The Legacy of Sacco & Vanzetti

For much of the existence of this case, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti have been symbols. To some, they were anarchists, "Reds," draft-dodgers, aliens. To others, particularly after their executions, they were innocents wronged, martyrs, tragic heroes.

They were both more and less than these symbols. Both immigrated from Italy in 1908. Both sought as many of their countrymen did during the great wave of immigration during the period of 1890 to 1915 opportunity in a democratic republic. They began their lives in America as working men, seeking a life more promising than the socially repressive existence in a country that was still, even after its recent formation into a single nation, class constricting and feudal. Like many young men at the time, they passed from religious belief to agnosticism to an intense anti-clericalism. Indeed, their more virulent statements against organized religion were misguidedly deleted by sympathetic editors of early editions of their letters.

They did not come from peasant families. Both Sacco and Vanzetti came from modestly prosperous farmers, Sacco from the south of Italy, Vanzetti from the north.

During their years in prison, awaiting the outcome of their appeals, both Sacco and Vanzetti studied English. While Sacco never achieved the eloquence of Vanzetti, he wrote a number of remarkably moving letters to his wife and son, and later to his daughter, Inez, who was born while he was in prison.

While both men were concerned with earning a living, neither seems to have been overly preoccupied with achieving wealth. They were generous, and required, as Vanzetti said, "a little land to grow, a roof, some books."

It is important to note that, despite their efforts in the cause of anarchism, Sacco and Vanzetti had never been arrested, nor ever charged with a crime.

Nicola Sacco

Nicola Sacco

At the time of his arrest, Sacco was twenty-nine-years old. He was seventeen when he followed a brother to America. He settled in Massachusetts, and, after working as a laborer, received training as a shoe edger. He married an Italian girl, Rosina, and in 1913, his son, Dante named after the great Italian poet was born. He was a hard worker, a dedicated family man, and at the time of the trial, he had been averaging the not inconsiderable sum of fifty dollars a week. He had saved $1,500.

Sacco was highly thought of by his employer and owner of the 3K Shoe Factory in Stoughton, Massachusetts. Michael Kelly said of him:

A man who is in his garden at 4 o'clock in the morning, and at the factory at 7 o'clock, and in his garden again after supper and until nine and ten at night, carrying water and raising vegetables beyond his own needs which he would bring to me to give to the poor, that man is not a "holdup man."

Kelly so trusted him that Sacco occasionally served as a night watchman for the shoe factory.

Nonetheless, Sacco was something of a rebel. He moved from the republicanism that brought him to America to a form of utopian socialism, following the teachings of Galleani, the leading thinker in anarchism for Italian-Americans. He was sympathetic to fellow strikers, picketed for them, and raised funds for both the strikers' families and the anarchist movement. He and his wife Rosina acted in plays that were produced to help various causes.

Rosina Sacco

At the outbreak of World War One, both Sacco and Vanzetti moved to Mexico, along with some sixty of their compatriots, even though Sacco was not subject to the draft. Sacco left his wife and young son behind in Massachusetts. His decision to flee to Mexico to escape military service was done not so much to evade the draft, but to support Galleani's contention that the war was for capitalists, and not for the common people. After a few months, he became homesick for his family, and returned to Stoughton and resumed his job at the 3-K Shoe Factory.

One of Sacco's letters written while in prison (quoted here with its original spelling and construction) describes his affection for his family:

...some time Rosina she youst halp me to carry him in that same time she youst get Dante in her arm both of us youst give him a warm kisses in is rosy face. Those day ... they was a some happy day ...

Early in March, 1920, Sacco received word that his mother had died in Torremaggiore. He had not seen his family in almost twelve years, and they had never met his wife or his son. His father urged him to return. He broke in another workman to take his place, and received permission from Kelly to take a day off April 15 in order to visit the Italian Consulate in Boston, to obtain a passport for a return to Italy.