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FACING THE CHAIR STORY OF THE AMERICANIZATION OF TWO FOREIGNBORN WORKMEN

JOHN DOS PASSOS

PUBLISHED BY

SACCO-VANZETTI DEFENSE COMMITTEE BOSTON, MASS.

"AND I WILL SAY TO YOUR HONOR THAT A GOVERNMENT THAT HAS COME TO HONOR ITS OWN SECRETS MORE THAN THE LIVES OF ITS CITIZENS HAS BECOME A TYRANNY WHETHER YOU CALL IT A REPUBLIC, A MONARCHY OR ANYTHING ELSE."

October 31, 1921

Listen to the appeal of an old man of the old world who is not a foreigner, for he is the fellow citizen of all mankind.

In one of your states two men, Sacco and Vanzetti, have been convicted for a crime of opinion.

It is horrible to think that human beings should pay with their lives for the exercise of that most sacred right which, no matter what party we belong to, we must all defend.

Don't let this most iniquitous sentence be carried out.

The death of Sacco and Vanzetti will make martyrs of them and cover you with shame.

You are a great people. You ought to be a just people. There are crowds of intelligent men among you, men who think. I prefer to appeal to them. I say to them beware of making martyrs. That is the unforgivable crime that nothing can wipe out and that weighs on generation after generation.

Save Sacco and Vanzetti.

Save them for your honor, for the honor of your children, and for the generations yet unborn.

ANATOLE FRANCE.

The supreme court of Massachusetts has spoken at last and Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, two of the bravest and best scouts that ever served the labor movement, must go to the electric chair.

The decision of this capitalist judicial tribunal is not surprising. It accords perfectly with the tragical farce and the farcical tragedy of the entire trial of these two absolutely innocent and shamefully persecuted working men.

The evidence at the trial in which they were charged with a murder they had no more to do with committing than I had, would have convicted no one but a "foreign labor agitator" in the hydrophobic madness of the world war. In any other case the perjured and flagrantly made-to-order testimony, repeatedly exposed and well known to the court, would have resulted in instantaneous acquittal. Not even a sheep-killing dog but only a "vicious foreign-radical" could have been convicted under such shameless evidence.

Sacco and Vanzetti were framed and doomed from the start. Not all the testimony that could have been piled up to establish their innocence beyond a question of doubt could have saved them in that court. The trial judge was set and immovable. There must be a conviction. It was so ordained by the capitalist powers that be, and it had to come. And there must be no new trial granted lest the satanic perjury of the testimony and the utter rottenness of the proceedings appear too notoriously rank and revolting in spite of the conspiracy of the press to keep the public in ignorance of the disgraceful and damaging facts.

Aside from the disgustingly farcical nature of the trial which could and should have ended in fifteen minutes in that masterclass court, the refined malice and barbaric cruelty of these capitalist tribunals, high and low, may be read in the insufferable torture inflicted thru six long, agonizing years upon their imprisoned and helpless victims.

It would have been merciful to the last degree in comparison had they been boiled in oil, burned at the stake, or had every joint torn from their bodies on the wheel when they were first seized as prey to glut the vengeance of slave drivers, who wax fat and savage in child labor and who never forgive an "agitator" who is too rigidly honest to be bribed, too courageous to be intimidated, and too defiant to be suppressed.

And that is precisely why the mill-owning, labor-sweating malefactors of Massachusetts had Sacco and Vanzetti framed, pounced upon, thrown into a dungeon, and sentenced to be murdered by their judicial and other official underlings.

I appeal to the working men and women of America to think of these two loyal comrades, these two honest, clean-hearted brothers of ours, in this fateful hour in which they stand face to face with their bitter and ignominious doom.

The capitalist courts of Massachusetts have had them on the rack day and night, devouring the flesh of their bodies and torturing their souls for six long years to finally deal the last vicious, heartless blow, aimed to send them to their graves as red-handed felons and murderers.

Would that it were in my power to make that trial judge and those cold-blooded gowns in the higher court suffer for just one day the agonizing torture, the pitiless misery, the relentless cruelty they have inflicted in their stony-hearted "judicial calmness and serenity" upon Sacco and Vanzetti thru six endless years!

Perhaps some day these solemn and begowned servants of the ruling powers may have to atone for their revolting crime against innocence in the name of justice!

They have pronounced the doom of their long suffering victims and the press declares that the last word has been spoken. I deny it.

There is another voice yet to be heard and that is the voice of an outraged working class. It is for labor now to speak and for the labor movement to announce its decision, and that decision is and must be, SACCO AND VANZETTI ARE INNOCENT AND SHALL NOT DIE!

To allow these two intrepid proletarian leaders to perish as red-handed criminals would forever disgrace the cause of labor in the United States. The countless children of generations yet to come would blush for their sires and grand sires and never forgive their cowardice and poltroonery.

It cannot be possible, and I shall not think it possible, that the American workers will desert, betray and deliver to their executioner two men who have stood as staunchly true, as unflinchingly loyal in the cause of labor as have Sacco and Vanzetti, whose doom has been pronounced by the implacable enemies of the working class.

Now is the time for all labor to be aroused and to rally as one vast host to vindicate its assailed honor, to assert its self-respect, and to issue its demand that in spite of the capitalist-controlled courts of Massachusetts honest and innocent workingmen whose only crime is their innocence of crime and their loyalty to labor, shall not be murdered by the official hirelings of the corporate powers that rule and tyrannize over the state.

It does not matter what the occupation of the worker may be, what he is in theory of belief, what union or party he belongs to, this is the supreme cause of us all and the call comes to each of us and to all of us to unite from coast to coast in every state and thruout the whole country to protest in thunder tones against the consummation of that foul and damning crime against labor in the once proud state of Massachusetts.

A thousand protest meetings should be called at once and ring with denunciation of the impending crime.

A million letters of indignant resentment should roll in on the governor of Massachusetts and upon members of the house of representatives and the senate of the United States.

It is this, and this alone, that will save Sacco and Vanzetti. We cannot ignore this duty to ourselves, to our martyr comrades, to our cause, to justice and humanity without being guilty of treason to our own manhood and outraging our own souls.

Arouse ye toiling millions of the nation and swear by all you hold sacred in the cause of labor and in the cause of truth and justice and all things of good report, that Sacco and Vanzetti, your brothers and mine, innocent as we are, shall not be foully murdered to glut the vengeance of a gang of plutocratic slave drivers!

"WHEN KATZMANN ASKED ME WHAT I THOUGHT OF SACCO AS A PARTICIPANT IN THE BRAINTREE HOLDUP, I EXPLAINED TO HIM THAT ANARCHISTS DO NOT COMMIT CRIMES FOR MONEY BUT FOR A PRINCIPLE, AND THAT BANDITRY WAS NOT IN THEIR CODE".

WHEREAS, The case of Sacco and Vanzetti has again come before the public; and

WHEREAS, After six years of imprisonment those who take an interest in this case are now more convinced than ever that Sacco and Vanzetti are not guilty of the crime they were charged with and convicted for; and

WHEREAS, The motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, primarily on the confession of Celestino F. Madeiros, is now before the court of Massachusetts; and

WHEREAS, On this motion for a new trial, affidavits of former agents of the Department of Justice of the United States have been produced that show that there are records on file in the office of the Department of Justice, establishing the fact that there was collaboration between the Department of Justice and the District Attorney of Norfolk County to convict Sacco and Vanzetti on charges of a crime, of which the Department of Justice did not believe them guilty; and

WHEREAS, The Attorney General has refused access to the records in the case to the Counsel for the Defense, in spite of his urgent request for the same; and

WHEREAS, A large number of the International Unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor are deeply interested in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti and have by resolutions adopted at their conventions, expressed the sentiment of their members on this matter; be it, therefore

RESOLVED, That the American Federation of Labor in convention assembled demand an immediate investigation by the Congress of the United States of the actions of the agents of the Department of Justice; the connection of Department of Justice with the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti; and the refusal of the Department of Justice to disclose its files on the Sacco and Vanzetti case; be it further

RESOLVED, That copies of this resolution be sent to the President and Congress of the United States.

The convention of the American Federation of Labor of last year and of several years prior thereto have repeatedly declared that Sacco and Vanzetti should be accorded a new trial in order that no man's life may be placed in jeopardy without a just and fair trial and be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This insistence for a new trial was predicated on the doubt of many as to the guilt of these men and because of the belief that the enforcement of this decision without a retrial and a full and complete opportunity to present all possible evidence having come to light either as to the guilt or innocence of these men would be a miscarriage of justice.

The resolution presented indicates or at least raises a doubt that evidence has been or is being withheld by the Department of Justice relating to the guilt or innocence of these men. This in itself places the Department of Justice into serious question. It adds further doubt as to the guilt or innocence of the men charged and found guilty of crime. Regardless of the character or attitude of mind of these men toward our government or its institutions as a people we are deeply concerned that the power of government, or that of any of its departments shall at no time be used unconstitutionally to jeopardize the life and liberty of any person. And because of the serious charge thus made we recommend reaffirmation of our former demand for a retrial and reference of this resolution to the Executive Council, with directions that it proceed immediately to inquire into the charge made and to have determined the truth or falsity of this charge by Congressional investigation, if that be necessary.

The report of the committee was adopted by unanimous vote.

"The department of Justice in Boston was anxious to get sufficient evidence against Sacco and Vanzetti to deport them but never succeeded in getting the kind and amount of evidence required for that purpose. It was the opinion of the department agents here that a conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti for murder would be one way of disposing of the two men. It was also the general opinion of such of the agents in Boston as had any actual knowledge of the Sacco-Vanzetti case; that Sacco and Vanzetti, although anarchists and agitators, were not highway robbers and had nothing to do with the South Braintree crime. My opinion and the opinion of most of the older men in the government service, has always been that the South Braintree crime was the work of professionals."

FACING THE CHAIR

I WHERE THE CASE STANDS TODAY

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