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

discover and reveal the passion of Sacco and Vanzetti? Will they ask for chapter and verse—and if they should not find it, say that the Son of Man never died for us? This I asked myself, and when I had asked myself this, a bleak sadness came over me, my heart became heavy, and when I stared into the darkness, looking for light and for a pathway, none appeared. Then I had to say to myself, You are a man of little faith and less understanding , and I had to berate myself and become angry with myself, for in so short a time I had forgotten that I and my wife and my three children all wept because these two Italian immigrants must die, because a web of circumstances had closed about them, and no force in the whole world seems able to save them. If out of this, I see only the darkness, then indeed I have ceased to believe either in God or in His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.”
    â€œBut always, the glimmer of light appears somehow out of the darkness. I wanted to preach a sermon, and I asked myself, who will I preach to?” In my mind’s eye, I saw my congregation sitting in their pews, and I looked upon them in a way I had not looked upon them before. I had never said to myself before that I preach to plain working people, to hewers of wood and drawers of water. I tried to think of them only as people—and what need to define them as working people? Yet my own people are working people—are they not? I see now that you wipe your eyes. That is right. And in due time, you will weep; for the passion of Sacco and Vanzetti is your passion and mine. It is the passion of the working people of our time, whether their skin be white or black. It is the passion of the poor driven Negro of my childhood, who was hanged up by his neck by a mob of screaming, hate-driven men. It is the passion of a working man who goes from place to place, pleading that someone will buy the power of his hands, because his wife and his children are hungry. It is the passion of the Son of God, who was a carpenter.
    â€œWe are a patient people. With what effort we learned our patience, I cannot possibly estimate—for how does one measure blood and tears and heartache? But we are a patient people, and slow to anger. Yet now I do not know whether this is a virtue or a fault? They have said now that Sacco and Vanzetti must die in a few days. I do not know what our duty is, so few of us and so far away. There was one man, Peter, who could not see his Lord and companion taken, whereupon he drew a sword and smote with it. Then said Jesus unto Peter,”
    â€˜â€œPut up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it?’
    â€œLong did I ponder upon these words, trying to dispute with something within me which said, No, this is not enough . I have no answers. My heart is filled with sorrow, and I come to you with my sorrow to ask that we pray together for these two men.They will die for us.…”
    These words spoken by the preacher were an expression of what some people felt, and what others felt was expressed in other ways. Many, out of the depth of their feeling, decided to journey to Boston. Most of those who did this, came without any clearly preconceived plan of what they might accomplish. Deep within themselves, as within the Negro minister, there was a need and a desire to give sound in a mighty voice; but for that kind of rage and anger and protest, people must be disciplined and trained, and these people were neither disciplined nor trained for this sort of thing. Some of those who came to Boston were poets who knew that here was an anguish beyond their command of words; others were physicians, who sensed that here was a pain and an illness that no skill of theirs could heal; and still others, who were workers, sensed even more deeply that they themselves had been sentenced to death, and that man must not die without protest. Coming to Boston, these people went to protest