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[[Image:Sacvan.jpg|right|thumb|Venzetti(left) and Sacco(right)]]

[[Image:Sacvan.jpg|right|thumb|Venzetti(left) and Sacco(right)]]

'''Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti''' were two [[revolution]]ary [[terrorist]]s who were [[conviction|convicted]] and [[execution|executed]] in 1927 for a 1920 double [[murder]] carried out during a robbery. The duo became a [[Communist]]<ref>Stephen Koch, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=YIoFAQAAIAAJ&pgis=1 Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals]'' (New York: Enigma Books, rev. ed. 2004) ISBN 1929631200, pp. 31-37</ref> ''cause célèbre''.<ref>John F. Neville, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=PXn7LbZRK2IC Twentieth-Century Cause Celebre: Sacco, Vanzetti, and the Press, 1920-1927]'' (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004) ISBN 0275977838 p. 101</ref> For decades, [[liberal]]s argued that they had been wrongly convicted, their [http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/oj/frankff.htm leading champion] [[Harvard Law School]] Professor [[Felix Frankfurter]],<ref>Felix Frankfurter, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=GiV9cR6277UC The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Critical Analysis for Lawyers and Laymen]'' (Buffalo: Wm. S. Hein & Co., 2003) ISBN 157588805X</ref> a future [[United States Supreme Court|Supreme Court]] Justice. One of Frankfurter's students, future [[State Department]] official [[Noel Field]], would later write, "The shock of the Sacco-Vanzetti executions drove me leftward": he would become a [[USSR|Soviet]] intelligence source;<ref>[http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=8544389&CATLN=6&accessmethod=5&j=1 Noel Haviland Field], Records of the Security Service, The National Archives (United Kingdom)</ref> another of Frankfurter's students, [[Alger Hiss]], would later [http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2278 emulate] Sacco and Vanzetti.

'''Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti''' were two [[revolution]]ary [[terrorist]]s who were [[conviction|convicted]] and [[execution|executed]] in 1927 for a 1920 double [[murder]] carried out during a robbery. The duo became a [[Communist]]<ref>Stephen Koch, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=YIoFAQAAIAAJ&pgis=1 Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals]'' (New York: Enigma Books, rev. ed. 2004) ISBN 1929631200, pp. 31-37</ref> ''cause célèbre''.<ref>John F. Neville, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=PXn7LbZRK2IC Twentieth-Century Cause Celebre: Sacco, Vanzetti, and the Press, 1920-1927]'' (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004) ISBN 0275977838 p. 101</ref> For decades, [[liberal]]s argued that they had been wrongly convicted, their [http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/oj/frankff.htm leading champion] [[Harvard Law School]] Professor [[Felix Frankfurter]],<ref>Felix Frankfurter, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=GiV9cR6277UC The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Critical Analysis for Lawyers and Laymen]'' (Buffalo: Wm. S. Hein & Co., 2003) ISBN 157588805X</ref> a future [[United States Supreme Court|Supreme Court]] Justice. One of Frankfurter's students, future [[State Department]] official [[Noel Field]], would later write, "The shock of the Sacco-Vanzetti executions drove me leftward": he would become a [[USSR|Soviet]] intelligence source;<ref>[http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=8544389&CATLN=6&accessmethod=5&j=1 Noel Haviland Field], Records of the Security Service, The National Archives (United Kingdom)</ref> another of Frankfurter's students, [[Alger Hiss]], would later [http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2278 emulate] Sacco and Vanzetti, to whom would reportedly [https://web.archive.org/web/20120507180857/http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1996/11/24/an-american-melodrama.html compare himself].

The case became fodder for polemical works: [[Socialist]]<ref>"To John M. Gillette," September 15, 1912, in Maxwell Anderson (Laurence G. Avery, Ed.), ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=iINNqp6FxU0C Dramatist in America: Letters of Maxwell Anderson, 1912-1958]'' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001) ISBN 0807849405, p. 3</ref> playwright [[Maxwell Anderson]] had his greatest success with the 1935 play ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=6P8jBxOKYacC Winterset]'', a tragedy in verse loosely based on the case, which won him the Critics’ Circle Award. In the play, the accused is innocent, and the judge is described as "crazy as a bedbug." Socialist novelist [[Upton Sinclair]] likewise wrote a novel, ''Boston'', based upon the case, in which he suggested that the convicted terrorists had been railroaded.<ref>E.g.: "[O]f the five identification witnesses upon whom the case against Sacco rested, one was a many times arrested crook, one a hysterical prostitute, one a halfwit, one a disoriented fantasist, and one a feeble victim of police pressure." Upton Sinclair, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=YL2wAAAAIAAJ Boston: A Novel]'' (A. & C. Boni, 1928), p. 411</ref> But in 2005, a 1929 letter from Sinclair surfaced, in which he confided that the [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sacvan.html well-known socialist] Fred Moore, radical attorney for [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9502E2DB1439E13ABC4D53DFBF668383609EDE&legacy=true the terrorist]<ref>Moments after the sentencing of 95 Wobbies (including Haywood) at the Chicago Federal Building in 1918, a bomb ripped through the building, killing four. Charles Howard McCormick, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Vcvhrdr6drgC Hopeless Cases: The Hunt for the Red Scare Terrorist Bombers]'' (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2005) ISBN 0761831320, pp. 31-31</ref> [[International Workers of the World]]<ref>[http://editorsnotes.org/projects/emma/topics/243/ Moore, Fred H., 1882-1933], The Emma Goldman Papers, University of California Berkeley</ref> who represented Sacco and Vanzetti, told Sinclair that “the men were guilty," and confessed "in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them."<ref>Jean O. Pasco, "[http://articles.latimes.com/2005/dec/24/local/me-sinclair24 Sinclair Letter Turns Out to Be Another Expose]," ''Los Angeles Times'', December 24, 2005. Cf. "[http://web.archive.org/web/20090226152309/http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/01/28/uptonsinclair-boston.html Novelist's Book about Murder Trial Called into Question]," Canadian Broadcasting Company, January 28, 2006 (Archive); cf. Doug Linder (2001), [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/SaccoV/s&vaccount.html The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti], Famous Trials (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law); Richard Newby, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=jxPC7B6jkRQC Kill now, talk forever: debating Sacco and Vanzetti]'' (AuthorHouse, 2006) ISBN 1420843931, p. 634</ref> As he revealed in another letter, from 1927, Sinclair feared for his life if he told the truth: "My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe, I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book."<ref>Richard Newby, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=jxPC7B6jkRQC Kill now, talk forever: debating Sacco and Vanzetti]'' (AuthorHouse, 2006) ISBN 1420843931, p. 481</ref> In the end, Sinclair decided that there was more money in lying than telling the truth: "It is much better copy as a naive defense of Sacco and Vanzetti because this is what all my foreign readers expect, and they are 90% of my public."<ref>Jonah Goldberg, [http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200601061019.asp The Clay Feet of Liberal Saints], ''National Review'', January 06, 2006. Cf. Ann Coulter, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=k_3EeVj2_IUC Godless: The Church of Liberalism]'' (Random House Digital, Inc., 2007), ISBN 1400054214, p. 52</ref> Even the Communist<ref>"I am for socialism," wrote Baldwin. "Communism is the goal." (Affidavit of Roger N. Baldwin, December 31, 1938, [https://archive.org/download/investigationofu193804unit/investigationofu193804unit.pdf Investigation of un-American propaganda activities in the United States]. Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 75th-78th Congress, pp. 3081-3082. Cf. "Baldwin, 'From the Harvard Classbook,'" [June 1935, vol. 763], reprinted in ''Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union'' [New York: Columbia University Press, 2000], p. 259; Peggy Lamson, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=iC6FAAAAMAAJ Roger Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union: a portrait]'' [Houghton Mifflin, 1976], p. 192)</ref> [[Roger Baldwin]], founder of the [[American Civil Liberties Union]] (ACLU) (which [https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Civil-Liberties-Union provided counsel] for the two men),<ref>Baldwin wrote: "The Civil Liberties Union has been connected with the Sacco and Vanzetti matter, but has hidden its participation under various false fronts. We are at present instigating a nation-wide movement," etc. William A. Donohue, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=kMnGnFOG6rcC The Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union]'' (Transaction Publishers, 1985), ISBN 1412838444, p. 130</ref> admitted "there was no possible doubt of the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti."<ref>Richard Newby, [http://books.google.com/books?id=jxPC7B6jkRQC Kill now, talk forever: debating Sacco and Vanzetti]'' (AuthorHouse, 2006) ISBN 1420843931, p. 635</ref>

The case became fodder for polemical works: [[Socialist]]<ref>"To John M. Gillette," September 15, 1912, in Maxwell Anderson (Laurence G. Avery, Ed.), ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=iINNqp6FxU0C Dramatist in America: Letters of Maxwell Anderson, 1912-1958]'' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001) ISBN 0807849405, p. 3</ref> playwright [[Maxwell Anderson]] had his greatest success with the 1935 play ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=6P8jBxOKYacC Winterset]'', a tragedy in verse loosely based on the case, which won him the Critics’ Circle Award. In the play, the accused is innocent, and the judge is described as "crazy as a bedbug." Socialist novelist [[Upton Sinclair]] likewise wrote a novel, ''Boston'', based upon the case, in which he suggested that the convicted terrorists had been railroaded.<ref>E.g.: "[O]f the five identification witnesses upon whom the case against Sacco rested, one was a many times arrested crook, one a hysterical prostitute, one a halfwit, one a disoriented fantasist, and one a feeble victim of police pressure." Upton Sinclair, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=YL2wAAAAIAAJ Boston: A Novel]'' (A. & C. Boni, 1928), p. 411</ref> But in 2005, a 1929 letter from Sinclair surfaced, in which he confided that the [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sacvan.html well-known socialist] Fred Moore, radical attorney for [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9502E2DB1439E13ABC4D53DFBF668383609EDE&legacy=true the terrorist]<ref>Moments after the sentencing of 95 Wobbies (including Haywood) at the Chicago Federal Building in 1918, a bomb ripped through the building, killing four. Charles Howard McCormick, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Vcvhrdr6drgC Hopeless Cases: The Hunt for the Red Scare Terrorist Bombers]'' (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2005) ISBN 0761831320, pp. 31-31</ref> [[International Workers of the World]]<ref>[http://editorsnotes.org/projects/emma/topics/243/ Moore, Fred H., 1882-1933], The Emma Goldman Papers, University of California Berkeley</ref> who represented Sacco and Vanzetti, told Sinclair that “the men were guilty," and confessed "in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them."<ref>Jean O. Pasco, "[http://articles.latimes.com/2005/dec/24/local/me-sinclair24 Sinclair Letter Turns Out to Be Another Expose]," ''Los Angeles Times'', December 24, 2005. Cf. "[http://web.archive.org/web/20090226152309/http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/01/28/uptonsinclair-boston.html Novelist's Book about Murder Trial Called into Question]," Canadian Broadcasting Company, January 28, 2006 (Archive); cf. Doug Linder (2001), [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/SaccoV/s&vaccount.html The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti], Famous Trials (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law); Richard Newby, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=jxPC7B6jkRQC Kill now, talk forever: debating Sacco and Vanzetti]'' (AuthorHouse, 2006) ISBN 1420843931, p. 634</ref> As he revealed in another letter, from 1927, Sinclair feared for his life if he told the truth: "My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe, I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book."<ref>Richard Newby, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=jxPC7B6jkRQC Kill now, talk forever: debating Sacco and Vanzetti]'' (AuthorHouse, 2006) ISBN 1420843931, p. 481</ref> In the end, Sinclair decided that there was more money in lying than telling the truth: "It is much better copy as a naive defense of Sacco and Vanzetti because this is what all my foreign readers expect, and they are 90% of my public."<ref>Jonah Goldberg, [http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200601061019.asp The Clay Feet of Liberal Saints], ''National Review'', January 06, 2006. Cf. Ann Coulter, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=k_3EeVj2_IUC Godless: The Church of Liberalism]'' (Random House Digital, Inc., 2007), ISBN 1400054214, p. 52</ref> Even the Communist<ref>"I am for socialism," wrote Baldwin. "Communism is the goal." (Affidavit of Roger N. Baldwin, December 31, 1938, [https://archive.org/download/investigationofu193804unit/investigationofu193804unit.pdf Investigation of un-American propaganda activities in the United States]. Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 75th-78th Congress, pp. 3081-3082. Cf. "Baldwin, 'From the Harvard Classbook,'" [June 1935, vol. 763], reprinted in ''Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union'' [New York: Columbia University Press, 2000], p. 259; Peggy Lamson, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=iC6FAAAAMAAJ Roger Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union: a portrait]'' [Houghton Mifflin, 1976], p. 192)</ref> [[Roger Baldwin]], founder of the [[American Civil Liberties Union]] (ACLU) (which [https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Civil-Liberties-Union provided counsel] for the two men),<ref>Baldwin wrote: "The Civil Liberties Union has been connected with the Sacco and Vanzetti matter, but has hidden its participation under various false fronts. We are at present instigating a nation-wide movement," etc. William A. Donohue, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=kMnGnFOG6rcC The Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union]'' (Transaction Publishers, 1985), ISBN 1412838444, p. 130</ref> admitted "there was no possible doubt of the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti."<ref>Richard Newby, [http://books.google.com/books?id=jxPC7B6jkRQC Kill now, talk forever: debating Sacco and Vanzetti]'' (AuthorHouse, 2006) ISBN 1420843931, p. 635</ref>