Sacco and Vanzetti - Background

Background

Sacco was a shoe-maker born in Torremaggiore, Foggia province, Puglia region, Italy, who emigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen. Vanzetti was a fishmonger born in Villafalletto, Cuneo province, Piemonte region, Italy, who arrived in the United States at age twenty. Both men left Italy for the U.S. in 1908, although they did not meet until a 1917 strike.

The men were believed to be followers of Luigi Galleani, an Italian anarchist who advocated revolutionary violence, including bombing and assassination. Galleani published Cronaca Sovversiva (Subversive Chronicle), a periodical that advocated violent revolution, and an explicit bomb-making manual called La Salute è in voi! (Health is in you!). At the time, Italian anarchists – in particular the Galleanist group – ranked at the top of the United States government's list of dangerous enemies. Since 1914, they had been identified as suspects in several violent bombings and assassination attempts, including an attempted mass poisoning. Publication of Cronaca Sovversiva was suppressed in July 1918, and the government deported Galleani and eight of his closest associates on June 24, 1919.

Remaining Galleanists remained active. For three years, perhaps 60 Galleanists waged an intermittent campaign of violence against U.S. politicians, judges, and other federal and local officials, especially those who had supported deportation of alien radicals. Among the dozen of more violent acts was the bombing of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's home on June 2, 1919. In that incident, one Galleanist, Carlo Valdonoci, a former editor of Cronaca Sovversiva and an associate of Sacco and Vanzetti, was killed. The bomb intended for Attorney General Palmer exploded in Valdonoci's hands. Radical pamphlets entitled "Plain Words" signed "The Anarchist Fighters" were found at the scene of this and several other midnight bombings that night.

Several Galleanist associates were suspected or interrogated about their roles in the bombing incidents. Two days before Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested, a Galleanist named Andrea Salsedo fell to his death from the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation (BOI) offices on 15 Park Row in New York City. Salsedo worked in the Canzani Printshop in Brooklyn, to where federal agents traced the "Plain Words" leaflet.

Pe Nor did he hear the agents running into his room to find out what had happened; he was snoring loudly when they entered. Roberto Elia himself was later deposed in the inquiry, and testified that Salsedo had committed suicide for fear of betraying the others, portraying himself as the 'strong' one who had resisted. According to one anarchist writer, Carlo Tresca, Elia changed his story later, stating that Federal agents had thrown Salsedo out the window. Whatever caused Salsedo's death, the outcome was a disaster for the Bureau, which had lost a potential court witness and source of information.

The Galleanists knew that Salsedo had been held by the Bureau of Investigation and might have talked to authorities. Rumors swirled in the anarchist community that Salsedo had made important disclosures concerning the bomb plot of June 2. The Galleanist plotters realized that they would have to go underground and dispose of any incriminating evidence. After their arrest, Sacco and Vanzetti were found to have correspondence with several Galleanists; one letter warned Sacco to destroy all mail after reading.