Chapter XVI: The Law’s Delay (2)

The question which had been “framed” had to do with whether Proctor, as an expert on fire-arms, believed that the “mortal bullet” had come through Sacco’s pistol and none other. And it really made you wonder if you were dealing with an insane man when the judge went on from point to point, asking over and over again why Proctor hadn’t said plainly what he meant; as if Proctor had tried to make matters plain, and failed--when the whole point of the confession was that he had deliberately made matters obscure!

But “cunning old Fury” was not insane; he knew what he was doing, and went ahead, twisting every contention out of shape, misrepresenting the plain meaning of the plainest English words. He charged the defense lawyers with having claimed that Proctor “honestly believed that the mortal bullet was not fired through the Sacco pistol.” But Proctor had not said that, and the defense had not said that he had said it.

Funniest joke of all--“Web” said that the answers of the district attorney and his assistant to the Proctor confession were “clear and convincing.” To employ the slang of Pierre Leon, you could “bet your shoes” they were! They were clear and convincing of the fact that Katzmann and Williams knew that Proctor’s confession was true, and had not dared to deny it while Proctor was alive. They had carefully evaded the main point; and the judge now carefully followed suit; relying, of course, upon the fact that nobody would have the text of the answers, nor the patience to disentangle the sophistry in them.

Having performed this intellectual feat, “Web” was proud of it, and went out, as usual, to boast. He thought he had earned a holiday, so he went to Dartmouth, his college, to attend one of the football games. On the field he saw Professor James P. Richardson, and came up to him, demanding in a loud voice: “Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards the other day? I guess that will hold them for a while. Let them go to the supreme court now and see what they can get out of them!” There was more to the discourse, and the professor stood, upon pins and needles, as the saying is, because it seemed to him an unimaginable impropriety, and he knew that others were listening. He got away as quickly as he could.

It was “Web’s” way. He was engaged upon a crusade, to destroy the Reds in Massachusetts; and he did not understand how others could fail to be interested in his exploits. He would punish his friends, his club-mates and associates with long tirades, until they would be bored and ask him to quit. A group of lawyers who lunched in the club at Worcester, would turn their shoulders to him and talk about other matters. The old man would sit mumbling to himself: “They don’t understand! They don’t realize! The Vandals are at our gates, and are going to destroy us!”

XIII

This failure of the “Proctor motion” was the finishing blow for Vanzetti. Impossible to hope after that! Impossible to go on enduring the indignities of prison. Bart decided that his friends and the whole movement were being betrayed. Also he took up the notion that his ill health was due to slow poisons given to him in his food. He too declared a “hungry-strike,” and about Christmas-time of the year 1924 was certified to the Bridgewater asylum. The Sunday after he was taken away, the prison chaplain preached a sermon to his flock, pointing out the danger of departing from the holy faith. Look at poor Vanzetti, who had lost his mind, a hopeless wreck! It was the same Father Murphy who had said, “Tell me, Vanzetti, who drove the car at South Braintree?”

To the psychiatrists at Bridgewater this prisoner represented a well-known type; a victim of what they called “delusions of grandeur,” or the “messianic complex.” He had the notion that the future would be interested in him and his sayings and doings; that books would be written about his case, and translated into many languages, and read by millions of people. He lived his life and endured his sufferings in the presence of future generations, who would reverse Judge Thayer’s verdict upon him, as they had reversed other verdicts upon agitators and rebels--John Brown and Giordano Bruno and John Huss, Galileo and Socrates and Jesus. Furthermore, he had the fixed idea that he could learn to write English, and accumulated quantities of manuscript, which he thought would convert others to his cause.

In order to pacify him, it was necessary to pretend to agree with him, and then one could have quite interesting talks. He was a man of surprising culture, considering that he had been a laborer all his life; he was reflective, shrewd, even humorous at times. He did not make friends easily, preferring to sit aloof; but when a physician said that he believed in “joostice,” the prisoner would be eager to explain his brand of it, and would sit for hours, telling Dr. Stearns with the utmost seriousness how a society might be run without government or forcible repression.

These specialists in human mentality were not asked their opinion as to the probable guilt of this convicted bandit, but they could not help having ideas on the subject. They reported Vanzetti as of the intellectual, not the motor type; awkward, not active. They said that if he committed an assault, it would be, not with intent to kill, but to show feeling. They pictured a man with his excess of emotion and imagination, attempting to commit a hold-up; it was their judgment that his heart would beat violently, his knees would shake, he would hear a noise behind him, and whirl about and shoot blindly, or throw away the gun in a panic--a “brainstorm,” as it was known to the writers and readers of crime-news. The psychiatrists furthermore reported that the professional bandits and hold-up men in the prisons jeered at the idea that Sacco and Vanzetti could have done that South Braintree job; they were offended in their dignity by the suggestion that a couple of bunglers and novices could have got away with anything so competent and swift.

XIV

The jury brought in its verdict in the Jerry Walker case; a terrible blow to the Thornwell men--saying, in effect, that they had perjured themselves upon the witness-stand. The jury found that Jerry Walker was entitled to damages equal to the market value of his properties at the time they were taken from him, plus the interest; a trifle over ten and one-half millions of dollars. It was the biggest verdict ever brought in the Commonwealth, and men talked about it in the clubs for weeks.

The decision was announced a week before Christmas, and completely spoiled that gracious season in the Thornwell, Winters, Alvin, and Scatterbridge homes. Rupert took to his bed with a severe “coryza”--since it would not do for a great banker to have a common cold. He entertained his wife and visiting ladies of the family with terrible pictures of the collapse of Boston banking, consequent upon the custom of allowing decisions concerning millions of dollars to rest in the hands of men who could not have financed a peanut-stand. According to Rupert, all the bankers in Boston would immediately be sued for all the money they had made in the last ten years--which was a commentary on the city’s banking-system from a leading authority.

Rupert’s expensive lawyers would be put to work at once to appeal the case; and even while he was scolding and pessimizing, and snuffling and sneezing and snorting and blowing with the coryza, Rupert’s mental dynamo was driving away at new plans. The details of the appeal would be left to the lawyers, while Rupert would concentrate on the judges. He had suggested the appointment of two or three members of the Supreme Judicial Court, and hoped he could count upon them. He began figuring over the others: their families and connections, social and financial. Whose men were they, and what obligations were they under?

Presently Rupert would be sending for good gossips, such as Quincy Thornwell, who could help him pick up information. If any of these judges had close relatives who were lawyers, it might be a good idea to retain these. If they had intimate friends who could talk to them, methods must be worked out to approach these friends--in a strictly high-minded and proper way, of course--pointing out to them the dreadful state of uncertainty in which the financial affairs of Massachusetts were left by this unprecedented jury decision. How could big bandits stay in business, if, after they had held a pistol to the victim’s head and got him to sign a document excusing them for the robbery, the police should be allowed to step in and say that the document didn’t count?

It would take more than two years for the Full Court of the Supreme Judicial Court to weigh and decide this mighty issue; so Rupert had plenty of time to continue his intrigue. He would not have to buy any members of the higher court; he trusted that nobody had been appointed who was not the sort of person to respect great bankers and appreciate their difficulties as the invisible rulers of America. It was an unwritten custom that as soon as a man was appointed to this court he was also made a member of the very old and exclusive Union Club; so Rupert and his associates would meet the justices at luncheon every day when the court was in session; and while they would not be so crude as to refer to the case, they could talk about business stability and the sanctity of contracts; they could arrange for others to do the same, the big and weighty men to whom the justices had had to come, to beg for the favor of appointment. At the time when Rupert knew the Full Court was giving its time to the case, he would bring it about that great bankers from New York would happen to ride up in the elevator with the justices and happen to remark in clear tones that all business in New England was held up, waiting to find out if the courts were going to permit credit to be undermined and contracts repudiated.

XV

Yet, with all this power in his hands, Rupert was nervous; he could not help worrying, to the great damage of the calcified veins in his ankles and legs. His brother-in-law tried in vain to keep him cheerful: Henry Cabot Winters, who had worked out for himself a wonderful scheme, whereby he was going to snap his fingers at all courts and their decisions. Henry was going to make over his property to his sister, and then go into bankruptcy!

Ordinarily this service is performed for business men by their wives; but Henry was afraid of Alice. Not that she would keep his money--no Thornwell would ever be a thief; but she might have a brainstorm, and decide that it was for the good of his soul for the money to be turned over to an occultist society. Just now the mad streak in the Thornwells was manifesting itself in Alice’s determination to be a lady “chela.” She was bringing bowls of rice and fresh straw for bedding to a real “shri,” who was at one with Brahma, and must not be spoken to. Every day Alice put on a snow-white robe and stood in front of a black screen in a pitch-dark room, in order that her aura might be studied, and her soul-troubles diagnosed thereby.

But Henry had a sister, Agatha Winters, who was pure “New England,” unmarried and unchanging. He went to see her in the village where she lived in the family homestead, devoting herself to church work. He explained his troubles; wicked men had conspired to ruin him, and if they succeeded, obviously he would no longer be able to contribute to his sister’s support, and she would no longer be able to give her time to the Lord. So Agatha knew that it was the Lord’s purpose for her to aid Henry against his enemies. She had learned from the Old Testament that the Lord aided His own against others, and that He was not too scrupulous as to the means.

So Henry put five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of liberty bonds into Agatha’s name, and had them sold and converted into a bank-draft payable to her. She endorsed it, and Henry sold her some of his property for it. He then bought more liberty bonds, and had them sold in Agatha’s name, and put the money into another bank-draft, for which Agatha bought another half-million dollars’ worth of his property. This procedure was continued until Agatha was the registered legal owner of every bond and share of stock and piece of real estate which Henry owned, including everything which he had got from Jerry Walker; including even the automobile he drove, the yacht on which he spent his week-ends, the five-gaited snow-white Arabian stallion which he rode, and the apartment-house in which he kept his mistress, a charming and popular concert-singer.

So the great lawyer could go into court and swear that he did not own a dollar in the world; and Agatha would be able to produce canceled vouchers, showing the actual payment of cash to the full market value of every piece of property she had acquired. Hidden away in a safe-deposit box to which Henry alone had the key there was a will, executed by Agatha in Henry’s favor; and a deed, selling back to Henry for the sum of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations, all the property which Henry had sold to Agatha. This latter document was blank as to date; thus Henry had everything fixed so that, the day the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the Jerry Walker verdict, he could file a petition in bankruptcy, and wipe out his share of the claims forever. After which, he would take back his property again, and laugh in the face of his enemies!

XVI

The Thornwell generations came and went. Great-uncle Abner had a paralytic stroke, which intercepted the nerves in his legs. No longer did he ride about “Hillview” on a pony, but sat in a wheel-chair and stormed and fussed when his attendants delayed to bring his meals. He still had his deaf man’s voice, but could not hear a sound; you wrote your ideas on a pad for him to read. You did not have to write very much, because he was interested in his own ideas, and content if you would sit and nod and smile. Every time he found anything in his _Evening Transcript_ damaging to the reputation of a “Red,” he would cut it out and mark it, and mail it to Cornelia with injurious comments.

To make up for the loss of Abner’s legs, Betty’s older sister, Priscilla, brought four of them, eagerly kicking, into the world. The first time it was a boy, and his name at once became Alvin Thornwell Shaw, quite a load for two tiny red legs to kick under. Since his father was a mighty mountain of copper, it pleased his Aunt Betty to refer to him as the young copper hill; and when the second heir arrived and proved to be a niece, Betty took to calling her the little branch bank. Betty herself was not going to provide her mother and father with any grandchildren--at least not for a while. Betty talked defiantly about the wicked practice known as “birth control,” and said that this was not a fit world into which to bring babies. What was the use of raising boys for the military men to take away from you and kill? What was the use of raising either boys or girls when their grandparents would insist upon leaving them millions of dollars, thereby turning them into parasites and deadheads?

Family propriety compelled the inviting of Cornelia to act as godparent to both the copper hill and the branch bank; but each time she modestly declined, not feeling equal to the responsibility of training either Thornwells or Shaws. But she attended the baptisms, which were in Trinity Church on a weekday afternoon, with many relatives and some invited friends. The font had been made beautiful with flowers, and there was a hymn sung by those present, and the precious infant slept soundly, wearing the embroidered christening robe, two yards long, which had been made for Great-great-great-grandfather Thornwell, the sea-captain, and used at the baptisms of his infant descendants ever since. When the splashing of cold water woke the victim up, it let out a yell of indignation, which was a good sign, the old ladies said, because it let the devil out; the old men chuckled, and commented--a powerful voice, like Abner Thornwell’s and Josiah’s--it was the old stock!

There were two godfathers and one godmother for the boy, and the second time one godfather and two godmothers for the girl. Each time these sponsors in baptism did promise and vow three things in the infant’s name; of which the first was that it would “renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all the covetous desires of the same.” Cornelia Thornwell looked about her: here was the elder Shaw, grandfather of this infant, who sat tight upon a huge store of treasure, and some twelve years ago, when his wage-slaves in the Mesaba Range had dared to revolt, had sent in thugs and gunmen to slug and murder them, exactly as if it had been at home in Massachusetts. And here was Rupert Alvin, who had taken away ten million dollars from Jerry Walker, and now was trying to undermine the highest court of his Commonwealth in order to keep it. The covetous desires of the world!

And then the “vain pomp and glory.” Here were stately male personages in striped trousers and cutaway coats, or braided black broadcloth, the very stick-pins in their ties having ritual significance; here were ladies, who had made a life-study of the art of demonstrating their millions and tens of millions without appearing to do so. Here was a temple built with hands, having single windows which had cost thousands of dollars, and nothing within sight of it that was not luxurious. Outside were shining limousines, and liveried chauffeurs waiting. At the Alvin mansion there was a collation, and heads of finance and fashion would eat cake and drink punch, and gossip about everything that was expensive and therefore important. At the Shaw mansion they were preparing a dinner-dance for next week, that would be the most costly affair of the season; they would furnish the newspapers with every detail of a great family advertisement, and eagerly read every word next morning. The vain pomp and glory of the world!

And all this in the name of Comrade Jesus! A strange, strange prank of time! Cornelia came out from the famous brownstone temple, erected to the glory of the proletarian martyr, and walked past the statue of Phillips Brooks, which graced one side of it. A figure of the Son of Man, stepping out of the side of the building and laying his hand upon the shoulder of the great Bishop of the Blue-bloods. Bishop Brooks had been quite a radical in his day, and the wits of the city were wont to say that the hand of Jesus was an admonitory hand, and that Jesus was saying, “Be careful, old man, remember what they did to me, and I didn’t say half what you are saying!”

From this ceremony Cornelia went to visit Vanzetti, who had been certified back to Charlestown, and was shoveling coal again. She was moved to tell him where she had been, and what she had seen, and her thoughts on the subject. “I have been wondering, Bart, if they should make a martyr out of you, will people be committing crimes and hypocrisies in your name a couple of thousand years from now?”

It was an idea the prisoner took seriously; the thought of martyrdom having become the mainspring of his lonely life. “Nonna,” said he “if they make me martyr, I fix it, I write message it cannot be mistake. If anybody say Vanzett’, it mean joostice, it mean freedom--it cannot mean nothing but!”

XVII

It was Boston, pious, proper, and proud. The _Telegram_ was publishing onslaughts upon Sacco and Vanzetti, calling for their blood because they were “atheists.” One day the staid bankers and brokers of State Street, proceeding about their business in front of the Old State House, scene of the Boston Massacre, were astonished by the spectacle of the publisher of the _Telegram_ rolling in the gutter, pummeling and being pummeled by the Honorable James Michael Curley, until recently mayor of the city. Next day the two champions were issuing statements in the newspapers, each claiming to have done the more successful pummeling. The day after that the publisher was publishing a cartoon of the ex-mayor, showing him in prison stripes--he having “done” a few months many years back. And then the ex-mayor was sending the publisher to jail for criminal libel: all this in Boston, pious, proper, and proud, thirsting for the blood of “atheists”!