The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: A New England Legend by Howard Fast

together in the town of Villafalletto, where Bartolomeo Vanzetti was born. We have met together in the memory of a good and gentle Italian, who is unjustly doomed to die. We resolve that we will do all in our power to prevent his death; whereupon, we humbly send a delegation of our members gathered from the villages around Villafalletto, as well as from the city of Turin, to plead with il Duce that he may intervene with the government of the United States to prevent this unspeakable legal murder. We know the power of il Duce’s voice, and we humbly and respectfully urge that his voice be raised to ask clemency for two sons of our working class, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.”
    When the old man had finished reading, his rheumy and tired eyes filled with tears, and he groped in his pocket for a handkerchief to dry his cheeks. Unquestionably, he had a personal relationship to the doomed men.
    When the Dictator suddenly embraced the old man, everyone in the room was visibly moved by the impulsive action. Half of the delegation were weeping when they left the office, and as the Dictator reseated himself behind his desk, he himself was not unmoved. Still caught in the spirit of the occasion, he called for a stenographer, and dictated the following press release:
    â€œ Il Duce has communicated with the President of the United States in a plea that the lives of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, both of them of Italian origin, may be spared. He has called upon the President of the United States to take this step in view of cementing relations between Italy and the United States, within the framework of warm friendship existing between these countries for so many years.”
    â€œThe President of the United States, acknowledging il Duce’s message, has conveyed his intense regrets that, due to the system of government prevailing in the United States, this matter would have to remain in the hands of the State government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While the President of the United States recognizes the sincere interest and deep concern of il Duce in this matter, he regretfully announces that he has no power to intervene.”
    When he had finished with this message, the Dictator pointed out to the Minister of Labor that it must coincide with a statement from Washington, and that his confirmation should be obtained before his own statement was released to the press. The Minister of Labor assured him that no difficulties would lie in the path of such a desirable conclusion to the affair.
    All this had acted as a catharsis, and the pall of gloom lifted from the Dictator. In another twenty minutes, he was able to leave his office for his bedroom, and suddenly the day, the future, all the circumstances of his existence, had once again become bright and joyful.

Chapter 8
    B EGINNING in the morning of August 22nd, the picket line had been moving back and forth in front of the State House. The size of this picket line varied. When it began for today, there were no more than a handful of persons who defiantly and self-consciously moved along the sidewalk, walking silently in those very early hours of the day. A little later, when people began to hurry by to their work, the size of the picket line increased; and there was a brief interval around noontime when it was swelled by many men and women who joined it for fifteen minutes or a half-hour before they in turn went back to their jobs.
    But even apart from this, the picket line had increased substantially by ten o’clock, and by this time, dozens of policemen had taken their places on the scene, spreading out—in effect, surrounding the picket line and attempting to give an impression of sturdy defenders of the people meeting a dangerous menace. First there were only city police; then the city police were reinforced by state police; then a car parked about a block away, four men with tommy guns sitting inside of it, ready if the occasion arose;