Italian-born Americans, Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were convicted for killing two clerks in 1920 after a controversial trial. Mass protests erupted following their executions on August 23, 1927 in Massachusetts.

    For an in-depth background on the case, check out the book, “Sacco and Vanzetti” from Babson College professor Eli Bortman. He spoke to Crimejunkies for a preview...

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO WRITE A BOOK ON THIS CASE, AND WHO DID YOU INTERVIEW FOR IT?

Commonwealth Editions is a small new England publishing house.  A history professor at Suffolk University, in Boston, was hired as editor of a series of books on New England history, and wanted one on Sacco and Vanzetti.  Since I had written a small piece on the trial a couple of years earlier, he invited me to write this book, for the series -- New England Remembers.  I did not interview anyone when I was writing it.  I've spoken to and corresponded with a lot of people since the book came out -- people who had some connection with the case -- the grandson of the publisher of the newspaper that organized the defense effort, the daughter in law of the payroll guard who would have been killed that day, except it was not his turn to walk the payroll to the factory, and the niece of Chief Stewart, to name a few.

 

WHY DO YOU THINK PEOPLE ARE STILL FASCINATED WITH THIS CASE?

I think the fact that there were (and still are) doubts about their guilt or innocence, and about the fairness of the trial, keep the interest alive.  Only 10 years ago, there was a controversy here in Boston about the installation of a memorial plaque in the Boston Public Library.  There have been two documentary movies and another, much larger book since my book came out.

 

There's also an obvious parallel between the anti-immigrant sentiment and the fear of anarchists and socialists that pervaded the climate then and some similar sentiments today.  At the time I wrote the book, I was thinking about the concern we (as a society) have post 9/11 about Islamic terrorists, and the occasional events in which Middle Easterners here are discriminated against.  (I often tell my audiences, when I'm on the speaking tour, that I'm happy I don't have an Arabic sounding name and tan skin when I go to the airport.)  More recently, look at what's been happening with the government's efforts to deal with illegal immigrants.

 

DO YOU THINK THEY WERE GUILTY OR INNOCENT?

I wrote the book with a view to explaining why the case is still of interest today, and not with the idea that I was going to persuade the reader one way or the other about guilt or innocence.  I've read many of the books in which distinguished authors make the case one way or the other, and I come away unpersuaded by each of them.  Whether they were guilty or not, I doubt any fair-minded person today can say that the trial proved their guilt 'beyond any reasonable doubt.'

 

DO YOU THINK THE EVIDENCE WAS TAMPERED WITH?

The evidence was certainly not handled with the degree of care of custody that we have today.  The writers who claim that the evidence was tampered with point to many instances where, because of the lack of control, there could have been tampering.

DO YOU THINK THERE WAS ANYTHING THE DEFENSE COULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?

The effort to make this a political trial, with the idea that 'public opinion' would somehow bring about a favorable outcome, certainly did not work.  Whether the result would have been different if the defense had focused, both before the trial and during it, on the evidence and not on the politics, is hard to say, though.

 

DO YOU SEE THE SAME TYPE OF RACISM IN TODAY'S COURTS?

I think we don't see it all that often in our courts, because our legal system -- especially our appellate procedures -- work better to protect defendants.  We see it elsewhere, though.  Some examples that come to mind are those men speaking Arabic on an airplane who got arrested just for speaking Arabic, and the cases in which illegal immigrants working in factories and meat-cutting plants got rounded up and summarily deported. 

WHERE CAN READERS PURCHASE YOUR BOOK?

Local New England bookstores carry it, and all the online outlets have both new and used copies.