Sacco & Vanzetti Guilty?

[Anthony]

An old letter has been found, purportedly written by Upton Sinclair, which states that Sacco & Vanzetti were guilty (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/state/la-me-sinclair24dec24,1,5561727,full.story?ctrack=1&cset=true).

Sinclair was doing research on the case for his novel "Boston" condeming the verdict and met with the defense lawyer. The defense lawyer admitted he concocted the alibis and that they did the killings.

According to the article, the daughter of Boston anarchist who was involved with the defense committee said her father told her they were guilty.

Apparently, while most agree the trial was not fair and the evidence shoddy, if the letter is genuine, this could rewrite some of the history of the anarachist movement (and Mafia history, as Mafia historians have claimed the robbery was a mafia job which found a convienent scapegoat).

[superdave]

Anthony, you're really redefining the word "current." :D

Perhaps this could be moved to the history forum?

[Anthony]

Anthony, you're really redefining the word "current." :D

Perhaps this could be moved to the history forum?

My degree is in history. Anything less than 100 years old is current events and politics as far as I am concerned.

[Mel Brennan]

Interesting; the atricle submits:

...The men have been viewed as martyrs by the American left ever since.

Untrue. Most of the "American left," whoever they are, has no idea who Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were. Neither does the "American right," were we to define them suitably.

What's interesting is Sinclair's public silence on what he knew, even after the men's execution. True believers, when that belief is inclusive of justifying murder, are dangerous when cornered, even when cornered with the truth, maybe especially so.

[Anthony]

Untrue. Most of the "American left," whoever they are, has no idea who Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were. Neither does the "American right," were we to define them suitably.

Come on Mel. I assume you are American, and for most of the previous century, the Sacco and Vanzetti case has been one of the fault lines of Left-Right intellectual discourse in the US (along with Alger Hiss). It has been a shibboleth among the Left that Sacco and Vanzetti were railroaded and innocent, and that they were persecuted for their political beliefs. Everyday I spend at Syracuse University I passed a mosaic showing an allegorical view of the case. Joan Baez even had a hit song about it (or so Wikipedia tells me, though that is not the best source out there).

Granted, maybe if you ask someone on the street at random who Sacco and Vanzetti are you will get a blank stare (or maybe someone here will think they are Bears linebackers), but for people like us, I think we all know who Sacco and Vanzetti are.


What's interesting is Sinclair's public silence on what he knew, even after the men's execution. True believers, when that belief is inclusive of justifying murder, are dangerous when cornered, even when cornered with the truth, maybe especially so.

I agree with you on that.


One aside, I really did not know much about the case, partly I think because of some shame in the role Italian immigrants played in the revolutionary anarchist movement in the US in the late 19th and early 20th Century (my parents always instilled in me a belief in American democracy they claimed was an outgrowth of the immigrant experience, and to learn that was something of a WWII myth was too much of a shock to my system).

The only thing I really knew about the case was something I came across in a biography of Fiorello LaGuardia. LaGuardia, as a prominent Italian-American lawyer and politician (and someone who having been at times both a Socialist and a Republican had friends in both camps) was asked to help the defense. He gave up because he felt they were more interested in shouting anarchist slogans than assisting in their defense. While I do not remember if LaGuardia had any thought on guilt or innocence, this made me think they were really guilty.

What is interesting is that the wikipedia article states that anarchists who were in a position to know thought that Sacco was guilty but Vanzetti innocent of the actual crime.

[ratdog]

I suppose it is possible that they were guilty AND were railroaded at the same time. You know, like "Blind squirrel -> Acorn" and all. Anyway, there isn't anything here solid enough to change anyone's mind.

Oh, and have you discovered the difference between fascism and communism yet? Or the difference between Stalinism and communism, for that matter?

[Anthony]

I suppose it is possible that they were guilty AND were railroaded at the same time. You know, like "Blind squirrel -> Acorn" and all. Anyway, there isn't anything here solid enough to change anyone's mind.

Except that it is only one more piece in a much larger body of evidence. Namely that at least in the case of Sacco, others who had reason to know for at least 65 years knew the guilt (Max Eastman was told by a fellow anarchist in 1941 that Sacco was guilty and Vanzetti innocent). And they hide it behind a conspiracvy of silence (if the Sinclair letter is genuine, it is only one part of a larger picture)

Oh, and have you discovered the difference between fascism and communism yet? Or the difference between Stalinism and communism, for that matter?

As I have said before, I can tell you all the textbook differences, but to someone like me, in the end there is little difference. As for the differences between fascism, communism, and "Stalinism" and for that matter, lets throw in Maoism, Trotskyitism, anarchic communism and the rest -- it is all simply a strain of the same disease which maybe differs in virilance, but which are all fatak when contracted by the human body.

In any event, I am a believer in liberal democracy. I make no excuses for its failures, but believe it is the best system and is a universal system (it is very flexible, running from cowboy America to socialist Sweden). I know that a perfect system of liberal democracy (as I understand it) cannot exist and will never exist. What I hope for is the best possible system in the best possible circumstances. There have been success and failures, but in terms of previding freedom and material well being for its population, liberal democratic countries clearly win on all counts.

As for communism, it is failure on all counts. No commuist country has provided its people with freedom, and they all fail in providing material goods.

[frenil]

to socialist Sweden

sweden is not socialist.

[Owen Gohl]

Here's the mural by Ben Shahn - The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti (Vanzetti's letter not shown):

http://thecollege.syr.edu/depts/UnivPreLawAdv/SandV.htm

Some background:

http://www.monthlyreview.org/999zaidi.htm

Further background on the artist and another photo of the mural. Here you can see how Vanzetti's letter appears to the left and right of the exit doors of the auditorium of H B Crouse Hall. According to the student newspaper, Shahn wasn't bothered by this compromise. The text of the letter is written in broken English and contains numerous mis-spellings (e.g. "joostice"). :

http://www.answers.com/topic/ben-shahn

I was there the day the mural was dedicated. Light rain had been falling and the crowd was sparse. I doubt the majority of the students were familiar with the case but I'm sure everyone on the liberal arts faculty knew who Sacco and Vanzetti were and that virtually every one of them believed in the anarchists' innocence.

[Sine Pari]

Small bit of trivia, the factory they robbed was in my hometown, and was there until the late 70's

It's now a supermarket and an OfficeMax

[ratdog]

Except that it is only one more piece in a much larger body of evidence. Namely that at least in the case of Sacco, others who had reason to know for at least 65 years knew the guilt (Max Eastman was told by a fellow anarchist in 1941 that Sacco was guilty and Vanzetti innocent). And they hide it behind a conspiracvy of silence (if the Sinclair letter is genuine, it is only one part of a larger picture)

I'm no lawyer, but I'd think that both "admissions" would be considered hearsay and likely not admitted to a court. At any rate, I have no freaking idea whether they were guilty or not. I just don't see anything here that is solid enough to change the minds of those already committed either way.

As I have said before, I can tell you all the textbook differences, but to someone like me, in the end there is little difference.

Then as I said before, you don't know what you're talking about and your comments may be safely ignored. I do appreciate your being forthright about your ignorance, though.

As for the differences between fascism, communism, and "Stalinism" and for that matter, lets throw in Maoism, Trotskyitism, anarchic communism and the rest

Maoism is simply a variant of Stalinism. Trotskyism is more problematic as it harkens back to the original Bolshevism. None of the above are influential in modern leftist thought except possibly as examples of what not to do.

-- it is all simply a strain of the same disease which maybe differs in virilance, but which are all fatak when contracted by the human body.

That statement literally makes no sense whatsoever the instant you learn about fascist, socialist and classical liberal thought.

In any event, I am a believer in liberal democracy. I make no excuses for its failures, but believe it is the best system and is a universal system (it is very flexible, running from cowboy America to socialist Sweden). I know that a perfect system of liberal democracy (as I understand it) cannot exist and will never exist. What I hope for is the best possible system in the best possible circumstances. There have been success and failures, but in terms of previding freedom and material well being for its population, liberal democratic countries clearly win on all counts.

I'm not sure you know what "liberal democracy" means, much less understand the godawful bases on which "liberal democracies" have tended to rest throughout history from empire to outright slavery. Anyway, the fault line between capitalism and democracy has been shifting to the benefit of capitalism at the expense of democracy and with the concentration of power into ever fewer hands, we are drifting to an authoritarian version of state capitalism that is (ironically) increasingly resembling Stalinism.

As for communism, it is failure on all counts. No commuist country has provided its people with freedom, and they all fail in providing material goods.

Considering there's never been a communist country, your statement is meaningless. In fact, given that you insist on confusing "communism" with "Stalinism" and its variants, your statement is worse than meaningless. It is highly misleading.

[Jay00]

We all do not know the facts but I believe this event is another black eye in the American disease of reactionism

[bojendyk]

Considering there's never been a communist country, your statement is meaningless. In fact, given that you insist on confusing "communism" with "Stalinism" and its variants, your statement is worse than meaningless. It is highly misleading.

Sorry, ratdog, but I strongly disagree. You're asserting this because no country has ever adhered strictly to Marx's original definition of communism, which is like saying that there has never been a capitalist country because, at some point, the government/economy/whatever deviates from the ideas of Adam Smith (or whoever).

Stalinists were most assuredly communists, even if not all communists were Stalinists.

[ratdog]

Sorry, ratdog, but I strongly disagree. You're asserting this because no country has ever adhered strictly to Marx's original definition of communism, which is like saying that there has never been a capitalist country because, at some point, the government/economy/whatever deviates from the ideas of Adam Smith (or whoever).

Stalinists were most assuredly communists, even if not all communists were Stalinists.

I suspect that you, like Anthony, have never read the Communist Manifesto or any other of Marx's writings let alone those of other leftist thinkers and you cannot provide a coherent account of the features of Stalinist society or Communist or socialist thought without hurriedly Googling them. I refer you to the "Fascism & Communism" thread for why you're wrong about communists and Stalinists. Just because the Stalinists learned to blatantly misquote Marx at every turn and called themselves "communists" didn't make them so any more than I'd really be the King of the United States just because I overtly misquoted the Federalist Papers and called myself King.

As for capitalism, you're right only in that there has never been an anarcho-capitalist state. Such a state could never last, just as a completely centralized authoritarian state run by twelve people would eventually implode. There HAVE been many different types of state-capitalist nations, however, inlcuding such seemingly disparate examples as the Soviet Union and the USA. Of these, of course, the USA has been the most successful thus far as we have a large, relatively isolated, contiguous, ecologically diverse and resource rich terrority and our rulers have been relatively generous in their tolerance for dissent. If the Chinese rulers ever learn to rule more through the media and the education system rather than an obvious police presence that generates mass resentment, we might get our clocks cleaned much, much worse than Japan did to us in the 1970s and 1980s.

[ratdog]

It turns out that we only got part of the story re: Sinclair's letter:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/01/27/books.sinclair.reut/index.html?section=cnn_latest

And now, the other part of the story...

"In the month since the Los Angeles Times article and other articles on the letter appeared, conservatives have seized on the letter as proof of liberal perfidy. Columnist Jonah Goldberg called Sinclair a liar and said telling the truth would have cost him too many readers.

He linked Sinclair's support for Sacco and Vanzetti to later discredited causes of the Cold War, such as the Rosenberg and Alger Hiss cases.

But Goldberg might have been better served if he had read the entire letter instead of the excerpts printed in the Times or if he had access to a soon-to-be published biography by Anthony Arthur called "Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair."

In a copy of the full letter made available to Reuters, Sinclair says that soon after he talked to Moore he began to have doubts about him. "I realized certain facts about Fred Moore. I had heard that he was using drugs. I knew that he had parted from the defense committee after the bitterest of quarrels. ... Moore admitted to me that the men themselves, had never admitted their guilt to him; and I began to wonder whether his present attitude and conclusions might not be the result of his brooding on his wrongs."

Sinclair questioned Moore's former wife who worked with the lawyer on the case, and she "expressed the greatest surprise" saying he had not expressed thoughts that the men were guilty before."

So we're right back where we started. Nothing have been proved or disproved and nobody's mind will be changed by this.

[BenReilly]

LaGuardia, as a prominent Italian-American lawyer and politician

He was also Italian?? :D