Customer Reviews

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

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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.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti came to America as Italian immigrants and departed only after being executed in 1927 for having committed a brutal double murder during an armed robbery.

Bruce Watson has taken this often discussed event and written a thrilling page turner that has the feel of fiction rather than history, though one knows the story to be true.

Watson has made an effort to be impartial in the work, but I felt as though he leaned a little on the side of Sacco & Vanzetti. Of course, this could be because of the worldwide protests held during their imprisonment or the obviously prejudiced judge Thayer, since these critical bylines told his story.

Watson has not tried to analyze the crime, the trial or the men - instead, he has tried to provide a fair, balanced account of the events leading up to their execution, and has done a marvelous job of telling the tale.

I would heartily recommend this book to anyone interested - it is an engrossing story, and Vanzetti's final soliloquy at the time of his execution will very nearly move the reader to tears. Bravo for a book so exceptionally well written, and bringing this controversial history battle back to the forefront of historical thought.

Watson has put together a thorough study of the men and the global phenomenon surrounding their trial, appeals and eventual execution. I give him a lot of credit, for while he takes a pretty dim view of the trial judge and prosecutor (as well as S&Z's early defense team) he is objective about the question of their actual guilt and innocence.

Watson spends the early part of the book with an introduction to the accused, some family history and laying the political groundwork; but, the real yeoman's work in the book is done in his methodical trip through the appellate review (if it can be called that given that no judge other than the trial judge ever ruled on any element of the appeals - including the trial judge's potential bias). Watson's research shines through in what is a narrative heavily reliant on sources ranging from personal letters to court records and past first person and scholarly work.

Similarly, there are some really eye-opening sequences in which Watson recounts the global fervor that arose around the accusation, incarceration, trial and execution of these two world-famous criminals. As he notes, in many ways, nothing has ever risen to the level that this case and these men did as global political discourse.

Finally, as others have noted, there are some important constitutional, and legal issues brimming just below the surface of Watson's narrative that I think he - correctly - alludes to but nevers indulges in himself. contemporary Guantanamo Bay, the mid-century transformation in criminal trial practice around evidence, the Red Scares, etc. He truly keeps his eye on the ball here in delivering a definitive history not of these men, or their politics; but, of the events surrounding the "judgment of mankind."

JAW

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.

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.

Bruce Watson's new book examines the two names in its title, their subsequent trial and their eventual punishment. The result is a fine work that helps a readership in the year 2007 understand why these people and events gripped the nation in the 1920s.

I'm sure I was not alone among my contemporaries in previously only knowing the summary points about the case and not much else. Thus, I appreciate Mr. Watson doing such a superb job in detailing this important drama. Themes large ( immigration and class struggle) are interspersed with small ( the trial literally had its own 'if it doesn't fit, you must acquit' moment) with very successful results.

Watson has a clear and concise writing style and he possesses a gift for excellent narrative. Read it as a courtroom drama with 'characters' that a novelist would love to have created, or read it as a social history of its time with implications for the rest of the twentieth century. Either way, you'll be glad you did.

Upon completing the book, I don't know Watson's opinion as to the guilt or innocent of the accused. This is a compliment to his tradecraft as a historian. He does seem to think that a second trial was warranted and although I know that some reviewers wanted more, that was enough of an opinion for this reader.

In the end, I came away with a thorough understanding of the case and gratitude to an author that objectively presented the facts and then let me arrive at my own judgment. Recommended.

Prior to picking up Bruce Watson's "Sacco and Vanzetti" I had yet to come across an uninteresting book, fictional or otherwise, dealing with the social and political struggles that accompanied the first quarter of the 20th century in the United States, and this book did not become the first. Combining a compelling true-crime story with an examination of the larger social and political forces that shaped it, the book manages to take a case that's been endlessly sensationalized and oversimplified for various propaganda purposes and place it squarely in the real world, and endow central players frequently turned into symbols or caricatures with all the flaws and personal oddities of real people. Along the way, Watson details just how a simple robbery and murder in the small industrial town of Braintree, Massachusetts (now best known for its overcrowded upscale mall) eventually evolved into a case that captured the passions of millions the world over.

Watson doesn't aim to argue for Sacco and Vanzetti's guilt or innocence, but rather to capture the crippling uncertainty presented by the actual facts of the case and the atmosphere of prejudice and mutual distrust that allowed it to so deeply inflame the era's existing divisions. The seven years of courtroom drama and behind-the-scenes legal maneuvering form the foundation of the story, but it's Watson's evocation of this atmosphere of hysteria and sensationalism surrounding the case that provides the most fascinating reading. The book's faithful recitations of the frequently tortuous and interminable courtroom proceedings can get a bit wearisome, but they do manage to drive home the sheer difficulty of determining guilt or innocence when confronted with reams of inconclusive evidence and conflicting expert and eyewitness testimony frequently undermined by faulty memories and personal agendas. The book's police procedural elements and its ample legal maneuverings and courtroom drama are, of course, supplemented by exactingly detailed portraits of Sacco and Vanzetti themselves, both of whom are brought to life through extended discussions of their relationships, personalities, beliefs, and writings. Watson does take a generally sympathetic view of the story's two central figures, mixing examinations of their politics with personal details of their lives, but without ignoring the legitimate concerns about their possible guilt or the violent acts committed by some of their fellow travelers.

Given how difficult it was to achieve any sort of certainty with the facts at hand, it's little wonder the case became a canvas on which Americans (and Europeans, South Americans, and others) projected their wider sociopolitical views. With the working classes and the monied elites increasingly at odds in the U.S. and elsewhere, Sacco and Vanzetti made prime targets for an overzealous prosecutor and intractable, reactionary judge backed by a public that found in two Italian anarchists convenient scapegoats for what they thought ailed the country. At the same time, of course, the two were practically gifts from the heavens for leftists, who were all too eager to turn Sacco and Vanzetti into symbols of the oppression of working people, immigrants, and radicals, with little to no regard for their actual guilt or innocence. The book mainly leaves unanswered the question of how much of a middle ground (if any) existed in public opinion of the case, instead focusing on the most hard-line of posturing and rhetoric from both sides to provide a stark portrait of the tenor of the times that manages to remain relevant to this day. In Watson's telling, opinions about Sacco and Vanzetti's guilt or innocence were based less on a consideration of the facts than on one's view of the American system circa 1920--those who favored the established order and hierarchy arguing for guilt, those who saw exploitation and oppression all over the country proclaiming innocence, and each side digging in deeper with every development that seemed to bolster its position.

Ultimately, "Sacco and Vanzetti" transcends its immediate subject to serve as a telling reminder of the divisiveness that grips even the most advanced of societies, and the way people will grasp desperately for a feeling of certainty even when confronted with the most unclear of situations. While the current War on Terror is never mentioned, it doesn't take much of a stretch to see parallels between the rampant fears of violence, intolerance for ambiguity, and with-us-or-against-us mentality that (rightly or not) has come to characterize both Sacco and Vanzetti's era and our own. If one of Watson's goals in writing this book was to document how little things change from decade to decade, it can certainly be considered a success. And for anyone who thinks human behavior is rooted in logic and rational thought, it should serve as a stern reminder of how the world really works.

This is an amazing true story that simultaneously broke my heart and angered me. Anyone who is interested in the history of our country, and in particular the way immigrants were treated, should read this book. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, the author paints a very vivid picture of the 1920's and the "Red Scare" that was really behind the arrest and conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti. The injustice of their story is quite shocking. The best part of the book is the personal way you get to know Sacco and Vanzetti - their strength and humanity are extraordinary. If you don't have a tear in your eye when you read Sacco's letter to his son Dante on the eve of his execution - you're not human. Needless to say, I highly recommend this book.

In August 1927, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts electrocuted Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for an April 1920 payroll robbery that ended in murder. During the intervening years between their arrests and executions, the two Italian immigrants became a worldwide cause celebre. Public figures like Dr. Felix Frankfurter, who became Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and socialist poet Edna St. Vincent Millay argued that both men, who were active anarchists, were condemned on the basis of their radical political beliefs instead of the evidence.

This viewpoint is neither idealistic nor naïve when the political climate of the years leading up to Sacco and Vanzetti's trial is examined. Public buildings (i.e. the Los Angeles `Times' building) and the homes of those hostile to the radical labor movement were bombed with alarming frequency, leading to the Palmer Raids and a clampdown on `un-American' activity. Americans were in the throes of a Red Scare, and as anarchists accused of murder, the two Italians were crucified for the sins of their more violent colleagues. They had the misfortune of being tried in a state that was, even in the liberal Twenties, a stronghold of Yankee conservatism. The trial judge, Webster Thayer, referred to the defendants outside the courtroom as `anarchist bastards', and the jury foreman sneered to his fellow jurors, "Damn them, they ought to hang them anyway."

Although he is clearly sympathetic to the plight of the `good shoemaker and the poor fish peddler', as Sacco and Vanzetti were sometimes called, Bruce Watson refrains from turning his book into one long argument for their innocence. He lets the evidence speak for itself. When he ventures an opinion, it's on the basis of solid fact, not conjecture. For example: ballistics experts asserted that one of the bullets that killed the payroll guard came from a gun found on Nicola Sacco. But four bullets were dug from the guard's body, and witnesses testified that the same man fired all four shots. So why do the other three not match? Is it possible that a bullet shot from Sacco's gun during ballistics testing was surreptitiously included with the prosecution evidence?

The clear discrepancy between the evidence and the guilty verdict set off a series of demonstrations worldwide. American embassies were the targets of picketers and bombings. The Sacco-Vanzetti affair is one of the earliest examples of mass protests being employed to change the fate of a convicted person.

I particularly enjoyed Watson's handling of the personal lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. Without yielding to gush or sentiment, he demonstrates that Nicola Sacco was a devoted husband and father who really believed in fair treatment for workers, while Bartolomeo Vanzetti was a deep thinker whose intelligence impressed all who met him. Even Governor Alvan T. Fuller admitted, "What an attractive man." They were hostile toward their accusers, but with some justification, as they were prosecuted for what they were instead of what they were formally accused of. Those with an interest in knowing more about their inner worlds should read "The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti" (Penguin Classics).

Some names cannot be spoken by themselves, but must always be a part of a pair: Laurel & Hardy, Wilbur & Orville, Martin & Lewis, etc.. Thus we have the names of two immigrant Italian men whose execution took place almost exactly 100 years ago (August 22, 1927). In the ensuing years, a plethora of books, pamphlets, articles, dramas, etc. have been produced, each one arguing either their innocence or guilt. This extremely well-written book really tries to walk the thin line between the two extremes, but appears (to me, at least) to lean into the innocent side, or at least the side of an unfair trial. As an attorney, I was shocked and dismayed at the tactics shown by both the prosecution and the presiding judge, and I know with certainty that today any one of a multitude of errors would have given these men a new trial. Would that have made any difference? I truly don't know, but I know that they never had that second trial chance, and for that alone the authorities of the Commonealth of Massachusetts bear a heavy burden of their own guilt. Read this book and try to make up your own minds about these men: it's not easy.