Ordinary Men - #4 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
We continue with the "Normal Men" column in which we wish to rediscover some personalities and their testimony of life. "Normal Men" are human beings; they therefore include both males and females. At times when we perhaps find in ourselves a propensity to grasp of life and the world "bad examples," we believe it is important to rediscover people who have lived responsible lives leaving marks that we can grasp and make our own today.
On August 23, 1927 in Charlestown Penitentiary, Massachusetts, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair. The two Italian immigrants, martyrs of U.S. justice, of the "Red Scare" of the 1920s, considered "anarchist bastards" by Judge Webster Thayer who sentenced them, were executed for murder. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were not criminals and had no record with the justice system. They were guilty of defending the rights of men and workers, organizing strikes, and propagandizing against the war.
Nicola Sacco born in Torremaggiore (Fg) on April 22, 1891, worked in a shoe factory in Milford and was an active participant in workers' demonstrations at the time, aimed at demanding better working conditions and fairer wages. Nicholas often gave speeches on such occasions, which is why he was arrested in 1916. Bartolomeo Vanzetti, born in Villafalletto (Cn) on June 11, 1888, ran a fish store.
The two did not meet until 1916, the year they both joined an Italian-American anarchist group that fled to Mexico to avoid the call to arms of World War I. The anarchist philosophy they both shared, in fact, forbade in the most absolute way to take up arms, to kill or to die for a nation.
Nicholas and Bartholomew returned to Massachusetts after the war, unaware that they had been turned into sacrificial lambs the moment they crossed the border. They were in fact included on a list of subversives by the Justice Department and shadowed by U.S. secret agents. Sacrificial lambs used as an example of a new governmental conduct toward subversives and anarchists. For this role Nicholas and Bartholomew were perfect: Italian immigrants who did not know English perfectly, with radical political ideas. They were also part of those "seedy characters, out of the slums of our society, wretched ragamuffins" of whom prosecutor Katzman brayed.
It hurts the heart to see poor people, arrived from the most distant and miserable countries, uncivilized it must be said [...]. It certainly pains to think of their inhuman efforts to take root in a superior civilization, to try to adapt to our customs, our mentality. What worse racism declares [...] wants to pit loyal citizens [...] unimpeachable and conscientious against a mass of poor immigrants, people who know nothing of our national principles, of the great ideals of democracy, of justice that govern our free society. Individuals who do not even speak our language. It is people like this who pose the greatest danger to our free institutions. We must have sympathy, of course. But not to the extent of resigning them to danger. [...] They are barbarians! Barbarians!
From prosecutor Katzman's statement.
In May 1920 Nicholas and Bartholomew were arrested for being found in possession of anarchist leaflets and some weapons. Later they were also charged with a robbery that had taken place a few weeks earlier to which they were completely unrelated. Neither the many doubts about their guilt at the time of the trial, nor the confession of a Puerto Rican detainee-Celestino Madeiro-who even exonerated them, served to save their lives. Days and days of demonstrations, marches and even the intervention of the Italian government, at that time represented by Mussolini, had no effect.
And so on August 23, 1927, after seven years of hearings, Nick eBart (so known in America) were murdered in the electric chair. Their execution triggered popular riots in the United States, but also in London,Paris and several cities in Germany.
In 1971 Giuliano Montaldo directed "Sacco e Vanzetti," the film that recounts the whole story, with magnificent performances by Gian Maria Volonté and Riccardo Cucciolla. We report a short but significant clip from it, in which Gian Maria Volonté plays Vanzetti during his harangue at the trial.
"I am so convinced that I am in the right, that if you had the power to kill me twice and I twice could be reborn, I would live again to do exactly the things I did."
Bartolomeo Vanzetti
It was not until 50 years later, in 1977, that Sacco and Vanzetti were acquitted by the governor of Massachusetts-Michael Dukakis-who officially acknowledged the mistakes made in the trial and completely rehabilitated the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti: "I declare that every stigma and disgrace be forever erased from the names of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti."
Today their ashes lie in the cemetery in Torremaggiore, Sacco's hometown.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were victims because they spent their lives fighting for human and workers' rights and for peace. With their letters written from prison and speeches given during their trial, they enriched us with their valuable testimony, leaving a mark that we cannot refrain from commemorating.
Among the many texts worthy of remembrance, we report that of the letter that Nicola Sacco wrote to his son Dante from prison, painful reflections and words of love that inspired Joan Baez, American singer-songwriter and activist, in writing the words of the very famous ballad dedicated to Nick and Bart, set to music by maestro Morricone.
My dearest son and companion ... Since the day I saw you for the last time I have always had the idea of writing this letter to you: but the length of my fast and the thought of not being able to express myself as was my wish, have kept me waiting until today. I never thought that our inseparable amor could end so tragically! .. But these seven years of sorrow tell me that this has been made possible. However, this forced separation of ours has not changed our affection by an atom, which remains firmer and more alive than ever. Indeed, if that is possible, it has magnified even more. Much we have suffered during our long ordeal. We protest today, as we protested yesterday and will always protest for our freedom. If I ceased my hunger strike, I did so because there was no shadow of life left in me now and I chose that form of protest to claim life and not death, my sacrifice was animated by the most vivid desire there was in me, to return to hold in my arms your dear little sister Ines, your mother, you and all my dear friends and companions of life, not death. Therefore, son, today's life returns calm and tranquil to revive my poor body, if even the spirit remains without a horizon and always lost among gloomy, black visions of death. Remember this, too, my son. Never forget, Dante, whenever in life you are happy, not to be selfish: always share your joys with those who are unhappier, poorer and weaker than you and never be deaf to those who ask for help. Help the persecuted and the victims for they will be your best friends, they are comrades who struggle and fall, as your father and Bartholomew struggled and fall today for reclaiming happiness and freedom for all the poor ragged labor crowds. In this struggle for life you will find joy and satisfaction and be loved by your fellow men. Continually I thought of you, my Dante, in the sad days spent in the death cell, the singing, the tender voices of the children coming up to me from the nearby playground where there was life and carefree joy - only a few steps away from the walls that hold in atrocious agony three souls in pain!... All this made me think of you and Ines insistently, and I longed for you so, oh, so much, my children!... But then I thought that it was better that you had not come to see me in those days, because in the death cell you would have found yourself in the presence of the frightful picture of three men in agony, waiting to be killed, and such a tragic vision I do not know what effect it might have produced in your mind, and what influence it might have in the future. On the other hand, if you were not an over-sensitive boy such a vision might have been useful to you in a future tomorrow, when you might have remembered it to tell the world all the shame of this century that is contained in this cruel form of persecution and infamous death. Yes, my Dante, they may well crucify in our bodies as they have already been doing for seven years: but they can never destroy our Ideas that will remain even more beautiful for future generations to come. Dante, for once more I urge you to be good and love with all your affection your mother in these sad days: and I am sure that with all your care and all your affection she will feel less unhappy. And don't forget to keep a little of your love for me, son, for I love you very, very much... My best fraternal regards for all good friends and comrades, affectionate kisses for little Ines and mother, and to you a heartfelt hug from your father and comrade.
"Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti" Joan Baez - Ennio Morricone