Boston a novel
asked her why, the answer was that she could not bear to step on the
bugs and other creatures in the path. Is that your Bart?”
“It might be.” Cornelia smiled.
“Yet this girl had blown up human beings with bombs, and had done
other acts of desperate cruelty. She did them for the cause.”
“Yes--and I have to remember that Bart had seen just as dreadful
evidence of class tyranny in America as that girl had seen in Russia.
So I say: ‘It might have been. I cannot be sure.’ But you know, Henry,
I lived in a crowded little place with him for over a year, and I never
heard--”
“Your hearing was handicapped by the fact that you didn’t understand
his language, Mother.”
“That is true. I learned to understand simple things, but not political
discussions, of course.”
“Did you read his literature?”
“No, only what he translated to me.”
“In other words, what he considered proper for you to know--the
sentimental and idealistic part. Did you ever see a book called ‘Faccia
à Faccia col Nemico’--that is to say, ‘Face to Face with the Enemy’?”
And Henry held up a thick book, bound in red paper covers.
VII
The little room in the apartment on the north side of Beacon Hill
vanished, taking with it two years and a half of tragic history. Bart
was a free man, selling fish in Plymouth, and Cornelia and Betty were
paying him a visit, a few days before Betty’s sailing for Europe. There
came two Italians with a motorcycle and a side-car, Coacci and Orciani,
bringing a heavy package which Bart showed to Cornelia, with a twinkle
in his dark eyes, saying that it was a bomb. He opened it, and showed
her what he called “mental dinnameet.” “I take heem queek, I get him
distriboot, never let polissman get heem, giammai!”
“Yes, Henry,” said Cornelia, “I have seen that book.”
“Bart’s group were the publishers of it, were they not?”
“Yes.”
“But you never read it?”
“No, Mr. Katzmann!”
“Mr. Katzmann is relieved to hear you say so. It is a dreadful book,
Mother.”
“I know that it contains the life-stories of various anarchist martyrs.
They were fighting for liberty in Europe, Henry--”
“Yes, if you insist--for liberty of a sort. But the point to get clear
is, they were fighting with bombs and the assassin’s dagger. Without
exception, they were men who did such terrorist acts; and all of
them were idealists--many of them men of fine personal morality--who
wouldn’t eat meat, or would step aside to avoid killing a bug. They
correspond in every way to your boys--with the single exception that
they admitted their guilt, and boasted of it.”
“A considerable difference, Henry.”
“Not when you consider the special circumstances. There is no hope for
a revolution in America, but there is hope in Italy--or there was two
years ago; so America is the place where money is collected, and Italy
the place where it is spent.”
“You are talking about banditry again, now?”
“I am talking about both; for they are mixed up together in this book.
I felt sure you hadn’t read it, so I had some translating done; a few
passages that are crucial I took the trouble to verify myself, looking
up word after word in the dictionary, so that I could assure you I
wasn’t being fooled by the police.”
“That was very patient of you, Henry.” She saw the deep anxiety on the
face of her son-in-law, and understood that he had come to wrestle with
the powers of darkness for her soul.
“Here, for example, is a passage from the introduction. It tells us
that these martyrs are worthy of emulation, and that we must not let
the world’s disapproval influence or frighten us. Listen:
“‘To the latest critics of anarchism Ravachol appears a detestable
degenerate; Caserio an epileptic or a paranoiac; Bresci a desperate
self-destroyer.... But to the modern free people the enormous
importance of individual acts of revolt remains unchallenged as a
promise and a symptom.... Such acts are the thousand year stones of the
great revolution; the first abrupt, short-lived sparks which the ashes
of indifference easily cover and preserve, to be revived stronger than
ever by, and added to, the great fire of freedom.’
“Now, Mother, why do men write and print and circulate words like that,
unless they mean what they say? Read the book, and you discover that
Ravachol was a bandit-anarchist; he made a business of robbing the rich
and giving the money to the poor. He was scrupulous about it, never
keeping a penny for himself.”
“I never knew Ravachol, Henry, but I do know Bart and Nick, and the
idea does not fit them--it is unthinkable.” And she added: “I am
arguing against violence on both sides, Henry; and neither will pay
attention to me. Which side do you think ought to begin--those who have
everything they want in life, or those who suffer misery and outrage?”
VIII
Henry Cabot Winters was not interested in pacifism; he was turning over
the pages of the red-bound book. He got up and came over and laid it on
the arm of the Morris chair in which his mother-in-law sat. “Look at
that!” he said. “A diagram of one of the bombs used by the assassins.
Is that strictly historical information? Or is it literary? Don’t you
think it possible that the men who printed that picture might have had
in mind that bombs could still be made that way? There are nearly five
hundred pages of such stuff, Mother.”
“My guess about the matter would be this, Henry: that Vanzetti was the
despair of his group--he could not follow along. He would have been
torn between rage and pity--just as I am.”
“Here is ‘Fight for Your Lives.’ Here is the leaflet, ‘Plain Words’--an
outrageous thing, widely circulated. I am told, Mother, that when
Swenson and Moore went over Vanzetti’s anarchist books to get some
exhibits for the jury, they had to reject many because they were too
violent. They ventured to use others, only because the jury couldn’t
read them. Maybe you know if that is true.”
“Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t, Henry.”
“Don’t worry, Mother. This is a family matter.”
“Go ahead and tell me what you know.”
“I know that those fellows were up to some devilment the night they
were arrested. They told a tangle of lies to the police--”
“You must know what had happened to Salsedo and Elia, Henry.”
“Yes, and it was a good reason for lying that night. But why go on
lying for a year afterwards, when they knew what they were arrested
for, and knew their lies had all been nailed down? Why go on lying to
their own lawyers? I am told that Swenson and Moore couldn’t get the
truth out of them at any time--and we don’t have to rely on police
spies for that, Mother, it is in the record. Were you there the day Tom
McAnarney cross-examined the couple--what were their names?-- Sacco and
Vanzetti came to their house the night of the arrest.”
“The Johnsons. Yes, I heard that.”
“Well, the cross-examination aimed to show that the Johnsons weren’t
sure about recognizing the men. In other words, Sacco and Vanzetti were
going to deny they were there, and only after the trial started did
they decide on the other story--that they had been hiding anarchist
literature. I am told that the men’s own lawyers know they were hiding
dynamite--the men have admitted it.”
“All I can tell you, Henry, is this--if it’s true, the lawyers haven’t
told me.”
“They wouldn’t. But here’s another story--that Lee Swenson tried every
way he knew to get you to make an alibi for Vanzetti; he didn’t give up
until the very last day of the trial. Is that true?”
“I told you I wasn’t going to answer questions, Henry.”
The other smiled. “That is answer enough, Mother. But don’t
worry--nobody is going to get anything out of me. And don’t imagine I
am being shocked--I know the game of criminal law.”
Said Cornelia, “I have heard that some of our blue-blood lawyers have
been known to frame testimony.”
“Yes, Mother, I have done it, more than once--when I was good and sure
the other fellow was doing it. I am not after Lee Swenson--I am just
trying to convince you that those two adopted sons of yours are not
sentimental pacifists and saints.”
“I never thought that of them, Henry.”
“Well, it’s what your literature is telling the public. You are
collecting money on that basis, from persons who wouldn’t give it on
any other.”
“I am telling the public I believe the men to be innocent of the crime
of which they have been convicted; that I attended both trials, and
consider them travesties of justice. That is all I can tell, because it
is all I know.”
“Not quite all, Mother--if you will pardon me for reminding you. Will
you tell the public what doctrine these men taught? Will you say they
circulated books calling for bombings, and giving diagrams of bombs?”
IX
There was a long silence. At last Cornelia said: “The public is
ignorant. It believes that men who had anything to do with dynamiting
would be apt to engage in banditry, and ought to be executed anyhow.
To admit the possibility of dynamite means death. But surely, Henry, a
lawyer can distinguish. Also you can see that it is impossible for me
to establish a negative--to prove the men’s innocence. It is not enough
for you to show a possibility--even of dynamite! You must bring real
proof.”
Henry smiled. But then, noting a tear on the old woman’s cheek, his
tone became gentler. “You don’t like to hear that your anarchist friend
may have deceived you, Mother?”
“No, my son, not that at all. I know Vanzetti so much better than you
could imagine--it is as if he were sitting in this room, listening to
the conversation, and explaining matters to me. When I face the idea
that he may have associated with terrorists, then I think, not that
he deceived me--of course he would have had to deceive me, for his
friends’ sake, if not for his own. What I think is, how he must have
suffered--more even than I guessed!”
“The persons who were blown up with bombs also suffered, Mother.”
“Yes, I know, and that is what the world thinks of, inevitably.
The bombs were aimed at members of our class, and they were highly
inconvenient. But you see, I have been trying to understand both sides;
to find out, not merely how bombs are made, but how bomb-makers are
made. While you hear dynamite exploding, I hear policemen’s clubs
falling on strikers’ heads. Don’t forget, I was on the picket-line,
and heard that sound, I saw such crimes committed, I said to myself:
‘Never again will I blame these workers for anything they do!’ I said
‘anything,’ Henry--and now I don’t forget that I said it.”
“I know, Mother--”
“You don’t know! You haven’t the remotest idea! You cannot dream what
it feels like to be down there in the social pit, stamped upon by the
hob-nailed boots of policemen, and the iron-shod hoofs of horses!
To have clubs splitting your skull, or beating your flesh black and
blue! Remember, I saw Vanzetti carry a half-conscious man off the
picket-line, I sat by while he bathed the broken head, I saw him
weeping, I heard him babbling like a child, incoherent, hysterical,
with mingled grief and rage. He has that temperament, he suffers more
than either you or I do--he cares--that is the difference, he really
cares! You and I care whether we have our dinner in proper style,
whether the Madeira is real or not, whether the lobster was alive
or not, whether the chicken is the right age and the salad dressing
sufficiently solid, whether we have got on the right costume and the
right tie, whether we hold our knives and forks the right way, whether
we make a sufficient display of worldly cynicism, whether we are
sufficiently skeptical about all enthusiasms, sufficiently dead to
faith, hope and charity--”
“Now, Mother!”
“I know, you bring me facts, Henry--take a few in return! I could
go over our conversation point by point, every remark we made about