Twice during the last twenty-eight years, Francis Russell has written about Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for American Heritage. His first article, in October 1958, sought to prove the innocence of the two men. His second story, in June 1962, was written when he had come to believe that one of them was guilty. A new book of his, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Case Resolved, has recently been published by Harper & Row.
If in 1953 I had not been drawn for a month's jury duty in Dedham, where Sacco and Vanzetti were tried in 1921, I doubt if I should ever have written about them. That granite building with its austere columns still seemed haunted by the two dead anarchists. The sheriff, in his blue serge cutaway with its embossed brass buttons and his white staff of office, had been the, sheriff at the great trial, and sometimes in the over-long lunch hours I would talk with him about it, or rather listen to him. My interest in the case began during that month. I determined then to read the transcript of the trial.
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