Bartolomeo Vanzetti

I am innocent of all crime, not only this one, but of all, all. I am an innocent man. I now wish to forgive some people for what they are doing to me.

Bartolomeo Vanzetti (11 June 1888 – 23 August 1927) was an anarchist, who with Ferdinando Nicola Sacco was convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. After a controversial trial and a series of appeals, the two Italian immigrants were executed on August 23, 1927.

Quotes

Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident.

• I did not spittel a drop of blood, or steal a cent in all my life.
  • Letter to Mrs.Glendower Evans (22 July 1921)

• If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident. Our words — our lives — our pains — nothing! The taking of our lives — lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish-peddler — all! That last moment belongs to us — that agony is our triumph.
  • Statement attributed to Vanzetti by Philip D. Stong,[1] a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance who visited Vanzetti in prison in May of 1927 shortly before he and Sacco were executed.

• I wish to say to you that I am innocent. I have never done a crime, some sins, but never any crime. I thank you for everything you have done for me. I am innocent of all crime, not only this one, but of all, all. I am an innocent man. I now wish to forgive some people for what they are doing to me.
  • Last words (April 15, 1920)

Quotes about Vanzetti

• Sacco was guilty but Vanzetti was innocent.
  • Anarchist Carlo Tresca to Max Eastman as reported in National Review, October 1961

External links

• The Sacco-Vanzetti Case: An Account, "Famous American Trials." — an overview of case by Professor Douglas O. Linder, UMKC School of Law
• Sacco and Vanzetti Documentary
• The Sacco-Vanzetti case at the Kate Sharpley Library
• The New York Times (5 March 1922)
• "American Writers and the Sacco-Vanzetti Case" (2001) by Carol Vanderveer