THE LIVES OF SACCO AND VANZETTI

by Rick Geary, 80 pages, 9 x 6, b&w, NBM, hardcover, $15.99

Another in Geary's Treasury of XXth Century Murder series, this one eagerly awaited by Your Faithful Reviewer. The Sacco and Vanzetti “case” in which two Italian immigrants were tried, convicted and executed in 1927 for a crime they didn’t commit, has hovered over the otherwise fun-loving Roaring Twenties as a stark instance of a shameful triumph of blind, unthinking American bigotry. I’ve always been curious about the details of this notorious episode in American history, and now, thanks to Geary, my curiosity is assuaged. After checking a couple of general histories of the period, I’m happy to say that Geary seems to have done a thorough a job of researching and presenting all aspects of this national disgrace.

The ostensible crime committed in South Braintree, Massachusetts, on April 15, 1920 by Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti is a payroll robbery and the accompanying murder of two couriers. The actual crime perpetrated by the two is that they are Italian immigrants who were avowed anarchists. Geary assembles and presents evidence both pro and con on the matter, but it is clear that, based upon the evidence and the testimony of witnesses, the pair were scarcely guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of their ostensible crime. They were guilty of no more than being immigrants at a time when Americans were loudly prejudiced against immigrating Europeans (wherein, lest we forget, the nation is firmly rooted) and being anarchists at a time when Americans were foaming at the mouth in unreasoning fear of anarchists, who, in the popular mind, roamed the alleys and byways of the country carrying round, black bombs with fuses ominously fizzing. Compounding the pair’s plight was their trial, which was turned into a judicial farce by a judge whose anti-radical prejudice is vividly apparent from the perspective afforded in the hindsight of history.

Not all Americans were against Sacco and Vanzetti: thousands protested the outcome of the trial, and the case dragged on, in and out of the courts with appeals, for years after the initial verdict was rendered in June 1921. To no avail. The unfortunate immigrant anarchists were electrocuted on August 23, 1927.

Geary’s documentary style is augmented by his meticulous pictures and his low-key, unemotional storytelling. He begins with maps of the crime scene and vicinity, then relates the particulars of the crime itself. Sacco and Vanzetti do not show up until the end of the opening chapter, whereupon Geary supplies the biography of each. Throughout, his technique is lawyerly: he tells the story much as it might emerge in court. And his drawing mannerisms — the fustian texturing and shading of clearly outlined figures and surroundings, the haunted, staring faces of the accused and their accusers, the diagrammatic presentation of evidence — all combine to enhance the effect of objective distance that we look for in a documentarian’s work. In short, another all-around treat from Geary.