The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: A New England Legend (15 page)

A chill of horror went through the Professor of Criminal Law. He had been very hot before, and now he was suddenly cold and shaken, like a person with a malarial chill. During the past several days he had heard that whoever came before the Governor with a plea for mercy or a plea for a delay in the date of execution, was met with a parrotlike recitation of the Governor's official decision to proceed with the execution, which he had made public a few weeks before now, on the third of August, and which he had apparently memorized. When he first heard these stories, the Professor of Criminal Law found them beyond normal belief; he dismissed them as the sort of nasty gossip and malicious slander that was bound to be added to all the real sins attributable to the Governor. But here and now he was experiencing the thing himself. He was listening to the Governor of Massachusetts recite from memory a part of his own official decision; and the ordeal of listening to this became one of the most frightening and terrible experiences he had ever had. The moment he realized that the Governor was quoting his own decision, the whole atmosphere of the place seemed to change; the real world shimmered into the unsteady pattern of complete nightmare, and instead of a sturdy if reactionary leader of a mighty Commonwealth, he saw sitting before him a vessel both enigmatic and empty, the human form of which only made the situation more bizarre. It was only with an extreme effort of his will that the Professor was able to collect his thoughts and continue his argument.

“Forgive me, please, your Excellency,” he said. “I feel it is not fair to pre-judge what we bring to you. I asked myself before coming here, whether I would approach you with a plea for mercy or a plea for justice. With some doubts remaining in my mind, I made a decision that I would not ask for mercy—”

“I realized at the outset,” the Governor interrupted him, “that there were many sober minded and conscientious men and women who were genuinely troubled about the guilt or innocence of the men accused, and the fairness of their trial. It seemed to me—”

The insane horror continued to build as the Professor of Criminal Law realized once again that the Governor was quoting from his decision. His heart sank, and he fought against a wave of sickness, a mounting desire to vomit, the culmination of heat, cold, and insanity; he resisted this nausea desperately while he waited for the Governor to finish. When the Governor at last finished quoting, the Professor continued his argument, although he doubted that the Governor was listening to him, or, if listening, had any logical comprehension of what he was saying. The Professor of Criminal Law continued his thesis that he had come there to plead for justice and not for mercy. He enumerated, slowly and meticulously, the roll-call of the most important witnesses who had spoken for Sacco and Vanzetti, pointing out that in all, there were over one hundred witnesses. He repeated some of the statements of those who had sworn under oath that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti could possibly have been at the scene of the crimes of which they were accused. He broke down the stories of the prosecution witnesses. He did not take long, for he had the whole of it at his fingertips, and less than fifteen minutes were needed to make a concise, incontestable, and concrete picture of innocence. Completing this analysis of the evidence, the Professor of Criminal Law said,

“The most bitter irony of it, your Excellency, is that Vanzetti has never in his life been to South Braintree. What a sorrowful thing that is to contemplate—that if he perishes tonight, he will die without ever having laid eyes upon the so-called scene of his crime.”

The Governor waited politely now to see whether the Professor of Criminal Law had finished. When he saw that he had, the Governor said, very evenly and unemotionally, “It has been a difficult task to look back six years through other people's eyes. Many of the witnesses told me their story in a way I felt was more a matter of repetition than the product of their memory. Some witnesses replied that during the six years, they had forgotten incidents, and therefore could not remember. You see, it was a disagreeable experience, and for that very reason they have tried to forget it.”

The Governor stopped speaking, and looked inquiringly at the Professor of Criminal Law and at the Writer. The Professor of Criminal Law felt cold, sick and listless, for once again, the Governor had quoted from the memorized decision; and the Professor of Criminal Law found himself unable to continue speaking, but turned to the Writer and looked at him pleadingly, wondering whether he too had recognized the source of the Governor's thoughtful and controlled eloquence.

“I, however, would ask for mercy,” the Writer said simply. “I would ask for Christian mercy—in the memory of Christ who suffered.”

“This is not a question for mercy,” the Governor answered calmly. “The South Braintree crime was particularly brutal. The murder of the paymaster and the guard was not necessary to the robbery. It is wrong to ask for mercy. These men have had their day in court, Various delays have dragged this case through the courts for six years. I think these delays are inexcusable. I have no reason to delay it any further.”

“My friend here beside me,” the Writer said, his deep voice resonant but muted, “offered logic as reason for postponement. I ask for Christian mercy. Punishment has its dubious validity only in relation to the crime. I would be deceiving you, your Excellency, if I did not say that I myself believe these men are guilty of no crime except their radical beliefs; but even considering that they were guilty, have they not paid sufficiently? God's precious gift to man was for him to die once, never knowing the time of his going. But for seven years, these two poor men have died again and again. A thousand times, they have gone to their death before today, and what today has been to them, I cannot describe nor can anyone. Doesn't this touch you, your Excellency? My friend here beside me—both of us are proud people, but we come to you to beg as humbly as if we were slaves offering our lives and our human dignity to our master. We beg for the lives of these two men.”

The Governor spoke one word now. He asked, “Why?” Suddenly he was earnest; and the one word encompassed all his powers of understanding. He wanted to know why—why did they come before him pleading for the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti? Why did anyone come before him? His manner implied that he would be grateful indeed if either of these two men could explain to him why they thought that Sacco and Vanzetti must not die.

Now the New York Writer shared the horror of the Professor of Criminal Law. The simple yet awful question, the one word directed at them by the Governor, made them speechless, and they could only wait silently for what might follow. The Governor also waited. The air in the room became heavy and motionless; life went out of the air. A grandfather clock in one corner ticked loudly and demandingly, but still all three of the men remained silent, and waited. What would have come of this, it is hard to say, for when the painful tension was near the breaking point, the door opened and the Governor's secretary said that Mrs. Sacco and Miss Vanzetti—Luigia Vanzetti, her name was, and she was Vanzetti's sister who had come all the great distance from Italy to plead for his life—stood outside, and were ready to see him if he would see them. Now the Governor turned to the Writer and the Professor of Criminal Law with incomprehensible and gentle apology. After all, they had come late for their appointment. He was so terribly sorry, but these two women had an appointment with him, and there were other appointments, and he had to be on schedule today. Did they want to go, or did they want to remain here and listen while he spoke to Miss Vanzetti and Mrs. Sacco?

The Professor of Criminal Law would have gone gladly, but the Writer answered for both of them, and said please, they would remain if the Governor did not mind.

No, he did not mind, the Governor said pleasantly, and then invited them to sit down on the claw-footed chairs that were ranged against the wall; thus they would be more comfortable. The Governor said that the best thing to do on a hot and trying day like this, was to make one's self as comfortable as one possibly could. He was now a considerate and thoughtful host, but the Professor of Criminal Law understood that this phase of him, like his reciting his own decision, was a choreography learned and practiced, a ritual that had no relationship to actual human concern. They sat down, and the door opened and the secretary led two women and a man into the Governor's office. The man was evidently a friend of the two women, as well as an interpreter for Miss Vanzetti, who spoke no English. She was a little woman, frail beyond belief, and both the Professor and the Writer looked at her with great curiosity. Until this moment, Sacco and Vanzetti had been two disembodied names. The sudden appearance of these two women had served to materialize both of the men before their eyes. The Writer was very much moved. He had heard that Mrs. Sacco was a beautiful woman, but he had not been prepared for the heartbreaking quality of her beauty; for this was a beauty that did not acknowledge itself. She was a woman without desire to be attractive to any man in the whole world but the one man who was denied to her; yet this very selflessness gave her the appearance of a Madonna out of some old and perfect Renaissance painting, a moment of womanhood caught by Raphael or Leonardo. Her beauty defied all the cheap and petty cliches that were a part of the culture of this land, and invented to impugn womanhood, not to ennoble it; and looking at her, the Writer wondered that he had ever thought of any other woman as being beautiful. Then he shook himself free of such feeling, for he felt in some way that it was unjust to the frightened and grief-stricken woman who stood before the Governor. Her grief was personal and very different from the strange and silent accusation of Vanzetti's sister.

There were no preliminaries to what Nicola Sacco's wife said. The words poured out of her like the soft running of a mountain brook. “I know you, Governor,” she whispered. “I know that you have children. I know that you have a wife. And what do you think of when you look at your wife and children? Do you ever look at them, Governor, and think, good-by, good-by and farewell forever, and you will never see me again and I will never see you again? Do you ever think of such things? My husband loves me better than he loves himself. How can I tell you what kind of a man he is? Nicola Sacco is gentle. What shall I say to you, Governor? If an ant comes into the house, then you step on it and kill it. An ant is an insect, and a man thinks nothing of an ant. But Nicola Sacco would pick up an ant and place it outside on the ground, and when I laughed at him, do you know what he would say to me? He would say, it has life, and therefore I must honor it. Life is precious. Think of those words, Governor. I want to try to make you see him the way he was with his children—never harsh, never angry, never impatient, never too busy. His ten fingers were slaves for them. What did the children want? Should he become a donkey and ride them on his back? Then he did. A troubadour to sing songs to them? That he also was. A fast runner to run races with them? That, too. And God help us if they should be sick—he was a nurse, and never left their bedside. Did I say
their
bedside? You see how the years catch up with me. I should have said
his
bedside, only the bedside of our little boy, Dante, for he never knew the little girl, who grew up while he lay in prison.

“Look at me, Governor. Am I the sort of woman who would be married to a murderer? Am I telling you about a man who kills in cold blood? Why will you destroy him? What terrible devils need to be satisfied with a burnt offering? What else can I say to you? I tried to think of everything I would say to you, and now it all comes down to nothing else but a man who is so full of love and kindness and good sweetness that he walked in his own garden like Saint Francis. Do you know what he wanted? He wanted for the whole world to have the little bit that he had, a good wife and good children and a plain job where he could work each day and earn his daily bread. This is all that he wanted. This is why he was a radical. He said the people of the whole world should have his own happiness. But kill? He never, never killed. He never raised his hand to another man. Never. And now will you spare him, please, please? I will get down on my knees and kiss your feet, but spare him for his children and for me.”

The Governor listened to all this without a shadow of emotion disturbing the small, neat, complacent features and folds of his clean-shaven face. He listened very politely and considerately, nor did he protest when Vanzetti's sister burst into a flood of Italian. The man who stood behind her translated without the emotional pitch that her voice contained; but in the very words there was a compelling and eloquent power. She told him how she had gone through France, and how the workers had persuaded her to lead a parade of tens of thousands of men and women through the streets of Paris.

“They said to me, good heart and good cheer, for you will go before the Governor of the land and tell him the truth about Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who is such a good man, a man of justice and clear thought and great dignity. Did I come here alone to tell you this? My father sent me. My father is an old, old man. He is as old as one of those old men in the Bible, and he said to me, go into the land of Egypt where my son is held prisoner. Go before the mighty of the land—and plead for my son's life.”

It came as a shock to the Professor of Criminal Law to realize that the Writer was, weeping. The Writer from New York wept simply and unashamedly, and then, deliberately, he dried his eyes and stared at the Governor. The Governor met his eyes, and that in no way disconcerted the leader of the Commonwealth. He had listened to all the two women had to say, and as before, when the Professor had spoken, he waited politely, to make quite certain that they had finished speaking. When he was sure of this he said, unemotionally and simply,

“I am terribly sorry that I cannot do something to alleviate your distress. I understand the source of your distress, but you see, the law is implacable under these circumstances. It has been a difficult task to look back six years through other people's eyes. Many of the witnesses told me their story in a way I felt was more a matter of repetition than a product of their memory—”