The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-08-20
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By JOSEPH NORTH

what 1 wish more than all in
this last hour Of agony is that our
case and our fate may be under
stood in their real being and serve
as a tremendous lesson, so that
our suffering and death will not
have been in vain. "-VanZetti on
the day of his execution, August
%, 1927.
MOT having time or space here to
~ recount how it was, and where,
that in 1928 I CHANGED to encounter
the executioner of Sacco and Van
zetti, that fearful representative Of
capitaistic justice, Robert Elliott,
whose fee is $3.50 for each man he
electrocutes, I will repeat only his
statement in reference to the ex-
ecution of Sacco and Vanzetti.
THAT case," he said Che referred
to his electrocutions as eases"
like an ydignified doctor or lawyer
was bad on my nerves. Those
fellows made a speech from the
chair" He shrugged his shoulders.
TITS hard to pull the switch when
they talk like that. They shouldn't
allow them to talk like that when
they go to the chair"
''They shouldn't allow them to
talk like that" Judge Webster
Thayer and Governor Fuller would
have been profoundly happy if the
fish peddler and the shoemaker
hadn't spoken from the chair
American capitalism found it hard
to silence these men, whose words
circled the globe; who spoke to
hundreds of millions of workingmen
from that death chamber up near
Boston.
BUT THEY SPOKE!
The day Sacco and Vanzetti were
burned, every great city in the
world teemed with demonstrations.
Machine guns were swept aside like
toothpicks when the millions
marched in London, Berlin, Toxic,
Buenos Aires But the workers
were electrocuted. The mass pro
test was not yet strong enough; it
had been divided over the long
period Of seven years by the tactics
Of the Socialists, liberals, the an
archists, the believers in capitalist
Justice
But those two workers spoke The
world heard their message = that
their fate may be understood and
serve as a tremendous lesson
That the lesson is remembered we
vii. see by the mass outpourings on
Monday, August p How much of
the lesson has been learned we can
Judge by the fact that the working
class of America and the entire
world have three times prevented
tbs elsctrocution Of the nine Negro
Scottsboro boys in Alabama Has
capitalist justice been unnasked?
Has Vanzettis suffering and
death been in vain? The Scots
boro boys are still alive chiefly be-
cause back in 1927 Sacco and Van
Zetti went to the electric chair
and spoke to the workers of the
world from the forum capitalism
has prepared for workingnlen On
that day many workers learned
what to expect of boss justice.
REMEMBER ALWAYS
THESE THINGS"
Five years have passed since
Vanzetti wrote, Remember always
these things we are not criminals;
they convicted us on a frame-up;
they denied US a, new, trial; and if
we will be executed after seven
years, three months and seventeen
days Of urspeakable tortures and
wrongs, it is for what I have already
told you, because we we're for the
poor and against exploitation and
oppression Of man by man"
Decades Of events in more nor
NAL times were crowded into the
teenning years Of 1921 1882. The
capitalist crisis throughout the
world; 100000 jcbless in Amer
lea being converted into walking
skeletons through Hooyer's Hun
ger government. The munitions
factories alone are not suffering
depression. Ships leave the ports
Of the United States and other
industrial countries almost daily
pouring instruments of death into
japan preparing for the care