Boston a novel
formula, “Unless a million men can be mobilized in our defense, we are
lost.” He wanted the money spent, not for legal proceedings, but for
speakers among the labor unions. But Thompson forced the canceling of a
mass-meeting in Boston, by threatening to withdraw from the case if it
was held.
Mary Donovan was now recording secretary of the committee without
pay: an Irish-Catholic girl who had gone to college and joined the
Socialist party, and been formally excommunicated by her bishop. She
had a position as state factory inspector--but did not retain it very
long after she took up the Sacco-Vanzetti defense. It was supposed
to be a civil service position, but the politicians did not let that
trouble them. They brought charges against her and proved that she had
worked for the defense during several hours when she was supposed to be
working for the Commonwealth. She offered to show that others in her
department had done private work on public pay for weeks at a time; but
that kind of evidence was not wanted.
Another recruit, Gardner Jackson, Amherst man, a newspaper reporter,
very conscientious--the “Y.M.C.A. type,” as an enemy described him;
passionately convinced of the innocence of the prisoners, and being
drawn in more and more deeply, until finally he was giving all his
time without pay. But he was not a “radical,” and did not want any
movement to use the case for its own ends; therefore socialists, and
more especially communists, quarreled with him. These disputes went on
until the very end--and afterwards, when the different groups fought
over the corpses of the victims. Said Mary Donovan, white-faced with
anguish, “These bodies belong to us! Can’t they even go to their graves
in peace?” But the communists thought that the bodies belonged to the
international revolutionary movement, and should be used to waken the
masses to class-consciousness.
III
But those horrors lay in the future, and the Master of Events led men
to them blindfolded. Neither radicals nor conservatives might lift a
corner of the veil, to see what lay beyond it. They could imagine, and
fear--and shrink back, unable to face what they feared. They would
clench their hands and set their teeth and redouble their efforts to
stave off the inevitable.
The mills of the law were grinding. One by one they ground up the
motions for a new trial: the Ripley motion, the Daley, the Pelzer,
the Andrews, the Gould, the Goodridge, the Hamilton, the Proctor
motions. Judge Webster Thayer denied them one by one, and they became
the basis of appeals to the Supreme Judicial Court, and to the public
for funds to defray the bills of official printers. Defendants’ Bill
of Exceptions, Defendants’ Amended Bill of Exceptions, Defendants’
Consolidated Bill of Exceptions; and the various Defendants’ Briefs
and Defendants’ Supplementary Briefs--legal arguments addressed to the
higher powers, pointing out the innumerable ways in which Judge Thayer
had broken or overlooked the rules of the game.
When you read these, you could not see how “Web” had a leg to stand on;
how any court could sustain the mass of evasions and falsehoods which
he called his decisions. But apparently he had no worries about this;
he was proclaiming his security to all and sundry. “Let them take it
to the Supreme Court and see how far they’ll get!” He knew that if the
court reversed him on grounds of prejudice, it would be equivalent to
declaring him unfit for office. The chief justice came from Thayer’s
home town of Worcester, where they are very clannish, being looked down
upon by Boston. Long before the trial, at a public dinner to Thayer,
this chief justice, Rugg, had made a speech paying tribute to Thayer,
and telling how helpful Thayer had been to Rugg when Rugg was beginning
law practice.
In January of 1926, three days were set for hearings before this august
tribunal, and Cornelia visited the Court House in Boston, a dingy gray
old building crowded into Pemberton Square--which in her girlhood had
been a lovely little park, surrounded by fine old red brick mansions
of the best families. The Supreme Court room was upstairs, simple,
bare and gloomy as a tomb; Cornelia sat and watched a row of seven
elderly gentlemen in black silk robes at their work of adjudging life
or death. William G. Thompson was called upon to argue, and the little
group of friends thrilled and exulted. But, alas, such thrills were not
contagious, they did not affect the elderly gentlemen behind the high
raised desks. They sat, like black-clad mummies; and in the course of
the long argument, Cornelia observed one of them with head sunk forward
and shoulders collapsed, perfectly peaceful. Poor old man, he was
nearly eighty, but still needed the job.
The average age of these ultimate arbiters was sixty-eight, and
increasing every year; several were ill a good part of the time, so
that it was a rare event to see a full bench in session. That threw a
double labor on the few who were capable. But there was no way to get
rid of the old ones, for the greater their age, the less chance that
they would think of a new idea; and what the owners of property wanted
was to have all things legal and governmental stay as they were. If
owners of property wanted anything, they could buy it; they did not
have to call elderly black-clad mummies to their aid.
The Chief Justice, Rugg, sat in the center; oddly enough, he was the
only young one, being fifty-four, handsome, alert, bland and smiling
while he crushed counsel with his rulings. He had been an efficient
county prosecutor, and an ardent reactionary, and this was his reward.
As a trustee of Clark University, in his home town of Worcester, he was
the ardent supporter of an academic clown who was turning a really
distinguished graduate school into a laughing-stock of all scholars.
Also he was a trustee of Amherst, and there had helped to oust one of
the half dozen liberal college presidents in America.
Cornelia sat, her eyes roaming from one to another of the faces. She
knew the names, she knew the family gossip, and would put this bit
and that together. This one had been appointed by the governor who,
after his term, became a vice-president of a great Boston bank; that
other one the same. The family was venturing to hope that they were
“safe” for a reversal of the Jerry Walker verdict. One was a Catholic,
a former city solicitor; in matters concerning anarchism he would
be tempted to stand by God and Cardinal O’Connell. One mumbled when
he spoke, but Cornelia hoped his mind was still alert; also that
he had not been affected by his acquaintance with Senator Crane,
the respectable corruptionist who had collected the campaign funds
of the rich. William Murray Crane, first governor and then United
States Senator, had run Massachusetts politics in the interest of
his own property and that of his friends. Had he made the mistake of
overlooking the highest and most powerful of the courts?
Their enemies had not overlooked them; the men who answered corruption
and class-arrogance with hate and blind destruction. During the days
of the bomb-scares, somebody had planted a large one in a toilet in
the court-house, close to the chambers where the august justices met.
That was not merely a crime, it was an impropriety; and these old men
would have been superhuman if they had not wanted to get hold of an
anarchist, and teach a lesson to the others. The actual makers and
planters of the bombs they could not punish, for these had changed
their names and got away to Italy or South America--so the Department
of Justice agents declared; but in Sacco and Vanzetti they had two who
were at least friends and sympathizers.
On May 12th, 1926, the justices handed down their voluminous decision,
in which they passed upon the Dedham trial and the exceptions thereto,
and all the earlier motions for a new trial. Twenty-two thousand words
of legal technicalities--fifty-six separate propositions which amounted
to this: that Judge Thayer had been right in everything he had done,
and that none of his discretionary rulings betrayed irrationality or
corruption--something the defense had never claimed. To admit what
the defense really claimed--that the judge had revealed a thoroughly
prejudiced mind--would have meant to declare him unfit to hold his
position; and that they would not do. From now on it would be the
law of Massachusetts that a judge who desired to use his enormous
discretionary power against accused persons might do so without fear of
being reversed.
The plain truth was this: in other cases, where it seemed to the
Supreme Judicial Court that prejudice had been displayed in a trial,
they found a way to spare the feelings of the erring judge--finding
some technical ground on which to order a new trial. Never had there
been more prejudice, never more errors, than in this case; but for some
reason known only to them, the elderly justices declined to employ
their usual device.
IV
A frightful blow for the defense; wiping out all the concealments of
Katzmann, the bitter prejudice of Thayer, the confession of Proctor,
the criminal career of Goodridge, the wobblings of Pelzer and Lola
Andrews, the testimony of Gould--all legally dead forever! Shocking
were the things which you might hear about the Supreme Judicial Court
of Massachusetts from anarchists, and the aiders and abettors of
anarchism, and their dupes like Cornelia Thornwell! She even got into a
violent fuss with her son-in-law, Rupert Alvin--at least it was violent
on Rupert’s part; Cornelia could not help laughing--it seemed to her
the funniest thing that had yet come out of the case. Actually, the
president of the Pilgrim National Bank declared his admiration for the
great integrity of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts! And
after all his efforts to tempt the court from virtue! “Really, my son,”
said Cornelia, “there ought to be certain allowance for a sense of
humor, even between a man and his mother-in-law! How long can you look
at me with a straight face, knowing what you know that I know about our
judges?”
Rupert tried to be sarcastic. “How can I tell what you think you know,
since you have been associating exclusively with Reds?”
“No, my son, that won’t help you! What I know is not from Reds but
from bankers. You forget that for many years I was privileged to
sit in a room while a great leader of Boston finance discussed his
private affairs with his father-in-law. I never paid attention to
the details--I wish now that I had--but I assure you I noted the
atmosphere, and sometimes I left the room because it was so unpleasant.”
“I defy you, Mother, ever to say that I have hinted at corruption in
our judges!”
“If by corruption you mean selling their decisions for cash, as has
happened in California and other states not so far away, I will grant
that I have no evidence; but if you mean favoring our wealthy and
powerful, if you mean protecting our ruling group in everything they
do, then I say that the judges of our virtuous Commonwealth were
appointed for that purpose and none other, and that their lives and
records were gone over with a fine-tooth comb, before any one of them
ever got started toward appointment. I have heard you scold a hundred
times about the low quality of our political life, and the character of
men who rise to high office in it.”
“Yes, Mother, but never the courts!”
“There is an old question which you hear asked in church, Rupert:
do men gather figs from thistles? You know how many times we have
heard of judges going with cap in hand to beg favor from some
political boss--either Murray Crane, or the Democrat in charge.
How many of our judges can you name who are really legal scholars,
publicists, economists or statesmen? They are products of the