The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1921-01-28
VICIOUS CONSPIRACY AGAINST
NICK SACCO AND BART. VANZETTI
Published BY Defense Committee No. 1924
Battery Street, Boston, Massachusetts.

cence IN favor of the prisoner at the
bar has faded into a myth in these
United States when the prisoner in
question is black man in a South
ern dock or a foreigner in a North
ern Court, especially if he is charged
with the special kind of crime which
the public has been trained by lurid
newspapers to expect from one of
his race. 1t is common knowledge
that the charge of rape against a
man of negro blood primes the
Southern jury or lynching party for
immediate action, and that a North
ern jury does not examine the law
and the evidence impartially when
a murder accusation is leveled
against member of that Mediter-
ranean race whose reputation is col
ored with the fanciful versions of
the Malta that furnished the Sun
day Magazine readers mental diet
for many years. And when the
Italian laborer is also listed as a
"red" by the Secret Service the
prejudice against him is so extreme
that the weakest circumstantial evil
dence is sufficient to convict.
Seldom has weaker evidence been
presented against men charged with
capital offence than will appear
against Nicholas Sacco and Bartole-
meo Vanzetti, two intelligent and
Woodworking Italians who face trial
for their lives at Dedham, Massa-
chusetts, some time early in the
year With the prosecution getting
the benefit of every doubt and many
defense witnesses fearing the dis
favor of the secret police and the
shoe companies that are the masters
of bread in this part of the state,
the defense will have greater diff
culties than confronted Ettor and
Giovanitti in the cage at Salem
eight years ago.
The formal accusation against
these men is that they killed Special
Officer Alexander Bererdelli and
Paymaster Frederick A. Parmenter
on April 18th last in South Brain
tree, Mass, and then made off in
an automobile with the $4,000 pay
roll that was being conveyed to the
Slater & Morrill, shoe plant nearby.
Already since the arrest a convic-
ton and fifteen year sentence has
been secured against Vanzetti for
attempted murder and assault in
connection with an unsuccessful at
tack on the pay-truck of the l.. @.
White Company in Bridgewater on
the Oath of December preceding.
Lawlessness of the Secret Service
At first sight this seems like an
ordinary police case, no more I'M
usual than many other sordid con-
spiracies of officers of the peace
who find it necessary to make good
on unsolved crime mysteries. But
there is more sinister reason for
the persecution of Sacco and Van
zetti which is the outcome of the
violent campaign of lawlessness of
the Department of Justice that Gull
minated May 3rd in the tragic death
of their friend Andrea Salsedo.
Andrea Salsedo and Robert Ella
we're two young Italian printers of
Brooklyn on whom the agents of
Mr.. Palmer were endeavoring to pin
the odium and responsibility for the
abortive May Day plot of 1919 and
the peculiar explosions that occur
red on the June End following. They
were held without any indictments
or other legal authority, in the Sc
cret chambers of the Department of
Justice at No. 81 Park Row, and
subjected to all the rigors of secret
examination for more than two
months, from February 25th till
early in May. But finally the facts
about their disappearance began to
leak out. VanZetti went to New.
York and allied himself with other
Italians in the effort to secure gen.
uine counsel in place of the unfit
Attorney Donate who was after
wards publicly branded as a De-
partment of Justice accomplish. Mr..
Palmer's operatives saw that they
would not dare to hold the men
much longer and at the same time
they were afraid to release them
after certain things which had hap
pened.
Tragic Death of SaIsedo
Early in the morning of May 3rd,
some time before dawn, Salsedo left
his prison in a violent and terrible
fashion, his body crashing from the
fourteenth floor window to bloody
mass on the stone paving below.
The street was almost deserted at
the time and no one from below saw
whether he threw himself out or
was pitched headlong to his death.
New York was appalled, by the
deed, and an ominous cutlery was
raised against the secret service by
newspapers and prominent citizens.
The New York American in scath-
ing six hundred word editorial de.
manded "a searching and determined
investigation into the secret i'm
prisonment of poor Andrea Salsedo"
and asserted that "unless these
criminal violations of personal rights
are punished, unless these Secret
Police are abolished, no mans life
OF liberty will eventually be safe"
Vanzetti, Sacco and other Italians
took prompt steps for the release of
Ella. Mr.. Walter Nelles, a member
of the New York bar, had been en-
ployed in place of Mr.. Donate, and
plans were made for mass meetings
of protest that money might be
raised to supply the necessary funds
for Mr.. Nelles' work in New York.
Vanzetti came on to Sacco's home
in South Stoughton to arrange for
meeting in Brockton where there
is large italian colony.
; Arrest Prevents Protest Meeting
The swift counter attack of the
authorities prevented the meeting
form being held. They were arrest
ed in Brockton on the evening of
May 9Th through the agency of the
local police while the memoranda for
the handbills advertising the mass
meeting was still in their pockets.
and they were taken to the Brockton
town hall and police station and
grilled about their radical beliefs.
A temporary charge of carrying re-
volvers was laid against the men