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Sacco Vanzetti: The Murder and the Myth
by Robert H. Montgomery
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Western Islands (1965-06)
ISBN: 088279003X
EAN: 9780882790039
Dewey Decimal #: 301.4284
Binding/Media: Paperback - 323 pages
SKU: P0098-73
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: Spine tight, pages mildly tanned. Cover scan of any book provided upon request.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
That great cause célèbre of the 1920's, the Sacco-Vanzetti case, is for the extremists a judicial murder engineered by a decadent ruling class ("hangmen in frock-coats") two eliminate two innocent radicals ("goddamn agitators") who were menacing the Older Order in Massachusetts. (From the Preface)
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Customer Reviews
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Yet another point of view
Rating  (3)
Date: 2005-05-22
1 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
Mr. De Camp seems to have an agenda of his own, notwithstanding his disclaimer that Mr. Montgomery turned him around. To dismiss Felix Frankfurter and John Dos Passo among dozens of other luminaries as "members of the chattering classes" is to display one's own bias. I have read widely in the case, have formed no conclusion as to their guilt or innocence, but am absolutely convinced that they did not receive a fair trial.
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Now for a Different Point of View
Rating  (5)
Date: 2003-04-28
7 out of 9 customers found this reveiw helpful
My wife picked up a paperback edition at a yard sale some time ago. When I began reading it, I believed, like most people, that Sacco and Vanzetti were railroaded by a bigoted, nativist judicial system. I have since obtained an autographed hard bound copy. Read this book and form your own opinions.
R. H. Montgomery was a lawyer practicing in Massachusetts at the time of the infamous Sacco and Vanzetti trial. He has a very different view of the events than that championed by the chattering classes, then and now. He makes a compelling case that Sacco was a member of the murder party and Vanzetti was at least an accessory after the fact. The most damning fact is the ballistic evidence not used at the trial because the comparator microscope had not yet been invented. (The appeals process in this case was one of the first uses of the this invention. The account of the ballistics evidence alone is worth the price of the book.) Sacco's lawyers never disputed his possession of the murder gun until after it was incontrovertibly proven that it was the murder weapon, during his *very* public appeals. At trial he admitted to owning the weapon and having it in his possession at the time of his arrest. (The evidence offered at trial by the defense's ballistic "expert" is amusing.)
The ballistics evidence offered at trial was, however, very compelling. The fatal bullets were of an obsolete manufacture. The State Police had difficulty obtaining samples for performing testing, these bullets were so rare at the time. Amazingly, the weapon Sacco was carrying had identical rounds in it at the time of his arrest, in addition he had spare ammunition of the same type on his person at the time of arrest.
Vanzetti's weapon also presented a problem for the defense. It was similar to the one taken from the dead guard, Parmeter. Although no record of the serial number or even make or model of Parmeter's gun was available, his wife identified Vanzetti's weapon as similar to her husband's. While this is not highly incriminating in itself, Vanzetti's account of how he obtained the weapon and ammunition was. Vanzetti claimed to have bought the weapon at an unidentified gun shop, and paid about three times what the weapon was worth. In addition, he claimed to have purchased a new box of ammunition at the same time and loaded the weapon from that box, although he did not recall the brand. Nor did he have any idea how much he paid for the ammunition. He was not in possession of a receipt for the weapon and ammunition and could not identify the gun shop. In fact, the weapon taken from Vanzetti was loaded with two different brands of ammunition, completely contradicting his account.
None of these facts were disputed at trial
At least two eye witnesses, who knew Sacco previously, place him in Braintree on the day of the murders and robbery, despite his denials. One was a woman whom he had dated. She testified that she had seen him and greeted him some time before the robbery, but he seemed nervous and evasive. The other was a young man who had worked with Sacco at a shoe factory in Milford and was at a factory window with good view of the murders and witnessed the entire crime and made a definite identification of Sacco. He claimed not to have come forward immediately because he knew Sacco and feared him when he was at large.
This and other evidence, not offered at trial, only bolsters the case for the defendants' guilt. (Some evidence has become available after the trial, some was not admissible though strongly incriminating. One eye witness identified Sacco's cap to police but refused to testify at trial because he didn't want "a bomb up my [redacted]". A well founded fear, since Judge Thayer's home was bombed during the course of the trial and appeals.) Montgomery believes that the evidence offered at trial was more than sufficient for the jury to reach the conclusion it did. Sacco's and Vanzetti's defenders generally approach the case with their minds firmly closed to evidence, - distorting, selecting, fabricating to suit their needs. Evidence subjected to the scrutiny of judicial review does not serve their purpose. The preposterous claims thrown up by the defense were rejected by the jury, the judge, the appellate judges, the Governor and a blue ribbon committee, which was chaired by President Lowell of Harvard and included the president of MIT and other prominent citizens.
Montgomery also includes interviews with the surviving jurors made in the 1950's. Much is made of prejudice on the part of the jurors, but in the interviews they display none that is evident. Ordinary people are rarely artful enough to hide their opinions and prejudices.
For the record, the issue of anarchy and political affiliation was introduced by the defense, on the 15th day of the trial to explain lies told to police at the time of their arrest. [Lies told to police at the time of arrest were admissible as evidence of consciousness of guilt in those days.] They would rather be suspected of anarchy than murder.
The defense, at the end, was taken over by radicals who seemed more intent on making martyrs of their clients than offering a sound defense or hope of mitigation. If true, then to the extent that they were victims of politics, it was the politics of their purported supporters.
For more excellent historical background read also Francis Russell's "Sacco & Vanzetti: The Case Resolved" ASIN 0060155248.
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UPDATE Interesting evidence blostering Mongomery's conclusions: (From the wikipedia article on Sacco and Vanzetti. Apparently Amazon doesn't allow links, look it up.)
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In 2005, a 1929 letter from Upton Sinclair to his attorney John Beardsley, Esq., was publicized (having been found in an auction warehouse ten years earlier) in which Sinclair revealed that he was told at the time he wrote his book Boston, that both men were guilty. Some years after the trial Sinclair met with Sacco and Vanzetti's attorney Fred Moore.
Sinclair revealed that after the executions, he had talked to Moore in a Denver hotel. "Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth, ...He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them. ...I faced the most difficult ethical problem of my life at that point, I had come to Boston with the announcement that I was going to write the truth about the case". Sinclair furthermore said that he was "completely naïve about the case, having accepted the defence propaganda completely." A trove of additional papers in Sinclair's archives at Indiana University show the ethical quandary that confronted him.
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It's an interesting "ethical quandary". "I had come to Boston with the announcement that I was going to write the truth about the case". But since the truth didn't fit the "narrative" he was compelled to advance the more popular lie. Those were the days when giants walked the Earth. Giant frauds.
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