Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Sacco and Vanzetti

Episode Date: June 12, 2021

On April 15, 1920, two men who were delivering the payroll to the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts were killed in broad daylight. The payroll was taken by the killers, and they jumped into a getaway car. A few weeks later, two Italian immigrants with known ties to radical anarchist groups were arrested for the murder. It became one of the most controversial criminal cases in US history. Learn more about Sacco and Vanzetti, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In April 1920, two men who were delivering the payroll to the Slater Moral Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, were killed in broad daylight. The payroll was taken by the killers, and they jumped into a getaway car. A few weeks later, two Italian immigrants with known ties to radical anarchist groups were arrested for the murder. It became one of the most controversial criminal cases in U.S. history. Learn more about Nicola Soco and Bartolomo Vanzetti and the case which captivated the entire world on this episode of Everything and Everything and, everywhere daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that

may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by the Travel Photography Academy. If you've listened to enough episodes of this podcast, you'll notice that I often interject places that I've visited. That's because I spent over 10 years of my life traveling around the world almost nonstop. During that time, I went from being a complete novice in photography to winning almost every major travel photography prize in North America.

When I learned how to do travel photography, I did do it the hard way. It took years of time and lots of travel. That's why I created the Travel Photography Academy, so you can learn from me in much less time, spending much less money. It's an online video course which I shot on location in France, Spain, and the United States, and I cover everything you need to improve your travel photography. So, if you want to take your photography to the next level and get better photos on your next trip, visit Travel Photography Academy.com or click on the link in the show notes. The trial of Nicolausaco and Bartolomo Vanzetti is one of the most significant moments

of the legal history of the United States in the 20th century. The trial became a divisive issue in American and world politics, and what you thought of the guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti had more to do with the political beliefs at the time than it did with the actual merits of the case. Before we get into the case itself, it's necessary to understand the climate in which the case took place. In 1919, there was a series of anarchist bombings in the United States. In April, three dozen bombs were sent via the postal system to various political and law enforcement officers across the country. The packages were designed to explode after being opened, however, they were mostly ineffective. In June, another series of

bombings took place, again targeting judges, politicians, and law enforcement officials. The bombings were organized by Italian immigrant and anarchist Luigi Galani. Galani believed that murder and assassination were necessary to overthrow government institutions. In the June bombings, each explosive device was delivered with a note, which read, quote, war, class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed. We will not dodge. There will have to be murder. We will kill because it is necessary. There will have to be destruction. We will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions." There was one person in particular who was the target of both bombing

attempts, one A. Mitchell Palmer, the Attorney General of the United States. He instituted what became known as the Palmer raids, which were targeted at anarchists and communists, most of whom were Italian or Eastern European immigrants. Luigi Galani's organization was considered at the top of the government's list of dangerous enemies. Sacco and Vanzetti were both known anarchists and followers of Galani. The crime itself took place on April 15, 1920. A security guard named Elisandro Bernardini, and a paymaster named Frederick Perimentor, were delivering the payroll for the Slater Morris Shoe Company factory in Braintree, Massachusetts. The men were carrying two large steel boxes full of cash when they were approached by two men

and shot dead in the street. The two men took the boxes of cash containing over $15,000 and fled in a waiting car. To make a very long story short, the police suspected Italian anarchists based on previous similar crimes. When running up a lead on the getaway car, they found connections with people who had weapons that matched the ones used in the crime. This led them to Sacco and Vanzetti. When asked about guns, they said they never owned any, yet they were carrying firearms on their person at the time.

They were placed into custody and charged with murder on May 5th, and the trial began on June 22nd. I'm vastly oversimplifying the case at this point in how they were arrested, but suffice to say they were arrested, and this is where the real story starts. The trial was a mess on many different levels. The prosecution relied on ethnic differences between the Italian. Italian defendants and the jurors. There were conflicting testimonies. The witnesses claimed that they saw different things, and they had different stories for each defendant. There was conflicting ballistics testimony. The defendant's politics were also brought into the trial to prejudice the jury against them. It was also brought forward that both men went to Mexico in 1917 to

escape the draft for World War I. A defense committee was founded soon after their arrest, but they didn't really help during the trial. Vanzetti at one point claimed that their defense was so bad, that they might as well have been working for the prosecutors. On September 14th, the jury took only three hours to find both men guilty of murder. After the indictment, it's believed that the Gelliani organization began a bombing campaign in retribution. In addition to a series of mail bombs sent to U.S. embassies around the world, they were also responsible for the Wall Street bombing of September 16th. That bomb killed 40 people and injured 143.

It was the deadliest terrorist attack in American history up until that. that point. At the same time of the trial, most people in the country still hadn't heard of Sacco and Vanzetti. The trial itself was really only reported on in Boston. It was only after the trial when the reports of how these men were treated were made public that the men became a cause celebra. The defense committee began talking about the trial and writing articles in many leading intellectual journals. Socialist and anarchist activists around the world began using Sacco and Van Zetti as a rallying cry. Efforts to get the men a retrial or an appeal went absolutely nowhere.

All requests were denied. In 1925, a convict by the name of Solistino Mederos confessed to the murders, but even the confession wasn't enough to get a retrial. Harvard Law Professor and Future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurger wrote a lengthy article about the case detailing all of the problems and how was a miscarriage of justice. Authors such as H.G. Wells and Upton Sinclair both advocated for Sacco and Vanzetti, and Sinclair wrote a fictional book about the case called Boston. It was a fictional retelling of what happened to the two men, and more on that in a bit.

In 1927, seven years after their conviction, Sacco and Vanzetti were sentenced to death. At midnight, August 23, 1927, both men were executed by electric chair. The next day, there were violent protests around the world. Demonstrations took place in Geneva, London, Paris, Johannesburg, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. Three people were killed in the protests in Berlin. Over 10,000 people lined up to view the open caskets of Sacco and Vanzetti, and over 200,000 people lined up in the streets of Boston for their funeral procession. After their executions, bombings continued, and several people associated with the case were targeted,

including some jurors, the executioner, and the judge who presided over the trial. The Sacco and Vanzetti case eventually did lead to reforms of the judicial system and capital cases in the state of Massachusetts. The state Supreme Court was given the power to call for a new trial if new evidence came forward. In the 100 years since the Sokho and Venzetti trial, there have been two questions that have been asked by historians and legal scholars. One, did Sacco and Vanzetti receive a fair trial? And two, were they actually guilty? With regard to the first question, it's almost universally agreed upon that Sacco and Vanzetti did not get a fair trial.

There were a host of problems with the way the trial was conducted, which would result in a mistrial today. Moreover, there have been multiple Supreme Court cases since then, which would have prevented the same results which took place in 1920. We still have transcripts of the trial, but most of the physical evidence from the trial, including the bullets and shell casings, have been lost or damaged over time. The question of if Sacco and Vanzetti were actually guilty is a very different question than if they received a fair trial. Upton Sinclair came to Boston vehemently sure that Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent. As he began interviewing people to write his book, he began to have doubts about their innocence. After their execution, he spoke privately with their defense attorney Fred Moore. During this discussion, Moore confessed that Sacco and Vanzetti were actually guilty,

and that he had helped create an alibi for the two men. This confession shook Sinclair deeply. He changed his book such that the guilt or innocence of the main character was ambiguous. Many Sacco and Vanzetti supporters were angry at Sinclair for making this choice, but he never publicly spoke about what he had learned. It wasn't until his private letters became public after his death that this became known. Anarchist leader, Carlo Treska, said in 1941 that Sacco was guilty, and Vanzetti was not. By this, he meant that Sacco was the trigger man, but Vanzetti did take part in the robbery. In 1952, Anthony Ramagulia, who was a Boston

anarchist in the 1920s confessed that he was approached about providing an alibi for Soco and Vanzetti, but he couldn't because he was in jail on the day in question. A man named Giovanni Gambara, who was a member of the same Boston anarchist group in which Sacco and Vanzetti were members, confirmed Truska's account. Before his death in 1982, he admitted that Sacco was guilty and Vanzetti had taken part. Ballistics tests were run in 1961 after the technology had improved, which indicated that the bullets which killed the men came from Sacco's gun. None of this information could have been used in a trial, as it's all hearsay, and the confessions of his lawyer was a violation of

attorney-client privilege, even if it happened after the death of his client. In the end, the Sacco and Vanzetti case is a troubling one no matter where you stand on things. It was a highly politicized, poorly argued, poorly defended case, violating many of the modern norms for a criminal trial, yet there's a very good chance that the men were in fact guilty. The associate producer of Everything Everywhere daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit. If you know someone you think would enjoy the show, please share it with them.

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