Chapter II: The Hearing of the Seventh Motion

Another hearing of a motion for a new trial. Six have been denied so far. Sacco and Vanzetti have been six years in jail. This time there are no guards with riotguns, no state troopers riding round the courthouse. No excitement of any sort. Everyone has forgotten the great days of the Red Conspiracy, the passion to sustain law and order against the wave of radicalism, against foreigners, and the ‘moral rats gnawing at the foundations of the commonwealth’ that Attorney General Palmer spoke of so eloquently. In this court there are no prisoners in a cage, no hysterical witnesses, no credulous jury under the sign of the screaming eagle. Quiet, dignity; almost like a class in a lawschool. The case has been abstracted into a sort of mathematics. Only the lawyers for the defense and for the prosecution, Ranney from the District Attorney’s office, Thompson and Ehrmann for the defense, two small tables of newspaper men, on the benches a few Italians, some professional liberals and radicals, plainclothes men with rumpsteak faces occupying the end seats.

The court attendants make everybody get up. The Judge comes in on the heels of a man in a blue uniform. Judge Thayer is a very small man with a little grey lined shingle face, nose glasses tilting out at the top across a sudden little hawknose. He walks with a firm bustling tread. The black gown that gives him the power of life and death (the gown of majesty of the blind goddess the law) sticks out a little behind. Another attendant walks after him. The judge climbs up to his high square desk. The judge speaks. His voice crackles dryly as old papers.

Affidavits, affidavits read alternately by counsel in the stillness of the yellowvarnished courtroom. Gradually as the reading goes on the courtroom shrinks. Tragic figures of men and women grow huge like shadows cast by a lantern on a wall; the courtroom becomes a tiny pinhole through which to see a world of huge trampling forces in conflict.

First it’s the story of the life of Celestino Madeiros, a poor Portuguese boy brought up in New Bedford. He learned Americanism all right, he suffered from no encumbering ideas of social progress; the law of dawg eat dawg was morbidly vivid in his mind from the first. Hardly out of school he was up in court for ‘breaking and entering’. No protests from him about the war. He and his sister and another man dressed up in uniform and collected money for some vaguely phoney patriotic society, The American Rescue League. By the spring of 1920 he was deep in the criminal world that is such an apt cartoon of the world of legitimate business. He was making good. He was in with the Morelli brothers of Providence, a gang of freight-car robbers, bootleggers, pimps, hijackers and miscellaneous thugs. The great wave of highway robbery that followed the war was at its height. For three years the leaders of society had been proclaiming the worthlessness of human life. Is it surprising that criminals should begin to take them at their word?

Scared to death, blind drunk, Madeiros, an overgrown boy of eighteen, was in the back seat of the Buick touring car that carried off the tragic holdup outside the Rice and Hutchins shoefactory at South Braintree. Probably on his share of the payroll he went south, once he got out of the Rhode Island jail where another episode of breaking and entering had landed him. He came back north with his money spent and worked as a bouncer at the Bluebird Inn, a ‘disorderly’ road house at Seekonk, Mass. and fell at last into the clutches of the Massachusetts law through a miserable failure to duplicate the daring South Braintree holdup at Wrentham, where he shot an aged bank cashier and ran without trying to get any loot. At his trial he sat so hunched and motionless that he seemed an imbecile. Not even when his mother threw an epileptic fit in the courtroom and was carried out rigid and foaming did he look up. At the Dedham jail he was put in the cell next to Sacco. He could see Sacco going out to meet his wife and kids when they came to see him. The idea of an innocent man going to the chair worried him. For him everything had crashed. It had been on his own confession that he had been convicted of the Wrentham murder. He seems to have puzzled for a long time to find some way of clearing Sacco and Vanzetti without inculpating his old associates, even though he had fallen out with them long ago. He tried to tell Sacco about it in the jail bathroom, but Sacco, seeing Department of Justice spies everywhere—and with good reason—wouldn’t listen to him. So at last he sent the warden a written confession asking him to forward it to the _Boston American_. Nothing happened. The warden kept his mouth shut. Eventually he sent a new confession to Sacco enclosed in a magazine, begging him to let his lawyer see it. “_I hereby confess to being in the South Braintree Shoe Company crime and Sacco and Vanzetti were not in said crime._—CELESTINO F. MADEIROS”.

Here is Madeiros’s own account of the crime:

On April 15, 1920, I was picked up about 4 A. M. at my boarding house,
181 North Main St., Providence, by four Italians who came in a Hudson
five-passenger open touring car. My sister’s landlord lived at the
same place. She was then a widow and her name was Mary Bover. She has
since been married, and now lives at 735 Bellville Avenue, New
Bedford. There was also living there at the same time a man named
Arthur Tatro, who afterwards committed suicide in the house of
Correction of New Bedford. He was Captain and I was Lieutenant in the
American Rescue League at that time. Two or three privates in the
league also lived there, whose names I do not remember.

We went from Providence to Randolph, where we changed to a Buick car
brought there by another Italian. We left the Hudson car in the woods
and took it again after we did the job, leaving the Buick in the woods
in charge of one man, who drove it off to another part of the woods,
as I understood.

After we did the job at South Braintree and changed back into the
Hudson car at Randolph, we drove very fast through Randolph, and were
seen by a boy named Thomas and his sister. His father lives on a
street that I think is called Prang Street, and is in the window metal
business or something of that kind. I became acquainted with him four
years later when I went to live in Randolph with Weeks on the same
street. Thomas told me one day in conversation that he saw the car
that did the South Braintree job going through Randolph very fast.

When we started we went from Providence first to Boston and then back
to Providence, and then back to South Braintree, getting there about
noon. We spent some time in a “speak easy” in South Braintree two or
three miles from the place of the crime, leaving the car in the yard
of the house.

When we went to Boston we went to South Boston and stopped in Andrews
Square. I stayed in the car. The others went in a saloon to get
information, as they told me, about the money that was to be sent to
South Braintree.

I had never been to South Braintree before. These four men persuaded
me to go with them two or three nights before when I was talking with
them in a saloon in Providence. The saloon was also a poolroom, near
my boarding house. They talked like professionals. They said they had
done lots of jobs of this kind. They had been engaged in robbing
freight cars in Providence. Two were young men from 20 to 25 years
old, one was about 40, the other about 35. All wore caps. I then was
18 years old. I do not remember whether they were shaved or not. Two
of them did the shooting—the oldest one and another. They were left on
the street. The arrangement was that they should meet me in a
Providence saloon the next night to divide the money. I went there but
they did not come.

I sat on the back seat of the automobile. I had a Colt 38 calibre
automatic but did not use it. I was told that I was there to help hold
back the crowd in case they made a rush. The curtains on the car were
flapping. I do not remember whether there was any shotgun or rifle in
the car or not.

These men talked a lot of New York. As soon as I got enough money I
went to New York and also Chicago hoping to find them in cabarets
spending the money, but I never found them.

They had been stealing silk, shoes, cotton, etc., from freight cars
sending it to New York. Two of them lived on South Main Street and two
on North Main Street, in lodging houses. I had known them three months
or four.

The old man was called Mike. Another one was called William or Bill. I
don’t remember what the others were called.

The money that they took from the men in South Braintree was in a
black bag, I think.

I was scared to death when I heard the shooting begin.

Both cars had Massachusetts numbers.

The names of these men don’t amount to anything. They change them
whenever they want to. When they are driven out of New York they come
to Providence. I haven’t any idea where they are now. I have never
seen any of them since.

Sacco and Vanzetti had nothing to do with this job, and neither did
Gerald Chapman. It was entirely put up by the oldest of the Italians
in Providence.

Then there are the corroborating stories of Weeks, Madeiros’ associate now a lifer in the Charlestown Penitentiary, of the owners of the Blue Bird Inn, of various Providence lawyers and policemen as to the activities of the Morelli gang.

Out of this comparatively understandable world of thieves and murderers, the affidavits lead us into the underground passages of the Department of Justice, into a world of dicks and stoolpigeons.

Here are the three main affidavits. They speak for themselves.

AFFIDAVIT OF LAWRENCE LETHERMAN

My name is Lawrence Letherman. I live in Malden, and am in the employ
of the Beacon Trust Company. I was in the Federal service for
thirty-six years, first in the railway mail service for nine years;
then as Post Office Inspector for twenty five years; then three years
as local agent of the Department of Justice in Boston in charge of the
Bureau of Investigation. I began the last named duties in September,
1921.

While I was Post Office Inspector I co-operated to a considerable
extent with the agents of the Department of Justice in Boston in
matters of joint concern, including the Sacco-Vanzetti case. The man
under me in direct charge of matters relating to that case was Mr.
William West, who is still attached to the Department of Justice in
Boston. I know that Mr. West co-operated with Mr. Katzmann, the
District Attorney, during the trial of the case, and later with Mr.
Williams. I know that before, during, and after the trial of Sacco and
Vanzetti Mr. West had a number of so-called “under cover” men assigned
to this case, including one Ruzzamenti and one Carbone. I know that by
an arrangement with the Department of Justice, Carbone was placed in a
cell next to the cell of Sacco for the purpose of obtaining whatever
incriminating information he could obtain from Sacco, after winning
his confidence. Nothing, however, was obtained in that way. One Weiss,
formerly an agent of the Department, was involved in this plan. He was
running a private office at that time on the seventh floor of the
building at 7 Water Street under the offices of the Department, and
remained in touch with the Department agents. Efforts were made by Mr.
West to put other men in the Dedham Jail as spies, but the men whom he
desired to use for that purpose objected.

Before, during, and after the trial, the Department of Justice had a
number of men assigned to watch the activities of the Sacco-Vanzetti
Defense Committee. No evidence warranting prosecution of anybody was
obtained by these men. They were all “under cover” men, and one or two
of them obtained employment by the Committee in some capacity or
other. I think one of them was a collector. The Department of Justice
in Boston was anxious to get sufficient evidence against Sacco and
Vanzetti to deport them, but never succeeded in getting the kind and
amount of evidence required for that purpose. It was the opinion of
the Department agents here that a conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti for
murder would be one way of disposing of these two men. It was also the
general opinion of such agents in Boston as had any actual knowledge
of the Sacco-Vanzetti case; that Sacco and Vanzetti, although
anarchists and agitators, were not highway robbers, and had nothing to
do with the South Braintree crime. My opinion, and the opinion of most
of the older men in the Government service, has always been that the
South Braintree crime was the work of professionals.

The Boston agents of the Department of Justice assigned certain men to
attend the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, including Mr. Weyand. Mr. West
also attended the trial. There is or was a great deal of
correspondence on file in the Boston office between Mr. West and Mr.
Katzmann, the District Attorney, and there are also copies of reports
sent to Washington about the case. Letters and reports were made in
triplicate; two copies were sent to Washington and one retained in
Boston. The letters and documents on file in the Boston office would
throw a great deal of light upon the preparation of the Sacco-Vanzetti
case for trial, and upon the real opinion of the Boston office of the
Department of Justice as to the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti of the
particular crime with which they were charged.

I know that at one time Mr. West placed an Italian printer or
linotyper in the office of some Italian newspaper in Boston for the
purpose of obtaining information. One of the men employed by West at
one stage of the Sacco-Vanzetti case was named Shaughnessy. He was
subsequently convicted of highway robbery and is now serving a term in
the Massachusetts State Prison. One of the “under cover” men employed
by Mr. West was an Armenian named Harold Zorian. While being paid
$7.00 a day by the Government he became Secretary of some Communist or
Radical organization in the vicinity of Boston, the proceedings of
which he reported to the Department.

(So the government _was_ interested in the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti? Provocative agents _were_ used to gain the confidence of the Defense Committee? The Department of Justice _is_ in possession of evidence and information about the case?

“Have Attorney General Sargent and his subordinates ... stooped so low and are they so degraded that they are willing by the concealment of evidence to enter into a fraudulent conspiracy with the government of Massachusetts to send two men to the electric chair, not because they were murderers but because they were radicals?” asks Judge Thayer in his decision).

AFFIDAVIT OF FRED J. WEYAND

My name is Fred J. Weyand. I reside in Portland, Maine. I am a Special
Agent of the Attorney General’s office of the State of Maine, and have
been since I resigned as an agent of the Department of Justice about a
year and a half ago.

I became connected with the Department of Justice in the year 1916,
and shortly afterwards became a Special Agent with an office first at
24 Milk Street, Boston, later at 45 Milk Street and later at 7 Water
Street, where the Department had offices on the eighth floor, and
later at the Post Office Building. My duties as Special Agent were in
general to investigate and report upon any and all violations of the
penal code which I might be assigned to investigate by my superiors,
who were first Frederick Smith, next George E. Kelliher, next John
Hannahan, next Charles Bancroft and last Lawrence Letherman. These
were my superiors while I was working from the Boston office. I
occasionally worked in other parts of the country and then came under
other superiors temporarily. I was a Special Agent during the entire
administration of Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General of the United
States, and was concerned in the activities against the so-called Reds
or Radicals, including arrests and deportations which were instigated
by Mr. Palmer, and which included the wholesale raids made in the
month of January 1920, in some of which I participated.

Sometime before the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti on May 5, 1920—just
how long before I do not remember—the names of both of them had got in
the files of the Department of Justice as Radicals to be watched. The
Boston files of the Department, including correspondence, would show
the date when the names of these men were first brought to the
attention of the Department. Both these men were listed as followers
or associates of an educated Italian editor named Galleani. Galleani
was the publisher of an anarchistic paper. He lived in Wrentham and
published his paper, I think, in Lynn. Among other persons associated
with Galleani were Carlo Tresca, Carlo Valdinoci and David Tedesco.
The suspicion entertained by the Department of Justice against Sacco
and Vanzetti was that they had violated the Selective Service Act, and
also that they were anarchists or held Radical opinions of some sort
or other.

A man named Feri Felix Weiss was transferred from the Immigration
Bureau to the Department of Justice in Boston in the year 1917, and
remained a Special Agent of that Department in Boston until 1919, I
think. He then travelled abroad and returned in 1920 and opened an
office as a scientific detective and lecturer at 7 Water Street,
Boston, with an office on the floor below occupied by the Department
of Justice. In 1925, Weiss returned to the Immigration Department at
Boston, where he is at the present time.

William J. West, who is now a Special Agent of the Department of
Justice, became such in July or August 1917. Prior to that he was an
Immigration Inspector with Feri Weiss. Since his appointment as a
Special Agent he has spent most of his time in the Boston office of
the Department of Justice, having in charge during the past seven
years the so-called Radical Division of the Department of Justice,
which has been in operation since about 1917.

During the year 1920 I did a good deal of work in the State of Maine,
but was in Boston for several days at least once every two weeks. I
have knowledge that the result of the trial before Judge Anderson of
the Radicals or Communists, as we called them, arrested at the time of
the raids above referred to, and of the decision of Judge Anderson
freeing many of them and of his criticisms of the Department of
Justice, was to make all agents of the Department of Justice in Boston
more cautious afterwards in proceeding against suspected Radicals.

Shortly after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti on the charge of the
South Braintree murders, meetings began to be held by sympathizers,
and I was assigned to attend these meetings and report to the
Department the speeches made. We also assigned a certain “under cover”
man, as we called him, to win the confidence of the Sacco-Vanzetti
Defense Committee, and to become one of the collectors. This man used
to report the proceedings of the Committee to the Department agents in
Boston, and has said to me he was in the habit of taking as much money
collected for his own use as he saw fit. So far as I know, no evidence
was obtained of utterances at any of these meetings which warranted
proceedings against anybody. Mr. West was also attending meetings of
Sacco-Vanzetti sympathizers during the same period. The original
reports thus obtained were sent to the Washington office of the
Department of Justice and duplicates kept in the Boston office, where
I believe they now are. I know that at one time as many as twelve
agents of the Department of Justice located in Boston were assigned to
cover Sacco-Vanzetti meetings and other Radical activities connected
with the Sacco-Vanzetti case. No evidence was discovered warranting
the institution of proceedings against anybody. I have no present
recollection of the trial of Vanzetti for the alleged Bridgewater
robbery; but when the joint trial of Sacco and Vanzetti for the South
Braintree murders began in the summer of 1921, the Department of
Justice at Boston took an active interest in the matter. I was
assigned to cover the trial for the purpose of reporting the
proceedings and picking up any information that I could in regard to
the Radical activities of Sacco and Vanzetti, or of any of their
friends. Mr. West also attended the trial for the same purpose. I was
not personally in touch with Mr. Katzmann, the District Attorney, or
his office, but Mr. West was in touch with them and was giving and
obtaining information in regard to the case.

Going back now before the trial, a certain John Ruzzamenti had been
informally employed by special agents of the Department of Justice
from some time in the year 1917, to furnish information concerning
Radical activities and evasion of the draft by Italians, and in this
connection had made an investigation of Tedesco, above referred to,
who was once arrested in consequence of information furnished by
Ruzzamenti, but was never tried. During this time Ruzzamenti also
worked occasionally for detective agencies. He was well known to
Weiss.

I have been informed by Mr. West and believe, and therefore allege,
that there was another Italian whom the Department occasionally used
for similar purposes, named Carbone and that he, under an arrangement
with the District Attorney, the Sheriff, and Mr. Weiss, was placed in
the cell next to the cell of Sacco sometime during the year 1920 for
the purpose of winning the confidence of Sacco, and thus of obtaining,
if he could, incriminating evidence against him, but no evidence of
the sort was obtained by Carbone. The primary purpose of the
Department in putting Carbone there was to obtain evidence, if
possible, concerning the so-called Wall Street explosion; but it was
also hoped that other incriminating evidence might be obtained.

Sometime in the early part of the year 1921, I was informed by
Ruzzamenti that he had been sent for by Weiss, who was then out of
Government service, to come on here to help convict Sacco and
Vanzetti; that he had seen Katzmann, and that an arrangement had been
made by which he was to secure board in the house of Mrs. Sacco and
obtain her confidence, and thus obtain information; but that
arrangement had never been carried out, and he had not been paid. I
annex to this affidavit photostatic copies of parts of a letter which
I identify as in the handwriting of Weiss.

Shortly after the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was concluded I said to
Weiss that I did not believe they were the right men, meaning the men
who shot the paymaster, and he replied that that might be so, but that
they were bad actors and would get what they deserved anyway.

Instructions were received from the Chief of the Bureau of the
Department of Justice in Washington from time to time in reference to
the Sacco-Vanzetti case. They are on file or should be on file in the
Boston office.

The understanding in this case between the agents of the Department of
Justice in Boston and the District Attorney followed the usual custom,
that the Department of Justice would help the District Attorney to
secure a conviction, and that he in turn would help the agents of the
Department of Justice to secure information that they might desire.
This would include the turning over of any pertinent information by
the Department of Justice to the District Attorney. Sacco and Vanzetti
were, at least in the opinion of the Boston agents of the Department
of Justice, not liable to deportation as draft dodgers, but only as
anarchists, and could not be deported as anarchists unless it could be
shown that they were believers in anarchy, which is always a difficult
thing to show. It usually can only be shown by self-incrimination. The
Boston agents believed that these men were anarchists, and hoped to be
able to secure the necessary evidence against them from their
testimony at their trial for murder, to be used in case they were not
convicted for murder. There is correspondence between Mr. Katzmann and
Mr. West on file in the Boston office of the Department. Mr. West
furnished Mr. Katzmann information about the Radical activities of
Sacco and Vanzetti to be used in their cross-examination.

In the years 1922–1924 Mr. West had working for him as “under cover”
or secret operators an Italian and a Syrian or Armenian. The Italian
worked as a printer. I do not remember the names of either of them;
but I know that he put the Italian in as a linotyper in the office of
an Italian newspaper in Boston as a spy. The Syrian or Armenian is the
man to whom I have referred above as having become a collector for the
Committee.

From my investigation, combined with the investigation made by the
other agents of the Department in Boston, I am convinced not only that
these men had violated the Selective Service rules and regulations and
evaded the draft, but that they were anarchists, and that they ought
to have been deported. By calling these men anarchists, I do not mean
necessarily that they were inclined to violence, nor do I understand
all the different meanings that different people would attach to the
word “anarchists”. What I mean is that I think they did not believe in
organized government or in private property. But I am also thoroughly
convinced and always have been, and I believe that is and always has
been the opinion of such Boston agents of the Department of Justice as
had any knowledge on the subject, that these men had nothing whatever
to do with the South Braintree murders, and that their conviction was
the result of co-operation between the Boston agents of the Department
of Justice and the District Attorney. It was the general opinion of
the Boston agents of the Department of Justice having knowledge of the
affair that the South Braintree crime was committed by a gang of
professional highwaymen.

I annex hereto a picture of Mr. Feri Felix Weiss printed on the
outside of one of his advertisements.

So ends as fine a picture of the inner workings of the Spanish Inquisition as has seen the light in many a day. I can’t help quoting again Judge Thayer’s very pertinent question:

“Have Attorney General Sargent and his subordinates ... stooped so low and are they so degraded that they are willing by the concealment of evidence to enter into a fraudulent conspiracy with the government of Massachusetts to send two men to the electric chair, not because they were murderers but because they were radicals?”

AFFIDAVIT OF JOHN RUZZAMENTI

John Ruzzamenti being first duly sworn, on oath deposes and says that
he is now and has been for upwards of thirty days last past a resident
of the City of Boston, County of Suffolk and Commonwealth of
Massachusetts.

That in the month of December 1920 the affiant resided in the town of
Reddington, State of Pennsylvania, and was employed in the capacity of
brass melter in the Reddington Standard Fitting Corporation, a
subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

That sometime in December 1920 and to the affiant’s best knowledge,
information and belief, about December 18th or 19th, he, the affiant,
received through the United States Post Office an envelope bearing
Boston post-mark and stamped with special delivery stamp and
containing the name and address of affiant. That inside of said
envelope was another sealed envelope bearing on the outside the
notation “burn this after you have read”. That inside of said sealed
envelope was a letter purporting to come from one Feri Felix Weiss.
That affiant well knew said Weiss having worked with and been employed
by said Weiss when said Weiss was employed by the United States
Department of Justice at Boston specially assigned to so-called Red or
Radical cases. That the affiant then had in his possession a card of
said Weiss reading as follows, to-wit:

_AMERICAN AND FOREIGN CONNECTIONS_

Cable Address Feriweiss P. O. Box 2107 Boston

FERI FELIX WEISS

_Scientific-Secret-Service_

Licensed and Bonded—Modern Scientific Methods

FORMERLY WITH

Bureau of Investigation, U. S. Department of Justice
Immigration Service, U. S. Department of Labor
Translation Section; Military Intelligence
Branch U. S. War Department.

That the said letter contained in said envelope read as follows, to-wit:

December 17, 1920

My dear John:

Just returned from a trip I found your two letters, and answer them by
return mail.

Would you like to help me on a case which I may clinch here? It is the
case of Sacco and Vanzetti, who are in jail awaiting trial for having
shot the paymaster of the South Braintree shoefactory.

Do you know these fellows? They are members of the Galleani gang, and
Sacco used to work in the Cordage works in Plymouth.

He also worked in the Plant shoe factory.

It is a very important case, and I need a clever Italian who would mix
with the gang, and if necessary even stay in jail for a few days just
to find out what they say.

How much pay would you want?

You would have to come right away.

Do you think you could work amongst them?

I am not sure whether they might know you from Milford, though I don’t
think that Sacco was ever there.

If we are successful in this venture, we might tackle the big Wall
Street affair in New York, as all the other agencies are up against a
wall in that matter.

Let me know by the return envelope which I herewith enclose.

I must give my friends an answer not later than Monday, so you must
mail your answer to me immediately. Don’t write me a long letter, just
say “yes, I’ll work for $8” a day, or whatever you want, so I can put
it up to my friend.

In case you get my letter only Sunday, better telegraph me your
answer, P. O. Box 2107. Just say “Yes, $8” “John”.

I am afraid they won’t pay $8, so make it less if you can.

Of course any expenses would be extra.

If we deliver the goods they will probably give us the reward.

I think there is $2,000 written out.

You would have to start as soon as possible, probably after Christmas,
if you care to stay with your folks over the holidays.

Best regards to Mrs. R. and the children.

With best of wishes, believe me,

Your friend
F—i

That immediately upon receipt of said letter the affiant well knowing from past experience with said Weiss the need of expedition and secrecy, instructed his wife, Laura Ruzzamenti, to telegraph to said Feri Felix Weiss, P. O. Box 2107, Boston Mass. in substance and effect that he, the affiant would come to Boston immediately after the Christmas holidays, and said telegram as outlined above was sent.

That between the said date of sending of said telegram to said Feri Felix Weiss and the morning of December 27th, 1920 when the affiant secured leave of absence from said Reddington Standard Fitting Corporation, and left Reddington, Pennsylvania to come to the City of Boston, no letter or telegram or communication of any character was received by the affiant from the said Feri Felix Weiss.

That upon arrival in the City of Boston, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on the evening of December 27th, 1920, at or about the hour of ten p. m., the affiant went to the office of said Feri Felix Weiss at 7 Water Street in the City of Boston and made inquiry for said Weiss, but found that he was out for the evening. Whereupon the affiant went to the American House in said City of Boston and there registered.

That following morning, December 28th, 1920, the affiant went to the office of said Feri Felix Weiss at 7 Water Street in said City of Boston and interviewed the said Weiss.

That the said Weiss then admitted receipt of affiant’s telegram but expressed some surprise that the affiant had come to the City of Boston in view of the fact that the said Weiss had sent to him, the affiant, a telegram stating that he should not come.

That the affiant has since made inquiry and to the best of his knowledge, information and belief the said Weiss did not send a telegram to the affiant, but did send a letter stating in effect that he, the affiant, was not to come to Boston until further word was received from the said Weiss, but that said letter was not received in Reddington, Pennsylvania, until December 28th, 1920, the day after the affiant left Reddington, Pennsylvania.

That after some discussion the said Weiss stated to the affiant in substance and effect that however it was all right: that he, the affiant, was here in Boston and that he, the said Weiss, would immediately get in touch with Mr. Frederick G. Katzmann, the District Attorney for Norfolk and Plymouth Counties, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and would arrange for an interview between the said Katzmann and the affiant.

That the said Weiss in the presence of affiant attempted to telephone the said Frederick G. Katzmann, but was unable at that time to secure a connection at the office of said Katzmann at Hyde Park, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

That thereafter, to-wit, December 28th and December 29th 1920, the affiant remained in and about the office of said Weiss discussing with said Weiss and receiving from said Weiss the details of the plan purporting to be the product of the minds of said Weiss and said Katzmann and mutually agreed upon between said Weiss and said Katzmann, the details of which plan are hereinafter set forth, and also awaiting instructions from said Weiss as to when he, the affiant, should see the said Katzmann; that sometime in the afternoon of December 29th, 1920 the affiant received instructions from said Weiss to be at the office of said Katzmann at said Hyde Park the morning of December 30th, 1920 at nine a. m.

That in accordance with said instructions the affiant at nine a. m. on December 30th, 1920 was at the office of said Frederick G. Katzmann, District Attorney of Norfolk and Plymouth Counties, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and there awaited the coming of said Katzmann, that shortly after nine a. m. the affiant saw a gentleman enter the said building and go upstairs; that thereupon the affiant followed the said party and saw him turn to the door marked with the name of said Katzmann and insert a key; that the affiant then stepped up to said party, whereupon the said party turned and said to him, the affiant, “Is that you John?” whereupon the affiant admitted his identity and was welcomed into the office by said Katzmann, the said Katzmann helping the affiant to remove his overcoat; that the affiant then explained to said Katzmann that he had been sent there by said Weiss and presented as evidence of his identity the card of said Weiss with the name of the affiant written in the handwriting of said Weiss on the back of said card.

That immediately after the identity of the affiant was established to the satisfaction of said Katzmann, the said Katzmann asked the affiant in substance and effect what he had to say of importance; whereupon the affiant outlined to the said Katzmann the proposition, or plan that had been proposed to the affiant by said Weiss, and which the affiant had been told was the product of the minds of Weiss and said Katzmann, which was in substance and effect that he, the affiant, was by prearranged plan and in concert with police officers to break and enter some dwelling house for the ostensible purpose of committing the crime of burglary, and that by prearranged plan with said police officers the affiant was to be apparently caught in the act of committing the crime of burglary; that then the affiant would be duly and regularly arrested, complaint issued, committment papers executed and the affiant confined under the terms of said committment in the Dedham County Jail in Norfolk County, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the said jail being the jail where Nicola Sacco, named in the title herein, was then confined and awaiting trial on the charge of murder.

That then by prearranged plan and in concert and with the understanding of one Samuel Capen, High Sheriff of Norfolk County, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the affiant would be placed in a cell next to and adjoining to the one occupied by said Sacco, and that the affiant would then, by preconceived plan and by special arrangement with said High Sheriff of Norfolk County, be given special privileges and special opportunity to establish the confidence of and to act as a stool pigeon on said Nicola Sacco. That in this connection the said Weiss had instructed the affiant that he, the affiant, was upon his incarceration to appear to be very much depressed and melancholy by reason of his arrest and was to make no attempt to talk with said Sacco for at least three days after his arrest. That the affiant outlining the said plan to the said Katzmann as same had been outlined to the affiant by said Weiss, stated to the said Katzmann that he, the affiant, had never been arrested and was not agreeable to this plan of arrest; that while he, the affiant, had been previously engaged by the said Weiss as an operative while the said Weiss was in the United States Department of Justice, nevertheless the affiant had never up to that time ever gone so far as to commit a crime in the furtherance of any end, and that he, the affiant, could not and would not agree to the said plan of said Weiss, but was willing to listen to any counter suggestion or other proposition that might be made by the said Katzmann.

That thereupon the said Katzmann said to the affiant in substance and effect that he, the said Katzmann, was right hard up against it; that he, the said Katzmann, had no evidence as against the said Nicola Sacco or as against the said Bartolomeo Vanzetti, that they, the said Sacco and said Vanzetti, had not talked and would not talk; that he had been unable to get anything out of them or out of any other person, that said Katzmann named in this connection some man that he had arrested in connection with a motorcycle, and stated that he had grilled this man but had been unable to learn anything, and that it was necessary that he secure other and additional testimony to that which he already had. Whereupon with this preliminary explanation, the said Katzmann made the following proposition, to-wit:

That Rosina Sacco or Rose Sacco, the wife of said Nicola Sacco, resided in the town of Stoughton, Commonwealth of Massachusetts and there had a small home and had an extra and unused room in said house by reason of the arrest and incarceration of her husband, and he, the said Katzmann, then proposed to the affiant that he, the affiant, should undertake to secure employment in said town of Stoughton or some place adjacent thereto and should as an Italian and a member of the same race as the said Rosina or Rose Sacco, secure a room in her home, and that for and by reason of the fact that the said Rosina or Rose Sacco was undergoing great physical, mental and spiritual suffering by reason of the incarceration of her husband, it should be easy for the affiant to establish friendly relations with her, and said relations once established, it would then be easy for the affiant to secure confidential communications from her as to any criminal activities of her husband, the said Nicola Sacco. That the affiant agreed to undertake this plan.

That thereupon the said Katzmann stated to the affiant that it would be some few days before he, the said Katzmann, was ready to go ahead, that meanwhile he, the affiant, was to “send me” (Katzmann) “your expense bill and I will see that it goes through the County and you will get your money.” That the affiant then left the said Katzmann’s office, the said Katzmann courteously helping the affiant to put on his overcoat and following him to the door and shaking hands in parting.

That the affiant then returned to Boston and reported to said Feri Felix Weiss. That the day following the affiant sent his statement to said Katzmann. That meanwhile it was arranged between the affiant and said Weiss that he, the affiant, would be employed by said Weiss pending word from said Katzmann on a job down on Cape Cod; that thereupon he, the affiant, went to Cape Cod on said investigation for said Weiss and was employed for a period of approximately two weeks; that nothing developing and the affiant receiving no word from said Weiss, he, the affiant, returned to Pennsylvania sometime about the middle of January 1921.

That after the affiant returned to Pennsylvania he received a letter from said Weiss, only a part of said letter being now in the possession of the affiant; the part which he now has reading on the face thereof as follows, to-wit:

“Dear John:

I just returned from my trip and found your letters. As soon as Mr.
Katzmann sends me your check I’ll mail it to you.”

and on the back thereof as follows, to-wit:

“was a big trial of Mrs. De Falco. I’ll remind him by and by of your
bill.

I am sorry I could not see you before you went home.

With kindest regards to you and your family, believe me

Your friend,
FERI”

That after a number of letters written by the affiant to the said Weiss and to the said Katzmann, the affiant received another letter from said Weiss reading as follows, to-wit:

“My dear John:

I got your letters about collecting money from District Attorney
Katzmann.

As much as I regret that you have such a hard time with your
children being out of work, I am not blind to facts, and feel I must
enlighten you.

First of all you must remember that you came here of your own will.
Nobody told you to come to Boston. I telegraphed clearly that you
should only come when I write you. You did not wait for my letter. I
then did the next best thing for you, and employed you on the Cape.

Then Katzmann said he might pay you. So put in your bill, as
promised, but have not heard from him. It will be a good thing if
you write to him personally about it; he probably will hurry it
along.

But remember, that you can force neither him nor me to pay your
expenses, as there was absolutely no agreement to that effect
between him, me and you. Keep this clearly in your mind.

It is foolish to send your wife here, as that only makes additional
expense, without any result. A letter to Katzmann will do just as
well.

If I was fixed better financially, I would gladly send you the
money, as I regarded you always as my friend, and am always sorry
for anybody with a large family to support at the present time. But
I have a hard pull myself.

That is all I can say today. Hoping to hear from Katzmann soon, or
that you hear from him if you write, believe me,

Sincerely yours,
FERI.

Let me know if he sends you a check, so that I should not bother him
afterwards thinking that you did not get it.”

That the wife of the affiant, Laura Ruzzamenti, sometime in the spring
of 1921, to-wit in the month of April, called on the said Katzmann and
presented the claim of her husband and asked that same be paid.

That said claim for transportation, time and expenses has not been
paid by said Katzmann or said Weiss or by any person notwithstanding
the fact that the affiant has made many and divers efforts to secure
said pay, same consisting of the sending of the statement of
transportation, time and expenses in accordance with request of said
Katzmann on the day following the interview of December 30th, 1920;
and the sending of a great number of letters written by the affiant to
the said Katzmann. That said statement has not been paid and said
letters have not been answered.

_Signed_ JOHN RUZZAMENTI

(In this connection we must insert the letter of Feri Felix Weiss that did not come into Mr. Thompson’s hands until several weeks after the hearing. Here are his affidavit and Weiss’s letter that completes the picture.)

AFFIDAVIT OF WILLIAM G. THOMPSON

My name is William G. Thompson. I am counsel for the defendants in the
above entitled case. On or about Sept. 21 last I learned from Mr.
Frank P. Sibley, a reporter on the _Boston Globe_, that that newspaper
had just received a letter from Feri Felix Weiss, with a request that
it be published, but that the Globe did not intend to publish the
letter. Shortly afterward I began efforts to obtain this letter, and
succeeded in doing so today, Oct. 7, with it was the envelope in which
it was received at the Globe office. I annex said original letter and
said envelope hereto, and make them part of this affidavit.

As I remember it, there is a fac-simile of the signature of Weiss on
the picture of him annexed to the affidavit of Fred J. Weyand. I also
call attention to the fact that this letter is written upon a
letterhead stamped with the name of said Weiss, and was received in an
envelope also stamped with his name in the upper left hand corner.

In connection with this letter I call attention to the contents of the
letter of said Weiss to John Ruzzamenti on file in the case, a
fac-simile of a part of which is also annexed to the affidavit of said
Weyand, and of the following statements therein—namely, letter dated
Dec. 17, 1920:

“Would you like to help me on a case which I may clinch here? It is
the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, who are in jail awaiting trial for
having shot the paymaster of the South Braintree shoe factory. * * *
It is a very important case, and I need a clever Italian who would
mix with the gang, and, if necessary, even stay in jail for a few
days just to find out what they say. * * * I am afraid they won’t
pay $8, so make it less if you can. Of course any expenses would be
extra. If we deliver the goods they will probably give us the
reward. I think there is $2,000 written out.”

In connection with this letter I also call attention to the parts of
the affidavits of Weyand and Letherman relating to the activities and
purposes of said Weiss in connection with the prosecution of Sacco and
Vanzetti. I also, in connection with this letter, call attention to
the affidavit of Mr. Katzmann on file in this case. I especially
desire to call attention to the following sentences in this letter,
namely:

“I explained to him (Katzmann) that anarchists do not commit crimes
for money, but for a principle, and that banditry was not in their
code”, and

“The truth in the “framing” was that we intended to put Ruzzamenti
in with Sacco as much to clear Sacco of any guilt in the Braintree
affair as to find him guilty.”

_Signed_ WILLIAM G. THOMPSON

LETTER OF FERI FELIX WEISS

The letter annexed to the affidavit follows:

Chicago, Ill., Sept. 19, 1926

Editor, _Boston Globe_,
Boston, Mass.

Dear Sir:—

It has just come to my attention—stationed as I am in the Government
service in the West—that my name has been mentioned in your account of
the “Sacco and Vanzetti” affair through an affidavit by former
District Attorney Katzmann on one hand, and the connection of
Ruzzamenti on the other.

The facts, as far as I am concerned with this case, are as follows:

Katzmann sent for me at the time to learn what I knew about Sacco,
having been Special Agent of the United States Department of Justice
in charge of investigations covering anarchists and similar criminals
whose aim was the forceful overthrow of the Government of the United
States. I told Katzmann that I knew that Sacco was an active
anarchist, connected with the famous or notorious Galleani group of
Lynn, Mass., who had bomb-outrages on the brain. When Katzmann asked
me what I thought of Sacco as a participant in the Braintree holdup, I
explained to him that anarchists do not commit crimes for money but
for a principle, and that banditry was not in their code.

It was at the suggestion of Katzmann that I wrote the undercover
informant Ruzzamenti whether he was willing to go to jail and share
the cell with Sacco to find out what Sacco had to tell about his
connection with the Braintree affair. Ruzzamenti did not answer this
letter by a letter, but took the first train from Pennsylvania to
Boston. Though this was against my arrangement with him, I faced the
situation, and sent him to Katzmann, who had agreed over the phone to
talk to Ruzzamenti regarding the plan we had in mind. Katzmann then
decided, after a talk with Ruzzamenti, that he better drop the matter.

Ruzzamenti tried to collect expenses from Katzmann, but failed. Then
Ruzzamenti turned around and sold out to the defense. He used my
letter to him as evidence. The first I knew of Ruzzamenti’s treachery
was when I received a warning from a friendly source in Spain to the
effect that my letter had been broadcasted in mimeograph form to aid
in the collection of funds for the Sacco and Vanzetti defense. My
friend sent me warning lest the rabid Latin anarchists should take it
into their heads to “get square” with me for trying to “frame Sacco.”

The truth in the “framing” was that we intended to put Ruzzamenti in
with Sacco as much to clear Sacco of any guilt in the Braintree affair
as to find him guilty! I had no interest whatsoever in railroading an
innocent man to the electric chair, and Lawyer Thompson’s reference to
me as “being heartless” is absurd, if not ridiculous. My entire
connection with this case was outlined here, and my only motive in
trying to clear up the mystery was to aid justice.

That I should be abused and besmirched with mud by both sides, the
defense as well as the District Attorney, when I acted as any
patriotic citizen would to protect the life and property of all, is a
sad reflection upon legal ethics in Massachusetts. I leave it to the
public to pass judgment in view of the above cited facts. That
Katzmann is trying to wash his hands of the Ruzzamenti fiasco, putting
the blame on me; that Ruzzamenti delivered my life into the hands of
the international Reds the world over by his treachery, reminds me of
the two characters in the New Testament who always seem to enjoy a
resurrection: Pontius Pilate and Judas Iscariot.

Respectfully,
FERI FELIX WEISS

“_Have Attorney General Sargent and his subordinates ... stooped so
low, and are they so degraded that they are willing by the concealment
of evidence to enter into a fraudulent conspiracy with the government
of Massachusetts to send two men to the electric chair, not because
they were murderers but because they were radicals?_”

(All attempts on the part of the defense to secure information from the Department of Justice files on the case have so far proved fruitless. Chief Counsel Thompson has written the Attorney General of the United States on the subject and in spite of the intercession of Senator Butler of Massachusetts, received no satisfactory reply. The Department of Justice refuses to give up its secrets.)

Where are Sacco and Vanzetti in all this? A broken man in Charlestown, a broken man in a grey birdcage in Dedham, struggling to keep some shreds of human dignity in face of the Chair? Not at all.

Circumstances sometimes force men into situations so dramatic, thrust their puny frames so far into the burning bright searchlights of history that they or their shadows on men’s minds become enormous symbols. Sacco and Vanzetti are all the immigrants who have built this nation’s industries with their sweat and their blood and have gotten for it nothing but the smallest wage it was possible to give them and a helot’s position under the bootheels of the Arrow Collar social order. They are all the wops, hunkies, bohunks, factory fodder that hunger drives into the American mills through the painful sieve of Ellis Island. They are the dreams of a saner social order of those who can’t stand the law of dawg eat dawg. This tiny courtroom is a focus of the turmoil of an age of tradition, the center of eyes all over the world. Sacco and Vanzetti throw enormous shadows on the courthouse walls.

William G. Thompson feels all this dimly when, the last affidavit read, he pauses to begin his argument. But mostly he feels that as a citizen it is his duty to protect the laws and liberties of his state and as a man to try to save two innocent men from being murdered by a machine set going in a moment of hatred and panic. He is a broadshouldered man with steely white hair and a broad forehead and broad cheek-bones. He doesn’t mince words. He feels things intensely. The case is no legal game of chess for him.

“I rest my case on these affidavits, on the other five propositions that I have argued, but if they all fail, and I cannot see how they can, I rest my case on that rock alone, on the sixth proposition in my brief—innocent or guilty, right or wrong, foolish or wise men—these men ought not now to be sentenced to death for this crime so long as they have the right to say, “The government of this great country put spies in my cell, planned to put spies in my wife’s house, they put spies on my friends, took money that they were collecting to defend me, put it in their own pocket and joked about it and said they don’t believe I am guilty but will help convict me, because they could not get enough evidence to deport me under the laws of Congress, and were willing as one of them continually said to adopt the method of killing me for murder as one way to get rid of me.””

Ranney’s handling of the case has been pretty perfunctory throughout, he has contented himself with trying to destroy the Court’s opinion of Madeiros’ veracity. A criminal is only to be believed when he speaks to his own detriment. He presents affidavits of the Morelli’s and their friends denying that they had ever heard of Madeiros, tries to imply that Letherman and Weyand were fired from the government employ and had no right to betray the secrets of their department. He knows that he does not need to make much effort. He is strong in the inertia of the courts. The defence will have to exert six times the energy of the prosecution to overturn the dead weighty block of six other motions denied.

Thompson comes back at him with a phrase worthy of Patrick Henry.

... “And I will say to your honor that a government that has come to honor its own secrets more than the lives of its citizens has become a tyranny whether you call it a republic or monarchy or anything else.”

Then the dry, crackling, careful voice of Judge Thayer and the hearing is adjourned.

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, all who have had business before the honorable the justice of the superior court of the southeastern district of Massachusetts will now disperse. The court is adjourned without day.

God Save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Court refused to grant a new trial. The Court has decided that Sacco and Vanzetti must die.

God Save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.