Sacco is on the right and Vanzetti is on the left
Most believe that the Wall Street bombing, a case which established the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the place it is today, was a act of aggression for the arrests of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti by a unknown person. The case as to who put the bomb in place is unknown and is assumed after years of investigation that it was a small group of Italian Anarchists. But what lead the authorities to blame the incident on radical immigrants? I can assure you not only was it the currently precedding Sacoo-Vanzetti case but the 1919-1920 Red Scare, in which Americans were afraid that another Bolshevik overthrow was inhand from the radical immigrants coming to America and "anyone who wasn't as patriotic as possible--conscientious objectors, draft dodgers, "slackers", German-Americans, immigrants, communists--was suspect to being considered "Huns".
We will start with the Red Scare from 1919-1925 when a nationwide fear gripped the United States from anyone who did not be the "status quo" of being an American, especially after a series of anarchist bombings in 1919. "However many Americans were scared of the communists especially as they had overthrown the royal family in Russia in 1917 and murdered them in the following year.In 1901, an anarchist had shot the American president (McKinley) dead. The fear of communism increased when a series of strikes occured in 1919...A series of bomb explosions in 1919, including a bungled attempt to blow up A. Mitchell Palmer, America's Attorney-General, lead to a campaign against the communists," as stated from the History Learning Site. During this nationwide fear the American Legion
The American Legion emblem
was founded in St. Louis, Missouri on May 8,1919 "[t]o uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America; to maintain law and order; to foster and perpetuate a one hundred "Americanism" as stated from UMKC professor Douglas Linder. But as soon as industrial leaders, once the early propents of anti-communism were soon against the deportation of immigrants who were supposedly communists because they found that it would result in higher wages and decreased profits.
An anti-communist poster from 1919
We will start with some background story behing the two Italians. Nicola Sacco was born in the Italian town of Torremaggiore on the 22nd of April, 1891. He immigrated to the United States when he was seventeen. Sacco found work at a shoe factory and got married and started a family (Spartacus). Bartolomeo Vanzetti was born in the Italian town of Villaffalletton on the 11th of June, 1888. The son of a farmer, Vanzetti immigrated to the United States when he was twenty. He found a job as a fish peddler (Spartacus). As result of the Red Scare, and their Italian background, the two Italians were arrested, of one innocent man and one guilty one, but that wasn't discovered until 1961, Sacco and Vanzetti and were executed for the murders of Frederick Paramenter and Alessandro Berardelli in South Braintree, Massachusetts on April 15th, 1920. On April 15th 1920, Frederick Paramenter and Alessandro Berardelli were shot just outside their business while carrying two boxes containg the payroll of a shoe factory. After the two robbers took the $15,000 dollars worth of payrolls they got into a car containing several other men and were driven away. "The state's case was based primarily upon two facts: Sacco possessed a pistol of the type used in the murders and the accused, when arrested, were at a garage attempting to claim an automobile that had been seen in connection with the South Braintree crimes," as stated from Ebscohost. With only this as evidence it would seem that the state prosecutors have nothing against Sacco and Vanzetti but with the judge they are about to have things just can't get any worse. "The judge at their trail, Judge Thayer, was known to hate the "Reds" and 61 people claimed that they saw both men at the robbery/murders" (History Learning Site).
Here you see some protestors fighting for Sacco and Vanzetti
Both Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted of murder and robbery and sentenced to death by electric chair. Before the verdict had been passed Nicola Sacco stood up and said this, "I know the sentence will be between two classes, the oppressed class and the rich class, and there will be always collision between one and the other. We fraternize the people with the books, with the literature. You persecute the people, tyrannize them and kill them. We try the education of peoplealways. You try to put a path between us and some other nationality that hates each other. That is why I am here today on this bench, for having been of the oppressed class. Well, you are the oppressor," (Spartacus). As a result of the executions of the two Italians unrest grabs the world as people feel as if the American judicial services had unjustly sentenced the two for something that most people believed that they did not do. There was violent retribution against the judge and executioner as their homes were bombed even though neither one was injured (BBC). "News of the executions sent hundreds of thousands of protestors into the streets of six continents. Tanks tinged the American embassy in Paris to fend off riotous mobs. In Geneva, over 5,000 protestors destroyed all things American; cars, goods, even theaters showing American films. Violent demonstrations in Germany resulted in six deaths," stated by UMKC professor Douglas Linder. In 1925, a member of the gang that committed the South Braintree crimes wrote a formal letter stating that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti were involved in the robbery, the man was already condemed to death for a completely different murder. "In October 1961, ballistics tests were run using Sacco's Colt automatic. The results left little room for doubt that the bullet that killed Berardelli in 1920 came from Sacco's gun," stated from UMKC professor Duglas Linder
The lunch rush was just beginning as a man and his buggy stopped in front of the United States Assay Office across from the J.P. Morgan building in the heart of Wall Street. All of a sudden an explosion rocked the block killing 38, injuring 400, and causing almost two million dollars in damage.
The aftermath of the explosion in Wall Street
This was the most devastating attack on America, of that time. J. Edgar Hoover said soon after the attack that the United States government was too weak to handle the "radical situation" and was also too weak to actually protect the United States. He believed that the United States needs a new weapon to fight the communists and anarchists, a weapon of secret intelligence and counter subversion to disrupt any threats against the United States. "The best evidence and analysis since that fateful day of Spetember 16, 1920, suggests that the Bureau's intial thought was correct - that a small group of Italian Anarchists were to blame. But the mystery remains to this day where who actually placed the bomb," (FBI). Some of the damage that was caused by the bombing is still evident today.
This is an example of the damage
