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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78039-0.txt b/78039-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a906be3 --- /dev/null +++ b/78039-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,30434 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78039 *** + + + + +BOSTON + + + + + BOSTON + + _A Novel by_ + UPTON SINCLAIR + + VOLUME I + + [Illustration] + + UPTON SINCLAIR + STATION A + PASADENA, CALIFORNIA + + + + + COPYRIGHT · 1928 · BY + UPTON SINCLAIR + + MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + First and Second Printings + before publication + + + + +PREFACE + + +The decision to write this novel was taken at nine-thirty P.M. (Pacific +Coast time), August 22nd, 1927: the occasion being the receipt of +a telephone message from a newspaper, to the effect that Sacco and +Vanzetti were dead. It seemed to the writer that the world would want +to know the truth about this case; and his judgment proved correct, +because there began a flood of cablegrams and letters from five +continents, asking him to do the very thing he had decided upon. + +A “contemporary historical novel” is an unusual art-form, and may +call for explanation. So far as concerns the two individuals, Nicola +Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, this book is not fiction, but an effort +at history; everything they are represented as doing they actually +did, and their words have been taken from their letters, or from the +dictation of friends and enemies. All others who played important parts +in this drama likewise appear as they were, and under their own names. + +Paralleling the Sacco-Vanzetti case throughout the book is a story of +business and high finance which will be recognized as a famous law case +recently carried to the United States Supreme Court. I have used the +incidents of this case as material for my fiction; but the characters +which I have invented to enact this story are wholly fictitious, and +bear no relation whatever to the real persons in the case, who are +entirely unknown to me. There is one simple rule for guidance in +reading the novel: the characters who are real persons bear real names, +while those who bear fictitious names are fictitious characters. + +The writer has been visiting Boston off and on for twenty-five years. +The first visits had to do with the novel “Manassas,” and involved +meetings with the city’s old-time heroes, such as Thomas Wentworth +Higginson, Frank B. Sanborn, Julia Ward Howe. The later visits, having +to do with “The Brass Check,” “The Goose-step” and “Oil!”, involved +a change of view-point not without its interest to students of our +history. Nevertheless, it should be said at the outset that what is +great in Boston finds due recognition in this story. Those who have +made the city’s glory have never been its rulers, but always a “saving +minority,” and that minority is there to-day, and it is active. + +The task has not been approached in a spirit of grudge; on the +contrary, the writer regards with a mixture of gratitude and amusement +those Boston officials who provided for “Oil!” an advertisement which +went around the world several times. To them he owes the fact that he +is almost out of debt to his printer, for the first time in twenty-five +years as publisher of his own writings. An honest effort has here been +made to portray a complex community exactly as it is. The story has no +hero but the truth, and its heroines are two women, one old and the +other young, who are ardently seeking the truth. + +The complete legal record of the Sacco-Vanzetti case is soon to be +published in six volumes. I would have checked by this record every +statement having to do with legal proceedings, but unfortunately a few +documents were not accessible at the time of writing. I had the 3,900 +pages of the Dedham trial testimony, but the Plymouth trial testimony, +of which only one copy existed, was withheld from me. I have checked +my narrative by many documents derived from the record, and had the +manuscript read by a dozen persons who have made an eight-year study +of the case. I have omitted every statement concerning which doubt has +been voiced, and the story contains no errors of any real significance. +It so happens that the important thing in connection with the +Sacco-Vanzetti case is to know, not what a certain witness testified, +but how he came to testify at all. Those who read my story attentively +will get the meaning of this remark. + +I wish to make clear that I have not written a brief for the +Sacco-Vanzetti defense. I have tried to be a historian. What I +think I know, I have told the reader. What is uncertain, I have so +portrayed--and have let the partisans of both sides voice their +feelings and beliefs. My book will not satisfy either side completely; +both have already expressed dissent--which I take to mean that I have +done my job. + +I desire to acknowledge my great indebtedness to James Fuchs and +Floyd Dell for valuable literary criticism, and to many Bostonians +and ex-Bostonians for advice and help. So many of these prefer +to have their thanks in private that I confine myself to this +general acknowledgment. Also I owe apology to persons active in the +Sacco-Vanzetti case, whose letters and adventures I have purloined and +assigned to my fictitious characters. Extraordinary adventures--let +no one say that romance is gone from the world! Also, let no +fiction-writer imagine that his powers of invention can rival those of +the Great Novelist who makes up history! + +I think I should add that “Cornelia,” the heroine of this story, is a +lady eighty-six years of age, an old friend of mine, who ran away from +her family at the age of sixty as I have described. But this lady never +had anything to do with the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and my character, +“Cornelia,” bears no relation to any of the ladies who interested +themselves in that case. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + VOLUME I + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE RUNAWAY GRANDMOTHER 1 + + II. PLYMOUTH ROCK 35 + + III. DAGO RED 68 + + IV. YOUNG AMERICA 91 + + V. THE SAVING MINORITY 128 + + VI. WHITE TERROR 156 + + VII. DEPORTATION DAYS 187 + + VIII. THE DETECTIVE MACHINE 219 + + IX. THE WEB OF FATE 247 + + X. THE LEGAL SYSTEM 280 + + XI. THE GRAFT RING 312 + + XII. SHADOWS BEFORE 346 + + + VOLUME II + + XIII. TRIAL BY JURY 375 + + XIV. JUDGE FURY 403 + + XV. THE WHISPERING GALLERY 445 + + XVI. THE LAW’S DELAY 478 + + XVII. THE MILLS OF THE LAW 510 + + XVIII. THE SUPERSALESMAN 540 + + XIX. ACADEMIC AUTOCRACY 573 + + XX. THE DECISION 605 + + XXI. DAYS OF GRACE 639 + + XXII. THE CITY OF FEAR 674 + + XXIII. THE LAST ENEMY 706 + + XXIV. THE TRIUMPH 730 + + + + +BOSTON + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE RUNAWAY GRANDMOTHER + + +I + +It was the parlor-maid who found Old Josiah in the morning, seated at +his desk, his head fallen forward upon his arms. He might have been +asleep, but his dinner-coat told her that he had not been to bed. She +stood in the door-way, whispering his name feebly; then she fled to +Addicks, the butler, who was privileged to make intrusions. He touched +his master’s hand and found that it was cold. So Cornelia Thornwell was +awakened and told of her release. + +She had had a right to expect it many years ago. Now that it had +come, it seemed too late. Fright seized her, an indescribable sense +of loneliness. What would life be like, without a husband to direct +it? How would her grandchildren know what to do, without Josiah to +incarnate the Thornwell tradition? + +But she must not show emotion to servants. She slipped into her +dressing-gown and came down to her husband’s study. “Call Dr. Morrow,” +she said to the man. “And then notify Mr. James or Miss Clara.” Her +youngest daughter, wife of James Scatterbridge, lived upon the estate, +in a house just visible through the distant trees. At this hour Clara +would be getting her brood of seven started on the day, and James would +be dressing for his work at the mills. Both would drop everything and +hurry over to relieve Cornelia of care. + +The daughter arrived in three or four minutes; very emotional, as +always--it seemed as if she had come to be one more of the large brood +she was raising. She was growing continually in bulk, as they did; she +was chattering as eagerly as they, and her mind, like theirs, would fly +from one small topic to the next. But she had a strong sense of what +was proper, and was shocked to discover no tears in her mother’s eyes. + +James Scatterbridge came with her. He ordered the body taken upstairs +and called up his two brothers-in-law and gave the news; then he came +to Cornelia. “Now, Mother, you are not to worry about the practical +details. We’ll attend to it all.” James was solidly made, both in body +and mind; a plain-looking and plain-thinking business man, with nothing +of what he called “frills.” He ran the great cotton-mills in the valley +below them, and a little thing like a funeral presented no difficulties +to his mind. “I’ll notify Hobson, the undertakers; also, there will +be the press to see to.” He moved away; and Clara, drying her tears, +started off upon the subject of a dressmaker for her mother’s mourning +costume and her own. + +Such things had to be attended to, Cornelia realized. “But, Clara, I’m +not going to wear a veil.” + +“Oh, Mother! Whoever heard of such a thing!” Clara’s large china-blue +eyes grew even larger and rounder with dismay. + +“I am not going to be a Hindoo widow and jump on the funeral pyre.” + +“Mother, don’t start making jokes! You of all people cannot afford to +be eccentric.” + +“Why, my dear?” + +“Because everybody knows you weren’t happy with Father--you didn’t +really love him.” + +“Because I didn’t really love him, must I pretend that I did?” + +“But Mother, we don’t want to set everybody talking! Surely you owe him +one last tribute!” + +The telephone rang in Cornelia’s room. It was her oldest daughter, +Deborah. “Mother, Henry and I will be right over. We’ll be there in an +hour, and meantime I want to make sure nothing is done about practical +arrangements.” + +“How do you mean, dear?” + +“I mean the funeral.” + +“James said he would notify Hobson’s.” + +“Oh, Mother, how perfectly atrocious! Don’t you know that nobody has +Hobson’s?” + +“I don’t know anything about it, Deborah.” + +“Well, I do think we ought to be allowed to manage our own father’s +funeral without having our in-laws take everything out of our hands! +Clara has no more taste than a sack of potatoes, and she lets James run +her, and put the stamp of his commonness on everything in our lives. +Won’t you please see to it that those undertakers don’t get into the +house?” + +“My dear,” said Cornelia, “I shall follow my usual policy of letting my +children do their own disputing.” And she hung up the receiver. + +It was not merely a matter of the social standing of undertakers, she +realized; it was a deep-seated, bitter quarrel among her children, +never to be assuaged. Deborah and Alice, the two oldest, considered +that the husband of Clara had robbed them of their patrimony, and that +Clara had compounded the felony by failing to make his life miserable. +Originally the Thornwell mills had been Thornwell; established by +Josiah’s father and extended by the son, with James Scatterbridge an +employee of low standing. But James had forced his way to the front, +and after the panic of 1907, when a reorganization had been necessary, +it had been he who possessed the confidence of the directors and +bankers. So now a great block of shares, instead of being a family +inheritance, were tucked away in James’s safety-vaults. + +Nor had the ex-employee helped matters by marrying the youngest +daughter; that was a scandal, which the world would never forget. +Three generations from now, you would hear whisperings at Boston +dinner-tables: “Oh, but, my dear, don’t you know that story? The +original Scatterbridge was a clerk in the plant and he got all the +stock away from them, and they had to marry him to get it back!” + +It was not as if the other two sons-in-law had needed the money. Rupert +Alvin was a banker who counted the year a failure if he had not added +a million to his fortune; and Cornelia had heard Henry Cabot Winters +boast that his law firm never had less than twenty-five millions in +litigation. But apparently this money game was one in which it was not +possible to be satisfied. Rupert and Henry, who composed a team, would +have liked to take in Jerry Walker’s felt-plants and the Thornwell +cotton-mills, each in one bite. They had their “lines” on so many other +properties that Cornelia could not keep track of them; the names were +to her like those of ancient battles, famous in story, but which she +had never looked up on a map. + + +II + +Dr. Morrow came; the pink of fashion, rosy-faced and silver-haired, +with sharply trimmed, dapper white mustaches. His manner reminded you +that good breeding asserts superiority to every weakness of mortality. +He went to the big four-poster bed, felt the cold hands, listened for +the non-existent heart-beats, and then turned to the widow. “Well, +Cornelia, old Josiah had fourteen years more than the Bible promised +him. So we can’t complain.” He knew there had been no love between them. + +Hearing the verdict, the efficient James instructed Josiah’s secretary +to notify the papers. Some went to press early, and would need time +to handle this important story. The secretary would begin with the +_Transcript_, the family organ of all the families that “count” in +Massachusetts. The mischievously-minded assert that mortality records +show a great increase upon Fridays, due to desire of the socially elect +to appear in Saturday’s obituary columns. + +Meantime the efficient James was closeted in Josiah’s study with the +efficient head of the Hobson undertaking establishment, and these two +were learning to understand each other. It was to be a great funeral, +a matter of state, which would mean prestige and advertising to the +concern which secured the contract. The family was wealthy, and would +pay for the best, but there must be a distinct understanding that +they were to get what they paid for. Mr. Hobson listened politely and +replied that he understood Mr. Scatterbridge’s position perfectly. +There was no reason why a funeral should not be dealt with as any +other matter of business; and certainly his firm appreciated the +importance of social prestige and would be prepared to adjust its +price accordingly. After which he produced a portfolio about caskets, +revealing that there were art-modeled items of burnished bronze for +which it was possible to pay from twenty-five thousand up. James +Scatterbridge gulped once and composed his features, and did not reveal +his plebeian astonishment. + +Meantime Deborah Thornwell Alvin was descending from her limousine, +tall and stiff, always ready for a funeral, because she dressed in +black, with only a touch of white at the neck and a double necklace of +white pearls. She had her father’s lean and stern features, and had +served as his deputy in keeping the family traditions in effect. As +soon as she was in the house she began objecting in decorous whispers; +and presently there arrived her sister, Alice, her ally in war on the +Scatterbridge clan. Who had given James authority to bring those vulgar +Hobson people into the case? Who had taken the responsibility to rush +the family into print, from who could tell what cheap and sensational +angle? + +“Mother,” said Deborah, “do you know anything about Father’s will?” + +“Nothing, my child; he never spoke of it to me in his life.” + +“We’re going to find, of course, that James has got this house and the +land. You know he took a mortgage on it when Father lost his money in +the New Haven jam.” + +“Let me remind you, Mother,” put in Alice. “Father promised me my pick +of the old furniture. He knew I was the only one that appreciated +it--he told me that again and again.” + +“Yes, my dear. I hope he put it into the will.” + +“I can only say this, if James and Clara get that Mayflower cradle that +I was rocked in, they may bury me in it.” Alice Thornwell Winters’s +fair blonde features were set in a look which her beauty-specialists +would have deplored, because it made sharp lines on each side of her +mouth. Alice was the adventurous one of the family, going in for costly +culture, inviting poets and artists and people of that dubious sort to +her home. She had been painted several times and hung in exhibitions, +and had learned to regard herself as a work of art, a feature of the +social landscape. The fact that she could appreciate the old treasures +of the family was a moral reason for a family quarrel: something which +Boston quarrels require. + + +III + +If Cornelia had realized the previous night that she was hearing her +husband’s last words, no doubt she would have paid more attention. +There is a certain importance attaching to finality as such, even when +it applies to the words of a man who has been your husband for forty +years, and whose every mental reaction is known to you in advance. + +Cornelia had been reading about the destruction of the Rheims +cathedral; there was an engraving of it among the works of art she had +brought back from her honeymoon, and she had gone into her husband’s +study, and seated herself upon a hassock, and begun rummaging in the +drawers of a chest which had belonged to Great-grandfather Thornwell, +holding the records of his ships in the East India trade. In a drawer +bearing in faded gold letters the label, “Sylph of the Sea,” she had +found the portfolio of engravings and sat turning them over for an hour +or two. + +And meantime Josiah was conversing with Rupert Alvin,--oldest of +his sons-in-law. They paid no more attention to Cornelia than if +she had been a mouse. They were talking about Jerry Walker and his +felt-business; and Cornelia, even while thinking about cathedrals, +could not help catching the drift of their remarks. Jerry Walker had +been an errand boy in an institution of which Cornelia had been a +patroness; and now it appeared that he was on the way to monopolizing +the felt-business of New England. Rupert Alvin, who ran the Pilgrim +National Bank, objected to monopolies in the hands of other people, and +was of the opinion that Jerry was dangerously impulsive--he had paid +over a million dollars for the Atlas hat-works, while Rupert was in the +midst of making up his mind whether the concern was good for a small +loan. + +Cornelia glanced at her son-in-law, who sat very straight, as he +always did, in the big leather armchair; his dinner-coat bulging, his +tucked shirt-front puffed out, so that he looked like a black and +white pouter-pigeon. Rupert’s face ran to bulges: his forehead a great +pink bulge, with two minor ones over the eyes, his cheeks half a dozen +rosy-red bulges, and his neck and chins a number of bigger and redder +ones. To Cornelia there was something comical in his indignation that +some one else had dared to think more quickly than he. But that was the +kind of thought she had spent forty years learning to keep to herself. + +Josiah gave his decision, in his old man’s voice that was beginning to +crack. Jerry Walker might break himself some day, but not now; these +were the days to buy anything at any price; hats were necessary to +armies and felt slippers were worn in hospitals. That led them to the +subject which all men of affairs were discussing in this summer of +1915. Josiah repeated his well-known opinion that it would be a long +war and that it was the part of wisdom to buy and buy. Cornelia sat +thinking of human lives while they were thinking of money. + +Rupert was of the opinion that the war couldn’t last over the year, +because the warring nations were heading for bankruptcy. But Josiah +told him not to worry; we would lend them the money, provided they +spent it for our goods. How would we get the money back? And Josiah +said we wouldn’t have to get it back--it would be like Jerry Walker’s +felt-business. “When Jerry can’t pay what he owes us we’ll take over +his plants.” + +Cornelia got up, carrying her engraving. “Good-night,” she said, and +they answered in a perfunctory way; and that would have been the end +of it if she had been the right sort of a wife. But she could not +resist the impulse to stop in front of her son-in-law and remark, +“It’ll be fine, Rupert, when we can bring Europe up to date.” Rupert, a +practical-minded man, assented; and Cornelia held up the picture of the +cathedral. “We can widen out this Angel Tower and make it the branch +office of Jerry Walker’s felt-plants.” + +For forty years, even during the two that Josiah Quincy Thornwell had +been governor of the Commonwealth, Cornelia had been saying things like +this, and some people had found it roguish. But never Josiah; always +he would frown, and remark, as now, “Your sense of humor is untimely, +Cornelia.” She put her hand lightly on the top of his white wig and +said, “Some day, my husband, you will tell me the proper time for my +sense of humor.” + +So she tripped out, the little old lady who had seen so much that was +funny in this big household that the wrinkles around her eyes had got +set in a pattern of laughter. Not even the destruction of the Rheims +cathedral, not even the thought of the peasant-boys in the trenches, +could wipe out her amusement at the moral impulse of Boston, which was +driving Rupert Alvin to take charge of Jerry Walker’s felt-business, +and likewise of the geography and finance of Europe. Her last thought +was “He’ll do both those things.” And, in his own time and at his own +convenience, he did. + + +IV + +In the offices of half a dozen evening papers the “rewrite” men had +dug out a column or two of copy which had waited for thirty years, +being brought up to date every year or two. They inserted at the top +the information that Josiah Quincy Thornwell, twice governor of the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts, leading manufacturer and philanthropist, +for twenty years a member of the Republican State Committee, had +been found that morning dead at his desk in the family home in the +town of Thornwell, the probable cause being heart failure. The more +sensational papers added how the body had been found by a parlor-maid; +the sort of thing for which Deborah would hold James Scatterbridge +responsible. Also they said that the funeral services would be held at +Trinity Church, Boston--whereas Deborah and Alice were determined that +they should be at the family home, so that the undesirables might be +excluded. + +Upstairs in the ex-governor’s apartments Mr. Hobson’s shirt-sleeved +assistants were spreading their rubber-sheets and placing two tables +end to end, at the same time listening to their employer set forth his +conviction, that “ninety percent of this business is psychology. You +meet a hard-boiled guy like that one downstairs and you have to let him +talk himself out, and then he’s ashamed of himself and you can do what +you want with him. After all, what does he know about funerals and how +a swell one ought to be conducted?” + +And at the same time in Cornelia’s sitting-room Deborah and Alice had +brought up the subject of the Shah of Persia’s rug. “It really is my +property,” Deborah was saying. “I only left it in the house because I +knew Father liked to have the heirlooms all together. For years I have +seen to the cleaning of it every spring and sent a servant to make sure +it was safe. You know that is true.” + +“Yes, of course,” said Alice. + +“And now if James and Clara think they are going to move in and let +their children trample it--” + +Cornelia went downstairs and met Great-uncle Abner, Josiah’s +youngest brother; Abner Quincy Thornwell, burly and slow-moving, +stoop-shouldered and very deaf. Like many thus afflicted, he considered +it necessary to hear his own voice. “Well, Cornelia,” he boomed, “well, +well--so it has come at last! A hard day for you, I know! We’ll stand +back of you, my dear. Anything I can do?” There was a look of concern +on his bland and rosy countenance--something that happened rarely, for +he gave most of his time to chess and would sit for hours lost in a +problem. + +Clara appeared, and greeted her uncle. When he asked her what he could +do, she shouted into his ear, “Make Mother wear a veil.” + +“Veil?” said Abner. “Of course she’ll wear a veil! Aren’t veils made +for widows?” + +“Mother doesn’t care, she wants to advertise to the world that she +isn’t grieving. I don’t believe she has shed a single tear.” + +Said Cornelia, “I have read that moving picture actresses make tears +out of glycerine. Perhaps I may do that for the funeral.” + +“Oh, Mother, how can you say such horrid things?” Clara began wiping +real tears from her nose and her uncle peered from one to the other, +with the uneasiness of the deaf. “Glycerine?” said he. “I hear it cures +cancer, but I don’t know if it’s true. What did Josiah die of?” + +“Dr. Morrow called it heart failure.” + +“Heart failure, hey? Well, that’s respectable enough. Where is he, up +in his room? Poor old boy! But he had a long life, and he got what he +wanted.” + +He ambled off, and Cornelia found herself escorted into the library +for a formal conference with James Scatterbridge. This son-in-law did +not possess the worldly art of concealing his purposes, but had to +come directly to the point, like a business man. “Mother, I suppose +you haven’t had time to think what you are going to do, but I want to +be the first to tell you that you’ll be welcome to live with Clara and +me. Nothing will give us greater pleasure, and we’ll do everything we +can to make it the same as your own home. Things will stay just as the +governor loved to have them.” + +The meaning of that was plain enough: Deborah and Alice were right in +their fears! “I suppose, James,” she said, “this house will come to +you?” + +“It is already mine, Mother. The governor gave me a deed several years +ago. You know how his New Haven stock went all to pieces; and the money +I advanced to him was more than the place was worth. The governor felt +a little nearer to me because I had so much to do with managing the +mills.” + +“Yes, of course, James. But the girls are going to be vexed. Does the +deed include the furnishings?” + +“Yes, Mother; but Clara and I will do our best to satisfy the others. +What I want to make clear to you is, it will be your home just the +same. You need never know that anything has been changed.” + +“That is kind of you, James.” She said this with her lips, but at the +same time her mind was flying on. Clara would bring her brood of seven +to this stately old house and they would possess it; she could hear +their shouts resounding through the halls, their heels clattering on +the stairs; she could see them sliding on the polished floors, using +the Shah of Persia’s rug to play marbles on. Against the wall of the +library in front of her was a bookcase some ten feet tall and seven +feet wide, of French walnut, hand-carved over every inch of its surface +with rose-vines and blossoms; the morning sun streamed upon it, and a +thousand facets shone like burnished gold. There was a companion-piece +farther down the wall and Cornelia knew that the last dealer who had +inspected her husband’s treasures had mentioned eight thousand as a +price for that pair. + +“There are some valuable things in this house, James.” + +“I know, Mother, and don’t you worry. We’ll add a wing back of the +conservatory and keep the children there till they’ve learned manners. +I haven’t been used to fine things, but Clara has and she’s the boss of +this family. You stay and help her.” + +“I don’t know, James. I am sixty years old, and all that time I have +done what other people have told me. Now I might want to please myself.” + +A troubled look appeared behind the large round spectacles of James +Scatterbridge. He had a literal mind, adjusted to the production of +seventy million yards of low-priced cotton goods per annum; this +production was the real religion of his life, and, for the rest, he +left everything to his wife, satisfied that he had done the best +possible in the matrimonial line. And now here was this little old lady +with the laughing eyes, bearing the sacred name of Thornwell, hinting +at the revolutionary idea of pleasing herself. In his heart James was +afraid of this great family, with its implacable pride and dignified +cruelty; they were sons of pirates and privateersmen, while James was a +farmer-boy, whose ancestors had worked and produced. + + +V + +He had no chance to question Cornelia. The bell rang and through the +wide double doors of the library he saw Addicks in conference with +several well-dressed youngish men. Presently the servant came with a +message which, repeated from one dinner table to another, became a +standard jest of the inner circles of Boston. Addicks had been with +the family more than fifty years and understood all possible social +relationships. Now, after due meditation, he came to his master with a +formula precisely adjusted: “Mr. James, there are three reporters and a +gentleman from the _Transcript_.” + +James went out, took the three reporters and the gentleman into the +privacy of the governor’s study, and proceeded to enjoy the fruits of +his own distinguished marriage. He reminded them that the Thornwell +line went back to the Mayflower; there was in the mansion a cradle +which had been brought over in that greatest of ships. He reminded +them that there had been two colonial governors in the line, and two +governors of the Commonwealth. He reminded them of the deeds which +Josiah had performed in office, how he had sent the public thieves to +jail. He verified the names of the ex-governor’s children and gave +the names of the grandchildren, not forgetting the seven of James, +all of whom carried the blessed name: Josiah Thornwell Scatterbridge, +Cornelia Thornwell Scatterbridge, James Thornwell Scatterbridge, +Quincy Thornwell Scatterbridge--and so on. He was in the midst of +telling them how the Thornwell mills were to be closed for a half day +during the funeral, when a tap was heard on the door of the study, and +there entered in full majesty Mrs. Rupert Alvin, _née_ Deborah Quincy +Thornwell. + +“James, do I understand that these are representatives of the press? +Good morning, gentlemen, I am Mrs. Alvin, the governor’s oldest +daughter. You will wish to know that I have been in communication over +the telephone with the Reverend Doctor Wolverhampton, rector of St. +Luke’s Church here in Thornwell, which the governor built and endowed. +He has agreed to officiate at the funeral services, which will be held +in the family home. I understand that some of the papers have a report +that the funeral will be held in Trinity Church, Boston, but that is +a mistake; they will take place in this house on Friday afternoon at +two o’clock, and be sure you get it correct so that our friends will +be under no misapprehension. Yes, the name is pronounced Woolton, but +spelled W-o-l-v-e-r-h-a-m-p-t-o-n--the Reverend Doctor James Lowell +Wolverhampton, rector of St. Luke’s Church, Thornwell. He will be +assisted by the Reverend Mr. Quincy Adams Thornwell, a cousin of the +governor’s. The interment will be in the family vault at St. Alston’s +Cemetery.” + +After which Mrs. Rupert Alvin, _née_ Deborah Quincy Thornwell, seated +herself firmly upon the sofa, knowing that so long as she was there not +even her plebeian brother-in-law would dare to contravene her. It was +a legend of the family that in one of Deborah’s disputes with her own +husband she had said: “Take me into the closet and spit on me if you +will, but when we are in public show me the respect that is due to my +station.” + +The three reporters and one gentleman took their departure in a +taxi-cab which they had hired jointly and were whirled down to the +village, where each annexed himself to a telephone receiver and spelled +out these details, which were first rushed out on a typewriter and then +upon a linotype machine and then upon a printing-press. So in less +than an hour after James had spoken and Deborah had revised him, the +newsboys were crying the second edition of the afternoon papers, with +all possible particulars about the life and death and impending funeral +of the ex-governor of the Commonwealth. They had a generous-sized +picture of him on the front page; a lean face with thin, tight-shut +lips and a long thin nose tapering to a point; a face that had +reappeared continuously in the course of three centuries. In panels on +the walls of his music-room were four oil paintings, life-size, of four +different governors, in four different costumes, but unchanged in soul; +personally incapable of wrong-doing and merciless to all wrong-doers. +Statesman, manufacturer, philanthropist, said the newspapers in their +editorials: a model to posterity, an exemplar of all things dignified +and worthy of emulation-- + +And meantime, up in the big room with the four-poster bed and the +windows shrouded with dark curtains, Hobson, the psychologist, was +remarking to one of his assistants, “If you don’t stop pumping on that +carotid you’ll have this old gent’s face discolored and have to paint +him.” + + +VI + +Rupert Alvin arrived, having stopped at the Pilgrim National Bank +just long enough to glance at his mail and order his engagements +postponed. Now he emerged from his purring limousine, drew himself up +to his full height of six feet, composed all the bulges of his face, +straightened his waistcoat and went in. He listened with politeness to +James’s account of the arrangements made, and then, in a room apart, he +listened to his wife’s emphatic opinions of Hobson, and rugs, and the +determination of James to become the Thornwell family. + +Finally he sought out Cornelia. “Mother. I want to tell you that +Deborah and I will be more than glad to have you make your home with us +and will do everything in human power to make you happy.” + +“Thank you, Rupert. I really can’t say yet; I haven’t had time to get +myself together.” + +But her mind was quick, and was busy picturing life with Rupert and +Deborah. They had a big house on Commonwealth Avenue, where they lived +three months of the year; the rest of the time they occupied a castle +on the rocks of the North Shore. Deborah had the lean face and thin +nose of her father and held herself in the same stiff manner; for her +that variety of chair is made, of which the backs go up in a straight +vertical. She would be her father’s successor in understanding and +preserving the Thornwell traditions. She was very devout, and gave +her spare time to the management of charities--certain special ones; +she did not like other people to make contributions to them, because +they would then expect to meddle with her administration. It was her +complaint that there was no such thing as an efficient subordinate to +be hired; impossible to delegate any responsibility, so she managed +everything. + +As for Rupert, he was running a great banking industry which carried +a general supervision of other industries and the gradual taking +over of many of them. In between times he would advise about his +wife’s charities and their religious affairs. His hobby was church +architecture; the rectors of parishes in eastern Massachusetts would +come to him for advice about the proper proportions of an apse. +Cornelia realized that if she went to live with them she would indeed +feel “at home”; she would be told what to do, exactly as if Josiah were +there. + +Rupert was summoned to help his wife revise the list of the guests to +be notified of the funeral; and Cornelia wandered into the music-room, +where the services would be held. But she could not stand those four +life-size governors, each with the same lean face and tightly shut +lips and nose tapering to a point. She went into the conservatory, +where there were beautiful plants and flowers, and benches for young +lovers listening to music--even in the suburbs of Boston they did that. +Cornelia’s children had been young here and now her grandchildren were +at the age of love, yet she had never felt at ease in the house; she +had never been able to have her way, it always had to be the Thornwell +way. A public career had not been enough for Josiah; he had insisted +upon managing his household and had had the support of brothers and +sisters, a whole phalanx of righteous people. Great-aunt Deborah had +lived in the home until her death, quite recently, and had been the +real mistress of the family, with the duty of teaching the daughters +what Thornwell daughters ought to know and think. + +For Cornelia there had been a little music and a little painting, a +rose garden and some books, a few friends, a play now and then and +symphony concerts. Gradually the family got used to the fact that +they could expect no more of her than this--that she should conceal +from them the fact that she found any element of fun in their sober +traditions. They did not understand her smile, and it never occurred +to them to want to understand it; what made them “Boston” was the fact +that never by any possibility would it cross their minds that they +had anything to learn from what was “not Boston.” Cornelia’s father +had been a professor in a small college, which was decent enough, but +his father had been a common immigrant; and three generations from +now at Boston dinner-tables people would still be whispering to their +neighbors, “Oh, yes, but, my dear, her grandfather came over in the +steerage; they say he was a bog-trotter--the name was Irish, anyhow.” + +Nor had there been any fun in being the wife of a governor. Let those +who wanted fame and prominence help themselves to Cornelia’s share! It +had meant long speeches to listen to, bores to talk to, indigestible +dinners to eat. It had meant never speaking a natural word, never +laughing a merry laugh; everything calculated, everything a matter of +policy, to enhance a career which loyalty required a wife to believe +in. Cornelia put her hands to her ears to drown out the roaring of +crowds shouting victory on election night. She could hear a nasal, +drawling voice pledging zeal for the public interest. “Fellow-citizens +of the Commonwealth, upon this solemn occasion when you have summoned +me by your suffrages--” and so on. Nowhere any charm, or humor, or +touch of simplicity! Nothing but heavy pageantry and play-acting, from +the cradle to the coffin! + +Even now, when in the darkened bedroom the psychological Mr. Hobson +had charge of Josiah’s affairs. Said the assistant, “How shall I get +this old buster’s wig to stay in place? Can I ask one of the servants +for some glue?” Said the psychologist, “No, you can’t ask for glue in +a house like this--what would they think? Look on that bureau for a +couple of safety-pins.” + + +VII + +The news had spread, the telephone was ringing, messages of condolence +were arriving--a constant coming and going and whispering in the house +of death. The dressmaker to consult Cornelia about her costume; also +the old lady who sold bonnets in the town and was patronized as a +matter of charity. Cornelia was willing to be charitable--but Clara was +using this old lady to persuade Cornelia to don a veil. A dozen other +questions: who was to provide the flowers, and what kind? What was to +be the music, and who was to play it? Should the mill-hands be given an +opportunity to look upon the features of their employer and just how +was that to be managed? Two keys of the organ failed to sound and must +be seen to. Such details served to break the monotony of mourning. + +Also there were relatives arriving: Quincy Thornwell, Great-uncle +Abner’s son, a clubman of fifty or so, prematurely white-haired, his +wizened face full of gossip; he had the reputation of a ladies’ man, +in a decorous Boston way, and Cornelia liked him because he was not +so proper as the others and would tell her funny stories about the +city. Quincy had grown rich by using the family information on the +stock-market. He spent his days in board rooms, watching the prices +of stocks chalked upon a wall; and in the evening, when he was not +visiting the ladies, he was playing chess with his deaf old father. +They talked about poor Josiah for a while, and then Abner could not +keep off his hobby. He tried unsuccessfully to whisper: “The fellow +that won the last round is a Jew, but they say he’s French--kind of +funny, ain’t it?” + +And then Priscilla and Elizabeth, the daughters of Deborah. Priscilla, +the elder, was a perfect replica of her mother and planning at the age +of twenty-one to devote herself to settlement work. Betty, the younger +one, gave Cornelia thrills; a little round face, a nose trying its best +to turn up, soft brown eyes that shone with tenderness, and little +puckers when she laughed. She sat in the councils of the women, demure +and silent, as became a miss of seventeen, whose right of entrance +might be challenged. Later, when Cornelia left the room, she followed. +“Oh, Grannie, I wish they didn’t have to quarrel so!” + +“So do I, Betty.” + +“Sister is just beside herself over that old Shah of Persia’s rug. +Of course it’s interesting to know that your grandfather traveled in +Persia and had the Shah give him presents; but after all, there are +plenty of rugs you can buy. But Mother says if Aunt Clara doesn’t let +us have it, she’ll never speak to her again. Do you suppose she means +that?” + +“Such things have happened, dear. Your Great-uncle Abner has not spoken +to your Great-uncle Ahab for fifty years.” + +“Oh, Grannie! What extraordinary things in a family! Will Great-uncle +Ahab come to the funeral?” + +“Of course.” + +“And he won’t speak to Great-uncle Abner?” + +“In public he will, but not otherwise. Abner married the girl that Ahab +was engaged to, so Ahab has stayed a bachelor all his life. Don’t you +remember that big house down at the shore that they sawed in half?” + +“Oh, was that it?” + +“They quarreled and divided it exactly, and Ahab moved his half to +another part of the town.” + +Said Betty, “I’m so glad you’re not going to cover yourself with a +horrid black veil. It wouldn’t become you a bit. And I’m glad you’re +not crying when you don’t feel like it. I say for you to do what you +want to.” + +“Thank you, Betty dear.” + +“It’s a fact that Grandfather never felt the need of personal +affection--or at least he never showed it--so why should other people +show it?” Betty stopped for a moment, and then caught the old lady’s +hand. “Oh, Grannie, you’re crying now! I’ve hurt your feelings!” + +“No, dear, not that! It’s just that I was thinking how much unhappiness +I’d have saved if it had been the fashion for people to say what they +mean.” + +“Well, Mother is cross with me; she says I’m an unnatural child, and +she can’t understand me. Do you find me so?” + +“No, dear.” And Cornelia smiled through her tears. “Don’t mind me, I +was really looking for a chance to cry. It’s a great strain when you +break the habits of forty years, no matter what they are.” + +“Oh, Grannie dear. I wish you’d come and live with us, and wake up the +family. I wish Mother wasn’t so terribly strict with me. I wish I had a +car of my own. Dear me,” said Miss Betty, “what a lot of things I wish!” + + +VIII + +There came Henry Winters, husband of Alice; later than the others, +because he had had to appear in court. It is not customary to adjourn +court for the death of fathers-in-law, but when it was Governor +Thornwell the case was different. Henry had been conscious of doing +a distinguished thing when he asked for adjournment and the judge of +doing a distinguished thing when he granted it, with a gracious little +tribute to the eminent departed. + +As Alice Thornwell Winters was a model of social elegance, so Henry +Cabot Winters was a model of legal insouciance; a lawyer who was also +a man of the world and of fashion. Four years in Harvard and three in +the law-school had not sufficed to suppress his sense of humor and +for this reason he was the nearest to Cornelia of her sons-in-law. He +was a slender and rather dark man, fastidious, dressed in the pink of +fashion, his graying hair combed in a picturesque wave. He commanded +enormous fees for his inside knowledge of the financial affairs of +New England; and after business hours he became the man of pleasure, +yachtsman, fox-hunter, favorite in the ballrooms. He knew the right +people and brought in the business; and left it for his partners to do +the tiresome work of looking up the law and winning cases. + +Henry now had need of all his urbanity. First he had to listen to +his wife raging in whispers on the subject of the Mayflower cradle; +and immediately afterwards he was trapped in the drawing-room by his +sister-in-law, Deborah. “Henry, there is something that some member of +the family simply has to speak to you about. I hope you understand that +I have no wish to intrude upon your private affairs, but I have spoken +to Alice and it seems that I can accomplish nothing--she absolutely +insists that she will let Joyce Edgerton attend the funeral if he +wishes.” + +“Why shouldn’t she, Deborah?” + +“Henry, the way you and your wife work out your marital problems is no +affair of mine--” + +“Exactly, Deborah!” + +“--until it threatens to become a public scandal. Don’t misunderstand +me, I am not casting any doubts upon my sister’s virtue--she assures +me that her relationship to Joyce Edgerton is innocent and maybe +it is--but there is a limit to what you can expect the world to +believe--and when Alice continues to have some young man tagging after +her everywhere she goes--and when she changes them so frequently--and +they all go to the devil afterwards--you know what I mean, Henry! +And of course it may be true that Joyce Edgerton is a great poet--or +that he is going to be some day, and all that--nevertheless it seems +to me that this is one time when the family has some rights and when +the sacredness of our grief ought to be respected--and I really +think we have a right to ask you to use your authority and see to it +that Joyce Edgerton finds some other way to amuse himself on Friday +afternoon--surely he can find an unmarried woman to go somewhere with +him--just this one day, that’s all I am asking--” + +And so on; until Henry Cabot Winters got up and excused himself and +went up to his mother-in-law’s sunny rooms, where none of the curtains +had been drawn, and he could sink into an easy chair and laugh. +Cornelia knew about it, of course; Deborah had not failed to put the +problem up to her. They discussed it for a while and Henry remarked +that Alice deserved much more admiration than any one man could +supply. Later on he made the same little speech as the others, offering +Cornelia a home and assuring her that everything they had would be at +her disposal. The Winters had a great deal: a town house and a suburban +estate and a camp on a lake up in New Hampshire. They had only one son, +a lad who was preparing to enter St. Mark’s school, so there would be +plenty of space and freedom for Cornelia. She could laugh about life +with Henry; but what would she do about Joyce Edgerton and about the +young man who had preceded him and the one who would follow him? + +Alice had her side, of course; it was pretty generally known that +Henry was keeping a woman in an apartment in the Fenway. Also, Alice +was “virtuous”--meaning that she never gave herself to any of her +adorers. But living in the house with Alice meant that you had to know +the details of these emotional entanglements; just what the new young +genius found in the soul of Alice that was so especially wonderful and +why he preferred it to what he found in any of the available unopened +buds who had not been beaten upon by the storms of experience. You had +to know whether these young geniuses were happy or unhappy, whether +they were coming or going; and after they were gone, you had to know +just why they had been so disappointing to Alice, so unworthy of the +high faith she had placed in them. + +“Henry,” said Cornelia, “I suppose I’m going to have a little money +left me out of the wreck of Josiah’s fortune?” + +“I hope so.” + +“I suppose James will tell me about it in due time. If it’s enough, +maybe you’ll advise me about renting an apartment in the Fenway, where +I understand things don’t have to be so proper.” And Henry laughed--he +couldn’t help laughing, of course; but at the same time he was somewhat +shocked. How much did his mother-in-law know about such matters? How +much should he admit to her that he knew that she knew? He had an +impulse to glance behind him at the open door. + +“Henry,” said Cornelia, suddenly, “I am ashamed of the way this family +is behaving. But, you know, the Thornwells have not been exactly what +you call ‘nice’ people.” + +“No,” said Henry, “they have been ‘great’ people.” + +“Which means,” countered the woman, “they have been greedy--and with a +streak of insanity.” + + +IX + +The heavens, regardful of the dignity and standing of the late governor +of the Commonwealth, sent rain on the night before the funeral to +wash the air and make every blade of grass to shine. They sent the +sun especially early to chase away the clouds, all but a few fleecy +ones, setting off the deep blue of the sky. The expanses of lawn that +stretched out on every side from “Hillview” were smoother and cleaner +and brighter than any rug that a Shah of Persia ever trod. Under the +great dark oaks a flock of sheep were feeding, and behind a steel fence +a herd of deer. On the opposite slope in the distance were the white +columns of the Scatterbridge home, and at one side the cottages of +the tenants who worked the thousand acres of farmland. To the east, +underneath the newly risen sun, were glimpses of the great mills, red +brick stained with coal smoke; also of the river through the trees, and +day and night came the music of water pouring over the dams. + +The mansion had tall columns in front, going up over the second story, +covering both the veranda and the graveled driveway. The house was +painted white, the paint, like everything else, being decently old. +Wings had been added on each side, and in the rear the music-room, and +beyond that the conservatory: nothing regular, because the architects +had had to adjust themselves to the elm trees which bowered the +structure. + +All morning there was the sound of wheels on the driveway, and delivery +men and chauffeurs in uniform ringing the bell, bringing wreaths and +floral designs. “Say it with flowers,” ran the formula; and every +saying had a card attached, to identify the sayer: the Governor of the +Commonwealth and his lady, the Bishop of the Diocese and his wife, the +members of the Republican State Committee, the Society of the Sons of +St. Andrew, the Society of Colonial Dames, the Class of ’58 of Harvard +University, the employees of the Pilgrim National Bank, the executives +and managers of the Thornwell Mills Company, the Chamber of Commerce +of Boston, the Board of Trade of Thornwell--so on through a long list. +Addicks, the perfect family servant, received each offering with grave +thanks, deposited the cards on a silver tray and handed the flowers to +the footman, who took them to the music-room and placed them under +Deborah’s direction. + +The room had been made into a church, the “highest” possible. There +was an altar with a large cross made of white roses and at each side a +seven-branched candle-stick, with tall candles burning. The casket was +in place, holding the lean body of Josiah, his face upturned to the +light for his last few hours, the long thin nose seeming longer and +thinner than ever could have been possible in life. The skin was a pale +waxy color, tinted with great skill--since Mr. Hobson was not merely a +psychologist but a “cosmetologist” also. In his advertisements he said +“Every funeral is _my_ funeral”; which was why Deborah considered him +so vulgar. Boston--the real Boston--does not wish its advertisements +“peppy.” + +The three reporters and the gentleman from the _Transcript_ came again; +and this time there had been an understanding between James and his +sister-in-law. It was like the case of the man who said that he and +his wife had worked out a solution of the domestic problem; on all +major issues he was to have his way and on minor issues she was to have +hers; and so far, no major issues had arisen. The three reporters and +the gentleman were received by James and Deborah, and James got the +cards from the silver tray and dictated the names of those who had sent +floral tributes; while every now and then Deborah would say, quietly, +“Omit that name, if you please.” Not every one was entitled to send +tributes to a Thornwell funeral! + +The organist from St. Luke’s Church arrived, and Addicks knew exactly +what to say to him. “This way, if you please, sir. The choir will robe +itself in the little room back of the governor’s study. The ceremony +will begin promptly at two.” Attired in a flowing white day-gown, the +visitor proceeded to test the organ, and mysterious vibrations crept up +and down the timbers of the building. “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me +to thy bosom fly,” whispered walls and ceilings; and at the same moment +Deborah Thornwell Alvin was standing with her two hands clenched, +addressing Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge: “I wish to say once for all, +I consider one-third of the family heirlooms are my property; and if +they are taken from me because of any mortgage I shall regard the taker +as a pawnbroker for the rest of my days.” + + +X + +Members of the family arriving. The ladies went upstairs to put their +hair and complexions in order, while the men stood about, exchanging +phrases in soft whispers: a beautiful day, yes, ideal for the occasion, +most fortunate; a fine editorial in the _Transcript_, the press had +been dignified; a great man was gone, we don’t have that kind any more; +a very convincing tribute from the party, yes, they would find it hard +to replace him; looked as if the Germans might get to the channel; +amazing the way the market continued to boom. + +There came John Quincy Thornwell, another son of Abner, with his +father’s heavy frame and his uncle’s long nose; soft-voiced, semi-bald, +president of the Fifth National Bank. And Grandfather Porter Alvin, +father of Rupert, and Andrew Alvin, his younger son, a polo player and +sport, tanned as brown as a Kanaka, with a puffy checked necktie and +every shiny strand of his black hair in exactly the right position. He +stood in the library, listening to Great-uncle Abner shouting “Who will +read Josiah’s books now?” Andrew ran his eyes over the shelves of heavy +works on political science and history and economics and law, and knew +that he was not the one. + +Two automobiles deposited six pairs of choir boys, subdued in voice but +eager of eye; they were herded into the robing room by the Reverend Mr. +Quincy Adams Thornwell, the cousin who was to assist in the ceremony; +tall, flat-footed, with large bunion shoes and black suit and flat +black hat like an English curate--its ugliness excused for the reason +that it had ritual significance. Also came the rector and his lady; the +Reverend Dr. James Lowell Wolverhampton, pronounced Woolton, physically +and phonetically equipped to become a bishop; he gathered up the letter +“rs” which the Boston Brahmins all drop, and saved them and rolled them +out two or three at a time in his sermons. + +He received the final advice from Deborah: “The family will descend +at one-fifty-five.” After which he retired into Josiah’s study, to +instruct his assistant concerning the service. “First I recite, ‘Lord, +let me know mine end,’ and you make the responses. The choir sings, +‘Lord, Thou hast been our refuge,’ and then, before the Lesson from +the Epistle of St. Paul, we intone the anthem--” + +“Then I will need both books?” broke in the Reverend Mr. Thornwell. + +“No, no! You don’t understand.” And with Christian patience the rector +said it all over again, but more slowly, pointing out the passages. +He would have added the word “Dunce!” but that would not have been a +Christian thing to say to a cousin of a governor. + + +XI + +The guests arriving. They stepped onto the veranda and the chauffeurs +parked the cars in a long line down the driveway. There were three +policemen in blue uniforms stationed in front of the house, but in this +well-trained community they had only to confer dignity. The guests +did not chat, merely murmured a few greetings, after which they went +to the music-room, which most of them knew well; walking softly, on +padded feet, and not permitting their eyes to show signs of animation. +They were old people for the most part; gentlemen with white heads or +gray, flesh-colored or rosy; they wore black broadcloth, some with +black stripes of braid down the side of the trousers. The ladies were +in black, with now and then a touch of white at the collar and cuffs; +many of them wore black-dotted veils and fur neckpieces even in summer +weather. They were much wrinkled and the older ones had hanging mouths; +they let themselves carefully down the three polished steps into the +music-room and took their seats, seeing only what it was possible to +see without moving the eyes. + +The place was open and airy, full of sunshine; divided into four +sections by an aisle down the center and a cross aisle with open doors +at each side. It had white Doric columns set in the walls, and panels +with the stern ancestors painted. There were tall windows, with dark +red curtains at the side, and seats upholstered in red velvet to match. +The front of the room had a bower of flowers and in the center, where +the two aisles crossed, stood the casket with the body of the great +man, white carnations at his head and white roses at his feet; if you +looked down through the glass, as a few did, you saw his thin nose of +pale waxen color, and his white wig, resting securely in position with +no trace of safety-pins. + +Across the aisle was stretched a purple ribbon, marking the seats +reserved for the family and the family servants; in this solemn +hour class distinctions were abolished, there was only Thornwell or +not-Thornwell. The governor of the Commonwealth--the living one--came +in with his lady, but no one did them special honor; they seated +themselves among the guests. So with the lieutenant-governor and his +lady, and the senator who represented the Commonwealth in Washington; +a “scholar in politics” with a very famous name, a dapper little +gentleman with sharply trimmed mustaches and beard. If you knew the +“blue-bloods” of this community, you would recognize great bankers and +lawyers, the presidents of two universities and several scholars of +fame. You would not know the timid old ladies dressed in rusty black, +who had got out of cars some distance down the driveway and walked +about for a while so as not to get there too early; poor relations, who +had been in receipt of pensions from Josiah, and were trembling with +anxiety until the will should be read. + +Through the side door you saw a throng of humble people; the employees +of the mills, which were shut down for the afternoon. They came +streaming up the path from the road below, dressed in their pathetic +best; they would stand patiently for an hour or two, listening to +the strains of the organ and waiting their time to file through the +room. A rare occasion for them; one might work in the mills another +generation and gaze up at the white-painted castle amid its sheltering +elm trees and never climb the path to glimpse the splendor. The rest +of the village, which did not work in the mills, was clustered along +the roadside to stare at the shining limousines and their stately +occupants. It was feudalism in frock-coats. + +The grandfather’s clock at the head of the stairs pointed to +one-fifty-four, and the organ was pealing a magnificent heavy +tune. Every person in the room knew the words, and beheld the same +magnificent picture-- + + _Ten thousand times ten thousand + In sparkling raiment bright, + The armies of the ransomed saints + Stream up the steeps of light: + ’Tis finished, all is finished, + Their fight with death and sin: + Fling open wide the golden gates + And let the victors in._ + +At which sublime moment, with all heaven thundering in her ears, Alice +Thornwell Winters, black of dress and white of face, was confronting +Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge, demanding, “Once more and for the last +time, do you admit that the Mayflower cradle is my property?” + +Said Clara: “I think this a most unsuitable moment--” + +Said Alice: “There could be no moment more suitable. It marks the +break-up of our family, if you so decree. That Mayflower cradle has +been the cradle of our destiny, and the symbol of our position. I was +rocked in its arms, and the generations before me. I bore the first +man-child--” + +Said Clara: “Well, I have borne five boys and two girls, even though a +little bit late.” + +Said Alice: “I have Father’s pledge and I stand on that. Give me your +answer!” + +Said Clara: “It is a matter about which James must be consulted--” + +Said Alice: “You have had opportunity to consult James, and you have +done so. If you do not answer my question, I understand that your +answer is no.” + +The clock had moved one minute, and Cornelia came, saying, “It is time +to descend. I hope my children are not going to advertise our family +shame to the world.” + + +XII + +The procession of men and women and children was formed in the proper +order, and down the stairs, two by two, they went: Cornelia first, with +no veil over her features and no tears in her soft brown eyes; her +gray hair was smoothed flat, and her little round face was solemn, her +little nose facing straight ahead, her gaze fixed upon nothingness. +One hand rested upon the arm of Great-uncle Abner; and behind her +came Great-uncle Ahab, escorting Great-aunt Priscilla. Then Deborah, +the oldest daughter, with her husband, Rupert Alvin; then Alice, the +second daughter, with her husband, Henry Cabot Winters; then Clara, +with her husband, James Scatterbridge; then the son of Alice, and the +two daughters of Deborah and the seven children of Clara tapering to a +small pair with a governess between them. The miscellaneous uncles and +aunts and nephews and nieces and cousins had already been seated inside +the magic purple ribbon, so the procession ended with the personal +servants; Addicks, with his venerable black suit showing slightly green +in the bright sunlight; the governor’s private secretary, and his Negro +valet, and Cornelia’s Negro maid, and the handy man, and the gardener, +and the cook--all persons who had been with the family so long that +they alone knew the dates. + +The six pairs of white-robed choir boys came down the center aisle, +their cherub voices proclaiming, “Now the laborer’s task is o’er; Now +the battle day is past.” The last and tallest bore a high jeweled cross +and behind it strode the two clergymen, robed in white and black. +All found their proper places, and the rector lifted his hands and +pronounced, “Peace be upon this house.” And, truly, whatever spells he +might command were in order at this moment, with Clara Scatterbridge +sitting with her teeth clenched on the thought, “They are ours and +we shall keep them!” And Alice Winters glaring before her at the +sentence, “They got it by a mortgage, like pawnbrokers!” And Priscilla +Alvin, elder daughter of Deborah, shutting her fists tight upon the +conviction, “When it comes to a show down, Mother will give up, but I +will never give up!” + +“I am the r-r-r-esur-r-ection and the life!” proclaimed the Reverend +Dr. Wolverhampton; and then, exactly as if he had known about Mayflower +cradles and Shah of Persia’s rugs, he added, “We brought nothing into +this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” The choir +chanted, “Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to +another”; and then the clergyman began to read the extract from the +fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. +It is very long and somewhat involved, so there was no matter for +surprise if here and there a member of the congregation found his +attention straying. Rupert Alvin had seen, as he came down the aisle, +the face of Jerry Walker gazing from one of the side seats; thus it was +inevitable that Rupert should be thinking about the felt-plants and +the hat-works which Jerry had bought, and would he be able to meet +his notes, and how far should the Pilgrim National Bank lead him on? +And Great-uncle Abner, who in the next match was to meet the French +Jew, and could not help wondering about the fellow’s tricks. And young +Josiah Thornwell Winters, the infinitely precious son of Alice, who had +a date with a girl and wondered how soon he would get off. And Betty +Alvin, who sat behind her grandmother, thinking, “If only she’d come +stay with us and liven things up!” + +The voice of the rector was wrestling with the complicated Pauline +metaphysics. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this +mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put +on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then +shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed +up in victory.” Cornelia was thinking “Can all that really be true? +Shall I really ever see Josiah again? Is he alive somewhere now, and +does he know what I am thinking? If he does, am I really free?” + +In the casket, within three feet of her, lay what St. Paul called the +“natural body” of her husband. For three days it had been preserved by +formaldehyde solutions; but an hour or two more and it would be shoved +into a vault, and there would begin a process extremely unpleasant to +think about. Cornelia had been reading Fabre, and had come upon the +details, which now forced themselves upon her shuddering thoughts. St. +Paul, thinking the same thoughts, had said, “This corruptible must put +on incorruption.” + + +XIII + +The clergyman was praying; and Cornelia, down upon her knees, said +a prayer of her own, “Oh, Lord, let my children stop quarreling!” +Then she was back in her seat, listening to a eulogy of the great +departed. “When the state was in peril, he was as a rock of refuge +... to every need, public or private, he gave freely ... the greatest +of his generation ... we of the new time call in vain for his like--” +and so on, a discourse that was Boston in every tone and accent. But +Cornelia’s mind was occupied with the realities of this household, to +whom the glory of Josiah was not a crown to be worn but a carcass to +be rended. For years she had prayed “O Lord, take worldliness out of +their hearts.” But something must have been wrong with her technique of +prayer; it had failed entirely of effect. + +“The services will be continued at the place of interment,” said +the rector; and the six pairs of choir boys marched out, singing +“The church’s one foundation,” and the guests moved slowly into the +library and the drawing-room, or to the front lawn, to await while the +mill-hands filed across the room. The executives of the company were in +charge of this, but Cornelia considered it her duty to remain, and her +daughters, not to be outdone in ceremony, stood by her side. + +The workers came in single file, slowly and hesitatingly: men and +women, old and young, foreigners for the most part, pathetic figures, +the more so because of their efforts to look proper. It was not often, +under this system of feudalism in frock-coats, that the two kinds of +people met in the same place; but here they were, the masters, tall +and elegant, and the toilers, stunted in form and scarred in features, +with shoulders bowed and limbs crooked and hands knotted and calloused. +They had stood upon weary feet for hours in order to see this splendor, +but now they were too timid to look at it; all but a few of the young +ones kept their eyes straight ahead. A few saw Cornelia--persons whom +she had visited in sickness--and these made faint signs of recognition, +which she acknowledged. + +Then came the pall-bearers; the honorary ones, whose names were in +the papers, walking honorably alongside. The casket was slid into +the hearse; the relatives entered their cars and so did those guests +who cared to follow, and the long line of vehicles set out, with two +motorcycle officers at the head and all traffic waiting respectfully. +So they came to the family mausoleum, with the costly bronze receptacle +waiting for its tenant. The group stood about with heads bowed, and +again the choir sang and the Reverend Dr. Wolverhampton lifted up his +rolling voice. “Man that is born of woman, hath but a short time to +live, and is full of misery.” The casket was set in place and sealed, +and the doors of the vault were shut and locked; the blessings of +the Lord were conferred upon those present; and all was over. The +hearse went back to its garage to await the morrow’s passenger and the +guests scattered to their homes; the members of the family returned to +“Hillview” for a ceremony which concerned them alone--the reading of +Josiah Thornwell’s will. + + +XIV + +Behold them waiting in the library: every one, from the highest to +the lowest, the richest to the poorest--even the older servants, who +were certain of being remembered. Every one--save two. Clara, looking +about, missed her sister Alice and, becoming suddenly suspicious, went +into the entrance hall. There, coming down the broad staircase, was a +sight the like of which had never been seen by any Thornwell since the +days--well, a long time ago, when the ancestors had been privateersmen. +Alice was marching, her cultivated features set in grim defiance and +her deep-souled eyes staring before her; behind her a French maid, and +between them a piece of furniture of brown varnished wood, much scarred +and scratched. + +Clara stood, all but paralyzed. “Alice Thornwell! What are you +doing?”--as if it were not evident enough! Then, seeing Alice go +straight by without a word: “If you take that cradle out of this house, +I will never speak to you while I live!” And then, “I will denounce +you for a thief to the world!” And when even this most dreadful of +maledictions failed of effect, Clara could only stand with fingernails +dug into the palms of her hands and face white with fury, whispering +over and over, “Oh! Oh! _Oh!_” + +They went through the front door and Clara rushed into the library, +whispering to her mother “Alice is stealing the cradle!” Cornelia +hurried outside in time to see the heirloom being loaded onto the +Winters limousine. It would not go through the door, but the two women +set it on the running-board on the right-hand side, away from the +chauffeur; the maid sat on the front seat and held it through the front +window and Alice sat on the rear seat and held it through the rear +window; and the car rolled away down the drive, leaving the Thornwell +family like a nest of ants which has been stepped on. + +And even that was not the end! A dreadful idea flashed through the mind +of Clara, and she rushed into the rear reception room, which the ladies +of the family used for their tea-parties. In the center of this room, +upon the seldom-trodden floor, had reposed the Shah of Persia’s rug; +and now it was gone! Clara gave one glance, and fled back to her older +sister. “Deborah Thornwell, you have stolen my rug!” + +Deborah drew herself up to her utmost height of amazement. “I have not +touched my rug!” + +“But it’s gone!” + +“It has not been taken by me.” Still whispering, of course. + +Clara looked, and saw that Deborah’s elder daughter, Priscilla, was +missing. She asked no more but turned to Addicks, the perfect servant, +who never in his fifty years of devotion had encountered an emergency +like this, nor in his maddest nightmare had dreamed it. “Addicks, Miss +Priscilla has taken the Shah of Persia’s rug. Search for it and bring +it to me. Run!” + +In the two hundred and eighty-five years of Boston’s history, no such +un-Bostonian thing had ever been known to happen, so there could be no +Bostonian way of dealing with it. Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge became +an ordinary woman in a rage. With tears in her china-blue eyes she +appealed to her husband, to her mother, even to her older children and +the governess. Ignoring her husband’s efforts to restrain her, she ran +from room to room, flinging open doors and looking into cupboards and +behind sofas. As it occurred to her to look outside, she rushed through +the doorway, breathless, red of face, forgetting her stoutness, her +laboring heart, her varicose veins, forgetting even that institution +which through so many generations had stood inviolate, the Thornwell +dignity. A civilization in ruins! + +The mystery was solved at last. Word spreading among the servants, a +chauffeur reported that he had seen Miss Priscilla with the rug in her +arms, going towards the apple-orchard. So across the fields marched +Clara, followed by Deborah, at Clara’s insistence. The other members of +the family, suddenly realizing that this was a scene which must not be +admitted, ordered the lawyer to begin the reading of the will. + +Out under an old apple-tree, in the exact geographical center of the +priceless Persian rug, sat the new generation, “young Boston,” which +was going to think and act for itself--and bring back the days of the +pirates and privateersmen. + +“Priscilla!” commanded Clara. “Get up!” And then: “Priscilla, you hear +me speak to you! Get up off that rug!” + +Silence. And Clara turned to her sister. “Deborah, will you order your +child to obey?” + +Would she? There was a pause, while history hung in the balance. +“Priscilla, I disapprove of what you are doing. Please get up.” + +And so the rug-sitting sphinx revealed a voice. “Mother, I am the +person who will inherit this rug and I have made up my mind what to do. +I shall sit here until Grandfather’s will has been read. If he gives +it to us, as he promised, all right. If not, Aunt Clara may call the +police to remove me from it.” + +“Priscilla! You defy your mother?” Clara’s voice was trembling. +“Deborah, make her obey you!” + +“Priscilla, obey me,” said the mother. Was it possible that the voice +lacked just a little of its usual firmness? Anyhow, Priscilla Alvin +continued to sit, her eyes fixed on space. + +“Obey your mother!” commanded Clara. + +“Priscilla, obey me!” echoed Deborah. + +“Mother,” said the rug-sitter, “I was twenty-one years of age last week +and I have taken legal advice and learned that I am no longer compelled +to obey any one but the law. I am here and I shall stay here, and I +serve notice now that if any one but a policeman removes me I shall get +a warrant for the person’s arrest.” + +“Oh!” cried Clara. “What is this new generation coming to?” + +“Aunt Clara,” said the rug-sitter, “you will save time if you go back +and hear the will, because you won’t accomplish anything meantime. Do +not worry, I shall stay right here till the question is decided. I +could have gone farther if I had wanted to, but I like this orchard, +which you got away from us.” + + +XV + +And meantime Cornelia had gone to her rooms and locked the door behind +her; and then into her bedroom and shut that door, to make doubly +certain. She was pacing up and down, beset by a storm of emotion. As +they say a drowning man lives over the experiences of his whole life, +so she was living the repressions of forty years. All the rages she +had felt and never voiced! All the disappointments, the despairs! The +experiences she had longed for, and never dared to have, and now could +never have, because it was too late! She had been caught, a wild young +thing in a trap; she had lived, a prisoner in a cell. She had had +dreams, and seen them suffocated; she had had children, and seen them +taken from her, and made into strangers. Forced into the mold of this +family--this solid phalanx of iron people--with iron souls, iron wills +which broke you! + +This crowning indignity, this outbreak in the very presence of +death--this was an accident, Cornelia told herself. They had never +done anything like this before, nothing so open, so undignified. They +would repudiate it themselves, they would be ashamed of it to-morrow. +This was not “Boston”! But to Cornelia, who had been on the inside of +“Boston,” it seemed an outbreak of reality, a revelation of hidden +natures. Petty jealousy, petty greed, masked with dignity, and wearing +the solemn costumes of historical tradition! Other people, living +people, would quarrel over real things; the Thornwells quarreled over +the dead rags and relics of their ancestors! + +Once there had been real people in this family! Once there had been men +and women who had acted, who had dared to think for themselves--and to +care about something else than rags and relics! Memories surged into +Cornelia’s mind, of the old days when the Thornwells had been smugglers +and privateers--not thinking about the proprieties then! There had +been revolutionary leaders among them--men who had gone into the +“pot-houses” and incited mobs! There had even been women who had dared +to think, and to act, instead of obeying the men! Didn’t they worship +the memory of a Great-great-aunt Deborah, who had been one of the +anti-slavery pioneers? Not frightened by the horrible name of “Black +Abolitionist”--no indeed, she had made her home one of the stations in +the “underground railway” which had carried fugitive slaves to Canada! +She had taught Negroes to read and write--not only black women, but +black men! Such was the tradition they thought they worshiped; but +really they only worshiped the rags and relics of it! + +Suddenly this storm of emotion culminated, and Cornelia, who had been +pacing back and forth in her room, suddenly stopped still. What was the +reason women were always bound by fear? Because they were afraid! Why +were they obedient? Because they obeyed! When they wanted to act, they +did not know enough; and when they knew enough, then they were too old! +But who could say you were too old to act, if you acted? + +Cornelia, trembling with excitement, but at the same time calm inside, +went to her desk and sat down, and took pen and ink and began to write. + + “My dear Children: + + “For forty years I have been doing what other people wanted me + to do, and I have never had any fun. Now I think I have done + everything I can for you, and that you can get along without me. I + hope that I am old enough to take care of myself. I am going away + for a while, to remain until I choose to return, if ever. I am not + taking any property, because there has been too much of it in my + life, and I believe I shall be happier without it. I am going to + prove to myself, for my own satisfaction, that I can take care of + myself, without any advice or assistance from any one. I have only + one request, that you will waste no time or money in efforts to + find me. It will only irritate me and do no good whatever, because + I shall continue to do exactly what I please. I have heard of + runaway children; I am going to be the runaway grandmother. + + “With best wishes, + “Mother. + + “P.S. I enclose a respectable letter which you may show to our + friends.” + +And the second letter: + + “My Dear Children: + + “Your father’s sudden death has shocked me deeply, and after the + strain of the funeral I realize that I am run down and in need of + rest. I have received a telephone call from an old school friend + who is starting on a camping trip and begs me go along. I think + such a complete change will help me, so I am taking a night train, + and write this to explain and leave you my dearest love and wishes + for a happy summer. + + “Affectionately, + “Mother.” + +Having sealed these two letters in one envelope and marked it “For +Deborah, Alice and Clara,” Cornelia laid it in the middle of her bed. +She then changed her mourning garb for an ordinary street-dress, and +took her handbag with some ready money in it, and unlocked the two +doors, and slipped down a back stairway, and out by a rear door, and +down the path which led to the main road. There was a trolley stop, and +a car labeled “Boston,” and she stepped aboard. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +PLYMOUTH ROCK + + +I + +The “jitney bus” from Boston came speeding down the highway, and when +it got into North Plymouth it stopped in front of the cordage company’s +plant. There climbed out a little old lady, carrying a straw suitcase, +and dressed in humble working-woman’s clothing, with a worn gray shawl +over her head. From beneath the shawl peered a pair of twinkling brown +eyes, and these remained, taking in the landscape, after the bus had +rolled on its way. + +There was a two-story brick building, seeming to extend forever along +the bay-front; built in the fashion of a fortress, with a steel fence +in front, and a pond which had been turned into a moat in medieval +style. High up in the blue sky floated an American flag, to let you +know that this was not a Rhine castle of the middle ages, but a center +of industry in the land of the Pilgrim’s pride. The old lady stood +wondering what to do next. Finally she approached the steel gates and +inquired of the keeper, “Please, Mister, where I go for job?” + +The man pointed to a building on the other side of the highway. +“There’s the employment office,” he said. “But you’re too late; we’re +closing in five minutes. Come to-morrow.” + +The old lady looked at the red brick walls and the blue sky and the +white clouds and the starry flag, all made to go upon a picture +postcard. The windows of the long factory were open, and she heard +the roar of spinning-machinery, and saw the figures of men and women +moving about. Suddenly a siren boomed; and as if by magic, the various +buildings began to belch human figures. Apparently they had been lined +up just inside the doors, like runners at the start of a race; they +behaved as if the building were on fire, or full of poison gas. More +and more dense grew the throngs of escapers, until the roadway was +gray and blue with the shirts of men and the multi-colored dresses of +girls. For the most part they were foreigners, Italians, Portuguese, +and other dark peoples. They were small and stunted, the older ones +bent with toil, walking mechanically, looking neither to right nor +to left. The younger ones chatted in twos and threes, and some had a +friendly smile for the little old lady with the brown eyes peering from +under the shawl. + +Two thousand or more came through the gates, and then gradually the +procession thinned out, and the old lady turned back to the highway +and along the tree-shaded street. Smaller streets went off it, lined +with the homes of workers, four-family wooden tenements, square and +plain, with dingy worn paint or none at all. The old lady found +herself walking beside an Italian boy, seven or eight years old, a +slender child with bright black eyes; he whistled cheerfully, and was +reasonably clean. So the old lady said, “Hello, little boy; what is +your name?” + +“My name is Beltrando.” He spoke in good English. + +“Do you know anybody who would like to take a boarder?” + +The boy thought, and then said, “Come see my mamma.” He led her down +a street labeled “Suosso’s Lane” to a two-story house of unpainted +shingles. They went in by the rear door, and Cornelia Thornwell found +herself in the kitchen of Mrs. Vincenzo Brini. + +“I come from Boston,” she said. “I look for job in cordage plant. You +know anybody got room for boarder?” + +Alfonsina Brini was a young woman, small but strongly made, with kind +motherly face and quick intelligent eyes. She examined her visitor with +some curiosity, and said, “You Yankee lady?” + +“Why, yes,” said Cornelia Thornwell--her pitiful effort at concealment +collapsing at once. + +“Why you talka lika foreign?” + +“Well, I thought maybe you understand better.” Her smile was friendly +and disarming, and won the other’s heart. + +“Me no onderstanda good,” said Mrs. Brini. “Trando, here, he talka like +Merican boy, he tella me.” Mrs. Brini was in working clothes, and had +not yet taken off her hat. “Me joosta get home,” she said. “Me worka by +woolen mill. You gotta job by cordage?” + +“I want to ask for one,” said Cornelia. “Do you think I can get it?” + +“Shoore, plenty jobba now. Plenty shippa get--how you say, Trando, +afondato--shippa sunk, maka new rope, plenty cordage job. But harda +work, you very olda lady for cordage job.” + +“Oh, I won’t mind hard work,” said Cornelia, with the serenity of +complete ignorance. “What will I get?” + +“You no skilla work, you getta six dollar week. Some day you learn +skilla work, you getta maybe eight, nine dollar week. My osband he work +by cordage, getta twelve dollar half.” + +“And what will I pay for board?” + +“You boarda maybe two dollar half, maybe t’ree dollar. You boarda by +me, you go in room wit’ my big girl, I make it two dollar quarter. You +take little rooma for self, I maka two dollar half.” + +“I think I’d like to have room to myself,” said Cornelia, timidly. + +Mrs. Brini escorted her into the parlor. It was perhaps twelve feet +square, with one of those plush-upholstered sets of furniture which are +advertised at special bargains--$38.50, and you sign a blank on the +dotted line, and once a month the agent collects three dollars, with +interest on the unpaid portion. Also there was a phonograph, bought +in the same way; and before Cornelia had been in the house half an +hour, Beltrando had produced the big red record which had cost a week +of Cornelia’s board, and took the place of an icon or shrine in this +family. “You listen to Caroos’,” said the little boy; and Mrs. Brini +stopped washing the vegetables for the salad and stood with hands wet +and rapture in her eyes, while a mighty voice spread its wings and bore +her soul to Italy. + + +II + +The room assigned to Cornelia was five feet by eight, and held a wire +cot and a chest of drawers. Her straw suitcase would go under the +bed, and her clothing would hang on hooks behind the door. There was +a window with home-made curtains in front of it, and on the chest of +drawers a hand-woven lace cover, held in place by two figures in tinted +glass, one a shepherd, the other his sweetheart, in Italian costumes. +“This is lovely,” the boarder said, gallantly; “it will seem like home.” + +And now, with the door shut, Cornelia Thornwell stood in the midst of +her empire, trying to grasp what her new life would be like. She wanted +to bathe her hands and face, and realized with dismay that she would +have to use a bathroom in common with half a dozen other persons. No +doubt she could replace the Italian shepherd and his love with a tin +washbasin and pitcher. But would she be able to afford such luxuries on +six dollars a week? And especially when she had not yet earned the six +dollars, nor even the chance to earn them! + +She put the contents of her straw suitcase away in the drawers and +started to shove the suitcase under the bed, but discovered that the +way was blocked by a couple of boxes containing books. This surprised +her, and she sat on the bed and examined them. “Manzoni,” was the +first name, and she had heard it somewhere; but the title “I Promessi +Sposi,” told her nothing. The next was “A. O. Olivetti: Azione Diretta +e Mediazione”; and that told her nothing either. The next was “Le +Scuole Clericali,” and she judged that must be a religious book; the +next, “G. Most: La Peste Religiosa,” must be the same. These people +would probably be devout, and would they expect a “Yankee lady” to go +to church with them? The next was “Ernesto Renan: La Vita di Gesu.” She +had heard of that, but had the impression that it was an agnostic book; +surely her rector had spoken of it as taking Jesus for a man pure and +simple. However, these people would not expect her to know about their +authors. + +She went outside to enjoy the evening. There was a vegetable garden in +back of the house, all green and shiny after recent rains. A man was +working here, with his coat off; a big fellow, with long arms flying +vigorously as he threw the dirt. Cornelia was pleased by his diligence, +because it promised fresh food for the table. She walked down the path +and said, “Good evening,” and he stopped his labors. She had given her +name as “Mrs. Cornell,” and now he greeted her as “Miz’ Cornella.” Just +as the London working-classes drop the “h” where it belongs and put it +where it does not belong, so these Italians did with vowels; they would +say, “You lika da spagett’?” + +“I am Mist’ Brini,” said the gardener; and Cornelia said, “I am glad to +know you”--which was true enough, for she had been timid on the subject +of foreign men, and this one, her future landlord, was reassuring. +He was of middle age, and sometimes his face would be puzzled, and +sometimes it would be amused, but always it was honest. His arms were +hairy, and his large head set on a long neck. “Plenty gooda vegetable,” +said he. “You lika da minestrone?” He waved his arm with a gesture +which seemed to sweep the whole garden into a pot, and offer it for her +evening meal. Cornelia was to observe, as time passed, that Vincenzo +Brini would never lose a chance to make a gesture; he would invent a +whole pantomime to convey the meaning of a single word, and there was +no trouble too great to be taken in these demonstrations. + +“You lika da cipolla?” he inquired, pointing to another row. + +“Onions?” inquired the other. + +“You teacha da Eengleesh, I teach Italian.” Brini grinned like a boy, +and pointed to another row. “Ravanelli.” + +“Radishes,” said Cornelia. + +“Bietola,” said Brini. + +“Beets,” said Cornelia. + +This educational game went on until it was interrupted by the +appearance of another man; a laborer arriving from his day’s toil, with +his coat over his sweat-stained arms, and a dinner-pail in his hand. +Brini forgot his rows of vegetables and called, “Hello, Bart!” He added +a torrent of words in Italian, evidently explaining the strange lady. +“You meeta my frienda, Bart, he boarda by us, long time board.” + +The newcomer was a tall and somewhat stooped man; Cornelia was puzzled, +because he seemed to be young, yet his face had many lines of care. He +wore a brown mustache, which was left to nature, and drooped to a long +point on each side of his mouth, giving him the appearance of a grave +and amiable walrus. He was a dignified person, and did not indulge +in the Brini fervors. “I pleased to meet you, lady,” he said. “My +Eengleesh ver’ bad, I shame for heem.” + +“She teacha da Eengleesh!” put in Brini. “You teacha heem plenty, Miz’ +Cornella, he learna queeck, a bigga studént, got plenty book, read all +time.” + +“Oh! Those must be your books under my bed!” said Cornelia. + +“I taka heem out, lady,” said the newcomer, at once, and started +towards the house. Cornelia, with her woman’s intuition, noted that +this young laborer thought about others before he thought about himself. + +“Fermati!” exclaimed Brini. “You no go in lady’s room, you waita!” He +grinned, and explained to Cornelia, “He no onderstand politess, he +reada da book, molto studioso, all day. Getta da job, maka da little +mon’, give up job, reada book. He greata man, my frienda Bart--” and +Brini’s hairy arm went around the other’s shoulders in a hug--“he gooda +man--besta man--you ask all Italian in Plye-moot’--dey tella you--never +soocha gooda man in all state Massachusett like my frienda Bartolomeo +Vanzett’.” + + +III + +The family sat down to supper. It was not a big kitchen and they were +crowded, with elbows touching: Papa Brini at the head of the table, +Mamma at the foot, the three children on one side and Cornelia and her +fellow-boarder on the other. She had been wondering what she would +eat among these foreign people; she found a big bowl of salad with +plenty of oil and vinegar, a chunk of parmigiano cheese, a loaf of +bread in Italian fashion, shaped like a letter H, and finally a bottle +of red wine, of which the children had a little and the women had one +glass; the men were supposed to finish the rest. But she learned that +Vanzetti would take no wine; out of the books he had got ideas about +health and was a vegetarian most of the time. He explained to the new +guest in his struggling English: “Poor people molto fortunato--how you +say, lucky--no can buy richa food. You eata simple t’ing, you keepa da +healt’ all lifa long.” After which ensued an argument with Papa Brini, +who made it clear both by words and action that he looked upon the +wine when it was any color whatever. He laughed gayly and explained to +Cornelia the most elementary of Italian puns, “divino da vino.” + +It is customary in Italian gatherings for the women, and especially old +women, to keep in the background; but these humble people were showing +especial honor to their guest, including her in the conversation and +making her feel at home. They had to struggle with strange words and +call upon the children; and Cornelia was interested to observe these +latter and their behavior. The oldest was about ten, small, dark-eyed, +quiet and pretty; her name Lafevre, which they shortened to “Fay.” She +was going to public school, as was her brother Beltrando, and it was +curious how completely Americanized they were, with the quiet reserve +of the New Englander and even the broad “a” and the murdered “r.” +Boston was having its way with them! + +“Fay” served as the dictionary for their conversation; an abridged one, +needless to say. She was teaching Vanzetti English, he explained, and +he was teaching her Italian--that is the Tuscan dialect, the Italian of +literature. The Brinis came from the neighborhood of Bologna and spoke +the dialect of that region; Vanzetti spoke as a Piedmontese, but since +he had begun to educate himself he had learned the classical language +and wanted Fay to know it too. It would be a poor exchange for a child +to acquire American newspapers and magazines and give up Dante. + +Cornelia had come among these foreign people with no little +trepidation. It was the common phrase among her social set that the +Italians, or “wops,” as they were called, “lived like pigs.” She had +been prepared for dirt, degeneracy, brutality, even crime. Would she +be able to stand it? Would she be physically safe in the midst of it? +And now she sat, nibbling a clean salad and good bread and butter and +cheese, and sipping an acceptable claret, listening to an Italian +ditch-digger, who had washed at least his hands and face and put on +a clean dry shirt in her honor, and now was holding forth upon the +subject of the “Divina Commedia”! + +Cornelia stated that she had read the poem--in Longfellow’s +translation; and from that moment he and she were friends. “Oh, da +greata poet, da greata man! You reada heem, you know Italia, you lova +da people! He was frienda da people, Miz’ Cornella, he was--what you +say it--ribello.” He turned to little Fay, but she did not know long +words, and he had to explain a “ribello” by frowning and shaking his +fist. “De reecha men drive heem out, he live long time esilio, he +suffer, he speaka da trut’. I no read heem till I come America. I +younga man, worka by cloobba New York--great reecha cloobba, I washa +da deesh. And such filt’ I see, it maka you seek; you no eata da +suppa if I tell it you what I see in soocha place. Beeg dining room, +granda--marmoreo, how you say it? All reecha, much light, bigga men +all dressa beeg shirt”--the speaker made signs to indicate an open +shirt-front, and puffed himself out so that Cornelia decided her +son-in-law, Rupert Alvin, must have been to dinner in that “cloobba”! + +“Evening dress,” said she, helping him along. + +“Joosta so--aristocratico, eccelso! And in pantry, in place for washa +da deesh, soocha filt’! I gotta little room, alto, high up, povero. +Come home, I moocha tired, go sleepa queeck. But I come by Italian +book-store, I see Dante, ver’ cheap for poor man. I say, greata poet, +for shame I be sooch--what you say it--ignoranza. So I take heem home, +I read, forgetta da sleep, forgetta da greata reecha cloob, da padrone +maledirante--I live wit’ da greata soul in olda time, I fighta da +priest, clericali, I see heem in da hella--scusa me, lady--we say it in +Italia more polito, l’inferno.” + +The speaker paused long enough to gulp a mouthful of bread and cheese; +then he began again: “I say Fay, I say Trando, not forgetta greata poet +of old country. You reada heem, you have greata soul, you be strong, +never ’fraid, you bear it--what you say it--infortunio, calamita. I go +by Italian book-store, I say, You give me ever’ting Dante, I read heem +all. I reada book--not poem, how you say?” + +“Prose?” + +“‘Il Convito.’ That is, you sitta down for suppa, lika dis, but gooda +suppa--plenty friend come--maka feast.” + +“The Banquet?” said Cornelia. + +“So,” said Vanzetti, and he recited a passage, and then, with many +gestures, and mixing of Italian words with English, he conveyed to the +Yankee lady what his great teacher had to say on the subject of riches. +The widow of Josiah Quincy Thornwell, mother of three millionaires’ +wives, now learned upon authority of one of the world’s great seers +that it is the amassing of wealth which imperils and slays cities and +nations; that riches do not come to the good man, because his mind +is upon weightier matters; that the man of right appetite and true +knowledge never loves them. + +“You learn little bit,” said Vanzetti, “I maka you onderstand heem +Italian. No can make Eengleesh, spoil beautifool sound. You hear +heem--listen, Miz’ Cornella.” He began to recite, lingering over every +syllable, sounding all the vowels broad and long, as the Italians do: + + _Per me si va nella città dolente; + Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore; + Per me si va tra la perduta gente. + Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore._ + +“He sadda man,” said Vanzetti; “never soocha sorrowful man live on +eart’. He call it l’inferno--lika you say American, ‘hella,’ but not +for curse-word, Miz’ Cornella, you know what da priesta teach, da place +for punish badda men.” + +“I understand.” + +“But you no believa da priest, it is all same hella here, what badda +men maka for poor man, killa da people in war. You reada Dante, you no +t’ink l’inferno, you t’ink Italia, you t’ink America, here, now. So he +say”--and the speaker repeated the verses, and painfully worked out +their English equivalent: + + _By me you go into da sadda city; + By me you go into da endless sorrow; + By me you go among da losta people. + Joostice it mov-èd him, my greata maker._ + +It is a fact that much great poetry has been written in the dialects of +the poor and humble; it is a fact that Dante’s own dialect was that, +until he made it a world-language. But Cornelia did not know this, and +did not realize that the Italian ditch-digger was making good poetry +of his own. She only knew that she was managing to understand what his +teacher meant to him: “Perduta gente, Miz’ Cornella--it is not people +what have deny da priest and go hella, it is people what is poor and no +got friend, go for be shot, and kill-èd in bigga war. Dat is perduta +gente, losta people; for soocha people it maka me tears in da heart.” + + +IV + +The family was stirring early. Brini did an hour’s work in the garden +before he went to his job, and his friend Bart insisted upon helping. +Mrs. Brini made the coffee and “frittata” for breakfast and would not +let Cornelia help, but instead made her listen to good advice. “You no +try be foreign woman, dey glad for have Yankee lady worka by cordage. +You tella heem osband die, you harda luck, musta get job. But you no +be ’fraid, plenty coraggio, plenty odder job. You say got to have day +work, no letta heem give nighta job. Wartime maka plenty job, you no be +’fraid.” + +Vanzetti was working for the cordage company, “--worka picka shov,” +was the way he phrased it; digging a ditch for a pipe-line they +were laying. So he walked with Cornelia, and gave her more advice. +“You have harda time, Miz’ Cornella, olda lady, no giovane, molta +affaticata--harda work. You go easy, no be scare of boss, he no die +hungry if you no killa self for heem. You worka slow, taka time. You +losa job, we help, no let gooda lady hungry.” + +So Cornelia went boldly into the employment office and looked the clerk +in the eye and said, “I would like employment.” + +It was the first time she had offered herself for sale, and it was a +new sensation to be looked over from the market point of view. “Ever +worked at cordage?” + +“No, sir.” + +“What have you done?” + +“I taught school. Then I married. Now I am a widow, and must support +myself.” + +“This work is pretty hard for an old lady.” + +“I’m not afraid of hard work. I’ll take care of that. But I want a +daytime job.” + +“You might do wrapping,” said the clerk. He consulted a chart. “We have +no vacancy, but we might move somebody on.” + +“Thank you,” said Cornelia. “Arrange that, if you please.” She was +trying a little “psychology” on him, and it appeared to work. He asked +her questions and entered her replies on a card; and presently she +found herself in charge of a messenger, passing through the high steel +gates. + +It was a long walk to her destination; this greatest cordage plant in +the world extended three-quarters of a mile along the bay-front, with a +covered dock to which the ships came to unload their cargoes of sisal, +and railroad tracks and switch-yards for the cars which carried away +rope and binder twine. The roar of machinery was everywhere, and men +hurrying about like busy ants. Cornelia stayed close to her guide, who +knew his way through the labyrinth of labor, and would deliver her +safely to her little niche. + +The ceiling of the wrapping-room was low--no space was wasted. The +coils of rope came through upon an endless platform and a row of +women sat sewing burlap covers with long needles and hempen thread. +Cornelia’s escort spoke to the foreman, who took another woman off the +job, gave her seat to Cornelia and showed her the work. She had to turn +the coil of rope a certain distance, take up a threaded needle, turn in +the edges of the burlap cover and sew a certain number of stitches; all +this within a calculated time, before the motion of the platform took +the coil of rope out of her reach and brought a new one to her. + +It took an intelligent person above five minutes to learn all there was +to the job; after that it was just the same motions over and over. At +first it was agreeable; Cornelia’s problem was solved, and she could +take glimpses at the other women in the line and at the room and the +machinery. But after an hour or two the unaccustomed muscles and nerves +began to make protest; she was tired and her hands were trembling. +The hempen thread was long and so was the motion of her arm; if you +think it is not tiresome to wave your arm for several hours--try it! +She began to feel dizzy, and the coil of rope which had at first moved +normally, now seemed to be glued to the platform and refused to turn. +She had no way to tell the time; she was at the mercy of this enormous +machine which had run wild and forgotten the clock, and would go on +until the row of arm-waving women were paralyzed! + +But at last the siren sounded; and then Cornelia understood, without +any sociological discussion, why it was that the workers leaped up in +a flash and hurried outdoors. For herself, she did not move; all she +wanted was to lie back against the wall and close her trembling eyelids +and let her tired hands drop. She had brought lunch in a little box, +but she did not want it; she only wanted to be still. She answered +faintly the other women who sat near and expressed their sympathy. They +knew how it was at first and sought to reassure her; it would be easier +by and by, her fingers and back would get used to it. But she was an +old lady, to be tackling a job like this. + +Yes, Cornelia was old; she had never felt so old in her life before. +She had been foolish to attempt such a thing; she might have known +she couldn’t see it through. But then she shut her tired fists and +clenched her teeth. She had made up her mind to get a job and stick to +that job, whatever it turned out to be. Now this was it, and it was do +or die. People in New England did things like that--strange, eccentric, +and terrible things, because their consciences drove them to it, or +just because they had said they would, and were too stubborn to change. + + +V + +The siren sounded again and the great machine started to rumble. +Cornelia picked up the threaded needle with her shaking fingers, and +began making the motions against which her being rebelled. She saw +her future stretching out to infinity; every morning from seven until +twelve she would sit and make these motions; then she would rest an +hour and make them again from one until six. And those ten hours would +be ten hours, and no nonsense about them, no fine sentiment. Cornelia +recalled her reason for selecting the Plymouth Cordage Company as her +first employer. Old Mr. Perry--J. Lawrence Perry, a director of the +company--was such a kindly old gentleman; she had heard him talk so +much about the “welfare work” they were doing and what a beautiful +plant it was and how happy and contented the workers were. It had +sounded quite idyllic and Cornelia had swallowed it whole. Mr. Perry +gave money to various charities, and also gave time to running them, +and everybody admired him so. But now it came to Cornelia in a flash +that she didn’t care in the least what he did with the money he got by +selling these coils of rope; what she wanted was for his machinery to +stop for a few minutes! All the love and fine sentiment in the world +didn’t matter a particle, so long as you had to sit here ten hours out +of twenty-four making the same motions over and over! + +Nor did it matter that rope was clean and even romantic, having to +do with ships! Cornelia had pleased herself by that vain imagining; +but now she realized that she wasn’t going to see any ships, nor +have anything to do with the rope, except to take eighteen or twenty +stitches around the edges. She wasn’t going to know what became of +the product after it left her fingers; she wasn’t even going to know, +except by hearsay, how it came to be what it was. The dear, gentle, +white-haired old Mr. Perry hadn’t provided any system for escorting +his employees through the plant and showing them the process. Each one +went to his own appointed spot and was standing there when the siren +blew and stayed there until it blew again five hours later. One job was +the same as the next--except for one difference, the amount of money +in the pay envelope when it was torn open. Some day Cornelia would +point that out to dear old Mr. Perry and see the shocked look on his +placid face. The idea gave her satisfaction, helping to drive from her +consciousness the clamor of aching muscles and nerves. + +When at last the siren blew again, one of the other women had to help +Cornelia from her seat. She was the last to escape from the building, +and the last to reach the gates. Brini and Vanzetti were waiting for +her and they ran quickly and put their strong arms under her feeble, +trembling ones--and what dear, good, honest, kind Italian laborers they +seemed! They could read in her face how exhausted she was and they half +carried her along the street. All the way, Vanzetti was murmuring, +“Poor Miz’ Cornella! Too harda job for olda lady! You no keep so harda +job!” + +And when they had got home and she said that she did not want any +supper, but just to lie down on the bed, it was the disciple of Dante +who brought her a glass of milk and forced her to drink it, whether +or no. While he watched her, he said, “Miz’ Cornella, you no go back +for cordage jobba. You do little housework, you helpa da seeck little +bit, no try mill work, you too olda lady, no usèd so harda work! I got +little money in bank, I helpa you little bit, we all help, you get +little job wit’ Yankee family--” + +But Cornelia said “I’ll be all right in the morning. I’m not going to +give up my place.” + + +VI + +Cornelia had hoped to find it easier the next day, but was +disappointed. She slept badly and woke up with every muscle in her back +and arms and fingers sore. It was a continual effort of the will to +make these aching muscles do their work, and each hour of labor was a +new ordeal. It was many days before these pains began to diminish and +she paid for the effort by a sensitiveness in the shoulders and back +for the rest of her life. The doctors called it “articular rheumatism” +and were satisfied when they had given it such an impressive name. The +patient was expected to be equally satisfied with the achievement. + +Cornelia ought to have been flattered by her social success in Suosso’s +Lane. Each morning she had two able-bodied men to escort her to work, +and the same two and a small boy to bring her home in the evening. +The whole family would baby her, putting her to bed, insisting upon +bringing her supper, and refusing to let her do any sort of work. She +could eat lying back on a pillow, and they could talk to her from the +kitchen where they ate. They made a regular function of it, with no end +of fun and laughter. + +Why did they do it? Was it the innate kindness of the poor? Would any +Italian family have done the same for an elderly woman who was in +trouble? Cornelia hoped it was true; but she began to suspect that +there were special factors in her case. She was a “Yankee lady” and +these people knew themselves for “wops” to the rulers of a strange rich +land. It must have been evident to them that this mysterious elderly +person with the slight frame and soft muscles, the gentle voice and +sensitive feelings had been used to a different kind of life. She had +come out into the cold world at the age of sixty, alone and friendless, +to fight her own way. And why? She told them she had been left a widow, +and their imaginations had done the rest. She had been thrown into +destitution; cruel relatives had deprived her of her inheritance! Some +such simple and naïve story they had made up for her and so she stood +for romance to them. + +Vanzetti insisted upon heating a glass of milk hot for Cornelia because +it was nice and soothing that way and easy for a tired lady to digest. +Later, when he went outdoors, Mrs. Brini remarked, “He so kinda heart, +no can let anybody hurt. One time we got baby cat--how you say, +kitten--poor little kitten getta seeck. He molto seeck, my osband he +say, no good for suffer, he sure die, I keela heem. So he taka kitten +by neck, for go outside and hitta heem on head. And Bart, he near go +crazy. ‘No, by Godda, you no keela kitten?’ ‘Buttalo giu!’ say my man. +‘What you t’ink, I gotta time for seecka kitten all time?’ ‘You giva +heem me, I got plenty time,’ say Bart, and he taka da kitten, he maka +little box, he put heem in wit’ grass for soft, he maka heem bed, and +joosta soon he come homa night, he feeda da kitten wit’ warm milk.” + +Cornelia laughed. “So that is where he learned it! I am his sick +kitten!” And when Vanzetti came back, she called herself that and it +gave great glee to Fay and Trando, who told her the Italian word, +“gattina,” and it would have become her nickname, only their mother +made them stop because it was not dignified. + +To help them out, Cornelia told them that at home she had gone by the +name of “Grannie,” and they told her the Italian equivalent, which +was “Nonna,” and began to call her that. Everybody had nicknames in +this family and wanted Cornelia to call them by these, so that she +would really belong. Alfonsina Brini was “Cicadet,” the meaning of +which was not clear. The youngest child was called “Dolly,” because of +the rag-doll she was never without. Vanzetti had a special name for +Beltrando, a high-strung little fellow, who frequently did not get +along with the boys outside; he would come in crying, and Vanzetti, to +tease him out of it, would call him “Magoon,” the Bolognese word for +“sorry.” + +Papa Brini did not understand his sensitive child very well, so the +boarder had taken over the task of his moral guidance; Vanzetti would +sometimes romp with him and sometimes scold him, and sometimes explain +life to him in serious discourses. The boy adored him and would follow +him about, watching his every move. Vanzetti liked to go for long walks +after his supper, to lose himself in thought; when it was stormy, +he would walk back and forth in the kitchen, four steps of his long +legs one way, and then four steps the other, completely oblivious +to everything in the house. Perhaps because of the shortness of the +space he would now and then take little steps, as if he were dancing; +and Trando would follow behind him, back and forth, doing his best +to reproduce each motion. The others would smile, but Vanzetti never +seemed to know about it. What was he thinking at these times? What were +the guiding ideas of this unusual Italian ditch-digger? + + +VII + +One evening Cornelia sat on the steps of the porch, drinking in the +soft breeze, watching the fire-flies and listening to the crickets. In +the garden of the next house a woman was working and she came to the +fence and said, with a substantial Irish brogue, “Good evenin’, mum.” + +“Good evening,” said Cornelia, politely; then to her surprise the +woman said, “Would ye come over here, mum? I have somethin’ to say.” +So Cornelia moved her stiff joints and limped over to the fence. “My +name is Mrs. O’Dowd,” said the neighbor, and Cornelia said, “I am Mrs. +Cornell.” + +“Pleased to meet ye, Mrs. Cornell.” She lowered her voice as she went +on: “I have been watchin’, and ’tis evident to me yez are an American +lady, and perhaps ye do not know these Eyetalians. So, no offense, but +I thought it might be good to give a bit of warnin’.” + +“Of what, Mrs. O’Dowd?” + +“Likely ye did not know these Brinis before ye come to board with +them--is that so?” + +“Yes, it is.” + +“Sure, and I knowed it; says I to me man, ‘She’s picked them up on the +street or somethin’’.” + +“I met the little boy on the street.” + +“Sure I was of it. ’Tis a good lad he is, I’ve nothin’ agin him, +barrin’ that now and then his ball will bounce into me garden. +Well, Mrs. Cornell, ye’d ought to know that ye have fell into a +bunch of dangerous people--the worst there is in this town or many +another--arnychists, the lot of them.” + +“Arnychists?” said Cornelia, puzzled. + +“The very bad kind, mum, the Eyetalian kind, the murderin’ and +bomb-throwin’ arnychists.” + +“Oh, Mrs. O’Dowd! You really think they do that?” + +“I’ve never saw them do it, mum, but ’tis what the neighbors say, and +the priest he is forever preachin’ agin them, warnin’ us that we shall +not speak to them for any reason. For, ye see, ’tis not only the bombs, +but ’tis atheists they are; they do not go to any church at all, mum, +and their childer have never been baptized, they are lost souls the lot +of them.” + +“Lost souls,” said Cornelia, “how terrible!” And in the back of her +consciousness was an echo of a melodious phrase--“Per me si va tra la +perduta gente!” + +“Mrs. O’Dowd,” she said, “you surprise me. They have been so kind to +me!” + +“Yes, mum, but a lot of us would be that if we had a chance. ’Tis easy +to know a lady when ye see one, and when she’s in trouble, and tryin’ +to make her own way, ’twould be no great thing to give her a helpin’ +hand. But we would do it in the Blessed Name, mum, so it would count +for somethin’.” + +“Well, I thank you very much,” said Cornelia. “I am glad to know, of +course.” + +“I hope ye will not say that ’twas me that told about it, because I +have childer of me own, and I’d not like to find meself blown out of +bed by no bombs.” + +“I’ll surely not mention it,” said Cornelia. “I’ll need time to think +what to do. It may be the kindest thing would be for me to stay with +them and help convert them from their bad ways.” + +“’Twould be a blessin’ for fair,” said Mrs. O’Dowd, “for ’tis a sore +disgrace to Suosso’s Lane to be havin’ such a family in it. But be +careful, mum, while ye argue, for ye might be the one to be converted +yeself.” + +“Are they as dangerous as all that?” + +“Well, Mrs. Cornell, ’tis somethin’ I do not know of meself, because I +don’t know a word of their lingo and never hope to. But Father O’Brien +says they have the divil in their hearts, and that makes them hard to +deal with, so ye had best take warnin’ and be careful.” + +“I will, Mrs. O’Dowd, and you may pray for me if you don’t mind.” So +Cornelia went back to her seat on the porch. + +After a while she went inside, and there was Brini, with a twinkle in +his eyes and a wide grin on his good-natured face. “You talka wit’ +Miz’ O’Dowda--what she tella you? She say, no live wit’ anarchista, +badda people, maka di bombe, t’rowa heem in da church”--and Brini made +a violent upward motion with his hands--“blow uppa da Sancta Trinita +and Benedetta Vergine!” Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Molto +secreto--no tella heem--he putta di bombe nella mia casa, he blow +bambini alla hella!” + +Seeing from the expression of Cornelia’s face that his guess was +correct, Brini burst into uproarious laughter. “Ho, ho, ho! You tella +Miz’ O’Dowda, Vanzett’ he moocha badda man--diavolo--furfante--maka +di bombe, molte bombe, sicuramente! Bombe di zucchero”--and Brini +made motions of sucking his fingers and finding delight in the +sweet taste--“bombe di pistachio--di crema--bombi di gelati--What +you say it?--ice crema--di pasticceria--in Italia he what you call +pastry-cook--granda gooda pastry-cook!” + + +VIII + +The end of the week came; and very surely Cornelia did not fail to +remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It was a day of rest--and for +remembering the old hymn about every day being Sunday by-and-by. + +But then came Vanzetti. “Very gooda day, beautifool sunshine, Miz’ +Cornella. You come wit’ me, see somet’ing molta bella.” + +“I’m too tired to walk, I’m afraid.” + +“No walka far--little way, I help. Show bella campagna, maka happy, +gooda sentimento. You come, I carry.” + +At the foot of Suosso’s Lane was a round knoll, blocking the view; +Castle Hill, it was called, and beyond it, Cornelia realized, must lie +the bay. They stooped under a fence and there was a little path and +Vanzetti put his strong arm under her weak one and half lifted her up +the slope. Bushes and a few pine trees grew upon it, but not enough to +interfere with the view when you got over the rise. “Oh, lovely!” she +exclaimed, and Vanzetti was delighted. “Shoore, moocha pretty!” + +The bay was sparkling blue in bright sunshine; bounded by a long +sand-spit, and a couple of rocky islands. In the distance ran the low +misty line of Cape Cod and close at hand on both sides was the town, +white-painted houses in a setting of green. One shore-line was occupied +by the long brick buildings of the cordage plant, with tall chimneys +out-towering the hill. Cornelia did not care for that, so they seated +themselves on the other side, facing the monuments of Plymouth. + +“Somewhere on that shore is Plymouth Rock,” said she. + +“I show you!” said Vanzetti, and pointed out the landmarks. “I worka +one time by heem, bringa feesh from boat. Plenty people come for see +all time. He looka same like any rock.” + +“You know what happened there?” + +“Shoore, I read in schoola-book, Fay got heem. People come in ship for +liva here, maka state Massachusett.” + +“That was nearly three hundred years ago; not so long ago as your +Dante, but it seems long to us.” + +“Plenty long for make istoria,” said Vanzetti. “Sometime I t’ink +it mistake for teach istoria. People study tempo passato, make +conservativo, timido--you onderstand?” + +“Yes; but it depends on how you study it. The Pilgrim fathers were +really quite wonderful. They came in little boats--so little you could +hardly believe it. Perhaps you’ve seen the bones of that old boat in +Pilgrim Hall.” + +“Shoore, I see ever’t’ing.” + +“There was nothing here but a wilderness, full of wild Indians, +savages. A stern and rock-bound coast, the poet described it; and +winter coming, they had to hurry and build huts for shelter. They had +poor food--only what little grain they had brought and the game they +could kill, and the fish. That first winter was frightful, half of +them died; yet they stayed on--when the next ship came, the following +summer, not one of the survivors would go back to England. That showed +the kind of people they were.” + +“Shoore,” said Vanzetti, “greata people--ribelli--fighta priest, fighta +king--come for joostice, come for liberty. But get liberty for self, no +give for odder. I say liberty for all.” + +“Of course,” replied Cornelia; “but that is not so easy. How can +everybody have liberty, when maybe there are some who won’t play fair?” + +“Is no soocha people, signora.” + +“You don’t think there are bad people?” + +“Some badda, sure, seecka people, must helpa soocha people, teach, put +in--what you say--ospedale, ’ospital for seecka men. But mosta people +be good, wanta joostice, you give heem chance. No, no, Miz’ Cornella--” +the speaker became eager, the Italian in him came to life, he began +to make gestures and raise his voice--“what is trouble wit’ people is +not badda heart, it is badda teach’, badda sistema--it is power, it +is go-vernment”--he accented this word on the second syllable. “It is +priesta, king, capitalista, padrone--taka men, maka fight, maka war for +profit.” + +“You think that explains the war in Europe?” + +“No t’ink--I know, signora. I live Europe, I see come dissa war, I come +America for evitare--how you say--get away. It is war for padrone, for +master--for bigga capitalista!” + +“You don’t think the people’s hearts are in it?” + +“Shoore, some--but why? Is it not teach in school? Who maka da school? +Who maka giornale, da newspaper? Always padrone, he teacha da war, he +wanta da profit, he maka da people for slave, for machine--what he care +for worker life? What he care for poor lady here by cordage? You liva +wit’ worker, you see heem! You t’inka for self, you reada book I geeva +you!” + +And suddenly Cornelia remembered Mrs. O’Dowd and her warning! “Be +careful, mum, while ye argue, for ye might be the one to be converted +yeself.” + + +IX + +White sail-boats dotted the bay in front of them, and majestic +clouds sailed overhead, making slow sweeping shadows on the water. +Church-bells sounded and little birds sang in the trees about them and +wild flowers bloomed; so much peace and beauty--yet Cornelia had to +remember that men were slaughtering one another by the thousands, using +hideous machines they had spent years in building and generations in +learning to build. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Let’s be happy +for a few minutes!” + +The controversy died out of the other’s voice. “I know, signora! I +say, be happy, I no t’ink war no more, no t’ink rivoluzione, politica +laida! I go picka flower. Soocha sweet flower grow here--you know heem? +Mayflower--it is not only ship, it is flower. I learn time of year, I +looka for heem. I taka Fay, Trando, odder piccoli, go looka flower, +getta moocha bigga--what you say--gobba--bunch. I taka heem home, give +Alfonsina, she happy, make home so nice, pretty. I say, get gooda +book--roman--what you say, lova story--reada nice, be happy. I come +here, Sunday morning, quiet, church-bell--gooda place for read, nobody +here. I come holiday, all day; somatime I got no job--no needa so +moocha work, so moocha money, no got family--I what you say lonely man. +Alla right, I reada book, look outa for self. I healt’y man, stronga +man, plenty time, gooda life--I laugha, say, war no get America--I no +care Italian, let heem look outa for self. You onderstand?” + +“I understand. Most men take it that way.” + +“I say, No be crazy, Vanzett’, you no maka da world, no can changa +heem. I say, You no maka da war, Vanzett’, you no stoppa heem. But Miz’ +Cornella, no can t’ink, no can forget. T’ink alla time fossi--what you +say it--digga place in ground for fight war.” + +“Trenches?” + +“Joosta so, I see alla time trench, see men killa brodder, see men die +orribile, wounda, scream, agonia. I say, Vanzett’, you no do somet’ing, +you traditore, you--how you say, betray somet’ing?” + +“Traitor.” + +“Trait’! I say, Vanzett’, you no be trait’, you speaka da trut’, you +maka da protest, da propagand’, you getta da meeting, you calla da men, +getta da speaker. No can speak self, Miz’ Cornella, joosta lavorante, +workman, molta ignoranza, povero. But we got speaker for denounca da +war, Italian speaker, he come--Galleani--you know heem?” + +“I never heard of him.” + +“All Italian man know heem--olda man, granda man, he speaka for +poor man, maka da propagand’. One time I helpa heem for speech in +Plye-moot’. He come, bigga meeting, molto popolo. My boss--I worka for +contractor--he no like, he say ‘Abbastanza for anarchista propaganda, +no more jobba for you, getta da hella!’ So I looka for new job, but I +feela moocha good, I helpa da cause.” + +“What is it you expect to do?” + +“Teacha da people! Maka heem no fighta da war, no fighta for padrone, +for capitalista! Say people, fight real nemico, fighta capitalista! He +maka war for heemself, for hees money, bigga money--alla right, let +heem fighta hees war, workman no fighta hees war, giammai, never! When +capitalista no can maka fight workmen, so queeck you see stoppa da war, +signora, is it not so?” + +“I don’t know,” said Cornelia, sadly. “Sometimes I think men like to +hate, they get a thrill out of it. The capitalists send their own sons +to the war and they get killed, a lot of them.” + +“And de women--you t’ink dey lika war?” + +“Some of them do--they cheer for it, and hate--even worse than the +fighting men. There are women in Boston who want to get America in this +war the worst kind of way.” + +“It is propagand’, Miz’ Cornella--capitalista propagand’. Why for +could we not live happy in dis bigga countree--why for moosta we go +fight odder countree? You go Italia, you hear say, countree too moocha +people, moosta have rooma, more land, taka from odder people. You +t’ink, too moocha people, too moocha bambini--alla righta, no hava so +many bambini--what you say it, baby. Scusa me, signora, you olda lady, +I talka plain for you--you know what I mean, no have so moocha baby?” + +“We call it birth control,” said Cornelia, smiling. + +“Shoore, birt’ control, alla right. Now, you say birt’ control Italian +woman, no have so moocha baby. Butta come priesta, he say, diavolo, +inferno, moosta have baby, you no have baby you go to hella! He +no letta you teacha da people, he driva you out, putta jail, maka +propagand’, calla name, scare people, no listen. For why? Priesta say +he talka for God. God, he say moosta have baby, maka beega popolazione! +Den God he say, no got rooma for popolazione, moosta taka land, moosta +maka war! You onderstand?” + +“Yes, I understand.” + +“Sooch imbecillità! Follia! Moosta have war for maka room, moosta have +baby for filla room! More war for maka more room for more baby! E la +donna, woman, what for is woman? Animal for maka more baby for war-man, +militarista, kill. Keepa da woman for slave, for ignoranza, for +priesta, for superstizione--for maka da plenty baby for soldier! Soocha +countree is Europe, signora, and soocha like America if capitalista +have way. But anarchista say, No have way! Anarchista say, No die for +soldier, fighta for worker, for self! Anarchista say to woman, Stand +up, no be fraid da priesta, he no can hurt! Is no soocha god lika +priesta preach, is gooda God, lova da people, lova da baby, no wanta +heem kill-èd in war! Is it not trut’, signora? Is it not joostice?” + +And Cornelia realized how wise had been the warning of Mrs. O’Dowd, +concerning the subtlety of the devil, and the perils of entering +into contest with him! For here the devil was managing to present +what appeared to Cornelia a quite reasonable argument; nor did his +propagandist appear at all devilish, but rather a dreamer of dreams, so +simple of mind as to have no conception of the odds against him, the +forces of colossal cruelty that would sweep him away as a leaf before +a hurricane. + + +X + +Time passed, and Cornelia became a completely established member of the +Brini family; also a completely disciplined worker for the Plymouth +Cordage Company. Now and then she lifted her eyes from the task of +needle and thread and got to know the people about her--their faces, +their names, their nationalities and modes of speech. She would chat +with them during the noon hour and hear the gossip of their lives, the +hopes which moved them and the fears which held them back. + +Also she became aware of the plant, the gigantic complex of labor which +surrounded her. She learned the names of different buildings and picked +up an idea of what went on inside them; the “hackling,” the “cleaning,” +the making of the “sliver,” the spinning of the yarn, the “forming” +and “laying” of rope. Technical terms began to take on the shadow of a +meaning; she got glimpses through door ways of “spinning-rooms” with +hundreds of “flyers,” as far as the eye could see down a vista, and +of powerful “laying-machines” which took a hundred threads of yarn +and wrought them into a heavy four-strand rope at a single process. +Little by little there soaked into her mind a realization of the +technical complexity of an industry whereby trainloads of hemp from the +Philippines and shiploads of sisal from Yucatan evolved into cordage +of every size from wrapping and binder-twine to towing-lines and +sixteen-inch cables for battleships. + +The human cogs who made up this machine were--at least in the lower +ranks with Cornelia--very slow of wit; they labored under a load of +handicaps--poverty, ignorance, a foreign language, new and bewildering +customs. There were agencies supposed to lift them up, such as +public schools and night schools, but it seemed to Cornelia these +were countered by forces far stronger, interested to hold them down. +Landlords and loan-sharks, peddlers of shoddy goods, fake patent +medicines and adulterated foods, smooth-tongued agents inducing them +to put their savings into non-existent gold-mines and oil-wells--there +were few among these workers who managed to escape such plunderers. + +And chief among the agencies of exploitation was, of course, the great +rich concern under the administration of the benevolent Mr. J. Lawrence +Perry. The company owned most of the houses in which the workers had +to live; it owned most of the land about, and was, of course, not +entirely without influence upon the government of the town. It paid +six dollars a week to its unskilled women workers and nine to the men, +and manifestly a family could not be supported on such a wage; the +tacit assumption was that the women of the family would work, and the +children as soon as they could pretend to be old enough. The home would +be kept by the old people and the young children and the invalids and +cripples. It would not be a well-kept home, nor very attractive; and +the ladies and gentlemen whose incomes came from cordage stocks and +bonds would remark, some with pity, some with contempt, “Dagos, wops, +hunkies--they live like pigs!” + + +XI + +Now something more than ordinarily maleficent was befalling these +humble wage-workers. It was happening all over the world, but they +did not know that--they only knew Plymouth. The cost of everything +they bought was going up day by day. Because of the war in Europe, +the allied nations were borrowing money in America, and spending it +for American goods. Exactly as Josiah Quincy Thornwell had foretold +on the night of his death, it was making enormous and incredible +prosperity for American manufacturers and stock-speculators; but also +it was making higher and higher prices for the poor. And there was +no corresponding increase in the wage, so close to the border-line +of want; there was no authority charged with the task of calculating +living costs, and adjusting earnings to them. The great industries +which owned and rented tenements to their workers would raise the rents +a dollar or two a month and tell the tenants that this was necessary; +but they would overlook what might be necessary to the tenants. + +The cordage-workers were slow of wit, yet they did know whether they +had any money in their pocket-books at the end of the week. Pay-day +was Thursday and when the money ran out on Tuesday night instead +of Wednesday night they grumbled to one another and speculated +about it; and gradually an understanding spread, a kind of crude +mass-consciousness, a thing as it were separate from the individual +minds, with a life of its own. These workers were entirely unorganized; +cordage was one of the “open shop” industries, having the sacred +“American plan” in its full and ideal perfection. The fact that +the workers had no way to voice a grievance was a matter without +significance, because in a land so great and prosperous it was +impossible for a grievance to arise. Any one who went to the foreman +and complained was obviously a “sorehead,” and the foreman would tell +him to take his troubles somewhere else. That would be the end of him +for the cordage industry; whatever skill he might have acquired he +could throw into Plymouth Bay. + +Cornelia knew little about labor matters, but the elementary thought +came to her that these ill-paid workers ought to have a union. She said +it to the Brini family and greatly to her surprise discovered that her +words gave distress to Vanzetti. “No say sooch a t’ing!” he cried. +“Organizazione is trappa for worker, make heem slave! Union is joosta +same as go-vernment! Bigga, reech offeesh’, putta feet on desk, smoka +bigga cigar, tella worker go hella!” + +Now Cornelia knew that Vanzetti had helped to unload fish and in her +efforts to understand his torrent of words she had a vision of a +“feesh” which had feet and put them on desks and smoked cigars. She +asked an explanation, and the family burst into laughter and with Fay’s +help it was made clear that Bart was talking about not “a feesh,” but +“offeesh,” the officials of labor unions. There were hordes of them +in New England and they paid themselves good salaries and did nothing +for the workers, so Vanzetti declared; therefore the workers not yet +organized must be saved from their snares. + +“But then what are you going to do?” asked Cornelia, greatly perplexed. + +“Moosta teacha worker--t’ink for self--no need offeesh’ t’ink for heem. +Can all stand togedder, all lika one, but no offeesh’, no salary, no +graft.” + +Cornelia had thought that a labor union was an elementary idea, +upon which every kind of radical would agree. She asked and it was +explained to her, with the translation of long words, that Vanzetti’s +kind of anarchistas did not permit organization. There were other +kinds, who called themselves “comunisti anarchici,” and would support +revolutionary unions like the I. W. W., and even back the old-line +unions in time of strikes. But Vanzetti called himself “anarchico +individualista,” and would have no kind of organization, except a +purely temporary kind to manage a strike--a “comity,” as he pronounced +it, to represent the strikers, and not be paid any salary, and be +changed at any time the strikers saw fit. + +Moreover, it was apparent that he was distressed because his friend, +whose education he had taken so earnestly in hand, was dallying with +the evil thought of a union. “Who talka soocha t’ing wit’ you?” he +demanded; and when she assured him that the notion had come of itself, +he was not comforted. Cornelia laughed--it seemed to her deliciously +funny; she told him he was just like “Mrs. O’Dowda,” afraid she might +imperil her soul by taking up with dangerous new ideas! + +Censorship of course exercised upon Cornelia’s mind its customary +effect of awakening curiosity. She pressed her teacher for more facts, +and so learned of the existence of obnoxious characters known as +“riformistas”; persons who believed it possible to improve the present +social system, or to change it little by little. This kind of thinking +was a trap for the wage-slaves, because it led them into politics. +“Politica ĕ un perditempo!” declared Vanzetti, and the way he said the +word and the expression on his face made clear that it was something +very bad. “Riformista is traditore,” he went on, and repeated the +English word which Cornelia had taught him, “Riformista is trait’!” + +“Traitor,” corrected Cornelia, and Vanzetti said, “Shoore, trait.’ He +is trait’, because he get elect’ butta no do notting, he is offeesh’, +he got salary, he liva by graft, he maka da promessi, he tella da bigga +lie, he keepa da capitalismo. No, no, mia frienda, have notting do wit’ +riformista, wit’ socialista, he is giallo--how you say it, color of +flower--not red, not blue, what you call heem, golden-rod--yes, yellow! +Socialista is yellow, he is badda frienda for worker.” + + +XII + +Soon afterwards Cornelia made actual contact with one of these +dangerous characters. On Saturday evening there came a caller: a +short, solidly-built young Italian, marble-cutter by trade, introduced +as “Compagno” Culla. He had come to see the two men upon a matter of +business and they discussed it in their own language, while Cornelia +and Alfonsina sat placidly sewing. Cornelia caught several times the +word “picanic,” but did not realize that this was an English word, +until Mrs. Brini whispered that this Culla was one of the socialistas +of Plyemoot’, and that they were getting up a picanic. Cornelia saw +that the talk was becoming more and more animated; the three men were +gesticulating and raising their voices, and presently she heard a +familiar word, that wicked word “riformista.” Vanzetti pronounced it +in a tone of scorn and lest Compagno Culla should fail to understand +to whom it was applied, the speaker pointed at him, and exclaimed, +“Riformista e giallo e traditore--” + +Now Compagno Culla had a newspaper in his hand, partly opened; he +lifted it and with sudden vehemence hurled it to the floor. In the +course of the journey it came all the way open and made a great racket. +“Eh via, puh!” he exclaimed. “Parlate sfacciatamente!” + +Whereupon Vanzetti started to his feet, with a sweep of his arms +embracing the surrounding atmosphere. “Riformista e traditore!” he +shouted. + +“Diffamazione!” protested Compagno Culla. + +“Traditore di lavoratori!” persisted Vanzetti. They began pouring out +two torrents of vehement Italian, which met in the middle and formed a +whirlpool of words, with four waving arms in the vortex thereof. The +arms were coming nearer and nearer and must inevitably have met, had +not Brini stepped between, shouting louder than both the orators put +together. At the same time Mrs. Brini sprang up and caught Vanzetti by +the sleeve, saying something which contained the word “Nonna!” Cornelia +had got out of her chair with a frightened look on her face--not being +used to Mediterranean methods of conducting political discussion. +Vanzetti glanced at her and then turned sharply on his heel and walked +into the kitchen; while Brini and Culla exchanged a few laughing words +and the latter went away. + +Vanzetti came back and sat down, looking not a little embarrassed. “I +shame-èd for bad temper, Nonna,” said he--he was calling her now by +the children’s pet name, and she was calling him Bart. “I try for not +getta so angree, but riformista is soocha badda fellow.” + +He explained what it was that Compagno Culla had wanted--the list of +names of the anarchistas of the vicinity, so that they could be invited +to the socialista picanic. Some time ago the anarchistas had given a +picanic with an anarchista speaker and all the socialistas had been +invited and many of them had come; now they thought the favor ought to +be reciprocated--quite overlooking the difference in the situation. For +the socialistas, being riformistas and gialli, were let alone by the +polizia; but the anarchistas, being real and true rivoluzionarii, were +always fearing trouble with the polizia and naturally could not give +the names of their friends and supporters to any gialli riformisti. So +now Compagno Culla was angry and thought his party was not getting a +square deal. + +The discussion that followed brought out a further point--that the +socialistas of Plymouth had a great advantage over the anarchistas, +because they believed in organizations and had a good and lively one, +with perhaps fifty members; whereas the anarchistas, not believing +in organizations, had a weak one, in fact little more than a list of +names. Therefore the socialistas could do things which the anarchistas +could not do, they were distributing their literature regularly every +week and seducing members away from the anarchistas. Vanzetti said this +without seeing anything humorous in it and was perplexed when Cornelia +began to tease him, suggesting that it sounded like an admission that +organization was sometimes useful. Her teacher would laugh and joke +about all other matters except his doctrine; that was sacred, that was +a way of escape from slavery, war and horror for the workers, and about +it he was fanatical, implacable--he who was so gentle and soft-hearted +in all other relations of life! + +That was a Saturday evening; and next morning Cornelia and her teacher +went for a walk in the woods and coming out met a group of four +children who had been gathering flowers. Each had a bunch which they +offered for sale--two cents apiece. Vanzetti bought all four and the +children went off happy. Then he said, “Too many flower, I giva you one +bunch, taka one for Cicadet, no wanta more.” He threw two bunches into +the bushes. “Why did you buy them all?” asked Cornelia, interested in +his reaction; and he was a little shocked by her lack of perception. +“No could buy joosta two, make odder children onhappy, dey worka so +hard, da money is like so moocha more for dem.” + + +XIII + +The bright days of summer passed quickly, and the bracing days of +autumn, and then came the first threats of winter. It is nothing to +joke about on this stern and rock-bound coast, where icy gales blow +in from the ocean and snow piles up and blocks the streets, and the +temperature goes to considerably below zero. Cornelia found that she +had to take every cent of her savings to buy herself a warm coat, and +then it was not so warm; she learned to live in it all day while she +worked in the factory, a good part of the time in the home, and at +night she made it into a bed-cover. + +There came days when the trip to her work and back again were infernal +experiences, recalling those regions of Dante where the lost souls are +frozen solid in ice. But in the great poet’s story it is possible to +see the damned, while here they stumbled through pitch darkness, at +half past six in the morning and the same hour in the evening. Cornelia +would get her coat buttoned tight over a sweater and the family would +pin her shawl fast over her head and ears, leaving just a peep-hole for +the eyes and nose. Then with her hands in mittens, and these tucked +under the shawl, she would start the long journey, with Brini’s big +hand grasping her under the arm. They would go staggering through +snow-drifts, sliding on the ice and packed sleet; her hands would be +half frozen, yet she would have to jerk them out to catch Brini and +keep from breaking her bones. The pitiless winds would howl and buffet +her and stab through her flimsy garments: the whirling snow would blind +her--yet there was not much danger of getting lost, there being a +stream of bundled figures plodding to the same goal. It was January of +1916, and out across the storm-lashed ocean the ships were being sunk, +so there must be more cordage to keep the world at war. Any woman who +failed to complete the journey twelve times per week would not have +her pay-envelope with the six dollars on Thursday night; and how then +would she pay for food and bed and shawls and coats and mittens and +rubber shoes and cough medicines and dentistry and surgical operations +and opera-tickets? + +Cornelia was changing not merely her ideas but her appearance and +personal habits. She no longer took a bath every morning before she +dressed. Getting up at a quarter before six, by the light of an +oil-lamp and in rooms where she could see her breath, she found that +her one thought was to get into the warmest clothes she had, and as +many of them as possible; her second thought was to get two cups of the +hot boiled chicory which serves for coffee in the homes of the poor. +Thereafter she had no impulse to take off her clothes until she got +into bed--and not all of them then, because her bed-covers were made of +cotton, and even with all her clothing piled on top there were nights +when she could not sleep for the cold. And now and then she would +remember the formula she had heard the prosperous ladies repeat--that +at least the poor might keep clean! + +Another principle of hygiene which had been taught to her was plenty of +fresh air at night. It was easy for the doctors to say it, sleeping in +rooms with heat, and layers of woolen blankets and eider-down quilts. +But now Cornelia adopted the custom of the poor, to seal up windows at +the beginning of winter and breathe such air as happened to get into +the house. If this, combined with a poor diet, brought tuberculosis, +it would be called the will of God. In Cornelia’s case it would be the +stubbornness of a woman who had made up her mind and would not admit +defeat. She had signed a declaration of independence--and here was her +Valley Forge! + +The cordage workers lived in their dark holes, forgotten by the world +except on rent day. They grumbled and complained, because the cost of +living kept on going up and in winter it was so much worse--there were +no gardens with fresh vegetables, nor trees with apples and pears on +them, nor berries which the children could gather in the woods. Now +everything had to be bought in stores and the housewives picked over +the meager supplies; and when they could no longer make ends meet, what +were they to do? + +Some voiced their complaints to their bosses and were told to go +elsewhere; and every time that happened the pot of anger boiled +faster. Brini and Vanzetti came home at night, voluble and +gesticulating; sometimes they would hurry off after supper--“meeting by +Giuseppi,” they would say, or whatever name it might be. Several times +Cornelia went to such meetings, and a mass of people packed themselves +into a little parlor, with overflow into the kitchen, and complained +and argued and gestured for an hour or two. Such was Vanzetti’s +solution of the labor problem, the workers to gather in little +groups--“gruppi autonomi,” was his phrase; each of these gruppi would +decide what it wanted and appoint a representative to meet with others +from the Portuguese, the French-Canadians, the Germans, the Irish. + +The believers in politics and organization, the socialistas, held a +meeting in a hall, with more than a thousand workers, and a speaker +in English, one in Italian and one in Portuguese; those who did not +understand any of these languages understood the excitement of the +rest. Also came the I. W. W. with their speakers, and their program +of “direct action,” the taking over of the industries by the “one big +union.” They were strong among these New England mill-workers, having +the prestige of a great victory in the woollen mills of Lawrence three +or four years ago. + +And of course that stirred Vanzetti and his anarchistas. They too +must have a meeting and summon their leader, Galleani, to point out +to the workers the dangers of organization, and how it was possible +to win freedom from both capitalistas and labor union “offeesh’.” +There was a gathering of the “gruppo autonomo di Plyemoot’,” and +money was subscribed to pay for the hall and for what Vanzetti called +the “expensit.” He contributed ten dollars himself, and explained +to Cornelia that his share was greater for the reason that he was a +“lonely man.” + + +XIV + +That was a Tuesday night; and next day, preceding pay-day, there +appeared mysteriously at the cordage plant a force of two hundred and +fifty “private police” to guard the property. Where did they come from, +this hired army of capitalism, and where were they kept when they were +not working? Did they travel about the country, putting down labor +troubles? Had the masters got trouble so systematized that they could +count upon a regular supply of it to keep this army at work? Nobody +knew; but here they were, big husky fellows, bundled in overcoats and +arctics and fur-topped gloves, with clubs in their hands and revolvers +in holsters at their belts--in plain sight, where nobody could miss +their meaning. They paced before the gates and the doors of buildings, +and to make them comfortable when they were off duty the town’s most +fashionable summer hotel sprang into activity. + +The various “gruppi” had agreed upon their demands, eight dollars a +week for unskilled women and twelve for the men. They appointed a +committee to present the demands to the company, and the meeting took +place, and the company explained that such an increase, twenty-five +percent, would bankrupt it, and then no one would have any job. The +company offered a raise of five percent, and the committee rejected +this; there were more meetings, and crowds of people standing about +stamping their feet in the snow, and the guards commanding them to move +on, and getting surly answers. There were workers who said that if the +company would pay the cost of these guards in wages it would help quite +a little; they were even ungrateful enough to suggest that old Mr. +Perry’s “welfare work” be stopped, so that the people could have the +money for food. + +As usual, this big magazine was fired by a little spark. On Thursday +morning, pay-day, one of the men in number three spinning-room got into +a dispute with his foreman; the foreman told him to take his coat and +hat and get out, and instead of obeying, the man turned and started +yelling to his comrades. The foreman took him by the shoulder to put +him out, and others came rushing to his help, and there was a tumult, +and above it rose the word, “Strike!” It spread like wildfire down the +long spinning-room; what had been at one moment an industry became in +the next a mob. “Sciopero!” yelled the Italians. “Folga!” echoed the +Portuguese. “Grève!” shrieked the French-Canadians. “Streik!” bellowed +the Germans. And “Strike! Strike! Strike!” roared Americans and English +and Irish and Welsh, and all others who had learned the word. A hundred +Paul Reveres set out in every direction, spreading the wildfire from +room to room. The openers of the bales threw down their knives, and the +feeders turned from the “breakers,” and the spinners deserted their +“flyers,” and the engineers shut off the power, and the wheels stopped +turning, and two thousand workers grabbed their clothing and tumbled +outside, pouring into a few minutes’ clamor the pent-up anger and +misery of many silent years. + +The storm reached Cornelia’s wrapping-room, and the women had to quit +whether they wanted to or not, because the platform stopped moving. +She got her things and streamed out with the rest. The crowds were +milling about, the frightened guards shouting, “Move along, keep +moving there!” In various places impromptu meetings started, and the +stream would be blocked. Cornelia saw a man leap upon the corner of +a loading platform--a man in a worn blue “reefer,” with a storm hat +pulled over his ears, and a pair of brown walrus mustaches hiding half +his face. “Compagni! Lavoratori! L’ora della riscossa è scoccata! Essa +darà la libertá agli oppressi”--whereupon another man climbed upon the +platform and gave the orator a shove which sent him flying. “Get out, +you blankety-blank, and don’t show your face in here again!” And the +company detective sought out one of the foremen, inquiring, “Who is +that wop they call Bart--the one with long mustaches like a walrus? +We’ll have to keep our eye on him, he’s one of the trouble-makers.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DAGO RED + + +I + +Snow in the air, whirled here and there by unpurposed winds; snow on +the ground, thrown back from sidewalks and turning them into trenches. +Guards and policemen, pacing in front of the cordage company gates, +making long puffs of steam as they breathed; and workers, huddled on +the other side of the road, stamping their feet and dancing about, +blowing on their fingers or tucking them under their arms. Sky lowering +and light dim--it seemed a good time to be indoors, yet nobody went. +In leather arm-chairs in the Union Club of Boston were comfortable old +gentlemen who had agreed to pay the guards five dollars a day and board +at the hotel, to stand in the cold and drive strikers back from the +gates; while the strikers had the hope that by standing in sufficient +numbers and with sufficient menace they might get a dollar more in +their pay envelopes every Thursday; also the certainty that if they +gave up and went away, some yet hungrier wretches would sneak in and +take their jobs. So the two groups confronted each other, the living +presence of the class struggle. “Get back there! Move along now!” +“What’s the matter? Ain’t I got a right to walk on the street?” So it +went, the ceaseless wrangling of the picket-line; the most perfect of +all civilizations engaged in dividing the product of its industry. + +Two thousand had gone out, men and women, a huddled mass, speaking a +dozen different languages, and without guidance. Whoever had an impulse +towards leadership, a theory as to how labor might be aided, now found +his chance; the unorganized mass began to grow organs--a miracle of +mutation while you watched. The socialists had a meeting-place in North +Plymouth, Rispicci Hall, and this was thrown open, and was swarming +with strikers. Impromptu meetings were held, and committees named, and +speeches made. In the evening came the sympathizers and propagandists, +summoned hastily from Boston; Felice Guadagni, a journalist, orator of +the socialists, and Paul Blanshard, a very young assistant clergyman +from a Congregational church. There was a bigger meeting-place, +Humberto Ferrari Hall, and this was packed to the doors, and the eager +audience learned in several languages the meaning of solidarity, and +the details of how to conduct a strike. + +First of all they must get up a circular and mail it out to lists of +names, and raise funds for support. The greater number of these workers +lived close to the border-line of want, and their money would soon be +gone. Those who had savings would contribute, and more would come from +the labor movement outside. On the first day a hundred strikers put up +five dollars each; which would pay for rent and telephone calls and +telegrams, stamps and typewriters. The socialists and anarchists and +I. W. W. brought their mailing-lists, and a feeble little machine of +working-class publicity began to function. + +Next day there was a parade; eighteen hundred workers marching the +whole length of the main street of Plymouth, passing the cordage +company’s plant, despite all the guards and the “cops.” Three days +later came another parade, twice as big, with women and children +carrying poles from which dangled clams and mussels, with the sign, “We +are tired of living on these all the time!” That amused the newspaper +reporters, and brought good publicity. + +Organizers came: one representing the American Federation of Labor, +the conservative union, which was ready to help them get shorter hours +and higher wages; also one from the Industrial Workers of the World, +which would help them to take over the cordage industry. The strikers +listened to both, and were pulled and hauled between them; their minds +being still further confused by the anarchists, who clamored that both +organizations were traps for the workers, contrived by shrewd officials +who wanted to live without working. Let the workers run their own +strike, and let those who sympathized be content to raise funds and +feed the children. + +So thought and spoke Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In this crisis he forgot his +timidity and humility, and developed into a full-fledged orator. So did +many another worker, who found himself making a speech before he knew +it. You would get into an argument with some one, and others would +gather to listen, and soon there would be a crowd. When the cops drove +you off the picket-line, you would stop at the next street-corner and +voice your indignation, and when they moved you on, you would stop at +the corner beyond that. There were always plenty willing to listen; +it was the process by which the workers got their education, and +developed their solidarity. You would learn more in one day of idleness +than in a month of labor. In this crisis realities were unveiled, and +you saw them in their nakedness. If there was anything you could not +understand, there were others willing to explain. In the day by day +consulting among the workers, it was surprising how clear everything +became. + + +II + +Not so many years ago, though it now seemed ages to Cornelia Thornwell, +there had been a strike in the Thornwell Mills, and it had been broken +in the usual way. But Cornelia’s husband had sent her away to the +country-place of their daughter Deborah on the North Shore; so she +had not heard the shouts of the mob and the crack of revolvers, nor +seen the guards patrolling the family mansion on the hilltop. All she +knew were newspaper accounts, and the pictures, drawn by Josiah and +his son-in-law James Scatterbridge, of the desperate unreason of the +strikers. One cause of her evolving into a runaway grandmother had been +a lurking suspicion that their way of breaking a strike had not been +entirely ethical. + +And now here she was, in position to see with her own eyes; if she +needed theories, here were A. F. of L. and I. W. W., socialists, +anarchists, syndicalists, right and left wingers, even a few +single-taxers and vegetarians. In the strike headquarters she met +the young clergyman, Paul Blanshard; a new kind of clergyman, with a +religion meant to work here and now. He was barely out of his teens, +yet he saw the whole struggle so clearly that Cornelia felt herself his +junior. He had got his training through the Intercollegiate Socialist +Society; and as she watched the effect of his leadership upon the inert +mass, a new vision dawned upon her. The idea of the workers taking over +industry and running it for themselves had seemed a fanatic’s dream; +but now she began to wonder, might it not after all be possible--some +day in the far-off future? + +To her friend Vanzetti it was a cause of grief that she was seen to +be talking with this young clergyman. Vanzetti had taken her for his +pupil and favorite, this unusual Yankee lady who was willing to learn +from an Italian; and here she was falling into the snares of the +“riformistas”! Again and again he explained to her what a waste of time +it was to deal with “politeesh.” He struggled with long polysyllables, +half way between Italian and English. “Twenty year, t’irty year, +worker go politica, elect deputati for parliament--get elect’, do +notting, traditor’, sell out! Sama t’ing wit’ union, worka hard, maka +bigga union, grande, potente--never do notting--joosta graft! All +rispettabilità, onorevole--you onderstanda me? Worker, he work joosta +same--all time. Politeesh, he no work, liva good, dressa genteelman! +He is like--I no can say Eengleesh, it is somet’ing in ocean, he get +on ship, on shell of crab--” and Vanzetti resorted to his dictionary +for the word “barnacool,” so that he might apply it to the rosy-cheeked +young Congregational clergyman. Yes, the Reverend Blanshard would find +a place on the backs of the workers, and stay there like the rest! “You +see, Nonna, he joosta sama priest--new kinda talk, but all sama for +worker. Riformista is--what you call it--trait’!” + +“Traitor,” said Cornelia. + +“Shoore, trait’,” replied Vanzetti. + +The State Board of Arbitration and Conciliation took up the grievances +of the cordage workers, proposing to adjust them. And here was the +trap in action--to lure the workers into the hands of “politeesh” +and “offeesh.” The more conservative strike leaders insisted upon +presenting their case before this board, and Vanzetti opposed them +with all his energies. He rushed about from one gathering to another, +arguing, protesting; when he saw that the proposition was going to +carry, he became frantic, and there was another row between him and +Compagno Culla. + +The socialist was trying to explain the wishes of the Italians to the +English-speaking workers, when Vanzetti climbed onto the platform and +thrust the speaker away. “Worker, have notting do wit’ commish! It is +trap! It is for breaka strike! It is for maka slave! It is for bringa +you, for bringa wife, bambini, for be slave for cordage companee! Why +musta worker get politeesh for settle strike? Why musta get go-vérnment +for settle strike? Why musta have owtoritee? Always owtoritee for +worker! But let worker settle strika for self. Soocha man lika dis--” +and Vanzetti pointed an enraged finger at Culla--“soocha man is trait’ +for worker--he is more bad as capitalista--” + +There was a storm of controversy, some shouting on one side, some +on the other. But the majority did not want to listen to anarchist +propaganda just then; they called for Compagno Culla, and he got the +floor again, and shook his fist at his rival and demanded: “Why for he +talk owtoritee? Anarchista no like owtoritee, he tella you; but I tella +you anarchista is heemself owtoritee! He taka da platform, he maka da +speech, he musta have hisa way or he maka da vee-ólence! Is it not so, +comradda?” + + +III + +The great rich company, the biggest cordage company in the world, which +now in the second year of the great war was doing more business and +making more money than ever in its history before, sent its officials +before the state board to argue that wages of six dollars a week for +unskilled women and nine dollars for unskilled men were abundant and +generous. It proved that this meant an average wage of twenty-five +dollars a week per family, by the simple device of having fathers and +mothers and half-grown children all at work--which was the best thing +for them, because it kept them from idleness and dissipation. The +strikers countered by putting on the witness-stand the head of one of +these families, John Corsini, who had a wife and nine children, the +oldest fourteen years of age; John was paid nine dollars a week, and +the interpreter quoted: “He says they sometimes make a meal that would +not be fit for a pig to eat. He is heavily in debt. Goes in debt about +five dollars a week. Friends bring in food and stockings now and then +to help out, otherwise the children couldn’t go out in the street.” + +It was shown that in nineteen years past, the company had raised wages +three times, each time only five per cent; while in ten years the +cost of living had gone up more than fifty per cent. This moved the +company, out of the generosity of its corporate heart, to risk another +five per cent increase; more than this would mean inevitable ruin. Its +highly paid lawyers argued, and their eloquence was reproduced in the +newspapers; smooth-tongued agents came among the workers repeating the +arguments, and promising many sorts of favors to leaders who would be +tractable. The most expensive secret-service agency in the world was at +work. Dissension and doubt and fear spread among the pitiful bewildered +masses. The company gave out the announcement that unless its terms +were accepted at once, strike-breakers would be brought in. At the same +time there appeared a number of head-breakers, the state police, who +rode ruthlessly into the crowds. + +Also there came autobuses from Boston and other places, with loads +of ordinary policemen; they stood three ranks deep in front of the +gates, and could have joined hands along the three-quarter mile of +steel fence. Any time they saw a crowd gather, they would come at +double-quick. “Move along there now--step lively!” If you tried to +argue as to the rights of people to the use of the streets, they would +not argue back, but jab their clubs into your stomachs or your backs +and run you along. If you failed to run fast enough, you would get a +thump; and next day in the police-court you would be sentenced as a +rioter, and newspapers would tell how the mob was getting out of hand, +and the company was requesting the governor to call out the militia. + +But the strikers stood firm; they would not accept five per cent +advance, and, urged on by the radicals, they requested the state +board to withdraw its intervention. The company was worried, because +the agents of other cordage concerns were in Plymouth, hiring away +their best workers. Something must be done; so one or two hundred +“scabs” were got into the plant, around the fence by the seashore, +and an effort was made to start one department. The struggle became +more tense; the picket-lines drew closer, and the rate of Cornelia +Thornwell’s education was speeded up. + +A picket-line was no place for an old lady--so her Italian friends +argued and pleaded; but she had come in search of experience, and +insisted upon getting it. The first time she saw an unarmed worker +struck down by a policeman’s club, she gave voice to her indignation: +“Oh, you brute! How dare you!” And when he turned and came at her, +there was a moment before she realized that she was no longer a lady, +able to give orders to a policeman. Only when he thrust his club into +the abdomen of a woman in front of her, and sent the woman reeling +into a snow-bank, did Cornelia realize her danger, and turn and run. +Yes, she, the widow of an ex-governor of the Commonwealth--she who had +lived for forty years in a palace, and been waited upon by servants and +honored by all the world--she ran! And in good earnest, as fast as she +knew how, because the “brute” had heard her cry, and meant to get her +if he could. That she escaped was only because her friend Brini and +others crowded in and took the blows. Incidentally they took the club +from the policeman, and got away with it, and were very proud of the +souvenir! + +But that did not comfort Cornelia. The ignominy of her experience had +brought tears of rage into her eyes; she would never forget it, and +for the rest of her life she would be an illustration of the fact, +well-known in the labor movement, that members of the leisure class +who take an interest in the cause are apt to become more radical than +the workers themselves. Of two thousand participants in the Plymouth +cordage strike, only one had ever thought of a policeman as a servant +to whom she might give orders. + +Cornelia had been born in Massachusetts, and had lived all her life +there. She had really believed about her state, or commonwealth, as +it prefers to call itself, all the fine things its leaders and rulers +had told her. She had listened to orations about Pilgrim fathers and +New England town-meetings, the cradle of liberty and the hub of the +universe and all the rest. Here she was only forty miles from Boston, +for practical purposes in its suburbs; within sight of Plymouth rock, a +shrine so sacred that it had a miniature temple built over it; and to +her consternation she found herself with no rights that any policeman +or private detective was bound to respect. Unless, of course, she chose +to declare herself, to cease to be a cordage worker on strike, and +become a member of the ruling caste! She went to a police-court, and +heard workers testify as to unprovoked assaults, and heard a judge give +the police a mild rebuke for their conduct; and then she went back to +the picket-line, and saw the same thing going on, precisely as if no +judges or courts existed. + +And here was the significant thing--out of several thousand people, she +was the only one who was surprised! The rest, no matter how angry and +excited they became, always mentioned that much worse had happened at +Lawrence and Lowell and Fall River and Milford and a string of other +places! “My gosh, what you t’ink?” said Alfonsina Brini. “You t’ink dey +let worker win strike if can help?” And when Cornelia wanted to know +if the police belonged to the cordage company, her landlady’s response +was, “Who else is it for belong?” + + +IV + +Cornelia, of course, had been on the inside of her city’s affairs, and +she knew the history of the Boston police force. The Irish-Catholics +had carried an election and captured the city; whereupon the old New +England element had passed a state law, taking control of the police +away from Boston, and vesting it in the governor of the Commonwealth, +who was still an Anglo-Saxon gentleman. It was the practice to +rent out this force to neighboring towns; and they had developed a +strike-breaking department, subject to call by all manufacturers and +mill-owners. The force worked hand in glove with the private detective +agencies, exchanging records and information. So had been evolved +a complete technique of labor-smashing; and all in darkness--the +newspapers proceeding upon the principle that what the public didn’t +know wouldn’t hurt it. + +Cornelia Thornwell, watching this system in operation, found herself +crying out in bewilderment. How could the rich, her kind of people, +be so blind? How could they overlook the consequences of teaching +the workers such contempt for law? What was the use of talking about +Americanization, when, in a time of crisis, you denied every right of +citizens, and even of human beings? You herded them like cattle, you +beat them like dogs--and then you were surprised and shocked if they +turned and bit you in the back of the leg! Before this month’s strike +was over, Cornelia had come to feel that she would never blame these +working people for anything they might do. + +The case of Vanzetti was before her day by day. This dreamer-idealist +was so built that he suffered more with other people’s pains than with +his own. When he half-carried a shuddering body off the picket-line, +and washed a torn and bloody scalp with a basin of water and a rag, +the tears ran down his cheeks, and his hands shook. And then, that +evening, he turned up at the Brini home with a gun! He, the apostle +of brotherhood--the tender-hearted one who had refused to let a sick +kitten be killed--he was getting ready to kill policemen! To be sure +it was not a very efficient weapon, a five-chambered revolver of an +old type, much rusted; and Cornelia could see from the way her friend +handled it that he hardly knew which end was which. When she tried +to dissuade him from his course, Mrs. Brini laughed and told her not +to worry, Bart would not shoot anybody; he had once gone hunting +with another young fellow, who had shot a bird, and Bart had been so +affected by the sight of the dying creature that he had been unhappy +for days, and had never gone hunting again. + +“But if he’s not going to use it, why carry it?” protested Cornelia. +“If they catch him with it, they’ll send him to jail surely.” + +To which Vanzetti made answer, “When I go jail for worker, I helpa +cause.” Which seemed to Cornelia a dark and obscure saying. How could +it help the cause of the workers, for a poor Italian ditch-digger, whom +nobody had ever heard of, to be sent to jail? + + +V + +The real meaning of the gun was the coming of Galleani. The anarchists +were determined that the fallacious arguments of the “riformistas” +must be answered, and they had summoned their great leader and teacher +to state their side. There was opposition to this among the other +strike-leaders, and at first they refused to have the Galleani meeting +in their hall; they were trying to avoid provocation, not wanting the +newspapers to portray them as extremists. It was only after Galleani +had promised to tone down his utterances and to avoid incitement to +violence that they agreed to let him be heard. + +He came to the Brini home the afternoon of the meeting, so Cornelia +got a good look at him: a benevolent and paternal figure, who might +have been dressed up for Santa Claus; broad-shouldered and stout, +dressed in a long frock coat like a clergyman, with an “alderman” in +front, and bushy white whiskers spread above it. He was at once hero +and granddaddy to the Italian workers; they would gaze at him in awe +and call him “Maestro,” and then they would feed him on cakes and wine, +and pat him on the sleeve, and call him “Nonno.” He was their thinker, +their great student, who read everything and knew everything, and told +them about it once a week in their paper, “La Cronaca Sovversiva,” the +“Revolutionary Chronicle,” which had a circulation of ten thousand, the +fighting organ of the Italians of New England. Its elderly editor lived +in honorable poverty, supporting a wife and four children upon a salary +of eight dollars a week, eked out by gifts from those who had more. His +overcoat was frayed, and fastened at the neck with a large safety-pin, +but that did not keep him from being a very dignified gentleman. + +In his train came a bodyguard of a score or so of Italian workers, some +of them not yet out of their teens, but all in grim earnest. There were +rumors that the police meant to break up the meeting and arrest the +orator, and these young fellows were here to see about it--every one +with a gun in his overcoat pocket, and some with two, and a dirk for +good measure. Among them was a Jewish lad out of the slums of New York, +at that time employed on a Boston newspaper, and later to be known as +Michael Gold. He saw a dingy New England town, with dirty snow trodden +underfoot and gray clouds overhead turning soon to night, and--so +it seemed to the visitor--not less than a million of policemen. The +little band of rebels came like Daniel into the lion’s den; they were +determined to fight, rather than let their leader be taken. Fortunately +no trouble occurred--else America might have exchanged a proletarian +playwright, a very scarce article, for a revolutionary martyr, of whom +it has had far too many. + +Cornelia went with her Italian friends to the meeting. She could not +understand what the orator was saying, but she enjoyed the powerful +vibrant voice, and shared the thrill of the audience; afterwards her +friends would tell her what had been said, for as long as she cared to +listen. Luigi Galleani advised them to build up their moral forces, +opposing to the brutality of the police their iron will to brotherhood +and solidarity. He told them that they were the sole creators of +wealth, and that some day, not so far away, they would take possession +of their own. He told them to beware of self-styled leaders, persons +who set themselves over the masses and presumed to control them. He +told them to free their minds from superstition, reverence for gods +and priests and judges and policemen; for they themselves were their +own gods, their own judges, and the enforcers of their law; that was +right which their conscience and sense of brotherhood justified to +them. Once as a girl in Boston Cornelia had attended a lecture by +a certain well-known Mr. Emerson; she had heard about a queer New +England recluse, Mr. Thoreau, author of a pamphlet entitled, “On the +Duty of Civil Disobedience.” So there was nothing strange to her in +these high-sounding ideas; the only trouble was, that the higher they +sounded, the more difficult it was to bring them down to earth. One +and all, the leaders in this strike preached solidarity, but they were +not able to achieve it among themselves, and so their followers were +scattered and their energies wasted. + + +VI + +The state board was pleading with the workers to accept a ten per cent +raise; and some wanted to say yes, and others no, and some said it was +a trap, because the company had not offered ten and surely the offer +should come before the acceptance! There was more wrangling in the +meetings, and Vanzetti would leap upon the table and shout, “Traditore! +Trait’!” and others would outshout him and drag him down. He would come +home, heartsick, declaring that the spokesman for the Portuguese had +sold out to the companee, and all the sufferings of the strikers were +going for nought. + +The strike had lasted a full month, and the workers’ money was +exhausted, and some were sneaking back to work, and the rest were +desperate with fear. The police had come and broken up their meetings +and closed their hall, and what more could they do? The Italians met +secretly, here and there, to decide whether they should trust the +board. All but a few extremists wanted to give up, and it was plain +that these few could never get jobs with the cordage company anyhow. + +Cornelia, exhausted by the long ordeal, went home and crept into bed, +and was just falling asleep, when she was disturbed by loud voices +in the house. It was Vanzetti and Culla, with Brini trying to pacify +them. Cornelia was going to sleep in spite of the noise; but suddenly +she heard Vanzetti shout, “Spee-a! Spee-a!” Culla yelled something in +reply, and there was a scuffle and a crash, and Cornelia leaped out of +bed and rushed into the little parlor, to see Vanzetti lying on the +floor, making desperate efforts to get up, but in vain, because the +mighty Brini was on top of him, holding him down. All that could be +seen of Compagno Culla was a pair of coattails disappearing speedily +through a doorway. + +Vanzetti promised to behave, and was let up. He was too angry this +time to make apologies to Cornelia. But he told her volubly what +that abbominevole Culla had done; after voting to deliver the +workers back into slavery, he had had the insolence to come here +to the house, to ask for some fifty dollars of relief money, which +Vanzetti had collected from the anarchistas of a neighboring town, +and which Culla, as a member of the strike committee, was supposed +to take over. Vanzetti had refused to give the money up; never would +he trust anything to gialli socialistas, riformistas and traditori +of the working class! He would take the money back to those who had +contributed it, or he would turn it over for the use of some other +strikers. Culla, very angry, had threatened to brand Vanzetti for +malversazione, embezzlement of the workers’ funds; and thereupon +Vanzetti shouted, “Spee-a! Spee-a!”--which is to say, “Spy,” the most +dreadful of all accusations. + +Such was the ending of Cornelia’s career as a striker. Next morning she +got up at a quarter to six, and was duly pinned up in her shawl, and +stumbled through the darkness to her place in the wrapping-room of the +cordage plant. The bosses were very polite--good morning, glad to see +you--it was almost like a social function, an extraordinary change. +The workers had shown that they had some power after all, and the +lesson would not be soon forgotten. And the State Board of Arbitration +and Conciliation set to work, and after two months of deliberation it +succeeded in finding a formula which would save the face of the company +officials, enabling them to do what they had declared was impossible. +Cornelia would find more money in her pay-envelope thereafter, and it +seemed quite wonderful--until she stopped and figured that it would +take nearly half a year for the increase to make up what she had lost +during her weeks of idleness. It was the most perfect of social systems. + + +VII + +There was no more work for Vanzetti in or near the cordage plant; his +reckless agitation had cost the company a couple of hundred thousand +dollars a year in extra wages, and so he was stopped when he tried to +pass the gates. Some one set detectives to follow him everywhere he +went. He managed to find himself a job cutting ice: a safe, outdoor +activity, where he was in plain sight, and there was no harm he could +do. So he remarked to Cornelia, with a twinkle in his eye, “I putta +bombe da dinnameet under da ice, he freeze again nexta night queek!” + +Ten hours a day he pushed a long saw on an ice-pond, and slid heavy +blocks onto wagons. He liked the work because it was picturesque +and lively, and gave him a chance to look about. He would come home +exhausted, but with adventures to tell. He got himself a pair of +rubber boots; they were expensive, and he was proud of them, and so +was Trando, who could almost get into one of them, and was a comical +spectacle staggering about the room in two. But three days later +Vanzetti came back without these treasures, and at supper-table he +said, “I must get nodder two boot.” + +“What’s the matter?” Everybody asked at once. “You lost them?” + +“No losta,” said Vanzetti, “butta no got. I take heem off for go wit’ +wagon. I come back, see feller, Pietro, you know heem--Guasti, I t’ink +he name.” + +“I know heem,” said Brini. “No gooda feller.” + +“He poor feller. He got wife, four bambini. No can live soocha familee +for what you get cutta da ice. I see he got my boota, putta heem on for +work. I t’ink I go heem say, ‘You giva me boot, you worka no boot.’ But +I senta shame for do it. I t’ink, Vanzett’, you lonely man, no gotta +bambini for buy suppa, you worka little bit more, get nodder boot.” + +Later on, towards spring, came another incident that Cornelia never +forgot. The ice was gone now, and Vanzetti was back at “picka shov’,” +and one day he reported that he had lost his purse on the street. +How much did he have in it? Not sure, but he thought maybe thirteen +dollars. That was a whole week of hard labor, and everybody was +concerned. The family discussed it all through supper. Vanzetti said +that he was sure there was plenty honest people in Plymouth, maybe one +of them had picked up the purse; he would put up signs, the way they +did in Italy. So Cornelia helped him to phrase a notice, “Lost, small +purse,” with his name and address; he went out that evening with a +hammer and some tacks, and put up the notices on telegraph poles along +his route. + +This was while he was still being watched by detectives--in fact they +did not entirely let up until eighteen months after the strike. So +everybody was startled when, next evening after supper, there came a +blue-uniformed policeman. “You advertised a purse?” + +“Shoore,” said Vanzetti; a little uneasy, as the poor always are in the +presence of the law. Might this method of advertising be illegal among +these strange Yankees? + +“What kind of purse?” + +“He is rounda blacka purse, not very moocha beeg.” + +“What did you have in it?” + +“I t’ink I got t’irteen dollar, notta more.” + +“Is this your purse?” The policeman held it out. + +“I t’ink it is heem, looka like heem.” + +“But it’s got eighteen dollars in it.” + +Vanzetti hesitated. “No t’ink had eighteen dollars. Shoore no got so +moocha mon’. Musta be odder purse.” + +The members of the Brini family had crowded to the door to listen, and +now broke into protest. “What you say, Bart?” cried Alfonsina. “You no +can tella ah mooch you got?” And to the policeman, “He no can tella +ah mooch mon’ he got! He giva da mon’ all time. He giva da mon’ to +little one, children all time--he buy somet’ing, giva present all time, +never t’ink for keepa da mon’. My osband here, he tella you, Mister +Polissman. Tella heem, Vincenzo!” + +“Shoore,” said Brini, “He bigga fool for money. He giva me for keep, +forgetta, never know ah mooch he got.” + +“Me know his purse,” persisted the woman. “Me see alla time in room, me +fixa room. Could taka half his mon’ all da time, he not know it. It is +hee’s purse, Mr. Polissman.” + +They discussed the time and place where the purse had been found, and +everything fitted. So the policeman said, “I guess you better take +it. Nobody else has claimed it.” But Vanzetti was stubborn, he was +quite sure he couldn’t have had so much as eighteen dollars in his +possession. He would not take it, and the policeman went off, much +puzzled at this singular kind of “wop.” + +Also there were further developments of the affair Culla, curious and +touching to the Yankee observer. Compagno Culla had been blacklisted by +the cordage company--despite the fact that he was one of the moderates. +He was doing some kind of sedentary work, and complained that he was +suffering from indigestion. Vanzetti, enthusiast for the back-to-nature +way of life, advised him that it was because of sitting still all day. +Said Bart, telling Cornelia about it, “Come wit’ me, worka picka shov’, +you maka you self new man.” And sure enough, Compagno Culla gave up his +indoor work, and went to digging ditches, and after he had got used to +it, he found that his indigestion was better. He mentioned it once at +the Brinis, and Bart patted him on the shoulder, proud and benevolent. + +After the visitor had gone, Cornelia said, “You don’t want to kill +him any more!” And Vanzetti grinned, as he had learned to do when +“Nonna” was teasing him. “Wanta kill so long he try for be offeesh’, +maka union, be secretary da union, maka jobba for self. When he come +lika me, worka picka shov’, maka fight capitalista, padrone, den he is +compagno, comradda, gooda feller, I lika heem.” So, little by little, +Cornelia came to understand the type of idealist-fanatic, which could +be gentle as a child in all personal relationships, but fierce and +dangerous when roused by social wrong. + + +VIII + +Springtime! You dressed by the light of dawn, and the good old sun was +shining over the sea as you went to your day’s work. As if ashamed for +the suffering his absence had caused you, he gave double measure, and +the snows melted, and little rivers ran from every hillside, and in +sheltered corners you saw green things sticking their timid heads from +the ground. Brini hurried home from the factory and tore off his coat +and seized his spade and went to work, a man possessed by the common +or garden variety of frenzy. Even Vanzetti, after ten hours “picka +shov’,” could not escape the disease, and joined in with the rake. So +must the Pilgrim fathers have behaved after that first long winter, +when so many had perished upon inadequate rations, and they dreamed the +miracle of green things growing from this strange new soil. + +One lovely brown bed after another was leveled and raked smooth, and +laid out with strings by the eager children. They could hardly wait +for their father to get home in the afternoon to start planting. They +set up labels on little stakes--it was a miniature graveyard of seeds, +and everybody cherishing the religious hope--“Resurgam!” The children +would come hurrying home from school, and there were the tiny green +threads of onions, and little green points that would be radishes, and +pink-tinged ones that would be beets! When, a couple of weeks later, +there were some big enough to be pulled and washed and made into a baby +salad, that was a regular religious ceremony, a Dago thanksgiving. + +Out in the woods you could find tiny flowers of fragile and unearthly +beauty, such as ravish the souls of children, and of prophets and +dreamers and fanatics. On Sunday mornings Vanzetti and Cornelia and +Fay and Trando would set out, and if it had been left to the man they +would never have stopped wandering the whole day long, and by night +time they would have been lost. The woods were his temple, full of +infinite mysteries. He would point out signs of nature’s cunning; he +would speculate about things he did not understand, and ask Cornelia +if she knew; if nobody knew, perhaps they could watch and find out. He +would get down on his knees over an ant’s nest, and be happy for an +hour with the frenzied labors of these tiny bundles of energy. Then he +would spring up and start walking again; come on, it was almost time +for mayflowers, perhaps they would find some in the next little valley. + +And the seashore! So many strange things that you had never seen +before! The children would scramble about on slippery rocks at low +tide, and gather more treasures than their hands could hold. Better +leave them where they were, said Bart, and carry off knowledge about +them. They would sit on the high rocks to rest, and watch the sailboats +and the ships, and speculate about where they came from and what they +brought. Bart was curious as to other parts of the world, and how men +lived there. When he discovered that Cornelia had read books about such +things, he would ask her questions, pretending that it was for the +education of the children--but it was like the father who enjoys the +circus more than the children do! + +The mayflowers came, and you could gather bunches of them, and turn the +humblest worker’s home into a bower. The vegetable rows were shining +now, and the salads on the supper-table were explosions of green, and +the soups were steaming symphonies in red and green and white and +yellow. The rising sun ran you a race in the morning, and the evenings +were so bright and lovely that you hated to go to bed. It was what you +had been waiting for, through the black and bitter winter; Cornelia +quoted the one-eyed Kalandar of the Arabian Nights: “This indeed is +life! Pity ’tis ’tis fleeting!” + +In the house across the street lived Signor Prezzolini, who earned his +living by teaching the violin. When he gave lessons to his young pupils +it was not so pleasant, but sometimes he practiced for himself, and in +warm weather he would have his windows open, and what could be more +wonderful than to sit on your front porch in the twilight, and gaze up +at far-off mysterious stars, and listen to strains of ravishing beauty? +In those hours the little Brini boy’s life-destiny was determined; +he was only eight and a half years old, but he made up his mind one +evening, and announced it gravely, “I am going to be a violinist.” + +Cornelia was moved to tell him something out of her own childhood. She +had lived next to the home of rich people, who gave many balls and +parties, and would have an orchestra to play. Cornelia’s mother would +put her to bed, and the child would creep to the window and listen. +Then a bold idea occurred to her, and she took a blanket and stole +downstairs, and into the neighbor’s garden, and crawled under a bush, +where she was safe from discovery; there she lay for hours, wrapped in +the blanket, listening in such ecstasy that even now she would shiver +as she remembered it. + +Little Trando nestled closer to her, and put his sensitive hand into +hers. In between the playing, he begged for more stories about her +girlhood. She told him how she had believed in fairies, and would run +out into the garden in the early dawn, and hunt under the prettiest +flowers, trembling with the delicious hope that a fairy might be +hiding there, and what would she say if she met one. But here Bart, +the serious one, intervened; he did not approve of fairy-stories. “No +should tella children what is not true, Nonna. It plenty lovely t’ing +what is real, plenty miraculosa--how you say it, wonderfool. When you +teach somet’ing true, is usefool too, but fairy is lika diavolo, like +angioli, superstizione, no gooda for teach.” + + +IX + +Cornelia had by now got hardened to her job. Her hands were skinny, +with whipcords standing out on the backs; her fingers were knobby at +the joints, and covered with tough calluses. Her shoulders were bowed +to meet the coils of rope upon which she sewed, and one shoulder +sagged lower than the other. But they did not ache, and she could work +peacefully, and have time for a bit of gossip with her neighbors, and +for long thoughts about the life she was living, and the people she had +come to know. + +The circle of her acquaintance had been greatly widened by the strike, +which had the effect of bringing the workers together and breaking down +barriers of language and creed. Mrs. O’Dowd, Cornelia’s pious neighbor, +had been on strike, with her husband and several relatives, and they +had learned that the “wops” next door were also capable of loyalty, and +that their jabber of sounds might mean something of importance to Irish +aristocrats. Cornelia served as go-between, and got so well acquainted +that she ventured to hint perhaps the heavenly powers might find some +way to accept good works as a partial substitute for good doctrine. +That was contrary to Father O’Brien, of course, but even so, one might +think about it, and one might pray for the lost souls. + +That was actually being done, Cornelia learned; it was Mrs. Lavatelli, +the neighbor on the other side, who was so much distressed by the +sight of three bambini who had never been baptized, that she made it a +practice to burn a candle before the image of the virgin every night +before she went to bed. And Cornelia said, surely that ought to be +enough. God was being properly reminded, and it must be assumed that +He, in His infinite wisdom, would take whatever steps were necessary. + +There was naturally a great deal of curiosity among the neighbors as +to this mysterious Yankee lady who had lost her husband and home under +circumstances to which she never referred. They would come and call, +or avail themselves of opportunities to gossip over the back fence +while hanging out clothes or working at the vegetables. And Cornelia +would make use of her social training to divert the conversation, so +that presently the neighbors would be talking about their affairs, and +Cornelia would be learning something of the things for which she had +come here. + +What struck her most frequently--and always on the funny-bone--was the +complete identity of spirit between these ladies of the back fence and +those of the “Back Bay.” If Cornelia had imagined that by evolving into +a runaway grandmother she was going to find freedom from conventions, +from the petty restrictions of collective femininity, then she had made +a great mistake, and wasted the sixty-first year of her life. For these +working women and wives of working men had their very strict notions of +what was proper, and they had the same system of government by gossip. +The only difference which Cornelia noticed between them and the “Sewing +Circle,” the body which had ruled the social destiny of Boston for two +generations, was that the ladies of the back fence did not lower their +voices when they came to the worst part of their stories; they had not +cultivated the use of the shoulders and the eyebrows as substitutes for +words in the circulation of slander. + +The ladies of the back fence did not have so much money as the ladies +of the Back Bay, but they made up for it by having more children, and +they used these for conversational purposes in the same way. They would +tell the charming things the little ones had said, and just as in +Boston, it never occurred to them that this might bore the listener. +Also they would tell about the children’s ailments, and what the doctor +said, and whether or not the doctor knew what he was talking about. +Apparently the unsatisfactoriness of doctors, at the present stage of +their development, had been discovered by the poor as by the rich. +There was the same experimenting with unorthodox remedies, and the +same talk about results--Cornelia might as well have been back in the +nursery with her daughter Clara Scatterbridge. + +And then clothes. There were fashion magazines passed from hand to +hand, and when Mrs. O’Dowd’s younger sister made herself a party dress, +she cut it upon a pattern you would have seen at the Friday evening +dances of the socially elect. The material here was sleazy, but that +did not enter into the conversation, because nobody knew it was so. + +And then ancestors! Strange as it might seem, the ladies of the back +fence talked about family, and who was who, and why. To be sure, they +could not go so far back; they had no family-trees and colleges of +heraldry, no pages of genealogy in the _Evening Transcript_ every +Wednesday. But there were so many more families, that it made an equal +supply of conversational material. Strange as it might seem, there was +the same amount of hostility and the same amount of pride in the family +talk. Cornelia never met any woman so low that she could not find some +other women to look down on; she never found any woman so high that she +was not eager to know a Yankee lady, and to repeat to her neighbors +what the Yankee lady had said. + + +X + +Also Cornelia got to know Vanzetti, with the intimacy inevitable in the +crowded homes of the poor. She knew him standing in front of a little +cracked mirror, tying his cravat and singing songs of his old home. +She knew him teaching songs to the children, and learning American +songs they brought home from school. She knew him keeping watch in +the kitchen, to make sure that Alfonsina did not have to carry coal +or wood. She knew him sitting up long after the rest had gone to bed, +reading by the light of an oil lamp, his brow furrowed in thought. At +such times he would be lost to her and to all the world; she, who had +always taken comfort for granted, was awed by the spectacle of a man +who robbed himself of sleep to get knowledge. + +He taught her some Italian, and she taught him English. She explained +that mystery, so difficult of comprehension to an Italian, that it +is possible for certain consonants to follow each other without a +vowel between. One said “a great big house”; one did not have to say +“a greata bigga house.” She explained the simple idioms, one after +another. One did not say, “I no can”; one said, “I cannot.” Vanzetti +wrote this down, and presently had made such progress that he would +stop in the middle: “I no--cannot.” She labored to teach him the +mystery of the sound “th”; showing him how the tongue was placed, stuck +out a little, and pressed against the lower part of the upper teeth. +The children were fascinated by that; they had learned to make the +sound, but without knowing how they did it. They would watch Bart’s +efforts; he got so that he would stick his tongue out, but alas, he +could not always time it right, and he would stick it out and then pull +it in and make the wrong sound! The children laughed merrily--such +pleasure it gave them, to find themselves superior to the grown-ups! +But that was all right with Bart--it was his dream that the children +would be superior in all things. + +Once or twice a month he would disappear for a day or two. The +irregular character of his work made this possible--and anyhow, there +was no job that could hold him when it was announced in “La Cronaca +Sovversiva” that Galleani was going to lecture on the effects of the +war upon the revolutionary movement in Italy, or Carlo Tresca upon +syndicalist versus individualist anarchism. Vanzetti would come back +brimming over with arguments, and news from the “Gruppo Autonomo di +East Boston,” as the Galleani followers called themselves. He and Brini +would have vociferous arguments, and later Vanzetti would explain to +Cornelia what it was about. Or perhaps there would be a “picanic” in +a neighboring town, and Vanzetti would get a bundle of literature to +“distriboot.” Or there would be a strike in the shoe factories of +Lynn, and he would compose an appeal, and take it round among the +anarchistas, and collect fifty cents from one and a quarter from the +next, and in a couple of days would have twenty dollars to be forwarded +by postal order. + +Little by little Cornelia was coming to understand his doctrine. +He would pick out passages from the paper and explain them to her, +and answer her questions and objections. It was one of those high +perfectionist doctrines, which assume in human beings a quantity of +virtue which few as yet possess. Those who succeed in living up to +this doctrine are sublime; but those who fail may break their necks. +Might there not be persons using Vanzetti’s lofty phrases as a pretext +for evading duties, or as a means of preying upon their fellows? So +Cornelia asked, and the other answered that this might happen, but +there could be no progress without some risk, and neither men nor women +could learn to swim unless they entered the water. + +He was determined to read English, and from one of his trips he brought +back a book called “The Conquest of Bread,” by P. Kropotkin. Cornelia, +with her woman’s wit, did not fail to divine that there were two +people going to be educated out of that book! Curiously enough, it +was not until later that she connected its author with a very famous +scientist from Russia, whose visit to Boston had made a great stir in +intellectual circles some eight years previously. A high-up nobleman +escaped from exile in Siberia, Kropotkin had been a social lion. A +Harvard professor who was in the next year to become president of the +university--than which there is no higher station in the world--had +introduced him for a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute. How +could it have occurred to Cornelia that this learned foreigner with +the bushy gray whiskers whom she had met among the most exalted of the +Brahmins, could be the author of a tract recommending the overthrow of +government by mass insurrection of the proletariat? How could she have +imagined that Mr. Lowell would have consented to further the propaganda +of anarcho-syndicalism? How could she have imagined it--or, for that +matter, how could he? + + +XI + +There was a good-sized grape-arbor behind the house, and it came slowly +into leaf, and then into blossom, and spread upon the air a marvelous +sweet perfume; you could stand and drink it, almost as if it were the +reality of autumn instead of the promise of spring. “Divino da vino!” +said Vincenzo Brini; it was in the days before prohibition, of course. +“Gooda redda wine,” he said, pointing to the blossoms. “You calla heem +‘Dago Red.’” And then with his good-natured grin he pointed to himself. +“Nodder kind Dago Red!” He pointed to Vanzetti. “More Dago Red!” + +It was a joke to which they were much accustomed. The children would +hear it called after them when they went to school: “Dago Red! Dago +Red!” Even Father O’Brien had taken it up, and in one of his sermons +had advised his flock to avoid any and all kinds of “Dago Reds.” “What +you t’ink of dat?” said Alfonsina, outraged; and Cornelia answered. +“Tell him what they did to Jesus. He too had a nickname, ‘King of the +Jews.’ They wrote it on the cross--‘I.N.R.I.’--Jesus of Nazareth, King +of the Jews.” + +“I know,” said Vanzetti. “I read heem. He was not what priest say, he +was worker, same like me and you, ribello, rivoluzionario! Da priest +in his time want him kill-èd--say he make trouble. I no--cannot say it +Eengleesh--” + +“‘And they were the more fierce, saying, he stirreth up the people.’” + +“Joosta so! He was gooda man, povero. I sorry when he die. I make tears +for heem. I say compagno--Comradda Gesu, die for make joostice for +worker.” + +So it was when you were talking with Bart. You would begin by smelling +the grape blossoms and making jokes about the wine you were going to +drink; and you would end by making tears for Comradda Gesu. + +“Summer is y-comen in!” sang the pair of wrens on top of the +grape-arbor; putting in an extra vowel, just as if they had been +Dagoes! It was a time for coming outdoors, a time for beauty and joy. +But alas, the hideous slaughter in Europe was mounting to frenzy, +becoming an extermination of the human race. The exploiters and +imperialists whose greed had dragged Italy into the conflict were +sending propagandists over here, to lure the Italian youth back into +the slaughter-pit. + +And so there was a bugle call in the soul of Bartolomeo Vanzetti. He +heard it all the time, he could never cease talking about it. He must +not spend the warm summer days lying on Castle Hill, reading Dante and +Manzoni; he must help to organize meetings in one town or another; he +must go the day before and distribute handbills from house to house, +and beg the people to come; he must be on hand to take up a collection +and forward it to Galleani, so that more papers might be printed, to +hold the demon of militarism at bay, and expose the lies of piety and +patriotism. That was his duty, his martyrdom--his way of following the +example of Comradda Gesu! + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +YOUNG AMERICA + + +I + +The days passed; and one of them rang a bell in the soul of Cornelia +Thornwell. She had kept her vow, she had won the wager with herself. +For a whole year she had taken care of herself, asking no advice and no +favors from any one. She had got a job as a manual worker, and held it +for a year, and lived on her earnings, and had twenty-five dollars put +away. Now she might go home if she wanted to. + +Did she want to? It was hard to be sure; at one time she would find +herself thinking about this one and that, and what had happened to them +all this time. But then she would remember the desperate determination +of everybody to dominate her life; all those highly disciplined and +rigid people who knew what she ought to do at every moment of her life, +and would never cease from telling her! Well, she would have a way to +escape, a city of refuge! + +She had made up her mind to tell no one where she had been; it would +be a scandal, a mystery with which they might torment themselves for +the rest of her life; a skeleton in the family closet--the bones of a +runaway grandmother! The imp of mischief kicked up his heels in the +depths of Cornelia’s soul; she thought of each person she knew, and +what that person would make of the problem. The secret would be a club +she would hold over their heads, to make them behave. “Let me alone, or +I’ll disappear again!” Like her daughter Alice’s hysterics, which had +developed at the age of three, in a lovely and much petted child who +wanted to have her own way, and which continued in a social queen of +forty, who had to have a platonic lover in addition to a husband. + +Now Alice’s mother would also have a platonic romance! Cornelia, aged +sixty-one, would have an adopted son, an Italian ditch-digger, aged +twenty-eight--agnostic, anarchist, and “Dago Red!” She might be sure +of its being safe and innocent, for she had watched him a year, and +never seen him look at a woman, nor heard him voice such an idea. Also +she had the word of Alfonsina: “He never t’ink woman, he joosta t’ink +joostice.” + +Such was Cornelia’s tangle of moods, when, on an evening in July +she was coming home from work with another woman, and down the main +street they saw, walking toward them, two girls of the leisure class. +There was nothing unusual in this, for the summer-hotels were open, +the “season” at Plymouth was in full swing. To be sure, the daughters +of the rich did not prefer this part of the town for walking; their +part lay to the south, where the shore-road was lined with villas +and splendid estates. The workers would see them roaring by in fast +motor-cars, radiant, exquisite, with veils floating; snatches of +laughter and song would be wafted back, reminding you of the paradise +of freedom and happiness you had lost by being born in the wrong half +of Plymouth. + +The two girls came on; one in pink chiffon, one in white, both lovely +and gay, chatting, not heeding the swarm of tired laborers, drab +and dusty. Cornelia saw them coming, and her eyes rested on them +carelessly--until suddenly she started, and the blood leaped into her +face. That one in pink, with the lovely little round face framed in +soft brown hair and crowned with a pink chiffon hat with flowers--that +was her grandchild, Betty Alvin! Little Betty, grown two or three +inches taller, and miraculously blossomed into womanhood, rounded and +ripe. + +Cornelia was in a panic. What must she do? Look straight ahead--no, +she must turn to the other woman and talk--about anything, the first +words that came into her head--“That foreman is too bad-tempered, he’s +not fit for such a job, there’ll be trouble in our wrapping-room if he +stays, there ought to be some way we could make a protest--” and so +on, while the girls came nearer. And suddenly--Cornelia must not look, +but out of the corner of her eye she saw Betty stop and stare. The two +working women passed by, and went on quickly, Cornelia chattering about +anything, anything. + +Betty had recognized her grandmother! Would she turn and follow? +Cornelia ventured a swift glance behind, and saw that the two girls +were going on. It was the Thornwell training; Betty, assuming she were +sure of the recognition, would understand that Cornelia might not want +to be recognized, might not want the truth to be known to Cornelia’s +companion or to Betty’s. But what a tumult must be in the child’s young +heart! Her long-lost and prayed-for “Grannie,” in the shape of a poor +old working-woman in a faded calico dress, with a pitiful remnant of +a black straw hat stuck on her head. No, it couldn’t be true! Yet it +could not be doubted! + +Betty would come back, Cornelia felt certain. She thought it over and +decided to take the child into her secret. Betty was the one for whom +she cared most; it would be like a visit home. So next evening Cornelia +lingered on the way from work, and walked by herself; and presently +here came Betty, in the same pink dress, but with no companion. Seeing +her coming, Cornelia turned off the main street, up a more or less +deserted lane, and presently she stopped, and turned and met her +grand-daughter. + + +II + +“Grannie! It’s you!” And then, “Oh, Grannie! How could you?” And then, +“Grannie! What on earth have you been doing?” + +“I’ve been taking care of myself, dear.” + +“Oh, Grannie, but how!” And then, “Oh, you poor dear! Why, your +shoulders are bowed! And your poor hands, your fingers! Who ever saw +such things?” Betty became speechless; but the tears gushed into her +eyes and ran down her cheeks. + +“Don’t worry about me, dear. I’ve been having a very good time; and +I’ve learned a lot.” + +“What have you been doing?” + +“I’ve been working for Mr. J. Lawrence Perry. Don’t you remember that +nice old gentleman who comes to dinner?” + +“Does he know it?” + +“No, of course not; I’m just a cordage worker.” + +“But, Grannie, what ever put such an idea into your head?” + +“I wanted to know that I could take care of myself, and I wanted others +to know it, so they would let me alone. I wanted to be independent.” + +There came a flash of fire behind the rainclouds in Betty’s eyes. “Oh, +Grannie, I know exactly how you feel! Sometimes I’ve thought I’d do the +same thing! If I’d known where you were, I think I’d have come to you.” + +Cornelia dodged that suggestion. “How is everybody at home, dear?” + +“Why, they’re all right, I guess--the same as they always are. They’re +very much worried about you, of course.” + +“Are they really that, or do they just have to pretend it?” + +“They have to pretend not to be; because it is supposed to be all +right, you know.” + +“Everything is always supposed to be all right,” said Cornelia. “What +am I doing?” + +“You went to California for the winter; and you’ve been ordered to a +rest-cure.” + +“I see. The neighbors will take that to mean that I’m in an asylum.” + +“Well, Grannie, that wouldn’t shock them any more than this. Oh! I +never heard of such a thing in my life. How do you _stand_ it?” + +“Well, it hasn’t always been easy, but it’s been good for me. I’ll be +myself from now on, and not what any one else wants me to be.” + +“How are you living?” + +“I’m boarding with an Italian family, very good kind people. I’m +comfortable there, and I’ve learned all sorts of things. I went through +the strike last winter.” + +“Grannie, how perfectly thrilling! I never heard anything so romantic!” +The girl was aglow with excitement, and Cornelia would have liked to +take her in her arms and hug her. But what would the neighbors think, +seeing a working-woman on such terms of intimacy with a young lady of +fashion? Even in North Plymouth, one must remember the neighbors! + +“Betty, I’m taking you into my secret, and you must keep it for me. I’m +not going to tell anybody where I have been.” + +“Of course, Grannie, whatever you say. But are you going to live here +always?” + +“No, I shall come back; but I don’t think I’ll live with the family.” +Then, after a moment: “What did they do about their quarrel?” + +“You mean about the cradle and the rug? Well, you see, they forgot +it when they found you had gone; they were so shocked, and ashamed of +themselves. Now they don’t speak about it--in fact, they’ve persuaded +themselves it didn’t happen. Aunt Alice took the Mayflower cradle out +of the house because she knew that grandfather had left it to her in +the will.” + +“Did he really do that?” + +“Yes, and he left the Shah of Persia’s rug to Mother; and so they +didn’t have to have a row, and they didn’t; it’s the sort of thing that +couldn’t happen in Boston, so it never did. If anybody mentioned it, +they’d deny it--and they’d be very angry about the denial.” + +Cornelia laughed. “You little monkey! Are they teaching you psychology +at Miss Wilson’s?” + +“No, but naturally I listen and think. They’ve got another quarrel now, +that I’m not supposed to know about; but I can’t help hearing--and then +Priscilla tells me a lot.” + +“What is it?” + +“Well, it’s Aunt Alice; there’s a gentleman who admires her very much, +and it’s all right, of course, only she drove somewhere with this +gentleman, and somebody else saw them, and there was a lot of gossip +about it, and mother had to lie for Aunt Alice at her Sewing Circle, +and she vows she will never do it again. And Aunt Alice cried, and they +haven’t been to each other’s house for several months.” + +Cornelia thought for a space. “I don’t believe I’m ready to go home +yet, Betty!” + + +III + +They strolled to the edge of the woods, where they found a seat covered +with pine-needles, and Betty told more gossip of the Thornwell clan. +Aunt Clara had had another baby; that made eight, and Aunt Alice called +it a positive indecency--if they were looking for scandals, there was +a real one. And Great-uncle Abner had had a bad attack of the gout; +and his son, Uncle Quincy--you must pronounce it as if it were another +disease--had won a chess cup. And Uncle Henry Winters and Uncle James +Scatterbridge had made no one could say how many millions buying ships +and things and selling them to the allies; and Betty’s father had made +a speech at a banquet of the bankers, declaring that the interests +of civilization required that America should enter the war. “On which +side?” asked Cornelia; and the girl looked at first puzzled and then +shocked. “Oh, the allies, of course.” + +So Cornelia told the decision which had been forming in her mind during +her year of independence. She was a pacifist. She believed that the +interests of civilization required that men should stop killing one +another. When Betty said, “Oh, but if the Kaiser should win!” Cornelia +answered that it didn’t matter who won, the interests of civilization +would lose. She quoted one of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, +to the effect that there never was a good war nor a bad peace. + +This was a subject they might have discussed for quite a while; but +Betty’s conscience began to trouble her. “It is time I was dressing for +dinner, and I mustn’t be late. Mrs. Walker has to be so careful with +me.” + +“Mrs. Walker?” said Cornelia; and the other explained that she was +spending a couple of weeks with the Jerry Walkers. Cornelia could +hardly believe her ears. “How does that happen?” + +“I know, it sounds funny; but you see, Lucile Walker, the oldest +daughter, is at Miss Wilson’s, and I like her better than any other +girl in the school--in fact we just adore each other. She really +knows more than six of me, Grannie, and why does one always have to +be thinking about family and ancestors? The way it seems to me, we +Thornwells have got so much pride and money that we don’t really need +to amount to anything or to know anything. Honestly, I get bored with +it; and Lucile interests me, so why shouldn’t we be friends?” + +“Certainly; only I’m surprised that Deborah would let you visit them.” + +“Well, we had a time, of course. Mother says she simply cannot +understand my vulgar tastes. She couldn’t figure out where I got them, +but now she’s decided that it’s from you, Grannie!” And Cornelia +spread out her knobby knuckles, and said that she had gone back to her +ancestors; and Betty caught those knobby knuckles and cried over them, +and they had a fine sentimental time. + +Betty told more about the people she was visiting; she knew the whole +shameful story from her mother--how Jerry Walker had been employed as +an errand boy in St. Andrew’s hospital, of which Cornelia had been +one of the supporters; and later he had worked as a felt-salesman, and +Grandfather Thornwell had helped to put up the money so that he might +buy his first plant. Now he owned about all the felt-plants there were +in New England, and was getting to be as rich as anybody. But he could +never be forgiven for being a nobody, and it was preposterous that his +daughter should have been admitted to a fashionable school with the +daughters of the Thornwells. + +“You can see how it is,” said Betty. “If anything were to go wrong +with me while I’m at Mrs. Walker’s, she would never be forgiven; +so I mustn’t cause her any worry. If I could tell her about you, +Grannie--but then I don’t know”--and again laughter lighted up the +eager face of the girl--“I’m afraid maybe you are not respectable any +more!” + +Cornelia replied, “I’m lost forever. The people I’ve been living with +are far worse than the Walkers. They are called Dago Reds.” + +“Dago Red?” said Betty, puzzled. “I thought that was what the college +boys call wine.” + +“Yes, but this is another kind of Red, those who don’t believe in +religion, or in government; they are anarchists, in short.” + +This time Miss Betty was really shocked, and all the laughter died out +of her eyes. “Oh, Grannie, but you’re joking!” + +“No. But they’re really quite charming people. I’ll introduce you to +them, maybe, and you can see. One of them is called Bart, and he is a +saint.” + +“A saint?” echoed Betty, still more puzzled. “But you said they didn’t +believe in religion!” + +“It appears that many saints don’t, any more,” was Cornelia’s reply. +“There are what you might call secular saints.” + + +IV + +They walked towards Betty’s dinner, and on the way discussed the +problem of how she was to meet these dangerous and thrilling friends of +Grannie’s. Betty could not be absent from the Walkers’ without giving +some excuse, and she did not want to tell any fibs to a hostess who +carried such a grave responsibility. It would not do to tell Lucile, +because secrets didn’t last long with her, and anyhow, she was not +old enough to be a chaperon. Betty bethought herself of Miss Mehitabel +Smith, the unmarried sister of Mrs. Walker. Miss Mehitabel was very, +very upright; “almost as good as Mother,” said Betty. She did a great +deal of visiting among the poor, and if Betty were to be seized with a +desire to go visiting with her, that would be perfectly proper; Miss +Mehitabel could visit her own poor, while Betty visited Betty’s--and +it would be no fib, because anybody had only to look at that frightful +get-up that Grannie wore--“How on earth do you stand it?” + +It would be necessary to take Miss Mehitabel into the secret; but Betty +was sure it would be safe, for no one could be more conscientious. +Cornelia said all right, but of course Betty must not give any hint +of the reason why Cornelia had left home; family quarrels were family +skeletons, never taken out in public; and Betty said, “Oh, of course!” +She would say that her grandmother was engaged in sociological +research, and her secret must be kept because otherwise her conclusions +would be invalidated. Miss Mehitabel would be thrilled to death by +that, and it would be such a very, very little fib, it would hardly +count at all. It was agreed that Betty was to pay a call in Suosso’s +Lane on the following evening. + +And meantime, what must the little mischief do but arrange with +Miss Mehitabel to inspect the cordage plant! Miss Mehitabel was a +stockholder in the company, so it was easy for her, and at 10 o’clock +in the morning the two of them suddenly appeared in Cornelia’s +wrapping-room. They did not speak, but stood for a long time and +watched the work, and Cornelia stole glances at them out of the corner +of her eyes. The other women workers did the same, the young ones +especially; for Betty was as good as a fashionplate or a visit to the +movies. As for Miss Mehitabel--well, Cornelia tried to imagine what an +Italian or Portuguese worker would make of her solid Norfolk jacket +fastened with a belt, and her plain tweed skirt without a pleat or +fold, and her plain brown stockings and “ground gripper” shoes. Miss +Mehitabel wore her hair short--this in the days when it was an act of +heroism--and parted in the middle and covered by a Swiss guide hat with +a small feather in it--the only ornamental thing in the whole costume. + +Miss Mehitabel’s face was serious, even stern, and her eyes looked +out through large horn-rimmed spectacles. In short, she was a perfect +imitation of a certain very common type of Beacon Hill lady who has +got through with nonsense once for all, especially the nonsense of +men, and wishes to advertise the fact, especially to the men. In +the case of Miss Mehitabel, who was a rank outsider, it was a very +bold, even presumptuous thing to do; but that, of course, would be +something beyond the comprehension of a cordage worker, who would take +Miss Mehitabel to be the real thing, and have enough to do trying to +imagine what that thing might be. After the two ladies had walked on, +Cornelia heard the foreman of the department standing behind her seat, +discussing the problem with the subforeman. “Now what do you suppose a +woman gets herself up like that for?” + +“Search me,” said the subforeman. + +“Well, they tell you the reason there is so many old maids in New +England, because the men goes west. But what I say is, if the women +tried hard enough, they could get the men to come fetch them.” It was +what is known as “Yankee humor.” + + +V + +Cornelia had decided not to give the Brinis any explanation of Betty. +She would just say that one of her grand-daughters was visiting in +Plymouth, and wanted to meet them. There was a mystery anyhow, and the +presence of a grand-daughter would neither add to it nor take away. + +Betty put on her least fashionable costume for the occasion; but the +gulf between the lowest of Betty’s and the highest of an Italian +cordage worker’s was not to be bridged at one day’s notice. Alfonsina +had barely time after supper to put clean clothes on the children, and +to smooth her own hair and put on her necklace of beads. Papa Brini +came in from the garden and washed his hands and put on his coat. As +for poor old Bart, his clothes hung on him as if they had come from +a pawnbroker’s, and he didn’t even know enough to trim his walrus +mustaches when a young lady was coming to call. + +But all the stiffness and embarrassment was soon forgotten; because +Betty set out to be loved, and there was no resisting her. “Nonna?” she +said, when she heard Cornelia’s name. “What does that mean?” When they +told her it was the Italian word for grandma, she said, “Oh, how cute! +Nonna. I’ll make it my pet name for her,” and she began to do it right +away. + +She got one arm about Trando, and said, “You will teach me lots +of lovely Italian words. And Nonna tells me you are going to be a +violinist. I play the piano a little, and you can come to see me and +we’ll play duets; only you are going to be famous, and you won’t waste +your time with me.” So then, of course, Alfonsina beamed, and Vincenzo +was so touched that he got out one of the last of his precious bottles +of “Dago Red,” and they all had a glass--even Bart drank a little when +it was a matter of courtesy. They made the jokes about “Dago Red,” and +the one about “divino da vino,” and explained it to Betty. And then she +turned to Bart and said, “Mr. Vanzetti, Nonna tells me that you have +made her into a pacifist.” + +Now Bart, of course, had never seen anything so lovely as this in all +his life; at least, never close at hand, and paying attention to _him_. +He who would walk a whole afternoon in the woods searching for the +first mayflower, now saw one come laughing and chatting into the parlor +where he boarded. Of course he was awe-stricken; but even so, not for a +moment must his proletarian conscience be drugged. “No, Meess Betty,” +said he. “Nonna is very good lady, mooch lovely lady; but if she is +made pacifista”--he pronounced it Italian fashion, “pachifeesta”--“if +she is pachifeesta, it is not by me. I am never sooch t’ing.” + +“Oh, then what are you, Mr. Vanzetti?” + +“I am anarchista.” + +“And what is the difference?” + +“Moocha differenza, Meess Betty. Anarchista is fighting man. He will +not fight in war for capitalista, for padrone, what you call master, +but he will fight for worker, for joostice, for make freedom of slave.” + +“Oh! So then you and Nonna don’t agree!” + +“I t’ink it is maybe good for Nonna be pachifeesta, she is olda lady, +no--cannot fight. She has got sooch kind heart--” + +“But then you have a kind heart, too, Mr. Vanzetti. She told me how you +would not let the sick kitten be killed.” + +“Seeck kitten not do harm, I not like for kill helpless t’ing. But +capitalista is not helpless, Meess Betty, he is fighting man, is most +fighting man in whole world. If you study, you onderstand what is +cause of great war. What for must million men go fight, be kill-èd, +miseramente, cruel? It is for get market for rich capitalista; it is +for get coal, iron--what you call it for burn in lamp?” + +“Oil?” + +“It is for sooch t’ing worker must die. It come go-vérnment, take +you per forza, like slave, put in uniform, say go kill. If you say +no--cannot kill, you go prigione--prison, you get torture, maybe shot. +I say, what for talka pachifeesmo for soocha men? No, worker must +fight, is never men get free wit’ out fight for freedom. Is it not +trut’, Nonna?” + +“I wonder,” said Cornelia. “The Negro slaves were freed without having +to do much fighting--” + +“Oh, but Grannie!” It was Betty who broke in. “Other people had to +fight for them; and if they aren’t really free yet, maybe that is the +reason, because they haven’t done their own fighting.” + +So Cornelia confronted the problem of the younger generation. She +sat back and listened, while small talk and efforts at charm were +forgotten, and the idealist-dreamer set forth his vision of the better +world to be. She realized that Betty had come there, with her mind +made up to probe to the bottom this phenomenon of a “secular saint”; +to know exactly what he thought, and judge it, not according to what +Miss Wilson’s school was teaching, nor according to what the Back Bay +would approve, but according to the facts. “You can understand, Mr. +Vanzetti,” said she, “I don’t hear very much about these ideas, and +they are strange to me. But I’d like to know all I can. Maybe you would +let me come Saturday afternoon, and you and I and Nonna would take a +long walk in the woods, and you could explain to me.” + +Never in the year that Cornelia had known Bart had she seen him so +happy as then! “Meess Betty,” said he, “is notting in whole world I +like so much as for explain.” + + +VI + +It was a warm, still afternoon, and a hundred pleasure-boats made +holiday upon Plymouth Bay. Motor launches chugged here and there, and +fishermen drew their nets and set their lobster-pots; while on the top +of Castle Hill Bartolomeo Vanzetti sat under a wind-beaten tree and +with many gestures told the story of his life to Cornelia Thornwell and +her grand-daughter. + +He had been born in a peasant home in the village of Villafalletto, +on the banks of the river Magra, in northern Italy. He had yearned +for an education, but as fate would have it, his father read in a +newspaper how forty-two lawyers had applied for a position in Turin +which paid only seven dollars a month; and that ended the hope of +culture for little Bart! At the age of thirteen he was put to work as +a pastry cook’s apprentice, and slaved for fifteen hours a day, from +seven in the morning till ten at night, seven days in the week, with +the exception of three hours on Sunday. Thus passed six years of his +pitiful youth, until at last his health broke under the strain, and he +was brought back to his village home. Through those years he had been +a devout Catholic, and had solaced himself with the faith that his +sufferings were God’s will. “I make fist-fight for church,” said he, +with a laugh. “Fellow he say somet’ing very bad, I make heem sorry.” + +Then the will of God inflicted a still more dreadful sorrow upon him. +His mother fell ill. He had loved her more than he could find words to +tell, in either English or Italian. “It is why I so glad for have Nonna +come here. Always it make me memory my modder. It is story I not tell +her, sooch terrible story. She is so sick, sooch agonia, she screama, +long time no--cannot sleep; I must go ask men on street for not sing, +make noise. It is so bad, nobody in family can stand for see her, not +osband, not daughter. It is me must help her--must hold her in arm, +must--what you say, nurse--for two mont’ I not undress for sleep. One +day she die in my arm, she suffer so, not know me, not my tears. It is +me must put her in coffin, must walk to grave, must shovel dirt onto +my modder. Sooch miseria! You know what is Dante say, Nonna--‘nessun +maggior dolore’--it is no sooch greater grief in world as to remember +happy time in miseria. But for me it is no sooch grief as to remember +what my modder musta suffer. Always I see it, and each old lady in +world is my modder.” + +There was a pause, while the ditch-digger blinked a tear out of his +eyes; then he went on. “Could no more be happy in home. No can ever +laugh. My fadder, he get gray, very old. I no can--cannot work, must go +walk in wood, stand by river on little bridge and look down in water, +t’ink maybe I fall in, not have so mooch sufferance. So I t’ink maybe +come America; is new country, great country, I start more life; is +what you say in song, ‘sweet land of liberty’--Fay she sing in school. +It is what you say, full dinner-pail. So I say, I come America, not +for get rich, get little money, no work so hard, have time for read +book. I joosta readed De Amicis, great writer, what you say ‘Cuore,’ +it is story of his heart. I t’ink maybe I be socialist now, little bit +socialist, sentimentale, genteel, good, ever’body be kind, make new +world, ever’body be happy, maybe by vote. I come America for sooch +pretty--what you say, dream.” + +Vanzetti paused, and closed his eyes in pain. “Next to lose modder, +next most badda t’ing in whole life is lose America. You ’Merican +lady cannot onderstand, no never, not if talk all day. Hear about +Statue Liberty--beautifool, wonderfool--paradiso. Come Ellis Island, +all sudden knock on head, like badda dream, inferno--brutale, treat +people lika beast--little ones cry, hide in modder’s dress. What for +is reason for treat poor people sooch way? Why make sooch fear, sooch +hate? I go on street, stand look, strange city, mooch automobile, big +train upstair--bang, bang, make fright. I go look for home; no got one +friend, ever’body try cheat, rob poor straniere--what you say, foreign. +Must go sleep in room, twenty people, is filt’ ever’where; must hunt +job, washa da deesh, must sleep wit’--you scusa me, Meess Betty, is not +gooda story for tell sweet young lady--” + +“Go on,” said Betty. “If it’s not too bad to happen, it’s not too bad +to hear.” + +“It is t’ing what bite in bed--it make you onhappy--cannot sleep. I +live in room upstair, top of house, mooch people, very hot. I go for +work restaurant--it is mooch famous place, you read about in book; all +time go artist, writer, take lady for supper. I not know what is now, +but eight year back I washa da deesh, mosta bad dirt, steam all time, +grease on roof drop on food, on clean deesh; all slop on floor, drain +get stop, you stand t’ree inch water all day washa deesh, like work in +sewer. I talk many men, it is same plenty big restaurant, all for show, +not care be clean. But worker he cannot tell story--who would hear +heem? + +“I work fourteen hour one day, twelve hour next day. I get five, six +dollar week. Get food very bad, dirty, like dog. I no can stand, t’ink +maybe get seeck, I stop, go country, look for work outdoor. But is very +bad time--you know, Nonna, is what you call panic joost come, make +very bad for job. Must go hungry, beg job, get food out of garbage-can +maybe, someday starve, so weak cannot work more. It was farmer give +little job--two week--he not need me, but he sorry for poor wop--it is +first time I get kind word from any one American, I never forget that +farmer. + +“It is long story, Meess Betty, you no want hear heem all. I get +work by brick furnace, shovel coal, it is job for kill man, sooch +heat. But I near die hungry, so I stay, ten mont’ I shovel coal. I go +Conecticut, get job by stone quarry, work a year. Is better so, meet +plenty Italian, got home, see people dance, play violin evening. I no +dance, but like see friend be happy. I read mooch book, I read paper, +t’ink about worker, hees life, I see is not land of liberty, is all +same, whole world is slavery for worker. It is few people own land, +own factory, is capitalista, sooch people maka da profitt, it is for +profitt musta be all industree. Worker is--I cannot say Eengleesh, is +what you buy and sell, comodità--is not human, is joost somet’ing for +be sold for profitt. You onderstand, Meess Betty.” + +“Certainly.” + +“It shock you, maybe--” + +“Not at all. I’ve thought about it a lot. What do we do for all this +money we have? We young people, especially--we can work if we want to, +and that’s very kind of us; but if we prefer we can lie back and loaf +the rest of our lives. No, Mr. Vanzetti, don’t be afraid to talk to me!” + +“You must onderstand, I not have sooch idea when I come America, no +what you call foreign red. I learn heem here, I see wit’ eye, I talk +wit’ worker, I t’ink what is way for freedom. I am anarchista long time +before to see anarchista paper, hear anarchista speaker. When I hear +heem, I t’ink, it is olda story, it is my word from mout’ of odder man!” + +And Betty, sitting with her eyes riveted upon him, remarked, “That is a +little the way I find it, listening to you!” + + +VII + +There was more to this talk; a discussion of Vanzetti’s ideas, and his +answers to many questions. When it was over, Cornelia walked part of +the way home with her grand-daughter, taking one of the back streets. +“Oh, Grannie, what a wonderful man! Grannie, I never dreamed of such +a thing--why don’t they tell us there are men like that among the +working-people? Do you suppose there are many?” + +“He says there are; but maybe he is being modest.” + +“So polite and so kind--he really is a gentleman, Grannie, and without +any family, or any one to teach him.” + +“He is a gentleman if the word is worth using, dear.” + +“And think what that man has read, stealing all the time from his +sleep! Grannie, I was never so ashamed in my life! I’m going to get +that book by Kropotkin--I’m going to read and understand for myself. +I’ve known it was all wrong, I’ve been saying it to myself for a year +or two. What am I doing--except to show how to wear clothes?” + +“You’re supposed to be studying, dear. I thought you had to work hard +at Miss Wilson’s.” + +“Oh, yes, we’re Spartan enough, but it’s all so remote from reality, +so academic and so tiresome. We listen to Miss Wilson talk a lot, and +it’s not good form to ask questions, because she is deaf, and we don’t +want to reveal the fact. I’m bored with it, Grannie--and I’m bored with +society before I get in! Does that sound like a prig?” + +“No, dear, of course not.” + +“Well, you can’t imagine such idle boys! I suppose when I’m a deb, +and meet older men, it won’t be so bad; but I was invited to one of +the Brattle Hall dances--and you talk about the Dickie and who made +it and who didn’t, and about football, and last year’s scores and +this year’s prospects; and after that it’s time to stroll out into +the moonlight and get sentimental. Down here you go sailing and you +go to garden parties, and you never hear anything worthwhile. The +one serious thing in Plymouth is the pulling and hauling between the +descendants of the Pilgrims and the descendants of the Puritans. One +claims social precedence, and the other won’t grant it, and they gossip +dreadfully. Mrs. Walker doesn’t belong to either set, and she ought to +be glad--but she isn’t.” They walked on, until suddenly the girl burst +out, “Do you know what I’d really like to do, Grannie?” + +“What, dear?” + +“Stay right here the rest of the summer, and get a job in the cordage +plant with you, and prove that I’m some use.” + +“No, dear, you can’t do that, it would make your mother and father too +unhappy. And besides, it would be giving away my secret.” + +“Yes, I suppose so. But anyhow, I am going to do something worthwhile +before I get through.” + +“Where you going the rest of the summer?” + +“Camp Putnam for August; and of course that’s exciting, in a way. Did +they have Camp Putnam when you were a girl?” + +“No, people didn’t go as far as the Adirondacks; and besides, I wasn’t +a fashionable person.” + +“Well, anyhow, they found some way to get you married off to an +eligible man!” And Betty laughed. “Oh, yes, we know what Camp Putnam is +for! The old people think they are being so sly, they get together and +plan the list every summer, and rule out the least desirable ones--it’s +as select as if it was God we were visiting. They even try to arrange +the partners, but it doesn’t work out to oblige them. I know Mother +wants to put me off on Ebenezer Cabot, but Grannie, he’s an out-and-out +moron.” + +“Don’t say that, dear!” + +“But it’s true! You know perfectly well that most of us old families +have feeble-minded ones, and regular lunatics, with keepers watching +them, somewhere off in a remote wing of the house. Isn’t it true that +Great-uncle Ahab was that way for years?” + +“Yes, dear, but you mustn’t speak of it.” + +“Only to you, Grannie. But I’m telling you there’ll be no Ebenezer in +my young life. But I think before this summer’s over I’m going to have +to deal with a proposal.” + +“Who from?” + +“Roger Lowell. He was there last year, and he almost did it, but it +wouldn’t have been proper, because he was only a sophomore then, and +they’re not supposed to be engaged; but this year he’s a junior, and so +it’ll be all right.” + +“Do you like him?” + +“Well, I do and I don’t, Grannie. He’s a dear, in a way, and very good, +but so awfully stiff and prim, so conscious of his great family, and +what it’s correct for him to do. If I were to marry him, I think I’d be +like you and Grandfather Thornwell, I’d hardly dare crack a smile the +rest of my life. I’ve already shocked him by some of the things I’ve +said. I told him a woman should promise to stay with a man so long as +she loved him, not any more. He said she ought to promise to love him +forever, but I said that would be silly, because how could you tell? +Did you ever meet him, Grannie?” + +“The first time I met him, he had his pink toes up in the air.” + +“Oh, I’ll tell him that, and humiliate him to death! No Lowell should +be seen in such a position!” + +“And the second time he had a bib around his neck, and porridge running +down it. The last time I met him, he was in evening dress, and his +collar was stiff and his tie was puffy, and his sober round face looked +over the top like a big pink chrysanthemum.” + +“Oh, Grannie, that’s Roger exactly! And I’m his ideal of womanhood--if +only I wouldn’t make jokes! Now I’m going to read Vanzetti’s books, and +be really serious, but I’m not sure if he will like me as an anarchist. +And Grannie, I’m supposed to go home to-morrow, but I hate to leave you +like this--honestly, I’m ashamed of the food I eat.” + +“I’m having a very happy time, dear.” + +“How long do you plan to stay?” + +“I’m not sure--I keep changing my mind. When I read in the paper about +that speech your father made, trying to get us into the war--then all +of a sudden I think I’ll come back and take up a pacifist campaign.” + +“Oh, Grannie! How perfectly appalling! You’d be like old Mrs. Abigail +Webster Adams--she made a speech at a socialist meeting, and Father +said she ought to be locked up in an asylum.” + +“No doubt he’ll say that about me,” said Cornelia. It was a prophecy. + + +VIII + +Betty went away, and the rest of Cornelia’s stay was enlivened by +letters, addressed to Mrs. Nonna Cornell--it was Betty’s little joke. +They were highly confidential letters, full of family information. +“Uncle Quincy has found the perfect chess player, a man who can foresee +all possible combinations. Uncle James is building a whole new house +on the back of ‘Hillview.’ And Father says the Boston banks have got +a hundred million dollars of British and French bonds. They sold them +to the public, but had to take them as collateral, and if the allies +should lose, not a bank in Boston could keep open. So you had better +come on up and make that pacifist speech.” + +And then: “I have been to the book-store that Mr. Vanzetti told me +about. It is kept by a nice dark-eyed young Russian who was eager to +undertake my education. I have a number of books which I keep hidden +in the bottom of a trunk, they are lots worse than the ‘Cosmo’ with +Robert W. Chambers. One is called ‘Vindication of the Rights of Women,’ +by Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. The preface says it is a hundred and +twenty-five years old. The world has not caught up with her yet. I am +very much excited about this book, because it is just what I had been +thinking. But Roger will not like it.” + +Then: “I am at Camp Putnam, ready to be paired off for life, with no +possibility of its not being good family. It really is the loveliest +country, and impossible not to have a good time. It is so nice to wear +sensible camping clothes; how I wish that women might wear short skirts +all the time. But if I were to walk down Tremont street this way, I +suppose I’d have a crowd of boys hooting me. There is much in the world +to be changed. I think the Mary Wollstonecraft book has made me into a +suffragette. Would that shock you? + +“I am going out now to climb a mountain. We shall all spend the night +on top and see the sunrise, and come home to-morrow, and then we shall +eat most tremendous quantities of cakes and syrup. We seem to be hungry +all the time. Aunt Betty, who runs the camp and us, has put a big block +of chocolate in the pantry, and a little hatchet with which we knock +off pieces. Mother says it was exactly the same in her day--the same +hatchet, but I don’t suppose the same block of chocolate. At least, we +shall not leave much for our children.” + +And then: “We have climbed many mountains, and are having our good +time in a sober, conscientious way. We are really very serious young +people. Did I tell you that we have a way of testing any newcomer? We +have a funny story that we tell him; at least it is said to be funny, +but really it has no point, and we watch to see if he laughs. If he +does, we know that he is not sincere. It is very ingenious, but after +you have watched the procedure two or three times it strikes you as a +little self-conscious. I suppose it is our Puritan blood that makes it +necessary for us to be always consciously and deliberately righteous. + +“It would not be a very good test with Roger, for he might not laugh +even if the joke did have a point. We have had some long talks and I +thought I would break the news gently, so I said, ‘I have met several +radicals, and am much interested in their ideas.’ Roger said, ‘That +is all right, I am the same way, I had a prof last year who was quite +terribly radical.’ I asked, ‘What did he say?’ and Roger answered, +‘Oh, all sorts of things. He kept talking about the “lost books of the +Bible,” and he said that the substance of the ten commandments was +found in earlier writings, and the story of the flood was derived from +Babylonian sources.’ You might tell that to Mr. Vanzetti and shock him!” + +The climax of the courtship: “Oh, Grannie dear, my dolly is stuffed +with sawdust! Roger and I have had a heart to heart talk and a most +terrible quarrel, and it is all over--my name is never going to be +Lowell. I told him I had come to realize that marriage was a form of +slavery for women; and he said he knew what I meant, it was the word +obey in the ceremony, but there were some clergymen who would leave +that out if you asked them to. And I said it wasn’t only that, it was +the idea of a woman’s parting with her autonomy; that every woman ought +to have the final say about the children she bore; she ought to be +free--especially if she were willing to earn her own way, as I meant to +do. + +“So then he was much puzzled, and asked me what I thought we ought to +do, and I said I believed in a free union, with our own promise to +each other, to be true to our best selves, and to do our best to love +each other, but not stay together if we couldn’t. And Roger said, +‘You mean--you mean you wouldn’t really--you wouldn’t get married at +all?’ and he turned red to the tips of his ears, and I said, ‘You don’t +understand my feelings.’ But he couldn’t talk about it any more--he +said, ‘Betty Alvin, if I had made such a proposition to you, it would +have been a deadly insult.’ And I said, ‘Maybe so, but I am making it +to you, and that is something different.’ And he wanted to know where I +had got such outrageous ideas, but when I tried to tell him he didn’t +really want to know, and wouldn’t look at the book. He tried to talk +to me about my soul, and I laughed at him, and so now we are most +fearfully polite to each other when anybody else is present, because of +course we don’t want to have a scandal in the camp. Oh, Grannie, I wish +you would come back home, because I am going to be so lonely!” + + +IX + +The “Gruppo Autonomo di Plymouth” gave a “picanic” that fall, and from +all the neighboring towns came swarms of Italians, by train and bus and +second-hand automobile. And then it was announced that the “Circolo +Drammatico Mario Papisardi” was going to give a play in Stoughton, a +“shoe-town” some thirty miles away. They had quite a fine dramatic +organization, and Bart laid off work for three days to travel round and +place tickets for them. Illness kept the Brinis from going, but some +neighbors, the Angelottis, invited Cornelia. + +A young anarchist comrade called for them in his car; Mike Boda was +his name, and he told Cornelia that he was a macaroni salesman, and +raced about the country in his little Overland car, hopping in and out +at Italian homes. He was a chipper little fellow, about five feet two +inches high, and it was just as well that he was no heavier, because +when you had Bart on the front seat with a boy on his knee, and Mr. and +Mrs. Angelotti and Cornelia on the back seat, with another boy on the +father’s lap and another on the mother’s, you had about as much weight +as the springs of a low-priced car could be expected to stand. + +But the roads were good, and they rolled along singing songs, and it +was a gay party that swept into the shoe-town. The children had been to +the movies, of course, and they had seen a play at school, but this +was their first grown-up play, and they could hardly contain their +excitement. They drove to the home of a comrade whom Vanzetti had +recently met at one of the East Boston gatherings. Nicola Sacco was his +name, and he lived in a fine cottage, which had formerly belonged to +his boss. “Great feller, Nick,” explained Bart. “He work shoe-factory, +is edge-trimmer, mooch skill work, he make so mooch fifty, sixty dollar +week, that boy--smart feller, got lovely wife, you see.” + +Their host ran out to the gate to meet them, a chap of twenty-five, +with even, regular features and black hair and eyes; very active, like +a cat, a figure all of steel springs. He had come from the ankle of the +Italian boot, while his wife, Rosina, came from the north--young and +dainty, with vivid auburn hair and an eager face full of sunshine and +freckles. They had a little boy, about three years old. “Hello, Dante!” +called Bart. “Someday we have nodder poet!” But the new poet was shy, +and hid behind his mother’s skirts. + +Nick and Rosina were to act in the play to-night, so the guests refused +to go into the house and disturb them. The visitors had their supper +all in a box, and would make a “picanic” on the Saccos’ front lawn. +But nothing could prevent the host from showing them his garden; +next to his family, it was the pride of his life, he worked at it +every night till it was too dark to see. He led them down the rows of +tomato plants, and lifted the branches and showed the big red globes +underneath. He knew only a few words of English, but Cornelia did not +need a translator, because for forty years she had seen her husband +showing off his flowers to visitors, and she knew every expression and +gesture that goes with the ceremony. + + +X + +They went to the hall where the play was to be, and met most of the +Italians of New England, it seemed. There were Nick and Rosina on +the stage, magically transformed into peasants of the home country. +Cornelia had one of the young Angelottis on each side, and they were +supposed to whisper into her ear what was happening; but they became +so enthralled that they forgot there was anybody in the world but the +figures in the play. However, Cornelia knew many Italian words, and +all possible Italian gestures; and the story was so simple, and so full +of action, it was easy to follow. + +Nick was a peasant, whose son had been taken from him and forced +to fight the Arabs in Tripoli. Meantime the father was in dire +straits--“Militarism and Misery” was the title of the drama. His +wife was ill of a fever, and he had no money, and the cruel landlord +threatened to turn them out. When Nick offered to work for the +landlord, his plea was refused, because, as an anarchist, he would lead +the other workers to revolt. A good doctor came to visit the wife, +and he and Nick had a debate, in which Nick set forth the principles +of his faith with most wonderful eloquence. His comrades brought +him money, and threw out the landlord, calling him “affamatore” and +“assassino”--starver and assassin: whereat the doctor was so much +impressed that he declared himself a convert to anarchism. “The new +comrade am I”--and the other comrades burst into cheers, and the +audience was not slow to follow. + +Then came the soldier-boy, home from the wars. He boasted of the +Arab women and children he had slain, and his father, a true +internationalist, threw his pay into his face and ordered him from +the home. “Get out, get out of here, robber and assassin!”--a painful +scene. In the next act, the soldier-boy sat in the barracks, brooding +over his shame--to such good effect that when he discovered another +soldier with a load of antimilitarist literature, he let the guilty +one escape. And when in the last act he was ordered home, in charge +of a file of troops, to shoot down the striking peasants, he refused, +and went over to the side of his father, and died from a shot fired +by the mayor. It was a tragic and sensational ending, and Nick as +the revolutionary father rose to heights of eloquence. “Yes, to the +barricades! Farewell, my son--victim of bourgeois imperialism, repose +in peace! To-day is not the day to mourn the dead. It is the day of +battle and vengeance. Let us hasten, comrades, where the struggle +is more fierce, to avenge not only him, but all the obscure martyrs +fallen through capitalist greed.” And as the comrades rushed out +and the firing began off-stage, you would have thought you were in +La Scala--such storms of applause, such tears and raptures, so many +bouquets on the stage, so many “evvivas” and “bis!” + +It was easy to smile at the naïveté of such a story. But when you saw +how deeply it moved the audience, then you had to stop and think, and +realize that it was the stuff of the lives of Italian peasants. If the +drama and its emotions were simple, it was because the reality was +the same. Even the conversion of the doctor might have happened--for, +after all, there were anarchist doctors, well known in Italy. And the +struggle against militarism--that was the religion and martyrdom of the +peasant all over Europe. Everything in the drama was true, except the +revolution--and what was needed to bring that, but the very fervor and +impulse of this peasant audience? + +The family discussed all this as they drove home. It was late and the +children went sound asleep, but the grown-ups never wearied of talking, +and explaining matters to Cornelia. Vanzetti told more about that +wonderful fellow “Sacc’”--who was, in real life, exactly as he had been +on the stage. “He come America same year like me. Was young feller, +seventeen. Got brudder wit’, brudder no can stand, is too hard work, +musta go home Italy. Nick, he work water-boy, carry water for gang all +day. He work Hopedale, is beeg strike by foundry-shop--you read about +heem maybe. Police is rough, mooch bad. Nick he is on picket-line, get +hit plenty time. Is way for make red, make anarchista--you see, joosta +like dramma. Nick is not speaker, but gooda man for organize. Work now +by little shoe-factory, is good friend wit’ boss, do day-work, night +watchman too, make plenty money. But never he change, stand always by +worker. Some day it come odder beeg strike, Nonna, you see Nick Sacc’ +be leader, he do joost what you see for make rivoluzione. He cannot +fear, is brave--like what you say--leone--lion.” + +And Bart went on to tell about something which had happened a month +or two ago, when the young hero’s mettle had been tested. “He get +arrest--he musta go jail for hold meeting. It is protest for beeg +strike in copper country--you know maybe--Mesaba range--out West. Is +plenty rich people in Boston own copper-mine not like for have worker +hear how they beat people, t’row in jail. Try for stop meeting, shut-up +Nick and not let him tell about it.” + +Cornelia said nothing: but a procession of “bluebloods” began to move +with stately dignity through her thoughts: the Paynes, the Shaws, +the Agassizs--yes, she knew “coppers,” and the owners thereof. She +remembered a scandal that had made awe-stricken whispers in the Sewing +Circle--an old man had died, and it appeared that for twenty years +or so he had been keeping eight thousand shares of his copper stocks +hidden under a dummy name in New York, signing the name of this dummy. +The executors of his estate failed to report these shares to the +government, to avoid paying taxes on them; they had been caught, and +some of the brightest legal lights of Boston were nearly disbarred. +Nobody had gone to jail, of course--only “Nick Sacc’,” who had tried to +tell the Italians of Massachusetts how the “copper kings” were beating +and killing their Michigan miners. + + +XI + +The grapes on the Brini arbor had become dark purple globes, and had +been harvested and converted into “Dago red.” The leaves had turned, +first yellow and then brown, and had dropped off and been blown into +the corners of the garden. The cabbage and turnips were stored in the +cellar, and the tomato-vines grew mushy after frost, and then dry and +hard. All that beautiful garden was a wreck, and the sun was going +away on his long pilgrimage. Very soon Cornelia would be getting up by +lamplight, and shivering while she dressed, and being pinned up in her +shawl for the journey to the cordage-plant. Could she stand another of +these winters? + +Betty was back at Miss Wilson’s school, and begging her grandmother +to come to Boston. Surely she ought to be taking part in the campaign +to reëlect Woodrow Wilson, who had kept us out of war, and said we +were too proud to fight. How Boston--the Boston of State Street and +fashionable society--loathed that phrase, and how they jeered and +raged in their _Transcript_! But there was another Boston, which had +crossed the seas a generation ago to escape the potato famine; it +had found an abundance of potatoes in New England, and had converted +them into a crop of young Irish voters, pledged to the worship of the +Virgin Mary and the extermination of the British lion. In vain did +“Pro Bono Publico” and “Hundred Percent American” write letters to the +_Transcript_, summoning the new world to the rescue of down-trodden +Belgium. Irish-Catholic Boston did not read the _Transcript_, and it +thronged to the polls and elected an Irish-Catholic mayor, who would +see to it that Irish and Germans and pacifists might hold all the +peace-meetings they wished, and parade through Park Street and spit +when they passed the Union Club. + +Wilson was reëlected; and it seemed that the war-danger was over. He +would go on writing notes to the Germans, as he had been doing for +a year or two, and the Germans would go on ignoring them. Cornelia +decided that she would not be needed as a pacifist agitator, nor would +Vanzetti have to take refuge in Mexico, as he had made up his mind +to do in case America should enter the war. “Capitalist I will fight +some day,” said Bart, “but never will I kill German worker, Austrian +worker, for make good no banker bond.” Cornelia had not mentioned the +highly confidential subject of Boston high finance and its commitments +to the allied cause; but apparently the “reds” had their own sources +of information, for the “Cronaca Sovversiva” was full of talk on the +subject, and details of the intrigues of State Street and Wall Street. + + +XII + +The first snow of the year was in the air, and Cornelia came hurrying +home in the darkness, with half an inch of snow melting upon her +shoulders. She was surprised to see a large limousine in front of +the Brini door, its two long streams of light making day in Suosso’s +Lane, and revealing the million-footed dance of the snowflakes. As she +came nearer, the door of the car opened and a bulky man stepped out; +Cornelia could not see his face, but his voice caused her to stop dead +in her white tracks. “Is that you, Mother?” It was Rupert Alvin! + +In a certain musical comedy it is set forth how the founder of Columbus +Day landed in the new world, and the Indians came eagerly, inquiring, +“Are you Christopher Columbus?” When he admitted his identity, they +exclaimed, “At last we are discovered!” So now it was with Cornelia. +The jig was up, she knew--and took but a moment to get herself +together. “Hello, Rupert!” she said, with an air of nonchalance--there +are times when the Thornwell training comes in handy! She accepted +her son-in-law’s outstretched hand, and let him help her into the +limousine, where sat her eldest daughter, Deborah. + +“Oh, Mother! Mother! How could you?” Yes, even the stately Mrs. +Rupert Alvin wept when she saw those bowed shoulders and that pitiful +working-woman’s shawl covered with a load of snow. She had snapped on +the light in the limousine; but Rupert snapped it off again quickly. + +“Control yourself, Deborah,” he commanded--having in mind the +chauffeur, who would overhear, in spite of the glass partition. +“Mother, we want to have a private talk with you. Will you not please +come home with us--at least for a day or two?” + +“I can’t, Rupert. I have a job.” + +“Can’t you get excused temporarily?” + +“One does not get excused from jobs, one gets fired.” + +“But Mother, you have a little income from the estate!” It was Deborah, +breaking in. + +“Wait, Deborah!” insisted the husband, again. “Mother, will you let us +take you to some hotel here in Plymouth, where we can discuss matters +quietly?” + +“Certainly I will do that. But first I must tell my friends. They will +be expecting me to supper and will worry.” + +“I will see to that,” said the man, quickly, and he got his majestic +bulk out of the car, and Cornelia wondered vaguely, was he afraid she +might make her escape? Was she being kidnaped? Inside her something +fluttered like a bird in a trap. “Don’t be caught! Don’t let them get +you!” + +“Oh, Mother, you are all wet!” Deborah was lamenting. “Take off that +shawl!” She drew it off, and began to wrap Cornelia in a big fur robe. +Cornelia submitted, because it was easier than to argue. Her mind was +busy with another problem: how had they found her? Could it have been +Miss Mehitabel? Impossible to believe that Betty had revealed the +secret! + +Rupert returned, and gave his orders to the chauffeur, and got into +the car, which began to sway on luxurious springs down the unpaved and +rutted lane. It turned onto the main street, and sped to a hotel, where +they got out, and Rupert engaged a room, and Deborah hurried her mother +through the lobby. Presently they were locked in a place where family +secrets might be safe--after Rupert had stepped to the door once or +twice and opened it, to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. + +“I am perfectly all right,” said Cornelia, in answer to her daughter’s +clamor that she was wet and that she was cold and that she was +exhausted. “I have been very happy,” she declared, in answer to laments +about the state of her shoulders and her hands. And when Deborah had +got to the question of how her mother could have been so cruel as to +treat them this way, Cornelia broke in with the demand, “How did you +find me?” She had to repeat the question before Deborah answered, “We +got your address from Betty.” + +“You mean she told you? I can’t believe such a thing, Deborah!” + +“I don’t mean that. She wrote you a letter, and we got it.” + +“Oh, I see.” A great load was lifted from Cornelia’s heart. After +a moment she said, “I would like to have the letter.” Seeing them +hesitate and look at each other, she said, “Give me my letter, please.” +So Rupert took from his pocket an envelope, which Cornelia could see at +a glance was very bulky. + +Balancing the letter in his hand, the great man began, in his most +solemn tones, “Mother, I wish to explain that when we opened this +letter we did not know it was to you. If we had known that, we should +have brought it unopened. But you will see, it is addressed to Mrs. +Nonna Cornell, and that meant nothing to us, except that our unhappy +daughter was communicating secretly with some unknown woman. Only when +we opened the letter, did we discover that it was to you.” + +“Neither of us read it, Mother,” added Deborah. “It may be we had a +right to, but we didn’t feel sure.” + +“I will read it to you at once, my child.” + +“I don’t think it will be necessary. We had a talk with Betty, and I +think we know the situation.” + +Cornelia held the letter in her hands. How pathetic seemed the little +joke, “Mrs. Nonna!” She took the letter from the envelope, and saw why +Deborah had suggested not hearing it--the last page was numbered forty! +But Cornelia had to read only two sentences to know the whole story. + + “Dear Grannie: + + “I am in the most dreadful predicament you can imagine, because + Roger Lowell, the tenth descendant of a line of theocrats, spent + three months laboring with his conscience and finally made up his + mind that he must save my soul by telling father of the indecent + proposition I had made at Camp Putnam! So now here I am shut up + in my room and forbidden to go out, until I have promised to + reform--and so I am forced to smuggle this letter to you by one of + the maids.” + + +XIII + +The antagonists squared off for battle--two against one. It would be +none the less deadly, because it would be carried on under the forms of +courtesy, even of love. + +The first thing was for Deborah to weep some more. This was not easy, +for she was haughty, self-contained--the last word in aristocratic +reticence. But there was that pitiful figure--gray-haired, bowed and +bent, in wretched shapeless clothing wet with melted snow--that was +her mother! And even though she told herself that her mother had +become insane, it was none the less terrible. Also, impossible to +forget that certain scenes which Deborah forbade herself to remember +had had something to do with her mother’s mental disorder. So the +tears streamed down Deborah’s cheeks--and she had one of those long, +half-masculine faces, which are not improved by weeping. + +In Cornelia’s own being the trapped bird was still fluttering. “Fight! +Fight! Don’t let them get you!” She had had a year and a half to think +matters over, and she knew all the devices of families to break people +down. She remembered Cousin Amelia Quincy, who had sought to marry the +wrong man, and how Cousin Amelia’s mother had fallen violently ill--a +complete nervous breakdown--which had lasted until the wrong man had +given up and married some other girl. + +So now Cornelia made her voice stern, and said, “It is silly for you to +behave that way, Deborah. There is nothing the matter with me, and I +assure you my children are not going to get their way by tears.” + +Then Deborah drew herself to her full height. “I will not annoy you any +further. I have of course no right to object to your living your own +life--” + +“None whatever, my child.” + +“But I have a right to object to your ruining the mind and character of +my young and impressionable daughter.” + +“I hope I have not done that.” + +“Unless our daughter tells us what is not true, you introduced her to a +band of anarchists and atheists--” + +“Not atheists, Deborah, you have got the wrong word.” + +“You mean that Italian man, whatever his name is, is not an atheist?” + +“He has explained to me carefully his beliefs. He worships one God, the +God of nature, of love and justice. He worships only one, so perhaps +that constitutes him an infidel.” + +Deborah declined this challenge to theological controversy. “And +free-lovers!” + +“That is still less accurate. I doubt very much if Vanzetti has ever +been any kind of lover in his life. He is a saint who believes in free +love.” + +“Is that one of your jokes, Mother?” + +“It sounds like it, I know, but you will have to learn that there are +new ideas loose in the world, and it is not practicable to keep people +from knowing about them--not even by shutting them up in their rooms +and confiscating their mail.” + +Rupert Alvin was silent, considering that free love is not a theme for +mixed conversation; and anyhow, in family disputes the less an “in-law” +has to say, the safer for him. When the two ladies began exchanging +views upon the efficacy of a church ceremony as a purifier of lust, +Rupert arose and went to the door and opened it and peered out. It was +a delicate hint, and the ladies took it, and discussed anarchism. Or +rather, Cornelia discussed anarchism, while Deborah discussed anarchy, +and refused to recognize the difference. Cornelia asserted that she +had lived among Italian anarchists for a year and a half, and had not +seen a single bomb--except those which Brini described as “bombe di +pistacchio.” + +They were on the subject of foreigners and their alleged resemblance to +pigs, when Rupert decided that it was time for a man to interpose his +authority. “Mother,” he said--and went on, in spite of his wife’s angry +signals--“we are not getting anywhere by arguing over subjects like +this. The question is, what are we going to do. I know that our mutual +esteem and affection will bring us to an understanding in the end; so +what I am hoping is to persuade you to come home and stay with us a +while. I know you will be able to induce Betty to--well, to moderate +her expressions. That is all we ask, and I am sure you agree that we +do not want an open scandal in our family.” + +“Certainly not, Rupert.” + +“Well, then, come with us, and in time we can work it all out happily.” + +“That is easy to say, Rupert, but it seems to me you are taking a +serious risk. Suppose that while I am your guest I should consider it +my duty to appear on some public platform and say that the effort to +bring America into the war is a crime against civilization, and that +the motive power behind it is our big bankers, who have loaned so +much money to England and France and Italy that they cannot face the +prospect of losing their investments?” + +To Rupert Alvin, president of the Pilgrim National Bank of Boston, and +directing head of the most powerful financial group in State Street, +it was as if his mother-in-law had taken a sharp rapier and brought +the point of it close to one of his waistcoat buttons. The many large +bulges which composed Rupert’s face and neck became still larger, +the pink ones turning red, and the red ones purple. His large round +eyes opened wide, and the hands which clutched his large round knees +tightened until they showed the tendons. Either Rupert’s tongue refused +to make a sound, or else Rupert’s brain did not know what sound to tell +it to make. + + +XIV + +“My children,” said Cornelia, “I want to be fair, and make myself +understood if it can possibly be done. For forty years I did what I +was told was my duty, and let other people guide my life. I was very +unhappy--how unhappy I did not realize until Josiah was dead, and I +had begun to do what I wanted to do. Now for the rest of my life I am +going to be an individual, and not a cog in the family machine. And +while that will seem terrible to you, you can comfort yourself with the +fact that it is real ‘Boston’--‘old Boston,’ the very best there is. +Everything that is glorious in our history has been made by people who +have ‘come out,’ and fought some prevailing sentiment. I never realized +that until I got alone and thought it over. Take Wendell Phillips--you +cannot say anything against his ancestry, there was never any one +more completely ‘Back Bay.’ Yet he turned into an abolitionist and +labor agitator, the same as a pacifist and ‘red’ at the present time. +It has always been that way, and the ones you honor now, the ones +whom the rest of the world knows about--Samuel Adams and John Quincy +Adams, Emerson and Thoreau and Phillips and Garrison and James Russell +Lowell--yes, there was even a Lowell, Deborah--and Thomas Wentworth +Higginson--even a Higginson, Rupert, tell that to State Street! Boston +history has been made by the ‘saving minority.’ You must know that is +true?” + +“Yes, but Mother”--it was Deborah protesting--“that was all in the +past!” + +“And now the world is perfect, and we don’t need any more changes! +Well, my dear, all I can tell you is, I have looked the world over and +made up my mind that it has never been worse than right now--with some +ten or twenty million men lined up on opposite sides, using all the +machinery and brains of civilization to slaughter one another. No, I +think we need changes, and there is going to be a Thornwell among the +‘come outers,’ and you will have to put up with the humiliation of it. +I don’t think I shall be lonely--I’ve been able to recollect the names +of a number of old ladies who have left their families and are living +in apartments and hotels, interesting themselves in one queer cause +or another. I never paid much attention, because Josiah wouldn’t have +approved of my associating with them. But now I shall look them up--I +suppose I shall join the Twentieth Century Club.” + +“Oh, Mother! How horrible!” + +“And the suffragettes, whatever they call their organization--there are +two, I believe. And the socialists have a local--I am not an anarchist, +Deborah, comfort yourself with that--and anyhow, the anarchists don’t +have any organizations. I suppose the pacifists have one; I hear that +Mrs. Abigail Webster Adams has come out for them, and that Rupert +thinks she ought to be locked up in an asylum. Well, Rupert, that has +been the idea of the comfortable people for a long way back--I remember +they accused Socrates for corrupting the youth. But even though you put +people in an asylum, their ideas get out--you cannot always be sure +that the maid will turn their letters over to you.” + +Cornelia paused; and then, seeing the look on her daughter’s +face--“Yes, my dear, that was a mean one. But you must realize that +Mother is going to fight from now on; Mother holds her convictions with +just the same intensity that you hold yours, and something inside her +compels utterance. It is that stern terrible thing we call our Puritan +conscience. It is out of fashion at the moment, but it takes new forms, +it has a rebirth, and does not rest until it has made some impression +on the world--some change such as the independence of the colonies, or +the abolition of slavery, or the outlawing of war, or the setting free +of labor. And then the next generation forgets about the conflict, and +says how famous Boston is, what great people it has produced! And their +grandchildren become the aristocracy, and want everything to stay as it +is!” + + +XV + +Cornelia had her own proposition, which she had been thinking +over for several months. “I will come up to town at once and get +a little apartment, and Betty can come live with me. That will be +respectable--it will even tend to make your runaway grandmother all +right. And I’m sure I can guide Betty and keep her from going to +extremes. It is what she herself has been begging me to do, and I know +she will be happy.” + +“Thank you,” said Deborah, with a touch of sarcasm. “To make the +children happy is the one duty of parents under the new dispensation. +But some of us parents are old-fashioned, and think about our +children’s souls.” + +“Yes, my dear, and it may be that the saving of Betty’s soul depends +upon her believing everything that is preached at Trinity--even +though, as I suspect, the preacher does not believe it himself. But +let us be practical about the matter. What will you do with the child? +Ordinarily, when daughters threaten to run wild you send them off to +Europe with an aunt, and they look at cathedrals and paintings for a +year, and that is cultural. But now your war is in the way, so the only +place to send her is out west, and she would see only rocks and rivers, +which are not so cultural. Of course you can keep her shut up--make a +prisoner of her by force--but that would only harden her spirit and +drive her to extremes. Also, it would mean an open scandal, because +your servants would know, and it would be all over the Back Bay in a +night, and everybody would be certain the child had done something far +worse than talk radicalism. Moreover, you can only keep her for a short +while--then she will be of age, and you will lose your hold on her.” + +“We can disinherit her.” + +“Yes, of course; but she would have my property--” + +“I think, Mother, you ought to be informed about that.” It was Rupert +breaking in--since it was a banker’s affair. “You have no property, +only an income of five thousand a year from the estate.” + +“Well, Rupert, I have lived upon four hundred a year for the past year +and a half--” + +“Mother, you don’t mean it!” Impossible for the most reticent daughter +to encounter such a statement with silence! + +“What else have I had? I have lived on it, and even saved a little. And +now if I come up to town and take my income of five thousand a year, +with what has been accumulating, Betty and I will be rich.” + +“You would not be able to pay for the child’s clothes!” + +“Well, Deborah, maybe you know your daughter better than I, but my +guess is Betty would learn to make her own clothes quite cheerfully. +Will you give me a chance to ask her?” + +“Most certainly not! In spite of your ridicule, I believe in my +religion, and in a little decency and decorum. I shall not give up my +daughter to become an anarchist and atheist--nor even a socialist and +infidel--nor yet a saint who believes in free love.” + +“Well put, Deborah--we are both of us developing what Broadway would +call the ‘punch.’ But put yourself in my place just a moment. I served +your father faithfully for forty years, and conscientiously refrained +from doing any of the things which made him angry. I gave life to +three of you girls, and helped to find you husbands of the sort I knew +your father wanted you to have. If you have any complaint as to your +share in husbands, you have been too proud to make it to me. Have you, +Deborah?” Cornelia paused, and looked at the solemn Rupert with a +twinkle in her eye. Then she continued, “You both have what you want. +But I have very little; I am old and lonely, and an object of sympathy. +There are eleven grandchildren--no one of whom would have been in the +world except for me. I put it to your sense of justice--may I not ask +for one of the eleven to keep me company in my old age?” + +It was turning Deborah’s own weapons against her, and Deborah could not +help being disturbed. “I think you would have shown better judgment if +you had chosen one of Clara’s eight, rather than one of my two.” + +“Perhaps that is so. But I did not choose Betty--she chose me; or +rather, some fate did it, there is an affinity between us. I assure +you, Deborah, upon my honor, I had no thought of causing this to +happen. But it has happened, and we have to admit it.” + +“Never!” cried Deborah. Her lips were set in that expression which +Cornelia had seen ten thousand times upon the face of Josiah Quincy +Thornwell. It was recorded for all time in the paintings of four +governors in the music-room at “Hillview.” + +Cornelia turned to her son-in-law. “Is that your decision also?” + +Rupert hung on to that caution which is such an excellent thing in +“in-laws.” “Mother, I hope you will not go to any extreme--” + +Cornelia laughed. “First I have to make sure what you and Deborah plan +to do to Betty.” + +“We plan to do our duty as parents, to compel our child to behave +herself!” It was Deborah, with great vehemence. + +“Do you mean that she must believe what you believe--even though she +doesn’t? Or do you mean that she must say that she believes what she +doesn’t believe? Or will you be content if she agrees to say nothing +about her beliefs?” + +“That is what we commanded her to do, and she refused.” + +“Are you sure you made the distinction? Are you sure you didn’t ask +her to stop believing? I suspect you were so horrified and angry, +you didn’t know exactly what you were demanding.” And Cornelia rose, +saying, “I will try to supply a little wisdom and good temper for you. +To-morrow I will go up to town and put up at a hotel, and get some +clothes, so as not to disgrace you, and in the evening I will call at +the house, and have a talk with my grandchild, and persuade her to be +more fair than her parents.” + +“You must not feel that way about us, Mother!” It was Rupert, still +trying for a compromise. + +“There is no sense in saying any more to-night, Rupert. We have argued +too much, for Thornwells. It is because I am not really ‘Boston,’ that +I do this vulgar thing of trying to talk things out. But I love Betty, +and cannot bear to see her spirit bruised. I will do the best I can, +and advise her to suppress her eager young ideas on marriage, and +private property, and war, and whatever else you object to--until she +is of age, and her own legal mistress.” + +Cornelia took her shawl and started to put it on. “Mother! That thing +is all wet! Let me give you my coat!” + +“It is quite all right, there will be a good hot stove where I am +going.” + +“But Mother, you must have dinner with us!” + +“My friends will give me something to eat when I get home. I could not +eat now.” + +She saw tears start in Deborah’s eyes again, and that was as it should +be. When Rupert labored to persuade his mother-in-law to ride to Boston +with them, she answered that she had reasons for preferring the train; +then she started towards the door. “Good-by, my children.” + +Rupert took up his coat and followed her. “At least you will let us +drive you to where you are living, Mother.” + +“Thank you, but I am able to walk.” + +“But Mother, that is absurd--it is storming!” + +“I have walked to my work for a year and a half, through every sort of +storm--at six-thirty in the morning, and again in the evening--and have +not yet missed a day.” + +So Cornelia unlocked the door and went out; Rupert and Deborah both +following, arguing and pleading with her in low, decorous tones, all +the way to the street. But she set her lips tight, and when Rupert +tried to take her hand and lead her to the car, she withheld it, +saying once more, “Good-by, my children,” and hurrying away into the +snow-haunted darkness. + + +XVI + +The next evening, according to her promise, Cornelia called at the +Alvin mansion on Commonwealth Avenue, dressed like a nice, quiet +old lady of the social reform or “blue-stocking” type. She rang the +bell with some trepidation, not quite certain whether she would be +admitted; but she found an amazing situation--the family rows all +settled, Betty out of prison and back at Miss Wilson’s, and the entire +Thornwell clan assembled to welcome home the runaway grandmother! To +overwhelm her with kindness, with beauty, tact and charm, to afford her +a demonstration of respectability, and make her realize its advantages +over anarchism, atheism and free love! + +There was Clara, in the radiance of her eighth maternity, and her +husband, James Scatterbridge, shining with the extra millions he had +made; and Alice, never more elegant, never more gracious, with no trace +of a scandal or a hysteric about her; her husband, Henry Winters, +jewel upon the finger of the legal profession; Deborah and Rupert, all +courtesy and smiles; Betty, a little pale after a cyclone of emotions, +but none the less lovely for that; Betty’s older sister, Priscilla; +Great-uncle Abner, and his son, Uncle Quincy--pronounced as if he +were a disease of the throat. All of them in their most honorable +costumes, all so amiable--not one hint of rebuke or complaint, not even +a tactless slip--unless you count Great-uncle Abner, whose deaf man’s +voice boomed through the drawing-room; “Well, well, Cornelia, they tell +me you’ve been making money!” + +They had learned their lesson, that was the long and short of it; they +would return to dignity and reserve and good manners--to “old Boston”; +and Cornelia would return with them, and Betty also. There would be no +more quarrels, no more scenes, no more scandals and “talking out” of +things, no more anarchism, atheism, or free love! + +There was a buzz of conversation, family news, compliments and +courtesies. When would Cornelia come to see her new grandson? Had she +heard of the fine record Alice’s son had made at St. Mark’s? Would she +hear about Uncle Quincy’s chess wonder? “How is your gout, Abner?” “How +is the new wing coming on, James?” So many polite and pleasant things +to talk about, that it was only near the end of the evening that she +got a few words alone with Betty. + +“Oh, Grannie, how on earth did you do it?” + +“I don’t know, dear--what did I do?” + +“You completely tamed Mother and Father. They came back this morning as +nice as pie.” + +“I guess they just had a little time to think things over, and realize +how much they loved you.” Cornelia was going to be tactful too! + +“Well, yesterday Mother wouldn’t hear to reason at all: I must promise +to never believe anything she disapproved of, I must never talk about +such things to anybody, and must never look at such a book! Of course +I couldn’t promise all that, could I, Grannie? You can’t imagine how +dreadful I felt, to have to tell Mother and Father that I wouldn’t obey +them! So I thought I was going to have to stay in my room till I didn’t +know when. But after they had talked with you, all they wanted was for +me not to disgrace them publicly.” + +Cornelia was tempted to say that Rupert and Deborah had found the older +generation so much worse than the younger, that it had frightened them. +But no, she was going to be tactful! “I plan to get a little apartment, +dear, and you can come see me, and we’ll keep our thoughts to +ourselves, and not give the family anything more to worry over.” Thus +Cornelia Thornwell, in December, 1916, while the German government was +preparing its new submarine policy, which was to rouse all the warlike +elements in America, and force all the pacifist ladies of Boston to +make public speeches, and break with their families, and be raided by +mobs and arrested by the police! With the Bolshevik revolution less +than a year in the future, and the “white terror” following close upon +its heels! + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SAVING MINORITY + + +I + +Cornelia declined three invitations, to live in three different +mansions, and got herself an apartment on the north side of Beacon +Hill, where the poor live near enough to the rich to come as servants, +and to be visited as objects of charity. She had three rooms and a +tiny kitchen and bath; one room being planned for her grand-daughter, +in the hoped-for course of events. Cornelia did not mention this, but +announced that she was going to live alone, to the great dismay of her +family. Betty was in the secret, and helped fix up the little room, +which was a great joke, because it had perhaps the twentieth part of +the floor-space she enjoyed at home. But what is floor-space, compared +with adventure, romance, the tasting of forbidden fruit? “Oh Grannie, +it’s so cute! And it’s going to be such fun! Do you suppose they will +really ever let me come?” + +“I don’t know, dear; if we’re both very good and proper--if you don’t +have any more love-affairs--” + +“Oh, Grannie, I am off for life! That horrible little monster of +propriety, Roger Lowell--it makes me blush just to think of him!” + +“The same effect that you had upon him,” said Cornelia. + +They discussed the technique of self-suppression, so fundamental to +life in Boston. For forty years Cornelia had gone about her daily +affairs, thinking her own thoughts, and seldom even venturing to make +jokes about what the others did. Now Betty must learn the art. She must +say, “Yes, Mother,” and “Certainly, Father,” and let it go at that. +In an extreme case she might say, “I think, Mother, it would be wiser +if we did not discuss that question.” She might be firm and say, “I +really think, Mother, you ought to excuse me from saying any more.” If +she would do that, politely but persistently, her family would have +a great respect for her; and some day, she might remark casually, +“Mother, I think I will invite Grannie to go to the symphony to-morrow +afternoon.” Later she might phone and say, “Mother, I’m having supper +with Grannie, and spending the evening with her.” It would be hard for +a mother to say, “No, you must come home at once”; or even to ask, “Are +there going to be any anarchists present?” + +Of course it all depended upon Cornelia’s “behaving herself.” But alas, +the imperial German government announced its new policy--the submarines +were going to sink passenger vessels without warning; and forthwith +the Back Bay declared war on Germany, while South Boston, the Irish +quarter, declared war on Britain. There was a symbolical insurrection +when the Irish paraded down Beacon Street; the Back Bay shut up its +houses and drew the blinds, but the cooks and dining-room girls and +parlors-maids and chambermaids threw wide open the basement doors and +windows, and stood in the area-ways and cheered themselves hoarse. For +a generation it had been one of the diversions of the “Sewing Circle,” +to whisper harrowing stories of the conduct of these Irish maids +with Irish policemen in the kitchen; but now it was even worse--the +policemen were replaced by German spies, and nobody was safe any more! + +Among the activities of the Kaiser and his agents was to persuade +deluded sentimentalists into organizing groups with high-falutin names +to preach pacifism. There was a “Fellowship of Reconciliation,” and a +“Women’s League for Peace and Freedom,” and a “People’s Council for +Peace and Democracy,” and a “Jackasses’ Association for Flubdub and +Buncombe”--so Rupert Alvin described it in one of his purple-faced +rages. The _Transcript_ had been publishing atrocity stories in twelve +editions every week for a hundred and twenty weeks, and the Back Bay +had believed every word it read; so now imagine the sensation when one +of these organizations of long-haired men and short-haired women listed +among its abettors a former “first lady” of the Commonwealth! + +And Mrs. Josiah Quincy Thornwell was going to make a public speech +in favor of America’s taking it lying down! When that announcement +appeared, the entire family came, one at a time or in groups, to argue +and plead and scold. Clara wept, in the name of her whole precious +brood; if the Germans took Boston, they would cut off all sixteen of +those sweet chubby hands. Alice used the arts which she had practiced +for forty years, ever since she had made the discovery that her +beautiful face would cause others to yield their will to hers. Deborah +had never had a beautiful face, so she had gone in for character, and +now declared that she must consider her duty to her children, and +protect Betty from the contagion of German and anarchist propaganda. + + +II + +Also Henry Cabot Winters gave his mother-in-law an entire evening of +his socially precious time. She was pleased at that, because Henry had +a sense of fun, and would talk about realities. She got in a Negro +maid, and prepared him a good dinner, and he came in full regalia, +with his gray hair composed in a graceful wave and held there by a +cylinder of stiff and shiny black silk. And while she fed him, she +told him her adventures as a runaway grandmother, her work in the +Plymouth cordage plant, and how she had lived on six dollars a week, +and about the Italian anarchists who made bombs of pistacchio, and +the rebel saint who had been the cause of Betty Alvin’s reading Mary +Wollstonecraft Godwin on the rights of women. Impossible to imagine a +more diverting story--and especially the climax, which had come only +last week--Cornelia’s meeting with Mr. J. Lawrence Perry, and telling +that elderly philanthropist how it felt to be an unskilled worker in +his mighty plant, and be chased off the picket-line by his special +policemen! + +And later on, when dinner was over and the maid dismissed, the great +lawyer settled himself in an easy chair with an ash-holder on the arm, +and with the utmost tactfulness steered the conversation onto the +subject of German propaganda; with the result that his mother-in-law +put him on the griddle. “Tell me, Henry, how much do the Boston banks +stand to lose if the Germans win?” + +“Is this for publication, Mother?” The cloud of cigarette smoke did not +obscure the twinkle in Henry’s fine dark eyes. + +“Your name is not for publication, Henry. I’m told it’s a hundred +million dollars.” + +“Round figures are generally exaggerated. As a matter of fact it would +be everything the Boston banks have, because when a panic like that got +started, nobody could say where it would stop.” + +“And that’s why we have to go in?” + +“We live under a system, Mother. Maybe you know how to change it, I +don’t.” + +“And what’s this I hear about you and Rupert taking over the Haupt +electric works?” + +“Jehoshaphat! Where did you get that?” + +“Well, I have sources of information. I suppose that is the system +too--our leading bankers getting back the cost of their war-propaganda!” + +“Well, Mother, we can’t expect the Germans to pay it for us; and if we +do go in, we surely can’t leave the manufacture of our war-supplies to +the enemy!” + +“The fact that you and Rupert and James are getting your lines on Haupt +Electric means we really are going in, then?” + +“Of course, Mother, we’re going in; that is what I want to tell you--it +is unwise of you to waste your strength and happiness trying the +impossible. You know, I don’t fret about appearances like the rest of +the family; but I’m fond of you--we used to have jolly little chats, +and I missed them when you ran off. I thought maybe, if you wanted to +blow off steam, you might blow it at me, instead of at an audience. +Believe me, public life is wearing--not all the millions of all the +Boston banks could get me into it! I imagine you’ve found that out, +since you put your name on a letter-head, and set yourself up as a +target for all the cranks in New England. How many begging letters have +you received this week? How many associations have you joined to reform +our spelling and put a stop to vaccination and vivisection?” + +That was Henry Cabot Winters, genial, shrewd, playfully cynical. But +do not let his social charm fool you; underneath the “Harvard manner” +there was a wolf. He would nose among the banking secrets of Boston--he +called the biggest bankers in the city by such names as “Ted” and +“Winnie” and “Jimmie”; he had been to college with them, and met their +wives and daughters in the evenings; he had access to their records, +he could call up on the telephone and ask how much so-and-so was +borrowing, and what were his assets and connections; and presently +he would catch a scent of blood, and put himself upon the trail of a +wounded caribou, and track him down--for years, maybe, never resting +till he had drunk the last drop of blood from his veins. Both bankers +and industrialists dreaded him, yet they could not get along without +him; there was vigorous competition between two big banking groups in +New England, and Henry’s crowd needed his cunning, at any price he +chose to ask. His fee was seven hundred dollars a day, but that was +merely for overhead; his real reward was part of the carcass of each +caribou. + +Now he lounged in a faded Morris chair out of a second-hand shop, and +lighted one cigarette after another and gazed at the feeble art-effects +which Cornelia had been able to produce without spending money. He +sounded like a schoolboy as he said, “Gee, Mother, I wish I could get +off by myself and live the simple life!” + +“Why not, Henry?” + +“Well, I’ve got a costly wife, and a son to put through the education +mill--” + +“Rubbish, Henry, you know you laugh at Alice and her elegance, and your +money will probably ruin your boy. There is some real reason.” + +“Well, I guess it’s a game, Mother; you have to do something. When I +rowed on the Harvard eight--it wasn’t really so important, but we’d +have broken a heart-valve to keep six inches ahead of the Yale boat. +Life is like that. If you stop to ask for a reason, you spoil the fun, +so you just shut your eyes and pull the stroke.” + +“So that’s how we’re going into the war, and kill one or two million of +our boys--to win a game we don’t really believe in!” + +“No, Mother, it’s different there. Some fellows won’t play the game +according to the rules, and we’re going to put them out.” + +“Who made the rules, Henry?” + +The great lawyer laughed. “You ought to come into my office, and learn +to cross-examine witnesses. That would be a new stunt for a runaway +grandmother--to become a lawyer at the age of--what would it be, about +sixty-five!” + +“But answer my question--who made the rules of the game?” + +Henry laughed again. “England, I suppose; she has made the rules of all +the games, hasn’t she?” + + +III + +Mrs. Josiah Quincy Thornwell sat at a long table, running lengthwise +across the head of a room, and raised up a foot or so like a dais. The +seat at the center was occupied by an elderly gentleman, with Cornelia +at his right, and at his left a Chinese lady with slit eyes and +coppery skin. The rest of the table was occupied by a dozen persons of +prominence in Boston intellectual life. The great room was filled with +tables, running at right angles to the head-table, and occupied by four +or five hundred members of the Twentieth Century Club. + +Luncheon was in progress, with colored waitresses hurrying here and +there, amid a rattle of knives and forks and a subdued murmur of +conversation. But every now and then each of the four or five hundred +pairs of eyes would steal a glance at the head-table, and particularly +at Cornelia. As a matter of mathematics, it is obvious that this meant +a number of eyes upon her all the time, and she was aware of it, and +her answers to the president’s remarks were absent-minded, and her +efforts to consume a proper quantity of lamb chop, peas and potatoes +were intermittent. + +It is a bad thing to eat solid food when you are excited, but Cornelia +had not yet learned that lesson so important to orators. As “first +lady” of the Commonwealth she had now and then been compelled to say +a few words of thanks to the lady chairmen of visiting delegations; +but this was the first time she had been a “headliner,” her début as +pacifist and rebel. The story of her adventure had of course been +whispered all over by this time; and not ten generations’ training in +austerity and reticence could keep the four or five hundred pairs of +eyes from manifesting interest. There was not a vacant seat at any +table; after the dessert and coffee had been served, and the tables +piled back out of the way in a corner, there were not folding chairs +enough for the throng, and all the doorways were packed with standers. + +The lady with the slit eyes and the coppery skin was a native graduate +of a Chinese mission school supported by Boston money. She was +introduced, and told them about life in this school--employing a pure +and perfect Bostonese, with the broadest possible “a” and no “r” at +all; she even referred to “that cradle of liberty, Funnel Hall”--just +as if her name were Cabot or Lowell, instead of being Wang-Sin-She! +American school-histories tell about a place called “Fanueil Hall,” and +you know how it looks, but unless you visit “old Boston,” you don’t +know how it sounds. + +Every Saturday through the fall and winter the Twentieth Century Club +held these luncheons, and you would hear the head of a Negro school +in Mississippi or maybe in Liberia; a woman who had been studying +the opium trade in the Orient, or white slavery in the Argentine; +a physician who had been curing the Eskimos of trachoma, or a +strike-leader who had been jailed in Colorado. It did not matter where +you came from or what you had, so long as it had to do with making the +world better. This was the only organization of elderly liberals in the +whole world; they were always ready to join something new, and if you +were persuasive enough they would write you checks. Nowhere else in the +world were appearances more deceptive; nowhere did fine feathers so +fail to make fine birds. The old lady in front of you, dressed in rusty +black silk and carrying an umbrella frayed at the edges, might be the +owner of a mountain of copper in the Northern Peninsula of Michigan, or +of six city blocks of tenements in East Boston. + +Cornelia saw many persons whom she knew, and others whose faces were +familiar--perhaps because they were types. The very same kind of old +ladies made up the “Sewing Circle”; but there they had made long yellow +flannel petticoats for the poor, while here they remade the world. Old +ladies with little round faces, like Cornelia herself; old ladies with +long faces; dimply faces, wrinkly faces with mouths drawn down at the +corners; little bustling ladies, large ample ladies, timid shy ladies, +grim determined ladies--row after row of them, with eyes fixed upon +the copper-colored speaker. It would not have been polite for Cornelia +to look at any one of them too long, so her eyes moved from one face +to the next. She saw hair drawn up in tight little topknots, hair +pitifully thin, with pink scalps showing through; hair in curls, hair +in waves, hair neatly plastered down at the sides. An old lady with a +benevolent boy’s face, and one with bulgy rosy cheeks; one with deeply +graven mouth and double lines at the side, one with wide outstanding +ears, one with round white forehead, one shiny in new silk and ropes +of pearls, one tinkling with chains and medallions. + +And scattered in between, old gentlemen! Bald ones whose scalps were +pink, and bald ones whose scalps were white; some with thin white hair, +some with bushy gray hair; some with neatly trimmed military mustaches, +with droopy mustaches, with grandfatherly beards, with chin-whiskers, +round like a quarter-moon, relics of old New England. Old gentlemen +with saggy cheeks, or portly, like bishops, or military and erect; +rosy clubmen; earnest, ascetic preachers with clerical collars; one +with a red nose; one very fashionable, with glasses hanging from a +black silk cord; one famous scholar with no hair on top of his head, +but covering his collar in back. These, no more than the ladies, could +be judged by appearances; the poorest-looking might be the richest, +the mildest-looking might hold the most revolutionary opinions. One +thing alone was certain--you could never voice an idea too strange, a +course of action too dangerous, for some of these elderly idealists to +applaud! There would even be one or two ready to follow you, to act +upon their convictions, even to the death. It was “old Boston”! + + +IV + +Cornelia made her little speech; very gently and quietly, even humbly. +She found many who were with her; and many, of course, furiously +opposed to her--though etiquette forbade them to show it except by +looking stern and grim. Next morning the newspapers reported the event, +briefly but with dignity; yes, even the most rabidly patriotic were +respectful--it was the right she had acquired on the day she became a +Thornwell. Nothing she could do, short of murder, would forfeit that +immunity. If she became a maniac, and had to be shut up in an asylum, +the papers would decorously cease to mention her; but no opinion held +or expressed would ever cause them to insult a sacred Brahmin. + +And curiously enough, the rest of the clan were proud of that fact; in +a perverse kind of way they gloried in the eccentric old lady who had +told the world to go to the devil. Much as they hated her ideas, they +would have been ready to stamp their heels hard on any miserable shrimp +of a journalist who dared to deal impolitely with her. The fact that +no such shrimp appeared, helped to reconcile them to what had happened; +they realized, as families frequently do, that the reality was not so +bad as the anticipation. So, after a week or two, Betty was permitted +to take her grandmother to a symphony concert. + +But Cornelia did not succeed in preventing the war. The great machine +rolled on, flattening out all opposition. The Irish of Boston might +parade and spit, they might hold meetings that turned into riots, they +might make the city a scandal throughout the nation--but the great +machine would flatten them out in the end, their mayor, their police +force, and their cardinal. It would do the same with socialists and +anarchists, pacifists, sentimentalists, all other varieties of cranks. +Clear the way for Juggernaut! + +And meantime Rupert Alvin, Henry Cabot Winters and their “crowd” were +busy taking possession of the electrical manufacturing plant of Haupt. +All this “crowd” were active Republicans, and this was a Democratic +administration; its promise to be non-partisan and patriotic was a kind +of chaff that would not catch old birds like Rupert and Henry. They got +hold of a prominent Democratic statesman, close to the administration, +and took him in with them, on the basis of a ten per cent “cut”; and +he had a nephew whom he installed in the office of the “Alien Property +Custodian,” who had charge of robbing the enemies of America at home. + +So Rupert and Henry got possession of the great property for +one-twentieth of its market value, and turned out the German-American +executives, and put in some younger sons of the “blue-bloods,” and were +ready to manufacture war supplies and sell them to the government at +the highest possible prices. And the government was ready to buy with +patriotic fervor. If the business men of the country made big profits, +they could pay high wages, and enlarge the plants, and increase the +product, and there would be prosperity for every one except the Kaiser. + +Billions of money and millions of men--such was the slogan. Congress +passed a conscription act, ordering all men between the ages of +twenty-one and thirty to register for the draft: soon after which there +was a ring at Cornelia’s doorbell, and when she answered, she saw her +friend, the maker of pistacchio bombs. She had sent him her address, +but not telling him of her change of name. Sooner or later he would +find out who she was, but meantime she would put both names on the door +of her apartment, and let her Italian friends go on using the name they +had learned. + +So there stood Bartolomeo Vanzetti, hesitating a little, not sure +if she would want to see him, since she had given up being a +working-woman. “I come for say good by, Nonna.” + +“Where are you going?” + +He came in. “Anybody here for hear me?” Then he told her, “I go Mexico +for keep out from war. I go wit’ Nick--you know, young feller you see +in dramma one time, Nick Sacc’. Is good feller, we go Mexico togedder +for not get draft. Never will fight for capitalista, Nonna.” + +“Of course not, Bart.” + +“You no t’ink I am coward for run away, Nonna! You see me and Nick, we +fight when time come, but is not yet. You see worker get in war, he get +his eye open, he learn what is capitalismo. You see great t’ing come +when dissa war is done, Nonna. Come greata change, come rivoluzione. +I know, you cannot believe, joosta wait, you see what I tell. Come +bad time, come unemploy-èd, come big strike, lika war. Maybe it come +great richa countree, like Britain, maybe it come poor countree like +Russia--go what you say--cannot pay debt--bancarotta--” + +“Bankrupt.” + +“Maybe come Russia, you see tsar get kill-èd, grand duke run away. +Maybe come Italy, plenty chance for Italian anarchista make fight. I go +Mexico, wait soocha time.” + +“How will you get along, Bart?” + +“I get along, all time. Got two good arm, good back, worka picka +shov’, make living. Some odder Italian come, we not get lonely. I +write letter some time, maybe get book, learn write Eengleesh, get +educate, shoore! I never forget you, Nonna, besta friend, good lady, +help workingman--onderstand heem. It is best t’ing of all, Nonna, it is +better for onderstand as if you give million dollar. It is t’ing what +come from heart. I want you know”--and here the maker of pistacchio +bombs laid his hand gently on her shoulder--“I want you know, Nonna, +I have for you the sentiment. I not know to say Eengleesh--is Italian +word, sentimento--mean kinda feeling.” + +“I understand, Bart.” There were tears in Cornelia’s eyes. “I shall +think of you often. You have taught me more than you realize--perhaps +more than I realize myself.” + +A curious circumstance, that neither Vanzetti nor Sacco needed to +run away to Mexico. As Italian subjects, they were not liable to +the draft. But they believed they were--and so did Cornelia. They +became draft-dodgers in thought, which to New England, home of +Transcendentalism, was exactly the same thing as draft-dodgers in +reality. + +They went; and a few days later Cornelia picked up her morning paper, +and there on the front page was a startling story: a revolution in +Russia, the tsar a prisoner, and a democratic, popular party in +control! An amazing, an incredible event; making it possible once +more to have hopes, to believe that changes were possible, that evil +systems, entrenched for generations, might at last be broken down. +Also, it raised Bartolomeo Vanzetti from the status of a dreamer to +that of a prophet. Cornelia had listened to his phrases, and smiled +gently at his peasant simplicity of mind; but here suddenly his ideas +became reality, made known upon the front pages of every newspaper in +the world! + + +V + +The pacifists had failed to keep America out of the war, but there was +still the question of peace terms, upon which depended the duration of +the fighting. So the agitation in Boston went on--until July, when the +marines at the navy yard took matters out of the hands of the Irish +mayor. There was a parade organized by the socialists, in support +of their program of no conquests and no indemnities; the police had +given the necessary permit, but all the same, the marines raided the +parade and broke it up, tearing the banners away from the marchers. +They finished by raiding the socialist headquarters, and dumping its +contents into the street. Cornelia was in this parade, and once more +encountered violence; but now she was panoplied in her dignity as a +“blue-blood,” and did not have to run. + +Also--most dreadful circumstance--Elizabeth Thornwell Alvin, daughter +of the president of the Pilgrim National Bank, was in that riot! She +did not get into the papers, and it was a couple of days before some +thoughtful friend brought the news to her father. There were more +scenes, and Betty, in spite of all tears and protestations, was again +forbidden to visit her runaway grandparent. A program was proposed to +keep her in remote country places during the summer; but she vowed that +she would not go to that foolish Camp Putnam. “You might as well give +up, Mother; there’s no chance in this world of my marrying one of those +dull young men!” + +“Betty, don’t be vulgar!” + +“I am being honest, Mother. You know what Camp Putnam is for. But +you’ll have to realize once for all--my opinions make it impossible for +me to be a social success--there, or anywhere else.” + +“What is it you want to do, child?” + +“I want to go stay with Grannie--all the time.” + +“But you wanted to go to college!” + +“I’ve changed my mind. I realize that you don’t learn anything at +college.” + +“Betty! What a silly thing to say!” + +“Well, you don’t learn the things I want to learn. I got more from +being in that one parade than I did in a whole year at Miss Wilson’s.” + +“So you want to study to be a leader of street-mobs!” + +“Grannie is trying to find out the causes of modern war, and found a +society to teach them. It’s too late this time, she says, but next time +perhaps we can avoid being caught. And Mother, you must know that is +important--just as much so as the feminine endings in Shakespeare’s +plays, and whatever else you learn in college. And it’s the right kind +of thing for Boston people to do. When you’ve succeeded, then people +recognize it, and build a monument to you.” + +“Oh! So you’re going to have a monument in Boston!” + +“Not for myself--but for Grannie, yes indeed! Look at that Shaw +Memorial, Mother--people come from all over the United States to see +it. Those Negro troops are dead and turned to bronze, so they are safe +and respectable; but when they were live Negro troops, and Colonel +Shaw marched them down Beacon Street, the members of the Somerset +Club pulled down the shades. That was how the Union Club came to be +founded--some of the people on Beacon Hill were loyal to the Union +cause, and Grandfather Thornwell was one of them. That is history, +Mother; but I didn’t learn it at Miss Wilson’s, and I wouldn’t learn +it at Radcliffe. The Union Club is top-hole now, and it pulls down the +shades on us. But we shall have a ‘Peace Club,’ or something like that, +and fifty years from now we’ll be the highest high-hat in town, and +there’ll be an oil painting of Grannie in the lobby, and the family +will be proud as Punch!” + +Thus Betty, citing precedents, according to precedent. It all seemed +so reasonable to her--and to her mother raving nonsense. Was it not +obvious that Colonel Shaw had upheld the hands of Abraham Lincoln--the +president, even though nothing but a vulgar rail-splitter! Now here +was Woodrow Wilson--a gentleman and a scholar, even though he did come +from the wrong university--here he was fighting for civilization, and +Cornelia and Betty were trying to stab him in the back. + +“Yes, Mother”--for Betty had not yet learned Cornelia’s technique of +self-suppression. “It all depends on what history decides about this +war. Did we have to get in? Or could we have brought the nations to +better terms if we had stayed out?” + +So they wrangled, until the tempers of both were frayed, and Deborah +exclaimed, “Your Father has lost all patience with you! You run a grave +risk that he will cut you off!” + +“But, Mother, do you seriously think I should spend my life sitting +round waiting for you and father to die?” + +“Oh, what things you do say!” + +“But that’s what _you_ said! I’m not to do any thinking of my own +until you are dead and I’ve got the money. But what good would it be +to me then? I wouldn’t know any better to do with it than to make +yellow flannel petticoats for the poor--so ugly that the poor can’t be +persuaded to wear them!” + +That was a dreadful utterance--a jeer at the most sacred institution +of feminine Boston, the “Sewing Circle”: a group of ladies of the +highest social rank, who met for luncheon at one another’s homes, and +afterwards sewed for the poor and gossiped for the rich. A fresh layer +was recruited every year out of the débutante set, and they constituted +the basis of selection for all other social activities; if you didn’t +get into the Sewing Circle, you never got into anything. And it was +really true that up to quite recently they had made yellow flannel +petticoats for the poor, and had stopped because it was no longer +possible to find any one to wear their product. Mrs. Rupert Alvin was +indignant at the presumption and ingratitude of the inhabitants of +East Boston and South Boston slums, and had favored going on making the +petticoats according to tradition, and sending them to Europe, where +the lower classes knew their place in life. + + +VI + +Betty went to Plymouth, to spend a couple of weeks with her friend +Lucile Walker. She wrote, begging Grannie to come, and Mrs. Walker +added a formal invitation. But Cornelia did not want to visit rich +people; to her Plymouth meant Italians and the simple life. She wrote +to the Brinis, and found they had no boarder, so she went down for a +few days. A strange sensation, reëntering that so different world! She +would keep it as a place of refuge, a stimulus to the imagination, a +cure for the mental diseases of affluence. Here people said what they +meant, and it was possible to understand what they were doing. When +Vincenzo Brini got up at dawn and shoveled and raked and grubbed in the +dirt, he did not have to tell you, like Henry Cabot Winters, that life +was a game, and you must play it without thinking; no, Vincenzo would +say, “Moocha gooda vegetable!”--and escort you from row to row of his +treasures, and tell you the Italian names, and remember the English +names--after you had reminded him! Alfonsina wanted a wash-tub, for +perfectly sound economic reasons. Beltrando wanted a violin, and some +one to teach him to play it, and was going to earn the money by picking +berries. + +The boys were playing baseball on top of Castle Hill, and the birds +sang, and the sun sparkled on the bay, and the pleasure-boats made +diverging tracks on the water. There were flowers in the woods +again--but alas, no Vanzetti to explain them and explore nature’s +mysteries. Incessantly they talked about him, the things he had said +and the things he had liked. He had gone away without saying good-by to +Trando and Fay, afraid lest their children’s prattle might reveal his +secret. Their mother had explained matters later--but it was hard for +them to be reconciled to his lack of trust. + +Alfonsina had got a letter. Both Sacco and Vanzetti were in Mexico, and +the latter had found work as a baker. The Mexicans came to America for +jobs, and the Italians took what they left behind. Then came a letter +for Cornelia, and the family sat round the table and read and discussed +it. “I have obtained book for English education. I shall be greatly +cultured. Each word as I investigate in dictionary I secure in mind.” +They could picture him, sitting in a laborer’s hut, patiently looking +up long words by the light of a candle, and putting them together, not +always in the right order. + +“It is primitive country, much hospitality of people, much to approve, +but not developed industrial. The great America has depraved us, we +feel in nature’s wildness lonely. I will be glad for receiving English +books for education reading, it is great limitation to obtain Italian +reading. Nick and me endeavor for improvement our companions of exile. +It is necessary for information of world developments. You have seen +Russian rivoluzion, but is necessary for explanazion that such is +lacking in true rivoluzionairy significance. It is of bourgeois nature, +for making country like capitalistic America. It is not of workers or +peasants, but Kerensky is tool of business men, and you will see that +the desires of Russia for acquirement of Constantinople will not be +abandoned, and the participating of Russia in the war will have this +significance. I will not proceed in this discussing because is possible +for letter to be censured, but will say that all nation in most cruel +conflict have imperialist ambition which will not abandon for beautiful +sentiments. I have long walk for obtaining stamp for letter so will +conclusion with expressing of sincere esteem, your Bartolomeo Vanzetti.” + + +VII + +Cornelia went to call on the Jerry Walkers--she could not fail to do +so, being no longer in hiding. They lived in a big remodeled house on +a hilltop looking over the bay, and you would have thought them very +fashionable, if you had not known the dreadful fact that Mrs. Walker +was the daughter of a Pittsburgh steel manufacturer. Startling to +realize how one could have all this comfort, and even elegance, and +yet be totally non-existent from the social point of view. Mrs. Walker +was a fair, buxom lady, her manner to Cornelia a curious mixture of +deference due to a “blue-blood,” modified by the need of not seeming +too eager for social promotion. A strange world, in which a motor-ride +of six minutes brought you from Suosso’s Lane, where things were +simple and natural, to this hilltop mansion from which simplicity and +naturalness had been banished as by an enchanter’s spell. + +But, a spell for ladies only! Jerry Walker, who had begun life as an +errand-boy, liked to talk with Cornelia about those days; and how the +Governor had helped him to a start. He liked to talk about his enormous +business, which he was organizing upon a new system. Not content with +owning all the felt-plants of New England, he had got a chain of +establishments to manufacture the things that were made of felt--shoes, +hats, hospital supplies; he had a jobbing business to distribute them, +and was not going to stop until he had retail stores, and even the +sheep to make the wool. He was eager about all this--a bouncing little +man with bristly yellow hair, standing up like a bull-dog’s. He was +extremely self-confident, a great business organizer, who knew it, and +frequently said it, adding prophecies. A highly dangerous state of +mind in New England, where all is secrecy, and instinctive repugnance +toward anyone who talks. Cornelia remembered that last discussion she +had heard between her husband and Rupert Alvin, when Jerry Walker and +his felt-plants had been the subject. It was easy to understand why +Rupert was so antagonistic to this talkative outsider, and resented his +control of a great New England industry, accusing him of all crimes in +the business list. + +Just now Jerry Walker needed to expand his business for war purposes, +and needed to buy stocks of raw material for government contracts. He +ought to buy quickly, because the price of wool was leaping day by day; +but he could not get the banking credit. Everybody else was getting it, +all along the line, but from him the bankers demanded practically the +taking over of his business. + +It was the working out of a situation which Cornelia understood +clearly; but she did not have the right to talk about it, not even to +Betty. The latter had learned of Mr. Walker’s troubles from Lucile, and +was embarrassed, because among those who held the whip-hand were her +own father and her uncle, John Quincy Thornwell, president of the Fifth +National Bank. “Grannie, I don’t know much about banking, and I don’t +suppose you do, but I can’t help thinking it seems to go by favor. Mr. +Walker never wore the hat-band of a Harvard club, and his wife isn’t in +the Sewing Circle! Do you suppose that is why they say such bad things +about him?” + +Cornelia answered, “I once heard Great-uncle Abner say that banking is +the private preserve of the blue-bloods, a feeding-crib for the sons +and nephews and cousins.” + +“But, Grannie, that isn’t fair! There’s Father and Uncle John, who can +get all the money they need from their own banks--” + +“No, dear, they can’t do that--it would be against the law.” + +“It wouldn’t be against the law for them to lend to each other, would +it? Or to Uncle James, or other members of the family? Certainly you +never hear of the Thornwell mills having to scuffle for credit. And Mr. +Walker is a capable man, who has built up his business by hard work and +not by family favors. I would talk to Father about it, if I thought it +would help.” + +“No, dear, you’d better not meddle. Your parents would say the Walkers +were trying to use you.” + +“I suppose that’s why they hate to have me come here. I must only know +the people who come to our dinner-table.” + +Cornelia laughed. “Dear child, it is embarrassing to know those who are +coming to your dinner-table on a platter!” + + +VIII + +The fall of 1917. All about Cornelia a gigantic stir of war +preparation, but very little intellectual preparation to match it. She +did not have to go far in her studies to learn that the various peoples +of Europe had been fighting among themselves for centuries, and in this +fighting had frequently shifted partners. Whatever enemy they had at +the time, they hated that enemy just as heartily, and accused him of +atrocities, and did not hesitate to have priests and bishops invoke +the aid of God to overcome him. Always the real cause of the war was a +desire to take land from the other nation; plus the fear that the other +nation would reverse the procedure--as indeed it would. + +Could the same situation exist in this greatest and most cruel of all +conflicts? To have that question answered, Cornelia had to get in the +Negro maid, and invite Quincy Thornwell to dinner. Do not confuse +Quincy with his older brother, John Quincy, for these two sons of +Great-uncle Abner were very different beings. John, the banker, had the +reputation of being the closest-mouthed person in Boston, which was +like being the tallest mountain in the Himalayas. But Quincy lived by +gossip, quite literally; for twenty years he had listened to the talk +of his family and friends, and turned their advance knowledge into a +comfortable fortune on the stock-market. His wizened features were +set in mockery, and if you were in the family he would tell you most +outrageous and delightful anecdotes. + +Quincy went everywhere, and met everybody. He could tell you what +the British ambassador had said to Major Higginson last week. The +evening before last he had dined at Fenway Court, the palace of the +eccentric but brilliant Mrs. “Jack” Gardner, and had there met Sir +Leslie Buttock, the latest of the procession of British propagandists +who were coming to fascinate and thrill the American plutocracy. Sir +Leslie was making the transcontinental tour, and after he had praised +the champagne of a Minneapolis banker, or the cigars of a Seattle +ship-builder, each of these provincials was an insider and social +equal for the rest of his life, and the price was five--ten--twenty +billions--no one knew just how much--to be used in doubling the area of +the British empire. + +A generation or more ago “Mrs. Jack” had set out to cut a swath through +Boston society with the millions of a big department store. A vivid +little creature, with the continental standard of manners and morals, +she had horrified the Back Bay beyond utterance; when she lost her +temper, she would break into cursing like any British aristocrat. But +she went abroad and hobnobbed with royalty, and was cabled back home; +she bought famous paintings, and built herself a palace in what was +then the suburbs of the Fenway, and thumbed her nose at the prudes. +Now she was an old lady, with decades of notoriety behind her, the +acknowledged leader of the smart set. + +A British diplomat once gave the official definition of a lie--a +falsehood told to a person who has a right to the truth. All diplomats +and propagandists who came to Boston did “Mrs. Jack” the honor of +admitting her into the inner circle. At her dinner-parties you took +off your propaganda-coat, so to speak, and lounged in your military +shirt-sleeves. So Quincy Thornwell could tell his aunt exactly why the +war was lasting so long. The price of Italy’s repudiating her alliance +with Austria and Germany had been the Trentino and Trieste, which meant +the mastery of the Adriatic. Japan’s price was Shantung from China. +Russia was to have Constantinople. France was to have Alsace-Lorraine, +and if possible the Rhine. Britain was to have all the German colonies, +an empire in themselves. When you talked to Quincy about any of these +powers giving up their spoils because of the beautiful speeches of +Woodrow Wilson, he showed his good manners by pretending it was your +idea of being humorous. + +And yet there were a hundred million or so of good Americans who +really believed that their President was somehow going to achieve +that miracle! Deborah, for example, and her serious elder daughter, +Priscilla, who was going in for Red Cross work of the higher, +administrative kind. When you talked to them about peace terms, you +discovered that they were trusting the country entirely to a man who +was a Democrat, and came from the wrong university! If you mentioned +the secret treaties, they would say that these matters were too +delicate for public discussion; the President of course had sources of +information that were not open to us-- + +“But why not?” cried Cornelia, and could get no convincing answer. +Either the allies were going to give up their predatory aims or they +were not. If they were, why not publish the fact? Such declaration +would save millions of lives and billions of treasure--for manifestly, +one reason for enemy resistance was fear of the consequences of defeat. +But if you tried to point this out, you were called pro-German, and +people turned their backs on you. They had adopted a slogan, “Win the +war!”--which meant that they found it easier to fight than to think. +And Cornelia, who had gone out into public life, now had the duty +of laboring with them, and suffering because of their blindness. No +more could she be content with the troubles of three daughters--their +diseases in childhood, their moral training, their love-affairs and +marriages, their fourteen pregnancies and eleven children. Now she had +a million sons in France, and must agonize with them all--even when +they were wayward sons and spurned their foster-mother’s care! + + +IX + +Betty was going to Radcliffe. It was a compromise that had worked +itself out with her parents; provided she would put herself under +respectable instructors, and read the sound and wholesome books they +would indicate to her, she might go and live in the apartment with +her grandmother, and meet anarchists and socialists and atheists and +pacifists and German agents in her off hours. It had been a losing +fight for Deborah and Rupert, because they had other things they must +think about, while Betty had nothing but the determination to get with +Grannie. After all, what could be more respectable than a grandmother? +What more laudable desire for a young girl than to comfort an elderly +widow, alone and poverty-stricken? It was really a scandal to balk such +an impulse; it was advertising to the world that Cornelia was a shady +character! + +So Betty installed a few of her books and her clothes in the little +room, and the pair of them were as happy as honeymooners--they gave +each other a hug every time they met. The Negro maid came every +day--because the Alvins insisted on Betty’s paying half the household +expenses. Betty’s runabout was in a garage nearby, and any time it +was raining or snowing, a man from the garage would bring it over, +and Betty would drive Grannie to anarchist or socialist or atheist +or pacifist or pro-German meetings. Or they would sit at home in the +evenings and study subversive books with red bindings, of which there +were now a hundred or so on Grannie’s shelves--Mr. Longfellow and Mr. +Emerson and Dr. Holmes having been relegated to a box under the bed. +Betty would give her college studies “a lick and a promise,” and then +take up Bertrand Russell on world imperialism. Most convenient to have +a respectable aristocrat, brother of an earl, to quote against Sir +Leslie Buttock and Sir Syphon Scotch! + +It was well that this idyllic menage had got definitely under way +before the second, or Bolshevik, revolution in Russia. Possession is +nine points out of ten in family affairs, as in revolutions, and it +was no more possible to get Betty out of Grannie’s apartment on the +north side of Beacon Hill than it was to get Lenin and Trotsky out of +the Kremlin. But what agony of soul for the Alvin family, and for the +Winters and the Scatterbridges, and the whole Thornwell clan! The +face of the war changed in ten hideous days! The eastern front gone +all to pieces, and a million or two of Germans set free to overwhelm +the western front! Russia out of the war, and no one but America to +take her place! And red revolution on the rampage over a sixth of the +surface of the globe! Insolent, low-down workingmen daring to take +possession of a great government, and calling on their fellows in other +lands to follow suit! + +Every property interest throughout the civilized world rallied against +that peril, and the greatest machine of propaganda in history went +into action. To meet the immediate emergency, Lenin and Trotsky must +be German agents; so a mass of documents were forged, endorsed by the +state department, and spread upon the front pages of the newspapers. +Then came the atrocities--for which little Belgium had been a dress +rehearsal. Bureaus for the construction of horrors were set up in +every border city from Helsingfors to Vladivostok, and the cruelty +and bloodshed inevitable to a great revolution were magnified a +thousand fold. It was St. Bartholomew’s Eve in Russia every time an +American newspaper went to press. The Soviet government collapsed +once a week, and Lenin jailed Trotsky, or was murdered by Trotsky, in +alternating afternoon editions. The “free love” element became the +basis of the most obscene hoax of the ages, and fifty million women +were “nationalized” in one colossal orgy. Every decent woman in America +believed it--and so it was possible for President Wilson to begin his +private war upon the Russian people, in defiance of the Constitution +which he had spent his life in expounding. + +From that time on the advocacy of reasonable peace-terms ceased to be +a society function, a diversion of after-luncheon orators, and became +a criminal conspiracy, conducted by little groups in upstairs rooms +with the shades drawn and admission by pass-word. It became, in short, +“Bolshevik plotting.” Did not the Bolsheviks prove it by proceeding +themselves to make peace with Germany, an act of treason to democracy +and liberty? Did they not make matters worse by ransacking the archives +of the tsar, and publishing the secret treaties whereby the allies had +agreed to divide large sections of the earth, without any democracy or +liberty for the inhabitants thereof? There is a story of a Kentucky +colonel who was asked why he had knocked a certain man down. “Did he +call you a liar?” “Worse than that, he proved it.” + +With one exception the American newspapers ignored these treaties, +and to Cornelia and the pacifists that seemed treason to the national +welfare. But what could the pacifists do? For any group to circulate +them meant to have offices raided and property destroyed; for +individuals to agitate them meant to be mobbed, to be jailed and held +“incommunicado,” tarred and feathered, beaten with blacksnake whips, in +a few cases strung up to telegraph-poles. + +Nor was it protection that you lived within sight of Bunker Hill +monument and “Funnel” Hall. The grandsons of that “broadcloth mob” +that had dragged William Lloyd Garrison through the streets with +a rope about his waist were now out to preserve their French and +British bonds. Nor was it any longer of avail that your city had an +Irish-Catholic vote; the Catholic church was one of the property +interests which had rallied against “Bolshevism.” City policemen, +federal secret agents, and an army of spies and informers in the pay of +wealthy patriots, would break into offices and homes at any hour of the +day or night, and spirit people away and hold them for as long as they +saw fit; in short they would commit all the crimes they were trying to +prevent, and destroy beyond repair the Constitution they professed to +worship. + + +X + +Into this valley of midnight shadow walked Cornelia Thornwell and her +grand-daughter, clasping each other’s trembling hands. They were in no +personal danger, as it turned out; the patrioteers would seldom trouble +rich people, especially those who had “family” behind them. Seen from +the outside this “white terror” appeared a mad frenzy, and it was hard +at first to understand that there were cunning brains guiding it, that +mob-outbreaks were planned by shrewd gentlemen in swivel-chairs. These +gentlemen would be glad to scare the widow of Governor Thornwell and +make her shut up; but failing in that they would not advertise her +treason by arresting her. The reason was that the decision rested with +Henry Cabot Winters and Rupert Alvin, who were contributing large sums +to the defense societies, and sat in at the councils where lists were +gone over and policies determined. + +No, what would happen to Cornelia was that her janitress would be +instructed to preserve the contents of her trash-basket every night; +and one of her old-time friends of the Sewing Circle would turn up and +announce herself as a convert to pacifism, and join all the societies +to which Cornelia belonged, and go to meetings with her, and get on +the executive committees, and turn in a detailed report of everything +that went on there, with lists of the members and subscribers, and +manuscript copies of what was being considered for publication. +Included in this mass of information appeared the fact that Mrs. Josiah +Quincy Thornwell was in touch with Italian anarchists of Plymouth, and +exchanged letters with one of the group, a draft-dodger--though so far +there was no evidence that she had helped him to get away. He wrote +to her under the code name of “Nonna,” and a letter she had received +from him, entered in the secret service files under the index number of +1842T36, read as follows: + + “Dear Nonna: + + “It will be great rivilation for you to see the coming of my + prophecy, the real rivoluzion prevail in Russia. This is greatest + event of history and is to be recognize for beginning of epoch. + It is first opportunity for liberty for worker and peasant of + world. It is hope which can be very brief to endure, and will + depend entirely what shall happen in other country. If will come + rivoluzion in Germany, Austria, Italia, France, England, then will + be possible for building worker society without exploitation; but + if is impossible for achievement rivoluzion in other country, is + little hope for freedom for Russia, and you will see ending of + worker’s control. When Russia must defend self in war, it will + be militarismo, and is impossible for liberty with militarismo. + It will then become Russia government of force like all other + gouvernment, and rivoluzion will be perished. Whatever you can do + for rivoluzion of American worker, that is only way for assistance + of proletarian power in Russia. In Mexico is not much activity, for + lack of language speaking, so Nick and me will make secret return + for propaganda. With sincere esteem and fraternal greetings, Your + friend, Bartolomeo Vanzetti.” + + +XI + +It was in the spring of 1918, with the last German drive in France +under way, that this stolen letter was placed in the hands of Rupert +Alvin. It caused great mental disturbance in a loyal citizen, and +he came to the apartment and, standing in the middle of the floor, +announced that Cornelia stood in great danger of a term in state’s +prison for persistent and contumacious disloyalty; also that Betty +would bundle up her things and accompany her father to his car +immediately. Whereupon occurred one of those scenes which are so +essentially un-Boston that all Bostonians deny they ever happen. +Perhaps they would not have happened, had not old Josiah married +a bog-trotter’s grand-daughter, and thus introduced an element of +hysterics into the family. + +Betty declared that she would not, could not desert her Grannie. The +more sternly she was commanded to obey her father, the louder she +wept and the tighter she clung; even when Grannie herself advised +her gently to go, she relaxed her grip no particle, but sobbed, how +could they demand such a thing of her? The greater the peril in which +Grannie stood, the less possibility that she, Betty, would desert her! +So it appeared that Rupert had overspoken himself, and he hemmed and +hawed and admitted that the danger of arrest and imprisonment was not +immediate, his influence had been able to avert the calamity; whereupon +Betty said that if that was the case, what was the reason for her +going? And what can a man do in the face of logic like that? + +What Rupert did was worthy of his Puritan ancestors, and proved +that the old stock was still sound. He adjudged his daughter guilty +of domestic sedition, and pulled out his watch and gave her three +minutes in which to capitulate; at the end of that time he would go +home and write a will in which she would have no share, and would be +forever forbidden entrance to his home. For three minutes he held the +watch, and Betty clung to her grandmother with such frenzy that not a +finger could be pulled loose. Rupert snapped to the watch--it was the +old-fashioned kind with a gold case and a lid on a hinge--and stalked +out of the room without a word. And Betty wept for an hour or two, +fully convinced that her father meant every one of those cruel words, +and that she was forever an outcast. + +Until the doorbell rang again, and there came Deborah, and behind her, +silent and somewhat sheepish, the ponderous and impressive president of +the Pilgrim National Bank. From which it appeared that the old stock +was degenerating in spots! Rupert could rule a board of directors with +an iron rod, but he could not rule the tongue or spirit of his wife. +She declared that he would not do the cruel thing he had threatened; +his sense of patriotic loyalty had caused him to forget the love they +all bore for one another. What Deborah would do was to throw herself +upon the mercy of her mother and her child, and implore them to spare +the family the horror of having either go to jail. So, of course, +there was more weeping--still that Irish blood. Betty cried, what was +the use of trying to talk about it, when they didn’t know what they +were supposed to have done? How could they promise not to do it, until +they knew what? So Rupert had to give hints which nearly betrayed the +secret; he told them they were known to be consorting with anarchists +and draft-dodgers. + +So it was a question of their giving up Vanzetti! But they did not +agree with Vanzetti’s ideas, and Vanzetti knew they did not, they had +tried to argue with him, to persuade him to a more American point +of view! Was that treason? Were they forbidden to try to reform the +anarchists, or even to know what anarchists thought? If so, who was to +answer their arguments? Rupert snapped out that the way to answer such +dogs was to string them up to lamp-posts; and then, of course, the fat +was in the fire. What was the use of a Constitution if it didn’t work +in war-time? What was the use of free speech if it applied only to +the things you wanted said? If public questions were to be settled by +stringing people up to lamp-posts, who was to be strung, and who was +to string--how could you decide? Betty cried, and Cornelia cried, and +Deborah cried. Ideas are extremely trying things, devastating in their +effect upon the female nervous organism; there is something to be said +for the point of view of the Clara Scatterbridges, who have nothing to +do with ideas, but stay at home and have eight babies. + +Betty and Cornelia laid down their joint program. They had never +advocated violence and never would; but neither would they support +a war. They would advocate the ending of this present war upon terms +of justice to all parties, which included the rights of those peoples +whose lands were going to be handed over as spoils of battle. If it +had become a crime in America to advocate such ideas, then there would +be an old Thornwell lady and a young one in prison. Rupert and Deborah +took their departure, as solemn as if it were an execution they had +attended; and five minutes after they left, the doorbell rang again, +and there stood a humble Italian laborer, wearing a worn suit of +clothes two sizes too big for him, and droopy walrus mustaches equally +out of proportion. That very anarchist draft-dodger who had been the +cause of the family scene! + + +XII + +He stood embarrassed. “I not know if should come--” + +“Of course you should come!” and they drew him in. + +“Could make trooble for ladies.” + +“We are not afraid of trouble,” said Cornelia; and Betty chimed in, +“You are a sight for sore eyes!”--that was the way the new generation +was learning to talk, in spite of Radcliffe. + +Vanzetti’s face lighted up--so glad he was to see them, so pathetically +eager for friendship. He was haggard from his wanderings, more somber +than ever with the pressure of the war upon his spirit. His age at this +time was thirty years, but unconsciously Betty took him for old enough +to be her father, while Cornelia took him for her equal. At the same +time he was a little of the child to them--the way of every woman with +a poet and a dreamer, who cannot get himself adjusted to a harsh world. + +He had been a wanderer for a year, and had not liked it. He was going +to make propaganda, and take whatever came to him; going back to +Plymouth, to live near the Brinis--not in his old room, because the +children were growing up and would need it. One could not be sure, +but he thought he would not be arrested; the government had plenty of +soldiers, but needed laborers for war construction. + +They discussed the world situation. The propaganda for intervention +to put down the Russian revolution was on the point of success. A +shameful thing, said Cornelia. But to her surprise she found that +Bart had already given up interest in Russia; the revolution there +was lost, he said. “Is joost like I write, Nonna--is militarismo, +is one more go-vèrnment for rule worker. Maybe you do not read what +soviet have done for anarchista in Russia? They stop propaganda, +shoot heem, put heem in jail--is joost like capitalista--is what you +say--tirannia--make worker obey, make work, make fight in army--” + +“But, Comrade Vanzetti, aren’t the soviets to defend themselves?” It +was Betty breaking in. + +“Must defend, Comradda Betty, but defend like free men. If man not want +fight, nobody got right for make heem fight. Nobody got right for make +heem slave, for stop hees mind, hees right for speak.” + +“Wouldn’t it be hard to keep an army going on that basis?” + +“If you got joostice, will find plenty men for fight, plenty free men. +You wait, Comradda Betty, you see Italy, you see somet’ing happen! +Is poor countree, Italy, if war stop, will be much bad time, much +trooble--will come rivoluzion, I t’ink shoore. Italian is not so easy +man for control, like Russian peasant, he is man will fight for right, +will be free man. You see different kind revoluzion, different sistema +for manage countree. It is our job now, make money in America, make all +money we can, send home Italy for anarchista propaganda.” + +“I’m afraid you’ll have trouble,” said Cornelia. “They have spies, they +know what everybody is doing, and they get rougher every day. I fear +you’ll be arrested.” + +“Is no matter, Nonna, no worry for me. Is business of anarchista make +propaganda, musta make, wherever go. You get putted in army, all right, +make propaganda wit’ soldier. You get putted in jail, make propaganda +wit’ jailer, wit’ prisoner--is all same, is men, like me, like you. +Sometime he come out, is always some way for new idea spread--is no way +for stop, not jail, not bullet! In whole world is notting can stop--is +biggest, most strong dinnameet.” + +He sat in his chair, half out of it, with the eagerness of his emotion. +His face wore a strained look, and his eyes had that light of stubborn +fanaticism which Cornelia had come to know. He turned to Betty, the +younger one, guardian of the future. “Wit’ anarchista is lika dis, +Comradda. He say: Capitalismo is injoostice, I will not stand heem! +Say, I will break heem, will fight heem, will never stop--never what +you say, surrender. I will speak--will say strong word--shock person, +make heem t’ink. Will speak all time, everywhere--make men hear--even +when he not want hear!” + +Suddenly Vanzetti stopped, a little embarrassed. Even an anarchist must +be a gentleman! And perhaps so much vehemence was not in order in a +lady’s drawing-room. “It maybe seem like crazy talk?” he asked. + +Cornelia said, “Wait.” She went to the bookcase, to a shelf which +contained a few old books, not yet stowed under the bed. She took one +out. “I will read you something, Bart. We had a young New Englander, +of old Puritan stock, who took up the notion that chattel slavery +was wrong, and set out to preach it, and very nearly got lynched in +Boston. His name was William Lloyd Garrison--learn it, Bart, a good +name to quote in this part of the world. He started a paper called the +‘Liberator’--that was in 1831, eighty-seven years ago. In the first +issue he stated his program. Listen.” And she read: + + “I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. + On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with + moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a + moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the + hands of a ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her + babe from the fire into which it has fallen--but urge me not to + use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest--I + will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a + single inch--and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is + enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the + resurrection of the dead.” + +Said Vanzetti: “What is name?” He said it over, so as to remember +it--William Lloyd Garrisoon. “I never hear heem before, but I feel heem +brudder; am joosta sooch man like heem!” + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHITE TERROR + + +I + +The day of glory, sung in the “Marseillaise,” had arrived; the +American troops stopped the first German onslaught, and began their +counter-advance which was to end the war. The whole country thrilled +with it--all but a few perverse persons, so constructed that they could +not think of glory, but only of boys crawling about in burning forests, +dragging shattered limbs and protruded entrails. “Ah, but the broken +bodies, that drip like honeycomb!” + +Cornelia and her grand-daughter went to Plymouth to rest for a week, +Betty staying with her friend, Lucile Walker, and Cornelia with the +Brinis. The little room which had been Cornelia’s for a year and a +half now belonged to Fay, but she was glad to vacate it. Vanzetti had +a room with a neighbor, but came in for his meals, and stayed to do +his studying in the evening. He was digging more ditches, and reading +diligently the few radical papers he could get. There had been a revolt +in the Italian armies; it had been suppressed, but more was coming, and +he watched for every scrap of news. + +Also he told Cornelia of his experiences in Mexico: what a fine fellow +that Nick Sacc’ had proved to be, and how they had settled down with a +colony of Italians, all draft-evaders, living upon a rough communistic +system. Bart had helped to feed them, baking bread, and also he had +fed them “anarchista propaganda”--bread for the spirit. There had been +several in the group whom Cornelia knew: Boda, the little macaroni +salesman who had driven them to see the drama; and Coacci and Orciani, +two others whom she had met on that same occasion. + +Nonna, like Christmas, came but once a year, so it was a holiday for +everybody. Papa Brini showed his garden, and Cornelia recited the +Italian names, and he tried to say the English names, and the children +laughed at his blunders. They had their walk in the woods on Sunday, +and gathered bunches of flowers, and Fay and Trando remembered things +about nature which Bart had taught them, and were proud of it. Bart had +resumed charge of the boy’s development, and would give him advice and +help. One day Trando had a cold, and Bart said the way to cure it was +to sweat; so he got down on his knees, which made him about a match for +a nine-and-a-half-year-old boy, and the two of them had a wrestling +match, in which the big man was floored several times, and the small +boy whooped with delight. Pretty soon he was perspiring profusely, and +Bart put him to bed with no supper but a drink of hot lemonade. In the +morning he would be all right, said the amateur doctor. + +Trando wanted a violin, and had worked all last summer to earn the +money; but then he had had to spend it, because the family went down +with “flu.” Cornelia wanted to give him a violin, but Bart said no, +that would spoil it all; let the little fellow earn it, and then he +would really value it; the achievement would give him courage, a sense +of power. This was the time for berries, and there was nothing better +for youngsters than to wander in the fields all day. + +Trando’s relations with the boys of the neighborhood made a problem. +They would not play with him, because the priest had warned them to +have nothing to do with a bad boy who did not go to church: there was +a place in hell for such as he. The other boys called him “socialist,” +and when he went off and read a story-book, or played with his sister, +they called him “sissy.” It was hard to please them. Bart told him to +make of his persecution a source of strength. Many a great man had done +that, and those who had spurned him in boyhood would see him leap above +their heads when they were grown. + +Vanzetti told him what was true about religion. There was a great and +good God, the God of nature, whose laws we must understand if we would +be happy. This God loved all human beings alike, and it was not His +will that some should be slaves to others. We might pray to Him for +courage and strength; but we did not need any priest to intervene for +us. The priest was nothing but a man like other men; he might be good, +or he might be bad, like Father O’Brien--but in any case he represented +a system which helped to keep the poor in subjection to the rich, and +so was a trap for their minds. + +Then Trando wanted to know about how we got born, and how we got +married. It is the custom of Italian parents to say they buy the +babies; but Bart explained those things seriously to Trando; and he +talked to Cornelia about it, and asked her to talk to Fay, because +children ought to know the truth, and parents had a foolish shyness +about talking to their own little ones. All the questions of children +ought to be answered; they should connect the idea of shame only with +actions that were harmful to themselves or to others. A wise man +speaking, always; a man gentle, full of spiritual insight--yet turning +into a lion at a moment’s notice when confronted with “injoostice.” +Some of the bigger boys found that out when they undertook to torment +the “sissy.” + + +II + +Betty Alvin’s relations with the Walker family were peculiar. They were +all extremely patriotic, and shocked beyond utterance by the opinions +and behavior of Betty and her grandmother. But they were fond of Betty, +and if she had come to Plymouth and not stayed with them, it would +have been emphasizing an estrangement. Of course Betty’s mother put +the worst construction on their invitation, saying that the Walkers +would rather know a “red” blue-blood than none at all. But Betty would +not believe that, and kept up the friendship with Lucile at Radcliffe +and at home, carefully avoiding any utterance that would displease her +hosts. + +Mr. Walker appeared only once during the visit. He was in greater +trouble than ever, and showed it in every line of his features--a +really terrible example of what the fierce pace of business can do +to its victims. Mrs. Walker was silent and preoccupied, and Lucile +hesitated to say anything; but Betty got it out of her finally--Mr. +Walker was convinced that there was a determination on the part of a +Boston banking-group to put him out of business, and the man who was at +the head of the campaign was Betty’s uncle, Henry Cabot Winters. This +information was coming to Mr. Walker from many different sources: in +all the troubles of the felt industry, it was Mr. Winters who stood +behind the scenes and pulled the strings. + +Just think of it, exclaimed Lucile--here were enterprises that had +made a million and a quarter dollars in net profits last year, and +were going even higher this year; yet the owner could not get half a +million dollars’ credit from any bank in Boston or New York! They all +stood together; if the banks where you had your accounts, your banks of +deposit, as they were called, refused to “check your paper,” why, then +no other bank would accept it. The felt-industry was peculiar, in that +the sales were made early in the year, but payments were not made until +the fall, which meant that the business was helpless without credit; +the bankers knew that perfectly well, and Mr. Walker had always had the +credit, year after year, as a matter of course. This year he had to +have more, because of his war contracts, and the increased production; +the wicked thing the bankers had done was to make promises, and lure +him along from month to month, giving him no hint there was anything +wrong until the last moment, when one or two hundred thousand dollars’ +worth of notes came due, and suddenly he was told that he must “take +them up.” There must be some reason for such things, said Lucile; and +Mr. Walker was convinced that it was Henry Cabot Winters plotting to +ruin him. + +The bankers had put accountants on Mr. Walker’s books, and insisted +that he would need three million dollars to carry him until the fall. +They were going to make him pay twenty-seven per cent for the use of +that money. He didn’t mind that so much--his profits could stand it; +but he didn’t believe he was really going to get the three million. +When the time came, there would be more excuses and delays, and he +would be compelled to turn the stock of his companies over to the +bankers. He had twenty big plants of one sort or another, all working +day and night, employing more than eight thousand men; he was doing +what was supposed to be patriotic war-work--but the government wouldn’t +help him with a dollar, and wouldn’t protect him against these banking +conspiracies. + +Betty took that story to Cornelia. “Can it possibly be true, Grannie? +Can Uncle Henry be doing such a thing?” + +“I’m sorry to say, dear, he has that reputation.” + +“But Grannie, he doesn’t seem that kind of man!” + +“Men have different standards for their friends, and for outsiders. +Uncle Henry has grown rich, and he has never produced anything that I +know of.” + +“But Grannie, that would be a wicked thing to do to Mr. Walker!” + +“It’s the way of the business world. I watched it, and held my +peace--for forty years. I used to hear things that Henry and James +and your father would talk over with your grandfather. Josiah did it +to others--and then at last somebody did it to him. He trusted the +big bankers in New York--the Morgan crowd, because they had such a +respectable name. He put everything he had into the securities of the +New Haven Railroad, and those New York bankers simply gutted it, they +stole every dollar, and the stock fell from two hundred and forty-six +to sixteen, if I remember. I’ve heard your grandfather say, he had +enough New Haven paper to fill up the music-room, but it wasn’t enough +to pay his debts.” + +“Is that why Uncle James has the mills and ‘Hillview’?” + +“That’s the reason. There were tens of thousands of people left in +worse plight, widows and children and old people. All this decline of +New England industry that you hear about really dates from that time +when we trusted the Morgan crowd; for they took something like five +hundred million dollars away from this part of the country.” + +“But Grannie, if Uncle Henry is doing that to Mr. Walker, it is really +the same thing as banditry!” + +“Yes, of course; but you mustn’t say it to your father or your uncles; +they wouldn’t take it kindly from a twenty-year-old girl.” + +“I’ll be older some day,” said Miss Betty. + + +III + +The first thing when Cornelia got back to town, she went to call at her +son-in-law’s office. “Henry, what is this I hear about you and Jerry +Walker?” + +“What do you hear, Mother?” + +“That you are taking his plants away from him.” + +“Has Jerry told you that?” + +“No; but Betty has been visiting Lucile, and naturally hears about +their troubles.” + +“Jerry tells his wife, and she tells Lucile, and Lucile tells Betty, +and Betty tells you, and you tell me!” Henry laughed. + +“Is it true, Henry? Are you after him?” + +“It is absolutely untrue, Mother.” + +“You’re not interested in his affairs?” + +“I didn’t say that. Jerry comes to certain bankers--including Rupert +and John Quincy--and tries to borrow money. The bankers are my clients, +and ask me to investigate, and draw up papers, and perform other legal +services, which I do. Because the decisions of the bankers don’t please +Jerry, he takes up the notion that I’m an arch-conspirator, plotting +his ruin. But that’s all rubbish.” + +“Henry, you have the reputation of not being a very gentle enemy.” + +The other laughed again. “Well, Mother, have you come to convert me to +pacifism? But seriously, I got through with Jerry Walker years ago. I +was a stockholder in two of his felt-companies, and a director. I found +that his way of doing business didn’t agree with mine, so I let him +buy me out at a fair price, and washed my hands of him. But he’s been +afraid of me ever since--because he knows I know too much about him.” + +“Henry, I’ve always had an interest in Jerry, ever since he was an +errand-boy at the hospital, a bright little fellow that I saw had a +future. Josiah helped him to get a start, you know.” + +“Yes, of course. But he’s grown up now, and learned many tricks, and he +plays the business game pretty roughly.” + +“I can’t pretend to know all about his affairs--” + +“Naturally not, Mother; only an expert accountant could do that--and +he’d have trouble, because Jerry has hidden some things cleverly. It’s +a complicated matter, I assure you, and you make a mistake if you let +the Walkers use you, or even worry you. Nobody can believe a word Jerry +says.” + +“I just want to ask you to give him a square deal, Henry. Give him what +you give other business men.” + +“Well, Mother, it’s up to the bankers, and you are talking to a lawyer. +There are many bankers interested in the Jerry Walker problem, and they +all agree that he wants much more than any other business man--he wants +everything in sight. There’s only so much credit to go round--only +about two per cent of what people holler for--and Jerry is getting +more than his share, and using it without any sort of scruple.” + +“He’s paying a high price for it, I understand.” + +“He thinks so, naturally. It seems a simple matter to him, for the +banks to check all the paper he can sign. He never figures on the risks +the banks may be running.” + +“Is it true he’s paying twenty-seven per cent, Henry?” + +“That is a question you’ll have to ask the bankers, Mother. I +can’t discuss my clients’ affairs. But I’ll say this as a general +principle--two men seldom agree about the value of a horse, when one of +them is selling and the other is buying.” + +“Henry, I want to ask it straight. You’re not planning to take over +Jerry’s business?” + +“Absolutely not, Mother!” + +“You’re telling me the truth?” + +“When have I told you anything else?” And the telephone rang. Henry +took down the receiver, listened, and said, “Yes, Rupert, I’ll be right +over. I’m having a consultation on the matter with Mrs. Thornwell, and +I’m telling her you are the banker, and the real villain in the case.” + +So later in the day Cornelia went to call on this “real villain,” and +found him, a large island completely surrounded by statistics and +charts relating to the felt business. He was polite, but reluctant to +give her his precious time. If she had come to ask about investing +a thousand dollars of her own, he would have taken an hour off to +advise her--he would do that any day for any member of the family, +even the poorest fifth cousin. But when she came about Jerry Walker he +told her frankly that she was letting herself be used by a family of +adventurers. She was deceived if she thought that Rupert had anything +more to do with the matter than a score of other bankers; it was a +council of the financial leaders of Boston who were deciding the +future of the felt industry, and even if Rupert were to go before them +and say, “Gentlemen, I have promised my mother-in-law that out of my +affection for her we will agree to let her former errand-boy have all +the money he wants”--still the other bankers might refuse to assent. +“And I don’t carry three million in my own wallet, Mother.” + + +IV + +Both Henry and Rupert had told Cornelia what was not true; and only +two or three weeks later she found it out. Mrs. Jerry Walker came to +Cornelia’s apartment, and broke down and wept, and told the terrible +story of what was happening. Jerry Walker was being stripped of +every dollar he owned in the world; and it was Rupert Alvin and +Henry Cabot Winters who were driving the other bankers to the job, +sometimes against their will, and even without their knowledge. The +loan for three millions had been agreed upon, and Mr. Winters had been +instructed to prepare the papers; but instead of doing so, he had got +one of the big banks in New York to call a loan suddenly, and Mr. Alvin +had brought up demands that the other bankers had not known about--in +short, everything had been tied up for a month. + +Finally, in order to get half a million dollars in a hurry, poor Jerry +had had to turn over to the bankers all the stock of all his companies. +It was supposed to be a trusteeship--he had the right to get the +properties back any time within two years by paying a million and a +quarter; but the very day they got the securities, the bankers, with +Mr. Winters at their head, had set to work to plunder the properties. +They put in their own directors, and barred Jerry Walker from access to +the books, and even barred him physically from the plants. They were +disposing of all the assets of the subsidiary companies, and loading +them up with debts and claims--everywhere Jerry turned he found that +some unknown lawyer had mysteriously appeared with liens and suits. +Everything was tied up, so that the real owner of the properties could +not get a dollar, and was going to have to sell his home to get money +to live. + +So that was that. The caribou was down, and his blood was being drunk. +Cornelia might wring her hands, and be very sorry; she might shout at +the wolves and scold them--whereat they would lift their bloody jaws +for a moment and grin at her. “Of course, Mother,” said Henry, quite +blandly and good-naturedly, when next she met him--“of course, I told +you an untruth. What did you expect me to do?” + +“I expected you to have a sense of family loyalty.” + +“You have too good a mind to fool yourself with such an argument, +Mother. I have plenty of Thornwell family loyalty, but not the least +particle of Walker family loyalty. If you had come to me for the truth +about affairs of your own, you would have had it; in case of need you +might have had the last dollar I own in the world. But when you let +yourself be used by Jerry Walker, to try to pull wires for him in the +midst of a business crisis--then you haven’t the least reason in the +world to expect me to give you any information to be carried back to +him!--Yes, of course, you didn’t mean to carry it back, but I assure +you Lucile expected to get it out of Betty, and Mrs. Walker expected to +get it out of Lucile. They have been cultivating an intimacy with Betty +for several years for exactly that purpose, and I didn’t intend to let +them succeed. When I told Rupert and James about it, they agreed that I +had done exactly right to stall you.” + +“So you’re going to put Jerry Walker out of the felt business!” + +“Not at all, Mother. He knows felt well, and if he wants a job as +manager of one of the plants, we’ll pay him a good salary. What he +doesn’t know is finance, and we’re going to fix him so he can’t lead +the Boston banks into a smash.” + +“He was making a lot of money, Henry.” + +“A chimpanzee could make money right now, with the government buying +everything at any price you ask. But the war will be over soon, and +then will come the storm, and we’re going to have a safer man than +Jerry Walker at the helm of the ship.” + +So Cornelia went away, and watched the events of the next few months, +and decided no longer to think of her son-in-law as a wolf. From now on +she would see him as a large, black, witty, urbane and charming spider. +He lurked in a hole and watched the business flies, and once in a while +he made a pounce, and sunk his fangs into a victim, and wove him round +and round with a ton or two of legal nets, until he could not move a +finger; after which he would be sucked dry of his financial juices. + +In the case of the too enthusiastic manufacturer of felt, what happened +was that he struggled in the nets until his health broke down; his +hands trembled so that he could not hold a cup of coffee, and he had +to go to North Carolina for the winter and play golf. While he was +gone, the bankers sat down with his lawyers, and convinced them that +the victim stood not a chance in the world, so the lawyers advised +him to sign a release, forgiving his enemies for all they had done +to him, in consideration of the sum of six hundred and twenty-five +thousand dollars. For this price he gave up properties which earned a +million and three-quarters net profit that year, and were worth about +ten millions on the market. The six hundred and twenty-five thousand +paid a part of his debts, and he sold his home to pay more, and his +family gave up their social ambitions and moved into a cottage, and his +daughter quit going to Radcliffe and went to work. + +“Isn’t it nice, Grannie?” said Betty. “When I get older, if I behave, +I’ll get a lot of Lucile’s money, and I can hire her--perhaps to +be a governess to my children. And Priscilla will have a share of +it too, and can found a charity home to take care of Mr. and Mrs. +Walker when they are old. And Cousin Josiah”--that was Henry Winters’ +one son--“he’ll have a bigger share than any of us, to spend on +women-chasing--I understand that’s what he’s doing now. Aunt Alice will +be able to retain her adolescence--” + +“My child! Don’t say things like that!” + +“I’m talking in the family, Grannie. We members of the new generation +are going to be what you call hard-boiled. They are raising us in +war-time, and we’re getting used to plain language and messy sights. I +read in the paper that Mrs. Henry Cabot Winters is planning a ‘little +theater,’ in which her mystical poet’s works are to be shown to the +world as soon as the war is over. If Aunt Alice wants to subsidize +genius, why does she have to pick out literary lounge-lizards and +music-box monkeys?” + +Cornelia said, “Dear me, I am really getting old! The new generation +shocks me!” + + +V + +There came a day when every able-bodied person in America rushed +out of his house, and fell on the necks of passersby and danced and +laughed and shouted and sang. Men threw their hats into the air, or +tied tin cans to the tails of automobiles and drove up and down the +streets. Three days later they all turned out and did it again, because +the first time had been a mistake, some news agency had been in too +much of a hurry. But it was a big enough war to deserve two armistice +days, and even in State Street one saw “blue-bloods” celebrating with +bootblacks, and high-hatted bankers forgetting their dignity for the +first time in their eighty years. + +This was a celebration in which even the pacifists could join. The +nation would have one or two hundred thousand cripples to take care +of--but at least you didn’t have to think of new thousands being made +every day! You could again expect people to listen to reason, and +could work at stopping the next war without danger of arrest. The +Kaiser had fled to Holland, and there seemed a real prospect of that +newly-promised world. Such wonderful promises--a world fit for heroes, +a world made safe for democracy, a world in which the last war had been +won by the forces of justice! So we had been told in a golden glowing +speech at least once a week for a year and a half; and now we were +to see it made real. As a first step President Wilson packed up his +typewriter and his fourteen points, and went over to Europe to oversee +the making of a world charter. His packing appeared to be careless, for +he lost one of the points in England--that providing for the “freedom +of the seas”--and had only thirteen when he landed in France. + +The American people had been told to trust him; he was the President, +and had sources of information not open to the rest of us--so Deborah +had assured her mother. But now it turned out that he hadn’t any +sources of information, or if he had, he hadn’t used them. He had made +no bargains whatever with the allies, he had not made them give up a +single one of their greedy demands. And now, of course, it was too +late; the danger was over, the allies were no longer afraid, and would +do exactly what they pleased. + +It was a disillusioning experience, and was to produce ten years of +cynicism and corruption in every department of American life. The +climax came when the President capitulated to the diplomatic ravens, +and let them have their prey, and came home and told the public that +that was what his fourteen points had meant. He did more than that--he +went before a committee of the Senate, and stated that he had not known +about the secret treaties until he went to Paris; which one had to take +as Pascal took the doctrine of his church, and believe it because it +was impossible. + + +VI + +There were a few groups in America whose demands did not depend upon +the diplomats at Versailles; and among these were the women. France +might grab the Rhine, Japan might grab Shantung--but what was to +prevent American women from having their rights at home? Surely the +men were not making such a success with their votes that they could +spurn the help of wives and sisters! Let us have a world made fit for +heroines! So the campaign of votes for women leaped into life in a +score of cities. In Washington the ladies began besieging senators and +congressmen, and elderly statesmen took to physical flight from urgent +feminine tongues. The militant suffragists began carrying placards in +front of the White House, and got themselves arrested over and over +again. It was most embarrassing, because the jails in the national +capital had been made for street-walkers and Negro drunks, and had no +accommodations for ladies. + +The suffragists were divided into two groups, the respectable ones, who +made dignified speeches and circulated petitions and got an inch in +the newspapers once a month; and the militants, who set themselves the +goal of a front-page story twice a day, and made it most of the time. +Each of these two groups was active in Boston--a city full of ladies +who felt themselves competent to take charge, not only of America, +but of the world. Each group laid siege to Cornelia Thornwell and her +grand-daughter, and the militants won. Another scandal in the Sewing +Circles, and another grief for a great family! + +Cornelia’s oldest daughter, Betty’s mother, was a vigorous “anti.” +Her enemies told a story about her, that one day when company was +expected, and many duties were clamoring, she had locked herself in her +study and made no response, and when subsequent complaint was made, +the answer was that she had been writing an article on “Woman the +Home-maker.” Jokes like that gave annoyance to the “antis,” because +it was so obvious to them that nothing but the wicked activities of +the suffragists were dragging them out from the homes they loved, and +compelling them to become examples of the evil they feared. Yes, the +“wild women” had that power, and rejoiced in it; when the “antis” hired +a house on Park Street and opened up offices, what should they see but +a group of women marching back and forth before their door, carrying a +banner with a strange device: + + _They say that home is woman’s sphere. + What are the antis doing here?_ + +The true “anti” was Cornelia’s youngest daughter, Clara Thornwell +Scatterbridge, who stayed at home with her eight babies, and loved +them and petted them and scolded them and wept over them and saw that +their various nurses and governesses kept their noses wiped. Clara had +no idea what a vote looked like; but, alas, that didn’t get even an +inch in the papers! Nor did it have any appreciable effect when Alice +Thornwell Winters shrugged her beautiful white shoulders and lifted +her haughty eyebrows in scorn at the idea of sacrificing her feminine +charm. Neither did it help when she wrote more and larger checks to pay +for the “little theater” which was to produce the plays of Chauncey +Duvillier, dealing with ancient Erse legends about dusky-haired +promiscuous queens. The productions came off, and were at once very +“high-brow” and very “high-hat,” but they did not seem to reduce the +attendance at suffrage meetings. + +President Wilson had set his stern Presbyterian face against the +program of national suffrage. It was a question for the individual +states; thus spoke Sir Oracle, and when the female dogs barked, he said +it again. But such a thing had been known as a great statesman changing +his mind when made uncomfortable enough. It was a fact that the women +out west had got the vote and were using it; Woodrow could not forget +that it was California which had elected him the last time, and might +defeat his party and his world policies the next time. A terrible +thing to contemplate having women vote, but a still worse thing to +contemplate having them vote Republican! + +The President came back from Europe in February, and the suffragettes +prepared a hearty welcome for him in New York. It was more than he +could face, in his nervous condition, with that incredible statement +he had to make to the Senate; so at the last moment the route of his +ship was changed, and it landed at Boston. That put the burden onto +the Boston suffragettes, who had to organize a demonstration almost +overnight. They came rushing to Cornelia and Betty; would they help? +Banners must be got ready, asking urgent witty questions, and these +must be carried by ladies of absolutely indigo-colored blood; they must +be carried as close to the President as the police would permit, and +then a little closer; also the great man’s latest anti-suffrage speech +was to be burned in effigy on Boston Common. + + +VII + +“Old Boston” is a city which has been laid out by cows. They made +tracks, and these became lanes, and the lanes have now become narrow +canyons of concrete and steel, made immutable for all time by a +court-house full of deeds with intricate specifications. You may +still see on Beacon Hill a house which has a narrow archway built +under one room--because in selling the land the owner specified that +access must for all time be left for his cow to reach the Common. Now, +instead of a cow, there was coming a high-powered automobile bearing a +long-featured Presbyterian gentleman in frock coat and silk hat, under +military escort, with all the trappings of glory, and that unending +roar of applause which he had heard even from the billows in mid-ocean. +Patriotism in Boston was to have its day of rapture; Democratic +patriotism, taking in even the Irish-Catholics, and marred only by the +antics of twenty-two contumacious females, who refused to accept a +great statesman’s own definition of what he meant by democracy. + +Among these twenty-two lady-pests was the widow of Josiah Quincy +Thornwell, former governor of the Commonwealth; also Elizabeth +Thornwell Alvin, daughter of the president of the Pilgrim National +Bank. But the names of these two were not on the list furnished to the +press; in that case the two would have been spotted by the police, +and denied the honor they craved. They sallied forth with the other +women, carrying placards aloft, in the route of the procession; and +promptly they were snapped up, and hustled into a patrol wagon, and +landed in Joy Street police-station--most beautifully named of public +institutions in the home of the bean and the cod. + +The police had them--and what was to be done with them? The police had +no idea. The one thing desired was to keep them out of the newspapers; +which was the one thing impossible to achieve. They spent the entire +day sitting in a room in the police-station, with no food--save the +knowledge that they would be on the front page of all the afternoon +newspapers! In the evening they were taken to the “House of Detention” +under the Court House, where they slept on board benches covered with +black oil cloth. They rolled up their coats for pillows, and spread +newspapers to cover the dirt--but alas, the worst part of the dirt +had powers of locomotion. Cornelia, sitting up awake, watched Betty +sleeping, and counted twenty-one round black objects on her newspapers, +and in the morning some of the women’s ankles were so swollen that they +could not get on their shoes. Also sleep was interfered with by the +constant bringing in of drunken women, who howled in loud voices what +appeared to be a popular song, “I love you as I never loved before.” In +the morning they filed out to a rusty iron sink to wash, and everyone +had to answer the question, “Are you a drunk or a suffragette?” But +these woes vanished in a blaze of glory when they discovered that +they had got a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of publicity on +the front pages of the morning newspapers--while the respectable lady +suffragists, who had presented a dignified petition, had got one inch +in each paper! + +Now they were going to be taken into court, and would refuse to +employ lawyers, and would make twenty-two eloquent suffrage speeches. +So they thought, but their captors thought otherwise. For these +publicity-seekers the constitution of the Commonwealth was to be +suspended, and trials were to be in secret in one of the rooms of the +prison! When they learned this, there was a hasty consultation among +the prisoners, and an agreement not to recognize such an illegal +tribunal. Until they were in open court, no woman would say a word. + +Their enemies had a still more dastardly scheme; they were going to +deprive the little band of their most brightly shining star. A jailer +came in and demanded, “Which is Elizabeth Alvin?”--and of course all +the prisoners knew instantly what that meant. Papa Banker had got busy +and pulled some political strings, and his daughter was to be bailed +out, or spirited away, or something--a vile plot! Betty made no sound +or sign, and neither did any one else; and presently came the young +Irish policeman who had arrested and “booked” her. He had been ordered +to pick her out of the bunch--and a fine mess he made of it! + +It so happened that in the course of a year and a half, Betty was to be +deeply concerned with the problem of identifications. To what extent +was it possible for bystanders, witnesses of a crime, to describe the +men who had committed the crime, and to recognize them some time later? +Human lives have depended upon this problem, and not for the last time. +Whenever Betty and her grandmother thought about the matter, the first +thing that came to their minds was this experience in the Joy Street +police-station. Here was a policeman who had arrested Elizabeth Alvin +on the street, and marched her along for some distance, in the meantime +having a considerable argument with her as to his right to destroy her +banner, and his right to squeeze and hurt her arm. He had put her into +a patrol-wagon, and sat opposite her during a ride of several blocks +through crowded streets, meantime gazing at her and speculating, what +kind of crazy loon was this that wanted a vote, when so many people +that he knew were glad to sell theirs for two dollars. Arriving at the +station-house, he had stood at the desk and booked her for sauntering, +loitering, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest--enough offenses to +keep her in jail until President Wilson’s successor had been elected. + +And now, next morning, came this young policeman to pick that young +person out of a group of twenty-two, most of whom could not possibly +be the right one, because they were old like Cornelia, or large and +matronly, or tall and masterful, or in some other obvious way not the +young and sweet and lovely Betty. She was the youngest in the crowd, +and there were not more than half a dozen others near her age. All +she had done to make the policeman’s task harder was to take off her +brown coat with beaver fur trimmings, and appear in a blue silk dress. +What all the women did was to stand or sit, completely unaware of the +policeman’s existence, while he wandered about, peering into one face +and then into another, obviously perplexed. He had all the time he +wanted, he had everything his own way--and he got the wrong woman! + +He picked out a fashionable young matron, mother of two blossoming +babes, and said, “That’s the one.” The jailer commanded, “Come with +me, Miss”--and when the young matron remained unaware of his existence, +he stooped in front of her, and put one sturdy arm about her knees, +and lifted her over his shoulder, and carried her like a sack of meal, +out of the room and upstairs into the presence of the secret judge. He +arrived there, somewhat red and out of breath, and the young matron +no less so. Set down upon her two feet, she stamped one of them, and +glared at the judge and the jailer, and clenched her two fists. “I will +say just this and no more--I am _not_ Betty Alvin!” + + +VIII + +The night that Betty and Cornelia spent in jail there was a gathering +of the Thornwell clan: not summoned, but just happening, because every +Thornwell who got the report knew instantly that it was his duty to +repair to the Alvin home on Commonwealth Avenue to offer aid and +counsel. + +There was a general agreement that it would be useless to get the two +renegades out of jail until the President was out of the city, because +they would only get in again and make another scandal. There was also +agreement as to what should be done with Betty; she must be shipped +abroad by the very first steamer. The war was over now, and while +passports were not being given for any but official purposes, it would +be an easy matter for Rupert to get what he wanted, and Betty would be +put in charge of some elderly respectable relative, and subjected to +the refining influences of Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London +and the National Gallery and the Nelson Column, and later on to the +Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, and would doubtless come back at the end +of a year a lady like all the other ladies who lived on Commonwealth +Avenue, home of the least common and most exclusive wealth in America. + +About Cornelia there was a sharp difference of opinion. One group +declared that the thing to do was to excommunicate her and ignore her +existence; while the other group wanted to have her committed to an +institution, where she would be treated with the utmost kindness and +consideration, but prevented from bringing further disgrace upon an +honorable family. The head of this group was Uncle Abner, whose deaf +man’s voice would boom out in the drawing-room at intervals, “Lock her +up!” The others would try to explain objections to this plan, but he +would only say again, “Lock her up!” There are some advantages to being +deaf, it is so much easier to keep your opinions unchanged. + +Great-aunt Priscilla joined Abner’s group. She was tall and thin, and +suffered from anchylosis of the spine, which made it painful for her to +sit erect, but she never sat any other way in public. She had the long +lean face of her dead brother, Josiah, and of Betty’s mother, Deborah; +it sagged now, but the pouches disappeared as she set her jaw in anger +and declared, “It is the proper thing to do in such cases. Everybody +will agree that we are justified.” + +“Not quite everybody, Aunt Priscilla,” said Henry Cabot Winters. +“Surely not the suffragettes.” + +“I am talking about people one mentions,” said the old lady. + +“But the suffragettes would say it was persecution,” objected Deborah, +“and they would make a great fuss.” + +“We should have them picketing this house!” added Rupert. + +That horrible idea silenced all of them but Abner. “Lock her up!” said +he; and when his son Quincy shouted into his ear, “The suffragettes +would object,” he answered, in good old Puritan style, “Lock ’em all +up!” + +There were many precedents that could be cited for this procedure, +and the old people did not fail to cite them. All you had to do was +to find a judge and a couple of doctors who sympathized with the +family predicament--and it would be easy enough for Thornwells to do +that. Great-uncle Ahab had become violent at one time, due to his +disappointment in love, and had spent ten years alone in a wing of the +Thornwell mansion, with a keeper by day and another by night; he still +had spells of brooding, when similar action had to be contemplated. +Such emergencies arose in all “blue-blood” families--it was one of the +mysteries of the Lord’s mercy--and all physicians to the rich were +accustomed to signing certificates, and judges to issuing commitments. + +Some such action might have come of this conference, had it not been +for Henry Cabot Winters, that witty, urbane and charming black spider. +He was nothing but an “in-law,” and not really entitled to speak, +but he did it none the less. “Cornelia is eccentric, but she is not +insane, and we all know it; she has many friends who know it, and one +of them is Morrow.” + +“Morrow?” said Great-aunt Priscilla. “Who brought Morrow into it?” + +“Well, Morrow as Cornelia’s physician would naturally expect to be +consulted; and I’m pretty sure you’d have him against you.” + +“What makes you think that?” It was James Scatterbridge, the great +mill-owner, who had made some millions of yards of bandages for +soldiers who were not going to be wounded, and was now very busy making +clear to the government that he was not going to give up his profit on +these contracts. He had postponed an important conference this evening, +and if his mother-in-law was going to be locked up, he wanted it done +quickly. + +Said Henry, “Cornelia told me that Rupert dropped a hint of something +of the sort to her, and she decided she would take the precaution to +have a chat with Morrow, and tell him her story, and all her ideas. +He was very much amused, of course--at least that is what Cornelia +reported.” + +“Oh, yes, it is _most_ amusing!” snapped Great-aunt Priscilla. “The +newspapers are finding it so, and no doubt their readers. But is that +what we have been paying Morrow for--some fifty years, I believe?” + +“Well,” said the lawyer, “you certainly can’t offer to pay him to +declare Cornelia _non compos_; at least, I don’t think he would take +the money. So it looks as if we’d have to forget our black sheep.” + +“Well, at least let her take her own Irish name!” This parting shot +of the old lady made Deborah and Alice wince--because, after all, +the black sheep with the Irish name was their mother. That is the +difficulty in these family councils--there are so many toes to be +trod upon! It was safer to be deaf, like Great-uncle Abner, and go on +saying, over and over, “Lock her up!” + + +IX + +Three days after this conference Great-uncle Ahab was walking home on +a stormy night, and fell and struck his head. He lay in the snow for +some time before he was found, and a few hours later he was ill with +pneumonia, and next day was in a critical condition. The family came +in haste--including his brother Abner, somewhat embarrassed after +fifty-three years of estrangement. He tried to refer to the matter, but +Ahab was in a delirium. That was “old Boston’s” idea of drama--an old +man who could hear very little shouting to another old man who would +never hear anything. They talked about it in the clubs for quite a +while. + +Also they talked about the funeral, which was an imposing affair, +the same as Josiah’s--for after all, Thornwells were alike in the +eyes of the Lord, even though in the eyes of the world one might be a +governor and the other a manic depressive. The ceremony was held in +the house which Ahab had sawed in half in order to get away from his +brother; and all through the ceremony you heard the dead man’s half +dozen hairless Chinese dogs howling their heads off in an upstairs +room--it was most uncanny. When the will was read the family kept it +secret--which of course put everybody on tiptoe with curiosity, and +caused the newspapers to give it special prominence when it was filed +for probate. One provision read, “I leave my beloved dogs to my sister +Priscilla, whom they remind of newly born mice.” Another said, “I leave +my half house to serve as a home for elderly gentlemen of good family +who can prove that they have been robbed by their relatives.” Finally, +his income from stocks and bonds of the Thornwell Mills Company was to +be used to establish a chair at some New England theological seminary +which would agree to have a course of lectures delivered every year +under the auspices of “The Ahab Adams Thornwell Foundation for the +Precise and Final Refutation of the Lyman Beecher Interpretation of the +Doctrine of Infant Damnation as Expounded in Holy Writ.” Ahab had heard +Lyman Beecher at the age of twenty-five, and had waited sixty years to +have him precisely and finally refuted. + +At family funerals the hardest hearts are softened and the fiercest +prides are humbled. Betty remembered that Great-uncle Ahab had once +given her a pony, riding it all the way to her home, with his long +legs reaching to the ground. So it was a good time for her mother +to plead with her. Yes, Betty would promise to engage in no further +public disturbances until she had finished that year at Radcliffe; +and thereafter she was willing to spend a year abroad and become +cultured--could Grannie go with her? The little minx asked it quite +soberly; and Deborah, equally without trace of a smile, explained that +the family was under great obligations to Cousin Letitia Adams Quincy, +who had nursed Betty once as a little girl, while Deborah herself had +been in Europe. + +Cousin Letitia was a third or fourth cousin--one of those who had +arrived too early for the funeral of Josiah, and got out and walked +about the estate for half an hour, in order not to make herself +conspicuous. Because of such behavior she was known as a perfect lady, +and now was to receive the poor relation’s ultimate reward. Deborah had +interviewed her and ascertained that she had read nothing since “The +Marble Faun”--except the “Sunday School Examiner’s Bulletin” and the +religious and genealogical pages of the _Transcript_. She was judged +immune to the contagion of redness, and the right person to chaperon +Betty’s grand tour. The girl accepted her with a meekness which would +have made Deborah suspicious, if the latter’s natural shrewdness had +not been smothered under a heavy load of self-sufficiency. + + +X + +It was high time to get excitable young rebels out of the country; the +family realized that more and more clearly every day. For it appeared +that the signing of the armistice was not going to mean peace; not +even the signing of a treaty would mean it. Our troops were to stay +in Germany; worse yet, they were to stay in Siberia and Archangel, +and wage President Wilson’s private war upon the Russian people. The +American army and navy were to serve as a world police-force for the +capitalist system. Exactly what Cornelia had seen the Boston police do +in Plymouth, the national police were going to do all over Europe and +Asia, sometimes under our command, sometimes under British command. And +any persons at home who objected to this program would be hit over the +head with the so-called espionage act; a law enacted to punish enemy +spies, and now serving to jail American citizens for protesting against +attacks upon a friendly people without a declaration of war. + +It was the White Terror. Conducted partly by mobs, and partly by +police and government agents acting as mobs, it had for its aim the +destruction of every means through which the American people might +learn how their blood and treasure were being wasted. It stopped at no +crime; the law-enforcers of city, state and nation became the leading +criminals. In New York four Russian boys and a girl, all of them +under age, attempting to distribute a circular protesting against the +invasion of Russia, were seized by the police and tortured until one of +them died; the rest were prosecuted in the federal courts and received +sentences of twenty years’ imprisonment. + +Such things were happening all over the country, and made trouble +for well-meaning persons like Cornelia, who sought to argue for +constitutional methods. How could she ask her friend Vanzetti to settle +the grievances of the workers by political action, when again and again +socialist candidates were thrown off the ballot, or, when elected, were +denied their seats? How could she urge him to obey the law, when the +law-makers and law-enforcers themselves defied it? A year or two ago +Vanzetti had made to her the statement, “Capitalist is most fighting +man in whole world”; and never did the capitalist work harder to prove +that the anarchist was right. + +The victims of this White Terror would strike back; and if they struck +blindly, it was the way the lesson had been taught them. May Day was an +occasion for celebration of the Russian revolution by all who believed +in it; and on the day before May Day, a package arrived by mail at the +home of a United States senator in Georgia, especially conspicuous for +his “red-baiting.” The package was opened by a Negro maid, and exploded +and blew her to pieces. That led to hurried searches, and the finding +of a score or so of bombs in the New York post-office, addressed to +various persons of prominence, and detained because they had not enough +postage paid. + +May Day came in Boston, with that terrible news upon the front page of +the papers. The socialists had several meetings scheduled--and they +were a legal party, not advocating violence in any form. But this was a +distinction the newspapers and those who controlled them were anxious +to conceal. When the audience emerged from one hall, and attempted to +march down the street to another hall where there was another meeting, +they were set upon by three hundred policemen and a mob of soldiers +and sailors, thoroughly “americanized” by a year in Europe. The +socialists, and many innocent passers-by who happened to look foreign, +were chased through the streets, hunted out in stores where they sought +refuge, and pummeled and clubbed into insensibility. The police loaded +them into patrol-wagons, and then beat them over the heads while in the +wagons; they loaded them into trucks, and permitted the soldiers and +sailors to beat them--there were even cases of policemen lending their +clubs to members of the mob who thought some victim insufficiently +mishandled. They raided the second hall and beat up the audience; +the fighting went on for two or three hours, until four persons were +killed, and a hundred and sixteen dragged off to jail. Among them was a +son of Boris Sidis, of Harvard, and H. W. L. Dana, a grandson of Henry +Wadsworth Longfellow and of Richard Henry Dana. + +So once more Cornelia heard the thud of hickory clubs on human flesh +and bone. This time Betty heard it too, and both of them had to run +for their lives. They got into a cab and drove home, both trembling +so that they could hardly use their hands, both white and tearful, +with a mixture of fear and rage. They spent hours of anguish together, +telephoning to find out who had been killed and who had been hurt and +who was in jail; then to get lawyers, and persons with property for +bail-bonds--all the routine so familiar to the seasoned “radical,” and +so startling to the newcomer who still believes in his country. + +In the morning Cornelia would go to court, and perhaps serve as a +witness. Betty could do nothing but return to college and keep quiet, +and hope that no one would report her to her parents. She had not meant +to break her promise--but how could one know that going to a socialist +meeting was disorderly conduct? + +Judge Hayden was the magistrate presiding at the trials, a majestic +gentleman, as they all tried to be. But under the strain of his intense +patriotism, he forgot his dignity, and broke loose and delivered +tirades--and not at the police for lending their clubs to be used in +beating socialists. He did not punish a single one of the assailants, +but sent the victims to jail for varying terms. “The uneducated and the +overeducated,” was one of his sneers--which sounded peculiar in Boston. + +It was to be expected that when the next lot of bombs went off, +one of them should tear out the front of Judge Hayden’s home. In +Constantinople under the rule of the sultans it was said that the state +of social discontent could be ascertained from the number of fires +which occurred in the city; when the number increased unduly, some +grafting officials would be strangled, and the fires would grow fewer. +But Boston is not an easy-going place like old Turkey; Boston is a +Puritan stronghold, and its rulers are stiff-necked. The more numerous +the bombs, the more they would increase the causes of bombs. The answer +of the authorities to the bombing of Judge Hayden was to put Galleani +on a steamer and ship him back to Italy; also to plant several spies +among the Boston anarchists. + + +XI + +This was while Betty was saying good-by to her friends, including +these same anarchists. Without a word to the family, Betty and her +grandmother stole away to visit a band of desperados who were at that +time the theme of thousands of words in the files of the Department +of Justice, the American Protective League, and the million-dollar +detective agencies. They actually spent a night in an anarchist home +in Plymouth, and listened to jokes about “bombe di pistacchio,” and +heard Vanzetti’s story of old Galleani’s parting from his wife and four +children. + +This was one of the ingenious new methods of torture which the White +Terror had devised. They would grab a man in the middle of the night +and lock him up in a police cell, and badger him there until he +admitted that he did not believe in government, or that he regarded +government as an affair of violence--something they made it easy enough +to admit! They would then present the confession to the immigration +authorities, and a warrant of deportation would be signed, and the +victim would be taken secretly on board a steamer--his wife and +children left behind, with no money to follow him, and nothing but to +beg or starve. + +Vanzetti had given up his “picka shov’.” His friends had urged that the +work was too hard for him, and he had invested his savings in a fish +business belonging to an Italian who was going home. “Fish-business” +sounded most impressive--until you learned that it consisted of a +hand-cart, a pair of scales, and a route. Twice a week he got a barrel +or two of fish, either from the docks or by express from Boston, and +shoved his hand-cart about, ringing a bell and calling, “Pay-shee! +Pay-shee!” He had had this same kind of business once before, said +Alfonsina, but had not been successful, because he let everybody owe +him money. This time he had promised to run it on a strictly cash +basis. Vanzetti grinned, and said that it was a “mosta good business,” +because he met all the Italian women and children in Plymouth, and they +got to know him and feel friendly, and he would say a few words about +“joostice,” and when there was to be a meeting or a “picanic,” no one +could “distriboot” circulars or sell tickets so well as he. + +Trando had saved up his money and bought himself a three-quarter size +violin for ten dollars, and a bow for two and a half, and had had +several lessons and learned to play a tune. Of course he was made to +exhibit this accomplishment, with Bart serving as master, keeping the +time with an erect forefinger, cocking his head on one side and judging +critically the pitch of the notes, which were apt to vary slightly from +the normal. It was “Old Black Joe,” a very sad tune, and there were +tears in Alfonsina’s eyes at the finish--though perhaps they were tears +of pride, that this marvelous thing should be coming from her precious +little boy. Through the years that were to come Trando was to play that +tune many times for Bart, under circumstances that would bring tears +into the eyes of all who heard it. + + +XII + +They climbed Castle Hill, and picked a few of the wild flowers, and +watched the sail-boats on the bay. It was a parting for Betty and Bart, +and both of them were moved, though Bart said, “Maybe I come see you in +Europe pretty soon. I think I not be let in this countree mooch time; +get shoore catched and sended home. Pretty soon it come trooble in +Italy, maybe rivoluzione--make American afraid for have Italian here.” + +“Well, you won’t mind going back to Italy.” It was Betty speaking. + +“Shoore not, get free tickets, mooch pleas-èd. I glad for be lonely +man, no family for suffer. I fraid for man like Vincenzo, like Nick +Sacc’--they catch heem, send away--mooch trooble for family. Come mooch +spy--come spy in cloob in East Boston--all time spy watch. But he not +tell true story, tell bombe, make people hate anarchista.” + +Vanzetti paused, and watched the sail-boats for a while. “Sooch a +lovely place, is hard to t’ink so ugly thing can be in the world. You +meet Yankee man, he is a good feller; you laugh, you make joke, he is +please, he think wop is all right, pretty good. But next day he take +you, put you in jail, beat you with rubber hose, hang you up by finger, +torture you terrible. Is hard to believe, but it happens all time, +plenty fellers in cloob can tell. I say, I not give up, not stand sooch +thing, I fight. I keep gun all the time now.” And Bart patted his hip, +where a large lump was evident. + +“Have you shot that gun off yet?” inquired Betty. + +“Shoore, I take it in wood, I practice, he shoot pretty good.” + +“Well, it’s not only the gun, it’s the gunner. You need a lot of +practice, Bart, if you’re going to shoot it out with the police.” It +was Betty again, and her grandmother was dismayed. Where on earth did +she pick up slang--“shoot it out!” And where had she acquired that +matter-of-fact smile, discussing the mad idea of resisting arrest? +Truly, the new generation was traveling fast, and their elders had to +“keep on the jump.” + +Cornelia knew that if you objected to what the new generation did or +said, it would refrain from arguing with you, but would relegate you +to the storeroom of the “has-beens,” and forbear to take you in its +confidence. But in her own head she pondered and worried. Betty’s +pacifist convictions had apparently not been able to stand the strain +of that “May Day riot” in Boston. + +One of the children came up to report that there were men at the +house to see Bart. There were two Italians with a motorcycle and a +side-car. Cornelia recollected their faces, from the night of the +dramatic performance in Stoughton. She was introduced to them again, +Coacci and Orciani, workingmen and anarchist propagandists. The former +had just recently been arrested for deportation, and was now under a +thousand-dollar bond. They talked in Italian, and then drove off, and +Bart brought in from another room a package which the two had left; he +laughed and told Betty and Cornelia that it was a bomb, and these two +had advised him not to let the strange Yankee ladies into the secret, +because, after all, who could say they might not be spies? + +The package was big enough for a bomb, to blow up a whole +cordage-plant. It was heavy; and when Bart cut the string and opened +it, they saw what his joke meant--it contained what he liked to call +“mental dinnameet.” There were a dozen copies of a book, bound in red +paper covers, brilliant enough to send a man to jail for ten years +in Massachusetts. Bart handled the books with loving pride, because +they were published by the “Gruppo Autonomo di East Boston,” and he +had helped raise the money to make the enterprise possible. “Faccia à +Faccia col Nemico” was the title, “Face to Face with the Enemy.” It was +a series of biographies of the anarchist martyrs, with their pictures. +It was needed in this crisis, to remind the comrades how the heroes of +past times had been able to withstand torture and persecution, almost +as bad as the White Terror in America. Bart had taken orders for this +book among the Plymouth comrades, and now he said, “I take heem queeck, +I get him distriboot, never let policeman catch heem, giammai!” + + +XIII + +Cornelia went back to Boston to raise funds for the families of +the May Day victims; while Betty and Cousin Letitia went to New +York, accompanied by Deborah, and with a proper amount of tears and +handkerchief-waving were started on their grand tour. The Thornwell +clan breathed a sigh of relief when the young madcap was actually at +sea. + +For the first month it seemed all right. Betty was in London. “And +Mother,” she wrote, “it is quite like Boston; New England is really +Old England. I look out of my hotel window and see thousands of brick +buildings stained with smoke, and chimney-pots and dormer-windows +through a haze--I might be looking north from Beacon Hill. I really do +not see that one has to leave Boston to get culture, but I am doing +what you wish. We are going to-night to study the British labor party +at a big mass-meeting in Albert Hall. I am assured that the police +will not club the audience as it comes out. It was kind of you not to +tell Aunt Letitia too much about my ‘redness’; she is so gentle and +innocent, everything is educational to her. I am going to learn a lot, +and only hope you and father won’t mind if I study live people instead +of dead ones.” + +That was a hint of trouble; but it was nothing to what came a week +later from Cousin Letitia. “Dear Cousin Deborah: We are having a _most +delightful_ time in London--I will _never_ be able to find words +to express my gratitude to _you_ and _Cousin Rupert_ for affording +me this greatest and _undreamed_ of opportunity--for such it was, +I assure you--though perhaps in some _secret_ corner of my soul I +did cherish the _dream_. Betty is the _dearest_ child, and _most_ +companionable, and tractable in every way. To add to the _perfection_ +of our happiness, who should turn up in London yesterday but dear Aunt +Cornelia Thornwell! It was Betty who saw her, in the lobby of our +hotel. ‘It is _Grannie_!’ she exclaimed; and at first I could hardly +believe my _eye-sight_. _Imagine_ such a coincidence--here in far-off +London! _Truly_ the world _is_ getting smaller. She was called over +here unexpectedly upon business. We have decided to go to Paris, and +put off seeing London Bridge and the Tower until later.” + +And then, a week after that, another letter from Betty. “I hope you +and Father will not be too much annoyed by Grannie’s following us +to Europe. She says she just got too lonesome and couldn’t stand +it. The older generation is very stubborn, I find, and difficult to +control. I will try hard to keep her out of trouble. She has letters of +introduction to leading statesmen, but we are going to see the Eiffel +Tower first, so as to be regular tourists. It was very good of you to +leave our itinerary to our own choice, and we are availing ourselves +of this freedom. Next week we leave for Buda-Pesth. There are some +officials whom Grannie wishes to meet, and they may not be there long, +because governments change swiftly in Europe nowadays. Cousin Letitia +has read that there are very fine gypsy orchestras in Hungary, and this +thrills her repressed Puritan soul. I hope you and Father will not +blame this poor dear lady for anything that may go wrong with our tour, +because she is really as good as gold, though too naïve to cope with +the present world situation. She is invited to lunch with a prominent +editor or member of the house of deputies, and it does not occur to her +to ask whether he is royalist or communist. She says, ‘I suppose it is +not the custom for these European men to trim their beards or their +finger-nails.’ But do not worry about us, because we are learning a +great deal.” + +That letter alarmed Deborah, but it seemed worse yet when Rupert came +home that evening and read it and told her about Hungary. There had +been a Bolshevik revolution in that country, and the “officials” whom +Cornelia and Betty were going to meet were no doubt some blood-thirsty +“commissars,” Jews and ex-convicts who were slaughtering the men and +nationalizing the women of several empires. Rupert knew all about it, +because he had before him a proposition for financing the overthrow of +these “officials” in the interest of European stability; he had that +very day been investigating the prospects for having the bonds of a new +counter-revolutionary government absorbed by the Hungarian population +of New England. He had lunched with a man who had explained the details +of the plan, and had prepared a schedule of the subsidies required +to obtain the support of the Hungarian-American press. The world was +growing more and more complicated, and the tasks of a leader of high +finance made him sit up nights and study geography. + +“My God,” said the tormented father, “I suppose there’s only one thing +left--they’ll be going to Russia!” Which showed what a great mind he +had. For two weeks later came another communication from Mistress +Betty, as follows: + + “I suppose you poor dears are going to be truly shocked by this + news, and I am sorry, but there is no helping it. Grannie and I are + leaving to-morrow for Saratov, which is in Southern Russia. It is + the place where that crazy yarn about the nationalizing of women + got its start, and we are going to see for ourselves. We had the + extraordinary good fortune to run into a man whose head Grannie + bandaged up after it was broken by the police in the Plymouth + cordage strike. Now he is to take charge of the railroads in a + province as big as the whole of New England, and says he has an + underground way to get through the allied lines without danger. It + is just like Boston here, you can do anything if you have money. + It is going to be a most educational experience, and you must not + worry about us. The world is changing rapidly, and nothing could be + more important than to watch the new political forms in the act of + evolving. When these changes come to America, somebody will have to + understand them. + + “Please do not worry about Cousin Letitia, who is perfectly safe + and happy in Buda-Pesth. We have taken the precaution to introduce + her to influential people on both sides, so she will be all right + whichever comes out on top. Meantime she is handing out half + loaves of bread to the starving children of war-refugees. That + is charity, and she understands it. In the evenings she hears a + gypsy orchestra, in company with an elderly Hungarian playwright + who speaks fluent English, and has become completely absorbed in + the maiden-lady from Boston. I think she is the first one he ever + met, and he has the idea she will be wonderful in a play; the only + trouble is that European audiences would consider it a fairy-tale. + I do hope you will not blame Cousin Letitia because of Grannie. She + could not possibly have the idea there is anything wrong about a + grandmother. When she was in school, she was taught to admire the + revolutionary leaders of New England, and now that she meets those + in Europe, she finds them highly educated men. + + “We only plan to stay in Russia one or two months. Grannie has + promised to return in the fall, to teach a course in the causes of + modern war at the labor college which will be opened in Boston if + the police do not smash it. I expect to come back to Buda-Pesth + and take a job with some relief organization--any one that will + accept a person who has been in Russia. At present the Interallied + Food Mission is refusing all aid to the starving children of Red + Hungary. That is Mr. Herbert Hoover’s amiable method of bringing + back the Whites, and it should earn him everlasting infamy in + American and Hungarian history. + + “I hope you won’t mind if I find some way to earn my own keep; + there is a hard time in the relation between parents and children, + when the parents have to realize that their little ones are grown + up. I will continue to let Father send me money if he wants to; + I will not refuse a dollar that will keep some child alive for + a month. The suffering in all Eastern Europe is atrocious--I + have seen sights that would make any darling of luxury grow up + in a hurry. Be patient with Grannie and me, and realize that we + love you all, in spite of not doing what you want; we are acting + according to the dictates of our consciences, and where would New + England be in history if some people had not done that? + + “Affectionately your daughter, + “Elizabeth.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DEPORTATION DAYS + + +I + +Rupert Alvin would have worried more about his runaway daughter, if he +had not had so many troubles at home to keep him occupied. It seemed +as if all the devils in Puritan New England broke loose that summer +of 1919. There were a couple of million soldier boys turned out of +the training camps, and flotilla loads returning from France, and no +jobs to go round. They took to crime, to bootlegging, to striking, to +demanding bonuses, to all kinds of behavior which kept bankers lying +awake at night. The war-orders, the great prop of prosperity, had been +pulled from underneath, and business was like a man waking up on the +morning after a celebration. + +The cost of living had been going up all through the war, but now it +went faster than ever; there was a shortage of everything, and nobody +could live on his salary. Out in Seattle there was a general strike, +almost a revolution; while close at home, in Lawrence, a strike of the +mill-workers had to be put down by kidnaping the leaders and beating +them insensible with brass “knucks” and blackjacks. And then, in +Boston, the most incredible event of all--a strike of policemen! Of the +safest “cops” in the whole of civilization, Irish-Catholics trained in +humility and obedience in parochial schools especially established for +the purpose! Truly, it seemed the end of Rupert Alvin’s world. + +The policemen had been grumbling about their wages all through the +year. Some were getting as low as ninety-two dollars a month, and how +could a man keep a family on that? They grumbled about the way they +were housed--many of them in that old Joy Street station, which had +been built before the Civil War, and was dirty and verminous. They went +on grumbling, and the authorities went on putting them off--for if you +paid living wages to policemen, what would be left for politicians? In +August the grumblers formed a union, and joined the American Federation +of Labor. Treason and red rebellion under the very shadow of Bunker +Hill monument, on the very steps of “Funnel” Hall! + +There were at this time two great banking groups competing for the +mastery of Boston’s affairs; like the wars of the Guelphs and the +Ghibellines in ancient Florence. Parker, Jones and Company, one of +these concerns, stood in with the city administration, and their +Democratic mayor appointed them as a committee to sit down with the +leaders of the union and work out a settlement. The policemen were to +get their “raise,” and everything would be polite. But they had omitted +to consult Rupert Alvin and the Pilgrim National crowd; and Rupert +was incensed that his dignity should thus be flouted. Also, he had +religious convictions on the subject of labor unions. For policemen to +organize and wring concessions by threats was a challenge to the very +being of the state. If a Democratic mayor were allowed to bargain with +Democratic Irish-Catholic labor leaders, and pay out the city’s money +under duress, the Republican Rupert might as well retire from his job +of running Massachusetts and Europe. + +He consulted first with Henry Cabot Winters, as was his custom; then +he got his associates together and told them his plan. Never would +there be another such opportunity to teach a lesson to the forces of +disorder. The policemen’s union must be broken, its leaders driven +from the force, and not a man who went on strike should ever again +be employed by the city. Rupert carried his point, and the heads of +the Chamber of Commerce were called in and won over, and the police +commissioner was summoned and told of the decision. Fortunate indeed +that this official was appointed by the governor and not by the mayor, +and so was a “blue-blood” and not a demagogue! + +The business men of the city had rallied to defend their property. +The president of Harvard had offered a thousand students, and all +these volunteers were ready to go on patrol-duty the moment they were +called. The policemen had given ample notice; they would strike at five +forty-five o’clock on the afternoon of September ninth; and moreover +they left four hundred of the old men to protect property. But it was +Rupert’s plan to teach the city, and indeed the whole country, a lesson +by a demonstration of what it meant for policemen to form a labor +union. To that end the old policemen were kept shut up in headquarters, +and the volunteers were not summoned until nine o’clock the next +morning. For one whole night Boston was to be without any police +protection whatever; and to make assurance doubly sure, one of the +big detective agencies supplied a few men to throw bricks through the +windows of department-stores and start things moving. That the plotters +had actually done this was never proved, but you would meet many +“blue-bloods,” familiar with the gossip of the clubs, who were certain +that it had been done; and several years later, when Boston saw its +leading bankers on the witness-stand in the case of Jerry Walker, and +heard them lying about how they had got possession of the felt-industry +of New England--then Boston was ready to believe anything about bankers! + + +II + +Whoever started it, the windows were smashed, and men and boys jumped +through the holes and helped themselves to what they wanted; you saw +women sitting on the curb-stones, fitting themselves with expensive +shoes. There were many hold-ups that night, and some rape; more +horrifying yet, there were crap-games going on the Common--on the very +steps of the State House with its golden dome. It is characteristic +of Boston that this breach of decorum was the thing which stamped +itself upon the public mind, and stands out in unwritten history. Three +hundred crap-games in broad daylight--that shows you what the mob is +like, and what would happen if there were no hickory clubs to hold it +down! + +The merchants of the city were in a panic, putting up barricades in +front of their shops, arming their clerks and spending the night in +a state of siege. The picture of Boston in the hands of its criminal +element had gone all over the country; Boston papers had made a fearful +panic, and the faithful press agencies had spread it; so Rupert’s +lesson had been taught, and it was time for the city to be saved. The +mayor called out some of the state militia--under an old law he had +the right to call the part which belonged to Boston. He wanted to call +the rest, but for this an order from the governor was needed; and here +came an unexpected hitch in the program of “law and order.” + +The representative of Anglo-Saxon superiority in the State House +happened to be a gentleman by the name of Calvin Coolidge, whose +story is one of the oddest ever invented by that Great Novelist who +makes up history. A thin-lipped, tight little man, a petty lawyer +and bill-collector from the western part of the state, “Cal” had +got elected to the legislature, and attracted the attention of the +Republican boss because he always did exactly what he was told, and +never said a word that could be left unsaid. If a politician has an +opinion he is bound to offend somebody; so, obviously, the wise course +is to have no opinion on any subject. Strange, that no one ever thought +of it before “Cautious Cal”! + +The man who ran the Republican state machine through this period +was a multimillionaire senator by the name of Murray Crane. He +had established for his good political boys what was known as the +“escalator system,” or the “Massachusetts ladder.” So long as they +took orders, and kept themselves presentable to the voters, he would +promote them regularly, step by step. It was a slow process, and you +were old when you got to the top, but Massachusetts liked that, it is +old itself. In this case, however, there developed a phenomenon known +as “Coolidge luck”; as if the fates were amusing themselves by boosting +this feeblest man in the state machine. Among the legislators aspiring +to the state senate there existed a “rotation agreement”; there was +never any competition at the primaries, each town took its turn. But +the man ahead of Coolidge died, and he jumped into the place. Then, as +a state senator who had never made a speech, he learned that the man +in line for president of the senate had attacked woman suffrage. When +the suffragists asked the views of Calvin, he shut the tightest and +thinnest pair of lips in Massachusetts. The women attacked the other +man and beat him at the polls, and Calvin presented his claims to the +boss, and became president of the senate. Clear the way! + +Next it happened that the man who was scheduled to become +lieutenant-governor made the mistake of speaking in favor of +prohibition. Again Calvin kept his masterly silence, and the liquor +interests switched to him, and he was nominated. He served two terms as +lieutenant-governor, at a time when everybody was sick of politics, +and was pleased with a man who said nothing and did nothing. As a +reward they made him governor; and now here was a crisis, and two big +groups of bankers pulling him this way and that! There was nothing for +him but physical flight, and for twenty-four hours no one connected +with the government knew where the governor was to be found. + +At last Rupert dug him out, on the farm of Murray Crane, who had pushed +him up the escalator. They had a night session, and Calvin heard such +things as never will be printed in any history-book. When the time came +to call out the state guard, he did what he was told; the machine-guns +went into action on Boston Common, and fired a whole volley of shots +heard round the world. + +As for Calvin, he waited several days, until it was evident that +Rupert’s strategy had been successful; public sentiment had turned +against the strikers. Then Calvin rushed forward, waving in his hand +a telegram to Samuel Gompers, proclaiming in clarion tones: “There is +no right to strike against the public safety, by anybody, anywhere, at +any time!” That was, of course, what the capitalist press wanted at +the moment; the governor’s proclamation took the front page all the +way from Boston to Seattle--where there had been a rival strike and +a rival hero. One of these two masterful men was destined to become +vice-president and then president of the United States on the basis of +his heroism; while the other was destined to become a super salesman +of real estate, unloading ten thousand subdivision lots upon admiring +“come-ons.” Which hero was to be which was a matter of a toss-up in a +hotel-room, at the tail end of a long-drawnout political convention. +It may have been “Coolidge luck”--and again, it may have been the fact +that the Massachusetts leaders were able to certify that here was a +man who had never once expressed an opinion in twenty years of public +life, and had never once questioned an order from Murray Crane, who had +pushed him up the escalator. + + +III + +This police strike cost the community three million dollars; nor did +the community make it up out of policemen’s wages, because it granted +to the new men more than it had refused to the old. But that was all +right to Rupert Alvin. In the first place, it wasn’t his money; and in +the second place, it was not a question of money, but of what he called +“principle”--meaning the bankers’ right to have their way. The “mob” +really had learned a lesson; there would be no more crap-shooting on +the Common, and no more labor unions among public servants. + +Neither Rupert nor any of his crowd reckoned the dumb resentment +smoldering in the hearts of fourteen hundred men, who had thought +themselves guardians of law and order, and now discovered that they +were pawns in a game of power. These men had been pleading for a living +for themselves and their families; they had been polite enough, humble +enough--until they saw these qualities unheeded. They had served the +city faithfully--some for twenty or thirty years; even the Back Bay +admitted the virtues of those whom it knew. You would hear ladies of +the Sewing Circle exclaim, “What do you suppose has become of that +lovely policeman who used to help us across Boylston Street in front of +Trinity Church? The one that got books from the library, and asked for +something about the Æneid!” That story, told by the librarian, had been +a tradition of the Back Bay forever after. So appropriate to Boston, +to have a policeman who got books from the library, and actually +appreciated the Æneid! + +Cornelia Thornwell came back from Russia to find her city in a grim +mood, with armed soldiers patrolling all the streets. The time for +nonsense was past, the Bolshevik menace was going to be put down. The +word “nonsense” included the fact that an elderly woman, once of high +respectability, but now badly “cracked,” had run away from her family +and spent two months in Soviet Russia. Cornelia found that no newspaper +in Boston manifested interest in what she had done; none desired to +tell its readers about the condition of women in that city of Saratov +where the “nationalization” story had started. No, the Boston papers +wanted highly flavored horrors, invented by tsarist refugees in Riga +and Helsingfors and Warsaw and Bucharest and Constantinople; they would +pay the tolls to have such inventions cabled, but they wanted no facts +which could be got by sending a reporter to an apartment on the north +side of Beacon Hill. + +Privately, of course, some of the “blue-bloods” got a tremendous +“kick” out of Cornelia’s story. Henry Cabot Winters came to dinner and +spent a most interesting evening. Quincy Thornwell came, and loaded +up with stories to tell to the guests at Mrs. Jack Gardner’s. That +was gossip, and gossip has always been the privilege of good society. +But when it came to public utterances--to a newspaper interview, or a +speech at some meeting--that was a different matter; that was Bolshevik +propaganda, undermining the bases of American civilization. The word +Bolshevism had become the worst of all terms of abuse, and covered +everything in the modern world you did not like. The Massachusetts +Chamber of Commerce issued a pronouncement to the effect that the new +prohibition amendment was a Bolshevik conspiracy! + +Rupert Alvin declined to meet his mother-in-law. He might have got +from her first-hand information as to the outcome of his enterprise to +overthrow the communist régime in Hungary, but he would not sacrifice +his dignity by admitting that Cornelia’s crazy jaunt could have +even that much use. Rupert proposed to handle his mother-in-law and +his daughter as he had handled the policemen’s strike. The time for +nonsense was past. + +Deborah came to see her mother, and listened with painful reserve while +Cornelia assured her that Betty was perfectly all right, and there was +no need to worry. Betty was turning into a very fine woman, the best +of the lot of them; she was doing a useful work in Buda-Pesth, and was +justified in ignoring her father’s cablegrams. Nor would she suffer +because Rupert had cut off her funds. Her salary of thirty dollars a +week was quite regal for any part of Central Europe. As for Cousin +Letitia, she might become the wife of the elderly Hungarian playwright, +Hubay, if the family would put up one or two thousand dollars for a +“dot.” Cornelia herself had had a most instructive experience; the +world was changing, and her children would have to learn, as she had +learned, to adjust their minds to new ideas. + +Deborah pressed her tight lips together--for she had come with a stern +resolve not to wrangle with her poor distracted mother. “We have done +considerable adjusting of our minds this fall,” she said. “We have +seen crap-games on the Common, and machine-guns also. We have known +what it feels like to lie awake all night in fear of the murderous +mob.” And that was true--for Rupert had not been able to convince his +wife of his complete mastery of the situation. Not even four private +policemen guarding her home had sufficed. Like most of the ladies on +Commonwealth Avenue, Deborah had looked under all the beds that night, +and had visions of her treasures being looted and her dignified person +“nationalized.” + + +IV + +But if the capitalist press did not care to hear about the adventures +of Mrs. Josiah Quincy Thornwell in Russia, rest assured that there +were plenty of socialists, communists and anarchists who did. Cornelia +was besought to come and talk to this group and that; she was urged +to write down what she had seen, and let it be printed in a pamphlet; +and when she consented, it meant that she had definitely committed +herself as a “Red,” and was listed in the card-files of the Department +of Justice as an active Bolshevist. In the month of November “red +headquarters” in Boston was raided, with much uproar, and everybody +in it arrested and “held for deportation.” Among the truckloads of +literature confiscated were some of Cornelia’s; and although Rupert was +able to keep it out of the papers, he brought the story home to the +horrified family, and Deborah conveyed to her mother the warning that +she stood within the shadow of arrest, and that her family’s influence +would not again be used in her behalf. + +Vanzetti spent an evening in the little apartment, and heard all that +Cornelia had to tell, and asked a hundred questions, and carried +her answers to the “gruppo” in Plymouth and the “clooba” in East +Boston. There were fierce debates going on among the anarchists as +to the attitude they should take to the rapidly spreading soviet +movement. Some were disposed to weaken in their anti-state principles. +Government was a bad thing, so long as it was an instrument for +suppressing workers; but when it became an instrument for suppressing +counter-revolution, then it was no longer so easy to decide. But +“individualistas” like Vanzetti stood immovable, and as a result, many +of them were in trouble in Russia; some had been shot, and others were +in jail. So Vanzetti hated the Russian government as much as he hated +the American, and was grieved by any good word that Cornelia had to say +about it. + +A very confusing situation! However, Cornelia had been watching the +radical movement for four years now, and could talk the language of +the different groups, and understand their reactions. That was more +than the capitalist press could do, or the police, or the department of +justice agents, or the courts, or any others who had the public ear in +this crisis. + +The job of “mopping up” the Reds was on in earnest. Congress had +appropriated a couple of million dollars--which is the way to make +things happen in America. All the big detective agencies were feeding +at the trough, and the card-file of suspects now counted a total of +two hundred thousand names--so the Attorney-General told a committee +of Congress. This gentleman, oddly enough, was a Quaker, and under the +combined banners of William Penn and Jesus Christ was instituting a +campaign of wholesale terror, the like of which had not been known in +America since the Iroquois Indians had been routed from upper New York +state. + +The prisoners taken in the November raids, together with a number of +anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were loaded onto +an old government transport, the “Buford,” and on the twenty-first of +December this vessel, known to the newspapers as the “Soviet Ark,” +set forth for Russia. It was a beginning of the program recommended +by all patriotic orators, “If they don’t like this country, let them +go back where they came from.” Here and there you found one even more +ardent--such as the statesman who said that he “would send them in a +ship of stone with sails of lead”! Such was the “Christmas spirit,” as +manifested in America a year after the ending of the war to end war! + + +V + +“Dear Nonna,” wrote Vanzetti from Plymouth, “come to see us little bit +for Christmas. All Italian anarchista is unhappy and fear will come +truble for us after finish Russian. Is no more Cronaca, and no leader +in New England since Galleani is deport. Would be good have you come +for letting us know one American lady understand worker and is not +afraid for speaking. Vincenzo got bottle good Dago Red in cellar, +it is not prohibitioned, for was there before. Trando has learn new +melody by violin, it is ‘When you and I were young, Maggie.’ Fay is +putting corns on string for decorate, it is word not in book, but is +white corns which produces noise on stove. Alfonsina is working now by +cordage and I have expection of much business for Christmas, it is time +for all Italian eating eel and I have order for barrel of living to be +deliver from Boston. Your esteeming friend, Bartolomeo Vanzetti.” + +Christmas Day was on Friday, and Cornelia wrote that she could not come +on that day, but would come Saturday morning and stay over Sunday. Not +all the witch-hunts in New England could keep the Thornwell family from +inviting her on Christmas Day, and from having their feelings hurt if +she failed to appear. Clara, who had a monopoly on young children, was +naturally the hostess, and “Hillview” the place. It was one of those +great family reunions, when the clan say by their presence those things +which are never said in words. Three faces were missing since last +Christmas. Ahab would never be seen again; the spine of Great-aunt +Priscilla had become solidified to such an extent that not all the +pride in New England could bring her to a Christmas party; and Betty +was in Buda-Pesth, handing out loaves of bread to the children of +war-refugees. + +“Hillview” was much changed from the day, now four and a half years +past, when Cornelia had run away from it. James had kept his promise to +leave the old part intact, but he had put on a monstrous new building +in the rear, for the eight young ones and their numerous nurses and +governesses and servants, as well as for guests--it was a luxurious +hotel. The children were all over the place, racing about, shouting, +bumping their heads on the hardwood floors, tramping nuts and raisins +into priceless rugs, smearing chocolate candy on white brocaded +upholstery. Christmas came but once a year, and one must not find +fault; one must exchange sticky kisses, and admire a tree so tall that +it went up to the second story, standing in the curve of the winding +stairway. It shone with a myriad little lights, red, blue, green and +yellow, and was piled around with enormous quantities of expensive +toys, really marvels of ingenuity and workmanship, all of which would +be broken and thrown on the junk-pile, or forgotten in the attic a +month from now. + +Also there were the grown-ups to be greeted: Clara, rounder than ever, +lamenting that no arts of any specialist helped to reduce her; James, +solid and matter-of-fact, expanding with his vast prosperity, and with +the importance of himself as host. Not for a million dollars would he +have said it in words, but his manner made clear that “Hillview” was +no longer “Thornwell,” it was “Scatterbridge.” Deborah, stately in a +creation of purple velvet; Rupert, with complexion to match his wife’s +dress, and a manner of impeccable cordiality to Cornelia, as if such +a thing as a quarrel with a mother-in-law had never been heard of in +Boston. Alice Thornwell Winters, whose elegance and grace paid no +tribute to the passing years; Henry Cabot Winters, dapper and genial; +their son, Josiah, still growing length ways, and pale--perhaps from +overstudy, as his fond mother said, perhaps from what the savage Betty +described as “woman-chasing.” Also there was Deborah’s older daughter, +Priscilla, tall and dignified; it had been four years and more since +she had raped the rug, and the crime was forgotten. + +Not a word about Betty, nor anything else to humiliate Cornelia, or to +remind her of her fall from grace. Unless you count Great-uncle Abner, +poring over the _Transcript_, and commenting on a wireless dispatch +from the “Soviet Ark,” now four days at sea. “Says it’s stormy, and the +passengers are seasick.” The deaf man’s voice of Abner boomed from the +library and filled all downstairs. “Well, I’d cure their seasickness if +I had my way!” + +“They say there’s no cure for it known!” shouted Abner’s son, Quincy. + +“No cure?” Abner’s voice broke into a hoot. “I can tell them a +cure--dump the two hundred and forty-nine beggars overboard, and +they’ll be cured in a couple of minutes!” + +There was a pause while the old man turned over the paper. When he +broke loose again, it was the “crime wave,” unfailing topic at all New +England gatherings. “Country going clean to the dogs! See that story +about the holdup in Bridgewater yesterday? Coming to a fine pass when +a shoe-company can’t bring its payroll from the bank without having +shot-gun battles in the middle of the street! Read that?” + +“Yes, I read it,” said Quincy. + +“Right out in the middle of Broad Street, corner of Hale--you know the +place?” + +“I know it.” + +“Big wide street, trees on both sides, trolley-car down the middle. +And, by jingo, if two bandits in an automobile don’t pop out and open +fire on the pay-truck, just after daylight, half-past seven yesterday +morning! _Transcript_ says the police have no clew to the bandits. +Wonder what police are for!” + +“To go on strike, father.” + +“It’s these foreigners!” And Uncle Abner leaned closer to his son’s +ear, which was not in the least deaf. “Infernal foreigners we’ve +let come in and ruin the country! Sixty years I kept telling it to +Josiah--ought to have stopped them. First Irish, then Jews, then +Dagoes, then Hunkies, then God knows what. They’ve taken the country +from us--the old stock might as well move out, they steal everything +we’ve got. Ought to take every steamer that brought ’em over and make +’em take ’em back free, that’s what I say!” + +Did Uncle Abner know that Cornelia was in the music-room with the +children, and hearing every word he shouted? Maybe so, for he was a +shrewd old rascal, and you’re only supposed to be polite when you +know it. “Ought to ship ’em back where they came from, and all those +sentimentalists that encourage ’em go along!” + + +VI + +Cornelia left the palace of Thornwell-Scatterbridge, and went to the +humble tenement in North Plymouth. Here too was Christmas, but on a +minor scale. The tree was not quite up to Cornelia’s shoulder, and +the decorations were half a dozen red and yellow baubles, two for +five cents at the grocery-store, a few strands of tinsel, some red +ribbon off a package Cornelia had sent, and finally, long strings of +snow-white “corns,” with three pairs of small-sized but ravenous jaws +waiting until Cornelia should have seen the spectacle before commencing +the work of destruction. The presents, ranged under the tree for her +inspection, were few and cheap--with the single exception of three +fine story-books which had come from Boston. They were now set up +conspicuously, and three children clamored their happy thanks. + +The Brinis had long ago found out who Cornelia was; they knew that +she came from a great rich family; yet not all the cruel “class +consciousness” in the world could weaken their trust in her. It seemed +to Cornelia that this offered some hint of how to avoid the stresses of +the war between capital and labor; also for the bitter strife between +the old Yankees and the new foreigners, and for the “crime wave,” and +many other troubles of the time. But when she told that theory to her +friends of the great world, they called it “sentimental,” and went on +with their wiser and more practical plan of jailing and deporting and +killing. Also most of the so-called “class-conscious” revolutionists +would have agreed that Cornelia’s program was “sentimental”; so +apparently the jailing and deporting and killing had to continue. + +They had a grand supper that Saturday night. Alfonsina had made +bean-soup, which Vanzetti was “crazy about”--he admitted it; and +budino, a kind of custard pudding, and tortellini, a dish of meat +cooked in noodles. Vanzetti was a vegetarian on principle, because +he thought it wicked to kill animals for food; but once in a while +he fell from grace, and the occasion was apt to be tortellini. The +animal was already dead, said Trando; but Bart would not permit +that sophistry--when we ate meat, he said, we caused another animal +somewhere to be killed, it was the law of supply and demand. He spoke +of animals as his “fellow creatures,” and this gave the children great +glee; they would bring home a crab, or perhaps a big spider, and +refer to it as “Bart’s fellow creature.” But that did not trouble the +philosopher; he made it the occasion for a lecture on the wonders of +nature. All these strange beings did really have a life like us, at +least the beginnings of it; each one knew all the things it needed to +know in order to take care of itself--and many a man was not so wise. + +Vincenzo had given his wife a tiny glass bowl with three gold-fish +for a Christmas present; and this stood now on a table in the little +parlor, by the window, where the light shone through it. Bart was +fascinated by these creatures, he would stand watching them literally +for an hour at a time. He was wondering what it was like to be a +gold-fish. If you dropped a bit of food into the bowl, the fish would +know it and take it into their mouths; if it was not the right food, +they would spit it out again. What told them that? What had taught +them not to flee from a man’s hand--though fish in the wild state would +do so? Did the fish know that man existed, and what did they think +about him? Strange questions one could ask about life! + +Trando got out his violin, and played “When you and I were young, +Maggie.” So many sweet songs made you sad! The little boy played it +several times, and Bart hummed the words which the children had taught +him. A wonderful act of creation, making a melody out of the chaos of +all the scratchings that were possible on four violin strings! The +Brinis were so proud, something fine was coming out of their lives, +something better than “working by cordage” all your life, better than +“living like pigs,” as the Yankees phrased it. + +“Some day maybe we get piano,” said Bart. “Fay she learn play, we have +grand music.” + +“Oh, yes, we’ll get a piano!” said Trando, and added, in school-boy +dialect, “I don’t think!” He was twelve years old now, and America was +teaching him to be a little “fresh” at times. “It’ll be like that horse +you were going to get me!” He explained to Cornelia, “He promised me +a horse to drive the day before Christmas. He had a barrel of eels to +deliver, and I was to help him, and for two weeks he was telling me I’d +have a horse and wagon, and I didn’t think about nothing else all the +time. But when the day come it was the same old push-cart.” + +“It is baker got horse and wagon,” explained Bart. “He promise for rent +heem one day, but then he cannot, so must pusha da cart. Trando he +see--what you call it, visione--heemself sit in seat, make noise with +whip, ‘Gittup!’--granda gentleman, all little Italian girl come look, +say what is this, something wonderfool! But instead to crack whip, he +musta carry basket with package eel. He is little scare, for eel he is +live and make move--what you say?” + +“Wiggle,” put in Fay. + +“Mooch wiggle!” said Bart. “Little boy tink maybe he come out from +paper, make bite!” + +“No, I wasn’t scared,” said Trando, “but I knew they were my +fellow creatures and I didn’t like to have them killed.” They all +laughed--even Vincenzo, who did not understand jokes in English. Bart, +with his vegetarian scruples, was hard put to it to justify his conduct +in having a barrel of his living fellow creatures shipped to him by +express, and turning them over to the murderous fury of two score +Italian housewives, who had skinned them alive and put them in salt for +the next day’s feast, as much a tradition with the Italians as turkey +in all Yankee homes. + + +VII + +Sunday morning they went for a walk--on the street, because the woods +were full of snow. Coming home, Vanzetti bought a Boston newspaper, +because he wanted to know what was happening in Italy. Cornelia read +him a brief item, how the Italian workers were forming shop-councils, +preparing to take over industry from the capitalists. They talked about +this, and how it would happen in different countries. Vanzetti had made +a speech in a hall in Plymouth. “I force-èd be spikker,” he explained, +because the man who was supposed to be “spikker” had such wrong ideas. +Bart knew that any one who discussed anarchist ideals in public in +these critical days ran risk of arrest, and of deportation or worse. +But he would not be silenced, and Cornelia knew that he would not, and +did not even suggest it. “Anarchista musta make propaganda!” + +The children had got hold of the comic supplement, and were devouring +it, laughing over the jokes and explaining them to their mother. This +humor dealt with incipient young criminals, who perpetrated every +indignity upon their elders. And meantime the elders were reading about +the product of a previous decade of comic papers--the “crime wave” and +its latest manifestations. There was more news about the Bridgewater +hold-up, which Cornelia had heard Abner Thornwell discussing. +Bridgewater was only twenty-two miles from Plymouth, and in the same +county, so the attempted robbery had been much talked about. Now the +shoe-company was offering a thousand dollars’ reward for the bandits, +and Vanzetti remarked, “You offer plenty money, you catch plenty +feller. Is always polissmen, witness, for swear poor feller in jail.” + +He went on to say, how stupid for people to be surprised by the crime +wave. “You send million feller to Europe, you put heem in army, give +gun, teach heem keell; you bring heem back, he go home, find some odder +feller got his job, got his girl; he look for job, cannot find, he is +hungry--you think he don’t steal? Is foolish for not onderstand, is +people do not want onderstand.” + +“You think the cause of crime is always economic?” + +“Shoore, Nonna, I not think all men alike. Some men is strong, is got +what you call--carattere--” + +“Character.” + +“He will not do crime, he will die before do crime. But nodder man, he +is weak, is too much tempt, he sees friend do crime, get plenty money, +he try sometime, maybe get caught, he go jail. Is worst place for make +criminal, is jail, is like school, learn how to do it. You go like me, +Nonna, you work one job, work nodder job, meet onderd, meet thousand +worker, you meet plenty young criminal, young feller vanaglorioso for +what he do, think he is smart feller; I hear heem talk, I know what +is make crime wave. Is great reech men, spend beeg money--automobile, +gooda dress, fine lady--what you say, lusso--luxury. Poor feller, he +look, he like to live sooch life, have plenty money, plenty girl. He +say, ‘How come it reech man he get it, how come in bég-ginnin’”--Bart +accented the word on the first syllable--“how come in bég-ginnin’ he +make the money? Is reecha man honest? Is it sistema honest? He see +everywhere beeg thief get plenty money, not ever punish. He see, you +steal thousand dollar, you call-èd bandit, you steal million dollar, +you call-èd banker. Is it not true, Nonna?” + +Cornelia thought of Jerry Walker and his felt-plants. “It is sometimes +true, Bart.” + +“All right, is injoostice. So long you have injoostice, is crime; more +injoostice, more crime. Is like something you make in chimica--it come +all time the same way. But reech man he not like to hear sooch thing, +is better for heem call bad name, make polissman, put heem in blue +clothe, give heem big cloob, send heem out to hit poor feller on head, +put heem in jail. Big crime come, all right, get more polissman, make +thousand dollar what you call it--reward--get plenty stool-pigeon, you +onderstand?” + +“Yes, I know what you mean.” + +“Is always rotten feller, swear anything for money, send somebody to +jail. All polissman want is catch somebody, all newspaper want is +catch somebody, fill up jail, so reecha man is happy, is what you call +law and order. You wait, Nonna, you see--thousand dollar will make +sure--catch plenty Bridgewater bandit!” + +Strange and awful are the fates that dispose of mortals--leading us +blindfolded through curtains of black fog. How could it happen that +Bart could speak such words, and no shaft of lightning split the fog, +no warning finger pierce the curtain, no voice shout in thunder-tones, +“You! You! You!” They sat chatting casually, criticizing each other’s +theories; the children laughed, bringing them pictures of the Goofy +Googles; Alfonsina washed the dinner dishes, and Vincenzo, not being +able to share in the argument, fell asleep in his chair; the gold-fish +wiggled their silken-filmy tails, and the Powers that sent the universe +on its course, benevolent or heedless, omniscient or omninescient, sent +no smallest hint of the fact that Bartolomeo Vanzetti was himself that +“poor feller” whom the thousand-dollar reward was to bring down for the +Bridgewater crime! + + +VIII + +Cornelia went back to Boston, and found a letter from Betty: + + “I have been having so many adventures, I hardly know where to + start telling. I have been experiencing very eloquent and romantic + love-making from one of the sons of ‘Archie.’ That is our nickname + for the Austrian arch-duke who came in with the Roumanian armies + and put himself on the throne, to the great dismay of the allies. + This son is tall and somber and splendidly-idle. I can understand + how it is that American husbands are found unsatisfactory. I try + to imagine Father or Uncle James making such speeches! He pays + endless compliments in carefully perfected English; but the trouble + is he doesn’t really know me at all. He is content that I am the + daughter of a rich American banker; he doesn’t guess my political + opinions, and I dare not tell him, because I might lose my job! But + it will be a good thing for His Highness to have his self-assurance + reduced. He says that American girls are made of marble, and I + smile and tell him it is his first contact with a social equal. + Then I have to explain about the Back Bay! + + “Also there is an undersecretary at the legation who is eating + his heart out over me. He is quite different, rather tongue-tied, + but serious, I fear. He comes from the middle west, and doesn’t + really know me either--though of course it is possible for him to + understand how I can be virtuous though unchaperoned. I am also + causing misery to a young lady of our mission, who is in love with + the undersecretary. Apparently not all the troubles in Europe are + enough to keep people from entanglements of the heart. I think + it is rather the contrary, the general disorganization upsets + everybody, and leaves the fancy roaming. + + “While I am on the subject, I might mention that I was violently + besieged by one of the Bolshevik agents before he took flight to + Switzerland disguised as a chauffeur. He told me I was not truly + a free woman at all, but a wretched little Puritan that would dry + up and blow away at an early age. I showed him Cousin Letitia, who + is still capable of being thrilled, but not of being seduced, even + by the elderly playwright Hubay. There is something inside our + marrow-bones, deeper than we realize, and stronger than our ideas. + Roger Lowell would be surprised to hear that about me! Anyhow, I + am sure there will be no love-affairs for me until I get back to + America; it would be like a romance in a morgue. + + “The suffering here is dreadful beyond words. I suppose you get + news in the papers, but probably not true, because everything is + propaganda for somebody or something. It really was the charitable + Mr. Hoover who overthrew the Reds here in Hungary. I don’t know + if it is published at home, but here all his aides are proud of + it, and tell the details and boast. We are managed by a California + lawyer, one of Herbert’s intimate friends, and they not merely + blockaded and boycotted Red Hungary, but they bought some of the + labor leaders to overthrow the Bolsheviks. + + “It has been like a kaleidescope; you never know when you wake up + in the morning who is governing you--till you get to the office + and hear what happened during the night. The Reds went out, and + then came the Roumanian army with ‘Archie,’ and we had to drive + him out and get a White régime--which is rapidly turning into a + dictatorship. Those poor fool labor-leaders who let themselves be + used to turn out the Reds have mostly been shot or had their skulls + cracked, and I wonder what our noble-minded Herbert thinks about + it. There ought to be some way to make the White gentlemen come sit + in the pools of blood, as we relief-workers have to do. + + “It has taught me my lesson; ‘law and order’ talk will never fool + me again. It really seems as if our master-minds want to teach + labor that there can be no middle course, and no honesty or decency + in the class struggle. The Reds here fell because they were too + gentle, and let their enemies plot against them. The Russians made + a clean sweep, so they survive. And don’t let any one fool you + about the amount of killing they did; don’t let any one frighten + you with talk about the ‘mob.’ From this time on I take the dear + ‘mob’ to my heart; I am only afraid of dashing young gentlemen + in gaudy uniforms, and elderly diplomats and business men in + dinner-jackets. There isn’t a country in Central Europe where the + Whites haven’t killed ten for every one the Reds have killed, and + in many cases it has been a hundred for one. + + “And the worst is, Grannie, these White dictatorships are all + American-made--with guns and uniforms from our army and dollars + from our bankers. They have got an American loan here in Hungary, + and I am wondering if father is in on it. He probably won’t tell + you, but ask Uncle Quincy--he knows. If it’s true, I’ll never take + another dollar from Father--and I’ll tell him so. + + “Dear Grannie, do please take care of yourself, because if anything + were to happen to you, what would I do, with not a soul to + understand me? Sometimes I get frightened, and get alone in my room + and have a good cry; because, after all, it is absurd to think that + a girl not yet twenty-one should know more than all her family put + together. You know what Great-aunt Priscilla says, so very calmly: + ‘You will be wiser when you are older.’ + + “Maybe the ‘antis’ were right, Grannie--women are not meant to + meddle in politics! Maybe we ought to stay at home and look after + the babies, like Aunt Clara. But when we get the babies raised, the + old men step in and send them off to the battle-field, so what’s + the use? I go over and over it in my mind, and the only conclusion + is that this generation of girls must go on strike, and refuse to + have babies until the men stop killing. So I shall stick it out, + and when I come back the family will find me worse than ever. + I suppose you are having troubles enough at home; tell me all, + but write as if I did not agree with your ideas. I have a way of + getting this letter smuggled out, but your letters to me may be + opened, and I don’t want to lose my job quite yet.” + + +IX + +Yes, Cornelia had her troubles. The day after New Year’s there burst +upon Boston and the whole country a storm known as the deportations +delirium. To the Quaker Attorney-General had come a brilliant idea; he +would win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, upon the basis +of his heroic services in deporting the Reds. The two million dollars +which Congress had voted him would be turned into a campaign fund for +the glory of Jesus Christ and William Penn. + +The ingenious Quaker arranged to lure his victims into public meetings, +and have the police appear suddenly and bar the doors, and sort out +all the foreign ones, and load them into patrol wagons. The problem of +getting the Reds all over the country to come to meetings on the same +night was comparatively simple, because the government had put so many +spies into the radical organizations that they had elected themselves +to office, and were in position to call meetings whenever they pleased. +Also they had been able to vote resolutions and adopt manifestos of +such violence as to make the deportations legally possible. As Federal +Judge Anderson of Boston said when the facts came out in his court: “It +is perfectly clear on the evidence before me that the Government owned +and operated a part, at least, of the Communist Party.” It was one time +when all business men believed in government ownership! + +The raids were scheduled for the night of January second, 1920, and +netted some four thousand prisoners. Twenty cities and towns in New +England contributed a thousand--including thirty-nine who had met for +the purpose of organizing a cooperative bakery. The prisoners were +lined up against the walls of police-stations, searched and beaten by +detectives, denied counsel, denied reliable translators, and sentenced +on the spot by officials of the Department of Immigration. They were +loaded into vans and taken to the immigration station in Boston, and +thence to Deer Island prison. In order to make the utmost possible +amount of campaign material for the Quaker Attorney-General, the +victims were chained together in pairs, and paraded down State Street, +past the old State House, and over the rings of cobble-stones that +mark the site of the Boston Massacre. Such a novelty brought newspaper +photographers in swarms, and the story stayed on the front page for +several days. Never such advertising for a presidential candidate. + +Also the Department of Justice agents saw to it that good reading +matter was supplied for the pictures. Four bombs had been found at one +meeting, said the report; they were taken to a police station and put +into a pail of water--and apparently dissolved in the water, for they +were never heard of in court. Among the organizations raided was an +amateur dramatic society, which had rented some old guns for use in +a play; so the newspapers reported a “red arsenal.” Apart from stage +properties, the police acquired a total of four firearms: this by a +search of four thousand persons, and raiding their homes and breaking +into their trunks. Apparently they had selected for deportation the +least military group of individuals in America. + +Here were the troubles for Cornelia Thornwell. Four hundred men and +women jammed into cells in Deer Island prison, with broken window-panes +in the midst of New England winter, with no blankets, no mattresses, +and no adequate toilet facilities. Husbands torn from wives, mothers +separated from their babies--and all held according to the genial +Spanish custom known as “incommunicado,” denied lawyers, denied any +information as to their fate. One woman, attending a meeting with her +little girl, had been dragged to jail, and the child left to wander +alone through the streets of Boston all that January night. One man +flung himself over a railing five stories above the ground, and dashed +out his brains in sight of the rest of the prisoners. Another went +insane, and several others were on the verge. And concerning all this +mass of misery no mention in the newspapers, and vilification for any +one who dared to protest. + +So Cornelia must sit at the telephone for hours, and argue and plead +with her friends, and rush off to committee meetings, and get a +stenographer and dictate letters, and pay for long telegrams to +congressmen and senators and officials in Washington and New York. She +must besiege club-women, and plead for opportunities to speak. She +must meet newspaper reporters and give long interviews which never saw +the light. She must haunt the doors of officials, and waylay them on +the street when they would not see her. She must start a subscription +list, and go round like a Salvation Army “lassie,” irritating bankers +and lawyers and merchants, and their wives and daughters in the Sewing +Circle, abusing her social position in shameless fashion to get at +people, and tell them such harrowing stories that they would put +up good Brahmin money to buy blankets for Bolsheviks, and milk for +starving babies whose mothers and fathers had committed the crime of +belonging to political parties owned and operated by the Department of +Justice. + +And this no job of a few days, but of months. The Quaker presidential +candidate was slow to realize that he could not produce evidence +against eighty per cent of all those he had seized. In Boston, through +an unfortunate oversight, there was a Federal judge who believed that +law-enforcers ought to obey the laws they enforced. He declared from +the bench that a mob was a mob, even when it was made up of Department +of Justice agents. He would issue writs for one prisoner after another, +and when the prisoner was able to prove that he was an American +citizen, or that he hadn’t actually joined the Department of Justice +party, the victim would be turned loose. But all that took time--and +meanwhile there were a thousand or two children to be fed, and as many +falsehoods to be refuted, and only a small group of rebel ladies to do +it. + + +X + +Almost every Sunday during that winter Vanzetti came up to Boston. He +was doing well with his fish-peddling, and in between times shoveling +snow or cutting ice, so he had money for the trip and for propaganda. +In the midst of all this repression he had made up his mind that the +anarchistas must have a paper, and he was raising the seven hundred and +fifty dollars needed to buy a linotype machine; he had even written a +couple of articles to appear in the new paper, and was working hard to +“culture himself,” studying both Italian and English. He came to have +supper with Cornelia one evening, and when she ventured to point out +the dangers of his course, he answered that you could never accomplish +anything if you quit in times of danger. The times of accomplishment +were bound to be times of danger--trust the capitalistas for that. + +Many of the Galleani group had been deported; Coacci had been +arrested--one of those two men who had brought a package of books to +Bart--Cornelia had met him. The gruppo had raised a thousand dollars’ +bail for him, and now he was under sentence of deportation. Also Nick +Sacco was making his plans to take his family back to Italy. Great +events were coming this next summer--perhaps the real revolution--and +Nick as a man of action wanted to be there. + +Yes, it would not be bad to be sent to Italy just now; but alas, you +didn’t always get there! Bart told the terrible story of Compagno +Marucco, who had been put on a steamer and never heard of again. All +the anarchistas believed he had been pushed overboard on the way, +because he had detected some of the government spies working among the +group. Another man had hanged himself in his cell; had he really done +that, or had somebody done it for him? You needed nerves of steel to go +on with propaganda in the midst of events like that! + +Bart talked about the spies. One had been exposed by Carlo Tresca in +New York: Ravarini, who had posed as an anarchista for many months, one +of the violent kind, a follower of Ravachol. One of his plans had been +to revive “La Cronaco Sovversiva”; he had offered to get the money, and +had suggested Bart for editor. But Bart had been too modest, he did not +consider himself a well enough educated man. + +This Ravarini had been seeking to fasten the bombings onto the Galleani +group; for the government agents had apparently convinced themselves +that this group was guilty. Bart discussed the idea, and he said there +was no such great nonsense in the whole world. He pointed out what had +happened--the police had arrested hundreds of anarchistas, and searched +their homes, and had never found a bomb, nor anything having to do with +a bomb. Some day the truth would come out--the guilt lay with detective +agents, “feller get rich by hunting anarchista.” + +“You think they would kill innocent people?” asked Cornelia. + +“Is not many people keell-èd, Nonna! Bombe blow up little piece of +house, sometime when people is out, or sleep upstair and not get +hurted. You want keell somebody, is not sooch difficultee, plenty +people keell-èd all time, plenty Italian keell you cheap--what you call +it, black hand. I know sooch feller, plenty, hear heem talk in café, +vanaglorioso for what he do. He say, ‘No sooch great keeller in whole +state Massachusetts; nobody shoot so queeck, so straight.’ You pay heem +onderd dollar, next night your nemico he die. What for make big bombe, +big noise?” + +“But they sent bombs by mail, Bart!” + +“Shoore, send mail--but he not put on stamp enough--the mail do not +go! What follia, Nonna! Think, amica mia, how easy to find out what is +postage! You not need take bombe to post-office, no sooch reesk--no, +you go any post-office, any town, you say, what postage for take five +pound, ten pound, twenty pound, what you like to send. You say, got +package for New York, for Chicago, any place. You not go self, send +odder man, send child, you get stamp, million people buy stamp. But +see, Nonna--anarchista is sooch fool, he get dinnameet, he pay money, +make twenty bombe, get address, send to this man, to odder man, send to +Boston, New York, Lawrence, Passaic, all place--but not got sense for +finding out ow mooch stamp! Is crazy thing, Nonna, is imbecillità!” + +“You think government agents did it?” + +“Not go-vérnment, but what you call private agent--big feller, make +million dollar. He make big scare, Congress vote money, big banker +get bad fright, he spend money, he say, you sava my life, you catch +anarchista, you put heem in jail, so he not blow up the bank, he not +keell me. Look, amica mia, you read paper, you see this morning, big +banker make--what you call--notizia--avviso--” + +“Advertisement.” + +“Avvertisament, whole page, scare people, say polissman must catch the +red, the bomber, the anarchista, musta deport, must put in jail. Is +patriottismo, militarismo--you see in paper?” + +Yes, Cornelia had seen it, and not for the first time; it had become +quite the fashion for groups of leading citizens, bankers, merchants, +the Chamber of Commerce or other civic groups, to publish full-page +advertisements warning the public of the imminent danger of red riot +and insurrection. “Yes, I read it,” she told Bart--but was ashamed +to add that among the signers that morning was Rupert Alvin, her +son-in-law, and John Quincy Thornwell, her nephew-in-law! + + +XI + +Almost a year had passed since the mailing of those “May Day bombs,” +and still the police had not succeeded in catching any of the senders; +so naturally there was dissatisfaction on the part of patriots. What +was the purpose of a huge secret service agency, built up at enormous +expense? The loyal newspaper publishers forbore to express impatience +in print, but privately they were outraged. A first-class red scare +meant millions in increased sales, but how could the most ingenious +editors and reporters keep excitement alive without a few facts? + +The Department of Justice had one set of clews. A bomb had blown out +the front of the home of the Attorney-General, the Quaker gentleman who +was planning to move to the White House, and the man who carried this +bomb had apparently himself been blown up. The authorities claimed to +have identified the fragments as belonging to an Italian anarchist by +the name of Valdinoci, one of the Galleani group. He had worn sandals, +and in his pockets had been some leaflets in crude English, proclaiming +anarchist ideas. The purpose for which the spy Ravarini had been set to +work was to find the printing office in which this circular had been +set up. + +Ravarini sent contributions of money to Malatesta in Italy, and got +letters from him, and then appeared among the comrades in Boston and +New York, a very ardent Red, with literature to be printed, and precise +ideas as to how it was to look. He would hang about an anarchist +print-shop for several weeks, and have his stuff set up many times, +or would come and set it up for himself. In this way he tried all the +type in several printing offices; and at last in a shop in Brooklyn he +found, or claimed to find, what the Department of Justice believed was +the type from which the Valdinoci leaflets had been printed. It was the +office of an anarchist paper called _Il Domani_--“To-morrow”--and the +printers of this paper, two Italians by the name of Salsedo and Elia, +were arrested and taken to the offices of the Department of Justice in +the Park Row Building in lower New York. + +The genial custom of holding prisoners without allowing them to +communicate with their friends or even with an attorney is one for +which we have neglected to invent an American name. But for the custom +of torturing prisoners to make them confess, we have our jolly slang, +“the third degree,” and all judges and lawyers in America know that it +is employed, and all pretend not to know it, and when evidence obtained +by torture is produced in court, all judges and lawyers solemnly accept +it, and at the same time go on believing in the constitutional rights +of accused men. It is obvious that in no other way can the system of +inequality of property be maintained, and any one who denounces the +“third degree” is liable to suspicion of “redness.” + +Salsedo and Elia were held for three weeks in the Department of Justice +offices with no warrant of law. At last Salsedo succeeded in smuggling +out a letter to Vanzetti, who took it to the anarchist group in Boston. +They knew without being told that the two men were being tortured, for +the purpose of forcing them to implicate other anarchists in bombing +plots. On Sunday, April 25th, there was a meeting of the group and +it was decided that somebody must go to New York to consult with the +comrades there and see what could be done for the victims. The choice +fell upon Vanzetti, and he went, and called upon Carlo Tresca, editor +of _Il Martello_, whom he had never seen before. “Don’t you know me, +Carlo?” he said, gently. “I am Vanzetti.” He had been sending in +collections for the support of the paper, and occasionally writing +articles. Tresca embraced him and kissed him on both cheeks, Italian +fashion. + +The two of them set out down the street: Vanzetti no small man, but +outtowered by his companion, whom the strike-police used to call “the +bull.” In Mesaba, where the Back Bay families of Boston were holding +onto their hills of copper, they framed him for first degree murder, +and kept him in jail for nine months. They put three bullets into him, +at different times. One side of his face was disfigured, and during the +Paterson strike a newspaper published his picture with the caption, +“Who Will Be a Good Citizen and Make the Two Sides of This Face Alike?” +Seven times they arrested him during this desperate strike of the +silk-workers. Now the Department of Justice was anxious to get him +again, and was soon to do it--for the crime of demoralizing Italian +Catholic women by a two-line advertisement of a pamphlet on birth +control! + +Carlo and Bart were going to see an Italian lawyer who had been +hired to help Salsedo and Elia; he had offices directly underneath +the Department of Justice rooms--an arrangement that Carlo found +suspicious. But it was a problem how to change, because Carlo could +not get to the prisoners, and Salsedo’s wife had been so terrified by +the detectives that she did not know what to do. They saw the lawyer, +and Carlo wrote a note for the prisoners, and the lawyer took it +upstairs, and came back and reported that Elia had refused to read it, +and Salsedo was “getting crazy” and would not answer any questions. +This confirmed their worst fears, so they consulted an American lawyer, +connected with the Civil Liberties Union, who agreed to seek an +interview. Bart said he would go back to Boston and send fifty dollars +of his own money, and raise more to pay the lawyer. + +There was one other thing Bart wanted to do in New York--to see the +Statue of Liberty. He had missed the sight when he had come to this +country, because his steamer had arrived in a fog. And while it was +true that America was not living up to this statue, still it was a +world symbol of the cause to which Bart was dedicating his life. But +they were too late for the boat which goes out to Bedloe’s Island, and +Bart was so much disappointed he almost had tears in his eyes. “All the +years I have wanted to see it!” he said to Carlo. + + +XII + +The day Vanzetti went to New York Cornelia spent packing two trunks. +There had come a quite amazing telegram from Betty in Vienna: “Letitia +married Hubay my color discovered job flooey tired need recreation come +immediately positively summer Italian lake reply Hotel Royal.” Cornelia +called up Deborah, and first read the message and then translated it; +and after Deborah had voiced indignation at the treason of a poor +relation, and horror at the idea of her daughter unchaperoned in a +center of notorious gayety, she asked what Cornelia was going to do, +and actually hinted for her to join Betty. So much had four years of +defeat tamed the family! + +Cornelia had been exerting herself beyond her strength. She was +sixty-five years old now--as her daughters never failed to remind +her--and for four months she had not rested a day. A summer on an +Italian lake with Betty for company sounded very good, and she said she +would go, and Deborah undertook to have her husband use his influence +to get some kind of special passport immediately, and to engage passage +on a steamer, and even pay for it. Cornelia and Betty would be taken +back into the family again, and have the services of all-powerful males +to make smooth their paths in whatever part of the world they chose to +roam. + +The _Floritania_ was to sail from New York on Saturday afternoon, and +on Friday morning Vanzetti telephoned to Cornelia, still in Boston. +He had just arrived from New York and wanted to tell her the news. +She asked him to lunch with her, and heard from his lips the terrible +story of Salsedo and Elia. She knew the former of these two men, who +had worked as a printer in Boston, and had come to the “picanics”: a +frail little fellow, suffering from tuberculosis--“he very bad now,” +said Bart; “wife she think they keell heem.” Bart had been to the +savings-bank that morning and drawn out fifty dollars and sent it to +Carlo, according to his promise; and Cornelia said she also would +contribute fifty, and wrote a check. She felt quite rich that day, +having several of Rupert’s handsome and impressive bank-drafts. + +It seemed a shame to be going away for a holiday in a crisis like this. +But Bart said instantly that Cornelia must not think of it; he agreed +with her daughters that she was an old lady, and needed a rest, and +nothing should interrupt it. He talked about the Italian lakes, not +very far from where he had been born. “Sooch lovely countree! Gooda +people, work hard, live simple, naturale. You be happy, live outdoor, +walk in wood, pick little flower, send to me. I pick you mayflower, +send heem in letter.” Then he added, “Maybe I come, we take little boat +in Italian lake, Comrade Betty she sing little song! I think I like be +deport!” + +“Take care of yourself, Bart!” said Cornelia. “If you want to come, pay +your fare, so then you can return.” + +Bart laughed, and made his usual answer: “Anarchista musta make +propaganda!” She learned that even in the midst of these perils he was +organizing meetings and distributing literature. He was working with +that Italian, Boda--“you know heem, little feller, macaroni salesman, +he drive us one time for see dramma when we go Nick Sacc’.” + +“I remember him.” + +“He is got same little car. Is go bust in winter, but now he get +heem fixit, pretty soon he drive heem, we distriboot the books!” And +Bart laughed, like a bad boy. “Book wit’ red cover what so scare +polissman--you remember book is bring Coacci and Orciani one time in +Plymouth?” + +“Yes, very well.” + +“Is very bad book, molto pericoloso, is red anarchista cover, ‘Faccia à +Faccia col Nemico.’ Is reason for deporting Coacci--they find six copy +by heem, he say is the reason. He is gone two week now, maybe is Italy. +I get hees what you say--address--he got wife and children leav-èd +behind in Brockton. You maybe see heem in Italy.” + +“Have you got any of those books in your house, Bart?” + +“Shoore, two, t’ree copy, sell heem sometime. Nick Sacc’ is got more. +Nick he is not ’fraid, he go anyhow, is got passport, ticket, all +fixit. You not see Nick in Italy, he live in Sout’, way down in what +you call boot. He is happy feller, go Italy. Is got fifteen onderd +dollar save in bank--wife, she make heem sava ten dollar all week. Now +he go see rivoluzione, maybe help. Is young feller, can not stay here +when sooch great time come, can not be happy for trim edge of pretty +shoe for fine gentleman!” + +“You really think there’s a revolution coming in Italy?” + +“You watch, maybe see heem! Great sight for Yankee lady--nobody +harm you. Italian worker, he think America is free countree, good +countree--he think he make Italy be countree like America! He do not +know what happen to poor wop in Massachusett, he not read in paper how +Department of Joostice agent take poor seeck printer, torture heem, +beat heem, to make heem tell what Joostice agent want to be tell-èd!” + +So it was with Bart--difficult to make jokes, or to plan for a holiday, +because all brain-paths led to these dreadful cruelties and sufferings. +Impossible to enjoy a luncheon, neatly served by a much-puzzled Negro +maid! No, Bart would begin to twist bread-crumbs into little pellets, +which was very bad manners; his look would grow abstracted and far +off, and Cornelia would understand that he was up in the fourteenth +story of the Park Row Building in New York, where two comrades might at +that moment be hanging by their thumbs, or having their arms twisted +behind their backs.--As a matter of fact they were being beaten in the +face with blood-stained shoes, said to have been worn by the bomber +who had been blown to fragments in front of the home of the Quaker +Attorney-General. It was a refinement of imagination difficult for an +uncultured Italian to foresee. + + +XIII + +That night there was a theater-party, given by Rupert Alvin to +serve notice upon the world that all was well between himself and +his departing mother-in-law. They sat, very conspicuous, in a box, +Cornelia, Rupert and Deborah, their daughter Priscilla, Cornelia’s +nephew-in-law, Quincy Thornwell, and her second daughter, Alice +Thornwell Winters, who had given up her latest adorer in deference to +the family’s demands, and was now being rewarded in this public manner. +They saw an expensive and highly sophisticated comedy from New York, +dealing with people of their own social station who did not have to +give up anything, not even one another’s wives. After which the Alvin +limousine rolled to the station, and Cornelia and Deborah took the +midnight train to New York. + +Next morning they drove in a taxi-cab, and inspected the fashionable +shops, and Deborah bought a few things, but Cornelia did not buy, +because everything would be so much cheaper abroad. They lunched at one +of the fashionable hotels, and took another taxi to the steamer; and on +the way Cornelia said to the driver, “Where is the Park Row Building?” + +“Way downtown, ma’am, by City Hall Park.” + +“We don’t go near it?” + +“Not unless you want to make a trip.” + +“Never mind,” said Cornelia; and her daughter asked, “Why are you +interested in the Park Row Building?” + +“Oh, nothing; a couple of friends of mine have been tortured there for +the past three weeks.” + +It was like that with Cornelia nowadays--impossible to carry on polite +conversation, to enjoy any sort of holiday. Deborah had to shut +her lips tight together, and pretend she had not heard. And pretty +soon there was the mighty steamer; the crowds, and the partings, +and the waving of handkerchiefs, and the promises to take good care +of yourself, and to write often, and to give my love to So-and-so; +and then a tear or two, and the gangways coming up, and the great +steamer sliding out into the river, and the tugs straightening it for +the journey. And then the long panorama of towering white and gray +buildings, the magical sky-line of Manhattan-- + + _Did ever a dream-city rise from the sea + That was fairer, more fleeting and fragile than she?_ + +But Cornelia missed all the poetical ecstasies, because she was +thinking, “Which is the Park Row Building? And which is the fourteenth +story?” + +But there was no one to ask, and soon the sky-line faded, and there +was the Statue of Liberty, and she thought of Bart, and what it meant +to him. Then came the ocean, and the rolling of the ship, and she was +in her state-room for two days. When she came on deck again, there was +the daily newspaper, published from wireless reports for the benefit of +the vessel’s leisure class; and Cornelia read that at three o’clock on +the morning of the third of May, an Italian anarchist by the name of +Salsedo, held by the Department of Justice for complicity in the bomb +explosions of a year ago, had committed suicide by throwing himself +from the fourteenth story of the Park Row Building in New York. + +No more details of such a horror, to trouble the sleek and contented +passengers of the _Floritania_. But two more days passed, and the +ship’s newspaper contained another item, this time from Brockton, +Massachusetts. Two Italians, leaders of a bandit-gang, had been nabbed +by the police, charged with the murder of the paymaster and a guard +of the Slater and Morrill shoe factory of South Braintree, and the +theft of a payroll of sixteen thousand dollars. It was believed that +this band had been responsible for numerous payroll hold-ups in +Eastern Massachusetts during the past year, and the police expected to +nab the other members within a few hours. Cornelia read this, but it +meant nothing special, for there was hardly a day that papers did not +report hold-ups from some part of the country; and in this case the +news-service had not thought it worth while to mention that the names +of the two arrested men were Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE DETECTIVE MACHINE + + +I + + O fates that hold us at your choice, + How strange a web ye spin! + +Thus the poet; and never more aptly than of that web which the fates +wove about the lives of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Their two +friends Cornelia and Betty were to spend the better part of seven years +trying to disentangle this web; laying bare a story which for mystery +and melodrama has few equals. The narrative goes back to the previous +Christmas, two days prior to Cornelia’s last visit to Plymouth. + +At six o’clock on the morning of December 24, 1919, Bartolomeo Vanzetti +had been asleep, when one of his customers, Balboni, coming home from +night-work, stopped by to get his Christmas eels. Mrs. Fortini, Bart’s +landlady, woke him up, and he sold the eels to Balboni, and then +dressed, and swallowed his bread soaked in coffee, and got out his +little hand-cart and his scales and his basket and his packages of live +eels, all weighed and wrapped the day before. He had more than forty +orders to fill, because he was selling Christmas eels for thirty-five +cents a pound, whereas in Boston the Italians were paying as high as a +dollar and a quarter. He delivered several packages before daylight; +Mrs. Augusta Niccoli was still in bed, and called to him to put the +package on the kitchen table; she would pay later. + +Soon after seven o’clock came Beltrando Brini, having gobbled his +breakfast, excited because he was to have the baker’s horse to drive. +He met Bart on the street, expecting to go with him to the baker’s; but +Bart insisted that the ground was wet, and Trando must run back home +and get his rubbers. It took the boy fifteen or twenty minutes to find +them in the attic; meantime Bart met the elder Brini, coming home from +night-work; and then went to Bastoni, the baker, and was told that the +latter could not spare the horse and wagon--a development which caused +much grief to the twelve-year-old Trando. This was at seven-forty-five, +as the baker remembered, because at the moment Bart entered his home +the whistle of the cordage company blew, and no one who has guided his +life by that whistle ever thereafter fails to hear and heed it. “The +whistle is our bread and butter,” said Bastoni. + +It was during those same fateful minutes between seven-thirty and +seven-forty-five that there occurred what is known to history as “the +Bridgewater crime.” In the town of Bridgewater, some twenty-two miles +from Plymouth, a truck belonging to a shoe-company came rolling down +Broad Street. It contained the payroll for the week, and was driven +by a chauffeur and guarded by two other men. As it neared the corner +of Hale Street, there was an automobile standing, and two bandits +sprang out and opened fire. The guards returned the fire, and there +was a battle for a minute or two; until a street-car came down the +slight grade--the motorman having run back into the car to hide from +the bullets. The street-car came between the bandits and the truck, +and frightened the bandits so that they ran, and leaped into their +auto, and sped away. No one was hurt, so the “Bridgewater crime” was +classified as “attempted robbery.” + +The shoe-company employed the Pinkerton agency, and within a few hours +the Pinkerton men were on the spot, interviewing every one who had +witnessed the attempt. Their reports were known to the prosecution, +but not to the defense in the case until six or seven years later. +The reports proved that the witnesses of the crime could not agree +upon essentials, not even as to the make of the bandit-car. As for +description of the bandits, there was a wide range of choice, and the +statements of all four leading witnesses varied greatly from what they +were later to testify on the witness-stand concerning the crime. + +Being balked of clues, and at the same time hounded by clamor and +tempted by rewards, the authorities resorted to that method which +is the mainstay of American police procedure--the “stool pigeon.” +Underworld characters are paid to bring the gossip of their cafés and +hang-outs. So-and-so has got a new car; So-and-so-other has given a +diamond ring to his girl; So-and-so-else was heard to say that he +did such-and-such a job. It is manifest that such clues are open to +suspicion; jealousy and revenge play a large part in them; yet, +reënforced by the “third degree,” they form the method by which a good +part of the population of capitalist prisons is recruited. + +The “stools” were active in this Bridgewater crime; and what they +brought affords a problem for students of the occult and the mystical. +Let historians investigate and psychologists weigh and philosophers +speculate and make what they can of the fact: the Sacco-Vanzetti case, +which echoed like a series of detonations around the world, which was +destined to cause windows to be smashed in American legations in Buenos +Ayres and Geneva, and taxi-cab drivers to throw their fares into the +faces of American ladies in Paris--this cause célèbre had its origin in +a “detective machine” invented by an underworld character, and looked +into by an unnamed Italian woman in East Boston. + +To the Pinkerton agents came a “stool” with the rumor that a certain +A. C. Barr could tell about the Bridgewater crime. So there was a hunt +for A. C. Barr--height five-feet-ten, weight 175 pounds, age forty, +eyes dark, hair black, and so on. When found, the person proved to be +an Italian--Angelo Christoforo Barragini, or words to that effect. He +was questioned, and said, yes, he did know about the crime. How had he +learned it? He had invented a “detective machine,” with which you could +solve crime mysteries. It consisted of a crystal globe into which you +looked, and you there saw the crimes happening. A woman in East Boston +had used it and had seen the Bridgewater hold-up, committed by Italians +who lived in a little house on the outskirts of a town; there were four +or five of them, and they were dark, and had a car which they kept in a +shed in back of the house. + +Now, detectives are paid by the day while they are working, and this +has a tendency to stretch out their assignments. They followed up this +“detective machine” clue, taking into their confidence Mike Stewart, +the worried chief of police who kept the town of Bridgewater in order +between bandit-raids. Mike, a burly “small-town cop,” red-faced, +heavy-lidded, good-natured but not abnormally brilliant, took the +detectives in his car, and they drove about inspecting little houses +inhabited by Italians on the outskirts of towns. They found several, +and were suspicious of one, and caused alarm to the occupants; but +they found nothing definite. The Pinkerton reports were turned in, +and the Bridgewater crime was listed among the unsolved mysteries +in Massachusetts police history. The “detective machine” was stowed +away in the subconsciousness of Mike Stewart, ready to pop up again +sometime--according to the laws of the subconsciousness, understood in +all psychological laboratories. + + +II + +Three months later, on April fifteenth, came another sensation, known +to history as “the South Braintree crime.” In another “shoe-town,” +at three o’clock in the afternoon, the paymaster of the Slater and +Morrill company took the pay-money, about $16,000 in two steel boxes, +and accompanied by a guard, started to carry it from the office to the +factory, a distance of a couple of blocks. They were passing another +factory, the Rice and Hutchins, when two foreign-looking men who +had been lounging by the railing suddenly drew guns and opened fire +point-blank. They put four bullets into one victim, killing him at +once, and so wounded the other that he died the next day. They picked +up the boxes of money, and at the same instant an automobile came +rushing up the street and slowed, and the two bandits sprang in and +were driven away at high speed, shooting at the bystanders as they went. + +This very brutal and successful crime caused great excitement in the +factory towns which lie to the south of Boston. So many raids had +occurred during the past year, no town knew when its turn might come. +Rewards were offered, and again the Pinkerton detectives came and made +their investigations and turned in reports. Just as in the Bridgewater +case, the numerous witnesses disagreed about essential details of what +they had seen. They could not describe the car. One said Hudson, others +said Buick; one said green, another said dark blue, others said black; +one said shiny, another said spattered with mud. Many witnesses made +statements quite different from what they afterwards made on the stand. +So here was another unsolved crime--and a great clamor of the public, +demanding to know what police were for. There was no clue--save only a +memory lurking in the subconsciousness of Mike Stewart, waiting for a +chance to pop up! + +It so happened that the day after the South Braintree crime, while +all the countryside was ringing with the horror of it, there came to +see Mike Stewart a Federal immigration officer, looking for an Italian +anarchist by the name of Coacci, a shoe-worker sentenced to deportation +and out on bail; his time was up, but he had failed to appear, and the +officer had come to arrest him, and according to the custom he asked +for Mike’s help. So Mike sent a man with him to the Coacci home, which +happened to be a little house on the outskirts of a near-by village. + +They found the shoe-worker with an oval-shaped tin suitcase strapped +and ready, the inevitable green umbrella on top. Also there was another +Italian, a boarder by the name of Boda. Coacci had pleaded for delay +because his wife was sick; but here was his wife, she wasn’t sick, +and Coacci admitted that that had been a pretext, he had wanted a few +more days to settle his affairs. Now he was ready to go. It was late +at night, and the immigration officer said to wait till to-morrow; but +Coacci said no, he would go now and get it over with. Some one was +taking his wife to stay with relatives, and he was all packed up, and +would like to get the next day’s steamer from New York. + +They went, and Mike Stewart heard about it, and sat in his office +and thought it over. It was midnight, a time for ghosts and goblins. +Strange that a man should insist upon being taken away from a country +so great and so rich as America! This fellow Coacci was a Red, and the +weekly paper in Bridgewater was running a series of articles, prepared +by the Department of Justice, telling the small-town population of +America the crimes which the Reds were committing all over the world. +Mike pondered; and suddenly there occurred a phenomenon understood in +all psychological laboratories--there popped into his memory the woman +in East Boston who had looked into the “detective machine”! Here was +a little house on the outskirts of a town, occupied by Italians! In a +flash the whole story came to Mike: Coacci had been in on the South +Braintree crime, and the reason he was so anxious to get away was that +he had the sixteen thousand dollars! + +With another officer Mike went to the Coacci house, and there was Boda, +five feet-two inches high, swarthy, with a little black mustache, +soft-spoken, polite, chatty; a macaroni salesman, he told Mike; and his +car was an Overland, a small car, just now laid up for repairs. Yes, he +had a gun, and he let Mike examine it--a .32 Colt. There were no signs +of crime, so Mike went off and pondered some more, and then telephoned +to New York and learned that Coacci had sailed for Italy. They found a +trunk which he had left, and they broke it open, but found no payroll +money, only a few pieces of shoe-leather, which some shoe-workers +consider they have a right to “swipe” from the company when they get a +chance. + +Mike decided to arrest Boda, so he went to the house, but now it was +empty. Boda had disappeared, and the police found that suspicious. But +his little Overland car was in Johnson’s garage in West Bridgewater, +and Johnson was told to detain whoever came for the car, and thus have +a chance at the rewards. + +So the trap was set; and two weeks later came an Italian by the name of +Orciani, driving a motor-cycle with a side-car containing Boda. At the +same time by street-car came two other Italians, Sacco and Vanzetti. +All four were anarchists, members of the Galleani group; they had made +this rendezvous at Johnson’s garage, for a purpose which was to be a +subject of controversy for the next seven years. + +They went to Johnson’s house, and found that the car was repaired, but +had no license plates for the present year, so Johnson advised them not +to drive it; he kept them talking, while his wife ran to a neighbor’s +and telephoned to the police. But the four men became suspicious and +went away. Bart and Nick took the trolley to Brockton, and while they +were on the outskirts of the town a police officer entered the car and +drew a gun and ordered them, “Hands up!” Then was the time for them +to make use of the weapons they carried; for Bart to put into effect +his threat of not being taken alive. But alas, it was as Alfonsina +Brini had predicted, he didn’t know anything about using a gun. Pretty +soon came a second officer, and the prisoners were taken to the police +station and locked in cells. + +For years Bart had studied the life and death of “Comradda Gesu,” and +“made tears” for him. And now came a strange coincidence. The first +action of one of the policemen, upon having got this criminal safe +behind bars, was to come to the door of the cell and call him. Bart +came, meekly, and looked through the bars, whereupon the other spat +full in his face. + +The reason for this action was that among the documents found on Bart +was a letter from an anarchist friend, referring to the evil actions +of a certain priest, whom the writer called “a pig.” The policeman had +spat in defense of his religion, and turned away, fully satisfied in +his Catholic soul. His priests had not taught him to read the life and +death of Jesus; they had taught him that Jesus was a God, and if you +had asserted that Jesus was a working-class agitator, he would have +wanted to spit in your face also. But Vanzetti knew what had happened +to “Comradda Gesu” on the cross, and he wiped his face clean, and sat +upon the cot in his cell, with cold chills running up and down his +spine. + + +III + +Sitting in their separate dungeons that first dreadful night, a common +thought was in the minds of both Sacco and Vanzetti. Less than three +days had elapsed since their comrade, Salsedo, had thrown himself, or +had been thrown, to his death. Were they going to share his fate? One +duty was obvious--to avoid saying anything that would involve other +comrades. So when they were cross-questioned, they denied that they +knew Boda, denied that they knew Orciani, and told lies as to where +they had been and what they had been doing. These lies were easily +exposed, and constituted the famous “consciousness of guilt,” upon +which the prosecution was to insist for seven years. + +In spite of all fears, Vanzetti had refused to give up his appeal +to the workers. “Anarchista musta make propaganda!” He had planned +a meeting for the ninth of May, four days off, in Brockton, and had +drafted a circular, which Nick had in his pocket. So the police had +something else to study and discuss: a series of questions, crude, yet +with a primitive eloquence that disturbed even the dullest mind. “You +have fought all the wars. You have worked for all the capitalists. You +have wandered over all the countries. Have you harvested the fruits of +your labors, the price of your victories? Does the past comfort you? +Does the present smile on you? Does the future promise you anything? +Have you found a piece of land where you can live like a human being +and die like a human being? On these questions, on this argument and on +this theme, the struggle for existence, Bartolomeo Vanzetti will speak.” + +It is an old idea, and has been haunting the minds of dreamers for +thousands of years; you may find it voiced by the prophet Isaiah +twenty-five hundred years ago. “And they shall build houses, and +inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of +them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, +and another reap.” It is interesting as a symptom of the mental state +of the time, that shortly before the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti, a +Christian clergyman in the city of Winnipeg, Canada, had been indicted +for the crime of quoting these ancient Hebrew words! + +Among the questions asked of Bart and Nick was: “Are you an anarchist? +Are you a communist? Do you believe in the overthrow of the United +States government by violence?” These were the conventional deportation +questions, and were reassuring to the prisoners in fear of torture. +Bart answered them gently and tactfully. “I like things a little +different,” said he. When a friend came to see him next day, he smiled +and said, “Well, I get free trip to Italy!” So it was that Cornelia and +Betty, enjoying their second week of vacation, received a letter from +Fay--fifteen years old now, and quite a cultured young lady: + + “DEAR NONNA: + + “I write to tell you the sad news that Bart and Nick Sacco are in + the police station at Brockton. Bart asked to tell you he is not + treated bad, except for being spit on once. The lawyer says he will + be surely deported, because the police got a circular which he + wrote about a meeting to protest about the killing of Salsedo. Bart + says tell you he is happy because he will come to see you soon, and + please stay on the Italian lake and do not worry, because you have + worked too hard and should have a rest. As Nick was going anyhow + it will save him the fare so it is all right. I write in a hurry + not knowing when there goes a steamer, and Bart is afraid you might + read it in the paper and be worried.” + +That was all for a week; then another letter: + + “I am sorry to have to say that the arrest of Bart and Nick is + worse than what I wrote you. The police pretend to think that they + drove an automobile and shot two men and stole a payroll in South + Braintree last month. It is so silly that we cannot believe it yet, + and Bart himself does not believe it, he says it is just to get + something on him to deport. The comrades here have all paid money + and engaged a lawyer to get him off. Bart insists that I must tell + you there is nothing to worry for, as he was in Plymouth all that + day and talked with many people, like Mr. Corl who was fixing a + boat. And of course when they know about Bart they will not think + he could be a bandit. It will make you laugh to hear the police are + quite sure that Bart was the driver of the bandit-car, as you know + that he never had anything to do with a machine, and papa says he + is so clumsy he cannot drive a wheelbarrow. The comrades have found + a rich storekeeper who will put up bail, so we hope to have Bart + with us again soon. Please write him a nice letter in our care and + tell him you are not worrying, because it is something he talks + about each time we see him, that your vacation must not be spoiled + for him. You know how like him that is, thinking about everybody + else but his own trouble.” + + +IV + +From Italian lakes the land goes back by stages, rising higher and +higher into the sky, and each stage has been taken in charge by +generations of strong arms and backs, and made into orchards and +gardens. Every smallest corner of soil has been terraced and buttressed +with walls, and dug and planted with a row of olive trees--or a row +of onions--up to where the bare rocks stick out and the white clouds +gather. Here and there in sheltered places are cabins built of stone, +and in them women breed prolifically, and send their progeny to +Massachusetts to be known as “wops.” + +The lakes are blue, and the sky almost as deep a blue; by the middle +of May it is summer, and all the land is bursting with vegetation of a +thousand shades of green and olive-gray. The air is balmy, and ladies +from Europe and America put on gay dresses and wander about in the +gardens of villas and hotels, or drift on the water in little boats, +holding bright parasols overhead to protect their creamy complexions. +Everything is peaceful, and it is possible to float and sing “Kennst +du das Land?”--and have no idea that the peasants on the hillsides are +seething with hatred of their landlords, and forming coöperatives and +revolutionary societies, preparing to dump off their backs the age-old +burden of parasitism. + +Here in a little inn by the water-side Cornelia found her granddaughter +Betty Alvin, carefully chaperoned by Joe Randall, American socialist +journalist aged twenty-eight, and Pierre Leon, French communist editor +aged forty-four. In the days before the war if a young lady from the +Back Bay had traveled about Europe with two gentlemen, she would have +caused herself to be ostracized for life; and maybe it was still so, +Betty wasn’t sure--but she was sure that she didn’t want to know any +one who didn’t want to know her. These two men between them had much +important information, so she had begged them to come to this Italian +lake while she waited for Grannie. + +Pierre Leon was stocky and broad-shouldered, with a rosy face and +black mustache twisted to points. He had lived for years in London +teaching French, and in Berlin teaching English; he knew enough +Italian to attend labor meetings, and now was studying Russian because +revolutionary events demanded it. He had been an anarchist, then an +anarcho-syndicalist, for a long time a left wing socialist, and now +was a communist suspected of a right wing deviation. He had read most +books that had ever been published on these subjects, and most good +literature besides; he could talk brilliantly about anything, and +liked nothing so much as having some one to argue with until three in +the morning. He was supposed to be resting for his health, but it was +difficult for Cornelia to see where either health or rest came in, for +he lit one cigarette from another, and would work all morning writing +an article, study labor and radical papers all afternoon, and argue all +night about what he had read. + +His qualifications as chaperon for an American young lady were +peculiar. He took toward all women the attitude of the continental +male, and this had caused in the American young lady a vigorous +reaction, which in return had caused in the continental male an amused +curiosity. Said Betty, “He thinks the purpose of woman is to submit +herself, and that every woman will, if the man is fascinating enough. +But I have made him understand that I’m a queer little New England +old maid, so now he’s a good sport and studies me.” Betty added that +Grannie was not to dislike Pierre on that account, because it was +his environment, all European men were that way, especially since the +war--the only difference was that the radical men could let you alone, +because they had other things to think about, whereas the leisure-class +men had nothing to do but chase women. + +Joe Randall came from Virginia, and had wavy brown hair and a charming +slow drawl. Cornelia had met him in Russia, so she knew his story; he +had come as a young college graduate to an attaché’s position in our +legation at St. Petersburg, and had seen the war, the revolution, and +the diplomatic intrigues. This had made him into a radical, he had +kicked over the traces, and now was a free-lance journalist, writing +mostly for papers which could not pay him anything. But he had a small +income, and was expecting to shake the world with a book about the +“White Terror,” on which he worked diligently every morning, and talked +all the rest of the day if any one would listen. + +It was evident that Joe’s eyes followed Betty wherever they could, and +Cornelia, being still an old-fashioned grandmother, wanted to know +about it. “He is a dear,” said Betty, “and I have to admit that he +makes me shiver now and then. But I’m not sure we shall hit it off. I’m +trying to make sure.” + +“What is the problem?” + +“Well, several. In the first place, I’ll have to propose, because Joe +is poor, and he thinks I am going to be rich. I’ll have to explain that +I’ll escape being rich if I marry a Red. Also, there’s his wife.” + +“Wife?” echoed Cornelia--but managing to keep too much surprise out of +her voice. + +“Didn’t you know he had one? She went back to New York several years +ago. She doesn’t love him.” + +“Are you sure?” + +“Joe is. It seems that she’s reactionary, and you know enough to +realize that no man and woman can be happy when they hold opposite +opinions on the class struggle. That’s what I am concerned about--I +think I’m turning into a communist, and Joe still ties himself to the +old social-democracy that was killed in the war and doesn’t know it.” + +“I see,” said Cornelia. Her heart warmed to Joe, because she did not +want Betty to go with the fighting crowd. But she must not say so! + +“You know,” said the girl, “I think it’s a form of our Anglo-Saxon +egotism, we think we can change our social system by a method different +from all the rest of mankind. We have such a marvelous constitution, +and such a wise electorate, we can do it step by step--and all the +while the truth is we don’t intend to change a thing, but to smash +anybody that dares a move. No rough stuff--except what the possessing +class needs in its business. Pierre quotes Lenin’s definition of the +state: ‘a monopoly of violence.’ Don’t you see it, Grannie?” + +“I am still one of the sentimentalists, Betty dear.” + +“Yes, I know, and you’ll back up Joe in all our wrangles, no doubt. +Well, he needs you, for he’s got all current history against him--to +say nothing of the ruling class of the world!” + + +V + +To this quartette of assorted thinkers came the news about Sacco and +Vanzetti. When the first letter was read, Cornelia said it would be +pleasant to have Bart here. But Joe Randall smiled dryly and told her +not to count too much upon it; for capitalist policemen were not so +eager to provide their victims with vacations on Italian lakes. When +the second letter came, he said, “I told you so.” + +“But it’s too absurd!” cried Cornelia. “They are innocent!” + +“They have to prove it,” said Joe. + +And Pierre Leon eyed the old lady with a quizzical expression. “Don’t +forget, comrade,” said he, “it sometimes happens that anarchists are +guilty.” Then, seeing Cornelia’s startled look, he added, “I was an +anarchist myself for years; and I assure you I wasn’t always innocent!” + +Said Betty, “You mustn’t say that to Grannie. She is soft-boiled.” + +Pierre was interested in American slang, which he said was a new +contribution to the world’s poetry. He asked about this phrase, and +then went on: “People that are soft-boiled had better not go wandering +about in the radical movement, because they may get their shells +broken.” He went on to say that about anarchists you could never make a +general statement, each one was a law to himself. You had to know him +before you could say what he would do--and even then you didn’t always +know. + +“Well, we know Bart,” insisted Cornelia; “and we know he is no bandit.” + +“And the other one?” + +“I don’t know him so well, I only met him two or three times. But he’s +a gentle, soft-spoken young fellow--” + +“Which means absolutely nothing,” said Pierre. “Even your American +two-gun-men have been that; I think it’s a tradition, out on the +western plains, that your deadliest sheriffs have been mild-mannered +men. The first thing you have to know about an anarchist is what +leaders he follows.” + +“Bart and Nick belong to the Galleani group.” + +“But Galleani is a militante. If you don’t believe that, go down to +Milano, or wherever he’s living now, and hear him. Who gave you the +idea he is a pacifist?” + +“I didn’t have that idea. Bart told me he was a militant--” + +“But then, when an anarchist tells you he’s a militant, why don’t you +believe him?” Pierre’s face indicated that this was one more droll +aspect of American ladies. “Understand me, Comrade Thornwell, it is +good of rich and cultured ladies to take an interest in the exploited +workers; but you suffer always from the fact that you can’t possibly +realize how they actually feel.” + +“Don’t forget, Comrade Leon, I worked for a year and a half in a +cordage plant, and lived on the wages.” + +“I know, Betty told us; and I never heard anything like it. But all the +same, if you will pardon me, it wasn’t practically real, because if you +had been ill or out of a job, you’d have gone back to your family; it +wasn’t psychologically real, because you always knew you could, and you +had the moral support of knowing you were a lady. No worker has that; +so don’t be shocked if you should some day learn that some workers +commit what the bourgeoisie calls crimes in the struggle against their +exploiters.” + +There was a pause, while Cornelia digested these uncomfortable words. +At last she said, “Crimes such as banditry, Comrade Leon?” + +“Well, that’s a question that calls for definitions. If you mean by +banditry, robbing for private advantage, the answer is no. If you mean +robbing for the cause, the answer is, there have been such anarchists: +not many, but a few. Take Ravachol; he robbed the rich and gave the +money to the poor, and boasted of it.” + +“What do other anarchists say of that?” + +“I have heard a thousand arguments about it. It’s a practical question, +whether such a course helps the cause; some say yes, some say no. A +few anarchists repudiated Ravachol, others endorsed him--Elisée Reclus +among the latter, and he is a god of the movement, a great scientist +and a great soul. You see, Comrade, it is difficult for any anarchist +to repudiate another who has acted from good motives. There are two +things a real anarchist will never do; one is to betray a comrade, +and the other is to profit at the expense of the cause. So long as he +is loyal, and risks his own life for the cause, nothing he does can +be repudiated; that lies in the nature of the doctrine, because he is +a law to himself, and has a right to be that, and other anarchists +proclaim that right. How can they control him? How can they refuse to +stand by him?” + +“That ought to frighten me,” said Cornelia, “but we New Englanders were +raised on that creed--we called it Transcendentalism.” + +“I know,” said Pierre. “There are few anarchist book shops without +copies of Thoreau’s ‘Duty of Civil Disobedience.’” + +“But we managed to keep the doctrine from involving the right to kill +other people.” Thus Cornelia, sure of her Boston. + +“Did you really?” asked Pierre. “Stop and think now!” There was +something in his tone that told Cornelia he was going to have fun with +her. The twinkle was also in Betty’s eye and in Joe’s, so she knew they +were in the secret. “Think hard!” said the Frenchman, and when she gave +it up, he said, “Did you ever hear of a practicing anarchist by the +name of John Brown?” + +“Well,” said Cornelia, hesitating; “I suppose he did kill people--” + +“Yes, do suppose it! It so happens we have been reading a life of +him--and while you are talking about bandit-raids, consider the one at +Harper’s Ferry. It was a surprise attack, you remember; it was going to +give the slaves a chance to rise and get hold of an arsenal with some +guns; and to that great end, four white men, quite innocent, harmless +fellows, not even slave-holders, were shot dead in the streets of a +country town. And remember, they took him and hanged him as a common +felon, and were certain that history would agree with them. But up +in Boston your Wendell Phillips proclaimed in a public meeting, ‘He +has abolished slavery in Virginia!’ And some anarchist poet wrote four +lines--Comrade Betty, can you say those lines that you like so much?” + +And Betty, who had been smiling, became suddenly serious, and recited: + + _Not any spot six feet by two + Will hold a man like thee! + John Brown will tramp the shaking earth + From Blue Ridge to the sea._ + + +VI + +Needless to say, there were many questions Cornelia wanted to ask of +Pierre Leon. She realized that the time for dodging was past, it was up +to her to get clear in her own thinking. She admitted to these three +friends what before she had feared to admit even to herself: the doubts +as to whether it could be true, as the government and the newspapers +took for granted, that some of the Italian anarchists had been doing +that wholesale bombing. + +Said Pierre, “Set this down for certain at the outset--all militant +anarchists believe in bombs. Not all make them--any more than +all Christians sell their goods and give to the poor. It is too +uncomfortable and dangerous. But the faith calls for it, ‘anarchist +christenings,’ is the phrase--and when some young enthusiast comes +along and wants to practice, the preachers can’t very well say no. And +when the boys get into trouble, then of course the movement has to +rally and defend them.” + +“And that, of course, includes telling the world they are innocent?” It +was Joe, with a touch of socialist sarcasm. + +“Naturally. It goes without saying that anybody who will fight will +try to deceive the enemy. What you have to get clear is the central +doctrine of anarchism, that property used for exploitation is theft. +That makes capitalist society a gigantic bandit-raid, a wholesale +killing; any killing you have to do to abolish it, or to cripple it, +always is a small matter in comparison. Twenty years ago, when I used +to argue questions like this, they were more or less academic; our +generation had never known war. But now take what has happened, and +you realize that to the working-class theorist, human life has ceased +to have any value, compared with the bringing on of the revolution. We +know that capitalism means one more world slaughter after another; it +means that inevitably, you might say by definition. Every capitalist +society has to compete for markets and raw materials, or else cease +to be a capitalist society. It intends to take our lives by the tens +of millions; and are we denied the right to save ourselves--because, +forsooth, the effort means killing a few capitalists and kings +and judges and police spies and what not? You can see that, to an +anarchist, such an idea is childish.” + +“Or to a communist,” added Joe Randall, the socialist. + +Said the other, “Between the anarchist and the communist it is a +question of technique. I once heard an American labor leader put it +effectively: ‘Never use violence--until you have enough of it!’ That +will serve for the communist formula--and I leave it for Joe to explain +the polite social-democratic program of killing a tiger half an inch at +a time.” + +So they wrangled for a while, saying sharp and bitter things with +perfect good humor. Pierre declared that some day he would have +the job of putting Joe into jail--and maybe Cornelia, too, because +she believed in free speech for capitalists, and might insist upon +practicing her theory. Maybe Betty would be putting her own Grannie +into jail--stranger things had happened in revolutions. To which Joe +replied that it was people of Pierre’s way of talking that made a +peaceable solution so difficult; they brought on reaction, and set the +workers back for decades. So for a while Sacco and Vanzetti were left +in the Brockton police-station, forgotten. + +Until Betty said, “You are getting poor Grannie so balled up with your +theories and your shocking facts that she’ll lose heart and be scared +out of the movement.” + +“For God’s sake,” exclaimed Pierre, “don’t let me do that! In the first +place, I don’t know a thing about your Bart and Nick, they may be two +harmless dreamers. And anyhow, innocent or guilty, no working-class +rebel ever did a tenth part of the harm to society that society has +done to him. No one of them ever carries a tenth part of the guilt that +is borne by the judges and officials who prosecute him. Think of the +guilt of those who caused the war, in order to extend their markets or +to save their investments!” + +That was coming close to home for Cornelia and Betty. Said the former, +thinking of her three perfectly self-satisfied sons-in-law, “Can there +be guilt when there is no consciousness of guilt?” + +Pierre answered, “That is the sort of question the Puritan conscience +likes to wrestle with. But let us set aside theories, and consider the +practical problem of labor defense. Whether an accused worker is guilty +or whether he is innocent is a matter you can almost never guess in +advance. If he’s guilty, he won’t tell you, and it would be wretched +taste for you to ask. On the other hand, maybe the police have got the +wrong fellow; often enough they know it, and don’t care, because they +figure he’s done something equally bad, and anyhow he’s the sort that +is safer in jail. Then again, maybe it’s a provocateur’s job--something +the bosses have planted, in order to have a pretext for raiding offices +and smashing presses and throwing leaders into jail. Either way, you +can’t know until you get in up to your ears. You may find you’ve got a +chance to expose the police and win public sympathy--or you may have +something that will discredit the movement and turn the public against +you for years.” + +“A complicated matter, being a revolutionist!” remarked Cornelia. + +And Pierre replied, “You bet your shoes it is--to quote your American +slang.” + + +VII + +On the morning after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti came Mike +Stewart, bringing his “hunch,” which was destined to control their +lives and deaths forever after. Mike himself called it by the more +dignified name of a “theory”; he told it to the district attorney, who +liked it so well that he rented Mike from the town of Bridgewater, and +for a year thereafter the policeman had nothing to do but search out +facts to fit his “theory.” + +A part of it was that the same bandits who had committed the South +Braintree hold-up in April had committed the Bridgewater attempt of +the previous December--the one which had been seen in the “detective +machine.” The police proceeded to collect some fifty persons who had +witnessed one or the other of these crimes. Orciani was arrested at +his factory, so there were three bandits to be identified. The usual +procedure is to mix up the suspects with a number of other men and +see if the witnesses can pick the guilty ones. But in the dingy old +police-station of Brockton the three suspects were put in a room, and +the witnesses were brought in and told that these were the bandits, and +could they recognize them? Sacco and Vanzetti were sleepless, unshaved, +unwashed, uncombed--a condition in which a leader of fashion looks like +a bandit. But even so, the witnesses were uncertain, some said they +might be the right men, others said they were surely not. + +Several witnesses had seen the bandits in special circumstances, for +example with a cap on; so Sacco was ordered to put on a cap, and did +so. Another had seen the bandit crouched down; Sacco was ordered to +crouch, and the witness thought he looked more like a bandit that way. +Another had seen the bandit pointing a gun; Sacco was ordered to act as +if he were pointing a gun, and the witness was quite sure that made him +look more like a bandit. Witnesses who were obdurate, and wouldn’t stop +saying they were the wrong men, were dropped by the prosecution, and it +was up to the defense to find them if they could. In a great many cases +they did so--but too late. + +The police had found a Buick car abandoned in some woods, two miles +from Coacci’s home, and it was part of the “theory” that this had +been used in the two crimes. This “bandit-car” was now brought to the +police-station, and Sacco and Orciani were loaded into it, and with +a detail of the state police, heavily armed, were taken for a tour +of the shoe-towns. Word went in advance, “The bandits are coming,” +and huge crowds gathered. At the time of the South Braintree crime +several workers had run to the windows of the shoe-factory and seen +the bandit-car driving away. Now the scene was reënacted, with these +persons looking from the windows to judge if Sacco and Orciani looked +like the men they had seen. The crowds, meantime, did not wait for a +decision; they knew these were the bandits, and tried to beat them, +and did spit in their faces. It was a grand public circus, and by +means of it the police persuaded three shoe-workers to recognize the +bandits, and to stay persuaded until the preliminary hearing a week +or two later, when they changed their minds and said they couldn’t be +sure. When the trial came, a year later, they had changed again, and +took the stand and identified Sacco and Vanzetti as the bandits, and +made three of the five witnesses upon whom the august Commonwealth of +Massachusetts relied to the death. + +On the day after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti the three prisoners +were arraigned before a magistrate. Orciani was charged with operating +a motor-cycle without a tail-light--although his motor-cycle had had +a tail-light and it had been lighted; Sacco and Vanzetti were charged +with carrying revolvers without a license. Bail was denied, on the +pretext of a wartime law. The three victims were taken back to jail, +and the task of fitting the facts to the “theory” was continued. + +A week later there was a hearing upon the charge of murder; and here +an unexpected thing happened--the number of bandits was reduced to +two. The district attorney stated that the identification of Orciani +was not sufficient. That seemed strange, because more persons had been +willing to think that Orciani looked like the bandit than had been +willing to think it about either Sacco or Vanzetti. What had happened +was that Orciani had been able to produce an American alibi. Not merely +had he punched his time-clock in the factory that morning, but he +could produce his boss and several other “white men” to swear that he +had been at his machine all day. It was only three weeks back, and he +hadn’t missed a day. + +Also it developed that Sacco was to be let off from the Bridgewater +charge--because he, too, had an American alibi. But on the day of the +South Braintree affair, according to his own story, he had gone up to +Boston to get his passports; he had lunched at a café with friends, and +had gone to the consulate, where they remembered him for the comical +reason that he had been told to provide a photograph for his passport, +and had brought one of great size. A clerk remembered it; but then, he +was an Italian, and Italian alibis do not “go” in Yankee police-courts. + +As for poor Bart, alas, he had nothing but Italian alibis for +both dates. On the day before Christmas he had sold eels to fifty +housewives, and during the South Braintree crime he had been digging +clams and bait. But such things do not count against a policeman’s +“hunch,” so Bart was charged with both crimes; the prosecution was +going to prove that he was the bandit who had stood on Broad Street, +in Bridgewater, firing a shotgun at the pay-truck, and also that he +was the driver of the murder-car at South Braintree--he who had never +touched a steering-wheel in his poor proletarian life! The moral of +these developments was clear to sarcastic young radicals such as Betty +Alvin--that good little wops had better stay close to the boss, and +punch a time-clock four times a day. Instead of going home at night, +they would be safer kept in pens. + + +VIII + +A lawyer had been engaged to defend Sacco and Vanzetti at these +preliminary hearings, an Irish gentleman by the name of John Vahey. +Some lawyers with criminal practice employ what are known as “runners” +to bring them business; and whether Mr. Vahey knew it or not, it was +an Italian generally known as a “runner” who persuaded the friends of +Vanzetti to employ Mr. Vahey. The lawyer himself was no “runner,” but +a stout gentleman who did not hurry about to find witnesses for his +client; he was content to let the Brinis fetch the wops to his office. +He was active in the politics of Plymouth County, and intimate with +those who controlled its affairs, including the district attorney, Fred +Katzmann; he was an “associate judge,” and went into an arrangement +to share business with Katzmann. It has been said in Vahey’s defense +that Vanzetti was probably the first innocent man he had ever had as +a client. Very possibly Vanzetti was wrong in his fixed idea that his +lawyers had “thrown him down.” He was a hard client to defend, because +he persisted stubbornly in denying that he had been to Johnson’s garage +with Boda the night of his arrest; he would not permit any capitalist +lawyer to persuade him to say a word that might involve another comrade. + +The friends of Sacco in Boston had also engaged a lawyer to defend +him. Before a month had passed there were three lawyers in the case, +and one of them was young and confiding, and told how he had heard one +associate say to the other, “See if you can get Sacco to tell where +he buried the money, and we’ll divide it.” A part of the “theory” +became that Sacco had buried the treasure in the garden of his home, +which belonged to Mr. Kelley, his boss; and in each of the next seven +springtimes, when Mr. Kelley’s father got ready to plant potatoes, a +thrill would go through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Sacco’s boss +was digging for the treasure! It was hard on poor Nick, because it +implied that Mr. Kelley thought he was guilty, whereas Mr. Kelley had +trusted Nick as night-watchman. + +Cornelia and Betty sent money to help interest these legal gentlemen. +Cornelia and Betty meant to stay in one place all summer, so they would +not need Betty’s full allowance. They rowed on the lake, and climbed +the mountain paths, and listened to all-day and all-night arguments on +the theories of anarchism, syndicalism, communism and socialism, with +the history of these movements in a dozen countries for three-quarters +of a century. There came another letter from Plymouth, telling of +developments, with a message from Bart insisting that Nonna was not to +worry, and not to cut short her rest. + +The idea of accusing Bart of the Bridgewater crime seemed to Cornelia +such madness, she could not take it seriously. It was a case of +mistaken identity, which would be cleared up when it was investigated. +“They can’t make such a charge against a man who has lived in a town +for eight years; and when he went about that whole day, peddling eels +to all North Plymouth! If it had been any day but the day before +Christmas, one might say there was a chance of getting the dates mixed; +but everybody knows that Italians eat eels on Christmas, and Bart can +prove that he had a barrel of them. It seems as if somebody has gone +crazy.” + +“The bourgeoisie always goes crazy when its property-rights are +threatened,” said Pierre Leon. + +“But I was there the day after Christmas,” persisted Cornelia, “and +they told me all about what they had done--Bart and Trando, and +the barrel of eels, and the baker’s horse, and how Trando would +never believe Bart’s promises again. Surely I could testify to that +conversation!” + +“They might call it hearsay,” said Joe Randall. “And anyhow, the jury +would say it was a put up job--to fool you and prepare an alibi. The +Italians are cunning, you know!” + +They comforted themselves with the thought of the law’s delay. +Criminal cases took a long time to get on the calendar in +Massachusetts; and meantime, since bail was refused, there was nothing +Cornelia and Betty could do. But the law is like a sleeping tiger, +capable of swift and deadly leaps when it is roused. The second week +in June there came a cablegram; the situation was very bad, and Bart +was to be tried for the Bridgewater crime in less than two weeks. +There was just time for Cornelia and Betty to get a steamer; so the +little radical party broke up at an hour’s notice. Pierre Leon would +go back to his desk, and Joe Randall decided that he knew enough about +the White Terror in Europe, and his book ought to have a chapter on +Massachusetts! + + +IX + +Their steamer came in to New York one afternoon, and there on the pier, +waving handkerchiefs, were Deborah and Priscilla. Betty’s sister was +engaged to be married to a young mountain of copper; an enormously +important alliance, which had already supplied a column of genealogy +to the _Transcript_. The ladies were going to plunder the Fifth Avenue +shops of their treasures; also the father, Rupert Alvin, was in +town, on business connected with Jerry Walker’s felt-plants, now in +his care. They were going to a musical comedy that evening, and had +planned diversions for several days. Betty had been away a whole year, +and any normal rich girl would have brought home several trunk-loads +of presents for relatives and friends. But here was this madcap +pair, returning precipitately, with no purchases whatever--and very +mysterious about it, obliged to decline diversions, and take the night +train for Boston. After much nagging, Deborah got it out of them--they +were hurrying to attend the trial of an Italian anarchist bandit! And +they did actually go--Betty in spite of mother, father, and sister, +Cornelia in spite of daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. + +Bart was in the County Farm Jail at Plymouth, and during the afternoon +was brought from his cell into the reception room. He had on a coarse +gray shirt and trousers, badly shrunken; his outdoor color was gone, +he was haggard and thin, and his walrus mustache drooped mournfully. +But, oh, so glad he was to see them! His face lighted up, and he came, +half running, holding out his hands; the messages of his soul leaped +to them, love and pity and heart-breaking grief. Poor old Bart--the +greatest lover of freedom Cornelia had ever known--shut up behind steel +bars! Tears started into the eyes of both the women, and the prisoner’s +voice broke as he tried to speak. “Oh, Nonna, I so sorry for spoiling +your holiday! Oh, Betty, I so sorry for bringing you to sooch place!” + +“It’s all right, Bart, we had a good holiday, and now we’re here, and +we’re going to get you out in short order.” It was Betty speaking, +brave little soul--no melancholy while she was in charge! “Cheer up, +old pal, it’s going to be easy. This is Comrade Joe Randall, who has +followed me all the way from Italy because he thinks I am going to be +silly enough to marry him.” + +Bart turned quickly to the good-looking young fellow. “I glad for +meeting you, Comrade Jorandall. If Comrade Betty marry you be very +lucky feller.” + +“Oh, I’m not sure yet,” said Betty. “I’ve got to make a real Red out of +him. Now he’s nothing but a pale pink, one of those riformistas that we +don’t trust. But he’s going to help get you off, and that will educate +him.” + +Their feeble effort at jollity came to a speedy end, and they talked +about the trial, only two days away. “My enemy have got me,” said Bart; +and they knew without asking who this enemy was, the profit system, +embodied in Plymouth by the great cordage company from which Bart +had helped to extort two hundred thousand dollars every year, in the +form of higher wages to its workers. “I think the go-vérnment not let +me ever get away,” said Bart, and Betty’s cheerfulness could make no +impression on this firm distrust. + +“You see what they do,” he said. “They cannot prove Nick and me at +South Braintree, have not got evidence for sending two men to electric +chair. So they think, first we take Vanzett’, we fixit him for +Bridgewater job, we make him convicted. So when it come trial for South +Braintree job, jury will say, one of them fellers is bandit, he is +convicted, it is not so hard for believing they both should die.” + +“But Bart, it’s crazy to try to prove that you were in Bridgewater that +morning!” It was Cornelia speaking. + +“They have got it fixit, Nonna, they prove what they want. I tell all +friend not fool self. They have got everything, they are friends with +our lawyers.” + +“Oh, Bart!” + +“I sure of it. Come big feller, lazy, smoke big cigar--is what for +Italian worker pay money, buy him big cigar. He is funny man, he make +joke, he whistle. I say, ‘I am innochent.’ He make funny face, he say, +‘Very bad, they put you wit’ Sacc’!’ He stick up finger in air, he make +it go round, so”--Bart made a spiral motion, his index finger going up. +“He say, ‘Pfist!’ Is hardest work he ever do for poor wop.” + +“I thought they had an investigator getting witnesses!” + +“Have got Italian feller--he is spy for go-vérnment. He get all +comrades put up money, buy him automobile, so he can go look for +witness. But it pass many days, he not bring witness. Is plenty +witness in Plymoot’, but it must Brinis find them. Is maybe witness in +Bridgewater, could find people say I not look like bandit, but cannot +get them.” + +“Bart,” said Betty, “we are not spies for the government, and we’re +going to rent a car right away, and take the Brinis this evening and +see if we can find some witnesses in Bridgewater. Cheer up now, we’re +really going to help you. Joe here is an expert investigator; he is +writing a book on the White Terror in Europe.” + +“Is same terror here, Comrade Joe, is plenty people could tell I am +innochent, but will not dare speaking. Is polissman saw me on street, +talk wit’ me in morning, ask for price of eel, but will not tell. Is +express office man, he knows I got barrel of eel, but he will not let +us look for paper--what you call it, receipt. Is superintendent of +cordage plant, you know him. He know I was in Plymoot’ that day--but +see if he come for witness! You saw him, Nonna, always, ever since +strike, four year, he walk across street when I come, is not willing +for meet me. Is may be hate, may be fear--but see if he help me getting +out from jail! No, it is price I pay for eight year I try to educate +worker. What is it they have said about Gesu, Nonna?” + +“‘He stirreth up the people.’” + +“Joosta so! And I am joosta same age, Nonna, I am thirty-two, like it +was Comrade Gesu when his enemy put him in jail! I have readed about +him--it is book what they give for wop to read in jail, because all +church people have not know how bad rivoluzionario was Gesu!” + +This was one of the themes Bart liked to talk about; he forgot his own +desperate peril for a few minutes. When the three visitors went out, +Joe Randall said, “This much is certain whatever happens, the police +have given us a good martyr!” + + +X + +The little party set out in a car that evening, and going from house +to house at the scene of the Bridgewater hold-up, they found two +Italians who had witnessed the crime, and had told the police that the +bandit who stood on the street and fired a shotgun was a short man +with a closely cropped mustache. These witnesses had been rejected +by the police, as not fitting the “theory,” and they were willing to +appear for the defense. There were other witnesses who might have been +found, if there had been more time, and if the seekers had realized +the urgency. But Cornelia was hugging her notion that the case of the +prosecution was bound to break down in court; and what human mind could +have conceived that ghastly eccentricity of the laws of Massachusetts, +which amounted in effect to this: that whatever evidence was presented +to the jury at this coming trial would count, while everything that +was found out later might as well have been left in the darkness of +oblivion? To quote the words of the Supreme Judicial Court of the +august Commonwealth, handed down in the Sacco-Vanzetti case: “It is not +imperative that a new trial be granted, even though the evidence is +newly discovered, and if presented to a jury would justify a different +verdict.” Such is the law of the Brahmins and Blue-bloods, which +altereth not! + + _O fates that hold us at your choice + How strange a web ye spin!_ + +How strange the plight in which you have placed us--that we walk +backward into our lives, with eyes that see the past, but are blind to +the future! With ears that hear the past, but are deaf to the future! +Betty rented a car, and Joe drove her and Cornelia and Vincenzo and +Alfonsina to Bridgewater, and along with that little party went a vast +throng, made up of twenty-six hundred and nine days, each one with a +separate burden of griefs and regrets. Days, black-clad and somber, +waving black veils unseen! Days wailing and moaning, shouting alarms +unheard! Cornelia and Betty and Joe and Vincenzo and Alfonsina got +out of the car, and separated and walked up and down streets, and +rang door-bells and went into houses asking questions of strangers; +and into every house with them went ten million mourners, ten million +protestants marching, singing, carrying banners in a hundred foreign +tongues. Mobs roared their fury, shrieked their imprecations; bombs +exploded, sheets of plate glass were shattered; cavalry charged, clubs +fell on human heads, sabers clove human flesh, men fell and bled and +died--and of all that tumult not one sound reached the deaf ears, not +one glimpse penetrated the blind eyes! + +Voices, ghostly voices calling, up and down the streets of the little +town of Bridgewater, all through that warm spring night! Run, Betty, +run, on your swift young limbs that have been trained by climbing +mountains! Run, and rest not, until you find those other witnesses +who will testify that the bandit had a closely cropped mustache! Run, +Cornelia--one last effort of those old legs, shrunken and withered so +that you do not like to see them--find some one who can bring you to +those Pinkerton men who interviewed the witnesses of the prosecution, +and heard them say they could not identify the bandits! Joe Randall, +driver of the car, don’t go back to Plymouth to-night! Turn your +headlights to Boston, an hour or two away, and use your newspaper +introductions to find the reporter who was first upon the scene, and +will testify to what all the witnesses said! Cornelia, put your family +influence to work, get the shoe-company and the insurance company to +give up those Pinkerton reports--now while they will count, and not +later, when they will be thrust into a pigeon-hole and forgotten by a +governor’s secretary, who is paid a double salary to see that the great +man’s mind is not burdened with details! + +Look, Cornelia! Look, Betty and Joe, look at that man, waiting in the +future; a man with a smile made of marble, with eyes like two agates, +cold, expressionless, a supersalesman of automobiles who will play the +part of final jury, and will politely accept your evidence, and remain +of his own opinion! Joe Randall, “expert investigator,” now is your +hour! Drive to Atlantic Avenue, where the wholesale fish-dealers have +their stores, and find that Italian who shipped the barrel of eels! +Pull off your coat and climb into the attic and search the boxes of +records--it will not be so hard now as seven years later, for there are +not so many records, and the dust is not so thick! When you find the +book of express receipts, showing the barrel of eels consigned to “B. +Vanzetti, Plymouth,” six days before Christmas, 1919, it will count +with the jury--instead of being set aside, unseen by the agate eyes! + + +XI + +The little party turned their car home that night, well content with +what they had achieved. Next morning they sat down to a conference +with eminent legal authority, and Cornelia offered her testimony, and +learned that it was not available, because most of it was hearsay, +and anyhow, she had better not take the stand, because she would be +questioned concerning Vanzetti’s beliefs, and it was not desirable +to have the jury know that he was an anarchist. Of course everybody +in Plymouth knew it perfectly well, but if it was not introduced in +the evidence, the jury would be ordered to disregard it, and would +do so--that being the merry fiction of the merry legal game. Could +Cornelia testify that Vanzetti was a pacifist, and repudiated violence? +Could she testify that he did not believe in the overthrow of the +United States government by force? No, she could not testify that, and +therefore nothing she could say about Vanzetti’s character would count +with the jurors. How could they fail to be suspicious of an American +woman who confessed to intimate friendship with a dangerous Italian Red? + +Furthermore, there was a question whether Vanzetti should be a witness +himself. He could not deny his anarchistic opinions, which would so +antagonize the jurors that they would find him guilty of anything, +regardless of evidence. It was a delicate matter, because Vanzetti +was a draft-evader, and the jury would consist of men who had gone to +the war, or had sent their sons. Also he was an infidel, and the jury +would consist of devout church-goers. There was that letter found on +Vanzetti, denouncing a certain Catholic priest as a “pig.” The jurymen +in Plymouth County were not apt to be Catholics themselves, but they +would think that Italians ought to be Catholics, and it would be +better to appeal to the district attorney’s sense of fair play not to +introduce that letter. + +Vanzetti was stubborn, and clamorous to be heard in his own defense; +but then, he would not stop denying that he had met Boda at the Johnson +place the night of the arrest; and how could he expect to get away with +that, in face of the testimony the prosecution could offer, if the +issue were raised? No, Vanzetti must be made to realize that under the +law he was not required to testify, and no conclusion unfavorable to +him could be drawn from his failure to testify. + +Again the future rose up and shouted! Ten million hands were waved +unseen, ten million warnings were voiced unheard! The fates that held +Cornelia and Betty at their choice granted no forewarning of the +man with the marble smile and the agate eyes, the supersalesman of +automobiles who seven years later was to be the final jury in the case. +Not once did they hear him repeat his formula, which was to make him +seem like a gramophone through the weary months of the future; the +formula which would balk the friends of love and justice who traveled +from all over the world to appeal to him; the formula which took the +place of all evidence and all thought--“Why did not Vanzetti take the +stand in his own behalf?” + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WEB OF FATE + + +I + +Plymouth Court-house stands at the head of the square, a large and +stately building of red brick, with ivy climbing the walls, and white +colonial entrances, and a niche containing a figure of justice, +open-eyed. The court-room is bare and white, with a throne of polished +wood, and over it a great seal of the “Plymouth Society,” with the +flags of the United States and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts draped +on top. It is all extremely solemn and formal; the bailiff wears a +uniform, and carries a “wand,” or long stick with which he holds the +spectators in awe. + +On the morning of the trial of Bartolomeo Vanzetti the room was filled +with spectators from Bridgewater, curious to behold the wicked bandit; +also a few working-people of foreign birth, Italians and Portuguese +of North Plymouth who remembered what Vanzetti had done for them in +the strike. The men had put on celluloid collars with gilt studs and +no ties, the women wore shawls and aprons; they sat, morning and +afternoon, following with strained attention a mysterious procedure in +a strange tongue. There were spectators from Boston, but no reporters +from there; the case excited only local interest, and was left to local +correspondents. + +The prisoner was brought in, shackled to a deputy by each wrist; also +a steel cage was brought in, and he was locked inside. This in itself +was almost equivalent to a conviction--it made him look so alarming to +a jury, so much like a wild beast. The district attorney entered--a +stocky man of German parentage, florid, blond, good-looking, smartly +dressed. Fred Katzmann was his name, a Mason and a “joiner,” prominent +in the political ring which governed the county. Most political rings +in America are financed by the local corporations, and exist to carry +out their will; the efficiency of a public official usually consists +in the fact that he knows their needs and wishes so thoroughly that he +does what they want without having to be told. + +In this case Fred Katzmann’s course was very easy--to consult his +prejudices. He knew that the Reds were pledged to destroy American +institutions, and therefore it was a patriotic service to destroy the +Reds. Later on he went before the alumni of his college, assembled for +banqueting, and the chairman introduced him as a hero who was going +to save the Commonwealth from its secret foes; the banqueters cheered +him tumultuously, and he made a speech accepting the stern duty. +All the district attorneys of the neighboring counties were making +such speeches at this time--it was an easy way to be popular, and to +conceal orgies of grafting and blackmailing--what was soon afterwards +to be described, in the charges against one of the most oratorical, as +“malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance in office.” + +Fred Katzmann was personally an easy-going man, and cultivated a manner +of geniality which made a hit with juries. When the lawyers for the +defense came in, carrying briefcases and looking important, he greeted +them cordially; they were his friends, and during the procedures he +would refer to them as “my brothers.” He would carry on a merry battle +of wits with them, and the moment court was adjourned, he would walk +out side by side with them, and they would sit at lunch and “josh” +each other about the points they had lost or won. It was exactly like +a tennis tournament--except that in tennis they used a ball, while in +this legal game it was a wop. + + +II + +A door in the front of the court-room opened, and there entered a thin, +shrunken old gentleman with a white mustache and a face like parchment. +He wore a black silk robe, and the moment he appeared the bailiff +pounded on the floor with his wand and shouted, “Court!” and all the +lawyers stood up, and the spectators stood up, and remained standing. +The bailiff drew a breath and shouted, “Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All +persons having anything to do before the Honorable, the Justices of +the Superior Court, now sitting within and for the County of Plymouth, +draw near, give your attention, and you shall be heard! God save the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts!” Whereupon the wrinkled old gentleman +sat down, and everybody else did the same. + +Webster Thayer, judge of the Superior Court of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts, was what the pathologists call a “ticquer”; that is, he +blinked with a nervous affliction as he gazed about his domain. His +sharp, withered face was a symbol of the old Puritan spirit; his voice, +like a steel saw cutting through wood, was an ancestral inheritance, +produced by three hundred years of cold and foggy winds. He aspired to +exhibit repose, but his fear of so many foreigners in his court-room +showed itself by incessant nervous glances. He was obsessed with a +phobia on the subject of Reds, and talked about it incessantly, with so +much repetition that many persons avoided him, or ruthlessly shut him +up. + +Cornelia had never heard of “Web” Thayer before, but he was to be the +subject of her study for seven years, and before long she knew him +completely. During this Plymouth trial he did not know who she was; but +during the second trial, that of Sacco and Vanzetti a year later, he +had heard about her, and he summoned her three times to his chambers +to impress his personality upon her and to justify his ways. So she +learned that the basis of his being was an inferiority complex, a +sense of the gulf which yawned between him and the great ones of his +community, and which he would never cross, even though he won his way +to the Supreme Judicial bench. He was a Thayer, but not of the “right” +ones; and in Massachusetts it is a special offense to bear an honored +name unless you are one of the “right” ones. There are the “right” +Cabots--and assuredly they are not those who used to be called Caboto +and Kabotinsky, and got permission from a too complaisant court to +Americanize themselves. There are “right” Coolidges, and Calvin is not +among them, and would not be, though he were president of the United +States for half a dozen terms. + +“Web” lived in Worcester, which is a city in the wilds of the far +west--that is to say, forty miles removed from the cultural influences +of the Back Bay. It is a hardware center, the home of hardware men, +who hustle and “boost” and make “selling talks.” “Web” had gone +to Dartmouth, a small college in the hills of New Hampshire, whose +graduates are looked down upon by the haughty scions of the Harvard +“Gold Coast.” “Web” asserted his uneasy personality, and drew attention +to himself, something the “blue-bloods” never do, because they do +not have to. In this Sacco-Vanzetti affair “Web” would do what the +Commonwealth wanted him to do, but he would do it in such a way that +the Back Bay would blush for him, and comfort itself by calling it one +more sign of the degradation of politics, a consequence of turning over +public affairs to the “mob.” + +He was a man of intense vanity, and played the judicial game as a drama +in which he was hero and king. But he could never be sure whether he +was successful in the rôle, and the actor would stop in the middle +of the play to ask the audience. To the lawyers, or any one else who +came to his chambers after the sessions, he would say, “Am I handling +this all right?” To the newspaper reporters he would say, “Now, boys, +give me a good deal on this.” If the reporter happened to be a young +and pretty woman, as it did in at least one case, he would employ the +arts of gallantry, which are somehow less welcome from an old man with +a skin like a mummy’s. He would take a seat beside her on the train +going to the trial, and smile and ogle, and present a flower to her, +and discuss the case. His voice had a penetrating quality, and when the +train stopped, every one in the car would hear what he was saying. He +must have known the mental discomfort he was causing to his auditor, +yet something drove him to go on. + +There is an ancient tradition among those who deal with the law that +a judge must not discuss a case in public, at least not while it is +actually before him. But in handling Sacco and Vanzetti, “Web” Thayer +could not keep within these traditional limits. He would talk about the +case in a club dining-room, until all the men would leave the table; he +would approach a Dartmouth professor on the football field, asking in a +loud voice, “Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards the +other day?” The horror of these words became such in Massachusetts that +the Commonwealth had to send its policemen with hickory clubs to crack +the skulls of demonstrants who carried the words on a banner. Because +there was no way to keep them from being spoken aloud, Boston Common +had to be closed to public speakers for the first time in its three +hundred years of history. + + +III + +One by one the talesmen took the stand, and were questioned; under the +Massachusetts practice, all this questioning was done by the judge, and +the defendants’ lawyers could only exercise the right of challenge. One +by one the jurors were selected: Arthur W. Burgess, shoemaker of the +town of Hanson, Henry S. Burgess, caretaker of the town of Wareham, +Joseph Frawley, shoe-finisher of the town of Brockton, Charles A. Gale, +clerk, of the town of Norwell--so it went, all Anglo-Saxon names. +Put none but Americans on guard! Edwin P. Litchfield, shoe-worker of +Pembroke, Oliver B. Poole, clerk of Brockton, Alfred M. Shaw, Jr., +laborer of Carver, Charles C. Wilbur, tackmaker of Kingston: such +little people of the old stock, having failed for one reason or another +to become rich, looked with bitter contempt upon the immigrants who +came pouring into the country, to beat down wages and make life harder +for the “white men” of New England. Far from having any sense of class +solidarity, they clung to the American idea that their children would +rise and join the leisure class; their attitude to the Italian was that +of the poor whites of the south to the Negroes. “All these wops stand +together,” said one juryman to another, discussing the case at lunch in +a restaurant. The remark was overheard, but nothing came of it. + +Another juror, Arthur S. Nickerson, a foreman in the Plymouth Cordage +Company! Another foreman of that same company had thrown Vanzetti, the +agitator, out of their plant, and kept him out four years and more; +others had refused him employment, and some one had caused him to +be shadowed by detectives for eighteen months after the strike. Now +Nickerson was to help decide whether or not Vanzetti should be set at +liberty to lead another strike, and deprive the cordage company of +another two hundred thousand dollars a year in extra wages! Vanzetti’s +friends saw with dismay his lawyers permit such a juror to be accepted. +They asked themselves, could it be because one of the lawyers was +a stockholder in the company, and looking to the company for legal +business as well as for dividends? It was permissible to ask. + +The assistant district attorney rose, and addressed the jury, telling +them what he was going to prove. He told them all that elaborate +“theory” about the Coacci house and the bandit-car, which had been +stolen a month before the Bridgewater crime, and found in Manley woods +abandoned after the South Braintree crime. He brought this car, a +Buick, in front of the court-house, and he told them about Boda, and +how he was going to prove that Boda had been driving a Buick car a +short while before the crime. He told them about Orciani--despite the +fact that they had had to drop Orciani on account of an American alibi. +He told them about Sacco, despite the fact that they had had to drop +Sacco from this case on account of another American alibi. He built up +in the jury’s mind an elaborate picture of bandit-gangs, bandit-houses +and bandit-cars--and then in the course of the trial he failed to +produce a particle of evidence to connect either Sacco, Coacci, Orciani +or Boda with any crime, or to connect Coacci’s house with any crime, +or to connect any one of the five men with the so-called bandit-car. +One scrap of testimony--a milkman had seen Boda driving a Buick car a +month or two before the crime; or at least he thought it was Boda and +he thought it was a Buick. Yet they brought in all this complicated and +alarming mass of “theory,” not merely at this Plymouth trial, but at +the later trial of Sacco and Vanzetti for the South Braintree crime; +they showed the bandit-car in both cases, and the bullet-hole in it, +and planted the mass of suspicion in the minds of both juries. + + +IV + +Benjamin F. Bowles to the stand: a special officer employed by the +shoe-company, and at the same time a member of Mike Stewart’s police +force in Bridgewater. He had been riding in the seat alongside the +driver of the truck, when two bandits, one with a shotgun, the other +with a revolver, had rushed out and opened fire. The chauffeur of +the paytruck had fainted from fright, and Bowles had seized the +steering-wheel and guided the truck with his left hand, while with +his right he fired a revolver at the shotgun bandit, until the bandit +turned and ran. Later in the trial Bowles took the stand again and +changed his testimony, so as to make it fit with the story he had told +at the preliminary hearing: he now swore that he had fired, not at the +shotgun-bandit, but at the other one, the revolver-bandit. So here was +the picture this super-policeman presented to the jury: he had steered +a fast-moving truck with his left hand, fired a revolver at a bandit +with his right hand, and at the same time used his eyes to study the +appearance of a second bandit, so effectively that he could give a +detailed description fitting the features, hair, eyes and clothing of +Bartolomeo Vanzetti, now sitting in the prisoner’s dock before him! +At the preliminary hearing Bowles had been “pretty positive” that the +shotgun bandit had had a “short and croppy” mustache; but now at the +trial he was “positive” that this bandit had had a “bushy” mustache. + +Next came a shoe-inspector, Frank Harding, known as “Skip,” who had +witnessed the crime. He had talked to a reporter of the Boston _Globe_, +an hour or two afterwards, and described the bandit as “smooth-shaven.” +At the preliminary hearing he had described him as having “an +overgrown Charlie Chaplin mustache.” Now at the trial he identified +him as Vanzetti. He had positively identified Orciani as the other +bandit; but that fact was not evidence at the trial. Neither was the +_Globe_ reporter’s testimony, for that was not discovered until years +later--when it might as well not have been discovered at all. To the +Pinkerton detectives “Skip” had described the bandit-car as a Hudson; +and he had been an automobile mechanic and knew cars. But now he swore +it was a Buick--which happened to be what the “theory” required. + +Then came the paymaster, Cox, who had described the shotgun bandit at +the preliminary hearing as “short and of slight build.” Now he made it +agree with Bowles--“five feet eight.” But no effort of the district +attorney could get him to say that he was sure Vanzetti was the man. + +Then came the elderly Georgina Brooks, and with her the age of miracles +came back. Mrs. Brooks testified that she had looked out of the window +of the Bridgewater railroad depot--she specified which window--and had +seen “fire and smoke from a gun.” It so happened that between that +window and the spot where the firing had occurred, there intervened the +full bulk of two two-story houses. The Sacco-Vanzetti defense employed +a surveyor to make a map of the scene--but like everything else, it +was too late. + +Also Mrs. Brooks testified that on her way to the depot, and before the +crime, she had inspected the bandit-car and the bandits. She identified +Vanzetti as a man she had looked at twice, and who had looked at her +“severely.” Why she should have turned to look at the car a second +time, and been so particular about examining the features of a man +sitting casually in an automobile was something Mrs. Brooks could not +explain. But she admitted that with one eye she could barely make out +the silhouette of objects, and that she had been undergoing treatment +for the other eye. + +Then young Shaw, a schoolboy who had heard the firing and dodged behind +a tree. He had seen the shotgun-bandit run away, at a distance of a +hundred and forty-five feet, and said that he could tell the man was a +foreigner by the way he ran. “What sort of a foreigner?” and the boy +replied, “Either Italian or Russian.” + +“Does an Italian or a Russian run differently from a Swede or a +Norwegian?” + +“Yes.” + +“What is the difference?” + +“Unsteady.” + +Then came Mike Stewart, large, powerful, heavy-lidded. He brought with +him his theory--but you may be sure he never mentioned the “detective +machine,” from which the theory had been born! Neither did he mention +the Pinkerton reports, and how they confuted the testimony of “Skip” +Harding. “Skip” had taken down the number of the bandit-car, and +given a memorandum to Mike, who had unfortunately lost it. Also, +unfortunately, there was no number-plate on the car which the police +had found in the Manley woods. + +They introduced Vanzetti’s cap, and a man swore it resembled the cap +worn by the shotgun-bandit--although Cox and Mrs. Brooks had sworn +to a shotgun-bandit in a soft hat. And that was practically all they +had to offer, except for an empty twelve-gauge shotgun shell which +they claimed to have picked up at the scene of the shooting. When +Vanzetti had been arrested, he had had four shotgun shells in his +pocket, and these were put into evidence, but the jury never heard +Vanzetti’s story of how he came to have them. He had spent the day +of his arrest at Sacco’s, while the family was packing up for Italy, +and these shells, left over from hunting, were picked up on a shelf; +Vanzetti had put them into his pocket, saying that he would turn them +over to some comrade and get fifty cents for the cause. But that story +must not be told to the jury, because Vanzetti would be asked what he +mean by the “cause,” and he would have to answer that it was the evil +cause of anarchism. Nor would it do to put Sacco on the stand, or his +wife, because that would bring in the other crime, and the lawyers +were maintaining their legal fiction that the jury knew nothing about +it--although, of course, every one of them had read about it on the +front page of all the papers, and the assistant district attorney had +brought Sacco in as a part of the “theory”! + + +V + +Such was the case of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts against +Bartolomeo Vanzetti. And now it was the defendant’s turn to produce his +alibi, and persuade a Yankee jury to believe it. Cornelia and Betty and +Joe, watching these proceedings day by day with strained and fearful +attention, realized too late how difficult it was going to be. There +sat those native sons of New England, lean-faced and stern--elderly +men, most of them, because the younger and more active found means to +avoid jury duty. Men with such names as Burgess and Gale and Litchfield +and Nickerson and Shaw were invited to believe the testimony of +Vittorio Papa and Carlo Balboni and Vincenzo Brini and Enrico Bastoni +and Teresa Malaguti and Adalaida Bongiovanni and Marguaritta Fiocchi: +men with black hair and eyebrows, broad faces and high cheek-bones, +uncouth and sinister, clad in ill-fitting cheap store-clothes; women +short and stout, with broad mouths and low foreheads, with no collars +to their shirt-waists, wearing aprons in front of them and dingy shawls +about their shoulders, speaking a foreign jabber which was turned into +English by an interpreter who looked as much like a bandit as the +others. These were the “Dagoes” who were taking bread out of the mouths +of the old stock, swarming into the factory towns, carrying fire-arms, +living like pigs, and raising litters of as many little pigs as any +farmer ever saw. “These wops all stand together,” said one juryman; +and all native New England agreed. + +Mrs. Mary Fortini, Bart’s landlady, told how she had waked him up at +six o’clock that morning before Christmas, and how he had gulped down +his bread and coffee, and hurried to get out his cart and his eels. +Carlo Balboni told how he had come home from his night work, and caused +Mrs. Fortini to wake Bart, so that he, Balboni, might be the first +customer. John Di Carlo, who kept a shoe-store, testified how Bart had +brought him eels while he was cleaning out the store, a little after +seven. Each of these witnesses was harrowed by the prosecution, who +sought by every legal trick to trip them up in their testimony. + +The issue of “radicalism” was not supposed to be brought into the +trial; the jury was not supposed to know about it, and in the years +that were to follow you would hear judges and editors and governors and +college presidents and other eminent persons stoutly maintaining that +this issue had not entered the case until the defense had brought it in +at the second trial. But behold, here was the suave district attorney, +questioning the shoe-store proprietor: “Have you ever discussed +government theories over there between you? Have you discussed the +question of the poor man and the rich man between you?” And later comes +Michael Sassi, a gardener, to the stand, and the prosecutor asks, “Have +you heard anything of his political beliefs? Have you heard him make +any speeches to your friends in the cordage company?” This questioning +led by accident to some character testimony--in spite of the effort to +bar such testimony. Said the district attorney, “You have dined many +times with Vanzetti, haven’t you?” + +“With Brini, as his guest, I dined many times: Vanzetti boarded with +him and sometimes he was present.” + +“You used to play cards with the defendant?” + +“Vanzetti does not play.” + +“To smoke, didn’t you?” + +“I do not smoke.” + +“How many times have you drank with him?” + +“Vanzetti does not drink.” + +Said Bart, commenting on this evidence: “What a method to find out +whether I had been robbing in Bridgewater or delivering fish in +Plymouth on the 24th of December, 1919!” Poor Bart, who had to sit +in complete silence, watching all this from inside a cage, sternly +rebuked on the one occasion when he dared to interrupt! He had to see +the rascalities of the prosecution, and the unconvincing quality of +the defense--he who, from first to last, understood the case better +than any other person interested in it, even the most famous and most +expensive of lawyers! He who could read every motive, understand every +character, predict every event, and advise, generally in vain, what +should be done--he had to sit and watch everything done wrong, and ruin +come down upon him like a slow-grinding glacier. + + +VI + +One by one came Italian witnesses, telling the story of Vanzetti’s +movements through every hour of that fateful day. Vincenzo Brini had +come home from night-work, and got some eels, and chatted with his +friend and former boarder. Bastoni, the baker, had refused to rent +the horse and wagon; the time was exactly seven-forty-five, because +the cordage whistle blew as Bart entered the store, and “that whistle +is our bread and butter.” And then Beltrando Brini, twelve years and +a half old, bright-eyed and eager, speaking very good English, and +thoroughly alert to the meaning of this scene. Trando had first been +with Bart about seven-thirty, and had been sent home to hunt out his +rubbers from the attic. He had rejoined Bart just as the latter left +the baker’s, and told about his disappointment over the horse and +wagon, and how he had talked about it every day thereafter. He told +how he and Bart had gone from house to house, up one street and down +another, delivering their eels, until two-forty that afternoon. He +named the streets and the people, described the houses and told of +conversations, every detail that lived in his mind. + +And Mr. Katzmann took him and spent two hours trying to trap him; +making him tell parts of his story over and over, hoping that it would +vary; pretending that Trando had said things he hadn’t said; trying to +mix him up about the number of hours he had been with Bart--because +Trando took out the time he was hunting rubbers and the time he went +to lunch, and Mr. Katzmann pretended not to understand this. He asked +what did the basket of eels weigh, and could Trando carry it the long +route he had described. Trando replied that any one could see, the +basket got lighter as he delivered. In the end Katzmann had to give +up, and pay Trando the high compliment of calling him such another as +Katzmann himself. Turning to the jury he said: “The parents of such an +intelligent boy are right to be proud of him, but what he told you from +the stand is a lesson learned by heart.” + +There came a string of Italian housewives, telling how Vanzetti had +sold them eels; eight or ten testified, and there were twice as many +more, but the lawyers said it would be a mistake, “the jury will be +bored with so much eel-talk.” If they refused to believe a score of +Italian witnesses, would they believe two score or three score? The +lawyers insisted that the alibi had been proved. But Bart was not +satisfied, he was angry because of the efforts of the prosecution to +claim that he had had a “cropped mustache.” He pointed to his soft and +silky hairs, which could not be got to stand out; there were so few of +them, that was why he had always worn his mustaches long; if he had +cut them short, there would have been nothing. For eight years he had +been going about this town of Plymouth with his walrus mustaches, and +everybody knew him; but this jury contained only one Plymouth man, and +did not know him. Bart insisted that the truth about his mustache must +be proved, and in a passion of indignation he told his lawyers that if +they did not do it, he would rise up in court and denounce them for +treason to their client. + +So at the last moment the Italian “runner” went scurrying to find +some of Vanzetti’s friends who knew that his mustaches had never +been trimmed. Also Cornelia and Betty and Joe and the Brinis went +hunting--and strange was that experience, painful that discovery about +human nature, in this terror-ridden town of Cordage. Policemen who knew +Vanzetti, and had seen him on the street many times a week for eight +years, were afraid for their jobs if they testified as to the length +of his mustaches! Contractors who had hired him were afraid for their +future contracts! Italian barbers were afraid for their little shops, +and their little bootlegging on the side! + +In the end they found two policemen who gave nervous and halting +testimony that Vanzetti had always worn his walrus mustaches. They +found an Italian cement contractor, Christofore, who had employed +Vanzetti, and found him a good workman, and had always known him with +his mustaches. The prosecuting attorney browbeat this witness, who +knew no English, asking him about the mustaches of this person and +that--among them of Beltrando Brini, aged twelve and a half years! He +asked about the proprietor of one of Plymouth’s big hotels--what kind +of a mustache did this gentleman have, and Christofore described it, a +small mustache that he was growing. After the noon recess the gentleman +was put upon the stand, and exhibited to the jury a completely +smooth-shaven face! What was the use of all this mustache-talk, said +the district attorney, when they put a mustache on a man who had never +had one? + +The only time in her life that Cornelia ever heard Vanzetti swear +was when he talked about this dirty trick which had been played upon +him. For trick it was--whether the hotel proprietor had got shaved +especially for his appearance as a witness, or whether it had just +happened, that he had got shaved since the Italians had last met him. +This much was certain: Christofore had seen this hotel proprietor with +a mustache, and so had Vanzetti and many of his friends. The jury +could not know, because, with one exception, they were outsiders. But +Katzmann and Judge Thayer had sometimes been known to stay at this +man’s hotel, and to sit in front of his fire-place in the evening, +gossiping with him about what had happened during the day. + + +VII + +Such was the closing scene of this duel of evidence. The jury listened +to the genial Mr. Katzmann become suddenly stern and patriotic. “Dagoes +stand together!” he exclaimed--and it was easy for them to draw the +conclusion that Americans should profit by their example. Then came +Judge Thayer, thin-faced, tight-lipped, sharp-voiced, such a great man +as these little men of the jury had been taught to reverence. Nothing +of the inferiority complex now, nothing of the restless uneasiness, the +vulgar craving for attention. It was the great actor now, playing the +part which had been his life-study. He knew exactly what instructions +to give to these Yankee jurymen, to appeal to their prejudices without +seeming to do so. When students of the case sought to ascertain what +he had said, it was discovered that the court stenographer’s notes had +been burned, and that the copy furnished the defense was strangely +lacking in part of the judge’s charge. + +The jury retired to deliberate, and carried with them the four shotgun +shells which were alleged to have been found upon Vanzetti. They had +been identified as ordinary hunting shells, containing bird-shot, which +would not be apt to kill a man. But the jurors decided to investigate +further, so they opened them, and behold, they were filled with +buckshot, which would surely kill a man! + +Now there is no point upon which English and American law is more +strict than this, that all evidence in a criminal trial must be +produced in the presence of the defendant. Vanzetti was entitled to +know about those buckshot, and to explain the fact if he could. Maybe +he would have taken the stand, maybe Sacco would have done so; maybe +they might have wished to ask, who had had the keeping of those shells +for the past six months, and what were the chances of their having +got mixed up with other shells. There were no identifying marks upon +them--but Vanzetti never had a chance to point this out. The jury went +ahead and brought in a verdict; and next day one of the jurors happened +to meet Judge Thayer in a restaurant, and showed him several of the +buckshot. Judge Thayer knew at once that if this story leaked out, the +whole expensive trial would go for nothing. He hurried to Katzmann, +who came and got the buckshot from the juror before he left the place. +Then Katzmann phoned the other jurors to come to his office, and warned +them, and the matter was hushed up. + +It was half a year later that the facts got out, and then several of +the jurors made affidavits about it. An effort was made to invalidate +the trial on this ground, but the matter was never argued. If it had +been, it would have been argued before Judge Thayer! Whenever during +the next seven years the defense discovered new evidence, they would +make a motion for a new trial, and under the laws of the august +Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a decision would be handed down by +Judge Thayer! When the defense set up a claim that the judge in the +Sacco-Vanzetti case had shown prejudice, they made a motion, and it +was referred to Judge Thayer, who solemnly listened to arguments, +and solemnly handed down a decision to the effect that he had no +jurisdiction! Incidentally he solemnly stated that he had no prejudice; +and this after he had been going about among his clubmates for several +years, saying, “Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards?” + +The indictment charged “attempting to rob” and “attempting to kill.” +The judge in his instructions had directed that the second charge +should be ignored, because the evidence showed that the bandits had +merely sought to intimidate the guards; they could hardly have missed +their targets with a shotgun at such close range. But after the jurors +had opened the shells and found the buckshot, they decided to ignore +the judge’s instructions, and brought in a verdict of guilty on both +counts. The judge, in an effort to correct this error, took the liberty +of ignoring one-half the jury’s verdict and sentencing the prisoner to +the maximum penalty of fifteen years in state’s prison for attempting +to rob. + +The scene in the court-room when the verdict was brought in was a +heart-rending one. For ten days the friends of Vanzetti had sat in +a tension of anxiety, and now their grief was not to be restrained. +Cornelia bowed her head in her arms and wept, while Betty sat, +white-faced and quivering, clutching Joe’s hand. The Italian women +became hysterical; they screamed and wailed, and the contagion spread +from one to another--it was a scene of utter desperation, never +anything to equal it. Vanzetti had to stand up and cry to them, +“Coraggio! Coraggio!” His guards permitted that much before they +shackled his wrists to their own, and led him swiftly out by a side +door, and put him into a car and whisked him away to the jail. + +Next day when Cornelia and Betty went to see him, for the first time +they met an utterly broken man. Again and again he said the words +with which he had first greeted them, “My enemy have got me!” He told +them what the rest would be--he, the clear-sighted one, the thinker, +the analyst of class forces. “I am a convicted. Nick is the friend +of a convicted, he is a bandit already, he is a dead man. The jury +will say, ‘One of them is bad, why should other be better?’” And when +Cornelia pledged her word that she would move heaven and earth to have +this verdict set aside, he told her, “You will try, Nonna, but never +will be succeeded. It is not for bandit I am convicted, it is for +anarchista. If men do sooch trick like you see in court, what is use +for hoping?” + +Then it was that he swore, because of that mustache trick which had +been played by the hotel proprietor. At that time he did not know +about the buckshot. He did not know about the Pinkerton reports, which +had been kept hidden by the prosecution. He did not know about the +witnesses who had been rejected by the police because they did not +describe the bandits according to the “theory.” But he did know about +the great cordage company, and the losses he had caused it in the +strike; so, when Cornelia talked about decent people who would not +stand for that “mustache trick,” he laughed a bitter laugh. “You will +see, Nonna. They will say, it is for jury to decide. They will say, +musta trust jury, musta stand by court.” + + +VIII + +They put Vanzetti in an automobile, and with another car full of armed +men in front and a third one bringing up the rear, they drove him to +Boston and shut him behind the stone walls of the dingy old Charlestown +prison--built in 1805, when the population of Massachusetts was +one-tenth what it is now. It stands directly across the river from the +city, so placed that on certain mornings when the sun rises clear, the +shadow of Bunker Hill monument strikes its walls. An odd turn of fate, +that this Italian seeker of liberty should have been convicted within +sight of Plymouth Rock, and killed on ground over which Paul Revere had +ridden. + +They weighed him and measured him and scientifically scrutinized him, +and dressed him in faded khaki, and put him in a cell containing an +iron cot, and a free space eight feet long and one foot, ten inches +wide, with light falling from a narrow slit in the ceiling. In that +cell he would stay, fifteen and a half hours out of twenty-four, for +the next seven years--except for the holidays of another indictment, +trial and sentence. Of the remaining hours a day he would spend seven +working in a tailor-shop, and forty minutes in a yard, overcrowded, +smoky and dusty. + +Soon after the beginning of this régime the Catholic chaplain of the +prison came to see him. It is a Catholic maxim--therefore a prison +maxim--that “once a Catholic, always a Catholic”; and even an alleged +atheist is a human being, and may respond to kindness and sympathy. The +good Father Murphy talked to him, not about religion, but about general +matters; and then, having got on friendly terms, remarked, quite +casually, “Tell me, Vanzetti, who drove the car at South Braintree?” +Thereupon the alleged atheist rose up with dignity, and asked for +the privilege of being alone in his cell, and the consolations of +organized, institutionalized and subsidized religion were missing from +the remainder of his life. + +Instead he sought the consolations of literature. He wrote a long +letter, pouring out his soul--and incidentally revealing that he was +coming to feel at home in a new language; he no longer had to look up +every word. + + “I was just thinking what I would to do for past the long days + jail: I was saying to myself: Do some work. But what? Write. A + gentle motherly figure came to my mind and I rehear the voice: Why + don’t you write something now? It will be useful to you when you + will be free. Just at that time I received your letter. + + “Thanks to you from the bottom of my heart for your confidence + in my innocence; I am so. I did not spittel a drop of blood, or + steal a cent in all my life. A little knowledge of the past; + a sorrowful experience of the life itself had gave to me some + ideas very different from those of many other uman beings. But I + wish to convince my fellow-men that only with virtue and honesty + is possible for us to find a little happiness in the world. I + preached: I worked. I wished with all my faculties that the social + wealth would belong to every umane creatures, so well as it was + the fruit of the work of all. But this do not mean robbery for a + insurrection. + + “The insurrection, the great movements of the soul do not need + dollars. It need love, light, spirit of sacrifice, ideas, + conscience, instincts. It need more conscience, more hope and more + goodness. And all this blassing things can be seeded, awoked, + growed up in the heart of man in many ways, but not by robbery and + murder for robbery. + + “I like you to know that I think to Italy, so speaking. From the + universal family, turning to this humble son, I will say that, + as far as my needs, wish and aspirations call, I do not need to + become a bandit. I like the teaching of Tolstoi, Saint Francesco + and Dante. I like the example of Cincinnati and Garibaldi. The + epicurean joi do not like to me. A little roof, a field, a few + books and food is all what I need. I do not care for money, for + leisure, for mondane ambition. And honest, even in this world of + lambs and wolves I can have those things. But my father has many + field, houses, garden. He deal in wine and fruits and granaries. He + wrote to me many times to come back home, and be a business man. + Well, this supposed murderer had answered to him that my conscience + do not permit to me to be a business man and I will gain my bread + by work his field. + + “And more: The clearness of mind, the peace of the conscience, + the determination and force of will, the intelligence, all, all + what make the man feeling to be a part of the life, force and + intelligence of the universe, will be brake by a crime. I know + that, I see that, I tell that to everybody. Do not violate the law + of nature, if you do not want to be a miserable. I remember: it was + a night without moon, but starry. I sit alone in the darkness, I + was sorry, very sorry. With the face in my hands I began to look at + the stars. I feel that my soul want goes away from my body, and I + have had to make an effort to keep it in my chest. So, I am the son + of Nature, and I am so rich that I do not need any money. And for + this they say I am a murderer and will condemn me to death. Death? + It is nothing. Abbominium is cruel thing. + + “Now you advise me to study. Yes, it would be a good thing. + But I do not know enough this language to be able to make any + study through it. I will like to read Longfellow’s, Paine’s, + Franklin’s and Jefferson’s works, but I cannot. I would like to + study mathematics, physics, history and science, but I have not + a sufficient elementary school to begin such studies, especially + the two first and I cannot study without work, hard physical work, + sunshine and winds; free, blassing wind. There is no flame without + the atmospheric gasses; and no light of genius in any soul without + they communion with Mother Nature. + + “I hope to see you very soon; I will tell you more in the matter. + I will write something, a meditation perhaps and name it: Waiting + for the Hanger. I have lost the confidence in the justice of man. + I mean in what is called so; not of course, of that sentiment which + lay in the heart of man, and that no infernal force will be strong + enough to soffocate it. Your assistance and the assistance of so + many good men and women, had made my cross much more light. I will + not forget it. + + “I beg your pardon for such a long letter, but I feel so + reminiscent to you that hundred pages would not be sufficient to + extern my sentiments and feelings. I am sure you will excuse me. + Salve. + + “Give to all my best regards and wishes, Your + + “BARTHOLOMEW VANZETTI.” + + +IX + +Cornelia and Betty and Joe were back in Boston, the first two having +been hurriedly summoned for the funeral of Great-aunt Priscilla. It +is highly inconvenient, belonging to one of these big families; there +are so many funerals, weddings and christenings, which it would be +unthinkable not to attend. + +An extraordinary thing had happened to this aged female Brahmin in the +closing months of her life; the bacillus of eccentricity, which lurks +in all Boston blue blood, had suddenly flared into activity. Priscilla +Quincy Adams Thornwell, spinster, aged eighty-seven, stiff as a ramrod +and model of every known or conceivable kind of propriety, had suddenly +fallen under the spell of an Episcopal faith-healer, who was traveling +about the country insisting that every bishop, even every country +parson, could demonstrate the living presence of God, work miracles, +and stop the slow dribble of Episcopalians into Christian Science. + +Great-aunt Priscilla almost succeeded in arising and taking up her +bed and walking, in spite of the complete anchylosis of her spine; +she insisted that she would have done it, had it not been that her +relatives persisted in reminding her of her great age--a “negative +suggestion.” She took up the habit of being what she called “instant in +prayer,” which meant that she was liable to start talking to God at any +moment. It was embarrassing to her relatives and friends, because of +course no one likes to interrupt a talk with God, and feels something +of an interloper even to sit and listen to it. Great-aunt Priscilla +summoned her brother, Abner, over whom she had great authority, +because he was only eighty-five years old, and tried to persuade him +to appeal for a cure of his deafness. But Abner argued that if God had +meant him not to be deaf, God wouldn’t have made him deaf; and this was +a relief to the family, because it frightened them to imagine Abner +becoming “instant in prayer,” with that deaf man’s voice which filled +the biggest house in Boston. + +And now it was discovered that Priscilla Quincy Adams Thornwell, +spinster, had left a letter asserting that the Episcopal service +for the burial of the dead was a denial of the faith of Jesus, and +specifying that she was to be buried from Trinity Church with the +services for Easter Morning! It was a problem for authorities in +ecclesiastical etiquette; but to defy a Thornwell was unthinkable, +so the rector and his assistants finally decided that One to whom +a thousand years were as a day might conceivably accept any day as +Easter. There were no lilies on the market, but there were plenty +of roses, and the occasion created almost as much excitement as a +vaudeville show that was likely to be raided by the police. It was as +if everybody were secretly wondering whether the Lord might give some +sign of his displeasure at this setting back of the church calendar for +three months. But apparently the Lord understood Boston, a city which +is governed by the old, and especially the old ladies. + +They were all at this service, even though they had to motor a hundred +miles from the country. They wore their black dresses and bonnets, some +new and shiny, some old and rusty--but never forget that the rustiest +might be the richest. To wear a dowdy dress and a mangy fur tippet +might mean one who was able to scorn ostentation--just as illiteracy +in an English duke means that he is above the laws of grammar. One +of these old ladies might dispose of millions upon a whim, and her +lightest word was social law. They sat in family pews which had +belonged to them since the great brown-stone church was built; beside +them the younger generations--sweet-faced ladies, better dressed, and +oh, so neat and clean, gazing with rapt faces at a fairy-story setting +of white roses and candles and stained-glass-window saints, and a +procession of toddlers in white robes, singing in cherubs’ voices +to the rolling music of four organs in four different corners. How +beautiful it all was, and how serene--and how amazing to come to it +out of that world of lies and cruelty which Cornelia and Betty had just +left! + +Look about you at these perfect Anglo-Saxon faces--not a foreign one +among them--so elegant and so satisfied! Note the costumes, polished to +the last pin, and chosen with impeccable taste--broadcloth and patent +leather and spats for the men, veils and laces, silk stockings and +delicate scents, flowers and unostentatious jewelry for the ladies! +Note the soft, cultivated voices, the gracious manners, rehearsed +for centuries! Note the ancient formulas, the ritual established +since eternity; the prayers and anthems rising to an Anglo-Saxon God, +untainted by His temporary sojourn in a Hebrew womb. Bland saints in +all the windows, with golden haloes and bright-colored robes, untainted +by contact with the fishing industry. A rector who was the last word +in Back Bay fashion, the Harvard manner grafted upon a mediæval +ecclesiastic. + +While the sweet-faced ladies gazed up at him adoringly, he pronounced +a little eulogy upon the virtues of the dear departed, whose faith +and funds had nourished the church for two generations and a half. It +wasn’t customary to make speeches at church funerals; but since this +was an Easter Sunday service, a different rule might well apply. The +rector referred to the recent new fervors of the deceased, a matter +which required tact, because this rector had got his training in days +when the theological department of the university was separate from +the medical. He made an excursion into the field of modern thought, +revealing that he had heard of the science of astronomy and knew that +the earth was small; more amazing yet, he gave up the Virgin birth, +saying that we did not know just what had happened on that occasion, +and perhaps would never know. It sounded like a hint at some scandal in +the Holy Family, and would have made a scandal in Episcopal circles in +other cities: but not in Boston, where everything is far advanced, and +Trinity Church has to compete with King’s Chapel, which is Unitarian, +and even more intellectual, and if possible more fashionable. + + +X + +The funeral had the effect of bringing Cornelia and Betty back into +the family, and they heard the latest gossip. Alice Winters was +still supporting her “little theater,” but very unhappy, because her +poet, supposed to be storming Parnassus, was getting drunk every +night, and neglecting his muse for a brazen, yellow-headed flapper. +Clara Scatterbridge was getting stout, and the best reducing experts +could not solve her problem; she concealed the dire truth from these +advisers, but not from the Argus eyes of the family--that she kept an +assortment of sweets in her boudoir, and nibbled chocolates and candied +fruits all day. + +Great-uncle Abner was very melancholy now; he was the last of the old +generation, he said, and his time would come soon--which was certainly +a negative suggestion! He could no longer remember the chess moves he +had made last week, and his son Quincy was losing games on purpose, in +order to keep up the old man’s spirits. Abner had gone to stay with +the Scatterbridges, because he liked to be with the children; each of +the younger ones had a donkey to ride, and Abner had one too, and rode +at the head of the procession, all over the estate--a most laughable +sight. But everybody had to keep a sober face, because if you laughed +at anything whatever, the old man would think you were laughing at him, +and would take ineradicable offense. + +Deborah came to the little apartment to have lunch with her mother and +daughter; and presently it transpired that the Argus eyes of the family +had observed Betty going about town with a young man by the name of +Joseph Jefferson Randall. Who was he? A grandson of the actor? Betty +said no, he was one of the Randalls of Pakenham Court House, Virginia, +and a nephew of Senator Randall, now ambassador to one of the South +American countries. + +“Don’t you think, dear, you had better let your mother meet him?” +inquired Deborah, mildly. + +“No, Mother, I don’t,” said the younger generation. “Joe is much less +radical than I, but he always says what he thinks, and so he would make +you very unhappy.” + +“Don’t you say what you think, my daughter?” + +“Practically never, Mother. I bite my tongue off several times every +hour.” + +Deborah said no more, but Betty knew what she would do--and so did +Deborah. What are the secret, underground channels of the blue-bloods, +by which they find out whatever they wish to know? Do they have indexes +and card-files, like the Quaker attorney-general, so that they can +telegraph and ascertain who is who, and what are his family scandals? +Anyhow, the next time Deborah came to town, she knew that Joe’s father +was a “drinking man,” whose wife had divorced him. Fortunately Deborah +hadn’t found out that Joe himself was married; but she imagined the +worst, because divorces are a matter of heredity, like cancer, she said. + +Deborah’s hope was to persuade Cornelia and Betty to accompany Betty’s +older sister to Europe for the rest of the summer--since young +Priscilla’s wedding had been put off by the death of her great-aunt, +whose namesake she was. Failing in that, Deborah’s next campaign was to +persuade the pair to come out and spend the summer at the Rupert Alvin +palace on the North Shore. Deborah was lonely, she said, pathetically; +her husband had so many cares just now, owing to the collapse of +business. Deborah even went so far as to promise that Cornelia and +Betty would be free to believe and say what they pleased, and she would +not argue with them--a most remarkable “come-down” for so haughty and +stern a lady. + +Anything to get Betty away from the companionship of that dangerous +young Virginian! To divert her with yachting and tennis and +lawn-parties and picnics, in the company of sound and wholesome +graduates of the Harvard “Gold Coast,” their blood free from the +hereditary virus of divorce! But both Cornelia and Betty were obdurate; +they were going to stay cooped up in that hot little apartment all July +and August, to consult lawyers and organize committees and raise funds +for the defense of two anarchist bandits! + + +XI + +The men of the Thornwell family indeed had their hands full that +summer. The expected post-war collapse had come--or rather it had been +brought about by those who realized that prices had got too high, and +that “deflation” was necessary. Naturally, these men wanted to deflate +everybody but themselves, and having the power, they did so. The heads +of the great banking groups, of whom Rupert Alvin was one of the most +careful and conscientious, had devised what they called the “Federal +Reserve System,” a chain of banks financed by the government and run +by the bankers; its function was to enable the great bankers to save +themselves in times of panic, by issuing vast sums of new money, and +lending it to the big industries, whose stocks and bonds are the +mainstay of banking credit. That meant that when a panic came, it was +the little fellows and the outsiders who were “deflated,” while the big +bankers and their friends sat on a rock and waited for the storm to +blow over. + +Having this power in their hands, Rupert and his associates in the +course of that summer of 1920 had their Federal Reserve banks suddenly +raise the discount rates in the farming country; the result of which +was to force the dumping of the country’s farm produce on the market. +Prices collapsed to a point where most of the farmers were bankrupt, +and in the Northwest there were whole counties with every single farm +sold for taxes. Meantime the big industrialists of the East, having +bank-credit, were able to hold their products, and close down their +plants and wait. + +But if Rupert and his Pilgrim National crowd thought they were going +to have a happy time riding that storm, they learned a sad lesson. The +saying that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, applies to the +kings of modern credit as well as to those of Shakespearean drama. It +was as if Rupert were the guardian of a huge honey-pot, and had the +job of apportioning its contents to all the flies in New England. They +swarmed about him, making a quite terrifying buzzing--and it was a fact +that many of them had stings, more or less dangerous, and threatened +to use them, and sometimes did. Impossible for a great banker to sleep +with all that clamor in his ears! Impossible for any member of his +family to sleep--because there were lady-flies as well as gentleman, +and they too could buzz and sting! + +To drop metaphors, it was a fact that a small group of bankers had to +decide, during that panic, which industries of the community were to be +saved and which were to go to the wall. And needless to say, in a place +like Boston, it was not a question of vulgar material efficiency, it +was a question of social status. Who was who, and who was married to +whom, and what was the relative blueness of this blood and that? The +difference between the attitudes of Boston and New York in this matter +are set forth in a story which all financial men delight to tell, about +the New York banker who wrote to a Boston friend, saying that he had a +position for a capable young man. The Boston banker sent one, with a +letter explaining that he was a great-nephew of the late Josiah Quincy +Thornwell, a nephew of John Quincy Thornwell and of Rupert Alvin, +a cousin of the Cabots, and so on. Whereupon the vulgar New Yorker +dismissed the applicant and sent a telegram, reading: “I did not want a +young man for breeding purposes, I wanted one for banking.” + +The emergency now was the most desperate the Boston bluebloods had +faced for a long time. It was no mere play question, like belonging to +a Sewing Circle, or getting your daughters into Camp Putnam and the +Friday dances, or your sons into the “Porcellian” and the “Alpha Delta +Phi.” No, it was a question of your very life-blood, that privilege +upon which your family existence was based. So you forgot your good +manners, and fought as your ancestors had fought, in the days before +they had any manners. You threatened and stormed, and raked up ancient, +long-buried family skeletons, and made life miserable for a great +banker who had for years been suffering from high blood pressure, and +had been warned by Morrow, eminent authority upon diseases of the rich. + +Rupert became morose under the strain. His pink and purple bulges, +which had seemed to be radiating geniality, now took on the aspect +of a threatened explosion. He fell to grumbling about human nature. +Nobody cared about anything but money; friendship, family pride, honor, +all were gone. He would carry his burden of sorrow for days, and +suddenly it would become too heavy, and he would dump it in some quite +unsuitable place. An elderly widow, a friend of Cornelia’s, sought him +as adviser about the purchase of bonds, and the great and busy head of +the Pilgrim National Bank kept the astonished lady for half an hour +while he impressed upon her the solemn duty of guarding her property. +“Hold on to it! You have nothing else--absolutely nothing! When it is +gone you will discover that nobody respects you, your friends have no +use for you. Nothing counts to-day but money!” The widow-lady might +have had her feelings hurt, but she understood that it was impersonal, +a revelation of the banker-soul. + +But for the most part Rupert kept his pessimistic thoughts to pour out +upon his spouse in the privacy of their chamber, after the lights were +out, and they lay in the chaste retirement of their twin beds, under +brocaded blue silk counterpanes. He would expatiate upon the abnormal +greediness of this one and that, and after he had begun to snore, +Deborah would lie still and petition the Lord to soften the hearts +of the greedy ones, and spare her good and noble husband, who was +sacrificing his very life to preserve sound and conservative banking in +New England--which meant, of course, banking under the control of the +Pilgrim National group. + + +XII + +There are some whose claims were not to be questioned. Unthinkable +that any Thornwell should go to the wall, or any one who could claim +kinship, even by marriage. Those huge Thornwell Mills had to have +many millions of credit, to enable them to store their manufactured +products, and turn off their operatives to starve. And of course they +got it; you have only to imagine the hysterics that Clara Thornwell +Scatterbridge would have had in the boudoir of Deborah Thornwell Alvin, +if Rupert had dreamed of refusing! John Quincy Thornwell needed a small +fortune, for a shipping deal he had been putting through on the side; +and he got it from Rupert’s bank. Rupert also needed a fortune, for +some of those subsidiary plants which he and Henry Cabot Winters had +taken away from Jerry Walker, and had kept all to themselves. Rupert +got this money from the Fifth National Bank, of which John Quincy +Thornwell was president. So these big fellows shifted millions about +from their right-hand pockets to their left-hand pockets, and shrewd +lawyers like Henry Cabot Winters were there to tell them exactly how to +do it, so they need never worry if some spy told on them, and caused a +government bank-examiner to drop in. + +They knew that their rivals had spies on them, because they had spies +on their rivals. And when these spies would bring in reports of what +was going on, Henry Cabot Winters and the other legal spiders would +be called in to consider how to meet the rivals’ moves. If it was +discovered that some little fellow, having less expensive legal +talent, had slipped up somewhere, and done something which the law did +not allow, then was the time to use your pull with the bank-examiner, +whom you had caused to be appointed a few years ago, and whom you were +going to make into a bank-president in the course of another year or +two--after he had completed the job of putting your rivals out of +business. + +That was the way the blue-bloods kept the banking industry a strictly +blue-blooded affair. The foreigners, and especially the Jews, had +got into everything else. For decades they had been boycotted as +department-store owners, but now several of the biggest and most +successful stores were in the hands of Jews. They had got clothing and +wool and leather; they had the theaters, and were breaking into law and +medicine--but they were never going to get the banking-business, not if +Rupert Alvin and the rest of the “high hats” could prevent it. And they +could! + +At this time there was a Jewish banker who had broken into the reserve. +Simon Swig was his name--which in itself was enough to demonstrate +the impropriety of allowing a Jew to become directing head of a bank! +He had come into the country as a common immigrant, and now had got +hold of the Tremont Trust Company, an honorable institution, and was +running it on bargain-day principles--paying five and a half per cent +on savings accounts, and advertising the fact, which was unethical, +but brought in the business. He was a rascal, so the blue-bloods +said, and doubtless it was true, but you had to remember that in high +finance rascality is a question of degree. The respectable bankers were +breaking any number of laws, but having the banking authorities in +their clubs, they were not punished. Neither were they exposed, because +they had the newspapers, and their “news bureaus,” run by large stout +subsidized “experts”--whose expertness lay in making the public believe +whatever Rupert Alvin and men of his sort desired. + +In the course of that chain of troubles, the state bank-examiners +swooped down one morning and tacked a notice on the door of the Tremont +Trust Company, to the effect that it was closed and forbidden to do +business. And that was all there was to it--the Tremont Trust stayed +closed, and it didn’t do any business. If it had been a “blue-blood” +bank, it would have been “tided over”; instead of which it was turned +over to a “blue-blood” receiver, and paid its savings depositors a +hundred cents on the dollar--which seemed rather to justify the claim +of Simon Swig that it had been sound all along. + + +XIII + +What started the trouble that summer was the problem of Charles Ponzi. +An Italian immigrant who had come to America about the same time as +Vanzetti, and with even less money in his pocket, Ponzi, too, had +washed dishes for a living; but he had not wasted his time dreaming +about “joostice”--no, he was the sort of immigrant America wants, he +had dreamed of making a million dollars in a week, and he had done it. +He discovered a curious situation in international exchange, so he +said; it was possible to buy postal coupons in Vienna, and sell them +at a higher rate in Switzerland, and thus you could turn a thousand +dollars into twenty-five thousand. It made good advertising copy, and +was no more false than what the big bankers were telling the public +about their Federal Reserve System. Anyhow, Ponzi opened a dingy little +office in School Street, quite in the correct Boston tradition--for +many of the big New England corporations had dingy little offices in +some of those two-hundred-year-old houses in dark and narrow streets +which had been laid out by cows. + +Charles Ponzi advertised that he would sell you a forty-five-day +certificate, which you were free to redeem at any time, but if you +would wait till the end of the forty-five days, you would get fifty +per cent interest. The tidings spread among the million inhabitants +of Boston, and all those persons who cherished the dream of getting +rich without working came to buy certificates--which meant that Ponzi +had approximately a million customers. Such a mob of people tried to +get into his dingy office all at once that the police reserves had +to be called out to keep them from being crushed to death. In that +suffocating room you saw rich ladies in silks and jewels, newsboys, +street peddlers, workingwomen with babies in their arms, scrubwomen +clutching in their hands the earnings of half a lifetime on their +knees. They all wanted to give it to Ponzi, and he took it, and +fulfilled the immigrant’s dream by buying himself a palace in the +country, with the most expensive custom-built limousine in Boston to +bring him to town. + +Ponzi was imperiling the savings banks by causing the public to draw +out all their money; he was buying into the big trust companies, and in +danger of becoming a real banker. Worse yet, he was filling the public +mind with unrest, talking recklessly to the newspapers. He kept saying +that in making a hundred per cent profit in three months he was merely +doing what many big bankers were doing--the difference being that he +was giving the public fifty percent, whereas the big bankers gave only +five percent. If any one were to say how near to the truth that was, +the person would not be believed, so it would be useless to say it. + +The bank-examiners and district attorneys got busy, and filled the +papers with rumors that Ponzi was about to be arrested. It was +difficult to take action because the ex-dishwasher was now worth about +twelve million dollars, and actually had five millions cash in Boston +banks, and nobody so rich had ever been arrested in New England. +Moreover, he had hired a very able lawyer, who was later on disbarred +as a “fixer”; he paid that lawyer a million dollars before he got +through, and would undoubtedly have got off, had not Rupert and his +crowd been so determined to get him out of the way. + +As often occurs with financial storms, this one got out of control, +and brought down several institutions: the Cosmopolitan Trust, +the Prudential Trust, the Fidelity Trust--it was a rollcall of +respectability. It so happened that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts +had several hundred thousand dollars in these banks, and several +counties had as much. The city of Cambridge, the home of Harvard +University, just across the river, was stuck for half a million--the +greater part having been got by a trick played upon the city treasurer +a few months before the crash. All this caused a terrific scandal, and +a long train of consequences most distressing to Rupert Alvin and his +friends. For the examinations of the banks disclosed that many of the +state legislators had been borrowing money without any security, and +had used this money to buy stocks in public utilities, while passing a +bill to triple their value. + +Not so long ago the Pilgrim National crowd had driven the Boston +Elevated Railway onto the financial rocks, and taken it over; then, +in order to put it back on its feet, they had jammed through the +legislature a so-called Public Control bill, whereby the Commonwealth +guaranteed dividends to the Elevated stockholders, which made necessary +a ten-cent fare. So here was the blue-blooded and high-hatted and +in all ways ineffable Rupert Alvin playing Santa Claus and angel to +the politicians and legislators of his Commonwealth! The disclosure +was half a year in the future, but that only meant the prolonging of +Rupert’s worry; for of course he knew what was in the records of the +banks, and he knew that when the public has lost a lot of money and +become furiously angry, it is much harder to keep news out of the +papers. + + +XIV + +Another trouble looming, if possible even more serious! Jerry Walker +had come back from his nervous breakdown, and had found out some +details of the intrigue by which Rupert and Henry Cabot Winters had +persuaded the other bankers to join in taking his ten-million-dollar +properties. Jerry had consulted lawyers, and made a deal with one +of them, a bristling little bull-dog of a man who had taken many a +million away from big bankers on previous occasions. Now, under the +law, Jerry had a right to put questions to Rupert, as to what Rupert +had done to him, and Rupert was compelled to answer, under penalty +of being considered to have admitted his guilt! So there would come +to the Pilgrim National crowd and their lawyers long letters full +of questions, agonizingly direct and to the point; and there would +be conferences of great financial and legal personages, and private +conferences in Rupert’s study late at night, in which Rupert and his +brother-in-law would go over what they had done to Jerry, and many +times wish they had done it a little differently! + +Betty Alvin found out about this, because she ran into Lucile Walker +in the lobby of one of the hotels. They had not met since Betty’s +departure for Europe, more than a year ago; so they rushed into each +other’s arms, girl fashion, and then adjourned to the tea-room to talk +things over. Lucile had solved her financial and other problems in +the good old established way; she was now Mrs. Percy G. Townsend, her +husband a manufacturer of some kind of electrical equipment. He was +young and enthusiastic, and so was his wife, and they were going to +work hard and build up a business, and then some day one of the big +banking groups would take it over. + +Betty told a little about her adventures in Hungary and Russia and +Plymouth, Massachusetts; after which there was an embarrassed pause on +Lucile’s part, and she said, “I suppose you know what Papa is doing?” +When Betty said she didn’t, Lucile told about the suit that was coming; +and when Betty said that she was not taking her father’s side in +his business fights, Lucile told more of the story. It was going to +mean a dreadful lot of publicity for all of them, because those big +State Street bankers would be put on the witness stand and questioned +about the deals they had made, and how they had divided Mr. Walker’s +properties. Betty said she had told her mother that she would never +touch any of that money; just now she was wrestling with the problem +whether she ought to take any money at all from her father. She was +able to earn her own living, and wanted to--but also she wanted to give +her time to organizing a Sacco-Vanzetti defense, and she couldn’t earn +a living at that. + +Betty went home and told her grandmother; and so when Cornelia happened +to meet Henry Cabot Winters, she was able to pose as a woman of the +world, in touch with secret news channels. Henry, of course, had +no trouble in guessing how she knew, and there developed a curious +situation. A couple of years ago he had been indignant at the idea +that Jerry Walker might be using Cornelia as a means of getting +information from the Thornwells; but now he wanted to use Cornelia to +get information as to the plans of Jerry Walker! He went so far as to +propose a “swap”: if Cornelia would find out all she could from the +Walkers, Henry would use his inside connections to help Cornelia’s +beloved bandits. He would get in touch with the officials, and find out +what their plans were, and might even be able to find some way to get +those rascals off. + +Somehow this tickled Cornelia’s funny-bone, and she burst into +laughter. “You and Rupert must be badly scared,” she said; and after +Henry had made sure that she was not going to talk to the Walkers about +it, he admitted that they were. It was not that they had done anything +wrong--nobody in Boston ever does that--but it was going to be such a +mess, to have the letters and telegrams and confidential memoranda of +a great banking project spread out in the newspapers. + +“Can’t you clean out your files?” asked Cornelia, with a twinkle in +her eye. He answered that it wasn’t so easy as it sounded, because +one document referred to the next, and there were copies in a dozen +different banks. If you took out very much, your employees were bound +to know it, and that exposed you to spying and blackmail. Uneasy lies +the head that wears a crown! + + +XV + +Troubles! Troubles! Even in far-off Italy, that summer and fall, people +were occupied in making troubles for Rupert Alvin and his associates. +The big bankers had filled up their vaults with the gold-embossed and +red-sealed financial promises of European governments; and vain was +the hope to save themselves by unloading this paper on the public. +Because after a bank customer had bought it, he generally came back to +leave it as security up to eighty percent of its market value; and how +could Rupert refuse to lend money on a bond which he had certified as +an investment for widows and orphans? So it had come about that every +time a European premier sneezed, Rupert Alvin jumped in his sleep; when +the anarchists paraded in Milan or Turin and waved their black flags, +Rupert couldn’t sleep at all. + +That summer the radical labor unions of Italy made their long expected +coup--moving in and taking possession of the principal steel and +machine plants of the country. But having got in, they didn’t know what +to do next, because they could not turn a wheel of the plants without +coal, and the coal had to come from England or America, in English +or American ships, upon English or American credit. Were English +or American coal men going to extend credit to Italian anarchists, +anarcho-syndicalists, communist-anarchists and left-wing socialists? +The coal men of England and America, like all the other big business +men of those countries, were going to do what their Rupert Alvins +told them; and the Rupert Alvins said thumbs down on Reds. So the +Italian workers had to make peace with their masters, and give up +the plants; and then it was necessary for the masters to organize a +counter-revolutionary government, to break up the labor unions and kill +off the leaders. To do that they had to have the machinery of reaction +and slaughter--and where else should they come for it but to America? + +So it happened that Rupert Alvin, in the midst of all his troubles +with Ponzi, and Simon Swig, and the half dozen closed banks, and the +threatened Elevated Railway scandal, and the hiding of evidence in the +Jerry Walker case, and the unhappiness over Betty and Cornelia--with +all this nightmare-load riding his shoulders, Rupert Alvin had to +interview agents of the banking and manufacturing interests of Italy, +and listen to plans for the coup d’état which was to turn that country +into a dictatorship of big capital. No possible way to avoid it--unless +all the money that had been loaned to Italy during and since the war +was to be lost. The bankers of Boston and New York and Philadelphia and +Chicago had to get together and do for Italy what they had already done +for Hungary and Roumania and Czechoslovakia and Finland and Esthonia +and Latvia and Lithuania--so many miserable little bonded states that +it gave a hundred percent American a headache to learn the names. + +And meantime Bartolomeo Vanzetti paced his cell, in the space eight +feet by one and a half allotted him for pacing. He knew what was +happening, because his friends brought him a few facts, and he could +reconstruct the rest, with that clear mind which understood social +forces. He knew that it meant the ruin of all his hopes, all chance of +freedom for the peasants and wage-slaves of Italy for years, perhaps +decades. He knew what the American bankers would do; he foretold +how, when the time came to float the loan, they would have the +newspapers bought and the propaganda ready, and would carry the mass of +Italian-Americans into reaction with them. Meantime they had Vanzetti +in jail, where he was safe--and they were going to see to it that he +stayed! + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LEGAL SYSTEM + + +I + +On the 11th of September, 1920, the grand jury of Norfolk County +brought indictments against Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, +charging them with the murder of the paymaster and guard at South +Braintree in the previous April. This county shared with Plymouth the +same district attorney; and Nick and Bart were brought before the +same Judge Thayer. They pleaded not guilty, and the trial was set for +February. Meantime Bart went back to the tailor-shop at Charlestown, +serving his sentence for the Bridgewater crime; while Nick returned to +the county jail at Dedham--a very unhappy man, because they gave him +nothing whatever to do in this prison, and he nearly went out of his +mind. + +Meantime a little group in Boston set about organizing what they +called the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee. In the beginning it +consisted entirely of Italians, the foremost among them being Aldino +Felicani, anarchist printer, a tall, ascetic-looking young man, +soft-voiced and reserved. He would set up type for the circulars, and +translate them into Italian. Others would address envelopes, and visit +the meeting-places of radicals in neighboring towns, and circulate +subscription lists. So would come a few dollars here and a few dollars +there. At the outset there was no office, no secretary, only the +volunteer labors of a few comrades. + +Joe Randall had finished his book on the “White Terror”; he had lost +hope of bringing it up to date, since events happened faster than pen +could move. Now he became a volunteer press agent for the committee; +he wrote news stories, and made carbon copies, and went about trying +to cajole this editor and that into giving a little publicity. With +him came another young journalist, Art Shields, a tireless worker; +you would see lights burning and hear typewriters clicking in the +office until two or three o’clock in the morning. Betty learned to +make speeches, and put her youth and beauty and social prestige to +work; she would visit labor headquarters and “vamp” the officials, +seeking to overcome the bitter prejudice of Irish-Catholic and Yankee +labor leaders against a pair of wops who were admitted to be infidels, +anarchists and draft-dodgers. Cornelia and Betty would go together to +places where they encountered ladies with blue blood ever so slightly +tinged with pink. The services the pair had rendered to the suffrage +cause--now victorious--gave them prestige, and they could get small +checks. + +The Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee was from the outset a peculiar +organization. It consisted largely of a name, and nobody could say just +who were its members, or what was their authority. Those Americans who +later joined and helped to build it up did so from sympathy with an +oppressed group, and they served as a “front”; they were featured in +the newspapers, they made speeches, and conferred respectability. But +they did not know so much about the case, and naturally they had to +defer to the Italians in a crisis. + +Among these latter, also, appeared a division; there was an Italian +“front”: such men as Felicani, the printer, and Felice Guadagni, the +journalist whom Cornelia had met when he came down to help in the +Plymouth cordage strike; also Rosina Sacco, wife of the prisoner, an +alert and intelligent woman, devoted to her husband’s cause. These +were known; but there were others who stayed in the background, and +in a time of crisis would reach out a hand, as it were from behind a +curtain, and influence a decision. These were anarchists, intimates +of Sacco and Vanzetti, and it was easy enough to understand why they +kept hidden; they stood in danger of deportation, and perhaps of being +accused of crimes, along with the two in jail. But it made committee +functioning difficult, when you never knew what decision would be +changed, or by whom, or for what reason. Public statements would be +prepared and issued in English, and then translated into Italian, +and the discovery would be made that the Italian version was quite +different, and even contradictory; yet it would not be known just how +this had happened. + +There was the element of fear, and of course, the element of +suspicion. It was inevitable that the enemy should send spies among +the committee--and that these would be persons sufficiently cunning +to pose as “good radicals.” From first to last the prosecution was +fully informed as to everything that went on among the committee, the +decisions that were taken as well as the arguments and the quarrels. +These spies came and went; and after they were gone, they would joke +about how they had collected money for the cause and spent it having a +good time in their own fashion. Then you would hear the great ones of +Massachusetts, who had employed these spies, solemnly charging that the +funds of the committee had been stolen! + + +II + +Among both English and Italian groups there were sharp divisions +according to political beliefs. Some insisted that this was a criminal +case, and should be handled as such; others thought it was a case of +labor persecution, to be featured as an episode in the class struggle. +Strange as it might seem, the anarchists for the most part took the +former view; they saw clearly that efforts to make anarchist propaganda +might not merely bring about a conviction of the two men, but might +get their defenders into trouble. But a socialist like Joe Randall +was free from such fear, and to him the case was an effort of big +business to put two of its dangerous enemies out of the way; he could +never write anything about the case that was not disguised propaganda +for socialism, and of course he did not like to have his propaganda +cut out by non-socialist members of the committee. Young persons like +Betty Alvin, who at this stage of her life insisted that she was a +communist--such young persons wanted to put in a different kind of +propaganda, and their persistence increased as the case grew more +conspicuous. + +It was a controversy that would never cease, up to the very last hour, +and even beyond it--when men and women fought with deadly bitterness +over the question of what should be done with the ashes of the victims. +You saw the germs of it at the first meeting, when eight or ten +ill-assorted enthusiasts fell to discussing what kind of lawyer should +be employed for the trial. Should they get a labor man, who would make +an appeal to the movement throughout the country? Or should they get a +respectable lawyer, who would confer dignity upon the case, and impress +the public and the jury in the good old Boston way? Still another +possibility, should they look for a criminal expert, with knowledge of +the trickeries of a highly technical game? Joe and Betty united for +the first plan, Cornelia urged the second, while the Italians divided +between the first and third. + +A powerful factor in the decision was, of course, the two prisoners, +who never wavered for a moment; to them it was a class-war case, +they were being persecuted because of their threat to the rich of +Massachusetts. To Vanzetti the very idea of respectability was an +insult, the idea of legal trickery nearly as bad. All such hopes would +prove delusive, and only the labor movement could save them. “Unless a +million men can be mobilized for our defense, we are lost!”--so he said +in the first days, and so he said in the last. + +As for Sacco, he was even more extreme; shut up in his half-dark cell +in Dedham jail, he was like a rat in a trap, a creature all of steel +springs and fury. He brooded incessantly, and ate his heart out, and +never let himself be fooled by a hope. “They have got us, they will +kill us,” he would say; and whenever his enemies came near him, he +would throw his revolutionary convictions into their faces. “Viva +l’anarchia!” were his last words, and this summed up his attitude at +every stage of the seven years’ struggle. + + +III + +Cornelia went downtown to have lunch with Henry Cabot Winters, who +knew all the lawyers in town. First he would make the protest which +family proprieties required; and then he would betray his secret +amusement--being in truth rather proud of his runaway mother-in-law, +who was telling the world to go to the devil in the very best “old +Boston” manner. + +But this time Cornelia missed the usual twinkle in Henry’s fine dark +eyes. In the first place, the great lawyer was worried by some of the +things he had learned that Jerry Walker had learned about him. And +in the second place, Henry had been shocked by the Wall Street “bomb +explosion.” Five days after the indictment of Sacco and Vanzetti a +wagonload of explosives had gone off in front of the building of J. +P. Morgan and Company in New York, and thirty-three persons had been +blown to fragments. The newspapers were certain that this was the work +of anarchists, and the Boston _Traveler_ had come out with a full-page +article, to the effect that the crime had been traced to the Galleani +group, a vengeance for the arrest of the bandits, Sacco and Vanzetti. + +“Mother, that is a horrible thing!” said Henry; and Cornelia said, yes, +it was indeed horrible for a newspaper to prejudge the case of two +accused men, and make it impossible for them to get a fair jury in the +community. Henry, as a lawyer, must know that such an article would +have that effect, and under the very strict laws of Massachusetts was +contempt of court. + +But Henry did not discuss that aspect of the matter. “I am told,” said +he, “that the Boston anarchists made no attempt to conceal their glee +when they learned of that explosion.” + +“Why should they?” said Cornelia. “If they had learned that an +earthquake had destroyed every building in Wall Street, they would +have been still more pleased; but that would not mean they control +earthquakes. Their glee expressed their conviction that the practices +of Wall Street cause boundless suffering to the workers of America; and +in that they are right.” + +“Now, Mother,” said Henry, “let’s look at the menu. We don’t want to +get off on politics.” + +Cornelia laughed. “I am always entertained to discover the identity of +attitude of my Back Bay and my anarchist friends. The anarchists don’t +want to get off on politics either, they share your faith in direct +action.” + +Henry ordered the lunch; and Cornelia repeated what she had learned +from the radical papers, that the explosion had been caused by a +load of blasting gelatine, being illegally taken through the city in +the daytime; while Henry repeated what he had read in the capitalist +papers, that it was an anarchist bomb. He wanted to know, with some +irritation, “Do you think that anarchists never use bombs?” + +“I have been told they sometimes do.” + +“Yet you can be certain these two friends of yours never did any such +thing?” + +“They aren’t accused of having done that, Henry.” + +“I know. But people say--” + +“What people, Henry?” + +“Well, friends of mine who are in position to know the inside.” + +“Will you tell me their names?” + +“I can’t do that.” + +“Did you ask who gave them the information?” + +“No, but--” + +“I am interested to watch the process of rumor. People say this and +people say that, and always when you try to get something definite, +there is nothing. Can you bring me a single fact, Henry--one that you +as a first-class lawyer would respect? I am ready to deal with it +honestly; and surely it’s worth the family’s while to keep me from +being led into a trap.” Cornelia looked her son-in-law in his dark fine +eyes, gravely and steadily; and he said all right, he would try to help +her. + + +IV + +The waiter brought oysters, since there was an “r” in the month. And +after he had set down the crackers and the lemons and the paprika, and +made all the necessary flourishes, he went his way, and Henry returned +to the dangerous subject of bombs, which haunted the thoughts of all +leisure-class Boston in those desperate days. Despite his pretenses +of omniscience, Cornelia represented his only direct contact with the +anarchist movement. + +“You know, Mother, somebody did make bombs--the ones that went through +the mail. You can’t dispute that.” + +“No, of course not.” + +“What do your friends say about those?” + +“Vanzetti is quite certain it was a frame-up.” + +“By whom?” + +“Some one of the big detective agencies, which are making millions out +of this anti-red agitation.” + +Henry smiled pityingly. “You accept that?” + +“I don’t accept it as a fact, because I don’t know. I certainly accept +it as a possibility.” + +“Believe me, Mother, you’ll have to look for a better alibi. Frame-ups +don’t happen.” + +Henry saw the pair of brown eyes fixed upon his dark ones. They +were soft, and always kind, but they were persistent, and he had +learned that they saw deep. “Be careful, and don’t commit yourself +too completely. You may need an alibi yourself, my son.” And that was +hardly fair at the beginning of a luncheon; a poor appetizer for a +great lawyer who was going to be a defendant, and get large daily doses +of his own medicine. His look clouded, and for a while he was less +quick to interrupt. + +“Five or six years ago, Henry, I’d have agreed with you about the +frame-up; I’d have said it was a device of criminals in trouble, and +a sign they were hard-pressed. But now I know that the frame-up is a +regular weapon in the class-struggle, just as well understood as, for +example, jury-fixing, or the buying of labor leaders. Did you ever have +William M. Wood for a client?” + +“No, Mother, I have never been that fortunate.” + +“How rich is he?” + +“I don’t know; pretty rich--ten or fifteen million, maybe.” + +“Enough to be one of our leading industrialists, the president of our +great woolen corporation. You’d think he was big enough not to frame +up conspiracies against his workers, wouldn’t you? Do you happen to +remember what he did in the Lawrence strike, seven or eight years ago? +He couldn’t see any other way to break the union, so he had dynamite +planted, to be blamed upon the union leaders. He was indicted and tried +for it--” + +“And acquitted, if I remember correctly.” + +“Yes, you know what it means for a great mill-owner to be acquitted in +his own bailiwick. It is a fact that the men he hired to do the job +were convicted; and I leave it for you to suggest that he didn’t know +what they were doing for him. This much is certain, the story was given +out to the newspapers that dynamite had been found by the police in a +shoe-box in the union headquarters. The box had been brought there by +a detective, and somebody slipped up on the time, and the story was in +the Boston _American_ before the raid took place and the dynamite was +found! That was bad management, at least.” + +The great lawyer could not help smiling. “I will say that if I had had +the matter in charge, it wouldn’t have happened that way.” + +“Well, don’t forget that it is a part of American labor history, and +graven into the consciousness of all those people you call ‘Reds.’ So +when the great gossip machine starts to grinding, and we hear that +‘people say’ our friends are guilty, that ‘everybody knows it,’ and +that ‘frame-ups don’t happen,’--well, Henry, we fall back on the good +old tradition of English and American law, that every man is innocent +until he is proved guilty. And in the effort to get him a fair trial we +go to a lot of trouble--such as inviting ourselves to lunch with our +rich and famous sons-in-law, and asking for the names of lawyers who +might possibly care about justice!” + + +V + +Henry supplied the names of respectable lawyers, and Cornelia went to +interview them, but in vain. Later on, after years of struggle had +made a world issue of the case, it would be possible to interest great +lawyers in it; but at present there was no man who would burden himself +with the defense of two anarchist infidel draft-dodgers accused of +murder. + +Also Henry named some of the legal tricksters, and Cornelia had curious +experiences interviewing these. There was one uniform objection to +all these powerful ones, the amount of money necessary to start their +powers into action. Some said fifty thousand, some said seventy-five; +and this was a stage in the life of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense +Committee when there were discussions as to whether they could afford +to rent a post-office box, and whether it would be the part of wisdom +to buy a second-hand typewriter. + +Later on there would be ladies of wealth and fashion interested in the +case, and money would be pouring in from labor groups all over the +world; but at this stage, when money would really have counted, the +only large sum in sight was what Cornelia could raise on her income +and lend to the committee. She had discovered by talking to bankers +that she could not raise very much, because her life expectancy at +sixty-five was limited. If she had wanted fifty thousand dollars for +an orphan asylum, or for a house to live in, or even for a string of +pearls to hang about her withered neck, she had three daughters and +three sons-in-law, any one of whom would have written her a check, and +been glad to get such a hold upon her. But when it was a question of +imperiling the Commonwealth by aiding and abetting anarchism, Cornelia +did not have to ask for the money, she could hear in advance the polite +but firm rebuke. + +The problem of a lawyer was settled by the Italians. It happened that +Lee Swenson was in New York, recuperating from the labor of saving a +bunch of I.W.W. from jail in Kansas, and swearing to himself by all the +gods he disbelieved in that never again. But Carlo Tresca came to see +him, and Swenson knew Carlo from the Ettor-Giovannitti case. Carlo told +the pitiful story of two anarchists in jail in Massachusetts, who had +the skids under them, all ready to be slid into the electric chair; he +told what a fine fellow Bart was, and how he had all but had tears in +his eyes because he missed seeing the Statue of Liberty, and now maybe +he would never see it; and about Nick’s wife and little boy, and the +new baby expected in a month or two. Carlo came again and again, and +appealed to Lee Swenson’s friendship, until finally he said he would go +up to Boston and look things over. + +Lee Swenson was of Swedish descent, and came originally from Minnesota. +He had been in practically every big criminal case which involved +labor during the past fifteen or twenty years. As a cub lawyer he had +helped to get evidence for Moyer and Haywood in Idaho; he had helped to +defend the McNamaras in Los Angeles and Tom Mooney in San Francisco, +and several groups of the I.W.W. in Chicago and the middle west. He +stood six feet and a couple of unnecessary inches, and was badly put +together; he did not know what to do with his big hands and feet, nor +in fact with any part of himself; he liked to sit on his neck, and his +feet liked to get up off the floor. He had a thick shock of yellow +hair, and when it was not arranged it looked as if one of those western +windstorms had hit it, and when it was arranged it appeared to be done +with vaseline. + +Lee Swenson was too intelligent a man not to know the disturbing +effect he produced upon the respectable citizens of New England. Was +he really rattled by them, as he pretended, or did he enjoy the effect +he produced, somewhere back in the deeps where he kept his laughter +until it came rumbling forth like thunder from the mountains? After +he had been nosing into the case for a couple of weeks, he asked +for a conference with Cornelia, and she invited him to her little +apartment to dinner, on an evening when Joe and Betty were scheduled +for a hearing before the carpenters’ union. Before they went into the +dining-room, Lee Swenson sank into Cornelia’s one Morris-chair, and +then slid most of the way out of it, and said, “Will you be shocked if +I cross my legs?”--and did it without waiting for an answer. + +“Not at all,” said Cornelia, hastily. + +“Not even when you discover that I wear woolen socks?” + +“I know you are making fun of Boston, Mr. Swenson.” + +“My God,” said he--“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Thornwell, but this is a +terrible place for a man that grew up in a sod hut. I realized when we +were defending Ettor and Giovannitti in Salem that I didn’t fit, but I +never had time to go into details, and never happened to meet the right +person. But I believe you are it.” + +“Is that why you wanted to talk with me?” + +“No, but you can do it on the side. Tell me how to avoid shocking +judges and juries who talk through their noses.” + +“Do you really want me to tell?” + +“I said it.” + +“Well, why do you wear a broad-brimmed black felt hat such as nobody +ever saw in Boston?” + +“But it’s what I had when I came to town, and I can’t afford another.” + +“Are you really that hard up?” + +“Maybe you don’t know how it is with a radical lawyer. Imagine a score +or two of cases, each like this one. There is two dollars and fourteen +cents in the treasury to-night. They offer to pay me a hundred and +fifty a week while the case lasts, but you know how it will be, they’ll +be seventeen weeks behind in their payments at the end of eighteen +weeks, and when I get a check, there’ll be some emergency next day that +I’ll pay out of my own pocket. You see, I’m not really going to be a +lawyer--that will be merely incidental; I’m going to be organizer, +propagandist, press agent and promoter; any money I get, I’ve first got +to raise, and understanding that the committee will begrudge me every +cent I take.” + +“Surely it won’t be as bad as that, Mr. Swenson!” + +“You are a newcomer, Mrs. Thornwell; but this is my twentieth +committee, and believe me, I know them. It won’t be their fault, they +will be sincere and devoted, most of them; but they will be poor, and +narrow-minded--not used to spending money with the magnificent abandon +of us privileged persons. They won’t see what I need with so much, and +when the newspapers and the outside public begin to tell how I have got +away with one or two hundred thousand on the sly, they will think maybe +it’s the truth. I tell you this in advance, because, when it’s over, my +one chance of getting arrears of salary will be by vamping some of the +rich ladies, your friends who will be interested in the case. And then +I’ll get my new hat.” + +“Meantime,” said Cornelia, hastily, “you can at least get a haircut.” + +But the other replied, “If I did, the hat would be bigger than ever, +with nothing to hold it but my ears.” + + +VI + +After they had dined, and were back in the little living-room, in +front of the coal grate-fire, the lawyer asked if he might close the +door. He drew his chair close to Cornelia, and slid down into it and +began: “Mrs. Thornwell, I have been digging into this case, and I am +completely baffled, and don’t know what to do. The last time I talked +with Vanzetti, he told me that you were the one American he would +trust. He admires your granddaughter, but he’s afraid she would be +shocked if I talked straight to her.” + +“He is mistaken,” said Cornelia, smiling in spite of herself. “I am far +more easily shocked than Betty. The younger generation is taking life +into its own hands.” + +“Well, if you don’t mind, I prefer the old ones. You and I have +suffered, and we have a deeper foundation under us. Do you mind if I +ask for your confidence?” + +“Not at all, Mr. Swenson. I will tell you anything I can. But I fear it +won’t be much.” + +“First, all you know about these two boys--everything that will help me +to judge them.” + +“Sacco I hardly know at all. I only met him two or three times prior +to the arrest. I have been to see him three times in Dedham, partly +because I wanted to make up my mind about him.” + +“And what are your conclusions?” + +“He is a difficult man to know, under the circumstances. He has a +primitive mind, I judge. He does very little thinking; he is satisfied +with a formula, that the rich exploit the poor, and are the enemies +of the poor, and always have a self-seeking motive in relation to +them. And of course I don’t fit into that formula. Why should a rich +woman, who might have everything she wants, burn up gasoline and +tires traveling down to Dedham to visit an anarchist in prison? He is +instinctively polite, and affectionate to his friends, I am told. He +hasn’t given me any hint of a suspicion, but he probably fears that I +may be another trap the enemy has set for him. You know, of course, +they put a spy in the cell next to him soon after his arrest?” + +“Yes, he told me that.” + +“Also they wanted to get one into his home, to try to board with his +wife. I’m told the district attorney had that bright idea. I suppose +it is too much to expect those gentry to have delicate sensibilities, +but you’d think they might have guessed that a woman who was deprived +of her husband, and was expecting another baby in two or three months, +would rather have a woman-boarder than a man. Anyhow, somebody found +out about it, and naturally the Saccos are very suspicious. So I +haven’t tried to talk about the case with either of them. When I have +seen Nick, I have talked about his garden, and the wonderful tomatoes +he used to have--those tomatoes were like so many babies to him. I take +him a bunch of chrysanthemums--they let him have flowers, though they +won’t let Bart have any.” + +“Oh, surely not!” + +“It’s a regulation at Charlestown, I suppose that a saw or a knife +might be hidden in them; or maybe drugs. I get round it by wearing +one flower, and when I ask the guard if I may leave it with Bart, +he is ashamed to say no. I am trying to win the hearts of all of +them, because it seems to me the jailers are in jail as much as the +prisoners.” + +“We are all in jail, Mrs. Thornwell. Take it from one who has been +playing the game twenty years--we are prisoners of the system. I walk +about with a chain on my wrist, and at the other end are fastened so +many lies that it seems like the population of all seven of Dante’s +hells. That is a part of what I want to talk to you about.” + + +VII + +It took Cornelia a good hour to tell the story of how she had come into +the Brini home and what she had seen there. She told about Bart’s ideas +and dreams, his work and his play and his personal habits. She told +about the sick kitten he had refused to have killed, and the rabbits he +had brought home in a sack, and kept in pens for several months--until +the sorrowful realization was forced upon him that there was no earthly +way to keep those creatures from getting out and gnawing the vegetables +of his Catholic neighbor, Mrs. O’Dowd. She told about the lost purse +he had refused to take from the policeman, and the boots he had let +the poor laborer keep, and the lessons in hygiene he had given to the +“riformista,” Compagno Culla--all those incidents which were destined +to become Vanzetti legends, and be repeated whenever his Italian +friends mentioned his name. + +Also, because a lawyer had a right to the whole truth, she told him +about the fights; and how the anarchist youths had come armed to the +Galleani meeting, vowing to defend their hero to the death; and how +Bart had got a gun and declared that he would never let himself be +taken and put through the third degree. + +“Now you are getting to what I want,” said Swenson. “Do you know +whether that gun is the same one that he had on when he was arrested?” + +“I believe he gave it away,” said Cornelia. “From what I know of him, +he wouldn’t keep any piece of property as long as four years.” + +“Well, I can’t get them to tell me where they got those guns; at least, +I can’t get them to tell me the truth. That’s why I’m so up against it. +They are afraid of me, afraid of everybody.” + +“They have reason to be cautious. But won’t they take Tresca’s word for +your reliability?” + +“I suppose if I could get them both together with Carlo, we could come +to an understanding; but as it is, they go on repeating the stories +they told to the police; and their friends outside do the same. +Orciani has been driving me about, looking for evidence, and I’ve been +appealing to him. Do you know him?” + +“Only slightly.” + +“He has the courage of a man with the mind of a child: a simple Italian +peasant, picked up off the countryside and dumped into the maelstrom of +America. I have managed to win his affection, and he will talk to me +frankly about everything in the world but this case. I point out his +contradictions, but it doesn’t make any difference. It is a peculiarity +of Italian anarchists that I have observed, they can go on insisting +that black is white longer than any other human beings I have ever +seen. But somehow it has got to be put across to them that they can’t +go before a Yankee jury with those stories--it will be throwing away +their lives.” + +“What stories, Mr. Swenson?” + +“Well, the one about what they did on the night they were arrested. I +can’t get a single one of those fellows to admit to me that they were +in front of the Johnson place that night; yet it’s a physical fact that +any jury will see--there’s a swampy meadow on both sides of the road, +and no other way for Sacco and Vanzetti to have got from the place +where they admit they got off the street-car to the place where they +got on again. If we’re going to save them, we’ve simply got to make a +story that a jury will believe.” + +There was a pause; Lee Swenson got up and went to the door that led +into the dining-room, and opened it, to make sure the Negro maid was +not listening. Then he came back, and when he spoke again, it was in a +lower voice. “Mrs. Thornwell, I know enough about Boston to understand +that you will be startled to hear me discuss the ‘making’ of stories to +be presented to a jury.” + +“You use what I might call an optimistic phrase, Mr. Swenson.” + +“Every professional man does that when he deals with the shady parts of +his job. You may know that when the fashionable ladies go to a surgeon +for an abortion, he refers to it as a ‘curettage’.” + +“I have three daughters,” said Cornelia, placidly. “But I thought that +in this case, if we are dealing with men who are innocent--” + +“You thought we might trust to the truth?” + +“I admit I was that naïve.” + +“Well, Mrs. Thornwell, I can only tell you--in my experience with labor +frame-ups in a dozen states, I have always found it necessary to fight +the devil with his own fire.” + + +VIII + +Cornelia’s little round face wore an anxious look, and her soft brown +eyes were wide open, staring at the man in front of her. She saw a big, +rough-hewn face, marked by small-pox; with a lower jaw which had a way +of thrusting itself up, making a deep crease on each side of the mouth. +The eyes were set under shaggy yellow brows--in short it was the face +of a fighting man, no product of a Back Bay drawing-room. + +But somehow Lee Swenson had learned how people felt in +drawing-rooms--possibly from Henry James, whom he read incessantly. +“You are saying to yourself that I grew up in the wild and woolly west, +Mrs. Thornwell, and things are different in Massachusetts. But I assure +you it is one system, from Maine to California, when some radical is +accused of violence in the class struggle. The authorities are sure the +man is guilty, if not of this crime, then of others just as bad, and so +to ‘make’ a case against him is a worthy work. When a class-war trial +begins, you will see on the stand police officers who know that it is +part of their job to swear to whatever the chief tells them; and maybe +an ex-convict, who knows that the prosecution has something on him, and +testifies as a condition of getting off; and a prostitute, who carries +on her ancient profession at the discretion of the police. In this case +there will be workers from that shoe factory, semi-morons, incapable +of knowing the difference between right and wrong, but knowing what +a reward is, and having rehearsed a lesson until they can say it in +their sleep. It will be simple and easy--‘Yes, I saw the bandits, I saw +them shoot, I am positive these are the men.’ These witnesses will sit +with Sacco and Vanzetti in front of them, and when they are asked to +describe the bandits, they will describe the men in front of them, and +what could be more convincing?” + +“I attended the Plymouth trial,” said Cornelia. “I was shocked by its +unfairness, but I hated to believe it was a deliberate frame-up.” + +Said Lee Swenson: “My knowledge of your Massachusetts procedure was got +at the Ettor-Giovannitti trial, seven years ago, as perfect a frame-up +as ever came under my eyes. The men were no more guilty of murder than +I was; every particle of the testimony was ‘made,’ and the whole case +prepared and the indictments drawn up by lawyers of great corporations. +The victims were Italians, I.W.W. leaders, efficient and dangerous--the +more so because one of them was a fine poet. And how did we save their +lives, Mrs. Thornwell? Was it by trusting to the truth? As a matter of +fact, we had seventeen eye-witnesses to the shooting of Anna Lo Pizzo, +and they absolutely insisted that it was done by a police officer, and +they identified the officer; but because they were all Italians, and +there were so many of them, we didn’t dare use their story, for fear +the jury would think it was a frame-up! That’s how far the truth gets +you in Massachusetts!” + +Lee Swenson waited for Cornelia’s comment; but what could she say? + +“Some day,” continued the lawyer, “I’ll tell you the inside of that +story--as weird a tangle of plot and counterplot as you could want for +a crime-romance. The district attorney was carrying on a political +fight against William M. Wood, the head of the woolen trust, and so +we were able to get hold of the checks which Wood had paid to have +dynamite planted, in a frame-up against the union leaders. With that +evidence in hand we practically blackmailed the executives of the +woolen mills, and made them take the stand, one after another, and +testify that the speeches of the strike leaders had been opposed to +violence. I could name several laws of your great Commonwealth we broke +in putting that job across--and if we hadn’t done it, the world would +never have read ‘Arrows in the Gale,’ by Arturo Giovannitti.” + +Cornelia sat staring before her, pondering this strange moral dilemma. +At last she said, “I have always been taught, Mr. Swenson, that one +gets a certain moral backing from telling the truth.” + +“I know--I also have read Emerson; but how would it work in our courts +of law? Consider Vanzetti’s trial in Plymouth. There was an alibi, +as good as any one could want. The crime occurred on the day before +Christmas, and everybody had something to remember--the eels. Did you +accept that alibi?” + +“I was absolutely convinced by it. I have been all over North Plymouth +with Trando, and he showed me the places; every spot is alive to him +with the memory of Bart, whom he adored. The things jump out of the +child, in a way that couldn’t happen if he had had to learn them. He +will interrupt a talk, ‘There is one of the houses where I took the +eels, and Bart was across the street, and I had to go for change.’ He +will say, ‘Under that tree he dismissed me, and gave me fifty cents for +the work.’ If you knew those simple, kindly people, Mr. Swenson, you +couldn’t doubt their story.” + +“All right--but where does that leave your argument? You trusted to +the truth with that Plymouth jury--and it got you nowhere! No, Mrs. +Thornwell, we must fight the prosecution with its own weapons. We have +to do the reverse of what they have done--convince ourselves that the +boys are innocent, and that whatever we do to get them off is a worthy +work. And then take a joy in the performance--learn to build a good +alibi with the same pleasure that a novelist gets from constructing a +detective story, with every detail fitting precisely, and contributing +to the final result--an acquittal, and a booming reputation as a lawyer +who has never lost a client.” + +“Is that really what you want me to believe about your profession, Mr. +Swenson?” + +“In strict confidence, you understand, Mrs. Thornwell!” + +“Oh, of course.” + +“I want you to believe there is no other way to be a successful +criminal lawyer in America; I have never heard of any man who has done +it, and I do not believe it can be done. That is the game, and you +either play it, or you play some other game.” + +“It sounds as if it would be hard on the nerves.” + +“This is America, and you know our motto, ‘It’s a great life if you +don’t weaken.’ You play for high stakes, and every time it is ‘doubles +or quits,’ if you understand the slang of the gambler. Win the big case +and you’re on top of the heap; lose it, and you’re a dead one! That’s +why it’s so foolish of me to take a case like this. There is no way +to win except to make a big public splurge; and then, if I don’t make +good, it is back to the sticks for me. That is the real moral problem +that confronts a radical lawyer, Mrs. Thornwell--can he afford to have +a heart? Can he feel sorry for some hero-soul like your Bart, who has +apparently got into a jam not of his own making? It’s a decision I have +to make, and naturally it depends very largely upon Bart’s friends.” + +There was a pause. “Just what is it you want me to say, Mr. Swenson?” + +“For the present, nothing in particular. That may come later. What I +want is for you to know the situation--what a murder trial is, and how +it has to be fought--so that later on, when you find out about this +detail and that, you won’t be horrified and disgusted with me, and draw +out and leave me alone with the Italians.” + + +IX + +Lee Swenson had said his say, and it was up to Cornelia. She sat with +her two hands locked together, and her eyes closed, and only the +trembling of the lids to tell what was going on within. When at last +she spoke, her voice was weak, and so were her words. “I never had +anything like that put up to me in my life, Mr. Swenson.” + +“I can believe that. Your life has been lived among people who are not +accused of crimes. And you have your strict moral code--which doesn’t +allow for perjury!” Then, seeing a trace of tears in the old lady’s +eyes, he added quickly, “I fear that I misunderstood you in one way, +Mrs. Thornwell--I thought you knew more about your great moral city +than apparently you do. You went to consult Larry Shay about this case, +didn’t you?” + +“How did you know that?” + +“Well, I have sources of information. How did you come to go to him?” + +“My son-in-law, Henry Cabot Winters, named him.” + +“Why did he name him?” + +“He said he would be the best man to get the boys off.” + +“And what happened when you went to see him?” + +“He wanted fifty thousand dollars, and I told him we didn’t have it.” + +“What did he say?” + +“Well, he pointed out that it was a capital case, and would mean a lot +of hard work.” + +“What did you understand by that?” + +“Wasn’t it obvious? It will take a lot of time to prepare the case, and +it may be a long trial.” + +Lee Swenson laughed, one of those polite laughs which he kept inside +him, out of consideration for Boston. “You are much too good, my dear +Nonna! I think I will call you by Bart’s name, if you don’t mind, +because it is friendly, and at the same time respectful.” + +“I don’t mind,” said Cornelia. + +“Out west,” said the other, “they call me Lee, and they don’t wait a +whole lifetime, as they do in Boston. But now let me explain about +Larry Shay: if he had taken the case, there wasn’t going to be any +trial.” + +“How do you mean?” + +“I mean that Larry is the official ‘fixer’ for the political ring which +governs Boston and its environs. If you have committed a crime, and got +caught, your friends go to him to find out what it will cost to have +the case dropped.” + +“Oh, Mr.--Lee!” + +“You, lovely and naïve blue-blood lady, carried to this legal shark a +proposition to bribe some of the prosecuting officials of your state, +and he made you an offer, and you didn’t even know what it was about!” + +“Do you really know all that?” + +“Everybody knows it that knows about the insides of this town. Worse +than that--they ‘make’ the cases, for the purpose of collecting +blackmail. I could tell you quite a number of stories, only they are +not fit for a lady’s ears--having to do with women and road-houses.” + +There was a pause, while Cornelia thought hard. “You mean, Lee Swenson, +that if I raise fifty thousand dollars and pay it to these politicians, +I can have the case against our two boys dropped?” + +“I mean exactly that. And there’s another moral problem for a +blue-blood lady who has lived a sheltered life, and listened to +her husband, the governor, make fine speeches about their noble +Commonwealth!” + + +X + +The telephone rang; Betty calling. She and Joe had had a successful +time at the carpenters’ union, had got a twenty-five dollar +contribution. Now Betty was going somewhere else. She could not explain +over the phone, but she would be late, and Grannie was not to wait up +for her. Go to sleep. She hung up, and Lee Swenson took his departure, +saying that he had put enough burdens upon her mind for one evening. He +would not ask anything definite, she would need time to think matters +over. Cornelia thanked him. + +She did not go to sleep, but sat in the Morris chair which the lawyer +had vacated, and moral whirlwinds seized her thoughts and flung them +this way and that. She, Cornelia Thornwell, widow of the sternest +governor that Massachusetts had had for a century, the most ruthless +punisher of lawbreakers and corruptionists--she had sat in this room +and listened to a proposition that she should conspire to commit +perjury! Yes, that was it, no use mincing words. She had heard, and +from now on would be accessory before the fact to whatever might be +done! She had not risen and denounced the proposer and ordered him from +her home; no, she had hesitated--which in itself was guilt--and when he +had told her it was confidential, she had assented, which was double +guilt! + +Punishment for Cornelia Thornwell, feminist and suffragist! Now she +knew what the wise men had meant when they told her that woman’s place +was the home! Woman’s place was the Sewing Circle, where they made +long flannel petticoats which the poor would not wear! Woman’s place +was the Parish House of Trinity Church in the City of Boston, where +perfect ladies gathered to arrange for visitation of the sick and care +of widows and orphans! If a lady insisted on going out into the harsh +and wicked world, this was what she ran into--perjury, subornation of +perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury! Cornelia saw these awful phrases +in the headlines of all the newspapers of Boston. + +The soul of Bartolomeo Vanzetti came to keep watch with her, and share +her worries. Bart did not sleep soundly in his prison cell; he lay +awake and brooded over the case, and thought of letters to write, and +suggestions to make to friends and lawyers. So now he came in spirit, +and Cornelia asked him all those questions she would never ask in the +flesh. What did he want her to do? What would best serve his cause, the +“joostice” for which he lived? + +She questioned her own soul. What was right, what was wrong? To stand +by the stern moral code of Puritan Boston--which all of them preached, +and some of them practiced? Say that the law was sacred, and an oath +was binding before God, and it was better for men to die than to break +God’s law? Easy to say that, when it concerned yourself; something in +you would take pleasure in dying for a code. But when it was some other +man’s life, did you have the right to force your code upon him? + +Vanzetti had proved that he did not subscribe to that code, because he +had told lies to the police. But then, he faced the same problem as +Cornelia; it wasn’t for himself that he lied, but for others. Sometime +previously Cornelia had put to him a very grave question. There +appeared to be much more evidence against Sacco than against him, so it +might be wise to demand separate trials, and save at least one of them. +But Bart had turned the idea down without a moment’s hesitation. “Save +Nick, he got the wife and kids!” That was his attitude, from first to +last. + +Something easy to understand--to lie for a wife and kids! In contrast +with that, Cornelia’s ideal seemed far-off, cold and aloof. In this +world truth was a luxury, denied to all but the fastidious, the +ivory-tower personalities, who had no hearts and no sympathies! Who +were good at shutting their eyes and refusing to know uncomfortable +facts! + +Cornelia thought over Lee Swenson’s statement, that her life had been +lived among people who were not accused of crimes. A careful and +lawyer-like phrase! Not those who did not commit crimes, but those who +were not accused! Cornelia searched her memory, and forced herself to +face reality. Did her sort of people really refuse to lie? The case of +Jerry Walker leaped to her mind, because she had just been talking to +her son-in-law about it. Had Rupert and Henry lied to Jerry Walker, in +order to get his property away from him? Of course they had! Henry had +even lied to Cornelia, and treated it as a matter of course. They had +lied to their associates, and their associates were now accusing them +of it--so Cornelia had learned from family gossip. + +Sooner or later Rupert and Henry were going upon the witness-stand, to +be cross-questioned as to what they had done. Were they going to admit +their conspiracy to take ten million dollars’ worth of property from +Jerry Walker? Were they going to say that the law was sacred, and that +an oath was binding before God? Of course they were not! What they were +going to do was to follow the Lee Swenson formula--sit down with their +lawyers and frame up an elaborate story, learn every detail of it by +heart, and go upon the witness-stand and lie like troopers--or, in the +modern equivalent, like policemen who know that it is part of their job +to swear to whatever the chief tells them! Rupert and Henry would do +that, and all State Street would know they were doing it, and take it +as a good joke, nothing worse. + + +XI + +A world of lies, a world run on the basis of lies, so that when you +talked about truth-telling you were a Utopian and a dreamer; worse yet, +a traitor to your friends, to your business associates, your family, +your class! A fastidious person, an ivory-tower esthete, preferring +your own peace of mind to the rights of those who had taken you into +their confidence, assuming that you would play the game as everybody +else played it, for your profit and comfort as well as their own! + +Lies! Lies! It was the autumn of the year 1920, and a great political +campaign was at its climax; America had ceased to be a republic, it +was an absolute monarchy, its ruler the Prince of Lies! That little +man, “Silent Cal,” whom Cornelia knew so well as governor of the +Commonwealth, was being elected vice-president of the United States by +a lie! He who had run away from the police-strike was being rewarded +for breaking the police-strike! His backers had managed to suppress +the report of the citizens’ committee, which had worked so hard to +avoid a strike, and had told the whole truth; instead, they had made +a nursery-legend, such as the pious Parson Weems had invented about +George Washington and the cherry-tree! + +And worse yet, look at the man they were making president! Cornelia’s +mind was a witch’s caldron, with the tales Joe Randall brought home; +for Joe knew the newspaper men, and picked up the gossip which could +not be printed, and used it to spice the meals he ate in the little +apartment. Joe’s mind had turned rancid, after four months’ contact +with American morals and American justice; he found his pleasure +in believing the most shocking things about the great and noble +persons of the land. This Senator Harding, who was to be the next +president, had been picked out by the oil-men, who were planning to +loot the oil-reserves of the nation; he was handsome and dignified, +a magnificent statesman, when you read about him in the capitalist +newspapers--but Joe called him an old booze-fighter, a small-town rake, +whose idea of entertainment was to sit in his shirt-sleeves and chew +tobacco and play poker all night with his cronies, “the Ohio gang.” His +managers had had to get a newspaper man to write his speeches for him, +because, when he was turned loose for himself, he used polysyllables +like a Negro preacher, with no idea what they meant. + +And worse yet, he traveled round the country with a young girl who was +his mistress! He stayed in rooms in various cheap hotels with her, and +when the house-detectives ventured to object, he would present them +with his card! It was something entirely new in American history, and +Joe Randall turned his fancy loose to play with the theme; some day, he +said, the American people would build a memorial to this oil-statesman, +and when the radicals came into power they would carve an inscription +across the front of it, and set it with flaming red rubies: “Nan +Britton’s Boy!” + + +XII + +A cruel, cruel world! Impossible to live in a place where such +wickedness was done! A sudden weariness seized Cornelia, a failing of +the heart; it was time for her to quit, to move on and leave the world +to a new generation, which had stronger nerves and could face such +issues. The runaway grandmother would run back to shelter. + +The fire in the grate had burned nearly out, and the room was growing +cold, the chill creeping into the bones of the old woman sitting in +the chair. She looked at the clock; it was after two in the morning, +and suddenly she realized that Betty had not come home. What could the +child be doing at that hour? + +Lee Swenson had asked her not to tell Betty about these problems. But +that was hardly fair. Betty had come to be her mainstay--she realized +it all of a sudden. Betty was young, Betty was not afraid, Betty could +face any facts there were! To try to hide anything from her would be +one more deception, in a world which seemed to be made of nothing else. + +There was a sound in the hall, and Cornelia turned her head. A key in +the latch, and the door opened. There was Betty, rosy, shining from a +walk in the chill night air. “Why, Grannie! You waited up for me! You +shouldn’t have done that!” She closed the door, and came to Cornelia, +brimming over with affection and concern. “You poor dear, you let the +fire die down, you are cold!” + +Betty herself was warm; the blood flooded her cheeks and throat, it +came and went, like northern lights in the winter sky, a lovely thing +to watch. Her eyes shone--something must have happened to-night, they +were so much alive. Such an eager face, a smile with two rows of white +teeth, even and smooth, almost translucent. She wore a soft brown +coat, with a neckpiece of fur, matching her hair, her eyes--a picture +that people turned to look at on the street. So delicate, so quick and +sensitive--and she knew about this wickedness, she could face it and +not quail from it, not feel old and chilly, ready to die! + +“Grannie dear, what is it? You’re worried about something!” She could +read Cornelia’s mind as if she entered it. “What is bothering you? Has +Lee Swenson been telling you something discouraging?” Then quickly, +“Don’t let him frighten you, my dear! We’re going to get those boys +off! Is he afraid about them?” + +“No, dear--” + +“Then what did he say? Tell me, what?” + +“We talked about many things, this case and others. It is a terrible +world, Betty dear.” + +“Yes, they frame people; and then sometimes, people have done +something, too! It’s hard to tell which is which, and your poor dear +head is addled with trying to know it all! Is that it?” + +“Mr. Swenson didn’t want me to talk--” + +Betty laughed gayly. “The old rascal! He thinks he’s going to keep +secrets from Joe and me! I know, it’s very dangerous, and we mustn’t +whisper. But you tell him, I know what’s in your head before you do, +and he can’t run this case without Joe and me. This is a young folk’s +job, believe me!” + +Betty shed her coat, and the little brown bowl of a hat trimmed with +fur, and knelt down and put her warm cheek against her grandmother’s +cold one. “The idea of worrying a nice old Victorian lady with secrets +and mysteries! I suppose he told you that government witnesses don’t +always tell the truth, and defense lawyers sometimes fight the devil +with fire. Is that what you’re worried over?” + +“Where were you so late, dear?” countered Cornelia--the only evasion +she could think of in a hurry. + +“Never you mind--that’s more secrets and mysteries, I’ll tell you in +the morning. Now you go to bed, before your old bones turn to ice.” +She led Cornelia into her bedroom, and turned down the covers, and +brought her a glass of hot milk, describing her as “seecka kitten,” +from the days when Cornelia had been worn out with the work in the +cordage-plant, and Bart had nursed her so tenderly. When she had drunk +the milk, Betty tucked her in like a baby, and kissed her good-night +and put out the light, and raised the window, and said, “Now be a good +child, and in the morning you shall hear some nice gossip!” + + +XIII + +Bright sunlight, and the Negro maid building the fire, and Cornelia +in her dressing-gown in the big chair before the grate, drinking her +coffee and nibbling her toast. Betty sat by her in a blue silk kimono, +and when she was through eating, took the tray and set it one side, +remarking, “So you won’t upset it or anything in your excitement.” +Then she closed the door, and took a seat close to her grandmother, +and pushed her bobbed hair back from her forehead, and said, “Now, +bless your old dear heart, get yourself together and don’t faint dead +away--Joe and I are married.” + +Cornelia’s hands went limp in her lap. “Married!” + +“Yes, dear.” + +“But Joe has a wife!” + +“Yes, that’s an old story.” + +“But then--but--you can’t marry a man who is already married.” + +“We can, Grannie dear, we arranged it; you see, we married ourselves.” + +Something inside Cornelia quit working for a moment--heart, or lungs, +or solar plexus which controlled them both--and her voice failed her +altogether. Betty’s voice was steady, but one of those waves of color +flooded her neck and face, right up to the bobbed brown hair. “You see, +Grannie, since the law won’t be sensible, we took matters into our own +hands. Joe’s wife is in Reno, but it takes a lot of time, one can’t be +sure how long; and it was too silly that we who love each other should +sit around waiting for some politician to give us permission to live +our lives.” + +There was a pause. Cornelia’s voice had not yet come back. + +“Let me say right away, Grannie, this isn’t any free love foolishness. +You’ll be thinking about Mary Wollstonecraft and all that, but I was +only a child then, I was using a lot of romantic words. But now I’m +twenty-two, and I’m in love, and I want my man, and I want him for +life, and he knows that--I’ve told him that if any other woman tries +to take him away, I’ll scratch her eyes out. So you see it’s perfectly +respectable and conventional.” + +“Y-yes,” said Cornelia, feebly. + +“I have waited--I’ve been a good six months and more making up my +mind I wasn’t making any mistake. Now that I’m sure, I’d be perfectly +willing for any judge or clergyman to say the magic words that would +change it from immorality to the holy bonds of matrimony; but you +see how it is, the judge won’t do it for an indefinite time, and the +clergyman never will, because Joe’s wife has not committed adultery--at +least, she has, her man is out there with her, but it isn’t going to be +legally proved, so the curiosity of the Episcopalian clergymen will not +be satisfied according to canon law. I have looked all this up in the +library, and I’ll explain it if you don’t know what I mean.” + +“No, I understand,” said Cornelia--still feebly. + +“Well, Grannie dear, in your marrying time no one did his own thinking, +but now the world is changing, so my dear blessed old chaperon has got +to sit down and ask herself this plain question: Do you think that my +love for Joe, or his for me, would be in any way more sanctified or +purified by any formula that any judge or clergyman could pronounce +over us? Do you really believe that?” + +Cornelia had to think. + +“Be sure, now.” + +“No, I guess I don’t.” + +“All right, then. And do you think we’d be apt to be more true to each +other if we had dressed up in party clothes, and spent several thousand +dollars for flowers in Trinity Church, and had four organs play the +Lohengrin wedding march going in and the Mendelssohn wedding march +going out, and had the rector say a formula which seems absolutely +superfluous to both of us? Do you believe that?” + +“No, dear, I suppose I really don’t. Only--we always have done it in +our family.” + +“Most of the time,” said Betty. “But this is a special case, and Joe +and I talked it out and decided that it is just too silly that our +love-life should be maimed for we can’t tell how long. We decided that +the law is an imposition, and we have taken the liberty of being our +own clergy, that is all.” + +“Yes, dear. But--suppose you get into trouble?” + +“Well, we’ll do our best to keep it from happening. We have taken +the best advice. But if there should be an accident, we’ll face +the consequences. I promise you I won’t have what they call a +‘curettage’--as you remember Aunt Alice did not so long ago. You +didn’t know I knew about that, I suppose! And neither will I have an +appendicitis operation, like Cousin Julia. I wouldn’t mind a bit having +a baby by the man I love, and telling the world exactly what I had done +and why; only, of course, the family would die, so if the worst comes +to the worst, you and I and Joe will take another trip to Europe, and +stay there till we can marry. And meantime you must be a good sensible +soul, and tell yourself that Joe and I are married before God and you, +and when he comes in you are to kiss him on both cheeks and welcome +him as your grandson-in-law. Because, you see, he’s quite embarrassed +about it, knowing how eminently respectable you are. Indeed, he’s that +way himself, coming from Virginia--he’s almost as bad as Roger Lowell, +and I had to take matters into my own hands, and do all the marrying, +so to speak. But now it’s done, and I want you to feel comfortable +and happy about it, so that we can be comfortable and happy too. The +sensible thing is for you to chaperon us, and let us meet here, because +it’s very disagreeable having to go to third-rate hotels, and besides, +it’s dangerous, because the politicians in this pious Puritan city are +preying on the free lovers--those who happen to be rich and prominent. +Joe says they have a regular blackmail ring, they catch some man in a +hotel room with a woman, and it costs him anywhere from twenty to two +hundred thousand dollars--that is, of course, unless he can show the +card of a United States senator and presidential candidate!” + +There was a pause. “That’s all, Grannie.” Then another pause. + +“You are putting a heavy responsibility on me, dear.” + +“One more secret to keep!” Betty stood up, looking like a new-risen sun +with laughter and joy and health. “Bless her dear old frightened soul!” +She stooped and put a kiss on each of Cornelia’s cheeks, and one on her +forehead; then, laughing again, “You don’t have to carry the burden if +it’s too heavy. I’ll take it all off your blessed shoulders.” + +“How, dear?” + +“Say the word, and I’ll move into an apartment with Joe, and write a +note to Mother, telling her all about it. What do you say?” + +This time there was no pause. Cornelia said instantly, “No! No!” + + +XIV + +“Bring me good choosing book,” wrote Bart. “I will get the fundament +which I have so long needing.” So whenever Cornelia went for a visit, +she would take two or three volumes from her little library: Benjamin +Franklin’s autobiography and Paine’s “Rights of Man,” the letters and +speeches of Jefferson, Thoreau’s “Walden” and Emerson’s essays, a life +of Garrison and one of John Brown. She thought he ought to know that +New England in which he was to fight for his life, and he agreed with +her in this. He had the most intense interest in history, and the lives +of men who had played a part in it, especially in the cause of liberty +and “joostice.” He identified himself with these great characters, he +lived their lives, finding comments on his case in their words, and +vindication in history’s verdict upon them. He read every minute that +the prison regulations permitted, and at Cornelia’s request he would +write comments on the margins of the books, and many pages of pencil +notes. It was a regular college course in New England culture, and each +time they met there was progress to report. + +The old Charlestown prison is built in the form of a cross, and in the +center is a large airy room, in which the prisoners are permitted to +see visitors. Cornelia would come, with her books and her one flower. +She would have to wait while he washed his hands and face--because he +was shoveling coal now, and wheeling it in a barrow for the prison +furnaces; he would apologize for the condition of his clothes, which +he could not help. Cornelia had interceded with the warden and got him +this job, instead of the work in the tailor shop, which fitted him ill. +Outdoor labor was what he had been used to during his ten years in +America, and it kept him in physical condition. + +He was a model prisoner, except that he would not stand indignities +from his keepers. Once when Cornelia came she was told that she could +not see him, he was in “solitary” upon bread and water, because he had +refused to do his work. There followed sessions with the warden, and it +transpired that Bart considered that the guard had addressed him in a +way injurious to his dignity. It took tact on Cornelia’s part to patch +up this situation; for the American prison system does not allow for +dignity, and it is not easy to persuade authorities that an anarchist +has a soul. But they could understand that it was unwise to exasperate +a man who received visits from ladies of high social station, and who +might cause a fuss in the newspapers. + +Also Cornelia visited Mrs. Sacco, in the village of South Stoughton. +The new baby had arrived, a lovely little girl, and Cornelia and +Betty took this news to the prisoner in the county jail at Dedham, and +received a warm welcome. Poor Nick required a great deal of cheering, +because he was a man who had lived by physical activity, and could not +read and study and think like Bart. He had to learn to spend about +twenty-two hours a day in a cell, with nothing whatever to do, and he +did not want to wait for a trial, he did not want lawyers to fool with +his case and waste the money of the anarchist movement--he wanted to be +killed and have it over with. Cornelia and Betty would argue with him, +in patient half-English and half-Italian, finding ways to appeal to his +pride, reminding him of revolutionary heroes who had managed to endure +prison. Why not work out a régime for himself--do gymnastics, of both +body and soul? Why not study English, so as to do better work for the +cause if he got out, and to write his message to the world if he failed? + +The next time they came, they would find that he had shaved himself +meticulously, and wore one of the flowers they had brought him. He +was practicing walking about the cell on his hands, and counting the +number of times he could “chin” himself on his cell-door--he had got +up to forty-something, which was remarkable for any man. He was proud +of that, and when they told him about the lovely eyes of the baby, +his spirit bounded as high as previously it had sunk low. Two races +comprise the Italian nation: those of the north who are descended from +Teutons and Gauls, and are capable of reflection, like Vanzetti; and +those of the south, descendants of Greeks and Carthaginians and Moors, +brown and excitable people, who live their lives outside, and utter +extremes of emotion with many words and gestures. An odd turn of fate +that so many of these should have come to Massachusetts, to annoy the +stern and forbidding ghosts of Puritans! + + +XV + +Lee Swenson had decided that he would take the case. He said no more +to Cornelia, but evidently there had been some understanding with +Betty and Joe, for the young couple sat in at long conferences, and +covered half the state in Betty’s runabout, interviewing witnesses and +tracing clews. Cornelia succeeded in raising five thousand dollars +by pledging one-half her income--which meant that a money-lender was +willing to gamble that she would live more than two years, in spite +of all her worries and labors. She brought in this money, after which +the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee had an office, and a post-office +box, and no less than two second-hand typewriters clicking away on +envelopes. There was a pamphlet telling about the case, mailed out to +lists of radicals all over the country. Articles appeared in socialist +and labor papers, both in America and Europe; for Joe and Betty +wrote long letters to Pierre Leon, and he would translate them into +French and publish them in his paper. So the readers of anarchist and +communist and socialist papers all over Europe began to hear about two +Italians who had fallen victims to the White Terror, in what had once +been the sweet land of liberty, but was now the banking-headquarters of +reaction for the whole world. + +Also Cornelia’s labors among the blue-bloods were not without fruit. +Many of these people knew the corruption of their political parties, +and the alliance between the politicians and the exploiting interests. +They had heard of the Ettor-Giovannitti frame-up, and had watched +another strike in Lawrence, a little more than a year ago, with several +near-murders committed by thugs in the mill-owners’ employ. They had +seen the “Reds” paraded down State Street in chains, and had seen +the government forced to turn most of them loose, having not even a +pretense of evidence against them. So a few well-to-do persons began +to take an interest in the Sacco-Vanzetti case. This gave an air of +prosperity--and brought a new development, highly characteristic of the +great Puritan city. One afternoon Lee Swenson called Cornelia on the +phone. “How are you to-day? Nerves fairly strong?” + +“What has happened?”--for Cornelia knew his way of teasing her. + +“Do you remember the talk we had in your apartment, when I told you +there might be a way to put our boys on the street?” + +“I remember.” + +“Well, can I drop in for tea and tell you about it? Send the maid out +if you can--it’s a time for being alone!” + +The lawyer came, and this is what he had to report. Felice Guadagni, +journalist, who was one of the mainstays of the committee, had had +several visits from an Italian woman named De Falco, an interpreter +for the district court at Dedham, in Norfolk County. She claimed to +come from the district attorney’s office, and offered to have the +men released at the price of sixty thousand dollars. There had been +several conferences, and Felicani, the printer, had met the woman, +and when he pleaded poverty, she had offered to get the price reduced +to fifty thousand. The sum was to be disguised as a retaining fee for +the brother of an official, who was to be hired by the defense. The +Commonwealth would then decide that there was not enough evidence +against the pair, and they would be turned loose. “So there’s your +righteous and law-abiding Boston!” said Lee Swenson--and looked at +Cornelia with a twinkle in his wild western blue eyes. + +“You think it’s really genuine, Lee?” + +“Lawyers tell me it’s a common procedure in other counties. The woman +undertakes to give us satisfactory assurances.” + +“What would they be?” + +“She has already given Felicani the names of other cases she claims to +have settled in the same way, and we can investigate them. But first we +have to decide the question--do we want to buy the boys off, or do we +want to trap the rascal politicians and get something on them?” + +Said Cornelia: “It seems to me it all depends on whether we are sure +our boys are innocent. I believe they are. Do you, Lee?” + +He answered: + +“Yes, I do. But that is not the only point. Even though innocent, they +may be convicted; and the problem is, do they want to risk their lives +for some propaganda?” + +The lawyer would be allowed to see his clients in the evening, so he +said that he would run out to Charlestown and ask Bart about it. “I’ll +make my guess,” he added, “if no ladies are present, he’ll say, tell +them to go to hell.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE GRAFT RING + + +I + +Quincy Thornwell was dining with his Aunt Cornelia. He called her that, +scrupulously, though he was only two years her junior; he had done it, +scrupulously, for forty-five years, since he had been a freshman at +Harvard, and she had married into the older generation. Every so often +he came to dinner, as a mark of respect, and because family solidarity +must be maintained, as the last trace of order in a disintegrating +world. For the same reason he put on his honorific clothes; a matter +of ritual, a symbol of membership in a group which did the right thing +always, as a matter of course and without discussion. + +Cornelia also did her part. Her dinner-gown was years out of fashion, +but that was a sign that she was superior to fashion. Her little +apartment was in a tenement, but that did not matter, because everybody +knew it was eccentricity, not necessity. Visiting members of the +family had brought boxes now and then, quite casually, and almost +without mentioning it; so now she had silver, and shining crystal, and +old family china, and linen with strawberry designs, lighted by four +tall thin tapering candles. There were flowers in the center of the +table--sent with Quincy’s card. The Negro maid wore a white cap and +apron, and had learned how to serve a meal, because Deborah had sent a +real servant to give her lessons. No matter how “red” your poor mother +may turn in her old age, she must be kept in touch with the decencies +of life. + +Quincy--continue to pronounce him like a disease of the throat--was +dieting under a doctor’s orders, and shrinking up rapidly in the +process, so that there were more wrinkles in his face every time +you met him. He had become almost entirely bald, and with a bright +pink scalp. His nose and cheeks were red, with fine little veins of +purple--his blue blood showing through, he would say, mockingly. The +extraordinary thing was that when he opened his mouth in laughter, +which he did frequently, you saw a cavern of exactly the same color; it +seemed unhuman, and when you knew him well you realized that it was. + +No more canvas-backs, cooked a quick brown on the outside and deep +purple inside, according to the fastidious taste of an habitué of the +Somerset Club! No more good honest roast beef, not even any more Boston +beans, since they too were high protein, and suspected of uric acid! +You must have fish for Quincy, and then chicken--white meat, if you +please; and no mayonnaise on the salad--the devil of it was it made you +talk about food, and started other people telling their diets, and the +women with their everlasting reducing. Thence the company got onto the +subject of drink, and after that there was nothing but the private life +of their bootleggers. Good conversation was dead in Boston. + +What Quincy meant by good conversation was gossip about the hundred or +two persons he knew, and the thousand or two he knew about. They were +always doing queer things, or getting into trouble, and he would tell +the tales with comical embellishments, and throw back his head and +chuckle. He had been a widower for the greater part of his life, so no +woman had felt free to point out to him how queer he looked when he +revealed his dental plates. But his mother or some one had taught him +very young that it is bad form to laugh, so he had a series of chuckles +which became convulsive, and turned his face a deeper red, but never +became audible. + +He talked about the family. Poor old Father was failing fast; he had +to have a man to go about with him. He still insisted on riding a pony +along with the Scatterbridge children, so the attendant had to have +a pony too--impossible to imagine a more comical spectacle than that +family procession, riding all over the estate but never going off it, +for fear of automobiles. Impossible to play chess with Father any more, +yet it was necessary to pretend to play, to avoid breaking the old +man’s heart. The universal curse of life, that our ambitions exceed our +abilities! Nothing of that sort for Quincy, he had found out what he +could do, and confined his wishes to the possible. He might never be +heroic, but he would be a lot safer. + +James Scatterbridge was one of the unsafe ones. Tried to do too much +with those enormous mills. It seemed there would never be any market +for cotton goods again. Rupert and John Quincy--that was Quincy’s +older brother--were having the devil’s own time pulling James through. +Both of them were showing the strain of running all the finance of New +England. To the devil with it, said Quincy; enough for him if he could +watch the beast, and judge the right moment, and step in and slice off +a juicy chunk. Rupert and John scolded him because he didn’t produce +anything; and he chuckled--a fine mess they had produced! + +The maid brought in a pitcher of steaming hot water, with a couple +of glasses; and Quincy took from his hip-pocket a silver flask, +comfortably curved to fit that portion of the anatomy. He understood +that he had to “bring his own” when he came to Aunt Cornelia’s, because +she was engaged in more serious kinds of law-breaking, and could not +afford to expose herself to the lesser risks. Quincy mixed himself a +mild dose of rum and sugar and water, and Cornelia took a sip, in order +to be good company. “My ancestors used to smuggle in molasses to make +this stuff,” said the old gentleman. “Now the stuff itself is smuggled, +and a new aristocracy is emerging, that will dine on spaghetti from +gold plate.” + +So he talked about prohibition! They were bringing it in by the +schooner-load, everywhere along the coast, every night that didn’t +happen to be moonlit or stormy. Yet the prices got higher and higher, +and the quality worse and worse. You might get ever so good a +bootlegger, and investigate his ancestry, his police record, his church +affiliations and all that, and still you couldn’t be sure, because +the rascal dealers would fool him. They were making synthetic stuff +in the cellars of Boston slums, putting it onto boats, unloading it +on the shore, and selling it for Canadian Scotch. The “booties” were +being held up all along the line, they would pay the police where they +started from, and then the police would send a motor-cycle cop after +them to hold them up and get some more. + +It was a good thing for labor, Quincy admitted; made it possible to +get work done on Monday, so for that reason the law would probably +stay. But it was mighty demoralizing; graft was spreading so fast, +you hardly knew the old New England. Quincy had been talking that day +with a politician in a boardroom, watching the course of stocks, and +this politician had quoted the value of the pickpocket, burglary, and +confidence men concessions of Suffolk and Middlesex counties. “What +do you think of that?” said Quincy, and had one of his convulsions of +chuckling. + +“It makes me think of something I want to ask you,” said Cornelia. “I +also have connections with the underworld nowadays.” + +“I know,” said Quincy, “those two wops of yours.” + +“No,” said his aunt, “not the wops, but the officials who are +prosecuting them. I need a lot of advice, provided it can be +confidential.” + +The old gentleman became instantly serious. “My dear Aunt Cornelia, I +gossip about every family in the world but one!” + + +II + +Cornelia set forth her problem. The Italians who were trying to save +the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti found no difficulty in believing that +the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was corrupt. They knew all the +bootleggers--some of them _were_ bootleggers--and were used to paying +the police. But Cornelia herself found it hard to believe that the +woman, Mrs. De Falco, who told them they could buy the freedom of Sacco +and Vanzetti for fifty thousand dollars, really knew what she was +talking about, and had the power she claimed. + +Quincy Thornwell looked thoughtful. “Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of +money, Aunt Cornelia, even for our politicians. My advice would be, say +forty, and when you come to the real showdown, it will be thirty.” + +It might have been possible to see a humorous aspect to that reply, but +Cornelia was not in a smiling mood. “You mean it is genuine, then?” + +Quincy answered, it surprised him a little, coming from Plymouth and +Norfolk counties. Suffolk everybody knew about, it was Irish, and the +decent people had moved out and let the “micks” have their own way. +Suffolk County comprised the city of Boston proper; and years ago, +when it had gone Democratic, the old aristocracy of wealth and fashion +had begun an exodus, and now lived in suburban towns, where they could +run their local governments and spend their own taxes. They regarded +Boston as the place where they came to clip their coupons and do their +shopping and go to the theater. So long as the politicians refrained +from stealing the banks and public buildings, the blue bloods generally +let them alone. + +“It sounds like regular city hall stuff,” continued Quincy. “You know +that people refer to the city hall as the ‘steal works.’ When they +arrested those wops, the gang thought they had no friends, and could be +sent up without trouble, and it would be a good mark for the police. +But now it appears they have money, and money is more than good marks. +It seems obvious enough.” + +“Quincy, do you think a civilization can endure on the basis of +corruption like that?” + +“No, of course it can’t.” + +“You give up our civilization?” + +“I gave it up a generation ago, when I saw we didn’t have sense enough +to keep the scum of Europe out. We built a nation on the basis of +self-government, and we could do it because we had people who were +capable of self-government. But when we let ourselves be overrun by +hordes of peasants, we signed our own death-warrant. A few of us old +fogies protested, but we couldn’t stop it, and we gave up. I said to +Uncle Josiah, thirty years ago, I wouldn’t touch politics again with a +ten-foot pole. And Father said the same.” + +“Josiah insisted we could teach them, Quincy.” + +“The last thing in the world they want is to learn anything from us. +They hate us because we are different, and better, and we know it. +All they want is to rob us of everything we have. You saw those wops +plundering the shoe companies--and now the Irish step in to plunder the +wops. That’s the way it goes in the jungle.” + +“But, Quincy, the government in Norfolk County is Yankee, and so are +most of the voters!” + +“That’s all right, but if you dig into it, you’ll find it’s the Irish +ring, mark my words. Some of the loot will go to Larry Shay, the head +fixer for the crime concessions.” + +Said Cornelia, “I went to see Shay about this case. Henry told me he’d +be a good lawyer to try it.” + +“None better in Massachusetts. What did he say?” + +“He wanted fifty thousand dollars.” + +Quincy had one of his spells of chuckling. “And you didn’t notice the +coincidence in price! Don’t you see, Aunt Cornelia--when you didn’t +take up Larry’s proposition, he tried it on the Italians! He figured +that you, being a simple old lady, might really believe the wops to +be innocent; but the Italians wouldn’t share your touching faith, so +they’d talk turkey. If the politicians had been wise, they’d have +warned the Italians not to mention the matter to you.” + +“As a matter of fact, they did,” admitted Cornelia. “They tried to keep +Lee Swenson out also. The woman has refused to meet him.” + +“Well, there you are,” said Quincy. “He has a bad reputation--he’s +a labor agitator and a publicity seeker, and they want to deal with +criminals. No, Aunt Cornelia, you don’t have to worry about it, all you +have to do is raise the money. Have you got it in sight?” + +“I don’t know. Some of the Italians have hinted it might be got.” + +“Send out the boys and raid another payroll!” said Quincy, with a grin. +“Well, I’ll tell you, I’m not a millionaire, as you know, and I have +to work for my money--even though it seems easy to those who never +played the market. But I’ll chip in a few thousand to help you out of +this trouble. I think the family would put up the whole amount, if they +could be sure it would teach you a lesson.” + +“You mean,” said Cornelia, “I would never again believe in the +government of Massachusetts?” There was a naughty twinkle in her eye. + +But now her worldly-wise old nephew was “talking turkey” himself. “I +mean that you’d take a little care of yourself, and quit fooling with +anarchists.” + +“But, Quincy, don’t you think it is up to us people of the old stock to +set the wops an example? If I sell out, what will be left for them?” + +“Don’t you really want to get your friends out of trouble?” + +“Yes, but I want to get a lot of others out of trouble also. It would +be a poor bargain, from our point of view, to save two men from the +electric chair and leave millions in slavery.” + +“Now, Aunt Cornelia, don’t start your Bolshevik propaganda on me! I +know I’m a parasite and a bloodsucker, but every last one of your wops +would take my place if he could get it, and I assure you, before he +does get it, he’s got to fight.” + +To which Cornelia replied: “If you only knew how much like a Bolshevik +you talk, you’d be quite shocked by yourself!” + + +III + +The first serious split in the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee was +developing over the problem of the De Falco offer. On the one side was +Lee Swenson, backed by Betty and Joe, who were like two bloodhounds +held in leash. On the other side were some of the anarchists--those who +stayed in the background, and were not seen in headquarters. + +Lee Swenson came to Cornelia. “Nonna, we have a marvelous case to +fight. I know what I’m talking about, I can make it the most famous +labor case in American history, if the committee will only stand behind +me, and give me the funds. This De Falco thing is plain blackmail; the +police know that Sacco and Vanzetti are innocent of the crime, but they +think they’ve got other things on the group, and expect to trade on +our fears. You know how it is with the anarchists, they are liable to +be deported--and maybe there are other secrets that break their nerve. +Some of them want to settle; they won’t say it plainly, but they are +blocking my moves.” + +“But, Lee! Yesterday Bart said to me he’d rather die than be bought +out.” + +“I know; but Bart is in jail, and it’s the committee that is paymaster. +I have an idea some of them are going ahead with their plans to raise +the money and close the deal. If we persist in having our way, they +might throw us down and ruin us.” + +“Oh, surely not that!” + +“You are new at the game of intrigue, Nonna. It might even happen by +accident--we have got to allow for the spies on our committee. The +prosecution will have one, and the Department of Justice will have one, +and they probably won’t even know each other. If we delay too long and +talk too much, we may find ourselves arrested, charged with an effort +to bribe the noble-minded authorities.” + +Joe and Betty had already made a few automobile excursions, following +Mrs. De Falco’s car. They had seen it spend a couple of evenings parked +near the car of the gentleman who was to be employed for a retaining +fee now reduced to forty thousand dollars. On one of these occasions a +public official’s car had come up, and he had entered the house. Also +Lee Swenson had investigated some “references” the woman had offered; +that is to say, murder cases and other crimes which had resulted in +dismissals and acquittals through her intervention. What Lee found was +that when he started to question the lawyers and relatives who had +negotiated these settlements, they became ill at ease and refused to +talk--which was to be expected under the circumstances. + +Also he had an “investigator” looking into Mrs. De Falco herself. She +was one of the many who hung around the courts, looking for openings to +be of service to lawyers and witnesses. In short, she was a “runner,” +one of those who intervene between accused persons and lawyers. +Ignorant foreigners who have broken the law are badly frightened, and +the “runner” is a comforting friend, who helps to steer them in a +strange world--and incidentally finds out how much money they have, or +how much their friends can raise, so that the lawyer can fix the fee +at the maximum, and then “split” with the “runner.” Such a person soon +learns the tricks of the courts, and profits by many forms of graft. +An odd circumstance, that the investigators reported Mrs. De Falco had +an improvident husband, and the fruits of her legal labors went to +maintain a home for several children. A complicated world to work in! + +She persisted in refusing to see Lee Swenson under any circumstances; +so Lee sent to New York for his dictograph--the one he had used in +breaking up the government witnesses in a frame-up against the I.W.W. +in Seattle five years previously. He set it up in the room where +Felicani had been meeting Mrs. De Falco, a big barren place in an old +tenement house, next door to a print-shop. He got his own stenographer, +and another whom he could trust--and whom the jury would have to +trust, because she had served with the A.E.F. in France! The trap was +set for seven o’clock in the evening, and the De Falco woman came on +schedule time and repeated her assurances of what she was able to do, +and explained that it was impossible to come any lower in the price. +Meantime several persons strolled casually into the room and out +again, so as to be able to testify that Felicani and Mrs. De Falco were +talking; and the stenographers diligently took down what they got of +the conversation. Unfortunately the printer next door, not having been +warned of the plot, started up one of his presses, which caused the +dictograph to sound like an avalanche in Switzerland! + +However, part of the conversation was recorded; and now, what next? +Some of the committee insisted upon waiting, they wanted to get money +and mark it, and pay it to Mrs. De Falco. But they delayed to act, and +Lee Swenson suspected they were playing for time, their real purpose +was to raise the full amount and settle the case. He insisted, such a +story would not lie quiet more than a day or two; so many persons knew +about it, and the moment the authorities got a hint it was a matter of +minutes which would act first. Joe Randall, as a newspaper man, backed +up Lee in this; everything depended on how the story first reached the +public. If the authorities filed a complaint, charging Felicani with an +effort to purchase justice, that would be what the world would believe +about the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, regardless of what evidence +might later be produced. Trust the capitalist press for that! + +So Lee took matters into his own hands, and filed a complaint, charging +Mrs. De Falco with soliciting a bribe. It was a matter for which some +of the anarchists never forgave either him or Joe. Who were these two, +non-anarchists, therefore enemies of anarchism, to come in and play +with the lives of two comrades? To involve Sacco and Vanzetti in an +effort to use capitalist courts, which they regarded with abhorrence! +Was not Mrs. De Falco herself a human being, a victim of the class +system? What business had an anarchist giving information against her, +and trying to send her to jail? The Italians did not hesitate to charge +that Lee Swenson wanted to get the money, instead of the De Falco +woman; he wanted a big legal case for himself! + + +IV + +A terrible world to live in! A world full of tangles impossible to +unravel, of dangers impossible to foresee! A world in which wild +beasts roamed in the darkness, slaying and devouring--no change from +the old days of the jungle! + +About twenty-four hours after the De Falco story was spread on the +front page of all the Boston newspapers--“Reds Charge Bribery Plot +to State,” and so on--Cornelia’s telephone rang, and she heard the +voice of her oldest daughter. “Mother, is that you?” The voice was +trembling, so that Cornelia’s heart started at the first sound. “What +has happened?” + +“Oh, Mother, the most dreadful thing! I can’t tell you over the phone! +I will come at once. Be at home!” There was a sob in Deborah’s voice, +something that was rarely heard. But no chance to ask more--she hung up +the receiver. + +Half an hour later she came in, breathless from hurrying up the stairs. +Her mother had never seen such distress on her face. Mutely she held +out a letter, which Cornelia took. It had a canceled special delivery +stamp, on an ordinary envelope, such as you buy at the post office, +addressed on a typewriter to Mrs. Rupert Alvin at the Commonwealth +Avenue address. Cornelia opened it, and found a typewritten sheet of +paper, which seemed to burn her eyeballs as she read: + + “Call off your daughter and your mother from the aiding and + abetting of anarchists, or you and your family will live to regret + it. Why do you let your daughter travel about town day and night + with a young anarchist with a criminal record? Look up his wife + he deserted. Do you want the world to know that your daughter + sleeps with him under your mother’s protection? We want no Russian + free love in Boston. We will expose them in the papers if they do + not get out of town, and your other daughter’s wedding will be + postponed again. + + “AMERICAN PATRIOT.” + +So there was a bagful of cats turned loose, to rampage over the place, +and maintain a dreadful clamor. No possibility of counting them--any +more than the stream of wild questions flung at Cornelia’s gray head. +One horror, of course, led the rest: was it true that Betty was living +in adulterous relations with a married man, and Cornelia abetting the +crime? It was a question difficult to answer without sounding cynical +to a pillar of Trinity Church in the City of Boston. Cornelia said, +as calmly as she could, that Betty and Joe loved each other truly, +and were going to marry as soon as the law permitted, after Joe’s wife +had got her Reno divorce. Oh, horrible! horrible! Deborah broke down, +and hid her face in her hands, because she could not contemplate such +depravity in her mother and her daughter. Or would it be more accurate +to say, because she thought that she ought not contemplate it? Human +motives are complicated, and in the effort to have our own way we +sometimes contrive elaborate emotional dramas. + +Said Cornelia: “They will be a perfectly respectable married couple as +soon as it is over. There are some in our most fashionable society who +have done the same thing.” + +“At least they had the decency to wait till they were divorced!” + +“As to that, Deborah, you should ask your cousin Quincy. He dines +frequently at Mrs. Jack Gardner’s, where I understand they discuss such +cases in detail.” + +Then the other counts of the indictment. “No Deborah, Joe has no +‘criminal record,’ I assure you.” + +“But how do you know it?” + +“I know it because I know Joe. He is a fine young idealist, whom I +love, and was glad to accept in his present rôle.” + +“An anarchist free-lover!” + +“In the first place, he isn’t an anarchist, but a socialist, which is +the opposite pole of thought. He is much more conservative than Betty, +and their honeymoon quarrels are over his efforts to tone her down. You +should be grateful to him.” + +“But what does this letter mean--his ‘criminal record’?” + +“It is nothing but a coward’s attempt to frighten and distress us. +Joe was connected with the American legation in Russia, and he saw +President Wilson begin his private war on the Russian people, which was +nothing but wholesale murder for the benefit of the British Tories. Joe +said what he thought about it, and he may have actually done something +to try to stop it. If he has a ‘criminal record,’ that is it, I am +sure.” + +“And his wife--she is really going to get a divorce?” + +“She is planning to remarry.” + +Deborah made a face of disgust. Ugh, such a world! it seemed to say. It +did not improve the long lean features, so much like those of Josiah, +which Cornelia had come to know too well. She waited until the ugly +moment was past, and then said, very gently: “There are two great +improprieties, Deborah--one is love without marriage, and the other is +marriage without love. The latter was my portion, and I assure you, if +Betty had to choose one or the other, I am glad it was the other. I +did not will this situation, and if they had asked my advice, I would +have told them to wait. But they settled it for themselves, and it was +a condition and not a theory that confronted me. Betty offered to tell +you, but I could see no good in distressing you.” + + +V + +They argued the ethics of free love versus purchased love for a while; +until Deborah’s practical mind got to work at its customary task of +telling other people what to do. “We must not have a scandal--now that +Priscilla’s wedding invitations have been sent out! We must think up +some reason for Betty to go to Europe at once, and stay until the man +can marry her.” + +“I fear you will not be able to arrange that, Deborah. Betty is wrapped +up in this case of Sacco and Vanzetti, and the trial is coming in the +spring. She and Joe are working over it day and night, and surely, when +a young couple are busy and happy, it is not the part of wisdom to +break them up.” + +“But this, Mother! This!” Deborah held the letter in her trembling +hand. “How can we face this horrible thing?” + +“It is an effort to break our nerve, and it must not succeed.” + +“But what can we do--if they expose us?” + +“How _can_ they expose us? Betty lives here, and Joe visits here +occasionally, but never unless I am in the apartment. Are they going to +break into my home to look for evidence against my granddaughter?” + +“Betty must come back and stay with her parents at once!” + +“Betty is a grown woman, responsible for her own life. I think you will +have to let her make her own decisions, and face her own enemies.” + +They argued back and forth, and in the process Cornelia’s mind became +more clear. “I am quite certain nothing will happen, Deborah, except +the writing of more letters. The police have spies in the office of +our committee, and they pick up bits of gossip, but they don’t really +know anything. Surely we can stand upon our family dignity, and ignore +anonymous slanderers! You and I and Joe and Betty are the only ones who +know the facts, and we are not going to tell any one else--except, of +course, Rupert.” + +Poor Rupert! He was almost worried to death, his wife broke out. That +dreadful man Jerry Walker was bringing a suit and charging all sorts +of outrageous things; and some of Rupert’s associates were quarreling +with him for having got them into the mess. They had entirely forgotten +how glad they were to get their share of the profits. And then this +business about the Boston Elevated--had Cornelia been told about that? + +“Not much, except what has been in the papers.” + +“Well, they are going to make all the members of the legislature +testify as to their stock investments, and they are looking up the +loans they got from some of the banks. They will call it bribery, of +course, but it was nothing in the world except that Rupert was trying +to save the Elevated from bankruptcy, and the stockholders from ruin, +and those vicious politicians were holding him up, refusing to grant +any increase in fares. They wouldn’t vote until they got money to buy +Elevated stocks. You can’t imagine what the politicians are!” + +“My child, I know exactly what they are--they are trying to send two of +my friends to the electric chair, unless we will raise forty thousand +dollars to buy them off. Betty and Joe and I have been having to make +that decision in the last few days, and I think the reason you got this +letter is because we refused to pay.” + +Deborah sat staring before her, her tall forehead wrinkled in thought. +Her surrender was not indicated by throwing up her hands, but merely by +beginning to talk sensibly. “Mother, I ought to meet that young man.” + +“Of course you ought--that is, provided you will behave yourself, and +understand that he is your son-in-law.” + +“Is he--does he look like a gentleman?” + +“He comes from an Old Virginia family, and they think they are quite as +good as we are--in fact, I understand they sometimes make fun of us, +saying that we talk through our noses.” + +“I suppose I’ll have to tell Rupert,” said Deborah. “He might get one +of these letters, too. I’ll tell him to-night, and we’ll make some +arrangement--I don’t know just what. I suppose this--what is his name, +Randall--ought to be invited to dinner.” + +“Thank you, my dear, that is certainly sensible.” + +“Well, if they are going to be married, we have to try to make it seem +decent. I don’t want people to say that Betty married a man she picked +up off the street.” + +“No, it is not at all like that. You can tell people they met at the +first session of the Third International in Moscow.” + + +VI + +Priscilla Quincy Adams Thornwell had been a sufficient time in her +grave for it to be proper for her grand-niece, Priscilla Thornwell +Alvin, to be united to the young mountain of copper. So there was +another of those stately ceremonials which mark the coming and going +of the generations, and advertise their social importance. Out of this +union there would proceed many copper hills and branch banks, bearing +the sacred names of Thornwell and Quincy and Adams and Shaw and Cabot, +shuffled into new combinations. Engraved invitations were sent to all +members of the clans, and the hot-houses of the florists were emptied, +and Trinity Church became a mid-winter bower, and the four organs +played the Lohengrin march coming and the Mendelssohn march going, and +there was a procession of two little “flower-girls,” and six young +ladies with faces rigid and intense with the effort of keeping in +step under the eyes of so many relatives. They wore drooping hats and +carried large bouquets of roses, as white as the driven snow before it +has been driven through the bituminous smoke of Boston. This symbolized +the undoubted purity of the bride, and nowhere in the consecrated +spaces of the brown-stone edifice was there a single red rose of +adultery. + +Except in the hearts of the supposed-to-be-happy parents of the bride, +haunted by the cruel secret of their younger daughter’s shame. Rupert +and Deborah were in the grip of a terror such as had never before +attended a Thornwell wedding-service. Their imaginations played +with a string of horrors, which might be perpetrated by a writer of +devilish anonymous letters. After all, what limit could you set to +the perversity of such a creature? A bomb in the church--say in the +vestibule, where it would not kill any one, but would make a scandal +heard round the world! Or perhaps what was called a “stink-bomb,” +that would drive everybody from the edifice! Or foul whispers by an +old gipsy woman, or poison-leaflets distributed in the pews--it had +happened once in Boston history. There was a moment when the hearts +of Rupert and Deborah jumped into their throats--when the rector +pronounced the bold challenge: “If any man can show just cause, why +they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else +hereafter for ever hold his peace!” + +A dreadful silence, during which Rupert and Deborah heard a voice shout +out that the younger sister of the bride was living in adultery, and +therefore the family was not “eligible.” But no one else heard a sound, +and the ceremony was completed; six immaculate ushers from Harvard +marched out with the six bridesmaids, and the little flower girls +carried the bride’s train. The bride and groom were whisked away to +the Alvin home, where an elaborate breakfast was served to the family +and intimate friends. The bride, now attired in traveling costume, +was kissed on both cheeks by relatives male and female--her pure +white forehead was stained by the red lips of adultery, and she did +not know it! Yes, Betty hugged and kissed her good old sister several +times, and wished her all the respectable luck which so respectable a +young lady was bound to have; and if there were tears in Betty’s eyes, +they were not tears of shame, because Betty was lost to shame, and +only her poor mother had to blush for her, and weep for the dreadful +hidden secret--and tremble, because the danger was not yet over--there +might be poison-leaflets thrown into the departing bridal-car, in +place of the rice and old shoes which Boston society had abandoned as +undignified. + +But again the fears proved baseless, and the young couple departed +in blissful certainty that everything had happened exactly as it had +always happened, and as it ought to happen--one and the same thing in +Boston. They took the train to New York, and from there to Palm Beach, +where they stopped at the most expensive hotel, and dressed themselves +three times a day in the proper summer costumes, and innumerable +attendants rushed this way and that to anticipate their needs, and no +one embarrassed them by a smile or hint that they were suspected of not +being entirely accustomed to the intimacies of holy matrimony. + +So, in secrecy and retirement, a young creature who was to bear a +string of honored names began his career; and the conscientious +young progenitors had nothing in the world to worry about except the +inescapable problem which dogs the footsteps of Boston blue-bloods +en voyage--whom is it safe to know and whom not? If people hail from +Seattle or Oshkosh, it may be rather amusing to talk to them, because +they will not presume to expect to know you at home; but if they come +from New England, then you have to speculate anxiously as to who they +are, and wish you had Mother or Aunt Alice to advise you. Can they +be the “right” Cabots? Do any of the “real” Lowells come from New +Hampshire? Are the Adamses of Scituate the ones who are cousins of the +Adamses of Concord, or can they be those dreadful people that were +divorced some years ago? Better to walk the esplanade in solemn dignity +by yourself, than take the risk of making such a serious misstep! + + +VII + +An odd experience for Cornelia and Betty--to take part in this orgy +of hand-shaking and kissing--to be dipped, as it were, into an ocean +of propriety and perfume, to be transported to a fairy-land of white +veils and roses, frock-coats and silk hats and kid gloves, crystal and +silver and pearl and diamond wedding-presents--and then to step into a +motor-car and be carried along the Back Bay and across the river, and +find themselves within the gates of an ancient stone dungeon, stained +dark by factory smoke, with steel bars on the windows and steel doors +clanging, and faces of grim command, and faces of lowering hate, faces +brutalized and degraded, marked by disease, fear, cruelty--a thousand +evils which poverty, ignorance and neglect inflict upon the tormented +human race. Church doctrine teaches that between heaven and hell +there is an abyss across which none may travel; but Cornelia and her +granddaughter crossed it at least once, and sometimes two or three +times a week; they went back and forth between celestial and infernal +regions, associating freely with both angels and devils--and finding +them not so different one from the other as their fears and hates +caused them to believe! + +Bart came, with the coal-dust hastily washed from his face and hands, +but not from his neck and wrists. He greeted them with his smile of +joy, and asked to sit near the window, in the sunshine, so rare in +his life. He saw the white roses they were wearing, and learned that +they were bridal roses; he traveled in fancy to the River Magra, where +weddings meant fiddles and dancing and wine, in addition to flowers and +white veils. Such lovely country, such happy people--if it were not for +landlord, for padrone, for wicked go-vérnment, taking boys away from +home to make soldier, to make cruel war! + +They talked about the case, and Bart with tact and gentleness strove to +convey to his dear friends the unhappiness which was tormenting him. +Never had he thought it could happen that he would be the means of +sending any human being to prison, a place of wickedness and suffering +like this. “Is something should not be attempting, Nonna, it is not +according with filosofia anarchica. Mrs. De Falco is criminal, yes, +but is poor victim, is ignorant, is not blam-èd for what she do. It is +principle for me--it is wrong ever to call law, to punish wit’ judge +and sooch thing.” + +“But, Bart, you told Lee you would leave it to his judgment.” + +“I know, I have shame for that. I am stranger, poor man, have not +mooch knowledge. I think, friend have bring lawyer, he is educate, he +onderstand, he try hard for helping--how can I make contraddizione? But +then come Italian friend, they say, ‘What is this, Vanzett’, you are +anarchista, you make woman be arrest? You have deny principle of whole +living?’ And I say, ‘It is true, I have done wrong, I would better be +convict of any crime in world!’” + +“Well, Bart”--it was Betty speaking--“you should have an anarchist +lawyer.” + +“Is not many soocha t’ing, Betty, is hard for be. Should not have no +lawyer. Anarchista should stand in court, should say, ‘Is wicked place, +is wicked sistema. You have power, you have victim in hand, you can +crush him, but you cannot crush his soul, his doctrine it live, will +spread to whole umane kind.’” + +“Then you really don’t want to be saved, Bart?” + +“I want for anarchismo be sav-èd.” + +“Joe has gone to Maine, to try to get the record of one of the +witnesses for the prosecution, that we have heard has been convicted +of crime. Now, if we find it is so, do you want us to use the fact? It +will hurt the man’s feelings, no doubt.” + +Vanzetti sat with brow furrowed in thought. “I not know. I have said +always, it is good for speak truth. I think anarchista can speak what +is truth.” + +“Yet you might be the cause of the man’s being sent to jail again. It +might turn out he is wanted by the police for something else.” + +Time was needed to answer that! It was a complicated world, and often +it would happen that Vanzetti would agree to the proposals of Betty +and Joe and Lee Swenson, and then think it over, or hear the protests +of his comrades, and decide that it was not according to “filosofia +anarchica.” All he could say now, having brooded over the problem of +Mrs. De Falco through long hours in his cell, was that he did not want +her sent to jail, not even to save his life. Anyhow, he was sure the +move against her would not help his cause; rather it would embitter +the go-vérnment, it would make them redouble their efforts for a +conviction. It was difficult to explain this in a foreign language, but +Bart’s idea was that the authorities would consider Lee Swenson was +not playing the game. The law, from the point of view of a politician +in power, was an opportunity for graft, and the most dangerous person +in the world was not the bandit, but the man who threatened the graft +system. + +“He is not so mooch fraid for bandit, he know plenty bandit, is us-èd +him, do plenty business with him. It is big bandit put up money for +election him. But man what expose, man what tell newspaper, tell +people, he is real nemico--what you say, enemy, he is one you musta +keell. I think he keell me for teach Lee Swenson he cannot break graft +in Massachusett.” + +“I am sorry if we have made things worse, Bart.” It was Cornelia +speaking, and her words brought tears into the prisoner’s eyes. He +laid his hand upon her arm, and begged her pardon for his bad way of +saying things, it was hard to express these complicated ideas. He was +not afraid to die, and whatever happened, they must not grieve. He was +a poor, unknown man, he had talked for years unheeded; to be executed +for his beliefs was perhaps the one way he could make them known. But +he wanted to die with a clean conscience--not having caused a mother +of several children to be sent to jail, for trying to get her pitiful +share of that loot which the rich and powerful ones of the community +tried to keep for their own. + + +VIII + +Lee Swenson had obtained a postponement of the Sacco-Vanzetti case +until the month of June, to give him time to prepare. The law of the +Puritans, otherwise stern and parsimonious, would be prodigal only +of delay. Sacco would sit in his cell in Dedham--when he grew bored +with standing on his head or walking on his hands--and wonder by what +malicious turn of fate it had happened that he who despised the law was +tangled in a legal net, denied even the boon of swift, uncomplicated +death. Now and then there would be papers he would have to sign on his +own behalf; invariably he would refuse to sign them, and there would +begin a campaign of diplomacy. + +Visits from his wife, carrying the newly born infant, surely a reason +to make a fight for freedom! Visits from committees of this “gruppo” +and that, bringing messages and resolutions, a newspaper article, a +cablegram from Italy. You could never tell what odd circumstance might +turn the trick with Sacco: a bouquet of flowers, a chat about what was +to be planted in the garden this spring, or questions as to what would +be blooming in Torremaggiore at this time of year--and suddenly the +hard shell of anarchistic principle would melt, and the tormented man +would smile, and stretch out his hand for the paper, saying, “Is crazy +t’ing, but you say it, I sign heem.” + +Meantime typewriters were clicking, and circulars and pamphlets going +out, and a scrapbook filling with clippings about the case. Throughout +labor and radical circles in America the names of Sacco and Vanzetti +were becoming known as the latest victims of the “frame-up” system. +Money was coming in, and several investigators were at work, and the +busy brain of Lee Swenson was spinning counterplots like a nest of +caterpillars in a pine tree. Under the law of the Commonwealth he had +the right to a list of the witnesses to be used by the prosecution; and +part of his preparation of the case was interviews with these persons, +and efforts to get their stories from them, to break them down, to +delve into their past and find out anything that would discredit them, +or frighten them, or cause them to swing over to the other side. + +Under this system, a legal case became a miniature war, a contest of +sappers and miners, of spies and counterspies; some witnesses would +sell out more than once, and change their stories back and forth--one +statement to the Pinkerton detectives, a different one to the friends +of the defense, yet another to the district attorney, another to the +lawyers of the defense--and which one finally got to the jury was a +matter of price, or else of psychology. Some witnesses wanted money, +and then more money; but there were others who had a secret spring of +loyalty or prejudice, which, if you could touch it, might turn the +trick for a few days or forever. One would do anything to help a buddy +who had been in France, the next would do anything to oblige the Pope +of Rome; one wanted to electrocute all Italians because he had been +knifed by one in a street fight twenty years ago; another abhorred +Yankees because a school-teacher had beaten him as a child. + +A singular education for a daughter of the blue-bloods, to help in +a job like this! An education which would surely not have won the +approval of her theocratic forefathers, nor yet of the plutocratic +trustees who supervised the curriculum of Radcliffe! But at least you +could say it was an education based upon fundamentals, and getting +to original sources. What was present-day New England actually like? +What did its people really do and think and feel? What was its working +governmental system, as distinguished from the one written on paper, +and taught in schools, and glorified in Fourth of July orations and +newspaper editorials? Surely these were matters worth knowing about, +even if you did not get a sheepskin diploma, and three Greek letters on +a key, and two Latin words at the end of your name! + +Elizabeth Thornwell Alvin took two different trains and traveled +into the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, and was bumped for ten or +fifteen miles in a buggy over country roads deep with the soft mud of +early spring, and in a ramshackle farmhouse, with the paint peeled off +and the fence palings molded and rotten, she met a girl who had been +working in the Rice and Hutchins shoe factory in South Braintree on +the afternoon when the bandits had opened fire on the paymaster and +the guard. This girl had a feeble chin and prematurely decayed teeth, +and a baby due to make its entrance into a world of torment in a very +few days. For some reason she got it into her weak head that Betty +was there in the interest of the district attorney’s office, and she +immediately became hysterical, bursting into tears and shrieking that +she was in no condition to come to a trial, and could not be forced +to testify; anyhow, she knew nothing, because when the shooting had +started, she had hidden under a bench. + +Betty soothed her, assuring her there was no wish to force her to do +anything; so presently the girl calmed down and became communicative. +Too bad she could not go, because two of her former shopmates were +getting good pay to testify against those wops, and they sure ought to +be run out of the country, coming in and taking honest people’s jobs +away, and fighting and all that, and it sure was up to we Americans to +stand together against them. Later, by deft questioning, Betty drew +from this patriotic young person the information that her mother had +been an Irish peasant and her father a French peasant. A triumph of +“americanization,” and the speeding up processes of a machine age! +Betty’s ancestors, who had been tinners and carpenters and indentured +servants, had taken three hundred years to acquire their superiority +to the new immigrant workers; but here was a shoe factory girl who had +managed it in one-tenth of the time! + + +IX + +The case of Mrs. De Falco was set for trial in a Boston police court, +and Betty and Joe turned their energies to this--digging into the +records of public officials, and running down clews of graft. Shudders +ran up and down the spines of persons high in political power, and +rage seethed in their hearts against blue-blood intruders who were not +content with the security which wealth and prominence conferred, but +turned traitor to their own privileges, and attacked the bases of law +and order. What did these high-hatted snobs want, anyhow? What was the +matter with them that they could not be content with public officials +who protected them, keeping them safe against bombers and blackmailers +and burglars and pickpockets and a thousand such predatory creatures; +making everything so comfortable, that they might be born, and grow up, +and live long, and go to pieces like the one-horse shay, of old age and +decrepitude, without ever knowing a moment of danger or making a real +effort in their lives? + +The politicians and police might laugh at the blue-bloods, but they +respected and feared them, because of very real powers they still +held; not merely finance, utilities and the choicest real estate, but +solidarity, knowledge, culture--the latter a far-off, mysterious thing, +but awe-inspiring, like the power of a voodoo magician, who can cause +your right arm to wither and fall off; or anyhow, he says he can, and +how shall you be certain about it? The lower orders, having captured +the city, were afraid of their captives, and dared not make use of +their power; they stood, fierce-eyed barbarians, at the doors of the +temples, and watched the priests, clad in frock coats and high hats, +performing mysterious offices, impossible to comprehend or imitate. In +the end the barbarians capitulated, and sent their sons to study in the +temples, and become as much like the conquered caste as they could! + +Politicians and police were used to many kinds of eccentricities on +the part of rich persons. Those who had enormous powers and no duties +necessarily had to work off steam. They dressed themselves in pink +coats, and rode to hounds and broke their necks; they raced motor cars +at high speeds, and learned to save themselves behind the steering-post +when they crashed; they flew in airplanes and landed on top of houses; +they built submarines and got stuck at the bottom of the sea; they +worked in chemical laboratories and asphyxiated themselves, or invented +explosives and blew themselves up; they went yachting to the North Pole +to hunt walruses, or to the equator to collect baby chimpanzees for a +psychological laboratory. + +Hardly a millionaire estate without something weird and mysterious upon +it: the largest collection of old pewter in the world, or a single-tax +enclave, or an herbarium with Brazilian butterflies, or a laboratory +for the investigation of ghosts, or a mausoleum prepared in advance of +death, or a fireproof and bombproof shelter for safety against mobs! +And now and then a more sinister case--a clergyman with a fondness for +choir-boys, or an aged sybarite who must have fifteen-year-old virgins +shivering in his arms; a young lady of fashion who frequented the +“black and tan” cafés disguised as a man, or who taught the sex-lore of +the Orient to her female intimates! + +The police were used to all this. They even got used to the idea that +now and then a rich eccentric would turn against his own and commit +class-suicide. They knew that in the home of a dead poet in Cambridge, +a shrine to which pilgrims traveled from all over America, the poet’s +grandson was upstairs entertaining syndicalists and communists, and +figuring the easiest way to overthrow the capitalist system. That was +treason, but it was treason to the rich, and the rich were the ones to +deal with it. What worried the politicians and police was when these +young fools took to hounding the politicians and police. That was the +treason that really mattered, that was a stab in the back, and the most +dangerous activity one could pursue in America. + +And here was Betty Alvin quite blandly going to it, heedless of all +warnings. So came a string of developments, distressing to a blue-blood +family. Anonymous letters, more abusive and more widely scattered; +telephone calls, with sinister voices pronouncing dooms; visits to +Rupert from his banking associates, who talked about alarming rumors +they had heard; a call from the Republican boss with whom Rupert did +business, and who asked him if he didn’t have troubles enough! So again +Betty was summoned to her father’s home, and went through the worst +scene yet; she lost her serenity, and shed many tears, but she would +not go abroad, nor give up either her lover or her anarchists. Again +she was disinherited and disowned--whether in words, or actually upon +paper, she had no way to know. + +A heavy strain upon Rupert, and a strange freak of fate! Or could it be +that there actually was some intelligence overseeing the universe, and +that Betty’s revolt was a punishment visited upon a great banker who +had left undone those things he ought to have done, and had done those +things he ought not to have done? Rupert could not escape this idea, +because he had been brought up in Trinity Church in the City of Boston, +and had heard it--not exactly preached, but skirted on the edge of, +every Sunday morning for fifty years. He would have liked to ask his +rector, or some other clergyman: could there be a God perverse enough +to object to Rupert’s having taken the felt-plants of Jerry Walker, +which Rupert could finance and Jerry couldn’t? Could any God have +wanted him to let the Boston Elevated stay on the rocks and be pounded +to pieces? Could any God be so silly as the fanatics and agitators +who denounced Rupert for having loaned money to legislators--when it +was perfectly obvious that it was not Rupert who had elected these +legislators, and that lending them money was the only way to get a +raise of fares and make the stock of the Elevated worth anything? No, +God was not going to punish the president of the Pilgrim National Bank +for having protected the people who had trusted their fortunes to him! +But then, how could God be letting Rupert’s lovely young daughter be +seduced by anarchist free love, and exposed to the furies of scandal, +at such a trying moment of her father’s life? + + +X + +One by one the members of the family received “poison pen” letters. +Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge came to her mother, incredulous of the +scandal, because her maternal soul had never desired an impropriety. +Alice Thornwell Winters came, elegant and precious, regarding her +virtue as a hard-won possession, deserving of commensurate rewards. +No use expecting others to live up to one’s own standards--“though I +do think, Mother, Betty is beginning rather young. I must say I am +aghast at this new generation, they don’t even trouble to apologize for +their indiscretions. And I don’t know what to make of you, Mother--I +thought you believed in the old standards. I heard that these radicals +practiced free love, but somehow I didn’t think of it in relation to my +own mother.” + +“Well, Alice,” said Cornelia, “you must consider my life. I was +faithful to the old standards, I lived my life without love, and where +did it get me?” + +The carefully cultivated features of Alice Thornwell Winters wore +a puzzled look. Alice prided herself upon being sensitive to all +ethical and esthetic values--they were the same thing, she always +insisted--beauty was truth and beauty was goodness--but of course +beauty must be recognized by a discriminating intelligence--it was +something that could not be explained--it was a gift, very rare, but +Alice had it. “Really, Mother, how can you feel that you have had such +a hard life? Your children love you, and your grandchildren would, if +they saw more of you. Josiah was saying to me only yesterday it was +hard to understand why you found so much in Italian anarchists, and so +little in your own people.” + +“Well, my dear, perhaps I know the Harvard values too well, and have +got bored with them. Tell Josiah to come to dinner, and tell me what +new things he has learned and accomplished. That is, unless you are +afraid to expose him to my free love ideas.” + +That was a nasty stroke of a cat’s claws, and the sensitive Alice +winced. For everybody in the family had heard about the “wild oats” of +“Young Josiah,” only son of Alice and Henry--known as “Josie” to his +boyhood playmates, and as “Si” to the members of “Porcellian” and of +“Alpha Delta Phi.” Alice allowed for him, because he was a man, and +that was the way men did, apparently; they got over it in time, and +settled down. But nowadays the girls were doing it, too, and how would +there be any esthetic standards, if the women did not maintain them? +That was what shocked Alice in the episode of Betty and Joe--it was so +unesthetic, to come to the apartment where Betty’s grandmother lived! +To which Cornelia answered that she had never been to a roadhouse, +and could not judge, but it might be, of course, that some of them +were fixed up esthetically. Look out for the cat’s claws of this +gentle-seeming old woman! + +Alice went away, and Josiah Thornwell Winters called up, and made an +appointment to dine with his grandmother, and tell her what he had +learned and accomplished as a Harvard senior. But when he came, he did +not mention the subject--because meantime the current of his thoughts +had been diverted. The grandson and namesake of the stern old governor +had fallen the newest victim to the calamities which were raining upon +his conspicuous family. + +Cornelia happened to drop in at the office of the defense committee, +and Lee Swenson gave her the first news of the event. “I don’t like to +repeat gossip, Nonna, but my guess is, your latest family trouble is a +result of what you and Betty are doing, so you need to know about it.” + +“What do you mean, Lee?” + +“There’s a story all over town--last night the political gangs were +roaring drunk in their bootleg-joints, and when they had a round of +drinks, they would say, ‘Have one on Young Josiah!’” + +“What has he done?” + +“Well, they caught him in a hotel room with a woman. Undoubtedly +she lured him there--it’s a regular system they have. They took a +flashlight photograph of him, and Henry Cabot Winters paid seventy-five +thousand dollars to kill the story.” + +Cornelia, the “Red,” was supposed to be lacking in shame; but now she +looked down, instead of at her friend. “Can it really be true, Lee?” + +“It is what is being told. You can find out, of course.” + +“They can do that kind of thing in Boston, and not be punished?” + +“It’s the punishers who are doing it, Nonna. It’s a blackmail ring, +and the district attorneys get a share of the loot. There is an aged +millionaire in this town--perhaps you know him--old man Barbour?” + +“I have met him.” + +“Well, they got him in the same kind of jam, and soaked him to the +tune of three hundred and eighty-six thousand. You can hardly believe +that, but I got the amount from one of his lawyers. And then young +Searles--he inherited a fortune from his uncle, I think it was, and +the gang got him in an apartment with a couple of girls and cleaned +him out. Over in Woburn they got a bunch of moving-picture people in a +roadhouse for a wild party, and it cost those celebrities a hundred and +five thousand.” + +“One might expect it of people like that,” said Cornelia. “But it is +something new for the Thornwells, unless I am mistaken. I’m glad that +my Josiah is not here to see what has become of his name.” + + +XI + +So it was that when Josiah Thornwell Winters came to dinner two or +three days afterwards, his grandmother did not chat about the polite +nothings of the Harvard curriculum and of “Porcellian” and “Alpha +Delta Phi.” Throwing aside those reticences which are supposed to be +the crown of womanhood, she talked in plain language about unspeakable +things--“man to man,” as she put it. And “Young Josiah,” who had never +dreamed of such a thing from an old lady, turned pink to the roots +of his hair and looked as if he wanted to grab his hat and run; but +after a while he got used to it, and found it a relief to talk about +realities. He had come very close to shooting his head off, and neither +the horrified grief of his pure mother, nor the withering scorn of his +successful father had been of the slightest use to him. + +He was twenty-two years old, and at the age of seventeen he had sprung +up to the Thornwell height of six feet and more, but had never filled +out his lean figure. His shoulders were stooped and his complexion +pale, and his fingers yellow with nicotine; but he had the most elegant +Harvard drawl, and a complete equipment of skepticism and boredom, +applied to matters about which he knew nothing, as well as to those +about which Harvard had taught him everything. His manner was “right,” +his clothing had the proper shade of carelessness, and his apartment on +the “Gold Coast” contained shelves of exquisite smut, beginning with +Petronius and ending with James Branch Cabell, in numbered editions at +from fifteen to fifty dollars a volume. + +But now all that solemn pose of maturity had fallen like a cheap +actor’s cloak, and Cornelia confronted a raw, weedy youth with vicious +habits and a sick sense of shame. “I’m a rotter,” he said, “but I could +tell you things to show you it wasn’t entirely my fault. The Pater gave +me the razz--he all but told me I’d oblige him if I’d eat a chunk of +cyanide--and I said nothing. But you must know, Grandmother, he hasn’t +been any saint.” + +“I know he keeps a woman,” said Cornelia, grimly. + +“More than that. There’s a tradition on the crew--you know, after he +was graduated, the Pater coached the crew for a couple of years--and +he told the fellows they would have to go with prostitutes, or they’d +lose their virility. That made the church crowd hot, and they got rid +of him, but the story stayed on, and a lot of the fellows think he was +right. Now, of course, the Pater says I’ve gone too far, but then, who +is to do the measuring? It was my hard luck that I knew too much about +both my father and my mother. Do you want me to talk about Mother?” + +“I want you to tell me the truth.” + +“Well, Mother has wonderful emotions, but she’s a little short on +brains, and I rarely got anything useful from her. When I was about +fifteen, I heard a terrible quarrel between her and the Pater, they +told each other all the dirt they knew. I was behind a curtain, and had +to stay there, because I was ashamed to let them know I’d heard the +beginning. You know Mother’s way, she has platonic thrills, but she +doesn’t go the limit, so that makes it all right. The Pater had got a +story on her--her friends were talking about how she had traveled to +New York with one of her poets, and had lain in his arms all night in +the sleeping-car berth, but not parted with her virtue; that was her +remarkable spirituality, and the fellow was supposed to enjoy it, too. +The Pater called her some rotten names, and then she told what she knew +about him, and that was my introduction to the subject of love. It +wasn’t exactly helpful, was it?” + +Cornelia accepted the plea. + +“Well, when I was sixteen, I was visiting a fellow from St. Mark’s. +It was a place on the North Shore, and he had an aunt--one of these +up-to-date ladies who had divorced one husband and was getting rid of +another, and her lover was in Europe, and she was bored. She came from +New York, and they are ahead of us--but not more than a year or two, I +have found--perhaps because they get the new shows a season earlier. +Anyhow, this was good family, a country club crowd, no end of money, +and it seemed all right. She came to my room at night--all fixed up, +very beautiful and sweet-smelling, and what chance did a kid stand +against a proposition like that? She stayed around a while, and taught +me a lot--until her lover came back from Europe, and then we said +good-by. But it was only a week before a young widow took me on. You +can’t imagine how it is, Grandmother--I know it wasn’t that way in your +time. The women know what they want, and they just go to it.” + +“Are they trying to marry you?” + +“Not often. Some have husbands, but they’ve been reading Freud, and +have got the idea that all their troubles are repressions. And the +young girls are worse.” + +“All of them, Josiah?” + +“No, of course not--there are plenty of girls like Priscilla and +Betty--I suppose they are straight. What happened to me was, I got +a reputation, so I drew the wild ones. I was supposed to be a +lady-killer. I don’t imagine I’m abnormally attractive, but family +counts for a lot, and Harvard, of course--the high-hat stuff. Anyhow, +I assure you I never had to do any seducing, and I never made any +promises I didn’t keep. I’ve spent a lot of money, but always in +respectable ways, I mean entertainments and presents and so on. I never +got stuck for blackmail but this once.” + +Cornelia smiled. “You remember Æsop’s fable,” she said, “about the +lioness who had only one cub, but that one was a lion.” + + +XII + +Young Josiah skirted around the cage of this “lion” for quite a while. +It didn’t seem really decent to tell such “dirt” to one’s grandmother. +But Cornelia pinned him down. “I have other grandchildren coming along, +and I need to know about my city.” + +“Well, it’s a rotten hole,” said the youth. “I think this blackmail +business is a result of the fact that Bostonians have to pretend to be +so much better than they can be. Or maybe it’s the Irish, bringing us +Yankees off our high horses.” + +“Who was the woman?” + +“She belongs to what is known as ‘Larry Shay’s stable’--not a very +elegant name, but you say you want to know Boston. She looked like a +society girl, and I really thought she was.” + +“Where did you meet her?” + +“I had seen her around Harvard Square for a week or two, and I thought +she lived in the neighborhood--a neglected young wife or something. She +can’t be over nineteen; she was dressed up to the minute, and looked +like springtime. I suppose she was watching me, finding out about my +habits. Anyhow, she passed me now and then, and always looked willing, +but not too eager. This time I was sitting in my car, waiting for a +fellow, and she came along smiling, and naturally I was smiling, and +she walked up and said, ‘You are Josiah Winters, aren’t you?’ She +said, ‘I know your cousin, Betty Alvin, but I’m not a “Red” like her, +so don’t be afraid of me.’ She had got posted about Betty, and of +course I thought Betty knew lots of people that the rest of the family +wouldn’t know. I laughed, and asked her if she’d like to ride, and she +got in, and we rode all over, and I kissed her a few times, and she +said she had never done anything like this before, and paid me a lot +of compliments, but she wouldn’t go to a roadhouse, and when we came +back to town we had supper, and a little champagne, and--the upshot of +it was, she knew a hotel where a girl-friend of hers lived, and she +wouldn’t be afraid to go there. So we went to a room; and about ten +minutes after we got in, somebody put his shoulder to the door, and +there were half a dozen men, and one of them held a camera, and another +set off a flashlight, and they said they were county detectives, and I +was under arrest, and the picture would be in the Boston ‘Telegram’ the +next afternoon. The girl went into hysterics--she was a good actress, +I must say--or maybe she liked me and was sorry--I’m fool enough to +wonder, because she was so young. But there it was, and the Pater +pungled up seventy-five thousand bucks, and took it out by telling me +what he really thought of me. It took quite a while, and went into +details.” + +Cornelia was moved to say, “You must allow for the financial strain.” + +“No, it is what he really thinks; he’s been cherishing it up for a long +time. He is disappointed in me, I’m a weakling, and he needs a strong +man for his successor. He might stop and think, what has there been +in my life to develop strength--assuming I had the possibility? When +the Pater got through Harvard he had to pitch in and fight his own +way; but I never had to, it was no good trying to fool myself with the +idea that I was anything but a millionaire’s son. Of course Mother’s +spoiling me was from affection, but that didn’t change the result. I +have enough of the Pater’s brains to understand what happened. I never +had to do anything but call somebody else. If the car was out of order, +tell the chauffeur; if I wanted a bunch of flowers, tell the gardener. +So many servants to wait on one kid; so many courtiers, to make you +think you’re the top of the heap--so why should you climb any higher? +And then the women come, and after that, it is impossible to break +through. I don’t mean merely sex--I mean all the things they want to +do--tea-parties and dances and motoring and yachting. Honest truth, +Grandmother, except for things like this blackmail, there’s nothing to +choose between the fashionable girls and the ones you pick up; they +want to do the same things, and the only difference is where you go, +and how much it costs. The one thing none of them will let you do is +any serious work.” + +There was more to this revealing story, and Cornelia listened to it +all and asked many questions. “I ought to have known these things many +years ago,” she said. “I might have helped you a great deal.” + +“Yes, of course. Nobody talks straight to us fellows. Mother doesn’t +know much that is real, and the Pater has been so busy making +money--too busy to think what good it will do anybody. He must be +pretty sick, because I show so few signs of solving the problem for +him.” + +“Wouldn’t you like to come and see me now and then? Perhaps Betty and I +could bring you in touch with people who are doing worth-while things.” + +“Well, Grandmother, of course, I’ll meet anybody you say, but I don’t +see much hope in that crowd of yours. The way it looks to me, you and +Betty have got a little money, and family position, and they are using +you for what you are worth.” + +“Yes, my boy,” said Cornelia, gently, “but what I thought was, you +might forget those Harvard ideas. I will take you to Charlestown prison +and introduce you to one of my wops, who has never had either money +or family position, and no education except what he picked up after +washing dishes fourteen hours a day. He cannot express himself in +English very well, yet he has managed to impress me as a very great +man. It is possible he might impress you also, and make you realize +what it means to men who lose the money that you get.” + +“I don’t understand just what you mean by that,” said Young Josiah from +Harvard. + + +XIII + +The trial of Mrs. De Falco came up in a Boston police court, and +Cornelia extended her knowledge of the “blackmail ring” and its power. +A long-haired Swede from the West had come into Massachusetts to +tell them how to run their system of justice; a “Red” and an enemy +of society, who would not play the game as other lawyers played it, +but tried to throw sticks into the machinery! Well, they would show +him--and they did. + +The magistrate was an Irish-Catholic, an ardent patriot, and these +were the days of most bitter prejudice against anarchists, atheists +and wops. The lawyer representing the defendant was an aggressive +and loud-mouthed Jew, and the way he and the judge collaborated was +a prophecy of an immortal drama of the emotions called “Abie’s Irish +Rose.” When Felicani, and Lopez, a Spanish anarchist, explained +their conscientious objections to taking an oath, the devout Hebrew +gentleman went after them hammer and tongs, and the devout Catholic +gentleman beamed with delight. After that, it ceased to be the trial +of an alleged bribe-seeker, and became the trial of two self-confessed +free-thinkers. The judge actually ordered Lopez under arrest, and it +took a lot of persuading to change his mind. + +The two stenographers took the stand, and the fact that one of them +had served with the A.E.F. in France did not help them in the least. +Did they know the voice of Mrs. De Falco? If not, how could they be +sure that the voice they had heard over the dictaphone was the voice +of Mrs. De Falco? To be sure, others had seen Mrs. De Falco talking in +the room; but maybe these others were lying, maybe somebody had staged +a performance to fool the stenographers and make them think they were +listening to Mrs. De Falco, when in reality they were listening to +some other Italian woman making a bribe proposition! Who could set a +limit to the rascalities that atheists and anarchists might contrive, +in order to discredit the legal system of the great Commonwealth of +Massachusetts? + +And then Mrs. De Falco herself, an alert and capable young woman, whose +wits had been sharpened by years of battle for life in the police +courts. She sturdily denied every charge; and especially she denied +any trace of connection between herself and any officials. The high +officials of Norfolk and Plymouth counties were upright and honorable +gentlemen, and never had made any proposition to let criminals escape +for a money consideration, and never had the employment of a relative +as counsel for accused criminals, had anything to do with subsequent +dismissal of proceedings against such criminals. That was, of course, +the real issue being tried in this police court; to find the Italian +woman guilty meant to find the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts +guilty, and how could a patriotic judge do that? When the testimony +about the officials began to come in, the judge ordered everybody out +of the court-room except the witness and the counsel. + +The defendant was acquitted; and Lee Swenson, feeling very blue, went +off by himself, and sat down at a luncheon table in a restaurant--when +who should come in but the aggressive and loud-mouthed Jewish lawyer! +He was feeling good, naturally, and joined his victim at the table, +and “kidded” him a bit, after the fashion of lawyers--and incidentally +talked about the case, as one sensible man to another. Mrs. De Falco +had hung around the courts for so many years, she of course knew both +the high official and his brother, and she had tried to capitalize +her knowledge and get some money out of the Sacco-Vanzetti defense. +She knew the details of other court cases, enough to be able to +make it appear that she was able to “swing” deals; she had gone to +meeting-places with officials, to talk about other matters--knowing +that she would be followed by the defense, who would thus conclude that +she had a “pull.” + +Maybe so, said Lee; but it seemed to him a little strange that a lawyer +should be saying such things about his client, and making so elaborate +a defense of two other persons who were not his clients! Could it be +that any of the officials were paying for this legal victory? The +lawyer denied it, and Lee smiled his patient Swedish smile. Of course, +you could never be sure; it might be that it had all happened as the +other said; sometimes truth really was stranger than fiction. It might +be that the officials had happened in while Mrs. De Falco was there, +purely as a coincidence; or again, it might be that all of them had met +there to say their prayers. + +The judge had been of that opinion, and the case was history. The one +thing Lee Swenson had accomplished--he realized it, now that it was +too late--was to exacerbate the prosecution, to give to all officials +having anything to do with the Sacco-Vanzetti case a reason for bitter +and personal animus. The name of Lee Swenson became a byword to all +politicians and officials; the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee +became a nest of active and dangerous foes, and the task of sending +two wops to the electric chair became one with the defense of every +criminal-in-office in the entire community. Which was exactly as +Vanzetti, lying through those endless hours in his prison cell, had +figured out and predicted. Always it happened, sooner or later, that +everything turned out as Vanzetti had figured out and predicted! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SHADOWS BEFORE + + +I + +Springtime in New England! Not all the giant factories with belching +smoke, not all the dingy tenements, billboards, hot-dog stands and +filling stations could conceal the fact that something magical +was happening to the land. Even to prisoners in jail, there was a +difference in the air which crept through the corridors. Just as boys +know when to fly kites, with no outsider to remind them--so Nick Sacco +knew it was time for the garden to be spaded, and when you went to see +him, he would ask who was going to do it, and what was to be planted. +It was good form to insist that he would be out in time to weed the +garden, and to eat the first tomatoes. + +Vanzetti, who spent fifteen and a half hours in a cell with only a slit +in the top for light, and worked in a yard blackened with coal dust and +smoke of near-by factories--even he knew that it was spring. You took +a bunch of mayflowers when you went to see him, and the guard could +not refuse to let you give him one. A pitiful thing, a frail blossom, +but--“flower in the crannied wall”--it was a symbol, it meant a whole +springtime; it meant those beautiful woods about Plymouth, and the +walks which Bart had taken with Nonna and the children. “How happy we +been, Nonna! We not know what happiness we have, till we los-èd him!” + +He would talk about the things they had done and seen; it was all +alive in his memory, it came like a vision, shining with a light that +never was in any springtime. He fed his soul upon such memories, lying +through the long hours in his cage. Friendship, kindness, beauty--he +had had these “blassings” in his life; not a full share--but then, he +had observed that people who had a full share did not appreciate so +much their “blassings.” “Plenty people go in sunshine, they not think. +But I got little time for seeing, I make notice!” He would move nearer +to the window. + +Betty had occasion to go to Plymouth, and she brought back Beltrando +Brini in her car with her. Another kind of springtime, a musical talent +putting forth buds! The little boy came to the prison, and after +Cornelia had interceded with the warden, he was brought into the big +reception room, and unlimbered his fiddle and tuned it up. Bart sat +watching every move, bursting with pride, as if he were the child’s +mother. Trando was scared, of course, for he was only thirteen and a +half, and this was a terrible place, slouchy brown figures gliding here +and there, watchers with hard faces and eyes. But he tucked the fiddle +under his chin, and quavering notes stole on the air--“When you and I +were young, Maggie”--the tune which Bart had heard him struggling to +play, back in those happy days at home! + +He had learned other tunes now--“Old Black Joe,” and “Home, Sweet +Home.” He could almost play Drdla’s “Serenade”--he would try it, if +Bart would excuse mistakes; Bart sat with tears running down his +cheeks, no use trying to hide them. The convicts stole to the doors +of their cells and strained their ears; even the hard-faced keepers +listened, and were reminded suddenly that they, too, were in jail, +victims of the hatreds they themselves engendered. All the prison drew +together, realizing its shame; the steel bars were melted--and the +harder and tougher moods which had made the steel. Oh, man, how strange +a fate--to make jails for yourself, and be led out by a little child +with a magic wand--and then find yourself afraid, and obliged to run +back and shut yourself in! A clock struck, and visitors must leave, and +magic cease. + + +II + +Such holidays of the spirit were rare in the life of Cornelia and Betty +these days. For the most part their talk was about harsh reality. The +trial loomed near, a portentous event, a battle of armies; no longer a +mere matter of two wops accused of crime, but a contest over the good +name and dignity of the august Commonwealth. A lawyer had come from +the wild west and opened an office and started a propaganda campaign, +slandering the good name of Massachusetts all over the world. He was +raising tens of thousands of dollars--no one could say how much, but +they guessed high, and every dollar was a separate outrage and insult; +a refusal to play the game according to the rules. + +Lee Swenson knew the danger into which he had put his clients by the De +Falco procedure, and this thought was a goad which gave him no rest. +He was a cyclone of energy; writing circulars, or suggesting ideas +for others to write; printing appeals, getting lists for mailing, +writing to this person and that, to get information, to pull wires for +publicity, money, or support; interviewing witnesses, hunting up new +ones, probing this or that detail of their lives. He would come out to +dine with Cornelia, and sit in her big Morris chair by the window, and +fan himself and sigh with exhaustion; but in a few minutes he would be +telling about a new idea, and before long something else would pop into +his head, and out would come his notebook, and what was supposed to be +a memorandum might turn into a new set of campaign plans. + +Another lawyer had come, a friend of Swenson’s from the west; Fred +Moore, an Irishman, but a radical, and Swenson’s aide in many a fight. +Also there were two more journalists on the staff, John Nicholas Beffel +and Eugene Lyons, devoted young fellows, passionately convinced of +the justice of the cause, and writing newspaper and magazine stuff +that went all over the world. As an investigator, there was Bob +Reid, a Boston constable, gray old veteran who had been through the +Ettor-Giovannitti case with Swenson, and could follow the trail of +the authorities like an Indian hunter. If there was anything about +Massachusetts police practice too dreadful for Cornelia to believe, all +she had to do was to ask this man, and he would cauterize her doubts. + +And then another figure, still more alarming to a lady who had lived a +sheltered life; a figure out of the underworld, furtive-eyed, silent--a +man whom Swenson or Moore usually saw alone, and with whom they made +mysterious appointments. Lee, it appeared, was going to try the “stool +pigeon” methods of the authorities. Somebody had actually committed +the South Braintree crime, he insisted, and the Bridgewater one, too; +the way to nail down the prosecution was to find the guilty men. A +rumor had come to Lee that in a city not far away from Boston there +was a gang of real bandits who were driving an automobile which they +called, jeeringly, “Sacco’s car.” Now the lawyers were spending money +to trail this gang, and Cornelia began to hear whispers of dread names. +Lee Swenson saw himself playing the “lead” in a fifth act, in which the +prosecution would be confronted with the real evidence, so overwhelming +that truth would be vindicated and justice done. + +Lee was much of a boy, in spite of his forty years, and he managed to +communicate this excitement to Betty and Joe and Cornelia. But he found +it impossible to get the Italians of the committee to share his idea; +as in the De Falco case, it was contrary to “filosofia anarchica.” When +you argued about it, you would meet shrugs of the shoulders; let the +cops do their own dirty work. “We no raise money for sooch job.” When +you declared that here might be real bandits, there would be a still +higher shrug of the shoulders, a wider sweep of the hands. “What if +they did? Is poor feller, musta live. Is victim of wicked sistema, what +right I got for punish?” + +And when you took the question to Bart and Nick, you met exactly the +same response. They would not be saved at the expense of any other +human being; they would not compromise their principles, even to prove +their innocence. The business of anarchists was to end the system of +exploitation, after which crime would cease of itself. If you could +live according to these principles, all right, then live; if you could +not, then it was up to you to die. Such stubbornness was embarrassing +to persons of Yankee upbringing, who believed in adjusting means to +ends, and took “law and order” seriously. Also embarrassing to a +lawyer, who had spent twenty years training himself to play a certain +game, and now was expected to play it and not play it at the same time! + + +III + +Day by day, as the work continued, the intricacies of the case +developed. The list of witnesses for the prosecution numbered more +than fifty, those for the defense close to one hundred. There were +not investigators enough to run down all the clews, there were not +cells enough in the human brain to hold all the details. The crime +had occurred in mid-afternoon, on a busy street, and there were many +witnesses, each one a separate problem; the more you dug into him or +her, the more extra problems you would discover--husbands, wives, +sweethearts, children, employers--to say nothing of policemen and +investigators and prosecuting officials who had been there before you! +The witnesses were mostly persons of low social station, the neglected +poor of America. To probe into their lives, to uncover their family +skeletons, their vices and secret shames, their greeds and fears and +vanities and hates--it seemed to Cornelia there was nothing so horrible +being done in all the world. Except, perhaps, the work which a large +force of Americans, guided by sentimentality and superstition, were now +performing in France; digging up the dead bodies of soldier boys who +had been slain in battle, and had been rotting underground for three +years. + +Take the soul of Lola Andrews. Cornelia lived with the soul of Lola +Andrews for months, walked, talked, ate, slept, dined or fasted with +Lola Andrews; because Betty took Lola for her task, consecrating her +youth and beauty, her social charm, her faith, hope and charity, to the +task of trying to persuade Lola to tell the truth. Naturally Betty, +being new at the practice of psychopathology, not very well informed +as to the diagnosis and treatment of hysteria, paranoia, hyperesthesia +and all abnormalities, would bring her problems to Grannie, and the two +would hold long consultations, and Cornelia would visit the famous Dr. +Morrow and ask his advice. + +Lola Andrews had begun life in the wilderness of Maine, as the hapless +child of an Italian man and a Yankee farmer’s daughter. Her mother +died, her father disappeared, and she grew up, slim and small, black +of eyes and hair, a kind of woodland sprite, used to the sneers of the +world. At the age of seventeen, when she was married, her hair was +such a mat of filth and vermin that her husband had been compelled to +take her to a barber and have her head shaved close. This husband was +a soldier returned from the Philippines; after a child was born, Lola +began running out to dances, and he left her. During years of misery +she made the discovery that by screaming and crying she could get +people to pay attention to her; so she became an hysteric, and at any +time during the investigation, if anything happened that Lola didn’t +like, up would go her hands and forth would come a shriek. After which, +she would calm down, and talk quite reasonably about her own interests. + +At the time of the South Braintree crime Lola had been taking care of +an elderly man who was bedridden, in the hope that he would leave her a +part of his property at his death. Meantime, since he gave her nothing, +she scrubbed floors, she went out and did washing--and of course was +preyed upon. The police of the town knew about her life, yet in this +case they would be willing to make use of her. + +It was Lola’s story that she had been walking down the street, four +hours prior to the crime, and had twice passed what she thought was the +bandit car. It was a great weakness of the prosecution that the crime +had taken place at such speed, there had been only a minute or so for +observation; but here was Lola, who had stopped and chatted with the +bandits. One of the two men standing by the car was yellow-haired--and +when Joe Randall heard this part of the story he said, “Look out, Lee +Swenson, they are after you!” The other man had been under the car, +doing something to the works, and this was the one Lola had made a +special point to observe, and was willing to describe in any way that +seemed most to the advantage of Lola. + +So here was a problem in applied psychology; to explore the dark +caverns of this tortured soul, to know more about her than she knew +about herself, so that you could pull the strings and manipulate her +to the ends of “joostice.” But alas, it was easier to dream than to +accomplish; the science of psychopathology is still in its infancy, and +the few months’ time allowed was insufficient to bring it to maturity. +Lola would have moods of frankness; she was nearing forty now, her +charms were gone, she was a poor wreck, and this was her chance to get +what was coming to her; the world was a place of “dog eat dog,” and why +should she worry about a pair of wops who would never worry about her? +Why should she worry about what she had said at preliminary hearings, +or to newspaper reporters, or investigators, or any of the other people +who had pestered her? All she had to do was deny it, and the district +attorney would protect her, and the jury would believe her. + +There was a secret spring by which the soul of Lola might be moved, +but alas, the defense did not find it until after the trial. The +fates so willed it, that everything that was really significant in the +Sacco-Vanzetti case was not found until after the trial. Lola’s son +was living up in Maine, under another name, and in the effort to keep +his esteem, she would make sacrifices--for a few days. When confronted +with this son, and his reminder of other cases where she had “staged +a show,” Lola broke down and admitted that she had lied, and that her +identification had been “framed.” She made affidavit to this in the +presence of her son and several reliable witnesses. But under police +pressure, she took it all back, and made another affidavit, with a +lurid tale about how the defense had intimidated her. Subsequently she +took that back also. + +Such was Lola Andrews, who sat in the witness chair at the trial, and +identified Sacco as the “dark-complexioned man” who had been under +the car, and identified the car as the bandit car because, “when I +heard of the shooting I somehow associated the man I saw at the car.” +And when the defense started to question her about her past life, she +suddenly threw her much-tried fainting stunt, and Judge Thayer hastened +to adjourn court. When she was asked the cause of her excitement, she +said it was because she had recognized in the court-room a man who had +assaulted her in a toilet in Quincy! And Judge Thayer, who had no more +training in psychopathology than Cornelia and Betty, ordered all the +doors of the court-room closed, while the officers attempted to catch +the man whom Lola had recognized. Never had she had so much attention, +never had she been such a heroine! + +Along with this problem came Mrs. Campbell, the elderly woman who had +been with Lola on the day of the crime, and had gone into the shoe +factory with her to seek a job. It took fancy detective work to locate +Mrs. Campbell, because she was not listed by the prosecution; when she +was found, the reason was apparent--she completely wiped Lola out. +The man they had spoken to was not the man under the car at all, but +a man in khaki clothes standing near the factory; neither of them had +spoken to any man who was working on an automobile. An investigator for +the government had come to Mrs. Campbell, and hearing her story, had +assured her there was no need for her to come to Dedham to testify, +what she knew was of no importance, and it would cost too much money to +bring her. It would have added ten or twenty dollars to the seventy +thousand which the great Commonwealth was spending to put two wops out +of the way. + +A topsy-turvy world, a lunatic’s dream of a world, impossible to +believe in, even when you saw it with your eyes and heard it with +your ears! What could you make of a world in which you studied Lola +Andrews for months, and came to know every quirk of her fantastic +soul; in which you saw her exposed and discredited by witness after +witness--even a policeman and a newspaper reporter to whom she had +admitted that she did not see the faces of the men she thought were the +bandits; and then, in the face of all this, you saw the Honorable Fred +Katzmann, district attorney of Norfolk County, stand up to address the +jury, and solemnly declare: “I have been in this office, gentlemen, for +now more than eleven years. I cannot recall in that too long service +for the Commonwealth that ever before I have laid eye or given ear to +so convincing a witness as Lola Andrews!” + + +IV + +And then Carlos Goodridge! This man, the manager of a small music +store, had happened to be in a pool-room near the scene of the crime. +There were four other men in the room, and none of them had got a +glimpse of the bandits, and to these others Goodridge had admitted that +he could not identify the bandits. “If I have got to say who the man +was, I can’t say.” But seven months later Goodridge and his wife were +in court, charged with stealing several hundred dollars of money and +goods from the music store. It so happened that Sacco was there at the +same time, pleading to some motion, and Goodridge saw his opportunity, +and told the authorities that he recognized Sacco and could identify +him as one of the South Braintree bandits. Could a deal have been made? +Impossible to say; but the case was “placed on file”--that is to say, +Goodridge did not have to serve the sentence for his crime, but took +the witness stand and swore to the guilt of another man. + +And here was Lee Swenson, insisting to Cornelia and Betty and Joe that +the prosecution would be able to “get away” with that! Judge Thayer +would find some trick of the law to bar all testimony to the effect +that Goodridge had a sentence hanging over him; he would send the +jurors from the room while the matter was argued, so they would never +know they were listening to a criminal. Lee insisted that the only hope +would be to “get something else” on that fellow! Lee’s instinct, what +he called his “smell for crime,” told him that Goodridge had been in +jail. But where? And how to prove it? + +It was a matter to which the lawyer hung on with bulldog grip; they +must follow this clew and that, they must get more investigators, spend +more money. But they had only a few weeks, and the right clew came +too late! After the trial they knew all about Carlos Goodridge--his +real name was Erastus Corning Whitney, which in itself meant that he +had committed perjury when he testified against Sacco. He had served +terms in Elmira Reformatory and in Auburn State Prison, New York, and +was now wanted in that state for grand larceny. He had had a number of +wives, and Swenson collected a string of affidavits from these ladies, +setting forth his habits of marrying under various names, of stealing +everything in sight, and of lying freely. One added that he had been +attacked by Italians whom he had cheated of their belongings, and had +borne a grudge against Italians ever since. + +Too late! Too late! The curse that lay upon the Sacco-Vanzetti case, +that everything came too late! When the only thing you could do was +to make another motion before Webster Thayer, and have that just and +upright judge respond, “Motion denied!” Lee Swenson and one of his men +tracked “Goodridge” to the little village of Vassalboro, Maine, and +confronted him with his record, and he held out his wrists for the +handcuffs. Later they had him arrested, but--strange solidarity of the +rulers of America--New York State did not want him now, could not be +persuaded to take him! When once a criminal has obliged the police in +any part of the country, he has become a member of the gang, and is +immune. + +And stranger yet, the august judiciary will rally to his defense, and +not permit him to be slandered by having his criminal record exposed! +Webster Thayer, a Daniel come to judgment, would hand down his decision +on the motion for a new trial, rebuking the defense for its pursuit +of Goodridge, and saying that he had done right to resist a lawyer’s +efforts to intimidate him. “Motion denied!” + + +V + +Too late! Too late! Several times, in the midst of investigations for +South Braintree, they turned up evidence concerning the earlier case. +Evidence which would have saved poor Bart, if only it could have been +got to the jury! New witnesses--Yankee witnesses--who had seen the +Bridgewater shooting, and declared that the bandits did not look like +Vanzetti! Witnesses who had stated this to the police, and been told +to go home and keep quiet! Now this case was legally dead; Vanzetti’s +friends could not even have the poor pleasure of bringing the new +evidence to the attention of Judge Thayer. No matter what happened at +the coming trial, Bart would stay in Charlestown prison fourteen more +years--save in the unlikely event that Massachusetts might elect a +governor with a heart. + +So now Cornelia heard those ghostly voices which on past occasions had +shouted to her in vain! If only she had waited until that family which +was away from home had come back! If only she had turned up this street +instead of that! And of course these vain regrets brought terrors for +the future; Cornelia and her friends began to hear, far off and faint, +the ghostly voices warning them about the new case. They were like +enchanted people in an old-time legend, living halfway between two +worlds, holding communion with both. Lee Swenson, sitting in Cornelia’s +big chair, with his chin in his hand and his heavy brows knitted in +thought, became some medieval magician, wrestling with spirits and +demons he challenged, but could not command. + + _Creature of Flame, thou shalt not daunt me! + ’Tis I! ’Tis Faust! Thy peer I vaunt me!_ + +Many things this new Faustus demanded of the “busy spirit that ranges +round the world.” Find the man with a bullet hole in his overcoat! +Again and again this clew turned up; there had been a man by the name +of Roy Gould, who had been fired upon by the bandits, and the bullet +had pierced his coat. But nobody knew this man’s address. Manifestly, +the police would not have overlooked such a witness; and the fact that +he was not listed by them made it sure that he had failed to identify +Sacco and Vanzetti. Presently it was learned that he was a salesman of +shaving paste; some one reported that he was in the habit of selling +his wares to crowds at circuses and fairs, so it was a question of +getting a list of all the circuses in New England! + +Like all others, this mystery was solved too late. The man turned up, +several months after the trial. The bandit car had passed within five +or ten feet of him, and the bandit who was supposed to be Sacco had +fired at him, and he said it could not possibly be Sacco. He would go +down into history as the “Gould motion”; one of nine different appeals +for a new trial, which would compel Judge Thayer to repeat nine times +his celebrated formula, “Motion denied.” + +Also the witnesses who were to refute Louis Pelzer, a shoe cutter and +dullard who had been in the Rice and Hutchins factory when the shots +were fired, and had run to the window, and then dropped down out of +sight. He had really seen nothing and had so stated to many persons; +but the prosecution was to get hold of him, and drill him for a star +witness. Deep in the soul of this Jewish boy was a reverence for +authority, the buried memories of a hundred pogroms, when his ancestors +had cowered in ghetto tenements and seen whole families brained +before their eyes. When a blue uniform appeared in the room, when a +prosecuting official frowned upon him, something inside Louis Pelzer +gave way. + +So he was going to say that one of the bandits was the “dead image” +of Sacco; he would learn this phrase, and repeat it as often as +desired. And where were the witnesses to break him? Three of them, +fellow-workers, would be found by the defense; but the most important +of them would be found too late. Four months after the trial, Louis was +to make an affidavit, declaring that his testimony was false, the words +“dead image” had been put into his mouth by the district attorney. Six +months after that, he was to take it all back, and be safe with the +police again! + +But most loudly the ghostly voices shouted about the Pinkerton +reports. The operative “H.H.” had been on the scene immediately +after the crime, and his reports wiped out the most important of +all the witnesses of the prosecution, Mary Splaine. Not merely had +she identified other men, but she had told stories to the Pinkerton +operative which in themselves discredited her. And all this was known +to the prosecution--but not a hint of it to the defense! Most amazing +circumstance of all--that detective was going to attend the trial, and +take the stand and testify against a defense witness! Henry Hellyer, +the “operative H.H.,” came to the court-room where Mary Splaine swore +away the life of Sacco, knowing what she had told him, and what he +had written and turned in to his employers! The mockery of it--the +devilishness of it--that prosecuting authorities would play such a +trick! And the ghostly voices would shout into the ears of Cornelia +and Betty and Joe, and no one of them would hear a sound! Lee Swenson +might sit with his chin in his hand, and bend his brows and torture his +wits all night--but the “busy spirit that ranges round the world” could +never be conjured to give him a hint of that secret! + + +VI + +There was a fatality hanging over Cornelia. She had seen it coming--no +way to stop it, yet she had pushed the thought away and refused to face +it. But now the trial was only a week off, and there could be no more +evasion. Lee Swenson telephoned, asking if he might come to dinner that +evening; he wanted to be alone with her, he said--and she knew the time +had come. + +Lee looked very tired; there were deep lines about his mouth, and deep +shadows under his eyes, and he hardly tasted his very good dinner. For +a while Cornelia managed to divert him--asking for the news. A curious +development in the case, ready-made for a detective romance: from a +scrubwoman whom he had befriended, Lee had learned that detectives had +hired the janitor of his tumble-down office building to deliver the +contents of his trash-basket every night! He knew that they had their +minds fixed upon the sixteen thousand dollars which they thought Sacco +had buried; so the lawyer would divert his tired mind by drawing maps +of buried treasure! He made a plot of Sacco’s garden: sixteen feet +north from the southwest corner, twenty-two feet east--then dig! The +next time Cornelia went to Stoughton, she must find out if anybody had +done so! + +Dinner was over, and the maid dismissed, and the doors closed; the +clouds came back to the lawyer’s face. “Nonna,” he said, “we are going +to lose these boys!” + +“Oh, Lee!” Cornelia’s voice almost failed her. + +“They have got us sewed up in a strait-jacket.” + +“Why do you think that?” + +“Do you realize what lies ahead of this trial? We start on the day +after Memorial Day, and then comes the anniversary of Belleau Wood, and +then Bunker Hill Day, and before we get through it will be the Fourth +of July! And all these dead soldier boys they are bringing home, all +the weeping and praying and dedicating our lives to our country!” + +“What has that got to do with it?” + +“You ask me seriously? This is going to be the great peacetime service +for heroes to render to the nation; a defense of our heritage against +foreign anarchy and Bolshevism. And what have we got? Very few Yankee +witnesses! A string of wops--worse than at Vanzetti’s trial!” + +The lawyer began to count on his fingers--the scores of witnesses +he had been able to find. On the day of the South Braintree crime, +Bart had been selling fish, and digging clams and bait in Plymouth, +and had met few Yankees. He had stopped and chatted with one Yankee +fisherman--but the jury would say this fellow had got mixed up on +the date. Bart had bought some cloth from a Yiddish peddler, of whom +Katzmann would make a monkey. For the rest, they would have to depend +upon Alfonsina and Lefevre Brini, and Antonio Carbone and Angelo +Giadabone--hardly the sort of names to impress a Yankee jury! + +As for Nick, he had been in Boston that day, but talked to only one +American he could remember. He had had lunch with Guadagni at Boni’s +restaurant, and later there had been two other Italians present; he had +paid some money to an Italian grocer, and then gone to the consulate, +to get his passport--but the man who waited on him there had gone back +to Italy, and all they had was a deposition, not very convincing to a +jury. + +So much for the alibis. And then for the identifications; what +perversity of fate that so many of them depended upon wops! Why did +it have to be that Goodridge had been working for an Italian at the +time of the crime, and that his former employer was also an Italian? +And the men in the pool-room, to whom Goodridge had declared that +he could not recognize the bandits! Such names as Magazu, Arrigoni, +Mangoni, D’Amato! And then a bunch of men who had been working on a +trench in the street when the bandit car passed; a whole gang who +would testify that they had seen the bandits in the car, and that +none of them resembled Sacco or Vanzetti. But what good would it do? +“It’s just no use to put on a string of Italians, Nonna--three are +better than thirty, because you bore the jury and get them cross. Fred +Katzmann will make some playful remark--‘What is this, a Columbus Day +parade?’--and after that the jury will never stop smiling.” + +There was a long silence. “Remember, Nonna, this means death for both +of them. There is no middle ground.” + +“I know it, Lee.” + +“And if we don’t win the verdict, don’t fool yourself about the future. +Remember, so long as Web Thayer lives, he stays the boss of this case; +the supreme court of Massachusetts has seldom reversed a verdict in a +capital case--only two or three times in its entire history. So it’s +now or never.” + +“I know, Lee.” Cornelia’s voice was faint. + +Again a silence. The lawyer’s somber look was fixed upon her, and she +could not meet it. + +“Do you really want to save those boys, Nonna?” + +“Of course I do!” + +“Then why don’t you do it? Why not testify for them?” + +“You told me you couldn’t use character witnesses.” + +“I don’t mean that sort of witness, Nonna. I mean, why don’t you let +me fix you up a story, about how you went down to Plymouth on April +fifteenth of last year, and spent the day with the Brinis, and had +lunch with Bart, and later walked on the beach and saw him digging +clams? That’s the way to win this case, Nonna; it will end right +there--a knockout!” + + +VII + +What was it--some instinct buried deep in Cornelia Thornwell, something +in the very fiber of her being, that made it necessary for her to be +shocked by these words--even though the idea had been haunting her mind +for months? Nothing really new that Lee Swenson could say to her--yet +she had to let him say it, and act as if she had never thought of it! +“Oh, Lee, I couldn’t do it!” + +“Why couldn’t you? Did you really never tell a lie?” + +“Never one like that!” + +“Little ones, Nonna, for little occasions. But this is a big occasion! +This is life or death!” + +Again a pause. When the lawyer resumed, his voice was grim, and he +dropped the playful nickname. “I am not going to try to put pressure on +you, Mrs. Thornwell, as I have on other witnesses in my life; for after +all, it is your case--Bart is your friend, far more than he is mine, +and why should I want to save him more than you?” + +“Don’t put it that way, Lee!” + +“But that is the way to put it! You have your friends, and you have +your principles, and you must weigh them, and decide which you value +more. We all have to make such choices--Bart made one, you remember, he +lied for his friends. Those lies he told in the police-station were to +save Boda and Orciani from sharing the fate of Salsedo. He will tell a +different story on the witness stand, and whether it is the truth or +not--judge for yourself!” + +Another pause. “What is it, Mrs. Thornwell? Have you religious scruples +about an oath? Do you believe God will blast you to eternity if you +save these boys from the electric chair?” + +“No, it isn’t that.” + +“Is it patriotism? Do you think it will help your country to let a +bunch of crooks kill a pair of idealists, as a means of frightening the +others?” + +“No, not that.” + +“Then it’s just a matter of good form? It’s that you are a lady, and +such things are not done!” + +“No, not that, either. As a matter of fact, they are done all the time. +My sons-in-law are lying in business, and they will lie on the stand to +back each other up.” + +“Exactly!” And to himself Lee Swenson thought, “She has been debating +it with herself!” Aloud he said, “What is it, Mrs. Thornwell?” + +“It is just--I wouldn’t know how to do it!” + +“But if that is all that troubles you, here’s a thoroughly qualified +expert to take charge. Put yourself in my hands, as if it were a +surgical operation, and I’ll guarantee we’ll have Nick on the street +before the Fourth of July, and we’ll start a move to get Bart pardoned!” + +“But Lee, how could I do such a thing?” + +“If you mean it as a technical question, nothing more simple: you take +the stand and swear that you were in Plymouth that day, and you recite +the details of some other day when you were actually there. It can all +be worked out, very easily. You were in the habit of going there off +and on, nobody can dispute that. You remember the date, because of +something that happened the day before or the day after. Perhaps there +was a concert you had just been to, or there was to be one, and you had +to leave in order to attend it. We can go back and find a public event +to tie to; or perhaps you have a diary, or some letters.” + +“But suppose I did something in Boston on that day?” + +“There’ll be a way to get round it. You understand that, according to +your story, you only had to remember back three weeks. As soon as you +heard Bart was arrested, you naturally looked back, and realized that +you had been with him the day of the crime. But anybody who is going to +refute you has got to begin now, and remember back a year--which isn’t +apt to happen. If they have documentary evidence, like a letter--well, +the trial will be over a day or two after you testify. There might be a +scandal among your friends, but nothing serious, and anyhow, the boys +will be free--you understand that when a jury has acquitted them, they +can’t ever be tried for South Braintree again.” + + +VIII + +Lee kept his promise not to put pressure on her. What he did was to go +over the case, telling what each government witness would testify, and +just how that testimony had been “made.” As a piece of prophecy it was +a miracle, but Lee claimed no occult powers. With bitterness he said, +“If I want to know what the other side is doing, I figure what I would +do myself.” + +He had talked with some of these witnesses; others, who had refused +to talk to him, had become the subject of “reports.” So he knew their +motives, and how they would be controlled. When there had been need +of “rough stuff,” the police had done it. The more subtle work had +been done by college-bred gentlemen of the district attorney’s office, +who had learned to manufacture in weaker minds like Mary Splaine and +Frances Devlin what the psychologists term a “false memory.” They would +take these women to the jail again and again and show them Sacco and +Vanzetti; they would present pictures of Sacco and Vanzetti, insisting +that these were the bandits, these were the men whom the women had seen +in the bandit car; until in the women’s minds the prison memories and +the photograph memories became superposed upon the bandit memories, so +completely merged with them that they could no longer be separated. + +There were a thousand tricks that successful prosecuting officials +knew. They stood in with the political ring, they could promise +favors--contracts and business, a job for a man who needed it, immunity +from trouble with the police. “I am a friend of Mr. Jones, in the +district attorney’s office”--such a statement would tear up an auto +tag, or suppress a liquor charge any day. “It is what we call power,” +said Lee Swenson, “and those who hold it know how to use it.” + +Like Virgil, leading Dante through successive stages of the infernal +regions, Lee Swenson conducted the widow of Governor Thornwell into +the interior of the Boston “ring.” He knew the way, because in the +Ettor-Giovannitti case he had had these forces to deal with, and +other lawyers associated with the case had “put him wise.” Indeed, +the factional quarrels in the political gang had been such that one +side had betrayed the other, and Lee had seen documents that would +have entitled leading statesmen to spend the rest of their days in +Charlestown prison. When you had listened to his stories for an hour or +two, you understood Lola Andrews’ statement that it was “dog eat dog”; +you forgot the Emersonian notion of making truth count in Boston! + +Cornelia, probing her own soul, confessed to a certain snobbery in her +attitude toward perjury. It was a thing she associated with foreigners +accused of crime, and with Irish politicians. The City Hall belonged +to the Irish, so it was called the “steal works”; but the State House +with its golden dome was run by gentlemen, and was a sacred spot. Now, +however, Lee Swenson declared there was ten times as much graft in the +State House--the only difference was that it was legalized; such things +as fixing up laws to enable great corporations to plunder the public. +There under the golden dome you would encounter a blue-blood banker who +wanted his attorney made into a supreme court judge, so that the banker +would be safe forever after; or a state bank commissioner who wanted to +become president of a bank; a great lawyer who wanted to use his inside +knowledge of politics to plunder the clients of banks; a financier who +was lending money to legislators, who were passing bills to multiply +the value of his public utility holdings. + +Cornelia understood all these references; Lee Swenson was attacking +the Thornwell family, undermining its claims to moral superiority. He +was pointing to scandals in which her family was involved--some that +were in the public prints, others that were whispered in the gossip of +the clubs. And she knew it was all true; she knew that Rupert Alvin +and Henry Cabot Winters and John Quincy Thornwell were busy right now +framing up their perjury in the Jerry Walker case. When an I.W.W. +lawyer hinted this possibility, she did not rebuke him. She did not +even protect her family dignity when he mentioned that her son-in-law +had begun his legal career as counsel for the Boston streets railways, +which meant that he had done most kinds of dirty work known to the +legal profession. + +“Believe me, Nonna, I can tell you,” said the man from the wild west. +“I began with the Great Northern Railroad, and spent my time gyping +poor workers out of damages. I was paid five hundred a month, very nice +for a young fellow, and I had the way clear before me, right up to +the top, maybe a seat on the supreme court bench--that is how you get +there. But it made me sick; I couldn’t forget the faces of the men I +had robbed, and their pitiful wives and children. I just couldn’t look +at myself in the mirror. So I threw up the job, and went in to try to +help the workers; and what I saw--well, I have a simple formula, Nonna, +I don’t care what a man has done in the labor cause, he can never be so +guilty as those who take dividends of his sweat and blood.” + +Said Cornelia: “Henry has talked to me a lot about the Sacco-Vanzetti +case, trying to drag me out of it. The next time he broaches it, I’ll +ask him about some of these matters.” + +At which the lawyer smiled. “Well, get it straight. Don’t ask if he +pays bribes to witnesses; don’t ask if he ‘frames’ them. Everything is +done very carefully and decorously, in the office of a great Boston +lawyer. When a witness comes in he doesn’t see the chief, he sees a +young subordinate. The witness says, ‘I saw the man and he was wearing +a blue hat.’ The young lawyer interrupts him, ‘Oh, surely you are +mistaken, we have information that the man was wearing a red hat. Think +it over and see if you weren’t mistaken.’ He sends the witness away, +and next day the witness comes back, and meets another subordinate, and +says, ‘I saw this man and he was wearing a red hat.’ ‘That is right,’ +says the young lawyer. ‘And he was walking,’ says the witness, ‘rather +slowly.’ ‘Oh, surely you are mistaken,’ says the lawyer, ‘we understand +he was running at top speed. Think it over and see if you don’t realize +that that is how it was.’ So the witness goes away, and next time he +comes he meets a third subordinate, and he says, ‘I saw this man, and +he had a red hat on, and he was running very, very fast’--and so on, +until he knows exactly what happened. So then he meets the chief, +and tells the chief what he saw, and the chief says, ‘That is a very +good witness, a dependable person.’ When he presents the witness to +the jury, he assures the jury this is a dependable person, and no one +can possibly say the great and famous lawyer ever did a dishonorable +action.” + + +IX + +“Lee, I just _couldn’t_ do it!”--those were Cornelia’s parting words. +He answered, “Think about it,”--knowing well that she would think about +nothing else. Cowardice, weakness, false pride--she was willing to call +it any bad name, but there was something in her that stopped dead when +she tried to think of going upon the witness stand and swearing to a +made-up story. How could truth ever exist in the world, if somebody did +not stand by it? + +Vanzetti came, as usual, to keep the midnight watch with her. “I +am poor wop,” said he. “But what you say if it was a Thornwell?” +Cornelia’s fancy played with that theme. She saw her daughter Alice, +in one of those ferocious quarrels which had marked the early stages +of her marital disharmony; with jealousy gnawing her heart, Alice +bought a revolver and shot Henry, and so was on trial, in danger of +the electric chair. But no, it was absurd, the electric chair was not +for Thornwells, there could be no such issue; they would adjudge Alice +insane, and put her in a sanitarium, take a year or two to “cure” her, +and then let her loose. But suppose, for the sake of argument, Alice +was in danger, and Cornelia had to take the witness stand. If she told +the truth her daughter would be executed, and if she lied her daughter +would go free. Which would she do? + +Right was right, and wrong was wrong, people said, and it sounded +simple. But when you met a concrete case, you discovered that you could +not live by formulas. To refuse to do a lesser wrong, and thereby do a +greater--was that moral? On the other hand, if you said that the end +justified the means, where would you stop? Every man would be a law +to himself, and there would be chaos instead of order. There must be +rules, something men could count on. But the moment you said that, you +had a system, with high judges sitting on top, sentencing men to death +for the convenience of the Boston aristocracy. Cornelia remembered Mr. +Emerson, who had said that a good citizen must not obey the laws too +well. + +The cruelty of the dilemma lay here, that what was supposed to be +justice was really class-greed. Bart and Nick were not going to be +tried because they had held up a payroll; they were going to be tried +because they were dangerous leaders of social revolt. That would be +the real motive power behind prosecutor, judge and jury; that would be +the thought in the minds of every one of them, at every stage of the +trial. The rest would be pretense, a cloak of propriety. And that was +the real lie--the real perjury: Fred Katzmann’s genial smile, veiling a +sneer; Web Thayer’s cold dignity, with a wink now and then to the jury. +When Cornelia remembered what she had seen in the Plymouth court-room, +it seemed to her that God would surely forgive any lies that served to +thwart such knavery! + +So she swung back and forth, from one point of view to the other, never +satisfied with either. Lee Swenson said no more, but from that day his +presence was a question. Bart’s picture on the mantel-piece was a +challenge--what was friendship worth, it seemed to demand. You were not +asked to give your life for your friend, but only your ethical code; +your exclusiveness, your idea that you were something special, apart +from the harsh, rough world--in short that you were “Boston”! + +From first to last Betty never spoke about the matter; and that was +surprising to Cornelia--it had the effect of putting her off by +herself, as if in a museum, or a mausoleum. Betty and Joe were bound +to have talked about the matter; everybody on the committee must have +thought of it. “Mrs. Thornwell could save our boys, if she would!” To +that Betty would make reply, “No use to put anything like that up to +Grannie, she belongs to the old generation.” Cornelia wondered, would +the new generation take the liberty of lying when it pleased? The issue +did not arise, because Betty and Joe had been in Europe, and could +hardly invent a special trip back, in order to be with Bart on the day +of the South Braintree crime! + + +X + +If Cornelia could not face the thought of perjury, neither could she +face the other alternative. When she thought of the electric chair, and +Bart and Nick strapped into it--no, no, it was too horrible, it simply +_could_ not happen! So each skirmish in this war of conscience served +to start Cornelia into new activity. In spite of aching back she would +write more letters, in spite of tired limbs she would set forth to a +committee meeting, or to speak to a group of women, to assault the ears +of the heedless and drag them away from a bridge party to a murder +trial. + +She had the idea now that she could help the cause by persuading +a group of ladies of good family to go to Dedham and watch the +proceedings. They would move to the town for a month, and invade the +court-room in a phalanx, and sit like the “tricoteuses” of the French +revolution, doing fancy work! They might frighten “Web” Thayer into a +semblance of impartiality, and possibly even restrain Fred Katzmann’s +crude wit at the expense of wops. The courts were supposed to be immune +to outside influences, but Cornelia knew her Boston too well for that. + +In one way or another, several ladies of social standing had become +interested in the case. There was Mrs. Lois Rantoul, who was a Lowell, +than which nothing could be more impressive in a court-room. And Mrs. +Jessica Henderson, well-to-do--though she had hurt her social position +by getting arrested, along with Cornelia and Betty, the day President +Wilson had been welcomed to Boston. Mrs. Henderson and her daughter +Wilma had spent the night in that old Joy Street police station, and +had fed their blood to the vermin--a modern form of initiation into a +sisterhood of social justice. + +And then Mrs. Evans, still earlier on the ground. Elizabeth Glendower +Evans was the widow of a young lawyer who had died before he had +ever had a case. She had become a charity worker, through youth and +middle age. Now she was gray-haired--and what a relief to Cornelia to +have some one else who was elderly and respectable, to help bear the +brunt of criticism! Mrs. Evans had got her social awakening during +the Lawrence strike of two years ago; she had gone, with others, to +see fair play, and instead had seen an unresisting striker felled to +earth by three husky policemen, and shoved into a patrol wagon like a +dead log. Next morning she saw the man, with head cut and plastered, +arraigned for assault, and she arose and told the court what she +had seen. Said His Honor: “Your testimony would be important if the +police were under accusation”--and thereupon he sentenced all the +strikers. Mrs. Evans spoke again, saying, “I go bail for all these +prisoners,”--which was very picturesque, and made a front-page story in +the papers. + +“Old Boston” again, you see! She was a stockholder in the Lawrence +mills, which made it still more picturesque, and shocking to the mill +masters. To go to strike headquarters, and say to I.W.W. leaders, wops +and dagoes and guinneys and such riffraff, “I don’t know whether the +wages you ask are reasonable, but I do know that you are persecuted by +the authorities, and denied the legal rights to which you are entitled, +and to that extent I am with you”--to say that was to become, in the +columns of the press, leader of the revolution and commander-in-chief +of the picket line. + +Now Mrs. Evans was interested in the Sacco-Vanzetti defense, and was +going to the trial at Dedham, to watch Web Thayer and Fred Katzmann, +and be horrified like everybody else. And maybe her testimony would +have been important, if Thayer and Katzmann had been on trial. But that +time had not come, and would not come for five or six years. + + +XI + +Captain John Quincy Thornwell, Jr., Cornelia’s grandnephew, oldest son +of the president of the Fifth National Bank of Boston, had been an +officer in Battery A, the fashionable militia organization, in which +the young blue-bloods dashed about expensively. Tall, golden-haired, +haughty, he had looked so “fetching” in his fancy uniform that he had +fetched a wife who would some day own ten per cent of the electric +light industry of New England. “Captain John” was a director in his +father’s bank, a builder of airplanes, and of anything else which had +to do with killing--so sure of his own superiority he was. + +Never would Cornelia forget the day when he and his unit had departed +for France. She had gone with the heartbroken young wife to see +them off; a dreadful experience--all the Boston blue-bloods there +in their expensive limousines, many of them stuck in a swampy field +alongside the Ipswich River, caught by a sudden deluge of rain, and +an ear-splitting thunderstorm; all social influence, all family +connections set at nought by the irreverent elements--it was quite like +being at war--blue-bloods actually struck by lightning and killed! And +these refined and delicately nurtured young Harvard men, dressed in +water-soaked khaki plastered with mud, standing at attention for the +“Star-Spangled Banner”; then struggling with exasperated horses, to get +very real and bloodthirsty cannon dragged out of mudholes! + +“Captain John” had ridden off, like many others, forever; in the +desperate fighting in the Argonne Forest he had disappeared from human +ken. But in the process of digging up the remains of American soldiers +in France there was found a seal ring with one of the bodies, and this +ring was sent to Boston, and mentioned in the papers, and “Captain +John’s” mother went to inspect and identify it. So now the family had +a corpse in an air-tight coffin, over which to be publicly sentimental +for the glory of their country. A famous sculptor was designing a +monument, and meantime there were to be parades and muffled drums +and prayers and salutes--and one of the street intersections most +frequented by the wealth and fashion of Boston was to be christened +“John Quincy Thornwell Junior Square.” All over the city and in the +suburban towns they were doing this; so that future generations of +tourists would walk down Jones Street, looking for the corner of +Jones and Smith, and would be perplexed to discover that there was no +such place, but that a quite ordinary crossing with a drugstore, an +undertaking parlor, a grocery and a delicatessen shop, was known as +“Michael Callahan O’Grady Square.” + +These ceremonies were to take place on May 29th, two days before +the opening of the Sacco-Vanzetti trial at Dedham; and the event +was the subject of a vehement discussion between the great-aunt of +the hero, and his cousin, Elizabeth Thornwell Alvin. Unthinkable +that any relative should fail to attend this ceremony! Cornelia was +going, because she was always hoping to keep peace with the family; +but Betty declared that she preferred to attend a circus, in a last +effort to trace the man with the bullet hole in his overcoat! When +Cornelia argued that “John did give his life for his country,” the new +generation answered, “Don’t talk like a legionnaire! He gave his life +for Father’s bonds. I didn’t want them and I’m not going to get them, +so I can’t see that I owe any reverence to my military cousin.” + +“He is dead, Betty--” + +“Exactly, and we aren’t helping him by parading behind his corpse. +We are doing it for our own glory, and especially for the young +fellows--so that when Father wants them to protect his bonds again, +they’ll think they are being glorious. It is vicious propaganda for +militarism, and if you who call yourself a pacifist do anything to help +it along--it will simply mean that you’re old and tired, Grannie dear!” + + +XII + +Was it accident, or was it the playful malice of fate, that Memorial +Day fell on a Monday, so that the patriots had two whole days, +preceding the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, to rouse the population +against the Reds? On that Sunday and Monday it was estimated that +at least two hundred thousand Bostonians, one-fifth of the whole +population, took part in ceremonies. The governor and the mayor were +busy all day long, making speeches at breakfasts, luncheons and +banquets, with parades in between, and dedications and unveilings. +Senators and congressmen, councilmen and district attorneys took +a double holiday from stealing, and delivered eloquent praise of +the flag, and denunciations of its foes, the vicious and malicious +“radicals.” There was high mass in hundreds of Catholic churches, with +parades of the Knights of Columbus, and speeches by the biggest and +most successful rascals in Massachusetts. There were memorial services +in Forest Hills Cemetery, with nine hundred veterans of the Grand Army +of the Republic decorating graves. There were religious services in +Fenway Park, with veterans of three wars forming in Copley Square, +and loud-speakers installed so that huge throngs might hear. The Park +Street Church unveiled a tablet, with names of the members who had +given their lives in the World War. The Elks paraded, and had a bugler +sounding taps. The oldest veterans, too feeble even to put wreaths on +graves, were taken in launches, to strew flowers on the bay in honor of +the unknown dead. + +All over the Commonwealth the same thing went on; no community too +small to have its heroes and its memories. Flag poles were set up and +monuments unveiled. Quincy, the largest city in Norfolk County, from +which the Sacco-Vanzetti jury was to be drawn, dedicated three squares +to its dead. One man had been killed in the Spanish War, another in an +uprising in the Philippines; many years they had spent in the land of +the shades without distinction, but now they were called up--on the +day before two anarchist bandits went to trial! The first Quincy boy +killed in the Civil War was resurrected for honors--sixty years he had +been forgotten! In Bridgewater, scene of the crime for which Vanzetti +was in prison, the remains of a World War veteran brought back from +France were buried with solemn ceremonials; in Braintree, scene of the +second crime, another body was buried, with the whole population in +attendance--a parade, and speeches by officials, with the selectmen and +other great persons standing by with bared heads. Another in Quincy, +another in Weymouth--with banners furled, and muffled drums, and +soldiers firing a salute over the grave. + +A storm of patriotic fervor, a torrent of eloquence, in support of +America, and in denunciation of her foes; hundreds of thousands of +patient people, standing reverently in the spring sunshine; millions of +the same kind reading about it in editions of a dozen great newspapers; +and only one circumstance to mar the perfection of the double +holiday--the fact that the papers were obliged to print details of +several scandals then in the midst of exploding with a frightful stink. +The attorney general of the Commonwealth had just filed charges against +the district attorney of Middlesex County, just across the river +from Boston, charging him with having blackmailed a group of leading +moving picture producers of something over a hundred thousand dollars, +the price of immunity for a “Nero’s Circus” which they had held in a +roadhouse. The papers were full of lurid details about naked girls +dancing the highland fling; they said that several leading politicians +and criminal lawyers of Boston had shared in the loot. + +Also the state bank commissioner was digging into the matter of the +bribery of legislators revealed by the recent bank failures; and it +was an embarrassing fact that many patriotic orators of this double +holiday had been sharing in such graft. The public did not know it, +but the orators knew it, so they pounded the rostrum, and waved their +arms until their faces grew purple and the sweat dissolved the starch +in their collars; the loud-speakers bellowed, and the parks and +public places, the churches and temples and banquet halls resounded +with sentiments of seraphic idealism, voiced by persons whose social +functions were those of hogs in a trough. + + +XIII + +It was not so bad at the ceremony which Cornelia attended; because that +was Thornwell, and you may be sure the clan saw to it that no person +tainted with scandal did any orating at John Quincy Thornwell Junior +Square. The clan knew--for were they not the paymasters? The mayor of +the city happened to be a blue-blood that year--a rare interval of +respectability. And if the chief magistrate of the Commonwealth was to +go directly from the governor’s chair to the vice-presidency of one of +Rupert’s banks, and soon after having appointed two of Rupert’s very +good friends to the supreme judicial bench--well, that was a scandal +of such colossal proportions that it became respectable. Men could not +face the implications of it, so it was not discussed, except by a few +insiders, and members of the rival banking group, who knew what Rupert +was after. + +A grand stand had been built, and flags and bunting made the +consecrated square into a child’s dream of peppermint candy. Lines of +ropes and policemen kept the throngs back; and there came “Captain +John’s” own Battery A, khaki-clad, with rumble of guns and tramp of +horses, and fluttering of pennants, red field, with figures in yellow. +And the infantry, known as the “Cadets,” in long blue trousers with +yellow stripes. There came a hundred Grand Army veterans, pitiful old +boys in every stage of decrepitude, carrying their tattered battle +flags, and wearing their faded blue uniforms, covered with medals and +decorations. There came khaki-clad veterans of American Legion posts, +and the Boy Cadets, their faces newly washed and shining. There came +automobiles full of great personages in braided broadcloth suits and +shiny top hats, and ladies in costly chiffons and new spring bonnets. + +A beautiful show; with rolling of drums and blowing of bugles, and +standing up and sitting down again, and baring heads and bowing them, +while the rector of Trinity Church in the City of Boston offered an +invocation to the God of Battles, and His Son, the Prince of Peace. War +and Peace were thus mixed up in the ceremony, so that nobody could tell +at any moment which was which. The orators declared that the way to +insure peace was to prepare for war; upon which program the nations had +just led themselves into the greatest war to end war in all history, +and now were spending several times as much money to prepare for an +even greater war to end war. + +It would be safe to say that in that vast throng of cheering and +singing and reverently listening people, these traitor-thoughts found +lodgment in only one head, that of the little old lady who sat in the +front row, among the highest of the high-up dignitaries. She, the widow +of a former governor, a Thornwell, and the great-aunt of the hero, +could not have been denied her proper place without making a scandal, +and emphasizing the dreadful rumors that she had been seduced by the +enemy within our gates, and turned into a friend of bomb throwers and +bandits. So nice to look upon, with her hair now almost white, and her +little round face much wrinkled, but still jolly, and her new spring +costume selected and presented by her daughter Alice of impeccable +taste; so gentle in manner, so quiet and ladylike--it was impossible to +believe what everybody knew about her, that she was actually going down +to Dedham the next day, and face all the uproar and notoriety, and lend +her sanction to the defense of desperate anarchists on trial for their +lives. + +She watched with tears in her eyes, while her great-grandniece, the +little daughter of the dead hero, came forward to draw the veil from +the bronze tablet. The bugles blew, and the audience rose and bared +its head, and the bands started to play “America,” and everybody +sang--a sublime moment. The lovely young widow of the hero had to +hide her face in her hands, and even the stolid James Scatterbridge +and the cynical Henry Cabot Winters and the stately Rupert Alvin were +not ashamed to be moved. Cornelia’s tears were right and proper, and +she kept her traitor-thoughts to herself. No one guessed that she was +weeping for other heroes who were still to die. For the little boys in +their khaki uniforms, lifting their shining faces to the orators and +the beautiful waving flags! For the mothers who brought them there, to +be consecrated and pledged to future slaughters! For the great humble +masses who packed the streets in every direction, and stood bareheaded +and trusting, gazing up to the great ones, and believing every word the +loud-speakers told them! + +A sharp division in that audience, between the many who believed, and +the few who knew. To the former the name America, and its symbol, +the flag, meant liberty and justice for all mankind; while to the +few it meant private property in land, machinery and credit, and the +exploitation of labor based thereon. By means of this system, the +knowing ones had brought the lesser nations and weaker peoples into +debt to them; so America and the flag meant battleships and guns and +airplanes and poison gas to collect this tribute to all eternity. That +was the reason these busy gentlemen took two days off from business, +and built stands and tacked up decorations, and set up loud-speakers +to carry the words of politicians and priests and preachers to crowds +in the public squares. That was why you heard no patriotic address +which failed to mention the “enemy within our gates,” the vicious +and criminal “Reds” who refused to love America and appreciate her +ideals, but wanted to overthrow the greatest government in the world, +and repudiate all the debts, and nationalize all the women, and make +America a vassal of what the orators called the “Bolshevikis,” or +sometimes, like Judge Webster Thayer, the “arnychists.” + + + + + BOSTON + + _A Novel by_ + UPTON SINCLAIR + + VOLUME II + + [Illustration] + + UPTON SINCLAIR + STATION A + PASADENA, CALIFORNIA + + + + + COPYRIGHT · 1928 · BY + UPTON SINCLAIR + + MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + First and Second Printings + before publication + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +TRIAL BY JURY + + +I + +“Court!” shouted the bailiff, and pounded on the floor with his +“wand.” It was the court-room at Dedham, in Norfolk County, instead of +Plymouth, so it was a different bailiff, but he looked exactly like the +other, and so did his wand and uniform. There entered the same thin, +shrunken old gentleman with white mustache and face like parchment, +wearing the same voluminous black silk robe. The lawyers and spectators +rose with the same show of reverence, and the bailiff pounded the +floor again and repeated the ancient formula: “Hear ye! Hear ye! All +persons having anything to do before the Honorable, the Justices of +the Superior Court, now sitting within and for the County of Norfolk, +draw near, give your attention, and you shall be heard! God save the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts!” + +Also there was the same district attorney, Fred Katzmann, blond hair +and bursting red face, round, pulpy and smooth-shaven, his plump +figure and manner of elaborate cordiality to his equals and Prussian +sternness to his inferiors. There were three assistants; one of them +was a “ticquer,” like Judge Thayer, and presently they were to put on a +witness who was a “ticquer,” and there would be three of them in solemn +confrontation, all blinking away, but not keeping time. There was +Lee Swenson, his lanky western figure outtowering the rest, his face +haggard from long nights of work, his black clothes hanging loose about +his frame--but he had made the concession to Massachusetts sentiment of +getting his hair cut. There was Fred Moore, from California, alert and +aggressive; and the McAnarneys, associate counsel, two Irish Catholic +brothers, retained in a vain hope of contributing respectability to +anarchist wops accused of murder. + +The court-room was crowded: a great number of “veniremen,” to be +questioned as possible jurors, and many spectators, more than could +find seats. The newspapers had been full of the case, the desperate +character of the criminals, the radical agitation concerning them, +the precautions taken by the government to protect the court. The +judge and the district attorney had a bodyguard day and night. Picked +men from several police departments of Norfolk County were on duty; +fifteen armed men scattered about the court-room, and three more at +each door. Male spectators were searched thoroughly as they entered +the court-room, and women had their handbags opened. An atmosphere of +tension, almost of war. + +Vanzetti was brought by armed guards in an automobile from Charlestown +Prison, “where he is serving a sentence of from twelve to fifteen years +for the Bridgewater hold-up”--so said the papers, and the veniremen +read it and talked about it; when they became jurors, they were assumed +to be ignorant of Vanzetti’s previous conviction, and all persons who +respected the legal system of the Commonwealth would solemnly pretend +to accept this fiction. Almost in the center of the court-room was the +steel “cage,” shaped like a piano box with fancy grillwork, open in +front, a psychological device for overcoming the legal presumption that +a wop is innocent until he is proved guilty. The jurors gaze at him +locked in throughout the trial, and by the time they are ready to vote +they know him as a creature who belongs in a cage. Near the jury box +was a tall standard, with an American flag. + +A stir in the audience; the bandits were coming! A side door of the +court-room opened, and there entered several policemen and then a guard +with a handcuff on his wrist, and then a wop made safe with the other +handcuff on his wrist, and another handcuff on his other wrist, and +another wop chained to that; this second wop with a handcuff on his +other wrist, and another guard chained to that: in short, four men +chained together, the two on the outside being guards and the two on +the inside being alleged bandits; all four symbolizing the fundamental +human fact, that slavery enslaves masters as well as servants. It +was glorious spring sunshine outside, and here were some hundreds of +people who might have been walking in the woods, picking mayflowers, or +sitting on the beach engaged in high philosophic discourse; but they +were crowded in between four white-washed walls, breathing foul air and +shortening their lives, fastened to their seats by manacles of hate, +fear and greed. + +A few others, held by love and a sense of justice! “Society matrons +and college girls,” as the newspapers described them, they sat in +silence, watching the procedure, sometimes pretending to be busy +with their “fancy work”; doing their refined best to be unaware of +being the cynosure of all eyes. These were the “Red sympathizers,” or +“pinks,” as patriotic orators derisively called them: women who left +homes of luxury to come and meddle with the course of justice, lending +encouragement to bomb throwers and assassins, and making things harder +for brave officials. Their presence was a continual irritant to the +police, who would have liked to lock such troublemakers up, along with +their anarchist pets. + +And yet, mixed with this anger was awe; for some of these were +“blue-bloods,” the wonderful, almost supernatural beings whose names +appeared in the society columns of the papers. To Judge Thayer they +represented everything in the world to which he aspired, and every +now and then he would steal a glance at Mrs. Lois Rantoul--who was +a Lowell--or at Mrs. Cornelia Thornwell or Mrs. Elizabeth Glendower +Evans, as if to see what they were thinking about him; presently his +curiosity would get the better of him, and he would invite one of them +to his chambers, and try to convince her that she was mistaken in +believing these desperate anarchists to be innocent. He, the judge on +the bench, would do that; and little by little the news of it would +spread among lawyers and judges up in Boston, who were under the +necessity of pretending to hold the dogma of judicial infallibility. + + +II + +Between “Web” Thayer and Lee Swenson there existed an antagonism of +temperament, which showed itself the very first hour. In order to +practice in Massachusetts the lawyer should have complied with some +formality. He had not known this, and now Judge Thayer proposed to bar +him from the case. There were hasty conferences among the “blue-blood” +ladies, and they kept the telephone wires to Boston busy; with the +result that next morning when Lee Swenson renewed his application for +judicial courtesy, there were several leading lawyers of the city lined +up in a row behind him. Too bad these great ones could not have stayed +all through the trial, and restrained “Web” Thayer from making their +community a byword throughout the world! + +The veniremen, fresh from two days of patriotic celebrations, sat under +the shadow of the flag and heard the black-robed old gentleman explain +to them what patriotic celebrations are for. “You must remember the +American soldier had other duties that he would rather have performed +than those that resulted in his giving up his life on the battlefields +of France, but he, with undaunted courage and patriotic devotion that +brought honor and glory to humanity and the world rendered the service +and made the supreme sacrifice. So I call upon you to render this +service here with the same spirit of patriotism, courage and devotion +to duty as was exhibited by our soldier boys across the seas.” + +Such was the mood in which the men of Norfolk County approached this +trial. These were the wops who had sent bombs through the mail two +years ago--so it was whispered--and the Wall Street explosion had +been revenge for their arrest. Now, whoever voted them guilty would +never sleep safe in bed. Wives had hysterics at home, and husbands +promised to “lie out of it” at any cost; so, one after another, they +took the stand and swore to a disbelief in capital punishment, or to +an invincible conviction regarding the case. After three days a panel +of five hundred veniremen had been exhausted, and still five jurors +were lacking. Such a thing had never been known in the history of the +county, and newspapers made “streamer heads” out of the desperate +dangerousness of the situation. + +It happened that on the night of June 3rd, Representative Samuel Wragg +was being made the worshipful grand master of the Masonic Lodge of the +town of Needham. Fred Katzmann, the district attorney, was a Mason, +and the slain paymaster of the shoe company had also been a Mason. His +worshipful brothers would not shrink from their duty to his memory. +The father of Representative Wragg, a deputy sheriff, appeared without +warning at the ceremony, and notified the members of the lodge to +appear in court next morning. That surely seemed to violate the law, +which specifies that in such an emergency special veniremen shall be +summoned “from among the bystanders.” But Judge Thayer overruled the +objections of the defense--just as he overruled Lee Swenson’s efforts +to question the veniremen. + +One of the jurors selected over the protest of the defense was Walter +Ripley, an old man who had been chief of police of the city of +Quincy. For many years Ripley had watched juries file in and out of +court-rooms, but never had he seen one stand and salute the flag. But +now, when he was made foreman of the jury, he set a new precedent for +the Commonwealth; every time he entered the jury box, he faced the flag +and solemnly saluted it. That was his way of “telling the world.” These +anarchists--the male population of New England made an obscene word +out of it--were trying to “tear down the flag,” and he was going to +show them. On his way to court he had met an old friend in the railroad +station, and said that he was going to act as a juror in the trial of +two “guinneys.” “Damn them, they ought to hang anyway!” said Ripley, +according to the affidavit made by his friend several months later. + + +III + +Joe Randall was attending the trial as a newspaperman, representing +some labor papers. Also there was John Nicholas Beffel, representing +the Federated Press. These two mixed with the other reporters, and +sat at lunch with them in the Dedham Inn, and so got all the “inside +dope.” This was irritating to Judge Thayer, who naturally assumed that +all the newspapermen were on his side, and was accustomed to join them +at lunch in their private dining room, and tell them what he wanted +to have published. It happened that the Italian Government had sent +a representative to attend the trial, to make sure that two Italian +citizens received fair play; this gentleman, the Marquis Ferrante, +naturally did not understand that there could be such a thing as a +“radical” newspaperman, so he talked freely to Beffel, and gave him a +carefully worded statement, intended as a broad hint to Judge Thayer. +“The Italian authorities are deeply interested in the case of Sacco +and Vanzetti, and this trial will be closely followed by them. They +have complete confidence that the trial will be conducted solely as +a criminal proceeding, without reference to the political or social +beliefs of any one involved.” + +Beffel made carbon copies of this statement, and gave it to the other +men. The judge came in, and after he had finished his lunch and +was ready to leave, one of the reporters handed him a copy of the +statement. He read it, and did not fail to get its hidden meaning. His +face flushed, and with a gesture of anger he said, “Why, that fellow +came clear out to my home in Worcester and assured me that the Italian +Government had no interest in this case!” + +The reporters, seeing that he was in a mood for talk, gathered round. +One of them spoke of Fred Moore, with whom the judge had been arguing +all morning over the selection of jurors. The old man’s face showed +that there was still life in it; his yellow parchment skin became +suffused with blood. “What do you suppose that fellow wanted me to ask +those veniremen? ‘Are you a member of a labor union? Are you opposed to +union labor? Are you a member of a secret society?’” + +“Web” went on, his conversation turning into a stump speech, as it +always did, in a dining room or a railroad train, on a football field +or a golf green, whenever he could get an audience. “Did you ever +see a case in which so many leaflets have been broadcast saying that +people couldn’t get a fair trial in the State of Massachusetts?” He +looked at Joe Randall, for he knew that Joe was the wicked author of +these leaflets. His voice rose high and shrill, and his hands shook as +he waved them. John Nicholas Beffel, annoyed at the turn of events, +stepped closer and said, “I wish to inform you, Judge Thayer, that +the statement of the Marquis Ferrante was given out at his express +request. He asked me to copy it and give it to the other newspapermen.” +But the old man brushed him aside and as he went out, shook his fist, +exclaiming to the group of men: “You wait till I give my charge to the +jury. I’ll show ’em!” + +The reporters stood, dumbfounded. A judge, actually then sitting on the +case, going back to court in that mood, to deal with men on trial for +their lives! Manifestly, it was a “big story,” and if the newspapermen +could have had their way, unhampered by owners, it would have taken +the front page of every newspaper in Massachusetts. But newspapermen +do not have their way; they do have owners, and have to practice what +is known as “taking policy.” The representative of the Associated +Press, Jack Harding, advanced the classic formula of his organization, +that the matter was “controversial,” and therefore not to be handled. +“Controversial,” in the sense of the Associated Press, means anything +detrimental to the ruling class of America. It is manifest that members +of this class, being all in office or high station of some sort, can +speak, and have their utterances count as news of an important and +dignified character. It is when their enemies attack them that the +“controversy” begins. + +The other reporters from the capitalist papers agreed to hush up the +incident. Beffel and Joe Randall might break step if they wanted to; +but they could only publish the story in a few labor and socialist +papers, where it would count for nothing; and they would get themselves +barred from the private dining room, and from the precious “inside +dope.” The defense counsel agreed that nothing could be done; but of +course the story went up to Boston, and caused several lawyers and +judges of the city to say that “Web” had gone mad, and that something +ought to be done about it--only, alas, nothing could be done, because +all the judges, and even the court employees of Massachusetts are +appointed for life, and if you were to try to impeach “Web” in the +midst of this case, you might just as well turn the Commonwealth over +to the Reds and be done with it. + + +IV + +The prisoners sat in their steel cage, gazing about with anxious eyes, +trying to understand the complex procedure in a strange tongue: Bart +with his heavy drooping mustaches, his melancholy face now deeply +lined; Nick, restless-eyed, impatient; both of them pale with a year +away from sunshine. They were neatly shaved, brushed and washed, +dressed in new suits, with black silk ties and clean collars--doing +their best to look like Americans, to impress an American jury. They +gazed at the elderly stern-faced men who were to decide their fate: +not one foreigner among them, all English names, old Yankee ancestry. +Every one on that jury had had a son or near relative in France--and +those relatives who were not dead or crippled had been marching in the +patriotic celebrations of the last few days. + +Assistant District Attorney Williams arose and made a speech to the +jury, telling what his side intended to prove. Once more Cornelia +listened to that story about a bandit gang, about Boda and Orciani and +Coacci, the bandit house and the little shed behind it, the Buick car +with the bullet hole in the side, the little Overland car in which the +bandits had escaped, after they had “thrown away” the Buick car in the +Manley woods. The jury would be taken downstairs to inspect the Buick; +they would be taken on a tour, Judge Thayer accompanying, to see the +shack and the shed. Cornelia had heard all this at Plymouth, and had +seen the prosecution fail to produce any evidence whatever. She had +not yet learned about Mike Stewart and his “theory,” derived from the +“detective machine”; the whole procedure seemed to her a lunatic’s +dream, and she watched in a daze to see what would happen in the course +of this second trial. + +Exactly the same thing happened as at Plymouth; no evidence appeared. +The farce became so apparent that even Judge Thayer could not stand for +it. As to Boda he said, late in the trial: “But he is not connected in +any way with the murder. Anybody else driving a Buick car, if it was a +seven-passenger car, would stand almost in the same relationship.... +But there is not one identifying feature.” He forced the prosecution +to admit that “Neither Orciani nor Boda was in South Braintree at +the time of the murder and there was no concert of action between +them and Sacco and Vanzetti as to the murder.” He ordered that “all +evidence obtained by the jury on the view at the Coacci barn or shed +be entirely disregarded.” But of course it wasn’t disregarded, and the +prosecution knew what it had fixed in the jury’s mind. Even after the +district attorney had expressly admitted that Orciani was not one of +the murderers, he brought him up before the jury as a dark and sinister +mystery, challenging the defense to explain why they had not put him on +the stand. + +Physicians described the wounds of the dead men; and then came the +identification witnesses. Lewis L. Wade, a shoe worker, had thought +in the Brockton police station that Sacco was one of the bandits; but +now he said he was not sure. It was a blow to the police, and as Wade +left the stand, one of the officers called him a “piker,” and another +muttered, “We are not through with you yet.” A few weeks later Wade +lost his job--after seventeen years’ service with the shoe company. Two +others who testified for the defense met the same fate. Not all the +dangers were on one side! + +There came Mary Splaine, bookkeeper of the shoe company, who had run +to the window and looked out. Mary was one of the victims of that +process of suggestion which prosecuting officials understand well. She +had looked at Sacco so many times that she saw him as the bandit; she +sat and looked at him once more and described him in minute detail, +height, weight, square shoulders, high forehead, hair brushed back and +between two and two and a half inches long; “dark hair, dark eyebrows, +thin cheeks and clean-shaven face of a peculiar greenish-white.” No +one could have asked a better identification--until you considered +the opportunity which Mary had had to see the bandit. Then you +realized that she was claiming a physical impossibility. She was in +a second-story window, eighty feet from the car, and she saw the +bandit for the length of time it took the car to travel thirty-five +feet at eighteen miles per hour--one or two seconds, amid the wildest +excitement and shooting. + +The defense confronted Mary with the record of what she had said at +the preliminary hearing, after three different examinations of Sacco, +“I do not think my opportunity afforded me the right to say he is the +man.” Now, surprised and confused, she said, “That is not true. I +never said it.” Having a day to think it over, and to be warned that +stenographer’s notes are not to be so easily waved aside, she took the +stand and corrected her testimony, admitting that she had said what was +in the record, but claiming that she had changed upon “reflection.” + +The defense tried desperately to break Mary Splaine; but she was one +of those covered by the tragic phrase, too late! For her they needed +the Pinkerton reports--the evidence of the operative Henry Hellyer, who +was in court, and whose knowledge was in possession of the prosecution. +He and Captain Proctor, of the state police--another witness, also in +court--had shown Mary Splaine a photograph of a criminal called “Tony +the Wop,” and Mary had positively identified him as one of the bandits; +so the police had set out to get him--and learned that he had been in +jail at the time of the crime! Also Mary Splaine had told Hellyer a +long story about two men in the factory who had plotted and carried +out the banditry. Mary gave their names, and Hellyer made “discreet +inquiries” of the owner of the factory, who said the accusation was +baseless; the superintendent told him to pay no attention to Mary +Splaine, “because she is one of the most irresponsible persons he ever +came in contact with.” So read the report of “H.H.,” hidden from the +defense until five or six years later. + + +V + +Next came Louis Pelzer, not bright, son of two mutes: the Jewish boy, +haunted by the memory of pogroms, and in terror of the police. He had +peered out through a window, and amid flying bullets had written down +the number of the bandit car, and made note of the bandit so exactly +that he could describe even the pin in his collar. The defense lawyers +took this pitiful creature in hand, and soon had him mopping the sweat +from his forehead. It became evident that he could not understand +simple questions, and tangled himself in lie after lie. Yes, he had +lied to Robert Reid, investigator for the defense; he had said he did +not see anything, because he did not want to be a witness. The defense +put on three fellow-workmen of Pelzer’s, two of whom testified that +instead of putting up the window to look, he had dived under a bench +when he heard the shooting. The third testified, “I heard him say that +he did not see anybody.” The district attorney did the best he could in +defending Pelzer to the jury. “He was frank enough here, gentlemen, to +own that he had twice falsified before to both sides, and he gave you +his reason.... He is big enough and manly enough now to tell you of his +prior falsehoods and his reasons for them.” + +And then the Lola Andrews circus. Three days of the expensive time of +the Superior Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was given up to +Lola. She told her tale of how, four hours prior to the crime, she had +seen two men with a car drawn up by the curb, and how she had talked +to them, and the one under the car was Sacco. When the defense began +to go into the details of her past life, she fainted impressively, +and Judge Thayer ordered the court-room barricaded, so that when Lola +was restored, she might pick out the man who had assaulted her in +a toilet in a Quincy rooming-house. But that man was apparently an +adept in the occult lore of the Hindoos, and possessed the power to +dematerialize his body and disappear through the walls of court-rooms; +the police could not catch him--but Lola won time to think, and also +she won the jury, and Judge Thayer to keep the defense from asking her +bad questions. When Fred Moore spoke of her testimony as “hopelessly +confusing,” the judge gave him a stern rebuke. “That is an unfair +criticism of any witness.” + +When the defense had its chance, it put on Mrs. Julia Campbell, who had +accompanied Lola on that visit to the shoe factory to look for a job, +and testified that Lola had spoken to no man in or near an automobile. +A policeman and a reporter testified that she had told them she had not +seen the bandits. Harry Kurlansky, a small shopkeeper of Quincy, had +talked with her on his doorstep and heard her tell how the police were +hounding her to testify against Sacco and Vanzetti. “‘The government +took me down and they want me to recognize those men,’ she says, ‘and +I don’t know a thing about them. I have never seen them and I can’t +recognize them.’” + +That testimony looked so bad for Lola, it was one of the times when +Judge Thayer felt it necessary to jump to the rescue. He began to +cross-question the witness: why hadn’t he set to work as a good +citizen to find out who it was that was trying to make Lola give false +testimony? Such an obvious thing for a small shopkeeper, a foreigner in +a New England town, to tackle the police and the district attorney’s +office, and make them stop framing a witness! Said the judge, “Did you +attempt to find out who this person was who represented the government +who was trying to get her to take and to state that which was false?” +Naturally Kurlansky was taken aback by such a question, and could only +say, “Well, it didn’t come into my mind. I wasn’t sure, you know. It +didn’t--” The judge pinned him down, as to why he didn’t think of it, +why he didn’t do it--thus leaving him completely discredited before +patriotic jurors, who gave all their spare time to supervising the work +of police chiefs and district attorneys. + + +VI + +Presiding over a murder trial is a complicated and exacting business. +Common sense and humanity have nothing to do with the procedure; it +is a matter of rules and decisions, millions of intricate and subtle +details, the interwoven and organized history of the trials which have +been held in New England for three hundred years, and in Old England +for twice as long. All this you have to have at your finger-tips, for +each decision must be rendered immediately, you cannot take it under +advisement and look up the precedents overnight. Your reputation +depends upon your decisions being such that the highest court, +reviewing your work, will sustain you. The strain is incessant, and may +last for many weeks; the rules allow ten days’ rest to a judge after +each ordeal. + +“Web” Thayer had been playing this game for many years, and knew all +the tricks; including the one of favoring his own side while seeming to +be impartial. His spoken words would go into the record, to be studied +by the higher judges; but his manner would not go in--so the art was to +keep his words fair, and do the damage otherwise. Every time Swenson or +Moore would make an objection, “Web” would turn and look at him over +his spectacles with a kind of ironical curiosity. “What is this that +has come out of the wild west to teach us how to conduct a court in +Massachusetts?” Then his eyes would turn to the jury, and give half a +wink; with a bored drawl, he would say, “Objection overruled,” and jury +and court officials would be all one grin. + +Within its narrow limits the judge’s mind was quick and cunning. He was +instantly on the alert to spoil any advantage his enemies were gaining, +and ingenious to find reasons to interrupt, to block questions, to +bar out evidence and confuse witnesses. Frequently he sat with some +of the prosecutors in public places, and he always knew what the +prosecutor was aiming at, and if he missed a point, would prompt him. +Once, realizing that he had gone too far, he apologized blandly: “I +am always telling the district attorney what to say.” The naïve court +reporter put that into the record! + +And later came the incident of the cap which had been picked up at the +scene of the crime, and which the prosecution sought to identify as +Sacco’s. It was too small for him, but the jury would overlook that. +When the son of Sacco’s employer was on the stand, Judge Thayer tried +to get him to say that this cap resembled Sacco’s. Naturally, when a +man runs a factory with many workers, he can’t remember the details of +all the caps they wear; young Kelley was embarrassed, not liking to +displease a great judge, but he had to say, “I can’t answer it when +I don’t know right down in my heart that that is the cap.” “Web” was +determined to get something more damaging than that; and at the same +time he tried to fix it so that his questions would seem to be coming +from Assistant District Attorney Williams. Said the judge, “I would +like to ask the witness one question: whether--” then he turned to Mr. +Williams: “I wish you would ask him, rather.” + +The defense lawyers tried to break up this game, but “Web” stuck to it: +“I would rather it came from Mr. Williams. Will you put that question?” +The somewhat slow Mr. Williams--“Web” came to hate him bitterly for +this and other faults--asked the witness whether the cap was “alike in +appearance to the cap worn by Sacco.” The witness replied, “In color +only,” which would seem clear enough; but “Web” refused to be defeated. +Said he, “That is not responsive to the question”--meaning, of course, +that it wasn’t what he wanted. He went on, telling the witness what +to say: “In its general appearance it is the same.” Those words came +from the just and upright judge, and the witness would have had to be +very rude indeed to contradict them. “Yes, sir,” he said. When the +defense objected to this singular method of “framing” evidence in open +court, the judge made it all right by directing the court reporter to +falsify the record. “You may put the question so it comes from counsel +rather than from the Court.” Mr. Williams then obediently put the +question, and the witness obediently answered again. But the court +reporter, whether from stupidity or malice, failed to take the judge’s +instructions, and copied out the whole dialogue, and there it stands in +cold print, to be handed down to the scorn and fury of all future times. + +And this partisanship and cunning combined with the cheapest vanity and +craving for display! The photographers were constantly making pictures +of Judge Thayer, and he was never too busy to pose for them. On the +front page of the papers you saw Judge Thayer sitting on the bench +with a legal tome open before him; Judge Thayer with a palm leaf fan +standing in front of the court-house; the twelve gentlemen of the jury +being entertained by a victrola, with Judge Thayer in the center of the +picture. + +And then, sitting in his chambers, spitting on the floor, and talking +about the case with Tom, Dick and Harry; with court officials, +interpreters, policemen, newspaper reporters, photographers--incredible +as it might seem, even with ladies of social prominence who were +there as friends of Sacco and Vanzetti. So furious was his hatred +against these “anarchistic bastards,” he was not content to send them +to the electric chair, but must throw mud at them on their journey. +To Cornelia Thornwell it seemed that the poor old man had literally +gone out of his mind; so also it seemed to dignified “blue-bloods” +when she told them what was happening. But what could be done about +it? The Commonwealth makes the proud boast that no judge has ever +been impeached. Were they going to break that record, tarnish that +scutcheon, for the sake of two Italians who were anarchists, infidels +and draft-dodgers, even if they were not bandits and murderers? + + +VII + +Carlos E. Goodridge to the stand: the man who had managed to exchange +a jail sentence of several years for aid in sending Sacco to the +electric chair. Judge Thayer knew all about that situation; and just as +Swenson had predicted, he refused to permit any questions to be asked +of Goodridge, to reveal the fact that he had pleaded guilty to larceny +in Massachusetts. Moreover, the judge called the lawyers to the bench +while he was discussing the matter, so that the jury might have no hint +that they were listening to the testimony of a crook. Thayer would not +even permit the discussion to get into the record, and when he saw the +court reporter starting to take down his words he exclaimed, “Get the +hell out of here!” So the proprieties were preserved, and the glib and +plausible Goodridge took the stand, and told the trusting jury how he +had run out of the pool-room, and seen the bandit car go by, close to +the curb, and how a bandit “poked a gun over towards” him, and this man +was Sacco and nobody else. + +The defense was hog-tied and helpless. Concerning the rest of +Goodridge’s record, the fact that his very name was an act of perjury, +they had no evidence. The court-room rang with the cries of the several +fine women whom Erastus Corning Whitney had married and betrayed, of +the owners of horses he had stolen, of others whom his glib tongue +had swindled; but the fates which held Sacco and Vanzetti at their +choice allowed no sound to be heard. When later these sounds had been +duly transcribed upon legal paper, and sworn to before notaries, and +laid before Judge Thayer in the form of a motion for a new trial, +that Daniel come to judgment would repeat his deadly formula: “Motion +denied!” When the matter was carried before the Supreme Judicial Court, +that august body would apply its vast learning to the problem, and +decide, first, that the failure to let the jury know of Goodridge’s +record was not ground for reversal, and second, that the discovery of +new facts about Goodridge was not basis for a new trial. “Decision +sustained.” + +Blocked and thwarted at every turn! Police officers took the stand to +tell how witnesses had identified Sacco and Vanzetti in the Brockton +police station immediately after their arrest; but when the defense +tried to ask them about witnesses who had refused to identify, “Web” +Thayer held up his mighty hand and cut him short. No witness could be +asked about what any other witness might have said! By this device +the defense would be kept from using the trial proceedings to fish +for evidence. The bare idea that they should try to do it was so +preposterous that both the judge and the jury burst out laughing. + +Again the voices shrieked. Roy Gould, the salesman of shaving paste, +the man with the bullet hole in his overcoat, who had been within ten +feet of the bandits, and would swear that Sacco was not the man! Mrs. +Kelly and Mrs. Kennedy, the only persons who had had an extended view +of the driver of the car, and whose written statements that he was +not Vanzetti were in the hands of the district attorney! All those +witnesses who had been taken to the police station by Henry Hellyer +and Captain Proctor, and had identified photographs of other bandits, +but had refused to identify Sacco and Vanzetti--in spite of the posing, +and pulling down of caps over the eyes, and pretending to aim pistols! +So many voices crying warnings, filling the court-room with their +clamor--in vain! + + +VIII + +In the papers Cornelia read news of great concern to her family; the +demurrer to the suit of Jerry Walker had been overruled; the last +bar was down, the tremendous case was to be tried out before a jury. +“Fifteen Million Dollar Conspiracy Charge!” said the newspapers. To +Cornelia it meant a family agony; all three of her sons-in-law, two +of her nephews-in-law, two or three cousins, were going to have to +take the witness stand, and be questioned for weeks and months as to +the details of their business procedures. Jerry Walker’s lawyers had +not minced words in setting forth what they expected to prove: the +great bankers, headed by Rupert Alvin and Henry Cabot Winters, had +“entered into a secret combination and conspiracy to carry into effect +by their combined power and influence, by duress of the plaintiff, by +fraudulent concealments, false representations and by wrongful, illegal +and fraudulent means which are hereinafter stated with certainty +and particularity, to deprive the plaintiff of his shares in the +above-named companies.” The “yellow” newspapers smacked their lips +over the promised feast, while the dignified ones put the news away in +the financial columns, as if to say that these abusive words were used +in a technical sense, and did not mean what the ordinary reader would +suppose. + +Already families had been broken up over this issue, and wives were +not speaking to one another. Mrs. John Quincy Thornwell, wife of +the president of the Fifth National Bank, was telling everybody +that Rupert Alvin had drawn her husband into the mess without his +knowledge. Mrs. Rupert Alvin, wife of the president of the Pilgrim +National, was outraged because her sister, Mrs. Henry Cabot Winters, +was taking the affair with flippancy, having said to her intimates that +it would be an excellent thing if some of these gentlemen were sent +to jail, so that their wives would know where they were! Slanders +and recriminations--bitter feuds starting--a whole kettle of Back Bay +codfish! + +In the Sacco-Vanzetti trial one of the lawyers fell ill, and Judge +Thayer put off the trial over the week-end. Cornelia was planning to +write a lot of letters and raise some money which was badly needed; +but Deborah telephoned from her place at the North Shore, her mother +must meet her in Boston at once, something about Alice, very serious. +Cornelia assumed it was more of the Jerry Walker quarrel. “You know, +Deborah, I consider the Walkers as my friends, and I am not going to +have anything--” + +But Deborah broke in: “It has nothing to do with that, Mother. It is +something personal, something desperate--I can’t give you any hint over +the telephone. Come to the house at once.” + +So Betty drove her grandmother to Boston. Betty had work to do at +defense headquarters. She was going to get out a rush circular about +events at the trial, and she wasn’t going to let Joe have anything to +do with it. Under the very strict laws of Massachusetts, Judge Thayer +had the right to call it contempt of court, and if he tried to, the +defendant was going to be a young lady with the very bluest blood in +New England; old “Judge Fury,” as Betty had taken to calling him, would +get a sure enough front-page story if he tried it! Joe was going to +stay in Dedham and write newspaper and magazine articles, which would +be published outside the state, and so beyond “Judge Fury’s” reach. + +“I know what you’ll find,” said the young lady Bolshevik--“another of +Aunt Alice’s geniuses gone wrong. I hear she’s going wrong with him.” +And so it proved. Alice had got the love of art and the art of love +mixed up. A chaotic Bohemian pianist had cast temperamental glances +at her, and she proposed to accompany him to Europe, and had notified +Henry that she expected to get a divorce. “And right now!” cried +Deborah--“while Rupert and Henry are driven nearly to death with this +Jerry Walker affair, and the Elevated Railway business, too--and Betty, +and you--Mother, we simply cannot have another scandal now!” + +So the family phalanx must gather about the frantic woman, and guard +her with their spears, and frighten away “that impossible man,” as +Deborah called him. Cornelia, the mother, and only woman member of +the old generation, must take most of the burden. She must face her +second daughter’s hysterics yet again--she had lost count of the +times, it had been more than twenty years of melodrama; first frantic +jealousy of Henry, then bitter hate, then indifference, with various +stages of romantic thrills for this, that and the other great or +some-day-to-be-great poet or painter or musician. This time was the +most terrible of all; this time all bars were down, all reserves thrown +away--it was most decidedly not “Boston,” not to be believed. + +For twenty years Alice had sought something, and the women and the men +of the family had formed the phalanx about her, and held her captive. +“Now look at me!” she cried. “I am an old woman! My skin will soon be +parchment, and my chance is nearly gone!” + +“Your chance at what?” asked Cornelia, quietly. + +“Love!” cried the other, with unaccustomed clarity. + +The mother felt a sudden uprush of pity. “Does love depend on +complexion?” + +“What else?” cried Alice, wildly. “And look at me!” + +Cornelia looked, and realized. It was true that her vain and beautiful +daughter was showing her years; no longer the wild rose complexion, +the girlish charm, the serenity and security of young matronhood. +Alice’s skin was getting dry, there were lines that no beauty doctor +could take away, those fatal tight strings under the chin which nothing +can hide. Deborah’s neck had been like that for years, she had worn a +black velvet band about it. But such a device would make Alice “look a +fright”--she grabbed up a ribbon and wound it into a halter, to show +her mother what she would be like! + +She loved Franz Cezak! He was not a “strolling Bohemian,” as Deborah +had basely insinuated; he was no common musician at all, but the +younger son of a great family, who had been received as a house guest +in Back Bay homes. Alice loved him, and she didn’t love Boston, and she +was going to be happy! + +Would she really be happy? asked the mother, and began the brutal task +of undermining poor Alice’s castle in Bohemia. Did this love-artist +know that she had very little money in her own right, and that it is +not the custom for American husbands to subsidize the art-romances +of their wives? Was it true that the man was some years younger than +Alice, and if so, did art-lovers behave like other men in the matter of +women’s age? Was Alice expecting to come back to Boston, the morning +after her nuit d’amour? + +Clara Scatterbridge, the youngest daughter, came in; having all +the future of her many sons and daughters, coming one by one to +marriageable age, to weep and plead for. Rupert Alvin came, leaving +all his cares of state. He had put into action the machinery which the +ruling classes have established for the quick and efficient collection +of scandal; just as he could tell his mother-in-law all the gossip of +the “Italian colony” concerning the anarchist “gruppo” of East Boston, +so he could tell his sister-in-law about a Bohemian pianist, who had +an art-love in every concert town. He had been knocked down and almost +killed by a well-known cricket player of Philadelphia, and in Paris he +had run away from a duel with the exiled Russian Prince Dolgorovitch, +“or whatever it is,” said Rupert, with Anglo-Saxon contempt for a name +with such termination. + +And then young Josiah Thornwell Winters, Alice’s only son, who was to +get his “sheepskin” from Harvard in a few days. Young Josiah’s own +behavior didn’t give him much standing in court, he admitted, but he +was promising to settle down and make a man of himself, and it would +certainly be easier if he had a mother in blameless Boston, rather than +following a pianist about Bohemia. The rest of the family withdrew +while this intimate episode in the drama was played out. + + +IX + +Cornelia went to see the husband, and found that Henry was taking a +most un-Bostonian attitude. “Mother,” he said, “it seems to me Alice +had better have it out, and see whether there’s anything in this +romance business for her. You, as a Bolshevik, ought not be shocked by +that.” + +“Mine has been a revolt with a purpose,” said Cornelia; “and if Alice +has a purpose I don’t know what it is.” + +“Well, I have said for years that Alice ought to have a divorce. If she +had a husband, she might settle down--” + +“But this man won’t be a husband, Henry!” + +“I know; but something has got to pull her loose from the family. I +haven’t said it to them, because after all, it’s a Thornwell affair. +But it’s been plain to me, ever since I realized that I wasn’t the man +for Alice. The misery has been because the family couldn’t make up its +mind to face a divorce; they’d rather have a fit of hysterics once a +month for twenty years. I don’t want to talk about Alice, for she’s +your flesh and blood--” + +“Go on, Henry, say what you think. I’ve got to understand you all.” + +“Well, Mother, fundamentally it’s that Alice hasn’t got any brains. Why +didn’t you teach her some of your sense of fun?” + +“You forget, Henry, I didn’t do the teaching. The house was full of +Josiah’s sisters and aunts, who knew what ought to be done always. I +waited too long before I fought.” + +“Yes, Mother, we’ve all made mistakes. I ought to have given more time +to my son. I left him to his mother, while I made the money, and now +I’ve got too much money, and no wife, and a son who has the structure +and constitution of a marshmallow. That’s my reward for hard work--not +much reason for going to the office in the morning, is there?” + +“I know, Henry, you’ve talked like that before; but you go to the +office in the morning, and go on doing what you did the day before. +We’re all of us like so many ants--we do what the others do. Because I +have tried to think for myself, you decide I am cracked in the head.” + +“No, Mother, not at all!” Henry’s gallantry came to the rescue. “I +really have a great admiration--you should hear me boasting about you +in the clubs--nobody can sport such an exciting mother-in-law! Truly, +you’re the talk of the town--they tell me you have assumed the moral +leadership of all the Bolsheviks at the trial.” + +“They tell you something very foolish, like all the other tales about +the Sacco-Vanzetti defense. What became of the evidence you promised to +get me, Henry? Have you forgotten it?” + +“No, Mother--” + +“You didn’t find it so easy as you thought?” + +“Not that; but fifteen million dollars is a lot of money, and Rupert +is terrified as to what he has to admit in the Jerry Walker case. +Also he’s had to take charge of the Bar Association--the job they are +planning, to oust our district attorney. I suppose you’ve heard about +that?” + +“No, Henry, I’ve been out of touch with the criminal world of late.” +She laughed, and he laughed, too--they always had a good time. If only +Alice had had her mother’s ability to laugh! + +“It’s a long story, I’ll tell you about it some day. When the blackmail +ring got after the Thornwell family, Rupert insisted that we had to +put them out of business; he’s a sterner moralist than I, you know. We +started work through the Bar Association--you are reading about this +Mishawum Manor case, of course.” + +“Did you and Rupert start that?” + +“The episode happened four years ago. Didn’t it strike you as peculiar +that it should be taken up now?” + +“To tell the truth, I’ve been too busy to think about it.” + +“Well, so has the public! The fact is, I got detectives and got the +story for Rupert.” + +“Why did you start in Middlesex County?” + +“Well, you see, the district attorney there happens to be an American, +and we thought it would be good policy to show impartiality. After we +have put Tufts out, nobody can kick if we come over here to Suffolk and +tackle Joe Pelletier!” + +“I see!” said Cornelia. She knew that she was being admitted to the +inside of Boston public life--the center of the center and hub of the +hub! “Joe” Pelletier, district attorney of Suffolk County, comprising +Boston proper, was a leading Catholic orator and hero, National +Advocate of the Knights of Columbus, knighted by the Pope for his +services to the holy cause. Incidentally he was one of the tools of +the “blackmail ring,” and may have got a share of that seventy-five +thousand dollars which Henry had “pungled up” to pay for the flashlight +picture of his son in the hotel room with a woman. So now the +Thornwells were out to “get him”! + +It was one more crisis in the unending struggle between the blue-blood +and the Irish-Catholic elements of the city. Cornelia had watched it +all her life, so she did not have to ask many questions. “It seems +unfortunate,” she commented, “that Rupert has to be mixed up in this +Elevated scandal right now.” + +“But that is part of the fight,” said Henry; he explained that Joe +Pelletier had taken up the scandal and was threatening prosecutions, +as a means of frightening Rupert and the rest of the Pilgrim National +crowd. Something like half the patriotic legislators of Massachusetts +had been borrowing money from the banks, and speculating in Elevated +stocks, before they passed the bill which boosted these stocks on the +market; and now Pelletier was trying to fasten it on Rupert. It was a +question which would “beat the other to it.” “Make your bets!” said +Henry Cabot Winters. + +“Your smile is a sufficient betting tip!” replied his mother-in-law; +and he said yes, it was coming out all right, only Rupert was the +worrying temperament, and getting worse. The doctors tried to get him +to stop, but they hadn’t chosen a very helpful way. They took x-ray +pictures of his veins and showed how they looked like white ribbons, +which meant deposits of lime and other minerals; they had given the +poor fellow such a list of things he mustn’t eat that when he dined +out he picked around in his plate like a chicken. His rosy and purple +bulges would soon be turned into hollows. + + +X + +Alice’s castle in Bohemia collapsed. Did one of the Thornwell men +convey to the tempestuous genius the information that the Thornwell +ladies had no money of their own? Anyhow, the celebrated artist +discovered a series of concert engagements in California, and wrote +Alice a letter of great wisdom and sympathy. The tormented woman died +a score of soul-deaths, and retired to a fashionable sanatorium to +try a rest cure with “stuffing.” A little later she would be trying a +fasting-cure, and after that a diet of grapes exclusively, and then she +would be paying thirty dollars an hour to have her troubles listened to +by a psychoanalyst. + +Meantime Cornelia had hurried back to Dedham, where the trial had +reopened, regardless of Thornwell family troubles. Again she sat +all day on a hard bench in the court-room, and wrote memoranda in +a notebook, and in the evening conferred with the lawyers and the +committee and the journalists until late at night. Each afternoon, +after court, she went by special favor of the sheriff, to say a few +words to Bart, and hear his advice about the procedure, and comfort +him with affection. + +The prosecution had come now to the identification of Vanzetti as one +of the bandits. They put on the stand a man named Levangie, gateman at +the railroad tracks across which the bandit car had passed immediately +after the shooting. This old man told how a train was coming when the +car drove up, and he started to put down the gates, but the bandits +forced him at the point of a revolver to raise them and let the car +cross ahead of the train. He identified Vanzetti as the driver of the +car. + +When the defense had its turn it put on a locomotive fireman, not a Red +but an Irishman, who testified that three-quarters of an hour after +the shooting he talked with Levangie, who said that he did not see the +bandits, all he saw was the gun, and he “ducked into the shanty.” Three +other witnesses gave the same testimony. As it happened, Levangie had +told one of the defense lawyers that he could not identify the bandits, +and first he admitted having said this; later he contradicted himself, +and said he did not remember any such interview. He was a loose-jointed +fellow, shifty of eye, and did not seem at all abashed when he was +caught in false statements; rather he took the whole affair as a joke. + +It became a joke to all the world, when the district attorney came to +discuss Levangie’s testimony in his address to the jury. Mr. Katzmann +was in a dilemma, because the gateman had identified Vanzetti as the +driver of the car, whereas Mr. Katzmann’s other witnesses agreed upon +the driver as young, small, light-haired and sickly looking. The +district attorney managed very ingeniously to repudiate Levangie while +at the same time asking the jury to accept him. The gateman thought he +had seen Vanzetti driving the car, but really he had seen him in the +rear seat! + +That was all the real evidence they had. But to cover the weakness, +they put on some more that looked like evidence. A man named Dolbeare, +who thought he had seen Vanzetti in an auto full of foreigners in South +Braintree, some five hours before the crime. He had seen a car going +past him, and what had attracted his attention was one man leaning +forward talking to another, and that it was a “tough-looking bunch.” +He did not know Vanzetti, had never seen him before, and never saw +him again until after the arrest. He admitted that carloads of workmen +drove through the town all the time, on the way to the shipyards. He +could not identify any other man in the car, nor give a single detail +about any one; all he could do was to identify Vanzetti as one man who +had been in that car. + +And then a man who claimed to have seen Vanzetti on a train the morning +of the crime, coming from Plymouth to East Braintree. This man was +completely refuted by the conductor and three ticket-agents--no ticket +had been sold for such a journey. Also the prosecution put on another +crossing-tender, who had noted a car at his crossing, near the Manley +Woods, an hour after the crime, and thought it was Vanzetti in the +front seat of the car. And that was all the identification! That was +the main part of the evidence upon which the august Commonwealth of +Massachusetts proposed to send a man to the electric chair! + +When Cornelia examined her notes, and questioned others in her party, +to see if her memory was playing her false, she was appalled by the +thing she saw happening before her eyes. They were actually attempting +to convict Bart of murder without one real item of identification; +solely upon such facts as that he had been with Sacco the night of +the arrest, and had a gun and cartridges, and had told lies to the +police about himself and his doings! So farcical was the identification +of Bart, and so completely were the identifications of Nick shot to +pieces in the course of time, that three years later Judge Thayer +found himself backed against the wall, and forced to admit that +“these verdicts did not rest, in my judgment, upon the testimony of +the eye-witnesses.” This news would certainly have surprised the +gentlemen of the jury, who had spent a week or two listening to these +eye-witnesses, and had been solemnly assured by the district attorney +himself that never in his eleven years of office had he “laid eye or +given ear to so convincing a witness as Lola Andrews!” + + +XI + +Almost three weeks it took the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to present +its case against the two anarchist wops. Thirty times the prisoners +emerged from the county jail--at a quarter to nine every morning except +Sunday, and again at a quarter to two every afternoon except Saturday +and Sunday--and marched from the jail to the court-house: chained to +a deputy on each side, with ten or twelve policemen marching in front, +and as many in the rear. They always walked in the street, not on the +sidewalk, for greater safety against surprise attack. Small boys would +gather to stare, and the deputies would command, “Stand back!” It was +their only chance to justify the expense to the county. + +Seated in the cage, side by side, the prisoners would gaze straight +before them. They could not see the spectators, nor was any one +permitted to speak to them, except their lawyers. After a time the +stern guards learned to make an exception of Mrs. Sacco, who would go +to the cage and chat with her husband until court opened. Poor little +woman, she had to bring a nursing baby with her, and her face, usually +bright and eager, was worn and lined. She would sit all day, silent and +rigid, trying to understand long words in a language that was still +partly alien to her. + +Her husband also would try, and the more he understood, the hotter +became his revolutionary fury. Several times he and his companion +boiled over--impossible to sit in silence while lies were told and +rascality committed under the forms of law. When the policeman who +had arrested them swore that Bart had several times started to reach +for his gun, Bart cried out, “You are a liar!” A terrible breach +of decorum--the guards seized him and shoved him into his seat, +commanding, “Shut up!” When Lola Andrews was in the midst of her +identification, Sacco rose in his seat and cried, “Am I the man? Take a +good look! I am myself!” Again a great shock, and a sensational story +for the papers. Nick’s picture took the front page. + +Later, when the defense was having its innings, there were more scenes. +The interpreter provided by the court was an Italian by the name of +Rossi; he belonged to the Norfolk County “ring,” and was a friend of +Mrs. DeFalco’s, and of Judge Thayer’s--he had a child named Webster +Thayer Rossi, and he used to drive the judge up to the University Club +in Boston; if the judge did not discuss the case with him on the way, +it was the only chance “Web” ever lost. + +Either this Rossi did not know how to interpret correctly, or he did +not wish to; at a critical point in the testimony of Alfonsina Brini, +he misstated in English what she had said in Italian. Bart knew +enough to catch the error, and insisted upon calling attention to +it, and would not let the guards silence him. Again and again he saw +these errors, and to Cornelia, when she came to see him in the jail, +he insisted, “That fellow is a crook!” Over and over he said it, “He +is a crook! Crook!” Cornelia thought it was Bart’s prejudice against +everybody in power; but it was another of those things that were to be +proved too late. Before five years had passed, Rossi was to get a two +year jail sentence for trying to sell his influence with judges. + +Such misfortune appeared to dog the patriots who were prosecuting +Sacco and Vanzetti; so many of them got into trouble with their own +laws--but always after the verdict, when it was too late to count! +There was an agent of the Department of Justice, named Shaughnessey, +who had had the job of watching Red meetings and had supplied a mass of +information concerning Sacco and Vanzetti. This ardent patriot stole a +carload of hogs--a rather difficult object to get away with, one would +think. Later he got twelve years for a holdup. But when in the course +of later appeals, the defense had occasion to suggest the possibility +of improper conduct by Department of Justice agents, “Web” Thayer was +outraged by this, and delivered a stern rebuke. + + +XII + +And then Captain Proctor, head of the state police. The Proctor story +was so atrocious, that naïve old ladies like Cornelia Thornwell thought +it would only have to become known in order to split the community wide +open. But in fact, it hardly made a ripple. Massachusetts was so used +to official knavery that it had lost the power to react, even with +surprise. + +Captain Proctor had been in the police service of the Commonwealth +some thirty-six years, and was an old hand at the “frame-up”; among +other jobs, he had “made” the Ettor and Giovannitti case. When Sacco +and Vanzetti were arrested, he was called in by Mike Stewart, and +interviewed all the witnesses, and tried to help out Mike’s “theory.” +But in the end he told Mike, “You’ve got the wrong men,” and withdrew +from the case. + +But still, gang loyalty held him, and when Fred Katzmann called on him +to identify the so-called “mortal bullet,” which had been extracted +from the body of the dead guard, he came. This bullet was the crucial +issue in the whole case; it was what tied Sacco and Vanzetti to the +case, because the other five bullets found in the dead bodies were +of such a size and make that they could not have come through either +Sacco’s pistol or Vanzetti’s. The prosecution claimed that the “mortal +bullet” had been fired from Sacco’s pistol, and could have been fired +from no other pistol. They put on an “expert” who swore to that; and +then they put on Proctor, who backed up the “expert.” + +At least, that is what everybody thought he did, and the trial was +concluded on that basis; the prosecution laid the utmost emphasis +upon it, because Captain Proctor had qualified at great length as an +authority upon bullets and revolvers, who had been studying the matter +for twenty years, and had been a witness in more than a hundred capital +cases. Said Katzmann, in his closing argument to the jury, “You might +disregard all the identification testimony, and base your verdict on +the testimony of these experts.” And Judge Thayer put the weight of +his judicial authority behind that; he explained to the jury what the +testimony meant, that “it was Sacco’s pistol that fired the bullet +that caused the death of Berardelli. To this effect the Commonwealth +introduced the testimony of two witnesses, Messrs. Proctor and Van +Amburgh.” + +Nothing could be more positive; and so the matter went to the jury; so +it stood in the minds of all students of the case for two years. But +then Captain Proctor was near death, and his conscience troubled him; +two men whom he believed to be innocent stood in the shadow of the +electric chair, because of a conspiracy into which he had entered with +the prosecution, to misrepresent his testimony to the jury. So he made +an affidavit in which he set forth what had happened. Repeatedly he had +been asked by the prosecutors to testify that the particular mortal +bullet had been fired through the particular pistol belonging to Sacco. +He had made many tests and measurements in the effort to convince +himself that this was so, but he could not get the proof, and refused +to give such testimony. “The district attorney desired to ask me that +question, but I had repeatedly told him that if he did I should be +obliged to answer in the negative.” At the trial the questioning had +been done by the assistant district attorney, later to become a learned +judge. His question had been framed very carefully, and Proctor’s +answer no less carefully: “My opinion is that it is consistent with +being fired by that pistol.” + +A verbal trick, you see; the witness meant that the mortal bullet +_might_ have been fired through that pistol; but the district attorney +represented to the jury that his words meant something entirely +different--that it _must_ have been fired through that pistol, and +could not have been fired through any other pistol in the world. +That was how Judge Thayer passed it on to the jury in his charge; +and in after years, with the printed words of his charge before +him--preserved immutably, to be handed down to the scorn and fury of +all future times--the embittered old man rendered a decision in which +he ingeniously twisted the defense contentions concerning the meaning +of the Proctor affidavit and the answering affidavits of Katzmann and +his assistants, which really did not answer at all. + +It was “Web’s” way, shown in almost every decision he rendered. You +would state something in plain words, as explicitly as the language +permitted; you would wait patiently, a year or two, while the old +gentleman had an appendicitis operation and an attack of pneumonia; and +finally he would hand down a decision in which he accused you of having +said many things you had never thought of. He would set up a whole +regiment of straw-men, and in a valiant duel chop off their heads; he +would fill pages in the stately law-books with refutations of arguments +which had never been heard anywhere save in his own hate-tormented +head. And then at the very end, sitting upon his throne with the whole +world for an audience, he would solemnly declare: “With reference to +the question of prejudice, there is not any now and there never was +any.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +JUDGE FURY + + +I + +Four times each day the prisoners made their march down the middle of +the street, accompanied by military escort. Four times each day the +jury made a march, from their hotel to the court-house, at noon to a +restaurant and back, then to the hotel in the evening: twelve “good +men and true,” with court officers preceding and following, the aged +foreman toddling at their head--he was to die within three months. +It was a heavy strain upon old men, to sit for six hours a day in a +crowded court-room, in suffocating midsummer heat. The judge mercifully +said they might take off their coats, but their Puritan consciences +required most of them to be uncomfortable! + +Seven weeks their semi-imprisonment lasted; the bored victims got to +know one another too well, and when they were tired of playing cards +they sought refuge in the daily newspaper. They were not allowed to +read, about their own case--the sheriff cut it all out of the papers; +but they read about a court up in Boston, where Charles Ponzi was being +punished for having made five million dollars without permission of +the Federal Reserve Board. The financial wizard’s digestion had been +wrecked by the ordeal of law, so the papers explained, and he had to +be taken out to a restaurant each day, to get his diet of little neck +clams and cream of tomato soup. + +And then the story of Mishawum Manor, where the emperors of the moving +picture world had been entertained by naked young ladies dancing the +highland fling! Who could have invented more delicious material for +the beguiling of bored jurymen? The Hearst newspaper put it on the +front page each day: the romantic life story of “Brownie” Kennedy, the +“madame” of this roadhouse; the number of husbands she had deserted, +the millionaires she had plundered and ruined; details about the +“champagne and chicken supper,” the hugging and the dancing, and how +the guests had disappeared to the rooms upstairs, so that at one time +there was nobody to eat the chicken or drink the champagne. Later they +were reassembled, much in déshabille, and the young ladies--names, +addresses and prices all given--were flinging their very highlandest, +when a flashlight went off and a photograph was taken of the scene. +Most of the guests were too drunk to know what this meant; when they +woke up next afternoon, they paid a thousand dollars for “entertainment +and breakage,” and thought that would be the end of it--just as if they +had been at home in Hollywood. + +But no, this was a pious Puritan community; and presently the emperors +of moving pictures were receiving letters informing them that several +of the young ladies who had been hired for the party had husbands, and +these husbands were threatening suits for the desecration of their +wives; furthermore, some indignant moralist had carried the story +to the district attorney of Middlesex County, and that official was +greatly shocked. Middlesex is sacred territory, because it contains the +city of Cambridge, home of Harvard, the center of the center and hub of +the hub. It would take no less than half a million dollars to wipe out +the stain which these Hebrew and Babylonian emperors had put upon New +England culture. + +After much dickering, and threats and counterthreats, the dispute was +settled by the payment of a hundred and five thousand dollars, which, +according to the newspapers, had been divided among the chiefs of +the political “ring,” including the Middlesex district attorney--no +Irish-Catholic “mick,” but a blue-blood of registered pedigree, a +gentleman with two hobbies, Red-baiting and college athletics. Only a +year ago he had led a spectacular raid against “Red headquarters” in +Cambridge, with a patrol wagon, cops, reporters and camera men, and +had confiscated a load of literature. He was engaged in umpiring the +Yale-Princeton football game, when the newspaper reporters came to +inform him that the Supreme Judicial Court had removed him from office. +Being a good sport, he went on with the game. + +Middlesex County lies immediately to the north of Norfolk, and at its +nearest point is only four or five miles from Dedham; so it might +occur to some jurymen to wonder, could this corruption have crossed +the border, and affected those in charge of the present trial? The +authorities deemed it wise to provide automobiles, with bailiffs for +chauffeurs, to keep the jury entertained. On holidays the twelve good +men and true were escorted to the beach to picnic, and Sundays they +went to church in the morning, and in the afternoon they motored to +witness some of the patriotism rampant in the community. + +On Sunday, twelve days after the trial started, the bodies of three +dead soldiers, dug out of the ground in France, were buried in the city +of Brockton, in Plymouth County, and the whole town turned out for +the ceremonies. On the same day at Whitman, in the same county, two +bodies were buried. On the following Sunday another one at Hingham, in +Norfolk County. The day before that was the anniversary of the Battle +of Belleau Wood, celebrated by veterans all over both counties; the +day before that was a great New England holiday, Bunker Hill Day, +celebrated in every town. On June 25th, just as the defense was getting +under way, the sacred Plymouth Rock was restored to place with a new +shrine over it, and there was a great celebration in Vanzetti’s old +home, reported in all newspapers and read about by all jurors. A week +later five thousand veterans of the “Yankee Division” assembled in +Plymouth, and held their exercises over the Fourth of July, the great +American patriotic holiday. On that day the town of Quincy, in Norfolk +County, witnessed the greatest parade of veterans in its history; the +whole countryside echoed with the sounds of firecrackers and bells and +military exhortations. “Never shall America forget the brave boys who +died for her!”--so said the orators. + + +II + +And then the college commencements! There are a score of colleges +and universities in Massachusetts, to say nothing of two hundred and +forty-nine high schools; and all of them celebrated their exercises +while the Sacco-Vanzetti trial was in progress. All had eminent +persons to deliver orations, and few were the orators who did not +refer to the enemy within our midst, and the need for good citizens to +stand together. These exhortations would be quoted in the next day’s +newspapers, and read by the twelve good men and true in their legal +quarantine. + +Cornelia took a day off and went up to the Harvard exercises. +Impossible to refuse, for it was the crisis of the effort to hold +Alice in line, and this was an occasion that would never come again, +the graduation of her only son; the public appearance of Alice with +Henry, and with all the family about her, would set forth their +solidarity to the world, and repudiate malicious gossip. Such was the +requirement of propriety. The three sisters might quarrel ever so +bitterly among themselves, but the world must see them side by side, +going through the formalities with dignity. + +So now Clara spent the night in the Winters home in Boston, to keep +Alice from taking poison or running away. Deborah came early in the +morning, and the two of them worked with moral exhortations, and cups +of strong coffee, and an expert hairdresser, to get their distracted +sister into shape for exhibition. Clara rode in the car with Alice and +Henry, to relieve them of the necessity of talking--Clara could always +tell a thousand stories about the progress of her brood. + +Deborah sent her car early in the morning to bring her mother; and +there they were, three middle-aged ladies and one old one, dressed with +the restrained and dignified but none the less expensive elegance of +the Brahmins; Henry in tall silk hat and frock coat, braided trousers +and spats; Quincy Thornwell, gentleman of leisure, escorting Priscilla +Alvin Shaw, returned from her honeymoon in Florida. They took their +appointed places in Sander’s Theater, bowing right and left, greeting +their friends, exchanging compliments with the nearest. All the +conventions were satisfied. + +The academic procession moved through the “Yard”; all the dignitaries +in their gorgeous-colored silk hoods and gowns, led by the university +marshal, and followed by thirteen hundred graduates-to-be, all in +caps and gowns. It was a special occasion, because Harvard was making +an innovation; for the first time in its two hundred and eighty-five +years, women were to be awarded regular Harvard degrees--not just +Radcliffe degrees signed by President Lowell. There were thirty-six +of these intruding females, but they were not permitted to leave the +sacred yard with the men, they had to join the procession near Lawrence +Hall. + +In Sander’s Theater the sheriff of the county called the meeting +to order; the dean of the divinity school offered a prayer, three +graduates delivered orations, and the Governor of the Commonwealth made +a speech. A curious moment for Cornelia Thornwell, with ghosts walking +upon the platform, in costumes much out of style. How many years since +she had sat up there, and heard Josiah’s stern dry voice? The fashion +in speeches had not changed a particle; they still talked about the +responsibility of educated men for citizenship; they still rebuked +disturbers of the public thought. Said Governor Cox: “We ought to stop +complaining about the wrongs other men are doing until we are sure each +one of us is doing his part honorably and well.” + +President Lowell arose to confer the degrees; an old gentleman with a +brown mustache and full red cheeks and proper coldness of manner. He +belonged to the inner circle of the sacred caste, enjoying an income +of not far from a million dollars a year from the family cotton mills +and real estate. He had been a lawyer on a small scale, when the great +financial interests of Boston had selected him to take charge of their +university. Under his direction there had been established a Graduate +School of Business Administration, to put a gloss of culture upon the +crudities of commercialism; the institution had grown with such speed +that it was turning matters about, and taking a lot of the gloss off +Harvard. + +There was a slow procession of thirteen hundred young men in black +gowns and mortar-boards, walking across a stage, putting out a hand +and taking a roll of sheepskin; listening to a little speech, if it +happened to be a “cum laude,” with an extra sentence if it happened to +be a “magna cum laude,” and several sentences if it happened to be a +“summa cum laude.” It seemed symbolical of New England hypocrisy that +these were not real diplomas, but merely blanks; next day the graduates +had to go rooting in tubs, in the basement of the theater, to get their +own! + +The only thrill in the ceremony is when one of the young men happens to +be known to you; then you make a decorous little noise with the palms +of your hands--the relic of enthusiasm among the blue-bloods. Cornelia +looked at the young faces, grave and pale, mostly, but still clean +and alive. She looked at the sheriffs and mayors and politicians and +lawyers and bankers--masks of cynicism, hardness and dullness. What +evil power presided over the lives of men, to work this transformation +from youth to age? + +It came the turn of Josiah Thornwell Winters; and Cornelia hoped +that not many of these graduates were hiding a tragedy like his. She +had heard from Quincy Thornwell the end of the story: the woman from +“Larry Shay’s stable,” who had succeeded in making Young Josiah think +she was only nineteen, and innocent, was in reality twenty-five, a +victim of drugs, and also of a disease. This latter she had passed on +to her victim, so now he was paying several visits a week to leading +specialists, and his pale set face as he walked across the platform was +due to the fact that walking hurt him. But all over Sander’s Theater, +members of the audience nudged one another, whispering, “The grandson +of Governor Thornwell--the tall one.” They thought about his blue +blood, and mothers with marriageable daughters pondered ways to meet +him. + +There was an elaborate banquet at the close of these ceremonies; and +also a series of class banquets, at which the “old boys” got together +and listened to patriotism and jokes. At one of these revelries the +orator was that courageous patriot, District Attorney Frederick G. +Katzmann, of Norfolk and Plymouth counties. The chairman introduced him +as one who had set out to rid Massachusetts of the Reds, and the orator +accepted the stern duty, and talked about the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and +what he was going to do to those anarchists. Tumultuous applause from +the assembled banqueters, and toasts from their hip-pocket flasks, and +singing of “Fair Harvard” and “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow!” + + +III + +Back to Dedham courthouse with its high white dome, with a ring of +port-holes like an ocean liner; the jury making its daily marches, and +the foreman saluting the flag; the manacled prisoners parading down the +middle of the street with their military escort; the guards keeping +watch, searching the spectators, even the handbags of the ladies; the +newspapers reporting sensations. + +The defense was having its innings. Frank Burke, a man in his fifties, +formerly sealer of weights and measures for the city of Brockton, and +now giving demonstrations of glass-blowing, had been on the street in +South Braintree, where the bandit car crossed the railroad tracks. The +car had passed within ten feet of him, and the bandit in the right +front seat had leaned out and snapped a gun at him--it had failed to +explode. The man supposed to be Sacco had been in the right rear seat, +and Burke got a good look at him and described him, a flat, full face, +with broad heavy jowl--no resemblance to Sacco. There had been so much +patriotism in the trial that Burke thought a little would be welcome +from him, so he tried it, and there resulted a curious dialogue between +him and the district attorney: + +“What was the color of the gun you saw?” + +“Blue.” + +“You have seen them, haven’t you?” + +“Yes, my boy brought one home from the war.” + +“Did you think I asked about your boy bringing one home?” + +“No, but you were asking me about automatics, and I told you when I +seen one.” + +“You thought you would tuck that in, did you?” + +“I am not attempting to tuck anything in, Mr. Katzmann.” + +“Did you do it inadvertently?” + +“Yes, sir, I am trying--” + +“And have all your answers made heretofore that have not been called +for been done inadvertently? I want you to tell the truth.” + +Five laborers took the stand, men who had been digging an excavation, +and had witnessed the murder. These men all swore that neither Sacco +nor Vanzetti were in the bandit car; but they were Italians and +Spaniards, having to talk through interpreters, and it was easy for +Katzmann to discredit them. One laborer estimated that he was forty or +fifty feet from the shooting; Katzmann very cunningly got him to answer +a complicated question--that he was as sure of the distance as he was +that the bandits had not been Sacco and Vanzetti. Then he measured +the distance on the map, and said it was ninety-five feet; and that +finished Pedro Iscorla. In his closing speech Katzmann attacked all +these laborers as cowards, because they had stood by with picks and +shovels and failed to attack bandits who were shooting guns. + +Two gun experts testified for the defense. Experts always balance +one another--if you have as much money as the other side. One was +a champion pistol shot and department head in a cartridge company; +the other was superintendent of the testing department of the Colt +Automatic Pistol Company, which had made Sacco’s gun, and he should +have known more about it than Captain Proctor, who had found himself +on the witness stand vainly trying to take the weapon apart. Both the +defense experts testified that the “mortal bullet” could not have come +from Sacco’s gun; nor did they, like Proctor, take back their testimony +later on. + +Witnesses appeared to counter the testimony of the gateman Levangie, +and say how he had told them he did not see the bandits. The same for +Goodridge, the ex-convict; four men swore that he had made statements +contradicting his present testimony. Too bad these poolroom gentlemen +were not named Jones, Smith, Brown and Robinson, instead of Magazu, +Arrigoni, Manganio and D’Amato! + +And then the witnesses to answer “Fainting Lola”: her friend, Mrs. +Campbell, a white-haired old woman who broke down and wept because she +did not like to call Lola such a liar; the policeman and the reporter +to whom Lola had admitted that she could not identify the bandits; and +then Kurlansky, the storekeeper, who got his rebuke from Judge Thayer +for having failed to tackle the police and prosecuting authorities of +Norfolk County, all by his valiant self! + +And then poor Joseph Rosen, the Jewish peddler of cloth, who had sold +Vanzetti a piece of suiting at a great bargain because it had a hole +in it. He had gone with Vanzetti to show the goods to Mrs. Brini, and +they had had a long talk. Three weeks later he had read of Vanzetti’s +arrest for banditry, and had seen his picture and recognized him, and +realized that it was the day he had sold the cloth. He told his story +to the jury, and Katzmann provided a four-hour circus for bored jurymen +by kidding Rosen’s Yiddisher dialect, and asking where he had been on +a certain day a year ago, and where he had been three weeks ago. Poor +Rosen tried to protest that if he had a little time he could remember +some of that; which of course Katzmann and the jury took to mean that +he could have the lawyers’ help in remembering it. + +As a matter of fact it would have been easy for the prosecution +to have verified Rosen’s story if it had cared to, for he said he +had sold cloth to many persons in Plymouth that day, including the +wife of the chief of police. But it was as Lee Swenson had told +Cornelia--hardly any use at all to put on foreign witnesses; the jury +took it for granted that their stories were “built,” and whether they +were all “built,” or only a few of them “built,” made no difference +in the result. Of course no jury would ever dream that the cultured +gentlemen who represented the Commonwealth would do such a thing as +tell a witness what to say! Never in a thousand years could they be +made to realize that of the five identification witnesses upon whom +the case against Sacco rested, one was a many times convicted crook, +one a hysterical prostitute, one a halfwit, one a disordered fantast, +and one a feeble victim of police pressure; all five of them persons +who had made statements identifying other men as the bandits, or else +saying that they could not identify any one. And all this known to the +prosecution, and some of it to the judge on the bench--so that the +procedure represented a conspiracy between the district attorney and +the judge, to deceive the jury, to hide the essential facts from them, +and persuade them that white was black. + + +IV + +The great day of the trial: Bartolomeo Vanzetti taking the stand in his +own defense! He looked neat and proper in his new black suit, clean +white collar and little black silk tie. He had grown bald about the +temples during his long confinement, but he still had his heavy droopy +mustache; his earnest, deeply lined face was that of a student and +thinker. + +They took him out of the “cage” to give his testimony, and stood him in +the prisoner’s dock, with a little low railing before him, where for +hours he answered the questions of his lawyers. His manner was quiet +and courteous, and his command of English remarkable; he had profited +by his year of study to drop most of his Italian peculiarities, and the +newspapers commented upon his education, so that Cornelia was proud of +her pupil. Only once did he let himself be goaded by Katzmann into a +flash of “redness”; when he had occasion to refer to the place where +some of his friends lived, working on the railroad near Springfield: +“Yes, in a shanty, you know, the little house where the Italian live +and work like a beast, the Italian workingman in this country.” + +He told the jury the story of his life: his childhood in Italy, his +slavery to a pastry cook, the breakdown of his health, the death of his +mother. He told about coming to America, his work in the great rich +club in New York City--he no longer called it a “clooba”--and then in +the smart restaurant; his work in the brickyard, the stone quarry, on +the railroad, the Worcester reservoir--near the home of Judge Thayer; +then in a wire mill, then for the Plymouth Cordage Company. He told +about his going to Mexico, because he did not believe in war; he +had learned by now that he had not been liable to the draft, and he +mentioned it, but apparently without result. + +He told about his fish-selling business--and the defense counsel +showed his license to dig clams, and the receipts for his fish. All +the morning of the South Braintree crime he had been selling fish in +Plymouth--in Cherry Street, Standish Avenue, Cherry Court, Suosso’s +Lane, Castle Street. A little after the noon hour he had met Rosen, +and bought from him the piece of suiting with a hole in it; Vanzetti +still had the cloth, and it was introduced in evidence. He had taken +Rosen to Mrs. Brini, because she worked in a woolen mill, and was a +judge of cloth. In the afternoon he had left his cart in the yard of +Melvin Corl, the fisherman, and had gone down to the shore, where Corl +was painting a boat, and at the actual moment of the South Braintree +murders he had been chatting with Corl. The owner of the boat-yard, +Gessi, had come along during the talk, and another man, Holmes. Later +Bart had dug clams and bait, and had gone home and had his supper at +six o’clock, and had spent the evening in Plymouth. + +He told about his doings from that April fifteenth to the day of his +arrest three weeks later. He had gone to the club in East Boston, and +had been asked to go to New York to see about Salsedo and Elia. But +there Katzmann and Thayer stopped him; it was the intention of the +district attorney to argue that the defendants had no reason to be +afraid on the night of their arrest, and to tell lies to the police. +Katzmann wanted to argue that the worst that anarchists had to fear +was getting a free trip to Italy; that as Sacco was going anyhow, +the claim of fear was obviously silly. The entire ruling class of +Massachusetts was going to maintain that argument for six years; so +the jury must be kept from realizing that sixty-seven hours prior to +the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti, their friend and comrade Salsedo had +jumped, or had been thrown to his death from the fourteenth story of +the Park Row Building in New York! The defense came back to it, again +and again, but they were blocked here and blocked there, and the real +meaning of the matter was never made clear to the jury. + +It was the aim of the prosecution, not so much to refute the testimony +of Vanzetti, as to rouse the prejudices of the jurors against him; +to fill them with emotions of hatred and fear, so that they would be +incapable of thinking; to make them see an anarchist infidel draft +dodger as a depraved wretch, deserving to die many deaths. When the +time came for cross-examination, Mr. Katzmann’s first question had +nothing to do with the problem whether Vanzetti had sat in a bandit car +and pointed a shot-gun out of the rear window; it had to do with the +problem whether the jury was going to find him guilty, regardless of +whether he had sat in the bandit car or not. Said Mr. Katzmann: “So you +left Plymouth, Mr. Vanzetti, in May, 1917, to dodge the draft, did you?” + +Mr. Katzmann of course knew perfectly well that Vanzetti had not been +liable to the draft; but he went on to rub in the sneer, with that +mock indignation acquired in the course of eleven years’ service for +the Commonwealth: “When this country was at war, you ran away, so +you would not have to fight as a soldier?” The district attorney was +not interested to question Vanzetti about the South Braintree crime, +and try to prove that he was there; the district attorney was not +interested in trying to break Vanzetti’s alibi; he was only interested +to prove that Vanzetti had lied to the police, and that he was +unpatriotic. + +He took up the prisoner’s effort to organize a meeting, and the pitiful +circular he had drafted: “You were going to advise in a public meeting +men who had gone to war? Are you that man?” “Yes, sir,” answered Bart, +quietly, “I am that man, not the man you want me, but I am that man.” +The newspapers made much of this scene; it was what their readers were +hungry for. “A tensely dramatic moment,” said the Boston _Traveler_, +and described how the prosecutor “thundered.” Said the _American_, +“The district attorney’s voice was vibrant with emotion. It thrilled +the spectators.” + + +V + +But it was during the cross-examination of Sacco that the great +official’s vibrations did their heaviest thundering, and the +spectators, and readers of newspapers, got their choicest thrills. +Nicola Sacco had a poor command of English, and had to call for the aid +of the interpreter-crook; also he had poor command of his emotions, and +could be jeered at and goaded, provoked into saying things that would +ruin him. The district attorney asked him seventeen hundred questions; +and more about patriotism than about anything else. Said Mr. Katzmann: +“Did you leave this country in May, 1917?” + +Said Sacco: “I can’t answer in one word.” + +“Please answer my questions, Mr. Sacco”--“in thundering voice,” the +newspapers said. “One week before the day of the first draft in May, +1917, did you leave this country?” There followed a long dialogue, +a scene which made Cornelia think of a deer in the forest, when a +wolverine or lynx or other fierce creature drops upon him from a tree, +and chews into his neck as he runs. That is a common event in nature; +but in this case appeared a phenomenon unknown to zoology--another +animal running alongside the fleeing deer, to keep any one from +interfering with the neck-chewing process. This creature went by the +name of a webthayer. + +“Did you say yesterday you love a free country?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Did you love this country in the month of May, 1917?” + +“I did not say,--I don’t want to say I did not love this country.” + +“Did you love this country in that month of 1917?” + +“If you can, Mr. Katzmann, if you give me that,--I could explain--” + +“Do you understand that question?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then will you please answer it?” + +“I can’t answer in one word.” + +“You can’t say whether you loved the United States of America one week +before the day you enlisted for the first draft?” + +“I can’t say in one word, Mr. Katzmann.” + +“Did you love this country in the last week of May, 1917?” + +“That is pretty hard for me to say in one word, Mr. Katzmann.” + +“There are two words you can use, Mr. Sacco, yes or no. Which one is +it?” + +“Yes.” + +“And in order to show your love for this United States of America when +she was about to call upon you to become a soldier you ran away to +Mexico.” + +That question was, obviously enough, not intended to elicit any +information of use to the jury; that question was, purely and simply, +a sneer. And Katzmann hammered and hammered upon it; eleven separate +times he repeated the word “love.” First, did Sacco run away for love +of his country? Then, did he run away for love of his wife? “Would it +be your idea of showing your love for your wife that when she needed +you, you ran away from her?” + +Said Sacco: “I did not run away from her.” + +Said Sacco’s lawyer: “I object.” + +But the webthayer said: “He may answer,”--and added, with his usual +cunning: “Simply on the question of credibility, that is all.” + +So the wolverine or lynx went on with the neck-chewing. “Would it be +your idea of love for your wife that you were to run from her when she +needed you?” + +Said Mr. McAnarney: “Pardon me. I ask for an exception on that.” + +The webthayer excluded the question; but obligingly indicated to the +neck-chewer how he might go on. “He had not admitted he ran away.” + +So, of course, the torture was resumed. “Then I will ask you, didn’t +you run away from Milford so as to avoid being a soldier for the United +States?” + +“I did not run away.” + +“You mean you walked away?” + +“Yes.” + +“You don’t understand me when I say ‘run away,’ do you?” + +“That is vulgar.” + +“That is vulgar?” + +“You can say a little intelligent, Mr. Katzmann.” + +“Don’t you think going away from your country is a vulgar thing to do +when she needs you?” + +“I don’t believe in war.” + +“You don’t believe in war?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Do you think it is a cowardly thing to do what you did?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Do you think it is a brave thing to do what you did?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Do you think it would be a brave thing to go away from your own wife?” + +“No.” + +“When she needed you?” + +“No.” + + +VI + +The prosecutor kept at the wife question until he had got all the hate +out of it he could, and then he took up the sneer that “wops” come to +America to make money. “Is it because,--is your love for the United +States of America commensurate with the amount of money you can get in +this country per week?” + +“Better conditions, yes.” + +“Better country to make money, isn’t it?” + +“Yes.” + +“Is your love for this country measured by the amount of money you can +earn here?” + +“I never loved money.” + +This went on, until the defense broke in again. Said Mr. Jeremiah +McAnarney: “No, if your Honor please. And I might state now I want my +objection to go to this whole line of interrogation.” + +Said the webthayer: “I think you opened it up.” + +Said the lawyer, very humbly: “No, if your Honor please, I think I have +not.” + +Said the webthayer: “I think you have,”--and went on to give an +argument which for prejudice-carrying capacity exceeded anything the +fertile mind of the district attorney had been able to conceive. It was +the contention of the defendants that on the night of their arrest they +had been going with Boda and Orciani to visit some of the anarchist +comrades, and collect the dangerous literature from their homes, and +hide it until the storm of persecution had blown over. And now here was +the webthayer, elaborating an even more complicated sneer than the one +about love of country and of wife. Said he: “It seems to me you have. +Are you going to claim much of all the collection of the literature +and the books was really in the interest of the United States as well +as these people and therefore it has opened up the credibility of the +defendant when he claims that all that work was done really for the +interest of the United States in getting his literature out of the way?” + +Said Mr. McAnarney: “That claim is not presented in anything tantamount +to the language just used by the Court, and in view of the record as it +stands at this time I object to this line of inquiry.” + +There followed upon this a phenomenon never observed in any forest; +the wolverine or lynx desisting from his neck-chewing, and letting the +webthayer take his place on the victim’s back! The webthayer liked his +mockery so well that he repeated it five separate times, in detail, and +several other times by implication. “Are you going to claim that what +the defendant did was in the interest of the United States?” And each +time with a broader wink at the jury, a broader grin from the jury in +response. When the defense lawyer objected, “Your Honor please, I now +object to your Honor’s statement as prejudicial to the rights of the +defendants and ask that the statement be withdrawn from the jury”--then +instantly the webthayer was on the alert to protect the record and make +everything look all right. “There is no prejudicial remark made that I +know of, and none were intended. I simply asked you, sir, as to whether +you propose to offer evidence as to what you said to me.” + +After which he went on to repeat the sneer and rub it in; and closed, +as usual, by telling the wolverine or lynx how to get back to the +neck-chewing: “I will let you inquire further as to what he meant by +the expression.” So, of course, Katzmann took the hint, and went on, +exactly as if there had been no interruption: “What did you mean when +you said yesterday you loved a free country?” + + +VII + +Poor Nick! He was a talkative, eager young fellow, a propagandist; +and for fourteen months and two days they had had him behind steel +bars. He had boiled, he had seethed, he had all but exploded. And now +suddenly he saw a hope! “Give me a chance to explain,” he pleaded; +and the cunning prosecutor said: “I am asking you to explain now.” +Actually, the great Mr. Katzmann asked him to explain! The great +Judge Thayer said it would be all right for him to explain! The jury, +the spectators, everybody was ready to listen--while he told what he +thought about America, about Italy, about liberty, about the workers +and their rights, the rich and the poor, good food and vegetables, +schools, free speech, Debs, the capitalist class, Harvard College, D. +Rockefeller, Morgan, working people, war, socialism, Abraham Lincoln, +Abe Jefferson, the Irish, the Germans, the French, governments, +devilment and robbery--everything! Perhaps he could not convert them, +but at least he could make them understand him! + +Forgive him if his stump-speech is long--he has all the conclusions +of a lifetime to state! Forgive him if it is jumbled--he has no time +to arrange it, he does not know at what moment they may shut him off +again and lock him up for another fourteen months! Forgive him if it is +incoherent--he is groping desperately for words in a strange tongue, +stammering, halting, starting again, tripping himself up with his +excitement, the intensity of his convictions. And meantime the bland +prosecutor stands silent, smiling--why should he trouble to work, +when his victim will hang himself with his own rope? The judge is +content, for he knows it will look well in the record--the defendant +has had a chance to express himself, no possible claim that he was +misrepresented. Most content of all are the jury-men--because they have +power to punish a wop who is insulting and defiling all their most +sacred Yankee prejudices. + +Said Nicola Sacco, in defense of his life: + +“When I was in Italy, a boy, I was a Republican, so I always thinking +Republican has more chance to manage education, develop, to build some +day his family, to raise the child and education, if you could. But +that was my opinion; so when I came to this country I saw there was not +what I was thinking before, but there was all the difference, because +I been working in Italy not so hard as I been work in this country. I +could live free there just as well. Work in the same condition but not +so hard, about seven or eight hours a day, better food. I mean genuine. +Of course, over here is good food, because it is bigger country, to any +those who got money to spend, not for the working and laboring class, +and in Italy is more opportunity to laborer to eat vegetable, more +fresh, and I came in this country. When I been started work here very +hard and been work thirteen years, hard worker, I could not been afford +much a family the way I did have the idea before. I could not put any +money in the bank; I could no push my boy some to go to school and +other things. I teach over here men who is with me. The free idea gives +any man a chance to profess his own idea, not the supreme idea, not to +give any person, not to be like Spain in position, yes, about twenty +centuries ago, but to give a chance to print and education, literature, +free speech, that I see it was all wrong. I could see the best men, +intelligent, education, they been arrested and sent to prison and died +in prison for years and years without getting them out, and Debs, one +of the great men in his country, he is in prison, still away in prison, +because he is a Socialist. He wanted the laboring class to have better +conditions and better living, more education, give a push his son if he +could have a chance some day, but they put him in prison. Why? Because +the capitalist class, they know, they are against that, because the +capitalist class, they don’t want our child to go to high school or +college or Harvard College. There would be no chance, there would not +be no,--they don’t want the working class educationed; they want the +working class to be a low all the times, be underfoot, and not to be +up with the head. So, sometimes, you see, the Rockefellers, Morgans, +they give fifty,--I mean they give five hundred thousand dollars to +Harvard College, they give a million dollars for another school. Every +day say, ‘Well, D. Rockefeller is a great man, the best man in the +country.’ I want to ask him who is going to Harvard College? What +benefit the working class they will get by those million dollars they +give by Rockefeller, D. Rockefellers. They won’t get, the poor class, +they won’t have no chance to go to Harvard College because men who is +getting $21 a week or $30 a week, I don’t care if he gets $80 a week, +if he gets a family of five children he can’t live and send his child +and go to Harvard College if he wants to eat everything nature will +give him. If he wants to eat like a cow, and that is the best thing +but I want men to live like men. I like men to get everything that +nature will give best, because they belong,--we are not the friend of +any other place, but we are belong to nations. So that is why my idea +has been changed. So that is why I love people who labor and work and +see better conditions every day develop, makes no more war. We no want +fight by the gun, and we don’t want to destroy young men. The mother +been suffering for building the young man. Some day need a little more +bread, so when the time the mother get some bread or profit out of that +boy, the Rockefellers, Morgans, and some of the peoples, high class, +they send to war. Why? What is war? The war is not shoots like Abraham +Lincoln’s and Abe Jefferson, to fight for the free country, for the +better education to give chance to any other peoples, not the white +people but the black and the others, because they believe and know they +are mens like the rest, but they are war for the great millionaire. No +war for the civilization of men. They are war for business, million +dollars come on the side. What right we have to kill each other? I +been work for the Irish. I have been working with the German fellow, +with the French, many other peoples. I love them people just as I +could love my wife, and my people for that did receive me. Why should +I go kill them men? What he done to me? He never done anything, so I +don’t believe in no war. I want to destroy those guns. All I can say, +the Government put the literature, give us educations. I remember in +Italy, a long time ago, about sixty years ago, I should say, yes, +about sixty years ago, the Government they could not control very much +those two,--devilment went on, and robbery, so one of the government +in the cabinet he says, ‘If you want to destroy those devilments, if +you want to take off all those criminals, you ought to give a chance to +Socialist literature, education of people, emancipation. That is why I +destroy governments, boys.’ That is why my idea I love Socialists. That +is why I like people who want education and living, building, who is +good, just as much as they could. That is all.” + + +VIII + +July 7th was the date of this oration. Three days previously all +patriots had celebrated the Declaration of Independence, with its +opening assertion that “all men are created equal.” If the author +of that document, “Abe Jefferson,” could have been present in the +Dedham court-house, he would have been able to understand the +blundering protest of an uneducated foreigner, chained for life to an +edge-trimming machine in a shoe-factory. But not so this jury, not this +judge nor this prosecuting attorney! To them it was treason; and the +moment the orator ceased, the wolverine or lynx was on his neck again. +“And that is why you love the United States of America? She is back +more than twenty centuries like Spain, is she?” + +Worse yet, the presumptuous wop had dared to insult Harvard College! +The district attorney waited until after lunch, to refresh himself +and gather his energies to deal with such insolence. “Did you say +in substance you could not send your boy to Harvard? Don’t you +know Harvard educates more boys of poor people free than any other +university in the United States of America?” + +The defense lawyers objected, but were overruled, and poor Sacco had +to answer. If he had been an authority on educational statistics, his +answer would have been that Harvard was educating free something over +one hundred students, while the University of Wisconsin had educated +free in that year five thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five, and +the University of California had educated free eleven thousand, three +hundred and forty. + +But alas, poor Nick was not an authority on educational statistics, +and could only say that he didn’t know; thereby confessing to a more +serious crime than first degree murder. Said the outraged Mr. Katzmann: +“So without the light of knowledge on that subject, you are condemning +even Harvard University, are you, as being a place for rich men?” + +More argument, more interruptions; the defense lawyers protesting, +Judge Thayer overruling them--he and Katzmann like two skillful +basket-ball players, keeping the ball in play between them and working +it down the field to the goal. “Did you intend to condemn Harvard +College?” (Objection overruled.) “Were you ready to say none but the +rich could go there without knowing about offering scholarships?” +(Objection overruled.) “Does your boy go to the public schools? Are +there any schools in the town you come from in Italy that compare with +the school your boy goes to?” (Objection.) And then, free nursing in +the town of Stoughton! The number of children in the schools of Boston, +and what did Sacco know about it! Said Mr. McAnarney: “I object to that +answer. I object to the question and the answer.” Said Judge Thayer: +“The question may stand, and the answer also.” + +To Cornelia Thornwell, watching this scene, listening to these +interminable wrangles, this was not a real procedure in a court; this +was some kind of crazy dream, a world of cross-questions and crooked +answers, another Alice in Wonderland. Yes, that was it--Cornelia was +in the home of the White Rabbit and the March Hare, the Mock Turtle +and the Queen of Hearts! “He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!” +A world where things changed their form suddenly, where they grew +enormously big and terrifying and then shrunk to littleness, so that +you had to laugh at them! A world in which a blond and genial gentleman +with bursting red pulpy face turned suddenly into a wolverine or lynx, +chewing a deer’s neck--and then into a basketball player, romping down +a field with a judge! Anything but a responsible public official, +conducting a judicial procedure involving human life! + + I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury, + Said cunning old Fury; + I’ll try the whole cause and condemn you to death! + +They got onto the question of the literature which Sacco and Vanzetti +claimed they had been intending to gather up. “Books relating to +anarchy, were they not?” “Not all of them.” “How many of them?” “Well +all together. We are Socialists, democratic, any other socialistic +information, Socialists, Syndicalists, Anarchists, any paper.” They +discussed for a while what had been intended with the literature, +whether it was to be destroyed or only hidden for a while. Sacco +admitted it was to be hidden. “Certainly, because they are educational +for book, educational.” Said the prosecutor: “An education in anarchy, +wasn’t it?” Said the witness: “Why, certainly. Anarchistic is not +criminals.” This greatly incensed the district attorney. “I did not +ask you if they are criminals or not. Nor are you to pass upon that, +sir.” What a light this threw upon his purpose! And upon the argument +which Cornelia was to hear in future years from the whole of official +Massachusetts--that the purpose of this cross-examination had been to +prove that Sacco and Vanzetti had not been genuine “Reds,” but were +merely making a pretense at it! + +On and on, with no end in sight. Presently the wolverine or lynx was +back at his neck-chewing--though you would think his victim must by +now be bled to death. “And you are a man who tells this jury that +the United States of America is a disappointment to you?” Again an +objection of the defense, and the webthayer telling the wolverine or +lynx how to proceed. The judge pointed out that Katzmann had made the +mistake of “assuming” that Sacco was the man. So of course Katzmann +took the hint, and framed it as a question; _was_ Sacco the man? The +lawyers again objected, and the judge overruled, and the lawyers asked +an exception, and then the victim couldn’t understand the phrase, +“passed judgment upon the United States of America,” and it had to +be explained to him: “Well, tell us about how disappointed you were, +and what you did not find and what you expected to find. Are you that +man?” Yes, Sacco admitted, he was the man; and the jury was greatly +enlightened. + + +IX + +The ordeal was over at last, and a court official came to Cornelia +Thornwell, saying that His Honor would like to see her in his chambers. +Another interview with the judge--the third during the trial! It +was intolerable to him that members of the aristocracy which he +reverenced should be sitting there in court day by day disapproving +of the procedure; he must argue with them, he must explain and defend +himself, he must bring the great ones to appreciate his services. He +meant it for a compliment to them; but unfortunately he paid the same +compliment to newspaper reporters and photographers, and other persons +whom the aristocracy does not recognize. + +He had taken off his black silk robe and hung it on a hook, and was now +a quite ordinary little old man, small, narrow-shouldered, with white +hair and a feeble chin and bloodless complexion. He rose from his chair +and bowed her to a seat, and she saw that his hands were trembling, and +his blinking worse than usual--he was a tired old man, who had been +through a severe ordeal and was wrought up and suffering. He was fussy +in his manner, over-cordial and lacking in repose; he repeated himself, +saying the same words several times: “Now, Mrs. Thornwell, you see, you +see! You see what I told you about those men!” + +“How do you mean, Judge Thayer?” + +“You heard the testimony that fellow Sacco gave? You see he admits +it, he admits the worst--they are arnychists, of the most desperate +character--they say it, defiantly--they defy the court and all society!” + +“But, Judge Thayer, I have always known they were anarchists. I don’t +understand they are on trial for anarchism.” + +“No, but it shows their character, their ideas. They have no respect +for the law--they are men who would commit crimes.” + +“But I heard Sacco’s employer testify that he was a good workman, +that he had not been absent from his machine but one day in a long +time--he was trusted with the keys to the factory--he had been a +night-watchman--” + +“Oh, but Mrs. Thornwell, you should hear what Kelley says outside!” + +“What do you mean, what Kelley says?” + +“I cannot tell you his words, they are not fit for a lady’s ears; the +substance of it is that Kelley is afraid to tell the truth about what +he thinks of Sacco.” + +“Judge Thayer, you appal me!” + +“How do you mean, madame?” + +“You are going outside the testimony of the case, considering gossip +that people bring you, things that the witnesses are unwilling to say +under oath!” + +“I am dealing with people who are terrorized. You cannot imagine +the condition in this community, the time we have had getting men +to come forward and testify at all. Think of the situation, Mrs. +Thornwell--what it means, where it was necessary to summon nearly seven +hundred veniremen in order to get a jury!” + +“And so you think that our legal system has broken down, and you throw +it overboard! I have read that men were executed upon the gossip of +spies in Turkey under the sultans, and in Russia under the tsars, but I +did not know we had come to that in Massachusetts.” + +The old man’s face showed that he had blood in him after all. He +held up a shaking hand to stop her. “Mrs. Thornwell, it is a grave +impropriety for you to address such words to a judge who is presiding +over a trial!” + +Cornelia rose. “You well know that I did not seek this meeting, Judge +Thayer. If it is your idea that you are free to say what you please in +condemnation of these men, and that impropriety begins when you hear +what you do not wish to hear, then I would advise you to confine your +talks to your social inferiors, for I have not been brought up to carry +on conversation on that basis.” + +The pitiful old man had risen, trembling so that he had to hold onto +the back of the chair to sustain himself. His voice became shrill--it +was like a thin strip of steel. “Mrs. Thornwell, I deeply regret having +to say such a thing to you, but it amounts to contempt of court, what +you have said to a judge while he is sitting upon a case.” + +“I will leave your chambers,” said Cornelia, haughtily, “and trust +that you will refrain from troubling me with further invitations. But +I will not fail to tell you what is the opinion of every disinterested +person in the court-room--that the scenes witnessed to-day constitute a +travesty upon justice, the worst I have ever heard of in my life!” + +She started to the door. But even then the old man could not give up. +He came hurrying behind her, stretching out a hand that seemed to be +palsied. “Mrs. Thornwell! I warn you! You are letting yourself be +deceived! You are being used by unscrupulous persons! We are surrounded +by criminals, by desperate and embittered enemies of our institutions! +You owe it to your ancestry and your heritage to stand behind us--we +are trying to protect the community--a public service--patriotic +duty--a desperate danger--arnychists--assassination--conspiracy--” +they were snatches of words that Cornelia heard, while she was going +down the corridor, not yet out of sound of the shrill metallic voice. + + +X + +Frank P. Sibley was a star reporter of the Boston _Globe_, covering +this trial in a special effort to be fair. The _Globe_ aims to be what +is known as a “family newspaper,” and has become one of the wealthiest +in America upon a policy of publishing the name of everybody in Eastern +Massachusetts not less than twice every year. It gives pages of local +gossip from every town and village: “For the Friday evening meeting of +the Ladies’ Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church a delicious +walnut cake was provided by Mrs. Amanda Lubb, who is visiting her +niece, Mrs. Peter Bobbs of Scrugham Corners,” and so on. Sibley, who +contributed to a column of sentimental comment signed “Uncle Dudley,” +was an old-fashioned Bostonian, having notions of honor and dignity now +going out of fashion. He was covering this murder trial as a high civic +duty, signing his daily articles, and taking them very seriously. + +And here he saw the judge on the bench, forcing himself upon +newspapermen, insisting upon talking about the case with them, such an +impropriety as had never been heard of. Judge Thayer joining reporters +walking back to the court-house from lunch, asking them what they +thought of his conduct of the case; telling them of other murder trials +he had conducted, and of compliments he had received from justices +of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth for his skillful +handling and exact rulings! Sibley could not tell such things in his +paper, for that was not what several hundred thousand families of +Eastern Massachusetts wanted to read with their morning cod-fish balls. +But he thought it his duty to write a letter to the attorney-general +of the Commonwealth--to which that blue-blood gentleman thought it his +duty to make no reply! + +Did a rumor come to Judge Thayer? Or was there something in the +attitude of the newspapermen which conveyed, even to his obtuse mind, +that he was not “making a hit”? Anyhow, he was anxious; and now in that +private dining-room of the Dedham Inn where the reporters lunched +and discussed their stories, comparing notes so as to protect one +another from error, they were surprised to have the judge come up to +them without warning and announce: “I think I am entitled to have a +statement published in the Boston papers that this trial is being +conducted in a fair and impartial manner.” + +Naturally, the group of men at the table were taken aback. Even a +newspaper reporter must respect somebody, and who should it be if not +the learned judge of the Superior Court, presiding at a trial which +involved the attendance of some two hundred persons, and was costing +the county of Norfolk some two thousand dollars per day? + +Thayer turned to the star reporter of the _Globe_. “Sibley, you’re the +oldest. What do you think? Is this trial being fairly and impartially +conducted?” And Sibley had to think in a hurry. “Your Honor, I have +never seen anything like it.” His Honor stood and pondered that +compliment. Some little bird must have whispered to him that it would +be better to take it at face value; he turned on his heel and walked +out of the room. + +And now came the cross-questioning of Sacco, with the judge on the +bench delivering his elaborate sneer at the defense: “Are you going +to claim that your client, in collecting this literature, was acting +in the interest of the United States?” The question revealed such +an obvious effort to distort Sacco’s meaning, and expose him to the +prejudice and hatred of the jury, that Sibley quoted the sentence in +his story; with the result that during the recess he found himself +summoned into the judge’s chambers. His Honor took him to task for +having quoted such a sentence; no such question had been asked, and +the judge had verified it by getting the transcript of his remarks. He +presented to Sibley a typewritten record, upon which the question did +not appear. + +Sibley, of course, was embarrassed, and said that he had written the +sentence down as he heard it; he could only assume that his hearing +had played him false. He was about to ask if the judge wished him to +publish a retraction, when the bailiff entered, announcing that the +jury had arrived. The judge entered court, and so did Sibley. Next +day, when the actual record of the case was available, the reporter +consulted it, and found that it showed Judge Thayer’s question, in the +exact words quoted in the _Globe_! Five times the old man had asked +that question explicitly, and several times more by implication; but +now he had got frightened, and in an effort to cheat the public and +hide the truth, he had gone to the extreme of preparing a doctored +version of the record, and trying to palm it off on a reporter! + + +XI + +The funds of the defense had run out. A collection was taken among the +sympathizers at the trial, and six hundred dollars raised; but that was +not enough. Cornelia wrote letters and sent telegrams; then, in one of +those moods of mischief which had always been incomprehensible to the +Thornwells, she called up her daughter, Deborah, at the North Shore +place. “Deborah, there is some trouble, very serious--something I must +see you about at once. No, I can’t talk about it over the telephone, +you must come here to Dedham.” She used, as nearly as she could +remember, the words by which Deborah had summoned her to Boston. The +daughter, of course, thought instantly of Betty and Joe, having always +this scandal hanging over her head. + +It was a drive of two or three hours, and she arrived about lunch-time. +Her mother was waiting at the Dedham Inn, and there was Betty, looking +very lovely, though pale and tired--no visible trace of a scandal. But +there was a trace of tears in the child’s eyes--one does not so easily +sever family ties--even during the class struggle! “What is it?” asked +Deborah, of her mother. + +Cornelia replied that they couldn’t talk about it here. “Wait until the +afternoon session is over.” + +“You mean of the court?” + +“Yes, my child, I cannot miss this afternoon, there is to be some +important testimony. You come with me.” + +“To a murder-trial, Mother!” + +“Surely, if I can stand a murder-trial, my daughter can!” + +Mrs. Rupert Alvin had never done such a thing in her life. She +regarded courts as vulgar places, and attending them as evidence of +sensation-seeking. She might get her name into the papers; she looked +around for reporters, in the same spirit as her ancestors in this +neighborhood had looked for wild Indians with tomahawks. She met some +of the ladies, old and young, who were aiding the defense, and managed +to find something wrong, either socially or sartorially, with every one +of them--though she kept her thoughts to herself. “Mother, is there +anything wrong about Betty?” she whispered. Cornelia said no, it wasn’t +that. + +They sat in the court-room: Deborah straight as a ramrod, motionless +for three hours. Her manner said, Do not assume that I have any +interest in this, or that I give it my sanction. She heard Guadagni, +journalist and lecturer, telling the story of his lunch with Sacco +in Boston on the day of the South Braintree crime. The murders had +been committed at a little after three; and from one to two, or +later, Guadagni had been chatting with Sacco, discussing the banquet +being given by a group of Italians, in honor of the editor of the +Boston _Transcript_, who had been decorated by the King of Italy in +recognition of his services in getting America into the war. The affair +took place that same day--which was how Guadagni fixed the date; Fred +Katzmann strove in vain to make him admit that it might have been some +other day. + +“You know, Mother,” said Deborah, when it was over, “those Italians +don’t think anything at all of telling lies to help one another out of +trouble.” + +“Yes, my dear, I know,” said Cornelia. “It’s just like the men of our +own family, sitting up nights fixing their stories for the Jerry Walker +case.” + +And when they were outside again, apart from the crowd, and the danger +of reporters, “Well, what do you think of our boys, Deborah?” + +“You mean those two prisoners? Mother, I don’t see how you can force +yourself to tolerate such people! Dark, sinister-looking--” + +“Most Italians are dark; but that doesn’t make them murderers.” + +Deborah shuddered. “I feel the hate in them--something frightful! Those +set, intent faces--” + +“My child, they are intent upon the question of whether they are going +to the electric chair. It seems really important to them.” + + +XII + +They went to Cornelia’s room in the hotel, and she lay down to rest. +Deborah sat up straight. “Now, Mother, what is it?” + +So Cornelia told her: “My dear, I have to pain you, I must sell my +jewels.” + +“Mother! What do you mean?” + +“The defense has run out of funds, and I am not going to let those boys +lose the chance for their lives. I must have some cash, and there is +nothing I can think of but to sell my jewels.” + +“But Mother, how dreadful!” Deborah was shocked into incoherence. +The family heirlooms--they were priceless--treasures with spiritual +associations--surely the children had some rights! + +“You miss the point, my child,” interrupted Cornelia. “I want to sell +them to _you_.” + +Deborah said, “Oh!” She looked at her mother--no trace of a smile on +the little round face, no twinkle in the soft brown eyes! Deborah said, +“Oh!” again, and began to realize that this was another manifestation +of that sense of humor which her father had found so untimely. A bit +of maternal whimsy had brought a big limousine rolling its stately way +from the North Shore to Dedham! + +Cornelia proceeded with entire gravity. “Of course I know that some +day you will have these jewels, you and Clara and Alice. But meantime, +I have to have money for this case. You know Queen Isabella sold her +jewels to finance Christopher Columbus--at least, the legend says so. +I want to sell mine in a still worthier cause, and I offer you a third +share.” + +“How much money do you have to have, Mother?” + +“Five thousand dollars. I have no idea what those jewels are worth--it +must be thirty or forty thousand--” + +“We are not going to give up our family jewels, Mother, you know +that, so don’t be foolish. If the money was for you, none of us would +hesitate a moment; but it seems so dreadful to us to have you throwing +everything away on these anarchists--men who hate our country--” + +“Now, my daughter, let us not go into that. I am making you a strictly +business proposition. I offer to sell you one-third of my jewels for +five thousand dollars. I will give you a formal receipt, and go to the +bank and get them the first day I am in town.” + +“You know I don’t care about that, Mother.” Deborah sat, gazing in +front of her for a minute. It was clear that she was in a trap, no +way out. So with no more ado she went to her handbag, took out her +checkbook and fountain-pen, sat at the desk, and created five thousand +dollars. + +She possessed the power to do that magical thing; she did it +frequently--at the board-meetings of orphan-asylums, in homes for the +halt and the deaf and the blind, in vestry-rooms and parish-houses +of Episcopal churches. The fact that she had such power, and was +willing to exercise it, caused a kind of halo of glory to exist about +her; it affected the souls of charity workers and superintendents of +institutions, of curates and clergymen, so that a trembling seized +them when the great Mrs. Alvin swept into the room, their knees went +weak under them and almost gave way. Deborah knew of this, and while +she pretended to be unaware of it, the pretense was highly artificial; +in reality this sense of power was what she lived for and by, and she +watched the persons with whom she dealt, and expected them to pay her +exactly the right tribute of deference and excitement, and if any one +of them failed, then Deborah was incensed against that person--though +she always found some other reason for it, the person was too +talkative, self-assertive, overdressed or underdressed, anything that +wasn’t “Boston.” + +Betty, shrewd little minx, had learned to analyze these manifestations: +a fascinating study in psychology, a mingling of worldly glory with +Christian humility, a checker-board pattern, black and white, in a +woman’s soul. To be proud of your money and what you did with your +money was the very acme of vulgarity, it was the thing which marked you +as the wife of a “lumberman,” or a “Pittsburgh millionaire.” So you +were never proud of your money, you were proud of your lack of pride, +of the distance which an assured breeding put between you and your +money. You associated yourself with the poor and lowly, because that +was your Christian duty; and if the poor and lowly looked up to you, it +was because of your Christian virtue, and not because you had the power +to turn them out to starve and freeze. If they were really refined and +worthy poor, they understood this, and so everything was upon a high +plane; it was God who had appointed all things, and assigned to each +his station and form of conduct, and each did what God wished, and +felt the emotions which God inspired. Such was the collective soul of +Trinity Church in the City of Boston. + + +XIII + +Other witnesses testified to the alibi of Sacco, supporting Guadagni. +Dentamore, a bank department manager, had joined them in Boni’s +restaurant, and taken part in the talk about the banquet which the +Italians were giving to the editor of the Boston _Transcript_. A Boston +grocer testified that Sacco had paid him a bill on that day; he had +his notebook, with the payment entered. Also there was a deposition of +a clerk in the consulate, now in Italy, telling how Sacco had applied +for a passport on that day; Eugene Lyons had gone to Italy to get that +evidence. + +There was more alibi testimony for Vanzetti. His friend Alfonsina Brini +took the stand and told how he had sold her fish that morning, and +brought Rosen to sell her cloth that afternoon. The district attorney +was so angry in his cross-questioning that he made her cry; it seemed +to him unpardonable that she should have made an alibi for Bart on +two separate days, for two separate crimes; he would not realize that +Bart had been practically a member of the Brini family, ever since his +coming to Plymouth nine years back, and that all the Brinis saw him +every day. The district attorney made Mrs. Brini stand up while he read +into the record a stipulation to the effect that she had testified to +an alibi for Vanzetti on another occasion. The jury was not supposed to +know anything about the Plymouth trial and conviction, but of course +they did know all about it, and smiled to one another while this +statement was read. The lawyer fellows were trying to tie red tape over +their eyes, but they would not be blinded! + +Another legal hocus-pocus: in order to avoid having the Plymouth +conviction brought into evidence, the defense had had to agree not to +introduce character witnesses for either defendant. Now the prosecution +came forward with a demand that the jury be instructed to disregard +all evidence as to the good character of either defendant. So Cornelia +Thornwell heard one of those voices which had cried to her in vain in +Plymouth county-jail: not the voice of a ghost, but of the far-seeing +Vanzetti! The very trick he had explained to her--his enemies had made +a convict of him, and now were using his conviction to cast a cloud +over both him and Nick, to send them to their deaths. Mr. Katzmann put +on his sternest manner and read to the jury the stipulation: + + “The Commonwealth assents to the request of both the defendants + that all evidence heretofore offered in the course of this trial to + the effect that one or both of said defendants bore the reputation + of being peaceful and law-abiding citizens, be stricken from the + record of this trial, and that such evidence heretofore offered be + entirely disregarded by the jury so that the result of striking + same from the record there is no evidence before the jury that + either or both of said defendants bore the reputation of being a + peaceful and law-abiding citizen.” + +All in vain the years that Nicola Sacco had worked for the Three-K +Shoe Company, earning from forty to sixty dollars a week as expert +edge-trimmer, with extra pay as night-watchman for long periods! All in +vain those annual gardens full of ripe red tomatoes, and the surplus +given to Mr. Kelley, the boss! All in vain the ten dollars a week +Rosina had put by, till they had fifteen hundred in the savings-bank, +with the record of deposits to show that it had been got by labor, +not by holdups! All in vain the hard toil which Bartolomeo Vanzetti +had performed for the owning class of New England, in stone-quarries +and brickyards, on railroads and reservoirs! In vain his years as +fish-peddler, the friendship of hundreds of Italian housewives, of +little Italian children, so that when they heard of his dreadful fate, +they wept and wrung their hands, and would never cease to talk about +him all the days of their lives! In vain his plea, “Save Nick, he got +the wife and kids!” Again the lawyers made their demands for separate +trials, but Judge Thayer stood firm to save the funds of Norfolk +County. Ten thousand dollars a week for seven weeks was all two wops +were worth! + + +XIV + +A bell rang in the soul of Cornelia Thornwell: last call for witnesses! +She knew what was coming, and was not surprised when Lee Swenson asked +her to have lunch with him; nor when he got a table apart from others, +and looked about to make sure there was no listener. “Well, Nonna, what +do you think of our chances?” + +“I don’t know what to think, Lee. I have no experience. You must tell +me.” + +“Well, I think that speech of Sacco’s finished us.” + +“Oh, Lee!” Something went weak inside Cornelia, and she lost interest +in lunch. She sat, staring before her, while the lawyer went on, +lowering his voice. + +“One last chance, Nonna. Do you really want to save those boys? In two +hours I can fix you a story; you go on the stand and tell it, and it’ll +cinch the case. You can’t imagine how easy it will be--Katzmann won’t +dare be rough with you--if he did, I could rip him to pieces with this +jury. They’ll have no time to investigate; they can’t take more than +a day with their rebuttal witnesses, and that is the end--the case is +closed, and anything that comes out afterwards is a joke.” + +“Lee--don’t ask me! Don’t ask me!” That was all she could say; he saw +the pain in her face, and dropped it. “All right, I won’t worry you.” + +But she could not drop it; she had to argue with him about the case. +“Lee, how can they convict men on such evidence? I have kept a record: +thirty-one witnesses have said Vanzetti was not the man; twelve others, +put on by the prosecution, ought to have known him for the bandit if +he really was, and they didn’t.” She went on, clamoring her protest. +Not one of the witnesses who identified Bart or Nick had ever known +them before, or claimed to have seen them before; in every case it was +a question of remembering strangers; and to American eyes half the +Italians in the world looked like Sacco! + +“Yes, Nonna,” said Lee, patiently. + +“And the least time afterwards was three weeks--everybody had three +weeks to forget what the bandits looked like! Some, like Goodridge and +Pelzer, had nearly a year!” + +“It’s the jury you have to convince, Nonna--not me!” + +“But you must make that clear to them, Lee!” + +“I’ll do so, never fear. But I can’t deny that they are anarchists; I +can’t deny that our principal witnesses are Italians. Those are the +fatal facts.” + +They sat, with the food on their plates growing cold; something that +had happened to them many times. Life or death was in the balance. +Should Lee Swenson, in his speech to the jury, stress the lack of +evidence against Vanzetti? If he did so, he might get Vanzetti off. But +if Lee knew anything about this Yankee jury, they would “soak” Nick all +the harder; and Bart had positively forbidden it to be done. Once again +he commanded, “Save Nick, he got the wife and kids!” + +They groped in the dark, and beat bare hands against stone walls; they +heard in imagination those warning voices which were to haunt the rest +of their lives. If only they had known this, if only they had done +that! They went back to the courtroom, and the case for the defense was +closed. And next day the prosecution put on its rebuttal witnesses--one +of them Henry Hellyer, the Pinkerton operative “H. H.”! He came +to discredit one of the defense witnesses, and the bland Katzmann +questioned him, serenely sure about those secrets, locked in his head, +which would have blown the case of the prosecution higher than a kite. +Actually, Hellyer had in his hand the reports he had turned in on his +investigations; when he was uncertain, he said, “I can find out”--and +he examined his notes, right there before everybody. And the defense +had no idea what was in the notes, no suspicion of the chance they were +losing! The bland Katzmann turned the witness over to Mr. McAnarney, +and that gentleman said, “No questions, if your honor please.” The +voices of all the future, shouting into the ears of the defense, were +heard by no one. Not a single “hunch,” not a dream, not a spirit-voice +or a telepathic message! + + +XV + +Next morning Lee Swenson and Fred Moore pleaded the case of the +defense, and then the bland prosecutor rose to close the arguments. +He had four hours in which to apply those arts he had learned during +eleven years’ service to the Commonwealth; four hours in which the +minds of these twelve good Yankees and true belonged to him, to mold +and shape as he would. + +For seven weeks they had listened to testimony, most of it dull and +soporific, obscurely related to the main issue. Lawyers had wrangled, +using long technical terms beyond the grasp of uneducated men. The +total amount of testimony was thirty-five hundred typewritten pages, +more than a million words. To study them, and analyze their meaning +and relationships, to digest them and evaluate them, would occupy a +brilliant legal mind several months; and here were two real estate men, +two machinists, a grocer, a mason, a stock-keeper, a clothing salesman, +a mill-operative, a shoemaker, a last-maker and a farmer. They could +not assimilate the evidence, and they would not have either time or +opportunity to try. They must make some sort of guess; and one who +understood their prejudices could determine what that guess would be. + +The wops and most of their lawyers were “furriners”; but the genial and +friendly prosecutor was their county official, whom they had elected. +For purposes of this trial he called himself “the Commonwealth,” and in +that guise he could say pompous and magnificent things without sounding +foolish. He was honest, and he was conscientious--he told them so +himself, in grave and weighty words: + +“Gentlemen, there is some responsibility upon the Commonwealth. There +is some responsibility upon a prosecutor who produces witnesses whose +evidence tends to prove murder. He may think well. He should think +long, and he should always have his intelligence and his conscience +with him before he puts the stamp of approval of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts upon him as a credible witness before he takes the stand +seeking to prove the guilt of men and if proven will result in their +death.” + +From the point of view of prosody that statement could have been +improved: but the jurors knew what it meant. This was Fred Katzmann, +the prominent and successful, and he would tell them what to think. +For example, about Lola Andrews--a distracted, hysterical female, who +had stultified herself several times in Mr. Katzmann’s presence. Now +he told the jury what to think about her: “I have been in this office, +gentlemen, for now more than eleven years. I cannot recall in that too +long service for the Commonwealth that ever before I have laid eye +or given ear to so convincing a witness as Lola Andrews.” Concerning +Pelzer he told them that the witness had twice falsified, but was +“big and manly enough now to tell you of his prior falsehoods and his +reasons for them.” (The reasons were cowardice.) Concerning Levangie, +who had identified Vanzetti as driver of the bandit car, he asked the +jury to believe that Levangie had seen Vanzetti in the car, but thought +he had seen him driving when he wasn’t! + +And then the amazing incident of the cap. There were two caps in +evidence--one which had been picked up at the scene of the crime, and +the other which had belonged to Sacco, and which the police had taken +from his home, after he had been arrested. This latter cap Nick had not +seen for fourteen months. While he was on the stand it was suddenly +held up, and he was asked if it was his. + +Of course the poor fellow did not know what to think; the prosecutor +might be playing some trick upon him, getting him to recognize a cap +which was not his cap, and then accusing him of lying. All he could say +was, “It looks like my cap,” and again, “I think it is my cap, yes.” +Badgered about it, and told to put it on, he finally was brought to +say, “I don’t know. That cap looks too dirty to me.... It look like, +but it is probably dirt--probably dirty after”--meaning that it was +dirty after the police had kept it for a year and shown it about. + +That was what Nick said; and now behold the outraged Mr. Katzmann, +storming before the jury: “But that is not all, gentlemen. He has +falsified to you before your very faces ... he would not admit, +gentlemen, that the cap was his!” Fred Moore interrupted, on behalf +of the defense, declaring that this was not a fair account of what +was in the record. But Judge Thayer failed to make the facts clear to +the jury, and Katzmann went right ahead: “Why, gentlemen, deny the +ownership of that cap?” + +And then the Proctor incident; a long, detailed argument to the jury, +to the effect that two experts had testified that the “mortal bullet,” +taken from the body of Berardelli, had come from Sacco’s revolver. +Said Katzmann: “You might disregard all the identification testimony, +and base your verdict on the testimony of these experts.” And all +the time Katzmann knowing that he had framed a trick question, to +which Captain Proctor could answer yes, and fool the jury as to what +he really believed. Two years later, when Proctor made affidavit to +this trick, both Katzmann and his assistant, Williams, made answering +affidavits--and they were trick answers, seeming to deny Proctor’s +statements, but in reality not denying the essential one! + +From half past two in the afternoon until seven in the evening a +court-room packed solid with human beings listened to the district +attorney deal with witness after witness in that spirit. The Supreme +Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has never +specifically declared that a prosecuting attorney must be fair; and +Katzmann’s successor, five years later, would be cynically flippant on +the subject. When it was pointed out how Katzmann had concealed the +witnesses Kelly and Kennedy from the defense, because they said that +Vanzetti was not in the bandit car, Katzmann’s successor would argue +before Judge Thayer, as one lawyer to another lawyer: “I wonder if Mr. +Thompson has not an exaggerated and too ethical notion of the functions +of a district attorney.” + +But nothing like that now! To this jury Mr. Katzmann was the lover of +truth, the noble-minded, upright friend of justice. Also he was the +patriot; when he came to the end of a four-and-a-half-hour tirade, +exhausted, dripping with perspiration in the heat of a crowded +court-room, he remembered that the prisoners were wops, while the +jurymen were Yankees. His final words were a call to local solidarity: + +“Gentlemen of the jury, do your duty. Do it like men. _Stand together, +you men of Norfolk!_” + + +XVI + +Next day was Bastille Day in France, and a new Bastille was built in +America. “Web” Thayer mounted his throne and delivered his charge to +the jury. The throne was banked round with flowers, gifts from admirers +of law and order; and “Web’s” discourse began in a lofty and emotional +strain, as if affected by the intoxicating perfumes. “The Commonwealth +of Massachusetts called upon you to render a most important service. +Although you knew that such service would be arduous, painful and +tiresome, yet you, like the true soldier, responded to that call in +the spirit of supreme American loyalty. There is no better word in +the English language than ‘loyalty’.” Thus again he related the trial +with the dead bodies brought back from France, and the patriotic +exercises going on all over the country. In the copy he gave out to +the newspapers he added the sentence: “Keep courage, gentlemen, in your +deliberations, such as was typified by the American soldier boy as he +fought and gave up his life upon the battlefields of France.” + +The judge was supposed to be guiding the jury through the mazes of +technicalities, explaining the law, what they were to decide and what +not. He took two hours for his oration, and used more than half of +it in legal generalities and moral exhortations. He talked about God +and country, state and fellowmen, and the highest and noblest type +of true American citizenship “than which there is no grander in the +entire world.” He talked about the pure waters of the government, +“the grandest and noblest in the civilized world,” and he talked +about “the day that little band of Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.” +He used up so much time in that way that when he came to the mass +of identification testimony, he could deal with it only briefly and +in abstract terms. To the alibi testimony of the two defendants he +gave only a couple of paragraphs, and without mentioning any witness +specifically. + +But he found time for an elaborate discussion of “motive” in connection +with crime. In great detail and at great length he explained that +the motive in the South Braintree crime was robbery--something never +disputed by the defense, and therefore needless to mention. The +question was, not if the South Braintree murderers had committed +murder, but whether Sacco and Vanzetti had been at South Braintree. +When the judge proceeded to deal with the wrong issue, it was plain +enough that he was throwing dust into the jury’s eyes. + +And then the “consciousness of guilt,” upon which Thayer was to hammer +during the next six years of the case! He had deliberately obscured +this issue, by blocking the testimony about Salsedo and Elia; and now +he proceeded to give more than one-fifth of his time to explaining +to the jury what might have been in the minds of two men who lied to +the police when they were arrested. The judge who had not mentioned a +single alibi witness now found time to deal, point by point, and in +great detail, with the testimony of the arresting police officers, and +of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, to whose place Boda and Orciani, Sacco and +Vanzetti, had come on the night of the arrest. His charge called up the +most dark and sinister images. “If a person is willing to use a deadly +weapon such as a revolver upon an arresting officer in order to gain +his liberty, what would you naturally expect would be the quality of +the crime of which such person would be consciously guilty?” + +And then the testimony about the bullet. Did the judge know about the +catch in Captain Proctor’s testimony? Solemnly and definitely he told +the jury that the captain of the State Police had testified: “It was +his (Sacco’s) pistol that fired the bullet that caused the death of +Berardelli.” Two years later Web Thayer would be twisting and turning +and wriggling like one of Vanzetti’s Christmas eels, to make people +think he was denying that he had said that to the jury; but there +were his words, and they were false, and they sealed the fate of the +two anarchist wops. Had not the great Mr. Katzmann told them, only +the afternoon before: “You might disregard all the identification +testimony, and base your verdict on the testimony of these experts.” +To exhausted and bewildered jurymen, looking for a life-line, this +was something to hang onto; and they grabbed it. Headed by their +flag-saluting foreman, who had said, “Damn them, they ought to hang +anyhow!” the twelve good Yankees and true retired to the jury room to +deliberate. + + +XVII + +A hot summer afternoon; the jury locked in its room upstairs in the +court-house; the prisoners back in their cells in the jail; the judge +in his chambers; the lawyers, the court officials, the reporters +sitting about the grounds, under the heavy shade trees--the two sides, +prosecution and defense, keeping rigidly apart, a miniature war. + +Cornelia went to her room in the hotel. She could not sit up; but +then she could not lie down; she would get up and pace about, doing +odd things, aimlessly. Impossible to read, impossible to think +consecutively; if any one spoke, you started; if the telephone rang, +you went faint. No one had eaten; the very thought of food made your +stomach uneasy. Betty would sit by the bedside and try to comfort her +grandmother; she would start to talk about something, and then realize +that she was not being heard; they would look, and discover fear in the +other’s eyes. + +How long did juries usually take? Anywhere from an hour to two or three +days, said those who had experience. The longer they took, the better, +from the point of view of the defendants; so you must not be impatient! +But there ought to be some way provided by which the mind could be put +to sleep through such an ordeal. But then, no one could say for how +long the sleep should be! + +“Betty, don’t you suppose we ought to see Bart?” + +“Nonsense, Grannie dear,” said the girl. “You wouldn’t know what to say +to him, any more than you know what to say to me. Let me teach you the +Russian alphabet.” + +At six o’clock they went out, and strolled toward the court-house. +The jury room was dark--Judge Thayer had ordered the twelve taken +to supper. Swenson and Moore were sitting on the grass--in their +shirt sleeves, something shocking to the proprieties of this staid +New England town. Workingmen might do such a thing, but never +gentlemen--unless they came from the wild and woolly west; it was +almost enough to convict their clients. They put on their coats and +stood up when they saw the ladies coming; they discussed the rumors, +which had begun to fly--how the jury looked, what a court officer had +been heard to whisper. Lee held Cornelia’s arm. “Keep a stiff upper +lip, Nonna! There are many legal tricks--this isn’t the end!” “Oh, Lee! +then you think--” “I don’t think--I wait! But prepare for anything.” + +The jury was back again from supper. The lights were shining in the +upstairs room, the shades down. Now and then a shadow moved across. +Irresistibly your fancy was drawn to that room; impossible to be in +any other place, to think of any other thing. The twelve good Yankees +and true would be arguing; now and then they would take a ballot; they +would question the ones who disagreed, find out what was troubling +them, argue again, cite this detail and that, seeking to change the +doubters--but which way? Surely in all that group there must be some +who could think--some who could realize the hazardous nature of the +evidence--the almost complete lack of proof concerning Bart! But no, +Mr. Katzmann had told them that the reason the defense had concentrated +its arguments on Sacco was because they considered the case of Vanzetti +hopeless! He had said-- + +“What were you saying, Lee?” The lawyer had made a remark about the +swallows; they didn’t have that kind in the west. Yes, he was trying +to help her, to distract her mind! It was kind of him; he was one of +the kindest of men. She said: “Do they fly all night, Lee? Or does the +judge order them to bed?” And she did not know that he smiled. + + +XVIII + +It was five minutes to eight o’clock. Suddenly one of the little groups +in front of the court-house began to melt and flow into the building. +One, and then another. People were going inside! Then loungers about +the square began to notice it, people in the corner drug-store; +like magic the word spread--the jury was ready! One of the guards +condescended to tell the lawyers--the sheriff had telephoned to bring +the prisoners over. It took about ten minutes to fetch them; and in +that time the court-room was crowded, and half the town of Dedham +thronged outside. The doors were locked, the armed policemen guarding +them. + +The prisoners in their cage; Vanzetti tense, anxious, his brows +knitted; Sacco pale, almost green. A deep silence; then came the jury +filing in. One glance was enough; every man had his eyes fixed on the +floor. Lee Swenson made a gesture of despair. Cornelia saw it; and +caught Betty by the arm. + +The jury was polled; they answered faintly to their names. Said the +judge to the clerk, “You will please take the verdict.” Said the clerk, +“Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?” Said the +foreman, “We have.” + +The jurors rose; the prisoners rose; they stood facing one another. +“Nicola Sacco!” said the clerk, “hold up your right hand. What say you, +Mr. Foreman, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?” + +“Guilty,” said the flag-saluting foreman. “Damn them, they ought to +hang anyhow,” added a voice from within him; but the clerk did not hear +that. + +“Of murder?” said the clerk. + +“Yes.” + +“Murder in the first degree?” + +“Yes.” + +“On two indictments?” + +“Yes.” + +There was a pause. + +“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, hold up your right hand. What say you, Mr. +Foreman, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?” + +“Guilty.” + +“Of murder?” + +“Yes.” + +“Murder in the first degree?” + +“Yes.” + +“On two indictments?” + +“Yes.” + +A look of incredulity was on the face of Vanzetti. He could not realize +that this had happened to him. He stood with his hand still in the air, +like a statue. The dead, expressionless face of the old judge was gray. +“Gentlemen of the jury, as I did this morning, I again offer you thanks +for the services you have rendered. You may now go to your homes, from +which you have been absent for nearly seven weeks. We will now adjourn.” + +The bailiff began his familiar formula: “Hear ye! Hear ye!” But now +Sacco realized what had been done to him; he shouted above the bailiff: +“Sono innocente!” And then to the jurors, who were filing from the +court-room, “Two innocent men! You kill two innocent men!” + +Mrs. Sacco had been close behind the cage. At her husband’s cry she +leaped to her feet and rushed to him, and flung her arms about his +neck. “You bet your life!” she cried--the only way she knew of being +emphatic in this strange tongue. “Oh, Nick! They kill my man!” Her +shrieks rang through the room--a terrible moment; women began to weep. + +Sacco stood, caressing his wife, trying to comfort her; Vanzetti still +like a statue--not a sound from him. But Rosina’s shrieks rose louder +and louder; she fought away the lawyers who tried to disengage her +hands; she was a wild thing, possessed of more than human strength; +she thought they were going to take Nick away and electrocute him +that night, and the lawyers tried to explain to her the refinements +of American law--the appeals and technicalities, the infinitudes of +red tape, the millions of words to be printed and the hundreds of +thousands of dollars to be spent. But she only shrieked the louder, +“They kill my man! I got two children--what I do?” + +Until at last the stern policemen pulled her hands away, and forced +her back, and formed a ring with Rosina outside. Quickly they locked +the handcuffs upon the prisoners--an old story to the police, American +efficiency. Snappy orders, “All ready! March!” Through the door they +went, guards outside closing about them, twenty-five men in a solid +bunch, guns ready. “Stand back! Out of the way there! Forward, march!” +The sheriff’s men flung a line across the street, holding the curious +onlookers, while down the street into the twilight went prisoners +and escort, tramp, tramp, tramp! Anarchists, who do not believe in +organization, learn a lesson from the grimly efficient Commonwealth! + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE WHISPERING GALLERY + + +I + +Sacco and Vanzetti were back in their cells: the former in jail +in Dedham while his appeals were heard, the latter in Charlestown +State Prison, working at his old sentence of fifteen years for the +Bridgewater crime. Nick, as usual, had nothing to do all day--a cruel +form of punishment; it required tact and sympathy on the part of +visitors to persuade him that it was worthwhile to stand on his head +and walk on his hands, as a means of not going mad. Bart was now making +license plates for automobiles: the one industry which the Commonwealth +had been able to save from the grasp of private capital, and which +therefore could be used to keep state convicts from wholesale madness. +It was not happy work, for it involved the touch and smell of acids, +which gradually undermined Vanzetti’s health, and made more difficulty +for those who lived with him in sympathy. + +A black hour for the world, testing the souls of idealists. Famine in +Russia; the notorious inefficiency of communist bureaucracy had caused +the rains to stop falling--so it was reported by correspondents and +explained by editorial writers of capitalist newspapers. Throughout +Europe the White Terror enthroned; in Italy banded assassins in the +pay of banks and industrialists, murdering the leaders and rooting +out every trace of social protest, turning the country over to that +ultimate product of natural selection, the beast with the brains of +an engineer. Sacco and Vanzetti sat in their cells, and read of these +events, and stretched out their hands to the future, whose children +they were. + +Each in his own way, they would learn to make their appeal to +that future. Bartolomeo Vanzetti, dish-washer, ditch-digger and +fish-peddler, would learn to write; he would labor all day at a +stubborn and hostile language, and conquer it, and shape it to his +ends. He, whose schooling had ceased at the age of thirteen, would +make himself a master of letters; he who had never seen the inside of +a college building, would write such prose as no living graduate of +Harvard had ever achieved; he who was to die as a common criminal, +would defend his faith in words of elemental eloquence, outranking +anything produced by an American since Lincoln’s second inaugural. + +It would take long practice. Locked up alone in his cell, Bart would +write letters: letters to his lawyers, to members of the committee and +friends of the defense; letters to strangers who wrote to him, letters +to his anarchist comrades of Mexico, France, Russia. The rules of the +institution allowed only two letters a month, but they did not prevent +Bart’s handing a packet of manuscript to his lawyer. + +At first his efforts would be crude; he would be looking up long +words in the dictionary, and stringing them together, a kind of Babu +English. He would use Italian words literally translated, producing +novel effects. He would concoct strange polysyllables, apparently of +his own imagining; you would start to smile, until it occurred to you +that it might be a new kind of poetry. To Cornelia he wrote: “Even +if we will be killed at once by the carnefice, or little by little +by the confinement, you remain to hold light the banner of the human +vindications, and to accomplished redemption.” + +And again: “Do not desperate, comrade, of the cruelty of the human +events. Out of every little doctrine all too small and inadequate, out +of every party, petty and inefficient for the great problems of the +human justice and freedom--will ripen the historical nemesy and the +inevitable palingenesy.” + +He began translating passages from Italian books into English, things +which interested him, and which he wanted Cornelia to understand; +he would take her criticisms and study them, and then try again--a +correspondence course in composition, having the added excitement of a +race with the executioner. He wrote: + + “I was very beneficiated by your last visit and English-lesson. In + a letter received to-night, one Friend tells me that my English is + not perfect. I am still laughing for such a pious euphension. Why + do not say horrible? Nevertheless, I can made a better translation + than the one in argument. I did it as I did for an experiment, to + prove if an almost letterally translation is intelligible. I show + it to some friends, asking them if they understand it. The answer + was ‘yes,’ while it should have been ‘no,’ that I might have remade + the work with much profit and better result. + + “Of course, as the writing is beautiful in its original, and as + I labored very much at the dictionary, so I was thinking to have + accomplished something worth, and the disillution was, as almost + all disillatin, rather cruel. But when a poor one is surrounded + by many great difficulties, the small ones appear always a joke + to him, and after your visit I found myself in the best of the + mood--that is, I was decided to do in the future as much more good + than the much bad I did in the past. I analized attentively the + original--it is almost impossible intellectual pleasure--which for + hours has made me forget myself, the cell, and the other sorrowy + things.” + + +II + +Cornelia’s contribution to the defense was to be a pamphlet telling the +story of the case, and summarizing the evidence of the two trials. The +procedures that she had watched with horror in Plymouth and Dedham she +would now set down in black and white, so that her friends could take +them home and study them. In the apartment on the north side of Beacon +Hill sat the little old lady all day, her shoulders stooped over a +volume of typewritten testimony, and sheafs of pencil-notes scattered +over the vacant places in the room. + +Betty and Joe came to help, and they sorted and classified and +compared, and argued over this detail and that: identification +testimony relating to Sacco, relating to Vanzetti, relating to both and +to neither; alibi testimony, and refutation thereof; testimony relating +to Sacco’s cap and to Vanzetti’s pistol--where was it Bart had said he +had never fired the gun with which he had been arrested? Where was it +that Katzmann asked him his reason for concealing the price he had paid +for the gun? Betty would search, and Joe would search, and they filled +note-books with lists of cross-references. The half-dozen thick volumes +of typewritten testimony began to show signs of wear, and had to be +bound more tightly. Precious objects they were, having cost the defense +two or three thousand dollars of hard-begged money. + +Cornelia was finding that as she grew older she wanted less and less +sleep. Life was becoming more precious as its supply ran out, and +nature was trying to save every moment. She would awaken at three or +four o’clock in the morning, and the details of the pamphlet would come +swarming into her mind, she would wonder about this point and that, +and presently decide she might as well get up and go to work. So Betty +would find her working by electric light, having failed to notice the +coming of day. Betty would scold, and try to put her to bed again. +Betty would threaten to get up early too, and Cornelia would have to +scold. The pamphlet grew to the size of a book, and would have become +an encyclopedia if they had let it. Then began the painful process of +cutting down and summarizing; and every time they left out a point, it +seemed that the life of Bart and Nick hung upon the decision. + +Lee Swenson was retiring from the case: he had done his best, he said, +and failed, now let some one else have a try. There were tears in the +eyes of both when he said good-by to Cornelia. They promised they would +never forget each other--little danger of the promise being broken! +“Don’t worry about the past, Nonna,” said Lee; “you did your best.” +She didn’t know what to answer; she didn’t know what to think about +the questions that haunted her. What would have happened if she had +done what Lee wanted? Would she have done it, if she had foreseen the +present situation? And what was going to become of a country in which +the law was a cheat, and dreamers of justice its predestined victims? + +Fred Moore was taking over the case; a lawyer less hated by the +authorities, it was hoped--though this proved a delusion. He was +younger than Swenson, an Irishman and a fighter, wrapped up in the +labor cause; a strange combination of emotional temperament and keen +analytical brain; a man who suffered deeply--as all men did who took up +the cause of the underdog in America. He, like Swenson, had witnessed +dreadful things, and told Cornelia stories of savagery and corruption +that made her shudder. + +It was Moore’s task to prepare the appeal to the Supreme Judicial +Court from the various rulings of Judge Thayer at the Dedham trial. +To this end there must be drawn up what was known as a “bill of +exceptions” in the case: that is to say, a list of the objections +which the defense had made to the judge’s rulings, together with the +testimony concerned. It amounted to a summary of the case, giving the +essentials which the higher court would need; and it was necessary +that the defense, the prosecution and the judge should agree to every +word. The three parties had to sit day by day at a table, with a copy +of the testimony before them, marking the passages to be recopied, +and phrasing summaries of the rest. A long, slow job, for which Judge +Thayer had allowed from the middle of July to the first of November. + +Thayer, Moore and an assistant district attorney did the work. Thayer +disliked Moore, but in the course of time he came to hate the assistant +district attorney, and to like Moore by comparison, so he chose Moore +to talk to about the case. A curious episode: one hot summer afternoon, +the assistant district attorney had left the room, and the old judge +looked up over the piles of papers and wiped the perspiration from his +forehead, and shook his head sorrowfully. “Moore, there are mountains +of perjury on both sides of this case!” + +“Maybe so, Judge,” said the lawyer. “But your side has the most.” + +The old man did not bother to resent this way of putting it. “I know,” +he said, “you think those fellows are innocent!” + +“I do, Judge.” + +“Well, I _know_ they are guilty.” + +“How do you know it?” + +“Never mind how--but I know.” It was the formula of ruling-class +Massachusetts, which for six years they would repeat; not in print, +not for the public, but in the smoking-rooms of the clubs, in homes or +offices, wherever one tried to pin them down and get the facts. “Never +mind how--but I know!” + + +III + +It was going to cost eighteen thousand dollars to print the “bill of +exceptions”--two elaborate volumes; to say nothing of lawyers’ fees, +and office expenses, and the cost of raising the money. You got lists +of names--members of radical organizations, subscribers to liberal +papers, contributors to charity organizations, members of women’s +clubs--anybody who might have either a heart or a conscience; you got +typists and had envelopes addressed, and prepared a begging circular +and mailed it, and then with the money that came in you got more lists +and more typists and more circulars--it was the wheel of life. + +But the returns did not come fast enough. The case was lagging, +threatening to die. The men were in jail, and they stayed there, and +the public wanted to go to sleep and forget them--the usual way. +Look at Mooney and Billings out in California, exclaimed the young +radicals--men whom everybody knew to be innocent, yet they stayed in +prison, forgotten--several years already, and it would be many, many +more. The friends of the defense were not content to have lawyers +pore over the testimony and appeal to a court without a heart; they +wanted to dramatize the case, to find new evidence, to break down the +witnesses of the government, above all to catch the real criminals, +who had done the murders. They wanted to have mass-meetings in the +cities, to have the story of this Massachusetts “frame-up” told to +labor audiences. Naturally, it occurred to them, what an impression +if a lady of Mrs. Thornwell’s respectability and prestige would take +the platform! They wanted Cornelia to go to New York and address a +meeting; and when she realized that there was no other way to get the +indispensable money, she consented. + +So then, more distress among the Thornwell clan. They had thought the +limit was reached when the head of their family defended “anarchy” at +home; but to go outside the Commonwealth, and attack its courts among +strangers--that was really treason. Deborah came and protested with all +her dignity; when that was in vain, Alice quit her “rest-cure,” and +threatened to go completely insane; when this too failed, there was a +family conference, fully as agitated as those of war-time. Great-uncle +Abner insisted upon being brought. Because it was no longer possible to +make him hear a word, they had to write out the proceedings for him; +and every now and then he would punctuate the debate with his booming +formula: “Lock her up!” + +They turned the matter over to Henry Cabot Winters, because of his +sense of humor, which they did not understand or like, but which they +knew was the only hope. Rupert would put the information department of +the Pilgrim National Bank at Henry’s service, and would himself call +upon the representative of the Federal secret service in Boston. Henry +would see the district attorney, and all together they would make a +real effort, and pull the poor distracted old soul out of this mess. + +Henry went to the telephone and called up Cornelia, who was not +supposed to know about this conspiracy, but could guess. When she heard +that her son-in-law wanted to be invited to dinner about a week from +now, she laughed. “Are you going to bring that information you have +been promising?” + +“If it isn’t too late, Mother. I know, I have neglected you--but I’ve +been so frightfully busy! Now we’ve got another extension on the Jerry +Walker case, so I have a little breathing space. If it’s not too late, +I really would like to take a week off and see what I can find out +about your friends and their problem.” + +“That’s very good of you, Henry; but you know we have no way to pay for +such distinguished legal services.” + +“You pay with your company, Mother. We are growing some dewberries on +our place that are as long as your thumb, and I will send you a supply +in the morning, and you can have them made into a short cake or a +cobbler or whatever you fancy; and I’ll bring a bottle of Madeira--the +real thing, because I am the only person that knows the combination to +the vault!” + + +IV + +Cornelia did her own shopping. She got a live and lively lobster, +done up in a strong paper bag, with two holes in it so that he might +breathe; like a condemned man, he must be kept alive till the moment of +his execution. She got a small chicken, and some green peas, and a head +of lettuce, and climbed the hill with them in a little basket, smiling +to herself--it was old, _old_ “Boston”! The Negro maid was a-flutter, +and Cornelia was a-flutter--treating Henry as if he were royalty. The +remarkable dewberries had been brought by the chauffeur, each wrapped +separately in tissue paper, to keep it from a bruise; they now reposed +in whipped cream and sugar, on top of a thin flaky cake. + +Exactly at the moment of seven-thirty came the great lawyer, dressed as +if he were the principal orator at a banquet of the bar association. +Treating Cornelia as if she were royalty; and yet smiling at himself, +and at her--it was a game you played, and you did not take it too +seriously, yet you must take it seriously enough; it was a way to make +life worth living, to save yourself from beastliness, cruelty, and +despair--the latter, especially, always reaching after you. Cornelia +did everything a perfect hostess must do, and thinking to herself, “I +have not escaped from the family! I never will escape from the family!” + +Henry liked a good dinner, just enough to make it worth while to fix it +for him, yet not enough to be gross. He praised everything, purposely +while the maid was in the room, so that she stood, transfigured into +a double row of shining white teeth. It was picturesque to have a +mother-in-law who lived in a tenement; it was elegant to know that +she was just as completely a lady, and served just as good a dinner, +as if she were on the other side of Beacon Hill. All this stayed in +the background of your thoughts, and upheld you in the hours when +you thought about your hysterical wife, and your son who had the +constitution and structure of a marshmallow, and your money-making, +which brought you law-suits and scandals. + +They sipped the real Madeira, and gossiped about amusing aspects of +family life. Quincy Thornwell, incorrigible bachelor, had been smitten +by the widow of a banker, killed in the war; would she have him, and +what would they do with her three children, and what about the family, +the new cousins and “in-laws” that would be added to the Thornwell +clan? Andrew Alvin had been thrown from his polo-pony and got a broken +shoulder; a man in his forties, Andrew’s one idea of happiness was to +ride a horse as crazy as himself; they had made him master of the hunt +in one of the suburban towns, where the smart set dressed themselves +in pink coats and shiny leather boots, and rode at daybreak on autumn +mornings to the music of horns, and paid enormous bills for damages to +farmers’ crops. A certain fast-riding young lady was “setting her cap” +at Andrew; her father had made many millions out of war-contracts, and +now they were trying to “break in” upon the blue-bloods. Would Andrew +condescend or wouldn’t he? It was typical blue-blood conversation. + + +V + +With Madeira warming his stomach and the smoke of a cigar warming his +head, Henry Cabot Winters sat by the open window, the sound of children +shouting in the street below helping to make privacy for conversation. +“Well, Mother, I have been making a few inquiries about those adopted +sons of yours. I’ve brought some documents.” He pointed to a leather +brief-case, stuffed to capacity, which lay upon the sofa. + +“Well, Henry, what did you find?” + +“They had a cache of dynamite, and on the night of the arrest they were +getting Boda’s car to move the stuff to a safer place.” + +“How did you learn that, Henry?” Cornelia tried to keep her tone +playful. + +“Needless to say, men who make and plant bombs to destroy their enemies +do not invite me to their meetings. I have no first-hand knowledge of +the fact--” + +“Let’s cut short the preliminaries, Henry. You have been talking to the +police, and that is what their under-cover agents have brought them. +Did they tell you that Rosina Sacco once had her husband in court for +failure to support her?” + +“No.” + +“That’s another of the stories they are circulating; I can tell you a +dozen, if you’re interested. They say the fifty dollars poor Bart sent +to Tresca to help pay Salsedo’s lawyer was part of the loot of the +South Braintree crime. But I happened to know that Bart had saved up +about four hundred dollars out of his fish business. Tell me, do your +police friends know what became of the sixteen or seventeen thousand +dollars those bandits got?” + +“They tell me it went to Italy, Mother.” + +“I see! When they started out, they were sure it was in Coacci’s trunk. +When they didn’t find it there, they decided it was buried in Sacco’s +garden. Now, they say it went to Italy. Have they given you any real +evidence about it?” + +“No, Mother.” + +“Well, then, the situation is this: all the resources of state and +Federal secret service have been used, and they have never been able +to find that the group or any individual connected with the group has +had any unusual amount of money, or has spent much money for anything; +they have not one trace of a clew. Poor little Boda, whom they call a +payroll bandit, had a car that was in hospital all winter--” + +“That wasn’t the car he drove, Mother.” + +“Can you prove that he drove any other car?” + +“There is reason for believing it.” + +“Well, it wasn’t a good enough reason to be put before a jury. Web +Thayer threw Boda out of the case--but now you bring him back! I knew +him well, a friendly little fellow, a salesman of macaroni--” + +“Is that what he told you, Mother? He was a salesman of whisky.” + +“Really? Well, that explains one mystery in the case--why Mike +Stewart couldn’t find any of Boda’s macaroni customers! That was +why Mike became suspicious. But now we have a perfectly respectable +explanation--surely you, Henry, cannot blame Boda, since you buy +whisky!” + +“Not Boda’s kind, Mother!” + +“Well, you haven’t come to argue about prohibition, so let me see what +you’ve got in your brief-case.” + + +VI + +There was a reading lamp on the table beside Henry Cabot Winters, and +it threw strong shadows on his fine dark features and thin, sensitive +hands. Cornelia noticed that the hands trembled as they drew out the +documents. Was it the toll the competitive game was taking from the +great lawyer? Or was it that he cared so especially about rescuing his +mother-in-law from a career of crime? Cornelia watched with curiosity +what came out of the brief-case: quantities of typewritten stuff bound +together, reports and correspondence. Henry would no doubt be able to +get access to secret service records; or Rupert would get them for him. +Would it be ethical to ask him for answers to some of the problems +which had been tormenting the defense? + +Cornelia saw some red-bound pamphlets, then a red-bound book. “Is that +some of the literature Vanzetti had? Or some they got at Sacco’s house?” + +“They didn’t get much at Sacco’s, Mother; somebody had burned most of +it. I am told the defense lawyers wanted some, and all they could find +was a four-volume technical work on the chemistry of explosives. Is +that so?” + +“You have come to bring me things, Henry, not to get them.” + +“Yes, but you ought to meet me half way. You don’t really _want_ to be +fooled, do you?” + +“Not in the least, Henry. I want all the real knowledge I can get.” + +“Let me ask you, did you ever sit down and think seriously and honestly +whether it might be possible that these men had connections with the +fighting crowd?” + +“Are you talking about bombs now--or about banditry?” + +“Let us begin with bombs.” + +“I have lain awake many a night debating it with myself. About Sacco +I have to say that I don’t know; I never knew him well enough--and of +course I can’t find out now; one does not talk about such things to him +or to his friends. But I really knew Bart, and I try to imagine him +committing an action that would destroy human life. He would have done +it in a moment of rage against social injustice; he talked violently, +and he would have fought the police on the picket-line, I am sure, +and killed them. But to prepare in cold blood to blow a man up with a +bomb--I try to imagine it, and it simply cannot be done--it is not my +Bart any longer. I never knew a man who had more tenderness and pity.” + +Said Henry, searching among the papers, “I have a curious document, a +letter from Vera Figner, the Russian terrorist, in her own handwriting; +I can’t read it, of course, but there’s a translation attached. She is +telling about her days in the Schlues-selburg Fortress, and how she +walked with another girl prisoner in the courtyard, and noticed that +this girl would turn aside now and then from the path. When Vera Figner +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 +other people and about life, and that would be it. Last week it was +Quincy sitting there, and he told me all the latest from Mrs. Jack’s +sickroom; they came to ask for a contribution to the Charitable Eye +and Ear Infirmary of Boston, and she said, ‘I didn’t know there was a +charitable eye or ear in Boston.’ That is our wit, Henry, the tone of +our world. We are raising our young people on it--and then wonder why +they are going to the devil!” + +“You are setting me a large problem now, Mother.” + +“No problem at all! We are living off the labor of these wops whom +we despise, and hold in order with clubs and bayonets. Think of it, +Henry--that man whose head I saw split open was getting nine dollars a +week to keep a family on, and his crime was that he was asking twelve. +We women were getting six dollars a week, and our crime was that we +were asking eight--and Vanzetti’s crime was helping us! There was the +greatest and richest cordage concern in the country--their net profits +that year were nearly three million dollars! Think of the families we +know who are living off those profits, doing nothing else, unless they +choose! Think of the imbecilities--one collecting butterflies and +one collecting pottery, several getting drunk, one doing charity--God +save his soul, he is running a mission for newsboys just down the +street here, and keeps it in a place over a pool-room, a hangout for +pickpockets and pimps, where every now and then they hold a prizefight! +But if you talk to cordage stockholders about going among their +working-people and living with them, becoming real leaders and guides +and friends, spending the surplus product upon a system of training +in self-government, so that industry may become democratic without +revolution and violence--if you should talk about that, they would say +you had very bad taste, and stop inviting you to their dinner-parties!” + + +X + +The little white-haired old lady had got up from her chair during this +stump-speech. She was walking about, and had made several gestures--a +consequence of having been so much among the wops. The poor soul was +bound to be humiliated, having the truth pointed out to her; she would +have to excuse herself, and blame somebody else--it was human nature. +Henry Cabot Winters understood psychology, and sat patiently, waiting +for the storm to blow over. + +Cornelia began telling the story of Sacco, as Sacco had told it to +her. He had been in the Milford foundry strike, and had been knocked +down on the picket-line, and then thrown into jail. The police had +followed their usual tactics of knocking down wholesale, for the +purpose of breaking the courage of the workers; it was all that anybody +in New England knew or thought about industry, it was the “American +plan”--so said the widow of the late Governor Thornwell, pouring out +her bitterness. “And remember, Henry, while you are bringing your +indictment against these wops, they learned their anarchism right here +in New England. Nick was a perfectly ignorant working-boy when he came, +and Bart was a religious dreamer, slightly touched with utopianism. If +they became militants and terrorists, we taught it to them!” + +“They learned it in a foreign language, Mother; and certainly they +followed foreign models.” + +“That is true enough. But men don’t act upon what they read in books, +they act upon the realities of their daily lives. The principal fact +in Bart’s life for the past few years has been the war. The capitalist +system was trying to put him into a uniform and send him out to kill +his fellow-workers; and he was resisting with all his power. To abolish +the slaughter of workingmen for the profit of masters--that has been +his leading thought, ever since I have been his friend.” + +“Does he expect to stop war by blowing people up with bombs?” + +“Militant anarchists do; they think that if enough workers would +resist, forcibly, to the death--if enough of them were willing to be +martyrs--the capitalist class would lose its pleasure in exploitation. +Whether that is right or wrong is another question--but that is what +the militant anarchist thinks. And watching the thing as I have done, +it seems that you men who are running our country want to prove him +right, because you shut off every avenue of redress and hope. You +corrupt politics, so that it is a piece of rusty junk instead of a +running machine. You make the law into a net of red tape, in which +the worker is tied hand and foot. You make the newspapers a mess of +falsehood and sensation. Your colleges are busy turning young men into +quick climbers. Your churches have no time for social justice--they are +turning prayer-wheels and saying magic words--” + +“In short, Mother, there is nothing left but dynamite!” There was a +touch of acid in the great lawyer’s tone; it was getting to be a very +long stump-speech. + +“There are two things for the rebel, Henry; one is to die suffering, +and the other is to die fighting. I try to persuade them that the +former is more effective in the long run, but I can’t always get them +to see it. Sometimes I imagine there is a pleading look in Bart’s eyes, +as if he would like to tell me that he wishes he had taken my advice.” + +“Yes, I know,” said Henry, “we are familiar with the fact that men are +militants until they get caught, and pacifists afterwards. It is the +purpose of jails to effect that transformation.” + + +XI + +This duel of moral forces continued until the arrival of Betty and +Joe, who had been to a theater, and then walked home. Betty had been +told that her uncle was coming, and she had had no trouble in guessing +what for. When she and Joe entered the living-room, and saw the little +white-haired old lady in the Morris chair, looking so anxious and +strained, and the great lawyer completely surrounded by an array of +documents, it seemed to Betty that the combat was one-sided. “Well, +Grannie dear, has he succeeded in convincing you that our boys are +bandits? Or is it dynamiters they are, Uncle Henry?” + +“Henry,” said Cornelia, “these young persons are so clever I cannot +keep anything to myself.” + +Said Betty, “The efforts of my family to keep me in the nursery at the +age of twenty-three are mysteriously unsuccessful! I suppose Father and +Uncle Henry have been interviewing the police, and getting all the dirt +on Bart and Nick. Let me tell you some, Uncle Henry--I understand that +Captain Proctor interviewed all the witnesses, and told Mike Stewart he +had got the wrong men, and wouldn’t have any more to do with the case. +Is that true?” + +“I haven’t talked with Proctor,” said the lawyer. + +“Well, you could help us so much, if you only would, Uncle Henry. +I’m told that Chief Gallivan of South Braintree says the whole thing +was a frame-up. Make him talk! Make Katzmann give us the address of +Roy Gould, the man who got a bullet through his overcoat. And those +witnesses that Mike Stewart had at the Brockton police station--surely +our good uncle who loves us ought to get their names!” + +The “good uncle” continued to wear the genial smile which was part +of his stock in trade as man of the world. He was interested in the +phenomenon known as the “new generation.” He looked at this vision in +pale blue chiffon, with a little basket of blue straw turned upside +down on her hair cut like a boy’s; her cheeks shining from a long walk, +apparently without the artificial aids which were coming to be the +fashion, even among the blue-bloods. An amazing thing that a girl with +such charms, who might have gone anywhere, should be devoting herself +exclusively to Bolsheviks! + +Said Betty, as fast as her thoughts: “Grannie, you look tired; you have +been worrying! Is it because the police say the money went to Italy, to +make an anarchist revolution? Or have they found out how Bart and Nick +were hiding dynamite the night they were arrested?” + +“You seem to be well informed, my dear niece,” said the lawyer. + +“Some day, Uncle Henry, after our boys are on the street--or in +their graves, whichever it is--I’ll tell you what I know about the +Sacco-Vanzetti case, and you’ll think you are listening to the memoirs +of Mata Hari, the international spy. Your dear niece has become the +super-sleuth of the social revolution--if the movie people knew what I +have, Hollywood would be a deserted village, and studios would rise on +the shores of the Back Bay. It is my job, when the police send a new +spy, to get him alone and remind him that he is an Italian, and get him +to tell me what he has told the police. Do you know how they found the +maps of Sacco’s buried treasure in Lee Swenson’s trash-basket, and had +three men digging in Mr. Kelly’s garden one whole night?” + +Henry Cabot Winters still wore his smile; but it was not in his voice +as he said, “My niece does not seem to be much horrified at the idea of +blowing people up with bombs.” + +“Uncle Henry, to be blown up with a bomb seems to me a nice clean +experience, compared with things I saw in Europe, caused by the greed +of elderly statesmen whose shirt-fronts were entirely covered with +ribbons and decorations.” + +“So then, because statesmen blundered--” + +“Blundering had no part in it, Uncle Henry--they knew exactly what they +wanted, and they took it. It is the organized greed called patriotism +that I’m talking about. And while I’m sick of all kinds of killing, +it is the men who kill for greed that I am out to get. Those who kill +for a cause, no matter how mistaken--those who risk their lives for +the good of the workers--seem to me to shine with a bright light in +comparison.” + +“That halo extends to bandits, my dear niece?” + +“I will answer you, Uncle Henry, that small bandits break the law and +are punished, while big bandits make the law and go free.” + +Cornelia thought that conversation had gone far enough. She knew +exactly what Betty had in her mind--the Jerry Walker case. In a minute +more, the child would be referring to it! “Betty dear, if you love me--” + +“Love you, Grannie? I love you enough to let you think your own +thoughts and live your own life, which is more than anybody else will +do for you. I love you so much that I will suppress my combative +impulses, and show respect to my elders. Uncle Henry, you want to know +if I think Sacco and Vanzetti ever did a job of banditry. If I knew, +I would tell you; but of course, nobody really knows, except the men +who did the job. The spies who bring tales to the police are earning +their livings by pretending to know what they only guess, and the +evidence they bring is not fit to hang a dog on. I can only estimate +the chances. I have tried with all my might to picture Bart and Nick +committing such a crime, and I cannot do it--the idea is preposterous +and unthinkable. And this much I really do know--this I would die +for--they never were proved guilty, and their trials were a shameful +and wicked farce. Now, is that a respectful answer, Grannie?” + +“Yes, dear--” + +“All right; and if it won’t be presuming, you look very tired, and I +think we ought to adjourn and talk about something cheerful. May I tell +them the news, Joe?” + +Joe Randall, who realized that he did not have even the status of +an “in-law” in this family, had retired to a corner of the room and +lighted a cigarette. “It’s all right with me,” he said. + +“Well, Joe has a telegram advising him that the divorce decree has been +made final, so to-morrow we are going to be married, and the shadow +of the great scandal will be lifted from the family, and we shall no +longer get poison-pen letters in our mail, and Joe won’t have to go off +to his own place when he brings me home from the theater, for fear one +of my relatives will be shocked by the sight of him staying here.” + +Henry Cabot Winters rose with his most courtly manner. “Permit me to be +excused, and not inconvenience you!” + +“No, no, Uncle Henry, it’s an old story to us, we have been a +scandal for so long that we shall miss it. At least I shall--Joe +will be relieved, because at heart he is an old-fashioned Virginia +gentleman--look at him blushing!” + +Yes, Joe was blushing! It made him cross as the devil that Betty +insisted upon placarding their love affairs before the family. +He knew why she did it, of course--she was determined not to be +ashamed of what she was doing--she would not let them put her on the +defensive--her love was just as true as if it had been blessed by a +clergyman. But all the same, no man likes to be made to blush! + +Henry Cabot Winters behaved with the extreme of gallantry. “Permit me +to offer my congratulations,” he said, and held out his hand to the +bridegroom. The family solidarity was going to be preserved, in spite +of everything! + +Cornelia had her Bolshevik granddaughter in her arms, and was weeping +on her shoulder in orthodox family fashion. Betty too had tears +shining in her eyes--a reaction from the strain they had just been +under. Women, who have been but a short time emancipated, do not defy +and insult the mighty males of their clan without terrific inner +disturbances. They wouldn’t admit it, of course; they would pretend +they were crying over the end of a trial marriage! “There, there, +Grannie!” said the trial bride. “Our scandal is over, and it wasn’t +half as bad as you imagined. Joe and I have had all our domestic +quarrels in advance, so we can have the fun of a wedding without any of +the grief.” + + +XII + +The marriage of Elizabeth Thornwell Alvin to Joseph Jefferson Randall +did not take place in Trinity Church in the City of Boston, and +there were no little flower-girls strewing roses in the aisles, nor +bridesmaids with large drooping hats, companioned by stern-faced ushers +from Harvard. Not all the influence of the Thornwells could have +persuaded the rector of Trinity to marry a man who had allowed his +former wife to divorce him without that scandal which Episcopal Church +ordinances require; neither would the rebel Betty have consented to be +made into what she called a “holy show.” + +The event took place in what was known as the “Community Church,” +a gathering place of eccentric persons who worshiped the ideal of +brotherhood embodied in the personality of “Comrade Jesus.” As this +ancient Hebrew agitator had been born in a stable, his followers had +purchased an old garage on Beacon Hill, and made it over with whitewash +and lively red and blue paint, with stairs going up the side, and +a gallery running all the way round, leading to offices from which +spiritual dynamite was mailed out to the indignant respectability of +the Back Bay. The pastor was a new style Christian with a sense of +humor, willing to marry a young couple whose scandals did not conform +to canon law. + +So, on a warm afternoon of early autumn there appeared several +automobiles in front of Number 6 Byron Street, and there entered Betty +and Joe and Cornelia, with half a dozen other rebels old and young, and +as many wide-awake and observant young men, who came to make certain +that a member of their profession did not marry the daughter of the +most powerful banker in town without a proper front page send-off. +Some of them carried black boxes, and the “Red” bride and groom were +lined up with the “Pink” pastor in the center, and there was a clicking +of shutters, and a cry of “Once more, please!” A distressing scene +to relatives of the bride, who had come in a vain effort to confer +respectability upon the occasion. + +An extraordinary moment for the Community Church: the president of the +Pilgrim National Bank and his wife in attendance, dressed exactly as +if for a real wedding, and holding themselves sternly erect, unaware +of the existence of newspaper photographers. Also the older sister of +the bride, Mrs. Priscilla Alvin Shaw, descending carefully from her +motor car, clad in the voluminous garment known as a “maternity gown.” +Also Aunt Clara Scatterbridge--without even having been invited, but +determined to do her part to maintain family solidarity, and hush +the voice of scandal. This wedding, while unorthodox and unesthetic, +was legal; so the horrible black shadow would be lifted from the +Thornwells! No more poison-pen letters, no more whispers in Back Bay +drawing-rooms! The escutcheon would be wiped clean--and the family was +so relieved, it would accept any kind of performance, in any kind of +made-over garage. + +The bridegroom being a newspaper man, his colleagues would be loyal to +him; those who happened to know that he had had a former wife, would +not mention it. They would “play up” the note of social drama--the +press agent of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense marrying into the sacred +Brahmin caste! The young couple were going to spend their honeymoon +in a factory, getting first-hand information as to the lives of +the workers; the daughter of the most powerful banker in Boston had +actually got a job in a paper-box factory, at a little less than two +dollars a day, and promised to live on it for a year! + +When the reporters actually got upon the scene, and witnessed the big +shiny limousine of the Alvins, with a chauffeur in uniform, and an +equipage equally costly for the bride’s sister, and yet another for an +aunt--only then did they realize the explosive power of the story. This +wasn’t merely a local story, this was an “A.P. story”! The reporter for +the Hearst paper had an inspiration: it was a “sociological marriage”! +A Hearst reporter would not hesitate to tackle Jehovah himself, if he +could get into heaven; so he walked up to the great banker and asked +him for a comment upon his daughter’s honeymoon. The haughty Rupert +looked straight over the young ruffian’s head--he was tall enough to +do that. But alas, the mother of the bride, being less trained in the +wiles of “Hearst men,” committed the mistake of opening her mouth. “Mr. +Alvin makes it a rule not to be quoted in newspapers.” The reporter, +seizing his golden opportunity, explained, “I just wanted to know, +Mrs. Alvin, if your husband agrees with his daughter’s ideas on social +questions.” The great lady replied, haughtily, “My husband does not +agree with _any_ of his daughter’s ideas!” So, of course, the whole +town had a hilarious laugh next morning. + +In fact, the story “took” so well that the word went forth to follow it +up. The reporters tracked the bride to the paper-box factory, and took +pictures of her at work. They tracked her to the little apartment where +the “sociological honeymoon” was to be passed, and published her in a +fifty-cent apron, frying her first supper of bacon and eggs; they gave +the price of all the ingredients, and a schedule of the “sociological +budget.” They interviewed the ardent young lady propagandist on every +subject with which her father could fail to agree: trial marriages, +love and freedom, birth control, social justice, the banking system, +capital and labor, the Lucy Stone League. Nor did they fail to call up +the palace on the North Shore, and ask if Mrs. Alvin would come to the +phone, and hear a summary of her daughter’s opinions, and say whether +her husband would agree with them! + + +XIII + +One of the McAnarney brothers, attorneys for the defense, got into +conversation with old Mr. Ripley, the flag-saluting foreman of the +jury, and was told, quite casually, how this foreman had had revolver +cartridges, similar to the ones which had been found upon Sacco, and +how Ripley had marked them, and taken them into the jury room and shown +them to some of the jurors, comparing them with the exhibits of the +prosecution. A thrill of excitement ran through the Sacco-Vanzetti +defense; here, as in the Plymouth trial, was evidence improperly +introduced, never seen by the defense. As fate willed it, Ripley died +before his testimony could be taken. But the jurors were interviewed, +and several swore that they had seen the cartridges; also Ripley’s +widow had seen them. + +It was the first of a series of motions for a new trial, which were to +entertain the friends of the defense for a period of six years. The +“Ripley motion,” and then the “Daley motion”--Daley being the friend of +Ripley’s, who told of the conversation at the railroad station, when +Ripley said that he was on the way to report for jury duty in the case +of a couple of “guinneys” accused of banditry, and, “Damn them, they +ought to hang anyhow.” + +And then a letter from Frank Burke, the exhibitor of glass-blowing, +telling how he had run into Roy Gould, the salesman of shaving-paste. +The mystery of the man with the bullet-hole through his overcoat solved +at last! Gould had been up in Nova Scotia all this time; now he was in +Portland, Maine; and Fred Moore jumped onto a train, and the friends of +the defense got the greatest thrill yet. For it was just as they had +been told--Gould had been within five or ten feet of the bandit who was +supposed to be Sacco, and this bandit had fired at him and pierced his +overcoat. Gould came to Dedham jail and looked at Sacco, and said that +he had never seen him before, and that he bore no resemblance to the +bandit. + +So the Boston papers broke into headlines, “New Evidence in Sacco +Case,” and hope sprang to life in every heart. Surely there would be a +new trial now! Surely it would not be possible to execute a man, when +it was known that evidence of such importance had been deliberately +withheld from the jury! For that was what had happened--the salesman +of shaving-paste had given his name to a police officer, and this +officer made affidavit that he had turned it in to both the local and +the state police. Captain Proctor had had it! + +To ardent young radicals that seemed a scandal of major proportions, +and they proceeded to send out press items and to print leaflets and +mail circulars--only to discover that nobody was interested except +ardent young radicals. The great Commonwealth was content to leave the +matter to what it called “the orderly processes of law”--which meant +precisely this and nothing else: that affidavits would be typed out and +sworn to, and submitted in a motion to Judge Thayer, who would take +a year to study over them, and would then produce one of his famous +decisions, in which the defense position would be misrepresented, and +arguments of the defense would be met by answers to other arguments +which the defense had never thought of! + +In this case the old judge’s decision was such as to cause people +to wonder whether his hatred had not driven him insane. He gave his +reason for denying the motion in the following words: “The affiant +(Gould) never saw Sacco, according to his affidavit, from April 15th, +1920, the day of the murder, until November 10, 1921, when he went to +Dedham jail at the request of Mr. Moore. In other words, the affiant +must have carried a correct mental photograph in his mind of Sacco for +practically eighteen months, when he only had a glance in which to +take this photograph on the day of the murder.” “Web” Thayer actually +wrote those words, and read them from the bench, and caused them to +be printed in the law-books--along with the affidavit of Gould, which +stated in the plainest possible words, not merely that Gould had not +seen Sacco on April 15th, 1920, but that Gould had never seen Sacco in +his life until the occasion when he saw him in Dedham jail, eighteen +months after the crime, and three months after the conviction! + + +XIV + +And then the “Pelzer motion.” Louis Pelzer was the bewildered +Jewish shoe-worker, who had made such a spectacle of himself on the +witness-stand, claiming to identify Sacco upon seeing him many months +after the crime, and at the same time admitting under cross-examination +that he had lied to an investigator for the defense. Now Pelzer made +an affidavit to the effect that his identification of Sacco was false, +and that the words, “his dead image,” had been put into his mouth by +the assistant district attorney, Mr. Harold Williams, whom the august +Commonwealth was soon to make into a superior court judge. + +And then the “Goodridge motion.” Here was the star witness of the +prosecution, whose criminal record had been kept from the jury by +the perfect team-work of those expert basketball players, Messrs. +Katzmann and Thayer. Now the defense got onto the trail of the +several-times-convicted crook, and obtained all his record, the jail +sentences, the numerous wives, and the warrant for horse-stealing in +New York State, which would have meant a long sentence, as a third +conviction. Fred Moore and another man ran their quarry down in the +little town of Vassalboro, Maine, and saw his wrists held out for the +handcuffs. Moore was naïve enough to be surprised that the authorities +did not want this crook any more--neither in Maine, nor in New York, +nor in Massachusetts could the machinery of exact and impartial justice +be prodded into action. Moore, being an Irishman, and emotional, was +emphatic with his victim, and brought down upon his head a stern +rebuke from the just and upright Mr. Justice Thayer for his method of +procedure. Which was all that came of the “Goodridge motion”! + +And then the “Andrews motion.” The son of “Fainting Lola” was +discovered, also living among the “Mainiacs.” He consented to come +to meet his mother, who was working as a waitress. He reminded her +of various emotional dramas in which she had played a rôle; with the +result that Lola had more hysterics, and broke down and admitted that +her testimony against Sacco had been “framed.” In the presence of two +well-known labor leaders she signed an affidavit, declaring that her +reason for swearing Sacco’s life away was that “the Commonwealth was +in possession of facts relative to the private life of the affiant +which the affiant was not desirous of having brought out on the witness +stand,” and that by threats based on that knowledge she was “coerced +and intimidated.” She named the four men who had done this; one was +Mike Stewart, inventor of the “theory,” another was Brouillard, a +police officer, the third was Mr. Harold Williams, soon to be a judge, +and the fourth was District Attorney Frederick G. Katzmann. + +Another thrill ran through the little band of defenders. For Lola +Andrews had been the other star witness of the prosecution--it was she +of whom Katzmann had said with such intense solemnity to the jury, +“I cannot recall that ever before I have laid eye or given ear to so +convincing a witness as Lola Andrews.” Even the capitalist newspapers +were moved to protest now; the Boston _American_ declared that either +Lola was crazy, “or else some one in the district attorney’s office at +that time ought to be arrested and tried for attempted murder.” Upon +reading that, the police authorities of the august Commonwealth got +busy--not to arrest themselves for attempted murder, but to compel +Lola and Louis to sign new affidavits, declaring that their previous +affidavits were false, and had been obtained by threats from the +defense lawyers. + + +XV + +The Great Novelist who makes up history was desirous of making a +perfect melodrama, and also a perfect demonstration of class justice, +out of the Sacco-Vanzetti case. To that end it was necessary to +provide an answer to the question: what would happen in the pious +Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts if a rich man were to commit a +murder? While Sacco and Vanzetti were in jail, awaiting trial, a poor +devil of a Swede by the name of Johnson, having a wife and two young +children, but no job, and no food in the house, and no coal in the +month of January, went into some woods on a private estate, with a saw +and wheelbarrow, for the purpose of gathering dead wood, which was +lying in profusion on the ground. The aged owner of this estate was a +Cunningham, a name of great honor in the fashionable town of Milton; +and in the pride of his name and great possessions he took a rifle and +shot the unarmed Swede. He fired without aiming; the victim had just +got over a fence, escaping. The killer was arrested and brought to +Dedham jail, and spent eight days in a cell near Sacco, and then was +politely bailed out. + +Cornelia, in her thinking about Massachusetts justice, had imagined +a rich person committing murder, and had guessed that such a person +would be declared insane. But the case of Commonwealth _vs._ Cunningham +showed her that she had expected too much from the law. The blue-blood +families keep their insane members hidden away in remote wings of +old mansions, and do not permit the stigma to be put upon them in +public proceedings. For thirteen months the killer of John Johnson +did not even have to make a plea. At last he was brought to trial +in Dedham Court House, where Sacco and Vanzetti had faced the jury. +Public feeling had cooled off; and no evidence was produced to prove +that he was either an anarchist, an infidel, or a draft dodger. So +the stern Mr. Katzmann became gracious and mild; the crime was called +“justifiable homicide,” and the killer was acquitted. + +Also it was necessary to the perfection of the Sacco-Vanzetti melodrama +that the victims should have continual evidence of the venality of +their persecutors. The Great Novelist arranged it that three more +times during the next six years emissaries should come to the defense, +pointing out the folly of spending so much money upon lawyers’ fees and +circulars, when the small sum of fifty thousand dollars, slipped to the +right lawyers, would set their two friends “on the street.” And lest +the young radicals should be unable to believe that these emissaries +really possessed the power they claimed, the Great Novelist caused what +was known as the “Coakley-Pelletier scandal” to break into continuous +explosion, after the fashion of Chinese firecrackers strung on a line +all the way along a city street. For months the newspapers were filled +with picturesque details about the crimes and sexual misadventures of +Boston millionaires, and the prices they had paid to politicians and +officials. + +Dan Coakley was a Democratic lawyer, who had run the city of +Cambridge for some twenty years: a lively personality who had begun +life as a street-car conductor and had given up his job when the +company installed machines to register fares. He had his license as +a conductor, signed by the superintendent of the company, with the +words scrawled across it: “Discharged for neglect of duty.” It had +amused Dan to frame this document, and hang it in his law office, +while he was preparing damage suits which cost the company hundreds of +thousands of dollars. Needless to say, he was an ardent patriot; he had +paid the expenses of the Massachusetts delegation to the Democratic +convention in San Francisco, so that they might vote for the Quaker +attorney-general, who was so heroically smashing the Reds. For years, +if you wanted to get out of trouble in either Middlesex or Suffolk +County, the password was, “See Coakley.” + +The district attorney of Suffolk County, which includes the city of +Boston, was “Joe” Pelletier. (All Massachusetts statesmen go by their +pet names, unless they have a great deal of money.) “Joe” likewise was +an ardent patriot, and never lost a chance to deliver an oration for +God, country, and the pope. He was National Advocate for the Knights +of Columbus, which is the political auxiliary of the Catholic Church; +he had been knighted by the pope; and it was his job to drop charges +against wealthy criminals, after they had paid proper retaining fees to +the proper lawyers. + +This had been going on for so many years, under the protection of +the flag and the crucifix, that the ring had got bold, and had taken +to “framing” cases against victims. That was all right when it was a +couple of anarchist “wops,” but it was a different matter when it meant +sending women to lure rich blue-bloods into bed, and have detectives +smash in the doors and take photographs of them. The “ring” had a +regularly paid staff of women, and three apartments in the Back Bay. In +one case they had gone so far as to have the woman hidden in a closet, +unknown to the victim, and in this way they had got an enormous sum +from a terrified old railroad president--an Adams, and a “right” one! +In another case they had collected forty thousand dollars from a man on +his deathbed. + + +XVI + +It was after the trapping of Josiah Thornwell Winters that the +blue-bloods decided to smash this “ring.” Councils were held in the +Union Club, and a citizen who had no scandals was found--the head of +the Watch and Ward Society--and persuaded to the dangerous job. Godfrey +L. Cabot was his name, and before he got through, it was a well-known +name to the readers of Boston newspapers. For of course the ring knew +what he was doing before he knew it himself, and was setting traps for +him after a fashion too fantastic for anything but reality. Mr. Cabot +got a dictaphone in Coakley’s office, and hired a spy to hire himself +to Coakley and arrange to bribe Pelletier. But presently the spy was +arrested, and Godfrey L. Cabot was indicted for hiring a man to offer +bribes. The climax of hilarity came when it was revealed that it was +Dan who had hired the spy, to get himself hired by Godfrey to come and +hire Dan to bribe Joe! + +Impossible to imagine more melodrama than this scandal provided +for the readers of Boston newspapers through the better part of a +year! Underworld ladies trapped into telling their stories, with +stenographers hidden behind screens; elderly blue-bloods “railroaded” +into lunatic asylums for their money; hotel proprietors forced to part +with their property for a small part of its value; the “badger game” +and the “shakedown,” the “girl with the dimpled nose,” a “visiting +actress,” “the Egyptian mystic, Omar Kaldah”! Hardly a day without a +new millionaire in the pillory, or a “scion of wealth” relieved of his +patrimony! A series of sensational trials, with witnesses “grilled” and +“broken” by great lawyers who “thundered” and “stormed.” United States +Senator “Jim” Reed, endowed with the voice of a bull, defending his +Democratic colleague, “Joe”: + +“Does this diabolical persecution spring from religious prejudice? +Is that the thing which inspires Cabot and his crew; that makes them +gather witnesses from the four quarters of the earth; that gives +protection to the criminal and the near-criminal? I do not know, but +this I boldly say, that I have never seen such digging in the catacombs +of the past, such raking of the dust of time, such malicious ingenuity, +such fixed determination as we have witnessed.” + +And then the attorney-general, answering the bull-voiced senator, +and describing the “national advocate” of the Knights of Columbus in +metaphors taken from classical oratory: + +“The sword of justice was placed in his hands and he made of it a +highwayman’s club. He used the scales of justice to weigh the price of +corrupt favors. He has bartered the powers of his great office to the +highest bidder. For personal ends he has protected the criminal and +oppressed the innocent. He has so far forgotten his honor and his oath +that he has brought reproach upon the fair name of the Commonwealth, +has allowed her mantle to be dragged in the mire, has debauched his +high office for his own selfish ends, and like Esau of old, has sold +his birthright for a mess of pottage.” No wonder the life of the +attorney-general was threatened, and guards had to protect his home! + +Also Dan Coakley was indicted and tried. The blue-bloods employed +no less than thirty-six detectives to guard the jury; when Dan was +acquitted, the blue-bloods wished they had hired more of them. However, +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 +the State House.” By stages of graft you could mount, higher and +higher, until you found yourself dealing in millions, and associating +with the great bankers, who had loaned money to state legislators +without security; these legislators had bought Elevated Railway +stock, and had then voted a bill guaranteeing dividends, thus causing +twenty-five million dollars worth of stock to jump from twenty-five +to ninety. Rupert Alvin and his Pilgrim National crowd had not even +had the inconvenience of being indicted for that crime; one rebel +legislator, Thomas A. Niland, one opponent of graft among politicians, +had hired a sandwich-man and set him to picket the Court House with +a sign, reading: “Mr. District Attorney, indict the bribe givers and +bribe takers of the Boston Elevated.” + + +IV + +The Jerry Walker case came to trial. More than five years after his +properties had been taken from him, the manufacturer of felt got a +chance to tell his troubles to a jury, and the public to see what +happened to big bandits in the august Commonwealth of Massachusetts. +The case was tried in Dedham Court House with the round white dome and +portholes like an ocean liner; and it was destined to be appealed to +the Supreme Judicial Court, and finally decided within four weeks of +the Sacco-Vanzetti case. + +The Jerry Walker trial lasted from the beginning of November, 1923, +to the end of November, 1924; the longest law-battle ever known +in the history of the Commonwealth. During that period of time +Cornelia Thornwell heard about little else when she was in touch +with her family. Two of her sons-in-law, two nephews-in-law, and two +cousins-in-law were involved, and the families ate, slept, walked, rode +and prayed with the case for the whole thirteen months. It was not +merely that fifteen millions of dollars were at stake, but the family +honor, and the safety of the country’s banking system; for if Jerry +Walker won his case, all the business men who had lost their properties +to bankers would set up similar claims. What would be the fun in +banking, if you were confined to the interest on your funds, and could +not use your control of credit to get possession of industry? + +Cornelia was making it a rule to visit Sacco once or twice a month in +Dedham jail, and she would stop at the court-house and watch the great +duel of law. No guards with rifles on the steps, no gruff policemen +to search your hand-bag, no steel cage for the defendants! No; for +these were not the little bandits who break the law, these were the +big bandits who make the law. Everything quiet and dignified, in the +Harvard manner. With the exception of poor Jerry Walker himself, +everybody was Harvard--the real reason poor Jerry had lost out. + +Polished gentlemen, with soft voices and slow drawls, dressed with +elegance, and always immaculate, regardless of weather and possible +weaknesses of the flesh, arguing fine points of law, and presenting +mountains of documents and miles of figures to a bewildered jury. +You would not have guessed that there was anything very special or +thrilling in process--unless you knew the sacred names, and realized +that here were the bluest of blue-bloods, the center of the center +and hub of the hub. These men who sat on hard benches listening, who +took the witness-stand to testify for days and sometimes weeks, were +the inner ring of those who held the financial and industrial power +of New England for their own. There were times when, if you had sat +with an adding machine, and tabulated the wealth owned by men in the +court-room, it would have amounted to several hundred million dollars; +if you had counted the wealth of other persons which they controlled, +and used to sway markets and support credit for their own advantage, it +would have totaled billions. + +The trial would occupy a hundred and eighty-seven days of actual +hearings; more than two thousand exceptions would be taken to the +judge’s rulings, to be submitted to the higher court; the testimony +would be close to six million words, and the cost of the procedure to +the County of Norfolk would be more than two hundred thousand dollars. +Out of its great generosity of heart, the legislature went so far as +to pass a special measure, providing for the payment of nine dollars a +day to the jurymen in this case--and the bill was made retroactive! It +was in the public interest that these wholesale bandits should fight +out their fights in a court-room, instead of hiring private armies and +settling it on the streets. When the issue had been decided, these two +facts would stand out: first, that Harvard blue-bloods had the money; +and second, that their fellow-members of the Union Club had permitted +them to keep it. + + +V + +To Cornelia Thornwell the really significant thing was this: that so +many concerned with the defense of the case were lying. The great +bankers were hiding what they had done to Jerry Walker, and their great +lawyers were sitting down with them, day after day and night after +night, framing what they were going to say. For five years Cornelia +had known that they would do this; it was so well understood in the +family that nobody was equal to the task of attempting to fool her. +There were fifteen millions of dollars at stake; and the driving power +of this sum was so colossal that it swept every barrier before it, and +truth, honor, dignity, justice, law, country, God and religion went out +like the contents of a chicken-ranch when a dam bursts at the head of a +valley. + +Privately these bankers were quarreling bitterly among themselves as +Cornelia knew; the wives were cutting one another at bridge-parties, +and families were riven pro tem. But on the witness-stand every man +stood by the ship, and obeyed the orders of the captain, Rupert +Alvin. Cornelia got a new understanding of her oldest son-in-law. He +had always seemed to her a semi-comic figure, with his face and neck +of pink and purple bulges; humorless, naïve in spite of his heavy +pomposity, and pathetic while being hen-pecked by a Thornwell lady +whose family was older and greater than his. But now Cornelia observed +him as a man among men, and realized what are the qualities of a +successful bandit-leader. + +They might be summed up in a single word, dependability; the gang must +know that the leader will always be there, and will never change; +that he will be the incarnation of solid, heavy, earnest greed, an +irresistible and incessant push for large sums of other people’s money. +Also, the gang must know that the leader will give them individually +a greater share than any other leader of equal greed-power. A quality +of Rupert’s that came out in the trial--he was a veritable mountain of +righteous respectability. He had only wanted a small share of the loot +for himself, and it had been necessary for his associates to insist +that he should have a large share. Said Quincy Thornwell, gossiping +with his Aunt Cornelia during the course of the revelations, “You +always have to insist that Rupert take a large share. And you always do +it. If you don’t, you are not in on the next big deal.” + +Now here he was on the witness-stand, telling the story of his +relationships with Jerry Walker; the president of the Pilgrim National +Bank, who had promised poor Jerry a three-million-dollar loan at +twenty-seven per cent interest, and had “strung him along” for months, +having the plans all made, the syndicate of bankers formed, and Henry +Cabot Winters supposed to be getting the agreements ready--when as +a matter of fact Rupert had ordered that no agreements be got ready, +having no purpose but to have poor Jerry in a “jam” when his “paper” +came to maturity. + +For more than a week Rupert was cross-questioned by Jerry’s little +bull-dog of a lawyer, and he was most gentlemanly and aristocratic +about his lying. He had reduced it to a formula, suitable to his +simple mind; he could remember ten thousand details which were to his +advantage, and he did remember them, promptly and exactly; but whenever +there was any detail which would have been to his disadvantage, +then he had forgotten about it. And that was all; it was charmingly +easy--he had only to say, “I do not remember.” The cross-examiner +might phrase the question in a score of different ways, he might make +any number of approaches to it, but he could never get anything from +the imperturbable Rupert except, “I do not remember.” It amused the +lawyers of Jerry Walker to go over the record, and count up the number +of matters about which Rupert’s memory had thus been adjusted to his +interests; he had managed to forget one hundred and seventy-three +different things. + +Only once a bad slip! Early during the negotiations with Jerry Walker +he had put the blame on Henry Cabot Winters, and had said to Jerry, +“Henry has had his teeth in this thing once”--meaning in Jerry’s +felt-business. That was a terrible admission, and Rupert made it +elaborately, and in great detail, before his lawyers managed to +interrupt, and convey to him that it wouldn’t do. The great banker then +took the liberty of consulting his counsel; after the consultation, +he retracted his admission, and denied that he had ever said any +such thing to the plaintiff. A distressing moment; for there sat the +reporters of half a dozen newspapers, their pencils plying busily, and +the whole of State Street and the Union and Somerset Clubs waiting to +read the story that afternoon. + +Then, the ordeal being over for Rupert, he went back to Boston, and +attended an assemblage of some men’s organization connected with his +Episcopal Church. Some evil person proposed that the organization +should take a stand upon the question of social justice, and Rupert +got up and moved that the resolution be tabled, and made a powerful +and impressive speech, in which he declared that the purpose of the +Episcopal Church was “spirituality,” and that it should not be lured +into controversies over mundane affairs. The Boston newspapers all +reported the discourse, and were strong for “spirituality.” + + +VI + +Mr. Justice Thayer was rendering his decisions upon the various motions +for a new trial. The “Ripley motion,” the “Daley motion,” the “Pelzer +motion,” the “Andrews motion,” the “Goodridge motion”--he denied them +all; and he was judge, and the sole judge. He decided that his own +conduct had been proper, he decided that the new evidence was not such +as to warrant a new trial. + +The one thing his victims got out of these decisions was a holiday +every time. The law required that the defendants should be present at +all stages of the proceedings; and so a miniature army would be called +out to move Nicola Sacco from Dedham Jail to Dedham Court-house, and +Bartolomeo Vanzetti would leave his cell for a whole day, and become +the delighted center of an automobile parade. He wrote Cornelia about +it, beginning with his breakfast, “a cup of coffee, three slices of +bread, two frankforts and mashed potatoes, all as cold as ice cream +could be.” Later when it was proposed to publish this narrative, Bart +was distressed, and insisted upon its being made plain that he had made +this remark playfully, because of course the prison authorities could +not prepare hot food out of hours. + + “After such a breakfast, an official took me in the ‘Guard Room.’ + The little chauffeur, an old officer, and the bravest one were + waiting for me. I was chained with the last one, and all four left + the room and went down to the street where the automobile was + ready. Six or seven officers stood at the door, with their right + hand near the back pocket, ready to protect me from any attack. + One must be most ungrateful man of the world for not feeling quite + reconoscent.” + +And then his love of nature, the joy of escaping from darkness into +sunshine and open air: + + “So we enter now into a Park the name of which I already forget, + but the beauty of it, I will never forget anymore. If I were poet + and know the meter, I would write a song of it in third rhyme. + (Italian, terza rima). I am not a poet, but neither so profane to + disturbing such splendor with my poor ink. The concerned officer + point to me a big brick building, saying ‘It is the Fine Arts + Museum.’ He point many other buildings saying that they are almost + all a private schools. I was, then regretting to have only a pair + of eyes, able to look in one direction alone. I observe everything, + the trees, the bushes, the grass, the rocks, and the brook along + the way on which I was raptured. The drops of dew look like pearls; + the sky reflects himself in the waters of the brook, and let one + think that it is bottomless.” + + +VII + +Nicola Sacco had been for more than three years a victim of the law’s +delay. He had spent all but an hour or two each day in a cell with +nothing to do, and the strain of it was affecting his mind. He could +not understand why persons who espoused his cause should look for +justice to one old man who hated him and was determined to have his +life. He could not understand why this one old man should need years to +decide matters about which his mind was made up in advance. He could +not understand why the money of the anarchist movement should be wasted +upon futilities. Brooding thus, he became morose, like a dog chained +up; he suspected every one who came near him, he would not sign any +more legal papers; presently he would not write letters, nor leave his +cell, nor speak to any one. + +Cornelia would travel to Dedham to test her social prestige upon +the “chief officer,” as he was called, to obtain some amelioration +of the harsh prison régime. The chief officer was large, stout, +superannuated, and Cornelia, seeking to win his favor, had to listen to +long discourses concerning his diet; he was centered upon “reducing,” +and talked about it in more intimate detail than even Clara Thornwell +Scatterbridge. He would keep an old lady standing while he enumerated +the pounds he had managed to take off by this method and that; and the +next time she came, he would forget what he had told her, and tell it +again. “Would you believe that I used to weigh two hundred and sixty?” + +This man who could not keep from eating too much would take a tin plate +of cold food, with two slices of bread on top--a narrow plate, made +especially to go between the bars of a cell--and if the prisoner in +the cage complained of monotony and failed to eat the food, the chief +officer would discourse for another hour to his visitors: these men +were worth nothing, the more you did for them the less grateful they +were. When Cornelia went away, he would grumble to the other officers +about rich women who came “butting in on prisons,” spoiling the +inmates, insisting on new things that nobody had ever heard of before. +“Gosh, if that old hen would mind her own business!” + +Some friends of this old gentleman insisted to Cornelia that he was +well-meaning, and trying to do his duty as he saw it. But to her he +seemed the embodiment of that mountainous, colossal, insensitive +stupidity which was in authority throughout the world--which indeed +seemed to be the very nature of authority. Several years ago there had +been a legislative investigation of county institutions, and a severe +arraignment of conditions; but the county graft-rings had been able to +block every move, and nothing had been done. + +Sacco was more of a problem than the average prisoner. He could not +work in the plant which made shoes for the prisoners, because he was +such a swift worker, he cleaned up everything in sight; moreover, +another prisoner had attacked him, hating him as a “Red” and an +atheist. He could not work in the carpenter shop, because he was a +“murderer,” not to be trusted with tools. Kitchen work was barred for +the same reason. In short, there was nothing for him but twenty-two +hours a day in a cell; so he became frantic, and at half-past one +o’clock in the morning leaped from his cot and began to pound his head +against a chair, in an effort to dash out his brains. He succeeded in +cutting four gashes in his scalp, which a surgeon had to sew up. Then +Nick declared what he called a “hungry strike,” and for thirty-three +days he did not touch food. + +The chief officer was not allowed to do anything about it--so he +understood the law; if a wop didn’t want to eat, nobody had a right to +make him eat. It was good anarchist doctrine, and Cornelia discovered +that many members of the defense committee agreed with it. The Italians +were convinced that there was no hope of saving Nick from the chair, +and according to their philosophy, a man had a right to end his life +if he wanted to. If he did so, the agony would be over, and the cause +would have a good martyr. + +There was a hearing due on one of the motions for a new trial; one of +those interminable farces that occurred every month or two, whenever a +motion was made, a new affidavit submitted, an argument heard. Every +such time the miniature army would go into action, and the two wops +would be brought in and locked in the cage; Judge Thayer would enter +with a rustle of black silk robes, and the bailiff would pound with +his wand and repeat his formula, beginning, “Hear ye! Hear ye!” The +judge would sit down, and have another chance to pour out his withering +contempt upon the prisoners and their counsel. + +But during the “hungry strike,” the sheriff refused to take the +responsibility of moving Sacco from the jail to the court-house. What +was to be done? Fred Moore had an office assigned to him, across the +hall from the court-room; and there was a terrible scene--the lawyer +maintaining his intention of going before the judge with a motion to +determine Sacco’s sanity, and the anarchists arguing, denouncing, +threatening, clamoring for the prisoner’s right to decide his own +fate, without the intervention of aliens, enemies, traitors and spies. +The uproar became so great that the judge sent the bailiff to command +order. In the end Moore went ahead and made the motion, with Cornelia +standing behind him. For this neither of them was ever forgiven. + + +VIII + +Examinations were made, and the prisoner adjudged insane, and committed +to the Boston Psychopathic Hospital--where they made short work of his +anarchistic right to commit suicide. They strapped him into a chair and +put a rubber tube up into his nose and down into his gullet, and poured +in some milk. It is a hideously painful experience, and rather than +undergo it again, Nick agreed to eat. After that he was committed to +the Bridgewater Hospital for the Criminal Insane, where they were kind +to him; the doctors would listen while he set forth his principles, +and would agree that they were beautiful principles--as indeed they +were. Very soon Nick was strong again, and a “good fellow,” eager and +sociable. Outdoor work was given to him, and he did it gladly. + +So now he was “cured,” and must go back to Dedham. But the physicians +refused to certify him unless he was to have occupation; so the chief +officer was induced to modify his time-honored régime. Nick was to do +basket-weaving, and three times a week a volunteer teacher was to come +and give him lessons. This was Mrs. Bang, a Danish lady, who taught +manual training to blue-blood children in private schools; she must +guard the dark secret, that she came three afternoons a week to visit +an anarchist atheist draft-dodger convicted of banditry and murder. + +Mrs. Bang was one more problem in Sacco’s life. Why should a person +who was able to wear good clothes and drive about in an automobile, +take six long journeys a week, through a New England winter, to teach +anything to a prisoner without pay? It did not fit into the class-war +theory. But Mrs. Bang won his confidence--it was easier, because she +was a foreigner. Strange to say, she found that Nick loved America, and +wanted to live here. His wife talked about going back to Italy, but he +insisted that the children had a better chance in the new world. Page +Mr. Katzmann! + +Nick made bags from twine, decorated with beads; he made an elaborate +tray of reeds, with flowers and butterflies. He developed a wish to +learn English, the better to take his lessons. So came letters, to Mrs. +Evans, to Mrs. Henderson, to Cornelia: letters in home-made spelling, +but otherwise clear and direct. For example, when Cornelia made a +present of clothing to his family: + + “I remember a few years ago on our love day when I bought the first + lovely blue suit for my dear Rosina and that dear remembrance + still remains in my heart. That was the first day nineteen twelve + in Milford, Mass., the celebration day of the five martyrs of + Chicago, that in the mind of the humanity oppressed never will be + forget. So in morning May first nineteen twelve I dress up with my + new blue suit and I went over to see my dear Rosina and I asked + her father if he won’t let Rosina come with me in the city town to + buy something and he said yes. So in afternoon about one o’clock + we both us went in city town, and we went in a big store and we + bought a brown hat, a white underdress, a blue suit, one pair + brown stock, one pair brown shoes, and after she was all dress up, + I wish you could see Rosina, how nice she looked, while now the + sufferings of to-day had make her look like an old woman. But I + never was ambitious to buy her diamonds and so-so, but I always + bought everything that could be natural and usefull. + + “Just now I am sitting alone always, but with me, in my soul, in my + heart, in my mind, are all immense legion of the noble and generous + friends and comrades. Here I say I’m sitting writing to you these + few lines; the sunlight it shines on my face and for a brief time + it is a relief to my soul, and it brightens my mind by looking at + the clear blue sky and the beautiful mother of nature.... I will + live for humanity and for the solidarity and for the fraternity and + for gratitude to all the friends and comrades who have worked for + Sacco and Vanzetti; and I will live for freedom and for justice + that is the justice of all of us.” + + +IX + +From scenes in Dedham jail Cornelia would walk a few blocks to Dedham +court-house, and watch the male members of her family engaged in +wholesale respectable perjury. She saw Henry Cabot Winters, who had +spent his life harrowing other persons, and now for the first time was +toad instead of harrow. Every trace of the familiar ease and charm was +gone from Henry’s manner; he was exactly like any other witness telling +lies and getting caught; the perspiration appeared upon his forehead, +and had to be mopped away repeatedly. Under solemn oath he had declared +that on a certain date he had had no interest whatever in the concerns +of Jerry Walker; and then Jerry’s lawyer produced the charge-accounts +of Henry’s office, in which the great man and his subordinates kept a +record of the expenditure of their valuable time. On those pages Henry +was set down as having given a thousand dollars’ worth to the Jerry +Walker matter, and then five thousand more--it meant several days! He +had even gone so far as to open a separate account for time given to +the felt-business; he was starting to take it over, at a time when +the owner was resting serene in the promises of Rupert and the other +bankers, that he was to have three million dollars’ credit to handle +his war-contracts! + +Jerry Walker’s lawyers produced the accounts of all his concerns, +and showed how prosperous they had been. They showed the complicated +series of moves whereby Henry Cabot Winters had made it impossible +for Jerry to get a dollar out of any of them. The lawyer had started +fake bankruptcy proceedings against one enterprise; he had secretly +purchased some of Jerry’s notes, and caused other persons to start +lawsuits, to place attachments and obtain injunctions. And now here +he was on the witness-stand, squirming and wincing, obliged either to +admit that he had done these things, or else to be proved a perjurer. + +On another day Cornelia heard the cross-examination of a great banker +from New York, president of one of the dozen institutions which control +the financial life of America. This gentleman had held several hundred +thousand dollars’ worth of Jerry’s notes, and had turned them over to +Rupert and Henry, to be used in clubbing Jerry to his knees. He had sat +down with the lawyers and learned an elaborate mass of perjury, and +felt very uncomfortable while telling it to Jerry’s lawyer, because +that lawyer happened to know him well. The lawyer asked a simple +question, about which he knew the banker was going to lie; and he fixed +his stern gaze upon his victim, a sort of hypnotic stare. Something +happened to the witness, he “lost his head,” as the saying is; all that +elaborate structure of falsehood which he had learned went suddenly out +of his mind, he couldn’t remember the beginning or the end of it. + +A dead silence in the court-room, a long, long silence, apparently +endless. The witness sat with the lawyer staring into his eyes, like +a rabbit fascinated by a snake. At last the judge had to intervene: +“Are you conscious at all of any mental agitation just now, so that you +would like to leave the stand for a time and compose your mind? I think +we have been waiting nearly fifteen minutes for your answer to that +question. Are you sensible of a desire to leave the stand for a while? +If you are you may do so.” + +But the great banker could not think what to say, even to that. The +Court had to repeat and urge. “You might answer that question. I +ask you if you desire to leave the stand for a time and collect your +thoughts on this subject?” + +Finally the witness found his voice: “I would like to, to be perfectly +sure on this.” + +Upon which the proceedings of the Superior Court of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts, now sitting within and for the County of Norfolk, came +to a halt. The great Wall Street banker left the chair, and sat apart +in the court-room, while everybody else, including the judge and the +jury, did nothing but wait. An amazing, an incredible scene. Whispers +of the spectators now and then, but mostly dead silence, so as not to +interrupt the mental labors of the man of millions, supposed to be +trying to recall whether he had had a certain conference with a certain +man on a certain day--but in reality trying to bring back to mind the +elaborate structure of falsehood which his lawyers had worked out for +him. + +For almost an hour that extraordinary pause continued; and all the +while there were ghosts in the court-room, calling to Cornelia +Thornwell. The ghosts of Nicola Sacco, being harrowed by District +Attorney Katzmann! Nick being accused of the crime of having slandered +Harvard College! Cornelia imagined him asking for an hour’s time +to dig up from his subconscious mind the statistics, that Harvard +educated free something over one hundred students every year, while +the University of Wisconsin educated five thousand, eight hundred and +ninety-five! She imagined Nick asking for an hour’s time to recollect +whether he was “that man” who had dared to criticize America, after +running away to Mexico! She imagined him sitting for an hour trying to +recall what his lawyers had told him he had been doing on the night of +his arrest! Picturing such things, Cornelia had an impulse to laugh out +loud; which would have been a shocking breach of decorum--the Superior +Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, now sitting within and +for the County of Norfolk, would never have recovered from it. But +no, Cornelia had been for forty years the mistress of a blue-blood +household, and she sat, perfectly rigid, keeping her excitement inside. + + +X + +Dark days for the Sacco-Vanzetti defense, that year of 1924, with first +Nick in the insane asylum, and then Bart. Funds had run out entirely; +Fred Moore was a lawyer without an office; there was no committee, no +program, no action--nothing but two wops in torment, and a promise of +some legal decisions in an indefinite future. Judge Thayer was having +an attack of pneumonia, and then of appendicitis; but refusing to +die and let some other judge deal with the case. He would keep the +half-crazed victims in their cells, until he could have the glory and +the thrill of summoning them to court again, and with his cold metallic +voice like a thin strip of steel cutting into their souls. + +Betty and Joe had finished their year in the paper-box factory in +a blaze of excitement. They had organized the workers, and been +discharged for their activities; whereupon the workers had declared +a strike, and stayed out nearly a month, and got soundly walloped by +police and bosses. Betty had had her turn on the picket-line, and +as a result had changed her philosophy; she was all for solidarity, +and opposed to every label--socialist, communist, anarchist, or what +not--which split the workers and wasted their energies. She would +go to Charlestown to visit Bart, and they would get into an excited +controversy, and Bart would write treatises to controvert her heresy. +He would forget his own deadly peril, in his anxiety to save Betty from +a false theory. + +That was characteristic of all the Boston anarchists--they were strong +on theory, and weak on actuality. It was that which made the defense so +difficult; when a new move was to be made, they had to be persuaded, +and it was a job that took until the small hours of the morning, and +then had to be done all over again. No anarchist committee meeting ever +ended, because somebody had a right to say something more; no decision +could be taken, and if it was, it wasn’t binding. If you didn’t like +it, you said nothing, but went off and worked against it. If anybody +said that wasn’t fair, you shrugged your shoulders and said: “Shoo--er, +why not? Ain’t I got right for say what I please? No, I no got to say +it in committee, I say it when I want say it. If you not like it, you +got right say so--any time, any place.” + +In other words a committee of anarchists was a contradiction in terms; +it was not a committee, but a number of impermeable and unassimilable +units, and anybody who ever did anything was sure to be regarded as a +dictator or meddler. Fred Moore was sleeping on a canvas cot in the +committee-headquarters, and living on pancakes, because he had turned +in his last salary-check to pay the printer; yet, if you brought up a +new plan to raise funds, you would be sure to hear that it was contrary +to “filosofia anarchica.” If, nevertheless, you insisted upon action, +you would be told, “All right, do it, if you want, you got right.” But +if you insisted that the sanction of the committee was necessary before +the action could be effective, you would hear, “No, we don’t give no +sanction, if you want do it, you do it for self.” + +Even at times when money was on hand, it was almost impossible to get +them to pay it out. Money was contrary to “filosofia anarchica,” it was +an instrument and a symbol of graft. What did people need so much for? +What right did they have to it? In one desperate pinch, Cornelia sent +an organizer to New York, to address meetings and appeal to the radical +labor unions, especially the Jewish clothing-workers. This man sent +back a couple of thousand dollars; but he had to come back to Boston in +order to get his weekly pay-check to keep him going. + +Fred Moore’s idea was to spend money to get more; it was the American +way. When he learned that there was a convict in Atlanta penitentiary +who might tell something about the real bandits, he wanted to get on +the train and rush down there; he did not want to spend a night arguing +with the committee, and miss his train as a result. When he wanted to +send a man to Italy to hunt for Coacci or Boda, or to trail a suspected +bandit to Texas or the Argentine, Moore would have to threaten to drop +the case; it would be the only way to get a check signed. + +Such were the sufferings of lawyers in contact with anarchists: and +equally real and anguished were the sufferings of anarchists in +contact with lawyers! To rebels and “libertarians” the lawyer was the +incarnation of repression and enslavement; he was a spider who spun +webs of tradition about the limbs of humanity. Everything he did was +waste, his very language was an insult, and the expense he incurred +meant a bleeding to death of the radical movement. Let the martyrs die, +and spend the money upon “literature,” said the fanatics. But the +lawyer would point out that the money would not come for “literature,” +it came to keep the martyrs alive, and he was the sole possessor of the +secret lore whereby that might be accomplished. + +As individuals, you would find many of these Italian anarchists +simple and lovable, sometimes charming; in their naïveté a relief +from New England stiffness and solemnity. You must be patient with +their fanaticism, realizing that it was the excess of a virtue; +they represented the principle of variation, without which human +life would be that of the ants and bees. When you found them most +exasperating--when you felt like taking the whole of “filosofia +anarchica” and dumping it into the Back Bay--then you must remind +yourself that great scientists had held and taught this creed, +Kropotkin and the Reclus brothers; great poets, such as Shelley and +Emerson; moral teachers, such as Tolstoi and Thoreau, George Fox and +William Penn, Jesus and Buddha. Not all these had called themselves by +the name anarchist, but all had stood for the principle, the supremacy +of the individual conscience over social compulsion. If the movement +produced more dangerous lunatics than it did prophets and saints, that +was the price which humanity had to pay in the search for higher types +of being. + + +XI + +Dark days for idealists and dreamers of “joostice”! Fascist reaction +enthroned in Italy, and reaching out to control America; organizing the +Italians into murder-bands, to break up Socialist meetings in American +cities, and obtain the deportation of Italian radicals, to be shot at +home. In such activities they would have the coöperation of American +police, and of Federal secret service; Mussolini was the new hero of +our bankers and college-students, generally voted the greatest man in +the world. + +It was a presidential election year, and Senator LaFollette, who had +exposed the oil-thieves, was a Bolshevik and betrayer of his country, +while “Cautious Cal” was the strong silent statesman, who had made more +speeches than any other man ever in the White House. In their frenzy +of reaction the big business men even set out to smash the proposed +constitutional amendment prohibiting child-labor, and keep several +millions of little ones in mills and mines, instead of going to school. +There was a ferocious campaign in Massachusetts, an explosion of all +the forces of bigotry and avarice. The little group of workers for +the Sacco-Vanzetti defense lived in the midst of that uproar, like +travelers in an African jungle who hear the beating of tom-toms and see +the glare of fires upon which human flesh is being roasted. + +Cal Coolidge’s political and financial boss was a great lord of +cotton-mills in New England, soon to be made a United States senator. +He it was who led this campaign, and rallied the business men and +bankers, the newspaper editors and college professors, the bootleggers, +the criminals, and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. This latter +organization, kept generously by the business interests, had invested +its funds in choice real estate, and become one of the wealthiest +corporations in the Commonwealth. Now was the time for it to pay its +debt, and suffer the little children to come unto the mill-masters. + +The head of this religious machine was Cardinal O’Connell, jovially +referred to by the newspaper men as “Big Bill,” and by his enemies +as “the papal bull”; a huge hippopotamus of a man, weighing over +three hundred pounds, and like Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge and the +chief officer of Dedham Jail, devoting his attention to the problem +of “reducing.” It happened that Cornelia had spent her summers near +the prelate’s summer residence, and seen him daily, taking his +constitutional, a picturesque figure in a scarlet cloak, against +a background of azure river. To his intimates he was a genial and +convivial soul--not troubled by the eighteenth amendment, but having +access to the best stores of conviviality. He was an organist and a +judge of pictures, a generous buyer of old masters and rare books; a +Renaissance prince of the church, building a white stone palace out +on Commonwealth Avenue. The Jews had built themselves a Temple Israel +nearby, a plain concrete structure, and the Irish-Catholic conductors +of street-cars, answering the questions of tourists, would point their +thumb contemptuously and say, “That? Sure, that’s Cardinal O’Connell’s +garage.” + +Cornelia went to see him, a little later on, escorted by her nephew +Quincy. She pleaded with the great man to say a word for mercy to +Sacco and Vanzetti; but he was cautious and preferred to talk about +Japanese art and Buddhist philosophy. Quincy sat, a much-amused +spectator; being a wit and diner-out, he knew the great man, and had +brought his Bolshevik aunt to tea by way of a prank. Going and coming, +Quincy told stories about the Cardinal, who had begun life as an Irish +“mick” in “the Patch,” as the slums of Lowell were known. He was much +too intelligent a man to believe the mythology he taught; but he held +that it was what the masses needed to keep them obedient. He owned many +blocks of stock in cotton-mills, and was a reactionist now, but in his +young days had been a modernist, and highly indignant because some of +his writings had been put on the Index. + +There were many Catholics among the millionaire industrialists and +bankers of Massachusetts, and the Cardinal would invite them to dinner; +they would come with stars on their bosoms and garters on their +legs, and would be in heaven. The great prelate could ask them for a +million or two any day, and buy the best sites for orphan asylums and +seminaries and church colleges and what not. In this way he had spent +fifty million dollars in ten years. So now when these mill-owners and +bankers wanted the people of Massachusetts to vote their children into +wage-slavery, “Big Bill” was the boy to do their job. + +Four Sundays during the month of October, 1924, he made every priest in +the diocese stand before the high altar at high mass, and read aloud a +diatribe, based upon the lies circulated by the manufacturers’ agents, +representing the Children’s Bureau at Washington as a device of Moscow +for the undermining of the American home. Mrs. Florence Kelley, leading +social worker, and champion of the child-labor amendment, had once been +the wife of a Russian. Thirty-two years previously, she had divorced +this man, and had received from the courts the right to resume her +father’s name of Kelley; she had been a “Kelley” for sixty out of her +sixty-eight years of life. But now the opponents of the child-labor +amendment placarded her from Maine to California as Mrs. Wischnewetzky, +Bolshevik agent! By methods such as this, they induced the people of +Massachusetts to vote down the amendment by two to one, and the little +children of the Commonwealth were saved for God and Senator Butler. + + +XII + +In November, 1924, after a year, Judge Thayer handed down his +decision on the Proctor motion for a new trial. This motion was the +main reliance of the defense lawyers; they could not imagine how the +confession of one of the state’s leading witnesses that he had “framed” +his evidence in collusion with the prosecutors, could fail to be +ground for a new trial. But “Web” would show them! He would crowd all +his arts into one document--twisting and wriggling, evading issues; +misrepresenting everything the defense lawyers had claimed about the +Proctor confession. + +The issue was very simple, but “Web” wound it up in thousands of words, +and to make plain all his tricks would require thousands more. He said +that the questions asked of Captain Proctor were clear, and must have +been perfectly understood by him; which would have been a good joke, if +it had been meant as such. Of course they were understood by Proctor, +and no one had ever suggested that they were not. What Proctor had +confessed was that the questions had been contrived for the purpose of +being obscure to the jury: which was certainly an entirely different +matter. + +Next “Web” asked whether the questions were “unfair or improper.” Of +course they were not. What had been “unfair and improper” was that the +witness and the district attorney had framed the questions in such a +way that the jury would think they meant what they didn’t mean; also +that the judge had represented to the jury that they meant what they +didn’t mean. + +The question which had been “framed” had to do with whether Proctor, +as an expert on fire-arms, believed that the “mortal bullet” had come +through Sacco’s pistol and none other. And it really made you wonder +if you were dealing with an insane man when the judge went on from +point to point, asking over and over again why Proctor hadn’t said +plainly what he meant; as if Proctor had tried to make matters plain, +and failed--when the whole point of the confession was that he had +deliberately made matters obscure! + +But “cunning old Fury” was not insane; he knew what he was doing, and +went ahead, twisting every contention out of shape, misrepresenting +the plain meaning of the plainest English words. He charged the defense +lawyers with having claimed that Proctor “honestly believed that the +mortal bullet was not fired through the Sacco pistol.” But Proctor had +not said that, and the defense had not said that he had said it. + +Funniest joke of all--“Web” said that the answers of the district +attorney and his assistant to the Proctor confession were “clear and +convincing.” To employ the slang of Pierre Leon, you could “bet your +shoes” they were! They were clear and convincing of the fact that +Katzmann and Williams knew that Proctor’s confession was true, and had +not dared to deny it while Proctor was alive. They had carefully evaded +the main point; and the judge now carefully followed suit; relying, of +course, upon the fact that nobody would have the text of the answers, +nor the patience to disentangle the sophistry in them. + +Having performed this intellectual feat, “Web” was proud of it, and +went out, as usual, to boast. He thought he had earned a holiday, +so he went to Dartmouth, his college, to attend one of the football +games. On the field he saw Professor James P. Richardson, and came up +to him, demanding in a loud voice: “Did you see what I did to those +anarchistic bastards the other day? I guess that will hold them for a +while. Let them go to the supreme court now and see what they can get +out of them!” There was more to the discourse, and the professor stood, +upon pins and needles, as the saying is, because it seemed to him an +unimaginable impropriety, and he knew that others were listening. He +got away as quickly as he could. + +It was “Web’s” way. He was engaged upon a crusade, to destroy the Reds +in Massachusetts; and he did not understand how others could fail to be +interested in his exploits. He would punish his friends, his club-mates +and associates with long tirades, until they would be bored and ask +him to quit. A group of lawyers who lunched in the club at Worcester, +would turn their shoulders to him and talk about other matters. The old +man would sit mumbling to himself: “They don’t understand! They don’t +realize! The Vandals are at our gates, and are going to destroy us!” + + +XIII + +This failure of the “Proctor motion” was the finishing blow for +Vanzetti. Impossible to hope after that! Impossible to go on enduring +the indignities of prison. Bart decided that his friends and the whole +movement were being betrayed. Also he took up the notion that his +ill health was due to slow poisons given to him in his food. He too +declared a “hungry-strike,” and about Christmas-time of the year 1924 +was certified to the Bridgewater asylum. The Sunday after he was taken +away, the prison chaplain preached a sermon to his flock, pointing out +the danger of departing from the holy faith. Look at poor Vanzetti, who +had lost his mind, a hopeless wreck! It was the same Father Murphy who +had said, “Tell me, Vanzetti, who drove the car at South Braintree?” + +To the psychiatrists at Bridgewater this prisoner represented a +well-known type; a victim of what they called “delusions of grandeur,” +or the “messianic complex.” He had the notion that the future would +be interested in him and his sayings and doings; that books would be +written about his case, and translated into many languages, and read +by millions of people. He lived his life and endured his sufferings in +the presence of future generations, who would reverse Judge Thayer’s +verdict upon him, as they had reversed other verdicts upon agitators +and rebels--John Brown and Giordano Bruno and John Huss, Galileo and +Socrates and Jesus. Furthermore, he had the fixed idea that he could +learn to write English, and accumulated quantities of manuscript, which +he thought would convert others to his cause. + +In order to pacify him, it was necessary to pretend to agree with +him, and then one could have quite interesting talks. He was a man of +surprising culture, considering that he had been a laborer all his +life; he was reflective, shrewd, even humorous at times. He did not +make friends easily, preferring to sit aloof; but when a physician said +that he believed in “joostice,” the prisoner would be eager to explain +his brand of it, and would sit for hours, telling Dr. Stearns with the +utmost seriousness how a society might be run without government or +forcible repression. + +These specialists in human mentality were not asked their opinion as +to the probable guilt of this convicted bandit, but they could not +help having ideas on the subject. They reported Vanzetti as of the +intellectual, not the motor type; awkward, not active. They said that +if he committed an assault, it would be, not with intent to kill, but +to show feeling. They pictured a man with his excess of emotion and +imagination, attempting to commit a hold-up; it was their judgment that +his heart would beat violently, his knees would shake, he would hear +a noise behind him, and whirl about and shoot blindly, or throw away +the gun in a panic--a “brainstorm,” as it was known to the writers and +readers of crime-news. The psychiatrists furthermore reported that +the professional bandits and hold-up men in the prisons jeered at the +idea that Sacco and Vanzetti could have done that South Braintree job; +they were offended in their dignity by the suggestion that a couple of +bunglers and novices could have got away with anything so competent and +swift. + + +XIV + +The jury brought in its verdict in the Jerry Walker case; a terrible +blow to the Thornwell men--saying, in effect, that they had perjured +themselves upon the witness-stand. The jury found that Jerry Walker was +entitled to damages equal to the market value of his properties at the +time they were taken from him, plus the interest; a trifle over ten and +one-half millions of dollars. It was the biggest verdict ever brought +in the Commonwealth, and men talked about it in the clubs for weeks. + +The decision was announced a week before Christmas, and completely +spoiled that gracious season in the Thornwell, Winters, Alvin, +and Scatterbridge homes. Rupert took to his bed with a severe +“coryza”--since it would not do for a great banker to have a common +cold. He entertained his wife and visiting ladies of the family with +terrible pictures of the collapse of Boston banking, consequent upon +the custom of allowing decisions concerning millions of dollars to +rest in the hands of men who could not have financed a peanut-stand. +According to Rupert, all the bankers in Boston would immediately be +sued for all the money they had made in the last ten years--which was a +commentary on the city’s banking-system from a leading authority. + +Rupert’s expensive lawyers would be put to work at once to appeal the +case; and even while he was scolding and pessimizing, and snuffling +and sneezing and snorting and blowing with the coryza, Rupert’s mental +dynamo was driving away at new plans. The details of the appeal would +be left to the lawyers, while Rupert would concentrate on the judges. +He had suggested the appointment of two or three members of the Supreme +Judicial Court, and hoped he could count upon them. He began figuring +over the others: their families and connections, social and financial. +Whose men were they, and what obligations were they under? + +Presently Rupert would be sending for good gossips, such as Quincy +Thornwell, who could help him pick up information. If any of these +judges had close relatives who were lawyers, it might be a good +idea to retain these. If they had intimate friends who could talk +to them, methods must be worked out to approach these friends--in a +strictly high-minded and proper way, of course--pointing out to them +the dreadful state of uncertainty in which the financial affairs of +Massachusetts were left by this unprecedented jury decision. How could +big bandits stay in business, if, after they had held a pistol to the +victim’s head and got him to sign a document excusing them for the +robbery, the police should be allowed to step in and say that the +document didn’t count? + +It would take more than two years for the Full Court of the Supreme +Judicial Court to weigh and decide this mighty issue; so Rupert had +plenty of time to continue his intrigue. He would not have to buy any +members of the higher court; he trusted that nobody had been appointed +who was not the sort of person to respect great bankers and appreciate +their difficulties as the invisible rulers of America. It was an +unwritten custom that as soon as a man was appointed to this court he +was also made a member of the very old and exclusive Union Club; so +Rupert and his associates would meet the justices at luncheon every day +when the court was in session; and while they would not be so crude as +to refer to the case, they could talk about business stability and the +sanctity of contracts; they could arrange for others to do the same, +the big and weighty men to whom the justices had had to come, to beg +for the favor of appointment. At the time when Rupert knew the Full +Court was giving its time to the case, he would bring it about that +great bankers from New York would happen to ride up in the elevator +with the justices and happen to remark in clear tones that all business +in New England was held up, waiting to find out if the courts were +going to permit credit to be undermined and contracts repudiated. + + +XV + +Yet, with all this power in his hands, Rupert was nervous; he could +not help worrying, to the great damage of the calcified veins in his +ankles and legs. His brother-in-law tried in vain to keep him cheerful: +Henry Cabot Winters, who had worked out for himself a wonderful scheme, +whereby he was going to snap his fingers at all courts and their +decisions. Henry was going to make over his property to his sister, and +then go into bankruptcy! + +Ordinarily this service is performed for business men by their wives; +but Henry was afraid of Alice. Not that she would keep his money--no +Thornwell would ever be a thief; but she might have a brainstorm, and +decide that it was for the good of his soul for the money to be turned +over to an occultist society. Just now the mad streak in the Thornwells +was manifesting itself in Alice’s determination to be a lady “chela.” +She was bringing bowls of rice and fresh straw for bedding to a real +“shri,” who was at one with Brahma, and must not be spoken to. Every +day Alice put on a snow-white robe and stood in front of a black screen +in a pitch-dark room, in order that her aura might be studied, and her +soul-troubles diagnosed thereby. + +But Henry had a sister, Agatha Winters, who was pure “New England,” +unmarried and unchanging. He went to see her in the village where she +lived in the family homestead, devoting herself to church work. He +explained his troubles; wicked men had conspired to ruin him, and if +they succeeded, obviously he would no longer be able to contribute to +his sister’s support, and she would no longer be able to give her time +to the Lord. So Agatha knew that it was the Lord’s purpose for her to +aid Henry against his enemies. She had learned from the Old Testament +that the Lord aided His own against others, and that He was not too +scrupulous as to the means. + +So Henry put five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of liberty bonds +into Agatha’s name, and had them sold and converted into a bank-draft +payable to her. She endorsed it, and Henry sold her some of his +property for it. He then bought more liberty bonds, and had them sold +in Agatha’s name, and put the money into another bank-draft, for which +Agatha bought another half-million dollars’ worth of his property. +This procedure was continued until Agatha was the registered legal +owner of every bond and share of stock and piece of real estate which +Henry owned, including everything which he had got from Jerry Walker; +including even the automobile he drove, the yacht on which he spent his +week-ends, the five-gaited snow-white Arabian stallion which he rode, +and the apartment-house in which he kept his mistress, a charming and +popular concert-singer. + +So the great lawyer could go into court and swear that he did not own +a dollar in the world; and Agatha would be able to produce canceled +vouchers, showing the actual payment of cash to the full market +value of every piece of property she had acquired. Hidden away in a +safe-deposit box to which Henry alone had the key there was a will, +executed by Agatha in Henry’s favor; and a deed, selling back to Henry +for the sum of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations, +all the property which Henry had sold to Agatha. This latter document +was blank as to date; thus Henry had everything fixed so that, the day +the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the Jerry Walker verdict, he could +file a petition in bankruptcy, and wipe out his share of the claims +forever. After which, he would take back his property again, and laugh +in the face of his enemies! + + +XVI + +The Thornwell generations came and went. Great-uncle Abner had a +paralytic stroke, which intercepted the nerves in his legs. No longer +did he ride about “Hillview” on a pony, but sat in a wheel-chair and +stormed and fussed when his attendants delayed to bring his meals. +He still had his deaf man’s voice, but could not hear a sound; you +wrote your ideas on a pad for him to read. You did not have to write +very much, because he was interested in his own ideas, and content if +you would sit and nod and smile. Every time he found anything in his +_Evening Transcript_ damaging to the reputation of a “Red,” he would +cut it out and mark it, and mail it to Cornelia with injurious comments. + +To make up for the loss of Abner’s legs, Betty’s older sister, +Priscilla, brought four of them, eagerly kicking, into the world. The +first time it was a boy, and his name at once became Alvin Thornwell +Shaw, quite a load for two tiny red legs to kick under. Since his +father was a mighty mountain of copper, it pleased his Aunt Betty to +refer to him as the young copper hill; and when the second heir arrived +and proved to be a niece, Betty took to calling her the little branch +bank. Betty herself was not going to provide her mother and father with +any grandchildren--at least not for a while. Betty talked defiantly +about the wicked practice known as “birth control,” and said that this +was not a fit world into which to bring babies. What was the use of +raising boys for the military men to take away from you and kill? What +was the use of raising either boys or girls when their grandparents +would insist upon leaving them millions of dollars, thereby turning +them into parasites and deadheads? + +Family propriety compelled the inviting of Cornelia to act as godparent +to both the copper hill and the branch bank; but each time she modestly +declined, not feeling equal to the responsibility of training either +Thornwells or Shaws. But she attended the baptisms, which were in +Trinity Church on a weekday afternoon, with many relatives and some +invited friends. The font had been made beautiful with flowers, and +there was a hymn sung by those present, and the precious infant slept +soundly, wearing the embroidered christening robe, two yards long, +which had been made for Great-great-great-grandfather Thornwell, the +sea-captain, and used at the baptisms of his infant descendants ever +since. When the splashing of cold water woke the victim up, it let out +a yell of indignation, which was a good sign, the old ladies said, +because it let the devil out; the old men chuckled, and commented--a +powerful voice, like Abner Thornwell’s and Josiah’s--it was the old +stock! + +There were two godfathers and one godmother for the boy, and the second +time one godfather and two godmothers for the girl. Each time these +sponsors in baptism did promise and vow three things in the infant’s +name; of which the first was that it would “renounce the devil and all +his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all the covetous +desires of the same.” Cornelia Thornwell looked about her: here was the +elder Shaw, grandfather of this infant, who sat tight upon a huge store +of treasure, and some twelve years ago, when his wage-slaves in the +Mesaba Range had dared to revolt, had sent in thugs and gunmen to slug +and murder them, exactly as if it had been at home in Massachusetts. +And here was Rupert Alvin, who had taken away ten million dollars from +Jerry Walker, and now was trying to undermine the highest court of his +Commonwealth in order to keep it. The covetous desires of the world! + +And then the “vain pomp and glory.” Here were stately male personages +in striped trousers and cutaway coats, or braided black broadcloth, the +very stick-pins in their ties having ritual significance; here were +ladies, who had made a life-study of the art of demonstrating their +millions and tens of millions without appearing to do so. Here was a +temple built with hands, having single windows which had cost thousands +of dollars, and nothing within sight of it that was not luxurious. +Outside were shining limousines, and liveried chauffeurs waiting. At +the Alvin mansion there was a collation, and heads of finance and +fashion would eat cake and drink punch, and gossip about everything +that was expensive and therefore important. At the Shaw mansion they +were preparing a dinner-dance for next week, that would be the most +costly affair of the season; they would furnish the newspapers with +every detail of a great family advertisement, and eagerly read every +word next morning. The vain pomp and glory of the world! + +And all this in the name of Comrade Jesus! A strange, strange prank +of time! Cornelia came out from the famous brownstone temple, erected +to the glory of the proletarian martyr, and walked past the statue of +Phillips Brooks, which graced one side of it. A figure of the Son of +Man, stepping out of the side of the building and laying his hand upon +the shoulder of the great Bishop of the Blue-bloods. Bishop Brooks had +been quite a radical in his day, and the wits of the city were wont +to say that the hand of Jesus was an admonitory hand, and that Jesus +was saying, “Be careful, old man, remember what they did to me, and I +didn’t say half what you are saying!” + +From this ceremony Cornelia went to visit Vanzetti, who had been +certified back to Charlestown, and was shoveling coal again. She was +moved to tell him where she had been, and what she had seen, and +her thoughts on the subject. “I have been wondering, Bart, if they +should make a martyr out of you, will people be committing crimes and +hypocrisies in your name a couple of thousand years from now?” + +It was an idea the prisoner took seriously; the thought of martyrdom +having become the mainspring of his lonely life. “Nonna,” said he “if +they make me martyr, I fix it, I write message it cannot be mistake. If +anybody say Vanzett’, it mean joostice, it mean freedom--it cannot mean +nothing but!” + + +XVII + +It was Boston, pious, proper, and proud. The _Telegram_ was publishing +onslaughts upon Sacco and Vanzetti, calling for their blood because +they were “atheists.” One day the staid bankers and brokers of State +Street, proceeding about their business in front of the Old State +House, scene of the Boston Massacre, were astonished by the spectacle +of the publisher of the _Telegram_ rolling in the gutter, pummeling and +being pummeled by the Honorable James Michael Curley, until recently +mayor of the city. Next day the two champions were issuing statements +in the newspapers, each claiming to have done the more successful +pummeling. The day after that the publisher was publishing a cartoon +of the ex-mayor, showing him in prison stripes--he having “done” a few +months many years back. And then the ex-mayor was sending the publisher +to jail for criminal libel: all this in Boston, pious, proper, and +proud, thirsting for the blood of “atheists”! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE MILLS OF THE LAW + + +I + +Betty Alvin was now twenty-six years of age; old enough to know better, +as her family and friends insisted, but she continued to give her time +to the stirring up of social discontent. She and Joe had taken up +the task of founding a labor college in Boston, to teach the workers +to think for themselves, instead of for the stockholders and the +bankers. Joe was teaching a class, two evenings a week, the history of +European labor movements, and writing a book on the subject. Betty, +learned young lady, was expounding “labor theory”; trying to adhere +to a policy of working-class solidarity, and being perpetually pulled +and hauled between socialists and communists. However, they would +all excuse her, on the basis of her “bourgeois upbringing.” In the +daytime she inspected accounts and paid bills; or, when this was not +possible, sallied forth to raise money. She would visit the offices of +Irish-Catholic labor leaders, and do her best to persuade them that it +was really in the interest of unions for idle-rich girls to meddle in +their affairs, and teach them complicated theories with long foreign +names. + +Hard-fisted individuals these, having fought their way in a world of +realities--which included Democratic and Republican politicians seeking +votes and promising favors; also agents of employers making presents +of boxes of cigars, and willing to lose unlimited sums at poker. +“Parlor pinks,” who mixed in the affairs of such gentry would learn a +lot of things not in the Radcliffe curriculum; they would have a hard +time deciding which leaders to educate and which to kill off. For the +sake of Sacco and Vanzetti in the shadow of the electric chair it was +necessary to be patient and tactful; to appeal to class solidarity, and +to human feelings not entirely atrophied. Thus you might get a chance +to present your case before some labor body, and have anywhere from +twenty-five to a hundred dollars voted to the defense. + +Betty had now been for more than three years the lawful and duly +certified wife of Joseph Jefferson Randall--even though she insisted +upon belonging to the “Lucy Stoners,” and remaining “Betty Alvin,” not +even “Mrs.” Was it a part of the same eccentricity, that she refused to +do her duty by her family, and pass on to the ages those excellences +of which the family was so conscious? Did these modern young wives +repudiate babies altogether, and, if so, what substitute had they to +propose? Deborah never failed to make such inquiries when she met her +daughter. + +Now Betty came to Cornelia: “Grannie, I guess it’s my turn.” + +“How do you mean, dear?” + +“Well, there’s a saying that accidents will happen in the best +regulated families, and it seems that the Lord is on the side of the +Thornwell clan.” Such was the fashion of speech of these modern, +hard-boiled young women; they would not permit themselves any of the +traditional thrills of their sex, which they called being “soppy.” +When they referred to matters ordinarily considered “delicate,” they +seemingly went out of their way to find the most offensive language, +with which the ears of their chaste grandmothers had never in a +whole lifetime been assailed. In Betty this reaction was especially +violent, as a result of having been brought up in Boston, and hearing +somebody say “Hush!” several times every day. She persisted in going +about telling all her friends, both men and women, the medical facts +about herself; refusing to put on garments ingeniously contrived for +the hiding of her shameful condition, going to her labor college and +teaching classes at a time when she was a scandal on the street. + +She even told two “wops” about it, when she went to see them in jail. +They, being peasants, took it as a matter of course; they were used +to babies, as to all other kinds of young animals. Betty would even +permit Vanzetti to be “soppy”--he being in jail, and having a hard time +to keep his sanity. Poor devil, he needed something young and new and +sweet and healthy and happy to occupy his thoughts, so when Betty went +to see him, she told him how it felt when the unborn baby kicked. It +might have been one old “nonna” gossiping with another old “nonna,” +scrubbing clothes on the banks of the River Magra. + +In due course the infant phenomenon arrived. It was a boy, and his name +had been determined several months before he was born--Rupert Alvin +Thornwell Randall; it would be worth millions to him some day, in spite +of his mother’s protests. The war that was to last all his lifetime +began in the first weeks; for of course his name wouldn’t be his name, +until it had been conferred upon him in Trinity Church; and here were +his mother and father declaring that he wasn’t going to be baptized! +The family brought Betty to admit that it wouldn’t do any harm; if they +chose to dress him up in an old linen robe two yards long and sprinkle +cold water on his head, she would not interfere, but certainly they +must not expect her or Joe to waste time on such foolishness. Neither +must they get the idea that this particular grandchild was going to be +permitted to visit them, and be waited upon by servants and demoralized +by the uses of luxury. Rupert Alvin Thornwell Randall was going to live +among working people, and grow up to be of some use in the world. The +grandparents did not argue that; they would have the baptism first, and +save the little one’s soul. The other issues could be fought out later! + + +II + +Cornelia was continuing to devote her life to the Sacco-Vanzetti case. +She would get herself invited to gatherings of ladies, and tell them +the cruel story, and when they said they were “so sorry,” she would +ask just how sorry, and explain that sorrow was measured in figures +on a bank-check. She would help the defense committee to organize +entertainments and benefit performances--which, alas, sometimes +cost more than they brought in. She would visit headquarters, and +try to keep things moving, to reconcile the endless clashings of +personalities. Always there was something needing to be done, and one +could not do it, or even urge it, without antagonizing somebody. What +Vanzetti called “umane beings” had not yet evolved to a stage where +they could merge their personalities and coöperate; they had to waste +the greater part of their energies in friction. Cornelia would be so +discouraged that she would give up, and tell them to do what they +pleased; but then they would do nothing--and meantime there were Bart +and Nick on the way to execution! + +The antagonism between Fred Moore and some members of the committee +had waxed with the years. It was impossible for anarchists to get +along with any lawyer; it was especially hard with this one, who was +hell-bent upon discovering the real criminals, and insisted upon +spending defense funds in tracing clews, chasing off to Atlanta +penitentiary or to Texas, sending some one to Italy or to South America +to run down a story. Moore would either have his way or quit; and in +the end his enemies made his position impossible, by undermining the +faith of his clients in him. He received a letter from Sacco, signed, +“Your implacable enemy, now and forever”; so the lawyer realized that +the days of his usefulness were over. “I have failed,” he said to +Cornelia; “and it’s a game where nothing succeeds but success.” + +There was an interregnum, with no lawyer, no anything else--except two +prisoners on the way to the electric chair. Finally the committee was +reorganized; some Italians withdrew, some Americans were taken on, +and overtures were made to William G. Thompson to take charge of the +new motions and appeals. He knew how much trouble it would mean, and +set his fee at a figure which he meant to be prohibitive, twenty-five +thousand dollars. There was a problem for Cornelia and Betty and Joe! + +It was solved by a curious turn of events, hardly possible in any part +of the world except Boston. A young man by the name of Charles Garland, +while a student at Harvard, had known Jack Reed, and become troubled in +his conscience. Now Reed had given his life to the Russian revolution, +and was buried under the Kremlin walls; while his friend Garland fell +heir to a million dollars. His conscience not permitting him to accept +it, he turned it over to a committee, to be expended for the benefit +of labor. So there was the “Garland fund”; and in this emergency it +was persuaded to lend twenty thousand dollars to the Sacco-Vanzetti +defense, and William G. Thompson was put in charge of the case. + +A man in his early sixties, with iron-gray hair and ruddy skin, six +feet tall and broad shouldered, dry and humorous, smoking a pipe and +looking like a Yankee farmer, Thompson proved to be the boss of which +the case had been in need. He became convinced that the machinery of +justice was being used for persecution, and turned into a crusader in +defense of his clients. Before he got through, the fee he had charged +did not cover his office overhead; yet his enemies accused him of +having profited unduly, and tried to have the Bar Association proceed +against him for the offense of defending anarchists. + +He had his strict ideas of propriety. This was a law-case, and was to +be tried in the courts, and everything which savored of “propaganda” +must be rigidly avoided. Which brought him, of course, into conflict +with active friends of the cause. To Joe and Betty, propaganda was the +essence of the defense; it was propaganda which had made possible the +appeals and kept the two men alive; it was propaganda which brought +in money to pay lawyers. Vanzetti’s opinion was summed up in his +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 +spoils system--retired politicians, ex-district attorneys or city +solicitors--tools of the big corporations, put there as reward for +services. Most of them have spent a life-time protecting public service +and accident insurance companies, upholding laws against labor, +upholding vested privilege in every form. How many of them have been in +your pay, Rupert, before they went on the bench?” + +She waited; and then remarked with a smile, “You could count faster if +you wanted to. I know of a judge who was counsel for a great banker +fearing indictment for perjury--and I know that he got that banker +off through a district attorney who was afterwards disbarred for +malfeasance in office.” + +Rupert showed a desire to withdraw from this unprofitable discussion; +and his mother-in-law smiled. + +“It was only in the most high-minded way, Rupert, I know! Our bankers +name men who have been in their pay, and then it is the fiction that +they forget gratitude! The public is expected to believe that men who +have been truckling and time-serving politicians become spotless and +noble-minded the moment they put on a black silk robe! But you know, +and I know, that you are hoping for the Supreme Judicial Court to hand +you Jerry Walker’s money. And you know that they are killing my two +boys for threatening property rights in New England.” + + +V + +The old evidence was wiped out, but new appeared to take its place and +keep the case alive. First, the defense discovered Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. +Kennedy, the two women who had looked out of a window on the bandit +car, and had a perfect view of the one supposed to be Sacco. They had +made to Fred Katzmann statements to the effect that Sacco was not the +man, and Katzmann had kept this evidence from the defense for five +years. Thompson now demanded the reports, but Katzmann’s successor, +Ranney, was mysteriously unable to find them. This was the time for +Ranney to appear before Thayer and deliver his cynical pronouncement: +“I wonder if Mr. Thompson has not an exaggerated and too ethical notion +of the functions of a district attorney!” + +Then the Madeiros confession. Celestino F. Madeiros was a young +Portuguese, member of a gang which had robbed a bank in Wrentham and +killed the cashier. He was in Dedham jail while his appeal was being +heard, and his conscience troubled him, he said, when Sacco’s wife came +to the prison with the baby. On November 18th, 1925, he scribbled on a +piece of paper: “I hear by confess to being in the South Braintree shoe +company crime, and Sacco and Vanzetti was not in said crime.” He handed +the paper to a trusty, who gave it to Nick. + +A long investigation began. Madeiros told a detailed story of the South +Braintree crime, but refusing to name any of his associates. However, +a skilled lawyer knows how to get the facts out of a man, and the +job was attributed to a group of freight-car thieves and hold-up men +of Providence, known as the “Morelli gang.” Several of them were in +jail, and their records were traced; Cornelia now studied the career +of such persons as Bibba Barone, Steve the Pole, Gyp the Blood. Also +she listened to more wrangling in the committee, because the anarchists +resisted the efforts to pin the crime on the Morellis or anybody else. +“What for we play polissman for state Massachusetts?” + +But Thompson went ahead, and collected a mass of affidavits to be +submitted in a motion for a new trial: which went the usual round, and +served the purpose of keeping Sacco and Vanzetti alive for another +year. Motion filed May, 1926; hearing before Judge Thayer, September; +decision and appeal, October; argument before the Supreme Judicial +Court, February, 1927; decision April, 1927; all very solemn and +very expensive, with ancient legal phrases and complicated rules, +making certain that no layman could be his own lawyer. Bart would +watch the game, and joke with Cornelia; he was glad to be kept alive, +of course--he could speak more words for the cause; but at the same +time he begrudged the money, which might better have been spent for +literature. Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the anarchist wop, had become fond +of William G. Thompson, the blue-blood lawyer, who was a learned and +a great-hearted man. “But he is very naïve,” said Bart, gently; “he +believe in the Supreme Court.” + +The prisoner went on to explain. “It must be that way with a lawyer; +he think he have to get his what you call them, precedents, right. He +think if he can show how it was done before, then he has won. It is +like chess--you ever play chess, Nonna?” + +“My brother-in-law used to be a champion.” + +“Well, you make move, you say ‘check’ and you have won. It is a game. +But this is not a game, this is war. You say ‘check,’ and your enemy +he knock the figures off the board, he throw them in your face.” As +time passed, and the courts did this to the great lawyer, over and over +again, Bart would remind Cornelia, and add, patiently, “I think some +time they foolish Mr. Thompson.” + + +VI + +Then came the confessions of Letherman and Weyand--two agents of the +Department of Justice, whose consciences had begun to trouble them. +They had got out of the secret service now, the war upon the Reds being +less active. They made affidavits, telling of the part which Federal +agents had played in getting the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti. +They said, in substance, that the Department had felt sure that Sacco +and Vanzetti were not guilty of the South Braintree crime, but that, +since they were dangerous anarchists, it was desired to get them out +of the way. The Department had turned over to the district attorney’s +office a mass of evidence, in return for an agreement on the part of +the district attorney to help the Department get information. There +was much correspondence in the files of the Department in Boston which +would show what had been done. + +So the energies of the defense were turned to getting hold of these +files. Thompson made application to the United States Attorney +General, Cal Coolidge’s village lawyer from Vermont; a strong, silent +protégé of a strong, silent statesman--and never more silent than now! +Thompson did not get the files, and neither did anybody else get them. +The attorney-general made no affidavit, and neither did any of his +subordinates, and there was not a squeak from Fred Katzmann or Harold +Williams, now a judge! + +The motion for a new trial was argued before Judge Thayer in September +of 1926. A great sight was William G. Thompson that day, for his moral +sense was stirred, and he talked like an old-style prophet. He paid his +regards to Fred Katzmann: + +“Just think of what it means, if your Honor please! Think of what it +means! + +“Mr. Katzmann knew and knows to-day whether Fred Weyand and Lawrence +Letherman told the truth. That truth is a truth of vital importance. +Think what they say! The files of the Boston office are full of +correspondence with Mr. Katzmann and of documents showing the closest +coöperation between the Federal Agents and the District Attorney--not +Stewart--the District Attorney in the preparation of this case. +Every Federal agent who knew anything about it believed these men +to be innocent of murder. ‘Every one of us believed they ought to be +deported. They were anarchists, they did not believe in organized +government or private property.’ + +“Oh, how those words will ring around this world, ‘private property’! +Think what is going to be said about it! The man who does not believe +in private property in America may be killed whether he is guilty or +not. That is going to be said from one end of the world to the other if +this thing is allowed to go through. Can we afford it? I do not care +how high an opinion your Honor has of Mr. Katzmann. It may be he was +misled. Far be it from me to make any further or other attack on Mr. +Katzmann than simply what the facts warrant. He has remained silent in +the face of those accusations. Nothing that I can say is more eloquent +than that silence. I desire to say nothing in addition to that silence.” + + +VII + +So much for the district attorney; and then Thompson turned his +attention to the village lawyer from Vermont, the strong, silent +protégé of a strong, silent statesman. Said he: + +“And what do you say of the refusal to produce those papers? Take all +the circumstances, sir.... We have got a telegram from New York, but +we cannot get the papers in those Boston files. What inference does +your Honor tell the jury may fairly be drawn against a man if he is an +humble man who is in the possession of relevant evidence and refuses to +produce it? Do you tell them that it is going to help him or that it is +going to hurt him? + +“Is there anything so exalted in the office of the Attorney General of +the United States that the inference that you draw against any other +men who hold back documentary evidence should not be drawn in this +case? I am not talking about him personally, of course; I am talking +about him in his official capacity. Personally, I have no doubt he is +an admirable citizen. But there is some reason of strong policy why +those papers are not produced here. What can that reason be? What can +it be? Are you going to say because Sacco and Vanzetti are Italians, +because they are poor folks, because they are aliens, because they +have no constitutional rights we will let Mr. Sargent hold back what +might set them free?” + +And then Thompson turned upon Katzmann’s successor, Ranney, who had +argued that the “secrets” of the Department of Justice were sacred and +must be protected! Said Thompson: + +“What are these secrets which they admit? They have then admitted +secrets, have they? There are secrets, are there? I thought there were +from the fact that it was not denied or contradicted. And I will say to +your Honor that a government which has come to value its own secrets +more than it does the lives of its citizens has become a tyranny, +whether you call it a republic, a monarchy, or anything else. Secrets! +Secrets! And he says you should abstain from touching this verdict of +your jury because it is so sacred. Would they not have liked to know +something about the secrets? The case is admitted by that inadvertent +concession. There are then secrets to be admitted.... + +“Mr. Ranney says that I have argued that all these Federal agents +ought to be in jail. I was not so bold as to make that suggestion, if +your Honor please. All I ventured to call your Honor’s attention to +was the fact that one of them already was in jail, namely, our friend, +Shaughnessey, sentenced for twelve years for highway robbery, a man +who was then investigating Sacco and Vanzetti, and going around with a +badge of the United States on him as his authority so to do. I do not +suggest what ought to be done to these agents. I do say, as a citizen, +that it is a shame that Weiss, a man capable of making the suggestions +that he made, and doing the things that he did in this case, should +still be wearing the uniform of the United States and boldly operating +around this town, and not even taking the trouble to come in here and +deny these charges.” + + +VIII + +All that got under “Web” Thayer’s skin most frightfully; you had only +to watch his gray withered face and trembling hands while he listened. +It made him so furious that he took only five weeks to write his +decision--instead of the year he had been requiring hitherto! There +were persons who believed that the reason for the Sacco-Vanzetti +conviction had been ill-mannered I.W.W. lawyers from the wild and +woolly west; but here was a respectable lawyer, one of the leaders +of the Boston bar; and here was “Web” raging at him, with elaborate +and complicated sneers such as “Web” loved, and which exhibited his +learning, not merely in the legal field, but in the medical. Said “Web”: + +“Since the trial before the jury of these cases, a new type of disease +would seem to have developed. It might be called ‘lego-psychic +neurosis’ or ‘hysteria’ which means: ‘a belief in the existence of +something which in fact and truth has no such existence.’ ... This +disease would seem to have reached a very dangerous condition, from +the argument of counsel, upon the present motion, when he charges Mr. +Sargent, Attorney-General of the United States and his subordinates, +and subordinates of Former-Attorney-General of the United States Mr. +Palmer and Mr. Katzmann and the District Attorney of Norfolk County, +with being in a conspiracy to send these two defendants to the electric +chair, not because they are murderers but because they are radicals.... +This would seem to be a very low estimate of the District Attorney and +his assistants. The physician, ordinarily, in diagnosing a disease, +seeks to ascertain the length of time the symptoms have existed, with a +view of ascertaining how deep-seated the disease is and whether it is +curable or not. In these cases, from all the developed symptoms, the +Court is rather of the opinion that the disease is absolutely without +cure.” + +But the most amazing thing in that amazing decision was what the +learned judge had to say about the issue of “radicalism,” and the +part it had played in the trial. Defending himself, with his back to +the wall, “Web” cited some dialogue which he said had passed between +Katzmann and Sacco. But you searched in the transcript of the testimony +for that passage, and couldn’t find it. You would go back and search +some more--you must have skipped a page, it must be there somewhere. +You would get others to search--until finally it had become certain +that “Web’s” citation was invented! So much progress “Judge Fury” had +made since the days of the Dedham trial, when his utmost daring had +been to present Frank Sibley with a page from the transcript with a +passage cut out. But now he concocted passages, and inserted them in +his decisions, in quotation marks, to be printed in the law-books, and +handed down to the scorn and fury of all future times! Said Mr. Justice +Thayer, in his rôle of fiction-writer: + +“Mr. Sacco said that he feared punishment, that he was afraid of +deportation, that he did not want to go back to Italy, that he had +told all these falsehoods because of his fear. Mr. Katzmann, in his +cross-examination, brought out all these facts and then he asked this +question: ‘Mr. Sacco, you say you feared deportation and that is why +you told all these lies and why you did what you did?’ and Mr. Sacco +said ‘Yes.’ Then came the next question: ‘Mr. Sacco, at the very time +when you were telling these lies, you had already secured a passport +for Italy on which you, your wife, and two children were to sail two +days after the night of your arrest?’ and the answer was ‘Yes.’”--Not a +word of that in the record! + + +IX + +Incidents such as this furnished propaganda for the radical and labor +press. No need of comment--they were their own comment. The story +spread, in wider and wider circles. Pierre Leon, in Paris, would +publish in his paper everything that was sent to him, and it would +be taken up by socialist and communist agencies, and translated into +a dozen languages, and made the subject of editorials and protest +meetings all over the world. + +The little group in Boston, laboring in obscurity and despair, had +accomplished more than they knew. Their propaganda had influenced many +thousands whose names they would never know. In part it was the natural +drama of the case, the contrasts and thrills supplied by the Great +Novelist; in part it was the personality of Vanzetti. Joe Randall had +been right when he said, at that first meeting in Plymouth Jail: “The +police have given us a good martyr.” For five years Bart had been tried +in the fire, and he had stood the test; it would be hard to say how +any man could have stood it better. Outside, in times of excitement, +he had been fanatical and violent; but now those faults were remedied +by prison bars; now he was of necessity the student and thinker. He +met persons of the cultivated class, and learned that they, too, +were concerned about “joostice.” Without weakening in the cause of +his beloved proletariat, he came to understand that goodness is not a +matter of class, and that love can break down as many barriers as greed +can set up. + +He was gentle, he was wise, and he was dignified. The humiliations of +prison life had failed to affect him; he had conquered his jailers. A +few days after his arrest, Mike Stewart, bluff and burly, had patted +him on the back and called him “Bertie”; but now the guards understood +that he was a superior man, and before his death the life of the +prison had come to revolve about him. He sat for many hours a day in +his cell, writing letters; and the least of these bore the stamp of +his personality. He had a style now--both in English and Italian. To a +friend he wrote: + + “I have been told that the Italian is one of the most beautiful + of languages: to me it is: it is my mother’s language: it is the + angelic language to me. Yet all languages are beautiful when + they voice the beautiful, the good and the true. Your words are + harmonious and sweet to me as friendship’s voice is--they are + music, the vibration of life.” + +Always thinking of others; with that natural courtesy which springs +from a kind heart. To a rancher’s wife on the Pacific coast he wrote: + + “By the solidarity of the workers, friends, and comrades I always + have money to enable me to buy some food and fruits, cheese, etc., + when the institution food does not agree with me. I am satisfied + with what I have. Very often I think while eating of some starved + human creatures and I feel a little ashamed though I have always + done my part to assure a piece of bread to each mouth. So please do + not be excessively troubled for me. Good sentiments and friendly + words are most necessary to me--and you are very most prodigal.” + +So he said; but in truth he needed more than sentiments and words; he +needed the bosom of that Mother Nature whom he loved with a passion +both filial and romantic. When he heard that Cornelia was visiting +Plymouth, he wrote to her: “Oh! that sea, that sky, those freed and +full of life winds of Cape Cod! Maybe I will never see, never breathe, +never be at one with them again!” He poured out the anguish of his +effort to know and to achieve--in spite of terrifying handicaps: + +“Exactly talking, I am not busy in writing but in trying to write. +For, the prison’s spell is telling its story also on me, and how so! +It seems to be increasing my understanding and diminishing my power +of expression. In fact ... it is ... an experience all right! but +an experience that undermines the life, straight to its sources and +centers so that as long as consciousness and memory are not yet weaken, +you can realized something ... but, as to express oneself at one’s best +one has to be at one’s best while after such experience one is not any +longer at his best! he can not any longer express himself at the best +of his power. These are the reasons why I am busy in trying to write +and writting very little at all. Oftentimes I manouvired hard to write +down what I wish; then, reaching it I perceive that it does not says +what I mean and I torn the writting in many little pieces. + +“The crux of this inner drama is not only about expression ... it is +that I doubt my own thoughts, my opinions, my feeling, my sentiments, +believes and ideas. I am sure of nothing, I know nothing. When I think +of a thing and try to understand it, I see that in the time in the +space and in the matter that thing is, both before and after, related +to so many other things that I, following its relations, both backward +and forward, see it disappear in the ocean of the unknown and myself +lost in it. It is easy to create a universal sistem, to human minds; +that is why we are blessed by so many of universal sistems while no one +know what a bed-buck is.” + + +X + +Cornelia would visit Charlestown and discuss these high metaphysical +problems with Bart, and then she would go to tea-parties and dinners in +the Back Bay, and tell her blue-blood friends about this philosophical +fish-peddler, and now and then persuade one to call upon him. So +gradually the class-lines were broken down in Boston, and strange +things happened--things which could not have been duplicated anywhere +else in the world. For example, the Madeiros reprieve, and the way it +was engineered! + +The Madeiros motion for a new trial, turned down by Thayer, was in +process of appeal to the Supreme Court. But meantime, the mills of the +law were threatening to grind up the principal witness! Madeiros was +scheduled to be executed for the Wrentham bank murder, and if he were +to die, what would be left of the “Madeiros motion”? The Governor of +the Commonwealth was asked to postpone the execution, and he refused to +act. By what means could his hard heart be moved? + +Cornelia went to call upon a certain venerable lady, one of the oldest +inhabitants of Beacon Hill, tremendously looked up to, even though +she took no part in politics or practical affairs. Hardly anything in +her home less than a hundred years old--except the occupant, who was +ninety-something, and regarded Cornelia Thornwell as one of the young +matrons. A shrine of respectability, with a little wizened female deity +in a faded black silk dress, to whom Cornelia told her troubles--the +losing struggle she was waging with politicians and bankers and +business men who thought they were protecting society and upholding +order when they took a chance on killing innocent men. See what was +happening to a fine, upright lawyer like William G. Thompson, who was +being abused up and down for daring to defend two anarchists! + +The old, old lady listened, and then said, “My dear, the trouble is, +these persons don’t know Boston history. Tell them what John Adams and +the first Josiah Quincy did.” + +“What is that?” + +“You don’t know history either! When the British soldiers were indicted +for murder after the Boston massacre, John Adams and Josiah Quincy +defended them, to be sure they had a fair trial.” + +“Did that really happen?” exclaimed Cornelia. + +“Yes, indeed, my dear, you can look it up in the books. If you want to +make any headway in Boston, why don’t you really find out about us?” + +It happened that at this time a New York newspaper had sent its labor +editor to study the Madeiros case. This man had come with the usual +prejudices, but convinced himself against his will that Sacco and +Vanzetti were innocent. He wanted to do something to help, and Cornelia +told him of this colonial precedent. Seeing the chance, he took it to +one of the most bitter reactionaries in Boston, a man whom Cornelia +herself would never have approached, for she knew that he had put up, +out of his private purse, more than half a million dollars for the war +upon the “Reds.” + +This powerful person, who had been demanding a quick death for Sacco +and Vanzetti, was confronted with that sacred precedent, and felt +himself rebuked. Had John Adams and the first Josiah Quincy really +done such a thing? If it was true, he would do no less! He would write +or call upon the Governor, and ask for a reprieve of the Madeiros +sentence! He did so; and the result was, the reprieve was granted, +and Sacco and Vanzetti got another six months in which to make their +impression upon the world! + + +XI + +Seven years had passed since the felt plants of Jerry Walker had been +taken from him by Henry Cabot Winters and Rupert Alvin and the rest of +the “Pilgrim National crowd.” Two years had passed since the jury had +brought in that tremendous verdict of ten and one-half million dollars +in Mr. Walker’s favor. In the course of seven years the new owners had +made more than that amount of money out of the properties; but still +Mr. Walker had not got a penny. The case had been appealed to the +Supreme Judicial Court, and at last, in the fall of 1926, the seven old +gentlemen in black silk robes were ready to hear the argument. A great +event in the legal world of Boston: the highest priced lawyers in the +city pitted against one another, for the highest stakes in history. +You might be sure that none of the elderly judges would fall asleep +this time! They listened day after day, while more than two thousand +“exceptions” were explained and debated before them; the mere brief of +the plaintiff filled three printed volumes. + +The wrangling over, the seven judges took their seven heads full of +arguments, and the printed briefs and the huge “bill of exceptions,” +to meditate and discuss among themselves. Three or four months they +would need to make up their minds; but--a dreadful circumstance, almost +blasphemy to mention--Rupert and Henry thought that they foresaw the +outcome! In strictest secrecy the word went the rounds of the family; +no need to worry, everything was going to be all right! + +And so it proved. On the ninth of March, 1927, the black-clad justices +spoke the final word on the Jerry Walker case: declaring that the +verdict of the jury had been an error, and that the trial judge +should have directed a verdict for the banker-bandits. From this time +forth all banker-bandits who desired to put pistols to the heads +of businessmen need only have to take the precaution to make the +businessmen sign a paper forgiving them for the action. + +An amazing decision for a court which was forbidden to deal with the +facts, and claimed that it never did so! The release which Jerry Walker +had been induced to sign, at the time that he had parted with his +properties, had been an obvious part of the conspiracy; he had signed +it in ignorance of what had been done to him, and one consideration +of the release had been his parting with more of his property. So the +jury had decided; but now the august justices stepped in and declared +that this was not so; the conspiracy had been over before the release +was signed, and “no fraud or duress entered into the execution of the +release.” In order to say this, they had to do exactly what “Web” +Thayer had done so many times in the Sacco-Vanzetti case; that is, to +shut their eyes to a mass of testimony which stood in the record. When +it came to sparing the rich or condemning the poor, all judges appeared +to be alike. + +A great relief to the masters of the Boston banking-ring. No longer +need they fear having to part with most of their wealth acquired during +the last few years! They patted the old boys of the court on the back +at lunch-time in the Union Club, and told them that they were true +friends of sound and conservative business. All right to talk about the +case now; neither would there be any harm if you offered to take a son +or a favorite nephew into the bank at a generous salary. In time of +peace prepare for war! + +Jerry Walker’s legal bull-dog was raising a howl, and talking about +appealing to the United States Supreme Court; but that was all +rubbish, said Henry Cabot Winters--the Federal courts would never take +jurisdiction. He went about among his friends and took his share of the +back-patting. The great bankers and lawyers who had made faces at him +now began to make smiles. Since they were to keep the money, they would +manage to forgive him for having forced it upon them. + +John Quincy Thornwell was in Paris at the time of the decision, +and Henry sent him a cablegram which was the talk of Boston clubs +and drawing-rooms for many a day thereafter. “Tout est sauvé sauf +l’honneur,” said Henry. Since the World War all Boston blue-bloods +know French--or they have secretaries who help them pretend to. The +humorless president of the Fifth National Bank of Boston would find +somebody to translate and explain those shining words: “All is saved +but honor!” Goethe made the remark that every bon mot of his had cost +a purse of gold; but Mr. Jerry Walker operated upon the modern scale, +with splendor suited to the masters of mechanized production; he had +paid ten and one-half million dollars for that bon mot of the Back Bay! + + +XII + +Property was safe, so now there was time to think about life. The +seven black-robed old gentlemen got to work on the Madeiros motion in +the Sacco-Vanzetti case--the last chance for a new trial. They had +been stung by world-wide criticism of the law’s delay, and wanted to +get the matter over, so that Massachusetts might have peace again. +The motion had been argued in February, and on April 5th came the +unbelievable opinion: Judge Thayer’s decision, like all his other +decisions in the case, had been “in his own discretion,” and it was to +stand! All lawyers commented upon the amazing contrast with the Jerry +Walker decision, less than one month earlier. When it was a question +of safeguarding the lives of workingmen, the Supreme Judicial Court +held itself powerless to deal with the facts, and could only pass on +the judge’s interpretation of law. “Finding no error, the verdicts are +to stand.” But when it was a question of protecting the property of +bankers, the court had not hesitated to set aside the verdict, and to +declare that the jury had been unjustified in drawing the conclusions +it had seen fit to draw. + +The decision was written by Justice Wait, who had begun his public +career as an alderman of the city of Boston--an occupation which leaves +a man in no ignorance as to the relationship between business and +politics, and the power of big money in American affairs. Immediately +after the decision was made public, his home was put under guard, and +the homes of all the other judges, district attorney and officials. +Judge Thayer’s home had been guarded for the past nine months, and a +husky detective followed him everywhere he went. + +It was “Web’s” hour of triumph, and he made the most of it. His cries +of exultation echoed through the dining-rooms of Worcester and Boston +clubs. He would button-hole acquaintances on the golf-links, and +boast of his perfect knowledge of legal precedents. “I told them they +couldn’t put it over on me! I wasn’t going to be intimidated by anybody +or anything! I told those damned fools they couldn’t hoodwink me! I +represent the integrity of the courts of Massachusetts, and I shall see +that the integrity is maintained! I taught a lesson to that long-haired +arnychist from California! Yes, and I’ll teach a lesson to the people +who are raising money and slandering the courts of this Commonwealth!” + +A prominent member of the Worcester Country Club came out to his car +and told his family and friends how he had just been one of a group +of men to whom “Web” had been holding forth, referring to Sacco and +Vanzetti as “those bastards down there,” as “Bolsheviki,” and saying +that he would “get them good and proper”; that he would “show them +and get those guys hanged. No Bolsheviki can intimidate Web Thayer!” +In one of the clubs of Boston a horrified whisper went the rounds--a +United States senator had said to the steward in the dining-room: “If +you let Judge Thayer come to my table again, I’ll have you fired.” The +“blue-bloods” shook their heads and said it was a consequence of the +low type of men who were being appointed to the bench. But even so, the +courts must be upheld! + +“Web” and the district attorney, who knew all tricks of the law, +were quick as a tiger in their next spring. No other appeals were +on file; and if “Web” sentenced the men, he would clinch the case. +After sentence had been passed, no other judge of the Superior Court +could take jurisdiction, and “Web” would be the undisputed master. On +April 9th, four days after the Supreme Court’s decision, he had the +two “Bolsheviki” brought to Dedham court-house, with the round white +dome and portholes like an ocean liner, and had them locked safe in +their cage--the same from which they had gazed at him six years ago +through a period of seven weeks. With rustling black robes he emerged +from his chamber, and took his seat upon his throne: a frail old man, +more withered than ever; badly scared, yet clinging desperately to +his dignity in this great hour of triumph. Lawyers and spectators +looking up to him, a score or two of armed men protecting him--inside +the court-room with automatic revolvers on their hips, outside on the +steps with rifles in hand. “I represent the integrity of the courts of +Massachusetts!” + + +XIII + +“Nicola Sacco, stand up,” said the clerk of the court; and Nick rose, +pale and haggard, dressed in his best black go-to-court suit. + +“Nicola Sacco, have you anything to say why sentence of death should +not be passed upon you?” + +Poor Nick, he knew many reasons, which he wanted to shout to all +the world. But his friends had advised him that he could produce no +impression in a Yankee court-room, because of his blundering English. +He had made up his mind to let Bart speak for him; but standing before +that gray old man who had tortured him for six years; seeing the row +of newspaper men, with eager pencils poised, ready to flash his words +to the farthest ends of the earth--such a temptation was too much for +a propagandist soul. Nineteen years Nicola Sacco had been in America, +driven, humiliated, repressed; and here for the second time in his life +America was ready to listen. He spoke; and the court reporter and the +newspaper men kindly straightened out his dialect, and the world read: + + “Yes, sir. I am not an orator. It is not very familiar with me + the English language, and as I know, as my friend has told me, my + comrade Vanzetti will speak more long, so I thought to give him the + chance. + + “I never knew, never heard, even read in history anything so cruel + as this Court. After seven years’ prosecuting they still consider + us guilty. And these gentle people here are arrayed with us in this + Court to-day. + + “I know the sentence will be between two classes, the oppressed + class and the rich class, and there will be always collision + between one and the other. We fraternize the people with the books, + with the literature. You persecute the people, tyrannize them and + kill them. We try the education of people always. You try to put a + path between us and some other nationality that hates each other. + That is why I am here to-day on this bench, for having been of the + oppressed class. Well, you are the oppressor. + + “You know it, Judge Thayer--you know all my life, you know why + I have been here, and after seven years that you have been + persecuting me and my poor wife, and you still to-day sentence us + to death. I would like to tell all my life, but what is the use?” + +It was no use whatever, and so Nicola Sacco sat down. + + +XIV + +“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, stand up,” said the clerk of the court; and the +other figure in the cage stood up: thin, worn, and partly bald, but +with the droopy mustache as big as ever; a large, loose figure in a +neat black suit with a little black silk tie. + +“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, have you anything to say why sentence of death +should not be passed upon you?” + +“Yes,” said Bart, quietly. + +And now he would reap the reward of those years of hard work in +his lonely cell; of his practice writing letters, and treatises on +syndicalism, and an autobiography, and a novel, and a translation of +Proudhon, and even a poem about a nightingale! Bart would be able +to find words; with hesitation now and then, but not too much; with +mispronunciation enough to be picturesque, but not enough to be +offensive. Quietly, firmly, he spoke, as one who has meditated long +upon his ideas; as one who was addressing posterity, rather than the +casual few in a court-room. Posterity, hear him! + +“What I say is that I am innocent, not only of the Braintree crime, but +also of the Bridgewater crime. That I am not only innocent of these two +crimes, but in all my life I have never stolen and I have never killed +and I have never spilled blood. That is what I want to say. And it is +not all. Not only am I innocent of these two crimes, not only in all +my life I have never stolen, never killed, never spilled blood, but I +have struggled all my life, since I began to reason, to eliminate crime +from the earth. + +“Everybody that knows these two arms knows very well that I did not +need to go into the streets and kill a man or try to take money. I +can live by my two hands and live well. But besides that, I can live +even without work with my hands for other people. I have had plenty of +chance to live independently and to live what the world conceives to be +a higher life than to gain our bread with the sweat of our brow. + +“My father in Italy is in a good condition. I could have come back in +Italy and he would have welcomed me every time with open arms. Even if +I come back there with not a cent in my pocket, my father could have +give me a position, not to work but to make business, or to oversee +upon the land that he owns.... But I have refused myself of what are +considered the commodity and glories of life, the prides of a life +of a good position, because in my consideration it is not right to +exploit man. I have refused to go in business because I understand +that business is a speculation on profit upon certain people that must +depend upon the business man, and I do not consider that that is right +and therefore I refuse to do that. + +“Now, I should say that I am not only innocent of all these things, +not only have I never committed a real crime in my life--though some +sins but not crimes--not only have I struggled all my life to eliminate +crimes, the crimes that the official law and the moral law condemns, +but also the crime that the moral law and the official law sanction and +sanctify,--the exploitation and the oppression of the man by the man, +and if there is a reason why I am here as a guilty man, if there is a +reason why you in a few minutes can doom me, it is this reason and none +else.... + +“We have proved that there could not have been another judge on the +face of the earth more prejudiced, more cruel and more hostile than you +have been against us. We have proven that. Still they refuse the new +trial. We know, and you know in your heart, that you have been against +us from the very beginning, before you see us. Before you see us you +already know that we were radicals, that we were underdogs, that we +were the enemy of the institutions that you can believe in good faith +in their goodness--I don’t want to discuss that--and that it was easy +at the time of the first trial to get a verdict of guilty. + +“We know that you have spoken yourself, and have spoke your hostility +against us, and your despisement against us with friends of yours +on the train, at the University Club of Boston, at the Golf club +of Worcester. I am sure that if the people who know all what you +say against us have the civil courage to take the stand, maybe Your +Honor--I am sorry to say this because you are an old man, and I have an +old father--but maybe you would be beside us in good justice at this +time.... + +“We believe more now than ever that war is wrong, and we are against +war more now than ever, and I am glad to be on the doomed scaffold if +I can say to mankind, ‘Look out; you are in a catacomb of the flower +of mankind. For what? All that they say to you, all that they have +promised to you--it was a lie, it was an illusion, it was a cheat, +it was a fraud, it was a crime. They promised you liberty. Where is +liberty? They promised you prosperity. Where is prosperity? They have +promised you elevation. Where is the elevation?’ + +“From the day that I went in Charlestown, the misfortunate, the +population of Charlestown, has doubled in number. Where is the moral +good that the war has given to the world? Where is the spiritual +progress that we have achieved from the war? Where are the security of +life, the security of the things that we possess for our necessity? +Where is the respect for human life? Where are the respect and the +admiration for the good characteristics and the good of the human +nature? Never before the war as now have there been so many crimes, so +much corruption, so much degeneration as there is now. + +“This is what I say: I would not wish to a dog or to a snake, to the +most low and misfortunate creature of the earth--I would not wish to +any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty +of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I +have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I +have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself; +but I am so convinced to be right that you can only kill me once but +if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other +times, I would live again to do what I have done already. + +“I have finished. Thank you.” + + +XV + +It was “Web” Thayer’s turn. He, too, rose to speak. As it turned out, +he rose to apologize; to plead that it was not his fault. A singular +fact, which Vanzetti had noted about the legal machinery of the august +Commonwealth--he had commented upon it to Cornelia--that everybody +put the responsibility on somebody else! The arresting policemen had +said it was not their fault, they had been obeying the orders of their +superiors. The jailers one and all said the same thing. The chief +officer of the jail had said that the higher powers would not permit +this and that. Members of the jury had said that they had had to follow +the instructions of the learned judge. And now here was the learned +judge--at the very crisis of events--putting the blame upon the jury! +The Supreme Judicial Court had said that the trial judge had had the +final say as to the facts. And now here was the trial judge putting the +responsibility upon the Supreme Judicial Court! + +Could it be that even “Web,” the insensitive, had been awed by the +majesty of Vanzetti’s words? Could it be that “Web,” the vainglorious, +was assailed by a doubt about himself? Be that as it may, the braggart +was gone from his manner, and his voice was no longer a thin strip of +steel, but trembling and mumbling. He said: + +“Under the law of Massachusetts, the jury says whether a defendant is +guilty or innocent. The Court has absolutely nothing to do with that +question. The law of Massachusetts provides that a judge cannot deal in +any way with the facts. As far as he can go under our law is to state +the evidence. + +“During the trial many exceptions were taken. Those exceptions were +taken to the Supreme Judicial Court. That Court, after examining the +entire record, after examining all the exceptions--that Court in its +final words said, ‘The verdicts of the jury should stand; exceptions +overruled.’ That being true there is only one thing that this Court +can do. It is not a matter of discretion. It is a matter of statutory +requirement, and that being true there is only one duty that now +devolves upon this Court, and that is to pronounce the sentence. + +“It is considered and ordered by the Court that you, Nicola Sacco, +suffer the punishment of death by the passage of a current of +electricity through your body within the week beginning on Sunday, the +tenth day of July, in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred +and Twenty-seven. This is the sentence of the law. + +“It is considered and ordered by the Court that you, Bartolomeo +Vanzetti....” + +Here Vanzetti broke in: “Wait a minute, please, Your Honor. May I speak +a minute with my lawyer, Mr. Thompson?” + +Said Thompson: “I do not know what he has to say.” + +Said Judge Thayer: “I think I should pronounce the sentence ... +Bartolomeo Vanzetti, suffer the punishment of death....” + +But here came Nick, with one of his wild cries: “You know I am +innocent. Those are the same words I pronounced six years ago. You +condemn two innocent men.” + +But the mumbling voice went on, in the solemn legal formula: “... by +the passage of a current of electricity through your body within the +week beginning on Sunday, the tenth day of July, in the year of our +Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-seven. This is the sentence +of the law.” It was customary for the judge to add, “And may God have +mercy on your souls.” But for some reason Judge Thayer omitted this +part of the formula. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE SUPERSALESMAN + + +I + +Cornelia Thornwell would wake up in the middle of the night, trembling, +in a cold sweat. They were going to murder Bart and Nick! Impossible to +fool herself any longer; they did actually intend to do it! + +For hours she would lie, evolving plans; going over in her mind the +names of persons she knew who might be capable of a concern for either +justice or mercy. She would turn on the light by her bedside and make +notes of things to be done during the day. Betty and Joe, who now lived +in the next apartment, would come in at daylight and find her writing +letters. Impossible to rest! + +There being no more hope from the courts, the energies of the defense +were turned to the Governor of the Commonwealth, who had the power to +pardon, or to commute the sentences to life-imprisonment. Legally, his +power was subject to the consent of his “council,” a sort of state +cabinet; but then, he had power over this “council,” being what was +known as a “strong” man, accustomed to having his own way. + +Alvan Tufts Fuller was his name, and he had begun life as a trick +bicycle-rider and racer. He went into the bicycle-repair business, and +prospered, and when the bicycle gave way to the automobile, he stayed +on the top of the wave, and obtained the agency for the Packard car +in New England, and also in Pennsylvania, and of the Cadillac car in +New England. Upon every machine sold in these territories he received +twenty per cent of the purchase price. Since the Packard limousine +was a five thousand dollar car, it amounted to a great sum, in the +neighborhood of two million dollars a year. “Allie” Fuller, trick +bicycle-rider, was now the richest man in New England; authorities +differed as to whether his fortune was twenty millions or forty, but +as a rule they guessed the higher sum. + +He had begun his political career as a “Roosevelt Progressive,” but +that thin veneer had worn off quickly. He had been elected to Congress +for two terms, but had been too busy to attend the sessions--except +when it was necessary to make a speech denouncing the “Reds.” He had +served four years as lieutenant-governor, and had earned the enmity +of the Thornwell clan by insisting upon an exposure of Rupert Alvin’s +purchase of the legislature in connection with the Elevated Railway +bill. Fuller played the rôle of an “independent” in politics, stern +and incorruptible; he made a grand gesture of refusing to take his +salary--thereby obtaining advertisement worth many times the amount. +He wanted the legislators and officials to have the same scorn for +small sums of money; if they had possessed an income of two millions a +year, they would doubtless have obliged him. As it was, they took their +salaries of fifteen hundred dollars, and eked them out by means of tips +from the lobbyists who swarmed to the State House, or the hotel-rooms +nearby. + +The system of universal graft which is American government was going +on, and Fuller knew that it was going on. Once in a while some +“reformer” or “crank” or “sore-head” would force an exposure, whereupon +the lieutenant-governor would leap up and make a fuss in the papers, +and the public would know that they had an honest public servant. The +statements he made got him into trouble; the Speaker of the House +sued him for slander and won a verdict--only to have it upset by the +Supreme Court. But Fuller got the advertising and on the basis of +it became Chief Executive of the Commonwealth--the great master of +millions condescending to play the game of democratic politics. The +procedure consisted of going about shaking hands with grimy workingmen +who thought he was still the bicycle repairer of thirty years ago. +Hale and hearty, full of animal magnetism, with a rough exterior and a +“golden heart,” he kept the admiration of the “plain people.” To the +starving strikers of Fall River he began a campaign speech, “I am not a +politician”--and they believed him. “I am no orator,” he would say--and +doubtless meant it, not knowing that this was a device explained in +every treatise on oratory. + +A typical specimen of the “strong man” in American affairs; a competent +executive, a driver of other men, but utterly devoid of ideas, and +incapable of thinking except in current tags. He had known all his +life what he wanted, and had gone after it and got it. To a salesman +of Packard automobiles, the human race is sharply divided into two +parts: those who have the money to buy Packard automobiles, and those +who have not. To the former, “Allie” Fuller would come forward smiling +and voluble, his mentality concentrated upon flattery and “service.” +To that far greater number whose costume and manners make clear that +they have not the price of a Packard car and never will have it, the +attitude is one of indifference, except just prior to election day. + +This supersalesman of automobiles was as cold as marble; utterly +selfish, and lacking not merely in the finer feelings, but even in +the common every-day kindness, of which politicians often have too +much. No friend, no matter how intimate, ever got a discount on a car. +In politics he granted no quarter; he gave the punishment and took +none. In business he was the modern slave-driver with a fountain-pen +instead of a whip. When, after the war, the workers in his repair +and body-factory came to him, pleading humbly that on account of the +increase in the cost of living they could not get along on a wage of +twenty-five dollars a week, he gave them a brutal refusal. There was +a strike, which was embarrassing to an ambitious politician in later +years. But no diminution of that two million dollar a year income! + +Such is the way by which “strong” men build up fortunes; and then they +sit on the heap, regarding with instant instinctive hostility any one +who suggests that there is any other ideal in life, or any other duty. +And now such a man was called upon to decide the issue of life or death +for Nicola Sacco, who had stood up in court and said: “I know the +sentence will be between two classes, the oppressed class and the rich +class, and there will be always collision between one and the other.” +He was to decide the issue of life or death for Bartolomeo Vanzetti, +who had stood up in the same court and said: “I have refused myself of +what are considered the commodity and glories of life, the prides of a +life of a good position, because in my consideration it is not right to +exploit man.” + + +II + +The Madeiros confession, the Letherman and Weyand confessions, Judge +Thayer’s decision, with its tone of raving--all these had brought a new +element into the Sacco-Vanzetti case. So-called “decent” people--that +is, people who had money, but nevertheless believed in fair play--were +shocked by a too-obvious demonstration of class justice. One by one the +few daily newspapers in America which profess a trace of liberalism +were persuaded to investigate the case, and one by one they took up the +campaign for a new trial. + +The Springfield _Republican_, the only liberal daily in New England, +pleaded the cause. The Boston _Herald_ published an editorial, which +won the Pulitzer prize for the best newspaper editorial of 1926. “As +months have merged into years, and the great debate over the case has +continued, our doubts have solidified slowly into convictions, and +reluctantly we have found ourselves compelled to reverse our original +judgment.” That gave a terrible shock to Boston conservatism; for +substantial persons who didn’t read the _Globe_ in the morning read +the _Herald_, and such an editorial interfered with the digestion of +cod-fish balls. A friend of Governor Fuller’s met him on his way to the +State House that morning and said, “Have you seen that the _Herald_ has +come out for a new trial for those wops?” Said His Excellency, “What? +Has the _Herald_ fallen for that bunk?” + +Now had come the death sentence; and all those energies of protest +which had been centered upon the courts were turned upon the Chief +Executive. “Write to Governor Fuller! Wire to Governor Fuller!” said +the bulletins and appeals of the defense committee. The State House was +inundated by a flood of mail. It came, literally by the bushel-basket +full, several times every day. The best brains of the world, the finest +and most sensitive spirits, laid aside their work and composed appeals, +of a sort which they imagined might stir the conscience and influence +the judgment of the chief executive of a great Commonwealth. They spent +money upon telegrams and cablegrams, they wrote letters for which a +collector of autographs would have paid large sums of money; and what +became of the product of their efforts? + +The defense committee received a letter addressed to the Governor, +signed by a dozen or more labor members of the British Parliament, +asking him to do what he could to bring about a new trial. Gardner +Jackson, Amherst graduate and a presentable person, was selected to +deliver the document, and he took the precaution to take along the +State House reporter for the Boston _Globe_, to introduce him. + +His Excellency was not in, and they met his efficient private +secretary. To him Jackson handed the letter from the members of +Parliament, and the secretary took one glance at it, and burst out: +“Oh, those God-damn crooks! Do you think we pay any attention to this +stuff? It comes in here by the barrelful and we immediately chuck it +into the fire.” Then he turned upon the reporter, demanding, “What do +you mean by bringing this fellow up here on a matter like this? First +thing you know, those God-damn wops will be getting out and coming +to live near you in Brookline. How would you like that?” It was a +witticism, and the secretary laughed loudly, and threw the letter back +at Gardner Jackson. + +Such was the agent through whose hands would pass everything which +came to the Governor on the case. When documents of great urgency were +entrusted to him, and it was discovered several days later that the +Governor had never seen nor heard of them, the defense committee would +be infuriated, and would blame the secretary for failure of their +hopes. But Joe Randall would laugh--he was furnishing labor papers with +news on the case, and was up at the State House at all hours of the day +and night, meeting the other reporters and hearing the gossip. “Don’t +fool yourself, Nonna!” said he--cynical young “Red.” “The secretary +forgets what Fuller doesn’t want to have remembered. He is paid two +salaries to serve as the goat, and have us blame him instead of his +boss!” + +Alas for blue-blood ladies, who left the refinements of an exclusive +home, and mixed themselves in the public affairs of capitalist society! +Cornelia Thornwell was now seventy-two years of age, and her hair was +snow-white, and her step no longer firm--she had to be helped upstairs +now and then. And here she was, forced to measure her wits against +a supersalesman of automobiles and his entourage. Startling were the +tales which Joe Randall brought home about the goings on of the “State +House gang.” Down underneath the beautiful golden dome there was a +cellar, stocked with liquors confiscated by the state police; and the +heads of this “gang” were presenting the stuff or selling it to all +and sundry, including the state legislators. Still more dreadful, to +the mind of an old-fashioned lady, some of this crowd were using the +state police boat, the _Lotus_, for what the newspaper slang termed +“orgies”--drunken parties with women. All the reporters knew about +it--but the friends of Sacco and Vanzetti had to wait until nine months +after the wops were in their graves, before a disgruntled employee at +the State House spilled the Boston beans to some prying clergymen, and +an investigation was forced. + + +III + +Cornelia Thornwell belonged to the little group of those who have +a right to know. Therefore she went to her son-in-law, Henry Cabot +Winters, and asked him to find out for her the Chief Executive’s real +attitude toward the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and what he intended to do. +It was only a month after the Jerry Walker victory, and Henry was +his old genial self again, pleased to have a call from his Bolshevik +mother-in-law. He reported his relations with the Governor to be fairly +good; he had not joined with Rupert in his row--the canny Rupert had +warned him not to, for in the game of politics you can never tell at +what hour your deadly enemy may become your best friend. + +The great lawyer would go up to the State House, and not merely find +out, but put in a word for some form of executive clemency, as a matter +of political tactics. So much Cornelia had been able to accomplish +by twelve years of radical propaganda in her family! She was deeply +grateful, and went home and prepared a fine dinner for her son-in-law, +with ribs of spring lamb, and new potatoes and green peas, and +strawberries from Georgia. + +But alas, the news which Henry brought completely spoiled the dinner +for them both! Cornelia hardly ate a mouthful, and Henry made a poor +pretense. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said, “but you’ve got to steel +yourself to the worst. There is no chance of saving your two boys.” + +Cornelia went white, and her soft brown eyes were wide with horror. +“Henry, why?” + +“Well, the police have got to Fuller, and he’s heard all the worst +about your anarchists. I don’t think there’s any power in the world +that can change his opinion.” + +“What has he heard, Henry?” + +“All the things I’ve told you before: that they were dynamiters, and +were hiding dynamite on the night of their arrest.” + +“But, Henry, they weren’t even accused of that!” + +“I know--not publicly; but it’s the real reason they were prosecuted, +and the reason they were convicted, and Fuller has got it fixed in his +mind. ‘Bad actors,’ he calls them.” + +“Then he’s going to execute men for one crime, because he’s heard +rumors they committed another!” + +“As a matter of fact, Mother, he is equally convinced they were +bandits, too. He’s been told that the money went to Italy, to make a +revolution there. They’ve even told him rumors about having found maps +in Lee Swenson’s trash-basket, showing where the treasure was buried.” + +“My God, Henry! That was a joke!” + +“I know, so you told me--but it was a poor time for joking. The police +are using everything they have. It seems there’s a woman in Milton +who told Mike Stewart that Vanzetti made the bomb that blew up Judge +Hayden’s house.” + +“Henry, that is the talk of lunatics!” + +“No, Mother, it’s the talk of the police, and the Governor regards +himself as the head of the force, and he stands by it. They have told +him that two of the crowd blew themselves up with a bomb they were +making in Bellingham--the Galleani formulas didn’t work right.” + +“You keep talking about bombs, Henry.” + +“I’m telling you what was told me. Fuller says that both your boys were +regular terrorists, and had a criminal record. He insists that Vanzetti +was a convicted bandit before he came to trial at Dedham. He has got it +into his head that Vanzetti was arrested, indicted, tried and convicted +of the Bridgewater crime, and then arrested, indicted, tried and +convicted of the South Braintree crime. It didn’t happen that way, did +it?” + +“Of course not, Henry! They arrested them for both crimes. They decided +to convict Bart for Bridgewater, as a means of making things look +blacker for Nick.” + +“Well, that’s what I thought, and I tried to get it across to Fuller, +but he didn’t take kindly to it. He doesn’t like to have his mind +changed.” + +“Henry, you appall me! You mean he is actually as ignorant of the case +as that?” + +“I don’t know so much about the case myself, Mother, but I was able to +note half a dozen mistakes he made; and you’re going to have a hard +time changing him, because stubbornness is his leading quality. He +makes a virtue of it, because he can’t think, and knows it, and resents +having to try. That’s what you’re up against, and you might as well +know it at the outset--no use fooling yourself. Go and see him, and +make sure, if you want to.” + +“Will he see me?” + +“He says he’ll see everybody--that’s going to be his grandstand play. +You understand, he’s a politician, and has to play the game. He will +pretend to be open-minded--but I’m telling you what’s in the back of +his head, and what will be his final decision.” + + +IV + +Cornelia discussed the soul of this Governor, and a possible way to +move it. No use in public propaganda, mass-meetings and petitions; he +regarded them with contempt. Could he be reached by social pressure, +the snobbery of the automobile dealer, who sold high-priced cars to +high-priced customers? Henry answered that Fuller himself didn’t appear +to care for the social game; but doubtless his family would be glad to +be received. The only sign of an interest in culture on Fuller’s part +was that he went abroad and purchased paintings. He didn’t really know +about painting, and would not have dared to buy the work of Americans, +for fear of playing the fool. But “old masters” were standard, as safe +as corner real estate on Tremont Street; so he would pay a quarter +of a million dollars for a Van Dyke, and put it in his drawing-room, +and that would make a great stir in the papers. But it hadn’t had +any effect socially, as Cornelia knew; to the inner circle of Boston +exclusiveness, Fuller was His Excellency during office hours, but at +tea-time and in the evening he was a dealer in motorcars. + +“Too bad that Alice is so spiritualized,” said Henry. “She might give +them a dinner.” Alice, he added, was now receiving the ministrations of +a Yogi “master,” being subjected to the most esoteric rite of healing, +which consisted of blowing into her ear. + +Cornelia got out her address-book, which had secret marks, indicating +degrees of responsiveness to subversive propaganda. She and her +son-in-law compiled a list, and laid out a program upon which +blue-bloods should be asked to concentrate--to persuade the Governor to +appoint some sort of commission to investigate the case, and give it an +informal new trial. If, as Henry believed, the supersalesman himself +was hopeless, the strategy was to get him committed to an arrangement +whereby the final decision would rest with more open-minded persons. + +The little old lady had an inspiration: instead of appealing directly +to the Governor, they would concentrate their energies upon Bishop +Lawrence of the Episcopal Church, blood-brother to all blue-bloods, +and official delegate of the Prince of Peace on earth. Persuade the +Bishop to appeal to the Governor for an impartial commission! To make +a thorough job of it, why not determine the commission in advance, +and make certain of getting competent and high-minded persons? Why +not? agreed Henry; so they proceeded to discuss names. Cornelia worked +herself up to a pitch of excitement. “Couldn’t we ask him to appoint +Mr. Lowell?” She meant President Lowell of Harvard University. The +blue-blood ladies, while paying full homage to this great personality, +do not grant him his title, as in the case of the Bishop; by this means +they indicate the fact that the intellectual life, while important, is +a merely human affair, while the spiritual life is from God. + +“He wouldn’t take the responsibility,” said Henry, “but of course it +would settle the matter if he did. Fuller wouldn’t dare go against +Lowell and the Bishop.” + +So it came about that at the office of Mr. John F. Moors, of the firm +of Moors and Cabot, investment bankers, there assembled one afternoon +a group of socially and intellectually significant persons: half a +dozen Harvard professors, and the wives of several others; Episcopal +clergymen of Boston and Concord; and such persons as Mrs. Thornwell, +Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Winslow, with Mary Donovan and Gardner Jackson to +represent the committee. They met for the purpose of working out a +method of approaching the Bishop of the Blue-bloods, and asking him to +bring it about that the University-president of the Blue-bloods should +be invited to conduct a blue-blood trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, and +thus save the good name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts before the +civilized world. + +A curious gathering: soft-voiced, gentle, noble-minded, but not +entirely efficient persons, meeting in dead secrecy, with their fingers +upon their lips, in this melodramatic neighborhood of State Street; +a group of kindly conspirators, babes in the woods surrounded by +ravenous wolves--in the form of newspaper reporters who would gobble +up their respectability with half a dozen snaps of their slavering +jaws. So careful they must be, to make exactly the right approach +to the ineffable Bishop; putting on felt-slippers and walking on +tiptoes! Not saying anything extreme to him! Not declaring that the +men were innocent, but merely that they had not been proved guilty to +impartial minds! Sparks began to fly from the eyes of Mary Donovan, +Irish ex-Catholic Joan of Arc of the labor movement. A curious contrast +between self-contained and decorous ladies of the Back Bay, and this +fiery Celtic girl, plain of garb, severe of countenance, making no +secret of her bitter scorn for liberals and their ritual. + +Silence! Secrecy! Hush, not a word! Even the widow of Governor +Thornwell had lost caste, because she had had her name in the +newspapers! No one who had been in the newspapers must approach the +Bishop, nor even be named to the Bishop--for fear the timid episcopal +soul might seek refuge in the recesses of the episcopal hole and +refuse to emerge. The members of the Sacco-Vanzetti committee were +“untouchables,” and merely to have it known that they desired a certain +procedure would be sufficient to render it episcopally impossible. All +were warned to silence, the meeting dispersed--and in an hour or two +the newspapermen had the whole story on the front page, each after +its own fashion. The Hearst man explained the social stratifications, +referring to the Sacco-Vanzetti committee as the “low minds,” the Moors +group as the “middle minds,” and the Bishop Lawrence group as the “high +minds”! + + +V + +Mr. Thompson had presented an appeal for clemency from Vanzetti, and an +explanation that Sacco refused to make any appeal, but ought to have it +granted just the same. It was, perhaps, the most singular document ever +submitted to an automobile salesman in the history of the industry. +Bartolomeo Vanzetti had insisted upon writing it himself, with only +verbal revision by his lawyer. He took it as an occasion to explain his +doctrines and beliefs to the world: + +“Our ideas are not new. In one form or another they have influenced +human thought in the western world, and therefore history, for at +least two thousand years. Among their modern champions are men such as +William Godwin, Shelley, Carlo Pisacane, Proudhon, Reclus, Kropotkin, +Bakunin, Tolstoi (in a sense), Flammarion, Malatesta, Galleani, and in +your country Tucker, and other great intellects and hearts. The great +philosopher Ernest Renan said that Christ was a ‘political anarchist.’” + +And this to a pious Baptist, who told the newspaper reporters that +his real preference in life would be to run a Baptist Sunday-school! +A Mason, an Elk, an Odd Fellow and a Knight of Pythias--his idea of +literature the _Saturday Evening Post_! Said Vanzetti: + +“Our counsel has warned us that what we have to say may deepen the +prejudice against us; but we are foremostly concerned to save what +no human power except ourselves can deprive us of, our faith and our +dignity, since we have already been deprived of almost all of what men +can deprive men.” + +The Governor announced that he would consider evidence from both sides; +and so it was a question of repeating all over again the Dedham, and +later the Plymouth trial. But under what singular circumstances! Mr. +Thompson, the lawyer for the petitioners, was not allowed to make any +opening statement, to say what he expected to prove; he was allowed +to bring his own witnesses, but not to hear the witnesses of the other +side, nor even to know who they were. Sacco and Vanzetti lay in their +cells, and men came to the Governor’s private office and whispered +rumors about them, and their attorney learned about it from gossip in +the newspapers! Betty Alvin came home from her brief session in the +executive chambers and revised the “Alice in Wonderland” verses to fit +this new situation: + + I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury, + Said _stupid_ old Fury; + I’ll try the whole cause and condemn you to death! + +Quite literally, this supersalesman of automobiles was judge, jury, +and prosecuting attorney; and so ignorant of psychology that he really +thought he could fill all three rôles; so ignorant of law that he +really thought it was a trial he was conducting, and would be accepted +as such by the world. Or rather, if you could believe the sarcastic +young lady Bolshevik, he thought that he was so rich and great that he +didn’t give a damn what the world thought. In that point of view he had +the support of the whole prosperous mob, which gloried in defying the +opinion of mankind. + +The State House swarmed with reporters. Every Boston paper had several +men on the story, and the press associations and New York papers +had their own representatives. But those who saw the Governor were +cautioned not to talk, and all but the friends of the defense obeyed. +The only news was what the Governor’s office gave out every day, and +mostly it was disguised propaganda. The private secretary had not +been quite accurate when he said that they “immediately” chucked the +mail into the fire. They first went over it, and extracted letters +which were violent in demanding death for the two wops, and these +were mimeographed and handed to the newspapermen. So the world read +the weighty sentiments of Mrs. J. E. Damon of Brockton, who attached +a small American flag to her letter, to make sure it would not be +overlooked: + +“I feel very sure that you will stand firm for ‘law and order.’ ... +Foreign people will not respect our Government unless we uphold our +Judges and Supreme Court. What is this country coming to if radical +elements are allowed to do as they see fit?” + +Also the sentiments of a representative of Comrade Jesus, the +“political anarchist”: the Reverend Floyd W. Johnson of the First +Presbyterian Church of Central City, Nebraska, who appealed to the +Governor of Massachusetts to “let these propagandists of un-American +policies know that there is not enough money in Russia to buy even one +district court in America.” A curious item for members of the defense +committee, who at that late hour were being visited by the relative of +an important judicial personage, and informed that it would still be +possible to work out an “arrangement”! By the payment of only fifty +thousand dollars--from Russia or any other place--everything could be +settled amicably. Vanzetti--since he was admitted to be innocent--would +be pardoned; while Sacco--who might possibly be guilty--would be judged +insane, and held until the excitement had died down! + + +VI + +It was a war going on for the possession of public opinion; a day +and night campaign, with forays and sallies, rumors and alarms, +plots and counter-plots. The big guns thundered from the rear, and +independent sharp-shooters crept forth to do sniping. “Hundred percent +American” and “Pro Bono Publico” wrote letters to the _Transcript_, +and the defense committee changed its “Bulletin” from a monthly to +a fortnightly, and filled many columns with letters from friends of +social justice all over the world. + +Prof. Felix Frankfurter, one of the liberals of the Harvard Law +School, published an article in the _Atlantic Monthly_, the Back Bay’s +palladium of culture, reviewing the case and exposing the manifold +errors of Judge Thayer. To Boston conservatism that was a frightful +scandal, and something had to be done at once. A champion was found, a +tremendous personage by the name of Wigmore, with so many titles and +honors that it took two and seven-eighths inches in “Who’s Who” to +recite them: a graduate of Harvard and of the Harvard Law School, Past +President of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, +Past President of the American Association of University Professors, +Commanding Member of the Staff of the Judge Advocate-General of the +United States Army with the rank of Major, Member of the United States +Section of the Inter-American High Commission, Chevalier of the Legion +of Honor of France, Member of the League of Nations Committee on +Intellectual Coöperation, and Dean of the Law School of Northwestern +University--a Methodist institution lifted to worldly magnificence by +Judge Gary of the Steel Trust. + +This two hundred and forty centimeter gun went into action from its +emplacement a thousand miles away. Dean Wigmore wrote a broadside, +starting with two columns on the front page of the _Transcript_, and +expanding into seven half-columns on the next page. He gave Felix +Frankfurter one of those wiggings which professors exist to receive +and deans exist to administer. With annihilating wit he referred +to him, all through the two columns and the seven half-columns, as +“the plausible pundit”; he accused him of having made “errors and +misstatements which if discovered in a brief of counsel submitted in a +case would qualify him for proceedings for disbarment.” + +Alas for poor Dean Bigwig! He had got his citations from Thayer, +or from some friend of Thayer’s; and never could it have entered +his bewigged head that a judge of the Superior Court of the august +Commonwealth of Massachusetts would practice the device of falsifying +a legal record, quoting statements incorrectly, and even making up +passages which he said were in the record, but which were not in the +record! If such procedures “would qualify a lawyer for proceedings +for disbarment,” what would they do to a judge of the Superior Court? +Apparently they would qualify him for the enthusiastic support of all +the courts and most of the newspapers of his Commonwealth, as well as +of the Dean of the Law School of the University of Judge Gary. They +would qualify him a few months later to have the banqueting alumni of +Dartmouth College stand up and cheer themselves hoarse for a five full +minutes by the watches of newspaper reporters. + +Defending himself in his last decision, Judge Thayer had boasted that +the Supreme Judicial Court had “approved” the verdict of the Dedham +jury. Felix Frankfurter had pointed out that this was not true. All +that the higher court could do was to “affirm” the verdict, which in +the technical language of lawyers is an entirely different matter. The +dean now elaborately denied that Thayer had used the word “approved,” +and he accused Frankfurter of libeling Thayer. “It is a libel on the +worthy trial judge, in that it charges him with knowing falsity in an +official statement.” + +Touching indeed the faith of poor Dean Wigmore in his “worthy trial +judge” a thousand miles away! Had this “worthy trial judge” failed to +furnish him with the full text of the decision? Or had the dean been +in such a hurry to burst into the _Transcript_ that he hadn’t stopped +to examine the document for himself? All that Felix Frankfurter had +to do in his reply was to refer the worthy dean to the sentence in +Judge Thayer’s opinion, as printed in the Amended Bill of Exceptions +over Judge Thayer’s signature, attested by the Clerk for the Superior +Court of Norfolk County, pages 366 and 367, where the word “approved” +was plainly to be read. So there was Dean Wigless, in the distressing +position of having furnished the rope to hang his friend, Judge Thayer, +for “knowing falsity in an official statement”! + +And then the questions and answers about Sacco’s dialogue with +Katzmann, which Judge Thayer had invented and inserted into his +decision! The dean had accepted this bogus passage, and put it into +his letter to the _Transcript_, and the _Transcript_ had solemnly +published it. Now, said Frankfurter, “a careful search of the record of +Sacco’s cross-examination discloses no such questions and answers as +Dean Wigmore quotes. Will he not be good enough to give me a reference +to the page of the record?” Needless to say, Dean Baldhead would not +be that good! He would fail to mention the matter again; and the Back +Bay’s hatred of Felix Frankfurter, Viennese Jew, became so intense that +they started a tale of his having been hired by the defense to write +the _Atlantic Monthly_ article; they raised his price several thousand +dollars a day, until they had got it up to the colossal sum of one +hundred and forty thousand dollars! Such was opinion in that part of +Boston which Vanzetti described as “the golden rabble.” + + +VII + +Rumors! Rumors! The State House was converted from a bootleggers’ +joint to a poison gas factory. Every day new witnesses went to see +the Governor, and there was a new crop of stories as to what they had +told him, and what he had asked them. The Governor wants to know why +Vanzetti didn’t take the stand at the Plymouth trial! The Governor +has heard that Mrs. Brini got all the Plymouth witnesses together in +her home and told them what to say! The Governor has learned that the +_Springfield Republican_ got twenty thousand dollars from the defense +committee for its editorial on the case! And all these rumors were not +rumors, they were for practical purposes the truth; the Governor heard +them, and the Governor believed them. Surrounded as he was by men who +took bribes, how could he conceive that anybody would work for nothing? +Some one was causing state detectives to follow the witnesses for the +defense, and these detectives would come back with notebooks full of +formulas for the poison-gas factory under the golden dome. + +Sometime previously the defense had got hold of the reports of +the Pinkerton detectives on the South Braintree crime. An amazing +revelation to Cornelia and Betty and Joe: those voices which had been +shouting to them in the days before the trial, when they had been +seeking witnesses, and failing to find them! The ghosts which had +shrieked in Dedham courtroom, unheard by mortal ear! The secrets which +had been in the head of Henry Hellyer on the witness-stand--the very +notes he had held in his hand! Now Cornelia and Betty and Joe might +go with this “Operative H.H.,” immediately after the South Braintree +crime, to interview Mary Splaine, the star identification witness; that +marvelous-eyed young woman who had looked out of a factory window in +the midst of shooting, and at a distance of eighty feet, in a period of +one or two seconds, had noted the minutest physical details of Sacco, +including a “good-sized left hand,” which he assuredly never had, and +“complexion of a peculiar greenish-white,” which he had after being +kept in Dedham jail for a year, but never while he was growing tomatoes +in Mr. Kelley’s garden! + +Here in these reports you saw Mary Splaine in the company of Henry +Hellyer, Mike Stewart and Captain Proctor, inspecting the photographs +of criminals, and making a positive identification of Antonio +Parmisano, or “Tony the Wop,” as the bandit who had played the part +which was later attributed to Sacco. Captain Proctor set out to get +“Tony the Wop,” and discovered that he had been in jail on the day of +the crime--the one really safe place for wops in Massachusetts! And +meantime Mary had told to “H.H.” a detailed and circumstantial tale +about two men in the shoe-factory who had plotted and committed the +crime; she gave the names of the men, and recited a story which covered +the affairs of the shoe-factory for some eighteen years. Six days after +the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti, the detective was entering his report +as follows: + + “As opportunities occurred I made discreet inquiries about Mr. X, + who Miss Splaine accused of having been implicated in the murder + and robbery. My inquiries show that there is absolutely no ground + for Miss Splaine’s accusation and that Mr. X enjoys Mr. Slater’s + confidence.” (Mr. Slater was the owner.) “To-day I took the matter + up with Mr. Frayer” (the superintendent). “He ridiculed the idea of + Mr. X being implicated and further states that no serious attention + must be attached to Mary Splaine’s stories, because she is one of + the most irresponsible persons he ever came in contact with.” + +And then, a little glimpse into the soul of an “operative,” +representing a great national detective agency and looking for bandits. +He knows that the police have got Sacco and Vanzetti and are planning +to put the crime onto them; and he reports how he questioned a laborer +who was digging a trench, close to the scene of the crime. He reports +this laborer as having had a very good chance to get a good look, and +adds, “Some one who can speak Italian ought to interview this man, as +if he went on the stand to-day he would say that Sacco and Vanzetti +were not the men.” + + +VIII + +Witness after witness went to interview Governor Fuller and returned to +defense headquarters, reporting that the supersalesman had got his mind +centered on the Bridgewater crime. So Mr. Thompson did some inquiring +and pulled some wires, and managed to get from the lawyer of the shoe +company the reports on that earlier crime, made by the same “Operative +H.H.,” and another man, “J.J.H.” Here again the evidence wiped out +practically everything the government had proved. On the day of the +crime all four of the leading witnesses had described both the car and +the bandits differently from the way they later described them at the +trial. + +These Bridgewater reports seemed of especial importance, because they +destroyed the witness “Skip” Harding, who saw the Bridgewater crime, +and at the trial identified Vanzetti as the shotgun bandit. Here in +the Pinkerton reports was “Skip,” talking with the police a few hours +after the crime, and that certainty which he had displayed upon the +witness-stand was wholly lacking. “I did not get much of a look at his +face, but think he was a Pole,” he said; and eight or nine days later +he again referred to the faces of the bandits, saying that he “did +not see them on the day of the hold-up.” The car he described as a +“black Hudson six,” and gave the registration number; as an automobile +mechanic, he knew cars. The police decided to prove that it was a +Buick. When Harding testified at the trial, he testified that it was a +Buick. + +Every one of the other principal witnesses was discredited in the same +way. The witness Bowles, for example, had described the shotgun bandit +as having “red cheeks,” “slim face,” and “a closely cropped mustache,” +which surely did not fit Vanzetti. So the defense lawyers felt that +they had won their case, and Mr. Thompson prepared an elaborate letter +to the Governor, thirty-three typewritten pages. The reports and the +letter were taken to the State House and delivered to the Governor’s +secretary, and everybody waited, on tiptoe with excitement, for some +word of the result. A week or two later one of the friends of the +defense, arguing with the Governor, happened to remark, “That is +disproved in the Pinkerton reports.” Said the Governor, “Pinkerton +reports? What are they?” “Those reports which were turned over to you,” +replied the amazed visitor. “I haven’t seen any such thing,” declared +the Governor, and turned to his secretary. “What’s this about Pinkerton +reports?” “Oh,” said the secretary indifferently, “something about a +cropped mustache!” + + +IX + +Beltrando Brini was in his nineteenth year, a slender, dark-eyed youth, +preparing to enter college, and earning his living by teaching the +violin to Italian children in Plymouth. He still went now and then to +play for Bart in prison; also he was in demand to play at meetings for +the defense. He could play fine music, but the number most effective +was “Old Black Joe,” because it was the tune which Bart had helped +to teach him as a little boy. Trando would tell the story of that +ill-fated day-before-Christmas morning, when he had helped to peddle +the eels in North Plymouth; he would tell what Vanzetti’s teachings and +example had meant to him, all through his early life; after which he +would play Bart’s favorite song, “When you and I were young, Maggie,” +and tears would run down the faces of women in the audience. + +Now Trando went to see the supersalesman of automobiles, and told the +story to him; but no tears appeared upon those ruddy, rounded cheeks. +It seemed that the great man had worked out a new theory for himself; +he pictured Bartolomeo Vanzetti attempting the Bridgewater crime at a +quarter to eight that winter morning, and then driving twenty miles +or more to North Plymouth, and starting in to sell eels with Trando +for an alibi. In vain did Trando insist that he and his father and his +mother and Bart’s landlady and many other persons had seen Bart from +the moment he woke, at six o’clock that morning, long before daylight; +in vain did Trando tell about Bart sending him to hunt for his rubbers. +Apparently the Governor thought that Bart had gone to Bridgewater and +attempted the hold-up while Trando was rummaging in the attic for his +rubbers! + +And then Mrs. Brini, the gentle and kindly, who shed tears every +time she thought of her former boarder, and insisted, over and over: +“He is good man! He is good man!” The Governor confronted her with +the proposition that she had gathered all the witnesses at her home +and taught them what to say. In vain she explained the origin of +that tale--that the lawyer had been too lazy to go and interview the +witnesses, but had told her to have them come to her home, and he would +meet them there to consult about the case. + +And then Joseph Rosen, the Jewish peddler of cloth. The defense had +to advertise for him in the _Jewish Daily Forward_. One day came a +telegram from Buffalo, he had heard about the case and would come. +Having learned more English in the course of the last six years, Rosen +could take care of himself. When he was ushered into the executive +chambers and the Governor started to question him about where he had +been six weeks ago, and could he remember what he had done on March +seventeenth last, “What’s this?” said Rosen. “More of that Katzmann +stuff?” He had not forgiven the district attorney for trying to make a +fool of him before the jury. + + +X + +And then one of the editors of the Boston _Transcript_. The age of +miracles had come; an editor of the sacred _Transcript_ had been +persuaded to investigate the case, and had become convinced that the +men were innocent! He was so conscientious about it, his employers were +impressed, and generously let him do it on their time: they would pay +for the getting of material, even though they would not publish it! +Now this conservative and indubitably respectable gentleman proceeded +to the Governor’s office, with a brief-case full of documents and +charts. He went prepared to point out to the chief executive of his +Commonwealth the flaws in the government’s case; and he had what he +later described to his friends as the most preposterous hour of his +life. For the Governor didn’t want to have any flaws pointed out to +him, and when the editor insisted, his recourse was to interrupt with +rude and brutal ejaculations, and to snort through his nose. + +But the editor went on, insisting, because it was a matter of justice, +and the New England conscience is that way. There was the matter of +the discrepancy of the trains, upon which the editor had done enough +research work and calculation to have earned him a degree at the +Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Practically the only proof the +government had against Vanzetti in the South Braintree crime was the +identification of Levangie, gate-tender at the railroad crossing, plus +the identification of another crossing-tender, who thought Vanzetti +had pointed a gun at him and made him raise his gates, while the +bandit-car was fleeing with the loot. This latter crossing was on the +way to the Manley Woods, where, according to the “theory,” the bandits +had “thrown away” the Buick car, not far from the Coacci house. + +This made what the jury had accepted as a story; but now came the +editor, showing that each of these two crossing-tenders had specified +a certain train, and the time of these trains was a matter of record, +and they didn’t fit. The Governor thought that possibly one train or +the other had not been on time; but the editor answered that there +were such things as “train-sheets.” He had the greatest difficulty in +the world convincing his Governor that a railroad has records showing +the hour at which every train passed every station, even as far as six +years back. As a matter of fact, the sheets of those trains had been +produced on the stand at the trial, and the district attorney might +have found the truth if he had wanted it. + +A singular interview! The Governor would profess complete mastery of +matters concerning which it was evident that he knew very little, +and when he was corrected, would fly into a rage and demand, “What +right have you to question me?” The too-conscientious editor could +not make his arguments clear, because the Governor did not know the +elementary facts upon which the arguments rested; nor could he explain +these elementary facts, because that would offend the great man’s +dignity. He came out from the interview to report that the situation +was hopeless from the point of view of the defense. He realized, of +course, the political game that was going on: the “grand-stand play,” +in current slang. The Governor would have the whole world marveling at +his patience and open-mindedness, while in reality he was impatient of +argument, and his mind was closed. + + +XI + +Bitter struggles in the rooms of the defense committee on Hanover +street, where radicals and conservatives fought over the question of +how to meet this desperate situation! Controversies lasting until +the small hours of the morning, and then not settled! Feuds between +respectable persons who wanted to follow the guidance of respectable +lawyers, and young socialists and communists who wanted to make mass +appeals, and have parades on the streets, and threats of a general +strike! The young radicals organized a protest meeting in Symphony +Hall, to tell Boston the facts which the Governor knew and was hiding; +but then came Thompson and Frankfurter, and forced the calling off of +that meeting, by threatening to withdraw from the case. Joe Randall and +his wife would labor all night to prepare hair-raising stories for the +newspapers; but when the reporters came to Thompson, he would wave them +away with a phrase, “Nothing for the papers to-day.” It was easy to +understand his point of view. There was no worse charge to be brought +against a lawyer by respectable Boston than that he was “trying his +case in the newspapers”; and Thompson clung to his belief that somehow +it was going to be possible to persuade respectable Boston to grant +justice to his clients. + +A brilliant idea came to Betty--to collect the testimony of persons +with whom Judge Thayer had discussed Sacco and Vanzetti during the past +six years! To present respectable Boston with the profanity, vulgarity +and hatred which old Judge Fury had poured out in the presence of +everybody, from senators to club waiters! This idea was presented to +the lawyers, and at first they were horrified; but as time passed, and +the Governor’s bias became clear, they worked out a way to make it into +a legal procedure. They would appeal to the Governor on the ground of +Thayer’s prejudice; if that did not succeed, they would make a further +move in the courts on that basis, with a possible appeal to the Supreme +Court of the United States on a writ of certiorari. + +So began a still hunt among those who knew but did not admire the +“worthy trial judge.” There were many such persons in high station; +but would they consent to violate the reticences which protect social +life? Appeals to their consciences were made, and a few yielded: George +U. Crocker, a former city treasurer, and member of the University +Club, where Judge Thayer had lived during the Dedham trial; Mrs. Lois +Rantoul, who was a Lowell; Robert Benchley, one of the editors of +_Life_; Elizabeth Bernkopf, a newspaper correspondent; John Nicholas +Beffel; and Prof. Richardson, of Dartmouth College, to whom the judge +had said, “Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards +yesterday?” What “Web” had really said was “arnychistic bastards,” but +there was no use trying to get that across to the public; nobody would +believe it, and anyhow, all persons who handled the story--reporters +and compositors and copy-readers--would decide that it was an error, +and do their duty. Prof. Richardson said he thought that “Web” had also +said “sons-of-bitches”; but of course there was no way to get that +printed in a moral community. + +A picturesque little drama over the getting of the signature of Frank +P. Sibley, star reporter of that premier family-paper, the Boston +_Globe_! “Sib,” as he was known to his colleagues, was a much beloved +and slightly picturesque figure, known to everybody on the streets +of Boston--six feet tall and wearing a Windsor tie, as near to a +“Bohemian” as could survive in that frigid atmosphere. He had been the +correspondent of the _Globe_ at the Dedham trial, and had heard many +expressions of prejudice by Thayer. He had agreed to sign an affidavit, +and it was got ready; but then he discovered that he couldn’t sign it, +his managing editor wouldn’t let him! In fact, “Sib” had come to agree +with his managing editor--it was necessary for a newspaper reporter to +be impartial. Just like a judge! + +A serious disappointment to the defense, for Sibley was an experienced +man, who had been covering major court cases in New England for +some twenty years; moreover, he didn’t have to rely upon his memory +of Thayer’s conduct, he had written a letter about it to the +attorney-general of the Commonwealth. There was a conference of Joe +Randall and Gardner Jackson and others who knew the newspaper game, +and there came a tip from one of the editors of the _Globe_ as to how +the issue might be forced. Let the _Globe_ hear the threat of public +exposure of the fact that it was refusing to let one of its reporters +sign an affidavit in the interest of justice. Mild blackmail, in short! + +William G. Thompson was consulted, and proposed to submit the Sibley +affidavit to the Governor as his own affidavit, and have Sibley called +before the Governor--which would, of course, open up the story. Armed +with that dire threat, Gardner Jackson went to see the managing editor +of the _Globe_, under whom he had worked for seven years, and they +had their first quarrel in that long period. The managing editor said +that they were playing an unfair trick upon his paper, that it was a +dirty thing to do, and so on. He would not give any decision; but that +same afternoon Frank Sibley came to Thompson’s office and affixed his +signature! + + +XII + +The supersalesman of automobiles had announced that he would not +appoint any commission; the law did not permit him to delegate his +authority, but required him to make the decision himself. But Cornelia +and her blue-blood friends went on with their quiet intrigue, and one +day there appeared in the papers a letter signed by the Bishop of the +Blue-bloods and four of his flock, appealing to the Governor for an +advisory commission. Just as Cornelia had foretold, it was impossible +for a mere automobile dealer to withstand such pressure; he changed his +mind. As a great man in public life, he of course did not announce that +he had changed his mind; he merely announced that he was going to do +what he had previously announced he was not going to do. + +More intrigue, to induce him to name the right commission! Dignified +established persons, wholly without taint of contact with anarchism, +atheism or draft-dodging, called upon the Governor, or wrote letters, +pointing out to him that there was one eminent citizen who would be +trusted by all right-minded persons in New England to give a just and +impartial opinion regarding the guilt of the two accused men--and +that was “Mr. Lowell”! It was the “middle minds” who were inspiring +this intrigue; Cornelia, partly of her own impulse, partly led by her +friends, had come to center her hopes upon the august President of +Harvard University. “Radical” friends, including her granddaughter and +her grandson-in-law, laughed at her for believing that Mr. Lowell would +prove himself more free from prejudice than any other millionaire. But +they had nothing in particular against him, and nobody to prefer, among +those whom the Governor would consider. “So let dear old Grannie go +ahead,” said Betty; “it keeps her hoping.” + +Grannie went ahead, and in due course an announcement came from the +State House; the Governor had appointed a commission consisting of A. +Lawrence Lowell, President of Harvard University, Robert Grant, retired +judge of the Probate Court, and Samuel W. Stratton, President of the +Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A vast and unanimous sigh of +relief went up from the Back Bay. At last the terrible problem would +be settled, and settled right! It would be dealt with by gentlemen, +instead of by vulgarians and political tricksters, corrupted officials +and police agents! A new atmosphere would be brought into the case, +and the world would see that Massachusetts brains and breeding still +counted for righteousness and dignity! Two of the three members of +the commission were registered blue-bloods; the third, though he came +from the west, had been adopted and placed in charge of the great +school which, next to Harvard, was Boston’s pride, the place where +the technicians of her giant industries got their exact and efficient +training. + + +XIII + +Vanzetti was now in Dedham jail, and Cornelia made a trip to carry +him the good news. Needless to say, he did not know the President of +Harvard University, but if Nonna said that he was a good and great +man, Bart was willing to believe it. But she must not forget that it +was hard for a rich man to rise above the ideas of his class. Was Mr. +Lowell a very rich man? When the prisoner learned that he owned huge +cotton-mills, and enjoyed an income of close to a million dollars a +year from the ill-paid labor of wage-slaves, the prisoner said, “He +must be a very great man if he do joostice to anarchistas.” + +Bart preferred to converse about Proudhon’s “Peace and War,” which he +was translating. Here was his idea of a great man. They discussed the +formula, “Property is theft”; and Bart showed a letter to the Vanguard +Press, to which he was sending the manuscript of the translation. “By +gosh, don’t loss it!” was his injunction. + +Also he had been doing more work upon his novel, “Events and Victims.” +It was in reality a very short novelette: the story of an immigrant +worker in America; but alas, no magazine would publish such material! +Bart thought that if some one would send a copy to Russia, it might be +published there--or possibly made into a moving picture. In America, +of course, they wanted moving pictures about the rich, or in praise of +riches. Bart had put a passage about the “movies” into his novel, and +he read it now to his friend. + +A curious circumstance: in nine or ten weeks he was to die, in the +midst of terrific public clamor; and the chiefs of the moving picture +industry would hold a meeting and resolve that the name of Vanzetti +was to be forever barred from the screen, and that all pictures which +had been taken of the case should be immediately destroyed. They, the +propaganda chiefs of capitalism, knew who their enemies were, and no +mistake about it. Said Bartolomeo Vanzetti, speaking to the suppressors +of his fame: + +“I went out and walked towards the theater, hoping to see Johnny whom I +knew to be passionately fond of moving picture shows. That night they +were showing a screen version, a fragment of one of those romances +which distort truth and realities; falsify history; provoke, cultivate +and embellish all the morbid emotions, confusions, ignorances, +prejudices and horrors; and, purposely and skillfully pervert the +hearts and, still more, the minds. The characters of these morbid +melodramas are always of two opposite types, one very good, the other +very bad. The good ones are the good folks who are always good, always +do good, are always right, and in the end always triumph. The others +are always bad folk, who are always wrong, always do evil and finally +pay the penalty. Just the reverse of life! + +“Thus meditating, I reached the theater. Of course it was, as usual, +crowded to the doors. The common people, being all heart, with little +brain and less knowledge, are passionately interested in such senseless +stories, and not a scene escapes them. They develop a wild and +unreasoning affection for the unreal characters of the unreally good, +whose hatreds and loves, risks and triumphs they share, and fervid +hatred for and resentment against the unreal characters of the unreally +bad gang. They lose their heads, weep, sigh, laugh, smile, fear, hope +and throb, and, forgetting their cross of infamy, leave the theater +more stupid than when they entered it.” + + +XIV + +The Advisory Commission could not get to work until after the college +commencements were over. But meantime the secret hearings before the +Governor went on, and in the offices of the defense committee several +typewriters clicked all day and most of the night, and sacks full of +letters, leaflets, and pamphlets went out. The barriers set up by the +capitalist press were broken down; even the great news agencies had +to spread the world’s protest. The flood of letters rose higher in +the Governor’s office, and while the secretary still boasted of the +promptness with which he burned them, they did not fail to produce an +effect--especially when reinforced by the explosion of bombs in front +of United States embassies in Europe, and the crashing of window-glass +in Argentina. + +Cornelia wrote letters, and carried on long telephone conversations, +and traveled about visiting businessmen and bankers in their offices, +and wealthy ladies in their homes on Beacon Hill and Commonwealth +Avenue. For the most part they listened with the patience which her +age and station demanded; they promised to study the case, and often +did so. Now and then they told her that while they appreciated her +sincerity, they knew that she was being imposed upon by scoundrels, and +that it would be wiser if she did not force them to discuss the matter. + +Cornelia knew what to expect; she had watched Boston for a couple +of generations, and read of it still earlier. In any moral issue, +officialdom had always been on the side of reaction, and the broadcloth +mob had supported it--even to the extent of putting a rope about the +waist of William Lloyd Garrison and dragging him through the streets. +But always there had been a small minority of choice spirits who had +come out in opposition, and made the glory of the city’s history. Among +these had been the oldest names and the bluest blood; and so it was +now. There appeared an open letter addressed to Governor Fuller, asking +a list of pertinent questions, and the signers of that letter included +the best that Massachusetts had to show in every form of culture. Nor +did these people stop with writing letters; they wrote their names +upon checks, and gave time and thought to the case--everything that +civilized human beings could do to make headway against brutal power. + +The Thornwell family offered a miniature of the whole Back Bay. +Cornelia crusading, and her granddaughter Betty ready to turn into a +militant, and get her head broken by the police; while on the other +hand the aged Abner Thornwell, oldest member and nominal head of the +family, was sitting paralyzed in his wheel-chair, boiling like a steel +crucible about to explode. Great-uncle Abner--so he was always referred +to, because of the children--resembled his sister-in-law Cornelia in +one thing, that he could not think or talk about anything but Sacco +and Vanzetti; his conversation, a monologue on account of his complete +deafness, resembled a verse-form with a refrain--“Burn them! Burn them!” + +Abner insisted upon writing bloodthirsty letters to the Governor and +to the newspapers. This would have been a scandal, because everybody +knew of Cornelia’s part in the case; and since she had taken it up +first, family etiquette declared it to be hers. So the Scatterbridge +family, with whom the old man resided, entered into an elaborate +conspiracy to suppress his letters; secretaries, chauffeurs and +attendants, butlers, footmen and maids--everybody had to be warned +to bring the old gentleman’s letters to Mr. James instead of mailing +them! In the end the victim found out about that, and worked himself +into such a fury that the family was afraid he would die on the spot. +He had to be allowed to mail a letter to the Governor, and to have an +acknowledgment, as his rank and station required; James having sent his +secretary to explain the circumstances and see that the letter was not +given to the press. + + +XV + +Between these two extremes the other members of the family were +distributed here and there. Henry Cabot Winters had become quite +sympathetic toward his “Bolshevik mother-in-law”; he gave it as his +legal opinion that she had come out of her seven years’ struggle with +unexpected glory. Regardless of whether her wops were innocent or +guilty--and Henry said he had no opinion--she had proved to all the +world that they had not had a fair trial. Who could have foreseen +that luck would oblige her with such incidents as the making of bogus +citations by “Web” Thayer, and the annihilation of poor “Dean Wigless” +in the columns of the _Transcript_? Manifestly, the judicial system +of Massachusetts had slipped up. While the great lawyer would not do +anything about it, nor even say anything about it, he would furnish his +mother-in-law with first-class legal advice free of charge. + +Also Quincy Thornwell had been impressed by the interest taken in the +case by men of standing in the financial world, such as John F. Moors, +who was a member of the “Fincom,” or Financial Commission--a device of +the blue-blood bankers to watch the politicians, and keep them from +stealing too large a percentage of the public funds. When Mr. Moors +publicly said there was something wrong, Quincy stopped arguing with +his aunt, and took to toddling round on his withered legs, a faithful +messenger-boy, bringing gossip from the dinner-tables of the rich. + +Mrs. Jack Gardner had left Fenway Court for palaces and mansions above; +but other hostesses had taken her place, and Quincy would bring home +the funny stories which smart society liked to tell about the super +salesman of automobiles, and his old paintings and other efforts at +culture. He had proposed to appoint Harry Garfield, president of +Williams College, to the Lowell commission, but Mrs. So-and-so had +insisted that it wouldn’t do, because Harry’s grandfather had been +assassinated by an anarchist. It had really been his father, said +Quincy; but the State House wasn’t very strong on history. Cornelia +added that the assassin had not been an anarchist, but a plain lunatic, +which was different, whether the Governor would admit it or not. + +“As a matter of fact,” said Quincy, “on that basis the Governor would +himself be barred from deciding, because somebody murdered _his_ +grandfather.” + +Cornelia took that bit of history home with her, and mentioned it to +the sarcastic Betty, who retorted: “Somebody murdered him too late!” +Cornelia shuddered, and said “Hush!”--looking about for a spy. The +thing of which she lived in hourly terror was that some lunatic might +kill somebody connected with the government--in which case it would +be all over with Sacco and Vanzetti, and perhaps with the defense +committee as well! + +Another person who had been startled by developments in the case was +Betty’s mother. Impossible that Deborah should not be shaken by the +letter from Bishop Lawrence, whose prize parishioner she was--he came +to a state dinner at her home once every year. Yes, Deborah said, her +mother had had ground for the protest; but now her troubles were all +over, Mr. Lowell had the matter in charge, and would see that it was +straightened out. + +There was quite a tug of war in the Alvin family, for Rupert said +thumbs down on all anarchists. But of course he wouldn’t dare to say +so publicly, in defiance of his mother-in-law and his wife. What the +great banker did was to keep out of the uproar, by pleading temporary +retirement on account of ill-health. His doctors had insisted that he +should find a “hobby,” something else to be interested in but other +people’s money. So he was taking up church architecture, designing +with his own hands a miniature English abbey, and having it built as +a private chapel on his North Shore estate. It was costing a hundred +and fifty thousand dollars, but was really an economy, so the great +banker explained; it would be a church for his friends and servants on +the estate, thus saving gasoline and tires, and later on it would be a +mausoleum. + + +XVI + +And then the Scatterbridge family. Clara had raised her brood, who were +in schools and colleges, and asking questions; therefore the mother +was trying to understand public affairs, but finding them extremely +complicated. She accepted the pamphlets her mother gave her, but +the trouble was, she fell asleep so easily. As that was bad for her +“reducing,” she found it better to go to bridge parties. When Cornelia +told her a sad story about the wife of a shoe-worker, whose marriage +had been a sort of death in life for seven years, Clara would be deeply +touched, and would write a check to help feed and clothe the Sacco +children. Then, in course of their talk, Cornelia would learn that +Clara had just given a check to a patriotic lady who had called on her, +representing a society which was seeking to compel all foreigners to +be good, by having them registered and finger-printed by the police. +This society was sending out literature demanding death for Sacco and +Vanzetti; so Clara’s money was at work on both sides! + +But no such conflict in the case of Clara’s husband. James +Scatterbridge was one of the stern ones, upon whom Cornelia could +make no impression whatever. The sarcastic Betty explained it by what +she called “economic interpretation.” A great lawyer like Uncle Henry +had to keep his mind open, because he could never tell which side +might hire him; a banker like Father didn’t have to worry, because no +matter whose money was stolen, it always came back to the bank; but an +industrialist like Uncle James was a slave-driver with a whip, and if +he didn’t hold it tight there would be no money for anybody. + +James Scatterbridge would keep Abner’s stuff out of the papers, because +family dignity required it; but he would go about among the lords of +cottons and woolens and shoes and hardware and transportation, and +voice his conviction that this was the great test of our institutions, +and if we didn’t teach a lesson to the forces of disorder, the +government might as well abdicate once for all. James had a voice +that was like his annual product of a hundred million yards of cotton +sheeting being ripped all at once by a giant hand; and just now was a +great moment in his life, because he had been invited to address some +important gathering of his fellows. He had set his best advertising man +to writing a speech for him to learn, and Cornelia heard him rehearsing +it in the library, in the presence of his adoring wife and several +indigent female relatives: denouncing the rumors that the cotton +industry was going to be lost to New England, and likewise the rumors +that the “_boot_nshoe” industry was going to be lost. + +James pronounced this latter as one word, with the accent on the first +syllable; and he said it several times--“I say that the _boot_nshoe +industry shall _not_ leave New England!” It was a kind of incantation, +which became effective when you said it loud enough and often enough. +Quincy Thornwell explained to Cornelia that the old families who owned +the cotton mills and shoe factories insisted on having all the money in +dividends, and left nothing to keep the plants up. James hadn’t put a +new machine into his mills in thirty years--so of course he was being +undermined by Jews who got capital in New York and cheap labor in the +Carolinas, and had no fear of blue-blood bankers conspiring to put them +out of business because they were not graduates of Harvard and members +of the Union Club! + + +XVII + +Nemesis was waiting for James Scatterbridge, with such a tragedy as she +prepares for powerful, aggressive, absolutely certain men. His sons +were growing up; the oldest, James junior, was a member of the Harvard +class of ’27, and Cornelia failed to attend the graduation, because of +the anguish and suspense of the Sacco-Vanzetti case. The second son, +Josiah Thornwell Scatterbridge, was a sophomore at Harvard, and called +on the phone, saying that he wanted to see his grandmother; so Cornelia +invited him to lunch. + +She hardly knew these children of Clara and James; to her they were +still the nursery mob that scratched rare old furniture and smeared +chocolate caramels on brocaded upholstery. They were growing up into +individuals, but she had not had time for them. Now came “James’s +Josiah”--such was his awkward designation--a shy, yellow-haired youth +with staring blue eyes--and revealed the amazing thing that had +happened. “Grandmother, I went to a meeting of the Liberal Club in +college, and heard a man tell something about your case. It sounds to +me pretty rotten, and I don’t think the family ought to leave you to do +all the work. I thought I’d ask you to give me something to read, so +that I can answer what people say.” + +So there was punishment for a powerful, aggressive, absolutely certain +manufacturer of one hundred million yards of cotton sheeting per +annum! He had a son who was sensitive and open-minded, and was going +to disgrace him before the world! “James’s Josiah” took the handful of +pamphlets from his grandmother, and he did not fall asleep over them, +but read them in a day, and told his brothers and sisters what was in +them, and there were family rows, and word came to the father, who +summoned the renegade to his office. + +There was a stormy scene, in the course of which the son was absolutely +forbidden to believe certain things which he could not help believing. +He explained how he could not help it--thus administering to his +father a subtle form of annoyance, which no enemy could have made +worse. There was a “bust-up” between father and son; and when Clara +heard about it, there was a near “bust-up” between husband and wife. +For Clara took the boy’s side; he had a right to think for himself, +and should most certainly not be put to work in the mills by way +of punishment. Maybe Clara’s mother was right; there was a lot of +rottenness in politics, and it was time that women began to make their +votes count. So there was the Scatterbridge family, in the same turmoil +over the Sacco-Vanzetti case as all the rest of Massachusetts! + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ACADEMIC AUTOCRACY + + +I + +While presidents of great colleges delivered baccalaureate sermons +and partook of graduation banquets, the two wops waited in jail, with +the grim sentence hanging over their heads--to “suffer the punishment +of death by the passage of a current of electricity through your body +within the week beginning Sunday, the tenth of July, in the year of +our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-seven.” A singular +perversity in the Governor of a great Commonwealth, a reluctance to +grant even the smallest concession to hated defenders of hated wops: +he would not say whether that sentence was to be postponed, but would +leave the whole world to speculate for a month, and to imagine the +execution. Said the defense committee in its June bulletin: “Torture +of the body practiced in the Middle Ages is nothing compared with the +torture of the mind and heart upon these two innocent men and their +families and friends.” + +The law specified that ten days prior to the date of execution +condemned men should be moved to the death cells in Charlestown prison. +Since there had been no reprieve, this law applied to Sacco and +Vanzetti. The authorities of Norfolk County were anxious to get rid +of them, on account of the expense; and so upon the first minute of +the first day of July, the sheriff and his deputies entered the cells +of the two men in Dedham jail, and ordered them to dress. No reasons +given, no time allowed to pack their books and papers; they were +shackled, and taken out into the darkness to a waiting automobile. With +a dozen armed men riding behind and before, they were taken to Boston, +through the sleeping city, and lodged in the “death cells.” + +No one told them what this procedure meant, and they took it to mean +immediate execution. Vanzetti’s first action upon his arrival was to +start writing a farewell letter to the comrades. From now on they +would live in solitude, close to the electric chair. Their friends +cried out in horror--foolish sentimentalists, who had not yet brought +themselves to face the thought of that electric chair! But the ruling +class of Massachusetts knew what it meant to do, and went ahead. Not +until after the move to the death cells did the Governor condescend to +postpone the date of execution for a month. + +The Lowell Commission held its first session on the last day of June. +They met in the Governor’s Council chamber in the State House; a large +room, done in white, high-studded, Doric style, with rich mahogany +furniture, and soft velvet carpets. The desks are arranged in a circle, +one continuous desk, with swivel chairs; overhead, a heavy chandelier, +in which the history of New England’s technical progress had been +recorded: first whale oil, then coal oil, then kerosene, then gas, and +now electricity. + +The first meeting of the Commission was “to determine procedure,” the +papers said. The first procedure determined was secrecy, and it was +very determined; not merely were spectators and newspaper reporters +to be excluded, but witnesses and lawyers had to agree not to discuss +on the outside what they said on the inside. A bitter disappointment +for the defense committee, whose one hope was the education of public +opinion. “It is very bad,” said Vanzetti. “It means they kill us.” + +On the fifth of July the Commission began to hear witnesses, and +the friends of the defense received more shocks. The Constitution +of the United States provides that every man accused of crime +shall “be confronted with the witnesses against him.” But these +important gentlemen were going to examine witnesses, while Sacco +and Vanzetti stayed in Charlestown prison, ignorant of what was +going on. Furthermore, the Commission reserved the right to exclude +defense counsel from the room whenever they saw fit, and to limit +cross-examination as they saw fit. When the rules of legal procedure +suited the convenience of the three important gentlemen, they would +apply, and when the rules were inconvenient, they would be set aside. + +Joe Randall, reporting developments for labor papers in New York, was +one of the crowd which haunted the State House corridors and besieged +the doors of the executive chambers. So he heard gossip not meant for +“radical” ears; and after the third day he came to the apartment on +the north side of Beacon Hill, and sat down by Cornelia and took her +hand and said, “Grannie, I’m sorry--you’ve got to brace yourself for +another blow.” + +Cornelia winced; her lips trembled, in spite of her best efforts. +Poor old lady, she had had more than her share of blows. The young +reporter’s heart ached for the pitiful shrunken figure in the big +Morris chair. “What is it, Joe?” + +“Your dolly is stuffed with sawdust, Grannie.” + +“How do you mean?” + +“I mean, your great Mr. Lowell is just another ‘Web’ Thayer.” + +“Oh, no!” + +“Take my word for it, and get ready for the worst. The newspaper +fellows fool the public, because that is what they are paid for, +but they don’t as a rule let themselves be fooled. This Commission +consists of Thayer, Katzmann, and Fuller all over again--with a little +touch of Rugg and Wait and the rest of the supreme court judges, +for dignity. They know that the men are guilty, and their purpose +is to find evidence to justify the verdict. Mark my words, Grannie, +before they get through they’ll do everything that Thayer has done, +even to misquoting testimony and falsifying the record. Only one +difference--Mr. Lowell will see to it that they have better manners.” + +“You are too optimistic,” said the sarcastic Betty. + + +II + +If it took Cornelia two weeks to realize that these predictions were +right, it was only because she could not bring herself to admit the +plain meaning of events. Witnesses emerged from that “star chamber,” +and kept their promise not to talk to reporters; but they talked to +their friends, including the defense committee. So came pictures of +three elderly gray-heads, impatient, bored and irritated--partly on +account of the weather, for it was stifling summer heat, but more +especially by witnesses trying to get them to believe what they +considered a wicked tangle of perjuries and deceptions. + +Fuller was a politician, and used to making pretenses; but none of the +three commissioners had ever been anything but an autocrat, and it was +impossible for them to conceal their annoyance at the efforts of men +and women to persuade them that notorious dynamiters and bandits were +anything else. Lowell had already made the pronouncement that Sacco and +Vanzetti were not really anarchists--that was just a camouflage their +friends had invented for them! And what Lowell said became the truth, +for his two colleagues regarded him as on the whole the greatest man in +Massachusetts, and therefore in the world. + +Betty turned out to be right on the subject of his manners. He could +be courtesy incarnate when he wished to; but this was not one of the +times. He interrupted the defense lawyers, and badgered them like +schoolboys. The fact that William G. Thompson had been a trial lawyer +for thirty-six years did not save him; nor the fact that he had been a +federal prosecutor, nor the fact that he had been a Harvard lecturer. +Said Lowell, “I don’t know whether you are trying to reach the truth or +not. I assume, of course, that you are.” Said Thompson: “I am not going +to put any question to this witness or to any other witness in the case +unless it is assumed by the Commission that I am here _not_ to deceive +the Commission. There has been a good deal of imputation and it is very +painful to me.” + +A. Lawrence Lowell was an international and constitutional lawyer, but +so far as concerned criminal trials he was a complete novice; yet he +would show William G. Thompson how to handle witnesses, and did so. +He took charge of the procedure, as he had done with everything all +his life. He had a tremendous notion of his own powers, and was not +there to have anybody tell him anything. His purpose was to protect +the institutions of New England, now under attack by vicious radicals. +The impulse to support those in authority was as automatic in this +university president, as ever it had been in any of his stern forbears +who had carried a hickory staff at divine worship, and cracked the +knuckles of the inattentive and the polls of the somnolent. (Judge +Grant often nodded at these hearings, but that may have been a device, +of course.) + +When “Web” Thayer made his appearance at the doors of the executive +chambers, to render an accounting of his stewardship, every other +person was immediately ushered out, and no one but his three fellow +club-members asked him any questions, or heard his answers. Did he say +why he had misquoted the Sacco-Vanzetti record in his decisions, or how +he had come to invent and to cite bogus testimony? Did he admit that +he had referred to his victims as “anarchistic bastards”? Did he admit +that he had called them “sons-of-bitches”? The record of the hearings +was silent on the subject. + +When Fred G. Katzmann appeared, and Thompson tried to cross-question +him, and pin him down as to some of his actions which the defense +lawyer thought were not quite up to standard, even for district +attorneys--then it was the business of the Commission to protect this +former official. They had promised him that he would only be detained +one hour, and he was impatient to get away. Exactly like Rupert Alvin, +he suffered from failures of memory whenever he was in a tight corner. +The defense lawyers tried to get something definite on the business of +Mike Boda. The police had had Boda on April 20th, only sixteen days +before they had arrested Sacco and Vanzetti; yet they made a mystery +out of Boda. Was it not true that he was a very small man? And did any +witness at the trial describe a small bandit? Katzmann would not be +trapped. “Are you asking to test my memory? Look at the record.” It so +happened that at this very hour, in a room immediately adjoining, the +Governor was demanding of one of his visitors: “If Vanzetti was a good +man, why did he associate with Boda?” + + +III + +Too late, as usual, the friends of the defense began to acquire +information concerning the members of this Commission. Robert Grant +was one of the bitterest Italian-haters in New England. He had put +it into a book, virtually labeling them a race of pickpockets. To a +librarian in Washington he had expressed his violent opinion that +Sacco and Vanzetti ought to be killed. To John F. Moors and Professor +Morison of Harvard he had expressed disapproval of any one taking issue +with the verdict at the trial, or with the subsequent decisions. Yet +he considered that there was nothing in the way of his acting as an +impartial arbitrator! + +“Bob” Grant had begun life as a popular novelist in the genteel New +England style. The rising plutocracy of America had resorted to his +works to learn the circumstances under which toothpicks should not +be used, and similar lessons in the conduct of a good life. He had +been awarded a small-salaried position as probate judge, where he had +displayed an unusual talent for sarcasm, and an air of being much too +good for mundane affairs. He was now seventy-five years of age, and +was retired from service on the bench, which left him free to pass +judgment upon Italians. A frail, pathetic, querulous, old man, he sat +in the stifling heat of midsummer, suffering greatly, sometimes closing +his eyes--but that does not always mean that a judge is not paying +heed. Judge Grant heeded with an air of boredom, of extreme suspicion, +and discourtesy of a kind which does not come naturally, but has to +be cultivated as a fine art. When he ventured an opinion, it was of +an infantile nature. “Why, Mr. Thompson, you find everybody wrong! +You say harsh things about Mr. Katzmann, who seems to be an estimable +gentleman!” + +The elderly judge’s attitude was curiously revealed in the matter +of Mr. George U. Crocker, formerly treasurer of the City of Boston, +who told about the behavior of Judge Thayer. Mr. Crocker had never +been introduced to Thayer, but had had the judge’s acquaintance +forced upon him in the University Club; Thayer had come to his table +at breakfast, uninvited, and sat down and compelled Crocker to hear +him scold and denounce the “arnychists,” and read passages from his +decisions: “There, I guess that will hold them!” Finally Mr. Crocker +had instructed the head-waiter not to permit Judge Thayer to join him +at table. When Mr. Crocker told the Commission about this, Judge Grant +inquired, “Mr. Crocker, do I understand that you are repeating what was +said to you at a social club by a fellow member of that club?” In other +words, the secrets of a gentleman’s club were more sacred than the +lives of two wops! + +President Stratton, of “M.I.T.,” as it was known, was the youngest +of the Commission, being only sixty-eight. He came from Illinois--a +great handicap in Boston, which considers Worcester the far west. He +was a physicist, and had risen by competence in science--including the +science of knowing the rich and what they wanted. Four years ago he +had been taken into the sacred circle of the Back Bay, and now he would +have needed tremendous moral courage to oppose a domineering person +like President Lowell. A capable administrator but with no reflective +capacity, his social opinions had been indicated by his banning a +speaker against militarism from the Y. M. C. A. of his great institute. + + +IV + +A. Lawrence Lowell had been born to that apex of greatness in Boston, +which permits the fortunate one to be eccentric. He rode about +Cambridge in an elderly high motor-car painted a brilliant Harvard +crimson, and decorated with as much polished brass-work as a yacht. He +carried his papers in an old green bag, and wore a coat-skirt which he +switched as he walked; Heywood Broun, who had seen his figure in the +Harvard “yard,” wrote that he “ambled sedately to a hanging.” He had a +face of cold virtue, and from all persons less important than himself +he exacted the most rigid conformance to propriety. He was wholly +lacking in enthusiasms, and appeals to him to recognize the beauty of +anarchist character froze on the speaker’s tongue. He cultivated both +in writing and in speaking a style which for dullness could not be +exceeded in the college world. A stiff legal mind, made wholly out of +precedents, he had facility and self-esteem, and could be extremely +genial when he wanted something, such as an endowment. On the other +hand, if a common person said or did anything out of the ordinary, he +would reveal a remarkable talent for ungraciousness. + +Injustice did not exist in the world; it was a delusion contrived by +cunning agitators, and they were not going to fool the mighty mind of +the President of Harvard University. A characteristic moment early +during the hearing, when the witness Pierce, a shoe-worker who had +refused to identify Sacco as the bandit, told how he had lost his +job at the factory for this refusal; he was “fired,” and one of the +convicting jurymen had taken his place. Also another witness had lost +his position for refusing to identify. “What does this tend to prove?” +demanded the irritable Judge Grant. The answer of the lawyers was, +“It proves duress.” Said Lowell, with contempt which took in lawyers, +witnesses, and his own colleague: “Oh, don’t you see, they claim this +was all nothing but a frame-up.” + +Infallibility was his prerogative upon three different counts: as a +millionaire, as a college president, and as a Lowell. There was a +popular quatrain about the city of Boston, as “the home of the bean and +the cod, where the Lowells speak only to Cabots, and the Cabots speak +only to God.” Never for an instant did it occur to this great man to +doubt that he could wade into a mass of complications and determine the +truth in a month. With complete insouciance he would make statements +of fact about crime and criminals, which experts knew to be nonsense. +“This cannot be so” ... “they do not do that” ... and so on. + + +V + +The fallibilities of academic autocracy were strikingly revealed in the +reception accorded to an eccentric lady who was sent over by Governor +Fuller to tell her story to the Commission. Let “Tootsie Toodles” be +her name--it was no less melodious. The newspapers had called her +a “mystery witness,” but she was no mystery to the defense--on the +contrary, an open volume, ancient and much handled. She was, according +to Lowell’s euphemistic phrase, “not unimpeachable in conduct”; also +she was an hysterical fantast. Prior to the Dedham trial, she had come +to the defense lawyer, and told an elaborate story, offering to repeat +it on the witness-stand. But there was some dispute about the price, +and she went to the prosecution and offered to tell a story for them. +She went back and forth between the two sides, until she had ruined +herself with both--they realized that she was mentally irresponsible. + +Ranney, the assistant district attorney representing the government +at the Lowell hearings, knew all this, and admitted the woman’s “not +unimpeachable” record. He grinned at the scene; when the three old +gentlemen were not watching, he made motions of wheels going round in +his head--a schoolboy sign for an insane person. There came a former +employer of Tootsie, Mr. Jackson, and the commission asked him, “What +of her mentality?” The answer was, “She’s twelve ounces to the pound.” +President Lowell of Harvard inquired, “What does that mean?” and the +witness replied. “She’s not all there.” The great educator enlarged his +vocabulary considerably before he got through with this adventure--it +was a sort of slumming expedition for him. They brought in the former +chief of police of South Braintree, who said that he had known Tootsie +since she was born, and she was “what you’d call a nut.” But he was +mistaken; Mr. Lowell would never have called any person or anything by +a word of one syllable. + +The three important gentlemen, looking for any sort of evidence +to save the good name of their Commonwealth, received Tootsie--it +would not be proper to say with open arms, considering her “not +unimpeachable conduct”--but with that polished and perfected elegance +which blue-blood gentlemen display to all ladies when they meet them +socially. When Tootsie stood up, they all stood up, and bowed--it was +like a court reception, or a Harvard commencement. + +Her story was that she had known Sacco in the year 1908, when they had +both worked in the Rice and Hutchins shoe-factory--he was a “laster,” +she said. She had seen him on the street in South Braintree on April +15th, 1920, a few hours before the crime, standing near the alleged +bandit car. She heard a man whom she declared to be Vanzetti say to +him, “Hurry up and finish this job. I have to be back in Providence at +three o’clock and dig clams.” + +There were slight errors in this story. It wasn’t Providence to which +Vanzetti had to get back; they don’t dig clams in Providence, so it +must have been Plymouth. Also it was a slip about Sacco having been +a “laster” in the Rice and Hutchins factory in 1908, for in April of +that year he had landed in America, a lad of seventeen who had never +seen a shoe-factory. He had gone to work carrying water to laborers in +Hopedale, and it wasn’t until four years later, after his marriage, +that he had learned shoe-work. + +All this, of course, was known to Thompson, and he set out to establish +it. His first question was: “What time did you say that Sacco first +worked in the Rice and Hutchins factory, what year?” + +And Tootsie, who knew what he was driving at, started up and began to +scream. “What is the idea of my coming up and talking with you when I +come in here to-day to have my character overhauled? Has my character +got anything to do with what I saw and what I heard?” + +Said Lowell, majestically: “You will oblige the Committee by answering +questions. We won’t allow your character to be assailed.” + +Said Tootsie, louder yet--so loud that for the first time the newspaper +reporters could attend the sessions through the tightly closed doors: +“My character is just as good as yours, or Sacco’s or Vanzetti’s, or +any of that gang that you have got down there and what they do. I will +not allow my character to be overhauled.” + +Said Lowell: “Nobody is overhauling your character.” + +Said Ranney, the assistant district attorney: “Answer that question.” + +So Tootsie replied: “1908.” She added: “If I am wrong I will say I am +wrong.” Even the members of the Commission smiled at this. But their +appreciation of it was superficial; they could hardly be expected to +realize that Tootsie, entirely by accident, had provided the best +summing up of the Boston Brahmins to be found in the literature of the +world. If I am wrong I will say that I am wrong! But don’t _you_ dare +to say it! + +For an hour Thompson read passages from Tootsie’s earlier statement, +inconsistent with the story she was now telling; and always her answer +was that the stenographer was crooked and had written the wrong +answers. She became more and more excited, and screamed louder and +louder, until Lowell stopped the proceedings, and Judge Grant, greatly +agitated, toddled across the room, exclaiming, “I will get her a glass +of ice-water.” He trembled so that he poured a part of it down her neck. + +Ranney came out of the room disgusted, and told the reporters that +Tootsie was “so loud” and “so unreliable” that Katzmann had refused to +use her, for fear she would “break up the case.” So the reporters for +once had an “inside” story. They published it, to the annoyance of the +Commission, and also of Tootsie. She read, and set out forthwith for +the office of the Boston _Post_, a perfectly respectable capitalist +newspaper, strongly Catholic. She interviewed a reporter, and told him +that the stories were all wrong, that she believed Sacco and Vanzetti +to be quite innocent of the crime of which they had been convicted. +The person she had seen in South Braintree was the brother of a friend +of hers, who happened to look like Sacco. The _Post_ published this +correction; and the defense produced the _Post_ report before the +Commission, to prove what had happened. + +The lawyers for the defense naturally took it for granted that the +absurdity of the whole affair was obvious. But when the report of the +Commission appeared, they discovered to their consternation that the +three elderly gallants had accepted Tootsie Toodles as one of their +reasons for sending Sacco and Vanzetti to the electric chair! Said the +greatest man in Massachusetts, and therefore in the world: + +“The woman is eccentric, not unimpeachable in conduct; but the +Committee believe that in this case her testimony was well worth +consideration.” + + +VI + +Two things the three elderly gentlemen desired ardently to do: one, +to prove that the defense at the Dedham trial had hired perjury; the +other to break the alibi of Sacco in Boston on the day of the South +Braintree crime. Everything which they did upon their own initiative +was directed to these two ends; and it was only while this was going +on that they failed to be impatient and bored. They had laid down the +program that they would themselves summon no witnesses except the +members of the jury, and Messrs. Katzmann and Thayer. But in the midst +of the proceedings they suddenly forgot this rule, and without warning +to the defense lawyers summoned to the State House two Italians, Bosco +and Guadagni, who had testified at the Dedham trial that Sacco had had +lunch with them on the day of the crime. + +The Italians were asked to repeat their story, which owed its certainty +as to date to the fact that it was the day of a banquet given to +Williams, editor of the _Transcript_. Guadagni, a socialist, had been +rebuked by Sacco and the others for proposing to attend an affair in +honor of a militarist. Guadagni was the orator whom Cornelia had met +during the Plymouth Cordage strike, a friend of Vanzetti’s from the +beginning, and original organizer of the defense committee; he had +become one of the editors of an Italian daily paper, _La Notizia_. +A ruddy-cheeked little man with sharply-pointed black beard and +mustaches, speaking English with an accent, he told the three great +gentlemen of the Governor’s Commission what he remembered; and then +to his astonishment he became the object of a persistent attack by +the President of Harvard University, who thought he had the Italian +trapped in a fraud. Ten days previously Lowell had consulted the files +of the Boston _Transcript_, and found that there had been no banquet +to Williams on April 15th; he had consulted the files of the _Gazzetta +del Massachusetts_, an Italian weekly, and both papers agreed that the +banquet to Williams had been on May 13th. Williams, now in Washington, +had been consulted, and agreed that that was correct. + +An unhappy moment for the two lawyers, Thompson and Ehrmann, +representing the Sacco-Vanzetti defense in its later stages. They had +had nothing to do with the Dedham trial, and if there had been any +“framing” of witnesses, they did not know it. They had received no +warning in this matter of Bosco and Guadagni, and so, of course, they +were helpless. “Might there not possibly have been two banquets?” +suggested Thompson; but Lowell waved that inept suggestion aside with +a peculiar little gesture of the hand, a series of quick motions, +characteristic of him. “Do not disturb the operations of this mighty +brain,” it seemed to say. Aloud he replied, “No, no, no, it cannot be. +I have investigated the matter.” The lawyer, greatly distressed, turned +against his own witnesses, saying that Mr. Lowell was a man of honor, +and the witnesses should admit the whole truth. + +A trying situation for two humble self-educated strangers, there in the +stately executive chambers under the golden dome. Said Guadagni: “If I +am not crazy, there was banquet on fifteenth April. If I not tell truth +I go jail.” He insisted that he would find a record of it, and Lowell +waved him aside with a gesture of disgust; all these wops were alike, +there was no truth in them. “Very well,” said he. “Bring the record +to-morrow morning if you find it.” And the pair went crestfallen away. + + +VII + +But next morning early they turned up at the law office of William G. +Thompson, staggering under the weight of an enormous tome, the bound +volume of Guadagni’s daily paper, _La Notizia_, for the year 1920. +They laid it on the lawyer’s desk, open to the issue of April 16th, +and translated word by word a half column account of the banquet to +Williams on the previous day. The dinner had been a humble one, and the +report said, “A more formal dinner will be given.” The two lawyers, +who had been sunk in the depths of despair, now suddenly felt like +schoolboys. “This saves the men!” exclaimed Thompson. “This is our case +right here!” + +The two middle-weight Italians, assisted by Gardner Jackson, lugged +the huge tome to the State House with the golden dome, and sat all +morning outside the tightly shut white doors. It happened to be the +two-hour session with Tootsie Toodles, and they listened to the comedy, +and shared the hilarity of the newspaper reporters. When Tootsie +rushed out, screaming, they were ushered in, and the tome was spread +out on the council table, and Guadagni offered to translate it for +Lowell--thereby giving offense, and being informed that the president +of Harvard University read Italian fluently. There was a long silence +while the three gentlemen read, more or less fluently; and finally the +President of Harvard University turned from the reading and shook hands +with the two Italians. “Gentlemen, I was under an impression which I +find was mistaken. I apologize.” + +A stirring scene: the greatest man in Massachusetts, and therefore in +the whole world, apologizing to two wops! What more could two wops +want? Or two lawyers? Thompson advanced the idea that the Commission +should make some acknowledgment of the fact that the alibi had been +established. Trying to make something out of the incident for Sacco and +Vanzetti! But the great academic brain saw the ruse. That would come in +due time; that was an affair for deliberation. Lowell did go so far as +to say that he would give to the Governor an adequate account of the +evidence produced. But for the rest--no publicity! More quick little +waves of the imperious right hand. He reminded them sternly that they +were under pledge not to report anything about what happened at these +sessions. + +Silence! Never so long as time endures must the populace know that the +University President of the Blue-bloods has been humiliated! + +Some time later the defense got their copy of the stenographic record +of what had taken place, and they discovered thirty-two pages of the +attempt of Lowell to break down the testimony of Bosco and Guadagni, +but not a single line about the apology he had been compelled to make! +No reference to the dialogue that took place, nor to the argument of +defense counsel! There was a brief parenthetic note to the effect that +Bosco and Guadagni had brought in the files of _La Notizia_, but not +a word to show that the alibi testimony had thereby been restored to +credibility! + +So was Joe Randall justified of his statement to Cornelia Thornwell, +“Your dolly is stuffed with sawdust!” Of his prophecy that the +haughtiest and most righteous blue-blood gentlemen would “doctor +the record,” exactly as “Web” Thayer, the vulgarian, had done! When +Cornelia heard that story, and got the full significance of it, she +went away to her own room, and sank down upon the bed and sobbed. It +became a sort of prayer: “Oh, God, let me die! Take me away! I am a +fool, and all my people are fools!” + + +VIII + +In the meantime, through this hot month of July, Governor Fuller was +continuing the hearings in his own chamber in the same State House. “I +feel myself obligated to hear anybody they send”--so he declared; and +several times each week he motored up from his summer-home, escorted +by two police cars. The witnesses would file through his rooms, and +then go away in silence; a régime of secrecy modified by rumors and +whispers. If the witness was one who had testified at either trial, +the reporters would look up the previous testimony, and say that the +witness had told that same story to the Governor. If the witness +had said anything new that was injurious to Sacco or Vanzetti, the +reporters could get it in a round-about way. Otherwise they would call +it a “mystery witness.” + +Each day the Governor’s impatience grew, and the pretense of +impartiality wore thinner. Ladies of refinement who had attended the +Dedham trial had the disagreeable experience of talking with a man who +made perfectly evident his belief that they were lying. Witnesses who +had one definite thing to tell would be challenged to tell some other +thing, and humiliated because they could not do it. Robert Benchley, +one of the editors of _Life_, came from New York to make statements +about the ravings of Judge Thayer at the golf-club of Worcester; to +his surprise he was challenged to point out one passage in the entire +record indicating that the trial had not been a fair one. Since +Benchley had never seen the record, he was “stumped”, like everyone who +interviewed the Governor. But he took the Governor’s advice and studied +the record; and then he took the trouble to write the Governor a +letter, pointing out many passages indicating unfairness. Like everyone +else who did this, he got no response. + +Still stranger the experience of John J. Richards, lawyer of +Providence, Rhode Island, who had been United States marshal during +the war, and had arrested the Morelli gang, and had them all sent to +prison. He received a telegram requesting him to call on the Governor +of Massachusetts, and he came, at his own expense. He was asked, +abruptly, “What do you know about the Sacco-Vanzetti case?” He replied, +“I know nothing.” Said Fuller, triumphantly, “I thought so!” Richards +naturally wondered why he had been invited, and suggested that possibly +it might be because of what he knew about the Morellis and Madeiros. +Said the Governor sharply, “That matter is closed. The Madeiros +confession is an invention.” Then he proceeded to cross-question +his visitor: “Are you in the employ of the Defense Committee?” Said +Richards, much startled, “I am not. I know nothing of such a committee.” + +Here was a former officer of the law, explaining what he believed was +the truth; and the supersalesman received him as a suspected criminal. +“What do you know about the South Braintree crime? Why did you wait six +years to come around and tell about it? Have you ever been in South +Braintree? How did they get you in on this Madeiros thing?” And so on. + +Mr. Richards came out from under the golden dome in something of +a daze, and went to Ehrmann’s office. Rosina Sacco happened to be +there--tormented little woman, drawn and haggard, with her daughter +Inez, six years old, born after her father’s arrest. Richards listened +pityingly while she voiced her hopes in the Governor; afterwards he +said to the lawyer, “You might as well shut up shop. Those men are as +good as dead now. Fuller has no intention whatever of considering the +evidence on their behalf.” + + +IX + +An author had written from California to the Governor, pleading +with him to go and meet the two alleged bandits, and judge their +characters. It was the author’s idea that no one could encounter the +soul of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and consider him a bandit. But the owner +of the Packard Motor Car Company of New England would show the author +a new line in souls. One morning the Governor left the State House, +and stepped into his car with police-officers, and sped away without +warning to Charlestown Prison. + +Bart and Nick, as the sentences now stood, were to be executed on +August 10th, and were both in strict confinement; the little walk +across the prison yard which the prisoners got out of this interview +was their first glimpse of daylight for nearly a month. Both of the +men were on a “hungry strike”; they were going to starve themselves to +death, as protest against the secrecy of the Governor’s hearings. But +modern labor and suffrage agitation has established in the minds of +wardens and jailers the fact that human beings do not die of starvation +for a long time. Bart, on his seventh day of a fast, was able to walk +cheerfully across the prison yard to the warden’s office. + +The Governor and the wop sat down together--no other witness. But +later on, of course, Bart told his friends about it. The Governor had +a question firmly fixed in his head, and which he used as a means of +“stumping” witnesses: “Why did not Vanzetti take the stand at the +Plymouth trial?” He now asked this question of Vanzetti. Since the +answer involved the whole story of Vanzetti’s radical beliefs, and his +relations to lawyers of Catholic and capitalist mentality, he was still +answering at the end of an hour. + +The Governor had to leave then, because Lindbergh had come to Boston. +The Governor was due at a reception, but he promised to come back +and hear the rest of Vanzetti’s answer. He made his escape through +the warden’s home, running quickly to avoid the picture-snapping +newspapermen. They reported that he seemed greatly flustered; he +knocked off his straw hat while jumping into his car. Could it be that +a rabid anarchist had said something to offend the sensibilities of the +owner of the Packard Motor Car Company of New England? A picturesque +story, of which the newspapers would have made much more, if there had +not been the flying colonel, and also a million dollar prize fight to +be featured the next morning! + +The great man came again, and talked with Vanzetti for two hours. +Like all salesmen, he had learned to be agreeable; he wore his fixed +professional smile, and shook hands with Bart at least ten times, so +Bart declared. That a man could “smile and smile and be a villain +still” was a thing not dreamed of in the philosophy of Bartolomeo +Vanzetti, and he poured out his heart, and explained his ideas--he took +the matter so seriously that he wrote a long letter adding things he +had overlooked. Bart told his lawyers he was sure the Governor would +not execute a man to whom he had behaved with such great courtesy. And +the lawyers also found the Governor’s manner encouraging. Said His +Excellency, genially, “I wanted to tell Vanzetti to eat!” And again, +“Isn’t Vanzetti an attractive man!”--it might have been a schoolgirl +instead of a supersalesman. + +His Excellency also summoned Sacco to the warden’s office, and tried +to have a conversation; but this did not come off so well. Sacco was +polite, but not to be taken in by supersalesmanship. The conversation, +relieved of Italian dialect, ran somewhat as follows: + +“Sacco, I want to have a talk with you.” + +“There is nothing for me to say.” + +“But I want your version of this matter.” + +“I have not asked for a pardon.” + +“But I would like to hear your story.” + +“What is the use? You have your tendencies, and you could not see mine.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“I mean that I am a poor man and you are a rich man, and we have +nothing in common.” + +“But I was a poor man once. I worked in a rubber shop at seven-fifty a +week.” + +“Yes, but now you are a millionaire, and your money thinks for you. I +have nothing to say.” + +So the interview ended. Sacco was very gentle about it, and afterwards +he became a trifle remorseful. He said, “I didn’t treat him right. He +outdid me in courtesy. But I wanted him to know the truth. He won’t see +it the right way, and why should I let him fool himself?” Sacco was the +man with a formula; and for once the formula happened to fit. + +Also the Governor summoned Madeiros to the warden’s office; and here +was the supersalesman handling a different line of goods. Madeiros +had taken the burden of the South Braintree crime upon himself, and +thereby put the ruling class of Massachusetts in an uncomfortable +position. Naturally, they would pay a price to get out of it. Said the +Governor--if the story of a prison employee may be credited: + +“Madeiros, I understand that you are sore because you didn’t get a +square deal from the government.” + +“Yes, sir, that is so.” + +“The district attorney double-crossed you, I understand.” + +“Yes, sir, he did.” + +“Well, if that is so, I might do something for you. Of course, there is +nothing in this South Braintree story of yours.” + +“What I told about South Braintree is the truth.” + +“Oh! In that case I won’t do anything for you. You are guilty of two +murders!” + + +X + +On the 25th of July the Lowell Commission heard arguments of counsel. +For five hours William G. Thompson analyzed every aspect of the case, +and if his speech could have been listened to by the thinking people of +America, it would have saved the lives of his clients. But the speech +was heard only by three elderly autocrats, one of whom had a tendency +to appear to be dozing, while another had great respect for what the +third was thinking. We may imagine the third thinking as follows: “You +are an able lawyer, and are performing an intellectual feat, but I do +not need you to tell me what to think.” + +Not all the evidence in the Sacco-Vanzetti case had been discovered; +the defense would keep on finding it, up to within a few hours of the +execution. But most of it was now available, and it seemed as if the +Great Novelist who makes up history had been concerned to take every +item of evidence produced by the prosecution at the Dedham trial, +and wipe it out by a later discovery. Even to that cap picked up at +the scene of the crime, which the district attorney had striven so +hard to fit onto Sacco’s head, and which “Web” Thayer had striven so +unjudicially to force a witness to identify as Sacco’s! + +The main point about this cap had been that it had holes in the lining, +and the “theory” was that the holes had been due to Sacco’s habit of +hanging the cap on a nail in the factory. There had been a great amount +of testimony on this point, and Katzmann had made the most of it in his +speech to the jury. In his later arguments before Thayer he had gone so +far as to say: “that alone was enough to warrant the conviction of the +defendant Sacco.” The issue had been carried to the Supreme Judicial +Court, and made the subject of a special ruling; after which Judge +Thayer had made both cap and ruling the subject of special emphasis. In +rejecting the last bill of exceptions, he had summed up the proposition +as follows: + +“In the lining of that cap there were nail-holes, which the +Commonwealth claimed were made by the nail upon which this cap had been +hung. Now the Supreme Judicial Court has said, in the decision of these +cases, that that evidence was competent, because it tended to prove +that that cap belonged to Sacco; and if the jury should find such to be +the fact, then Sacco was present at the time of the shooting.” + +Such had been the word of Supreme Justice on the matter of a ragged +and dirty “pepper-and-salt” colored cap with earlaps! A man’s life +had depended upon it, and depended upon it still! And now, before the +Lowell Commission came ex-Chief of Police Gallivan of South Braintree, +telling the true story, never before revealed. The cap had been handed +to him by the shoe company superintendent, and the chief had carried +it under the seat of his automobile for at least ten days, possibly +twice as long; he had made the holes in the lining, while looking for +some mark of identification; then he had passed the cap on to police +officer Scott; and neither Gallivan nor Scott had been put upon the +witness-stand, to tell the jury how those holes had come to be! + +Why Chief Gallivan had been passed by as a witness for the prosecution +was obvious enough--he was too plain-spoken a man. To the Lowell +Commission he summed up the Dedham trial in one pungent formula; and if +the three old gentlemen had thrown out the whole record, and confined +themselves to Gallivan’s one formula, they would have earned the thanks +of posterity. Said the Chief: “The Government would put on a witness +and then the defense would rush in to offset it, and I guess Katzmann +was just as wise; he would dig up one to offset him. The case appeared +to be to see who could get the biggest crowd. In other words, to see +who could tell the biggest lies.” + + +XI + +Also the matter of Vanzetti’s revolver, which was supposed to have +belonged to Berardelli, the slain paymaster. According to the “theory,” +Berardelli had dropped it, and Sacco had picked it up, carried it off, +and given it to Vanzetti. There was no evidence that Berardelli had +had his revolver with him at the time of the shooting--he had taken +it to a repair place, and there was no record to show he had got it +back. No one had seen him with a revolver at the time of the crime. The +sole basis of the “theory” was that Vanzetti’s revolver happened to +be of the same make as the one Berardelli had owned. The prosecution +had put on the stand an expert from the factory, who had been a former +federal agent, and had led the jury to believe that he thought the +two revolvers were identical. But now, before the Lowell Commission, +he admitted that he had felt prejudice at the trial, and that his +testimony had been misconstrued. Said the witness Lincoln Wadsworth: + +“But I have felt that I had created the impression that there +was a possibility that that was the pistol. Well, that is just a +possibility.... There is just the one possibility in the number +of pistols a factory of that kind happens to make. There was no +distinguishing number so that you could tell that that was the pistol.” + +The witness went on to tell about his interviews with the assistant +district attorney, and how the latter had failed to be interested in +having the truth made clear: + +“But Mr. Williams did not seem to want to have that at all, so that +I just let be on it. And then in the court-room I felt sure I would +have a chance to say the same thing that I have said here, but when +the time came to be cross-examined I simply was not, that was all, and +I went down on the records, as I thought, and still think, that while +not a direct statement that that was the pistol, it might lead to the +impression that that was the pistol.” And then, summing up the whole +matter: “There are thousands of times more chances that it was not than +that it was.” + +So it went, with detail after detail; impossible to find a single one +that stood the test of time! Every one of the prosecution’s “star” +witnesses was ruined. Mary Splaine had told Henry Hellyer twice that +she did not see the faces of the bandits, and the detective had written +it down at the time--for use of the shoe company and the insurance +company, and their allies, the police and the district attorney. +Goodridge was a horse thief, his very name a perjury; he had sent two +men to the electric chair to escape a jail-sentence, and the district +attorney and the judge had refused to allow this to be brought before +the jury. Pelzer had told many persons that he did not see the bandits; +so had “Fainting Lola” Andrews. Both of them had made affidavits to +this effect--and then taken them back, so that you might believe them +either way, or neither. + +Not one rag of evidence to cover the naked prejudice of three elderly +autocrats! The collapse became so complete that it was a matter for +jesting; there was even a haberdasher, to visit the prison and measure +the left hand of Sacco! Mary Splaine had based her identification +of the bandit upon his “good-sized left hand”--seen at a distance +of eighty feet for a period of one or two seconds. Now came the +haberdasher, testifying that Sacco’s left hand was smaller than normal. +Governor Fuller’s way of meeting that detail was to take Mary Splaine +out on the street and invite her to describe a man in an automobile +at the proper distance. But, alas, he did this in front of the State +House with the golden dome, and there was not any cobbler-shop to cut +off Mary’s view at the end of one or two seconds; nor was Mary up in +the second story, looking down amid the wild excitement of a bandit +raid, in imminent peril of shots. + +There had been a million words of the Dedham trial testimony, and few +persons had ever digested it all; Cornelia Thornwell, who had been +studying it for six years, knew how hard was the task. Certainly the +Dedham jury had not done it, much as they might assure the Governor +and his commission that they had given a fair trial. Certainly the +Governor had not digested it, for when you referred to witnesses by +name, Mary Splaine and Lola Andrews were about the only ones he could +remember. Certainly the three old gentlemen had not done so, for they +made pitiful slips and asked helpless questions. But now came a great +lawyer, William G. Thompson, having sat up nights with those volumes +for several years, and presenting to the Commission a summary of their +contents. + +For example, a study of Sacco’s sartorial career in South Braintree +on the 15th of April, 1920, as presented by the government witnesses. +At half-past eleven Lola Andrews had talked with him lying under an +automobile, wearing a dark suit. Five minutes later, a hesitating +witness thought he had seen him in front of a drug-store, dressed +“respectably.” Less than an hour later, according to another uncertain +witness, he was smoking a cigarette in the depot, wearing dark +“ordinary wearing apparel” and a soft black hat. When he actually shot +Berardelli, he had changed into dark green pants and a brown army +shirt, according to Pelzer. A few seconds later, he passed within Mary +Splaine’s vision, having changed to a gray woolen shirt, and wearing no +hat or coat at all; but having lost a cap at the scene of the murder, +although he had made his first appearance in a soft felt hat. A few +yards further on, Sacco had resumed his dark suit--if one could believe +the witness Goodridge. + +There were many thousand words like that in Thompson’s argument; and +who could dispute the lawyer’s final statement, that Sacco and Vanzetti +had “never had the kind of trial required by English tradition and by +American constitutional law as a prerequisite to taking away their +lives”? + + +XII + +Anguish in the hearts of all friends of the defense; they knew that +the decision was going against them--even while they would not admit +it to themselves. Pitiful the plight of hard-working and law-abiding +lawyers, who had made all the proper moves, and won the chess-game a +dozen times over--and now their opponents would dump the board and +throw the chessmen into their faces! While Vanzetti sat in his cell and +wrote memories of his mother, and Sacco composed a farewell letter to +his son, men and women whose hearts were too tender for this grim world +thought up frantic new schemes to move public opinion, and raced about +like ants in a nest which has been stepped on. + +Jessica Henderson motored Cornelia Thornwell to New Haven, where lived +Mrs. Berardelli, the widow of the slain guard. With them went Musmanno, +and a Mrs. Florence, who had testified at the Dedham trial, that Mrs. +Berardelli had said to her that the hold-up would never have succeeded +if her husband had had his gun with him. (It was the gun Vanzetti was +supposed to have picked up after the murder.) + +The group now appealed to the woman’s sympathies, and she agreed that +it would not help either her dead husband or his widow and orphans to +take the lives of two men who might possibly be innocent. She consented +to send a telegram to the Governor, appealing for clemency. “Write it +now,” said Mrs. Florence; but the woman said for Mrs. Florence to write +it, she would be satisfied with whatever they sent. So Mrs. Florence +and the party drove to the nearest railroad depot, and wrote a message +and sent it, and it made a front-page story in the newspapers next +morning. + +But it took the enemy only a few hours to counter that move. They +came to the woman and frightened her, and the Boston newspapers +carried a story to the effect that the telegram had been sent, not by +Mrs. Berardelli, but by an unknown woman from a railroad depot. The +ladies made another trip to New Haven--but only to discover that Mrs. +Berardelli wouldn’t “have anything more to do with it.” Returning to +Boston, the ladies called upon the Associated Press representative, +explaining the circumstances, and asking him to correct the error. +The response of the Associated Press was to put on the wires all over +the country the statement that Mrs. Berardelli declared she had never +seen the telegram which had been sent in her name. It happened to be +strictly the fact; but it wasn’t quite the truth! + +Edward Holton James was a New Englander of the old sort; he lived in +Concord, just across the field from the home of Emerson, which possibly +had affected his mind. He was a nephew of Henry James, the novelist +who wrote like a philosopher, and of William James, the philosopher +who wrote like a novelist. His wife was a Cushing, and wealthy, so +he had everything that a citizen of Concord could have to make him +respectable; but it didn’t keep him out of jail. + +Mr. James had spotted certain flaws in the “theory.” He had noted the +fact that the so-called “bandit-car” with the bullet-hole through +the door had been in the hands of the police for hours before any of +the numerous examinations had revealed the conspicuous bullet-hole; +also he had measured the “Coacci shed,” and proved that you couldn’t +drive two cars into it, as the “theory” required. Now he went down +to South Braintree to reproduce the events of the hold-up, and prove +that some of the witnesses could not have seen what they claimed. But +the selectmen of South Braintree were not going to let the streets of +their town be used for Bolshevik propaganda if they knew it, and they +arrested Mr. James, in spite of both his ancestry and his money. + +And then a little later Beltrando Brini had a bright idea: if the story +he had told at the Plymouth trial was fiction, then he was a perjurer. +He had told the story to the Governor, and had not been believed; so he +drafted a letter to the Governor, asking to be arrested, and he took +it about among the other alibi witnesses, and fourteen of them signed +it, including Bosco and Guadagni, the two editors. Trando delivered it +at the State House, and when no policeman came for him, he went back, +with his mother and half a dozen of the other witnesses. It was near +the end of the case, and the corridors were crowded with detectives and +secret service men, with swarms of reporters--a sensational scene. The +Governor was not in, said the secretary; and took the youth off into a +room by himself for a “grilling.” Who had sent him, and what was this +scheme for publicity? “This hurts you more than it helps.” And when +Trando undertook to explain, “Don’t try to make a stump speech; the +place for that is the Common.” + +Said Trando, “I tried to speak on the Common yesterday, and I was +stopped.” + +“Don’t try to be a hero!” sneered the secretary. Heroes were not wanted +at the State House, and Trando could not get arrested. Too bad he did +not know about the room full of booze in the cellar! If he had told +about that, he might have got his desire. As it was, he went away with +tears in his eyes, his mother sobbing on his arm. + + +XIII + +And yet there were moments of hope. Impossible to believe that a great +business man and statesman could be such a hypocrite! Members of the +defense committee came to see him, having heard the wild rumors, +started from the State House, as to the millions that had been raised +and expended for bribes. They offered to put their records at the +disposal of the Governor; they had raised some $325,000 in seven years, +and had vouchers for it all--bundles and bales of them stacked in a +closet. Gardner Jackson and Mary Donovan had worked for nearly two +years without a cent. The Governor was surprised to hear it--he had +been given to understand that they got fifty percent of every thing +they raised. Little Joe Moro, the secretary, had worked for thirty +dollars a week, and the only other wages paid in the office were for +typists. The Governor was cordial, he seemed to like Joe immensely, +shook hands with him several times--he was a good fellow, and +everything was all right, don’t worry! + +But that was in the privacy of his office, the tricks of a +supersalesman; molasses catches more flies than vinegar. Publicly the +Governor said nothing, and the rumors continued to fly. Professor +Frankfurter had got fifteen thousand dollars from the New York _World_ +for writing an editorial; he had got one hundred and fifty thousand +from the committee for writing the _Atlantic Monthly_ article. The very +dignified editor of the Springfield _Republican_ was accused of having +received twenty thousand dollars from the committee for one famous +editorial. The “State House crowd” lived in such an atmosphere of +cash payment that they could not imagine how gentlemen felt about such +matters. + +Also they lived in an atmosphere of terror. It seemed as if there were +as many detectives as real workers under the golden dome. Assuredly, +there were more spies than there were friends of the defense; one of +them put on a Windsor tie and got himself regularly arrested with the +pickets. Every one who had anything to do with the case was shadowed; +servants would be offered money for the contents of trash-baskets. All +officials having to do with the case, the Supreme Court judges and +later on even the jurors, had guards on their homes day and night, and +wives trembled every time their husbands went outdoors. + +There was fear; and there were newspapers printing headlines and +selling editions, making every bomb-scare into a gold mine. Relatives +of the Johnson family, the garage people who had testified against +Sacco and Vanzetti, had had their rear porch blown up while they +were in bed. That made a newspaper story, and helped to damn Sacco +and Vanzetti. The police decided that it was a bootleggers’ quarrel; +but that fact was not revealed--the bootleggers being such liberal +paymasters of the police. A threatening letter was mailed to one of +the witnesses, and this turned out to be a prank of some boys; the +newspapers published the letter on the front page, and never published +the true story. Such is journalism, which lives upon sensation, and +prints its enormous editions with blood instead of ink. + + +XIV + +The Lowell Commission had finished its hearings and retired into +privacy to deliberate. But meanwhile the Governor went on hearing +witnesses. They streamed through his office, as many as thirty in one +day; all sorts of persons who claimed to have information about the +case. Many came secretly, and went away, their names known only to him; +they whispered into his ear, and he was supposed to sort out truth from +rumor. A hundred times over, in conversations and arguments, he would +show that he could not do it, that he had, in fact, no idea of the +difference. “Why, I heard it right here in this room!” he would say; +and that proved it true. + +On the other hand, impossible to satisfy him with any evidence that +proved what he did not want to believe! He had got his mind fixed on +the Bridgewater conviction, which would prove Vanzetti an habitual +criminal. You pointed to Vanzetti’s eighteen alibi witnesses, all +decent working people, and the Governor would find it suspicious that +they talked so much about eels. “But where is the express receipt +showing that he got the eels?” The case seemed to hang on that, +so the defense set out to look for express records in Plymouth. +They discovered that the records, nearly eight years old, had been +destroyed. Incidentally, they discovered that a state detective had +already made an investigation, and ascertained that they had been +destroyed. + +They decided they would outwit him, even so. They would look for the +receipts of fish-dealers who had sold the eels. Herbert B. Ehrmann, +junior counsel, went to consult Vanzetti in Charlestown prison. It +was hard for him to remember--he had been accustomed to buy fish +from several dealers in Boston. The lawyer went according to his +vague description, with Felicani for translator; they hunted at the +“fish-pier” in South Boston, but found no one who remembered selling +to Vanzetti. Joe Randall got another Italian--two gangs searching. At +last, after visiting seven Italian fish-dealers on Atlantic Avenue, +the “Guinney market,” they found one who said that “B. Vanzetti of +Plymouth” had been a customer of his. Had he any records? For a year or +two, yes--but seven years, eight years--no, no, giammai! He had changed +his partnership in the meantime. + +But they argued--could they make a search? The life of two compatriots +might depend on it! Yes, there were old papers up in the loft. So up +they go, among dust and cobwebs, with an electric flashlight. Old boxes +of papers, in bad Italian script--sheafs of loose ledger leaves, but +the earliest date is January, 1920. “For God’s sake, haven’t you got +any before that?” + +The Italian has got interested--it is a story! “There’s an old case, +maybe stuff in that.” A big box shoved under the rafters, tightly +nailed up. “Must have a hammer to open it.” Stacks and stacks of old +papers: and among them blocks of American Express Company receipts, +signed by the expressman, day by day as he called for shipments. And +the dates--here are some for 1919--and here is December, 1919! And in +the middle of the block, one reading: “B. Vanzetti, Plymouth, one +barrel eels!” + +Hurrah! We have it! We have them licked! The date is December 20th, +which was a Saturday, the very date Bart claimed the eels had been +shipped, to be sure to reach him on Tuesday, and got ready for selling +the next day! And they are live eels, so the dealer says, you can tell +that by the weight of the barrel! Dead eels would be heavier! + +Young fellows dancing in a dusty loft! Our wops are saved! They go back +to the office with shining eyes. They go to the Governor’s office. “We +have found the evidence the Governor asked for.” This to the private +secretary--the Governor himself is busy. “Indeed?” says the secretary. +No shining in those hard eyes! “When are you going to stop bringing +evidence?” + +They will not trust the precious papers to him, but insist upon seeing +Wiggin, the Governor’s counsel. Then they go away, and wait--and +nothing happens; the next time they see the Governor, they mention the +matter, and he says, “What does that prove? What evidence is there that +Vanzetti ever received the shipment? I understand that the eels were +never claimed; they were frozen in the depot.” + +Says Joe Randall, gnashing his teeth: “It is like that fairy-story we +used to enjoy when we were children--how the little tailor wooed the +king’s daughter. ‘Go slay me the dragon,’ says the king--so the hero +goes and slays the dragon, and comes back, but he doesn’t get the +king’s daughter. ‘Go slay me the three giants,’ says the king--so he +goes and slays the three giants, and comes back, but he doesn’t get the +king’s daughter. ‘Go slay me the man-killing boar,’ says the king--and +the longer the story, the more fun it is.” + + +XV + +The supersalesman had evolved a regular set of formulas, by which he +challenged the witnesses who came to him. Of Italians he would ask: +“Are you an anarchist? Are you a friend of Sacco or Vanzetti? Are you +a member of the committee? Have you any friends on the committee? +Who sent you here?” To be “sent” was a sinister thing, a sign of an +elaborate conspiracy in operation. + +For Americans the procedure was more subtle. The first question was: +“Have you read the record?” If you answered “No,” then you were +disqualified. The Governor had read the record, so he said. If you +answered, “Yes,” the question would be, “Where did you get it?”--for +the defense had only two transcripts of the full testimony, and two +or three copies of the “bill of exceptions,” usually called “the +record.” If you were able to convince him that you had had access to +any of these, he would say, “Have you interviewed the witnesses?” +And of course that would “stump” you; how could any one interview +the witnesses, when the lawyers for the defense couldn’t even get +the Governor’s secretary to give them the names and addresses of the +witnesses? You would answer, “No,” and the Governor would reply, “Well, +I know about this case, and you don’t.” + +All that mass of complications--a million words of printed testimony, +and many times that much spoken into one human ear--and he really +thought he could carry it all! Serene, even jaunty, he would come into +his office, wearing his automatic smile, and greeting the reporters, +“Good morning, boys, a fine day!” He did not ask for help, and gave no +thanks when it was offered. Hjalmar Branting, a lawyer from Sweden, son +of the prime minister, came over to study the case, and devoted a month +to it, becoming certain that the men were innocent. He was granted +an hour, and the Governor spent five minutes talking about Sacco and +Vanzetti, and the rest talking about the market for automobiles in +Sweden. A thrifty supersalesman, making hay even while the thunder +rolled and the lightning split the sky! + +The floods of mail poured in. Trucks came, bringing masses of +petitions; some thirty packages, registered, from France, representing +three million signatures, patiently collected at workingmen’s meetings. +They were burned in the basement furnaces, at night, when the heat +would not be troublesome. Messenger boys brought telegrams by the +bundle; they were sorted out, one kind for the newspapers, the other +for the fires. Said the private secretary: “Everybody wants those wops +executed, except people who don’t know how to spell their names.” He +gave out the letter of the Reverend Llewellyn E. Darling, of Grace +Evangelical Church of Everett, reporting that a vote had been taken +among his Sunday congregation, and it was unanimous in demanding +that the convicted men should die. “We believe,” wrote this Darling +Reverend, “that the source of the petitions for their release is +un-American and would eventually destroy the government of the United +States.” Comrade Jesus, on his golden throne above, rose up and gave +three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue. + + +XVI + +Cornelia had put off visiting the State House; she would see what +happened to others, and judge the best way of proceeding. Now she asked +Henry Cabot Winters to arrange an interview; and he offered to go +along--a notice to a politician that she was still a member of a great +family, in spite of all her vagaries. The supersalesman would be polite +to her, but also he would be grim, for she was a dangerous woman. He +held her to blame for a great part of the publicity which this case +had obtained; he had visions of her spending secretly the Thornwell +millions in an effort to get her own perverse way. + +Cornelia had never met him; he had been a name to her so far. Now she +sat in his chamber and studied those eyes, so cold, expressionless--a +curious thing, they made you think literally of agates. His face was +round, his head partly bald, his costume immaculate, his smile as it +were dead. He sat with his back to the window, so that in the matter of +vision he had the advantage over his visitors. A large mahogany desk; +a green blotter, with a few papers, a fancy bronze ink-stand, and a +little state flag on a standard for patriotism. A large room, done in +white, with large white doors and heavy carpet and a fireplace never +used. “I guess you have seen all this many times, Mrs. Thornwell,” he +said, respectfully. + +Yes, Cornelia had seen it. “When I was a little girl, the old home of +John Hancock stood out there in front.” So they talked “Boston,” and +perhaps she would have done better if she had talked nothing else; +her social prestige was really the only thing that stood any chance. +In a chair at one side sat Mr. Joseph Wiggin, the Governor’s private +counsel, a Harvard man and a blue-blood, smiling and quizzical; he +would have conspired with her in that kind of enterprise, if she had +put it up to him in the right, “old Boston” way. To charm an automobile +salesman and persuade him to make a concession as a matter of social +favor, the right of an aristocratic old lady to have her feelings +spared! + +Cornelia set out to tell about Vanzetti, and how well she knew him, +and what a fine man he was. The Governor listened, but soon tired of +it. “I haven’t the time to deal with backgrounds and psychology, Mrs. +Thornwell.” She tried to show him what backgrounds and psychology +meant. “Consider Nick. They tell us he went out and stole sixteen +thousand dollars, and then came back to his shoe factory and earned +thirty-seven dollars and eighty cents!” But she was rousing his male +combativeness. “They had to go on working in the factory,” he argued. +“They couldn’t have afforded to change their habits.” + +Cornelia was studying the bland face and the strange expressionless +eyes. What sort of man was this? What motives would sway him? A +business man, of a simple type, used to facing simple problems, like +those of price; the proper rental for a building, or wages for an +employee, easy to decide; a man of action, not a thinker. Now he had +to weigh the souls of idealists, he had to estimate social forces--and +they were completely beyond his comprehension. “I am a plain man, Mrs. +Thornwell, not an intellectual.” She had started to tell him about +Bart’s studies, the books she had seen him mastering by patient toil in +the night; but she realized that this was an affront to a merchant of +motor-cars who had been studying markets and prices. Neither would it +do any good to praise the unselfish motives of the two social rebels. +That, too, would give offense to the man of money. “These men who don’t +believe in private property must be depraved,” he had said. + +She told him about the two trials, and what she had learned about the +various prosecution witnesses. The Governor praised these latter; +“clear-eyed,” was his word. Said the old lady, “Their eyes may be clear +from the outside looking in, but assuredly they were not clear from +the inside looking out.” She told the long story of the prevarications +and waverings of these witnesses, as proved by the records of the +preliminary hearings, and by the Pinkerton reports. The Governor knew +of these reports now, but he did not know what was in them, and was +puzzled by details. He did not even know the names of some witnesses. +She spoke of Behrsin, and the Governor said, “Cursin, who is Cursin?” + +But everything polite, according to good form; he heard her to the end, +giving few signs of impatience. “I will give careful consideration +to what you tell me, Mrs. Thornwell. I have great respect for your +sincerity, and thank you for coming to see me.” Bows and smiles all +round, a pleasant hour--and utterly, utterly futile. + +“The case is completely indigestible to him, he can’t hold it in his +mind.” Such was the judgment of Henry Cabot Winters, legal expert, +as he walked with his mother-in-law down the long marble corridors. +“You have to know a great deal about it in order to know anything, and +Fuller doesn’t know anything.” + +“What will he do, Henry?” + +“He’ll take somebody’s word for it. He’ll think he is deciding, but his +mind will make itself up without his realizing it. That’s the way he’s +gone through life--landing on his feet like a cat. What I’m afraid is, +he has landed already, and facing the wrong way.” As he said this, the +great lawyer put his arm under the old lady’s, and held her steady as +they walked towards his car. “It comes to this, Mother--what I said to +Rupert last night: you can make a chauffeur out of a governor, but you +can’t make a governor out of a chauffeur!” + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE DECISION + + +I + +On July twenty-ninth it was announced that the decision would be +given out on the third of August. That was a Wednesday, the day the +Governor’s council met; and this fact might have significance, because, +if he were going to grant clemency, the council would have to assent. +Shreds of evidence like that caused hope to rise in the balance. Rumors +would come, one way or the other; the Governor had said this, he had +asked that. + +Joe Randall never wavered in his pessimism. “Fuller has no idea but +death; he never has had it for an instant, and he never will.” But some +of the other newspaper men thought differently; said one: “You can’t +tell me that a man so happy would send two human beings to the chair!” +Others had talked with members of the council, who told, in confidence, +of definite statements the Governor had made. The New York _Times_ +correspondent sent his paper a detailed story to the effect that the +Governor meant to postpone the execution, and ask the legislature to +pass a special act providing for a new trial. The New York _World_ had +the same story; the _Herald Tribune_ followed. + +On the day before August third a peculiar development. Calvin Coolidge, +President of the United States, was spending his summer vacation in the +Rockies, catching trout with worms, and having himself photographed in +ten-gallon hats and other moving picture appurtenances. He received the +newspaper “boys” on his front porch and handed them a typewritten slip +of paper reading, “I do not choose to run for President in nineteen +twenty-eight.” This economical sentence caused a thrill in the bosoms +of great numbers of public men; and enemies of Alvan T. Fuller imagined +that it decided the fate of Sacco and Vanzetti. Careful newspapers +like the New York _Times_ and _World_ do not often let themselves be +fooled as in this case--so these suspicious ones argued; something must +have changed the mind of the supersalesman on the night of the second +of August, causing him to give up the idea of clemency. Could it have +been a vision of himself, following the footsteps of “Cautious Cal” +up the political ladder; sweeping the next Republican convention in a +storm of enthusiasm for another hero who had “crushed the Reds”? + +Whether there was any truth in this wild guess, none could say, except +Fuller himself. But this much is certain, he desperately wanted +that nomination; and it is interesting to note what happened in the +following year, when the Republican convention assembled. The name of +Alvan T. Fuller was put before the little group of rich men’s agents +who meet in a hotel room and determine nominations for president and +vice-president. The Governor’s friends set forth the heroic deed that +he had done, and the storm of fervor which this deed would rouse in the +bosoms of all patriots. But the politicians of 1928 remarked coldly +that this was not 1920. “The Republican party cannot afford to debate +the Sacco-Vanzetti case from now until the end of the campaign!” +There was not a single vote for the supersalesman; and so furious was +he in his disappointment that he refused to let ex-Governor Cox of +Massachusetts have the nomination in his place. To Senator Butler, +over the long-distance telephone wire, he said: “It will be Fuller or +nobody!” + + +II + +August third, the day of the decision. The State House press room and +Governor’s office were not big enough to hold the mob of reporters, and +for the first time in Massachusetts history the legislative chamber was +turned over to their use, and the press gallery equipped with telegraph +wires. More than eighty men, like hunting-dogs held in leash, leaping +and barking. The whole outside world was clamoring for every detail +having to do with that scene. + +The interest in the case had grown, until it was like nothing in +history; great newspapers in New York, which had given several inches +to the conviction of the men, were now giving pages to the struggle for +a new trial. + +Somehow the working classes of all nations had come to know about this +case, and had made it their own. They were listening to fiery orators, +taking part in parades, throwing bricks through American window glass, +setting off bombs in front of embassies and legations. To the ruling +class element of Massachusetts this was a proof of the worst they +had been told about world Bolshevism; it was a diabolical conspiracy +against the good name of the Commonwealth, and to meet it these +righteous persons summoned the spirits of their Puritan ancestors, who +had withstood persecution and torture at the hands of royal despots +and their priestly monitors. The louder the clamor on behalf of the +anarchists, the less chance that it would be heeded--so said the +stiff-necked ones. + +The Governor had not come to his office; rumor had it that he was +working on his decision in an unnamed hotel. Over at the Sacco-Vanzetti +headquarters in Hanover street, a couple of rooms in a dingy office +building with time-worn floors, there were reporters and photographers, +bootleggers and poets, Italian laborers and Harvard professors, seated +on boxes, bundles of papers, tables and rickety chairs, waiting, +waiting. On the walls were posters in many languages, calling for +mass-meetings to save Sacco and Vanzetti; one in French, signed by +cabinet ministers, referring to “Calvary,” which would have pleased +Bart; one in German, saying “Justice is dead”; one from Mexico, saying +“Freedom and Justice.” Bart was right--his name had come to have a +meaning! + +Cornelia Thornwell stayed in her apartment, and friends came in to keep +the watch with her and divert her mind. But no one could talk about +anything but the decision. Now and then the phone would ring, and her +heart would jump so that it hurt; when it proved to be more delay, she +would sink back in her chair, feeling faint. Creighton Hill, a young +newspaperman who was heart and soul for the defense, came in to cheer +her; the afternoon papers were full of hints of a reprieve; everybody +was hopeful. Judge Webster Thayer was in Ogunquit, Maine, and at the +Cliff Country Club that morning had made 18 holes in 84. + +Waiting, waiting. Evening, and still the Governor had not come to +his office. Crowds gathered at the State House, and were driven back. +The decision would be late, said the secretary. Betty, who was at +headquarters, phoned to her grand-mother--for the tenth time, trying +to brace the tortured soul to meet the coming shock. “Joe says the +brute is holding up the decision so that we won’t be able to get in +any answer to-night. He wants the front page of the morning papers to +himself!” + +So it proved. At twenty minutes past eleven at night, the last moment +when it would be possible to put the text of the decision into the +main editions of the big newspapers, and when there was no longer +a chance that any friend of the defense could prepare a reply, or +find any distracted reporter able to listen to one--at that moment +the Governor’s secretary appeared with a stack of envelopes, each +containing seven mimeographed sheets. The reporters grabbed them, and +tore them open as they ran. The word “Die” went by telegraph and cable +to five continents, and in a few minutes there were “extras” on the +streets in big cities, with streamer headlines across the front page: +“Sacco and Vanzetti Doomed to Die”--“Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die, Says +Fuller”--“Sacco and Vanzetti Guilty, and Will Die.” + + +III + +Wonderful, wonderful was the judicial system of the Commonwealth +of Massachusetts, as portrayed in those seven mimeographed sheets! +Throughout all this complicated and difficult case it had functioned +without one single slip. The judge had been upright and impartial, +the jury had been conscientious and fair, the witnesses--for the +Commonwealth--had been clear-eyed and unafraid, the Supreme Judicial +Court had been infallible. And now came the supersalesman of +automobiles, and with his eagle eye he surveyed the procedure, seeking +a flaw. Patiently he had studied every word of the record, the later +appeals and decisions; he had interviewed jurors and witnesses, and +made sure that everything was perfect; now he mounted the rostrum and +told the civilized world about it, putting the final seal of completion +upon the performance. + +One after another he took some aspect of the case, and after +mentioning the criticisms of it, disposed of them in one or two +majestic and final sentences. First, the jury. “I find that the +jurors were thoroughly honest men ... I can see no warrant for the +assertion that the jury trial was unfair.” The fact that the elderly +flag-saluting foreman of the jury had said, on his way to duty, “Damn +them, they ought to hang them anyway!”--that was a detail so trivial +that an enthusiastic supersalesman did not bother to report it. + +And then “Web” Thayer. “Affidavits have been presented claiming that +the judge was prejudiced. I see no evidence of prejudice in his conduct +of the trial.” The eagle eye had inspected those passages in the record +where “Web” had connived at the job of hiding from the jury the fact +that Goodridge was an admitted thief; that had been fair. The eagle +eye had seen “Web” butting in to discredit the witness Kurlansky, the +shop-keeper who had failed to stop the district attorney and police +from “framing” the testimony of Lola Andrews; that had been fair. “Web” +had permitted the district attorney to browbeat Sacco for not knowing +what was not true about Harvard College; that had been fair. “Web” had +sneered seven times at the defense lawyers for claiming something which +they hadn’t claimed; that, too, had been fair. He had let the district +attorney tell the jury that Proctor had testified something that +Proctor had in fact refused to testify, and that the district attorney +knew he had refused to testify; that likewise had been fair. “Web” +himself had told the jury the same thing; and that had been fairest of +all. + +And then the appeals for a new trial, based upon new evidence that +had been found: evidence of the foreman’s prejudice and misconduct, +of Goodridge’s criminal career and perjury upon the witness-stand; +the retractions of Lola Andrews and Louis Pelzer; the confession of +the head of the State Police that he had conspired with the district +attorney’s office to misrepresent his testimony to the jury; the new +evidence of Gould, Kelly and Kennedy, deliberately withheld from +the defense. Said the supersalesman: “I have examined all of these +motions and read the affidavits in support of them to see whether they +presented any valid reason for granting the men a new trial. I am +convinced that they do not.” + +And the judge’s handling of these appeals and motions--that, too, +had been complete and marvelous perfection! Everything that he had +done--including his lying about the affidavits, and saying that they +said what they didn’t say; his misrepresentation of Supreme Court +decisions, his misquoting of testimony, his making up of passages which +he said were in the testimony, but which were not in the testimony--all +that had been perfect, and “Web’s” motives in doing these things had +been as pure as the driven snow in Boston. Said the supersalesman: “I +am further convinced that the presiding judge gave no evidence of bias +in denying them all and refusing a new trial.” + +The supersalesman pronounced Vanzetti guilty of the Bridgewater crime, +and stressed the fact that he had failed to take the stand in his own +behalf--although it was the perfect law of the perfect Commonwealth +that he didn’t have to take the stand if he didn’t want to, and that +his failure to do so was not to be used against him. The supersalesman +was so sure that the men were guilty that he was not content to say it +once, he said it twice about Sacco and three times about Vanzetti; he +was so sure the trial was fair that he said it five times--and added +for good measure: “The proceedings were without a flaw.” He put in +an eloquent description of the South Braintree crime, with emphasis +upon its brutality, which made fine melodrama for the newspapers; and +then he wound up in a blaze of glory, putting himself in the center +of the picture, with jury and witnesses about him. “I am proud to be +associated in this public service with clear-eyed witnesses, unafraid +to tell the truth, and with jurors who discharged their obligations in +accordance with their convictions and their oaths.” + + +IV + +Ten or a dozen persons crowded into the little living-room of the +apartment adjoining Cornelia’s, where lived Betty and Joe. The seven +mimeographed pages had been read aloud, and passages read over again, +and marked with exclamation points and question marks. Hours passed +while the clamor and excitement continued. Nobody thought of sleep; +impossible ever to sleep in the world again--let sleep be banished from +Boston, as punishment for this atrocity! The language of some of the +younger men and women was unfit for the older ones to hear; but the +older ones realized that this was a special occasion, like nothing in +Boston history. The air of the room became gray with tobacco smoke, and +the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution was broken, along with +the laws against blasphemy and sedition; for some radicals could not +stand the strain of this ordeal, any more than could the conservatives, +without help from Italian bootleggers. + +Joe was at his typewriter, banging away, with a green shade over his +eyes; preparing a story to be put on the wires for the early editions +of afternoon papers. He was making copies for other newspaper men, +hoping they would get this point and that. Now and then the company +would interrupt him--to make sure he had got some other point. Over +at defense headquarters was another indignation meeting, and there +was telephoning, back and forth, exchanging ideas and information. +Quotations had to be looked up in the record, and falsehoods nailed +down. + +How they hated the supersalesman of automobiles--and how they raged +at the trick he had played upon them, whereby millions, yes, tens of +millions of people would read that statement at their breakfast tables +and on their way to work--and would not get the answer of the committee +until hours later, and then only in fragmentary form, or not at all! +The fingers of men and women trembled as they pointed out passages of +especial treachery. + +Cornelia Thornwell, old-fashioned and hopelessly out of date, had +notions about the dignity and honor of the office which the great +Josiah Quincy Thornwell had once filled. It seemed to her that a +Governor of the Commonwealth, mounting the rostrum and addressing +the civilized world on an issue involving the lives of two human +beings--that such a Governor ought at least to tell the truth. +“Wouldn’t you think he’d leave out errors that can be proved by the +record?” + +Said Betty, “I’d expect him to lie like Satan.” + +They would fall upon the seven mimeographed sheets again. Look at this! +Look at that! Look at what he put in about Madeiros! “I give no weight +to the Madeiros confession. It is popularly supposed he confessed to +committing this crime.” What did the man mean by that sentence? He +didn’t explain it--he went on to state his reasons for distrusting +Madeiros, but not a word about what was “popularly supposed”! The words +could only mean that the popular impression was mistaken, Madeiros had +not “confessed to committing this crime.” Every reader would get that +meaning, and no other meaning. The actual words written by Madeiros had +been: “I hear by confess to being in the South Braintree shoe company +crime and Sacco and Vanzetti was not in said crime.” + +Then, an even shrewder trick--a little masterpiece of treachery, as +cunningly contrived as the Proctor evasion, and Katzmann’s bogus answer +to it, and “Web” Thayer’s obfuscations of both! The supersalesman +summed up Sacco’s alibi--that he “claimed to have been at the Italian +consulate in Boston on that date but the only confirmation of this +claim is the memory of a former employee of the consulate who made a +deposition in Italy,” etc. Study that sentence, all forgers, traducers +and betrayers of all future time, and learn how to smile and be +a villain still! The art of falsifying while seeming to tell the +truth has never been carried to a higher stage--not in any form of +supersalesmanship yet devised in the great empire of superproduction, +or taught in the Graduate School of Business Administration of Harvard +University. + +Strictly and literally, it was the truth that Sacco had produced only +one witness to testify that he had been “at the Italian Consulate in +Boston on that date.” But Sacco had produced five other witnesses who +testified that he had been _in Boston_ on that date! Affe, the grocer, +had testified that Sacco had paid him a bill, and Affe had produced +on the stand a notebook with a memorandum of the payment, showing the +date. Bosco and Guadagni, the editors, had testified to lunching with +Sacco in Boni’s restaurant on that day, and Dentamaro, department +manager of a bank, and Williams, an advertising agent, had testified +to joining the group and chatting. Still more to the point, several +of these witnesses had testified that Sacco, in the course of the +talk, had told them the purpose for which he was in Boston, to visit +the consulate and get his passports! Oh, treachery and double-dealing +beyond all imagining--first, the Lowell commission hushing Bosco and +Guadagni to silence, and doctoring the record of the proceedings in +order to keep the story from the public; and then the mighty super +salesman, stepping onto the rostrum and addressing the whole civilized +world, telling it that Bosco and Guadagni did not exist! + + +V + +Cornelia lay in bed, a reaction from the long strain. The Negro maid +brought her coffee and toast, but she could not eat; she lay like one +dead. It was all over for her; she had done all she could, struggled +all she could--so she told herself. The young people might go on, Joe +might write newspaper stories, trying to rouse a heedless public; +Betty might organize mass meetings and speeches on the Common, but the +runaway grandmother’s race was run. + +She had to lie there and bring herself to face the thought of the +electric chair. Through all these seven dreadful years, she had refused +to face it--a game of self-deception; but Bart and Nick had been right +all along--they had known that the thought must be faced, and they had +done it. They had the will, and the philosophy; they had been able to +talk about it and joke. Now Cornelia must do the same thing. Remember +what somebody had told her--it does not hurt, because the current +destroys the brain before there is time for a sensation. And when it +is over, it is really over; other persons may worry for you, but you +don’t worry for yourself. Also, you are a martyr, you have accomplished +something for the cause you love. + +That was what she must manage to realize. Persuade herself that there +was a new generation coming, that would care where this one was +indifferent; that would count it as something important that two wops +had denied themselves happiness so that justice might be born into the +world! Think about those young persons of the future; lie here and shut +your eyes, and let them come into your presence and speak to you; feel +their gentle hands upon your forehead, bidding you to rest, your tense +nerves to relax and your heart to stop pounding. + +Cornelia lay wrestling thus; and into her mind came drifting words +of comfort. “Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our +triumph.” Vanzetti speaking; where had she heard him say those +words? On a chair by her bedside was a scrap-book, full of letters, +manuscripts, clippings. She was moved to sit up and turn the pages; +here it was. Shortly after Judge Thayer had sentenced the two men to +die, Cornelia had persuaded a reporter for the North American Newspaper +Alliance to go to Dedham with her, and see what kind of men these +alleged bandits were. Now, reading the interview, Cornelia recalled +every detail of the scene; the prisoners coming down from their tier of +cells, getting a glimpse of sunshine in the central hall, and lighting +up with it--Nick, with his “kid’s” grin, Bart with his mature and +gentle smile. The reporter, Phil D. Stong, a big fellow, rather blond +German face, well-fed and well-groomed--on an expense account, as he +told Cornelia, with a laugh; tender-hearted, with the sentimentality +of his race--and struck dumb by the discovery of two men of this +transparent sincerity and fine idealism in the shadow of the electric +chair, face to face with their last enemy and not afraid of him. He +had listened, while the victims did the talking; then he had gone away +and tried to make a picture of the scene for the readers of a chain of +newspapers. + + “Both men expect to die. They say so, and the conviction is written + in grave, serene characters on Vanzetti’s face. Tears touch the + young man ‘Nick’s’ eyes for a moment, brightly, but his voice is + steady. He is married to a sweet-faced little Italian woman. They + have two children. + + “In a moment, Nick, with his smooth pompadour, and his boy’s face, + is laughing with the deputy sheriff in argument about prison fare. + + “Vanzetti regards one kindly, but appraisingly. A ferocious + mustache covers an expressive, smiling mouth. The stamp of thought + is in every feature; the marks of the man whom strong intelligence + has made an anchorite.” + +And then a glimpse of prison life: + + “Up from the shops comes a file of gray men, arms folded, faces + expressionless--a rhythm of steps and faces. + + “‘They been working.’ Sacco’s fingers move nervously. ‘God, when + I cannot work I almost go crazy. My fingers used to be busy. I + beg, I argue--give me something to do--I shovel coal, anything. At + last, they give me brick to clean--after three years. You see me + now? I gain a pound a day for thirty days.’ The deputy sheriff nods + confirmation. + + “‘First they give me basket to weave, like children. Better than + nothing, but not much. Then I sit alone--seven years--thousands + of days--and all for say man’s nature can be perfect--day after + day--nothing do--breathe, eat, sit up, lie down--because I think + man innerly noble--not beast--’ + + “Vanzetti interrupts his companion gently. He knows the two + visitors believe in the enforced regulations which restrain + fallible humanity. + + “‘We’re capitalists,’ he says smiling, and pointing to the line of + workers. (Men under sentence of death are given no work.) ‘We have + home, we eat, don’t do no work. We’re non-producers--live off other + man’s work. When libertarians make speech, they calling Nick and me + names.’ + + “Sacco gurgles with amusement. The deputy sheriff appears + significantly. Suddenly one realizes that these men are to die in a + straight wooden chair, just as the world begins its summer holidays. + + “Nick and Vanzetti see the new expression and understand. They + smile, gravely, sympathetically, as men smile at a child’s troubles. + + “‘If it had not been for these thing,’ says Vanzetti, ‘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 joostice, for man’s + onderstanding of man, as now we do by an accident. + + “‘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 belong to us--that agony is our triumph!’ + + “Not declaimed, just said simply.” + + +VI + +There were tears in Cornelia’s eyes as she finished. “Oh, beautiful! +Beautiful!” And when Joe came in, later in the day, she showed him the +clipping. “Those are marvelous words--those two paragraphs at the end. +I wonder if you couldn’t quote them again, and get people to read them.” + +Joe said that he would try it. In order to give a touch of drama, he +put a headline: “Vanzetti to his Judges.” The two paragraphs were taken +up and reproduced in labor papers, and became, as it were, a spiritual +testament of Vanzetti, an untheological prayer which his friends +carried about with them, and read while he was dying, and afterwards. +Because of the title, people assumed that the words had been a part +of a speech in court; but this was not so, they were spoken, quite +simply and casually, to a newspaper reporter, the every-day stuff of +Vanzetti’s mind. + +History records that those who heard the Gettysburg address of Abraham +Lincoln were ill pleased by it. They found it brief and inadequate, +and gave all their praise to the flowery discourse of the great Edward +Everett of Boston. But the future seldom chooses words which are +flowery; it chooses those which have been wrung from the human heart +in moments of great suffering, and which convey a gleam of spiritual +illumination. When such words have been spoken, we discover what Paul +meant when he wrote, “this mortal shall put on immortality.” School +children learn them by heart, and libraries are written to interpret +them; they are graven upon marble and cast in bronze; armies carry them +on banners, temples arise to glorify them, and civilizations are built +in their image. + +Pass on, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, your work is done! You have fought the +good fight, you have finished the race! Fear not the executioner, nor +yet the raging slanderer--they are powerless to harm you, for you +have carried out your life-purposes--including that incidental one of +becoming a great master of English prose! You have spoken the noblest +words heard in America in the two generations since Abraham Lincoln +died! You have achieved what is called the “grand manner,” so rare in +literature! That simplicity whereby men become as little children, and +enter into the kingdom of heaven; that dignity which causes the critics +to bow their haughty heads; that tenderness which touches the heart, +that rapture which fires it, that sublimity which brings men to their +knees! + +In short, old Bart, you have brought the Commonwealth of Massachusetts +back into the literary world again! After many years, New England has +another great writer--for a short while only, until it has sent two +thousand volts of electricity through his brain! What an odd freak of +history, that this great one should be a despised wop! That, after all +the millions spent upon education, he should not be a graduate of a +college, nor even of a high school! That he should not even be able to +spell correctly, nor to pronounce correctly, the language of which he +is to be the glory! + +What a satire upon great endowments, the huge masses of steel and +stone, the deans and professors of this and that long-winded subject! +As a result of their labors, there are a million persons in the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts who understand the correct use of past +participles, and would not say, “I might have live”; yet there is not +a single one of these millions who can speak a sentence that stands a +chance of living! There are ten thousand graduates of Harvard College, +every one of whom knows better than to say “onderstand” or “joostice”; +yet there is only a handful who understand justice, and not one who +will die for it! + + +VII + +The fears of the defense, that they could not get their answer +before the public, proved to be groundless. In truth, no answer was +needed--the weaknesses of the Governor’s statement were so apparent. +Impossible to take the lives of two men upon the basis of such an +argument! There was a cry of dismay, so shrill that it penetrated even +to the sanctum of supersalesmanship. A sudden panic among the “State +House gang”; something must be done, and done quickly. The academic +autocrats were summoned to the defense of their Governor, and three +days later there appeared what was called the “report” of Lowell, +Grant, and Stratton to the Governor. + +It was much longer than the earlier document, and in its heavy style +bore the marks of having been composed by President Lowell. It was +argumentative where Fuller’s had been assertive; it was fumbling where +his had been jaunty. The feebleness and confusion of its arguments +suggested the operation of aged minds. To disinterested persons, the +most striking fact was that the report could be judged without knowing +anything about the case. The elderly gentlemen had managed to make +their ineffectiveness evident in almost every paragraph. + +Suppose, for example, that you picked up your morning paper, and read +what the Commission had to say about the evidence of Roy Gould, the +man who had got a bullet hole through his overcoat. “He certainly had +an unusually good position to observe the men in the car, but on the +other hand his evidence is merely cumulative.” What would you make out +of that? Assuming that you knew the meaning of the word “cumulative,” +why was evidence less valid because it was that? Wasn’t it the nature +of good evidence to be cumulative, and didn’t you try to make it as +cumulative as possible? Try some other word in that sentence: “his +evidence is merely convincing” or, “his evidence is merely conclusive”! + +Then that amazing and incredible sentence, in which the three elderly +Brahmins summed up their meditations on the subject of one of their +victims: “On the whole, we are of the opinion that Vanzetti was guilty +of murder beyond reasonable doubt.” What did the three elderly Brahmins +mean by a man’s being guilty “on the whole”? Or by their being of the +opinion “on the whole”? Did they mean that there was some part of them +which was not of the opinion? Or did they mean that there was some part +of Vanzetti which was not guilty? On the Saturday when this report +was given out, the New York _Times_ made an effort to elucidate this +question; and the New York _Times_ is an important newspaper, whose +queries are apt to be heeded, even by blue-blood college presidents. +But apparently the Commission on the whole had decided on the whole +that it would be safer on the whole to take no chances on the whole. +The New York _Times_ recorded that “efforts to reach members of +the committee to clear up the exact meaning of ‘on the whole’ were +unavailing.” + +But imagine the scorn and fury of young radicals--reading that +sentence, and not waiting to have the exact meaning cleared up! Said +Mistress Betty, now become ferocious: “Is he going to execute Bart on +the whole, or is he going to execute him completely?” She pictured the +august President of Harvard University appearing before the Judgment +Throne, and being informed that he was to be sent to hell on the whole, +and roasted for eternity on the whole! + + +VIII + +The three elderly blue-bloods had had a comparatively simple task +laid out for them; they had been asked to decide whether Sacco and +Vanzetti had had a fair trial. Was it owing to their age, or to their +inexperience with criminal matters, or to their overwhelming prejudice, +that they had been unable to stick to their task, but must keep +confusing it with the question whether Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty? +The latter they could not possibly determine; they had neither the +time, nor the facilities, nor the training, nor the temperament. But +their self-assurance was such that they attempted it; with the result +that they fell to guessing, like everybody else, and they were so naïve +as to reveal this to a horrified world. + +Thus, in declining to accept the story of Madeiros, they remarked: “If +he were tried, his own confession, if wholly believed, would not be +sufficient for a verdict of murder in the first degree.” Just what was +the significance of that? Were the old gentlemen suggesting that two +birds in the hand were better than one in the bush? And then, their +extraordinary statement, that the evidence of Gould was “balanced” by +that of Tootsie Toodles! Joe Randall said that such “balancing” ought +to be exhibited on the vaudeville stage. + +The handling of the Proctor confession had come to be a test of the +honesty of official persons in Massachusetts; and it proved that +each new person would find some new method of dodging the truth. The +three elderly blue-bloods showed themselves fully as cunning as their +predecessors. Said they: “Counsel for the defendants claim that the +form of the question and the answer was devised to mislead the jury.” +That was a fact; and it was an instance of how to lie while stating +a fact. Counsel “claimed” it; but why put the burden of the “claim” +onto counsel, when counsel were merely restating the confession of +Proctor? And then to go on and say: “But it must be assumed that the +jury understood the meaning of plain English words.” These learned +Boston gentlemen claiming that Proctor had used “plain English words,” +when Proctor himself had stated that he had used obscure English words, +and for the purpose of confusing the jury! Let the common sense of +mankind judge whether a jury of mechanics and working people would find +no obscurity in the statement that the mortal bullet was _consistent +with_ having been fired by the Sacco pistol! And when both the district +attorney and the judge had pretended to misunderstand it, and had told +them that it meant what it did not mean! + +And then to be nasty, and hint that their own high police official, +who had served them faithfully for forty years, and now was dead and +unable to defend himself, had made his confession because the district +attorney had refused to pay him five hundred dollars for his expert +testimony! + +To Cornelia Thornwell this report meant the end of all things; her +joy in life was gone. For prejudice and trickery on the part of a +motor-car salesman she could make snobbish allowances; but in the +case of A. Lawrence Lowell no such recourse was available, he was her +kind of person, the best she had to offer. For years she had gone to +commencements, and listened to his ponderous wisdom, and thought he was +a great man; and here in a test she discovered that he had listened to +all the gossip, and swallowed the whole “theory”! + +She knew what would happen, if she went out among her friends to argue +against this report. The friends would gaze at her in dismay. “But, my +dear, _Mr. Lowell_ says they are guilty!” If she persisted, the friends +would add, “But my dear, Mr. Lowell _investigated_ the case! He gave +more than half his vacation to it!” Those who knew her well, including +the members of the family, would say, “But Mother, you _wanted_ Mr. +Lowell, and now you won’t abide by what he says!” + +Impossible to make headway against such a tide! In New York men could +read that report, and judge it for what it was, a revelation of the +mental breakdown of a once-great civilization; but in Boston hardly any +one could judge it, Mr. Lowell did the thinking of half the city. He +was a god, and had descended from his throne, and devoted his mighty +intellect to the affairs of two obscure wops; now for these wops +and their supporters to refuse to accept his verdict was not merely +blasphemy, it was ingratitude and impertinence. + + +IX + +William G. Thompson withdrew from the case. One more lawyer had failed; +one more lawyer had made enemies, and thought it would help Sacco and +Vanzetti if he took himself out of the way. But each time it was made +clear that the cause of the hatred was Sacco and Vanzetti, no one +else; the new lawyer, whoever he might be, would be as much hated as +the old one. + +They took Cornelia’s advice, and went to the old stock, and retained +Mr. Arthur Dehon Hill. Silver hair and rosy cheeks and a manner of +complete assurance, he should have been Arthur Beacon Hill, according +to Joe Randall. He was so correct that he dared to make jokes about it. +Real “Old Boston,” he thought that every criminal, even an anarchist, +was entitled to a fair trial, and to have a lawyer do the best for him +that the legal game allowed. But to his surprise he discovered that a +great many persons, even lawyers, were strongly disapproving of his +conduct in defending these enemies of society. + +He started work on Saturday, the sixth of August; and on the night +of Wednesday, the tenth, his clients were due to die: rather a short +time-limit for the mastering of a complicated case! He began with an +appeal to the Governor to extend the time; and the Governor replied +by silence. He filed notice of an appeal to Judge Thayer for a new +trial, on the basis of newly discovered evidence, and also--delightful +inspiration!--on the ground that Sacco and Vanzetti had not had a fair +trial, because the trial judge had been prejudiced! Judge Thayer agreed +to give up making golf-scores in Ogunquit, Maine, and appear in Dedham +Court House on Monday morning, to judge whether Judge Thayer had been +prejudiced against Sacco and Vanzetti! + +Also Mr. Hill started an appeal before Justice Sanderson of the Supreme +Judicial Court, to try to get another motion before the full bench of +that Court. Some jumping about for one lawyer, especially when all +the courts closed at noon on Saturday. Elias Field was helping, and +also Michael Angelo Musmanno, a young lawyer who had been sent on from +Pittsburgh by some Italian societies. A naïve and warm-hearted person, +Catholic and conservative, he had fallen in love with an anarchist +infidel and an anarchist atheist, and was bewildered by the hatred +which unloving Boston felt for his clients. A hectic three weeks the +young lawyer spent chasing about New England and Canada, in motor cars, +and now and then in airplanes, hunting supreme court judges on vacation. + +Other lawyers giving advice, some of them secretly. One was Henry +Cabot Winters--hush, not a word! He would call Cornelia on the phone. +“Mother, I don’t want to get mixed up in this, but you’d better tell +those fellows not to overlook saving all their exceptions as basis of +a writ of certiorari to the Federal courts; and tell Hill not to let +‘Web’ get a single point on him--challenge his right to hear a word, +or decide any issue, on the basis that it is a prejudiced decision. +And when you go to a Federal judge, don’t overlook Moore v. Dempsey +261 U.S. 86.” Cornelia would have to say, “Wait! Wait! Let me get +that down!” She had been wrestling with the powers that ruled her +Commonwealth for seven years, but she had not yet learned to have a +pencil and pad at the telephone. + +Also professors of the Harvard Law School helping--and no secret +about that, but on the contrary, picturesque scandals for the Hearst +newspapers! A war between the law school and rest of the university, +between Frankfurter and Lowell! Lowell had been disapproving of Jews as +professors, ever since eight years ago, when another of them, Laski, +had made a speech to the wives of striking policemen, while Lowell was +preparing to lend the students of his university for strikebreakers. +Now here was Frankfurter defending two anarchists in a book, while +Lowell was sentencing the incendiary pair to death. + +A pretty fight, difficult to keep within the limits of academic +propriety! Not so long ago, the great Lowell had dealt a strong punch +to the Jewish jaw, in the shape of a program to limit the percentage of +such students allowed in Harvard; he proposed to do it openly, instead +of secretly, as the custom was. He gave his reasons--among them that +one hundred per cent of the books stolen from the university library +were stolen by Jews. When this statement was investigated, the evidence +turned out to be that one Jewish student had one library book which he +had forgotten. + +And now here were the Harvard alumni, rallying to the aid of their +blue-blood president, by refusing to contribute to the law school +endowment, so long as Felix Frankfurter remained a professor; they were +making a regular campaign out of this. Among those who had publicly +joined it was Mr. Ranney, the new assistant district attorney from +Norfolk County, who had been opposing the Sacco-Vanzetti defense before +the Governor; also that blandly smiling blue-blood lawyer, Mr. Joseph +Wiggin, who had been the Governor’s private counsel, present at all +hearings. “You see what kind of advice Fuller is getting!” said Henry +Cabot Winters. + + +X + +Disputes at headquarters of the Sacco-Vanzetti committee; factions +clashing, radicals jeering at conservatives. “Now you see! You obeyed +your respectable lawyers! You were good, and didn’t make any noise, +you trusted to legal precedents--and where have you got? If you had +listened to us, if you had spent the money to make an appeal to labor, +we could have had a general strike now, and the boys would have been +saved!” But even now the conservatives wouldn’t agree. Mrs. Evans +thought it necessary to bow to the Governor’s decision; while the +communists wanted to make a mass appeal for a strike all over the +country. Impossible to decide on a single move; and meantime the clock +was ticking away the minutes and hours of the victims’ lives! + +Those who believed in picketing and street demonstrations proceeded +to organize and send out a call for martyrs. On Sunday afternoon +there were to be mass meetings on the Common; the socialists and the +communists each had a “tree,” and as usual, they announced rival +meetings. Superintendent of Police Michael J. Crowley announced +that he would attend both. For the first time in Boston history +the entire police force of twenty-two hundred men were on what was +known as “twenty-four hour duty.” All vacations were canceled, extra +men were brought from other cities, the firemen were sworn in as +deputies, the state constabulary were ready with armored cars, riot +guns, searchlights and gas bombs. Said the sharp-tongued Betty, “The +Commonwealth has told ten thousand lies, and each lie must have a club +and a gun to protect it!” + +Between Boston Common and the park known as the Public Gardens there +extends a wide esplanade, half a mile long, lined with old elm trees; +since as far back in history as the oldest citizen’s great-grandfather +could remember, this had been the temple of Boston’s free speech. +The trees were numbered, and every Sunday afternoon the advocates of +anything would have a tree assigned to them, where they might set up a +soap box and stand thereon, and say what they pleased to all who cared +to listen--with only such interference as came from the voices of the +orators under the other trees. + +But now the government of Massachusetts had officially endorsed ten +thousand lies, and staked its official existence upon them; the +one thing it could not stand was to have these lies exposed to the +general gaze. Under the socialist tree were women carrying banners, +containing the sentence once spoken by the just and upright and utterly +unprejudiced Mr. Justice Thayer. He was to speak again from the bench +to-morrow morning, and tell all the world how just and upright and +utterly unprejudiced he was. Now here was a banner: “Did you see what I +did to those anarchistic ----? Judge Thayer.” The makers of the banner +had left the bad word blank, but that did not improve matters, because +there is no limit to what the human imagination may insert in a blank. +People might imagine the worst of all possible expressions, so bad that +it had never been printed in any newspaper. If they did imagine that, +they would be right; and so it was necessary for the Commonwealth to +resort to clubs and bullets. + + +XI + +Alfred Baker Lewis, devoted young secretary of the Socialist Party, +was denouncing the Governor’s decision, when Michael J. Crowley came +pushing his way through the crowd, demanding to see his permit. +Burly Irish-Catholic Mike, known as “Mickey the Gunman” to the +striking policemen, and called even worse names by the booksellers +of Boston, whose boss and master he was. For among the many duties +of a superintendent of police in that pious city is to supervise the +books which the literati may purchase. In the course of the past two +years Mike had barred some seventy of the leading novels of the day, +practically everything which an intelligent man or woman would want to +read. + +And so to-day; the public would be forbidden to hear every word that +could interest an intelligent citizen. The Salvation Army would +go on banging its drum, and the Holy Rollers would continue their +contortions; but protest against legalized murder would be met with +clubs, and if necessary with bullets. + +“Let me see your permit,” commanded the superintendent of police; and +when the orator produced it, Mike announced, “This permit is canceled +and the meeting is forbidden.” When the young socialist attempted to +protest, “You are not going to argue this case in public,” said the +majestic Mike--just that and no more; he said it several times, so that +every citizen of Boston might feel the full weight of the civic insult. +“You are not going to argue this case in public!” Only in the council +chamber at the State House, before elderly academic autocrats who would +doctor the record when they got through, and keep the public from +knowing what blunders they had made! + +“This meeting will disperse!” shouted Mike, to the sixteen thousand +persons crowded round him; and the blue-clad “cops” began their +onslaught--“for every lie a club or a bullet!” + +“Come over to our tree! We have a permit!” shouted the communists; +so the crowd swarmed over there and Mike came also, and repeated his +performance, confiscating another permit. But the communist was not so +obedient as the socialist--he went on trying to speak, and was hauled +off the soap box and surrounded by policemen, and dragged off to the +waiting patrol-wagon. Three other persons they arrested--one of them +Edward Holton James, of Concord, nephew of the novelist who wrote like +a psychologist and of the psychologist who wrote like a novelist. + +A persistent person, Mr. James; perhaps it came from living in Ralph +Waldo Emerson’s back-yard. He had stood up in Germany, during the +war, and said what he thought about the Kaiser. The Germans, not +understanding Concord, had decided that he must be insane, so they +had shipped him into Holland; whereupon he had promptly got himself +smuggled back in a load of merchandise, and stood up again and said +what he thought about the Kaiser, and spent three years in a fortress +for it. + +Now he was so naïve as to think that he owned a share of the Common, +and had a right to speak there, and to refuse to be dragged off. +He resisted being dragged, and went so far as to slap one of the +officers--with the flat of his hand. They taught him his lesson, +regardless of his blue-blood and his money; when the “cop” got him +alone in the cell he gave him one on the side of the jaw, and Mr. James +“passed out,” as the saying is, and when he came to he had a cracked +jawbone, to keep him quiet for a while. + + +XII + +Arthur Dehon Hill arguing before Judge Thayer in Dedham Court-house, +with the round white dome and portholes like an ocean liner. Silver +hair and rosy cheeks, his manner of subtle banter now replaced by +burning indignation, that a judge with such a record as Web’s, and +knowing in his heart such prejudice as Web’s, should be insisting +upon deciding a motion involving two human lives. The lawyer invited +the judge to consider how he would feel if the followers of Lenin had +seized the government of Massachusetts, and were trying him according +to the precedents he had set! He told Web to his face that he had +been unfit to try the case from the beginning; he cited in open court +what the Lowell commission had said about him--that in talking about +the case off the bench he had committed “a grave breach of official +decorum.” Could any man hear such words about himself, and not be +affected by them? Web’s answer was that the chief justice of the +Superior Court had instructed him to cut short his vacation and hear +this motion. “And I am here,” said Web, in a low voice. His face was +gray, his hands trembling, his eyes blinking fast. His court-house was +well guarded that day. + +New evidence had been discovered. A young fellow by the name of Candido +di Bona had been standing on the street in South Braintree when the +bandit-car went by, and now made affidavit that neither Sacco nor +Vanzetti was in that car. This evidence was what the Lowell Commission +would have called “merely cumulative”; there were already thirty-one +persons who had made such statements, either at the trial or in later +affidavits, and Web Thayer knew of them all, and intended to pay no +more heed to the thirty-second than he had paid to the thirty-first. +He thought that he no longer had jurisdiction; that after sentence +had been passed, no judge of the Superior Court could entertain any +motion. To this the lawyer argued vehemently that nothing could deprive +accused men of an elemental right. “I believe that if there is new and +important evidence, the courts have the power to consider it, even +after sentence has been pronounced--even down to the time the men are +strapped in the electric chair. I do not believe the laws intended the +courts to regard these men as legally dead as soon as sentence was +pronounced.” + +Arthur K. Reading, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts, had been instructed by the Governor to follow Mr. Hill +in his peregrinations among the courts and make certain that he didn’t +get anything. Handsome, genial, and a good fellow, Mr. Reading was a +bitter foe of all Reds, and the aiders and abettors of Reds. Said he: +“I have just heard the most preposterous argument that I have ever +heard from an able lawyer.” He expressed his horror at “this attack on +the court for which I have the highest regard.” He proclaimed that, +“Ours is a government of laws.” Such reverence for laws and courts this +noble gentleman had--and even while he was orating, his pockets were +stuffed full of money, collected from various organizations which had +been warned by Arthur K. Reading as counsel that they were in danger of +prosecution by Arthur K. Reading as attorney general! + +The “Decimo Club” was an ingenious organization which sold memberships +to persons who hoped to get rich quickly; but the only ones who did get +rich were the promoters of the club, and their legal counsel. A couple +of months ago they had secretly handed a check for twenty-five thousand +dollars to Mr. Reading, and immediately thereafter he had given to the +newspaper reporters an interview telling them that the Decimo Club was +all right. He had performed similar “legal services” for the “L.A.W.,” +an automobile stock-selling scheme with curiously involved features. +Altogether he had collected about ninety thousand dollars in such +“fees,” and within ten months of the time that he had demanded the life +of Sacco and Vanzetti, he was to be formally indicted by the House of +Representatives and driven from his high office in disgrace--the first +time that had happened in the history of the Commonwealth. So nemesis +waits for Red-hunters! + + +XIII + +In the meantime Cornelia Thornwell had got into action +again--impossible to rest. Pleading with the Governor to grant a +respite--but the Governor would not give a hint of his intentions. +Calling up friends and relatives, nagging at them to “do +something”--when they had no idea what to do. “Henry, do you suppose +Fuller can really intend to let those boys die while proceedings are +pending before the courts?” + +“I’m afraid he does, Mother”--this over the telephone. + +“But what can be in his mind?” + +“Well, Mother, it is costing a lot of money to keep this thing going. +Think of the military expenses! And then, it’s bad advertising; every +day it keeps up, things look worse for Fuller and Lowell, and naturally +they want it over with.” + +“Do they think they can stop it by a murder?” + +“I’m afraid they do, Mother--and what’s more, I’m afraid they are +right. You can’t keep the case alive when the men are dead.” + +“Henry, you _must_ do something for me!” + +“But what can I do? I have no pull with Fuller, I don’t even drive a +Packard car.” The great lawyer thought for a bit, and added: “Why don’t +you try a little social pressure? Get Deborah or Alice or both of them +to give him and his lady a dinner-party? I’ll come, if it will do any +good.” + +Learn how the world is governed, Cornelia--now in your seventy-third +year of life! Once upon a time people did things like this to you, and +you were too gentle and trusting, too much of a “lady” to know it, or +to believe it when it was pointed out to you. But now do it yourself! +Seek out the weak spot in the armor of a motor-car salesman who has +forty million dollars, but no “social position,” and has a Catholic +wife, a cruel handicap in Massachusetts! Get busy at the telephone, and +put it up to your daughters, as hard as you know how--if they have one +particle of love for you in their hearts, if ever they had a particle +of love in their hearts, to spare you this dreadful anguish! + +True it is that the motor-car salesman has made public attacks on +Rupert Alvin, calling him an arch-corruptionist and things like that; +but that is just politics, and social life is another thing altogether. +The motor-car salesman will doubtless know what is being done to him; +he is a business man, and does not give something for nothing, nor +expect to get something for nothing. To be received in one of the +greatest homes in New England, to put his feet under the table with +haughty and unapproachable Brahmins--that counts for nothing to him +personally, or so he pretends, being “bull-headed” and defiant; but he +has a wife, and children growing up to the age of marriage, and what +the women and children clamor for cannot be overlooked by the most +self-satisfied of self-made millionaires. + +Cornelia had her way. Ladies do in Boston, when they are persistent, +and when they are old. The formal invitation was written by Deborah +Alvin, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Fuller, and delivered by a chauffeur +at the Governor’s summer home, at Rye Beach in New Hampshire. A couple +of hours later an automobile arrived at the North Shore palace of the +Rupert Alvins, with a formally written acceptance. Deborah got busy, +and invited half a dozen members of the family, and intimate friends +who could be taken into the secret. Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge +came--another stage in her feminist revolt! Alice Thornwell Winters +came, dressed in pale lavender, the color which harmonized with her +aura; having lost a great deal of weight on a humming-bird diet, +she had taken up a new rôle, and was a picture of delicate and +spiritualized melancholy. + +The Governor and his lady arrived, in the very latest model of Packard +limousine, custom-built, preceded by a car full of alert-looking men +with bulging hip-pockets, and followed by another carload. Several +posted themselves at the front door, others walked round and round the +house and peered into bushes and under porches. One, who looked and +acted like a guest, wandered about the downstairs rooms all through +the meal; the Commonwealth was taking no chances--especially in a home +where the mother-in-law was one of the most notorious Reds. These +precautions lent an extra thrill to the meal, but good form required +that no one should know anything about them. + +The supersalesman sat at the right of his hostess; on the other +side was Alice, and the matter-of-fact and rosy gentleman had never +encountered anything so much like heaven. She told him about his aura, +which was news to him; Deborah told him about her orphan asylum, and +Rupert told about his chapel, and how a bishop from England had praised +the design of the apse. Never a word about the distressing news which +was on the front pages of all the papers! “Cura nulla medicabilis +arte” may have been all right for a poet two thousand years ago, but +the social arts of “old Boston” had mastered all human weakness. + +Except that at the end of a delightful evening Deborah led her +distinguished guest to one side, and burdened him for a moment with the +story of how her old mother was suffering so that they feared for her +life; would she be presuming if she asked the Governor to reprieve the +two wretched men for a couple of weeks, until the hope of court action +could be tried out? The supersalesman replied with all the caution +of a skilled politician. It would not do for him to say outright, +because the final decision rested with his Council. But privately, +and in strictest confidence, he would assure Mrs. Alvin of his best +endeavors, and she might convey that information to her mother under +a seal of secrecy. When the ordeal was over, and Cornelia was free to +tell the story to Betty and Joe, she commented upon the way the world +is governed. Said Betty: “Don’t you know, Grannie, the real cause of +the world war--that King Edward of England was not sufficiently polite +to his nephew, Emperor William of Germany?” + + +XIV + +On Monday evening Judge Webster Thayer handed down a decision, to the +effect that he had no jurisdiction to entertain any motion in the +Sacco-Vanzetti case. By this ruling he claimed to have avoided passing +upon his own prejudice; but at the same time he said, in open court, “I +had no prejudice.” He said it many times. + +On Tuesday morning he gave another decision, refusing the request for +a revocation and stay of sentence. He gave this out from his home in +Worcester, where two police officers watched by day and two by night, +and one followed behind the judge when he went walking with his dog. +In the toilet of a subway station in New York, a bomb had exploded, +wrecking the station and seriously injuring two persons. The friends +of law and order were certain that the friends of Sacco and Vanzetti +had set this bomb; while the friends of Sacco and Vanzetti were equally +certain that their worst enemies had done it. In the State House +in Boston a package had been found in one of the elevators; after +listening for clockwork inside, and hearing nothing, the police had +opened it with many precautions, and found two pounds of chocolate. + +Justice Sanderson of the Supreme Judicial Court declared that he had +no power to grant a motion for a new trial; it was a problem how to +bring the matter before the Full Court. Federal Judge Anderson declined +to intervene--in spite of “Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86.” In fact +he thought that decision worked the other way. A difficult matter +to make a science out of the law, when no one could determine what +it meant, and there were no angels to administer it! Justice Oliver +Wendell Holmes of the United States Supreme Court said that he had no +authority, but pointed out that they were at liberty to try some judge +of the circuit court; however, the judges of the circuit court advised +trying the supreme court. It was as Bart had noted long ago--everybody +put the problem off on somebody else! + +Hill and Field and Musmanno went racing about from one court to +another, and from one summer resort to another--wherever a judge might +be intercepted. Behind them chased Attorney General Reading, his +pockets full of money from the Decimo Club and the “L.A.W.”; and behind +him one or more carloads of reporters, liberally provided with funds +by large-scale purveyors of sensation. Hill made another appeal to the +Governor for a stay; and the Governor announced that he would not grant +the request. That was Tuesday afternoon, and the execution was set for +Wednesday midnight. + +“What does that mean, Deborah?”--it was Cornelia phoning to her +daughter, tormented with anxiety. + +“I don’t know, Mother. I only know what he told me. He may have his +reasons. We ought not to talk about it over the telephone.” So there +was nothing to do but wait, and guess at the tortuous motives of a +supersalesman of automobiles, whose heart was set upon moving to the +White House. + +Betty and Joe were absorbed in frantic efforts to awaken public +opinion. The respectable lawyers were out of favor now, and it was +permitted to make “propaganda.” The committee had issued a call for +a hundred thousand persons to come to Boston and voice the protest +of America against judicial murder. About two hundred came. For the +most part they only added to the confusion, because there was no one +to organize them or put them to work. No two had the same idea of what +should be done; and when they came to the committee, they found exactly +the same state of disagreement. + +Many of the group from New York, especially the liberals and the +lawyers, thought that the crucial issue was the Department of Justice +files. They started a clamor: “Open the files!” Several newspapers +took it up. But this program met with strong opposition from the +Italian anarchists. Could there be things in these files which Italian +anarchists did not want to see upon the front pages of newspapers? +The liberals got so far as to induce the Department of Justice to say +that the files would be turned over to Governor Fuller or to President +Lowell, if either would ask for them; but these worthies took exactly +the same attitude as the anarchists, and for exactly the same reason. +There were more things in the class struggle than were dreamed of in +the philosophy of amiable liberals. + + +XV + +One thing all sympathizers could do, and that was to get arrested. Over +at socialist headquarters in Essex Street was a little group which had +a program, and an organization to carry it out. A group of students +came there, and placards and sandwich signs were made, calling upon +Governor Fuller for justice. Young men and women sallied forth--and as +they emerged from the building, a squad of police fell upon them, and +took away the signs and tore them to pieces. So the job had to be done +all over; the signs were prepared secretly, and would-be paraders came +one by one to the place of demonstration, hiding their signs until they +were on the picket-line. + +On Tuesday afternoon some thirty paraders made their appearance in +front of the State House, each wearing a placard with a Sacco-Vanzetti +argument upon it. For a while the police let them alone, and contented +themselves with keeping the crowd on the other side of the street. +On the Beacon Street front of the State House there is an iron +picket-fence, which curves in towards the main entrance, making a large +half moon; so there was a comfortable space for paraders, and a chance +for their sentiments to be legible. They walked in silence, keeping +in motion, paying no attention to any one: a form of demonstration +which had first been used on Broadway, New York, during the Colorado +coal strike, and had been taken up by the Boston suffragists at the +time of President Wilson’s visit, when Cornelia and Betty and Mrs. +Henderson and her daughter had gone to jail. The city had passed a +special ordinance to meet that form of insurrection; it provided +against “sauntering and loitering,” and the suffrage women had called +it “loitering for liberty.” + +Too bad that so many of the demonstrators were foreigners, especially +Russians and Jews, who were disliked in Boston. Such names as +Berkowitch and Borofsky, Dalevitch and Hurwitz, Timchuck and Suchuck +and Shklar did not produce a good effect when read aloud over morning +codfish-balls and coffee. But when you call for martyrs you cannot +be fastidious, and your recruits will probably come from the martyr +races--especially the Jews, who discovered the idea. So Berkowitch and +Borofsky, Dalevitch and Hurwitz, Timchuck and Suchuck and Shklar, male +and female, walked up and down in front of the high stone building with +the golden dome, their faces pale and set with determination. With +them walked Alfred Baker Lewis representing the socialists, and Harry +J. Canter and Bertram Wolfe representing the communists, and Grace +Hutchins representing Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. + +State House guards lined the picket-fence, and square-jawed, hard-faced +“plainclothesmen” slipped in and out among the crowd. The statue of +Daniel Webster surveyed the scene impassively; also the tall equestrian +figure of General Hooker, green with verdigris, and white with the +droppings of birds on top of his head. From the windows above, the +State House gang looked down, and cursed, or cracked their jokes; +the bootleggers and friends of bootleggers, the sellers of public +privileges, the boon companions of large scale plunderers, who had +millions to spend for immunity. + +Over on the other side of Beacon Street was the Shaw monument, +glorifying a young Harvard aristocrat who had given his life to raise +Negro slaves to manhood. Here walked “cops” with clubs in their hands +and guns on their hips, wondering how long it would be before they +were turned loose on the “Bolshevikis”; also members of the American +Legion, stirring up the crowd, crying their hatred of the “goddam +Reds.” Few of the spectators needed any incitement; their heads were +stuffed with the contents of newspapers, and they were sure the +“Guinneys” were guilty, and should have been “burned” long ago. + +At four o’clock in the afternoon the number of the paraders had grown +to a hundred and twenty-five, and the police decided that it had gone +far enough. Captain McDevitt appeared and read the riot act. Under +the law the “saunterers and loiterers” had seven minutes in which +to disperse. When they continued marching, the police surrounded +thirty-nine of them, and loaded them into patrol-wagons, and carted +them to the old Joy Street police station, followed by a crowd +shouting, “Beat them up! Hang them!” That was just words, of course; +Massachusetts is a law-abiding Commonwealth, fitting completely into +the formula of Lenin which Betty Alvin was so fond of quoting: “The +state is a monopoly of violence.” + + +XVI + +The monopolists of violence were making their preparations for such a +show of their commodity as no city in America had ever witnessed in +time of peace. The old Charlestown prison was turned into an arsenal; +a cupola-crowned, octagon-shaped building of hand-cut stone, with +red-brick wings covered with ivy, its walls now had dozens of machine +guns mounted on top, and stores of ammunition, and sixteen searchlights +playing at night. Eight hundred policemen, carrying riot guns with +bayonets, took possession of the streets approaching the prison, and +roped them off, stopping all traffic over Prison Point Bridge, and on +Rutherford Avenue, a main thoroughfare, for half a mile. They were +posted on all the house-tops surrounding the prison. In front of the +gates were a hundred mounted Boston troopers, and a hundred of the +state constabulary riding the streets. Firemen were on hand with high +pressure hoses to repel mobs, and there was a plentiful store of tear +and gas bombs, gas masks and bullet-proof vests. + +All day Wednesday the eight hundred and eighty-one inmates of the +prison went their usual round, with arms folded and lips shut. They +were not supposed to know what was going on; but rumor spreads in +penitentiaries, as fast as anywhere else. All the prisoners knew that +the death-sentence was to be carried out at midnight, unless the courts +or the Governor intervened. They knew that eighteen Western Union wires +had been run into the officers’ club of the prison, and that reporters +were swarming there to send out the news of the execution. At nine +o’clock the prison lights winked out one by one; but nobody went to +sleep. + +In the death-house, in three narrow cells side by side, were the +condemned men; Sacco and Vanzetti and Madeiros, the Portuguese who had +managed to hitch his fate onto theirs. Sacco was on the fourth week of +a “hungry strike,” and Vanzetti was also fasting; they were haggard and +wasted, gray and grim. No one was permitted to see them, except their +lawyers and relatives. Vanzetti had a sister on her way from Italy; if +he were executed according to schedule she would not see him alive. The +mother and sister of Madeiros had come for a visit; also Rosina Sacco, +who spent her time trying to persuade her husband to sign some papers +for the lawyers. But he was more stubborn than ever before. “They have +had me nailed to the cross for seven years. Why should I keep it up?” +Rosina broke down and had to be carried away. + +The newspapermen noted that Sacco and Vanzetti did not behave like +other condemned criminals; they did not chat with their keepers, nor +sit and play cards with them, shoving the cards under the barred doors +of the cells. They preferred to brood, staring at a little square patch +of sunlight which fell from the roof upon the floor, the only reminder +of the outside world. At night, when the searchlights played upon the +death-house, they saw nothing, nor did they hear the sound of horses’ +hoofs. They were permitted to have their books and papers; despite +the fact that Vanzetti had written a statement in which he had called +Governor Fuller a “murderer.” They wrote farewell letters to the world: +still cherishing the “messianic delusion,” the idea that posterity +would be interested in their sufferings. + + +XVII + +All that day the lawyers rushed about, and the Governor was busy +with his advisers. His Council was in session, also the seven +ex-attorney-generals of the Commonwealth, invited to advise him as to +the law on the matter of a respite. On the street outside, several +squads of pickets were being dragged off to jail, with more or less +violence. Those who had been arrested the day before were being denied +their hearings in police-court, and condemned to pay fines without +argument. Some refused, and went to jail; others paid, and came out to +join the “death march” again. + +Marvelous copy for the newspapers, which printed everybody’s guesses +as to what was going to happen; every detail about the police +preparations, and diagrams of the death-house, and photographs of +the electric chair, and of the executioner--a gentleman who made a +specialty of sending two thousand volts of electricity into living +human bodies; he came from New York, it appeared, and was paid by the +piece. For this job he was to get seven hundred and fifty dollars, and +shocking as the statement may sound, he was overcharging the great +Commonwealth. The people of Massachusetts, having elected their best +business man to attend to their affairs, surely had a right to expect +the discounts customary to the trade; but here was New York State +getting its killings done by the same killer for only one hundred and +fifty per! + +Young Musmanno went to see his clients, to get another paper signed. +They were glad to have some one to remind them that human affection +still survived in a world given up to business. Sacco refused to sign, +as usual; Vanzetti signed, hoping it would help both of them. He was +reading the Beards on “The Rise of American Civilization”--at the same +time that he watched its fall. He was not going to be able to finish +these large, expensive volumes, so he wanted to give them to the young +lawyer as a token of regard. But Musmanno couldn’t bear to take them, +because it would be admitting that Vanzetti was to die that night. They +had quite an argument about it; and several times Sacco would break in +with his realist humor: “Take the books, Musmanno! Take the books!” + +Musmanno did not take the books, but sped away to make another plea to +the Governor. The prisoners began to sing; there was no law to prevent +that, they sang every international song they knew, in Italian and in +English. + + Arise, ye prisoners of starvation! + Arise, ye wretched of the earth! + For justice thunders condemnation; + A newer world’s in birth! + +The rest of the prison heard no sound; but the searchlights flashed +into their cells and kept them awake, and cries would run down the +tiers of cells--hundreds of men shouting over and over: “Let them out! +Let them out!” There was no one to interfere with them, for the guards, +many of them, broke down and sobbed. + +A singular adventure of Dorothy Parker, young poet from New York, +sophisticated and ironical, but not liking official murder. She knew a +newspaper reporter, and he got drunk, and volunteered to take her into +the prison with him. He got her past the police-lines, and then went +to get another drink, and never appeared again. So there was Dorothy, +wandering about, patting the noses of state troopers’ horses, surveying +the lines of guns, and testing Massachusetts prison discipline after +bed-time. She sat with the reporters, and gathered the news, and +then went to the telephone and called up Sacco-Vanzetti defense +headquarters, and was overheard by a horrified deputy-warden--a spy +of the enemy inside the defenses! A lovely story for bored reporters, +smoking cigarettes and playing cards in the officers’ club, and begging +for the tiniest item of news to put on the wires--starting with the +mystic letters, “SV,” and ending with the promise: “Will be add.” + +What was the supersalesman doing? Said Betty, “It is his idea of drama, +to make publicity for himself!” But in this she was blinded by her +hatred of the man. The plain truth was, he had decided to have the +execution that night, and get it over with. But some of his advisers +said it was impossible, with matters as they stood before the courts. +Arthur Hill was arguing--a three hour argument before the Council. Up +to the last half hour the issue hung in the balance, and swayed, now +this way and now that. + +Every preparation for death was made; the canvas cover was off the +electric chair, and the current tested--the three victims listening to +the sounds. They were dressed in their death-clothes--shirts with short +sleeves and trousers with short legs, leaving room for the electrodes. +But at ten-twenty the warden came to the reporters, his face wreathed +in smiles, announcing that he had been notified by the Governor, the +execution was “off” for that night. Wild excitement, and some joy, for +the burly warden did not like his job the least bit. The reporters +flashed the word “reprieve” to the farthest ends of the earth; but five +minutes later the warden came in again, his face a blank--terribly +sorry, he had further word from the Governor, the execution was “on” +again, and was to take place at midnight. + +The official witnesses who had been selected, and the one reporter, the +Associated Press man, who had been favored above all other reporters, +made ready to enter the death-house. But again the warden burst in, at +twenty-seven minutes past eleven, almost in a state of collapse--he had +had another talk with the Governor, and the execution was “off” for the +next twelve days. The reporters leaped to the telegraph-keys--having +before their minds a terrible calamity. There are newspapers in the big +cities which make a practice of printing descriptions of things which +haven’t happened, but are due to happen according to schedule; there +would be New York papers having on their presses the news that the men +were dead. Suppose some of these copies were to get onto the streets! + +The “false execution”--such was the name by which the friends of the +defense came to know that dreadful evening. They had sat in defense +headquarters, and in a church behind the State House which had been +mercifully opened to them, and waited for news, and pictured the worst. +Rosina Sacco had sat for three hours holding a watch in her hand; when +at last the news of the reprieve came in, she collapsed, and had to be +carried to the home of friends. In the little apartment on the north +side of Beacon Hill, Cornelia Thornwell was at the telephone, dizzy, +but able to hear the voice of Deborah: “I told you, Mother! You should +have believed me--he would not dare to disregard us.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +DAYS OF GRACE + + +I + +Sacco and Vanzetti, brought up from Dedham jail on the first day of +July, had been put into the death cells. When the Governor granted the +first reprieve of thirty days, to allow the Lowell Commission to work, +they had been moved back to what was called the Cherry Hill section of +the prison. On the first of August, it being ten days to the new date +of execution, they went back into the death cells. Now, the Governor +having granted twelve days more, the rules required another return to +the Cherry Hill section. “Oh, this is wearisome!” exclaimed Sacco. +“This moving!” + +He was on the twenty-sixth day of a fast, and barely able to totter. +But he would not be assisted; no, he would take care of himself. A +slow, feeble procession, the guards at his side ready to catch him +if he fell. Vanzetti walked behind; having broken his fast, he had +a little strength. Out into the open sunshine in the prison yard; a +glimpse of the flower-beds along the walk, of blue sky overhead, white +clouds, and gray and white gulls wheeling; the sounds of freight cars +being shunted in the Boston and Maine yards, on the other side of the +prison walls. A few steps to be climbed; wait, let him alone, Nick +would do it by himself. At last he was lying on his cot in the new +cell; tortured, distracted--when his wife and son came to see him they +found his mind wandering. He was in what is known as a “blind” cell, +having a solid wooden door in front of the barred iron door, and a +peep-hole through which the keepers could look in. + +Vanzetti also was in such a cell, and had fits of frenzied protest +against the long drawn out and senseless agony. He talked aloud at +night, and disturbed the other prisoners. His words being mostly in +Italian, the guards and reporters said they were “incoherent.” He +shouted about “the machine, the machine!”--which they took to mean the +electric chair; not understanding the social system which is crushing +human hopes throughout the world, grinding up the souls and minds of +millions. Vanzetti was told that his cries were keeping other men +awake, and that if he kept it up, he would be put in the padded cell, +known as the “Blue Room.” At this he became furious, and dragged his +cot and wooden bureau in front of the door of his cell, and warned the +guards that they would not get him out alive. + +Cornelia heard that news, and came to the prison early in the morning. +They had refused her admission to the death-cells--only relatives and +attorneys were allowed there, a strict rule. Now they told her that +Vanzetti was “dangerous,” but she laughed at them; Bart had never been +dangerous to those who used the methods and the language of love. She +told them that she could tame this wild man for them, and without +padded cells or strait-jackets. Since they dreaded a scandal very +much, they gave way and took her through the prison yard, and into the +corridor of “blind” cells. + +Poor Bart--a dreadful change from the early days in that prison, when +he had been so eager to see her, yet made her wait while he washed +the coal dust from his face and hands! And always carefully shaved, +clear-eyed, and with his unconscious natural dignity. Now he lay in a +dark hole, feeble and wasted, his hair falling out, his teeth decaying, +a gray and wasted specter. He started up when he heard her gentle +voice, but then had to sink back on the cot, for he grew dizzy if he +got up suddenly. + +Cornelia asked the guard to let him come out into the corridor and +sit with her. She knew that he would be gentle. The prisoner answered +that of course he would; but he was not fit to be seen. She promised +not to look at him, and so he came, and she looked into his eyes, and +smiled and began to talk. She had been to Plymouth a few days ago, to +interview a witness for Musmanno; she had seen the Brinis, and had +much news about the family. They had moved to a place on Cherry Court, +and the baby was grown up. A hundred items of gossip--even the latest +reports from Vincenzo’s garden, and the explosion which had occurred in +his home-made wine! + +And then news about that most precious of young creatures, Rupert +Alvin Thornwell Randall--a mouthful of names. He was a sturdy one; +two years old now, toddling and talking at a great rate; spending the +summer at his grandmother’s country place on the North Shore, while +his mother gave her time to the Sacco-Vanzetti defense. Betty had +been so determined that this infant should grow up in a proletarian +environment--but alas, it was midsummer, and hot in a little apartment, +and out there on the North Shore were cool, refreshing breezes; so +the grandparents had the precious one, completely surrounded by a +battalion of servants, and all the demoralizing uses of luxury. Betty +had to choose between saving one infant and saving the world--a dilemma +frequently encountered by reformers. Cornelia told Bart a little about +the family duel, which had been going on for two years; now the great +banker and his wife had got their way. Bart said they always would, so +long as they were able to control the things which other persons needed. + +Vanzetti had been writing off and on, in spite of handicaps. He had +a statement which he wanted Cornelia to revise; she might assure +the warden that there was nothing in it like calling the Governor a +“murderer,” which had made such a terrible scandal throughout all +Massachusetts. He wanted to give her a lot of his manuscripts to +keep--but she didn’t want to take them, because that would be admitting +that he was going to die! In the course of their talk he developed +signs of timidity, and said he had written something that he had wanted +to show to her, but he was afraid maybe it wasn’t very good; it was a +poem--a poem about a nightingale! Cornelia reassured him--it wouldn’t +need to be very good in order for her to be interested in it. He drew +it from the lot of papers, and read it to her: this “dangerous” one, +sitting in the corridor of the “blind” cells, with a lynx-eyed guard +watching every move and listening to every word. The poem began: + + _When in the course of endless cosmic changes, + Upon the close of winter dark and drear + From far away, benignant, crowned with roses, + We see the lovely, longed-for spring appear...._ + +Cornelia had to tell the poet that such emotions had been expressed +before; nevertheless, there were tears to her eyes over the effort +of a wop in prison to describe a nightingale in Italy! Springtime +in Villafalletto--the fruit trees in blossom and the vegetables +thriving--and the poet behind bars, condemned to death! Was it because +of her aching pity for the doomed idealist, or was there really beauty +and pathos in the closing lines? + + _Thus in my garden, in bright morning’s glow, + I saw thee in an April long ago._ + + +II + +Twelve days of grace had been granted to the defense. Twelve days in +which to educate the world! Twelve days for lawyers to compose more +briefs, packed full of legal formulas and imposing citations; to hop +into automobiles or airplanes, and go hunting for judges, and argue, +plead, insist--there could not be a total failure of law, when new +evidence had been discovered, proving that innocent men were about to +be executed. The judges would listen politely and patiently; but in all +that long list, from the lowest to the highest, not one would think +about anything but precedent, not one would act upon a basis of mercy +or justice, political wisdom or ordinary common sense. + +“Unless a million men can be mobilized in our defense, we are lost!” +Such had been Vanzetti’s statement, two or three years ago. It had +taken the United States government a year to mobilize a million men, +and the Sacco-Vanzetti committee now set out to do it in twelve days. +They drafted appeals and sent long telegrams--a great sum in tolls each +day. Mass meetings were held in hundreds of American cities and towns, +and in all the capitals of the world; the newspapers were full of +reports of riots and strikes. But such events only stiffened the backs +of the State House crowd; this was “Bolshevism,” and the answer to it +was several thousand rifles with bayonets, and a plentiful supply of +gas bombs and machine guns. + +The one thing the State House crowd really feared was a general strike. +That was the weapon which had saved the lives of Ettor and Giovannitti, +and which might have saved Sacco and Vanzetti. The police were on the +alert day and night for the first move towards it. Two Jews, officers +of the cap makers’ union, started a movement for a strike among the +clothing workers of Boston, and were arrested and framed on a bombing +charge. The police hadn’t the slightest thing on them, and confessed +it with a laugh when they released them--after the execution. There +were spies everywhere, bringing word, hour by hour, of what was going +on in all the centers of sedition. The ruling classes waited for the +least little sign of violence, the least departure from the rôle of +martyrdom--so odious and exasperating to those who believe in gold and +steel. + +The “highbrow” sympathizers labored to mobilize liberal opinion. They +organized emergency groups and drafted appeals to the Governor, and +collected signatures from leaders of every form of intellectual and +artistic activity. It was a simple matter to get such persons to voice +their horror at the idea of executing men after seven years on the +rack, and when there were so many reasons for doubting their guilt. The +trouble was that after the signatures were collected, there was nothing +to do with them--except to take them to the State House, and turn them +over to a man who read the _Saturday Evening Post_, and to whom a list +of leaders of international thought was of less significance than a +list of the delegates to an “ad-men’s” convention. + +This salesman of motor cars posed as being completely impartial, and +delighted to assure his visitors, “I don’t know what an anarchist is, +I don’t pay any attention to that sort of stuff.” But right in the +midst of these pretenses some researcher in Washington dug up his +hate-speeches--the only ones of any consequence he had made during his +four years’ service in Congress. He had been an ardent advocate of +the exclusion of Victor Berger, the socialist congressman, and with +hot anger had called for “the crucifixion of disloyalty, the nailing +of sedition to the cross of free government, where the whole brood of +anarchists, bolsheviks, I.W.W.’s and revolutionaries may see and read +a solemn warning.” He had talked about the “red scum,” and the “agents +of the red flag,” and had denounced opposition to preparedness as “a +devilish scheme of undermining the morale of the people.” These tirades +had been delivered just before a thousand men and women were dragged +from their homes and thrown into Boston jails. + + +III + +Not since the days of the Civil War had there been such a test of +the consciences of men and women in Boston. Strange things happened, +unexpected workings of the spirit. To Cornelia Thornwell in her little +apartment came the second son of James Scatterbridge, known as “James’s +Josiah,” and sat in a chair and fixed his pale blue, earnest eyes upon +her, and in a timid, half-apologetic voice began, “Grandmother, it +seems to me as if I ought to do something to help.” + +“There is plenty to be done,” said the old lady. + +“I decided I ought to contribute some money, so I went to defense +headquarters yesterday evening. I had made up my mind to give half +my vacation allowance. But while I was there three Italian laborers +came in; you could see they had just come from the day’s work, their +shoes were covered with mortar, and the backs of their hands had big +knotted veins on them. They brought more than fifty dollars which they +had collected on the job. I couldn’t understand what they said, but I +watched their faces, and I realized it was money which their wives and +children must need, so I got ashamed of myself. I think we all have too +easy a time. I gave every cent I had, and now I don’t know what I’ll +do.” + +“Lots of college boys go to work in vacation time, Josiah, and +sometimes they learn more than in classes.” + +“I know, Grandmother, and that’s what I’ll do; but first it seemed to +me that I oughtn’t to let you and Betty and Joe carry the brunt of all +this. Betty says she’s going to get arrested next Sunday, and it seems +to me I ought to go, too. What do you think?” + +Another family problem! Cornelia declined to solve it; she said that in +matters of conscience, every person has to act for himself. “It will +make your father very angry, of course.” + +“I know; he’s terrible when he gets excited about the Reds. But I don’t +think it’s quite the same as being a Red, to say that men ought not to +be executed when there is so much doubt of their guilt. But I can’t get +Father to see that at all. You’ll be shocked, I know, but he said they +ought to be executed, anyhow.” + +“I’ve heard many people say that, Josiah; it is almost a respectable +opinion in Boston. A member of the Governor’s Council has voiced it, I +am told.” + +“We’re having a funny time at home right now,” continued the youth. +“Have you heard about Great-uncle Abner? He is determined to break into +the _Transcript_ with a letter about the case, and Father has promised +Uncle Henry that he won’t let him--out of respect for you, of course.” + +“I know,” said Cornelia. “It is very kind of them.” + +“Father is provoked with you, but he won’t have any scandal, and he +has been having all the servants bring Great-uncle Abner’s letters to +him, instead of posting them. Great-uncle Abner found out about it, +and there was a terrible row, you could hear him shouting all over +the house: ‘Am I in jail or am I not in jail? Answer me that? Have I +been legally committed? If not, take me out of here, and let me die +a free man!’ He just wouldn’t give up, and Father had to pacify him, +for fear he’d have another stroke. What Father did--you won’t believe +it--he promised to send the letter to the _Transcript_, and he had a +printer take the editorial page from an early edition, and reproduce it +complete, with the page on the other side also--but with Great-uncle +Abner’s letter in it. It was quite wonderful--it would have fooled +anybody. They put it in the evening edition and brought it to the old +gentleman, and he was as pleased as punch--read it about twenty times, +and some of his old friends were let in on the secret, and came to +see him and patted him on the back and said it was a great letter and +ought to settle the case with the Governor. It said there ought to be a +Bolshevik hanging from each tree on the Common, and they ought not to +have any trials. It said that American institutions must be saved from +rape at the hands of Russian gold and Italian dynamite. It was almost +as bad as some of the letters that really get published!” + + +IV + +The case worked also upon the consciences of persons who were cursed +with artistic temperaments. Such unfortunates read the letters of +Vanzetti and recognized a brother in distress. He who had made himself +a master of English prose spoke to all other writers, now as in times +to come. They gathered from far and near, anxious that a great soul and +a prophet should be recognized before he was dead. + +There came Arturo Giovannitti, compatriot and fellow-victim of the +“frame-up” system: one of those whom Captain Proctor had set out to +“get,” in the days of Proctor’s prime, before his conscience began to +trouble him. For more than a year Giovannitti had lain in Salem jail, +and had written a haunting poem, “The Walker.” + + _One-two-three-four: four paces and the wall; + One-two-three-four: four paces and the iron gate._ + +Now he walked a somewhat longer road in front of the State +House with the golden dome; measured, not by paces, but by +minutes--one-two-three-four-five-six-seven. He went to the Common, +temple of free speech with elm-tree limbs for arches. “Fellow-workers,” +he began--being an I.W.W., that was his formula. “Break it up!” shouted +“Mickey the Gunman.” “You’ve said enough!” But the poet protested: +“I haven’t said anything yet! Wait till I finish before you arrest +any one.” “You’re talking against the courts!” was the answer of the +superintendent of police. “You’re not allowed to talk against the +courts!” The mounted troopers drove their reluctant horses into the +crowd. “Break it up! Move along there!” + +John Dos Passos came, playwright and novelist, genial, gentle, and +bold as a young bull buffalo. A graduate of Harvard, he came to save +the honor of his alma mater. “You have put your name and indirectly +the name of the university to an infamous document”--so he wrote to +President Lowell; and then, since no Boston paper would publish his +letter, he went out on the picket-line and exposed his head to the +policemen’s clubs, and his skin to the vermin in the old Joy Street +police-station. + +“Fair Harvard, thy sons to thy jubilee throng!” There thronged George +L. Teeple, of the class of ’97, and got himself arrested with the other +pickets, and read a statement in court, paying fifteen dollars extra +for the privilege, because the judge remarked that there might be an +excuse for ignorant foreigners, but there was very little excuse for a +Harvard man to violate the law. + +Also Powers Hapgood, nephew of Norman and of Hutchins. His was not the +sort of head the Boston police were used to breaking. He had completed +four years’ work at Harvard in three; he had “made” the Dickey and +the Hasty Pudding Club, the varsity track squad and the Harvard +“Crimson.” He had been in the service abroad, and was one of the few +undergraduates honored by election to the Harvard Memorial Society. +He was one of those young Americans in whom readers of fiction refuse +to believe; “unreal and made to order,” they say, of a college youth +who travels over the country working in coal mines, and becoming a +leader of the left wing miners. Now he came to express his opinion of +President Lowell, and the opinion was such that official Boston shut it +up in the Psychopathic Hospital. + +Heywood Broun was carrying on the same fight in New York, as +“colyumist” of the _World_, at a salary of four hundred and fifty +dollars a week. Broun had been “flunked out” of Harvard in his youth, +and this may have made him feel disrespectful. “From now on,” he +wrote, “will the institution of learning at Cambridge which we once +called Harvard be known as Hangman’s House?” The _World_ published +that, but refused to publish the next articles, so the “colyumnist” +went on a “permanent strike,” which made an enormous sensation among +the literati. An extraordinary thing, the way the case “got” the +intelligentsia, even that portion which prides itself most upon being +hard-boiled and immune to social emotions. + + +V + +Also there came alumni of the University of Hard Knocks. Those foreign +names which pleased the readers of Boston newspapers so little belonged +to clothing-workers who had given up their jobs, and spent their +savings to come and jeopardize their skulls; to sailors from the port, +to iron-workers, barbers, bakers and waiters; also to poets and writers +who had educated themselves, and thus could understand the soul of +Vanzetti. There came Michael Gold, a young Jew from the slums of New +York, who had been a newspaper reporter in Boston when not yet out of +his teens, and had been one of that group of anarchist sympathizers +whom Cornelia had seen, eleven years ago, accompanying Galleani to the +Plymouth cordage strike. + +Mike was now a playwright and editor of the _New Masses_, but resented +being classified as an “intellectual,” and wanted to remain a worker; +so he dressed in khaki, which gave a shock to Boston. He wandered +about, fascinated by the spectacle of a city gone mad with fear. He +listened to the conversation of sleek clerks and stock-brokers of +State Street, ex-football players of Harvard who wished they might +have a chance to tackle the “Reds.” He listened to taxi-drivers and +soda-jerkers, who knew what they had read in a capitalist newspaper, or +learned from others who had read it in some other capitalist newspaper. +On the afternoon of the “false execution” he joined the “death march” +in front of the State House, and the same two iron-handed cops who +grabbed Dorothy Parker the poet grabbed Mike Gold the playwright, and +hauled them away to the oddly-named Joy Street police station. “Hang +them! Hang the anarchists!” cried the straw-hatted mob; and Mike, +who had written a life of John Brown, saw the ghost of William Lloyd +Garrison going down the street with a rope about his waist, followed by +the “mob in broadcloth,” crying “Hang him! Hang the abolitionist!” + +Those Boston merchants of a hundred years ago had been, some of +them, the “bootleggers” of their day; smuggling “black ivory” from +Africa, Negro slaves whose labor would be turned into molasses in +Louisiana. The molasses would be brought to New England and made into +rum, and the rum would go back to Africa, to make drunk the savage +chiefs whose war-victims would compose the next bootleg cargo. Now +the great-great-grandsons of those old merchants bore the same names, +and looked so much like their ancestors that when they came up for +election to the Somerset Club, the directors thought they were voting +for the ancestors. These great-great-grandsons had imported hundreds +of thousands of white niggers from the Mediterranean and Baltic lands, +to operate their steam and electric machines, and had built a colossal +system for the exploiting of this new slave labor. These new masters +considered themselves civilized, and were willing to install “welfare +work,” and have their wives “do charity.” But at the same time they +looked upon these foreign hordes with mingled contempt and fear, and +dreaded the day when they might refuse obedience. To suggest this to +them was the worst crime that could be committed in modern New England; +the “black abolitionists” of 1831 had been replaced, as objects of +ruling class hatred, by the “red scum” of 1927. + +So it was that Boston was under what amounted to martial law, and there +were more detectives watching strangers than there were strangers. +Any one who wore a beard, or had a dark face, was liable to be halted +on the street and ordered to give an account of himself. A messenger +carrying a box of seidlitz powders had to stop for a chemical analysis. +Helen Black and Ann Washington Craton--a descendant of the father +of her country--were arrested and taken to the police station and +cross-questioned for hours; the reason assigned being that they “looked +like New Yorkers.” Six Italians arrived in an automobile, and two of +them needed a shave, so they were held on a bombing charge. + +Joe Randall, of course, was a marked man; the fact that he wrote +articles for newspapers and posed as a reporter only made him worse +than the other “Bolsheviks.” Detectives followed him everywhere, in +restaurants, in drug stores when he bought an ice cream soda, in barber +shops when he got a shave. He made trouble for them by insisting upon +talking with them, which was destructive of morale and against the +ethics of “shadowing.” New “dicks” were substituted, but Joe said you +could always recognize them by their blank and stupid faces; there was +no other occupation by which such low-grade persons could manage to be +well-dressed and well-fed. + +Impossible to imagine anything more grotesque than the activities of +these anthropoid mentalities, trying to deal with a world of which +they had no gleam of understanding. Some of the things they did were +beyond the absurdities of musical comedy. Heywood Broun’s wife, Ruth +Hale, came to Boston at the height of the tragedy. Two sleuths of the +city spent the night in a Ford car, keeping watch on Hanover street, +opposite defense headquarters, and in the morning a newspaper man asked +them what they had been doing, and the answer was, “We had a straight +tip on a bomb-plot, and we were watching for the bombers.” “Who are +they?” asked the reporter. The reply was, “Two women from New York, +Ruth Hale and Dorothy Parker.” + + +VI + +On Thursday, the eleventh, Justice Sanderson of the Supreme Judicial +Court allowed a bill of exceptions from his ruling to go to the Full +Court. Also Web Thayer was persuaded, for the sake of appearance, to +permit exceptions to his rulings to be carried up. So there were two +more hopes for salvation from the courts; Massachusetts was going to +lean over backwards in respecting the legal rights of two convicted +wops. Chief Justice Rugg was ill, and Crosby was in Europe; Sanderson +was barred from considering his own ruling, so there were Braley, Wait, +Carroll, and Pierce, with Braley, oldest member, presiding. He issued +a summons for a special sitting on the following Tuesday, to listen to +arguments of counsel. + +Hope once more in the hearts of all believers in law and order. +Surely the ruling group was coming to its senses; it had realized the +frightful blunder it was making, and had chosen a dignified way to back +down! Patience now, and keep cool, and don’t do anything to excite +public feeling, and make it harder for the learned justices! Stop the +wild talk, and keep the New York radicals off the streets and out of +the newspapers! Above all, no disorders on the Common, nor in front of +the State House! So argued the “respectables.” + +Was there really a chance? Or was it merely that those in charge of +affairs wanted it to seem that way? Quincy Thornwell came to his Aunt +Cornelia, bringing rumors: the Governor had talked with So-and-so, and +had said this and that. More important yet, Mr. Lowell was showing +signs of weakening; he was defending himself, for the first time in +his long life. One of the “middle minds” had been to see him, and he +had argued until two o’clock in the morning, trying to justify his +decision; he had been so anxious about it that he had followed his +visitor downstairs in his pajamas, and out into the garden, flashing a +torchlight into the bushes to make sure there were no bombers hiding. +Quincy Thornwell chuckled over the picture: assuredly the strangest +sight ever witnessed by the chaste nymphs who haunt the shades of the +classic elms of Harvard! + +And then the learned justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, actually +giving signs of humanity! Justice Wait had made a speech, defending +the action of the court; and now here was the wife of another one, +the presiding justice, Braley, telephoning to Mrs. Jessica Henderson; +a Leach of Bridgewater she was, a highly respected person, and twice +she called up to say: “Don’t worry, my dear, everything is coming out +all right, I assure you. They are not going to let them be executed, +they will find some way out. The judge does not believe in capital +punishment.” What could have been the meaning of that? Could it be that +these old boys were fooling their own wives, in the effort to cheer +them up and keep peace in the family? Or were they using the wives to +lull the defense, and damp the dangerous agitation during the critical +days? Impossible to guess. + + +VII + +In the Sacco-Vanzetti committee the never-ceasing struggle between +those who wanted to be judicious and those who wanted to make +propaganda. Lawyers and college professors telephoning in, or calling +to make personal pleas: “Remember this is Boston, and keep the New York +nuts out of the limelight!” But the “New York nuts” had something to +say about that, and so had the Boston newspapers. The visitors came +hiking, wearing oil-cloth placards over their shoulders, getting cursed +and nearly mobbed in each respectable town they passed through. They +came in sport-cars, with bootleg bottles in their baggage. Girls came +in pants, and men with no hats or neckties. One brought a portable +typewriter, ready for work, and when he found no room in headquarters, +he set himself up on the curbstone outside the Hotel Bellevue, and +started writing letters for Sacco and Vanzetti. The newspapers, of +course, got pictures of him at once. Also they eagerly interviewed +a young man who announced his intention of marching to Dedham jail +to rescue Sacco and Vanzetti, and was disconcerted to learn that his +campaign maps were out of date. + +Such were the surface aspects of the invasion, easy to see and to +record. But there was another aspect, not so obvious to Boston +newspapermen, nor so diverting to their readers. The soul of the +demonstration, a common feeling which animated all the participants, +men and women, old and young, rich and poor, educated and ignorant: +a sense of black despair, of agonizing littleness in the face of a +colossal evil; an impotent rage, a hatred, bitter as gall, rolling +up in their minds, for this whole great city of greed masked by +bigotry--smug and polite and treacherous, cultured and correct and +deadly. + +Very few of these agitators were professionals; not many of them +had any training, any party to guide and support them. They came as +individuals, hesitating and confused. They didn’t like to do what they +were doing; the women, and many of the men, felt like Lady Godiva +riding through the town naked--worse even than she, because they had no +certainty of accomplishing anything; perhaps they were making fools of +themselves to no purpose at all. + +They came because American labor would not come. Vanzetti had called +for a million workers, and the million workers answered, “What the +hell?” Most of them were content for Vanzetti to die--so that American +prosperity might live; they were ready to make that sacrifice to +Moloch, precisely as the mothers and fathers of Carthage were ready +to put their infants into the red-hot iron arms of the god, so that +Carthage might live. So, instead of the million workers, came one or +two hundred poets, painters, dreamers and lovers of beauty, Greenwich +Villagers, bums, bohemians--whatever names Boston, the correct and +murderous, might choose to call them. A pitiful little group, throwing +themselves against the iron battlements of American capitalism, with +its machine-guns and poison gas bombs, its police in the front rank and +army and navy in reserve. + +And for every dreamer who came, there were thousands who stayed at +home, chained by poverty, or a greater share of timidity; waiting, +waiting, with a ghastly sense of uncertainty, feeling themselves more +effectively imprisoned than Sacco and Vanzetti. Writing letters, +but not knowing if they were read; sending telegrams--like shooting +arrows into the dark! Unable to get any real news--a few bare events +each day in the papers, but no opinions, no guidance, no light. The +radio grinding out its eternal silly thumping of drums and whining of +saxophones--this greatest story in modern American history not worth a +moment’s attention! + + +VIII + +Sunday was coming, and what was the committee going to do? Was there +to be another meeting on the Common, or should they oblige the lawyers +and wait? Agonized arguments, turning into bitter quarrels. “When did +you come into this case?” the old-timers would jeer; and to that the +answer was obvious: “A fine mess you made of it!” The communists would +rage at the members of the committee: “Do you think you own Sacco and +Vanzetti? What do you want--to put their ashes in an urn and set it on +your parlor mantel?” + +Some were determined to speak on the Common, committee or no committee, +police or no police. The Socialist Labor Party had a permit not yet +confiscated, and the Sacco-Vanzetti defenders would use that; so it +was announced, and the would-be martyrs prepared placards on canvas, +which could be folded up and hidden under the clothing. Betty and +Joe refused to tell the family what they were going to do; so here +came Deborah in all her majesty, mixing with the “mob” on the Common, +walking about unable to keep her hands quiet, so agitated she was. +When it came to a test, she really did love her daughter, in spite of +so many bitter words spoken during eleven years of wrangling. After +all, it was “Boston”; conscience was conscience, and when you followed +yours, you commanded respect from others who followed theirs. When the +little group of white-faced men and women marched into the midst of +armed ruffians, Deborah’s emotions were those which had been felt by +patrician Roman matrons, when their Christian children walked into the +arena among the lions. + +Police Judge Zottoli, an Italian anxious to prove his respectability, +had announced that for those arrested in future “the sky would be the +limit.” But evidently among those in authority there must have been +some wiser heads. The police had orders to disperse all gatherings, to +allow no speeches, but to do as little arresting as possible; no more +martyrs--and especially no well-dressed ones! A curious experience +for young ladies who lived on Beacon Street, within sight of this +greensward; they were made to leap out of the way of mounted troopers, +they had their placards taken away, and their arms squeezed black and +blue--but always the last word was, “Move on! Keep moving!” Were these +the traffic officers who had been helping them across street-crossings, +and knew them? Or were they detectives who had been keeping watch over +the wedding presents in fashionable homes? + +The permit which the Sacco Vanzetti committee had hoped to obtain was +found to be unavailable; so those who attempted to speak would all +be outlaws. They brought soap-boxes--and the “cops” took them away +and broke them up. For Joe Randall two young martyrs upon a sudden +impulse got down and made a soap-box of their backs; on this precarious +pedestal Joe stood, and began: “Fellow-citizens of Massachusetts, we +are here to assert the fundamental principles of free speech”--and that +was all, for there were three husky “dicks” who had been following Joe +about the field, and grabbed him by the arms and pulled him from his +platform and led him away. + +Joe had made one concession to his anxious grandmother-in-law, he would +not resist and get his head broken; he went quietly--and only when he +was out on Beacon Street did he discover the scurvy trick which had +been played upon him. The three huskies gave him a shove and said, +“Move along now, young fellow, and keep moving.” “What do you mean, am +I not under arrest?” “Move along, buddy, what do you want to get into +trouble for?” When he tried to force his way back, they held him. They +would not fight him, they would merely block his way, and see that he +didn’t get to the Common. Later on, when Joe learned that the same +thing had happened to “James’s Josiah,” he realized that it could not +have been an accident; some member of an all-powerful family had called +in a detective agency, and paid a fancy price to keep his relatives out +of jail, and his family name out of the papers! + +It was Powers Hapgood who made the real fight that Sunday before the +last; Powers, with a young Italian sewing-machine repairer named +Cosimo Carvotta, who got inspired by Powers’ eloquence, and insisted +on rescuing him from the entire police force of the City of Boston. +Cosimo had upon him a pocket-knife containing a small screw-driver, +an inch long, used upon sewing-machines; he did not try to use it, but +they found it in his pocket at the police station, and it was enough to +constitute a “dirk,” and make a startling story in the papers. + +As for Powers, he had a highly honorific arrest, performed by +Superintendent Crowley and a captain and a sergeant and other +majesties. “I insist on the right of free speech! The people must save +Sacco and Vanzetti! We must not allow our comrades to be murdered! +Don’t forget, Comrades--keep it up--save the men!”--thus the member +of the Dickey and the Hasty Pudding Club and the Harvard Memorial +Society, being dragged away to the police-box at the corner of Charles +and Beacon streets. “Mickey the Gunman” himself pulled the hook which +summoned the patrol-wagon, and within five minutes there were a hundred +officers at the spot, and a squadron of mounted men to drive back the +crowd. + + +IX + +The special sitting of the Supreme Judicial Court was set for Tuesday +the sixteenth at ten o’clock. Six hours before that came a dreadful +event; some one put dynamite on the front porch of the home of one of +the Sacco-Vanzetti jurors, in East Milton, and blew out the front of +the house. Once more the authorities were certain that this had been +the work of friends of Sacco and Vanzetti; whereas the friends of Sacco +and Vanzetti were equally certain that it was the work of their worst +enemies. They called attention to the peculiar placing of the dynamite, +to make a loud noise and not hurt any one; they called attention to +its exact timing--when it would do the utmost possible harm and least +possible good to the defense. + +The mystery was never solved; but the Governor took occasion to write +a letter to the juror, denouncing those who were trying to “coerce +the courts,” and at the same time assuring the victim that the cost +of repairing his home would be paid by the Commonwealth. A singular +impulse of generosity from an official who just recently had vetoed a +bill providing for compensation to state employees who had been injured +in the performance of their duties! + +With the crash of this bomb echoing in their ears, the four +black-robed justices assembled. The courthouse, and Pemberton Square +around it, presented a scene of war. Benches were placed for barriers +in front of courtroom doors, and Cornelia had to exhibit the contents +of her handbag before she entered the room. She noticed that detectives +assigned the little group of “Reds” to special seats, and then stood +near them. Most of the crowd did not get in at all. + +There sat in a row, behind a long raised desk, the four white-haired +old gentlemen who held the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti in their +hands. Henry King Braley, former city solicitor and mayor of Fall +River, now seventy-seven years of age; Edward Peter Pierce, recently +tried for misconduct, and convicted of very bad taste, seventy-five +years of age; James Bernard Carroll, former city solicitor of +Springfield, seventy-one years of age; and William Cushing Wait, +former city alderman of Boston, sixty-seven years of age. Braley was +a fellow-alumnus of Thayer’s, Pierce and Wait were fellow-alumni of +Katzmann’s, while Carroll was a graduate of Holy Cross, which made him +a fellow-alumnus of St. Peter. They told their fellow-alumni Arthur +Hill and Arthur Reading, that they might have all the time needed; +and then they sat, like four black-and-white images, motionless and +impassive, while Mr. Hill recited the list of the high crimes of their +fellow-alumni, Thayer and, indirectly, Katzmann. + +Mr. Hill spared nothing of the story of “Web’s” prejudice and +the manifold proofs thereof. Also he asked a hearing for the new +evidence--of which more was coming in every day. He called it +“monstrous” to maintain that there was any stage in the process of +taking men’s lives when it ceased to be possible to present newly +discovered evidence to establish their innocence. “It is the bench and +bar of Massachusetts that is on trial,” he declared. “It is our entire +system of criminal law.” He might have added “our entire system of +criminal capitalism,” but his vision did not extend that far, and very +surely he could not have made it clear to four members of the Union +Club of Boston. + +Then came the genial Mr. Reading, with pockets stuffed with the money +of the Decimo Club and the “L.A.W.” He asserted his solemn faith that +Judge Thayer had been just and unprejudiced; nor was he in the least +afraid of being “monstrous” in reciting the law which specified that +after sentence had been pronounced by the trial judge, no motion for a +new trial could be entertained, no matter what the new evidence might +be. The four old gentlemen mumbled a few questions to the lawyers, +impossible for the spectators to hear; and then they gathered up their +books and papers, and the session was adjourned. The friends of Sacco +and Vanzetti went home, to continue that process of waiting in which +they had become so expert in the course of seven years, three months, +and eleven days. + + +X + +But they did not have to wait very long this time. Massachusetts took +pride in paying no heed to “outside clamor,” but here was a different +situation--a military expense of great sums every day, and enormous +losses to retail trade. It was a time for sleepy old gentlemen to +wake up and earn their keep. On Tuesday the hearing, on Friday the +decision--an unprecedented procedure! + +The document was written by Justice Braley, that oldest gentleman whose +wife had more than once telephoned to Jessica Henderson, assuring her +that everything was all right, no need to worry, the judge did not +believe in capital punishment. Now the judge spoke for himself. With +the other three judges concurring, he said that the legal system of the +great Commonwealth was infallible, and the fact that it contravened +decency, humanity, and common sense was of no significance. A long +decision, highly technical, bristling with citations; the heart of it +in one dreadful sentence: “A motion for a new trial in capital cases +comes too late if made after sentence has been pronounced.” Such is +the law of the Brahmins and the Blue-bloods, which altereth not! “The +exceptions are overruled.” + +Horror among so-called “liberals,” those of Boston, as well as those +who had come from outside! They had staked all their hopes upon the +courts; they had pleaded, argued, practically forced the defense +committee to obey, to let them handle it, to put their trust in the +processes of law. And here suddenly was the ghastly fact revealed in +all its nakedness--there was no law! There was only the class struggle! +Exactly as Bartolomeo Vanzetti had been saying for twelve years, ever +since Cornelia had first met him: there was a propertied class, and +there was a laboring class, and between them there was a war! + +And now a battle under way, and the lines drawn, and deserters hated +and punished--if necessary, killed! The immense, rich, eager, nervous, +implacable young Empire was smashing a revolt of its slaves, crucifying +its resisting gladiators by the roadside for a warning to all the +rest! This legal decision was a searchlight, flashing suddenly upon +that bloody deed! The Sacco-Vanzetti case was no longer the casual +venality of a few local politicians, no longer the accidental malice +of one elderly legal despot; the Sacco-Vanzetti case was capitalist +government, the same in America as everywhere else in the world--the +will of a predatory class! + +Once before America had been like that, when the slave power had ruled +it, and in those old days New England had had one poet with the gift +of ecstasy and prophetic rage. A fugitive slave was sent back from +Massachusetts, and Whittier, the Quaker abolitionist, pictured Liberty +marching handcuffed down the street-- + + _And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong, + Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod, + Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God + The blasphemy of wrong...._ + + _“Mother of Freedom, wise and brave, + Rise awful in thy strength,” I said; + Ah me! I spake but to the dead; + I stood upon her grave!_ + + +XI + +A dreadful ordeal for the whole prison had been that “hungry strike” +of Sacco’s. They didn’t want him to die that way--it was against the +rules, and an impropriety; also they were sorry for him, and for his +wife and child. They argued and pleaded; the wife and child argued and +pleaded, but Nick was obdurate; he would not eat. Neither would he sign +any papers for capitalist courts or governors; he would not ask for +mercy or for pardon--he was an innocent man, and would die protesting +it. + +On the thirty-first day of the fast he became so weak that the prison +doctor decided to act. He brought some hot beef broth to the cell, +and reminded Nick how very painful it was to be fed by a tube through +the nose. He went so far as to take hold of Nick’s nose, and say that +he was going to pour the broth down his throat. So Nick gave up, and +drank. They had all their strength, and he had little of his. + +Then came young Musmanno, devoted slave of the case, broken-hearted, +and shrinking from the job he had to do. They took him first to the +cell of Nick, who was eating something. Said the young lawyer: “You are +a brave man, aren’t you, Nick?” + +It was the correct psychology; Nick said, quietly, “Yes, I think I am.” + +“Well then, I must tell you that the Full Court has turned down our +appeal.” + +“I expected it,” said Nick, quietly. “What are they there for?” He did +not wince; but he pushed his bowls and dishes aside and forgot them. +“Sure,” he said, “they have us, they will kill us. We will die like +men.” Then he said, “I will write a letter to Dante. You will come for +that, Musmanno, I want the bimbo to have it when he gets older, and +will be able to think about it.” “Bimbo” is an Italian endearment for a +boy; and Musmanno said he would come without fail. + +He went to Vanzetti, the man of emotions, of words rather than of +actions. When Bart heard the news, his eyes opened wide like saucers, +and he sat staring before him, as if he were in a dream. He got up, and +began pacing his cell wildly, shouting in Italian. “There is nobody +more innocent in all this world!” He would not take it as a matter of +course that a man should die; he was a propagandist, and had reason +to live. “A million men! A million men!” he cried. He began to demand +that a microphone be brought to his cell, so that he might speak to the +workers of the world. Musmanno had to say that both these propositions +were equally impossible. All they could do was to make more appeals +before more judges. He was leaving for Washington that night, to file +an application before the United States Supreme Court. + +The young lawyer came back late in the afternoon, but found that +Nick had not been able to work upon the letter to his son. They had +moved him back into the death cells for the third time. “Oh, this +is wearisome!” He lay, very weak, his mind unsteady. He could only +say, “I can’t understand it. They will kill us?” Vanzetti was sunk in +melancholy, and would say nothing except, “My sister! My sister!” + +Luigia Vanzetti landed in New York that day; a quiet, thin, sad-faced +little woman in a faded brown traveling cloak, coming second class, +her name kept off the passenger list of the great liner. A strange +fate to have befallen a simple woman of an Italian village; in Paris +she had been set to march at the head of a huge parade of workers. +Now, bewildered by throngs coming to greet her, and by urgent young +newspapermen of this strange land of hustle and sensation, she clutched +a gold medallion of the Madonna in her hand; relying upon this ancient +magic to save her unhappy brother, whom she had not seen for nineteen +years. She hoped to convert him, she said; “I will ask him to see a +priest, and return to the faith of his childhood, of those happy days +before he left us.” Felicani and Rosina Sacco had come to meet her, and +persuaded her to soft-pedal that aspect of her mission. As it turned +out, she was no more able to save her brother’s soul than she was to +save his life. + + +XII + +Henry Cabot Winters had to postpone important legal conferences, worth +at least a thousand dollars a day to him, to come and comfort his +distracted mother-in-law; to argue with her, explain to her--or just +listen to her. “Yes, I know, Mother, it seems very wrong that new +evidence cannot be considered; my judgment is, the Supreme Court won’t +stand by that ruling very long--they’ll reverse it, or the law will be +changed. But this time they must have it. You see, this Sacco-Vanzetti +evidence is not real evidence to them--it’s just more wops telling the +same old lies, and every one is tired of it.” + +“Too tired to consider the good of our courts, Henry!” + +“It’s just the other way to them, Mother--they think they are standing +by the courts. You must realize the dilemma; how can they throw Web +down?” + +“It would seem to me that Web has thrown them down.” + +“Web has been a vulgarian, of course. But after all, what he said is +what everybody thinks; and he’s been game, you have to admit that--he +had a nasty job, and he stuck to it like a little soldier. For seven +years he’s risked being shot or dynamited every hour of his life; and +now, to repudiate him--it can’t be thought of.” + +“Couldn’t they find some other ground to grant a new trial?” + +“It’s all very well to talk about new trials as a matter of propaganda; +but if you mean it seriously, stop and think. With this agitation +and uproar--how could there be a trial? You couldn’t get a jury in a +hundred years. Look at what happened to those people in East Milton! +Think of the witnesses--appearing and testifying, with dynamite +exploding all around them!” + +“We wouldn’t need dynamite for those witnesses, Henry; with what we +know about them to-day, there isn’t one who would dare take the stand.” + +“All right, grant that is true--where does it leave us? It comes to +this, the Commonwealth has had two Reds within a few minutes of the +electric chair, and now has to admit that it has no real evidence, the +whole thing blows up. We might just as well hand our courts over to the +Bolsheviks and be done with it. We’d never be able to convict another +one.” + +“So, Henry, you are going to send two innocent men to death, because it +would be embarrassing to admit a blunder!” + +The lawyer smiled patiently. “Don’t get to believing your rhetoric, and +putting it off on me, Mother! You asked me what is in the minds of the +Supreme Court, and I am telling you. When I talk to lawyers about it, +and bring them to admit that maybe the evidence is weak, that is the +argument they end up with--the courts must be sustained.” + +“A brand new idea of justice, Henry!” + +The other smiled again. “On the contrary, an idea as old as courts +themselves.” He cited the pronouncement of some fine old Tory judge to +a too-urgent plaintiff: “It were better that you be ruined, than that +the law be changed for the likes of you!” Henry was no legal scholar; +but because he lived in Boston, it was necessary for him to possess +some handy learning, for public purposes. He told his mother-in-law +that this pungent saying went back even farther; it was in Law-French, +which is a barbarous combination of old Norman-French with bastard +Latin. He wrote it out, in an effort to divert the poor soul’s mind +for a few moments. “Que est ceo a nous? Il est mieulx qu’il soit tout +defait, que la ley soit chaunge pur luy.” + + +XIII + +Cornelia insisted that she had to see the Governor once more, to plead +with him for mercy. Even granting the worst, these men had been on the +rack for seven years, and surely that was punishment! Henry said that +would not get her very far; Fuller was a Roman senator, he believed +in a life for a life. He had not pardoned a single man during his +two terms as governor, and he had shortened only one sentence. But +Cornelia, being a very old lady, was entitled under the Boston law to +have her way; so Henry called up and made an appointment for her the +next morning, and promised to come take her. + +A great crowd in front of the State House, more picketing having been +announced. Policemen so plentiful, they could have touched hands all +the way along the front of the great building. Much scrutiny of those +who came into the building--but Cornelia and Henry being obviously of +the ruling caste, the guards took one glance and passed them on. Crowds +of people in the corridors outside the executive chambers, reporters +hungry as a shoal of fish; but etiquette of course forbade the old lady +and her escort to talk to them. They were escorted into an inner office +to wait. + +The Governor’s time was given up entirely to the hearing of pleas. +People came in groups, every sort--lawyers, clergymen, social workers, +labor leaders, writers--he saw them, and took pleasure in putting to +each lot his string of “posers”: Did you attend the trials? Have you +read the record? Have you talked with the witnesses? Then what do you +know about the case? When they set out to tell what they knew, he would +not always listen. Said Arthur Garfield Hays, attorney from New York: +“I wish to talk to you about the Department of Justice files.” Said the +Governor: “Who wrote that editorial in the _World_?” + +Cornelia was escorted to her seat in the torture-chair, and the +automatic smile and the cold agate eyes were fixed upon her. Other +eyes also: Mr. Joseph Wiggin, the Governor’s personal attorney, and +Attorney-General Reading, and another lawyer. They never left him alone +now, there must be witnesses to every word he said, and expert football +players to employ what was known as “interference”--jumping in and +protecting him, to keep him from revealing his ignorance about the case. + +It was as Henry had said--he was a Roman senator, and did not want to +talk about mercy. He wanted to pin this old lady down, and vent his +exasperation at the trouble she had caused him. He did not say in so +many words that she was to blame for all the lunatics carrying placards +outside on the street, but that was the meaning of his attitude. +Since his decision had been announced, he no longer had to pose as +open-minded; he might be the bitter advocate, asking questions, and +not paying any attention to her answers. “If Vanzetti was an innocent +man, why didn’t he take the stand at Plymouth? Why leave his alibi to a +twelve-year-old boy?” + +“He produced eighteen alibi witnesses, Governor, and he could have got +more if his lawyers had worked. We have found a dozen since.” + +“If Sacco and Vanzetti were good men as you say, why were they intimate +with a man like Boda?” + +“But what have you against Boda, Governor?” + +“I have sources of information, Mrs. Thornwell.” + +“Boda was brought into the trial, and even Judge Thayer had to throw +him out. They dragged in all that tale about the Coacci shed, and about +Boda’s little Overland car--on purpose to make the jury think they had +a bandit-gang--” + +“I don’t understand you, Mrs. Thornwell; there is nothing in the record +about Boda’s Overland car.” + +“Why, Governor, of course it is there! I heard it in court, and I have +read it a hundred times.” + +“You are mistaken, I am certain.” It was a great man speaking. “Wiggin, +is there anything in the record about Boda’s Overland car?” + +“Nothing, Governor, that I have ever seen.” + +What could Cornelia say? She could challenge him, of course, demand the +record, and show him; or she could offer to send him the citation in a +couple of hours. But what effect would it have, except to annoy him? +Several persons had had this same experience, and had told her about +it. Three times in the course of a brief interview, Cornelia would have +to let him make incorrect assertions about the record. She must be +tactful, and try to keep him smiling; for he was a man, and a Roman, +and he did not like women butting in, arguing, correcting. Woman’s +place was the home! + + +XIV + +The salesman of motor-cars rested upon the authority of greater minds +than his own. “Mrs. Thornwell, I appointed a commission to investigate +this case, and I assure you, if a single one of those gentlemen had +thought there was a doubt of the men’s guilt, I would not have taken +this stand. But here you have three impartial referees--” + +“Judge Grant had expressed a belief in their guilt before you appointed +him, Governor.” + +“I have heard that gossip, but you should not repeat such a thing +unless you know it to be true.” + +“But Judge Grant has written his opinion of Italians--he practically +called them a nation of pickpockets.” + +“Where do you get that? I never heard such a tale!” + +“I have the book upon my table at home, Governor, and I will send it to +you if you wish.” + +But what he wished was to change the subject quickly. “I have had +witnesses coming to this room for two months--person after person, +assuring me of their identifications--” + +“But Governor, even Judge Thayer had to throw out the identification +testimony before he got through with this case!” + +“What do you mean--throw it out?” + +“I thought you had studied Judge Thayer’s decisions. In his 1924 +decision he said: ‘These verdicts did not rest, in my judgment, upon +the testimony of the eye-witnesses.’” + +“What did he say they rested upon?” + +“Upon the consciousness of guilt.” So then the Governor hastened to +talk about the consciousness of guilt. Sacco and Vanzetti had lied when +they were arrested, and they had lied on the stand, and their lies were +manifest and had been exposed, so that no sensible person would dispute +them. + +“Granting your argument, Governor--” + +“So you are prepared to admit that there was perjury in the case?” + +“I am trying to find out where the argument leads us. If both sides +made up testimony--and certainly we know that there was a great deal of +it on the side of the prosecution--” + +“I don’t know anything of the sort, Mrs. Thornwell.” + +“You must know that Erastus Corning Whitney perjured himself.” + +“Erastus what? I never heard of any such witness. Do you know of any +such, Wiggin?” + +Cornelia broke in. “Pardon me, Governor, I was not setting a trap for +you. Erastus Corning Whitney is the real name of the man who took the +stand and swore that his name was Carlos E. Goodridge, and thereby +manifestly perjured himself. So, as I say, if we assume perjury on both +sides--” + +“Then we can say that one cancels the other.” + +“Pardon me if I point out the fallacy, Governor. To begin with, the +prosecution has to establish a case. When you wipe out the witnesses +of the prosecution, one by one, as we have done by our new evidence, +there is no case left, and under the law the men are innocent--quite +regardless of whether some of their Italian friends may have taken the +stand and made false alibis for them.” + +“Why should innocent people have to be defended by perjury, Mrs. +Thornwell?” + +“For only one reason that I know, Governor--that they know positively +the other side is preparing a perjured case against them. We have +established that, but we have never had any judgment upon it, except +that of Judge Thayer.” + +One of the lawyers here considered it advisable to justify the high +fees which the Governor was paying him out of his private purse to +sit day by day and listen to these wrangles. “Mrs. Thornwell,” he +interposed, “you overlook the fact that the Supreme Judicial Court has +passed upon Judge Thayer’s rulings. As good citizens, we must have some +belief in the competence and disinterestedness of our highest court.” + +Cornelia turned her brown eyes upon him. These eyes had somehow lost +their softness, and had a sparkle that might be malice. “Are you going +to advance that doctrine in your new brief on the Jerry Walker case?” + +“My God!” thought the legal gentleman, and it took all his blue-blood +inheritance and Harvard training to keep his annoyance from showing +on his face. He relapsed into dignified silence, and pretended not to +see the look of mischief which his enemy Henry Cabot Winters shot at +him. Truly a comical situation: This gentleman, who was counsel for the +Governor in the Sacco-Vanzetti case, also was one of the counsel for +Jerry Walker, and was on the point of filing before the Supreme Court +of the United States an application for a writ of certiorari, to take +that case away from the highest court of Massachusetts and reverse its +decision. In that application the lawyer and his associates were going +to make the most outrageous charges--implying that the Supreme Judicial +Court of Massachusetts had become a “house of refuge for the rich and +powerful,” and declaring flatly that the judgment of the Full Court +was “made in bad faith,” and that “there is nothing more odious than +judicial favoritism,” which in this case had been “exercised in favor +of bankers.” A marvelous thing, that flexibility of the legal mind, +which can hold two diametrically opposite opinions at the same time; +sorting out truth and error into two baskets, as it were, and carrying +both to market, one in the right hand and one in the left! + + +XV + +But it didn’t do Cornelia a bit of good to score points like that; it +only made these gentlemen hate her. She must swallow her indignation, +and come back to beg for mercy. “Remember, Governor, you must be +_sure_. You are doing something that can never be undone. There is an +old saying--I don’t know who is the author--that ‘only an infallible +judge should pass an immutable sentence.’” + +“Do you know that those men are innocent, Mrs. Thornwell?” + +“Of course I don’t know that; how could I know it--unless I had been +with them at the time? But I have been studying the case for seven +years, and I believe that they are innocent, and certainly I know +this--that they have not been proved guilty. I know all that I need to +know--that they did not have a fair trial.” + +“Well,” said the Governor, “I know that they are guilty, so I don’t +care whether they had a fair trial or not.” + +Cornelia stared at him; she was so taken aback by the remark that she +could hardly believe she had heard it. “You know they are guilty, +Governor Fuller?” + +“I know it.” + +“But how can you know it, unless there was a fair trial--somewhere, +somehow--to establish it?” + +“I have sources of information, Mrs. Thornwell, which I am not at +liberty to reveal. You should find out what the Italian colony thinks +about this case.” + +“Governor, what are you saying? Some one has come and whispered into +your ear, and you have been willing to believe it!” + +“You cannot expect witnesses to tell all they know in the face of such +peril as has been created in this community, Mrs. Thornwell.” + +“So then, it is exactly as Vanzetti said to me--for weeks he has been +saying it: ‘We are being murdered by the whispers of unknown men!’ +Boston has gone back to the days of Russia under the tsars, of Turkey +under the sultans, of China under the mandarins! Spies come and whisper +secrets, and our rulers execute men upon words which they cannot or +dare not produce in open court!” + +One of the lawyers thought he had better justify his fees again. +“Surely it is not quite so bad as that, Mrs. Thornwell--” + +“It is so bad that it cannot be worse! And I implore you, Governor +Fuller--consider, before you take this fatal step, which will blast the +rest of your life! You are executing men upon secret testimony--but I +tell you, the world will insist upon knowing what that testimony is! +History will never let you alone until you tell what it is! And when +mankind has learned that it was the whispers of spies--the gossip of +what you are pleased to call ‘the Italian colony’--then you will face +such a blast of indignation as no man can face and live!” + +After that they did not want to listen to her any more. After that +she was a distracted old woman who had fallen under the influence of +sinister “Reds,” and lost entirely her mental balance. All they desired +was to keep her from wasting the time of a busy and important public +man. They would be polite, of course--even in Russia and Turkey and +China the high officials were doubtless polite to old ladies of the +ruling caste. “Glad to have seen you again, Mrs. Thornwell. I will give +my best consideration to what you have said.” So Cornelia made her way +out through the crowds, with tears in her eyes for all the newspapermen +to see and report. + +“Henry,” she asked, when they had got by themselves, “what can those +whispers be?” + +Said the lawyer, “There’s a man in that State House crowd who will talk +with me, and I’ll see if I can find out.” + + +XVI + +Michael Angelo Musmanno was in Washington, haunting the empty chambers +of the United States Supreme Court. The justices were on vacation, +but he lodged in the office of the clerk the two appeals from the +Massachusetts courts. He entered the formal appearance of Hill and +himself, paid the docketing fees, and the only thing remaining to +perfect the appeals was the record of the case, which the clerk of the +Dedham court had promised to send but which had not yet arrived. This +was later secured, and duly filed. + +But this procedure did not of itself postpone the execution, and Monday +midnight was the hour set. Would any judge order a stay of execution? +The lawyers were rushing to this one and that; it was a free-lance +matter now, every man for himself--but still they found time to form +opinions of one another. The Boston lawyers thought they knew Boston; +they were conservative, and did things in a dignified manner, and held +newspaper reporters off at the end of a ten-foot pole. The New Yorkers, +on the other hand, were radicals, fighting in the open, and welcoming +the reporters as allies. They accused the Boston crowd of being jealous +about the case--“acting like a bunch of prima donnas!” said one. + +Also among the committee, the frantic last-hour antagonisms between +those who wanted to save Sacco and Vanzetti as human beings, and +those who wanted to make them into symbols of the class war. Hardly +a telegram could be sent, or a statement given to the press, that +did not involve the controversy. The differences of ideas had become +embodied in personal antagonisms. The communists were collecting +sums of money for the defense, and the committee charged that this +money was not coming to them, but was being used for communist +propaganda. The communists replied with charges that the committee was +wasting its funds upon high fees to capitalist lawyers. Charges and +counter-charges--to the great glee of the enemy. The whispering gallery +which was the State House buzzed and hummed with gossip. The spies came +running, and the Governor’s advisers were on tip-toe. “What are they +doing now? What do they say about this? About that?” + +The “New York nuts” organized another “death march.” This time it was +led by Captain Paxton Hibben, diplomat, war correspondent, and army +officer; dapper, erect, and with sharp little military mustaches. He +knew all about marches and parades, of course, and Boston knew him +because the _Transcript_ had slandered him and then had to retract and +apologize. Hibben was a Harvard master of arts, and with him came Dos +Passos and Hapgood, bachelors of arts, and therefore subordinates; also +James Rorty, the poet; and Clarina Michelson, from Greenwich Village, +a tireless soul who did the hard work; and several humble wage-earners +with names never heard before on Beacon Street. They marched their +allotted time--one-two-three-four-five-six-seven--with a captain of +police holding a watch on them; then they were led off under escort, +with the crowd hooting, and a few cheering. + +At the corner of Joy Street, Captain Hibben, being in advance, +commanded, sharply, “Files right!” The huge police sergeant who had +him in charge looked at him, and said, “Were you in the service?” The +answer was, “I was a captain in the 332nd Field Artillery in France.” +“Well, Captain,” said the sergeant, “this is a strange place for you to +be!” “If you knew as much about Boston as I do, you would be with me,” +said Hibben; and in the old Joy Street police station, so oddly named, +they had a chat. Hibben had more than one man’s share of adventures to +tell; he had been second secretary in the American legation in old St. +Petersburg, he had been a war correspondent in the Near East in the +early days of the war, and secretary of the Russian Red Cross for the +Bolsheviks; a Chevalier of the Order of St. Stanislaus (Russian), an +Officer of the Order of the Redeemer (Greek), and of the Order of the +Sacred Treasure (Japan). “Holy smoke!” said the police sergeant; and on +Monday morning in court he was wholly unable to remember that he had +seen this starred and beribboned diplomat on the picket-line, and so +Hibben was discharged. The sergeant meant it for a favor, but it was a +cause of vexation to the prisoner, who had prepared a ringing statement +to read in court--and now it was a dud! + + +XVII + +The three condemned men--Madeiros always with them!--had been moved +back into the death-house; into the three little cells with clean, +smooth white-tiled floors, and doors that were never opened--no guard +ever entered and no prisoner ever came out, except to die. Six feet +in front of the cells ran a painted line, beyond which no visitor was +permitted to step; at least, it had never yet happened in the history +of Massachusetts, which lives by precedent. + +But now Luigia Vanzetti arrived in Boston, followed by a stream of +reporters, eager to make the most of this human interest story--“sob +stuff” is the technical name. A frail, pathetic woman, weighing not +more than a hundred pounds, and looking for all the world like a New +England school teacher--she was coming to the prison to meet her +brother, whom she had not seen since he was a youth. She had come all +the way from Villafalletto to help him die, and naturally she would +wish to step over the painted line and clasp him in her arms. To obtain +this favor all the eloquence of the ladies of the Sacco-Vanzetti +defense was concentrated upon Warden Hendry. They came to his office +and wept, and prayed, and stormed and scolded, until at last the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts broke a precedent, for the first time in +its three hundred years of history. + +Bart was led out from his cell, and allowed to sit in a chair on the +other side of the painted line. The warden himself brought Luigia, and +two guards stood by to see that she did not give the condemned man any +poison, or a revolver, or an Italian stiletto. They tottered into each +other’s arms, sobbing; and in a moment more the woman collapsed, and +one guard had to catch her, while the other brought a chair. Bart sat, +patting her gently, and for an hour they talked about all the things +which might interest a brother and sister who had parted in their +teens, and met again in their middle thirties, with only two days more +of life upon earth together. + +The twelve-year-old Dante Sacco had come with Rosina and paid a last +visit to his father; a terrible ordeal for a child, to pass that +canvas-shrouded death-chair, and sit listening to a faint voice, and +peering at a wasted shadow of a man through narrow steel bars which +must not be approached. The boy and the mother went out sobbing, the +latter hardly able to walk; each one of these visits was like a spell +of illness to her. The father set himself to his last task, of writing +the promised letter to the “bimbo”; to leave him some permanent message +which he might study when he grew older. Pitiful, rambling words of a +man trying to hold his faculties in the midst of torment, and to write +in a foreign language--because the “bimbo” spoke that language, and was +going to an American school. “Much I thought of you,” wrote the father, +“when I was lying in the death-house--the singing, the kind tender +voices of the children from the playground, where there was all the +life and the joy of liberty--just one step from the wall which contains +the buried agony of three buried souls.... Yes, Dante, they can crucify +our bodies to-day as they are doing but they cannot destroy our ideals +that will remain for the youth of the future to come.... + +“Well, my dear boy, after your mother had talked to me so much and I +had dreamed of you day and night, how joyful it was to see you at last. +To have talked with you like we used to in the days--in those days. +Much I told you on that visit and more I wanted to say, but I saw that +you will remain the same affectionate boy, faithful to your mother who +loves you so much, and I did not want to hurt your sensibilities any +longer, because I am sure that you will continue to be the same boy and +remember what I have told you. I knew that and what here I am going to +tell you will touch your feelings, but don’t cry, Dante, because many +tears have been wasted, as your mother’s have been wasted for seven +years, and never did any good.” + + +XVIII + +The Great Novelist who makes up history had brought it about that while +Sacco and Vanzetti were lying in the death-cells, there preceded them +to the land of shadows a great American lord of steel and finance: +Elbert H. Gary, chairman of the board of directors and chief executive +of the United States Steel Corporation, with resources of two billions +of dollars. A great Christian he had been, helping to build that +mighty university of Methodism from which Dean Wigless had assailed +Felix Frankfurter; holder of eight honorary degrees from church +universities--the most pious plutocrat who ever split his strikers’ +skulls and set thousands of spies to cow their souls. Before he left +for his mansion above, he also wrote a message to his beloved ones, +giving his _vade mecum_ as a follower of the gentle Jesus. His last +will and testament it was, and all the capitalist newspapers of America +featured his exalted words: + + “I earnestly request my wife and children and descendants that + they steadfastly decline to sign any bonds or obligations of any + kind as surety for any other person, or persons; that they refuse + to make any loans except on the basis of first-class, well-known + securities, and that they invariably decline to invest in any + untried or doubtful securities or property or enterprise or + business.” + +At this same time two anarchist wops, one of them an avowed atheist, +the other a vague deist of the old-fashioned sort, were writing their +last words to their beloved ones, and these words also were published. +Said Nicola Sacco, with one foot in eternity: + + “So, Son, instead of crying, be strong, so as to be able to comfort + your mother, and when you want to distract your mother from the + discouraging soulness, I will tell you what I used to do. To take + her for a long walk in the quiet country, gathering wild flowers + here and there, resting under the shade of trees, between the + harmony of the vivid stream and the gentle tranquillity of the + mother nature, and I am sure that she will enjoy this very much, + as you surely would be happy for it. But remember always, Dante, + in the play of happiness, don’t you use all for yourself only, + but down yourself just one step, at your side and help the weak + ones that cry for help, help the persecuted and the victim because + they are your better friends, they are the comrades that fight and + fall as your father and Bartolo fought and fell yesterday for the + conquest of the joy and freedom for all the poor workers. In this + struggle of life you will find more love and you will be loved.” + +Also Vanzetti left his message for Dante to study in after years. One +day before he died he wrote a letter to a little boy whose school +friends jeered him because he was the son of a murderer. Said Bart: + + “I tell you all this now, for I know well your father, he is not + a criminal, but one of the bravest men I ever knew. Some day you + will understand what I am about to tell you, that your father has + sacrificed everything dear and sacred to the human heart and soul + for his faith in liberty and justice for all. That day you will be + proud of your father, and if you become brave enough, you will take + his place in the struggle between tyranny and liberty and you will + vindicate his name and our blood. + + “Remember and know also, Dante, that if your father and I would + have been cowards and hypocrites and renegades of our faith, + we would not have been put to death. They would not even have + convicted a leprous dog; not even executed a deadly poisonous + scorpion on such evidence as that they framed against us. They + would have given a new trial to a matricide and habitual felon on + the evidence we presented for a new trial. + + “Remember, Dante, remember always these things: We are not + criminals; they convicted us on a frame-up; they denied us a new + trial; and if we will be executed after seven years, three months + and seventeen days of unspeakable tortures and wrongs, it is for + what I have already told you; because we were for the poor and + against the exploitation and oppression of man by man.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE CITY OF FEAR + + +I + +“This is our career and our triumph,” Bart had proclaimed; and +assuredly never had “a good shoemaker and a poor fish-peddler” caused +such excitement in the world. On Saturday, two days before the +execution, there was an order for a general strike in Buenos Ayres; in +Berlin a protest from the trade unions, and the first radical meeting +ever held in the former House of Lords of the Kingdom of Prussia; in +London a mob of ten thousand in front of the American embassy; in +Geneva a call for the boycotting of American goods; in Russia enormous +protest meetings in every city; in Paris a hundred thousand workers +parading, carrying red flags and huge placards denouncing American +justice; tourists being greeted with shouts from thousands of throats, +“Pardon! Pardon!”--and as a rule finding it prudent to reply, “Vive +Sacco et Vanzetti!” The workers were bewildered by the spectacle of +Puritan severity, and helpless in the face of it. Pierre Leon, editing +a French communist paper, cabled to Joe Randall: “What can we do?” +Joe’s answer was: “Repudiate the debts.” But that, alas, was not an +immediate program; the best the French could do was to fail to pay them. + +Only in Massachusetts itself was silence. Boston under the iron heel, +and civil rights subject to revocation. One simple rule, easy for +all to understand: do what the police tell you and keep your mouth +shut. Superintendent Crowley had requested the mayor to cancel all +the eighteen speaking permits on the Common, and thus free speech was +dumped out of the “cradle of liberty.” The defense committee was trying +to hire a hall for a last minute protest-meeting, but the police made +a round of the halls and warned the owners; if they rented to the +Reds, they would lose their license. It was a trick which “Mickey +the Gunman” had been working for several years; by means of it he had +suppressed a young Lithuanian named Bimba, who proclaimed himself an +atheist, and annoyed the Catholic priests. The police would close up +halls, on the ground that they violated fire ordinances; something +which, in an old city like Boston, a great many buildings did. + +At the last minute the defense committee succeeded in finding a hall, +and on Saturday evening a pitiful meeting was held, with almost as +many “cops” as audience. A speaker started to describe what was going +to happen in Charlestown prison on Monday midnight, and a police +official stepped forward, saying, “No more of that, or we’ll shut you +up.” So the orators discussed the case in abstract terms, not saying +anything rude about governors or college presidents, nor using bad +words like “anarchistic bastards.” Paxton Hibben spoke, military and +incisive; Powers Hapgood, fiery and determined; Alfred Baker Lewis, +who seemed like a big but very serious boy; then Betty Alvin, for the +Back Bay; and--miracle of miracles--a Catholic lifting his voice for +two infidels! The members of the Boston police force rubbed their eyes +as the Reverend Francis Xavier Regan took the platform, and told the +story of Caleb Cunningham, the wealthy resident of Milton who had shot +and killed the Swede, John Johnson, for cutting wood on his land, and +had been so considerately treated by the authorities of Norfolk County. +One Catholic remembered the humble origins of his Church--even in the +diocese of His Eminence, “Big Bill”! + +A call had been issued for labor union delegates to meet on that same +Saturday evening, to consider plans for a general strike. Since it was +manifestly too late, the police did not interfere. About fifty workers +attended, mostly from the Italian barbers and the Jewish needle trades; +the American workers present might have been counted on the fingers of +one hand. The American workers were out on the roads in second-hand +cars with their families, eating hot-dogs and drinking soda-pop; they +were at the movies, watching poor girls marry millionaires and poor +boys make fortunes overnight; they were shooting craps and playing +poker and drinking home brew. Assuredly they were not out on the +streets, getting their heads broken for any wops. + +Michael Gold went about listening, and reporting public sentiment in +Boston. A young sailor prowling in Scollay Square, on the hunt for +women: “They ought to be burned; they insulted the flag.” A clerk +drinking ice cream soda at a fountain: “All them Italians look like +murderers to me.” A timid little groceryman expressing himself over the +counter: “Yes, maybe they are innocent, but we gotta bump ’em off, or +we’ll all be bombed in our beds.” A telephone girl, hearing an Italian +voice complaining of a wrong number: “Aw shut up, you Guinney rat, wait +till you see what we do to you on August 22nd!” + +All this they had got out of their newspapers, of course. For a brief +time there had been a break in newspaper solidarity regarding the +Sacco-Vanzetti case; an editorial writer of the _Herald_ had won the +Pulitzer prize of 1926 for an editorial demanding a new trial. But now +his voice was silent. The department-stores were clamoring to have an +end to the public anxiety; business had fallen off, because women, who +do most of the shopping, were afraid to go about. The only industry +which was thriving was that of riot and bomb insurance; the companies +wrote it to the amount of eight hundred million dollars, and didn’t +have to pay one cent! A net profit of a cool million to the companies, +and a corresponding loss to Boston merchants. Preposterous that two +wops should cause such trouble! The newspapers, which thrive upon +department-store advertising, made one sweet harmony: “Stand by the +Governor and the courts.” In the profession, Boston was known as “the +poor-house of journalism.” + + +II + +Cornelia, splashing around frantically for a straw to catch hold of, +bethought herself of Cardinal O’Connell. Luigia Vanzetti was a faithful +daughter of the church, and a pitiful figure; perhaps she might be +able to tempt the great man into making an appeal for clemency. So +Jessica Henderson came with her limousine, always there to help the +Sacco-Vanzetti defense, and they drove the anxious, fearful little +woman out to the summer home of the great prelate at Marblehead. He was +on the lawn with his dog when the party arrived, and Mrs. Henderson’s +daughter went to ask if he would see Luigia. “Bless her heart, of +course,” he said. + +He was cordial, charming, as he knew how to be when it was worth while. +He served tea himself, and remarked to Cornelia, “It may be a long time +before you have a cardinal pouring tea for you again.” He chatted with +Luigia in Italian, and Cornelia could understand enough to know that he +was sympathizing greatly, and doing nothing. Afterwards he wrote and +gave to the papers a statement on the subject which was a masterpiece +of diplomatic piety: “Human judgment is fallible at best.... But the +judgment of God is perfect and in the end He and His ways, mysterious +as they are, are our hope and salvation.” Said the sarcastic Betty: +“Now we know why God was invented--so that princes of the church may +dodge their moral responsibilities!” + +Futile to try to make headway in Boston, with the weight of such +authority against you! The local liberals were hamstrung by the Lowell +report. If Mr. Lowell said it, it must be so, and who are we to set +ourselves up against him? Likewise Bishop Lawrence had clambered onto +the bandwagon. Having asked the Governor to appoint an impartial +commission, he now accepted the impartial decision, and commended the +Governor for his firmness and courage. He did this in a letter, which +appeared in the press. + +There they stood, the three intellectual and spiritual guides of +Boston: the Cardinal of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the Bishop +of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the President of Harvard +University. When a stranger inquired concerning them, he was struck by +a curious fact: the first statement about any one of the three would +be that he was an efficient administrator of enormous properties. This +was not his fault, of course; the properties were there, and must be +administered; but the automatic effect was this, that if you were to go +to any one of the three administrators, and make a remark suggesting +that he should act upon the creed he taught, he would begin to watch +you to see whether you were the dangerous kind. + +The Cardinal of the Catholics was exiling rebellious spirits to the +backwoods, and raising up a generation of young clerics who were at +once preachers, politicians, and real estate experts; you could know +when one of them was in favor by the fact that his mother and father, +brothers and sisters, cousins and aunts, moved immediately into +expensive residences. As for the Bishop of the Blue-bloods, he had a +father who helped to finance John Brown’s expedition to fight slavery +in Kansas; the son was known as the best money-raiser in New England, +and had turned his vast organization into a school of social propriety. +When it was a question of a blue-blood church official accused of +undue intimacy with choir-boys, you would see this well-bred bishop +as anxious to have the law not enforced as he was to have it enforced +against anarchist wops. + +As for President Lowell, he would boast that every professor in his +great institution enjoyed complete freedom of speech, and when some one +asked him how he could manage anything so dangerous, he would smile and +say that it was easy if you were careful whom you allowed to become a +professor. When it chanced that a Harvard lecturer dared to attack the +electric light and power interests, whose directors and bankers compose +the governing body of the university, President Lowell would “fire” +him, and incidentally lie to him, with exactly the same heartiness as a +“wop” standing by a friend accused of banditry, or a blue-blood banker +trying to save fifteen million dollars. + + +III + +Bugles in the streets; a regiment of the state militia marching, +with grim set faces--the answer of the Commonwealth to the challenge +of anarchy. Airplanes flying overhead, watching for bombers in the +sky. Military squads on duty at every public building, suspicious of +every foreign face, and now and then stopping a passerby to search a +bundle or open a suitcase. Every policeman on twenty-four hour duty +again; sitting in the station-houses, and now and then called out +for a wild ride or a gallop, on account of a bomb-scare. The firemen +also on twenty-four hour duty, and all armed. The American Legion +mobilized to guard the homes of the rich and the great. Every judge, +juror, prosecutor, witness, or official who had ever had anything to +do with the Sacco-Vanzetti case was being protected, and there was no +foolishness about the protection. + +A man hopped out of an automobile at the home of President Lowell, +and started towards the rear entrance, carrying a heavy black bag. +They did not stop to ask him who he was or what he wanted, they hit +him over the head and laid him out--and then ascertained that he was +delivering a load of that heavy aluminum ware which is the latest fad +in fancy cookery for the rich. A young Catholic priest stepped off +the train in South Station, arriving from the west for a holiday; he +went to the information bureau and said, “Will you please tell me the +way to the State House?” “Certainly,” replied the clerk, and called a +policeman, saying, “This man wants to know the way to the State House.” +The kind-hearted policeman said he would escort him, and led him to a +patrol-wagon, and drove him to the nearest station-house, where they +held him “incommunicado” for twenty-four hours. + +The great Commonwealth had told ten thousand lies; and now for every +lie there was a club and a bayonet. If you wished to oppose the lies, +there was just one way--put your head under the crashing clubs, throw +your body onto the gleaming bayonets. This was not merely the law of +Massachusetts, this was the law of life, the way by which lies have +been killed throughout history. The friends of the defense confronted +this crisis, and either went forward and took the punishment, or shrunk +back and sneaked away with a whole skin and a damaged conscience. + +Terrible scenes in the Thornwell family. In “Hillview,” Great-uncle +Abner storming, because the Governor had been browbeaten once, and +might yield again; Abner declared that he would wheel himself all +the way to Boston, thirty miles or so on the public highway, and +present himself at the Governor’s office to demand the death of the +two anarchists. On the other hand, in the tenement on the north side +of Beacon Hill was Deborah pleading and praying to her daughter, not +to throw away her life, not to disgrace herself and her innocent and +helpless family. + +Cornelia was not going to get arrested; she was motoring with Mrs. +Henderson to make an appeal to Justice Brandeis of the Supreme Court. +But Betty had pledged herself to carry a placard on the Common, and +Joe also. They had sent out a call for a thousand demonstrators, and at +least two were going to respond. Nothing that Deborah could say would +have any effect; no tears, no prayers. “They are surely going to arrest +me once,” said Betty, and laughed, a trifle hysterically. “They are not +going to murder Bart and Nick without arresting me at least once!” When +Deborah brought in the sacred names of little Rupert Alvin Thornwell +Randall, the unnatural mother made reply: “The best thing that could +happen to him would be for me and Joe to be clubbed to death, so that +you and Father could raise him to be respectable!” + +That was late Saturday night, after the meeting in Scenic Auditorium. +Deborah stayed in town that night, and telephoned to Rupert, who gave +up a service in his new private chapel, the joy of his life, to come +and add the immense weight of his authority. But Betty did not even +wait to see him; she went off to a gathering of the “New York nuts,” +who were making cardboard signs to wear while undergoing martyrdom. +Her Uncle James Scatterbridge came upon her in the lobby of the Hotel +Bellevue--most fashionable of hostelries, adjoining the State House, +where a group of the leisure class “nuts” had made their headquarters, +to the great dismay of the management. + +Uncle James came there, with blood in his eye, looking for his Josiah, +intending to take him captive by force if necessary. But James’s Josiah +was hiding, and when his father actually found him, he was walking on +the outskirts of the Common, with a policeman holding each arm, and a +jeering crowd all around. James pushed his way through and took charge, +to the relief of the “cops,” who had been told to make as few arrests +as possible. There followed painful hours for both father and son; but +do not worry too much, for it will turn out happily in the end--the +great cotton-master will be able to keep his son’s name out of the +papers, and also be able to make his Josiah into a mildly successful +young business man. They will look back on this adventure some day, +and the older will be secretly rather proud of the younger’s nerve. “A +damned fool, of course; but then, we’re all damned fools when we’re +young.” + + +IV + +Boston Common is an irregularly shaped park, comprising, with the +Public Gardens, about a square mile. It is laid out with rambling +paths, and has a Monument Hill, with cannon and other trophies; there +are greenswards, groups of trees, a band-stand with benches, the +“Frog Pond,” and in the Public Gardens a little lake for boats. The +State House with the golden dome overlooks it from one corner; the +Park Street Church, the Union Club, and many of the homes of the old +families on Beacon Street. On the other side is Tremont Street, with +the fashionable shops; and from the end of the Public Gardens starts +Commonwealth Avenue, where the Alvins lived. All very fashionable, in +a dignified way, mixed up with history and tradition, taking itself +seriously. In the old days, this Common had been the place where the +villagers pastured their cows; now it was a place for nursemaids to +flirt with sailors from the ships, and for out-of-works to study the +“help wanted” ads in the newspapers. On Sunday afternoons all the +religious cranks, the holy rollers and the Salvation Army, shouted +under the trees along the mall; also the atheists and the socialists +and the single taxers, and those who refuse to believe that the earth +is round. + +But this Sunday, August 21st, all that was off, and for a year to +come. There was a band concert and a radio concert to keep the +crowds occupied; also two ball-games, and two impromptu dog-fights. +Twenty-five thousand people came--having read in the papers that some +new-style martyrs were going to feed themselves to the lions. + +One thousand had been called for, and fourteen came. The lawyers were +in part responsible for that, having strenuously urged against it. The +demonstrators would be sure to get their heads clubbed, and could only +do harm to the case by cheap notoriety. Those who were troubled by +the former consideration were glad to have the latter for an excuse. +The few stubborn ones who insisted upon coming were troubled by both +considerations, but of course would only admit the latter. They brought +little rolls of cardboard, printed with Sacco-Vanzetti protests, to +wear over their shoulders, and made their rendezvous in a corner +drug-store, eyed suspiciously by the proprietor, because they looked +fidgety and queer, not at all “Boston.” The job had fallen mostly to +the “New York nuts.” + +There was John Dos Passos, faithful son of Harvard, and John Howard +Lawson, another one of the “New Playwrights” from Greenwich Village. +There was Clarina Michelson, ready to do the hard work again, and +William Patterson, a Negro lawyer from New York, running the greatest +risk of any of them, with his black face not to be disguised. Just +up Beacon Street was the Shaw Monument, with figures in perennial +bronze, of unmistakable Negro boys in uniform, led by a young Boston +blue-blood on horseback; no doubt Patterson had looked at this, and +drawn courage from it. To uphold the high traditions of the city, +there came Betty Alvin and Joe Randall, considered a Bostonian-in-law; +also James’s Josiah, more scared of his father than of the police; and +Margaret Hatfield, whose father was a prominent Republican, treasurer +of Middlesex county. Margaret had taken the precaution to “dress the +part,” so she was safe, though she couldn’t be sure of it. Her mother +was behaving exactly like Betty’s mother, wandering about the Common +twisting her hands together, and moaning to herself, “Oh, _why_ do they +have to do it?” + + +V + +“Come on, you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever?” So, +according to army tradition, a sergeant shouted to a squad, going “over +the top” in the Argonne forest. It is an idea which, with or without +the language, has animated martyrs through the ages. They have walked +to the lions, they have walked to the stake and the gallows and the +guillotine, and other forms of terror; now they walked to the clubs +and the bayonets--a little group from the corner drug-store, quaking +inside, and trembling in the knees, but setting their teeth and holding +their heads high. As it happened, none was to be seriously hurt, but +they could not know that; pain is pain, and a cracked skull, or the +hoofs of horses in your stomach, are as unpleasant as any other form. +Come on, you New York nuts, do you want to live forever? + +The Common stretching before them. The mall, where the speaking should +have been, is closed by a cordon of police; no use to try it there. +They get out on the concrete walk, and then look at one another +anxiously. Are they in a good place, among the crowd? Some one says +yes, and with trembling fingers they unroll the placards and put them +over their shoulders. The bystanders see, and cheers go up. Crowds +begin to gather; they have been wandering about, waiting for something +to happen, and here it is! “Hurrah for Sacco and Vanzetti!” “Save Sacco +and Vanzetti!” At once a counter demonstration: “Down with the Reds! +Lynch them!” + +The little band of martyrs walk on, seeing nothing, hearing nothing; +a trifle dizzy with the excitement--that rare mood of martyrdom, more +wonderful than drunkenness. You walk upon the air, into the clouds; +the earth and the limitations of the flesh no longer exist; you have +transcended them all, you belong to the ages, you speak to God. “Wir +sind all des Todes eigen,” sings the German poet--“we all belong to +death.” We have seen such wickedness upon earth that we choose rather +to die than to let it prevail. + +“All right,” says the world, “if you want to die, we are willing!” +The lions roar; if you want to be eaten, their stomachs are made for +the purpose! Here come the police, clubs drawn. “Enough of that now! +Take off those signs and get out of here!” They try to grab the signs, +and the marchers dodge this way and that, to protect them as long as +possible; bystanders grab at the signs, others try to block the way of +the “cops.” The clubs begin to fall; a disagreeable sound, the thud of +hickory on human flesh and bone. + +Here come the mounted men, riding through the throngs. “Look out +for yourself!” Women shriek; the horses charge straight ahead, +knocking people down. A strange experience for a daughter of the best +families--Betty can hardly believe it; she thinks the horse will swerve +at the last moment; then she realizes that the rider means to run her +down, and she leaps too late, the shoulder of the passing horse strikes +her and sends her spinning. + +The trooper speeds on; he has spied the black face, and wants that +most of all. The Negro runs, and the rider rears the front feet of +his steed, intending to strike him down with the iron-shod hoofs. But +fortunately there is a tree, and the Negro leaps behind it; a man +can run round a tree faster than the best-trained police-mount--the +dapper and genial William Patterson proves it by making five complete +circuits before he runs into the arms of an ordinary cop, who grabs +him by the collar and tears off his sign and tramples it in the dirt, +and then starts to march him away. “Well,” he remarks, sociably, “this +is the first time I ever see a nigger bastard that was a communist.” +The lawyer is surprised, because he has been given to understand that +that particular bad word is barred from the Common; Mike Crowley was so +shocked, two weeks ago, when Mary Donovan tacked up a sign to a tree: +“Did you see what I did to those anarchistic ----? Judge Thayer.” But +apparently the police do not have to obey their own laws. + +The “Black Maria” is in readiness, and comes with clanging bell, and +the prisoners are loaded into it--all but the “nigger bastard.” He has +to be walked to the police-station--because it would not be decent +for him to ride in the same patrol-wagon with his friend Clarina +Michelson! The others are driven off--and when they get to the La +Grange Street station-house and compare notes, they discover that they +have lost their blue-bloods! Betty is missing, and her husband, and +her cousin Josiah! Margaret Hatfield is missing! Even in the midst of +that excitement, the police have found time to consult the “social +register”! A little later they turn loose John Dos Passos--no Harvard +graduates wanted! The only ones they arrest are five workers, two named +Sansevrion, one Schulman, one Amari, and that Cosimo Carvotta against +whom they have a special grudge, on account of having lied about him in +the police court after the previous Sunday’s arrests. + + +VI + +In the La Grange Street station they found Paula Holladay, waiting for +some company. No story of that last Sunday would be complete without +the Odyssey of Paula, who had made a parade all by herself--and a +long one! She was the founder of “Polly’s,” a Greenwich Village +café renowned in song and story; that summer she had been running a +restaurant in Provincetown, on Cape Cod. Her conscience began to gnaw +at her, and she decided to do what one woman could to express a sense +of injustice. She turned her business over to a friend, and put on a +sign reading, “Is justice dead? Save Sacco and Vanzetti,” and set out +to walk from Provincetown to Boston, a distance, as the “nut” walks, of +a hundred and twenty-five miles. + +Now and then on the route, women working in their gardens would see +that sign, and follow along on the other side of the picket-fence, +saying, “I wish I had a shot-gun in the house, I’d show you what I’d +do to you!” Ladies in automobiles would stop to express the same +sentiment. But apparently the shotgun is an obsolete instrument in +Massachusetts, for Paula reached Boston with a whole skin, except for a +blister on the heel. She joined the other nuts, and learning that the +police were destroying all banners and signs, she painted her message +on a red “slicker,” or waterproof coat, and sallied forth onto the +Common thus garbed. + +She was passing the bandstand, when the first “cop” spied her, and +took her in tow. A crowd gathered quickly, and there were waves of +shouting, some for, some against. The policeman’s hand began to tremble +on the woman’s arm. “Why are you so nervous?” she said--after which +he managed to control himself. Another came to his aid, and then two +mounted men, who kept her between them, safe. When she told them that +she was determined to stay on the Common, they conducted her to the +police-station. “What is the charge?” she demanded; the answer was, +“Oh, never mind that, just lock her up.” + +Presently came “Mike” Crowley, having kissed the Blarney stone that +morning. “Now it would be too bad for a nice-looking young lady like +you to get into any trouble that might get her on the books here.” The +answer of Paula was, “I am neither so young nor so good-looking, and +I am not afraid to get on the books. I want to know whether I am kept +here by force without any charge.” When he wouldn’t answer, she said, +“I will find out,” and started to leave; so then he put his hand upon +her shoulder, and she was there by force. They kept her until evening, +when there were no more crowds upon the Common, and no more harm to be +done by the wearing of a red “slicker” with the question, “Is justice +dead?” + + +VII + +The lawyers were making another attempt to open the Department of +Justice files, and they appealed to Governor Fuller for a respite until +the documents could be studied. Arthur Hill asked also for time to +permit the United States Supreme Court to consider his application. The +Governor followed his usual policy of declining to say what he would +do; so the lawyers were racing about from one country-place to another, +trying to persuade some judge to order a stay. In those last hectic +days they put the matter before a dozen different judges, representing +the Superior Court and the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and +the District Courts and the Supreme Court of the United States. + +Mr. Hill journeyed to see Justice Holmes at his place in Beverly, on +the North Shore: Oliver Wendell Holmes, son of the poet, eighty-six +years of age, respected by all liberals, because he and Brandeis +invariably wrote a minority opinion when the court made further +restrictions upon human rights in the interest of privilege. The +old gentleman now said that he did not think he had the power to +interfere, but wished them luck with some other justice who might think +differently. “Unofficially,” he said that Sacco and Vanzetti could not +have got a fair trial in 1921. + +They went to Louis Brandeis, their last hope. A Jewish lawyer of great +ability, Brandeis had begun practice in Boston, and made a fortune +early, and then turned against the system, and became an advocate of +the public interest, and therefore one of the most hated men in the +city. When Woodrow Wilson had named him for the Supreme Court bench, +there had been a howl from State Street, and no voice louder than that +of President Lowell of Harvard. Nevertheless, the radical Jew had got +in; and now he had the greatest chance of his career--and missed it. + +The Court was composed mainly of hard-boiled corporation lawyers, +selected by President Taft--now the Chief Justice--and by Harding and +Coolidge. Undoubtedly these men would have reversed any action that +Brandeis might have taken; but at least it would have been a gesture, +and a crown upon a great life. Cornelia spent Sunday afternoon arguing +and pleading with the justice, but in vain; telegrams came raining +upon him, in vain. He was bound, like all other judges. It so happened +that Rosina Sacco had occupied a house belonging to Mrs. Brandeis in +Dedham, and this constituted “prejudice.” The justice could not be +persuaded that prejudice in favor of mercy was different from prejudice +in favor of one interest against another. Vanzetti commented upon this +singular situation in a letter to Harry Dana--almost the last words he +wrote: + + “So it is coming to pass that some justices repel our appeal + because they are friendly with us, and other justices repel our + appeal because they are hostile to us, and through this elegant + _Forche Caudine_ we are led straight to the electric chair.” + +These nine elderly gentlemen who did the real governing of the United +States were overworked, and in dread of taking more upon their bowed +shoulders. They had the task of telling the American people what laws +they might pass and what laws they might not pass; what their laws +meant, or ought to mean; in short, what served the propertied classes, +and what threatened them. An enormous task; and the old gentlemen +contemplated with dismay the idea of opening the sluice-gates and +letting in more work upon themselves. + +They dealt with the law, they said, and never with the facts. But +when there came an emergency where it seemed necessary to deal with +facts, they would find a way to do it. The Supreme Judicial Court of +Massachusetts had just shown that in the Jerry Walker case, where +the jury had decided the facts against the interest of the fellow +club-members of the Court. The Court had stepped in and considered such +facts as they pleased, and like all special pleaders they had stated +the facts on their own side, and suppressed the facts on the other +side. But in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti there were no vast sums of +money at stake--only the lives of two wops. “It were better that you be +ruined than that the law be changed for the likes of you!” + + +VIII + +Cornelia came back to her apartment on Sunday evening, beaten and +exhausted. Betty was over at defense headquarters, helping to organize +the new arrivals and plan the last demonstration. Poets, writers, +artists--all persons, old and young, with an urge to martyrdom--were +pouring into Boston, and in front of the State House they would have +their chance. Betty was lame from her effort to upset a horse, but was +sticking to her desk; she had not been to bed the night before, and was +not going to-night. “Plenty of time to sleep after Monday midnight,” +she said. “Bart and Nick will keep us company.” + +Joe was at the headquarters of the new “Citizens’ National Committee,” +which was concentrating its efforts upon trying to persuade the Federal +authorities to accept their responsibility in the case. The committee +was sending and receiving hundreds of telegrams every day: obtaining +signatures to a petition to the President of the United States, asking +him to intervene, according to the precedent set by Woodrow Wilson, +when the State of California had been on the point of executing Tom +Mooney. But there was an important difference between the two cases; +Mooney was an A. F. of L. man, and labor had to be handled gingerly in +war-time. But now there was what capitalism calls “peace,” and Sacco +and Vanzetti had no standing in the court of power-politics. + +The President of the United States was that “Cautious Cal,” whom we +saw shot up on the Massachusetts escalator. “Keep cool with Coolidge,” +had been the slogan which had got him the greatest vote ever given to +a wizard of prosperity. Now the wizard was keeping himself cool upon a +high mountain peak in Yellowstone Park. He knew the way to do nothing, +and do it more systematically, than any man who had ever held the +office. He had as much idea of dipping his fingers into that boiling +Boston caldron as he had of spending his vacation in the mountains of +the moon. Hundreds of dollars were spent collecting signatures to a +petition, and thousands were spent by individuals telegraphing direct. +The messages came by the basketful, and served to start the evening +fires for a chilly and frugal New Englander. + +Musmanno was at Hill’s office, trying for a long-distance telephone +connection with Chief Justice Taft. This elder statesman was in Canada, +where he could not legally sign a writ; it was Musmanno’s idea that +he might come to the border, and there at least hear a petition. The +young lawyer had an airplane ready, and would start that Sunday night. +He sat at the telephone from seven in the evening until four the next +morning, but the great jurist was able to find some perfectly good +legal reason for staying where he was. + + +IX + +Deborah was in the apartment, waiting for her mother, to plead with her +not to kill herself in this dreadful crisis. Cornelia was hardly able +to get up the stairs without help; yet unwilling to go to the Alvin +home, where there was an elevator. She could not sleep; she must lie +on the bed, with the telephone receiver to her lips, asking for news. +She would sink back, and Deborah would think she was resting--but no, +she was getting ready to call Mr. Moors, to see if he could not induce +Mr. Lowell to induce the Governor to grant a few more days! She was +appealing to Hubert Herring, a young Congregational clergyman who had +risked his job, getting a dozen other clergymen to sign an appeal to +the Governor! + +Mother and daughter shouted to each other across an abyss, and just +now the abyss was full of thunder, and it was hard for voices to get +across. “Mother! Mother!”--Cornelia heard a faint cry--“You think more +about two Italian anarchists than you do about any member of your own +family!” + +“My dear”--Cornelia shouting back--“no one is planning to murder any +member of my family.” + +Deborah would take a sentence and meditate over it, until an answer +became so urgent in her bosom that she would try once more. “Mother, +there are other kinds of unhappiness, almost as bad as being murdered.” + +“My child, that is God, trying to break the hard shell of your pride.” + +Cornelia phoned to Arthur Hill’s office. His daughter-in-law was in +charge of the phone, and would tell her if there was any more news. +There was none, and Cornelia hung up, and sat staring before her +with a face of torment. Deborah’s heart ached, but the only way she +could help was to diminish her mother’s interest in those dreadful +Italians! “Mother, Henry has become positive that both those men were +dynamiters.” And again: “Mother, I believe you really prefer dynamiters +to law-abiding people!” + +Make allowances for Cornelia. These family disputes, that go on for +years and years and never get anywhere, are hard upon the nerves. Said +the mother: “I prefer the dynamiter who cares about justice to the most +law-abiding person in the world who doesn’t!” + +The telephone rang; Deborah’s older daughter, Priscilla, asking if +she might come round. This had been one of Deborah’s schemes--her +daughter would keep Cornelia’s mind occupied with news about the +great-grandchildren. But Priscilla had better not mention that her +mother had suggested the visit. Deborah was forever devising such +little plots--always, of course, for the other person’s good; and she +had trained her older daughter to coöperate. + +Cornelia began asking about the wife of Governor Fuller--what sort +of woman was she? It seemed that Jessica Henderson and Cornelia were +planning to motor up to Rye Beach, New Hampshire, the next day, and +implore the help of this much-troubled lady. Deborah told what she had +been able to judge from one dinner-party. Mrs. Fuller was a Catholic; +and Cornelia asked, what would that mean? Could she possibly be made +to understand that Jesus was to be electrocuted in Boston to-morrow +midnight? + +So Deborah burst out again: “Mother, do you think Jesus ever used +dynamite?” + +“No, my dear, it wasn’t invented in those days. All he had was a whip, +to drive the moneychangers out of Trinity Church.” And after Deborah +had expatiated upon the extreme charitableness of Trinity Church, her +mother shocked her by exclaiming: “Oh, Boston, Boston, thou that givest +the prophets a ride in the patrol-wagon!” + + +X + +Priscilla came, a tall and distinguished young matron now; but she +did not get any chance to tell the news about her three children. She +found the poor old woman lying back on her pillow with her eyes closed, +speaking in whispers which might have come from a death-bed. She took +Priscilla’s hand, and said, “I talk to your mother, and it means +nothing to her. Let me try the next generation!” + +“Yes, Grandmother,” said Priscilla, obediently. “What is it?” + +“Your mother cannot understand how anarchists come to be in Boston. +So I try to explain to her. When I was a young married woman, about +your age, I used to look out of our back windows and see pitiful +children of the poor, going about in winter-time with ragged shawls +over their shoulders and holes in their shoes, rooting in the frozen +garbage in alleys behind the Back Bay homes. I was told that it was +the will of God, so I did nothing. But now I have discovered that it +is a social system. All those miles of slum tenements down in the +South End, falling into ruins, with filth and litter in the alleys and +mangy cats prowling--that hideousness which is the underside of our +proud and pious city--that is not God, that is blue-blood old ladies +and gentlemen holding acres and acres of land, inherited from their +great-grandfathers, and letting the tenements fall into ruins while +they wait for an increase in land values which they do nothing to +produce. Is that so hard to understand, Priscilla?” + +“No, Grandmother.” + +“Well, that is one detail out of a hundred. Your husband owns millions, +because he was allowed to inherit a mountain of copper, which he did +nothing to earn, and which others manage and work for him. You will +inherit millions because your father is allowed to manufacture the +credit of the country and keep it for his own use--no, Deborah, don’t +argue with me, for I know you haven’t studied our banking system, even +though you are a banker’s wife. Mr. Lowell is a multi-millionaire +because he is allowed to exploit the labor of thousands of slaves +in cotton-mills--even though he never tended a spindle or managed a +factory in his life. Governor Fuller is the richest of all of us, +because he is allowed to sit like a robber baron of the Middle Ages, +and fine everybody a thousand dollars for the privilege of driving a +Packard car in New England. He talks about bandits, and really thinks +they should all be executed! All of us sit on top of our privileges, +and haven’t the least idea of getting off; we use all the powers of +society to seduce or destroy those who resist us--if necessary, we kill +them for a crime, whether they committed it or not.” + +There were many questions that Priscilla would have liked to ask, and +many objections that her mother would have liked to register. But both +of them were frightened, thinking that Cornelia might gasp out her +life on that bed. So they sat silent, with distress in their eyes; and +presently the poor soul was whispering again: + +“My children, I have followed this case for seven years, and here is +what I know about it, a frightful thing to say--from first to last +there has not been one honest man who had anything to do with it on the +government side: not a single one, from the policemen who lied on the +witness-stand to your three blue-blood commissioners who doctored the +record--every man has been seeking a pretext to carry out his will upon +two fanatics whom he considers dangerous. That is the truth about the +Sacco-Vanzetti case; and there lie those two men in the death-house, +one of them a self-taught philosopher, a man of genius who has managed +under the pressure of affliction to make himself into the most +beautiful character I have ever known in my years on this earth--” + +There came tears from the wrinkled old eyelids. “Sacco, too!” she +exclaimed. “A man with the heart of a child!” She put out her hand and +took some papers from the lamp-stand by her bed, and began turning +them over. “Listen; he is writing to Inez, his six-year-old daughter; +a letter which the child may have in after years, to tell her what her +father was like: + +“‘It was the greatest treasure and sweetness in my struggling life that +I could have lived with you and your brother Dante and your mother in a +neat little farm and learn all your sincere words and tender affection. +Then in the summer time to be sitting with you in the home nest under +an oak tree shade, beginning to teach you of life and how to read and +write, to see you running, laughing, crying, and singing through the +little verdant fields picking the wild flowers here and there from +one tree to another and from the clear vivid stream to your mother’s +embrace. The same I have wished and loved to see for other poor girls +and their brothers, happy with their mother and father, as I dreamed +for us. But it was not so and the nightmare of the lower classes has +saddened very badly your father’s soul. The men of this dying old +society brutally have pulled me away from the embrace of your brother +and your poor mother. But in spite of all, the free spirit of your +father’s faith survives.’” + + +XI + +On Monday morning, the last day, Governor Fuller came to his office +in the State House at half past ten o’clock; rosy and smiling, +greeting the newspapermen: “Good morning, boys; a fine day. I’ll be +here at my desk until midnight, boys, doing my duty.” Already there +were deputations waiting for him, lawyers from New York, editors, +writers, labor leaders, society women--he would see them all, in +batches, all day long; he would greet them with his marble smile, +listen with politeness, and say: “I will take what you have said under +consideration.” + +Some came to urge him on the other side; including the newly elected +officers of the American Legion, which was holding a convention in +the State House that morning. Returned soldiers who hadn’t had enough +of war, they were keen for this as for all other killings. They were +singing the “Star-spangled Banner” at noon, when the first group of +pickets began their march on the street outside. + +All day long the pickets would come, one batch after another, ten or +twenty at a time, with their placards of polite protest, all bad words +barred. They would walk their appointed number of paces, and then the +police would close about them, and take them in tow, and march them +to Joy Street, and then--“Files right!”--to the police-station. The +men were packed, eight into a cell, and the women in the guard-room, +waiting for their bail. + +There were well-known names among them. Edna St. Vincent Millay, from +Rockland, Maine, home of her ancestors for many generations. Loveliest +of women poets, she would find this a devastating experience; life +would not seem the same after a rendezvous with murder. “My personal +physical freedom, my power to go in and out when I choose, my personal +life even, is no longer quite so important to me as it once was.... The +physical world, and that once was all in all to me, has at moments such +as these no road through a wood, no stretch of shore, that can bring me +comfort. The beauty of these things can no longer make up to me for all +the ugliness of man, his cruelty, his greed, his lying face.” + +John Dos Passos again, and John Howard Lawson; also Clarina Michelson, +and Paula Holladay--still with her red slicker. And Paxton +Hibben--still with his speech. Alfred Baker Lewis of the Socialist +Party, Harry Canter for the communists, and Margaret Hatfield, who +might be taken as representing the Republicans, since her father +was county treasurer. Professor Ellen Hayes of Wellesley College, +seventy-six years of age, marching with a cane, and holding her head +up high--the most serious hour of a scholar’s life! A picturesque +figure she made, in a Norfolk jacket and skirt, square-toed shoes, a +little flat hat, and white hair bobbed to her shoulders; bright, eager +eyes and sensitive face, now grim--the New England conscience working. +“What is your occupation?” asked the clerk. “Professor of astronomy and +applied mathematics.” They did not book these very often! + +Others to uphold the honor of “Old Boston”: Catharine Huntington, who +lived on Pinckney Street, with ancestry going back three hundred years +in New England; Helen Peabody, and Helen Todd, suffrage workers; Lola +Ridge, the poet--all these New England born, with forefathers on the +_Mayflower_, or the _Fortune_, the second-best boat. This was true of +Edna Millay, of Margaret Hatfield and of Dos Passos. The committee had +sent out a call for everybody “with a background”--the polite Boston +phrase. Nothing would count so much with the newspapers; the humble +Jews and Italians and Slavs--Frishman and Pogrebisky, Chiplovitz and +Chasanovitz, Pulcini and Magliocca and Spognodi--these must be content +to have their names listed wrong. “What is fame?” say the British army +officers. “To die in battle, and have your name misspelled in the +_Gazette_.” + +Betty and Joe had their chance now; the police were taking them as +they came, blue-bloods and all; so near the end, they no longer +worried about public opinion; it would all be over to-night, things +would settle down, the dead wops would stay dead. Over in the office +of the Boston _Herald_, on Tremont Street, they were putting into +type an editorial, kissing the case good-by. A year ago they had been +heroically demanding justice, and winning a prize for it; now what +they wanted was “Normalcy.” “Back to Normalcy! The asperities which +have attended the Sacco-Vanzetti case in its long and tedious journey +through the courts are greatly to be regretted, and should be forgotten +as quickly as possible. Let us get back to business and the ordinary +concerns of life, in the confident belief that the agencies of law have +performed their duties with fairness as well as justice.... The chapter +is closed. The die is cast. The arrow has flown. The voice of the +department store advertising agent has been heard in the office of the +_Herald_.”--They did not publish that last sentence, of course. That +was the truth. + + +XII + +Betty and Joe marshaled all the others, and then joined the last +contingent, a group of needle-trade workers, risking their jobs to go +to jail. The little party came into Beacon Street, and saw a mob of +thousands on the side adjoining the Common. The great iron gates in +front of the State House were closed and chained. The policemen were an +army, the reporters and photographers and plainclothesmen were another. +The pickets were accused of obstructing the sidewalk, but really it was +these others who did it. + +The little group exposed their signs and began to walk. The cops closed +round them, not much formality or delay; the guardians of order were +tired, and the seven-minute provision got scant attention. The pickets +were told to disperse, and when they walked on, paying no attention, +they were shoved against the railing and closed in. “Christ, my arm!” +screamed a Jewish boy, not yet out of his teens. + +“What are you doing?” cried Betty, to the policeman. “You don’t have to +twist his arm like that!” + +“Shut up, you bitch!” was the answer. + +“I don’t have to! I’ll take your number, and make it hot for you, if +you don’t let up on that boy!” + +“Shut your trap, and go back where you came from!” + +“I came from Commonwealth Avenue, and my father is Rupert Alvin, +president of the Pilgrim National Bank of Boston.” + +“Holy Jesus!” said the pious cop, and stopped his torture. + +The reporters came running; a story for the last afternoon editions. +“Have you anything to say, Miss Alvin?” + +“Yes, I have a whole speech to make, but your papers won’t print it.” + +“Give us a try!” + +“Well, I’ll say that the men we are murdering to-night will have a +statue in front of the State House before you and I die. I’ll say there +are two judges whose names will be linked together in history--Pontius +Pilate and Webster Thayer.” Thus Betty, trembling with rage, the white +and pink in her lovely cheeks coming and going like Northern lights in +the sky. + +“Come on, Miss,” said the scared cop; and Betty walked down the street, +remarking, “My husband is back there--Joe Randall; he’s got a statement +written out.” + +So the reporters went to Joe, who gave them a copy of a cablegram he +had sent that day, in answer to one from Pierre Leon in Paris: “Tell +the workers of the world that the way to punish Boston for this crime +is to repudiate the debts. Cancel every dollar owed to America, both +publicly and privately. When the first nation does that, Boston will be +sorry it committed murder. When the second nation does it, Boston will +take steps to bring Sacco and Vanzetti back to life.” Needless to say, +that did not appear in any Boston newspaper! + +The old Joy Street police station, so oddly named. The main room +crowded with tired and disgusted-looking policemen, and young ladies +from sheltered homes, getting their first lessons in profanity. “Take +these god-dam bastards to number nine.” “Take them bitches to the +detention room.” “What the hell we going to do with this new bunch?” +There were more than a hundred and fifty in all, and the old place +had been built before the program of “loitering for liberty” had been +thought of. The walls shook with cheering, and waves of revolutionary +song: + + _Arise, ye prisoners of starvation, + Arise, ye wretched of the earth!_ + +Outside in the crowd there were Reds who joined in. Boston was +honeycombed with sedition, so the patriotic societies declared. + +The women sat on the benches lined against the wall. They spread +newspapers, for the place was in a state of filth not to be described +in print; the walls against which you wanted to lean were covered with +dark smears, the blood of that creature which Vanzetti termed the +“bed-buck.” If a woman asked for a toilet, she was taken to a place +of filth in an open cell among the men. If she asked for a drink, she +was pointed to a faucet with a dipper so dirty that she would not take +it in her hand. If she complained, the word would be, “Why don’t you +go back to Rooshia?” When your time came to be bailed out, you put up +two dollars extra for the bailer; graft in Boston had become a system, +a vested right. You could even have got a drink of the best liquor, +confiscated from the unlicensed bootleggers, if you had looked like the +right sort, and had the price. But you could not get the windows of +this hellhole opened--not unless everybody would agree to stop singing +Bolshevik songs. + + +XIII + +Mary Donovan came, with bail for Powers Hapgood. He was to be her +husband before long, and she had reason to be concerned about him +now, for he had won special enmity. This was his fourth arrest. After +the Sunday demonstration, a fortnight ago, the police had come with +a warrant and arrested him again upon the more serious charge of +“inciting to riot.” “A bare-headed youth leading women into danger,” +said the police sergeant in court, and the judge said, “Six months.” + +Powers was nowhere to be found, and there was great alarm. For several +hours nobody could find out what had become of him; then came a +“tip”--he was in the “Psychopathic.” That had been the bright idea of +the captain of the state police. The shortest time in which anybody +could get through the “Psychopathic” mill was ten days; and meantime +Boston would be “back to normalcy.” It was all for the prisoner’s good, +to keep him out of danger, said the police; the most considerate lot of +sluggers that ever filled their stomachs with bootleg whisky and their +pockets with bootleg graft. + +A weird experience for a member of the Dickey and the Hasty Pudding +Club and the Harvard Memorial Society! He was a handsome, athletic +young fellow, but he looked less impressive after they had stripped him +of his clothes, and put him in a dirty bathrobe. They took him to one +of the wards, and put him in the very bed in which Sacco had once lain! +Next to him was a man who believed himself to be God; on the other +side a man who sat with his head in his hands and never moved for +hours. The attendants apparently desired to get Powers excited, so that +they could put him “on the ice.” They would come and make provocative +remarks; a woman nurse started to express her opinion of Sacco--an ugly +wop, and she pounded the bed as she said it; worse than that, he was an +atheist. Powers was aware of the importance of keeping cool without any +ice; he answered amiably, and with his charming smile. One attendant +whispered that he was in danger, and offered to phone a doctor for him. +Doubtless that was the source of the “tip.” + +Doctors came to examine him; all the regulation mental stuff. You +believe that Sacco and Vanzetti are being framed? Are you yourself +being framed? Have you a mission from God? What are your dreams? Please +take this pencil and write, how much is fourteen times fourteen? If +twelve is greater than ten put a dot inside the circle which is not +inside the square. Did your mother have a hard time at your birth? +Explain this little story, how the Pope was crowned and so the little +boy died of gilt paint. If you can explain it, then it is established +that you are a “nut”! + +They must have found this Harvard graduate an interesting specimen, for +they put him up before the whole staff that evening. They made him put +on his bathrobe backwards; which he thought was to make him look crazy, +but doubtless was to keep a lunatic from committing any indecency. +There were forty or fifty persons, men and women; doctors, nurses and +students, many flappers. They put him on the platform and asked him +to explain his ideas about reforming the world; so he made them a +little socialist speech, ten minutes at least. They began asking him +questions: a flapper wanted to know why he thought Sacco and Vanzetti +were not guilty. What did he think about the McHardy bomb--the one +which had blown out the front of the juror’s home? That was a catch, of +course; he would say it was a provocateur job, and then they would all +know he was a “nut.” + +He said it. He fitted perfectly into their categories. And yet--a +singular development--he began to expand before their eyes, and +before he stopped, he had smashed their categories. A distressing +experience to scientific minds--to have their categories smashed! +Some one had said of Herbert Spencer that “his idea of a tragedy was a +generalization killed by a fact.” + +Powers had many facts, all deadly. The strike-breaking agencies planted +bombs all the time, nothing simpler. It was the accepted technique of +class war in the mining districts; one bomb, and the militia came and +broke up the strike. It had been done right here in Massachusetts, by +the great Mr. William Wood, president of the American Woolen Company; +it had been proved in court, the men he had hired had been sent to +jail for it. Too bad that Bostonians didn’t know their own industrial +history! + +After this session, fifteen alienists turned in a report to the effect +that the former member of the Dickey, the Hasty Pudding Club and the +Harvard Memorial Society was sane; one of them added that he had better +be got out of “Psychopathic” as quickly as possible, or he would make +socialists of the whole staff! They held him overnight, in Sacco’s bed, +and in the morning they turned him loose--the first man who had ever +got through the mill in one day. A triumph for a Harvard education! + + +XIV + +Monday noon, with the execution twelve hours away, the Governor was in +session with three lawyers of national repute: Arthur Garfield Hays, +Frank P. Walsh, and Francis Fisher Kane, formerly a Federal prosecutor +in Pennsylvania. These three were concentrating upon the subject of +the Department of Justice files. They had traveled all the way to +Vermont, to interview the United States Attorney-General. They had then +proceeded to Washington, to interview a subordinate, and had succeeded +in getting the admission that Sacco and Vanzetti were referred to in +the files; also the written statement that the files would be turned +over to the Massachusetts authorities, if these authorities would +request it. Now the three lawyers endeavored, in vain, to persuade the +Governor to make the request. + +At this same hour, Arthur D. Hill was off the coast of Maine in a +steamer, searching in a fog for an island eight miles out, where +lived Justice Stone of the United States Supreme Court; Elias Field, +assistant counsel, was making a motion before another judge of the +Superior Court of Massachusetts; Musmanno was waiting for a chance +to appeal to the Governor with new arguments and affidavits of new +witnesses; while Jessica Henderson and Cornelia were motoring eighty +miles or more to the Governor’s summer home to make their appeal to the +great man’s wife. + +A stately home for a multi-millionaire, set far back from the +boulevard, and well hidden by shrubbery. When the owner himself was +there, a miniature army was on guard; twenty-six men, with several +machine-guns, and seventy-five reserves in a near-by town. But +apparently it was not feared that the enemy would harm the family, for +now there was only one plainclothesman on watch. + +The Governor’s wife received the visitors courteously, and heard them +to the end. Evidently the other members of the family resented the +strain being put upon her, for three different persons came, seeking to +cut the session short; but Mrs. Fuller would not have it so. + +Cornelia knew something about the cares of office. She had realized +that possibly the jauntiness of the supersalesman was merely a mask; +it was his idea of being “game,” the male courage which defies death +and danger. Certainly it was not the same in his family; his wife +had been ill, his son and daughter had been ill. “It has taken years +from his life!” exclaimed the woman. “You can have no idea what it +means. We, too, sit in the electric-chair.” Cornelia, who had lived +for forty years in a home of wealth, knew the whole story--even though +in Josiah’s day they had not thought about anarchists and dynamite. +Somehow or other, great sums of money found a way to wreck the +happiness of those who held them. Yet, no one would give them up, no +one would cease the mad chase! + +Cornelia poured out her story. It was one to move any woman’s heart, +and the Governor’s lady sat with tears welling into her eyes. A little +boy, her youngest child, played about the room and sat on the arm +of Cornelia’s chair; she told him about Plymouth, and about Trando, +who had made himself a violinist; about Dante Sacco, who had bidden +his father farewell in the death-cell, but had not been allowed to +touch him through the bars. She told the mother about the framing of +witnesses, and some of the new evidence they had found. But even while +she spoke, she read in the face of her listener that her errand was a +vain one. + +“I can do nothing but this, Mrs. Thornwell; I will have the Governor +see you to-day, so that you may tell him these things.” + +“I have already told him so much,” answered Cornelia. “I was hoping you +would go with me to the Governor.” + +“No, I could not do that; it would do no good, I assure you.” + +Mrs. Fuller would telephone, and see to it that Mrs. Thornwell and +Mrs. Henderson had another interview that afternoon. The Governor must +be made to comprehend those circumstances which made it so doubtful +whether the men were really guilty. The Governor’s lady put her arm +about Cornelia as she led her out to the car; and Cornelia thought, if +only the women would run the world! But no, she had seen it happen; +women went into public life, and became as hard as the men. Could it be +that, as Vanzetti said, there was something fundamentally immoral about +the business of dominating the lives of your fellows? + + +XV + +Three hours later they were back at the State House, having made no +stop for lunch. There were larger crowds than ever in the corridors +before the Governor’s chambers, more than half of them secret service +men and reporters. Mrs. Fuller had kept her promise; the Governor would +see the two ladies, the secretary said. + +Tom O’Connor sat with them while they waited; a reporter who was now +with the defense, having given up a State House job a year ago. He +would tell them the news. + +Delegations to see the Governor, all through that day; there had been +more than nine hundred telegrams received; few of them read. Musmanno +had brought more affidavits; he had had word that his application for +a writ had been docketed with the United States Supreme Court. Fuller +had not said what he would do. A deputation of labor men from New York +had been in a while ago; Fuller had said to one of them, “I know the +men are guilty, so I don’t care whether they had a fair trial or not.” +“He said those same words to me,” said Cornelia; and then, “old Boston” +speaking in her, “Don’t quote me, please.” + +Never had there been so many sensations, piling one upon another--not +in the memory of the oldest employee at the State House. The +Springfield _Republican_ had published a powerful editorial, +underscoring the doubts as to the men’s guilt; Seward Collins, +publisher of the _Bookman_, had put up the money to insert it as a +full-page advertisement in every Boston newspaper. The _Globe_ had +refused the money; others had run the ad that morning, and the State +House gang was furious. Then, bright and early, who should walk in but +Waldo Cook, editor of the _Republican_--sixty-two years of age, and the +most respected journalist in New England. He came with a deputation of +editors to see the Governor, and the private secretary tackled him. “I +understand, Mr. Cook, that you got twenty thousand dollars from the +defense committee for that editorial.” “It’s a damned lie!” said the +editor. + +“I suppose they get used to taking money here in the State House,” said +Cornelia; and O’Connor grinned. The Governor himself was no better than +his secretary, when it came to repeating charges without evidence. He +had said to one deputation that Professor Frankfurter had been paid +great sums by the defense; he would go on saying this, even though he +had been many times assured that it was false. He was obsessed with +hatred of Frankfurter, and blamed him more than any other; he would +accuse people of having read Frankfurter’s book, and if they admitted +this crime, he would not hear them any longer. + + +XVI + +The two ladies were ushered into the presence: two persistent pests +who had sneaked into a man’s home, seeking to undermine his domestic +peace! Nevertheless, he would be polite. He had set himself the task of +remaining here until midnight, and seeing every one who came; and one +person was about the same as the next. + +He started at once on the aggressive. “My wife tells me that you +ladies still don’t think the men had a fair trial. But you must know +they had three trials--one before Judge Thayer, one before the Lowell +Commission, and one which I have conducted in these rooms. I tell you +that I would not ask for my own son any fairer trial than that which +took place before Mr. Lowell.” + +Said Cornelia: “It is the first principle of our law that the accused +shall be confronted by the witnesses against them. But Sacco and +Vanzetti did not see many of the witnesses who appeared before Mr. +Lowell.” + +“Surely you must realize the absurdity of such a proposition! How could +those desperate anarchists have been brought every day to the State +House?” + +“All right, if it is too much trouble to conform to the principles of +our law, let us follow our convenience--but then don’t claim that it is +a fair trial.” + +“The men were represented by the best counsel.” + +“Even the counsel were barred sometimes; they were not present at +Judge Thayer’s examination; they were limited in questioning Katzmann. +Worse than that--they don’t even know the names of all the witnesses. +I understand that Mr. Lowell is saying that he had ‘confidential +information.’ He is telling that to all his friends; and what place +have secret whispers in a fair trial? You say that the trial before +Judge Thayer was fair--yet the Lowell report admits that Judge Thayer +committed ‘a grave breach of official decorum.’” + +“That was after the trial, Mrs. Thornwell.” + +“It was while he still had the various motions before him. He was +still the judge of the case, and the sole judge, right up to the time +he pronounced sentence last April, and automatically excluded any +other judge from acting. Are not men entitled to have new evidence +considered before an unprejudiced judge? And who else has considered +that evidence?” + +“I have, Mrs. Thornwell; and I think that I have common sense, even if +I haven’t legal training.” + +“Pardon me, Governor, but we have suffered much from inability to get +you to consider new evidence. We brought you the express receipt for +eels, but we are told that you say you know Vanzetti never got them. +We bring you the Pinkerton reports, but we don’t know if you know +what is in them. They cancel Mary Splaine, but you still go on citing +Mary Splaine. We bring you the son of Lola Andrews, and he tells you +that his mother is not to be trusted, but you go on trusting her. +You tell Musmanno that you don’t believe Vanzetti ever sold fish, and +Musmanno brings you an affidavit from Carbone, the wholesaler from whom +Vanzetti bought fish in Plymouth regularly. We bring you all sorts of +affidavits, but nothing does the least good, because you have some +secret information that we are not permitted to know about, and that +determines the whole matter for you. What is it, Governor--tell us now, +instead of too late. Believe me, the world is going to know some day!” + +Thus the little old white-haired woman; and with elaborate and patient +courtesy the sorely tried statesman assured her that she had fallen +victim to the machinations of dangerous and depraved persons. He had +the duty of deciding this case, not she; and when he made promises to +witnesses in fear of their lives, he would keep those promises. When +she broke down and wept, and Mrs. Henderson began to plead for mercy, +he said that Massachusetts was in the grip of a crime wave, and that to +pardon guilty men would set a dangerous precedent. He had refused to +pardon the “car-barn bandits,” even though they were native Americans, +one of them a World War veteran. No, he was not troubled by the clamor +from outside, the pleadings of what people said were “great minds”; +they might be great in their own line, but they didn’t know about the +Sacco-Vanzetti case. This clamor would pass quickly. When Cornelia +started to argue against capital punishment, his answer was: “You and I +both sleep better in a state which has capital punishment.” + +Cornelia gazed at him, with a look of dismay. She could not reply to +such words. Men had killed their fellows for fear and for hate, for +piety and for glory, for exercise, for sport, for food; but here for +the first time in recorded history they killed for a soporific! The +little old woman stood up, trembling. + +“Governor Fuller, answer me this: What are you going to do when we find +the real criminals? Somewhere in the world are two men who really did +the Bridgewater job; somewhere are four, or five, who did the South +Braintree job. And rest assured, we are going to find them--we are +never going to rest until we have found them--and then, how will you be +able to face life? What will all you gentlemen do--judges and governors +and college presidents--knowing that you sent two innocent men to +their death? What will there be in the world for you--but insanity or +suicide?” + +He did not answer, and she went out, with despair plainly written +upon her aged face, for all the newspapermen to see and record. In +the corridor they told her the news, right hot off the wire--Arthur +Hill had telephoned to his office, Justice Stone had turned down his +request. The lawyer was up in Maine, and could not get back to Boston +until morning, so his work was at an end. + +What had Mrs. Thornwell to say to that? What was she going to do? The +reporters gathered about, eager for more story. A marvelous melodrama +this was to them--a whole day packed full of thrills! Melodrama at +the State House, with millionaires and blue-bloods and “headliners” +of all sorts in a fourteen-hour stream! All over the city, with two +hundred persons arrested, and tens of thousands looking on; with poets +and hoboes, “Reds” and “scions of wealth,” famous lawyers and judges, +playing their lively parts! All over the world, with bombs exploding +and plate glass shattering, mobs yelling and cavalry charging! And +at the end death waiting, in the aspect of a chair with widespread, +capacious arms, gaping for its victims! Monday, August 22nd, 1927, a +date never to be forgotten in the history of the world! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE LAST ENEMY + + +I + +In a room in the Hotel Bellevue, adjoining the State House, five +lawyers from New York, all volunteers in the case, had worked all +Sunday night and part of Monday, eighteen consecutive hours, concocting +legal formulas and having them typed. On the roof of the hotel were +detectives, and in the windows of the State House opposite; for the +spectacle of lights burning all night in a room known to be occupied by +Reds exercised an irresistible spell upon the authorities. “What are +they doing now? Where are they going?” Half a dozen automobiles waited +outside the hotel, and whenever one of the lawyers took a taxi, the +august Commonwealth of Massachusetts trailed behind. + +Now the Boston lawyers had failed, and admitted their failure; the New +York lawyers had the field, with seven or eight hours to go. They asked +for a hearing before Federal Judge Lowell, and he set the hour of six +o’clock. A court session consisting of one judge, five lawyers, and a +score of newspapermen. The judge resented the intrusion of “foreigners” +into this case, and took occasion to say what all ruling-class Boston +was thinking. He accused the strangers of “trying the case in the +newspapers”; he interrupted them again and again to demand “law, not +eloquence.” When William Schuyler Jackson, ex-Attorney General of +New York State, was showing the conspiracy carried on by Katzmann to +deceive the jury at the Dedham trial, the judge broke in: “Did you ever +see a Norfolk county farmer?” The lawyer, disconcerted, had to admit, +“Not in reality.” Whereupon the judge snapped out: “Well, if you had, +you’d have a better opinion of that jury.” + +It made magnificent copy for the newspapers; the _Herald_ put it in a +“box”--“Judge Lowell Praises Norfolk County Farmers”--and all patriots +swelled with pride. Wonderful beings were Norfolk county farmers, and +wonderful also the Lowells, who spoke only to Cabots, who spoke to +God. It was the hard luck of the ex-Attorney General of New York State +that he was not familiar with the details of the case; otherwise he +might have made answer to the arrogant judge: “The Sacco-Vanzetti jury +consisted of two real estate men, two machinists, a grocer, a mason, +a stockkeeper, a clothing salesman, a mill operative, a shoemaker, a +lastmaker, and _one_ Norfolk county farmer!” + +The lawyers loaded themselves into an automobile, together with Isaac +Don Levine, journalist, and set out for Beverly, to make a last appeal +to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Detectives trailed behind them, and +more detectives met them at their destination. The very old gentleman +sat in his parlor, talking with two very old ladies; a chaste New +England home, everything antique, in the taste of a bygone age. The +lawyers presented their petition, and the judge sat himself down +to peruse it--four thousand words of “law, not eloquence.” A dead +silence; and Levine sat in the hall, listening to the ticking of a +“grandfather’s clock.” “Life-death, life-death, life-death,” it said; +the listener shivered. + +The old gentleman looked up. “I appreciate the general force of your +argument,” he said--and their hearts leaped. He was famous for the +so-called “judicial mind,” his ability to consider legal principles +in a vacuum completely freed of human emotion. He went on: “I am of +the opinion that the petition is covered by the principles stated +in my decisions upon the former applications for habeas corpus and +certiorari, and therefore I am compelled to deny the writ.” + +The lawyers excused themselves, and got into the car again, and whirled +back to Boston. One more hope; Federal Judge Anderson, who was not +quite so free from human emotion. Seven years back, he had condemned +the Red raids in an exhaustive and scorching decision. Now he was +attending the Institute of Politics at Williamstown, two hundred +miles away, and Tom O’Connor had arranged at the East Boston naval +airport to charter an airplane to take John Finerty, a leading lawyer +of Washington, formerly assistant counsel for the U. S. Railroad +Commission. It would be a risky journey at night, but they had worked +for eighteen hours over those four thousand words of “law, not +eloquence,” and wanted to make it count if they could. + +The nearest landing field was in Albany, New York, fifty miles from +Williamstown. O’Connor had arranged with a taxi company to have a cab +waiting at the landing field. All was ready; but alas, some one tipped +off the authorities at the airport as to who these nefarious persons +were, and a naval officer ordered them off the premises. “It would give +me pleasure to shoot you,” he said to the ex-Attorney General of New +York State; and next day the newspapers reported that the Commonwealth +of Massachusetts has been asked to put a special guard over the +airport, threatened with seizure by the Reds! + + +II + +From a window of the Hod Carriers’ Union in Salem Street, Ella Reeve +Bloor was explaining the case as an episode in the class struggle to +a crowd of some hundreds of solemn-faced workers. “Mother” Bloor, +they called her; sixty-five years old, she had raised a brood of five +children, and turned them loose in the radical movement, and so was +free to wander over America, wherever workingmen on strike called for +a martyr. A little round jolly figure, full of laughter, brown as a +hickory nut and as solid, she said her say, until the policemen forced +their way into the union headquarters and dragged her out. “Inciting to +riot,” was the charge. + +At the same time Paula Holladay was getting arrested in her red +“slicker” again; they took it away from her this time! Over near +Charlestown prison another group were preparing to walk into the den of +blue-coated lions; their leader was Helen Peabody, one of those “with a +background,” who conceived it her duty to be in jail when the execution +took place. In an obscure hall near defense headquarters, Betty and Joe +were speaking to a somber crowd. It would not save Sacco and Vanzetti, +but it would save their message, as Joe pointed out. Let the workers +learn, and organize to defend themselves against ruling class murder. + +A curious instance, then going on, to illustrate Joe’s message. +Everywhere in Boston the workers had been dragged to jail for +attempting to voice their protest; but in the town of Peabody, some +twenty miles away from Boston, there was now going on a meeting in +the public square, at which ten thousand workers were voicing their +feelings unmolested. How came that? Quite simple; the workers of +Peabody had taken the precaution to elect themselves a Socialist mayor. +Yesterday, Sunday, the chief of police had broken up a mass meeting, +in the regulation Mike Crowley style; the mayor had been on vacation, +and hearing the news, had hastened back, and removed the chief of +police from office, and taken charge of to-night’s meeting himself, +and introduced Alfred Baker Lewis as the principal speaker. Would the +workers of Boston learn anything from that? + +Governor Fuller was in session with Congressman La Guardia, who had +flown all the way from Washington in an airplane; an Italian, he +pleaded for mercy for two men of his race. Musmanno, having presented +four new affidavits in vain, waited outside for a chance to present one +more. He argued with Attorney General Reading, counsel for the Decimo +Club and the “L.A.W.,” seeking to persuade him that it would be a +discourtesy to the United States Supreme Court, to take the life of two +men, when their appeal was actually on file before that high tribunal. +Mr. Reading did not answer Musmanno’s argument; neither did he say what +he would advise the Governor. Death was only three or four hours away. + +Over in the death cells, Sacco was bidding a last farewell to his wife, +and Vanzetti to his sister. The men stretched their arms through the +bars; the women broke down, and had to be carried out, sobbing wildly. +They belonged to a demonstrative race--one of the reasons why stern New +England did not like them. Nevertheless, New England would read about +it--column after column in the next morning’s papers--“sob stuff,” that +sold best of anything. + +Rosina and Luigia decided to try one last appeal to the Governor. +They had not intended to do it; they knew in their hearts that they +would fail; but they had several hours to pass, and it was easier +to do anything than to do nothing. Friends telephoned and made the +appointment, and at nine o’clock they arrived at the State House, +a fortress surrounded by armed men, the searchlights which usually +illuminated the golden dome now turned upon the crowds in the streets. +They ascended in the elevator, and Rosina walked ahead, through the +rows of silent newspapermen; Luigia followed hesitatingly, bewildered +by this strange environment. Musmanno was there to act as interpreter, +and they were shown into the private office, where so many had sat and +poured out eloquence in vain. + +Rosina Sacco spoke first, in English. She told of her faith in her +husband’s innocence. She told about the trial; about Lola Andrews, the +hysteric; about Captain Proctor, who had admitted his trick; about +Goodridge, the many-times convicted crook; about Mary Splaine, and what +the Pinkerton reports had revealed about her. She told about Judge +Thayer; over and over, she insisted that the trial had not been fair. +She asked for mercy. The Governor was a father, and he was sentencing +two children to lose their father, and to wear a dreadful brand all +their lives. + +The great man listened with politeness--his store of the commodity was +inexhaustible. He turned to the frail worn sister of Vanzetti, who +began speaking in soft musical Italian, the young lawyer translating +sentence by sentence. She had just come from her brother in the gloomy +deathhouse; his protestations of innocence were ringing in her ears. +He had asked her to convey a message to the Governor. Some weeks ago +Bartolomeo had shaken hands with the Governor in the prison, and he +thought that he had demonstrated his innocence; the Governor had given +him that impression; now he could not understand how the Governor would +let the death sentence stand. If he could have one more chance to talk +with the Governor and answer his objections, he, Bartolomeo, was sure +the death sentence would not be carried out. + +For more than an hour the salesman of motor-cars listened, without +interrupting. At last the two women said that they were through; and +then, leaning forward slightly in his chair, he gave his answer. He +appreciated the feelings of both of them, and was sorry for them. +But he had taken an oath to uphold the constitution and laws of the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and his conscience dictated that he +should permit the law to take its course. + +But still, he would be polite. Excessively so; as if he were paying +compliments at a social function; or as if he were selling a Packard +limousine. To some final argument of Musmanno’s he replied: “What you +have said impresses me greatly. But even that is nothing compared with +the eloquence of these ladies’ presence.” Was this one of the dreadful +perversions of Puritanism? A kind of sadistic pleasure in inflicting +torture with a smile? Whatever it was, it failed to make a hit with +Rosina Sacco. “Let us go,” she said, coldly, and they rose, and walked +slowly from the room. + +The newspapermen besought Musmanno to tell them what had happened, and +he tried to do it; he touched upon a few of the arguments which the +women had presented, but before he had got very far the tears began to +run down his cheeks, and he had to stop. He went over to a chair and +sat down and buried his face in his hands and sobbed. It was then half +past ten, and the grandfather’s clocks which kept the time for all +Massachusetts were ticking steadily, with fifty-four hundred seconds +still to go. + + +III + +At six o’clock Cornelia had gone back to her home. The chauffeur had +to help her up the stairs; and there were Deborah and Clara with the +Negro maid, ready to come running, and lead her to the bed, and make +any amount of fuss; to bring her tea or coffee, or a glass of milk, or +a poached egg on toast. No, she could not eat; they pleaded, and wanted +to phone for Dr. Morrow. The tears ran down their cheeks; they would +do anything, abase themselves, agree with her wildest words, in the +effort to quiet her, and persuade her that their love meant something. +They were terrified at her appearance and her attitude; ashamed because +they had shown so little sympathy in the past. Yes, no doubt there were +very fine and good qualities in anarchists--anything, anything--so that +their mother would stop killing herself! + +Clara’s precious youngest had got poison ivy all over him, and was shut +up in the house with a poultice over his eyes; her oldest, who was just +out of Harvard, was suspected to be on the verge of getting engaged +at Bar Harbor; the oldest little fat treasure of Priscilla had got a +bee sting over one eyelid, otherwise his mother would have been here. +Quincy Thornwell had won a chess match--such items of family gossip +Clara poured out, in a premeditated torrent--only to discover that her +mother was not hearing a word. “Please, Clara, I can’t think about +anything now. Let me be quiet.” + +Deborah had taken the precaution to get a prescription from Dr. Morrow; +it was his advice that Cornelia should take a strong sleeping powder +and forget the ugly world and everything in it for at least twelve +hours. But Cornelia said no. When her oldest daughter tried to insist, +she said, “I was talking with one of the lawyers from New York, and +he offered me a quart of whisky. If all hopes fail, he will retire to +his hotel room and get drunk.” The silence of Deborah and Clara said +plainly, it was what everybody in Boston had known about that New York +crowd! Cornelia, reading their thoughts, remarked grimly: “The whisky +might give him pleasure, so that is immoral. But a sleeping powder is +strictly business!” + +The women decided to call in Henry, who understood the insides of +this crisis so much better than they. So Henry put off dinner with an +important banker from New York, and came over to sit by the bedside +and tell his mother-in-law how it was possible for Boston to do this +dreadful deed; how it was possible for such wickedness to be organized, +and in control of society. “With all that new evidence before them, +Henry! And with an appeal to the United States Supreme Court actually +docketed!” + +“Docketed doesn’t mean anything, Mother. It simply means that you have +put your request on file; it doesn’t mean that it will get anywhere. In +this case I assure you it wouldn’t.” + +“Henry, if we could manage to keep those boys alive until October, we +could really get the public to understand about this case, and they +would never dare to execute them.” + +“Well, I guess that’s just it, Mother. Fuller can’t afford to let the +case go on growing and growing.” + +She pondered that. “I have just heard that Quincy has won a chess +match; and now the Governor is winning one, with human lives for pawns!” + + +IV + +She told about her last interview, and the things that had been said. +She told about the trip to Rye Beach; it was quite a story, and helped +to pass the time without whisky or drugs. Deborah and Clara refrained +from breaking in; there must be no arguments, nothing to excite the +patient; each minute that passed was a danger escaped. Deborah ventured +to make some remarks on the subject of Mrs. Fuller, and the problem +of Catholic wives and Protestant husbands. The Governor was such an +ardent Baptist, he wanted to teach a Sunday school. Was he letting his +children be brought up as Catholics? + +But no use; Cornelia could not be diverted from the main topic. “Henry, +did you find out what is that ‘confidential information’ that Mr. +Lowell and the Governor are talking about?” + +“There’s a lot of it, Mother; they keep quoting the Italian colony and +what it thinks about the case.” + +“The ‘Italian colony’! Do you stop to realize what the words mean? +There are as many differences inside the Italian colony as in any other +part of New England. The ruling group is Fascist; they hate Sacco and +Vanzetti exactly as Judge Thayer does--only more so, because they know +them better. The majority of the colony is Catholic; and when Bart +was arrested he had on him a letter in which one of their priests +was described as a ‘pig.’ Of course all the Italians know who that +priest is. Does the Governor take the opinion of the priest? Or of his +parishioners?” + +“The story runs something like this, Mother: one of the Italian +anarchists got drunk and talked, and admitted that Sacco had been in +the bandit car at South Braintree.” + +“I’ve heard that,” said Cornelia. “I’ve heard many such stories. But of +course I couldn’t guess which one the Governor of our Commonwealth and +the President of our University would elect to believe. What do they +say about Bart?” + +“They don’t think Bart was in the car, but they think he knew about it, +which made him an accessory before the fact.” + +“Before, or after, Henry--are they sure which?” A pause. “And so that +is what Mr. Lowell meant when he said that he thought Vanzetti was +guilty ‘on the whole’! I am solving the riddles which have tormented me +for weeks! Who do they say was actually in the car?” + +“Boda and Coacci and Orciani.” + +“Mike Stewart’s theory complete! Have they overlooked the fact that +Orciani punched a time clock that day in the foundry where he worked?” + +“The story is that he got somebody else to do it for him.” + +Cornelia sat, gazing with her inner eye into the face of Massachusetts +statesmanship. “So that is why our boys have to die! Somebody got drunk +and talked, and the talk came to the ears of our great men! Stop and +think what this means, Henry--the breakdown of our legal system and our +moral codes! Was it one of the guilty men who got drunk and talked?” + +“No, that is not what I understand.” + +“It couldn’t very well have been Sacco or Vanzetti, since they have +been in jail, and couldn’t get liquor in our model prisons, and anyhow, +they don’t drink. It couldn’t have been Coacci, who was deported +before the arrests took place; nor Orciani, nor little Mike Boda, who +are sitting out on a barren rock somewhere in the Mediterranean, as +prisoners of the Fascist government.” + +“Fuller doesn’t claim it was the guilty ones who talked; it was one of +their comrades.” + +“That is what I am trying to get straight. One of the bandits told a +comrade, and this comrade got drunk and talked! Did he talk to Governor +Fuller?” + +“That is not the way I heard it.” + +“Hardly! There are automobile salesmen who get people drunk, I suppose, +but not ardent Baptists, with Sunday school inclinations. We have to +assume that some government spy got the anarchist comrade drunk, and +then the anarchist comrade talked, and the spy told the Governor about +it. Or maybe even that is too undignified for a Governor--surely it +would have been for Mr. Lowell! Deborah, do you think Mr. Lowell would +stoop to listen to a spy?” + +Deborah understood that this was a rhetorical question, and prudently +made no reply; Cornelia went on, working herself into a cold fury. + +“Our dignity requires us to assume that the spy talked to some police +official, whose business it is to know spies. So then we have this: +Sacco or Vanzetti or Coacci or Orciani or Boda told an anarchist +comrade that they were guilty; this comrade got drunk and told a police +spy; this spy told the police; the police told the Governor; and the +Governor told Mr. Lowell and Mr. Stratton and Judge Grant! So they +have ‘confidential information,’ and decide that ‘on the whole’ they +think Vanzetti was guilty! That is how our laws are enforced, that is +our police system and our legal system and our judicial system and our +political system and our educational system! Such are the masters of +our youth and the guides of our intellectual life!” + +“Mother--” began Deborah; but Cornelia exercised the privilege of age, +to do the talking when she wanted to. + +“There is a saying--all three of our educated commissioners know it, +and possibly told it to our Governor--‘in vino veritas.’ But proverbs +are false more often than they are true. Think how many circumstances +there might be under which you would get falsehood from drunkenness, +instead of truth. Suppose there was some personal grudge; or some +vainglorious fool, taking pride in knowing a secret that was baffling +the whole world! Suppose it was some one who had heard a rumor, and +turned it into knowledge; suppose the talker were a Fascist agent, +a spy himself--such things have happened. Anything in the world can +happen, where men make their living by betrayal, and their rewards +depend upon the tales they bring in. I know enough about the anarchist +movement to say that you will find every sort of disordered mind in it; +also, you will find every kind of rascal among the men who are trying +to destroy it. From such a situation there arises a poisonous mist, +a gas cloud of gossip and scandal. I thought that the whole purpose +of our judicial system was to deliver men from such terrors; to force +accusers to come out into the daylight, in open court! But here our +great Commonwealth has proved itself worse than one of the Sewing +Circles!” + + +V + +Cornelia sat up, with an announcement which terrified her family. “I am +going to see those boys before they die!” + +“Mother! Mother!” All three of them started to protest at once. +Impossible! Not to be thought of! + +“I went Saturday, and the warden wouldn’t let me see them. I wrote them +letters; but that is not enough, I refuse to accept it. I am not going +to let them go out of this world without bidding them good-by.” + +“Mother, the strain would kill you!” + +“It is less than the strain of lying here doing nothing. I am only two +or three miles from them--” + +“A difficult two or three miles, Mother.” It was Henry speaking. “The +bridge is closed, and the streets roped off--” + +“Governor Fuller can write a dozen words, and the road will be clear. +He is going to do it for me! I am going to have a talk with Bart--and +ask him to tell me the truth! I know that I can help him, and Nick, +too. I am going to see the Governor--phone for me, Henry, and make sure +he is still at his office.” + +Cornelia got up, in spite of all protests, and began to arrange her +hair and put on her hat. Henry phoned, and got the information; then, +when he saw that all argument was futile--that she was going to call +a taxicab and go alone if necessary--he said: “Stay here, Mother, and +rest. I will go and get the pass for you--if Fuller will give it.” + +“He _must_ give it! I will not take a refusal! It will cost him +nothing, it will do nobody any harm. Deborah, you go with Henry; you +gave that creature a dinner party, now make him pay for it!” + +All right, Deborah would go; anything to keep the poor soul quiet for +another half hour. “It is a mad idea, Mother, but I will do the best I +can.” + +“I know that you can do it! Promise me that you will do it, Henry--I +will never forgive you if you play me a trick.” + +“I wouldn’t do that, Mother--” + +“You might think it was for my good. But I know myself better than +you. I have a right to say good-by to those friends who have taught me +so much. Tell the Governor that maybe they will confess to me--he’ll +be fool enough to believe that, I am sure! Tell him that you are +very important persons, that he will shine by your reflected light! +Telephone me the moment you get the answer--because I am coming myself +if you fail!” + +The State House lies just over the top of Beacon Hill, and it took +Henry’s car only five minutes to get there. Being large and expensive, +it went past the guards without delay, and very soon there was a +ring of the telephone by Cornelia’s bed; she took the receiver with +trembling hands, and heard the voice of her son-in-law: “All right, +Mother. The Governor has been so kind as to give his consent.” She +could tell by the phrasing and the tone of his voice that he was +speaking from the great man’s office. + +She got up and got herself ready, with Clara’s help, and in a few +minutes Henry’s chauffeur was at the door, ready to assist her down the +stairs. Clara went along--they would all go, expecting her to collapse, +fearing she might die of the strain. Since opposition only made things +harder, they must turn themselves into slaves of her whim; at the same +time agreeing in their hearts with the Governor, they would be glad +when this was over! + + +VI + +There sat a strange man in the seat by the chauffeur; a police official +in civilian clothing, who had been at the State House, and whom the +Governor had assigned as an escort. They came quickly to Prison Point +Bridge, across the Miller River to Charlestown, where the old prison +stands. At the bridge entrance the lights of the car fell upon officers +waving the traffic to a detour; behind them a solid line of blue-coats, +with riot-guns in hand; behind these latter a group of mounted men, +and behind them iron gates. A couple of motorcycle officers shot out +towards them, blowing a shrill warning to bring them to a halt. + +So began the tedious process of breaking down the barriers which the +stern Commonwealth had set up against anarchists and bomb-throwers that +night. The police official produced the paper with the golden crest +at the top and the magic signature at the bottom. “To police officers +of Boston and Charlestown: You will permit Mr. Henry Cabot Winters +and party to drive to Charlestown prison this Monday evening. Warden +Hendry will permit Mrs. Thornwell to converse with Sacco and Vanzetti +for one hour, subject to his convenience, and without interference with +his plans. Alvan T. Fuller, Governor.” It was a signature familiar to +all Bostonians, being regularly attached to advertisements, telling +the eagerly expectant motor-world the latest wonders which “Packard” +had to impart. “This will prove to be the most popular model which +Packard has ever offered to sons and daughters who may have their own +cars.... When may we show you this latest offering?” It did not seem to +the Commonwealth at all humiliating to have a Governor who wheedled; +neither did it trouble the sons and daughters of the rich who were able +to have their own luxury cars that the same signature was attached to +advertisements and to death warrants. + +The fact that the police official was not in uniform may have accounted +for the delay. One of the motorcycle men took the order back to the +group, to show to his superior; after which he rode out to the car +again and ordered it forward. The blue-clad lines gave way, the gates +swung open, and the car rolled through. But half way across the bridge, +there was another pair of gates, with another line of guardians, +and the same procedure to be repeated. It was like the German +entrenchments--the Hindenburg line, the Siegfried line, the Wotan line. +In the river, below the bridge, were speed-boats of the harbor-patrol, +their searchlights sweeping the docks and the tracks of the Boston and +Maine Railroad. Along the tracks were searchlights, three in a group, +weaving futurist patterns on the night. + +A third line, strongest of all, at the Charlestown end of the bridge. +The military formalities were complied with, and the car started up +Austin Street, when the revolving searchlight on the prison tower +picked it out, and seemed to be a signal to a score of mounted troopers +to come galloping from every direction. Other searchlights, mounted on +the prison wall and sweeping up and down the streets, brought out their +figures, shining white for moments, then lost in semi-darkness. + +“Why don’t you send a man to pass us through?” demanded the police +official, with some irritation; but apparently they hadn’t intended to +pass any one through. They had a deadline, three hundred yards from +the prison walls, blocking every street, and running over the tops of +houses, where men sat with machine-guns, and stores of tear-bombs. The +inhabitants of houses within the barred area were confined indoors, not +even permitted on the steps; they could lean out of windows, and the +searchlights shone upon rows of faces, staring white. + +The instructions had been for the car to go to the warden’s home, +which constituted a separate entrance to the prison enclosure. “No +publicity, if you please, Mr. Winters,” the Governor had said; and +this was to the taste of a blue-blood family. The warden would be +notified by telephone to expect them, and would smuggle them in, with +no reporters crowding about, and no picturesque stories in the morning: +“Widow of Ex-Governor Visits Condemned Men in Last Hours!” The car had +to make a part circle of the aged fortress, and it gave even high-up +Brahmins a realization of their importance, the favor which was being +granted to them. Eight times they were halted and investigated; every +foot of the way the searchlights followed them suspiciously, revealing +bright bayonets and heavy riot guns, firemen with high pressure hoses +ready for action, rows of horsemen drawn up against the prison walls, +and motorcycles darting suddenly forth. Once a bomb went off--but +not a dangerous one; only newspaper photographers taking photographs +of the line of cavalry defending the main gate of the prison. Earth, +water, even air were being guarded; searchlights played in the sky--a +spiritualist medium having called at the prison, announcing that she +had had a vision of an airplane dropping bombs. The Sacco-Vanzetti case +had started from crystal-gazing, so it was reasonable that it should +end with clairvoyance. + + +VII + +They came to the warden’s home and drew up at the curb. More parleys, +after which the police official assisted Cornelia out of the car. The +chauffeur was told to stay in his seat--no unnecessary chances taken. +Deborah and Clara and Henry would sit where they were. The armed men +stepped back, and the door opened, and prison guards met the visitors, +and silently led them through the house and into the yard, past the +cell-blocks, oblong brick buildings with rows of narrow barred windows. +The lights were out, and the prison was supposed to be asleep, but the +searchlights made the scene as bright as day, and nobody slept. There +were white faces at the windows, and now and then a chorus of cries: +“Let them out! Let them out!” Wild beasts, barking, howling, roaring in +their cages! + +To Cornelia it was as if she had taken Dante’s place, in a journey +through the various stages of hell: all this elaborate display of +killing power, a thousand intricate and ingenious inventions, all the +arts and sciences which civilization had contrived, applied to the +wholesale and instantaneous wiping out of human life. The fact that +this military force was for Cornelia’s protection, that it gave back +respectfully before the magic of her name, only filled her with the +greater abhorrence, only proved her thesis, that its purpose was not +justice, but the comfort and safety of the rich. + +The death-house: a square brick building, immediately under the prison +wall, a highly unstrategic position, which in part accounted for the +need of a miniature army. Upon the wall with its wooden walk stood a +line of machine gunners, and men were lined up several deep upon the +sidewalk of Rutherford Avenue below the wall. Across the street were +firemen with four high-pressure hoses. + +There was a group of guards at the door of the death-house, and the +warden came out, and took over the task of escorting the privileged +old lady. A dreadful ordeal: Cornelia had to pass through the +execution-chamber, and the canvas cover was off the chair; the heavy +leather straps at the hands and feet dangled and called for their +victims. One glance, and then the warden half lifted Cornelia and +walked her swiftly on. He had had to do that same thing for many women, +relatives of the condemned. It was not a jolly job this plump and +round-faced old Scotchman had found himself. + +The death cells, three in a row, opening upon a corridor; each cell a +narrow little room with steel-barred door; in each a cot, a table, a +little bureau. A neat, white-tiled floor, and on the outside, running +the length of the corridor, a painted line, six feet from the cells, +beyond which no visitor might step. Cornelia knew the lay-out, the +lawyers having described it to her. In the first cell was Madeiros, in +the second Sacco, in the third, the farthest from the death-chamber, +Vanzetti. It was the order in which they were to “go.” + +Cornelia tottered to the last cell. A light inside; the occupant was +sitting on his cot, with the table drawn up before him, writing one +of his farewell letters. He heard a faint cry, “Bart!” and started +and shoved the table away. “Nonna!” A second more and he was at the +door, his arm through the bars; Cornelia ran to him--it was automatic, +no way to help it--and anyhow, the warden was holding her, and not +trying to hold her back. She clasped the outstretched hand and wrung +it; that hand which so many times she had held in friendship, which +had performed for her so many services of love; a hand toil-worn and +bruised, now emaciated, but still warm with life. Three hours more and +it would be cold, a piece of death and corruption. She let it go, and +sank into the chair which had been placed for her, behind the painted +line. + +“Bart, I had to see you to say good-by!” + +“I am so glad, Nonna! It is the one more thing I wanted.” + +“We have done everything we could, Bart, but it is no use.” + +“I know. Mr. Thompson was here, he has just been going. We had a long +talk.” + +“I have an hour to stay with you, Bart; the Governor granted me that +favor.” + +“I will leave you, Mrs. Thornwell,” said the warden. “I will have to +ask you not to cross the line again. You understand, we have rules, and +they must be enforced.” + +“I know,” said Cornelia; “I will respect your wishes.” She had heard +the prison stories--they had permitted one condemned man to receive a +roast chicken from a relative, and it had contained a loaded revolver. +“Thank you, Mr. Hendry.” She was as sorry for him as for his captives. + + +VIII + +A guard sat at the entrance to the corridor, fifteen feet from +Cornelia’s chair. He could hear everything that was said, but neither +she nor Bart heeded him. This was like being alone with God; this was +different from human life, where people met, and would meet again by +and by. “We have failed, Bart,” she whispered, and he said, in a voice +without a quiver: “Do not worry for me, Nonna, I am ready. Nick also is +ready. We will die as anarchists should.” + +The light in Sacco’s cell had been out; he turned it on, and lay on his +cot with his face to the bars, so that he could hear the conversation. +“Hello, Nick,” said Cornelia. He answered, with his quick sympathy and +consideration for others: “You are too unhappy for us, Nonna. Take it +more easy! Plenty fellow have die.” She imagined the twinkle in his +eyes--even though now she could see only one eye through the narrow +slits. She could see Vanzetti’s whole face, because he was standing at +the door, and at that height there was a bend in the bars, making an +opening through which he could look. + +“Nonna,” he said, “it is more easy to die than to look out through bars +like a beast for seven years.” + +“Bart, I am going to fight for your good name the rest of my time.” + +“Fight for the workers, Nonna; fight so they be free, that other people +do not live idle on their hard toil.” + +“I will surely do that,” she answered; “but most of all I want to be +able to tell people about this case. Tell me the truth, Bart, now that +it is the end.” + +Said Vanzetti: “I will speak like I would if it was God. I am an +innocent man, Nonna; I was never at the South Braintree crime, I was +never at the Bridgewater crime. I tell you that in solemn words, for +you to say to all the world, all the time, forever. And Nick, he is +innocent, he was never at South Braintree like they said. This is the +truth, as I hope for joostice, I did never take a umane life, I did +never anything that would take umane life, and I work with all my soul +for those day when it will not be possible ever for one umane being to +kill any other, when all such wickedness and machines for killing lives +will be destroyed from the earth. It is because I know that the class +system and exploiting of labor is what make such machines to be that I +am anarchist. I am against all government, because I know it is tool of +exploiting classes, it is not to make joostice in this world, but to +make slaves, and to punish the libertarians--as they prove this night +upon the bodies of Nick and me.” + +There was a pause. When Cornelia spoke again her voice was grave, and +her words came slowly, carefully. “Bart, I mean to write what you tell +me, so the world will know it. May I say that with reflection and these +many years of study, you have changed your views about violence in the +class struggle?” + +Vanzetti’s answer also came slowly. “You may say I do not wish +vee-olence, Nonna. All my life I suffer torture when I think of +vee-olence committed upon one body or one soul. But I read the history +of all, and this I see, never have the slaves been free because the +master was generous; always it is because the slave made some struggle, +he made fight for his right. Is it not so?” + +“It has been so in the past. But may we not hope for some better way? +Think, Bart, before you answer that.” + +“I think always, Nonna, it is one thought that I have all my life. +I look at the great cruel capitalism--do I think that will give way +without fighting? Look this night--Mr. Thompson has told me what he +see outside. They make so many thousands, millions--machine-guns, +bullets, gas bombs, artilleries--every day new inventions--you think +they do not use them? You wish me to say to the worker, ‘You need no +fear, you need no preparing for slaughter?’ Shall I say to the young +worker, ‘You do not need arming your souls for martyrdom, like Sacco +and Vanzetti; Sacco and Vanzetti will be the last martyrs’--can I say +that? No, Nonna, I have to say, it will be thousand of martyrs, perhaps +millions, it will be most bloody slaughter, before the master class is +thrown down, before the workers own the tools and the riches without +any master.” + +“So that is what I must tell, Bart?” + +“That is what all must tell, else I would be traitor, and not good +guide for workers; else they would say, ‘Vanzetti has lost his nerve, +they have broke him.’ Never will they say that, for me or for Nick.” + +“Never!” cried Nick, with his mouth to the bars. “They say we died +anarchista.” + +“There may be some who wish to avenge your death, Bart, and that would +be a dreadful thing, nothing would set back the cause so much. What +shall I say about that?” + +“Say that I want no such thing, Nonna, we are not such a man to be +revenged; we are humble for our cause. What we want is joostice for +the worker, freedom for all men on this earth, and we want every +libertarian work for that, and not for us, nor for vengeance, which is +a wicked thing.” + +“May I say that you forgive your enemies, Bart?” + +There was a long silence. “Is it a thing that should be forgiven, +Nonna--what men has been doing to us?” + +“Men are ignorant, Bart--” + +“These men are not ignorant, Nonna! Do you think that Judge Thayer is +ignorant of what he did? When he call us foul name such as I not like +to say before lady, is he ignorant?” + +“I think so, Bart; he is one of the most pitiable of human creatures. +Think if I were to put it to you, would you have your body free, and +be shut up in the narrow dungeon of that man’s mind? Would you consent +to be mean, to be a cheat, and eaten up with hatred? When you realize +what a blessing has been yours in life, to have the vision, to know +the future as you do--can you not pity the poor wretch who lives in +darkness of the soul, and behaves like some cruel animal, not a man?” + +There was a long silence. Cornelia looked at the face, with its frame +of steel bars; it was emaciated, deeply lined by suffering; the +dark-brown walrus mustaches drooped, and were partly hidden by the +bars. “Remember, Bart, what Comrade Jesus said. He forgave the men who +nailed him to the cross.” + +“Sure, Nonna, that I can do! Poor fellows in this prison, who are +workers too, they have maybe wife and children, how can they stop the +evil thing? Many man in this prison knows what I believe, many do not +like to take life for the big capitalistas.” + +“But the big capitalistas, the men who give the orders, Bart? The +judge, the governor, the college president?” + +Again a long pause. “I will think about it, Nonna. I would not tell you +anything but truth, and it is not easy thing for me to say what you +want to hear.” + + +IX + +They talked about the fearsome yet fascinating question of where Bart +was to be in two or three hours. “I don’t know, Nonna,” he said. “It is +strange idea. If I wake up somewhere, I be very much surprised. What +you think?” + +“I cannot guess,” she said. + +“I think we go back where we come from. It is like a bubble that go +back to be water again. This face, this voice, this what you call +Vanzetti, I do not think it will be like that anywhere.” + +There came a voice from between the next row of bars: “That is all +bunk!” (Sacco had not been in America for nineteen years in vain.) +“When you are dead, you are dead, you no wake up. For us it come +quick, I like quicker. It is what I beg them long time ago.” + +Cornelia turned to the speaker. “Is there anything I can do for you, +Nick?” + +“Take care of wife and kids.” + +“You may be sure of that; they will not suffer want.” + +“I don’t worry for that,” said Nick, the free-spoken. “If all I want +was easy time for them, I would made it myself. Teach the kids what we +die for, make them some sense. That is it.” + +A pause, and then from the far cell a timid voice: “Good-by, lady.” + +“Good-by, Madeiros. Can I do anything to help you?” + +“I am not like these fellows,” he said. “I done what they got me for, +I deserved it. But they don’t, they are good men; some day it will +be known.” The voice was slow and drawling, marred by only a slight +accent. Cornelia did not see the speaker, but she had met him before: +a thin, undernourished young fellow with a weak but amiable face and +small dark mustache. He was only twenty-one, and the doctors said he +was a half-wit; the job for which he was to die was the killing of a +bank-cashier in a robbery. He admitted it, and some other crimes. + +Had he really been at South Braintree, or had he just climbed onto +the Sacco-Vanzetti band-wagon at the last moment, with a faint hope +of respite? Cornelia had never been able to make up her mind about +that. She had watched a curious little drama going on--Madeiros looked +up to Sacco and Vanzetti, as to social superiors; they were great +men, celebrities, and he was proud to be associated with them. Sacco +accepted his homage, but Vanzetti was extremely reserved. The young +Portuguese never stopped insisting that both were innocent, and that he +was the only guilty man. + +Vanzetti spoke about Luigia, and what a joy it had been to see her--but +hard for her; such crowds, such excitement, and a terrible end. He had +tried to explain to his sister what it was to die as a martyr, not +the same as a criminal. She ought to have been able to understand, +because she believed in Jesus; but Jesus to her was something far away +and terrifying, to be dealt with by the priests. A wicked thing, that +ecclesiastical system, which enslaved the minds of the poor, and made +the name of God something which libertarians could not speak. + +The prison authorities had been pleading with Sacco and Vanzetti to let +a priest or some kind of clergyman administer to them. It seemed to +the authorities dreadful to kill men and have their souls go to hell! +It was the first time the thing had happened in eighteen years, so +they said. But the three men stood firm--Madeiros taking a chance with +the others. They would never surrender the integrity of their minds. +“Giammai!” cried Nick; and added: “That says, ‘Not on your life,’ +Nonna.” He was gay, being soon to get the freedom which he had craved +for so many years. Impossible to crush that spirit of steel springs; +and for the body, even though weakened by confinement and fasting, they +would need an extra voltage. + + +X + +Cornelia wore a wrist-watch, and every now and then her glance would be +drawn towards it. The minute-hand seemed to be stealing time from her, +it would take jumps when she was not watching. Vanzetti sat on his cot, +and peering with one eye through the bars, saw a tear stealing down +the old woman’s cheek. “Nonna,” he exclaimed, quickly, “I want you do +something for me.” + +“What is it, Bart?” + +“Something very great, a last thing--something hard.” + +“Tell me.” + +“I want you to not be sad.” + +“Oh, Bart!” + +“It is easy to die. It is little thing--only for friends, for so many +women, grieving, weeping. It is--what you say, futile. Is most futile +thing in the whole world to have grief. Is it not so?” + +“Yes, Bart--but--” + +“Listen. I speak for all three. We are soldiers. It is our business to +die. What for do you weep? It is our job.” + +“I will try, Bart.” + +Vanzetti’s voice had taken on a note of sternness that Cornelia had +heard a few times, when in his imagination he was going to battle with +the capitalist class. “You remember, Nonna, we publish book, our +gruppo, ‘Faccia à Faccia col Nemico.’ All right. It is what we are +now. It is our dream, it is our life. What for do we ask you to weep? +Coraggio! Coraggio!” He went back to his childhood language when he was +deeply moved; and his voice stiffened Cornelia’s bent spine. + +“Amica mia, you have been good soul to us. You have done more than +help, you have onderstood. Now onderstand once again--is it too much?” + +“I will do my best.” + +“We choose this death. Long ago we know it, we see him come. You be +anarchista militante, you die. You die by hangman of capitalist class. +All right, we choose. Every man have got to die, it is no great news, +it happen each day. Poor workingmen, rich capitalistas, all. But to +live forever, that is not so easy; to speak to all the world--how many +time do it happen to poor workingmen? To a couple of wops? Did ever you +hear such thing?” + +“No, Bart, you are right.” + +“Our life, it has been success; it is victory, like never we have +dream. Men stop, they say, ‘What is this anarchist? What is this men +believe, that they die so glad? What is this joostice? Have I got it? +Have I got freedom, or am I slave like they tell me?’ He ask, and he +begin to think--million men begin to think--it is something your great +Go-vérnor give us, something he cannot take! Our crown, our victory! Is +it not so?” + +“Yes, yes, Bart!” + +“Viva l’anarchia!” came the voice of Nick. + +“Our bodies they kill, they make our souls immortal. Young workers take +up our cry--you see, Nonna, only wait, it grows all over the world, +the revolt of the worker, the message that men be free, that they work +for joostice, not for parasite. And we have helped, we have done a +part. Only one thing more to do, is to die brave; to walk to the chair, +smile, speak the truth to the end. So, amica mia, help us; no sad +thought, only coraggio! Tell our friends it is joy, not grief, it is +success, not failure.” + +There is a contagion that spreads in human souls, and shakes the +thrones of emperors and kings. Cornelia’s hands were clenched and her +teeth set. “All right, Bart, I will do what you say. I will be with you +to the end, and afterwards.” + +The warden stood in the doorway; and Cornelia rose to her feet, not +waiting for him to help her. “All right, Mr. Hendry, I am ready. I have +had a worthwhile hour. May I shake hands with my boys once more?” + +“Yes, Mrs. Thornwell.” He came to help her, but she did not wait for +him. She took Vanzetti’s hand in a firm, strong grip. “Good-by, for the +last time, Bart. You have taught me more than any of the great persons +I have met in my life. I shall remember every word you said to me.” + +“Good-by, Nonna. I thank you. Thank you for the good help.” + +“Good-by, Nick. You have been a brave fellow. You have done your job.” + +“Good-by, Nonna. Good-by to wife and kids. Teach them for me--what I +believe.” + +Then Madeiros. He put out his hand, and Cornelia made no difference +between a hero and a criminal. “Good-by, my son. I hope the next world +treats you better than this one.” + +“Good-by, lady.” He was a timid bank robber, who found this an +incomprehensible world. Anarchists sought to overthrow the rich, and +then the rich came to shake their hands! + +Cornelia went to the door. The guard had risen, ready to help her if +need be; but she was doing her stunt. “Thank you, Mr. Hendry, these +three soldiers have given me back my strength.” She turned, and called: +“Good-by, dear friends! Good luck to you--and to your cause!” To a +chorus of good-by shouts in English and Italian she walked through the +death-chamber, past the chair with the gaping arms and the dangling +leather straps; her little head held high, her steps firm and proud. +Through the prison yard she went, steady, amid the beams of the drunken +searchlights, staggering this way and that; past the cell-blocks, with +white faces looking out, eight hundred and eighty-one human beasts, +roaring now and then, “Let them out!” Into the warden’s home, and +through the front door; through the group of policemen, and into the +waiting car with the anxious women. + +“Mother! Mother!” They started to make a fuss, after the fashion of +families. She sank back in the seat and whispered, “Let me be quiet! I +have been talking with God.” + +That happens also to families in Boston now and then. They thought, +“It has been too much for her mind!” and were frightened into silence. +They could not realize how this strange idea would haunt the minds of +men all over the world in this dreadful hour. John Haynes Holmes, a +clergyman, formerly of Boston, was writing at that moment a “Ballad of +Charlestown Gaol”: + + _There’s a chair for you, Vanzetti, + In a cold and empty room; + A chair aloof and lonely, + Like a spectre in the gloom; + A chair with open arms and wide, + To welcome you to doom._ + + _They’ve made this chair, Vanzetti-- + Good men, and strong, and true-- + To manifest the will of God + On poor men such as you; + To show the Lord Christ lives again-- + And dies, the Lord Christ, too!_ + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE TRIUMPH + + +I + +Even at that late hour there were men and women who could not make +up their minds to let Sacco and Vanzetti die. There were protestants +who would not cease marching. In Salem Street, in the North End of +Boston, a thousand or more Italians gathered, declaring their intention +to march to the Bunker Hill monument and hold a meeting during the +execution. Mike Crowley’s mounted men charged into the midst of them, +scattering them in every direction, crushing many. The same thing +happened in Thompson Square, and in the roped-off area near the prison. +Here seven men and women broke through the police lines, singing the +“International,” and lifting their printed protests, in defiance of all +that military might. “Hail, Sacco and Vanzetti! The élite of the world +salute you as heroes!” One of the seven was a war veteran, and when the +police fell upon him, “Oh, boy,” they cried, “wait till we get you in +jail!” A traitor to the army system, they would teach him a lesson he +would remember! They beat three men, one of them insensible, the others +nearly so. + +Also there was another campaign before the Governor--at half-past ten +at night. William G. Thompson had come down from his vacation in New +Hampshire, and was making an appeal, based on the Governor’s fixed +prejudice concerning Vanzetti at the Plymouth trial. Over and over +again, for months, Fuller had been talking about the fact that Vanzetti +had not taken the stand in his own behalf. That very morning he had +voiced dark rumors about Vahey and Graham, the lawyers who had defended +Vanzetti at Plymouth; if they were not bound by the code which forbids +lawyers to betray a client, they could tell dreadful things about +Vanzetti. + +The substance of this proposition had been telephoned to William G. +Thompson, up in New Hampshire, and he had motored to Boston, and gone +to see Vanzetti early in the evening--a long conference, the substance +of which he later published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, He asked if +Vanzetti would be willing to permit Vahey to tell the truth about the +case, and his dealings with his clients. The answer was Vanzetti’s +usual charge, as to how his case had been conducted, which he was +certain had cost him his life. Now the lawyer came to see Governor +Fuller, bringing Vanzetti’s message, that he was willing for Vahey +to say anything he knew, provided that the interview took place in +the presence of Thompson, or some other friend in whom Vanzetti had +confidence. So now the way was open to a “show-down,” and would the +Governor follow his own suggestion? Surely fair play required that! + +The answer of Fuller was to make no answer--a trick which public +personages have to learn. Silence! Out there on the other side of the +Charles River was a miniature army on duty, and a prison staff about +to put those wops out of the world, so that Fuller and his class could +“sleep better.” All traffic stopped over main highways between the two +cities; thousands of persons, living near the prison, illegally shut +up in their homes for the night; a million dollars invested by Boston +merchants and manufacturers in riot and bomb insurance; the newspaper +wires run into the prison, the witnesses summoned, the traveling +expenses of the executioner incurred for the second time--and all that +trouble and expense to be brought to nought, while the Governor carried +on a debate with a bunch of “meddlesome Matties” in secret sympathy +with terrorists! In the formula which had been current in the sporting +world when “Allie” Fuller was a bicycle-racer: “Not on your tin-type!” + + +II + +At a quarter before midnight William G. Thompson came out from the +Governor’s chamber, and to the waiting reporters expressed his solemn +conviction that innocent men were about to be executed. A strange +event--a great lawyer breaking the rule of his lifetime, defying Boston +legal proprieties and “trying the case in the newspapers!” He would +give a long interview, defending his clients, and telling the Vahey +episode, and much of what Vanzetti had said to him in prison. + +Meantime--even at that hour--one more protest! Francis Fisher Kane, +former U. S. Attorney for Pennsylvania, had been waiting for two hours +to see the Governor to make one last appeal concerning the Department +of Justice files. He persuaded the doorman to take in his card, and the +Governor granted five minutes. Mr. Kane presented a fact which had just +come to his knowledge; President Lowell had stated to a friend that the +files were of no significance, and could not have affected the decision +of his Commission. Mr. Kane now strove to make this matter clear to the +Governor. The files would show that the Department of Justice had been +watching Sacco and Vanzetti by means of “informers,” considering them +as dangerous anarchists. Mr. Kane himself knew exactly what that meant, +having been a Federal prosecutor, in charge of the watching of certain +anarchists; he had resigned his position, in protest against the things +he saw being done during the “Red raids.” He could certify that Sacco +and Vanzetti had had good reason to be afraid for their lives on the +night of their arrest; and thus that famous “consciousness of guilt” +theory of Judge Thayer was knocked out. The arrested men had a kind of +guilt to be conscious of, entirely different from that of the South +Braintree crime! + +So the lawyer argued; and it was like water falling upon a granite +stone. For seven years the authorities of Massachusetts had had these +facts before them, and had resolutely shut their eyes; the reason being +that, in their secret hearts, they desired the death of anarchists +quite as ardently as the death of bandits. + +The telephone ringing; the group of New York lawyers who had set out +to try to reach Williamstown by motor-car, but realized that it was +too late. John Finerty on the wire, to beg the Governor, in the name +of common decency, to put off the execution for just a couple of +hours, until they could reach Judge Anderson and see if he would act +upon their appeal. The Governor’s answer was that Mr. Finerty should +communicate with Attorney-General Reading, who was in charge of legal +matters that night. Mr. Finerty called Mr. Reading’s office and learned +that Mr. Reading had gone to the Governor’s office about the matter. +He called the Governor’s office and learned that Mr. Reading had gone +back to his own office. He called Mr. Reading’s office and learned +that Mr. Reading had not arrived. Astonishing agility on the part of +a high official, in spite of his pockets being stuffed with the money +of the Decimo Club and the “L. A. W.” and other corporations which +feared trouble from the legal department of the great Commonwealth! Mr. +Finerty was not able to hear Mr. Reading’s voice. + +The weary Governor rose from his desk, and put on his hat. It had been +a strain; his face was drawn with exhaustion--impossible to conceal +it now. “No statement, boys,” to the newspaper men. His guards closed +about him, and he went down to his Packard car, under the Mt. Vernon +Street arch of the State House, closed all that day to traffic. The +guards saluted, they fell back and dropped the ropes; a police-car +in front, another in the rear, with riot-guns ready for instant +action--the little procession rolled out into the night, on its way to +the summer home in New Hampshire. + + +III + +Cornelia, returned to her apartment, found Betty waiting. So she sent +off her daughters and son-in-law. “I am perfectly all right now. That +visit was what I needed. No use to keep you up. Thanks for what you +did, it made everything all right.” She lay on the bed, and told Betty +about her visit, and every word that had been spoken. Betty told about +the meeting she had attended, and how the crowds were behaving. It was +like war time, tens of thousands of people in front of the bulletin +boards; and when some item of bad news came, you would hear a moan, a +sob of mass-agony. Apparently the public was beginning to realize--at +the last moment--too late! + +“I am going to be able to stand it, Betty. I have got to stand it, for +Bart’s sake.” Betty was glad to hear it; she was prepared to carry her +own burden, but no more. “Yes, yes, it’s all right,” the old woman went +on. “It is what Bart and Nick wanted.” But even as she said it, there +was a trembling at the lips, and a look of terror in her eyes. + +An hour and more still to be passed. Betty began hastily to tell the +news. She had stopped at headquarters: she told who was there, but +dodged away from describing the weeping and anguish. Powers Hapgood +had been missing for hours, and word had just come that he was shut up +in “Psychopathic”; Joe Randall had hurried off to fetch Dr. Myerson, +to get Powers out. Creighton Hill had made a trip to Maine, with two +clergymen, to get another clergyman to make an affidavit concerning +Thayer’s prejudice. But Fuller wouldn’t pay any attention to it, of +course. + +Cornelia was only half hearing. “Betty, do you suppose the Governor can +be meaning to put it off again?” + +“I don’t know, Grannie. How can you tell, with that beast?” Never if +they lived a thousand years would the women of the defense forgive +him for the night of anguish he had caused them, by withholding the +reprieve until twenty minutes before the time for the execution. + +Gossip wouldn’t do, Betty realized; she must tap the deeper layers +of the human soul. “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,” so the +evangelists tell us; now Betty Alvin, hard and grim little realist, +must become a prophet and a saint, like Bart! She must point out that +stone walls do not a prison make, and how they that kill the body +only glorify the soul. She must make real to both her grandmother +and herself what this night’s events would mean to the future; a +consecration to the radical movement, a purifying of the faith of all +of them, a spiritual rebirth for Boston. “Oh, Betty, is it really so? +Won’t they forget all about it, and go back to their radios and their +jazz?” + +“Some will, Grannie; but some of us aren’t going to forget this long +fight.” + +“Seven years!” Cornelia whispered. “Seven years!” + +Betty answered that it had taken those years to make the case; to get +public attention centered on it, to get the great ones of Boston to +notice two wops. “Don’t you see what it’s for, Grannie--to dramatize +the class struggle! To make it so plain that every child can see it! +To make it into a formula, that you can say in three words, and have +everybody understand it--everywhere, all over the world, for all future +time! ‘Sacco and Vanzetti!’ And right here in our great and prosperous +America, that is making so many automobiles and bathtubs and books of +etiquette! Right here in Boston, that is so moral! Don’t you see how +important it is to have the capitalist class electrocute its own lies?” + +“Betty! Betty! When will men stop killing?” + +“When we end exploitation, Grannie dear; and Bart and Nick are doing +the job! Don’t you see the glory of this case--it kills off the +liberals! Before this, it was possible to argue that injustice was +an accident, just an oversight--in a country that was so busy making +automobiles and bathtubs and books of etiquette! But now here’s a +test--we settle the question forever! We take our very best--not merely +cheap politicians, but our great ones! Our biggest business man! Our +most cultured university president! Our supreme court judges--even the +liberal ones! We prove them all alike--they all know what flag they +fight under, who serves out their rations! They all take their places +in the ranks, with every button in position, and all of them washed +behind the ears! They all obey the great capitalist drill-sergeant, and +not a man deserts to the enemy--not one single man!” + +A quarter to twelve. “Betty, if they were going to put it off, they’d +have had to say so by now.” + +“Yes, blessed dear, I’m afraid so.” + +“And somebody would have let us know!” + +“Yes, surely they would.” + +“They’ll let us know when it’s over?” + +“Joe promised he’d phone at once.” Then, in desperation: “Grannie, did +you hear about the necklace which Bart gave to Mr. Thompson? He took +the ten dollars you sent him, and bought some things the prisoners had +made, and gave Mr. Thompson a necklace of beads for his wife, and Mr. +Thompson broke down and cried. They say he can’t talk about it without +crying. It’ll ruin him as a lawyer.” + +“Bart and Nick were right about it all along,” said Cornelia. “They +knew more about Boston than we did.” + +“That is something that touched Mr. Thompson. Nick had insisted he’d +never get anywhere with the courts, and to-day Mr. Thompson thought +that Nick would remind him of it. But Nick didn’t say a word; he knew +how much it would hurt.” + +Twelve o’clock. Cornelia, white-faced, her hands clasped together, and +her voice a faint whimper. “Betty, they must be in the death-chamber +now.” + +“Yes, I suppose so. Remember what you promised Bart!” + +“I know, I know--but I wonder--how long does it take?” + +“Not very long, dear, they make it quick, they are as polite as Fuller.” + +But somehow that wasn’t the right thing to say. Betty caught the poor +trembling hands, and began to whisper: “Grannie, dear, don’t let +yourself go! We all need our strength, we have a whole world to change.” + +“All right, I won’t, I won’t! How long does--how long do they keep the +current on?” + +“I don’t know, two or three minutes. But the victims don’t know it, so +what’s the use thinking about such things!” + +“They must be doing it now! Oh, Betty--tell me something to think +about!” + +“They are brave men, Grannie. They have lived the life they wanted to +live, and they don’t want us crying over them. Think of all the people +who get killed--so many in needless ways--that we can put a stop to +when we have learned what Bart and Nick have to teach us.” So Betty, +rushing on, a little stump-speech--but all in vain. She had to keep +squeezing the poor frail hands, and saying over and over again the +simple elemental idea, that Bart had forbidden Cornelia to grieve, and +she had promised not to. After all, Bart’s life was his own, and if he +chose to become one of the world’s great martyrs, who had a right to +object? + + +IV + +Cornelia could be got to listen to that, to sit staring, like a +hypnotized rabbit. The trouble was that the clock on the mantel-piece +became hypnotized, too, and the hands refused to move; all time stood +still, there was no way to get it past. The world hung suspended in +a void of suffering--that very hell which Father Murphy, the prison +chaplain, had been telling about, where pain endured forever. + +Some magic spell had been woven over the minds and souls of tens of +thousands, perhaps millions of persons, scattered over every part of +the earth; never had there been such a phenomenon since the world +began. They sat in rooms and stared at each other, they stood in front +of bulletin boards and clenched their hands, or maybe bit their +finger-nails; they went walking blindly about the streets, not knowing +where. In whatever part of the world they might be--in Boston or Los +Angeles, Buenos Ayres or Paris or Tokio--they had figured the time, and +were saying the same words as Cornelia Thornwell: “They must be doing +it now! They must have them in the chair! How long does the current +take?” And one and all they noticed that extraordinary phenomenon--time +stood still, minutes refused to pass as they normally should. + +The telephone ringing; Betty had to let go of her grandmother’s hands +to take the receiver. Cornelia watched her face, reading the fates +there. No need to hear a word; Cornelia knew it was Joe, and he was +saying, “It’s all over.” “Yes, sweetheart,” said Betty, in a voice as +even as if she were accepting an invitation for lunch. “Yes, we’re +all right. Grannie went over and had a talk with them both, and she’s +feeling stronger. But you’d better come home right away--yes, dear, we +might need you. Please do.” She hung up quickly, so that Joe might not +hear the dreadful burst of anguish from the poor old woman on the bed. + +Betty dug under the wasted body, and got hold of the hands, and made +the agonized soul sit up and look at her. “Grannie, listen to me now! +You don’t realize--it’s all over! Stop and think what that means--Bart +and Nick can’t suffer any more! Nobody can punish them, nobody can +torture them--ever again! They aren’t in jail! They are free!” + +So on and on, until the idea did actually penetrate Cornelia’s mind. +The sobbing ceased, and she sat staring ahead of her, as if at an +apparition in the room. “It is really so! They can’t do any more to +them!” + +“Grannie, blessed dear, it is what Nick has been saying all along, and +we never had sense enough to realize it! Their job is done, and they +are all right!” + + +V + +At ten o’clock the chief electrician and his assistant had tested +the death chair and pronounced everything in order. Then came the +executioner, to make his inspection. Elliot was this gentleman’s name; +he preferred a retired life, on account of anarchist bombs, but the +clamor of newspapers had brought him into the limelight; they published +his picture, and a list of the human beings he had killed. The “false +execution” of twelve days ago had compelled him to make a journey for +nothing; very annoying, and he was hoping that now there would be no +hitch, he would get his seven hundred and fifty dollars. + +Father Murphy came to the death cells, to make his last offer of +eternal life. Absolutely without charge, and merely by a few passes of +the hands and the speaking of a few words, he was willing to deliver +these three men from the otherwise certain fate of perpetual roasting +upon a brimstone and sulphur fire. Nearly three hundred years ago +the philosopher Pascal had presented an unanswerable argument on the +subject: the procedure would do you great good if it were valid, and +no harm if it were not valid. But Vanzetti answered that it would do +harm to those whom he left on earth, to be more tightly riveted in +the chains of superstition. So, a few minutes before midnight, Father +Murphy went to the officers’ club of the prison and remarked to the +newspapermen, “There seems to be nothing for me to do, so I am going +home.” + +That clubroom was like the “pit” in the stock exchange, with more +than a hundred reporters scrambling for every scrap of news. Many +telephones were installed, and eighteen telegraphers sat at eighteen +machines, to feed the curiosity of a ravenous world. The service +included direct cable connections with all the other five continents. +The representative of the Associated Press had been honored by an +invitation to witness the execution, and was pledged to furnish the +details to his colleagues. + +There were, according to law, a number of official witnesses, whose +duty it was to certify to the Governor that his orders had been +carried out. They were in readiness, and the warden now led them to +the death-house. Chairs were lined against the wall of the execution +chamber, facing the electric chair, and the worthies took their seats. +The big warden, with plump round face and little black mustache and +narrow slits for eyes; a well-known Boston surgeon; the physician of +the prison; the surgeon general of the national guard, who looked +like a college professor; the medical examiner of Suffolk County, who +looked like a romantic poet with tousled hair; the sheriff of Norfolk +County, a bald-headed, stern-faced old Puritan, who had had Sacco in +charge for seven years, and Vanzetti off and on, at great expense to +his office--he was one of those who had expressed their sentiment +by piling up the desk of Judge Thayer with flowers, on the day that +learned jurist delivered his charge to the Dedham jury, and explained +the nobility of loyalty. + +There was a telephone against the wall of the execution chamber, and +the representative of the Associated Press took his stand by it; the +wire ran to the warden’s office, and from there a telegraph operator +would relay every word to the crowd of reporters. In this way they +would learn when each man entered the death chamber, when the current +was turned on, and when the death was officially announced. Later the +“A.P. man” would go over to the officers’ club and give the details. + +The executioner stood behind a screen in one corner, to the left of +the death chair; he could look over the screen, and see when it was +time for him to earn his money. Two guards stood by the door leading +to the cell corridor, and when the warden signaled that all was ready, +they stepped back to the first cell, and unlocked the door. Madeiros +lay asleep--not setting much value upon his last moments. The guards +awakened him, stood him on his feet, and led him, half dazed, into the +execution chamber, closing the door behind them, out of kindness for +the occupants of the other two cells. + +The victim had on short gray trousers, with a slit cut up each leg, +and a blue shirt with short sleeves, made especially for the occasion. +He was seated in the chair, and as quickly as possible the deputy +warden and a guard buckled the straps which would hold his hands and +feet immovable. The electrodes, from which the current was to enter +the body, were fastened, one to each leg, and a third, the headpiece, +covering the entire top of the head; they contained wet sponges, to +afford perfect transmission. + +They tied a bandage over the victim’s eyes, and then stepped back; all +was ready. It was the warden’s part to signal with his hand to the +executioner, who would then move a switch. Since this did the actual +killing, the theory was that the executioner alone was responsible, and +for carrying this heavy responsibility the Commonwealth paid him the +sum of two hundred and fifty dollars for each of three motions of the +hand--plus traveling expenses from his retreat in New York. + +He made the first motion, and there was a whir of the current, and +the body of Madeiros gave a sudden leap, which would have jerked it +from the chair if it had not been that the straps were heavy. Human +flesh became of the rigidity of steel, and stayed that way for several +minutes, with a current of nineteen hundred volts passing through it. A +ghastly odor of burning hair spread through the death chamber. + +The current was turned off, the body sank back limp into the chair, +and the warden signed to the medical examiners, who stepped forward +with their stethoscopes. At nine minutes and thirty-five seconds past +midnight they pronounced the Wrentham bank robber dead, and the body +was lifted from the chair and carried to one of three newly painted +slabs hidden behind a screen in the death chamber. Nothing could exceed +the sense of propriety of the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or +the decency with which it prepared for the elimination of its enemies. + + +VI + +The door leading to the cells was opened again, and the two guards went +in to the second cell. Nicola Sacco was not asleep, but waiting, to do +his last duty as a revolutionist. He walked out between the guards; +he entered the execution chamber, and looked about him at the row of +solemn witnesses, the deputies, the chair, and the screen with the face +peering over it. His own face was white and haggard, his lips set, his +whole expression that of defiance. He walked directly to the chair and +sat down; then, as the guards began to adjust the straps, he lifted +himself slightly, raised his voice, and said, in what came as a shout +in that still brick-walled chamber of death: “Viva l’anarchia!” + +(“You see!” said all Massachusetts, when they read about it with their +morning coffee and codfish balls. “We told you so! We knew it all +along!”) + +The guards paid no attention to any words. They went on with swift +fingers, as if they feared that some one might come to stop them at +the last moment. When they were through, and stepped back, Sacco opened +his lips again, and the warden withheld the signal. “Farewell, my wife +and children and all my friends!” Then, as the warden was in the act of +lifting his hand: “Good evening, gentlemen. Farewell, Mother.” + +The cue was given, and the executioner moved the switch, and the body +leaped so that it was like a blow against the straps. Twenty-one +hundred volts was the executioner’s estimate of what it would take to +rid Massachusetts of this wiry peasant; the amperage was from seven to +nine, and it was nineteen minutes and two seconds after midnight when +the medical examiners pronounced the duty done. The body of Nicola +Sacco was lifted from the chair, and carried behind the screen and laid +upon the second slab. + +Then for the third and last time the door into the cell corridor was +opened, and the guards entered. Bartolomeo Vanzetti had sat upon his +cot alone, knowing what was happening in the adjoining chamber, but it +had not shaken his nerve; he had had seven years in which to work out +his system of self-discipline. “This is our career and our triumph.” He +rose from his cot, and walked with firm steps, the guards holding him, +one by each arm. When they entered the execution chamber, the guards +released him, and he looked at them--men whom he had known for a long +time, and whom he had taught to respect him, no longer to call him a +wop. They were poor fellows, who maybe had wives and children to keep, +and could not help what they were doing; so he turned to them first, as +became a proletarian martyr. “Good-by,” he said to each, and held out +his hand to each in turn, and shook their hands firmly. + +Then he turned to Deputy Warden Hogsett, and took both his hands and +wrung them. “Good-by, I thank you for your courtesy to me.” And then +to the warden, a big towering figure. Vanzetti was quiet and at ease, +as if he were welcoming visitors to his home. “Warden, I want to thank +you for all that you have done for me.” He held out his hand, and the +warden took it. + +(“Jesus!” he said, to one of the reporters afterwards. “He shook my +hand, and then I had to raise it to give the signal!”) + +Vanzetti walked to the chair and sat down. Then he spoke--words which +he had made the subject of much thought. “I wish to tell you that I am +innocent and never committed any crime, but sometimes some sin. I thank +you for everything you have done for me. I am innocent of all crime, +not only of this one, but of all. I am an innocent man.” + +The guards, well trained, went on with their work, paying no attention +to eloquence. The electrodes were adjusted, the straps made fast. As a +guard started to apply the bandage to Vanzetti’s eyes, he spoke again; +it was the question which Cornelia had asked him, and to which he had +promised an answer. He gave it with all the world for an audience. “I +wish to forgive some people for what they are now doing to me.” + +The guards stepped back, and the warden gave the signal; the +executioner moved the switch, and the body of Bartolomeo Vanzetti +leaped as the others had done. Nineteen hundred and fifty volts were +estimated to be sufficient for this less robust person, a dreamer and +a man of words rather than of action. Many, many words he had both +spoken and written, but now no more. The current was turned off, and +the medical men made their examination, and at twenty-six minutes and +fifty-five seconds past midnight they pronounced that the last spark +of anarchism had been extinguished from the august Commonwealth of +Massachusetts. The warden had a solemn formula to recite, but his voice +almost failed him, and not all the witnesses heard the words: “Under +the law I now pronounce you dead, the sentence of the court having been +legally carried out.” + +The third body was laid on the slab, and the doors of the execution +chamber were opened--it had grown very hot, with the many volts of +electricity and the tense emotions of martyrs. Also, the odor of burned +hair made one ill; the night breeze was very welcome. The guards and +witnesses went outside, and wiped the sweat from their foreheads, and +from the backs of their wilted collars. “Christ!” said the deputy +warden. “Did you hear what he said? He forgave me! Now what do you make +of that?” + + +VII + +The representative of the Associated Press hastened to the officers’ +club. Not often does one man carry a message to the whole world. He +entered the room with the hundred ravening reporters, and had to mount +a chair so that all might have an equal chance to hear. “No features,” +he said. “Entirely colorless.” The proper professional air; if his +“assignment” had been Mount Calvary, he would have said the same. If +Jesus had raised a row at the last moment--if he had tried to escape, +and had knocked down the captain of the centurions--that would have +been “hot news.” Or if he had cursed God, instead of merely asking +why God had forsaken him. Obvious enough that God would not pay any +attention to the leader of a Jewish rabble, a common workingman, born +in a stable in the flea-infested village of Bethlehem! + +So likewise this death of Sacco and Vanzetti--“no features.” No, +they hadn’t confessed--except that Sacco had confessed to being an +anarchist. He had cried: “Viva l’anarchia!” (“How the hell do you spell +it? Has it got a ‘k’?”). No one had collapsed, or made what you would +call a scene. Sacco’s complexion had been white, you might almost say +green. (“The way Mary Splaine described him--I remember at the Dedham +trial.”) Vanzetti had shaken hands with everybody, very politely. +(“Anarchist propaganda! A grandstand play!”) He had said--the bored +correspondent consulted his bunch of papers, on which he had jotted +down a few words--he said that he forgave everybody--no, it was “some +people.” (“The little infant Jesus! Ain’t they lambs, these Reds?”) + +The room was gray with tobacco smoke, an inferno of heat--the windows +having been boarded up, for fear somebody might “throw something in.” +The clamor was deafening--the clicking of eighteen telegraph keys, +and the voices of men shouting over the telephones, each trying to +hear himself above the uproar--that competition which is the life of +capitalism. Men standing against the wall scribbling, or writing on +their knees, each hoping to file his words the first. The three big +press associations would take care of the main outlines of the news for +all the papers of the country; they had already sent three “flashes” +on each execution; now they would follow with details. But a hundred +papers had sent special correspondents, and these pleaded for “human +interest stuff,” hounding those who had witnessed the events. + +The warden had gone to his office; he was gray, and the perspiration +could not be kept from his forehead, nor the trembling from his whole +body. He invited his deputy to have a drink with him, and opened his +cupboard for the purpose; but there entered Mike Crowley with the +police commissioner, a blue-blood, appointed by the Governor. The +warden didn’t think it quite right for that high-up personage to see +him indulging his appetite at this moment, so he hastily shut the +cupboard door again. He had to sit down in a chair. The deputy kept +saying: “He shook both my hands! And he forgave me! I never saw such a +thing! I couldn’t conceive of it!” + +The news was spread by a thousand telegraph wires, and in a +hundred cities great crowds learned it from the bulletin boards of +newspapers; for the most part in silence, but sometimes with groans +and sobs. The Boston _Evening Transcript_ had kept its broadcasting +station open--radio WBET--entertaining the listeners with music and +miscellaneous news all evening. The comfortable population of New +England sat in their easy chairs and absorbed the easy entertainment: +the WBET Troupers in “Not Quite Such a Goose,” a comedy in one act; +Boots and His Nighthawks, dance music; the Klassay Boys; the Handy +Instrumental Trio; Doc Wassermann’s Orchestra; and the Correct Time. + +In the news that day all kinds of thrills: Ed Farrell’s hitting had +been a large factor as the Braves won three straight from the Cubs; two +school boys were leading the field in the first half of the qualifying +round for the amateur golf title; a girl tennis queen had won an +impressive victory in New York, and the French Davis cup team had +arrived in Boston. More serious items: St. Mark’s Church had benefited +by the will of a millionaire manufacturer of extracts; eight hundred +Catholic teachers from a hundred and thirty-five parochial schools +were in convention; the city council had voted three hundred thousand +dollars for a golf links; the wife of a moving picture favorite had +obtained a divorce from her husband, after charging him eight hundred +and fifty thousand dollars for his freedom. The flappers of Boston +listened, and reflected: “If I could get to marry somebody like that, I +could live on the alimony the rest of my life.” Radio central station +WBET, the Boston _Evening Transcript_: “The juice was turned off, +and Vanzetti was officially pronounced dead at twelve, twenty-six, +fifty-five. The orchestra will now play, ‘The End of a Perfect Day.’” + + +VIII + +In every great capital of the world there were mass meetings and +protests that night. In London a mob marched upon Buckingham Palace, +and had to be ridden down by mounted men--quite as if it were Boston +Common. In Berlin there were a score of meetings, ending with parades. +In Geneva the demonstrants raided the American embassy, and when +clubbed away, broke the windows of the League of Nations Palace. Even +in far-off Tokio the American ambassador had to receive a deputation of +labor leaders, and explain that he had no control over executions in +Massachusetts. + +In Paris there had been a general strike, and on the night of the +execution there were street demonstrations, with mobs shouting curses +at Americans whenever they met them--which was frequently. An American +playwright and his wife asked for police protection, and when the +official learned that they knew German, he advised them to speak it for +a while. An odd freak of history--only ten years since the battle of +the Argonne, and here was a man who had taken part in it, being told to +speak the language of the Boche! + +It was dawn when the workers of Europe got the news, and they went to +their tasks with hearts blazing. To them it was a personal matter, +for they had friends in America, and knew the attitude of native New +England to its foreign workers. There were guards before all American +embassies and consulates, and few escaped without broken windows. +In London forty persons were injured in the rioting; in Australia +eighteen hundred were discharged for taking part in a strike; in South +Africa the American flag was burned on the steps of the town hall of +Johannesburg. + +On the evening of the 23rd in Paris huge masses of workers were +driven about the streets by the police. They would scatter, and +then reassemble, wherever Americans were to be met. They raided the +cabarets of Montmartre, and showered the patrons with broken glass. The +“Moulin Rouge,” shrine of tourist culture, was demolished, and when +the panic-stricken patrons got outside, they found their automobiles +overturned and the tires cut. Unkind and inexplicable it seemed to +amiable globe-trotters, who had sent over their boys and won the war +for the French, and now, finding that the French could not pay their +debts, were permitting them to work it off by entertaining several +hundred thousand bond-holders every summer. Large round gentlemen in +golf-pants, with horn-rimmed glasses and rosy cheeks, ate the best food +in the country, and drank the best wines, and had the best dress-makers +to decorate their bouncing jolly wives, or the lean tall ones who took +culture seriously. They rode about in rows on large motorbuses, with +guide-books in hand, admiring indiscriminately; they scattered money to +right and left, paying double prices, determined to have the best of +everything in the world. + +The wage-slaves of French factories, half starved for generations, +read in their socialist and communist papers of the death of Sacco +and Vanzetti; and in the same issue they read how the wife of an +American millionaire was introducing a new fashion in carved emeralds +from India, of which jewelers in the rue de la Paix had a few rare +specimens. The Chicago harvesting-machine queen had paid approximately +eighteen million francs--the life-time earnings of several hundred +French workingmen--for a necklace containing eighty-nine such jewels, +minutely carved in relief to represent events in Hindu history. She had +been the sensation at Biarritz when she appeared on Baron Fascini’s +yacht, wearing this necklace as the sole ornament on her newest Oxford +bags pajamas suit of natural colored pongee, and a royal blue jacket +with gold buttons. Such munificence made prosperity for all Paris, and +kept many thousands of workers alive; yet they refused to love their +benefactors, but called them dirty names, and threw stones through the +windows of the cafés which exhibited the depravities of Paris to the +Puritan trade. + +The wisest of Frenchmen had written a letter to Governor Fuller. “I say +to you, beware of making martyrs. This is the unforgivable crime that +nothing can wipe out and that weighs on generation after generation.” +But alas, the name of Anatole France meant nothing to a salesman of +motor-cars who read the _Saturday Evening Post_; that letter had +doubtless been burned in the furnaces, along with all the others. And +now Massachusetts had made her martyrs, and stood upon her pedestal of +self-righteousness. The more the world hated her, the more proud she +would be, to be right while everybody else was wrong. “Massachusetts, +there she is!” said Daniel Webster, darling of the “golden mob.” +“Behold her and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world +knows it by heart. The past at least is secure.” So the golden ones +would continue to orate, while the names of her two martyrs swelled to +a battle-cry of the disinherited of the earth. Until that day when the +workers of Europe began to take Joe Randall’s advice and repudiate the +debts! + + +IX + +The corpses were in a mortuary, still held by the authorities. Then, +horror of horrors, the friends of the defense learned that the bodies +were being mutilated, the hearts and brains of both men were to be +turned over to a medical school--of all places, Harvard University! It +was a custom with the bodies of executed men, not a special indignity +planned for these two--so the newspapers explained. Did the authorities +have a right to do it? Or did they just do it? Nobody seemed to know. +To the friends of the two martyrs it was the final insult--they could +not have been more outraged if they had seen the august president of +Harvard thumbing his nose at them. + +“What do they want with their hearts and brains?” cried Cornelia; and +Betty, the ferocious, explained matters. Harvard had so many millions +upon millions of endowments, and had not succeeded in producing a great +man for at least a generation. So many hundreds of professors, of every +kind of subject on earth, and they couldn’t teach anything worth while! +Now they wanted the hearts and brains of two wops, to see if they could +find out the secret of greatness. If they studied Nick’s heart, they +might learn about courage; from Bart’s they might find a clew to social +idealism, and the chemical constituents of faith. This fancy gave +great joy to Betty, who went on to picture the medicos peering through +microscopes, and making analyses in test-tubes, to find out the ways of +genius. Mr. Lowell studying blood-counts, to learn how to put a little +human interest into a speech or an essay! The heads of the English +department making drawings of the cells in Vanzetti’s cortex, to find +out how a wop had become a great master of English prose! + +The mutilated bodies were turned over to the relatives at last. +Thousands of persons wanted to view them, and pay their last tribute; +but the proprietors of the building in which the defense had two dingy +rooms refused to permit it to happen there; to make sure, they nailed a +joist up and down through the middle of the entrance to their building, +which they figured would keep out coffins! So arrangements were made +with an Italian undertaker on Hanover Street; and the moment it was +known that the bodies were there, ten thousand persons gathered, and +the police had to rope off the entire block, and let in only a few at a +time. + +Also they had to start clubbing and jailing again. For Mary Donovan +came with another placard, containing those words which three or four +weeks ago she had nailed to one of the elm trees of the Common: “Did +you see what I did to those anarchistic ----? Judge Thayer.” She +set that placard in front of the two coffins, while the newspaper +photographers prepared to take pictures of it. And of course the police +wouldn’t permit that; had they not abolished free speech in Boston +in order to prevent those words from being put before the public? A +policeman grabbed Mary’s placard, and she, being Irish like himself, +was not above fighting for her own. Other “cops” came running, and +dragged Mary off to jail; and then of course they had to club the +crowds, to keep them from crying “Shame!” + +The friends of the defense desired to have a parade to the crematory +where the bodies were to be burned. Many persons desired to go, and why +should they not walk? So began negotiations with officials of this city +of terror, for the right to walk eight miles to a crematory. The first +stipulation was that the walkers must go by the most direct route, +which would take them through obscure streets for the most part, and +past no precious public buildings. The second stipulation was that the +caskets must be carried in a hearse, and not upon the shoulders of men. +The third was that no signs or banners should be borne. No word about +“anarchistic ----”! + +“Back to Normalcy,” said the Boston _Herald_; and put all this news +on an inside page. The _Post_ discussed such topics as “The Sunless +Summer” and “Vegetarians and Shoes.” The chiefs of the moving picture +industry, whose orgy with drunken prostitutes had filled the Boston +newspapers while Sacco and Vanzetti were on trial, now held their +meeting in New York and passed a resolution that the case was to be +barred from the screen forever, and that all films of it should be +destroyed. Said Betty, the ferocious: “The great American whore covers +us with her skirts!” + +Said Cornelia: “They must have found out what Bart thought of them! +Do you remember, Betty, what he wrote in ‘Events and Victims’?” She +looked up the manuscript, and found the passage in which Vanzetti had +described the entertainment which American capitalism was supplying for +its wage-slaves. “That ought to be published!” exclaimed Betty, and Joe +made a copy of it; but alas, there was no paper in Boston which could +be lured into printing such blasphemous words! + + +X + +Sunday the day of the funeral. The crowds in Hanover Street made all +movement difficult; they were so great that people were pushed through +plate glass windows, and when these crashed there was a panic, because +the crowd thought the police had started shooting. In the roped off +area were two hearses and several limousines; oh, crowning insult--they +were Packard cars! The supersalesman, now enjoying his hard-earned +vacation, was making money as usual! In one car, with curtains drawn, +rode the widow and children of Sacco and the sister of Vanzetti, both +women in a state of collapse. It was an Italian funeral, with great +floral wreaths borne by mourners, and the undertaker marching in a +Prince Albert coat and top hat, in spite of a drizzling rain. State +police--the “Cossacks”--rode ahead and alongside the hearses, to see +that the procession followed the prescribed route. In the rear followed +several open cars full of flowers, and several with mourners, among +them Cornelia Thornwell. + +The authorities had given the necessary permit, and had not limited the +number of persons who might march in the procession; but they dared not +let it be too big, for the sake of the moral effect. So the entire +march was a series of battles between those who were determined to +march, and the police who were trying to break them up and shunt them +off into side streets, even if some had to be killed in the process. +The members of the committee and friends of the defense had provided +themselves with red arm-bands, reading: “Remember Justice Crucified. +August 22, 1927,” and the wearers of these arm-bands were singled out +for the fiercest attacks. + +The procession moved down Hanover Street, and fifty thousand people +fell in behind after it had passed. So when they came into Scollay +Square, mounted policemen rode into the middle of the throng, and tried +to form a line across the street, barring the bulk of the procession. +The crowds dodged this way and that, to get by; the policemen began to +wield their clubs, galloping their horses, and trampling men and women +beneath the iron-shod hoofs. But a frenzy possessed the mourners; it +was their last chance to express their loathing of the crime that had +been committed, and of the criminals who had done it, and thousands +were ready to die rather than be cut out from the parade. They broke +through again and again, and screaming and cursing people were knocked +down, or jammed through the windows of stores; the younger and +more fleet-footed went racing around the block, so as to catch the +procession farther on. + +The hearses continued down Tremont Street, and came to Park Street, the +corner of the Common, where the State House with the golden dome may be +seen upon the hill. To march up Beacon Street and past that State House +had been a fond dream of the friends of Sacco and Vanzetti. To keep +them from realizing it, the police had not merely made a solid blockade +of trucks across Park Street, but had a gang of laborers come and take +up the paving blocks from sections of the street. The laborers stood +watching the show, until the hearses and the crowd had passed; then +they replaced the paving! + +The procession moved along Tremont Street; on one side the Common, +on the other the fashionable shops. A solid mass of people all the +way, filling the sidewalks; the newspapers estimated that two hundred +thousand saw the hearses go by. The marchers would have taken all +day, if the police had let them alone. But at Charles Street they had +another device; line after line of empty taxi-cabs drawn up, waiting +for the hearses and the little group of mourners to pass; then the +taxis broke out into the throng. It was against the law to break into a +funeral, but there was no law in Boston except the will of the police. +Who was paying the taxi-cabs for the service was not known. Their +efforts were futile, for the people kept breaking through at risk of +their lives. + +No order was possible to the marchers; they just walked as they could; +the crowds fell in behind, mostly with bared heads, in spite of the +heavy rain that had begun to fall. Betty and Joe, Mary Donovan, Powers +Hapgood, Alfred Baker Lewis--all the leaders were there. They were +spreading flowers on the street--but that was against a city ordinance, +said Mike Crowley, who rode with the procession, greatly astonished to +see how many men and women were willing to get soaked for the sake of +two anarchist wops. + +Out through the South End; the friends of the defense now forming lines +with linked arms for protection against the police. By the time they +came to Roxbury Crossing, they had a military formation, and were able +to keep the traffic from breaking them up, in spite of all efforts. The +traffic police would signal for traffic to break into the procession, +and cars would force their way a few feet amid cat-calls and screams; +then they would give up, and Sacco and Vanzetti would have their way +for the first time in Boston. One policeman forced a seven-ton truck +into the crowd; the truck driver was attacked with umbrellas, and when +the policeman tried to draw his club, he was swept aside. + +It was in that part of Boston called Jamaica Plain that the orders +came to break up the parade at all hazards. A small army of patrolmen +charged into the crowd, wielding their clubs right and left. One +patrolman made his attack in an automobile--darting this way and that, +running people down, a new sport. Others climbed into the cars of the +sympathizers, and clubbed the drivers, and drove the cars out of the +line. Even the hard-boiled newspaper reporters were astonished by +the sights they saw in that battle, and were permitted by their city +editors to write a few plain sentences telling the incidents: + + “One officer was to be seen beating a woman in the face with his + fist. A girl was standing near the coal company office, her face + buried in her hands with a split chin.... A policeman stuck his + pistol at the window of a taxi-cab, then turned suddenly, went to + another car, dragged a man out to kick him toward Boston. Persons + who were riding on running boards of autos and taxi-cabs were + dragged off and beaten or booted in the direction of Boston. By + this time the main body was in flight toward Boston, pursued by a + line of policemen who still used their clubs. Women were given no + mercy in the panic.... While one man was being beaten by a sergeant + with an umbrella, his hat was knocked off and, stooping to pick it + up, he was booted by a patrolman. He went down and the patrolman + kicked the hat high in the air.” + +It was the process known as “Americanization.” + + +XI + +Ten thousand persons were crowded about the Forest Hills cemetery, with +hundreds of policemen to keep them from getting inside. The hearses +were passed in, and the cars with the reporters and photographers, and +a little group of mourners; the rest of those who had marched eight +miles to attend the ceremony had to stand about outside--unless they +were lively enough to climb the hedge and the iron picket fence. Inside +the little chapel a hundred persons were gathered, and the two coffins +were set upon a dais, covered with flowers, and Mary Donovan took her +place beside them, white and trembling. For two years she had made the +cause of Sacco and Vanzetti her life; she had given up her religion, +her friends, her job; and now it was her opportunity to speak the last +words which the defense had to say to the rulers of Boston. + +She lifted her voice; and then--a miracle, such as happens when martyrs +are made in this world! It was discovered that the heart and brain of +Vanzetti, supposed to be in the possession of the medicos of Harvard, +so that they might probe into the secrets of how to be noble and how +to be eloquent and how to be a master of English prose--that heart and +brain had escaped from under their scalpels, and were here in the body +of a frail Irish girl, a reformed Catholic, speaking words which would +be woven into the texture of the new religion of humanity, and learned +by school children under the new dispensation. Said Mary Donovan, +addressing Boston’s martyrs: + +“Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. You came to America seeking +freedom. In the strong idealism of youth you came as workers searching +for that liberty and equality of opportunity heralded as the particular +gift of this country to all newcomers. You centered your labors +in Massachusetts, the very birthplace of American ideals. And now +Massachusetts and America have killed you--murdered you because you +were anarchists. + +“Two hundred and thirty-five years ago the ruling people of this State +hanged women in Salem charging them with witchcraft. The shame of those +old acts of barbarism can never be wiped out. But they are as nothing +beside this murder which modern Massachusetts has committed upon you. +The witch-hangers were motivated by the superstitious fear of an +emotional religion. Their minds were blinded by their selfish passion +to reach heaven. + +“The minds of those who have killed you were not blinded. They have +committed the act in deliberate cold blood. For more than seven years +they had every chance to know the truth about you. Not once did they +even dare mention the quality of your characters--a quality so noble +and shining that millions have come to be guided by it. They refused +to look. They allowed the bitter prejudice of class, position and +self-interest to close their eyes. They cared more for wealth, comfort +and institutions than they did for truth. You, Sacco and Vanzetti, +are the victims of the crassest plutocracy the world has known since +ancient Rome. + +“Your long years of torture and your last hours of supreme agony are +the living banner under which we and our descendants for generations +to come will march to accomplish that better world based on the +brotherhood for which you died. + +“In your martyrdom we will fight on and conquer. + +“Remember Justice Crucified. August 22. Remember.” + + +XII + +Those who had strong nerves were privileged to go back into the +crematory, and look through a glass plate into the “retorts,” and see +the two bodies being resolved into their original elements--dust unto +dust, ashes unto ashes. Those who could not stand the ordeal by fire, +went out to face an ordeal by water; a downpour of rain such as Boston +had rarely seen, almost a cloudburst. A more superstitious age would +have said that the heavenly powers desired to wash the city clean, the +blood from its streets and the blot from its name. One of those natural +portents, like the rending of the veil in the temple, which accompany +the making of martyrs! + +Yes, Boston had rejected the advice of the shrewd old Frenchman, and +made two martyrs. Mystic beings, with supernatural virtues, destined +to become a legend; to expand like the genii released from the bottle, +until they spread over the sky, completely overshadowing the city +and its fame. No more would Boston be the place of the tea-party and +the battle of Bunker Hill; Boston would be the place where Sacco and +Vanzetti were put to death! + +And those two, the shining ones, the holy, who died to make freedom +for the workers! Already one saw the history of martyrology repeating +itself: the process of two thousand years crowded into one. Already +they were canonized beings, concerning whom it was forbidden to speak +any word but of praise; already there were men who worshiped their +ashes, and imprisoned those who followed their example! + +And yet, obscurely, the symbol was working in the souls of men. A +hundred million toilers knew that two comrades had died for them. +Black men, brown men, yellow men--men of a hundred nations and a +thousand tribes--the prisoners of starvation, the wretched of the +earth--experienced a thrill of awe. It was the mystic process of +blood-sacrifice, by which through the ages salvation has been brought +to mankind! + +A hundred million workers, shackled and blind, groping in a poison +fog manufactured by their masters, learned that two of their fellows +had been put to death for lifting the banner of freedom. In spite of +all the wrangling of the radical sects, that was a fact the meaning +of which could never be obscured; a fact which shone like a pillar of +fire in the workers’ night. Bart had succeeded in the purpose he had +declared, to give a meaning to his name. “It mean joostice, it mean +freedom, it cannot mean nothing but!” To a hundred million groping, and +ten times as many still in slumber, the names of Sacco and Vanzetti +would be the eternal symbols of a dream, identical with civilization +itself, of a human society in which wealth belongs to the producers of +wealth, and the rewards of labor are to the laborers. In the words of +the prophet Isaiah: + + “And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall + plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, + and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as + the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall + long enjoy the work of their hands.” + + +THE END + + + + +_Note_ + + +On October 31, 1928, with the first edition of “Boston” printed, +bound, and about to be published, there appears in the _Outlook_, +an old established weekly magazine of New York, the true story of +the Bridgewater crime, of which Vanzetti was convicted; a detailed +confession by Frank Silva, one of the bandits who committed the +crime, the confession checked in every detail, and published with the +_Outlook’s_ endorsement. The following statements in the story will be +of interest to readers of this book. + +First: The “shotgun bandit” was not Vanzetti, but a professional +criminal by the name of “Doggy” Bruno, who wore a closely-cropped +mustache. + +Second: Frank Silva is the man whom Fred Moore was trailing. The lawyer +visited Silva in Atlanta penitentiary, where he was serving a sentence +for another crime, and endeavored unsuccessfully to persuade Silva to +admit the truth about the Bridgewater crime. + +Third: The crime was planned in the headquarters of Jimmie (“Big +Chief”) Mede, a Boston crook, and the details of the affair were known +to Mede. Fred Moore came to see Mede, then in Massachusetts State +Prison, and offered him inducements to tell the truth. Mede refused, +because he was trying to get a parole, and knew that this would +interfere. The brother of John Vahey, Vanzetti’s lawyer at the Plymouth +trial, came in haste to Mede, along with “Joseph Ross” (that Rossi who +was interpreter at the Dedham trial, and was frequently Judge Thayer’s +chauffeur) and warned Mede to tell nothing about the Sacco-Vanzetti +case. + +Fourth: When Sacco and Vanzetti were about to be executed, Mede was +so troubled in his conscience that he went to Governor Fuller, and +made a clean breast of the whole matter. Governor Fuller called in a +state detective, who so frightened Mede that he dropped the matter and +disappeared. Later, however, still worried because innocent men were +about to be executed, Mede went with two Italian lawyers to Captain +Blye of the state police, and endeavored to make a statement to him; +but Blye refused to hear him, saying: “Well, it is embarrassing; I +think it will be damned embarrassing.” + +Fifth: In the efforts to check Silva’s confession, representatives +of the _Outlook_ were refused every sort of coöperation by the +Massachusetts police authorities, and mysterious threatening messages +were twice received by one of the _Outlook_ representatives in Boston. + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + + ‣ Italics represented by surrounding _underscores_. + + ‣ Small caps converted to ALL Caps. + + ‣ Obvious typographic errors silently corrected. + + ‣ Variations in hyphenation, spelling and application of diacritic + marks kept as in the original. + + ‣ Correction: + + p. 491: “I remember a years ago” to “I remember a few years ago” + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78039 *** diff --git a/78039-h/78039-h.htm b/78039-h/78039-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35c0132 --- /dev/null +++ b/78039-h/78039-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,35854 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + Boston | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-family: serif; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} +h1 { margin: 4em auto; } +h2 { margin-top: 4em; } +h3 { margin-top: 2em; } + +p { + margin: 0; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.5em; +} +.no-indent { text-indent: 0; } +ins { + text-decoration: none; + border-bottom: 1px dotted blue; +} + +.half-title { + font-size: 200%; + margin: 3em auto; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.mth { margin-top: .5em } + +.pt2 { padding-top: 2em; } + +.pr1 { padding-right: 1em; } +.pr2 { padding-right: 2em; } + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +.x-ebookmaker div.chapter { + page-break-before: always; + margin-top: 4em; +} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; 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margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.transnote h2 { margin-top: 1em; } + + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2.0em;} +.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1.0em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp50 {width: 50%;} +.illowp25 {width: 25%;} + +.double-line { + margin: 1em auto; + width: 25em; + line-height: .2em; +} +.title-page p, .copyright p { text-align: center; text-indent: 0; } +.t0 { font-size: 300%; letter-spacing: .2em; margin-bottom: .5em; + font-weight: bold; } +.t1 { font-size: 120%; margin-top: 1.5em; letter-spacing: .1em; } +.t2 { font-size: 150%; margin-top: .25em; letter-spacing: .2em; word-spacing: .2em;} +.t3 { margin-top: 2em; } +.t4 { margin-top: 1.5em; font-size: 120%; letter-spacing: .2em; word-spacing: .2em; } +.t5, .t6 { font-size: 110%; } +.title-illustration { margin: auto; } +.copyright { margin: 4em auto; } +.c0 { font-size: 80%; word-spacing: .2em; } +.c1 { word-spacing: .2em; } +.c2 { font-size: 60%; margin: 1.5em auto 2em auto; word-spacing: .3em; } +.c3, .c4 { font-size: 70%; line-height: 1.0em; word-spacing: .3em; } + +.toc td.pt2 { padding-top: 2em; } +.toc th.pl2 { padding-left: 2em; } +.toc a { text-decoration: none; } +.toc th { font-size: 70%; } + +.chap-title { + display: inline-block; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: 80%; + word-spacing: .1em; +} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78039 ***</div> +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="cover" style="max-width: 109.875em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Book cover"> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[i]</span></p> + +<h1> +BOSTON +</h1> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p> +</div> + +<div class='title-page'> +<p class='t0'>BOSTON</p> +<div class='double-line bt bb'> </div> +<p class='t1'><i>A Novel by</i></p> +<p class='t2'>UPTON SINCLAIR</p> +<p class='t3'>VOLUME I</p> +<div class='title-illustration'> +<figure class="figcenter illowp25" id="title2" style="max-width: 29.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/title.jpg" alt="Title page image - a courthouse"> +</figure> +</div> +<div class='double-line bt bb'> </div> +<p class='t4'>UPTON SINCLAIR</p> +<p class='t5'>STATION A</p> +<p class='t6'>PASADENA, CALIFORNIA</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p> + +<div class='copyright'> +<p class='c0'><span class="smcap">Copyright · 1928 · by</span></p> +<p class='c1'>UPTON SINCLAIR</p> +<p class='c2'>MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> +<p class='c3'>First and Second Printings</p> +<p class='c4'>before publication</p> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE"> + PREFACE + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>The decision to write this novel was taken at nine-thirty <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> +(Pacific Coast time), August 22nd, 1927: the occasion being +the receipt of a telephone message from a newspaper, to the +effect that Sacco and Vanzetti were dead. It seemed to the writer +that the world would want to know the truth about this case; +and his judgment proved correct, because there began a flood of +cablegrams and letters from five continents, asking him to do the +very thing he had decided upon.</p> + +<p>A “contemporary historical novel” is an unusual art-form, and +may call for explanation. So far as concerns the two individuals, +Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, this book is not fiction, +but an effort at history; everything they are represented as +doing they actually did, and their words have been taken from +their letters, or from the dictation of friends and enemies. All +others who played important parts in this drama likewise appear +as they were, and under their own names.</p> + +<p>Paralleling the Sacco-Vanzetti case throughout the book is a +story of business and high finance which will be recognized as +a famous law case recently carried to the United States Supreme +Court. I have used the incidents of this case as material +for my fiction; but the characters which I have invented to +enact this story are wholly fictitious, and bear no relation whatever +to the real persons in the case, who are entirely unknown +to me. There is one simple rule for guidance in reading the +novel: the characters who are real persons bear real names, +while those who bear fictitious names are fictitious characters.</p> + +<p>The writer has been visiting Boston off and on for twenty-five +years. The first visits had to do with the novel “Manassas,” +and involved meetings with the city’s old-time heroes, such as +Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Frank B. Sanborn, Julia Ward +Howe. The later visits, having to do with “The Brass Check,” +“The Goose-step” and “Oil!”, involved a change of view-point +not without its interest to students of our history. Nevertheless, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span> +it should be said at the outset that what is great in Boston finds +due recognition in this story. Those who have made the city’s +glory have never been its rulers, but always a “saving minority,” +and that minority is there to-day, and it is active.</p> + +<p>The task has not been approached in a spirit of grudge; on +the contrary, the writer regards with a mixture of gratitude and +amusement those Boston officials who provided for “Oil!” an +advertisement which went around the world several times. To +them he owes the fact that he is almost out of debt to his printer, +for the first time in twenty-five years as publisher of his own +writings. An honest effort has here been made to portray a complex +community exactly as it is. The story has no hero but the +truth, and its heroines are two women, one old and the other +young, who are ardently seeking the truth.</p> + +<p>The complete legal record of the Sacco-Vanzetti case is soon +to be published in six volumes. I would have checked by this +record every statement having to do with legal proceedings, but +unfortunately a few documents were not accessible at the time +of writing. I had the 3,900 pages of the Dedham trial testimony, +but the Plymouth trial testimony, of which only one copy +existed, was withheld from me. I have checked my narrative +by many documents derived from the record, and had the +manuscript read by a dozen persons who have made an eight-year +study of the case. I have omitted every statement concerning +which doubt has been voiced, and the story contains no +errors of any real significance. It so happens that the important +thing in connection with the Sacco-Vanzetti case is to know, +not what a certain witness testified, but how he came to testify +at all. Those who read my story attentively will get the meaning +of this remark.</p> + +<p>I wish to make clear that I have not written a brief for the +Sacco-Vanzetti defense. I have tried to be a historian. What +I think I know, I have told the reader. What is uncertain, I +have so portrayed—and have let the partisans of both sides +voice their feelings and beliefs. My book will not satisfy either +side completely; both have already expressed dissent—which I +take to mean that I have done my job.</p> + +<p>I desire to acknowledge my great indebtedness to James +Fuchs and Floyd Dell for valuable literary criticism, and to +many Bostonians and ex-Bostonians for advice and help. So +many of these prefer to have their thanks in private that I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span> +confine myself to this general acknowledgment. Also I owe +apology to persons active in the Sacco-Vanzetti case, whose +letters and adventures I have purloined and assigned to my +fictitious characters. Extraordinary adventures—let no one say +that romance is gone from the world! Also, let no fiction-writer +imagine that his powers of invention can rival those of +the Great Novelist who makes up history!</p> + +<p>I think I should add that “Cornelia,” the heroine of this +story, is a lady eighty-six years of age, an old friend of mine, +who ran away from her family at the age of sixty as I have +described. But this lady never had anything to do with the +Sacco-Vanzetti case, and my character, “Cornelia,” bears no +relation to any of the ladies who interested themselves in that +case.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii"></a><a id="Page_ix"></a>[ix]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + +<table class="toc autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan='3'> +VOLUME I +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<th class="tdr"> +CHAPTER +</th> +<th class="tdl"> +</th> +<th class="tdr pl2"> +PAGE +</th> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_I'>I.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_I'><span class="smcap">The Runaway Grandmother</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_1'>1</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_II'>II.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_II'><span class="smcap">Plymouth Rock</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_35'>35</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_III'>III.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_III'><span class="smcap">Dago Red</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_68'>68</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_IV'>IV.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_IV'><span class="smcap">Young America</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_91'>91</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_V'>V.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_V'><span class="smcap">The Saving Minority</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_128'>128</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VI'>VI.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VI'><span class="smcap">White Terror</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_156'>156</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VII'>VII.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VII'><span class="smcap">Deportation Days</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_187'>187</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'>VIII.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'><span class="smcap">The Detective Machine</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_219'>219</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_IX'>IX.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_IX'><span class="smcap">The Web of Fate</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_247'>247</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_X'>X.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_X'><span class="smcap">The Legal System</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_280'>280</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XI'>XI.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XI'><span class="smcap">The Graft Ring</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_312'>312</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XII'>XII.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XII'><span class="smcap">Shadows Before</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_346'>346</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc pt2" colspan='3'> +VOLUME II +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'>XIII.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'><span class="smcap">Trial by Jury</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_375'>375</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'>XIV.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'><span class="smcap">Judge Fury</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_403'>403</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XV'>XV.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XV'><span class="smcap">The Whispering Gallery</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_445'>445</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'>XVI.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'><span class="smcap">The Law’s Delay</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_478'>478</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'>XVII.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'><span class="smcap">The Mills of the Law</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_510'>510</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'>XVIII.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'><span class="smcap">The Supersalesman</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_540'>540</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> + +</td> +<td class="tdr"> + +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'>XIX.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'><span class="smcap">Academic Autocracy</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_573'>573</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XX'>XX.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XX'><span class="smcap">The Decision</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_605'>605</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'>XXI.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'><span class="smcap">Days of Grace</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_639'>639</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'>XXII.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'><span class="smcap">The City of Fear</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_674'>674</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'>XXIII.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'><span class="smcap">The Last Enemy</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_706'>706</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'>XXIV.</a> +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +<a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'><span class="smcap">The Triumph</span></a> +</td> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href='#Page_730'>730</a> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xi"></a><a id="Page_xii"></a><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p> + + + <p class='half-title'> + BOSTON + </p> +</div> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I"> + CHAPTER I<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE RUNAWAY GRANDMOTHER</span> + </h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It was the parlor-maid who found Old Josiah in the +morning, seated at his desk, his head fallen forward upon his +arms. He might have been asleep, but his dinner-coat told her +that he had not been to bed. She stood in the door-way, whispering +his name feebly; then she fled to Addicks, the butler, who +was privileged to make intrusions. He touched his master’s hand +and found that it was cold. So Cornelia Thornwell was awakened +and told of her release.</p> + +<p>She had had a right to expect it many years ago. Now that it +had come, it seemed too late. Fright seized her, an indescribable +sense of loneliness. What would life be like, without a husband +to direct it? How would her grandchildren know what to do, +without Josiah to incarnate the Thornwell tradition?</p> + +<p>But she must not show emotion to servants. She slipped into +her dressing-gown and came down to her husband’s study. “Call +Dr. Morrow,” she said to the man. “And then notify Mr. James +or Miss Clara.” Her youngest daughter, wife of James Scatterbridge, +lived upon the estate, in a house just visible through the +distant trees. At this hour Clara would be getting her brood of +seven started on the day, and James would be dressing for his +work at the mills. Both would drop everything and hurry over +to relieve Cornelia of care.</p> + +<p>The daughter arrived in three or four minutes; very emotional, +as always—it seemed as if she had come to be one more of +the large brood she was raising. She was growing continually in +bulk, as they did; she was chattering as eagerly as they, and her +mind, like theirs, would fly from one small topic to the next. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> +But she had a strong sense of what was proper, and was shocked +to discover no tears in her mother’s eyes.</p> + +<p>James Scatterbridge came with her. He ordered the body +taken upstairs and called up his two brothers-in-law and gave +the news; then he came to Cornelia. “Now, Mother, you are not +to worry about the practical details. We’ll attend to it all.” +James was solidly made, both in body and mind; a plain-looking +and plain-thinking business man, with nothing of what he called +“frills.” He ran the great cotton-mills in the valley below them, +and a little thing like a funeral presented no difficulties to his +mind. “I’ll notify Hobson, the undertakers; also, there will be +the press to see to.” He moved away; and Clara, drying her +tears, started off upon the subject of a dressmaker for her +mother’s mourning costume and her own.</p> + +<p>Such things had to be attended to, Cornelia realized. “But, +Clara, I’m not going to wear a veil.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mother! Whoever heard of such a thing!” Clara’s large +china-blue eyes grew even larger and rounder with dismay.</p> + +<p>“I am not going to be a Hindoo widow and jump on the +funeral pyre.”</p> + +<p>“Mother, don’t start making jokes! You of all people cannot +afford to be eccentric.”</p> + +<p>“Why, my dear?”</p> + +<p>“Because everybody knows you weren’t happy with Father—you +didn’t really love him.”</p> + +<p>“Because I didn’t really love him, must I pretend that I +did?”</p> + +<p>“But Mother, we don’t want to set everybody talking! Surely +you owe him one last tribute!”</p> + +<p>The telephone rang in Cornelia’s room. It was her oldest +daughter, Deborah. “Mother, Henry and I will be right over. +We’ll be there in an hour, and meantime I want to make sure +nothing is done about practical arrangements.”</p> + +<p>“How do you mean, dear?”</p> + +<p>“I mean the funeral.”</p> + +<p>“James said he would notify Hobson’s.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mother, how perfectly atrocious! Don’t you know that +nobody has Hobson’s?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know anything about it, Deborah.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I do think we ought to be allowed to manage our own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> +father’s funeral without having our in-laws take everything out +of our hands! Clara has no more taste than a sack of potatoes, +and she lets James run her, and put the stamp of his commonness +on everything in our lives. Won’t you please see to it that those +undertakers don’t get into the house?”</p> + +<p>“My dear,” said Cornelia, “I shall follow my usual policy of +letting my children do their own disputing.” And she hung up +the receiver.</p> + +<p>It was not merely a matter of the social standing of undertakers, +she realized; it was a deep-seated, bitter quarrel among +her children, never to be assuaged. Deborah and Alice, the two +oldest, considered that the husband of Clara had robbed them of +their patrimony, and that Clara had compounded the felony by +failing to make his life miserable. Originally the Thornwell mills +had been Thornwell; established by Josiah’s father and extended +by the son, with James Scatterbridge an employee of low standing. +But James had forced his way to the front, and after the +panic of 1907, when a reorganization had been necessary, it had +been he who possessed the confidence of the directors and +bankers. So now a great block of shares, instead of being a +family inheritance, were tucked away in James’s safety-vaults.</p> + +<p>Nor had the ex-employee helped matters by marrying the +youngest daughter; that was a scandal, which the world would +never forget. Three generations from now, you would hear +whisperings at Boston dinner-tables: “Oh, but, my dear, don’t +you know that story? The original Scatterbridge was a clerk in +the plant and he got all the stock away from them, and they had +to marry him to get it back!”</p> + +<p>It was not as if the other two sons-in-law had needed the +money. Rupert Alvin was a banker who counted the year a +failure if he had not added a million to his fortune; and Cornelia +had heard Henry Cabot Winters boast that his law firm +never had less than twenty-five millions in litigation. But apparently +this money game was one in which it was not possible to +be satisfied. Rupert and Henry, who composed a team, would +have liked to take in Jerry Walker’s felt-plants and the Thornwell +cotton-mills, each in one bite. They had their “lines” on so +many other properties that Cornelia could not keep track of +them; the names were to her like those of ancient battles, famous +in story, but which she had never looked up on a map.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="II"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Dr. Morrow came; the pink of fashion, rosy-faced and silver-haired, +with sharply trimmed, dapper white mustaches. His +manner reminded you that good breeding asserts superiority +to every weakness of mortality. He went to the big four-poster +bed, felt the cold hands, listened for the non-existent heart-beats, +and then turned to the widow. “Well, Cornelia, old Josiah had +fourteen years more than the Bible promised him. So we can’t +complain.” He knew there had been no love between them.</p> + +<p>Hearing the verdict, the efficient James instructed Josiah’s +secretary to notify the papers. Some went to press early, and +would need time to handle this important story. The secretary +would begin with the <i>Transcript</i>, the family organ of all the +families that “count” in Massachusetts. The mischievously-minded +assert that mortality records show a great increase upon +Fridays, due to desire of the socially elect to appear in Saturday’s +obituary columns.</p> + +<p>Meantime the efficient James was closeted in Josiah’s study +with the efficient head of the Hobson undertaking establishment, +and these two were learning to understand each other. It was to +be a great funeral, a matter of state, which would mean prestige +and advertising to the concern which secured the contract. The +family was wealthy, and would pay for the best, but there must +be a distinct understanding that they were to get what they paid +for. Mr. Hobson listened politely and replied that he understood +Mr. Scatterbridge’s position perfectly. There was no reason +why a funeral should not be dealt with as any other matter of +business; and certainly his firm appreciated the importance of +social prestige and would be prepared to adjust its price accordingly. +After which he produced a portfolio about caskets, +revealing that there were art-modeled items of burnished bronze +for which it was possible to pay from twenty-five thousand up. +James Scatterbridge gulped once and composed his features, and +did not reveal his plebeian astonishment.</p> + +<p>Meantime Deborah Thornwell Alvin was descending from her +limousine, tall and stiff, always ready for a funeral, because she +dressed in black, with only a touch of white at the neck and a +double necklace of white pearls. She had her father’s lean and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> +stern features, and had served as his deputy in keeping the +family traditions in effect. As soon as she was in the house she +began objecting in decorous whispers; and presently there arrived +her sister, Alice, her ally in war on the Scatterbridge clan. +Who had given James authority to bring those vulgar Hobson +people into the case? Who had taken the responsibility to rush +the family into print, from who could tell what cheap and sensational +angle?</p> + +<p>“Mother,” said Deborah, “do you know anything about +Father’s will?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing, my child; he never spoke of it to me in his life.”</p> + +<p>“We’re going to find, of course, that James has got this house +and the land. You know he took a mortgage on it when Father +lost his money in the New Haven jam.”</p> + +<p>“Let me remind you, Mother,” put in Alice. “Father promised +me my pick of the old furniture. He knew I was the only one +that appreciated it—he told me that again and again.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my dear. I hope he put it into the will.”</p> + +<p>“I can only say this, if James and Clara get that Mayflower +cradle that I was rocked in, they may bury me in it.” Alice +Thornwell Winters’s fair blonde features were set in a look +which her beauty-specialists would have deplored, because it +made sharp lines on each side of her mouth. Alice was the adventurous +one of the family, going in for costly culture, inviting +poets and artists and people of that dubious sort to her home. +She had been painted several times and hung in exhibitions, and +had learned to regard herself as a work of art, a feature of the +social landscape. The fact that she could appreciate the old +treasures of the family was a moral reason for a family quarrel: +something which Boston quarrels require.</p> + + +<h3 id="III"> + III +</h3> + +<p>If Cornelia had realized the previous night that she was +hearing her husband’s last words, no doubt she would have paid +more attention. There is a certain importance attaching to +finality as such, even when it applies to the words of a man who +has been your husband for forty years, and whose every mental +reaction is known to you in advance.</p> + +<p>Cornelia had been reading about the destruction of the Rheims +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> +cathedral; there was an engraving of it among the works of art +she had brought back from her honeymoon, and she had gone +into her husband’s study, and seated herself upon a hassock, and +begun rummaging in the drawers of a chest which had belonged +to Great-grandfather Thornwell, holding the records of his ships +in the East India trade. In a drawer bearing in faded gold letters +the label, “Sylph of the Sea,” she had found the portfolio of +engravings and sat turning them over for an hour or two.</p> + +<p>And meantime Josiah was conversing with Rupert Alvin,—oldest +of his sons-in-law. They paid no more attention to Cornelia +than if she had been a mouse. They were talking about +Jerry Walker and his felt-business; and Cornelia, even while +thinking about cathedrals, could not help catching the drift of +their remarks. Jerry Walker had been an errand boy in an institution +of which Cornelia had been a patroness; and now it appeared +that he was on the way to monopolizing the felt-business +of New England. Rupert Alvin, who ran the Pilgrim National +Bank, objected to monopolies in the hands of other people, and +was of the opinion that Jerry was dangerously impulsive—he +had paid over a million dollars for the Atlas hat-works, while +Rupert was in the midst of making up his mind whether the +concern was good for a small loan.</p> + +<p>Cornelia glanced at her son-in-law, who sat very straight, as +he always did, in the big leather armchair; his dinner-coat bulging, +his tucked shirt-front puffed out, so that he looked like a +black and white pouter-pigeon. Rupert’s face ran to bulges: his +forehead a great pink bulge, with two minor ones over the eyes, +his cheeks half a dozen rosy-red bulges, and his neck and chins +a number of bigger and redder ones. To Cornelia there was +something comical in his indignation that some one else had +dared to think more quickly than he. But that was the kind of +thought she had spent forty years learning to keep to herself.</p> + +<p>Josiah gave his decision, in his old man’s voice that was beginning +to crack. Jerry Walker might break himself some day, +but not now; these were the days to buy anything at any price; +hats were necessary to armies and felt slippers were worn in +hospitals. That led them to the subject which all men of affairs +were discussing in this summer of 1915. Josiah repeated his well-known +opinion that it would be a long war and that it was the +part of wisdom to buy and buy. Cornelia sat thinking of human +lives while they were thinking of money.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span></p> + +<p>Rupert was of the opinion that the war couldn’t last over the +year, because the warring nations were heading for bankruptcy. +But Josiah told him not to worry; we would lend them the +money, provided they spent it for our goods. How would we get +the money back? And Josiah said we wouldn’t have to get it +back—it would be like Jerry Walker’s felt-business. “When +Jerry can’t pay what he owes us we’ll take over his plants.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia got up, carrying her engraving. “Good-night,” she +said, and they answered in a perfunctory way; and that would +have been the end of it if she had been the right sort of a wife. +But she could not resist the impulse to stop in front of her son-in-law +and remark, “It’ll be fine, Rupert, when we can bring +Europe up to date.” Rupert, a practical-minded man, assented; +and Cornelia held up the picture of the cathedral. “We can widen +out this Angel Tower and make it the branch office of Jerry +Walker’s felt-plants.”</p> + +<p>For forty years, even during the two that Josiah Quincy +Thornwell had been governor of the Commonwealth, Cornelia +had been saying things like this, and some people had found it +roguish. But never Josiah; always he would frown, and remark, +as now, “Your sense of humor is untimely, Cornelia.” She put +her hand lightly on the top of his white wig and said, “Some day, +my husband, you will tell me the proper time for my sense of +humor.”</p> + +<p>So she tripped out, the little old lady who had seen so much +that was funny in this big household that the wrinkles around +her eyes had got set in a pattern of laughter. Not even the destruction +of the Rheims cathedral, not even the thought of the +peasant-boys in the trenches, could wipe out her amusement at +the moral impulse of Boston, which was driving Rupert Alvin +to take charge of Jerry Walker’s felt-business, and likewise of +the geography and finance of Europe. Her last thought was +“He’ll do both those things.” And, in his own time and at his +own convenience, he did.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>In the offices of half a dozen evening papers the “rewrite” +men had dug out a column or two of copy which had waited for +thirty years, being brought up to date every year or two. They +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> +inserted at the top the information that Josiah Quincy Thornwell, +twice governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, +leading manufacturer and philanthropist, for twenty years a +member of the Republican State Committee, had been found that +morning dead at his desk in the family home in the town of +Thornwell, the probable cause being heart failure. The more +sensational papers added how the body had been found by a +parlor-maid; the sort of thing for which Deborah would hold +James Scatterbridge responsible. Also they said that the +funeral services would be held at Trinity Church, Boston—whereas +Deborah and Alice were determined that they should +be at the family home, so that the undesirables might be excluded.</p> + +<p>Upstairs in the ex-governor’s apartments Mr. Hobson’s shirt-sleeved +assistants were spreading their rubber-sheets and placing +two tables end to end, at the same time listening to their +employer set forth his conviction, that “ninety percent of this +business is psychology. You meet a hard-boiled guy like that one +downstairs and you have to let him talk himself out, and then +he’s ashamed of himself and you can do what you want with him. +After all, what does he know about funerals and how a swell one +ought to be conducted?”</p> + +<p>And at the same time in Cornelia’s sitting-room Deborah and +Alice had brought up the subject of the Shah of Persia’s rug. +“It really is my property,” Deborah was saying. “I only left it +in the house because I knew Father liked to have the heirlooms +all together. For years I have seen to the cleaning of it every +spring and sent a servant to make sure it was safe. You know +that is true.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course,” said Alice.</p> + +<p>“And now if James and Clara think they are going to move in +and let their children trample it—”</p> + +<p>Cornelia went downstairs and met Great-uncle Abner, Josiah’s +youngest brother; Abner Quincy Thornwell, burly and slow-moving, +stoop-shouldered and very deaf. Like many thus afflicted, +he considered it necessary to hear his own voice. “Well, +Cornelia,” he boomed, “well, well—so it has come at last! A +hard day for you, I know! We’ll stand back of you, my dear. +Anything I can do?” There was a look of concern on his bland +and rosy countenance—something that happened rarely, for he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> +gave most of his time to chess and would sit for hours lost in +a problem.</p> + +<p>Clara appeared, and greeted her uncle. When he asked her +what he could do, she shouted into his ear, “Make Mother wear +a veil.”</p> + +<p>“Veil?” said Abner. “Of course she’ll wear a veil! Aren’t +veils made for widows?”</p> + +<p>“Mother doesn’t care, she wants to advertise to the world that +she isn’t grieving. I don’t believe she has shed a single tear.”</p> + +<p>Said Cornelia, “I have read that moving picture actresses +make tears out of glycerine. Perhaps I may do that for the +funeral.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mother, how can you say such horrid things?” Clara +began wiping real tears from her nose and her uncle peered +from one to the other, with the uneasiness of the deaf. “Glycerine?” +said he. “I hear it cures cancer, but I don’t know if it’s +true. What did Josiah die of?”</p> + +<p>“Dr. Morrow called it heart failure.”</p> + +<p>“Heart failure, hey? Well, that’s respectable enough. Where +is he, up in his room? Poor old boy! But he had a long life, and +he got what he wanted.”</p> + +<p>He ambled off, and Cornelia found herself escorted into the +library for a formal conference with James Scatterbridge. This +son-in-law did not possess the worldly art of concealing his purposes, +but had to come directly to the point, like a business man. +“Mother, I suppose you haven’t had time to think what you are +going to do, but I want to be the first to tell you that you’ll be +welcome to live with Clara and me. Nothing will give us greater +pleasure, and we’ll do everything we can to make it the same as +your own home. Things will stay just as the governor loved to +have them.”</p> + +<p>The meaning of that was plain enough: Deborah and Alice +were right in their fears! “I suppose, James,” she said, “this +house will come to you?”</p> + +<p>“It is already mine, Mother. The governor gave me a deed +several years ago. You know how his New Haven stock went all +to pieces; and the money I advanced to him was more than the +place was worth. The governor felt a little nearer to me because +I had so much to do with managing the mills.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, of course, James. But the girls are going to be vexed. +Does the deed include the furnishings?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mother; but Clara and I will do our best to satisfy +the others. What I want to make clear to you is, it will be your +home just the same. You need never know that anything has +been changed.”</p> + +<p>“That is kind of you, James.” She said this with her lips, but +at the same time her mind was flying on. Clara would bring her +brood of seven to this stately old house and they would possess +it; she could hear their shouts resounding through the halls, their +heels clattering on the stairs; she could see them sliding on the +polished floors, using the Shah of Persia’s rug to play marbles +on. Against the wall of the library in front of her was a bookcase +some ten feet tall and seven feet wide, of French walnut, +hand-carved over every inch of its surface with rose-vines and +blossoms; the morning sun streamed upon it, and a thousand +facets shone like burnished gold. There was a companion-piece +farther down the wall and Cornelia knew that the last dealer who +had inspected her husband’s treasures had mentioned eight thousand +as a price for that pair.</p> + +<p>“There are some valuable things in this house, James.”</p> + +<p>“I know, Mother, and don’t you worry. We’ll add a wing back +of the conservatory and keep the children there till they’ve +learned manners. I haven’t been used to fine things, but Clara +has and she’s the boss of this family. You stay and help her.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, James. I am sixty years old, and all that time +I have done what other people have told me. Now I might want +to please myself.”</p> + +<p>A troubled look appeared behind the large round spectacles +of James Scatterbridge. He had a literal mind, adjusted to the +production of seventy million yards of low-priced cotton goods +per annum; this production was the real religion of his life, and, +for the rest, he left everything to his wife, satisfied that he had +done the best possible in the matrimonial line. And now here +was this little old lady with the laughing eyes, bearing the sacred +name of Thornwell, hinting at the revolutionary idea of pleasing +herself. In his heart James was afraid of this great family, with +its implacable pride and dignified cruelty; they were sons of +pirates and privateersmen, while James was a farmer-boy, +whose ancestors had worked and produced.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="V"> + V +</h3> + +<p>He had no chance to question Cornelia. The bell rang and +through the wide double doors of the library he saw Addicks in +conference with several well-dressed youngish men. Presently +the servant came with a message which, repeated from one +dinner table to another, became a standard jest of the inner +circles of Boston. Addicks had been with the family more than +fifty years and understood all possible social relationships. Now, +after due meditation, he came to his master with a formula precisely +adjusted: “Mr. James, there are three reporters and a +gentleman from the <i>Transcript</i>.”</p> + +<p>James went out, took the three reporters and the gentleman +into the privacy of the governor’s study, and proceeded to enjoy +the fruits of his own distinguished marriage. He reminded them +that the Thornwell line went back to the Mayflower; there was +in the mansion a cradle which had been brought over in that +greatest of ships. He reminded them that there had been two +colonial governors in the line, and two governors of the Commonwealth. +He reminded them of the deeds which Josiah had +performed in office, how he had sent the public thieves to jail. +He verified the names of the ex-governor’s children and gave the +names of the grandchildren, not forgetting the seven of James, +all of whom carried the blessed name: Josiah Thornwell Scatterbridge, +Cornelia Thornwell Scatterbridge, James Thornwell +Scatterbridge, Quincy Thornwell Scatterbridge—and so on. He +was in the midst of telling them how the Thornwell mills were +to be closed for a half day during the funeral, when a tap was +heard on the door of the study, and there entered in full majesty +Mrs. Rupert Alvin, <i>née</i> Deborah Quincy Thornwell.</p> + +<p>“James, do I understand that these are representatives of the +press? Good morning, gentlemen, I am Mrs. Alvin, the governor’s +oldest daughter. You will wish to know that I have been +in communication over the telephone with the Reverend Doctor +Wolverhampton, rector of St. Luke’s Church here in Thornwell, +which the governor built and endowed. He has agreed to officiate +at the funeral services, which will be held in the family home. I +understand that some of the papers have a report that the funeral +will be held in Trinity Church, Boston, but that is a mistake; +they will take place in this house on Friday afternoon at two +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> +o’clock, and be sure you get it correct so that our friends will +be under no misapprehension. Yes, the name is pronounced +Woolton, but spelled W-o-l-v-e-r-h-a-m-p-t-o-n—the Reverend +Doctor James Lowell Wolverhampton, rector of St. Luke’s +Church, Thornwell. He will be assisted by the Reverend Mr. +Quincy Adams Thornwell, a cousin of the governor’s. The interment +will be in the family vault at St. Alston’s Cemetery.”</p> + +<p>After which Mrs. Rupert Alvin, <i>née</i> Deborah Quincy Thornwell, +seated herself firmly upon the sofa, knowing that so long +as she was there not even her plebeian brother-in-law would dare +to contravene her. It was a legend of the family that in one of +Deborah’s disputes with her own husband she had said: “Take +me into the closet and spit on me if you will, but when we are +in public show me the respect that is due to my station.”</p> + +<p>The three reporters and one gentleman took their departure +in a taxi-cab which they had hired jointly and were whirled +down to the village, where each annexed himself to a telephone +receiver and spelled out these details, which were first rushed +out on a typewriter and then upon a linotype machine and then +upon a printing-press. So in less than an hour after James had +spoken and Deborah had revised him, the newsboys were crying +the second edition of the afternoon papers, with all possible +particulars about the life and death and impending funeral of +the ex-governor of the Commonwealth. They had a generous-sized +picture of him on the front page; a lean face with thin, +tight-shut lips and a long thin nose tapering to a point; a face +that had reappeared continuously in the course of three centuries. +In panels on the walls of his music-room were four oil +paintings, life-size, of four different governors, in four different +costumes, but unchanged in soul; personally incapable of wrong-doing +and merciless to all wrong-doers. Statesman, manufacturer, +philanthropist, said the newspapers in their editorials: a +model to posterity, an exemplar of all things dignified and +worthy of emulation—</p> + +<p>And meantime, up in the big room with the four-poster bed +and the windows shrouded with dark curtains, Hobson, the psychologist, +was remarking to one of his assistants, “If you don’t +stop pumping on that carotid you’ll have this old gent’s face discolored +and have to paint him.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="VI"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Rupert Alvin arrived, having stopped at the Pilgrim National +Bank just long enough to glance at his mail and order his engagements +postponed. Now he emerged from his purring limousine, +drew himself up to his full height of six feet, composed +all the bulges of his face, straightened his waistcoat and went +in. He listened with politeness to James’s account of the arrangements +made, and then, in a room apart, he listened to his +wife’s emphatic opinions of Hobson, and rugs, and the determination +of James to become the Thornwell family.</p> + +<p>Finally he sought out Cornelia. “Mother. I want to tell you +that Deborah and I will be more than glad to have you make +your home with us and will do everything in human power to +make you happy.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Rupert. I really can’t say yet; I haven’t had +time to get myself together.”</p> + +<p>But her mind was quick, and was busy picturing life with +Rupert and Deborah. They had a big house on Commonwealth +Avenue, where they lived three months of the year; the rest of +the time they occupied a castle on the rocks of the North Shore. +Deborah had the lean face and thin nose of her father and held +herself in the same stiff manner; for her that variety of chair +is made, of which the backs go up in a straight vertical. She +would be her father’s successor in understanding and preserving +the Thornwell traditions. She was very devout, and gave her +spare time to the management of charities—certain special ones; +she did not like other people to make contributions to them, +because they would then expect to meddle with her administration. +It was her complaint that there was no such thing +as an efficient subordinate to be hired; impossible to delegate +any responsibility, so she managed everything.</p> + +<p>As for Rupert, he was running a great banking industry which +carried a general supervision of other industries and the gradual +taking over of many of them. In between times he would advise +about his wife’s charities and their religious affairs. His hobby +was church architecture; the rectors of parishes in eastern +Massachusetts would come to him for advice about the proper +proportions of an apse. Cornelia realized that if she went to live +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> +with them she would indeed feel “at home”; she would be told +what to do, exactly as if Josiah were there.</p> + +<p>Rupert was summoned to help his wife revise the list of the +guests to be notified of the funeral; and Cornelia wandered into +the music-room, where the services would be held. But she could +not stand those four life-size governors, each with the same lean +face and tightly shut lips and nose tapering to a point. She went +into the conservatory, where there were beautiful plants and +flowers, and benches for young lovers listening to music—even +in the suburbs of Boston they did that. Cornelia’s children had +been young here and now her grandchildren were at the age of +love, yet she had never felt at ease in the house; she had never +been able to have her way, it always had to be the Thornwell +way. A public career had not been enough for Josiah; he had +insisted upon managing his household and had had the support +of brothers and sisters, a whole phalanx of righteous people. +Great-aunt Deborah had lived in the home until her death, +quite recently, and had been the real mistress of the family, +with the duty of teaching the daughters what Thornwell daughters +ought to know and think.</p> + +<p>For Cornelia there had been a little music and a little painting, +a rose garden and some books, a few friends, a play now and +then and symphony concerts. Gradually the family got used to +the fact that they could expect no more of her than this—that +she should conceal from them the fact that she found any element +of fun in their sober traditions. They did not understand +her smile, and it never occurred to them to want to understand +it; what made them “Boston” was the fact that never by any +possibility would it cross their minds that they had anything to +learn from what was “not Boston.” Cornelia’s father had been +a professor in a small college, which was decent enough, but his +father had been a common immigrant; and three generations +from now at Boston dinner-tables people would still be whispering +to their neighbors, “Oh, yes, but, my dear, her grandfather +came over in the steerage; they say he was a bog-trotter—the +name was Irish, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>Nor had there been any fun in being the wife of a governor. +Let those who wanted fame and prominence help themselves +to Cornelia’s share! It had meant long speeches to listen to, bores +to talk to, indigestible dinners to eat. It had meant never speaking +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> +a natural word, never laughing a merry laugh; everything +calculated, everything a matter of policy, to enhance a career +which loyalty required a wife to believe in. Cornelia put her +hands to her ears to drown out the roaring of crowds shouting +victory on election night. She could hear a nasal, drawling voice +pledging zeal for the public interest. “Fellow-citizens of the +Commonwealth, upon this solemn occasion when you have summoned +me by your suffrages—” and so on. Nowhere any charm, +or humor, or touch of simplicity! Nothing but heavy pageantry +and play-acting, from the cradle to the coffin!</p> + +<p>Even now, when in the darkened bedroom the psychological +Mr. Hobson had charge of Josiah’s affairs. Said the assistant, +“How shall I get this old buster’s wig to stay in place? Can I +ask one of the servants for some glue?” Said the psychologist, +“No, you can’t ask for glue in a house like this—what would +they think? Look on that bureau for a couple of safety-pins.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VII"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>The news had spread, the telephone was ringing, messages of +condolence were arriving—a constant coming and going and +whispering in the house of death. The dressmaker to consult +Cornelia about her costume; also the old lady who sold bonnets +in the town and was patronized as a matter of charity. Cornelia +was willing to be charitable—but Clara was using this old lady +to persuade Cornelia to don a veil. A dozen other questions: +who was to provide the flowers, and what kind? What was to +be the music, and who was to play it? Should the mill-hands be +given an opportunity to look upon the features of their employer +and just how was that to be managed? Two keys of the organ +failed to sound and must be seen to. Such details served to break +the monotony of mourning.</p> + +<p>Also there were relatives arriving: Quincy Thornwell, Great-uncle +Abner’s son, a clubman of fifty or so, prematurely white-haired, +his wizened face full of gossip; he had the reputation +of a ladies’ man, in a decorous Boston way, and Cornelia liked +him because he was not so proper as the others and would tell +her funny stories about the city. Quincy had grown rich by using +the family information on the stock-market. He spent his days +in board rooms, watching the prices of stocks chalked upon a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> +wall; and in the evening, when he was not visiting the ladies, +he was playing chess with his deaf old father. They talked about +poor Josiah for a while, and then Abner could not keep off his +hobby. He tried unsuccessfully to whisper: “The fellow that +won the last round is a Jew, but they say he’s French—kind +of funny, ain’t it?”</p> + +<p>And then Priscilla and Elizabeth, the daughters of Deborah. +Priscilla, the elder, was a perfect replica of her mother and +planning at the age of twenty-one to devote herself to settlement +work. Betty, the younger one, gave Cornelia thrills; a little +round face, a nose trying its best to turn up, soft brown eyes +that shone with tenderness, and little puckers when she laughed. +She sat in the councils of the women, demure and silent, as became +a miss of seventeen, whose right of entrance might be challenged. +Later, when Cornelia left the room, she followed. “Oh, +Grannie, I wish they didn’t have to quarrel so!”</p> + +<p>“So do I, Betty.”</p> + +<p>“Sister is just beside herself over that old Shah of Persia’s +rug. Of course it’s interesting to know that your grandfather +traveled in Persia and had the Shah give him presents; but +after all, there are plenty of rugs you can buy. But Mother says +if Aunt Clara doesn’t let us have it, she’ll never speak to her +again. Do you suppose she means that?”</p> + +<p>“Such things have happened, dear. Your Great-uncle Abner +has not spoken to your Great-uncle Ahab for fifty years.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Grannie! What extraordinary things in a family! Will +Great-uncle Ahab come to the funeral?”</p> + +<p>“Of course.”</p> + +<p>“And he won’t speak to Great-uncle Abner?”</p> + +<p>“In public he will, but not otherwise. Abner married the girl +that Ahab was engaged to, so Ahab has stayed a bachelor all +his life. Don’t you remember that big house down at the shore +that they sawed in half?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, was that it?”</p> + +<p>“They quarreled and divided it exactly, and Ahab moved his +half to another part of the town.”</p> + +<p>Said Betty, “I’m so glad you’re not going to cover yourself +with a horrid black veil. It wouldn’t become you a bit. And +I’m glad you’re not crying when you don’t feel like it. I say for +you to do what you want to.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span></p> + +<p>“Thank you, Betty dear.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a fact that Grandfather never felt the need of personal +affection—or at least he never showed it—so why should other +people show it?” Betty stopped for a moment, and then caught +the old lady’s hand. “Oh, Grannie, you’re crying now! I’ve hurt +your feelings!”</p> + +<p>“No, dear, not that! It’s just that I was thinking how much +unhappiness I’d have saved if it had been the fashion for people +to say what they mean.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mother is cross with me; she says I’m an unnatural +child, and she can’t understand me. Do you find me so?”</p> + +<p>“No, dear.” And Cornelia smiled through her tears. “Don’t +mind me, I was really looking for a chance to cry. It’s a great +strain when you break the habits of forty years, no matter what +they are.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Grannie dear. I wish you’d come and live with us, and +wake up the family. I wish Mother wasn’t so terribly strict with +me. I wish I had a car of my own. Dear me,” said Miss Betty, +“what a lot of things I wish!”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>There came Henry Winters, husband of Alice; later than the +others, because he had had to appear in court. It is not customary +to adjourn court for the death of fathers-in-law, but when it +was Governor Thornwell the case was different. Henry had +been conscious of doing a distinguished thing when he asked for +adjournment and the judge of doing a distinguished thing when +he granted it, with a gracious little tribute to the eminent +departed.</p> + +<p>As Alice Thornwell Winters was a model of social elegance, +so Henry Cabot Winters was a model of legal insouciance; a +lawyer who was also a man of the world and of fashion. Four +years in Harvard and three in the law-school had not sufficed to +suppress his sense of humor and for this reason he was the +nearest to Cornelia of her sons-in-law. He was a slender and +rather dark man, fastidious, dressed in the pink of fashion, his +graying hair combed in a picturesque wave. He commanded +enormous fees for his inside knowledge of the financial affairs +of New England; and after business hours he became the man +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> +of pleasure, yachtsman, fox-hunter, favorite in the ballrooms. +He knew the right people and brought in the business; and left +it for his partners to do the tiresome work of looking up the +law and winning cases.</p> + +<p>Henry now had need of all his urbanity. First he had to listen +to his wife raging in whispers on the subject of the Mayflower +cradle; and immediately afterwards he was trapped in the drawing-room +by his sister-in-law, Deborah. “Henry, there is something +that some member of the family simply has to speak to +you about. I hope you understand that I have no wish to intrude +upon your private affairs, but I have spoken to Alice and +it seems that I can accomplish nothing—she absolutely insists +that she will let Joyce Edgerton attend the funeral if he wishes.”</p> + +<p>“Why shouldn’t she, Deborah?”</p> + +<p>“Henry, the way you and your wife work out your marital +problems is no affair of mine—”</p> + +<p>“Exactly, Deborah!”</p> + +<p>“—until it threatens to become a public scandal. Don’t misunderstand +me, I am not casting any doubts upon my sister’s +virtue—she assures me that her relationship to Joyce Edgerton +is innocent and maybe it is—but there is a limit to what you +can expect the world to believe—and when Alice continues to +have some young man tagging after her everywhere she goes—and +when she changes them so frequently—and they all go to +the devil afterwards—you know what I mean, Henry! And of +course it may be true that Joyce Edgerton is a great poet—or +that he is going to be some day, and all that—nevertheless it +seems to me that this is one time when the family has some +rights and when the sacredness of our grief ought to be respected—and +I really think we have a right to ask you to use +your authority and see to it that Joyce Edgerton finds some +other way to amuse himself on Friday afternoon—surely he can +find an unmarried woman to go somewhere with him—just this +one day, that’s all I am asking—”</p> + +<p>And so on; until Henry Cabot Winters got up and excused +himself and went up to his mother-in-law’s sunny rooms, where +none of the curtains had been drawn, and he could sink into an +easy chair and laugh. Cornelia knew about it, of course; +Deborah had not failed to put the problem up to her. They discussed +it for a while and Henry remarked that Alice deserved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> +much more admiration than any one man could supply. Later +on he made the same little speech as the others, offering Cornelia +a home and assuring her that everything they had would be at +her disposal. The Winters had a great deal: a town house and a +suburban estate and a camp on a lake up in New Hampshire. +They had only one son, a lad who was preparing to enter St. +Mark’s school, so there would be plenty of space and freedom +for Cornelia. She could laugh about life with Henry; but what +would she do about Joyce Edgerton and about the young man +who had preceded him and the one who would follow him?</p> + +<p>Alice had her side, of course; it was pretty generally known +that Henry was keeping a woman in an apartment in the Fenway. +Also, Alice was “virtuous”—meaning that she never gave +herself to any of her adorers. But living in the house with Alice +meant that you had to know the details of these emotional entanglements; +just what the new young genius found in the soul +of Alice that was so especially wonderful and why he preferred +it to what he found in any of the available unopened buds who +had not been beaten upon by the storms of experience. You had +to know whether these young geniuses were happy or unhappy, +whether they were coming or going; and after they were gone, +you had to know just why they had been so disappointing to +Alice, so unworthy of the high faith she had placed in them.</p> + +<p>“Henry,” said Cornelia, “I suppose I’m going to have a little +money left me out of the wreck of Josiah’s fortune?”</p> + +<p>“I hope so.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose James will tell me about it in due time. If it’s +enough, maybe you’ll advise me about renting an apartment in +the Fenway, where I understand things don’t have to be so +proper.” And Henry laughed—he couldn’t help laughing, of +course; but at the same time he was somewhat shocked. How +much did his mother-in-law know about such matters? How +much should he admit to her that he knew that she knew? He +had an impulse to glance behind him at the open door.</p> + +<p>“Henry,” said Cornelia, suddenly, “I am ashamed of the way +this family is behaving. But, you know, the Thornwells have not +been exactly what you call ‘nice’ people.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Henry, “they have been ‘great’ people.”</p> + +<p>“Which means,” countered the woman, “they have been +greedy—and with a streak of insanity.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="IX"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>The heavens, regardful of the dignity and standing of the +late governor of the Commonwealth, sent rain on the night before +the funeral to wash the air and make every blade of grass +to shine. They sent the sun especially early to chase away the +clouds, all but a few fleecy ones, setting off the deep blue of the +sky. The expanses of lawn that stretched out on every side from +“Hillview” were smoother and cleaner and brighter than any +rug that a Shah of Persia ever trod. Under the great dark oaks +a flock of sheep were feeding, and behind a steel fence a herd +of deer. On the opposite slope in the distance were the white +columns of the Scatterbridge home, and at one side the cottages +of the tenants who worked the thousand acres of farmland. To +the east, underneath the newly risen sun, were glimpses of the +great mills, red brick stained with coal smoke; also of the river +through the trees, and day and night came the music of water +pouring over the dams.</p> + +<p>The mansion had tall columns in front, going up over the +second story, covering both the veranda and the graveled driveway. +The house was painted white, the paint, like everything +else, being decently old. Wings had been added on each side, +and in the rear the music-room, and beyond that the conservatory: +nothing regular, because the architects had had to adjust +themselves to the elm trees which bowered the structure.</p> + +<p>All morning there was the sound of wheels on the driveway, +and delivery men and chauffeurs in uniform ringing the bell, +bringing wreaths and floral designs. “Say it with flowers,” ran +the formula; and every saying had a card attached, to identify +the sayer: the Governor of the Commonwealth and his lady, the +Bishop of the Diocese and his wife, the members of the Republican +State Committee, the Society of the Sons of St. Andrew, +the Society of Colonial Dames, the Class of ’58 of Harvard +University, the employees of the Pilgrim National Bank, the +executives and managers of the Thornwell Mills Company, the +Chamber of Commerce of Boston, the Board of Trade of +Thornwell—so on through a long list. Addicks, the perfect +family servant, received each offering with grave thanks, deposited +the cards on a silver tray and handed the flowers to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> +footman, who took them to the music-room and placed them under +Deborah’s direction.</p> + +<p>The room had been made into a church, the “highest” possible. +There was an altar with a large cross made of white roses +and at each side a seven-branched candle-stick, with tall candles +burning. The casket was in place, holding the lean body of +Josiah, his face upturned to the light for his last few hours, the +long thin nose seeming longer and thinner than ever could have +been possible in life. The skin was a pale waxy color, tinted +with great skill—since Mr. Hobson was not merely a psychologist +but a “cosmetologist” also. In his advertisements he said +“Every funeral is <i>my</i> funeral”; which was why Deborah considered +him so vulgar. Boston—the real Boston—does not wish +its advertisements “peppy.”</p> + +<p>The three reporters and the gentleman from the <i>Transcript</i> +came again; and this time there had been an understanding +between James and his sister-in-law. It was like the case of the +man who said that he and his wife had worked out a solution +of the domestic problem; on all major issues he was to have +his way and on minor issues she was to have hers; and so far, +no major issues had arisen. The three reporters and the gentleman +were received by James and Deborah, and James got the +cards from the silver tray and dictated the names of those who +had sent floral tributes; while every now and then Deborah +would say, quietly, “Omit that name, if you please.” Not +every one was entitled to send tributes to a Thornwell funeral!</p> + +<p>The organist from St. Luke’s Church arrived, and Addicks +knew exactly what to say to him. “This way, if you please, sir. +The choir will robe itself in the little room back of the governor’s +study. The ceremony will begin promptly at two.” Attired +in a flowing white day-gown, the visitor proceeded to +test the organ, and mysterious vibrations crept up and down the +timbers of the building. “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy +bosom fly,” whispered walls and ceilings; and at the same moment +Deborah Thornwell Alvin was standing with her two +hands clenched, addressing Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge: “I +wish to say once for all, I consider one-third of the family +heirlooms are my property; and if they are taken from me +because of any mortgage I shall regard the taker as a pawnbroker +for the rest of my days.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="X"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Members of the family arriving. The ladies went upstairs to +put their hair and complexions in order, while the men stood +about, exchanging phrases in soft whispers: a beautiful day, +yes, ideal for the occasion, most fortunate; a fine editorial in the +<i>Transcript</i>, the press had been dignified; a great man was gone, +we don’t have that kind any more; a very convincing tribute +from the party, yes, they would find it hard to replace him; +looked as if the Germans might get to the channel; amazing the +way the market continued to boom.</p> + +<p>There came John Quincy Thornwell, another son of Abner, +with his father’s heavy frame and his uncle’s long nose; soft-voiced, +semi-bald, president of the Fifth National Bank. And +Grandfather Porter Alvin, father of Rupert, and Andrew Alvin, +his younger son, a polo player and sport, tanned as brown as +a Kanaka, with a puffy checked necktie and every shiny strand +of his black hair in exactly the right position. He stood in the +library, listening to Great-uncle Abner shouting “Who will +read Josiah’s books now?” Andrew ran his eyes over the shelves +of heavy works on political science and history and economics +and law, and knew that he was not the one.</p> + +<p>Two automobiles deposited six pairs of choir boys, subdued +in voice but eager of eye; they were herded into the robing +room by the Reverend Mr. Quincy Adams Thornwell, the cousin +who was to assist in the ceremony; tall, flat-footed, with large +bunion shoes and black suit and flat black hat like an English +curate—its ugliness excused for the reason that it had ritual +significance. Also came the rector and his lady; the Reverend +Dr. James Lowell Wolverhampton, pronounced Woolton, physically +and phonetically equipped to become a bishop; he gathered +up the letter “rs” which the Boston Brahmins all drop, and +saved them and rolled them out two or three at a time in his +sermons.</p> + +<p>He received the final advice from Deborah: “The family will +descend at one-fifty-five.” After which he retired into Josiah’s +study, to instruct his assistant concerning the service. “First I +recite, ‘Lord, let me know mine end,’ and you make the responses. +The choir sings, ‘Lord, Thou hast been our refuge,’ and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> +then, before the Lesson from the Epistle of St. Paul, we intone +the anthem—”</p> + +<p>“Then I will need both books?” broke in the Reverend Mr. +Thornwell.</p> + +<p>“No, no! You don’t understand.” And with Christian patience +the rector said it all over again, but more slowly, pointing out +the passages. He would have added the word “Dunce!” but that +would not have been a Christian thing to say to a cousin of a +governor.</p> + + +<h3 id="XI"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>The guests arriving. They stepped onto the veranda and the +chauffeurs parked the cars in a long line down the driveway. +There were three policemen in blue uniforms stationed in front +of the house, but in this well-trained community they had only +to confer dignity. The guests did not chat, merely murmured +a few greetings, after which they went to the music-room, which +most of them knew well; walking softly, on padded feet, and not +permitting their eyes to show signs of animation. They were old +people for the most part; gentlemen with white heads or gray, +flesh-colored or rosy; they wore black broadcloth, some with +black stripes of braid down the side of the trousers. The ladies +were in black, with now and then a touch of white at the collar +and cuffs; many of them wore black-dotted veils and fur neckpieces +even in summer weather. They were much wrinkled and +the older ones had hanging mouths; they let themselves carefully +down the three polished steps into the music-room and +took their seats, seeing only what it was possible to see without +moving the eyes.</p> + +<p>The place was open and airy, full of sunshine; divided into +four sections by an aisle down the center and a cross aisle with +open doors at each side. It had white Doric columns set in the +walls, and panels with the stern ancestors painted. There were +tall windows, with dark red curtains at the side, and seats upholstered +in red velvet to match. The front of the room had a +bower of flowers and in the center, where the two aisles crossed, +stood the casket with the body of the great man, white carnations +at his head and white roses at his feet; if you looked down +through the glass, as a few did, you saw his thin nose of pale +waxen color, and his white wig, resting securely in position with +no trace of safety-pins.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span></p> + +<p>Across the aisle was stretched a purple ribbon, marking the +seats reserved for the family and the family servants; in this +solemn hour class distinctions were abolished, there was only +Thornwell or not-Thornwell. The governor of the Commonwealth—the +living one—came in with his lady, but no one did +them special honor; they seated themselves among the guests. +So with the lieutenant-governor and his lady, and the senator +who represented the Commonwealth in Washington; a “scholar +in politics” with a very famous name, a dapper little gentleman +with sharply trimmed mustaches and beard. If you knew the +“blue-bloods” of this community, you would recognize great +bankers and lawyers, the presidents of two universities and +several scholars of fame. You would not know the timid old +ladies dressed in rusty black, who had got out of cars some distance +down the driveway and walked about for a while so as not +to get there too early; poor relations, who had been in receipt +of pensions from Josiah, and were trembling with anxiety until +the will should be read.</p> + +<p>Through the side door you saw a throng of humble people; +the employees of the mills, which were shut down for the afternoon. +They came streaming up the path from the road below, +dressed in their pathetic best; they would stand patiently +for an hour or two, listening to the strains of the organ +and waiting their time to file through the room. A rare occasion +for them; one might work in the mills another generation +and gaze up at the white-painted castle amid its sheltering +elm trees and never climb the path to glimpse the splendor. +The rest of the village, which did not work in the mills, +was clustered along the roadside to stare at the shining limousines +and their stately occupants. It was feudalism in frock-coats.</p> + +<p>The grandfather’s clock at the head of the stairs pointed to +one-fifty-four, and the organ was pealing a magnificent heavy +tune. Every person in the room knew the words, and beheld the +same magnificent picture—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ten thousand times ten thousand</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>In sparkling raiment bright,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>The armies of the ransomed saints</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Stream up the steeps of light:</i></div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> <div class="verse indent0"><i>’Tis finished, all is finished,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Their fight with death and sin:</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Fling open wide the golden gates</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>And let the victors in.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>At which sublime moment, with all heaven thundering in +her ears, Alice Thornwell Winters, black of dress and white of +face, was confronting Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge, demanding, +“Once more and for the last time, do you admit that the +Mayflower cradle is my property?”</p> + +<p>Said Clara: “I think this a most unsuitable moment—”</p> + +<p>Said Alice: “There could be no moment more suitable. It +marks the break-up of our family, if you so decree. That Mayflower +cradle has been the cradle of our destiny, and the +symbol of our position. I was rocked in its arms, and the generations +before me. I bore the first man-child—”</p> + +<p>Said Clara: “Well, I have borne five boys and two girls, even +though a little bit late.”</p> + +<p>Said Alice: “I have Father’s pledge and I stand on that. Give +me your answer!”</p> + +<p>Said Clara: “It is a matter about which James must be consulted—”</p> + +<p>Said Alice: “You have had opportunity to consult James, and +you have done so. If you do not answer my question, I understand +that your answer is no.”</p> + +<p>The clock had moved one minute, and Cornelia came, saying, +“It is time to descend. I hope my children are not going to advertise +our family shame to the world.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XII"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>The procession of men and women and children was formed +in the proper order, and down the stairs, two by two, they went: +Cornelia first, with no veil over her features and no tears in her +soft brown eyes; her gray hair was smoothed flat, and her little +round face was solemn, her little nose facing straight ahead, her +gaze fixed upon nothingness. One hand rested upon the arm of +Great-uncle Abner; and behind her came Great-uncle Ahab, escorting +Great-aunt Priscilla. Then Deborah, the oldest daughter, +with her husband, Rupert Alvin; then Alice, the second daughter, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> +with her husband, Henry Cabot Winters; then Clara, with her +husband, James Scatterbridge; then the son of Alice, and the +two daughters of Deborah and the seven children of Clara tapering +to a small pair with a governess between them. The miscellaneous +uncles and aunts and nephews and nieces and cousins +had already been seated inside the magic purple ribbon, so the +procession ended with the personal servants; Addicks, with his +venerable black suit showing slightly green in the bright sunlight; +the governor’s private secretary, and his Negro valet, and +Cornelia’s Negro maid, and the handy man, and the gardener, +and the cook—all persons who had been with the family so long +that they alone knew the dates.</p> + +<p>The six pairs of white-robed choir boys came down the center +aisle, their cherub voices proclaiming, “Now the laborer’s task is +o’er; Now the battle day is past.” The last and tallest bore a high +jeweled cross and behind it strode the two clergymen, robed in +white and black. All found their proper places, and the rector +lifted his hands and pronounced, “Peace be upon this house.” +And, truly, whatever spells he might command were in order at +this moment, with Clara Scatterbridge sitting with her teeth +clenched on the thought, “They are ours and we shall keep +them!” And Alice Winters glaring before her at the sentence, +“They got it by a mortgage, like pawnbrokers!” And Priscilla +Alvin, elder daughter of Deborah, shutting her fists tight upon +the conviction, “When it comes to a show down, Mother will +give up, but I will never give up!”</p> + +<p>“I am the r-r-r-esur-r-ection and the life!” proclaimed the +Reverend Dr. Wolverhampton; and then, exactly as if he had +known about Mayflower cradles and Shah of Persia’s rugs, he +added, “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we +can carry nothing out.” The choir chanted, “Lord, thou hast +been our refuge: from one generation to another”; and then the +clergyman began to read the extract from the fifteenth chapter +of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. It is very +long and somewhat involved, so there was no matter for surprise +if here and there a member of the congregation found his attention +straying. Rupert Alvin had seen, as he came down the aisle, +the face of Jerry Walker gazing from one of the side seats; +thus it was inevitable that Rupert should be thinking about the +felt-plants and the hat-works which Jerry had bought, and would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> +he be able to meet his notes, and how far should the Pilgrim +National Bank lead him on? And Great-uncle Abner, who in the +next match was to meet the French Jew, and could not help +wondering about the fellow’s tricks. And young Josiah Thornwell +Winters, the infinitely precious son of Alice, who had a +date with a girl and wondered how soon he would get off. And +Betty Alvin, who sat behind her grandmother, thinking, “If +only she’d come stay with us and liven things up!”</p> + +<p>The voice of the rector was wrestling with the complicated +Pauline metaphysics. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, +and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this +corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall +have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying +that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” Cornelia +was thinking “Can all that really be true? Shall I really ever see +Josiah again? Is he alive somewhere now, and does he know +what I am thinking? If he does, am I really free?”</p> + +<p>In the casket, within three feet of her, lay what St. Paul +called the “natural body” of her husband. For three days it had +been preserved by formaldehyde solutions; but an hour or two +more and it would be shoved into a vault, and there would begin +a process extremely unpleasant to think about. Cornelia had +been reading Fabre, and had come upon the details, which now +forced themselves upon her shuddering thoughts. St. Paul, +thinking the same thoughts, had said, “This corruptible must put +on incorruption.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>The clergyman was praying; and Cornelia, down upon her +knees, said a prayer of her own, “Oh, Lord, let my children +stop quarreling!” Then she was back in her seat, listening to a +eulogy of the great departed. “When the state was in peril, he +was as a rock of refuge ... to every need, public or private, +he gave freely ... the greatest of his generation ... we of +the new time call in vain for his like—” and so on, a discourse +that was Boston in every tone and accent. But Cornelia’s mind +was occupied with the realities of this household, to whom the +glory of Josiah was not a crown to be worn but a carcass to be +rended. For years she had prayed “O Lord, take worldliness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> +out of their hearts.” But something must have been wrong with +her technique of prayer; it had failed entirely of effect.</p> + +<p>“The services will be continued at the place of interment,” +said the rector; and the six pairs of choir boys marched out, +singing “The church’s one foundation,” and the guests moved +slowly into the library and the drawing-room, or to the front +lawn, to await while the mill-hands filed across the room. The +executives of the company were in charge of this, but Cornelia +considered it her duty to remain, and her daughters, not to be +outdone in ceremony, stood by her side.</p> + +<p>The workers came in single file, slowly and hesitatingly: men +and women, old and young, foreigners for the most part, pathetic +figures, the more so because of their efforts to look proper. It +was not often, under this system of feudalism in frock-coats, +that the two kinds of people met in the same place; but here +they were, the masters, tall and elegant, and the toilers, stunted +in form and scarred in features, with shoulders bowed and limbs +crooked and hands knotted and calloused. They had stood upon +weary feet for hours in order to see this splendor, but now they +were too timid to look at it; all but a few of the young ones kept +their eyes straight ahead. A few saw Cornelia—persons whom +she had visited in sickness—and these made faint signs of recognition, +which she acknowledged.</p> + +<p>Then came the pall-bearers; the honorary ones, whose names +were in the papers, walking honorably alongside. The casket was +slid into the hearse; the relatives entered their cars and so did +those guests who cared to follow, and the long line of vehicles +set out, with two motorcycle officers at the head and all traffic +waiting respectfully. So they came to the family mausoleum, +with the costly bronze receptacle waiting for its tenant. The +group stood about with heads bowed, and again the choir sang +and the Reverend Dr. Wolverhampton lifted up his rolling voice. +“Man that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and +is full of misery.” The casket was set in place and sealed, +and the doors of the vault were shut and locked; the blessings of +the Lord were conferred upon those present; and all was over. +The hearse went back to its garage to await the morrow’s passenger +and the guests scattered to their homes; the members of +the family returned to “Hillview” for a ceremony which concerned +them alone—the reading of Josiah Thornwell’s will.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XIV"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>Behold them waiting in the library: every one, from the highest +to the lowest, the richest to the poorest—even the older +servants, who were certain of being remembered. Every one—save +two. Clara, looking about, missed her sister Alice and, becoming +suddenly suspicious, went into the entrance hall. There, +coming down the broad staircase, was a sight the like of which +had never been seen by any Thornwell since the days—well, a +long time ago, when the ancestors had been privateersmen. +Alice was marching, her cultivated features set in grim defiance +and her deep-souled eyes staring before her; behind her a French +maid, and between them a piece of furniture of brown varnished +wood, much scarred and scratched.</p> + +<p>Clara stood, all but paralyzed. “Alice Thornwell! What are +you doing?”—as if it were not evident enough! Then, seeing +Alice go straight by without a word: “If you take that cradle +out of this house, I will never speak to you while I live!” And +then, “I will denounce you for a thief to the world!” And when +even this most dreadful of maledictions failed of effect, Clara +could only stand with fingernails dug into the palms of her hands +and face white with fury, whispering over and over, “Oh! Oh! +<i>Oh!</i>”</p> + +<p>They went through the front door and Clara rushed into the +library, whispering to her mother “Alice is stealing the cradle!” +Cornelia hurried outside in time to see the heirloom being loaded +onto the Winters limousine. It would not go through the door, +but the two women set it on the running-board on the right-hand +side, away from the chauffeur; the maid sat on the front seat +and held it through the front window and Alice sat on the rear +seat and held it through the rear window; and the car rolled +away down the drive, leaving the Thornwell family like a nest +of ants which has been stepped on.</p> + +<p>And even that was not the end! A dreadful idea flashed +through the mind of Clara, and she rushed into the rear reception +room, which the ladies of the family used for their tea-parties. +In the center of this room, upon the seldom-trodden +floor, had reposed the Shah of Persia’s rug; and now it was +gone! Clara gave one glance, and fled back to her older sister. +“Deborah Thornwell, you have stolen my rug!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span></p> + +<p>Deborah drew herself up to her utmost height of amazement. +“I have not touched my rug!”</p> + +<p>“But it’s gone!”</p> + +<p>“It has not been taken by me.” Still whispering, of course.</p> + +<p>Clara looked, and saw that Deborah’s elder daughter, Priscilla, +was missing. She asked no more but turned to Addicks, the +perfect servant, who never in his fifty years of devotion had encountered +an emergency like this, nor in his maddest nightmare +had dreamed it. “Addicks, Miss Priscilla has taken the Shah of +Persia’s rug. Search for it and bring it to me. Run!”</p> + +<p>In the two hundred and eighty-five years of Boston’s history, +no such un-Bostonian thing had ever been known to happen, so +there could be no Bostonian way of dealing with it. Clara Thornwell +Scatterbridge became an ordinary woman in a rage. With +tears in her china-blue eyes she appealed to her husband, to her +mother, even to her older children and the governess. Ignoring +her husband’s efforts to restrain her, she ran from room to room, +flinging open doors and looking into cupboards and behind sofas. +As it occurred to her to look outside, she rushed through the +doorway, breathless, red of face, forgetting her stoutness, her +laboring heart, her varicose veins, forgetting even that institution +which through so many generations had stood inviolate, the +Thornwell dignity. A civilization in ruins!</p> + +<p>The mystery was solved at last. Word spreading among the +servants, a chauffeur reported that he had seen Miss Priscilla +with the rug in her arms, going towards the apple-orchard. So +across the fields marched Clara, followed by Deborah, at Clara’s +insistence. The other members of the family, suddenly realizing +that this was a scene which must not be admitted, ordered the +lawyer to begin the reading of the will.</p> + +<p>Out under an old apple-tree, in the exact geographical center +of the priceless Persian rug, sat the new generation, “young +Boston,” which was going to think and act for itself—and bring +back the days of the pirates and privateersmen.</p> + +<p>“Priscilla!” commanded Clara. “Get up!” And then: “Priscilla, +you hear me speak to you! Get up off that rug!”</p> + +<p>Silence. And Clara turned to her sister. “Deborah, will you +order your child to obey?”</p> + +<p>Would she? There was a pause, while history hung in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> +balance. “Priscilla, I disapprove of what you are doing. Please +get up.”</p> + +<p>And so the rug-sitting sphinx revealed a voice. “Mother, I am +the person who will inherit this rug and I have made up my +mind what to do. I shall sit here until Grandfather’s will has +been read. If he gives it to us, as he promised, all right. If not, +Aunt Clara may call the police to remove me from it.”</p> + +<p>“Priscilla! You defy your mother?” Clara’s voice was trembling. +“Deborah, make her obey you!”</p> + +<p>“Priscilla, obey me,” said the mother. Was it possible that the +voice lacked just a little of its usual firmness? Anyhow, Priscilla +Alvin continued to sit, her eyes fixed on space.</p> + +<p>“Obey your mother!” commanded Clara.</p> + +<p>“Priscilla, obey me!” echoed Deborah.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” said the rug-sitter, “I was twenty-one years of age +last week and I have taken legal advice and learned that I am no +longer compelled to obey any one but the law. I am here and I +shall stay here, and I serve notice now that if any one but a +policeman removes me I shall get a warrant for the person’s +arrest.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” cried Clara. “What is this new generation coming to?”</p> + +<p>“Aunt Clara,” said the rug-sitter, “you will save time if you +go back and hear the will, because you won’t accomplish anything +meantime. Do not worry, I shall stay right here till the +question is decided. I could have gone farther if I had wanted +to, but I like this orchard, which you got away from us.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XV"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>And meantime Cornelia had gone to her rooms and locked +the door behind her; and then into her bedroom and shut that +door, to make doubly certain. She was pacing up and down, +beset by a storm of emotion. As they say a drowning man +lives over the experiences of his whole life, so she was living +the repressions of forty years. All the rages she had felt and +never voiced! All the disappointments, the despairs! The experiences +she had longed for, and never dared to have, and now +could never have, because it was too late! She had been caught, +a wild young thing in a trap; she had lived, a prisoner in a cell. +She had had dreams, and seen them suffocated; she had had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> +children, and seen them taken from her, and made into strangers. +Forced into the mold of this family—this solid phalanx +of iron people—with iron souls, iron wills which broke you!</p> + +<p>This crowning indignity, this outbreak in the very presence +of death—this was an accident, Cornelia told herself. They had +never done anything like this before, nothing so open, so undignified. +They would repudiate it themselves, they would be +ashamed of it to-morrow. This was not “Boston”! But to +Cornelia, who had been on the inside of “Boston,” it seemed an +outbreak of reality, a revelation of hidden natures. Petty +jealousy, petty greed, masked with dignity, and wearing the +solemn costumes of historical tradition! Other people, living +people, would quarrel over real things; the Thornwells quarreled +over the dead rags and relics of their ancestors!</p> + +<p>Once there had been real people in this family! Once there +had been men and women who had acted, who had dared to +think for themselves—and to care about something else than +rags and relics! Memories surged into Cornelia’s mind, of the +old days when the Thornwells had been smugglers and privateers—not +thinking about the proprieties then! There had been +revolutionary leaders among them—men who had gone into the +“pot-houses” and incited mobs! There had even been women +who had dared to think, and to act, instead of obeying the men! +Didn’t they worship the memory of a Great-great-aunt Deborah, +who had been one of the anti-slavery pioneers? Not frightened +by the horrible name of “Black Abolitionist”—no indeed, she +had made her home one of the stations in the “underground +railway” which had carried fugitive slaves to Canada! She had +taught Negroes to read and write—not only black women, but +black men! Such was the tradition they thought they worshiped; +but really they only worshiped the rags and relics of it!</p> + +<p>Suddenly this storm of emotion culminated, and Cornelia, +who had been pacing back and forth in her room, suddenly +stopped still. What was the reason women were always bound +by fear? Because they were afraid! Why were they obedient? +Because they obeyed! When they wanted to act, they did not +know enough; and when they knew enough, then they were too +old! But who could say you were too old to act, if you acted?</p> + +<p>Cornelia, trembling with excitement, but at the same time calm +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> +inside, went to her desk and sat down, and took pen and ink +and began to write.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“My dear Children:</p> + +<p>“For forty years I have been doing what other people wanted +me to do, and I have never had any fun. Now I think I have +done everything I can for you, and that you can get along without +me. I hope that I am old enough to take care of myself. I +am going away for a while, to remain until I choose to return, +if ever. I am not taking any property, because there has been +too much of it in my life, and I believe I shall be happier without +it. I am going to prove to myself, for my own satisfaction, +that I can take care of myself, without any advice or assistance +from any one. I have only one request, that you will waste no +time or money in efforts to find me. It will only irritate me and +do no good whatever, because I shall continue to do exactly +what I please. I have heard of runaway children; I am going to +be the runaway grandmother.</p> + +<p class="right pr2 mth"> + “With best wishes, +</p> +<p class='right pr1'> + “Mother. +</p> + +<p class='no-indent mth'>“P.S. I enclose a respectable letter which you may show to our +friends.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>And the second letter:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“My Dear Children:</p> + +<p>“Your father’s sudden death has shocked me deeply, and after +the strain of the funeral I realize that I am run down and in +need of rest. I have received a telephone call from an old school +friend who is starting on a camping trip and begs me go along. +I think such a complete change will help me, so I am taking a +night train, and write this to explain and leave you my dearest +love and wishes for a happy summer.</p> + +<p class="right pr2 mth"> + “Affectionately, +</p> +<p class='right pr1'> + “Mother.” +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Having sealed these two letters in one envelope and marked it +“For Deborah, Alice and Clara,” Cornelia laid it in the middle +of her bed. She then changed her mourning garb for an ordinary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> +street-dress, and took her handbag with some ready money in it, +and unlocked the two doors, and slipped down a back stairway, +and out by a rear door, and down the path which led to the +main road. There was a trolley stop, and a car labeled “Boston,” +and she stepped aboard.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II"> + CHAPTER II<br> +<span class='chap-title'>PLYMOUTH ROCK</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The “jitney bus” from Boston came speeding down the highway, +and when it got into North Plymouth it stopped in front +of the cordage company’s plant. There climbed out a little old +lady, carrying a straw suitcase, and dressed in humble working-woman’s +clothing, with a worn gray shawl over her head. From +beneath the shawl peered a pair of twinkling brown eyes, and +these remained, taking in the landscape, after the bus had rolled +on its way.</p> + +<p>There was a two-story brick building, seeming to extend forever +along the bay-front; built in the fashion of a fortress, with +a steel fence in front, and a pond which had been turned into a +moat in medieval style. High up in the blue sky floated an American +flag, to let you know that this was not a Rhine castle of the +middle ages, but a center of industry in the land of the Pilgrim’s +pride. The old lady stood wondering what to do next. Finally +she approached the steel gates and inquired of the keeper, +“Please, Mister, where I go for job?”</p> + +<p>The man pointed to a building on the other side of the highway. +“There’s the employment office,” he said. “But you’re too +late; we’re closing in five minutes. Come to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>The old lady looked at the red brick walls and the blue sky +and the white clouds and the starry flag, all made to go upon a +picture postcard. The windows of the long factory were open, +and she heard the roar of spinning-machinery, and saw the +figures of men and women moving about. Suddenly a siren +boomed; and as if by magic, the various buildings began to +belch human figures. Apparently they had been lined up just inside +the doors, like runners at the start of a race; they behaved +as if the building were on fire, or full of poison gas. More and +more dense grew the throngs of escapers, until the roadway was +gray and blue with the shirts of men and the multi-colored +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> +dresses of girls. For the most part they were foreigners, Italians, +Portuguese, and other dark peoples. They were small and +stunted, the older ones bent with toil, walking mechanically, +looking neither to right nor to left. The younger ones chatted +in twos and threes, and some had a friendly smile for the little +old lady with the brown eyes peering from under the shawl.</p> + +<p>Two thousand or more came through the gates, and then +gradually the procession thinned out, and the old lady turned +back to the highway and along the tree-shaded street. Smaller +streets went off it, lined with the homes of workers, four-family +wooden tenements, square and plain, with dingy worn paint or +none at all. The old lady found herself walking beside an Italian +boy, seven or eight years old, a slender child with bright black +eyes; he whistled cheerfully, and was reasonably clean. So the +old lady said, “Hello, little boy; what is your name?”</p> + +<p>“My name is Beltrando.” He spoke in good English.</p> + +<p>“Do you know anybody who would like to take a boarder?”</p> + +<p>The boy thought, and then said, “Come see my mamma.” He +led her down a street labeled “Suosso’s Lane” to a two-story +house of unpainted shingles. They went in by the rear door, +and Cornelia Thornwell found herself in the kitchen of Mrs. +Vincenzo Brini.</p> + +<p>“I come from Boston,” she said. “I look for job in cordage +plant. You know anybody got room for boarder?”</p> + +<p>Alfonsina Brini was a young woman, small but strongly made, +with kind motherly face and quick intelligent eyes. She examined +her visitor with some curiosity, and said, “You Yankee +lady?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes,” said Cornelia Thornwell—her pitiful effort at +concealment collapsing at once.</p> + +<p>“Why you talka lika foreign?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I thought maybe you understand better.” Her smile +was friendly and disarming, and won the other’s heart.</p> + +<p>“Me no onderstanda good,” said Mrs. Brini. “Trando, here, +he talka like Merican boy, he tella me.” Mrs. Brini was in working +clothes, and had not yet taken off her hat. “Me joosta get +home,” she said. “Me worka by woolen mill. You gotta job by +cordage?”</p> + +<p>“I want to ask for one,” said Cornelia. “Do you think I can +get it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p> + +<p>“Shoore, plenty jobba now. Plenty shippa get—how you say, +Trando, afondato—shippa sunk, maka new rope, plenty cordage +job. But harda work, you very olda lady for cordage job.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I won’t mind hard work,” said Cornelia, with the serenity +of complete ignorance. “What will I get?”</p> + +<p>“You no skilla work, you getta six dollar week. Some day you +learn skilla work, you getta maybe eight, nine dollar week. My +osband he work by cordage, getta twelve dollar half.”</p> + +<p>“And what will I pay for board?”</p> + +<p>“You boarda maybe two dollar half, maybe t’ree dollar. You +boarda by me, you go in room wit’ my big girl, I make it two +dollar quarter. You take little rooma for self, I maka two dollar +half.”</p> + +<p>“I think I’d like to have room to myself,” said Cornelia, +timidly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brini escorted her into the parlor. It was perhaps twelve +feet square, with one of those plush-upholstered sets of furniture +which are advertised at special bargains—$38.50, and you +sign a blank on the dotted line, and once a month the agent collects +three dollars, with interest on the unpaid portion. Also +there was a phonograph, bought in the same way; and before +Cornelia had been in the house half an hour, Beltrando had produced +the big red record which had cost a week of Cornelia’s +board, and took the place of an icon or shrine in this family. +“You listen to Caroos’,” said the little boy; and Mrs. Brini +stopped washing the vegetables for the salad and stood with +hands wet and rapture in her eyes, while a mighty voice spread +its wings and bore her soul to Italy.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_1"> + II +</h3> + +<p>The room assigned to Cornelia was five feet by eight, and held +a wire cot and a chest of drawers. Her straw suitcase would go +under the bed, and her clothing would hang on hooks behind the +door. There was a window with home-made curtains in front +of it, and on the chest of drawers a hand-woven lace cover, held +in place by two figures in tinted glass, one a shepherd, the other +his sweetheart, in Italian costumes. “This is lovely,” the boarder +said, gallantly; “it will seem like home.”</p> + +<p>And now, with the door shut, Cornelia Thornwell stood in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> +midst of her empire, trying to grasp what her new life would be +like. She wanted to bathe her hands and face, and realized with +dismay that she would have to use a bathroom in common with +half a dozen other persons. No doubt she could replace the +Italian shepherd and his love with a tin washbasin and pitcher. +But would she be able to afford such luxuries on six dollars a +week? And especially when she had not yet earned the six dollars, +nor even the chance to earn them!</p> + +<p>She put the contents of her straw suitcase away in the +drawers and started to shove the suitcase under the bed, but discovered +that the way was blocked by a couple of boxes containing +books. This surprised her, and she sat on the bed and examined +them. “Manzoni,” was the first name, and she had heard +it somewhere; but the title “I Promessi Sposi,” told her nothing. +The next was “A. O. Olivetti: Azione Diretta e Mediazione”; +and that told her nothing either. The next was “Le Scuole Clericali,” +and she judged that must be a religious book; the next, +“G. Most: La Peste Religiosa,” must be the same. These people +would probably be devout, and would they expect a “Yankee +lady” to go to church with them? The next was “Ernesto Renan: +La Vita di Gesu.” She had heard of that, but had the impression +that it was an agnostic book; surely her rector had spoken of +it as taking Jesus for a man pure and simple. However, these +people would not expect her to know about their authors.</p> + +<p>She went outside to enjoy the evening. There was a vegetable +garden in back of the house, all green and shiny after recent +rains. A man was working here, with his coat off; a big fellow, +with long arms flying vigorously as he threw the dirt. Cornelia +was pleased by his diligence, because it promised fresh food +for the table. She walked down the path and said, “Good evening,” +and he stopped his labors. She had given her name as +“Mrs. Cornell,” and now he greeted her as “Miz’ Cornella.” +Just as the London working-classes drop the “h” where it belongs +and put it where it does not belong, so these Italians did +with vowels; they would say, “You lika da spagett’?”</p> + +<p>“I am Mist’ Brini,” said the gardener; and Cornelia said, “I +am glad to know you”—which was true enough, for she had +been timid on the subject of foreign men, and this one, her +future landlord, was reassuring. He was of middle age, and +sometimes his face would be puzzled, and sometimes it would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> +be amused, but always it was honest. His arms were hairy, and +his large head set on a long neck. “Plenty gooda vegetable,” said +he. “You lika da minestrone?” He waved his arm with a gesture +which seemed to sweep the whole garden into a pot, and offer it +for her evening meal. Cornelia was to observe, as time passed, +that Vincenzo Brini would never lose a chance to make a gesture; +he would invent a whole pantomime to convey the meaning +of a single word, and there was no trouble too great to be taken +in these demonstrations.</p> + +<p>“You lika da cipolla?” he inquired, pointing to another row.</p> + +<p>“Onions?” inquired the other.</p> + +<p>“You teacha da Eengleesh, I teach Italian.” Brini grinned +like a boy, and pointed to another row. “Ravanelli.”</p> + +<p>“Radishes,” said Cornelia.</p> + +<p>“Bietola,” said Brini.</p> + +<p>“Beets,” said Cornelia.</p> + +<p>This educational game went on until it was interrupted by +the appearance of another man; a laborer arriving from his day’s +toil, with his coat over his sweat-stained arms, and a dinner-pail +in his hand. Brini forgot his rows of vegetables and called, +“Hello, Bart!” He added a torrent of words in Italian, evidently +explaining the strange lady. “You meeta my frienda, Bart, he +boarda by us, long time board.”</p> + +<p>The newcomer was a tall and somewhat stooped man; Cornelia +was puzzled, because he seemed to be young, yet his face +had many lines of care. He wore a brown mustache, which was +left to nature, and drooped to a long point on each side of his +mouth, giving him the appearance of a grave and amiable walrus. +He was a dignified person, and did not indulge in the Brini +fervors. “I pleased to meet you, lady,” he said. “My Eengleesh +ver’ bad, I shame for heem.”</p> + +<p>“She teacha da Eengleesh!” put in Brini. “You teacha heem +plenty, Miz’ Cornella, he learna queeck, a bigga studént, got +plenty book, read all time.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Those must be your books under my bed!” said Cornelia.</p> + +<p>“I taka heem out, lady,” said the newcomer, at once, and +started towards the house. Cornelia, with her woman’s intuition, +noted that this young laborer thought about others before he +thought about himself.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span></p> + +<p>“Fermati!” exclaimed Brini. “You no go in lady’s room, you +waita!” He grinned, and explained to Cornelia, “He no onderstand +politess, he reada da book, molto studioso, all day. Getta +da job, maka da little mon’, give up job, reada book. He greata +man, my frienda Bart—” and Brini’s hairy arm went around the +other’s shoulders in a hug—“he gooda man—besta man—you +ask all Italian in Plye-moot’—dey tella you—never soocha gooda +man in all state Massachusett like my frienda Bartolomeo Vanzett’.”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_1"> + III +</h3> + +<p>The family sat down to supper. It was not a big kitchen +and they were crowded, with elbows touching: Papa Brini at +the head of the table, Mamma at the foot, the three children on +one side and Cornelia and her fellow-boarder on the other. She +had been wondering what she would eat among these foreign +people; she found a big bowl of salad with plenty of oil and +vinegar, a chunk of parmigiano cheese, a loaf of bread in Italian +fashion, shaped like a letter H, and finally a bottle of red wine, +of which the children had a little and the women had one glass; +the men were supposed to finish the rest. But she learned that +Vanzetti would take no wine; out of the books he had got ideas +about health and was a vegetarian most of the time. He explained +to the new guest in his struggling English: “Poor people +molto fortunato—how you say, lucky—no can buy richa food. +You eata simple t’ing, you keepa da healt’ all lifa long.” After +which ensued an argument with Papa Brini, who made it clear +both by words and action that he looked upon the wine when it +was any color whatever. He laughed gayly and explained to +Cornelia the most elementary of Italian puns, “divino da vino.”</p> + +<p>It is customary in Italian gatherings for the women, and especially +old women, to keep in the background; but these humble +people were showing especial honor to their guest, including her +in the conversation and making her feel at home. They had to +struggle with strange words and call upon the children; and +Cornelia was interested to observe these latter and their behavior. +The oldest was about ten, small, dark-eyed, quiet and +pretty; her name Lafevre, which they shortened to “Fay.” +She was going to public school, as was her brother Beltrando, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> +and it was curious how completely Americanized they were, +with the quiet reserve of the New Englander and even the +broad “a” and the murdered “r.” Boston was having its way +with them!</p> + +<p>“Fay” served as the dictionary for their conversation; an +abridged one, needless to say. She was teaching Vanzetti English, +he explained, and he was teaching her Italian—that is the +Tuscan dialect, the Italian of literature. The Brinis came from +the neighborhood of Bologna and spoke the dialect of that region; +Vanzetti spoke as a Piedmontese, but since he had begun +to educate himself he had learned the classical language and +wanted Fay to know it too. It would be a poor exchange for a +child to acquire American newspapers and magazines and give +up Dante.</p> + +<p>Cornelia had come among these foreign people with no little +trepidation. It was the common phrase among her social set +that the Italians, or “wops,” as they were called, “lived like +pigs.” She had been prepared for dirt, degeneracy, brutality, +even crime. Would she be able to stand it? Would she be physically +safe in the midst of it? And now she sat, nibbling a clean +salad and good bread and butter and cheese, and sipping an +acceptable claret, listening to an Italian ditch-digger, who had +washed at least his hands and face and put on a clean dry shirt +in her honor, and now was holding forth upon the subject of the +“Divina Commedia”!</p> + +<p>Cornelia stated that she had read the poem—in Longfellow’s +translation; and from that moment he and she were friends. +“Oh, da greata poet, da greata man! You reada heem, you know +Italia, you lova da people! He was frienda da people, Miz’ +Cornella, he was—what you say it—ribello.” He turned to little +Fay, but she did not know long words, and he had to explain a +“ribello” by frowning and shaking his fist. “De reecha men +drive heem out, he live long time esilio, he suffer, he speaka da +trut’. I no read heem till I come America. I younga man, worka +by cloobba New York—great reecha cloobba, I washa da deesh. +And such filt’ I see, it maka you seek; you no eata da suppa +if I tell it you what I see in soocha place. Beeg dining room, +granda—marmoreo, how you say it? All reecha, much light, +bigga men all dressa beeg shirt”—the speaker made signs to +indicate an open shirt-front, and puffed himself out so that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> +Cornelia decided her son-in-law, Rupert Alvin, must have been +to dinner in that “cloobba”!</p> + +<p>“Evening dress,” said she, helping him along.</p> + +<p>“Joosta so—aristocratico, eccelso! And in pantry, in place for +washa da deesh, soocha filt’! I gotta little room, alto, high up, +povero. Come home, I moocha tired, go sleepa queeck. But I +come by Italian book-store, I see Dante, ver’ cheap for poor +man. I say, greata poet, for shame I be sooch—what you say +it—ignoranza. So I take heem home, I read, forgetta da sleep, +forgetta da greata reecha cloob, da padrone maledirante—I live +wit’ da greata soul in olda time, I fighta da priest, clericali, I see +heem in da hella—scusa me, lady—we say it in Italia more +polito, l’inferno.”</p> + +<p>The speaker paused long enough to gulp a mouthful of bread +and cheese; then he began again: “I say Fay, I say Trando, not +forgetta greata poet of old country. You reada heem, you have +greata soul, you be strong, never ’fraid, you bear it—what you +say it—infortunio, calamita. I go by Italian book-store, I say, +You give me ever’ting Dante, I read heem all. I reada book—not +poem, how you say?”</p> + +<p>“Prose?”</p> + +<p>“‘Il Convito.’ That is, you sitta down for suppa, lika dis, but +gooda suppa—plenty friend come—maka feast.”</p> + +<p>“The Banquet?” said Cornelia.</p> + +<p>“So,” said Vanzetti, and he recited a passage, and then, with +many gestures, and mixing of Italian words with English, he +conveyed to the Yankee lady what his great teacher had to say +on the subject of riches. The widow of Josiah Quincy Thornwell, +mother of three millionaires’ wives, now learned upon +authority of one of the world’s great seers that it is the amassing +of wealth which imperils and slays cities and nations; that riches +do not come to the good man, because his mind is upon weightier +matters; that the man of right appetite and true knowledge never +loves them.</p> + +<p>“You learn little bit,” said Vanzetti, “I maka you onderstand +heem Italian. No can make Eengleesh, spoil beautifool sound. +You hear heem—listen, Miz’ Cornella.” He began to recite, +lingering over every syllable, sounding all the vowels broad and +long, as the Italians do:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Per me si va nella città dolente;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Per me si va tra la perduta gente.</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>“He sadda man,” said Vanzetti; “never soocha sorrowful man +live on eart’. He call it l’inferno—lika you say American, ‘hella,’ +but not for curse-word, Miz’ Cornella, you know what da priesta +teach, da place for punish badda men.”</p> + +<p>“I understand.”</p> + +<p>“But you no believa da priest, it is all same hella here, what +badda men maka for poor man, killa da people in war. You +reada Dante, you no t’ink l’inferno, you t’ink Italia, you t’ink +America, here, now. So he say”—and the speaker repeated the +verses, and painfully worked out their English equivalent:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>By me you go into da sadda city;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>By me you go into da endless sorrow;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>By me you go among da losta people.</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Joostice it mov-èd him, my greata maker.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>It is a fact that much great poetry has been written in the +dialects of the poor and humble; it is a fact that Dante’s own +dialect was that, until he made it a world-language. But Cornelia +did not know this, and did not realize that the Italian ditch-digger +was making good poetry of his own. She only knew that +she was managing to understand what his teacher meant to him: +“Perduta gente, Miz’ Cornella—it is not people what have deny +da priest and go hella, it is people what is poor and no got +friend, go for be shot, and kill-èd in bigga war. Dat is perduta +gente, losta people; for soocha people it maka me tears in da +heart.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_1"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>The family was stirring early. Brini did an hour’s work in +the garden before he went to his job, and his friend Bart insisted +upon helping. Mrs. Brini made the coffee and “frittata” for +breakfast and would not let Cornelia help, but instead made her +listen to good advice. “You no try be foreign woman, dey glad +for have Yankee lady worka by cordage. You tella heem osband +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> +die, you harda luck, musta get job. But you no be ’fraid, +plenty coraggio, plenty odder job. You say got to have day work, +no letta heem give nighta job. Wartime maka plenty job, you +no be ’fraid.”</p> + +<p>Vanzetti was working for the cordage company, “—worka +picka shov,” was the way he phrased it; digging a ditch for a +pipe-line they were laying. So he walked with Cornelia, and +gave her more advice. “You have harda time, Miz’ Cornella, +olda lady, no giovane, molta affaticata—harda work. You go +easy, no be scare of boss, he no die hungry if you no killa self +for heem. You worka slow, taka time. You losa job, we help, no +let gooda lady hungry.”</p> + +<p>So Cornelia went boldly into the employment office and looked +the clerk in the eye and said, “I would like employment.”</p> + +<p>It was the first time she had offered herself for sale, and it +was a new sensation to be looked over from the market point of +view. “Ever worked at cordage?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“What have you done?”</p> + +<p>“I taught school. Then I married. Now I am a widow, and +must support myself.”</p> + +<p>“This work is pretty hard for an old lady.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not afraid of hard work. I’ll take care of that. But I +want a daytime job.”</p> + +<p>“You might do wrapping,” said the clerk. He consulted a +chart. “We have no vacancy, but we might move somebody on.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Cornelia. “Arrange that, if you please.” +She was trying a little “psychology” on him, and it appeared to +work. He asked her questions and entered her replies on a card; +and presently she found herself in charge of a messenger, passing +through the high steel gates.</p> + +<p>It was a long walk to her destination; this greatest cordage +plant in the world extended three-quarters of a mile along the +bay-front, with a covered dock to which the ships came to unload +their cargoes of sisal, and railroad tracks and switch-yards +for the cars which carried away rope and binder twine. The +roar of machinery was everywhere, and men hurrying about like +busy ants. Cornelia stayed close to her guide, who knew his +way through the labyrinth of labor, and would deliver her safely +to her little niche.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span></p> + +<p>The ceiling of the wrapping-room was low—no space was +wasted. The coils of rope came through upon an endless platform +and a row of women sat sewing burlap covers with long +needles and hempen thread. Cornelia’s escort spoke to the foreman, +who took another woman off the job, gave her seat to +Cornelia and showed her the work. She had to turn the coil of +rope a certain distance, take up a threaded needle, turn in the +edges of the burlap cover and sew a certain number of stitches; +all this within a calculated time, before the motion of the platform +took the coil of rope out of her reach and brought a new +one to her.</p> + +<p>It took an intelligent person above five minutes to learn all +there was to the job; after that it was just the same motions +over and over. At first it was agreeable; Cornelia’s problem was +solved, and she could take glimpses at the other women in the +line and at the room and the machinery. But after an hour or +two the unaccustomed muscles and nerves began to make protest; +she was tired and her hands were trembling. The hempen +thread was long and so was the motion of her arm; if you think +it is not tiresome to wave your arm for several hours—try it! +She began to feel dizzy, and the coil of rope which had at first +moved normally, now seemed to be glued to the platform and +refused to turn. She had no way to tell the time; she was at the +mercy of this enormous machine which had run wild and forgotten +the clock, and would go on until the row of arm-waving +women were paralyzed!</p> + +<p>But at last the siren sounded; and then Cornelia understood, +without any sociological discussion, why it was that the workers +leaped up in a flash and hurried outdoors. For herself, she did +not move; all she wanted was to lie back against the wall and +close her trembling eyelids and let her tired hands drop. She +had brought lunch in a little box, but she did not want it; she +only wanted to be still. She answered faintly the other women +who sat near and expressed their sympathy. They knew how it +was at first and sought to reassure her; it would be easier by and +by, her fingers and back would get used to it. But she was an +old lady, to be tackling a job like this.</p> + +<p>Yes, Cornelia was old; she had never felt so old in her life +before. She had been foolish to attempt such a thing; she might +have known she couldn’t see it through. But then she shut her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> +tired fists and clenched her teeth. She had made up her mind +to get a job and stick to that job, whatever it turned out to be. +Now this was it, and it was do or die. People in New England +did things like that—strange, eccentric, and terrible things, because +their consciences drove them to it, or just because they +had said they would, and were too stubborn to change.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_1"> + V +</h3> + +<p>The siren sounded again and the great machine started to +rumble. Cornelia picked up the threaded needle with her shaking +fingers, and began making the motions against which her being +rebelled. She saw her future stretching out to infinity; every +morning from seven until twelve she would sit and make these +motions; then she would rest an hour and make them again +from one until six. And those ten hours would be ten hours, +and no nonsense about them, no fine sentiment. Cornelia recalled +her reason for selecting the Plymouth Cordage Company as her +first employer. Old Mr. Perry—J. Lawrence Perry, a director +of the company—was such a kindly old gentleman; she had +heard him talk so much about the “welfare work” they were +doing and what a beautiful plant it was and how happy and +contented the workers were. It had sounded quite idyllic and +Cornelia had swallowed it whole. Mr. Perry gave money to +various charities, and also gave time to running them, and +everybody admired him so. But now it came to Cornelia in a +flash that she didn’t care in the least what he did with the money +he got by selling these coils of rope; what she wanted was for +his machinery to stop for a few minutes! All the love and fine +sentiment in the world didn’t matter a particle, so long as you +had to sit here ten hours out of twenty-four making the same +motions over and over!</p> + +<p>Nor did it matter that rope was clean and even romantic, +having to do with ships! Cornelia had pleased herself by that +vain imagining; but now she realized that she wasn’t going to +see any ships, nor have anything to do with the rope, except to +take eighteen or twenty stitches around the edges. She wasn’t +going to know what became of the product after it left her +fingers; she wasn’t even going to know, except by hearsay, how +it came to be what it was. The dear, gentle, white-haired old +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span> +Mr. Perry hadn’t provided any system for escorting his employees +through the plant and showing them the process. Each +one went to his own appointed spot and was standing there when +the siren blew and stayed there until it blew again five hours +later. One job was the same as the next—except for one difference, +the amount of money in the pay envelope when it was +torn open. Some day Cornelia would point that out to dear old +Mr. Perry and see the shocked look on his placid face. The idea +gave her satisfaction, helping to drive from her consciousness +the clamor of aching muscles and nerves.</p> + +<p>When at last the siren blew again, one of the other women +had to help Cornelia from her seat. She was the last to escape +from the building, and the last to reach the gates. Brini and +Vanzetti were waiting for her and they ran quickly and put +their strong arms under her feeble, trembling ones—and what +dear, good, honest, kind Italian laborers they seemed! They +could read in her face how exhausted she was and they half +carried her along the street. All the way, Vanzetti was murmuring, +“Poor Miz’ Cornella! Too harda job for olda lady! You +no keep so harda job!”</p> + +<p>And when they had got home and she said that she did not +want any supper, but just to lie down on the bed, it was the +disciple of Dante who brought her a glass of milk and forced +her to drink it, whether or no. While he watched her, he said, +“Miz’ Cornella, you no go back for cordage jobba. You do little +housework, you helpa da seeck little bit, no try mill work, you +too olda lady, no usèd so harda work! I got little money in +bank, I helpa you little bit, we all help, you get little job wit’ +Yankee family—”</p> + +<p>But Cornelia said “I’ll be all right in the morning. I’m not +going to give up my place.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_1"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia had hoped to find it easier the next day, but was +disappointed. She slept badly and woke up with every muscle +in her back and arms and fingers sore. It was a continual effort +of the will to make these aching muscles do their work, and +each hour of labor was a new ordeal. It was many days before +these pains began to diminish and she paid for the effort by a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> +sensitiveness in the shoulders and back for the rest of her life. +The doctors called it “articular rheumatism” and were satisfied +when they had given it such an impressive name. The patient +was expected to be equally satisfied with the achievement.</p> + +<p>Cornelia ought to have been flattered by her social success in +Suosso’s Lane. Each morning she had two able-bodied men to +escort her to work, and the same two and a small boy to bring +her home in the evening. The whole family would baby her, +putting her to bed, insisting upon bringing her supper, and refusing +to let her do any sort of work. She could eat lying back +on a pillow, and they could talk to her from the kitchen where +they ate. They made a regular function of it, with no end of +fun and laughter.</p> + +<p>Why did they do it? Was it the innate kindness of the poor? +Would any Italian family have done the same for an elderly +woman who was in trouble? Cornelia hoped it was true; but +she began to suspect that there were special factors in her case. +She was a “Yankee lady” and these people knew themselves for +“wops” to the rulers of a strange rich land. It must have been +evident to them that this mysterious elderly person with the +slight frame and soft muscles, the gentle voice and sensitive +feelings had been used to a different kind of life. She had come +out into the cold world at the age of sixty, alone and friendless, +to fight her own way. And why? She told them she had been +left a widow, and their imaginations had done the rest. She had +been thrown into destitution; cruel relatives had deprived her +of her inheritance! Some such simple and naïve story they had +made up for her and so she stood for romance to them.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti insisted upon heating a glass of milk hot for Cornelia +because it was nice and soothing that way and easy for a tired +lady to digest. Later, when he went outdoors, Mrs. Brini remarked, +“He so kinda heart, no can let anybody hurt. One time +we got baby cat—how you say, kitten—poor little kitten getta +seeck. He molto seeck, my osband he say, no good for suffer, +he sure die, I keela heem. So he taka kitten by neck, for go +outside and hitta heem on head. And Bart, he near go crazy. +‘No, by Godda, you no keela kitten?’ ‘Buttalo giu!’ say my man. +‘What you t’ink, I gotta time for seecka kitten all time?’ ‘You +giva heem me, I got plenty time,’ say Bart, and he taka da +kitten, he maka little box, he put heem in wit’ grass for soft, he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> +maka heem bed, and joosta soon he come homa night, he feeda +da kitten wit’ warm milk.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia laughed. “So that is where he learned it! I am his +sick kitten!” And when Vanzetti came back, she called herself +that and it gave great glee to Fay and Trando, who told her the +Italian word, “gattina,” and it would have become her nickname, +only their mother made them stop because it was not +dignified.</p> + +<p>To help them out, Cornelia told them that at home she had +gone by the name of “Grannie,” and they told her the Italian +equivalent, which was “Nonna,” and began to call her that. +Everybody had nicknames in this family and wanted Cornelia +to call them by these, so that she would really belong. Alfonsina +Brini was “Cicadet,” the meaning of which was not clear. The +youngest child was called “Dolly,” because of the rag-doll she +was never without. Vanzetti had a special name for Beltrando, +a high-strung little fellow, who frequently did not get along +with the boys outside; he would come in crying, and Vanzetti, +to tease him out of it, would call him “Magoon,” the Bolognese +word for “sorry.”</p> + +<p>Papa Brini did not understand his sensitive child very well, +so the boarder had taken over the task of his moral guidance; +Vanzetti would sometimes romp with him and sometimes scold +him, and sometimes explain life to him in serious discourses. +The boy adored him and would follow him about, watching his +every move. Vanzetti liked to go for long walks after his supper, +to lose himself in thought; when it was stormy, he would walk +back and forth in the kitchen, four steps of his long legs one +way, and then four steps the other, completely oblivious to +everything in the house. Perhaps because of the shortness of +the space he would now and then take little steps, as if he were +dancing; and Trando would follow behind him, back and forth, +doing his best to reproduce each motion. The others would smile, +but Vanzetti never seemed to know about it. What was he +thinking at these times? What were the guiding ideas of this +unusual Italian ditch-digger?</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_1"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>One evening Cornelia sat on the steps of the porch, drinking +in the soft breeze, watching the fire-flies and listening to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> +crickets. In the garden of the next house a woman was working +and she came to the fence and said, with a substantial Irish +brogue, “Good evenin’, mum.”</p> + +<p>“Good evening,” said Cornelia, politely; then to her surprise +the woman said, “Would ye come over here, mum? I have +somethin’ to say.” So Cornelia moved her stiff joints and +limped over to the fence. “My name is Mrs. O’Dowd,” said +the neighbor, and Cornelia said, “I am Mrs. Cornell.”</p> + +<p>“Pleased to meet ye, Mrs. Cornell.” She lowered her voice +as she went on: “I have been watchin’, and ’tis evident to me +yez are an American lady, and perhaps ye do not know these +Eyetalians. So, no offense, but I thought it might be good to +give a bit of warnin’.”</p> + +<p>“Of what, Mrs. O’Dowd?”</p> + +<p>“Likely ye did not know these Brinis before ye come to +board with them—is that so?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is.”</p> + +<p>“Sure, and I knowed it; says I to me man, ‘She’s picked them +up on the street or somethin’ ’.”</p> + +<p>“I met the little boy on the street.”</p> + +<p>“Sure I was of it. ’Tis a good lad he is, I’ve nothin’ agin +him, barrin’ that now and then his ball will bounce into me +garden. Well, Mrs. Cornell, ye’d ought to know that ye have +fell into a bunch of dangerous people—the worst there is in +this town or many another—arnychists, the lot of them.”</p> + +<p>“Arnychists?” said Cornelia, puzzled.</p> + +<p>“The very bad kind, mum, the Eyetalian kind, the murderin’ +and bomb-throwin’ arnychists.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mrs. O’Dowd! You really think they do that?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve never saw them do it, mum, but ’tis what the neighbors +say, and the priest he is forever preachin’ agin them, warnin’ +us that we shall not speak to them for any reason. For, ye see, +’tis not only the bombs, but ’tis atheists they are; they do not go +to any church at all, mum, and their childer have never been +baptized, they are lost souls the lot of them.”</p> + +<p>“Lost souls,” said Cornelia, “how terrible!” And in the back +of her consciousness was an echo of a melodious phrase—“Per +me si va tra la perduta gente!”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. O’Dowd,” she said, “you surprise me. They have been +so kind to me!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, mum, but a lot of us would be that if we had a chance. +’Tis easy to know a lady when ye see one, and when she’s in +trouble, and tryin’ to make her own way, ’twould be no great +thing to give her a helpin’ hand. But we would do it in the +Blessed Name, mum, so it would count for somethin’.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I thank you very much,” said Cornelia. “I am glad to +know, of course.”</p> + +<p>“I hope ye will not say that ’twas me that told about it, because +I have childer of me own, and I’d not like to find meself +blown out of bed by no bombs.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll surely not mention it,” said Cornelia. “I’ll need time to +think what to do. It may be the kindest thing would be for me +to stay with them and help convert them from their bad ways.”</p> + +<p>“’Twould be a blessin’ for fair,” said Mrs. O’Dowd, “for ’tis +a sore disgrace to Suosso’s Lane to be havin’ such a family in it. +But be careful, mum, while ye argue, for ye might be the one +to be converted yeself.”</p> + +<p>“Are they as dangerous as all that?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mrs. Cornell, ’tis somethin’ I do not know of meself, +because I don’t know a word of their lingo and never hope to. +But Father O’Brien says they have the divil in their hearts, and +that makes them hard to deal with, so ye had best take warnin’ +and be careful.”</p> + +<p>“I will, Mrs. O’Dowd, and you may pray for me if you +don’t mind.” So Cornelia went back to her seat on the porch.</p> + +<p>After a while she went inside, and there was Brini, with a +twinkle in his eyes and a wide grin on his good-natured face. +“You talka wit’ Miz’ O’Dowda—what she tella you? She say, +no live wit’ anarchista, badda people, maka di bombe, t’rowa +heem in da church”—and Brini made a violent upward motion +with his hands—“blow uppa da Sancta Trinita and Benedetta +Vergine!” Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Molto +secreto—no tella heem—he putta di bombe nella mia casa, he +blow bambini alla hella!”</p> + +<p>Seeing from the expression of Cornelia’s face that his guess +was correct, Brini burst into uproarious laughter. “Ho, ho, ho! +You tella Miz’ O’Dowda, Vanzett’ he moocha badda man—diavolo—furfante—maka +di bombe, molte bombe, sicuramente! +Bombe di zucchero”—and Brini made motions of sucking his +fingers and finding delight in the sweet taste—“bombe di pistachio—di +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> +crema—bombi di gelati—What you say it?—ice +crema—di pasticceria—in Italia he what you call pastry-cook—granda +gooda pastry-cook!”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_1"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>The end of the week came; and very surely Cornelia did +not fail to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It was a +day of rest—and for remembering the old hymn about every +day being Sunday by-and-by.</p> + +<p>But then came Vanzetti. “Very gooda day, beautifool sunshine, +Miz’ Cornella. You come wit’ me, see somet’ing molta +bella.”</p> + +<p>“I’m too tired to walk, I’m afraid.”</p> + +<p>“No walka far—little way, I help. Show bella campagna, +maka happy, gooda sentimento. You come, I carry.”</p> + +<p>At the foot of Suosso’s Lane was a round knoll, blocking the +view; Castle Hill, it was called, and beyond it, Cornelia realized, +must lie the bay. They stooped under a fence and there was a +little path and Vanzetti put his strong arm under her weak one +and half lifted her up the slope. Bushes and a few pine trees +grew upon it, but not enough to interfere with the view when +you got over the rise. “Oh, lovely!” she exclaimed, and Vanzetti +was delighted. “Shoore, moocha pretty!”</p> + +<p>The bay was sparkling blue in bright sunshine; bounded by +a long sand-spit, and a couple of rocky islands. In the distance +ran the low misty line of Cape Cod and close at hand on both +sides was the town, white-painted houses in a setting of green. +One shore-line was occupied by the long brick buildings of the +cordage plant, with tall chimneys out-towering the hill. Cornelia +did not care for that, so they seated themselves on the other +side, facing the monuments of Plymouth.</p> + +<p>“Somewhere on that shore is Plymouth Rock,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I show you!” said Vanzetti, and pointed out the landmarks. +“I worka one time by heem, bringa feesh from boat. Plenty +people come for see all time. He looka same like any rock.”</p> + +<p>“You know what happened there?”</p> + +<p>“Shoore, I read in schoola-book, Fay got heem. People come +in ship for liva here, maka state Massachusett.”</p> + +<p>“That was nearly three hundred years ago; not so long ago +as your Dante, but it seems long to us.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span></p> + +<p>“Plenty long for make istoria,” said Vanzetti. “Sometime I +t’ink it mistake for teach istoria. People study tempo passato, +make conservativo, timido—you onderstand?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; but it depends on how you study it. The Pilgrim +fathers were really quite wonderful. They came in little boats—so +little you could hardly believe it. Perhaps you’ve seen the +bones of that old boat in Pilgrim Hall.”</p> + +<p>“Shoore, I see ever’t’ing.”</p> + +<p>“There was nothing here but a wilderness, full of wild Indians, +savages. A stern and rock-bound coast, the poet described +it; and winter coming, they had to hurry and build huts for +shelter. They had poor food—only what little grain they had +brought and the game they could kill, and the fish. That first +winter was frightful, half of them died; yet they stayed on—when +the next ship came, the following summer, not one of the +survivors would go back to England. That showed the kind of +people they were.”</p> + +<p>“Shoore,” said Vanzetti, “greata people—ribelli—fighta priest, +fighta king—come for joostice, come for liberty. But get liberty +for self, no give for odder. I say liberty for all.”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” replied Cornelia; “but that is not so easy. How +can everybody have liberty, when maybe there are some who +won’t play fair?”</p> + +<p>“Is no soocha people, signora.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t think there are bad people?”</p> + +<p>“Some badda, sure, seecka people, must helpa soocha people, +teach, put in—what you say—ospedale, ’ospital for seecka men. +But mosta people be good, wanta joostice, you give heem chance. +No, no, Miz’ Cornella—” the speaker became eager, the Italian +in him came to life, he began to make gestures and raise his +voice—“what is trouble wit’ people is not badda heart, it is +badda teach’, badda sistema—it is power, it is go-vernment”—he +accented this word on the second syllable. “It is priesta, king, +capitalista, padrone—taka men, maka fight, maka war for +profit.”</p> + +<p>“You think that explains the war in Europe?”</p> + +<p>“No t’ink—I know, signora. I live Europe, I see come dissa +war, I come America for evitare—how you say—get away. It +is war for padrone, for master—for bigga capitalista!”</p> + +<p>“You don’t think the people’s hearts are in it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span></p> + +<p>“Shoore, some—but why? Is it not teach in school? Who +maka da school? Who maka giornale, da newspaper? Always +padrone, he teacha da war, he wanta da profit, he maka da +people for slave, for machine—what he care for worker life? +What he care for poor lady here by cordage? You liva wit’ +worker, you see heem! You t’inka for self, you reada book I +geeva you!”</p> + +<p>And suddenly Cornelia remembered Mrs. O’Dowd and her +warning! “Be careful, mum, while ye argue, for ye might be +the one to be converted yeself.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_1"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>White sail-boats dotted the bay in front of them, and majestic +clouds sailed overhead, making slow sweeping shadows on +the water. Church-bells sounded and little birds sang in the +trees about them and wild flowers bloomed; so much peace and +beauty—yet Cornelia had to remember that men were slaughtering +one another by the thousands, using hideous machines they +had spent years in building and generations in learning to build. +She closed her eyes and whispered, “Let’s be happy for a few +minutes!”</p> + +<p>The controversy died out of the other’s voice. “I know, signora! +I say, be happy, I no t’ink war no more, no t’ink rivoluzione, +politica laida! I go picka flower. Soocha sweet flower +grow here—you know heem? Mayflower—it is not only ship, it +is flower. I learn time of year, I looka for heem. I taka Fay, +Trando, odder piccoli, go looka flower, getta moocha bigga—what +you say—gobba—bunch. I taka heem home, give Alfonsina, +she happy, make home so nice, pretty. I say, get gooda +book—roman—what you say, lova story—reada nice, be happy. +I come here, Sunday morning, quiet, church-bell—gooda place +for read, nobody here. I come holiday, all day; somatime I got +no job—no needa so moocha work, so moocha money, no got +family—I what you say lonely man. Alla right, I reada book, +look outa for self. I healt’y man, stronga man, plenty time, gooda +life—I laugha, say, war no get America—I no care Italian, let +heem look outa for self. You onderstand?”</p> + +<p>“I understand. Most men take it that way.”</p> + +<p>“I say, No be crazy, Vanzett’, you no maka da world, no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> +can changa heem. I say, You no maka da war, Vanzett’, you +no stoppa heem. But Miz’ Cornella, no can t’ink, no can forget. +T’ink alla time fossi—what you say it—digga place in ground +for fight war.”</p> + +<p>“Trenches?”</p> + +<p>“Joosta so, I see alla time trench, see men killa brodder, see +men die orribile, wounda, scream, agonia. I say, Vanzett’, you +no do somet’ing, you traditore, you—how you say, betray somet’ing?”</p> + +<p>“Traitor.”</p> + +<p>“Trait’! I say, Vanzett’, you no be trait’, you speaka da trut’, +you maka da protest, da propagand’, you getta da meeting, you +calla da men, getta da speaker. No can speak self, Miz’ Cornella, +joosta lavorante, workman, molta ignoranza, povero. But we got +speaker for denounca da war, Italian speaker, he come—Galleani—you +know heem?”</p> + +<p>“I never heard of him.”</p> + +<p>“All Italian man know heem—olda man, granda man, he +speaka for poor man, maka da propagand’. One time I helpa +heem for speech in Plye-moot’. He come, bigga meeting, molto +popolo. My boss—I worka for contractor—he no like, he say +‘Abbastanza for anarchista propaganda, no more jobba for you, +getta da hella!’ So I looka for new job, but I feela moocha +good, I helpa da cause.”</p> + +<p>“What is it you expect to do?”</p> + +<p>“Teacha da people! Maka heem no fighta da war, no fighta +for padrone, for capitalista! Say people, fight real nemico, fighta +capitalista! He maka war for heemself, for hees money, bigga +money—alla right, let heem fighta hees war, workman no fighta +hees war, giammai, never! When capitalista no can maka fight +workmen, so queeck you see stoppa da war, signora, is it not +so?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Cornelia, sadly. “Sometimes I think +men like to hate, they get a thrill out of it. The capitalists send +their own sons to the war and they get killed, a lot of them.”</p> + +<p>“And de women—you t’ink dey lika war?”</p> + +<p>“Some of them do—they cheer for it, and hate—even worse +than the fighting men. There are women in Boston who want +to get America in this war the worst kind of way.”</p> + +<p>“It is propagand’, Miz’ Cornella—capitalista propagand’. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> +Why for could we not live happy in dis bigga countree—why +for moosta we go fight odder countree? You go Italia, you +hear say, countree too moocha people, moosta have rooma, more +land, taka from odder people. You t’ink, too moocha people, +too moocha bambini—alla righta, no hava so many bambini—what +you say it, baby. Scusa me, signora, you olda lady, I talka +plain for you—you know what I mean, no have so moocha +baby?”</p> + +<p>“We call it birth control,” said Cornelia, smiling.</p> + +<p>“Shoore, birt’ control, alla right. Now, you say birt’ control +Italian woman, no have so moocha baby. Butta come priesta, he +say, diavolo, inferno, moosta have baby, you no have baby you +go to hella! He no letta you teacha da people, he driva you out, +putta jail, maka propagand’, calla name, scare people, no listen. +For why? Priesta say he talka for God. God, he say moosta +have baby, maka beega popolazione! Den God he say, no got +rooma for popolazione, moosta taka land, moosta maka war! +You onderstand?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I understand.”</p> + +<p>“Sooch imbecillità! Follia! Moosta have war for maka room, +moosta have baby for filla room! More war for maka more +room for more baby! E la donna, woman, what for is woman? +Animal for maka more baby for war-man, militarista, kill. +Keepa da woman for slave, for ignoranza, for priesta, for superstizione—for +maka da plenty baby for soldier! Soocha countree +is Europe, signora, and soocha like America if capitalista have +way. But anarchista say, No have way! Anarchista say, No die +for soldier, fighta for worker, for self! Anarchista say to +woman, Stand up, no be fraid da priesta, he no can hurt! Is no +soocha god lika priesta preach, is gooda God, lova da people, +lova da baby, no wanta heem kill-èd in war! Is it not trut’, +signora? Is it not joostice?”</p> + +<p>And Cornelia realized how wise had been the warning of +Mrs. O’Dowd, concerning the subtlety of the devil, and the +perils of entering into contest with him! For here the devil +was managing to present what appeared to Cornelia a quite +reasonable argument; nor did his propagandist appear at all +devilish, but rather a dreamer of dreams, so simple of mind +as to have no conception of the odds against him, the forces of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> +colossal cruelty that would sweep him away as a leaf before a +hurricane.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_1"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Time passed, and Cornelia became a completely established +member of the Brini family; also a completely disciplined +worker for the Plymouth Cordage Company. Now and then +she lifted her eyes from the task of needle and thread and got +to know the people about her—their faces, their names, their +nationalities and modes of speech. She would chat with them +during the noon hour and hear the gossip of their lives, the +hopes which moved them and the fears which held them back.</p> + +<p>Also she became aware of the plant, the gigantic complex of +labor which surrounded her. She learned the names of different +buildings and picked up an idea of what went on inside them; +the “hackling,” the “cleaning,” the making of the “sliver,” the +spinning of the yarn, the “forming” and “laying” of rope. +Technical terms began to take on the shadow of a meaning; +she got glimpses through door ways of “spinning-rooms” with +hundreds of “flyers,” as far as the eye could see down a vista, +and of powerful “laying-machines” which took a hundred +threads of yarn and wrought them into a heavy four-strand +rope at a single process. Little by little there soaked into her +mind a realization of the technical complexity of an industry +whereby trainloads of hemp from the Philippines and shiploads +of sisal from Yucatan evolved into cordage of every size from +wrapping and binder-twine to towing-lines and sixteen-inch +cables for battleships.</p> + +<p>The human cogs who made up this machine were—at least +in the lower ranks with Cornelia—very slow of wit; they +labored under a load of handicaps—poverty, ignorance, a foreign +language, new and bewildering customs. There were agencies +supposed to lift them up, such as public schools and night +schools, but it seemed to Cornelia these were countered by forces +far stronger, interested to hold them down. Landlords and loan-sharks, +peddlers of shoddy goods, fake patent medicines and +adulterated foods, smooth-tongued agents inducing them to put +their savings into non-existent gold-mines and oil-wells—there +were few among these workers who managed to escape such +plunderers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span></p> + +<p>And chief among the agencies of exploitation was, of course, +the great rich concern under the administration of the benevolent +Mr. J. Lawrence Perry. The company owned most of the +houses in which the workers had to live; it owned most of +the land about, and was, of course, not entirely without influence +upon the government of the town. It paid six dollars a +week to its unskilled women workers and nine to the men, and +manifestly a family could not be supported on such a wage; +the tacit assumption was that the women of the family would +work, and the children as soon as they could pretend to be old +enough. The home would be kept by the old people and the +young children and the invalids and cripples. It would not be a +well-kept home, nor very attractive; and the ladies and gentlemen +whose incomes came from cordage stocks and bonds would +remark, some with pity, some with contempt, “Dagos, wops, +hunkies—they live like pigs!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_1"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Now something more than ordinarily maleficent was befalling +these humble wage-workers. It was happening all over the +world, but they did not know that—they only knew Plymouth. +The cost of everything they bought was going up day by day. +Because of the war in Europe, the allied nations were borrowing +money in America, and spending it for American goods. +Exactly as Josiah Quincy Thornwell had foretold on the night +of his death, it was making enormous and incredible prosperity +for American manufacturers and stock-speculators; but also it +was making higher and higher prices for the poor. And there +was no corresponding increase in the wage, so close to the +border-line of want; there was no authority charged with the +task of calculating living costs, and adjusting earnings to them. +The great industries which owned and rented tenements to their +workers would raise the rents a dollar or two a month and tell +the tenants that this was necessary; but they would overlook +what might be necessary to the tenants.</p> + +<p>The cordage-workers were slow of wit, yet they did know +whether they had any money in their pocket-books at the end +of the week. Pay-day was Thursday and when the money ran +out on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday night they grumbled +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> +to one another and speculated about it; and gradually an +understanding spread, a kind of crude mass-consciousness, a +thing as it were separate from the individual minds, with a life +of its own. These workers were entirely unorganized; cordage +was one of the “open shop” industries, having the sacred +“American plan” in its full and ideal perfection. The fact that +the workers had no way to voice a grievance was a matter +without significance, because in a land so great and prosperous +it was impossible for a grievance to arise. Any one who went to +the foreman and complained was obviously a “sorehead,” and +the foreman would tell him to take his troubles somewhere else. +That would be the end of him for the cordage industry; whatever +skill he might have acquired he could throw into Plymouth +Bay.</p> + +<p>Cornelia knew little about labor matters, but the elementary +thought came to her that these ill-paid workers ought to have a +union. She said it to the Brini family and greatly to her surprise +discovered that her words gave distress to Vanzetti. “No say +sooch a t’ing!” he cried. “Organizazione is trappa for worker, +make heem slave! Union is joosta same as go-vernment! Bigga, +reech offeesh’, putta feet on desk, smoka bigga cigar, tella +worker go hella!”</p> + +<p>Now Cornelia knew that Vanzetti had helped to unload fish +and in her efforts to understand his torrent of words she had a +vision of a “feesh” which had feet and put them on desks and +smoked cigars. She asked an explanation, and the family burst +into laughter and with Fay’s help it was made clear that Bart +was talking about not “a feesh,” but “offeesh,” the officials of +labor unions. There were hordes of them in New England and +they paid themselves good salaries and did nothing for the +workers, so Vanzetti declared; therefore the workers not yet +organized must be saved from their snares.</p> + +<p>“But then what are you going to do?” asked Cornelia, greatly +perplexed.</p> + +<p>“Moosta teacha worker—t’ink for self—no need offeesh’ t’ink +for heem. Can all stand togedder, all lika one, but no offeesh’, +no salary, no graft.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia had thought that a labor union was an elementary +idea, upon which every kind of radical would agree. She asked +and it was explained to her, with the translation of long words, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> +that Vanzetti’s kind of anarchistas did not permit organization. +There were other kinds, who called themselves “comunisti +anarchici,” and would support revolutionary unions like the +I. W. W., and even back the old-line unions in time of strikes. +But Vanzetti called himself “anarchico individualista,” and +would have no kind of organization, except a purely temporary +kind to manage a strike—a “comity,” as he pronounced it, to +represent the strikers, and not be paid any salary, and be +changed at any time the strikers saw fit.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it was apparent that he was distressed because his +friend, whose education he had taken so earnestly in hand, was +dallying with the evil thought of a union. “Who talka soocha +t’ing wit’ you?” he demanded; and when she assured him that +the notion had come of itself, he was not comforted. Cornelia +laughed—it seemed to her deliciously funny; she told him he +was just like “Mrs. O’Dowda,” afraid she might imperil her +soul by taking up with dangerous new ideas!</p> + +<p>Censorship of course exercised upon Cornelia’s mind its +customary effect of awakening curiosity. She pressed her teacher +for more facts, and so learned of the existence of obnoxious +characters known as “riformistas”; persons who believed it possible +to improve the present social system, or to change it little +by little. This kind of thinking was a trap for the wage-slaves, +because it led them into politics. “Politica ĕ un perditempo!” +declared Vanzetti, and the way he said the word and the expression +on his face made clear that it was something very bad. +“Riformista is traditore,” he went on, and repeated the English +word which Cornelia had taught him, “Riformista is trait’!”</p> + +<p>“Traitor,” corrected Cornelia, and Vanzetti said, “Shoore, +trait.’ He is trait’, because he get elect’ butta no do notting, he +is offeesh’, he got salary, he liva by graft, he maka da promessi, +he tella da bigga lie, he keepa da capitalismo. No, no, mia +frienda, have notting do wit’ riformista, wit’ socialista, he is +giallo—how you say it, color of flower—not red, not blue, what +you call heem, golden-rod—yes, yellow! Socialista is yellow, +he is badda frienda for worker.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_1"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>Soon afterwards Cornelia made actual contact with one of +these dangerous characters. On Saturday evening there came a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> +caller: a short, solidly-built young Italian, marble-cutter by +trade, introduced as “Compagno” Culla. He had come to see the +two men upon a matter of business and they discussed it in +their own language, while Cornelia and Alfonsina sat placidly +sewing. Cornelia caught several times the word “picanic,” but +did not realize that this was an English word, until Mrs. Brini +whispered that this Culla was one of the socialistas of Plyemoot’, +and that they were getting up a picanic. Cornelia saw +that the talk was becoming more and more animated; the three +men were gesticulating and raising their voices, and presently +she heard a familiar word, that wicked word “riformista.” +Vanzetti pronounced it in a tone of scorn and lest Compagno +Culla should fail to understand to whom it was applied, the +speaker pointed at him, and exclaimed, “Riformista e giallo e +traditore—”</p> + +<p>Now Compagno Culla had a newspaper in his hand, partly +opened; he lifted it and with sudden vehemence hurled it to +the floor. In the course of the journey it came all the way open +and made a great racket. “Eh via, puh!” he exclaimed. “Parlate +sfacciatamente!”</p> + +<p>Whereupon Vanzetti started to his feet, with a sweep of his +arms embracing the surrounding atmosphere. “Riformista e +traditore!” he shouted.</p> + +<p>“Diffamazione!” protested Compagno Culla.</p> + +<p>“Traditore di lavoratori!” persisted Vanzetti. They began +pouring out two torrents of vehement Italian, which met in +the middle and formed a whirlpool of words, with four waving +arms in the vortex thereof. The arms were coming nearer and +nearer and must inevitably have met, had not Brini stepped +between, shouting louder than both the orators put together. +At the same time Mrs. Brini sprang up and caught Vanzetti +by the sleeve, saying something which contained the word +“Nonna!” Cornelia had got out of her chair with a frightened +look on her face—not being used to Mediterranean methods of +conducting political discussion. Vanzetti glanced at her and +then turned sharply on his heel and walked into the kitchen; +while Brini and Culla exchanged a few laughing words and the +latter went away.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti came back and sat down, looking not a little embarrassed. +“I shame-èd for bad temper, Nonna,” said he—he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> +was calling her now by the children’s pet name, and she was +calling him Bart. “I try for not getta so angree, but riformista +is soocha badda fellow.”</p> + +<p>He explained what it was that Compagno Culla had wanted—the +list of names of the anarchistas of the vicinity, so that +they could be invited to the socialista picanic. Some time ago the +anarchistas had given a picanic with an anarchista speaker and +all the socialistas had been invited and many of them had come; +now they thought the favor ought to be reciprocated—quite +overlooking the difference in the situation. For the socialistas, +being riformistas and gialli, were let alone by the polizia; but +the anarchistas, being real and true rivoluzionarii, were always +fearing trouble with the polizia and naturally could not give the +names of their friends and supporters to any gialli riformisti. +So now Compagno Culla was angry and thought his party was +not getting a square deal.</p> + +<p>The discussion that followed brought out a further point—that +the socialistas of Plymouth had a great advantage over the +anarchistas, because they believed in organizations and had a +good and lively one, with perhaps fifty members; whereas the +anarchistas, not believing in organizations, had a weak one, in +fact little more than a list of names. Therefore the socialistas +could do things which the anarchistas could not do, they were +distributing their literature regularly every week and seducing +members away from the anarchistas. Vanzetti said this without +seeing anything humorous in it and was perplexed when Cornelia +began to tease him, suggesting that it sounded like an +admission that organization was sometimes useful. Her teacher +would laugh and joke about all other matters except his doctrine; +that was sacred, that was a way of escape from slavery, +war and horror for the workers, and about it he was fanatical, +implacable—he who was so gentle and soft-hearted in all other +relations of life!</p> + +<p>That was a Saturday evening; and next morning Cornelia +and her teacher went for a walk in the woods and coming out +met a group of four children who had been gathering flowers. +Each had a bunch which they offered for sale—two cents apiece. +Vanzetti bought all four and the children went off happy. +Then he said, “Too many flower, I giva you one bunch, taka +one for Cicadet, no wanta more.” He threw two bunches into +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> +the bushes. “Why did you buy them all?” asked Cornelia, interested +in his reaction; and he was a little shocked by her lack +of perception. “No could buy joosta two, make odder children +onhappy, dey worka so hard, da money is like so moocha more +for dem.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_1"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>The bright days of summer passed quickly, and the bracing +days of autumn, and then came the first threats of winter. It is +nothing to joke about on this stern and rock-bound coast, where +icy gales blow in from the ocean and snow piles up and blocks +the streets, and the temperature goes to considerably below zero. +Cornelia found that she had to take every cent of her savings +to buy herself a warm coat, and then it was not so warm; she +learned to live in it all day while she worked in the factory, a +good part of the time in the home, and at night she made it +into a bed-cover.</p> + +<p>There came days when the trip to her work and back again +were infernal experiences, recalling those regions of Dante +where the lost souls are frozen solid in ice. But in the great +poet’s story it is possible to see the damned, while here they +stumbled through pitch darkness, at half past six in the morning +and the same hour in the evening. Cornelia would get her coat +buttoned tight over a sweater and the family would pin her +shawl fast over her head and ears, leaving just a peep-hole for +the eyes and nose. Then with her hands in mittens, and these +tucked under the shawl, she would start the long journey, with +Brini’s big hand grasping her under the arm. They would go +staggering through snow-drifts, sliding on the ice and packed +sleet; her hands would be half frozen, yet she would have to +jerk them out to catch Brini and keep from breaking her bones. +The pitiless winds would howl and buffet her and stab through +her flimsy garments: the whirling snow would blind her—yet +there was not much danger of getting lost, there being a stream +of bundled figures plodding to the same goal. It was January of +1916, and out across the storm-lashed ocean the ships were +being sunk, so there must be more cordage to keep the world +at war. Any woman who failed to complete the journey twelve +times per week would not have her pay-envelope with the six +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> +dollars on Thursday night; and how then would she pay for +food and bed and shawls and coats and mittens and rubber +shoes and cough medicines and dentistry and surgical operations +and opera-tickets?</p> + +<p>Cornelia was changing not merely her ideas but her appearance +and personal habits. She no longer took a bath every morning +before she dressed. Getting up at a quarter before six, by +the light of an oil-lamp and in rooms where she could see her +breath, she found that her one thought was to get into the +warmest clothes she had, and as many of them as possible; her +second thought was to get two cups of the hot boiled chicory +which serves for coffee in the homes of the poor. Thereafter +she had no impulse to take off her clothes until she got into bed—and +not all of them then, because her bed-covers were made of +cotton, and even with all her clothing piled on top there were +nights when she could not sleep for the cold. And now and +then she would remember the formula she had heard the prosperous +ladies repeat—that at least the poor might keep clean!</p> + +<p>Another principle of hygiene which had been taught to her +was plenty of fresh air at night. It was easy for the doctors to +say it, sleeping in rooms with heat, and layers of woolen +blankets and eider-down quilts. But now Cornelia adopted the +custom of the poor, to seal up windows at the beginning of +winter and breathe such air as happened to get into the house. +If this, combined with a poor diet, brought tuberculosis, it +would be called the will of God. In Cornelia’s case it would be +the stubbornness of a woman who had made up her mind and +would not admit defeat. She had signed a declaration of independence—and +here was her Valley Forge!</p> + +<p>The cordage workers lived in their dark holes, forgotten by +the world except on rent day. They grumbled and complained, +because the cost of living kept on going up and in winter it +was so much worse—there were no gardens with fresh vegetables, +nor trees with apples and pears on them, nor berries +which the children could gather in the woods. Now everything +had to be bought in stores and the housewives picked over the +meager supplies; and when they could no longer make ends +meet, what were they to do?</p> + +<p>Some voiced their complaints to their bosses and were told +to go elsewhere; and every time that happened the pot of anger +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> +boiled faster. Brini and Vanzetti came home at night, voluble +and gesticulating; sometimes they would hurry off after supper—“meeting +by Giuseppi,” they would say, or whatever name +it might be. Several times Cornelia went to such meetings, and +a mass of people packed themselves into a little parlor, with +overflow into the kitchen, and complained and argued and gestured +for an hour or two. Such was Vanzetti’s solution of the +labor problem, the workers to gather in little groups—“gruppi +autonomi,” was his phrase; each of these gruppi would decide +what it wanted and appoint a representative to meet with others +from the Portuguese, the French-Canadians, the Germans, the +Irish.</p> + +<p>The believers in politics and organization, the socialistas, held +a meeting in a hall, with more than a thousand workers, and a +speaker in English, one in Italian and one in Portuguese; those +who did not understand any of these languages understood the +excitement of the rest. Also came the I. W. W. with their +speakers, and their program of “direct action,” the taking over +of the industries by the “one big union.” They were strong +among these New England mill-workers, having the prestige +of a great victory in the woollen mills of Lawrence three or +four years ago.</p> + +<p>And of course that stirred Vanzetti and his anarchistas. +They too must have a meeting and summon their leader, Galleani, +to point out to the workers the dangers of organization, +and how it was possible to win freedom from both capitalistas +and labor union “offeesh’.” There was a gathering of the +“gruppo autonomo di Plyemoot’,” and money was subscribed +to pay for the hall and for what Vanzetti called the “expensit.” +He contributed ten dollars himself, and explained to Cornelia +that his share was greater for the reason that he was a “lonely +man.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_1"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>That was a Tuesday night; and next day, preceding pay-day, +there appeared mysteriously at the cordage plant a force of two +hundred and fifty “private police” to guard the property. +Where did they come from, this hired army of capitalism, and +where were they kept when they were not working? Did they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> +travel about the country, putting down labor troubles? Had the +masters got trouble so systematized that they could count upon +a regular supply of it to keep this army at work? Nobody +knew; but here they were, big husky fellows, bundled in overcoats +and arctics and fur-topped gloves, with clubs in their +hands and revolvers in holsters at their belts—in plain sight, +where nobody could miss their meaning. They paced before the +gates and the doors of buildings, and to make them comfortable +when they were off duty the town’s most fashionable summer +hotel sprang into activity.</p> + +<p>The various “gruppi” had agreed upon their demands, eight +dollars a week for unskilled women and twelve for the men. +They appointed a committee to present the demands to the +company, and the meeting took place, and the company explained +that such an increase, twenty-five percent, would bankrupt +it, and then no one would have any job. The company +offered a raise of five percent, and the committee rejected this; +there were more meetings, and crowds of people standing about +stamping their feet in the snow, and the guards commanding +them to move on, and getting surly answers. There were workers +who said that if the company would pay the cost of these +guards in wages it would help quite a little; they were even +ungrateful enough to suggest that old Mr. Perry’s “welfare +work” be stopped, so that the people could have the money +for food.</p> + +<p>As usual, this big magazine was fired by a little spark. On +Thursday morning, pay-day, one of the men in number three +spinning-room got into a dispute with his foreman; the foreman +told him to take his coat and hat and get out, and instead of +obeying, the man turned and started yelling to his comrades. +The foreman took him by the shoulder to put him out, and +others came rushing to his help, and there was a tumult, and +above it rose the word, “Strike!” It spread like wildfire down +the long spinning-room; what had been at one moment an +industry became in the next a mob. “Sciopero!” yelled the +Italians. “Folga!” echoed the Portuguese. “Grève!” shrieked +the French-Canadians. “Streik!” bellowed the Germans. And +“Strike! Strike! Strike!” roared Americans and English and +Irish and Welsh, and all others who had learned the word. +A hundred Paul Reveres set out in every direction, spreading +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> +the wildfire from room to room. The openers of the bales threw +down their knives, and the feeders turned from the “breakers,” +and the spinners deserted their “flyers,” and the engineers shut +off the power, and the wheels stopped turning, and two thousand +workers grabbed their clothing and tumbled outside, pouring +into a few minutes’ clamor the pent-up anger and misery +of many silent years.</p> + +<p>The storm reached Cornelia’s wrapping-room, and the women +had to quit whether they wanted to or not, because the platform +stopped moving. She got her things and streamed out with +the rest. The crowds were milling about, the frightened guards +shouting, “Move along, keep moving there!” In various places +impromptu meetings started, and the stream would be blocked. +Cornelia saw a man leap upon the corner of a loading platform—a +man in a worn blue “reefer,” with a storm hat pulled over +his ears, and a pair of brown walrus mustaches hiding half +his face. “Compagni! Lavoratori! L’ora della riscossa è scoccata! +Essa darà la libertá agli oppressi”—whereupon another man +climbed upon the platform and gave the orator a shove which +sent him flying. “Get out, you blankety-blank, and don’t show +your face in here again!” And the company detective sought out +one of the foremen, inquiring, “Who is that wop they call Bart—the +one with long mustaches like a walrus? We’ll have to +keep our eye on him, he’s one of the trouble-makers.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III"> + CHAPTER III<br> +<span class='chap-title'>DAGO RED</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Snow in the air, whirled here and there by unpurposed +winds; snow on the ground, thrown back from sidewalks and +turning them into trenches. Guards and policemen, pacing in +front of the cordage company gates, making long puffs of steam +as they breathed; and workers, huddled on the other side of +the road, stamping their feet and dancing about, blowing on +their fingers or tucking them under their arms. Sky lowering +and light dim—it seemed a good time to be indoors, yet nobody +went. In leather arm-chairs in the Union Club of Boston were +comfortable old gentlemen who had agreed to pay the guards +five dollars a day and board at the hotel, to stand in the cold +and drive strikers back from the gates; while the strikers had +the hope that by standing in sufficient numbers and with sufficient +menace they might get a dollar more in their pay envelopes +every Thursday; also the certainty that if they gave up and +went away, some yet hungrier wretches would sneak in and +take their jobs. So the two groups confronted each other, the +living presence of the class struggle. “Get back there! Move +along now!” “What’s the matter? Ain’t I got a right to walk +on the street?” So it went, the ceaseless wrangling of the +picket-line; the most perfect of all civilizations engaged in +dividing the product of its industry.</p> + +<p>Two thousand had gone out, men and women, a huddled +mass, speaking a dozen different languages, and without guidance. +Whoever had an impulse towards leadership, a theory +as to how labor might be aided, now found his chance; the +unorganized mass began to grow organs—a miracle of mutation +while you watched. The socialists had a meeting-place in North +Plymouth, Rispicci Hall, and this was thrown open, and was +swarming with strikers. Impromptu meetings were held, and +committees named, and speeches made. In the evening came +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> +the sympathizers and propagandists, summoned hastily from +Boston; Felice Guadagni, a journalist, orator of the socialists, +and Paul Blanshard, a very young assistant clergyman from a +Congregational church. There was a bigger meeting-place, +Humberto Ferrari Hall, and this was packed to the doors, and +the eager audience learned in several languages the meaning +of solidarity, and the details of how to conduct a strike.</p> + +<p>First of all they must get up a circular and mail it out to +lists of names, and raise funds for support. The greater number +of these workers lived close to the border-line of want, and +their money would soon be gone. Those who had savings would +contribute, and more would come from the labor movement +outside. On the first day a hundred strikers put up five dollars +each; which would pay for rent and telephone calls and telegrams, +stamps and typewriters. The socialists and anarchists +and I. W. W. brought their mailing-lists, and a feeble little +machine of working-class publicity began to function.</p> + +<p>Next day there was a parade; eighteen hundred workers +marching the whole length of the main street of Plymouth, +passing the cordage company’s plant, despite all the guards and +the “cops.” Three days later came another parade, twice as +big, with women and children carrying poles from which +dangled clams and mussels, with the sign, “We are tired of +living on these all the time!” That amused the newspaper +reporters, and brought good publicity.</p> + +<p>Organizers came: one representing the American Federation +of Labor, the conservative union, which was ready to help +them get shorter hours and higher wages; also one from the +Industrial Workers of the World, which would help them to +take over the cordage industry. The strikers listened to both, +and were pulled and hauled between them; their minds being +still further confused by the anarchists, who clamored that +both organizations were traps for the workers, contrived by +shrewd officials who wanted to live without working. Let the +workers run their own strike, and let those who sympathized +be content to raise funds and feed the children.</p> + +<p>So thought and spoke Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In this crisis +he forgot his timidity and humility, and developed into a full-fledged +orator. So did many another worker, who found himself +making a speech before he knew it. You would get into +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> +an argument with some one, and others would gather to listen, +and soon there would be a crowd. When the cops drove you off +the picket-line, you would stop at the next street-corner and +voice your indignation, and when they moved you on, you +would stop at the corner beyond that. There were always plenty +willing to listen; it was the process by which the workers got +their education, and developed their solidarity. You would +learn more in one day of idleness than in a month of labor. +In this crisis realities were unveiled, and you saw them in their +nakedness. If there was anything you could not understand, +there were others willing to explain. In the day by day consulting +among the workers, it was surprising how clear everything +became.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_2"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Not so many years ago, though it now seemed ages to Cornelia +Thornwell, there had been a strike in the Thornwell Mills, +and it had been broken in the usual way. But Cornelia’s husband +had sent her away to the country-place of their daughter +Deborah on the North Shore; so she had not heard the shouts +of the mob and the crack of revolvers, nor seen the guards +patrolling the family mansion on the hilltop. All she knew +were newspaper accounts, and the pictures, drawn by Josiah +and his son-in-law James Scatterbridge, of the desperate unreason +of the strikers. One cause of her evolving into a runaway +grandmother had been a lurking suspicion that their way +of breaking a strike had not been entirely ethical.</p> + +<p>And now here she was, in position to see with her own eyes; +if she needed theories, here were A. F. of L. and I. W. W., +socialists, anarchists, syndicalists, right and left wingers, even +a few single-taxers and vegetarians. In the strike headquarters +she met the young clergyman, Paul Blanshard; a new kind of +clergyman, with a religion meant to work here and now. He +was barely out of his teens, yet he saw the whole struggle so +clearly that Cornelia felt herself his junior. He had got his +training through the Intercollegiate Socialist Society; and as +she watched the effect of his leadership upon the inert mass, a +new vision dawned upon her. The idea of the workers taking +over industry and running it for themselves had seemed a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> +fanatic’s dream; but now she began to wonder, might it not +after all be possible—some day in the far-off future?</p> + +<p>To her friend Vanzetti it was a cause of grief that she was +seen to be talking with this young clergyman. Vanzetti had +taken her for his pupil and favorite, this unusual Yankee lady +who was willing to learn from an Italian; and here she was +falling into the snares of the “riformistas”! Again and again +he explained to her what a waste of time it was to deal with +“politeesh.” He struggled with long polysyllables, half way +between Italian and English. “Twenty year, t’irty year, worker +go politica, elect deputati for parliament—get elect’, do notting, +traditor’, sell out! Sama t’ing wit’ union, worka hard, maka +bigga union, grande, potente—never do notting—joosta graft! +All rispettabilità, onorevole—you onderstanda me? Worker, +he work joosta same—all time. Politeesh, he no work, liva +good, dressa genteelman! He is like—I no can say Eengleesh, +it is somet’ing in ocean, he get on ship, on shell of crab—” and +Vanzetti resorted to his dictionary for the word “barnacool,” +so that he might apply it to the rosy-cheeked young Congregational +clergyman. Yes, the Reverend Blanshard would find a +place on the backs of the workers, and stay there like the rest! +“You see, Nonna, he joosta sama priest—new kinda talk, but +all sama for worker. Riformista is—what you call it—trait’!”</p> + +<p>“Traitor,” said Cornelia.</p> + +<p>“Shoore, trait’,” replied Vanzetti.</p> + +<p>The State Board of Arbitration and Conciliation took up +the grievances of the cordage workers, proposing to adjust +them. And here was the trap in action—to lure the workers +into the hands of “politeesh” and “offeesh.” The more conservative +strike leaders insisted upon presenting their case +before this board, and Vanzetti opposed them with all his +energies. He rushed about from one gathering to another, +arguing, protesting; when he saw that the proposition was +going to carry, he became frantic, and there was another row +between him and Compagno Culla.</p> + +<p>The socialist was trying to explain the wishes of the Italians +to the English-speaking workers, when Vanzetti climbed onto +the platform and thrust the speaker away. “Worker, have +notting do wit’ commish! It is trap! It is for breaka strike! +It is for maka slave! It is for bringa you, for bringa wife, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> +bambini, for be slave for cordage companee! Why musta worker +get politeesh for settle strike? Why musta get go-vérnment for +settle strike? Why musta have owtoritee? Always owtoritee +for worker! But let worker settle strika for self. Soocha man +lika dis—” and Vanzetti pointed an enraged finger at Culla—“soocha +man is trait’ for worker—he is more bad as capitalista—”</p> + +<p>There was a storm of controversy, some shouting on one +side, some on the other. But the majority did not want to +listen to anarchist propaganda just then; they called for Compagno +Culla, and he got the floor again, and shook his fist at +his rival and demanded: “Why for he talk owtoritee? Anarchista +no like owtoritee, he tella you; but I tella you anarchista +is heemself owtoritee! He taka da platform, he maka da speech, +he musta have hisa way or he maka da vee-ólence! Is it not so, +comradda?”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_2"> + III +</h3> + +<p>The great rich company, the biggest cordage company in +the world, which now in the second year of the great war was +doing more business and making more money than ever in its +history before, sent its officials before the state board to argue +that wages of six dollars a week for unskilled women and nine +dollars for unskilled men were abundant and generous. It +proved that this meant an average wage of twenty-five dollars +a week per family, by the simple device of having fathers and +mothers and half-grown children all at work—which was the +best thing for them, because it kept them from idleness and +dissipation. The strikers countered by putting on the witness-stand +the head of one of these families, John Corsini, who had +a wife and nine children, the oldest fourteen years of age; John +was paid nine dollars a week, and the interpreter quoted: “He +says they sometimes make a meal that would not be fit for a +pig to eat. He is heavily in debt. Goes in debt about five dollars +a week. Friends bring in food and stockings now and then to +help out, otherwise the children couldn’t go out in the street.”</p> + +<p>It was shown that in nineteen years past, the company had +raised wages three times, each time only five per cent; while +in ten years the cost of living had gone up more than fifty per +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> +cent. This moved the company, out of the generosity of its +corporate heart, to risk another five per cent increase; more +than this would mean inevitable ruin. Its highly paid lawyers +argued, and their eloquence was reproduced in the newspapers; +smooth-tongued agents came among the workers repeating the +arguments, and promising many sorts of favors to leaders who +would be tractable. The most expensive secret-service agency +in the world was at work. Dissension and doubt and fear spread +among the pitiful bewildered masses. The company gave out the +announcement that unless its terms were accepted at once, +strike-breakers would be brought in. At the same time there +appeared a number of head-breakers, the state police, who rode +ruthlessly into the crowds.</p> + +<p>Also there came autobuses from Boston and other places, +with loads of ordinary policemen; they stood three ranks deep +in front of the gates, and could have joined hands along the +three-quarter mile of steel fence. Any time they saw a crowd +gather, they would come at double-quick. “Move along there +now—step lively!” If you tried to argue as to the rights of +people to the use of the streets, they would not argue back, but +jab their clubs into your stomachs or your backs and run you +along. If you failed to run fast enough, you would get a thump; +and next day in the police-court you would be sentenced as a +rioter, and newspapers would tell how the mob was getting out +of hand, and the company was requesting the governor to call +out the militia.</p> + +<p>But the strikers stood firm; they would not accept five per +cent advance, and, urged on by the radicals, they requested the +state board to withdraw its intervention. The company was +worried, because the agents of other cordage concerns were in +Plymouth, hiring away their best workers. Something must +be done; so one or two hundred “scabs” were got into the plant, +around the fence by the seashore, and an effort was made to +start one department. The struggle became more tense; the +picket-lines drew closer, and the rate of Cornelia Thornwell’s +education was speeded up.</p> + +<p>A picket-line was no place for an old lady—so her Italian +friends argued and pleaded; but she had come in search of +experience, and insisted upon getting it. The first time she +saw an unarmed worker struck down by a policeman’s club, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> +she gave voice to her indignation: “Oh, you brute! How dare +you!” And when he turned and came at her, there was a +moment before she realized that she was no longer a lady, able +to give orders to a policeman. Only when he thrust his club +into the abdomen of a woman in front of her, and sent the +woman reeling into a snow-bank, did Cornelia realize her +danger, and turn and run. Yes, she, the widow of an ex-governor +of the Commonwealth—she who had lived for forty years +in a palace, and been waited upon by servants and honored by +all the world—she ran! And in good earnest, as fast as she knew +how, because the “brute” had heard her cry, and meant to get +her if he could. That she escaped was only because her friend +Brini and others crowded in and took the blows. Incidentally +they took the club from the policeman, and got away with it, +and were very proud of the souvenir!</p> + +<p>But that did not comfort Cornelia. The ignominy of her +experience had brought tears of rage into her eyes; she would +never forget it, and for the rest of her life she would be an +illustration of the fact, well-known in the labor movement, that +members of the leisure class who take an interest in the cause +are apt to become more radical than the workers themselves. +Of two thousand participants in the Plymouth cordage strike, +only one had ever thought of a policeman as a servant to whom +she might give orders.</p> + +<p>Cornelia had been born in Massachusetts, and had lived all +her life there. She had really believed about her state, or commonwealth, +as it prefers to call itself, all the fine things its +leaders and rulers had told her. She had listened to orations +about Pilgrim fathers and New England town-meetings, the +cradle of liberty and the hub of the universe and all the rest. +Here she was only forty miles from Boston, for practical purposes +in its suburbs; within sight of Plymouth rock, a shrine so +sacred that it had a miniature temple built over it; and to her +consternation she found herself with no rights that any policeman +or private detective was bound to respect. Unless, of +course, she chose to declare herself, to cease to be a cordage +worker on strike, and become a member of the ruling caste! +She went to a police-court, and heard workers testify as to +unprovoked assaults, and heard a judge give the police a mild +rebuke for their conduct; and then she went back to the picket-line, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> +and saw the same thing going on, precisely as if no judges +or courts existed.</p> + +<p>And here was the significant thing—out of several thousand +people, she was the only one who was surprised! The rest, no +matter how angry and excited they became, always mentioned +that much worse had happened at Lawrence and Lowell and +Fall River and Milford and a string of other places! “My +gosh, what you t’ink?” said Alfonsina Brini. “You t’ink dey +let worker win strike if can help?” And when Cornelia wanted +to know if the police belonged to the cordage company, her +landlady’s response was, “Who else is it for belong?”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_2"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia, of course, had been on the inside of her city’s +affairs, and she knew the history of the Boston police force. +The Irish-Catholics had carried an election and captured the +city; whereupon the old New England element had passed +a state law, taking control of the police away from Boston, and +vesting it in the governor of the Commonwealth, who was still an +Anglo-Saxon gentleman. It was the practice to rent out this +force to neighboring towns; and they had developed a strike-breaking +department, subject to call by all manufacturers and +mill-owners. The force worked hand in glove with the private +detective agencies, exchanging records and information. So had +been evolved a complete technique of labor-smashing; and all in +darkness—the newspapers proceeding upon the principle that +what the public didn’t know wouldn’t hurt it.</p> + +<p>Cornelia Thornwell, watching this system in operation, found +herself crying out in bewilderment. How could the rich, her +kind of people, be so blind? How could they overlook the consequences +of teaching the workers such contempt for law? What +was the use of talking about Americanization, when, in a time of +crisis, you denied every right of citizens, and even of human +beings? You herded them like cattle, you beat them like dogs—and +then you were surprised and shocked if they turned and bit +you in the back of the leg! Before this month’s strike was over, +Cornelia had come to feel that she would never blame these +working people for anything they might do.</p> + +<p>The case of Vanzetti was before her day by day. This +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> +dreamer-idealist was so built that he suffered more with other +people’s pains than with his own. When he half-carried a shuddering +body off the picket-line, and washed a torn and bloody +scalp with a basin of water and a rag, the tears ran down his +cheeks, and his hands shook. And then, that evening, he turned +up at the Brini home with a gun! He, the apostle of brotherhood—the +tender-hearted one who had refused to let a sick kitten +be killed—he was getting ready to kill policemen! To be sure it +was not a very efficient weapon, a five-chambered revolver of an +old type, much rusted; and Cornelia could see from the way her +friend handled it that he hardly knew which end was which. +When she tried to dissuade him from his course, Mrs. Brini +laughed and told her not to worry, Bart would not shoot anybody; +he had once gone hunting with another young fellow, who +had shot a bird, and Bart had been so affected by the sight of the +dying creature that he had been unhappy for days, and had never +gone hunting again.</p> + +<p>“But if he’s not going to use it, why carry it?” protested +Cornelia. “If they catch him with it, they’ll send him to jail +surely.”</p> + +<p>To which Vanzetti made answer, “When I go jail for worker, +I helpa cause.” Which seemed to Cornelia a dark and obscure +saying. How could it help the cause of the workers, for a poor +Italian ditch-digger, whom nobody had ever heard of, to be sent +to jail?</p> + + +<h3 id="V_2"> + V +</h3> + +<p>The real meaning of the gun was the coming of Galleani. The +anarchists were determined that the fallacious arguments of the +“riformistas” must be answered, and they had summoned their +great leader and teacher to state their side. There was opposition +to this among the other strike-leaders, and at first they refused +to have the Galleani meeting in their hall; they were trying +to avoid provocation, not wanting the newspapers to portray +them as extremists. It was only after Galleani had promised to +tone down his utterances and to avoid incitement to violence +that they agreed to let him be heard.</p> + +<p>He came to the Brini home the afternoon of the meeting, so +Cornelia got a good look at him: a benevolent and paternal +figure, who might have been dressed up for Santa Claus; broad-shouldered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> +and stout, dressed in a long frock coat like a clergyman, +with an “alderman” in front, and bushy white whiskers +spread above it. He was at once hero and granddaddy to the +Italian workers; they would gaze at him in awe and call him +“Maestro,” and then they would feed him on cakes and wine, +and pat him on the sleeve, and call him “Nonno.” He was their +thinker, their great student, who read everything and knew +everything, and told them about it once a week in their paper, +“La Cronaca Sovversiva,” the “Revolutionary Chronicle,” which +had a circulation of ten thousand, the fighting organ of the Italians +of New England. Its elderly editor lived in honorable poverty, +supporting a wife and four children upon a salary of eight +dollars a week, eked out by gifts from those who had more. His +overcoat was frayed, and fastened at the neck with a large +safety-pin, but that did not keep him from being a very dignified +gentleman.</p> + +<p>In his train came a bodyguard of a score or so of Italian +workers, some of them not yet out of their teens, but all in grim +earnest. There were rumors that the police meant to break up +the meeting and arrest the orator, and these young fellows were +here to see about it—every one with a gun in his overcoat pocket, +and some with two, and a dirk for good measure. Among them +was a Jewish lad out of the slums of New York, at that time +employed on a Boston newspaper, and later to be known as +Michael Gold. He saw a dingy New England town, with dirty +snow trodden underfoot and gray clouds overhead turning soon +to night, and—so it seemed to the visitor—not less than a million +of policemen. The little band of rebels came like Daniel into +the lion’s den; they were determined to fight, rather than let +their leader be taken. Fortunately no trouble occurred—else +America might have exchanged a proletarian playwright, a very +scarce article, for a revolutionary martyr, of whom it has had +far too many.</p> + +<p>Cornelia went with her Italian friends to the meeting. She +could not understand what the orator was saying, but she enjoyed +the powerful vibrant voice, and shared the thrill of the +audience; afterwards her friends would tell her what had been +said, for as long as she cared to listen. Luigi Galleani advised +them to build up their moral forces, opposing to the brutality +of the police their iron will to brotherhood and solidarity. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> +told them that they were the sole creators of wealth, and that +some day, not so far away, they would take possession of their +own. He told them to beware of self-styled leaders, persons who +set themselves over the masses and presumed to control them. +He told them to free their minds from superstition, reverence +for gods and priests and judges and policemen; for they themselves +were their own gods, their own judges, and the enforcers +of their law; that was right which their conscience and sense +of brotherhood justified to them. Once as a girl in Boston Cornelia +had attended a lecture by a certain well-known Mr. Emerson; +she had heard about a queer New England recluse, Mr. +Thoreau, author of a pamphlet entitled, “On the Duty of Civil +Disobedience.” So there was nothing strange to her in these +high-sounding ideas; the only trouble was, that the higher they +sounded, the more difficult it was to bring them down to earth. +One and all, the leaders in this strike preached solidarity, but +they were not able to achieve it among themselves, and so their +followers were scattered and their energies wasted.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_2"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>The state board was pleading with the workers to accept a ten +per cent raise; and some wanted to say yes, and others no, and +some said it was a trap, because the company had not offered +ten and surely the offer should come before the acceptance! +There was more wrangling in the meetings, and Vanzetti would +leap upon the table and shout, “Traditore! Trait’!” and others +would outshout him and drag him down. He would come home, +heartsick, declaring that the spokesman for the Portuguese had +sold out to the companee, and all the sufferings of the strikers +were going for nought.</p> + +<p>The strike had lasted a full month, and the workers’ money +was exhausted, and some were sneaking back to work, and the +rest were desperate with fear. The police had come and broken +up their meetings and closed their hall, and what more could +they do? The Italians met secretly, here and there, to decide +whether they should trust the board. All but a few extremists +wanted to give up, and it was plain that these few could never +get jobs with the cordage company anyhow.</p> + +<p>Cornelia, exhausted by the long ordeal, went home and crept +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> +into bed, and was just falling asleep, when she was disturbed by +loud voices in the house. It was Vanzetti and Culla, with Brini +trying to pacify them. Cornelia was going to sleep in spite of the +noise; but suddenly she heard Vanzetti shout, “Spee-a! Spee-a!” +Culla yelled something in reply, and there was a scuffle and a +crash, and Cornelia leaped out of bed and rushed into the little +parlor, to see Vanzetti lying on the floor, making desperate +efforts to get up, but in vain, because the mighty Brini was on +top of him, holding him down. All that could be seen of Compagno +Culla was a pair of coattails disappearing speedily through +a doorway.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti promised to behave, and was let up. He was too +angry this time to make apologies to Cornelia. But he told her +volubly what that abbominevole Culla had done; after voting to +deliver the workers back into slavery, he had had the insolence +to come here to the house, to ask for some fifty dollars of relief +money, which Vanzetti had collected from the anarchistas of a +neighboring town, and which Culla, as a member of the strike +committee, was supposed to take over. Vanzetti had refused to +give the money up; never would he trust anything to gialli socialistas, +riformistas and traditori of the working class! He +would take the money back to those who had contributed it, or +he would turn it over for the use of some other strikers. Culla, +very angry, had threatened to brand Vanzetti for malversazione, +embezzlement of the workers’ funds; and thereupon Vanzetti +shouted, “Spee-a! Spee-a!”—which is to say, “Spy,” the most +dreadful of all accusations.</p> + +<p>Such was the ending of Cornelia’s career as a striker. Next +morning she got up at a quarter to six, and was duly pinned up +in her shawl, and stumbled through the darkness to her place in +the wrapping-room of the cordage plant. The bosses were very +polite—good morning, glad to see you—it was almost like a social +function, an extraordinary change. The workers had shown +that they had some power after all, and the lesson would not be +soon forgotten. And the State Board of Arbitration and Conciliation +set to work, and after two months of deliberation it +succeeded in finding a formula which would save the face of +the company officials, enabling them to do what they had declared +was impossible. Cornelia would find more money in her +pay-envelope thereafter, and it seemed quite wonderful—until +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span> +she stopped and figured that it would take nearly half a year for +the increase to make up what she had lost during her weeks of +idleness. It was the most perfect of social systems.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_2"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>There was no more work for Vanzetti in or near the cordage +plant; his reckless agitation had cost the company a couple of +hundred thousand dollars a year in extra wages, and so he was +stopped when he tried to pass the gates. Some one set detectives +to follow him everywhere he went. He managed to find himself +a job cutting ice: a safe, outdoor activity, where he was +in plain sight, and there was no harm he could do. So he +remarked to Cornelia, with a twinkle in his eye, “I putta bombe +da dinnameet under da ice, he freeze again nexta night queek!”</p> + +<p>Ten hours a day he pushed a long saw on an ice-pond, and +slid heavy blocks onto wagons. He liked the work because it was +picturesque and lively, and gave him a chance to look about. He +would come home exhausted, but with adventures to tell. He got +himself a pair of rubber boots; they were expensive, and he was +proud of them, and so was Trando, who could almost get into +one of them, and was a comical spectacle staggering about the +room in two. But three days later Vanzetti came back without +these treasures, and at supper-table he said, “I must get nodder +two boot.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” Everybody asked at once. “You lost +them?”</p> + +<p>“No losta,” said Vanzetti, “butta no got. I take heem off for +go wit’ wagon. I come back, see feller, Pietro, you know heem—Guasti, +I t’ink he name.”</p> + +<p>“I know heem,” said Brini. “No gooda feller.”</p> + +<p>“He poor feller. He got wife, four bambini. No can live +soocha familee for what you get cutta da ice. I see he got my +boota, putta heem on for work. I t’ink I go heem say, ‘You giva +me boot, you worka no boot.’ But I senta shame for do it. I +t’ink, Vanzett’, you lonely man, no gotta bambini for buy suppa, +you worka little bit more, get nodder boot.”</p> + +<p>Later on, towards spring, came another incident that Cornelia +never forgot. The ice was gone now, and Vanzetti was back +at “picka shov’,” and one day he reported that he had lost his +purse on the street. How much did he have in it? Not sure, but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span> +he thought maybe thirteen dollars. That was a whole week of +hard labor, and everybody was concerned. The family discussed +it all through supper. Vanzetti said that he was sure there was +plenty honest people in Plymouth, maybe one of them had picked +up the purse; he would put up signs, the way they did in Italy. +So Cornelia helped him to phrase a notice, “Lost, small purse,” +with his name and address; he went out that evening with a +hammer and some tacks, and put up the notices on telegraph +poles along his route.</p> + +<p>This was while he was still being watched by detectives—in +fact they did not entirely let up until eighteen months after the +strike. So everybody was startled when, next evening after supper, +there came a blue-uniformed policeman. “You advertised a +purse?”</p> + +<p>“Shoore,” said Vanzetti; a little uneasy, as the poor always +are in the presence of the law. Might this method of advertising +be illegal among these strange Yankees?</p> + +<p>“What kind of purse?”</p> + +<p>“He is rounda blacka purse, not very moocha beeg.”</p> + +<p>“What did you have in it?”</p> + +<p>“I t’ink I got t’irteen dollar, notta more.”</p> + +<p>“Is this your purse?” The policeman held it out.</p> + +<p>“I t’ink it is heem, looka like heem.”</p> + +<p>“But it’s got eighteen dollars in it.”</p> + +<p>Vanzetti hesitated. “No t’ink had eighteen dollars. Shoore no +got so moocha mon’. Musta be odder purse.”</p> + +<p>The members of the Brini family had crowded to the door to +listen, and now broke into protest. “What you say, Bart?” cried +Alfonsina. “You no can tella ah mooch you got?” And to the +policeman, “He no can tella ah mooch mon’ he got! He giva da +mon’ all time. He giva da mon’ to little one, children all time—he +buy somet’ing, giva present all time, never t’ink for keepa da +mon’. My osband here, he tella you, Mister Polissman. Tella +heem, Vincenzo!”</p> + +<p>“Shoore,” said Brini, “He bigga fool for money. He giva me +for keep, forgetta, never know ah mooch he got.”</p> + +<p>“Me know his purse,” persisted the woman. “Me see alla time +in room, me fixa room. Could taka half his mon’ all da time, he +not know it. It is hee’s purse, Mr. Polissman.”</p> + +<p>They discussed the time and place where the purse had been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> +found, and everything fitted. So the policeman said, “I guess you +better take it. Nobody else has claimed it.” But Vanzetti was +stubborn, he was quite sure he couldn’t have had so much as +eighteen dollars in his possession. He would not take it, and the +policeman went off, much puzzled at this singular kind of +“wop.”</p> + +<p>Also there were further developments of the affair Culla, curious +and touching to the Yankee observer. Compagno Culla had +been blacklisted by the cordage company—despite the fact that +he was one of the moderates. He was doing some kind of sedentary +work, and complained that he was suffering from indigestion. +Vanzetti, enthusiast for the back-to-nature way of life, +advised him that it was because of sitting still all day. Said +Bart, telling Cornelia about it, “Come wit’ me, worka picka +shov’, you maka you self new man.” And sure enough, Compagno +Culla gave up his indoor work, and went to digging +ditches, and after he had got used to it, he found that his indigestion +was better. He mentioned it once at the Brinis, and Bart +patted him on the shoulder, proud and benevolent.</p> + +<p>After the visitor had gone, Cornelia said, “You don’t want +to kill him any more!” And Vanzetti grinned, as he had learned +to do when “Nonna” was teasing him. “Wanta kill so long he +try for be offeesh’, maka union, be secretary da union, maka +jobba for self. When he come lika me, worka picka shov’, maka +fight capitalista, padrone, den he is compagno, comradda, gooda +feller, I lika heem.” So, little by little, Cornelia came to understand +the type of idealist-fanatic, which could be gentle as a +child in all personal relationships, but fierce and dangerous when +roused by social wrong.</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_2"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Springtime! You dressed by the light of dawn, and the good +old sun was shining over the sea as you went to your day’s work. +As if ashamed for the suffering his absence had caused you, he +gave double measure, and the snows melted, and little rivers ran +from every hillside, and in sheltered corners you saw green +things sticking their timid heads from the ground. Brini hurried +home from the factory and tore off his coat and seized his spade +and went to work, a man possessed by the common or garden +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span> +variety of frenzy. Even Vanzetti, after ten hours “picka shov’,” +could not escape the disease, and joined in with the rake. So +must the Pilgrim fathers have behaved after that first long +winter, when so many had perished upon inadequate rations, and +they dreamed the miracle of green things growing from this +strange new soil.</p> + +<p>One lovely brown bed after another was leveled and raked +smooth, and laid out with strings by the eager children. They +could hardly wait for their father to get home in the afternoon +to start planting. They set up labels on little stakes—it was a +miniature graveyard of seeds, and everybody cherishing the religious +hope—“Resurgam!” The children would come hurrying +home from school, and there were the tiny green threads of +onions, and little green points that would be radishes, and pink-tinged +ones that would be beets! When, a couple of weeks later, +there were some big enough to be pulled and washed and made +into a baby salad, that was a regular religious ceremony, a Dago +thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>Out in the woods you could find tiny flowers of fragile and +unearthly beauty, such as ravish the souls of children, and of +prophets and dreamers and fanatics. On Sunday mornings Vanzetti +and Cornelia and Fay and Trando would set out, and if it +had been left to the man they would never have stopped wandering +the whole day long, and by night time they would have been +lost. The woods were his temple, full of infinite mysteries. He +would point out signs of nature’s cunning; he would speculate +about things he did not understand, and ask Cornelia if she +knew; if nobody knew, perhaps they could watch and find out. +He would get down on his knees over an ant’s nest, and be happy +for an hour with the frenzied labors of these tiny bundles of +energy. Then he would spring up and start walking again; come +on, it was almost time for mayflowers, perhaps they would find +some in the next little valley.</p> + +<p>And the seashore! So many strange things that you had never +seen before! The children would scramble about on slippery +rocks at low tide, and gather more treasures than their hands +could hold. Better leave them where they were, said Bart, and +carry off knowledge about them. They would sit on the high +rocks to rest, and watch the sailboats and the ships, and speculate +about where they came from and what they brought. Bart +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> +was curious as to other parts of the world, and how men lived +there. When he discovered that Cornelia had read books about +such things, he would ask her questions, pretending that it was +for the education of the children—but it was like the father who +enjoys the circus more than the children do!</p> + +<p>The mayflowers came, and you could gather bunches of them, +and turn the humblest worker’s home into a bower. The vegetable +rows were shining now, and the salads on the supper-table +were explosions of green, and the soups were steaming symphonies +in red and green and white and yellow. The rising sun +ran you a race in the morning, and the evenings were so bright +and lovely that you hated to go to bed. It was what you had been +waiting for, through the black and bitter winter; Cornelia quoted +the one-eyed Kalandar of the Arabian Nights: “This indeed is +life! Pity ’tis ’tis fleeting!”</p> + +<p>In the house across the street lived Signor Prezzolini, who +earned his living by teaching the violin. When he gave lessons +to his young pupils it was not so pleasant, but sometimes he practiced +for himself, and in warm weather he would have his windows +open, and what could be more wonderful than to sit on +your front porch in the twilight, and gaze up at far-off mysterious +stars, and listen to strains of ravishing beauty? In those +hours the little Brini boy’s life-destiny was determined; he was +only eight and a half years old, but he made up his mind one +evening, and announced it gravely, “I am going to be a violinist.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia was moved to tell him something out of her own +childhood. She had lived next to the home of rich people, who +gave many balls and parties, and would have an orchestra to +play. Cornelia’s mother would put her to bed, and the child +would creep to the window and listen. Then a bold idea occurred +to her, and she took a blanket and stole downstairs, and into the +neighbor’s garden, and crawled under a bush, where she was +safe from discovery; there she lay for hours, wrapped in the +blanket, listening in such ecstasy that even now she would shiver +as she remembered it.</p> + +<p>Little Trando nestled closer to her, and put his sensitive +hand into hers. In between the playing, he begged for more +stories about her girlhood. She told him how she had believed +in fairies, and would run out into the garden in the early dawn, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> +and hunt under the prettiest flowers, trembling with the delicious +hope that a fairy might be hiding there, and what would she say +if she met one. But here Bart, the serious one, intervened; he +did not approve of fairy-stories. “No should tella children what +is not true, Nonna. It plenty lovely t’ing what is real, plenty +miraculosa—how you say it, wonderfool. When you teach somet’ing +true, is usefool too, but fairy is lika diavolo, like angioli, +superstizione, no gooda for teach.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_2"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia had by now got hardened to her job. Her hands +were skinny, with whipcords standing out on the backs; her +fingers were knobby at the joints, and covered with tough calluses. +Her shoulders were bowed to meet the coils of rope upon +which she sewed, and one shoulder sagged lower than the other. +But they did not ache, and she could work peacefully, and have +time for a bit of gossip with her neighbors, and for long +thoughts about the life she was living, and the people she had +come to know.</p> + +<p>The circle of her acquaintance had been greatly widened by +the strike, which had the effect of bringing the workers together +and breaking down barriers of language and creed. Mrs. +O’Dowd, Cornelia’s pious neighbor, had been on strike, with her +husband and several relatives, and they had learned that the +“wops” next door were also capable of loyalty, and that their +jabber of sounds might mean something of importance to Irish +aristocrats. Cornelia served as go-between, and got so well acquainted +that she ventured to hint perhaps the heavenly powers +might find some way to accept good works as a partial substitute +for good doctrine. That was contrary to Father O’Brien, of +course, but even so, one might think about it, and one might +pray for the lost souls.</p> + +<p>That was actually being done, Cornelia learned; it was Mrs. +Lavatelli, the neighbor on the other side, who was so much distressed +by the sight of three bambini who had never been baptized, +that she made it a practice to burn a candle before the +image of the virgin every night before she went to bed. And +Cornelia said, surely that ought to be enough. God was being +properly reminded, and it must be assumed that He, in His +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> +infinite wisdom, would take whatever steps were necessary.</p> + +<p>There was naturally a great deal of curiosity among the neighbors +as to this mysterious Yankee lady who had lost her husband +and home under circumstances to which she never referred. +They would come and call, or avail themselves of opportunities +to gossip over the back fence while hanging out clothes or working +at the vegetables. And Cornelia would make use of her +social training to divert the conversation, so that presently the +neighbors would be talking about their affairs, and Cornelia +would be learning something of the things for which she had +come here.</p> + +<p>What struck her most frequently—and always on the funny-bone—was +the complete identity of spirit between these ladies +of the back fence and those of the “Back Bay.” If Cornelia +had imagined that by evolving into a runaway grandmother she +was going to find freedom from conventions, from the petty +restrictions of collective femininity, then she had made a great +mistake, and wasted the sixty-first year of her life. For these +working women and wives of working men had their very +strict notions of what was proper, and they had the same system +of government by gossip. The only difference which Cornelia +noticed between them and the “Sewing Circle,” the body which +had ruled the social destiny of Boston for two generations, was +that the ladies of the back fence did not lower their voices when +they came to the worst part of their stories; they had not +cultivated the use of the shoulders and the eyebrows as substitutes +for words in the circulation of slander.</p> + +<p>The ladies of the back fence did not have so much money +as the ladies of the Back Bay, but they made up for it by having +more children, and they used these for conversational purposes +in the same way. They would tell the charming things the little +ones had said, and just as in Boston, it never occurred to them +that this might bore the listener. Also they would tell about the +children’s ailments, and what the doctor said, and whether or +not the doctor knew what he was talking about. Apparently the +unsatisfactoriness of doctors, at the present stage of their development, +had been discovered by the poor as by the rich. +There was the same experimenting with unorthodox remedies, +and the same talk about results—Cornelia might as well have +been back in the nursery with her daughter Clara Scatterbridge.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span></p> + +<p>And then clothes. There were fashion magazines passed from +hand to hand, and when Mrs. O’Dowd’s younger sister made +herself a party dress, she cut it upon a pattern you would have +seen at the Friday evening dances of the socially elect. The +material here was sleazy, but that did not enter into the conversation, +because nobody knew it was so.</p> + +<p>And then ancestors! Strange as it might seem, the ladies of +the back fence talked about family, and who was who, and why. +To be sure, they could not go so far back; they had no family-trees +and colleges of heraldry, no pages of genealogy in the +<i>Evening Transcript</i> every Wednesday. But there were so many +more families, that it made an equal supply of conversational +material. Strange as it might seem, there was the same amount +of hostility and the same amount of pride in the family talk. +Cornelia never met any woman so low that she could not find +some other women to look down on; she never found any +woman so high that she was not eager to know a Yankee lady, +and to repeat to her neighbors what the Yankee lady had said.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_2"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Also Cornelia got to know Vanzetti, with the intimacy inevitable +in the crowded homes of the poor. She knew him standing +in front of a little cracked mirror, tying his cravat and +singing songs of his old home. She knew him teaching songs to +the children, and learning American songs they brought home +from school. She knew him keeping watch in the kitchen, to +make sure that Alfonsina did not have to carry coal or wood. +She knew him sitting up long after the rest had gone to bed, +reading by the light of an oil lamp, his brow furrowed in +thought. At such times he would be lost to her and to all the +world; she, who had always taken comfort for granted, was +awed by the spectacle of a man who robbed himself of sleep +to get knowledge.</p> + +<p>He taught her some Italian, and she taught him English. +She explained that mystery, so difficult of comprehension to +an Italian, that it is possible for certain consonants to follow +each other without a vowel between. One said “a great big +house”; one did not have to say “a greata bigga house.” She +explained the simple idioms, one after another. One did not say, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>“I no can”; one said, “I cannot.” Vanzetti wrote this down, +and presently had made such progress that he would stop in +the middle: “I no—cannot.” She labored to teach him the mystery +of the sound “th”; showing him how the tongue was placed, +stuck out a little, and pressed against the lower part of the +upper teeth. The children were fascinated by that; they had +learned to make the sound, but without knowing how they +did it. They would watch Bart’s efforts; he got so that he would +stick his tongue out, but alas, he could not always time it right, +and he would stick it out and then pull it in and make the wrong +sound! The children laughed merrily—such pleasure it gave +them, to find themselves superior to the grown-ups! But that +was all right with Bart—it was his dream that the children +would be superior in all things.</p> + +<p>Once or twice a month he would disappear for a day or two. +The irregular character of his work made this possible—and +anyhow, there was no job that could hold him when it was +announced in “La Cronaca Sovversiva” that Galleani was going +to lecture on the effects of the war upon the revolutionary +movement in Italy, or Carlo Tresca upon syndicalist versus +individualist anarchism. Vanzetti would come back brimming +over with arguments, and news from the “Gruppo Autonomo +di East Boston,” as the Galleani followers called themselves. +He and Brini would have vociferous arguments, and later Vanzetti +would explain to Cornelia what it was about. Or perhaps +there would be a “picanic” in a neighboring town, and Vanzetti +would get a bundle of literature to “distriboot.” Or there would +be a strike in the shoe factories of Lynn, and he would compose +an appeal, and take it round among the anarchistas, and collect +fifty cents from one and a quarter from the next, and in a +couple of days would have twenty dollars to be forwarded by +postal order.</p> + +<p>Little by little Cornelia was coming to understand his doctrine. +He would pick out passages from the paper and explain +them to her, and answer her questions and objections. It was +one of those high perfectionist doctrines, which assume in +human beings a quantity of virtue which few as yet possess. +Those who succeed in living up to this doctrine are sublime; +but those who fail may break their necks. Might there not be +persons using Vanzetti’s lofty phrases as a pretext for evading +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> +duties, or as a means of preying upon their fellows? So Cornelia +asked, and the other answered that this might happen, but there +could be no progress without some risk, and neither men nor +women could learn to swim unless they entered the water.</p> + +<p>He was determined to read English, and from one of his +trips he brought back a book called “The Conquest of Bread,” +by P. Kropotkin. Cornelia, with her woman’s wit, did not fail +to divine that there were two people going to be educated out +of that book! Curiously enough, it was not until later that she +connected its author with a very famous scientist from Russia, +whose visit to Boston had made a great stir in intellectual circles +some eight years previously. A high-up nobleman escaped +from exile in Siberia, Kropotkin had been a social lion. A +Harvard professor who was in the next year to become president +of the university—than which there is no higher station +in the world—had introduced him for a course of lectures at +the Lowell Institute. How could it have occurred to Cornelia +that this learned foreigner with the bushy gray whiskers whom +she had met among the most exalted of the Brahmins, could be +the author of a tract recommending the overthrow of government +by mass insurrection of the proletariat? How could she +have imagined that Mr. Lowell would have consented to further +the propaganda of anarcho-syndicalism? How could she have +imagined it—or, for that matter, how could he?</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_2"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>There was a good-sized grape-arbor behind the house, and +it came slowly into leaf, and then into blossom, and spread upon +the air a marvelous sweet perfume; you could stand and drink +it, almost as if it were the reality of autumn instead of the +promise of spring. “Divino da vino!” said Vincenzo Brini; it +was in the days before prohibition, of course. “Gooda redda +wine,” he said, pointing to the blossoms. “You calla heem ‘Dago +Red.’” And then with his good-natured grin he pointed to +himself. “Nodder kind Dago Red!” He pointed to Vanzetti. +“More Dago Red!”</p> + +<p>It was a joke to which they were much accustomed. The +children would hear it called after them when they went to +school: “Dago Red! Dago Red!” Even Father O’Brien had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> +taken it up, and in one of his sermons had advised his flock to +avoid any and all kinds of “Dago Reds.” “What you t’ink of +dat?” said Alfonsina, outraged; and Cornelia answered. “Tell +him what they did to Jesus. He too had a nickname, ‘King of +the Jews.’ They wrote it on the cross—‘I.N.R.I.’—Jesus of +Nazareth, King of the Jews.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Vanzetti. “I read heem. He was not what +priest say, he was worker, same like me and you, ribello, +rivoluzionario! Da priest in his time want him kill-èd—say he +make trouble. I no—cannot say it Eengleesh—”</p> + +<p>“‘And they were the more fierce, saying, he stirreth up the +people.’”</p> + +<p>“Joosta so! He was gooda man, povero. I sorry when he die. +I make tears for heem. I say compagno—Comradda Gesu, die +for make joostice for worker.”</p> + +<p>So it was when you were talking with Bart. You would begin +by smelling the grape blossoms and making jokes about the wine +you were going to drink; and you would end by making tears +for Comradda Gesu.</p> + +<p>“Summer is y-comen in!” sang the pair of wrens on top of +the grape-arbor; putting in an extra vowel, just as if they had +been Dagoes! It was a time for coming outdoors, a time for +beauty and joy. But alas, the hideous slaughter in Europe was +mounting to frenzy, becoming an extermination of the human +race. The exploiters and imperialists whose greed had dragged +Italy into the conflict were sending propagandists over here, to +lure the Italian youth back into the slaughter-pit.</p> + +<p>And so there was a bugle call in the soul of Bartolomeo Vanzetti. +He heard it all the time, he could never cease talking about +it. He must not spend the warm summer days lying on Castle +Hill, reading Dante and Manzoni; he must help to organize +meetings in one town or another; he must go the day before and +distribute handbills from house to house, and beg the people to +come; he must be on hand to take up a collection and forward it +to Galleani, so that more papers might be printed, to hold the +demon of militarism at bay, and expose the lies of piety and +patriotism. That was his duty, his martyrdom—his way of following +the example of Comradda Gesu!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV"> + CHAPTER IV<br> +<span class='chap-title'>YOUNG AMERICA</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The days passed; and one of them rang a bell in the soul +of Cornelia Thornwell. She had kept her vow, she had won the +wager with herself. For a whole year she had taken care of +herself, asking no advice and no favors from any one. She had +got a job as a manual worker, and held it for a year, and lived +on her earnings, and had twenty-five dollars put away. Now she +might go home if she wanted to.</p> + +<p>Did she want to? It was hard to be sure; at one time she +would find herself thinking about this one and that, and what +had happened to them all this time. But then she would remember +the desperate determination of everybody to dominate her +life; all those highly disciplined and rigid people who knew what +she ought to do at every moment of her life, and would never +cease from telling her! Well, she would have a way to escape, +a city of refuge!</p> + +<p>She had made up her mind to tell no one where she had +been; it would be a scandal, a mystery with which they might +torment themselves for the rest of her life; a skeleton in the +family closet—the bones of a runaway grandmother! The imp +of mischief kicked up his heels in the depths of Cornelia’s soul; +she thought of each person she knew, and what that person +would make of the problem. The secret would be a club she +would hold over their heads, to make them behave. “Let me +alone, or I’ll disappear again!” Like her daughter Alice’s hysterics, +which had developed at the age of three, in a lovely and +much petted child who wanted to have her own way, and which +continued in a social queen of forty, who had to have a platonic +lover in addition to a husband.</p> + +<p>Now Alice’s mother would also have a platonic romance! +Cornelia, aged sixty-one, would have an adopted son, an Italian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> +ditch-digger, aged twenty-eight—agnostic, anarchist, and +“Dago Red!” She might be sure of its being safe and innocent, +for she had watched him a year, and never seen him look at a +woman, nor heard him voice such an idea. Also she had the +word of Alfonsina: “He never t’ink woman, he joosta t’ink +joostice.”</p> + +<p>Such was Cornelia’s tangle of moods, when, on an evening in +July she was coming home from work with another woman, +and down the main street they saw, walking toward them, two +girls of the leisure class. There was nothing unusual in this, +for the summer-hotels were open, the “season” at Plymouth was +in full swing. To be sure, the daughters of the rich did not prefer +this part of the town for walking; their part lay to the +south, where the shore-road was lined with villas and splendid +estates. The workers would see them roaring by in fast motor-cars, +radiant, exquisite, with veils floating; snatches of laughter +and song would be wafted back, reminding you of the paradise +of freedom and happiness you had lost by being born in the +wrong half of Plymouth.</p> + +<p>The two girls came on; one in pink chiffon, one in white, +both lovely and gay, chatting, not heeding the swarm of tired +laborers, drab and dusty. Cornelia saw them coming, and her +eyes rested on them carelessly—until suddenly she started, and +the blood leaped into her face. That one in pink, with the lovely +little round face framed in soft brown hair and crowned with a +pink chiffon hat with flowers—that was her grandchild, Betty +Alvin! Little Betty, grown two or three inches taller, and miraculously +blossomed into womanhood, rounded and ripe.</p> + +<p>Cornelia was in a panic. What must she do? Look straight +ahead—no, she must turn to the other woman and talk—about +anything, the first words that came into her head—“That foreman +is too bad-tempered, he’s not fit for such a job, there’ll be +trouble in our wrapping-room if he stays, there ought to be +some way we could make a protest—” and so on, while the +girls came nearer. And suddenly—Cornelia must not look, but +out of the corner of her eye she saw Betty stop and stare. The +two working women passed by, and went on quickly, Cornelia +chattering about anything, anything.</p> + +<p>Betty had recognized her grandmother! Would she turn and +follow? Cornelia ventured a swift glance behind, and saw that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> +the two girls were going on. It was the Thornwell training; +Betty, assuming she were sure of the recognition, would understand +that Cornelia might not want to be recognized, might not +want the truth to be known to Cornelia’s companion or to +Betty’s. But what a tumult must be in the child’s young heart! +Her long-lost and prayed-for “Grannie,” in the shape of a poor +old working-woman in a faded calico dress, with a pitiful remnant +of a black straw hat stuck on her head. No, it couldn’t be +true! Yet it could not be doubted!</p> + +<p>Betty would come back, Cornelia felt certain. She thought +it over and decided to take the child into her secret. Betty was +the one for whom she cared most; it would be like a visit home. +So next evening Cornelia lingered on the way from work, and +walked by herself; and presently here came Betty, in the same +pink dress, but with no companion. Seeing her coming, Cornelia +turned off the main street, up a more or less deserted lane, and +presently she stopped, and turned and met her grand-daughter.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_3"> + II +</h3> + +<p>“Grannie! It’s you!” And then, “Oh, Grannie! How could +you?” And then, “Grannie! What on earth have you been +doing?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been taking care of myself, dear.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Grannie, but how!” And then, “Oh, you poor dear! +Why, your shoulders are bowed! And your poor hands, your +fingers! Who ever saw such things?” Betty became speechless; +but the tears gushed into her eyes and ran down her cheeks.</p> + +<p>“Don’t worry about me, dear. I’ve been having a very good +time; and I’ve learned a lot.”</p> + +<p>“What have you been doing?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been working for Mr. J. Lawrence Perry. Don’t you +remember that nice old gentleman who comes to dinner?”</p> + +<p>“Does he know it?”</p> + +<p>“No, of course not; I’m just a cordage worker.”</p> + +<p>“But, Grannie, what ever put such an idea into your head?”</p> + +<p>“I wanted to know that I could take care of myself, and I +wanted others to know it, so they would let me alone. I wanted +to be independent.”</p> + +<p>There came a flash of fire behind the rainclouds in Betty’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> +eyes. “Oh, Grannie, I know exactly how you feel! Sometimes +I’ve thought I’d do the same thing! If I’d known where you +were, I think I’d have come to you.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia dodged that suggestion. “How is everybody at +home, dear?”</p> + +<p>“Why, they’re all right, I guess—the same as they always are. +They’re very much worried about you, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Are they really that, or do they just have to pretend it?”</p> + +<p>“They have to pretend not to be; because it is supposed to be +all right, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Everything is always supposed to be all right,” said Cornelia. +“What am I doing?”</p> + +<p>“You went to California for the winter; and you’ve been +ordered to a rest-cure.”</p> + +<p>“I see. The neighbors will take that to mean that I’m in an +asylum.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Grannie, that wouldn’t shock them any more than this. +Oh! I never heard of such a thing in my life. How do you +<i>stand</i> it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, it hasn’t always been easy, but it’s been good for me. +I’ll be myself from now on, and not what any one else wants +me to be.”</p> + +<p>“How are you living?”</p> + +<p>“I’m boarding with an Italian family, very good kind people. +I’m comfortable there, and I’ve learned all sorts of things. I +went through the strike last winter.”</p> + +<p>“Grannie, how perfectly thrilling! I never heard anything so +romantic!” The girl was aglow with excitement, and Cornelia +would have liked to take her in her arms and hug her. But what +would the neighbors think, seeing a working-woman on such +terms of intimacy with a young lady of fashion? Even in North +Plymouth, one must remember the neighbors!</p> + +<p>“Betty, I’m taking you into my secret, and you must keep it +for me. I’m not going to tell anybody where I have been.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, Grannie, whatever you say. But are you going +to live here always?”</p> + +<p>“No, I shall come back; but I don’t think I’ll live with the +family.” Then, after a moment: “What did they do about their +quarrel?”</p> + +<p>“You mean about the cradle and the rug? Well, you see, they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> +forgot it when they found you had gone; they were so shocked, +and ashamed of themselves. Now they don’t speak about it—in +fact, they’ve persuaded themselves it didn’t happen. Aunt Alice +took the Mayflower cradle out of the house because she knew +that grandfather had left it to her in the will.”</p> + +<p>“Did he really do that?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and he left the Shah of Persia’s rug to Mother; and +so they didn’t have to have a row, and they didn’t; it’s the sort +of thing that couldn’t happen in Boston, so it never did. If +anybody mentioned it, they’d deny it—and they’d be very angry +about the denial.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia laughed. “You little monkey! Are they teaching you +psychology at Miss Wilson’s?”</p> + +<p>“No, but naturally I listen and think. They’ve got another +quarrel now, that I’m not supposed to know about; but I can’t +help hearing—and then Priscilla tells me a lot.”</p> + +<p>“What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s Aunt Alice; there’s a gentleman who admires her +very much, and it’s all right, of course, only she drove somewhere +with this gentleman, and somebody else saw them, and +there was a lot of gossip about it, and mother had to lie for +Aunt Alice at her Sewing Circle, and she vows she will never do +it again. And Aunt Alice cried, and they haven’t been to each +other’s house for several months.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia thought for a space. “I don’t believe I’m ready to go +home yet, Betty!”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_3"> + III +</h3> + +<p>They strolled to the edge of the woods, where they found +a seat covered with pine-needles, and Betty told more gossip +of the Thornwell clan. Aunt Clara had had another baby; that +made eight, and Aunt Alice called it a positive indecency—if +they were looking for scandals, there was a real one. And +Great-uncle Abner had had a bad attack of the gout; and his +son, Uncle Quincy—you must pronounce it as if it were another +disease—had won a chess cup. And Uncle Henry Winters and +Uncle James Scatterbridge had made no one could say how +many millions buying ships and things and selling them to the +allies; and Betty’s father had made a speech at a banquet of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> +the bankers, declaring that the interests of civilization required +that America should enter the war. “On which side?” asked +Cornelia; and the girl looked at first puzzled and then shocked. +“Oh, the allies, of course.”</p> + +<p>So Cornelia told the decision which had been forming in her +mind during her year of independence. She was a pacifist. +She believed that the interests of civilization required that men +should stop killing one another. When Betty said, “Oh, but if +the Kaiser should win!” Cornelia answered that it didn’t matter +who won, the interests of civilization would lose. She quoted +one of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, to the effect +that there never was a good war nor a bad peace.</p> + +<p>This was a subject they might have discussed for quite a +while; but Betty’s conscience began to trouble her. “It is time +I was dressing for dinner, and I mustn’t be late. Mrs. Walker +has to be so careful with me.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Walker?” said Cornelia; and the other explained that +she was spending a couple of weeks with the Jerry Walkers. +Cornelia could hardly believe her ears. “How does that happen?”</p> + +<p>“I know, it sounds funny; but you see, Lucile Walker, the +oldest daughter, is at Miss Wilson’s, and I like her better than +any other girl in the school—in fact we just adore each other. +She really knows more than six of me, Grannie, and why does +one always have to be thinking about family and ancestors? +The way it seems to me, we Thornwells have got so much pride +and money that we don’t really need to amount to anything or +to know anything. Honestly, I get bored with it; and Lucile +interests me, so why shouldn’t we be friends?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly; only I’m surprised that Deborah would let you +visit them.”</p> + +<p>“Well, we had a time, of course. Mother says she simply +cannot understand my vulgar tastes. She couldn’t figure out +where I got them, but now she’s decided that it’s from you, +Grannie!” And Cornelia spread out her knobby knuckles, and +said that she had gone back to her ancestors; and Betty caught +those knobby knuckles and cried over them, and they had a +fine sentimental time.</p> + +<p>Betty told more about the people she was visiting; she knew +the whole shameful story from her mother—how Jerry Walker +had been employed as an errand boy in St. Andrew’s hospital, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> +of which Cornelia had been one of the supporters; and later +he had worked as a felt-salesman, and Grandfather Thornwell +had helped to put up the money so that he might buy his first +plant. Now he owned about all the felt-plants there were in +New England, and was getting to be as rich as anybody. But +he could never be forgiven for being a nobody, and it was preposterous +that his daughter should have been admitted to a +fashionable school with the daughters of the Thornwells.</p> + +<p>“You can see how it is,” said Betty. “If anything were to +go wrong with me while I’m at Mrs. Walker’s, she would never +be forgiven; so I mustn’t cause her any worry. If I could tell +her about you, Grannie—but then I don’t know”—and again +laughter lighted up the eager face of the girl—“I’m afraid maybe +you are not respectable any more!”</p> + +<p>Cornelia replied, “I’m lost forever. The people I’ve been +living with are far worse than the Walkers. They are called +Dago Reds.”</p> + +<p>“Dago Red?” said Betty, puzzled. “I thought that was what +the college boys call wine.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but this is another kind of Red, those who don’t believe +in religion, or in government; they are anarchists, in +short.”</p> + +<p>This time Miss Betty was really shocked, and all the laughter +died out of her eyes. “Oh, Grannie, but you’re joking!”</p> + +<p>“No. But they’re really quite charming people. I’ll introduce +you to them, maybe, and you can see. One of them is called +Bart, and he is a saint.”</p> + +<p>“A saint?” echoed Betty, still more puzzled. “But you said +they didn’t believe in religion!”</p> + +<p>“It appears that many saints don’t, any more,” was Cornelia’s +reply. “There are what you might call secular saints.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_3"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>They walked towards Betty’s dinner, and on the way discussed +the problem of how she was to meet these dangerous +and thrilling friends of Grannie’s. Betty could not be absent +from the Walkers’ without giving some excuse, and she did not +want to tell any fibs to a hostess who carried such a grave +responsibility. It would not do to tell Lucile, because secrets +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> +didn’t last long with her, and anyhow, she was not old enough +to be a chaperon. Betty bethought herself of Miss Mehitabel +Smith, the unmarried sister of Mrs. Walker. Miss Mehitabel +was very, very upright; “almost as good as Mother,” said +Betty. She did a great deal of visiting among the poor, and if +Betty were to be seized with a desire to go visiting with her, +that would be perfectly proper; Miss Mehitabel could visit her +own poor, while Betty visited Betty’s—and it would be no fib, +because anybody had only to look at that frightful get-up that +Grannie wore—“How on earth do you stand it?”</p> + +<p>It would be necessary to take Miss Mehitabel into the secret; +but Betty was sure it would be safe, for no one could be more +conscientious. Cornelia said all right, but of course Betty must +not give any hint of the reason why Cornelia had left home; +family quarrels were family skeletons, never taken out in public; +and Betty said, “Oh, of course!” She would say that her grandmother +was engaged in sociological research, and her secret +must be kept because otherwise her conclusions would be invalidated. +Miss Mehitabel would be thrilled to death by that, and it +would be such a very, very little fib, it would hardly count at +all. It was agreed that Betty was to pay a call in Suosso’s Lane +on the following evening.</p> + +<p>And meantime, what must the little mischief do but arrange +with Miss Mehitabel to inspect the cordage plant! Miss Mehitabel +was a stockholder in the company, so it was easy for her, +and at 10 o’clock in the morning the two of them suddenly +appeared in Cornelia’s wrapping-room. They did not speak, but +stood for a long time and watched the work, and Cornelia stole +glances at them out of the corner of her eyes. The other women +workers did the same, the young ones especially; for Betty was +as good as a fashionplate or a visit to the movies. As for Miss +Mehitabel—well, Cornelia tried to imagine what an Italian +or Portuguese worker would make of her solid Norfolk jacket +fastened with a belt, and her plain tweed skirt without a pleat +or fold, and her plain brown stockings and “ground gripper” +shoes. Miss Mehitabel wore her hair short—this in the days +when it was an act of heroism—and parted in the middle and +covered by a Swiss guide hat with a small feather in it—the +only ornamental thing in the whole costume.</p> + +<p>Miss Mehitabel’s face was serious, even stern, and her eyes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> +looked out through large horn-rimmed spectacles. In short, she +was a perfect imitation of a certain very common type of +Beacon Hill lady who has got through with nonsense once for +all, especially the nonsense of men, and wishes to advertise the +fact, especially to the men. In the case of Miss Mehitabel, who +was a rank outsider, it was a very bold, even presumptuous +thing to do; but that, of course, would be something beyond +the comprehension of a cordage worker, who would take Miss +Mehitabel to be the real thing, and have enough to do trying to +imagine what that thing might be. After the two ladies had +walked on, Cornelia heard the foreman of the department +standing behind her seat, discussing the problem with the subforeman. +“Now what do you suppose a woman gets herself up +like that for?”</p> + +<p>“Search me,” said the subforeman.</p> + +<p>“Well, they tell you the reason there is so many old maids +in New England, because the men goes west. But what I say +is, if the women tried hard enough, they could get the men to +come fetch them.” It was what is known as “Yankee humor.”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_3"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia had decided not to give the Brinis any explanation +of Betty. She would just say that one of her grand-daughters +was visiting in Plymouth, and wanted to meet them. There was +a mystery anyhow, and the presence of a grand-daughter would +neither add to it nor take away.</p> + +<p>Betty put on her least fashionable costume for the occasion; +but the gulf between the lowest of Betty’s and the highest of +an Italian cordage worker’s was not to be bridged at one day’s +notice. Alfonsina had barely time after supper to put clean +clothes on the children, and to smooth her own hair and put +on her necklace of beads. Papa Brini came in from the garden +and washed his hands and put on his coat. As for poor old Bart, +his clothes hung on him as if they had come from a pawnbroker’s, +and he didn’t even know enough to trim his walrus +mustaches when a young lady was coming to call.</p> + +<p>But all the stiffness and embarrassment was soon forgotten; +because Betty set out to be loved, and there was no resisting +her. “Nonna?” she said, when she heard Cornelia’s name. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>“What does that mean?” When they told her it was the Italian +word for grandma, she said, “Oh, how cute! Nonna. I’ll make it +my pet name for her,” and she began to do it right away.</p> + +<p>She got one arm about Trando, and said, “You will teach +me lots of lovely Italian words. And Nonna tells me you are +going to be a violinist. I play the piano a little, and you can +come to see me and we’ll play duets; only you are going to be +famous, and you won’t waste your time with me.” So then, of +course, Alfonsina beamed, and Vincenzo was so touched that +he got out one of the last of his precious bottles of “Dago Red,” +and they all had a glass—even Bart drank a little when it was +a matter of courtesy. They made the jokes about “Dago Red,” +and the one about “divino da vino,” and explained it to Betty. +And then she turned to Bart and said, “Mr. Vanzetti, Nonna +tells me that you have made her into a pacifist.”</p> + +<p>Now Bart, of course, had never seen anything so lovely as +this in all his life; at least, never close at hand, and paying attention +to <i>him</i>. He who would walk a whole afternoon in the +woods searching for the first mayflower, now saw one come +laughing and chatting into the parlor where he boarded. Of +course he was awe-stricken; but even so, not for a moment +must his proletarian conscience be drugged. “No, Meess Betty,” +said he. “Nonna is very good lady, mooch lovely lady; but if +she is made pacifista”—he pronounced it Italian fashion, +“pachifeesta”—“if she is pachifeesta, it is not by me. I am never +sooch t’ing.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, then what are you, Mr. Vanzetti?”</p> + +<p>“I am anarchista.”</p> + +<p>“And what is the difference?”</p> + +<p>“Moocha differenza, Meess Betty. Anarchista is fighting man. +He will not fight in war for capitalista, for padrone, what you +call master, but he will fight for worker, for joostice, for make +freedom of slave.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! So then you and Nonna don’t agree!”</p> + +<p>“I t’ink it is maybe good for Nonna be pachifeesta, she is +olda lady, no—cannot fight. She has got sooch kind heart—”</p> + +<p>“But then you have a kind heart, too, Mr. Vanzetti. She told +me how you would not let the sick kitten be killed.”</p> + +<p>“Seeck kitten not do harm, I not like for kill helpless t’ing. +But capitalista is not helpless, Meess Betty, he is fighting man, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> +is most fighting man in whole world. If you study, you onderstand +what is cause of great war. What for must million men +go fight, be kill-èd, miseramente, cruel? It is for get market +for rich capitalista; it is for get coal, iron—what you call it for +burn in lamp?”</p> + +<p>“Oil?”</p> + +<p>“It is for sooch t’ing worker must die. It come go-vérnment, +take you per forza, like slave, put in uniform, say go kill. If +you say no—cannot kill, you go prigione—prison, you get torture, +maybe shot. I say, what for talka pachifeesmo for soocha +men? No, worker must fight, is never men get free wit’ out +fight for freedom. Is it not trut’, Nonna?”</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” said Cornelia. “The Negro slaves were freed +without having to do much fighting—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, but Grannie!” It was Betty who broke in. “Other people +had to fight for them; and if they aren’t really free yet, maybe +that is the reason, because they haven’t done their own fighting.”</p> + +<p>So Cornelia confronted the problem of the younger generation. +She sat back and listened, while small talk and efforts at +charm were forgotten, and the idealist-dreamer set forth his +vision of the better world to be. She realized that Betty had +come there, with her mind made up to probe to the bottom this +phenomenon of a “secular saint”; to know exactly what he +thought, and judge it, not according to what Miss Wilson’s +school was teaching, nor according to what the Back Bay would +approve, but according to the facts. “You can understand, Mr. +Vanzetti,” said she, “I don’t hear very much about these ideas, +and they are strange to me. But I’d like to know all I can. +Maybe you would let me come Saturday afternoon, and you +and I and Nonna would take a long walk in the woods, and you +could explain to me.”</p> + +<p>Never in the year that Cornelia had known Bart had she seen +him so happy as then! “Meess Betty,” said he, “is notting in +whole world I like so much as for explain.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_3"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>It was a warm, still afternoon, and a hundred pleasure-boats +made holiday upon Plymouth Bay. Motor launches chugged +here and there, and fishermen drew their nets and set their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> +lobster-pots; while on the top of Castle Hill Bartolomeo +Vanzetti sat under a wind-beaten tree and with many gestures +told the story of his life to Cornelia Thornwell and her grand-daughter.</p> + +<p>He had been born in a peasant home in the village of Villafalletto, +on the banks of the river Magra, in northern Italy. +He had yearned for an education, but as fate would have it, his +father read in a newspaper how forty-two lawyers had applied +for a position in Turin which paid only seven dollars a month; +and that ended the hope of culture for little Bart! At the age +of thirteen he was put to work as a pastry cook’s apprentice, +and slaved for fifteen hours a day, from seven in the morning +till ten at night, seven days in the week, with the exception of +three hours on Sunday. Thus passed six years of his pitiful +youth, until at last his health broke under the strain, and he +was brought back to his village home. Through those years he +had been a devout Catholic, and had solaced himself with the +faith that his sufferings were God’s will. “I make fist-fight for +church,” said he, with a laugh. “Fellow he say somet’ing very +bad, I make heem sorry.”</p> + +<p>Then the will of God inflicted a still more dreadful sorrow +upon him. His mother fell ill. He had loved her more than he +could find words to tell, in either English or Italian. “It is why +I so glad for have Nonna come here. Always it make me +memory my modder. It is story I not tell her, sooch terrible +story. She is so sick, sooch agonia, she screama, long time no—cannot +sleep; I must go ask men on street for not sing, make +noise. It is so bad, nobody in family can stand for see her, not +osband, not daughter. It is me must help her—must hold her in +arm, must—what you say, nurse—for two mont’ I not undress +for sleep. One day she die in my arm, she suffer so, not know +me, not my tears. It is me must put her in coffin, must walk to +grave, must shovel dirt onto my modder. Sooch miseria! You +know what is Dante say, Nonna—‘nessun maggior dolore’—it is +no sooch greater grief in world as to remember happy time in +miseria. But for me it is no sooch grief as to remember what +my modder musta suffer. Always I see it, and each old lady in +world is my modder.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause, while the ditch-digger blinked a tear out +of his eyes; then he went on. “Could no more be happy in home. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> +No can ever laugh. My fadder, he get gray, very old. I no can—cannot +work, must go walk in wood, stand by river on little +bridge and look down in water, t’ink maybe I fall in, not have +so mooch sufferance. So I t’ink maybe come America; is new +country, great country, I start more life; is what you say in +song, ‘sweet land of liberty’—Fay she sing in school. It is what +you say, full dinner-pail. So I say, I come America, not for +get rich, get little money, no work so hard, have time for read +book. I joosta readed De Amicis, great writer, what you say +‘Cuore,’ it is story of his heart. I t’ink maybe I be socialist now, +little bit socialist, sentimentale, genteel, good, ever’body be kind, +make new world, ever’body be happy, maybe by vote. I come +America for sooch pretty—what you say, dream.”</p> + +<p>Vanzetti paused, and closed his eyes in pain. “Next to lose +modder, next most badda t’ing in whole life is lose America. +You ’Merican lady cannot onderstand, no never, not if talk all +day. Hear about Statue Liberty—beautifool, wonderfool—paradiso. +Come Ellis Island, all sudden knock on head, like badda +dream, inferno—brutale, treat people lika beast—little ones cry, +hide in modder’s dress. What for is reason for treat poor +people sooch way? Why make sooch fear, sooch hate? I go on +street, stand look, strange city, mooch automobile, big train +upstair—bang, bang, make fright. I go look for home; no got +one friend, ever’body try cheat, rob poor straniere—what you +say, foreign. Must go sleep in room, twenty people, is filt’ ever’where; +must hunt job, washa da deesh, must sleep wit’—you +scusa me, Meess Betty, is not gooda story for tell sweet young +lady—”</p> + +<p>“Go on,” said Betty. “If it’s not too bad to happen, it’s not +too bad to hear.”</p> + +<p>“It is t’ing what bite in bed—it make you onhappy—cannot +sleep. I live in room upstair, top of house, mooch people, very +hot. I go for work restaurant—it is mooch famous place, you +read about in book; all time go artist, writer, take lady for +supper. I not know what is now, but eight year back I washa +da deesh, mosta bad dirt, steam all time, grease on roof drop +on food, on clean deesh; all slop on floor, drain get stop, you +stand t’ree inch water all day washa deesh, like work in sewer. +I talk many men, it is same plenty big restaurant, all for show, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> +not care be clean. But worker he cannot tell story—who would +hear heem?</p> + +<p>“I work fourteen hour one day, twelve hour next day. I get +five, six dollar week. Get food very bad, dirty, like dog. I no +can stand, t’ink maybe get seeck, I stop, go country, look for +work outdoor. But is very bad time—you know, Nonna, is +what you call panic joost come, make very bad for job. Must +go hungry, beg job, get food out of garbage-can maybe, someday +starve, so weak cannot work more. It was farmer give little +job—two week—he not need me, but he sorry for poor wop—it +is first time I get kind word from any one American, I never +forget that farmer.</p> + +<p>“It is long story, Meess Betty, you no want hear heem all. +I get work by brick furnace, shovel coal, it is job for kill man, +sooch heat. But I near die hungry, so I stay, ten mont’ I shovel +coal. I go Conecticut, get job by stone quarry, work a year. Is +better so, meet plenty Italian, got home, see people dance, +play violin evening. I no dance, but like see friend be happy. I +read mooch book, I read paper, t’ink about worker, hees life, I +see is not land of liberty, is all same, whole world is slavery for +worker. It is few people own land, own factory, is capitalista, +sooch people maka da profitt, it is for profitt musta be all industree. +Worker is—I cannot say Eengleesh, is what you buy and +sell, comodità—is not human, is joost somet’ing for be sold +for profitt. You onderstand, Meess Betty.”</p> + +<p>“Certainly.”</p> + +<p>“It shock you, maybe—”</p> + +<p>“Not at all. I’ve thought about it a lot. What do we do for +all this money we have? We young people, especially—we +can work if we want to, and that’s very kind of us; but if we +prefer we can lie back and loaf the rest of our lives. No, +Mr. Vanzetti, don’t be afraid to talk to me!”</p> + +<p>“You must onderstand, I not have sooch idea when I come +America, no what you call foreign red. I learn heem here, +I see wit’ eye, I talk wit’ worker, I t’ink what is way for freedom. +I am anarchista long time before to see anarchista paper, +hear anarchista speaker. When I hear heem, I t’ink, it is olda +story, it is my word from mout’ of odder man!”</p> + +<p>And Betty, sitting with her eyes riveted upon him, remarked, +“That is a little the way I find it, listening to you!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="VII_3"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>There was more to this talk; a discussion of Vanzetti’s +ideas, and his answers to many questions. When it was over, +Cornelia walked part of the way home with her grand-daughter, +taking one of the back streets. “Oh, Grannie, what a wonderful +man! Grannie, I never dreamed of such a thing—why don’t +they tell us there are men like that among the working-people? +Do you suppose there are many?”</p> + +<p>“He says there are; but maybe he is being modest.”</p> + +<p>“So polite and so kind—he really is a gentleman, Grannie, +and without any family, or any one to teach him.”</p> + +<p>“He is a gentleman if the word is worth using, dear.”</p> + +<p>“And think what that man has read, stealing all the time +from his sleep! Grannie, I was never so ashamed in my life! +I’m going to get that book by Kropotkin—I’m going to read +and understand for myself. I’ve known it was all wrong, I’ve +been saying it to myself for a year or two. What am I doing—except +to show how to wear clothes?”</p> + +<p>“You’re supposed to be studying, dear. I thought you had to +work hard at Miss Wilson’s.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, we’re Spartan enough, but it’s all so remote from +reality, so academic and so tiresome. We listen to Miss Wilson +talk a lot, and it’s not good form to ask questions, because she +is deaf, and we don’t want to reveal the fact. I’m bored with +it, Grannie—and I’m bored with society before I get in! Does +that sound like a prig?”</p> + +<p>“No, dear, of course not.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you can’t imagine such idle boys! I suppose when +I’m a deb, and meet older men, it won’t be so bad; but I was invited +to one of the Brattle Hall dances—and you talk about +the Dickie and who made it and who didn’t, and about football, +and last year’s scores and this year’s prospects; and after that +it’s time to stroll out into the moonlight and get sentimental. +Down here you go sailing and you go to garden parties, and +you never hear anything worthwhile. The one serious thing +in Plymouth is the pulling and hauling between the descendants +of the Pilgrims and the descendants of the Puritans. One +claims social precedence, and the other won’t grant it, and they +gossip dreadfully. Mrs. Walker doesn’t belong to either set, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> +and she ought to be glad—but she isn’t.” They walked on, until +suddenly the girl burst out, “Do you know what I’d really like +to do, Grannie?”</p> + +<p>“What, dear?”</p> + +<p>“Stay right here the rest of the summer, and get a job in the +cordage plant with you, and prove that I’m some use.”</p> + +<p>“No, dear, you can’t do that, it would make your mother +and father too unhappy. And besides, it would be giving away +my secret.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I suppose so. But anyhow, I am going to do something +worthwhile before I get through.”</p> + +<p>“Where you going the rest of the summer?”</p> + +<p>“Camp Putnam for August; and of course that’s exciting, +in a way. Did they have Camp Putnam when you were a +girl?”</p> + +<p>“No, people didn’t go as far as the Adirondacks; and besides, +I wasn’t a fashionable person.”</p> + +<p>“Well, anyhow, they found some way to get you married off +to an eligible man!” And Betty laughed. “Oh, yes, we know +what Camp Putnam is for! The old people think they are +being so sly, they get together and plan the list every summer, +and rule out the least desirable ones—it’s as select as if it was +God we were visiting. They even try to arrange the partners, +but it doesn’t work out to oblige them. I know Mother wants +to put me off on Ebenezer Cabot, but Grannie, he’s an out-and-out +moron.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t say that, dear!”</p> + +<p>“But it’s true! You know perfectly well that most of us +old families have feeble-minded ones, and regular lunatics, +with keepers watching them, somewhere off in a remote wing +of the house. Isn’t it true that Great-uncle Ahab was that way +for years?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear, but you mustn’t speak of it.”</p> + +<p>“Only to you, Grannie. But I’m telling you there’ll be no +Ebenezer in my young life. But I think before this summer’s +over I’m going to have to deal with a proposal.”</p> + +<p>“Who from?”</p> + +<p>“Roger Lowell. He was there last year, and he almost did +it, but it wouldn’t have been proper, because he was only a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> +sophomore then, and they’re not supposed to be engaged; but +this year he’s a junior, and so it’ll be all right.”</p> + +<p>“Do you like him?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I do and I don’t, Grannie. He’s a dear, in a way, and +very good, but so awfully stiff and prim, so conscious of his +great family, and what it’s correct for him to do. If I were to +marry him, I think I’d be like you and Grandfather Thornwell, +I’d hardly dare crack a smile the rest of my life. I’ve +already shocked him by some of the things I’ve said. I told +him a woman should promise to stay with a man so long as she +loved him, not any more. He said she ought to promise to +love him forever, but I said that would be silly, because how +could you tell? Did you ever meet him, Grannie?”</p> + +<p>“The first time I met him, he had his pink toes up in the +air.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ll tell him that, and humiliate him to death! No +Lowell should be seen in such a position!”</p> + +<p>“And the second time he had a bib around his neck, and +porridge running down it. The last time I met him, he was in +evening dress, and his collar was stiff and his tie was puffy, and +his sober round face looked over the top like a big pink chrysanthemum.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Grannie, that’s Roger exactly! And I’m his ideal of +womanhood—if only I wouldn’t make jokes! Now I’m going +to read Vanzetti’s books, and be really serious, but I’m not sure +if he will like me as an anarchist. And Grannie, I’m supposed +to go home to-morrow, but I hate to leave you like this—honestly, +I’m ashamed of the food I eat.”</p> + +<p>“I’m having a very happy time, dear.”</p> + +<p>“How long do you plan to stay?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not sure—I keep changing my mind. When I read +in the paper about that speech your father made, trying to get +us into the war—then all of a sudden I think I’ll come back and +take up a pacifist campaign.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Grannie! How perfectly appalling! You’d be like old +Mrs. Abigail Webster Adams—she made a speech at a socialist +meeting, and Father said she ought to be locked up in an +asylum.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt he’ll say that about me,” said Cornelia. It was a +prophecy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_3"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Betty went away, and the rest of Cornelia’s stay was enlivened +by letters, addressed to Mrs. Nonna Cornell—it was +Betty’s little joke. They were highly confidential letters, full +of family information. “Uncle Quincy has found the perfect +chess player, a man who can foresee all possible combinations. +Uncle James is building a whole new house on the back of +‘Hillview.’ And Father says the Boston banks have got a hundred +million dollars of British and French bonds. They sold +them to the public, but had to take them as collateral, and if +the allies should lose, not a bank in Boston could keep open. +So you had better come on up and make that pacifist speech.”</p> + +<p>And then: “I have been to the book-store that Mr. Vanzetti +told me about. It is kept by a nice dark-eyed young Russian +who was eager to undertake my education. I have a number +of books which I keep hidden in the bottom of a trunk, they +are lots worse than the ‘Cosmo’ with Robert W. Chambers. +One is called ‘Vindication of the Rights of Women,’ by Mary +Wollstonecraft Godwin. The preface says it is a hundred and +twenty-five years old. The world has not caught up with her +yet. I am very much excited about this book, because it is just +what I had been thinking. But Roger will not like it.”</p> + +<p>Then: “I am at Camp Putnam, ready to be paired off for +life, with no possibility of its not being good family. It really +is the loveliest country, and impossible not to have a good time. +It is so nice to wear sensible camping clothes; how I wish that +women might wear short skirts all the time. But if I were to +walk down Tremont street this way, I suppose I’d have a crowd +of boys hooting me. There is much in the world to be changed. +I think the Mary Wollstonecraft book has made me into a +suffragette. Would that shock you?</p> + +<p>“I am going out now to climb a mountain. We shall all +spend the night on top and see the sunrise, and come home +to-morrow, and then we shall eat most tremendous quantities of +cakes and syrup. We seem to be hungry all the time. Aunt +Betty, who runs the camp and us, has put a big block of chocolate +in the pantry, and a little hatchet with which we knock +off pieces. Mother says it was exactly the same in her day—the +same hatchet, but I don’t suppose the same block of chocolate. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> +At least, we shall not leave much for our children.”</p> + +<p>And then: “We have climbed many mountains, and are +having our good time in a sober, conscientious way. We are +really very serious young people. Did I tell you that we have a +way of testing any newcomer? We have a funny story that +we tell him; at least it is said to be funny, but really it has no +point, and we watch to see if he laughs. If he does, we know +that he is not sincere. It is very ingenious, but after you have +watched the procedure two or three times it strikes you as a +little self-conscious. I suppose it is our Puritan blood that +makes it necessary for us to be always consciously and deliberately +righteous.</p> + +<p>“It would not be a very good test with Roger, for he might +not laugh even if the joke did have a point. We have had some +long talks and I thought I would break the news gently, so I +said, ‘I have met several radicals, and am much interested in +their ideas.’ Roger said, ‘That is all right, I am the same way, +I had a prof last year who was quite terribly radical.’ I asked, +‘What did he say?’ and Roger answered, ‘Oh, all sorts of +things. He kept talking about the “lost books of the Bible,” and +he said that the substance of the ten commandments was found +in earlier writings, and the story of the flood was derived from +Babylonian sources.’ You might tell that to Mr. Vanzetti and +shock him!”</p> + +<p>The climax of the courtship: “Oh, Grannie dear, my dolly +is stuffed with sawdust! Roger and I have had a heart to heart +talk and a most terrible quarrel, and it is all over—my name is +never going to be Lowell. I told him I had come to realize +that marriage was a form of slavery for women; and he said he +knew what I meant, it was the word obey in the ceremony, +but there were some clergymen who would leave that out if you +asked them to. And I said it wasn’t only that, it was the idea +of a woman’s parting with her autonomy; that every woman +ought to have the final say about the children she bore; she +ought to be free—especially if she were willing to earn her own +way, as I meant to do.</p> + +<p>“So then he was much puzzled, and asked me what I thought +we ought to do, and I said I believed in a free union, with our +own promise to each other, to be true to our best selves, and to +do our best to love each other, but not stay together if we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> +couldn’t. And Roger said, ‘You mean—you mean you wouldn’t +really—you wouldn’t get married at all?’ and he turned red to +the tips of his ears, and I said, ‘You don’t understand my feelings.’ +But he couldn’t talk about it any more—he said, ‘Betty +Alvin, if I had made such a proposition to you, it would have +been a deadly insult.’ And I said, ‘Maybe so, but I am making +it to you, and that is something different.’ And he wanted to +know where I had got such outrageous ideas, but when I tried +to tell him he didn’t really want to know, and wouldn’t look at +the book. He tried to talk to me about my soul, and I laughed +at him, and so now we are most fearfully polite to each other +when anybody else is present, because of course we don’t want +to have a scandal in the camp. Oh, Grannie, I wish you would +come back home, because I am going to be so lonely!”</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_3"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>The “Gruppo Autonomo di Plymouth” gave a “picanic” that +fall, and from all the neighboring towns came swarms of +Italians, by train and bus and second-hand automobile. And +then it was announced that the “Circolo Drammatico Mario +Papisardi” was going to give a play in Stoughton, a “shoe-town” +some thirty miles away. They had quite a fine dramatic +organization, and Bart laid off work for three days to travel +round and place tickets for them. Illness kept the Brinis +from going, but some neighbors, the Angelottis, invited Cornelia.</p> + +<p>A young anarchist comrade called for them in his car; +Mike Boda was his name, and he told Cornelia that he was a +macaroni salesman, and raced about the country in his little +Overland car, hopping in and out at Italian homes. He was +a chipper little fellow, about five feet two inches high, and +it was just as well that he was no heavier, because when you +had Bart on the front seat with a boy on his knee, and Mr. +and Mrs. Angelotti and Cornelia on the back seat, with another +boy on the father’s lap and another on the mother’s, you had +about as much weight as the springs of a low-priced car could +be expected to stand.</p> + +<p>But the roads were good, and they rolled along singing +songs, and it was a gay party that swept into the shoe-town. +The children had been to the movies, of course, and they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> +had seen a play at school, but this was their first grown-up play, +and they could hardly contain their excitement. They drove +to the home of a comrade whom Vanzetti had recently met at +one of the East Boston gatherings. Nicola Sacco was his name, +and he lived in a fine cottage, which had formerly belonged to +his boss. “Great feller, Nick,” explained Bart. “He work shoe-factory, +is edge-trimmer, mooch skill work, he make so mooch +fifty, sixty dollar week, that boy—smart feller, got lovely wife, +you see.”</p> + +<p>Their host ran out to the gate to meet them, a chap of +twenty-five, with even, regular features and black hair and +eyes; very active, like a cat, a figure all of steel springs. He +had come from the ankle of the Italian boot, while his wife, +Rosina, came from the north—young and dainty, with vivid +auburn hair and an eager face full of sunshine and freckles. +They had a little boy, about three years old. “Hello, Dante!” +called Bart. “Someday we have nodder poet!” But the new +poet was shy, and hid behind his mother’s skirts.</p> + +<p>Nick and Rosina were to act in the play to-night, so the +guests refused to go into the house and disturb them. The +visitors had their supper all in a box, and would make a “picanic” +on the Saccos’ front lawn. But nothing could prevent +the host from showing them his garden; next to his family, it +was the pride of his life, he worked at it every night till it was +too dark to see. He led them down the rows of tomato plants, +and lifted the branches and showed the big red globes underneath. +He knew only a few words of English, but Cornelia did +not need a translator, because for forty years she had seen her +husband showing off his flowers to visitors, and she knew +every expression and gesture that goes with the ceremony.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_3"> + X +</h3> + +<p>They went to the hall where the play was to be, and met +most of the Italians of New England, it seemed. There were +Nick and Rosina on the stage, magically transformed into +peasants of the home country. Cornelia had one of the young +Angelottis on each side, and they were supposed to whisper into +her ear what was happening; but they became so enthralled +that they forgot there was anybody in the world but the figures +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> +in the play. However, Cornelia knew many Italian words, and +all possible Italian gestures; and the story was so simple, and +so full of action, it was easy to follow.</p> + +<p>Nick was a peasant, whose son had been taken from him +and forced to fight the Arabs in Tripoli. Meantime the father +was in dire straits—“Militarism and Misery” was the title of +the drama. His wife was ill of a fever, and he had no money, +and the cruel landlord threatened to turn them out. When +Nick offered to work for the landlord, his plea was refused, +because, as an anarchist, he would lead the other workers to +revolt. A good doctor came to visit the wife, and he and Nick +had a debate, in which Nick set forth the principles of his +faith with most wonderful eloquence. His comrades brought +him money, and threw out the landlord, calling him “affamatore” +and “assassino”—starver and assassin: whereat the doctor +was so much impressed that he declared himself a convert +to anarchism. “The new comrade am I”—and the other comrades +burst into cheers, and the audience was not slow to follow.</p> + +<p>Then came the soldier-boy, home from the wars. He boasted +of the Arab women and children he had slain, and his father, +a true internationalist, threw his pay into his face and ordered +him from the home. “Get out, get out of here, robber and +assassin!”—a painful scene. In the next act, the soldier-boy +sat in the barracks, brooding over his shame—to such good +effect that when he discovered another soldier with a load of +antimilitarist literature, he let the guilty one escape. And when +in the last act he was ordered home, in charge of a file of troops, +to shoot down the striking peasants, he refused, and went over +to the side of his father, and died from a shot fired by the +mayor. It was a tragic and sensational ending, and Nick as +the revolutionary father rose to heights of eloquence. “Yes, to +the barricades! Farewell, my son—victim of bourgeois imperialism, +repose in peace! To-day is not the day to mourn the +dead. It is the day of battle and vengeance. Let us hasten, +comrades, where the struggle is more fierce, to avenge not only +him, but all the obscure martyrs fallen through capitalist greed.” +And as the comrades rushed out and the firing began off-stage, +you would have thought you were in La Scala—such storms of +applause, such tears and raptures, so many bouquets on the +stage, so many “evvivas” and “bis!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span></p> + +<p>It was easy to smile at the naïveté of such a story. But +when you saw how deeply it moved the audience, then you had +to stop and think, and realize that it was the stuff of the lives +of Italian peasants. If the drama and its emotions were simple, +it was because the reality was the same. Even the conversion +of the doctor might have happened—for, after all, there +were anarchist doctors, well known in Italy. And the struggle +against militarism—that was the religion and martyrdom of +the peasant all over Europe. Everything in the drama was +true, except the revolution—and what was needed to bring that, +but the very fervor and impulse of this peasant audience?</p> + +<p>The family discussed all this as they drove home. It was +late and the children went sound asleep, but the grown-ups +never wearied of talking, and explaining matters to Cornelia. +Vanzetti told more about that wonderful fellow “Sacc’”—who +was, in real life, exactly as he had been on the stage. “He +come America same year like me. Was young feller, seventeen. +Got brudder wit’, brudder no can stand, is too hard work, musta +go home Italy. Nick, he work water-boy, carry water for +gang all day. He work Hopedale, is beeg strike by foundry-shop—you +read about heem maybe. Police is rough, mooch +bad. Nick he is on picket-line, get hit plenty time. Is way for +make red, make anarchista—you see, joosta like dramma. Nick +is not speaker, but gooda man for organize. Work now by +little shoe-factory, is good friend wit’ boss, do day-work, night +watchman too, make plenty money. But never he change, stand +always by worker. Some day it come odder beeg strike, Nonna, +you see Nick Sacc’ be leader, he do joost what you see for +make rivoluzione. He cannot fear, is brave—like what you say—leone—lion.”</p> + +<p>And Bart went on to tell about something which had happened +a month or two ago, when the young hero’s mettle had +been tested. “He get arrest—he musta go jail for hold meeting. +It is protest for beeg strike in copper country—you know +maybe—Mesaba range—out West. Is plenty rich people in +Boston own copper-mine not like for have worker hear how +they beat people, t’row in jail. Try for stop meeting, shut-up +Nick and not let him tell about it.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia said nothing: but a procession of “bluebloods” +began to move with stately dignity through her thoughts: the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> +Paynes, the Shaws, the Agassizs—yes, she knew “coppers,” +and the owners thereof. She remembered a scandal that had +made awe-stricken whispers in the Sewing Circle—an old +man had died, and it appeared that for twenty years or so he +had been keeping eight thousand shares of his copper stocks +hidden under a dummy name in New York, signing the name +of this dummy. The executors of his estate failed to report +these shares to the government, to avoid paying taxes on +them; they had been caught, and some of the brightest legal +lights of Boston were nearly disbarred. Nobody had gone to +jail, of course—only “Nick Sacc’,” who had tried to tell the +Italians of Massachusetts how the “copper kings” were beating +and killing their Michigan miners.</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_3"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>The grapes on the Brini arbor had become dark purple +globes, and had been harvested and converted into “Dago red.” +The leaves had turned, first yellow and then brown, and had +dropped off and been blown into the corners of the garden. +The cabbage and turnips were stored in the cellar, and the +tomato-vines grew mushy after frost, and then dry and hard. +All that beautiful garden was a wreck, and the sun was going +away on his long pilgrimage. Very soon Cornelia would be +getting up by lamplight, and shivering while she dressed, and +being pinned up in her shawl for the journey to the cordage-plant. +Could she stand another of these winters?</p> + +<p>Betty was back at Miss Wilson’s school, and begging her +grandmother to come to Boston. Surely she ought to be taking +part in the campaign to reëlect Woodrow Wilson, who had +kept us out of war, and said we were too proud to fight. How +Boston—the Boston of State Street and fashionable society—loathed +that phrase, and how they jeered and raged in their +<i>Transcript</i>! But there was another Boston, which had +crossed the seas a generation ago to escape the potato famine; +it had found an abundance of potatoes in New England, and +had converted them into a crop of young Irish voters, pledged +to the worship of the Virgin Mary and the extermination of the +British lion. In vain did “Pro Bono Publico” and “Hundred +Percent American” write letters to the <i>Transcript</i>, summoning +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> +the new world to the rescue of down-trodden Belgium. +Irish-Catholic Boston did not read the <i>Transcript</i>, and it +thronged to the polls and elected an Irish-Catholic mayor, who +would see to it that Irish and Germans and pacifists might hold +all the peace-meetings they wished, and parade through Park +Street and spit when they passed the Union Club.</p> + +<p>Wilson was reëlected; and it seemed that the war-danger was +over. He would go on writing notes to the Germans, as he had +been doing for a year or two, and the Germans would go on +ignoring them. Cornelia decided that she would not be needed as +a pacifist agitator, nor would Vanzetti have to take refuge in +Mexico, as he had made up his mind to do in case America +should enter the war. “Capitalist I will fight some day,” said +Bart, “but never will I kill German worker, Austrian worker, +for make good no banker bond.” Cornelia had not mentioned +the highly confidential subject of Boston high finance and its +commitments to the allied cause; but apparently the “reds” had +their own sources of information, for the “Cronaca Sovversiva” +was full of talk on the subject, and details of the intrigues of +State Street and Wall Street.</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_2"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>The first snow of the year was in the air, and Cornelia came +hurrying home in the darkness, with half an inch of snow melting +upon her shoulders. She was surprised to see a large limousine +in front of the Brini door, its two long streams of light +making day in Suosso’s Lane, and revealing the million-footed +dance of the snowflakes. As she came nearer, the door of the +car opened and a bulky man stepped out; Cornelia could not +see his face, but his voice caused her to stop dead in her white +tracks. “Is that you, Mother?” It was Rupert Alvin!</p> + +<p>In a certain musical comedy it is set forth how the founder +of Columbus Day landed in the new world, and the Indians came +eagerly, inquiring, “Are you Christopher Columbus?” When +he admitted his identity, they exclaimed, “At last we are discovered!” +So now it was with Cornelia. The jig was up, she +knew—and took but a moment to get herself together. “Hello, +Rupert!” she said, with an air of nonchalance—there are times +when the Thornwell training comes in handy! She accepted her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> +son-in-law’s outstretched hand, and let him help her into the +limousine, where sat her eldest daughter, Deborah.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mother! Mother! How could you?” Yes, even the stately +Mrs. Rupert Alvin wept when she saw those bowed shoulders +and that pitiful working-woman’s shawl covered with a load of +snow. She had snapped on the light in the limousine; but Rupert +snapped it off again quickly.</p> + +<p>“Control yourself, Deborah,” he commanded—having in mind +the chauffeur, who would overhear, in spite of the glass partition. +“Mother, we want to have a private talk with you. Will you +not please come home with us—at least for a day or two?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t, Rupert. I have a job.”</p> + +<p>“Can’t you get excused temporarily?”</p> + +<p>“One does not get excused from jobs, one gets fired.”</p> + +<p>“But Mother, you have a little income from the estate!” It +was Deborah, breaking in.</p> + +<p>“Wait, Deborah!” insisted the husband, again. “Mother, will +you let us take you to some hotel here in Plymouth, where we +can discuss matters quietly?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly I will do that. But first I must tell my friends. +They will be expecting me to supper and will worry.”</p> + +<p>“I will see to that,” said the man, quickly, and he got his +majestic bulk out of the car, and Cornelia wondered vaguely, +was he afraid she might make her escape? Was she being kidnaped? +Inside her something fluttered like a bird in a trap. +“Don’t be caught! Don’t let them get you!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mother, you are all wet!” Deborah was lamenting. +“Take off that shawl!” She drew it off, and began to wrap Cornelia +in a big fur robe. Cornelia submitted, because it was easier +than to argue. Her mind was busy with another problem: how +had they found her? Could it have been Miss Mehitabel? Impossible +to believe that Betty had revealed the secret!</p> + +<p>Rupert returned, and gave his orders to the chauffeur, and +got into the car, which began to sway on luxurious springs down +the unpaved and rutted lane. It turned onto the main street, and +sped to a hotel, where they got out, and Rupert engaged a room, +and Deborah hurried her mother through the lobby. Presently +they were locked in a place where family secrets might be safe—after +Rupert had stepped to the door once or twice and opened +it, to make sure there were no eavesdroppers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span></p> + +<p>“I am perfectly all right,” said Cornelia, in answer to her +daughter’s clamor that she was wet and that she was cold and +that she was exhausted. “I have been very happy,” she declared, +in answer to laments about the state of her shoulders and her +hands. And when Deborah had got to the question of how her +mother could have been so cruel as to treat them this way, Cornelia +broke in with the demand, “How did you find me?” She +had to repeat the question before Deborah answered, “We got +your address from Betty.”</p> + +<p>“You mean she told you? I can’t believe such a thing, +Deborah!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mean that. She wrote you a letter, and we got it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I see.” A great load was lifted from Cornelia’s heart. +After a moment she said, “I would like to have the letter.” Seeing +them hesitate and look at each other, she said, “Give me my +letter, please.” So Rupert took from his pocket an envelope, +which Cornelia could see at a glance was very bulky.</p> + +<p>Balancing the letter in his hand, the great man began, in his +most solemn tones, “Mother, I wish to explain that when we +opened this letter we did not know it was to you. If we had +known that, we should have brought it unopened. But you will +see, it is addressed to Mrs. Nonna Cornell, and that meant nothing +to us, except that our unhappy daughter was communicating +secretly with some unknown woman. Only when we opened +the letter, did we discover that it was to you.”</p> + +<p>“Neither of us read it, Mother,” added Deborah. “It may be +we had a right to, but we didn’t feel sure.”</p> + +<p>“I will read it to you at once, my child.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it will be necessary. We had a talk with Betty, +and I think we know the situation.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia held the letter in her hands. How pathetic seemed +the little joke, “Mrs. Nonna!” She took the letter from the envelope, +and saw why Deborah had suggested not hearing it—the +last page was numbered forty! But Cornelia had to read only +two sentences to know the whole story.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“Dear Grannie:</p> + +<p>“I am in the most dreadful predicament you can imagine, because +Roger Lowell, the tenth descendant of a line of theocrats, +spent three months laboring with his conscience and finally made +up his mind that he must save my soul by telling father of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> +indecent proposition I had made at Camp Putnam! So now +here I am shut up in my room and forbidden to go out, until I +have promised to reform—and so I am forced to smuggle this +letter to you by one of the maids.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="XIII_2"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>The antagonists squared off for battle—two against one. It +would be none the less deadly, because it would be carried on +under the forms of courtesy, even of love.</p> + +<p>The first thing was for Deborah to weep some more. This was +not easy, for she was haughty, self-contained—the last word +in aristocratic reticence. But there was that pitiful figure—gray-haired, +bowed and bent, in wretched shapeless clothing wet with +melted snow—that was her mother! And even though she told +herself that her mother had become insane, it was none the less +terrible. Also, impossible to forget that certain scenes which +Deborah forbade herself to remember had had something to do +with her mother’s mental disorder. So the tears streamed down +Deborah’s cheeks—and she had one of those long, half-masculine +faces, which are not improved by weeping.</p> + +<p>In Cornelia’s own being the trapped bird was still fluttering. +“Fight! Fight! Don’t let them get you!” She had had a year +and a half to think matters over, and she knew all the devices +of families to break people down. She remembered Cousin +Amelia Quincy, who had sought to marry the wrong man, and +how Cousin Amelia’s mother had fallen violently ill—a complete +nervous breakdown—which had lasted until the wrong +man had given up and married some other girl.</p> + +<p>So now Cornelia made her voice stern, and said, “It is silly +for you to behave that way, Deborah. There is nothing the matter +with me, and I assure you my children are not going to get +their way by tears.”</p> + +<p>Then Deborah drew herself to her full height. “I will not +annoy you any further. I have of course no right to object to +your living your own life—”</p> + +<p>“None whatever, my child.”</p> + +<p>“But I have a right to object to your ruining the mind and +character of my young and impressionable daughter.”</p> + +<p>“I hope I have not done that.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span></p> + +<p>“Unless our daughter tells us what is not true, you introduced +her to a band of anarchists and atheists—”</p> + +<p>“Not atheists, Deborah, you have got the wrong word.”</p> + +<p>“You mean that Italian man, whatever his name is, is not an +atheist?”</p> + +<p>“He has explained to me carefully his beliefs. He worships +one God, the God of nature, of love and justice. He worships +only one, so perhaps that constitutes him an infidel.”</p> + +<p>Deborah declined this challenge to theological controversy. +“And free-lovers!”</p> + +<p>“That is still less accurate. I doubt very much if Vanzetti +has ever been any kind of lover in his life. He is a saint who +believes in free love.”</p> + +<p>“Is that one of your jokes, Mother?”</p> + +<p>“It sounds like it, I know, but you will have to learn that there +are new ideas loose in the world, and it is not practicable to keep +people from knowing about them—not even by shutting them +up in their rooms and confiscating their mail.”</p> + +<p>Rupert Alvin was silent, considering that free love is not a +theme for mixed conversation; and anyhow, in family disputes +the less an “in-law” has to say, the safer for him. When the +two ladies began exchanging views upon the efficacy of a church +ceremony as a purifier of lust, Rupert arose and went to the +door and opened it and peered out. It was a delicate hint, and +the ladies took it, and discussed anarchism. Or rather, Cornelia +discussed anarchism, while Deborah discussed anarchy, and refused +to recognize the difference. Cornelia asserted that she had +lived among Italian anarchists for a year and a half, and had +not seen a single bomb—except those which Brini described as +“bombe di pistacchio.”</p> + +<p>They were on the subject of foreigners and their alleged resemblance +to pigs, when Rupert decided that it was time for a +man to interpose his authority. “Mother,” he said—and went on, +in spite of his wife’s angry signals—“we are not getting anywhere +by arguing over subjects like this. The question is, what +are we going to do. I know that our mutual esteem and affection +will bring us to an understanding in the end; so what I am +hoping is to persuade you to come home and stay with us a +while. I know you will be able to induce Betty to—well, to moderate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> +her expressions. That is all we ask, and I am sure you +agree that we do not want an open scandal in our family.”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not, Rupert.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, come with us, and in time we can work it all out +happily.”</p> + +<p>“That is easy to say, Rupert, but it seems to me you are taking +a serious risk. Suppose that while I am your guest I should consider +it my duty to appear on some public platform and say that +the effort to bring America into the war is a crime against civilization, +and that the motive power behind it is our big bankers, +who have loaned so much money to England and France and +Italy that they cannot face the prospect of losing their investments?”</p> + +<p>To Rupert Alvin, president of the Pilgrim National Bank of +Boston, and directing head of the most powerful financial group +in State Street, it was as if his mother-in-law had taken a sharp +rapier and brought the point of it close to one of his waistcoat +buttons. The many large bulges which composed Rupert’s face +and neck became still larger, the pink ones turning red, and the +red ones purple. His large round eyes opened wide, and the +hands which clutched his large round knees tightened until they +showed the tendons. Either Rupert’s tongue refused to make a +sound, or else Rupert’s brain did not know what sound to tell it +to make.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_2"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>“My children,” said Cornelia, “I want to be fair, and make +myself understood if it can possibly be done. For forty years +I did what I was told was my duty, and let other people guide +my life. I was very unhappy—how unhappy I did not realize +until Josiah was dead, and I had begun to do what I wanted to +do. Now for the rest of my life I am going to be an individual, +and not a cog in the family machine. And while that will seem +terrible to you, you can comfort yourself with the fact that it +is real ‘Boston’—‘old Boston,’ the very best there is. Everything +that is glorious in our history has been made by people who +have ‘come out,’ and fought some prevailing sentiment. I never +realized that until I got alone and thought it over. Take Wendell +Phillips—you cannot say anything against his ancestry, there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> +was never any one more completely ‘Back Bay.’ Yet he turned +into an abolitionist and labor agitator, the same as a pacifist and +‘red’ at the present time. It has always been that way, and the +ones you honor now, the ones whom the rest of the world knows +about—Samuel Adams and John Quincy Adams, Emerson and +Thoreau and Phillips and Garrison and James Russell Lowell—yes, +there was even a Lowell, Deborah—and Thomas Wentworth +Higginson—even a Higginson, Rupert, tell that to State +Street! Boston history has been made by the ‘saving minority.’ +You must know that is true?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but Mother”—it was Deborah protesting—“that was all +in the past!”</p> + +<p>“And now the world is perfect, and we don’t need any more +changes! Well, my dear, all I can tell you is, I have looked the +world over and made up my mind that it has never been worse +than right now—with some ten or twenty million men lined up +on opposite sides, using all the machinery and brains of civilization +to slaughter one another. No, I think we need changes, +and there is going to be a Thornwell among the ‘come outers,’ +and you will have to put up with the humiliation of it. I don’t +think I shall be lonely—I’ve been able to recollect the names of +a number of old ladies who have left their families and are living +in apartments and hotels, interesting themselves in one queer +cause or another. I never paid much attention, because Josiah +wouldn’t have approved of my associating with them. But now +I shall look them up—I suppose I shall join the Twentieth Century +Club.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mother! How horrible!”</p> + +<p>“And the suffragettes, whatever they call their organization—there +are two, I believe. And the socialists have a local—I am +not an anarchist, Deborah, comfort yourself with that—and anyhow, +the anarchists don’t have any organizations. I suppose the +pacifists have one; I hear that Mrs. Abigail Webster Adams has +come out for them, and that Rupert thinks she ought to be locked +up in an asylum. Well, Rupert, that has been the idea of the +comfortable people for a long way back—I remember they accused +Socrates for corrupting the youth. But even though you +put people in an asylum, their ideas get out—you cannot always +be sure that the maid will turn their letters over to you.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia paused; and then, seeing the look on her daughter’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> +face—“Yes, my dear, that was a mean one. But you must realize +that Mother is going to fight from now on; Mother holds her +convictions with just the same intensity that you hold yours, and +something inside her compels utterance. It is that stern terrible +thing we call our Puritan conscience. It is out of fashion at the +moment, but it takes new forms, it has a rebirth, and does not +rest until it has made some impression on the world—some +change such as the independence of the colonies, or the abolition +of slavery, or the outlawing of war, or the setting free of labor. +And then the next generation forgets about the conflict, and says +how famous Boston is, what great people it has produced! And +their grandchildren become the aristocracy, and want everything +to stay as it is!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_1"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia had her own proposition, which she had been thinking +over for several months. “I will come up to town at once and +get a little apartment, and Betty can come live with me. That +will be respectable—it will even tend to make your runaway +grandmother all right. And I’m sure I can guide Betty and keep +her from going to extremes. It is what she herself has been begging +me to do, and I know she will be happy.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Deborah, with a touch of sarcasm. “To +make the children happy is the one duty of parents under the +new dispensation. But some of us parents are old-fashioned, and +think about our children’s souls.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my dear, and it may be that the saving of Betty’s soul +depends upon her believing everything that is preached at +Trinity—even though, as I suspect, the preacher does not believe +it himself. But let us be practical about the matter. What +will you do with the child? Ordinarily, when daughters threaten +to run wild you send them off to Europe with an aunt, and +they look at cathedrals and paintings for a year, and that is +cultural. But now your war is in the way, so the only place to +send her is out west, and she would see only rocks and rivers, +which are not so cultural. Of course you can keep her shut up—make +a prisoner of her by force—but that would only harden +her spirit and drive her to extremes. Also, it would mean an +open scandal, because your servants would know, and it would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> +be all over the Back Bay in a night, and everybody would be +certain the child had done something far worse than talk radicalism. +Moreover, you can only keep her for a short while—then +she will be of age, and you will lose your hold on her.”</p> + +<p>“We can disinherit her.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course; but she would have my property—”</p> + +<p>“I think, Mother, you ought to be informed about that.” It +was Rupert breaking in—since it was a banker’s affair. “You +have no property, only an income of five thousand a year from +the estate.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Rupert, I have lived upon four hundred a year for the +past year and a half—”</p> + +<p>“Mother, you don’t mean it!” Impossible for the most reticent +daughter to encounter such a statement with silence!</p> + +<p>“What else have I had? I have lived on it, and even saved a +little. And now if I come up to town and take my income of five +thousand a year, with what has been accumulating, Betty and +I will be rich.”</p> + +<p>“You would not be able to pay for the child’s clothes!”</p> + +<p>“Well, Deborah, maybe you know your daughter better than +I, but my guess is Betty would learn to make her own clothes +quite cheerfully. Will you give me a chance to ask her?”</p> + +<p>“Most certainly not! In spite of your ridicule, I believe in my +religion, and in a little decency and decorum. I shall not give +up my daughter to become an anarchist and atheist—nor even a +socialist and infidel—nor yet a saint who believes in free love.”</p> + +<p>“Well put, Deborah—we are both of us developing what +Broadway would call the ‘punch.’ But put yourself in my place +just a moment. I served your father faithfully for forty years, +and conscientiously refrained from doing any of the things +which made him angry. I gave life to three of you girls, and +helped to find you husbands of the sort I knew your father +wanted you to have. If you have any complaint as to your share +in husbands, you have been too proud to make it to me. Have +you, Deborah?” Cornelia paused, and looked at the solemn +Rupert with a twinkle in her eye. Then she continued, “You +both have what you want. But I have very little; I am old and +lonely, and an object of sympathy. There are eleven grandchildren—no +one of whom would have been in the world except +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> +for me. I put it to your sense of justice—may I not ask for one +of the eleven to keep me company in my old age?”</p> + +<p>It was turning Deborah’s own weapons against her, and Deborah +could not help being disturbed. “I think you would have +shown better judgment if you had chosen one of Clara’s eight, +rather than one of my two.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps that is so. But I did not choose Betty—she chose +me; or rather, some fate did it, there is an affinity between us. +I assure you, Deborah, upon my honor, I had no thought of +causing this to happen. But it has happened, and we have to +admit it.”</p> + +<p>“Never!” cried Deborah. Her lips were set in that expression +which Cornelia had seen ten thousand times upon the face of +Josiah Quincy Thornwell. It was recorded for all time in the +paintings of four governors in the music-room at “Hillview.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia turned to her son-in-law. “Is that your decision +also?”</p> + +<p>Rupert hung on to that caution which is such an excellent +thing in “in-laws.” “Mother, I hope you will not go to any +extreme—”</p> + +<p>Cornelia laughed. “First I have to make sure what you and +Deborah plan to do to Betty.”</p> + +<p>“We plan to do our duty as parents, to compel our child to +behave herself!” It was Deborah, with great vehemence.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean that she must believe what you believe—even +though she doesn’t? Or do you mean that she must say that she +believes what she doesn’t believe? Or will you be content if she +agrees to say nothing about her beliefs?”</p> + +<p>“That is what we commanded her to do, and she refused.”</p> + +<p>“Are you sure you made the distinction? Are you sure you +didn’t ask her to stop believing? I suspect you were so horrified +and angry, you didn’t know exactly what you were demanding.” +And Cornelia rose, saying, “I will try to supply a little wisdom +and good temper for you. To-morrow I will go up to town and +put up at a hotel, and get some clothes, so as not to disgrace you, +and in the evening I will call at the house, and have a talk with +my grandchild, and persuade her to be more fair than her +parents.”</p> + +<p>“You must not feel that way about us, Mother!” It was +Rupert, still trying for a compromise.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span></p> + +<p>“There is no sense in saying any more to-night, Rupert. We +have argued too much, for Thornwells. It is because I am not +really ‘Boston,’ that I do this vulgar thing of trying to talk +things out. But I love Betty, and cannot bear to see her spirit +bruised. I will do the best I can, and advise her to suppress her +eager young ideas on marriage, and private property, and war, +and whatever else you object to—until she is of age, and her +own legal mistress.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia took her shawl and started to put it on. “Mother! +That thing is all wet! Let me give you my coat!”</p> + +<p>“It is quite all right, there will be a good hot stove where +I am going.”</p> + +<p>“But Mother, you must have dinner with us!”</p> + +<p>“My friends will give me something to eat when I get home. +I could not eat now.”</p> + +<p>She saw tears start in Deborah’s eyes again, and that was +as it should be. When Rupert labored to persuade his mother-in-law +to ride to Boston with them, she answered that she had +reasons for preferring the train; then she started towards the +door. “Good-by, my children.”</p> + +<p>Rupert took up his coat and followed her. “At least you will +let us drive you to where you are living, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, but I am able to walk.”</p> + +<p>“But Mother, that is absurd—it is storming!”</p> + +<p>“I have walked to my work for a year and a half, through +every sort of storm—at six-thirty in the morning, and again +in the evening—and have not yet missed a day.”</p> + +<p>So Cornelia unlocked the door and went out; Rupert and +Deborah both following, arguing and pleading with her in low, +decorous tones, all the way to the street. But she set her lips +tight, and when Rupert tried to take her hand and lead her +to the car, she withheld it, saying once more, “Good-by, my +children,” and hurrying away into the snow-haunted darkness.</p> + + +<h3 id="XVI"> + XVI +</h3> + +<p>The next evening, according to her promise, Cornelia called +at the Alvin mansion on Commonwealth Avenue, dressed like +a nice, quiet old lady of the social reform or “blue-stocking” +type. She rang the bell with some trepidation, not quite certain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span> +whether she would be admitted; but she found an amazing +situation—the family rows all settled, Betty out of prison and +back at Miss Wilson’s, and the entire Thornwell clan assembled +to welcome home the runaway grandmother! To overwhelm her +with kindness, with beauty, tact and charm, to afford her a +demonstration of respectability, and make her realize its advantages +over anarchism, atheism and free love!</p> + +<p>There was Clara, in the radiance of her eighth maternity, +and her husband, James Scatterbridge, shining with the extra +millions he had made; and Alice, never more elegant, never +more gracious, with no trace of a scandal or a hysteric about +her; her husband, Henry Winters, jewel upon the finger of the +legal profession; Deborah and Rupert, all courtesy and smiles; +Betty, a little pale after a cyclone of emotions, but none the +less lovely for that; Betty’s older sister, Priscilla; Great-uncle +Abner, and his son, Uncle Quincy—pronounced as if he were +a disease of the throat. All of them in their most honorable +costumes, all so amiable—not one hint of rebuke or complaint, +not even a tactless slip—unless you count Great-uncle Abner, +whose deaf man’s voice boomed through the drawing-room; +“Well, well, Cornelia, they tell me you’ve been making money!”</p> + +<p>They had learned their lesson, that was the long and short +of it; they would return to dignity and reserve and good manners—to +“old Boston”; and Cornelia would return with them, +and Betty also. There would be no more quarrels, no more +scenes, no more scandals and “talking out” of things, no more +anarchism, atheism, or free love!</p> + +<p>There was a buzz of conversation, family news, compliments +and courtesies. When would Cornelia come to see her new +grandson? Had she heard of the fine record Alice’s son had +made at St. Mark’s? Would she hear about Uncle Quincy’s +chess wonder? “How is your gout, Abner?” “How is the new +wing coming on, James?” So many polite and pleasant things +to talk about, that it was only near the end of the evening that +she got a few words alone with Betty.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Grannie, how on earth did you do it?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, dear—what did I do?”</p> + +<p>“You completely tamed Mother and Father. They came back +this morning as nice as pie.”</p> + +<p>“I guess they just had a little time to think things over, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> +realize how much they loved you.” Cornelia was going to be +tactful too!</p> + +<p>“Well, yesterday Mother wouldn’t hear to reason at all: I +must promise to never believe anything she disapproved of, I +must never talk about such things to anybody, and must never +look at such a book! Of course I couldn’t promise all that, +could I, Grannie? You can’t imagine how dreadful I felt, to +have to tell Mother and Father that I wouldn’t obey them! So I +thought I was going to have to stay in my room till I didn’t +know when. But after they had talked with you, all they wanted +was for me not to disgrace them publicly.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia was tempted to say that Rupert and Deborah had +found the older generation so much worse than the younger, +that it had frightened them. But no, she was going to be tactful! +“I plan to get a little apartment, dear, and you can come +see me, and we’ll keep our thoughts to ourselves, and not give +the family anything more to worry over.” Thus Cornelia Thornwell, +in December, 1916, while the German government was +preparing its new submarine policy, which was to rouse all the +warlike elements in America, and force all the pacifist ladies of +Boston to make public speeches, and break with their families, +and be raided by mobs and arrested by the police! With the +Bolshevik revolution less than a year in the future, and the +“white terror” following close upon its heels!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V"> + CHAPTER V<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE SAVING MINORITY</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Cornelia declined three invitations, to live in three different +mansions, and got herself an apartment on the north side of +Beacon Hill, where the poor live near enough to the rich to +come as servants, and to be visited as objects of charity. She +had three rooms and a tiny kitchen and bath; one room being +planned for her grand-daughter, in the hoped-for course of +events. Cornelia did not mention this, but announced that she +was going to live alone, to the great dismay of her family. Betty +was in the secret, and helped fix up the little room, which was +a great joke, because it had perhaps the twentieth part of the +floor-space she enjoyed at home. But what is floor-space, compared +with adventure, romance, the tasting of forbidden fruit? +“Oh Grannie, it’s so cute! And it’s going to be such fun! Do +you suppose they will really ever let me come?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, dear; if we’re both very good and proper—if +you don’t have any more love-affairs—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Grannie, I am off for life! That horrible little monster +of propriety, Roger Lowell—it makes me blush just to think +of him!”</p> + +<p>“The same effect that you had upon him,” said Cornelia.</p> + +<p>They discussed the technique of self-suppression, so fundamental +to life in Boston. For forty years Cornelia had gone +about her daily affairs, thinking her own thoughts, and seldom +even venturing to make jokes about what the others did. Now +Betty must learn the art. She must say, “Yes, Mother,” and +“Certainly, Father,” and let it go at that. In an extreme case she +might say, “I think, Mother, it would be wiser if we did not +discuss that question.” She might be firm and say, “I really +think, Mother, you ought to excuse me from saying any more.” +If she would do that, politely but persistently, her family would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> +have a great respect for her; and some day, she might remark +casually, “Mother, I think I will invite Grannie to go to the +symphony to-morrow afternoon.” Later she might phone and +say, “Mother, I’m having supper with Grannie, and spending +the evening with her.” It would be hard for a mother to say, +“No, you must come home at once”; or even to ask, “Are there +going to be any anarchists present?”</p> + +<p>Of course it all depended upon Cornelia’s “behaving herself.” +But alas, the imperial German government announced +its new policy—the submarines were going to sink passenger +vessels without warning; and forthwith the Back Bay declared +war on Germany, while South Boston, the Irish quarter, declared +war on Britain. There was a symbolical insurrection when the +Irish paraded down Beacon Street; the Back Bay shut up its +houses and drew the blinds, but the cooks and dining-room girls +and parlors-maids and chambermaids threw wide open the basement +doors and windows, and stood in the area-ways and +cheered themselves hoarse. For a generation it had been one +of the diversions of the “Sewing Circle,” to whisper harrowing +stories of the conduct of these Irish maids with Irish policemen +in the kitchen; but now it was even worse—the policemen were +replaced by German spies, and nobody was safe any more!</p> + +<p>Among the activities of the Kaiser and his agents was to +persuade deluded sentimentalists into organizing groups with +high-falutin names to preach pacifism. There was a “Fellowship +of Reconciliation,” and a “Women’s League for Peace and +Freedom,” and a “People’s Council for Peace and Democracy,” +and a “Jackasses’ Association for Flubdub and Buncombe”—so +Rupert Alvin described it in one of his purple-faced rages. The +<i>Transcript</i> had been publishing atrocity stories in twelve editions +every week for a hundred and twenty weeks, and the Back +Bay had believed every word it read; so now imagine the sensation +when one of these organizations of long-haired men and +short-haired women listed among its abettors a former “first +lady” of the Commonwealth!</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Josiah Quincy Thornwell was going to make a +public speech in favor of America’s taking it lying down! When +that announcement appeared, the entire family came, one at a +time or in groups, to argue and plead and scold. Clara wept, +in the name of her whole precious brood; if the Germans took +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> +Boston, they would cut off all sixteen of those sweet chubby +hands. Alice used the arts which she had practiced for forty +years, ever since she had made the discovery that her beautiful +face would cause others to yield their will to hers. Deborah +had never had a beautiful face, so she had gone in for character, +and now declared that she must consider her duty to her +children, and protect Betty from the contagion of German and +anarchist propaganda.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_4"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Also Henry Cabot Winters gave his mother-in-law an entire +evening of his socially precious time. She was pleased at +that, because Henry had a sense of fun, and would talk about +realities. She got in a Negro maid, and prepared him a good +dinner, and he came in full regalia, with his gray hair composed +in a graceful wave and held there by a cylinder of stiff and +shiny black silk. And while she fed him, she told him her adventures +as a runaway grandmother, her work in the Plymouth +cordage plant, and how she had lived on six dollars a week, and +about the Italian anarchists who made bombs of pistacchio, and +the rebel saint who had been the cause of Betty Alvin’s reading +Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on the rights of women. Impossible +to imagine a more diverting story—and especially the +climax, which had come only last week—Cornelia’s meeting +with Mr. J. Lawrence Perry, and telling that elderly philanthropist +how it felt to be an unskilled worker in his mighty +plant, and be chased off the picket-line by his special policemen!</p> + +<p>And later on, when dinner was over and the maid dismissed, +the great lawyer settled himself in an easy chair with an ash-holder +on the arm, and with the utmost tactfulness steered the +conversation onto the subject of German propaganda; with +the result that his mother-in-law put him on the griddle. “Tell +me, Henry, how much do the Boston banks stand to lose if the +Germans win?”</p> + +<p>“Is this for publication, Mother?” The cloud of cigarette +smoke did not obscure the twinkle in Henry’s fine dark eyes.</p> + +<p>“Your name is not for publication, Henry. I’m told it’s a hundred +million dollars.”</p> + +<p>“Round figures are generally exaggerated. As a matter of fact +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> +it would be everything the Boston banks have, because when a +panic like that got started, nobody could say where it would +stop.”</p> + +<p>“And that’s why we have to go in?”</p> + +<p>“We live under a system, Mother. Maybe you know how to +change it, I don’t.”</p> + +<p>“And what’s this I hear about you and Rupert taking over +the Haupt electric works?”</p> + +<p>“Jehoshaphat! Where did you get that?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I have sources of information. I suppose that is the +system too—our leading bankers getting back the cost of their +war-propaganda!”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mother, we can’t expect the Germans to pay it for us; +and if we do go in, we surely can’t leave the manufacture of our +war-supplies to the enemy!”</p> + +<p>“The fact that you and Rupert and James are getting your +lines on Haupt Electric means we really are going in, then?”</p> + +<p>“Of course, Mother, we’re going in; that is what I want to +tell you—it is unwise of you to waste your strength and happiness +trying the impossible. You know, I don’t fret about appearances +like the rest of the family; but I’m fond of you—we +used to have jolly little chats, and I missed them when you ran +off. I thought maybe, if you wanted to blow off steam, you +might blow it at me, instead of at an audience. Believe me, +public life is wearing—not all the millions of all the Boston +banks could get me into it! I imagine you’ve found that out, +since you put your name on a letter-head, and set yourself up +as a target for all the cranks in New England. How many +begging letters have you received this week? How many associations +have you joined to reform our spelling and put a stop to +vaccination and vivisection?”</p> + +<p>That was Henry Cabot Winters, genial, shrewd, playfully +cynical. But do not let his social charm fool you; underneath +the “Harvard manner” there was a wolf. He would nose among +the banking secrets of Boston—he called the biggest bankers +in the city by such names as “Ted” and “Winnie” and +“Jimmie”; he had been to college with them, and met their +wives and daughters in the evenings; he had access to their +records, he could call up on the telephone and ask how much +so-and-so was borrowing, and what were his assets and connections; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> +and presently he would catch a scent of blood, and +put himself upon the trail of a wounded caribou, and track him +down—for years, maybe, never resting till he had drunk the +last drop of blood from his veins. Both bankers and industrialists +dreaded him, yet they could not get along without him; there +was vigorous competition between two big banking groups in +New England, and Henry’s crowd needed his cunning, at any +price he chose to ask. His fee was seven hundred dollars a day, +but that was merely for overhead; his real reward was part of +the carcass of each caribou.</p> + +<p>Now he lounged in a faded Morris chair out of a second-hand +shop, and lighted one cigarette after another and gazed +at the feeble art-effects which Cornelia had been able to produce +without spending money. He sounded like a schoolboy as +he said, “Gee, Mother, I wish I could get off by myself and live +the simple life!”</p> + +<p>“Why not, Henry?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve got a costly wife, and a son to put through the +education mill—”</p> + +<p>“Rubbish, Henry, you know you laugh at Alice and her +elegance, and your money will probably ruin your boy. There +is some real reason.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I guess it’s a game, Mother; you have to do something. +When I rowed on the Harvard eight—it wasn’t really so important, +but we’d have broken a heart-valve to keep six inches +ahead of the Yale boat. Life is like that. If you stop to ask for a +reason, you spoil the fun, so you just shut your eyes and pull +the stroke.”</p> + +<p>“So that’s how we’re going into the war, and kill one or two +million of our boys—to win a game we don’t really believe in!”</p> + +<p>“No, Mother, it’s different there. Some fellows won’t play the +game according to the rules, and we’re going to put them out.”</p> + +<p>“Who made the rules, Henry?”</p> + +<p>The great lawyer laughed. “You ought to come into my office, +and learn to cross-examine witnesses. That would be a new +stunt for a runaway grandmother—to become a lawyer at the +age of—what would it be, about sixty-five!”</p> + +<p>“But answer my question—who made the rules of the game?”</p> + +<p>Henry laughed again. “England, I suppose; she has made the +rules of all the games, hasn’t she?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="III_4"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Mrs. Josiah Quincy Thornwell sat at a long table, running +lengthwise across the head of a room, and raised up a foot or +so like a dais. The seat at the center was occupied by an elderly +gentleman, with Cornelia at his right, and at his left a Chinese +lady with slit eyes and coppery skin. The rest of the table was +occupied by a dozen persons of prominence in Boston intellectual +life. The great room was filled with tables, running at +right angles to the head-table, and occupied by four or five +hundred members of the Twentieth Century Club.</p> + +<p>Luncheon was in progress, with colored waitresses hurrying +here and there, amid a rattle of knives and forks and a subdued +murmur of conversation. But every now and then each of the +four or five hundred pairs of eyes would steal a glance at the +head-table, and particularly at Cornelia. As a matter of mathematics, +it is obvious that this meant a number of eyes upon her +all the time, and she was aware of it, and her answers to the +president’s remarks were absent-minded, and her efforts to consume +a proper quantity of lamb chop, peas and potatoes were +intermittent.</p> + +<p>It is a bad thing to eat solid food when you are excited, but +Cornelia had not yet learned that lesson so important to orators. +As “first lady” of the Commonwealth she had now and then +been compelled to say a few words of thanks to the lady chairmen +of visiting delegations; but this was the first time she had +been a “headliner,” her début as pacifist and rebel. The story +of her adventure had of course been whispered all over by this +time; and not ten generations’ training in austerity and reticence +could keep the four or five hundred pairs of eyes from +manifesting interest. There was not a vacant seat at any table; +after the dessert and coffee had been served, and the tables +piled back out of the way in a corner, there were not folding +chairs enough for the throng, and all the doorways were packed +with standers.</p> + +<p>The lady with the slit eyes and the coppery skin was a native +graduate of a Chinese mission school supported by Boston +money. She was introduced, and told them about life in this +school—employing a pure and perfect Bostonese, with the +broadest possible “a” and no “r” at all; she even referred to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>“that cradle of liberty, Funnel Hall”—just as if her name were +Cabot or Lowell, instead of being Wang-Sin-She! American +school-histories tell about a place called “Fanueil Hall,” and you +know how it looks, but unless you visit “old Boston,” you don’t +know how it sounds.</p> + +<p>Every Saturday through the fall and winter the Twentieth +Century Club held these luncheons, and you would hear the +head of a Negro school in Mississippi or maybe in Liberia; a +woman who had been studying the opium trade in the Orient, +or white slavery in the Argentine; a physician who had been +curing the Eskimos of trachoma, or a strike-leader who had +been jailed in Colorado. It did not matter where you came from +or what you had, so long as it had to do with making the world +better. This was the only organization of elderly liberals in the +whole world; they were always ready to join something new, +and if you were persuasive enough they would write you checks. +Nowhere else in the world were appearances more deceptive; +nowhere did fine feathers so fail to make fine birds. The old +lady in front of you, dressed in rusty black silk and carrying +an umbrella frayed at the edges, might be the owner of a mountain +of copper in the Northern Peninsula of Michigan, or of +six city blocks of tenements in East Boston.</p> + +<p>Cornelia saw many persons whom she knew, and others +whose faces were familiar—perhaps because they were types. +The very same kind of old ladies made up the “Sewing Circle”; +but there they had made long yellow flannel petticoats for the +poor, while here they remade the world. Old ladies with little +round faces, like Cornelia herself; old ladies with long faces; +dimply faces, wrinkly faces with mouths drawn down at the +corners; little bustling ladies, large ample ladies, timid shy ladies, +grim determined ladies—row after row of them, with eyes fixed +upon the copper-colored speaker. It would not have been polite +for Cornelia to look at any one of them too long, so her eyes +moved from one face to the next. She saw hair drawn up in tight +little topknots, hair pitifully thin, with pink scalps showing +through; hair in curls, hair in waves, hair neatly plastered down +at the sides. An old lady with a benevolent boy’s face, and one +with bulgy rosy cheeks; one with deeply graven mouth and +double lines at the side, one with wide outstanding ears, one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> +with round white forehead, one shiny in new silk and ropes of +pearls, one tinkling with chains and medallions.</p> + +<p>And scattered in between, old gentlemen! Bald ones whose +scalps were pink, and bald ones whose scalps were white; some +with thin white hair, some with bushy gray hair; some with +neatly trimmed military mustaches, with droopy mustaches, +with grandfatherly beards, with chin-whiskers, round like a +quarter-moon, relics of old New England. Old gentlemen with +saggy cheeks, or portly, like bishops, or military and erect; +rosy clubmen; earnest, ascetic preachers with clerical collars; +one with a red nose; one very fashionable, with glasses hanging +from a black silk cord; one famous scholar with no hair on top +of his head, but covering his collar in back. These, no more +than the ladies, could be judged by appearances; the poorest-looking +might be the richest, the mildest-looking might hold +the most revolutionary opinions. One thing alone was certain—you +could never voice an idea too strange, a course of action +too dangerous, for some of these elderly idealists to applaud! +There would even be one or two ready to follow you, to act upon +their convictions, even to the death. It was “old Boston”!</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_4"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia made her little speech; very gently and quietly, +even humbly. She found many who were with her; and many, +of course, furiously opposed to her—though etiquette forbade +them to show it except by looking stern and grim. Next morning +the newspapers reported the event, briefly but with dignity; +yes, even the most rabidly patriotic were respectful—it was the +right she had acquired on the day she became a Thornwell. +Nothing she could do, short of murder, would forfeit that +immunity. If she became a maniac, and had to be shut up in an +asylum, the papers would decorously cease to mention her; but +no opinion held or expressed would ever cause them to insult a +sacred Brahmin.</p> + +<p>And curiously enough, the rest of the clan were proud of +that fact; in a perverse kind of way they gloried in the eccentric +old lady who had told the world to go to the devil. Much as +they hated her ideas, they would have been ready to stamp their +heels hard on any miserable shrimp of a journalist who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> +dared to deal impolitely with her. The fact that no such shrimp +appeared, helped to reconcile them to what had happened; they +realized, as families frequently do, that the reality was not so +bad as the anticipation. So, after a week or two, Betty was +permitted to take her grandmother to a symphony concert.</p> + +<p>But Cornelia did not succeed in preventing the war. The +great machine rolled on, flattening out all opposition. The Irish +of Boston might parade and spit, they might hold meetings +that turned into riots, they might make the city a scandal +throughout the nation—but the great machine would flatten +them out in the end, their mayor, their police force, and their +cardinal. It would do the same with socialists and anarchists, +pacifists, sentimentalists, all other varieties of cranks. Clear the +way for Juggernaut!</p> + +<p>And meantime Rupert Alvin, Henry Cabot Winters and their +“crowd” were busy taking possession of the electrical manufacturing +plant of Haupt. All this “crowd” were active +Republicans, and this was a Democratic administration; its +promise to be non-partisan and patriotic was a kind of chaff +that would not catch old birds like Rupert and Henry. They +got hold of a prominent Democratic statesman, close to the +administration, and took him in with them, on the basis of +a ten per cent “cut”; and he had a nephew whom he installed in +the office of the “Alien Property Custodian,” who had charge +of robbing the enemies of America at home.</p> + +<p>So Rupert and Henry got possession of the great property for +one-twentieth of its market value, and turned out the German-American +executives, and put in some younger sons of the +“blue-bloods,” and were ready to manufacture war supplies and +sell them to the government at the highest possible prices. And +the government was ready to buy with patriotic fervor. If the +business men of the country made big profits, they could pay +high wages, and enlarge the plants, and increase the product, +and there would be prosperity for every one except the Kaiser.</p> + +<p>Billions of money and millions of men—such was the slogan. +Congress passed a conscription act, ordering all men between +the ages of twenty-one and thirty to register for the draft: +soon after which there was a ring at Cornelia’s doorbell, and +when she answered, she saw her friend, the maker of pistacchio +bombs. She had sent him her address, but not telling him of her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> +change of name. Sooner or later he would find out who she was, +but meantime she would put both names on the door of her +apartment, and let her Italian friends go on using the name +they had learned.</p> + +<p>So there stood Bartolomeo Vanzetti, hesitating a little, not +sure if she would want to see him, since she had given up being +a working-woman. “I come for say good by, Nonna.”</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?”</p> + +<p>He came in. “Anybody here for hear me?” Then he told her, +“I go Mexico for keep out from war. I go wit’ Nick—you +know, young feller you see in dramma one time, Nick Sacc’. Is +good feller, we go Mexico togedder for not get draft. Never +will fight for capitalista, Nonna.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not, Bart.”</p> + +<p>“You no t’ink I am coward for run away, Nonna! You see +me and Nick, we fight when time come, but is not yet. You see +worker get in war, he get his eye open, he learn what is capitalismo. +You see great t’ing come when dissa war is done, +Nonna. Come greata change, come rivoluzione. I know, you +cannot believe, joosta wait, you see what I tell. Come bad time, +come unemploy-èd, come big strike, lika war. Maybe it come +great richa countree, like Britain, maybe it come poor countree +like Russia—go what you say—cannot pay debt—bancarotta—”</p> + +<p>“Bankrupt.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe come Russia, you see tsar get kill-èd, grand duke +run away. Maybe come Italy, plenty chance for Italian anarchista +make fight. I go Mexico, wait soocha time.”</p> + +<p>“How will you get along, Bart?”</p> + +<p>“I get along, all time. Got two good arm, good back, worka +picka shov’, make living. Some odder Italian come, we not get +lonely. I write letter some time, maybe get book, learn write +Eengleesh, get educate, shoore! I never forget you, Nonna, +besta friend, good lady, help workingman—onderstand heem. +It is best t’ing of all, Nonna, it is better for onderstand as if +you give million dollar. It is t’ing what come from heart. I +want you know”—and here the maker of pistacchio bombs laid +his hand gently on her shoulder—“I want you know, Nonna, I +have for you the sentiment. I not know to say Eengleesh—is +Italian word, sentimento—mean kinda feeling.”</p> + +<p>“I understand, Bart.” There were tears in Cornelia’s eyes. “I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> +shall think of you often. You have taught me more than you +realize—perhaps more than I realize myself.”</p> + +<p>A curious circumstance, that neither Vanzetti nor Sacco +needed to run away to Mexico. As Italian subjects, they were +not liable to the draft. But they believed they were—and so +did Cornelia. They became draft-dodgers in thought, which to +New England, home of Transcendentalism, was exactly the same +thing as draft-dodgers in reality.</p> + +<p>They went; and a few days later Cornelia picked up her +morning paper, and there on the front page was a startling +story: a revolution in Russia, the tsar a prisoner, and a democratic, +popular party in control! An amazing, an incredible +event; making it possible once more to have hopes, to believe +that changes were possible, that evil systems, entrenched for +generations, might at last be broken down. Also, it raised +Bartolomeo Vanzetti from the status of a dreamer to that of a +prophet. Cornelia had listened to his phrases, and smiled gently +at his peasant simplicity of mind; but here suddenly his ideas +became reality, made known upon the front pages of every +newspaper in the world!</p> + + +<h3 id="V_4"> + V +</h3> + +<p>The pacifists had failed to keep America out of the war, but +there was still the question of peace terms, upon which depended +the duration of the fighting. So the agitation in Boston went on—until +July, when the marines at the navy yard took matters +out of the hands of the Irish mayor. There was a parade organized +by the socialists, in support of their program of no +conquests and no indemnities; the police had given the necessary +permit, but all the same, the marines raided the parade and +broke it up, tearing the banners away from the marchers. They +finished by raiding the socialist headquarters, and dumping its +contents into the street. Cornelia was in this parade, and once +more encountered violence; but now she was panoplied in her +dignity as a “blue-blood,” and did not have to run.</p> + +<p>Also—most dreadful circumstance—Elizabeth Thornwell +Alvin, daughter of the president of the Pilgrim National Bank, +was in that riot! She did not get into the papers, and it was +a couple of days before some thoughtful friend brought the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> +news to her father. There were more scenes, and Betty, in spite +of all tears and protestations, was again forbidden to visit her +runaway grandparent. A program was proposed to keep her in +remote country places during the summer; but she vowed that +she would not go to that foolish Camp Putnam. “You might as +well give up, Mother; there’s no chance in this world of my +marrying one of those dull young men!”</p> + +<p>“Betty, don’t be vulgar!”</p> + +<p>“I am being honest, Mother. You know what Camp Putnam +is for. But you’ll have to realize once for all—my opinions +make it impossible for me to be a social success—there, or anywhere +else.”</p> + +<p>“What is it you want to do, child?”</p> + +<p>“I want to go stay with Grannie—all the time.”</p> + +<p>“But you wanted to go to college!”</p> + +<p>“I’ve changed my mind. I realize that you don’t learn anything +at college.”</p> + +<p>“Betty! What a silly thing to say!”</p> + +<p>“Well, you don’t learn the things I want to learn. I got more +from being in that one parade than I did in a whole year at +Miss Wilson’s.”</p> + +<p>“So you want to study to be a leader of street-mobs!”</p> + +<p>“Grannie is trying to find out the causes of modern war, and +found a society to teach them. It’s too late this time, she says, +but next time perhaps we can avoid being caught. And Mother, +you must know that is important—just as much so as the feminine +endings in Shakespeare’s plays, and whatever else you learn +in college. And it’s the right kind of thing for Boston people +to do. When you’ve succeeded, then people recognize it, and +build a monument to you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! So you’re going to have a monument in Boston!”</p> + +<p>“Not for myself—but for Grannie, yes indeed! Look at that +Shaw Memorial, Mother—people come from all over the United +States to see it. Those Negro troops are dead and turned to +bronze, so they are safe and respectable; but when they were +live Negro troops, and Colonel Shaw marched them down +Beacon Street, the members of the Somerset Club pulled down +the shades. That was how the Union Club came to be founded—some +of the people on Beacon Hill were loyal to the Union +cause, and Grandfather Thornwell was one of them. That is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> +history, Mother; but I didn’t learn it at Miss Wilson’s, and I +wouldn’t learn it at Radcliffe. The Union Club is top-hole now, +and it pulls down the shades on us. But we shall have a ‘Peace +Club,’ or something like that, and fifty years from now we’ll be +the highest high-hat in town, and there’ll be an oil painting of +Grannie in the lobby, and the family will be proud as Punch!”</p> + +<p>Thus Betty, citing precedents, according to precedent. It all +seemed so reasonable to her—and to her mother raving nonsense. +Was it not obvious that Colonel Shaw had upheld the +hands of Abraham Lincoln—the president, even though nothing +but a vulgar rail-splitter! Now here was Woodrow Wilson—a +gentleman and a scholar, even though he did come from the +wrong university—here he was fighting for civilization, and +Cornelia and Betty were trying to stab him in the back.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mother”—for Betty had not yet learned Cornelia’s +technique of self-suppression. “It all depends on what history +decides about this war. Did we have to get in? Or could we +have brought the nations to better terms if we had stayed out?”</p> + +<p>So they wrangled, until the tempers of both were frayed, and +Deborah exclaimed, “Your Father has lost all patience with you! +You run a grave risk that he will cut you off!”</p> + +<p>“But, Mother, do you seriously think I should spend my life +sitting round waiting for you and father to die?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what things you do say!”</p> + +<p>“But that’s what <i>you</i> said! I’m not to do any thinking of my +own until you are dead and I’ve got the money. But what good +would it be to me then? I wouldn’t know any better to do with +it than to make yellow flannel petticoats for the poor—so ugly +that the poor can’t be persuaded to wear them!”</p> + +<p>That was a dreadful utterance—a jeer at the most sacred +institution of feminine Boston, the “Sewing Circle”: a group of +ladies of the highest social rank, who met for luncheon at one +another’s homes, and afterwards sewed for the poor and gossiped +for the rich. A fresh layer was recruited every year out +of the débutante set, and they constituted the basis of selection +for all other social activities; if you didn’t get into the Sewing +Circle, you never got into anything. And it was really true that +up to quite recently they had made yellow flannel petticoats for +the poor, and had stopped because it was no longer possible to +find any one to wear their product. Mrs. Rupert Alvin was indignant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> +at the presumption and ingratitude of the inhabitants of +East Boston and South Boston slums, and had favored going +on making the petticoats according to tradition, and sending +them to Europe, where the lower classes knew their place in life.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_4"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Betty went to Plymouth, to spend a couple of weeks with +her friend Lucile Walker. She wrote, begging Grannie to come, +and Mrs. Walker added a formal invitation. But Cornelia did +not want to visit rich people; to her Plymouth meant Italians +and the simple life. She wrote to the Brinis, and found they +had no boarder, so she went down for a few days. A strange +sensation, reëntering that so different world! She would keep +it as a place of refuge, a stimulus to the imagination, a cure +for the mental diseases of affluence. Here people said what they +meant, and it was possible to understand what they were doing. +When Vincenzo Brini got up at dawn and shoveled and raked +and grubbed in the dirt, he did not have to tell you, like Henry +Cabot Winters, that life was a game, and you must play it +without thinking; no, Vincenzo would say, “Moocha gooda +vegetable!”—and escort you from row to row of his treasures, +and tell you the Italian names, and remember the English names—after +you had reminded him! Alfonsina wanted a wash-tub, +for perfectly sound economic reasons. Beltrando wanted a violin, +and some one to teach him to play it, and was going to earn the +money by picking berries.</p> + +<p>The boys were playing baseball on top of Castle Hill, and +the birds sang, and the sun sparkled on the bay, and the +pleasure-boats made diverging tracks on the water. There +were flowers in the woods again—but alas, no Vanzetti to +explain them and explore nature’s mysteries. Incessantly they +talked about him, the things he had said and the things he had +liked. He had gone away without saying good-by to Trando +and Fay, afraid lest their children’s prattle might reveal his +secret. Their mother had explained matters later—but it was +hard for them to be reconciled to his lack of trust.</p> + +<p>Alfonsina had got a letter. Both Sacco and Vanzetti were in +Mexico, and the latter had found work as a baker. The +Mexicans came to America for jobs, and the Italians took what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> +they left behind. Then came a letter for Cornelia, and the +family sat round the table and read and discussed it. “I have +obtained book for English education. I shall be greatly cultured. +Each word as I investigate in dictionary I secure in +mind.” They could picture him, sitting in a laborer’s hut, +patiently looking up long words by the light of a candle, and +putting them together, not always in the right order.</p> + +<p>“It is primitive country, much hospitality of people, much +to approve, but not developed industrial. The great America +has depraved us, we feel in nature’s wildness lonely. I will +be glad for receiving English books for education reading, +it is great limitation to obtain Italian reading. Nick and me +endeavor for improvement our companions of exile. It is necessary +for information of world developments. You have seen +Russian rivoluzion, but is necessary for explanazion that such +is lacking in true rivoluzionairy significance. It is of bourgeois +nature, for making country like capitalistic America. It is not +of workers or peasants, but Kerensky is tool of business men, +and you will see that the desires of Russia for acquirement of +Constantinople will not be abandoned, and the participating of +Russia in the war will have this significance. I will not proceed +in this discussing because is possible for letter to be censured, +but will say that all nation in most cruel conflict have imperialist +ambition which will not abandon for beautiful sentiments. I +have long walk for obtaining stamp for letter so will conclusion +with expressing of sincere esteem, your Bartolomeo +Vanzetti.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_4"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia went to call on the Jerry Walkers—she could not +fail to do so, being no longer in hiding. They lived in a big +remodeled house on a hilltop looking over the bay, and you +would have thought them very fashionable, if you had not +known the dreadful fact that Mrs. Walker was the daughter +of a Pittsburgh steel manufacturer. Startling to realize how +one could have all this comfort, and even elegance, and yet be +totally non-existent from the social point of view. Mrs. Walker +was a fair, buxom lady, her manner to Cornelia a curious +mixture of deference due to a “blue-blood,” modified by the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> +need of not seeming too eager for social promotion. A strange +world, in which a motor-ride of six minutes brought you from +Suosso’s Lane, where things were simple and natural, to this +hilltop mansion from which simplicity and naturalness had +been banished as by an enchanter’s spell.</p> + +<p>But, a spell for ladies only! Jerry Walker, who had begun +life as an errand-boy, liked to talk with Cornelia about those +days; and how the Governor had helped him to a start. He +liked to talk about his enormous business, which he was organizing +upon a new system. Not content with owning all the +felt-plants of New England, he had got a chain of establishments +to manufacture the things that were made of felt—shoes, +hats, hospital supplies; he had a jobbing business to +distribute them, and was not going to stop until he had retail +stores, and even the sheep to make the wool. He was eager +about all this—a bouncing little man with bristly yellow hair, +standing up like a bull-dog’s. He was extremely self-confident, +a great business organizer, who knew it, and frequently said it, +adding prophecies. A highly dangerous state of mind in New +England, where all is secrecy, and instinctive repugnance toward +anyone who talks. Cornelia remembered that last discussion she +had heard between her husband and Rupert Alvin, when Jerry +Walker and his felt-plants had been the subject. It was easy +to understand why Rupert was so antagonistic to this talkative +outsider, and resented his control of a great New England +industry, accusing him of all crimes in the business list.</p> + +<p>Just now Jerry Walker needed to expand his business for +war purposes, and needed to buy stocks of raw material for +government contracts. He ought to buy quickly, because the +price of wool was leaping day by day; but he could not get +the banking credit. Everybody else was getting it, all along the +line, but from him the bankers demanded practically the taking +over of his business.</p> + +<p>It was the working out of a situation which Cornelia understood +clearly; but she did not have the right to talk about it, +not even to Betty. The latter had learned of Mr. Walker’s +troubles from Lucile, and was embarrassed, because among +those who held the whip-hand were her own father and her +uncle, John Quincy Thornwell, president of the Fifth National +Bank. “Grannie, I don’t know much about banking, and I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span> +don’t suppose you do, but I can’t help thinking it seems to go +by favor. Mr. Walker never wore the hat-band of a Harvard +club, and his wife isn’t in the Sewing Circle! Do you suppose +that is why they say such bad things about him?”</p> + +<p>Cornelia answered, “I once heard Great-uncle Abner say +that banking is the private preserve of the blue-bloods, a feeding-crib +for the sons and nephews and cousins.”</p> + +<p>“But, Grannie, that isn’t fair! There’s Father and Uncle John, +who can get all the money they need from their own banks—”</p> + +<p>“No, dear, they can’t do that—it would be against the law.”</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t be against the law for them to lend to each +other, would it? Or to Uncle James, or other members of the +family? Certainly you never hear of the Thornwell mills +having to scuffle for credit. And Mr. Walker is a capable +man, who has built up his business by hard work and not +by family favors. I would talk to Father about it, if I thought +it would help.”</p> + +<p>“No, dear, you’d better not meddle. Your parents would +say the Walkers were trying to use you.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose that’s why they hate to have me come here. I +must only know the people who come to our dinner-table.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia laughed. “Dear child, it is embarrassing to know +those who are coming to your dinner-table on a platter!”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_4"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>The fall of 1917. All about Cornelia a gigantic stir of war +preparation, but very little intellectual preparation to match it. +She did not have to go far in her studies to learn that the +various peoples of Europe had been fighting among themselves +for centuries, and in this fighting had frequently shifted partners. +Whatever enemy they had at the time, they hated that +enemy just as heartily, and accused him of atrocities, and did +not hesitate to have priests and bishops invoke the aid of God +to overcome him. Always the real cause of the war was a desire +to take land from the other nation; plus the fear that the other +nation would reverse the procedure—as indeed it would.</p> + +<p>Could the same situation exist in this greatest and most +cruel of all conflicts? To have that question answered, Cornelia +had to get in the Negro maid, and invite Quincy Thornwell +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> +to dinner. Do not confuse Quincy with his older brother, +John Quincy, for these two sons of Great-uncle Abner were +very different beings. John, the banker, had the reputation of +being the closest-mouthed person in Boston, which was like +being the tallest mountain in the Himalayas. But Quincy lived +by gossip, quite literally; for twenty years he had listened to +the talk of his family and friends, and turned their advance +knowledge into a comfortable fortune on the stock-market. His +wizened features were set in mockery, and if you were in +the family he would tell you most outrageous and delightful +anecdotes.</p> + +<p>Quincy went everywhere, and met everybody. He could +tell you what the British ambassador had said to Major Higginson +last week. The evening before last he had dined at +Fenway Court, the palace of the eccentric but brilliant Mrs. +“Jack” Gardner, and had there met Sir Leslie Buttock, the +latest of the procession of British propagandists who were +coming to fascinate and thrill the American plutocracy. Sir +Leslie was making the transcontinental tour, and after he had +praised the champagne of a Minneapolis banker, or the cigars +of a Seattle ship-builder, each of these provincials was an insider +and social equal for the rest of his life, and the price was +five—ten—twenty billions—no one knew just how much—to be +used in doubling the area of the British empire.</p> + +<p>A generation or more ago “Mrs. Jack” had set out to cut a +swath through Boston society with the millions of a big department +store. A vivid little creature, with the continental standard +of manners and morals, she had horrified the Back Bay beyond +utterance; when she lost her temper, she would break into cursing +like any British aristocrat. But she went abroad and hobnobbed +with royalty, and was cabled back home; she bought +famous paintings, and built herself a palace in what was then +the suburbs of the Fenway, and thumbed her nose at the prudes. +Now she was an old lady, with decades of notoriety behind her, +the acknowledged leader of the smart set.</p> + +<p>A British diplomat once gave the official definition of a lie—a +falsehood told to a person who has a right to the truth. All +diplomats and propagandists who came to Boston did “Mrs. +Jack” the honor of admitting her into the inner circle. At her +dinner-parties you took off your propaganda-coat, so to speak, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> +and lounged in your military shirt-sleeves. So Quincy Thornwell +could tell his aunt exactly why the war was lasting so long. +The price of Italy’s repudiating her alliance with Austria and +Germany had been the Trentino and Trieste, which meant the +mastery of the Adriatic. Japan’s price was Shantung from +China. Russia was to have Constantinople. France was to have +Alsace-Lorraine, and if possible the Rhine. Britain was to have +all the German colonies, an empire in themselves. When you +talked to Quincy about any of these powers giving up their spoils +because of the beautiful speeches of Woodrow Wilson, he +showed his good manners by pretending it was your idea of +being humorous.</p> + +<p>And yet there were a hundred million or so of good Americans +who really believed that their President was somehow going +to achieve that miracle! Deborah, for example, and her +serious elder daughter, Priscilla, who was going in for Red +Cross work of the higher, administrative kind. When you talked +to them about peace terms, you discovered that they were trusting +the country entirely to a man who was a Democrat, and +came from the wrong university! If you mentioned the secret +treaties, they would say that these matters were too delicate for +public discussion; the President of course had sources of information +that were not open to us—</p> + +<p>“But why not?” cried Cornelia, and could get no convincing +answer. Either the allies were going to give up their predatory +aims or they were not. If they were, why not publish the fact? +Such declaration would save millions of lives and billions of +treasure—for manifestly, one reason for enemy resistance was +fear of the consequences of defeat. But if you tried to point this +out, you were called pro-German, and people turned their backs +on you. They had adopted a slogan, “Win the war!”—which +meant that they found it easier to fight than to think. And Cornelia, +who had gone out into public life, now had the duty of +laboring with them, and suffering because of their blindness. +No more could she be content with the troubles of three daughters—their +diseases in childhood, their moral training, their love-affairs +and marriages, their fourteen pregnancies and eleven +children. Now she had a million sons in France, and must +agonize with them all—even when they were wayward sons and +spurned their foster-mother’s care!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="IX_4"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Betty was going to Radcliffe. It was a compromise that had +worked itself out with her parents; provided she would put herself +under respectable instructors, and read the sound and wholesome +books they would indicate to her, she might go and live +in the apartment with her grandmother, and meet anarchists and +socialists and atheists and pacifists and German agents in her off +hours. It had been a losing fight for Deborah and Rupert, because +they had other things they must think about, while Betty +had nothing but the determination to get with Grannie. After +all, what could be more respectable than a grandmother? What +more laudable desire for a young girl than to comfort an elderly +widow, alone and poverty-stricken? It was really a scandal to +balk such an impulse; it was advertising to the world that Cornelia +was a shady character!</p> + +<p>So Betty installed a few of her books and her clothes in the +little room, and the pair of them were as happy as honeymooners—they +gave each other a hug every time they met. The Negro +maid came every day—because the Alvins insisted on Betty’s +paying half the household expenses. Betty’s runabout was in a +garage nearby, and any time it was raining or snowing, a man +from the garage would bring it over, and Betty would drive +Grannie to anarchist or socialist or atheist or pacifist or pro-German +meetings. Or they would sit at home in the evenings and +study subversive books with red bindings, of which there were +now a hundred or so on Grannie’s shelves—Mr. Longfellow and +Mr. Emerson and Dr. Holmes having been relegated to a box +under the bed. Betty would give her college studies “a lick and +a promise,” and then take up Bertrand Russell on world imperialism. +Most convenient to have a respectable aristocrat, +brother of an earl, to quote against Sir Leslie Buttock and Sir +Syphon Scotch!</p> + +<p>It was well that this idyllic menage had got definitely under +way before the second, or Bolshevik, revolution in Russia. Possession +is nine points out of ten in family affairs, as in revolutions, +and it was no more possible to get Betty out of Grannie’s +apartment on the north side of Beacon Hill than it was to get +Lenin and Trotsky out of the Kremlin. But what agony of soul +for the Alvin family, and for the Winters and the Scatterbridges, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span> +and the whole Thornwell clan! The face of the war +changed in ten hideous days! The eastern front gone all to +pieces, and a million or two of Germans set free to overwhelm +the western front! Russia out of the war, and no one but +America to take her place! And red revolution on the rampage +over a sixth of the surface of the globe! Insolent, low-down +workingmen daring to take possession of a great government, +and calling on their fellows in other lands to follow suit!</p> + +<p>Every property interest throughout the civilized world rallied +against that peril, and the greatest machine of propaganda in +history went into action. To meet the immediate emergency, +Lenin and Trotsky must be German agents; so a mass of documents +were forged, endorsed by the state department, and spread +upon the front pages of the newspapers. Then came the atrocities—for +which little Belgium had been a dress rehearsal. +Bureaus for the construction of horrors were set up in every +border city from Helsingfors to Vladivostok, and the cruelty +and bloodshed inevitable to a great revolution were magnified a +thousand fold. It was St. Bartholomew’s Eve in Russia every +time an American newspaper went to press. The Soviet government +collapsed once a week, and Lenin jailed Trotsky, or was +murdered by Trotsky, in alternating afternoon editions. The +“free love” element became the basis of the most obscene hoax +of the ages, and fifty million women were “nationalized” in one +colossal orgy. Every decent woman in America believed it—and +so it was possible for President Wilson to begin his private +war upon the Russian people, in defiance of the Constitution +which he had spent his life in expounding.</p> + +<p>From that time on the advocacy of reasonable peace-terms +ceased to be a society function, a diversion of after-luncheon +orators, and became a criminal conspiracy, conducted by little +groups in upstairs rooms with the shades drawn and admission +by pass-word. It became, in short, “Bolshevik plotting.” Did +not the Bolsheviks prove it by proceeding themselves to make +peace with Germany, an act of treason to democracy and liberty? +Did they not make matters worse by ransacking the archives of +the tsar, and publishing the secret treaties whereby the allies +had agreed to divide large sections of the earth, without any +democracy or liberty for the inhabitants thereof? There is a +story of a Kentucky colonel who was asked why he had knocked +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span> +a certain man down. “Did he call you a liar?” “Worse than that, +he proved it.”</p> + +<p>With one exception the American newspapers ignored these +treaties, and to Cornelia and the pacifists that seemed treason to +the national welfare. But what could the pacifists do? For any +group to circulate them meant to have offices raided and property +destroyed; for individuals to agitate them meant to be +mobbed, to be jailed and held “incommunicado,” tarred and +feathered, beaten with blacksnake whips, in a few cases strung +up to telegraph-poles.</p> + +<p>Nor was it protection that you lived within sight of Bunker +Hill monument and “Funnel” Hall. The grandsons of that +“broadcloth mob” that had dragged William Lloyd Garrison +through the streets with a rope about his waist were now out to +preserve their French and British bonds. Nor was it any longer +of avail that your city had an Irish-Catholic vote; the Catholic +church was one of the property interests which had rallied +against “Bolshevism.” City policemen, federal secret agents, and +an army of spies and informers in the pay of wealthy patriots, +would break into offices and homes at any hour of the day or +night, and spirit people away and hold them for as long as they +saw fit; in short they would commit all the crimes they were +trying to prevent, and destroy beyond repair the Constitution +they professed to worship.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_4"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Into this valley of midnight shadow walked Cornelia Thornwell +and her grand-daughter, clasping each other’s trembling +hands. They were in no personal danger, as it turned out; the +patrioteers would seldom trouble rich people, especially those +who had “family” behind them. Seen from the outside this +“white terror” appeared a mad frenzy, and it was hard at +first to understand that there were cunning brains guiding it, +that mob-outbreaks were planned by shrewd gentlemen in +swivel-chairs. These gentlemen would be glad to scare the widow +of Governor Thornwell and make her shut up; but failing in +that they would not advertise her treason by arresting her. The +reason was that the decision rested with Henry Cabot Winters +and Rupert Alvin, who were contributing large sums to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> +defense societies, and sat in at the councils where lists were gone +over and policies determined.</p> + +<p>No, what would happen to Cornelia was that her janitress +would be instructed to preserve the contents of her trash-basket +every night; and one of her old-time friends of the Sewing +Circle would turn up and announce herself as a convert to +pacifism, and join all the societies to which Cornelia belonged, +and go to meetings with her, and get on the executive committees, +and turn in a detailed report of everything that went on +there, with lists of the members and subscribers, and manuscript +copies of what was being considered for publication. +Included in this mass of information appeared the fact that +Mrs. Josiah Quincy Thornwell was in touch with Italian +anarchists of Plymouth, and exchanged letters with one of the +group, a draft-dodger—though so far there was no evidence that +she had helped him to get away. He wrote to her under the +code name of “Nonna,” and a letter she had received from him, +entered in the secret service files under the index number of +1842T36, read as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“Dear Nonna:</p> + +<p>“It will be great rivilation for you to see the coming of my +prophecy, the real rivoluzion prevail in Russia. This is greatest +event of history and is to be recognize for beginning of epoch. +It is first opportunity for liberty for worker and peasant of +world. It is hope which can be very brief to endure, and will +depend entirely what shall happen in other country. If will come +rivoluzion in Germany, Austria, Italia, France, England, then +will be possible for building worker society without exploitation; +but if is impossible for achievement rivoluzion in other +country, is little hope for freedom for Russia, and you will +see ending of worker’s control. When Russia must defend self +in war, it will be militarismo, and is impossible for liberty with +militarismo. It will then become Russia government of force +like all other gouvernment, and rivoluzion will be perished. +Whatever you can do for rivoluzion of American worker, that +is only way for assistance of proletarian power in Russia. In +Mexico is not much activity, for lack of language speaking, so +Nick and me will make secret return for propaganda. With +sincere esteem and fraternal greetings, Your friend, Bartolomeo +Vanzetti.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XI_4"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>It was in the spring of 1918, with the last German drive in +France under way, that this stolen letter was placed in the +hands of Rupert Alvin. It caused great mental disturbance in +a loyal citizen, and he came to the apartment and, standing in +the middle of the floor, announced that Cornelia stood in great +danger of a term in state’s prison for persistent and contumacious +disloyalty; also that Betty would bundle up her things +and accompany her father to his car immediately. Whereupon +occurred one of those scenes which are so essentially un-Boston +that all Bostonians deny they ever happen. Perhaps they would +not have happened, had not old Josiah married a bog-trotter’s +grand-daughter, and thus introduced an element of hysterics +into the family.</p> + +<p>Betty declared that she would not, could not desert her +Grannie. The more sternly she was commanded to obey her +father, the louder she wept and the tighter she clung; even +when Grannie herself advised her gently to go, she relaxed her +grip no particle, but sobbed, how could they demand such a +thing of her? The greater the peril in which Grannie stood, the +less possibility that she, Betty, would desert her! So it appeared +that Rupert had overspoken himself, and he hemmed and hawed +and admitted that the danger of arrest and imprisonment was +not immediate, his influence had been able to avert the calamity; +whereupon Betty said that if that was the case, what was the +reason for her going? And what can a man do in the face of +logic like that?</p> + +<p>What Rupert did was worthy of his Puritan ancestors, and +proved that the old stock was still sound. He adjudged his +daughter guilty of domestic sedition, and pulled out his watch +and gave her three minutes in which to capitulate; at the end +of that time he would go home and write a will in which she +would have no share, and would be forever forbidden entrance +to his home. For three minutes he held the watch, and Betty +clung to her grandmother with such frenzy that not a finger +could be pulled loose. Rupert snapped to the watch—it was the +old-fashioned kind with a gold case and a lid on a hinge—and +stalked out of the room without a word. And Betty wept for an +hour or two, fully convinced that her father meant every one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> +of those cruel words, and that she was forever an outcast.</p> + +<p>Until the doorbell rang again, and there came Deborah, +and behind her, silent and somewhat sheepish, the ponderous +and impressive president of the Pilgrim National Bank. From +which it appeared that the old stock was degenerating in spots! +Rupert could rule a board of directors with an iron rod, but +he could not rule the tongue or spirit of his wife. She declared +that he would not do the cruel thing he had threatened; his +sense of patriotic loyalty had caused him to forget the love +they all bore for one another. What Deborah would do +was to throw herself upon the mercy of her mother and her +child, and implore them to spare the family the horror of +having either go to jail. So, of course, there was more weeping—still +that Irish blood. Betty cried, what was the use of +trying to talk about it, when they didn’t know what they +were supposed to have done? How could they promise not +to do it, until they knew what? So Rupert had to give hints +which nearly betrayed the secret; he told them they were known +to be consorting with anarchists and draft-dodgers.</p> + +<p>So it was a question of their giving up Vanzetti! But they +did not agree with Vanzetti’s ideas, and Vanzetti knew they +did not, they had tried to argue with him, to persuade him to a +more American point of view! Was that treason? Were they +forbidden to try to reform the anarchists, or even to know +what anarchists thought? If so, who was to answer their arguments? +Rupert snapped out that the way to answer such dogs +was to string them up to lamp-posts; and then, of course, the +fat was in the fire. What was the use of a Constitution if it +didn’t work in war-time? What was the use of free speech if +it applied only to the things you wanted said? If public questions +were to be settled by stringing people up to lamp-posts, +who was to be strung, and who was to string—how could you +decide? Betty cried, and Cornelia cried, and Deborah cried. +Ideas are extremely trying things, devastating in their effect +upon the female nervous organism; there is something to be +said for the point of view of the Clara Scatterbridges, who +have nothing to do with ideas, but stay at home and have eight +babies.</p> + +<p>Betty and Cornelia laid down their joint program. They +had never advocated violence and never would; but neither +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> +would they support a war. They would advocate the ending of +this present war upon terms of justice to all parties, which included +the rights of those peoples whose lands were going to +be handed over as spoils of battle. If it had become a crime in +America to advocate such ideas, then there would be an old +Thornwell lady and a young one in prison. Rupert and Deborah +took their departure, as solemn as if it were an execution +they had attended; and five minutes after they left, the doorbell +rang again, and there stood a humble Italian laborer, wearing +a worn suit of clothes two sizes too big for him, and droopy +walrus mustaches equally out of proportion. That very anarchist +draft-dodger who had been the cause of the family scene!</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_3"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>He stood embarrassed. “I not know if should come—”</p> + +<p>“Of course you should come!” and they drew him in.</p> + +<p>“Could make trooble for ladies.”</p> + +<p>“We are not afraid of trouble,” said Cornelia; and Betty +chimed in, “You are a sight for sore eyes!”—that was the way +the new generation was learning to talk, in spite of Radcliffe.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti’s face lighted up—so glad he was to see them, so +pathetically eager for friendship. He was haggard from his +wanderings, more somber than ever with the pressure of the +war upon his spirit. His age at this time was thirty years, but +unconsciously Betty took him for old enough to be her father, +while Cornelia took him for her equal. At the same time he +was a little of the child to them—the way of every woman with +a poet and a dreamer, who cannot get himself adjusted to a +harsh world.</p> + +<p>He had been a wanderer for a year, and had not liked it. +He was going to make propaganda, and take whatever came +to him; going back to Plymouth, to live near the Brinis—not +in his old room, because the children were growing up and +would need it. One could not be sure, but he thought he would +not be arrested; the government had plenty of soldiers, but +needed laborers for war construction.</p> + +<p>They discussed the world situation. The propaganda for +intervention to put down the Russian revolution was on the +point of success. A shameful thing, said Cornelia. But to her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> +surprise she found that Bart had already given up interest in +Russia; the revolution there was lost, he said. “Is joost like +I write, Nonna—is militarismo, is one more go-vèrnment for +rule worker. Maybe you do not read what soviet have done +for anarchista in Russia? They stop propaganda, shoot heem, +put heem in jail—is joost like capitalista—is what you say—tirannia—make +worker obey, make work, make fight in +army—”</p> + +<p>“But, Comrade Vanzetti, aren’t the soviets to defend themselves?” +It was Betty breaking in.</p> + +<p>“Must defend, Comradda Betty, but defend like free men. +If man not want fight, nobody got right for make heem fight. +Nobody got right for make heem slave, for stop hees mind, +hees right for speak.”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t it be hard to keep an army going on that basis?”</p> + +<p>“If you got joostice, will find plenty men for fight, plenty +free men. You wait, Comradda Betty, you see Italy, you see +somet’ing happen! Is poor countree, Italy, if war stop, will +be much bad time, much trooble—will come rivoluzion, I t’ink +shoore. Italian is not so easy man for control, like Russian +peasant, he is man will fight for right, will be free man. You +see different kind revoluzion, different sistema for manage +countree. It is our job now, make money in America, make all +money we can, send home Italy for anarchista propaganda.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid you’ll have trouble,” said Cornelia. “They have +spies, they know what everybody is doing, and they get rougher +every day. I fear you’ll be arrested.”</p> + +<p>“Is no matter, Nonna, no worry for me. Is business of +anarchista make propaganda, musta make, wherever go. You +get putted in army, all right, make propaganda wit’ soldier. +You get putted in jail, make propaganda wit’ jailer, wit’ prisoner—is +all same, is men, like me, like you. Sometime he come +out, is always some way for new idea spread—is no way for +stop, not jail, not bullet! In whole world is notting can stop—is +biggest, most strong dinnameet.”</p> + +<p>He sat in his chair, half out of it, with the eagerness of his +emotion. His face wore a strained look, and his eyes had that +light of stubborn fanaticism which Cornelia had come to know. +He turned to Betty, the younger one, guardian of the future. +“Wit’ anarchista is lika dis, Comradda. He say: Capitalismo is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> +injoostice, I will not stand heem! Say, I will break heem, will +fight heem, will never stop—never what you say, surrender. I +will speak—will say strong word—shock person, make heem +t’ink. Will speak all time, everywhere—make men hear—even +when he not want hear!”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Vanzetti stopped, a little embarrassed. Even an +anarchist must be a gentleman! And perhaps so much vehemence +was not in order in a lady’s drawing-room. “It maybe seem +like crazy talk?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Cornelia said, “Wait.” She went to the bookcase, to a shelf +which contained a few old books, not yet stowed under the bed. +She took one out. “I will read you something, Bart. We had a +young New Englander, of old Puritan stock, who took up the +notion that chattel slavery was wrong, and set out to preach it, +and very nearly got lynched in Boston. His name was William +Lloyd Garrison—learn it, Bart, a good name to quote in this +part of the world. He started a paper called the ‘Liberator’—that +was in 1831, eighty-seven years ago. In the first issue he +stated his program. Listen.” And she read:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. +On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write +with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire +to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his +wife from the hands of a ravisher; tell the mother to gradually +extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen—but +urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I +am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will +not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard. The apathy of +the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal +and hasten the resurrection of the dead.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Said Vanzetti: “What is name?” He said it over, so as to +remember it—William Lloyd Garrisoon. “I never hear heem +before, but I feel heem brudder; am joosta sooch man like +heem!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI"> + CHAPTER VI<br> +<span class='chap-title'>WHITE TERROR</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The day of glory, sung in the “Marseillaise,” had arrived; +the American troops stopped the first German onslaught, and +began their counter-advance which was to end the war. The +whole country thrilled with it—all but a few perverse persons, +so constructed that they could not think of glory, but only of +boys crawling about in burning forests, dragging shattered +limbs and protruded entrails. “Ah, but the broken bodies, that +drip like honeycomb!”</p> + +<p>Cornelia and her grand-daughter went to Plymouth to rest +for a week, Betty staying with her friend, Lucile Walker, and +Cornelia with the Brinis. The little room which had been +Cornelia’s for a year and a half now belonged to Fay, but she +was glad to vacate it. Vanzetti had a room with a neighbor, but +came in for his meals, and stayed to do his studying in the +evening. He was digging more ditches, and reading diligently +the few radical papers he could get. There had been a revolt in +the Italian armies; it had been suppressed, but more was coming, +and he watched for every scrap of news.</p> + +<p>Also he told Cornelia of his experiences in Mexico: what a +fine fellow that Nick Sacc’ had proved to be, and how they +had settled down with a colony of Italians, all draft-evaders, +living upon a rough communistic system. Bart had helped to +feed them, baking bread, and also he had fed them “anarchista +propaganda”—bread for the spirit. There had been several in +the group whom Cornelia knew: Boda, the little macaroni salesman +who had driven them to see the drama; and Coacci and +Orciani, two others whom she had met on that same occasion.</p> + +<p>Nonna, like Christmas, came but once a year, so it was a +holiday for everybody. Papa Brini showed his garden, and +Cornelia recited the Italian names, and he tried to say the English +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> +names, and the children laughed at his blunders. They +had their walk in the woods on Sunday, and gathered bunches +of flowers, and Fay and Trando remembered things about +nature which Bart had taught them, and were proud of it. +Bart had resumed charge of the boy’s development, and would +give him advice and help. One day Trando had a cold, and +Bart said the way to cure it was to sweat; so he got down on +his knees, which made him about a match for a nine-and-a-half-year-old +boy, and the two of them had a wrestling match, in +which the big man was floored several times, and the small boy +whooped with delight. Pretty soon he was perspiring profusely, +and Bart put him to bed with no supper but a drink of hot +lemonade. In the morning he would be all right, said the +amateur doctor.</p> + +<p>Trando wanted a violin, and had worked all last summer to +earn the money; but then he had had to spend it, because the +family went down with “flu.” Cornelia wanted to give him +a violin, but Bart said no, that would spoil it all; let the little +fellow earn it, and then he would really value it; the achievement +would give him courage, a sense of power. This was the +time for berries, and there was nothing better for youngsters +than to wander in the fields all day.</p> + +<p>Trando’s relations with the boys of the neighborhood made +a problem. They would not play with him, because the priest +had warned them to have nothing to do with a bad boy who did +not go to church: there was a place in hell for such as he. The +other boys called him “socialist,” and when he went off and read +a story-book, or played with his sister, they called him “sissy.” +It was hard to please them. Bart told him to make of his persecution +a source of strength. Many a great man had done that, +and those who had spurned him in boyhood would see him leap +above their heads when they were grown.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti told him what was true about religion. There was +a great and good God, the God of nature, whose laws we must +understand if we would be happy. This God loved all human +beings alike, and it was not His will that some should be slaves +to others. We might pray to Him for courage and strength; +but we did not need any priest to intervene for us. The priest +was nothing but a man like other men; he might be good, or +he might be bad, like Father O’Brien—but in any case he represented +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> +a system which helped to keep the poor in subjection +to the rich, and so was a trap for their minds.</p> + +<p>Then Trando wanted to know about how we got born, and +how we got married. It is the custom of Italian parents to +say they buy the babies; but Bart explained those things seriously +to Trando; and he talked to Cornelia about it, and asked +her to talk to Fay, because children ought to know the truth, +and parents had a foolish shyness about talking to their own +little ones. All the questions of children ought to be answered; +they should connect the idea of shame only with actions that +were harmful to themselves or to others. A wise man speaking, +always; a man gentle, full of spiritual insight—yet turning into +a lion at a moment’s notice when confronted with “injoostice.” +Some of the bigger boys found that out when they undertook +to torment the “sissy.”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_5"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Betty Alvin’s relations with the Walker family were peculiar. +They were all extremely patriotic, and shocked beyond utterance +by the opinions and behavior of Betty and her grandmother. +But they were fond of Betty, and if she had come to +Plymouth and not stayed with them, it would have been emphasizing +an estrangement. Of course Betty’s mother put the worst +construction on their invitation, saying that the Walkers would +rather know a “red” blue-blood than none at all. But Betty +would not believe that, and kept up the friendship with Lucile +at Radcliffe and at home, carefully avoiding any utterance that +would displease her hosts.</p> + +<p>Mr. Walker appeared only once during the visit. He was +in greater trouble than ever, and showed it in every line of +his features—a really terrible example of what the fierce pace +of business can do to its victims. Mrs. Walker was silent +and preoccupied, and Lucile hesitated to say anything; but +Betty got it out of her finally—Mr. Walker was convinced +that there was a determination on the part of a Boston banking-group +to put him out of business, and the man who was at +the head of the campaign was Betty’s uncle, Henry Cabot Winters. +This information was coming to Mr. Walker from many +different sources: in all the troubles of the felt industry, it was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> +Mr. Winters who stood behind the scenes and pulled the strings.</p> + +<p>Just think of it, exclaimed Lucile—here were enterprises that +had made a million and a quarter dollars in net profits last year, +and were going even higher this year; yet the owner could not +get half a million dollars’ credit from any bank in Boston or +New York! They all stood together; if the banks where you +had your accounts, your banks of deposit, as they were called, +refused to “check your paper,” why, then no other bank would +accept it. The felt-industry was peculiar, in that the sales were +made early in the year, but payments were not made until the +fall, which meant that the business was helpless without credit; +the bankers knew that perfectly well, and Mr. Walker had +always had the credit, year after year, as a matter of course. +This year he had to have more, because of his war contracts, +and the increased production; the wicked thing the bankers had +done was to make promises, and lure him along from month +to month, giving him no hint there was anything wrong until +the last moment, when one or two hundred thousand dollars’ +worth of notes came due, and suddenly he was told that he +must “take them up.” There must be some reason for such +things, said Lucile; and Mr. Walker was convinced that it was +Henry Cabot Winters plotting to ruin him.</p> + +<p>The bankers had put accountants on Mr. Walker’s books, +and insisted that he would need three million dollars to carry +him until the fall. They were going to make him pay twenty-seven +per cent for the use of that money. He didn’t mind that +so much—his profits could stand it; but he didn’t believe he was +really going to get the three million. When the time came, there +would be more excuses and delays, and he would be compelled +to turn the stock of his companies over to the bankers. He had +twenty big plants of one sort or another, all working day and +night, employing more than eight thousand men; he was doing +what was supposed to be patriotic war-work—but the government +wouldn’t help him with a dollar, and wouldn’t protect him +against these banking conspiracies.</p> + +<p>Betty took that story to Cornelia. “Can it possibly be true, +Grannie? Can Uncle Henry be doing such a thing?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry to say, dear, he has that reputation.”</p> + +<p>“But Grannie, he doesn’t seem that kind of man!”</p> + +<p>“Men have different standards for their friends, and for outsiders. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> +Uncle Henry has grown rich, and he has never produced +anything that I know of.”</p> + +<p>“But Grannie, that would be a wicked thing to do to Mr. +Walker!”</p> + +<p>“It’s the way of the business world. I watched it, and held +my peace—for forty years. I used to hear things that Henry +and James and your father would talk over with your grandfather. +Josiah did it to others—and then at last somebody did +it to him. He trusted the big bankers in New York—the Morgan +crowd, because they had such a respectable name. He put everything +he had into the securities of the New Haven Railroad, +and those New York bankers simply gutted it, they stole every +dollar, and the stock fell from two hundred and forty-six to sixteen, +if I remember. I’ve heard your grandfather say, he had +enough New Haven paper to fill up the music-room, but it +wasn’t enough to pay his debts.”</p> + +<p>“Is that why Uncle James has the mills and ‘Hillview’?”</p> + +<p>“That’s the reason. There were tens of thousands of people +left in worse plight, widows and children and old people. All +this decline of New England industry that you hear about really +dates from that time when we trusted the Morgan crowd; for +they took something like five hundred million dollars away from +this part of the country.”</p> + +<p>“But Grannie, if Uncle Henry is doing that to Mr. Walker, +it is really the same thing as banditry!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course; but you mustn’t say it to your father or +your uncles; they wouldn’t take it kindly from a twenty-year-old +girl.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be older some day,” said Miss Betty.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_5"> + III +</h3> + +<p>The first thing when Cornelia got back to town, she went +to call at her son-in-law’s office. “Henry, what is this I hear +about you and Jerry Walker?”</p> + +<p>“What do you hear, Mother?”</p> + +<p>“That you are taking his plants away from him.”</p> + +<p>“Has Jerry told you that?”</p> + +<p>“No; but Betty has been visiting Lucile, and naturally hears +about their troubles.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span></p> + +<p>“Jerry tells his wife, and she tells Lucile, and Lucile tells +Betty, and Betty tells you, and you tell me!” Henry laughed.</p> + +<p>“Is it true, Henry? Are you after him?”</p> + +<p>“It is absolutely untrue, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“You’re not interested in his affairs?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t say that. Jerry comes to certain bankers—including +Rupert and John Quincy—and tries to borrow money. The +bankers are my clients, and ask me to investigate, and draw +up papers, and perform other legal services, which I do. Because +the decisions of the bankers don’t please Jerry, he takes +up the notion that I’m an arch-conspirator, plotting his ruin. +But that’s all rubbish.”</p> + +<p>“Henry, you have the reputation of not being a very gentle +enemy.”</p> + +<p>The other laughed again. “Well, Mother, have you come to +convert me to pacifism? But seriously, I got through with Jerry +Walker years ago. I was a stockholder in two of his felt-companies, +and a director. I found that his way of doing business +didn’t agree with mine, so I let him buy me out at a fair price, +and washed my hands of him. But he’s been afraid of me ever +since—because he knows I know too much about him.”</p> + +<p>“Henry, I’ve always had an interest in Jerry, ever since he +was an errand-boy at the hospital, a bright little fellow that +I saw had a future. Josiah helped him to get a start, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course. But he’s grown up now, and learned many +tricks, and he plays the business game pretty roughly.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t pretend to know all about his affairs—”</p> + +<p>“Naturally not, Mother; only an expert accountant could do +that—and he’d have trouble, because Jerry has hidden some +things cleverly. It’s a complicated matter, I assure you, and you +make a mistake if you let the Walkers use you, or even worry +you. Nobody can believe a word Jerry says.”</p> + +<p>“I just want to ask you to give him a square deal, Henry. +Give him what you give other business men.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mother, it’s up to the bankers, and you are talking to +a lawyer. There are many bankers interested in the Jerry +Walker problem, and they all agree that he wants much more +than any other business man—he wants everything in sight. +There’s only so much credit to go round—only about two per +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> +cent of what people holler for—and Jerry is getting more than +his share, and using it without any sort of scruple.”</p> + +<p>“He’s paying a high price for it, I understand.”</p> + +<p>“He thinks so, naturally. It seems a simple matter to him, for +the banks to check all the paper he can sign. He never figures +on the risks the banks may be running.”</p> + +<p>“Is it true he’s paying twenty-seven per cent, Henry?”</p> + +<p>“That is a question you’ll have to ask the bankers, Mother. I +can’t discuss my clients’ affairs. But I’ll say this as a general +principle—two men seldom agree about the value of a horse, +when one of them is selling and the other is buying.”</p> + +<p>“Henry, I want to ask it straight. You’re not planning to take +over Jerry’s business?”</p> + +<p>“Absolutely not, Mother!”</p> + +<p>“You’re telling me the truth?”</p> + +<p>“When have I told you anything else?” And the telephone +rang. Henry took down the receiver, listened, and said, “Yes, +Rupert, I’ll be right over. I’m having a consultation on the matter +with Mrs. Thornwell, and I’m telling her you are the banker, +and the real villain in the case.”</p> + +<p>So later in the day Cornelia went to call on this “real villain,” +and found him, a large island completely surrounded by statistics +and charts relating to the felt business. He was polite, but reluctant +to give her his precious time. If she had come to ask +about investing a thousand dollars of her own, he would have +taken an hour off to advise her—he would do that any day for +any member of the family, even the poorest fifth cousin. But +when she came about Jerry Walker he told her frankly that she +was letting herself be used by a family of adventurers. She +was deceived if she thought that Rupert had anything more to +do with the matter than a score of other bankers; it was a council +of the financial leaders of Boston who were deciding the +future of the felt industry, and even if Rupert were to go before +them and say, “Gentlemen, I have promised my mother-in-law +that out of my affection for her we will agree to let her +former errand-boy have all the money he wants”—still the other +bankers might refuse to assent. “And I don’t carry three million +in my own wallet, Mother.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="IV_5"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Both Henry and Rupert had told Cornelia what was not true; +and only two or three weeks later she found it out. Mrs. Jerry +Walker came to Cornelia’s apartment, and broke down and +wept, and told the terrible story of what was happening. Jerry +Walker was being stripped of every dollar he owned in the +world; and it was Rupert Alvin and Henry Cabot Winters who +were driving the other bankers to the job, sometimes against +their will, and even without their knowledge. The loan for three +millions had been agreed upon, and Mr. Winters had been instructed +to prepare the papers; but instead of doing so, he had +got one of the big banks in New York to call a loan suddenly, +and Mr. Alvin had brought up demands that the other bankers +had not known about—in short, everything had been tied up for +a month.</p> + +<p>Finally, in order to get half a million dollars in a hurry, poor +Jerry had had to turn over to the bankers all the stock of all +his companies. It was supposed to be a trusteeship—he had the +right to get the properties back any time within two years by +paying a million and a quarter; but the very day they got the +securities, the bankers, with Mr. Winters at their head, had set +to work to plunder the properties. They put in their own directors, +and barred Jerry Walker from access to the books, and +even barred him physically from the plants. They were disposing +of all the assets of the subsidiary companies, and loading +them up with debts and claims—everywhere Jerry turned he +found that some unknown lawyer had mysteriously appeared +with liens and suits. Everything was tied up, so that the real +owner of the properties could not get a dollar, and was going to +have to sell his home to get money to live.</p> + +<p>So that was that. The caribou was down, and his blood was +being drunk. Cornelia might wring her hands, and be very +sorry; she might shout at the wolves and scold them—whereat +they would lift their bloody jaws for a moment and grin at her. +“Of course, Mother,” said Henry, quite blandly and good-naturedly, +when next she met him—“of course, I told you an +untruth. What did you expect me to do?”</p> + +<p>“I expected you to have a sense of family loyalty.”</p> + +<p>“You have too good a mind to fool yourself with such an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> +argument, Mother. I have plenty of Thornwell family loyalty, +but not the least particle of Walker family loyalty. If you had +come to me for the truth about affairs of your own, you would +have had it; in case of need you might have had the last dollar +I own in the world. But when you let yourself be used by Jerry +Walker, to try to pull wires for him in the midst of a business +crisis—then you haven’t the least reason in the world to expect +me to give you any information to be carried back to him!—Yes, +of course, you didn’t mean to carry it back, but I assure +you Lucile expected to get it out of Betty, and Mrs. Walker +expected to get it out of Lucile. They have been cultivating an +intimacy with Betty for several years for exactly that purpose, +and I didn’t intend to let them succeed. When I told Rupert and +James about it, they agreed that I had done exactly right to +stall you.”</p> + +<p>“So you’re going to put Jerry Walker out of the felt business!”</p> + +<p>“Not at all, Mother. He knows felt well, and if he wants +a job as manager of one of the plants, we’ll pay him a good +salary. What he doesn’t know is finance, and we’re going to fix +him so he can’t lead the Boston banks into a smash.”</p> + +<p>“He was making a lot of money, Henry.”</p> + +<p>“A chimpanzee could make money right now, with the government +buying everything at any price you ask. But the war +will be over soon, and then will come the storm, and we’re going +to have a safer man than Jerry Walker at the helm of the ship.”</p> + +<p>So Cornelia went away, and watched the events of the next +few months, and decided no longer to think of her son-in-law +as a wolf. From now on she would see him as a large, black, +witty, urbane and charming spider. He lurked in a hole and +watched the business flies, and once in a while he made a pounce, +and sunk his fangs into a victim, and wove him round and +round with a ton or two of legal nets, until he could not move +a finger; after which he would be sucked dry of his financial +juices.</p> + +<p>In the case of the too enthusiastic manufacturer of felt, what +happened was that he struggled in the nets until his health broke +down; his hands trembled so that he could not hold a cup of +coffee, and he had to go to North Carolina for the winter and +play golf. While he was gone, the bankers sat down with his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> +lawyers, and convinced them that the victim stood not a chance +in the world, so the lawyers advised him to sign a release, forgiving +his enemies for all they had done to him, in consideration +of the sum of six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. For +this price he gave up properties which earned a million and +three-quarters net profit that year, and were worth about ten +millions on the market. The six hundred and twenty-five thousand +paid a part of his debts, and he sold his home to pay more, +and his family gave up their social ambitions and moved into +a cottage, and his daughter quit going to Radcliffe and went to +work.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it nice, Grannie?” said Betty. “When I get older, if +I behave, I’ll get a lot of Lucile’s money, and I can hire her—perhaps +to be a governess to my children. And Priscilla will +have a share of it too, and can found a charity home to take +care of Mr. and Mrs. Walker when they are old. And Cousin +Josiah”—that was Henry Winters’ one son—“he’ll have a bigger +share than any of us, to spend on women-chasing—I understand +that’s what he’s doing now. Aunt Alice will be able to retain her +adolescence—”</p> + +<p>“My child! Don’t say things like that!”</p> + +<p>“I’m talking in the family, Grannie. We members of the new +generation are going to be what you call hard-boiled. They are +raising us in war-time, and we’re getting used to plain language +and messy sights. I read in the paper that Mrs. Henry Cabot +Winters is planning a ‘little theater,’ in which her mystical poet’s +works are to be shown to the world as soon as the war is over. +If Aunt Alice wants to subsidize genius, why does she have to +pick out literary lounge-lizards and music-box monkeys?”</p> + +<p>Cornelia said, “Dear me, I am really getting old! The new +generation shocks me!”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_5"> + V +</h3> + +<p>There came a day when every able-bodied person in America +rushed out of his house, and fell on the necks of passersby and +danced and laughed and shouted and sang. Men threw their hats +into the air, or tied tin cans to the tails of automobiles and drove +up and down the streets. Three days later they all turned out +and did it again, because the first time had been a mistake, some +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> +news agency had been in too much of a hurry. But it was a big +enough war to deserve two armistice days, and even in State +Street one saw “blue-bloods” celebrating with bootblacks, and +high-hatted bankers forgetting their dignity for the first time in +their eighty years.</p> + +<p>This was a celebration in which even the pacifists could join. +The nation would have one or two hundred thousand cripples to +take care of—but at least you didn’t have to think of new thousands +being made every day! You could again expect people to +listen to reason, and could work at stopping the next war without +danger of arrest. The Kaiser had fled to Holland, and +there seemed a real prospect of that newly-promised world. +Such wonderful promises—a world fit for heroes, a world made +safe for democracy, a world in which the last war had been won +by the forces of justice! So we had been told in a golden glowing +speech at least once a week for a year and a half; and now +we were to see it made real. As a first step President Wilson +packed up his typewriter and his fourteen points, and went over +to Europe to oversee the making of a world charter. His packing +appeared to be careless, for he lost one of the points in +England—that providing for the “freedom of the seas”—and +had only thirteen when he landed in France.</p> + +<p>The American people had been told to trust him; he was the +President, and had sources of information not open to the rest +of us—so Deborah had assured her mother. But now it turned +out that he hadn’t any sources of information, or if he had, he +hadn’t used them. He had made no bargains whatever with the +allies, he had not made them give up a single one of their greedy +demands. And now, of course, it was too late; the danger was +over, the allies were no longer afraid, and would do exactly +what they pleased.</p> + +<p>It was a disillusioning experience, and was to produce ten +years of cynicism and corruption in every department of American +life. The climax came when the President capitulated to the +diplomatic ravens, and let them have their prey, and came home +and told the public that that was what his fourteen points had +meant. He did more than that—he went before a committee of +the Senate, and stated that he had not known about the secret +treaties until he went to Paris; which one had to take as Pascal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> +took the doctrine of his church, and believe it because it was +impossible.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_5"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>There were a few groups in America whose demands did not +depend upon the diplomats at Versailles; and among these were +the women. France might grab the Rhine, Japan might grab +Shantung—but what was to prevent American women from +having their rights at home? Surely the men were not making +such a success with their votes that they could spurn the help of +wives and sisters! Let us have a world made fit for heroines! +So the campaign of votes for women leaped into life in a score +of cities. In Washington the ladies began besieging senators +and congressmen, and elderly statesmen took to physical flight +from urgent feminine tongues. The militant suffragists began +carrying placards in front of the White House, and got themselves +arrested over and over again. It was most embarrassing, +because the jails in the national capital had been made for street-walkers +and Negro drunks, and had no accommodations for +ladies.</p> + +<p>The suffragists were divided into two groups, the respectable +ones, who made dignified speeches and circulated petitions and +got an inch in the newspapers once a month; and the militants, +who set themselves the goal of a front-page story twice a day, +and made it most of the time. Each of these two groups was +active in Boston—a city full of ladies who felt themselves competent +to take charge, not only of America, but of the world. +Each group laid siege to Cornelia Thornwell and her grand-daughter, +and the militants won. Another scandal in the Sewing +Circles, and another grief for a great family!</p> + +<p>Cornelia’s oldest daughter, Betty’s mother, was a vigorous +“anti.” Her enemies told a story about her, that one day when +company was expected, and many duties were clamoring, she +had locked herself in her study and made no response, and when +subsequent complaint was made, the answer was that she had +been writing an article on “Woman the Home-maker.” Jokes +like that gave annoyance to the “antis,” because it was so obvious +to them that nothing but the wicked activities of the +suffragists were dragging them out from the homes they loved, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> +and compelling them to become examples of the evil they feared. +Yes, the “wild women” had that power, and rejoiced in it; when +the “antis” hired a house on Park Street and opened up offices, +what should they see but a group of women marching back and +forth before their door, carrying a banner with a strange device:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>They say that home is woman’s sphere.</i></div> + <div class="verse indent4"><i>What are the antis doing here?</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The true “anti” was Cornelia’s youngest daughter, Clara +Thornwell Scatterbridge, who stayed at home with her eight +babies, and loved them and petted them and scolded them and +wept over them and saw that their various nurses and governesses +kept their noses wiped. Clara had no idea what a vote +looked like; but, alas, that didn’t get even an inch in the papers! +Nor did it have any appreciable effect when Alice Thornwell +Winters shrugged her beautiful white shoulders and lifted her +haughty eyebrows in scorn at the idea of sacrificing her feminine +charm. Neither did it help when she wrote more and larger +checks to pay for the “little theater” which was to produce the +plays of Chauncey Duvillier, dealing with ancient Erse legends +about dusky-haired promiscuous queens. The productions came +off, and were at once very “high-brow” and very “high-hat,” but +they did not seem to reduce the attendance at suffrage meetings.</p> + +<p>President Wilson had set his stern Presbyterian face against +the program of national suffrage. It was a question for the individual +states; thus spoke Sir Oracle, and when the female dogs +barked, he said it again. But such a thing had been known as +a great statesman changing his mind when made uncomfortable +enough. It was a fact that the women out west had got the vote +and were using it; Woodrow could not forget that it was California +which had elected him the last time, and might defeat his +party and his world policies the next time. A terrible thing to +contemplate having women vote, but a still worse thing to contemplate +having them vote Republican!</p> + +<p>The President came back from Europe in February, and the +suffragettes prepared a hearty welcome for him in New York. +It was more than he could face, in his nervous condition, with +that incredible statement he had to make to the Senate; so at +the last moment the route of his ship was changed, and it landed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> +at Boston. That put the burden onto the Boston suffragettes, +who had to organize a demonstration almost overnight. They +came rushing to Cornelia and Betty; would they help? Banners +must be got ready, asking urgent witty questions, and these must +be carried by ladies of absolutely indigo-colored blood; they +must be carried as close to the President as the police would +permit, and then a little closer; also the great man’s latest anti-suffrage +speech was to be burned in effigy on Boston Common.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_5"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>“Old Boston” is a city which has been laid out by cows. They +made tracks, and these became lanes, and the lanes have now +become narrow canyons of concrete and steel, made immutable +for all time by a court-house full of deeds with intricate specifications. +You may still see on Beacon Hill a house which has a +narrow archway built under one room—because in selling the +land the owner specified that access must for all time be left +for his cow to reach the Common. Now, instead of a cow, there +was coming a high-powered automobile bearing a long-featured +Presbyterian gentleman in frock coat and silk hat, under military +escort, with all the trappings of glory, and that unending +roar of applause which he had heard even from the billows in +mid-ocean. Patriotism in Boston was to have its day of rapture; +Democratic patriotism, taking in even the Irish-Catholics, and +marred only by the antics of twenty-two contumacious females, +who refused to accept a great statesman’s own definition of what +he meant by democracy.</p> + +<p>Among these twenty-two lady-pests was the widow of Josiah +Quincy Thornwell, former governor of the Commonwealth; also +Elizabeth Thornwell Alvin, daughter of the president of the +Pilgrim National Bank. But the names of these two were not +on the list furnished to the press; in that case the two would +have been spotted by the police, and denied the honor they +craved. They sallied forth with the other women, carrying +placards aloft, in the route of the procession; and promptly +they were snapped up, and hustled into a patrol wagon, and +landed in Joy Street police-station—most beautifully named of +public institutions in the home of the bean and the cod.</p> + +<p>The police had them—and what was to be done with them? +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> +The police had no idea. The one thing desired was to keep them +out of the newspapers; which was the one thing impossible to +achieve. They spent the entire day sitting in a room in the police-station, +with no food—save the knowledge that they would be +on the front page of all the afternoon newspapers! In the evening +they were taken to the “House of Detention” under the +Court House, where they slept on board benches covered with +black oil cloth. They rolled up their coats for pillows, and spread +newspapers to cover the dirt—but alas, the worst part of the dirt +had powers of locomotion. Cornelia, sitting up awake, watched +Betty sleeping, and counted twenty-one round black objects on +her newspapers, and in the morning some of the women’s ankles +were so swollen that they could not get on their shoes. Also +sleep was interfered with by the constant bringing in of drunken +women, who howled in loud voices what appeared to be a popular +song, “I love you as I never loved before.” In the morning +they filed out to a rusty iron sink to wash, and everyone had to +answer the question, “Are you a drunk or a suffragette?” But +these woes vanished in a blaze of glory when they discovered +that they had got a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of publicity +on the front pages of the morning newspapers—while the +respectable lady suffragists, who had presented a dignified petition, +had got one inch in each paper!</p> + +<p>Now they were going to be taken into court, and would refuse +to employ lawyers, and would make twenty-two eloquent suffrage +speeches. So they thought, but their captors thought otherwise. +For these publicity-seekers the constitution of the Commonwealth +was to be suspended, and trials were to be in secret +in one of the rooms of the prison! When they learned this, there +was a hasty consultation among the prisoners, and an agreement +not to recognize such an illegal tribunal. Until they were in +open court, no woman would say a word.</p> + +<p>Their enemies had a still more dastardly scheme; they were +going to deprive the little band of their most brightly shining +star. A jailer came in and demanded, “Which is Elizabeth +Alvin?”—and of course all the prisoners knew instantly what +that meant. Papa Banker had got busy and pulled some political +strings, and his daughter was to be bailed out, or spirited away, +or something—a vile plot! Betty made no sound or sign, and +neither did any one else; and presently came the young Irish +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> +policeman who had arrested and “booked” her. He had been +ordered to pick her out of the bunch—and a fine mess he made +of it!</p> + +<p>It so happened that in the course of a year and a half, Betty +was to be deeply concerned with the problem of identifications. +To what extent was it possible for bystanders, witnesses of a +crime, to describe the men who had committed the crime, and +to recognize them some time later? Human lives have depended +upon this problem, and not for the last time. Whenever Betty +and her grandmother thought about the matter, the first thing +that came to their minds was this experience in the Joy Street +police-station. Here was a policeman who had arrested Elizabeth +Alvin on the street, and marched her along for some distance, +in the meantime having a considerable argument with +her as to his right to destroy her banner, and his right to squeeze +and hurt her arm. He had put her into a patrol-wagon, and sat +opposite her during a ride of several blocks through crowded +streets, meantime gazing at her and speculating, what kind of +crazy loon was this that wanted a vote, when so many people +that he knew were glad to sell theirs for two dollars. Arriving +at the station-house, he had stood at the desk and booked her +for sauntering, loitering, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest—enough +offenses to keep her in jail until President Wilson’s +successor had been elected.</p> + +<p>And now, next morning, came this young policeman to pick +that young person out of a group of twenty-two, most of whom +could not possibly be the right one, because they were old like +Cornelia, or large and matronly, or tall and masterful, or in +some other obvious way not the young and sweet and lovely +Betty. She was the youngest in the crowd, and there were not +more than half a dozen others near her age. All she had done +to make the policeman’s task harder was to take off her brown +coat with beaver fur trimmings, and appear in a blue silk dress. +What all the women did was to stand or sit, completely unaware +of the policeman’s existence, while he wandered about, peering +into one face and then into another, obviously perplexed. He +had all the time he wanted, he had everything his own way—and +he got the wrong woman!</p> + +<p>He picked out a fashionable young matron, mother of two +blossoming babes, and said, “That’s the one.” The jailer commanded, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>“Come with me, Miss”—and when the young matron +remained unaware of his existence, he stooped in front of her, +and put one sturdy arm about her knees, and lifted her over +his shoulder, and carried her like a sack of meal, out of the +room and upstairs into the presence of the secret judge. He arrived +there, somewhat red and out of breath, and the young +matron no less so. Set down upon her two feet, she stamped +one of them, and glared at the judge and the jailer, and clenched +her two fists. “I will say just this and no more—I am <i>not</i> Betty +Alvin!”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_5"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>The night that Betty and Cornelia spent in jail there was +a gathering of the Thornwell clan: not summoned, but just happening, +because every Thornwell who got the report knew instantly +that it was his duty to repair to the Alvin home on Commonwealth +Avenue to offer aid and counsel.</p> + +<p>There was a general agreement that it would be useless to +get the two renegades out of jail until the President was out of +the city, because they would only get in again and make another +scandal. There was also agreement as to what should be done +with Betty; she must be shipped abroad by the very first +steamer. The war was over now, and while passports were not +being given for any but official purposes, it would be an easy +matter for Rupert to get what he wanted, and Betty would be +put in charge of some elderly respectable relative, and subjected +to the refining influences of Westminster Abbey and the Tower +of London and the National Gallery and the Nelson Column, +and later on to the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, and would +doubtless come back at the end of a year a lady like all the +other ladies who lived on Commonwealth Avenue, home of the +least common and most exclusive wealth in America.</p> + +<p>About Cornelia there was a sharp difference of opinion. One +group declared that the thing to do was to excommunicate her +and ignore her existence; while the other group wanted to have +her committed to an institution, where she would be treated +with the utmost kindness and consideration, but prevented from +bringing further disgrace upon an honorable family. The head +of this group was Uncle Abner, whose deaf man’s voice would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> +boom out in the drawing-room at intervals, “Lock her up!” The +others would try to explain objections to this plan, but he would +only say again, “Lock her up!” There are some advantages to +being deaf, it is so much easier to keep your opinions unchanged.</p> + +<p>Great-aunt Priscilla joined Abner’s group. She was tall and +thin, and suffered from anchylosis of the spine, which made it +painful for her to sit erect, but she never sat any other way in +public. She had the long lean face of her dead brother, Josiah, +and of Betty’s mother, Deborah; it sagged now, but the pouches +disappeared as she set her jaw in anger and declared, “It is the +proper thing to do in such cases. Everybody will agree that we +are justified.”</p> + +<p>“Not quite everybody, Aunt Priscilla,” said Henry Cabot +Winters. “Surely not the suffragettes.”</p> + +<p>“I am talking about people one mentions,” said the old lady.</p> + +<p>“But the suffragettes would say it was persecution,” objected +Deborah, “and they would make a great fuss.”</p> + +<p>“We should have them picketing this house!” added Rupert.</p> + +<p>That horrible idea silenced all of them but Abner. “Lock her +up!” said he; and when his son Quincy shouted into his ear, +“The suffragettes would object,” he answered, in good old Puritan +style, “Lock ’em all up!”</p> + +<p>There were many precedents that could be cited for this procedure, +and the old people did not fail to cite them. All you had +to do was to find a judge and a couple of doctors who sympathized +with the family predicament—and it would be easy +enough for Thornwells to do that. Great-uncle Ahab had become +violent at one time, due to his disappointment in love, and +had spent ten years alone in a wing of the Thornwell mansion, +with a keeper by day and another by night; he still had spells +of brooding, when similar action had to be contemplated. Such +emergencies arose in all “blue-blood” families—it was one of +the mysteries of the Lord’s mercy—and all physicians to the +rich were accustomed to signing certificates, and judges to +issuing commitments.</p> + +<p>Some such action might have come of this conference, had +it not been for Henry Cabot Winters, that witty, urbane and +charming black spider. He was nothing but an “in-law,” and not +really entitled to speak, but he did it none the less. “Cornelia is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> +eccentric, but she is not insane, and we all know it; she has +many friends who know it, and one of them is Morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Morrow?” said Great-aunt Priscilla. “Who brought Morrow +into it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Morrow as Cornelia’s physician would naturally expect +to be consulted; and I’m pretty sure you’d have him against +you.”</p> + +<p>“What makes you think that?” It was James Scatterbridge, +the great mill-owner, who had made some millions of yards of +bandages for soldiers who were not going to be wounded, and +was now very busy making clear to the government that he was +not going to give up his profit on these contracts. He had postponed +an important conference this evening, and if his mother-in-law +was going to be locked up, he wanted it done quickly.</p> + +<p>Said Henry, “Cornelia told me that Rupert dropped a hint +of something of the sort to her, and she decided she would take +the precaution to have a chat with Morrow, and tell him her +story, and all her ideas. He was very much amused, of course—at +least that is what Cornelia reported.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, it is <i>most</i> amusing!” snapped Great-aunt Priscilla. +“The newspapers are finding it so, and no doubt their readers. +But is that what we have been paying Morrow for—some fifty +years, I believe?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the lawyer, “you certainly can’t offer to pay him +to declare Cornelia <i>non compos</i>; at least, I don’t think he would +take the money. So it looks as if we’d have to forget our black +sheep.”</p> + +<p>“Well, at least let her take her own Irish name!” This parting +shot of the old lady made Deborah and Alice wince—because, +after all, the black sheep with the Irish name was their mother. +That is the difficulty in these family councils—there are so many +toes to be trod upon! It was safer to be deaf, like Great-uncle +Abner, and go on saying, over and over, “Lock her up!”</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_5"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Three days after this conference Great-uncle Ahab was walking +home on a stormy night, and fell and struck his head. He +lay in the snow for some time before he was found, and a few +hours later he was ill with pneumonia, and next day was in a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> +critical condition. The family came in haste—including his +brother Abner, somewhat embarrassed after fifty-three years of +estrangement. He tried to refer to the matter, but Ahab was +in a delirium. That was “old Boston’s” idea of drama—an old +man who could hear very little shouting to another old man who +would never hear anything. They talked about it in the clubs for +quite a while.</p> + +<p>Also they talked about the funeral, which was an imposing +affair, the same as Josiah’s—for after all, Thornwells were +alike in the eyes of the Lord, even though in the eyes of the +world one might be a governor and the other a manic depressive. +The ceremony was held in the house which Ahab had sawed in +half in order to get away from his brother; and all through +the ceremony you heard the dead man’s half dozen hairless +Chinese dogs howling their heads off in an upstairs room—it +was most uncanny. When the will was read the family kept it +secret—which of course put everybody on tiptoe with curiosity, +and caused the newspapers to give it special prominence when it +was filed for probate. One provision read, “I leave my beloved +dogs to my sister Priscilla, whom they remind of newly born +mice.” Another said, “I leave my half house to serve as a home +for elderly gentlemen of good family who can prove that they +have been robbed by their relatives.” Finally, his income from +stocks and bonds of the Thornwell Mills Company was to be +used to establish a chair at some New England theological seminary +which would agree to have a course of lectures delivered +every year under the auspices of “The Ahab Adams Thornwell +Foundation for the Precise and Final Refutation of the Lyman +Beecher Interpretation of the Doctrine of Infant Damnation as +Expounded in Holy Writ.” Ahab had heard Lyman Beecher at +the age of twenty-five, and had waited sixty years to have him +precisely and finally refuted.</p> + +<p>At family funerals the hardest hearts are softened and the +fiercest prides are humbled. Betty remembered that Great-uncle +Ahab had once given her a pony, riding it all the way to her +home, with his long legs reaching to the ground. So it was a +good time for her mother to plead with her. Yes, Betty would +promise to engage in no further public disturbances until she +had finished that year at Radcliffe; and thereafter she was +willing to spend a year abroad and become cultured—could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> +Grannie go with her? The little minx asked it quite soberly; +and Deborah, equally without trace of a smile, explained that +the family was under great obligations to Cousin Letitia Adams +Quincy, who had nursed Betty once as a little girl, while Deborah +herself had been in Europe.</p> + +<p>Cousin Letitia was a third or fourth cousin—one of those who +had arrived too early for the funeral of Josiah, and got out +and walked about the estate for half an hour, in order not to +make herself conspicuous. Because of such behavior she was +known as a perfect lady, and now was to receive the poor relation’s +ultimate reward. Deborah had interviewed her and ascertained +that she had read nothing since “The Marble Faun”—except +the “Sunday School Examiner’s Bulletin” and the religious +and genealogical pages of the <i>Transcript</i>. She was +judged immune to the contagion of redness, and the right person +to chaperon Betty’s grand tour. The girl accepted her with +a meekness which would have made Deborah suspicious, if the +latter’s natural shrewdness had not been smothered under a +heavy load of self-sufficiency.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_5"> + X +</h3> + +<p>It was high time to get excitable young rebels out of the +country; the family realized that more and more clearly every +day. For it appeared that the signing of the armistice was not +going to mean peace; not even the signing of a treaty would +mean it. Our troops were to stay in Germany; worse yet, they +were to stay in Siberia and Archangel, and wage President Wilson’s +private war upon the Russian people. The American army +and navy were to serve as a world police-force for the capitalist +system. Exactly what Cornelia had seen the Boston police do +in Plymouth, the national police were going to do all over +Europe and Asia, sometimes under our command, sometimes +under British command. And any persons at home who objected +to this program would be hit over the head with the so-called +espionage act; a law enacted to punish enemy spies, and now +serving to jail American citizens for protesting against attacks +upon a friendly people without a declaration of war.</p> + +<p>It was the White Terror. Conducted partly by mobs, and +partly by police and government agents acting as mobs, it had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> +for its aim the destruction of every means through which the +American people might learn how their blood and treasure were +being wasted. It stopped at no crime; the law-enforcers of city, +state and nation became the leading criminals. In New York +four Russian boys and a girl, all of them under age, attempting +to distribute a circular protesting against the invasion of Russia, +were seized by the police and tortured until one of them died; +the rest were prosecuted in the federal courts and received sentences +of twenty years’ imprisonment.</p> + +<p>Such things were happening all over the country, and made +trouble for well-meaning persons like Cornelia, who sought to +argue for constitutional methods. How could she ask her friend +Vanzetti to settle the grievances of the workers by political +action, when again and again socialist candidates were thrown +off the ballot, or, when elected, were denied their seats? How +could she urge him to obey the law, when the law-makers and +law-enforcers themselves defied it? A year or two ago Vanzetti +had made to her the statement, “Capitalist is most fighting man +in whole world”; and never did the capitalist work harder +to prove that the anarchist was right.</p> + +<p>The victims of this White Terror would strike back; and if +they struck blindly, it was the way the lesson had been taught +them. May Day was an occasion for celebration of the Russian +revolution by all who believed in it; and on the day before May +Day, a package arrived by mail at the home of a United States +senator in Georgia, especially conspicuous for his “red-baiting.” +The package was opened by a Negro maid, and exploded and +blew her to pieces. That led to hurried searches, and the finding +of a score or so of bombs in the New York post-office, addressed +to various persons of prominence, and detained because they had +not enough postage paid.</p> + +<p>May Day came in Boston, with that terrible news upon the +front page of the papers. The socialists had several meetings +scheduled—and they were a legal party, not advocating violence +in any form. But this was a distinction the newspapers and those +who controlled them were anxious to conceal. When the audience +emerged from one hall, and attempted to march down the +street to another hall where there was another meeting, they +were set upon by three hundred policemen and a mob of soldiers +and sailors, thoroughly “americanized” by a year in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span> +Europe. The socialists, and many innocent passers-by who happened +to look foreign, were chased through the streets, hunted +out in stores where they sought refuge, and pummeled and +clubbed into insensibility. The police loaded them into patrol-wagons, +and then beat them over the heads while in the wagons; +they loaded them into trucks, and permitted the soldiers and +sailors to beat them—there were even cases of policemen lending +their clubs to members of the mob who thought some victim +insufficiently mishandled. They raided the second hall and beat +up the audience; the fighting went on for two or three hours, +until four persons were killed, and a hundred and sixteen +dragged off to jail. Among them was a son of Boris Sidis, of +Harvard, and H. W. L. Dana, a grandson of Henry Wadsworth +Longfellow and of Richard Henry Dana.</p> + +<p>So once more Cornelia heard the thud of hickory clubs on +human flesh and bone. This time Betty heard it too, and both +of them had to run for their lives. They got into a cab and +drove home, both trembling so that they could hardly use their +hands, both white and tearful, with a mixture of fear and rage. +They spent hours of anguish together, telephoning to find out +who had been killed and who had been hurt and who was in +jail; then to get lawyers, and persons with property for bail-bonds—all +the routine so familiar to the seasoned “radical,” and +so startling to the newcomer who still believes in his country.</p> + +<p>In the morning Cornelia would go to court, and perhaps +serve as a witness. Betty could do nothing but return to college +and keep quiet, and hope that no one would report her to her +parents. She had not meant to break her promise—but how +could one know that going to a socialist meeting was disorderly +conduct?</p> + +<p>Judge Hayden was the magistrate presiding at the trials, a +majestic gentleman, as they all tried to be. But under the strain +of his intense patriotism, he forgot his dignity, and broke loose +and delivered tirades—and not at the police for lending their +clubs to be used in beating socialists. He did not punish a single +one of the assailants, but sent the victims to jail for varying +terms. “The uneducated and the overeducated,” was one of his +sneers—which sounded peculiar in Boston.</p> + +<p>It was to be expected that when the next lot of bombs went +off, one of them should tear out the front of Judge Hayden’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> +home. In Constantinople under the rule of the sultans it was +said that the state of social discontent could be ascertained from +the number of fires which occurred in the city; when the number +increased unduly, some grafting officials would be strangled, +and the fires would grow fewer. But Boston is not an easy-going +place like old Turkey; Boston is a Puritan stronghold, and +its rulers are stiff-necked. The more numerous the bombs, the +more they would increase the causes of bombs. The answer of +the authorities to the bombing of Judge Hayden was to put +Galleani on a steamer and ship him back to Italy; also to plant +several spies among the Boston anarchists.</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_5"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>This was while Betty was saying good-by to her friends, including +these same anarchists. Without a word to the family, +Betty and her grandmother stole away to visit a band of desperados +who were at that time the theme of thousands of words +in the files of the Department of Justice, the American Protective +League, and the million-dollar detective agencies. They +actually spent a night in an anarchist home in Plymouth, and +listened to jokes about “bombe di pistacchio,” and heard Vanzetti’s +story of old Galleani’s parting from his wife and four +children.</p> + +<p>This was one of the ingenious new methods of torture which +the White Terror had devised. They would grab a man in the +middle of the night and lock him up in a police cell, and badger +him there until he admitted that he did not believe in government, +or that he regarded government as an affair of violence—something +they made it easy enough to admit! They would then +present the confession to the immigration authorities, and a +warrant of deportation would be signed, and the victim would +be taken secretly on board a steamer—his wife and children +left behind, with no money to follow him, and nothing but to +beg or starve.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti had given up his “picka shov’.” His friends had +urged that the work was too hard for him, and he had invested +his savings in a fish business belonging to an Italian who was +going home. “Fish-business” sounded most impressive—until +you learned that it consisted of a hand-cart, a pair of scales, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> +and a route. Twice a week he got a barrel or two of fish, either +from the docks or by express from Boston, and shoved his hand-cart +about, ringing a bell and calling, “Pay-shee! Pay-shee!” +He had had this same kind of business once before, said Alfonsina, +but had not been successful, because he let everybody +owe him money. This time he had promised to run it on a strictly +cash basis. Vanzetti grinned, and said that it was a “mosta good +business,” because he met all the Italian women and children in +Plymouth, and they got to know him and feel friendly, and he +would say a few words about “joostice,” and when there was to +be a meeting or a “picanic,” no one could “distriboot” circulars +or sell tickets so well as he.</p> + +<p>Trando had saved up his money and bought himself a three-quarter +size violin for ten dollars, and a bow for two and a +half, and had had several lessons and learned to play a tune. +Of course he was made to exhibit this accomplishment, with +Bart serving as master, keeping the time with an erect forefinger, +cocking his head on one side and judging critically the +pitch of the notes, which were apt to vary slightly from the +normal. It was “Old Black Joe,” a very sad tune, and there +were tears in Alfonsina’s eyes at the finish—though perhaps +they were tears of pride, that this marvelous thing should be +coming from her precious little boy. Through the years that +were to come Trando was to play that tune many times for +Bart, under circumstances that would bring tears into the eyes +of all who heard it.</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_4"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>They climbed Castle Hill, and picked a few of the wild +flowers, and watched the sail-boats on the bay. It was a parting +for Betty and Bart, and both of them were moved, though +Bart said, “Maybe I come see you in Europe pretty soon. +I think I not be let in this countree mooch time; get shoore +catched and sended home. Pretty soon it come trooble in +Italy, maybe rivoluzione—make American afraid for have +Italian here.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you won’t mind going back to Italy.” It was Betty +speaking.</p> + +<p>“Shoore not, get free tickets, mooch pleas-èd. I glad for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> +be lonely man, no family for suffer. I fraid for man like +Vincenzo, like Nick Sacc’—they catch heem, send away—mooch +trooble for family. Come mooch spy—come spy in cloob in +East Boston—all time spy watch. But he not tell true story, +tell bombe, make people hate anarchista.”</p> + +<p>Vanzetti paused, and watched the sail-boats for a while. +“Sooch a lovely place, is hard to t’ink so ugly thing can be +in the world. You meet Yankee man, he is a good feller; you +laugh, you make joke, he is please, he think wop is all right, +pretty good. But next day he take you, put you in jail, beat +you with rubber hose, hang you up by finger, torture you +terrible. Is hard to believe, but it happens all time, plenty +fellers in cloob can tell. I say, I not give up, not stand sooch +thing, I fight. I keep gun all the time now.” And Bart patted +his hip, where a large lump was evident.</p> + +<p>“Have you shot that gun off yet?” inquired Betty.</p> + +<p>“Shoore, I take it in wood, I practice, he shoot pretty good.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s not only the gun, it’s the gunner. You need a +lot of practice, Bart, if you’re going to shoot it out with the +police.” It was Betty again, and her grandmother was dismayed. +Where on earth did she pick up slang—“shoot it out!” +And where had she acquired that matter-of-fact smile, discussing +the mad idea of resisting arrest? Truly, the new generation +was traveling fast, and their elders had to “keep on the +jump.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia knew that if you objected to what the new generation +did or said, it would refrain from arguing with you, but +would relegate you to the storeroom of the “has-beens,” and +forbear to take you in its confidence. But in her own head +she pondered and worried. Betty’s pacifist convictions had apparently +not been able to stand the strain of that “May Day +riot” in Boston.</p> + +<p>One of the children came up to report that there were men +at the house to see Bart. There were two Italians with a motorcycle +and a side-car. Cornelia recollected their faces, from +the night of the dramatic performance in Stoughton. She was +introduced to them again, Coacci and Orciani, workingmen +and anarchist propagandists. The former had just recently +been arrested for deportation, and was now under a thousand-dollar +bond. They talked in Italian, and then drove off, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> +Bart brought in from another room a package which the two +had left; he laughed and told Betty and Cornelia that it was +a bomb, and these two had advised him not to let the strange +Yankee ladies into the secret, because, after all, who could say +they might not be spies?</p> + +<p>The package was big enough for a bomb, to blow up a +whole cordage-plant. It was heavy; and when Bart cut the +string and opened it, they saw what his joke meant—it contained +what he liked to call “mental dinnameet.” There were +a dozen copies of a book, bound in red paper covers, brilliant +enough to send a man to jail for ten years in Massachusetts. +Bart handled the books with loving pride, because they were +published by the “Gruppo Autonomo di East Boston,” and +he had helped raise the money to make the enterprise possible. +“Faccia à Faccia col Nemico” was the title, “Face to Face with +the Enemy.” It was a series of biographies of the anarchist +martyrs, with their pictures. It was needed in this crisis, to remind +the comrades how the heroes of past times had been able +to withstand torture and persecution, almost as bad as the White +Terror in America. Bart had taken orders for this book among +the Plymouth comrades, and now he said, “I take heem queeck, +I get him distriboot, never let policeman catch heem, giammai!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_3"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia went back to Boston to raise funds for the families +of the May Day victims; while Betty and Cousin Letitia went +to New York, accompanied by Deborah, and with a proper +amount of tears and handkerchief-waving were started on their +grand tour. The Thornwell clan breathed a sigh of relief when +the young madcap was actually at sea.</p> + +<p>For the first month it seemed all right. Betty was in London. +“And Mother,” she wrote, “it is quite like Boston; New England +is really Old England. I look out of my hotel window +and see thousands of brick buildings stained with smoke, and +chimney-pots and dormer-windows through a haze—I might +be looking north from Beacon Hill. I really do not see that +one has to leave Boston to get culture, but I am doing what +you wish. We are going to-night to study the British labor +party at a big mass-meeting in Albert Hall. I am assured +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> +that the police will not club the audience as it comes out. It +was kind of you not to tell Aunt Letitia too much about my +‘redness’; she is so gentle and innocent, everything is educational +to her. I am going to learn a lot, and only hope you +and father won’t mind if I study live people instead of dead +ones.”</p> + +<p>That was a hint of trouble; but it was nothing to what came +a week later from Cousin Letitia. “Dear Cousin Deborah: We +are having a <i>most delightful</i> time in London—I will <i>never</i> be +able to find words to express my gratitude to <i>you</i> and <i>Cousin +Rupert</i> for affording me this greatest and <i>undreamed</i> of opportunity—for +such it was, I assure you—though perhaps in some +<i>secret</i> corner of my soul I did cherish the <i>dream</i>. Betty is the +<i>dearest</i> child, and <i>most</i> companionable, and tractable in every +way. To add to the <i>perfection</i> of our happiness, who should +turn up in London yesterday but dear Aunt Cornelia Thornwell! +It was Betty who saw her, in the lobby of our hotel. +‘It is <i>Grannie</i>!’ she exclaimed; and at first I could hardly believe +my <i>eye-sight</i>. <i>Imagine</i> such a coincidence—here in far-off +London! <i>Truly</i> the world <i>is</i> getting smaller. She was called +over here unexpectedly upon business. We have decided to go +to Paris, and put off seeing London Bridge and the Tower until +later.”</p> + +<p>And then, a week after that, another letter from Betty. “I +hope you and Father will not be too much annoyed by Grannie’s +following us to Europe. She says she just got too lonesome +and couldn’t stand it. The older generation is very stubborn, +I find, and difficult to control. I will try hard to keep her out +of trouble. She has letters of introduction to leading statesmen, +but we are going to see the Eiffel Tower first, so as to +be regular tourists. It was very good of you to leave our +itinerary to our own choice, and we are availing ourselves of +this freedom. Next week we leave for Buda-Pesth. There +are some officials whom Grannie wishes to meet, and they may +not be there long, because governments change swiftly in Europe +nowadays. Cousin Letitia has read that there are very +fine gypsy orchestras in Hungary, and this thrills her repressed +Puritan soul. I hope you and Father will not blame this poor +dear lady for anything that may go wrong with our tour, because +she is really as good as gold, though too naïve to cope +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> +with the present world situation. She is invited to lunch with +a prominent editor or member of the house of deputies, and +it does not occur to her to ask whether he is royalist or communist. +She says, ‘I suppose it is not the custom for these European +men to trim their beards or their finger-nails.’ But +do not worry about us, because we are learning a great deal.”</p> + +<p>That letter alarmed Deborah, but it seemed worse yet when +Rupert came home that evening and read it and told her about +Hungary. There had been a Bolshevik revolution in that country, +and the “officials” whom Cornelia and Betty were going to meet +were no doubt some blood-thirsty “commissars,” Jews and ex-convicts +who were slaughtering the men and nationalizing the +women of several empires. Rupert knew all about it, because he +had before him a proposition for financing the overthrow of these +“officials” in the interest of European stability; he had that +very day been investigating the prospects for having the bonds +of a new counter-revolutionary government absorbed by the +Hungarian population of New England. He had lunched with +a man who had explained the details of the plan, and had +prepared a schedule of the subsidies required to obtain the +support of the Hungarian-American press. The world was +growing more and more complicated, and the tasks of a leader +of high finance made him sit up nights and study geography.</p> + +<p>“My God,” said the tormented father, “I suppose there’s +only one thing left—they’ll be going to Russia!” Which showed +what a great mind he had. For two weeks later came another +communication from Mistress Betty, as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I suppose you poor dears are going to be truly shocked +by this news, and I am sorry, but there is no helping it. +Grannie and I are leaving to-morrow for Saratov, which is +in Southern Russia. It is the place where that crazy yarn about +the nationalizing of women got its start, and we are going to +see for ourselves. We had the extraordinary good fortune to +run into a man whose head Grannie bandaged up after it was +broken by the police in the Plymouth cordage strike. Now he is +to take charge of the railroads in a province as big as the whole +of New England, and says he has an underground way to get +through the allied lines without danger. It is just like Boston +here, you can do anything if you have money. It is going to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> +a most educational experience, and you must not worry about +us. The world is changing rapidly, and nothing could be more +important than to watch the new political forms in the act of +evolving. When these changes come to America, somebody will +have to understand them.</p> + +<p>“Please do not worry about Cousin Letitia, who is perfectly +safe and happy in Buda-Pesth. We have taken the precaution +to introduce her to influential people on both sides, so she will +be all right whichever comes out on top. Meantime she is handing +out half loaves of bread to the starving children of war-refugees. +That is charity, and she understands it. In the evenings +she hears a gypsy orchestra, in company with an elderly +Hungarian playwright who speaks fluent English, and has become +completely absorbed in the maiden-lady from Boston. I +think she is the first one he ever met, and he has the idea she +will be wonderful in a play; the only trouble is that European +audiences would consider it a fairy-tale. I do hope you will not +blame Cousin Letitia because of Grannie. She could not possibly +have the idea there is anything wrong about a grandmother. +When she was in school, she was taught to admire the +revolutionary leaders of New England, and now that she meets +those in Europe, she finds them highly educated men.</p> + +<p>“We only plan to stay in Russia one or two months. Grannie +has promised to return in the fall, to teach a course in the causes +of modern war at the labor college which will be opened in +Boston if the police do not smash it. I expect to come back to +Buda-Pesth and take a job with some relief organization—any +one that will accept a person who has been in Russia. At present +the Interallied Food Mission is refusing all aid to the starving +children of Red Hungary. That is Mr. Herbert Hoover’s +amiable method of bringing back the Whites, and it should earn +him everlasting infamy in American and Hungarian history.</p> + +<p>“I hope you won’t mind if I find some way to earn my own +keep; there is a hard time in the relation between parents and +children, when the parents have to realize that their little ones +are grown up. I will continue to let Father send me money if +he wants to; I will not refuse a dollar that will keep some child +alive for a month. The suffering in all Eastern Europe is +atrocious—I have seen sights that would make any darling of +luxury grow up in a hurry. Be patient with Grannie and me, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> +and realize that we love you all, in spite of not doing what you +want; we are acting according to the dictates of our consciences, +and where would New England be in history if some people +had not done that?</p> + +<p class="right pr2 mth"> + “Affectionately your daughter, +</p> +<p class='right pr1'> + “Elizabeth.” +</p> +</blockquote> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII"> + CHAPTER VII<br> +<span class='chap-title'>DEPORTATION DAYS</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Rupert Alvin would have worried more about his runaway +daughter, if he had not had so many troubles at home to keep +him occupied. It seemed as if all the devils in Puritan New +England broke loose that summer of 1919. There were a couple +of million soldier boys turned out of the training camps, and +flotilla loads returning from France, and no jobs to go round. +They took to crime, to bootlegging, to striking, to demanding +bonuses, to all kinds of behavior which kept bankers lying awake +at night. The war-orders, the great prop of prosperity, had +been pulled from underneath, and business was like a man +waking up on the morning after a celebration.</p> + +<p>The cost of living had been going up all through the war, +but now it went faster than ever; there was a shortage of +everything, and nobody could live on his salary. Out in Seattle +there was a general strike, almost a revolution; while close at +home, in Lawrence, a strike of the mill-workers had to be put +down by kidnaping the leaders and beating them insensible with +brass “knucks” and blackjacks. And then, in Boston, the most +incredible event of all—a strike of policemen! Of the safest +“cops” in the whole of civilization, Irish-Catholics trained in +humility and obedience in parochial schools especially established +for the purpose! Truly, it seemed the end of Rupert Alvin’s +world.</p> + +<p>The policemen had been grumbling about their wages all +through the year. Some were getting as low as ninety-two dollars +a month, and how could a man keep a family on that? +They grumbled about the way they were housed—many of them +in that old Joy Street station, which had been built before the +Civil War, and was dirty and verminous. They went on grumbling, +and the authorities went on putting them off—for if +you paid living wages to policemen, what would be left for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> +politicians? In August the grumblers formed a union, and joined +the American Federation of Labor. Treason and red rebellion +under the very shadow of Bunker Hill monument, on the very +steps of “Funnel” Hall!</p> + +<p>There were at this time two great banking groups competing +for the mastery of Boston’s affairs; like the wars of the Guelphs +and the Ghibellines in ancient Florence. Parker, Jones and +Company, one of these concerns, stood in with the city administration, +and their Democratic mayor appointed them as a +committee to sit down with the leaders of the union and work +out a settlement. The policemen were to get their “raise,” and +everything would be polite. But they had omitted to consult +Rupert Alvin and the Pilgrim National crowd; and Rupert +was incensed that his dignity should thus be flouted. Also, he +had religious convictions on the subject of labor unions. For +policemen to organize and wring concessions by threats was a +challenge to the very being of the state. If a Democratic mayor +were allowed to bargain with Democratic Irish-Catholic labor +leaders, and pay out the city’s money under duress, the Republican +Rupert might as well retire from his job of running +Massachusetts and Europe.</p> + +<p>He consulted first with Henry Cabot Winters, as was his +custom; then he got his associates together and told them his +plan. Never would there be another such opportunity to teach a +lesson to the forces of disorder. The policemen’s union must +be broken, its leaders driven from the force, and not a man +who went on strike should ever again be employed by the city. +Rupert carried his point, and the heads of the Chamber of +Commerce were called in and won over, and the police commissioner +was summoned and told of the decision. Fortunate +indeed that this official was appointed by the governor and not +by the mayor, and so was a “blue-blood” and not a demagogue!</p> + +<p>The business men of the city had rallied to defend their +property. The president of Harvard had offered a thousand +students, and all these volunteers were ready to go on patrol-duty +the moment they were called. The policemen had given +ample notice; they would strike at five forty-five o’clock on +the afternoon of September ninth; and moreover they left four +hundred of the old men to protect property. But it was Rupert’s +plan to teach the city, and indeed the whole country, a lesson +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> +by a demonstration of what it meant for policemen to form +a labor union. To that end the old policemen were kept shut +up in headquarters, and the volunteers were not summoned +until nine o’clock the next morning. For one whole night Boston +was to be without any police protection whatever; and to +make assurance doubly sure, one of the big detective agencies +supplied a few men to throw bricks through the windows of +department-stores and start things moving. That the plotters +had actually done this was never proved, but you would meet +many “blue-bloods,” familiar with the gossip of the clubs, who +were certain that it had been done; and several years later, when +Boston saw its leading bankers on the witness-stand in the case +of Jerry Walker, and heard them lying about how they had got +possession of the felt-industry of New England—then Boston +was ready to believe anything about bankers!</p> + + +<h3 id="II_6"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Whoever started it, the windows were smashed, and men and +boys jumped through the holes and helped themselves to what +they wanted; you saw women sitting on the curb-stones, fitting +themselves with expensive shoes. There were many hold-ups +that night, and some rape; more horrifying yet, there were crap-games +going on the Common—on the very steps of the State +House with its golden dome. It is characteristic of Boston that +this breach of decorum was the thing which stamped itself upon +the public mind, and stands out in unwritten history. Three hundred +crap-games in broad daylight—that shows you what the +mob is like, and what would happen if there were no hickory +clubs to hold it down!</p> + +<p>The merchants of the city were in a panic, putting up barricades +in front of their shops, arming their clerks and spending +the night in a state of siege. The picture of Boston in the hands +of its criminal element had gone all over the country; Boston +papers had made a fearful panic, and the faithful press agencies +had spread it; so Rupert’s lesson had been taught, and it was +time for the city to be saved. The mayor called out some of +the state militia—under an old law he had the right to call the +part which belonged to Boston. He wanted to call the rest, but +for this an order from the governor was needed; and here +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> +came an unexpected hitch in the program of “law and order.”</p> + +<p>The representative of Anglo-Saxon superiority in the State +House happened to be a gentleman by the name of Calvin +Coolidge, whose story is one of the oddest ever invented by +that Great Novelist who makes up history. A thin-lipped, tight +little man, a petty lawyer and bill-collector from the western +part of the state, “Cal” had got elected to the legislature, and +attracted the attention of the Republican boss because he always +did exactly what he was told, and never said a word that could +be left unsaid. If a politician has an opinion he is bound to +offend somebody; so, obviously, the wise course is to have no +opinion on any subject. Strange, that no one ever thought of +it before “Cautious Cal”!</p> + +<p>The man who ran the Republican state machine through this +period was a multimillionaire senator by the name of Murray +Crane. He had established for his good political boys what was +known as the “escalator system,” or the “Massachusetts ladder.” +So long as they took orders, and kept themselves presentable +to the voters, he would promote them regularly, step +by step. It was a slow process, and you were old when you got +to the top, but Massachusetts liked that, it is old itself. In this +case, however, there developed a phenomenon known as “Coolidge +luck”; as if the fates were amusing themselves by boosting +this feeblest man in the state machine. Among the legislators +aspiring to the state senate there existed a “rotation agreement”; +there was never any competition at the primaries, each town +took its turn. But the man ahead of Coolidge died, and he +jumped into the place. Then, as a state senator who had never +made a speech, he learned that the man in line for president +of the senate had attacked woman suffrage. When the suffragists +asked the views of Calvin, he shut the tightest and thinnest +pair of lips in Massachusetts. The women attacked the +other man and beat him at the polls, and Calvin presented his +claims to the boss, and became president of the senate. Clear +the way!</p> + +<p>Next it happened that the man who was scheduled to become +lieutenant-governor made the mistake of speaking in favor of +prohibition. Again Calvin kept his masterly silence, and the +liquor interests switched to him, and he was nominated. He +served two terms as lieutenant-governor, at a time when everybody +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> +was sick of politics, and was pleased with a man who said +nothing and did nothing. As a reward they made him governor; +and now here was a crisis, and two big groups of bankers pulling +him this way and that! There was nothing for him but +physical flight, and for twenty-four hours no one connected +with the government knew where the governor was to be found.</p> + +<p>At last Rupert dug him out, on the farm of Murray Crane, +who had pushed him up the escalator. They had a night session, +and Calvin heard such things as never will be printed in +any history-book. When the time came to call out the state +guard, he did what he was told; the machine-guns went into +action on Boston Common, and fired a whole volley of shots +heard round the world.</p> + +<p>As for Calvin, he waited several days, until it was evident +that Rupert’s strategy had been successful; public sentiment +had turned against the strikers. Then Calvin rushed forward, +waving in his hand a telegram to Samuel Gompers, proclaiming +in clarion tones: “There is no right to strike against the +public safety, by anybody, anywhere, at any time!” That was, +of course, what the capitalist press wanted at the moment; the +governor’s proclamation took the front page all the way from +Boston to Seattle—where there had been a rival strike and a +rival hero. One of these two masterful men was destined to +become vice-president and then president of the United States +on the basis of his heroism; while the other was destined to +become a super salesman of real estate, unloading ten thousand +subdivision lots upon admiring “come-ons.” Which hero was +to be which was a matter of a toss-up in a hotel-room, at the +tail end of a long-drawnout political convention. It may have +been “Coolidge luck”—and again, it may have been the fact +that the Massachusetts leaders were able to certify that here +was a man who had never once expressed an opinion in twenty +years of public life, and had never once questioned an order +from Murray Crane, who had pushed him up the escalator.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_6"> + III +</h3> + +<p>This police strike cost the community three million dollars; +nor did the community make it up out of policemen’s wages, +because it granted to the new men more than it had refused to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> +the old. But that was all right to Rupert Alvin. In the first +place, it wasn’t his money; and in the second place, it was not +a question of money, but of what he called “principle”—meaning +the bankers’ right to have their way. The “mob” really had +learned a lesson; there would be no more crap-shooting on the +Common, and no more labor unions among public servants.</p> + +<p>Neither Rupert nor any of his crowd reckoned the dumb +resentment smoldering in the hearts of fourteen hundred men, +who had thought themselves guardians of law and order, and +now discovered that they were pawns in a game of power. These +men had been pleading for a living for themselves and their +families; they had been polite enough, humble enough—until +they saw these qualities unheeded. They had served the city +faithfully—some for twenty or thirty years; even the Back Bay +admitted the virtues of those whom it knew. You would hear +ladies of the Sewing Circle exclaim, “What do you suppose +has become of that lovely policeman who used to help us across +Boylston Street in front of Trinity Church? The one that got +books from the library, and asked for something about the +Æneid!” That story, told by the librarian, had been a tradition +of the Back Bay forever after. So appropriate to Boston, to +have a policeman who got books from the library, and actually +appreciated the Æneid!</p> + +<p>Cornelia Thornwell came back from Russia to find her city +in a grim mood, with armed soldiers patrolling all the streets. +The time for nonsense was past, the Bolshevik menace was going +to be put down. The word “nonsense” included the fact +that an elderly woman, once of high respectability, but now +badly “cracked,” had run away from her family and spent +two months in Soviet Russia. Cornelia found that no newspaper +in Boston manifested interest in what she had done; none desired +to tell its readers about the condition of women in that +city of Saratov where the “nationalization” story had started. +No, the Boston papers wanted highly flavored horrors, invented +by tsarist refugees in Riga and Helsingfors and Warsaw and +Bucharest and Constantinople; they would pay the tolls to have +such inventions cabled, but they wanted no facts which could +be got by sending a reporter to an apartment on the north side +of Beacon Hill.</p> + +<p>Privately, of course, some of the “blue-bloods” got a tremendous +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>“kick” out of Cornelia’s story. Henry Cabot Winters +came to dinner and spent a most interesting evening. Quincy +Thornwell came, and loaded up with stories to tell to the guests +at Mrs. Jack Gardner’s. That was gossip, and gossip has always +been the privilege of good society. But when it came to public +utterances—to a newspaper interview, or a speech at some +meeting—that was a different matter; that was Bolshevik propaganda, +undermining the bases of American civilization. The +word Bolshevism had become the worst of all terms of abuse, +and covered everything in the modern world you did not like. +The Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce issued a pronouncement +to the effect that the new prohibition amendment was a +Bolshevik conspiracy!</p> + +<p>Rupert Alvin declined to meet his mother-in-law. He might +have got from her first-hand information as to the outcome +of his enterprise to overthrow the communist régime in Hungary, +but he would not sacrifice his dignity by admitting that +Cornelia’s crazy jaunt could have even that much use. Rupert +proposed to handle his mother-in-law and his daughter as he +had handled the policemen’s strike. The time for nonsense was +past.</p> + +<p>Deborah came to see her mother, and listened with painful +reserve while Cornelia assured her that Betty was perfectly +all right, and there was no need to worry. Betty was turning +into a very fine woman, the best of the lot of them; she was +doing a useful work in Buda-Pesth, and was justified in ignoring +her father’s cablegrams. Nor would she suffer because +Rupert had cut off her funds. Her salary of thirty dollars a +week was quite regal for any part of Central Europe. As for +Cousin Letitia, she might become the wife of the elderly Hungarian +playwright, Hubay, if the family would put up one or +two thousand dollars for a “dot.” Cornelia herself had had a +most instructive experience; the world was changing, and her +children would have to learn, as she had learned, to adjust their +minds to new ideas.</p> + +<p>Deborah pressed her tight lips together—for she had come +with a stern resolve not to wrangle with her poor distracted +mother. “We have done considerable adjusting of our minds +this fall,” she said. “We have seen crap-games on the Common, +and machine-guns also. We have known what it feels like to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> +lie awake all night in fear of the murderous mob.” And that +was true—for Rupert had not been able to convince his wife +of his complete mastery of the situation. Not even four private +policemen guarding her home had sufficed. Like most of the +ladies on Commonwealth Avenue, Deborah had looked under +all the beds that night, and had visions of her treasures being +looted and her dignified person “nationalized.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_6"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>But if the capitalist press did not care to hear about the adventures +of Mrs. Josiah Quincy Thornwell in Russia, rest assured +that there were plenty of socialists, communists and +anarchists who did. Cornelia was besought to come and talk to +this group and that; she was urged to write down what she +had seen, and let it be printed in a pamphlet; and when she +consented, it meant that she had definitely committed herself +as a “Red,” and was listed in the card-files of the Department +of Justice as an active Bolshevist. In the month of November +“red headquarters” in Boston was raided, with much uproar, +and everybody in it arrested and “held for deportation.” Among +the truckloads of literature confiscated were some of Cornelia’s; +and although Rupert was able to keep it out of the papers, he +brought the story home to the horrified family, and Deborah +conveyed to her mother the warning that she stood within the +shadow of arrest, and that her family’s influence would not +again be used in her behalf.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti spent an evening in the little apartment, and heard +all that Cornelia had to tell, and asked a hundred questions, and +carried her answers to the “gruppo” in Plymouth and the +“clooba” in East Boston. There were fierce debates going on +among the anarchists as to the attitude they should take to +the rapidly spreading soviet movement. Some were disposed +to weaken in their anti-state principles. Government was a bad +thing, so long as it was an instrument for suppressing workers; +but when it became an instrument for suppressing counter-revolution, +then it was no longer so easy to decide. But “individualistas” +like Vanzetti stood immovable, and as a result, +many of them were in trouble in Russia; some had been shot, +and others were in jail. So Vanzetti hated the Russian government +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> +as much as he hated the American, and was grieved by +any good word that Cornelia had to say about it.</p> + +<p>A very confusing situation! However, Cornelia had been +watching the radical movement for four years now, and could +talk the language of the different groups, and understand their +reactions. That was more than the capitalist press could do, or +the police, or the department of justice agents, or the courts, or +any others who had the public ear in this crisis.</p> + +<p>The job of “mopping up” the Reds was on in earnest. Congress +had appropriated a couple of million dollars—which is the +way to make things happen in America. All the big detective +agencies were feeding at the trough, and the card-file of suspects +now counted a total of two hundred thousand names—so the +Attorney-General told a committee of Congress. This gentleman, +oddly enough, was a Quaker, and under the combined +banners of William Penn and Jesus Christ was instituting a +campaign of wholesale terror, the like of which had not been +known in America since the Iroquois Indians had been routed +from upper New York state.</p> + +<p>The prisoners taken in the November raids, together with a +number of anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Alexander +Berkman, were loaded onto an old government transport, the +“Buford,” and on the twenty-first of December this vessel, +known to the newspapers as the “Soviet Ark,” set forth for +Russia. It was a beginning of the program recommended by all +patriotic orators, “If they don’t like this country, let them go +back where they came from.” Here and there you found one +even more ardent—such as the statesman who said that he +“would send them in a ship of stone with sails of lead”! Such +was the “Christmas spirit,” as manifested in America a year +after the ending of the war to end war!</p> + + +<h3 id="V_6"> + V +</h3> + +<p>“Dear Nonna,” wrote Vanzetti from Plymouth, “come to +see us little bit for Christmas. All Italian anarchista is unhappy +and fear will come truble for us after finish Russian. Is no +more Cronaca, and no leader in New England since Galleani +is deport. Would be good have you come for letting us know +one American lady understand worker and is not afraid for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> +speaking. Vincenzo got bottle good Dago Red in cellar, it is +not prohibitioned, for was there before. Trando has learn new +melody by violin, it is ‘When you and I were young, Maggie.’ +Fay is putting corns on string for decorate, it is word not in +book, but is white corns which produces noise on stove. Alfonsina +is working now by cordage and I have expection of much +business for Christmas, it is time for all Italian eating eel and +I have order for barrel of living to be deliver from Boston. +Your esteeming friend, Bartolomeo Vanzetti.”</p> + +<p>Christmas Day was on Friday, and Cornelia wrote that she +could not come on that day, but would come Saturday morning +and stay over Sunday. Not all the witch-hunts in New England +could keep the Thornwell family from inviting her on Christmas +Day, and from having their feelings hurt if she failed to +appear. Clara, who had a monopoly on young children, was +naturally the hostess, and “Hillview” the place. It was one of +those great family reunions, when the clan say by their presence +those things which are never said in words. Three faces were +missing since last Christmas. Ahab would never be seen again; +the spine of Great-aunt Priscilla had become solidified to such +an extent that not all the pride in New England could bring +her to a Christmas party; and Betty was in Buda-Pesth, handing +out loaves of bread to the children of war-refugees.</p> + +<p>“Hillview” was much changed from the day, now four and +a half years past, when Cornelia had run away from it. James +had kept his promise to leave the old part intact, but he had put +on a monstrous new building in the rear, for the eight young +ones and their numerous nurses and governesses and servants, +as well as for guests—it was a luxurious hotel. The children +were all over the place, racing about, shouting, bumping their +heads on the hardwood floors, tramping nuts and raisins into +priceless rugs, smearing chocolate candy on white brocaded upholstery. +Christmas came but once a year, and one must not +find fault; one must exchange sticky kisses, and admire a tree +so tall that it went up to the second story, standing in the curve +of the winding stairway. It shone with a myriad little lights, red, +blue, green and yellow, and was piled around with enormous +quantities of expensive toys, really marvels of ingenuity and +workmanship, all of which would be broken and thrown on the +junk-pile, or forgotten in the attic a month from now.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span></p> + +<p>Also there were the grown-ups to be greeted: Clara, rounder +than ever, lamenting that no arts of any specialist helped to +reduce her; James, solid and matter-of-fact, expanding with his +vast prosperity, and with the importance of himself as host. +Not for a million dollars would he have said it in words, but +his manner made clear that “Hillview” was no longer “Thornwell,” +it was “Scatterbridge.” Deborah, stately in a creation +of purple velvet; Rupert, with complexion to match his wife’s +dress, and a manner of impeccable cordiality to Cornelia, as if +such a thing as a quarrel with a mother-in-law had never been +heard of in Boston. Alice Thornwell Winters, whose elegance +and grace paid no tribute to the passing years; Henry Cabot +Winters, dapper and genial; their son, Josiah, still growing +length ways, and pale—perhaps from overstudy, as his fond +mother said, perhaps from what the savage Betty described as +“woman-chasing.” Also there was Deborah’s older daughter, +Priscilla, tall and dignified; it had been four years and more +since she had raped the rug, and the crime was forgotten.</p> + +<p>Not a word about Betty, nor anything else to humiliate Cornelia, +or to remind her of her fall from grace. Unless you +count Great-uncle Abner, poring over the <i>Transcript</i>, and commenting +on a wireless dispatch from the “Soviet Ark,” now +four days at sea. “Says it’s stormy, and the passengers are +seasick.” The deaf man’s voice of Abner boomed from the +library and filled all downstairs. “Well, I’d cure their seasickness +if I had my way!”</p> + +<p>“They say there’s no cure for it known!” shouted Abner’s son, +Quincy.</p> + +<p>“No cure?” Abner’s voice broke into a hoot. “I can tell +them a cure—dump the two hundred and forty-nine beggars +overboard, and they’ll be cured in a couple of minutes!”</p> + +<p>There was a pause while the old man turned over the paper. +When he broke loose again, it was the “crime wave,” unfailing +topic at all New England gatherings. “Country going clean to +the dogs! See that story about the holdup in Bridgewater yesterday? +Coming to a fine pass when a shoe-company can’t bring +its payroll from the bank without having shot-gun battles in +the middle of the street! Read that?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I read it,” said Quincy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span></p> + +<p>“Right out in the middle of Broad Street, corner of Hale—you +know the place?”</p> + +<p>“I know it.”</p> + +<p>“Big wide street, trees on both sides, trolley-car down the +middle. And, by jingo, if two bandits in an automobile don’t pop +out and open fire on the pay-truck, just after daylight, half-past +seven yesterday morning! <i>Transcript</i> says the police have +no clew to the bandits. Wonder what police are for!”</p> + +<p>“To go on strike, father.”</p> + +<p>“It’s these foreigners!” And Uncle Abner leaned closer to +his son’s ear, which was not in the least deaf. “Infernal foreigners +we’ve let come in and ruin the country! Sixty years I kept +telling it to Josiah—ought to have stopped them. First Irish, +then Jews, then Dagoes, then Hunkies, then God knows what. +They’ve taken the country from us—the old stock might as well +move out, they steal everything we’ve got. Ought to take every +steamer that brought ’em over and make ’em take ’em back +free, that’s what I say!”</p> + +<p>Did Uncle Abner know that Cornelia was in the music-room +with the children, and hearing every word he shouted? Maybe +so, for he was a shrewd old rascal, and you’re only supposed to +be polite when you know it. “Ought to ship ’em back where they +came from, and all those sentimentalists that encourage ’em go +along!”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_6"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia left the palace of Thornwell-Scatterbridge, and went +to the humble tenement in North Plymouth. Here too was +Christmas, but on a minor scale. The tree was not quite up to +Cornelia’s shoulder, and the decorations were half a dozen red +and yellow baubles, two for five cents at the grocery-store, a +few strands of tinsel, some red ribbon off a package Cornelia +had sent, and finally, long strings of snow-white “corns,” with +three pairs of small-sized but ravenous jaws waiting until Cornelia +should have seen the spectacle before commencing the +work of destruction. The presents, ranged under the tree for +her inspection, were few and cheap—with the single exception +of three fine story-books which had come from Boston. They +were now set up conspicuously, and three children clamored +their happy thanks.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span></p> + +<p>The Brinis had long ago found out who Cornelia was; they +knew that she came from a great rich family; yet not all the +cruel “class consciousness” in the world could weaken their +trust in her. It seemed to Cornelia that this offered some hint +of how to avoid the stresses of the war between capital and +labor; also for the bitter strife between the old Yankees and +the new foreigners, and for the “crime wave,” and many other +troubles of the time. But when she told that theory to her +friends of the great world, they called it “sentimental,” and +went on with their wiser and more practical plan of jailing and +deporting and killing. Also most of the so-called “class-conscious” +revolutionists would have agreed that Cornelia’s program +was “sentimental”; so apparently the jailing and deporting +and killing had to continue.</p> + +<p>They had a grand supper that Saturday night. Alfonsina had +made bean-soup, which Vanzetti was “crazy about”—he admitted +it; and budino, a kind of custard pudding, and tortellini, a dish +of meat cooked in noodles. Vanzetti was a vegetarian on principle, +because he thought it wicked to kill animals for food; +but once in a while he fell from grace, and the occasion was +apt to be tortellini. The animal was already dead, said Trando; +but Bart would not permit that sophistry—when we ate meat, +he said, we caused another animal somewhere to be killed, it +was the law of supply and demand. He spoke of animals as his +“fellow creatures,” and this gave the children great glee; they +would bring home a crab, or perhaps a big spider, and refer to +it as “Bart’s fellow creature.” But that did not trouble the +philosopher; he made it the occasion for a lecture on the wonders +of nature. All these strange beings did really have a life like +us, at least the beginnings of it; each one knew all the things +it needed to know in order to take care of itself—and many a +man was not so wise.</p> + +<p>Vincenzo had given his wife a tiny glass bowl with three +gold-fish for a Christmas present; and this stood now on a +table in the little parlor, by the window, where the light shone +through it. Bart was fascinated by these creatures, he would +stand watching them literally for an hour at a time. He was +wondering what it was like to be a gold-fish. If you dropped +a bit of food into the bowl, the fish would know it and take +it into their mouths; if it was not the right food, they would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span> +spit it out again. What told them that? What had taught them +not to flee from a man’s hand—though fish in the wild state +would do so? Did the fish know that man existed, and what +did they think about him? Strange questions one could ask about +life!</p> + +<p>Trando got out his violin, and played “When you and I were +young, Maggie.” So many sweet songs made you sad! The +little boy played it several times, and Bart hummed the words +which the children had taught him. A wonderful act of creation, +making a melody out of the chaos of all the scratchings that +were possible on four violin strings! The Brinis were so proud, +something fine was coming out of their lives, something better +than “working by cordage” all your life, better than “living like +pigs,” as the Yankees phrased it.</p> + +<p>“Some day maybe we get piano,” said Bart. “Fay she learn +play, we have grand music.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, we’ll get a piano!” said Trando, and added, in +school-boy dialect, “I don’t think!” He was twelve years old +now, and America was teaching him to be a little “fresh” at +times. “It’ll be like that horse you were going to get me!” He +explained to Cornelia, “He promised me a horse to drive the +day before Christmas. He had a barrel of eels to deliver, and +I was to help him, and for two weeks he was telling me I’d +have a horse and wagon, and I didn’t think about nothing else +all the time. But when the day come it was the same old push-cart.”</p> + +<p>“It is baker got horse and wagon,” explained Bart. “He +promise for rent heem one day, but then he cannot, so must +pusha da cart. Trando he see—what you call it, visione—heemself +sit in seat, make noise with whip, ‘Gittup!’—granda gentleman, +all little Italian girl come look, say what is this, something +wonderfool! But instead to crack whip, he musta carry +basket with package eel. He is little scare, for eel he is live and +make move—what you say?”</p> + +<p>“Wiggle,” put in Fay.</p> + +<p>“Mooch wiggle!” said Bart. “Little boy tink maybe he come +out from paper, make bite!”</p> + +<p>“No, I wasn’t scared,” said Trando, “but I knew they were my +fellow creatures and I didn’t like to have them killed.” They all +laughed—even Vincenzo, who did not understand jokes in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> +English. Bart, with his vegetarian scruples, was hard put to it +to justify his conduct in having a barrel of his living fellow +creatures shipped to him by express, and turning them over to +the murderous fury of two score Italian housewives, who had +skinned them alive and put them in salt for the next day’s feast, +as much a tradition with the Italians as turkey in all Yankee +homes.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_6"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>Sunday morning they went for a walk—on the street, because +the woods were full of snow. Coming home, Vanzetti bought a +Boston newspaper, because he wanted to know what was happening +in Italy. Cornelia read him a brief item, how the Italian +workers were forming shop-councils, preparing to take over +industry from the capitalists. They talked about this, and how +it would happen in different countries. Vanzetti had made a +speech in a hall in Plymouth. “I force-èd be spikker,” he explained, +because the man who was supposed to be “spikker” +had such wrong ideas. Bart knew that any one who discussed +anarchist ideals in public in these critical days ran risk of arrest, +and of deportation or worse. But he would not be silenced, +and Cornelia knew that he would not, and did not even suggest +it. “Anarchista musta make propaganda!”</p> + +<p>The children had got hold of the comic supplement, and +were devouring it, laughing over the jokes and explaining them +to their mother. This humor dealt with incipient young criminals, +who perpetrated every indignity upon their elders. And meantime +the elders were reading about the product of a previous +decade of comic papers—the “crime wave” and its latest manifestations. +There was more news about the Bridgewater hold-up, +which Cornelia had heard Abner Thornwell discussing. +Bridgewater was only twenty-two miles from Plymouth, and +in the same county, so the attempted robbery had been much +talked about. Now the shoe-company was offering a thousand +dollars’ reward for the bandits, and Vanzetti remarked, “You +offer plenty money, you catch plenty feller. Is always polissmen, +witness, for swear poor feller in jail.”</p> + +<p>He went on to say, how stupid for people to be surprised by +the crime wave. “You send million feller to Europe, you put +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> +heem in army, give gun, teach heem keell; you bring heem +back, he go home, find some odder feller got his job, got his +girl; he look for job, cannot find, he is hungry—you think he +don’t steal? Is foolish for not onderstand, is people do not want +onderstand.”</p> + +<p>“You think the cause of crime is always economic?”</p> + +<p>“Shoore, Nonna, I not think all men alike. Some men is +strong, is got what you call—carattere—”</p> + +<p>“Character.”</p> + +<p>“He will not do crime, he will die before do crime. But +nodder man, he is weak, is too much tempt, he sees friend do +crime, get plenty money, he try sometime, maybe get caught, he +go jail. Is worst place for make criminal, is jail, is like school, +learn how to do it. You go like me, Nonna, you work one job, +work nodder job, meet onderd, meet thousand worker, you +meet plenty young criminal, young feller vanaglorioso for what +he do, think he is smart feller; I hear heem talk, I know what +is make crime wave. Is great reech men, spend beeg money—automobile, +gooda dress, fine lady—what you say, lusso—luxury. +Poor feller, he look, he like to live sooch life, have plenty money, +plenty girl. He say, ‘How come it reech man he get it, how +come in bég-ginnin’”—Bart accented the word on the first syllable—“how +come in bég-ginnin’ he make the money? Is reecha +man honest? Is it sistema honest? He see everywhere beeg +thief get plenty money, not ever punish. He see, you steal thousand +dollar, you call-èd bandit, you steal million dollar, you +call-èd banker. Is it not true, Nonna?”</p> + +<p>Cornelia thought of Jerry Walker and his felt-plants. “It is +sometimes true, Bart.”</p> + +<p>“All right, is injoostice. So long you have injoostice, is crime; +more injoostice, more crime. Is like something you make in +chimica—it come all time the same way. But reech man he not +like to hear sooch thing, is better for heem call bad name, make +polissman, put heem in blue clothe, give heem big cloob, send +heem out to hit poor feller on head, put heem in jail. Big crime +come, all right, get more polissman, make thousand dollar what +you call it—reward—get plenty stool-pigeon, you onderstand?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know what you mean.”</p> + +<p>“Is always rotten feller, swear anything for money, send +somebody to jail. All polissman want is catch somebody, all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> +newspaper want is catch somebody, fill up jail, so reecha man +is happy, is what you call law and order. You wait, Nonna, you +see—thousand dollar will make sure—catch plenty Bridgewater +bandit!”</p> + +<p>Strange and awful are the fates that dispose of mortals—leading +us blindfolded through curtains of black fog. How +could it happen that Bart could speak such words, and no shaft +of lightning split the fog, no warning finger pierce the curtain, +no voice shout in thunder-tones, “You! You! You!” They sat +chatting casually, criticizing each other’s theories; the children +laughed, bringing them pictures of the Goofy Googles; Alfonsina +washed the dinner dishes, and Vincenzo, not being able +to share in the argument, fell asleep in his chair; the gold-fish +wiggled their silken-filmy tails, and the Powers that sent the +universe on its course, benevolent or heedless, omniscient or +omninescient, sent no smallest hint of the fact that Bartolomeo +Vanzetti was himself that “poor feller” whom the thousand-dollar +reward was to bring down for the Bridgewater crime!</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_6"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia went back to Boston, and found a letter from Betty:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I have been having so many adventures, I hardly know where +to start telling. I have been experiencing very eloquent and romantic +love-making from one of the sons of ‘Archie.’ That is +our nickname for the Austrian arch-duke who came in with the +Roumanian armies and put himself on the throne, to the great +dismay of the allies. This son is tall and somber and splendidly-idle. +I can understand how it is that American husbands are +found unsatisfactory. I try to imagine Father or Uncle James +making such speeches! He pays endless compliments in carefully +perfected English; but the trouble is he doesn’t really know me +at all. He is content that I am the daughter of a rich American +banker; he doesn’t guess my political opinions, and I dare not +tell him, because I might lose my job! But it will be a good thing +for His Highness to have his self-assurance reduced. He says +that American girls are made of marble, and I smile and tell +him it is his first contact with a social equal. Then I have to +explain about the Back Bay!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span></p> + +<p>“Also there is an undersecretary at the legation who is eating +his heart out over me. He is quite different, rather tongue-tied, +but serious, I fear. He comes from the middle west, and doesn’t +really know me either—though of course it is possible for him +to understand how I can be virtuous though unchaperoned. I +am also causing misery to a young lady of our mission, who is +in love with the undersecretary. Apparently not all the troubles +in Europe are enough to keep people from entanglements of the +heart. I think it is rather the contrary, the general disorganization +upsets everybody, and leaves the fancy roaming.</p> + +<p>“While I am on the subject, I might mention that I was violently +besieged by one of the Bolshevik agents before he took +flight to Switzerland disguised as a chauffeur. He told me I +was not truly a free woman at all, but a wretched little Puritan +that would dry up and blow away at an early age. I showed +him Cousin Letitia, who is still capable of being thrilled, but +not of being seduced, even by the elderly playwright Hubay. +There is something inside our marrow-bones, deeper than we +realize, and stronger than our ideas. Roger Lowell would be +surprised to hear that about me! Anyhow, I am sure there will +be no love-affairs for me until I get back to America; it would +be like a romance in a morgue.</p> + +<p>“The suffering here is dreadful beyond words. I suppose +you get news in the papers, but probably not true, because everything +is propaganda for somebody or something. It really was +the charitable Mr. Hoover who overthrew the Reds here in +Hungary. I don’t know if it is published at home, but here all +his aides are proud of it, and tell the details and boast. We are +managed by a California lawyer, one of Herbert’s intimate +friends, and they not merely blockaded and boycotted Red Hungary, +but they bought some of the labor leaders to overthrow the +Bolsheviks.</p> + +<p>“It has been like a kaleidescope; you never know when you +wake up in the morning who is governing you—till you get to +the office and hear what happened during the night. The Reds +went out, and then came the Roumanian army with ‘Archie,’ +and we had to drive him out and get a White régime—which is +rapidly turning into a dictatorship. Those poor fool labor-leaders +who let themselves be used to turn out the Reds have +mostly been shot or had their skulls cracked, and I wonder what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span> +our noble-minded Herbert thinks about it. There ought to be +some way to make the White gentlemen come sit in the pools of +blood, as we relief-workers have to do.</p> + +<p>“It has taught me my lesson; ‘law and order’ talk will never +fool me again. It really seems as if our master-minds want +to teach labor that there can be no middle course, and no honesty +or decency in the class struggle. The Reds here fell because they +were too gentle, and let their enemies plot against them. The +Russians made a clean sweep, so they survive. And don’t let +any one fool you about the amount of killing they did; don’t +let any one frighten you with talk about the ‘mob.’ From this +time on I take the dear ‘mob’ to my heart; I am only afraid +of dashing young gentlemen in gaudy uniforms, and elderly +diplomats and business men in dinner-jackets. There isn’t a +country in Central Europe where the Whites haven’t killed ten +for every one the Reds have killed, and in many cases it has +been a hundred for one.</p> + +<p>“And the worst is, Grannie, these White dictatorships are all +American-made—with guns and uniforms from our army and +dollars from our bankers. They have got an American loan +here in Hungary, and I am wondering if father is in on it. +He probably won’t tell you, but ask Uncle Quincy—he knows. +If it’s true, I’ll never take another dollar from Father—and +I’ll tell him so.</p> + +<p>“Dear Grannie, do please take care of yourself, because if +anything were to happen to you, what would I do, with not +a soul to understand me? Sometimes I get frightened, and get +alone in my room and have a good cry; because, after all, it +is absurd to think that a girl not yet twenty-one should know +more than all her family put together. You know what Great-aunt +Priscilla says, so very calmly: ‘You will be wiser when +you are older.’</p> + +<p>“Maybe the ‘antis’ were right, Grannie—women are not meant +to meddle in politics! Maybe we ought to stay at home and look +after the babies, like Aunt Clara. But when we get the babies +raised, the old men step in and send them off to the battle-field, +so what’s the use? I go over and over it in my mind, and the +only conclusion is that this generation of girls must go on +strike, and refuse to have babies until the men stop killing. +So I shall stick it out, and when I come back the family will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> +find me worse than ever. I suppose you are having troubles +enough at home; tell me all, but write as if I did not agree with +your ideas. I have a way of getting this letter smuggled out, but +your letters to me may be opened, and I don’t want to lose +my job quite yet.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="IX_6"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Yes, Cornelia had her troubles. The day after New Year’s +there burst upon Boston and the whole country a storm known +as the deportations delirium. To the Quaker Attorney-General +had come a brilliant idea; he would win the Democratic nomination +for the presidency, upon the basis of his heroic services +in deporting the Reds. The two million dollars which Congress +had voted him would be turned into a campaign fund for the +glory of Jesus Christ and William Penn.</p> + +<p>The ingenious Quaker arranged to lure his victims into public +meetings, and have the police appear suddenly and bar the +doors, and sort out all the foreign ones, and load them into +patrol wagons. The problem of getting the Reds all over the +country to come to meetings on the same night was comparatively +simple, because the government had put so many spies +into the radical organizations that they had elected themselves +to office, and were in position to call meetings whenever they +pleased. Also they had been able to vote resolutions and adopt +manifestos of such violence as to make the deportations legally +possible. As Federal Judge Anderson of Boston said when the +facts came out in his court: “It is perfectly clear on the evidence +before me that the Government owned and operated a part, at +least, of the Communist Party.” It was one time when all business +men believed in government ownership!</p> + +<p>The raids were scheduled for the night of January second, +1920, and netted some four thousand prisoners. Twenty cities +and towns in New England contributed a thousand—including +thirty-nine who had met for the purpose of organizing a cooperative +bakery. The prisoners were lined up against the walls +of police-stations, searched and beaten by detectives, denied +counsel, denied reliable translators, and sentenced on the spot +by officials of the Department of Immigration. They were loaded +into vans and taken to the immigration station in Boston, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> +thence to Deer Island prison. In order to make the utmost +possible amount of campaign material for the Quaker Attorney-General, +the victims were chained together in pairs, and paraded +down State Street, past the old State House, and over the rings +of cobble-stones that mark the site of the Boston Massacre. +Such a novelty brought newspaper photographers in swarms, +and the story stayed on the front page for several days. Never +such advertising for a presidential candidate.</p> + +<p>Also the Department of Justice agents saw to it that good +reading matter was supplied for the pictures. Four bombs had +been found at one meeting, said the report; they were taken +to a police station and put into a pail of water—and apparently +dissolved in the water, for they were never heard of in +court. Among the organizations raided was an amateur dramatic +society, which had rented some old guns for use in a +play; so the newspapers reported a “red arsenal.” Apart from +stage properties, the police acquired a total of four firearms: +this by a search of four thousand persons, and raiding their +homes and breaking into their trunks. Apparently they had +selected for deportation the least military group of individuals +in America.</p> + +<p>Here were the troubles for Cornelia Thornwell. Four hundred +men and women jammed into cells in Deer Island prison, +with broken window-panes in the midst of New England winter, +with no blankets, no mattresses, and no adequate toilet facilities. +Husbands torn from wives, mothers separated from their +babies—and all held according to the genial Spanish custom +known as “incommunicado,” denied lawyers, denied any information +as to their fate. One woman, attending a meeting with +her little girl, had been dragged to jail, and the child left to +wander alone through the streets of Boston all that January +night. One man flung himself over a railing five stories above +the ground, and dashed out his brains in sight of the rest of +the prisoners. Another went insane, and several others were on +the verge. And concerning all this mass of misery no mention +in the newspapers, and vilification for any one who dared to +protest.</p> + +<p>So Cornelia must sit at the telephone for hours, and argue and +plead with her friends, and rush off to committee meetings, and +get a stenographer and dictate letters, and pay for long telegrams +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span> +to congressmen and senators and officials in Washington +and New York. She must besiege club-women, and plead for +opportunities to speak. She must meet newspaper reporters and +give long interviews which never saw the light. She must haunt +the doors of officials, and waylay them on the street when they +would not see her. She must start a subscription list, and go +round like a Salvation Army “lassie,” irritating bankers and +lawyers and merchants, and their wives and daughters in the +Sewing Circle, abusing her social position in shameless fashion +to get at people, and tell them such harrowing stories that they +would put up good Brahmin money to buy blankets for Bolsheviks, +and milk for starving babies whose mothers and fathers +had committed the crime of belonging to political parties owned +and operated by the Department of Justice.</p> + +<p>And this no job of a few days, but of months. The Quaker +presidential candidate was slow to realize that he could not +produce evidence against eighty per cent of all those he had +seized. In Boston, through an unfortunate oversight, there was +a Federal judge who believed that law-enforcers ought to obey +the laws they enforced. He declared from the bench that a mob +was a mob, even when it was made up of Department of Justice +agents. He would issue writs for one prisoner after another, +and when the prisoner was able to prove that he was an American +citizen, or that he hadn’t actually joined the Department +of Justice party, the victim would be turned loose. But all that +took time—and meanwhile there were a thousand or two children +to be fed, and as many falsehoods to be refuted, and only +a small group of rebel ladies to do it.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_6"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Almost every Sunday during that winter Vanzetti came up +to Boston. He was doing well with his fish-peddling, and in +between times shoveling snow or cutting ice, so he had money +for the trip and for propaganda. In the midst of all this repression +he had made up his mind that the anarchistas must +have a paper, and he was raising the seven hundred and fifty +dollars needed to buy a linotype machine; he had even written +a couple of articles to appear in the new paper, and was working +hard to “culture himself,” studying both Italian and English. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> +He came to have supper with Cornelia one evening, and when +she ventured to point out the dangers of his course, he answered +that you could never accomplish anything if you quit +in times of danger. The times of accomplishment were bound to +be times of danger—trust the capitalistas for that.</p> + +<p>Many of the Galleani group had been deported; Coacci had +been arrested—one of those two men who had brought a +package of books to Bart—Cornelia had met him. The gruppo +had raised a thousand dollars’ bail for him, and now he was +under sentence of deportation. Also Nick Sacco was making his +plans to take his family back to Italy. Great events were coming +this next summer—perhaps the real revolution—and Nick as a +man of action wanted to be there.</p> + +<p>Yes, it would not be bad to be sent to Italy just now; but +alas, you didn’t always get there! Bart told the terrible story +of Compagno Marucco, who had been put on a steamer and +never heard of again. All the anarchistas believed he had been +pushed overboard on the way, because he had detected some +of the government spies working among the group. Another +man had hanged himself in his cell; had he really done that, +or had somebody done it for him? You needed nerves of steel +to go on with propaganda in the midst of events like that!</p> + +<p>Bart talked about the spies. One had been exposed by Carlo +Tresca in New York: Ravarini, who had posed as an anarchista +for many months, one of the violent kind, a follower of Ravachol. +One of his plans had been to revive “La Cronaco Sovversiva”; +he had offered to get the money, and had suggested +Bart for editor. But Bart had been too modest, he did not consider +himself a well enough educated man.</p> + +<p>This Ravarini had been seeking to fasten the bombings onto +the Galleani group; for the government agents had apparently +convinced themselves that this group was guilty. Bart discussed +the idea, and he said there was no such great nonsense in the +whole world. He pointed out what had happened—the police +had arrested hundreds of anarchistas, and searched their homes, +and had never found a bomb, nor anything having to do with a +bomb. Some day the truth would come out—the guilt lay with +detective agents, “feller get rich by hunting anarchista.”</p> + +<p>“You think they would kill innocent people?” asked Cornelia.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span></p> + +<p>“Is not many people keell-èd, Nonna! Bombe blow up little +piece of house, sometime when people is out, or sleep upstair +and not get hurted. You want keell somebody, is not sooch difficultee, +plenty people keell-èd all time, plenty Italian keell you +cheap—what you call it, black hand. I know sooch feller, plenty, +hear heem talk in café, vanaglorioso for what he do. He say, +‘No sooch great keeller in whole state Massachusetts; nobody +shoot so queeck, so straight.’ You pay heem onderd dollar, +next night your nemico he die. What for make big bombe, big +noise?”</p> + +<p>“But they sent bombs by mail, Bart!”</p> + +<p>“Shoore, send mail—but he not put on stamp enough—the +mail do not go! What follia, Nonna! Think, amica mia, how +easy to find out what is postage! You not need take bombe to +post-office, no sooch reesk—no, you go any post-office, any +town, you say, what postage for take five pound, ten pound, +twenty pound, what you like to send. You say, got package for +New York, for Chicago, any place. You not go self, send odder +man, send child, you get stamp, million people buy stamp. But +see, Nonna—anarchista is sooch fool, he get dinnameet, he pay +money, make twenty bombe, get address, send to this man, to +odder man, send to Boston, New York, Lawrence, Passaic, all +place—but not got sense for finding out ow mooch stamp! Is +crazy thing, Nonna, is imbecillità!”</p> + +<p>“You think government agents did it?”</p> + +<p>“Not go-vérnment, but what you call private agent—big feller, +make million dollar. He make big scare, Congress vote money, +big banker get bad fright, he spend money, he say, you sava +my life, you catch anarchista, you put heem in jail, so he not +blow up the bank, he not keell me. Look, amica mia, you read +paper, you see this morning, big banker make—what you call—notizia—avviso—”</p> + +<p>“Advertisement.”</p> + +<p>“Avvertisament, whole page, scare people, say polissman must +catch the red, the bomber, the anarchista, musta deport, must +put in jail. Is patriottismo, militarismo—you see in paper?”</p> + +<p>Yes, Cornelia had seen it, and not for the first time; it +had become quite the fashion for groups of leading citizens, +bankers, merchants, the Chamber of Commerce or other civic +groups, to publish full-page advertisements warning the public +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span> +of the imminent danger of red riot and insurrection. “Yes, I +read it,” she told Bart—but was ashamed to add that among +the signers that morning was Rupert Alvin, her son-in-law, and +John Quincy Thornwell, her nephew-in-law!</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_6"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Almost a year had passed since the mailing of those “May Day +bombs,” and still the police had not succeeded in catching any +of the senders; so naturally there was dissatisfaction on the +part of patriots. What was the purpose of a huge secret service +agency, built up at enormous expense? The loyal newspaper +publishers forbore to express impatience in print, but privately +they were outraged. A first-class red scare meant millions in +increased sales, but how could the most ingenious editors and +reporters keep excitement alive without a few facts?</p> + +<p>The Department of Justice had one set of clews. A bomb +had blown out the front of the home of the Attorney-General, +the Quaker gentleman who was planning to move to the White +House, and the man who carried this bomb had apparently himself +been blown up. The authorities claimed to have identified +the fragments as belonging to an Italian anarchist by the name +of Valdinoci, one of the Galleani group. He had worn sandals, +and in his pockets had been some leaflets in crude English, proclaiming +anarchist ideas. The purpose for which the spy Ravarini +had been set to work was to find the printing office in +which this circular had been set up.</p> + +<p>Ravarini sent contributions of money to Malatesta in Italy, +and got letters from him, and then appeared among the comrades +in Boston and New York, a very ardent Red, with literature +to be printed, and precise ideas as to how it was to look. +He would hang about an anarchist print-shop for several weeks, +and have his stuff set up many times, or would come and set +it up for himself. In this way he tried all the type in several +printing offices; and at last in a shop in Brooklyn he found, +or claimed to find, what the Department of Justice believed was +the type from which the Valdinoci leaflets had been printed. +It was the office of an anarchist paper called <i>Il Domani</i>—“To-morrow”—and +the printers of this paper, two Italians by +the name of Salsedo and Elia, were arrested and taken to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> +offices of the Department of Justice in the Park Row Building +in lower New York.</p> + +<p>The genial custom of holding prisoners without allowing them +to communicate with their friends or even with an attorney is +one for which we have neglected to invent an American name. +But for the custom of torturing prisoners to make them confess, +we have our jolly slang, “the third degree,” and all judges +and lawyers in America know that it is employed, and all pretend +not to know it, and when evidence obtained by torture is +produced in court, all judges and lawyers solemnly accept it, +and at the same time go on believing in the constitutional rights +of accused men. It is obvious that in no other way can the +system of inequality of property be maintained, and any one +who denounces the “third degree” is liable to suspicion of +“redness.”</p> + +<p>Salsedo and Elia were held for three weeks in the Department +of Justice offices with no warrant of law. At last Salsedo +succeeded in smuggling out a letter to Vanzetti, who took it +to the anarchist group in Boston. They knew without being told +that the two men were being tortured, for the purpose of forcing +them to implicate other anarchists in bombing plots. On +Sunday, April 25th, there was a meeting of the group and it +was decided that somebody must go to New York to consult +with the comrades there and see what could be done for the +victims. The choice fell upon Vanzetti, and he went, and called +upon Carlo Tresca, editor of <i>Il Martello</i>, whom he had never +seen before. “Don’t you know me, Carlo?” he said, gently. +“I am Vanzetti.” He had been sending in collections for the +support of the paper, and occasionally writing articles. Tresca +embraced him and kissed him on both cheeks, Italian fashion.</p> + +<p>The two of them set out down the street: Vanzetti no small +man, but outtowered by his companion, whom the strike-police +used to call “the bull.” In Mesaba, where the Back Bay families +of Boston were holding onto their hills of copper, they framed +him for first degree murder, and kept him in jail for nine +months. They put three bullets into him, at different times. +One side of his face was disfigured, and during the Paterson +strike a newspaper published his picture with the caption, “Who +Will Be a Good Citizen and Make the Two Sides of This +Face Alike?” Seven times they arrested him during this desperate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> +strike of the silk-workers. Now the Department of Justice +was anxious to get him again, and was soon to do it—for +the crime of demoralizing Italian Catholic women by a two-line +advertisement of a pamphlet on birth control!</p> + +<p>Carlo and Bart were going to see an Italian lawyer who had +been hired to help Salsedo and Elia; he had offices directly +underneath the Department of Justice rooms—an arrangement +that Carlo found suspicious. But it was a problem how to +change, because Carlo could not get to the prisoners, and +Salsedo’s wife had been so terrified by the detectives that she did +not know what to do. They saw the lawyer, and Carlo wrote a +note for the prisoners, and the lawyer took it upstairs, and came +back and reported that Elia had refused to read it, and Salsedo +was “getting crazy” and would not answer any questions. This +confirmed their worst fears, so they consulted an American +lawyer, connected with the Civil Liberties Union, who agreed to +seek an interview. Bart said he would go back to Boston and +send fifty dollars of his own money, and raise more to pay the +lawyer.</p> + +<p>There was one other thing Bart wanted to do in New York—to +see the Statue of Liberty. He had missed the sight when +he had come to this country, because his steamer had arrived +in a fog. And while it was true that America was not living up +to this statue, still it was a world symbol of the cause to which +Bart was dedicating his life. But they were too late for the +boat which goes out to Bedloe’s Island, and Bart was so much +disappointed he almost had tears in his eyes. “All the years I +have wanted to see it!” he said to Carlo.</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_5"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>The day Vanzetti went to New York Cornelia spent packing +two trunks. There had come a quite amazing telegram from +Betty in Vienna: “Letitia married Hubay my color discovered +job flooey tired need recreation come immediately positively +summer Italian lake reply Hotel Royal.” Cornelia called up +Deborah, and first read the message and then translated it; +and after Deborah had voiced indignation at the treason of a +poor relation, and horror at the idea of her daughter unchaperoned +in a center of notorious gayety, she asked what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> +Cornelia was going to do, and actually hinted for her to join +Betty. So much had four years of defeat tamed the family!</p> + +<p>Cornelia had been exerting herself beyond her strength. She +was sixty-five years old now—as her daughters never failed to +remind her—and for four months she had not rested a day. +A summer on an Italian lake with Betty for company sounded +very good, and she said she would go, and Deborah undertook +to have her husband use his influence to get some kind of special +passport immediately, and to engage passage on a steamer, and +even pay for it. Cornelia and Betty would be taken back into +the family again, and have the services of all-powerful males +to make smooth their paths in whatever part of the world they +chose to roam.</p> + +<p>The <i>Floritania</i> was to sail from New York on Saturday +afternoon, and on Friday morning Vanzetti telephoned to Cornelia, +still in Boston. He had just arrived from New York and +wanted to tell her the news. She asked him to lunch with her, +and heard from his lips the terrible story of Salsedo and +Elia. She knew the former of these two men, who had +worked as a printer in Boston, and had come to the “picanics”: +a frail little fellow, suffering from tuberculosis—“he very bad +now,” said Bart; “wife she think they keell heem.” Bart had +been to the savings-bank that morning and drawn out fifty +dollars and sent it to Carlo, according to his promise; and +Cornelia said she also would contribute fifty, and wrote a check. +She felt quite rich that day, having several of Rupert’s handsome +and impressive bank-drafts.</p> + +<p>It seemed a shame to be going away for a holiday in a crisis +like this. But Bart said instantly that Cornelia must not think +of it; he agreed with her daughters that she was an old lady, +and needed a rest, and nothing should interrupt it. He talked +about the Italian lakes, not very far from where he had been +born. “Sooch lovely countree! Gooda people, work hard, live +simple, naturale. You be happy, live outdoor, walk in wood, +pick little flower, send to me. I pick you mayflower, send heem +in letter.” Then he added, “Maybe I come, we take little boat +in Italian lake, Comrade Betty she sing little song! I think I +like be deport!”</p> + +<p>“Take care of yourself, Bart!” said Cornelia. “If you want +to come, pay your fare, so then you can return.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span></p> + +<p>Bart laughed, and made his usual answer: “Anarchista musta +make propaganda!” She learned that even in the midst of these +perils he was organizing meetings and distributing literature. +He was working with that Italian, Boda—“you know heem, little +feller, macaroni salesman, he drive us one time for see dramma +when we go Nick Sacc’.”</p> + +<p>“I remember him.”</p> + +<p>“He is got same little car. Is go bust in winter, but now he get +heem fixit, pretty soon he drive heem, we distriboot the books!” +And Bart laughed, like a bad boy. “Book wit’ red cover what +so scare polissman—you remember book is bring Coacci and +Orciani one time in Plymouth?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, very well.”</p> + +<p>“Is very bad book, molto pericoloso, is red anarchista cover, +‘Faccia à Faccia col Nemico.’ Is reason for deporting Coacci—they +find six copy by heem, he say is the reason. He is gone +two week now, maybe is Italy. I get hees what you say—address—he +got wife and children leav-èd behind in Brockton. You +maybe see heem in Italy.”</p> + +<p>“Have you got any of those books in your house, Bart?”</p> + +<p>“Shoore, two, t’ree copy, sell heem sometime. Nick Sacc’ is +got more. Nick he is not ’fraid, he go anyhow, is got passport, +ticket, all fixit. You not see Nick in Italy, he live in Sout’, +way down in what you call boot. He is happy feller, go Italy. +Is got fifteen onderd dollar save in bank—wife, she make heem +sava ten dollar all week. Now he go see rivoluzione, maybe help. +Is young feller, can not stay here when sooch great time come, +can not be happy for trim edge of pretty shoe for fine gentleman!”</p> + +<p>“You really think there’s a revolution coming in Italy?”</p> + +<p>“You watch, maybe see heem! Great sight for Yankee lady—nobody +harm you. Italian worker, he think America is free +countree, good countree—he think he make Italy be countree +like America! He do not know what happen to poor wop in +Massachusett, he not read in paper how Department of Joostice +agent take poor seeck printer, torture heem, beat heem, to make +heem tell what Joostice agent want to be tell-èd!”</p> + +<p>So it was with Bart—difficult to make jokes, or to plan for +a holiday, because all brain-paths led to these dreadful cruelties +and sufferings. Impossible to enjoy a luncheon, neatly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> +served by a much-puzzled Negro maid! No, Bart would begin +to twist bread-crumbs into little pellets, which was very bad +manners; his look would grow abstracted and far off, and Cornelia +would understand that he was up in the fourteenth story +of the Park Row Building in New York, where two comrades +might at that moment be hanging by their thumbs, or having +their arms twisted behind their backs.—As a matter of fact +they were being beaten in the face with blood-stained shoes, +said to have been worn by the bomber who had been blown to +fragments in front of the home of the Quaker Attorney-General. +It was a refinement of imagination difficult for an uncultured +Italian to foresee.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_4"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>That night there was a theater-party, given by Rupert Alvin +to serve notice upon the world that all was well between himself +and his departing mother-in-law. They sat, very conspicuous, +in a box, Cornelia, Rupert and Deborah, their daughter +Priscilla, Cornelia’s nephew-in-law, Quincy Thornwell, and her +second daughter, Alice Thornwell Winters, who had given up +her latest adorer in deference to the family’s demands, and was +now being rewarded in this public manner. They saw an expensive +and highly sophisticated comedy from New York, +dealing with people of their own social station who did +not have to give up anything, not even one another’s +wives. After which the Alvin limousine rolled to the station, +and Cornelia and Deborah took the midnight train to New +York.</p> + +<p>Next morning they drove in a taxi-cab, and inspected the +fashionable shops, and Deborah bought a few things, but Cornelia +did not buy, because everything would be so much cheaper +abroad. They lunched at one of the fashionable hotels, and took +another taxi to the steamer; and on the way Cornelia said to +the driver, “Where is the Park Row Building?”</p> + +<p>“Way downtown, ma’am, by City Hall Park.”</p> + +<p>“We don’t go near it?”</p> + +<p>“Not unless you want to make a trip.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” said Cornelia; and her daughter asked, “Why +are you interested in the Park Row Building?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, nothing; a couple of friends of mine have been tortured +there for the past three weeks.”</p> + +<p>It was like that with Cornelia nowadays—impossible to carry +on polite conversation, to enjoy any sort of holiday. Deborah had +to shut her lips tight together, and pretend she had not heard. +And pretty soon there was the mighty steamer; the crowds, and +the partings, and the waving of handkerchiefs, and the promises +to take good care of yourself, and to write often, and to give my +love to So-and-so; and then a tear or two, and the gangways +coming up, and the great steamer sliding out into the river, and +the tugs straightening it for the journey. And then the long +panorama of towering white and gray buildings, the magical +sky-line of Manhattan—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Did ever a dream-city rise from the sea</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>That was fairer, more fleeting and fragile than she?</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='no-indent'>But Cornelia missed all the poetical ecstasies, because she was +thinking, “Which is the Park Row Building? And which is +the fourteenth story?”</p> + +<p>But there was no one to ask, and soon the sky-line faded, and +there was the Statue of Liberty, and she thought of Bart, and +what it meant to him. Then came the ocean, and the rolling of +the ship, and she was in her state-room for two days. When she +came on deck again, there was the daily newspaper, published +from wireless reports for the benefit of the vessel’s leisure +class; and Cornelia read that at three o’clock on the morning +of the third of May, an Italian anarchist by the name of Salsedo, +held by the Department of Justice for complicity in the bomb +explosions of a year ago, had committed suicide by throwing +himself from the fourteenth story of the Park Row Building +in New York.</p> + +<p>No more details of such a horror, to trouble the sleek and +contented passengers of the <i>Floritania</i>. But two more days +passed, and the ship’s newspaper contained another item, this +time from Brockton, Massachusetts. Two Italians, leaders of +a bandit-gang, had been nabbed by the police, charged with the +murder of the paymaster and a guard of the Slater and Morrill +shoe factory of South Braintree, and the theft of a payroll +of sixteen thousand dollars. It was believed that this band had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> +been responsible for numerous payroll hold-ups in Eastern +Massachusetts during the past year, and the police expected to +nab the other members within a few hours. Cornelia read this, +but it meant nothing special, for there was hardly a day that +papers did not report hold-ups from some part of the country; +and in this case the news-service had not thought it worth while +to mention that the names of the two arrested men were +Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII"> + CHAPTER VIII<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE DETECTIVE MACHINE</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O fates that hold us at your choice,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">How strange a web ye spin!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Thus the poet; and never more aptly than of that web which +the fates wove about the lives of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo +Vanzetti. Their two friends Cornelia and Betty were to spend +the better part of seven years trying to disentangle this web; +laying bare a story which for mystery and melodrama has few +equals. The narrative goes back to the previous Christmas, two +days prior to Cornelia’s last visit to Plymouth.</p> + +<p>At six o’clock on the morning of December 24, 1919, Bartolomeo +Vanzetti had been asleep, when one of his customers, +Balboni, coming home from night-work, stopped by to get his +Christmas eels. Mrs. Fortini, Bart’s landlady, woke him up, and +he sold the eels to Balboni, and then dressed, and swallowed his +bread soaked in coffee, and got out his little hand-cart and his +scales and his basket and his packages of live eels, all weighed +and wrapped the day before. He had more than forty orders to +fill, because he was selling Christmas eels for thirty-five cents +a pound, whereas in Boston the Italians were paying as high +as a dollar and a quarter. He delivered several packages before +daylight; Mrs. Augusta Niccoli was still in bed, and called to him +to put the package on the kitchen table; she would pay later.</p> + +<p>Soon after seven o’clock came Beltrando Brini, having gobbled +his breakfast, excited because he was to have the baker’s +horse to drive. He met Bart on the street, expecting to go with +him to the baker’s; but Bart insisted that the ground was wet, +and Trando must run back home and get his rubbers. It took +the boy fifteen or twenty minutes to find them in the attic; meantime +Bart met the elder Brini, coming home from night-work; +and then went to Bastoni, the baker, and was told that the latter +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span> +could not spare the horse and wagon—a development which +caused much grief to the twelve-year-old Trando. This was at +seven-forty-five, as the baker remembered, because at the moment +Bart entered his home the whistle of the cordage company +blew, and no one who has guided his life by that whistle ever +thereafter fails to hear and heed it. “The whistle is our bread +and butter,” said Bastoni.</p> + +<p>It was during those same fateful minutes between seven-thirty +and seven-forty-five that there occurred what is known to history +as “the Bridgewater crime.” In the town of Bridgewater, +some twenty-two miles from Plymouth, a truck belonging to +a shoe-company came rolling down Broad Street. It contained +the payroll for the week, and was driven by a chauffeur and +guarded by two other men. As it neared the corner of Hale +Street, there was an automobile standing, and two bandits sprang +out and opened fire. The guards returned the fire, and there was +a battle for a minute or two; until a street-car came down the +slight grade—the motorman having run back into the car to +hide from the bullets. The street-car came between the bandits +and the truck, and frightened the bandits so that they ran, and +leaped into their auto, and sped away. No one was hurt, so the +“Bridgewater crime” was classified as “attempted robbery.”</p> + +<p>The shoe-company employed the Pinkerton agency, and within +a few hours the Pinkerton men were on the spot, interviewing +every one who had witnessed the attempt. Their reports were +known to the prosecution, but not to the defense in the case until +six or seven years later. The reports proved that the witnesses +of the crime could not agree upon essentials, not even as to the +make of the bandit-car. As for description of the bandits, there +was a wide range of choice, and the statements of all four leading +witnesses varied greatly from what they were later to testify +on the witness-stand concerning the crime.</p> + +<p>Being balked of clues, and at the same time hounded by +clamor and tempted by rewards, the authorities resorted to that +method which is the mainstay of American police procedure—the +“stool pigeon.” Underworld characters are paid to bring the +gossip of their cafés and hang-outs. So-and-so has got a new +car; So-and-so-other has given a diamond ring to his girl; So-and-so-else +was heard to say that he did such-and-such a job. +It is manifest that such clues are open to suspicion; jealousy and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> +revenge play a large part in them; yet, reënforced by the “third +degree,” they form the method by which a good part of the +population of capitalist prisons is recruited.</p> + +<p>The “stools” were active in this Bridgewater crime; and what +they brought affords a problem for students of the occult and +the mystical. Let historians investigate and psychologists weigh +and philosophers speculate and make what they can of the fact: +the Sacco-Vanzetti case, which echoed like a series of detonations +around the world, which was destined to cause windows to +be smashed in American legations in Buenos Ayres and Geneva, +and taxi-cab drivers to throw their fares into the faces of American +ladies in Paris—this cause célèbre had its origin in a “detective +machine” invented by an underworld character, and looked +into by an unnamed Italian woman in East Boston.</p> + +<p>To the Pinkerton agents came a “stool” with the rumor that +a certain A. C. Barr could tell about the Bridgewater crime. +So there was a hunt for A. C. Barr—height five-feet-ten, weight +175 pounds, age forty, eyes dark, hair black, and so on. When +found, the person proved to be an Italian—Angelo Christoforo +Barragini, or words to that effect. He was questioned, and said, +yes, he did know about the crime. How had he learned it? He +had invented a “detective machine,” with which you could solve +crime mysteries. It consisted of a crystal globe into which you +looked, and you there saw the crimes happening. A woman in +East Boston had used it and had seen the Bridgewater hold-up, +committed by Italians who lived in a little house on the outskirts +of a town; there were four or five of them, and they were +dark, and had a car which they kept in a shed in back of the +house.</p> + +<p>Now, detectives are paid by the day while they are working, +and this has a tendency to stretch out their assignments. They +followed up this “detective machine” clue, taking into their confidence +Mike Stewart, the worried chief of police who kept the +town of Bridgewater in order between bandit-raids. Mike, a +burly “small-town cop,” red-faced, heavy-lidded, good-natured +but not abnormally brilliant, took the detectives in his car, and +they drove about inspecting little houses inhabited by Italians +on the outskirts of towns. They found several, and were suspicious +of one, and caused alarm to the occupants; but they +found nothing definite. The Pinkerton reports were turned in, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> +and the Bridgewater crime was listed among the unsolved mysteries +in Massachusetts police history. The “detective machine” +was stowed away in the subconsciousness of Mike Stewart, ready +to pop up again sometime—according to the laws of the subconsciousness, +understood in all psychological laboratories.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_7"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Three months later, on April fifteenth, came another sensation, +known to history as “the South Braintree crime.” In another +“shoe-town,” at three o’clock in the afternoon, the paymaster +of the Slater and Morrill company took the pay-money, +about $16,000 in two steel boxes, and accompanied by a guard, +started to carry it from the office to the factory, a distance of a +couple of blocks. They were passing another factory, the Rice +and Hutchins, when two foreign-looking men who had been +lounging by the railing suddenly drew guns and opened fire +point-blank. They put four bullets into one victim, killing him +at once, and so wounded the other that he died the next day. +They picked up the boxes of money, and at the same instant an +automobile came rushing up the street and slowed, and the two +bandits sprang in and were driven away at high speed, shooting +at the bystanders as they went.</p> + +<p>This very brutal and successful crime caused great excitement +in the factory towns which lie to the south of Boston. So many +raids had occurred during the past year, no town knew when its +turn might come. Rewards were offered, and again the Pinkerton +detectives came and made their investigations and turned in +reports. Just as in the Bridgewater case, the numerous witnesses +disagreed about essential details of what they had seen. +They could not describe the car. One said Hudson, others said +Buick; one said green, another said dark blue, others said black; +one said shiny, another said spattered with mud. Many witnesses +made statements quite different from what they afterwards +made on the stand. So here was another unsolved crime—and +a great clamor of the public, demanding to know what +police were for. There was no clue—save only a memory lurking +in the subconsciousness of Mike Stewart, waiting for a +chance to pop up!</p> + +<p>It so happened that the day after the South Braintree crime, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> +while all the countryside was ringing with the horror of it, there +came to see Mike Stewart a Federal immigration officer, looking +for an Italian anarchist by the name of Coacci, a shoe-worker +sentenced to deportation and out on bail; his time was up, but +he had failed to appear, and the officer had come to arrest him, +and according to the custom he asked for Mike’s help. So Mike +sent a man with him to the Coacci home, which happened to be +a little house on the outskirts of a near-by village.</p> + +<p>They found the shoe-worker with an oval-shaped tin suitcase +strapped and ready, the inevitable green umbrella on top. Also +there was another Italian, a boarder by the name of Boda. +Coacci had pleaded for delay because his wife was sick; but +here was his wife, she wasn’t sick, and Coacci admitted that that +had been a pretext, he had wanted a few more days to settle +his affairs. Now he was ready to go. It was late at night, and +the immigration officer said to wait till to-morrow; but Coacci +said no, he would go now and get it over with. Some one was +taking his wife to stay with relatives, and he was all packed up, +and would like to get the next day’s steamer from New York.</p> + +<p>They went, and Mike Stewart heard about it, and sat in his +office and thought it over. It was midnight, a time for ghosts +and goblins. Strange that a man should insist upon being taken +away from a country so great and so rich as America! This fellow +Coacci was a Red, and the weekly paper in Bridgewater +was running a series of articles, prepared by the Department of +Justice, telling the small-town population of America the crimes +which the Reds were committing all over the world. Mike pondered; +and suddenly there occurred a phenomenon understood +in all psychological laboratories—there popped into his memory +the woman in East Boston who had looked into the “detective +machine”! Here was a little house on the outskirts of a town, +occupied by Italians! In a flash the whole story came to Mike: +Coacci had been in on the South Braintree crime, and the reason +he was so anxious to get away was that he had the sixteen thousand +dollars!</p> + +<p>With another officer Mike went to the Coacci house, and there +was Boda, five feet-two inches high, swarthy, with a little black +mustache, soft-spoken, polite, chatty; a macaroni salesman, +he told Mike; and his car was an Overland, a small car, just now +laid up for repairs. Yes, he had a gun, and he let Mike examine +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span> +it—a .32 Colt. There were no signs of crime, so Mike went off +and pondered some more, and then telephoned to New York +and learned that Coacci had sailed for Italy. They found a trunk +which he had left, and they broke it open, but found no payroll +money, only a few pieces of shoe-leather, which some shoe-workers +consider they have a right to “swipe” from the company +when they get a chance.</p> + +<p>Mike decided to arrest Boda, so he went to the house, but +now it was empty. Boda had disappeared, and the police found +that suspicious. But his little Overland car was in Johnson’s +garage in West Bridgewater, and Johnson was told to detain +whoever came for the car, and thus have a chance at the rewards.</p> + +<p>So the trap was set; and two weeks later came an Italian by +the name of Orciani, driving a motor-cycle with a side-car containing +Boda. At the same time by street-car came two other +Italians, Sacco and Vanzetti. All four were anarchists, members +of the Galleani group; they had made this rendezvous at Johnson’s +garage, for a purpose which was to be a subject of controversy +for the next seven years.</p> + +<p>They went to Johnson’s house, and found that the car was +repaired, but had no license plates for the present year, so +Johnson advised them not to drive it; he kept them talking, +while his wife ran to a neighbor’s and telephoned to the police. +But the four men became suspicious and went away. Bart and +Nick took the trolley to Brockton, and while they were on the +outskirts of the town a police officer entered the car and drew +a gun and ordered them, “Hands up!” Then was the time for +them to make use of the weapons they carried; for Bart to put +into effect his threat of not being taken alive. But alas, it +was as Alfonsina Brini had predicted, he didn’t know anything +about using a gun. Pretty soon came a second officer, and the +prisoners were taken to the police station and locked in cells.</p> + +<p>For years Bart had studied the life and death of “Comradda +Gesu,” and “made tears” for him. And now came a strange +coincidence. The first action of one of the policemen, upon having +got this criminal safe behind bars, was to come to the door +of the cell and call him. Bart came, meekly, and looked through +the bars, whereupon the other spat full in his face.</p> + +<p>The reason for this action was that among the documents +found on Bart was a letter from an anarchist friend, referring +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span> +to the evil actions of a certain priest, whom the writer called +“a pig.” The policeman had spat in defense of his religion, and +turned away, fully satisfied in his Catholic soul. His priests had +not taught him to read the life and death of Jesus; they had +taught him that Jesus was a God, and if you had asserted that +Jesus was a working-class agitator, he would have wanted to +spit in your face also. But Vanzetti knew what had happened +to “Comradda Gesu” on the cross, and he wiped his face clean, +and sat upon the cot in his cell, with cold chills running up and +down his spine.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_7"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Sitting in their separate dungeons that first dreadful night, +a common thought was in the minds of both Sacco and Vanzetti. +Less than three days had elapsed since their comrade, +Salsedo, had thrown himself, or had been thrown, to his death. +Were they going to share his fate? One duty was obvious—to +avoid saying anything that would involve other comrades. So +when they were cross-questioned, they denied that they knew +Boda, denied that they knew Orciani, and told lies as to where +they had been and what they had been doing. These lies were +easily exposed, and constituted the famous “consciousness of +guilt,” upon which the prosecution was to insist for seven years.</p> + +<p>In spite of all fears, Vanzetti had refused to give up his +appeal to the workers. “Anarchista musta make propaganda!” +He had planned a meeting for the ninth of May, four days off, +in Brockton, and had drafted a circular, which Nick had in his +pocket. So the police had something else to study and discuss: +a series of questions, crude, yet with a primitive eloquence that +disturbed even the dullest mind. “You have fought all the wars. +You have worked for all the capitalists. You have wandered over +all the countries. Have you harvested the fruits of your labors, +the price of your victories? Does the past comfort you? Does +the present smile on you? Does the future promise you anything? +Have you found a piece of land where you can live like +a human being and die like a human being? On these questions, +on this argument and on this theme, the struggle for existence, +Bartolomeo Vanzetti will speak.”</p> + +<p>It is an old idea, and has been haunting the minds of dreamers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> +for thousands of years; you may find it voiced by the prophet +Isaiah twenty-five hundred years ago. “And they shall build +houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and +eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; +they shall not plant, and another reap.” It is interesting as a +symptom of the mental state of the time, that shortly before the +arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti, a Christian clergyman in the city +of Winnipeg, Canada, had been indicted for the crime of quoting +these ancient Hebrew words!</p> + +<p>Among the questions asked of Bart and Nick was: “Are you +an anarchist? Are you a communist? Do you believe in the overthrow +of the United States government by violence?” These +were the conventional deportation questions, and were reassuring +to the prisoners in fear of torture. Bart answered them +gently and tactfully. “I like things a little different,” said he. +When a friend came to see him next day, he smiled and said, +“Well, I get free trip to Italy!” So it was that Cornelia and +Betty, enjoying their second week of vacation, received a letter +from Fay—fifteen years old now, and quite a cultured young +lady:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class='no-indent'>“<span class="smcap">Dear Nonna</span>:</p> + +<p>“I write to tell you the sad news that Bart and Nick Sacco +are in the police station at Brockton. Bart asked to tell you he +is not treated bad, except for being spit on once. The lawyer +says he will be surely deported, because the police got a circular +which he wrote about a meeting to protest about the killing of +Salsedo. Bart says tell you he is happy because he will come +to see you soon, and please stay on the Italian lake and do not +worry, because you have worked too hard and should have a +rest. As Nick was going anyhow it will save him the fare so +it is all right. I write in a hurry not knowing when there goes +a steamer, and Bart is afraid you might read it in the paper +and be worried.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>That was all for a week; then another letter:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I am sorry to have to say that the arrest of Bart and Nick +is worse than what I wrote you. The police pretend to think that +they drove an automobile and shot two men and stole a payroll +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span> +in South Braintree last month. It is so silly that we cannot +believe it yet, and Bart himself does not believe it, he says it is +just to get something on him to deport. The comrades here have +all paid money and engaged a lawyer to get him off. Bart insists +that I must tell you there is nothing to worry for, as he was in +Plymouth all that day and talked with many people, like Mr. +Corl who was fixing a boat. And of course when they know +about Bart they will not think he could be a bandit. It will make +you laugh to hear the police are quite sure that Bart was the +driver of the bandit-car, as you know that he never had anything +to do with a machine, and papa says he is so clumsy he cannot +drive a wheelbarrow. The comrades have found a rich storekeeper +who will put up bail, so we hope to have Bart with us +again soon. Please write him a nice letter in our care and tell +him you are not worrying, because it is something he talks about +each time we see him, that your vacation must not be spoiled +for him. You know how like him that is, thinking about everybody +else but his own trouble.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="IV_7"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>From Italian lakes the land goes back by stages, rising higher +and higher into the sky, and each stage has been taken in charge +by generations of strong arms and backs, and made into orchards +and gardens. Every smallest corner of soil has been terraced +and buttressed with walls, and dug and planted with a row of +olive trees—or a row of onions—up to where the bare rocks +stick out and the white clouds gather. Here and there in sheltered +places are cabins built of stone, and in them women breed +prolifically, and send their progeny to Massachusetts to be known +as “wops.”</p> + +<p>The lakes are blue, and the sky almost as deep a blue; by the +middle of May it is summer, and all the land is bursting with +vegetation of a thousand shades of green and olive-gray. The +air is balmy, and ladies from Europe and America put on gay +dresses and wander about in the gardens of villas and hotels, +or drift on the water in little boats, holding bright parasols +overhead to protect their creamy complexions. Everything is +peaceful, and it is possible to float and sing “Kennst du das +Land?”—and have no idea that the peasants on the hillsides are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span> +seething with hatred of their landlords, and forming coöperatives +and revolutionary societies, preparing to dump off their +backs the age-old burden of parasitism.</p> + +<p>Here in a little inn by the water-side Cornelia found her +granddaughter Betty Alvin, carefully chaperoned by Joe Randall, +American socialist journalist aged twenty-eight, and Pierre +Leon, French communist editor aged forty-four. In the days +before the war if a young lady from the Back Bay had traveled +about Europe with two gentlemen, she would have caused herself +to be ostracized for life; and maybe it was still so, Betty +wasn’t sure—but she was sure that she didn’t want to know +any one who didn’t want to know her. These two men between +them had much important information, so she had begged them +to come to this Italian lake while she waited for Grannie.</p> + +<p>Pierre Leon was stocky and broad-shouldered, with a rosy +face and black mustache twisted to points. He had lived for +years in London teaching French, and in Berlin teaching English; +he knew enough Italian to attend labor meetings, and now +was studying Russian because revolutionary events demanded it. +He had been an anarchist, then an anarcho-syndicalist, for a +long time a left wing socialist, and now was a communist suspected +of a right wing deviation. He had read most books that +had ever been published on these subjects, and most good literature +besides; he could talk brilliantly about anything, and liked +nothing so much as having some one to argue with until three +in the morning. He was supposed to be resting for his health, +but it was difficult for Cornelia to see where either health or +rest came in, for he lit one cigarette from another, and would +work all morning writing an article, study labor and radical +papers all afternoon, and argue all night about what he had +read.</p> + +<p>His qualifications as chaperon for an American young lady +were peculiar. He took toward all women the attitude of the +continental male, and this had caused in the American young +lady a vigorous reaction, which in return had caused in the continental +male an amused curiosity. Said Betty, “He thinks the +purpose of woman is to submit herself, and that every woman +will, if the man is fascinating enough. But I have made him +understand that I’m a queer little New England old maid, so +now he’s a good sport and studies me.” Betty added that Grannie +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> +was not to dislike Pierre on that account, because it was his +environment, all European men were that way, especially since +the war—the only difference was that the radical men could let +you alone, because they had other things to think about, whereas +the leisure-class men had nothing to do but chase women.</p> + +<p>Joe Randall came from Virginia, and had wavy brown hair +and a charming slow drawl. Cornelia had met him in Russia, +so she knew his story; he had come as a young college graduate +to an attaché’s position in our legation at St. Petersburg, and +had seen the war, the revolution, and the diplomatic intrigues. +This had made him into a radical, he had kicked over the traces, +and now was a free-lance journalist, writing mostly for papers +which could not pay him anything. But he had a small income, +and was expecting to shake the world with a book about the +“White Terror,” on which he worked diligently every morning, +and talked all the rest of the day if any one would listen.</p> + +<p>It was evident that Joe’s eyes followed Betty wherever they +could, and Cornelia, being still an old-fashioned grandmother, +wanted to know about it. “He is a dear,” said Betty, “and I have +to admit that he makes me shiver now and then. But I’m not +sure we shall hit it off. I’m trying to make sure.”</p> + +<p>“What is the problem?”</p> + +<p>“Well, several. In the first place, I’ll have to propose, because +Joe is poor, and he thinks I am going to be rich. I’ll have to +explain that I’ll escape being rich if I marry a Red. Also, +there’s his wife.”</p> + +<p>“Wife?” echoed Cornelia—but managing to keep too much +surprise out of her voice.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you know he had one? She went back to New York +several years ago. She doesn’t love him.”</p> + +<p>“Are you sure?”</p> + +<p>“Joe is. It seems that she’s reactionary, and you know enough +to realize that no man and woman can be happy when they hold +opposite opinions on the class struggle. That’s what I am concerned +about—I think I’m turning into a communist, and Joe +still ties himself to the old social-democracy that was killed in +the war and doesn’t know it.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Cornelia. Her heart warmed to Joe, because she +did not want Betty to go with the fighting crowd. But she must +not say so!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span></p> + +<p>“You know,” said the girl, “I think it’s a form of our Anglo-Saxon +egotism, we think we can change our social system by a +method different from all the rest of mankind. We have such +a marvelous constitution, and such a wise electorate, we can do +it step by step—and all the while the truth is we don’t intend +to change a thing, but to smash anybody that dares a move. No +rough stuff—except what the possessing class needs in its business. +Pierre quotes Lenin’s definition of the state: ‘a monopoly +of violence.’ Don’t you see it, Grannie?”</p> + +<p>“I am still one of the sentimentalists, Betty dear.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know, and you’ll back up Joe in all our wrangles, no +doubt. Well, he needs you, for he’s got all current history against +him—to say nothing of the ruling class of the world!”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_7"> + V +</h3> + +<p>To this quartette of assorted thinkers came the news about +Sacco and Vanzetti. When the first letter was read, Cornelia +said it would be pleasant to have Bart here. But Joe Randall +smiled dryly and told her not to count too much upon it; for +capitalist policemen were not so eager to provide their victims +with vacations on Italian lakes. When the second letter came, he +said, “I told you so.”</p> + +<p>“But it’s too absurd!” cried Cornelia. “They are innocent!”</p> + +<p>“They have to prove it,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>And Pierre Leon eyed the old lady with a quizzical expression. +“Don’t forget, comrade,” said he, “it sometimes happens +that anarchists are guilty.” Then, seeing Cornelia’s startled look, +he added, “I was an anarchist myself for years; and I assure +you I wasn’t always innocent!”</p> + +<p>Said Betty, “You mustn’t say that to Grannie. She is soft-boiled.”</p> + +<p>Pierre was interested in American slang, which he said was +a new contribution to the world’s poetry. He asked about this +phrase, and then went on: “People that are soft-boiled had +better not go wandering about in the radical movement, because +they may get their shells broken.” He went on to say that about +anarchists you could never make a general statement, each one +was a law to himself. You had to know him before you could +say what he would do—and even then you didn’t always know.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, we know Bart,” insisted Cornelia; “and we know he +is no bandit.”</p> + +<p>“And the other one?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know him so well, I only met him two or three times. +But he’s a gentle, soft-spoken young fellow—”</p> + +<p>“Which means absolutely nothing,” said Pierre. “Even your +American two-gun-men have been that; I think it’s a tradition, +out on the western plains, that your deadliest sheriffs have been +mild-mannered men. The first thing you have to know about an +anarchist is what leaders he follows.”</p> + +<p>“Bart and Nick belong to the Galleani group.”</p> + +<p>“But Galleani is a militante. If you don’t believe that, go down +to Milano, or wherever he’s living now, and hear him. Who gave +you the idea he is a pacifist?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t have that idea. Bart told me he was a militant—”</p> + +<p>“But then, when an anarchist tells you he’s a militant, why +don’t you believe him?” Pierre’s face indicated that this was one +more droll aspect of American ladies. “Understand me, Comrade +Thornwell, it is good of rich and cultured ladies to take +an interest in the exploited workers; but you suffer always from +the fact that you can’t possibly realize how they actually feel.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t forget, Comrade Leon, I worked for a year and a half +in a cordage plant, and lived on the wages.”</p> + +<p>“I know, Betty told us; and I never heard anything like it. +But all the same, if you will pardon me, it wasn’t practically +real, because if you had been ill or out of a job, you’d have +gone back to your family; it wasn’t psychologically real, because +you always knew you could, and you had the moral support of +knowing you were a lady. No worker has that; so don’t be +shocked if you should some day learn that some workers commit +what the bourgeoisie calls crimes in the struggle against +their exploiters.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause, while Cornelia digested these uncomfortable +words. At last she said, “Crimes such as banditry, Comrade +Leon?”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s a question that calls for definitions. If you mean +by banditry, robbing for private advantage, the answer is no. +If you mean robbing for the cause, the answer is, there have +been such anarchists: not many, but a few. Take Ravachol; he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> +robbed the rich and gave the money to the poor, and boasted +of it.”</p> + +<p>“What do other anarchists say of that?”</p> + +<p>“I have heard a thousand arguments about it. It’s a practical +question, whether such a course helps the cause; some say yes, +some say no. A few anarchists repudiated Ravachol, others endorsed +him—Elisée Reclus among the latter, and he is a god +of the movement, a great scientist and a great soul. You see, +Comrade, it is difficult for any anarchist to repudiate another +who has acted from good motives. There are two things a real +anarchist will never do; one is to betray a comrade, and the +other is to profit at the expense of the cause. So long as he is +loyal, and risks his own life for the cause, nothing he does can +be repudiated; that lies in the nature of the doctrine, because +he is a law to himself, and has a right to be that, and other +anarchists proclaim that right. How can they control him? How +can they refuse to stand by him?”</p> + +<p>“That ought to frighten me,” said Cornelia, “but we New +Englanders were raised on that creed—we called it Transcendentalism.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Pierre. “There are few anarchist book shops +without copies of Thoreau’s ‘Duty of Civil Disobedience.’”</p> + +<p>“But we managed to keep the doctrine from involving the +right to kill other people.” Thus Cornelia, sure of her Boston.</p> + +<p>“Did you really?” asked Pierre. “Stop and think now!” There +was something in his tone that told Cornelia he was going to +have fun with her. The twinkle was also in Betty’s eye and in +Joe’s, so she knew they were in the secret. “Think hard!” said +the Frenchman, and when she gave it up, he said, “Did you ever +hear of a practicing anarchist by the name of John Brown?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Cornelia, hesitating; “I suppose he did kill +people—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, do suppose it! It so happens we have been reading a +life of him—and while you are talking about bandit-raids, consider +the one at Harper’s Ferry. It was a surprise attack, you +remember; it was going to give the slaves a chance to rise and +get hold of an arsenal with some guns; and to that great end, +four white men, quite innocent, harmless fellows, not even +slave-holders, were shot dead in the streets of a country town. +And remember, they took him and hanged him as a common +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> +felon, and were certain that history would agree with them. +But up in Boston your Wendell Phillips proclaimed in a public +meeting, ‘He has abolished slavery in Virginia!’ And some +anarchist poet wrote four lines—Comrade Betty, can you say +those lines that you like so much?”</p> + +<p>And Betty, who had been smiling, became suddenly serious, +and recited:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Not any spot six feet by two</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Will hold a man like thee!</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>John Brown will tramp the shaking earth</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>From Blue Ridge to the sea.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<h3 id="VI_7"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Needless to say, there were many questions Cornelia wanted +to ask of Pierre Leon. She realized that the time for dodging +was past, it was up to her to get clear in her own thinking. +She admitted to these three friends what before she had feared +to admit even to herself: the doubts as to whether it could be +true, as the government and the newspapers took for granted, +that some of the Italian anarchists had been doing that wholesale +bombing.</p> + +<p>Said Pierre, “Set this down for certain at the outset—all +militant anarchists believe in bombs. Not all make them—any +more than all Christians sell their goods and give to the poor. +It is too uncomfortable and dangerous. But the faith calls for it, +‘anarchist christenings,’ is the phrase—and when some young +enthusiast comes along and wants to practice, the preachers +can’t very well say no. And when the boys get into trouble, then +of course the movement has to rally and defend them.”</p> + +<p>“And that, of course, includes telling the world they are innocent?” +It was Joe, with a touch of socialist sarcasm.</p> + +<p>“Naturally. It goes without saying that anybody who will +fight will try to deceive the enemy. What you have to get clear +is the central doctrine of anarchism, that property used for exploitation +is theft. That makes capitalist society a gigantic bandit-raid, +a wholesale killing; any killing you have to do to abolish +it, or to cripple it, always is a small matter in comparison. +Twenty years ago, when I used to argue questions like this, they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> +were more or less academic; our generation had never known +war. But now take what has happened, and you realize that to +the working-class theorist, human life has ceased to have any +value, compared with the bringing on of the revolution. We +know that capitalism means one more world slaughter after another; +it means that inevitably, you might say by definition. +Every capitalist society has to compete for markets and raw +materials, or else cease to be a capitalist society. It intends to +take our lives by the tens of millions; and are we denied the +right to save ourselves—because, forsooth, the effort means killing +a few capitalists and kings and judges and police spies and +what not? You can see that, to an anarchist, such an idea is +childish.”</p> + +<p>“Or to a communist,” added Joe Randall, the socialist.</p> + +<p>Said the other, “Between the anarchist and the communist +it is a question of technique. I once heard an American labor +leader put it effectively: ‘Never use violence—until you have +enough of it!’ That will serve for the communist formula—and +I leave it for Joe to explain the polite social-democratic +program of killing a tiger half an inch at a time.”</p> + +<p>So they wrangled for a while, saying sharp and bitter things +with perfect good humor. Pierre declared that some day he +would have the job of putting Joe into jail—and maybe Cornelia, +too, because she believed in free speech for capitalists, and +might insist upon practicing her theory. Maybe Betty would be +putting her own Grannie into jail—stranger things had happened +in revolutions. To which Joe replied that it was people +of Pierre’s way of talking that made a peaceable solution so +difficult; they brought on reaction, and set the workers back for +decades. So for a while Sacco and Vanzetti were left in the +Brockton police-station, forgotten.</p> + +<p>Until Betty said, “You are getting poor Grannie so balled +up with your theories and your shocking facts that she’ll lose +heart and be scared out of the movement.”</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake,” exclaimed Pierre, “don’t let me do that! +In the first place, I don’t know a thing about your Bart and +Nick, they may be two harmless dreamers. And anyhow, innocent +or guilty, no working-class rebel ever did a tenth part of +the harm to society that society has done to him. No one of them +ever carries a tenth part of the guilt that is borne by the judges +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span> +and officials who prosecute him. Think of the guilt of those who +caused the war, in order to extend their markets or to save their +investments!”</p> + +<p>That was coming close to home for Cornelia and Betty. Said +the former, thinking of her three perfectly self-satisfied sons-in-law, +“Can there be guilt when there is no consciousness of +guilt?”</p> + +<p>Pierre answered, “That is the sort of question the Puritan +conscience likes to wrestle with. But let us set aside theories, +and consider the practical problem of labor defense. Whether +an accused worker is guilty or whether he is innocent is a matter +you can almost never guess in advance. If he’s guilty, he +won’t tell you, and it would be wretched taste for you to ask. +On the other hand, maybe the police have got the wrong fellow; +often enough they know it, and don’t care, because they figure +he’s done something equally bad, and anyhow he’s the sort that +is safer in jail. Then again, maybe it’s a provocateur’s job—something +the bosses have planted, in order to have a pretext +for raiding offices and smashing presses and throwing leaders +into jail. Either way, you can’t know until you get in up to your +ears. You may find you’ve got a chance to expose the police and +win public sympathy—or you may have something that will +discredit the movement and turn the public against you for +years.”</p> + +<p>“A complicated matter, being a revolutionist!” remarked +Cornelia.</p> + +<p>And Pierre replied, “You bet your shoes it is—to quote your +American slang.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_7"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>On the morning after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti came +Mike Stewart, bringing his “hunch,” which was destined to control +their lives and deaths forever after. Mike himself called it +by the more dignified name of a “theory”; he told it to the +district attorney, who liked it so well that he rented Mike from +the town of Bridgewater, and for a year thereafter the policeman +had nothing to do but search out facts to fit his “theory.”</p> + +<p>A part of it was that the same bandits who had committed +the South Braintree hold-up in April had committed the Bridgewater +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> +attempt of the previous December—the one which had +been seen in the “detective machine.” The police proceeded to +collect some fifty persons who had witnessed one or the other of +these crimes. Orciani was arrested at his factory, so there were +three bandits to be identified. The usual procedure is to mix +up the suspects with a number of other men and see if the witnesses +can pick the guilty ones. But in the dingy old police-station +of Brockton the three suspects were put in a room, and +the witnesses were brought in and told that these were the +bandits, and could they recognize them? Sacco and Vanzetti +were sleepless, unshaved, unwashed, uncombed—a condition in +which a leader of fashion looks like a bandit. But even so, the +witnesses were uncertain, some said they might be the right +men, others said they were surely not.</p> + +<p>Several witnesses had seen the bandits in special circumstances, +for example with a cap on; so Sacco was ordered to +put on a cap, and did so. Another had seen the bandit crouched +down; Sacco was ordered to crouch, and the witness thought +he looked more like a bandit that way. Another had seen the +bandit pointing a gun; Sacco was ordered to act as if he were +pointing a gun, and the witness was quite sure that made him +look more like a bandit. Witnesses who were obdurate, and +wouldn’t stop saying they were the wrong men, were dropped +by the prosecution, and it was up to the defense to find them +if they could. In a great many cases they did so—but too late.</p> + +<p>The police had found a Buick car abandoned in some woods, +two miles from Coacci’s home, and it was part of the “theory” +that this had been used in the two crimes. This “bandit-car” +was now brought to the police-station, and Sacco and Orciani +were loaded into it, and with a detail of the state police, heavily +armed, were taken for a tour of the shoe-towns. Word went in +advance, “The bandits are coming,” and huge crowds gathered. +At the time of the South Braintree crime several workers had +run to the windows of the shoe-factory and seen the bandit-car +driving away. Now the scene was reënacted, with these persons +looking from the windows to judge if Sacco and Orciani looked +like the men they had seen. The crowds, meantime, did not wait +for a decision; they knew these were the bandits, and tried to +beat them, and did spit in their faces. It was a grand public +circus, and by means of it the police persuaded three shoe-workers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> +to recognize the bandits, and to stay persuaded until +the preliminary hearing a week or two later, when they changed +their minds and said they couldn’t be sure. When the trial came, +a year later, they had changed again, and took the stand and +identified Sacco and Vanzetti as the bandits, and made three of +the five witnesses upon whom the august Commonwealth of +Massachusetts relied to the death.</p> + +<p>On the day after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti the three +prisoners were arraigned before a magistrate. Orciani was +charged with operating a motor-cycle without a tail-light—although +his motor-cycle had had a tail-light and it had been +lighted; Sacco and Vanzetti were charged with carrying revolvers +without a license. Bail was denied, on the pretext of a wartime +law. The three victims were taken back to jail, and the task +of fitting the facts to the “theory” was continued.</p> + +<p>A week later there was a hearing upon the charge of murder; +and here an unexpected thing happened—the number of +bandits was reduced to two. The district attorney stated that +the identification of Orciani was not sufficient. That seemed +strange, because more persons had been willing to think that +Orciani looked like the bandit than had been willing to think +it about either Sacco or Vanzetti. What had happened was that +Orciani had been able to produce an American alibi. Not merely +had he punched his time-clock in the factory that morning, but +he could produce his boss and several other “white men” to +swear that he had been at his machine all day. It was only three +weeks back, and he hadn’t missed a day.</p> + +<p>Also it developed that Sacco was to be let off from the Bridgewater +charge—because he, too, had an American alibi. But on +the day of the South Braintree affair, according to his own +story, he had gone up to Boston to get his passports; he had +lunched at a café with friends, and had gone to the consulate, +where they remembered him for the comical reason that he had +been told to provide a photograph for his passport, and had +brought one of great size. A clerk remembered it; but then, he +was an Italian, and Italian alibis do not “go” in Yankee police-courts.</p> + +<p>As for poor Bart, alas, he had nothing but Italian alibis for +both dates. On the day before Christmas he had sold eels to +fifty housewives, and during the South Braintree crime he had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span> +been digging clams and bait. But such things do not count +against a policeman’s “hunch,” so Bart was charged with both +crimes; the prosecution was going to prove that he was the +bandit who had stood on Broad Street, in Bridgewater, firing a +shotgun at the pay-truck, and also that he was the driver of the +murder-car at South Braintree—he who had never touched a +steering-wheel in his poor proletarian life! The moral of these +developments was clear to sarcastic young radicals such as Betty +Alvin—that good little wops had better stay close to the boss, +and punch a time-clock four times a day. Instead of going home +at night, they would be safer kept in pens.</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_7"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>A lawyer had been engaged to defend Sacco and Vanzetti at +these preliminary hearings, an Irish gentleman by the name of +John Vahey. Some lawyers with criminal practice employ what +are known as “runners” to bring them business; and whether +Mr. Vahey knew it or not, it was an Italian generally known +as a “runner” who persuaded the friends of Vanzetti to employ +Mr. Vahey. The lawyer himself was no “runner,” but a stout +gentleman who did not hurry about to find witnesses for his +client; he was content to let the Brinis fetch the wops to his +office. He was active in the politics of Plymouth County, and +intimate with those who controlled its affairs, including the +district attorney, Fred Katzmann; he was an “associate judge,” +and went into an arrangement to share business with Katzmann. +It has been said in Vahey’s defense that Vanzetti was probably +the first innocent man he had ever had as a client. Very possibly +Vanzetti was wrong in his fixed idea that his lawyers had +“thrown him down.” He was a hard client to defend, because he +persisted stubbornly in denying that he had been to Johnson’s +garage with Boda the night of his arrest; he would not permit +any capitalist lawyer to persuade him to say a word that might +involve another comrade.</p> + +<p>The friends of Sacco in Boston had also engaged a lawyer +to defend him. Before a month had passed there were three +lawyers in the case, and one of them was young and confiding, +and told how he had heard one associate say to the other, “See +if you can get Sacco to tell where he buried the money, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span> +we’ll divide it.” A part of the “theory” became that Sacco had +buried the treasure in the garden of his home, which belonged to +Mr. Kelley, his boss; and in each of the next seven springtimes, +when Mr. Kelley’s father got ready to plant potatoes, a +thrill would go through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. +Sacco’s boss was digging for the treasure! It was hard on poor +Nick, because it implied that Mr. Kelley thought he was guilty, +whereas Mr. Kelley had trusted Nick as night-watchman.</p> + +<p>Cornelia and Betty sent money to help interest these legal +gentlemen. Cornelia and Betty meant to stay in one place all +summer, so they would not need Betty’s full allowance. They +rowed on the lake, and climbed the mountain paths, and listened +to all-day and all-night arguments on the theories of anarchism, +syndicalism, communism and socialism, with the history of these +movements in a dozen countries for three-quarters of a century. +There came another letter from Plymouth, telling of developments, +with a message from Bart insisting that Nonna was not +to worry, and not to cut short her rest.</p> + +<p>The idea of accusing Bart of the Bridgewater crime seemed +to Cornelia such madness, she could not take it seriously. It +was a case of mistaken identity, which would be cleared up +when it was investigated. “They can’t make such a charge against +a man who has lived in a town for eight years; and when he +went about that whole day, peddling eels to all North Plymouth! +If it had been any day but the day before Christmas, one might +say there was a chance of getting the dates mixed; but everybody +knows that Italians eat eels on Christmas, and Bart can +prove that he had a barrel of them. It seems as if somebody +has gone crazy.”</p> + +<p>“The bourgeoisie always goes crazy when its property-rights +are threatened,” said Pierre Leon.</p> + +<p>“But I was there the day after Christmas,” persisted Cornelia, +“and they told me all about what they had done—Bart and +Trando, and the barrel of eels, and the baker’s horse, and how +Trando would never believe Bart’s promises again. Surely I +could testify to that conversation!”</p> + +<p>“They might call it hearsay,” said Joe Randall. “And anyhow, +the jury would say it was a put up job—to fool you and prepare +an alibi. The Italians are cunning, you know!”</p> + +<p>They comforted themselves with the thought of the law’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> +delay. Criminal cases took a long time to get on the calendar +in Massachusetts; and meantime, since bail was refused, there +was nothing Cornelia and Betty could do. But the law is like +a sleeping tiger, capable of swift and deadly leaps when it is +roused. The second week in June there came a cablegram; the +situation was very bad, and Bart was to be tried for the Bridgewater +crime in less than two weeks. There was just time for +Cornelia and Betty to get a steamer; so the little radical party +broke up at an hour’s notice. Pierre Leon would go back to his +desk, and Joe Randall decided that he knew enough about the +White Terror in Europe, and his book ought to have a chapter +on Massachusetts!</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_7"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Their steamer came in to New York one afternoon, and +there on the pier, waving handkerchiefs, were Deborah and +Priscilla. Betty’s sister was engaged to be married to a young +mountain of copper; an enormously important alliance, which +had already supplied a column of genealogy to the <i>Transcript</i>. +The ladies were going to plunder the Fifth Avenue shops of +their treasures; also the father, Rupert Alvin, was in town, on +business connected with Jerry Walker’s felt-plants, now in his +care. They were going to a musical comedy that evening, and +had planned diversions for several days. Betty had been away +a whole year, and any normal rich girl would have brought +home several trunk-loads of presents for relatives and friends. +But here was this madcap pair, returning precipitately, with +no purchases whatever—and very mysterious about it, obliged +to decline diversions, and take the night train for Boston. After +much nagging, Deborah got it out of them—they were hurrying +to attend the trial of an Italian anarchist bandit! And they did +actually go—Betty in spite of mother, father, and sister, Cornelia +in spite of daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter.</p> + +<p>Bart was in the County Farm Jail at Plymouth, and during +the afternoon was brought from his cell into the reception room. +He had on a coarse gray shirt and trousers, badly shrunken; +his outdoor color was gone, he was haggard and thin, and his +walrus mustache drooped mournfully. But, oh, so glad he was to +see them! His face lighted up, and he came, half running, holding +out his hands; the messages of his soul leaped to them, love +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> +and pity and heart-breaking grief. Poor old Bart—the greatest +lover of freedom Cornelia had ever known—shut up behind +steel bars! Tears started into the eyes of both the women, and +the prisoner’s voice broke as he tried to speak. “Oh, Nonna, I +so sorry for spoiling your holiday! Oh, Betty, I so sorry for +bringing you to sooch place!”</p> + +<p>“It’s all right, Bart, we had a good holiday, and now we’re +here, and we’re going to get you out in short order.” It was +Betty speaking, brave little soul—no melancholy while she was +in charge! “Cheer up, old pal, it’s going to be easy. This is Comrade +Joe Randall, who has followed me all the way from Italy +because he thinks I am going to be silly enough to marry him.”</p> + +<p>Bart turned quickly to the good-looking young fellow. “I +glad for meeting you, Comrade Jorandall. If Comrade Betty +marry you be very lucky feller.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m not sure yet,” said Betty. “I’ve got to make a real +Red out of him. Now he’s nothing but a pale pink, one of those +riformistas that we don’t trust. But he’s going to help get you +off, and that will educate him.”</p> + +<p>Their feeble effort at jollity came to a speedy end, and they +talked about the trial, only two days away. “My enemy have +got me,” said Bart; and they knew without asking who this +enemy was, the profit system, embodied in Plymouth by the +great cordage company from which Bart had helped to extort +two hundred thousand dollars every year, in the form of higher +wages to its workers. “I think the go-vérnment not let me ever +get away,” said Bart, and Betty’s cheerfulness could make no +impression on this firm distrust.</p> + +<p>“You see what they do,” he said. “They cannot prove Nick +and me at South Braintree, have not got evidence for sending +two men to electric chair. So they think, first we take Vanzett’, +we fixit him for Bridgewater job, we make him convicted. So +when it come trial for South Braintree job, jury will say, one of +them fellers is bandit, he is convicted, it is not so hard for believing +they both should die.”</p> + +<p>“But Bart, it’s crazy to try to prove that you were in Bridgewater +that morning!” It was Cornelia speaking.</p> + +<p>“They have got it fixit, Nonna, they prove what they want. +I tell all friend not fool self. They have got everything, they +are friends with our lawyers.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, Bart!”</p> + +<p>“I sure of it. Come big feller, lazy, smoke big cigar—is what +for Italian worker pay money, buy him big cigar. He is funny +man, he make joke, he whistle. I say, ‘I am innochent.’ He make +funny face, he say, ‘Very bad, they put you wit’ Sacc’!’ He +stick up finger in air, he make it go round, so”—Bart made a +spiral motion, his index finger going up. “He say, ‘Pfist!’ Is +hardest work he ever do for poor wop.”</p> + +<p>“I thought they had an investigator getting witnesses!”</p> + +<p>“Have got Italian feller—he is spy for go-vérnment. He get +all comrades put up money, buy him automobile, so he can go +look for witness. But it pass many days, he not bring witness. Is +plenty witness in Plymoot’, but it must Brinis find them. Is +maybe witness in Bridgewater, could find people say I not look +like bandit, but cannot get them.”</p> + +<p>“Bart,” said Betty, “we are not spies for the government, +and we’re going to rent a car right away, and take the Brinis +this evening and see if we can find some witnesses in Bridgewater. +Cheer up now, we’re really going to help you. Joe here +is an expert investigator; he is writing a book on the White +Terror in Europe.”</p> + +<p>“Is same terror here, Comrade Joe, is plenty people could +tell I am innochent, but will not dare speaking. Is polissman saw +me on street, talk wit’ me in morning, ask for price of eel, but +will not tell. Is express office man, he knows I got barrel of +eel, but he will not let us look for paper—what you call it, +receipt. Is superintendent of cordage plant, you know him. He +know I was in Plymoot’ that day—but see if he come for witness! +You saw him, Nonna, always, ever since strike, four year, +he walk across street when I come, is not willing for meet me. +Is may be hate, may be fear—but see if he help me getting out +from jail! No, it is price I pay for eight year I try to educate +worker. What is it they have said about Gesu, Nonna?”</p> + +<p>“‘He stirreth up the people.’”</p> + +<p>“Joosta so! And I am joosta same age, Nonna, I am thirty-two, +like it was Comrade Gesu when his enemy put him in jail! +I have readed about him—it is book what they give for wop to +read in jail, because all church people have not know how bad +rivoluzionario was Gesu!”</p> + +<p>This was one of the themes Bart liked to talk about; he forgot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> +his own desperate peril for a few minutes. When the three +visitors went out, Joe Randall said, “This much is certain whatever +happens, the police have given us a good martyr!”</p> + + +<h3 id="X_7"> + X +</h3> + +<p>The little party set out in a car that evening, and going from +house to house at the scene of the Bridgewater hold-up, they +found two Italians who had witnessed the crime, and had told +the police that the bandit who stood on the street and fired a +shotgun was a short man with a closely cropped mustache. These +witnesses had been rejected by the police, as not fitting the +“theory,” and they were willing to appear for the defense. There +were other witnesses who might have been found, if there had +been more time, and if the seekers had realized the urgency. But +Cornelia was hugging her notion that the case of the prosecution +was bound to break down in court; and what human mind +could have conceived that ghastly eccentricity of the laws of +Massachusetts, which amounted in effect to this: that whatever +evidence was presented to the jury at this coming trial would +count, while everything that was found out later might as well +have been left in the darkness of oblivion? To quote the words +of the Supreme Judicial Court of the august Commonwealth, +handed down in the Sacco-Vanzetti case: “It is not imperative +that a new trial be granted, even though the evidence is newly +discovered, and if presented to a jury would justify a different +verdict.” Such is the law of the Brahmins and Blue-bloods, which +altereth not!</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>O fates that hold us at your choice</i></div> + <div class="verse indent4"><i>How strange a web ye spin!</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>How strange the plight in which you have placed us—that +we walk backward into our lives, with eyes that see the past, +but are blind to the future! With ears that hear the past, but +are deaf to the future! Betty rented a car, and Joe drove her +and Cornelia and Vincenzo and Alfonsina to Bridgewater, and +along with that little party went a vast throng, made up of +twenty-six hundred and nine days, each one with a separate +burden of griefs and regrets. Days, black-clad and somber, waving +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> +black veils unseen! Days wailing and moaning, shouting +alarms unheard! Cornelia and Betty and Joe and Vincenzo and +Alfonsina got out of the car, and separated and walked up and +down streets, and rang door-bells and went into houses asking +questions of strangers; and into every house with them went +ten million mourners, ten million protestants marching, singing, +carrying banners in a hundred foreign tongues. Mobs roared +their fury, shrieked their imprecations; bombs exploded, sheets +of plate glass were shattered; cavalry charged, clubs fell on +human heads, sabers clove human flesh, men fell and bled and +died—and of all that tumult not one sound reached the deaf +ears, not one glimpse penetrated the blind eyes!</p> + +<p>Voices, ghostly voices calling, up and down the streets of the +little town of Bridgewater, all through that warm spring night! +Run, Betty, run, on your swift young limbs that have been +trained by climbing mountains! Run, and rest not, until you +find those other witnesses who will testify that the bandit had +a closely cropped mustache! Run, Cornelia—one last effort of +those old legs, shrunken and withered so that you do not like to +see them—find some one who can bring you to those Pinkerton +men who interviewed the witnesses of the prosecution, and +heard them say they could not identify the bandits! Joe Randall, +driver of the car, don’t go back to Plymouth to-night! Turn +your headlights to Boston, an hour or two away, and use your +newspaper introductions to find the reporter who was first upon +the scene, and will testify to what all the witnesses said! +Cornelia, put your family influence to work, get the shoe-company +and the insurance company to give up those Pinkerton +reports—now while they will count, and not later, when they +will be thrust into a pigeon-hole and forgotten by a governor’s +secretary, who is paid a double salary to see that the great man’s +mind is not burdened with details!</p> + +<p>Look, Cornelia! Look, Betty and Joe, look at that man, waiting +in the future; a man with a smile made of marble, with eyes +like two agates, cold, expressionless, a supersalesman of automobiles +who will play the part of final jury, and will politely +accept your evidence, and remain of his own opinion! Joe +Randall, “expert investigator,” now is your hour! Drive to +Atlantic Avenue, where the wholesale fish-dealers have their +stores, and find that Italian who shipped the barrel of eels! Pull +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> +off your coat and climb into the attic and search the boxes of +records—it will not be so hard now as seven years later, for +there are not so many records, and the dust is not so thick! +When you find the book of express receipts, showing the barrel +of eels consigned to “B. Vanzetti, Plymouth,” six days before +Christmas, 1919, it will count with the jury—instead of being +set aside, unseen by the agate eyes!</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_7"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>The little party turned their car home that night, well content +with what they had achieved. Next morning they sat down to a +conference with eminent legal authority, and Cornelia offered +her testimony, and learned that it was not available, because +most of it was hearsay, and anyhow, she had better not take +the stand, because she would be questioned concerning Vanzetti’s +beliefs, and it was not desirable to have the jury know that +he was an anarchist. Of course everybody in Plymouth knew it +perfectly well, but if it was not introduced in the evidence, the +jury would be ordered to disregard it, and would do so—that +being the merry fiction of the merry legal game. Could Cornelia +testify that Vanzetti was a pacifist, and repudiated violence? +Could she testify that he did not believe in the overthrow of the +United States government by force? No, she could not testify +that, and therefore nothing she could say about Vanzetti’s character +would count with the jurors. How could they fail to be +suspicious of an American woman who confessed to intimate +friendship with a dangerous Italian Red?</p> + +<p>Furthermore, there was a question whether Vanzetti should +be a witness himself. He could not deny his anarchistic opinions, +which would so antagonize the jurors that they would find him +guilty of anything, regardless of evidence. It was a delicate +matter, because Vanzetti was a draft-evader, and the jury would +consist of men who had gone to the war, or had sent their sons. +Also he was an infidel, and the jury would consist of devout +church-goers. There was that letter found on Vanzetti, denouncing +a certain Catholic priest as a “pig.” The jurymen in Plymouth +County were not apt to be Catholics themselves, but they +would think that Italians ought to be Catholics, and it would be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> +better to appeal to the district attorney’s sense of fair play not +to introduce that letter.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti was stubborn, and clamorous to be heard in his own +defense; but then, he would not stop denying that he had met +Boda at the Johnson place the night of the arrest; and how could +he expect to get away with that, in face of the testimony the +prosecution could offer, if the issue were raised? No, Vanzetti +must be made to realize that under the law he was not required +to testify, and no conclusion unfavorable to him could be drawn +from his failure to testify.</p> + +<p>Again the future rose up and shouted! Ten million hands were +waved unseen, ten million warnings were voiced unheard! The +fates that held Cornelia and Betty at their choice granted no +forewarning of the man with the marble smile and the agate eyes, +the supersalesman of automobiles who seven years later was to +be the final jury in the case. Not once did they hear him repeat +his formula, which was to make him seem like a gramophone +through the weary months of the future; the formula which +would balk the friends of love and justice who traveled from all +over the world to appeal to him; the formula which took the +place of all evidence and all thought—“Why did not Vanzetti +take the stand in his own behalf?”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX"> + CHAPTER IX<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE WEB OF FATE</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Plymouth Court-house stands at the head of the square, +a large and stately building of red brick, with ivy climbing the +walls, and white colonial entrances, and a niche containing a +figure of justice, open-eyed. The court-room is bare and white, +with a throne of polished wood, and over it a great seal of the +“Plymouth Society,” with the flags of the United States and +the Commonwealth of Massachusetts draped on top. It is all +extremely solemn and formal; the bailiff wears a uniform, and +carries a “wand,” or long stick with which he holds the spectators +in awe.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the trial of Bartolomeo Vanzetti the room +was filled with spectators from Bridgewater, curious to behold +the wicked bandit; also a few working-people of foreign birth, +Italians and Portuguese of North Plymouth who remembered +what Vanzetti had done for them in the strike. The men had +put on celluloid collars with gilt studs and no ties, the women +wore shawls and aprons; they sat, morning and afternoon, following +with strained attention a mysterious procedure in a +strange tongue. There were spectators from Boston, but no +reporters from there; the case excited only local interest, and +was left to local correspondents.</p> + +<p>The prisoner was brought in, shackled to a deputy by each +wrist; also a steel cage was brought in, and he was locked inside. +This in itself was almost equivalent to a conviction—it +made him look so alarming to a jury, so much like a wild +beast. The district attorney entered—a stocky man of German +parentage, florid, blond, good-looking, smartly dressed. +Fred Katzmann was his name, a Mason and a “joiner,” prominent +in the political ring which governed the county. Most +political rings in America are financed by the local corporations, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> +and exist to carry out their will; the efficiency of +a public official usually consists in the fact that he knows their +needs and wishes so thoroughly that he does what they want +without having to be told.</p> + +<p>In this case Fred Katzmann’s course was very easy—to +consult his prejudices. He knew that the Reds were pledged to +destroy American institutions, and therefore it was a patriotic +service to destroy the Reds. Later on he went before the +alumni of his college, assembled for banqueting, and the chairman +introduced him as a hero who was going to save the Commonwealth +from its secret foes; the banqueters cheered him +tumultuously, and he made a speech accepting the stern duty. +All the district attorneys of the neighboring counties were making +such speeches at this time—it was an easy way to be popular, +and to conceal orgies of grafting and blackmailing—what was +soon afterwards to be described, in the charges against one of +the most oratorical, as “malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance +in office.”</p> + +<p>Fred Katzmann was personally an easy-going man, and cultivated +a manner of geniality which made a hit with juries. When +the lawyers for the defense came in, carrying briefcases and +looking important, he greeted them cordially; they were his +friends, and during the procedures he would refer to them as +“my brothers.” He would carry on a merry battle of wits with +them, and the moment court was adjourned, he would walk out +side by side with them, and they would sit at lunch and “josh” +each other about the points they had lost or won. It was exactly +like a tennis tournament—except that in tennis they used a +ball, while in this legal game it was a wop.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_8"> + II +</h3> + +<p>A door in the front of the court-room opened, and there +entered a thin, shrunken old gentleman with a white mustache +and a face like parchment. He wore a black silk robe, and the +moment he appeared the bailiff pounded on the floor with his +wand and shouted, “Court!” and all the lawyers stood up, and +the spectators stood up, and remained standing. The bailiff +drew a breath and shouted, “Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! +All persons having anything to do before the Honorable, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> +Justices of the Superior Court, now sitting within and for the +County of Plymouth, draw near, give your attention, and you +shall be heard! God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!” +Whereupon the wrinkled old gentleman sat down, and everybody +else did the same.</p> + +<p>Webster Thayer, judge of the Superior Court of the Commonwealth +of Massachusetts, was what the pathologists call a +“ticquer”; that is, he blinked with a nervous affliction as he +gazed about his domain. His sharp, withered face was a symbol +of the old Puritan spirit; his voice, like a steel saw cutting +through wood, was an ancestral inheritance, produced by three +hundred years of cold and foggy winds. He aspired to exhibit +repose, but his fear of so many foreigners in his court-room +showed itself by incessant nervous glances. He was obsessed +with a phobia on the subject of Reds, and talked about it incessantly, +with so much repetition that many persons avoided +him, or ruthlessly shut him up.</p> + +<p>Cornelia had never heard of “Web” Thayer before, but he +was to be the subject of her study for seven years, and before +long she knew him completely. During this Plymouth trial he +did not know who she was; but during the second trial, that of +Sacco and Vanzetti a year later, he had heard about her, and +he summoned her three times to his chambers to impress his +personality upon her and to justify his ways. So she learned +that the basis of his being was an inferiority complex, a sense +of the gulf which yawned between him and the great ones of +his community, and which he would never cross, even though +he won his way to the Supreme Judicial bench. He was a +Thayer, but not of the “right” ones; and in Massachusetts it +is a special offense to bear an honored name unless you are one +of the “right” ones. There are the “right” Cabots—and assuredly +they are not those who used to be called Caboto and +Kabotinsky, and got permission from a too complaisant court +to Americanize themselves. There are “right” Coolidges, and +Calvin is not among them, and would not be, though he were +president of the United States for half a dozen terms.</p> + +<p>“Web” lived in Worcester, which is a city in the wilds of the +far west—that is to say, forty miles removed from the cultural +influences of the Back Bay. It is a hardware center, the home +of hardware men, who hustle and “boost” and make “selling +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span> +talks.” “Web” had gone to Dartmouth, a small college in the +hills of New Hampshire, whose graduates are looked down upon +by the haughty scions of the Harvard “Gold Coast.” “Web” +asserted his uneasy personality, and drew attention to himself, +something the “blue-bloods” never do, because they do not +have to. In this Sacco-Vanzetti affair “Web” would do what the +Commonwealth wanted him to do, but he would do it in such a +way that the Back Bay would blush for him, and comfort itself +by calling it one more sign of the degradation of politics, a consequence +of turning over public affairs to the “mob.”</p> + +<p>He was a man of intense vanity, and played the judicial +game as a drama in which he was hero and king. But he could +never be sure whether he was successful in the rôle, and the +actor would stop in the middle of the play to ask the audience. +To the lawyers, or any one else who came to his chambers after +the sessions, he would say, “Am I handling this all right?” To +the newspaper reporters he would say, “Now, boys, give me a +good deal on this.” If the reporter happened to be a young and +pretty woman, as it did in at least one case, he would employ +the arts of gallantry, which are somehow less welcome from an +old man with a skin like a mummy’s. He would take a seat +beside her on the train going to the trial, and smile and ogle, +and present a flower to her, and discuss the case. His voice had +a penetrating quality, and when the train stopped, every one in +the car would hear what he was saying. He must have known +the mental discomfort he was causing to his auditor, yet something +drove him to go on.</p> + +<p>There is an ancient tradition among those who deal with the +law that a judge must not discuss a case in public, at least not +while it is actually before him. But in handling Sacco and Vanzetti, +“Web” Thayer could not keep within these traditional +limits. He would talk about the case in a club dining-room, +until all the men would leave the table; he would approach a +Dartmouth professor on the football field, asking in a loud +voice, “Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards +the other day?” The horror of these words became such in +Massachusetts that the Commonwealth had to send its policemen +with hickory clubs to crack the skulls of demonstrants who +carried the words on a banner. Because there was no way to +keep them from being spoken aloud, Boston Common had to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> +closed to public speakers for the first time in its three hundred +years of history.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_8"> + III +</h3> + +<p>One by one the talesmen took the stand, and were questioned; +under the Massachusetts practice, all this questioning was done +by the judge, and the defendants’ lawyers could only exercise +the right of challenge. One by one the jurors were selected: +Arthur W. Burgess, shoemaker of the town of Hanson, Henry +S. Burgess, caretaker of the town of Wareham, Joseph Frawley, +shoe-finisher of the town of Brockton, Charles A. Gale, clerk, +of the town of Norwell—so it went, all Anglo-Saxon names. +Put none but Americans on guard! Edwin P. Litchfield, shoe-worker +of Pembroke, Oliver B. Poole, clerk of Brockton, Alfred +M. Shaw, Jr., laborer of Carver, Charles C. Wilbur, tackmaker +of Kingston: such little people of the old stock, having failed +for one reason or another to become rich, looked with bitter +contempt upon the immigrants who came pouring into the +country, to beat down wages and make life harder for the +“white men” of New England. Far from having any sense of +class solidarity, they clung to the American idea that their +children would rise and join the leisure class; their attitude to +the Italian was that of the poor whites of the south to the +Negroes. “All these wops stand together,” said one juryman +to another, discussing the case at lunch in a restaurant. The +remark was overheard, but nothing came of it.</p> + +<p>Another juror, Arthur S. Nickerson, a foreman in the +Plymouth Cordage Company! Another foreman of that same +company had thrown Vanzetti, the agitator, out of their plant, +and kept him out four years and more; others had refused him +employment, and some one had caused him to be shadowed +by detectives for eighteen months after the strike. Now Nickerson +was to help decide whether or not Vanzetti should be set at +liberty to lead another strike, and deprive the cordage company +of another two hundred thousand dollars a year in extra +wages! Vanzetti’s friends saw with dismay his lawyers permit +such a juror to be accepted. They asked themselves, could it be +because one of the lawyers was a stockholder in the company, +and looking to the company for legal business as well as for +dividends? It was permissible to ask.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span></p> + +<p>The assistant district attorney rose, and addressed the jury, +telling them what he was going to prove. He told them all that +elaborate “theory” about the Coacci house and the bandit-car, +which had been stolen a month before the Bridgewater crime, +and found in Manley woods abandoned after the South Braintree +crime. He brought this car, a Buick, in front of the court-house, +and he told them about Boda, and how he was going to +prove that Boda had been driving a Buick car a short while +before the crime. He told them about Orciani—despite the fact +that they had had to drop Orciani on account of an American +alibi. He told them about Sacco, despite the fact that they had +had to drop Sacco from this case on account of another American +alibi. He built up in the jury’s mind an elaborate picture of +bandit-gangs, bandit-houses and bandit-cars—and then in the +course of the trial he failed to produce a particle of evidence to +connect either Sacco, Coacci, Orciani or Boda with any crime, +or to connect Coacci’s house with any crime, or to connect any +one of the five men with the so-called bandit-car. One scrap of +testimony—a milkman had seen Boda driving a Buick car a +month or two before the crime; or at least he thought it was +Boda and he thought it was a Buick. Yet they brought in all +this complicated and alarming mass of “theory,” not merely +at this Plymouth trial, but at the later trial of Sacco and Vanzetti +for the South Braintree crime; they showed the bandit-car +in both cases, and the bullet-hole in it, and planted the mass of +suspicion in the minds of both juries.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_8"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Benjamin F. Bowles to the stand: a special officer employed +by the shoe-company, and at the same time a member of Mike +Stewart’s police force in Bridgewater. He had been riding in +the seat alongside the driver of the truck, when two bandits, +one with a shotgun, the other with a revolver, had rushed out +and opened fire. The chauffeur of the paytruck had fainted from +fright, and Bowles had seized the steering-wheel and guided the +truck with his left hand, while with his right he fired a revolver +at the shotgun bandit, until the bandit turned and ran. Later in +the trial Bowles took the stand again and changed his testimony, +so as to make it fit with the story he had told at the preliminary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> +hearing: he now swore that he had fired, not at the shotgun-bandit, +but at the other one, the revolver-bandit. So here was +the picture this super-policeman presented to the jury: he had +steered a fast-moving truck with his left hand, fired a revolver +at a bandit with his right hand, and at the same time +used his eyes to study the appearance of a second bandit, so +effectively that he could give a detailed description fitting the +features, hair, eyes and clothing of Bartolomeo Vanzetti, now +sitting in the prisoner’s dock before him! At the preliminary +hearing Bowles had been “pretty positive” that the shotgun +bandit had had a “short and croppy” mustache; but now at the +trial he was “positive” that this bandit had had a “bushy” +mustache.</p> + +<p>Next came a shoe-inspector, Frank Harding, known as +“Skip,” who had witnessed the crime. He had talked to a reporter +of the Boston <i>Globe</i>, an hour or two afterwards, and +described the bandit as “smooth-shaven.” At the preliminary +hearing he had described him as having “an overgrown Charlie +Chaplin mustache.” Now at the trial he identified him as Vanzetti. +He had positively identified Orciani as the other bandit; +but that fact was not evidence at the trial. Neither was the +<i>Globe</i> reporter’s testimony, for that was not discovered until +years later—when it might as well not have been discovered at +all. To the Pinkerton detectives “Skip” had described the +bandit-car as a Hudson; and he had been an automobile mechanic +and knew cars. But now he swore it was a Buick—which +happened to be what the “theory” required.</p> + +<p>Then came the paymaster, Cox, who had described the shotgun +bandit at the preliminary hearing as “short and of slight +build.” Now he made it agree with Bowles—“five feet eight.” +But no effort of the district attorney could get him to say that +he was sure Vanzetti was the man.</p> + +<p>Then came the elderly Georgina Brooks, and with her the age +of miracles came back. Mrs. Brooks testified that she had looked +out of the window of the Bridgewater railroad depot—she +specified which window—and had seen “fire and smoke from a +gun.” It so happened that between that window and the spot +where the firing had occurred, there intervened the full bulk of +two two-story houses. The Sacco-Vanzetti defense employed a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span> +surveyor to make a map of the scene—but like everything else, +it was too late.</p> + +<p>Also Mrs. Brooks testified that on her way to the depot, and +before the crime, she had inspected the bandit-car and the +bandits. She identified Vanzetti as a man she had looked at +twice, and who had looked at her “severely.” Why she should +have turned to look at the car a second time, and been so +particular about examining the features of a man sitting casually +in an automobile was something Mrs. Brooks could not explain. +But she admitted that with one eye she could barely make out +the silhouette of objects, and that she had been undergoing +treatment for the other eye.</p> + +<p>Then young Shaw, a schoolboy who had heard the firing and +dodged behind a tree. He had seen the shotgun-bandit run away, +at a distance of a hundred and forty-five feet, and said that he +could tell the man was a foreigner by the way he ran. “What +sort of a foreigner?” and the boy replied, “Either Italian or +Russian.”</p> + +<p>“Does an Italian or a Russian run differently from a Swede +or a Norwegian?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“What is the difference?”</p> + +<p>“Unsteady.”</p> + +<p>Then came Mike Stewart, large, powerful, heavy-lidded. He +brought with him his theory—but you may be sure he never +mentioned the “detective machine,” from which the theory had +been born! Neither did he mention the Pinkerton reports, and +how they confuted the testimony of “Skip” Harding. “Skip” +had taken down the number of the bandit-car, and given a +memorandum to Mike, who had unfortunately lost it. Also, unfortunately, +there was no number-plate on the car which the +police had found in the Manley woods.</p> + +<p>They introduced Vanzetti’s cap, and a man swore it resembled +the cap worn by the shotgun-bandit—although Cox and Mrs. +Brooks had sworn to a shotgun-bandit in a soft hat. And that +was practically all they had to offer, except for an empty twelve-gauge +shotgun shell which they claimed to have picked up at +the scene of the shooting. When Vanzetti had been arrested, +he had had four shotgun shells in his pocket, and these were +put into evidence, but the jury never heard Vanzetti’s story of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span> +how he came to have them. He had spent the day of his arrest +at Sacco’s, while the family was packing up for Italy, and these +shells, left over from hunting, were picked up on a shelf; Vanzetti +had put them into his pocket, saying that he would turn +them over to some comrade and get fifty cents for the cause. +But that story must not be told to the jury, because Vanzetti +would be asked what he mean by the “cause,” and he would +have to answer that it was the evil cause of anarchism. Nor +would it do to put Sacco on the stand, or his wife, because that +would bring in the other crime, and the lawyers were maintaining +their legal fiction that the jury knew nothing about it—although, +of course, every one of them had read about it on the +front page of all the papers, and the assistant district attorney +had brought Sacco in as a part of the “theory”!</p> + + +<h3 id="V_8"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Such was the case of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts +against Bartolomeo Vanzetti. And now it was the defendant’s +turn to produce his alibi, and persuade a Yankee jury to believe +it. Cornelia and Betty and Joe, watching these proceedings day +by day with strained and fearful attention, realized too late how +difficult it was going to be. There sat those native sons of New +England, lean-faced and stern—elderly men, most of them, because +the younger and more active found means to avoid jury +duty. Men with such names as Burgess and Gale and Litchfield +and Nickerson and Shaw were invited to believe the testimony +of Vittorio Papa and Carlo Balboni and Vincenzo Brini and +Enrico Bastoni and Teresa Malaguti and Adalaida Bongiovanni +and Marguaritta Fiocchi: men with black hair and eyebrows, +broad faces and high cheek-bones, uncouth and sinister, clad +in ill-fitting cheap store-clothes; women short and stout, with +broad mouths and low foreheads, with no collars to their shirt-waists, +wearing aprons in front of them and dingy shawls about +their shoulders, speaking a foreign jabber which was turned +into English by an interpreter who looked as much like a bandit +as the others. These were the “Dagoes” who were taking bread +out of the mouths of the old stock, swarming into the factory +towns, carrying fire-arms, living like pigs, and raising litters of +as many little pigs as any farmer ever saw. “These wops all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span> +stand together,” said one juryman; and all native New England +agreed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mary Fortini, Bart’s landlady, told how she had waked +him up at six o’clock that morning before Christmas, and how +he had gulped down his bread and coffee, and hurried to get out +his cart and his eels. Carlo Balboni told how he had come home +from his night work, and caused Mrs. Fortini to wake Bart, +so that he, Balboni, might be the first customer. John Di Carlo, +who kept a shoe-store, testified how Bart had brought him +eels while he was cleaning out the store, a little after seven. +Each of these witnesses was harrowed by the prosecution, who +sought by every legal trick to trip them up in their testimony.</p> + +<p>The issue of “radicalism” was not supposed to be brought into +the trial; the jury was not supposed to know about it, and in +the years that were to follow you would hear judges and editors +and governors and college presidents and other eminent persons +stoutly maintaining that this issue had not entered the case until +the defense had brought it in at the second trial. But behold, +here was the suave district attorney, questioning the shoe-store +proprietor: “Have you ever discussed government theories over +there between you? Have you discussed the question of the poor +man and the rich man between you?” And later comes Michael +Sassi, a gardener, to the stand, and the prosecutor asks, “Have +you heard anything of his political beliefs? Have you heard him +make any speeches to your friends in the cordage company?” +This questioning led by accident to some character testimony—in +spite of the effort to bar such testimony. Said the district attorney, +“You have dined many times with Vanzetti, haven’t +you?”</p> + +<p>“With Brini, as his guest, I dined many times: Vanzetti +boarded with him and sometimes he was present.”</p> + +<p>“You used to play cards with the defendant?”</p> + +<p>“Vanzetti does not play.”</p> + +<p>“To smoke, didn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I do not smoke.”</p> + +<p>“How many times have you drank with him?”</p> + +<p>“Vanzetti does not drink.”</p> + +<p>Said Bart, commenting on this evidence: “What a method to +find out whether I had been robbing in Bridgewater or delivering +fish in Plymouth on the 24th of December, 1919!” Poor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> +Bart, who had to sit in complete silence, watching all this from +inside a cage, sternly rebuked on the one occasion when he dared +to interrupt! He had to see the rascalities of the prosecution, +and the unconvincing quality of the defense—he who, from +first to last, understood the case better than any other person +interested in it, even the most famous and most expensive of +lawyers! He who could read every motive, understand every +character, predict every event, and advise, generally in vain, +what should be done—he had to sit and watch everything done +wrong, and ruin come down upon him like a slow-grinding +glacier.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_8"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>One by one came Italian witnesses, telling the story of Vanzetti’s +movements through every hour of that fateful day. Vincenzo +Brini had come home from night-work, and got some eels, +and chatted with his friend and former boarder. Bastoni, the +baker, had refused to rent the horse and wagon; the time was +exactly seven-forty-five, because the cordage whistle blew as Bart +entered the store, and “that whistle is our bread and butter.” And +then Beltrando Brini, twelve years and a half old, bright-eyed +and eager, speaking very good English, and thoroughly alert +to the meaning of this scene. Trando had first been with Bart +about seven-thirty, and had been sent home to hunt out his +rubbers from the attic. He had rejoined Bart just as the latter +left the baker’s, and told about his disappointment over the +horse and wagon, and how he had talked about it every day +thereafter. He told how he and Bart had gone from house to +house, up one street and down another, delivering their eels, +until two-forty that afternoon. He named the streets and the +people, described the houses and told of conversations, every +detail that lived in his mind.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Katzmann took him and spent two hours trying to +trap him; making him tell parts of his story over and over, +hoping that it would vary; pretending that Trando had said +things he hadn’t said; trying to mix him up about the number +of hours he had been with Bart—because Trando took out the +time he was hunting rubbers and the time he went to lunch, and +Mr. Katzmann pretended not to understand this. He asked what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> +did the basket of eels weigh, and could Trando carry it the +long route he had described. Trando replied that any one could +see, the basket got lighter as he delivered. In the end Katzmann +had to give up, and pay Trando the high compliment of calling +him such another as Katzmann himself. Turning to the jury +he said: “The parents of such an intelligent boy are right to +be proud of him, but what he told you from the stand is a +lesson learned by heart.”</p> + +<p>There came a string of Italian housewives, telling how Vanzetti +had sold them eels; eight or ten testified, and there were +twice as many more, but the lawyers said it would be a mistake, +“the jury will be bored with so much eel-talk.” If they refused +to believe a score of Italian witnesses, would they believe two +score or three score? The lawyers insisted that the alibi had +been proved. But Bart was not satisfied, he was angry because +of the efforts of the prosecution to claim that he had had a +“cropped mustache.” He pointed to his soft and silky hairs, +which could not be got to stand out; there were so few of them, +that was why he had always worn his mustaches long; if he +had cut them short, there would have been nothing. For eight +years he had been going about this town of Plymouth with his +walrus mustaches, and everybody knew him; but this jury +contained only one Plymouth man, and did not know him. Bart +insisted that the truth about his mustache must be proved, and +in a passion of indignation he told his lawyers that if they did +not do it, he would rise up in court and denounce them for +treason to their client.</p> + +<p>So at the last moment the Italian “runner” went scurrying +to find some of Vanzetti’s friends who knew that his mustaches +had never been trimmed. Also Cornelia and Betty and Joe and +the Brinis went hunting—and strange was that experience, painful +that discovery about human nature, in this terror-ridden +town of Cordage. Policemen who knew Vanzetti, and had seen +him on the street many times a week for eight years, were afraid +for their jobs if they testified as to the length of his mustaches! +Contractors who had hired him were afraid for their future +contracts! Italian barbers were afraid for their little shops, and +their little bootlegging on the side!</p> + +<p>In the end they found two policemen who gave nervous and +halting testimony that Vanzetti had always worn his walrus +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span> +mustaches. They found an Italian cement contractor, Christofore, +who had employed Vanzetti, and found him a good workman, +and had always known him with his mustaches. The prosecuting +attorney browbeat this witness, who knew no English, +asking him about the mustaches of this person and that—among +them of Beltrando Brini, aged twelve and a half years! He +asked about the proprietor of one of Plymouth’s big hotels—what +kind of a mustache did this gentleman have, and Christofore +described it, a small mustache that he was growing. After +the noon recess the gentleman was put upon the stand, and +exhibited to the jury a completely smooth-shaven face! What +was the use of all this mustache-talk, said the district attorney, +when they put a mustache on a man who had never had one?</p> + +<p>The only time in her life that Cornelia ever heard Vanzetti +swear was when he talked about this dirty trick which had been +played upon him. For trick it was—whether the hotel proprietor +had got shaved especially for his appearance as a witness, +or whether it had just happened, that he had got shaved +since the Italians had last met him. This much was certain: +Christofore had seen this hotel proprietor with a mustache, and +so had Vanzetti and many of his friends. The jury could not +know, because, with one exception, they were outsiders. But +Katzmann and Judge Thayer had sometimes been known to stay +at this man’s hotel, and to sit in front of his fire-place in the +evening, gossiping with him about what had happened during +the day.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_8"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>Such was the closing scene of this duel of evidence. The jury +listened to the genial Mr. Katzmann become suddenly stern and +patriotic. “Dagoes stand together!” he exclaimed—and it was +easy for them to draw the conclusion that Americans should +profit by their example. Then came Judge Thayer, thin-faced, +tight-lipped, sharp-voiced, such a great man as these little men +of the jury had been taught to reverence. Nothing of the inferiority +complex now, nothing of the restless uneasiness, the +vulgar craving for attention. It was the great actor now, playing +the part which had been his life-study. He knew exactly +what instructions to give to these Yankee jurymen, to appeal to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> +their prejudices without seeming to do so. When students of +the case sought to ascertain what he had said, it was discovered +that the court stenographer’s notes had been burned, and that the +copy furnished the defense was strangely lacking in part of the +judge’s charge.</p> + +<p>The jury retired to deliberate, and carried with them the +four shotgun shells which were alleged to have been found upon +Vanzetti. They had been identified as ordinary hunting shells, +containing bird-shot, which would not be apt to kill a man. But +the jurors decided to investigate further, so they opened them, +and behold, they were filled with buckshot, which would surely +kill a man!</p> + +<p>Now there is no point upon which English and American law +is more strict than this, that all evidence in a criminal trial must +be produced in the presence of the defendant. Vanzetti was +entitled to know about those buckshot, and to explain the fact +if he could. Maybe he would have taken the stand, maybe Sacco +would have done so; maybe they might have wished to ask, who +had had the keeping of those shells for the past six months, and +what were the chances of their having got mixed up with other +shells. There were no identifying marks upon them—but Vanzetti +never had a chance to point this out. The jury went ahead +and brought in a verdict; and next day one of the jurors happened +to meet Judge Thayer in a restaurant, and showed him +several of the buckshot. Judge Thayer knew at once that if this +story leaked out, the whole expensive trial would go for nothing. +He hurried to Katzmann, who came and got the buckshot from +the juror before he left the place. Then Katzmann phoned the +other jurors to come to his office, and warned them, and the +matter was hushed up.</p> + +<p>It was half a year later that the facts got out, and then several +of the jurors made affidavits about it. An effort was made to +invalidate the trial on this ground, but the matter was never +argued. If it had been, it would have been argued before Judge +Thayer! Whenever during the next seven years the defense +discovered new evidence, they would make a motion for a new +trial, and under the laws of the august Commonwealth of +Massachusetts, a decision would be handed down by Judge +Thayer! When the defense set up a claim that the judge in the +Sacco-Vanzetti case had shown prejudice, they made a motion, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span> +and it was referred to Judge Thayer, who solemnly listened to +arguments, and solemnly handed down a decision to the effect +that he had no jurisdiction! Incidentally he solemnly stated that +he had no prejudice; and this after he had been going about +among his clubmates for several years, saying, “Did you see +what I did to those anarchistic bastards?”</p> + +<p>The indictment charged “attempting to rob” and “attempting +to kill.” The judge in his instructions had directed that the +second charge should be ignored, because the evidence showed +that the bandits had merely sought to intimidate the guards; they +could hardly have missed their targets with a shotgun at such +close range. But after the jurors had opened the shells and +found the buckshot, they decided to ignore the judge’s instructions, +and brought in a verdict of guilty on both counts. The +judge, in an effort to correct this error, took the liberty of +ignoring one-half the jury’s verdict and sentencing the prisoner +to the maximum penalty of fifteen years in state’s prison for +attempting to rob.</p> + +<p>The scene in the court-room when the verdict was brought in +was a heart-rending one. For ten days the friends of Vanzetti +had sat in a tension of anxiety, and now their grief was not to +be restrained. Cornelia bowed her head in her arms and wept, +while Betty sat, white-faced and quivering, clutching Joe’s +hand. The Italian women became hysterical; they screamed and +wailed, and the contagion spread from one to another—it was +a scene of utter desperation, never anything to equal it. Vanzetti +had to stand up and cry to them, “Coraggio! Coraggio!” +His guards permitted that much before they shackled his wrists +to their own, and led him swiftly out by a side door, and put him +into a car and whisked him away to the jail.</p> + +<p>Next day when Cornelia and Betty went to see him, for the +first time they met an utterly broken man. Again and again he +said the words with which he had first greeted them, “My enemy +have got me!” He told them what the rest would be—he, the +clear-sighted one, the thinker, the analyst of class forces. “I am +a convicted. Nick is the friend of a convicted, he is a bandit +already, he is a dead man. The jury will say, ‘One of them is +bad, why should other be better?’” And when Cornelia pledged +her word that she would move heaven and earth to have this +verdict set aside, he told her, “You will try, Nonna, but never +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> +will be succeeded. It is not for bandit I am convicted, it is for +anarchista. If men do sooch trick like you see in court, what is +use for hoping?”</p> + +<p>Then it was that he swore, because of that mustache trick +which had been played by the hotel proprietor. At that time he +did not know about the buckshot. He did not know about the +Pinkerton reports, which had been kept hidden by the prosecution. +He did not know about the witnesses who had been rejected +by the police because they did not describe the bandits +according to the “theory.” But he did know about the great +cordage company, and the losses he had caused it in the strike; +so, when Cornelia talked about decent people who would not +stand for that “mustache trick,” he laughed a bitter laugh. +“You will see, Nonna. They will say, it is for jury to decide. +They will say, musta trust jury, musta stand by court.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_8"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>They put Vanzetti in an automobile, and with another car +full of armed men in front and a third one bringing up the +rear, they drove him to Boston and shut him behind the stone +walls of the dingy old Charlestown prison—built in 1805, when +the population of Massachusetts was one-tenth what it is now. +It stands directly across the river from the city, so placed that +on certain mornings when the sun rises clear, the shadow of +Bunker Hill monument strikes its walls. An odd turn of fate, +that this Italian seeker of liberty should have been convicted +within sight of Plymouth Rock, and killed on ground over +which Paul Revere had ridden.</p> + +<p>They weighed him and measured him and scientifically scrutinized +him, and dressed him in faded khaki, and put him in a +cell containing an iron cot, and a free space eight feet long +and one foot, ten inches wide, with light falling from a narrow +slit in the ceiling. In that cell he would stay, fifteen and a half +hours out of twenty-four, for the next seven years—except for +the holidays of another indictment, trial and sentence. Of the +remaining hours a day he would spend seven working in a +tailor-shop, and forty minutes in a yard, overcrowded, smoky +and dusty.</p> + +<p>Soon after the beginning of this régime the Catholic chaplain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> +of the prison came to see him. It is a Catholic maxim—therefore +a prison maxim—that “once a Catholic, always a Catholic”; and +even an alleged atheist is a human being, and may respond to +kindness and sympathy. The good Father Murphy talked to him, +not about religion, but about general matters; and then, having +got on friendly terms, remarked, quite casually, “Tell me, Vanzetti, +who drove the car at South Braintree?” Thereupon the +alleged atheist rose up with dignity, and asked for the privilege +of being alone in his cell, and the consolations of organized, +institutionalized and subsidized religion were missing from the +remainder of his life.</p> + +<p>Instead he sought the consolations of literature. He wrote +a long letter, pouring out his soul—and incidentally revealing +that he was coming to feel at home in a new language; he no +longer had to look up every word.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I was just thinking what I would to do for past the long +days jail: I was saying to myself: Do some work. But what? +Write. A gentle motherly figure came to my mind and I rehear +the voice: Why don’t you write something now? It will be +useful to you when you will be free. Just at that time I received +your letter.</p> + +<p>“Thanks to you from the bottom of my heart for your confidence +in my innocence; I am so. I did not spittel a drop of +blood, or steal a cent in all my life. A little knowledge of the +past; a sorrowful experience of the life itself had gave to me +some ideas very different from those of many other uman beings. +But I wish to convince my fellow-men that only with virtue and +honesty is possible for us to find a little happiness in the world. +I preached: I worked. I wished with all my faculties that the +social wealth would belong to every umane creatures, so well as +it was the fruit of the work of all. But this do not mean robbery +for a insurrection.</p> + +<p>“The insurrection, the great movements of the soul do not +need dollars. It need love, light, spirit of sacrifice, ideas, conscience, +instincts. It need more conscience, more hope and more +goodness. And all this blassing things can be seeded, awoked, +growed up in the heart of man in many ways, but not by robbery +and murder for robbery.</p> + +<p>“I like you to know that I think to Italy, so speaking. From +the universal family, turning to this humble son, I will say that, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> +as far as my needs, wish and aspirations call, I do not need to +become a bandit. I like the teaching of Tolstoi, Saint Francesco +and Dante. I like the example of Cincinnati and Garibaldi. The +epicurean joi do not like to me. A little roof, a field, a few books +and food is all what I need. I do not care for money, for +leisure, for mondane ambition. And honest, even in this world +of lambs and wolves I can have those things. But my father +has many field, houses, garden. He deal in wine and fruits and +granaries. He wrote to me many times to come back home, and +be a business man. Well, this supposed murderer had answered +to him that my conscience do not permit to me to be a business +man and I will gain my bread by work his field.</p> + +<p>“And more: The clearness of mind, the peace of the conscience, +the determination and force of will, the intelligence, all, +all what make the man feeling to be a part of the life, force and +intelligence of the universe, will be brake by a crime. I know +that, I see that, I tell that to everybody. Do not violate the law +of nature, if you do not want to be a miserable. I remember: it +was a night without moon, but starry. I sit alone in the darkness, +I was sorry, very sorry. With the face in my hands I began +to look at the stars. I feel that my soul want goes away from my +body, and I have had to make an effort to keep it in my chest. +So, I am the son of Nature, and I am so rich that I do not need +any money. And for this they say I am a murderer and will +condemn me to death. Death? It is nothing. Abbominium is +cruel thing.</p> + +<p>“Now you advise me to study. Yes, it would be a good thing. +But I do not know enough this language to be able to make any +study through it. I will like to read Longfellow’s, Paine’s, +Franklin’s and Jefferson’s works, but I cannot. I would like +to study mathematics, physics, history and science, but I have +not a sufficient elementary school to begin such studies, especially +the two first and I cannot study without work, hard +physical work, sunshine and winds; free, blassing wind. There +is no flame without the atmospheric gasses; and no light of +genius in any soul without they communion with Mother +Nature.</p> + +<p>“I hope to see you very soon; I will tell you more in the +matter. I will write something, a meditation perhaps and name +it: Waiting for the Hanger. I have lost the confidence in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span> +justice of man. I mean in what is called so; not of course, of +that sentiment which lay in the heart of man, and that no infernal +force will be strong enough to soffocate it. Your assistance +and the assistance of so many good men and women, had +made my cross much more light. I will not forget it.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon for such a long letter, but I feel so reminiscent +to you that hundred pages would not be sufficient to +extern my sentiments and feelings. I am sure you will excuse +me. Salve.</p> + +<p>“Give to all my best regards and wishes, Your</p> + +<p class="right mth pr1"> + “<span class="smcap">Bartholomew Vanzetti</span>.” +</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="IX_8"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia and Betty and Joe were back in Boston, the first two +having been hurriedly summoned for the funeral of Great-aunt +Priscilla. It is highly inconvenient, belonging to one of these big +families; there are so many funerals, weddings and christenings, +which it would be unthinkable not to attend.</p> + +<p>An extraordinary thing had happened to this aged female +Brahmin in the closing months of her life; the bacillus of +eccentricity, which lurks in all Boston blue blood, had suddenly +flared into activity. Priscilla Quincy Adams Thornwell, spinster, +aged eighty-seven, stiff as a ramrod and model of every +known or conceivable kind of propriety, had suddenly fallen +under the spell of an Episcopal faith-healer, who was traveling +about the country insisting that every bishop, even every country +parson, could demonstrate the living presence of God, work +miracles, and stop the slow dribble of Episcopalians into Christian +Science.</p> + +<p>Great-aunt Priscilla almost succeeded in arising and taking +up her bed and walking, in spite of the complete anchylosis +of her spine; she insisted that she would have done it, had it +not been that her relatives persisted in reminding her of her +great age—a “negative suggestion.” She took up the habit of +being what she called “instant in prayer,” which meant that she +was liable to start talking to God at any moment. It was embarrassing +to her relatives and friends, because of course no +one likes to interrupt a talk with God, and feels something of +an interloper even to sit and listen to it. Great-aunt Priscilla +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> +summoned her brother, Abner, over whom she had great authority, +because he was only eighty-five years old, and tried to +persuade him to appeal for a cure of his deafness. But Abner +argued that if God had meant him not to be deaf, God wouldn’t +have made him deaf; and this was a relief to the family, because +it frightened them to imagine Abner becoming “instant in +prayer,” with that deaf man’s voice which filled the biggest +house in Boston.</p> + +<p>And now it was discovered that Priscilla Quincy Adams +Thornwell, spinster, had left a letter asserting that the Episcopal +service for the burial of the dead was a denial of the faith of +Jesus, and specifying that she was to be buried from Trinity +Church with the services for Easter Morning! It was a problem +for authorities in ecclesiastical etiquette; but to defy a Thornwell +was unthinkable, so the rector and his assistants finally decided +that One to whom a thousand years were as a day might conceivably +accept any day as Easter. There were no lilies on the +market, but there were plenty of roses, and the occasion created +almost as much excitement as a vaudeville show that was likely +to be raided by the police. It was as if everybody were secretly +wondering whether the Lord might give some sign of his displeasure +at this setting back of the church calendar for three +months. But apparently the Lord understood Boston, a city +which is governed by the old, and especially the old ladies.</p> + +<p>They were all at this service, even though they had to motor +a hundred miles from the country. They wore their black dresses +and bonnets, some new and shiny, some old and rusty—but +never forget that the rustiest might be the richest. To wear a +dowdy dress and a mangy fur tippet might mean one who was +able to scorn ostentation—just as illiteracy in an English duke +means that he is above the laws of grammar. One of these old +ladies might dispose of millions upon a whim, and her lightest +word was social law. They sat in family pews which had belonged +to them since the great brown-stone church was built; +beside them the younger generations—sweet-faced ladies, better +dressed, and oh, so neat and clean, gazing with rapt faces at +a fairy-story setting of white roses and candles and stained-glass-window +saints, and a procession of toddlers in white +robes, singing in cherubs’ voices to the rolling music of four +organs in four different corners. How beautiful it all was, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> +how serene—and how amazing to come to it out of that world of +lies and cruelty which Cornelia and Betty had just left!</p> + +<p>Look about you at these perfect Anglo-Saxon faces—not a +foreign one among them—so elegant and so satisfied! Note the +costumes, polished to the last pin, and chosen with impeccable +taste—broadcloth and patent leather and spats for the men, +veils and laces, silk stockings and delicate scents, flowers and +unostentatious jewelry for the ladies! Note the soft, cultivated +voices, the gracious manners, rehearsed for centuries! Note the +ancient formulas, the ritual established since eternity; the +prayers and anthems rising to an Anglo-Saxon God, untainted +by His temporary sojourn in a Hebrew womb. Bland saints in +all the windows, with golden haloes and bright-colored robes, +untainted by contact with the fishing industry. A rector who was +the last word in Back Bay fashion, the Harvard manner grafted +upon a mediæval ecclesiastic.</p> + +<p>While the sweet-faced ladies gazed up at him adoringly, he +pronounced a little eulogy upon the virtues of the dear departed, +whose faith and funds had nourished the church for two +generations and a half. It wasn’t customary to make speeches +at church funerals; but since this was an Easter Sunday service, +a different rule might well apply. The rector referred to the +recent new fervors of the deceased, a matter which required +tact, because this rector had got his training in days when the +theological department of the university was separate from the +medical. He made an excursion into the field of modern thought, +revealing that he had heard of the science of astronomy and +knew that the earth was small; more amazing yet, he gave up the +Virgin birth, saying that we did not know just what had happened +on that occasion, and perhaps would never know. It +sounded like a hint at some scandal in the Holy Family, and +would have made a scandal in Episcopal circles in other cities: +but not in Boston, where everything is far advanced, and +Trinity Church has to compete with King’s Chapel, which is +Unitarian, and even more intellectual, and if possible more +fashionable.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_8"> + X +</h3> + +<p>The funeral had the effect of bringing Cornelia and Betty +back into the family, and they heard the latest gossip. Alice +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> +Winters was still supporting her “little theater,” but very unhappy, +because her poet, supposed to be storming Parnassus, +was getting drunk every night, and neglecting his muse for a +brazen, yellow-headed flapper. Clara Scatterbridge was getting +stout, and the best reducing experts could not solve her problem; +she concealed the dire truth from these advisers, but not +from the Argus eyes of the family—that she kept an assortment +of sweets in her boudoir, and nibbled chocolates and +candied fruits all day.</p> + +<p>Great-uncle Abner was very melancholy now; he was the +last of the old generation, he said, and his time would come +soon—which was certainly a negative suggestion! He could +no longer remember the chess moves he had made last week, +and his son Quincy was losing games on purpose, in order to +keep up the old man’s spirits. Abner had gone to stay with the +Scatterbridges, because he liked to be with the children; each +of the younger ones had a donkey to ride, and Abner had +one too, and rode at the head of the procession, all over the +estate—a most laughable sight. But everybody had to keep a +sober face, because if you laughed at anything whatever, the +old man would think you were laughing at him, and would take +ineradicable offense.</p> + +<p>Deborah came to the little apartment to have lunch with her +mother and daughter; and presently it transpired that the Argus +eyes of the family had observed Betty going about town with +a young man by the name of Joseph Jefferson Randall. Who +was he? A grandson of the actor? Betty said no, he was one of +the Randalls of Pakenham Court House, Virginia, and a nephew +of Senator Randall, now ambassador to one of the South American +countries.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think, dear, you had better let your mother meet +him?” inquired Deborah, mildly.</p> + +<p>“No, Mother, I don’t,” said the younger generation. “Joe is +much less radical than I, but he always says what he thinks, and +so he would make you very unhappy.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you say what you think, my daughter?”</p> + +<p>“Practically never, Mother. I bite my tongue off several times +every hour.”</p> + +<p>Deborah said no more, but Betty knew what she would do—and +so did Deborah. What are the secret, underground channels +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span> +of the blue-bloods, by which they find out whatever they wish +to know? Do they have indexes and card-files, like the Quaker +attorney-general, so that they can telegraph and ascertain who +is who, and what are his family scandals? Anyhow, the next +time Deborah came to town, she knew that Joe’s father was a +“drinking man,” whose wife had divorced him. Fortunately Deborah +hadn’t found out that Joe himself was married; but she +imagined the worst, because divorces are a matter of heredity, +like cancer, she said.</p> + +<p>Deborah’s hope was to persuade Cornelia and Betty to accompany +Betty’s older sister to Europe for the rest of the summer—since +young Priscilla’s wedding had been put off by the +death of her great-aunt, whose namesake she was. Failing in +that, Deborah’s next campaign was to persuade the pair to come +out and spend the summer at the Rupert Alvin palace on the +North Shore. Deborah was lonely, she said, pathetically; her +husband had so many cares just now, owing to the collapse of +business. Deborah even went so far as to promise that Cornelia +and Betty would be free to believe and say what they +pleased, and she would not argue with them—a most remarkable +“come-down” for so haughty and stern a lady.</p> + +<p>Anything to get Betty away from the companionship of that +dangerous young Virginian! To divert her with yachting and +tennis and lawn-parties and picnics, in the company of sound +and wholesome graduates of the Harvard “Gold Coast,” their +blood free from the hereditary virus of divorce! But both +Cornelia and Betty were obdurate; they were going to stay +cooped up in that hot little apartment all July and August, to +consult lawyers and organize committees and raise funds for +the defense of two anarchist bandits!</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_8"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>The men of the Thornwell family indeed had their hands full +that summer. The expected post-war collapse had come—or +rather it had been brought about by those who realized that +prices had got too high, and that “deflation” was necessary. +Naturally, these men wanted to deflate everybody but themselves, +and having the power, they did so. The heads of the +great banking groups, of whom Rupert Alvin was one of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span> +most careful and conscientious, had devised what they called +the “Federal Reserve System,” a chain of banks financed by +the government and run by the bankers; its function was to +enable the great bankers to save themselves in times of panic, +by issuing vast sums of new money, and lending it to the big +industries, whose stocks and bonds are the mainstay of banking +credit. That meant that when a panic came, it was the little +fellows and the outsiders who were “deflated,” while the big +bankers and their friends sat on a rock and waited for the +storm to blow over.</p> + +<p>Having this power in their hands, Rupert and his associates +in the course of that summer of 1920 had their Federal Reserve +banks suddenly raise the discount rates in the farming +country; the result of which was to force the dumping of the +country’s farm produce on the market. Prices collapsed to a +point where most of the farmers were bankrupt, and in the +Northwest there were whole counties with every single farm +sold for taxes. Meantime the big industrialists of the East, +having bank-credit, were able to hold their products, and close +down their plants and wait.</p> + +<p>But if Rupert and his Pilgrim National crowd thought they +were going to have a happy time riding that storm, they learned +a sad lesson. The saying that uneasy lies the head that wears a +crown, applies to the kings of modern credit as well as to those +of Shakespearean drama. It was as if Rupert were the guardian +of a huge honey-pot, and had the job of apportioning its contents +to all the flies in New England. They swarmed about him, +making a quite terrifying buzzing—and it was a fact that many +of them had stings, more or less dangerous, and threatened to +use them, and sometimes did. Impossible for a great banker to +sleep with all that clamor in his ears! Impossible for any member +of his family to sleep—because there were lady-flies as well +as gentleman, and they too could buzz and sting!</p> + +<p>To drop metaphors, it was a fact that a small group of bankers +had to decide, during that panic, which industries of the +community were to be saved and which were to go to the wall. +And needless to say, in a place like Boston, it was not a question +of vulgar material efficiency, it was a question of social +status. Who was who, and who was married to whom, and what +was the relative blueness of this blood and that? The difference +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span> +between the attitudes of Boston and New York in this matter +are set forth in a story which all financial men delight to tell, +about the New York banker who wrote to a Boston friend, saying +that he had a position for a capable young man. The Boston +banker sent one, with a letter explaining that he was a great-nephew +of the late Josiah Quincy Thornwell, a nephew of John +Quincy Thornwell and of Rupert Alvin, a cousin of the Cabots, +and so on. Whereupon the vulgar New Yorker dismissed the +applicant and sent a telegram, reading: “I did not want a young +man for breeding purposes, I wanted one for banking.”</p> + +<p>The emergency now was the most desperate the Boston bluebloods +had faced for a long time. It was no mere play question, +like belonging to a Sewing Circle, or getting your daughters +into Camp Putnam and the Friday dances, or your sons into +the “Porcellian” and the “Alpha Delta Phi.” No, it was a +question of your very life-blood, that privilege upon which your +family existence was based. So you forgot your good manners, +and fought as your ancestors had fought, in the days before +they had any manners. You threatened and stormed, and raked +up ancient, long-buried family skeletons, and made life miserable +for a great banker who had for years been suffering from high +blood pressure, and had been warned by Morrow, eminent authority +upon diseases of the rich.</p> + +<p>Rupert became morose under the strain. His pink and purple +bulges, which had seemed to be radiating geniality, now took on +the aspect of a threatened explosion. He fell to grumbling about +human nature. Nobody cared about anything but money; friendship, +family pride, honor, all were gone. He would carry his +burden of sorrow for days, and suddenly it would become too +heavy, and he would dump it in some quite unsuitable place. +An elderly widow, a friend of Cornelia’s, sought him as adviser +about the purchase of bonds, and the great and busy head of +the Pilgrim National Bank kept the astonished lady for half +an hour while he impressed upon her the solemn duty of guarding +her property. “Hold on to it! You have nothing else—absolutely +nothing! When it is gone you will discover that nobody +respects you, your friends have no use for you. Nothing counts +to-day but money!” The widow-lady might have had her feelings +hurt, but she understood that it was impersonal, a revelation +of the banker-soul.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span></p> + +<p>But for the most part Rupert kept his pessimistic thoughts +to pour out upon his spouse in the privacy of their chamber, +after the lights were out, and they lay in the chaste retirement +of their twin beds, under brocaded blue silk counterpanes. He +would expatiate upon the abnormal greediness of this one and +that, and after he had begun to snore, Deborah would lie still +and petition the Lord to soften the hearts of the greedy ones, +and spare her good and noble husband, who was sacrificing his +very life to preserve sound and conservative banking in New +England—which meant, of course, banking under the control +of the Pilgrim National group.</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_6"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>There are some whose claims were not to be questioned. +Unthinkable that any Thornwell should go to the wall, or any +one who could claim kinship, even by marriage. Those huge +Thornwell Mills had to have many millions of credit, to enable +them to store their manufactured products, and turn off their +operatives to starve. And of course they got it; you have only +to imagine the hysterics that Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge +would have had in the boudoir of Deborah Thornwell Alvin, +if Rupert had dreamed of refusing! John Quincy Thornwell +needed a small fortune, for a shipping deal he had been putting +through on the side; and he got it from Rupert’s bank. Rupert +also needed a fortune, for some of those subsidiary plants which +he and Henry Cabot Winters had taken away from Jerry +Walker, and had kept all to themselves. Rupert got this money +from the Fifth National Bank, of which John Quincy Thornwell +was president. So these big fellows shifted millions about +from their right-hand pockets to their left-hand pockets, and +shrewd lawyers like Henry Cabot Winters were there to tell +them exactly how to do it, so they need never worry if some +spy told on them, and caused a government bank-examiner to +drop in.</p> + +<p>They knew that their rivals had spies on them, because they +had spies on their rivals. And when these spies would bring in +reports of what was going on, Henry Cabot Winters and the +other legal spiders would be called in to consider how to meet +the rivals’ moves. If it was discovered that some little fellow, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span> +having less expensive legal talent, had slipped up somewhere, +and done something which the law did not allow, then was the +time to use your pull with the bank-examiner, whom you had +caused to be appointed a few years ago, and whom you were +going to make into a bank-president in the course of another +year or two—after he had completed the job of putting your +rivals out of business.</p> + +<p>That was the way the blue-bloods kept the banking industry +a strictly blue-blooded affair. The foreigners, and especially the +Jews, had got into everything else. For decades they had been +boycotted as department-store owners, but now several of the +biggest and most successful stores were in the hands of Jews. +They had got clothing and wool and leather; they had the theaters, +and were breaking into law and medicine—but they were +never going to get the banking-business, not if Rupert Alvin +and the rest of the “high hats” could prevent it. And they could!</p> + +<p>At this time there was a Jewish banker who had broken into +the reserve. Simon Swig was his name—which in itself was +enough to demonstrate the impropriety of allowing a Jew to +become directing head of a bank! He had come into the country +as a common immigrant, and now had got hold of the Tremont +Trust Company, an honorable institution, and was running it +on bargain-day principles—paying five and a half per cent on +savings accounts, and advertising the fact, which was unethical, +but brought in the business. He was a rascal, so the blue-bloods +said, and doubtless it was true, but you had to remember that +in high finance rascality is a question of degree. The respectable +bankers were breaking any number of laws, but having the banking +authorities in their clubs, they were not punished. Neither +were they exposed, because they had the newspapers, and their +“news bureaus,” run by large stout subsidized “experts”—whose +expertness lay in making the public believe whatever Rupert +Alvin and men of his sort desired.</p> + +<p>In the course of that chain of troubles, the state bank-examiners +swooped down one morning and tacked a notice on +the door of the Tremont Trust Company, to the effect that it +was closed and forbidden to do business. And that was all there +was to it—the Tremont Trust stayed closed, and it didn’t do any +business. If it had been a “blue-blood” bank, it would have been +“tided over”; instead of which it was turned over to a “blue-blood” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span> +receiver, and paid its savings depositors a hundred cents +on the dollar—which seemed rather to justify the claim of Simon +Swig that it had been sound all along.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_5"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>What started the trouble that summer was the problem of +Charles Ponzi. An Italian immigrant who had come to America +about the same time as Vanzetti, and with even less money in +his pocket, Ponzi, too, had washed dishes for a living; but he +had not wasted his time dreaming about “joostice”—no, he was +the sort of immigrant America wants, he had dreamed of making +a million dollars in a week, and he had done it. He discovered +a curious situation in international exchange, so he said; it +was possible to buy postal coupons in Vienna, and sell them +at a higher rate in Switzerland, and thus you could turn a +thousand dollars into twenty-five thousand. It made good advertising +copy, and was no more false than what the big bankers +were telling the public about their Federal Reserve System. +Anyhow, Ponzi opened a dingy little office in School Street, +quite in the correct Boston tradition—for many of the big New +England corporations had dingy little offices in some of those +two-hundred-year-old houses in dark and narrow streets which +had been laid out by cows.</p> + +<p>Charles Ponzi advertised that he would sell you a forty-five-day +certificate, which you were free to redeem at any time, +but if you would wait till the end of the forty-five days, you +would get fifty per cent interest. The tidings spread among the +million inhabitants of Boston, and all those persons who cherished +the dream of getting rich without working came to buy +certificates—which meant that Ponzi had approximately a million +customers. Such a mob of people tried to get into his dingy +office all at once that the police reserves had to be called out to +keep them from being crushed to death. In that suffocating room +you saw rich ladies in silks and jewels, newsboys, street peddlers, +workingwomen with babies in their arms, scrubwomen +clutching in their hands the earnings of half a lifetime on their +knees. They all wanted to give it to Ponzi, and he took it, and +fulfilled the immigrant’s dream by buying himself a palace in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span> +the country, with the most expensive custom-built limousine in +Boston to bring him to town.</p> + +<p>Ponzi was imperiling the savings banks by causing the public +to draw out all their money; he was buying into the big trust +companies, and in danger of becoming a real banker. Worse +yet, he was filling the public mind with unrest, talking recklessly +to the newspapers. He kept saying that in making a hundred +per cent profit in three months he was merely doing what many +big bankers were doing—the difference being that he was giving +the public fifty percent, whereas the big bankers gave only five +percent. If any one were to say how near to the truth that was, +the person would not be believed, so it would be useless to say it.</p> + +<p>The bank-examiners and district attorneys got busy, and +filled the papers with rumors that Ponzi was about to be arrested. +It was difficult to take action because the ex-dishwasher was +now worth about twelve million dollars, and actually had five +millions cash in Boston banks, and nobody so rich had ever +been arrested in New England. Moreover, he had hired a very +able lawyer, who was later on disbarred as a “fixer”; he paid +that lawyer a million dollars before he got through, and would +undoubtedly have got off, had not Rupert and his crowd been +so determined to get him out of the way.</p> + +<p>As often occurs with financial storms, this one got out of +control, and brought down several institutions: the Cosmopolitan +Trust, the Prudential Trust, the Fidelity Trust—it +was a rollcall of respectability. It so happened that the Commonwealth +of Massachusetts had several hundred thousand dollars +in these banks, and several counties had as much. The city of +Cambridge, the home of Harvard University, just across the +river, was stuck for half a million—the greater part having been +got by a trick played upon the city treasurer a few months before +the crash. All this caused a terrific scandal, and a long train of +consequences most distressing to Rupert Alvin and his friends. +For the examinations of the banks disclosed that many of the +state legislators had been borrowing money without any security, +and had used this money to buy stocks in public utilities, while +passing a bill to triple their value.</p> + +<p>Not so long ago the Pilgrim National crowd had driven +the Boston Elevated Railway onto the financial rocks, and taken +it over; then, in order to put it back on its feet, they had jammed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span> +through the legislature a so-called Public Control bill, whereby +the Commonwealth guaranteed dividends to the Elevated stockholders, +which made necessary a ten-cent fare. So here was the +blue-blooded and high-hatted and in all ways ineffable Rupert +Alvin playing Santa Claus and angel to the politicians and legislators +of his Commonwealth! The disclosure was half a year in +the future, but that only meant the prolonging of Rupert’s +worry; for of course he knew what was in the records of the +banks, and he knew that when the public has lost a lot of money +and become furiously angry, it is much harder to keep news out +of the papers.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_3"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>Another trouble looming, if possible even more serious! Jerry +Walker had come back from his nervous breakdown, and had +found out some details of the intrigue by which Rupert and +Henry Cabot Winters had persuaded the other bankers to join +in taking his ten-million-dollar properties. Jerry had consulted +lawyers, and made a deal with one of them, a bristling little +bull-dog of a man who had taken many a million away from big +bankers on previous occasions. Now, under the law, Jerry had +a right to put questions to Rupert, as to what Rupert had done +to him, and Rupert was compelled to answer, under penalty of +being considered to have admitted his guilt! So there would +come to the Pilgrim National crowd and their lawyers long +letters full of questions, agonizingly direct and to the point; +and there would be conferences of great financial and legal personages, +and private conferences in Rupert’s study late at night, +in which Rupert and his brother-in-law would go over what +they had done to Jerry, and many times wish they had done it a +little differently!</p> + +<p>Betty Alvin found out about this, because she ran into Lucile +Walker in the lobby of one of the hotels. They had not met +since Betty’s departure for Europe, more than a year ago; so +they rushed into each other’s arms, girl fashion, and then adjourned +to the tea-room to talk things over. Lucile had solved +her financial and other problems in the good old established +way; she was now Mrs. Percy G. Townsend, her husband a +manufacturer of some kind of electrical equipment. He was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> +young and enthusiastic, and so was his wife, and they were +going to work hard and build up a business, and then some day +one of the big banking groups would take it over.</p> + +<p>Betty told a little about her adventures in Hungary and +Russia and Plymouth, Massachusetts; after which there was +an embarrassed pause on Lucile’s part, and she said, “I suppose +you know what Papa is doing?” When Betty said she +didn’t, Lucile told about the suit that was coming; and when +Betty said that she was not taking her father’s side in his business +fights, Lucile told more of the story. It was going to mean +a dreadful lot of publicity for all of them, because those big +State Street bankers would be put on the witness stand and +questioned about the deals they had made, and how they had +divided Mr. Walker’s properties. Betty said she had told her +mother that she would never touch any of that money; just now +she was wrestling with the problem whether she ought to take +any money at all from her father. She was able to earn her own +living, and wanted to—but also she wanted to give her time to +organizing a Sacco-Vanzetti defense, and she couldn’t earn a +living at that.</p> + +<p>Betty went home and told her grandmother; and so when +Cornelia happened to meet Henry Cabot Winters, she was able +to pose as a woman of the world, in touch with secret news +channels. Henry, of course, had no trouble in guessing how she +knew, and there developed a curious situation. A couple of years +ago he had been indignant at the idea that Jerry Walker might +be using Cornelia as a means of getting information from the +Thornwells; but now he wanted to use Cornelia to get information +as to the plans of Jerry Walker! He went so far as to +propose a “swap”: if Cornelia would find out all she could from +the Walkers, Henry would use his inside connections to help +Cornelia’s beloved bandits. He would get in touch with the +officials, and find out what their plans were, and might even +be able to find some way to get those rascals off.</p> + +<p>Somehow this tickled Cornelia’s funny-bone, and she burst +into laughter. “You and Rupert must be badly scared,” she +said; and after Henry had made sure that she was not going to +talk to the Walkers about it, he admitted that they were. It was +not that they had done anything wrong—nobody in Boston ever +does that—but it was going to be such a mess, to have the letters +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> +and telegrams and confidential memoranda of a great banking +project spread out in the newspapers.</p> + +<p>“Can’t you clean out your files?” asked Cornelia, with a +twinkle in her eye. He answered that it wasn’t so easy as it +sounded, because one document referred to the next, and there +were copies in a dozen different banks. If you took out very +much, your employees were bound to know it, and that exposed +you to spying and blackmail. Uneasy lies the head that wears +a crown!</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_2"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>Troubles! Troubles! Even in far-off Italy, that summer and +fall, people were occupied in making troubles for Rupert Alvin +and his associates. The big bankers had filled up their vaults +with the gold-embossed and red-sealed financial promises of +European governments; and vain was the hope to save themselves +by unloading this paper on the public. Because after a +bank customer had bought it, he generally came back to leave +it as security up to eighty percent of its market value; and how +could Rupert refuse to lend money on a bond which he had +certified as an investment for widows and orphans? So it had +come about that every time a European premier sneezed, Rupert +Alvin jumped in his sleep; when the anarchists paraded in +Milan or Turin and waved their black flags, Rupert couldn’t +sleep at all.</p> + +<p>That summer the radical labor unions of Italy made their +long expected coup—moving in and taking possession of the +principal steel and machine plants of the country. But having +got in, they didn’t know what to do next, because they could not +turn a wheel of the plants without coal, and the coal had to +come from England or America, in English or American ships, +upon English or American credit. Were English or American +coal men going to extend credit to Italian anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, +communist-anarchists and left-wing socialists? The +coal men of England and America, like all the other big business +men of those countries, were going to do what their +Rupert Alvins told them; and the Rupert Alvins said thumbs +down on Reds. So the Italian workers had to make peace with +their masters, and give up the plants; and then it was necessary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span> +for the masters to organize a counter-revolutionary government, +to break up the labor unions and kill off the leaders. To do that +they had to have the machinery of reaction and slaughter—and +where else should they come for it but to America?</p> + +<p>So it happened that Rupert Alvin, in the midst of all his +troubles with Ponzi, and Simon Swig, and the half dozen closed +banks, and the threatened Elevated Railway scandal, and the +hiding of evidence in the Jerry Walker case, and the unhappiness +over Betty and Cornelia—with all this nightmare-load +riding his shoulders, Rupert Alvin had to interview agents +of the banking and manufacturing interests of Italy, and listen +to plans for the coup d’état which was to turn that country into +a dictatorship of big capital. No possible way to avoid it—unless +all the money that had been loaned to Italy during and +since the war was to be lost. The bankers of Boston and New +York and Philadelphia and Chicago had to get together and do +for Italy what they had already done for Hungary and Roumania +and Czechoslovakia and Finland and Esthonia and +Latvia and Lithuania—so many miserable little bonded states +that it gave a hundred percent American a headache to learn +the names.</p> + +<p>And meantime Bartolomeo Vanzetti paced his cell, in the +space eight feet by one and a half allotted him for pacing. He +knew what was happening, because his friends brought him a +few facts, and he could reconstruct the rest, with that clear +mind which understood social forces. He knew that it meant +the ruin of all his hopes, all chance of freedom for the peasants +and wage-slaves of Italy for years, perhaps decades. He knew +what the American bankers would do; he foretold how, when +the time came to float the loan, they would have the newspapers +bought and the propaganda ready, and would carry the mass +of Italian-Americans into reaction with them. Meantime +they had Vanzetti in jail, where he was safe—and they were +going to see to it that he stayed!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X"> + CHAPTER X<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE LEGAL SYSTEM</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>On the 11th of September, 1920, the grand jury of Norfolk +County brought indictments against Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo +Vanzetti, charging them with the murder of the paymaster +and guard at South Braintree in the previous April. This +county shared with Plymouth the same district attorney; and +Nick and Bart were brought before the same Judge Thayer. +They pleaded not guilty, and the trial was set for February. +Meantime Bart went back to the tailor-shop at Charlestown, +serving his sentence for the Bridgewater crime; while Nick +returned to the county jail at Dedham—a very unhappy man, +because they gave him nothing whatever to do in this prison, +and he nearly went out of his mind.</p> + +<p>Meantime a little group in Boston set about organizing what +they called the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee. In the beginning +it consisted entirely of Italians, the foremost among +them being Aldino Felicani, anarchist printer, a tall, ascetic-looking +young man, soft-voiced and reserved. He would set up +type for the circulars, and translate them into Italian. Others +would address envelopes, and visit the meeting-places of radicals +in neighboring towns, and circulate subscription lists. So +would come a few dollars here and a few dollars there. At the +outset there was no office, no secretary, only the volunteer labors +of a few comrades.</p> + +<p>Joe Randall had finished his book on the “White Terror”; +he had lost hope of bringing it up to date, since events happened +faster than pen could move. Now he became a volunteer press +agent for the committee; he wrote news stories, and made carbon +copies, and went about trying to cajole this editor and that +into giving a little publicity. With him came another young +journalist, Art Shields, a tireless worker; you would see lights +burning and hear typewriters clicking in the office until two or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span> +three o’clock in the morning. Betty learned to make speeches, +and put her youth and beauty and social prestige to work; +she would visit labor headquarters and “vamp” the officials, +seeking to overcome the bitter prejudice of Irish-Catholic and +Yankee labor leaders against a pair of wops who were admitted +to be infidels, anarchists and draft-dodgers. Cornelia +and Betty would go together to places where they encountered +ladies with blue blood ever so slightly tinged with pink. The +services the pair had rendered to the suffrage cause—now victorious—gave +them prestige, and they could get small checks.</p> + +<p>The Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee was from the outset +a peculiar organization. It consisted largely of a name, and +nobody could say just who were its members, or what was their +authority. Those Americans who later joined and helped to +build it up did so from sympathy with an oppressed group, and +they served as a “front”; they were featured in the newspapers, +they made speeches, and conferred respectability. But they did +not know so much about the case, and naturally they had to +defer to the Italians in a crisis.</p> + +<p>Among these latter, also, appeared a division; there was an +Italian “front”: such men as Felicani, the printer, and Felice +Guadagni, the journalist whom Cornelia had met when he came +down to help in the Plymouth cordage strike; also Rosina +Sacco, wife of the prisoner, an alert and intelligent woman, +devoted to her husband’s cause. These were known; but there +were others who stayed in the background, and in a time of +crisis would reach out a hand, as it were from behind a curtain, +and influence a decision. These were anarchists, intimates of +Sacco and Vanzetti, and it was easy enough to understand why +they kept hidden; they stood in danger of deportation, and +perhaps of being accused of crimes, along with the two in jail. +But it made committee functioning difficult, when you never +knew what decision would be changed, or by whom, or for +what reason. Public statements would be prepared and issued +in English, and then translated into Italian, and the discovery +would be made that the Italian version was quite different, +and even contradictory; yet it would not be known just how +this had happened.</p> + +<p>There was the element of fear, and of course, the element +of suspicion. It was inevitable that the enemy should send spies +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span> +among the committee—and that these would be persons sufficiently +cunning to pose as “good radicals.” From first to last the +prosecution was fully informed as to everything that went on +among the committee, the decisions that were taken as well as +the arguments and the quarrels. These spies came and went; +and after they were gone, they would joke about how they had +collected money for the cause and spent it having a good time in +their own fashion. Then you would hear the great ones of +Massachusetts, who had employed these spies, solemnly charging +that the funds of the committee had been stolen!</p> + + +<h3 id="II_9"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Among both English and Italian groups there were sharp +divisions according to political beliefs. Some insisted that this +was a criminal case, and should be handled as such; others +thought it was a case of labor persecution, to be featured as +an episode in the class struggle. Strange as it might seem, the +anarchists for the most part took the former view; they saw +clearly that efforts to make anarchist propaganda might not +merely bring about a conviction of the two men, but might get +their defenders into trouble. But a socialist like Joe Randall +was free from such fear, and to him the case was an effort of +big business to put two of its dangerous enemies out of the +way; he could never write anything about the case that was +not disguised propaganda for socialism, and of course he did +not like to have his propaganda cut out by non-socialist members +of the committee. Young persons like Betty Alvin, who at +this stage of her life insisted that she was a communist—such +young persons wanted to put in a different kind of propaganda, +and their persistence increased as the case grew more conspicuous.</p> + +<p>It was a controversy that would never cease, up to the very +last hour, and even beyond it—when men and women fought +with deadly bitterness over the question of what should be +done with the ashes of the victims. You saw the germs of it at +the first meeting, when eight or ten ill-assorted enthusiasts +fell to discussing what kind of lawyer should be employed for +the trial. Should they get a labor man, who would make an +appeal to the movement throughout the country? Or should +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> +they get a respectable lawyer, who would confer dignity upon +the case, and impress the public and the jury in the good old +Boston way? Still another possibility, should they look for a +criminal expert, with knowledge of the trickeries of a highly +technical game? Joe and Betty united for the first plan, Cornelia +urged the second, while the Italians divided between the +first and third.</p> + +<p>A powerful factor in the decision was, of course, the two +prisoners, who never wavered for a moment; to them it was a +class-war case, they were being persecuted because of their +threat to the rich of Massachusetts. To Vanzetti the very idea +of respectability was an insult, the idea of legal trickery nearly +as bad. All such hopes would prove delusive, and only the +labor movement could save them. “Unless a million men can +be mobilized for our defense, we are lost!”—so he said in the +first days, and so he said in the last.</p> + +<p>As for Sacco, he was even more extreme; shut up in his half-dark +cell in Dedham jail, he was like a rat in a trap, a creature +all of steel springs and fury. He brooded incessantly, and ate +his heart out, and never let himself be fooled by a hope. “They +have got us, they will kill us,” he would say; and whenever +his enemies came near him, he would throw his revolutionary +convictions into their faces. “Viva l’anarchia!” were his last +words, and this summed up his attitude at every stage of the +seven years’ struggle.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_9"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia went downtown to have lunch with Henry Cabot +Winters, who knew all the lawyers in town. First he would +make the protest which family proprieties required; and then +he would betray his secret amusement—being in truth rather +proud of his runaway mother-in-law, who was telling the +world to go to the devil in the very best “old Boston” manner.</p> + +<p>But this time Cornelia missed the usual twinkle in Henry’s +fine dark eyes. In the first place, the great lawyer was worried +by some of the things he had learned that Jerry Walker had +learned about him. And in the second place, Henry had been +shocked by the Wall Street “bomb explosion.” Five days after +the indictment of Sacco and Vanzetti a wagonload of explosives +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span> +had gone off in front of the building of J. P. Morgan +and Company in New York, and thirty-three persons had been +blown to fragments. The newspapers were certain that this was +the work of anarchists, and the Boston <i>Traveler</i> had come +out with a full-page article, to the effect that the crime had been +traced to the Galleani group, a vengeance for the arrest of the +bandits, Sacco and Vanzetti.</p> + +<p>“Mother, that is a horrible thing!” said Henry; and Cornelia +said, yes, it was indeed horrible for a newspaper to prejudge +the case of two accused men, and make it impossible for them +to get a fair jury in the community. Henry, as a lawyer, must +know that such an article would have that effect, and under +the very strict laws of Massachusetts was contempt of court.</p> + +<p>But Henry did not discuss that aspect of the matter. “I am +told,” said he, “that the Boston anarchists made no attempt +to conceal their glee when they learned of that explosion.”</p> + +<p>“Why should they?” said Cornelia. “If they had learned that +an earthquake had destroyed every building in Wall Street, +they would have been still more pleased; but that would not +mean they control earthquakes. Their glee expressed their conviction +that the practices of Wall Street cause boundless suffering +to the workers of America; and in that they are right.”</p> + +<p>“Now, Mother,” said Henry, “let’s look at the menu. We +don’t want to get off on politics.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia laughed. “I am always entertained to discover the +identity of attitude of my Back Bay and my anarchist friends. +The anarchists don’t want to get off on politics either, they +share your faith in direct action.”</p> + +<p>Henry ordered the lunch; and Cornelia repeated what she +had learned from the radical papers, that the explosion had been +caused by a load of blasting gelatine, being illegally taken +through the city in the daytime; while Henry repeated what +he had read in the capitalist papers, that it was an anarchist +bomb. He wanted to know, with some irritation, “Do you think +that anarchists never use bombs?”</p> + +<p>“I have been told they sometimes do.”</p> + +<p>“Yet you can be certain these two friends of yours never did +any such thing?”</p> + +<p>“They aren’t accused of having done that, Henry.”</p> + +<p>“I know. But people say—”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span></p> + +<p>“What people, Henry?”</p> + +<p>“Well, friends of mine who are in position to know the inside.”</p> + +<p>“Will you tell me their names?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t do that.”</p> + +<p>“Did you ask who gave them the information?”</p> + +<p>“No, but—”</p> + +<p>“I am interested to watch the process of rumor. People say +this and people say that, and always when you try to get +something definite, there is nothing. Can you bring me a single +fact, Henry—one that you as a first-class lawyer would respect? +I am ready to deal with it honestly; and surely it’s worth the +family’s while to keep me from being led into a trap.” Cornelia +looked her son-in-law in his dark fine eyes, gravely and steadily; +and he said all right, he would try to help her.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_9"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>The waiter brought oysters, since there was an “r” in the +month. And after he had set down the crackers and the lemons +and the paprika, and made all the necessary flourishes, he went +his way, and Henry returned to the dangerous subject of bombs, +which haunted the thoughts of all leisure-class Boston in those +desperate days. Despite his pretenses of omniscience, Cornelia +represented his only direct contact with the anarchist movement.</p> + +<p>“You know, Mother, somebody did make bombs—the ones +that went through the mail. You can’t dispute that.”</p> + +<p>“No, of course not.”</p> + +<p>“What do your friends say about those?”</p> + +<p>“Vanzetti is quite certain it was a frame-up.”</p> + +<p>“By whom?”</p> + +<p>“Some one of the big detective agencies, which are making +millions out of this anti-red agitation.”</p> + +<p>Henry smiled pityingly. “You accept that?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t accept it as a fact, because I don’t know. I certainly +accept it as a possibility.”</p> + +<p>“Believe me, Mother, you’ll have to look for a better alibi. +Frame-ups don’t happen.”</p> + +<p>Henry saw the pair of brown eyes fixed upon his dark ones. +They were soft, and always kind, but they were persistent, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span> +and he had learned that they saw deep. “Be careful, and don’t +commit yourself too completely. You may need an alibi yourself, +my son.” And that was hardly fair at the beginning of a +luncheon; a poor appetizer for a great lawyer who was going +to be a defendant, and get large daily doses of his own medicine. +His look clouded, and for a while he was less quick to +interrupt.</p> + +<p>“Five or six years ago, Henry, I’d have agreed with you +about the frame-up; I’d have said it was a device of criminals in +trouble, and a sign they were hard-pressed. But now I know +that the frame-up is a regular weapon in the class-struggle, just +as well understood as, for example, jury-fixing, or the buying +of labor leaders. Did you ever have William M. Wood for a +client?”</p> + +<p>“No, Mother, I have never been that fortunate.”</p> + +<p>“How rich is he?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know; pretty rich—ten or fifteen million, maybe.”</p> + +<p>“Enough to be one of our leading industrialists, the president +of our great woolen corporation. You’d think he was big +enough not to frame up conspiracies against his workers, +wouldn’t you? Do you happen to remember what he did in the +Lawrence strike, seven or eight years ago? He couldn’t see any +other way to break the union, so he had dynamite planted, +to be blamed upon the union leaders. He was indicted and +tried for it—”</p> + +<p>“And acquitted, if I remember correctly.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you know what it means for a great mill-owner to be +acquitted in his own bailiwick. It is a fact that the men he +hired to do the job were convicted; and I leave it for you to +suggest that he didn’t know what they were doing for him. +This much is certain, the story was given out to the newspapers +that dynamite had been found by the police in a shoe-box in +the union headquarters. The box had been brought there by a +detective, and somebody slipped up on the time, and the story +was in the Boston <i>American</i> before the raid took place and +the dynamite was found! That was bad management, at least.”</p> + +<p>The great lawyer could not help smiling. “I will say that if +I had had the matter in charge, it wouldn’t have happened that +way.”</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t forget that it is a part of American labor history, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span> +and graven into the consciousness of all those people you +call ‘Reds.’ So when the great gossip machine starts to grinding, +and we hear that ‘people say’ our friends are guilty, that +‘everybody knows it,’ and that ‘frame-ups don’t happen,’—well, +Henry, we fall back on the good old tradition of English +and American law, that every man is innocent until he is proved +guilty. And in the effort to get him a fair trial we go to a lot +of trouble—such as inviting ourselves to lunch with our rich +and famous sons-in-law, and asking for the names of lawyers +who might possibly care about justice!”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_9"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Henry supplied the names of respectable lawyers, and Cornelia +went to interview them, but in vain. Later on, after years +of struggle had made a world issue of the case, it would be +possible to interest great lawyers in it; but at present there was +no man who would burden himself with the defense of two +anarchist infidel draft-dodgers accused of murder.</p> + +<p>Also Henry named some of the legal tricksters, and Cornelia +had curious experiences interviewing these. There was +one uniform objection to all these powerful ones, the amount +of money necessary to start their powers into action. Some +said fifty thousand, some said seventy-five; and this was a stage +in the life of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee when there +were discussions as to whether they could afford to rent a post-office +box, and whether it would be the part of wisdom to buy +a second-hand typewriter.</p> + +<p>Later on there would be ladies of wealth and fashion interested +in the case, and money would be pouring in from labor +groups all over the world; but at this stage, when money would +really have counted, the only large sum in sight was what Cornelia +could raise on her income and lend to the committee. She +had discovered by talking to bankers that she could not raise +very much, because her life expectancy at sixty-five was limited. +If she had wanted fifty thousand dollars for an orphan +asylum, or for a house to live in, or even for a string of pearls +to hang about her withered neck, she had three daughters and +three sons-in-law, any one of whom would have written her a +check, and been glad to get such a hold upon her. But when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span> +it was a question of imperiling the Commonwealth by aiding +and abetting anarchism, Cornelia did not have to ask for the +money, she could hear in advance the polite but firm rebuke.</p> + +<p>The problem of a lawyer was settled by the Italians. It +happened that Lee Swenson was in New York, recuperating +from the labor of saving a bunch of I.W.W. from jail in Kansas, +and swearing to himself by all the gods he disbelieved in +that never again. But Carlo Tresca came to see him, and Swenson +knew Carlo from the Ettor-Giovannitti case. Carlo told +the pitiful story of two anarchists in jail in Massachusetts, who +had the skids under them, all ready to be slid into the electric +chair; he told what a fine fellow Bart was, and how he had all +but had tears in his eyes because he missed seeing the Statue +of Liberty, and now maybe he would never see it; and about +Nick’s wife and little boy, and the new baby expected in a +month or two. Carlo came again and again, and appealed to +Lee Swenson’s friendship, until finally he said he would go up +to Boston and look things over.</p> + +<p>Lee Swenson was of Swedish descent, and came originally +from Minnesota. He had been in practically every big criminal +case which involved labor during the past fifteen or twenty +years. As a cub lawyer he had helped to get evidence for Moyer +and Haywood in Idaho; he had helped to defend the McNamaras +in Los Angeles and Tom Mooney in San Francisco, +and several groups of the I.W.W. in Chicago and the middle +west. He stood six feet and a couple of unnecessary inches, +and was badly put together; he did not know what to do with +his big hands and feet, nor in fact with any part of himself; he +liked to sit on his neck, and his feet liked to get up off the +floor. He had a thick shock of yellow hair, and when it was +not arranged it looked as if one of those western windstorms +had hit it, and when it was arranged it appeared to be done with +vaseline.</p> + +<p>Lee Swenson was too intelligent a man not to know the disturbing +effect he produced upon the respectable citizens of +New England. Was he really rattled by them, as he pretended, +or did he enjoy the effect he produced, somewhere back in the +deeps where he kept his laughter until it came rumbling forth +like thunder from the mountains? After he had been nosing +into the case for a couple of weeks, he asked for a conference +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span> +with Cornelia, and she invited him to her little apartment to +dinner, on an evening when Joe and Betty were scheduled +for a hearing before the carpenters’ union. Before they went +into the dining-room, Lee Swenson sank into Cornelia’s one +Morris-chair, and then slid most of the way out of it, and said, +“Will you be shocked if I cross my legs?”—and did it without +waiting for an answer.</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” said Cornelia, hastily.</p> + +<p>“Not even when you discover that I wear woolen socks?”</p> + +<p>“I know you are making fun of Boston, Mr. Swenson.”</p> + +<p>“My God,” said he—“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Thornwell, +but this is a terrible place for a man that grew up in a sod +hut. I realized when we were defending Ettor and Giovannitti +in Salem that I didn’t fit, but I never had time to go into details, +and never happened to meet the right person. But I believe you +are it.”</p> + +<p>“Is that why you wanted to talk with me?”</p> + +<p>“No, but you can do it on the side. Tell me how to avoid +shocking judges and juries who talk through their noses.”</p> + +<p>“Do you really want me to tell?”</p> + +<p>“I said it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, why do you wear a broad-brimmed black felt hat such +as nobody ever saw in Boston?”</p> + +<p>“But it’s what I had when I came to town, and I can’t afford +another.”</p> + +<p>“Are you really that hard up?”</p> + +<p>“Maybe you don’t know how it is with a radical lawyer. +Imagine a score or two of cases, each like this one. There is +two dollars and fourteen cents in the treasury to-night. They +offer to pay me a hundred and fifty a week while the case lasts, +but you know how it will be, they’ll be seventeen weeks behind +in their payments at the end of eighteen weeks, and when I +get a check, there’ll be some emergency next day that I’ll pay +out of my own pocket. You see, I’m not really going to be a +lawyer—that will be merely incidental; I’m going to be organizer, +propagandist, press agent and promoter; any money I +get, I’ve first got to raise, and understanding that the committee +will begrudge me every cent I take.”</p> + +<p>“Surely it won’t be as bad as that, Mr. Swenson!”</p> + +<p>“You are a newcomer, Mrs. Thornwell; but this is my twentieth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span> +committee, and believe me, I know them. It won’t be their +fault, they will be sincere and devoted, most of them; but they +will be poor, and narrow-minded—not used to spending money +with the magnificent abandon of us privileged persons. They +won’t see what I need with so much, and when the newspapers +and the outside public begin to tell how I have got away with +one or two hundred thousand on the sly, they will think maybe +it’s the truth. I tell you this in advance, because, when it’s +over, my one chance of getting arrears of salary will be by +vamping some of the rich ladies, your friends who will be interested +in the case. And then I’ll get my new hat.”</p> + +<p>“Meantime,” said Cornelia, hastily, “you can at least get a +haircut.”</p> + +<p>But the other replied, “If I did, the hat would be bigger than +ever, with nothing to hold it but my ears.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_9"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>After they had dined, and were back in the little living-room, +in front of the coal grate-fire, the lawyer asked if he +might close the door. He drew his chair close to Cornelia, and +slid down into it and began: “Mrs. Thornwell, I have been +digging into this case, and I am completely baffled, and don’t +know what to do. The last time I talked with Vanzetti, he told +me that you were the one American he would trust. He admires +your granddaughter, but he’s afraid she would be shocked +if I talked straight to her.”</p> + +<p>“He is mistaken,” said Cornelia, smiling in spite of herself. +“I am far more easily shocked than Betty. The younger generation +is taking life into its own hands.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if you don’t mind, I prefer the old ones. You and I +have suffered, and we have a deeper foundation under us. Do +you mind if I ask for your confidence?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all, Mr. Swenson. I will tell you anything I can. But +I fear it won’t be much.”</p> + +<p>“First, all you know about these two boys—everything that +will help me to judge them.”</p> + +<p>“Sacco I hardly know at all. I only met him two or three +times prior to the arrest. I have been to see him three times in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span> +Dedham, partly because I wanted to make up my mind about +him.”</p> + +<p>“And what are your conclusions?”</p> + +<p>“He is a difficult man to know, under the circumstances. He +has a primitive mind, I judge. He does very little thinking; he +is satisfied with a formula, that the rich exploit the poor, and +are the enemies of the poor, and always have a self-seeking +motive in relation to them. And of course I don’t fit into that +formula. Why should a rich woman, who might have everything +she wants, burn up gasoline and tires traveling down to Dedham +to visit an anarchist in prison? He is instinctively polite, +and affectionate to his friends, I am told. He hasn’t given me +any hint of a suspicion, but he probably fears that I may be +another trap the enemy has set for him. You know, of course, +they put a spy in the cell next to him soon after his arrest?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he told me that.”</p> + +<p>“Also they wanted to get one into his home, to try to board +with his wife. I’m told the district attorney had that bright idea. +I suppose it is too much to expect those gentry to have delicate +sensibilities, but you’d think they might have guessed that +a woman who was deprived of her husband, and was expecting +another baby in two or three months, would rather have a +woman-boarder than a man. Anyhow, somebody found out +about it, and naturally the Saccos are very suspicious. So I +haven’t tried to talk about the case with either of them. When +I have seen Nick, I have talked about his garden, and the wonderful +tomatoes he used to have—those tomatoes were like so +many babies to him. I take him a bunch of chrysanthemums—they +let him have flowers, though they won’t let Bart have any.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, surely not!”</p> + +<p>“It’s a regulation at Charlestown, I suppose that a saw or a +knife might be hidden in them; or maybe drugs. I get round +it by wearing one flower, and when I ask the guard if I may +leave it with Bart, he is ashamed to say no. I am trying to +win the hearts of all of them, because it seems to me the jailers +are in jail as much as the prisoners.”</p> + +<p>“We are all in jail, Mrs. Thornwell. Take it from one who +has been playing the game twenty years—we are prisoners of +the system. I walk about with a chain on my wrist, and at the +other end are fastened so many lies that it seems like the population +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span> +of all seven of Dante’s hells. That is a part of what I +want to talk to you about.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_9"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>It took Cornelia a good hour to tell the story of how she +had come into the Brini home and what she had seen there. +She told about Bart’s ideas and dreams, his work and his play +and his personal habits. She told about the sick kitten he had +refused to have killed, and the rabbits he had brought home in +a sack, and kept in pens for several months—until the sorrowful +realization was forced upon him that there was no earthly +way to keep those creatures from getting out and gnawing the +vegetables of his Catholic neighbor, Mrs. O’Dowd. She told +about the lost purse he had refused to take from the policeman, +and the boots he had let the poor laborer keep, and the +lessons in hygiene he had given to the “riformista,” Compagno +Culla—all those incidents which were destined to become Vanzetti +legends, and be repeated whenever his Italian friends mentioned +his name.</p> + +<p>Also, because a lawyer had a right to the whole truth, she +told him about the fights; and how the anarchist youths had +come armed to the Galleani meeting, vowing to defend their +hero to the death; and how Bart had got a gun and declared +that he would never let himself be taken and put through the +third degree.</p> + +<p>“Now you are getting to what I want,” said Swenson. “Do +you know whether that gun is the same one that he had on +when he was arrested?”</p> + +<p>“I believe he gave it away,” said Cornelia. “From what I +know of him, he wouldn’t keep any piece of property as long +as four years.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I can’t get them to tell me where they got those guns; +at least, I can’t get them to tell me the truth. That’s why I’m +so up against it. They are afraid of me, afraid of everybody.”</p> + +<p>“They have reason to be cautious. But won’t they take +Tresca’s word for your reliability?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose if I could get them both together with Carlo, we +could come to an understanding; but as it is, they go on repeating +the stories they told to the police; and their friends +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span> +outside do the same. Orciani has been driving me about, looking +for evidence, and I’ve been appealing to him. Do you know +him?”</p> + +<p>“Only slightly.”</p> + +<p>“He has the courage of a man with the mind of a child: a +simple Italian peasant, picked up off the countryside and +dumped into the maelstrom of America. I have managed to +win his affection, and he will talk to me frankly about everything +in the world but this case. I point out his contradictions, +but it doesn’t make any difference. It is a peculiarity of Italian +anarchists that I have observed, they can go on insisting that +black is white longer than any other human beings I have +ever seen. But somehow it has got to be put across to them +that they can’t go before a Yankee jury with those stories—it +will be throwing away their lives.”</p> + +<p>“What stories, Mr. Swenson?”</p> + +<p>“Well, the one about what they did on the night they were +arrested. I can’t get a single one of those fellows to admit to me +that they were in front of the Johnson place that night; yet it’s +a physical fact that any jury will see—there’s a swampy meadow +on both sides of the road, and no other way for Sacco and +Vanzetti to have got from the place where they admit they got +off the street-car to the place where they got on again. If we’re +going to save them, we’ve simply got to make a story that a +jury will believe.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause; Lee Swenson got up and went to the +door that led into the dining-room, and opened it, to make sure +the Negro maid was not listening. Then he came back, and +when he spoke again, it was in a lower voice. “Mrs. Thornwell, +I know enough about Boston to understand that you will be +startled to hear me discuss the ‘making’ of stories to be presented +to a jury.”</p> + +<p>“You use what I might call an optimistic phrase, Mr. +Swenson.”</p> + +<p>“Every professional man does that when he deals with the +shady parts of his job. You may know that when the fashionable +ladies go to a surgeon for an abortion, he refers to it as +a ‘curettage’.”</p> + +<p>“I have three daughters,” said Cornelia, placidly. “But I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span> +thought that in this case, if we are dealing with men who are +innocent—”</p> + +<p>“You thought we might trust to the truth?”</p> + +<p>“I admit I was that naïve.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mrs. Thornwell, I can only tell you—in my experience +with labor frame-ups in a dozen states, I have always +found it necessary to fight the devil with his own fire.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_9"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia’s little round face wore an anxious look, and her +soft brown eyes were wide open, staring at the man in front of +her. She saw a big, rough-hewn face, marked by small-pox; +with a lower jaw which had a way of thrusting itself up, +making a deep crease on each side of the mouth. The eyes were +set under shaggy yellow brows—in short it was the face of a +fighting man, no product of a Back Bay drawing-room.</p> + +<p>But somehow Lee Swenson had learned how people felt in +drawing-rooms—possibly from Henry James, whom he read +incessantly. “You are saying to yourself that I grew up in the +wild and woolly west, Mrs. Thornwell, and things are different +in Massachusetts. But I assure you it is one system, from +Maine to California, when some radical is accused of violence +in the class struggle. The authorities are sure the man is guilty, +if not of this crime, then of others just as bad, and so to +‘make’ a case against him is a worthy work. When a class-war +trial begins, you will see on the stand police officers who know +that it is part of their job to swear to whatever the chief tells +them; and maybe an ex-convict, who knows that the prosecution +has something on him, and testifies as a condition of getting +off; and a prostitute, who carries on her ancient profession at +the discretion of the police. In this case there will be workers +from that shoe factory, semi-morons, incapable of knowing the +difference between right and wrong, but knowing what a reward +is, and having rehearsed a lesson until they can say it in +their sleep. It will be simple and easy—‘Yes, I saw the bandits, +I saw them shoot, I am positive these are the men.’ These witnesses +will sit with Sacco and Vanzetti in front of them, and +when they are asked to describe the bandits, they will describe +the men in front of them, and what could be more convincing?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span></p> + +<p>“I attended the Plymouth trial,” said Cornelia. “I was +shocked by its unfairness, but I hated to believe it was a deliberate +frame-up.”</p> + +<p>Said Lee Swenson: “My knowledge of your Massachusetts +procedure was got at the Ettor-Giovannitti trial, seven years +ago, as perfect a frame-up as ever came under my eyes. The +men were no more guilty of murder than I was; every particle +of the testimony was ‘made,’ and the whole case prepared and +the indictments drawn up by lawyers of great corporations. +The victims were Italians, I.W.W. leaders, efficient and dangerous—the +more so because one of them was a fine poet. And +how did we save their lives, Mrs. Thornwell? Was it by trusting +to the truth? As a matter of fact, we had seventeen eye-witnesses +to the shooting of Anna Lo Pizzo, and they absolutely +insisted that it was done by a police officer, and they +identified the officer; but because they were all Italians, and +there were so many of them, we didn’t dare use their story, +for fear the jury would think it was a frame-up! That’s how +far the truth gets you in Massachusetts!”</p> + +<p>Lee Swenson waited for Cornelia’s comment; but what could +she say?</p> + +<p>“Some day,” continued the lawyer, “I’ll tell you the inside +of that story—as weird a tangle of plot and counterplot as you +could want for a crime-romance. The district attorney was +carrying on a political fight against William M. Wood, the head +of the woolen trust, and so we were able to get hold of the +checks which Wood had paid to have dynamite planted, in a +frame-up against the union leaders. With that evidence in hand +we practically blackmailed the executives of the woolen mills, +and made them take the stand, one after another, and testify +that the speeches of the strike leaders had been opposed to violence. +I could name several laws of your great Commonwealth +we broke in putting that job across—and if we hadn’t done it, +the world would never have read ‘Arrows in the Gale,’ by +Arturo Giovannitti.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia sat staring before her, pondering this strange moral +dilemma. At last she said, “I have always been taught, Mr. +Swenson, that one gets a certain moral backing from telling +the truth.”</p> + +<p>“I know—I also have read Emerson; but how would it work +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span> +in our courts of law? Consider Vanzetti’s trial in Plymouth. +There was an alibi, as good as any one could want. The crime +occurred on the day before Christmas, and everybody had something +to remember—the eels. Did you accept that alibi?”</p> + +<p>“I was absolutely convinced by it. I have been all over North +Plymouth with Trando, and he showed me the places; every +spot is alive to him with the memory of Bart, whom he +adored. The things jump out of the child, in a way that couldn’t +happen if he had had to learn them. He will interrupt a talk, +‘There is one of the houses where I took the eels, and Bart +was across the street, and I had to go for change.’ He will say, +‘Under that tree he dismissed me, and gave me fifty cents for +the work.’ If you knew those simple, kindly people, Mr. Swenson, +you couldn’t doubt their story.”</p> + +<p>“All right—but where does that leave your argument? You +trusted to the truth with that Plymouth jury—and it got you +nowhere! No, Mrs. Thornwell, we must fight the prosecution +with its own weapons. We have to do the reverse of what they +have done—convince ourselves that the boys are innocent, and +that whatever we do to get them off is a worthy work. And +then take a joy in the performance—learn to build a good alibi +with the same pleasure that a novelist gets from constructing +a detective story, with every detail fitting precisely, and contributing +to the final result—an acquittal, and a booming reputation +as a lawyer who has never lost a client.”</p> + +<p>“Is that really what you want me to believe about your profession, +Mr. Swenson?”</p> + +<p>“In strict confidence, you understand, Mrs. Thornwell!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course.”</p> + +<p>“I want you to believe there is no other way to be a successful +criminal lawyer in America; I have never heard of any +man who has done it, and I do not believe it can be done. That +is the game, and you either play it, or you play some other +game.”</p> + +<p>“It sounds as if it would be hard on the nerves.”</p> + +<p>“This is America, and you know our motto, ‘It’s a great +life if you don’t weaken.’ You play for high stakes, and every +time it is ‘doubles or quits,’ if you understand the slang of the +gambler. Win the big case and you’re on top of the heap; +lose it, and you’re a dead one! That’s why it’s so foolish of me +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span> +to take a case like this. There is no way to win except to make +a big public splurge; and then, if I don’t make good, it is back +to the sticks for me. That is the real moral problem that confronts +a radical lawyer, Mrs. Thornwell—can he afford to have +a heart? Can he feel sorry for some hero-soul like your Bart, +who has apparently got into a jam not of his own making? +It’s a decision I have to make, and naturally it depends very +largely upon Bart’s friends.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause. “Just what is it you want me to say, +Mr. Swenson?”</p> + +<p>“For the present, nothing in particular. That may come later. +What I want is for you to know the situation—what a murder +trial is, and how it has to be fought—so that later on, when +you find out about this detail and that, you won’t be horrified +and disgusted with me, and draw out and leave me alone with +the Italians.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_9"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Lee Swenson had said his say, and it was up to Cornelia. +She sat with her two hands locked together, and her eyes closed, +and only the trembling of the lids to tell what was going on +within. When at last she spoke, her voice was weak, and so +were her words. “I never had anything like that put up to me +in my life, Mr. Swenson.”</p> + +<p>“I can believe that. Your life has been lived among people +who are not accused of crimes. And you have your strict moral +code—which doesn’t allow for perjury!” Then, seeing a trace +of tears in the old lady’s eyes, he added quickly, “I fear that I +misunderstood you in one way, Mrs. Thornwell—I thought you +knew more about your great moral city than apparently you +do. You went to consult Larry Shay about this case, didn’t +you?”</p> + +<p>“How did you know that?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I have sources of information. How did you come to +go to him?”</p> + +<p>“My son-in-law, Henry Cabot Winters, named him.”</p> + +<p>“Why did he name him?”</p> + +<p>“He said he would be the best man to get the boys off.”</p> + +<p>“And what happened when you went to see him?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span></p> + +<p>“He wanted fifty thousand dollars, and I told him we didn’t +have it.”</p> + +<p>“What did he say?”</p> + +<p>“Well, he pointed out that it was a capital case, and would +mean a lot of hard work.”</p> + +<p>“What did you understand by that?”</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t it obvious? It will take a lot of time to prepare the +case, and it may be a long trial.”</p> + +<p>Lee Swenson laughed, one of those polite laughs which he +kept inside him, out of consideration for Boston. “You are +much too good, my dear Nonna! I think I will call you by +Bart’s name, if you don’t mind, because it is friendly, and at +the same time respectful.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mind,” said Cornelia.</p> + +<p>“Out west,” said the other, “they call me Lee, and they +don’t wait a whole lifetime, as they do in Boston. But now let +me explain about Larry Shay: if he had taken the case, there +wasn’t going to be any trial.”</p> + +<p>“How do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I mean that Larry is the official ‘fixer’ for the political ring +which governs Boston and its environs. If you have committed +a crime, and got caught, your friends go to him to find out +what it will cost to have the case dropped.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr.—Lee!”</p> + +<p>“You, lovely and naïve blue-blood lady, carried to this legal +shark a proposition to bribe some of the prosecuting officials of +your state, and he made you an offer, and you didn’t even know +what it was about!”</p> + +<p>“Do you really know all that?”</p> + +<p>“Everybody knows it that knows about the insides of this +town. Worse than that—they ‘make’ the cases, for the purpose +of collecting blackmail. I could tell you quite a number of +stories, only they are not fit for a lady’s ears—having to do +with women and road-houses.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause, while Cornelia thought hard. “You mean, +Lee Swenson, that if I raise fifty thousand dollars and pay it +to these politicians, I can have the case against our two boys +dropped?”</p> + +<p>“I mean exactly that. And there’s another moral problem for +a blue-blood lady who has lived a sheltered life, and listened to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span> +her husband, the governor, make fine speeches about their noble +Commonwealth!”</p> + + +<h3 id="X_9"> + X +</h3> + +<p>The telephone rang; Betty calling. She and Joe had had a +successful time at the carpenters’ union, had got a twenty-five +dollar contribution. Now Betty was going somewhere else. She +could not explain over the phone, but she would be late, and +Grannie was not to wait up for her. Go to sleep. She hung up, +and Lee Swenson took his departure, saying that he had put +enough burdens upon her mind for one evening. He would +not ask anything definite, she would need time to think matters +over. Cornelia thanked him.</p> + +<p>She did not go to sleep, but sat in the Morris chair which +the lawyer had vacated, and moral whirlwinds seized her +thoughts and flung them this way and that. She, Cornelia +Thornwell, widow of the sternest governor that Massachusetts +had had for a century, the most ruthless punisher of lawbreakers +and corruptionists—she had sat in this room and listened +to a proposition that she should conspire to commit +perjury! Yes, that was it, no use mincing words. She had +heard, and from now on would be accessory before the fact +to whatever might be done! She had not risen and denounced +the proposer and ordered him from her home; no, she had +hesitated—which in itself was guilt—and when he had told +her it was confidential, she had assented, which was double +guilt!</p> + +<p>Punishment for Cornelia Thornwell, feminist and suffragist! +Now she knew what the wise men had meant when they told +her that woman’s place was the home! Woman’s place was the +Sewing Circle, where they made long flannel petticoats which +the poor would not wear! Woman’s place was the Parish House +of Trinity Church in the City of Boston, where perfect ladies +gathered to arrange for visitation of the sick and care of +widows and orphans! If a lady insisted on going out into the +harsh and wicked world, this was what she ran into—perjury, +subornation of perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury! Cornelia +saw these awful phrases in the headlines of all the newspapers +of Boston.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span></p> + +<p>The soul of Bartolomeo Vanzetti came to keep watch with +her, and share her worries. Bart did not sleep soundly in his +prison cell; he lay awake and brooded over the case, and +thought of letters to write, and suggestions to make to friends +and lawyers. So now he came in spirit, and Cornelia asked +him all those questions she would never ask in the flesh. What +did he want her to do? What would best serve his cause, the +“joostice” for which he lived?</p> + +<p>She questioned her own soul. What was right, what was +wrong? To stand by the stern moral code of Puritan Boston—which +all of them preached, and some of them practiced? Say +that the law was sacred, and an oath was binding before God, +and it was better for men to die than to break God’s law? Easy +to say that, when it concerned yourself; something in you +would take pleasure in dying for a code. But when it was +some other man’s life, did you have the right to force your +code upon him?</p> + +<p>Vanzetti had proved that he did not subscribe to that code, +because he had told lies to the police. But then, he faced the +same problem as Cornelia; it wasn’t for himself that he lied, +but for others. Sometime previously Cornelia had put to him +a very grave question. There appeared to be much more evidence +against Sacco than against him, so it might be wise to +demand separate trials, and save at least one of them. But +Bart had turned the idea down without a moment’s hesitation. +“Save Nick, he got the wife and kids!” That was his attitude, +from first to last.</p> + +<p>Something easy to understand—to lie for a wife and kids! +In contrast with that, Cornelia’s ideal seemed far-off, cold and +aloof. In this world truth was a luxury, denied to all but the +fastidious, the ivory-tower personalities, who had no hearts and +no sympathies! Who were good at shutting their eyes and refusing +to know uncomfortable facts!</p> + +<p>Cornelia thought over Lee Swenson’s statement, that her life +had been lived among people who were not accused of crimes. +A careful and lawyer-like phrase! Not those who did not commit +crimes, but those who were not accused! Cornelia searched +her memory, and forced herself to face reality. Did her sort of +people really refuse to lie? The case of Jerry Walker leaped +to her mind, because she had just been talking to her son-in-law +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span> +about it. Had Rupert and Henry lied to Jerry Walker, in +order to get his property away from him? Of course they had! +Henry had even lied to Cornelia, and treated it as a matter of +course. They had lied to their associates, and their associates +were now accusing them of it—so Cornelia had learned from +family gossip.</p> + +<p>Sooner or later Rupert and Henry were going upon the +witness-stand, to be cross-questioned as to what they had done. +Were they going to admit their conspiracy to take ten million +dollars’ worth of property from Jerry Walker? Were they going +to say that the law was sacred, and that an oath was binding +before God? Of course they were not! What they were +going to do was to follow the Lee Swenson formula—sit down +with their lawyers and frame up an elaborate story, learn every +detail of it by heart, and go upon the witness-stand and lie +like troopers—or, in the modern equivalent, like policemen who +know that it is part of their job to swear to whatever the chief +tells them! Rupert and Henry would do that, and all State +Street would know they were doing it, and take it as a good +joke, nothing worse.</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_9"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>A world of lies, a world run on the basis of lies, so that when +you talked about truth-telling you were a Utopian and a +dreamer; worse yet, a traitor to your friends, to your business +associates, your family, your class! A fastidious person, an +ivory-tower esthete, preferring your own peace of mind to the +rights of those who had taken you into their confidence, assuming +that you would play the game as everybody else played it, +for your profit and comfort as well as their own!</p> + +<p>Lies! Lies! It was the autumn of the year 1920, and a great +political campaign was at its climax; America had ceased to be +a republic, it was an absolute monarchy, its ruler the Prince of +Lies! That little man, “Silent Cal,” whom Cornelia knew so +well as governor of the Commonwealth, was being elected vice-president +of the United States by a lie! He who had run away +from the police-strike was being rewarded for breaking the +police-strike! His backers had managed to suppress the report +of the citizens’ committee, which had worked so hard to avoid +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span> +a strike, and had told the whole truth; instead, they had made +a nursery-legend, such as the pious Parson Weems had invented +about George Washington and the cherry-tree!</p> + +<p>And worse yet, look at the man they were making president! +Cornelia’s mind was a witch’s caldron, with the tales Joe +Randall brought home; for Joe knew the newspaper men, and +picked up the gossip which could not be printed, and used it +to spice the meals he ate in the little apartment. Joe’s mind +had turned rancid, after four months’ contact with American +morals and American justice; he found his pleasure in believing +the most shocking things about the great and noble persons +of the land. This Senator Harding, who was to be the +next president, had been picked out by the oil-men, who were +planning to loot the oil-reserves of the nation; he was handsome +and dignified, a magnificent statesman, when you read +about him in the capitalist newspapers—but Joe called him +an old booze-fighter, a small-town rake, whose idea of entertainment +was to sit in his shirt-sleeves and chew tobacco and +play poker all night with his cronies, “the Ohio gang.” His +managers had had to get a newspaper man to write his speeches +for him, because, when he was turned loose for himself, he +used polysyllables like a Negro preacher, with no idea what +they meant.</p> + +<p>And worse yet, he traveled round the country with a young +girl who was his mistress! He stayed in rooms in various cheap +hotels with her, and when the house-detectives ventured to +object, he would present them with his card! It was something +entirely new in American history, and Joe Randall turned his +fancy loose to play with the theme; some day, he said, the +American people would build a memorial to this oil-statesman, +and when the radicals came into power they would carve an +inscription across the front of it, and set it with flaming red +rubies: “Nan Britton’s Boy!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_7"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>A cruel, cruel world! Impossible to live in a place where such +wickedness was done! A sudden weariness seized Cornelia, a +failing of the heart; it was time for her to quit, to move on and +leave the world to a new generation, which had stronger nerves +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span> +and could face such issues. The runaway grandmother would +run back to shelter.</p> + +<p>The fire in the grate had burned nearly out, and the room +was growing cold, the chill creeping into the bones of the old +woman sitting in the chair. She looked at the clock; it was after +two in the morning, and suddenly she realized that Betty had +not come home. What could the child be doing at that hour?</p> + +<p>Lee Swenson had asked her not to tell Betty about these +problems. But that was hardly fair. Betty had come to be her +mainstay—she realized it all of a sudden. Betty was young, +Betty was not afraid, Betty could face any facts there were! +To try to hide anything from her would be one more deception, +in a world which seemed to be made of nothing else.</p> + +<p>There was a sound in the hall, and Cornelia turned her head. +A key in the latch, and the door opened. There was Betty, rosy, +shining from a walk in the chill night air. “Why, Grannie! +You waited up for me! You shouldn’t have done that!” She +closed the door, and came to Cornelia, brimming over with +affection and concern. “You poor dear, you let the fire die +down, you are cold!”</p> + +<p>Betty herself was warm; the blood flooded her cheeks and +throat, it came and went, like northern lights in the winter +sky, a lovely thing to watch. Her eyes shone—something must +have happened to-night, they were so much alive. Such an eager +face, a smile with two rows of white teeth, even and smooth, +almost translucent. She wore a soft brown coat, with a neckpiece +of fur, matching her hair, her eyes—a picture that people +turned to look at on the street. So delicate, so quick and sensitive—and +she knew about this wickedness, she could face it +and not quail from it, not feel old and chilly, ready to die!</p> + +<p>“Grannie dear, what is it? You’re worried about something!” +She could read Cornelia’s mind as if she entered it. “What is +bothering you? Has Lee Swenson been telling you something +discouraging?” Then quickly, “Don’t let him frighten you, my +dear! We’re going to get those boys off! Is he afraid about +them?”</p> + +<p>“No, dear—”</p> + +<p>“Then what did he say? Tell me, what?”</p> + +<p>“We talked about many things, this case and others. It is a +terrible world, Betty dear.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, they frame people; and then sometimes, people have +done something, too! It’s hard to tell which is which, and your +poor dear head is addled with trying to know it all! Is that it?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Swenson didn’t want me to talk—”</p> + +<p>Betty laughed gayly. “The old rascal! He thinks he’s going +to keep secrets from Joe and me! I know, it’s very dangerous, +and we mustn’t whisper. But you tell him, I know what’s in +your head before you do, and he can’t run this case without +Joe and me. This is a young folk’s job, believe me!”</p> + +<p>Betty shed her coat, and the little brown bowl of a hat +trimmed with fur, and knelt down and put her warm cheek +against her grandmother’s cold one. “The idea of worrying a +nice old Victorian lady with secrets and mysteries! I suppose +he told you that government witnesses don’t always tell the +truth, and defense lawyers sometimes fight the devil with fire. +Is that what you’re worried over?”</p> + +<p>“Where were you so late, dear?” countered Cornelia—the +only evasion she could think of in a hurry.</p> + +<p>“Never you mind—that’s more secrets and mysteries, I’ll tell +you in the morning. Now you go to bed, before your old bones +turn to ice.” She led Cornelia into her bedroom, and turned +down the covers, and brought her a glass of hot milk, describing +her as “seecka kitten,” from the days when Cornelia had +been worn out with the work in the cordage-plant, and Bart +had nursed her so tenderly. When she had drunk the milk, +Betty tucked her in like a baby, and kissed her good-night and +put out the light, and raised the window, and said, “Now be a +good child, and in the morning you shall hear some nice +gossip!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_6"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>Bright sunlight, and the Negro maid building the fire, and +Cornelia in her dressing-gown in the big chair before the grate, +drinking her coffee and nibbling her toast. Betty sat by her +in a blue silk kimono, and when she was through eating, took +the tray and set it one side, remarking, “So you won’t upset +it or anything in your excitement.” Then she closed the door, +and took a seat close to her grandmother, and pushed her +bobbed hair back from her forehead, and said, “Now, bless +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span> +your old dear heart, get yourself together and don’t faint dead +away—Joe and I are married.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia’s hands went limp in her lap. “Married!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear.”</p> + +<p>“But Joe has a wife!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s an old story.”</p> + +<p>“But then—but—you can’t marry a man who is already +married.”</p> + +<p>“We can, Grannie dear, we arranged it; you see, we married +ourselves.”</p> + +<p>Something inside Cornelia quit working for a moment—heart, +or lungs, or solar plexus which controlled them both—and +her voice failed her altogether. Betty’s voice was steady, +but one of those waves of color flooded her neck and face, +right up to the bobbed brown hair. “You see, Grannie, since +the law won’t be sensible, we took matters into our own hands. +Joe’s wife is in Reno, but it takes a lot of time, one can’t be +sure how long; and it was too silly that we who love each +other should sit around waiting for some politician to give us +permission to live our lives.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Cornelia’s voice had not yet come back.</p> + +<p>“Let me say right away, Grannie, this isn’t any free love +foolishness. You’ll be thinking about Mary Wollstonecraft and +all that, but I was only a child then, I was using a lot of romantic +words. But now I’m twenty-two, and I’m in love, and +I want my man, and I want him for life, and he knows that—I’ve +told him that if any other woman tries to take him away, +I’ll scratch her eyes out. So you see it’s perfectly respectable +and conventional.”</p> + +<p>“Y-yes,” said Cornelia, feebly.</p> + +<p>“I have waited—I’ve been a good six months and more making +up my mind I wasn’t making any mistake. Now that I’m +sure, I’d be perfectly willing for any judge or clergyman to +say the magic words that would change it from immorality to +the holy bonds of matrimony; but you see how it is, the judge +won’t do it for an indefinite time, and the clergyman never will, +because Joe’s wife has not committed adultery—at least, she +has, her man is out there with her, but it isn’t going to be +legally proved, so the curiosity of the Episcopalian clergymen +will not be satisfied according to canon law. I have looked all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span> +this up in the library, and I’ll explain it if you don’t know what +I mean.”</p> + +<p>“No, I understand,” said Cornelia—still feebly.</p> + +<p>“Well, Grannie dear, in your marrying time no one did his +own thinking, but now the world is changing, so my dear +blessed old chaperon has got to sit down and ask herself this +plain question: Do you think that my love for Joe, or his for +me, would be in any way more sanctified or purified by any +formula that any judge or clergyman could pronounce over us? +Do you really believe that?”</p> + +<p>Cornelia had to think.</p> + +<p>“Be sure, now.”</p> + +<p>“No, I guess I don’t.”</p> + +<p>“All right, then. And do you think we’d be apt to be more +true to each other if we had dressed up in party clothes, and +spent several thousand dollars for flowers in Trinity Church, +and had four organs play the Lohengrin wedding march going +in and the Mendelssohn wedding march going out, and had +the rector say a formula which seems absolutely superfluous to +both of us? Do you believe that?”</p> + +<p>“No, dear, I suppose I really don’t. Only—we always have +done it in our family.”</p> + +<p>“Most of the time,” said Betty. “But this is a special case, +and Joe and I talked it out and decided that it is just too silly +that our love-life should be maimed for we can’t tell how long. +We decided that the law is an imposition, and we have taken +the liberty of being our own clergy, that is all.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear. But—suppose you get into trouble?”</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll do our best to keep it from happening. We have +taken the best advice. But if there should be an accident, we’ll +face the consequences. I promise you I won’t have what they +call a ‘curettage’—as you remember Aunt Alice did not so long +ago. You didn’t know I knew about that, I suppose! And +neither will I have an appendicitis operation, like Cousin Julia. +I wouldn’t mind a bit having a baby by the man I love, and +telling the world exactly what I had done and why; only, of +course, the family would die, so if the worst comes to the worst, +you and I and Joe will take another trip to Europe, and stay +there till we can marry. And meantime you must be a good +sensible soul, and tell yourself that Joe and I are married before +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span> +God and you, and when he comes in you are to kiss him +on both cheeks and welcome him as your grandson-in-law. +Because, you see, he’s quite embarrassed about it, knowing how +eminently respectable you are. Indeed, he’s that way himself, +coming from Virginia—he’s almost as bad as Roger Lowell, +and I had to take matters into my own hands, and do all the +marrying, so to speak. But now it’s done, and I want you to +feel comfortable and happy about it, so that we can be comfortable +and happy too. The sensible thing is for you to chaperon +us, and let us meet here, because it’s very disagreeable +having to go to third-rate hotels, and besides, it’s dangerous, +because the politicians in this pious Puritan city are preying on +the free lovers—those who happen to be rich and prominent. +Joe says they have a regular blackmail ring, they catch some +man in a hotel room with a woman, and it costs him anywhere +from twenty to two hundred thousand dollars—that is, of +course, unless he can show the card of a United States senator +and presidential candidate!”</p> + +<p>There was a pause. “That’s all, Grannie.” Then another +pause.</p> + +<p>“You are putting a heavy responsibility on me, dear.”</p> + +<p>“One more secret to keep!” Betty stood up, looking like a +new-risen sun with laughter and joy and health. “Bless her +dear old frightened soul!” She stooped and put a kiss on each +of Cornelia’s cheeks, and one on her forehead; then, laughing +again, “You don’t have to carry the burden if it’s too heavy. +I’ll take it all off your blessed shoulders.”</p> + +<p>“How, dear?”</p> + +<p>“Say the word, and I’ll move into an apartment with Joe, +and write a note to Mother, telling her all about it. What do +you say?”</p> + +<p>This time there was no pause. Cornelia said instantly, “No! +No!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_4"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>“Bring me good choosing book,” wrote Bart. “I will get the +fundament which I have so long needing.” So whenever Cornelia +went for a visit, she would take two or three volumes +from her little library: Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span> +Paine’s “Rights of Man,” the letters and speeches of Jefferson, +Thoreau’s “Walden” and Emerson’s essays, a life of Garrison +and one of John Brown. She thought he ought to know that +New England in which he was to fight for his life, and he +agreed with her in this. He had the most intense interest in +history, and the lives of men who had played a part in it, +especially in the cause of liberty and “joostice.” He identified +himself with these great characters, he lived their lives, finding +comments on his case in their words, and vindication in history’s +verdict upon them. He read every minute that the prison +regulations permitted, and at Cornelia’s request he would write +comments on the margins of the books, and many pages of +pencil notes. It was a regular college course in New England +culture, and each time they met there was progress to report.</p> + +<p>The old Charlestown prison is built in the form of a cross, +and in the center is a large airy room, in which the prisoners +are permitted to see visitors. Cornelia would come, with her +books and her one flower. She would have to wait while he +washed his hands and face—because he was shoveling coal now, +and wheeling it in a barrow for the prison furnaces; he would +apologize for the condition of his clothes, which he could not +help. Cornelia had interceded with the warden and got him this +job, instead of the work in the tailor shop, which fitted him ill. +Outdoor labor was what he had been used to during his ten +years in America, and it kept him in physical condition.</p> + +<p>He was a model prisoner, except that he would not stand indignities +from his keepers. Once when Cornelia came she was +told that she could not see him, he was in “solitary” upon +bread and water, because he had refused to do his work. There +followed sessions with the warden, and it transpired that Bart +considered that the guard had addressed him in a way injurious +to his dignity. It took tact on Cornelia’s part to patch up this +situation; for the American prison system does not allow for +dignity, and it is not easy to persuade authorities that an +anarchist has a soul. But they could understand that it was +unwise to exasperate a man who received visits from ladies +of high social station, and who might cause a fuss in the newspapers.</p> + +<p>Also Cornelia visited Mrs. Sacco, in the village of South +Stoughton. The new baby had arrived, a lovely little girl, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span> +Cornelia and Betty took this news to the prisoner in the county +jail at Dedham, and received a warm welcome. Poor Nick required +a great deal of cheering, because he was a man who +had lived by physical activity, and could not read and study +and think like Bart. He had to learn to spend about twenty-two +hours a day in a cell, with nothing whatever to do, and +he did not want to wait for a trial, he did not want lawyers to +fool with his case and waste the money of the anarchist movement—he +wanted to be killed and have it over with. Cornelia +and Betty would argue with him, in patient half-English and +half-Italian, finding ways to appeal to his pride, reminding him +of revolutionary heroes who had managed to endure prison. +Why not work out a régime for himself—do gymnastics, of +both body and soul? Why not study English, so as to do better +work for the cause if he got out, and to write his message to +the world if he failed?</p> + +<p>The next time they came, they would find that he had shaved +himself meticulously, and wore one of the flowers they had +brought him. He was practicing walking about the cell on his +hands, and counting the number of times he could “chin” +himself on his cell-door—he had got up to forty-something, +which was remarkable for any man. He was proud of that, +and when they told him about the lovely eyes of the baby, his +spirit bounded as high as previously it had sunk low. Two races +comprise the Italian nation: those of the north who are descended +from Teutons and Gauls, and are capable of reflection, +like Vanzetti; and those of the south, descendants of +Greeks and Carthaginians and Moors, brown and excitable +people, who live their lives outside, and utter extremes of emotion +with many words and gestures. An odd turn of fate that +so many of these should have come to Massachusetts, to annoy +the stern and forbidding ghosts of Puritans!</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_3"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>Lee Swenson had decided that he would take the case. He +said no more to Cornelia, but evidently there had been some +understanding with Betty and Joe, for the young couple sat in +at long conferences, and covered half the state in Betty’s runabout, +interviewing witnesses and tracing clews. Cornelia succeeded +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span> +in raising five thousand dollars by pledging one-half +her income—which meant that a money-lender was willing to +gamble that she would live more than two years, in spite of +all her worries and labors. She brought in this money, after +which the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee had an office, +and a post-office box, and no less than two second-hand typewriters +clicking away on envelopes. There was a pamphlet telling +about the case, mailed out to lists of radicals all over the +country. Articles appeared in socialist and labor papers, both +in America and Europe; for Joe and Betty wrote long letters +to Pierre Leon, and he would translate them into French and +publish them in his paper. So the readers of anarchist and +communist and socialist papers all over Europe began to hear +about two Italians who had fallen victims to the White Terror, +in what had once been the sweet land of liberty, but was now +the banking-headquarters of reaction for the whole world.</p> + +<p>Also Cornelia’s labors among the blue-bloods were not without +fruit. Many of these people knew the corruption of their +political parties, and the alliance between the politicians and +the exploiting interests. They had heard of the Ettor-Giovannitti +frame-up, and had watched another strike in Lawrence, a +little more than a year ago, with several near-murders committed +by thugs in the mill-owners’ employ. They had seen +the “Reds” paraded down State Street in chains, and had seen +the government forced to turn most of them loose, having not +even a pretense of evidence against them. So a few well-to-do +persons began to take an interest in the Sacco-Vanzetti case. +This gave an air of prosperity—and brought a new development, +highly characteristic of the great Puritan city. One afternoon +Lee Swenson called Cornelia on the phone. “How are you +to-day? Nerves fairly strong?”</p> + +<p>“What has happened?”—for Cornelia knew his way of teasing +her.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember the talk we had in your apartment, when +I told you there might be a way to put our boys on the street?”</p> + +<p>“I remember.”</p> + +<p>“Well, can I drop in for tea and tell you about it? Send the +maid out if you can—it’s a time for being alone!”</p> + +<p>The lawyer came, and this is what he had to report. Felice +Guadagni, journalist, who was one of the mainstays of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span> +committee, had had several visits from an Italian woman named +De Falco, an interpreter for the district court at Dedham, in +Norfolk County. She claimed to come from the district attorney’s +office, and offered to have the men released at the +price of sixty thousand dollars. There had been several conferences, +and Felicani, the printer, had met the woman, and +when he pleaded poverty, she had offered to get the price reduced +to fifty thousand. The sum was to be disguised as a +retaining fee for the brother of an official, who was to +be hired by the defense. The Commonwealth would then decide +that there was not enough evidence against the pair, and they +would be turned loose. “So there’s your righteous and law-abiding +Boston!” said Lee Swenson—and looked at Cornelia +with a twinkle in his wild western blue eyes.</p> + +<p>“You think it’s really genuine, Lee?”</p> + +<p>“Lawyers tell me it’s a common procedure in other counties. +The woman undertakes to give us satisfactory assurances.”</p> + +<p>“What would they be?”</p> + +<p>“She has already given Felicani the names of other cases she +claims to have settled in the same way, and we can investigate +them. But first we have to decide the question—do we want to +buy the boys off, or do we want to trap the rascal politicians +and get something on them?”</p> + +<p>Said Cornelia: “It seems to me it all depends on whether we +are sure our boys are innocent. I believe they are. Do you, +Lee?”</p> + +<p>He answered:</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do. But that is not the only point. Even though +innocent, they may be convicted; and the problem is, do they +want to risk their lives for some propaganda?”</p> + +<p>The lawyer would be allowed to see his clients in the evening, +so he said that he would run out to Charlestown and ask Bart +about it. “I’ll make my guess,” he added, “if no ladies are +present, he’ll say, tell them to go to hell.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI"> + CHAPTER XI<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE GRAFT RING</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Quincy Thornwell was dining with his Aunt Cornelia. He +called her that, scrupulously, though he was only two years her +junior; he had done it, scrupulously, for forty-five years, since +he had been a freshman at Harvard, and she had married into +the older generation. Every so often he came to dinner, as a +mark of respect, and because family solidarity must be maintained, +as the last trace of order in a disintegrating world. For +the same reason he put on his honorific clothes; a matter of +ritual, a symbol of membership in a group which did the right +thing always, as a matter of course and without discussion.</p> + +<p>Cornelia also did her part. Her dinner-gown was years out +of fashion, but that was a sign that she was superior to fashion. +Her little apartment was in a tenement, but that did not matter, +because everybody knew it was eccentricity, not necessity. +Visiting members of the family had brought boxes now and +then, quite casually, and almost without mentioning it; so now +she had silver, and shining crystal, and old family china, and +linen with strawberry designs, lighted by four tall thin tapering +candles. There were flowers in the center of the table—sent +with Quincy’s card. The Negro maid wore a white cap and +apron, and had learned how to serve a meal, because Deborah +had sent a real servant to give her lessons. No matter how “red” +your poor mother may turn in her old age, she must be kept in +touch with the decencies of life.</p> + +<p>Quincy—continue to pronounce him like a disease of the +throat—was dieting under a doctor’s orders, and shrinking up +rapidly in the process, so that there were more wrinkles in his +face every time you met him. He had become almost entirely +bald, and with a bright pink scalp. His nose and cheeks were +red, with fine little veins of purple—his blue blood showing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span> +through, he would say, mockingly. The extraordinary thing was +that when he opened his mouth in laughter, which he did frequently, +you saw a cavern of exactly the same color; it seemed +unhuman, and when you knew him well you realized that it was.</p> + +<p>No more canvas-backs, cooked a quick brown on the outside +and deep purple inside, according to the fastidious taste of an +habitué of the Somerset Club! No more good honest roast beef, +not even any more Boston beans, since they too were high +protein, and suspected of uric acid! You must have fish for +Quincy, and then chicken—white meat, if you please; and no +mayonnaise on the salad—the devil of it was it made you talk +about food, and started other people telling their diets, and the +women with their everlasting reducing. Thence the company +got onto the subject of drink, and after that there was nothing +but the private life of their bootleggers. Good conversation was +dead in Boston.</p> + +<p>What Quincy meant by good conversation was gossip about +the hundred or two persons he knew, and the thousand or two +he knew about. They were always doing queer things, or getting +into trouble, and he would tell the tales with comical embellishments, +and throw back his head and chuckle. He had been a +widower for the greater part of his life, so no woman had felt +free to point out to him how queer he looked when he revealed +his dental plates. But his mother or some one had taught him +very young that it is bad form to laugh, so he had a series of +chuckles which became convulsive, and turned his face a deeper +red, but never became audible.</p> + +<p>He talked about the family. Poor old Father was failing +fast; he had to have a man to go about with him. He still insisted +on riding a pony along with the Scatterbridge children, +so the attendant had to have a pony too—impossible to imagine +a more comical spectacle than that family procession, riding all +over the estate but never going off it, for fear of automobiles. +Impossible to play chess with Father any more, yet it was +necessary to pretend to play, to avoid breaking the old man’s +heart. The universal curse of life, that our ambitions exceed our +abilities! Nothing of that sort for Quincy, he had found out +what he could do, and confined his wishes to the possible. He +might never be heroic, but he would be a lot safer.</p> + +<p>James Scatterbridge was one of the unsafe ones. Tried to do +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span> +too much with those enormous mills. It seemed there would +never be any market for cotton goods again. Rupert and John +Quincy—that was Quincy’s older brother—were having the +devil’s own time pulling James through. Both of them were +showing the strain of running all the finance of New England. +To the devil with it, said Quincy; enough for him if he could +watch the beast, and judge the right moment, and step in and +slice off a juicy chunk. Rupert and John scolded him because +he didn’t produce anything; and he chuckled—a fine mess they +had produced!</p> + +<p>The maid brought in a pitcher of steaming hot water, with a +couple of glasses; and Quincy took from his hip-pocket a silver +flask, comfortably curved to fit that portion of the anatomy. +He understood that he had to “bring his own” when he came to +Aunt Cornelia’s, because she was engaged in more serious kinds +of law-breaking, and could not afford to expose herself to the +lesser risks. Quincy mixed himself a mild dose of rum and +sugar and water, and Cornelia took a sip, in order to be good +company. “My ancestors used to smuggle in molasses to make +this stuff,” said the old gentleman. “Now the stuff itself is +smuggled, and a new aristocracy is emerging, that will dine on +spaghetti from gold plate.”</p> + +<p>So he talked about prohibition! They were bringing it in by +the schooner-load, everywhere along the coast, every night that +didn’t happen to be moonlit or stormy. Yet the prices got +higher and higher, and the quality worse and worse. You might +get ever so good a bootlegger, and investigate his ancestry, his +police record, his church affiliations and all that, and still you +couldn’t be sure, because the rascal dealers would fool him. +They were making synthetic stuff in the cellars of Boston slums, +putting it onto boats, unloading it on the shore, and selling it +for Canadian Scotch. The “booties” were being held up all along +the line, they would pay the police where they started from, and +then the police would send a motor-cycle cop after them to hold +them up and get some more.</p> + +<p>It was a good thing for labor, Quincy admitted; made it +possible to get work done on Monday, so for that reason the +law would probably stay. But it was mighty demoralizing; graft +was spreading so fast, you hardly knew the old New England. +Quincy had been talking that day with a politician in a boardroom, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span> +watching the course of stocks, and this politician had +quoted the value of the pickpocket, burglary, and confidence +men concessions of Suffolk and Middlesex counties. “What do +you think of that?” said Quincy, and had one of his convulsions +of chuckling.</p> + +<p>“It makes me think of something I want to ask you,” said +Cornelia. “I also have connections with the underworld nowadays.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Quincy, “those two wops of yours.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said his aunt, “not the wops, but the officials who are +prosecuting them. I need a lot of advice, provided it can be +confidential.”</p> + +<p>The old gentleman became instantly serious. “My dear Aunt +Cornelia, I gossip about every family in the world but one!”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_10"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia set forth her problem. The Italians who were trying +to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti found no difficulty in +believing that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was corrupt. +They knew all the bootleggers—some of them <i>were</i> bootleggers—and +were used to paying the police. But Cornelia herself +found it hard to believe that the woman, Mrs. De Falco, who +told them they could buy the freedom of Sacco and Vanzetti +for fifty thousand dollars, really knew what she was talking +about, and had the power she claimed.</p> + +<p>Quincy Thornwell looked thoughtful. “Fifty thousand dollars +is a lot of money, Aunt Cornelia, even for our politicians. My +advice would be, say forty, and when you come to the real +showdown, it will be thirty.”</p> + +<p>It might have been possible to see a humorous aspect to that +reply, but Cornelia was not in a smiling mood. “You mean it is +genuine, then?”</p> + +<p>Quincy answered, it surprised him a little, coming from +Plymouth and Norfolk counties. Suffolk everybody knew about, +it was Irish, and the decent people had moved out and let the +“micks” have their own way. Suffolk County comprised the city +of Boston proper; and years ago, when it had gone Democratic, +the old aristocracy of wealth and fashion had begun an exodus, +and now lived in suburban towns, where they could run their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span> +local governments and spend their own taxes. They regarded +Boston as the place where they came to clip their coupons and +do their shopping and go to the theater. So long as the politicians +refrained from stealing the banks and public buildings, +the blue bloods generally let them alone.</p> + +<p>“It sounds like regular city hall stuff,” continued Quincy. +“You know that people refer to the city hall as the ‘steal works.’ +When they arrested those wops, the gang thought they had no +friends, and could be sent up without trouble, and it would be +a good mark for the police. But now it appears they have +money, and money is more than good marks. It seems obvious +enough.”</p> + +<p>“Quincy, do you think a civilization can endure on the basis +of corruption like that?”</p> + +<p>“No, of course it can’t.”</p> + +<p>“You give up our civilization?”</p> + +<p>“I gave it up a generation ago, when I saw we didn’t have +sense enough to keep the scum of Europe out. We built a nation +on the basis of self-government, and we could do it because +we had people who were capable of self-government. But when +we let ourselves be overrun by hordes of peasants, we signed +our own death-warrant. A few of us old fogies protested, but +we couldn’t stop it, and we gave up. I said to Uncle Josiah, +thirty years ago, I wouldn’t touch politics again with a ten-foot +pole. And Father said the same.”</p> + +<p>“Josiah insisted we could teach them, Quincy.”</p> + +<p>“The last thing in the world they want is to learn anything +from us. They hate us because we are different, and better, and +we know it. All they want is to rob us of everything we have. +You saw those wops plundering the shoe companies—and now +the Irish step in to plunder the wops. That’s the way it goes in +the jungle.”</p> + +<p>“But, Quincy, the government in Norfolk County is Yankee, +and so are most of the voters!”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right, but if you dig into it, you’ll find it’s the +Irish ring, mark my words. Some of the loot will go to Larry +Shay, the head fixer for the crime concessions.”</p> + +<p>Said Cornelia, “I went to see Shay about this case. Henry +told me he’d be a good lawyer to try it.”</p> + +<p>“None better in Massachusetts. What did he say?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span></p> + +<p>“He wanted fifty thousand dollars.”</p> + +<p>Quincy had one of his spells of chuckling. “And you didn’t +notice the coincidence in price! Don’t you see, Aunt Cornelia—when +you didn’t take up Larry’s proposition, he tried it on the +Italians! He figured that you, being a simple old lady, might +really believe the wops to be innocent; but the Italians wouldn’t +share your touching faith, so they’d talk turkey. If the politicians +had been wise, they’d have warned the Italians not to mention +the matter to you.”</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact, they did,” admitted Cornelia. “They +tried to keep Lee Swenson out also. The woman has refused to +meet him.”</p> + +<p>“Well, there you are,” said Quincy. “He has a bad reputation—he’s +a labor agitator and a publicity seeker, and they want +to deal with criminals. No, Aunt Cornelia, you don’t have to +worry about it, all you have to do is raise the money. Have you +got it in sight?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Some of the Italians have hinted it might be +got.”</p> + +<p>“Send out the boys and raid another payroll!” said Quincy, +with a grin. “Well, I’ll tell you, I’m not a millionaire, as you +know, and I have to work for my money—even though it seems +easy to those who never played the market. But I’ll chip in a +few thousand to help you out of this trouble. I think the family +would put up the whole amount, if they could be sure it would +teach you a lesson.”</p> + +<p>“You mean,” said Cornelia, “I would never again believe in +the government of Massachusetts?” There was a naughty +twinkle in her eye.</p> + +<p>But now her worldly-wise old nephew was “talking turkey” +himself. “I mean that you’d take a little care of yourself, and +quit fooling with anarchists.”</p> + +<p>“But, Quincy, don’t you think it is up to us people of the +old stock to set the wops an example? If I sell out, what will +be left for them?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you really want to get your friends out of trouble?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I want to get a lot of others out of trouble also. +It would be a poor bargain, from our point of view, to save two +men from the electric chair and leave millions in slavery.”</p> + +<p>“Now, Aunt Cornelia, don’t start your Bolshevik propaganda +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span> +on me! I know I’m a parasite and a bloodsucker, but every last +one of your wops would take my place if he could get it, and +I assure you, before he does get it, he’s got to fight.”</p> + +<p>To which Cornelia replied: “If you only knew how much +like a Bolshevik you talk, you’d be quite shocked by yourself!”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_10"> + III +</h3> + +<p>The first serious split in the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee +was developing over the problem of the De Falco offer. +On the one side was Lee Swenson, backed by Betty and Joe, +who were like two bloodhounds held in leash. On the other side +were some of the anarchists—those who stayed in the background, +and were not seen in headquarters.</p> + +<p>Lee Swenson came to Cornelia. “Nonna, we have a marvelous +case to fight. I know what I’m talking about, I can make +it the most famous labor case in American history, if the +committee will only stand behind me, and give me the funds. +This De Falco thing is plain blackmail; the police know that +Sacco and Vanzetti are innocent of the crime, but they think +they’ve got other things on the group, and expect to trade on +our fears. You know how it is with the anarchists, they are +liable to be deported—and maybe there are other secrets that +break their nerve. Some of them want to settle; they won’t +say it plainly, but they are blocking my moves.”</p> + +<p>“But, Lee! Yesterday Bart said to me he’d rather die than +be bought out.”</p> + +<p>“I know; but Bart is in jail, and it’s the committee that is +paymaster. I have an idea some of them are going ahead with +their plans to raise the money and close the deal. If we persist +in having our way, they might throw us down and ruin us.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, surely not that!”</p> + +<p>“You are new at the game of intrigue, Nonna. It might even +happen by accident—we have got to allow for the spies on our +committee. The prosecution will have one, and the Department +of Justice will have one, and they probably won’t even know +each other. If we delay too long and talk too much, we may find +ourselves arrested, charged with an effort to bribe the noble-minded +authorities.”</p> + +<p>Joe and Betty had already made a few automobile excursions, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span> +following Mrs. De Falco’s car. They had seen it spend a couple +of evenings parked near the car of the gentleman who was to +be employed for a retaining fee now reduced to forty thousand +dollars. On one of these occasions a public official’s car had +come up, and he had entered the house. Also Lee Swenson +had investigated some “references” the woman had offered; +that is to say, murder cases and other crimes which had resulted +in dismissals and acquittals through her intervention. What Lee +found was that when he started to question the lawyers and +relatives who had negotiated these settlements, they became ill +at ease and refused to talk—which was to be expected under +the circumstances.</p> + +<p>Also he had an “investigator” looking into Mrs. De Falco +herself. She was one of the many who hung around the courts, +looking for openings to be of service to lawyers and witnesses. +In short, she was a “runner,” one of those who intervene between +accused persons and lawyers. Ignorant foreigners who +have broken the law are badly frightened, and the “runner” is +a comforting friend, who helps to steer them in a strange world—and +incidentally finds out how much money they have, or +how much their friends can raise, so that the lawyer can fix +the fee at the maximum, and then “split” with the “runner.” +Such a person soon learns the tricks of the courts, and profits +by many forms of graft. An odd circumstance, that the investigators +reported Mrs. De Falco had an improvident husband, +and the fruits of her legal labors went to maintain a home for +several children. A complicated world to work in!</p> + +<p>She persisted in refusing to see Lee Swenson under any +circumstances; so Lee sent to New York for his dictograph—the +one he had used in breaking up the government witnesses +in a frame-up against the I.W.W. in Seattle five years previously. +He set it up in the room where Felicani had been +meeting Mrs. De Falco, a big barren place in an old tenement +house, next door to a print-shop. He got his own stenographer, +and another whom he could trust—and whom the jury would +have to trust, because she had served with the A.E.F. in France! +The trap was set for seven o’clock in the evening, and the +De Falco woman came on schedule time and repeated her assurances +of what she was able to do, and explained that it was +impossible to come any lower in the price. Meantime several +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span> +persons strolled casually into the room and out again, so as +to be able to testify that Felicani and Mrs. De Falco were +talking; and the stenographers diligently took down what they +got of the conversation. Unfortunately the printer next door, +not having been warned of the plot, started up one of his +presses, which caused the dictograph to sound like an avalanche +in Switzerland!</p> + +<p>However, part of the conversation was recorded; and now, +what next? Some of the committee insisted upon waiting, they +wanted to get money and mark it, and pay it to Mrs. De Falco. +But they delayed to act, and Lee Swenson suspected they were +playing for time, their real purpose was to raise the full amount +and settle the case. He insisted, such a story would not lie +quiet more than a day or two; so many persons knew about it, +and the moment the authorities got a hint it was a matter of +minutes which would act first. Joe Randall, as a newspaper man, +backed up Lee in this; everything depended on how the story +first reached the public. If the authorities filed a complaint, +charging Felicani with an effort to purchase justice, that would +be what the world would believe about the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense +Committee, regardless of what evidence might later be +produced. Trust the capitalist press for that!</p> + +<p>So Lee took matters into his own hands, and filed a complaint, +charging Mrs. De Falco with soliciting a bribe. It was a +matter for which some of the anarchists never forgave either +him or Joe. Who were these two, non-anarchists, therefore +enemies of anarchism, to come in and play with the lives of two +comrades? To involve Sacco and Vanzetti in an effort to use +capitalist courts, which they regarded with abhorrence! Was +not Mrs. De Falco herself a human being, a victim of the class +system? What business had an anarchist giving information +against her, and trying to send her to jail? The Italians did not +hesitate to charge that Lee Swenson wanted to get the money, +instead of the De Falco woman; he wanted a big legal case for +himself!</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_10"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>A terrible world to live in! A world full of tangles impossible +to unravel, of dangers impossible to foresee! A world in which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span> +wild beasts roamed in the darkness, slaying and devouring—no +change from the old days of the jungle!</p> + +<p>About twenty-four hours after the De Falco story was spread +on the front page of all the Boston newspapers—“Reds Charge +Bribery Plot to State,” and so on—Cornelia’s telephone rang, +and she heard the voice of her oldest daughter. “Mother, is +that you?” The voice was trembling, so that Cornelia’s heart +started at the first sound. “What has happened?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mother, the most dreadful thing! I can’t tell you over +the phone! I will come at once. Be at home!” There was a sob +in Deborah’s voice, something that was rarely heard. But no +chance to ask more—she hung up the receiver.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later she came in, breathless from hurrying up +the stairs. Her mother had never seen such distress on her face. +Mutely she held out a letter, which Cornelia took. It had a +canceled special delivery stamp, on an ordinary envelope, such +as you buy at the post office, addressed on a typewriter to Mrs. +Rupert Alvin at the Commonwealth Avenue address. Cornelia +opened it, and found a typewritten sheet of paper, which seemed +to burn her eyeballs as she read:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“Call off your daughter and your mother from the aiding and +abetting of anarchists, or you and your family will live to +regret it. Why do you let your daughter travel about town day +and night with a young anarchist with a criminal record? Look +up his wife he deserted. Do you want the world to know that +your daughter sleeps with him under your mother’s protection? +We want no Russian free love in Boston. We will expose them +in the papers if they do not get out of town, and your other +daughter’s wedding will be postponed again.</p> + +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">American Patriot.</span>” +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>So there was a bagful of cats turned loose, to rampage over +the place, and maintain a dreadful clamor. No possibility of +counting them—any more than the stream of wild questions +flung at Cornelia’s gray head. One horror, of course, led the +rest: was it true that Betty was living in adulterous relations +with a married man, and Cornelia abetting the crime? It was a +question difficult to answer without sounding cynical to a pillar +of Trinity Church in the City of Boston. Cornelia said, as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span> +calmly as she could, that Betty and Joe loved each other truly, +and were going to marry as soon as the law permitted, after +Joe’s wife had got her Reno divorce. Oh, horrible! horrible! +Deborah broke down, and hid her face in her hands, because +she could not contemplate such depravity in her mother and +her daughter. Or would it be more accurate to say, because she +thought that she ought not contemplate it? Human motives are +complicated, and in the effort to have our own way we sometimes +contrive elaborate emotional dramas.</p> + +<p>Said Cornelia: “They will be a perfectly respectable married +couple as soon as it is over. There are some in our most fashionable +society who have done the same thing.”</p> + +<p>“At least they had the decency to wait till they were +divorced!”</p> + +<p>“As to that, Deborah, you should ask your cousin Quincy. +He dines frequently at Mrs. Jack Gardner’s, where I understand +they discuss such cases in detail.”</p> + +<p>Then the other counts of the indictment. “No Deborah, Joe +has no ‘criminal record,’ I assure you.”</p> + +<p>“But how do you know it?”</p> + +<p>“I know it because I know Joe. He is a fine young idealist, +whom I love, and was glad to accept in his present rôle.”</p> + +<p>“An anarchist free-lover!”</p> + +<p>“In the first place, he isn’t an anarchist, but a socialist, which +is the opposite pole of thought. He is much more conservative +than Betty, and their honeymoon quarrels are over his efforts +to tone her down. You should be grateful to him.”</p> + +<p>“But what does this letter mean—his ‘criminal record’?”</p> + +<p>“It is nothing but a coward’s attempt to frighten and distress +us. Joe was connected with the American legation in Russia, +and he saw President Wilson begin his private war on the +Russian people, which was nothing but wholesale murder for +the benefit of the British Tories. Joe said what he thought +about it, and he may have actually done something to try to stop +it. If he has a ‘criminal record,’ that is it, I am sure.”</p> + +<p>“And his wife—she is really going to get a divorce?”</p> + +<p>“She is planning to remarry.”</p> + +<p>Deborah made a face of disgust. Ugh, such a world! it seemed +to say. It did not improve the long lean features, so much like +those of Josiah, which Cornelia had come to know too well. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span> +She waited until the ugly moment was past, and then said, very +gently: “There are two great improprieties, Deborah—one is +love without marriage, and the other is marriage without love. +The latter was my portion, and I assure you, if Betty had to +choose one or the other, I am glad it was the other. I did not +will this situation, and if they had asked my advice, I would +have told them to wait. But they settled it for themselves, and +it was a condition and not a theory that confronted me. Betty +offered to tell you, but I could see no good in distressing you.”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_10"> + V +</h3> + +<p>They argued the ethics of free love versus purchased love for +a while; until Deborah’s practical mind got to work at its +customary task of telling other people what to do. “We must +not have a scandal—now that Priscilla’s wedding invitations +have been sent out! We must think up some reason for Betty to +go to Europe at once, and stay until the man can marry her.”</p> + +<p>“I fear you will not be able to arrange that, Deborah. Betty +is wrapped up in this case of Sacco and Vanzetti, and the trial +is coming in the spring. She and Joe are working over it day +and night, and surely, when a young couple are busy and happy, +it is not the part of wisdom to break them up.”</p> + +<p>“But this, Mother! This!” Deborah held the letter in her +trembling hand. “How can we face this horrible thing?”</p> + +<p>“It is an effort to break our nerve, and it must not succeed.”</p> + +<p>“But what can we do—if they expose us?”</p> + +<p>“How <i>can</i> they expose us? Betty lives here, and Joe visits +here occasionally, but never unless I am in the apartment. Are +they going to break into my home to look for evidence against +my granddaughter?”</p> + +<p>“Betty must come back and stay with her parents at once!”</p> + +<p>“Betty is a grown woman, responsible for her own life. I +think you will have to let her make her own decisions, and face +her own enemies.”</p> + +<p>They argued back and forth, and in the process Cornelia’s +mind became more clear. “I am quite certain nothing will happen, +Deborah, except the writing of more letters. The police +have spies in the office of our committee, and they pick up bits +of gossip, but they don’t really know anything. Surely we can +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span> +stand upon our family dignity, and ignore anonymous slanderers! +You and I and Joe and Betty are the only ones who +know the facts, and we are not going to tell any one else—except, +of course, Rupert.”</p> + +<p>Poor Rupert! He was almost worried to death, his wife broke +out. That dreadful man Jerry Walker was bringing a suit and +charging all sorts of outrageous things; and some of Rupert’s +associates were quarreling with him for having got them into +the mess. They had entirely forgotten how glad they were to +get their share of the profits. And then this business about the +Boston Elevated—had Cornelia been told about that?</p> + +<p>“Not much, except what has been in the papers.”</p> + +<p>“Well, they are going to make all the members of the legislature +testify as to their stock investments, and they are looking +up the loans they got from some of the banks. They will call it +bribery, of course, but it was nothing in the world except that +Rupert was trying to save the Elevated from bankruptcy, and +the stockholders from ruin, and those vicious politicians were +holding him up, refusing to grant any increase in fares. They +wouldn’t vote until they got money to buy Elevated stocks. You +can’t imagine what the politicians are!”</p> + +<p>“My child, I know exactly what they are—they are trying +to send two of my friends to the electric chair, unless we will +raise forty thousand dollars to buy them off. Betty and Joe +and I have been having to make that decision in the last few +days, and I think the reason you got this letter is because we +refused to pay.”</p> + +<p>Deborah sat staring before her, her tall forehead wrinkled in +thought. Her surrender was not indicated by throwing up her +hands, but merely by beginning to talk sensibly. “Mother, I +ought to meet that young man.”</p> + +<p>“Of course you ought—that is, provided you will behave +yourself, and understand that he is your son-in-law.”</p> + +<p>“Is he—does he look like a gentleman?”</p> + +<p>“He comes from an Old Virginia family, and they think they +are quite as good as we are—in fact, I understand they sometimes +make fun of us, saying that we talk through our noses.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose I’ll have to tell Rupert,” said Deborah. “He might +get one of these letters, too. I’ll tell him to-night, and we’ll +make some arrangement—I don’t know just what. I suppose this—what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span> +is his name, Randall—ought to be invited to dinner.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, my dear, that is certainly sensible.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if they are going to be married, we have to try to make +it seem decent. I don’t want people to say that Betty married +a man she picked up off the street.”</p> + +<p>“No, it is not at all like that. You can tell people they met +at the first session of the Third International in Moscow.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_10"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Priscilla Quincy Adams Thornwell had been a sufficient time +in her grave for it to be proper for her grand-niece, Priscilla +Thornwell Alvin, to be united to the young mountain of copper. +So there was another of those stately ceremonials which mark +the coming and going of the generations, and advertise their +social importance. Out of this union there would proceed many +copper hills and branch banks, bearing the sacred names of +Thornwell and Quincy and Adams and Shaw and Cabot, +shuffled into new combinations. Engraved invitations were sent +to all members of the clans, and the hot-houses of the florists +were emptied, and Trinity Church became a mid-winter bower, +and the four organs played the Lohengrin march coming and +the Mendelssohn march going, and there was a procession of +two little “flower-girls,” and six young ladies with faces rigid +and intense with the effort of keeping in step under the eyes of +so many relatives. They wore drooping hats and carried large +bouquets of roses, as white as the driven snow before it has been +driven through the bituminous smoke of Boston. This symbolized +the undoubted purity of the bride, and nowhere in the +consecrated spaces of the brown-stone edifice was there a single +red rose of adultery.</p> + +<p>Except in the hearts of the supposed-to-be-happy parents of +the bride, haunted by the cruel secret of their younger daughter’s +shame. Rupert and Deborah were in the grip of a terror +such as had never before attended a Thornwell wedding-service. +Their imaginations played with a string of horrors, which might +be perpetrated by a writer of devilish anonymous letters. After +all, what limit could you set to the perversity of such a creature? +A bomb in the church—say in the vestibule, where it would not +kill any one, but would make a scandal heard round the world! +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span> +Or perhaps what was called a “stink-bomb,” that would drive +everybody from the edifice! Or foul whispers by an old gipsy +woman, or poison-leaflets distributed in the pews—it had happened +once in Boston history. There was a moment when the +hearts of Rupert and Deborah jumped into their throats—when +the rector pronounced the bold challenge: “If any man can +show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, +let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace!”</p> + +<p>A dreadful silence, during which Rupert and Deborah heard +a voice shout out that the younger sister of the bride was living +in adultery, and therefore the family was not “eligible.” But no +one else heard a sound, and the ceremony was completed; six +immaculate ushers from Harvard marched out with the six +bridesmaids, and the little flower girls carried the bride’s train. +The bride and groom were whisked away to the Alvin home, +where an elaborate breakfast was served to the family and intimate +friends. The bride, now attired in traveling costume, +was kissed on both cheeks by relatives male and female—her +pure white forehead was stained by the red lips of adultery, +and she did not know it! Yes, Betty hugged and kissed her good +old sister several times, and wished her all the respectable luck +which so respectable a young lady was bound to have; and if +there were tears in Betty’s eyes, they were not tears of shame, +because Betty was lost to shame, and only her poor mother had +to blush for her, and weep for the dreadful hidden secret—and +tremble, because the danger was not yet over—there might be +poison-leaflets thrown into the departing bridal-car, in place of +the rice and old shoes which Boston society had abandoned as +undignified.</p> + +<p>But again the fears proved baseless, and the young couple departed +in blissful certainty that everything had happened exactly +as it had always happened, and as it ought to happen—one and +the same thing in Boston. They took the train to New York, and +from there to Palm Beach, where they stopped at the most +expensive hotel, and dressed themselves three times a day in the +proper summer costumes, and innumerable attendants rushed +this way and that to anticipate their needs, and no one embarrassed +them by a smile or hint that they were suspected of +not being entirely accustomed to the intimacies of holy matrimony.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span></p> + +<p>So, in secrecy and retirement, a young creature who was to +bear a string of honored names began his career; and the conscientious +young progenitors had nothing in the world to worry +about except the inescapable problem which dogs the footsteps +of Boston blue-bloods en voyage—whom is it safe to know and +whom not? If people hail from Seattle or Oshkosh, it may be +rather amusing to talk to them, because they will not presume +to expect to know you at home; but if they come from New +England, then you have to speculate anxiously as to who they +are, and wish you had Mother or Aunt Alice to advise you. +Can they be the “right” Cabots? Do any of the “real” Lowells +come from New Hampshire? Are the Adamses of Scituate the +ones who are cousins of the Adamses of Concord, or can they +be those dreadful people that were divorced some years ago? +Better to walk the esplanade in solemn dignity by yourself, than +take the risk of making such a serious misstep!</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_10"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>An odd experience for Cornelia and Betty—to take part in +this orgy of hand-shaking and kissing—to be dipped, as it were, +into an ocean of propriety and perfume, to be transported to a +fairy-land of white veils and roses, frock-coats and silk hats and +kid gloves, crystal and silver and pearl and diamond wedding-presents—and +then to step into a motor-car and be carried along +the Back Bay and across the river, and find themselves within +the gates of an ancient stone dungeon, stained dark by factory +smoke, with steel bars on the windows and steel doors clanging, +and faces of grim command, and faces of lowering hate, faces +brutalized and degraded, marked by disease, fear, cruelty—a +thousand evils which poverty, ignorance and neglect inflict upon +the tormented human race. Church doctrine teaches that between +heaven and hell there is an abyss across which none may travel; +but Cornelia and her granddaughter crossed it at least once, and +sometimes two or three times a week; they went back and forth +between celestial and infernal regions, associating freely with +both angels and devils—and finding them not so different one +from the other as their fears and hates caused them to believe!</p> + +<p>Bart came, with the coal-dust hastily washed from his face +and hands, but not from his neck and wrists. He greeted them +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span> +with his smile of joy, and asked to sit near the window, in the +sunshine, so rare in his life. He saw the white roses they were +wearing, and learned that they were bridal roses; he traveled +in fancy to the River Magra, where weddings meant fiddles +and dancing and wine, in addition to flowers and white veils. +Such lovely country, such happy people—if it were not for +landlord, for padrone, for wicked go-vérnment, taking boys +away from home to make soldier, to make cruel war!</p> + +<p>They talked about the case, and Bart with tact and gentleness +strove to convey to his dear friends the unhappiness which was +tormenting him. Never had he thought it could happen that +he would be the means of sending any human being to prison, +a place of wickedness and suffering like this. “Is something +should not be attempting, Nonna, it is not according with filosofia +anarchica. Mrs. De Falco is criminal, yes, but is poor +victim, is ignorant, is not blam-èd for what she do. It is principle +for me—it is wrong ever to call law, to punish wit’ judge and +sooch thing.”</p> + +<p>“But, Bart, you told Lee you would leave it to his judgment.”</p> + +<p>“I know, I have shame for that. I am stranger, poor man, +have not mooch knowledge. I think, friend have bring lawyer, +he is educate, he onderstand, he try hard for helping—how can +I make contraddizione? But then come Italian friend, they say, +‘What is this, Vanzett’, you are anarchista, you make woman be +arrest? You have deny principle of whole living?’ And I say, +‘It is true, I have done wrong, I would better be convict of any +crime in world!’”</p> + +<p>“Well, Bart”—it was Betty speaking—“you should have an +anarchist lawyer.”</p> + +<p>“Is not many soocha t’ing, Betty, is hard for be. Should not +have no lawyer. Anarchista should stand in court, should say, +‘Is wicked place, is wicked sistema. You have power, you have +victim in hand, you can crush him, but you cannot crush his +soul, his doctrine it live, will spread to whole umane kind.’”</p> + +<p>“Then you really don’t want to be saved, Bart?”</p> + +<p>“I want for anarchismo be sav-èd.”</p> + +<p>“Joe has gone to Maine, to try to get the record of one of +the witnesses for the prosecution, that we have heard has +been convicted of crime. Now, if we find it is so, do you want +us to use the fact? It will hurt the man’s feelings, no doubt.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span></p> + +<p>Vanzetti sat with brow furrowed in thought. “I not know. I +have said always, it is good for speak truth. I think anarchista +can speak what is truth.”</p> + +<p>“Yet you might be the cause of the man’s being sent to jail +again. It might turn out he is wanted by the police for something +else.”</p> + +<p>Time was needed to answer that! It was a complicated world, +and often it would happen that Vanzetti would agree to the +proposals of Betty and Joe and Lee Swenson, and then think +it over, or hear the protests of his comrades, and decide that it +was not according to “filosofia anarchica.” All he could say +now, having brooded over the problem of Mrs. De Falco +through long hours in his cell, was that he did not want her +sent to jail, not even to save his life. Anyhow, he was sure the +move against her would not help his cause; rather it would +embitter the go-vérnment, it would make them redouble their +efforts for a conviction. It was difficult to explain this in a foreign +language, but Bart’s idea was that the authorities would +consider Lee Swenson was not playing the game. The law, from +the point of view of a politician in power, was an opportunity +for graft, and the most dangerous person in the world was not +the bandit, but the man who threatened the graft system.</p> + +<p>“He is not so mooch fraid for bandit, he know plenty bandit, +is us-èd him, do plenty business with him. It is big bandit put +up money for election him. But man what expose, man what +tell newspaper, tell people, he is real nemico—what you say, +enemy, he is one you musta keell. I think he keell me for teach +Lee Swenson he cannot break graft in Massachusett.”</p> + +<p>“I am sorry if we have made things worse, Bart.” It was +Cornelia speaking, and her words brought tears into the prisoner’s +eyes. He laid his hand upon her arm, and begged her +pardon for his bad way of saying things, it was hard to express +these complicated ideas. He was not afraid to die, and whatever +happened, they must not grieve. He was a poor, unknown man, +he had talked for years unheeded; to be executed for his beliefs +was perhaps the one way he could make them known. But he +wanted to die with a clean conscience—not having caused a +mother of several children to be sent to jail, for trying to get +her pitiful share of that loot which the rich and powerful ones +of the community tried to keep for their own.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_10"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Lee Swenson had obtained a postponement of the Sacco-Vanzetti +case until the month of June, to give him time to prepare. +The law of the Puritans, otherwise stern and parsimonious, +would be prodigal only of delay. Sacco would sit in his cell in +Dedham—when he grew bored with standing on his head or +walking on his hands—and wonder by what malicious turn of +fate it had happened that he who despised the law was tangled +in a legal net, denied even the boon of swift, uncomplicated +death. Now and then there would be papers he would have to +sign on his own behalf; invariably he would refuse to sign them, +and there would begin a campaign of diplomacy.</p> + +<p>Visits from his wife, carrying the newly born infant, surely +a reason to make a fight for freedom! Visits from committees +of this “gruppo” and that, bringing messages and resolutions, a +newspaper article, a cablegram from Italy. You could never tell +what odd circumstance might turn the trick with Sacco: a bouquet +of flowers, a chat about what was to be planted in the garden +this spring, or questions as to what would be blooming in +Torremaggiore at this time of year—and suddenly the hard +shell of anarchistic principle would melt, and the tormented +man would smile, and stretch out his hand for the paper, saying, +“Is crazy t’ing, but you say it, I sign heem.”</p> + +<p>Meantime typewriters were clicking, and circulars and +pamphlets going out, and a scrapbook filling with clippings +about the case. Throughout labor and radical circles in America +the names of Sacco and Vanzetti were becoming known as the +latest victims of the “frame-up” system. Money was coming in, +and several investigators were at work, and the busy brain of +Lee Swenson was spinning counterplots like a nest of caterpillars +in a pine tree. Under the law of the Commonwealth he +had the right to a list of the witnesses to be used by the prosecution; +and part of his preparation of the case was interviews +with these persons, and efforts to get their stories from them, +to break them down, to delve into their past and find out anything +that would discredit them, or frighten them, or cause +them to swing over to the other side.</p> + +<p>Under this system, a legal case became a miniature war, a contest +of sappers and miners, of spies and counterspies; some +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span> +witnesses would sell out more than once, and change their stories +back and forth—one statement to the Pinkerton detectives, a +different one to the friends of the defense, yet another to the +district attorney, another to the lawyers of the defense—and +which one finally got to the jury was a matter of price, or else +of psychology. Some witnesses wanted money, and then more +money; but there were others who had a secret spring of +loyalty or prejudice, which, if you could touch it, might turn +the trick for a few days or forever. One would do anything to +help a buddy who had been in France, the next would do anything +to oblige the Pope of Rome; one wanted to electrocute +all Italians because he had been knifed by one in a street fight +twenty years ago; another abhorred Yankees because a school-teacher +had beaten him as a child.</p> + +<p>A singular education for a daughter of the blue-bloods, to +help in a job like this! An education which would surely not +have won the approval of her theocratic forefathers, nor yet of +the plutocratic trustees who supervised the curriculum of Radcliffe! +But at least you could say it was an education based upon +fundamentals, and getting to original sources. What was +present-day New England actually like? What did its people +really do and think and feel? What was its working governmental +system, as distinguished from the one written on paper, +and taught in schools, and glorified in Fourth of July orations +and newspaper editorials? Surely these were matters worth +knowing about, even if you did not get a sheepskin diploma, +and three Greek letters on a key, and two Latin words at the +end of your name!</p> + +<p>Elizabeth Thornwell Alvin took two different trains and +traveled into the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, and was +bumped for ten or fifteen miles in a buggy over country roads +deep with the soft mud of early spring, and in a ramshackle +farmhouse, with the paint peeled off and the fence palings +molded and rotten, she met a girl who had been working in the +Rice and Hutchins shoe factory in South Braintree on the afternoon +when the bandits had opened fire on the paymaster and +the guard. This girl had a feeble chin and prematurely decayed +teeth, and a baby due to make its entrance into a world of torment +in a very few days. For some reason she got it into her +weak head that Betty was there in the interest of the district +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span> +attorney’s office, and she immediately became hysterical, bursting +into tears and shrieking that she was in no condition to +come to a trial, and could not be forced to testify; anyhow, she +knew nothing, because when the shooting had started, she had +hidden under a bench.</p> + +<p>Betty soothed her, assuring her there was no wish to force +her to do anything; so presently the girl calmed down and became +communicative. Too bad she could not go, because two of +her former shopmates were getting good pay to testify against +those wops, and they sure ought to be run out of the country, +coming in and taking honest people’s jobs away, and fighting +and all that, and it sure was up to we Americans to stand +together against them. Later, by deft questioning, Betty drew +from this patriotic young person the information that her +mother had been an Irish peasant and her father a French +peasant. A triumph of “americanization,” and the speeding up +processes of a machine age! Betty’s ancestors, who had been +tinners and carpenters and indentured servants, had taken three +hundred years to acquire their superiority to the new immigrant +workers; but here was a shoe factory girl who had managed it +in one-tenth of the time!</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_10"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>The case of Mrs. De Falco was set for trial in a Boston police +court, and Betty and Joe turned their energies to this—digging +into the records of public officials, and running down clews of +graft. Shudders ran up and down the spines of persons high in +political power, and rage seethed in their hearts against blue-blood +intruders who were not content with the security which +wealth and prominence conferred, but turned traitor to their +own privileges, and attacked the bases of law and order. What +did these high-hatted snobs want, anyhow? What was the matter +with them that they could not be content with public officials +who protected them, keeping them safe against bombers and +blackmailers and burglars and pickpockets and a thousand such +predatory creatures; making everything so comfortable, that +they might be born, and grow up, and live long, and go to pieces +like the one-horse shay, of old age and decrepitude, without +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span> +ever knowing a moment of danger or making a real effort in +their lives?</p> + +<p>The politicians and police might laugh at the blue-bloods, but +they respected and feared them, because of very real powers they +still held; not merely finance, utilities and the choicest real +estate, but solidarity, knowledge, culture—the latter a far-off, +mysterious thing, but awe-inspiring, like the power of a voodoo +magician, who can cause your right arm to wither and fall off; +or anyhow, he says he can, and how shall you be certain about +it? The lower orders, having captured the city, were afraid of +their captives, and dared not make use of their power; they +stood, fierce-eyed barbarians, at the doors of the temples, and +watched the priests, clad in frock coats and high hats, performing +mysterious offices, impossible to comprehend or imitate. In +the end the barbarians capitulated, and sent their sons to study +in the temples, and become as much like the conquered caste +as they could!</p> + +<p>Politicians and police were used to many kinds of eccentricities +on the part of rich persons. Those who had enormous +powers and no duties necessarily had to work off steam. They +dressed themselves in pink coats, and rode to hounds and broke +their necks; they raced motor cars at high speeds, and learned +to save themselves behind the steering-post when they crashed; +they flew in airplanes and landed on top of houses; they built +submarines and got stuck at the bottom of the sea; they worked +in chemical laboratories and asphyxiated themselves, or invented +explosives and blew themselves up; they went yachting to the +North Pole to hunt walruses, or to the equator to collect baby +chimpanzees for a psychological laboratory.</p> + +<p>Hardly a millionaire estate without something weird and +mysterious upon it: the largest collection of old pewter in the +world, or a single-tax enclave, or an herbarium with Brazilian +butterflies, or a laboratory for the investigation of ghosts, or a +mausoleum prepared in advance of death, or a fireproof and +bombproof shelter for safety against mobs! And now and then +a more sinister case—a clergyman with a fondness for choir-boys, +or an aged sybarite who must have fifteen-year-old virgins +shivering in his arms; a young lady of fashion who frequented +the “black and tan” cafés disguised as a man, or who taught +the sex-lore of the Orient to her female intimates!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span></p> + +<p>The police were used to all this. They even got used to the +idea that now and then a rich eccentric would turn against his +own and commit class-suicide. They knew that in the home of a +dead poet in Cambridge, a shrine to which pilgrims traveled +from all over America, the poet’s grandson was upstairs entertaining +syndicalists and communists, and figuring the easiest +way to overthrow the capitalist system. That was treason, but +it was treason to the rich, and the rich were the ones to deal +with it. What worried the politicians and police was when these +young fools took to hounding the politicians and police. That +was the treason that really mattered, that was a stab in the back, +and the most dangerous activity one could pursue in America.</p> + +<p>And here was Betty Alvin quite blandly going to it, heedless +of all warnings. So came a string of developments, distressing +to a blue-blood family. Anonymous letters, more abusive and +more widely scattered; telephone calls, with sinister voices pronouncing +dooms; visits to Rupert from his banking associates, +who talked about alarming rumors they had heard; a call from +the Republican boss with whom Rupert did business, and who +asked him if he didn’t have troubles enough! So again Betty +was summoned to her father’s home, and went through the +worst scene yet; she lost her serenity, and shed many tears, but +she would not go abroad, nor give up either her lover or her +anarchists. Again she was disinherited and disowned—whether +in words, or actually upon paper, she had no way to know.</p> + +<p>A heavy strain upon Rupert, and a strange freak of fate! +Or could it be that there actually was some intelligence overseeing +the universe, and that Betty’s revolt was a punishment +visited upon a great banker who had left undone those things +he ought to have done, and had done those things he ought not +to have done? Rupert could not escape this idea, because he +had been brought up in Trinity Church in the City of Boston, +and had heard it—not exactly preached, but skirted on the edge +of, every Sunday morning for fifty years. He would have liked +to ask his rector, or some other clergyman: could there be a God +perverse enough to object to Rupert’s having taken the felt-plants +of Jerry Walker, which Rupert could finance and Jerry +couldn’t? Could any God have wanted him to let the Boston +Elevated stay on the rocks and be pounded to pieces? Could +any God be so silly as the fanatics and agitators who denounced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span> +Rupert for having loaned money to legislators—when it was +perfectly obvious that it was not Rupert who had elected these +legislators, and that lending them money was the only way to +get a raise of fares and make the stock of the Elevated worth +anything? No, God was not going to punish the president of the +Pilgrim National Bank for having protected the people who +had trusted their fortunes to him! But then, how could God be +letting Rupert’s lovely young daughter be seduced by anarchist +free love, and exposed to the furies of scandal, at such a trying +moment of her father’s life?</p> + + +<h3 id="X_10"> + X +</h3> + +<p>One by one the members of the family received “poison pen” +letters. Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge came to her mother, incredulous +of the scandal, because her maternal soul had never +desired an impropriety. Alice Thornwell Winters came, elegant +and precious, regarding her virtue as a hard-won possession, +deserving of commensurate rewards. No use expecting others to +live up to one’s own standards—“though I do think, Mother, +Betty is beginning rather young. I must say I am aghast at this +new generation, they don’t even trouble to apologize for their +indiscretions. And I don’t know what to make of you, Mother—I +thought you believed in the old standards. I heard that these +radicals practiced free love, but somehow I didn’t think of it in +relation to my own mother.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Alice,” said Cornelia, “you must consider my life. I +was faithful to the old standards, I lived my life without love, +and where did it get me?”</p> + +<p>The carefully cultivated features of Alice Thornwell Winters +wore a puzzled look. Alice prided herself upon being sensitive +to all ethical and esthetic values—they were the same thing, she +always insisted—beauty was truth and beauty was goodness—but +of course beauty must be recognized by a discriminating +intelligence—it was something that could not be explained—it +was a gift, very rare, but Alice had it. “Really, Mother, how +can you feel that you have had such a hard life? Your children +love you, and your grandchildren would, if they saw more of +you. Josiah was saying to me only yesterday it was hard to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span> +understand why you found so much in Italian anarchists, and +so little in your own people.”</p> + +<p>“Well, my dear, perhaps I know the Harvard values too +well, and have got bored with them. Tell Josiah to come to +dinner, and tell me what new things he has learned and accomplished. +That is, unless you are afraid to expose him to my free +love ideas.”</p> + +<p>That was a nasty stroke of a cat’s claws, and the sensitive +Alice winced. For everybody in the family had heard about the +“wild oats” of “Young Josiah,” only son of Alice and Henry—known +as “Josie” to his boyhood playmates, and as “Si” to the +members of “Porcellian” and of “Alpha Delta Phi.” Alice +allowed for him, because he was a man, and that was the way +men did, apparently; they got over it in time, and settled down. +But nowadays the girls were doing it, too, and how would there +be any esthetic standards, if the women did not maintain them? +That was what shocked Alice in the episode of Betty and Joe—it +was so unesthetic, to come to the apartment where Betty’s +grandmother lived! To which Cornelia answered that she had +never been to a roadhouse, and could not judge, but it might be, +of course, that some of them were fixed up esthetically. Look +out for the cat’s claws of this gentle-seeming old woman!</p> + +<p>Alice went away, and Josiah Thornwell Winters called up, +and made an appointment to dine with his grandmother, and tell +her what he had learned and accomplished as a Harvard senior. +But when he came, he did not mention the subject—because +meantime the current of his thoughts had been diverted. The +grandson and namesake of the stern old governor had fallen +the newest victim to the calamities which were raining upon his +conspicuous family.</p> + +<p>Cornelia happened to drop in at the office of the defense +committee, and Lee Swenson gave her the first news of the +event. “I don’t like to repeat gossip, Nonna, but my guess is, +your latest family trouble is a result of what you and Betty +are doing, so you need to know about it.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, Lee?”</p> + +<p>“There’s a story all over town—last night the political gangs +were roaring drunk in their bootleg-joints, and when they had a +round of drinks, they would say, ‘Have one on Young Josiah!’”</p> + +<p>“What has he done?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, they caught him in a hotel room with a woman. +Undoubtedly she lured him there—it’s a regular system they +have. They took a flashlight photograph of him, and Henry +Cabot Winters paid seventy-five thousand dollars to kill the +story.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia, the “Red,” was supposed to be lacking in shame; +but now she looked down, instead of at her friend. “Can it really +be true, Lee?”</p> + +<p>“It is what is being told. You can find out, of course.”</p> + +<p>“They can do that kind of thing in Boston, and not be +punished?”</p> + +<p>“It’s the punishers who are doing it, Nonna. It’s a blackmail +ring, and the district attorneys get a share of the loot. There is +an aged millionaire in this town—perhaps you know him—old +man Barbour?”</p> + +<p>“I have met him.”</p> + +<p>“Well, they got him in the same kind of jam, and soaked +him to the tune of three hundred and eighty-six thousand. You +can hardly believe that, but I got the amount from one of his +lawyers. And then young Searles—he inherited a fortune from +his uncle, I think it was, and the gang got him in an apartment +with a couple of girls and cleaned him out. Over in Woburn +they got a bunch of moving-picture people in a roadhouse for a +wild party, and it cost those celebrities a hundred and five +thousand.”</p> + +<p>“One might expect it of people like that,” said Cornelia. +“But it is something new for the Thornwells, unless I am mistaken. +I’m glad that my Josiah is not here to see what has become +of his name.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_10"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>So it was that when Josiah Thornwell Winters came to +dinner two or three days afterwards, his grandmother did not +chat about the polite nothings of the Harvard curriculum +and of “Porcellian” and “Alpha Delta Phi.” Throwing aside +those reticences which are supposed to be the crown of womanhood, +she talked in plain language about unspeakable things—“man +to man,” as she put it. And “Young Josiah,” who had +never dreamed of such a thing from an old lady, turned pink to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span> +the roots of his hair and looked as if he wanted to grab his hat +and run; but after a while he got used to it, and found it a +relief to talk about realities. He had come very close to shooting +his head off, and neither the horrified grief of his pure mother, +nor the withering scorn of his successful father had been of the +slightest use to him.</p> + +<p>He was twenty-two years old, and at the age of seventeen +he had sprung up to the Thornwell height of six feet and more, +but had never filled out his lean figure. His shoulders were +stooped and his complexion pale, and his fingers yellow with +nicotine; but he had the most elegant Harvard drawl, and a +complete equipment of skepticism and boredom, applied to +matters about which he knew nothing, as well as to those about +which Harvard had taught him everything. His manner was +“right,” his clothing had the proper shade of carelessness, and +his apartment on the “Gold Coast” contained shelves of exquisite +smut, beginning with Petronius and ending with James +Branch Cabell, in numbered editions at from fifteen to fifty +dollars a volume.</p> + +<p>But now all that solemn pose of maturity had fallen like a +cheap actor’s cloak, and Cornelia confronted a raw, weedy youth +with vicious habits and a sick sense of shame. “I’m a rotter,” +he said, “but I could tell you things to show you it wasn’t +entirely my fault. The Pater gave me the razz—he all but told +me I’d oblige him if I’d eat a chunk of cyanide—and I said +nothing. But you must know, Grandmother, he hasn’t been any +saint.”</p> + +<p>“I know he keeps a woman,” said Cornelia, grimly.</p> + +<p>“More than that. There’s a tradition on the crew—you know, +after he was graduated, the Pater coached the crew for a +couple of years—and he told the fellows they would have to go +with prostitutes, or they’d lose their virility. That made the +church crowd hot, and they got rid of him, but the story stayed +on, and a lot of the fellows think he was right. Now, of course, +the Pater says I’ve gone too far, but then, who is to do the +measuring? It was my hard luck that I knew too much about +both my father and my mother. Do you want me to talk about +Mother?”</p> + +<p>“I want you to tell me the truth.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mother has wonderful emotions, but she’s a little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span> +short on brains, and I rarely got anything useful from her. +When I was about fifteen, I heard a terrible quarrel between +her and the Pater, they told each other all the dirt they knew. +I was behind a curtain, and had to stay there, because I was +ashamed to let them know I’d heard the beginning. You know +Mother’s way, she has platonic thrills, but she doesn’t go the +limit, so that makes it all right. The Pater had got a story on +her—her friends were talking about how she had traveled to +New York with one of her poets, and had lain in his arms all +night in the sleeping-car berth, but not parted with her virtue; +that was her remarkable spirituality, and the fellow was supposed +to enjoy it, too. The Pater called her some rotten names, +and then she told what she knew about him, and that was my +introduction to the subject of love. It wasn’t exactly helpful, +was it?”</p> + +<p>Cornelia accepted the plea.</p> + +<p>“Well, when I was sixteen, I was visiting a fellow from +St. Mark’s. It was a place on the North Shore, and he had an +aunt—one of these up-to-date ladies who had divorced one +husband and was getting rid of another, and her lover was in +Europe, and she was bored. She came from New York, and they +are ahead of us—but not more than a year or two, I have found—perhaps +because they get the new shows a season earlier. +Anyhow, this was good family, a country club crowd, no end +of money, and it seemed all right. She came to my room at +night—all fixed up, very beautiful and sweet-smelling, and +what chance did a kid stand against a proposition like that? She +stayed around a while, and taught me a lot—until her lover +came back from Europe, and then we said good-by. But it was +only a week before a young widow took me on. You can’t imagine +how it is, Grandmother—I know it wasn’t that way in your +time. The women know what they want, and they just go to it.”</p> + +<p>“Are they trying to marry you?”</p> + +<p>“Not often. Some have husbands, but they’ve been reading +Freud, and have got the idea that all their troubles are repressions. +And the young girls are worse.”</p> + +<p>“All of them, Josiah?”</p> + +<p>“No, of course not—there are plenty of girls like Priscilla +and Betty—I suppose they are straight. What happened to me +was, I got a reputation, so I drew the wild ones. I was supposed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span> +to be a lady-killer. I don’t imagine I’m abnormally attractive, +but family counts for a lot, and Harvard, of course—the high-hat +stuff. Anyhow, I assure you I never had to do any seducing, +and I never made any promises I didn’t keep. I’ve spent a lot +of money, but always in respectable ways, I mean entertainments +and presents and so on. I never got stuck for blackmail +but this once.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia smiled. “You remember Æsop’s fable,” she said, +“about the lioness who had only one cub, but that one was a +lion.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_8"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>Young Josiah skirted around the cage of this “lion” for +quite a while. It didn’t seem really decent to tell such “dirt” +to one’s grandmother. But Cornelia pinned him down. “I have +other grandchildren coming along, and I need to know about +my city.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s a rotten hole,” said the youth. “I think this blackmail +business is a result of the fact that Bostonians have to +pretend to be so much better than they can be. Or maybe it’s +the Irish, bringing us Yankees off our high horses.”</p> + +<p>“Who was the woman?”</p> + +<p>“She belongs to what is known as ‘Larry Shay’s stable’—not +a very elegant name, but you say you want to know Boston. +She looked like a society girl, and I really thought she was.”</p> + +<p>“Where did you meet her?”</p> + +<p>“I had seen her around Harvard Square for a week or two, +and I thought she lived in the neighborhood—a neglected young +wife or something. She can’t be over nineteen; she was dressed +up to the minute, and looked like springtime. I suppose she was +watching me, finding out about my habits. Anyhow, she passed +me now and then, and always looked willing, but not too eager. +This time I was sitting in my car, waiting for a fellow, and she +came along smiling, and naturally I was smiling, and she walked +up and said, ‘You are Josiah Winters, aren’t you?’ She said, ‘I +know your cousin, Betty Alvin, but I’m not a “Red” like her, +so don’t be afraid of me.’ She had got posted about Betty, and +of course I thought Betty knew lots of people that the rest of +the family wouldn’t know. I laughed, and asked her if she’d +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span> +like to ride, and she got in, and we rode all over, and I kissed +her a few times, and she said she had never done anything like +this before, and paid me a lot of compliments, but she wouldn’t +go to a roadhouse, and when we came back to town we had +supper, and a little champagne, and—the upshot of it was, she +knew a hotel where a girl-friend of hers lived, and she wouldn’t +be afraid to go there. So we went to a room; and about ten +minutes after we got in, somebody put his shoulder to the door, +and there were half a dozen men, and one of them held a +camera, and another set off a flashlight, and they said they were +county detectives, and I was under arrest, and the picture +would be in the Boston ‘Telegram’ the next afternoon. The girl +went into hysterics—she was a good actress, I must say—or +maybe she liked me and was sorry—I’m fool enough to wonder, +because she was so young. But there it was, and the Pater +pungled up seventy-five thousand bucks, and took it out by +telling me what he really thought of me. It took quite a while, +and went into details.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia was moved to say, “You must allow for the financial +strain.”</p> + +<p>“No, it is what he really thinks; he’s been cherishing it up +for a long time. He is disappointed in me, I’m a weakling, and +he needs a strong man for his successor. He might stop and +think, what has there been in my life to develop strength—assuming +I had the possibility? When the Pater got through +Harvard he had to pitch in and fight his own way; but I never +had to, it was no good trying to fool myself with the idea that +I was anything but a millionaire’s son. Of course Mother’s +spoiling me was from affection, but that didn’t change the result. +I have enough of the Pater’s brains to understand what +happened. I never had to do anything but call somebody else. +If the car was out of order, tell the chauffeur; if I wanted a +bunch of flowers, tell the gardener. So many servants to wait +on one kid; so many courtiers, to make you think you’re the +top of the heap—so why should you climb any higher? And +then the women come, and after that, it is impossible to break +through. I don’t mean merely sex—I mean all the things they +want to do—tea-parties and dances and motoring and yachting. +Honest truth, Grandmother, except for things like this blackmail, +there’s nothing to choose between the fashionable girls +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span> +and the ones you pick up; they want to do the same things, and +the only difference is where you go, and how much it costs. +The one thing none of them will let you do is any serious +work.”</p> + +<p>There was more to this revealing story, and Cornelia listened +to it all and asked many questions. “I ought to have known +these things many years ago,” she said. “I might have helped +you a great deal.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course. Nobody talks straight to us fellows. +Mother doesn’t know much that is real, and the Pater has been +so busy making money—too busy to think what good it will +do anybody. He must be pretty sick, because I show so few +signs of solving the problem for him.”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t you like to come and see me now and then? +Perhaps Betty and I could bring you in touch with people who +are doing worth-while things.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Grandmother, of course, I’ll meet anybody you say, +but I don’t see much hope in that crowd of yours. The way it +looks to me, you and Betty have got a little money, and family +position, and they are using you for what you are worth.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my boy,” said Cornelia, gently, “but what I thought +was, you might forget those Harvard ideas. I will take you +to Charlestown prison and introduce you to one of my wops, +who has never had either money or family position, and no +education except what he picked up after washing dishes fourteen +hours a day. He cannot express himself in English very +well, yet he has managed to impress me as a very great man. +It is possible he might impress you also, and make you realize +what it means to men who lose the money that you get.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand just what you mean by that,” said +Young Josiah from Harvard.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_7"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>The trial of Mrs. De Falco came up in a Boston police court, +and Cornelia extended her knowledge of the “blackmail ring” +and its power. A long-haired Swede from the West had come +into Massachusetts to tell them how to run their system of +justice; a “Red” and an enemy of society, who would not play +the game as other lawyers played it, but tried to throw sticks +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span> +into the machinery! Well, they would show him—and they +did.</p> + +<p>The magistrate was an Irish-Catholic, an ardent patriot, and +these were the days of most bitter prejudice against anarchists, +atheists and wops. The lawyer representing the defendant +was an aggressive and loud-mouthed Jew, and the way +he and the judge collaborated was a prophecy of an immortal +drama of the emotions called “Abie’s Irish Rose.” When Felicani, +and Lopez, a Spanish anarchist, explained their conscientious +objections to taking an oath, the devout Hebrew gentleman +went after them hammer and tongs, and the devout +Catholic gentleman beamed with delight. After that, it ceased +to be the trial of an alleged bribe-seeker, and became the trial +of two self-confessed free-thinkers. The judge actually ordered +Lopez under arrest, and it took a lot of persuading to change +his mind.</p> + +<p>The two stenographers took the stand, and the fact that one +of them had served with the A.E.F. in France did not help them +in the least. Did they know the voice of Mrs. De Falco? If not, +how could they be sure that the voice they had heard over the +dictaphone was the voice of Mrs. De Falco? To be sure, others +had seen Mrs. De Falco talking in the room; but maybe these +others were lying, maybe somebody had staged a performance +to fool the stenographers and make them think they were +listening to Mrs. De Falco, when in reality they were listening +to some other Italian woman making a bribe proposition! Who +could set a limit to the rascalities that atheists and anarchists +might contrive, in order to discredit the legal system of the +great Commonwealth of Massachusetts?</p> + +<p>And then Mrs. De Falco herself, an alert and capable young +woman, whose wits had been sharpened by years of battle for +life in the police courts. She sturdily denied every charge; and +especially she denied any trace of connection between herself +and any officials. The high officials of Norfolk and Plymouth +counties were upright and honorable gentlemen, and never +had made any proposition to let criminals escape for a money +consideration, and never had the employment of a relative as +counsel for accused criminals, had anything to do with subsequent +dismissal of proceedings against such criminals. That +was, of course, the real issue being tried in this police court; +to find the Italian woman guilty meant to find the great Commonwealth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span> +of Massachusetts guilty, and how could a patriotic +judge do that? When the testimony about the officials began +to come in, the judge ordered everybody out of the court-room +except the witness and the counsel.</p> + +<p>The defendant was acquitted; and Lee Swenson, feeling very +blue, went off by himself, and sat down at a luncheon table in +a restaurant—when who should come in but the aggressive and +loud-mouthed Jewish lawyer! He was feeling good, naturally, +and joined his victim at the table, and “kidded” him a bit, +after the fashion of lawyers—and incidentally talked about the +case, as one sensible man to another. Mrs. De Falco had hung +around the courts for so many years, she of course knew both +the high official and his brother, and she had tried to capitalize +her knowledge and get some money out of the Sacco-Vanzetti +defense. She knew the details of other court cases, +enough to be able to make it appear that she was able to +“swing” deals; she had gone to meeting-places with officials, +to talk about other matters—knowing that she would be followed +by the defense, who would thus conclude that she had a +“pull.”</p> + +<p>Maybe so, said Lee; but it seemed to him a little strange +that a lawyer should be saying such things about his client, and +making so elaborate a defense of two other persons who were +not his clients! Could it be that any of the officials were paying +for this legal victory? The lawyer denied it, and Lee smiled +his patient Swedish smile. Of course, you could never be sure; +it might be that it had all happened as the other said; sometimes +truth really was stranger than fiction. It might be that +the officials had happened in while Mrs. De Falco was there, +purely as a coincidence; or again, it might be that all of them +had met there to say their prayers.</p> + +<p>The judge had been of that opinion, and the case was history. +The one thing Lee Swenson had accomplished—he realized it, +now that it was too late—was to exacerbate the prosecution, to +give to all officials having anything to do with the Sacco-Vanzetti +case a reason for bitter and personal animus. The +name of Lee Swenson became a byword to all politicians and +officials; the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee became a nest +of active and dangerous foes, and the task of sending two wops +to the electric chair became one with the defense of every +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span> +criminal-in-office in the entire community. Which was exactly +as Vanzetti, lying through those endless hours in his prison cell, +had figured out and predicted. Always it happened, sooner or +later, that everything turned out as Vanzetti had figured out +and predicted!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII"> + CHAPTER XII<br> +<span class='chap-title'>SHADOWS BEFORE</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Springtime in New England! Not all the giant factories with +belching smoke, not all the dingy tenements, billboards, hot-dog +stands and filling stations could conceal the fact that something +magical was happening to the land. Even to prisoners in jail, +there was a difference in the air which crept through the corridors. +Just as boys know when to fly kites, with no outsider to +remind them—so Nick Sacco knew it was time for the garden +to be spaded, and when you went to see him, he would ask who +was going to do it, and what was to be planted. It was good +form to insist that he would be out in time to weed the garden, +and to eat the first tomatoes.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti, who spent fifteen and a half hours in a cell with +only a slit in the top for light, and worked in a yard blackened +with coal dust and smoke of near-by factories—even he knew +that it was spring. You took a bunch of mayflowers when you +went to see him, and the guard could not refuse to let you give +him one. A pitiful thing, a frail blossom, but—“flower in the +crannied wall”—it was a symbol, it meant a whole springtime; +it meant those beautiful woods about Plymouth, and the walks +which Bart had taken with Nonna and the children. “How happy +we been, Nonna! We not know what happiness we have, till we +los-èd him!”</p> + +<p>He would talk about the things they had done and seen; it +was all alive in his memory, it came like a vision, shining with +a light that never was in any springtime. He fed his soul upon +such memories, lying through the long hours in his cage. +Friendship, kindness, beauty—he had had these “blassings” in +his life; not a full share—but then, he had observed that people +who had a full share did not appreciate so much their “blassings.” +“Plenty people go in sunshine, they not think. But I got +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span> +little time for seeing, I make notice!” He would move nearer +to the window.</p> + +<p>Betty had occasion to go to Plymouth, and she brought back +Beltrando Brini in her car with her. Another kind of springtime, +a musical talent putting forth buds! The little boy came to +the prison, and after Cornelia had interceded with the warden, +he was brought into the big reception room, and unlimbered his +fiddle and tuned it up. Bart sat watching every move, bursting +with pride, as if he were the child’s mother. Trando was scared, +of course, for he was only thirteen and a half, and this was a +terrible place, slouchy brown figures gliding here and there, +watchers with hard faces and eyes. But he tucked the fiddle +under his chin, and quavering notes stole on the air—“When +you and I were young, Maggie”—the tune which Bart had +heard him struggling to play, back in those happy days at +home!</p> + +<p>He had learned other tunes now—“Old Black Joe,” and +“Home, Sweet Home.” He could almost play Drdla’s “Serenade”—he +would try it, if Bart would excuse mistakes; Bart +sat with tears running down his cheeks, no use trying to hide +them. The convicts stole to the doors of their cells and strained +their ears; even the hard-faced keepers listened, and were reminded +suddenly that they, too, were in jail, victims of the +hatreds they themselves engendered. All the prison drew together, +realizing its shame; the steel bars were melted—and +the harder and tougher moods which had made the steel. Oh, +man, how strange a fate—to make jails for yourself, and be led +out by a little child with a magic wand—and then find yourself +afraid, and obliged to run back and shut yourself in! A clock +struck, and visitors must leave, and magic cease.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_11"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Such holidays of the spirit were rare in the life of Cornelia +and Betty these days. For the most part their talk was about +harsh reality. The trial loomed near, a portentous event, a battle +of armies; no longer a mere matter of two wops accused of +crime, but a contest over the good name and dignity of the +august Commonwealth. A lawyer had come from the wild west +and opened an office and started a propaganda campaign, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span> +slandering the good name of Massachusetts all over the world. +He was raising tens of thousands of dollars—no one could say +how much, but they guessed high, and every dollar was a separate +outrage and insult; a refusal to play the game according +to the rules.</p> + +<p>Lee Swenson knew the danger into which he had put his +clients by the De Falco procedure, and this thought was a goad +which gave him no rest. He was a cyclone of energy; writing +circulars, or suggesting ideas for others to write; printing appeals, +getting lists for mailing, writing to this person and that, +to get information, to pull wires for publicity, money, or support; +interviewing witnesses, hunting up new ones, probing this +or that detail of their lives. He would come out to dine with +Cornelia, and sit in her big Morris chair by the window, and +fan himself and sigh with exhaustion; but in a few minutes he +would be telling about a new idea, and before long something +else would pop into his head, and out would come his notebook, +and what was supposed to be a memorandum might turn into a +new set of campaign plans.</p> + +<p>Another lawyer had come, a friend of Swenson’s from the +west; Fred Moore, an Irishman, but a radical, and Swenson’s +aide in many a fight. Also there were two more journalists on +the staff, John Nicholas Beffel and Eugene Lyons, devoted +young fellows, passionately convinced of the justice of the +cause, and writing newspaper and magazine stuff that went all +over the world. As an investigator, there was Bob Reid, a +Boston constable, gray old veteran who had been through the +Ettor-Giovannitti case with Swenson, and could follow the +trail of the authorities like an Indian hunter. If there was anything +about Massachusetts police practice too dreadful for +Cornelia to believe, all she had to do was to ask this man, and +he would cauterize her doubts.</p> + +<p>And then another figure, still more alarming to a lady who +had lived a sheltered life; a figure out of the underworld, +furtive-eyed, silent—a man whom Swenson or Moore usually +saw alone, and with whom they made mysterious appointments. +Lee, it appeared, was going to try the “stool pigeon” methods +of the authorities. Somebody had actually committed the South +Braintree crime, he insisted, and the Bridgewater one, too; the +way to nail down the prosecution was to find the guilty men. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span> +A rumor had come to Lee that in a city not far away from Boston +there was a gang of real bandits who were driving an automobile +which they called, jeeringly, “Sacco’s car.” Now the +lawyers were spending money to trail this gang, and Cornelia +began to hear whispers of dread names. Lee Swenson saw +himself playing the “lead” in a fifth act, in which the prosecution +would be confronted with the real evidence, so overwhelming +that truth would be vindicated and justice done.</p> + +<p>Lee was much of a boy, in spite of his forty years, and he +managed to communicate this excitement to Betty and Joe and +Cornelia. But he found it impossible to get the Italians of the +committee to share his idea; as in the De Falco case, it was +contrary to “filosofia anarchica.” When you argued about it, +you would meet shrugs of the shoulders; let the cops do their +own dirty work. “We no raise money for sooch job.” When +you declared that here might be real bandits, there would be a +still higher shrug of the shoulders, a wider sweep of the hands. +“What if they did? Is poor feller, musta live. Is victim of +wicked sistema, what right I got for punish?”</p> + +<p>And when you took the question to Bart and Nick, you met +exactly the same response. They would not be saved at the +expense of any other human being; they would not compromise +their principles, even to prove their innocence. The business of +anarchists was to end the system of exploitation, after which +crime would cease of itself. If you could live according to these +principles, all right, then live; if you could not, then it was up +to you to die. Such stubbornness was embarrassing to persons +of Yankee upbringing, who believed in adjusting means to ends, +and took “law and order” seriously. Also embarrassing to a +lawyer, who had spent twenty years training himself to play a +certain game, and now was expected to play it and not play it at +the same time!</p> + + +<h3 id="III_11"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Day by day, as the work continued, the intricacies of the +case developed. The list of witnesses for the prosecution numbered +more than fifty, those for the defense close to one hundred. +There were not investigators enough to run down all the +clews, there were not cells enough in the human brain to hold +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span> +all the details. The crime had occurred in mid-afternoon, on a +busy street, and there were many witnesses, each one a separate +problem; the more you dug into him or her, the more extra +problems you would discover—husbands, wives, sweethearts, +children, employers—to say nothing of policemen and investigators +and prosecuting officials who had been there before you! +The witnesses were mostly persons of low social station, the +neglected poor of America. To probe into their lives, to uncover +their family skeletons, their vices and secret shames, their +greeds and fears and vanities and hates—it seemed to Cornelia +there was nothing so horrible being done in all the world. +Except, perhaps, the work which a large force of Americans, +guided by sentimentality and superstition, were now performing +in France; digging up the dead bodies of soldier boys who had +been slain in battle, and had been rotting underground for three +years.</p> + +<p>Take the soul of Lola Andrews. Cornelia lived with the soul +of Lola Andrews for months, walked, talked, ate, slept, dined +or fasted with Lola Andrews; because Betty took Lola for her +task, consecrating her youth and beauty, her social charm, her +faith, hope and charity, to the task of trying to persuade Lola +to tell the truth. Naturally Betty, being new at the practice of +psychopathology, not very well informed as to the diagnosis +and treatment of hysteria, paranoia, hyperesthesia and all +abnormalities, would bring her problems to Grannie, and the +two would hold long consultations, and Cornelia would visit the +famous Dr. Morrow and ask his advice.</p> + +<p>Lola Andrews had begun life in the wilderness of Maine, +as the hapless child of an Italian man and a Yankee farmer’s +daughter. Her mother died, her father disappeared, and she +grew up, slim and small, black of eyes and hair, a kind of +woodland sprite, used to the sneers of the world. At the age of +seventeen, when she was married, her hair was such a mat of +filth and vermin that her husband had been compelled to take +her to a barber and have her head shaved close. This husband +was a soldier returned from the Philippines; after a child was +born, Lola began running out to dances, and he left her. During +years of misery she made the discovery that by screaming +and crying she could get people to pay attention to her; so +she became an hysteric, and at any time during the investigation, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span> +if anything happened that Lola didn’t like, up would go her +hands and forth would come a shriek. After which, she would +calm down, and talk quite reasonably about her own interests.</p> + +<p>At the time of the South Braintree crime Lola had been +taking care of an elderly man who was bedridden, in the hope +that he would leave her a part of his property at his death. +Meantime, since he gave her nothing, she scrubbed floors, she +went out and did washing—and of course was preyed upon. +The police of the town knew about her life, yet in this case +they would be willing to make use of her.</p> + +<p>It was Lola’s story that she had been walking down the +street, four hours prior to the crime, and had twice passed what +she thought was the bandit car. It was a great weakness of the +prosecution that the crime had taken place at such speed, there +had been only a minute or so for observation; but here was +Lola, who had stopped and chatted with the bandits. One of the +two men standing by the car was yellow-haired—and when Joe +Randall heard this part of the story he said, “Look out, Lee +Swenson, they are after you!” The other man had been under +the car, doing something to the works, and this was the one +Lola had made a special point to observe, and was willing to +describe in any way that seemed most to the advantage of Lola.</p> + +<p>So here was a problem in applied psychology; to explore the +dark caverns of this tortured soul, to know more about her +than she knew about herself, so that you could pull the strings +and manipulate her to the ends of “joostice.” But alas, it was +easier to dream than to accomplish; the science of psychopathology +is still in its infancy, and the few months’ time +allowed was insufficient to bring it to maturity. Lola would have +moods of frankness; she was nearing forty now, her charms +were gone, she was a poor wreck, and this was her chance to +get what was coming to her; the world was a place of “dog +eat dog,” and why should she worry about a pair of wops who +would never worry about her? Why should she worry about +what she had said at preliminary hearings, or to newspaper +reporters, or investigators, or any of the other people who had +pestered her? All she had to do was deny it, and the district +attorney would protect her, and the jury would believe her.</p> + +<p>There was a secret spring by which the soul of Lola might be +moved, but alas, the defense did not find it until after the trial. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span> +The fates so willed it, that everything that was really significant +in the Sacco-Vanzetti case was not found until after the trial. +Lola’s son was living up in Maine, under another name, and +in the effort to keep his esteem, she would make sacrifices—for +a few days. When confronted with this son, and his reminder +of other cases where she had “staged a show,” Lola broke down +and admitted that she had lied, and that her identification had +been “framed.” She made affidavit to this in the presence of her +son and several reliable witnesses. But under police pressure, +she took it all back, and made another affidavit, with a lurid +tale about how the defense had intimidated her. Subsequently +she took that back also.</p> + +<p>Such was Lola Andrews, who sat in the witness chair at the +trial, and identified Sacco as the “dark-complexioned man” who +had been under the car, and identified the car as the bandit car +because, “when I heard of the shooting I somehow associated +the man I saw at the car.” And when the defense started to +question her about her past life, she suddenly threw her much-tried +fainting stunt, and Judge Thayer hastened to adjourn +court. When she was asked the cause of her excitement, she +said it was because she had recognized in the court-room a man +who had assaulted her in a toilet in Quincy! And Judge Thayer, +who had no more training in psychopathology than Cornelia and +Betty, ordered all the doors of the court-room closed, while the +officers attempted to catch the man whom Lola had recognized. +Never had she had so much attention, never had she been such +a heroine!</p> + +<p>Along with this problem came Mrs. Campbell, the elderly +woman who had been with Lola on the day of the crime, and +had gone into the shoe factory with her to seek a job. It took +fancy detective work to locate Mrs. Campbell, because she was +not listed by the prosecution; when she was found, the reason +was apparent—she completely wiped Lola out. The man they +had spoken to was not the man under the car at all, but a man +in khaki clothes standing near the factory; neither of them had +spoken to any man who was working on an automobile. An +investigator for the government had come to Mrs. Campbell, +and hearing her story, had assured her there was no need for +her to come to Dedham to testify, what she knew was of no +importance, and it would cost too much money to bring her. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span> +It would have added ten or twenty dollars to the seventy thousand +which the great Commonwealth was spending to put two +wops out of the way.</p> + +<p>A topsy-turvy world, a lunatic’s dream of a world, impossible +to believe in, even when you saw it with your eyes and heard it +with your ears! What could you make of a world in which you +studied Lola Andrews for months, and came to know every +quirk of her fantastic soul; in which you saw her exposed and +discredited by witness after witness—even a policeman and a +newspaper reporter to whom she had admitted that she did not +see the faces of the men she thought were the bandits; and +then, in the face of all this, you saw the Honorable Fred +Katzmann, district attorney of Norfolk County, stand up to +address the jury, and solemnly declare: “I have been in this +office, gentlemen, for now more than eleven years. I cannot recall +in that too long service for the Commonwealth that ever +before I have laid eye or given ear to so convincing a witness +as Lola Andrews!”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_11"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>And then Carlos Goodridge! This man, the manager of a +small music store, had happened to be in a pool-room near the +scene of the crime. There were four other men in the room, +and none of them had got a glimpse of the bandits, and to these +others Goodridge had admitted that he could not identify the +bandits. “If I have got to say who the man was, I can’t say.” +But seven months later Goodridge and his wife were in court, +charged with stealing several hundred dollars of money and +goods from the music store. It so happened that Sacco was +there at the same time, pleading to some motion, and Goodridge +saw his opportunity, and told the authorities that he recognized +Sacco and could identify him as one of the South Braintree +bandits. Could a deal have been made? Impossible to say; but +the case was “placed on file”—that is to say, Goodridge did not +have to serve the sentence for his crime, but took the witness +stand and swore to the guilt of another man.</p> + +<p>And here was Lee Swenson, insisting to Cornelia and Betty +and Joe that the prosecution would be able to “get away” with +that! Judge Thayer would find some trick of the law to bar all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span> +testimony to the effect that Goodridge had a sentence hanging +over him; he would send the jurors from the room while the +matter was argued, so they would never know they were listening +to a criminal. Lee insisted that the only hope would be to +“get something else” on that fellow! Lee’s instinct, what he +called his “smell for crime,” told him that Goodridge had been +in jail. But where? And how to prove it?</p> + +<p>It was a matter to which the lawyer hung on with bulldog +grip; they must follow this clew and that, they must get more +investigators, spend more money. But they had only a few +weeks, and the right clew came too late! After the trial they +knew all about Carlos Goodridge—his real name was Erastus +Corning Whitney, which in itself meant that he had committed +perjury when he testified against Sacco. He had served terms +in Elmira Reformatory and in Auburn State Prison, New +York, and was now wanted in that state for grand larceny. He +had had a number of wives, and Swenson collected a string of +affidavits from these ladies, setting forth his habits of marrying +under various names, of stealing everything in sight, and of +lying freely. One added that he had been attacked by Italians +whom he had cheated of their belongings, and had borne a +grudge against Italians ever since.</p> + +<p>Too late! Too late! The curse that lay upon the Sacco-Vanzetti +case, that everything came too late! When the only +thing you could do was to make another motion before Webster +Thayer, and have that just and upright judge respond, “Motion +denied!” Lee Swenson and one of his men tracked “Goodridge” +to the little village of Vassalboro, Maine, and confronted him +with his record, and he held out his wrists for the handcuffs. +Later they had him arrested, but—strange solidarity of the +rulers of America—New York State did not want him now, +could not be persuaded to take him! When once a criminal has +obliged the police in any part of the country, he has become a +member of the gang, and is immune.</p> + +<p>And stranger yet, the august judiciary will rally to his defense, +and not permit him to be slandered by having his criminal +record exposed! Webster Thayer, a Daniel come to judgment, +would hand down his decision on the motion for a new +trial, rebuking the defense for its pursuit of Goodridge, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span> +saying that he had done right to resist a lawyer’s efforts to +intimidate him. “Motion denied!”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_11"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Too late! Too late! Several times, in the midst of investigations +for South Braintree, they turned up evidence concerning +the earlier case. Evidence which would have saved poor +Bart, if only it could have been got to the jury! New witnesses—Yankee +witnesses—who had seen the Bridgewater shooting, +and declared that the bandits did not look like Vanzetti! Witnesses +who had stated this to the police, and been told to go +home and keep quiet! Now this case was legally dead; Vanzetti’s +friends could not even have the poor pleasure of bringing the +new evidence to the attention of Judge Thayer. No matter +what happened at the coming trial, Bart would stay in Charlestown +prison fourteen more years—save in the unlikely event +that Massachusetts might elect a governor with a heart.</p> + +<p>So now Cornelia heard those ghostly voices which on past +occasions had shouted to her in vain! If only she had waited +until that family which was away from home had come back! +If only she had turned up this street instead of that! And of +course these vain regrets brought terrors for the future; Cornelia +and her friends began to hear, far off and faint, the +ghostly voices warning them about the new case. They were +like enchanted people in an old-time legend, living halfway between +two worlds, holding communion with both. Lee Swenson, +sitting in Cornelia’s big chair, with his chin in his hand and his +heavy brows knitted in thought, became some medieval magician, +wrestling with spirits and demons he challenged, but could not +command.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Creature of Flame, thou shalt not daunt me!</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>’Tis I! ’Tis Faust! Thy peer I vaunt me!</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Many things this new Faustus demanded of the “busy spirit +that ranges round the world.” Find the man with a bullet hole +in his overcoat! Again and again this clew turned up; there +had been a man by the name of Roy Gould, who had been fired +upon by the bandits, and the bullet had pierced his coat. But +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span> +nobody knew this man’s address. Manifestly, the police would +not have overlooked such a witness; and the fact that he was +not listed by them made it sure that he had failed to identify +Sacco and Vanzetti. Presently it was learned that he was a +salesman of shaving paste; some one reported that he was in +the habit of selling his wares to crowds at circuses and fairs, +so it was a question of getting a list of all the circuses in New +England!</p> + +<p>Like all others, this mystery was solved too late. The man +turned up, several months after the trial. The bandit car had +passed within five or ten feet of him, and the bandit who was +supposed to be Sacco had fired at him, and he said it could not +possibly be Sacco. He would go down into history as the “Gould +motion”; one of nine different appeals for a new trial, which +would compel Judge Thayer to repeat nine times his celebrated +formula, “Motion denied.”</p> + +<p>Also the witnesses who were to refute Louis Pelzer, a shoe +cutter and dullard who had been in the Rice and Hutchins +factory when the shots were fired, and had run to the window, +and then dropped down out of sight. He had really seen nothing +and had so stated to many persons; but the prosecution was +to get hold of him, and drill him for a star witness. Deep in +the soul of this Jewish boy was a reverence for authority, +the buried memories of a hundred pogroms, when his ancestors +had cowered in ghetto tenements and seen whole families +brained before their eyes. When a blue uniform appeared in the +room, when a prosecuting official frowned upon him, something +inside Louis Pelzer gave way.</p> + +<p>So he was going to say that one of the bandits was the “dead +image” of Sacco; he would learn this phrase, and repeat it as +often as desired. And where were the witnesses to break him? +Three of them, fellow-workers, would be found by the defense; +but the most important of them would be found too late. Four +months after the trial, Louis was to make an affidavit, declaring +that his testimony was false, the words “dead image” had been +put into his mouth by the district attorney. Six months after +that, he was to take it all back, and be safe with the police +again!</p> + +<p>But most loudly the ghostly voices shouted about the Pinkerton +reports. The operative “H.H.” had been on the scene +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span> +immediately after the crime, and his reports wiped out the most +important of all the witnesses of the prosecution, Mary Splaine. +Not merely had she identified other men, but she had told +stories to the Pinkerton operative which in themselves discredited +her. And all this was known to the prosecution—but not a +hint of it to the defense! Most amazing circumstance of all—that +detective was going to attend the trial, and take the stand +and testify against a defense witness! Henry Hellyer, the +“operative H.H.,” came to the court-room where Mary Splaine +swore away the life of Sacco, knowing what she had told +him, and what he had written and turned in to his employers! +The mockery of it—the devilishness of it—that prosecuting +authorities would play such a trick! And the ghostly voices +would shout into the ears of Cornelia and Betty and Joe, and +no one of them would hear a sound! Lee Swenson might sit +with his chin in his hand, and bend his brows and torture his +wits all night—but the “busy spirit that ranges round the world” +could never be conjured to give him a hint of that secret!</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_11"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>There was a fatality hanging over Cornelia. She had seen it +coming—no way to stop it, yet she had pushed the thought away +and refused to face it. But now the trial was only a week off, +and there could be no more evasion. Lee Swenson telephoned, +asking if he might come to dinner that evening; he wanted to +be alone with her, he said—and she knew the time had come.</p> + +<p>Lee looked very tired; there were deep lines about his mouth, +and deep shadows under his eyes, and he hardly tasted his very +good dinner. For a while Cornelia managed to divert him—asking +for the news. A curious development in the case, ready-made +for a detective romance: from a scrubwoman whom he +had befriended, Lee had learned that detectives had hired +the janitor of his tumble-down office building to deliver the +contents of his trash-basket every night! He knew that they +had their minds fixed upon the sixteen thousand dollars which +they thought Sacco had buried; so the lawyer would divert +his tired mind by drawing maps of buried treasure! He made a +plot of Sacco’s garden: sixteen feet north from the southwest +corner, twenty-two feet east—then dig! The next time Cornelia +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span> +went to Stoughton, she must find out if anybody had done so!</p> + +<p>Dinner was over, and the maid dismissed, and the doors +closed; the clouds came back to the lawyer’s face. “Nonna,” +he said, “we are going to lose these boys!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lee!” Cornelia’s voice almost failed her.</p> + +<p>“They have got us sewed up in a strait-jacket.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you think that?”</p> + +<p>“Do you realize what lies ahead of this trial? We start on +the day after Memorial Day, and then comes the anniversary +of Belleau Wood, and then Bunker Hill Day, and before we +get through it will be the Fourth of July! And all these dead +soldier boys they are bringing home, all the weeping and praying +and dedicating our lives to our country!”</p> + +<p>“What has that got to do with it?”</p> + +<p>“You ask me seriously? This is going to be the great peacetime +service for heroes to render to the nation; a defense of +our heritage against foreign anarchy and Bolshevism. And +what have we got? Very few Yankee witnesses! A string of +wops—worse than at Vanzetti’s trial!”</p> + +<p>The lawyer began to count on his fingers—the scores of witnesses +he had been able to find. On the day of the South +Braintree crime, Bart had been selling fish, and digging clams +and bait in Plymouth, and had met few Yankees. He had +stopped and chatted with one Yankee fisherman—but the jury +would say this fellow had got mixed up on the date. Bart had +bought some cloth from a Yiddish peddler, of whom Katzmann +would make a monkey. For the rest, they would have to depend +upon Alfonsina and Lefevre Brini, and Antonio Carbone +and Angelo Giadabone—hardly the sort of names to impress +a Yankee jury!</p> + +<p>As for Nick, he had been in Boston that day, but talked to +only one American he could remember. He had had lunch with +Guadagni at Boni’s restaurant, and later there had been two +other Italians present; he had paid some money to an Italian +grocer, and then gone to the consulate, to get his passport—but +the man who waited on him there had gone back to Italy, +and all they had was a deposition, not very convincing to a +jury.</p> + +<p>So much for the alibis. And then for the identifications; what +perversity of fate that so many of them depended upon wops! +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[359]</span> +Why did it have to be that Goodridge had been working for an +Italian at the time of the crime, and that his former employer +was also an Italian? And the men in the pool-room, to whom +Goodridge had declared that he could not recognize the bandits! +Such names as Magazu, Arrigoni, Mangoni, D’Amato! And +then a bunch of men who had been working on a trench in the +street when the bandit car passed; a whole gang who would +testify that they had seen the bandits in the car, and that none +of them resembled Sacco or Vanzetti. But what good would it +do? “It’s just no use to put on a string of Italians, Nonna—three +are better than thirty, because you bore the jury and get +them cross. Fred Katzmann will make some playful remark—‘What +is this, a Columbus Day parade?’—and after that the +jury will never stop smiling.”</p> + +<p>There was a long silence. “Remember, Nonna, this means +death for both of them. There is no middle ground.”</p> + +<p>“I know it, Lee.”</p> + +<p>“And if we don’t win the verdict, don’t fool yourself about +the future. Remember, so long as Web Thayer lives, he stays +the boss of this case; the supreme court of Massachusetts has +seldom reversed a verdict in a capital case—only two or three +times in its entire history. So it’s now or never.”</p> + +<p>“I know, Lee.” Cornelia’s voice was faint.</p> + +<p>Again a silence. The lawyer’s somber look was fixed upon her, +and she could not meet it.</p> + +<p>“Do you really want to save those boys, Nonna?”</p> + +<p>“Of course I do!”</p> + +<p>“Then why don’t you do it? Why not testify for them?”</p> + +<p>“You told me you couldn’t use character witnesses.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mean that sort of witness, Nonna. I mean, why don’t +you let me fix you up a story, about how you went down to +Plymouth on April fifteenth of last year, and spent the day +with the Brinis, and had lunch with Bart, and later walked on +the beach and saw him digging clams? That’s the way to win +this case, Nonna; it will end right there—a knockout!”</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_11"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>What was it—some instinct buried deep in Cornelia Thornwell, +something in the very fiber of her being, that made it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[360]</span> +necessary for her to be shocked by these words—even though +the idea had been haunting her mind for months? Nothing +really new that Lee Swenson could say to her—yet she had to +let him say it, and act as if she had never thought of it! “Oh, +Lee, I couldn’t do it!”</p> + +<p>“Why couldn’t you? Did you really never tell a lie?”</p> + +<p>“Never one like that!”</p> + +<p>“Little ones, Nonna, for little occasions. But this is a big +occasion! This is life or death!”</p> + +<p>Again a pause. When the lawyer resumed, his voice was grim, +and he dropped the playful nickname. “I am not going to try +to put pressure on you, Mrs. Thornwell, as I have on other +witnesses in my life; for after all, it is your case—Bart is your +friend, far more than he is mine, and why should I want to +save him more than you?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t put it that way, Lee!”</p> + +<p>“But that is the way to put it! You have your friends, and +you have your principles, and you must weigh them, and decide +which you value more. We all have to make such choices—Bart +made one, you remember, he lied for his friends. Those +lies he told in the police-station were to save Boda and Orciani +from sharing the fate of Salsedo. He will tell a different story +on the witness stand, and whether it is the truth or not—judge +for yourself!”</p> + +<p>Another pause. “What is it, Mrs. Thornwell? Have you +religious scruples about an oath? Do you believe God will blast +you to eternity if you save these boys from the electric chair?”</p> + +<p>“No, it isn’t that.”</p> + +<p>“Is it patriotism? Do you think it will help your country +to let a bunch of crooks kill a pair of idealists, as a means of +frightening the others?”</p> + +<p>“No, not that.”</p> + +<p>“Then it’s just a matter of good form? It’s that you are a +lady, and such things are not done!”</p> + +<p>“No, not that, either. As a matter of fact, they are done all +the time. My sons-in-law are lying in business, and they will +lie on the stand to back each other up.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly!” And to himself Lee Swenson thought, “She has +been debating it with herself!” Aloud he said, “What is it, +Mrs. Thornwell?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[361]</span></p> + +<p>“It is just—I wouldn’t know how to do it!”</p> + +<p>“But if that is all that troubles you, here’s a thoroughly +qualified expert to take charge. Put yourself in my hands, as if +it were a surgical operation, and I’ll guarantee we’ll have Nick +on the street before the Fourth of July, and we’ll start a move +to get Bart pardoned!”</p> + +<p>“But Lee, how could I do such a thing?”</p> + +<p>“If you mean it as a technical question, nothing more simple: +you take the stand and swear that you were in Plymouth that +day, and you recite the details of some other day when you +were actually there. It can all be worked out, very easily. You +were in the habit of going there off and on, nobody can dispute +that. You remember the date, because of something that happened +the day before or the day after. Perhaps there was a +concert you had just been to, or there was to be one, and you +had to leave in order to attend it. We can go back and find a +public event to tie to; or perhaps you have a diary, or some +letters.”</p> + +<p>“But suppose I did something in Boston on that day?”</p> + +<p>“There’ll be a way to get round it. You understand that, +according to your story, you only had to remember back three +weeks. As soon as you heard Bart was arrested, you naturally +looked back, and realized that you had been with him the day +of the crime. But anybody who is going to refute you has got +to begin now, and remember back a year—which isn’t apt to +happen. If they have documentary evidence, like a letter—well, +the trial will be over a day or two after you testify. There +might be a scandal among your friends, but nothing serious, +and anyhow, the boys will be free—you understand that when a +jury has acquitted them, they can’t ever be tried for South +Braintree again.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_11"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Lee kept his promise not to put pressure on her. What he did +was to go over the case, telling what each government witness +would testify, and just how that testimony had been “made.” +As a piece of prophecy it was a miracle, but Lee claimed no +occult powers. With bitterness he said, “If I want to know what +the other side is doing, I figure what I would do myself.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[362]</span></p> + +<p>He had talked with some of these witnesses; others, who had +refused to talk to him, had become the subject of “reports.” +So he knew their motives, and how they would be controlled. +When there had been need of “rough stuff,” the police had done +it. The more subtle work had been done by college-bred +gentlemen of the district attorney’s office, who had learned to +manufacture in weaker minds like Mary Splaine and Frances +Devlin what the psychologists term a “false memory.” They +would take these women to the jail again and again and show +them Sacco and Vanzetti; they would present pictures of Sacco +and Vanzetti, insisting that these were the bandits, these were +the men whom the women had seen in the bandit car; until in +the women’s minds the prison memories and the photograph +memories became superposed upon the bandit memories, so +completely merged with them that they could no longer be +separated.</p> + +<p>There were a thousand tricks that successful prosecuting +officials knew. They stood in with the political ring, they could +promise favors—contracts and business, a job for a man who +needed it, immunity from trouble with the police. “I am a friend +of Mr. Jones, in the district attorney’s office”—such a statement +would tear up an auto tag, or suppress a liquor charge +any day. “It is what we call power,” said Lee Swenson, “and +those who hold it know how to use it.”</p> + +<p>Like Virgil, leading Dante through successive stages of the +infernal regions, Lee Swenson conducted the widow of Governor +Thornwell into the interior of the Boston “ring.” He +knew the way, because in the Ettor-Giovannitti case he had had +these forces to deal with, and other lawyers associated with the +case had “put him wise.” Indeed, the factional quarrels in the +political gang had been such that one side had betrayed the +other, and Lee had seen documents that would have entitled +leading statesmen to spend the rest of their days in Charlestown +prison. When you had listened to his stories for an hour or two, +you understood Lola Andrews’ statement that it was “dog eat +dog”; you forgot the Emersonian notion of making truth count +in Boston!</p> + +<p>Cornelia, probing her own soul, confessed to a certain snobbery +in her attitude toward perjury. It was a thing she associated +with foreigners accused of crime, and with Irish politicians. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[363]</span> +The City Hall belonged to the Irish, so it was called the “steal +works”; but the State House with its golden dome was run by +gentlemen, and was a sacred spot. Now, however, Lee Swenson +declared there was ten times as much graft in the State House—the +only difference was that it was legalized; such things as +fixing up laws to enable great corporations to plunder the public. +There under the golden dome you would encounter a blue-blood +banker who wanted his attorney made into a supreme court +judge, so that the banker would be safe forever after; or a +state bank commissioner who wanted to become president of +a bank; a great lawyer who wanted to use his inside knowledge +of politics to plunder the clients of banks; a financier who +was lending money to legislators, who were passing bills to +multiply the value of his public utility holdings.</p> + +<p>Cornelia understood all these references; Lee Swenson was +attacking the Thornwell family, undermining its claims to moral +superiority. He was pointing to scandals in which her family +was involved—some that were in the public prints, others that +were whispered in the gossip of the clubs. And she knew it was +all true; she knew that Rupert Alvin and Henry Cabot Winters +and John Quincy Thornwell were busy right now framing up +their perjury in the Jerry Walker case. When an I.W.W. lawyer +hinted this possibility, she did not rebuke him. She did +not even protect her family dignity when he mentioned that +her son-in-law had begun his legal career as counsel for the +Boston streets railways, which meant that he had done most +kinds of dirty work known to the legal profession.</p> + +<p>“Believe me, Nonna, I can tell you,” said the man from the +wild west. “I began with the Great Northern Railroad, and +spent my time gyping poor workers out of damages. I was paid +five hundred a month, very nice for a young fellow, and I had +the way clear before me, right up to the top, maybe a seat on +the supreme court bench—that is how you get there. But it +made me sick; I couldn’t forget the faces of the men I had +robbed, and their pitiful wives and children. I just couldn’t look +at myself in the mirror. So I threw up the job, and went in to +try to help the workers; and what I saw—well, I have a simple +formula, Nonna, I don’t care what a man has done in the labor +cause, he can never be so guilty as those who take dividends +of his sweat and blood.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[364]</span></p> + +<p>Said Cornelia: “Henry has talked to me a lot about the Sacco-Vanzetti +case, trying to drag me out of it. The next time he +broaches it, I’ll ask him about some of these matters.”</p> + +<p>At which the lawyer smiled. “Well, get it straight. Don’t ask +if he pays bribes to witnesses; don’t ask if he ‘frames’ them. +Everything is done very carefully and decorously, in the office +of a great Boston lawyer. When a witness comes in he doesn’t +see the chief, he sees a young subordinate. The witness says, ‘I +saw the man and he was wearing a blue hat.’ The young lawyer +interrupts him, ‘Oh, surely you are mistaken, we have information +that the man was wearing a red hat. Think it over and +see if you weren’t mistaken.’ He sends the witness away, and +next day the witness comes back, and meets another subordinate, +and says, ‘I saw this man and he was wearing a red hat.’ ‘That +is right,’ says the young lawyer. ‘And he was walking,’ says the +witness, ‘rather slowly.’ ‘Oh, surely you are mistaken,’ says the +lawyer, ‘we understand he was running at top speed. Think it +over and see if you don’t realize that that is how it was.’ So +the witness goes away, and next time he comes he meets a third +subordinate, and he says, ‘I saw this man, and he had a red +hat on, and he was running very, very fast’—and so on, until +he knows exactly what happened. So then he meets the chief, +and tells the chief what he saw, and the chief says, ‘That is a +very good witness, a dependable person.’ When he presents +the witness to the jury, he assures the jury this is a dependable +person, and no one can possibly say the great and famous lawyer +ever did a dishonorable action.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_11"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>“Lee, I just <i>couldn’t</i> do it!”—those were Cornelia’s parting +words. He answered, “Think about it,”—knowing well that she +would think about nothing else. Cowardice, weakness, false +pride—she was willing to call it any bad name, but there was +something in her that stopped dead when she tried to think of +going upon the witness stand and swearing to a made-up story. +How could truth ever exist in the world, if somebody did not +stand by it?</p> + +<p>Vanzetti came, as usual, to keep the midnight watch with +her. “I am poor wop,” said he. “But what you say if it was a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[365]</span> +Thornwell?” Cornelia’s fancy played with that theme. She saw +her daughter Alice, in one of those ferocious quarrels which +had marked the early stages of her marital disharmony; with +jealousy gnawing her heart, Alice bought a revolver and shot +Henry, and so was on trial, in danger of the electric chair. But +no, it was absurd, the electric chair was not for Thornwells, +there could be no such issue; they would adjudge Alice insane, +and put her in a sanitarium, take a year or two to “cure” her, +and then let her loose. But suppose, for the sake of argument, +Alice was in danger, and Cornelia had to take the witness stand. +If she told the truth her daughter would be executed, and if +she lied her daughter would go free. Which would she do?</p> + +<p>Right was right, and wrong was wrong, people said, and it +sounded simple. But when you met a concrete case, you discovered +that you could not live by formulas. To refuse to do a +lesser wrong, and thereby do a greater—was that moral? On +the other hand, if you said that the end justified the means, +where would you stop? Every man would be a law to himself, +and there would be chaos instead of order. There must be rules, +something men could count on. But the moment you said that, +you had a system, with high judges sitting on top, sentencing +men to death for the convenience of the Boston aristocracy. +Cornelia remembered Mr. Emerson, who had said that a good +citizen must not obey the laws too well.</p> + +<p>The cruelty of the dilemma lay here, that what was supposed +to be justice was really class-greed. Bart and Nick were not +going to be tried because they had held up a payroll; they were +going to be tried because they were dangerous leaders of social +revolt. That would be the real motive power behind prosecutor, +judge and jury; that would be the thought in the minds of every +one of them, at every stage of the trial. The rest would be +pretense, a cloak of propriety. And that was the real lie—the +real perjury: Fred Katzmann’s genial smile, veiling a sneer; +Web Thayer’s cold dignity, with a wink now and then to the +jury. When Cornelia remembered what she had seen in the +Plymouth court-room, it seemed to her that God would surely +forgive any lies that served to thwart such knavery!</p> + +<p>So she swung back and forth, from one point of view to +the other, never satisfied with either. Lee Swenson said no +more, but from that day his presence was a question. Bart’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[366]</span> +picture on the mantel-piece was a challenge—what was friendship +worth, it seemed to demand. You were not asked to give +your life for your friend, but only your ethical code; your +exclusiveness, your idea that you were something special, apart +from the harsh, rough world—in short that you were “Boston”!</p> + +<p>From first to last Betty never spoke about the matter; and +that was surprising to Cornelia—it had the effect of putting +her off by herself, as if in a museum, or a mausoleum. Betty +and Joe were bound to have talked about the matter; everybody +on the committee must have thought of it. “Mrs. Thornwell +could save our boys, if she would!” To that Betty would make +reply, “No use to put anything like that up to Grannie, she +belongs to the old generation.” Cornelia wondered, would the +new generation take the liberty of lying when it pleased? The +issue did not arise, because Betty and Joe had been in Europe, +and could hardly invent a special trip back, in order to be with +Bart on the day of the South Braintree crime!</p> + + +<h3 id="X_11"> + X +</h3> + +<p>If Cornelia could not face the thought of perjury, neither +could she face the other alternative. When she thought of the +electric chair, and Bart and Nick strapped into it—no, no, it was +too horrible, it simply <i>could</i> not happen! So each skirmish in +this war of conscience served to start Cornelia into new activity. +In spite of aching back she would write more letters, in spite +of tired limbs she would set forth to a committee meeting, or to +speak to a group of women, to assault the ears of the heedless +and drag them away from a bridge party to a murder trial.</p> + +<p>She had the idea now that she could help the cause by persuading +a group of ladies of good family to go to Dedham and +watch the proceedings. They would move to the town for a +month, and invade the court-room in a phalanx, and sit like the +“tricoteuses” of the French revolution, doing fancy work! They +might frighten “Web” Thayer into a semblance of impartiality, +and possibly even restrain Fred Katzmann’s crude wit at the +expense of wops. The courts were supposed to be immune to +outside influences, but Cornelia knew her Boston too well for +that.</p> + +<p>In one way or another, several ladies of social standing had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[367]</span> +become interested in the case. There was Mrs. Lois Rantoul, +who was a Lowell, than which nothing could be more impressive +in a court-room. And Mrs. Jessica Henderson, well-to-do—though +she had hurt her social position by getting arrested, +along with Cornelia and Betty, the day President Wilson had +been welcomed to Boston. Mrs. Henderson and her daughter +Wilma had spent the night in that old Joy Street police station, +and had fed their blood to the vermin—a modern form of initiation +into a sisterhood of social justice.</p> + +<p>And then Mrs. Evans, still earlier on the ground. Elizabeth +Glendower Evans was the widow of a young lawyer who had +died before he had ever had a case. She had become a charity +worker, through youth and middle age. Now she was gray-haired—and +what a relief to Cornelia to have some one else +who was elderly and respectable, to help bear the brunt of +criticism! Mrs. Evans had got her social awakening during the +Lawrence strike of two years ago; she had gone, with others, +to see fair play, and instead had seen an unresisting striker +felled to earth by three husky policemen, and shoved into a +patrol wagon like a dead log. Next morning she saw the man, +with head cut and plastered, arraigned for assault, and she +arose and told the court what she had seen. Said His Honor: +“Your testimony would be important if the police were under +accusation”—and thereupon he sentenced all the strikers. Mrs. +Evans spoke again, saying, “I go bail for all these prisoners,”—which +was very picturesque, and made a front-page story in +the papers.</p> + +<p>“Old Boston” again, you see! She was a stockholder in the +Lawrence mills, which made it still more picturesque, and +shocking to the mill masters. To go to strike headquarters, and +say to I.W.W. leaders, wops and dagoes and guinneys and such +riffraff, “I don’t know whether the wages you ask are reasonable, +but I do know that you are persecuted by the authorities, +and denied the legal rights to which you are entitled, and to +that extent I am with you”—to say that was to become, in the +columns of the press, leader of the revolution and commander-in-chief +of the picket line.</p> + +<p>Now Mrs. Evans was interested in the Sacco-Vanzetti defense, +and was going to the trial at Dedham, to watch Web +Thayer and Fred Katzmann, and be horrified like everybody +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[368]</span> +else. And maybe her testimony would have been important, if +Thayer and Katzmann had been on trial. But that time had not +come, and would not come for five or six years.</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_11"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Captain John Quincy Thornwell, Jr., Cornelia’s grandnephew, +oldest son of the president of the Fifth National Bank +of Boston, had been an officer in Battery A, the fashionable +militia organization, in which the young blue-bloods dashed +about expensively. Tall, golden-haired, haughty, he had looked +so “fetching” in his fancy uniform that he had fetched a wife +who would some day own ten per cent of the electric light industry +of New England. “Captain John” was a director in his +father’s bank, a builder of airplanes, and of anything else which +had to do with killing—so sure of his own superiority he was.</p> + +<p>Never would Cornelia forget the day when he and his unit +had departed for France. She had gone with the heartbroken +young wife to see them off; a dreadful experience—all the +Boston blue-bloods there in their expensive limousines, many of +them stuck in a swampy field alongside the Ipswich River, +caught by a sudden deluge of rain, and an ear-splitting thunderstorm; +all social influence, all family connections set at nought +by the irreverent elements—it was quite like being at war—blue-bloods +actually struck by lightning and killed! And these +refined and delicately nurtured young Harvard men, dressed in +water-soaked khaki plastered with mud, standing at attention +for the “Star-Spangled Banner”; then struggling with exasperated +horses, to get very real and bloodthirsty cannon +dragged out of mudholes!</p> + +<p>“Captain John” had ridden off, like many others, forever; +in the desperate fighting in the Argonne Forest he had disappeared +from human ken. But in the process of digging up the +remains of American soldiers in France there was found a seal +ring with one of the bodies, and this ring was sent to Boston, +and mentioned in the papers, and “Captain John’s” mother went +to inspect and identify it. So now the family had a corpse in an +air-tight coffin, over which to be publicly sentimental for the +glory of their country. A famous sculptor was designing a +monument, and meantime there were to be parades and muffled +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[369]</span> +drums and prayers and salutes—and one of the street intersections +most frequented by the wealth and fashion of Boston +was to be christened “John Quincy Thornwell Junior Square.” +All over the city and in the suburban towns they were doing +this; so that future generations of tourists would walk down +Jones Street, looking for the corner of Jones and Smith, and +would be perplexed to discover that there was no such place, +but that a quite ordinary crossing with a drugstore, an undertaking +parlor, a grocery and a delicatessen shop, was known as +“Michael Callahan O’Grady Square.”</p> + +<p>These ceremonies were to take place on May 29th, two days +before the opening of the Sacco-Vanzetti trial at Dedham; and +the event was the subject of a vehement discussion between +the great-aunt of the hero, and his cousin, Elizabeth Thornwell +Alvin. Unthinkable that any relative should fail to attend this +ceremony! Cornelia was going, because she was always hoping +to keep peace with the family; but Betty declared that she +preferred to attend a circus, in a last effort to trace the man +with the bullet hole in his overcoat! When Cornelia argued that +“John did give his life for his country,” the new generation +answered, “Don’t talk like a legionnaire! He gave his life for +Father’s bonds. I didn’t want them and I’m not going to get +them, so I can’t see that I owe any reverence to my military +cousin.”</p> + +<p>“He is dead, Betty—”</p> + +<p>“Exactly, and we aren’t helping him by parading behind his +corpse. We are doing it for our own glory, and especially for +the young fellows—so that when Father wants them to protect +his bonds again, they’ll think they are being glorious. It is +vicious propaganda for militarism, and if you who call yourself +a pacifist do anything to help it along—it will simply mean that +you’re old and tired, Grannie dear!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_9"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>Was it accident, or was it the playful malice of fate, that +Memorial Day fell on a Monday, so that the patriots had two +whole days, preceding the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, to rouse +the population against the Reds? On that Sunday and Monday +it was estimated that at least two hundred thousand Bostonians, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[370]</span> +one-fifth of the whole population, took part in ceremonies. The +governor and the mayor were busy all day long, making speeches +at breakfasts, luncheons and banquets, with parades in between, +and dedications and unveilings. Senators and congressmen, +councilmen and district attorneys took a double holiday +from stealing, and delivered eloquent praise of the flag, and +denunciations of its foes, the vicious and malicious “radicals.” +There was high mass in hundreds of Catholic churches, with +parades of the Knights of Columbus, and speeches by the biggest +and most successful rascals in Massachusetts. There were +memorial services in Forest Hills Cemetery, with nine hundred +veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic decorating graves. +There were religious services in Fenway Park, with veterans +of three wars forming in Copley Square, and loud-speakers installed +so that huge throngs might hear. The Park Street Church +unveiled a tablet, with names of the members who had given +their lives in the World War. The Elks paraded, and had a +bugler sounding taps. The oldest veterans, too feeble even to +put wreaths on graves, were taken in launches, to strew flowers +on the bay in honor of the unknown dead.</p> + +<p>All over the Commonwealth the same thing went on; no +community too small to have its heroes and its memories. Flag +poles were set up and monuments unveiled. Quincy, the largest +city in Norfolk County, from which the Sacco-Vanzetti jury +was to be drawn, dedicated three squares to its dead. One man +had been killed in the Spanish War, another in an uprising in +the Philippines; many years they had spent in the land of the +shades without distinction, but now they were called up—on the +day before two anarchist bandits went to trial! The first Quincy +boy killed in the Civil War was resurrected for honors—sixty +years he had been forgotten! In Bridgewater, scene of the +crime for which Vanzetti was in prison, the remains of a World +War veteran brought back from France were buried with solemn +ceremonials; in Braintree, scene of the second crime, another +body was buried, with the whole population in attendance—a +parade, and speeches by officials, with the selectmen and other +great persons standing by with bared heads. Another in Quincy, +another in Weymouth—with banners furled, and muffled drums, +and soldiers firing a salute over the grave.</p> + +<p>A storm of patriotic fervor, a torrent of eloquence, in support +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[371]</span> +of America, and in denunciation of her foes; hundreds of thousands +of patient people, standing reverently in the spring sunshine; +millions of the same kind reading about it in editions of +a dozen great newspapers; and only one circumstance to mar +the perfection of the double holiday—the fact that the papers +were obliged to print details of several scandals then in the +midst of exploding with a frightful stink. The attorney general +of the Commonwealth had just filed charges against the district +attorney of Middlesex County, just across the river from Boston, +charging him with having blackmailed a group of leading +moving picture producers of something over a hundred thousand +dollars, the price of immunity for a “Nero’s Circus” which they +had held in a roadhouse. The papers were full of lurid details +about naked girls dancing the highland fling; they said that +several leading politicians and criminal lawyers of Boston had +shared in the loot.</p> + +<p>Also the state bank commissioner was digging into the matter +of the bribery of legislators revealed by the recent bank failures; +and it was an embarrassing fact that many patriotic orators +of this double holiday had been sharing in such graft. +The public did not know it, but the orators knew it, so they +pounded the rostrum, and waved their arms until their faces +grew purple and the sweat dissolved the starch in their collars; +the loud-speakers bellowed, and the parks and public places, +the churches and temples and banquet halls resounded with +sentiments of seraphic idealism, voiced by persons whose social +functions were those of hogs in a trough.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_8"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>It was not so bad at the ceremony which Cornelia attended; +because that was Thornwell, and you may be sure the clan saw +to it that no person tainted with scandal did any orating at +John Quincy Thornwell Junior Square. The clan knew—for +were they not the paymasters? The mayor of the city happened +to be a blue-blood that year—a rare interval of respectability. +And if the chief magistrate of the Commonwealth was to go +directly from the governor’s chair to the vice-presidency of one +of Rupert’s banks, and soon after having appointed two of +Rupert’s very good friends to the supreme judicial bench—well, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[372]</span> +that was a scandal of such colossal proportions that it +became respectable. Men could not face the implications of it, +so it was not discussed, except by a few insiders, and members +of the rival banking group, who knew what Rupert was after.</p> + +<p>A grand stand had been built, and flags and bunting made +the consecrated square into a child’s dream of peppermint candy. +Lines of ropes and policemen kept the throngs back; and there +came “Captain John’s” own Battery A, khaki-clad, with rumble +of guns and tramp of horses, and fluttering of pennants, red +field, with figures in yellow. And the infantry, known as the +“Cadets,” in long blue trousers with yellow stripes. There came +a hundred Grand Army veterans, pitiful old boys in every stage +of decrepitude, carrying their tattered battle flags, and wearing +their faded blue uniforms, covered with medals and decorations. +There came khaki-clad veterans of American Legion posts, and +the Boy Cadets, their faces newly washed and shining. There +came automobiles full of great personages in braided broadcloth +suits and shiny top hats, and ladies in costly chiffons and new +spring bonnets.</p> + +<p>A beautiful show; with rolling of drums and blowing of +bugles, and standing up and sitting down again, and baring +heads and bowing them, while the rector of Trinity Church in +the City of Boston offered an invocation to the God of Battles, +and His Son, the Prince of Peace. War and Peace were thus +mixed up in the ceremony, so that nobody could tell at any +moment which was which. The orators declared that the way to +insure peace was to prepare for war; upon which program the +nations had just led themselves into the greatest war to end war +in all history, and now were spending several times as much +money to prepare for an even greater war to end war.</p> + +<p>It would be safe to say that in that vast throng of cheering +and singing and reverently listening people, these traitor-thoughts +found lodgment in only one head, that of the little old +lady who sat in the front row, among the highest of the high-up +dignitaries. She, the widow of a former governor, a Thornwell, +and the great-aunt of the hero, could not have been denied her +proper place without making a scandal, and emphasizing the +dreadful rumors that she had been seduced by the enemy within +our gates, and turned into a friend of bomb throwers and +bandits. So nice to look upon, with her hair now almost white, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[373]</span> +and her little round face much wrinkled, but still jolly, and her +new spring costume selected and presented by her daughter +Alice of impeccable taste; so gentle in manner, so quiet and ladylike—it +was impossible to believe what everybody knew about +her, that she was actually going down to Dedham the next day, +and face all the uproar and notoriety, and lend her sanction to +the defense of desperate anarchists on trial for their lives.</p> + +<p>She watched with tears in her eyes, while her great-grandniece, +the little daughter of the dead hero, came forward to +draw the veil from the bronze tablet. The bugles blew, and the +audience rose and bared its head, and the bands started to play +“America,” and everybody sang—a sublime moment. The lovely +young widow of the hero had to hide her face in her hands, +and even the stolid James Scatterbridge and the cynical Henry +Cabot Winters and the stately Rupert Alvin were not ashamed +to be moved. Cornelia’s tears were right and proper, and she +kept her traitor-thoughts to herself. No one guessed that she +was weeping for other heroes who were still to die. For the +little boys in their khaki uniforms, lifting their shining faces to +the orators and the beautiful waving flags! For the mothers who +brought them there, to be consecrated and pledged to future +slaughters! For the great humble masses who packed the streets +in every direction, and stood bareheaded and trusting, gazing +up to the great ones, and believing every word the loud-speakers +told them!</p> + +<p>A sharp division in that audience, between the many who +believed, and the few who knew. To the former the name +America, and its symbol, the flag, meant liberty and justice for +all mankind; while to the few it meant private property in land, +machinery and credit, and the exploitation of labor based +thereon. By means of this system, the knowing ones had brought +the lesser nations and weaker peoples into debt to them; so +America and the flag meant battleships and guns and airplanes +and poison gas to collect this tribute to all eternity. That was +the reason these busy gentlemen took two days off from business, +and built stands and tacked up decorations, and set up +loud-speakers to carry the words of politicians and priests and +preachers to crowds in the public squares. That was why you +heard no patriotic address which failed to mention the “enemy +within our gates,” the vicious and criminal “Reds” who refused +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[374]</span> +to love America and appreciate her ideals, but wanted to overthrow +the greatest government in the world, and repudiate all +the debts, and nationalize all the women, and make America a +vassal of what the orators called the “Bolshevikis,” or sometimes, +like Judge Webster Thayer, the “arnychists.”</p> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class='title-page'> +<p class='t0'>BOSTON</p> +<div class='double-line bt bb'> </div> +<p class='t1'><i>A Novel by</i></p> +<p class='t2'>UPTON SINCLAIR</p> +<p class='t3'>VOLUME II</p> +<div class='title-illustration'> +<figure class="figcenter illowp25" id="title" style="max-width: 29.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/title.jpg" alt="Title page image - a courthouse"> +</figure> +</div> +<div class='double-line bt bb'> </div> +<p class='t4'>UPTON SINCLAIR</p> +<p class='t5'>STATION A</p> +<p class='t6'>PASADENA, CALIFORNIA</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class='copyright'> +<p class='c0'><span class="smcap">Copyright · 1928 · by</span></p> +<p class='c1'>UPTON SINCLAIR</p> +<p class='c2'>MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> +<p class='c3'>First and Second Printings</p> +<p class='c4'>before publication</p> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[375]</span></p> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII"> + CHAPTER XIII<br> +<span class='chap-title'>TRIAL BY JURY</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>“Court!” shouted the bailiff, and pounded on the floor with +his “wand.” It was the court-room at Dedham, in Norfolk +County, instead of Plymouth, so it was a different bailiff, but +he looked exactly like the other, and so did his wand and uniform. +There entered the same thin, shrunken old gentleman +with white mustache and face like parchment, wearing the +same voluminous black silk robe. The lawyers and spectators +rose with the same show of reverence, and the bailiff pounded +the floor again and repeated the ancient formula: “Hear ye! +Hear ye! All persons having anything to do before the Honorable, +the Justices of the Superior Court, now sitting within and +for the County of Norfolk, draw near, give your attention, and +you shall be heard! God save the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts!”</p> + +<p>Also there was the same district attorney, Fred Katzmann, +blond hair and bursting red face, round, pulpy and smooth-shaven, +his plump figure and manner of elaborate cordiality +to his equals and Prussian sternness to his inferiors. There +were three assistants; one of them was a “ticquer,” like Judge +Thayer, and presently they were to put on a witness who was a +“ticquer,” and there would be three of them in solemn confrontation, +all blinking away, but not keeping time. There was +Lee Swenson, his lanky western figure outtowering the rest, +his face haggard from long nights of work, his black clothes +hanging loose about his frame—but he had made the concession +to Massachusetts sentiment of getting his hair cut. There was +Fred Moore, from California, alert and aggressive; and the +McAnarneys, associate counsel, two Irish Catholic brothers, +retained in a vain hope of contributing respectability to +anarchist wops accused of murder.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[376]</span></p> + +<p>The court-room was crowded: a great number of “veniremen,” +to be questioned as possible jurors, and many spectators, more +than could find seats. The newspapers had been full of the case, +the desperate character of the criminals, the radical agitation +concerning them, the precautions taken by the government to +protect the court. The judge and the district attorney had a +bodyguard day and night. Picked men from several police departments +of Norfolk County were on duty; fifteen armed +men scattered about the court-room, and three more at each +door. Male spectators were searched thoroughly as they entered +the court-room, and women had their handbags opened. An +atmosphere of tension, almost of war.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti was brought by armed guards in an automobile +from Charlestown Prison, “where he is serving a sentence of +from twelve to fifteen years for the Bridgewater hold-up”—so +said the papers, and the veniremen read it and talked about it; +when they became jurors, they were assumed to be ignorant of +Vanzetti’s previous conviction, and all persons who respected +the legal system of the Commonwealth would solemnly pretend +to accept this fiction. Almost in the center of the court-room +was the steel “cage,” shaped like a piano box with fancy grillwork, +open in front, a psychological device for overcoming the +legal presumption that a wop is innocent until he is proved +guilty. The jurors gaze at him locked in throughout the trial, +and by the time they are ready to vote they know him as a +creature who belongs in a cage. Near the jury box was a tall +standard, with an American flag.</p> + +<p>A stir in the audience; the bandits were coming! A side door +of the court-room opened, and there entered several policemen +and then a guard with a handcuff on his wrist, and then a wop +made safe with the other handcuff on his wrist, and another +handcuff on his other wrist, and another wop chained to +that; this second wop with a handcuff on his other wrist, +and another guard chained to that: in short, four men +chained together, the two on the outside being guards and the +two on the inside being alleged bandits; all four symbolizing +the fundamental human fact, that slavery enslaves masters as +well as servants. It was glorious spring sunshine outside, and +here were some hundreds of people who might have been +walking in the woods, picking mayflowers, or sitting on the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[377]</span> +beach engaged in high philosophic discourse; but they were +crowded in between four white-washed walls, breathing foul +air and shortening their lives, fastened to their seats by manacles +of hate, fear and greed.</p> + +<p>A few others, held by love and a sense of justice! “Society +matrons and college girls,” as the newspapers described them, +they sat in silence, watching the procedure, sometimes pretending +to be busy with their “fancy work”; doing their refined +best to be unaware of being the cynosure of all eyes. These +were the “Red sympathizers,” or “pinks,” as patriotic orators +derisively called them: women who left homes of luxury to +come and meddle with the course of justice, lending encouragement +to bomb throwers and assassins, and making things +harder for brave officials. Their presence was a continual irritant +to the police, who would have liked to lock such troublemakers +up, along with their anarchist pets.</p> + +<p>And yet, mixed with this anger was awe; for some of these +were “blue-bloods,” the wonderful, almost supernatural beings +whose names appeared in the society columns of the papers. +To Judge Thayer they represented everything in the world to +which he aspired, and every now and then he would steal a +glance at Mrs. Lois Rantoul—who was a Lowell—or at Mrs. +Cornelia Thornwell or Mrs. Elizabeth Glendower Evans, as +if to see what they were thinking about him; presently his +curiosity would get the better of him, and he would invite one +of them to his chambers, and try to convince her that she +was mistaken in believing these desperate anarchists to be +innocent. He, the judge on the bench, would do that; and little +by little the news of it would spread among lawyers and judges +up in Boston, who were under the necessity of pretending to +hold the dogma of judicial infallibility.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_12"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Between “Web” Thayer and Lee Swenson there existed an +antagonism of temperament, which showed itself the very first +hour. In order to practice in Massachusetts the lawyer should +have complied with some formality. He had not known this, +and now Judge Thayer proposed to bar him from the case. +There were hasty conferences among the “blue-blood” ladies, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[378]</span> +and they kept the telephone wires to Boston busy; with the +result that next morning when Lee Swenson renewed his application +for judicial courtesy, there were several leading lawyers +of the city lined up in a row behind him. Too bad these great +ones could not have stayed all through the trial, and restrained +“Web” Thayer from making their community a byword +throughout the world!</p> + +<p>The veniremen, fresh from two days of patriotic celebrations, +sat under the shadow of the flag and heard the black-robed old +gentleman explain to them what patriotic celebrations are for. +“You must remember the American soldier had other duties +that he would rather have performed than those that resulted +in his giving up his life on the battlefields of France, but he, +with undaunted courage and patriotic devotion that brought +honor and glory to humanity and the world rendered the service +and made the supreme sacrifice. So I call upon you to render +this service here with the same spirit of patriotism, courage and +devotion to duty as was exhibited by our soldier boys across +the seas.”</p> + +<p>Such was the mood in which the men of Norfolk County +approached this trial. These were the wops who had sent bombs +through the mail two years ago—so it was whispered—and the +Wall Street explosion had been revenge for their arrest. Now, +whoever voted them guilty would never sleep safe in bed. +Wives had hysterics at home, and husbands promised to “lie +out of it” at any cost; so, one after another, they took the +stand and swore to a disbelief in capital punishment, or to an +invincible conviction regarding the case. After three days a +panel of five hundred veniremen had been exhausted, and still +five jurors were lacking. Such a thing had never been known in +the history of the county, and newspapers made “streamer +heads” out of the desperate dangerousness of the situation.</p> + +<p>It happened that on the night of June 3rd, Representative +Samuel Wragg was being made the worshipful grand master +of the Masonic Lodge of the town of Needham. Fred Katzmann, +the district attorney, was a Mason, and the slain paymaster +of the shoe company had also been a Mason. His worshipful +brothers would not shrink from their duty to his +memory. The father of Representative Wragg, a deputy +sheriff, appeared without warning at the ceremony, and notified +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[379]</span> +the members of the lodge to appear in court next morning. That +surely seemed to violate the law, which specifies that in such an +emergency special veniremen shall be summoned “from among +the bystanders.” But Judge Thayer overruled the objections of +the defense—just as he overruled Lee Swenson’s efforts to +question the veniremen.</p> + +<p>One of the jurors selected over the protest of the defense +was Walter Ripley, an old man who had been chief of police +of the city of Quincy. For many years Ripley had watched +juries file in and out of court-rooms, but never had he seen one +stand and salute the flag. But now, when he was made foreman +of the jury, he set a new precedent for the Commonwealth; +every time he entered the jury box, he faced the flag and +solemnly saluted it. That was his way of “telling the world.” +These anarchists—the male population of New England made +an obscene word out of it—were trying to “tear down the +flag,” and he was going to show them. On his way to court he +had met an old friend in the railroad station, and said that he +was going to act as a juror in the trial of two “guinneys.” +“Damn them, they ought to hang anyway!” said Ripley, according +to the affidavit made by his friend several months later.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_12"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Joe Randall was attending the trial as a newspaperman, representing +some labor papers. Also there was John Nicholas +Beffel, representing the Federated Press. These two mixed +with the other reporters, and sat at lunch with them in the +Dedham Inn, and so got all the “inside dope.” This was irritating +to Judge Thayer, who naturally assumed that all the +newspapermen were on his side, and was accustomed to join +them at lunch in their private dining room, and tell them what +he wanted to have published. It happened that the Italian +Government had sent a representative to attend the trial, to +make sure that two Italian citizens received fair play; this +gentleman, the Marquis Ferrante, naturally did not understand +that there could be such a thing as a “radical” newspaperman, +so he talked freely to Beffel, and gave him a carefully worded +statement, intended as a broad hint to Judge Thayer. “The +Italian authorities are deeply interested in the case of Sacco and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[380]</span> +Vanzetti, and this trial will be closely followed by them. They +have complete confidence that the trial will be conducted solely +as a criminal proceeding, without reference to the political or +social beliefs of any one involved.”</p> + +<p>Beffel made carbon copies of this statement, and gave it to +the other men. The judge came in, and after he had finished +his lunch and was ready to leave, one of the reporters handed +him a copy of the statement. He read it, and did not fail to +get its hidden meaning. His face flushed, and with a gesture +of anger he said, “Why, that fellow came clear out to my home +in Worcester and assured me that the Italian Government had +no interest in this case!”</p> + +<p>The reporters, seeing that he was in a mood for talk, gathered +round. One of them spoke of Fred Moore, with whom +the judge had been arguing all morning over the selection of +jurors. The old man’s face showed that there was still life in it; +his yellow parchment skin became suffused with blood. “What +do you suppose that fellow wanted me to ask those veniremen? +‘Are you a member of a labor union? Are you opposed to union +labor? Are you a member of a secret society?’”</p> + +<p>“Web” went on, his conversation turning into a stump +speech, as it always did, in a dining room or a railroad train, +on a football field or a golf green, whenever he could get an +audience. “Did you ever see a case in which so many leaflets +have been broadcast saying that people couldn’t get a fair trial +in the State of Massachusetts?” He looked at Joe Randall, for +he knew that Joe was the wicked author of these leaflets. His +voice rose high and shrill, and his hands shook as he waved +them. John Nicholas Beffel, annoyed at the turn of events, +stepped closer and said, “I wish to inform you, Judge Thayer, +that the statement of the Marquis Ferrante was given out at +his express request. He asked me to copy it and give it to the +other newspapermen.” But the old man brushed him aside and +as he went out, shook his fist, exclaiming to the group of men: +“You wait till I give my charge to the jury. I’ll show ’em!”</p> + +<p>The reporters stood, dumbfounded. A judge, actually then +sitting on the case, going back to court in that mood, to deal +with men on trial for their lives! Manifestly, it was a “big +story,” and if the newspapermen could have had their way, +unhampered by owners, it would have taken the front page of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[381]</span> +every newspaper in Massachusetts. But newspapermen do not +have their way; they do have owners, and have to practice what +is known as “taking policy.” The representative of the Associated +Press, Jack Harding, advanced the classic formula of his +organization, that the matter was “controversial,” and therefore +not to be handled. “Controversial,” in the sense of the Associated +Press, means anything detrimental to the ruling class of +America. It is manifest that members of this class, being all +in office or high station of some sort, can speak, and have their +utterances count as news of an important and dignified character. +It is when their enemies attack them that the “controversy” +begins.</p> + +<p>The other reporters from the capitalist papers agreed to +hush up the incident. Beffel and Joe Randall might break step +if they wanted to; but they could only publish the story in a few +labor and socialist papers, where it would count for nothing; +and they would get themselves barred from the private dining +room, and from the precious “inside dope.” The defense counsel +agreed that nothing could be done; but of course the story +went up to Boston, and caused several lawyers and judges +of the city to say that “Web” had gone mad, and that something +ought to be done about it—only, alas, nothing could be +done, because all the judges, and even the court employees of +Massachusetts are appointed for life, and if you were to try to +impeach “Web” in the midst of this case, you might just as +well turn the Commonwealth over to the Reds and be done +with it.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_12"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>The prisoners sat in their steel cage, gazing about with anxious +eyes, trying to understand the complex procedure in a +strange tongue: Bart with his heavy drooping mustaches, his +melancholy face now deeply lined; Nick, restless-eyed, impatient; +both of them pale with a year away from sunshine. They +were neatly shaved, brushed and washed, dressed in new suits, +with black silk ties and clean collars—doing their best to look +like Americans, to impress an American jury. They gazed at +the elderly stern-faced men who were to decide their fate: not +one foreigner among them, all English names, old Yankee +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[382]</span> +ancestry. Every one on that jury had had a son or near relative +in France—and those relatives who were not dead or crippled +had been marching in the patriotic celebrations of the last few +days.</p> + +<p>Assistant District Attorney Williams arose and made a speech +to the jury, telling what his side intended to prove. Once more +Cornelia listened to that story about a bandit gang, about Boda +and Orciani and Coacci, the bandit house and the little shed +behind it, the Buick car with the bullet hole in the side, the +little Overland car in which the bandits had escaped, after they +had “thrown away” the Buick car in the Manley woods. The +jury would be taken downstairs to inspect the Buick; they +would be taken on a tour, Judge Thayer accompanying, to see +the shack and the shed. Cornelia had heard all this at Plymouth, +and had seen the prosecution fail to produce any evidence whatever. +She had not yet learned about Mike Stewart and his +“theory,” derived from the “detective machine”; the whole +procedure seemed to her a lunatic’s dream, and she watched in +a daze to see what would happen in the course of this second +trial.</p> + +<p>Exactly the same thing happened as at Plymouth; no evidence +appeared. The farce became so apparent that even Judge +Thayer could not stand for it. As to Boda he said, late in the +trial: “But he is not connected in any way with the murder. +Anybody else driving a Buick car, if it was a seven-passenger +car, would stand almost in the same relationship.... +But there is not one identifying feature.” He forced the prosecution +to admit that “Neither Orciani nor Boda was in South +Braintree at the time of the murder and there was no concert +of action between them and Sacco and Vanzetti as to the +murder.” He ordered that “all evidence obtained by the jury +on the view at the Coacci barn or shed be entirely disregarded.” +But of course it wasn’t disregarded, and the prosecution knew +what it had fixed in the jury’s mind. Even after the district +attorney had expressly admitted that Orciani was not one of +the murderers, he brought him up before the jury as a dark and +sinister mystery, challenging the defense to explain why they +had not put him on the stand.</p> + +<p>Physicians described the wounds of the dead men; and then +came the identification witnesses. Lewis L. Wade, a shoe +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[383]</span> +worker, had thought in the Brockton police station that Sacco +was one of the bandits; but now he said he was not sure. It +was a blow to the police, and as Wade left the stand, one of +the officers called him a “piker,” and another muttered, “We +are not through with you yet.” A few weeks later Wade lost +his job—after seventeen years’ service with the shoe company. +Two others who testified for the defense met the same fate. +Not all the dangers were on one side!</p> + +<p>There came Mary Splaine, bookkeeper of the shoe company, +who had run to the window and looked out. Mary was one of +the victims of that process of suggestion which prosecuting +officials understand well. She had looked at Sacco so many +times that she saw him as the bandit; she sat and looked at +him once more and described him in minute detail, height, +weight, square shoulders, high forehead, hair brushed back and +between two and two and a half inches long; “dark hair, dark +eyebrows, thin cheeks and clean-shaven face of a peculiar +greenish-white.” No one could have asked a better identification—until +you considered the opportunity which Mary had had to +see the bandit. Then you realized that she was claiming a +physical impossibility. She was in a second-story window, eighty +feet from the car, and she saw the bandit for the length of +time it took the car to travel thirty-five feet at eighteen miles +per hour—one or two seconds, amid the wildest excitement and +shooting.</p> + +<p>The defense confronted Mary with the record of what she +had said at the preliminary hearing, after three different examinations +of Sacco, “I do not think my opportunity afforded +me the right to say he is the man.” Now, surprised and confused, +she said, “That is not true. I never said it.” Having a +day to think it over, and to be warned that stenographer’s notes +are not to be so easily waved aside, she took the stand and +corrected her testimony, admitting that she had said what was +in the record, but claiming that she had changed upon +“reflection.”</p> + +<p>The defense tried desperately to break Mary Splaine; but +she was one of those covered by the tragic phrase, too late! +For her they needed the Pinkerton reports—the evidence of +the operative Henry Hellyer, who was in court, and whose +knowledge was in possession of the prosecution. He and Captain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[384]</span> +Proctor, of the state police—another witness, also in court—had +shown Mary Splaine a photograph of a criminal called +“Tony the Wop,” and Mary had positively identified him as +one of the bandits; so the police had set out to get him—and +learned that he had been in jail at the time of the crime! +Also Mary Splaine had told Hellyer a long story about two men +in the factory who had plotted and carried out the banditry. +Mary gave their names, and Hellyer made “discreet inquiries” +of the owner of the factory, who said the accusation was baseless; +the superintendent told him to pay no attention to Mary +Splaine, “because she is one of the most irresponsible persons +he ever came in contact with.” So read the report of “H.H.,” +hidden from the defense until five or six years later.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_12"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Next came Louis Pelzer, not bright, son of two mutes: the +Jewish boy, haunted by the memory of pogroms, and in terror +of the police. He had peered out through a window, and amid +flying bullets had written down the number of the bandit car, +and made note of the bandit so exactly that he could describe +even the pin in his collar. The defense lawyers took this pitiful +creature in hand, and soon had him mopping the sweat from +his forehead. It became evident that he could not understand +simple questions, and tangled himself in lie after lie. Yes, he +had lied to Robert Reid, investigator for the defense; he had +said he did not see anything, because he did not want to be a +witness. The defense put on three fellow-workmen of Pelzer’s, +two of whom testified that instead of putting up the window to +look, he had dived under a bench when he heard the shooting. +The third testified, “I heard him say that he did not see anybody.” +The district attorney did the best he could in defending +Pelzer to the jury. “He was frank enough here, gentlemen, +to own that he had twice falsified before to both sides, +and he gave you his reason.... He is big enough and manly +enough now to tell you of his prior falsehoods and his reasons +for them.”</p> + +<p>And then the Lola Andrews circus. Three days of the expensive +time of the Superior Court of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts was given up to Lola. She told her tale of how, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[385]</span> +four hours prior to the crime, she had seen two men with a car +drawn up by the curb, and how she had talked to them, and +the one under the car was Sacco. When the defense began to +go into the details of her past life, she fainted impressively, and +Judge Thayer ordered the court-room barricaded, so that when +Lola was restored, she might pick out the man who had assaulted +her in a toilet in a Quincy rooming-house. But that man +was apparently an adept in the occult lore of the Hindoos, and +possessed the power to dematerialize his body and disappear +through the walls of court-rooms; the police could not catch +him—but Lola won time to think, and also she won the jury, +and Judge Thayer to keep the defense from asking her bad +questions. When Fred Moore spoke of her testimony as “hopelessly +confusing,” the judge gave him a stern rebuke. “That is +an unfair criticism of any witness.”</p> + +<p>When the defense had its chance, it put on Mrs. Julia Campbell, +who had accompanied Lola on that visit to the shoe factory +to look for a job, and testified that Lola had spoken to no man +in or near an automobile. A policeman and a reporter testified +that she had told them she had not seen the bandits. Harry +Kurlansky, a small shopkeeper of Quincy, had talked with her +on his doorstep and heard her tell how the police were hounding +her to testify against Sacco and Vanzetti. “‘The government +took me down and they want me to recognize those men,’ she +says, ‘and I don’t know a thing about them. I have never seen +them and I can’t recognize them.’”</p> + +<p>That testimony looked so bad for Lola, it was one of the +times when Judge Thayer felt it necessary to jump to the +rescue. He began to cross-question the witness: why hadn’t he +set to work as a good citizen to find out who it was that was +trying to make Lola give false testimony? Such an obvious +thing for a small shopkeeper, a foreigner in a New England +town, to tackle the police and the district attorney’s office, and +make them stop framing a witness! Said the judge, “Did you +attempt to find out who this person was who represented the +government who was trying to get her to take and to state that +which was false?” Naturally Kurlansky was taken aback by +such a question, and could only say, “Well, it didn’t come into +my mind. I wasn’t sure, you know. It didn’t—” The judge +pinned him down, as to why he didn’t think of it, why he didn’t +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[386]</span> +do it—thus leaving him completely discredited before patriotic +jurors, who gave all their spare time to supervising the work of +police chiefs and district attorneys.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_12"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Presiding over a murder trial is a complicated and exacting +business. Common sense and humanity have nothing to do with +the procedure; it is a matter of rules and decisions, millions of +intricate and subtle details, the interwoven and organized history +of the trials which have been held in New England for +three hundred years, and in Old England for twice as long. +All this you have to have at your finger-tips, for each decision +must be rendered immediately, you cannot take it under advisement +and look up the precedents overnight. Your reputation +depends upon your decisions being such that the highest court, +reviewing your work, will sustain you. The strain is incessant, +and may last for many weeks; the rules allow ten days’ rest to +a judge after each ordeal.</p> + +<p>“Web” Thayer had been playing this game for many years, +and knew all the tricks; including the one of favoring his own +side while seeming to be impartial. His spoken words would go +into the record, to be studied by the higher judges; but his +manner would not go in—so the art was to keep his words fair, +and do the damage otherwise. Every time Swenson or Moore +would make an objection, “Web” would turn and look at him +over his spectacles with a kind of ironical curiosity. “What is +this that has come out of the wild west to teach us how to +conduct a court in Massachusetts?” Then his eyes would turn +to the jury, and give half a wink; with a bored drawl, he would +say, “Objection overruled,” and jury and court officials would +be all one grin.</p> + +<p>Within its narrow limits the judge’s mind was quick and +cunning. He was instantly on the alert to spoil any advantage +his enemies were gaining, and ingenious to find reasons to +interrupt, to block questions, to bar out evidence and confuse +witnesses. Frequently he sat with some of the prosecutors in +public places, and he always knew what the prosecutor was +aiming at, and if he missed a point, would prompt him. Once, +realizing that he had gone too far, he apologized blandly: “I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[387]</span> +am always telling the district attorney what to say.” The naïve +court reporter put that into the record!</p> + +<p>And later came the incident of the cap which had been picked +up at the scene of the crime, and which the prosecution sought +to identify as Sacco’s. It was too small for him, but the jury +would overlook that. When the son of Sacco’s employer was +on the stand, Judge Thayer tried to get him to say that this cap +resembled Sacco’s. Naturally, when a man runs a factory with +many workers, he can’t remember the details of all the caps +they wear; young Kelley was embarrassed, not liking to displease +a great judge, but he had to say, “I can’t answer it when +I don’t know right down in my heart that that is the cap.” +“Web” was determined to get something more damaging than +that; and at the same time he tried to fix it so that his questions +would seem to be coming from Assistant District Attorney +Williams. Said the judge, “I would like to ask the witness one +question: whether—” then he turned to Mr. Williams: “I wish +you would ask him, rather.”</p> + +<p>The defense lawyers tried to break up this game, but “Web” +stuck to it: “I would rather it came from Mr. Williams. Will +you put that question?” The somewhat slow Mr. Williams—“Web” +came to hate him bitterly for this and other faults—asked +the witness whether the cap was “alike in appearance +to the cap worn by Sacco.” The witness replied, “In color only,” +which would seem clear enough; but “Web” refused to be +defeated. Said he, “That is not responsive to the question”—meaning, +of course, that it wasn’t what he wanted. He went on, +telling the witness what to say: “In its general appearance it is +the same.” Those words came from the just and upright judge, +and the witness would have had to be very rude indeed to contradict +them. “Yes, sir,” he said. When the defense objected +to this singular method of “framing” evidence in open court, +the judge made it all right by directing the court reporter to +falsify the record. “You may put the question so it comes from +counsel rather than from the Court.” Mr. Williams then obediently +put the question, and the witness obediently answered +again. But the court reporter, whether from stupidity or malice, +failed to take the judge’s instructions, and copied out the whole +dialogue, and there it stands in cold print, to be handed down +to the scorn and fury of all future times.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[388]</span></p> + +<p>And this partisanship and cunning combined with the cheapest +vanity and craving for display! The photographers were constantly +making pictures of Judge Thayer, and he was never +too busy to pose for them. On the front page of the papers you +saw Judge Thayer sitting on the bench with a legal tome open +before him; Judge Thayer with a palm leaf fan standing in +front of the court-house; the twelve gentlemen of the jury being +entertained by a victrola, with Judge Thayer in the center of +the picture.</p> + +<p>And then, sitting in his chambers, spitting on the floor, and +talking about the case with Tom, Dick and Harry; with court +officials, interpreters, policemen, newspaper reporters, photographers—incredible +as it might seem, even with ladies of social +prominence who were there as friends of Sacco and Vanzetti. +So furious was his hatred against these “anarchistic bastards,” +he was not content to send them to the electric chair, but must +throw mud at them on their journey. To Cornelia Thornwell +it seemed that the poor old man had literally gone out of his +mind; so also it seemed to dignified “blue-bloods” when she +told them what was happening. But what could be done about +it? The Commonwealth makes the proud boast that no judge +has ever been impeached. Were they going to break that record, +tarnish that scutcheon, for the sake of two Italians who were +anarchists, infidels and draft-dodgers, even if they were not +bandits and murderers?</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_12"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>Carlos E. Goodridge to the stand: the man who had managed +to exchange a jail sentence of several years for aid in sending +Sacco to the electric chair. Judge Thayer knew all about that +situation; and just as Swenson had predicted, he refused to +permit any questions to be asked of Goodridge, to reveal the +fact that he had pleaded guilty to larceny in Massachusetts. +Moreover, the judge called the lawyers to the bench while he +was discussing the matter, so that the jury might have no hint +that they were listening to the testimony of a crook. Thayer +would not even permit the discussion to get into the record, +and when he saw the court reporter starting to take down his +words he exclaimed, “Get the hell out of here!” So the proprieties +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[389]</span> +were preserved, and the glib and plausible Goodridge +took the stand, and told the trusting jury how he had run +out of the pool-room, and seen the bandit car go by, close to +the curb, and how a bandit “poked a gun over towards” him, +and this man was Sacco and nobody else.</p> + +<p>The defense was hog-tied and helpless. Concerning the rest +of Goodridge’s record, the fact that his very name was an act +of perjury, they had no evidence. The court-room rang with +the cries of the several fine women whom Erastus Corning +Whitney had married and betrayed, of the owners of horses +he had stolen, of others whom his glib tongue had swindled; +but the fates which held Sacco and Vanzetti at their choice +allowed no sound to be heard. When later these sounds had +been duly transcribed upon legal paper, and sworn to before +notaries, and laid before Judge Thayer in the form of a motion +for a new trial, that Daniel come to judgment would repeat his +deadly formula: “Motion denied!” When the matter was carried +before the Supreme Judicial Court, that august body would +apply its vast learning to the problem, and decide, first, that +the failure to let the jury know of Goodridge’s record was +not ground for reversal, and second, that the discovery of new +facts about Goodridge was not basis for a new trial. “Decision +sustained.”</p> + +<p>Blocked and thwarted at every turn! Police officers took the +stand to tell how witnesses had identified Sacco and Vanzetti +in the Brockton police station immediately after their arrest; +but when the defense tried to ask them about witnesses who had +refused to identify, “Web” Thayer held up his mighty hand +and cut him short. No witness could be asked about what any +other witness might have said! By this device the defense would +be kept from using the trial proceedings to fish for evidence. +The bare idea that they should try to do it was so preposterous +that both the judge and the jury burst out laughing.</p> + +<p>Again the voices shrieked. Roy Gould, the salesman of +shaving paste, the man with the bullet hole in his overcoat, who +had been within ten feet of the bandits, and would swear that +Sacco was not the man! Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. Kennedy, the +only persons who had had an extended view of the driver of +the car, and whose written statements that he was not Vanzetti +were in the hands of the district attorney! All those witnesses +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[390]</span> +who had been taken to the police station by Henry Hellyer and +Captain Proctor, and had identified photographs of other bandits, +but had refused to identify Sacco and Vanzetti—in spite +of the posing, and pulling down of caps over the eyes, and pretending +to aim pistols! So many voices crying warnings, filling +the court-room with their clamor—in vain!</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_12"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>In the papers Cornelia read news of great concern to her +family; the demurrer to the suit of Jerry Walker had been overruled; +the last bar was down, the tremendous case was to be +tried out before a jury. “Fifteen Million Dollar Conspiracy +Charge!” said the newspapers. To Cornelia it meant a family +agony; all three of her sons-in-law, two of her nephews-in-law, +two or three cousins, were going to have to take the witness +stand, and be questioned for weeks and months as to the details +of their business procedures. Jerry Walker’s lawyers had not +minced words in setting forth what they expected to prove: +the great bankers, headed by Rupert Alvin and Henry Cabot +Winters, had “entered into a secret combination and conspiracy +to carry into effect by their combined power and influence, +by duress of the plaintiff, by fraudulent concealments, +false representations and by wrongful, illegal and fraudulent +means which are hereinafter stated with certainty and particularity, +to deprive the plaintiff of his shares in the above-named +companies.” The “yellow” newspapers smacked their lips over +the promised feast, while the dignified ones put the news away +in the financial columns, as if to say that these abusive words +were used in a technical sense, and did not mean what the +ordinary reader would suppose.</p> + +<p>Already families had been broken up over this issue, and +wives were not speaking to one another. Mrs. John Quincy +Thornwell, wife of the president of the Fifth National Bank, +was telling everybody that Rupert Alvin had drawn her husband +into the mess without his knowledge. Mrs. Rupert Alvin, +wife of the president of the Pilgrim National, was outraged +because her sister, Mrs. Henry Cabot Winters, was taking the +affair with flippancy, having said to her intimates that it would +be an excellent thing if some of these gentlemen were sent to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[391]</span> +jail, so that their wives would know where they were! Slanders +and recriminations—bitter feuds starting—a whole kettle of +Back Bay codfish!</p> + +<p>In the Sacco-Vanzetti trial one of the lawyers fell ill, and +Judge Thayer put off the trial over the week-end. Cornelia +was planning to write a lot of letters and raise some money +which was badly needed; but Deborah telephoned from her +place at the North Shore, her mother must meet her in Boston +at once, something about Alice, very serious. Cornelia assumed +it was more of the Jerry Walker quarrel. “You know, Deborah, +I consider the Walkers as my friends, and I am not going to +have anything—”</p> + +<p>But Deborah broke in: “It has nothing to do with that, +Mother. It is something personal, something desperate—I can’t +give you any hint over the telephone. Come to the house at +once.”</p> + +<p>So Betty drove her grandmother to Boston. Betty had work +to do at defense headquarters. She was going to get out a rush +circular about events at the trial, and she wasn’t going to let +Joe have anything to do with it. Under the very strict laws +of Massachusetts, Judge Thayer had the right to call it contempt +of court, and if he tried to, the defendant was going to +be a young lady with the very bluest blood in New England; +old “Judge Fury,” as Betty had taken to calling him, would get +a sure enough front-page story if he tried it! Joe was going +to stay in Dedham and write newspaper and magazine articles, +which would be published outside the state, and so beyond +“Judge Fury’s” reach.</p> + +<p>“I know what you’ll find,” said the young lady Bolshevik—“another +of Aunt Alice’s geniuses gone wrong. I hear she’s +going wrong with him.” And so it proved. Alice had got the +love of art and the art of love mixed up. A chaotic Bohemian +pianist had cast temperamental glances at her, and she proposed +to accompany him to Europe, and had notified Henry that +she expected to get a divorce. “And right now!” cried Deborah—“while +Rupert and Henry are driven nearly to death +with this Jerry Walker affair, and the Elevated Railway business, +too—and Betty, and you—Mother, we simply cannot have +another scandal now!”</p> + +<p>So the family phalanx must gather about the frantic woman, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[392]</span> +and guard her with their spears, and frighten away “that impossible +man,” as Deborah called him. Cornelia, the mother, +and only woman member of the old generation, must take +most of the burden. She must face her second daughter’s +hysterics yet again—she had lost count of the times, it had been +more than twenty years of melodrama; first frantic jealousy +of Henry, then bitter hate, then indifference, with various +stages of romantic thrills for this, that and the other great +or some-day-to-be-great poet or painter or musician. This time +was the most terrible of all; this time all bars were down, all +reserves thrown away—it was most decidedly not “Boston,” +not to be believed.</p> + +<p>For twenty years Alice had sought something, and the women +and the men of the family had formed the phalanx about her, +and held her captive. “Now look at me!” she cried. “I am an +old woman! My skin will soon be parchment, and my chance +is nearly gone!”</p> + +<p>“Your chance at what?” asked Cornelia, quietly.</p> + +<p>“Love!” cried the other, with unaccustomed clarity.</p> + +<p>The mother felt a sudden uprush of pity. “Does love depend +on complexion?”</p> + +<p>“What else?” cried Alice, wildly. “And look at me!”</p> + +<p>Cornelia looked, and realized. It was true that her vain and +beautiful daughter was showing her years; no longer the wild +rose complexion, the girlish charm, the serenity and security +of young matronhood. Alice’s skin was getting dry, there were +lines that no beauty doctor could take away, those fatal tight +strings under the chin which nothing can hide. Deborah’s neck +had been like that for years, she had worn a black velvet band +about it. But such a device would make Alice “look a fright”—she +grabbed up a ribbon and wound it into a halter, to show her +mother what she would be like!</p> + +<p>She loved Franz Cezak! He was not a “strolling Bohemian,” +as Deborah had basely insinuated; he was no common musician +at all, but the younger son of a great family, who had been +received as a house guest in Back Bay homes. Alice loved him, +and she didn’t love Boston, and she was going to be happy!</p> + +<p>Would she really be happy? asked the mother, and began the +brutal task of undermining poor Alice’s castle in Bohemia. Did +this love-artist know that she had very little money in her own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[393]</span> +right, and that it is not the custom for American husbands to +subsidize the art-romances of their wives? Was it true that the +man was some years younger than Alice, and if so, did art-lovers +behave like other men in the matter of women’s age? +Was Alice expecting to come back to Boston, the morning after +her nuit d’amour?</p> + +<p>Clara Scatterbridge, the youngest daughter, came in; having +all the future of her many sons and daughters, coming one by +one to marriageable age, to weep and plead for. Rupert Alvin +came, leaving all his cares of state. He had put into action the +machinery which the ruling classes have established for the +quick and efficient collection of scandal; just as he could tell +his mother-in-law all the gossip of the “Italian colony” concerning +the anarchist “gruppo” of East Boston, so he could +tell his sister-in-law about a Bohemian pianist, who had an +art-love in every concert town. He had been knocked down and +almost killed by a well-known cricket player of Philadelphia, +and in Paris he had run away from a duel with the exiled +Russian Prince Dolgorovitch, “or whatever it is,” said Rupert, +with Anglo-Saxon contempt for a name with such termination.</p> + +<p>And then young Josiah Thornwell Winters, Alice’s only son, +who was to get his “sheepskin” from Harvard in a few days. +Young Josiah’s own behavior didn’t give him much standing in +court, he admitted, but he was promising to settle down and +make a man of himself, and it would certainly be easier if he +had a mother in blameless Boston, rather than following a +pianist about Bohemia. The rest of the family withdrew while +this intimate episode in the drama was played out.</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_12"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia went to see the husband, and found that Henry was +taking a most un-Bostonian attitude. “Mother,” he said, “it +seems to me Alice had better have it out, and see whether there’s +anything in this romance business for her. You, as a Bolshevik, +ought not be shocked by that.”</p> + +<p>“Mine has been a revolt with a purpose,” said Cornelia; “and +if Alice has a purpose I don’t know what it is.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I have said for years that Alice ought to have a divorce. +If she had a husband, she might settle down—”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[394]</span></p> + +<p>“But this man won’t be a husband, Henry!”</p> + +<p>“I know; but something has got to pull her loose from the +family. I haven’t said it to them, because after all, it’s a Thornwell +affair. But it’s been plain to me, ever since I realized that +I wasn’t the man for Alice. The misery has been because the +family couldn’t make up its mind to face a divorce; they’d +rather have a fit of hysterics once a month for twenty years. +I don’t want to talk about Alice, for she’s your flesh and +blood—”</p> + +<p>“Go on, Henry, say what you think. I’ve got to understand +you all.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mother, fundamentally it’s that Alice hasn’t got any +brains. Why didn’t you teach her some of your sense of fun?”</p> + +<p>“You forget, Henry, I didn’t do the teaching. The house was +full of Josiah’s sisters and aunts, who knew what ought to be +done always. I waited too long before I fought.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mother, we’ve all made mistakes. I ought to have +given more time to my son. I left him to his mother, while I +made the money, and now I’ve got too much money, and no +wife, and a son who has the structure and constitution of a +marshmallow. That’s my reward for hard work—not much +reason for going to the office in the morning, is there?”</p> + +<p>“I know, Henry, you’ve talked like that before; but you go +to the office in the morning, and go on doing what you did the +day before. We’re all of us like so many ants—we do what +the others do. Because I have tried to think for myself, you +decide I am cracked in the head.”</p> + +<p>“No, Mother, not at all!” Henry’s gallantry came to the +rescue. “I really have a great admiration—you should hear me +boasting about you in the clubs—nobody can sport such an +exciting mother-in-law! Truly, you’re the talk of the town—they +tell me you have assumed the moral leadership of all the +Bolsheviks at the trial.”</p> + +<p>“They tell you something very foolish, like all the other tales +about the Sacco-Vanzetti defense. What became of the evidence +you promised to get me, Henry? Have you forgotten it?”</p> + +<p>“No, Mother—”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t find it so easy as you thought?”</p> + +<p>“Not that; but fifteen million dollars is a lot of money, and +Rupert is terrified as to what he has to admit in the Jerry +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[395]</span> +Walker case. Also he’s had to take charge of the Bar Association—the +job they are planning, to oust our district attorney. +I suppose you’ve heard about that?”</p> + +<p>“No, Henry, I’ve been out of touch with the criminal world +of late.” She laughed, and he laughed, too—they always had a +good time. If only Alice had had her mother’s ability to laugh!</p> + +<p>“It’s a long story, I’ll tell you about it some day. When +the blackmail ring got after the Thornwell family, Rupert insisted +that we had to put them out of business; he’s a sterner +moralist than I, you know. We started work through the Bar +Association—you are reading about this Mishawum Manor +case, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Did you and Rupert start that?”</p> + +<p>“The episode happened four years ago. Didn’t it strike you +as peculiar that it should be taken up now?”</p> + +<p>“To tell the truth, I’ve been too busy to think about it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, so has the public! The fact is, I got detectives and +got the story for Rupert.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you start in Middlesex County?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you see, the district attorney there happens to be an +American, and we thought it would be good policy to show +impartiality. After we have put Tufts out, nobody can kick if +we come over here to Suffolk and tackle Joe Pelletier!”</p> + +<p>“I see!” said Cornelia. She knew that she was being admitted +to the inside of Boston public life—the center of the center and +hub of the hub! “Joe” Pelletier, district attorney of Suffolk +County, comprising Boston proper, was a leading Catholic +orator and hero, National Advocate of the Knights of Columbus, +knighted by the Pope for his services to the holy cause. Incidentally +he was one of the tools of the “blackmail ring,” and +may have got a share of that seventy-five thousand dollars +which Henry had “pungled up” to pay for the flashlight picture +of his son in the hotel room with a woman. So now the Thornwells +were out to “get him”!</p> + +<p>It was one more crisis in the unending struggle between the +blue-blood and the Irish-Catholic elements of the city. Cornelia +had watched it all her life, so she did not have to ask many +questions. “It seems unfortunate,” she commented, “that +Rupert has to be mixed up in this Elevated scandal right now.”</p> + +<p>“But that is part of the fight,” said Henry; he explained +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[396]</span> +that Joe Pelletier had taken up the scandal and was threatening +prosecutions, as a means of frightening Rupert and the rest +of the Pilgrim National crowd. Something like half the patriotic +legislators of Massachusetts had been borrowing money +from the banks, and speculating in Elevated stocks, before they +passed the bill which boosted these stocks on the market; and +now Pelletier was trying to fasten it on Rupert. It was a question +which would “beat the other to it.” “Make your bets!” +said Henry Cabot Winters.</p> + +<p>“Your smile is a sufficient betting tip!” replied his mother-in-law; +and he said yes, it was coming out all right, only +Rupert was the worrying temperament, and getting worse. +The doctors tried to get him to stop, but they hadn’t chosen a +very helpful way. They took x-ray pictures of his veins and +showed how they looked like white ribbons, which meant deposits +of lime and other minerals; they had given the poor +fellow such a list of things he mustn’t eat that when he dined +out he picked around in his plate like a chicken. His rosy and +purple bulges would soon be turned into hollows.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_12"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Alice’s castle in Bohemia collapsed. Did one of the Thornwell +men convey to the tempestuous genius the information that the +Thornwell ladies had no money of their own? Anyhow, the +celebrated artist discovered a series of concert engagements in +California, and wrote Alice a letter of great wisdom and sympathy. +The tormented woman died a score of soul-deaths, and +retired to a fashionable sanatorium to try a rest cure with +“stuffing.” A little later she would be trying a fasting-cure, and +after that a diet of grapes exclusively, and then she would be +paying thirty dollars an hour to have her troubles listened to by +a psychoanalyst.</p> + +<p>Meantime Cornelia had hurried back to Dedham, where the +trial had reopened, regardless of Thornwell family troubles. +Again she sat all day on a hard bench in the court-room, and +wrote memoranda in a notebook, and in the evening conferred +with the lawyers and the committee and the journalists until +late at night. Each afternoon, after court, she went by special +favor of the sheriff, to say a few words to Bart, and hear his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[397]</span> +advice about the procedure, and comfort him with affection.</p> + +<p>The prosecution had come now to the identification of +Vanzetti as one of the bandits. They put on the stand a man +named Levangie, gateman at the railroad tracks across which +the bandit car had passed immediately after the shooting. This +old man told how a train was coming when the car drove up, +and he started to put down the gates, but the bandits forced +him at the point of a revolver to raise them and let the car +cross ahead of the train. He identified Vanzetti as the driver +of the car.</p> + +<p>When the defense had its turn it put on a locomotive fireman, +not a Red but an Irishman, who testified that three-quarters of +an hour after the shooting he talked with Levangie, who said +that he did not see the bandits, all he saw was the gun, and he +“ducked into the shanty.” Three other witnesses gave the same +testimony. As it happened, Levangie had told one of the defense +lawyers that he could not identify the bandits, and first he +admitted having said this; later he contradicted himself, and +said he did not remember any such interview. He was a loose-jointed +fellow, shifty of eye, and did not seem at all abashed +when he was caught in false statements; rather he took the +whole affair as a joke.</p> + +<p>It became a joke to all the world, when the district attorney +came to discuss Levangie’s testimony in his address to the jury. +Mr. Katzmann was in a dilemma, because the gateman had +identified Vanzetti as the driver of the car, whereas Mr. Katzmann’s +other witnesses agreed upon the driver as young, small, +light-haired and sickly looking. The district attorney managed +very ingeniously to repudiate Levangie while at the same time +asking the jury to accept him. The gateman thought he had +seen Vanzetti driving the car, but really he had seen him in +the rear seat!</p> + +<p>That was all the real evidence they had. But to cover the +weakness, they put on some more that looked like evidence. A +man named Dolbeare, who thought he had seen Vanzetti in an +auto full of foreigners in South Braintree, some five hours +before the crime. He had seen a car going past him, and what +had attracted his attention was one man leaning forward talking +to another, and that it was a “tough-looking bunch.” He +did not know Vanzetti, had never seen him before, and never +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[398]</span> +saw him again until after the arrest. He admitted that carloads +of workmen drove through the town all the time, on the +way to the shipyards. He could not identify any other man in +the car, nor give a single detail about any one; all he could +do was to identify Vanzetti as one man who had been in that car.</p> + +<p>And then a man who claimed to have seen Vanzetti on a train +the morning of the crime, coming from Plymouth to East Braintree. +This man was completely refuted by the conductor and +three ticket-agents—no ticket had been sold for such a journey. +Also the prosecution put on another crossing-tender, who had +noted a car at his crossing, near the Manley Woods, an hour +after the crime, and thought it was Vanzetti in the front seat of +the car. And that was all the identification! That was the main +part of the evidence upon which the august Commonwealth of +Massachusetts proposed to send a man to the electric chair!</p> + +<p>When Cornelia examined her notes, and questioned others +in her party, to see if her memory was playing her false, she +was appalled by the thing she saw happening before her eyes. +They were actually attempting to convict Bart of murder without +one real item of identification; solely upon such facts as +that he had been with Sacco the night of the arrest, and had a +gun and cartridges, and had told lies to the police about himself +and his doings! So farcical was the identification of Bart, +and so completely were the identifications of Nick shot to pieces +in the course of time, that three years later Judge Thayer found +himself backed against the wall, and forced to admit that “these +verdicts did not rest, in my judgment, upon the testimony of +the eye-witnesses.” This news would certainly have surprised +the gentlemen of the jury, who had spent a week or two listening +to these eye-witnesses, and had been solemnly assured by +the district attorney himself that never in his eleven years of +office had he “laid eye or given ear to so convincing a witness as +Lola Andrews!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_12"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Almost three weeks it took the Commonwealth of Massachusetts +to present its case against the two anarchist wops. +Thirty times the prisoners emerged from the county jail—at a +quarter to nine every morning except Sunday, and again at a +quarter to two every afternoon except Saturday and Sunday—and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[399]</span> +marched from the jail to the court-house: chained to a +deputy on each side, with ten or twelve policemen marching in +front, and as many in the rear. They always walked in the +street, not on the sidewalk, for greater safety against surprise +attack. Small boys would gather to stare, and the deputies +would command, “Stand back!” It was their only chance to +justify the expense to the county.</p> + +<p>Seated in the cage, side by side, the prisoners would gaze +straight before them. They could not see the spectators, nor was +any one permitted to speak to them, except their lawyers. +After a time the stern guards learned to make an exception of +Mrs. Sacco, who would go to the cage and chat with her husband +until court opened. Poor little woman, she had to bring +a nursing baby with her, and her face, usually bright and eager, +was worn and lined. She would sit all day, silent and rigid, trying +to understand long words in a language that was still partly +alien to her.</p> + +<p>Her husband also would try, and the more he understood, the +hotter became his revolutionary fury. Several times he and his +companion boiled over—impossible to sit in silence while lies +were told and rascality committed under the forms of law. +When the policeman who had arrested them swore that Bart +had several times started to reach for his gun, Bart cried out, +“You are a liar!” A terrible breach of decorum—the guards +seized him and shoved him into his seat, commanding, “Shut +up!” When Lola Andrews was in the midst of her identification, +Sacco rose in his seat and cried, “Am I the man? Take a good +look! I am myself!” Again a great shock, and a sensational +story for the papers. Nick’s picture took the front page.</p> + +<p>Later, when the defense was having its innings, there were +more scenes. The interpreter provided by the court was an +Italian by the name of Rossi; he belonged to the Norfolk County +“ring,” and was a friend of Mrs. DeFalco’s, and of Judge +Thayer’s—he had a child named Webster Thayer Rossi, and +he used to drive the judge up to the University Club in Boston; +if the judge did not discuss the case with him on the way, +it was the only chance “Web” ever lost.</p> + +<p>Either this Rossi did not know how to interpret correctly, or +he did not wish to; at a critical point in the testimony of Alfonsina +Brini, he misstated in English what she had said in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[400]</span> +Italian. Bart knew enough to catch the error, and insisted upon +calling attention to it, and would not let the guards silence him. +Again and again he saw these errors, and to Cornelia, when she +came to see him in the jail, he insisted, “That fellow is a +crook!” Over and over he said it, “He is a crook! Crook!” +Cornelia thought it was Bart’s prejudice against everybody in +power; but it was another of those things that were to be +proved too late. Before five years had passed, Rossi was to get +a two year jail sentence for trying to sell his influence with +judges.</p> + +<p>Such misfortune appeared to dog the patriots who were +prosecuting Sacco and Vanzetti; so many of them got into +trouble with their own laws—but always after the verdict, when +it was too late to count! There was an agent of the Department +of Justice, named Shaughnessey, who had had the job of +watching Red meetings and had supplied a mass of information +concerning Sacco and Vanzetti. This ardent patriot stole a +carload of hogs—a rather difficult object to get away with, +one would think. Later he got twelve years for a holdup. But +when in the course of later appeals, the defense had occasion to +suggest the possibility of improper conduct by Department of +Justice agents, “Web” Thayer was outraged by this, and delivered +a stern rebuke.</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_10"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>And then Captain Proctor, head of the state police. The +Proctor story was so atrocious, that naïve old ladies like Cornelia +Thornwell thought it would only have to become known +in order to split the community wide open. But in fact, it hardly +made a ripple. Massachusetts was so used to official knavery +that it had lost the power to react, even with surprise.</p> + +<p>Captain Proctor had been in the police service of the Commonwealth +some thirty-six years, and was an old hand at the +“frame-up”; among other jobs, he had “made” the Ettor and +Giovannitti case. When Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested, he +was called in by Mike Stewart, and interviewed all the witnesses, +and tried to help out Mike’s “theory.” But in the end he told +Mike, “You’ve got the wrong men,” and withdrew from the +case.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[401]</span></p> + +<p>But still, gang loyalty held him, and when Fred Katzmann +called on him to identify the so-called “mortal bullet,” which +had been extracted from the body of the dead guard, he came. +This bullet was the crucial issue in the whole case; it was what +tied Sacco and Vanzetti to the case, because the other five bullets +found in the dead bodies were of such a size and make that +they could not have come through either Sacco’s pistol or Vanzetti’s. +The prosecution claimed that the “mortal bullet” had +been fired from Sacco’s pistol, and could have been fired from +no other pistol. They put on an “expert” who swore to that; +and then they put on Proctor, who backed up the “expert.”</p> + +<p>At least, that is what everybody thought he did, and the trial +was concluded on that basis; the prosecution laid the utmost +emphasis upon it, because Captain Proctor had qualified at great +length as an authority upon bullets and revolvers, who had been +studying the matter for twenty years, and had been a witness in +more than a hundred capital cases. Said Katzmann, in his closing +argument to the jury, “You might disregard all the identification +testimony, and base your verdict on the testimony of these +experts.” And Judge Thayer put the weight of his judicial authority +behind that; he explained to the jury what the testimony +meant, that “it was Sacco’s pistol that fired the bullet that +caused the death of Berardelli. To this effect the Commonwealth +introduced the testimony of two witnesses, Messrs. Proctor +and Van Amburgh.”</p> + +<p>Nothing could be more positive; and so the matter went to +the jury; so it stood in the minds of all students of the case for +two years. But then Captain Proctor was near death, and his +conscience troubled him; two men whom he believed to be innocent +stood in the shadow of the electric chair, because of a conspiracy +into which he had entered with the prosecution, to misrepresent +his testimony to the jury. So he made an affidavit in +which he set forth what had happened. Repeatedly he had been +asked by the prosecutors to testify that the particular mortal +bullet had been fired through the particular pistol belonging to +Sacco. He had made many tests and measurements in the effort +to convince himself that this was so, but he could not get the +proof, and refused to give such testimony. “The district attorney +desired to ask me that question, but I had repeatedly +told him that if he did I should be obliged to answer in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[402]</span> +negative.” At the trial the questioning had been done by the +assistant district attorney, later to become a learned judge. His +question had been framed very carefully, and Proctor’s answer +no less carefully: “My opinion is that it is consistent with being +fired by that pistol.”</p> + +<p>A verbal trick, you see; the witness meant that the mortal +bullet <i>might</i> have been fired through that pistol; but the district +attorney represented to the jury that his words meant something +entirely different—that it <i>must</i> have been fired through that +pistol, and could not have been fired through any other pistol +in the world. That was how Judge Thayer passed it on to the +jury in his charge; and in after years, with the printed words of +his charge before him—preserved immutably, to be handed down +to the scorn and fury of all future times—the embittered old +man rendered a decision in which he ingeniously twisted the defense +contentions concerning the meaning of the Proctor affidavit +and the answering affidavits of Katzmann and his assistants, +which really did not answer at all.</p> + +<p>It was “Web’s” way, shown in almost every decision he rendered. +You would state something in plain words, as explicitly +as the language permitted; you would wait patiently, a year or +two, while the old gentleman had an appendicitis operation and +an attack of pneumonia; and finally he would hand down a +decision in which he accused you of having said many things +you had never thought of. He would set up a whole regiment +of straw-men, and in a valiant duel chop off their heads; he +would fill pages in the stately law-books with refutations of +arguments which had never been heard anywhere save in his +own hate-tormented head. And then at the very end, sitting upon +his throne with the whole world for an audience, he would +solemnly declare: “With reference to the question of prejudice, +there is not any now and there never was any.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[403]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV"> + CHAPTER XIV<br> +<span class='chap-title'>JUDGE FURY</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Four times each day the prisoners made their march down +the middle of the street, accompanied by military escort. Four +times each day the jury made a march, from their hotel to the +court-house, at noon to a restaurant and back, then to the hotel +in the evening: twelve “good men and true,” with court officers +preceding and following, the aged foreman toddling at their +head—he was to die within three months. It was a heavy strain +upon old men, to sit for six hours a day in a crowded court-room, +in suffocating midsummer heat. The judge mercifully +said they might take off their coats, but their Puritan consciences +required most of them to be uncomfortable!</p> + +<p>Seven weeks their semi-imprisonment lasted; the bored victims +got to know one another too well, and when they were +tired of playing cards they sought refuge in the daily newspaper. +They were not allowed to read, about their own case—the sheriff +cut it all out of the papers; but they read about a court up in +Boston, where Charles Ponzi was being punished for having +made five million dollars without permission of the Federal +Reserve Board. The financial wizard’s digestion had been +wrecked by the ordeal of law, so the papers explained, and he +had to be taken out to a restaurant each day, to get his diet of +little neck clams and cream of tomato soup.</p> + +<p>And then the story of Mishawum Manor, where the emperors +of the moving picture world had been entertained by naked +young ladies dancing the highland fling! Who could have invented +more delicious material for the beguiling of bored jurymen? +The Hearst newspaper put it on the front page each day: +the romantic life story of “Brownie” Kennedy, the “madame” +of this roadhouse; the number of husbands she had deserted, +the millionaires she had plundered and ruined; details about the +“champagne and chicken supper,” the hugging and the dancing, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[404]</span> +and how the guests had disappeared to the rooms upstairs, so +that at one time there was nobody to eat the chicken or drink +the champagne. Later they were reassembled, much in déshabille, +and the young ladies—names, addresses and prices all given—were +flinging their very highlandest, when a flashlight went off +and a photograph was taken of the scene. Most of the guests +were too drunk to know what this meant; when they woke up +next afternoon, they paid a thousand dollars for “entertainment +and breakage,” and thought that would be the end of it—just +as if they had been at home in Hollywood.</p> + +<p>But no, this was a pious Puritan community; and presently +the emperors of moving pictures were receiving letters informing +them that several of the young ladies who had been hired +for the party had husbands, and these husbands were threatening +suits for the desecration of their wives; furthermore, some +indignant moralist had carried the story to the district attorney +of Middlesex County, and that official was greatly shocked. +Middlesex is sacred territory, because it contains the city of +Cambridge, home of Harvard, the center of the center and hub +of the hub. It would take no less than half a million dollars to +wipe out the stain which these Hebrew and Babylonian emperors +had put upon New England culture.</p> + +<p>After much dickering, and threats and counterthreats, the +dispute was settled by the payment of a hundred and five +thousand dollars, which, according to the newspapers, had been +divided among the chiefs of the political “ring,” including the +Middlesex district attorney—no Irish-Catholic “mick,” but a +blue-blood of registered pedigree, a gentleman with two hobbies, +Red-baiting and college athletics. Only a year ago he had led a +spectacular raid against “Red headquarters” in Cambridge, with +a patrol wagon, cops, reporters and camera men, and had confiscated +a load of literature. He was engaged in umpiring the +Yale-Princeton football game, when the newspaper reporters +came to inform him that the Supreme Judicial Court had removed +him from office. Being a good sport, he went on with +the game.</p> + +<p>Middlesex County lies immediately to the north of Norfolk, +and at its nearest point is only four or five miles from Dedham; +so it might occur to some jurymen to wonder, could this corruption +have crossed the border, and affected those in charge of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[405]</span> +the present trial? The authorities deemed it wise to provide +automobiles, with bailiffs for chauffeurs, to keep the jury entertained. +On holidays the twelve good men and true were escorted +to the beach to picnic, and Sundays they went to church +in the morning, and in the afternoon they motored to witness +some of the patriotism rampant in the community.</p> + +<p>On Sunday, twelve days after the trial started, the bodies of +three dead soldiers, dug out of the ground in France, were +buried in the city of Brockton, in Plymouth County, and the +whole town turned out for the ceremonies. On the same day +at Whitman, in the same county, two bodies were buried. On +the following Sunday another one at Hingham, in Norfolk +County. The day before that was the anniversary of the Battle +of Belleau Wood, celebrated by veterans all over both counties; +the day before that was a great New England holiday, Bunker +Hill Day, celebrated in every town. On June 25th, just as the +defense was getting under way, the sacred Plymouth Rock was +restored to place with a new shrine over it, and there was a +great celebration in Vanzetti’s old home, reported in all newspapers +and read about by all jurors. A week later five thousand +veterans of the “Yankee Division” assembled in Plymouth, and +held their exercises over the Fourth of July, the great American +patriotic holiday. On that day the town of Quincy, in Norfolk +County, witnessed the greatest parade of veterans in its history; +the whole countryside echoed with the sounds of firecrackers and +bells and military exhortations. “Never shall America forget +the brave boys who died for her!”—so said the orators.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_13"> + II +</h3> + +<p>And then the college commencements! There are a score of +colleges and universities in Massachusetts, to say nothing of +two hundred and forty-nine high schools; and all of them celebrated +their exercises while the Sacco-Vanzetti trial was in +progress. All had eminent persons to deliver orations, and few +were the orators who did not refer to the enemy within our +midst, and the need for good citizens to stand together. These +exhortations would be quoted in the next day’s newspapers, and +read by the twelve good men and true in their legal quarantine.</p> + +<p>Cornelia took a day off and went up to the Harvard exercises. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[406]</span> +Impossible to refuse, for it was the crisis of the effort to hold +Alice in line, and this was an occasion that would never come +again, the graduation of her only son; the public appearance of +Alice with Henry, and with all the family about her, would set +forth their solidarity to the world, and repudiate malicious +gossip. Such was the requirement of propriety. The three sisters +might quarrel ever so bitterly among themselves, but the world +must see them side by side, going through the formalities with +dignity.</p> + +<p>So now Clara spent the night in the Winters home in Boston, +to keep Alice from taking poison or running away. Deborah +came early in the morning, and the two of them worked with +moral exhortations, and cups of strong coffee, and an expert +hairdresser, to get their distracted sister into shape for exhibition. +Clara rode in the car with Alice and Henry, to relieve +them of the necessity of talking—Clara could always tell a +thousand stories about the progress of her brood.</p> + +<p>Deborah sent her car early in the morning to bring her +mother; and there they were, three middle-aged ladies and one +old one, dressed with the restrained and dignified but none the +less expensive elegance of the Brahmins; Henry in tall silk hat +and frock coat, braided trousers and spats; Quincy Thornwell, +gentleman of leisure, escorting Priscilla Alvin Shaw, returned +from her honeymoon in Florida. They took their appointed +places in Sander’s Theater, bowing right and left, greeting +their friends, exchanging compliments with the nearest. All the +conventions were satisfied.</p> + +<p>The academic procession moved through the “Yard”; all the +dignitaries in their gorgeous-colored silk hoods and gowns, led +by the university marshal, and followed by thirteen hundred +graduates-to-be, all in caps and gowns. It was a special occasion, +because Harvard was making an innovation; for the first time +in its two hundred and eighty-five years, women were to be +awarded regular Harvard degrees—not just Radcliffe degrees +signed by President Lowell. There were thirty-six of these +intruding females, but they were not permitted to leave the +sacred yard with the men, they had to join the procession near +Lawrence Hall.</p> + +<p>In Sander’s Theater the sheriff of the county called the +meeting to order; the dean of the divinity school offered a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[407]</span> +prayer, three graduates delivered orations, and the Governor +of the Commonwealth made a speech. A curious moment for +Cornelia Thornwell, with ghosts walking upon the platform, +in costumes much out of style. How many years since she had +sat up there, and heard Josiah’s stern dry voice? The fashion +in speeches had not changed a particle; they still talked about +the responsibility of educated men for citizenship; they still +rebuked disturbers of the public thought. Said Governor Cox: +“We ought to stop complaining about the wrongs other men +are doing until we are sure each one of us is doing his part +honorably and well.”</p> + +<p>President Lowell arose to confer the degrees; an old gentleman +with a brown mustache and full red cheeks and proper +coldness of manner. He belonged to the inner circle of the +sacred caste, enjoying an income of not far from a million +dollars a year from the family cotton mills and real estate. He +had been a lawyer on a small scale, when the great financial interests +of Boston had selected him to take charge of their university. +Under his direction there had been established a Graduate +School of Business Administration, to put a gloss of culture +upon the crudities of commercialism; the institution had grown +with such speed that it was turning matters about, and taking +a lot of the gloss off Harvard.</p> + +<p>There was a slow procession of thirteen hundred young +men in black gowns and mortar-boards, walking across a stage, +putting out a hand and taking a roll of sheepskin; listening to a +little speech, if it happened to be a “cum laude,” with an extra +sentence if it happened to be a “magna cum laude,” and several +sentences if it happened to be a “summa cum laude.” It seemed +symbolical of New England hypocrisy that these were not real +diplomas, but merely blanks; next day the graduates had to go +rooting in tubs, in the basement of the theater, to get their own!</p> + +<p>The only thrill in the ceremony is when one of the young +men happens to be known to you; then you make a decorous +little noise with the palms of your hands—the relic of enthusiasm +among the blue-bloods. Cornelia looked at the young faces, +grave and pale, mostly, but still clean and alive. She looked at +the sheriffs and mayors and politicians and lawyers and bankers—masks +of cynicism, hardness and dullness. What evil power +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[408]</span> +presided over the lives of men, to work this transformation from +youth to age?</p> + +<p>It came the turn of Josiah Thornwell Winters; and Cornelia +hoped that not many of these graduates were hiding a tragedy +like his. She had heard from Quincy Thornwell the end of the +story: the woman from “Larry Shay’s stable,” who had succeeded +in making Young Josiah think she was only nineteen, and +innocent, was in reality twenty-five, a victim of drugs, and also +of a disease. This latter she had passed on to her victim, so +now he was paying several visits a week to leading specialists, +and his pale set face as he walked across the platform was due +to the fact that walking hurt him. But all over Sander’s Theater, +members of the audience nudged one another, whispering, +“The grandson of Governor Thornwell—the tall one.” They +thought about his blue blood, and mothers with marriageable +daughters pondered ways to meet him.</p> + +<p>There was an elaborate banquet at the close of these ceremonies; +and also a series of class banquets, at which the “old +boys” got together and listened to patriotism and jokes. At one +of these revelries the orator was that courageous patriot, District +Attorney Frederick G. Katzmann, of Norfolk and Plymouth +counties. The chairman introduced him as one who had +set out to rid Massachusetts of the Reds, and the orator accepted +the stern duty, and talked about the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and +what he was going to do to those anarchists. Tumultuous applause +from the assembled banqueters, and toasts from their +hip-pocket flasks, and singing of “Fair Harvard” and “He’s a +Jolly Good Fellow!”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_13"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Back to Dedham courthouse with its high white dome, with +a ring of port-holes like an ocean liner; the jury making its +daily marches, and the foreman saluting the flag; the manacled +prisoners parading down the middle of the street with their +military escort; the guards keeping watch, searching the spectators, +even the handbags of the ladies; the newspapers reporting +sensations.</p> + +<p>The defense was having its innings. Frank Burke, a man in +his fifties, formerly sealer of weights and measures for the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[409]</span> +city of Brockton, and now giving demonstrations of glass-blowing, +had been on the street in South Braintree, where the +bandit car crossed the railroad tracks. The car had passed within +ten feet of him, and the bandit in the right front seat had +leaned out and snapped a gun at him—it had failed to explode. +The man supposed to be Sacco had been in the right rear +seat, and Burke got a good look at him and described him, a +flat, full face, with broad heavy jowl—no resemblance to Sacco. +There had been so much patriotism in the trial that Burke +thought a little would be welcome from him, so he tried it, and +there resulted a curious dialogue between him and the district +attorney:</p> + +<p>“What was the color of the gun you saw?”</p> + +<p>“Blue.”</p> + +<p>“You have seen them, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my boy brought one home from the war.”</p> + +<p>“Did you think I asked about your boy bringing one home?”</p> + +<p>“No, but you were asking me about automatics, and I told +you when I seen one.”</p> + +<p>“You thought you would tuck that in, did you?”</p> + +<p>“I am not attempting to tuck anything in, Mr. Katzmann.”</p> + +<p>“Did you do it inadvertently?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, I am trying—”</p> + +<p>“And have all your answers made heretofore that have not +been called for been done inadvertently? I want you to tell the +truth.”</p> + +<p>Five laborers took the stand, men who had been digging an +excavation, and had witnessed the murder. These men all swore +that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti were in the bandit car; but +they were Italians and Spaniards, having to talk through interpreters, +and it was easy for Katzmann to discredit them. One +laborer estimated that he was forty or fifty feet from the +shooting; Katzmann very cunningly got him to answer a complicated +question—that he was as sure of the distance as he was +that the bandits had not been Sacco and Vanzetti. Then he +measured the distance on the map, and said it was ninety-five +feet; and that finished Pedro Iscorla. In his closing speech +Katzmann attacked all these laborers as cowards, because they +had stood by with picks and shovels and failed to attack bandits +who were shooting guns.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[410]</span></p> + +<p>Two gun experts testified for the defense. Experts always +balance one another—if you have as much money as the other +side. One was a champion pistol shot and department head in +a cartridge company; the other was superintendent of the testing +department of the Colt Automatic Pistol Company, which +had made Sacco’s gun, and he should have known more about +it than Captain Proctor, who had found himself on the witness +stand vainly trying to take the weapon apart. Both the defense +experts testified that the “mortal bullet” could not have come +from Sacco’s gun; nor did they, like Proctor, take back their +testimony later on.</p> + +<p>Witnesses appeared to counter the testimony of the gateman +Levangie, and say how he had told them he did not see the +bandits. The same for Goodridge, the ex-convict; four men +swore that he had made statements contradicting his present +testimony. Too bad these poolroom gentlemen were not named +Jones, Smith, Brown and Robinson, instead of Magazu, Arrigoni, +Manganio and D’Amato!</p> + +<p>And then the witnesses to answer “Fainting Lola”: her +friend, Mrs. Campbell, a white-haired old woman who broke +down and wept because she did not like to call Lola such a +liar; the policeman and the reporter to whom Lola had admitted +that she could not identify the bandits; and then Kurlansky, +the storekeeper, who got his rebuke from Judge Thayer for +having failed to tackle the police and prosecuting authorities +of Norfolk County, all by his valiant self!</p> + +<p>And then poor Joseph Rosen, the Jewish peddler of cloth, +who had sold Vanzetti a piece of suiting at a great bargain +because it had a hole in it. He had gone with Vanzetti to show +the goods to Mrs. Brini, and they had had a long talk. Three +weeks later he had read of Vanzetti’s arrest for banditry, and +had seen his picture and recognized him, and realized that it +was the day he had sold the cloth. He told his story to the jury, +and Katzmann provided a four-hour circus for bored jurymen +by kidding Rosen’s Yiddisher dialect, and asking where he had +been on a certain day a year ago, and where he had been three +weeks ago. Poor Rosen tried to protest that if he had a little +time he could remember some of that; which of course Katzmann +and the jury took to mean that he could have the lawyers’ +help in remembering it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[411]</span></p> + +<p>As a matter of fact it would have been easy for the prosecution +to have verified Rosen’s story if it had cared to, for he said +he had sold cloth to many persons in Plymouth that day, including +the wife of the chief of police. But it was as Lee +Swenson had told Cornelia—hardly any use at all to put on +foreign witnesses; the jury took it for granted that their +stories were “built,” and whether they were all “built,” or only +a few of them “built,” made no difference in the result. Of +course no jury would ever dream that the cultured gentlemen +who represented the Commonwealth would do such a thing as +tell a witness what to say! Never in a thousand years could +they be made to realize that of the five identification witnesses +upon whom the case against Sacco rested, one was a many +times convicted crook, one a hysterical prostitute, one a halfwit, +one a disordered fantast, and one a feeble victim of police +pressure; all five of them persons who had made statements +identifying other men as the bandits, or else saying that they +could not identify any one. And all this known to the prosecution, +and some of it to the judge on the bench—so that the +procedure represented a conspiracy between the district attorney +and the judge, to deceive the jury, to hide the essential facts +from them, and persuade them that white was black.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_13"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>The great day of the trial: Bartolomeo Vanzetti taking the +stand in his own defense! He looked neat and proper in his +new black suit, clean white collar and little black silk tie. He +had grown bald about the temples during his long confinement, +but he still had his heavy droopy mustache; his earnest, deeply +lined face was that of a student and thinker.</p> + +<p>They took him out of the “cage” to give his testimony, and +stood him in the prisoner’s dock, with a little low railing before +him, where for hours he answered the questions of his lawyers. +His manner was quiet and courteous, and his command of +English remarkable; he had profited by his year of study to +drop most of his Italian peculiarities, and the newspapers commented +upon his education, so that Cornelia was proud of her +pupil. Only once did he let himself be goaded by Katzmann into +a flash of “redness”; when he had occasion to refer to the place +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[412]</span> +where some of his friends lived, working on the railroad near +Springfield: “Yes, in a shanty, you know, the little house where +the Italian live and work like a beast, the Italian workingman +in this country.”</p> + +<p>He told the jury the story of his life: his childhood in Italy, +his slavery to a pastry cook, the breakdown of his health, the +death of his mother. He told about coming to America, his +work in the great rich club in New York City—he no longer +called it a “clooba”—and then in the smart restaurant; his +work in the brickyard, the stone quarry, on the railroad, the +Worcester reservoir—near the home of Judge Thayer; then in +a wire mill, then for the Plymouth Cordage Company. He told +about his going to Mexico, because he did not believe in war; +he had learned by now that he had not been liable to the draft, +and he mentioned it, but apparently without result.</p> + +<p>He told about his fish-selling business—and the defense +counsel showed his license to dig clams, and the receipts for +his fish. All the morning of the South Braintree crime he had +been selling fish in Plymouth—in Cherry Street, Standish Avenue, +Cherry Court, Suosso’s Lane, Castle Street. A little after +the noon hour he had met Rosen, and bought from him the +piece of suiting with a hole in it; Vanzetti still had the cloth, +and it was introduced in evidence. He had taken Rosen to Mrs. +Brini, because she worked in a woolen mill, and was a judge of +cloth. In the afternoon he had left his cart in the yard of Melvin +Corl, the fisherman, and had gone down to the shore, where +Corl was painting a boat, and at the actual moment of the +South Braintree murders he had been chatting with Corl. The +owner of the boat-yard, Gessi, had come along during the talk, +and another man, Holmes. Later Bart had dug clams and bait, +and had gone home and had his supper at six o’clock, and had +spent the evening in Plymouth.</p> + +<p>He told about his doings from that April fifteenth to the day +of his arrest three weeks later. He had gone to the club in East +Boston, and had been asked to go to New York to see about +Salsedo and Elia. But there Katzmann and Thayer stopped +him; it was the intention of the district attorney to argue that +the defendants had no reason to be afraid on the night of +their arrest, and to tell lies to the police. Katzmann wanted to +argue that the worst that anarchists had to fear was getting a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">[413]</span> +free trip to Italy; that as Sacco was going anyhow, the claim of +fear was obviously silly. The entire ruling class of Massachusetts +was going to maintain that argument for six years; so +the jury must be kept from realizing that sixty-seven hours +prior to the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti, their friend and +comrade Salsedo had jumped, or had been thrown to his death +from the fourteenth story of the Park Row Building in New +York! The defense came back to it, again and again, but they +were blocked here and blocked there, and the real meaning of +the matter was never made clear to the jury.</p> + +<p>It was the aim of the prosecution, not so much to refute the +testimony of Vanzetti, as to rouse the prejudices of the jurors +against him; to fill them with emotions of hatred and fear, so +that they would be incapable of thinking; to make them see an +anarchist infidel draft dodger as a depraved wretch, deserving +to die many deaths. When the time came for cross-examination, +Mr. Katzmann’s first question had nothing to do with the problem +whether Vanzetti had sat in a bandit car and pointed a shot-gun +out of the rear window; it had to do with the problem +whether the jury was going to find him guilty, regardless of +whether he had sat in the bandit car or not. Said Mr. Katzmann: +“So you left Plymouth, Mr. Vanzetti, in May, 1917, to dodge +the draft, did you?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Katzmann of course knew perfectly well that Vanzetti +had not been liable to the draft; but he went on to rub in the +sneer, with that mock indignation acquired in the course of +eleven years’ service for the Commonwealth: “When this country +was at war, you ran away, so you would not have to fight +as a soldier?” The district attorney was not interested to question +Vanzetti about the South Braintree crime, and try to prove +that he was there; the district attorney was not interested in +trying to break Vanzetti’s alibi; he was only interested to prove +that Vanzetti had lied to the police, and that he was unpatriotic.</p> + +<p>He took up the prisoner’s effort to organize a meeting, and +the pitiful circular he had drafted: “You were going to advise +in a public meeting men who had gone to war? Are you that +man?” “Yes, sir,” answered Bart, quietly, “I am that man, not +the man you want me, but I am that man.” The newspapers +made much of this scene; it was what their readers were hungry +for. “A tensely dramatic moment,” said the Boston <i>Traveler</i>, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[414]</span> +and described how the prosecutor “thundered.” Said the +<i>American</i>, “The district attorney’s voice was vibrant with emotion. +It thrilled the spectators.”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_13"> + V +</h3> + +<p>But it was during the cross-examination of Sacco that the +great official’s vibrations did their heaviest thundering, and +the spectators, and readers of newspapers, got their choicest +thrills. Nicola Sacco had a poor command of English, and had +to call for the aid of the interpreter-crook; also he had poor +command of his emotions, and could be jeered at and goaded, +provoked into saying things that would ruin him. The district +attorney asked him seventeen hundred questions; and more +about patriotism than about anything else. Said Mr. Katzmann: +“Did you leave this country in May, 1917?”</p> + +<p>Said Sacco: “I can’t answer in one word.”</p> + +<p>“Please answer my questions, Mr. Sacco”—“in thundering +voice,” the newspapers said. “One week before the day of +the first draft in May, 1917, did you leave this country?” +There followed a long dialogue, a scene which made Cornelia +think of a deer in the forest, when a wolverine or lynx or +other fierce creature drops upon him from a tree, and chews +into his neck as he runs. That is a common event in nature; +but in this case appeared a phenomenon unknown to zoology—another +animal running alongside the fleeing deer, to keep any +one from interfering with the neck-chewing process. This +creature went by the name of a webthayer.</p> + +<p>“Did you say yesterday you love a free country?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Did you love this country in the month of May, 1917?”</p> + +<p>“I did not say,—I don’t want to say I did not love this +country.”</p> + +<p>“Did you love this country in that month of 1917?”</p> + +<p>“If you can, Mr. Katzmann, if you give me that,—I could +explain—”</p> + +<p>“Do you understand that question?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Then will you please answer it?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t answer in one word.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">[415]</span></p> + +<p>“You can’t say whether you loved the United States of +America one week before the day you enlisted for the first +draft?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t say in one word, Mr. Katzmann.”</p> + +<p>“Did you love this country in the last week of May, 1917?”</p> + +<p>“That is pretty hard for me to say in one word, Mr. +Katzmann.”</p> + +<p>“There are two words you can use, Mr. Sacco, yes or no. +Which one is it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“And in order to show your love for this United States of +America when she was about to call upon you to become a +soldier you ran away to Mexico.”</p> + +<p>That question was, obviously enough, not intended to elicit +any information of use to the jury; that question was, purely +and simply, a sneer. And Katzmann hammered and hammered +upon it; eleven separate times he repeated the word “love.” +First, did Sacco run away for love of his country? Then, did +he run away for love of his wife? “Would it be your idea of +showing your love for your wife that when she needed you, +you ran away from her?”</p> + +<p>Said Sacco: “I did not run away from her.”</p> + +<p>Said Sacco’s lawyer: “I object.”</p> + +<p>But the webthayer said: “He may answer,”—and added, with +his usual cunning: “Simply on the question of credibility, that +is all.”</p> + +<p>So the wolverine or lynx went on with the neck-chewing. +“Would it be your idea of love for your wife that you were +to run from her when she needed you?”</p> + +<p>Said Mr. McAnarney: “Pardon me. I ask for an exception +on that.”</p> + +<p>The webthayer excluded the question; but obligingly indicated +to the neck-chewer how he might go on. “He had not admitted +he ran away.”</p> + +<p>So, of course, the torture was resumed. “Then I will ask +you, didn’t you run away from Milford so as to avoid being a +soldier for the United States?”</p> + +<p>“I did not run away.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you walked away?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">[416]</span></p> + +<p>“You don’t understand me when I say ‘run away,’ do you?”</p> + +<p>“That is vulgar.”</p> + +<p>“That is vulgar?”</p> + +<p>“You can say a little intelligent, Mr. Katzmann.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think going away from your country is a vulgar +thing to do when she needs you?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe in war.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t believe in war?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think it is a cowardly thing to do what you did?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think it is a brave thing to do what you did?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think it would be a brave thing to go away from +your own wife?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“When she needed you?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_13"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>The prosecutor kept at the wife question until he had got +all the hate out of it he could, and then he took up the sneer +that “wops” come to America to make money. “Is it because,—is +your love for the United States of America commensurate +with the amount of money you can get in this country per +week?”</p> + +<p>“Better conditions, yes.”</p> + +<p>“Better country to make money, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Is your love for this country measured by the amount of +money you can earn here?”</p> + +<p>“I never loved money.”</p> + +<p>This went on, until the defense broke in again. Said Mr. +Jeremiah McAnarney: “No, if your Honor please. And I might +state now I want my objection to go to this whole line of interrogation.”</p> + +<p>Said the webthayer: “I think you opened it up.”</p> + +<p>Said the lawyer, very humbly: “No, if your Honor please, +I think I have not.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">[417]</span></p> + +<p>Said the webthayer: “I think you have,”—and went on to +give an argument which for prejudice-carrying capacity exceeded +anything the fertile mind of the district attorney had +been able to conceive. It was the contention of the defendants +that on the night of their arrest they had been going with Boda +and Orciani to visit some of the anarchist comrades, and collect +the dangerous literature from their homes, and hide it until +the storm of persecution had blown over. And now here was the +webthayer, elaborating an even more complicated sneer than +the one about love of country and of wife. Said he: “It seems +to me you have. Are you going to claim much of all the collection +of the literature and the books was really in the interest of +the United States as well as these people and therefore it has +opened up the credibility of the defendant when he claims that +all that work was done really for the interest of the United +States in getting his literature out of the way?”</p> + +<p>Said Mr. McAnarney: “That claim is not presented in anything +tantamount to the language just used by the Court, and +in view of the record as it stands at this time I object to this +line of inquiry.”</p> + +<p>There followed upon this a phenomenon never observed in +any forest; the wolverine or lynx desisting from his neck-chewing, +and letting the webthayer take his place on the victim’s +back! The webthayer liked his mockery so well that he +repeated it five separate times, in detail, and several other times +by implication. “Are you going to claim that what the defendant +did was in the interest of the United States?” And each time +with a broader wink at the jury, a broader grin from the jury +in response. When the defense lawyer objected, “Your Honor +please, I now object to your Honor’s statement as prejudicial +to the rights of the defendants and ask that the statement be +withdrawn from the jury”—then instantly the webthayer was +on the alert to protect the record and make everything look all +right. “There is no prejudicial remark made that I know of, and +none were intended. I simply asked you, sir, as to whether you +propose to offer evidence as to what you said to me.”</p> + +<p>After which he went on to repeat the sneer and rub it in; and +closed, as usual, by telling the wolverine or lynx how to get +back to the neck-chewing: “I will let you inquire further as to +what he meant by the expression.” So, of course, Katzmann +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">[418]</span> +took the hint, and went on, exactly as if there had been no interruption: +“What did you mean when you said yesterday you +loved a free country?”</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_13"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>Poor Nick! He was a talkative, eager young fellow, a propagandist; +and for fourteen months and two days they had had +him behind steel bars. He had boiled, he had seethed, he had +all but exploded. And now suddenly he saw a hope! “Give me +a chance to explain,” he pleaded; and the cunning prosecutor +said: “I am asking you to explain now.” Actually, the great +Mr. Katzmann asked him to explain! The great Judge Thayer +said it would be all right for him to explain! The jury, the +spectators, everybody was ready to listen—while he told what +he thought about America, about Italy, about liberty, about the +workers and their rights, the rich and the poor, good food and +vegetables, schools, free speech, Debs, the capitalist class, +Harvard College, D. Rockefeller, Morgan, working people, war, +socialism, Abraham Lincoln, Abe Jefferson, the Irish, the Germans, +the French, governments, devilment and robbery—everything! +Perhaps he could not convert them, but at least he could +make them understand him!</p> + +<p>Forgive him if his stump-speech is long—he has all the conclusions +of a lifetime to state! Forgive him if it is jumbled—he +has no time to arrange it, he does not know at what moment +they may shut him off again and lock him up for another +fourteen months! Forgive him if it is incoherent—he is groping +desperately for words in a strange tongue, stammering, halting, +starting again, tripping himself up with his excitement, the +intensity of his convictions. And meantime the bland prosecutor +stands silent, smiling—why should he trouble to work, when +his victim will hang himself with his own rope? The judge is +content, for he knows it will look well in the record—the defendant +has had a chance to express himself, no possible claim +that he was misrepresented. Most content of all are the jury-men—because +they have power to punish a wop who is insulting +and defiling all their most sacred Yankee prejudices.</p> + +<p>Said Nicola Sacco, in defense of his life:</p> + +<p>“When I was in Italy, a boy, I was a Republican, so I always +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">[419]</span> +thinking Republican has more chance to manage education, develop, +to build some day his family, to raise the child and education, +if you could. But that was my opinion; so when I came to +this country I saw there was not what I was thinking before, +but there was all the difference, because I been working in +Italy not so hard as I been work in this country. I could live +free there just as well. Work in the same condition but not so +hard, about seven or eight hours a day, better food. I mean +genuine. Of course, over here is good food, because it is bigger +country, to any those who got money to spend, not for the +working and laboring class, and in Italy is more opportunity to +laborer to eat vegetable, more fresh, and I came in this country. +When I been started work here very hard and been work thirteen +years, hard worker, I could not been afford much a family +the way I did have the idea before. I could not put any money +in the bank; I could no push my boy some to go to school and +other things. I teach over here men who is with me. The free +idea gives any man a chance to profess his own idea, not the +supreme idea, not to give any person, not to be like Spain in +position, yes, about twenty centuries ago, but to give a chance +to print and education, literature, free speech, that I see it was +all wrong. I could see the best men, intelligent, education, they +been arrested and sent to prison and died in prison for years +and years without getting them out, and Debs, one of the great +men in his country, he is in prison, still away in prison, because +he is a Socialist. He wanted the laboring class to have better +conditions and better living, more education, give a push his +son if he could have a chance some day, but they put him in +prison. Why? Because the capitalist class, they know, they are +against that, because the capitalist class, they don’t want our +child to go to high school or college or Harvard College. There +would be no chance, there would not be no,—they don’t want +the working class educationed; they want the working class to be +a low all the times, be underfoot, and not to be up with the head. +So, sometimes, you see, the Rockefellers, Morgans, they give +fifty,—I mean they give five hundred thousand dollars to Harvard +College, they give a million dollars for another school. +Every day say, ‘Well, D. Rockefeller is a great man, the best +man in the country.’ I want to ask him who is going to Harvard +College? What benefit the working class they will get by those +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">[420]</span> +million dollars they give by Rockefeller, D. Rockefellers. They +won’t get, the poor class, they won’t have no chance to go to +Harvard College because men who is getting $21 a week or +$30 a week, I don’t care if he gets $80 a week, if he gets a +family of five children he can’t live and send his child and go +to Harvard College if he wants to eat everything nature will +give him. If he wants to eat like a cow, and that is the best +thing but I want men to live like men. I like men to get everything +that nature will give best, because they belong,—we are not +the friend of any other place, but we are belong to nations. So +that is why my idea has been changed. So that is why I love +people who labor and work and see better conditions every day +develop, makes no more war. We no want fight by the gun, and +we don’t want to destroy young men. The mother been suffering +for building the young man. Some day need a little more +bread, so when the time the mother get some bread or profit +out of that boy, the Rockefellers, Morgans, and some of the +peoples, high class, they send to war. Why? What is war? The +war is not shoots like Abraham Lincoln’s and Abe Jefferson, to +fight for the free country, for the better education to give chance +to any other peoples, not the white people but the black and the +others, because they believe and know they are mens like the +rest, but they are war for the great millionaire. No war for the +civilization of men. They are war for business, million dollars +come on the side. What right we have to kill each other? I +been work for the Irish. I have been working with the German +fellow, with the French, many other peoples. I love them +people just as I could love my wife, and my people for that +did receive me. Why should I go kill them men? What he done +to me? He never done anything, so I don’t believe in no war. +I want to destroy those guns. All I can say, the Government +put the literature, give us educations. I remember in Italy, a +long time ago, about sixty years ago, I should say, yes, about +sixty years ago, the Government they could not control very +much those two,—devilment went on, and robbery, so one of +the government in the cabinet he says, ‘If you want to destroy +those devilments, if you want to take off all those criminals, +you ought to give a chance to Socialist literature, education of +people, emancipation. That is why I destroy governments, boys.’ +That is why my idea I love Socialists. That is why I like people +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">[421]</span> +who want education and living, building, who is good, just as +much as they could. That is all.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_13"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>July 7th was the date of this oration. Three days previously +all patriots had celebrated the Declaration of Independence, +with its opening assertion that “all men are created equal.” +If the author of that document, “Abe Jefferson,” could have +been present in the Dedham court-house, he would have been +able to understand the blundering protest of an uneducated +foreigner, chained for life to an edge-trimming machine in a +shoe-factory. But not so this jury, not this judge nor this +prosecuting attorney! To them it was treason; and the moment +the orator ceased, the wolverine or lynx was on his neck again. +“And that is why you love the United States of America? She +is back more than twenty centuries like Spain, is she?”</p> + +<p>Worse yet, the presumptuous wop had dared to insult Harvard +College! The district attorney waited until after lunch, +to refresh himself and gather his energies to deal with such +insolence. “Did you say in substance you could not send your +boy to Harvard? Don’t you know Harvard educates more boys +of poor people free than any other university in the United +States of America?”</p> + +<p>The defense lawyers objected, but were overruled, and poor +Sacco had to answer. If he had been an authority on educational +statistics, his answer would have been that Harvard was educating +free something over one hundred students, while the +University of Wisconsin had educated free in that year five +thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five, and the University of +California had educated free eleven thousand, three hundred +and forty.</p> + +<p>But alas, poor Nick was not an authority on educational +statistics, and could only say that he didn’t know; thereby confessing +to a more serious crime than first degree murder. Said +the outraged Mr. Katzmann: “So without the light of knowledge +on that subject, you are condemning even Harvard University, +are you, as being a place for rich men?”</p> + +<p>More argument, more interruptions; the defense lawyers protesting, +Judge Thayer overruling them—he and Katzmann like +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">[422]</span> +two skillful basket-ball players, keeping the ball in play between +them and working it down the field to the goal. “Did you +intend to condemn Harvard College?” (Objection overruled.) +“Were you ready to say none but the rich could go there without +knowing about offering scholarships?” (Objection overruled.) +“Does your boy go to the public schools? Are there any +schools in the town you come from in Italy that compare with +the school your boy goes to?” (Objection.) And then, free +nursing in the town of Stoughton! The number of children in +the schools of Boston, and what did Sacco know about it! Said +Mr. McAnarney: “I object to that answer. I object to the +question and the answer.” Said Judge Thayer: “The question +may stand, and the answer also.”</p> + +<p>To Cornelia Thornwell, watching this scene, listening to these +interminable wrangles, this was not a real procedure in a court; +this was some kind of crazy dream, a world of cross-questions +and crooked answers, another Alice in Wonderland. Yes, that +was it—Cornelia was in the home of the White Rabbit and the +March Hare, the Mock Turtle and the Queen of Hearts! “He’s +murdering the time! Off with his head!” A world where things +changed their form suddenly, where they grew enormously big +and terrifying and then shrunk to littleness, so that you had to +laugh at them! A world in which a blond and genial gentleman +with bursting red pulpy face turned suddenly into a wolverine +or lynx, chewing a deer’s neck—and then into a basketball +player, romping down a field with a judge! Anything but a responsible +public official, conducting a judicial procedure involving +human life!</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Said cunning old Fury;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ll try the whole cause and condemn you to death!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>They got onto the question of the literature which Sacco and +Vanzetti claimed they had been intending to gather up. “Books +relating to anarchy, were they not?” “Not all of them.” “How +many of them?” “Well all together. We are Socialists, democratic, +any other socialistic information, Socialists, Syndicalists, +Anarchists, any paper.” They discussed for a while what had +been intended with the literature, whether it was to be destroyed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">[423]</span> +or only hidden for a while. Sacco admitted it was to be +hidden. “Certainly, because they are educational for book, educational.” +Said the prosecutor: “An education in anarchy, wasn’t +it?” Said the witness: “Why, certainly. Anarchistic is not criminals.” +This greatly incensed the district attorney. “I did not +ask you if they are criminals or not. Nor are you to pass upon +that, sir.” What a light this threw upon his purpose! And upon +the argument which Cornelia was to hear in future years from +the whole of official Massachusetts—that the purpose of this +cross-examination had been to prove that Sacco and Vanzetti +had not been genuine “Reds,” but were merely making a pretense +at it!</p> + +<p>On and on, with no end in sight. Presently the wolverine or +lynx was back at his neck-chewing—though you would think +his victim must by now be bled to death. “And you are a man +who tells this jury that the United States of America is a +disappointment to you?” Again an objection of the defense, and +the webthayer telling the wolverine or lynx how to proceed. +The judge pointed out that Katzmann had made the mistake of +“assuming” that Sacco was the man. So of course Katzmann +took the hint, and framed it as a question; <i>was</i> Sacco the man? +The lawyers again objected, and the judge overruled, and the +lawyers asked an exception, and then the victim couldn’t understand +the phrase, “passed judgment upon the United States of +America,” and it had to be explained to him: “Well, tell us +about how disappointed you were, and what you did not find +and what you expected to find. Are you that man?” Yes, Sacco +admitted, he was the man; and the jury was greatly enlightened.</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_13"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>The ordeal was over at last, and a court official came to +Cornelia Thornwell, saying that His Honor would like to see +her in his chambers. Another interview with the judge—the +third during the trial! It was intolerable to him that members +of the aristocracy which he reverenced should be sitting +there in court day by day disapproving of the procedure; +he must argue with them, he must explain and defend himself, +he must bring the great ones to appreciate his services. +He meant it for a compliment to them; but unfortunately +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_424">[424]</span> +he paid the same compliment to newspaper reporters and +photographers, and other persons whom the aristocracy does +not recognize.</p> + +<p>He had taken off his black silk robe and hung it on a +hook, and was now a quite ordinary little old man, small, +narrow-shouldered, with white hair and a feeble chin and +bloodless complexion. He rose from his chair and bowed +her to a seat, and she saw that his hands were trembling, and +his blinking worse than usual—he was a tired old man, who had +been through a severe ordeal and was wrought up and suffering. +He was fussy in his manner, over-cordial and lacking in +repose; he repeated himself, saying the same words several +times: “Now, Mrs. Thornwell, you see, you see! You see what +I told you about those men!”</p> + +<p>“How do you mean, Judge Thayer?”</p> + +<p>“You heard the testimony that fellow Sacco gave? You see +he admits it, he admits the worst—they are arnychists, of the +most desperate character—they say it, defiantly—they defy the +court and all society!”</p> + +<p>“But, Judge Thayer, I have always known they were anarchists. +I don’t understand they are on trial for anarchism.”</p> + +<p>“No, but it shows their character, their ideas. They have no +respect for the law—they are men who would commit crimes.”</p> + +<p>“But I heard Sacco’s employer testify that he was a good +workman, that he had not been absent from his machine but +one day in a long time—he was trusted with the keys to the +factory—he had been a night-watchman—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, but Mrs. Thornwell, you should hear what Kelley says +outside!”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, what Kelley says?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot tell you his words, they are not fit for a lady’s ears; +the substance of it is that Kelley is afraid to tell the truth about +what he thinks of Sacco.”</p> + +<p>“Judge Thayer, you appal me!”</p> + +<p>“How do you mean, madame?”</p> + +<p>“You are going outside the testimony of the case, considering +gossip that people bring you, things that the witnesses are unwilling +to say under oath!”</p> + +<p>“I am dealing with people who are terrorized. You cannot +imagine the condition in this community, the time we have had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">[425]</span> +getting men to come forward and testify at all. Think of the +situation, Mrs. Thornwell—what it means, where it was necessary +to summon nearly seven hundred veniremen in order to +get a jury!”</p> + +<p>“And so you think that our legal system has broken down, +and you throw it overboard! I have read that men were executed +upon the gossip of spies in Turkey under the sultans, and in +Russia under the tsars, but I did not know we had come to that +in Massachusetts.”</p> + +<p>The old man’s face showed that he had blood in him after +all. He held up a shaking hand to stop her. “Mrs. Thornwell, +it is a grave impropriety for you to address such words to a +judge who is presiding over a trial!”</p> + +<p>Cornelia rose. “You well know that I did not seek this meeting, +Judge Thayer. If it is your idea that you are free to say +what you please in condemnation of these men, and that impropriety +begins when you hear what you do not wish to hear, +then I would advise you to confine your talks to your social +inferiors, for I have not been brought up to carry on conversation +on that basis.”</p> + +<p>The pitiful old man had risen, trembling so that he had +to hold onto the back of the chair to sustain himself. His voice +became shrill—it was like a thin strip of steel. “Mrs. Thornwell, +I deeply regret having to say such a thing to you, but it +amounts to contempt of court, what you have said to a judge +while he is sitting upon a case.”</p> + +<p>“I will leave your chambers,” said Cornelia, haughtily, “and +trust that you will refrain from troubling me with further invitations. +But I will not fail to tell you what is the opinion of +every disinterested person in the court-room—that the scenes +witnessed to-day constitute a travesty upon justice, the worst I +have ever heard of in my life!”</p> + +<p>She started to the door. But even then the old man could not +give up. He came hurrying behind her, stretching out a hand +that seemed to be palsied. “Mrs. Thornwell! I warn you! You +are letting yourself be deceived! You are being used by unscrupulous +persons! We are surrounded by criminals, by desperate +and embittered enemies of our institutions! You owe it to +your ancestry and your heritage to stand behind us—we are +trying to protect the community—a public service—patriotic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">[426]</span> +duty—a desperate danger—arnychists—assassination—conspiracy—” +they were snatches of words that Cornelia heard, +while she was going down the corridor, not yet out of sound +of the shrill metallic voice.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_13"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Frank P. Sibley was a star reporter of the Boston <i>Globe</i>, +covering this trial in a special effort to be fair. The <i>Globe</i> aims +to be what is known as a “family newspaper,” and has become +one of the wealthiest in America upon a policy of publishing the +name of everybody in Eastern Massachusetts not less than twice +every year. It gives pages of local gossip from every town and +village: “For the Friday evening meeting of the Ladies’ Aid +Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church a delicious walnut +cake was provided by Mrs. Amanda Lubb, who is visiting her +niece, Mrs. Peter Bobbs of Scrugham Corners,” and so on. +Sibley, who contributed to a column of sentimental comment +signed “Uncle Dudley,” was an old-fashioned Bostonian, having +notions of honor and dignity now going out of fashion. He was +covering this murder trial as a high civic duty, signing his daily +articles, and taking them very seriously.</p> + +<p>And here he saw the judge on the bench, forcing himself upon +newspapermen, insisting upon talking about the case with them, +such an impropriety as had never been heard of. Judge Thayer +joining reporters walking back to the court-house from lunch, +asking them what they thought of his conduct of the case; +telling them of other murder trials he had conducted, and of +compliments he had received from justices of the Supreme +Judicial Court of the Commonwealth for his skillful handling +and exact rulings! Sibley could not tell such things in his paper, +for that was not what several hundred thousand families of +Eastern Massachusetts wanted to read with their morning cod-fish +balls. But he thought it his duty to write a letter to the +attorney-general of the Commonwealth—to which that blue-blood +gentleman thought it his duty to make no reply!</p> + +<p>Did a rumor come to Judge Thayer? Or was there something +in the attitude of the newspapermen which conveyed, even to +his obtuse mind, that he was not “making a hit”? Anyhow, he +was anxious; and now in that private dining-room of the Dedham +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">[427]</span> +Inn where the reporters lunched and discussed their stories, +comparing notes so as to protect one another from error, they +were surprised to have the judge come up to them without +warning and announce: “I think I am entitled to have a statement +published in the Boston papers that this trial is being conducted +in a fair and impartial manner.”</p> + +<p>Naturally, the group of men at the table were taken aback. +Even a newspaper reporter must respect somebody, and who +should it be if not the learned judge of the Superior Court, presiding +at a trial which involved the attendance of some two +hundred persons, and was costing the county of Norfolk some +two thousand dollars per day?</p> + +<p>Thayer turned to the star reporter of the <i>Globe</i>. “Sibley, +you’re the oldest. What do you think? Is this trial being fairly +and impartially conducted?” And Sibley had to think in a hurry. +“Your Honor, I have never seen anything like it.” His Honor +stood and pondered that compliment. Some little bird must have +whispered to him that it would be better to take it at face value; +he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.</p> + +<p>And now came the cross-questioning of Sacco, with the judge +on the bench delivering his elaborate sneer at the defense: “Are +you going to claim that your client, in collecting this literature, +was acting in the interest of the United States?” The question +revealed such an obvious effort to distort Sacco’s meaning, and +expose him to the prejudice and hatred of the jury, that Sibley +quoted the sentence in his story; with the result that during the +recess he found himself summoned into the judge’s chambers. +His Honor took him to task for having quoted such a sentence; +no such question had been asked, and the judge had verified it +by getting the transcript of his remarks. He presented to Sibley +a typewritten record, upon which the question did not appear.</p> + +<p>Sibley, of course, was embarrassed, and said that he had +written the sentence down as he heard it; he could only assume +that his hearing had played him false. He was about to ask if +the judge wished him to publish a retraction, when the bailiff +entered, announcing that the jury had arrived. The judge entered +court, and so did Sibley. Next day, when the actual +record of the case was available, the reporter consulted it, and +found that it showed Judge Thayer’s question, in the exact +words quoted in the <i>Globe</i>! Five times the old man had asked +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">[428]</span> +that question explicitly, and several times more by implication; +but now he had got frightened, and in an effort to cheat the +public and hide the truth, he had gone to the extreme of preparing +a doctored version of the record, and trying to palm it +off on a reporter!</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_13"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>The funds of the defense had run out. A collection was taken +among the sympathizers at the trial, and six hundred dollars +raised; but that was not enough. Cornelia wrote letters and +sent telegrams; then, in one of those moods of mischief which +had always been incomprehensible to the Thornwells, she called +up her daughter, Deborah, at the North Shore place. “Deborah, +there is some trouble, very serious—something I must see you +about at once. No, I can’t talk about it over the telephone, you +must come here to Dedham.” She used, as nearly as she could +remember, the words by which Deborah had summoned her to +Boston. The daughter, of course, thought instantly of Betty and +Joe, having always this scandal hanging over her head.</p> + +<p>It was a drive of two or three hours, and she arrived about +lunch-time. Her mother was waiting at the Dedham Inn, and +there was Betty, looking very lovely, though pale and tired—no +visible trace of a scandal. But there was a trace of tears in the +child’s eyes—one does not so easily sever family ties—even during +the class struggle! “What is it?” asked Deborah, of her +mother.</p> + +<p>Cornelia replied that they couldn’t talk about it here. “Wait +until the afternoon session is over.”</p> + +<p>“You mean of the court?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my child, I cannot miss this afternoon, there is to be +some important testimony. You come with me.”</p> + +<p>“To a murder-trial, Mother!”</p> + +<p>“Surely, if I can stand a murder-trial, my daughter can!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rupert Alvin had never done such a thing in her life. +She regarded courts as vulgar places, and attending them as evidence +of sensation-seeking. She might get her name into the +papers; she looked around for reporters, in the same spirit as +her ancestors in this neighborhood had looked for wild Indians +with tomahawks. She met some of the ladies, old and young, who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">[429]</span> +were aiding the defense, and managed to find something wrong, +either socially or sartorially, with every one of them—though +she kept her thoughts to herself. “Mother, is there anything +wrong about Betty?” she whispered. Cornelia said no, it wasn’t +that.</p> + +<p>They sat in the court-room: Deborah straight as a ramrod, +motionless for three hours. Her manner said, Do not assume +that I have any interest in this, or that I give it my sanction. +She heard Guadagni, journalist and lecturer, telling the story +of his lunch with Sacco in Boston on the day of the South +Braintree crime. The murders had been committed at a little +after three; and from one to two, or later, Guadagni had been +chatting with Sacco, discussing the banquet being given by a +group of Italians, in honor of the editor of the Boston <i>Transcript</i>, +who had been decorated by the King of Italy in recognition +of his services in getting America into the war. The affair +took place that same day—which was how Guadagni fixed the +date; Fred Katzmann strove in vain to make him admit that it +might have been some other day.</p> + +<p>“You know, Mother,” said Deborah, when it was over, “those +Italians don’t think anything at all of telling lies to help one +another out of trouble.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my dear, I know,” said Cornelia. “It’s just like the men +of our own family, sitting up nights fixing their stories for the +Jerry Walker case.”</p> + +<p>And when they were outside again, apart from the crowd, and +the danger of reporters, “Well, what do you think of our boys, +Deborah?”</p> + +<p>“You mean those two prisoners? Mother, I don’t see how you +can force yourself to tolerate such people! Dark, sinister-looking—”</p> + +<p>“Most Italians are dark; but that doesn’t make them murderers.”</p> + +<p>Deborah shuddered. “I feel the hate in them—something +frightful! Those set, intent faces—”</p> + +<p>“My child, they are intent upon the question of whether they +are going to the electric chair. It seems really important to +them.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">[430]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XII_11"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>They went to Cornelia’s room in the hotel, and she lay down +to rest. Deborah sat up straight. “Now, Mother, what is it?”</p> + +<p>So Cornelia told her: “My dear, I have to pain you, I must +sell my jewels.”</p> + +<p>“Mother! What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“The defense has run out of funds, and I am not going to +let those boys lose the chance for their lives. I must have some +cash, and there is nothing I can think of but to sell my jewels.”</p> + +<p>“But Mother, how dreadful!” Deborah was shocked into incoherence. +The family heirlooms—they were priceless—treasures +with spiritual associations—surely the children had some rights!</p> + +<p>“You miss the point, my child,” interrupted Cornelia. “I +want to sell them to <i>you</i>.”</p> + +<p>Deborah said, “Oh!” She looked at her mother—no trace +of a smile on the little round face, no twinkle in the soft brown +eyes! Deborah said, “Oh!” again, and began to realize that this +was another manifestation of that sense of humor which her +father had found so untimely. A bit of maternal whimsy had +brought a big limousine rolling its stately way from the North +Shore to Dedham!</p> + +<p>Cornelia proceeded with entire gravity. “Of course I know +that some day you will have these jewels, you and Clara and +Alice. But meantime, I have to have money for this case. You +know Queen Isabella sold her jewels to finance Christopher +Columbus—at least, the legend says so. I want to sell mine in +a still worthier cause, and I offer you a third share.”</p> + +<p>“How much money do you have to have, Mother?”</p> + +<p>“Five thousand dollars. I have no idea what those jewels are +worth—it must be thirty or forty thousand—”</p> + +<p>“We are not going to give up our family jewels, Mother, you +know that, so don’t be foolish. If the money was for you, none +of us would hesitate a moment; but it seems so dreadful to us +to have you throwing everything away on these anarchists—men +who hate our country—”</p> + +<p>“Now, my daughter, let us not go into that. I am making you +a strictly business proposition. I offer to sell you one-third of +my jewels for five thousand dollars. I will give you a formal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">[431]</span> +receipt, and go to the bank and get them the first day I am in +town.”</p> + +<p>“You know I don’t care about that, Mother.” Deborah sat, +gazing in front of her for a minute. It was clear that she was +in a trap, no way out. So with no more ado she went to her +handbag, took out her checkbook and fountain-pen, sat at the +desk, and created five thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>She possessed the power to do that magical thing; she did +it frequently—at the board-meetings of orphan-asylums, in +homes for the halt and the deaf and the blind, in vestry-rooms +and parish-houses of Episcopal churches. The fact that she had +such power, and was willing to exercise it, caused a kind of +halo of glory to exist about her; it affected the souls of charity +workers and superintendents of institutions, of curates and +clergymen, so that a trembling seized them when the great Mrs. +Alvin swept into the room, their knees went weak under them +and almost gave way. Deborah knew of this, and while she pretended +to be unaware of it, the pretense was highly artificial; in +reality this sense of power was what she lived for and by, and +she watched the persons with whom she dealt, and expected them +to pay her exactly the right tribute of deference and excitement, +and if any one of them failed, then Deborah was incensed +against that person—though she always found some other reason +for it, the person was too talkative, self-assertive, overdressed +or underdressed, anything that wasn’t “Boston.”</p> + +<p>Betty, shrewd little minx, had learned to analyze these manifestations: +a fascinating study in psychology, a mingling of +worldly glory with Christian humility, a checker-board pattern, +black and white, in a woman’s soul. To be proud of your money +and what you did with your money was the very acme of vulgarity, +it was the thing which marked you as the wife of a +“lumberman,” or a “Pittsburgh millionaire.” So you were never +proud of your money, you were proud of your lack of pride, of +the distance which an assured breeding put between you and +your money. You associated yourself with the poor and lowly, +because that was your Christian duty; and if the poor and lowly +looked up to you, it was because of your Christian virtue, and +not because you had the power to turn them out to starve and +freeze. If they were really refined and worthy poor, they understood +this, and so everything was upon a high plane; it was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">[432]</span> +God who had appointed all things, and assigned to each his +station and form of conduct, and each did what God wished, +and felt the emotions which God inspired. Such was the collective +soul of Trinity Church in the City of Boston.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_9"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>Other witnesses testified to the alibi of Sacco, supporting +Guadagni. Dentamore, a bank department manager, had joined +them in Boni’s restaurant, and taken part in the talk about the +banquet which the Italians were giving to the editor of the +Boston <i>Transcript</i>. A Boston grocer testified that Sacco had +paid him a bill on that day; he had his notebook, with the payment +entered. Also there was a deposition of a clerk in the +consulate, now in Italy, telling how Sacco had applied for a +passport on that day; Eugene Lyons had gone to Italy to get +that evidence.</p> + +<p>There was more alibi testimony for Vanzetti. His friend +Alfonsina Brini took the stand and told how he had sold her +fish that morning, and brought Rosen to sell her cloth that afternoon. +The district attorney was so angry in his cross-questioning +that he made her cry; it seemed to him unpardonable that +she should have made an alibi for Bart on two separate days, +for two separate crimes; he would not realize that Bart had +been practically a member of the Brini family, ever since his +coming to Plymouth nine years back, and that all the Brinis +saw him every day. The district attorney made Mrs. Brini stand +up while he read into the record a stipulation to the effect that +she had testified to an alibi for Vanzetti on another occasion. +The jury was not supposed to know anything about the +Plymouth trial and conviction, but of course they did know all +about it, and smiled to one another while this statement was +read. The lawyer fellows were trying to tie red tape over their +eyes, but they would not be blinded!</p> + +<p>Another legal hocus-pocus: in order to avoid having the +Plymouth conviction brought into evidence, the defense had +had to agree not to introduce character witnesses for either defendant. +Now the prosecution came forward with a demand that +the jury be instructed to disregard all evidence as to the good +character of either defendant. So Cornelia Thornwell heard one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">[433]</span> +of those voices which had cried to her in vain in Plymouth +county-jail: not the voice of a ghost, but of the far-seeing Vanzetti! +The very trick he had explained to her—his enemies had +made a convict of him, and now were using his conviction to +cast a cloud over both him and Nick, to send them to their +deaths. Mr. Katzmann put on his sternest manner and read to +the jury the stipulation:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“The Commonwealth assents to the request of both the defendants +that all evidence heretofore offered in the course of +this trial to the effect that one or both of said defendants bore +the reputation of being peaceful and law-abiding citizens, be +stricken from the record of this trial, and that such evidence +heretofore offered be entirely disregarded by the jury so that +the result of striking same from the record there is no evidence +before the jury that either or both of said defendants bore the +reputation of being a peaceful and law-abiding citizen.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>All in vain the years that Nicola Sacco had worked for the +Three-K Shoe Company, earning from forty to sixty dollars +a week as expert edge-trimmer, with extra pay as night-watchman +for long periods! All in vain those annual gardens full of +ripe red tomatoes, and the surplus given to Mr. Kelley, the +boss! All in vain the ten dollars a week Rosina had put by, till +they had fifteen hundred in the savings-bank, with the record +of deposits to show that it had been got by labor, not by holdups! +All in vain the hard toil which Bartolomeo Vanzetti had +performed for the owning class of New England, in stone-quarries +and brickyards, on railroads and reservoirs! In vain +his years as fish-peddler, the friendship of hundreds of Italian +housewives, of little Italian children, so that when they heard +of his dreadful fate, they wept and wrung their hands, and +would never cease to talk about him all the days of their lives! +In vain his plea, “Save Nick, he got the wife and kids!” Again +the lawyers made their demands for separate trials, but Judge +Thayer stood firm to save the funds of Norfolk County. Ten +thousand dollars a week for seven weeks was all two wops +were worth!</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_5"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>A bell rang in the soul of Cornelia Thornwell: last call for +witnesses! She knew what was coming, and was not surprised +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">[434]</span> +when Lee Swenson asked her to have lunch with him; nor when +he got a table apart from others, and looked about to make sure +there was no listener. “Well, Nonna, what do you think of our +chances?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what to think, Lee. I have no experience. You +must tell me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I think that speech of Sacco’s finished us.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lee!” Something went weak inside Cornelia, and she +lost interest in lunch. She sat, staring before her, while the +lawyer went on, lowering his voice.</p> + +<p>“One last chance, Nonna. Do you really want to save those +boys? In two hours I can fix you a story; you go on the stand +and tell it, and it’ll cinch the case. You can’t imagine how easy +it will be—Katzmann won’t dare be rough with you—if he did, +I could rip him to pieces with this jury. They’ll have no time +to investigate; they can’t take more than a day with their rebuttal +witnesses, and that is the end—the case is closed, and +anything that comes out afterwards is a joke.”</p> + +<p>“Lee—don’t ask me! Don’t ask me!” That was all she could +say; he saw the pain in her face, and dropped it. “All right, I +won’t worry you.”</p> + +<p>But she could not drop it; she had to argue with him about +the case. “Lee, how can they convict men on such evidence? I +have kept a record: thirty-one witnesses have said Vanzetti +was not the man; twelve others, put on by the prosecution, ought +to have known him for the bandit if he really was, and they +didn’t.” She went on, clamoring her protest. Not one of the +witnesses who identified Bart or Nick had ever known them before, +or claimed to have seen them before; in every case it was +a question of remembering strangers; and to American eyes +half the Italians in the world looked like Sacco!</p> + +<p>“Yes, Nonna,” said Lee, patiently.</p> + +<p>“And the least time afterwards was three weeks—everybody +had three weeks to forget what the bandits looked like! Some, +like Goodridge and Pelzer, had nearly a year!”</p> + +<p>“It’s the jury you have to convince, Nonna—not me!”</p> + +<p>“But you must make that clear to them, Lee!”</p> + +<p>“I’ll do so, never fear. But I can’t deny that they are anarchists; +I can’t deny that our principal witnesses are Italians. +Those are the fatal facts.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">[435]</span></p> + +<p>They sat, with the food on their plates growing cold; something +that had happened to them many times. Life or death was +in the balance. Should Lee Swenson, in his speech to the jury, +stress the lack of evidence against Vanzetti? If he did so, he +might get Vanzetti off. But if Lee knew anything about this +Yankee jury, they would “soak” Nick all the harder; and Bart +had positively forbidden it to be done. Once again he commanded, +“Save Nick, he got the wife and kids!”</p> + +<p>They groped in the dark, and beat bare hands against stone +walls; they heard in imagination those warning voices which +were to haunt the rest of their lives. If only they had known +this, if only they had done that! They went back to the courtroom, +and the case for the defense was closed. And next day +the prosecution put on its rebuttal witnesses—one of them +Henry Hellyer, the Pinkerton operative “H. H.”! He came to +discredit one of the defense witnesses, and the bland Katzmann +questioned him, serenely sure about those secrets, locked in his +head, which would have blown the case of the prosecution higher +than a kite. Actually, Hellyer had in his hand the reports he had +turned in on his investigations; when he was uncertain, he said, +“I can find out”—and he examined his notes, right there before +everybody. And the defense had no idea what was in the notes, +no suspicion of the chance they were losing! The bland Katzmann +turned the witness over to Mr. McAnarney, and that +gentleman said, “No questions, if your honor please.” The +voices of all the future, shouting into the ears of the defense, +were heard by no one. Not a single “hunch,” not a dream, not +a spirit-voice or a telepathic message!</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_4"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>Next morning Lee Swenson and Fred Moore pleaded the case +of the defense, and then the bland prosecutor rose to close the +arguments. He had four hours in which to apply those arts he +had learned during eleven years’ service to the Commonwealth; +four hours in which the minds of these twelve good Yankees +and true belonged to him, to mold and shape as he would.</p> + +<p>For seven weeks they had listened to testimony, most of it +dull and soporific, obscurely related to the main issue. Lawyers +had wrangled, using long technical terms beyond the grasp of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">[436]</span> +uneducated men. The total amount of testimony was thirty-five +hundred typewritten pages, more than a million words. To study +them, and analyze their meaning and relationships, to digest +them and evaluate them, would occupy a brilliant legal mind +several months; and here were two real estate men, two machinists, +a grocer, a mason, a stock-keeper, a clothing salesman, +a mill-operative, a shoemaker, a last-maker and a farmer. They +could not assimilate the evidence, and they would not have either +time or opportunity to try. They must make some sort of guess; +and one who understood their prejudices could determine what +that guess would be.</p> + +<p>The wops and most of their lawyers were “furriners”; but +the genial and friendly prosecutor was their county official, +whom they had elected. For purposes of this trial he called himself +“the Commonwealth,” and in that guise he could say +pompous and magnificent things without sounding foolish. He +was honest, and he was conscientious—he told them so himself, +in grave and weighty words:</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen, there is some responsibility upon the Commonwealth. +There is some responsibility upon a prosecutor who +produces witnesses whose evidence tends to prove murder. He +may think well. He should think long, and he should always +have his intelligence and his conscience with him before he puts +the stamp of approval of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts +upon him as a credible witness before he takes the stand seeking +to prove the guilt of men and if proven will result in their +death.”</p> + +<p>From the point of view of prosody that statement could have +been improved: but the jurors knew what it meant. This was +Fred Katzmann, the prominent and successful, and he would +tell them what to think. For example, about Lola Andrews—a +distracted, hysterical female, who had stultified herself several +times in Mr. Katzmann’s presence. Now he told the jury what +to think about her: “I have been in this office, gentlemen, for +now more than eleven years. I cannot recall in that too long +service for the Commonwealth that ever before I have laid eye +or given ear to so convincing a witness as Lola Andrews.” +Concerning Pelzer he told them that the witness had twice +falsified, but was “big and manly enough now to tell you of his +prior falsehoods and his reasons for them.” (The reasons were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">[437]</span> +cowardice.) Concerning Levangie, who had identified Vanzetti +as driver of the bandit car, he asked the jury to believe that +Levangie had seen Vanzetti in the car, but thought he had seen +him driving when he wasn’t!</p> + +<p>And then the amazing incident of the cap. There were two +caps in evidence—one which had been picked up at the scene +of the crime, and the other which had belonged to Sacco, and +which the police had taken from his home, after he had been +arrested. This latter cap Nick had not seen for fourteen months. +While he was on the stand it was suddenly held up, and he was +asked if it was his.</p> + +<p>Of course the poor fellow did not know what to think; the +prosecutor might be playing some trick upon him, getting him +to recognize a cap which was not his cap, and then accusing +him of lying. All he could say was, “It looks like my cap,” and +again, “I think it is my cap, yes.” Badgered about it, and told +to put it on, he finally was brought to say, “I don’t know. That +cap looks too dirty to me.... It look like, but it is probably dirt—probably +dirty after”—meaning that it was dirty after the +police had kept it for a year and shown it about.</p> + +<p>That was what Nick said; and now behold the outraged Mr. +Katzmann, storming before the jury: “But that is not all, gentlemen. +He has falsified to you before your very faces ... he +would not admit, gentlemen, that the cap was his!” Fred Moore +interrupted, on behalf of the defense, declaring that this was +not a fair account of what was in the record. But Judge Thayer +failed to make the facts clear to the jury, and Katzmann went +right ahead: “Why, gentlemen, deny the ownership of that +cap?”</p> + +<p>And then the Proctor incident; a long, detailed argument to +the jury, to the effect that two experts had testified that the +“mortal bullet,” taken from the body of Berardelli, had come +from Sacco’s revolver. Said Katzmann: “You might disregard +all the identification testimony, and base your verdict on the +testimony of these experts.” And all the time Katzmann knowing +that he had framed a trick question, to which Captain +Proctor could answer yes, and fool the jury as to what he +really believed. Two years later, when Proctor made affidavit +to this trick, both Katzmann and his assistant, Williams, made +answering affidavits—and they were trick answers, seeming to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">[438]</span> +deny Proctor’s statements, but in reality not denying the essential +one!</p> + +<p>From half past two in the afternoon until seven in the evening +a court-room packed solid with human beings listened to the +district attorney deal with witness after witness in that spirit. +The Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts +has never specifically declared that a prosecuting attorney +must be fair; and Katzmann’s successor, five years later, +would be cynically flippant on the subject. When it was pointed +out how Katzmann had concealed the witnesses Kelly and +Kennedy from the defense, because they said that Vanzetti was +not in the bandit car, Katzmann’s successor would argue before +Judge Thayer, as one lawyer to another lawyer: “I wonder if +Mr. Thompson has not an exaggerated and too ethical notion of +the functions of a district attorney.”</p> + +<p>But nothing like that now! To this jury Mr. Katzmann was +the lover of truth, the noble-minded, upright friend of justice. +Also he was the patriot; when he came to the end of a four-and-a-half-hour +tirade, exhausted, dripping with perspiration in +the heat of a crowded court-room, he remembered that the prisoners +were wops, while the jurymen were Yankees. His final +words were a call to local solidarity:</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen of the jury, do your duty. Do it like men. <i>Stand +together, you men of Norfolk!</i>”</p> + + +<h3 id="XVI_1"> + XVI +</h3> + +<p>Next day was Bastille Day in France, and a new Bastille was +built in America. “Web” Thayer mounted his throne and delivered +his charge to the jury. The throne was banked round +with flowers, gifts from admirers of law and order; and +“Web’s” discourse began in a lofty and emotional strain, as if +affected by the intoxicating perfumes. “The Commonwealth of +Massachusetts called upon you to render a most important service. +Although you knew that such service would be arduous, +painful and tiresome, yet you, like the true soldier, responded +to that call in the spirit of supreme American loyalty. There is +no better word in the English language than ‘loyalty’.” Thus +again he related the trial with the dead bodies brought back from +France, and the patriotic exercises going on all over the country. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">[439]</span> +In the copy he gave out to the newspapers he added the sentence: +“Keep courage, gentlemen, in your deliberations, such as +was typified by the American soldier boy as he fought and gave +up his life upon the battlefields of France.”</p> + +<p>The judge was supposed to be guiding the jury through the +mazes of technicalities, explaining the law, what they were to +decide and what not. He took two hours for his oration, and +used more than half of it in legal generalities and moral exhortations. +He talked about God and country, state and fellowmen, +and the highest and noblest type of true American citizenship +“than which there is no grander in the entire world.” He +talked about the pure waters of the government, “the grandest +and noblest in the civilized world,” and he talked about “the +day that little band of Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.” He +used up so much time in that way that when he came to the +mass of identification testimony, he could deal with it only +briefly and in abstract terms. To the alibi testimony of the two +defendants he gave only a couple of paragraphs, and without +mentioning any witness specifically.</p> + +<p>But he found time for an elaborate discussion of “motive” +in connection with crime. In great detail and at great length he +explained that the motive in the South Braintree crime was +robbery—something never disputed by the defense, and therefore +needless to mention. The question was, not if the South +Braintree murderers had committed murder, but whether Sacco +and Vanzetti had been at South Braintree. When the judge +proceeded to deal with the wrong issue, it was plain enough that +he was throwing dust into the jury’s eyes.</p> + +<p>And then the “consciousness of guilt,” upon which Thayer +was to hammer during the next six years of the case! He had +deliberately obscured this issue, by blocking the testimony about +Salsedo and Elia; and now he proceeded to give more than one-fifth +of his time to explaining to the jury what might have been +in the minds of two men who lied to the police when they were +arrested. The judge who had not mentioned a single alibi witness +now found time to deal, point by point, and in great detail, +with the testimony of the arresting police officers, and of Mr. +and Mrs. Johnson, to whose place Boda and Orciani, Sacco and +Vanzetti, had come on the night of the arrest. His charge called +up the most dark and sinister images. “If a person is willing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">[440]</span> +to use a deadly weapon such as a revolver upon an arresting +officer in order to gain his liberty, what would you naturally +expect would be the quality of the crime of which such person +would be consciously guilty?”</p> + +<p>And then the testimony about the bullet. Did the judge know +about the catch in Captain Proctor’s testimony? Solemnly and +definitely he told the jury that the captain of the State Police +had testified: “It was his (Sacco’s) pistol that fired the bullet +that caused the death of Berardelli.” Two years later Web +Thayer would be twisting and turning and wriggling like one +of Vanzetti’s Christmas eels, to make people think he was denying +that he had said that to the jury; but there were his words, +and they were false, and they sealed the fate of the two +anarchist wops. Had not the great Mr. Katzmann told them, +only the afternoon before: “You might disregard all the identification +testimony, and base your verdict on the testimony of +these experts.” To exhausted and bewildered jurymen, looking +for a life-line, this was something to hang onto; and they +grabbed it. Headed by their flag-saluting foreman, who had +said, “Damn them, they ought to hang anyhow!” the twelve +good Yankees and true retired to the jury room to deliberate.</p> + + +<h3 id="XVII"> + XVII +</h3> + +<p>A hot summer afternoon; the jury locked in its room upstairs +in the court-house; the prisoners back in their cells in the jail; +the judge in his chambers; the lawyers, the court officials, the +reporters sitting about the grounds, under the heavy shade trees—the +two sides, prosecution and defense, keeping rigidly apart, +a miniature war.</p> + +<p>Cornelia went to her room in the hotel. She could not sit up; +but then she could not lie down; she would get up and pace +about, doing odd things, aimlessly. Impossible to read, impossible +to think consecutively; if any one spoke, you started; if +the telephone rang, you went faint. No one had eaten; the very +thought of food made your stomach uneasy. Betty would sit +by the bedside and try to comfort her grandmother; she would +start to talk about something, and then realize that she was not +being heard; they would look, and discover fear in the other’s +eyes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">[441]</span></p> + +<p>How long did juries usually take? Anywhere from an hour +to two or three days, said those who had experience. The longer +they took, the better, from the point of view of the defendants; +so you must not be impatient! But there ought to be some way +provided by which the mind could be put to sleep through such +an ordeal. But then, no one could say for how long the sleep +should be!</p> + +<p>“Betty, don’t you suppose we ought to see Bart?”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense, Grannie dear,” said the girl. “You wouldn’t know +what to say to him, any more than you know what to say to me. +Let me teach you the Russian alphabet.”</p> + +<p>At six o’clock they went out, and strolled toward the court-house. +The jury room was dark—Judge Thayer had ordered +the twelve taken to supper. Swenson and Moore were sitting on +the grass—in their shirt sleeves, something shocking to the +proprieties of this staid New England town. Workingmen might +do such a thing, but never gentlemen—unless they came from +the wild and woolly west; it was almost enough to convict their +clients. They put on their coats and stood up when they saw +the ladies coming; they discussed the rumors, which had begun +to fly—how the jury looked, what a court officer had been heard +to whisper. Lee held Cornelia’s arm. “Keep a stiff upper lip, +Nonna! There are many legal tricks—this isn’t the end!” “Oh, +Lee! then you think—” “I don’t think—I wait! But prepare +for anything.”</p> + +<p>The jury was back again from supper. The lights were shining +in the upstairs room, the shades down. Now and then a +shadow moved across. Irresistibly your fancy was drawn to +that room; impossible to be in any other place, to think of any +other thing. The twelve good Yankees and true would be arguing; +now and then they would take a ballot; they would question +the ones who disagreed, find out what was troubling them, +argue again, cite this detail and that, seeking to change the +doubters—but which way? Surely in all that group there must +be some who could think—some who could realize the hazardous +nature of the evidence—the almost complete lack of proof concerning +Bart! But no, Mr. Katzmann had told them that the +reason the defense had concentrated its arguments on Sacco +was because they considered the case of Vanzetti hopeless! He +had said—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">[442]</span></p> + +<p>“What were you saying, Lee?” The lawyer had made a remark +about the swallows; they didn’t have that kind in the +west. Yes, he was trying to help her, to distract her mind! It +was kind of him; he was one of the kindest of men. She said: +“Do they fly all night, Lee? Or does the judge order them to +bed?” And she did not know that he smiled.</p> + + +<h3 id="XVIII"> + XVIII +</h3> + +<p>It was five minutes to eight o’clock. Suddenly one of the +little groups in front of the court-house began to melt and flow +into the building. One, and then another. People were going +inside! Then loungers about the square began to notice it, +people in the corner drug-store; like magic the word spread—the +jury was ready! One of the guards condescended to tell the +lawyers—the sheriff had telephoned to bring the prisoners over. +It took about ten minutes to fetch them; and in that time the +court-room was crowded, and half the town of Dedham thronged +outside. The doors were locked, the armed policemen guarding +them.</p> + +<p>The prisoners in their cage; Vanzetti tense, anxious, his +brows knitted; Sacco pale, almost green. A deep silence; then +came the jury filing in. One glance was enough; every man had +his eyes fixed on the floor. Lee Swenson made a gesture of +despair. Cornelia saw it; and caught Betty by the arm.</p> + +<p>The jury was polled; they answered faintly to their names. +Said the judge to the clerk, “You will please take the verdict.” +Said the clerk, “Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon +a verdict?” Said the foreman, “We have.”</p> + +<p>The jurors rose; the prisoners rose; they stood facing one +another. “Nicola Sacco!” said the clerk, “hold up your right +hand. What say you, Mr. Foreman, is the prisoner at the bar +guilty or not guilty?”</p> + +<p>“Guilty,” said the flag-saluting foreman. “Damn them, they +ought to hang anyhow,” added a voice from within him; but +the clerk did not hear that.</p> + +<p>“Of murder?” said the clerk.</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Murder in the first degree?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">[443]</span></p> + +<p>“On two indictments?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, hold up your right hand. What say +you, Mr. Foreman, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not +guilty?”</p> + +<p>“Guilty.”</p> + +<p>“Of murder?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Murder in the first degree?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“On two indictments?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>A look of incredulity was on the face of Vanzetti. He could +not realize that this had happened to him. He stood with his +hand still in the air, like a statue. The dead, expressionless +face of the old judge was gray. “Gentlemen of the jury, as I +did this morning, I again offer you thanks for the services you +have rendered. You may now go to your homes, from which +you have been absent for nearly seven weeks. We will now +adjourn.”</p> + +<p>The bailiff began his familiar formula: “Hear ye! Hear ye!” +But now Sacco realized what had been done to him; he shouted +above the bailiff: “Sono innocente!” And then to the jurors, +who were filing from the court-room, “Two innocent men! You +kill two innocent men!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sacco had been close behind the cage. At her husband’s +cry she leaped to her feet and rushed to him, and flung her arms +about his neck. “You bet your life!” she cried—the only way +she knew of being emphatic in this strange tongue. “Oh, Nick! +They kill my man!” Her shrieks rang through the room—a +terrible moment; women began to weep.</p> + +<p>Sacco stood, caressing his wife, trying to comfort her; +Vanzetti still like a statue—not a sound from him. But Rosina’s +shrieks rose louder and louder; she fought away the lawyers +who tried to disengage her hands; she was a wild thing, possessed +of more than human strength; she thought they were +going to take Nick away and electrocute him that night, and +the lawyers tried to explain to her the refinements of American +law—the appeals and technicalities, the infinitudes of red tape, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">[444]</span> +the millions of words to be printed and the hundreds of thousands +of dollars to be spent. But she only shrieked the louder, +“They kill my man! I got two children—what I do?”</p> + +<p>Until at last the stern policemen pulled her hands away, and +forced her back, and formed a ring with Rosina outside. +Quickly they locked the handcuffs upon the prisoners—an old +story to the police, American efficiency. Snappy orders, “All +ready! March!” Through the door they went, guards outside +closing about them, twenty-five men in a solid bunch, guns +ready. “Stand back! Out of the way there! Forward, march!” +The sheriff’s men flung a line across the street, holding the +curious onlookers, while down the street into the twilight went +prisoners and escort, tramp, tramp, tramp! Anarchists, who do +not believe in organization, learn a lesson from the grimly +efficient Commonwealth!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">[445]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV"> + CHAPTER XV<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE WHISPERING GALLERY</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Sacco and Vanzetti were back in their cells: the former in +jail in Dedham while his appeals were heard, the latter in +Charlestown State Prison, working at his old sentence of +fifteen years for the Bridgewater crime. Nick, as usual, had +nothing to do all day—a cruel form of punishment; it required +tact and sympathy on the part of visitors to persuade him +that it was worthwhile to stand on his head and walk on his +hands, as a means of not going mad. Bart was now making +license plates for automobiles: the one industry which the Commonwealth +had been able to save from the grasp of private +capital, and which therefore could be used to keep state convicts +from wholesale madness. It was not happy work, for it involved +the touch and smell of acids, which gradually undermined +Vanzetti’s health, and made more difficulty for those +who lived with him in sympathy.</p> + +<p>A black hour for the world, testing the souls of idealists. +Famine in Russia; the notorious inefficiency of communist +bureaucracy had caused the rains to stop falling—so it was +reported by correspondents and explained by editorial writers +of capitalist newspapers. Throughout Europe the White Terror +enthroned; in Italy banded assassins in the pay of banks and +industrialists, murdering the leaders and rooting out every trace +of social protest, turning the country over to that ultimate product +of natural selection, the beast with the brains of an engineer. +Sacco and Vanzetti sat in their cells, and read of these events, +and stretched out their hands to the future, whose children they +were.</p> + +<p>Each in his own way, they would learn to make their appeal +to that future. Bartolomeo Vanzetti, dish-washer, ditch-digger +and fish-peddler, would learn to write; he would labor all day +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">[446]</span> +at a stubborn and hostile language, and conquer it, and shape +it to his ends. He, whose schooling had ceased at the age of thirteen, +would make himself a master of letters; he who had never +seen the inside of a college building, would write such prose as +no living graduate of Harvard had ever achieved; he who was +to die as a common criminal, would defend his faith in words +of elemental eloquence, outranking anything produced by an +American since Lincoln’s second inaugural.</p> + +<p>It would take long practice. Locked up alone in his cell, +Bart would write letters: letters to his lawyers, to members of +the committee and friends of the defense; letters to strangers +who wrote to him, letters to his anarchist comrades of Mexico, +France, Russia. The rules of the institution allowed only two +letters a month, but they did not prevent Bart’s handing a packet +of manuscript to his lawyer.</p> + +<p>At first his efforts would be crude; he would be looking up +long words in the dictionary, and stringing them together, a +kind of Babu English. He would use Italian words literally +translated, producing novel effects. He would concoct strange +polysyllables, apparently of his own imagining; you would start +to smile, until it occurred to you that it might be a new kind +of poetry. To Cornelia he wrote: “Even if we will be killed +at once by the carnefice, or little by little by the confinement, you +remain to hold light the banner of the human vindications, and +to accomplished redemption.”</p> + +<p>And again: “Do not desperate, comrade, of the cruelty of the +human events. Out of every little doctrine all too small and +inadequate, out of every party, petty and inefficient for the great +problems of the human justice and freedom—will ripen the +historical nemesy and the inevitable palingenesy.”</p> + +<p>He began translating passages from Italian books into English, +things which interested him, and which he wanted Cornelia +to understand; he would take her criticisms and study +them, and then try again—a correspondence course in composition, +having the added excitement of a race with the executioner. +He wrote:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I was very beneficiated by your last visit and English-lesson. +In a letter received to-night, one Friend tells me that my English +is not perfect. I am still laughing for such a pious euphension. +Why do not say horrible? Nevertheless, I can made a better +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_447">[447]</span> +translation than the one in argument. I did it as I did for an +experiment, to prove if an almost letterally translation is intelligible. +I show it to some friends, asking them if they understand +it. The answer was ‘yes,’ while it should have been ‘no,’ that +I might have remade the work with much profit and better +result.</p> + +<p>“Of course, as the writing is beautiful in its original, and as +I labored very much at the dictionary, so I was thinking to +have accomplished something worth, and the disillution was, +as almost all disillatin, rather cruel. But when a poor one is +surrounded by many great difficulties, the small ones appear +always a joke to him, and after your visit I found myself in the +best of the mood—that is, I was decided to do in the future +as much more good than the much bad I did in the past. I analized +attentively the original—it is almost impossible intellectual +pleasure—which for hours has made me forget myself, the cell, +and the other sorrowy things.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="II_14"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia’s contribution to the defense was to be a pamphlet +telling the story of the case, and summarizing the evidence of +the two trials. The procedures that she had watched with horror +in Plymouth and Dedham she would now set down in black and +white, so that her friends could take them home and study them. +In the apartment on the north side of Beacon Hill sat the little +old lady all day, her shoulders stooped over a volume of typewritten +testimony, and sheafs of pencil-notes scattered over +the vacant places in the room.</p> + +<p>Betty and Joe came to help, and they sorted and classified and +compared, and argued over this detail and that: identification +testimony relating to Sacco, relating to Vanzetti, relating to both +and to neither; alibi testimony, and refutation thereof; testimony +relating to Sacco’s cap and to Vanzetti’s pistol—where +was it Bart had said he had never fired the gun with which he +had been arrested? Where was it that Katzmann asked him his +reason for concealing the price he had paid for the gun? Betty +would search, and Joe would search, and they filled note-books +with lists of cross-references. The half-dozen thick volumes of +typewritten testimony began to show signs of wear, and had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_448">[448]</span> +to be bound more tightly. Precious objects they were, having +cost the defense two or three thousand dollars of hard-begged +money.</p> + +<p>Cornelia was finding that as she grew older she wanted less +and less sleep. Life was becoming more precious as its supply +ran out, and nature was trying to save every moment. She +would awaken at three or four o’clock in the morning, and the +details of the pamphlet would come swarming into her mind, +she would wonder about this point and that, and presently decide +she might as well get up and go to work. So Betty would +find her working by electric light, having failed to notice the +coming of day. Betty would scold, and try to put her to bed +again. Betty would threaten to get up early too, and Cornelia +would have to scold. The pamphlet grew to the size of a book, +and would have become an encyclopedia if they had let it. Then +began the painful process of cutting down and summarizing; +and every time they left out a point, it seemed that the life of +Bart and Nick hung upon the decision.</p> + +<p>Lee Swenson was retiring from the case: he had done his +best, he said, and failed, now let some one else have a try. There +were tears in the eyes of both when he said good-by to Cornelia. +They promised they would never forget each other—little +danger of the promise being broken! “Don’t worry about the +past, Nonna,” said Lee; “you did your best.” She didn’t know +what to answer; she didn’t know what to think about the questions +that haunted her. What would have happened if she had +done what Lee wanted? Would she have done it, if she had foreseen +the present situation? And what was going to become of a +country in which the law was a cheat, and dreamers of justice +its predestined victims?</p> + +<p>Fred Moore was taking over the case; a lawyer less hated by +the authorities, it was hoped—though this proved a delusion. +He was younger than Swenson, an Irishman and a fighter, +wrapped up in the labor cause; a strange combination of emotional +temperament and keen analytical brain; a man who suffered +deeply—as all men did who took up the cause of the +underdog in America. He, like Swenson, had witnessed dreadful +things, and told Cornelia stories of savagery and corruption that +made her shudder.</p> + +<p>It was Moore’s task to prepare the appeal to the Supreme +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_449">[449]</span> +Judicial Court from the various rulings of Judge Thayer at the +Dedham trial. To this end there must be drawn up what was +known as a “bill of exceptions” in the case: that is to say, a list +of the objections which the defense had made to the judge’s rulings, +together with the testimony concerned. It amounted to a +summary of the case, giving the essentials which the higher +court would need; and it was necessary that the defense, the +prosecution and the judge should agree to every word. The three +parties had to sit day by day at a table, with a copy of the testimony +before them, marking the passages to be recopied, and +phrasing summaries of the rest. A long, slow job, for which +Judge Thayer had allowed from the middle of July to the first +of November.</p> + +<p>Thayer, Moore and an assistant district attorney did the work. +Thayer disliked Moore, but in the course of time he came to hate +the assistant district attorney, and to like Moore by comparison, +so he chose Moore to talk to about the case. A curious episode: +one hot summer afternoon, the assistant district attorney had +left the room, and the old judge looked up over the piles of +papers and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and shook +his head sorrowfully. “Moore, there are mountains of perjury +on both sides of this case!”</p> + +<p>“Maybe so, Judge,” said the lawyer. “But your side has the +most.”</p> + +<p>The old man did not bother to resent this way of putting it. +“I know,” he said, “you think those fellows are innocent!”</p> + +<p>“I do, Judge.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I <i>know</i> they are guilty.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know it?”</p> + +<p>“Never mind how—but I know.” It was the formula of +ruling-class Massachusetts, which for six years they would +repeat; not in print, not for the public, but in the smoking-rooms +of the clubs, in homes or offices, wherever one tried to +pin them down and get the facts. “Never mind how—but I +know!”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_14"> + III +</h3> + +<p>It was going to cost eighteen thousand dollars to print the +“bill of exceptions”—two elaborate volumes; to say nothing of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_450">[450]</span> +lawyers’ fees, and office expenses, and the cost of raising the +money. You got lists of names—members of radical organizations, +subscribers to liberal papers, contributors to charity organizations, +members of women’s clubs—anybody who might +have either a heart or a conscience; you got typists and had +envelopes addressed, and prepared a begging circular and +mailed it, and then with the money that came in you got more +lists and more typists and more circulars—it was the wheel +of life.</p> + +<p>But the returns did not come fast enough. The case was lagging, +threatening to die. The men were in jail, and they stayed +there, and the public wanted to go to sleep and forget them—the +usual way. Look at Mooney and Billings out in California, +exclaimed the young radicals—men whom everybody knew to +be innocent, yet they stayed in prison, forgotten—several years +already, and it would be many, many more. The friends of the +defense were not content to have lawyers pore over the testimony +and appeal to a court without a heart; they wanted to +dramatize the case, to find new evidence, to break down the +witnesses of the government, above all to catch the real criminals, +who had done the murders. They wanted to have mass-meetings +in the cities, to have the story of this Massachusetts +“frame-up” told to labor audiences. Naturally, it occurred to +them, what an impression if a lady of Mrs. Thornwell’s respectability +and prestige would take the platform! They wanted +Cornelia to go to New York and address a meeting; and when +she realized that there was no other way to get the indispensable +money, she consented.</p> + +<p>So then, more distress among the Thornwell clan. They had +thought the limit was reached when the head of their family +defended “anarchy” at home; but to go outside the Commonwealth, +and attack its courts among strangers—that was really +treason. Deborah came and protested with all her dignity; when +that was in vain, Alice quit her “rest-cure,” and threatened to +go completely insane; when this too failed, there was a family +conference, fully as agitated as those of war-time. Great-uncle +Abner insisted upon being brought. Because it was no longer +possible to make him hear a word, they had to write out the +proceedings for him; and every now and then he would punctuate +the debate with his booming formula: “Lock her up!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_451">[451]</span></p> + +<p>They turned the matter over to Henry Cabot Winters, because +of his sense of humor, which they did not understand or +like, but which they knew was the only hope. Rupert would put +the information department of the Pilgrim National Bank at +Henry’s service, and would himself call upon the representative +of the Federal secret service in Boston. Henry would see the +district attorney, and all together they would make a real effort, +and pull the poor distracted old soul out of this mess.</p> + +<p>Henry went to the telephone and called up Cornelia, who +was not supposed to know about this conspiracy, but could +guess. When she heard that her son-in-law wanted to be invited +to dinner about a week from now, she laughed. “Are you going +to bring that information you have been promising?”</p> + +<p>“If it isn’t too late, Mother. I know, I have neglected you—but +I’ve been so frightfully busy! Now we’ve got another extension +on the Jerry Walker case, so I have a little breathing +space. If it’s not too late, I really would like to take a week off +and see what I can find out about your friends and their +problem.”</p> + +<p>“That’s very good of you, Henry; but you know we have no +way to pay for such distinguished legal services.”</p> + +<p>“You pay with your company, Mother. We are growing some +dewberries on our place that are as long as your thumb, and I +will send you a supply in the morning, and you can have them +made into a short cake or a cobbler or whatever you fancy; +and I’ll bring a bottle of Madeira—the real thing, because I +am the only person that knows the combination to the vault!”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_14"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia did her own shopping. She got a live and lively +lobster, done up in a strong paper bag, with two holes in it so +that he might breathe; like a condemned man, he must be kept +alive till the moment of his execution. She got a small chicken, +and some green peas, and a head of lettuce, and climbed the hill +with them in a little basket, smiling to herself—it was old, <i>old</i> +“Boston”! The Negro maid was a-flutter, and Cornelia was +a-flutter—treating Henry as if he were royalty. The remarkable +dewberries had been brought by the chauffeur, each wrapped +separately in tissue paper, to keep it from a bruise; they now +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_452">[452]</span> +reposed in whipped cream and sugar, on top of a thin flaky cake.</p> + +<p>Exactly at the moment of seven-thirty came the great lawyer, +dressed as if he were the principal orator at a banquet of the +bar association. Treating Cornelia as if she were royalty; and +yet smiling at himself, and at her—it was a game you played, +and you did not take it too seriously, yet you must take it +seriously enough; it was a way to make life worth living, to save +yourself from beastliness, cruelty, and despair—the latter, +especially, always reaching after you. Cornelia did everything +a perfect hostess must do, and thinking to herself, “I have not +escaped from the family! I never will escape from the family!”</p> + +<p>Henry liked a good dinner, just enough to make it worth while +to fix it for him, yet not enough to be gross. He praised everything, +purposely while the maid was in the room, so that she +stood, transfigured into a double row of shining white teeth. +It was picturesque to have a mother-in-law who lived in a +tenement; it was elegant to know that she was just as completely +a lady, and served just as good a dinner, as if she were on the +other side of Beacon Hill. All this stayed in the background of +your thoughts, and upheld you in the hours when you thought +about your hysterical wife, and your son who had the constitution +and structure of a marshmallow, and your money-making, +which brought you law-suits and scandals.</p> + +<p>They sipped the real Madeira, and gossiped about amusing +aspects of family life. Quincy Thornwell, incorrigible bachelor, +had been smitten by the widow of a banker, killed in the +war; would she have him, and what would they do with her +three children, and what about the family, the new cousins and +“in-laws” that would be added to the Thornwell clan? Andrew +Alvin had been thrown from his polo-pony and got a +broken shoulder; a man in his forties, Andrew’s one idea of +happiness was to ride a horse as crazy as himself; they had +made him master of the hunt in one of the suburban towns, +where the smart set dressed themselves in pink coats and shiny +leather boots, and rode at daybreak on autumn mornings to the +music of horns, and paid enormous bills for damages to farmers’ +crops. A certain fast-riding young lady was “setting her +cap” at Andrew; her father had made many millions out of +war-contracts, and now they were trying to “break in” upon the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_453">[453]</span> +blue-bloods. Would Andrew condescend or wouldn’t he? It +was typical blue-blood conversation.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_14"> + V +</h3> + +<p>With Madeira warming his stomach and the smoke of a +cigar warming his head, Henry Cabot Winters sat by the open +window, the sound of children shouting in the street below +helping to make privacy for conversation. “Well, Mother, I +have been making a few inquiries about those adopted sons of +yours. I’ve brought some documents.” He pointed to a +leather brief-case, stuffed to capacity, which lay upon the +sofa.</p> + +<p>“Well, Henry, what did you find?”</p> + +<p>“They had a cache of dynamite, and on the night of the arrest +they were getting Boda’s car to move the stuff to a safer place.”</p> + +<p>“How did you learn that, Henry?” Cornelia tried to keep +her tone playful.</p> + +<p>“Needless to say, men who make and plant bombs to destroy +their enemies do not invite me to their meetings. I have no +first-hand knowledge of the fact—”</p> + +<p>“Let’s cut short the preliminaries, Henry. You have been +talking to the police, and that is what their under-cover agents +have brought them. Did they tell you that Rosina Sacco once +had her husband in court for failure to support her?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“That’s another of the stories they are circulating; I can tell +you a dozen, if you’re interested. They say the fifty dollars +poor Bart sent to Tresca to help pay Salsedo’s lawyer was part +of the loot of the South Braintree crime. But I happened to +know that Bart had saved up about four hundred dollars out of +his fish business. Tell me, do your police friends know what +became of the sixteen or seventeen thousand dollars those +bandits got?”</p> + +<p>“They tell me it went to Italy, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“I see! When they started out, they were sure it was in Coacci’s +trunk. When they didn’t find it there, they decided it was +buried in Sacco’s garden. Now, they say it went to Italy. Have +they given you any real evidence about it?”</p> + +<p>“No, Mother.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_454">[454]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, then, the situation is this: all the resources of state +and Federal secret service have been used, and they have never +been able to find that the group or any individual connected +with the group has had any unusual amount of money, or has +spent much money for anything; they have not one trace of a +clew. Poor little Boda, whom they call a payroll bandit, had a +car that was in hospital all winter—”</p> + +<p>“That wasn’t the car he drove, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“Can you prove that he drove any other car?”</p> + +<p>“There is reason for believing it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it wasn’t a good enough reason to be put before a +jury. Web Thayer threw Boda out of the case—but now you +bring him back! I knew him well, a friendly little fellow, a salesman +of macaroni—”</p> + +<p>“Is that what he told you, Mother? He was a salesman of +whisky.”</p> + +<p>“Really? Well, that explains one mystery in the case—why +Mike Stewart couldn’t find any of Boda’s macaroni customers! +That was why Mike became suspicious. But now we have a +perfectly respectable explanation—surely you, Henry, cannot +blame Boda, since you buy whisky!”</p> + +<p>“Not Boda’s kind, Mother!”</p> + +<p>“Well, you haven’t come to argue about prohibition, so let me +see what you’ve got in your brief-case.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_14"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>There was a reading lamp on the table beside Henry Cabot +Winters, and it threw strong shadows on his fine dark features +and thin, sensitive hands. Cornelia noticed that the hands trembled +as they drew out the documents. Was it the toll the competitive +game was taking from the great lawyer? Or was it that +he cared so especially about rescuing his mother-in-law from +a career of crime? Cornelia watched with curiosity what came +out of the brief-case: quantities of typewritten stuff bound together, +reports and correspondence. Henry would no doubt be +able to get access to secret service records; or Rupert would +get them for him. Would it be ethical to ask him for answers to +some of the problems which had been tormenting the defense?</p> + +<p>Cornelia saw some red-bound pamphlets, then a red-bound +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_455">[455]</span> +book. “Is that some of the literature Vanzetti had? Or some +they got at Sacco’s house?”</p> + +<p>“They didn’t get much at Sacco’s, Mother; somebody had +burned most of it. I am told the defense lawyers wanted some, +and all they could find was a four-volume technical work on +the chemistry of explosives. Is that so?”</p> + +<p>“You have come to bring me things, Henry, not to get them.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but you ought to meet me half way. You don’t really +<i>want</i> to be fooled, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Not in the least, Henry. I want all the real knowledge I can +get.”</p> + +<p>“Let me ask you, did you ever sit down and think seriously +and honestly whether it might be possible that these men had +connections with the fighting crowd?”</p> + +<p>“Are you talking about bombs now—or about banditry?”</p> + +<p>“Let us begin with bombs.”</p> + +<p>“I have lain awake many a night debating it with myself. +About Sacco I have to say that I don’t know; I never knew him +well enough—and of course I can’t find out now; one does not +talk about such things to him or to his friends. But I really +knew Bart, and I try to imagine him committing an action that +would destroy human life. He would have done it in a moment +of rage against social injustice; he talked violently, and he +would have fought the police on the picket-line, I am sure, and +killed them. But to prepare in cold blood to blow a man up with +a bomb—I try to imagine it, and it simply cannot be done—it +is not my Bart any longer. I never knew a man who had more +tenderness and pity.”</p> + +<p>Said Henry, searching among the papers, “I have a curious +document, a letter from Vera Figner, the Russian terrorist, in +her own handwriting; I can’t read it, of course, but there’s a +translation attached. She is telling about her days in the Schlues-selburg +Fortress, and how she walked with another girl prisoner +in the courtyard, and noticed that this girl would turn +aside now and then from the path. When Vera Figner 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?”</p> + +<p>“It might be.” Cornelia smiled.</p> + +<p>“Yet this girl had blown up human beings with bombs, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_456">[456]</span> +had done other acts of desperate cruelty. She did them for the +cause.”</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>“Your hearing was handicapped by the fact that you didn’t +understand his language, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“That is true. I learned to understand simple things, but not +political discussions, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Did you read his literature?”</p> + +<p>“No, only what he translated to me.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_14"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Henry,” said Cornelia, “I have seen that book.”</p> + +<p>“Bart’s group were the publishers of it, were they not?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“But you never read it?”</p> + +<p>“No, Mr. Katzmann!”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Katzmann is relieved to hear you say so. It is a dreadful +book, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“I know that it contains the life-stories of various anarchist +martyrs. They were fighting for liberty in Europe, Henry—”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_457">[457]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“A considerable difference, Henry.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You are talking about banditry again, now?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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:</p> + +<p>“‘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.’</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_458">[458]</span> +to the poor. He was scrupulous about it, never keeping a penny +for himself.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_14"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t, Henry.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t worry, Mother. This is a family matter.”</p> + +<p>“Go ahead and tell me what you know.”</p> + +<p>“I know that those fellows were up to some devilment the +night they were arrested. They told a tangle of lies to the police—”</p> + +<p>“You must know what had happened to Salsedo and Elia, +Henry.”</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_459">[459]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“The Johnsons. Yes, I heard that.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“All I can tell you, Henry, is this—if it’s true, the lawyers +haven’t told me.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“I told you I wasn’t going to answer questions, Henry.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Said Cornelia, “I have heard that some of our blue-blood +lawyers have been known to frame testimony.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I never thought that of them, Henry.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_460">[460]</span></p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_14"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“The persons who were blown up with bombs also suffered, +Mother.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I know, Mother—”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know! You haven’t the remotest idea! You cannot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_461">[461]</span> +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—”</p> + +<p>“Now, Mother!”</p> + +<p>“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 other people and about life, and that would be +it. Last week it was Quincy sitting there, and he told me all the +latest from Mrs. Jack’s sickroom; they came to ask for a contribution +to the Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary of Boston, +and she said, ‘I didn’t know there was a charitable eye or ear +in Boston.’ That is our wit, Henry, the tone of our world. We +are raising our young people on it—and then wonder why they +are going to the devil!”</p> + +<p>“You are setting me a large problem now, Mother.”</p> + +<p>“No problem at all! We are living off the labor of these wops +whom we despise, and hold in order with clubs and bayonets. +Think of it, Henry—that man whose head I saw split open was +getting nine dollars a week to keep a family on, and his crime +was that he was asking twelve. We women were getting six +dollars a week, and our crime was that we were asking eight—and +Vanzetti’s crime was helping us! There was the greatest +and richest cordage concern in the country—their net profits +that year were nearly three million dollars! Think of the families +we know who are living off those profits, doing nothing +else, unless they choose! Think of the imbecilities—one collecting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_462">[462]</span> +butterflies and one collecting pottery, several getting drunk, +one doing charity—God save his soul, he is running a mission +for newsboys just down the street here, and keeps it in a place +over a pool-room, a hangout for pickpockets and pimps, where +every now and then they hold a prizefight! But if you talk to +cordage stockholders about going among their working-people +and living with them, becoming real leaders and guides and +friends, spending the surplus product upon a system of training +in self-government, so that industry may become democratic +without revolution and violence—if you should talk about +that, they would say you had very bad taste, and stop inviting +you to their dinner-parties!”</p> + + +<h3 id="X_14"> + X +</h3> + +<p>The little white-haired old lady had got up from her chair +during this stump-speech. She was walking about, and had +made several gestures—a consequence of having been so much +among the wops. The poor soul was bound to be humiliated, +having the truth pointed out to her; she would have to excuse +herself, and blame somebody else—it was human nature. Henry +Cabot Winters understood psychology, and sat patiently, waiting +for the storm to blow over.</p> + +<p>Cornelia began telling the story of Sacco, as Sacco had told +it to her. He had been in the Milford foundry strike, and had +been knocked down on the picket-line, and then thrown into +jail. The police had followed their usual tactics of knocking +down wholesale, for the purpose of breaking the courage of the +workers; it was all that anybody in New England knew or +thought about industry, it was the “American plan”—so said +the widow of the late Governor Thornwell, pouring out her bitterness. +“And remember, Henry, while you are bringing your +indictment against these wops, they learned their anarchism +right here in New England. Nick was a perfectly ignorant +working-boy when he came, and Bart was a religious dreamer, +slightly touched with utopianism. If they became militants and +terrorists, we taught it to them!”</p> + +<p>“They learned it in a foreign language, Mother; and certainly +they followed foreign models.”</p> + +<p>“That is true enough. But men don’t act upon what they read +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_463">[463]</span> +in books, they act upon the realities of their daily lives. The +principal fact in Bart’s life for the past few years has been the +war. The capitalist system was trying to put him into a uniform +and send him out to kill his fellow-workers; and he was resisting +with all his power. To abolish the slaughter of workingmen +for the profit of masters—that has been his leading thought, +ever since I have been his friend.”</p> + +<p>“Does he expect to stop war by blowing people up with +bombs?”</p> + +<p>“Militant anarchists do; they think that if enough workers +would resist, forcibly, to the death—if enough of them were +willing to be martyrs—the capitalist class would lose its pleasure +in exploitation. Whether that is right or wrong is another +question—but that is what the militant anarchist thinks. And +watching the thing as I have done, it seems that you men who +are running our country want to prove him right, because you +shut off every avenue of redress and hope. You corrupt politics, +so that it is a piece of rusty junk instead of a running machine. +You make the law into a net of red tape, in which the worker +is tied hand and foot. You make the newspapers a mess of falsehood +and sensation. Your colleges are busy turning young men +into quick climbers. Your churches have no time for social justice—they +are turning prayer-wheels and saying magic words—”</p> + +<p>“In short, Mother, there is nothing left but dynamite!” There +was a touch of acid in the great lawyer’s tone; it was getting +to be a very long stump-speech.</p> + +<p>“There are two things for the rebel, Henry; one is to die +suffering, and the other is to die fighting. I try to persuade +them that the former is more effective in the long run, but I +can’t always get them to see it. Sometimes I imagine there is a +pleading look in Bart’s eyes, as if he would like to tell me that +he wishes he had taken my advice.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know,” said Henry, “we are familiar with the fact +that men are militants until they get caught, and pacifists afterwards. +It is the purpose of jails to effect that transformation.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_14"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>This duel of moral forces continued until the arrival of Betty +and Joe, who had been to a theater, and then walked home. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_464">[464]</span> +Betty had been told that her uncle was coming, and she had had +no trouble in guessing what for. When she and Joe entered the +living-room, and saw the little white-haired old lady in the Morris +chair, looking so anxious and strained, and the great lawyer +completely surrounded by an array of documents, it seemed to +Betty that the combat was one-sided. “Well, Grannie dear, has +he succeeded in convincing you that our boys are bandits? Or +is it dynamiters they are, Uncle Henry?”</p> + +<p>“Henry,” said Cornelia, “these young persons are so clever +I cannot keep anything to myself.”</p> + +<p>Said Betty, “The efforts of my family to keep me in the +nursery at the age of twenty-three are mysteriously unsuccessful! +I suppose Father and Uncle Henry have been interviewing +the police, and getting all the dirt on Bart and Nick. Let me +tell you some, Uncle Henry—I understand that Captain Proctor +interviewed all the witnesses, and told Mike Stewart he had +got the wrong men, and wouldn’t have any more to do with the +case. Is that true?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t talked with Proctor,” said the lawyer.</p> + +<p>“Well, you could help us so much, if you only would, Uncle +Henry. I’m told that Chief Gallivan of South Braintree says +the whole thing was a frame-up. Make him talk! Make Katzmann +give us the address of Roy Gould, the man who got a +bullet through his overcoat. And those witnesses that Mike +Stewart had at the Brockton police station—surely our good +uncle who loves us ought to get their names!”</p> + +<p>The “good uncle” continued to wear the genial smile which +was part of his stock in trade as man of the world. He was +interested in the phenomenon known as the “new generation.” +He looked at this vision in pale blue chiffon, with a little basket +of blue straw turned upside down on her hair cut like a boy’s; +her cheeks shining from a long walk, apparently without the +artificial aids which were coming to be the fashion, even among +the blue-bloods. An amazing thing that a girl with such charms, +who might have gone anywhere, should be devoting herself +exclusively to Bolsheviks!</p> + +<p>Said Betty, as fast as her thoughts: “Grannie, you look +tired; you have been worrying! Is it because the police say the +money went to Italy, to make an anarchist revolution? Or have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_465">[465]</span> +they found out how Bart and Nick were hiding dynamite the +night they were arrested?”</p> + +<p>“You seem to be well informed, my dear niece,” said the +lawyer.</p> + +<p>“Some day, Uncle Henry, after our boys are on the street—or +in their graves, whichever it is—I’ll tell you what I know +about the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and you’ll think you are listening +to the memoirs of Mata Hari, the international spy. Your +dear niece has become the super-sleuth of the social revolution—if +the movie people knew what I have, Hollywood would be +a deserted village, and studios would rise on the shores of the +Back Bay. It is my job, when the police send a new spy, to get +him alone and remind him that he is an Italian, and get him to +tell me what he has told the police. Do you know how they +found the maps of Sacco’s buried treasure in Lee Swenson’s +trash-basket, and had three men digging in Mr. Kelly’s garden +one whole night?”</p> + +<p>Henry Cabot Winters still wore his smile; but it was not in +his voice as he said, “My niece does not seem to be much horrified +at the idea of blowing people up with bombs.”</p> + +<p>“Uncle Henry, to be blown up with a bomb seems to me a +nice clean experience, compared with things I saw in Europe, +caused by the greed of elderly statesmen whose shirt-fronts +were entirely covered with ribbons and decorations.”</p> + +<p>“So then, because statesmen blundered—”</p> + +<p>“Blundering had no part in it, Uncle Henry—they knew +exactly what they wanted, and they took it. It is the organized +greed called patriotism that I’m talking about. And while I’m +sick of all kinds of killing, it is the men who kill for greed that +I am out to get. Those who kill for a cause, no matter how mistaken—those +who risk their lives for the good of the workers—seem +to me to shine with a bright light in comparison.”</p> + +<p>“That halo extends to bandits, my dear niece?”</p> + +<p>“I will answer you, Uncle Henry, that small bandits break +the law and are punished, while big bandits make the law and +go free.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia thought that conversation had gone far enough. +She knew exactly what Betty had in her mind—the Jerry +Walker case. In a minute more, the child would be referring +to it! “Betty dear, if you love me—”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_466">[466]</span></p> + +<p>“Love you, Grannie? I love you enough to let you think your +own thoughts and live your own life, which is more than anybody +else will do for you. I love you so much that I will suppress +my combative impulses, and show respect to my elders. +Uncle Henry, you want to know if I think Sacco and Vanzetti +ever did a job of banditry. If I knew, I would tell you; but +of course, nobody really knows, except the men who did the +job. The spies who bring tales to the police are earning their +livings by pretending to know what they only guess, and the +evidence they bring is not fit to hang a dog on. I can only estimate +the chances. I have tried with all my might to picture +Bart and Nick committing such a crime, and I cannot do it—the +idea is preposterous and unthinkable. And this much I +really do know—this I would die for—they never were proved +guilty, and their trials were a shameful and wicked farce. Now, +is that a respectful answer, Grannie?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear—”</p> + +<p>“All right; and if it won’t be presuming, you look very tired, +and I think we ought to adjourn and talk about something cheerful. +May I tell them the news, Joe?”</p> + +<p>Joe Randall, who realized that he did not have even the +status of an “in-law” in this family, had retired to a corner of +the room and lighted a cigarette. “It’s all right with me,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“Well, Joe has a telegram advising him that the divorce decree +has been made final, so to-morrow we are going to be married, +and the shadow of the great scandal will be lifted from +the family, and we shall no longer get poison-pen letters in +our mail, and Joe won’t have to go off to his own place when +he brings me home from the theater, for fear one of my relatives +will be shocked by the sight of him staying here.”</p> + +<p>Henry Cabot Winters rose with his most courtly manner. +“Permit me to be excused, and not inconvenience you!”</p> + +<p>“No, no, Uncle Henry, it’s an old story to us, we have been +a scandal for so long that we shall miss it. At least I shall—Joe +will be relieved, because at heart he is an old-fashioned +Virginia gentleman—look at him blushing!”</p> + +<p>Yes, Joe was blushing! It made him cross as the devil that +Betty insisted upon placarding their love affairs before the +family. He knew why she did it, of course—she was determined +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_467">[467]</span> +not to be ashamed of what she was doing—she would +not let them put her on the defensive—her love was just as +true as if it had been blessed by a clergyman. But all the same, +no man likes to be made to blush!</p> + +<p>Henry Cabot Winters behaved with the extreme of gallantry. +“Permit me to offer my congratulations,” he said, and +held out his hand to the bridegroom. The family solidarity was +going to be preserved, in spite of everything!</p> + +<p>Cornelia had her Bolshevik granddaughter in her arms, and +was weeping on her shoulder in orthodox family fashion. Betty +too had tears shining in her eyes—a reaction from the strain +they had just been under. Women, who have been but a short +time emancipated, do not defy and insult the mighty males of +their clan without terrific inner disturbances. They wouldn’t +admit it, of course; they would pretend they were crying over +the end of a trial marriage! “There, there, Grannie!” said the +trial bride. “Our scandal is over, and it wasn’t half as bad as +you imagined. Joe and I have had all our domestic quarrels in +advance, so we can have the fun of a wedding without any of +the grief.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_12"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>The marriage of Elizabeth Thornwell Alvin to Joseph Jefferson +Randall did not take place in Trinity Church in the City +of Boston, and there were no little flower-girls strewing roses +in the aisles, nor bridesmaids with large drooping hats, companioned +by stern-faced ushers from Harvard. Not all the +influence of the Thornwells could have persuaded the rector of +Trinity to marry a man who had allowed his former wife to +divorce him without that scandal which Episcopal Church ordinances +require; neither would the rebel Betty have consented +to be made into what she called a “holy show.”</p> + +<p>The event took place in what was known as the “Community +Church,” a gathering place of eccentric persons who worshiped +the ideal of brotherhood embodied in the personality +of “Comrade Jesus.” As this ancient Hebrew agitator had been +born in a stable, his followers had purchased an old garage on +Beacon Hill, and made it over with whitewash and lively red +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_468">[468]</span> +and blue paint, with stairs going up the side, and a gallery +running all the way round, leading to offices from which spiritual +dynamite was mailed out to the indignant respectability +of the Back Bay. The pastor was a new style Christian with +a sense of humor, willing to marry a young couple whose +scandals did not conform to canon law.</p> + +<p>So, on a warm afternoon of early autumn there appeared +several automobiles in front of Number 6 Byron Street, and +there entered Betty and Joe and Cornelia, with half a dozen +other rebels old and young, and as many wide-awake and observant +young men, who came to make certain that a member +of their profession did not marry the daughter of the most +powerful banker in town without a proper front page send-off. +Some of them carried black boxes, and the “Red” bride and +groom were lined up with the “Pink” pastor in the center, and +there was a clicking of shutters, and a cry of “Once more, +please!” A distressing scene to relatives of the bride, who had +come in a vain effort to confer respectability upon the occasion.</p> + +<p>An extraordinary moment for the Community Church: the +president of the Pilgrim National Bank and his wife in attendance, +dressed exactly as if for a real wedding, and holding +themselves sternly erect, unaware of the existence of newspaper +photographers. Also the older sister of the bride, Mrs. +Priscilla Alvin Shaw, descending carefully from her motor car, +clad in the voluminous garment known as a “maternity gown.” +Also Aunt Clara Scatterbridge—without even having been invited, +but determined to do her part to maintain family solidarity, +and hush the voice of scandal. This wedding, while unorthodox +and unesthetic, was legal; so the horrible black +shadow would be lifted from the Thornwells! No more poison-pen +letters, no more whispers in Back Bay drawing-rooms! +The escutcheon would be wiped clean—and the family was so +relieved, it would accept any kind of performance, in any kind +of made-over garage.</p> + +<p>The bridegroom being a newspaper man, his colleagues +would be loyal to him; those who happened to know that he +had had a former wife, would not mention it. They would +“play up” the note of social drama—the press agent of the +Sacco-Vanzetti Defense marrying into the sacred Brahmin +caste! The young couple were going to spend their honeymoon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_469">[469]</span> +in a factory, getting first-hand information as to the lives of +the workers; the daughter of the most powerful banker in +Boston had actually got a job in a paper-box factory, at a little +less than two dollars a day, and promised to live on it for a +year!</p> + +<p>When the reporters actually got upon the scene, and witnessed +the big shiny limousine of the Alvins, with a chauffeur +in uniform, and an equipage equally costly for the bride’s sister, +and yet another for an aunt—only then did they realize the +explosive power of the story. This wasn’t merely a local story, +this was an “A.P. story”! The reporter for the Hearst paper +had an inspiration: it was a “sociological marriage”! A Hearst +reporter would not hesitate to tackle Jehovah himself, if he +could get into heaven; so he walked up to the great banker and +asked him for a comment upon his daughter’s honeymoon. +The haughty Rupert looked straight over the young ruffian’s +head—he was tall enough to do that. But alas, the mother of +the bride, being less trained in the wiles of “Hearst men,” committed +the mistake of opening her mouth. “Mr. Alvin makes it +a rule not to be quoted in newspapers.” The reporter, seizing +his golden opportunity, explained, “I just wanted to know, +Mrs. Alvin, if your husband agrees with his daughter’s ideas +on social questions.” The great lady replied, haughtily, “My +husband does not agree with <i>any</i> of his daughter’s ideas!” So, +of course, the whole town had a hilarious laugh next morning.</p> + +<p>In fact, the story “took” so well that the word went forth to +follow it up. The reporters tracked the bride to the paper-box +factory, and took pictures of her at work. They tracked her to +the little apartment where the “sociological honeymoon” was +to be passed, and published her in a fifty-cent apron, frying +her first supper of bacon and eggs; they gave the price of all +the ingredients, and a schedule of the “sociological budget.” +They interviewed the ardent young lady propagandist on every +subject with which her father could fail to agree: trial marriages, +love and freedom, birth control, social justice, the banking +system, capital and labor, the Lucy Stone League. Nor did +they fail to call up the palace on the North Shore, and ask if +Mrs. Alvin would come to the phone, and hear a summary of +her daughter’s opinions, and say whether her husband would +agree with them!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_470">[470]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_10"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>One of the McAnarney brothers, attorneys for the defense, +got into conversation with old Mr. Ripley, the flag-saluting +foreman of the jury, and was told, quite casually, how this +foreman had had revolver cartridges, similar to the ones which +had been found upon Sacco, and how Ripley had marked them, +and taken them into the jury room and shown them to some +of the jurors, comparing them with the exhibits of the prosecution. +A thrill of excitement ran through the Sacco-Vanzetti +defense; here, as in the Plymouth trial, was evidence improperly +introduced, never seen by the defense. As fate willed it, Ripley +died before his testimony could be taken. But the jurors were +interviewed, and several swore that they had seen the cartridges; +also Ripley’s widow had seen them.</p> + +<p>It was the first of a series of motions for a new trial, which +were to entertain the friends of the defense for a period of six +years. The “Ripley motion,” and then the “Daley motion”—Daley +being the friend of Ripley’s, who told of the conversation +at the railroad station, when Ripley said that he was on +the way to report for jury duty in the case of a couple of +“guinneys” accused of banditry, and, “Damn them, they ought +to hang anyhow.”</p> + +<p>And then a letter from Frank Burke, the exhibitor of glass-blowing, +telling how he had run into Roy Gould, the salesman +of shaving-paste. The mystery of the man with the bullet-hole +through his overcoat solved at last! Gould had been up in Nova +Scotia all this time; now he was in Portland, Maine; and Fred +Moore jumped onto a train, and the friends of the defense got +the greatest thrill yet. For it was just as they had been told—Gould +had been within five or ten feet of the bandit who was +supposed to be Sacco, and this bandit had fired at him and +pierced his overcoat. Gould came to Dedham jail and looked +at Sacco, and said that he had never seen him before, and that +he bore no resemblance to the bandit.</p> + +<p>So the Boston papers broke into headlines, “New Evidence +in Sacco Case,” and hope sprang to life in every heart. Surely +there would be a new trial now! Surely it would not be possible +to execute a man, when it was known that evidence of +such importance had been deliberately withheld from the jury! +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_471">[471]</span> +For that was what had happened—the salesman of shaving-paste +had given his name to a police officer, and this officer +made affidavit that he had turned it in to both the local and +the state police. Captain Proctor had had it!</p> + +<p>To ardent young radicals that seemed a scandal of major +proportions, and they proceeded to send out press items and to +print leaflets and mail circulars—only to discover that nobody +was interested except ardent young radicals. The great Commonwealth +was content to leave the matter to what it called +“the orderly processes of law”—which meant precisely this +and nothing else: that affidavits would be typed out and sworn +to, and submitted in a motion to Judge Thayer, who would +take a year to study over them, and would then produce one +of his famous decisions, in which the defense position would +be misrepresented, and arguments of the defense would be +met by answers to other arguments which the defense had +never thought of!</p> + +<p>In this case the old judge’s decision was such as to cause +people to wonder whether his hatred had not driven him insane. +He gave his reason for denying the motion in the following +words: “The affiant (Gould) never saw Sacco, according to +his affidavit, from April 15th, 1920, the day of the murder, +until November 10, 1921, when he went to Dedham jail at the +request of Mr. Moore. In other words, the affiant must have +carried a correct mental photograph in his mind of Sacco for +practically eighteen months, when he only had a glance in which +to take this photograph on the day of the murder.” “Web” +Thayer actually wrote those words, and read them from the +bench, and caused them to be printed in the law-books—along +with the affidavit of Gould, which stated in the plainest possible +words, not merely that Gould had not seen Sacco on April 15th, +1920, but that Gould had never seen Sacco in his life until the +occasion when he saw him in Dedham jail, eighteen months +after the crime, and three months after the conviction!</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_6"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>And then the “Pelzer motion.” Louis Pelzer was the bewildered +Jewish shoe-worker, who had made such a spectacle of +himself on the witness-stand, claiming to identify Sacco upon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_472">[472]</span> +seeing him many months after the crime, and at the same time +admitting under cross-examination that he had lied to an investigator +for the defense. Now Pelzer made an affidavit to the +effect that his identification of Sacco was false, and that the +words, “his dead image,” had been put into his mouth by the assistant +district attorney, Mr. Harold Williams, whom the august +Commonwealth was soon to make into a superior court judge.</p> + +<p>And then the “Goodridge motion.” Here was the star witness +of the prosecution, whose criminal record had been kept from +the jury by the perfect team-work of those expert basketball +players, Messrs. Katzmann and Thayer. Now the defense got +onto the trail of the several-times-convicted crook, and obtained +all his record, the jail sentences, the numerous wives, +and the warrant for horse-stealing in New York State, which +would have meant a long sentence, as a third conviction. Fred +Moore and another man ran their quarry down in the little +town of Vassalboro, Maine, and saw his wrists held out for +the handcuffs. Moore was naïve enough to be surprised that +the authorities did not want this crook any more—neither in +Maine, nor in New York, nor in Massachusetts could the machinery +of exact and impartial justice be prodded into action. +Moore, being an Irishman, and emotional, was emphatic with +his victim, and brought down upon his head a stern rebuke +from the just and upright Mr. Justice Thayer for his method of +procedure. Which was all that came of the “Goodridge motion”!</p> + +<p>And then the “Andrews motion.” The son of “Fainting +Lola” was discovered, also living among the “Mainiacs.” He +consented to come to meet his mother, who was working as a +waitress. He reminded her of various emotional dramas in +which she had played a rôle; with the result that Lola had +more hysterics, and broke down and admitted that her testimony +against Sacco had been “framed.” In the presence of two +well-known labor leaders she signed an affidavit, declaring that +her reason for swearing Sacco’s life away was that “the Commonwealth +was in possession of facts relative to the private +life of the affiant which the affiant was not desirous of having +brought out on the witness stand,” and that by threats based +on that knowledge she was “coerced and intimidated.” She +named the four men who had done this; one was Mike Stewart, +inventor of the “theory,” another was Brouillard, a police +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_473">[473]</span> +officer, the third was Mr. Harold Williams, soon to be a judge, +and the fourth was District Attorney Frederick G. Katzmann.</p> + +<p>Another thrill ran through the little band of defenders. For +Lola Andrews had been the other star witness of the prosecution—it +was she of whom Katzmann had said with such intense +solemnity to the jury, “I cannot recall that ever before I have +laid eye or given ear to so convincing a witness as Lola Andrews.” +Even the capitalist newspapers were moved to protest +now; the Boston <i>American</i> declared that either Lola was crazy, +“or else some one in the district attorney’s office at that time +ought to be arrested and tried for attempted murder.” Upon +reading that, the police authorities of the august Commonwealth +got busy—not to arrest themselves for attempted murder, +but to compel Lola and Louis to sign new affidavits, declaring +that their previous affidavits were false, and had been +obtained by threats from the defense lawyers.</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_5"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>The Great Novelist who makes up history was desirous of +making a perfect melodrama, and also a perfect demonstration +of class justice, out of the Sacco-Vanzetti case. To that end it +was necessary to provide an answer to the question: what +would happen in the pious Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts +if a rich man were to commit a murder? While Sacco +and Vanzetti were in jail, awaiting trial, a poor devil of a +Swede by the name of Johnson, having a wife and two young +children, but no job, and no food in the house, and no coal in +the month of January, went into some woods on a private +estate, with a saw and wheelbarrow, for the purpose of gathering +dead wood, which was lying in profusion on the ground. +The aged owner of this estate was a Cunningham, a name of +great honor in the fashionable town of Milton; and in the +pride of his name and great possessions he took a rifle and shot +the unarmed Swede. He fired without aiming; the victim had +just got over a fence, escaping. The killer was arrested and +brought to Dedham jail, and spent eight days in a cell near +Sacco, and then was politely bailed out.</p> + +<p>Cornelia, in her thinking about Massachusetts justice, had +imagined a rich person committing murder, and had guessed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_474">[474]</span> +that such a person would be declared insane. But the case of +Commonwealth <i>vs.</i> Cunningham showed her that she had expected +too much from the law. The blue-blood families keep +their insane members hidden away in remote wings of old mansions, +and do not permit the stigma to be put upon them in +public proceedings. For thirteen months the killer of John Johnson +did not even have to make a plea. At last he was brought to +trial in Dedham Court House, where Sacco and Vanzetti had +faced the jury. Public feeling had cooled off; and no evidence +was produced to prove that he was either an anarchist, an infidel, +or a draft dodger. So the stern Mr. Katzmann became gracious +and mild; the crime was called “justifiable homicide,” and +the killer was acquitted.</p> + +<p>Also it was necessary to the perfection of the Sacco-Vanzetti +melodrama that the victims should have continual evidence of +the venality of their persecutors. The Great Novelist arranged +it that three more times during the next six years emissaries +should come to the defense, pointing out the folly of spending +so much money upon lawyers’ fees and circulars, when the +small sum of fifty thousand dollars, slipped to the right lawyers, +would set their two friends “on the street.” And lest the +young radicals should be unable to believe that these emissaries +really possessed the power they claimed, the Great Novelist +caused what was known as the “Coakley-Pelletier scandal” to +break into continuous explosion, after the fashion of Chinese +firecrackers strung on a line all the way along a city street. +For months the newspapers were filled with picturesque details +about the crimes and sexual misadventures of Boston millionaires, +and the prices they had paid to politicians and officials.</p> + +<p>Dan Coakley was a Democratic lawyer, who had run the city +of Cambridge for some twenty years: a lively personality who +had begun life as a street-car conductor and had given up his +job when the company installed machines to register fares. He +had his license as a conductor, signed by the superintendent of +the company, with the words scrawled across it: “Discharged +for neglect of duty.” It had amused Dan to frame this document, +and hang it in his law office, while he was preparing damage +suits which cost the company hundreds of thousands of +dollars. Needless to say, he was an ardent patriot; he had paid +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_475">[475]</span> +the expenses of the Massachusetts delegation to the Democratic +convention in San Francisco, so that they might vote for the +Quaker attorney-general, who was so heroically smashing the +Reds. For years, if you wanted to get out of trouble in either +Middlesex or Suffolk County, the password was, “See Coakley.”</p> + +<p>The district attorney of Suffolk County, which includes the +city of Boston, was “Joe” Pelletier. (All Massachusetts statesmen +go by their pet names, unless they have a great deal of +money.) “Joe” likewise was an ardent patriot, and never lost +a chance to deliver an oration for God, country, and the pope. +He was National Advocate for the Knights of Columbus, +which is the political auxiliary of the Catholic Church; he had +been knighted by the pope; and it was his job to drop charges +against wealthy criminals, after they had paid proper retaining +fees to the proper lawyers.</p> + +<p>This had been going on for so many years, under the protection +of the flag and the crucifix, that the ring had got bold, +and had taken to “framing” cases against victims. That was all +right when it was a couple of anarchist “wops,” but it was a +different matter when it meant sending women to lure rich +blue-bloods into bed, and have detectives smash in the doors +and take photographs of them. The “ring” had a regularly paid +staff of women, and three apartments in the Back Bay. In one +case they had gone so far as to have the woman hidden in a +closet, unknown to the victim, and in this way they had got an +enormous sum from a terrified old railroad president—an +Adams, and a “right” one! In another case they had collected +forty thousand dollars from a man on his deathbed.</p> + + +<h3 id="XVI_2"> + XVI +</h3> + +<p>It was after the trapping of Josiah Thornwell Winters that +the blue-bloods decided to smash this “ring.” Councils were +held in the Union Club, and a citizen who had no scandals was +found—the head of the Watch and Ward Society—and persuaded +to the dangerous job. Godfrey L. Cabot was his name, +and before he got through, it was a well-known name to the +readers of Boston newspapers. For of course the ring knew +what he was doing before he knew it himself, and was setting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_476">[476]</span> +traps for him after a fashion too fantastic for anything but +reality. Mr. Cabot got a dictaphone in Coakley’s office, and +hired a spy to hire himself to Coakley and arrange to bribe +Pelletier. But presently the spy was arrested, and Godfrey L. +Cabot was indicted for hiring a man to offer bribes. The climax +of hilarity came when it was revealed that it was Dan who had +hired the spy, to get himself hired by Godfrey to come and +hire Dan to bribe Joe!</p> + +<p>Impossible to imagine more melodrama than this scandal +provided for the readers of Boston newspapers through the +better part of a year! Underworld ladies trapped into telling +their stories, with stenographers hidden behind screens; elderly +blue-bloods “railroaded” into lunatic asylums for their money; +hotel proprietors forced to part with their property for a small +part of its value; the “badger game” and the “shakedown,” +the “girl with the dimpled nose,” a “visiting actress,” “the +Egyptian mystic, Omar Kaldah”! Hardly a day without a new +millionaire in the pillory, or a “scion of wealth” relieved of his +patrimony! A series of sensational trials, with witnesses +“grilled” and “broken” by great lawyers who “thundered” and +“stormed.” United States Senator “Jim” Reed, endowed with +the voice of a bull, defending his Democratic colleague, “Joe”:</p> + +<p>“Does this diabolical persecution spring from religious prejudice? +Is that the thing which inspires Cabot and his crew; that +makes them gather witnesses from the four quarters of the +earth; that gives protection to the criminal and the near-criminal? +I do not know, but this I boldly say, that I have never +seen such digging in the catacombs of the past, such raking of +the dust of time, such malicious ingenuity, such fixed determination +as we have witnessed.”</p> + +<p>And then the attorney-general, answering the bull-voiced +senator, and describing the “national advocate” of the Knights +of Columbus in metaphors taken from classical oratory:</p> + +<p>“The sword of justice was placed in his hands and he made +of it a highwayman’s club. He used the scales of justice to +weigh the price of corrupt favors. He has bartered the powers +of his great office to the highest bidder. For personal ends he +has protected the criminal and oppressed the innocent. He has +so far forgotten his honor and his oath that he has brought +reproach upon the fair name of the Commonwealth, has allowed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_477">[477]</span> +her mantle to be dragged in the mire, has debauched his +high office for his own selfish ends, and like Esau of old, has +sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.” No wonder the life +of the attorney-general was threatened, and guards had to +protect his home!</p> + +<p>Also Dan Coakley was indicted and tried. The blue-bloods +employed no less than thirty-six detectives to guard the jury; +when Dan was acquitted, the blue-bloods wished they had hired +more of them. However, 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!</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Thus people’s friend “Joe,” soon to be tried by that same +tribunal!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_478">[478]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI"> + CHAPTER XVI<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE LAW’S DELAY</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> 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:</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_479">[479]</span> +with simplicity as Reclu and others did. I will learn a good +deal from this lecture. I feel the fever of knowledge in me.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“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.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="II_15"> + II +</h3> + +<p>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:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_480">[480]</span> +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.’”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_481">[481]</span> +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.”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_15"> + III +</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_482">[482]</span> +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!</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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 the State House.” By stages of graft you +could mount, higher and higher, until you found yourself dealing +in millions, and associating with the great bankers, who had +loaned money to state legislators without security; these legislators +had bought Elevated Railway stock, and had then voted +a bill guaranteeing dividends, thus causing twenty-five million +dollars worth of stock to jump from twenty-five to ninety. +Rupert Alvin and his Pilgrim National crowd had not even had +the inconvenience of being indicted for that crime; one rebel +legislator, Thomas A. Niland, one opponent of graft among politicians, +had hired a sandwich-man and set him to picket the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_483">[483]</span> +Court House with a sign, reading: “Mr. District Attorney, indict +the bribe givers and bribe takers of the Boston Elevated.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_15"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>The Jerry Walker case came to trial. More than five years +after his properties had been taken from him, the manufacturer +of felt got a chance to tell his troubles to a jury, and the +public to see what happened to big bandits in the august Commonwealth +of Massachusetts. The case was tried in Dedham +Court House with the round white dome and portholes like an +ocean liner; and it was destined to be appealed to the Supreme +Judicial Court, and finally decided within four weeks of the +Sacco-Vanzetti case.</p> + +<p>The Jerry Walker trial lasted from the beginning of November, +1923, to the end of November, 1924; the longest law-battle +ever known in the history of the Commonwealth. During that +period of time Cornelia Thornwell heard about little else when +she was in touch with her family. Two of her sons-in-law, two +nephews-in-law, and two cousins-in-law were involved, and the +families ate, slept, walked, rode and prayed with the case for the +whole thirteen months. It was not merely that fifteen millions +of dollars were at stake, but the family honor, and the safety +of the country’s banking system; for if Jerry Walker won his +case, all the business men who had lost their properties to +bankers would set up similar claims. What would be the fun +in banking, if you were confined to the interest on your funds, +and could not use your control of credit to get possession of +industry?</p> + +<p>Cornelia was making it a rule to visit Sacco once or twice +a month in Dedham jail, and she would stop at the court-house +and watch the great duel of law. No guards with rifles on the +steps, no gruff policemen to search your hand-bag, no steel cage +for the defendants! No; for these were not the little bandits +who break the law, these were the big bandits who make the law. +Everything quiet and dignified, in the Harvard manner. With +the exception of poor Jerry Walker himself, everybody was +Harvard—the real reason poor Jerry had lost out.</p> + +<p>Polished gentlemen, with soft voices and slow drawls, dressed +with elegance, and always immaculate, regardless of weather +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_484">[484]</span> +and possible weaknesses of the flesh, arguing fine points of +law, and presenting mountains of documents and miles of figures +to a bewildered jury. You would not have guessed that +there was anything very special or thrilling in process—unless +you knew the sacred names, and realized that here were the +bluest of blue-bloods, the center of the center and hub of +the hub. These men who sat on hard benches listening, who +took the witness-stand to testify for days and sometimes weeks, +were the inner ring of those who held the financial and industrial +power of New England for their own. There were times +when, if you had sat with an adding machine, and tabulated the +wealth owned by men in the court-room, it would have amounted +to several hundred million dollars; if you had counted the +wealth of other persons which they controlled, and used to +sway markets and support credit for their own advantage, it +would have totaled billions.</p> + +<p>The trial would occupy a hundred and eighty-seven days of +actual hearings; more than two thousand exceptions would be +taken to the judge’s rulings, to be submitted to the higher court; +the testimony would be close to six million words, and the cost +of the procedure to the County of Norfolk would be more than +two hundred thousand dollars. Out of its great generosity of +heart, the legislature went so far as to pass a special measure, +providing for the payment of nine dollars a day to the jurymen +in this case—and the bill was made retroactive! It was in the +public interest that these wholesale bandits should fight out +their fights in a court-room, instead of hiring private armies +and settling it on the streets. When the issue had been decided, +these two facts would stand out: first, that Harvard blue-bloods +had the money; and second, that their fellow-members of the +Union Club had permitted them to keep it.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_15"> + V +</h3> + +<p>To Cornelia Thornwell the really significant thing was this: +that so many concerned with the defense of the case were +lying. The great bankers were hiding what they had done to +Jerry Walker, and their great lawyers were sitting down with +them, day after day and night after night, framing what they +were going to say. For five years Cornelia had known that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_485">[485]</span> +they would do this; it was so well understood in the family +that nobody was equal to the task of attempting to fool her. +There were fifteen millions of dollars at stake; and the driving +power of this sum was so colossal that it swept every barrier +before it, and truth, honor, dignity, justice, law, country, God +and religion went out like the contents of a chicken-ranch when +a dam bursts at the head of a valley.</p> + +<p>Privately these bankers were quarreling bitterly among themselves +as Cornelia knew; the wives were cutting one another at +bridge-parties, and families were riven pro tem. But on the +witness-stand every man stood by the ship, and obeyed the +orders of the captain, Rupert Alvin. Cornelia got a new understanding +of her oldest son-in-law. He had always seemed to +her a semi-comic figure, with his face and neck of pink and +purple bulges; humorless, naïve in spite of his heavy pomposity, +and pathetic while being hen-pecked by a Thornwell lady whose +family was older and greater than his. But now Cornelia observed +him as a man among men, and realized what are the +qualities of a successful bandit-leader.</p> + +<p>They might be summed up in a single word, dependability; +the gang must know that the leader will always be there, and +will never change; that he will be the incarnation of solid, +heavy, earnest greed, an irresistible and incessant push for large +sums of other people’s money. Also, the gang must know +that the leader will give them individually a greater share than +any other leader of equal greed-power. A quality of Rupert’s +that came out in the trial—he was a veritable mountain of +righteous respectability. He had only wanted a small share of +the loot for himself, and it had been necessary for his associates +to insist that he should have a large share. Said Quincy Thornwell, +gossiping with his Aunt Cornelia during the course of +the revelations, “You always have to insist that Rupert take +a large share. And you always do it. If you don’t, you are +not in on the next big deal.”</p> + +<p>Now here he was on the witness-stand, telling the story of +his relationships with Jerry Walker; the president of the Pilgrim +National Bank, who had promised poor Jerry a three-million-dollar +loan at twenty-seven per cent interest, and had +“strung him along” for months, having the plans all made, the +syndicate of bankers formed, and Henry Cabot Winters supposed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_486">[486]</span> +to be getting the agreements ready—when as a matter +of fact Rupert had ordered that no agreements be got ready, +having no purpose but to have poor Jerry in a “jam” when his +“paper” came to maturity.</p> + +<p>For more than a week Rupert was cross-questioned by Jerry’s +little bull-dog of a lawyer, and he was most gentlemanly and +aristocratic about his lying. He had reduced it to a formula, +suitable to his simple mind; he could remember ten thousand +details which were to his advantage, and he did remember +them, promptly and exactly; but whenever there was any detail +which would have been to his disadvantage, then he had +forgotten about it. And that was all; it was charmingly easy—he +had only to say, “I do not remember.” The cross-examiner +might phrase the question in a score of different +ways, he might make any number of approaches to it, but he +could never get anything from the imperturbable Rupert except, +“I do not remember.” It amused the lawyers of Jerry +Walker to go over the record, and count up the number of +matters about which Rupert’s memory had thus been adjusted +to his interests; he had managed to forget one hundred and +seventy-three different things.</p> + +<p>Only once a bad slip! Early during the negotiations with +Jerry Walker he had put the blame on Henry Cabot Winters, +and had said to Jerry, “Henry has had his teeth in this thing +once”—meaning in Jerry’s felt-business. That was a terrible +admission, and Rupert made it elaborately, and in great detail, +before his lawyers managed to interrupt, and convey to him +that it wouldn’t do. The great banker then took the liberty of +consulting his counsel; after the consultation, he retracted his +admission, and denied that he had ever said any such thing +to the plaintiff. A distressing moment; for there sat the reporters +of half a dozen newspapers, their pencils plying busily, +and the whole of State Street and the Union and Somerset Clubs +waiting to read the story that afternoon.</p> + +<p>Then, the ordeal being over for Rupert, he went back to +Boston, and attended an assemblage of some men’s organization +connected with his Episcopal Church. Some evil person +proposed that the organization should take a stand upon the +question of social justice, and Rupert got up and moved that +the resolution be tabled, and made a powerful and impressive +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_487">[487]</span> +speech, in which he declared that the purpose of the Episcopal +Church was “spirituality,” and that it should not be lured into +controversies over mundane affairs. The Boston newspapers +all reported the discourse, and were strong for “spirituality.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_15"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Mr. Justice Thayer was rendering his decisions upon the +various motions for a new trial. The “Ripley motion,” the +“Daley motion,” the “Pelzer motion,” the “Andrews motion,” +the “Goodridge motion”—he denied them all; and he was judge, +and the sole judge. He decided that his own conduct had been +proper, he decided that the new evidence was not such as to +warrant a new trial.</p> + +<p>The one thing his victims got out of these decisions was a +holiday every time. The law required that the defendants +should be present at all stages of the proceedings; and so a +miniature army would be called out to move Nicola Sacco +from Dedham Jail to Dedham Court-house, and Bartolomeo +Vanzetti would leave his cell for a whole day, and become the +delighted center of an automobile parade. He wrote Cornelia +about it, beginning with his breakfast, “a cup of coffee, three +slices of bread, two frankforts and mashed potatoes, all as +cold as ice cream could be.” Later when it was proposed to +publish this narrative, Bart was distressed, and insisted upon +its being made plain that he had made this remark playfully, +because of course the prison authorities could not prepare hot +food out of hours.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“After such a breakfast, an official took me in the ‘Guard +Room.’ The little chauffeur, an old officer, and the bravest +one were waiting for me. I was chained with the last one, and +all four left the room and went down to the street where the +automobile was ready. Six or seven officers stood at the door, +with their right hand near the back pocket, ready to protect +me from any attack. One must be most ungrateful man of the +world for not feeling quite reconoscent.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>And then his love of nature, the joy of escaping from +darkness into sunshine and open air:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“So we enter now into a Park the name of which I already +forget, but the beauty of it, I will never forget anymore. If +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_488">[488]</span> +I were poet and know the meter, I would write a song of it in +third rhyme. (Italian, terza rima). I am not a poet, but neither +so profane to disturbing such splendor with my poor ink. The +concerned officer point to me a big brick building, saying ‘It +is the Fine Arts Museum.’ He point many other buildings saying +that they are almost all a private schools. I was, then regretting +to have only a pair of eyes, able to look in one direction +alone. I observe everything, the trees, the bushes, the grass, +the rocks, and the brook along the way on which I was raptured. +The drops of dew look like pearls; the sky reflects +himself in the waters of the brook, and let one think that it +is bottomless.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="VII_15"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>Nicola Sacco had been for more than three years a victim +of the law’s delay. He had spent all but an hour or two each +day in a cell with nothing to do, and the strain of it was affecting +his mind. He could not understand why persons who espoused +his cause should look for justice to one old man who hated +him and was determined to have his life. He could not understand +why this one old man should need years to decide matters +about which his mind was made up in advance. He could not +understand why the money of the anarchist movement should be +wasted upon futilities. Brooding thus, he became morose, like +a dog chained up; he suspected every one who came near him, +he would not sign any more legal papers; presently he would +not write letters, nor leave his cell, nor speak to any one.</p> + +<p>Cornelia would travel to Dedham to test her social prestige +upon the “chief officer,” as he was called, to obtain some +amelioration of the harsh prison régime. The chief officer +was large, stout, superannuated, and Cornelia, seeking to win +his favor, had to listen to long discourses concerning his diet; +he was centered upon “reducing,” and talked about it in more +intimate detail than even Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge. He +would keep an old lady standing while he enumerated the pounds +he had managed to take off by this method and that; and the +next time she came, he would forget what he had told her, and +tell it again. “Would you believe that I used to weigh two hundred +and sixty?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_489">[489]</span></p> + +<p>This man who could not keep from eating too much would +take a tin plate of cold food, with two slices of bread on top—a +narrow plate, made especially to go between the bars of a cell—and +if the prisoner in the cage complained of monotony and +failed to eat the food, the chief officer would discourse for +another hour to his visitors: these men were worth nothing, the +more you did for them the less grateful they were. When Cornelia +went away, he would grumble to the other officers about +rich women who came “butting in on prisons,” spoiling the inmates, +insisting on new things that nobody had ever heard of +before. “Gosh, if that old hen would mind her own business!”</p> + +<p>Some friends of this old gentleman insisted to Cornelia that +he was well-meaning, and trying to do his duty as he saw it. +But to her he seemed the embodiment of that mountainous, +colossal, insensitive stupidity which was in authority throughout +the world—which indeed seemed to be the very nature of +authority. Several years ago there had been a legislative investigation +of county institutions, and a severe arraignment of +conditions; but the county graft-rings had been able to block +every move, and nothing had been done.</p> + +<p>Sacco was more of a problem than the average prisoner. He +could not work in the plant which made shoes for the prisoners, +because he was such a swift worker, he cleaned up everything +in sight; moreover, another prisoner had attacked him, hating +him as a “Red” and an atheist. He could not work in the carpenter +shop, because he was a “murderer,” not to be trusted +with tools. Kitchen work was barred for the same reason. In +short, there was nothing for him but twenty-two hours a day +in a cell; so he became frantic, and at half-past one o’clock in +the morning leaped from his cot and began to pound his head +against a chair, in an effort to dash out his brains. He succeeded +in cutting four gashes in his scalp, which a surgeon had to sew +up. Then Nick declared what he called a “hungry strike,” and +for thirty-three days he did not touch food.</p> + +<p>The chief officer was not allowed to do anything about it—so +he understood the law; if a wop didn’t want to eat, nobody +had a right to make him eat. It was good anarchist doctrine, and +Cornelia discovered that many members of the defense committee +agreed with it. The Italians were convinced that there +was no hope of saving Nick from the chair, and according to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_490">[490]</span> +their philosophy, a man had a right to end his life if he wanted +to. If he did so, the agony would be over, and the cause would +have a good martyr.</p> + +<p>There was a hearing due on one of the motions for a new +trial; one of those interminable farces that occurred every +month or two, whenever a motion was made, a new affidavit +submitted, an argument heard. Every such time the miniature +army would go into action, and the two wops would be brought +in and locked in the cage; Judge Thayer would enter with a +rustle of black silk robes, and the bailiff would pound with his +wand and repeat his formula, beginning, “Hear ye! Hear ye!” +The judge would sit down, and have another chance to pour +out his withering contempt upon the prisoners and their counsel.</p> + +<p>But during the “hungry strike,” the sheriff refused to take +the responsibility of moving Sacco from the jail to the court-house. +What was to be done? Fred Moore had an office assigned +to him, across the hall from the court-room; and there +was a terrible scene—the lawyer maintaining his intention of +going before the judge with a motion to determine Sacco’s +sanity, and the anarchists arguing, denouncing, threatening, +clamoring for the prisoner’s right to decide his own fate, without +the intervention of aliens, enemies, traitors and spies. The uproar +became so great that the judge sent the bailiff to command +order. In the end Moore went ahead and made the motion, +with Cornelia standing behind him. For this neither of them +was ever forgiven.</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_15"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Examinations were made, and the prisoner adjudged insane, +and committed to the Boston Psychopathic Hospital—where +they made short work of his anarchistic right to commit suicide. +They strapped him into a chair and put a rubber tube up +into his nose and down into his gullet, and poured in some milk. +It is a hideously painful experience, and rather than undergo +it again, Nick agreed to eat. After that he was committed to +the Bridgewater Hospital for the Criminal Insane, where they +were kind to him; the doctors would listen while he set forth +his principles, and would agree that they were beautiful principles—as +indeed they were. Very soon Nick was strong again, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_491">[491]</span> +and a “good fellow,” eager and sociable. Outdoor work was +given to him, and he did it gladly.</p> + +<p>So now he was “cured,” and must go back to Dedham. But +the physicians refused to certify him unless he was to have +occupation; so the chief officer was induced to modify his time-honored +régime. Nick was to do basket-weaving, and three +times a week a volunteer teacher was to come and give him +lessons. This was Mrs. Bang, a Danish lady, who taught manual +training to blue-blood children in private schools; she must +guard the dark secret, that she came three afternoons a week +to visit an anarchist atheist draft-dodger convicted of banditry +and murder.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bang was one more problem in Sacco’s life. Why should +a person who was able to wear good clothes and drive about in +an automobile, take six long journeys a week, through a New +England winter, to teach anything to a prisoner without pay? +It did not fit into the class-war theory. But Mrs. Bang won +his confidence—it was easier, because she was a foreigner. +Strange to say, she found that Nick loved America, and wanted +to live here. His wife talked about going back to Italy, but he +insisted that the children had a better chance in the new world. +Page Mr. Katzmann!</p> + +<p>Nick made bags from twine, decorated with beads; he made +an elaborate tray of reeds, with flowers and butterflies. He +developed a wish to learn English, the better to take his lessons. +So came letters, to Mrs. Evans, to Mrs. Henderson, to +Cornelia: letters in home-made spelling, but otherwise clear +and direct. For example, when Cornelia made a present of +clothing to his family:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I remember a <ins id='cor_491'>few</ins> years ago on our love day when I bought +the first lovely blue suit for my dear Rosina and that dear +remembrance still remains in my heart. That was the first day +nineteen twelve in Milford, Mass., the celebration day of the +five martyrs of Chicago, that in the mind of the humanity +oppressed never will be forget. So in morning May first nineteen +twelve I dress up with my new blue suit and I went over +to see my dear Rosina and I asked her father if he won’t let +Rosina come with me in the city town to buy something and he +said yes. So in afternoon about one o’clock we both us went +in city town, and we went in a big store and we bought a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_492">[492]</span> +brown hat, a white underdress, a blue suit, one pair brown +stock, one pair brown shoes, and after she was all dress up, +I wish you could see Rosina, how nice she looked, while now +the sufferings of to-day had make her look like an old woman. +But I never was ambitious to buy her diamonds and so-so, but +I always bought everything that could be natural and usefull.</p> + +<p>“Just now I am sitting alone always, but with me, in my soul, +in my heart, in my mind, are all immense legion of the noble +and generous friends and comrades. Here I say I’m sitting +writing to you these few lines; the sunlight it shines on my +face and for a brief time it is a relief to my soul, and it +brightens my mind by looking at the clear blue sky and the beautiful +mother of nature.... I will live for humanity and for the +solidarity and for the fraternity and for gratitude to all the +friends and comrades who have worked for Sacco and Vanzetti; +and I will live for freedom and for justice that is the +justice of all of us.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="IX_15"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>From scenes in Dedham jail Cornelia would walk a few +blocks to Dedham court-house, and watch the male members of +her family engaged in wholesale respectable perjury. She saw +Henry Cabot Winters, who had spent his life harrowing other +persons, and now for the first time was toad instead of harrow. +Every trace of the familiar ease and charm was gone from +Henry’s manner; he was exactly like any other witness telling +lies and getting caught; the perspiration appeared upon his +forehead, and had to be mopped away repeatedly. Under solemn +oath he had declared that on a certain date he had had +no interest whatever in the concerns of Jerry Walker; and then +Jerry’s lawyer produced the charge-accounts of Henry’s office, in +which the great man and his subordinates kept a record of the +expenditure of their valuable time. On those pages Henry was +set down as having given a thousand dollars’ worth to the Jerry +Walker matter, and then five thousand more—it meant several +days! He had even gone so far as to open a separate account +for time given to the felt-business; he was starting to take it +over, at a time when the owner was resting serene in the promises +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_493">[493]</span> +of Rupert and the other bankers, that he was to have three +million dollars’ credit to handle his war-contracts!</p> + +<p>Jerry Walker’s lawyers produced the accounts of all his +concerns, and showed how prosperous they had been. They +showed the complicated series of moves whereby Henry Cabot +Winters had made it impossible for Jerry to get a dollar out +of any of them. The lawyer had started fake bankruptcy proceedings +against one enterprise; he had secretly purchased some +of Jerry’s notes, and caused other persons to start lawsuits, to +place attachments and obtain injunctions. And now here he was +on the witness-stand, squirming and wincing, obliged either to +admit that he had done these things, or else to be proved a +perjurer.</p> + +<p>On another day Cornelia heard the cross-examination of a +great banker from New York, president of one of the dozen +institutions which control the financial life of America. This +gentleman had held several hundred thousand dollars’ worth +of Jerry’s notes, and had turned them over to Rupert and +Henry, to be used in clubbing Jerry to his knees. He had sat +down with the lawyers and learned an elaborate mass of perjury, +and felt very uncomfortable while telling it to Jerry’s +lawyer, because that lawyer happened to know him well. The +lawyer asked a simple question, about which he knew the +banker was going to lie; and he fixed his stern gaze upon his +victim, a sort of hypnotic stare. Something happened to the +witness, he “lost his head,” as the saying is; all that elaborate +structure of falsehood which he had learned went suddenly out +of his mind, he couldn’t remember the beginning or the end +of it.</p> + +<p>A dead silence in the court-room, a long, long silence, apparently +endless. The witness sat with the lawyer staring into +his eyes, like a rabbit fascinated by a snake. At last the judge +had to intervene: “Are you conscious at all of any mental agitation +just now, so that you would like to leave the stand for a +time and compose your mind? I think we have been waiting +nearly fifteen minutes for your answer to that question. Are +you sensible of a desire to leave the stand for a while? If you +are you may do so.”</p> + +<p>But the great banker could not think what to say, even to that. +The Court had to repeat and urge. “You might answer that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_494">[494]</span> +question. I ask you if you desire to leave the stand for a time +and collect your thoughts on this subject?”</p> + +<p>Finally the witness found his voice: “I would like to, to be +perfectly sure on this.”</p> + +<p>Upon which the proceedings of the Superior Court of the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts, now sitting within and for +the County of Norfolk, came to a halt. The great Wall Street +banker left the chair, and sat apart in the court-room, while +everybody else, including the judge and the jury, did nothing +but wait. An amazing, an incredible scene. Whispers of the +spectators now and then, but mostly dead silence, so as not to +interrupt the mental labors of the man of millions, supposed +to be trying to recall whether he had had a certain conference +with a certain man on a certain day—but in reality trying to +bring back to mind the elaborate structure of falsehood which +his lawyers had worked out for him.</p> + +<p>For almost an hour that extraordinary pause continued; and +all the while there were ghosts in the court-room, calling to +Cornelia Thornwell. The ghosts of Nicola Sacco, being harrowed +by District Attorney Katzmann! Nick being accused of +the crime of having slandered Harvard College! Cornelia +imagined him asking for an hour’s time to dig up from his subconscious +mind the statistics, that Harvard educated free something +over one hundred students every year, while the University +of Wisconsin educated five thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five! +She imagined Nick asking for an hour’s time to recollect +whether he was “that man” who had dared to criticize America, +after running away to Mexico! She imagined him sitting for +an hour trying to recall what his lawyers had told him he had +been doing on the night of his arrest! Picturing such things, +Cornelia had an impulse to laugh out loud; which would have +been a shocking breach of decorum—the Superior Court of +the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, now sitting within and +for the County of Norfolk, would never have recovered from +it. But no, Cornelia had been for forty years the mistress of +a blue-blood household, and she sat, perfectly rigid, keeping +her excitement inside.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_495">[495]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="X_15"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Dark days for the Sacco-Vanzetti defense, that year of 1924, +with first Nick in the insane asylum, and then Bart. Funds had +run out entirely; Fred Moore was a lawyer without an office; +there was no committee, no program, no action—nothing but +two wops in torment, and a promise of some legal decisions in +an indefinite future. Judge Thayer was having an attack of +pneumonia, and then of appendicitis; but refusing to die and +let some other judge deal with the case. He would keep the +half-crazed victims in their cells, until he could have the glory +and the thrill of summoning them to court again, and with his +cold metallic voice like a thin strip of steel cutting into their +souls.</p> + +<p>Betty and Joe had finished their year in the paper-box factory +in a blaze of excitement. They had organized the workers, +and been discharged for their activities; whereupon the workers +had declared a strike, and stayed out nearly a month, and +got soundly walloped by police and bosses. Betty had had her +turn on the picket-line, and as a result had changed her philosophy; +she was all for solidarity, and opposed to every label—socialist, +communist, anarchist, or what not—which split the +workers and wasted their energies. She would go to Charlestown +to visit Bart, and they would get into an excited controversy, +and Bart would write treatises to controvert her heresy. He +would forget his own deadly peril, in his anxiety to save Betty +from a false theory.</p> + +<p>That was characteristic of all the Boston anarchists—they +were strong on theory, and weak on actuality. It was that which +made the defense so difficult; when a new move was to be made, +they had to be persuaded, and it was a job that took until the +small hours of the morning, and then had to be done all over +again. No anarchist committee meeting ever ended, because +somebody had a right to say something more; no decision could +be taken, and if it was, it wasn’t binding. If you didn’t like it, +you said nothing, but went off and worked against it. If anybody +said that wasn’t fair, you shrugged your shoulders and said: +“Shoo—er, why not? Ain’t I got right for say what I please? +No, I no got to say it in committee, I say it when I want say +it. If you not like it, you got right say so—any time, any place.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_496">[496]</span></p> + +<p>In other words a committee of anarchists was a contradiction +in terms; it was not a committee, but a number of impermeable +and unassimilable units, and anybody who ever did +anything was sure to be regarded as a dictator or meddler. +Fred Moore was sleeping on a canvas cot in the committee-headquarters, +and living on pancakes, because he had turned in +his last salary-check to pay the printer; yet, if you brought up +a new plan to raise funds, you would be sure to hear that it +was contrary to “filosofia anarchica.” If, nevertheless, you insisted +upon action, you would be told, “All right, do it, if you +want, you got right.” But if you insisted that the sanction of +the committee was necessary before the action could be effective, +you would hear, “No, we don’t give no sanction, if you want +do it, you do it for self.”</p> + +<p>Even at times when money was on hand, it was almost impossible +to get them to pay it out. Money was contrary to “filosofia +anarchica,” it was an instrument and a symbol of graft. What +did people need so much for? What right did they have to it? +In one desperate pinch, Cornelia sent an organizer to New York, +to address meetings and appeal to the radical labor unions, +especially the Jewish clothing-workers. This man sent back +a couple of thousand dollars; but he had to come back to Boston +in order to get his weekly pay-check to keep him going.</p> + +<p>Fred Moore’s idea was to spend money to get more; it was +the American way. When he learned that there was a convict in +Atlanta penitentiary who might tell something about the real +bandits, he wanted to get on the train and rush down there; he +did not want to spend a night arguing with the committee, and +miss his train as a result. When he wanted to send a man to +Italy to hunt for Coacci or Boda, or to trail a suspected bandit +to Texas or the Argentine, Moore would have to threaten to +drop the case; it would be the only way to get a check signed.</p> + +<p>Such were the sufferings of lawyers in contact with anarchists: +and equally real and anguished were the sufferings of +anarchists in contact with lawyers! To rebels and “libertarians” +the lawyer was the incarnation of repression and enslavement; +he was a spider who spun webs of tradition about the limbs of +humanity. Everything he did was waste, his very language was +an insult, and the expense he incurred meant a bleeding to +death of the radical movement. Let the martyrs die, and spend +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_497">[497]</span> +the money upon “literature,” said the fanatics. But the lawyer +would point out that the money would not come for “literature,” +it came to keep the martyrs alive, and he was the sole possessor +of the secret lore whereby that might be accomplished.</p> + +<p>As individuals, you would find many of these Italian anarchists +simple and lovable, sometimes charming; in their naïveté +a relief from New England stiffness and solemnity. You must +be patient with their fanaticism, realizing that it was the excess +of a virtue; they represented the principle of variation, without +which human life would be that of the ants and bees. When +you found them most exasperating—when you felt like taking +the whole of “filosofia anarchica” and dumping it into the Back +Bay—then you must remind yourself that great scientists had +held and taught this creed, Kropotkin and the Reclus brothers; +great poets, such as Shelley and Emerson; moral teachers, +such as Tolstoi and Thoreau, George Fox and William Penn, +Jesus and Buddha. Not all these had called themselves by the +name anarchist, but all had stood for the principle, the supremacy +of the individual conscience over social compulsion. +If the movement produced more dangerous lunatics than it did +prophets and saints, that was the price which humanity had to +pay in the search for higher types of being.</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_15"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Dark days for idealists and dreamers of “joostice”! Fascist +reaction enthroned in Italy, and reaching out to control +America; organizing the Italians into murder-bands, to break +up Socialist meetings in American cities, and obtain the deportation +of Italian radicals, to be shot at home. In such activities +they would have the coöperation of American police, and of +Federal secret service; Mussolini was the new hero of our +bankers and college-students, generally voted the greatest man +in the world.</p> + +<p>It was a presidential election year, and Senator LaFollette, +who had exposed the oil-thieves, was a Bolshevik and betrayer +of his country, while “Cautious Cal” was the strong silent +statesman, who had made more speeches than any other man +ever in the White House. In their frenzy of reaction the big +business men even set out to smash the proposed constitutional +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_498">[498]</span> +amendment prohibiting child-labor, and keep several millions of +little ones in mills and mines, instead of going to school. +There was a ferocious campaign in Massachusetts, an explosion +of all the forces of bigotry and avarice. The little group of +workers for the Sacco-Vanzetti defense lived in the midst of +that uproar, like travelers in an African jungle who hear the +beating of tom-toms and see the glare of fires upon which human +flesh is being roasted.</p> + +<p>Cal Coolidge’s political and financial boss was a great lord of +cotton-mills in New England, soon to be made a United States +senator. He it was who led this campaign, and rallied the business +men and bankers, the newspaper editors and college professors, +the bootleggers, the criminals, and the hierarchy of the +Catholic Church. This latter organization, kept generously by +the business interests, had invested its funds in choice real estate, +and become one of the wealthiest corporations in the Commonwealth. +Now was the time for it to pay its debt, and suffer the +little children to come unto the mill-masters.</p> + +<p>The head of this religious machine was Cardinal O’Connell, +jovially referred to by the newspaper men as “Big Bill,” and +by his enemies as “the papal bull”; a huge hippopotamus of a +man, weighing over three hundred pounds, and like Clara +Thornwell Scatterbridge and the chief officer of Dedham Jail, +devoting his attention to the problem of “reducing.” It happened +that Cornelia had spent her summers near the prelate’s +summer residence, and seen him daily, taking his constitutional, +a picturesque figure in a scarlet cloak, against a background of +azure river. To his intimates he was a genial and convivial soul—not +troubled by the eighteenth amendment, but having access +to the best stores of conviviality. He was an organist and a +judge of pictures, a generous buyer of old masters and rare +books; a Renaissance prince of the church, building a white +stone palace out on Commonwealth Avenue. The Jews had +built themselves a Temple Israel nearby, a plain concrete structure, +and the Irish-Catholic conductors of street-cars, answering +the questions of tourists, would point their thumb contemptuously +and say, “That? Sure, that’s Cardinal O’Connell’s +garage.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia went to see him, a little later on, escorted by her +nephew Quincy. She pleaded with the great man to say a word +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_499">[499]</span> +for mercy to Sacco and Vanzetti; but he was cautious and preferred +to talk about Japanese art and Buddhist philosophy. +Quincy sat, a much-amused spectator; being a wit and diner-out, +he knew the great man, and had brought his Bolshevik +aunt to tea by way of a prank. Going and coming, Quincy told +stories about the Cardinal, who had begun life as an Irish +“mick” in “the Patch,” as the slums of Lowell were known. +He was much too intelligent a man to believe the mythology +he taught; but he held that it was what the masses needed to +keep them obedient. He owned many blocks of stock in cotton-mills, +and was a reactionist now, but in his young days had +been a modernist, and highly indignant because some of his +writings had been put on the Index.</p> + +<p>There were many Catholics among the millionaire industrialists +and bankers of Massachusetts, and the Cardinal would invite +them to dinner; they would come with stars on their bosoms +and garters on their legs, and would be in heaven. The great +prelate could ask them for a million or two any day, and buy +the best sites for orphan asylums and seminaries and church +colleges and what not. In this way he had spent fifty million +dollars in ten years. So now when these mill-owners and bankers +wanted the people of Massachusetts to vote their children +into wage-slavery, “Big Bill” was the boy to do their job.</p> + +<p>Four Sundays during the month of October, 1924, he made +every priest in the diocese stand before the high altar at high +mass, and read aloud a diatribe, based upon the lies circulated +by the manufacturers’ agents, representing the Children’s Bureau +at Washington as a device of Moscow for the undermining +of the American home. Mrs. Florence Kelley, leading social +worker, and champion of the child-labor amendment, had once +been the wife of a Russian. Thirty-two years previously, she +had divorced this man, and had received from the courts the +right to resume her father’s name of Kelley; she had been a +“Kelley” for sixty out of her sixty-eight years of life. But +now the opponents of the child-labor amendment placarded +her from Maine to California as Mrs. Wischnewetzky, Bolshevik +agent! By methods such as this, they induced the people +of Massachusetts to vote down the amendment by two to one, +and the little children of the Commonwealth were saved for +God and Senator Butler.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_500">[500]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XII_13"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>In November, 1924, after a year, Judge Thayer handed +down his decision on the Proctor motion for a new trial. This +motion was the main reliance of the defense lawyers; they +could not imagine how the confession of one of the state’s +leading witnesses that he had “framed” his evidence in collusion +with the prosecutors, could fail to be ground for a new +trial. But “Web” would show them! He would crowd all his +arts into one document—twisting and wriggling, evading issues; +misrepresenting everything the defense lawyers had claimed +about the Proctor confession.</p> + +<p>The issue was very simple, but “Web” wound it up in +thousands of words, and to make plain all his tricks would require +thousands more. He said that the questions asked of +Captain Proctor were clear, and must have been perfectly +understood by him; which would have been a good joke, if it +had been meant as such. Of course they were understood by +Proctor, and no one had ever suggested that they were not. +What Proctor had confessed was that the questions had been +contrived for the purpose of being obscure to the jury: which +was certainly an entirely different matter.</p> + +<p>Next “Web” asked whether the questions were “unfair or +improper.” Of course they were not. What had been “unfair +and improper” was that the witness and the district attorney +had framed the questions in such a way that the jury would +think they meant what they didn’t mean; also that the judge +had represented to the jury that they meant what they didn’t +mean.</p> + +<p>The question which had been “framed” had to do with +whether Proctor, as an expert on fire-arms, believed that the +“mortal bullet” had come through Sacco’s pistol and none +other. And it really made you wonder if you were dealing with +an insane man when the judge went on from point to point, +asking over and over again why Proctor hadn’t said plainly what +he meant; as if Proctor had tried to make matters plain, and +failed—when the whole point of the confession was that he +had deliberately made matters obscure!</p> + +<p>But “cunning old Fury” was not insane; he knew what he +was doing, and went ahead, twisting every contention out of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_501">[501]</span> +shape, misrepresenting the plain meaning of the plainest English +words. He charged the defense lawyers with having claimed +that Proctor “honestly believed that the mortal bullet was not +fired through the Sacco pistol.” But Proctor had not said that, +and the defense had not said that he had said it.</p> + +<p>Funniest joke of all—“Web” said that the answers of the +district attorney and his assistant to the Proctor confession +were “clear and convincing.” To employ the slang of Pierre +Leon, you could “bet your shoes” they were! They were clear +and convincing of the fact that Katzmann and Williams knew +that Proctor’s confession was true, and had not dared to deny +it while Proctor was alive. They had carefully evaded the main +point; and the judge now carefully followed suit; relying, of +course, upon the fact that nobody would have the text of the +answers, nor the patience to disentangle the sophistry in them.</p> + +<p>Having performed this intellectual feat, “Web” was proud +of it, and went out, as usual, to boast. He thought he had earned +a holiday, so he went to Dartmouth, his college, to attend one +of the football games. On the field he saw Professor James +P. Richardson, and came up to him, demanding in a loud +voice: “Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards +the other day? I guess that will hold them for a while. Let them +go to the supreme court now and see what they can get out +of them!” There was more to the discourse, and the professor +stood, upon pins and needles, as the saying is, because it seemed +to him an unimaginable impropriety, and he knew that others +were listening. He got away as quickly as he could.</p> + +<p>It was “Web’s” way. He was engaged upon a crusade, to +destroy the Reds in Massachusetts; and he did not understand +how others could fail to be interested in his exploits. He would +punish his friends, his club-mates and associates with long +tirades, until they would be bored and ask him to quit. A +group of lawyers who lunched in the club at Worcester, would +turn their shoulders to him and talk about other matters. The +old man would sit mumbling to himself: “They don’t understand! +They don’t realize! The Vandals are at our gates, and +are going to destroy us!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_502">[502]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_11"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>This failure of the “Proctor motion” was the finishing blow +for Vanzetti. Impossible to hope after that! Impossible to go +on enduring the indignities of prison. Bart decided that his +friends and the whole movement were being betrayed. Also he +took up the notion that his ill health was due to slow poisons +given to him in his food. He too declared a “hungry-strike,” +and about Christmas-time of the year 1924 was certified to the +Bridgewater asylum. The Sunday after he was taken away, the +prison chaplain preached a sermon to his flock, pointing out the +danger of departing from the holy faith. Look at poor Vanzetti, +who had lost his mind, a hopeless wreck! It was the same Father +Murphy who had said, “Tell me, Vanzetti, who drove the car at +South Braintree?”</p> + +<p>To the psychiatrists at Bridgewater this prisoner represented +a well-known type; a victim of what they called “delusions of +grandeur,” or the “messianic complex.” He had the notion that +the future would be interested in him and his sayings and +doings; that books would be written about his case, and translated +into many languages, and read by millions of people. He +lived his life and endured his sufferings in the presence of +future generations, who would reverse Judge Thayer’s verdict +upon him, as they had reversed other verdicts upon agitators +and rebels—John Brown and Giordano Bruno and John Huss, +Galileo and Socrates and Jesus. Furthermore, he had the fixed +idea that he could learn to write English, and accumulated +quantities of manuscript, which he thought would convert +others to his cause.</p> + +<p>In order to pacify him, it was necessary to pretend to agree +with him, and then one could have quite interesting talks. He +was a man of surprising culture, considering that he had been +a laborer all his life; he was reflective, shrewd, even humorous +at times. He did not make friends easily, preferring to sit +aloof; but when a physician said that he believed in “joostice,” +the prisoner would be eager to explain his brand of it, and +would sit for hours, telling Dr. Stearns with the utmost seriousness +how a society might be run without government or forcible +repression.</p> + +<p>These specialists in human mentality were not asked their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_503">[503]</span> +opinion as to the probable guilt of this convicted bandit, but +they could not help having ideas on the subject. They reported +Vanzetti as of the intellectual, not the motor type; awkward, +not active. They said that if he committed an assault, it would +be, not with intent to kill, but to show feeling. They pictured +a man with his excess of emotion and imagination, attempting +to commit a hold-up; it was their judgment that his heart +would beat violently, his knees would shake, he would hear a +noise behind him, and whirl about and shoot blindly, or throw +away the gun in a panic—a “brainstorm,” as it was known to +the writers and readers of crime-news. The psychiatrists furthermore +reported that the professional bandits and hold-up +men in the prisons jeered at the idea that Sacco and Vanzetti +could have done that South Braintree job; they were offended +in their dignity by the suggestion that a couple of bunglers and +novices could have got away with anything so competent and +swift.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_7"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>The jury brought in its verdict in the Jerry Walker case; +a terrible blow to the Thornwell men—saying, in effect, that +they had perjured themselves upon the witness-stand. The +jury found that Jerry Walker was entitled to damages equal +to the market value of his properties at the time they were taken +from him, plus the interest; a trifle over ten and one-half millions +of dollars. It was the biggest verdict ever brought in the +Commonwealth, and men talked about it in the clubs for weeks.</p> + +<p>The decision was announced a week before Christmas, and +completely spoiled that gracious season in the Thornwell, Winters, +Alvin, and Scatterbridge homes. Rupert took to his bed +with a severe “coryza”—since it would not do for a great +banker to have a common cold. He entertained his wife and +visiting ladies of the family with terrible pictures of the collapse +of Boston banking, consequent upon the custom of allowing +decisions concerning millions of dollars to rest in the hands of +men who could not have financed a peanut-stand. According to +Rupert, all the bankers in Boston would immediately be sued +for all the money they had made in the last ten years—which +was a commentary on the city’s banking-system from a leading +authority.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_504">[504]</span></p> + +<p>Rupert’s expensive lawyers would be put to work at once +to appeal the case; and even while he was scolding and pessimizing, +and snuffling and sneezing and snorting and blowing with +the coryza, Rupert’s mental dynamo was driving away at new +plans. The details of the appeal would be left to the lawyers, +while Rupert would concentrate on the judges. He had suggested +the appointment of two or three members of the Supreme +Judicial Court, and hoped he could count upon them. He +began figuring over the others: their families and connections, +social and financial. Whose men were they, and what obligations +were they under?</p> + +<p>Presently Rupert would be sending for good gossips, such +as Quincy Thornwell, who could help him pick up information. +If any of these judges had close relatives who were lawyers, it +might be a good idea to retain these. If they had intimate +friends who could talk to them, methods must be worked out to +approach these friends—in a strictly high-minded and proper +way, of course—pointing out to them the dreadful state of uncertainty +in which the financial affairs of Massachusetts were +left by this unprecedented jury decision. How could big bandits +stay in business, if, after they had held a pistol to the victim’s +head and got him to sign a document excusing them for the +robbery, the police should be allowed to step in and say that the +document didn’t count?</p> + +<p>It would take more than two years for the Full Court of +the Supreme Judicial Court to weigh and decide this mighty +issue; so Rupert had plenty of time to continue his intrigue. +He would not have to buy any members of the higher court; +he trusted that nobody had been appointed who was not +the sort of person to respect great bankers and appreciate +their difficulties as the invisible rulers of America. It was an +unwritten custom that as soon as a man was appointed to this +court he was also made a member of the very old and exclusive +Union Club; so Rupert and his associates would meet the justices +at luncheon every day when the court was in session; and +while they would not be so crude as to refer to the case, they +could talk about business stability and the sanctity of contracts; +they could arrange for others to do the same, the big and +weighty men to whom the justices had had to come, to beg for +the favor of appointment. At the time when Rupert knew the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_505">[505]</span> +Full Court was giving its time to the case, he would bring it +about that great bankers from New York would happen to ride +up in the elevator with the justices and happen to remark in +clear tones that all business in New England was held up, waiting +to find out if the courts were going to permit credit to be +undermined and contracts repudiated.</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_6"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>Yet, with all this power in his hands, Rupert was nervous; +he could not help worrying, to the great damage of the calcified +veins in his ankles and legs. His brother-in-law tried in vain +to keep him cheerful: Henry Cabot Winters, who had worked +out for himself a wonderful scheme, whereby he was going +to snap his fingers at all courts and their decisions. Henry was +going to make over his property to his sister, and then go into +bankruptcy!</p> + +<p>Ordinarily this service is performed for business men by +their wives; but Henry was afraid of Alice. Not that she would +keep his money—no Thornwell would ever be a thief; but she +might have a brainstorm, and decide that it was for the good of +his soul for the money to be turned over to an occultist society. +Just now the mad streak in the Thornwells was manifesting +itself in Alice’s determination to be a lady “chela.” She was +bringing bowls of rice and fresh straw for bedding to a real +“shri,” who was at one with Brahma, and must not be spoken +to. Every day Alice put on a snow-white robe and stood in front +of a black screen in a pitch-dark room, in order that her aura +might be studied, and her soul-troubles diagnosed thereby.</p> + +<p>But Henry had a sister, Agatha Winters, who was pure +“New England,” unmarried and unchanging. He went to see +her in the village where she lived in the family homestead, +devoting herself to church work. He explained his troubles; +wicked men had conspired to ruin him, and if they succeeded, +obviously he would no longer be able to contribute to his sister’s +support, and she would no longer be able to give her time to the +Lord. So Agatha knew that it was the Lord’s purpose for her +to aid Henry against his enemies. She had learned from the +Old Testament that the Lord aided His own against others, +and that He was not too scrupulous as to the means.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_506">[506]</span></p> + +<p>So Henry put five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of liberty +bonds into Agatha’s name, and had them sold and converted +into a bank-draft payable to her. She endorsed it, and Henry +sold her some of his property for it. He then bought more +liberty bonds, and had them sold in Agatha’s name, and put +the money into another bank-draft, for which Agatha bought +another half-million dollars’ worth of his property. This procedure +was continued until Agatha was the registered legal owner +of every bond and share of stock and piece of real estate which +Henry owned, including everything which he had got from +Jerry Walker; including even the automobile he drove, the +yacht on which he spent his week-ends, the five-gaited snow-white +Arabian stallion which he rode, and the apartment-house +in which he kept his mistress, a charming and popular concert-singer.</p> + +<p>So the great lawyer could go into court and swear that he did +not own a dollar in the world; and Agatha would be able +to produce canceled vouchers, showing the actual payment of +cash to the full market value of every piece of property she had +acquired. Hidden away in a safe-deposit box to which Henry +alone had the key there was a will, executed by Agatha in +Henry’s favor; and a deed, selling back to Henry for the sum +of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations, all the +property which Henry had sold to Agatha. This latter document +was blank as to date; thus Henry had everything fixed so that, +the day the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the Jerry Walker +verdict, he could file a petition in bankruptcy, and wipe out his +share of the claims forever. After which, he would take back +his property again, and laugh in the face of his enemies!</p> + + +<h3 id="XVI_3"> + XVI +</h3> + +<p>The Thornwell generations came and went. Great-uncle +Abner had a paralytic stroke, which intercepted the nerves in +his legs. No longer did he ride about “Hillview” on a pony, but +sat in a wheel-chair and stormed and fussed when his attendants +delayed to bring his meals. He still had his deaf man’s +voice, but could not hear a sound; you wrote your ideas on a +pad for him to read. You did not have to write very much, because +he was interested in his own ideas, and content if you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_507">[507]</span> +would sit and nod and smile. Every time he found anything in +his <i>Evening Transcript</i> damaging to the reputation of a +“Red,” he would cut it out and mark it, and mail it to Cornelia +with injurious comments.</p> + +<p>To make up for the loss of Abner’s legs, Betty’s older sister, +Priscilla, brought four of them, eagerly kicking, into the world. +The first time it was a boy, and his name at once became +Alvin Thornwell Shaw, quite a load for two tiny red legs to +kick under. Since his father was a mighty mountain of copper, +it pleased his Aunt Betty to refer to him as the young copper +hill; and when the second heir arrived and proved to be a niece, +Betty took to calling her the little branch bank. Betty herself +was not going to provide her mother and father with any +grandchildren—at least not for a while. Betty talked defiantly +about the wicked practice known as “birth control,” and said +that this was not a fit world into which to bring babies. What +was the use of raising boys for the military men to take away +from you and kill? What was the use of raising either boys or +girls when their grandparents would insist upon leaving them +millions of dollars, thereby turning them into parasites and +deadheads?</p> + +<p>Family propriety compelled the inviting of Cornelia to act +as godparent to both the copper hill and the branch bank; but +each time she modestly declined, not feeling equal to the responsibility +of training either Thornwells or Shaws. But she +attended the baptisms, which were in Trinity Church on a weekday +afternoon, with many relatives and some invited friends. +The font had been made beautiful with flowers, and there was +a hymn sung by those present, and the precious infant slept +soundly, wearing the embroidered christening robe, two yards +long, which had been made for Great-great-great-grandfather +Thornwell, the sea-captain, and used at the baptisms of his +infant descendants ever since. When the splashing of cold +water woke the victim up, it let out a yell of indignation, which +was a good sign, the old ladies said, because it let the devil out; +the old men chuckled, and commented—a powerful voice, like +Abner Thornwell’s and Josiah’s—it was the old stock!</p> + +<p>There were two godfathers and one godmother for the boy, +and the second time one godfather and two godmothers for the +girl. Each time these sponsors in baptism did promise and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_508">[508]</span> +vow three things in the infant’s name; of which the first was +that it would “renounce the devil and all his works, the vain +pomp and glory of the world, with all the covetous desires of +the same.” Cornelia Thornwell looked about her: here was the +elder Shaw, grandfather of this infant, who sat tight upon a +huge store of treasure, and some twelve years ago, when his +wage-slaves in the Mesaba Range had dared to revolt, had sent +in thugs and gunmen to slug and murder them, exactly as if +it had been at home in Massachusetts. And here was Rupert +Alvin, who had taken away ten million dollars from Jerry +Walker, and now was trying to undermine the highest court +of his Commonwealth in order to keep it. The covetous desires +of the world!</p> + +<p>And then the “vain pomp and glory.” Here were stately +male personages in striped trousers and cutaway coats, or +braided black broadcloth, the very stick-pins in their ties having +ritual significance; here were ladies, who had made a life-study +of the art of demonstrating their millions and tens of millions +without appearing to do so. Here was a temple built with hands, +having single windows which had cost thousands of dollars, +and nothing within sight of it that was not luxurious. Outside +were shining limousines, and liveried chauffeurs waiting. At +the Alvin mansion there was a collation, and heads of finance +and fashion would eat cake and drink punch, and gossip about +everything that was expensive and therefore important. At the +Shaw mansion they were preparing a dinner-dance for next +week, that would be the most costly affair of the season; they +would furnish the newspapers with every detail of a great +family advertisement, and eagerly read every word next morning. +The vain pomp and glory of the world!</p> + +<p>And all this in the name of Comrade Jesus! A strange, strange +prank of time! Cornelia came out from the famous brownstone +temple, erected to the glory of the proletarian martyr, +and walked past the statue of Phillips Brooks, which graced one +side of it. A figure of the Son of Man, stepping out of the +side of the building and laying his hand upon the shoulder of +the great Bishop of the Blue-bloods. Bishop Brooks had been +quite a radical in his day, and the wits of the city were wont +to say that the hand of Jesus was an admonitory hand, and that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_509">[509]</span> +Jesus was saying, “Be careful, old man, remember what they +did to me, and I didn’t say half what you are saying!”</p> + +<p>From this ceremony Cornelia went to visit Vanzetti, who had +been certified back to Charlestown, and was shoveling coal again. +She was moved to tell him where she had been, and what she +had seen, and her thoughts on the subject. “I have been wondering, +Bart, if they should make a martyr out of you, will +people be committing crimes and hypocrisies in your name a +couple of thousand years from now?”</p> + +<p>It was an idea the prisoner took seriously; the thought of +martyrdom having become the mainspring of his lonely life. +“Nonna,” said he “if they make me martyr, I fix it, I write +message it cannot be mistake. If anybody say Vanzett’, it mean +joostice, it mean freedom—it cannot mean nothing but!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XVII_1"> + XVII +</h3> + +<p>It was Boston, pious, proper, and proud. The <i>Telegram</i> was +publishing onslaughts upon Sacco and Vanzetti, calling for their +blood because they were “atheists.” One day the staid bankers +and brokers of State Street, proceeding about their business in +front of the Old State House, scene of the Boston Massacre, +were astonished by the spectacle of the publisher of the <i>Telegram</i> +rolling in the gutter, pummeling and being pummeled by +the Honorable James Michael Curley, until recently mayor of +the city. Next day the two champions were issuing statements in +the newspapers, each claiming to have done the more successful +pummeling. The day after that the publisher was publishing a +cartoon of the ex-mayor, showing him in prison stripes—he +having “done” a few months many years back. And then the ex-mayor +was sending the publisher to jail for criminal libel: all +this in Boston, pious, proper, and proud, thirsting for the blood +of “atheists”!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_510">[510]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII"> + CHAPTER XVII<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE MILLS OF THE LAW</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Betty Alvin was now twenty-six years of age; old enough +to know better, as her family and friends insisted, but she +continued to give her time to the stirring up of social discontent. +She and Joe had taken up the task of founding a +labor college in Boston, to teach the workers to think for themselves, +instead of for the stockholders and the bankers. Joe +was teaching a class, two evenings a week, the history of European +labor movements, and writing a book on the subject. +Betty, learned young lady, was expounding “labor theory”; +trying to adhere to a policy of working-class solidarity, and +being perpetually pulled and hauled between socialists and +communists. However, they would all excuse her, on the basis +of her “bourgeois upbringing.” In the daytime she inspected +accounts and paid bills; or, when this was not possible, sallied +forth to raise money. She would visit the offices of Irish-Catholic +labor leaders, and do her best to persuade them that +it was really in the interest of unions for idle-rich girls to +meddle in their affairs, and teach them complicated theories +with long foreign names.</p> + +<p>Hard-fisted individuals these, having fought their way in a +world of realities—which included Democratic and Republican +politicians seeking votes and promising favors; also agents of +employers making presents of boxes of cigars, and willing to +lose unlimited sums at poker. “Parlor pinks,” who mixed in +the affairs of such gentry would learn a lot of things not in +the Radcliffe curriculum; they would have a hard time deciding +which leaders to educate and which to kill off. For the +sake of Sacco and Vanzetti in the shadow of the electric chair +it was necessary to be patient and tactful; to appeal to class +solidarity, and to human feelings not entirely atrophied. Thus +you might get a chance to present your case before some labor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_511">[511]</span> +body, and have anywhere from twenty-five to a hundred dollars +voted to the defense.</p> + +<p>Betty had now been for more than three years the lawful +and duly certified wife of Joseph Jefferson Randall—even +though she insisted upon belonging to the “Lucy Stoners,” +and remaining “Betty Alvin,” not even “Mrs.” Was it a part +of the same eccentricity, that she refused to do her duty by +her family, and pass on to the ages those excellences of which +the family was so conscious? Did these modern young wives +repudiate babies altogether, and, if so, what substitute had they +to propose? Deborah never failed to make such inquiries when +she met her daughter.</p> + +<p>Now Betty came to Cornelia: “Grannie, I guess it’s my +turn.”</p> + +<p>“How do you mean, dear?”</p> + +<p>“Well, there’s a saying that accidents will happen in the +best regulated families, and it seems that the Lord is on the +side of the Thornwell clan.” Such was the fashion of speech +of these modern, hard-boiled young women; they would not +permit themselves any of the traditional thrills of their sex, +which they called being “soppy.” When they referred to matters +ordinarily considered “delicate,” they seemingly went out +of their way to find the most offensive language, with which +the ears of their chaste grandmothers had never in a whole +lifetime been assailed. In Betty this reaction was especially +violent, as a result of having been brought up in Boston, and +hearing somebody say “Hush!” several times every day. She +persisted in going about telling all her friends, both men and +women, the medical facts about herself; refusing to put on +garments ingeniously contrived for the hiding of her shameful +condition, going to her labor college and teaching classes at +a time when she was a scandal on the street.</p> + +<p>She even told two “wops” about it, when she went to see +them in jail. They, being peasants, took it as a matter of course; +they were used to babies, as to all other kinds of young animals. +Betty would even permit Vanzetti to be “soppy”—he +being in jail, and having a hard time to keep his sanity. Poor +devil, he needed something young and new and sweet and +healthy and happy to occupy his thoughts, so when Betty went +to see him, she told him how it felt when the unborn baby +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_512">[512]</span> +kicked. It might have been one old “nonna” gossiping with another +old “nonna,” scrubbing clothes on the banks of the River +Magra.</p> + +<p>In due course the infant phenomenon arrived. It was a boy, +and his name had been determined several months before he +was born—Rupert Alvin Thornwell Randall; it would be worth +millions to him some day, in spite of his mother’s protests. +The war that was to last all his lifetime began in the first +weeks; for of course his name wouldn’t be his name, until it +had been conferred upon him in Trinity Church; and here +were his mother and father declaring that he wasn’t going +to be baptized! The family brought Betty to admit that it +wouldn’t do any harm; if they chose to dress him up in an +old linen robe two yards long and sprinkle cold water on +his head, she would not interfere, but certainly they must +not expect her or Joe to waste time on such foolishness. +Neither must they get the idea that this particular grandchild +was going to be permitted to visit them, and be waited +upon by servants and demoralized by the uses of luxury. +Rupert Alvin Thornwell Randall was going to live among +working people, and grow up to be of some use in the world. +The grandparents did not argue that; they would have the +baptism first, and save the little one’s soul. The other issues +could be fought out later!</p> + + +<h3 id="II_16"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia was continuing to devote her life to the Sacco-Vanzetti +case. She would get herself invited to gatherings +of ladies, and tell them the cruel story, and when they said +they were “so sorry,” she would ask just how sorry, and +explain that sorrow was measured in figures on a bank-check. +She would help the defense committee to organize +entertainments and benefit performances—which, alas, sometimes +cost more than they brought in. She would visit headquarters, +and try to keep things moving, to reconcile the +endless clashings of personalities. Always there was something +needing to be done, and one could not do it, or even urge it, +without antagonizing somebody. What Vanzetti called “umane +beings” had not yet evolved to a stage where they could merge +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_513">[513]</span> +their personalities and coöperate; they had to waste the greater +part of their energies in friction. Cornelia would be so discouraged +that she would give up, and tell them to do what +they pleased; but then they would do nothing—and meantime +there were Bart and Nick on the way to execution!</p> + +<p>The antagonism between Fred Moore and some members +of the committee had waxed with the years. It was impossible +for anarchists to get along with any lawyer; it was especially +hard with this one, who was hell-bent upon discovering +the real criminals, and insisted upon spending defense funds +in tracing clews, chasing off to Atlanta penitentiary or to +Texas, sending some one to Italy or to South America to run +down a story. Moore would either have his way or quit; and +in the end his enemies made his position impossible, by undermining +the faith of his clients in him. He received a letter +from Sacco, signed, “Your implacable enemy, now and forever”; +so the lawyer realized that the days of his usefulness +were over. “I have failed,” he said to Cornelia; “and it’s a game +where nothing succeeds but success.”</p> + +<p>There was an interregnum, with no lawyer, no anything else—except +two prisoners on the way to the electric chair. Finally +the committee was reorganized; some Italians withdrew, some +Americans were taken on, and overtures were made to William +G. Thompson to take charge of the new motions and appeals. +He knew how much trouble it would mean, and set his fee +at a figure which he meant to be prohibitive, twenty-five thousand +dollars. There was a problem for Cornelia and Betty +and Joe!</p> + +<p>It was solved by a curious turn of events, hardly possible +in any part of the world except Boston. A young man by the +name of Charles Garland, while a student at Harvard, had +known Jack Reed, and become troubled in his conscience. Now +Reed had given his life to the Russian revolution, and was +buried under the Kremlin walls; while his friend Garland fell +heir to a million dollars. His conscience not permitting him +to accept it, he turned it over to a committee, to be expended +for the benefit of labor. So there was the “Garland fund”; +and in this emergency it was persuaded to lend twenty thousand +dollars to the Sacco-Vanzetti defense, and William G. Thompson +was put in charge of the case.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_514">[514]</span></p> + +<p>A man in his early sixties, with iron-gray hair and ruddy +skin, six feet tall and broad shouldered, dry and humorous, +smoking a pipe and looking like a Yankee farmer, Thompson +proved to be the boss of which the case had been in need. He +became convinced that the machinery of justice was being +used for persecution, and turned into a crusader in defense of +his clients. Before he got through, the fee he had charged did +not cover his office overhead; yet his enemies accused him of +having profited unduly, and tried to have the Bar Association +proceed against him for the offense of defending anarchists.</p> + +<p>He had his strict ideas of propriety. This was a law-case, +and was to be tried in the courts, and everything which savored +of “propaganda” must be rigidly avoided. Which brought him, +of course, into conflict with active friends of the cause. To +Joe and Betty, propaganda was the essence of the defense; it +was propaganda which had made possible the appeals and kept +the two men alive; it was propaganda which brought in money +to pay lawyers. Vanzetti’s opinion was summed up in his +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_515">[515]</span> +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.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_16"> + III +</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_516">[516]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_517">[517]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_518">[518]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_16"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>Rupert tried to be sarcastic. “How can I tell what you think +you know, since you have been associating exclusively with +Reds?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_519">[519]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I defy you, Mother, ever to say that I have hinted at corruption +in our judges!”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mother, but never the courts!”</p> + +<p>“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 spoils system—retired +politicians, ex-district attorneys or city solicitors—tools +of the big corporations, put there as reward for services. +Most of them have spent a life-time protecting public +service and accident insurance companies, upholding laws +against labor, upholding vested privilege in every form. +How many of them have been in your pay, Rupert, before they +went on the bench?”</p> + +<p>She waited; and then remarked with a smile, “You could +count faster if you wanted to. I know of a judge who was +counsel for a great banker fearing indictment for perjury—and +I know that he got that banker off through a district attorney +who was afterwards disbarred for malfeasance in office.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_520">[520]</span></p> + +<p>Rupert showed a desire to withdraw from this unprofitable +discussion; and his mother-in-law smiled.</p> + +<p>“It was only in the most high-minded way, Rupert, I know! +Our bankers name men who have been in their pay, and +then it is the fiction that they forget gratitude! The public +is expected to believe that men who have been truckling and +time-serving politicians become spotless and noble-minded the +moment they put on a black silk robe! But you know, and +I know, that you are hoping for the Supreme Judicial Court +to hand you Jerry Walker’s money. And you know that they +are killing my two boys for threatening property rights in +New England.”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_16"> + V +</h3> + +<p>The old evidence was wiped out, but new appeared to take +its place and keep the case alive. First, the defense discovered +Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. Kennedy, the two women who had looked +out of a window on the bandit car, and had a perfect view of +the one supposed to be Sacco. They had made to Fred Katzmann +statements to the effect that Sacco was not the man, +and Katzmann had kept this evidence from the defense for +five years. Thompson now demanded the reports, but Katzmann’s +successor, Ranney, was mysteriously unable to find +them. This was the time for Ranney to appear before Thayer +and deliver his cynical pronouncement: “I wonder if Mr. +Thompson has not an exaggerated and too ethical notion of +the functions of a district attorney!”</p> + +<p>Then the Madeiros confession. Celestino F. Madeiros was +a young Portuguese, member of a gang which had robbed a +bank in Wrentham and killed the cashier. He was in Dedham +jail while his appeal was being heard, and his conscience troubled +him, he said, when Sacco’s wife came to the prison with +the baby. On November 18th, 1925, he scribbled on a piece of +paper: “I hear by confess to being in the South Braintree shoe +company crime, and Sacco and Vanzetti was not in said crime.” +He handed the paper to a trusty, who gave it to Nick.</p> + +<p>A long investigation began. Madeiros told a detailed story +of the South Braintree crime, but refusing to name any of +his associates. However, a skilled lawyer knows how to get +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_521">[521]</span> +the facts out of a man, and the job was attributed to a group +of freight-car thieves and hold-up men of Providence, known +as the “Morelli gang.” Several of them were in jail, and their +records were traced; Cornelia now studied the career of such +persons as Bibba Barone, Steve the Pole, Gyp the Blood. Also +she listened to more wrangling in the committee, because the +anarchists resisted the efforts to pin the crime on the Morellis +or anybody else. “What for we play polissman for state Massachusetts?”</p> + +<p>But Thompson went ahead, and collected a mass of affidavits +to be submitted in a motion for a new trial: which went +the usual round, and served the purpose of keeping Sacco and +Vanzetti alive for another year. Motion filed May, 1926; hearing +before Judge Thayer, September; decision and appeal, +October; argument before the Supreme Judicial Court, February, +1927; decision April, 1927; all very solemn and very +expensive, with ancient legal phrases and complicated rules, +making certain that no layman could be his own lawyer. Bart +would watch the game, and joke with Cornelia; he was glad +to be kept alive, of course—he could speak more words for +the cause; but at the same time he begrudged the money, +which might better have been spent for literature. Bartolomeo +Vanzetti, the anarchist wop, had become fond of William G. +Thompson, the blue-blood lawyer, who was a learned and a +great-hearted man. “But he is very naïve,” said Bart, gently; +“he believe in the Supreme Court.”</p> + +<p>The prisoner went on to explain. “It must be that way with +a lawyer; he think he have to get his what you call them, precedents, +right. He think if he can show how it was done before, +then he has won. It is like chess—you ever play chess, Nonna?”</p> + +<p>“My brother-in-law used to be a champion.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you make move, you say ‘check’ and you have won. +It is a game. But this is not a game, this is war. You say +‘check,’ and your enemy he knock the figures off the board, +he throw them in your face.” As time passed, and the courts +did this to the great lawyer, over and over again, Bart would +remind Cornelia, and add, patiently, “I think some time they +foolish Mr. Thompson.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_522">[522]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="VI_16"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Then came the confessions of Letherman and Weyand—two +agents of the Department of Justice, whose consciences had +begun to trouble them. They had got out of the secret service +now, the war upon the Reds being less active. They made affidavits, +telling of the part which Federal agents had played +in getting the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti. They said, +in substance, that the Department had felt sure that Sacco +and Vanzetti were not guilty of the South Braintree crime, +but that, since they were dangerous anarchists, it was desired +to get them out of the way. The Department had turned over +to the district attorney’s office a mass of evidence, in return +for an agreement on the part of the district attorney to help +the Department get information. There was much correspondence +in the files of the Department in Boston which would +show what had been done.</p> + +<p>So the energies of the defense were turned to getting hold +of these files. Thompson made application to the United States +Attorney General, Cal Coolidge’s village lawyer from Vermont; +a strong, silent protégé of a strong, silent statesman—and +never more silent than now! Thompson did not get the +files, and neither did anybody else get them. The attorney-general +made no affidavit, and neither did any of his subordinates, +and there was not a squeak from Fred Katzmann or +Harold Williams, now a judge!</p> + +<p>The motion for a new trial was argued before Judge Thayer +in September of 1926. A great sight was William G. Thompson +that day, for his moral sense was stirred, and he talked +like an old-style prophet. He paid his regards to Fred +Katzmann:</p> + +<p>“Just think of what it means, if your Honor please! Think +of what it means!</p> + +<p>“Mr. Katzmann knew and knows to-day whether Fred +Weyand and Lawrence Letherman told the truth. That truth +is a truth of vital importance. Think what they say! The files +of the Boston office are full of correspondence with Mr. Katzmann +and of documents showing the closest coöperation between +the Federal Agents and the District Attorney—not +Stewart—the District Attorney in the preparation of this case. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_523">[523]</span> +Every Federal agent who knew anything about it believed these +men to be innocent of murder. ‘Every one of us believed they +ought to be deported. They were anarchists, they did not believe +in organized government or private property.’</p> + +<p>“Oh, how those words will ring around this world, ‘private +property’! Think what is going to be said about it! The man +who does not believe in private property in America may be +killed whether he is guilty or not. That is going to be said +from one end of the world to the other if this thing is allowed +to go through. Can we afford it? I do not care how high an +opinion your Honor has of Mr. Katzmann. It may be he was +misled. Far be it from me to make any further or other +attack on Mr. Katzmann than simply what the facts warrant. +He has remained silent in the face of those accusations. Nothing +that I can say is more eloquent than that silence. I desire +to say nothing in addition to that silence.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_16"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>So much for the district attorney; and then Thompson +turned his attention to the village lawyer from Vermont, the +strong, silent protégé of a strong, silent statesman. Said he:</p> + +<p>“And what do you say of the refusal to produce those +papers? Take all the circumstances, sir.... We have got a +telegram from New York, but we cannot get the papers in +those Boston files. What inference does your Honor tell the +jury may fairly be drawn against a man if he is an humble +man who is in the possession of relevant evidence and refuses +to produce it? Do you tell them that it is going to help him +or that it is going to hurt him?</p> + +<p>“Is there anything so exalted in the office of the Attorney +General of the United States that the inference that you draw +against any other men who hold back documentary evidence +should not be drawn in this case? I am not talking about him +personally, of course; I am talking about him in his official +capacity. Personally, I have no doubt he is an admirable citizen. +But there is some reason of strong policy why those papers +are not produced here. What can that reason be? What can +it be? Are you going to say because Sacco and Vanzetti are +Italians, because they are poor folks, because they are aliens, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_524">[524]</span> +because they have no constitutional rights we will let Mr. +Sargent hold back what might set them free?”</p> + +<p>And then Thompson turned upon Katzmann’s successor, +Ranney, who had argued that the “secrets” of the Department +of Justice were sacred and must be protected! Said +Thompson:</p> + +<p>“What are these secrets which they admit? They have then +admitted secrets, have they? There are secrets, are there? I +thought there were from the fact that it was not denied or +contradicted. And I will say to your Honor that a government +which has come to value its own secrets more than it +does the lives of its citizens has become a tyranny, whether +you call it a republic, a monarchy, or anything else. Secrets! +Secrets! And he says you should abstain from touching this +verdict of your jury because it is so sacred. Would they not +have liked to know something about the secrets? The case is +admitted by that inadvertent concession. There are then secrets +to be admitted....</p> + +<p>“Mr. Ranney says that I have argued that all these Federal +agents ought to be in jail. I was not so bold as to make that +suggestion, if your Honor please. All I ventured to call your +Honor’s attention to was the fact that one of them already +was in jail, namely, our friend, Shaughnessey, sentenced for +twelve years for highway robbery, a man who was then investigating +Sacco and Vanzetti, and going around with a badge +of the United States on him as his authority so to do. I do not +suggest what ought to be done to these agents. I do say, as a +citizen, that it is a shame that Weiss, a man capable of making +the suggestions that he made, and doing the things that he +did in this case, should still be wearing the uniform of the +United States and boldly operating around this town, and not +even taking the trouble to come in here and deny these charges.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_16"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>All that got under “Web” Thayer’s skin most frightfully; +you had only to watch his gray withered face and trembling +hands while he listened. It made him so furious that he took +only five weeks to write his decision—instead of the year he +had been requiring hitherto! There were persons who believed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_525">[525]</span> +that the reason for the Sacco-Vanzetti conviction had been +ill-mannered I.W.W. lawyers from the wild and woolly west; +but here was a respectable lawyer, one of the leaders of the +Boston bar; and here was “Web” raging at him, with elaborate +and complicated sneers such as “Web” loved, and which exhibited +his learning, not merely in the legal field, but in the +medical. Said “Web”:</p> + +<p>“Since the trial before the jury of these cases, a new type +of disease would seem to have developed. It might be called +‘lego-psychic neurosis’ or ‘hysteria’ which means: ‘a belief in +the existence of something which in fact and truth has no such +existence.’ ... This disease would seem to have reached a +very dangerous condition, from the argument of counsel, upon +the present motion, when he charges Mr. Sargent, Attorney-General +of the United States and his subordinates, and subordinates +of Former-Attorney-General of the United States +Mr. Palmer and Mr. Katzmann and the District Attorney of +Norfolk County, with being in a conspiracy to send these two +defendants to the electric chair, not because they are murderers +but because they are radicals.... This would seem to +be a very low estimate of the District Attorney and his assistants. +The physician, ordinarily, in diagnosing a disease, +seeks to ascertain the length of time the symptoms have existed, +with a view of ascertaining how deep-seated the disease +is and whether it is curable or not. In these cases, from all +the developed symptoms, the Court is rather of the opinion +that the disease is absolutely without cure.”</p> + +<p>But the most amazing thing in that amazing decision was +what the learned judge had to say about the issue of “radicalism,” +and the part it had played in the trial. Defending himself, +with his back to the wall, “Web” cited some dialogue which +he said had passed between Katzmann and Sacco. But you +searched in the transcript of the testimony for that passage, +and couldn’t find it. You would go back and search some more—you +must have skipped a page, it must be there somewhere. +You would get others to search—until finally it had become +certain that “Web’s” citation was invented! So much progress +“Judge Fury” had made since the days of the Dedham trial, +when his utmost daring had been to present Frank Sibley with +a page from the transcript with a passage cut out. But now +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_526">[526]</span> +he concocted passages, and inserted them in his decisions, in +quotation marks, to be printed in the law-books, and handed +down to the scorn and fury of all future times! Said Mr. +Justice Thayer, in his rôle of fiction-writer:</p> + +<p>“Mr. Sacco said that he feared punishment, that he was +afraid of deportation, that he did not want to go back to +Italy, that he had told all these falsehoods because of his fear. +Mr. Katzmann, in his cross-examination, brought out all these +facts and then he asked this question: ‘Mr. Sacco, you say you +feared deportation and that is why you told all these lies and +why you did what you did?’ and Mr. Sacco said ‘Yes.’ Then +came the next question: ‘Mr. Sacco, at the very time when +you were telling these lies, you had already secured a passport +for Italy on which you, your wife, and two children were to +sail two days after the night of your arrest?’ and the answer +was ‘Yes.’”—Not a word of that in the record!</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_16"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Incidents such as this furnished propaganda for the radical +and labor press. No need of comment—they were their own +comment. The story spread, in wider and wider circles. Pierre +Leon, in Paris, would publish in his paper everything that +was sent to him, and it would be taken up by socialist and communist +agencies, and translated into a dozen languages, and +made the subject of editorials and protest meetings all over the +world.</p> + +<p>The little group in Boston, laboring in obscurity and despair, +had accomplished more than they knew. Their propaganda had +influenced many thousands whose names they would never +know. In part it was the natural drama of the case, the contrasts +and thrills supplied by the Great Novelist; in part it was +the personality of Vanzetti. Joe Randall had been right when +he said, at that first meeting in Plymouth Jail: “The police +have given us a good martyr.” For five years Bart had been +tried in the fire, and he had stood the test; it would be hard +to say how any man could have stood it better. Outside, in +times of excitement, he had been fanatical and violent; but +now those faults were remedied by prison bars; now he was +of necessity the student and thinker. He met persons of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_527">[527]</span> +cultivated class, and learned that they, too, were concerned +about “joostice.” Without weakening in the cause of his beloved +proletariat, he came to understand that goodness is not +a matter of class, and that love can break down as many +barriers as greed can set up.</p> + +<p>He was gentle, he was wise, and he was dignified. The +humiliations of prison life had failed to affect him; he had +conquered his jailers. A few days after his arrest, Mike Stewart, +bluff and burly, had patted him on the back and called him +“Bertie”; but now the guards understood that he was a superior +man, and before his death the life of the prison had come +to revolve about him. He sat for many hours a day in his cell, +writing letters; and the least of these bore the stamp of his +personality. He had a style now—both in English and Italian. +To a friend he wrote:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I have been told that the Italian is one of the most beautiful +of languages: to me it is: it is my mother’s language: it +is the angelic language to me. Yet all languages are beautiful +when they voice the beautiful, the good and the true. Your +words are harmonious and sweet to me as friendship’s voice is—they +are music, the vibration of life.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Always thinking of others; with that natural courtesy which +springs from a kind heart. To a rancher’s wife on the Pacific +coast he wrote:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“By the solidarity of the workers, friends, and comrades I +always have money to enable me to buy some food and fruits, +cheese, etc., when the institution food does not agree with me. +I am satisfied with what I have. Very often I think while +eating of some starved human creatures and I feel a little +ashamed though I have always done my part to assure a piece +of bread to each mouth. So please do not be excessively troubled +for me. Good sentiments and friendly words are most necessary +to me—and you are very most prodigal.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>So he said; but in truth he needed more than sentiments +and words; he needed the bosom of that Mother Nature whom +he loved with a passion both filial and romantic. When he +heard that Cornelia was visiting Plymouth, he wrote to her: +“Oh! that sea, that sky, those freed and full of life winds of +Cape Cod! Maybe I will never see, never breathe, never be +at one with them again!” He poured out the anguish of his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_528">[528]</span> +effort to know and to achieve—in spite of terrifying handicaps:</p> + +<p>“Exactly talking, I am not busy in writing but in trying +to write. For, the prison’s spell is telling its story also on me, +and how so! It seems to be increasing my understanding and +diminishing my power of expression. In fact ... it is ... an +experience all right! but an experience that undermines the life, +straight to its sources and centers so that as long as consciousness +and memory are not yet weaken, you can realized something +... but, as to express oneself at one’s best one has to +be at one’s best while after such experience one is not any +longer at his best! he can not any longer express himself at the +best of his power. These are the reasons why I am busy in +trying to write and writting very little at all. Oftentimes I +manouvired hard to write down what I wish; then, reaching it +I perceive that it does not says what I mean and I torn the +writting in many little pieces.</p> + +<p>“The crux of this inner drama is not only about expression +... it is that I doubt my own thoughts, my opinions, my +feeling, my sentiments, believes and ideas. I am sure of nothing, +I know nothing. When I think of a thing and try to understand +it, I see that in the time in the space and in the +matter that thing is, both before and after, related to so many +other things that I, following its relations, both backward +and forward, see it disappear in the ocean of the unknown +and myself lost in it. It is easy to create a universal sistem, +to human minds; that is why we are blessed by so many of +universal sistems while no one know what a bed-buck is.”</p> + + +<h3 id="X_16"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia would visit Charlestown and discuss these high +metaphysical problems with Bart, and then she would go to +tea-parties and dinners in the Back Bay, and tell her blue-blood +friends about this philosophical fish-peddler, and now +and then persuade one to call upon him. So gradually the class-lines +were broken down in Boston, and strange things happened—things +which could not have been duplicated anywhere +else in the world. For example, the Madeiros reprieve, and the +way it was engineered!</p> + +<p>The Madeiros motion for a new trial, turned down by Thayer, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_529">[529]</span> +was in process of appeal to the Supreme Court. But meantime, +the mills of the law were threatening to grind up the principal +witness! Madeiros was scheduled to be executed for the +Wrentham bank murder, and if he were to die, what would +be left of the “Madeiros motion”? The Governor of the Commonwealth +was asked to postpone the execution, and he refused +to act. By what means could his hard heart be moved?</p> + +<p>Cornelia went to call upon a certain venerable lady, one of +the oldest inhabitants of Beacon Hill, tremendously looked up +to, even though she took no part in politics or practical affairs. +Hardly anything in her home less than a hundred years old—except +the occupant, who was ninety-something, and regarded +Cornelia Thornwell as one of the young matrons. A shrine of respectability, +with a little wizened female deity in a faded black +silk dress, to whom Cornelia told her troubles—the losing +struggle she was waging with politicians and bankers and +business men who thought they were protecting society and +upholding order when they took a chance on killing innocent +men. See what was happening to a fine, upright lawyer like +William G. Thompson, who was being abused up and down +for daring to defend two anarchists!</p> + +<p>The old, old lady listened, and then said, “My dear, the +trouble is, these persons don’t know Boston history. Tell them +what John Adams and the first Josiah Quincy did.”</p> + +<p>“What is that?”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know history either! When the British soldiers +were indicted for murder after the Boston massacre, John +Adams and Josiah Quincy defended them, to be sure they had +a fair trial.”</p> + +<p>“Did that really happen?” exclaimed Cornelia.</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed, my dear, you can look it up in the books. If +you want to make any headway in Boston, why don’t you really +find out about us?”</p> + +<p>It happened that at this time a New York newspaper had +sent its labor editor to study the Madeiros case. This man +had come with the usual prejudices, but convinced himself +against his will that Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent. He +wanted to do something to help, and Cornelia told him of this +colonial precedent. Seeing the chance, he took it to one of the +most bitter reactionaries in Boston, a man whom Cornelia +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_530">[530]</span> +herself would never have approached, for she knew that he +had put up, out of his private purse, more than half a million +dollars for the war upon the “Reds.”</p> + +<p>This powerful person, who had been demanding a quick +death for Sacco and Vanzetti, was confronted with that sacred +precedent, and felt himself rebuked. Had John Adams and the +first Josiah Quincy really done such a thing? If it was true, +he would do no less! He would write or call upon the Governor, +and ask for a reprieve of the Madeiros sentence! He +did so; and the result was, the reprieve was granted, and +Sacco and Vanzetti got another six months in which to make +their impression upon the world!</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_16"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Seven years had passed since the felt plants of Jerry Walker +had been taken from him by Henry Cabot Winters and Rupert +Alvin and the rest of the “Pilgrim National crowd.” Two +years had passed since the jury had brought in that tremendous +verdict of ten and one-half million dollars in Mr. Walker’s +favor. In the course of seven years the new owners had made +more than that amount of money out of the properties; but +still Mr. Walker had not got a penny. The case had been appealed +to the Supreme Judicial Court, and at last, in the fall +of 1926, the seven old gentlemen in black silk robes were ready +to hear the argument. A great event in the legal world of Boston: +the highest priced lawyers in the city pitted against one +another, for the highest stakes in history. You might be sure +that none of the elderly judges would fall asleep this time! +They listened day after day, while more than two thousand +“exceptions” were explained and debated before them; the +mere brief of the plaintiff filled three printed volumes.</p> + +<p>The wrangling over, the seven judges took their seven heads +full of arguments, and the printed briefs and the huge “bill +of exceptions,” to meditate and discuss among themselves. +Three or four months they would need to make up their minds; +but—a dreadful circumstance, almost blasphemy to mention—Rupert +and Henry thought that they foresaw the outcome! +In strictest secrecy the word went the rounds of the family; +no need to worry, everything was going to be all right!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_531">[531]</span></p> + +<p>And so it proved. On the ninth of March, 1927, the black-clad +justices spoke the final word on the Jerry Walker case: +declaring that the verdict of the jury had been an error, and +that the trial judge should have directed a verdict for the +banker-bandits. From this time forth all banker-bandits who +desired to put pistols to the heads of businessmen need only +have to take the precaution to make the businessmen sign a +paper forgiving them for the action.</p> + +<p>An amazing decision for a court which was forbidden to +deal with the facts, and claimed that it never did so! The +release which Jerry Walker had been induced to sign, at the +time that he had parted with his properties, had been an obvious +part of the conspiracy; he had signed it in ignorance of what +had been done to him, and one consideration of the release had +been his parting with more of his property. So the jury had +decided; but now the august justices stepped in and declared +that this was not so; the conspiracy had been over before the +release was signed, and “no fraud or duress entered into the +execution of the release.” In order to say this, they had to do +exactly what “Web” Thayer had done so many times in the +Sacco-Vanzetti case; that is, to shut their eyes to a mass of testimony +which stood in the record. When it came to sparing +the rich or condemning the poor, all judges appeared to be +alike.</p> + +<p>A great relief to the masters of the Boston banking-ring. +No longer need they fear having to part with most of their +wealth acquired during the last few years! They patted the +old boys of the court on the back at lunch-time in the Union +Club, and told them that they were true friends of sound and +conservative business. All right to talk about the case now; +neither would there be any harm if you offered to take a son +or a favorite nephew into the bank at a generous salary. In +time of peace prepare for war!</p> + +<p>Jerry Walker’s legal bull-dog was raising a howl, and talking +about appealing to the United States Supreme Court; +but that was all rubbish, said Henry Cabot Winters—the Federal +courts would never take jurisdiction. He went about among +his friends and took his share of the back-patting. The great +bankers and lawyers who had made faces at him now began +to make smiles. Since they were to keep the money, they would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_532">[532]</span> +manage to forgive him for having forced it upon them.</p> + +<p>John Quincy Thornwell was in Paris at the time of the decision, +and Henry sent him a cablegram which was the talk of +Boston clubs and drawing-rooms for many a day thereafter. +“Tout est sauvé sauf l’honneur,” said Henry. Since the World +War all Boston blue-bloods know French—or they have secretaries +who help them pretend to. The humorless president +of the Fifth National Bank of Boston would find somebody +to translate and explain those shining words: “All is saved but +honor!” Goethe made the remark that every bon mot of his +had cost a purse of gold; but Mr. Jerry Walker operated upon +the modern scale, with splendor suited to the masters of mechanized +production; he had paid ten and one-half million dollars +for that bon mot of the Back Bay!</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_14"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>Property was safe, so now there was time to think about +life. The seven black-robed old gentlemen got to work on the +Madeiros motion in the Sacco-Vanzetti case—the last chance +for a new trial. They had been stung by world-wide criticism +of the law’s delay, and wanted to get the matter over, so +that Massachusetts might have peace again. The motion had +been argued in February, and on April 5th came the unbelievable +opinion: Judge Thayer’s decision, like all his other decisions +in the case, had been “in his own discretion,” and it +was to stand! All lawyers commented upon the amazing contrast +with the Jerry Walker decision, less than one month +earlier. When it was a question of safeguarding the lives of +workingmen, the Supreme Judicial Court held itself powerless +to deal with the facts, and could only pass on the judge’s interpretation +of law. “Finding no error, the verdicts are to +stand.” But when it was a question of protecting the property +of bankers, the court had not hesitated to set aside the +verdict, and to declare that the jury had been unjustified in +drawing the conclusions it had seen fit to draw.</p> + +<p>The decision was written by Justice Wait, who had begun +his public career as an alderman of the city of Boston—an +occupation which leaves a man in no ignorance as to the relationship +between business and politics, and the power of big +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_533">[533]</span> +money in American affairs. Immediately after the decision +was made public, his home was put under guard, and the homes +of all the other judges, district attorney and officials. Judge +Thayer’s home had been guarded for the past nine months, and +a husky detective followed him everywhere he went.</p> + +<p>It was “Web’s” hour of triumph, and he made the most of +it. His cries of exultation echoed through the dining-rooms of +Worcester and Boston clubs. He would button-hole acquaintances +on the golf-links, and boast of his perfect knowledge of +legal precedents. “I told them they couldn’t put it over on +me! I wasn’t going to be intimidated by anybody or anything! +I told those damned fools they couldn’t hoodwink me! I represent +the integrity of the courts of Massachusetts, and I shall +see that the integrity is maintained! I taught a lesson to that +long-haired arnychist from California! Yes, and I’ll teach a +lesson to the people who are raising money and slandering the +courts of this Commonwealth!”</p> + +<p>A prominent member of the Worcester Country Club came +out to his car and told his family and friends how he had +just been one of a group of men to whom “Web” had been +holding forth, referring to Sacco and Vanzetti as “those bastards +down there,” as “Bolsheviki,” and saying that he would +“get them good and proper”; that he would “show them and +get those guys hanged. No Bolsheviki can intimidate Web +Thayer!” In one of the clubs of Boston a horrified whisper +went the rounds—a United States senator had said to the +steward in the dining-room: “If you let Judge Thayer come +to my table again, I’ll have you fired.” The “blue-bloods” shook +their heads and said it was a consequence of the low type of +men who were being appointed to the bench. But even so, the +courts must be upheld!</p> + +<p>“Web” and the district attorney, who knew all tricks of +the law, were quick as a tiger in their next spring. No other +appeals were on file; and if “Web” sentenced the men, he +would clinch the case. After sentence had been passed, no +other judge of the Superior Court could take jurisdiction, and +“Web” would be the undisputed master. On April 9th, four +days after the Supreme Court’s decision, he had the two “Bolsheviki” +brought to Dedham court-house, with the round white +dome and portholes like an ocean liner, and had them locked +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_534">[534]</span> +safe in their cage—the same from which they had gazed at +him six years ago through a period of seven weeks. With +rustling black robes he emerged from his chamber, and took +his seat upon his throne: a frail old man, more withered than +ever; badly scared, yet clinging desperately to his dignity in +this great hour of triumph. Lawyers and spectators looking +up to him, a score or two of armed men protecting him—inside +the court-room with automatic revolvers on their hips, +outside on the steps with rifles in hand. “I represent the integrity +of the courts of Massachusetts!”</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_12"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>“Nicola Sacco, stand up,” said the clerk of the court; and +Nick rose, pale and haggard, dressed in his best black go-to-court +suit.</p> + +<p>“Nicola Sacco, have you anything to say why sentence of +death should not be passed upon you?”</p> + +<p>Poor Nick, he knew many reasons, which he wanted to shout +to all the world. But his friends had advised him that he could +produce no impression in a Yankee court-room, because of his +blundering English. He had made up his mind to let Bart +speak for him; but standing before that gray old man who +had tortured him for six years; seeing the row of newspaper +men, with eager pencils poised, ready to flash his words to the +farthest ends of the earth—such a temptation was too much +for a propagandist soul. Nineteen years Nicola Sacco had +been in America, driven, humiliated, repressed; and here for +the second time in his life America was ready to listen. He +spoke; and the court reporter and the newspaper men kindly +straightened out his dialect, and the world read:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“Yes, sir. I am not an orator. It is not very familiar with +me the English language, and as I know, as my friend has +told me, my comrade Vanzetti will speak more long, so I thought +to give him the chance.</p> + +<p>“I never knew, never heard, even read in history anything +so cruel as this Court. After seven years’ prosecuting they still +consider us guilty. And these gentle people here are arrayed +with us in this Court to-day.</p> + +<p>“I know the sentence will be between two classes, the oppressed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_535">[535]</span> +class and the rich class, and there will be always collision +between one and the other. We fraternize the people with +the books, with the literature. You persecute the people, tyrannize +them and kill them. We try the education of people always. +You try to put a path between us and some other nationality +that hates each other. That is why I am here to-day on this +bench, for having been of the oppressed class. Well, you are +the oppressor.</p> + +<p>“You know it, Judge Thayer—you know all my life, you +know why I have been here, and after seven years that you +have been persecuting me and my poor wife, and you still +to-day sentence us to death. I would like to tell all my life, +but what is the use?”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was no use whatever, and so Nicola Sacco sat down.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_8"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, stand up,” said the clerk of the court; +and the other figure in the cage stood up: thin, worn, and +partly bald, but with the droopy mustache as big as ever; a +large, loose figure in a neat black suit with a little black silk +tie.</p> + +<p>“Bartolomeo Vanzetti, have you anything to say why sentence +of death should not be passed upon you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Bart, quietly.</p> + +<p>And now he would reap the reward of those years of hard +work in his lonely cell; of his practice writing letters, and +treatises on syndicalism, and an autobiography, and a novel, +and a translation of Proudhon, and even a poem about a +nightingale! Bart would be able to find words; with hesitation +now and then, but not too much; with mispronunciation enough +to be picturesque, but not enough to be offensive. Quietly, +firmly, he spoke, as one who has meditated long upon his +ideas; as one who was addressing posterity, rather than the +casual few in a court-room. Posterity, hear him!</p> + +<p>“What I say is that I am innocent, not only of the Braintree +crime, but also of the Bridgewater crime. That I am not +only innocent of these two crimes, but in all my life I have +never stolen and I have never killed and I have never spilled +blood. That is what I want to say. And it is not all. Not only +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_536">[536]</span> +am I innocent of these two crimes, not only in all my life I +have never stolen, never killed, never spilled blood, but I have +struggled all my life, since I began to reason, to eliminate +crime from the earth.</p> + +<p>“Everybody that knows these two arms knows very well +that I did not need to go into the streets and kill a man or +try to take money. I can live by my two hands and live well. +But besides that, I can live even without work with my hands +for other people. I have had plenty of chance to live independently +and to live what the world conceives to be a higher +life than to gain our bread with the sweat of our brow.</p> + +<p>“My father in Italy is in a good condition. I could have +come back in Italy and he would have welcomed me every +time with open arms. Even if I come back there with not a cent +in my pocket, my father could have give me a position, not +to work but to make business, or to oversee upon the land +that he owns.... But I have refused myself of what are considered +the commodity and glories of life, the prides of a life +of a good position, because in my consideration it is not right +to exploit man. I have refused to go in business because I +understand that business is a speculation on profit upon certain +people that must depend upon the business man, and I do +not consider that that is right and therefore I refuse to do +that.</p> + +<p>“Now, I should say that I am not only innocent of all these +things, not only have I never committed a real crime in my +life—though some sins but not crimes—not only have I struggled +all my life to eliminate crimes, the crimes that the official +law and the moral law condemns, but also the crime that the +moral law and the official law sanction and sanctify,—the exploitation +and the oppression of the man by the man, and if +there is a reason why I am here as a guilty man, if there is a +reason why you in a few minutes can doom me, it is this reason +and none else....</p> + +<p>“We have proved that there could not have been another +judge on the face of the earth more prejudiced, more cruel +and more hostile than you have been against us. We have +proven that. Still they refuse the new trial. We know, and +you know in your heart, that you have been against us from +the very beginning, before you see us. Before you see us you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_537">[537]</span> +already know that we were radicals, that we were underdogs, +that we were the enemy of the institutions that you can believe +in good faith in their goodness—I don’t want to discuss that—and +that it was easy at the time of the first trial to get a +verdict of guilty.</p> + +<p>“We know that you have spoken yourself, and have spoke +your hostility against us, and your despisement against us +with friends of yours on the train, at the University Club of +Boston, at the Golf club of Worcester. I am sure that if the +people who know all what you say against us have the civil +courage to take the stand, maybe Your Honor—I am sorry to +say this because you are an old man, and I have an old father—but +maybe you would be beside us in good justice at this +time....</p> + +<p>“We believe more now than ever that war is wrong, and +we are against war more now than ever, and I am glad to be +on the doomed scaffold if I can say to mankind, ‘Look out; +you are in a catacomb of the flower of mankind. For what? +All that they say to you, all that they have promised to you—it +was a lie, it was an illusion, it was a cheat, it was a fraud, +it was a crime. They promised you liberty. Where is liberty? +They promised you prosperity. Where is prosperity? They +have promised you elevation. Where is the elevation?’</p> + +<p>“From the day that I went in Charlestown, the misfortunate, +the population of Charlestown, has doubled in number. +Where is the moral good that the war has given to the +world? Where is the spiritual progress that we have achieved +from the war? Where are the security of life, the security +of the things that we possess for our necessity? Where is the +respect for human life? Where are the respect and the admiration +for the good characteristics and the good of the human +nature? Never before the war as now have there been so many +crimes, so much corruption, so much degeneration as there +is now.</p> + +<p>“This is what I say: I would not wish to a dog or to a +snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth—I +would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer +for things that I am not guilty of. I am suffering because I +am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because +I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_538">[538]</span> +more for my family and for my beloved than for myself; +but I am so convinced to be right that you can only kill me +once but if you could execute me two times, and if I could +be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I +have done already.</p> + +<p>“I have finished. Thank you.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_7"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>It was “Web” Thayer’s turn. He, too, rose to speak. As it +turned out, he rose to apologize; to plead that it was not his +fault. A singular fact, which Vanzetti had noted about the +legal machinery of the august Commonwealth—he had commented +upon it to Cornelia—that everybody put the responsibility +on somebody else! The arresting policemen had said it +was not their fault, they had been obeying the orders of their +superiors. The jailers one and all said the same thing. The +chief officer of the jail had said that the higher powers would +not permit this and that. Members of the jury had said that +they had had to follow the instructions of the learned judge. +And now here was the learned judge—at the very crisis of +events—putting the blame upon the jury! The Supreme Judicial +Court had said that the trial judge had had the final say +as to the facts. And now here was the trial judge putting the +responsibility upon the Supreme Judicial Court!</p> + +<p>Could it be that even “Web,” the insensitive, had been awed +by the majesty of Vanzetti’s words? Could it be that “Web,” +the vainglorious, was assailed by a doubt about himself? Be +that as it may, the braggart was gone from his manner, and +his voice was no longer a thin strip of steel, but trembling +and mumbling. He said:</p> + +<p>“Under the law of Massachusetts, the jury says whether a +defendant is guilty or innocent. The Court has absolutely +nothing to do with that question. The law of Massachusetts +provides that a judge cannot deal in any way with the facts. +As far as he can go under our law is to state the evidence.</p> + +<p>“During the trial many exceptions were taken. Those exceptions +were taken to the Supreme Judicial Court. That Court, +after examining the entire record, after examining all the exceptions—that +Court in its final words said, ‘The verdicts of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_539">[539]</span> +the jury should stand; exceptions overruled.’ That being true +there is only one thing that this Court can do. It is not a matter +of discretion. It is a matter of statutory requirement, and that +being true there is only one duty that now devolves upon this +Court, and that is to pronounce the sentence.</p> + +<p>“It is considered and ordered by the Court that you, Nicola +Sacco, suffer the punishment of death by the passage of a +current of electricity through your body within the week beginning +on Sunday, the tenth day of July, in the Year of our +Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-seven. This +is the sentence of the law.</p> + +<p>“It is considered and ordered by the Court that you, Bartolomeo +Vanzetti....”</p> + +<p>Here Vanzetti broke in: “Wait a minute, please, Your +Honor. May I speak a minute with my lawyer, Mr. Thompson?”</p> + +<p>Said Thompson: “I do not know what he has to say.”</p> + +<p>Said Judge Thayer: “I think I should pronounce the sentence +... Bartolomeo Vanzetti, suffer the punishment of +death....”</p> + +<p>But here came Nick, with one of his wild cries: “You know +I am innocent. Those are the same words I pronounced six +years ago. You condemn two innocent men.”</p> + +<p>But the mumbling voice went on, in the solemn legal formula: +“... by the passage of a current of electricity through +your body within the week beginning on Sunday, the tenth +day of July, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Nine +Hundred and Twenty-seven. This is the sentence of the law.” +It was customary for the judge to add, “And may God have +mercy on your souls.” But for some reason Judge Thayer +omitted this part of the formula.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_540">[540]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"> + CHAPTER XVIII<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE SUPERSALESMAN</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Cornelia Thornwell would wake up in the middle of +the night, trembling, in a cold sweat. They were going to murder +Bart and Nick! Impossible to fool herself any longer; +they did actually intend to do it!</p> + +<p>For hours she would lie, evolving plans; going over in her +mind the names of persons she knew who might be capable of +a concern for either justice or mercy. She would turn on the +light by her bedside and make notes of things to be done during +the day. Betty and Joe, who now lived in the next apartment, +would come in at daylight and find her writing letters. +Impossible to rest!</p> + +<p>There being no more hope from the courts, the energies of +the defense were turned to the Governor of the Commonwealth, +who had the power to pardon, or to commute the sentences +to life-imprisonment. Legally, his power was subject to the +consent of his “council,” a sort of state cabinet; but then, +he had power over this “council,” being what was known as +a “strong” man, accustomed to having his own way.</p> + +<p>Alvan Tufts Fuller was his name, and he had begun life +as a trick bicycle-rider and racer. He went into the bicycle-repair +business, and prospered, and when the bicycle gave way +to the automobile, he stayed on the top of the wave, and obtained +the agency for the Packard car in New England, and +also in Pennsylvania, and of the Cadillac car in New England. +Upon every machine sold in these territories he received +twenty per cent of the purchase price. Since the Packard +limousine was a five thousand dollar car, it amounted to a +great sum, in the neighborhood of two million dollars a year. +“Allie” Fuller, trick bicycle-rider, was now the richest man in +New England; authorities differed as to whether his fortune +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_541">[541]</span> +was twenty millions or forty, but as a rule they guessed the +higher sum.</p> + +<p>He had begun his political career as a “Roosevelt Progressive,” +but that thin veneer had worn off quickly. He had +been elected to Congress for two terms, but had been too busy +to attend the sessions—except when it was necessary to make +a speech denouncing the “Reds.” He had served four years as +lieutenant-governor, and had earned the enmity of the Thornwell +clan by insisting upon an exposure of Rupert Alvin’s +purchase of the legislature in connection with the Elevated +Railway bill. Fuller played the rôle of an “independent” in +politics, stern and incorruptible; he made a grand gesture of +refusing to take his salary—thereby obtaining advertisement +worth many times the amount. He wanted the legislators and +officials to have the same scorn for small sums of money; +if they had possessed an income of two millions a year, they +would doubtless have obliged him. As it was, they took their +salaries of fifteen hundred dollars, and eked them out by +means of tips from the lobbyists who swarmed to the State +House, or the hotel-rooms nearby.</p> + +<p>The system of universal graft which is American government +was going on, and Fuller knew that it was going on. +Once in a while some “reformer” or “crank” or “sore-head” +would force an exposure, whereupon the lieutenant-governor +would leap up and make a fuss in the papers, and the public +would know that they had an honest public servant. The statements +he made got him into trouble; the Speaker of the +House sued him for slander and won a verdict—only to have +it upset by the Supreme Court. But Fuller got the advertising +and on the basis of it became Chief Executive of the Commonwealth—the +great master of millions condescending to play +the game of democratic politics. The procedure consisted of +going about shaking hands with grimy workingmen who +thought he was still the bicycle repairer of thirty years ago. +Hale and hearty, full of animal magnetism, with a rough exterior +and a “golden heart,” he kept the admiration of the +“plain people.” To the starving strikers of Fall River he began +a campaign speech, “I am not a politician”—and they believed +him. “I am no orator,” he would say—and doubtless meant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_542">[542]</span> +it, not knowing that this was a device explained in every +treatise on oratory.</p> + +<p>A typical specimen of the “strong man” in American affairs; +a competent executive, a driver of other men, but utterly +devoid of ideas, and incapable of thinking except in current +tags. He had known all his life what he wanted, and had gone +after it and got it. To a salesman of Packard automobiles, +the human race is sharply divided into two parts: those who +have the money to buy Packard automobiles, and those who +have not. To the former, “Allie” Fuller would come forward +smiling and voluble, his mentality concentrated upon flattery +and “service.” To that far greater number whose costume and +manners make clear that they have not the price of a Packard +car and never will have it, the attitude is one of indifference, +except just prior to election day.</p> + +<p>This supersalesman of automobiles was as cold as marble; +utterly selfish, and lacking not merely in the finer feelings, +but even in the common every-day kindness, of which politicians +often have too much. No friend, no matter how intimate, +ever got a discount on a car. In politics he granted no +quarter; he gave the punishment and took none. In business +he was the modern slave-driver with a fountain-pen instead +of a whip. When, after the war, the workers in his repair and +body-factory came to him, pleading humbly that on account +of the increase in the cost of living they could not get along +on a wage of twenty-five dollars a week, he gave them a brutal +refusal. There was a strike, which was embarrassing to an ambitious +politician in later years. But no diminution of that two +million dollar a year income!</p> + +<p>Such is the way by which “strong” men build up fortunes; +and then they sit on the heap, regarding with instant instinctive +hostility any one who suggests that there is any other ideal +in life, or any other duty. And now such a man was called +upon to decide the issue of life or death for Nicola Sacco, +who had stood up in court and said: “I know the sentence will +be between two classes, the oppressed class and the rich class, +and there will be always collision between one and the other.” +He was to decide the issue of life or death for Bartolomeo +Vanzetti, who had stood up in the same court and said: “I +have refused myself of what are considered the commodity and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_543">[543]</span> +glories of life, the prides of a life of a good position, because +in my consideration it is not right to exploit man.”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_17"> + II +</h3> + +<p>The Madeiros confession, the Letherman and Weyand confessions, +Judge Thayer’s decision, with its tone of raving—all +these had brought a new element into the Sacco-Vanzetti +case. So-called “decent” people—that is, people who had +money, but nevertheless believed in fair play—were shocked +by a too-obvious demonstration of class justice. One by one +the few daily newspapers in America which profess a trace +of liberalism were persuaded to investigate the case, and one +by one they took up the campaign for a new trial.</p> + +<p>The Springfield <i>Republican</i>, the only liberal daily in New +England, pleaded the cause. The Boston <i>Herald</i> published +an editorial, which won the Pulitzer prize for the best newspaper +editorial of 1926. “As months have merged into years, +and the great debate over the case has continued, our doubts +have solidified slowly into convictions, and reluctantly we have +found ourselves compelled to reverse our original judgment.” +That gave a terrible shock to Boston conservatism; for substantial +persons who didn’t read the <i>Globe</i> in the morning read +the <i>Herald</i>, and such an editorial interfered with the digestion +of cod-fish balls. A friend of Governor Fuller’s met him on +his way to the State House that morning and said, “Have you +seen that the <i>Herald</i> has come out for a new trial for those +wops?” Said His Excellency, “What? Has the <i>Herald</i> fallen +for that bunk?”</p> + +<p>Now had come the death sentence; and all those energies +of protest which had been centered upon the courts were +turned upon the Chief Executive. “Write to Governor Fuller! +Wire to Governor Fuller!” said the bulletins and appeals of +the defense committee. The State House was inundated by a +flood of mail. It came, literally by the bushel-basket full, several +times every day. The best brains of the world, the finest +and most sensitive spirits, laid aside their work and composed +appeals, of a sort which they imagined might stir the conscience +and influence the judgment of the chief executive of +a great Commonwealth. They spent money upon telegrams and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_544">[544]</span> +cablegrams, they wrote letters for which a collector of autographs +would have paid large sums of money; and what became +of the product of their efforts?</p> + +<p>The defense committee received a letter addressed to the +Governor, signed by a dozen or more labor members of the +British Parliament, asking him to do what he could to bring +about a new trial. Gardner Jackson, Amherst graduate and +a presentable person, was selected to deliver the document, and +he took the precaution to take along the State House reporter +for the Boston <i>Globe</i>, to introduce him.</p> + +<p>His Excellency was not in, and they met his efficient +private secretary. To him Jackson handed the letter from +the members of Parliament, and the secretary took one glance +at it, and burst out: “Oh, those God-damn crooks! Do you +think we pay any attention to this stuff? It comes in here by +the barrelful and we immediately chuck it into the fire.” Then +he turned upon the reporter, demanding, “What do you mean +by bringing this fellow up here on a matter like this? First +thing you know, those God-damn wops will be getting out and +coming to live near you in Brookline. How would you like +that?” It was a witticism, and the secretary laughed loudly, +and threw the letter back at Gardner Jackson.</p> + +<p>Such was the agent through whose hands would pass everything +which came to the Governor on the case. When documents +of great urgency were entrusted to him, and it was discovered +several days later that the Governor had never seen +nor heard of them, the defense committee would be infuriated, +and would blame the secretary for failure of their +hopes. But Joe Randall would laugh—he was furnishing labor +papers with news on the case, and was up at the State House +at all hours of the day and night, meeting the other reporters +and hearing the gossip. “Don’t fool yourself, Nonna!” said +he—cynical young “Red.” “The secretary forgets what Fuller +doesn’t want to have remembered. He is paid two salaries to +serve as the goat, and have us blame him instead of his boss!”</p> + +<p>Alas for blue-blood ladies, who left the refinements of an +exclusive home, and mixed themselves in the public affairs of +capitalist society! Cornelia Thornwell was now seventy-two +years of age, and her hair was snow-white, and her step no +longer firm—she had to be helped upstairs now and then. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_545">[545]</span> +And here she was, forced to measure her wits against a supersalesman +of automobiles and his entourage. Startling were the +tales which Joe Randall brought home about the goings on of +the “State House gang.” Down underneath the beautiful golden +dome there was a cellar, stocked with liquors confiscated by +the state police; and the heads of this “gang” were presenting +the stuff or selling it to all and sundry, including the state +legislators. Still more dreadful, to the mind of an old-fashioned +lady, some of this crowd were using the state police boat, the +<i>Lotus</i>, for what the newspaper slang termed “orgies”—drunken +parties with women. All the reporters knew about it—but +the friends of Sacco and Vanzetti had to wait until nine +months after the wops were in their graves, before a disgruntled +employee at the State House spilled the Boston beans to some +prying clergymen, and an investigation was forced.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_17"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia Thornwell belonged to the little group of those +who have a right to know. Therefore she went to her son-in-law, +Henry Cabot Winters, and asked him to find out for her +the Chief Executive’s real attitude toward the Sacco-Vanzetti +case, and what he intended to do. It was only a month after +the Jerry Walker victory, and Henry was his old genial self +again, pleased to have a call from his Bolshevik mother-in-law. +He reported his relations with the Governor to be fairly +good; he had not joined with Rupert in his row—the canny +Rupert had warned him not to, for in the game of politics you +can never tell at what hour your deadly enemy may become +your best friend.</p> + +<p>The great lawyer would go up to the State House, and not +merely find out, but put in a word for some form of executive +clemency, as a matter of political tactics. So much Cornelia had +been able to accomplish by twelve years of radical propaganda +in her family! She was deeply grateful, and went home and +prepared a fine dinner for her son-in-law, with ribs of spring +lamb, and new potatoes and green peas, and strawberries from +Georgia.</p> + +<p>But alas, the news which Henry brought completely spoiled +the dinner for them both! Cornelia hardly ate a mouthful, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_546">[546]</span> +Henry made a poor pretense. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said, +“but you’ve got to steel yourself to the worst. There is no +chance of saving your two boys.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia went white, and her soft brown eyes were wide with +horror. “Henry, why?”</p> + +<p>“Well, the police have got to Fuller, and he’s heard all the +worst about your anarchists. I don’t think there’s any power +in the world that can change his opinion.”</p> + +<p>“What has he heard, Henry?”</p> + +<p>“All the things I’ve told you before: that they were dynamiters, +and were hiding dynamite on the night of their arrest.”</p> + +<p>“But, Henry, they weren’t even accused of that!”</p> + +<p>“I know—not publicly; but it’s the real reason they were +prosecuted, and the reason they were convicted, and Fuller +has got it fixed in his mind. ‘Bad actors,’ he calls them.”</p> + +<p>“Then he’s going to execute men for one crime, because he’s +heard rumors they committed another!”</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact, Mother, he is equally convinced they +were bandits, too. He’s been told that the money went to Italy, +to make a revolution there. They’ve even told him rumors about +having found maps in Lee Swenson’s trash-basket, showing +where the treasure was buried.”</p> + +<p>“My God, Henry! That was a joke!”</p> + +<p>“I know, so you told me—but it was a poor time for joking. +The police are using everything they have. It seems there’s a +woman in Milton who told Mike Stewart that Vanzetti made +the bomb that blew up Judge Hayden’s house.”</p> + +<p>“Henry, that is the talk of lunatics!”</p> + +<p>“No, Mother, it’s the talk of the police, and the Governor +regards himself as the head of the force, and he stands by it. +They have told him that two of the crowd blew themselves +up with a bomb they were making in Bellingham—the Galleani +formulas didn’t work right.”</p> + +<p>“You keep talking about bombs, Henry.”</p> + +<p>“I’m telling you what was told me. Fuller says that both +your boys were regular terrorists, and had a criminal record. +He insists that Vanzetti was a convicted bandit before he came +to trial at Dedham. He has got it into his head that Vanzetti +was arrested, indicted, tried and convicted of the Bridgewater +crime, and then arrested, indicted, tried and convicted of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_547">[547]</span> +South Braintree crime. It didn’t happen that way, did it?”</p> + +<p>“Of course not, Henry! They arrested them for both crimes. +They decided to convict Bart for Bridgewater, as a means of +making things look blacker for Nick.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s what I thought, and I tried to get it across to +Fuller, but he didn’t take kindly to it. He doesn’t like to have +his mind changed.”</p> + +<p>“Henry, you appall me! You mean he is actually as ignorant +of the case as that?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know so much about the case myself, Mother, but +I was able to note half a dozen mistakes he made; and you’re +going to have a hard time changing him, because stubbornness +is his leading quality. He makes a virtue of it, because he can’t +think, and knows it, and resents having to try. That’s what +you’re up against, and you might as well know it at the outset—no +use fooling yourself. Go and see him, and make sure, +if you want to.”</p> + +<p>“Will he see me?”</p> + +<p>“He says he’ll see everybody—that’s going to be his grandstand +play. You understand, he’s a politician, and has to play +the game. He will pretend to be open-minded—but I’m telling +you what’s in the back of his head, and what will be his final +decision.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_17"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia discussed the soul of this Governor, and a possible +way to move it. No use in public propaganda, mass-meetings +and petitions; he regarded them with contempt. Could he be +reached by social pressure, the snobbery of the automobile +dealer, who sold high-priced cars to high-priced customers? +Henry answered that Fuller himself didn’t appear to care for +the social game; but doubtless his family would be glad to +be received. The only sign of an interest in culture on Fuller’s +part was that he went abroad and purchased paintings. He +didn’t really know about painting, and would not have dared +to buy the work of Americans, for fear of playing the fool. +But “old masters” were standard, as safe as corner real estate +on Tremont Street; so he would pay a quarter of a million +dollars for a Van Dyke, and put it in his drawing-room, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_548">[548]</span> +that would make a great stir in the papers. But it hadn’t had any +effect socially, as Cornelia knew; to the inner circle of Boston +exclusiveness, Fuller was His Excellency during office hours, +but at tea-time and in the evening he was a dealer in motorcars.</p> + +<p>“Too bad that Alice is so spiritualized,” said Henry. “She +might give them a dinner.” Alice, he added, was now receiving +the ministrations of a Yogi “master,” being subjected to +the most esoteric rite of healing, which consisted of blowing +into her ear.</p> + +<p>Cornelia got out her address-book, which had secret marks, +indicating degrees of responsiveness to subversive propaganda. +She and her son-in-law compiled a list, and laid out a program +upon which blue-bloods should be asked to concentrate—to +persuade the Governor to appoint some sort of commission +to investigate the case, and give it an informal new trial. If, +as Henry believed, the supersalesman himself was hopeless, the +strategy was to get him committed to an arrangement whereby +the final decision would rest with more open-minded persons.</p> + +<p>The little old lady had an inspiration: instead of appealing +directly to the Governor, they would concentrate their energies +upon Bishop Lawrence of the Episcopal Church, blood-brother +to all blue-bloods, and official delegate of the Prince of Peace +on earth. Persuade the Bishop to appeal to the Governor for +an impartial commission! To make a thorough job of it, why +not determine the commission in advance, and make certain +of getting competent and high-minded persons? Why not? +agreed Henry; so they proceeded to discuss names. Cornelia +worked herself up to a pitch of excitement. “Couldn’t we ask +him to appoint Mr. Lowell?” She meant President Lowell of +Harvard University. The blue-blood ladies, while paying full +homage to this great personality, do not grant him his title, +as in the case of the Bishop; by this means they indicate the +fact that the intellectual life, while important, is a merely human +affair, while the spiritual life is from God.</p> + +<p>“He wouldn’t take the responsibility,” said Henry, “but of +course it would settle the matter if he did. Fuller wouldn’t dare +go against Lowell and the Bishop.”</p> + +<p>So it came about that at the office of Mr. John F. Moors, +of the firm of Moors and Cabot, investment bankers, there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_549">[549]</span> +assembled one afternoon a group of socially and intellectually +significant persons: half a dozen Harvard professors, and the +wives of several others; Episcopal clergymen of Boston and +Concord; and such persons as Mrs. Thornwell, Mrs. Evans +and Mrs. Winslow, with Mary Donovan and Gardner Jackson +to represent the committee. They met for the purpose of working +out a method of approaching the Bishop of the Blue-bloods, +and asking him to bring it about that the University-president +of the Blue-bloods should be invited to conduct a +blue-blood trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, and thus save the good +name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts before the civilized +world.</p> + +<p>A curious gathering: soft-voiced, gentle, noble-minded, but +not entirely efficient persons, meeting in dead secrecy, with +their fingers upon their lips, in this melodramatic neighborhood +of State Street; a group of kindly conspirators, babes in +the woods surrounded by ravenous wolves—in the form of +newspaper reporters who would gobble up their respectability +with half a dozen snaps of their slavering jaws. So careful +they must be, to make exactly the right approach to the ineffable +Bishop; putting on felt-slippers and walking on tiptoes! +Not saying anything extreme to him! Not declaring that the +men were innocent, but merely that they had not been proved +guilty to impartial minds! Sparks began to fly from the eyes +of Mary Donovan, Irish ex-Catholic Joan of Arc of the labor +movement. A curious contrast between self-contained and +decorous ladies of the Back Bay, and this fiery Celtic girl, +plain of garb, severe of countenance, making no secret of her +bitter scorn for liberals and their ritual.</p> + +<p>Silence! Secrecy! Hush, not a word! Even the widow of +Governor Thornwell had lost caste, because she had had her +name in the newspapers! No one who had been in the newspapers +must approach the Bishop, nor even be named to the +Bishop—for fear the timid episcopal soul might seek refuge +in the recesses of the episcopal hole and refuse to emerge. The +members of the Sacco-Vanzetti committee were “untouchables,” +and merely to have it known that they desired a certain procedure +would be sufficient to render it episcopally impossible. +All were warned to silence, the meeting dispersed—and in an +hour or two the newspapermen had the whole story on the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_550">[550]</span> +front page, each after its own fashion. The Hearst man explained +the social stratifications, referring to the Sacco-Vanzetti +committee as the “low minds,” the Moors group as the +“middle minds,” and the Bishop Lawrence group as the “high +minds”!</p> + + +<h3 id="V_17"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Mr. Thompson had presented an appeal for clemency from +Vanzetti, and an explanation that Sacco refused to make any +appeal, but ought to have it granted just the same. It was, perhaps, +the most singular document ever submitted to an automobile +salesman in the history of the industry. Bartolomeo +Vanzetti had insisted upon writing it himself, with only verbal +revision by his lawyer. He took it as an occasion to explain +his doctrines and beliefs to the world:</p> + +<p>“Our ideas are not new. In one form or another they have +influenced human thought in the western world, and therefore +history, for at least two thousand years. Among their modern +champions are men such as William Godwin, Shelley, Carlo +Pisacane, Proudhon, Reclus, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Tolstoi (in +a sense), Flammarion, Malatesta, Galleani, and in your country +Tucker, and other great intellects and hearts. The great +philosopher Ernest Renan said that Christ was a ‘political +anarchist.’”</p> + +<p>And this to a pious Baptist, who told the newspaper reporters +that his real preference in life would be to run a Baptist +Sunday-school! A Mason, an Elk, an Odd Fellow and a +Knight of Pythias—his idea of literature the <i>Saturday Evening +Post</i>! Said Vanzetti:</p> + +<p>“Our counsel has warned us that what we have to say may +deepen the prejudice against us; but we are foremostly concerned +to save what no human power except ourselves can deprive +us of, our faith and our dignity, since we have already +been deprived of almost all of what men can deprive men.”</p> + +<p>The Governor announced that he would consider evidence +from both sides; and so it was a question of repeating all over +again the Dedham, and later the Plymouth trial. But under +what singular circumstances! Mr. Thompson, the lawyer for +the petitioners, was not allowed to make any opening statement, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_551">[551]</span> +to say what he expected to prove; he was allowed to +bring his own witnesses, but not to hear the witnesses of the +other side, nor even to know who they were. Sacco and Vanzetti +lay in their cells, and men came to the Governor’s private +office and whispered rumors about them, and their attorney +learned about it from gossip in the newspapers! Betty Alvin +came home from her brief session in the executive chambers +and revised the “Alice in Wonderland” verses to fit this new +situation:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent2">I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Said <i>stupid</i> old Fury;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ll try the whole cause and condemn you to death!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Quite literally, this supersalesman of automobiles was judge, +jury, and prosecuting attorney; and so ignorant of psychology +that he really thought he could fill all three rôles; so ignorant +of law that he really thought it was a trial he was conducting, +and would be accepted as such by the world. Or rather, if you +could believe the sarcastic young lady Bolshevik, he thought +that he was so rich and great that he didn’t give a damn what +the world thought. In that point of view he had the support +of the whole prosperous mob, which gloried in defying the +opinion of mankind.</p> + +<p>The State House swarmed with reporters. Every Boston +paper had several men on the story, and the press associations +and New York papers had their own representatives. But those +who saw the Governor were cautioned not to talk, and all but +the friends of the defense obeyed. The only news was what +the Governor’s office gave out every day, and mostly it was +disguised propaganda. The private secretary had not been quite +accurate when he said that they “immediately” chucked the +mail into the fire. They first went over it, and extracted letters +which were violent in demanding death for the two wops, +and these were mimeographed and handed to the newspapermen. +So the world read the weighty sentiments of Mrs. J. E. +Damon of Brockton, who attached a small American flag to +her letter, to make sure it would not be overlooked:</p> + +<p>“I feel very sure that you will stand firm for ‘law and order.’ +... Foreign people will not respect our Government unless +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_552">[552]</span> +we uphold our Judges and Supreme Court. What is this country +coming to if radical elements are allowed to do as they see +fit?”</p> + +<p>Also the sentiments of a representative of Comrade Jesus, +the “political anarchist”: the Reverend Floyd W. Johnson of +the First Presbyterian Church of Central City, Nebraska, who +appealed to the Governor of Massachusetts to “let these propagandists +of un-American policies know that there is not enough +money in Russia to buy even one district court in America.” +A curious item for members of the defense committee, who +at that late hour were being visited by the relative of an important +judicial personage, and informed that it would still be +possible to work out an “arrangement”! By the payment of +only fifty thousand dollars—from Russia or any other place—everything +could be settled amicably. Vanzetti—since he was +admitted to be innocent—would be pardoned; while Sacco—who +might possibly be guilty—would be judged insane, and +held until the excitement had died down!</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_17"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>It was a war going on for the possession of public opinion; +a day and night campaign, with forays and sallies, rumors +and alarms, plots and counter-plots. The big guns thundered +from the rear, and independent sharp-shooters crept forth to +do sniping. “Hundred percent American” and “Pro Bono Publico” +wrote letters to the <i>Transcript</i>, and the defense committee +changed its “Bulletin” from a monthly to a fortnightly, and +filled many columns with letters from friends of social justice +all over the world.</p> + +<p>Prof. Felix Frankfurter, one of the liberals of the Harvard +Law School, published an article in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, the +Back Bay’s palladium of culture, reviewing the case and exposing +the manifold errors of Judge Thayer. To Boston conservatism +that was a frightful scandal, and something had to +be done at once. A champion was found, a tremendous personage +by the name of Wigmore, with so many titles and honors +that it took two and seven-eighths inches in “Who’s Who” +to recite them: a graduate of Harvard and of the Harvard +Law School, Past President of the American Institute of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_553">[553]</span> +Criminal Law and Criminology, Past President of the American +Association of University Professors, Commanding Member +of the Staff of the Judge Advocate-General of the United States +Army with the rank of Major, Member of the United States +Section of the Inter-American High Commission, Chevalier +of the Legion of Honor of France, Member of the League of +Nations Committee on Intellectual Coöperation, and Dean of +the Law School of Northwestern University—a Methodist institution +lifted to worldly magnificence by Judge Gary of the +Steel Trust.</p> + +<p>This two hundred and forty centimeter gun went into action +from its emplacement a thousand miles away. Dean Wigmore +wrote a broadside, starting with two columns on the front page +of the <i>Transcript</i>, and expanding into seven half-columns on +the next page. He gave Felix Frankfurter one of those wiggings +which professors exist to receive and deans exist to administer. +With annihilating wit he referred to him, all through +the two columns and the seven half-columns, as “the plausible +pundit”; he accused him of having made “errors and misstatements +which if discovered in a brief of counsel submitted in a +case would qualify him for proceedings for disbarment.”</p> + +<p>Alas for poor Dean Bigwig! He had got his citations from +Thayer, or from some friend of Thayer’s; and never could it +have entered his bewigged head that a judge of the Superior +Court of the august Commonwealth of Massachusetts would +practice the device of falsifying a legal record, quoting statements +incorrectly, and even making up passages which he said +were in the record, but which were not in the record! If such +procedures “would qualify a lawyer for proceedings for disbarment,” +what would they do to a judge of the Superior +Court? Apparently they would qualify him for the enthusiastic +support of all the courts and most of the newspapers of his +Commonwealth, as well as of the Dean of the Law School of +the University of Judge Gary. They would qualify him a few +months later to have the banqueting alumni of Dartmouth College +stand up and cheer themselves hoarse for a five full minutes +by the watches of newspaper reporters.</p> + +<p>Defending himself in his last decision, Judge Thayer had +boasted that the Supreme Judicial Court had “approved” the +verdict of the Dedham jury. Felix Frankfurter had pointed out +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_554">[554]</span> +that this was not true. All that the higher court could do was +to “affirm” the verdict, which in the technical language of +lawyers is an entirely different matter. The dean now elaborately +denied that Thayer had used the word “approved,” and +he accused Frankfurter of libeling Thayer. “It is a libel on +the worthy trial judge, in that it charges him with knowing +falsity in an official statement.”</p> + +<p>Touching indeed the faith of poor Dean Wigmore in his +“worthy trial judge” a thousand miles away! Had this “worthy +trial judge” failed to furnish him with the full text of the decision? +Or had the dean been in such a hurry to burst into +the <i>Transcript</i> that he hadn’t stopped to examine the document +for himself? All that Felix Frankfurter had to do in his +reply was to refer the worthy dean to the sentence in Judge +Thayer’s opinion, as printed in the Amended Bill of Exceptions +over Judge Thayer’s signature, attested by the Clerk for the +Superior Court of Norfolk County, pages 366 and 367, where +the word “approved” was plainly to be read. So there was +Dean Wigless, in the distressing position of having furnished +the rope to hang his friend, Judge Thayer, for “knowing falsity +in an official statement”!</p> + +<p>And then the questions and answers about Sacco’s dialogue +with Katzmann, which Judge Thayer had invented and inserted +into his decision! The dean had accepted this bogus passage, +and put it into his letter to the <i>Transcript</i>, and the <i>Transcript</i> +had solemnly published it. Now, said Frankfurter, “a careful +search of the record of Sacco’s cross-examination discloses no +such questions and answers as Dean Wigmore quotes. Will he +not be good enough to give me a reference to the page of the +record?” Needless to say, Dean Baldhead would not be that +good! He would fail to mention the matter again; and the +Back Bay’s hatred of Felix Frankfurter, Viennese Jew, became +so intense that they started a tale of his having been hired by +the defense to write the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> article; they raised +his price several thousand dollars a day, until they had got it up +to the colossal sum of one hundred and forty thousand dollars! +Such was opinion in that part of Boston which Vanzetti described +as “the golden rabble.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_555">[555]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="VII_17"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>Rumors! Rumors! The State House was converted from a +bootleggers’ joint to a poison gas factory. Every day new witnesses +went to see the Governor, and there was a new crop +of stories as to what they had told him, and what he had asked +them. The Governor wants to know why Vanzetti didn’t take +the stand at the Plymouth trial! The Governor has heard that +Mrs. Brini got all the Plymouth witnesses together in her +home and told them what to say! The Governor has learned +that the <i>Springfield Republican</i> got twenty thousand dollars +from the defense committee for its editorial on the case! And +all these rumors were not rumors, they were for practical purposes +the truth; the Governor heard them, and the Governor +believed them. Surrounded as he was by men who took bribes, +how could he conceive that anybody would work for nothing? +Some one was causing state detectives to follow the witnesses +for the defense, and these detectives would come back with notebooks +full of formulas for the poison-gas factory under the +golden dome.</p> + +<p>Sometime previously the defense had got hold of the reports +of the Pinkerton detectives on the South Braintree crime. +An amazing revelation to Cornelia and Betty and Joe: those +voices which had been shouting to them in the days before the +trial, when they had been seeking witnesses, and failing to +find them! The ghosts which had shrieked in Dedham courtroom, +unheard by mortal ear! The secrets which had been +in the head of Henry Hellyer on the witness-stand—the very +notes he had held in his hand! Now Cornelia and Betty and +Joe might go with this “Operative H.H.,” immediately after +the South Braintree crime, to interview Mary Splaine, the star +identification witness; that marvelous-eyed young woman who +had looked out of a factory window in the midst of shooting, +and at a distance of eighty feet, in a period of one or two +seconds, had noted the minutest physical details of Sacco, including +a “good-sized left hand,” which he assuredly never +had, and “complexion of a peculiar greenish-white,” which +he had after being kept in Dedham jail for a year, but never +while he was growing tomatoes in Mr. Kelley’s garden!</p> + +<p>Here in these reports you saw Mary Splaine in the company +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_556">[556]</span> +of Henry Hellyer, Mike Stewart and Captain Proctor, +inspecting the photographs of criminals, and making a positive +identification of Antonio Parmisano, or “Tony the Wop,” +as the bandit who had played the part which was later attributed +to Sacco. Captain Proctor set out to get “Tony the +Wop,” and discovered that he had been in jail on the day of +the crime—the one really safe place for wops in Massachusetts! +And meantime Mary had told to “H.H.” a detailed and +circumstantial tale about two men in the shoe-factory who had +plotted and committed the crime; she gave the names of the +men, and recited a story which covered the affairs of the shoe-factory +for some eighteen years. Six days after the arrest of +Sacco and Vanzetti, the detective was entering his report as +follows:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“As opportunities occurred I made discreet inquiries about +Mr. X, who Miss Splaine accused of having been implicated +in the murder and robbery. My inquiries show that there is +absolutely no ground for Miss Splaine’s accusation and that +Mr. X enjoys Mr. Slater’s confidence.” (Mr. Slater was the +owner.) “To-day I took the matter up with Mr. Frayer” (the +superintendent). “He ridiculed the idea of Mr. X being implicated +and further states that no serious attention must be +attached to Mary Splaine’s stories, because she is one of the +most irresponsible persons he ever came in contact with.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>And then, a little glimpse into the soul of an “operative,” +representing a great national detective agency and looking for +bandits. He knows that the police have got Sacco and Vanzetti +and are planning to put the crime onto them; and he reports +how he questioned a laborer who was digging a trench, close +to the scene of the crime. He reports this laborer as having had +a very good chance to get a good look, and adds, “Some one +who can speak Italian ought to interview this man, as if he +went on the stand to-day he would say that Sacco and Vanzetti +were not the men.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_17"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Witness after witness went to interview Governor Fuller +and returned to defense headquarters, reporting that the supersalesman +had got his mind centered on the Bridgewater crime. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_557">[557]</span> +So Mr. Thompson did some inquiring and pulled some wires, +and managed to get from the lawyer of the shoe company the +reports on that earlier crime, made by the same “Operative +H.H.,” and another man, “J.J.H.” Here again the evidence +wiped out practically everything the government had proved. +On the day of the crime all four of the leading witnesses +had described both the car and the bandits differently from +the way they later described them at the trial.</p> + +<p>These Bridgewater reports seemed of especial importance, +because they destroyed the witness “Skip” Harding, who saw +the Bridgewater crime, and at the trial identified Vanzetti +as the shotgun bandit. Here in the Pinkerton reports was +“Skip,” talking with the police a few hours after the crime, +and that certainty which he had displayed upon the witness-stand +was wholly lacking. “I did not get much of a look at +his face, but think he was a Pole,” he said; and eight or nine +days later he again referred to the faces of the bandits, saying +that he “did not see them on the day of the hold-up.” The +car he described as a “black Hudson six,” and gave the registration +number; as an automobile mechanic, he knew cars. +The police decided to prove that it was a Buick. When Harding +testified at the trial, he testified that it was a Buick.</p> + +<p>Every one of the other principal witnesses was discredited +in the same way. The witness Bowles, for example, had described +the shotgun bandit as having “red cheeks,” “slim +face,” and “a closely cropped mustache,” which surely did not +fit Vanzetti. So the defense lawyers felt that they had won +their case, and Mr. Thompson prepared an elaborate letter +to the Governor, thirty-three typewritten pages. The reports +and the letter were taken to the State House and delivered +to the Governor’s secretary, and everybody waited, on tiptoe +with excitement, for some word of the result. A week or two +later one of the friends of the defense, arguing with the Governor, +happened to remark, “That is disproved in the Pinkerton +reports.” Said the Governor, “Pinkerton reports? What +are they?” “Those reports which were turned over to you,” +replied the amazed visitor. “I haven’t seen any such thing,” +declared the Governor, and turned to his secretary. “What’s +this about Pinkerton reports?” “Oh,” said the secretary indifferently, +“something about a cropped mustache!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_558">[558]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="IX_17"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Beltrando Brini was in his nineteenth year, a slender, dark-eyed +youth, preparing to enter college, and earning his living by +teaching the violin to Italian children in Plymouth. He still +went now and then to play for Bart in prison; also he was +in demand to play at meetings for the defense. He could play +fine music, but the number most effective was “Old Black +Joe,” because it was the tune which Bart had helped to teach +him as a little boy. Trando would tell the story of that ill-fated +day-before-Christmas morning, when he had helped to +peddle the eels in North Plymouth; he would tell what Vanzetti’s +teachings and example had meant to him, all through +his early life; after which he would play Bart’s favorite song, +“When you and I were young, Maggie,” and tears would run +down the faces of women in the audience.</p> + +<p>Now Trando went to see the supersalesman of automobiles, +and told the story to him; but no tears appeared upon those +ruddy, rounded cheeks. It seemed that the great man had +worked out a new theory for himself; he pictured Bartolomeo +Vanzetti attempting the Bridgewater crime at a quarter to +eight that winter morning, and then driving twenty miles or +more to North Plymouth, and starting in to sell eels with +Trando for an alibi. In vain did Trando insist that he and his +father and his mother and Bart’s landlady and many other +persons had seen Bart from the moment he woke, at six o’clock +that morning, long before daylight; in vain did Trando tell +about Bart sending him to hunt for his rubbers. Apparently +the Governor thought that Bart had gone to Bridgewater and +attempted the hold-up while Trando was rummaging in the +attic for his rubbers!</p> + +<p>And then Mrs. Brini, the gentle and kindly, who shed tears +every time she thought of her former boarder, and insisted, +over and over: “He is good man! He is good man!” The +Governor confronted her with the proposition that she had +gathered all the witnesses at her home and taught them what +to say. In vain she explained the origin of that tale—that the +lawyer had been too lazy to go and interview the witnesses, +but had told her to have them come to her home, and he would +meet them there to consult about the case.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_559">[559]</span></p> + +<p>And then Joseph Rosen, the Jewish peddler of cloth. The +defense had to advertise for him in the <i>Jewish Daily Forward</i>. +One day came a telegram from Buffalo, he had heard about +the case and would come. Having learned more English in +the course of the last six years, Rosen could take care of himself. +When he was ushered into the executive chambers and +the Governor started to question him about where he had been +six weeks ago, and could he remember what he had done on +March seventeenth last, “What’s this?” said Rosen. “More +of that Katzmann stuff?” He had not forgiven the district +attorney for trying to make a fool of him before the jury.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_17"> + X +</h3> + +<p>And then one of the editors of the Boston <i>Transcript</i>. The +age of miracles had come; an editor of the sacred <i>Transcript</i> +had been persuaded to investigate the case, and had become +convinced that the men were innocent! He was so conscientious +about it, his employers were impressed, and generously let him +do it on their time: they would pay for the getting of material, +even though they would not publish it! Now this conservative +and indubitably respectable gentleman proceeded to +the Governor’s office, with a brief-case full of documents and +charts. He went prepared to point out to the chief executive +of his Commonwealth the flaws in the government’s case; and +he had what he later described to his friends as the most preposterous +hour of his life. For the Governor didn’t want to +have any flaws pointed out to him, and when the editor insisted, +his recourse was to interrupt with rude and brutal +ejaculations, and to snort through his nose.</p> + +<p>But the editor went on, insisting, because it was a matter of +justice, and the New England conscience is that way. There +was the matter of the discrepancy of the trains, upon which +the editor had done enough research work and calculation to +have earned him a degree at the Massachusetts Institute of +Technology. Practically the only proof the government had +against Vanzetti in the South Braintree crime was the identification +of Levangie, gate-tender at the railroad crossing, +plus the identification of another crossing-tender, who thought +Vanzetti had pointed a gun at him and made him raise his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_560">[560]</span> +gates, while the bandit-car was fleeing with the loot. This +latter crossing was on the way to the Manley Woods, where, +according to the “theory,” the bandits had “thrown away” the +Buick car, not far from the Coacci house.</p> + +<p>This made what the jury had accepted as a story; but now +came the editor, showing that each of these two crossing-tenders +had specified a certain train, and the time of these trains +was a matter of record, and they didn’t fit. The Governor +thought that possibly one train or the other had not been on +time; but the editor answered that there were such things as +“train-sheets.” He had the greatest difficulty in the world convincing +his Governor that a railroad has records showing the +hour at which every train passed every station, even as far as +six years back. As a matter of fact, the sheets of those trains +had been produced on the stand at the trial, and the district +attorney might have found the truth if he had wanted it.</p> + +<p>A singular interview! The Governor would profess complete +mastery of matters concerning which it was evident that he +knew very little, and when he was corrected, would fly into +a rage and demand, “What right have you to question me?” +The too-conscientious editor could not make his arguments +clear, because the Governor did not know the elementary facts +upon which the arguments rested; nor could he explain these +elementary facts, because that would offend the great man’s +dignity. He came out from the interview to report that the +situation was hopeless from the point of view of the defense. +He realized, of course, the political game that was going on: +the “grand-stand play,” in current slang. The Governor would +have the whole world marveling at his patience and open-mindedness, +while in reality he was impatient of argument, and +his mind was closed.</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_17"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Bitter struggles in the rooms of the defense committee on +Hanover street, where radicals and conservatives fought over +the question of how to meet this desperate situation! Controversies +lasting until the small hours of the morning, and then +not settled! Feuds between respectable persons who wanted to +follow the guidance of respectable lawyers, and young socialists +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_561">[561]</span> +and communists who wanted to make mass appeals, and +have parades on the streets, and threats of a general strike! +The young radicals organized a protest meeting in Symphony +Hall, to tell Boston the facts which the Governor knew and +was hiding; but then came Thompson and Frankfurter, and +forced the calling off of that meeting, by threatening to withdraw +from the case. Joe Randall and his wife would labor all +night to prepare hair-raising stories for the newspapers; but +when the reporters came to Thompson, he would wave them +away with a phrase, “Nothing for the papers to-day.” It was +easy to understand his point of view. There was no worse +charge to be brought against a lawyer by respectable Boston +than that he was “trying his case in the newspapers”; and +Thompson clung to his belief that somehow it was going to +be possible to persuade respectable Boston to grant justice to +his clients.</p> + +<p>A brilliant idea came to Betty—to collect the testimony of +persons with whom Judge Thayer had discussed Sacco and +Vanzetti during the past six years! To present respectable +Boston with the profanity, vulgarity and hatred which old +Judge Fury had poured out in the presence of everybody, +from senators to club waiters! This idea was presented to the +lawyers, and at first they were horrified; but as time passed, +and the Governor’s bias became clear, they worked out a way +to make it into a legal procedure. They would appeal to the +Governor on the ground of Thayer’s prejudice; if that did +not succeed, they would make a further move in the courts on +that basis, with a possible appeal to the Supreme Court of the +United States on a writ of certiorari.</p> + +<p>So began a still hunt among those who knew but did not +admire the “worthy trial judge.” There were many such persons +in high station; but would they consent to violate the +reticences which protect social life? Appeals to their consciences +were made, and a few yielded: George U. Crocker, +a former city treasurer, and member of the University Club, +where Judge Thayer had lived during the Dedham trial; +Mrs. Lois Rantoul, who was a Lowell; Robert Benchley, one +of the editors of <i>Life</i>; Elizabeth Bernkopf, a newspaper correspondent; +John Nicholas Beffel; and Prof. Richardson, of +Dartmouth College, to whom the judge had said, “Did you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_562">[562]</span> +see what I did to those anarchistic bastards yesterday?” What +“Web” had really said was “arnychistic bastards,” but there +was no use trying to get that across to the public; nobody would +believe it, and anyhow, all persons who handled the story—reporters +and compositors and copy-readers—would decide +that it was an error, and do their duty. Prof. Richardson said +he thought that “Web” had also said “sons-of-bitches”; but +of course there was no way to get that printed in a moral +community.</p> + +<p>A picturesque little drama over the getting of the signature +of Frank P. Sibley, star reporter of that premier family-paper, +the Boston <i>Globe</i>! “Sib,” as he was known to his colleagues, +was a much beloved and slightly picturesque figure, +known to everybody on the streets of Boston—six feet tall +and wearing a Windsor tie, as near to a “Bohemian” as could +survive in that frigid atmosphere. He had been the correspondent +of the <i>Globe</i> at the Dedham trial, and had heard many +expressions of prejudice by Thayer. He had agreed to sign +an affidavit, and it was got ready; but then he discovered that +he couldn’t sign it, his managing editor wouldn’t let him! +In fact, “Sib” had come to agree with his managing editor—it +was necessary for a newspaper reporter to be impartial. +Just like a judge!</p> + +<p>A serious disappointment to the defense, for Sibley was an +experienced man, who had been covering major court cases +in New England for some twenty years; moreover, he didn’t +have to rely upon his memory of Thayer’s conduct, he had +written a letter about it to the attorney-general of the Commonwealth. +There was a conference of Joe Randall and Gardner +Jackson and others who knew the newspaper game, and +there came a tip from one of the editors of the <i>Globe</i> as to how +the issue might be forced. Let the <i>Globe</i> hear the threat of +public exposure of the fact that it was refusing to let one of +its reporters sign an affidavit in the interest of justice. Mild +blackmail, in short!</p> + +<p>William G. Thompson was consulted, and proposed to submit +the Sibley affidavit to the Governor as his own affidavit, +and have Sibley called before the Governor—which would, of +course, open up the story. Armed with that dire threat, Gardner +Jackson went to see the managing editor of the <i>Globe</i>, under +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_563">[563]</span> +whom he had worked for seven years, and they had their first +quarrel in that long period. The managing editor said that +they were playing an unfair trick upon his paper, that it was +a dirty thing to do, and so on. He would not give any decision; +but that same afternoon Frank Sibley came to Thompson’s +office and affixed his signature!</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_15"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>The supersalesman of automobiles had announced that he +would not appoint any commission; the law did not permit him +to delegate his authority, but required him to make the decision +himself. But Cornelia and her blue-blood friends went +on with their quiet intrigue, and one day there appeared in +the papers a letter signed by the Bishop of the Blue-bloods +and four of his flock, appealing to the Governor for an advisory +commission. Just as Cornelia had foretold, it was impossible +for a mere automobile dealer to withstand such pressure; +he changed his mind. As a great man in public life, +he of course did not announce that he had changed his mind; +he merely announced that he was going to do what he had +previously announced he was not going to do.</p> + +<p>More intrigue, to induce him to name the right commission! +Dignified established persons, wholly without taint of contact +with anarchism, atheism or draft-dodging, called upon the Governor, +or wrote letters, pointing out to him that there was +one eminent citizen who would be trusted by all right-minded +persons in New England to give a just and impartial opinion +regarding the guilt of the two accused men—and that was “Mr. +Lowell”! It was the “middle minds” who were inspiring this +intrigue; Cornelia, partly of her own impulse, partly led by +her friends, had come to center her hopes upon the august +President of Harvard University. “Radical” friends, including +her granddaughter and her grandson-in-law, laughed at her +for believing that Mr. Lowell would prove himself more free +from prejudice than any other millionaire. But they had nothing +in particular against him, and nobody to prefer, among +those whom the Governor would consider. “So let dear old +Grannie go ahead,” said Betty; “it keeps her hoping.”</p> + +<p>Grannie went ahead, and in due course an announcement +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_564">[564]</span> +came from the State House; the Governor had appointed a +commission consisting of A. Lawrence Lowell, President of +Harvard University, Robert Grant, retired judge of the Probate +Court, and Samuel W. Stratton, President of the Massachusetts +Institute of Technology. A vast and unanimous sigh +of relief went up from the Back Bay. At last the terrible +problem would be settled, and settled right! It would be dealt +with by gentlemen, instead of by vulgarians and political +tricksters, corrupted officials and police agents! A new atmosphere +would be brought into the case, and the world would +see that Massachusetts brains and breeding still counted for +righteousness and dignity! Two of the three members of the +commission were registered blue-bloods; the third, though he +came from the west, had been adopted and placed in charge +of the great school which, next to Harvard, was Boston’s +pride, the place where the technicians of her giant industries +got their exact and efficient training.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_13"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>Vanzetti was now in Dedham jail, and Cornelia made a +trip to carry him the good news. Needless to say, he did not +know the President of Harvard University, but if Nonna +said that he was a good and great man, Bart was willing to believe +it. But she must not forget that it was hard for a rich +man to rise above the ideas of his class. Was Mr. Lowell a +very rich man? When the prisoner learned that he owned +huge cotton-mills, and enjoyed an income of close to a million +dollars a year from the ill-paid labor of wage-slaves, the prisoner +said, “He must be a very great man if he do joostice to +anarchistas.”</p> + +<p>Bart preferred to converse about Proudhon’s “Peace and +War,” which he was translating. Here was his idea of a great +man. They discussed the formula, “Property is theft”; and +Bart showed a letter to the Vanguard Press, to which he was +sending the manuscript of the translation. “By gosh, don’t +loss it!” was his injunction.</p> + +<p>Also he had been doing more work upon his novel, “Events +and Victims.” It was in reality a very short novelette: the +story of an immigrant worker in America; but alas, no magazine +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_565">[565]</span> +would publish such material! Bart thought that if some +one would send a copy to Russia, it might be published there—or +possibly made into a moving picture. In America, of +course, they wanted moving pictures about the rich, or in +praise of riches. Bart had put a passage about the “movies” +into his novel, and he read it now to his friend.</p> + +<p>A curious circumstance: in nine or ten weeks he was to +die, in the midst of terrific public clamor; and the chiefs of +the moving picture industry would hold a meeting and resolve +that the name of Vanzetti was to be forever barred from the +screen, and that all pictures which had been taken of the case +should be immediately destroyed. They, the propaganda chiefs +of capitalism, knew who their enemies were, and no mistake +about it. Said Bartolomeo Vanzetti, speaking to the suppressors +of his fame:</p> + +<p>“I went out and walked towards the theater, hoping to see +Johnny whom I knew to be passionately fond of moving picture +shows. That night they were showing a screen version, +a fragment of one of those romances which distort truth and +realities; falsify history; provoke, cultivate and embellish all +the morbid emotions, confusions, ignorances, prejudices and +horrors; and, purposely and skillfully pervert the hearts and, +still more, the minds. The characters of these morbid melodramas +are always of two opposite types, one very good, the +other very bad. The good ones are the good folks who are +always good, always do good, are always right, and in the end +always triumph. The others are always bad folk, who are always +wrong, always do evil and finally pay the penalty. Just the reverse +of life!</p> + +<p>“Thus meditating, I reached the theater. Of course it was, +as usual, crowded to the doors. The common people, being all +heart, with little brain and less knowledge, are passionately interested +in such senseless stories, and not a scene escapes them. +They develop a wild and unreasoning affection for the unreal +characters of the unreally good, whose hatreds and loves, risks +and triumphs they share, and fervid hatred for and resentment +against the unreal characters of the unreally bad gang. They +lose their heads, weep, sigh, laugh, smile, fear, hope and throb, +and, forgetting their cross of infamy, leave the theater more +stupid than when they entered it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_566">[566]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_9"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>The Advisory Commission could not get to work until after +the college commencements were over. But meantime the secret +hearings before the Governor went on, and in the offices of +the defense committee several typewriters clicked all day and +most of the night, and sacks full of letters, leaflets, and pamphlets +went out. The barriers set up by the capitalist press +were broken down; even the great news agencies had to spread +the world’s protest. The flood of letters rose higher in the +Governor’s office, and while the secretary still boasted of the +promptness with which he burned them, they did not fail to +produce an effect—especially when reinforced by the explosion +of bombs in front of United States embassies in Europe, and +the crashing of window-glass in Argentina.</p> + +<p>Cornelia wrote letters, and carried on long telephone conversations, +and traveled about visiting businessmen and bankers +in their offices, and wealthy ladies in their homes on Beacon +Hill and Commonwealth Avenue. For the most part they +listened with the patience which her age and station demanded; +they promised to study the case, and often did so. Now +and then they told her that while they appreciated her sincerity, +they knew that she was being imposed upon by scoundrels, +and that it would be wiser if she did not force them to +discuss the matter.</p> + +<p>Cornelia knew what to expect; she had watched Boston for +a couple of generations, and read of it still earlier. In any moral +issue, officialdom had always been on the side of reaction, +and the broadcloth mob had supported it—even to the extent +of putting a rope about the waist of William Lloyd Garrison +and dragging him through the streets. But always there had +been a small minority of choice spirits who had come out in +opposition, and made the glory of the city’s history. Among +these had been the oldest names and the bluest blood; and so +it was now. There appeared an open letter addressed to Governor +Fuller, asking a list of pertinent questions, and the +signers of that letter included the best that Massachusetts had +to show in every form of culture. Nor did these people stop +with writing letters; they wrote their names upon checks, and +gave time and thought to the case—everything that civilized +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_567">[567]</span> +human beings could do to make headway against brutal power.</p> + +<p>The Thornwell family offered a miniature of the whole +Back Bay. Cornelia crusading, and her granddaughter Betty +ready to turn into a militant, and get her head broken by the +police; while on the other hand the aged Abner Thornwell, +oldest member and nominal head of the family, was sitting +paralyzed in his wheel-chair, boiling like a steel crucible about +to explode. Great-uncle Abner—so he was always referred +to, because of the children—resembled his sister-in-law Cornelia +in one thing, that he could not think or talk about anything +but Sacco and Vanzetti; his conversation, a monologue +on account of his complete deafness, resembled a verse-form +with a refrain—“Burn them! Burn them!”</p> + +<p>Abner insisted upon writing bloodthirsty letters to the Governor +and to the newspapers. This would have been a scandal, +because everybody knew of Cornelia’s part in the case; and +since she had taken it up first, family etiquette declared it to +be hers. So the Scatterbridge family, with whom the old man +resided, entered into an elaborate conspiracy to suppress his +letters; secretaries, chauffeurs and attendants, butlers, footmen +and maids—everybody had to be warned to bring the old +gentleman’s letters to Mr. James instead of mailing them! In +the end the victim found out about that, and worked himself +into such a fury that the family was afraid he would die on +the spot. He had to be allowed to mail a letter to the Governor, +and to have an acknowledgment, as his rank and station +required; James having sent his secretary to explain the circumstances +and see that the letter was not given to the press.</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_8"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>Between these two extremes the other members of the family +were distributed here and there. Henry Cabot Winters had become +quite sympathetic toward his “Bolshevik mother-in-law”; +he gave it as his legal opinion that she had come out of her +seven years’ struggle with unexpected glory. Regardless of +whether her wops were innocent or guilty—and Henry said he +had no opinion—she had proved to all the world that they had +not had a fair trial. Who could have foreseen that luck would +oblige her with such incidents as the making of bogus citations +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_568">[568]</span> +by “Web” Thayer, and the annihilation of poor “Dean Wigless” +in the columns of the <i>Transcript</i>? Manifestly, the judicial system +of Massachusetts had slipped up. While the great lawyer +would not do anything about it, nor even say anything about it, +he would furnish his mother-in-law with first-class legal advice +free of charge.</p> + +<p>Also Quincy Thornwell had been impressed by the interest +taken in the case by men of standing in the financial world, +such as John F. Moors, who was a member of the “Fincom,” +or Financial Commission—a device of the blue-blood bankers +to watch the politicians, and keep them from stealing too large +a percentage of the public funds. When Mr. Moors publicly +said there was something wrong, Quincy stopped arguing with +his aunt, and took to toddling round on his withered legs, a +faithful messenger-boy, bringing gossip from the dinner-tables +of the rich.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Jack Gardner had left Fenway Court for palaces and +mansions above; but other hostesses had taken her place, and +Quincy would bring home the funny stories which smart society +liked to tell about the super salesman of automobiles, and his +old paintings and other efforts at culture. He had proposed +to appoint Harry Garfield, president of Williams College, to +the Lowell commission, but Mrs. So-and-so had insisted +that it wouldn’t do, because Harry’s grandfather had been assassinated +by an anarchist. It had really been his father, said +Quincy; but the State House wasn’t very strong on history. +Cornelia added that the assassin had not been an anarchist, +but a plain lunatic, which was different, whether the Governor +would admit it or not.</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact,” said Quincy, “on that basis the Governor +would himself be barred from deciding, because somebody +murdered <i>his</i> grandfather.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia took that bit of history home with her, and mentioned +it to the sarcastic Betty, who retorted: “Somebody murdered +him too late!” Cornelia shuddered, and said “Hush!”—looking +about for a spy. The thing of which she lived in hourly +terror was that some lunatic might kill somebody connected +with the government—in which case it would be all over with +Sacco and Vanzetti, and perhaps with the defense committee +as well!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_569">[569]</span></p> + +<p>Another person who had been startled by developments in +the case was Betty’s mother. Impossible that Deborah should +not be shaken by the letter from Bishop Lawrence, whose +prize parishioner she was—he came to a state dinner at her +home once every year. Yes, Deborah said, her mother had had +ground for the protest; but now her troubles were all over, +Mr. Lowell had the matter in charge, and would see that it +was straightened out.</p> + +<p>There was quite a tug of war in the Alvin family, for +Rupert said thumbs down on all anarchists. But of course he +wouldn’t dare to say so publicly, in defiance of his mother-in-law +and his wife. What the great banker did was to keep +out of the uproar, by pleading temporary retirement on account +of ill-health. His doctors had insisted that he should +find a “hobby,” something else to be interested in but other +people’s money. So he was taking up church architecture, designing +with his own hands a miniature English abbey, and +having it built as a private chapel on his North Shore estate. +It was costing a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but was +really an economy, so the great banker explained; it would be +a church for his friends and servants on the estate, thus saving +gasoline and tires, and later on it would be a mausoleum.</p> + + +<h3 id="XVI_4"> + XVI +</h3> + +<p>And then the Scatterbridge family. Clara had raised her +brood, who were in schools and colleges, and asking questions; +therefore the mother was trying to understand public affairs, +but finding them extremely complicated. She accepted the +pamphlets her mother gave her, but the trouble was, she fell +asleep so easily. As that was bad for her “reducing,” she found +it better to go to bridge parties. When Cornelia told her a sad +story about the wife of a shoe-worker, whose marriage had +been a sort of death in life for seven years, Clara would be +deeply touched, and would write a check to help feed and clothe +the Sacco children. Then, in course of their talk, Cornelia would +learn that Clara had just given a check to a patriotic lady who +had called on her, representing a society which was seeking +to compel all foreigners to be good, by having them registered +and finger-printed by the police. This society was sending out +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_570">[570]</span> +literature demanding death for Sacco and Vanzetti; so Clara’s +money was at work on both sides!</p> + +<p>But no such conflict in the case of Clara’s husband. James +Scatterbridge was one of the stern ones, upon whom Cornelia +could make no impression whatever. The sarcastic Betty explained +it by what she called “economic interpretation.” A +great lawyer like Uncle Henry had to keep his mind open, because +he could never tell which side might hire him; a banker +like Father didn’t have to worry, because no matter whose +money was stolen, it always came back to the bank; but an +industrialist like Uncle James was a slave-driver with a whip, +and if he didn’t hold it tight there would be no money for +anybody.</p> + +<p>James Scatterbridge would keep Abner’s stuff out of the +papers, because family dignity required it; but he would go +about among the lords of cottons and woolens and shoes and +hardware and transportation, and voice his conviction that this +was the great test of our institutions, and if we didn’t teach +a lesson to the forces of disorder, the government might as +well abdicate once for all. James had a voice that was like his +annual product of a hundred million yards of cotton sheeting +being ripped all at once by a giant hand; and just now was a +great moment in his life, because he had been invited to address +some important gathering of his fellows. He had set his +best advertising man to writing a speech for him to learn, +and Cornelia heard him rehearsing it in the library, in the +presence of his adoring wife and several indigent female relatives: +denouncing the rumors that the cotton industry was +going to be lost to New England, and likewise the rumors +that the “<i>boot</i>nshoe” industry was going to be lost.</p> + +<p>James pronounced this latter as one word, with the accent +on the first syllable; and he said it several times—“I say that +the <i>boot</i>nshoe industry shall <i>not</i> leave New England!” It was +a kind of incantation, which became effective when you said +it loud enough and often enough. Quincy Thornwell explained +to Cornelia that the old families who owned the cotton mills +and shoe factories insisted on having all the money in dividends, +and left nothing to keep the plants up. James hadn’t +put a new machine into his mills in thirty years—so of course +he was being undermined by Jews who got capital in New +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_571">[571]</span> +York and cheap labor in the Carolinas, and had no fear of +blue-blood bankers conspiring to put them out of business +because they were not graduates of Harvard and members of +the Union Club!</p> + + +<h3 id="XVII_2"> + XVII +</h3> + +<p>Nemesis was waiting for James Scatterbridge, with such a +tragedy as she prepares for powerful, aggressive, absolutely +certain men. His sons were growing up; the oldest, James +junior, was a member of the Harvard class of ’27, and Cornelia +failed to attend the graduation, because of the anguish +and suspense of the Sacco-Vanzetti case. The second son, +Josiah Thornwell Scatterbridge, was a sophomore at Harvard, +and called on the phone, saying that he wanted to see his grandmother; +so Cornelia invited him to lunch.</p> + +<p>She hardly knew these children of Clara and James; to her +they were still the nursery mob that scratched rare old furniture +and smeared chocolate caramels on brocaded upholstery. +They were growing up into individuals, but she had not had +time for them. Now came “James’s Josiah”—such was his +awkward designation—a shy, yellow-haired youth with staring +blue eyes—and revealed the amazing thing that had happened. +“Grandmother, I went to a meeting of the Liberal Club in college, +and heard a man tell something about your case. It sounds +to me pretty rotten, and I don’t think the family ought to +leave you to do all the work. I thought I’d ask you to give me +something to read, so that I can answer what people say.”</p> + +<p>So there was punishment for a powerful, aggressive, absolutely +certain manufacturer of one hundred million yards of +cotton sheeting per annum! He had a son who was sensitive +and open-minded, and was going to disgrace him before the +world! “James’s Josiah” took the handful of pamphlets from +his grandmother, and he did not fall asleep over them, but +read them in a day, and told his brothers and sisters what was +in them, and there were family rows, and word came to the +father, who summoned the renegade to his office.</p> + +<p>There was a stormy scene, in the course of which the son +was absolutely forbidden to believe certain things which he +could not help believing. He explained how he could not help +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_572">[572]</span> +it—thus administering to his father a subtle form of annoyance, +which no enemy could have made worse. There was a +“bust-up” between father and son; and when Clara heard about +it, there was a near “bust-up” between husband and wife. For +Clara took the boy’s side; he had a right to think for himself, +and should most certainly not be put to work in the mills by +way of punishment. Maybe Clara’s mother was right; there +was a lot of rottenness in politics, and it was time that women +began to make their votes count. So there was the Scatterbridge +family, in the same turmoil over the Sacco-Vanzetti +case as all the rest of Massachusetts!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_573">[573]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX"> + CHAPTER XIX<br> +<span class='chap-title'>ACADEMIC AUTOCRACY</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>While presidents of great colleges delivered baccalaureate +sermons and partook of graduation banquets, the two wops +waited in jail, with the grim sentence hanging over their heads—to +“suffer the punishment of death by the passage of a current +of electricity through your body within the week beginning +Sunday, the tenth of July, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand +Nine Hundred and Twenty-seven.” A singular perversity +in the Governor of a great Commonwealth, a reluctance to +grant even the smallest concession to hated defenders of hated +wops: he would not say whether that sentence was to be postponed, +but would leave the whole world to speculate for a +month, and to imagine the execution. Said the defense committee +in its June bulletin: “Torture of the body practiced in +the Middle Ages is nothing compared with the torture of the +mind and heart upon these two innocent men and their families +and friends.”</p> + +<p>The law specified that ten days prior to the date of execution +condemned men should be moved to the death cells in Charlestown +prison. Since there had been no reprieve, this law applied +to Sacco and Vanzetti. The authorities of Norfolk County were +anxious to get rid of them, on account of the expense; and so +upon the first minute of the first day of July, the sheriff and +his deputies entered the cells of the two men in Dedham jail, +and ordered them to dress. No reasons given, no time allowed +to pack their books and papers; they were shackled, and taken +out into the darkness to a waiting automobile. With a dozen +armed men riding behind and before, they were taken to Boston, +through the sleeping city, and lodged in the “death cells.”</p> + +<p>No one told them what this procedure meant, and they took +it to mean immediate execution. Vanzetti’s first action upon +his arrival was to start writing a farewell letter to the comrades. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_574">[574]</span> +From now on they would live in solitude, close to the +electric chair. Their friends cried out in horror—foolish sentimentalists, +who had not yet brought themselves to face the +thought of that electric chair! But the ruling class of Massachusetts +knew what it meant to do, and went ahead. Not until +after the move to the death cells did the Governor condescend +to postpone the date of execution for a month.</p> + +<p>The Lowell Commission held its first session on the last day +of June. They met in the Governor’s Council chamber in the +State House; a large room, done in white, high-studded, Doric +style, with rich mahogany furniture, and soft velvet carpets. +The desks are arranged in a circle, one continuous desk, with +swivel chairs; overhead, a heavy chandelier, in which the history +of New England’s technical progress had been recorded: +first whale oil, then coal oil, then kerosene, then gas, and now +electricity.</p> + +<p>The first meeting of the Commission was “to determine procedure,” +the papers said. The first procedure determined was +secrecy, and it was very determined; not merely were spectators +and newspaper reporters to be excluded, but witnesses +and lawyers had to agree not to discuss on the outside what +they said on the inside. A bitter disappointment for the defense +committee, whose one hope was the education of public +opinion. “It is very bad,” said Vanzetti. “It means they kill us.”</p> + +<p>On the fifth of July the Commission began to hear witnesses, +and the friends of the defense received more shocks. +The Constitution of the United States provides that every +man accused of crime shall “be confronted with the witnesses +against him.” But these important gentlemen were going to +examine witnesses, while Sacco and Vanzetti stayed in Charlestown +prison, ignorant of what was going on. Furthermore, the +Commission reserved the right to exclude defense counsel from +the room whenever they saw fit, and to limit cross-examination +as they saw fit. When the rules of legal procedure suited the +convenience of the three important gentlemen, they would apply, +and when the rules were inconvenient, they would be set aside.</p> + +<p>Joe Randall, reporting developments for labor papers in +New York, was one of the crowd which haunted the State +House corridors and besieged the doors of the executive chambers. +So he heard gossip not meant for “radical” ears; and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_575">[575]</span> +after the third day he came to the apartment on the north side +of Beacon Hill, and sat down by Cornelia and took her hand +and said, “Grannie, I’m sorry—you’ve got to brace yourself +for another blow.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia winced; her lips trembled, in spite of her best +efforts. Poor old lady, she had had more than her share of +blows. The young reporter’s heart ached for the pitiful shrunken +figure in the big Morris chair. “What is it, Joe?”</p> + +<p>“Your dolly is stuffed with sawdust, Grannie.”</p> + +<p>“How do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I mean, your great Mr. Lowell is just another ‘Web’ +Thayer.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no!”</p> + +<p>“Take my word for it, and get ready for the worst. The +newspaper fellows fool the public, because that is what they +are paid for, but they don’t as a rule let themselves be fooled. +This Commission consists of Thayer, Katzmann, and Fuller +all over again—with a little touch of Rugg and Wait and the +rest of the supreme court judges, for dignity. They know that +the men are guilty, and their purpose is to find evidence to +justify the verdict. Mark my words, Grannie, before they get +through they’ll do everything that Thayer has done, even to +misquoting testimony and falsifying the record. Only one difference—Mr. +Lowell will see to it that they have better manners.”</p> + +<p>“You are too optimistic,” said the sarcastic Betty.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_18"> + II +</h3> + +<p>If it took Cornelia two weeks to realize that these predictions +were right, it was only because she could not bring herself +to admit the plain meaning of events. Witnesses emerged +from that “star chamber,” and kept their promise not to talk +to reporters; but they talked to their friends, including the +defense committee. So came pictures of three elderly gray-heads, +impatient, bored and irritated—partly on account of the +weather, for it was stifling summer heat, but more especially +by witnesses trying to get them to believe what they considered +a wicked tangle of perjuries and deceptions.</p> + +<p>Fuller was a politician, and used to making pretenses; but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_576">[576]</span> +none of the three commissioners had ever been anything but +an autocrat, and it was impossible for them to conceal their +annoyance at the efforts of men and women to persuade them +that notorious dynamiters and bandits were anything else. +Lowell had already made the pronouncement that Sacco and +Vanzetti were not really anarchists—that was just a camouflage +their friends had invented for them! And what Lowell +said became the truth, for his two colleagues regarded him +as on the whole the greatest man in Massachusetts, and therefore +in the world.</p> + +<p>Betty turned out to be right on the subject of his manners. +He could be courtesy incarnate when he wished to; but this +was not one of the times. He interrupted the defense lawyers, +and badgered them like schoolboys. The fact that William G. +Thompson had been a trial lawyer for thirty-six years did not +save him; nor the fact that he had been a federal prosecutor, +nor the fact that he had been a Harvard lecturer. Said Lowell, +“I don’t know whether you are trying to reach the truth or +not. I assume, of course, that you are.” Said Thompson: “I +am not going to put any question to this witness or to any +other witness in the case unless it is assumed by the Commission +that I am here <i>not</i> to deceive the Commission. There has +been a good deal of imputation and it is very painful to me.”</p> + +<p>A. Lawrence Lowell was an international and constitutional +lawyer, but so far as concerned criminal trials he was a complete +novice; yet he would show William G. Thompson how +to handle witnesses, and did so. He took charge of the procedure, +as he had done with everything all his life. He had a +tremendous notion of his own powers, and was not there to +have anybody tell him anything. His purpose was to protect +the institutions of New England, now under attack by vicious +radicals. The impulse to support those in authority was as +automatic in this university president, as ever it had been in +any of his stern forbears who had carried a hickory staff at +divine worship, and cracked the knuckles of the inattentive +and the polls of the somnolent. (Judge Grant often nodded at +these hearings, but that may have been a device, of course.)</p> + +<p>When “Web” Thayer made his appearance at the doors of +the executive chambers, to render an accounting of his stewardship, +every other person was immediately ushered out, and no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_577">[577]</span> +one but his three fellow club-members asked him any questions, +or heard his answers. Did he say why he had misquoted +the Sacco-Vanzetti record in his decisions, or how he had +come to invent and to cite bogus testimony? Did he admit that +he had referred to his victims as “anarchistic bastards”? Did +he admit that he had called them “sons-of-bitches”? The record +of the hearings was silent on the subject.</p> + +<p>When Fred G. Katzmann appeared, and Thompson tried +to cross-question him, and pin him down as to some of his +actions which the defense lawyer thought were not quite up to +standard, even for district attorneys—then it was the business +of the Commission to protect this former official. They had +promised him that he would only be detained one hour, and +he was impatient to get away. Exactly like Rupert Alvin, he +suffered from failures of memory whenever he was in a tight +corner. The defense lawyers tried to get something definite on +the business of Mike Boda. The police had had Boda on April +20th, only sixteen days before they had arrested Sacco and +Vanzetti; yet they made a mystery out of Boda. Was it not +true that he was a very small man? And did any witness at +the trial describe a small bandit? Katzmann would not be +trapped. “Are you asking to test my memory? Look at the +record.” It so happened that at this very hour, in a room +immediately adjoining, the Governor was demanding of one +of his visitors: “If Vanzetti was a good man, why did he associate +with Boda?”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_18"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Too late, as usual, the friends of the defense began to acquire +information concerning the members of this Commission. +Robert Grant was one of the bitterest Italian-haters in New +England. He had put it into a book, virtually labeling them +a race of pickpockets. To a librarian in Washington he had +expressed his violent opinion that Sacco and Vanzetti ought +to be killed. To John F. Moors and Professor Morison of +Harvard he had expressed disapproval of any one taking issue +with the verdict at the trial, or with the subsequent decisions. +Yet he considered that there was nothing in the way of his +acting as an impartial arbitrator!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_578">[578]</span></p> + +<p>“Bob” Grant had begun life as a popular novelist in the +genteel New England style. The rising plutocracy of America +had resorted to his works to learn the circumstances under +which toothpicks should not be used, and similar lessons in the +conduct of a good life. He had been awarded a small-salaried +position as probate judge, where he had displayed an unusual +talent for sarcasm, and an air of being much too good for +mundane affairs. He was now seventy-five years of age, and +was retired from service on the bench, which left him free to +pass judgment upon Italians. A frail, pathetic, querulous, old +man, he sat in the stifling heat of midsummer, suffering greatly, +sometimes closing his eyes—but that does not always mean that +a judge is not paying heed. Judge Grant heeded with an air of +boredom, of extreme suspicion, and discourtesy of a kind which +does not come naturally, but has to be cultivated as a fine +art. When he ventured an opinion, it was of an infantile nature. +“Why, Mr. Thompson, you find everybody wrong! You say +harsh things about Mr. Katzmann, who seems to be an estimable +gentleman!”</p> + +<p>The elderly judge’s attitude was curiously revealed in the matter +of Mr. George U. Crocker, formerly treasurer of the City of +Boston, who told about the behavior of Judge Thayer. Mr. +Crocker had never been introduced to Thayer, but had had +the judge’s acquaintance forced upon him in the University +Club; Thayer had come to his table at breakfast, uninvited, +and sat down and compelled Crocker to hear him scold and +denounce the “arnychists,” and read passages from his decisions: +“There, I guess that will hold them!” Finally Mr. +Crocker had instructed the head-waiter not to permit Judge +Thayer to join him at table. When Mr. Crocker told the Commission +about this, Judge Grant inquired, “Mr. Crocker, do I +understand that you are repeating what was said to you at a +social club by a fellow member of that club?” In other words, +the secrets of a gentleman’s club were more sacred than the +lives of two wops!</p> + +<p>President Stratton, of “M.I.T.,” as it was known, was the +youngest of the Commission, being only sixty-eight. He came +from Illinois—a great handicap in Boston, which considers +Worcester the far west. He was a physicist, and had risen by +competence in science—including the science of knowing the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_579">[579]</span> +rich and what they wanted. Four years ago he had been taken +into the sacred circle of the Back Bay, and now he would have +needed tremendous moral courage to oppose a domineering person +like President Lowell. A capable administrator but +with no reflective capacity, his social opinions had been indicated +by his banning a speaker against militarism from the +Y. M. C. A. of his great institute.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_18"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>A. Lawrence Lowell had been born to that apex of greatness +in Boston, which permits the fortunate one to be eccentric. +He rode about Cambridge in an elderly high motor-car painted +a brilliant Harvard crimson, and decorated with as much polished +brass-work as a yacht. He carried his papers in an old +green bag, and wore a coat-skirt which he switched as he +walked; Heywood Broun, who had seen his figure in the Harvard +“yard,” wrote that he “ambled sedately to a hanging.” +He had a face of cold virtue, and from all persons less important +than himself he exacted the most rigid conformance +to propriety. He was wholly lacking in enthusiasms, and appeals +to him to recognize the beauty of anarchist character +froze on the speaker’s tongue. He cultivated both in writing +and in speaking a style which for dullness could not be exceeded +in the college world. A stiff legal mind, made wholly +out of precedents, he had facility and self-esteem, and could +be extremely genial when he wanted something, such as an +endowment. On the other hand, if a common person said or did +anything out of the ordinary, he would reveal a remarkable +talent for ungraciousness.</p> + +<p>Injustice did not exist in the world; it was a delusion contrived +by cunning agitators, and they were not going to fool +the mighty mind of the President of Harvard University. A +characteristic moment early during the hearing, when the witness +Pierce, a shoe-worker who had refused to identify Sacco +as the bandit, told how he had lost his job at the factory for +this refusal; he was “fired,” and one of the convicting jurymen +had taken his place. Also another witness had lost his position +for refusing to identify. “What does this tend to prove?” +demanded the irritable Judge Grant. The answer of the lawyers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_580">[580]</span> +was, “It proves duress.” Said Lowell, with contempt which +took in lawyers, witnesses, and his own colleague: “Oh, don’t +you see, they claim this was all nothing but a frame-up.”</p> + +<p>Infallibility was his prerogative upon three different counts: +as a millionaire, as a college president, and as a Lowell. There +was a popular quatrain about the city of Boston, as “the home +of the bean and the cod, where the Lowells speak only to +Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God.” Never for an +instant did it occur to this great man to doubt that he could +wade into a mass of complications and determine the truth +in a month. With complete insouciance he would make statements +of fact about crime and criminals, which experts knew +to be nonsense. “This cannot be so” ... “they do not do that” +... and so on.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_18"> + V +</h3> + +<p>The fallibilities of academic autocracy were strikingly revealed +in the reception accorded to an eccentric lady who was +sent over by Governor Fuller to tell her story to the Commission. +Let “Tootsie Toodles” be her name—it was no less +melodious. The newspapers had called her a “mystery witness,” +but she was no mystery to the defense—on the contrary, +an open volume, ancient and much handled. She was, according +to Lowell’s euphemistic phrase, “not unimpeachable in conduct”; +also she was an hysterical fantast. Prior to the Dedham +trial, she had come to the defense lawyer, and told an elaborate +story, offering to repeat it on the witness-stand. But +there was some dispute about the price, and she went to the +prosecution and offered to tell a story for them. She went +back and forth between the two sides, until she had ruined +herself with both—they realized that she was mentally irresponsible.</p> + +<p>Ranney, the assistant district attorney representing the government +at the Lowell hearings, knew all this, and admitted +the woman’s “not unimpeachable” record. He grinned at the +scene; when the three old gentlemen were not watching, he +made motions of wheels going round in his head—a schoolboy +sign for an insane person. There came a former employer +of Tootsie, Mr. Jackson, and the commission asked him, “What +of her mentality?” The answer was, “She’s twelve ounces to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_581">[581]</span> +the pound.” President Lowell of Harvard inquired, “What +does that mean?” and the witness replied. “She’s not all +there.” The great educator enlarged his vocabulary considerably +before he got through with this adventure—it was a +sort of slumming expedition for him. They brought in the +former chief of police of South Braintree, who said that he +had known Tootsie since she was born, and she was “what +you’d call a nut.” But he was mistaken; Mr. Lowell would +never have called any person or anything by a word of one +syllable.</p> + +<p>The three important gentlemen, looking for any sort of evidence +to save the good name of their Commonwealth, received +Tootsie—it would not be proper to say with open arms, considering +her “not unimpeachable conduct”—but with that polished +and perfected elegance which blue-blood gentlemen display +to all ladies when they meet them socially. When Tootsie stood +up, they all stood up, and bowed—it was like a court reception, +or a Harvard commencement.</p> + +<p>Her story was that she had known Sacco in the year 1908, +when they had both worked in the Rice and Hutchins shoe-factory—he +was a “laster,” she said. She had seen him on the +street in South Braintree on April 15th, 1920, a few hours +before the crime, standing near the alleged bandit car. She +heard a man whom she declared to be Vanzetti say to him, +“Hurry up and finish this job. I have to be back in Providence +at three o’clock and dig clams.”</p> + +<p>There were slight errors in this story. It wasn’t Providence +to which Vanzetti had to get back; they don’t dig clams in +Providence, so it must have been Plymouth. Also it was a +slip about Sacco having been a “laster” in the Rice and Hutchins +factory in 1908, for in April of that year he had landed in +America, a lad of seventeen who had never seen a shoe-factory. +He had gone to work carrying water to laborers in Hopedale, +and it wasn’t until four years later, after his marriage, that +he had learned shoe-work.</p> + +<p>All this, of course, was known to Thompson, and he set out +to establish it. His first question was: “What time did you +say that Sacco first worked in the Rice and Hutchins factory, +what year?”</p> + +<p>And Tootsie, who knew what he was driving at, started up +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_582">[582]</span> +and began to scream. “What is the idea of my coming up +and talking with you when I come in here to-day to have my +character overhauled? Has my character got anything to do +with what I saw and what I heard?”</p> + +<p>Said Lowell, majestically: “You will oblige the Committee +by answering questions. We won’t allow your character to be +assailed.”</p> + +<p>Said Tootsie, louder yet—so loud that for the first time +the newspaper reporters could attend the sessions through the +tightly closed doors: “My character is just as good as yours, +or Sacco’s or Vanzetti’s, or any of that gang that you have +got down there and what they do. I will not allow my character +to be overhauled.”</p> + +<p>Said Lowell: “Nobody is overhauling your character.”</p> + +<p>Said Ranney, the assistant district attorney: “Answer that +question.”</p> + +<p>So Tootsie replied: “1908.” She added: “If I am wrong I +will say I am wrong.” Even the members of the Commission +smiled at this. But their appreciation of it was superficial; +they could hardly be expected to realize that Tootsie, entirely +by accident, had provided the best summing up of the Boston +Brahmins to be found in the literature of the world. If I am +wrong I will say that I am wrong! But don’t <i>you</i> dare to +say it!</p> + +<p>For an hour Thompson read passages from Tootsie’s earlier +statement, inconsistent with the story she was now telling; +and always her answer was that the stenographer was crooked +and had written the wrong answers. She became more and +more excited, and screamed louder and louder, until Lowell +stopped the proceedings, and Judge Grant, greatly agitated, toddled +across the room, exclaiming, “I will get her a glass of ice-water.” +He trembled so that he poured a part of it down her +neck.</p> + +<p>Ranney came out of the room disgusted, and told the reporters +that Tootsie was “so loud” and “so unreliable” that +Katzmann had refused to use her, for fear she would “break +up the case.” So the reporters for once had an “inside” story. +They published it, to the annoyance of the Commission, and +also of Tootsie. She read, and set out forthwith for the office +of the Boston <i>Post</i>, a perfectly respectable capitalist newspaper, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_583">[583]</span> +strongly Catholic. She interviewed a reporter, and +told him that the stories were all wrong, that she believed +Sacco and Vanzetti to be quite innocent of the crime of which +they had been convicted. The person she had seen in South +Braintree was the brother of a friend of hers, who happened to +look like Sacco. The <i>Post</i> published this correction; and the defense +produced the <i>Post</i> report before the Commission, to prove +what had happened.</p> + +<p>The lawyers for the defense naturally took it for granted that +the absurdity of the whole affair was obvious. But when the +report of the Commission appeared, they discovered to their +consternation that the three elderly gallants had accepted +Tootsie Toodles as one of their reasons for sending Sacco and +Vanzetti to the electric chair! Said the greatest man in Massachusetts, +and therefore in the world:</p> + +<p>“The woman is eccentric, not unimpeachable in conduct; +but the Committee believe that in this case her testimony was +well worth consideration.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_18"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Two things the three elderly gentlemen desired ardently to +do: one, to prove that the defense at the Dedham trial had +hired perjury; the other to break the alibi of Sacco in Boston +on the day of the South Braintree crime. Everything which +they did upon their own initiative was directed to these two +ends; and it was only while this was going on that they failed +to be impatient and bored. They had laid down the program +that they would themselves summon no witnesses except the +members of the jury, and Messrs. Katzmann and Thayer. But +in the midst of the proceedings they suddenly forgot this rule, +and without warning to the defense lawyers summoned to the +State House two Italians, Bosco and Guadagni, who had testified +at the Dedham trial that Sacco had had lunch with them +on the day of the crime.</p> + +<p>The Italians were asked to repeat their story, which owed +its certainty as to date to the fact that it was the day of a +banquet given to Williams, editor of the <i>Transcript</i>. Guadagni, +a socialist, had been rebuked by Sacco and the others for +proposing to attend an affair in honor of a militarist. Guadagni +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_584">[584]</span> +was the orator whom Cornelia had met during the Plymouth +Cordage strike, a friend of Vanzetti’s from the beginning, and +original organizer of the defense committee; he had become one +of the editors of an Italian daily paper, <i>La Notizia</i>. A ruddy-cheeked +little man with sharply-pointed black beard and mustaches, +speaking English with an accent, he told the three great +gentlemen of the Governor’s Commission what he remembered; +and then to his astonishment he became the object of a persistent +attack by the President of Harvard University, who +thought he had the Italian trapped in a fraud. Ten days previously +Lowell had consulted the files of the Boston <i>Transcript</i>, +and found that there had been no banquet to Williams on +April 15th; he had consulted the files of the <i>Gazzetta del Massachusetts</i>, +an Italian weekly, and both papers agreed that the +banquet to Williams had been on May 13th. Williams, now in +Washington, had been consulted, and agreed that that was +correct.</p> + +<p>An unhappy moment for the two lawyers, Thompson and +Ehrmann, representing the Sacco-Vanzetti defense in its later +stages. They had had nothing to do with the Dedham trial, +and if there had been any “framing” of witnesses, they did +not know it. They had received no warning in this matter +of Bosco and Guadagni, and so, of course, they were helpless. +“Might there not possibly have been two banquets?” suggested +Thompson; but Lowell waved that inept suggestion aside with +a peculiar little gesture of the hand, a series of quick motions, +characteristic of him. “Do not disturb the operations of this +mighty brain,” it seemed to say. Aloud he replied, “No, no, no, +it cannot be. I have investigated the matter.” The lawyer, greatly +distressed, turned against his own witnesses, saying that Mr. +Lowell was a man of honor, and the witnesses should admit +the whole truth.</p> + +<p>A trying situation for two humble self-educated strangers, +there in the stately executive chambers under the golden dome. +Said Guadagni: “If I am not crazy, there was banquet on +fifteenth April. If I not tell truth I go jail.” He insisted that +he would find a record of it, and Lowell waved him aside +with a gesture of disgust; all these wops were alike, there was +no truth in them. “Very well,” said he. “Bring the record to-morrow +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_585">[585]</span> +morning if you find it.” And the pair went crestfallen +away.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_18"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>But next morning early they turned up at the law office of +William G. Thompson, staggering under the weight of an enormous +tome, the bound volume of Guadagni’s daily paper, <i>La +Notizia</i>, for the year 1920. They laid it on the lawyer’s desk, +open to the issue of April 16th, and translated word by word +a half column account of the banquet to Williams on the previous +day. The dinner had been a humble one, and the report +said, “A more formal dinner will be given.” The two lawyers, +who had been sunk in the depths of despair, now suddenly +felt like schoolboys. “This saves the men!” exclaimed Thompson. +“This is our case right here!”</p> + +<p>The two middle-weight Italians, assisted by Gardner Jackson, +lugged the huge tome to the State House with the golden +dome, and sat all morning outside the tightly shut white doors. +It happened to be the two-hour session with Tootsie Toodles, +and they listened to the comedy, and shared the hilarity of the +newspaper reporters. When Tootsie rushed out, screaming, they +were ushered in, and the tome was spread out on the council +table, and Guadagni offered to translate it for Lowell—thereby +giving offense, and being informed that the president of Harvard +University read Italian fluently. There was a long silence +while the three gentlemen read, more or less fluently; and +finally the President of Harvard University turned from the +reading and shook hands with the two Italians. “Gentlemen, I +was under an impression which I find was mistaken. I +apologize.”</p> + +<p>A stirring scene: the greatest man in Massachusetts, and +therefore in the whole world, apologizing to two wops! What +more could two wops want? Or two lawyers? Thompson advanced +the idea that the Commission should make some acknowledgment +of the fact that the alibi had been established. +Trying to make something out of the incident for Sacco and +Vanzetti! But the great academic brain saw the ruse. That +would come in due time; that was an affair for deliberation. +Lowell did go so far as to say that he would give to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_586">[586]</span> +Governor an adequate account of the evidence produced. But +for the rest—no publicity! More quick little waves of the imperious +right hand. He reminded them sternly that they were +under pledge not to report anything about what happened at +these sessions.</p> + +<p>Silence! Never so long as time endures must the populace +know that the University President of the Blue-bloods has been +humiliated!</p> + +<p>Some time later the defense got their copy of the stenographic +record of what had taken place, and they discovered +thirty-two pages of the attempt of Lowell to break down the +testimony of Bosco and Guadagni, but not a single line about +the apology he had been compelled to make! No reference to +the dialogue that took place, nor to the argument of defense +counsel! There was a brief parenthetic note to the effect that +Bosco and Guadagni had brought in the files of <i>La Notizia</i>, +but not a word to show that the alibi testimony had thereby been +restored to credibility!</p> + +<p>So was Joe Randall justified of his statement to Cornelia +Thornwell, “Your dolly is stuffed with sawdust!” Of his +prophecy that the haughtiest and most righteous blue-blood +gentlemen would “doctor the record,” exactly as “Web” +Thayer, the vulgarian, had done! When Cornelia heard that +story, and got the full significance of it, she went away to her +own room, and sank down upon the bed and sobbed. It became +a sort of prayer: “Oh, God, let me die! Take me away! I +am a fool, and all my people are fools!”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_18"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>In the meantime, through this hot month of July, Governor +Fuller was continuing the hearings in his own chamber in the +same State House. “I feel myself obligated to hear anybody +they send”—so he declared; and several times each week he +motored up from his summer-home, escorted by two police +cars. The witnesses would file through his rooms, and then go +away in silence; a régime of secrecy modified by rumors and +whispers. If the witness was one who had testified at either +trial, the reporters would look up the previous testimony, and +say that the witness had told that same story to the Governor. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_587">[587]</span> +If the witness had said anything new that was injurious to +Sacco or Vanzetti, the reporters could get it in a round-about +way. Otherwise they would call it a “mystery witness.”</p> + +<p>Each day the Governor’s impatience grew, and the pretense +of impartiality wore thinner. Ladies of refinement who had +attended the Dedham trial had the disagreeable experience of +talking with a man who made perfectly evident his belief that +they were lying. Witnesses who had one definite thing to tell +would be challenged to tell some other thing, and humiliated +because they could not do it. Robert Benchley, one of the editors +of <i>Life</i>, came from New York to make statements about +the ravings of Judge Thayer at the golf-club of Worcester; +to his surprise he was challenged to point out one passage in +the entire record indicating that the trial had not been a fair +one. Since Benchley had never seen the record, he was +“stumped”, like everyone who interviewed the Governor. But +he took the Governor’s advice and studied the record; and then +he took the trouble to write the Governor a letter, pointing out +many passages indicating unfairness. Like everyone else who +did this, he got no response.</p> + +<p>Still stranger the experience of John J. Richards, lawyer of +Providence, Rhode Island, who had been United States marshal +during the war, and had arrested the Morelli gang, and +had them all sent to prison. He received a telegram requesting +him to call on the Governor of Massachusetts, and he came, at +his own expense. He was asked, abruptly, “What do you know +about the Sacco-Vanzetti case?” He replied, “I know nothing.” +Said Fuller, triumphantly, “I thought so!” Richards naturally +wondered why he had been invited, and suggested that possibly +it might be because of what he knew about the Morellis and +Madeiros. Said the Governor sharply, “That matter is closed. +The Madeiros confession is an invention.” Then he proceeded +to cross-question his visitor: “Are you in the employ of the +Defense Committee?” Said Richards, much startled, “I am +not. I know nothing of such a committee.”</p> + +<p>Here was a former officer of the law, explaining what he +believed was the truth; and the supersalesman received him +as a suspected criminal. “What do you know about the South +Braintree crime? Why did you wait six years to come around +and tell about it? Have you ever been in South Braintree? +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_588">[588]</span> +How did they get you in on this Madeiros thing?” And so on.</p> + +<p>Mr. Richards came out from under the golden dome in +something of a daze, and went to Ehrmann’s office. Rosina +Sacco happened to be there—tormented little woman, drawn +and haggard, with her daughter Inez, six years old, born after +her father’s arrest. Richards listened pityingly while she voiced +her hopes in the Governor; afterwards he said to the lawyer, +“You might as well shut up shop. Those men are as good as +dead now. Fuller has no intention whatever of considering the +evidence on their behalf.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_18"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>An author had written from California to the Governor, +pleading with him to go and meet the two alleged bandits, and +judge their characters. It was the author’s idea that no one +could encounter the soul of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and consider +him a bandit. But the owner of the Packard Motor Car Company +of New England would show the author a new line +in souls. One morning the Governor left the State House, and +stepped into his car with police-officers, and sped away without +warning to Charlestown Prison.</p> + +<p>Bart and Nick, as the sentences now stood, were to be executed +on August 10th, and were both in strict confinement; the +little walk across the prison yard which the prisoners got out +of this interview was their first glimpse of daylight for nearly +a month. Both of the men were on a “hungry strike”; they +were going to starve themselves to death, as protest against +the secrecy of the Governor’s hearings. But modern labor and +suffrage agitation has established in the minds of wardens and +jailers the fact that human beings do not die of starvation +for a long time. Bart, on his seventh day of a fast, was able +to walk cheerfully across the prison yard to the warden’s +office.</p> + +<p>The Governor and the wop sat down together—no other witness. +But later on, of course, Bart told his friends about it. +The Governor had a question firmly fixed in his head, and +which he used as a means of “stumping” witnesses: “Why did +not Vanzetti take the stand at the Plymouth trial?” He now +asked this question of Vanzetti. Since the answer involved the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_589">[589]</span> +whole story of Vanzetti’s radical beliefs, and his relations to +lawyers of Catholic and capitalist mentality, he was still answering +at the end of an hour.</p> + +<p>The Governor had to leave then, because Lindbergh had +come to Boston. The Governor was due at a reception, but he +promised to come back and hear the rest of Vanzetti’s answer. +He made his escape through the warden’s home, running quickly +to avoid the picture-snapping newspapermen. They reported +that he seemed greatly flustered; he knocked off his straw +hat while jumping into his car. Could it be that a rabid anarchist +had said something to offend the sensibilities of the +owner of the Packard Motor Car Company of New England? +A picturesque story, of which the newspapers would have made +much more, if there had not been the flying colonel, and also +a million dollar prize fight to be featured the next morning!</p> + +<p>The great man came again, and talked with Vanzetti for two +hours. Like all salesmen, he had learned to be agreeable; he +wore his fixed professional smile, and shook hands with Bart +at least ten times, so Bart declared. That a man could “smile +and smile and be a villain still” was a thing not dreamed of in +the philosophy of Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and he poured out his +heart, and explained his ideas—he took the matter so seriously +that he wrote a long letter adding things he had overlooked. +Bart told his lawyers he was sure the Governor would not execute +a man to whom he had behaved with such great courtesy. +And the lawyers also found the Governor’s manner encouraging. +Said His Excellency, genially, “I wanted to tell Vanzetti +to eat!” And again, “Isn’t Vanzetti an attractive man!”—it +might have been a schoolgirl instead of a supersalesman.</p> + +<p>His Excellency also summoned Sacco to the warden’s office, +and tried to have a conversation; but this did not come off +so well. Sacco was polite, but not to be taken in by supersalesmanship. +The conversation, relieved of Italian dialect, ran +somewhat as follows:</p> + +<p>“Sacco, I want to have a talk with you.”</p> + +<p>“There is nothing for me to say.”</p> + +<p>“But I want your version of this matter.”</p> + +<p>“I have not asked for a pardon.”</p> + +<p>“But I would like to hear your story.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_590">[590]</span></p> + +<p>“What is the use? You have your tendencies, and you could +not see mine.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I mean that I am a poor man and you are a rich man, +and we have nothing in common.”</p> + +<p>“But I was a poor man once. I worked in a rubber shop at +seven-fifty a week.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but now you are a millionaire, and your money thinks +for you. I have nothing to say.”</p> + +<p>So the interview ended. Sacco was very gentle about it, and +afterwards he became a trifle remorseful. He said, “I didn’t +treat him right. He outdid me in courtesy. But I wanted him +to know the truth. He won’t see it the right way, and why +should I let him fool himself?” Sacco was the man with a +formula; and for once the formula happened to fit.</p> + +<p>Also the Governor summoned Madeiros to the warden’s +office; and here was the supersalesman handling a different line +of goods. Madeiros had taken the burden of the South Braintree +crime upon himself, and thereby put the ruling class of +Massachusetts in an uncomfortable position. Naturally, they +would pay a price to get out of it. Said the Governor—if the +story of a prison employee may be credited:</p> + +<p>“Madeiros, I understand that you are sore because you didn’t +get a square deal from the government.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, that is so.”</p> + +<p>“The district attorney double-crossed you, I understand.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, he did.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if that is so, I might do something for you. Of course, +there is nothing in this South Braintree story of yours.”</p> + +<p>“What I told about South Braintree is the truth.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! In that case I won’t do anything for you. You are +guilty of two murders!”</p> + + +<h3 id="X_18"> + X +</h3> + +<p>On the 25th of July the Lowell Commission heard arguments +of counsel. For five hours William G. Thompson analyzed every +aspect of the case, and if his speech could have been listened +to by the thinking people of America, it would have saved the +lives of his clients. But the speech was heard only by three +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_591">[591]</span> +elderly autocrats, one of whom had a tendency to appear to +be dozing, while another had great respect for what the third +was thinking. We may imagine the third thinking as follows: +“You are an able lawyer, and are performing an intellectual +feat, but I do not need you to tell me what to think.”</p> + +<p>Not all the evidence in the Sacco-Vanzetti case had been +discovered; the defense would keep on finding it, up to within +a few hours of the execution. But most of it was now available, +and it seemed as if the Great Novelist who makes up +history had been concerned to take every item of evidence produced +by the prosecution at the Dedham trial, and wipe it out +by a later discovery. Even to that cap picked up at the scene +of the crime, which the district attorney had striven so hard to +fit onto Sacco’s head, and which “Web” Thayer had striven +so unjudicially to force a witness to identify as Sacco’s!</p> + +<p>The main point about this cap had been that it had holes in +the lining, and the “theory” was that the holes had been due +to Sacco’s habit of hanging the cap on a nail in the factory. +There had been a great amount of testimony on this point, and +Katzmann had made the most of it in his speech to the jury. +In his later arguments before Thayer he had gone so far as +to say: “that alone was enough to warrant the conviction of the +defendant Sacco.” The issue had been carried to the Supreme +Judicial Court, and made the subject of a special ruling; after +which Judge Thayer had made both cap and ruling the subject +of special emphasis. In rejecting the last bill of exceptions, +he had summed up the proposition as follows:</p> + +<p>“In the lining of that cap there were nail-holes, which the +Commonwealth claimed were made by the nail upon which +this cap had been hung. Now the Supreme Judicial Court has +said, in the decision of these cases, that that evidence was competent, +because it tended to prove that that cap belonged to +Sacco; and if the jury should find such to be the fact, then +Sacco was present at the time of the shooting.”</p> + +<p>Such had been the word of Supreme Justice on the matter +of a ragged and dirty “pepper-and-salt” colored cap with earlaps! +A man’s life had depended upon it, and depended upon +it still! And now, before the Lowell Commission came ex-Chief +of Police Gallivan of South Braintree, telling the true story, +never before revealed. The cap had been handed to him by the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_592">[592]</span> +shoe company superintendent, and the chief had carried it +under the seat of his automobile for at least ten days, possibly +twice as long; he had made the holes in the lining, while looking +for some mark of identification; then he had passed the +cap on to police officer Scott; and neither Gallivan nor Scott +had been put upon the witness-stand, to tell the jury how those +holes had come to be!</p> + +<p>Why Chief Gallivan had been passed by as a witness for the +prosecution was obvious enough—he was too plain-spoken a +man. To the Lowell Commission he summed up the Dedham +trial in one pungent formula; and if the three old gentlemen +had thrown out the whole record, and confined themselves to +Gallivan’s one formula, they would have earned the thanks of +posterity. Said the Chief: “The Government would put on a +witness and then the defense would rush in to offset it, and I +guess Katzmann was just as wise; he would dig up one to offset +him. The case appeared to be to see who could get the biggest +crowd. In other words, to see who could tell the biggest lies.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_18"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Also the matter of Vanzetti’s revolver, which was supposed +to have belonged to Berardelli, the slain paymaster. According +to the “theory,” Berardelli had dropped it, and Sacco had +picked it up, carried it off, and given it to Vanzetti. There was +no evidence that Berardelli had had his revolver with him at +the time of the shooting—he had taken it to a repair place, and +there was no record to show he had got it back. No one had +seen him with a revolver at the time of the crime. The sole +basis of the “theory” was that Vanzetti’s revolver happened to +be of the same make as the one Berardelli had owned. The +prosecution had put on the stand an expert from the factory, +who had been a former federal agent, and had led the jury to +believe that he thought the two revolvers were identical. But +now, before the Lowell Commission, he admitted that he had +felt prejudice at the trial, and that his testimony had been +misconstrued. Said the witness Lincoln Wadsworth:</p> + +<p>“But I have felt that I had created the impression that there +was a possibility that that was the pistol. Well, that is just a +possibility.... There is just the one possibility in the number +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_593">[593]</span> +of pistols a factory of that kind happens to make. There +was no distinguishing number so that you could tell that that +was the pistol.”</p> + +<p>The witness went on to tell about his interviews with the +assistant district attorney, and how the latter had failed to be +interested in having the truth made clear:</p> + +<p>“But Mr. Williams did not seem to want to have that at all, +so that I just let be on it. And then in the court-room I felt +sure I would have a chance to say the same thing that I have +said here, but when the time came to be cross-examined I +simply was not, that was all, and I went down on the records, +as I thought, and still think, that while not a direct statement +that that was the pistol, it might lead to the impression that that +was the pistol.” And then, summing up the whole matter: +“There are thousands of times more chances that it was not +than that it was.”</p> + +<p>So it went, with detail after detail; impossible to find a single +one that stood the test of time! Every one of the prosecution’s +“star” witnesses was ruined. Mary Splaine had told Henry +Hellyer twice that she did not see the faces of the bandits, and +the detective had written it down at the time—for use of the +shoe company and the insurance company, and their allies, the +police and the district attorney. Goodridge was a horse thief, +his very name a perjury; he had sent two men to the electric +chair to escape a jail-sentence, and the district attorney and the +judge had refused to allow this to be brought before the jury. +Pelzer had told many persons that he did not see the bandits; +so had “Fainting Lola” Andrews. Both of them had made affidavits +to this effect—and then taken them back, so that you +might believe them either way, or neither.</p> + +<p>Not one rag of evidence to cover the naked prejudice of +three elderly autocrats! The collapse became so complete that +it was a matter for jesting; there was even a haberdasher, +to visit the prison and measure the left hand of Sacco! Mary +Splaine had based her identification of the bandit upon his +“good-sized left hand”—seen at a distance of eighty feet for +a period of one or two seconds. Now came the haberdasher, +testifying that Sacco’s left hand was smaller than normal. Governor +Fuller’s way of meeting that detail was to take Mary +Splaine out on the street and invite her to describe a man in an +automobile at the proper distance. But, alas, he did this in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_594">[594]</span> +front of the State House with the golden dome, and there was +not any cobbler-shop to cut off Mary’s view at the end of one +or two seconds; nor was Mary up in the second story, looking +down amid the wild excitement of a bandit raid, in imminent +peril of shots.</p> + +<p>There had been a million words of the Dedham trial testimony, +and few persons had ever digested it all; Cornelia Thornwell, +who had been studying it for six years, knew how hard +was the task. Certainly the Dedham jury had not done it, much +as they might assure the Governor and his commission that +they had given a fair trial. Certainly the Governor had not +digested it, for when you referred to witnesses by name, Mary +Splaine and Lola Andrews were about the only ones he could +remember. Certainly the three old gentlemen had not done so, +for they made pitiful slips and asked helpless questions. But +now came a great lawyer, William G. Thompson, having sat up +nights with those volumes for several years, and presenting to +the Commission a summary of their contents.</p> + +<p>For example, a study of Sacco’s sartorial career in South +Braintree on the 15th of April, 1920, as presented by the +government witnesses. At half-past eleven Lola Andrews had +talked with him lying under an automobile, wearing a dark +suit. Five minutes later, a hesitating witness thought he had +seen him in front of a drug-store, dressed “respectably.” Less +than an hour later, according to another uncertain witness, he +was smoking a cigarette in the depot, wearing dark “ordinary +wearing apparel” and a soft black hat. When he actually shot +Berardelli, he had changed into dark green pants and a brown +army shirt, according to Pelzer. A few seconds later, he passed +within Mary Splaine’s vision, having changed to a gray woolen +shirt, and wearing no hat or coat at all; but having lost a cap +at the scene of the murder, although he had made his first appearance +in a soft felt hat. A few yards further on, Sacco had +resumed his dark suit—if one could believe the witness Goodridge.</p> + +<p>There were many thousand words like that in Thompson’s +argument; and who could dispute the lawyer’s final statement, +that Sacco and Vanzetti had “never had the kind of trial required +by English tradition and by American constitutional law +as a prerequisite to taking away their lives”?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_595">[595]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XII_16"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>Anguish in the hearts of all friends of the defense; they +knew that the decision was going against them—even while +they would not admit it to themselves. Pitiful the plight of +hard-working and law-abiding lawyers, who had made all the +proper moves, and won the chess-game a dozen times over—and +now their opponents would dump the board and throw the +chessmen into their faces! While Vanzetti sat in his cell and +wrote memories of his mother, and Sacco composed a farewell +letter to his son, men and women whose hearts were too tender +for this grim world thought up frantic new schemes to move +public opinion, and raced about like ants in a nest which has +been stepped on.</p> + +<p>Jessica Henderson motored Cornelia Thornwell to New +Haven, where lived Mrs. Berardelli, the widow of the slain +guard. With them went Musmanno, and a Mrs. Florence, who +had testified at the Dedham trial, that Mrs. Berardelli had said +to her that the hold-up would never have succeeded if her husband +had had his gun with him. (It was the gun Vanzetti was +supposed to have picked up after the murder.)</p> + +<p>The group now appealed to the woman’s sympathies, and +she agreed that it would not help either her dead husband or +his widow and orphans to take the lives of two men who might +possibly be innocent. She consented to send a telegram to the +Governor, appealing for clemency. “Write it now,” said Mrs. +Florence; but the woman said for Mrs. Florence to write it, +she would be satisfied with whatever they sent. So Mrs. Florence +and the party drove to the nearest railroad depot, and wrote a +message and sent it, and it made a front-page story in the newspapers +next morning.</p> + +<p>But it took the enemy only a few hours to counter that move. +They came to the woman and frightened her, and the Boston +newspapers carried a story to the effect that the telegram had +been sent, not by Mrs. Berardelli, but by an unknown woman +from a railroad depot. The ladies made another trip to New +Haven—but only to discover that Mrs. Berardelli wouldn’t +“have anything more to do with it.” Returning to Boston, the +ladies called upon the Associated Press representative, explaining +the circumstances, and asking him to correct the error. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_596">[596]</span> +The response of the Associated Press was to put on the wires +all over the country the statement that Mrs. Berardelli declared +she had never seen the telegram which had been sent in her +name. It happened to be strictly the fact; but it wasn’t quite +the truth!</p> + +<p>Edward Holton James was a New Englander of the old +sort; he lived in Concord, just across the field from the home +of Emerson, which possibly had affected his mind. He was +a nephew of Henry James, the novelist who wrote like a philosopher, +and of William James, the philosopher who wrote like +a novelist. His wife was a Cushing, and wealthy, so he had everything +that a citizen of Concord could have to make him respectable; +but it didn’t keep him out of jail.</p> + +<p>Mr. James had spotted certain flaws in the “theory.” He had +noted the fact that the so-called “bandit-car” with the bullet-hole +through the door had been in the hands of the police for +hours before any of the numerous examinations had revealed +the conspicuous bullet-hole; also he had measured the “Coacci +shed,” and proved that you couldn’t drive two cars into it, as +the “theory” required. Now he went down to South Braintree +to reproduce the events of the hold-up, and prove that some +of the witnesses could not have seen what they claimed. But +the selectmen of South Braintree were not going to let the +streets of their town be used for Bolshevik propaganda if they +knew it, and they arrested Mr. James, in spite of both his +ancestry and his money.</p> + +<p>And then a little later Beltrando Brini had a bright idea: +if the story he had told at the Plymouth trial was fiction, then +he was a perjurer. He had told the story to the Governor, +and had not been believed; so he drafted a letter to the Governor, +asking to be arrested, and he took it about among the +other alibi witnesses, and fourteen of them signed it, including +Bosco and Guadagni, the two editors. Trando delivered it at the +State House, and when no policeman came for him, he went +back, with his mother and half a dozen of the other witnesses. +It was near the end of the case, and the corridors were crowded +with detectives and secret service men, with swarms of reporters—a +sensational scene. The Governor was not in, said +the secretary; and took the youth off into a room by himself +for a “grilling.” Who had sent him, and what was this scheme +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_597">[597]</span> +for publicity? “This hurts you more than it helps.” And when +Trando undertook to explain, “Don’t try to make a stump +speech; the place for that is the Common.”</p> + +<p>Said Trando, “I tried to speak on the Common yesterday, +and I was stopped.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t try to be a hero!” sneered the secretary. Heroes were +not wanted at the State House, and Trando could not get arrested. +Too bad he did not know about the room full of booze +in the cellar! If he had told about that, he might have got his +desire. As it was, he went away with tears in his eyes, his +mother sobbing on his arm.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_14"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>And yet there were moments of hope. Impossible to believe +that a great business man and statesman could be such a hypocrite! +Members of the defense committee came to see him, +having heard the wild rumors, started from the State House, +as to the millions that had been raised and expended for bribes. +They offered to put their records at the disposal of the Governor; +they had raised some $325,000 in seven years, and had +vouchers for it all—bundles and bales of them stacked in a +closet. Gardner Jackson and Mary Donovan had worked for +nearly two years without a cent. The Governor was surprised +to hear it—he had been given to understand that they got +fifty percent of every thing they raised. Little Joe Moro, the +secretary, had worked for thirty dollars a week, and the only +other wages paid in the office were for typists. The Governor +was cordial, he seemed to like Joe immensely, shook hands with +him several times—he was a good fellow, and everything was +all right, don’t worry!</p> + +<p>But that was in the privacy of his office, the tricks of a +supersalesman; molasses catches more flies than vinegar. Publicly +the Governor said nothing, and the rumors continued to +fly. Professor Frankfurter had got fifteen thousand dollars +from the New York <i>World</i> for writing an editorial; he had +got one hundred and fifty thousand from the committee for +writing the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> article. The very dignified editor +of the Springfield <i>Republican</i> was accused of having received +twenty thousand dollars from the committee for one famous +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_598">[598]</span> +editorial. The “State House crowd” lived in such an atmosphere +of cash payment that they could not imagine how gentlemen +felt about such matters.</p> + +<p>Also they lived in an atmosphere of terror. It seemed as if +there were as many detectives as real workers under the golden +dome. Assuredly, there were more spies than there were friends +of the defense; one of them put on a Windsor tie and got himself +regularly arrested with the pickets. Every one who had +anything to do with the case was shadowed; servants would be +offered money for the contents of trash-baskets. All officials +having to do with the case, the Supreme Court judges and later +on even the jurors, had guards on their homes day and night, +and wives trembled every time their husbands went outdoors.</p> + +<p>There was fear; and there were newspapers printing headlines +and selling editions, making every bomb-scare into a gold +mine. Relatives of the Johnson family, the garage people who +had testified against Sacco and Vanzetti, had had their rear +porch blown up while they were in bed. That made a newspaper +story, and helped to damn Sacco and Vanzetti. The police +decided that it was a bootleggers’ quarrel; but that fact was not +revealed—the bootleggers being such liberal paymasters of the +police. A threatening letter was mailed to one of the witnesses, +and this turned out to be a prank of some boys; the newspapers +published the letter on the front page, and never published the +true story. Such is journalism, which lives upon sensation, and +prints its enormous editions with blood instead of ink.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_10"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>The Lowell Commission had finished its hearings and retired +into privacy to deliberate. But meanwhile the Governor +went on hearing witnesses. They streamed through his office, +as many as thirty in one day; all sorts of persons who claimed +to have information about the case. Many came secretly, and +went away, their names known only to him; they whispered +into his ear, and he was supposed to sort out truth from rumor. +A hundred times over, in conversations and arguments, he +would show that he could not do it, that he had, in fact, no +idea of the difference. “Why, I heard it right here in this room!” +he would say; and that proved it true.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_599">[599]</span></p> + +<p>On the other hand, impossible to satisfy him with any evidence +that proved what he did not want to believe! He had +got his mind fixed on the Bridgewater conviction, which would +prove Vanzetti an habitual criminal. You pointed to Vanzetti’s +eighteen alibi witnesses, all decent working people, and +the Governor would find it suspicious that they talked so much +about eels. “But where is the express receipt showing that he +got the eels?” The case seemed to hang on that, so the defense +set out to look for express records in Plymouth. They discovered +that the records, nearly eight years old, had been +destroyed. Incidentally, they discovered that a state detective +had already made an investigation, and ascertained that they +had been destroyed.</p> + +<p>They decided they would outwit him, even so. They would +look for the receipts of fish-dealers who had sold the eels. +Herbert B. Ehrmann, junior counsel, went to consult Vanzetti +in Charlestown prison. It was hard for him to remember—he +had been accustomed to buy fish from several dealers in Boston. +The lawyer went according to his vague description, with Felicani +for translator; they hunted at the “fish-pier” in South +Boston, but found no one who remembered selling to Vanzetti. +Joe Randall got another Italian—two gangs searching. At last, +after visiting seven Italian fish-dealers on Atlantic Avenue, the +“Guinney market,” they found one who said that “B. Vanzetti +of Plymouth” had been a customer of his. Had he any records? +For a year or two, yes—but seven years, eight years—no, no, +giammai! He had changed his partnership in the meantime.</p> + +<p>But they argued—could they make a search? The life of two +compatriots might depend on it! Yes, there were old papers up +in the loft. So up they go, among dust and cobwebs, with an +electric flashlight. Old boxes of papers, in bad Italian script—sheafs +of loose ledger leaves, but the earliest date is January, +1920. “For God’s sake, haven’t you got any before that?”</p> + +<p>The Italian has got interested—it is a story! “There’s an old +case, maybe stuff in that.” A big box shoved under the rafters, +tightly nailed up. “Must have a hammer to open it.” Stacks +and stacks of old papers: and among them blocks of American +Express Company receipts, signed by the expressman, day +by day as he called for shipments. And the dates—here are +some for 1919—and here is December, 1919! And in the middle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_600">[600]</span> +of the block, one reading: “B. Vanzetti, Plymouth, one barrel +eels!”</p> + +<p>Hurrah! We have it! We have them licked! The date is December +20th, which was a Saturday, the very date Bart claimed +the eels had been shipped, to be sure to reach him on Tuesday, +and got ready for selling the next day! And they are live eels, +so the dealer says, you can tell that by the weight of the barrel! +Dead eels would be heavier!</p> + +<p>Young fellows dancing in a dusty loft! Our wops are saved! +They go back to the office with shining eyes. They go to the +Governor’s office. “We have found the evidence the Governor +asked for.” This to the private secretary—the Governor +himself is busy. “Indeed?” says the secretary. No shining in +those hard eyes! “When are you going to stop bringing evidence?”</p> + +<p>They will not trust the precious papers to him, but insist +upon seeing Wiggin, the Governor’s counsel. Then they go +away, and wait—and nothing happens; the next time they see +the Governor, they mention the matter, and he says, “What does +that prove? What evidence is there that Vanzetti ever received +the shipment? I understand that the eels were never claimed; +they were frozen in the depot.”</p> + +<p>Says Joe Randall, gnashing his teeth: “It is like that fairy-story +we used to enjoy when we were children—how the little +tailor wooed the king’s daughter. ‘Go slay me the dragon,’ says +the king—so the hero goes and slays the dragon, and comes +back, but he doesn’t get the king’s daughter. ‘Go slay me the +three giants,’ says the king—so he goes and slays the three +giants, and comes back, but he doesn’t get the king’s daughter. +‘Go slay me the man-killing boar,’ says the king—and the +longer the story, the more fun it is.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_9"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>The supersalesman had evolved a regular set of formulas, by +which he challenged the witnesses who came to him. Of Italians +he would ask: “Are you an anarchist? Are you a friend of +Sacco or Vanzetti? Are you a member of the committee? Have +you any friends on the committee? Who sent you here?” To +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_601">[601]</span> +be “sent” was a sinister thing, a sign of an elaborate conspiracy +in operation.</p> + +<p>For Americans the procedure was more subtle. The first +question was: “Have you read the record?” If you answered +“No,” then you were disqualified. The Governor had read +the record, so he said. If you answered, “Yes,” the question +would be, “Where did you get it?”—for the defense had only +two transcripts of the full testimony, and two or three copies +of the “bill of exceptions,” usually called “the record.” If you +were able to convince him that you had had access to any of +these, he would say, “Have you interviewed the witnesses?” +And of course that would “stump” you; how could any one +interview the witnesses, when the lawyers for the defense +couldn’t even get the Governor’s secretary to give them the +names and addresses of the witnesses? You would answer, +“No,” and the Governor would reply, “Well, I know about this +case, and you don’t.”</p> + +<p>All that mass of complications—a million words of printed +testimony, and many times that much spoken into one human +ear—and he really thought he could carry it all! Serene, even +jaunty, he would come into his office, wearing his automatic +smile, and greeting the reporters, “Good morning, boys, a fine +day!” He did not ask for help, and gave no thanks when it +was offered. Hjalmar Branting, a lawyer from Sweden, son of +the prime minister, came over to study the case, and devoted +a month to it, becoming certain that the men were innocent. He +was granted an hour, and the Governor spent five minutes talking +about Sacco and Vanzetti, and the rest talking about the +market for automobiles in Sweden. A thrifty supersalesman, +making hay even while the thunder rolled and the lightning +split the sky!</p> + +<p>The floods of mail poured in. Trucks came, bringing masses +of petitions; some thirty packages, registered, from France, +representing three million signatures, patiently collected at +workingmen’s meetings. They were burned in the basement furnaces, +at night, when the heat would not be troublesome. Messenger +boys brought telegrams by the bundle; they were sorted +out, one kind for the newspapers, the other for the fires. Said +the private secretary: “Everybody wants those wops executed, +except people who don’t know how to spell their names.” He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_602">[602]</span> +gave out the letter of the Reverend Llewellyn E. Darling, of +Grace Evangelical Church of Everett, reporting that a vote +had been taken among his Sunday congregation, and it was +unanimous in demanding that the convicted men should die. +“We believe,” wrote this Darling Reverend, “that the source +of the petitions for their release is un-American and would +eventually destroy the government of the United States.” Comrade +Jesus, on his golden throne above, rose up and gave three +cheers for the Red, White, and Blue.</p> + + +<h3 id="XVI_5"> + XVI +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia had put off visiting the State House; she would +see what happened to others, and judge the best way of proceeding. +Now she asked Henry Cabot Winters to arrange an +interview; and he offered to go along—a notice to a politician +that she was still a member of a great family, in spite of all +her vagaries. The supersalesman would be polite to her, but +also he would be grim, for she was a dangerous woman. He +held her to blame for a great part of the publicity which this +case had obtained; he had visions of her spending secretly the +Thornwell millions in an effort to get her own perverse way.</p> + +<p>Cornelia had never met him; he had been a name to her so +far. Now she sat in his chamber and studied those eyes, so +cold, expressionless—a curious thing, they made you think literally +of agates. His face was round, his head partly bald, his +costume immaculate, his smile as it were dead. He sat with +his back to the window, so that in the matter of vision he had +the advantage over his visitors. A large mahogany desk; a +green blotter, with a few papers, a fancy bronze ink-stand, and +a little state flag on a standard for patriotism. A large room, +done in white, with large white doors and heavy carpet and +a fireplace never used. “I guess you have seen all this many +times, Mrs. Thornwell,” he said, respectfully.</p> + +<p>Yes, Cornelia had seen it. “When I was a little girl, the +old home of John Hancock stood out there in front.” So +they talked “Boston,” and perhaps she would have done better +if she had talked nothing else; her social prestige was really +the only thing that stood any chance. In a chair at one side +sat Mr. Joseph Wiggin, the Governor’s private counsel, a Harvard +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_603">[603]</span> +man and a blue-blood, smiling and quizzical; he would +have conspired with her in that kind of enterprise, if she had +put it up to him in the right, “old Boston” way. To charm an +automobile salesman and persuade him to make a concession +as a matter of social favor, the right of an aristocratic old lady +to have her feelings spared!</p> + +<p>Cornelia set out to tell about Vanzetti, and how well she +knew him, and what a fine man he was. The Governor listened, +but soon tired of it. “I haven’t the time to deal with backgrounds +and psychology, Mrs. Thornwell.” She tried to show +him what backgrounds and psychology meant. “Consider Nick. +They tell us he went out and stole sixteen thousand dollars, +and then came back to his shoe factory and earned thirty-seven +dollars and eighty cents!” But she was rousing his male combativeness. +“They had to go on working in the factory,” he +argued. “They couldn’t have afforded to change their habits.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia was studying the bland face and the strange expressionless +eyes. What sort of man was this? What motives +would sway him? A business man, of a simple type, used to +facing simple problems, like those of price; the proper rental +for a building, or wages for an employee, easy to decide; a +man of action, not a thinker. Now he had to weigh the souls +of idealists, he had to estimate social forces—and they were +completely beyond his comprehension. “I am a plain man, Mrs. +Thornwell, not an intellectual.” She had started to tell him about +Bart’s studies, the books she had seen him mastering by patient +toil in the night; but she realized that this was an affront to a +merchant of motor-cars who had been studying markets and +prices. Neither would it do any good to praise the unselfish +motives of the two social rebels. That, too, would give offense +to the man of money. “These men who don’t believe in private +property must be depraved,” he had said.</p> + +<p>She told him about the two trials, and what she had learned +about the various prosecution witnesses. The Governor praised +these latter; “clear-eyed,” was his word. Said the old lady, +“Their eyes may be clear from the outside looking in, but assuredly +they were not clear from the inside looking out.” She +told the long story of the prevarications and waverings of +these witnesses, as proved by the records of the preliminary +hearings, and by the Pinkerton reports. The Governor knew of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_604">[604]</span> +these reports now, but he did not know what was in them, and +was puzzled by details. He did not even know the names of +some witnesses. She spoke of Behrsin, and the Governor said, +“Cursin, who is Cursin?”</p> + +<p>But everything polite, according to good form; he heard her +to the end, giving few signs of impatience. “I will give careful +consideration to what you tell me, Mrs. Thornwell. I have +great respect for your sincerity, and thank you for coming to +see me.” Bows and smiles all round, a pleasant hour—and +utterly, utterly futile.</p> + +<p>“The case is completely indigestible to him, he can’t hold it +in his mind.” Such was the judgment of Henry Cabot Winters, +legal expert, as he walked with his mother-in-law down the +long marble corridors. “You have to know a great deal about +it in order to know anything, and Fuller doesn’t know anything.”</p> + +<p>“What will he do, Henry?”</p> + +<p>“He’ll take somebody’s word for it. He’ll think he is deciding, +but his mind will make itself up without his realizing it. +That’s the way he’s gone through life—landing on his feet like +a cat. What I’m afraid is, he has landed already, and facing +the wrong way.” As he said this, the great lawyer put his +arm under the old lady’s, and held her steady as they walked +towards his car. “It comes to this, Mother—what I said to +Rupert last night: you can make a chauffeur out of a governor, +but you can’t make a governor out of a chauffeur!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_605">[605]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX"> + CHAPTER XX<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE DECISION</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>On July twenty-ninth it was announced that the decision +would be given out on the third of August. That was a Wednesday, +the day the Governor’s council met; and this fact might +have significance, because, if he were going to grant clemency, +the council would have to assent. Shreds of evidence like that +caused hope to rise in the balance. Rumors would come, one +way or the other; the Governor had said this, he had asked +that.</p> + +<p>Joe Randall never wavered in his pessimism. “Fuller has +no idea but death; he never has had it for an instant, and he +never will.” But some of the other newspaper men thought +differently; said one: “You can’t tell me that a man so happy +would send two human beings to the chair!” Others had talked +with members of the council, who told, in confidence, of definite +statements the Governor had made. The New York <i>Times</i> +correspondent sent his paper a detailed story to the effect that +the Governor meant to postpone the execution, and ask the +legislature to pass a special act providing for a new trial. +The New York <i>World</i> had the same story; the <i>Herald Tribune</i> +followed.</p> + +<p>On the day before August third a peculiar development. +Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, was spending +his summer vacation in the Rockies, catching trout with worms, +and having himself photographed in ten-gallon hats and other +moving picture appurtenances. He received the newspaper +“boys” on his front porch and handed them a typewritten slip +of paper reading, “I do not choose to run for President in +nineteen twenty-eight.” This economical sentence caused a +thrill in the bosoms of great numbers of public men; and +enemies of Alvan T. Fuller imagined that it decided the fate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_606">[606]</span> +of Sacco and Vanzetti. Careful newspapers like the New York +<i>Times</i> and <i>World</i> do not often let themselves be fooled as in +this case—so these suspicious ones argued; something must +have changed the mind of the supersalesman on the night of +the second of August, causing him to give up the idea of clemency. +Could it have been a vision of himself, following the +footsteps of “Cautious Cal” up the political ladder; sweeping +the next Republican convention in a storm of enthusiasm for +another hero who had “crushed the Reds”?</p> + +<p>Whether there was any truth in this wild guess, none could +say, except Fuller himself. But this much is certain, he desperately +wanted that nomination; and it is interesting to note +what happened in the following year, when the Republican +convention assembled. The name of Alvan T. Fuller was put +before the little group of rich men’s agents who meet in a +hotel room and determine nominations for president and vice-president. +The Governor’s friends set forth the heroic deed +that he had done, and the storm of fervor which this deed +would rouse in the bosoms of all patriots. But the politicians +of 1928 remarked coldly that this was not 1920. “The Republican +party cannot afford to debate the Sacco-Vanzetti case +from now until the end of the campaign!” There was not a +single vote for the supersalesman; and so furious was he in +his disappointment that he refused to let ex-Governor Cox of +Massachusetts have the nomination in his place. To Senator +Butler, over the long-distance telephone wire, he said: “It will +be Fuller or nobody!”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_19"> + II +</h3> + +<p>August third, the day of the decision. The State House press +room and Governor’s office were not big enough to hold the +mob of reporters, and for the first time in Massachusetts history +the legislative chamber was turned over to their use, and +the press gallery equipped with telegraph wires. More than +eighty men, like hunting-dogs held in leash, leaping and barking. +The whole outside world was clamoring for every detail +having to do with that scene.</p> + +<p>The interest in the case had grown, until it was like nothing +in history; great newspapers in New York, which had given +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_607">[607]</span> +several inches to the conviction of the men, were now giving +pages to the struggle for a new trial.</p> + +<p>Somehow the working classes of all nations had come to +know about this case, and had made it their own. They were +listening to fiery orators, taking part in parades, throwing +bricks through American window glass, setting off bombs in +front of embassies and legations. To the ruling class element +of Massachusetts this was a proof of the worst they had been +told about world Bolshevism; it was a diabolical conspiracy +against the good name of the Commonwealth, and to meet it +these righteous persons summoned the spirits of their Puritan +ancestors, who had withstood persecution and torture at the +hands of royal despots and their priestly monitors. The louder +the clamor on behalf of the anarchists, the less chance that it +would be heeded—so said the stiff-necked ones.</p> + +<p>The Governor had not come to his office; rumor had it that +he was working on his decision in an unnamed hotel. Over +at the Sacco-Vanzetti headquarters in Hanover street, a couple +of rooms in a dingy office building with time-worn floors, +there were reporters and photographers, bootleggers and poets, +Italian laborers and Harvard professors, seated on boxes, +bundles of papers, tables and rickety chairs, waiting, waiting. +On the walls were posters in many languages, calling for mass-meetings +to save Sacco and Vanzetti; one in French, signed +by cabinet ministers, referring to “Calvary,” which would have +pleased Bart; one in German, saying “Justice is dead”; one +from Mexico, saying “Freedom and Justice.” Bart was right—his +name had come to have a meaning!</p> + +<p>Cornelia Thornwell stayed in her apartment, and friends +came in to keep the watch with her and divert her mind. But +no one could talk about anything but the decision. Now and +then the phone would ring, and her heart would jump so that +it hurt; when it proved to be more delay, she would sink back +in her chair, feeling faint. Creighton Hill, a young newspaperman +who was heart and soul for the defense, came in to cheer +her; the afternoon papers were full of hints of a reprieve; +everybody was hopeful. Judge Webster Thayer was in +Ogunquit, Maine, and at the Cliff Country Club that morning +had made 18 holes in 84.</p> + +<p>Waiting, waiting. Evening, and still the Governor had not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_608">[608]</span> +come to his office. Crowds gathered at the State House, and +were driven back. The decision would be late, said the secretary. +Betty, who was at headquarters, phoned to her grand-mother—for +the tenth time, trying to brace the tortured soul +to meet the coming shock. “Joe says the brute is holding up +the decision so that we won’t be able to get in any answer +to-night. He wants the front page of the morning papers to +himself!”</p> + +<p>So it proved. At twenty minutes past eleven at night, the +last moment when it would be possible to put the text of the +decision into the main editions of the big newspapers, and +when there was no longer a chance that any friend of the defense +could prepare a reply, or find any distracted reporter +able to listen to one—at that moment the Governor’s secretary +appeared with a stack of envelopes, each containing seven +mimeographed sheets. The reporters grabbed them, and tore +them open as they ran. The word “Die” went by telegraph and +cable to five continents, and in a few minutes there were “extras” +on the streets in big cities, with streamer headlines across +the front page: “Sacco and Vanzetti Doomed to Die”—“Sacco +and Vanzetti Must Die, Says Fuller”—“Sacco and Vanzetti +Guilty, and Will Die.”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_19"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Wonderful, wonderful was the judicial system of the Commonwealth +of Massachusetts, as portrayed in those seven mimeographed +sheets! Throughout all this complicated and difficult +case it had functioned without one single slip. The judge had +been upright and impartial, the jury had been conscientious and +fair, the witnesses—for the Commonwealth—had been clear-eyed +and unafraid, the Supreme Judicial Court had been infallible. +And now came the supersalesman of automobiles, and +with his eagle eye he surveyed the procedure, seeking a flaw. +Patiently he had studied every word of the record, the later +appeals and decisions; he had interviewed jurors and witnesses, +and made sure that everything was perfect; now he mounted +the rostrum and told the civilized world about it, putting the +final seal of completion upon the performance.</p> + +<p>One after another he took some aspect of the case, and after +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_609">[609]</span> +mentioning the criticisms of it, disposed of them in one or two +majestic and final sentences. First, the jury. “I find that the +jurors were thoroughly honest men ... I can see no warrant +for the assertion that the jury trial was unfair.” The fact that +the elderly flag-saluting foreman of the jury had said, on his +way to duty, “Damn them, they ought to hang them anyway!”—that +was a detail so trivial that an enthusiastic supersalesman +did not bother to report it.</p> + +<p>And then “Web” Thayer. “Affidavits have been presented +claiming that the judge was prejudiced. I see no evidence of +prejudice in his conduct of the trial.” The eagle eye had inspected +those passages in the record where “Web” had connived +at the job of hiding from the jury the fact that Goodridge +was an admitted thief; that had been fair. The eagle eye +had seen “Web” butting in to discredit the witness Kurlansky, +the shop-keeper who had failed to stop the district attorney +and police from “framing” the testimony of Lola Andrews; +that had been fair. “Web” had permitted the district attorney +to browbeat Sacco for not knowing what was not true +about Harvard College; that had been fair. “Web” had sneered +seven times at the defense lawyers for claiming something +which they hadn’t claimed; that, too, had been fair. He had +let the district attorney tell the jury that Proctor had testified +something that Proctor had in fact refused to testify, and that +the district attorney knew he had refused to testify; that likewise +had been fair. “Web” himself had told the jury the same +thing; and that had been fairest of all.</p> + +<p>And then the appeals for a new trial, based upon new evidence +that had been found: evidence of the foreman’s prejudice +and misconduct, of Goodridge’s criminal career and perjury +upon the witness-stand; the retractions of Lola Andrews and +Louis Pelzer; the confession of the head of the State Police +that he had conspired with the district attorney’s office to misrepresent +his testimony to the jury; the new evidence of Gould, +Kelly and Kennedy, deliberately withheld from the defense. +Said the supersalesman: “I have examined all of these motions +and read the affidavits in support of them to see whether +they presented any valid reason for granting the men a new +trial. I am convinced that they do not.”</p> + +<p>And the judge’s handling of these appeals and motions—that, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_610">[610]</span> +too, had been complete and marvelous perfection! Everything +that he had done—including his lying about the affidavits, +and saying that they said what they didn’t say; his +misrepresentation of Supreme Court decisions, his misquoting +of testimony, his making up of passages which he said were in +the testimony, but which were not in the testimony—all that +had been perfect, and “Web’s” motives in doing these things +had been as pure as the driven snow in Boston. Said the +supersalesman: “I am further convinced that the presiding +judge gave no evidence of bias in denying them all and refusing +a new trial.”</p> + +<p>The supersalesman pronounced Vanzetti guilty of the Bridgewater +crime, and stressed the fact that he had failed to take the +stand in his own behalf—although it was the perfect law of +the perfect Commonwealth that he didn’t have to take the stand +if he didn’t want to, and that his failure to do so was not to +be used against him. The supersalesman was so sure that the +men were guilty that he was not content to say it once, he +said it twice about Sacco and three times about Vanzetti; he +was so sure the trial was fair that he said it five times—and +added for good measure: “The proceedings were without a +flaw.” He put in an eloquent description of the South Braintree +crime, with emphasis upon its brutality, which made fine melodrama +for the newspapers; and then he wound up in a blaze +of glory, putting himself in the center of the picture, with +jury and witnesses about him. “I am proud to be associated +in this public service with clear-eyed witnesses, unafraid to +tell the truth, and with jurors who discharged their obligations +in accordance with their convictions and their oaths.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_19"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Ten or a dozen persons crowded into the little living-room +of the apartment adjoining Cornelia’s, where lived Betty and +Joe. The seven mimeographed pages had been read aloud, and +passages read over again, and marked with exclamation points +and question marks. Hours passed while the clamor and excitement +continued. Nobody thought of sleep; impossible ever +to sleep in the world again—let sleep be banished from Boston, +as punishment for this atrocity! The language of some of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_611">[611]</span> +the younger men and women was unfit for the older ones to +hear; but the older ones realized that this was a special occasion, +like nothing in Boston history. The air of the room became +gray with tobacco smoke, and the eighteenth amendment +to the Constitution was broken, along with the laws against +blasphemy and sedition; for some radicals could not stand the +strain of this ordeal, any more than could the conservatives, +without help from Italian bootleggers.</p> + +<p>Joe was at his typewriter, banging away, with a green shade +over his eyes; preparing a story to be put on the wires for the +early editions of afternoon papers. He was making copies for +other newspaper men, hoping they would get this point and +that. Now and then the company would interrupt him—to +make sure he had got some other point. Over at defense headquarters +was another indignation meeting, and there was telephoning, +back and forth, exchanging ideas and information. +Quotations had to be looked up in the record, and falsehoods +nailed down.</p> + +<p>How they hated the supersalesman of automobiles—and how +they raged at the trick he had played upon them, whereby +millions, yes, tens of millions of people would read that statement +at their breakfast tables and on their way to work—and +would not get the answer of the committee until hours +later, and then only in fragmentary form, or not at all! The +fingers of men and women trembled as they pointed out passages +of especial treachery.</p> + +<p>Cornelia Thornwell, old-fashioned and hopelessly out of +date, had notions about the dignity and honor of the office +which the great Josiah Quincy Thornwell had once filled. It +seemed to her that a Governor of the Commonwealth, mounting +the rostrum and addressing the civilized world on an issue +involving the lives of two human beings—that such a Governor +ought at least to tell the truth. “Wouldn’t you think he’d leave +out errors that can be proved by the record?”</p> + +<p>Said Betty, “I’d expect him to lie like Satan.”</p> + +<p>They would fall upon the seven mimeographed sheets again. +Look at this! Look at that! Look at what he put in about +Madeiros! “I give no weight to the Madeiros confession. It +is popularly supposed he confessed to committing this crime.” +What did the man mean by that sentence? He didn’t explain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_612">[612]</span> +it—he went on to state his reasons for distrusting Madeiros, +but not a word about what was “popularly supposed”! The +words could only mean that the popular impression was mistaken, +Madeiros had not “confessed to committing this crime.” +Every reader would get that meaning, and no other meaning. +The actual words written by Madeiros had been: “I hear by +confess to being in the South Braintree shoe company crime +and Sacco and Vanzetti was not in said crime.”</p> + +<p>Then, an even shrewder trick—a little masterpiece of treachery, +as cunningly contrived as the Proctor evasion, and Katzmann’s +bogus answer to it, and “Web” Thayer’s obfuscations +of both! The supersalesman summed up Sacco’s alibi—that he +“claimed to have been at the Italian consulate in Boston on +that date but the only confirmation of this claim is the memory +of a former employee of the consulate who made a deposition +in Italy,” etc. Study that sentence, all forgers, traducers and +betrayers of all future time, and learn how to smile and be a +villain still! The art of falsifying while seeming to tell the +truth has never been carried to a higher stage—not in any +form of supersalesmanship yet devised in the great empire of +superproduction, or taught in the Graduate School of Business +Administration of Harvard University.</p> + +<p>Strictly and literally, it was the truth that Sacco had produced +only one witness to testify that he had been “at the +Italian Consulate in Boston on that date.” But Sacco had produced +five other witnesses who testified that he had been <i>in +Boston</i> on that date! Affe, the grocer, had testified that Sacco +had paid him a bill, and Affe had produced on the stand a notebook +with a memorandum of the payment, showing the date. +Bosco and Guadagni, the editors, had testified to lunching with +Sacco in Boni’s restaurant on that day, and Dentamaro, department +manager of a bank, and Williams, an advertising agent, +had testified to joining the group and chatting. Still more to +the point, several of these witnesses had testified that Sacco, +in the course of the talk, had told them the purpose for which +he was in Boston, to visit the consulate and get his passports! +Oh, treachery and double-dealing beyond all imagining—first, +the Lowell commission hushing Bosco and Guadagni to silence, +and doctoring the record of the proceedings in order to keep +the story from the public; and then the mighty super salesman, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_613">[613]</span> +stepping onto the rostrum and addressing the whole civilized +world, telling it that Bosco and Guadagni did not exist!</p> + + +<h3 id="V_19"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia lay in bed, a reaction from the long strain. The +Negro maid brought her coffee and toast, but she could not +eat; she lay like one dead. It was all over for her; she had +done all she could, struggled all she could—so she told herself. +The young people might go on, Joe might write newspaper +stories, trying to rouse a heedless public; Betty might organize +mass meetings and speeches on the Common, but the runaway +grandmother’s race was run.</p> + +<p>She had to lie there and bring herself to face the thought +of the electric chair. Through all these seven dreadful years, +she had refused to face it—a game of self-deception; but Bart +and Nick had been right all along—they had known that the +thought must be faced, and they had done it. They had the +will, and the philosophy; they had been able to talk about it +and joke. Now Cornelia must do the same thing. Remember +what somebody had told her—it does not hurt, because the +current destroys the brain before there is time for a sensation. +And when it is over, it is really over; other persons may worry +for you, but you don’t worry for yourself. Also, you are a +martyr, you have accomplished something for the cause you +love.</p> + +<p>That was what she must manage to realize. Persuade herself +that there was a new generation coming, that would care +where this one was indifferent; that would count it as something +important that two wops had denied themselves happiness +so that justice might be born into the world! Think about those +young persons of the future; lie here and shut your eyes, and +let them come into your presence and speak to you; feel their +gentle hands upon your forehead, bidding you to rest, your +tense nerves to relax and your heart to stop pounding.</p> + +<p>Cornelia lay wrestling thus; and into her mind came drifting +words of comfort. “Now we are not a failure. This is our career +and our triumph.” Vanzetti speaking; where had she heard him +say those words? On a chair by her bedside was a scrap-book, +full of letters, manuscripts, clippings. She was moved to sit +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_614">[614]</span> +up and turn the pages; here it was. Shortly after Judge Thayer +had sentenced the two men to die, Cornelia had persuaded a +reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance to go +to Dedham with her, and see what kind of men these alleged +bandits were. Now, reading the interview, Cornelia recalled +every detail of the scene; the prisoners coming down from +their tier of cells, getting a glimpse of sunshine in the central +hall, and lighting up with it—Nick, with his “kid’s” grin, Bart +with his mature and gentle smile. The reporter, Phil D. Stong, +a big fellow, rather blond German face, well-fed and well-groomed—on +an expense account, as he told Cornelia, with a +laugh; tender-hearted, with the sentimentality of his race—and +struck dumb by the discovery of two men of this transparent +sincerity and fine idealism in the shadow of the electric chair, +face to face with their last enemy and not afraid of him. He +had listened, while the victims did the talking; then he had +gone away and tried to make a picture of the scene for the +readers of a chain of newspapers.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“Both men expect to die. They say so, and the conviction is +written in grave, serene characters on Vanzetti’s face. Tears +touch the young man ‘Nick’s’ eyes for a moment, brightly, but +his voice is steady. He is married to a sweet-faced little Italian +woman. They have two children.</p> + +<p>“In a moment, Nick, with his smooth pompadour, and his +boy’s face, is laughing with the deputy sheriff in argument +about prison fare.</p> + +<p>“Vanzetti regards one kindly, but appraisingly. A ferocious +mustache covers an expressive, smiling mouth. The stamp of +thought is in every feature; the marks of the man whom strong +intelligence has made an anchorite.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>And then a glimpse of prison life:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“Up from the shops comes a file of gray men, arms folded, +faces expressionless—a rhythm of steps and faces.</p> + +<p>“‘They been working.’ Sacco’s fingers move nervously. +‘God, when I cannot work I almost go crazy. My fingers used +to be busy. I beg, I argue—give me something to do—I shovel +coal, anything. At last, they give me brick to clean—after three +years. You see me now? I gain a pound a day for thirty days.’ +The deputy sheriff nods confirmation.</p> + +<p>“‘First they give me basket to weave, like children. Better +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_615">[615]</span> +than nothing, but not much. Then I sit alone—seven years—thousands +of days—and all for say man’s nature can be perfect—day +after day—nothing do—breathe, eat, sit up, lie down—because +I think man innerly noble—not beast—’</p> + +<p>“Vanzetti interrupts his companion gently. He knows the +two visitors believe in the enforced regulations which restrain +fallible humanity.</p> + +<p>“‘We’re capitalists,’ he says smiling, and pointing to the +line of workers. (Men under sentence of death are given no +work.) ‘We have home, we eat, don’t do no work. We’re non-producers—live +off other man’s work. When libertarians make +speech, they calling Nick and me names.’</p> + +<p>“Sacco gurgles with amusement. The deputy sheriff appears +significantly. Suddenly one realizes that these men are to die +in a straight wooden chair, just as the world begins its summer +holidays.</p> + +<p>“Nick and Vanzetti see the new expression and understand. +They smile, gravely, sympathetically, as men smile at a child’s +troubles.</p> + +<p>“‘If it had not been for these thing,’ says Vanzetti, ‘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 joostice, +for man’s onderstanding of man, as now we do by an accident.</p> + +<p>“‘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 belong to us—that agony is our triumph!’</p> + +<p>“Not declaimed, just said simply.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="VI_19"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>There were tears in Cornelia’s eyes as she finished. “Oh, +beautiful! Beautiful!” And when Joe came in, later in the +day, she showed him the clipping. “Those are marvelous words—those +two paragraphs at the end. I wonder if you couldn’t +quote them again, and get people to read them.”</p> + +<p>Joe said that he would try it. In order to give a touch of +drama, he put a headline: “Vanzetti to his Judges.” The two +paragraphs were taken up and reproduced in labor papers, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_616">[616]</span> +and became, as it were, a spiritual testament of Vanzetti, an +untheological prayer which his friends carried about with them, +and read while he was dying, and afterwards. Because of the +title, people assumed that the words had been a part of a speech +in court; but this was not so, they were spoken, quite simply +and casually, to a newspaper reporter, the every-day stuff of +Vanzetti’s mind.</p> + +<p>History records that those who heard the Gettysburg address +of Abraham Lincoln were ill pleased by it. They found +it brief and inadequate, and gave all their praise to the flowery +discourse of the great Edward Everett of Boston. But the +future seldom chooses words which are flowery; it chooses +those which have been wrung from the human heart in moments +of great suffering, and which convey a gleam of spiritual +illumination. When such words have been spoken, we +discover what Paul meant when he wrote, “this mortal shall +put on immortality.” School children learn them by heart, and +libraries are written to interpret them; they are graven upon +marble and cast in bronze; armies carry them on banners, temples +arise to glorify them, and civilizations are built in their +image.</p> + +<p>Pass on, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, your work is done! You have +fought the good fight, you have finished the race! Fear not +the executioner, nor yet the raging slanderer—they are powerless +to harm you, for you have carried out your life-purposes—including +that incidental one of becoming a great master of +English prose! You have spoken the noblest words heard in +America in the two generations since Abraham Lincoln died! +You have achieved what is called the “grand manner,” so rare +in literature! That simplicity whereby men become as little +children, and enter into the kingdom of heaven; that dignity +which causes the critics to bow their haughty heads; that tenderness +which touches the heart, that rapture which fires it, +that sublimity which brings men to their knees!</p> + +<p>In short, old Bart, you have brought the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts back into the literary world again! After many +years, New England has another great writer—for a short +while only, until it has sent two thousand volts of electricity +through his brain! What an odd freak of history, that this +great one should be a despised wop! That, after all the millions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_617">[617]</span> +spent upon education, he should not be a graduate of a college, +nor even of a high school! That he should not even be able +to spell correctly, nor to pronounce correctly, the language of +which he is to be the glory!</p> + +<p>What a satire upon great endowments, the huge masses of +steel and stone, the deans and professors of this and that +long-winded subject! As a result of their labors, there are a +million persons in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who +understand the correct use of past participles, and would not +say, “I might have live”; yet there is not a single one of these +millions who can speak a sentence that stands a chance of +living! There are ten thousand graduates of Harvard College, +every one of whom knows better than to say “onderstand” +or “joostice”; yet there is only a handful who understand justice, +and not one who will die for it!</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_19"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>The fears of the defense, that they could not get their answer +before the public, proved to be groundless. In truth, no answer +was needed—the weaknesses of the Governor’s statement were +so apparent. Impossible to take the lives of two men upon +the basis of such an argument! There was a cry of dismay, +so shrill that it penetrated even to the sanctum of supersalesmanship. +A sudden panic among the “State House gang”; +something must be done, and done quickly. The academic autocrats +were summoned to the defense of their Governor, and +three days later there appeared what was called the “report” +of Lowell, Grant, and Stratton to the Governor.</p> + +<p>It was much longer than the earlier document, and in its +heavy style bore the marks of having been composed by President +Lowell. It was argumentative where Fuller’s had been +assertive; it was fumbling where his had been jaunty. The +feebleness and confusion of its arguments suggested the operation +of aged minds. To disinterested persons, the most striking +fact was that the report could be judged without knowing anything +about the case. The elderly gentlemen had managed to +make their ineffectiveness evident in almost every paragraph.</p> + +<p>Suppose, for example, that you picked up your morning +paper, and read what the Commission had to say about the evidence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_618">[618]</span> +of Roy Gould, the man who had got a bullet hole through +his overcoat. “He certainly had an unusually good position to +observe the men in the car, but on the other hand his evidence +is merely cumulative.” What would you make out of that? +Assuming that you knew the meaning of the word “cumulative,” +why was evidence less valid because it was that? Wasn’t +it the nature of good evidence to be cumulative, and didn’t you +try to make it as cumulative as possible? Try some other word +in that sentence: “his evidence is merely convincing” or, “his +evidence is merely conclusive”!</p> + +<p>Then that amazing and incredible sentence, in which the +three elderly Brahmins summed up their meditations on the +subject of one of their victims: “On the whole, we are of the +opinion that Vanzetti was guilty of murder beyond reasonable +doubt.” What did the three elderly Brahmins mean by a +man’s being guilty “on the whole”? Or by their being of the +opinion “on the whole”? Did they mean that there was some +part of them which was not of the opinion? Or did they +mean that there was some part of Vanzetti which was not +guilty? On the Saturday when this report was given out, the +New York <i>Times</i> made an effort to elucidate this question; and +the New York <i>Times</i> is an important newspaper, whose queries +are apt to be heeded, even by blue-blood college presidents. +But apparently the Commission on the whole had decided on +the whole that it would be safer on the whole to take no chances +on the whole. The New York <i>Times</i> recorded that “efforts to +reach members of the committee to clear up the exact meaning +of ‘on the whole’ were unavailing.”</p> + +<p>But imagine the scorn and fury of young radicals—reading +that sentence, and not waiting to have the exact meaning cleared +up! Said Mistress Betty, now become ferocious: “Is he going to +execute Bart on the whole, or is he going to execute him completely?” +She pictured the august President of Harvard University +appearing before the Judgment Throne, and being informed +that he was to be sent to hell on the whole, and roasted +for eternity on the whole!</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_19"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>The three elderly blue-bloods had had a comparatively simple +task laid out for them; they had been asked to decide whether +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_619">[619]</span> +Sacco and Vanzetti had had a fair trial. Was it owing to their +age, or to their inexperience with criminal matters, or to their +overwhelming prejudice, that they had been unable to stick +to their task, but must keep confusing it with the question +whether Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty? The latter they could +not possibly determine; they had neither the time, nor the +facilities, nor the training, nor the temperament. But their +self-assurance was such that they attempted it; with the result +that they fell to guessing, like everybody else, and they were +so naïve as to reveal this to a horrified world.</p> + +<p>Thus, in declining to accept the story of Madeiros, they +remarked: “If he were tried, his own confession, if wholly +believed, would not be sufficient for a verdict of murder in +the first degree.” Just what was the significance of that? Were +the old gentlemen suggesting that two birds in the hand were +better than one in the bush? And then, their extraordinary +statement, that the evidence of Gould was “balanced” by that +of Tootsie Toodles! Joe Randall said that such “balancing” +ought to be exhibited on the vaudeville stage.</p> + +<p>The handling of the Proctor confession had come to be a +test of the honesty of official persons in Massachusetts; and +it proved that each new person would find some new method +of dodging the truth. The three elderly blue-bloods showed +themselves fully as cunning as their predecessors. Said they: +“Counsel for the defendants claim that the form of the question +and the answer was devised to mislead the jury.” That +was a fact; and it was an instance of how to lie while stating +a fact. Counsel “claimed” it; but why put the burden of the +“claim” onto counsel, when counsel were merely restating the +confession of Proctor? And then to go on and say: “But it +must be assumed that the jury understood the meaning of plain +English words.” These learned Boston gentlemen claiming that +Proctor had used “plain English words,” when Proctor himself +had stated that he had used obscure English words, and for the +purpose of confusing the jury! Let the common sense of mankind +judge whether a jury of mechanics and working people +would find no obscurity in the statement that the mortal bullet +was <i>consistent with</i> having been fired by the Sacco pistol! And +when both the district attorney and the judge had pretended +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_620">[620]</span> +to misunderstand it, and had told them that it meant what it +did not mean!</p> + +<p>And then to be nasty, and hint that their own high police +official, who had served them faithfully for forty years, and +now was dead and unable to defend himself, had made his +confession because the district attorney had refused to pay +him five hundred dollars for his expert testimony!</p> + +<p>To Cornelia Thornwell this report meant the end of all things; +her joy in life was gone. For prejudice and trickery on the part +of a motor-car salesman she could make snobbish allowances; +but in the case of A. Lawrence Lowell no such recourse was +available, he was her kind of person, the best she had to offer. +For years she had gone to commencements, and listened to his +ponderous wisdom, and thought he was a great man; and here +in a test she discovered that he had listened to all the gossip, +and swallowed the whole “theory”!</p> + +<p>She knew what would happen, if she went out among her +friends to argue against this report. The friends would gaze +at her in dismay. “But, my dear, <i>Mr. Lowell</i> says they are +guilty!” If she persisted, the friends would add, “But my dear, +Mr. Lowell <i>investigated</i> the case! He gave more than half his +vacation to it!” Those who knew her well, including the members +of the family, would say, “But Mother, you <i>wanted</i> Mr. +Lowell, and now you won’t abide by what he says!”</p> + +<p>Impossible to make headway against such a tide! In New +York men could read that report, and judge it for what it was, +a revelation of the mental breakdown of a once-great civilization; +but in Boston hardly any one could judge it, Mr. Lowell +did the thinking of half the city. He was a god, and had descended +from his throne, and devoted his mighty intellect to +the affairs of two obscure wops; now for these wops and +their supporters to refuse to accept his verdict was not merely +blasphemy, it was ingratitude and impertinence.</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_19"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>William G. Thompson withdrew from the case. One more +lawyer had failed; one more lawyer had made enemies, and +thought it would help Sacco and Vanzetti if he took himself +out of the way. But each time it was made clear that the cause +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_621">[621]</span> +of the hatred was Sacco and Vanzetti, no one else; the new +lawyer, whoever he might be, would be as much hated as the +old one.</p> + +<p>They took Cornelia’s advice, and went to the old stock, and +retained Mr. Arthur Dehon Hill. Silver hair and rosy cheeks +and a manner of complete assurance, he should have been +Arthur Beacon Hill, according to Joe Randall. He was so correct +that he dared to make jokes about it. Real “Old Boston,” +he thought that every criminal, even an anarchist, was entitled +to a fair trial, and to have a lawyer do the best for him that +the legal game allowed. But to his surprise he discovered that +a great many persons, even lawyers, were strongly disapproving +of his conduct in defending these enemies of society.</p> + +<p>He started work on Saturday, the sixth of August; and on +the night of Wednesday, the tenth, his clients were due to +die: rather a short time-limit for the mastering of a complicated +case! He began with an appeal to the Governor to extend +the time; and the Governor replied by silence. He filed notice +of an appeal to Judge Thayer for a new trial, on the basis +of newly discovered evidence, and also—delightful inspiration!—on +the ground that Sacco and Vanzetti had not had a fair +trial, because the trial judge had been prejudiced! Judge Thayer +agreed to give up making golf-scores in Ogunquit, Maine, and +appear in Dedham Court House on Monday morning, to judge +whether Judge Thayer had been prejudiced against Sacco and +Vanzetti!</p> + +<p>Also Mr. Hill started an appeal before Justice Sanderson +of the Supreme Judicial Court, to try to get another motion +before the full bench of that Court. Some jumping about for +one lawyer, especially when all the courts closed at noon on +Saturday. Elias Field was helping, and also Michael Angelo +Musmanno, a young lawyer who had been sent on from Pittsburgh +by some Italian societies. A naïve and warm-hearted person, +Catholic and conservative, he had fallen in love with an +anarchist infidel and an anarchist atheist, and was bewildered +by the hatred which unloving Boston felt for his clients. A +hectic three weeks the young lawyer spent chasing about New +England and Canada, in motor cars, and now and then in airplanes, +hunting supreme court judges on vacation.</p> + +<p>Other lawyers giving advice, some of them secretly. One +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_622">[622]</span> +was Henry Cabot Winters—hush, not a word! He would call +Cornelia on the phone. “Mother, I don’t want to get mixed up +in this, but you’d better tell those fellows not to overlook +saving all their exceptions as basis of a writ of certiorari to +the Federal courts; and tell Hill not to let ‘Web’ get a single +point on him—challenge his right to hear a word, or decide +any issue, on the basis that it is a prejudiced decision. And +when you go to a Federal judge, don’t overlook Moore v. +Dempsey 261 U.S. 86.” Cornelia would have to say, “Wait! +Wait! Let me get that down!” She had been wrestling with +the powers that ruled her Commonwealth for seven years, but +she had not yet learned to have a pencil and pad at the telephone.</p> + +<p>Also professors of the Harvard Law School helping—and +no secret about that, but on the contrary, picturesque scandals +for the Hearst newspapers! A war between the law school +and rest of the university, between Frankfurter and Lowell! +Lowell had been disapproving of Jews as professors, ever since +eight years ago, when another of them, Laski, had made a +speech to the wives of striking policemen, while Lowell was +preparing to lend the students of his university for strikebreakers. +Now here was Frankfurter defending two anarchists +in a book, while Lowell was sentencing the incendiary pair to +death.</p> + +<p>A pretty fight, difficult to keep within the limits of academic +propriety! Not so long ago, the great Lowell had dealt a strong +punch to the Jewish jaw, in the shape of a program to limit +the percentage of such students allowed in Harvard; he proposed +to do it openly, instead of secretly, as the custom was. +He gave his reasons—among them that one hundred per cent +of the books stolen from the university library were stolen +by Jews. When this statement was investigated, the evidence +turned out to be that one Jewish student had one library book +which he had forgotten.</p> + +<p>And now here were the Harvard alumni, rallying to the aid +of their blue-blood president, by refusing to contribute to the +law school endowment, so long as Felix Frankfurter remained +a professor; they were making a regular campaign out of this. +Among those who had publicly joined it was Mr. Ranney, the +new assistant district attorney from Norfolk County, who had +been opposing the Sacco-Vanzetti defense before the Governor; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_623">[623]</span> +also that blandly smiling blue-blood lawyer, Mr. Joseph Wiggin, +who had been the Governor’s private counsel, present at all +hearings. “You see what kind of advice Fuller is getting!” said +Henry Cabot Winters.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_19"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Disputes at headquarters of the Sacco-Vanzetti committee; +factions clashing, radicals jeering at conservatives. “Now you +see! You obeyed your respectable lawyers! You were good, +and didn’t make any noise, you trusted to legal precedents—and +where have you got? If you had listened to us, if you had +spent the money to make an appeal to labor, we could have +had a general strike now, and the boys would have been saved!” +But even now the conservatives wouldn’t agree. Mrs. Evans +thought it necessary to bow to the Governor’s decision; while +the communists wanted to make a mass appeal for a strike all +over the country. Impossible to decide on a single move; and +meantime the clock was ticking away the minutes and hours +of the victims’ lives!</p> + +<p>Those who believed in picketing and street demonstrations +proceeded to organize and send out a call for martyrs. On +Sunday afternoon there were to be mass meetings on the Common; +the socialists and the communists each had a “tree,” and +as usual, they announced rival meetings. Superintendent of +Police Michael J. Crowley announced that he would attend +both. For the first time in Boston history the entire police +force of twenty-two hundred men were on what was known +as “twenty-four hour duty.” All vacations were canceled, extra +men were brought from other cities, the firemen were sworn +in as deputies, the state constabulary were ready with armored +cars, riot guns, searchlights and gas bombs. Said the sharp-tongued +Betty, “The Commonwealth has told ten thousand +lies, and each lie must have a club and a gun to protect it!”</p> + +<p>Between Boston Common and the park known as the Public +Gardens there extends a wide esplanade, half a mile long, +lined with old elm trees; since as far back in history as the +oldest citizen’s great-grandfather could remember, this had been +the temple of Boston’s free speech. The trees were numbered, +and every Sunday afternoon the advocates of anything would +have a tree assigned to them, where they might set up a soap +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_624">[624]</span> +box and stand thereon, and say what they pleased to all who +cared to listen—with only such interference as came from the +voices of the orators under the other trees.</p> + +<p>But now the government of Massachusetts had officially endorsed +ten thousand lies, and staked its official existence upon +them; the one thing it could not stand was to have these lies +exposed to the general gaze. Under the socialist tree were +women carrying banners, containing the sentence once spoken +by the just and upright and utterly unprejudiced Mr. Justice +Thayer. He was to speak again from the bench to-morrow +morning, and tell all the world how just and upright and utterly +unprejudiced he was. Now here was a banner: “Did you see +what I did to those anarchistic ——? Judge Thayer.” The +makers of the banner had left the bad word blank, but that +did not improve matters, because there is no limit to what +the human imagination may insert in a blank. People might +imagine the worst of all possible expressions, so bad that it +had never been printed in any newspaper. If they did imagine +that, they would be right; and so it was necessary for the Commonwealth +to resort to clubs and bullets.</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_19"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Alfred Baker Lewis, devoted young secretary of the Socialist +Party, was denouncing the Governor’s decision, when +Michael J. Crowley came pushing his way through the crowd, +demanding to see his permit. Burly Irish-Catholic Mike, known +as “Mickey the Gunman” to the striking policemen, and called +even worse names by the booksellers of Boston, whose boss +and master he was. For among the many duties of a superintendent +of police in that pious city is to supervise the books +which the literati may purchase. In the course of the past two +years Mike had barred some seventy of the leading novels of +the day, practically everything which an intelligent man or +woman would want to read.</p> + +<p>And so to-day; the public would be forbidden to hear every +word that could interest an intelligent citizen. The Salvation +Army would go on banging its drum, and the Holy Rollers +would continue their contortions; but protest against legalized +murder would be met with clubs, and if necessary with bullets.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_625">[625]</span></p> + +<p>“Let me see your permit,” commanded the superintendent +of police; and when the orator produced it, Mike announced, +“This permit is canceled and the meeting is forbidden.” When +the young socialist attempted to protest, “You are not going +to argue this case in public,” said the majestic Mike—just +that and no more; he said it several times, so that every citizen +of Boston might feel the full weight of the civic insult. “You +are not going to argue this case in public!” Only in the council +chamber at the State House, before elderly academic autocrats +who would doctor the record when they got through, and keep +the public from knowing what blunders they had made!</p> + +<p>“This meeting will disperse!” shouted Mike, to the sixteen +thousand persons crowded round him; and the blue-clad “cops” +began their onslaught—“for every lie a club or a bullet!”</p> + +<p>“Come over to our tree! We have a permit!” shouted the +communists; so the crowd swarmed over there and Mike came +also, and repeated his performance, confiscating another permit. +But the communist was not so obedient as the socialist—he +went on trying to speak, and was hauled off the soap box and +surrounded by policemen, and dragged off to the waiting patrol-wagon. +Three other persons they arrested—one of them Edward +Holton James, of Concord, nephew of the novelist who wrote +like a psychologist and of the psychologist who wrote like a +novelist.</p> + +<p>A persistent person, Mr. James; perhaps it came from living +in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s back-yard. He had stood up in +Germany, during the war, and said what he thought about the +Kaiser. The Germans, not understanding Concord, had decided +that he must be insane, so they had shipped him into +Holland; whereupon he had promptly got himself smuggled +back in a load of merchandise, and stood up again and said +what he thought about the Kaiser, and spent three years in a +fortress for it.</p> + +<p>Now he was so naïve as to think that he owned a share of +the Common, and had a right to speak there, and to refuse to +be dragged off. He resisted being dragged, and went so far +as to slap one of the officers—with the flat of his hand. They +taught him his lesson, regardless of his blue-blood and his +money; when the “cop” got him alone in the cell he gave him +one on the side of the jaw, and Mr. James “passed out,” as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_626">[626]</span> +the saying is, and when he came to he had a cracked jawbone, +to keep him quiet for a while.</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_17"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>Arthur Dehon Hill arguing before Judge Thayer in Dedham +Court-house, with the round white dome and portholes like an +ocean liner. Silver hair and rosy cheeks, his manner of subtle +banter now replaced by burning indignation, that a judge with +such a record as Web’s, and knowing in his heart such prejudice +as Web’s, should be insisting upon deciding a motion involving +two human lives. The lawyer invited the judge to consider +how he would feel if the followers of Lenin had seized +the government of Massachusetts, and were trying him according +to the precedents he had set! He told Web to his +face that he had been unfit to try the case from the beginning; +he cited in open court what the Lowell commission had said +about him—that in talking about the case off the bench he had +committed “a grave breach of official decorum.” Could any +man hear such words about himself, and not be affected by +them? Web’s answer was that the chief justice of the Superior +Court had instructed him to cut short his vacation and hear +this motion. “And I am here,” said Web, in a low voice. His +face was gray, his hands trembling, his eyes blinking fast. +His court-house was well guarded that day.</p> + +<p>New evidence had been discovered. A young fellow by the +name of Candido di Bona had been standing on the street in +South Braintree when the bandit-car went by, and now made +affidavit that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti was in that car. This +evidence was what the Lowell Commission would have called +“merely cumulative”; there were already thirty-one persons +who had made such statements, either at the trial or in later +affidavits, and Web Thayer knew of them all, and intended to +pay no more heed to the thirty-second than he had paid to the +thirty-first. He thought that he no longer had jurisdiction; +that after sentence had been passed, no judge of the Superior +Court could entertain any motion. To this the lawyer argued +vehemently that nothing could deprive accused men of an elemental +right. “I believe that if there is new and important +evidence, the courts have the power to consider it, even after +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_627">[627]</span> +sentence has been pronounced—even down to the time the men +are strapped in the electric chair. I do not believe the laws +intended the courts to regard these men as legally dead as +soon as sentence was pronounced.”</p> + +<p>Arthur K. Reading, Attorney General of the Commonwealth +of Massachusetts, had been instructed by the Governor to follow +Mr. Hill in his peregrinations among the courts and make +certain that he didn’t get anything. Handsome, genial, and a +good fellow, Mr. Reading was a bitter foe of all Reds, and +the aiders and abettors of Reds. Said he: “I have just heard +the most preposterous argument that I have ever heard from +an able lawyer.” He expressed his horror at “this attack on +the court for which I have the highest regard.” He proclaimed +that, “Ours is a government of laws.” Such reverence for laws +and courts this noble gentleman had—and even while he was +orating, his pockets were stuffed full of money, collected from +various organizations which had been warned by Arthur K. +Reading as counsel that they were in danger of prosecution +by Arthur K. Reading as attorney general!</p> + +<p>The “Decimo Club” was an ingenious organization which +sold memberships to persons who hoped to get rich quickly; +but the only ones who did get rich were the promoters of the +club, and their legal counsel. A couple of months ago they +had secretly handed a check for twenty-five thousand dollars +to Mr. Reading, and immediately thereafter he had given to +the newspaper reporters an interview telling them that the +Decimo Club was all right. He had performed similar “legal +services” for the “L.A.W.,” an automobile stock-selling scheme +with curiously involved features. Altogether he had collected +about ninety thousand dollars in such “fees,” and within ten +months of the time that he had demanded the life of Sacco +and Vanzetti, he was to be formally indicted by the House +of Representatives and driven from his high office in disgrace—the +first time that had happened in the history of the Commonwealth. +So nemesis waits for Red-hunters!</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_15"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>In the meantime Cornelia Thornwell had got into action +again—impossible to rest. Pleading with the Governor to grant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_628">[628]</span> +a respite—but the Governor would not give a hint of his intentions. +Calling up friends and relatives, nagging at them to +“do something”—when they had no idea what to do. “Henry, +do you suppose Fuller can really intend to let those boys die +while proceedings are pending before the courts?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid he does, Mother”—this over the telephone.</p> + +<p>“But what can be in his mind?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mother, it is costing a lot of money to keep this thing +going. Think of the military expenses! And then, it’s bad advertising; +every day it keeps up, things look worse for Fuller +and Lowell, and naturally they want it over with.”</p> + +<p>“Do they think they can stop it by a murder?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid they do, Mother—and what’s more, I’m afraid +they are right. You can’t keep the case alive when the men +are dead.”</p> + +<p>“Henry, you <i>must</i> do something for me!”</p> + +<p>“But what can I do? I have no pull with Fuller, I don’t +even drive a Packard car.” The great lawyer thought for a bit, +and added: “Why don’t you try a little social pressure? Get +Deborah or Alice or both of them to give him and his lady +a dinner-party? I’ll come, if it will do any good.”</p> + +<p>Learn how the world is governed, Cornelia—now in your +seventy-third year of life! Once upon a time people did things +like this to you, and you were too gentle and trusting, too +much of a “lady” to know it, or to believe it when it was +pointed out to you. But now do it yourself! Seek out the weak +spot in the armor of a motor-car salesman who has forty million +dollars, but no “social position,” and has a Catholic wife, +a cruel handicap in Massachusetts! Get busy at the telephone, +and put it up to your daughters, as hard as you know how—if +they have one particle of love for you in their hearts, if +ever they had a particle of love in their hearts, to spare you +this dreadful anguish!</p> + +<p>True it is that the motor-car salesman has made public attacks +on Rupert Alvin, calling him an arch-corruptionist and +things like that; but that is just politics, and social life is another +thing altogether. The motor-car salesman will doubtless +know what is being done to him; he is a business man, and +does not give something for nothing, nor expect to get something +for nothing. To be received in one of the greatest homes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_629">[629]</span> +in New England, to put his feet under the table with haughty +and unapproachable Brahmins—that counts for nothing to him +personally, or so he pretends, being “bull-headed” and defiant; +but he has a wife, and children growing up to the age of marriage, +and what the women and children clamor for cannot +be overlooked by the most self-satisfied of self-made millionaires.</p> + +<p>Cornelia had her way. Ladies do in Boston, when they are +persistent, and when they are old. The formal invitation was +written by Deborah Alvin, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Fuller, +and delivered by a chauffeur at the Governor’s summer home, +at Rye Beach in New Hampshire. A couple of hours later an +automobile arrived at the North Shore palace of the Rupert +Alvins, with a formally written acceptance. Deborah got busy, +and invited half a dozen members of the family, and intimate +friends who could be taken into the secret. Clara Thornwell +Scatterbridge came—another stage in her feminist revolt! Alice +Thornwell Winters came, dressed in pale lavender, the color +which harmonized with her aura; having lost a great deal +of weight on a humming-bird diet, she had taken up a new +rôle, and was a picture of delicate and spiritualized melancholy.</p> + +<p>The Governor and his lady arrived, in the very latest model +of Packard limousine, custom-built, preceded by a car full of +alert-looking men with bulging hip-pockets, and followed by +another carload. Several posted themselves at the front door, +others walked round and round the house and peered into +bushes and under porches. One, who looked and acted like a +guest, wandered about the downstairs rooms all through the +meal; the Commonwealth was taking no chances—especially +in a home where the mother-in-law was one of the most notorious +Reds. These precautions lent an extra thrill to the meal, +but good form required that no one should know anything +about them.</p> + +<p>The supersalesman sat at the right of his hostess; on the +other side was Alice, and the matter-of-fact and rosy gentleman +had never encountered anything so much like heaven. She +told him about his aura, which was news to him; Deborah told +him about her orphan asylum, and Rupert told about his chapel, +and how a bishop from England had praised the design of the +apse. Never a word about the distressing news which was on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_630">[630]</span> +the front pages of all the papers! “Cura nulla medicabilis arte” +may have been all right for a poet two thousand years ago, +but the social arts of “old Boston” had mastered all human +weakness.</p> + +<p>Except that at the end of a delightful evening Deborah led +her distinguished guest to one side, and burdened him for a +moment with the story of how her old mother was suffering +so that they feared for her life; would she be presuming if +she asked the Governor to reprieve the two wretched men for +a couple of weeks, until the hope of court action could be +tried out? The supersalesman replied with all the caution of +a skilled politician. It would not do for him to say outright, +because the final decision rested with his Council. But privately, +and in strictest confidence, he would assure Mrs. Alvin of his +best endeavors, and she might convey that information to her +mother under a seal of secrecy. When the ordeal was over, +and Cornelia was free to tell the story to Betty and Joe, she +commented upon the way the world is governed. Said Betty: +“Don’t you know, Grannie, the real cause of the world war—that +King Edward of England was not sufficiently polite to +his nephew, Emperor William of Germany?”</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_11"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>On Monday evening Judge Webster Thayer handed down a +decision, to the effect that he had no jurisdiction to entertain +any motion in the Sacco-Vanzetti case. By this ruling he claimed +to have avoided passing upon his own prejudice; but at the same +time he said, in open court, “I had no prejudice.” He said +it many times.</p> + +<p>On Tuesday morning he gave another decision, refusing +the request for a revocation and stay of sentence. He gave +this out from his home in Worcester, where two police officers +watched by day and two by night, and one followed behind +the judge when he went walking with his dog. In the toilet +of a subway station in New York, a bomb had exploded, +wrecking the station and seriously injuring two persons. The +friends of law and order were certain that the friends of Sacco +and Vanzetti had set this bomb; while the friends of Sacco and +Vanzetti were equally certain that their worst enemies had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_631">[631]</span> +done it. In the State House in Boston a package had been +found in one of the elevators; after listening for clockwork +inside, and hearing nothing, the police had opened it with many +precautions, and found two pounds of chocolate.</p> + +<p>Justice Sanderson of the Supreme Judicial Court declared +that he had no power to grant a motion for a new trial; it +was a problem how to bring the matter before the Full Court. +Federal Judge Anderson declined to intervene—in spite of +“Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86.” In fact he thought that +decision worked the other way. A difficult matter to make +a science out of the law, when no one could determine what +it meant, and there were no angels to administer it! Justice +Oliver Wendell Holmes of the United States Supreme Court +said that he had no authority, but pointed out that they were +at liberty to try some judge of the circuit court; however, the +judges of the circuit court advised trying the supreme court. +It was as Bart had noted long ago—everybody put the problem +off on somebody else!</p> + +<p>Hill and Field and Musmanno went racing about from one +court to another, and from one summer resort to another—wherever +a judge might be intercepted. Behind them chased +Attorney General Reading, his pockets full of money from the +Decimo Club and the “L.A.W.”; and behind him one or more +carloads of reporters, liberally provided with funds by large-scale +purveyors of sensation. Hill made another appeal to the +Governor for a stay; and the Governor announced that he +would not grant the request. That was Tuesday afternoon, and +the execution was set for Wednesday midnight.</p> + +<p>“What does that mean, Deborah?”—it was Cornelia phoning +to her daughter, tormented with anxiety.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, Mother. I only know what he told me. He +may have his reasons. We ought not to talk about it over the +telephone.” So there was nothing to do but wait, and guess at +the tortuous motives of a supersalesman of automobiles, whose +heart was set upon moving to the White House.</p> + +<p>Betty and Joe were absorbed in frantic efforts to awaken +public opinion. The respectable lawyers were out of favor now, +and it was permitted to make “propaganda.” The committee +had issued a call for a hundred thousand persons to come to +Boston and voice the protest of America against judicial murder. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_632">[632]</span> +About two hundred came. For the most part they only +added to the confusion, because there was no one to organize +them or put them to work. No two had the same idea of what +should be done; and when they came to the committee, they +found exactly the same state of disagreement.</p> + +<p>Many of the group from New York, especially the liberals +and the lawyers, thought that the crucial issue was the Department +of Justice files. They started a clamor: “Open the +files!” Several newspapers took it up. But this program met +with strong opposition from the Italian anarchists. Could there +be things in these files which Italian anarchists did not want +to see upon the front pages of newspapers? The liberals got +so far as to induce the Department of Justice to say that the +files would be turned over to Governor Fuller or to President +Lowell, if either would ask for them; but these worthies took +exactly the same attitude as the anarchists, and for exactly +the same reason. There were more things in the class struggle +than were dreamed of in the philosophy of amiable liberals.</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_10"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>One thing all sympathizers could do, and that was to get arrested. +Over at socialist headquarters in Essex Street was a +little group which had a program, and an organization to +carry it out. A group of students came there, and placards +and sandwich signs were made, calling upon Governor Fuller +for justice. Young men and women sallied forth—and as they +emerged from the building, a squad of police fell upon them, +and took away the signs and tore them to pieces. So the job +had to be done all over; the signs were prepared secretly, and +would-be paraders came one by one to the place of demonstration, +hiding their signs until they were on the picket-line.</p> + +<p>On Tuesday afternoon some thirty paraders made their appearance +in front of the State House, each wearing a placard +with a Sacco-Vanzetti argument upon it. For a while the police +let them alone, and contented themselves with keeping the +crowd on the other side of the street. On the Beacon Street +front of the State House there is an iron picket-fence, which +curves in towards the main entrance, making a large half moon; +so there was a comfortable space for paraders, and a chance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_633">[633]</span> +for their sentiments to be legible. They walked in silence, keeping +in motion, paying no attention to any one: a form of +demonstration which had first been used on Broadway, New +York, during the Colorado coal strike, and had been taken up +by the Boston suffragists at the time of President Wilson’s +visit, when Cornelia and Betty and Mrs. Henderson and her +daughter had gone to jail. The city had passed a special ordinance +to meet that form of insurrection; it provided against +“sauntering and loitering,” and the suffrage women had called +it “loitering for liberty.”</p> + +<p>Too bad that so many of the demonstrators were foreigners, +especially Russians and Jews, who were disliked in Boston. +Such names as Berkowitch and Borofsky, Dalevitch and +Hurwitz, Timchuck and Suchuck and Shklar did not produce +a good effect when read aloud over morning codfish-balls and +coffee. But when you call for martyrs you cannot be fastidious, +and your recruits will probably come from the martyr +races—especially the Jews, who discovered the idea. So Berkowitch +and Borofsky, Dalevitch and Hurwitz, Timchuck and +Suchuck and Shklar, male and female, walked up and down +in front of the high stone building with the golden dome, their +faces pale and set with determination. With them walked +Alfred Baker Lewis representing the socialists, and Harry J. +Canter and Bertram Wolfe representing the communists, and +Grace Hutchins representing Beacon Hill and the Back Bay.</p> + +<p>State House guards lined the picket-fence, and square-jawed, +hard-faced “plainclothesmen” slipped in and out among the +crowd. The statue of Daniel Webster surveyed the scene impassively; +also the tall equestrian figure of General Hooker, +green with verdigris, and white with the droppings of birds on +top of his head. From the windows above, the State House +gang looked down, and cursed, or cracked their jokes; the +bootleggers and friends of bootleggers, the sellers of public +privileges, the boon companions of large scale plunderers, who +had millions to spend for immunity.</p> + +<p>Over on the other side of Beacon Street was the Shaw +monument, glorifying a young Harvard aristocrat who had +given his life to raise Negro slaves to manhood. Here walked +“cops” with clubs in their hands and guns on their hips, wondering +how long it would be before they were turned loose on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_634">[634]</span> +the “Bolshevikis”; also members of the American Legion, stirring +up the crowd, crying their hatred of the “goddam Reds.” +Few of the spectators needed any incitement; their heads were +stuffed with the contents of newspapers, and they were sure +the “Guinneys” were guilty, and should have been “burned” +long ago.</p> + +<p>At four o’clock in the afternoon the number of the paraders +had grown to a hundred and twenty-five, and the police decided +that it had gone far enough. Captain McDevitt appeared +and read the riot act. Under the law the “saunterers and loiterers” +had seven minutes in which to disperse. When they +continued marching, the police surrounded thirty-nine of them, +and loaded them into patrol-wagons, and carted them to the +old Joy Street police station, followed by a crowd shouting, +“Beat them up! Hang them!” That was just words, of course; +Massachusetts is a law-abiding Commonwealth, fitting completely +into the formula of Lenin which Betty Alvin was so +fond of quoting: “The state is a monopoly of violence.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XVI_6"> + XVI +</h3> + +<p>The monopolists of violence were making their preparations +for such a show of their commodity as no city in America had +ever witnessed in time of peace. The old Charlestown prison +was turned into an arsenal; a cupola-crowned, octagon-shaped +building of hand-cut stone, with red-brick wings covered with +ivy, its walls now had dozens of machine guns mounted on top, +and stores of ammunition, and sixteen searchlights playing at +night. Eight hundred policemen, carrying riot guns with bayonets, +took possession of the streets approaching the prison, +and roped them off, stopping all traffic over Prison Point +Bridge, and on Rutherford Avenue, a main thoroughfare, for +half a mile. They were posted on all the house-tops surrounding +the prison. In front of the gates were a hundred mounted +Boston troopers, and a hundred of the state constabulary riding +the streets. Firemen were on hand with high pressure +hoses to repel mobs, and there was a plentiful store of tear +and gas bombs, gas masks and bullet-proof vests.</p> + +<p>All day Wednesday the eight hundred and eighty-one inmates +of the prison went their usual round, with arms folded +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_635">[635]</span> +and lips shut. They were not supposed to know what was +going on; but rumor spreads in penitentiaries, as fast as anywhere +else. All the prisoners knew that the death-sentence was +to be carried out at midnight, unless the courts or the Governor +intervened. They knew that eighteen Western Union +wires had been run into the officers’ club of the prison, and +that reporters were swarming there to send out the news of +the execution. At nine o’clock the prison lights winked out +one by one; but nobody went to sleep.</p> + +<p>In the death-house, in three narrow cells side by side, were +the condemned men; Sacco and Vanzetti and Madeiros, the +Portuguese who had managed to hitch his fate onto theirs. +Sacco was on the fourth week of a “hungry strike,” and Vanzetti +was also fasting; they were haggard and wasted, gray +and grim. No one was permitted to see them, except their lawyers +and relatives. Vanzetti had a sister on her way from +Italy; if he were executed according to schedule she would not +see him alive. The mother and sister of Madeiros had come +for a visit; also Rosina Sacco, who spent her time trying to +persuade her husband to sign some papers for the lawyers. +But he was more stubborn than ever before. “They have had +me nailed to the cross for seven years. Why should I keep +it up?” Rosina broke down and had to be carried away.</p> + +<p>The newspapermen noted that Sacco and Vanzetti did not +behave like other condemned criminals; they did not chat with +their keepers, nor sit and play cards with them, shoving the +cards under the barred doors of the cells. They preferred to +brood, staring at a little square patch of sunlight which fell +from the roof upon the floor, the only reminder of the outside +world. At night, when the searchlights played upon the +death-house, they saw nothing, nor did they hear the sound +of horses’ hoofs. They were permitted to have their books +and papers; despite the fact that Vanzetti had written a statement +in which he had called Governor Fuller a “murderer.” +They wrote farewell letters to the world: still cherishing the +“messianic delusion,” the idea that posterity would be interested +in their sufferings.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_636">[636]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XVII_3"> + XVII +</h3> + +<p>All that day the lawyers rushed about, and the Governor +was busy with his advisers. His Council was in session, also +the seven ex-attorney-generals of the Commonwealth, invited +to advise him as to the law on the matter of a respite. On the +street outside, several squads of pickets were being dragged +off to jail, with more or less violence. Those who had been +arrested the day before were being denied their hearings in +police-court, and condemned to pay fines without argument. +Some refused, and went to jail; others paid, and came out to +join the “death march” again.</p> + +<p>Marvelous copy for the newspapers, which printed everybody’s +guesses as to what was going to happen; every detail +about the police preparations, and diagrams of the death-house, +and photographs of the electric chair, and of the executioner—a +gentleman who made a specialty of sending two thousand +volts of electricity into living human bodies; he came from +New York, it appeared, and was paid by the piece. For this job +he was to get seven hundred and fifty dollars, and shocking +as the statement may sound, he was overcharging the great +Commonwealth. The people of Massachusetts, having elected +their best business man to attend to their affairs, surely had +a right to expect the discounts customary to the trade; but here +was New York State getting its killings done by the same killer +for only one hundred and fifty per!</p> + +<p>Young Musmanno went to see his clients, to get another +paper signed. They were glad to have some one to remind +them that human affection still survived in a world given up +to business. Sacco refused to sign, as usual; Vanzetti signed, +hoping it would help both of them. He was reading the Beards +on “The Rise of American Civilization”—at the same time +that he watched its fall. He was not going to be able to finish +these large, expensive volumes, so he wanted to give them to +the young lawyer as a token of regard. But Musmanno couldn’t +bear to take them, because it would be admitting that Vanzetti +was to die that night. They had quite an argument about it; +and several times Sacco would break in with his realist humor: +“Take the books, Musmanno! Take the books!”</p> + +<p>Musmanno did not take the books, but sped away to make +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_637">[637]</span> +another plea to the Governor. The prisoners began to sing; +there was no law to prevent that, they sang every international +song they knew, in Italian and in English.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Arise, ye prisoners of starvation!</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Arise, ye wretched of the earth!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For justice thunders condemnation;</div> + <div class="verse indent2">A newer world’s in birth!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='no-indent'>The rest of the prison heard no sound; but the searchlights +flashed into their cells and kept them awake, and cries would +run down the tiers of cells—hundreds of men shouting over +and over: “Let them out! Let them out!” There was no one +to interfere with them, for the guards, many of them, broke +down and sobbed.</p> + +<p>A singular adventure of Dorothy Parker, young poet from +New York, sophisticated and ironical, but not liking official +murder. She knew a newspaper reporter, and he got drunk, +and volunteered to take her into the prison with him. He got +her past the police-lines, and then went to get another drink, +and never appeared again. So there was Dorothy, wandering +about, patting the noses of state troopers’ horses, surveying the +lines of guns, and testing Massachusetts prison discipline after +bed-time. She sat with the reporters, and gathered the news, +and then went to the telephone and called up Sacco-Vanzetti +defense headquarters, and was overheard by a horrified deputy-warden—a +spy of the enemy inside the defenses! A lovely story +for bored reporters, smoking cigarettes and playing cards in +the officers’ club, and begging for the tiniest item of news to +put on the wires—starting with the mystic letters, “SV,” and +ending with the promise: “Will be add.”</p> + +<p>What was the supersalesman doing? Said Betty, “It is his +idea of drama, to make publicity for himself!” But in this she +was blinded by her hatred of the man. The plain truth was, +he had decided to have the execution that night, and get it over +with. But some of his advisers said it was impossible, with +matters as they stood before the courts. Arthur Hill was arguing—a +three hour argument before the Council. Up to the last +half hour the issue hung in the balance, and swayed, now this +way and now that.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_638">[638]</span></p> + +<p>Every preparation for death was made; the canvas cover +was off the electric chair, and the current tested—the three +victims listening to the sounds. They were dressed in their +death-clothes—shirts with short sleeves and trousers with short +legs, leaving room for the electrodes. But at ten-twenty the +warden came to the reporters, his face wreathed in smiles, +announcing that he had been notified by the Governor, the +execution was “off” for that night. Wild excitement, and some +joy, for the burly warden did not like his job the least bit. +The reporters flashed the word “reprieve” to the farthest ends +of the earth; but five minutes later the warden came in again, +his face a blank—terribly sorry, he had further word from the +Governor, the execution was “on” again, and was to take place +at midnight.</p> + +<p>The official witnesses who had been selected, and the one +reporter, the Associated Press man, who had been favored +above all other reporters, made ready to enter the death-house. +But again the warden burst in, at twenty-seven minutes past +eleven, almost in a state of collapse—he had had another talk +with the Governor, and the execution was “off” for the next +twelve days. The reporters leaped to the telegraph-keys—having +before their minds a terrible calamity. There are newspapers +in the big cities which make a practice of printing descriptions +of things which haven’t happened, but are due to happen according +to schedule; there would be New York papers having +on their presses the news that the men were dead. Suppose +some of these copies were to get onto the streets!</p> + +<p>The “false execution”—such was the name by which the +friends of the defense came to know that dreadful evening. +They had sat in defense headquarters, and in a church behind +the State House which had been mercifully opened to them, +and waited for news, and pictured the worst. Rosina Sacco +had sat for three hours holding a watch in her hand; when at +last the news of the reprieve came in, she collapsed, and had +to be carried to the home of friends. In the little apartment +on the north side of Beacon Hill, Cornelia Thornwell was at +the telephone, dizzy, but able to hear the voice of Deborah: +“I told you, Mother! You should have believed me—he would +not dare to disregard us.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_639">[639]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI"> + CHAPTER XXI<br> +<span class='chap-title'>DAYS OF GRACE</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Sacco and Vanzetti, brought up from Dedham jail on the +first day of July, had been put into the death cells. When +the Governor granted the first reprieve of thirty days, to allow +the Lowell Commission to work, they had been moved back +to what was called the Cherry Hill section of the prison. On +the first of August, it being ten days to the new date of execution, +they went back into the death cells. Now, the Governor +having granted twelve days more, the rules required another +return to the Cherry Hill section. “Oh, this is wearisome!” exclaimed +Sacco. “This moving!”</p> + +<p>He was on the twenty-sixth day of a fast, and barely able +to totter. But he would not be assisted; no, he would take +care of himself. A slow, feeble procession, the guards at his +side ready to catch him if he fell. Vanzetti walked behind; +having broken his fast, he had a little strength. Out into the +open sunshine in the prison yard; a glimpse of the flower-beds +along the walk, of blue sky overhead, white clouds, and gray +and white gulls wheeling; the sounds of freight cars being +shunted in the Boston and Maine yards, on the other side of +the prison walls. A few steps to be climbed; wait, let him +alone, Nick would do it by himself. At last he was lying on his +cot in the new cell; tortured, distracted—when his wife and son +came to see him they found his mind wandering. He was in +what is known as a “blind” cell, having a solid wooden door in +front of the barred iron door, and a peep-hole through which +the keepers could look in.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti also was in such a cell, and had fits of frenzied protest +against the long drawn out and senseless agony. He talked +aloud at night, and disturbed the other prisoners. His words +being mostly in Italian, the guards and reporters said they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_640">[640]</span> +were “incoherent.” He shouted about “the machine, the machine!”—which +they took to mean the electric chair; not understanding +the social system which is crushing human hopes +throughout the world, grinding up the souls and minds of +millions. Vanzetti was told that his cries were keeping other +men awake, and that if he kept it up, he would be put in the +padded cell, known as the “Blue Room.” At this he became +furious, and dragged his cot and wooden bureau in front of +the door of his cell, and warned the guards that they would not +get him out alive.</p> + +<p>Cornelia heard that news, and came to the prison early in +the morning. They had refused her admission to the death-cells—only +relatives and attorneys were allowed there, a strict +rule. Now they told her that Vanzetti was “dangerous,” but +she laughed at them; Bart had never been dangerous to those +who used the methods and the language of love. She told +them that she could tame this wild man for them, and without +padded cells or strait-jackets. Since they dreaded a scandal +very much, they gave way and took her through the prison +yard, and into the corridor of “blind” cells.</p> + +<p>Poor Bart—a dreadful change from the early days in that +prison, when he had been so eager to see her, yet made her +wait while he washed the coal dust from his face and hands! +And always carefully shaved, clear-eyed, and with his unconscious +natural dignity. Now he lay in a dark hole, feeble and +wasted, his hair falling out, his teeth decaying, a gray and +wasted specter. He started up when he heard her gentle voice, +but then had to sink back on the cot, for he grew dizzy if he +got up suddenly.</p> + +<p>Cornelia asked the guard to let him come out into the corridor +and sit with her. She knew that he would be gentle. The +prisoner answered that of course he would; but he was not fit +to be seen. She promised not to look at him, and so he came, +and she looked into his eyes, and smiled and began to talk. She +had been to Plymouth a few days ago, to interview a witness +for Musmanno; she had seen the Brinis, and had much news +about the family. They had moved to a place on Cherry Court, +and the baby was grown up. A hundred items of gossip—even +the latest reports from Vincenzo’s garden, and the explosion +which had occurred in his home-made wine!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_641">[641]</span></p> + +<p>And then news about that most precious of young creatures, +Rupert Alvin Thornwell Randall—a mouthful of names. He +was a sturdy one; two years old now, toddling and talking at +a great rate; spending the summer at his grandmother’s country +place on the North Shore, while his mother gave her time to +the Sacco-Vanzetti defense. Betty had been so determined that +this infant should grow up in a proletarian environment—but +alas, it was midsummer, and hot in a little apartment, and out +there on the North Shore were cool, refreshing breezes; so +the grandparents had the precious one, completely surrounded +by a battalion of servants, and all the demoralizing uses of +luxury. Betty had to choose between saving one infant and +saving the world—a dilemma frequently encountered by reformers. +Cornelia told Bart a little about the family duel, +which had been going on for two years; now the great banker +and his wife had got their way. Bart said they always would, +so long as they were able to control the things which other +persons needed.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti had been writing off and on, in spite of handicaps. +He had a statement which he wanted Cornelia to revise; +she might assure the warden that there was nothing in it like +calling the Governor a “murderer,” which had made such a +terrible scandal throughout all Massachusetts. He wanted to +give her a lot of his manuscripts to keep—but she didn’t want +to take them, because that would be admitting that he was +going to die! In the course of their talk he developed signs +of timidity, and said he had written something that he had +wanted to show to her, but he was afraid maybe it wasn’t very +good; it was a poem—a poem about a nightingale! Cornelia +reassured him—it wouldn’t need to be very good in order for +her to be interested in it. He drew it from the lot of papers, +and read it to her: this “dangerous” one, sitting in the corridor +of the “blind” cells, with a lynx-eyed guard watching +every move and listening to every word. The poem began:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>When in the course of endless cosmic changes,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Upon the close of winter dark and drear</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>From far away, benignant, crowned with roses,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>We see the lovely, longed-for spring appear....</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_642">[642]</span></p> + +<p>Cornelia had to tell the poet that such emotions had been +expressed before; nevertheless, there were tears to her eyes +over the effort of a wop in prison to describe a nightingale +in Italy! Springtime in Villafalletto—the fruit trees in blossom +and the vegetables thriving—and the poet behind bars, condemned +to death! Was it because of her aching pity for the +doomed idealist, or was there really beauty and pathos in the +closing lines?</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Thus in my garden, in bright morning’s glow,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>I saw thee in an April long ago.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<h3 id="II_20"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Twelve days of grace had been granted to the defense. +Twelve days in which to educate the world! Twelve days for +lawyers to compose more briefs, packed full of legal formulas +and imposing citations; to hop into automobiles or airplanes, +and go hunting for judges, and argue, plead, insist—there could +not be a total failure of law, when new evidence had been discovered, +proving that innocent men were about to be executed. +The judges would listen politely and patiently; but in all that +long list, from the lowest to the highest, not one would think +about anything but precedent, not one would act upon a basis +of mercy or justice, political wisdom or ordinary common sense.</p> + +<p>“Unless a million men can be mobilized in our defense, we +are lost!” Such had been Vanzetti’s statement, two or three +years ago. It had taken the United States government a year +to mobilize a million men, and the Sacco-Vanzetti committee +now set out to do it in twelve days. They drafted appeals and +sent long telegrams—a great sum in tolls each day. Mass meetings +were held in hundreds of American cities and towns, and +in all the capitals of the world; the newspapers were full of +reports of riots and strikes. But such events only stiffened the +backs of the State House crowd; this was “Bolshevism,” and the +answer to it was several thousand rifles with bayonets, and a +plentiful supply of gas bombs and machine guns.</p> + +<p>The one thing the State House crowd really feared was a +general strike. That was the weapon which had saved the lives +of Ettor and Giovannitti, and which might have saved Sacco +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_643">[643]</span> +and Vanzetti. The police were on the alert day and night for +the first move towards it. Two Jews, officers of the cap makers’ +union, started a movement for a strike among the clothing +workers of Boston, and were arrested and framed on a bombing +charge. The police hadn’t the slightest thing on them, and confessed +it with a laugh when they released them—after the +execution. There were spies everywhere, bringing word, hour +by hour, of what was going on in all the centers of sedition. +The ruling classes waited for the least little sign of violence, +the least departure from the rôle of martyrdom—so odious +and exasperating to those who believe in gold and steel.</p> + +<p>The “highbrow” sympathizers labored to mobilize liberal +opinion. They organized emergency groups and drafted appeals +to the Governor, and collected signatures from leaders of +every form of intellectual and artistic activity. It was a simple +matter to get such persons to voice their horror at the idea of +executing men after seven years on the rack, and when there +were so many reasons for doubting their guilt. The trouble was +that after the signatures were collected, there was nothing to +do with them—except to take them to the State House, and +turn them over to a man who read the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i>, +and to whom a list of leaders of international thought was of +less significance than a list of the delegates to an “ad-men’s” +convention.</p> + +<p>This salesman of motor cars posed as being completely impartial, +and delighted to assure his visitors, “I don’t know what +an anarchist is, I don’t pay any attention to that sort of stuff.” +But right in the midst of these pretenses some researcher in +Washington dug up his hate-speeches—the only ones of any +consequence he had made during his four years’ service in +Congress. He had been an ardent advocate of the exclusion +of Victor Berger, the socialist congressman, and with hot +anger had called for “the crucifixion of disloyalty, the nailing +of sedition to the cross of free government, where the whole +brood of anarchists, bolsheviks, I.W.W.’s and revolutionaries +may see and read a solemn warning.” He had talked about the +“red scum,” and the “agents of the red flag,” and had denounced +opposition to preparedness as “a devilish scheme of undermining +the morale of the people.” These tirades had been delivered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_644">[644]</span> +just before a thousand men and women were dragged from +their homes and thrown into Boston jails.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_20"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Not since the days of the Civil War had there been such a +test of the consciences of men and women in Boston. Strange +things happened, unexpected workings of the spirit. To Cornelia +Thornwell in her little apartment came the second son +of James Scatterbridge, known as “James’s Josiah,” and sat +in a chair and fixed his pale blue, earnest eyes upon her, and +in a timid, half-apologetic voice began, “Grandmother, it seems +to me as if I ought to do something to help.”</p> + +<p>“There is plenty to be done,” said the old lady.</p> + +<p>“I decided I ought to contribute some money, so I went to +defense headquarters yesterday evening. I had made up my +mind to give half my vacation allowance. But while I was there +three Italian laborers came in; you could see they had just come +from the day’s work, their shoes were covered with mortar, +and the backs of their hands had big knotted veins on them. +They brought more than fifty dollars which they had collected +on the job. I couldn’t understand what they said, but I watched +their faces, and I realized it was money which their wives and +children must need, so I got ashamed of myself. I think we +all have too easy a time. I gave every cent I had, and now I +don’t know what I’ll do.”</p> + +<p>“Lots of college boys go to work in vacation time, Josiah, +and sometimes they learn more than in classes.”</p> + +<p>“I know, Grandmother, and that’s what I’ll do; but first it +seemed to me that I oughtn’t to let you and Betty and Joe +carry the brunt of all this. Betty says she’s going to get arrested +next Sunday, and it seems to me I ought to go, too. +What do you think?”</p> + +<p>Another family problem! Cornelia declined to solve it; she +said that in matters of conscience, every person has to act for +himself. “It will make your father very angry, of course.”</p> + +<p>“I know; he’s terrible when he gets excited about the Reds. +But I don’t think it’s quite the same as being a Red, to say +that men ought not to be executed when there is so much +doubt of their guilt. But I can’t get Father to see that at all. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_645">[645]</span> +You’ll be shocked, I know, but he said they ought to be executed, +anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve heard many people say that, Josiah; it is almost a respectable +opinion in Boston. A member of the Governor’s +Council has voiced it, I am told.”</p> + +<p>“We’re having a funny time at home right now,” continued +the youth. “Have you heard about Great-uncle Abner? He is +determined to break into the <i>Transcript</i> with a letter about the +case, and Father has promised Uncle Henry that he won’t let +him—out of respect for you, of course.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Cornelia. “It is very kind of them.”</p> + +<p>“Father is provoked with you, but he won’t have any scandal, +and he has been having all the servants bring Great-uncle +Abner’s letters to him, instead of posting them. Great-uncle +Abner found out about it, and there was a terrible row, you +could hear him shouting all over the house: ‘Am I in jail or am +I not in jail? Answer me that? Have I been legally committed? +If not, take me out of here, and let me die a free man!’ He +just wouldn’t give up, and Father had to pacify him, for fear +he’d have another stroke. What Father did—you won’t believe +it—he promised to send the letter to the <i>Transcript</i>, and he had +a printer take the editorial page from an early edition, and reproduce +it complete, with the page on the other side also—but +with Great-uncle Abner’s letter in it. It was quite wonderful—it +would have fooled anybody. They put it in the evening +edition and brought it to the old gentleman, and he was as +pleased as punch—read it about twenty times, and some of +his old friends were let in on the secret, and came to see him +and patted him on the back and said it was a great letter and +ought to settle the case with the Governor. It said there ought +to be a Bolshevik hanging from each tree on the Common, and +they ought not to have any trials. It said that American institutions +must be saved from rape at the hands of Russian +gold and Italian dynamite. It was almost as bad as some of the +letters that really get published!”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_20"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>The case worked also upon the consciences of persons who +were cursed with artistic temperaments. Such unfortunates read +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_646">[646]</span> +the letters of Vanzetti and recognized a brother in distress. +He who had made himself a master of English prose spoke +to all other writers, now as in times to come. They gathered +from far and near, anxious that a great soul and a prophet +should be recognized before he was dead.</p> + +<p>There came Arturo Giovannitti, compatriot and fellow-victim +of the “frame-up” system: one of those whom Captain Proctor +had set out to “get,” in the days of Proctor’s prime, before +his conscience began to trouble him. For more than a year +Giovannitti had lain in Salem jail, and had written a haunting +poem, “The Walker.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>One-two-three-four: four paces and the wall;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>One-two-three-four: four paces and the iron gate.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='no-indent'>Now he walked a somewhat longer road in front of the State +House with the golden dome; measured, not by paces, but +by minutes—one-two-three-four-five-six-seven. He went to the +Common, temple of free speech with elm-tree limbs for arches. +“Fellow-workers,” he began—being an I.W.W., that was his +formula. “Break it up!” shouted “Mickey the Gunman.” +“You’ve said enough!” But the poet protested: “I haven’t said +anything yet! Wait till I finish before you arrest any one.” +“You’re talking against the courts!” was the answer of the +superintendent of police. “You’re not allowed to talk against +the courts!” The mounted troopers drove their reluctant horses +into the crowd. “Break it up! Move along there!”</p> + +<p>John Dos Passos came, playwright and novelist, genial, gentle, +and bold as a young bull buffalo. A graduate of Harvard, +he came to save the honor of his alma mater. “You have put +your name and indirectly the name of the university to an +infamous document”—so he wrote to President Lowell; and +then, since no Boston paper would publish his letter, he went +out on the picket-line and exposed his head to the policemen’s +clubs, and his skin to the vermin in the old Joy Street police-station.</p> + +<p>“Fair Harvard, thy sons to thy jubilee throng!” There +thronged George L. Teeple, of the class of ’97, and got himself +arrested with the other pickets, and read a statement in court, +paying fifteen dollars extra for the privilege, because the judge +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_647">[647]</span> +remarked that there might be an excuse for ignorant foreigners, +but there was very little excuse for a Harvard man to +violate the law.</p> + +<p>Also Powers Hapgood, nephew of Norman and of Hutchins. +His was not the sort of head the Boston police were used to +breaking. He had completed four years’ work at Harvard in +three; he had “made” the Dickey and the Hasty Pudding +Club, the varsity track squad and the Harvard “Crimson.” He +had been in the service abroad, and was one of the few undergraduates +honored by election to the Harvard Memorial Society. +He was one of those young Americans in whom readers +of fiction refuse to believe; “unreal and made to order,” they +say, of a college youth who travels over the country working +in coal mines, and becoming a leader of the left wing miners. +Now he came to express his opinion of President Lowell, and +the opinion was such that official Boston shut it up in the +Psychopathic Hospital.</p> + +<p>Heywood Broun was carrying on the same fight in New +York, as “colyumist” of the <i>World</i>, at a salary of four hundred +and fifty dollars a week. Broun had been “flunked out” +of Harvard in his youth, and this may have made him feel +disrespectful. “From now on,” he wrote, “will the institution +of learning at Cambridge which we once called Harvard be +known as Hangman’s House?” The <i>World</i> published that, but +refused to publish the next articles, so the “colyumnist” went +on a “permanent strike,” which made an enormous sensation +among the literati. An extraordinary thing, the way the case +“got” the intelligentsia, even that portion which prides itself +most upon being hard-boiled and immune to social emotions.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_20"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Also there came alumni of the University of Hard Knocks. +Those foreign names which pleased the readers of Boston +newspapers so little belonged to clothing-workers who had +given up their jobs, and spent their savings to come and +jeopardize their skulls; to sailors from the port, to iron-workers, +barbers, bakers and waiters; also to poets and writers who had +educated themselves, and thus could understand the soul of +Vanzetti. There came Michael Gold, a young Jew from the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_648">[648]</span> +slums of New York, who had been a newspaper reporter in +Boston when not yet out of his teens, and had been one of +that group of anarchist sympathizers whom Cornelia had seen, +eleven years ago, accompanying Galleani to the Plymouth +cordage strike.</p> + +<p>Mike was now a playwright and editor of the <i>New Masses</i>, +but resented being classified as an “intellectual,” and wanted +to remain a worker; so he dressed in khaki, which gave a shock +to Boston. He wandered about, fascinated by the spectacle of +a city gone mad with fear. He listened to the conversation of +sleek clerks and stock-brokers of State Street, ex-football players +of Harvard who wished they might have a chance to tackle +the “Reds.” He listened to taxi-drivers and soda-jerkers, who +knew what they had read in a capitalist newspaper, or learned +from others who had read it in some other capitalist newspaper. +On the afternoon of the “false execution” he joined +the “death march” in front of the State House, and the same +two iron-handed cops who grabbed Dorothy Parker the poet +grabbed Mike Gold the playwright, and hauled them away to +the oddly-named Joy Street police station. “Hang them! Hang +the anarchists!” cried the straw-hatted mob; and Mike, who +had written a life of John Brown, saw the ghost of William +Lloyd Garrison going down the street with a rope about his +waist, followed by the “mob in broadcloth,” crying “Hang him! +Hang the abolitionist!”</p> + +<p>Those Boston merchants of a hundred years ago had been, +some of them, the “bootleggers” of their day; smuggling “black +ivory” from Africa, Negro slaves whose labor would be turned +into molasses in Louisiana. The molasses would be brought to +New England and made into rum, and the rum would go back +to Africa, to make drunk the savage chiefs whose war-victims +would compose the next bootleg cargo. Now the great-great-grandsons +of those old merchants bore the same names, and +looked so much like their ancestors that when they came up +for election to the Somerset Club, the directors thought they +were voting for the ancestors. These great-great-grandsons had +imported hundreds of thousands of white niggers from the +Mediterranean and Baltic lands, to operate their steam and +electric machines, and had built a colossal system for the exploiting +of this new slave labor. These new masters considered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_649">[649]</span> +themselves civilized, and were willing to install “welfare work,” +and have their wives “do charity.” But at the same time they +looked upon these foreign hordes with mingled contempt and +fear, and dreaded the day when they might refuse obedience. +To suggest this to them was the worst crime that could be +committed in modern New England; the “black abolitionists” +of 1831 had been replaced, as objects of ruling class hatred, +by the “red scum” of 1927.</p> + +<p>So it was that Boston was under what amounted to martial +law, and there were more detectives watching strangers than +there were strangers. Any one who wore a beard, or had a +dark face, was liable to be halted on the street and ordered to +give an account of himself. A messenger carrying a box of +seidlitz powders had to stop for a chemical analysis. Helen +Black and Ann Washington Craton—a descendant of the father +of her country—were arrested and taken to the police station +and cross-questioned for hours; the reason assigned being that +they “looked like New Yorkers.” Six Italians arrived in an +automobile, and two of them needed a shave, so they were +held on a bombing charge.</p> + +<p>Joe Randall, of course, was a marked man; the fact that he +wrote articles for newspapers and posed as a reporter only made +him worse than the other “Bolsheviks.” Detectives followed him +everywhere, in restaurants, in drug stores when he bought an +ice cream soda, in barber shops when he got a shave. He made +trouble for them by insisting upon talking with them, which was +destructive of morale and against the ethics of “shadowing.” +New “dicks” were substituted, but Joe said you could always +recognize them by their blank and stupid faces; there was no +other occupation by which such low-grade persons could manage +to be well-dressed and well-fed.</p> + +<p>Impossible to imagine anything more grotesque than the +activities of these anthropoid mentalities, trying to deal with +a world of which they had no gleam of understanding. Some +of the things they did were beyond the absurdities of musical +comedy. Heywood Broun’s wife, Ruth Hale, came to Boston +at the height of the tragedy. Two sleuths of the city spent the +night in a Ford car, keeping watch on Hanover street, opposite +defense headquarters, and in the morning a newspaper +man asked them what they had been doing, and the answer +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_650">[650]</span> +was, “We had a straight tip on a bomb-plot, and we were +watching for the bombers.” “Who are they?” asked the reporter. +The reply was, “Two women from New York, Ruth +Hale and Dorothy Parker.”</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_20"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>On Thursday, the eleventh, Justice Sanderson of the Supreme +Judicial Court allowed a bill of exceptions from his +ruling to go to the Full Court. Also Web Thayer was persuaded, +for the sake of appearance, to permit exceptions to +his rulings to be carried up. So there were two more hopes +for salvation from the courts; Massachusetts was going to +lean over backwards in respecting the legal rights of two convicted +wops. Chief Justice Rugg was ill, and Crosby was in +Europe; Sanderson was barred from considering his own ruling, +so there were Braley, Wait, Carroll, and Pierce, with +Braley, oldest member, presiding. He issued a summons for a +special sitting on the following Tuesday, to listen to arguments +of counsel.</p> + +<p>Hope once more in the hearts of all believers in law and +order. Surely the ruling group was coming to its senses; it +had realized the frightful blunder it was making, and had +chosen a dignified way to back down! Patience now, and keep +cool, and don’t do anything to excite public feeling, and make +it harder for the learned justices! Stop the wild talk, and keep +the New York radicals off the streets and out of the newspapers! +Above all, no disorders on the Common, nor in front +of the State House! So argued the “respectables.”</p> + +<p>Was there really a chance? Or was it merely that those in +charge of affairs wanted it to seem that way? Quincy Thornwell +came to his Aunt Cornelia, bringing rumors: the Governor +had talked with So-and-so, and had said this and that. +More important yet, Mr. Lowell was showing signs of weakening; +he was defending himself, for the first time in his long +life. One of the “middle minds” had been to see him, and he +had argued until two o’clock in the morning, trying to justify +his decision; he had been so anxious about it that he had followed +his visitor downstairs in his pajamas, and out into the +garden, flashing a torchlight into the bushes to make sure there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_651">[651]</span> +were no bombers hiding. Quincy Thornwell chuckled over the +picture: assuredly the strangest sight ever witnessed by the +chaste nymphs who haunt the shades of the classic elms of +Harvard!</p> + +<p>And then the learned justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, +actually giving signs of humanity! Justice Wait had made a +speech, defending the action of the court; and now here was the +wife of another one, the presiding justice, Braley, telephoning +to Mrs. Jessica Henderson; a Leach of Bridgewater she +was, a highly respected person, and twice she called up to +say: “Don’t worry, my dear, everything is coming out all right, +I assure you. They are not going to let them be executed, they +will find some way out. The judge does not believe in capital +punishment.” What could have been the meaning of that? Could +it be that these old boys were fooling their own wives, in the +effort to cheer them up and keep peace in the family? Or were +they using the wives to lull the defense, and damp the dangerous +agitation during the critical days? Impossible to guess.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_20"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>In the Sacco-Vanzetti committee the never-ceasing struggle +between those who wanted to be judicious and those who wanted +to make propaganda. Lawyers and college professors telephoning +in, or calling to make personal pleas: “Remember this is +Boston, and keep the New York nuts out of the limelight!” +But the “New York nuts” had something to say about that, +and so had the Boston newspapers. The visitors came hiking, +wearing oil-cloth placards over their shoulders, getting cursed +and nearly mobbed in each respectable town they passed +through. They came in sport-cars, with bootleg bottles in their +baggage. Girls came in pants, and men with no hats or neckties. +One brought a portable typewriter, ready for work, and +when he found no room in headquarters, he set himself up +on the curbstone outside the Hotel Bellevue, and started writing +letters for Sacco and Vanzetti. The newspapers, of course, +got pictures of him at once. Also they eagerly interviewed a +young man who announced his intention of marching to Dedham +jail to rescue Sacco and Vanzetti, and was disconcerted +to learn that his campaign maps were out of date.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_652">[652]</span></p> + +<p>Such were the surface aspects of the invasion, easy to see +and to record. But there was another aspect, not so obvious +to Boston newspapermen, nor so diverting to their readers. +The soul of the demonstration, a common feeling which animated +all the participants, men and women, old and young, rich +and poor, educated and ignorant: a sense of black despair, of +agonizing littleness in the face of a colossal evil; an impotent +rage, a hatred, bitter as gall, rolling up in their minds, for +this whole great city of greed masked by bigotry—smug and +polite and treacherous, cultured and correct and deadly.</p> + +<p>Very few of these agitators were professionals; not many +of them had any training, any party to guide and support them. +They came as individuals, hesitating and confused. They didn’t +like to do what they were doing; the women, and many of the +men, felt like Lady Godiva riding through the town naked—worse +even than she, because they had no certainty of accomplishing +anything; perhaps they were making fools of themselves +to no purpose at all.</p> + +<p>They came because American labor would not come. Vanzetti +had called for a million workers, and the million workers answered, +“What the hell?” Most of them were content for +Vanzetti to die—so that American prosperity might live; they +were ready to make that sacrifice to Moloch, precisely as the +mothers and fathers of Carthage were ready to put their infants +into the red-hot iron arms of the god, so that Carthage +might live. So, instead of the million workers, came one or +two hundred poets, painters, dreamers and lovers of beauty, +Greenwich Villagers, bums, bohemians—whatever names Boston, +the correct and murderous, might choose to call them. A +pitiful little group, throwing themselves against the iron battlements +of American capitalism, with its machine-guns and poison +gas bombs, its police in the front rank and army and navy in +reserve.</p> + +<p>And for every dreamer who came, there were thousands +who stayed at home, chained by poverty, or a greater share of +timidity; waiting, waiting, with a ghastly sense of uncertainty, +feeling themselves more effectively imprisoned than Sacco and +Vanzetti. Writing letters, but not knowing if they were read; +sending telegrams—like shooting arrows into the dark! Unable +to get any real news—a few bare events each day in the papers, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_653">[653]</span> +but no opinions, no guidance, no light. The radio grinding out +its eternal silly thumping of drums and whining of saxophones—this +greatest story in modern American history not worth a +moment’s attention!</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_20"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Sunday was coming, and what was the committee going to +do? Was there to be another meeting on the Common, or should +they oblige the lawyers and wait? Agonized arguments, turning +into bitter quarrels. “When did you come into this case?” the +old-timers would jeer; and to that the answer was obvious: “A +fine mess you made of it!” The communists would rage at the +members of the committee: “Do you think you own Sacco and +Vanzetti? What do you want—to put their ashes in an urn and +set it on your parlor mantel?”</p> + +<p>Some were determined to speak on the Common, committee +or no committee, police or no police. The Socialist Labor Party +had a permit not yet confiscated, and the Sacco-Vanzetti defenders +would use that; so it was announced, and the would-be +martyrs prepared placards on canvas, which could be folded up +and hidden under the clothing. Betty and Joe refused to tell +the family what they were going to do; so here came Deborah +in all her majesty, mixing with the “mob” on the Common, +walking about unable to keep her hands quiet, so agitated she +was. When it came to a test, she really did love her daughter, +in spite of so many bitter words spoken during eleven years of +wrangling. After all, it was “Boston”; conscience was conscience, +and when you followed yours, you commanded respect +from others who followed theirs. When the little group of white-faced +men and women marched into the midst of armed ruffians, +Deborah’s emotions were those which had been felt by patrician +Roman matrons, when their Christian children walked into the +arena among the lions.</p> + +<p>Police Judge Zottoli, an Italian anxious to prove his respectability, +had announced that for those arrested in future “the sky +would be the limit.” But evidently among those in authority +there must have been some wiser heads. The police had orders to +disperse all gatherings, to allow no speeches, but to do as little +arresting as possible; no more martyrs—and especially no well-dressed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_654">[654]</span> +ones! A curious experience for young ladies who lived +on Beacon Street, within sight of this greensward; they were +made to leap out of the way of mounted troopers, they had their +placards taken away, and their arms squeezed black and blue—but +always the last word was, “Move on! Keep moving!” Were +these the traffic officers who had been helping them across street-crossings, +and knew them? Or were they detectives who had +been keeping watch over the wedding presents in fashionable +homes?</p> + +<p>The permit which the Sacco Vanzetti committee had hoped +to obtain was found to be unavailable; so those who attempted +to speak would all be outlaws. They brought soap-boxes—and +the “cops” took them away and broke them up. For Joe Randall +two young martyrs upon a sudden impulse got down and made a +soap-box of their backs; on this precarious pedestal Joe stood, +and began: “Fellow-citizens of Massachusetts, we are here to +assert the fundamental principles of free speech”—and that was +all, for there were three husky “dicks” who had been following +Joe about the field, and grabbed him by the arms and pulled him +from his platform and led him away.</p> + +<p>Joe had made one concession to his anxious grandmother-in-law, +he would not resist and get his head broken; he went +quietly—and only when he was out on Beacon Street did he +discover the scurvy trick which had been played upon him. The +three huskies gave him a shove and said, “Move along now, +young fellow, and keep moving.” “What do you mean, am I not +under arrest?” “Move along, buddy, what do you want to get +into trouble for?” When he tried to force his way back, they +held him. They would not fight him, they would merely block +his way, and see that he didn’t get to the Common. Later on, +when Joe learned that the same thing had happened to “James’s +Josiah,” he realized that it could not have been an accident; +some member of an all-powerful family had called in a detective +agency, and paid a fancy price to keep his relatives out of jail, +and his family name out of the papers!</p> + +<p>It was Powers Hapgood who made the real fight that Sunday +before the last; Powers, with a young Italian sewing-machine +repairer named Cosimo Carvotta, who got inspired by Powers’ +eloquence, and insisted on rescuing him from the entire police +force of the City of Boston. Cosimo had upon him a pocket-knife +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_655">[655]</span> +containing a small screw-driver, an inch long, used upon +sewing-machines; he did not try to use it, but they found it in +his pocket at the police station, and it was enough to constitute +a “dirk,” and make a startling story in the papers.</p> + +<p>As for Powers, he had a highly honorific arrest, performed +by Superintendent Crowley and a captain and a sergeant and +other majesties. “I insist on the right of free speech! The people +must save Sacco and Vanzetti! We must not allow our comrades +to be murdered! Don’t forget, Comrades—keep it up—save +the men!”—thus the member of the Dickey and the Hasty +Pudding Club and the Harvard Memorial Society, being dragged +away to the police-box at the corner of Charles and Beacon +streets. “Mickey the Gunman” himself pulled the hook which +summoned the patrol-wagon, and within five minutes there +were a hundred officers at the spot, and a squadron of mounted +men to drive back the crowd.</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_20"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>The special sitting of the Supreme Judicial Court was set +for Tuesday the sixteenth at ten o’clock. Six hours before that +came a dreadful event; some one put dynamite on the front +porch of the home of one of the Sacco-Vanzetti jurors, in East +Milton, and blew out the front of the house. Once more the +authorities were certain that this had been the work of +friends of Sacco and Vanzetti; whereas the friends of Sacco +and Vanzetti were equally certain that it was the work of their +worst enemies. They called attention to the peculiar placing of +the dynamite, to make a loud noise and not hurt any one; they +called attention to its exact timing—when it would do the +utmost possible harm and least possible good to the defense.</p> + +<p>The mystery was never solved; but the Governor took occasion +to write a letter to the juror, denouncing those who were +trying to “coerce the courts,” and at the same time assuring +the victim that the cost of repairing his home would be paid +by the Commonwealth. A singular impulse of generosity from +an official who just recently had vetoed a bill providing for +compensation to state employees who had been injured in the +performance of their duties!</p> + +<p>With the crash of this bomb echoing in their ears, the four +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_656">[656]</span> +black-robed justices assembled. The courthouse, and Pemberton +Square around it, presented a scene of war. Benches were +placed for barriers in front of courtroom doors, and Cornelia +had to exhibit the contents of her handbag before she entered +the room. She noticed that detectives assigned the little group +of “Reds” to special seats, and then stood near them. Most of +the crowd did not get in at all.</p> + +<p>There sat in a row, behind a long raised desk, the four +white-haired old gentlemen who held the lives of Sacco and +Vanzetti in their hands. Henry King Braley, former city solicitor +and mayor of Fall River, now seventy-seven years of +age; Edward Peter Pierce, recently tried for misconduct, +and convicted of very bad taste, seventy-five years of age; +James Bernard Carroll, former city solicitor of Springfield, +seventy-one years of age; and William Cushing Wait, former +city alderman of Boston, sixty-seven years of age. Braley was a +fellow-alumnus of Thayer’s, Pierce and Wait were fellow-alumni +of Katzmann’s, while Carroll was a graduate of Holy +Cross, which made him a fellow-alumnus of St. Peter. They +told their fellow-alumni Arthur Hill and Arthur Reading, that +they might have all the time needed; and then they sat, like +four black-and-white images, motionless and impassive, while +Mr. Hill recited the list of the high crimes of their fellow-alumni, +Thayer and, indirectly, Katzmann.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hill spared nothing of the story of “Web’s” prejudice +and the manifold proofs thereof. Also he asked a hearing for +the new evidence—of which more was coming in every day. He +called it “monstrous” to maintain that there was any stage in +the process of taking men’s lives when it ceased to be possible +to present newly discovered evidence to establish their innocence. +“It is the bench and bar of Massachusetts that is on trial,” he +declared. “It is our entire system of criminal law.” He might +have added “our entire system of criminal capitalism,” but his +vision did not extend that far, and very surely he could not +have made it clear to four members of the Union Club of +Boston.</p> + +<p>Then came the genial Mr. Reading, with pockets stuffed +with the money of the Decimo Club and the “L.A.W.” He +asserted his solemn faith that Judge Thayer had been just and +unprejudiced; nor was he in the least afraid of being “monstrous” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_657">[657]</span> +in reciting the law which specified that after sentence +had been pronounced by the trial judge, no motion for a new +trial could be entertained, no matter what the new evidence +might be. The four old gentlemen mumbled a few questions to +the lawyers, impossible for the spectators to hear; and then they +gathered up their books and papers, and the session was adjourned. +The friends of Sacco and Vanzetti went home, to +continue that process of waiting in which they had become so +expert in the course of seven years, three months, and eleven +days.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_20"> + X +</h3> + +<p>But they did not have to wait very long this time. Massachusetts +took pride in paying no heed to “outside clamor,” but +here was a different situation—a military expense of great sums +every day, and enormous losses to retail trade. It was a time +for sleepy old gentlemen to wake up and earn their keep. On +Tuesday the hearing, on Friday the decision—an unprecedented +procedure!</p> + +<p>The document was written by Justice Braley, that oldest +gentleman whose wife had more than once telephoned to Jessica +Henderson, assuring her that everything was all right, no need +to worry, the judge did not believe in capital punishment. Now +the judge spoke for himself. With the other three judges concurring, +he said that the legal system of the great Commonwealth +was infallible, and the fact that it contravened decency, +humanity, and common sense was of no significance. A long +decision, highly technical, bristling with citations; the heart of +it in one dreadful sentence: “A motion for a new trial in capital +cases comes too late if made after sentence has been pronounced.” +Such is the law of the Brahmins and the Blue-bloods, +which altereth not! “The exceptions are overruled.”</p> + +<p>Horror among so-called “liberals,” those of Boston, as well +as those who had come from outside! They had staked all their +hopes upon the courts; they had pleaded, argued, practically +forced the defense committee to obey, to let them handle it, to +put their trust in the processes of law. And here suddenly was +the ghastly fact revealed in all its nakedness—there was no law! +There was only the class struggle! Exactly as Bartolomeo +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_658">[658]</span> +Vanzetti had been saying for twelve years, ever since Cornelia +had first met him: there was a propertied class, and there was +a laboring class, and between them there was a war!</p> + +<p>And now a battle under way, and the lines drawn, and deserters +hated and punished—if necessary, killed! The immense, +rich, eager, nervous, implacable young Empire was smashing +a revolt of its slaves, crucifying its resisting gladiators by the +roadside for a warning to all the rest! This legal decision was +a searchlight, flashing suddenly upon that bloody deed! The +Sacco-Vanzetti case was no longer the casual venality of a few +local politicians, no longer the accidental malice of one elderly +legal despot; the Sacco-Vanzetti case was capitalist government, +the same in America as everywhere else in the world—the will +of a predatory class!</p> + +<p>Once before America had been like that, when the slave power +had ruled it, and in those old days New England had had one +poet with the gift of ecstasy and prophetic rage. A fugitive +slave was sent back from Massachusetts, and Whittier, the +Quaker abolitionist, pictured Liberty marching handcuffed down +the street—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>The blasphemy of wrong....</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>“Mother of Freedom, wise and brave,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rise awful in thy strength,” I said;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ah me! I spake but to the dead;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>I stood upon her grave!</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<h3 id="XI_20"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>A dreadful ordeal for the whole prison had been that “hungry +strike” of Sacco’s. They didn’t want him to die that way—it +was against the rules, and an impropriety; also they were sorry +for him, and for his wife and child. They argued and pleaded; +the wife and child argued and pleaded, but Nick was obdurate; +he would not eat. Neither would he sign any papers for capitalist +courts or governors; he would not ask for mercy or for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_659">[659]</span> +pardon—he was an innocent man, and would die protesting it.</p> + +<p>On the thirty-first day of the fast he became so weak that +the prison doctor decided to act. He brought some hot beef +broth to the cell, and reminded Nick how very painful it was +to be fed by a tube through the nose. He went so far as to take +hold of Nick’s nose, and say that he was going to pour the +broth down his throat. So Nick gave up, and drank. They had +all their strength, and he had little of his.</p> + +<p>Then came young Musmanno, devoted slave of the case, +broken-hearted, and shrinking from the job he had to do. They +took him first to the cell of Nick, who was eating something. +Said the young lawyer: “You are a brave man, aren’t you, +Nick?”</p> + +<p>It was the correct psychology; Nick said, quietly, “Yes, I +think I am.”</p> + +<p>“Well then, I must tell you that the Full Court has turned +down our appeal.”</p> + +<p>“I expected it,” said Nick, quietly. “What are they there +for?” He did not wince; but he pushed his bowls and dishes +aside and forgot them. “Sure,” he said, “they have us, they will +kill us. We will die like men.” Then he said, “I will write a +letter to Dante. You will come for that, Musmanno, I want the +bimbo to have it when he gets older, and will be able to think +about it.” “Bimbo” is an Italian endearment for a boy; and +Musmanno said he would come without fail.</p> + +<p>He went to Vanzetti, the man of emotions, of words rather +than of actions. When Bart heard the news, his eyes opened +wide like saucers, and he sat staring before him, as if he were +in a dream. He got up, and began pacing his cell wildly, shouting +in Italian. “There is nobody more innocent in all this world!” +He would not take it as a matter of course that a man should +die; he was a propagandist, and had reason to live. “A million +men! A million men!” he cried. He began to demand that a +microphone be brought to his cell, so that he might speak to +the workers of the world. Musmanno had to say that both these +propositions were equally impossible. All they could do was to +make more appeals before more judges. He was leaving for +Washington that night, to file an application before the United +States Supreme Court.</p> + +<p>The young lawyer came back late in the afternoon, but found +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_660">[660]</span> +that Nick had not been able to work upon the letter to his son. +They had moved him back into the death cells for the third time. +“Oh, this is wearisome!” He lay, very weak, his mind unsteady. +He could only say, “I can’t understand it. They will kill us?” +Vanzetti was sunk in melancholy, and would say nothing except, +“My sister! My sister!”</p> + +<p>Luigia Vanzetti landed in New York that day; a quiet, thin, +sad-faced little woman in a faded brown traveling cloak, coming +second class, her name kept off the passenger list of the great +liner. A strange fate to have befallen a simple woman of an +Italian village; in Paris she had been set to march at the head +of a huge parade of workers. Now, bewildered by throngs coming +to greet her, and by urgent young newspapermen of this +strange land of hustle and sensation, she clutched a gold medallion +of the Madonna in her hand; relying upon this ancient +magic to save her unhappy brother, whom she had not seen for +nineteen years. She hoped to convert him, she said; “I will ask +him to see a priest, and return to the faith of his childhood, of +those happy days before he left us.” Felicani and Rosina Sacco +had come to meet her, and persuaded her to soft-pedal that +aspect of her mission. As it turned out, she was no more able +to save her brother’s soul than she was to save his life.</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_18"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>Henry Cabot Winters had to postpone important legal conferences, +worth at least a thousand dollars a day to him, to +come and comfort his distracted mother-in-law; to argue with +her, explain to her—or just listen to her. “Yes, I know, Mother, +it seems very wrong that new evidence cannot be considered; +my judgment is, the Supreme Court won’t stand by that ruling +very long—they’ll reverse it, or the law will be changed. But +this time they must have it. You see, this Sacco-Vanzetti evidence +is not real evidence to them—it’s just more wops telling +the same old lies, and every one is tired of it.”</p> + +<p>“Too tired to consider the good of our courts, Henry!”</p> + +<p>“It’s just the other way to them, Mother—they think they +are standing by the courts. You must realize the dilemma; how +can they throw Web down?”</p> + +<p>“It would seem to me that Web has thrown them down.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_661">[661]</span></p> + +<p>“Web has been a vulgarian, of course. But after all, what +he said is what everybody thinks; and he’s been game, you +have to admit that—he had a nasty job, and he stuck to it like +a little soldier. For seven years he’s risked being shot or dynamited +every hour of his life; and now, to repudiate him—it +can’t be thought of.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t they find some other ground to grant a new +trial?”</p> + +<p>“It’s all very well to talk about new trials as a matter of +propaganda; but if you mean it seriously, stop and think. With +this agitation and uproar—how could there be a trial? You +couldn’t get a jury in a hundred years. Look at what happened +to those people in East Milton! Think of the witnesses—appearing +and testifying, with dynamite exploding all around them!”</p> + +<p>“We wouldn’t need dynamite for those witnesses, Henry; +with what we know about them to-day, there isn’t one who +would dare take the stand.”</p> + +<p>“All right, grant that is true—where does it leave us? It +comes to this, the Commonwealth has had two Reds within a +few minutes of the electric chair, and now has to admit that +it has no real evidence, the whole thing blows up. We might +just as well hand our courts over to the Bolsheviks and be +done with it. We’d never be able to convict another one.”</p> + +<p>“So, Henry, you are going to send two innocent men to +death, because it would be embarrassing to admit a blunder!”</p> + +<p>The lawyer smiled patiently. “Don’t get to believing your +rhetoric, and putting it off on me, Mother! You asked me what +is in the minds of the Supreme Court, and I am telling you. +When I talk to lawyers about it, and bring them to admit that +maybe the evidence is weak, that is the argument they end up +with—the courts must be sustained.”</p> + +<p>“A brand new idea of justice, Henry!”</p> + +<p>The other smiled again. “On the contrary, an idea as old as +courts themselves.” He cited the pronouncement of some fine +old Tory judge to a too-urgent plaintiff: “It were better that +you be ruined, than that the law be changed for the likes of +you!” Henry was no legal scholar; but because he lived in +Boston, it was necessary for him to possess some handy learning, +for public purposes. He told his mother-in-law that this +pungent saying went back even farther; it was in Law-French, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_662">[662]</span> +which is a barbarous combination of old Norman-French with +bastard Latin. He wrote it out, in an effort to divert the poor +soul’s mind for a few moments. “Que est ceo a nous? Il est +mieulx qu’il soit tout defait, que la ley soit chaunge pur luy.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_16"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia insisted that she had to see the Governor once more, +to plead with him for mercy. Even granting the worst, these +men had been on the rack for seven years, and surely that +was punishment! Henry said that would not get her very far; +Fuller was a Roman senator, he believed in a life for a life. +He had not pardoned a single man during his two terms as governor, +and he had shortened only one sentence. But Cornelia, +being a very old lady, was entitled under the Boston law to +have her way; so Henry called up and made an appointment +for her the next morning, and promised to come take her.</p> + +<p>A great crowd in front of the State House, more picketing +having been announced. Policemen so plentiful, they could have +touched hands all the way along the front of the great building. +Much scrutiny of those who came into the building—but +Cornelia and Henry being obviously of the ruling caste, the +guards took one glance and passed them on. Crowds of people +in the corridors outside the executive chambers, reporters hungry +as a shoal of fish; but etiquette of course forbade the +old lady and her escort to talk to them. They were escorted +into an inner office to wait.</p> + +<p>The Governor’s time was given up entirely to the hearing +of pleas. People came in groups, every sort—lawyers, clergymen, +social workers, labor leaders, writers—he saw them, and +took pleasure in putting to each lot his string of “posers”: +Did you attend the trials? Have you read the record? Have +you talked with the witnesses? Then what do you know about +the case? When they set out to tell what they knew, he would +not always listen. Said Arthur Garfield Hays, attorney from +New York: “I wish to talk to you about the Department of +Justice files.” Said the Governor: “Who wrote that editorial +in the <i>World</i>?”</p> + +<p>Cornelia was escorted to her seat in the torture-chair, and +the automatic smile and the cold agate eyes were fixed upon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_663">[663]</span> +her. Other eyes also: Mr. Joseph Wiggin, the Governor’s personal +attorney, and Attorney-General Reading, and another +lawyer. They never left him alone now, there must be witnesses +to every word he said, and expert football players to +employ what was known as “interference”—jumping in and +protecting him, to keep him from revealing his ignorance about +the case.</p> + +<p>It was as Henry had said—he was a Roman senator, and +did not want to talk about mercy. He wanted to pin this old +lady down, and vent his exasperation at the trouble she had +caused him. He did not say in so many words that she was +to blame for all the lunatics carrying placards outside on the +street, but that was the meaning of his attitude. Since his +decision had been announced, he no longer had to pose as open-minded; +he might be the bitter advocate, asking questions, and +not paying any attention to her answers. “If Vanzetti was an +innocent man, why didn’t he take the stand at Plymouth? Why +leave his alibi to a twelve-year-old boy?”</p> + +<p>“He produced eighteen alibi witnesses, Governor, and he +could have got more if his lawyers had worked. We have +found a dozen since.”</p> + +<p>“If Sacco and Vanzetti were good men as you say, why +were they intimate with a man like Boda?”</p> + +<p>“But what have you against Boda, Governor?”</p> + +<p>“I have sources of information, Mrs. Thornwell.”</p> + +<p>“Boda was brought into the trial, and even Judge Thayer +had to throw him out. They dragged in all that tale about the +Coacci shed, and about Boda’s little Overland car—on purpose +to make the jury think they had a bandit-gang—”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand you, Mrs. Thornwell; there is nothing +in the record about Boda’s Overland car.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Governor, of course it is there! I heard it in court, +and I have read it a hundred times.”</p> + +<p>“You are mistaken, I am certain.” It was a great man speaking. +“Wiggin, is there anything in the record about Boda’s +Overland car?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing, Governor, that I have ever seen.”</p> + +<p>What could Cornelia say? She could challenge him, of course, +demand the record, and show him; or she could offer to send +him the citation in a couple of hours. But what effect would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_664">[664]</span> +it have, except to annoy him? Several persons had had this +same experience, and had told her about it. Three times in the +course of a brief interview, Cornelia would have to let him +make incorrect assertions about the record. She must be tactful, +and try to keep him smiling; for he was a man, and a +Roman, and he did not like women butting in, arguing, correcting. +Woman’s place was the home!</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_12"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>The salesman of motor-cars rested upon the authority of +greater minds than his own. “Mrs. Thornwell, I appointed a +commission to investigate this case, and I assure you, if a +single one of those gentlemen had thought there was a doubt +of the men’s guilt, I would not have taken this stand. But +here you have three impartial referees—”</p> + +<p>“Judge Grant had expressed a belief in their guilt before +you appointed him, Governor.”</p> + +<p>“I have heard that gossip, but you should not repeat such +a thing unless you know it to be true.”</p> + +<p>“But Judge Grant has written his opinion of Italians—he +practically called them a nation of pickpockets.”</p> + +<p>“Where do you get that? I never heard such a tale!”</p> + +<p>“I have the book upon my table at home, Governor, and +I will send it to you if you wish.”</p> + +<p>But what he wished was to change the subject quickly. “I +have had witnesses coming to this room for two months—person +after person, assuring me of their identifications—”</p> + +<p>“But Governor, even Judge Thayer had to throw out the +identification testimony before he got through with this case!”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean—throw it out?”</p> + +<p>“I thought you had studied Judge Thayer’s decisions. In +his 1924 decision he said: ‘These verdicts did not rest, in my +judgment, upon the testimony of the eye-witnesses.’”</p> + +<p>“What did he say they rested upon?”</p> + +<p>“Upon the consciousness of guilt.” So then the Governor +hastened to talk about the consciousness of guilt. Sacco and +Vanzetti had lied when they were arrested, and they had lied +on the stand, and their lies were manifest and had been exposed, +so that no sensible person would dispute them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_665">[665]</span></p> + +<p>“Granting your argument, Governor—”</p> + +<p>“So you are prepared to admit that there was perjury in +the case?”</p> + +<p>“I am trying to find out where the argument leads us. If +both sides made up testimony—and certainly we know that +there was a great deal of it on the side of the prosecution—”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know anything of the sort, Mrs. Thornwell.”</p> + +<p>“You must know that Erastus Corning Whitney perjured +himself.”</p> + +<p>“Erastus what? I never heard of any such witness. Do you +know of any such, Wiggin?”</p> + +<p>Cornelia broke in. “Pardon me, Governor, I was not setting +a trap for you. Erastus Corning Whitney is the real name of +the man who took the stand and swore that his name was +Carlos E. Goodridge, and thereby manifestly perjured himself. +So, as I say, if we assume perjury on both sides—”</p> + +<p>“Then we can say that one cancels the other.”</p> + +<p>“Pardon me if I point out the fallacy, Governor. To begin +with, the prosecution has to establish a case. When you wipe +out the witnesses of the prosecution, one by one, as we have +done by our new evidence, there is no case left, and under +the law the men are innocent—quite regardless of whether some +of their Italian friends may have taken the stand and made +false alibis for them.”</p> + +<p>“Why should innocent people have to be defended by perjury, +Mrs. Thornwell?”</p> + +<p>“For only one reason that I know, Governor—that they +know positively the other side is preparing a perjured case +against them. We have established that, but we have never had +any judgment upon it, except that of Judge Thayer.”</p> + +<p>One of the lawyers here considered it advisable to justify +the high fees which the Governor was paying him out of his +private purse to sit day by day and listen to these wrangles. +“Mrs. Thornwell,” he interposed, “you overlook the fact that +the Supreme Judicial Court has passed upon Judge Thayer’s +rulings. As good citizens, we must have some belief in the competence +and disinterestedness of our highest court.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia turned her brown eyes upon him. These eyes had +somehow lost their softness, and had a sparkle that might be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_666">[666]</span> +malice. “Are you going to advance that doctrine in your new +brief on the Jerry Walker case?”</p> + +<p>“My God!” thought the legal gentleman, and it took all his +blue-blood inheritance and Harvard training to keep his annoyance +from showing on his face. He relapsed into dignified +silence, and pretended not to see the look of mischief which his +enemy Henry Cabot Winters shot at him. Truly a comical +situation: This gentleman, who was counsel for the Governor +in the Sacco-Vanzetti case, also was one of the counsel for +Jerry Walker, and was on the point of filing before the Supreme +Court of the United States an application for a writ +of certiorari, to take that case away from the highest court +of Massachusetts and reverse its decision. In that application +the lawyer and his associates were going to make the most outrageous +charges—implying that the Supreme Judicial Court +of Massachusetts had become a “house of refuge for the rich +and powerful,” and declaring flatly that the judgment of the +Full Court was “made in bad faith,” and that “there is nothing +more odious than judicial favoritism,” which in this case +had been “exercised in favor of bankers.” A marvelous thing, +that flexibility of the legal mind, which can hold two diametrically +opposite opinions at the same time; sorting out truth +and error into two baskets, as it were, and carrying both to +market, one in the right hand and one in the left!</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_11"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>But it didn’t do Cornelia a bit of good to score points like +that; it only made these gentlemen hate her. She must swallow +her indignation, and come back to beg for mercy. “Remember, +Governor, you must be <i>sure</i>. You are doing something that +can never be undone. There is an old saying—I don’t know +who is the author—that ‘only an infallible judge should pass +an immutable sentence.’”</p> + +<p>“Do you know that those men are innocent, Mrs. Thornwell?”</p> + +<p>“Of course I don’t know that; how could I know it—unless +I had been with them at the time? But I have been studying +the case for seven years, and I believe that they are innocent, +and certainly I know this—that they have not been proved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_667">[667]</span> +guilty. I know all that I need to know—that they did not have +a fair trial.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the Governor, “I know that they are guilty, +so I don’t care whether they had a fair trial or not.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia stared at him; she was so taken aback by the remark +that she could hardly believe she had heard it. “You +know they are guilty, Governor Fuller?”</p> + +<p>“I know it.”</p> + +<p>“But how can you know it, unless there was a fair trial—somewhere, +somehow—to establish it?”</p> + +<p>“I have sources of information, Mrs. Thornwell, which I am +not at liberty to reveal. You should find out what the Italian +colony thinks about this case.”</p> + +<p>“Governor, what are you saying? Some one has come and +whispered into your ear, and you have been willing to believe +it!”</p> + +<p>“You cannot expect witnesses to tell all they know in the +face of such peril as has been created in this community, Mrs. +Thornwell.”</p> + +<p>“So then, it is exactly as Vanzetti said to me—for weeks +he has been saying it: ‘We are being murdered by the whispers +of unknown men!’ Boston has gone back to the days of +Russia under the tsars, of Turkey under the sultans, of China +under the mandarins! Spies come and whisper secrets, and our +rulers execute men upon words which they cannot or dare not +produce in open court!”</p> + +<p>One of the lawyers thought he had better justify his fees +again. “Surely it is not quite so bad as that, Mrs. Thornwell—”</p> + +<p>“It is so bad that it cannot be worse! And I implore you, +Governor Fuller—consider, before you take this fatal step, +which will blast the rest of your life! You are executing men +upon secret testimony—but I tell you, the world will insist +upon knowing what that testimony is! History will never let +you alone until you tell what it is! And when mankind has +learned that it was the whispers of spies—the gossip of what +you are pleased to call ‘the Italian colony’—then you will face +such a blast of indignation as no man can face and live!”</p> + +<p>After that they did not want to listen to her any more. +After that she was a distracted old woman who had fallen +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_668">[668]</span> +under the influence of sinister “Reds,” and lost entirely her +mental balance. All they desired was to keep her from wasting +the time of a busy and important public man. They would be +polite, of course—even in Russia and Turkey and China the +high officials were doubtless polite to old ladies of the ruling +caste. “Glad to have seen you again, Mrs. Thornwell. I will +give my best consideration to what you have said.” So Cornelia +made her way out through the crowds, with tears in her eyes +for all the newspapermen to see and report.</p> + +<p>“Henry,” she asked, when they had got by themselves, +“what can those whispers be?”</p> + +<p>Said the lawyer, “There’s a man in that State House crowd +who will talk with me, and I’ll see if I can find out.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XVI_7"> + XVI +</h3> + +<p>Michael Angelo Musmanno was in Washington, haunting +the empty chambers of the United States Supreme Court. The +justices were on vacation, but he lodged in the office of the +clerk the two appeals from the Massachusetts courts. He entered +the formal appearance of Hill and himself, paid the +docketing fees, and the only thing remaining to perfect the +appeals was the record of the case, which the clerk of the +Dedham court had promised to send but which had not yet +arrived. This was later secured, and duly filed.</p> + +<p>But this procedure did not of itself postpone the execution, +and Monday midnight was the hour set. Would any judge +order a stay of execution? The lawyers were rushing to this +one and that; it was a free-lance matter now, every man for +himself—but still they found time to form opinions of one +another. The Boston lawyers thought they knew Boston; they +were conservative, and did things in a dignified manner, and +held newspaper reporters off at the end of a ten-foot pole. +The New Yorkers, on the other hand, were radicals, fighting +in the open, and welcoming the reporters as allies. They accused +the Boston crowd of being jealous about the case—“acting +like a bunch of prima donnas!” said one.</p> + +<p>Also among the committee, the frantic last-hour antagonisms +between those who wanted to save Sacco and Vanzetti as human +beings, and those who wanted to make them into symbols of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_669">[669]</span> +the class war. Hardly a telegram could be sent, or a statement +given to the press, that did not involve the controversy. The +differences of ideas had become embodied in personal antagonisms. +The communists were collecting sums of money for +the defense, and the committee charged that this money was +not coming to them, but was being used for communist propaganda. +The communists replied with charges that the committee +was wasting its funds upon high fees to capitalist lawyers. +Charges and counter-charges—to the great glee of the +enemy. The whispering gallery which was the State House +buzzed and hummed with gossip. The spies came running, and +the Governor’s advisers were on tip-toe. “What are they doing +now? What do they say about this? About that?”</p> + +<p>The “New York nuts” organized another “death march.” +This time it was led by Captain Paxton Hibben, diplomat, +war correspondent, and army officer; dapper, erect, and with +sharp little military mustaches. He knew all about marches and +parades, of course, and Boston knew him because the <i>Transcript</i> +had slandered him and then had to retract and apologize. +Hibben was a Harvard master of arts, and with him came +Dos Passos and Hapgood, bachelors of arts, and therefore subordinates; +also James Rorty, the poet; and Clarina Michelson, +from Greenwich Village, a tireless soul who did the hard +work; and several humble wage-earners with names never heard +before on Beacon Street. They marched their allotted time—one-two-three-four-five-six-seven—with +a captain of police +holding a watch on them; then they were led off under escort, +with the crowd hooting, and a few cheering.</p> + +<p>At the corner of Joy Street, Captain Hibben, being in advance, +commanded, sharply, “Files right!” The huge police +sergeant who had him in charge looked at him, and said, “Were +you in the service?” The answer was, “I was a captain in the +332nd Field Artillery in France.” “Well, Captain,” said the +sergeant, “this is a strange place for you to be!” “If you knew +as much about Boston as I do, you would be with me,” said +Hibben; and in the old Joy Street police station, so oddly +named, they had a chat. Hibben had more than one man’s +share of adventures to tell; he had been second secretary in +the American legation in old St. Petersburg, he had been a +war correspondent in the Near East in the early days of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_670">[670]</span> +war, and secretary of the Russian Red Cross for the Bolsheviks; +a Chevalier of the Order of St. Stanislaus (Russian), +an Officer of the Order of the Redeemer (Greek), and of the +Order of the Sacred Treasure (Japan). “Holy smoke!” said +the police sergeant; and on Monday morning in court he was +wholly unable to remember that he had seen this starred and +beribboned diplomat on the picket-line, and so Hibben was +discharged. The sergeant meant it for a favor, but it was a +cause of vexation to the prisoner, who had prepared a ringing +statement to read in court—and now it was a dud!</p> + + +<h3 id="XVII_4"> + XVII +</h3> + +<p>The three condemned men—Madeiros always with them!—had +been moved back into the death-house; into the three little +cells with clean, smooth white-tiled floors, and doors that were +never opened—no guard ever entered and no prisoner ever +came out, except to die. Six feet in front of the cells ran a +painted line, beyond which no visitor was permitted to step; +at least, it had never yet happened in the history of Massachusetts, +which lives by precedent.</p> + +<p>But now Luigia Vanzetti arrived in Boston, followed by +a stream of reporters, eager to make the most of this human +interest story—“sob stuff” is the technical name. A frail, +pathetic woman, weighing not more than a hundred pounds, +and looking for all the world like a New England school +teacher—she was coming to the prison to meet her brother, +whom she had not seen since he was a youth. She had come +all the way from Villafalletto to help him die, and naturally +she would wish to step over the painted line and clasp him in +her arms. To obtain this favor all the eloquence of the ladies +of the Sacco-Vanzetti defense was concentrated upon Warden +Hendry. They came to his office and wept, and prayed, and +stormed and scolded, until at last the Commonwealth of Massachusetts +broke a precedent, for the first time in its three hundred +years of history.</p> + +<p>Bart was led out from his cell, and allowed to sit in a chair +on the other side of the painted line. The warden himself +brought Luigia, and two guards stood by to see that she did +not give the condemned man any poison, or a revolver, or an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_671">[671]</span> +Italian stiletto. They tottered into each other’s arms, sobbing; +and in a moment more the woman collapsed, and one guard +had to catch her, while the other brought a chair. Bart sat, +patting her gently, and for an hour they talked about all the +things which might interest a brother and sister who had parted +in their teens, and met again in their middle thirties, with +only two days more of life upon earth together.</p> + +<p>The twelve-year-old Dante Sacco had come with Rosina and +paid a last visit to his father; a terrible ordeal for a child, to +pass that canvas-shrouded death-chair, and sit listening to a +faint voice, and peering at a wasted shadow of a man through +narrow steel bars which must not be approached. The boy and +the mother went out sobbing, the latter hardly able to walk; +each one of these visits was like a spell of illness to her. The +father set himself to his last task, of writing the promised +letter to the “bimbo”; to leave him some permanent message +which he might study when he grew older. Pitiful, rambling +words of a man trying to hold his faculties in the midst of +torment, and to write in a foreign language—because the +“bimbo” spoke that language, and was going to an American +school. “Much I thought of you,” wrote the father, “when I +was lying in the death-house—the singing, the kind tender +voices of the children from the playground, where there was +all the life and the joy of liberty—just one step from the wall +which contains the buried agony of three buried souls.... +Yes, Dante, they can crucify our bodies to-day as they are +doing but they cannot destroy our ideals that will remain for +the youth of the future to come....</p> + +<p>“Well, my dear boy, after your mother had talked to me so +much and I had dreamed of you day and night, how joyful +it was to see you at last. To have talked with you like we used +to in the days—in those days. Much I told you on that visit +and more I wanted to say, but I saw that you will remain +the same affectionate boy, faithful to your mother who loves +you so much, and I did not want to hurt your sensibilities any +longer, because I am sure that you will continue to be the +same boy and remember what I have told you. I knew that +and what here I am going to tell you will touch your feelings, +but don’t cry, Dante, because many tears have been wasted, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_672">[672]</span> +as your mother’s have been wasted for seven years, and never +did any good.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XVIII_1"> + XVIII +</h3> + +<p>The Great Novelist who makes up history had brought it +about that while Sacco and Vanzetti were lying in the death-cells, +there preceded them to the land of shadows a great +American lord of steel and finance: Elbert H. Gary, chairman +of the board of directors and chief executive of the United +States Steel Corporation, with resources of two billions of +dollars. A great Christian he had been, helping to build that +mighty university of Methodism from which Dean Wigless +had assailed Felix Frankfurter; holder of eight honorary degrees +from church universities—the most pious plutocrat who +ever split his strikers’ skulls and set thousands of spies to cow +their souls. Before he left for his mansion above, he also wrote +a message to his beloved ones, giving his <i>vade mecum</i> as a +follower of the gentle Jesus. His last will and testament it +was, and all the capitalist newspapers of America featured +his exalted words:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I earnestly request my wife and children and descendants +that they steadfastly decline to sign any bonds or obligations +of any kind as surety for any other person, or persons; that +they refuse to make any loans except on the basis of first-class, +well-known securities, and that they invariably decline +to invest in any untried or doubtful securities or property or +enterprise or business.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>At this same time two anarchist wops, one of them an +avowed atheist, the other a vague deist of the old-fashioned +sort, were writing their last words to their beloved ones, and +these words also were published. Said Nicola Sacco, with one +foot in eternity:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“So, Son, instead of crying, be strong, so as to be able to +comfort your mother, and when you want to distract your +mother from the discouraging soulness, I will tell you what +I used to do. To take her for a long walk in the quiet country, +gathering wild flowers here and there, resting under the shade +of trees, between the harmony of the vivid stream and the +gentle tranquillity of the mother nature, and I am sure that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_673">[673]</span> +she will enjoy this very much, as you surely would be happy +for it. But remember always, Dante, in the play of happiness, +don’t you use all for yourself only, but down yourself just +one step, at your side and help the weak ones that cry for +help, help the persecuted and the victim because they are your +better friends, they are the comrades that fight and fall as your +father and Bartolo fought and fell yesterday for the conquest +of the joy and freedom for all the poor workers. In this struggle +of life you will find more love and you will be loved.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Also Vanzetti left his message for Dante to study in after +years. One day before he died he wrote a letter to a little +boy whose school friends jeered him because he was the son +of a murderer. Said Bart:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I tell you all this now, for I know well your father, he is +not a criminal, but one of the bravest men I ever knew. Some +day you will understand what I am about to tell you, that your +father has sacrificed everything dear and sacred to the human +heart and soul for his faith in liberty and justice for all. That +day you will be proud of your father, and if you become brave +enough, you will take his place in the struggle between tyranny +and liberty and you will vindicate his name and our blood.</p> + +<p>“Remember and know also, Dante, that if your father and +I would have been cowards and hypocrites and renegades of +our faith, we would not have been put to death. They would +not even have convicted a leprous dog; not even executed a +deadly poisonous scorpion on such evidence as that they framed +against us. They would have given a new trial to a matricide +and habitual felon on the evidence we presented for a new +trial.</p> + +<p>“Remember, Dante, remember always these things: We are +not criminals; they convicted us on a frame-up; they denied +us a new trial; and if we will be executed after seven years, +three months and seventeen days of unspeakable tortures and +wrongs, it is for what I have already told you; because we +were for the poor and against the exploitation and oppression +of man by man.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_674">[674]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII"> + CHAPTER XXII<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE CITY OF FEAR</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>“This is our career and our triumph,” Bart had proclaimed; +and assuredly never had “a good shoemaker and a poor fish-peddler” +caused such excitement in the world. On Saturday, +two days before the execution, there was an order for a general +strike in Buenos Ayres; in Berlin a protest from the trade +unions, and the first radical meeting ever held in the former +House of Lords of the Kingdom of Prussia; in London a +mob of ten thousand in front of the American embassy; in +Geneva a call for the boycotting of American goods; in Russia +enormous protest meetings in every city; in Paris a hundred +thousand workers parading, carrying red flags and huge +placards denouncing American justice; tourists being greeted +with shouts from thousands of throats, “Pardon! Pardon!”—and +as a rule finding it prudent to reply, “Vive Sacco et Vanzetti!” +The workers were bewildered by the spectacle of Puritan +severity, and helpless in the face of it. Pierre Leon, editing a +French communist paper, cabled to Joe Randall: “What can we +do?” Joe’s answer was: “Repudiate the debts.” But that, alas, +was not an immediate program; the best the French could do +was to fail to pay them.</p> + +<p>Only in Massachusetts itself was silence. Boston under the +iron heel, and civil rights subject to revocation. One simple +rule, easy for all to understand: do what the police tell you +and keep your mouth shut. Superintendent Crowley had requested +the mayor to cancel all the eighteen speaking permits +on the Common, and thus free speech was dumped out of the +“cradle of liberty.” The defense committee was trying to hire +a hall for a last minute protest-meeting, but the police made a +round of the halls and warned the owners; if they rented to +the Reds, they would lose their license. It was a trick which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_675">[675]</span>“Mickey the Gunman” had been working for several years; +by means of it he had suppressed a young Lithuanian named +Bimba, who proclaimed himself an atheist, and annoyed the +Catholic priests. The police would close up halls, on the ground +that they violated fire ordinances; something which, in an old +city like Boston, a great many buildings did.</p> + +<p>At the last minute the defense committee succeeded in finding +a hall, and on Saturday evening a pitiful meeting was +held, with almost as many “cops” as audience. A speaker started +to describe what was going to happen in Charlestown prison +on Monday midnight, and a police official stepped forward, +saying, “No more of that, or we’ll shut you up.” So the orators +discussed the case in abstract terms, not saying anything rude +about governors or college presidents, nor using bad words like +“anarchistic bastards.” Paxton Hibben spoke, military and incisive; +Powers Hapgood, fiery and determined; Alfred Baker +Lewis, who seemed like a big but very serious boy; then Betty +Alvin, for the Back Bay; and—miracle of miracles—a Catholic +lifting his voice for two infidels! The members of the Boston +police force rubbed their eyes as the Reverend Francis Xavier +Regan took the platform, and told the story of Caleb Cunningham, +the wealthy resident of Milton who had shot and killed +the Swede, John Johnson, for cutting wood on his land, and +had been so considerately treated by the authorities of Norfolk +County. One Catholic remembered the humble origins of his +Church—even in the diocese of His Eminence, “Big Bill”!</p> + +<p>A call had been issued for labor union delegates to meet on +that same Saturday evening, to consider plans for a general +strike. Since it was manifestly too late, the police did not interfere. +About fifty workers attended, mostly from the Italian +barbers and the Jewish needle trades; the American workers +present might have been counted on the fingers of one hand. +The American workers were out on the roads in second-hand +cars with their families, eating hot-dogs and drinking soda-pop; +they were at the movies, watching poor girls marry millionaires +and poor boys make fortunes overnight; they were shooting +craps and playing poker and drinking home brew. Assuredly +they were not out on the streets, getting their heads +broken for any wops.</p> + +<p>Michael Gold went about listening, and reporting public +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_676">[676]</span> +sentiment in Boston. A young sailor prowling in Scollay Square, +on the hunt for women: “They ought to be burned; they insulted +the flag.” A clerk drinking ice cream soda at a fountain: +“All them Italians look like murderers to me.” A timid +little groceryman expressing himself over the counter: “Yes, +maybe they are innocent, but we gotta bump ’em off, or we’ll +all be bombed in our beds.” A telephone girl, hearing an Italian +voice complaining of a wrong number: “Aw shut up, you +Guinney rat, wait till you see what we do to you on August +22nd!”</p> + +<p>All this they had got out of their newspapers, of course. +For a brief time there had been a break in newspaper solidarity +regarding the Sacco-Vanzetti case; an editorial writer +of the <i>Herald</i> had won the Pulitzer prize of 1926 for an editorial +demanding a new trial. But now his voice was silent. +The department-stores were clamoring to have an end to the +public anxiety; business had fallen off, because women, who +do most of the shopping, were afraid to go about. The only +industry which was thriving was that of riot and bomb insurance; +the companies wrote it to the amount of eight hundred +million dollars, and didn’t have to pay one cent! A net profit +of a cool million to the companies, and a corresponding loss +to Boston merchants. Preposterous that two wops should cause +such trouble! The newspapers, which thrive upon department-store +advertising, made one sweet harmony: “Stand by the +Governor and the courts.” In the profession, Boston was known +as “the poor-house of journalism.”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_21"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia, splashing around frantically for a straw to catch +hold of, bethought herself of Cardinal O’Connell. Luigia Vanzetti +was a faithful daughter of the church, and a pitiful +figure; perhaps she might be able to tempt the great man +into making an appeal for clemency. So Jessica Henderson came +with her limousine, always there to help the Sacco-Vanzetti +defense, and they drove the anxious, fearful little woman out +to the summer home of the great prelate at Marblehead. He was +on the lawn with his dog when the party arrived, and Mrs. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_677">[677]</span> +Henderson’s daughter went to ask if he would see Luigia. +“Bless her heart, of course,” he said.</p> + +<p>He was cordial, charming, as he knew how to be when it +was worth while. He served tea himself, and remarked to Cornelia, +“It may be a long time before you have a cardinal +pouring tea for you again.” He chatted with Luigia in Italian, +and Cornelia could understand enough to know that he was +sympathizing greatly, and doing nothing. Afterwards he wrote +and gave to the papers a statement on the subject which was +a masterpiece of diplomatic piety: “Human judgment is +fallible at best.... But the judgment of God is perfect and +in the end He and His ways, mysterious as they are, are our +hope and salvation.” Said the sarcastic Betty: “Now we know +why God was invented—so that princes of the church may +dodge their moral responsibilities!”</p> + +<p>Futile to try to make headway in Boston, with the weight +of such authority against you! The local liberals were hamstrung +by the Lowell report. If Mr. Lowell said it, it must be +so, and who are we to set ourselves up against him? Likewise +Bishop Lawrence had clambered onto the bandwagon. Having +asked the Governor to appoint an impartial commission, he +now accepted the impartial decision, and commended the Governor +for his firmness and courage. He did this in a letter, which +appeared in the press.</p> + +<p>There they stood, the three intellectual and spiritual guides +of Boston: the Cardinal of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, +the Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the President +of Harvard University. When a stranger inquired concerning +them, he was struck by a curious fact: the first statement +about any one of the three would be that he was an +efficient administrator of enormous properties. This was not +his fault, of course; the properties were there, and must be +administered; but the automatic effect was this, that if you were +to go to any one of the three administrators, and make a remark +suggesting that he should act upon the creed he taught, +he would begin to watch you to see whether you were the dangerous +kind.</p> + +<p>The Cardinal of the Catholics was exiling rebellious spirits +to the backwoods, and raising up a generation of young clerics +who were at once preachers, politicians, and real estate experts; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_678">[678]</span> +you could know when one of them was in favor by +the fact that his mother and father, brothers and sisters, cousins +and aunts, moved immediately into expensive residences. As +for the Bishop of the Blue-bloods, he had a father who +helped to finance John Brown’s expedition to fight slavery in +Kansas; the son was known as the best money-raiser in New +England, and had turned his vast organization into a school +of social propriety. When it was a question of a blue-blood +church official accused of undue intimacy with choir-boys, you +would see this well-bred bishop as anxious to have the law +not enforced as he was to have it enforced against anarchist +wops.</p> + +<p>As for President Lowell, he would boast that every professor +in his great institution enjoyed complete freedom of +speech, and when some one asked him how he could manage +anything so dangerous, he would smile and say that it was +easy if you were careful whom you allowed to become a +professor. When it chanced that a Harvard lecturer dared +to attack the electric light and power interests, whose directors +and bankers compose the governing body of the university, +President Lowell would “fire” him, and incidentally lie to him, +with exactly the same heartiness as a “wop” standing by a +friend accused of banditry, or a blue-blood banker trying +to save fifteen million dollars.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_21"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Bugles in the streets; a regiment of the state militia marching, +with grim set faces—the answer of the Commonwealth to +the challenge of anarchy. Airplanes flying overhead, watching +for bombers in the sky. Military squads on duty at every +public building, suspicious of every foreign face, and now +and then stopping a passerby to search a bundle or open a suitcase. +Every policeman on twenty-four hour duty again; sitting +in the station-houses, and now and then called out for +a wild ride or a gallop, on account of a bomb-scare. The firemen +also on twenty-four hour duty, and all armed. The American +Legion mobilized to guard the homes of the rich and +the great. Every judge, juror, prosecutor, witness, or official +who had ever had anything to do with the Sacco-Vanzetti case +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_679">[679]</span> +was being protected, and there was no foolishness about the +protection.</p> + +<p>A man hopped out of an automobile at the home of President +Lowell, and started towards the rear entrance, carrying +a heavy black bag. They did not stop to ask him who he +was or what he wanted, they hit him over the head and laid +him out—and then ascertained that he was delivering a load +of that heavy aluminum ware which is the latest fad in fancy +cookery for the rich. A young Catholic priest stepped off the +train in South Station, arriving from the west for a holiday; +he went to the information bureau and said, “Will you please +tell me the way to the State House?” “Certainly,” replied the +clerk, and called a policeman, saying, “This man wants to +know the way to the State House.” The kind-hearted policeman +said he would escort him, and led him to a patrol-wagon, +and drove him to the nearest station-house, where they held +him “incommunicado” for twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>The great Commonwealth had told ten thousand lies; and +now for every lie there was a club and a bayonet. If you wished +to oppose the lies, there was just one way—put your head +under the crashing clubs, throw your body onto the gleaming +bayonets. This was not merely the law of Massachusetts, this +was the law of life, the way by which lies have been killed +throughout history. The friends of the defense confronted this +crisis, and either went forward and took the punishment, or +shrunk back and sneaked away with a whole skin and a damaged +conscience.</p> + +<p>Terrible scenes in the Thornwell family. In “Hillview,” +Great-uncle Abner storming, because the Governor had been +browbeaten once, and might yield again; Abner declared that +he would wheel himself all the way to Boston, thirty miles or +so on the public highway, and present himself at the Governor’s +office to demand the death of the two anarchists. On +the other hand, in the tenement on the north side of Beacon +Hill was Deborah pleading and praying to her daughter, not +to throw away her life, not to disgrace herself and her innocent +and helpless family.</p> + +<p>Cornelia was not going to get arrested; she was motoring +with Mrs. Henderson to make an appeal to Justice Brandeis +of the Supreme Court. But Betty had pledged herself to carry +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_680">[680]</span> +a placard on the Common, and Joe also. They had sent out +a call for a thousand demonstrators, and at least two were going +to respond. Nothing that Deborah could say would have any +effect; no tears, no prayers. “They are surely going to arrest +me once,” said Betty, and laughed, a trifle hysterically. “They +are not going to murder Bart and Nick without arresting me +at least once!” When Deborah brought in the sacred names of +little Rupert Alvin Thornwell Randall, the unnatural mother +made reply: “The best thing that could happen to him would +be for me and Joe to be clubbed to death, so that you and +Father could raise him to be respectable!”</p> + +<p>That was late Saturday night, after the meeting in Scenic +Auditorium. Deborah stayed in town that night, and telephoned +to Rupert, who gave up a service in his new private +chapel, the joy of his life, to come and add the immense +weight of his authority. But Betty did not even wait to see him; +she went off to a gathering of the “New York nuts,” who were +making cardboard signs to wear while undergoing martyrdom. +Her Uncle James Scatterbridge came upon her in the lobby of +the Hotel Bellevue—most fashionable of hostelries, adjoining +the State House, where a group of the leisure class “nuts” +had made their headquarters, to the great dismay of the management.</p> + +<p>Uncle James came there, with blood in his eye, looking for +his Josiah, intending to take him captive by force if necessary. +But James’s Josiah was hiding, and when his father actually +found him, he was walking on the outskirts of the Common, +with a policeman holding each arm, and a jeering crowd all +around. James pushed his way through and took charge, to the +relief of the “cops,” who had been told to make as few arrests +as possible. There followed painful hours for both father and +son; but do not worry too much, for it will turn out happily +in the end—the great cotton-master will be able to keep his +son’s name out of the papers, and also be able to make his +Josiah into a mildly successful young business man. They will +look back on this adventure some day, and the older will be +secretly rather proud of the younger’s nerve. “A damned fool, +of course; but then, we’re all damned fools when we’re young.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_681">[681]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="IV_21"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Boston Common is an irregularly shaped park, comprising, +with the Public Gardens, about a square mile. It is laid out +with rambling paths, and has a Monument Hill, with cannon +and other trophies; there are greenswards, groups of trees, a +band-stand with benches, the “Frog Pond,” and in the Public +Gardens a little lake for boats. The State House with the +golden dome overlooks it from one corner; the Park Street +Church, the Union Club, and many of the homes of the old +families on Beacon Street. On the other side is Tremont Street, +with the fashionable shops; and from the end of the Public +Gardens starts Commonwealth Avenue, where the Alvins lived. +All very fashionable, in a dignified way, mixed up with history +and tradition, taking itself seriously. In the old days, this Common +had been the place where the villagers pastured their +cows; now it was a place for nursemaids to flirt with sailors +from the ships, and for out-of-works to study the “help +wanted” ads in the newspapers. On Sunday afternoons all the +religious cranks, the holy rollers and the Salvation Army, +shouted under the trees along the mall; also the atheists and +the socialists and the single taxers, and those who refuse to +believe that the earth is round.</p> + +<p>But this Sunday, August 21st, all that was off, and for a +year to come. There was a band concert and a radio concert +to keep the crowds occupied; also two ball-games, and +two impromptu dog-fights. Twenty-five thousand people came—having +read in the papers that some new-style martyrs were +going to feed themselves to the lions.</p> + +<p>One thousand had been called for, and fourteen came. The +lawyers were in part responsible for that, having strenuously +urged against it. The demonstrators would be sure to get their +heads clubbed, and could only do harm to the case by cheap +notoriety. Those who were troubled by the former consideration +were glad to have the latter for an excuse. The few stubborn +ones who insisted upon coming were troubled by both +considerations, but of course would only admit the latter. They +brought little rolls of cardboard, printed with Sacco-Vanzetti +protests, to wear over their shoulders, and made their rendezvous +in a corner drug-store, eyed suspiciously by the proprietor, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_682">[682]</span> +because they looked fidgety and queer, not at all +“Boston.” The job had fallen mostly to the “New York nuts.”</p> + +<p>There was John Dos Passos, faithful son of Harvard, and +John Howard Lawson, another one of the “New Playwrights” +from Greenwich Village. There was Clarina Michelson, ready +to do the hard work again, and William Patterson, a Negro +lawyer from New York, running the greatest risk of any of +them, with his black face not to be disguised. Just up Beacon +Street was the Shaw Monument, with figures in perennial +bronze, of unmistakable Negro boys in uniform, led by a young +Boston blue-blood on horseback; no doubt Patterson had looked +at this, and drawn courage from it. To uphold the high traditions +of the city, there came Betty Alvin and Joe Randall, +considered a Bostonian-in-law; also James’s Josiah, more scared +of his father than of the police; and Margaret Hatfield, whose +father was a prominent Republican, treasurer of Middlesex +county. Margaret had taken the precaution to “dress the part,” +so she was safe, though she couldn’t be sure of it. Her mother +was behaving exactly like Betty’s mother, wandering about the +Common twisting her hands together, and moaning to herself, +“Oh, <i>why</i> do they have to do it?”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_21"> + V +</h3> + +<p>“Come on, you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever?” +So, according to army tradition, a sergeant shouted to a squad, +going “over the top” in the Argonne forest. It is an idea which, +with or without the language, has animated martyrs through +the ages. They have walked to the lions, they have walked to +the stake and the gallows and the guillotine, and other forms +of terror; now they walked to the clubs and the bayonets—a +little group from the corner drug-store, quaking inside, and +trembling in the knees, but setting their teeth and holding their +heads high. As it happened, none was to be seriously hurt, but +they could not know that; pain is pain, and a cracked skull, +or the hoofs of horses in your stomach, are as unpleasant as +any other form. Come on, you New York nuts, do you want +to live forever?</p> + +<p>The Common stretching before them. The mall, where the +speaking should have been, is closed by a cordon of police; no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_683">[683]</span> +use to try it there. They get out on the concrete walk, and then +look at one another anxiously. Are they in a good place, among +the crowd? Some one says yes, and with trembling fingers they +unroll the placards and put them over their shoulders. The +bystanders see, and cheers go up. Crowds begin to gather; they +have been wandering about, waiting for something to happen, +and here it is! “Hurrah for Sacco and Vanzetti!” “Save Sacco +and Vanzetti!” At once a counter demonstration: “Down with +the Reds! Lynch them!”</p> + +<p>The little band of martyrs walk on, seeing nothing, hearing +nothing; a trifle dizzy with the excitement—that rare mood +of martyrdom, more wonderful than drunkenness. You walk +upon the air, into the clouds; the earth and the limitations of +the flesh no longer exist; you have transcended them all, you +belong to the ages, you speak to God. “Wir sind all des Todes +eigen,” sings the German poet—“we all belong to death.” We +have seen such wickedness upon earth that we choose rather to +die than to let it prevail.</p> + +<p>“All right,” says the world, “if you want to die, we are +willing!” The lions roar; if you want to be eaten, their stomachs +are made for the purpose! Here come the police, clubs drawn. +“Enough of that now! Take off those signs and get out of +here!” They try to grab the signs, and the marchers dodge this +way and that, to protect them as long as possible; bystanders +grab at the signs, others try to block the way of the “cops.” +The clubs begin to fall; a disagreeable sound, the thud of +hickory on human flesh and bone.</p> + +<p>Here come the mounted men, riding through the throngs. +“Look out for yourself!” Women shriek; the horses charge +straight ahead, knocking people down. A strange experience +for a daughter of the best families—Betty can hardly believe +it; she thinks the horse will swerve at the last moment; then +she realizes that the rider means to run her down, and she +leaps too late, the shoulder of the passing horse strikes her +and sends her spinning.</p> + +<p>The trooper speeds on; he has spied the black face, and wants +that most of all. The Negro runs, and the rider rears the front +feet of his steed, intending to strike him down with the iron-shod +hoofs. But fortunately there is a tree, and the Negro leaps +behind it; a man can run round a tree faster than the best-trained +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_684">[684]</span> +police-mount—the dapper and genial William Patterson +proves it by making five complete circuits before he runs +into the arms of an ordinary cop, who grabs him by the collar +and tears off his sign and tramples it in the dirt, and then starts +to march him away. “Well,” he remarks, sociably, “this is the +first time I ever see a nigger bastard that was a communist.” +The lawyer is surprised, because he has been given to understand +that that particular bad word is barred from the Common; +Mike Crowley was so shocked, two weeks ago, when Mary +Donovan tacked up a sign to a tree: “Did you see what I did +to those anarchistic ——? Judge Thayer.” But apparently +the police do not have to obey their own laws.</p> + +<p>The “Black Maria” is in readiness, and comes with clanging +bell, and the prisoners are loaded into it—all but the “nigger +bastard.” He has to be walked to the police-station—because it +would not be decent for him to ride in the same patrol-wagon +with his friend Clarina Michelson! The others are driven off—and +when they get to the La Grange Street station-house and +compare notes, they discover that they have lost their blue-bloods! +Betty is missing, and her husband, and her cousin +Josiah! Margaret Hatfield is missing! Even in the midst of +that excitement, the police have found time to consult the “social +register”! A little later they turn loose John Dos Passos—no +Harvard graduates wanted! The only ones they arrest are +five workers, two named Sansevrion, one Schulman, one Amari, +and that Cosimo Carvotta against whom they have a special +grudge, on account of having lied about him in the police court +after the previous Sunday’s arrests.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_21"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>In the La Grange Street station they found Paula Holladay, +waiting for some company. No story of that last Sunday would +be complete without the Odyssey of Paula, who had made a +parade all by herself—and a long one! She was the founder of +“Polly’s,” a Greenwich Village café renowned in song and +story; that summer she had been running a restaurant in +Provincetown, on Cape Cod. Her conscience began to gnaw at +her, and she decided to do what one woman could to express +a sense of injustice. She turned her business over to a friend, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_685">[685]</span> +and put on a sign reading, “Is justice dead? Save Sacco and +Vanzetti,” and set out to walk from Provincetown to Boston, +a distance, as the “nut” walks, of a hundred and twenty-five +miles.</p> + +<p>Now and then on the route, women working in their gardens +would see that sign, and follow along on the other side of +the picket-fence, saying, “I wish I had a shot-gun in the house, +I’d show you what I’d do to you!” Ladies in automobiles would +stop to express the same sentiment. But apparently the shotgun +is an obsolete instrument in Massachusetts, for Paula +reached Boston with a whole skin, except for a blister on the +heel. She joined the other nuts, and learning that the police +were destroying all banners and signs, she painted her message +on a red “slicker,” or waterproof coat, and sallied forth onto +the Common thus garbed.</p> + +<p>She was passing the bandstand, when the first “cop” spied +her, and took her in tow. A crowd gathered quickly, and there +were waves of shouting, some for, some against. The policeman’s +hand began to tremble on the woman’s arm. “Why are +you so nervous?” she said—after which he managed to control +himself. Another came to his aid, and then two mounted men, +who kept her between them, safe. When she told them that she +was determined to stay on the Common, they conducted her +to the police-station. “What is the charge?” she demanded; the +answer was, “Oh, never mind that, just lock her up.”</p> + +<p>Presently came “Mike” Crowley, having kissed the Blarney +stone that morning. “Now it would be too bad for a nice-looking +young lady like you to get into any trouble that might get her +on the books here.” The answer of Paula was, “I am neither +so young nor so good-looking, and I am not afraid to get on +the books. I want to know whether I am kept here by force without +any charge.” When he wouldn’t answer, she said, “I will +find out,” and started to leave; so then he put his hand upon her +shoulder, and she was there by force. They kept her until +evening, when there were no more crowds upon the Common, +and no more harm to be done by the wearing of a red “slicker” +with the question, “Is justice dead?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_686">[686]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="VII_21"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>The lawyers were making another attempt to open the Department +of Justice files, and they appealed to Governor Fuller +for a respite until the documents could be studied. Arthur +Hill asked also for time to permit the United States Supreme +Court to consider his application. The Governor followed his +usual policy of declining to say what he would do; so the +lawyers were racing about from one country-place to another, +trying to persuade some judge to order a stay. In those last +hectic days they put the matter before a dozen different judges, +representing the Superior Court and the Supreme Judicial +Court of Massachusetts, and the District Courts and the +Supreme Court of the United States.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hill journeyed to see Justice Holmes at his place in +Beverly, on the North Shore: Oliver Wendell Holmes, son of +the poet, eighty-six years of age, respected by all liberals, because +he and Brandeis invariably wrote a minority opinion when +the court made further restrictions upon human rights in the +interest of privilege. The old gentleman now said that he did +not think he had the power to interfere, but wished them luck +with some other justice who might think differently. “Unofficially,” +he said that Sacco and Vanzetti could not have got a +fair trial in 1921.</p> + +<p>They went to Louis Brandeis, their last hope. A Jewish +lawyer of great ability, Brandeis had begun practice in Boston, +and made a fortune early, and then turned against the system, +and became an advocate of the public interest, and therefore +one of the most hated men in the city. When Woodrow Wilson +had named him for the Supreme Court bench, there had been +a howl from State Street, and no voice louder than that of +President Lowell of Harvard. Nevertheless, the radical Jew +had got in; and now he had the greatest chance of his career—and +missed it.</p> + +<p>The Court was composed mainly of hard-boiled corporation +lawyers, selected by President Taft—now the Chief Justice—and +by Harding and Coolidge. Undoubtedly these men would +have reversed any action that Brandeis might have taken; +but at least it would have been a gesture, and a crown upon a +great life. Cornelia spent Sunday afternoon arguing and pleading +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_687">[687]</span> +with the justice, but in vain; telegrams came raining upon +him, in vain. He was bound, like all other judges. It so happened +that Rosina Sacco had occupied a house belonging to +Mrs. Brandeis in Dedham, and this constituted “prejudice.” +The justice could not be persuaded that prejudice in favor of +mercy was different from prejudice in favor of one interest +against another. Vanzetti commented upon this singular situation +in a letter to Harry Dana—almost the last words he wrote:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“So it is coming to pass that some justices repel our appeal +because they are friendly with us, and other justices repel our +appeal because they are hostile to us, and through this elegant +<i>Forche Caudine</i> we are led straight to the electric chair.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>These nine elderly gentlemen who did the real governing +of the United States were overworked, and in dread of taking +more upon their bowed shoulders. They had the task of telling +the American people what laws they might pass and what laws +they might not pass; what their laws meant, or ought to mean; +in short, what served the propertied classes, and what threatened +them. An enormous task; and the old gentlemen contemplated +with dismay the idea of opening the sluice-gates and +letting in more work upon themselves.</p> + +<p>They dealt with the law, they said, and never with the facts. +But when there came an emergency where it seemed necessary +to deal with facts, they would find a way to do it. The +Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts had just shown that +in the Jerry Walker case, where the jury had decided the +facts against the interest of the fellow club-members of the +Court. The Court had stepped in and considered such facts +as they pleased, and like all special pleaders they had stated +the facts on their own side, and suppressed the facts on the +other side. But in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti there were +no vast sums of money at stake—only the lives of two wops. +“It were better that you be ruined than that the law be changed +for the likes of you!”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_21"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia came back to her apartment on Sunday evening, +beaten and exhausted. Betty was over at defense headquarters, +helping to organize the new arrivals and plan the last demonstration. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_688">[688]</span> +Poets, writers, artists—all persons, old and young, with +an urge to martyrdom—were pouring into Boston, and in front +of the State House they would have their chance. Betty was +lame from her effort to upset a horse, but was sticking to her +desk; she had not been to bed the night before, and was not +going to-night. “Plenty of time to sleep after Monday midnight,” +she said. “Bart and Nick will keep us company.”</p> + +<p>Joe was at the headquarters of the new “Citizens’ National +Committee,” which was concentrating its efforts upon trying to +persuade the Federal authorities to accept their responsibility +in the case. The committee was sending and receiving hundreds +of telegrams every day: obtaining signatures to a petition to +the President of the United States, asking him to intervene, +according to the precedent set by Woodrow Wilson, when the +State of California had been on the point of executing Tom +Mooney. But there was an important difference between the +two cases; Mooney was an A. F. of L. man, and labor had to +be handled gingerly in war-time. But now there was what capitalism +calls “peace,” and Sacco and Vanzetti had no standing +in the court of power-politics.</p> + +<p>The President of the United States was that “Cautious Cal,” +whom we saw shot up on the Massachusetts escalator. “Keep +cool with Coolidge,” had been the slogan which had got him +the greatest vote ever given to a wizard of prosperity. Now +the wizard was keeping himself cool upon a high mountain +peak in Yellowstone Park. He knew the way to do nothing, and +do it more systematically, than any man who had ever held +the office. He had as much idea of dipping his fingers into +that boiling Boston caldron as he had of spending his vacation +in the mountains of the moon. Hundreds of dollars were spent +collecting signatures to a petition, and thousands were spent +by individuals telegraphing direct. The messages came by the +basketful, and served to start the evening fires for a chilly +and frugal New Englander.</p> + +<p>Musmanno was at Hill’s office, trying for a long-distance +telephone connection with Chief Justice Taft. This elder statesman +was in Canada, where he could not legally sign a writ; +it was Musmanno’s idea that he might come to the border, +and there at least hear a petition. The young lawyer had an +airplane ready, and would start that Sunday night. He sat at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_689">[689]</span> +the telephone from seven in the evening until four the next +morning, but the great jurist was able to find some perfectly +good legal reason for staying where he was.</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_21"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>Deborah was in the apartment, waiting for her mother, to +plead with her not to kill herself in this dreadful crisis. Cornelia +was hardly able to get up the stairs without help; yet +unwilling to go to the Alvin home, where there was an +elevator. She could not sleep; she must lie on the bed, with +the telephone receiver to her lips, asking for news. She would +sink back, and Deborah would think she was resting—but no, +she was getting ready to call Mr. Moors, to see if he could +not induce Mr. Lowell to induce the Governor to grant a few +more days! She was appealing to Hubert Herring, a young +Congregational clergyman who had risked his job, getting a +dozen other clergymen to sign an appeal to the Governor!</p> + +<p>Mother and daughter shouted to each other across an abyss, +and just now the abyss was full of thunder, and it was hard +for voices to get across. “Mother! Mother!”—Cornelia heard +a faint cry—“You think more about two Italian anarchists than +you do about any member of your own family!”</p> + +<p>“My dear”—Cornelia shouting back—“no one is planning to +murder any member of my family.”</p> + +<p>Deborah would take a sentence and meditate over it, until +an answer became so urgent in her bosom that she would try +once more. “Mother, there are other kinds of unhappiness, +almost as bad as being murdered.”</p> + +<p>“My child, that is God, trying to break the hard shell of +your pride.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia phoned to Arthur Hill’s office. His daughter-in-law +was in charge of the phone, and would tell her if there was +any more news. There was none, and Cornelia hung up, and +sat staring before her with a face of torment. Deborah’s heart +ached, but the only way she could help was to diminish her +mother’s interest in those dreadful Italians! “Mother, Henry +has become positive that both those men were dynamiters.” +And again: “Mother, I believe you really prefer dynamiters +to law-abiding people!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_690">[690]</span></p> + +<p>Make allowances for Cornelia. These family disputes, that +go on for years and years and never get anywhere, are hard +upon the nerves. Said the mother: “I prefer the dynamiter +who cares about justice to the most law-abiding person in the +world who doesn’t!”</p> + +<p>The telephone rang; Deborah’s older daughter, Priscilla, asking +if she might come round. This had been one of Deborah’s +schemes—her daughter would keep Cornelia’s mind occupied +with news about the great-grandchildren. But Priscilla had +better not mention that her mother had suggested the visit. +Deborah was forever devising such little plots—always, of +course, for the other person’s good; and she had trained her +older daughter to coöperate.</p> + +<p>Cornelia began asking about the wife of Governor Fuller—what +sort of woman was she? It seemed that Jessica Henderson +and Cornelia were planning to motor up to Rye Beach, +New Hampshire, the next day, and implore the help of this +much-troubled lady. Deborah told what she had been able to +judge from one dinner-party. Mrs. Fuller was a Catholic; and +Cornelia asked, what would that mean? Could she possibly be +made to understand that Jesus was to be electrocuted in Boston +to-morrow midnight?</p> + +<p>So Deborah burst out again: “Mother, do you think Jesus +ever used dynamite?”</p> + +<p>“No, my dear, it wasn’t invented in those days. All he had +was a whip, to drive the moneychangers out of Trinity Church.” +And after Deborah had expatiated upon the extreme charitableness +of Trinity Church, her mother shocked her by exclaiming: +“Oh, Boston, Boston, thou that givest the prophets a ride in +the patrol-wagon!”</p> + + +<h3 id="X_21"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Priscilla came, a tall and distinguished young matron now; +but she did not get any chance to tell the news about her three +children. She found the poor old woman lying back on her +pillow with her eyes closed, speaking in whispers which might +have come from a death-bed. She took Priscilla’s hand, and +said, “I talk to your mother, and it means nothing to her. Let +me try the next generation!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_691">[691]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, Grandmother,” said Priscilla, obediently. “What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Your mother cannot understand how anarchists come to +be in Boston. So I try to explain to her. When I was a young +married woman, about your age, I used to look out of our +back windows and see pitiful children of the poor, going about +in winter-time with ragged shawls over their shoulders and +holes in their shoes, rooting in the frozen garbage in alleys +behind the Back Bay homes. I was told that it was the will of +God, so I did nothing. But now I have discovered that it is a +social system. All those miles of slum tenements down in the +South End, falling into ruins, with filth and litter in the alleys +and mangy cats prowling—that hideousness which is the underside +of our proud and pious city—that is not God, that is blue-blood +old ladies and gentlemen holding acres and acres of land, +inherited from their great-grandfathers, and letting the tenements +fall into ruins while they wait for an increase in land +values which they do nothing to produce. Is that so hard to +understand, Priscilla?”</p> + +<p>“No, Grandmother.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that is one detail out of a hundred. Your husband +owns millions, because he was allowed to inherit a mountain +of copper, which he did nothing to earn, and which others +manage and work for him. You will inherit millions because +your father is allowed to manufacture the credit of the country +and keep it for his own use—no, Deborah, don’t argue with +me, for I know you haven’t studied our banking system, even +though you are a banker’s wife. Mr. Lowell is a multi-millionaire +because he is allowed to exploit the labor of thousands +of slaves in cotton-mills—even though he never tended a spindle +or managed a factory in his life. Governor Fuller is the richest +of all of us, because he is allowed to sit like a robber baron +of the Middle Ages, and fine everybody a thousand dollars for +the privilege of driving a Packard car in New England. He +talks about bandits, and really thinks they should all be executed! +All of us sit on top of our privileges, and haven’t the +least idea of getting off; we use all the powers of society to +seduce or destroy those who resist us—if necessary, we kill +them for a crime, whether they committed it or not.”</p> + +<p>There were many questions that Priscilla would have liked +to ask, and many objections that her mother would have liked +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_692">[692]</span> +to register. But both of them were frightened, thinking that +Cornelia might gasp out her life on that bed. So they sat silent, +with distress in their eyes; and presently the poor soul was +whispering again:</p> + +<p>“My children, I have followed this case for seven years, and +here is what I know about it, a frightful thing to say—from +first to last there has not been one honest man who had anything +to do with it on the government side: not a single one, from +the policemen who lied on the witness-stand to your three blue-blood +commissioners who doctored the record—every man has +been seeking a pretext to carry out his will upon two fanatics +whom he considers dangerous. That is the truth about the +Sacco-Vanzetti case; and there lie those two men in the death-house, +one of them a self-taught philosopher, a man of genius +who has managed under the pressure of affliction to make +himself into the most beautiful character I have ever known in +my years on this earth—”</p> + +<p>There came tears from the wrinkled old eyelids. “Sacco, too!” +she exclaimed. “A man with the heart of a child!” She put out +her hand and took some papers from the lamp-stand by her +bed, and began turning them over. “Listen; he is writing to +Inez, his six-year-old daughter; a letter which the child may +have in after years, to tell her what her father was like:</p> + +<p>“‘It was the greatest treasure and sweetness in my struggling +life that I could have lived with you and your brother Dante +and your mother in a neat little farm and learn all your sincere +words and tender affection. Then in the summer time to +be sitting with you in the home nest under an oak tree shade, +beginning to teach you of life and how to read and write, to see +you running, laughing, crying, and singing through the little +verdant fields picking the wild flowers here and there from one +tree to another and from the clear vivid stream to your mother’s +embrace. The same I have wished and loved to see for other +poor girls and their brothers, happy with their mother and +father, as I dreamed for us. But it was not so and the nightmare +of the lower classes has saddened very badly your +father’s soul. The men of this dying old society brutally have +pulled me away from the embrace of your brother and your +poor mother. But in spite of all, the free spirit of your father’s +faith survives.’”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_693">[693]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="XI_21"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>On Monday morning, the last day, Governor Fuller came +to his office in the State House at half past ten o’clock; rosy and +smiling, greeting the newspapermen: “Good morning, boys; a +fine day. I’ll be here at my desk until midnight, boys, doing my +duty.” Already there were deputations waiting for him, lawyers +from New York, editors, writers, labor leaders, society women—he +would see them all, in batches, all day long; he would +greet them with his marble smile, listen with politeness, and +say: “I will take what you have said under consideration.”</p> + +<p>Some came to urge him on the other side; including the +newly elected officers of the American Legion, which was +holding a convention in the State House that morning. Returned +soldiers who hadn’t had enough of war, they were keen +for this as for all other killings. They were singing the “Star-spangled +Banner” at noon, when the first group of pickets +began their march on the street outside.</p> + +<p>All day long the pickets would come, one batch after another, +ten or twenty at a time, with their placards of polite protest, +all bad words barred. They would walk their appointed +number of paces, and then the police would close about them, +and take them in tow, and march them to Joy Street, and +then—“Files right!”—to the police-station. The men were +packed, eight into a cell, and the women in the guard-room, +waiting for their bail.</p> + +<p>There were well-known names among them. Edna St. Vincent +Millay, from Rockland, Maine, home of her ancestors for +many generations. Loveliest of women poets, she would find this +a devastating experience; life would not seem the same after +a rendezvous with murder. “My personal physical freedom, my +power to go in and out when I choose, my personal life even, +is no longer quite so important to me as it once was.... The +physical world, and that once was all in all to me, has at moments +such as these no road through a wood, no stretch of +shore, that can bring me comfort. The beauty of these things +can no longer make up to me for all the ugliness of man, his +cruelty, his greed, his lying face.”</p> + +<p>John Dos Passos again, and John Howard Lawson; also +Clarina Michelson, and Paula Holladay—still with her red +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_694">[694]</span> +slicker. And Paxton Hibben—still with his speech. Alfred +Baker Lewis of the Socialist Party, Harry Canter for the +communists, and Margaret Hatfield, who might be taken as +representing the Republicans, since her father was county +treasurer. Professor Ellen Hayes of Wellesley College, seventy-six +years of age, marching with a cane, and holding her head up +high—the most serious hour of a scholar’s life! A picturesque +figure she made, in a Norfolk jacket and skirt, square-toed +shoes, a little flat hat, and white hair bobbed to her shoulders; +bright, eager eyes and sensitive face, now grim—the New +England conscience working. “What is your occupation?” +asked the clerk. “Professor of astronomy and applied mathematics.” +They did not book these very often!</p> + +<p>Others to uphold the honor of “Old Boston”: Catharine +Huntington, who lived on Pinckney Street, with ancestry going +back three hundred years in New England; Helen Peabody, +and Helen Todd, suffrage workers; Lola Ridge, the poet—all +these New England born, with forefathers on the <i>Mayflower</i>, +or the <i>Fortune</i>, the second-best boat. This was true of Edna +Millay, of Margaret Hatfield and of Dos Passos. The committee +had sent out a call for everybody “with a background”—the +polite Boston phrase. Nothing would count so much with the +newspapers; the humble Jews and Italians and Slavs—Frishman +and Pogrebisky, Chiplovitz and Chasanovitz, Pulcini and +Magliocca and Spognodi—these must be content to have their +names listed wrong. “What is fame?” say the British army +officers. “To die in battle, and have your name misspelled in +the <i>Gazette</i>.”</p> + +<p>Betty and Joe had their chance now; the police were taking +them as they came, blue-bloods and all; so near the end, they +no longer worried about public opinion; it would all be over +to-night, things would settle down, the dead wops would stay +dead. Over in the office of the Boston <i>Herald</i>, on Tremont +Street, they were putting into type an editorial, kissing the case +good-by. A year ago they had been heroically demanding justice, +and winning a prize for it; now what they wanted was +“Normalcy.” “Back to Normalcy! The asperities which have +attended the Sacco-Vanzetti case in its long and tedious journey +through the courts are greatly to be regretted, and should be +forgotten as quickly as possible. Let us get back to business +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_695">[695]</span> +and the ordinary concerns of life, in the confident belief that +the agencies of law have performed their duties with fairness +as well as justice.... The chapter is closed. The die is cast. +The arrow has flown. The voice of the department store advertising +agent has been heard in the office of the <i>Herald</i>.”—They +did not publish that last sentence, of course. That was the truth.</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_19"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>Betty and Joe marshaled all the others, and then joined the +last contingent, a group of needle-trade workers, risking their +jobs to go to jail. The little party came into Beacon Street, and +saw a mob of thousands on the side adjoining the Common. +The great iron gates in front of the State House were closed +and chained. The policemen were an army, the reporters and +photographers and plainclothesmen were another. The pickets +were accused of obstructing the sidewalk, but really it was these +others who did it.</p> + +<p>The little group exposed their signs and began to walk. The +cops closed round them, not much formality or delay; the +guardians of order were tired, and the seven-minute provision +got scant attention. The pickets were told to disperse, and when +they walked on, paying no attention, they were shoved against +the railing and closed in. “Christ, my arm!” screamed a Jewish +boy, not yet out of his teens.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing?” cried Betty, to the policeman. “You +don’t have to twist his arm like that!”</p> + +<p>“Shut up, you bitch!” was the answer.</p> + +<p>“I don’t have to! I’ll take your number, and make it hot for +you, if you don’t let up on that boy!”</p> + +<p>“Shut your trap, and go back where you came from!”</p> + +<p>“I came from Commonwealth Avenue, and my father is +Rupert Alvin, president of the Pilgrim National Bank of +Boston.”</p> + +<p>“Holy Jesus!” said the pious cop, and stopped his torture.</p> + +<p>The reporters came running; a story for the last afternoon +editions. “Have you anything to say, Miss Alvin?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have a whole speech to make, but your papers won’t +print it.”</p> + +<p>“Give us a try!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_696">[696]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll say that the men we are murdering to-night will +have a statue in front of the State House before you and I die. +I’ll say there are two judges whose names will be linked together +in history—Pontius Pilate and Webster Thayer.” Thus Betty, +trembling with rage, the white and pink in her lovely cheeks +coming and going like Northern lights in the sky.</p> + +<p>“Come on, Miss,” said the scared cop; and Betty walked +down the street, remarking, “My husband is back there—Joe +Randall; he’s got a statement written out.”</p> + +<p>So the reporters went to Joe, who gave them a copy of a +cablegram he had sent that day, in answer to one from Pierre +Leon in Paris: “Tell the workers of the world that the way +to punish Boston for this crime is to repudiate the debts. +Cancel every dollar owed to America, both publicly and privately. +When the first nation does that, Boston will be sorry it +committed murder. When the second nation does it, Boston will +take steps to bring Sacco and Vanzetti back to life.” Needless +to say, that did not appear in any Boston newspaper!</p> + +<p>The old Joy Street police station, so oddly named. The main +room crowded with tired and disgusted-looking policemen, and +young ladies from sheltered homes, getting their first lessons in +profanity. “Take these god-dam bastards to number nine.” +“Take them bitches to the detention room.” “What the hell we +going to do with this new bunch?” There were more than a +hundred and fifty in all, and the old place had been built before +the program of “loitering for liberty” had been thought of. +The walls shook with cheering, and waves of revolutionary +song:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Arise, ye prisoners of starvation,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Arise, ye wretched of the earth!</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='no-indent'>Outside in the crowd there were Reds who joined in. Boston +was honeycombed with sedition, so the patriotic societies declared.</p> + +<p>The women sat on the benches lined against the wall. They +spread newspapers, for the place was in a state of filth not to +be described in print; the walls against which you wanted to +lean were covered with dark smears, the blood of that creature +which Vanzetti termed the “bed-buck.” If a woman asked for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_697">[697]</span> +a toilet, she was taken to a place of filth in an open cell among +the men. If she asked for a drink, she was pointed to a faucet +with a dipper so dirty that she would not take it in her +hand. If she complained, the word would be, “Why don’t you +go back to Rooshia?” When your time came to be bailed out, +you put up two dollars extra for the bailer; graft in Boston +had become a system, a vested right. You could even have got +a drink of the best liquor, confiscated from the unlicensed bootleggers, +if you had looked like the right sort, and had the price. +But you could not get the windows of this hellhole opened—not +unless everybody would agree to stop singing Bolshevik +songs.</p> + + +<h3 id="XIII_17"> + XIII +</h3> + +<p>Mary Donovan came, with bail for Powers Hapgood. He +was to be her husband before long, and she had reason to be +concerned about him now, for he had won special enmity. This +was his fourth arrest. After the Sunday demonstration, a fortnight +ago, the police had come with a warrant and arrested him +again upon the more serious charge of “inciting to riot.” “A +bare-headed youth leading women into danger,” said the police +sergeant in court, and the judge said, “Six months.”</p> + +<p>Powers was nowhere to be found, and there was great alarm. +For several hours nobody could find out what had become of +him; then came a “tip”—he was in the “Psychopathic.” That +had been the bright idea of the captain of the state police. The +shortest time in which anybody could get through the “Psychopathic” +mill was ten days; and meantime Boston would be “back +to normalcy.” It was all for the prisoner’s good, to keep him +out of danger, said the police; the most considerate lot of +sluggers that ever filled their stomachs with bootleg whisky +and their pockets with bootleg graft.</p> + +<p>A weird experience for a member of the Dickey and the +Hasty Pudding Club and the Harvard Memorial Society! He +was a handsome, athletic young fellow, but he looked less impressive +after they had stripped him of his clothes, and put +him in a dirty bathrobe. They took him to one of the wards, +and put him in the very bed in which Sacco had once lain! +Next to him was a man who believed himself to be God; on the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_698">[698]</span> +other side a man who sat with his head in his hands and never +moved for hours. The attendants apparently desired to get +Powers excited, so that they could put him “on the ice.” They +would come and make provocative remarks; a woman nurse +started to express her opinion of Sacco—an ugly wop, and she +pounded the bed as she said it; worse than that, he was an +atheist. Powers was aware of the importance of keeping cool +without any ice; he answered amiably, and with his charming +smile. One attendant whispered that he was in danger, and +offered to phone a doctor for him. Doubtless that was the +source of the “tip.”</p> + +<p>Doctors came to examine him; all the regulation mental +stuff. You believe that Sacco and Vanzetti are being framed? +Are you yourself being framed? Have you a mission from +God? What are your dreams? Please take this pencil and write, +how much is fourteen times fourteen? If twelve is greater than +ten put a dot inside the circle which is not inside the square. +Did your mother have a hard time at your birth? Explain this +little story, how the Pope was crowned and so the little boy +died of gilt paint. If you can explain it, then it is established +that you are a “nut”!</p> + +<p>They must have found this Harvard graduate an interesting +specimen, for they put him up before the whole staff that +evening. They made him put on his bathrobe backwards; which +he thought was to make him look crazy, but doubtless was to +keep a lunatic from committing any indecency. There were +forty or fifty persons, men and women; doctors, nurses and +students, many flappers. They put him on the platform and +asked him to explain his ideas about reforming the world; so +he made them a little socialist speech, ten minutes at least. +They began asking him questions: a flapper wanted to know +why he thought Sacco and Vanzetti were not guilty. What did +he think about the McHardy bomb—the one which had blown +out the front of the juror’s home? That was a catch, of course; +he would say it was a provocateur job, and then they would +all know he was a “nut.”</p> + +<p>He said it. He fitted perfectly into their categories. And yet—a +singular development—he began to expand before their eyes, +and before he stopped, he had smashed their categories. A +distressing experience to scientific minds—to have their categories +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_699">[699]</span> +smashed! Some one had said of Herbert Spencer that +“his idea of a tragedy was a generalization killed by a fact.”</p> + +<p>Powers had many facts, all deadly. The strike-breaking +agencies planted bombs all the time, nothing simpler. It was the +accepted technique of class war in the mining districts; one +bomb, and the militia came and broke up the strike. It had +been done right here in Massachusetts, by the great Mr. William +Wood, president of the American Woolen Company; it had +been proved in court, the men he had hired had been sent to +jail for it. Too bad that Bostonians didn’t know their own +industrial history!</p> + +<p>After this session, fifteen alienists turned in a report to the +effect that the former member of the Dickey, the Hasty Pudding +Club and the Harvard Memorial Society was sane; one +of them added that he had better be got out of “Psychopathic” +as quickly as possible, or he would make socialists of the whole +staff! They held him overnight, in Sacco’s bed, and in the +morning they turned him loose—the first man who had ever +got through the mill in one day. A triumph for a Harvard +education!</p> + + +<h3 id="XIV_13"> + XIV +</h3> + +<p>Monday noon, with the execution twelve hours away, the +Governor was in session with three lawyers of national repute: +Arthur Garfield Hays, Frank P. Walsh, and Francis Fisher +Kane, formerly a Federal prosecutor in Pennsylvania. These +three were concentrating upon the subject of the Department of +Justice files. They had traveled all the way to Vermont, to interview +the United States Attorney-General. They had then proceeded +to Washington, to interview a subordinate, and had +succeeded in getting the admission that Sacco and Vanzetti +were referred to in the files; also the written statement that +the files would be turned over to the Massachusetts authorities, +if these authorities would request it. Now the three lawyers +endeavored, in vain, to persuade the Governor to make the +request.</p> + +<p>At this same hour, Arthur D. Hill was off the coast of Maine +in a steamer, searching in a fog for an island eight miles out, +where lived Justice Stone of the United States Supreme Court; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_700">[700]</span> +Elias Field, assistant counsel, was making a motion before +another judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts; +Musmanno was waiting for a chance to appeal to the Governor +with new arguments and affidavits of new witnesses; while +Jessica Henderson and Cornelia were motoring eighty miles or +more to the Governor’s summer home to make their appeal to +the great man’s wife.</p> + +<p>A stately home for a multi-millionaire, set far back from the +boulevard, and well hidden by shrubbery. When the owner +himself was there, a miniature army was on guard; twenty-six +men, with several machine-guns, and seventy-five reserves in +a near-by town. But apparently it was not feared that the +enemy would harm the family, for now there was only one +plainclothesman on watch.</p> + +<p>The Governor’s wife received the visitors courteously, and +heard them to the end. Evidently the other members of the +family resented the strain being put upon her, for three different +persons came, seeking to cut the session short; but Mrs. +Fuller would not have it so.</p> + +<p>Cornelia knew something about the cares of office. She had +realized that possibly the jauntiness of the supersalesman was +merely a mask; it was his idea of being “game,” the male +courage which defies death and danger. Certainly it was not +the same in his family; his wife had been ill, his son and +daughter had been ill. “It has taken years from his life!” +exclaimed the woman. “You can have no idea what it means. +We, too, sit in the electric-chair.” Cornelia, who had lived +for forty years in a home of wealth, knew the whole story—even +though in Josiah’s day they had not thought about +anarchists and dynamite. Somehow or other, great sums of +money found a way to wreck the happiness of those who held +them. Yet, no one would give them up, no one would cease the +mad chase!</p> + +<p>Cornelia poured out her story. It was one to move any +woman’s heart, and the Governor’s lady sat with tears welling +into her eyes. A little boy, her youngest child, played about +the room and sat on the arm of Cornelia’s chair; she told him +about Plymouth, and about Trando, who had made himself a +violinist; about Dante Sacco, who had bidden his father farewell +in the death-cell, but had not been allowed to touch him through +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_701">[701]</span> +the bars. She told the mother about the framing of witnesses, +and some of the new evidence they had found. But even while +she spoke, she read in the face of her listener that her errand +was a vain one.</p> + +<p>“I can do nothing but this, Mrs. Thornwell; I will have the +Governor see you to-day, so that you may tell him these things.”</p> + +<p>“I have already told him so much,” answered Cornelia. “I +was hoping you would go with me to the Governor.”</p> + +<p>“No, I could not do that; it would do no good, I assure you.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fuller would telephone, and see to it that Mrs. Thornwell +and Mrs. Henderson had another interview that afternoon. +The Governor must be made to comprehend those circumstances +which made it so doubtful whether the men were really guilty. +The Governor’s lady put her arm about Cornelia as she led +her out to the car; and Cornelia thought, if only the women +would run the world! But no, she had seen it happen; women +went into public life, and became as hard as the men. Could it +be that, as Vanzetti said, there was something fundamentally +immoral about the business of dominating the lives of your +fellows?</p> + + +<h3 id="XV_12"> + XV +</h3> + +<p>Three hours later they were back at the State House, having +made no stop for lunch. There were larger crowds than ever in +the corridors before the Governor’s chambers, more than half +of them secret service men and reporters. Mrs. Fuller had kept +her promise; the Governor would see the two ladies, the secretary +said.</p> + +<p>Tom O’Connor sat with them while they waited; a reporter +who was now with the defense, having given up a State House +job a year ago. He would tell them the news.</p> + +<p>Delegations to see the Governor, all through that day; there +had been more than nine hundred telegrams received; few +of them read. Musmanno had brought more affidavits; he had +had word that his application for a writ had been docketed with +the United States Supreme Court. Fuller had not said what he +would do. A deputation of labor men from New York had been +in a while ago; Fuller had said to one of them, “I know the +men are guilty, so I don’t care whether they had a fair trial or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_702">[702]</span> +not.” “He said those same words to me,” said Cornelia; and +then, “old Boston” speaking in her, “Don’t quote me, please.”</p> + +<p>Never had there been so many sensations, piling one upon +another—not in the memory of the oldest employee at the State +House. The Springfield <i>Republican</i> had published a powerful +editorial, underscoring the doubts as to the men’s guilt; Seward +Collins, publisher of the <i>Bookman</i>, had put up the money to +insert it as a full-page advertisement in every Boston newspaper. +The <i>Globe</i> had refused the money; others had run the +ad that morning, and the State House gang was furious. Then, +bright and early, who should walk in but Waldo Cook, editor +of the <i>Republican</i>—sixty-two years of age, and the most respected +journalist in New England. He came with a deputation +of editors to see the Governor, and the private secretary +tackled him. “I understand, Mr. Cook, that you got twenty +thousand dollars from the defense committee for that editorial.” +“It’s a damned lie!” said the editor.</p> + +<p>“I suppose they get used to taking money here in the State +House,” said Cornelia; and O’Connor grinned. The Governor +himself was no better than his secretary, when it came to repeating +charges without evidence. He had said to one deputation +that Professor Frankfurter had been paid great sums by the +defense; he would go on saying this, even though he had been +many times assured that it was false. He was obsessed with +hatred of Frankfurter, and blamed him more than any other; +he would accuse people of having read Frankfurter’s book, +and if they admitted this crime, he would not hear them any +longer.</p> + + +<h3 id="XVI_8"> + XVI +</h3> + +<p>The two ladies were ushered into the presence: two persistent +pests who had sneaked into a man’s home, seeking to +undermine his domestic peace! Nevertheless, he would be polite. +He had set himself the task of remaining here until midnight, +and seeing every one who came; and one person was about the +same as the next.</p> + +<p>He started at once on the aggressive. “My wife tells me +that you ladies still don’t think the men had a fair trial. But +you must know they had three trials—one before Judge Thayer, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_703">[703]</span> +one before the Lowell Commission, and one which I have +conducted in these rooms. I tell you that I would not ask for +my own son any fairer trial than that which took place before +Mr. Lowell.”</p> + +<p>Said Cornelia: “It is the first principle of our law that the +accused shall be confronted by the witnesses against them. +But Sacco and Vanzetti did not see many of the witnesses who +appeared before Mr. Lowell.”</p> + +<p>“Surely you must realize the absurdity of such a proposition! +How could those desperate anarchists have been brought every +day to the State House?”</p> + +<p>“All right, if it is too much trouble to conform to the principles +of our law, let us follow our convenience—but then +don’t claim that it is a fair trial.”</p> + +<p>“The men were represented by the best counsel.”</p> + +<p>“Even the counsel were barred sometimes; they were not +present at Judge Thayer’s examination; they were limited in +questioning Katzmann. Worse than that—they don’t even know +the names of all the witnesses. I understand that Mr. Lowell +is saying that he had ‘confidential information.’ He is telling +that to all his friends; and what place have secret whispers in +a fair trial? You say that the trial before Judge Thayer was +fair—yet the Lowell report admits that Judge Thayer committed +‘a grave breach of official decorum.’”</p> + +<p>“That was after the trial, Mrs. Thornwell.”</p> + +<p>“It was while he still had the various motions before him. +He was still the judge of the case, and the sole judge, right up +to the time he pronounced sentence last April, and automatically +excluded any other judge from acting. Are not men entitled to +have new evidence considered before an unprejudiced judge? +And who else has considered that evidence?”</p> + +<p>“I have, Mrs. Thornwell; and I think that I have common +sense, even if I haven’t legal training.”</p> + +<p>“Pardon me, Governor, but we have suffered much from +inability to get you to consider new evidence. We brought you +the express receipt for eels, but we are told that you say you +know Vanzetti never got them. We bring you the Pinkerton +reports, but we don’t know if you know what is in them. They +cancel Mary Splaine, but you still go on citing Mary Splaine. +We bring you the son of Lola Andrews, and he tells you that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_704">[704]</span> +his mother is not to be trusted, but you go on trusting her. +You tell Musmanno that you don’t believe Vanzetti ever sold +fish, and Musmanno brings you an affidavit from Carbone, the +wholesaler from whom Vanzetti bought fish in Plymouth regularly. +We bring you all sorts of affidavits, but nothing does the +least good, because you have some secret information that we +are not permitted to know about, and that determines the whole +matter for you. What is it, Governor—tell us now, instead of +too late. Believe me, the world is going to know some day!”</p> + +<p>Thus the little old white-haired woman; and with elaborate +and patient courtesy the sorely tried statesman assured her +that she had fallen victim to the machinations of dangerous +and depraved persons. He had the duty of deciding this case, +not she; and when he made promises to witnesses in fear of +their lives, he would keep those promises. When she broke +down and wept, and Mrs. Henderson began to plead for mercy, +he said that Massachusetts was in the grip of a crime wave, +and that to pardon guilty men would set a dangerous precedent. +He had refused to pardon the “car-barn bandits,” even +though they were native Americans, one of them a World War +veteran. No, he was not troubled by the clamor from outside, +the pleadings of what people said were “great minds”; they +might be great in their own line, but they didn’t know about +the Sacco-Vanzetti case. This clamor would pass quickly. When +Cornelia started to argue against capital punishment, his +answer was: “You and I both sleep better in a state which has +capital punishment.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia gazed at him, with a look of dismay. She could not +reply to such words. Men had killed their fellows for fear +and for hate, for piety and for glory, for exercise, for sport, +for food; but here for the first time in recorded history they +killed for a soporific! The little old woman stood up, trembling.</p> + +<p>“Governor Fuller, answer me this: What are you going to +do when we find the real criminals? Somewhere in the world +are two men who really did the Bridgewater job; somewhere +are four, or five, who did the South Braintree job. And rest +assured, we are going to find them—we are never going to rest +until we have found them—and then, how will you be able to +face life? What will all you gentlemen do—judges and governors +and college presidents—knowing that you sent two innocent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_705">[705]</span> +men to their death? What will there be in the world for +you—but insanity or suicide?”</p> + +<p>He did not answer, and she went out, with despair plainly +written upon her aged face, for all the newspapermen to see +and record. In the corridor they told her the news, right hot +off the wire—Arthur Hill had telephoned to his office, Justice +Stone had turned down his request. The lawyer was up in +Maine, and could not get back to Boston until morning, so his +work was at an end.</p> + +<p>What had Mrs. Thornwell to say to that? What was she +going to do? The reporters gathered about, eager for more +story. A marvelous melodrama this was to them—a whole day +packed full of thrills! Melodrama at the State House, with +millionaires and blue-bloods and “headliners” of all sorts in a +fourteen-hour stream! All over the city, with two hundred +persons arrested, and tens of thousands looking on; with poets +and hoboes, “Reds” and “scions of wealth,” famous lawyers +and judges, playing their lively parts! All over the world, with +bombs exploding and plate glass shattering, mobs yelling and +cavalry charging! And at the end death waiting, in the aspect +of a chair with widespread, capacious arms, gaping for its victims! +Monday, August 22nd, 1927, a date never to be forgotten +in the history of the world!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_706">[706]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"> + CHAPTER XXIII<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE LAST ENEMY</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>In a room in the Hotel Bellevue, adjoining the State House, +five lawyers from New York, all volunteers in the case, had +worked all Sunday night and part of Monday, eighteen consecutive +hours, concocting legal formulas and having them typed. +On the roof of the hotel were detectives, and in the windows +of the State House opposite; for the spectacle of lights burning +all night in a room known to be occupied by Reds exercised an +irresistible spell upon the authorities. “What are they doing +now? Where are they going?” Half a dozen automobiles waited +outside the hotel, and whenever one of the lawyers took a taxi, +the august Commonwealth of Massachusetts trailed behind.</p> + +<p>Now the Boston lawyers had failed, and admitted their +failure; the New York lawyers had the field, with seven or +eight hours to go. They asked for a hearing before Federal +Judge Lowell, and he set the hour of six o’clock. A court +session consisting of one judge, five lawyers, and a score of +newspapermen. The judge resented the intrusion of “foreigners” +into this case, and took occasion to say what all ruling-class +Boston was thinking. He accused the strangers of “trying +the case in the newspapers”; he interrupted them again and +again to demand “law, not eloquence.” When William Schuyler +Jackson, ex-Attorney General of New York State, was showing +the conspiracy carried on by Katzmann to deceive the jury at +the Dedham trial, the judge broke in: “Did you ever see a +Norfolk county farmer?” The lawyer, disconcerted, had to +admit, “Not in reality.” Whereupon the judge snapped out: +“Well, if you had, you’d have a better opinion of that jury.”</p> + +<p>It made magnificent copy for the newspapers; the <i>Herald</i> +put it in a “box”—“Judge Lowell Praises Norfolk County +Farmers”—and all patriots swelled with pride. Wonderful +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_707">[707]</span> +beings were Norfolk county farmers, and wonderful also the +Lowells, who spoke only to Cabots, who spoke to God. It was +the hard luck of the ex-Attorney General of New York State +that he was not familiar with the details of the case; otherwise +he might have made answer to the arrogant judge: “The Sacco-Vanzetti +jury consisted of two real estate men, two machinists, +a grocer, a mason, a stockkeeper, a clothing salesman, a mill +operative, a shoemaker, a lastmaker, and <i>one</i> Norfolk county +farmer!”</p> + +<p>The lawyers loaded themselves into an automobile, together +with Isaac Don Levine, journalist, and set out for Beverly, to +make a last appeal to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Detectives +trailed behind them, and more detectives met them at their +destination. The very old gentleman sat in his parlor, talking +with two very old ladies; a chaste New England home, everything +antique, in the taste of a bygone age. The lawyers presented +their petition, and the judge sat himself down to peruse +it—four thousand words of “law, not eloquence.” A dead silence; +and Levine sat in the hall, listening to the ticking of a +“grandfather’s clock.” “Life-death, life-death, life-death,” it +said; the listener shivered.</p> + +<p>The old gentleman looked up. “I appreciate the general force +of your argument,” he said—and their hearts leaped. He was +famous for the so-called “judicial mind,” his ability to consider +legal principles in a vacuum completely freed of human emotion. +He went on: “I am of the opinion that the petition is +covered by the principles stated in my decisions upon the +former applications for habeas corpus and certiorari, and therefore +I am compelled to deny the writ.”</p> + +<p>The lawyers excused themselves, and got into the car again, +and whirled back to Boston. One more hope; Federal Judge +Anderson, who was not quite so free from human emotion. +Seven years back, he had condemned the Red raids in an exhaustive +and scorching decision. Now he was attending the +Institute of Politics at Williamstown, two hundred miles away, +and Tom O’Connor had arranged at the East Boston naval +airport to charter an airplane to take John Finerty, a leading +lawyer of Washington, formerly assistant counsel for the U. S. +Railroad Commission. It would be a risky journey at night, +but they had worked for eighteen hours over those four +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_708">[708]</span> +thousand words of “law, not eloquence,” and wanted to make +it count if they could.</p> + +<p>The nearest landing field was in Albany, New York, fifty +miles from Williamstown. O’Connor had arranged with a taxi +company to have a cab waiting at the landing field. All was +ready; but alas, some one tipped off the authorities at the airport +as to who these nefarious persons were, and a naval officer +ordered them off the premises. “It would give me pleasure to +shoot you,” he said to the ex-Attorney General of New York +State; and next day the newspapers reported that the Commonwealth +of Massachusetts has been asked to put a special guard +over the airport, threatened with seizure by the Reds!</p> + + +<h3 id="II_22"> + II +</h3> + +<p>From a window of the Hod Carriers’ Union in Salem Street, +Ella Reeve Bloor was explaining the case as an episode in the +class struggle to a crowd of some hundreds of solemn-faced +workers. “Mother” Bloor, they called her; sixty-five years old, +she had raised a brood of five children, and turned them loose +in the radical movement, and so was free to wander over +America, wherever workingmen on strike called for a martyr. +A little round jolly figure, full of laughter, brown as a hickory +nut and as solid, she said her say, until the policemen forced +their way into the union headquarters and dragged her out. +“Inciting to riot,” was the charge.</p> + +<p>At the same time Paula Holladay was getting arrested in +her red “slicker” again; they took it away from her this time! +Over near Charlestown prison another group were preparing +to walk into the den of blue-coated lions; their leader was Helen +Peabody, one of those “with a background,” who conceived it +her duty to be in jail when the execution took place. In an +obscure hall near defense headquarters, Betty and Joe were +speaking to a somber crowd. It would not save Sacco and +Vanzetti, but it would save their message, as Joe pointed out. +Let the workers learn, and organize to defend themselves +against ruling class murder.</p> + +<p>A curious instance, then going on, to illustrate Joe’s message. +Everywhere in Boston the workers had been dragged to jail +for attempting to voice their protest; but in the town of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_709">[709]</span> +Peabody, some twenty miles away from Boston, there was now +going on a meeting in the public square, at which ten thousand +workers were voicing their feelings unmolested. How came +that? Quite simple; the workers of Peabody had taken the +precaution to elect themselves a Socialist mayor. Yesterday, +Sunday, the chief of police had broken up a mass meeting, in +the regulation Mike Crowley style; the mayor had been on +vacation, and hearing the news, had hastened back, and removed +the chief of police from office, and taken charge of to-night’s +meeting himself, and introduced Alfred Baker Lewis as the +principal speaker. Would the workers of Boston learn anything +from that?</p> + +<p>Governor Fuller was in session with Congressman +La Guardia, who had flown all the way from Washington in +an airplane; an Italian, he pleaded for mercy for two men of +his race. Musmanno, having presented four new affidavits in +vain, waited outside for a chance to present one more. He +argued with Attorney General Reading, counsel for the Decimo +Club and the “L.A.W.,” seeking to persuade him that it +would be a discourtesy to the United States Supreme Court, +to take the life of two men, when their appeal was actually on +file before that high tribunal. Mr. Reading did not answer +Musmanno’s argument; neither did he say what he would advise +the Governor. Death was only three or four hours away.</p> + +<p>Over in the death cells, Sacco was bidding a last farewell +to his wife, and Vanzetti to his sister. The men stretched their +arms through the bars; the women broke down, and had to be +carried out, sobbing wildly. They belonged to a demonstrative +race—one of the reasons why stern New England did not like +them. Nevertheless, New England would read about it—column +after column in the next morning’s papers—“sob stuff,” that +sold best of anything.</p> + +<p>Rosina and Luigia decided to try one last appeal to the +Governor. They had not intended to do it; they knew in their +hearts that they would fail; but they had several hours to pass, +and it was easier to do anything than to do nothing. Friends +telephoned and made the appointment, and at nine o’clock they +arrived at the State House, a fortress surrounded by armed +men, the searchlights which usually illuminated the golden +dome now turned upon the crowds in the streets. They ascended +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_710">[710]</span> +in the elevator, and Rosina walked ahead, through the rows of +silent newspapermen; Luigia followed hesitatingly, bewildered +by this strange environment. Musmanno was there to act as +interpreter, and they were shown into the private office, where +so many had sat and poured out eloquence in vain.</p> + +<p>Rosina Sacco spoke first, in English. She told of her faith +in her husband’s innocence. She told about the trial; about Lola +Andrews, the hysteric; about Captain Proctor, who had admitted +his trick; about Goodridge, the many-times convicted +crook; about Mary Splaine, and what the Pinkerton reports +had revealed about her. She told about Judge Thayer; over +and over, she insisted that the trial had not been fair. She +asked for mercy. The Governor was a father, and he was +sentencing two children to lose their father, and to wear a +dreadful brand all their lives.</p> + +<p>The great man listened with politeness—his store of the +commodity was inexhaustible. He turned to the frail worn +sister of Vanzetti, who began speaking in soft musical Italian, +the young lawyer translating sentence by sentence. She had +just come from her brother in the gloomy deathhouse; his +protestations of innocence were ringing in her ears. He had +asked her to convey a message to the Governor. Some weeks +ago Bartolomeo had shaken hands with the Governor in the +prison, and he thought that he had demonstrated his innocence; +the Governor had given him that impression; now he could not +understand how the Governor would let the death sentence +stand. If he could have one more chance to talk with the +Governor and answer his objections, he, Bartolomeo, was sure +the death sentence would not be carried out.</p> + +<p>For more than an hour the salesman of motor-cars listened, +without interrupting. At last the two women said that they +were through; and then, leaning forward slightly in his chair, +he gave his answer. He appreciated the feelings of both of +them, and was sorry for them. But he had taken an oath to +uphold the constitution and laws of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts, and his conscience dictated that he should permit +the law to take its course.</p> + +<p>But still, he would be polite. Excessively so; as if he were +paying compliments at a social function; or as if he were +selling a Packard limousine. To some final argument of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_711">[711]</span> +Musmanno’s he replied: “What you have said impresses me +greatly. But even that is nothing compared with the eloquence +of these ladies’ presence.” Was this one of the dreadful perversions +of Puritanism? A kind of sadistic pleasure in inflicting +torture with a smile? Whatever it was, it failed to make a hit +with Rosina Sacco. “Let us go,” she said, coldly, and they rose, +and walked slowly from the room.</p> + +<p>The newspapermen besought Musmanno to tell them what +had happened, and he tried to do it; he touched upon a few +of the arguments which the women had presented, but before +he had got very far the tears began to run down his cheeks, +and he had to stop. He went over to a chair and sat down and +buried his face in his hands and sobbed. It was then half past +ten, and the grandfather’s clocks which kept the time for all +Massachusetts were ticking steadily, with fifty-four hundred +seconds still to go.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_22"> + III +</h3> + +<p>At six o’clock Cornelia had gone back to her home. The +chauffeur had to help her up the stairs; and there were Deborah +and Clara with the Negro maid, ready to come running, and +lead her to the bed, and make any amount of fuss; to bring +her tea or coffee, or a glass of milk, or a poached egg on +toast. No, she could not eat; they pleaded, and wanted to +phone for Dr. Morrow. The tears ran down their cheeks; they +would do anything, abase themselves, agree with her wildest +words, in the effort to quiet her, and persuade her that their +love meant something. They were terrified at her appearance +and her attitude; ashamed because they had shown so little +sympathy in the past. Yes, no doubt there were very fine and +good qualities in anarchists—anything, anything—so that their +mother would stop killing herself!</p> + +<p>Clara’s precious youngest had got poison ivy all over him, +and was shut up in the house with a poultice over his eyes; +her oldest, who was just out of Harvard, was suspected to be +on the verge of getting engaged at Bar Harbor; the oldest +little fat treasure of Priscilla had got a bee sting over one +eyelid, otherwise his mother would have been here. Quincy +Thornwell had won a chess match—such items of family +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_712">[712]</span> +gossip Clara poured out, in a premeditated torrent—only to +discover that her mother was not hearing a word. “Please, +Clara, I can’t think about anything now. Let me be quiet.”</p> + +<p>Deborah had taken the precaution to get a prescription from +Dr. Morrow; it was his advice that Cornelia should take a +strong sleeping powder and forget the ugly world and everything +in it for at least twelve hours. But Cornelia said no. +When her oldest daughter tried to insist, she said, “I was +talking with one of the lawyers from New York, and he +offered me a quart of whisky. If all hopes fail, he will retire +to his hotel room and get drunk.” The silence of Deborah and +Clara said plainly, it was what everybody in Boston had known +about that New York crowd! Cornelia, reading their thoughts, +remarked grimly: “The whisky might give him pleasure, so +that is immoral. But a sleeping powder is strictly business!”</p> + +<p>The women decided to call in Henry, who understood the +insides of this crisis so much better than they. So Henry put +off dinner with an important banker from New York, and +came over to sit by the bedside and tell his mother-in-law how +it was possible for Boston to do this dreadful deed; how it +was possible for such wickedness to be organized, and in +control of society. “With all that new evidence before them, +Henry! And with an appeal to the United States Supreme +Court actually docketed!”</p> + +<p>“Docketed doesn’t mean anything, Mother. It simply means +that you have put your request on file; it doesn’t mean that +it will get anywhere. In this case I assure you it wouldn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Henry, if we could manage to keep those boys alive until +October, we could really get the public to understand about +this case, and they would never dare to execute them.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I guess that’s just it, Mother. Fuller can’t afford to +let the case go on growing and growing.”</p> + +<p>She pondered that. “I have just heard that Quincy has won +a chess match; and now the Governor is winning one, with +human lives for pawns!”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_22"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>She told about her last interview, and the things that had +been said. She told about the trip to Rye Beach; it was quite +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_713">[713]</span> +a story, and helped to pass the time without whisky or drugs. +Deborah and Clara refrained from breaking in; there must be +no arguments, nothing to excite the patient; each minute that +passed was a danger escaped. Deborah ventured to make some +remarks on the subject of Mrs. Fuller, and the problem of +Catholic wives and Protestant husbands. The Governor was +such an ardent Baptist, he wanted to teach a Sunday school. +Was he letting his children be brought up as Catholics?</p> + +<p>But no use; Cornelia could not be diverted from the main +topic. “Henry, did you find out what is that ‘confidential information’ +that Mr. Lowell and the Governor are talking +about?”</p> + +<p>“There’s a lot of it, Mother; they keep quoting the Italian +colony and what it thinks about the case.”</p> + +<p>“The ‘Italian colony’! Do you stop to realize what the words +mean? There are as many differences inside the Italian colony +as in any other part of New England. The ruling group is +Fascist; they hate Sacco and Vanzetti exactly as Judge Thayer +does—only more so, because they know them better. The +majority of the colony is Catholic; and when Bart was arrested +he had on him a letter in which one of their priests was described +as a ‘pig.’ Of course all the Italians know who that +priest is. Does the Governor take the opinion of the priest? +Or of his parishioners?”</p> + +<p>“The story runs something like this, Mother: one of the +Italian anarchists got drunk and talked, and admitted that Sacco +had been in the bandit car at South Braintree.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve heard that,” said Cornelia. “I’ve heard many such +stories. But of course I couldn’t guess which one the Governor +of our Commonwealth and the President of our University +would elect to believe. What do they say about Bart?”</p> + +<p>“They don’t think Bart was in the car, but they think he +knew about it, which made him an accessory before the fact.”</p> + +<p>“Before, or after, Henry—are they sure which?” A pause. +“And so that is what Mr. Lowell meant when he said that he +thought Vanzetti was guilty ‘on the whole’! I am solving the +riddles which have tormented me for weeks! Who do they say +was actually in the car?”</p> + +<p>“Boda and Coacci and Orciani.”</p> + +<p>“Mike Stewart’s theory complete! Have they overlooked +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_714">[714]</span> +the fact that Orciani punched a time clock that day in the +foundry where he worked?”</p> + +<p>“The story is that he got somebody else to do it for him.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia sat, gazing with her inner eye into the face of +Massachusetts statesmanship. “So that is why our boys have +to die! Somebody got drunk and talked, and the talk came to +the ears of our great men! Stop and think what this means, +Henry—the breakdown of our legal system and our moral +codes! Was it one of the guilty men who got drunk and +talked?”</p> + +<p>“No, that is not what I understand.”</p> + +<p>“It couldn’t very well have been Sacco or Vanzetti, since +they have been in jail, and couldn’t get liquor in our model +prisons, and anyhow, they don’t drink. It couldn’t have been +Coacci, who was deported before the arrests took place; nor +Orciani, nor little Mike Boda, who are sitting out on a barren +rock somewhere in the Mediterranean, as prisoners of the +Fascist government.”</p> + +<p>“Fuller doesn’t claim it was the guilty ones who talked; it +was one of their comrades.”</p> + +<p>“That is what I am trying to get straight. One of the bandits +told a comrade, and this comrade got drunk and talked! Did +he talk to Governor Fuller?”</p> + +<p>“That is not the way I heard it.”</p> + +<p>“Hardly! There are automobile salesmen who get people +drunk, I suppose, but not ardent Baptists, with Sunday school +inclinations. We have to assume that some government spy +got the anarchist comrade drunk, and then the anarchist +comrade talked, and the spy told the Governor about it. Or +maybe even that is too undignified for a Governor—surely it +would have been for Mr. Lowell! Deborah, do you think Mr. +Lowell would stoop to listen to a spy?”</p> + +<p>Deborah understood that this was a rhetorical question, and +prudently made no reply; Cornelia went on, working herself +into a cold fury.</p> + +<p>“Our dignity requires us to assume that the spy talked to +some police official, whose business it is to know spies. So +then we have this: Sacco or Vanzetti or Coacci or Orciani or +Boda told an anarchist comrade that they were guilty; this +comrade got drunk and told a police spy; this spy told the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_715">[715]</span> +police; the police told the Governor; and the Governor told +Mr. Lowell and Mr. Stratton and Judge Grant! So they have +‘confidential information,’ and decide that ‘on the whole’ they +think Vanzetti was guilty! That is how our laws are enforced, +that is our police system and our legal system and our judicial +system and our political system and our educational system! +Such are the masters of our youth and the guides of our +intellectual life!”</p> + +<p>“Mother—” began Deborah; but Cornelia exercised the +privilege of age, to do the talking when she wanted to.</p> + +<p>“There is a saying—all three of our educated commissioners +know it, and possibly told it to our Governor—‘in vino veritas.’ +But proverbs are false more often than they are true. Think +how many circumstances there might be under which you would +get falsehood from drunkenness, instead of truth. Suppose +there was some personal grudge; or some vainglorious fool, +taking pride in knowing a secret that was baffling the whole +world! Suppose it was some one who had heard a rumor, and +turned it into knowledge; suppose the talker were a Fascist +agent, a spy himself—such things have happened. Anything in +the world can happen, where men make their living by betrayal, +and their rewards depend upon the tales they bring in. I know +enough about the anarchist movement to say that you will find +every sort of disordered mind in it; also, you will find every +kind of rascal among the men who are trying to destroy it. +From such a situation there arises a poisonous mist, a gas +cloud of gossip and scandal. I thought that the whole purpose +of our judicial system was to deliver men from such terrors; +to force accusers to come out into the daylight, in open court! +But here our great Commonwealth has proved itself worse +than one of the Sewing Circles!”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_22"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia sat up, with an announcement which terrified her +family. “I am going to see those boys before they die!”</p> + +<p>“Mother! Mother!” All three of them started to protest at +once. Impossible! Not to be thought of!</p> + +<p>“I went Saturday, and the warden wouldn’t let me see them. +I wrote them letters; but that is not enough, I refuse to accept +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_716">[716]</span> +it. I am not going to let them go out of this world without +bidding them good-by.”</p> + +<p>“Mother, the strain would kill you!”</p> + +<p>“It is less than the strain of lying here doing nothing. I am +only two or three miles from them—”</p> + +<p>“A difficult two or three miles, Mother.” It was Henry +speaking. “The bridge is closed, and the streets roped off—”</p> + +<p>“Governor Fuller can write a dozen words, and the road +will be clear. He is going to do it for me! I am going to have +a talk with Bart—and ask him to tell me the truth! I know that +I can help him, and Nick, too. I am going to see the Governor—phone +for me, Henry, and make sure he is still at his office.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia got up, in spite of all protests, and began to arrange +her hair and put on her hat. Henry phoned, and got the information; +then, when he saw that all argument was futile—that +she was going to call a taxicab and go alone if necessary—he +said: “Stay here, Mother, and rest. I will go and get the pass +for you—if Fuller will give it.”</p> + +<p>“He <i>must</i> give it! I will not take a refusal! It will cost him +nothing, it will do nobody any harm. Deborah, you go with +Henry; you gave that creature a dinner party, now make him +pay for it!”</p> + +<p>All right, Deborah would go; anything to keep the poor soul +quiet for another half hour. “It is a mad idea, Mother, but I +will do the best I can.”</p> + +<p>“I know that you can do it! Promise me that you will do it, +Henry—I will never forgive you if you play me a trick.”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t do that, Mother—”</p> + +<p>“You might think it was for my good. But I know myself +better than you. I have a right to say good-by to those friends +who have taught me so much. Tell the Governor that maybe +they will confess to me—he’ll be fool enough to believe that, +I am sure! Tell him that you are very important persons, +that he will shine by your reflected light! Telephone me the +moment you get the answer—because I am coming myself if you +fail!”</p> + +<p>The State House lies just over the top of Beacon Hill, and it +took Henry’s car only five minutes to get there. Being large +and expensive, it went past the guards without delay, and very +soon there was a ring of the telephone by Cornelia’s bed; she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_717">[717]</span> +took the receiver with trembling hands, and heard the voice of +her son-in-law: “All right, Mother. The Governor has been so +kind as to give his consent.” She could tell by the phrasing +and the tone of his voice that he was speaking from the great +man’s office.</p> + +<p>She got up and got herself ready, with Clara’s help, and in a +few minutes Henry’s chauffeur was at the door, ready to +assist her down the stairs. Clara went along—they would all +go, expecting her to collapse, fearing she might die of the +strain. Since opposition only made things harder, they must +turn themselves into slaves of her whim; at the same time +agreeing in their hearts with the Governor, they would be glad +when this was over!</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_22"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>There sat a strange man in the seat by the chauffeur; a police +official in civilian clothing, who had been at the State House, +and whom the Governor had assigned as an escort. They came +quickly to Prison Point Bridge, across the Miller River to +Charlestown, where the old prison stands. At the bridge entrance +the lights of the car fell upon officers waving the traffic +to a detour; behind them a solid line of blue-coats, with riot-guns +in hand; behind these latter a group of mounted men, +and behind them iron gates. A couple of motorcycle officers +shot out towards them, blowing a shrill warning to bring them +to a halt.</p> + +<p>So began the tedious process of breaking down the barriers +which the stern Commonwealth had set up against anarchists +and bomb-throwers that night. The police official produced the +paper with the golden crest at the top and the magic signature +at the bottom. “To police officers of Boston and Charlestown: +You will permit Mr. Henry Cabot Winters and party to drive +to Charlestown prison this Monday evening. Warden Hendry +will permit Mrs. Thornwell to converse with Sacco and Vanzetti +for one hour, subject to his convenience, and without interference +with his plans. Alvan T. Fuller, Governor.” It was +a signature familiar to all Bostonians, being regularly attached +to advertisements, telling the eagerly expectant motor-world the +latest wonders which “Packard” had to impart. “This will prove +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_718">[718]</span> +to be the most popular model which Packard has ever offered to +sons and daughters who may have their own cars.... When +may we show you this latest offering?” It did not seem to the +Commonwealth at all humiliating to have a Governor who +wheedled; neither did it trouble the sons and daughters of the +rich who were able to have their own luxury cars that the +same signature was attached to advertisements and to death +warrants.</p> + +<p>The fact that the police official was not in uniform may have +accounted for the delay. One of the motorcycle men took the +order back to the group, to show to his superior; after which +he rode out to the car again and ordered it forward. The blue-clad +lines gave way, the gates swung open, and the car rolled +through. But half way across the bridge, there was another +pair of gates, with another line of guardians, and the same +procedure to be repeated. It was like the German entrenchments—the +Hindenburg line, the Siegfried line, the Wotan line. +In the river, below the bridge, were speed-boats of the harbor-patrol, +their searchlights sweeping the docks and the tracks +of the Boston and Maine Railroad. Along the tracks were +searchlights, three in a group, weaving futurist patterns on the +night.</p> + +<p>A third line, strongest of all, at the Charlestown end of the +bridge. The military formalities were complied with, and the +car started up Austin Street, when the revolving searchlight on +the prison tower picked it out, and seemed to be a signal to +a score of mounted troopers to come galloping from every direction. +Other searchlights, mounted on the prison wall and sweeping +up and down the streets, brought out their figures, shining +white for moments, then lost in semi-darkness.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you send a man to pass us through?” demanded +the police official, with some irritation; but apparently they +hadn’t intended to pass any one through. They had a deadline, +three hundred yards from the prison walls, blocking every +street, and running over the tops of houses, where men sat with +machine-guns, and stores of tear-bombs. The inhabitants of +houses within the barred area were confined indoors, not even +permitted on the steps; they could lean out of windows, and +the searchlights shone upon rows of faces, staring white.</p> + +<p>The instructions had been for the car to go to the warden’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_719">[719]</span> +home, which constituted a separate entrance to the prison enclosure. +“No publicity, if you please, Mr. Winters,” the Governor +had said; and this was to the taste of a blue-blood family. +The warden would be notified by telephone to expect them, +and would smuggle them in, with no reporters crowding about, +and no picturesque stories in the morning: “Widow of Ex-Governor +Visits Condemned Men in Last Hours!” The car +had to make a part circle of the aged fortress, and it gave +even high-up Brahmins a realization of their importance, the +favor which was being granted to them. Eight times they were +halted and investigated; every foot of the way the searchlights +followed them suspiciously, revealing bright bayonets and heavy +riot guns, firemen with high pressure hoses ready for action, +rows of horsemen drawn up against the prison walls, and motorcycles +darting suddenly forth. Once a bomb went off—but not +a dangerous one; only newspaper photographers taking photographs +of the line of cavalry defending the main gate of the +prison. Earth, water, even air were being guarded; searchlights +played in the sky—a spiritualist medium having called at the +prison, announcing that she had had a vision of an airplane +dropping bombs. The Sacco-Vanzetti case had started from +crystal-gazing, so it was reasonable that it should end with +clairvoyance.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_22"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>They came to the warden’s home and drew up at the curb. +More parleys, after which the police official assisted Cornelia +out of the car. The chauffeur was told to stay in his seat—no +unnecessary chances taken. Deborah and Clara and Henry +would sit where they were. The armed men stepped back, and +the door opened, and prison guards met the visitors, and silently +led them through the house and into the yard, past the +cell-blocks, oblong brick buildings with rows of narrow barred +windows. The lights were out, and the prison was supposed +to be asleep, but the searchlights made the scene as bright as +day, and nobody slept. There were white faces at the windows, +and now and then a chorus of cries: “Let them out! Let them +out!” Wild beasts, barking, howling, roaring in their cages!</p> + +<p>To Cornelia it was as if she had taken Dante’s place, in a +journey through the various stages of hell: all this elaborate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_720">[720]</span> +display of killing power, a thousand intricate and ingenious inventions, +all the arts and sciences which civilization had contrived, +applied to the wholesale and instantaneous wiping out +of human life. The fact that this military force was for Cornelia’s +protection, that it gave back respectfully before the +magic of her name, only filled her with the greater abhorrence, +only proved her thesis, that its purpose was not justice, but +the comfort and safety of the rich.</p> + +<p>The death-house: a square brick building, immediately under +the prison wall, a highly unstrategic position, which in part +accounted for the need of a miniature army. Upon the wall +with its wooden walk stood a line of machine gunners, and +men were lined up several deep upon the sidewalk of Rutherford +Avenue below the wall. Across the street were firemen +with four high-pressure hoses.</p> + +<p>There was a group of guards at the door of the death-house, +and the warden came out, and took over the task of +escorting the privileged old lady. A dreadful ordeal: Cornelia +had to pass through the execution-chamber, and the canvas +cover was off the chair; the heavy leather straps at the hands +and feet dangled and called for their victims. One glance, and +then the warden half lifted Cornelia and walked her swiftly on. +He had had to do that same thing for many women, relatives +of the condemned. It was not a jolly job this plump and round-faced +old Scotchman had found himself.</p> + +<p>The death cells, three in a row, opening upon a corridor; +each cell a narrow little room with steel-barred door; in each +a cot, a table, a little bureau. A neat, white-tiled floor, and +on the outside, running the length of the corridor, a painted +line, six feet from the cells, beyond which no visitor might step. +Cornelia knew the lay-out, the lawyers having described it to +her. In the first cell was Madeiros, in the second Sacco, in the +third, the farthest from the death-chamber, Vanzetti. It was the +order in which they were to “go.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia tottered to the last cell. A light inside; the occupant +was sitting on his cot, with the table drawn up before +him, writing one of his farewell letters. He heard a faint cry, +“Bart!” and started and shoved the table away. “Nonna!” A +second more and he was at the door, his arm through the bars; +Cornelia ran to him—it was automatic, no way to help it—and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_721">[721]</span> +anyhow, the warden was holding her, and not trying to +hold her back. She clasped the outstretched hand and wrung it; +that hand which so many times she had held in friendship, +which had performed for her so many services of love; a hand +toil-worn and bruised, now emaciated, but still warm with life. +Three hours more and it would be cold, a piece of death and +corruption. She let it go, and sank into the chair which had +been placed for her, behind the painted line.</p> + +<p>“Bart, I had to see you to say good-by!”</p> + +<p>“I am so glad, Nonna! It is the one more thing I wanted.”</p> + +<p>“We have done everything we could, Bart, but it is no use.”</p> + +<p>“I know. Mr. Thompson was here, he has just been going. +We had a long talk.”</p> + +<p>“I have an hour to stay with you, Bart; the Governor granted +me that favor.”</p> + +<p>“I will leave you, Mrs. Thornwell,” said the warden. “I will +have to ask you not to cross the line again. You understand, +we have rules, and they must be enforced.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Cornelia; “I will respect your wishes.” She +had heard the prison stories—they had permitted one condemned +man to receive a roast chicken from a relative, and +it had contained a loaded revolver. “Thank you, Mr. Hendry.” +She was as sorry for him as for his captives.</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_22"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>A guard sat at the entrance to the corridor, fifteen feet from +Cornelia’s chair. He could hear everything that was said, but +neither she nor Bart heeded him. This was like being alone +with God; this was different from human life, where people +met, and would meet again by and by. “We have failed, Bart,” +she whispered, and he said, in a voice without a quiver: “Do +not worry for me, Nonna, I am ready. Nick also is ready. We +will die as anarchists should.”</p> + +<p>The light in Sacco’s cell had been out; he turned it on, and +lay on his cot with his face to the bars, so that he could hear +the conversation. “Hello, Nick,” said Cornelia. He answered, +with his quick sympathy and consideration for others: “You +are too unhappy for us, Nonna. Take it more easy! Plenty +fellow have die.” She imagined the twinkle in his eyes—even +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_722">[722]</span> +though now she could see only one eye through the narrow +slits. She could see Vanzetti’s whole face, because he was standing +at the door, and at that height there was a bend in the +bars, making an opening through which he could look.</p> + +<p>“Nonna,” he said, “it is more easy to die than to look out +through bars like a beast for seven years.”</p> + +<p>“Bart, I am going to fight for your good name the rest of +my time.”</p> + +<p>“Fight for the workers, Nonna; fight so they be free, that +other people do not live idle on their hard toil.”</p> + +<p>“I will surely do that,” she answered; “but most of all I +want to be able to tell people about this case. Tell me the truth, +Bart, now that it is the end.”</p> + +<p>Said Vanzetti: “I will speak like I would if it was God. +I am an innocent man, Nonna; I was never at the South Braintree +crime, I was never at the Bridgewater crime. I tell you +that in solemn words, for you to say to all the world, all the +time, forever. And Nick, he is innocent, he was never at South +Braintree like they said. This is the truth, as I hope for joostice, +I did never take a umane life, I did never anything that would +take umane life, and I work with all my soul for those day +when it will not be possible ever for one umane being to kill +any other, when all such wickedness and machines for killing +lives will be destroyed from the earth. It is because I know that +the class system and exploiting of labor is what make such +machines to be that I am anarchist. I am against all government, +because I know it is tool of exploiting classes, it is not to make +joostice in this world, but to make slaves, and to punish the +libertarians—as they prove this night upon the bodies of Nick +and me.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause. When Cornelia spoke again her voice +was grave, and her words came slowly, carefully. “Bart, I +mean to write what you tell me, so the world will know it. +May I say that with reflection and these many years of study, +you have changed your views about violence in the class +struggle?”</p> + +<p>Vanzetti’s answer also came slowly. “You may say I do not +wish vee-olence, Nonna. All my life I suffer torture when I +think of vee-olence committed upon one body or one soul. But +I read the history of all, and this I see, never have the slaves +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_723">[723]</span> +been free because the master was generous; always it is because +the slave made some struggle, he made fight for his right. +Is it not so?”</p> + +<p>“It has been so in the past. But may we not hope for some +better way? Think, Bart, before you answer that.”</p> + +<p>“I think always, Nonna, it is one thought that I have all +my life. I look at the great cruel capitalism—do I think that +will give way without fighting? Look this night—Mr. Thompson +has told me what he see outside. They make so many +thousands, millions—machine-guns, bullets, gas bombs, artilleries—every +day new inventions—you think they do not use +them? You wish me to say to the worker, ‘You need no fear, +you need no preparing for slaughter?’ Shall I say to the young +worker, ‘You do not need arming your souls for martyrdom, +like Sacco and Vanzetti; Sacco and Vanzetti will be the last +martyrs’—can I say that? No, Nonna, I have to say, it will be +thousand of martyrs, perhaps millions, it will be most bloody +slaughter, before the master class is thrown down, before the +workers own the tools and the riches without any master.”</p> + +<p>“So that is what I must tell, Bart?”</p> + +<p>“That is what all must tell, else I would be traitor, and not +good guide for workers; else they would say, ‘Vanzetti has lost +his nerve, they have broke him.’ Never will they say that, +for me or for Nick.”</p> + +<p>“Never!” cried Nick, with his mouth to the bars. “They say +we died anarchista.”</p> + +<p>“There may be some who wish to avenge your death, Bart, +and that would be a dreadful thing, nothing would set back the +cause so much. What shall I say about that?”</p> + +<p>“Say that I want no such thing, Nonna, we are not such a +man to be revenged; we are humble for our cause. What we +want is joostice for the worker, freedom for all men on this +earth, and we want every libertarian work for that, and not for +us, nor for vengeance, which is a wicked thing.”</p> + +<p>“May I say that you forgive your enemies, Bart?”</p> + +<p>There was a long silence. “Is it a thing that should be forgiven, +Nonna—what men has been doing to us?”</p> + +<p>“Men are ignorant, Bart—”</p> + +<p>“These men are not ignorant, Nonna! Do you think that +Judge Thayer is ignorant of what he did? When he call us foul +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_724">[724]</span> +name such as I not like to say before lady, is he ignorant?”</p> + +<p>“I think so, Bart; he is one of the most pitiable of human +creatures. Think if I were to put it to you, would you have +your body free, and be shut up in the narrow dungeon of +that man’s mind? Would you consent to be mean, to be a cheat, +and eaten up with hatred? When you realize what a blessing +has been yours in life, to have the vision, to know the future +as you do—can you not pity the poor wretch who lives in +darkness of the soul, and behaves like some cruel animal, not +a man?”</p> + +<p>There was a long silence. Cornelia looked at the face, with +its frame of steel bars; it was emaciated, deeply lined by suffering; +the dark-brown walrus mustaches drooped, and were +partly hidden by the bars. “Remember, Bart, what Comrade +Jesus said. He forgave the men who nailed him to the cross.”</p> + +<p>“Sure, Nonna, that I can do! Poor fellows in this prison, +who are workers too, they have maybe wife and children, how +can they stop the evil thing? Many man in this prison knows +what I believe, many do not like to take life for the big +capitalistas.”</p> + +<p>“But the big capitalistas, the men who give the orders, Bart? +The judge, the governor, the college president?”</p> + +<p>Again a long pause. “I will think about it, Nonna. I would +not tell you anything but truth, and it is not easy thing for +me to say what you want to hear.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_22"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>They talked about the fearsome yet fascinating question of +where Bart was to be in two or three hours. “I don’t know, +Nonna,” he said. “It is strange idea. If I wake up somewhere, +I be very much surprised. What you think?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot guess,” she said.</p> + +<p>“I think we go back where we come from. It is like a +bubble that go back to be water again. This face, this voice, +this what you call Vanzetti, I do not think it will be like that +anywhere.”</p> + +<p>There came a voice from between the next row of bars: +“That is all bunk!” (Sacco had not been in America for nineteen +years in vain.) “When you are dead, you are dead, you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_725">[725]</span> +no wake up. For us it come quick, I like quicker. It is what I +beg them long time ago.”</p> + +<p>Cornelia turned to the speaker. “Is there anything I can +do for you, Nick?”</p> + +<p>“Take care of wife and kids.”</p> + +<p>“You may be sure of that; they will not suffer want.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t worry for that,” said Nick, the free-spoken. “If +all I want was easy time for them, I would made it myself. +Teach the kids what we die for, make them some sense. That +is it.”</p> + +<p>A pause, and then from the far cell a timid voice: “Good-by, +lady.”</p> + +<p>“Good-by, Madeiros. Can I do anything to help you?”</p> + +<p>“I am not like these fellows,” he said. “I done what they +got me for, I deserved it. But they don’t, they are good men; +some day it will be known.” The voice was slow and drawling, +marred by only a slight accent. Cornelia did not see the +speaker, but she had met him before: a thin, undernourished +young fellow with a weak but amiable face and small dark +mustache. He was only twenty-one, and the doctors said he +was a half-wit; the job for which he was to die was the killing +of a bank-cashier in a robbery. He admitted it, and some other +crimes.</p> + +<p>Had he really been at South Braintree, or had he just +climbed onto the Sacco-Vanzetti band-wagon at the last moment, +with a faint hope of respite? Cornelia had never been +able to make up her mind about that. She had watched a curious +little drama going on—Madeiros looked up to Sacco and +Vanzetti, as to social superiors; they were great men, celebrities, +and he was proud to be associated with them. Sacco accepted +his homage, but Vanzetti was extremely reserved. The +young Portuguese never stopped insisting that both were innocent, +and that he was the only guilty man.</p> + +<p>Vanzetti spoke about Luigia, and what a joy it had been +to see her—but hard for her; such crowds, such excitement, +and a terrible end. He had tried to explain to his sister what +it was to die as a martyr, not the same as a criminal. She +ought to have been able to understand, because she believed in +Jesus; but Jesus to her was something far away and terrifying, +to be dealt with by the priests. A wicked thing, that ecclesiastical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_726">[726]</span> +system, which enslaved the minds of the poor, and made +the name of God something which libertarians could not speak.</p> + +<p>The prison authorities had been pleading with Sacco and +Vanzetti to let a priest or some kind of clergyman administer +to them. It seemed to the authorities dreadful to kill men and +have their souls go to hell! It was the first time the thing had +happened in eighteen years, so they said. But the three men +stood firm—Madeiros taking a chance with the others. They +would never surrender the integrity of their minds. “Giammai!” +cried Nick; and added: “That says, ‘Not on your life,’ Nonna.” +He was gay, being soon to get the freedom which he had +craved for so many years. Impossible to crush that spirit of +steel springs; and for the body, even though weakened by confinement +and fasting, they would need an extra voltage.</p> + + +<h3 id="X_22"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia wore a wrist-watch, and every now and then her +glance would be drawn towards it. The minute-hand seemed +to be stealing time from her, it would take jumps when she +was not watching. Vanzetti sat on his cot, and peering with +one eye through the bars, saw a tear stealing down the old +woman’s cheek. “Nonna,” he exclaimed, quickly, “I want you +do something for me.”</p> + +<p>“What is it, Bart?”</p> + +<p>“Something very great, a last thing—something hard.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me.”</p> + +<p>“I want you to not be sad.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Bart!”</p> + +<p>“It is easy to die. It is little thing—only for friends, for so +many women, grieving, weeping. It is—what you say, futile. +Is most futile thing in the whole world to have grief. Is it +not so?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Bart—but—”</p> + +<p>“Listen. I speak for all three. We are soldiers. It is our business +to die. What for do you weep? It is our job.”</p> + +<p>“I will try, Bart.”</p> + +<p>Vanzetti’s voice had taken on a note of sternness that Cornelia +had heard a few times, when in his imagination he was +going to battle with the capitalist class. “You remember, Nonna, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_727">[727]</span> +we publish book, our gruppo, ‘Faccia à Faccia col Nemico.’ All +right. It is what we are now. It is our dream, it is our life. +What for do we ask you to weep? Coraggio! Coraggio!” He +went back to his childhood language when he was deeply +moved; and his voice stiffened Cornelia’s bent spine.</p> + +<p>“Amica mia, you have been good soul to us. You have done +more than help, you have onderstood. Now onderstand once +again—is it too much?”</p> + +<p>“I will do my best.”</p> + +<p>“We choose this death. Long ago we know it, we see him +come. You be anarchista militante, you die. You die by hangman +of capitalist class. All right, we choose. Every man have +got to die, it is no great news, it happen each day. Poor workingmen, +rich capitalistas, all. But to live forever, that is not +so easy; to speak to all the world—how many time do it happen +to poor workingmen? To a couple of wops? Did ever you +hear such thing?”</p> + +<p>“No, Bart, you are right.”</p> + +<p>“Our life, it has been success; it is victory, like never we have +dream. Men stop, they say, ‘What is this anarchist? What is +this men believe, that they die so glad? What is this joostice? +Have I got it? Have I got freedom, or am I slave like they +tell me?’ He ask, and he begin to think—million men begin +to think—it is something your great Go-vérnor give us, something +he cannot take! Our crown, our victory! Is it not so?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, Bart!”</p> + +<p>“Viva l’anarchia!” came the voice of Nick.</p> + +<p>“Our bodies they kill, they make our souls immortal. Young +workers take up our cry—you see, Nonna, only wait, it grows +all over the world, the revolt of the worker, the message that +men be free, that they work for joostice, not for parasite. And +we have helped, we have done a part. Only one thing more +to do, is to die brave; to walk to the chair, smile, speak the +truth to the end. So, amica mia, help us; no sad thought, only +coraggio! Tell our friends it is joy, not grief, it is success, not +failure.”</p> + +<p>There is a contagion that spreads in human souls, and shakes +the thrones of emperors and kings. Cornelia’s hands were +clenched and her teeth set. “All right, Bart, I will do what you +say. I will be with you to the end, and afterwards.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_728">[728]</span></p> + +<p>The warden stood in the doorway; and Cornelia rose to her +feet, not waiting for him to help her. “All right, Mr. Hendry, +I am ready. I have had a worthwhile hour. May I shake hands +with my boys once more?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mrs. Thornwell.” He came to help her, but she did +not wait for him. She took Vanzetti’s hand in a firm, strong +grip. “Good-by, for the last time, Bart. You have taught me +more than any of the great persons I have met in my life. +I shall remember every word you said to me.”</p> + +<p>“Good-by, Nonna. I thank you. Thank you for the good +help.”</p> + +<p>“Good-by, Nick. You have been a brave fellow. You have +done your job.”</p> + +<p>“Good-by, Nonna. Good-by to wife and kids. Teach them +for me—what I believe.”</p> + +<p>Then Madeiros. He put out his hand, and Cornelia made +no difference between a hero and a criminal. “Good-by, my +son. I hope the next world treats you better than this one.”</p> + +<p>“Good-by, lady.” He was a timid bank robber, who found +this an incomprehensible world. Anarchists sought to overthrow +the rich, and then the rich came to shake their hands!</p> + +<p>Cornelia went to the door. The guard had risen, ready to +help her if need be; but she was doing her stunt. “Thank you, +Mr. Hendry, these three soldiers have given me back my +strength.” She turned, and called: “Good-by, dear friends! +Good luck to you—and to your cause!” To a chorus of good-by +shouts in English and Italian she walked through the death-chamber, +past the chair with the gaping arms and the dangling +leather straps; her little head held high, her steps firm and +proud. Through the prison yard she went, steady, amid the +beams of the drunken searchlights, staggering this way and +that; past the cell-blocks, with white faces looking out, eight +hundred and eighty-one human beasts, roaring now and then, +“Let them out!” Into the warden’s home, and through the +front door; through the group of policemen, and into the waiting +car with the anxious women.</p> + +<p>“Mother! Mother!” They started to make a fuss, after the +fashion of families. She sank back in the seat and whispered, +“Let me be quiet! I have been talking with God.”</p> + +<p>That happens also to families in Boston now and then. They +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_729">[729]</span> +thought, “It has been too much for her mind!” and were +frightened into silence. They could not realize how this strange +idea would haunt the minds of men all over the world in this +dreadful hour. John Haynes Holmes, a clergyman, formerly of +Boston, was writing at that moment a “Ballad of Charlestown +Gaol”:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>There’s a chair for you, Vanzetti,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>In a cold and empty room;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>A chair aloof and lonely,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Like a spectre in the gloom;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>A chair with open arms and wide,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>To welcome you to doom.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>They’ve made this chair, Vanzetti—</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Good men, and strong, and true—</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>To manifest the will of God</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>On poor men such as you;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>To show the Lord Christ lives again—</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>And dies, the Lord Christ, too!</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_730">[730]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"> + CHAPTER XXIV<br> +<span class='chap-title'>THE TRIUMPH</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Even at that late hour there were men and women who +could not make up their minds to let Sacco and Vanzetti die. +There were protestants who would not cease marching. In +Salem Street, in the North End of Boston, a thousand or more +Italians gathered, declaring their intention to march to the +Bunker Hill monument and hold a meeting during the execution. +Mike Crowley’s mounted men charged into the midst of +them, scattering them in every direction, crushing many. The +same thing happened in Thompson Square, and in the roped-off +area near the prison. Here seven men and women broke through +the police lines, singing the “International,” and lifting their +printed protests, in defiance of all that military might. “Hail, +Sacco and Vanzetti! The élite of the world salute you as +heroes!” One of the seven was a war veteran, and when the +police fell upon him, “Oh, boy,” they cried, “wait till we get +you in jail!” A traitor to the army system, they would teach +him a lesson he would remember! They beat three men, one of +them insensible, the others nearly so.</p> + +<p>Also there was another campaign before the Governor—at +half-past ten at night. William G. Thompson had come down +from his vacation in New Hampshire, and was making an appeal, +based on the Governor’s fixed prejudice concerning Vanzetti +at the Plymouth trial. Over and over again, for months, +Fuller had been talking about the fact that Vanzetti had not +taken the stand in his own behalf. That very morning he had +voiced dark rumors about Vahey and Graham, the lawyers who +had defended Vanzetti at Plymouth; if they were not bound +by the code which forbids lawyers to betray a client, they could +tell dreadful things about Vanzetti.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_731">[731]</span></p> + +<p>The substance of this proposition had been telephoned to +William G. Thompson, up in New Hampshire, and he had +motored to Boston, and gone to see Vanzetti early in the evening—a +long conference, the substance of which he later published +in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, He asked if Vanzetti would be +willing to permit Vahey to tell the truth about the case, and +his dealings with his clients. The answer was Vanzetti’s usual +charge, as to how his case had been conducted, which he was +certain had cost him his life. Now the lawyer came to see +Governor Fuller, bringing Vanzetti’s message, that he was willing +for Vahey to say anything he knew, provided that the +interview took place in the presence of Thompson, or some +other friend in whom Vanzetti had confidence. So now the +way was open to a “show-down,” and would the Governor +follow his own suggestion? Surely fair play required that!</p> + +<p>The answer of Fuller was to make no answer—a trick which +public personages have to learn. Silence! Out there on the other +side of the Charles River was a miniature army on duty, and +a prison staff about to put those wops out of the world, so that +Fuller and his class could “sleep better.” All traffic stopped over +main highways between the two cities; thousands of persons, +living near the prison, illegally shut up in their homes for the +night; a million dollars invested by Boston merchants and +manufacturers in riot and bomb insurance; the newspaper wires +run into the prison, the witnesses summoned, the traveling expenses +of the executioner incurred for the second time—and +all that trouble and expense to be brought to nought, while the +Governor carried on a debate with a bunch of “meddlesome +Matties” in secret sympathy with terrorists! In the formula +which had been current in the sporting world when “Allie” +Fuller was a bicycle-racer: “Not on your tin-type!”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_23"> + II +</h3> + +<p>At a quarter before midnight William G. Thompson came +out from the Governor’s chamber, and to the waiting reporters +expressed his solemn conviction that innocent men were about +to be executed. A strange event—a great lawyer breaking the +rule of his lifetime, defying Boston legal proprieties and “trying +the case in the newspapers!” He would give a long interview, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_732">[732]</span> +defending his clients, and telling the Vahey episode, and much +of what Vanzetti had said to him in prison.</p> + +<p>Meantime—even at that hour—one more protest! Francis +Fisher Kane, former U. S. Attorney for Pennsylvania, had been +waiting for two hours to see the Governor to make one last +appeal concerning the Department of Justice files. He persuaded +the doorman to take in his card, and the Governor granted five +minutes. Mr. Kane presented a fact which had just come to his +knowledge; President Lowell had stated to a friend that the +files were of no significance, and could not have affected the +decision of his Commission. Mr. Kane now strove to make +this matter clear to the Governor. The files would show that +the Department of Justice had been watching Sacco and +Vanzetti by means of “informers,” considering them as dangerous +anarchists. Mr. Kane himself knew exactly what that +meant, having been a Federal prosecutor, in charge of the +watching of certain anarchists; he had resigned his position, in +protest against the things he saw being done during the “Red +raids.” He could certify that Sacco and Vanzetti had had good +reason to be afraid for their lives on the night of their arrest; +and thus that famous “consciousness of guilt” theory of Judge +Thayer was knocked out. The arrested men had a kind of guilt +to be conscious of, entirely different from that of the South +Braintree crime!</p> + +<p>So the lawyer argued; and it was like water falling upon a +granite stone. For seven years the authorities of Massachusetts +had had these facts before them, and had resolutely shut their +eyes; the reason being that, in their secret hearts, they desired +the death of anarchists quite as ardently as the death of bandits.</p> + +<p>The telephone ringing; the group of New York lawyers who +had set out to try to reach Williamstown by motor-car, but +realized that it was too late. John Finerty on the wire, to beg +the Governor, in the name of common decency, to put off the +execution for just a couple of hours, until they could reach +Judge Anderson and see if he would act upon their appeal. +The Governor’s answer was that Mr. Finerty should communicate +with Attorney-General Reading, who was in charge +of legal matters that night. Mr. Finerty called Mr. Reading’s +office and learned that Mr. Reading had gone to the Governor’s +office about the matter. He called the Governor’s office and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_733">[733]</span> +learned that Mr. Reading had gone back to his own office. He +called Mr. Reading’s office and learned that Mr. Reading had +not arrived. Astonishing agility on the part of a high official, +in spite of his pockets being stuffed with the money of the +Decimo Club and the “L. A. W.” and other corporations which +feared trouble from the legal department of the great Commonwealth! +Mr. Finerty was not able to hear Mr. Reading’s +voice.</p> + +<p>The weary Governor rose from his desk, and put on his +hat. It had been a strain; his face was drawn with exhaustion—impossible +to conceal it now. “No statement, boys,” to the newspaper +men. His guards closed about him, and he went down to +his Packard car, under the Mt. Vernon Street arch of the State +House, closed all that day to traffic. The guards saluted, they +fell back and dropped the ropes; a police-car in front, another +in the rear, with riot-guns ready for instant action—the little +procession rolled out into the night, on its way to the summer +home in New Hampshire.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_23"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia, returned to her apartment, found Betty waiting. +So she sent off her daughters and son-in-law. “I am perfectly +all right now. That visit was what I needed. No use to keep +you up. Thanks for what you did, it made everything all right.” +She lay on the bed, and told Betty about her visit, and every +word that had been spoken. Betty told about the meeting she +had attended, and how the crowds were behaving. It was like +war time, tens of thousands of people in front of the bulletin +boards; and when some item of bad news came, you would +hear a moan, a sob of mass-agony. Apparently the public was +beginning to realize—at the last moment—too late!</p> + +<p>“I am going to be able to stand it, Betty. I have got to +stand it, for Bart’s sake.” Betty was glad to hear it; she was +prepared to carry her own burden, but no more. “Yes, yes, it’s +all right,” the old woman went on. “It is what Bart and Nick +wanted.” But even as she said it, there was a trembling at the +lips, and a look of terror in her eyes.</p> + +<p>An hour and more still to be passed. Betty began hastily +to tell the news. She had stopped at headquarters: she told +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_734">[734]</span> +who was there, but dodged away from describing the weeping +and anguish. Powers Hapgood had been missing for hours, and +word had just come that he was shut up in “Psychopathic”; +Joe Randall had hurried off to fetch Dr. Myerson, to get +Powers out. Creighton Hill had made a trip to Maine, with +two clergymen, to get another clergyman to make an affidavit +concerning Thayer’s prejudice. But Fuller wouldn’t pay any +attention to it, of course.</p> + +<p>Cornelia was only half hearing. “Betty, do you suppose the +Governor can be meaning to put it off again?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, Grannie. How can you tell, with that beast?” +Never if they lived a thousand years would the women of the +defense forgive him for the night of anguish he had caused +them, by withholding the reprieve until twenty minutes before +the time for the execution.</p> + +<p>Gossip wouldn’t do, Betty realized; she must tap the deeper +layers of the human soul. “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,” +so the evangelists tell us; now Betty Alvin, hard and +grim little realist, must become a prophet and a saint, like +Bart! She must point out that stone walls do not a prison +make, and how they that kill the body only glorify the soul. +She must make real to both her grandmother and herself what +this night’s events would mean to the future; a consecration to +the radical movement, a purifying of the faith of all of them, a +spiritual rebirth for Boston. “Oh, Betty, is it really so? Won’t +they forget all about it, and go back to their radios and their +jazz?”</p> + +<p>“Some will, Grannie; but some of us aren’t going to forget +this long fight.”</p> + +<p>“Seven years!” Cornelia whispered. “Seven years!”</p> + +<p>Betty answered that it had taken those years to make the +case; to get public attention centered on it, to get the great ones +of Boston to notice two wops. “Don’t you see what it’s for, +Grannie—to dramatize the class struggle! To make it so plain +that every child can see it! To make it into a formula, that +you can say in three words, and have everybody understand it—everywhere, +all over the world, for all future time! ‘Sacco +and Vanzetti!’ And right here in our great and prosperous +America, that is making so many automobiles and bathtubs and +books of etiquette! Right here in Boston, that is so moral! +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_735">[735]</span> +Don’t you see how important it is to have the capitalist class +electrocute its own lies?”</p> + +<p>“Betty! Betty! When will men stop killing?”</p> + +<p>“When we end exploitation, Grannie dear; and Bart and +Nick are doing the job! Don’t you see the glory of this case—it +kills off the liberals! Before this, it was possible to argue that +injustice was an accident, just an oversight—in a country that +was so busy making automobiles and bathtubs and books of +etiquette! But now here’s a test—we settle the question forever! +We take our very best—not merely cheap politicians, but +our great ones! Our biggest business man! Our most cultured +university president! Our supreme court judges—even the +liberal ones! We prove them all alike—they all know what flag +they fight under, who serves out their rations! They all take +their places in the ranks, with every button in position, and all +of them washed behind the ears! They all obey the great +capitalist drill-sergeant, and not a man deserts to the enemy—not +one single man!”</p> + +<p>A quarter to twelve. “Betty, if they were going to put it off, +they’d have had to say so by now.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, blessed dear, I’m afraid so.”</p> + +<p>“And somebody would have let us know!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, surely they would.”</p> + +<p>“They’ll let us know when it’s over?”</p> + +<p>“Joe promised he’d phone at once.” Then, in desperation: +“Grannie, did you hear about the necklace which Bart gave to +Mr. Thompson? He took the ten dollars you sent him, and +bought some things the prisoners had made, and gave Mr. +Thompson a necklace of beads for his wife, and Mr. Thompson +broke down and cried. They say he can’t talk about it without +crying. It’ll ruin him as a lawyer.”</p> + +<p>“Bart and Nick were right about it all along,” said Cornelia. +“They knew more about Boston than we did.”</p> + +<p>“That is something that touched Mr. Thompson. Nick had +insisted he’d never get anywhere with the courts, and to-day +Mr. Thompson thought that Nick would remind him of it. +But Nick didn’t say a word; he knew how much it would hurt.”</p> + +<p>Twelve o’clock. Cornelia, white-faced, her hands clasped +together, and her voice a faint whimper. “Betty, they must be +in the death-chamber now.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_736">[736]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, I suppose so. Remember what you promised Bart!”</p> + +<p>“I know, I know—but I wonder—how long does it take?”</p> + +<p>“Not very long, dear, they make it quick, they are as polite +as Fuller.”</p> + +<p>But somehow that wasn’t the right thing to say. Betty +caught the poor trembling hands, and began to whisper: +“Grannie, dear, don’t let yourself go! We all need our strength, +we have a whole world to change.”</p> + +<p>“All right, I won’t, I won’t! How long does—how long do +they keep the current on?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, two or three minutes. But the victims don’t +know it, so what’s the use thinking about such things!”</p> + +<p>“They must be doing it now! Oh, Betty—tell me something +to think about!”</p> + +<p>“They are brave men, Grannie. They have lived the life they +wanted to live, and they don’t want us crying over them. Think +of all the people who get killed—so many in needless ways—that +we can put a stop to when we have learned what Bart and +Nick have to teach us.” So Betty, rushing on, a little stump-speech—but +all in vain. She had to keep squeezing the poor +frail hands, and saying over and over again the simple elemental +idea, that Bart had forbidden Cornelia to grieve, and she had +promised not to. After all, Bart’s life was his own, and if he +chose to become one of the world’s great martyrs, who had a +right to object?</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_23"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Cornelia could be got to listen to that, to sit staring, like a +hypnotized rabbit. The trouble was that the clock on the +mantel-piece became hypnotized, too, and the hands refused +to move; all time stood still, there was no way to get it past. +The world hung suspended in a void of suffering—that very +hell which Father Murphy, the prison chaplain, had been telling +about, where pain endured forever.</p> + +<p>Some magic spell had been woven over the minds and souls +of tens of thousands, perhaps millions of persons, scattered +over every part of the earth; never had there been such a +phenomenon since the world began. They sat in rooms and +stared at each other, they stood in front of bulletin boards and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_737">[737]</span> +clenched their hands, or maybe bit their finger-nails; they went +walking blindly about the streets, not knowing where. In whatever +part of the world they might be—in Boston or Los +Angeles, Buenos Ayres or Paris or Tokio—they had figured +the time, and were saying the same words as Cornelia +Thornwell: “They must be doing it now! They must have them +in the chair! How long does the current take?” And one and +all they noticed that extraordinary phenomenon—time stood +still, minutes refused to pass as they normally should.</p> + +<p>The telephone ringing; Betty had to let go of her grandmother’s +hands to take the receiver. Cornelia watched her face, +reading the fates there. No need to hear a word; Cornelia knew +it was Joe, and he was saying, “It’s all over.” “Yes, sweetheart,” +said Betty, in a voice as even as if she were accepting +an invitation for lunch. “Yes, we’re all right. Grannie went +over and had a talk with them both, and she’s feeling stronger. +But you’d better come home right away—yes, dear, we might +need you. Please do.” She hung up quickly, so that Joe might +not hear the dreadful burst of anguish from the poor old +woman on the bed.</p> + +<p>Betty dug under the wasted body, and got hold of the +hands, and made the agonized soul sit up and look at her. +“Grannie, listen to me now! You don’t realize—it’s all over! +Stop and think what that means—Bart and Nick can’t suffer +any more! Nobody can punish them, nobody can torture them—ever +again! They aren’t in jail! They are free!”</p> + +<p>So on and on, until the idea did actually penetrate Cornelia’s +mind. The sobbing ceased, and she sat staring ahead of her, as +if at an apparition in the room. “It is really so! They can’t do +any more to them!”</p> + +<p>“Grannie, blessed dear, it is what Nick has been saying all +along, and we never had sense enough to realize it! Their job +is done, and they are all right!”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_23"> + V +</h3> + +<p>At ten o’clock the chief electrician and his assistant had +tested the death chair and pronounced everything in order. +Then came the executioner, to make his inspection. Elliot was +this gentleman’s name; he preferred a retired life, on account +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_738">[738]</span> +of anarchist bombs, but the clamor of newspapers had brought +him into the limelight; they published his picture, and a list of +the human beings he had killed. The “false execution” of +twelve days ago had compelled him to make a journey for +nothing; very annoying, and he was hoping that now there +would be no hitch, he would get his seven hundred and fifty +dollars.</p> + +<p>Father Murphy came to the death cells, to make his last +offer of eternal life. Absolutely without charge, and merely +by a few passes of the hands and the speaking of a few words, +he was willing to deliver these three men from the otherwise +certain fate of perpetual roasting upon a brimstone and sulphur +fire. Nearly three hundred years ago the philosopher Pascal +had presented an unanswerable argument on the subject: the +procedure would do you great good if it were valid, and no +harm if it were not valid. But Vanzetti answered that it would +do harm to those whom he left on earth, to be more tightly +riveted in the chains of superstition. So, a few minutes before +midnight, Father Murphy went to the officers’ club of the +prison and remarked to the newspapermen, “There seems to +be nothing for me to do, so I am going home.”</p> + +<p>That clubroom was like the “pit” in the stock exchange, with +more than a hundred reporters scrambling for every scrap of +news. Many telephones were installed, and eighteen telegraphers +sat at eighteen machines, to feed the curiosity of a ravenous +world. The service included direct cable connections with all +the other five continents. The representative of the Associated +Press had been honored by an invitation to witness the execution, +and was pledged to furnish the details to his colleagues.</p> + +<p>There were, according to law, a number of official witnesses, +whose duty it was to certify to the Governor that his orders +had been carried out. They were in readiness, and the warden +now led them to the death-house. Chairs were lined against the +wall of the execution chamber, facing the electric chair, and +the worthies took their seats. The big warden, with plump +round face and little black mustache and narrow slits for eyes; +a well-known Boston surgeon; the physician of the prison; +the surgeon general of the national guard, who looked like a +college professor; the medical examiner of Suffolk County, +who looked like a romantic poet with tousled hair; the sheriff +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_739">[739]</span> +of Norfolk County, a bald-headed, stern-faced old Puritan, +who had had Sacco in charge for seven years, and Vanzetti off +and on, at great expense to his office—he was one of those who +had expressed their sentiment by piling up the desk of Judge +Thayer with flowers, on the day that learned jurist delivered +his charge to the Dedham jury, and explained the nobility of +loyalty.</p> + +<p>There was a telephone against the wall of the execution +chamber, and the representative of the Associated Press took +his stand by it; the wire ran to the warden’s office, and from +there a telegraph operator would relay every word to the +crowd of reporters. In this way they would learn when each +man entered the death chamber, when the current was turned +on, and when the death was officially announced. Later the +“A.P. man” would go over to the officers’ club and give the +details.</p> + +<p>The executioner stood behind a screen in one corner, to the +left of the death chair; he could look over the screen, and see +when it was time for him to earn his money. Two guards stood +by the door leading to the cell corridor, and when the warden +signaled that all was ready, they stepped back to the first cell, and +unlocked the door. Madeiros lay asleep—not setting much +value upon his last moments. The guards awakened him, stood +him on his feet, and led him, half dazed, into the execution +chamber, closing the door behind them, out of kindness for the +occupants of the other two cells.</p> + +<p>The victim had on short gray trousers, with a slit cut up +each leg, and a blue shirt with short sleeves, made especially +for the occasion. He was seated in the chair, and as quickly +as possible the deputy warden and a guard buckled the straps +which would hold his hands and feet immovable. The electrodes, +from which the current was to enter the body, were fastened, +one to each leg, and a third, the headpiece, covering the entire +top of the head; they contained wet sponges, to afford perfect +transmission.</p> + +<p>They tied a bandage over the victim’s eyes, and then stepped +back; all was ready. It was the warden’s part to signal with his +hand to the executioner, who would then move a switch. Since +this did the actual killing, the theory was that the executioner +alone was responsible, and for carrying this heavy responsibility +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_740">[740]</span> +the Commonwealth paid him the sum of two hundred +and fifty dollars for each of three motions of the hand—plus +traveling expenses from his retreat in New York.</p> + +<p>He made the first motion, and there was a whir of the +current, and the body of Madeiros gave a sudden leap, which +would have jerked it from the chair if it had not been that the +straps were heavy. Human flesh became of the rigidity of steel, +and stayed that way for several minutes, with a current of +nineteen hundred volts passing through it. A ghastly odor of +burning hair spread through the death chamber.</p> + +<p>The current was turned off, the body sank back limp into +the chair, and the warden signed to the medical examiners, +who stepped forward with their stethoscopes. At nine minutes +and thirty-five seconds past midnight they pronounced the +Wrentham bank robber dead, and the body was lifted from +the chair and carried to one of three newly painted slabs hidden +behind a screen in the death chamber. Nothing could exceed +the sense of propriety of the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, +or the decency with which it prepared for the elimination +of its enemies.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_23"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>The door leading to the cells was opened again, and the two +guards went in to the second cell. Nicola Sacco was not asleep, +but waiting, to do his last duty as a revolutionist. He walked +out between the guards; he entered the execution chamber, +and looked about him at the row of solemn witnesses, the +deputies, the chair, and the screen with the face peering over +it. His own face was white and haggard, his lips set, his whole +expression that of defiance. He walked directly to the chair +and sat down; then, as the guards began to adjust the straps, +he lifted himself slightly, raised his voice, and said, in what +came as a shout in that still brick-walled chamber of death: +“Viva l’anarchia!”</p> + +<p>(“You see!” said all Massachusetts, when they read about +it with their morning coffee and codfish balls. “We told you +so! We knew it all along!”)</p> + +<p>The guards paid no attention to any words. They went on +with swift fingers, as if they feared that some one might come +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_741">[741]</span> +to stop them at the last moment. When they were through, and +stepped back, Sacco opened his lips again, and the warden +withheld the signal. “Farewell, my wife and children and all +my friends!” Then, as the warden was in the act of lifting his +hand: “Good evening, gentlemen. Farewell, Mother.”</p> + +<p>The cue was given, and the executioner moved the switch, +and the body leaped so that it was like a blow against the +straps. Twenty-one hundred volts was the executioner’s estimate +of what it would take to rid Massachusetts of this wiry +peasant; the amperage was from seven to nine, and it was +nineteen minutes and two seconds after midnight when the +medical examiners pronounced the duty done. The body of +Nicola Sacco was lifted from the chair, and carried behind +the screen and laid upon the second slab.</p> + +<p>Then for the third and last time the door into the cell +corridor was opened, and the guards entered. Bartolomeo +Vanzetti had sat upon his cot alone, knowing what was happening +in the adjoining chamber, but it had not shaken his nerve; +he had had seven years in which to work out his system of +self-discipline. “This is our career and our triumph.” He rose +from his cot, and walked with firm steps, the guards holding +him, one by each arm. When they entered the execution chamber, +the guards released him, and he looked at them—men +whom he had known for a long time, and whom he had taught +to respect him, no longer to call him a wop. They were poor +fellows, who maybe had wives and children to keep, and could +not help what they were doing; so he turned to them first, +as became a proletarian martyr. “Good-by,” he said to each, +and held out his hand to each in turn, and shook their hands +firmly.</p> + +<p>Then he turned to Deputy Warden Hogsett, and took both +his hands and wrung them. “Good-by, I thank you for your +courtesy to me.” And then to the warden, a big towering figure. +Vanzetti was quiet and at ease, as if he were welcoming visitors +to his home. “Warden, I want to thank you for all that you +have done for me.” He held out his hand, and the warden +took it.</p> + +<p>(“Jesus!” he said, to one of the reporters afterwards. “He +shook my hand, and then I had to raise it to give the signal!”)</p> + +<p>Vanzetti walked to the chair and sat down. Then he spoke—words +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_742">[742]</span> +which he had made the subject of much thought. “I wish +to tell you that I am innocent and never committed any crime, +but sometimes some sin. I thank you for everything you have +done for me. I am innocent of all crime, not only of this one, +but of all. I am an innocent man.”</p> + +<p>The guards, well trained, went on with their work, paying +no attention to eloquence. The electrodes were adjusted, the +straps made fast. As a guard started to apply the bandage to +Vanzetti’s eyes, he spoke again; it was the question which +Cornelia had asked him, and to which he had promised an +answer. He gave it with all the world for an audience. “I wish +to forgive some people for what they are now doing to me.”</p> + +<p>The guards stepped back, and the warden gave the signal; +the executioner moved the switch, and the body of Bartolomeo +Vanzetti leaped as the others had done. Nineteen hundred and +fifty volts were estimated to be sufficient for this less robust +person, a dreamer and a man of words rather than of action. +Many, many words he had both spoken and written, but now +no more. The current was turned off, and the medical men +made their examination, and at twenty-six minutes and fifty-five +seconds past midnight they pronounced that the last spark +of anarchism had been extinguished from the august Commonwealth +of Massachusetts. The warden had a solemn formula +to recite, but his voice almost failed him, and not all the +witnesses heard the words: “Under the law I now pronounce +you dead, the sentence of the court having been legally carried +out.”</p> + +<p>The third body was laid on the slab, and the doors of the +execution chamber were opened—it had grown very hot, with +the many volts of electricity and the tense emotions of martyrs. +Also, the odor of burned hair made one ill; the night breeze +was very welcome. The guards and witnesses went outside, +and wiped the sweat from their foreheads, and from the backs +of their wilted collars. “Christ!” said the deputy warden. “Did +you hear what he said? He forgave me! Now what do you +make of that?”</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_23"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>The representative of the Associated Press hastened to the +officers’ club. Not often does one man carry a message to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_743">[743]</span> +whole world. He entered the room with the hundred ravening +reporters, and had to mount a chair so that all might have an +equal chance to hear. “No features,” he said. “Entirely colorless.” +The proper professional air; if his “assignment” had +been Mount Calvary, he would have said the same. If Jesus +had raised a row at the last moment—if he had tried to escape, +and had knocked down the captain of the centurions—that +would have been “hot news.” Or if he had cursed God, instead +of merely asking why God had forsaken him. Obvious enough +that God would not pay any attention to the leader of a Jewish +rabble, a common workingman, born in a stable in the flea-infested +village of Bethlehem!</p> + +<p>So likewise this death of Sacco and Vanzetti—“no features.” +No, they hadn’t confessed—except that Sacco had confessed +to being an anarchist. He had cried: “Viva l’anarchia!” (“How +the hell do you spell it? Has it got a ‘k’?”). No one had collapsed, +or made what you would call a scene. Sacco’s complexion +had been white, you might almost say green. (“The way +Mary Splaine described him—I remember at the Dedham +trial.”) Vanzetti had shaken hands with everybody, very politely. +(“Anarchist propaganda! A grandstand play!”) He had +said—the bored correspondent consulted his bunch of papers, +on which he had jotted down a few words—he said that he +forgave everybody—no, it was “some people.” (“The little +infant Jesus! Ain’t they lambs, these Reds?”)</p> + +<p>The room was gray with tobacco smoke, an inferno of +heat—the windows having been boarded up, for fear somebody +might “throw something in.” The clamor was deafening—the +clicking of eighteen telegraph keys, and the voices of men +shouting over the telephones, each trying to hear himself above +the uproar—that competition which is the life of capitalism. +Men standing against the wall scribbling, or writing on their +knees, each hoping to file his words the first. The three big +press associations would take care of the main outlines of +the news for all the papers of the country; they had already +sent three “flashes” on each execution; now they would follow +with details. But a hundred papers had sent special correspondents, +and these pleaded for “human interest stuff,” +hounding those who had witnessed the events.</p> + +<p>The warden had gone to his office; he was gray, and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_744">[744]</span> +perspiration could not be kept from his forehead, nor the +trembling from his whole body. He invited his deputy to have +a drink with him, and opened his cupboard for the purpose; +but there entered Mike Crowley with the police commissioner, +a blue-blood, appointed by the Governor. The warden didn’t +think it quite right for that high-up personage to see him +indulging his appetite at this moment, so he hastily shut +the cupboard door again. He had to sit down in a chair. The +deputy kept saying: “He shook both my hands! And he forgave +me! I never saw such a thing! I couldn’t conceive of it!”</p> + +<p>The news was spread by a thousand telegraph wires, and +in a hundred cities great crowds learned it from the bulletin +boards of newspapers; for the most part in silence, but sometimes +with groans and sobs. The Boston <i>Evening Transcript</i> +had kept its broadcasting station open—radio WBET—entertaining +the listeners with music and miscellaneous news all evening. +The comfortable population of New England sat in their +easy chairs and absorbed the easy entertainment: the WBET +Troupers in “Not Quite Such a Goose,” a comedy in one act; +Boots and His Nighthawks, dance music; the Klassay Boys; +the Handy Instrumental Trio; Doc Wassermann’s Orchestra; +and the Correct Time.</p> + +<p>In the news that day all kinds of thrills: Ed Farrell’s hitting +had been a large factor as the Braves won three straight from +the Cubs; two school boys were leading the field in the first +half of the qualifying round for the amateur golf title; a girl +tennis queen had won an impressive victory in New York, +and the French Davis cup team had arrived in Boston. More +serious items: St. Mark’s Church had benefited by the will of +a millionaire manufacturer of extracts; eight hundred Catholic +teachers from a hundred and thirty-five parochial schools were +in convention; the city council had voted three hundred thousand +dollars for a golf links; the wife of a moving picture +favorite had obtained a divorce from her husband, after charging +him eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars for his freedom. +The flappers of Boston listened, and reflected: “If I could +get to marry somebody like that, I could live on the alimony +the rest of my life.” Radio central station WBET, the Boston +<i>Evening Transcript</i>: “The juice was turned off, and Vanzetti +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_745">[745]</span> +was officially pronounced dead at twelve, twenty-six, fifty-five. +The orchestra will now play, ‘The End of a Perfect Day.’”</p> + + +<h3 id="VIII_23"> + VIII +</h3> + +<p>In every great capital of the world there were mass meetings +and protests that night. In London a mob marched upon +Buckingham Palace, and had to be ridden down by mounted +men—quite as if it were Boston Common. In Berlin there +were a score of meetings, ending with parades. In Geneva the +demonstrants raided the American embassy, and when clubbed +away, broke the windows of the League of Nations Palace. +Even in far-off Tokio the American ambassador had to receive +a deputation of labor leaders, and explain that he had no control +over executions in Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>In Paris there had been a general strike, and on the night +of the execution there were street demonstrations, with mobs +shouting curses at Americans whenever they met them—which +was frequently. An American playwright and his wife asked +for police protection, and when the official learned that they +knew German, he advised them to speak it for a while. An +odd freak of history—only ten years since the battle of the +Argonne, and here was a man who had taken part in it, being +told to speak the language of the Boche!</p> + +<p>It was dawn when the workers of Europe got the news, and +they went to their tasks with hearts blazing. To them it was +a personal matter, for they had friends in America, and knew +the attitude of native New England to its foreign workers. +There were guards before all American embassies and consulates, +and few escaped without broken windows. In London +forty persons were injured in the rioting; in Australia eighteen +hundred were discharged for taking part in a strike; in South +Africa the American flag was burned on the steps of the town +hall of Johannesburg.</p> + +<p>On the evening of the 23rd in Paris huge masses of workers +were driven about the streets by the police. They would scatter, +and then reassemble, wherever Americans were to be met. +They raided the cabarets of Montmartre, and showered the +patrons with broken glass. The “Moulin Rouge,” shrine of +tourist culture, was demolished, and when the panic-stricken +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_746">[746]</span> +patrons got outside, they found their automobiles overturned +and the tires cut. Unkind and inexplicable it seemed to amiable +globe-trotters, who had sent over their boys and won the war +for the French, and now, finding that the French could not +pay their debts, were permitting them to work it off by entertaining +several hundred thousand bond-holders every summer. +Large round gentlemen in golf-pants, with horn-rimmed +glasses and rosy cheeks, ate the best food in the country, and +drank the best wines, and had the best dress-makers to decorate +their bouncing jolly wives, or the lean tall ones who took +culture seriously. They rode about in rows on large motorbuses, +with guide-books in hand, admiring indiscriminately; +they scattered money to right and left, paying double prices, +determined to have the best of everything in the world.</p> + +<p>The wage-slaves of French factories, half starved for generations, +read in their socialist and communist papers of the +death of Sacco and Vanzetti; and in the same issue they read +how the wife of an American millionaire was introducing a new +fashion in carved emeralds from India, of which jewelers in +the rue de la Paix had a few rare specimens. The Chicago +harvesting-machine queen had paid approximately eighteen million +francs—the life-time earnings of several hundred French +workingmen—for a necklace containing eighty-nine such jewels, +minutely carved in relief to represent events in Hindu history. +She had been the sensation at Biarritz when she appeared +on Baron Fascini’s yacht, wearing this necklace as the +sole ornament on her newest Oxford bags pajamas suit of +natural colored pongee, and a royal blue jacket with gold buttons. +Such munificence made prosperity for all Paris, and +kept many thousands of workers alive; yet they refused to +love their benefactors, but called them dirty names, and threw +stones through the windows of the cafés which exhibited the +depravities of Paris to the Puritan trade.</p> + +<p>The wisest of Frenchmen had written a letter to Governor +Fuller. “I say to you, beware of making martyrs. This is the +unforgivable crime that nothing can wipe out and that weighs +on generation after generation.” But alas, the name of Anatole +France meant nothing to a salesman of motor-cars who read +the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i>; that letter had doubtless been +burned in the furnaces, along with all the others. And now +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_747">[747]</span> +Massachusetts had made her martyrs, and stood upon her +pedestal of self-righteousness. The more the world hated her, +the more proud she would be, to be right while everybody else +was wrong. “Massachusetts, there she is!” said Daniel Webster, +darling of the “golden mob.” “Behold her and judge for yourselves. +There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The +past at least is secure.” So the golden ones would continue to +orate, while the names of her two martyrs swelled to a battle-cry +of the disinherited of the earth. Until that day when the +workers of Europe began to take Joe Randall’s advice and +repudiate the debts!</p> + + +<h3 id="IX_23"> + IX +</h3> + +<p>The corpses were in a mortuary, still held by the authorities. +Then, horror of horrors, the friends of the defense learned +that the bodies were being mutilated, the hearts and brains of +both men were to be turned over to a medical school—of all +places, Harvard University! It was a custom with the bodies +of executed men, not a special indignity planned for these +two—so the newspapers explained. Did the authorities have a +right to do it? Or did they just do it? Nobody seemed to +know. To the friends of the two martyrs it was the final insult—they +could not have been more outraged if they had seen +the august president of Harvard thumbing his nose at them.</p> + +<p>“What do they want with their hearts and brains?” cried +Cornelia; and Betty, the ferocious, explained matters. Harvard +had so many millions upon millions of endowments, and had +not succeeded in producing a great man for at least a generation. +So many hundreds of professors, of every kind of subject +on earth, and they couldn’t teach anything worth while! +Now they wanted the hearts and brains of two wops, to see +if they could find out the secret of greatness. If they studied +Nick’s heart, they might learn about courage; from Bart’s +they might find a clew to social idealism, and the chemical +constituents of faith. This fancy gave great joy to Betty, who +went on to picture the medicos peering through microscopes, +and making analyses in test-tubes, to find out the ways of +genius. Mr. Lowell studying blood-counts, to learn how to put +a little human interest into a speech or an essay! The heads +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_748">[748]</span> +of the English department making drawings of the cells in +Vanzetti’s cortex, to find out how a wop had become a great +master of English prose!</p> + +<p>The mutilated bodies were turned over to the relatives at +last. Thousands of persons wanted to view them, and pay their +last tribute; but the proprietors of the building in which the +defense had two dingy rooms refused to permit it to happen +there; to make sure, they nailed a joist up and down through +the middle of the entrance to their building, which they figured +would keep out coffins! So arrangements were made with an +Italian undertaker on Hanover Street; and the moment it was +known that the bodies were there, ten thousand persons gathered, +and the police had to rope off the entire block, and let +in only a few at a time.</p> + +<p>Also they had to start clubbing and jailing again. For Mary +Donovan came with another placard, containing those words +which three or four weeks ago she had nailed to one of the +elm trees of the Common: “Did you see what I did to those +anarchistic ——? Judge Thayer.” She set that placard in front +of the two coffins, while the newspaper photographers prepared +to take pictures of it. And of course the police wouldn’t +permit that; had they not abolished free speech in Boston in +order to prevent those words from being put before the public? +A policeman grabbed Mary’s placard, and she, being +Irish like himself, was not above fighting for her own. Other +“cops” came running, and dragged Mary off to jail; and then +of course they had to club the crowds, to keep them from +crying “Shame!”</p> + +<p>The friends of the defense desired to have a parade to the +crematory where the bodies were to be burned. Many persons +desired to go, and why should they not walk? So began negotiations +with officials of this city of terror, for the right to +walk eight miles to a crematory. The first stipulation was that +the walkers must go by the most direct route, which would +take them through obscure streets for the most part, and past +no precious public buildings. The second stipulation was that +the caskets must be carried in a hearse, and not upon the shoulders +of men. The third was that no signs or banners should be +borne. No word about “anarchistic ——”!</p> + +<p>“Back to Normalcy,” said the Boston <i>Herald</i>; and put all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_749">[749]</span> +this news on an inside page. The <i>Post</i> discussed such topics as +“The Sunless Summer” and “Vegetarians and Shoes.” The +chiefs of the moving picture industry, whose orgy with drunken +prostitutes had filled the Boston newspapers while Sacco and +Vanzetti were on trial, now held their meeting in New York +and passed a resolution that the case was to be barred from the +screen forever, and that all films of it should be destroyed. +Said Betty, the ferocious: “The great American whore covers +us with her skirts!”</p> + +<p>Said Cornelia: “They must have found out what Bart thought +of them! Do you remember, Betty, what he wrote in ‘Events +and Victims’?” She looked up the manuscript, and found +the passage in which Vanzetti had described the entertainment +which American capitalism was supplying for its wage-slaves. +“That ought to be published!” exclaimed Betty, and Joe made +a copy of it; but alas, there was no paper in Boston which +could be lured into printing such blasphemous words!</p> + + +<h3 id="X_23"> + X +</h3> + +<p>Sunday the day of the funeral. The crowds in Hanover +Street made all movement difficult; they were so great that +people were pushed through plate glass windows, and when +these crashed there was a panic, because the crowd thought +the police had started shooting. In the roped off area were two +hearses and several limousines; oh, crowning insult—they were +Packard cars! The supersalesman, now enjoying his hard-earned +vacation, was making money as usual! In one car, +with curtains drawn, rode the widow and children of Sacco +and the sister of Vanzetti, both women in a state of collapse. +It was an Italian funeral, with great floral wreaths borne by +mourners, and the undertaker marching in a Prince Albert +coat and top hat, in spite of a drizzling rain. State police—the +“Cossacks”—rode ahead and alongside the hearses, to see +that the procession followed the prescribed route. In the rear +followed several open cars full of flowers, and several with +mourners, among them Cornelia Thornwell.</p> + +<p>The authorities had given the necessary permit, and had not +limited the number of persons who might march in the procession; +but they dared not let it be too big, for the sake of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_750">[750]</span> +the moral effect. So the entire march was a series of battles +between those who were determined to march, and the police +who were trying to break them up and shunt them off into +side streets, even if some had to be killed in the process. The +members of the committee and friends of the defense had provided +themselves with red arm-bands, reading: “Remember +Justice Crucified. August 22, 1927,” and the wearers of these +arm-bands were singled out for the fiercest attacks.</p> + +<p>The procession moved down Hanover Street, and fifty thousand +people fell in behind after it had passed. So when they +came into Scollay Square, mounted policemen rode into the +middle of the throng, and tried to form a line across the street, +barring the bulk of the procession. The crowds dodged this +way and that, to get by; the policemen began to wield their +clubs, galloping their horses, and trampling men and women +beneath the iron-shod hoofs. But a frenzy possessed the mourners; +it was their last chance to express their loathing of the +crime that had been committed, and of the criminals who +had done it, and thousands were ready to die rather than be +cut out from the parade. They broke through again and again, +and screaming and cursing people were knocked down, or +jammed through the windows of stores; the younger and more +fleet-footed went racing around the block, so as to catch the +procession farther on.</p> + +<p>The hearses continued down Tremont Street, and came to +Park Street, the corner of the Common, where the State House +with the golden dome may be seen upon the hill. To march up +Beacon Street and past that State House had been a fond +dream of the friends of Sacco and Vanzetti. To keep them from +realizing it, the police had not merely made a solid blockade +of trucks across Park Street, but had a gang of laborers come +and take up the paving blocks from sections of the street. The +laborers stood watching the show, until the hearses and the +crowd had passed; then they replaced the paving!</p> + +<p>The procession moved along Tremont Street; on one side +the Common, on the other the fashionable shops. A solid mass +of people all the way, filling the sidewalks; the newspapers +estimated that two hundred thousand saw the hearses go by. +The marchers would have taken all day, if the police had let +them alone. But at Charles Street they had another device; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_751">[751]</span> +line after line of empty taxi-cabs drawn up, waiting for the +hearses and the little group of mourners to pass; then the +taxis broke out into the throng. It was against the law to +break into a funeral, but there was no law in Boston except +the will of the police. Who was paying the taxi-cabs for the +service was not known. Their efforts were futile, for the people +kept breaking through at risk of their lives.</p> + +<p>No order was possible to the marchers; they just walked +as they could; the crowds fell in behind, mostly with bared +heads, in spite of the heavy rain that had begun to fall. Betty +and Joe, Mary Donovan, Powers Hapgood, Alfred Baker Lewis—all +the leaders were there. They were spreading flowers on +the street—but that was against a city ordinance, said Mike +Crowley, who rode with the procession, greatly astonished to +see how many men and women were willing to get soaked +for the sake of two anarchist wops.</p> + +<p>Out through the South End; the friends of the defense now +forming lines with linked arms for protection against the police. +By the time they came to Roxbury Crossing, they had a military +formation, and were able to keep the traffic from breaking +them up, in spite of all efforts. The traffic police would signal +for traffic to break into the procession, and cars would force +their way a few feet amid cat-calls and screams; then they +would give up, and Sacco and Vanzetti would have their way +for the first time in Boston. One policeman forced a seven-ton +truck into the crowd; the truck driver was attacked with umbrellas, +and when the policeman tried to draw his club, he was +swept aside.</p> + +<p>It was in that part of Boston called Jamaica Plain that the +orders came to break up the parade at all hazards. A small +army of patrolmen charged into the crowd, wielding their clubs +right and left. One patrolman made his attack in an automobile—darting +this way and that, running people down, a new +sport. Others climbed into the cars of the sympathizers, and +clubbed the drivers, and drove the cars out of the line. Even +the hard-boiled newspaper reporters were astonished by the +sights they saw in that battle, and were permitted by their +city editors to write a few plain sentences telling the incidents:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“One officer was to be seen beating a woman in the face with +his fist. A girl was standing near the coal company office, her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_752">[752]</span> +face buried in her hands with a split chin.... A policeman +stuck his pistol at the window of a taxi-cab, then turned suddenly, +went to another car, dragged a man out to kick him +toward Boston. Persons who were riding on running boards of +autos and taxi-cabs were dragged off and beaten or booted in +the direction of Boston. By this time the main body was in +flight toward Boston, pursued by a line of policemen who still +used their clubs. Women were given no mercy in the panic.... While +one man was being beaten by a sergeant with an +umbrella, his hat was knocked off and, stooping to pick it +up, he was booted by a patrolman. He went down and the +patrolman kicked the hat high in the air.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was the process known as “Americanization.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XI_22"> + XI +</h3> + +<p>Ten thousand persons were crowded about the Forest Hills +cemetery, with hundreds of policemen to keep them from getting +inside. The hearses were passed in, and the cars with the +reporters and photographers, and a little group of mourners; +the rest of those who had marched eight miles to attend the +ceremony had to stand about outside—unless they were lively +enough to climb the hedge and the iron picket fence. Inside the +little chapel a hundred persons were gathered, and the two +coffins were set upon a dais, covered with flowers, and Mary +Donovan took her place beside them, white and trembling. For +two years she had made the cause of Sacco and Vanzetti her +life; she had given up her religion, her friends, her job; and +now it was her opportunity to speak the last words which the +defense had to say to the rulers of Boston.</p> + +<p>She lifted her voice; and then—a miracle, such as happens +when martyrs are made in this world! It was discovered that +the heart and brain of Vanzetti, supposed to be in the possession +of the medicos of Harvard, so that they might probe +into the secrets of how to be noble and how to be eloquent and +how to be a master of English prose—that heart and brain +had escaped from under their scalpels, and were here in the body +of a frail Irish girl, a reformed Catholic, speaking words which +would be woven into the texture of the new religion of humanity, +and learned by school children under the new dispensation. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_753">[753]</span> +Said Mary Donovan, addressing Boston’s martyrs:</p> + +<p>“Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. You came to +America seeking freedom. In the strong idealism of youth you +came as workers searching for that liberty and equality of opportunity +heralded as the particular gift of this country to +all newcomers. You centered your labors in Massachusetts, +the very birthplace of American ideals. And now Massachusetts +and America have killed you—murdered you because you were +anarchists.</p> + +<p>“Two hundred and thirty-five years ago the ruling people of +this State hanged women in Salem charging them with witchcraft. +The shame of those old acts of barbarism can never be +wiped out. But they are as nothing beside this murder which +modern Massachusetts has committed upon you. The witch-hangers +were motivated by the superstitious fear of an emotional +religion. Their minds were blinded by their selfish passion +to reach heaven.</p> + +<p>“The minds of those who have killed you were not blinded. +They have committed the act in deliberate cold blood. For more +than seven years they had every chance to know the truth about +you. Not once did they even dare mention the quality of your +characters—a quality so noble and shining that millions have +come to be guided by it. They refused to look. They allowed +the bitter prejudice of class, position and self-interest to close +their eyes. They cared more for wealth, comfort and institutions +than they did for truth. You, Sacco and Vanzetti, are +the victims of the crassest plutocracy the world has known since +ancient Rome.</p> + +<p>“Your long years of torture and your last hours of supreme +agony are the living banner under which we and our descendants +for generations to come will march to accomplish that +better world based on the brotherhood for which you died.</p> + +<p>“In your martyrdom we will fight on and conquer.</p> + +<p>“Remember Justice Crucified. August 22. Remember.”</p> + + +<h3 id="XII_20"> + XII +</h3> + +<p>Those who had strong nerves were privileged to go back into +the crematory, and look through a glass plate into the “retorts,” +and see the two bodies being resolved into their original elements—dust +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_754">[754]</span> +unto dust, ashes unto ashes. Those who could not +stand the ordeal by fire, went out to face an ordeal by water; +a downpour of rain such as Boston had rarely seen, almost a +cloudburst. A more superstitious age would have said that the +heavenly powers desired to wash the city clean, the blood from +its streets and the blot from its name. One of those natural +portents, like the rending of the veil in the temple, which +accompany the making of martyrs!</p> + +<p>Yes, Boston had rejected the advice of the shrewd old +Frenchman, and made two martyrs. Mystic beings, with supernatural +virtues, destined to become a legend; to expand like +the genii released from the bottle, until they spread over the +sky, completely overshadowing the city and its fame. No more +would Boston be the place of the tea-party and the battle of +Bunker Hill; Boston would be the place where Sacco and +Vanzetti were put to death!</p> + +<p>And those two, the shining ones, the holy, who died to make +freedom for the workers! Already one saw the history of +martyrology repeating itself: the process of two thousand years +crowded into one. Already they were canonized beings, concerning +whom it was forbidden to speak any word but of +praise; already there were men who worshiped their ashes, +and imprisoned those who followed their example!</p> + +<p>And yet, obscurely, the symbol was working in the souls +of men. A hundred million toilers knew that two comrades had +died for them. Black men, brown men, yellow men—men of a +hundred nations and a thousand tribes—the prisoners of starvation, +the wretched of the earth—experienced a thrill of awe. +It was the mystic process of blood-sacrifice, by which through +the ages salvation has been brought to mankind!</p> + +<p>A hundred million workers, shackled and blind, groping in +a poison fog manufactured by their masters, learned that two +of their fellows had been put to death for lifting the banner +of freedom. In spite of all the wrangling of the radical sects, +that was a fact the meaning of which could never be obscured; +a fact which shone like a pillar of fire in the workers’ night. +Bart had succeeded in the purpose he had declared, to give a +meaning to his name. “It mean joostice, it mean freedom, it +cannot mean nothing but!” To a hundred million groping, and +ten times as many still in slumber, the names of Sacco and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_755">[755]</span> +Vanzetti would be the eternal symbols of a dream, identical +with civilization itself, of a human society in which wealth +belongs to the producers of wealth, and the rewards of labor +are to the laborers. In the words of the prophet Isaiah:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they +shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not +build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another +eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and +mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3 id="THE_END"> + THE END +</h3> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Note"> + <i>Note</i> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>On October 31, 1928, with the first edition of “Boston” +printed, bound, and about to be published, there appears in the +<i>Outlook</i>, an old established weekly magazine of New York, the +true story of the Bridgewater crime, of which Vanzetti was +convicted; a detailed confession by Frank Silva, one of the +bandits who committed the crime, the confession checked in +every detail, and published with the <i>Outlook’s</i> endorsement. +The following statements in the story will be of interest to +readers of this book.</p> + +<p>First: The “shotgun bandit” was not Vanzetti, but a professional +criminal by the name of “Doggy” Bruno, who wore a +closely-cropped mustache.</p> + +<p>Second: Frank Silva is the man whom Fred Moore was +trailing. The lawyer visited Silva in Atlanta penitentiary, where +he was serving a sentence for another crime, and endeavored +unsuccessfully to persuade Silva to admit the truth about the +Bridgewater crime.</p> + +<p>Third: The crime was planned in the headquarters of Jimmie +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_756">[756]</span>(“Big Chief”) Mede, a Boston crook, and the details of the +affair were known to Mede. Fred Moore came to see Mede, then +in Massachusetts State Prison, and offered him inducements to +tell the truth. Mede refused, because he was trying to get a +parole, and knew that this would interfere. The brother of John +Vahey, Vanzetti’s lawyer at the Plymouth trial, came in haste +to Mede, along with “Joseph Ross” (that Rossi who was interpreter +at the Dedham trial, and was frequently Judge Thayer’s +chauffeur) and warned Mede to tell nothing about the Sacco-Vanzetti +case.</p> + +<p>Fourth: When Sacco and Vanzetti were about to be executed, +Mede was so troubled in his conscience that he went to Governor +Fuller, and made a clean breast of the whole matter. Governor +Fuller called in a state detective, who so frightened Mede that he +dropped the matter and disappeared. Later, however, still +worried because innocent men were about to be executed, Mede +went with two Italian lawyers to Captain Blye of the state +police, and endeavored to make a statement to him; but Blye +refused to hear him, saying: “Well, it is embarrassing; I think it +will be damned embarrassing.”</p> + +<p>Fifth: In the efforts to check Silva’s confession, representatives +of the <i>Outlook</i> were refused every sort of coöperation by +the Massachusetts police authorities, and mysterious threatening +messages were twice received by one of the <i>Outlook</i> representatives +in Boston.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes"> + Transcriber’s Notes + </h2> + + +<ul> + <li>Obvious typographic errors silently corrected.</li> + + <li>Variations in hyphenation, spelling and application of diacritic + marks kept as in the original.</li> + + <li>Correction: + <ul> + <li><a href='#cor_491'>p. 491</a>: “I remember a years ago” to “I remember a few years ago”</li> + </ul> + </li> +</ul> +</div> + + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78039 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78039-h/images/cover.jpg b/78039-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b4babe0 --- /dev/null +++ b/78039-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/78039-h/images/title.jpg b/78039-h/images/title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7aeabd0 --- /dev/null +++ b/78039-h/images/title.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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