Facing the chair

by John Dos Passos

The tangible proof of this feeling is in the contributions that pour in steadily to the Defense Committee, mostly collected from poor people, in small sums, from people to whom giving up a dollar or two means missing meals or cigarettes or moving picture shows. In the month of June 1926 contributions came in from Chicago, Newark, Pensacola, Fla., Kalispell, Mont., Baltimore, Bound Rock, N. J., Bass River, Mass., New York, Buffalo, Boston, Sandusky, Detroit, Zanesville, O., San Diego, Oshkosh, Tulsa, London, England, Pueblo, Colo., Coney Island, Balboa, San Francisco ... and a couple of hundred other places. Whatever the outcome, the passionate effort evoked by this case will have been a great proof, if not of working class strength, at least of working class solidarity.

With the backing of the Italian population of the towns round Boston and of a few liberal-minded Americans of old families who had enough imagination and good citizenship to see that justice was dangerously miscarrying, the Defense Committee has carried on the case. They have been gravely hampered by a lack of knowledge of American customs, and by the direct action of certain underground forces. There were found to be undercover men working as collectors. Frank R. Lopez, an active member of the Committee, was deported to Spain. Then there was the still unsolved De Falco case.

One morning in January 1921 a certain Angelina De Falco, who claimed to be a court interpreter at Dedham, called at the office of the Defense Committee accompanied by a certain Cicchetti of Providence and offered to get Sacco off in the trial that was to come. After several meetings during which the woman tried to gain the confidence of Felicani and Guadagni, two of the members of the Committee, she declared herself to be an emissary of District Attorney Katzmann and of the clerk of the court at Dedham. More meetings in restaurants and cafes. At length she made them believe that for a certain sum of money she could get off both Sacco and Vanzetti. But at the next interview she came back to her original statement that she could only get Sacco off; Vanzetti was too difficult on account of the previous conviction. Then Guadagni said there was nothing doing. The committee was out to prove the innocence of both men. She said that it would cost a great deal; the District Attorney and his assistants and the foreman of the jury would all have to be fixed; there would be a mock trial and the two men would be acquitted. The morning of January 5th Mrs. De Falco telephoned the Committee, presumably from Dedham, that everything was O. K. The seventh they were supposed to go to Dedham to settle the matter.

The lawyers for the defense, fearing a trap, suggested that Mrs. De Falco be invited to discuss terms in Boston instead of in Dedham. A good deal annoyed she came into the office at 32 Battery Street. A dictaphone had been put in to register the conversation. There in the presence of Felicani, Guadagni, Mrs. Sproul and Orciani she repeated her proposition. The price of the two men’s liberty was forty thousand dollars. It was explained to her that they had no such sum on hand. She said that if an advance of five thousand was paid, the case would be adjourned till the autumn session in order to give the Committee all summer to raise the money.

“And if the money is not raised will they be convicted?” asked Mrs. Sproul and Guadagni. “Certainly,” replied Angelina De Falco. Negotiations dragged on. Chief Counsel Moore was of the opinion that they ought to swear out a complaint and have her arrested. They did so. The case was tried before Judge Francis Murray in Boston, who dismissed the charges, completely exonerating Mr. Katzmann, ruling that Mrs. De Falco had been ‘indiscreet’, but not guilty of a criminal act.

Of course Mrs. De Falco may simply have been trying to play a little game on her own, but the ugly doubt remains that there may have been more to it than that. If you turn back to the Boston papers of that period you will find that certain scandalous disclosures were being made as to the actions of the district attorneys of Suffolk and Middlesex counties.

Anyway that’s the last that was heard of Angelina De Falco. The mystery is still unsolved.

What is going to be done if the Supreme Judicial Court continues to refuse Sacco and Vanzetti a new trial? Are Sacco and Vanzetti going to burn in the Chair?

The conscience of the people of Massachusetts must be awakened. Working people, underdogs, reds know instinctively what is going on. The same thing has happened before. But the average law-admiring, authority-respecting citizen does not know. For the first time, since Judge Thayer’s last denial of motions for a new trial, there has been a certain awakening among the influential part of the community, the part of the community respected by the press and the bench and the pulpit. Always there have been notable exceptions, but up to now these good citizens have had no suspicion that anything but justice was being meted out by the courts. Goaded by the New York World editorials, by Chief Counsel Thompson’s eloquence, by the Boston Herald’s courageous change of front, they are getting uneasy. It remains to be seen what will come of this uneasiness. The Boston Herald suggests an impartial commission to review the whole case. All that is needed is that the facts of the case be generally known.

Everyone must work to that end, no matter what happens, that the facts of the case may be known so that no one can plead ignorance, so that if these men are killed, everyone in the State, everyone in the country will have the guilt on them. So that no one can say “I would have protested but I didn’t know what was being done.”