Chapter XIX: Academic Autocracy (2)

Mr. James had spotted certain flaws in the “theory.” He had noted the fact that the so-called “bandit-car” with the bullet-hole through the door had been in the hands of the police for hours before any of the numerous examinations had revealed the conspicuous bullet-hole; also he had measured the “Coacci shed,” and proved that you couldn’t drive two cars into it, as the “theory” required. Now he went down to South Braintree to reproduce the events of the hold-up, and prove that some of the witnesses could not have seen what they claimed. But the selectmen of South Braintree were not going to let the streets of their town be used for Bolshevik propaganda if they knew it, and they arrested Mr. James, in spite of both his ancestry and his money.

And then a little later Beltrando Brini had a bright idea: if the story he had told at the Plymouth trial was fiction, then he was a perjurer. He had told the story to the Governor, and had not been believed; so he drafted a letter to the Governor, asking to be arrested, and he took it about among the other alibi witnesses, and fourteen of them signed it, including Bosco and Guadagni, the two editors. Trando delivered it at the State House, and when no policeman came for him, he went back, with his mother and half a dozen of the other witnesses. It was near the end of the case, and the corridors were crowded with detectives and secret service men, with swarms of reporters--a sensational scene. The Governor was not in, said the secretary; and took the youth off into a room by himself for a “grilling.” Who had sent him, and what was this scheme for publicity? “This hurts you more than it helps.” And when Trando undertook to explain, “Don’t try to make a stump speech; the place for that is the Common.”

Said Trando, “I tried to speak on the Common yesterday, and I was stopped.”

“Don’t try to be a hero!” sneered the secretary. Heroes were not wanted at the State House, and Trando could not get arrested. Too bad he did not know about the room full of booze in the cellar! If he had told about that, he might have got his desire. As it was, he went away with tears in his eyes, his mother sobbing on his arm.

XIII

And yet there were moments of hope. Impossible to believe that a great business man and statesman could be such a hypocrite! Members of the defense committee came to see him, having heard the wild rumors, started from the State House, as to the millions that had been raised and expended for bribes. They offered to put their records at the disposal of the Governor; they had raised some $325,000 in seven years, and had vouchers for it all--bundles and bales of them stacked in a closet. Gardner Jackson and Mary Donovan had worked for nearly two years without a cent. The Governor was surprised to hear it--he had been given to understand that they got fifty percent of every thing they raised. Little Joe Moro, the secretary, had worked for thirty dollars a week, and the only other wages paid in the office were for typists. The Governor was cordial, he seemed to like Joe immensely, shook hands with him several times--he was a good fellow, and everything was all right, don’t worry!

But that was in the privacy of his office, the tricks of a supersalesman; molasses catches more flies than vinegar. Publicly the Governor said nothing, and the rumors continued to fly. Professor Frankfurter had got fifteen thousand dollars from the New York _World_ for writing an editorial; he had got one hundred and fifty thousand from the committee for writing the _Atlantic Monthly_ article. The very dignified editor of the Springfield _Republican_ was accused of having received twenty thousand dollars from the committee for one famous editorial. The “State House crowd” lived in such an atmosphere of cash payment that they could not imagine how gentlemen felt about such matters.

Also they lived in an atmosphere of terror. It seemed as if there were as many detectives as real workers under the golden dome. Assuredly, there were more spies than there were friends of the defense; one of them put on a Windsor tie and got himself regularly arrested with the pickets. Every one who had anything to do with the case was shadowed; servants would be offered money for the contents of trash-baskets. All officials having to do with the case, the Supreme Court judges and later on even the jurors, had guards on their homes day and night, and wives trembled every time their husbands went outdoors.

There was fear; and there were newspapers printing headlines and selling editions, making every bomb-scare into a gold mine. Relatives of the Johnson family, the garage people who had testified against Sacco and Vanzetti, had had their rear porch blown up while they were in bed. That made a newspaper story, and helped to damn Sacco and Vanzetti. The police decided that it was a bootleggers’ quarrel; but that fact was not revealed--the bootleggers being such liberal paymasters of the police. A threatening letter was mailed to one of the witnesses, and this turned out to be a prank of some boys; the newspapers published the letter on the front page, and never published the true story. Such is journalism, which lives upon sensation, and prints its enormous editions with blood instead of ink.

XIV

The Lowell Commission had finished its hearings and retired into privacy to deliberate. But meanwhile the Governor went on hearing witnesses. They streamed through his office, as many as thirty in one day; all sorts of persons who claimed to have information about the case. Many came secretly, and went away, their names known only to him; they whispered into his ear, and he was supposed to sort out truth from rumor. A hundred times over, in conversations and arguments, he would show that he could not do it, that he had, in fact, no idea of the difference. “Why, I heard it right here in this room!” he would say; and that proved it true.

On the other hand, impossible to satisfy him with any evidence that proved what he did not want to believe! He had got his mind fixed on the Bridgewater conviction, which would prove Vanzetti an habitual criminal. You pointed to Vanzetti’s eighteen alibi witnesses, all decent working people, and the Governor would find it suspicious that they talked so much about eels. “But where is the express receipt showing that he got the eels?” The case seemed to hang on that, so the defense set out to look for express records in Plymouth. They discovered that the records, nearly eight years old, had been destroyed. Incidentally, they discovered that a state detective had already made an investigation, and ascertained that they had been destroyed.

They decided they would outwit him, even so. They would look for the receipts of fish-dealers who had sold the eels. Herbert B. Ehrmann, junior counsel, went to consult Vanzetti in Charlestown prison. It was hard for him to remember--he had been accustomed to buy fish from several dealers in Boston. The lawyer went according to his vague description, with Felicani for translator; they hunted at the “fish-pier” in South Boston, but found no one who remembered selling to Vanzetti. Joe Randall got another Italian--two gangs searching. At last, after visiting seven Italian fish-dealers on Atlantic Avenue, the “Guinney market,” they found one who said that “B. Vanzetti of Plymouth” had been a customer of his. Had he any records? For a year or two, yes--but seven years, eight years--no, no, giammai! He had changed his partnership in the meantime.

But they argued--could they make a search? The life of two compatriots might depend on it! Yes, there were old papers up in the loft. So up they go, among dust and cobwebs, with an electric flashlight. Old boxes of papers, in bad Italian script--sheafs of loose ledger leaves, but the earliest date is January, 1920. “For God’s sake, haven’t you got any before that?”

The Italian has got interested--it is a story! “There’s an old case, maybe stuff in that.” A big box shoved under the rafters, tightly nailed up. “Must have a hammer to open it.” Stacks and stacks of old papers: and among them blocks of American Express Company receipts, signed by the expressman, day by day as he called for shipments. And the dates--here are some for 1919--and here is December, 1919! And in the middle of the block, one reading: “B. Vanzetti, Plymouth, one barrel eels!”

Hurrah! We have it! We have them licked! The date is December 20th, which was a Saturday, the very date Bart claimed the eels had been shipped, to be sure to reach him on Tuesday, and got ready for selling the next day! And they are live eels, so the dealer says, you can tell that by the weight of the barrel! Dead eels would be heavier!

Young fellows dancing in a dusty loft! Our wops are saved! They go back to the office with shining eyes. They go to the Governor’s office. “We have found the evidence the Governor asked for.” This to the private secretary--the Governor himself is busy. “Indeed?” says the secretary. No shining in those hard eyes! “When are you going to stop bringing evidence?”

They will not trust the precious papers to him, but insist upon seeing Wiggin, the Governor’s counsel. Then they go away, and wait--and nothing happens; the next time they see the Governor, they mention the matter, and he says, “What does that prove? What evidence is there that Vanzetti ever received the shipment? I understand that the eels were never claimed; they were frozen in the depot.”

Says Joe Randall, gnashing his teeth: “It is like that fairy-story we used to enjoy when we were children--how the little tailor wooed the king’s daughter. ‘Go slay me the dragon,’ says the king--so the hero goes and slays the dragon, and comes back, but he doesn’t get the king’s daughter. ‘Go slay me the three giants,’ says the king--so he goes and slays the three giants, and comes back, but he doesn’t get the king’s daughter. ‘Go slay me the man-killing boar,’ says the king--and the longer the story, the more fun it is.”

XV

The supersalesman had evolved a regular set of formulas, by which he challenged the witnesses who came to him. Of Italians he would ask: “Are you an anarchist? Are you a friend of Sacco or Vanzetti? Are you a member of the committee? Have you any friends on the committee? Who sent you here?” To be “sent” was a sinister thing, a sign of an elaborate conspiracy in operation.

For Americans the procedure was more subtle. The first question was: “Have you read the record?” If you answered “No,” then you were disqualified. The Governor had read the record, so he said. If you answered, “Yes,” the question would be, “Where did you get it?”--for the defense had only two transcripts of the full testimony, and two or three copies of the “bill of exceptions,” usually called “the record.” If you were able to convince him that you had had access to any of these, he would say, “Have you interviewed the witnesses?” And of course that would “stump” you; how could any one interview the witnesses, when the lawyers for the defense couldn’t even get the Governor’s secretary to give them the names and addresses of the witnesses? You would answer, “No,” and the Governor would reply, “Well, I know about this case, and you don’t.”

All that mass of complications--a million words of printed testimony, and many times that much spoken into one human ear--and he really thought he could carry it all! Serene, even jaunty, he would come into his office, wearing his automatic smile, and greeting the reporters, “Good morning, boys, a fine day!” He did not ask for help, and gave no thanks when it was offered. Hjalmar Branting, a lawyer from Sweden, son of the prime minister, came over to study the case, and devoted a month to it, becoming certain that the men were innocent. He was granted an hour, and the Governor spent five minutes talking about Sacco and Vanzetti, and the rest talking about the market for automobiles in Sweden. A thrifty supersalesman, making hay even while the thunder rolled and the lightning split the sky!

The floods of mail poured in. Trucks came, bringing masses of petitions; some thirty packages, registered, from France, representing three million signatures, patiently collected at workingmen’s meetings. They were burned in the basement furnaces, at night, when the heat would not be troublesome. Messenger boys brought telegrams by the bundle; they were sorted out, one kind for the newspapers, the other for the fires. Said the private secretary: “Everybody wants those wops executed, except people who don’t know how to spell their names.” He gave out the letter of the Reverend Llewellyn E. Darling, of Grace Evangelical Church of Everett, reporting that a vote had been taken among his Sunday congregation, and it was unanimous in demanding that the convicted men should die. “We believe,” wrote this Darling Reverend, “that the source of the petitions for their release is un-American and would eventually destroy the government of the United States.” Comrade Jesus, on his golden throne above, rose up and gave three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue.

XVI

Cornelia had put off visiting the State House; she would see what happened to others, and judge the best way of proceeding. Now she asked Henry Cabot Winters to arrange an interview; and he offered to go along--a notice to a politician that she was still a member of a great family, in spite of all her vagaries. The supersalesman would be polite to her, but also he would be grim, for she was a dangerous woman. He held her to blame for a great part of the publicity which this case had obtained; he had visions of her spending secretly the Thornwell millions in an effort to get her own perverse way.

Cornelia had never met him; he had been a name to her so far. Now she sat in his chamber and studied those eyes, so cold, expressionless--a curious thing, they made you think literally of agates. His face was round, his head partly bald, his costume immaculate, his smile as it were dead. He sat with his back to the window, so that in the matter of vision he had the advantage over his visitors. A large mahogany desk; a green blotter, with a few papers, a fancy bronze ink-stand, and a little state flag on a standard for patriotism. A large room, done in white, with large white doors and heavy carpet and a fireplace never used. “I guess you have seen all this many times, Mrs. Thornwell,” he said, respectfully.

Yes, Cornelia had seen it. “When I was a little girl, the old home of John Hancock stood out there in front.” So they talked “Boston,” and perhaps she would have done better if she had talked nothing else; her social prestige was really the only thing that stood any chance. In a chair at one side sat Mr. Joseph Wiggin, the Governor’s private counsel, a Harvard man and a blue-blood, smiling and quizzical; he would have conspired with her in that kind of enterprise, if she had put it up to him in the right, “old Boston” way. To charm an automobile salesman and persuade him to make a concession as a matter of social favor, the right of an aristocratic old lady to have her feelings spared!

Cornelia set out to tell about Vanzetti, and how well she knew him, and what a fine man he was. The Governor listened, but soon tired of it. “I haven’t the time to deal with backgrounds and psychology, Mrs. Thornwell.” She tried to show him what backgrounds and psychology meant. “Consider Nick. They tell us he went out and stole sixteen thousand dollars, and then came back to his shoe factory and earned thirty-seven dollars and eighty cents!” But she was rousing his male combativeness. “They had to go on working in the factory,” he argued. “They couldn’t have afforded to change their habits.”

Cornelia was studying the bland face and the strange expressionless eyes. What sort of man was this? What motives would sway him? A business man, of a simple type, used to facing simple problems, like those of price; the proper rental for a building, or wages for an employee, easy to decide; a man of action, not a thinker. Now he had to weigh the souls of idealists, he had to estimate social forces--and they were completely beyond his comprehension. “I am a plain man, Mrs. Thornwell, not an intellectual.” She had started to tell him about Bart’s studies, the books she had seen him mastering by patient toil in the night; but she realized that this was an affront to a merchant of motor-cars who had been studying markets and prices. Neither would it do any good to praise the unselfish motives of the two social rebels. That, too, would give offense to the man of money. “These men who don’t believe in private property must be depraved,” he had said.

She told him about the two trials, and what she had learned about the various prosecution witnesses. The Governor praised these latter; “clear-eyed,” was his word. Said the old lady, “Their eyes may be clear from the outside looking in, but assuredly they were not clear from the inside looking out.” She told the long story of the prevarications and waverings of these witnesses, as proved by the records of the preliminary hearings, and by the Pinkerton reports. The Governor knew of these reports now, but he did not know what was in them, and was puzzled by details. He did not even know the names of some witnesses. She spoke of Behrsin, and the Governor said, “Cursin, who is Cursin?”

But everything polite, according to good form; he heard her to the end, giving few signs of impatience. “I will give careful consideration to what you tell me, Mrs. Thornwell. I have great respect for your sincerity, and thank you for coming to see me.” Bows and smiles all round, a pleasant hour--and utterly, utterly futile.

“The case is completely indigestible to him, he can’t hold it in his mind.” Such was the judgment of Henry Cabot Winters, legal expert, as he walked with his mother-in-law down the long marble corridors. “You have to know a great deal about it in order to know anything, and Fuller doesn’t know anything.”

“What will he do, Henry?”

“He’ll take somebody’s word for it. He’ll think he is deciding, but his mind will make itself up without his realizing it. That’s the way he’s gone through life--landing on his feet like a cat. What I’m afraid is, he has landed already, and facing the wrong way.” As he said this, the great lawyer put his arm under the old lady’s, and held her steady as they walked towards his car. “It comes to this, Mother--what I said to Rupert last night: you can make a chauffeur out of a governor, but you can’t make a governor out of a chauffeur!”