Boston a novel
Dan was disbarred from practice; and “Joe” Pelletier, National Advocate
for the Knights of Columbus and hero of all Catholic patriots, was
removed from office and disbarred. But not until he had gone up and
down the county telling what he knew about his enemies. He announced
himself as candidate for mayor--Democratic Catholic “Joe,” friend of
the common man, persecuted by holier-than-thou exploiters and wholesale
bribe-givers. The common man thought that sounded very good; to him the
victims of the blackmail ring were millionaire degenerates, preying
upon his daughters; and since the law could not get them, let Joe take
their money, and give part of it to the church, to be expended for
orphan asylums and altar cloths!
But what a shudder in blue-blood circles, when this man who knew all
secrets got up on the stump and started reciting names, places and
dates. Stopping not at the most exalted offices! When he discussed
the Supreme Judicial Court, he said things of interest to the friends
of Sacco and Vanzetti, who were making such expensive appeals to the
supreme judicial virtue of that great tribunal:
“Go up some day and watch the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court
file down to the Union Club. Whom do they eat with? The capital
interests, the corporation lawyers for the street railway cases, the
gas cases, the light cases. These are the men that break bread with
them. That may not mean anything to you. If so, bless you for your
innocence! I confess to being more suspicious by nature.”
Thus people’s friend “Joe,” soon to be tried by that same tribunal!
CHAPTER XVI
THE LAW’S DELAY
I
Judge Webster Thayer was considering the various motions for a new
trial, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti was manufacturing automobile license
plates in Charlestown State Prison; in his free time toiling at the
task of becoming a master of English prose. He wrote an elaborate
pamphlet on the Plymouth case, the importance of which, as a
preliminary step to the frame-up, he alone had realized. Then his
“Story of a Proletarian Life,” an autobiographical sketch, written in
Italian, and later translated into English with the help of friends. To
Cornelia he wrote, “I have received many praises for it. I must look
out to not be spoiled.”
There is a story of old-time New England, how the rebel Thoreau refused
to pay taxes to a government which captured fugitive slaves. He was put
into jail, and his friend Emerson came to see him, somewhat shocked.
“Henry, why are you here?” The answer was, “Waldo, why are you _not_
here?” This anecdote was recalled by an author who came to visit
Vanzetti in his cell at this time, and wrote about the case: “Now, as
formerly, Massachusetts has its finest soul in jail.” To this Vanzetti
replied:
“I understand and appreciate the reasons by which you were adviced to
exalt me far above my little merit. If there is a little of goodness in
me--I am glad of it--but really I do not deserve your praises (as they
are). I think there are some prisoners within these very four walls
which exile me from society, which are much better than I.... Humble I
wrote for the humble who must conquire the world to peace and freedom;
and I try to make plaine humble but ignored truths.”
He studied incessantly, and criticized what he read. “Last evening I
read a chapter of the ‘psicology’ (by William James). I perceive at
once to deal with a really great one. He speak with simplicity as
Reclu and others did. I will learn a good deal from this lecture. I
feel the fever of knowledge in me.”
He studied the problems of his own revolutionary movement, and
contributed to the anarchist press. “Actually I am overloaded of
works. To-day, at noon, instead of eat my dinner I have finished
the translation--from English into Italian of a quite long article.
Beside that I intend to write the last letter upon ‘Syndicates and
Syndicalism.’ I have wrote a historical, theoretic treaty on the
subject. I wrote it in epistolary form. They were published--many
congratulations came to me--at last the syndacalist replied to me with
an article that is a misery.”
He grew still more ambitious; he would write a novel! It was to be a
story of an immigrant laborer: as he phrased it, “a story that really
happened and has me as a spectator.” “Events and Victims” was the title
he chose, and he labored at it incessantly. He was not satisfied with
translations made by friends, and rewrote a great part of it in his own
English, patiently groping his way through the labyrinth of strange
idioms. When the long labor was finished, he wrote:
“I realize, by proof, how hard the literary test is. I have no
illusions. I wrote more for exercise than for anything else, and
I perceived to have gained something through it by improving my
capacity. The fact told had happened. As for the ideas, they are
sincere. But the write was spoiled when it happened that an egg,
believed cooked, smashed in my pocket outsetting thus my whole
nervous system.”
II
Poor old Bart! Lovable, queer, slyly humorous fanatic, keeping his
sense of whimsey, the same in a prison cell as Cornelia had known it
in the Brini household, and during long walks on the beach and in the
woods of Plymouth! He appreciated the troubles of his friends, who were
not great writers themselves, trying to help one who was excessively
ambitious. To Mrs. Evans he wrote:
“A few years ago, a good divvol of comrade, felt to have something
to say and wrote it down in an article that he sent to the weekly
for publication. In the enclosed letter he said to the edictor:
‘I have put down the words: please put down for me the commas and
the periods.’ To make that written presentable, the poor edictor
almost lost his reason and he wrote to the writer: ‘Next time, if
you wish your article to be pubbliced, just put down the commas and
the periods that I will put down the words for you.’”
And then the problem of keeping alive, while spending fifteen and
one-half hours per day in a prison cell! Bart’s friends gave him
advice, and he himself took much thought. He read the edicts of an
American specialist in omniscience, and commented:
“Mr. A. Brisbane always trouble me. Several month ago I read in a
book of physical culture, that to sit down is an unhealthy habit and
that the more one stand the better he feel. I like to feel well and
consequently I took the advice. But to-day Mr. A. Brisbane tell me that
the more we lay down the better it is. So I do not know now what I have
to do for my good health. Till now I used to read on my feet, more
often leaning like an elephant against the wall; from now I will maibe
sit down. Of course, the best way to prevent diseases and troubles to
a man is kill him while he feel well. Accept, please, my regards and
thanks.”
And always with his passionate love of the outdoors, and everything
to be found there. In the summer-time Cornelia went to visit friends
in the country, near the paper-box factory where Betty and Joe were
working. Because the strain of her long labors was telling upon her,
she took to outdoor work, and wrote much about her adventures. Bart
replied:
“I am still smiling--to not say laughing. Yes, I would be very amused
to see you work in your garden, for I alway laugh in observing the
women at a manual work. When I wish to smile--I have only to think at a
woman choping wood. I have take the ax out from the hands of some dozen
of them, and cut the wood.
“But here we are! You know how to make an asparogus bed! I do not know
to do it, and I have thought many time of it, for I like asparogus, and
I intend if the possibility should come to cultivate them. Now I know
by whom to be taught; and would it be possible, you would know what a
worker I am, and what a garden I will plant and work out under your
advice joined to some of my critersims. You would also know what a
lighted heart the rough Bartolomeo has. In spite of all, I often feel
yet as a child. I like to sing, to play and to foolish. But indeed, the
water is rough now. Maibe, thanks to all the good ones among whom you
are prominent, we will reach the shore someday.”
III
More discoveries of evidence, and more appeals to Judge Thayer. The
defense got an expert on arms, and he studied the so-called “mortal
bullet” under a high-powered microscope, and submitted a series of
charts with very expensive photographs, proving that this bullet could
not possibly have come through the Sacco pistol. To that the answer
of the Commonwealth was easy; they too had money, and could employ
experts. There were more long affidavits, full of technical terms and
mathematical formulas. From first to last there were only two things a
layman could be sure of; that every statement by every expert would be
flatly contradicted by another statement of another expert; and that
“Web” Thayer would believe the experts of his own side, and overlook
those of the defense.
These charts and affidavits constituted what was known as the “Hamilton
motion.” Then came the “Proctor motion”: an amazing story, exploding
like a bombshell among the friends of the cause. A new lawyer had
become active in the defense, William G. Thompson, and it happened
that he had had some dealings with Captain Proctor of the state
police. He went to Proctor and pleaded with him, and worked upon his
conscience, with the result that the old man blurted out the whole
story of his part in the “frame-up.” Thompson begged him to come and
tell it to Judge Thayer, and Proctor said he would--provided the judge
invited him. The lawyer went to Thayer in a fine fervor, thinking that
the judge would be concerned about the truth, and be glad to see it
prevail. But to his dismay he discovered that Thayer did not want to
talk with Proctor. “We will try this proposition on affidavits,” he
insisted.
So Proctor told his story, how the district attorney and his assistant
had framed a question to Proctor in such a way that the jury would
think he meant one thing, when in reality he meant another. And
then came the answering affidavits of Katzmann and Williams, another
illustration of the subtle art of betrayal--these answers were framed
in such a way as to seem to deny the Proctor charge, but in reality to
leave the central point untouched, and by implication to admit it!
The too-ardent young radicals imagined that this story would “blow
things wide open.” But they found that what seemed a bombshell to
them was a small firecracker to the rest of Massachusetts. This was
the Harding-Coolidge era; “Nan Britton’s boy” was president of the
United States, and the “Ohio gang” were the rulers of the nation. The
oil men had finished looting the oil reserves of the navy, and the
Veterans’ Bureau, supposed to take care of the victims of the great
war, had stolen some hundreds of millions; all along the line, the
password of government was “loot,” and the power of the secret service
and the attorney-general’s office was used to threaten and intimidate
those who disturbed the looters. In such a world it was hard indeed
to get publicity for injustice done to a pair of wops; and after you
had got it, the response of the public was that of the flag-saluting
jury-foreman: “Damn them, they ought to hang anyhow!”
Boston was different. Boston had blue-bloods, Boston was pious, proper,
and proud. But the payrolls for city work were padded with the names of
many imaginary laborers; twenty policemen were accused of breaking into
stores, holding wine parties in warehouses, and robbing prisoners. The
state police were confiscating liquor, and selling it again, or giving
it to their politician friends, who found it agreeable. The formula,
“It just came off the boat,” was changed to read, “It just came from