Great Crimes & Trials TV - Boston Post - Bartolomeo Vanzetti - H G Wells - The Italian Americans TV - Sacco & Vanzetti 2006 -
1920 ... Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti were accused of murder, but it was widely felt they were being made scapegoats for the unrest sweeping the United States. Great Crimes & Trials s3e17: Sacco & Vanzetti, BBC 1996
They gave confused explanations of who they had been visiting, and when searched were found to have guns concealed on them. ibid.
Most of the evidence seemed to point away from the two anarchists. ibid.
The protests were not confined to the United States. ibid.
Appeals for mercy were received from prominent international figures. ibid.
Bandits Kill Guard And Steal $27,000. Boston Post front page
I would not wish to a dog or to a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth, I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I am an Italian and indeed I am an Italian ... if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already. Bartolomeo Vanzetti trial statement
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 man’s understanding to man as now we do by accident. Bartolomeo Vanzetti
The guilt or innocence of these two Italians is not the issue that has excited the opinion of the world. Possibly they were actual murderers, and still more possibly they knew more than they would admit about the crime ... Europe is not ‘retrying’ Sacco and Vanzetti or anything of the sort. It is saying what it thinks of Judge Thayer. Executing political opponents as political opponents after the fashion of Mussolini and Moscow we can understand, or bandits as bandits; but this business of trying and executing murderers as Reds, or Reds as murderers, seems to be a new and very frightening line for the courts of a State in the most powerful and civilized Union on earth to pursue. H G Wells essay
Now indicted for first-degree murder, Sacco and Vanzetti stood trial in the summer of 1921. From the start it was clear that the case was really about anarchy, and being Italian. The Italian Americans: Becoming Americans 1910-1930, PBS 2015
The murder trial of two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti, was one of the most controversial legal cases in American history. Millions of people around the world followed the case, and it raised fundamental questions about civil liberties and the rights of immigrants that are as alive today as they were in the 1920s. Sacco and Vanzetti, History 2006
It is a story about injustice [and] prejudices in society. ibid.
When arrested were not told the reason … his first assumption was that they had been arrested for being radicals. ibid.
The atmosphere was spectacular. ibid.
The trial lasted seven weeks. ibid.