Facing the chair

Another hearing of a motion for a new trial. Six have been denied so far. Sacco and Vanzetti have been six years in jail. This time there are no guards with riotguns, no state troopers riding round the courthouse. No excitement of any sort. Everyone has forgotten the great days of the Red Conspiracy, the passion to sustain law and order against the wave of radicalism, against foreigners, and the ‘moral rats gnawing at the foundations of the commonwealth’ that Attorney General Palmer spoke of so eloquently. In this court there are no prisoners in a cage, no hysterical witnesses, no credulous jury under the sign of the screaming eagle. Quiet, dignity; almost like a class in a lawschool. The case has been abstracted into a sort of mathematics. Only the lawyers for the defense and for the prosecution, Ranney from the District Attorney’s office, Thompson and Ehrmann for the defense, two small tables of newspaper men, on the benches a few Italians, some professional liberals and radicals, plainclothes men with rumpsteak faces occupying the end seats.

The court attendants make everybody get up. The Judge comes in on the heels of a man in a blue uniform. Judge Thayer is a very small man with a little grey lined shingle face, nose glasses tilting out at the top across a sudden little hawknose. He walks with a firm bustling tread. The black gown that gives him the power of life and death (the gown of majesty of the blind goddess the law) sticks out a little behind. Another attendant walks after him. The judge climbs up to his high square desk. The judge speaks. His voice crackles dryly as old papers.

Affidavits, affidavits read alternately by counsel in the stillness of the yellowvarnished courtroom. Gradually as the reading goes on the courtroom shrinks. Tragic figures of men and women grow huge like shadows cast by a lantern on a wall; the courtroom becomes a tiny pinhole through which to see a world of huge trampling forces in conflict.

First it’s the story of the life of Celestino Madeiros, a poor Portuguese boy brought up in New Bedford. He learned Americanism all right, he suffered from no encumbering ideas of social progress; the law of dawg eat dawg was morbidly vivid in his mind from the first. Hardly out of school he was up in court for ‘breaking and entering’. No protests from him about the war. He and his sister and another man dressed up in uniform and collected money for some vaguely phoney patriotic society, The American Rescue League. By the spring of 1920 he was deep in the criminal world that is such an apt cartoon of the world of legitimate business. He was making good. He was in with the Morelli brothers of Providence, a gang of freight-car robbers, bootleggers, pimps, hijackers and miscellaneous thugs. The great wave of highway robbery that followed the war was at its height. For three years the leaders of society had been proclaiming the worthlessness of human life. Is it surprising that criminals should begin to take them at their word?

Scared to death, blind drunk, Madeiros, an overgrown boy of eighteen, was in the back seat of the Buick touring car that carried off the tragic holdup outside the Rice and Hutchins shoefactory at South Braintree. Probably on his share of the payroll he went south, once he got out of the Rhode Island jail where another episode of breaking and entering had landed him. He came back north with his money spent and worked as a bouncer at the Bluebird Inn, a ‘disorderly’ road house at Seekonk, Mass. and fell at last into the clutches of the Massachusetts law through a miserable failure to duplicate the daring South Braintree holdup at Wrentham, where he shot an aged bank cashier and ran without trying to get any loot. At his trial he sat so hunched and motionless that he seemed an imbecile. Not even when his mother threw an epileptic fit in the courtroom and was carried out rigid and foaming did he look up. At the Dedham jail he was put in the cell next to Sacco. He could see Sacco going out to meet his wife and kids when they came to see him. The idea of an innocent man going to the chair worried him. For him everything had crashed. It had been on his own confession that he had been convicted of the Wrentham murder. He seems to have puzzled for a long time to find some way of clearing Sacco and Vanzetti without inculpating his old associates, even though he had fallen out with them long ago. He tried to tell Sacco about it in the jail bathroom, but Sacco, seeing Department of Justice spies everywhere—and with good reason—wouldn’t listen to him. So at last he sent the warden a written confession asking him to forward it to the Boston American. Nothing happened. The warden kept his mouth shut. Eventually he sent a new confession to Sacco enclosed in a magazine, begging him to let his lawyer see it. “I hereby confess to being in the South Braintree Shoe Company crime and Sacco and Vanzetti were not in said crime.—Celestino F. Madeiros”.

Here is Madeiros’s own account of the crime:

On April 15, 1920, I was picked up about 4 A. M. at my boarding house, 181 North Main St., Providence, by four Italians who came in a Hudson five-passenger open touring car. My sister’s landlord lived at the same place. She was then a widow and her name was Mary Bover. She has since been married, and now lives at 735 Bellville Avenue, New Bedford. There was also living there at the same time a man named Arthur Tatro, who afterwards committed suicide in the house of Correction of New Bedford. He was Captain and I was Lieutenant in the American Rescue League at that time. Two or three privates in the league also lived there, whose names I do not remember.

We went from Providence to Randolph, where we changed to a Buick car brought there by another Italian. We left the Hudson car in the woods and took it again after we did the job, leaving the Buick in the woods in charge of one man, who drove it off to another part of the woods, as I understood.

After we did the job at South Braintree and changed back into the Hudson car at Randolph, we drove very fast through Randolph, and were seen by a boy named Thomas and his sister. His father lives on a street that I think is called Prang Street, and is in the window metal business or something of that kind. I became acquainted with him four years later when I went to live in Randolph with Weeks on the same street. Thomas told me one day in conversation that he saw the car that did the South Braintree job going through Randolph very fast.

When we started we went from Providence first to Boston and then back to Providence, and then back to South Braintree, getting there about noon. We spent some time in a “speak easy” in South Braintree two or three miles from the place of the crime, leaving the car in the yard of the house.

When we went to Boston we went to South Boston and stopped in Andrews Square. I stayed in the car. The others went in a saloon to get information, as they told me, about the money that was to be sent to South Braintree.

I had never been to South Braintree before. These four men persuaded me to go with them two or three nights before when I was talking with them in a saloon in Providence. The saloon was also a poolroom, near my boarding house. They talked like professionals. They said they had done lots of jobs of this kind. They had been engaged in robbing freight cars in Providence. Two were young men from 20 to 25 years old, one was about 40, the other about 35. All wore caps. I then was 18 years old. I do not remember whether they were shaved or not. Two of them did the shooting—the oldest one and another. They were left on the street. The arrangement was that they should meet me in a Providence saloon the next night to divide the money. I went there but they did not come.

I sat on the back seat of the automobile. I had a Colt 38 calibre automatic but did not use it. I was told that I was there to help hold back the crowd in case they made a rush. The curtains on the car were flapping. I do not remember whether there was any shotgun or rifle in the car or not.

These men talked a lot of New York. As soon as I got enough money I went to New York and also Chicago hoping to find them in cabarets spending the money, but I never found them.

They had been stealing silk, shoes, cotton, etc., from freight cars sending it to New York. Two of them lived on South Main Street and two on North Main Street, in lodging houses. I had known them three months or four.

The old man was called Mike. Another one was called William or Bill. I don’t remember what the others were called.

The money that they took from the men in South Braintree was in a black bag, I think.

I was scared to death when I heard the shooting begin.

Both cars had Massachusetts numbers.

The names of these men don’t amount to anything. They change them whenever they want to. When they are driven out of New York they come to Providence. I haven’t any idea where they are now. I have never seen any of them since.

Sacco and Vanzetti had nothing to do with this job, and neither did Gerald Chapman. It was entirely put up by the oldest of the Italians in Providence.

Then there are the corroborating stories of Weeks, Madeiros’ associate now a lifer in the Charlestown Penitentiary, of the owners of the Blue Bird Inn, of various Providence lawyers and policemen as to the activities of the Morelli gang.

Out of this comparatively understandable world of thieves and murderers, the affidavits lead us into the underground passages of the Department of Justice, into a world of dicks and stoolpigeons.

Here are the three main affidavits. They speak for themselves.

AFFIDAVIT OF LAWRENCE LETHERMAN

My name is Lawrence Letherman. I live in Malden, and am in the employ of the Beacon Trust Company. I was in the Federal service for thirty-six years, first in the railway mail service for nine years; then as Post Office Inspector for twenty five years; then three years as local agent of the Department of Justice in Boston in charge of the Bureau of Investigation. I began the last named duties in September, 1921.

While I was Post Office Inspector I co-operated to a considerable extent with the agents of the Department of Justice in Boston in matters of joint concern, including the Sacco-Vanzetti case. The man under me in direct charge of matters relating to that case was Mr. William West, who is still attached to the Department of Justice in Boston. I know that Mr. West co-operated with Mr. Katzmann, the District Attorney, during the trial of the case, and later with Mr. Williams. I know that before, during, and after the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti Mr. West had a number of so-called “under cover” men assigned to this case, including one Ruzzamenti and one Carbone. I know that by an arrangement with the Department of Justice, Carbone was placed in a cell next to the cell of Sacco for the purpose of obtaining whatever incriminating information he could obtain from Sacco, after winning his confidence. Nothing, however, was obtained in that way. One Weiss, formerly an agent of the Department, was involved in this plan. He was running a private office at that time on the seventh floor of the building at 7 Water Street under the offices of the Department, and remained in touch with the Department agents. Efforts were made by Mr. West to put other men in the Dedham Jail as spies, but the men whom he desired to use for that purpose objected.

Before, during, and after the trial, the Department of Justice had a number of men assigned to watch the activities of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee. No evidence warranting prosecution of anybody was obtained by these men. They were all “under cover” men, and one or two of them obtained employment by the Committee in some capacity or other. I think one of them was a collector. The Department of Justice in Boston was anxious to get sufficient evidence against Sacco and Vanzetti to deport them, but never succeeded in getting the kind and amount of evidence required for that purpose. It was the opinion of the Department agents here that a conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti for murder would be one way of disposing of these two men. It was also the general opinion of such agents in Boston as had any actual knowledge of the Sacco-Vanzetti case; that Sacco and Vanzetti, although anarchists and agitators, were not highway robbers, and had nothing to do with the South Braintree crime. My opinion, and the opinion of most of the older men in the Government service, has always been that the South Braintree crime was the work of professionals.

The Boston agents of the Department of Justice assigned certain men to attend the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, including Mr. Weyand. Mr. West also attended the trial. There is or was a great deal of correspondence on file in the Boston office between Mr. West and Mr. Katzmann, the District Attorney, and there are also copies of reports sent to Washington about the case. Letters and reports were made in triplicate; two copies were sent to Washington and one retained in Boston. The letters and documents on file in the Boston office would throw a great deal of light upon the preparation of the Sacco-Vanzetti case for trial, and upon the real opinion of the Boston office of the Department of Justice as to the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti of the particular crime with which they were charged.

I know that at one time Mr. West placed an Italian printer or linotyper in the office of some Italian newspaper in Boston for the purpose of obtaining information. One of the men employed by West at one stage of the Sacco-Vanzetti case was named Shaughnessy. He was subsequently convicted of highway robbery and is now serving a term in the Massachusetts State Prison. One of the “under cover” men employed by Mr. West was an Armenian named Harold Zorian. While being paid $7.00 a day by the Government he became Secretary of some Communist or Radical organization in the vicinity of Boston, the proceedings of which he reported to the Department.

(So the government was interested in the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti? Provocative agents were used to gain the confidence of the Defense Committee? The Department of Justice is in possession of evidence and information about the case?

“Have Attorney General Sargent and his subordinates ... stooped so low and are they so degraded that they are willing by the concealment of evidence to enter into a fraudulent conspiracy with the government of Massachusetts to send two men to the electric chair, not because they were murderers but because they were radicals?” asks Judge Thayer in his decision).

AFFIDAVIT OF FRED J. WEYAND

My name is Fred J. Weyand. I reside in Portland, Maine. I am a Special Agent of the Attorney General’s office of the State of Maine, and have been since I resigned as an agent of the Department of Justice about a year and a half ago.

I became connected with the Department of Justice in the year 1916, and shortly afterwards became a Special Agent with an office first at 24 Milk Street, Boston, later at 45 Milk Street and later at 7 Water Street, where the Department had offices on the eighth floor, and later at the Post Office Building. My duties as Special Agent were in general to investigate and report upon any and all violations of the penal code which I might be assigned to investigate by my superiors, who were first Frederick Smith, next George E. Kelliher, next John Hannahan, next Charles Bancroft and last Lawrence Letherman. These were my superiors while I was working from the Boston office. I occasionally worked in other parts of the country and then came under other superiors temporarily. I was a Special Agent during the entire administration of Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General of the United States, and was concerned in the activities against the so-called Reds or Radicals, including arrests and deportations which were instigated by Mr. Palmer, and which included the wholesale raids made in the month of January 1920, in some of which I participated.

Sometime before the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti on May 5, 1920—just how long before I do not remember—the names of both of them had got in the files of the Department of Justice as Radicals to be watched. The Boston files of the Department, including correspondence, would show the date when the names of these men were first brought to the attention of the Department. Both these men were listed as followers or associates of an educated Italian editor named Galleani. Galleani was the publisher of an anarchistic paper. He lived in Wrentham and published his paper, I think, in Lynn. Among other persons associated with Galleani were Carlo Tresca, Carlo Valdinoci and David Tedesco. The suspicion entertained by the Department of Justice against Sacco and Vanzetti was that they had violated the Selective Service Act, and also that they were anarchists or held Radical opinions of some sort or other.

A man named Feri Felix Weiss was transferred from the Immigration Bureau to the Department of Justice in Boston in the year 1917, and remained a Special Agent of that Department in Boston until 1919, I think. He then travelled abroad and returned in 1920 and opened an office as a scientific detective and lecturer at 7 Water Street, Boston, with an office on the floor below occupied by the Department of Justice. In 1925, Weiss returned to the Immigration Department at Boston, where he is at the present time.

William J. West, who is now a Special Agent of the Department of Justice, became such in July or August 1917. Prior to that he was an Immigration Inspector with Feri Weiss. Since his appointment as a Special Agent he has spent most of his time in the Boston office of the Department of Justice, having in charge during the past seven years the so-called Radical Division of the Department of Justice, which has been in operation since about 1917.

During the year 1920 I did a good deal of work in the State of Maine, but was in Boston for several days at least once every two weeks. I have knowledge that the result of the trial before Judge Anderson of the Radicals or Communists, as we called them, arrested at the time of the raids above referred to, and of the decision of Judge Anderson freeing many of them and of his criticisms of the Department of Justice, was to make all agents of the Department of Justice in Boston more cautious afterwards in proceeding against suspected Radicals.

Shortly after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti on the charge of the South Braintree murders, meetings began to be held by sympathizers, and I was assigned to attend these meetings and report to the Department the speeches made. We also assigned a certain “under cover” man, as we called him, to win the confidence of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, and to become one of the collectors. This man used to report the proceedings of the Committee to the Department agents in Boston, and has said to me he was in the habit of taking as much money collected for his own use as he saw fit. So far as I know, no evidence was obtained of utterances at any of these meetings which warranted proceedings against anybody. Mr. West was also attending meetings of Sacco-Vanzetti sympathizers during the same period. The original reports thus obtained were sent to the Washington office of the Department of Justice and duplicates kept in the Boston office, where I believe they now are. I know that at one time as many as twelve agents of the Department of Justice located in Boston were assigned to cover Sacco-Vanzetti meetings and other Radical activities connected with the Sacco-Vanzetti case. No evidence was discovered warranting the institution of proceedings against anybody. I have no present recollection of the trial of Vanzetti for the alleged Bridgewater robbery; but when the joint trial of Sacco and Vanzetti for the South Braintree murders began in the summer of 1921, the Department of Justice at Boston took an active interest in the matter. I was assigned to cover the trial for the purpose of reporting the proceedings and picking up any information that I could in regard to the Radical activities of Sacco and Vanzetti, or of any of their friends. Mr. West also attended the trial for the same purpose. I was not personally in touch with Mr. Katzmann, the District Attorney, or his office, but Mr. West was in touch with them and was giving and obtaining information in regard to the case.

Going back now before the trial, a certain John Ruzzamenti had been informally employed by special agents of the Department of Justice from some time in the year 1917, to furnish information concerning Radical activities and evasion of the draft by Italians, and in this connection had made an investigation of Tedesco, above referred to, who was once arrested in consequence of information furnished by Ruzzamenti, but was never tried. During this time Ruzzamenti also worked occasionally for detective agencies. He was well known to Weiss.

I have been informed by Mr. West and believe, and therefore allege, that there was another Italian whom the Department occasionally used for similar purposes, named Carbone and that he, under an arrangement with the District Attorney, the Sheriff, and Mr. Weiss, was placed in the cell next to the cell of Sacco sometime during the year 1920 for the purpose of winning the confidence of Sacco, and thus of obtaining, if he could, incriminating evidence against him, but no evidence of the sort was obtained by Carbone. The primary purpose of the Department in putting Carbone there was to obtain evidence, if possible, concerning the so-called Wall Street explosion; but it was also hoped that other incriminating evidence might be obtained.

Sometime in the early part of the year 1921, I was informed by Ruzzamenti that he had been sent for by Weiss, who was then out of Government service, to come on here to help convict Sacco and Vanzetti; that he had seen Katzmann, and that an arrangement had been made by which he was to secure board in the house of Mrs. Sacco and obtain her confidence, and thus obtain information; but that arrangement had never been carried out, and he had not been paid. I annex to this affidavit photostatic copies of parts of a letter which I identify as in the handwriting of Weiss.

Shortly after the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was concluded I said to Weiss that I did not believe they were the right men, meaning the men who shot the paymaster, and he replied that that might be so, but that they were bad actors and would get what they deserved anyway.

Instructions were received from the Chief of the Bureau of the Department of Justice in Washington from time to time in reference to the Sacco-Vanzetti case. They are on file or should be on file in the Boston office.

The understanding in this case between the agents of the Department of Justice in Boston and the District Attorney followed the usual custom, that the Department of Justice would help the District Attorney to secure a conviction, and that he in turn would help the agents of the Department of Justice to secure information that they might desire. This would include the turning over of any pertinent information by the Department of Justice to the District Attorney. Sacco and Vanzetti were, at least in the opinion of the Boston agents of the Department of Justice, not liable to deportation as draft dodgers, but only as anarchists, and could not be deported as anarchists unless it could be shown that they were believers in anarchy, which is always a difficult thing to show. It usually can only be shown by self-incrimination. The Boston agents believed that these men were anarchists, and hoped to be able to secure the necessary evidence against them from their testimony at their trial for murder, to be used in case they were not convicted for murder. There is correspondence between Mr. Katzmann and Mr. West on file in the Boston office of the Department. Mr. West furnished Mr. Katzmann information about the Radical activities of Sacco and Vanzetti to be used in their cross-examination.

In the years 1922–1924 Mr. West had working for him as “under cover” or secret operators an Italian and a Syrian or Armenian. The Italian worked as a printer. I do not remember the names of either of them; but I know that he put the Italian in as a linotyper in the office of an Italian newspaper in Boston as a spy. The Syrian or Armenian is the man to whom I have referred above as having become a collector for the Committee.

From my investigation, combined with the investigation made by the other agents of the Department in Boston, I am convinced not only that these men had violated the Selective Service rules and regulations and evaded the draft, but that they were anarchists, and that they ought to have been deported. By calling these men anarchists, I do not mean necessarily that they were inclined to violence, nor do I understand all the different meanings that different people would attach to the word “anarchists”. What I mean is that I think they did not believe in organized government or in private property. But I am also thoroughly convinced and always have been, and I believe that is and always has been the opinion of such Boston agents of the Department of Justice as had any knowledge on the subject, that these men had nothing whatever to do with the South Braintree murders, and that their conviction was the result of co-operation between the Boston agents of the Department of Justice and the District Attorney. It was the general opinion of the Boston agents of the Department of Justice having knowledge of the affair that the South Braintree crime was committed by a gang of professional highwaymen.

I annex hereto a picture of Mr. Feri Felix Weiss printed on the outside of one of his advertisements.

So ends as fine a picture of the inner workings of the Spanish Inquisition as has seen the light in many a day. I can’t help quoting again Judge Thayer’s very pertinent question:

“Have Attorney General Sargent and his subordinates ... stooped so low and are they so degraded that they are willing by the concealment of evidence to enter into a fraudulent conspiracy with the government of Massachusetts to send two men to the electric chair, not because they were murderers but because they were radicals?”

AFFIDAVIT OF JOHN RUZZAMENTI

John Ruzzamenti being first duly sworn, on oath deposes and says that he is now and has been for upwards of thirty days last past a resident of the City of Boston, County of Suffolk and Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

That in the month of December 1920 the affiant resided in the town of Reddington, State of Pennsylvania, and was employed in the capacity of brass melter in the Reddington Standard Fitting Corporation, a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

That sometime in December 1920 and to the affiant’s best knowledge, information and belief, about December 18th or 19th, he, the affiant, received through the United States Post Office an envelope bearing Boston post-mark and stamped with special delivery stamp and containing the name and address of affiant. That inside of said envelope was another sealed envelope bearing on the outside the notation “burn this after you have read”. That inside of said sealed envelope was a letter purporting to come from one Feri Felix Weiss. That affiant well knew said Weiss having worked with and been employed by said Weiss when said Weiss was employed by the United States Department of Justice at Boston specially assigned to so-called Red or Radical cases. That the affiant then had in his possession a card of said Weiss reading as follows, to-wit:

That the said letter contained in said envelope read as follows, to-wit:

Just returned from a trip I found your two letters, and answer them by return mail.

Would you like to help me on a case which I may clinch here? It is the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, who are in jail awaiting trial for having shot the paymaster of the South Braintree shoefactory.

Do you know these fellows? They are members of the Galleani gang, and Sacco used to work in the Cordage works in Plymouth.

He also worked in the Plant shoe factory.

It is a very important case, and I need a clever Italian who would mix with the gang, and if necessary even stay in jail for a few days just to find out what they say.

How much pay would you want?

You would have to come right away.

Do you think you could work amongst them?

I am not sure whether they might know you from Milford, though I don’t think that Sacco was ever there.

If we are successful in this venture, we might tackle the big Wall Street affair in New York, as all the other agencies are up against a wall in that matter.

Let me know by the return envelope which I herewith enclose.

I must give my friends an answer not later than Monday, so you must mail your answer to me immediately. Don’t write me a long letter, just say “yes, I’ll work for $8” a day, or whatever you want, so I can put it up to my friend.

In case you get my letter only Sunday, better telegraph me your answer, P. O. Box 2107. Just say “Yes, $8” “John”.

I am afraid they won’t pay $8, so make it less if you can.

Of course any expenses would be extra.

If we deliver the goods they will probably give us the reward.

I think there is $2,000 written out.

You would have to start as soon as possible, probably after Christmas, if you care to stay with your folks over the holidays.

Best regards to Mrs. R. and the children.

With best of wishes, believe me,

That immediately upon receipt of said letter the affiant well knowing from past experience with said Weiss the need of expedition and secrecy, instructed his wife, Laura Ruzzamenti, to telegraph to said Feri Felix Weiss, P. O. Box 2107, Boston Mass. in substance and effect that he, the affiant would come to Boston immediately after the Christmas holidays, and said telegram as outlined above was sent.

That between the said date of sending of said telegram to said Feri Felix Weiss and the morning of December 27th, 1920 when the affiant secured leave of absence from said Reddington Standard Fitting Corporation, and left Reddington, Pennsylvania to come to the City of Boston, no letter or telegram or communication of any character was received by the affiant from the said Feri Felix Weiss.

That upon arrival in the City of Boston, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on the evening of December 27th, 1920, at or about the hour of ten p. m., the affiant went to the office of said Feri Felix Weiss at 7 Water Street in the City of Boston and made inquiry for said Weiss, but found that he was out for the evening. Whereupon the affiant went to the American House in said City of Boston and there registered.

That following morning, December 28th, 1920, the affiant went to the office of said Feri Felix Weiss at 7 Water Street in said City of Boston and interviewed the said Weiss.

That the said Weiss then admitted receipt of affiant’s telegram but expressed some surprise that the affiant had come to the City of Boston in view of the fact that the said Weiss had sent to him, the affiant, a telegram stating that he should not come.

That the affiant has since made inquiry and to the best of his knowledge, information and belief the said Weiss did not send a telegram to the affiant, but did send a letter stating in effect that he, the affiant, was not to come to Boston until further word was received from the said Weiss, but that said letter was not received in Reddington, Pennsylvania, until December 28th, 1920, the day after the affiant left Reddington, Pennsylvania.

That after some discussion the said Weiss stated to the affiant in substance and effect that however it was all right: that he, the affiant, was here in Boston and that he, the said Weiss, would immediately get in touch with Mr. Frederick G. Katzmann, the District Attorney for Norfolk and Plymouth Counties, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and would arrange for an interview between the said Katzmann and the affiant.

That the said Weiss in the presence of affiant attempted to telephone the said Frederick G. Katzmann, but was unable at that time to secure a connection at the office of said Katzmann at Hyde Park, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

That thereafter, to-wit, December 28th and December 29th 1920, the affiant remained in and about the office of said Weiss discussing with said Weiss and receiving from said Weiss the details of the plan purporting to be the product of the minds of said Weiss and said Katzmann and mutually agreed upon between said Weiss and said Katzmann, the details of which plan are hereinafter set forth, and also awaiting instructions from said Weiss as to when he, the affiant, should see the said Katzmann; that sometime in the afternoon of December 29th, 1920 the affiant received instructions from said Weiss to be at the office of said Katzmann at said Hyde Park the morning of December 30th, 1920 at nine a. m.

That in accordance with said instructions the affiant at nine a. m. on December 30th, 1920 was at the office of said Frederick G. Katzmann, District Attorney of Norfolk and Plymouth Counties, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and there awaited the coming of said Katzmann, that shortly after nine a. m. the affiant saw a gentleman enter the said building and go upstairs; that thereupon the affiant followed the said party and saw him turn to the door marked with the name of said Katzmann and insert a key; that the affiant then stepped up to said party, whereupon the said party turned and said to him, the affiant, “Is that you John?” whereupon the affiant admitted his identity and was welcomed into the office by said Katzmann, the said Katzmann helping the affiant to remove his overcoat; that the affiant then explained to said Katzmann that he had been sent there by said Weiss and presented as evidence of his identity the card of said Weiss with the name of the affiant written in the handwriting of said Weiss on the back of said card.

That immediately after the identity of the affiant was established to the satisfaction of said Katzmann, the said Katzmann asked the affiant in substance and effect what he had to say of importance; whereupon the affiant outlined to the said Katzmann the proposition, or plan that had been proposed to the affiant by said Weiss, and which the affiant had been told was the product of the minds of Weiss and said Katzmann, which was in substance and effect that he, the affiant, was by prearranged plan and in concert with police officers to break and enter some dwelling house for the ostensible purpose of committing the crime of burglary, and that by prearranged plan with said police officers the affiant was to be apparently caught in the act of committing the crime of burglary; that then the affiant would be duly and regularly arrested, complaint issued, committment papers executed and the affiant confined under the terms of said committment in the Dedham County Jail in Norfolk County, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the said jail being the jail where Nicola Sacco, named in the title herein, was then confined and awaiting trial on the charge of murder.

That then by prearranged plan and in concert and with the understanding of one Samuel Capen, High Sheriff of Norfolk County, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the affiant would be placed in a cell next to and adjoining to the one occupied by said Sacco, and that the affiant would then, by preconceived plan and by special arrangement with said High Sheriff of Norfolk County, be given special privileges and special opportunity to establish the confidence of and to act as a stool pigeon on said Nicola Sacco. That in this connection the said Weiss had instructed the affiant that he, the affiant, was upon his incarceration to appear to be very much depressed and melancholy by reason of his arrest and was to make no attempt to talk with said Sacco for at least three days after his arrest. That the affiant outlining the said plan to the said Katzmann as same had been outlined to the affiant by said Weiss, stated to the said Katzmann that he, the affiant, had never been arrested and was not agreeable to this plan of arrest; that while he, the affiant, had been previously engaged by the said Weiss as an operative while the said Weiss was in the United States Department of Justice, nevertheless the affiant had never up to that time ever gone so far as to commit a crime in the furtherance of any end, and that he, the affiant, could not and would not agree to the said plan of said Weiss, but was willing to listen to any counter suggestion or other proposition that might be made by the said Katzmann.

That thereupon the said Katzmann said to the affiant in substance and effect that he, the said Katzmann, was right hard up against it; that he, the said Katzmann, had no evidence as against the said Nicola Sacco or as against the said Bartolomeo Vanzetti, that they, the said Sacco and said Vanzetti, had not talked and would not talk; that he had been unable to get anything out of them or out of any other person, that said Katzmann named in this connection some man that he had arrested in connection with a motorcycle, and stated that he had grilled this man but had been unable to learn anything, and that it was necessary that he secure other and additional testimony to that which he already had. Whereupon with this preliminary explanation, the said Katzmann made the following proposition, to-wit:

That Rosina Sacco or Rose Sacco, the wife of said Nicola Sacco, resided in the town of Stoughton, Commonwealth of Massachusetts and there had a small home and had an extra and unused room in said house by reason of the arrest and incarceration of her husband, and he, the said Katzmann, then proposed to the affiant that he, the affiant, should undertake to secure employment in said town of Stoughton or some place adjacent thereto and should as an Italian and a member of the same race as the said Rosina or Rose Sacco, secure a room in her home, and that for and by reason of the fact that the said Rosina or Rose Sacco was undergoing great physical, mental and spiritual suffering by reason of the incarceration of her husband, it should be easy for the affiant to establish friendly relations with her, and said relations once established, it would then be easy for the affiant to secure confidential communications from her as to any criminal activities of her husband, the said Nicola Sacco. That the affiant agreed to undertake this plan.

That thereupon the said Katzmann stated to the affiant that it would be some few days before he, the said Katzmann, was ready to go ahead, that meanwhile he, the affiant, was to “send me” (Katzmann) “your expense bill and I will see that it goes through the County and you will get your money.” That the affiant then left the said Katzmann’s office, the said Katzmann courteously helping the affiant to put on his overcoat and following him to the door and shaking hands in parting.

That the affiant then returned to Boston and reported to said Feri Felix Weiss. That the day following the affiant sent his statement to said Katzmann. That meanwhile it was arranged between the affiant and said Weiss that he, the affiant, would be employed by said Weiss pending word from said Katzmann on a job down on Cape Cod; that thereupon he, the affiant, went to Cape Cod on said investigation for said Weiss and was employed for a period of approximately two weeks; that nothing developing and the affiant receiving no word from said Weiss, he, the affiant, returned to Pennsylvania sometime about the middle of January 1921.

That after the affiant returned to Pennsylvania he received a letter from said Weiss, only a part of said letter being now in the possession of the affiant; the part which he now has reading on the face thereof as follows, to-wit:

I just returned from my trip and found your letters. As soon as Mr. Katzmann sends me your check I’ll mail it to you.”

and on the back thereof as follows, to-wit:

“was a big trial of Mrs. De Falco. I’ll remind him by and by of your bill.

I am sorry I could not see you before you went home.

With kindest regards to you and your family, believe me

That after a number of letters written by the affiant to the said Weiss and to the said Katzmann, the affiant received another letter from said Weiss reading as follows, to-wit:

I got your letters about collecting money from District Attorney Katzmann.

As much as I regret that you have such a hard time with your children being out of work, I am not blind to facts, and feel I must enlighten you.

First of all you must remember that you came here of your own will. Nobody told you to come to Boston. I telegraphed clearly that you should only come when I write you. You did not wait for my letter. I then did the next best thing for you, and employed you on the Cape.

Then Katzmann said he might pay you. So put in your bill, as promised, but have not heard from him. It will be a good thing if you write to him personally about it; he probably will hurry it along.

But remember, that you can force neither him nor me to pay your expenses, as there was absolutely no agreement to that effect between him, me and you. Keep this clearly in your mind.

It is foolish to send your wife here, as that only makes additional expense, without any result. A letter to Katzmann will do just as well.

If I was fixed better financially, I would gladly send you the money, as I regarded you always as my friend, and am always sorry for anybody with a large family to support at the present time. But I have a hard pull myself.

That is all I can say today. Hoping to hear from Katzmann soon, or that you hear from him if you write, believe me,