Greenfield, Mass., Aug. 25, 1927.

COMMUNIST IMPUDENCE

The height of Communist impudence was reached in the proposal of Sacco-Vanzetti sympathizers at Boston to parade the bodies of the men just executed at Charlestown around the country as a centerpiece for red rallies masquerading under the guise of memorial services. That it was promptly abandoned shows that even in radical circles there is some appreciation of how far American good nature can be baited without arousing an indignation which would lead to serious consequences.

The lying-in-state of bodies of men executed for the crime of murder can be tolerated if it is a part of a funeral service. But extension of such a procedure into a campaign would be nothing less than an attempt to enthrone criminality. The corollary to this is the dethronement of law. If the American government permitted such a challenge to its dignity and authority, it would only be inviting worse insults from individuals a great majority of whom are aliens sharing in the privileges of free government without a genuine title to them.

As an example, one of the placard-carriers in the Boston demonstrations was found by the courts to have resided in America twenty-one years without applying for citizenship. Asked why he had not done so he said: "I do not believe in the principles of American government." Here is the sort of person who is a threat to our peace and order and who it taking dastardly reprisal upon citizens who do their sworn duty in the jury box. America is indeed a free country, but its freedom and welcome only extend to men and women of law-abiding habits who are willing to accept the responsibilities which citizenship imposes. Whoever is without such desire or intention deserves only a quick return to the country of his nativity.

Aliens who let years pass without applying for citizenship papers and who take every opportunity to flout and deride American institutions have exhausted their welcome. They are here only by courtesy and it is time that this courtesy was withdrawn in the most flagrant cases. This would have a very wholesome effect on thousands of others whose enthusiasm for anti-government demonstrations expresses itself in charging our courts with conspiracy and our officials with political motives in the suppression of crime and who would try to canonize in their own peculiar way two men who gloried in being apostles of anarchy.
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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On August 23, 1927, two Italian-born American anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Charlestown, Massachusetts for the murder of a shoe factory payroll agent and a security guard during the robbery of over $15,700 in payroll funds which the factory employees had been transporting. The multiple trials, convictions and executions of Sacco and Vanzetti comprised perhaps the first great political trial of the twentieth century in the United States. The Sacco and Vanzetti trial occurred in the context of nation-wide fears of anarchism, socialism and communism. As is suggested by this editorial, popular opinion about Sacco and Vanzetti was sharply divided. For some, they were martyrs. Sacco and Vanzetti had received an unfair trial by a corrupted judicial system. For many others, Sacco and Vanzetti represented hostile, alien, and violent political ideologies brought to the United States by those who immigrated here. This editorial, for example, has strong nativist tones reflecting a widespread fear of immigrants. Ninety years after their deaths, scholarly opinion is still divided as to whether Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty of the crimes for which they were charged, convicted and executed.

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