A timeline of the Sacco and Vanzetti case from their May 5, 1920 arrest to their judicial murder on August 22, 1927.

‘Seven Years in Hell’ from Labor Defender. Vol. 2 No. 10. October, 1927.

1920

MAY 5-Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested on a street car while going from West Bridgewater to Brockton, Massachusetts.

AUGUST 16-Vanzeztti is charged with attempting to rob a cashier in Bridgewater on December 24, 1919, and is sentenced to prison for from 12 to 15 years by Judge Thayer in Ply- mouth.

SEPTEMBER 11-Sacco and Vanzetti are accused of being the chief participants in the murder that occurred in South Braintree on April 15, 1920, where, near the shoe factory of Slater & Morrill Company, Ferdinand Par- enter and his guard, Alexander Berardelli were, were killed. The $15,000 pay-roll in their possession had been stolen.

1921

MAY 31-Sacco and Vanzetti are brought to trial in Dedham, Mass., again before Judge Thayer. They are indicted on a charge of first degree murder.

JULY 14-After five hours, the jury returns a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree against Sacco and Vanzetti.

OCTOBER 12-The workers of Paris conduct a huge protest demonstration against the verdict. Twenty workers are wounded when the demonstration is broken up by the police. It is impossible here to list the tens of thousands of meetings, demonstrations, strikes, etc., etc., that took place in every corner of the world in solidarity with the two martyrs.)

OCTOBER 30-Workers in Cuba, in a demonstration before the American consulate, demand the release of Sacco and Vanzetti.

DECEMBER 24-Judge Thayer refuses to grant a plea for a new trial.

1922

JANUARY 1-The defense announces that it is in possession of new evidence to prove the innocence of Sac- co and Vanzetti.

MARCH 23-The workers of Sofia, Bulgaria, warn the American embassy that they will not remain silent if the American capitalist class determines to murder Sacco and Vanzetti.

1923

FEBRUARY 16-Sacco begins a hunger strike in the Norfolk County jail which lasts 30 days.

1924

OCTOBER 1-Judge Thayer denies five motions of the defense to challenge the verdict of the jury in the Sacco-Vanzetti case.

NOVEMBER 21-William Thompson, former Boston district-attorney, assumes charge of the defense. The defense enters a bill of exceptions to make possible the institution of a new trial.

1926

JANUARY 10-Celestino Madeiros, a sentenced criminal, declares that he knows that the murder of Parmenter and Berardelli was committed by members of the notorious Morelli gang of Providence, Rhode Island.

MAY 12-The state supreme court denies a new trial to Sacco and Vanzetti on the basis of the bill of exceptions. The court maintains that they were legally convicted.

SEPTEMBER 13-The defense demands a new trial on the basis of the Madeiros confession.

OCTOBER 21-Judge Thayer denies the motion for a new trial.

NOVEMBER 19-Twenty-thou- sand workers gather in Madison Square Garden, New York, to demand a new trial for Sacco and Vanzetti.

1927

JANUARY 27-Defense attorneys argue before the judges of the state supreme court and demand new action on the basis of Judge Thayer’s prejudicial conduct during the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti.

APRIL 5-The state supreme court denies all pleas for a new trial.

APRIL 9-Judge Thayer hands down a decision that Sacco and Vanzetti shall die in the electric chair on July 10, 1927.

APRIL 10-International Labor Defense issues call for demonstrations of protest throughout the United States, and appeals to the labor movement of the rest of the world to join in a final movement to save Sacco and Vanzetti from being murdered.

APRIL 23-Governor Alvan T. Fuller of Massachusetts institutes his star chamber investigation committee to give sanctity to the legal execution. It includes President Lowell of Harvard, and President Stratton of Massachusetts Technological Institute.

JUNE 29-Governor Fuller postpones the date of execution to August 10. The postponement refers to Sacco, Vanzetti, and Madeiros.

JULY 7-A quarter of a million workers strike in protest in New York. Over 25,000 attend a demonstration in Union Square.

JULY 17-Sacco and Vanzetti begin a hunger strike.

(In the meantime, strikes, demonstrations and meetings are taking place in every part of the world, demanding the release of Sacco and Vanzetti, or the granting of a new trial. Tens of millions of workers are set into motion against the planned assassination. Some of the world’s leading men and women of letters, arts and science join the world-wide protest movement. Governor Fuller’s office is swamped with thousands upon thousands of letter, and telegrams, and cablegrams of protest.)

AUGUST 8-The supreme judicial court of Massachusetts refuses to grant a writ of habeas corpus in order to halt the execution. Judge Thayer again refuses to grant a new trial.

AUGUST 10-Twenty minutes before the time set for the execution, and while millions of workers throughout the world are demonstrating their hatred to the Massachusetts murderers on the streets, Governor Fuller continues the torture of the two martyrs by again postponing the date of execution to August 22.

AUGUST 11-Judge Sanderson decides that the question of a new trial must be decided by the full court. Vanzetti ends his hunger strike.

AUGUST 15-Sacco ends his hunger strike, because he is threatened with forcible feeding.

AUGUST 16-The defense argues before the full supreme judicial court for a new trial, demonstrating the prejudice of Judge Thayer.

AUGUST 19-The court denies the pleas of the defense.

AUGUST 20-Justice Oliver Wen- dell Holmes, “liberal” member of the United States Supreme Court, denies the plea of the defense for a writ of habeas corpus. Fuller refuses to grant any further postponement.

AUGUST 21-Louis Brandeis, another “liberal” member of the U.S. Supreme Court, also denies the pleas of the defense attorneys.

AUGUST 22-Rose, wife of Sac- co, and Luigia, sister of Vanzetti, approach Governor Fuller for last minute action. He declines to act.

A few minutes after midnight: the execution. The current of death is sent through the tortured bodies of the two martyrs. The Puritan hyenas of Massachusetts capitalism have finally made their kill.

Labor Defender was published monthly from 1926 until 1937 by the International Labor Defense (ILD), a Workers Party of America, and later Communist Party-led, non-partisan defense organization founded by James Cannon and William Haywood while in Moscow, 1925 to support prisoners of the class war, victims of racism and imperialism, and the struggle against fascism. It included, poetry, letters from prisoners, and was heavily illustrated with photos, images, and cartoons. Labor Defender was the central organ of the Scottsboro and Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaigns. Not only were these among the most successful campaigns by Communists, they were among the most important of the period and the urgency and activity is duly reflected in its pages. Editors included T. J. O’ Flaherty, Max Shactman, Karl Reeve, J. Louis Engdahl, William L. Patterson, Sasha Small, and Sender Garlin.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1927/v02n10-oct-1927-LD.pdf