The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 8, 1927, Page 8

EP in the memory of class-conscicus American rankle the Haymarket executions, the blood of workers in Colorado and Centralia, the rame-up of Tom Mooney and a- hundred other in- ients of the class-war which lay bare in a flash the brutalities of the prevailing system of society. into the tr ents enter tion of each 1eration of workers takes up the ation. And it is, good that they are is good for American workers to rv and pass on to their children the story Little and the story of Joe Hill; above all for them to remember and tell over and in the story of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo No single episode in recent: history has lighted up with such terrible power the whole skeleton of American capitalist society as the judicial murder of Sacco and V=nzetti. Every element in that so- ciety was tried and tested by this historic case, ‘The industrial and financial oligarchy, the subser- vient courts, the press, the educational institutions, the police and the army, the patriotic societies and the department of justice; the lukewarm A. F. of L. bureaucracy; the honest deluded diberals and those who only posed as liberals; the entire labor movement of America, with right, left and center; its anarchists, socialists, and Communists; the legal profession, the artists, the passive “public”—every section, every class, not only in America but all over the world—every group was stripped bare by . the Sacco and Vanzetti case and its true nature ex- posed. The story of Sacco and Vanzetti, therefore, be- comes important not only as the story of two indi- vidual workingmen murdered by the capitalist state; but as the story of contemporary capitalist civili- zation. It is a story so simple that it is hard to tell. The countless motions, appeals, legal phrases, newspaper articles, leaflets, and demonstrations of these seven years have naturally obs¢ured the severe outline of the story; yet when it is clearly told it has the power and depth of a passion play. For it is the story of any two class-conscious workers at the cost of whose lives the capitalist state enforces its principle of private property. * * * The story has been told many times, but never until now completely, flesh and blood acting against a social background. In “The Life and Death of Sacco and Vanzetti” by Eugene Lyons, the Inter- national Publishers Co. presents the first and so far the most authentic history of the two men and of the issues involved. Lyons has had the advantage of being associated with the Sacco and Vanzetti case from the very beginning. He was on the inside of the case, and watched it develop from day to day, at the time when it was dismissed with a few lines by the cap- italist press and when even the labor press neglected it, failing to realize its importance. Every detail of the case is now of tremendous importance in retrospect. At the start few realized that the arrest of two obscure Italians would develop into a symbol of the world class struggle. Legal arguments have obscured the dramatic succession of events; here they are lucidly outlined by a mind saturated with the facts and gifted with a sense of words and of human and social values. The result has been a work that has the value of a historic document, ac- curate in detail and logical in presentation; and at the same time moves with the drama and power of a good novel. * ® * The author begins with Vanzetti’s childhood in Villa Falletto where he lived a life “remote and placid” in the house of comfortably-fixed parents; and of Saceo in Torremaggiore, equally pleasant in its South Italian setting. Both dream of America, the land of opportunity; and like so many millions of other Europeans follow their dreams to these shores. They arrive, Sacco at seventeen and Van- zetti at twenty,—unknown to each other and not even dimly guessing the far-off fate in store for them. In a fine chapter called “Intruders,” Lyons de- scribes the lot of the immigrant in America. ~ It happens to be the story of two Italian immigrants in Massachusetts; it might as well be the struggle of any other two immigrants. “Until yesterday Vanzetti was-a distinct person- ality. He had a family, traditions, roots in the ground of Villa Falletto. There was continuity and meaning in his life. But no sooner had he stepped on American soil than these things fell away from him. He became a ‘dago’ and a ‘wop,’ his name a jumble of letters and of no consequence, his lan- guage and his mannerisms fair game for the bur- lesquers. He became factory fodder, a ‘hand,’ scarcely reckoned by his hosts as a ‘white man’.” The same is true of Sacco. Both men are scorned not only by the native bourgeois but the native skilled worker. The story goes on to trace the “Americanization of Two Immigrants,” and again it might be the By JOSEPH FREEMAN story of a million immigrants battling for the right to live in a highly mechanized industrial country which is the antithesis in every way of ‘the -little semi-feudal villages left behind in Italy. * * * Life, however, begins to teach Sacco and- Vanzetti. They begin to think about themselves and their posi- tion in society. Vanzetti reads history, philosophy, poetry and that great fiction which sounds stranger than truth because it deals with more profound truths which we do not face in every day life. The two men learn class-consciousness from experience and from revolutionary literature. They join radical groups; they get close to the American class strug- Clo “All that happened in these years was im- plicit in the situation when Sacco and Van- zetti were first arrested. It was implicit in their own histories of hard work and lofty dreams in a strange land. Everything that happened developed almost spontaneously. “Therein lies the power and the importance of the drama. This story of two alien workers in America is an epic of all aliens and of all workers in America. Sacco and Vanzetti were chosen for their epic role almost accidentally. They proved themselves big enough to fill it. They demonstrated what grandeur there may be in simple, modest workers. With every. tortured hour of their ordeal they expanded, even their image on men’s minds expanded. They found powers of endurance, a clarity of understanding of their own plight in relation to the plight of their fellow men. They never wavered, never complained. “And they died like heroes. Even their ene- mies exclaimed in awe-struck admiration. As to their friends—for them old frayed words like ‘martyrs’ and ‘heroes’ have become young and real. They have acquired names and a history.” —From the forthcoming book, “The Life and Death of Sacco and Vanzetti,” by Eugene Lyons. ' gle. Here too their story assumes epic greatness precisely because it is not unique but typical; be- cause Sacco and Vanzetti are not leaders but rank and filers—revolutionary workers like thousands of others toiling in the depths of the masses, doing their daily chores in the working class army. Their nobility {s that of simple workers who have begun to understand. “T learned,” Vanzetti said, “that class conscious- ness was not a phrase invented by propagandists ~ but was real, vital force and that those who felt its significance were no longer beasts of burdens but human beings.” : But these two thoughtful workers, struggling for To the Comrades of the Toulon Revolt Hail Comrades! Those of the Potemkin salute you! Those of the Revolution everywhere send you greetings! Poor food, bad living conditions, the papers said. These are the sparks that set off conflagrations. From your prison windows you waved flags stained crimson with your own blood, singing the Internationale! A mere handful you were, unarmed. Before your daring the earth trembles! You, too, have shoved the reluctant world a little further toward the inevitable Dawn! HENRY REICH, Jr. pa ee .in Milford. A Working Class Epic == the emancipation of their class, do not live-in a vacuum, The author paints their background. New England, with its declining textile industry, its de- cadent Yankee aristocracy is battling against waves of immigration and against the rising trade unions. The great Lawrence strike breaks out in 1912, A year later we find Sacco helping conduct a strike Vanzetti also becomes a “goddam agitator,” punished by the blacklist. * % * Against this background of New England fac- tories, strikes, and labor agitation the figures of Sacco and Vanzetti become human and their subse- quent fate intelligible. By taking part in the struggle against the brutal rule of the textile barons they are making it possible for a judge to say some day, “the defendant’s ideals are cognate with the crime.” They become the “enemies of society,” i.e. of capital- ist society. More than that. America enters the war. The government of bankers and industrialists turns loose an army of spies against the “enemy within.” With the aid of the A. F. of L. bureaucrats, radicals— especially foreign-born radicals—are hunted down, arrested, and deported. The American ruling class suffers from a “red nightmare.” Sacco and Van- zetti are active on behalf of some comrades caught in the net of the department of justice. They have prepared a leaflet showing up the imperialist nature of the “war for democracy. and civilization.” They go about their daily work, Sacco as a shoemaker and Vanzetti as a fish peddler. Suddenly they are arrested. They imagine the police wants them for a political offense. They un- derstand capitalist society too well not to realize - that they are “guilty” of wishing to overthrow it. They contradict themselves on examination in order to protect other class conscious workers. But the fact is that they are charged with robbery and mur- der at South Braintree and Bridgewater. They breathe freely knowing they are innocent of the crimes charged. And perhaps if they were merely two ordinary individuals they would have been freed; but from the very beginning, the pro- secutor, baying for blood, dragged out the radical records of the two men and from that moment they were doomed. - * * * _The rest of the story is history, though many of the most striking details are collected for the first time in Lyon’s book. Analyzing New Eng- land’s fears for working class protests the author traces the lies and contradictions of prosecution wit- nesses. He invests the various figures with flesh and blood. We get full length portraits of Thayer and Katzmann, Fainting Lola and the boy who lied on the witness stand and retracted their testimony and then again retracted their retractions; the vari- ous pistol experts; the defense attorneys, including Fred H. Moore, whose figure looms heroically in the Dedham courtroom; Governor Fuller and Judge Grant; above all Sacco and Vanzetti themselves, holding to their social faith throughout seven years of torture. The book also tells in a lucid way of the legal battles, the.appeals and denials; the work- ers’ demonstrations all over the world and the pres- sure brought to bear by the ruling class to crush the two men who had become the symbol of work- ing class revolt. The struggle is followed step by step to the final moment when American capital, in defiance of mass protests in every country includ- ing this one, asserted its will and killed Sacco and Vanzetti. “If it had not been for this thing,” Vanzetti said to Judge Thayer shortly before his death, “I might have lived out my life talking on street corners to scorning men. I might have died unmarked, un- known, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for men’s understanding of men as now we do by accident. Our words—our lives—our pains —nothing! The taking of our lives—lives of a good shoemaker and poor fish peddler—all! That last moment belongs to us— that agony is our triumph.” Of the many true, and beautiful and strong words which Sacco and Vanzetti said during their seven year struggle these are among the best, as are those letters urging their fellow workers outside of prison to carry on the battle against oppression and for emancipation. ; is : : * * Pie This story of the “Life and Death of Sacco and Vanzetti” will reach workers in every country; it is already being translated into Russian, German, Italian and other languages. The book is illustrated with photographs of Sacco and Vanzetti; Judge Thayer; Governor Fuller and others of the leading figures in the case; as well as a number of the best cartoons on it which appeared in various newspapers over the world. No American worker can afford to miss so clear and moving and authentic a pre- sentation of a great American working class strug- gle.