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I WHERE THE CASE STANDS TODAY

On October 23rd 1926 Judge Webster Thayer handed down his decision on the latest motions for a new trial, argued by the defense during the week of September 13th. The decision is a document of something more than thirty thousand words in length. A reader unskilled in the technique of legal judgment gets the impression that the document is more of a personal apologium and defense on the part of the court than the impartial decision of a judge. Not a spark of scientific spirit, or of the consciousness of the infinite possibilities of human error has edged its way into those long involved sentences.

The confession of Madeiros and the elaborate circumstantial case evolved from it by the defense, tending to prove that the South Braintree holdup was committed by members of the Morelli gang of Providence, is dismissed with the following statement:

In conclusion, in so far as the Madeiros affidavit is concerned, it would have been an easy task for this court to transfer the responsibility upon another jury, but if this were done it would be the shirking of a solemn duty that the law places upon the trial court. Guided by this solemn duty I have examined and studied for several weeks without interruption, the record of the testimony upon this motion and upon the Madeiros deposition; and being controlled only by judgment, reason, and conscience, and after giving as favorable consideration to these defendants as may be consistent with a due regard for the rights of the public and sound principles of law, I am forced to the conclusion that the affidavit of Madeiros is unreliable, untrustworthy and untrue. To set aside the verdict of a jury affirmed by the Supreme Judicial Court of this commonwealth on such an affidavit would be a mockery upon truth and justice. Therefore, exercising every right vested in this court in the granting of motions for new trials by the law of this commonwealth, the motion for a new trial is hereby denied.

Further on in this comment upon the plea that Department of Justice agents worked with the prosecution to obtain conviction for murder against Sacco and Vanzetti although they considered them to be innocent :

Cases cannot be decided on the ground of public opinion, but upon reason, judgment, and in accordance with law; for cases cannot be decided on mystery, suspicion or propaganda but upon the actual evidence that is introduced at the trial. If this were otherwise God help the poor defendants in criminal cases, if they are to be acquitted and convicted, not upon evidence and the law, but upon public opinion, which might be formed as the result of an unwarranted public opinion or propaganda.

This might seem to the unlegal mind of a man smoking a cigar at a street corner, a knife that cuts two ways. To continue further on:

Have Attorney General Sargent of the United States and his subordinates and former Attorney General Palmer under the administration of President Wilson stooped so low and are they so degraded that they were willing, by the concealment of evidence to enter into a fraudulent conspiracy with the government of Massachusetts to send two men to the electric chair, not because they were murderers, but because they were radicals?

Judge Thayer answers, No. But will that be the verdict of fairminded men and women when the full truth of this case is known? Will that be the verdict of workingmen the world over who see their own image in Sacco and Vanzetti? In the face of the evidence as it stands would a plain mind, free from legal technicalities and sectional bitterness answer No?

This decision leaves one more chance of appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court before sentence, but as that court makes decisions only on points of law and not on the human merits of a case, the hope of reversal is slim. After that the only appeal is to executive clemency, or to the Supreme Court of the United States on the plea that the defendants were convicted without due process of law. A pretty forlorn hope.

Sacco and Vanzetti are not asking for pardon, they are asking for justice. Remember that when it became evident that Tom Mooney was innocent of the Preparedness Parade bombing for which he had been convicted in California, instead of his being freed, his sentence was commuted to life. He is still in jail a victim of executive clemency.

Sacco and Vanzetti want justice, not clemency.

Only an immense surge of protest from all classes and conditions of men can save them from the Chair.

II THE HEARING OF THE SEVENTH MOTION

Another hearing of a motion for a new trial. Six have been denied so far. Sacco and Vanzetti have been six years in jail. This time there are no guards with riotguns, no state troopers riding round the courthouse. No excitement of any sort. Everyone has forgotten the great days of the Red Conspiracy, the passion to sustain law and order against the wave of radicalism, against foreigners, and the 'moral rats gnawing at the foundations of the commonwealth' that Attorney General Palmer spoke of so eloquently. In this court there are no prisoners in a cage, no hysterical witnesses, no credulous jury under the sign of the screaming eagle. Quiet, dignity; almost like a class in a lawschool. The case has been abstracted into a sort of mathematics. Only the lawyers for the defense and for the prosecution, Ranney from the District Attorney's office, Thompson and Ehrmann for the defense, two small tables of newspaper men, on the benches a few Italians, some professional liberals and radicals, plainclothes men with rumpsteak faces occupying the end seats.

The court attendants make everybody get up. The Judge comes in on the heels of a man in a blue uniform. Judge Thayer is a very small man with a little grey lined shingle face, nose glasses tilting out at the top across a sudden little hawknose. He walks with a firm bustling tread. The black gown that gives him the power of life and death sticks out a little behind. Another attendant walks after him. The judge climbs up to his high square desk. The judge speaks. His voice crackles dryly as old papers.

Affidavits, affidavits read alternately by counsel in the stillness of the yellowvarnished courtroom. Gradually as the reading goes on the courtroom shrinks. Tragic figures of men and women grow huge like shadows cast by a lantern on a wall; the courtroom becomes a tiny pinhole through which to see a world of huge trampling forces in conflict.

Here is Madeiros's own account of the crime:

On April 15, 1920, I was picked up about 4 A. M. at my boarding house, 181 North Main St., Providence, by four Italians who came in a Hudson five-passenger open touring car. My sister's landlord lived at the same place. She was then a widow and her name was Mary Bover. She has since been married, and now lives at 735 Bellville Avenue, New Bedford. There was also living there at the same time a man named Arthur Tatro, who afterwards committed suicide in the house of Correction of New Bedford. He was Captain and I was Lieutenant in the American Rescue League at that time. Two or three privates in the league also lived there, whose names I do not remember.

We went from Providence to Randolph, where we changed to a Buick car brought there by another Italian. We left the Hudson car in the woods and took it again after we did the job, leaving the Buick in the woods in charge of one man, who drove it off to another part of the woods, as I understood.

After we did the job at South Braintree and changed back into the Hudson car at Randolph, we drove very fast through Randolph, and were seen by a boy named Thomas and his sister. His father lives on a street that I think is called Prang Street, and is in the window metal business or something of that kind. I became acquainted with him four years later when I went to live in Randolph with Weeks on the same street. Thomas told me one day in conversation that he saw the car that did the South Braintree job going through Randolph very fast.

When we started we went from Providence first to Boston and then back to Providence, and then back to South Braintree, getting there about noon. We spent some time in a "speak easy" in South Braintree two or three miles from the place of the crime, leaving the car in the yard of the house.

When we went to Boston we went to South Boston and stopped in Andrews Square. I stayed in the car. The others went in a saloon to get information, as they told me, about the money that was to be sent to South Braintree.

I had never been to South Braintree before. These four men persuaded me to go with them two or three nights before when I was talking with them in a saloon in Providence. The saloon was also a poolroom, near my boarding house. They talked like professionals. They said they had done lots of jobs of this kind. They had been engaged in robbing freight cars in Providence. Two were young men from 20 to 25 years old, one was about 40, the other about 35. All wore caps. I then was 18 years old. I do not remember whether they were shaved or not. Two of them did the shooting--the oldest one and another. They were left on the street. The arrangement was that they should meet me in a Providence saloon the next night to divide the money. I went there but they did not come.

I sat on the back seat of the automobile. I had a Colt 38 calibre automatic but did not use it. I was told that I was there to help hold back the crowd in case they made a rush. The curtains on the car were flapping. I do not remember whether there was any shotgun or rifle in the car or not.

These men talked a lot of New York. As soon as I got enough money I went to New York and also Chicago hoping to find them in cabarets spending the money, but I never found them.

They had been stealing silk, shoes, cotton, etc., from freight cars sending it to New York. Two of them lived on South Main Street and two on North Main Street, in lodging houses. I had known them three months or four.

The old man was called Mike. Another one was called William or Bill. I don't remember what the others were called.

The money that they took from the men in South Braintree was in a black bag, I think.

I was scared to death when I heard the shooting begin.

Both cars had Massachusetts numbers.

The names of these men don't amount to anything. They change them whenever they want to. When they are driven out of New York they come to Providence. I haven't any idea where they are now. I have never seen any of them since.

Sacco and Vanzetti had nothing to do with this job, and neither did Gerald Chapman. It was entirely put up by the oldest of the Italians in Providence.

Then there are the corroborating stories of Weeks, Madeiros' associate now a lifer in the Charlestown Penitentiary, of the owners of the Blue Bird Inn, of various Providence lawyers and policemen as to the activities of the Morelli gang.

Out of this comparatively understandable world of thieves and murderers, the affidavits lead us into the underground passages of the Department of Justice, into a world of dicks and stoolpigeons.

Here are the three main affidavits. They speak for themselves.

AFFIDAVIT OF LAWRENCE LETHERMAN

My name is Lawrence Letherman. I live in Malden, and am in the employ of the Beacon Trust Company. I was in the Federal service for thirty-six years, first in the railway mail service for nine years; then as Post Office Inspector for twenty five years; then three years as local agent of the Department of Justice in Boston in charge of the Bureau of Investigation. I began the last named duties in September, 1921.

While I was Post Office Inspector I co-operated to a considerable extent with the agents of the Department of Justice in Boston in matters of joint concern, including the Sacco-Vanzetti case. The man under me in direct charge of matters relating to that case was Mr. William West, who is still attached to the Department of Justice in Boston. I know that Mr. West co-operated with Mr. Katzmann, the District Attorney, during the trial of the case, and later with Mr. Williams. I know that before, during, and after the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti Mr. West had a number of so-called "under cover" men assigned to this case, including one Ruzzamenti and one Carbone. I know that by an arrangement with the Department of Justice, Carbone was placed in a cell next to the cell of Sacco for the purpose of obtaining whatever incriminating information he could obtain from Sacco, after winning his confidence. Nothing, however, was obtained in that way. One Weiss, formerly an agent of the Department, was involved in this plan. He was running a private office at that time on the seventh floor of the building at 7 Water Street under the offices of the Department, and remained in touch with the Department agents. Efforts were made by Mr. West to put other men in the Dedham Jail as spies, but the men whom he desired to use for that purpose objected.

Before, during, and after the trial, the Department of Justice had a number of men assigned to watch the activities of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee. No evidence warranting prosecution of anybody was obtained by these men. They were all "under cover" men, and one or two of them obtained employment by the Committee in some capacity or other. I think one of them was a collector. 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 these two men. It was also the general opinion of such 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.

The Boston agents of the Department of Justice assigned certain men to attend the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, including Mr. Weyand. Mr. West also attended the trial. There is or was a great deal of correspondence on file in the Boston office between Mr. West and Mr. Katzmann, the District Attorney, and there are also copies of reports sent to Washington about the case. Letters and reports were made in triplicate; two copies were sent to Washington and one retained in Boston. The letters and documents on file in the Boston office would throw a great deal of light upon the preparation of the Sacco-Vanzetti case for trial, and upon the real opinion of the Boston office of the Department of Justice as to the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti of the particular crime with which they were charged.

I know that at one time Mr. West placed an Italian printer or linotyper in the office of some Italian newspaper in Boston for the purpose of obtaining information. One of the men employed by West at one stage of the Sacco-Vanzetti case was named Shaughnessy. He was subsequently convicted of highway robbery and is now serving a term in the Massachusetts State Prison. One of the "under cover" men employed by Mr. West was an Armenian named Harold Zorian. While being paid .00 a day by the Government he became Secretary of some Communist or Radical organization in the vicinity of Boston, the proceedings of which he reported to the Department.

AFFIDAVIT OF FRED J. WEYAND

My name is Fred J. Weyand. I reside in Portland, Maine. I am a Special Agent of the Attorney General's office of the State of Maine, and have been since I resigned as an agent of the Department of Justice about a year and a half ago.

I became connected with the Department of Justice in the year 1916, and shortly afterwards became a Special Agent with an office first at 24 Milk Street, Boston, later at 45 Milk Street and later at 7 Water Street, where the Department had offices on the eighth floor, and later at the Post Office Building. My duties as Special Agent were in general to investigate and report upon any and all violations of the penal code which I might be assigned to investigate by my superiors, who were first Frederick Smith, next George E. Kelliher, next John Hannahan, next Charles Bancroft and last Lawrence Letherman. These were my superiors while I was working from the Boston office. I occasionally worked in other parts of the country and then came under other superiors temporarily. I was a Special Agent during the entire administration of Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General of the United States, and was concerned in the activities against the so-called Reds or Radicals, including arrests and deportations which were instigated by Mr. Palmer, and which included the wholesale raids made in the month of January 1920, in some of which I participated.

Sometime before the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti on May 5, 1920--just how long before I do not remember--the names of both of them had got in the files of the Department of Justice as Radicals to be watched. The Boston files of the Department, including correspondence, would show the date when the names of these men were first brought to the attention of the Department. Both these men were listed as followers or associates of an educated Italian editor named Galleani. Galleani was the publisher of an anarchistic paper. He lived in Wrentham and published his paper, I think, in Lynn. Among other persons associated with Galleani were Carlo Tresca, Carlo Valdinoci and David Tedesco. The suspicion entertained by the Department of Justice against Sacco and Vanzetti was that they had violated the Selective Service Act, and also that they were anarchists or held Radical opinions of some sort or other.

A man named Feri Felix Weiss was transferred from the Immigration Bureau to the Department of Justice in Boston in the year 1917, and remained a Special Agent of that Department in Boston until 1919, I think. He then travelled abroad and returned in 1920 and opened an office as a scientific detective and lecturer at 7 Water Street, Boston, with an office on the floor below occupied by the Department of Justice. In 1925, Weiss returned to the Immigration Department at Boston, where he is at the present time.

William J. West, who is now a Special Agent of the Department of Justice, became such in July or August 1917. Prior to that he was an Immigration Inspector with Feri Weiss. Since his appointment as a Special Agent he has spent most of his time in the Boston office of the Department of Justice, having in charge during the past seven years the so-called Radical Division of the Department of Justice, which has been in operation since about 1917.

During the year 1920 I did a good deal of work in the State of Maine, but was in Boston for several days at least once every two weeks. I have knowledge that the result of the trial before Judge Anderson of the Radicals or Communists, as we called them, arrested at the time of the raids above referred to, and of the decision of Judge Anderson freeing many of them and of his criticisms of the Department of Justice, was to make all agents of the Department of Justice in Boston more cautious afterwards in proceeding against suspected Radicals.

Shortly after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti on the charge of the South Braintree murders, meetings began to be held by sympathizers, and I was assigned to attend these meetings and report to the Department the speeches made. We also assigned a certain "under cover" man, as we called him, to win the confidence of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, and to become one of the collectors. This man used to report the proceedings of the Committee to the Department agents in Boston, and has said to me he was in the habit of taking as much money collected for his own use as he saw fit. So far as I know, no evidence was obtained of utterances at any of these meetings which warranted proceedings against anybody. Mr. West was also attending meetings of Sacco-Vanzetti sympathizers during the same period. The original reports thus obtained were sent to the Washington office of the Department of Justice and duplicates kept in the Boston office, where I believe they now are. I know that at one time as many as twelve agents of the Department of Justice located in Boston were assigned to cover Sacco-Vanzetti meetings and other Radical activities connected with the Sacco-Vanzetti case. No evidence was discovered warranting the institution of proceedings against anybody. I have no present recollection of the trial of Vanzetti for the alleged Bridgewater robbery; but when the joint trial of Sacco and Vanzetti for the South Braintree murders began in the summer of 1921, the Department of Justice at Boston took an active interest in the matter. I was assigned to cover the trial for the purpose of reporting the proceedings and picking up any information that I could in regard to the Radical activities of Sacco and Vanzetti, or of any of their friends. Mr. West also attended the trial for the same purpose. I was not personally in touch with Mr. Katzmann, the District Attorney, or his office, but Mr. West was in touch with them and was giving and obtaining information in regard to the case.

Going back now before the trial, a certain John Ruzzamenti had been informally employed by special agents of the Department of Justice from some time in the year 1917, to furnish information concerning Radical activities and evasion of the draft by Italians, and in this connection had made an investigation of Tedesco, above referred to, who was once arrested in consequence of information furnished by Ruzzamenti, but was never tried. During this time Ruzzamenti also worked occasionally for detective agencies. He was well known to Weiss.

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