
“No, of course it can’t.”
“You give up our civilization?”
“I gave it up a generation ago, when I saw we didn’t have sense enough
to keep the scum of Europe out. We built a nation on the basis of
self-government, and we could do it because we had people who were
capable of self-government. But when we let ourselves be overrun by
hordes of peasants, we signed our own death-warrant. A few of us old
fogies protested, but we couldn’t stop it, and we gave up. I said to
Uncle Josiah, thirty years ago, I wouldn’t touch politics again with a
ten-foot pole. And Father said the same.”
“Josiah insisted we could teach them, Quincy.”
“The last thing in the world they want is to learn anything from us.
They hate us because we are different, and better, and we know it.
All they want is to rob us of everything we have. You saw those wops
plundering the shoe companies--and now the Irish step in to plunder the
wops. That’s the way it goes in the jungle.”
“But, Quincy, the government in Norfolk County is Yankee, and so are
most of the voters!”
“That’s all right, but if you dig into it, you’ll find it’s the Irish
ring, mark my words. Some of the loot will go to Larry Shay, the head
fixer for the crime concessions.”
Said Cornelia, “I went to see Shay about this case. Henry told me he’d
be a good lawyer to try it.”
“None better in Massachusetts. What did he say?”
“He wanted fifty thousand dollars.”
Quincy had one of his spells of chuckling. “And you didn’t notice the
coincidence in price! Don’t you see, Aunt Cornelia--when you didn’t
take up Larry’s proposition, he tried it on the Italians! He figured
that you, being a simple old lady, might really believe the wops to
be innocent; but the Italians wouldn’t share your touching faith, so
they’d talk turkey. If the politicians had been wise, they’d have
warned the Italians not to mention the matter to you.”
“As a matter of fact, they did,” admitted Cornelia. “They tried to keep
Lee Swenson out also. The woman has refused to meet him.”
“Well, there you are,” said Quincy. “He has a bad reputation--he’s
a labor agitator and a publicity seeker, and they want to deal with
criminals. No, Aunt Cornelia, you don’t have to worry about it, all you
have to do is raise the money. Have you got it in sight?”
“I don’t know. Some of the Italians have hinted it might be got.”
“Send out the boys and raid another payroll!” said Quincy, with a grin.
“Well, I’ll tell you, I’m not a millionaire, as you know, and I have
to work for my money--even though it seems easy to those who never
played the market. But I’ll chip in a few thousand to help you out of
this trouble. I think the family would put up the whole amount, if they
could be sure it would teach you a lesson.”
“You mean,” said Cornelia, “I would never again believe in the
government of Massachusetts?” There was a naughty twinkle in her eye.
But now her worldly-wise old nephew was “talking turkey” himself. “I
mean that you’d take a little care of yourself, and quit fooling with
anarchists.”
“But, Quincy, don’t you think it is up to us people of the old stock to
set the wops an example? If I sell out, what will be left for them?”
“Don’t you really want to get your friends out of trouble?”
“Yes, but I want to get a lot of others out of trouble also. It would
be a poor bargain, from our point of view, to save two men from the
electric chair and leave millions in slavery.”
“Now, Aunt Cornelia, don’t start your Bolshevik propaganda on me! I
know I’m a parasite and a bloodsucker, but every last one of your wops
would take my place if he could get it, and I assure you, before he
does get it, he’s got to fight.”
To which Cornelia replied: “If you only knew how much like a Bolshevik
you talk, you’d be quite shocked by yourself!”
III
The first serious split in the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee was
developing over the problem of the De Falco offer. On the one side was
Lee Swenson, backed by Betty and Joe, who were like two bloodhounds
held in leash. On the other side were some of the anarchists--those who
stayed in the background, and were not seen in headquarters.
Lee Swenson came to Cornelia. “Nonna, we have a marvelous case to
fight. I know what I’m talking about, I can make it the most famous
labor case in American history, if the committee will only stand behind
me, and give me the funds. This De Falco thing is plain blackmail; the
police know that Sacco and Vanzetti are innocent of the crime, but they
think they’ve got other things on the group, and expect to trade on
our fears. You know how it is with the anarchists, they are liable to
be deported--and maybe there are other secrets that break their nerve.
Some of them want to settle; they won’t say it plainly, but they are
blocking my moves.”
“But, Lee! Yesterday Bart said to me he’d rather die than be bought
out.”
“I know; but Bart is in jail, and it’s the committee that is paymaster.
I have an idea some of them are going ahead with their plans to raise
the money and close the deal. If we persist in having our way, they
might throw us down and ruin us.”
“Oh, surely not that!”
“You are new at the game of intrigue, Nonna. It might even happen by
accident--we have got to allow for the spies on our committee. The
prosecution will have one, and the Department of Justice will have one,
and they probably won’t even know each other. If we delay too long and
talk too much, we may find ourselves arrested, charged with an effort
to bribe the noble-minded authorities.”
Joe and Betty had already made a few automobile excursions, following
Mrs. De Falco’s car. They had seen it spend a couple of evenings parked
near the car of the gentleman who was to be employed for a retaining
fee now reduced to forty thousand dollars. On one of these occasions a
public official’s car had come up, and he had entered the house. Also
Lee Swenson had investigated some “references” the woman had offered;
that is to say, murder cases and other crimes which had resulted in
dismissals and acquittals through her intervention. What Lee found was
that when he started to question the lawyers and relatives who had
negotiated these settlements, they became ill at ease and refused to
talk--which was to be expected under the circumstances.
Also he had an “investigator” looking into Mrs. De Falco herself. She
was one of the many who hung around the courts, looking for openings to
be of service to lawyers and witnesses. In short, she was a “runner,”
one of those who intervene between accused persons and lawyers.
Ignorant foreigners who have broken the law are badly frightened, and
the “runner” is a comforting friend, who helps to steer them in a
strange world--and incidentally finds out how much money they have, or
how much their friends can raise, so that the lawyer can fix the fee
at the maximum, and then “split” with the “runner.” Such a person soon
learns the tricks of the courts, and profits by many forms of graft.
An odd circumstance, that the investigators reported Mrs. De Falco had
an improvident husband, and the fruits of her legal labors went to
maintain a home for several children. A complicated world to work in!
She persisted in refusing to see Lee Swenson under any circumstances;
so Lee sent to New York for his dictograph--the one he had used in
breaking up the government witnesses in a frame-up against the I.W.W.
in Seattle five years previously. He set it up in the room where
Felicani had been meeting Mrs. De Falco, a big barren place in an old
tenement house, next door to a print-shop. He got his own stenographer,
and another whom he could trust--and whom the jury would have to
trust, because she had served with the A.E.F. in France! The trap was
set for seven o’clock in the evening, and the De Falco woman came on
schedule time and repeated her assurances of what she was able to do,
and explained that it was impossible to come any lower in the price.
Meantime several persons strolled casually into the room and out
again, so as to be able to testify that Felicani and Mrs. De Falco were
talking; and the stenographers diligently took down what they got of
the conversation. Unfortunately the printer next door, not having been
warned of the plot, started up one of his presses, which caused the
dictograph to sound like an avalanche in Switzerland!
However, part of the conversation was recorded; and now, what next?
Some of the committee insisted upon waiting, they wanted to get money
and mark it, and pay it to Mrs. De Falco. But they delayed to act, and
Lee Swenson suspected they were playing for time, their real purpose
was to raise the full amount and settle the case. He insisted, such a
story would not lie quiet more than a day or two; so many persons knew
about it, and the moment the authorities got a hint it was a matter of
minutes which would act first. Joe Randall, as a newspaper man, backed
up Lee in this; everything depended on how the story first reached the
public. If the authorities filed a complaint, charging Felicani with an
effort to purchase justice, that would be what the world would believe
about the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, regardless of what evidence
might later be produced. Trust the capitalist press for that!
So Lee took matters into his own hands, and filed a complaint, charging
Mrs. De Falco with soliciting a bribe. It was a matter for which some
of the anarchists never forgave either him or Joe. Who were these two,
non-anarchists, therefore enemies of anarchism, to come in and play
with the lives of two comrades? To involve Sacco and Vanzetti in an