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,