The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-10-19
Norman Hapgood's Defense of
Holmes and Brandeis

vile and vindictive conspiracy to com
nit judicial class murder is to refrain
from any act which would interfere
with its contamination, instead of
snatching the victims from the CORY
hands of the eXecutioner.
No ordinary mortal, not familiar
with the higher, detached, transcen-
} dental mind of liberalism, can appre-
ciate such fine distinctions
To our materialistic minds we can
not view this performance of Hap
good in defense of Holmes and Bran
deis as anything more than dirty lib
eral sermonizing; playing the role of
liberal priest to the capitalist class
murderers. Such observations may be
clothed in all the highfalutin' banali-
ties of liberalism but they can never
conceal the debased features of the
journalistic prostitute.
/ The attitude Of Holmes and Bran
deis, and their press agent, Hapgood,
again confirms our. contention that
! the Sacco and Vanzetti case was not
a local Massachusetts case, but
piece of class vengeance, carried out
with the aid of every instrument of
the government, federal and state.
The difference between Thayer and
Fuller on the one hand and Hap
good, Brandeis and Holmes on the
other is that the former accept re-
sponsibility for the execution of Sac
co and Vanzetti while the latter try
to evade their share Of responsibility
by hiding behind exalted ethical prin-
ciples.
UAPGOOD does not close his com
IA rlunication to "The Nation" with
his legalistic and ethical apologetics,
but goes farther and declares that
while Thayer is entirely unfit, the
basic evil of the Sacco-Vanzetti case
is not in the law, faulty as the Mas
sachusetts law is. 1t is in public
opinion"
To the mind of liberal journalist
this observation may be easily recon-
ciled with the preceding defense of
Holmes and Brandeis, but to us it
seems a flat contradiction. If it is
merely case of public opinion, if it
is fact, as Hapgood contends, that
public opinion in Massachusetts was
in full cry for the blood of Sacco and
Vanzetti and the legal phase was I'M
important, why did not those heroes
of bourgeois radicalism, Holmes and
Brandeis, step in and prevent the
lynching? IF this second interpreted
ton is correct the action of Holmes
and Brandeis is still more contempti-
BILE.
Thus the liberals seem to have
split in their own camp. One set of
them claims that the remedy for such
appalling legal murder is to be found
in better legal procedure, better
code of law in the state of Massachu-
sets. The Hapgood school contends
that it is not legal defect but public
opinion.
Of course it would be childish to
expect either of the camps to recog-
nize the fact that all laws, all legal
formula, all procedure under capital
ism must, of necessity, be determined
by the desire of the ruling class to
4 impose it's will by force and violence
upon the working class. 1t was pre-
cisely the imbecile faith of the bour-
geois liberals who influenced the Sac
co-Vanzetti committee in Boston to
place their hopes in the fairness and
justice of the political agents of CAPT
talism that constituted the gravest
defect Of defense activity. This lib
eral illusion was supplemented by the
similar illusion of the anarchists who
regard the state as a myth and who
look upon history as the acts of in
dividuals.
The actions of Brandeis and
Holmes and their journalistic apollo
gist, Mr.. Norman Hapgood, ought to
aid in convincing the working class
that fought so heroically for Sacco
and Vanzetti that the only force that
can prevail against capitalist frame
ups is the organized power of the
working class. The article in ''The
Nation" ought to arouse the deepest
hatred against the whole liberal
clique on the part Of every intelligent
worker in America, because that ar
ticle definitely aligns Hapgood,
Brandeis and Holmes with Thayer
and Fuller in the murder of Sacco
and Vanzetti.