A Conversation With Sacco & Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind Author Bruce Watson
Is the Sacco-Vanzetti case as well-known now as it was a generation ago? If so, why--or, why not?
Bruce Watson: It is by no means as well known now and is on the verge of being forgotten. Many high school history texts either omit the case or give it a mere paragraph. Peter Jennings' landmark book on the 20th century (The Century) did not even mention Sacco and Vanzetti. While writing my book, I rarely met a person who had heard of the case. A generation ago, the names Sacco and Vanzetti instantly conjured up controversy, injustice, mystery, and possible guilt. I believe the reason for the current amnesia is, in part, generational. Much of history is passed on by word of mouth and most older people who might remember the ongoing castor who heard about it from their parents have passed on. But the amnesia may also have to do with a modern reluctance to focus on the flip side of the American dream. Sacco and Vanzetti, whether guilty or innocent, deserved a second trial and their execution in the face of massive doubts about their first trial shocked the world. This truth may still be a bit too shocking for some Americans to face when celebrating "The American Century."
You say "guilty or innocent; were they guilty or innocent?
Bruce Watson: Perhaps both. Perhaps. They were certainly guilty of conspiracy in one of the most massive terrorist bomb plots in American history. When eight midnight bombs went off up and down the East Coast one June night in 1919, pamphlets signed "The Anarchist Fighters" were found in the rubble. "The Anarchist Fighters" were all very good friends of Sacco and Vanzetti, fellow Boston-based anarchists with whom they had fled to Mexico to dodge the draft. No one knows whether Sacco and Vanzetti planted the bombs, made the bombs, or just stood by and said nothing, but they certainly attended the weekly meetings of The Anarchist Fighters in which the plot was discussed, hence they were guilty of conspiracy. As to being guilty of the two gangland murders for which they were executed... I'd rather not say.
Rather not say?
Bruce Watson: I have an opinion but throughout my book, I kept it to myself. Here's why. There have been many books on the case in which the author hammered home a personal verdict, guilty or innocent. These books did not make good reading. They resembled legal briefs more than narratives. I decided early on to let the reader decide. Readers are not stupid and are capable of making up their minds, so I laid out the evidence--all I could get for both sides--and avoided giving my opinion which I'd rather not give here. At the very end, I tallied the evidence on both sides, asking "what about" questions. If they were guilty, why did the one witness who heard a gunman speak say he had no accent, when theirs were both quite pronounced? But if they were innocent, what were they doing armed to the teeth when arrested? Whey did their former lawyer later say he thought they were guilty? The doubts, the mysteries, and the possibilities pile up. I have my opinion but I prefer to let you decide.
Why did the Sacco-Vanzetti case resonate around the world?
Bruce Watson: By the time they were executed, Sacco and Vanzetti were the most famous men in the world. In the weeks prior to their executions, protests rocked every major capital city from from Tokyo to Marrakech, from Buenos Aires to London, from Sydney to Johannesburg. Why? First of all, the injustices in denying a second trial were so enormous. A biased jury foreman, a judge who called them "anarchistic bastards," a cop who swore his ballistics testimony had been coerced, a confession exonerating the men--all these and more were ignored by the Massachusetts courts. That got headlines. But the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, which spent nearly $300,000 on the case in seven years, did a masterful job of publicity. Pamphlets, mailings, posters, meetings--they did it all. Above all, they alerted labor activists in every Western country and from these workers, Communist locals got the word and rallied their own loyalists. But it's important to note that the uprising was not merely political. Intellectuals like George Bernard Shaw, academics, clergymen, statesmen, scientists (Albert Einstein, Marie Curie), and others also made public statements calling for clemency or a second trial. And because the case dragged on year after year, the outcry snowballed into the greatest cause célèbre the world had or has ever seen.
In what way did the political climate under which Sacco and Vanzetti were tried and executed resemble the political climate today?
Bruce Watson: I'm wary of drawing parallels in history which, contrary to common wisdom, does not repeat itself. I prefer Mark Twain's quip: "History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes." In no ways America 2007 as intolerant as Massachusetts was in 1927. However, there are a few rhymes. To convict Sacco and Vanzetti in the face of abundant evidence casting doubt upon their guilt, the jury had to accept common stereotypes about Italians as criminals. Jurors may also, although each denied it, have been heavily swayed by their anarchist background which was detailed during the trial. Anarchists were the "terrorists" of their time, implicated and convicted in numerous bombings and assassinations since 1890. In addition, in sending Sacco and Vanzetti to the electric chair after the entire world had learned of blatant judicial bias, tainted witnesses, and possible tampering with evidence, and the Commonwealth smugly and self-righteously assumed they knew best and could not possibly have made an error. And sadly, although America has come a long way in eighty years, such self-righteousness, prejudice, and assumption of guilt based on ethnicity can be seen in the way we are treating many Arabs and Arab-Americans in custody today. Despite our ideal of presumed innocence, they are presumed guilty.
There have been more than a dozen books on the case. Why another one?
Bruce Watson: As noted before, despite being household names a generation ago, Sacco and Vanzetti are on the verge of being forgotten. Mine is the first full-length narrative in thirty years. Many of the others were marred by polemics. Recent academic research into their anarchist background has never included a narrative. Finally, my own research has turned up all sorts of new information, never-before-published letters from both the English and Italian, details of pre-trial preparations on both sides, and richer portraits of their lawyers, the judge, and the D.A.
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