Letters of Bartolomeo Vanzetti from the Death
House
August 4, 1927.
From the Death House of the Massachusetts State Prison
TO THE DEFENSE COMMITTEE:
Governor Alvan T. Fuller is a murderer as Thayer, Katzmann, the State
perjurors and all the other. He shake hand with me like a brother,
make me believe he was honestly intentioned and that he had not sent the
three carbarn-boy to have no escuse to save us.
Now ignoring and denia all the proofs of our innocence and insult us
and murder us. We are innocent.
This is a war of plutocracy against liberty, against the people.
We die for Anarcy. Long life Anarcy.
[This letter was written directly after Vanzetti learned of the Governor’s
decision not to commute Sacco ... (From: umkc.edu.) Selected Letters of Bartolomeo Vanzetti from
the Bridgewater Hospital for the Criminal Insane
April 4, 1925. Bridgewater Hospital for Criminal Insane
COMRADE DONOVAN:
This very sheet of paper tells you that I have received two copies of
The Nation which you me in your letter of March 30th. Much obliged,
comrade Donovan, for the papers and more for your letter, which came to
me as a flash of light. . . .
So, you are studying Dante’s language, and will write to me in the "Idioma
gentil sonante e puro” of the "Bel Paese aue li 'si' suona”? Very
well—I proudly congratulate you. There is something in the Italian
literature worth while reading, studying and ponderating by every person
of good will&mda... (From: umkc.edu.) Selected Letters of Bartolomeo Vanzetti from the
Charlestown State Prison, 1921-24
July 22, 1921. Charlestown Prison
MY DEAR MRS. GLENDOWER EVANS:
I was just thinking what I would to do for past the long days jail:
I was saying to myself: Do some work. But what?
Write. A gentle motherly figure came to my mind and I rehear the
voice: Why don't you write something now? It will be useful to you
when you will be free. Just at that time I received your letter.
Thanks to you from the bottom of my heart for your confidence in my
innocence; I am so. I did not spittel a drop of blood, or steal a
cent in all my life. A little knowledge of the past; a sorrowful
experience of the life itself had gave to me some ideas very diffe... (From: umkc.edu.) Selected Letters of Vanzetti from the Charlestown
State Prison,
1925 through April 1927
November 13, 1925. Charlestown Prison
DEAR COMRADE BLACKWELL:
Your most welcome letter of Nov. 4th reached me in due time. Its
news about your health assured me of your recovering and its arguments
rouse many thoughts and sentiments within my being. I am going to
answer with an attempt to express myself--and this will be a long random
letter.
You blame to me, anarchist, Miss H----- because "she hates politics
and never votes." Well, these facts cause me to add my admiration and my
gratitude to her; and I don't believe that you have written in the hope
that I would have approved your "blaming," for, you should believe that
I have chang... (From: umkc.edu.) Selected Letters of Vanzetti from
the Dedham Jail, April - June 1927
April 14, 1927. Dedham Jail
DEAR COMRADE MARY [DONOVAN]:
Today I have written, written and written all the time. Now it
is late and I am tired. Yet I cannot help to write to you. . . .
What I want to say to you is, again and ever, to be calm and self restrained.
Yes, just that and what I do not know to say. I knew that you lost
your job. Another of their nice things. Now you are working
days and nights to save Nick and I. Remember that you must rest,
and rest at least for the necessity of it. Good-bye, and all my regards
to you, also Nick.
[COMRADE MARY was Mary Donovan, a recording secretary of the Sacco and
Vanzetti Defense Committee who had be... (From: umkc.edu.) Vanzetti's 1927 Letter to Governor Fuller
The letter below was written shortly after Vanzetti was interviewed
for two hours by Governor Fuller. Vanzetti asked the Governor if
he might write him about topics not discussed in the interview. This
is the letter he sent. Six days after this letter was mailed, Governor
Fuller issued his decision allowing the executions to go forward.
July 28, 1927. Charlestown Prison
Hon. Alvan T. Fuller,
Governor of Massachusetts,
State House, Boston.
YOUR EXCELLENCY:
You told me Tuesday night that I might dictate to a stenographer the
part, of my statement which I wanted to make to you, but was prevented
by lack of time from making. So I will say as follows:
1. I don't tell the trut... (From: umkc.edu.) I can’t remember when I first read “The Story of A Proletarian Life.” I just know that one edition or another has been in and around my life for a long time. I read it most years, and usually I find myself reading it in a different way from the time before. Sometimes I read it as the voice of the immigrant experience and am moved by the image of Vanzetti, alone in the Battery, trying to make sense of where he was and realizing his essential loneliness and alienation from all that he saw around him. His portrayal of the exhausting search for work and the seeking out of fellow country people for help and support is both grim and poignant reading and one can understand how the acts of kindness he receives begin to drive and s... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Foreword
The case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti has attracted world-wide attention. Yet very few of our people, except those immediately associated with the case, are at all familiar with the personalities of the two men whose fate has aroused this strong international interest.
It has been my privilege to know Vanzetti personally, and I have been struck by his simple-heartedness and sincerity. The belief in his innocence, widely held among those who followed the trials, is strengthened upon personal acquaintance. Though he has been living for more than three years under the shadow of a death sentence, he has maintained an equable temper and keen interest in world affairs, and his thirst for knowledge is unabated. Each... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) This arrangement of Vanzetti's speech first appeared in Labor Action.
I have talk a great deal of myself but I even forget to name Sacco. Sacco too is a worker, from his boyhood a skilled worker, lover of work with a good job and pay, a bank account, a good and lovely wife, two beautiful children and a neat little home at the verge of a wood, near a brook. Sacco is a heart, a faith, a character, a man; a man, lover of nature, and mankind. A man who gave all, who sacrifice all to the cause of liberty and to his love for mankind: money, rest, mundane ambition, his own wife, children, himself and his own life.
Sacco has never dreamed to steal, never to assassinate. He and I have never brought a morsel of bread to our mouths, from our ch... (From: Anarchy Archives.) FROM THE DEATH HOUSE OF MASSACHUSETTS STATE PRISON - AUGUST 21, 1927
MY DEAR DANTE:
I still hope, and we will fight until the last moment, to revindicate our right to live and be free, but all the forces of the State and of the Money and reaction are deadly against us because we are libertarians or anarchists.
I write little of this because you are now a yet too little boy to understand these things and other things of which I would like to reason with you.
But if you do well, you will grow and understand your father's and my case and your father's and my principles, for which we will soon be put to death.
I tell you that for and of all I know of your father, he is not a criminal, but one of the bravest men I ever knew. On... (From: Signature.Pair.com.)
