Ask the Scholar

Speaks of disappointment after Supreme Court decision, bitterness, disillusionment. Mentions article by Vanzetti published in L'Adunata. It is not clear whether he is quoting from this or giving his own account; speaks of the trial, what evidence was admitted and what was not. A spy, Cartone (?) was put near his cell and would not leave him alone. Talks about the three shells found in Vanzetti's pocket at the time of his arrest and of how Thayer, Katzman and the police chief of Brockton spoke about them in a café in Brockton. He believes that Katzman made inconsistent statements about these shells. In reality he had taken them from his own home and they had been left by Augusto Rossi when we went hunting more than a year before. At the Plymouth trial, two witnesses at first recognized Sacco as a bandit, then under cross-examination by Graham could not say for sure. He writes at length of their testimony, and that of the ballistics experts, Thayer’s speech to the jury. Says that they have been framed and have no hope for a new trial. Recognizes all that the comrades have done. The next three pages are an emotional discourse on his life in prison, others who are oppressed, his ideals, his wife and children. He finishes by saying that their only hope for freedom lies in “the shouts of protest of anarchists and of the workers of the world... today while we are still alive, because tomorrow may be too late. In postscript Sacco asks his comrades to publish his letter in "Protesta Umana" as soon as the sentence is pronounced.