Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind (Hardcover)

by Bruce Watson (Author) "In their final months on the streets of their adopted country, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti led dual lives..." (more)
Key Phrases: fallen rebels, gunman job, anarchistic bastards, Pearl Street, State House, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are among the most famous political martyrs of 20th-century America, convicted of murder by a Massachusetts jury and executed in 1929. Watson (Bread and Roses) expertly runs through the facts of the case and the basic legal injustices perpetrated against the two men, beginning with their arrest on suspicion of a payroll robbery up to their electrocution, without agitating for either end of the political spectrum. He carefully establishes the context of anarchist terrorism that stirred public sentiment against the two admittedly radical defendants—including the judge at their trial, who made numerous prejudicial remarks outside the courtroom. Fellow radicals (and many moderate liberals) were outraged by the proceedings, but Watson observes that most Americans were too caught up in the amusement park mentality of the 1920s to care about them—a conclusion slightly at odds with the passionate debate to this day over their guilt. Watson quotes extensively from Sacco and Vanzetti's letters, with their imperfect English, to flesh out their personalities (he has also written an introduction to a new Penguin Classics edition of the correspondence). 16 pages of b&w photos. (Aug. 20)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
Eighty years ago this week, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts executed two first-generation immigrants from Italy, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, for crimes they almost certainly did not commit. Before and after the executions, passions aroused by the case, in the United States and around the world, were incredibly intense. In part, this was because the case had strong political overtones at a time when much of the country was swept up in the Red Scare. In part, it was because, as the noted newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann wrote, "No man . . . should be put to death where so much doubt exists." And, in part, it was because Sacco and Vanzetti were appealing men, whatever one may have thought of their politics. In an interview with the New York World three months before his execution, Vanzetti was quoted as saying, in halting but powerful English:

"If it had not been for these thing, I might have live out my life, talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have die, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph.

Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as we now do by dying. Our words, our lives, our pains -- nothing! The taking of our lives -- lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler -- all! That last moment belongs to us -- that agony is our triumph!"

Later, according to Bruce Watson, "the reporter admitted he had taken hasty notes and possibly enhanced them," but that is essentially beside the point. It is only slight exaggeration to say, as Watson does, that Vanzetti's "impromptu soliloquy became immortal." Certainly it seemed so to me a quarter-century later when, as a teenager, I listened over and over again to the 1920s volume of Edward R. Murrow's "I Can Hear It Now" recordings, which included a heavily accented but deeply moving recreation of Vanzetti's words. The indignation in Murrow's own voice as he summarized the details of the case was palpable and, I feel to this day, justifiable.

This has nothing to do with sympathy for the anarchist beliefs that Sacco and Vanzetti espoused; those beliefs were naive, sentimental and simplistic. Rather it has to do with the rank injustice of their prosecution, conviction and execution. Because many Americans under the age of 50 probably know little if anything about this important case, with its broad and lasting implications, it is good to have Watson's account. The literature of the case is vast, but surprisingly little of it provides as balanced and unemotional a survey as this volume does. It is also a considerable improvement upon Watson's previous book, The Man Who Changed How Boys and Toys Were Made, a biography of A.C. Gilbert, the inventor of the Erector Set, which told an interesting story in an uninteresting way.

This time around Watson keeps his inclination toward fictionalizing in check and does solid, extensive research. He clearly sympathizes with Sacco and Vanzetti, and believes they were innocent victims of what amounted to a witch hunt, but he acknowledges that in some respects their behavior was suspect and their explanations inconsistent. Removed by eight decades from the furor, he does not succumb to the heated passions of the day, but he does convey the full extent of popular feeling. For people who need an introduction to the case, his Sacco & Vanzetti will serve very well.

Similar legal controversies of somewhat more recent vintage are those of Alger Hiss, who spent almost four years in federal prison after being found guilty in 1950 on two counts of perjury involving his trial on charges of being a communist, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were found guilty of espionage and executed in 1953. All three cases took place in periods when American fears of communism and other alien political "isms" bordered on hysteria, and all aroused virulent feelings across the political spectrum.

The chief difference is that Hiss probably and the Rosenbergs almost certainly were guilty, while Sacco and Vanzetti very likely were not.

The crime they were accused of committing took place in Braintree, outside Boston, in April 1920. About "five hundred pay envelopes containing $15,776.71," the weekly pay for a local shoe factory, were stolen, and the two men carrying the money, the paymaster and a guard, were shot to death.

A "big, boxy Buick" picked up the two gunmen and raced into the distance:

"It had all been over in a minute. One crime had been committed. One car had picked up the bandits. One bandit had fired from its passenger seat. But as the crowd began to babble, a kaleidoscope of impressions swirled around the scene."

That set the pattern for the seven years to follow. There were as many accounts of the crime as there were people to testify about it, and differences between the stories were significant. What mattered most to Sacco and Vanzetti, though, was that one of two suspicious-looking men seen in Braintree -- "smoking and speaking 'a foreign language' that identified them as 'Dagos' " -- "bore a striking resemblance to Nicola Sacco." In Massachusetts at the time, that was enough. It will be difficult for today's reader to grasp, but Massachusetts in the 1920s bore little resemblance to Massachusetts today. The state that is now regarded as the epitome of liberalism and all its attendant tics was a stronghold of old Yankee conservatism: "Between the Civil War and World War I, the Commonwealth never elected a single Democratic senator nor gave a majority of votes to a Democratic presidential candidate." Its former governor, Calvin Coolidge, was in the White House by 1925, and Massachusetts thought that was just fine.

Political conservatism went hand in hand with deep prejudice against the newer residents of what was by then "the most ethnically diverse region of America," and especially against Italians, who too often were pigeonholed inside the stereotype of the Mafia. So when, a couple of weeks after the Braintree murders, Sacco and Vanzetti were apprehended in questionable circumstances in nearby Bridgewater, their arrest and prosecution were foregone conclusions. Add their well-known activism in anarchist circles and that anarchists were known to have staged bomb attacks around the country, and they never had a chance.

Their trial took place "in the peaceful little town of Dedham," under the direction of Judge Webster Thayer, who was convinced of their guilt from the outset -- he told one friend that he "would get them good and proper!" and another that they were "anarchistic bastards" -- and who gave every benefit of the doubt to the prosecution. The trial was a farce, ending in the conviction of both men: The all-male, all-white, all-Yankee jury "reached a verdict in three hours but decided it would look hasty if announced so soon."

With that verdict began six years of what Sacco called "this long and dolorous Calvary . . . this terrible and iniquitous Bastile." The men's lawyers tried various strategies and came up with everything from ballistics tests to witnesses with altered stories, but all were swatted down, first by Thayer, then by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and ultimately by Gov. Alvan T. Fuller, who refused all appeals for clemency.

As one of their lawyers finally said, in sorrow and exasperation, the case "is remitted to the judgment of mankind." It has been there ever since, and arguments about what should be the correct judgment rage on to this day. The Internet is full of claims and counterclaims, declarations and speculations, to the extent that Watson must be commended for taking on a subject that is sure to bring him vilification from true believers of all viewpoints. My own view is that he has done a fair, workmanlike job, and deserves full credit for it.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Printing edition (August 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670063533
• ISBN-13: 978-0670063536
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #370,662 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two Men and the World's Judgement, September 10, 2007

By	The Ginger Man - See all my reviews

There are certain events in our history that still create a disproportionate emotional response. Partly because, as a society, we do not agree on what occurred, we still debate who killed JFK and why. The extent of Julias and Ethel Rosenberg's treachery and the justice of their execution evoke a range of feelings. And the worldwide reaction to the trial, conviction and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti for alleged participation in a robbery and murder in April of 1920 carries its own legacy forward.

Bruce Watson does an outstanding job of creating the historical context in which an anarchist shoemaker and fish peddler become the unlikely basis of a worldwide cause. He covers the investigation, trial, incarceration and aftermath concisely and with telling detail. The portraits of the two Italian anarchists are nuanced and haunting. The oft-vilified Judge Webster Thayer comes alive under the author's pen as do the attorneys for both defense and prosecution.

It is no mean accomplishment by the author to tell much of this story without letting the reader know upon which side his sympathies lie. Watson's respect for the character, if not the innocence, of the accused is obvious, however, when he quotes Vanzetti: "Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as we now do by dying...That last moment belongs to us - that agony is our triumph."

I found the book riveting and finished it in three days. It demonstrates the challenge of balancing social order and individual justice during an emotional era. In so doing, the book carries a valuable set of lessons for our own times. Albert Einstein wrote: "Everything should be done to keep alive the tragic affair of Sacco and Vanzetti in the conscience of mankind. They remind us of the fact that even the most perfectly planned democratic institutions are no better than the people whose institutions they are." Or in the words of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes when asked by his law secretary if justice had been done, "Don't be foolish, boy. We practice law, not justice."

My mother told me when I was a boy that my grandfather played bocce with Niccola Sacco; although I have never found the photograph that supposedly proves this. I was in the Massachusetts State House in 1977 when Governor Michael Dukakis declared Sacco and Vanzetti Day to forever remove "any stigma and disgrace" from their names. (Republicans were not thrilled by this action and NYC Mayor Abe Beame backed down from similar recognition when old wounds made themselves obvious in that city.) I am not totally neutral here. But I found this work complete, compelling and uplifting. I recommend it highly.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sacco and Vanzetti still speak to us, September 11, 2007

By	Bookski - See all my reviews

This book was a well written overview of the events surrounding the arrest, trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Watson has written this work in a very even-handed manner, with little apparent bias. By making use of the men's own words about their plight, and by unveiling their relationship with friends, family, fellow anarchists, and supporters, it moves beyond a dry historical and legal analysis, and becomes a work imbued with deep emotions.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Judgement of Mankind, February 1, 2009

By	P. Jewkes (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind (Penguin Us) (Paperback)

Emphasis on the "Judgment of Mankind" portion of the subtitle. Bruce Watson's impeccable, full-blown account of the Sacco & Vanzetti case is a chilling read. In 1920, two known Italian anarchists are arrested and charged with the murder of two payroll clerks in Braintree, MA. What could easily have been presented as a staid dissertation is in Watson's hands a riveting, even suspenseful story (despite knowing the outcome). Relying on court records, FBI files, and the words of Sacco & Vanzetti themselves, Watson thoroughly reviews the facts while exposing what is undoubtedly the most high profile case of injustice in Massachusetts history (perhaps even the US). Going beyond the simple facts of the case, the author captures the tensions of the times as well as the bigotry and close mindedness of an old world America not willing to accept anything even remotely questioning the American way of life. Were Sacco & Vanzetti innocent scapegoats or hell-raising radicals? Watson makes no overt claim that they were innocent of the crime, but shows enough evidence to prove that they were at least entitled to a second trial: evidence tampering; a jury hand selected at night; myriad versions of the same story told by the same people; affidavits proclaiming these men where elsewhere on the day of the crime; SIX years of appeals. If nothing else, it's difficult to believe that police solved this heinous crime in a mere twenty days!

There are insightful takes on the case by the likes of Oliver Wendall Holmes (who, in what is probably the most jarring quote in the book, tell his secretary that in the US, "We practice law, not 'justice'"), Edna St. Vincent Millay, Fiorella La Guardia, and Dorothy Parker. A great take on a case that has rightly been likened to Dickens' BLEAK HOUSE.