Boston a novel
of Massachusetts called upon you to render a most important service.
Although you knew that such service would be arduous, painful and
tiresome, yet you, like the true soldier, responded to that call in
the spirit of supreme American loyalty. There is no better word in
the English language than ‘loyalty’.” Thus again he related the trial
with the dead bodies brought back from France, and the patriotic
exercises going on all over the country. In the copy he gave out to
the newspapers he added the sentence: “Keep courage, gentlemen, in your
deliberations, such as was typified by the American soldier boy as he
fought and gave up his life upon the battlefields of France.”
The judge was supposed to be guiding the jury through the mazes of
technicalities, explaining the law, what they were to decide and what
not. He took two hours for his oration, and used more than half of
it in legal generalities and moral exhortations. He talked about God
and country, state and fellowmen, and the highest and noblest type
of true American citizenship “than which there is no grander in the
entire world.” He talked about the pure waters of the government,
“the grandest and noblest in the civilized world,” and he talked
about “the day that little band of Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.”
He used up so much time in that way that when he came to the mass
of identification testimony, he could deal with it only briefly and
in abstract terms. To the alibi testimony of the two defendants he
gave only a couple of paragraphs, and without mentioning any witness
specifically.
But he found time for an elaborate discussion of “motive” in connection
with crime. In great detail and at great length he explained that
the motive in the South Braintree crime was robbery--something never
disputed by the defense, and therefore needless to mention. The
question was, not if the South Braintree murderers had committed
murder, but whether Sacco and Vanzetti had been at South Braintree.
When the judge proceeded to deal with the wrong issue, it was plain
enough that he was throwing dust into the jury’s eyes.
And then the “consciousness of guilt,” upon which Thayer was to hammer
during the next six years of the case! He had deliberately obscured
this issue, by blocking the testimony about Salsedo and Elia; and now
he proceeded to give more than one-fifth of his time to explaining
to the jury what might have been in the minds of two men who lied to
the police when they were arrested. The judge who had not mentioned a
single alibi witness now found time to deal, point by point, and in
great detail, with the testimony of the arresting police officers, and
of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, to whose place Boda and Orciani, Sacco and
Vanzetti, had come on the night of the arrest. His charge called up the
most dark and sinister images. “If a person is willing to use a deadly
weapon such as a revolver upon an arresting officer in order to gain
his liberty, what would you naturally expect would be the quality of
the crime of which such person would be consciously guilty?”
And then the testimony about the bullet. Did the judge know about the
catch in Captain Proctor’s testimony? Solemnly and definitely he told
the jury that the captain of the State Police had testified: “It was
his (Sacco’s) pistol that fired the bullet that caused the death of
Berardelli.” Two years later Web Thayer would be twisting and turning
and wriggling like one of Vanzetti’s Christmas eels, to make people
think he was denying that he had said that to the jury; but there
were his words, and they were false, and they sealed the fate of the
two anarchist wops. Had not the great Mr. Katzmann told them, only
the afternoon before: “You might disregard all the identification
testimony, and base your verdict on the testimony of these experts.”
To exhausted and bewildered jurymen, looking for a life-line, this
was something to hang onto; and they grabbed it. Headed by their
flag-saluting foreman, who had said, “Damn them, they ought to hang
anyhow!” the twelve good Yankees and true retired to the jury room to
deliberate.
XVII
A hot summer afternoon; the jury locked in its room upstairs in the
court-house; the prisoners back in their cells in the jail; the judge
in his chambers; the lawyers, the court officials, the reporters
sitting about the grounds, under the heavy shade trees--the two sides,
prosecution and defense, keeping rigidly apart, a miniature war.
Cornelia went to her room in the hotel. She could not sit up; but
then she could not lie down; she would get up and pace about, doing
odd things, aimlessly. Impossible to read, impossible to think
consecutively; if any one spoke, you started; if the telephone rang,
you went faint. No one had eaten; the very thought of food made your
stomach uneasy. Betty would sit by the bedside and try to comfort her
grandmother; she would start to talk about something, and then realize
that she was not being heard; they would look, and discover fear in the
other’s eyes.
How long did juries usually take? Anywhere from an hour to two or three
days, said those who had experience. The longer they took, the better,
from the point of view of the defendants; so you must not be impatient!
But there ought to be some way provided by which the mind could be put
to sleep through such an ordeal. But then, no one could say for how
long the sleep should be!
“Betty, don’t you suppose we ought to see Bart?”
“Nonsense, Grannie dear,” said the girl. “You wouldn’t know what to say
to him, any more than you know what to say to me. Let me teach you the
Russian alphabet.”
At six o’clock they went out, and strolled toward the court-house.
The jury room was dark--Judge Thayer had ordered the twelve taken
to supper. Swenson and Moore were sitting on the grass--in their
shirt sleeves, something shocking to the proprieties of this staid
New England town. Workingmen might do such a thing, but never
gentlemen--unless they came from the wild and woolly west; it was
almost enough to convict their clients. They put on their coats and
stood up when they saw the ladies coming; they discussed the rumors,
which had begun to fly--how the jury looked, what a court officer had
been heard to whisper. Lee held Cornelia’s arm. “Keep a stiff upper
lip, Nonna! There are many legal tricks--this isn’t the end!” “Oh, Lee!
then you think--” “I don’t think--I wait! But prepare for anything.”
The jury was back again from supper. The lights were shining in the
upstairs room, the shades down. Now and then a shadow moved across.
Irresistibly your fancy was drawn to that room; impossible to be in
any other place, to think of any other thing. The twelve good Yankees
and true would be arguing; now and then they would take a ballot; they
would question the ones who disagreed, find out what was troubling
them, argue again, cite this detail and that, seeking to change the
doubters--but which way? Surely in all that group there must be some
who could think--some who could realize the hazardous nature of the
evidence--the almost complete lack of proof concerning Bart! But no,
Mr. Katzmann had told them that the reason the defense had concentrated
its arguments on Sacco was because they considered the case of Vanzetti
hopeless! He had said--
“What were you saying, Lee?” The lawyer had made a remark about the
swallows; they didn’t have that kind in the west. Yes, he was trying
to help her, to distract her mind! It was kind of him; he was one of
the kindest of men. She said: “Do they fly all night, Lee? Or does the
judge order them to bed?” And she did not know that he smiled.
XVIII
It was five minutes to eight o’clock. Suddenly one of the little groups
in front of the court-house began to melt and flow into the building.
One, and then another. People were going inside! Then loungers about
the square began to notice it, people in the corner drug-store;
like magic the word spread--the jury was ready! One of the guards
condescended to tell the lawyers--the sheriff had telephoned to bring
the prisoners over. It took about ten minutes to fetch them; and in
that time the court-room was crowded, and half the town of Dedham
thronged outside. The doors were locked, the armed policemen guarding
them.
The prisoners in their cage; Vanzetti tense, anxious, his brows
knitted; Sacco pale, almost green. A deep silence; then came the jury
filing in. One glance was enough; every man had his eyes fixed on the
floor. Lee Swenson made a gesture of despair. Cornelia saw it; and
caught Betty by the arm.
The jury was polled; they answered faintly to their names. Said the
judge to the clerk, “You will please take the verdict.” Said the clerk,
“Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?” Said the
foreman, “We have.”
The jurors rose; the prisoners rose; they stood facing one another.
“Nicola Sacco!” said the clerk, “hold up your right hand. What say you,
Mr. Foreman, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?”
“Guilty,” said the flag-saluting foreman. “Damn them, they ought to
hang anyhow,” added a voice from within him; but the clerk did not hear
that.
“Of murder?” said the clerk.
“Yes.”
“Murder in the first degree?”
“Yes.”
“On two indictments?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause.
“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, hold up your right hand. What say you, Mr.
Foreman, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?”
“Guilty.”
“Of murder?”
“Yes.”
“Murder in the first degree?”
“Yes.”
“On two indictments?”
“Yes.”
A look of incredulity was on the face of Vanzetti. He could not realize
that this had happened to him. He stood with his hand still in the air,
like a statue. The dead, expressionless face of the old judge was gray.
“Gentlemen of the jury, as I did this morning, I again offer you thanks
for the services you have rendered. You may now go to your homes, from
which you have been absent for nearly seven weeks. We will now adjourn.”
The bailiff began his familiar formula: “Hear ye! Hear ye!” But now
Sacco realized what had been done to him; he shouted above the bailiff:
“Sono innocente!” And then to the jurors, who were filing from the
court-room, “Two innocent men! You kill two innocent men!”
Mrs. Sacco had been close behind the cage. At her husband’s cry she
leaped to her feet and rushed to him, and flung her arms about his
neck. “You bet your life!” she cried--the only way she knew of being
emphatic in this strange tongue. “Oh, Nick! They kill my man!” Her
shrieks rang through the room--a terrible moment; women began to weep.
Sacco stood, caressing his wife, trying to comfort her; Vanzetti still
like a statue--not a sound from him. But Rosina’s shrieks rose louder
and louder; she fought away the lawyers who tried to disengage her
hands; she was a wild thing, possessed of more than human strength;
she thought they were going to take Nick away and electrocute him
that night, and the lawyers tried to explain to her the refinements
of American law--the appeals and technicalities, the infinitudes of
red tape, the millions of words to be printed and the hundreds of
thousands of dollars to be spent. But she only shrieked the louder,
“They kill my man! I got two children--what I do?”
Until at last the stern policemen pulled her hands away, and forced
her back, and formed a ring with Rosina outside. Quickly they locked
the handcuffs upon the prisoners--an old story to the police, American
efficiency. Snappy orders, “All ready! March!” Through the door they
went, guards outside closing about them, twenty-five men in a solid
bunch, guns ready. “Stand back! Out of the way there! Forward, march!”
The sheriff’s men flung a line across the street, holding the curious
onlookers, while down the street into the twilight went prisoners