Vanzetti's Letter

(album: Ballads Of Sacco & Vanzetti - 1960)

The year is nineteen twenty-seven, the day is the third day of May
The town is the city called Boston, our address this dark Dedham jail
To your Honor, the Governor Fuller, to the Council of Massachusetts State
We, Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, do say

Confined in your jail here at Dedham and under the sentence of death
We pray you exercise your powers to look at the facts of our case
We do not ask you for a pardon, for a pardon would admit of our guilt
Since we are both innocent workers, we have no guilt to admit

We are both born by parents in Italy, we cannot speak English too well
Our friends of labor are writing these words here back of the bars of our cell
Our friends say if we speak too plain, sir, we may turn your feelings away
And widen these canyons between us, but we risk our life to talk plain

We think, sir, that each human being is in close touch with all of man's kind
We think, sir, that each human being knows right from the wrong in his mind
We talk to you here as a man, sir, even knowing our opinions divide
We did not kill the guards at South Braintree, nor dream of such a terrible crime

We call you eye to this fact, sir, we work with our hand and our brain
These robberies, killings, were done, sir, by professional bandit men
Sacco has been a good cutter, Mrs. Sacco their money has saved
And I, Vanzetti, I could have saved money, but I gave it as fast as received

I'm a dreamer, a speaker, and a writer, I fight on the working folks' side
Sacco is Boston's fastest shoe trimmer, and he talks to the husbands and wives
We hunted your land, and we found it, hoped we'd find freedom of mind
Build up your land, this Land of the Free, this is what we came to find

If we were those killers, Good Governor, we'd not be so dumb and so blind
To pass out our handbills and make workers' speeches here by the scene of the crime
Those fifteen thousands of dollars the lawyers and judge say we took
Do we, sir, dress up like two gentlemen with that much in our pocketbook?

Our names are on that long list of radicals of the Federal Government, sir
They say that we needed watching as we peddled our literature
Judge Thayer's mind was made this corridor to death, sir, like workers have walked before
But we'll work in our working class struggle if we live a thousand lives more