Chapter VII: Deportation Days (2)

“You think they would kill innocent people?” asked Cornelia.

“Is not many people keell-èd, Nonna! Bombe blow up little piece of house, sometime when people is out, or sleep upstair and not get hurted. You want keell somebody, is not sooch difficultee, plenty people keell-èd all time, plenty Italian keell you cheap--what you call it, black hand. I know sooch feller, plenty, hear heem talk in café, vanaglorioso for what he do. He say, ‘No sooch great keeller in whole state Massachusetts; nobody shoot so queeck, so straight.’ You pay heem onderd dollar, next night your nemico he die. What for make big bombe, big noise?”

“But they sent bombs by mail, Bart!”

“Shoore, send mail--but he not put on stamp enough--the mail do not go! What follia, Nonna! Think, amica mia, how easy to find out what is postage! You not need take bombe to post-office, no sooch reesk--no, you go any post-office, any town, you say, what postage for take five pound, ten pound, twenty pound, what you like to send. You say, got package for New York, for Chicago, any place. You not go self, send odder man, send child, you get stamp, million people buy stamp. But see, Nonna--anarchista is sooch fool, he get dinnameet, he pay money, make twenty bombe, get address, send to this man, to odder man, send to Boston, New York, Lawrence, Passaic, all place--but not got sense for finding out ow mooch stamp! Is crazy thing, Nonna, is imbecillità!”

“You think government agents did it?”

“Not go-vérnment, but what you call private agent--big feller, make million dollar. He make big scare, Congress vote money, big banker get bad fright, he spend money, he say, you sava my life, you catch anarchista, you put heem in jail, so he not blow up the bank, he not keell me. Look, amica mia, you read paper, you see this morning, big banker make--what you call--notizia--avviso--”

“Advertisement.”

“Avvertisament, whole page, scare people, say polissman must catch the red, the bomber, the anarchista, musta deport, must put in jail. Is patriottismo, militarismo--you see in paper?”

Yes, Cornelia had seen it, and not for the first time; it had become quite the fashion for groups of leading citizens, bankers, merchants, the Chamber of Commerce or other civic groups, to publish full-page advertisements warning the public of the imminent danger of red riot and insurrection. “Yes, I read it,” she told Bart--but was ashamed to add that among the signers that morning was Rupert Alvin, her son-in-law, and John Quincy Thornwell, her nephew-in-law!

XI

Almost a year had passed since the mailing of those “May Day bombs,” and still the police had not succeeded in catching any of the senders; so naturally there was dissatisfaction on the part of patriots. What was the purpose of a huge secret service agency, built up at enormous expense? The loyal newspaper publishers forbore to express impatience in print, but privately they were outraged. A first-class red scare meant millions in increased sales, but how could the most ingenious editors and reporters keep excitement alive without a few facts?

The Department of Justice had one set of clews. A bomb had blown out the front of the home of the Attorney-General, the Quaker gentleman who was planning to move to the White House, and the man who carried this bomb had apparently himself been blown up. The authorities claimed to have identified the fragments as belonging to an Italian anarchist by the name of Valdinoci, one of the Galleani group. He had worn sandals, and in his pockets had been some leaflets in crude English, proclaiming anarchist ideas. The purpose for which the spy Ravarini had been set to work was to find the printing office in which this circular had been set up.

Ravarini sent contributions of money to Malatesta in Italy, and got letters from him, and then appeared among the comrades in Boston and New York, a very ardent Red, with literature to be printed, and precise ideas as to how it was to look. He would hang about an anarchist print-shop for several weeks, and have his stuff set up many times, or would come and set it up for himself. In this way he tried all the type in several printing offices; and at last in a shop in Brooklyn he found, or claimed to find, what the Department of Justice believed was the type from which the Valdinoci leaflets had been printed. It was the office of an anarchist paper called _Il Domani_--“To-morrow”--and the printers of this paper, two Italians by the name of Salsedo and Elia, were arrested and taken to the offices of the Department of Justice in the Park Row Building in lower New York.

The genial custom of holding prisoners without allowing them to communicate with their friends or even with an attorney is one for which we have neglected to invent an American name. But for the custom of torturing prisoners to make them confess, we have our jolly slang, “the third degree,” and all judges and lawyers in America know that it is employed, and all pretend not to know it, and when evidence obtained by torture is produced in court, all judges and lawyers solemnly accept it, and at the same time go on believing in the constitutional rights of accused men. It is obvious that in no other way can the system of inequality of property be maintained, and any one who denounces the “third degree” is liable to suspicion of “redness.”

Salsedo and Elia were held for three weeks in the Department of Justice offices with no warrant of law. At last Salsedo succeeded in smuggling out a letter to Vanzetti, who took it to the anarchist group in Boston. They knew without being told that the two men were being tortured, for the purpose of forcing them to implicate other anarchists in bombing plots. On Sunday, April 25th, there was a meeting of the group and it was decided that somebody must go to New York to consult with the comrades there and see what could be done for the victims. The choice fell upon Vanzetti, and he went, and called upon Carlo Tresca, editor of _Il Martello_, whom he had never seen before. “Don’t you know me, Carlo?” he said, gently. “I am Vanzetti.” He had been sending in collections for the support of the paper, and occasionally writing articles. Tresca embraced him and kissed him on both cheeks, Italian fashion.

The two of them set out down the street: Vanzetti no small man, but outtowered by his companion, whom the strike-police used to call “the bull.” In Mesaba, where the Back Bay families of Boston were holding onto their hills of copper, they framed him for first degree murder, and kept him in jail for nine months. They put three bullets into him, at different times. One side of his face was disfigured, and during the Paterson strike a newspaper published his picture with the caption, “Who Will Be a Good Citizen and Make the Two Sides of This Face Alike?” Seven times they arrested him during this desperate strike of the silk-workers. Now the Department of Justice was anxious to get him again, and was soon to do it--for the crime of demoralizing Italian Catholic women by a two-line advertisement of a pamphlet on birth control!

Carlo and Bart were going to see an Italian lawyer who had been hired to help Salsedo and Elia; he had offices directly underneath the Department of Justice rooms--an arrangement that Carlo found suspicious. But it was a problem how to change, because Carlo could not get to the prisoners, and Salsedo’s wife had been so terrified by the detectives that she did not know what to do. They saw the lawyer, and Carlo wrote a note for the prisoners, and the lawyer took it upstairs, and came back and reported that Elia had refused to read it, and Salsedo was “getting crazy” and would not answer any questions. This confirmed their worst fears, so they consulted an American lawyer, connected with the Civil Liberties Union, who agreed to seek an interview. Bart said he would go back to Boston and send fifty dollars of his own money, and raise more to pay the lawyer.

There was one other thing Bart wanted to do in New York--to see the Statue of Liberty. He had missed the sight when he had come to this country, because his steamer had arrived in a fog. And while it was true that America was not living up to this statue, still it was a world symbol of the cause to which Bart was dedicating his life. But they were too late for the boat which goes out to Bedloe’s Island, and Bart was so much disappointed he almost had tears in his eyes. “All the years I have wanted to see it!” he said to Carlo.

XII

The day Vanzetti went to New York Cornelia spent packing two trunks. There had come a quite amazing telegram from Betty in Vienna: “Letitia married Hubay my color discovered job flooey tired need recreation come immediately positively summer Italian lake reply Hotel Royal.” Cornelia called up Deborah, and first read the message and then translated it; and after Deborah had voiced indignation at the treason of a poor relation, and horror at the idea of her daughter unchaperoned in a center of notorious gayety, she asked what Cornelia was going to do, and actually hinted for her to join Betty. So much had four years of defeat tamed the family!

Cornelia had been exerting herself beyond her strength. She was sixty-five years old now--as her daughters never failed to remind her--and for four months she had not rested a day. A summer on an Italian lake with Betty for company sounded very good, and she said she would go, and Deborah undertook to have her husband use his influence to get some kind of special passport immediately, and to engage passage on a steamer, and even pay for it. Cornelia and Betty would be taken back into the family again, and have the services of all-powerful males to make smooth their paths in whatever part of the world they chose to roam.

The _Floritania_ was to sail from New York on Saturday afternoon, and on Friday morning Vanzetti telephoned to Cornelia, still in Boston. He had just arrived from New York and wanted to tell her the news. She asked him to lunch with her, and heard from his lips the terrible story of Salsedo and Elia. She knew the former of these two men, who had worked as a printer in Boston, and had come to the “picanics”: a frail little fellow, suffering from tuberculosis--“he very bad now,” said Bart; “wife she think they keell heem.” Bart had been to the savings-bank that morning and drawn out fifty dollars and sent it to Carlo, according to his promise; and Cornelia said she also would contribute fifty, and wrote a check. She felt quite rich that day, having several of Rupert’s handsome and impressive bank-drafts.

It seemed a shame to be going away for a holiday in a crisis like this. But Bart said instantly that Cornelia must not think of it; he agreed with her daughters that she was an old lady, and needed a rest, and nothing should interrupt it. He talked about the Italian lakes, not very far from where he had been born. “Sooch lovely countree! Gooda people, work hard, live simple, naturale. You be happy, live outdoor, walk in wood, pick little flower, send to me. I pick you mayflower, send heem in letter.” Then he added, “Maybe I come, we take little boat in Italian lake, Comrade Betty she sing little song! I think I like be deport!”

“Take care of yourself, Bart!” said Cornelia. “If you want to come, pay your fare, so then you can return.”

Bart laughed, and made his usual answer: “Anarchista musta make propaganda!” She learned that even in the midst of these perils he was organizing meetings and distributing literature. He was working with that Italian, Boda--“you know heem, little feller, macaroni salesman, he drive us one time for see dramma when we go Nick Sacc’.”

“I remember him.”

“He is got same little car. Is go bust in winter, but now he get heem fixit, pretty soon he drive heem, we distriboot the books!” And Bart laughed, like a bad boy. “Book wit’ red cover what so scare polissman--you remember book is bring Coacci and Orciani one time in Plymouth?”

“Yes, very well.”

“Is very bad book, molto pericoloso, is red anarchista cover, ‘Faccia à Faccia col Nemico.’ Is reason for deporting Coacci--they find six copy by heem, he say is the reason. He is gone two week now, maybe is Italy. I get hees what you say--address--he got wife and children leav-èd behind in Brockton. You maybe see heem in Italy.”

“Have you got any of those books in your house, Bart?”

“Shoore, two, t’ree copy, sell heem sometime. Nick Sacc’ is got more. Nick he is not ’fraid, he go anyhow, is got passport, ticket, all fixit. You not see Nick in Italy, he live in Sout’, way down in what you call boot. He is happy feller, go Italy. Is got fifteen onderd dollar save in bank--wife, she make heem sava ten dollar all week. Now he go see rivoluzione, maybe help. Is young feller, can not stay here when sooch great time come, can not be happy for trim edge of pretty shoe for fine gentleman!”

“You really think there’s a revolution coming in Italy?”

“You watch, maybe see heem! Great sight for Yankee lady--nobody harm you. Italian worker, he think America is free countree, good countree--he think he make Italy be countree like America! He do not know what happen to poor wop in Massachusett, he not read in paper how Department of Joostice agent take poor seeck printer, torture heem, beat heem, to make heem tell what Joostice agent want to be tell-èd!”

So it was with Bart--difficult to make jokes, or to plan for a holiday, because all brain-paths led to these dreadful cruelties and sufferings. Impossible to enjoy a luncheon, neatly served by a much-puzzled Negro maid! No, Bart would begin to twist bread-crumbs into little pellets, which was very bad manners; his look would grow abstracted and far off, and Cornelia would understand that he was up in the fourteenth story of the Park Row Building in New York, where two comrades might at that moment be hanging by their thumbs, or having their arms twisted behind their backs.--As a matter of fact they were being beaten in the face with blood-stained shoes, said to have been worn by the bomber who had been blown to fragments in front of the home of the Quaker Attorney-General. It was a refinement of imagination difficult for an uncultured Italian to foresee.

XIII

That night there was a theater-party, given by Rupert Alvin to serve notice upon the world that all was well between himself and his departing mother-in-law. They sat, very conspicuous, in a box, Cornelia, Rupert and Deborah, their daughter Priscilla, Cornelia’s nephew-in-law, Quincy Thornwell, and her second daughter, Alice Thornwell Winters, who had given up her latest adorer in deference to the family’s demands, and was now being rewarded in this public manner. They saw an expensive and highly sophisticated comedy from New York, dealing with people of their own social station who did not have to give up anything, not even one another’s wives. After which the Alvin limousine rolled to the station, and Cornelia and Deborah took the midnight train to New York.

Next morning they drove in a taxi-cab, and inspected the fashionable shops, and Deborah bought a few things, but Cornelia did not buy, because everything would be so much cheaper abroad. They lunched at one of the fashionable hotels, and took another taxi to the steamer; and on the way Cornelia said to the driver, “Where is the Park Row Building?”

“Way downtown, ma’am, by City Hall Park.”

“We don’t go near it?”

“Not unless you want to make a trip.”

“Never mind,” said Cornelia; and her daughter asked, “Why are you interested in the Park Row Building?”

“Oh, nothing; a couple of friends of mine have been tortured there for the past three weeks.”

It was like that with Cornelia nowadays--impossible to carry on polite conversation, to enjoy any sort of holiday. Deborah had to shut her lips tight together, and pretend she had not heard. And pretty soon there was the mighty steamer; the crowds, and the partings, and the waving of handkerchiefs, and the promises to take good care of yourself, and to write often, and to give my love to So-and-so; and then a tear or two, and the gangways coming up, and the great steamer sliding out into the river, and the tugs straightening it for the journey. And then the long panorama of towering white and gray buildings, the magical sky-line of Manhattan--

_Did ever a dream-city rise from the sea
That was fairer, more fleeting and fragile than she?_

But Cornelia missed all the poetical ecstasies, because she was thinking, “Which is the Park Row Building? And which is the fourteenth story?”

But there was no one to ask, and soon the sky-line faded, and there was the Statue of Liberty, and she thought of Bart, and what it meant to him. Then came the ocean, and the rolling of the ship, and she was in her state-room for two days. When she came on deck again, there was the daily newspaper, published from wireless reports for the benefit of the vessel’s leisure class; and Cornelia read that at three o’clock on the morning of the third of May, an Italian anarchist by the name of Salsedo, held by the Department of Justice for complicity in the bomb explosions of a year ago, had committed suicide by throwing himself from the fourteenth story of the Park Row Building in New York.

No more details of such a horror, to trouble the sleek and contented passengers of the _Floritania_. But two more days passed, and the ship’s newspaper contained another item, this time from Brockton, Massachusetts. Two Italians, leaders of a bandit-gang, had been nabbed by the police, charged with the murder of the paymaster and a guard of the Slater and Morrill shoe factory of South Braintree, and the theft of a payroll of sixteen thousand dollars. It was believed that this band had been responsible for numerous payroll hold-ups in Eastern Massachusetts during the past year, and the police expected to nab the other members within a few hours. Cornelia read this, but it meant nothing special, for there was hardly a day that papers did not report hold-ups from some part of the country; and in this case the news-service had not thought it worth while to mention that the names of the two arrested men were Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.