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start. He rejected nearly every defense motion and made clear his desire to
convict the two Italians, at one point allegedly saying “no long-haired anar-
chist from California can run this court.” Later, according to sworn affidavits
by observers, he called Sacco and Vanzetti “Bolsheviks” and bragged that he
would “get them good and proper.” Under those circumstances, a conviction
was inevitable and both men were found guilty in July, though they both had
witnesses claiming that they were nowhere near the crime when it occurred.
Sacco and Vanzetti appealed their conviction, leading Thayer to say “Did
you see what I did with those anarchistic bastards the other day? I guess that
will hold them for a while! Let them go to the Supreme Court now and see
what they can get out of them.” Later, the judge’s intemperate words became
public and a huge outcry against the verdict rose, first in the U.S. and then in
cities all over the globe. State officials, under pressure from protestors, espe-
cially Italian- and Sicilian-Americans, and lawyers and judges who were
appalled by Thayer’s actions and thought Sacco and Vanzetti had been judged
on their political views, not their alleged role in the crime, put together a
special commission to analyze the case—led by the president of Harvard
University. But they too came back with a conclusion that they were guilty.
The two Italians, a fish peddler and a shoemaker, were executed in August- Since then, virtually every study of the case has determined that Sacco
and Vanzetti were accused and killed because of anti-Italian prejudice and
political hysteria. Though an extreme case, the ordeals of these two immi-
grants was not that unusual, or unexpected, for foreign-born workers in
America. As for the Italian anarchists, their legacy was celebrated by many
artists, including Woody Guthrie, who wrote Ballads of Sacco and Vanzetti, using
their own words as the lyrics to his songs. Over a half-century later, another
folk singer, Charlie King, wrote Two Good Arms about Sacco and Vanzetti—
“we will remember this good shoemaker/We will remember this poor fish
peddler/We will remember all the strong arms and hands/That never once
found justice in the hands that rule this land.”
In the aftermath of the tragic Sacco and Vanzetti fiasco, immigrants were
more vulnerable to state action. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge, saying
that “America must be kept American,” signed into law the National Origins
Act. The law reduced the number of immigrants allowed into the U.S. to
164,000 a year, and limited entry by nationality to a number that amounted
to just 2 percent of those groups in the 1890 census, and it denied entry to