A movement of international solidarity and for the release of Sacco and Vanzetti became genuinely mass in a number of countries during the 1920s. Here, Ida O’Neil reports on September, 1921 manifestations in Paris that began the vigorous French workers’ campaign. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on August 23, 1927.

‘Sacco and Vanzetti in Paris’ by Ida O’Neil from The Liberator. Vol. 5 No. 1. January, 1922.

GARDE republicaine in helmet and cuirass. Cavalry, infantry soldiers, soldiers. The streets that turn about the Arch are thick with them. They stretch away to the East and South; regiments stock arms in the square of the Trocadero and the Place Vendome. Never since the days of the 1920 railroad strike has there been such a display of horizon blue.

Waves of police on the Avenue de la Grande Armee. A creeping barrage of gendarmes carry forward the crowd as fast as it comes out from the subway stations, pushing it away from the Etoile, where the demonstration was to have rallied, and down the broad avenue to the fortifications. “Circulez, circulez !” shout the policemen. Swept along with the throng we are caught in the eddy that swirls about the Porte Maillot. Three times we turn about the gates before we succeed in forcing our way back into the A venue Malakoff. There we find ourselves face to face with a formidable barrier of troops.

They look dangerous enough, drawn up in battle line across the asphalt, but the under-officer in command lets us pass after a glance at our press-cards. Farther down the street my companion stops to light a cigarette and exchange a word with an affable gendarme. “Got a few lemons (hand grenades) in there?” he inquires, tapping the policeman’s knapsack with an inquisitive forefinger. The gendarme nods. “Yes-and we’ll use them, too, if there is any trouble,” he explains. We would like to ask him about machineguns, for rumor has it that several hundred have been stationed in the vicinity, but just then our policeman catches sight of a man wearing a cap who is following in our footsteps, and he dashes off shouting the French equivalent of “Get-the-hell-out-of-here!” The man, very evidently a workman, is hustled away towards the avenue we have just left. “If there were not so many Sunday promenaders,” muttered a gendarme beside us, “we’d give those fellows a lesson they’d not forget!”

In the meantime ten thousand manifestants have gathered in the square beyond the Porte Maillot. There is a hurried consultation on the part of the leaders. A demonstration before the American embassy is not to be thought of. Thousands of armed guards bar the way. “Ours is a peaceful gathering,” says Marcel Cachin. “This is no time for violence.” It is decided to hold the meeting in the socialist suburb of Levallois. The crowd moves off in orderly fashion, a long procession, and ten thousand throats send up a shout that can be heard blocks away…in the rue Tilsit and the Avenue Kleber.

“Justice et liberte! Vive Sacco et Vanzetti!”

The campaign for the liberation of Sacco and Vanzetti was launched last September in Paris. L’Humanite, with an editorial on the Sacco-Vanzetti trial gave the rallying cry. Immediately all the radical organizations responded-the communist party, the trade-unions, veterans of the great war. A committee composed of representatives from the various associations drew up a plan of action. Five Paris newspapers published series of articles dealing with the affair. Meetings were organized throughout France. Orators toured the country explaining to large audiences everywhere the methods of American justice. Brest, Lyons, St. Etienne, Marseilles, scores of French towns echoed to the slogan: “Justice and liberty!”

Hundreds of letters came to the American ambassador and to the consul: protests, entreaties, resolutions, no threats, however, according to the statement made by the secretary of the embassy on the day following the incident. In so far as the bombs are concerned-one was thrown at the Salle Wagram, another found under a park bench; and their somewhat paradoxical appearance at demonstrations otherwise peaceful gave rise to various conjectures…Certain Frenchmen maintain that their origin was similar to that of the Palmer bombs. In all events they furnished a plausible excuse for mobilizing thousands of police and soldiers for the two most important demonstrations in Paris.

In the past three weeks nearly every ward in the capital has had its Sacco-Vanzetti meeting. The meeting in the Salle Wagram which preceded the demonstration that was to have taken place before the American embassy brought out eight thousand Parisians.

The hall was crowded to the doors. An overflow meeting was held in the basement of· the building, from which hundreds were turned away. The bomb was thrown as the first group of manifestants came out from the hall. In the confusion that followed only the presence of mind of the crowd itself averted a panic. No one left the hall until nearly half an hour later. The meeting broke up in orderly fashion and without further incident.

The Sacco-Vanzetti trial has given liberal France an entirely new insight into conditions in America. “That never could happen here,” I heard a metal-worker say the other day. “We may have lost much of our personal liberty, but the tradition remains. We even had to acquit the men accused in last spring’s conspiracy case.”

“America, your democracy is a lie!” were the words of the principal speaker at the Wagram meeting. Not only the “Red” Left but the liberal center has taken up the cry. The “Ligue des droits de l’homme” has issued a statement protesting against so “gross a violation of individual liberty.” The Progres Civiques would like to know whether in the republic of today men must die for their ideas. An appeal for pardon sent to President Harding is signed by Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse and Anatole France. Anatole France himself is sending through the Nation an appeal to the American people.

Today many thousands of the workers and thinkers of France are shouting across the Atlantic the words of a cartoon that appeared in yesterday’s Humanite.

“Hey you, Liberty over there-free Sacco and Vanzetti or come down off your pedestal!”

What will be America’s answer?

The Liberator was published monthly from 1918, first established by Max Eastman and his sister Crystal Eastman continuing The Masses, was shut down by the US Government during World War One. Like The Masses, The Liberator contained some of the best radical journalism of its, or any, day. It combined political coverage with the arts and a commitment to revolutionary politics. Increasingly, The Liberator oriented to the Communist movement and by late 1922 was a de facto publication of the Party. In 1924, The Liberator merged with Labor Herald and Soviet Russia Pictorial into Workers Monthly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/1922/01/v5n01-w46-jan-1922-liberator-hr.pdf