History on Trial

The Sacco and Vanzetti case stands --in the opinion of some--as a landmark in U.S. legal history, showing just how far justice can go off the track. According to that view, the two Italian anarchists were convicted and executed for a 1920 holdup-murder on conflicting and circumstantial evidence. The National Park Service seems to agree. In a recent letter to the Norfolk, Mass., county commission, the service suggested that the granite Greek-revival courthouse in which the case was tried should be made into a national landmark. Displaying a touch of radical chic, the Park Service argued that the Sacco and Vanzetti trial had "crystallized the tensions of the 1920s," revealing, among other things, "hostility to radicals, antipathy to foreigners and a jealous protection of the status quo."

As Park Service officials quickly discovered, the status quo is alive and well in Massachusetts. State Superior Court Chief Justice Walter H. McLaughlin called the service's proposal "a smear upon the administration of justice in this Commonwealth." Norfolk County Commissioner James J. Collins cringed at the thought of comparing landmarks like Mount Vernon and Bunker Hill with the Sacco and Vanzetti courthouse, and argued that in their case "justice had been served as well as it could have been with a jury trial." The proposal has yet to be rejected outright, but the odds are that Sacco and Vanzetti have lost again.

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