Read Online The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: A New England Legend by Howard Fast - Free Book Online Page A

evidence, then they should be pardoned. They are not to blame if the State of Massachusetts employs a judge who refers to men on trial before him as ‘anarchistic bastards,’ tells about how he will get them, and that ‘that will hold them,’ and boasts about what he had done to them and what he is going to, do. Sacco and Vanzetti did not appoint him and are not to blame if the State of Massachusetts tolerates him.
    â€œIf the Supreme Court of this State has no jurisdiction to alter what a judge has said, because it has to protect the discretion vested in the judge, then the only thing the State can do is to pardon these men, humiliating as it may be, humiliating as it is to every citizen in this State to have to admit that men can be treated as these men have been treated. We have to stomach it, to stand it; there is no way out of it. And any attempt to evade this, to gloss it over, to make black white, to stamp it down, to suppress it, will not do any good. Everybody is familiar with the case, all over the world. This evidence has been translated into every European language. They are as familiar with it in Germany and France as we are. We are up against the wall.”
    â€œThe ablest men in Massachusetts who respect the courts are forced into a corner. We have got either to make some explanation that won’t be accepted and that really can’t commend itself to our own judgment as sincere, candid and fair, or else we have got to admit that this trial was a mistake and a miscarriage of justice, that it was unfairly conducted, that there was a reasonable doubt, which has been enormously increased since, and that our courts have been unable to correct the error then made, and therefore the Governor should pardon these men, whether or not you now believe they are guilty, whether or not you think that in five years from now the evidence would be stronger against them or weaker against them. The day has gone by, the State has had its chance, the trial has occurred. These arguments have all taken place. The courts have finished, and this is the result of this case.”
    â€œNow I am through with this case. I have done the best I could with it. I have labored here for years trying to bring about elementary justice, and if I fail I shall feel bitterly disappointed but not remorseful. I have done what I could, and I ask you to do what you can to prevent what, if not prevented, will be to the everlasting disgrace of this State.”
    â€œSit down, can’t you?” was all he could think of saying to the lawyer then—when that argument was made. He had not even heard, with any perception, the words he remembered so cruelly now. But, finished with his plea, the lawyer for Sacco and Vanzetti had remained standing and looking at him, even as the Professor of Criminal Law now looked at him; and in his mind, the University President tried to formulate words that would not take shape. Words like I shall have to ask for your resignation . But he did not and could not speak those words. “All alone,” he said to himself.
    â€œYou’re an old man,” the Professor of Criminal Law said bitterly, “and yet you love death. Old man, you’re an executioner!”
    â€œHow dare you talk like that!”
    The instructor watched and listened in horrified silence, but the Dean of the Law School cried, “Have you lost your mind?”
    â€œOh, no—no, not at all. Why am I wanted here?”
    The old man, who was one of the high aristocrats of a nation that supposedly had no aristocracy, suddenly reread once again the document he had signed, and signed it again in his mind’s eye, his old hand trembling, as his eyes traveled down the lines he himself had dictated:
    â€œThe alibi of Vanzetti is decidedly weak. One of the witnesses, Rosen, seems to the Committee to have been shown by the cross-examination to have been lying at the trial; another, Mrs. Brini, had sworn to an