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Commentary/Review
He or she who defends the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti is a kindred spirit whatever our other political differences might be. In the mist of time in my youth a couple of cases came early to my memory. The Rosenbergs and, in whispered tones, the Sacco and Vanzetti case. And in the year of the 80th Anniversary of their execution by the State of Massachusetts it is again worth reflecting on what that case means to a generation confronted with more than its share of abuses of justice and political hysteria. Below is a review of a documentary that came out in 2006 (2007 on DVD) that goes some way to explore and explain just what happened.
I also note that in the summer of 2007 yet another book has come out on the subject, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, The Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind by Bruce Watson. I have not read that book yet but I have read several reviews on it. A disturbing element in that book appears to be the author’s agnostic, if not antagonistic, position on Sacco and Vanzetti’s innocence. One of the reasons the case will never die, although not my reason that it should not, is the periodic attempt to ‘prove’ that one or more of the pair either did the murders or, in the alternative, that they received a fair trial. After I have read this book I will write more on this question. It is the duty of those who defend Sacco and Vanzetti to beat back these attempts to chip away at their legacy despite the overwhelming mountain of evidence in their favor. And to expose a new generation to an understanding of the raw legal and social attitudes of that time (and our time, as well). In the meantime- Honor the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.
I am reposting that earlier review mentioned above.
SACCO AND VANZETTI- THE DOCUMENTARY
DVD REVIEW
SACCO AND VANZETTI, PETER MILLER, 2006
I have used some of the points mentioned here in previous reviews of books about the Sacco and Vanzetti case.
Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930's, the Rosenburgs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that generation's case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the film under review.
Using documentary footage, reenactment and ‘talking head’ commentary by interested historians, including the well-known author of popular America histories Boston University Professor (emeritus now, I believe)Howard Zinn, the director Peter Miller and his associates bring this case alive for a new generation to examine. In the year 2007 one of the important lessons for leftists to be taken from the case is the question of the most effective way to defend such working class cases. I will address that question further below but here I wish to point out that the one major shortcoming of this film is a lack of discussion on that issue. I might add that this is no mere academic issue as the current case of the death-row prisoner, militant journalist Mumia-Abu-Jamal, graphically illustrates. Notwithstanding that objection this documentary is a very satisfactory visual presentation of the case for those not familiar with it.
A case like that of Sacco and Vanzetti, accused, convicted and then executed in 1927 for a robbery and double murder committed in a holdup of a payroll delivery to a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920, does not easily conform to any specific notion that the average citizen today has of either the state or federal legal system. Nevertheless, one does not need to buy into the director’s overall thesis that the two foreign-born Italian anarchists in 1920 were railroaded to know that the case against them 'stunk' to high heaven. And that is the rub. Even a cursory look at the evidence presented (taking the state of jurisprudence at that time into consideration) and the facts surrounding the case would force the most mildly liberal political type to know the “frame” was on.
Everyone agrees, or should agree, that in such political criminal cases as Sacco and Vanzetti every legal avenue including appeals, petitions and seeking grants of clemency should be used in order to secure the goal, the freedom of those imprisoned. This film does an adequate job of detailing the various appeals and other legal wrangling that only intensified as the execution neared. Nevertheless it does not adequately address a question that is implicit in its description of the fight to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. How does one organize and who does one appeal to in a radical working class political defense case?
The film spends some time on the liberal local Boston defense organizations and the 'grandees' and other celebrities who became involved in the case, and who were committed almost exclusively to a legal defense strategy. It does not, however, pay much attention to the other more radical elements of the campaign that fought for the pair’s freedom. It gives short shrift to the work of the Communists and their International Red Aid (the American affiliate was named the International Labor Defense and headed by Communist leader James P. Cannon, a man well-known in anarchist circles and a friend of Carlos Tresca, a central figure in the defense case) that organized meetings, conferences and yes, political labor strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, especially in Europe. The tension between those two conceptions of political defense work still confronts us to day as we fight the seemingly never-ending legal battles thrown up since 9/11 for today’s Sacco and Vanzetti’s- immigrants, foreigners and radicals (some things do not change with time). If you want plenty of information on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and an interesting thesis about it’s place in radical history, the legal history of Massachusetts and the social history of the United States this is not a bad place to stop. Hopefully it will draw the viewer to read one or more of the many books on the case. Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.
Dear Markin,
ReplyDeleteI found it remarkable that you admitted you did not read my book on Sacco and Vanzetti yet felt free to comment on my supposed "agnostic, even antagonistic" take on their innocence. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, unlike previous authors on the case, I do not come out and give my opinion on their innocence. Instead, I pitted the mountain of evidence suggesting their innocence against the molehill of evidence for their possible guilt. And I state quite clearly that they deserved a second trial. I did this not because I have no opinion on their innocence but because I believe readers are intelligent enough to make up their own minds and that conclusions readers come to on their own are more deeply felt than those that have been hammered into them.
I simply cannot imagine anyone other than the hardest law-and-order right-winger reading my book all the way through -- try it sometime -- and thinking the men were absolutely guilty. As many reviews have noted, I am sympathetic to Sacco and Vanzetti and present them in a very sympathetic light. So rest easy and try reading the book before you make judgments.
--Bruce Watson
Bruce- Look, I fully intend to read your book. However, based on the reviews and an interview you did on NPR (WBUR) I definitely got the impression that you were making a rather lawyerly defense of your feelings of 'innocence' for the pair. But I will wait until I read the book.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am really interested in here is why you would have supported a retrial in their case and not called for their freedom. This is the touch stone question and the place where I intended to hit a nerve (although not toward you personally, at the time )in my review. As I mentioned there at this great distance if the pair are innocent then a retroactive call for their freedom does not seem that hard a question however gently you want to handle your readership in the formation of their opinions.
Dear Markin,
ReplyDeleteI chose not to flat out state that they deserved freedom because I, along with many historians of the case, feel that it has moved "beyond guilt and innocence." Sure, I think they were innocent. But as I ask in my epilogue where I juxtapose a half dozen "what if" questions about their innocence and their guilt, what about the 1955 statement of Mario Buda that "Sacco was there" in Braintree? What about the North End anarchist who said the same? (There are a few other "what ifs" regarding their possible guilt but many stronger ones suggesting innocence.) In the end, I don't know. I simply don't know and no one can.
The literature of the case is crammed with hard-hitting outcries for their freedom. In light of Paul Avrich's well-researched indictment of their complicity in the 1919 terrorist bombings, a fact no one disputes, to portray them as "philosophical anarchists" utterly incapable of violence would have been naive. I remain 95 percent certain of their innocence (of the Braintree murders) but I still believe readers have the right to make their own judgments. Hence the subtitle "the judgment of mankind." I only regret that some reviewers leapt to conclusions without reading the book.