On April 15th, 1920 in South Braintree, Massachusetts, a robbery right outside the Slater-Morrill shoe factory took place. Two men carrying the payroll boxes outside were shot and killed. The robbers retrieved the boxes and sped off in a getaway car, firing wildly at nearby company workers. To this day, it is undetermined who the robbers are. However, two men were tried and convicted: Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Unfortunately, both these men suffered the immense pain and mortality of the electric chair. Injustice within the courts, panic during the Red Scare, and influence of the media all impacted the punishments faced by Sacco and Vanzetti.…
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were two Italian born anarchists living in the United States. The jury convicted and sentenced to death, both Sacco and Vanzetti, for the murder of a guard, and a paymaster, during the armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company. Nicola Sacco was a shoe operative, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti was a fish peddler, ordinary men with differing beliefs from the general public. The jury charged and convicted them of murder for their heritage and beliefs. Sacco and Vanzetti, while unable to prove their innocence, were given an unjust and racist trial. They were guilty in the minds of the judge and jury, before even stepping into the courthouse.…
Sacco and Vanzetti were Anarchists that feared the Department of Justice. In July 1921, Sacco and Vanzetti were found guilty after the trial in Dedham, Massachusetts. This trial contained over 160 witnesses, with widespread nation attention. In the final result, Sacco and Vanzetti were quickly sentenced to death. The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti on August 22, 1927 was “preceded by worldwide sympathy demonstrations”. At first, there was a lot of controversy towards the judge, Webster Thayer, the lack of evidence, and the unwarranted arrest. After their deaths, more logical reasoning was discovered which discredited past accusations towards Sacco and Vanzetti, leaving this case extremely controversial.…
On April 15, 1920 a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts was shot and killed. The killers were described as Italian men who escaped with $15,776.51. Police found Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in a car shop with what they believed to be what was used as the getaway car. What turns out to have happened though is that Sacco and Vanzetti had participated in a separate crime on the same day as the robbery and killing. Police believed that both “jobs” had been done by the same gang and arrested Sacco and Vanzetti. On July 14, 1921 the Italian anarchists were convicted and sentenced to die for a crime the arguably didn’t commit. This was in large part due to the anti-radical sentiment that…
White Shoe Company in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The bandits were unsuccessful and escaped, but one of them shot at the truck and later became known to the media as the “Shotgun Bandit”(“The Sacco & Vanzetti Trial: A Chronology” p.1). Later on April 15th, in South Braintree, two workers for the Slater & Morrill Shoe Company were shot. The two men shot, Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Beradelli, were carrying a payroll of $15,776.51, which the thieves stole. The robbers were picked up by a stolen Buick and managed a quick getaway. (“The Sacco & Vanzetti Trial: A Chronology” p.1). The crime itself had taken less than one minute, and the Bridgewater chief of police, Michael E. Stewart and his men, began investigating immediately. They questioned people near the crime and several witnesses said the bandits were Italian. Later a fur-lined cap was found near the scene of the crime, which was rumored to belong to Nicola Sacco (Monroe p.8). The next day, Ferruccio Coacci, an Italian anarchist who was to be deported on the day of the crime, told the Bureau of Immigration Inspector O.L. Root that he did not report as he was supposed to because his wife was ill and he needed a couple of days to take care of her. Root was dubious of Coacci’s story and requested that Michael E. Stewart, help him investigate to learn if Coacci was indeed being truthful. Stewart sent patrolman Frank LeBaron to go with Root to…
This bigotry was obvious to Sacco and Vanzetti from the beginning of their trials. Vanzetti was first asked why he thought he was being held because of his politics. He simply replied, “Because the first thing [the police] asked me is if I was an anarchist, communist or socialist.” Sacco was also badgered by prosecutors as to why he dodged the draft rather than fight in WWI (Socialist Worker). Their beliefs and past actions made them easy for the public to accuse.…
Political and cultural debates divided Americans of the 1920s. Major issues of the decade reflected a split between urban and rural, modern and traditional, radical and reactionary. Nativist, anti-radical sentiments emerged in a 1921 trial, the Sacco-Vanzetti Case. Two anarchists, Italian immigrants, were accused, convicted, and sentenced to die of committing murder. Many believed that the men's immigrant origins and political beliefs played a part in their convictions, since all Italians and anarchists were against…
Many people around the world believed the execution of the two men was a miscarriage of justice. The two men Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty under unapproved evidence. It shows that the proof that the witnesses had were not true and that Sacco and Vanzetti couldn't have committed the murders. Many Americans were glad that Sacco and Vanzetti were dead. On the other hand, others were mad of their deaths. They marched around with signs saying, “American honor dies with Sacco and Vanzetti.” Sacco and Vanzetti were victims of a unfair trial just because of their background and beliefs.…
The prosecutor, Frederick G. Katzman, “made irrelevant remarks about the defendants’ unpopular political beliefs and their lack of patriotism” and normally these remarks would be dismissed but “Judge Thayer allowed these remarks to pass”("Sacco and Vanzetti Trial"). Because Sacco and Vanzetti’s beliefs were unpopular this caused a rift with the judge and “some trial observers noted that Thayer was hostile to the defense” and that “he may have been biased in favor of the prosecution.” ("Sacco and Vanzetti Trial"). These conditions caused controversy in the case because of the differing political opinions and if these circumstances caused an innocent man to go to jail there would be an uproar. There was also controversy among the eyewitness accounts that were reported. The “eyewitness reports differed on almost every crucial part of the evidence” from the “gunman’s build, appearances, clothes,” and even down to who fired the shots (“Sacco-Vanzetti Case facts”). These differing accounts could have made the difference in life or death for Sacco and Vanzetti, however, since the judge was biased due to the defendant's’ beliefs these men were…
The trail of Sacco and Vanzetti is the quintessential example of corruption in a court of law. The evidence presented at the time of the trial, was not significant enough. This was an instance in which anti-labor and anti-immigrant sentiment carried the day, trampling every imaginable concept of justice. For a generation of American, the names of the two Italian anarchists are forever linked. Questions about their 1921 trial for the murders of a paymaster and his guard bitterly spread thought the nation. As the two convicted men and their supporters struggled on through appellate courts and clemency petitions to avoid the electric chair, public interest in their case continued to grow. Many believed the two Italians did not receive a fair trial because of the anti-immigrant and anti-radical ideals of the era, I would fully agree. The trail was not only unfair because of anti-immigrant and anti-radical ideals but also because of the evidential discovery.…
Totalitarianism- Most extreme form of dictatorship. Government tries to control every part of society- politics, the…
Joe Sacco’s job isn’t to write funny cartoons that belong in the Sunday morning paper. His works also aren’t average articles packed with nothing but boring statistics. Sacco may be a journalist, but there’s much more to him than his notepad and pen; he’s a traveler, an artist, and someone who thinks making a difference in the world is important by putting people’s stories out there. According to his Wikipedia page, Sacco had a hard time finding a job with hard-hitting, attention-grabbing pieces that would affect his audience. So instead of working a job where he wasn’t interested in what he was writing about, he decided that trying to make a career out of his passion for cartooning was worth the effort. Combining these two hobbies of his led him to write “The Underground War in Gaza”.…
The Sacco-Vanzetti affair is the most famous and controversial case in American legal history. In our history, justice has not always resulted in fairness, but instead in the denial of the rights of ordinary citizens. In the 1920's, a tumultuous decade of social unrest, numerous Americans were discriminated against for their political or religious beliefs and ethnicity. It was a decade of intense nationalism, in which the rights of immigrants were violated in such events as the Red Scare and Palmer Raids. In May of 1920, the infamous trial and conviction of Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti began. Since this time, there has been much controversy as to their guilt. Could they have truly received a just trial in such…
What is totalitarianism? Totalitarianism is a form of government in which the government completely reminisced one’s individuality and freedom. In Aldous Huxley’s novel, “Brave New World,” totalitarianism is perfectly demonstrated in which humans are scientifically made and have no control over their desired purpose on earth. Totalitarianism is also seen in George Orwell’s novel, “1984,” where the government has eyes on everything. This means there is no privacy what so ever. The uncontrolled power of the state will destroy a community and lead to total disaster.…
The ideal of the people's power to alter or abolish the government in a time of crisis or if needed. The idea of Altering or abolishing the government makes it the…