Sacco And Vanzetti Essay

The United States of America, the melting pot, was built on the immigration of millions. People from vast backgrounds traveled to America with the hope of starting over in a new, open, and accepting place. What if, however, this was not the experience they received upon migrating into the US. During the 1920s immigrants from specific areas in the world were not openly received. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were both Italian immigrants who were treated unjustly for their beliefs. Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists who were executed for the murder of a paymaster and his guard that took place in Massachusetts in 1927 (“Sacco-Vanzetti Case facts”). During Sacco and Vanzetti’s trial, feelings towards immigrants were negative thus affecting
The prosecutor, Frederick G. Katzman, “made irrelevant remarks about the defendants’ unpopular political beliefs and their lack of patriotism” and normally these remarks would be dismissed but “Judge Thayer allowed these remarks to pass”("Sacco and Vanzetti Trial"). Because Sacco and Vanzetti’s beliefs were unpopular this caused a rift with the judge and “some trial observers noted that Thayer was hostile to the defense” and that “he may have been biased in favor of the prosecution.” ("Sacco and Vanzetti Trial"). These conditions caused controversy in the case because of the differing political opinions and if these circumstances caused an innocent man to go to jail there would be an uproar. There was also controversy among the eyewitness accounts that were reported. The “eyewitness reports differed on almost every crucial part of the evidence” from the “gunman’s build, appearances, clothes,” and even down to who fired the shots (“Sacco-Vanzetti Case facts”). These differing accounts could have made the difference in life or death for Sacco and Vanzetti, however, since the judge was biased due to the defendant's’ beliefs these men were