When Trialed Vanzetti and Sacco Said They Would Do It Again
(April 9, 1927 at the Dedham Courtroom Business firm)
VANZETTI & SACCO BOARDING Passenger vehicle FOR Court HOUSE
WHERE THEY WILL RECEIVE Capital punishment (APRIL 9, 1927)
CLERK WORTHINGTON: Nicola Sacco, have you anything to say why sentence of decease should not exist passed upon yous?
NICOLA SACCO: Yes, sir. I am no 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 than long, so I thought to give him the chance.
I never knew, never heard, even read in history annihilation so vicious as this Court. After seven years prosecuting they nevertheless consider us guilty. And these gentle people here are arrayed with us in this court today.
I know the judgement will be between two classes, the oppressed class and the rich grade, and in that location will be ever collision between one and the other. We fraternize the people with the books, with the literature. Yous persecute the people, tyrannize them and impale them. We attempt the education of people ever. Yous try to put a path between us and some other nationality that hates each other. That is why I am here today on this bench, for having been of the oppressed class. Well, you are the oppressor.
You know information technology, Gauge Thayer--y'all know all my life, you lot know why I have been hither, and afterward vii years that yous accept been persecuting me and my poor wife, and you however today sentence us to death. I would like to tell all my life, but what is the utilise? Y'all know all most what I say before, that is, my comrade, will be talking, because he is more familiar with the lan-guage, and I volition give him a chance. My comrade, the kind man to all the children, you sentenced him 2 times, in the Bridgewater case and the Dedham case, continued with me, and you lot know he is innocent.
You forget all this population that has been with us for seven years, to sympathize and requite us all their free energy and all their kindness. You do not care for them. Among that peoples and the comrades and the working form in that location is a big legion of intellectual people which have been with us for seven years, to not commit the iniquitous sentence, but nonetheless the Court goes alee. And I desire to thank yous all, you peoples, my comrades who have been with me for seven years, with the Sacco Vanzetti case, and I will give my friend a take a chance.
I forget one thing which my comrade remember me. As I said earlier, Guess Thayer know all my life, and he know that I am never guilty, never--not yesterday, nor today, nor forever.
CLERK WORTHINGTON: Bartolomeo Vanzetti, accept you anything to say why judgement of death should not be passed upon yous?
BARTOLOMEO VANZETTI: Yes. What I say is that I am innocent, not merely of the Braintree crime, but also of the Bridgewater crime. That I am non only innocent of these two crimes, simply in all my life I accept never stolen and I accept never killed and I have never spilled blood. That is what I desire to say. And information technology is non all. Non only am I innocent of these ii crimes, non but in all my life I have never stolen, never killed, never spilled blood, but I accept struggled all my life, since I began to reason, to eliminate crime from the earth.
Everybody that knows these 2 arms knows very well that I did not need to go into the streets and kill a man or try to accept money. I can live by my two easily and live well. Just besides that, I tin alive 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 Italia is in a good status. I could have come up back in Italy and he would have welcomed me every time with open arms. Fifty-fifty if I come back there with not a cent in my pocket, my male parent could have requite me a position, not to work but to make busi-ness, or to oversee upon the state that he owns. He has wrote me many messages in that sense, and as another well-to-do relative has wrote me messages in that sense that I can produce.
Well, information technology may be said to be a boast. My begetter and my aunt can boast themselves and say things that people may non be compelled to believe. People may say they may exist poor when I say that they are in good condition to give me a position any fourth dimension that I want to settle down and course a family and showtime a settled life. Well, merely there are people maybe in this same courtroom that could testify to what I take said and that what my father and my aunt have said to me is not a lie, that really they have the means to requite me a position any fourth dimension that I want.
Well, I want to reach a piddling signal farther, and it is this that non only have I not been trying to steal in Bridgewater, not simply accept I non been in Braintree to steal and kill and have never stolen or killed or spilt blood in all my life, not only accept I struggled hard confronting crimes, 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 homo. I have refused to go in business because I understand that business is a speculation on turn a profit upon certain people that must depend upon the business man, and I do not consider that that is correct and therefore I refuse to practice that.
Now, I should say that I am not merely innocent of all these things, non 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 homo by the man, and if at that place is a reason why I am here as a guilty homo, if there is a reason why you in a few minutes can doom me, it is this reason and none else.
At that place is the best man I e'er bandage my eyes upon since I lived, a man that will last and will grow always more near to and more beloved to the heart of the people, so long equally admiration for goodness, for virtues, and for sacrifice will final. I mean Eugene Victor Debs.
He has said that not even a dog that kills chickens would have found an American jury tending to convict it with the proof that the Republic has produced confronting us. That man was non with me in Plymouth or with Sacco where he was on the day of the crime. You tin say that information technology is arbitrary, what we are saying from him, that he is proficient and he applied to the other his goodness, that he is incapable of law-breaking, and he exist-lieved that everybody is incapable of crime.
Well, it may be like that but it is not, it could be like that just information technology is non, and that man had a existent experience of court, of prison and of jury. Merely because he wanted the world a little better he was persecuted and slandered from his adolescence youthness to his old age, and indeed he was murdered by the prison house.
He knew, and non only he knew, but every man of agreement in the earth, not merely in this state but also in other countries, men to whom we have provided a sure corporeality of the records of the instance at times, they all know and all the same stick with u.s., the flower of flesh of Europe, the ameliorate writers, the greatest thinkers of Europe, accept pleaded in our favor. The scientists, the greatest scientists, the greatest statesmen of Europe, accept pleaded in our favor.
Is it possible that just a few, a handful of men of the jury, only two or three other men, who would shame their mother for worldly laurels and for earthly fortune; is information technology possible that they are right against what the world, for the whole globe has said that information technology is wrong and I know that it is incorrect? If there is one that should know it, if it is right or if it is wrong, it is I and this human. You run across information technology is seven years that we are in jail. What we accept suffered during these seven years no human being tongue can say, and yet yous encounter me earlier y'all, not trembling, you come across me looking you lot in your eyes straight, not blushing, non changing color, not ashamed or in fearfulness.
Eugene Debs said that not even a dog--something like that--non even a dog that impale the chickens would have been institute guilty past an American jury with the evidence that the Democracy have produced against the states. I say that not even a leprous canis familiaris would have had his appeals refused 2 times by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts--not fifty-fifty a leprous domestic dog.
They have given a new trial to Madeiros for the reason that the Guess had either forgot or omitted to tell the jury that they should consider the human being innocent until found guilty in the court, or something of that sort. That man has confessed. The human was tried on his confession and was establish guilty, and the Supreme Court gave him another trial. We have proved that there could not take been some other Judge on the face up of the earth more prejudiced, more brutal and more hostile than y'all have been confronting us. Nosotros take proven that. Even so they refuse the new trial. We know, and you lot know in your heart, that yous accept been against us from the very beginning, earlier you meet 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 practiced faith in their goodness--I don't want to discuss that--and that it was like shooting fish in a barrel at the time of the commencement trial to get a verdict of guiltiness.
Nosotros know that you have spoken yourself, and have spoke your hostility against u.s., and your despisement confronting 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 united states have the civil courage to take the stand up, maybe your Honour--I am sad to say this because you are an old man, and I take an old father-- but maybe you would be abreast united states of america in good justice at this time.
When you lot sentenced me at the Plymouth trial yous say, to the best of my retention, of my good faith, that crimes were in accordance with my principle--something of that sort--and you took off one accuse, if I remember it exactly, from the jury. The jury was so fierce against me that they plant me guilty of both charges, considering there were only two. But they would take found me guilty of a dozen of charges against your Honour's instructions. Of form I remember that you lot told them that there was no reason to believe that if I were the bandit I accept intention to kill somebody, so that they should have off the indictment of endeavour to murder. Well, they found me guilty of what?
Besides of an attempt to murder. And if I am right, you take out that and sentence me but for effort to rob with arms,--something like that. Merely, Judge Thayer, y'all give more to me for that attempt of robbery than all the 448 men that were in Charlestown, all of those that attempted to rob, all those that have robbed, they have not such a sentence as you gave to me for an try at robbery.
I am willing that everybody that does or does non believe me that they can make commission, they can get over there, and I am very willing that the people should go over there and come across whether it is true or not. There are people in Charlestown who are professional robbers, who take been in half the prisons of the United States, that have stolen, or injured men or shot them. Well-nigh of them guilty without doubt, by selfconfession, and past confession of their own partners, and they got eight to ten, eight to twelve, ten to fifteen. None of them has twelve to fifteen, as you gave me for an attempt at robbery. And too that, you know that I was not guilty; that I had not been in Bridgewater attempting to steal. You know that my life, my private and, public life in Plymouth, and wherever I have been, was so exemplary that one of the worst fears of our prosecutor Katzmann was to introduce proof of our life and of our behave. He has opposed it with all his might and he has succeeded.
Y'all know that if we would have had Mr. Thomp-son, or even the brothers McAnarney, in the commencement trial in Plymouth, you know that no jury would take found me guilty. My first lawyer has been a partner of Mr. Katzmann, every bit he is still now. The offset lawyer of the defense, Mr. Vahey, has not defended me, has sold me for thirty golden money similar Judas sold Jesus Christ. If that man has non told to you or to Mr. Katzmann that he knew that I was guilty, it is considering he can-not, information technology is considering he knew that I was not guilty. That man has done everything indirectly to hurt us. He has made a long speech to the jury well-nigh things that do affair nothing, and on the point of essence to the trial he has passed over with few words or with complete silence. This was a premeditation in social club to give to the jury the impression that my ain defender has nothing good to urge in defense of myself, and therefore is compelled to go around the bush on little things that corporeality to cipher and let pass the essential points either in silence or with a very weakly resistance.
We were tried during a time whose grapheme has now passed into history. I mean by that, a time when there was a hysteria of resentment and hate against the people of our principles, confronting the foreigner, against slackers, and it seems to me--rather, I am positive of it, that both you lot and Mr. Katzmann have done all what information technology were in your power in order to work out, in club to agitate even so more the passion of the juror, the prejudice of the juror, against us.
I remember that Mr. Katzmann has introduced a witness against us, a certain Ricci. Well, I have heard that witness. It seems that he has nix to say. It seemed that it was a foolishness to produce a witness that has nothing to say. And it seemed as if he were called by the Commonwealth to tell to the jury that he was the foreman of those laborers who were near the scene of the crime and who claimed, and who testified in our behalf, that we were not the men, and that this homo, the witness Ricci, was their foreman, and he has tried to go along the men on the job instead of going to see what was happening and so as to give the impression that it was non true that the men went towards the street to see what happened. But that was not very important. The real importance is what that human being said and that was non true, that a certain witness who was the h2o boy of the gang of the laborers testified that he took a pail and went to a certain spring, a water jump, to take h2o for the gang--Ricci testified it was not true that that man went to that bound, and therefore it was not true that he saw the bandit, and therefore it was not truthful that he can tell that neither I nor Sacco were the men. Only Ricci was introduced to show that it was not true that that homo went to that bound, because he knew that the Germans had poisoned the water in that spring. That is what he, Ricci, said on that stand up over there. At present, in the earth chronicle of the time in that location is not a single happening of that nature. Nobody in America--we have read plenty things bad that the Germans have done in Europe during the war, but nobody can prove and nobody volition say that the Germans are bad enough to poison the spring water in this country during the war.
At present, this, it seems, has naught to exercise with us di-rectly. It seems to be a affair said by incident on the stand between the other things; why, whereas, that is the essence here. Because the jury were hating us considering we were against the war, and the jury don't know that it makes whatever divergence between a man that is against the state of war because he believes that the war is unjust, because he hate no country, considering he is a cosmopolitan, and a human being that is against the war because he is in favor of the other country that fights against the country in which he is, and therefore a spy, an enemy, and he commits any criminal offence in the country in which he is in behalf of the other state in order to serve the other country. We are not men of that kind. Nobody can say that we are High german spies or spies of any kind. Katzmann knows very well that. Katzmann knows that we were against the war because we did not believe in the purpose for which they say that the state of war was fought. We believed that the war is wrong, and we believe this more now after ten years that we studied and observed and understood information technology twenty-four hour period past mean solar day,--the consequences and the issue of the after war. We believe more now than ever that the war was wrong, and we are against war more than at present than ever, and I am glad to be on the doomed scaffold if I can say to mankind, "Wait out; y'all are in a crypt of the blossom of mankind. For what? All that they say to you, all that they take promised to you--information technology was a prevarication, it was an illusion, it was a cheat, information technology was a fraud, it was a law-breaking. They promised you liberty. Where is freedom? They promised you prosperity. Where is prosperity? They take promised you eleva-tion. Where is the tiptop?"
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 accept achieved from the war? Where are the security of life, the security of the things that we possess for our necessity? Where are the respect for human life? Where are the respect and the admiration for the adept characteristics and the skilful of the human nature? Never before the war as now accept there been and so many crimes, so much corruption, so much degeneration equally in that location is now.
In the all-time of my recollection and of my proficient faith, during the trial Katzmann has told to the jury that a sure Coacci has brought in Italy the money that, co-ordinate to the State theory, I and Sacco have stolen in Braintree. Nosotros never stole that coin. Only Katzmann, when he told that to the jury, he knew already that that was not true. He knew already that that man was deported in Italy by the federal police soon afterward our arrest. I retrieve well that I was told that the federal policeman had him in their possession--that the federal policeman had taken abroad the trunks from the very transport where he was, and brought the trunks back over here and look them over and found not a unmarried money.
Now, I telephone call that murder, to tell to the jury that a friend or comrade or a relative or acquaintance of the charged man, of the indicted homo, has carried the coin to Italian republic, when he knows it was not truthful. I tin can telephone call that nothing else but murder, a plain murder.
But Katzmann has told something else also confronting usa that was not true. If I sympathise well, in that location have been agreement of counsel during the trial in which the counsel of defense shall non produce whatever evidence of my good comport in Plymouth and the counsel of the prosecution would not have let the jury know that I was tried and convicted some other time earlier in Plymouth. Well, it was masterly called �a 1-sided agreement� past someone very competent. In fact, fifty-fifty the telephone poles knew at the fourth dimension of this trial at Dedham that I was tried and convicted in Plymouth; the jurymen knew that even when they slept. On the other side the jury have never seen I or Sacco and I think we take the correct to incline to believe that the jury have never approached before the trial anyone that was sufficiently intimate with me and Sacco to be able to give them a description of our personal acquit. The jury don't know anything almost u.s.a.. They take never seen usa. The only thing that they know is the bad things that the newspaper have said on the Plymouth trial.
I don't know why the defense counsel take made such an understanding but I know very well why Katzmann had made such understanding; because he know that half of the population of Plymouth would have been willing to come up over hither and say that in seven years that I was living amongst them that I was never seen drunk, that I was known equally the most strong and steadfast worker of the community. As a matter of fact I was chosen a mule and the people that know a little improve the status of my male parent and that I was a single homo, much wondered at me and say, "Why you work like a mad man in that way when y'all take no children and no married woman to care nearly?"
Well, Katzmann should accept been satisfied on that agreement. He could have thanked his God and estimate himself a lucky homo. But he was not satisfied with that. He bankrupt his word and he told to the jury that I was tried before; he told information technology to this very court. I don't know if that is right in the tape, if that was taken off or not, simply I heard with my ears. When two or three women from Plymouth come up to accept the stand up, the woman reached that point where this gentleman sits over there, the jury were seated in their identify, and Katzmann asked these women if they accept not testified earlier for Vanzetti, and they say, aye, and he tell to them, "You lot cannot show." They left the room. After that they testified just the same. But in the meanwhile he told the jury that I have been tried earlier. That I think is not giving justice to the man from one who is looking afterward the truth, and it is with such insuperable frameups with which he has split my life and doomed me.
It was also said that the defense force has put every obstacle to the handling of this instance in order to delay the case. That sounds weak for u.s., and I remember it is injurious because information technology is not truthful. If nosotros consider that the prosecution, the State, has employed i unabridged twelvemonth to prosecute us, that is, ane of the five years that the case has lasted was taken past that prosecution to begin our trial, our get-go trial. And then the defense makes an appeal to you and you waited, for I think that you were resolute, that you lot had the resolution in your middle from even when the trial finished that yous will have refused every appeal that we will put up to you. Yous waited a month or a month and a half and simply lay down your decision on the eve of Christmas--but on the eve of Christmas, eve of Christmas. Nosotros exercise not believe in Christmas, neither in the historical style nor in the church way. But, you know, some of our folks even so believe in that, and because we practise not believe in that, information technology don't mean that we are non human. We are man, and Christmas is sugariness to the heart of every man. I think that you take done that, to hand down your determination on the eve of Christmas, to toxicant the heart of our family unit and of our dearest. I am sorry to be compelled to say this, just everything that was said or done on your side since so has confirmed my suspicion fourth dimension afterwards time until that suspicion has changed to finality.
And so the defense, in presenting the new entreatment, has not taken more than time than you accept taken in respond to that. Then there came the 2d appeal, and now I am not certain whether information technology is the second appeal or the third appeal where you waited xi months or one year without an answer to us, and I am sure that y'all had decided to refuse u.s. a new trial before the hearing for the new appeal began. You took one year to answer information technology, or eleven months,--something like that. So that you run into that out of the v years, two were taken by the Land from the day of our abort to the trial, and and so i yr to wait for your reply on the second or the third appeal.
And so on another occasion that I don't remember exactly at present, Mr. Williams was ill and the things were delayed non for fault of the defense but on account of the prosecution. So that I am positive that if a human being take a pencil in his hand and compute the time taken by the prosecution in prosecuting the case, and the time that was taken past the defense to defend this instance, the prosecution has taken more time than the defense, and there is a great consideration that must be taken in this point, and information technology is that my first lawyer betrayed the states,--the whole American population were against us.
We have the misfortune to have a man from California, and he came hither, and he was ostracized by yous and past every dominance, even by the jury, and is so much and so that not fifty-fifty Massachusetts is allowed from what I could call a universal prejudice,--the belief that each people in each place of the earth, they believe to be the better of the globe, and they believe that all the other people of the other places of the world are not so good every bit they. And so of grade the man that came from California into Massachusetts to defend two of u.s., he must be licked if it is possible, and he was licked all right. And nosotros have our office, too.
What I want to say is this: Everybody ought to understand that the get-go beginning of our defence force has been terrible. My first lawyer did not try to defend us. He has made no attempt to collect witnesses and prove in our favor. The record in the Plymouth court is a compassion. I am told that they are role or well-nigh one-half lost. So that later on the defense have had a tremendous work to practice in society to collect some bear witness, to collect some testimony to offset and to larn what the testimony of the State had been. And in this consideration information technology must exist said that even if the defense force take double time of the State about delays, double fourth dimension than they (the State) delayed the case, information technology would take been reasonable merely the same, whereas information technology took less than the State.
Well, I take already say that I non only am not guilty of these 2 crimes, but I never committed a offense in my life,--I have never stolen and I accept never killed and I have never spilt claret, and I have fought against crime, and I have fought and I have sacrificed myself even to eliminate the crimes that the law and the church building legitimate and sanctify.
This is what I say: I would non wish to a dog or to a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the world--I would not wish to any of them what I take 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 accept suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered more for my family and for my love than for myself; but I am then convinced to exist right that you lot tin only kill me once just if yous 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. Thanks.
Gauge THAYER: Under the law of Massachusetts the jury says whether a defendant is guilty or innocent. The Courtroom has admittedly cipher to do with that question. The constabulary of Massachusetts provides that a judge cannot deal in whatsoever way with the facts. As far as he can go under our constabulary is to state the evidence.
During the trial many exceptions were taken. Those exceptions were taken to the Supreme Judicial Court. That Courtroom, later on examining the unabridged record, after examining all the exceptions,--that Court in its last words said, "The verdicts of the jury should stand up; exceptions overruled." That existence true, there is only 1 thing that this--Court can exercise. It is non a thing of discretion. Information technology is a matter of statutory requirement, and that beingness true in that location is merely ane duty that now devolves upon this Court, and that is to pronounce the sentence.
Showtime the Court pronounces sentence upon Nicola Sacco:
It is considered and ordered past the Court that you lot, Nicola Sacco, endure the punishment of decease by the passage of a current of electricity through your trunk within the week beginning on Sunday, the tenth solar day of July, in the Year of our Lord One Thou Ix Hundred and Twenty-seven. This is the judgement of the law.
Then upon Vanzetti:
It is considered and ordered by the Court that you, Bartolomeo Vanzetti . . .
VANZETTI: Expect a infinitesimal, delight, your Honor. May I speak for a minute with my lawyer, Mr. Thompson?
THOMPSON: I do non know what he has to say.
Judge THAYER: I retrieve I should pronounce the sentence....... Bartolomeo Vanzetti, suffer the punishment of decease.....
SACCO: You know I am innocent. Those are the same words I pronounced 7 years ago. You condemn 2 innocent men.
Estimate THAYER: � by the passage of a current of electricity through your torso inside the week starting time on Sunday, the 10th solar day of July, in the year of our Lord, One Grand 9 Hundred and Twenty-seven. This is the sentence of the law.
[The next day Vanzetti passed to friends the notes of what he had boosted remarks he had intended to make to Judge Thayer when he interrupted the pronouncement of sentence. The boosted remarks included these comments about his co-defendant:]
I have talk a great deal of myself merely I even forgot to name Sacco. Sacco too is a worker from his adolescence, a skilled worker lover of work, with a adept job and pay, a banking company account, a practiced and lovely wife, two beautiful children and a peachy picayune dwelling house at the verge of a wood, almost a brook. Sacco is a heart, a faith, a character, a man; a man lover of nature and of mankind. A man who gave all, who cede all to the cause of Freedom and to his love for mankind; coin, residuum, mundain ambitions, his ain wife, his children, himself and his own life. Sacco has never dreamt to steal, never to assassinate. He and I have never brought a morsel of bread to our mouths, from our childhood to today--which has not been gained past the sweat of our brows. Never. His people also are in good position and of practiced reputation.
Oh, yep, I may be more witfull, as some have put information technology, I am a amend babbler than he is, but many, many times in hearing his heartful voice ringing a faith sublime, in because his supreme sacrifice, remembering his heroism I felt small-scale small at the presence of his greatness and constitute myself compelled to fight back from my eyes the tears, and quanch my centre trobling to my throat to non weep before him--this human being called thief and assasin and doomed. But Sacco's name will live in the hearts of the people and in their gratitude when Katzmann's and yours basic will be dispersed by fourth dimension, when your name, his name, your laws, institutions, and your false god are but a deem rememoring of a cursed by in which man was wolf to the man. . . .
Sacco & Vanzetti Trial Homepage
Source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/SaccoV/courtspeech.html
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