Heywood Brown on Sacco - Vanzetti

During the Sacco-Venzetti trial, Heywood Broun was writing a column for the New York World. Head of a committee to free the convicted men, his writing became passionate. The World, which pursued a more moderate course, fired Broun after requesting that he remain silent on the subject.

From Broun's first article on the case: To me, the tragedy of the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti lies in the fact that this was not done by crooks and knaves. In that case, we could have a campaign with a slogan "throw the rascals out" and set up for a year or two a reform Administration. Nor have I had much patience with those who would like to punish [Judge] Thayer by impeachment or any other process. Unfrock him and his judicial robes would fall upon a pair of shoulders not different by the thickness of a fingernail.

By now there has been a long and careful sifting of the evidence in the case. It is ridiculous to say that Sacco and Vanzetti are being railroaded to the chair. The situation is much worse than that. This is a thing done cold-bloodedly and with deliberation. But care and deliberation do not guarantee justice. Even if every venerable college president in the country trotted forward to say "guilty" it would not alter the facts. The tragedy of it all lies in the fact that though a Southern mountain man may move more quickly to a dirty deed of violence, his feet are set no more firmly in the path of prejudice than a Lowell ambling sedately to a banging.

From Broun's article after The World fired him: There is no use in my pretending that I do not believe myself right and the World wrong in the present controversy. As far as Sacco and Vanzetti went, both the paper and the individual wanted an amelioration of the sentence. Nothing less than a pardon or a new trial was satisfactory to me. Apparently The World believed that if life imprisonment was all that could be won from Gov. Fuller, that would be bettter than nothing. Here an interesting point of tactics arises. The editorial strategy of the World is seemingly rested upon the theory that in a desperate cause it is well to ask a little less than you hope to get. I think you should ask more.