Roaring Twenties is a phrase used to describe the 1920s, principally in North America, that emphasizes the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism. Normalcy returned to politics in the wake of World War I, jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood, Art Deco peaked, and finally the Wall Street Crash of 1929 served to punctuate the end of the era, as The Great Depression set in. The era was further distinguished by several inventions and discoveries of far-reaching importance, unprecedented industrial growth and accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle.

The social and societal upheaval known as the Roaring Twenties began in North America and spread to Europe in the aftermath of World War I. Europe spent these years rebuilding and coming to terms with the vast human cost of the conflict. The Government of the United States did little to aid Europe, opting rather for an isolationist stance. By the middle of the decade, economic development soared in Europe, and the Roaring Twenties broke out in Germany (the Weimar Republic), Britain and France, the second half of the decade becoming known as the "Golden Twenties". In France and Canada, they were also called the "années folles" ("Crazy Years").[1]

The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of discontinuity associated with modernity, a break with traditions. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technology. New technologies, especially automobiles, movies and radio proliferated 'modernity' to a large part of the population. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality, in architecture as well as in daily life. At the same time, amusement, fun and lightness were cultivated in jazz and dancing, in defiance of the horrors of World War I, which remained present in people's minds. The period is also often called "The Jazz Age".

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Immigration laws
The United States, and to a lesser degree Canada, became more xenophobic or, at least, anti-immigrant. The American Immigration Act of 1924 limited immigration from countries where 2% of the total U.S. population, per the 1890 census (not counting African Americans), were immigrants from that country. Thus, the massive influx of Europeans that had come to America during the first two decades of the century slowed to a trickle. Asians and citizens of India were prohibited from immigrating altogether. Alien Land Laws, such as California's Webb-Haney Act in 1913, prevented aliens ineligible for citizenship, (except Filipinos, who were subjects of U.S.) of the right to own land in California. It also limited the leasing of land by said aliens to three years. Many Japanese immigrants, or Issei, circumvented this law by transferring the title of their land to their American-born children, or Nisei, who were citizens. Similar laws were passed in 11 other states.

In Canada, the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 prevented almost all immigration from Asia. Other laws curbed immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. A Gentlemen's Act gave America the right to prevent any Japanese immigrants from entering the country.

Prohibition
Main article: Prohibition in the United States
In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in an attempt to alleviate various social problems; this came to be known as "Prohibition". It was enacted through the Volstead Act, supported greatly by churches and leagues such as 'The Anti Saloon League'. America's continued desire for alcohol under prohibition led to the rise of organized crime, smuggling and gangster associations all over the U.S. In Canada, prohibition was only imposed nationally for a short period of time, but the American liquor laws nonetheless had an important impact.

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American politics

Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding ran on a promise to "Return to Normalcy", a term he coined, which reflected three trends of his time: a renewed isolationism in reaction to World War I, a resurgence of nativism, and a turning away from the government activism of the reform era. Throughout his administration, Harding adopted laissez-faire policies. Harding's "Front Porch Campaign" during the late summer and fall of 1920 captured the imagination of the country. It was the first campaign to be heavily covered by the press and to receive widespread newsreel coverage, and it was also the first modern campaign to use the power of Hollywood and Broadway stars who traveled to Marion for photo opportunities with Harding and his wife. Al Jolson, Lillian Russell, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, were among the luminaries to make the pilgrimage to central Ohio. Business icons Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone also lent their cachet to the Front Porch Campaign. From the onset of the campaign until the November election, over 600,000 people traveled to Marion to participate. His administration was plagued with scandals with which he was likely not involved. On the scandals, he commented, "My God, this is a hell of a job!" and, "I have no trouble with my enemies, but my damn friends, they're the ones that keep me walking the floors at night."

See also: U.S. presidential election, 1920

Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated as president after the death of President Harding. He was easily elected in 1924 when he ran on a basis of order and prosperity. Coolidge made use of the new medium of radio and made radio history several times while president: his inauguration was the first presidential inauguration broadcast on radio; on 12 February 1924, he became the first President of the United States to deliver a political speech on radio, and only ten days thereafter, on 22 February, he also became the first to deliver such a speech from the White House. He is famous for his quotation "The chief business of the American people is business".

Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover was the final president of the 1920s, taking office in 1929. He stated in 1928, "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land."

Fall of labor unions
Main article: Trade union
Several labor strikes in 1918 and 1919 marked a turning point in American's view of labor unions. State militias began to be used to break up strikes and state officials started enacting criminal laws against disturbances. Labor union membership fell drastically throughout the country. Radical unionism declined as well, in large part because of Federal repression during World War I by means of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act of 1918. Socialist Eugene V. Debs had been sentenced to prison for 10 years as a result of the latter, although he was released early by Harding.(More)

Warren G. Harding (29th president 1921-1923)	Calvin Coolidge (30th president 1923-1929)	Herbert Hoover (31th president 1929-1933)
Protecting wave for Sacco and Vanzetti trial 1n 1920s in the world

US History Encyclopedia: Palmer Raids

The Palmer Raids (1919–1920) involved mass arrests and deportation of radicals at the height of the post–World War I era red scare. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer encouraged the raids in the hope that they would advance his presidential ambitions. Ultimately, the extra-constitutional nature of this action destroyed Palmer's political career. He was viewed not as a savior but rather a threat to the civil rights and liberties of all Americans. J. Edgar Hoover, the chief of the Justice Department's Radical (later General Intelligence) Division who actually organized the raids, went on to a forty-eight-year career as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (originally called the Bureau of Investigation). The other principal, Anthony Caminetti of the Department of Labor's Immigration Bureau, remained an obscure bureaucrat.

A wave of strikes, race riots, and anarchist bombings in eight cities provided the context for the Palmer Raids. One of those bombs partly destroyed the attorney general's own home in Washington, D.C. From February 1917 to November 1919, federal agents deported sixty aliens of some 600 arrested as Anarchists. More raids followed over the next two months, the most notable being the 249 persons, including Emma Goldman, deported on December 21 aboard a single "Red Ark," the Buford. The most ambitious raids occurred on January 2, 1920, with lesser efforts continuing over the next few days. In all, Hoover utilized 579 agents from the Bureau of Investigation and vigilantes from the recently disbanded American Protective League to orchestrate massive raids against communists in twenty-three states. At least 4,000 and perhaps as many as 6,000 persons from thirty-three cities were arrested. Most were Communist Party members or suspected members. About 300 were members of the Communist Labor Party. Among the abuses documented by the American Civil Liberties Union and such prominent attorneys as Zechariah Chafee Jr., Roscoe Pound, and Felix Frankfurter were abuses of due process, illegal search and seizure, and indiscriminate arrests, use of agents provocateurs, and torture.

Bibliography

Hoyt, Edwin P. The Palmer Raids, 1919–1920: An Attempt to Suppress Dissent. New York: Seabury Press, 1969.

Preston, William. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903–1933. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

Schmidt, Regin. Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States, 1919–1943. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press/University of Copenhagen, 2000.

Wikipedia: Palmer Raids
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Alexander Mitchell PalmerThe Palmer Raids were a series of controversial raids by the U.S. Justice and Immigration Departments from 1919 to 1921 on suspected radical leftists in the United States. The raids are named for Alexander Mitchell Palmer, United States Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson.

Background
The crackdown on radical left-wing political groups had actually begun during World War I. After a series of bomb attacks of court buildings, police stations, churches and homes attributed to violent immigrant anarchist groups, the Department of Justice and its small Bureau of Investigation (BOI) (predecessor to the FBI) had begun to track their activities with the approval of President Woodrow Wilson. In 1915, Wilson warned of hyphenated Americans who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out.[1]

Handicapped by the secrecy of these groups and limited Federal law enforcement capabilities, the Bureau of Investigation significantly increased its workload on anarchist movements after 1917 when the Galleanists (followers of Luigi Galleani) and other radical groups commenced a new series of bomb attacks in several major American cities. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was also a background factor: many anarchists believed that the worker's revolution there would quickly spread across Europe and the United States.

On June 15, 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act. The law set punishments for acts of interference in foreign policy and espionage. The act authorized stiff fines and prison terms of up to 20 years for anyone who obstructed the military draft or encouraged "disloyalty" against the U.S. government. After two anarchist radicals, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, continued to advocate against conscription, Goldman's offices at Mother Earth were thoroughly searched, and volumes of files and detailed subscription lists from Mother Earth, along with Berkman's journal The Blast, were seized. As a Justice Department news release reported:

A wagon load of anarchist records and propaganda material was seized, and included in the lot is what is believed to be a complete registry of anarchy's friends in the United States. A splendidly kept card index was found, which the Federal agents believe will greatly simplify their task of identifying persons mentioned in the various record books and papers. The subscription lists of Mother Earth and The Blast, which contain 10,000 names, were also seized.

In 1919, the U.S. House of Representatives refused to seat Socialist representative Victor L. Berger from Wisconsin because of his socialism, German ancestry, and anti-war views. Congress also passed a series of immigration, anti-anarchist, and sedition acts (including the Sedition Act of 1918) that sought to criminalize or punish advocacy of violent revolution.

On June 2, 1919, several bombs were detonated by Galleanist anarchists in eight American cities, including one in Washington, D.C., that damaged the home of newly appointed Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. The same bomb detonated near Franklin Roosevelt who lived across the street and was walking home with his wife. Palmer was badly shaken up (the bomber, Carlo Valdonoci, was killed by the bomb, which exploded prematurely).[2] All of the bombs were delivered with a flyer reading:

War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.[3]

Palmer, twice the intended victim of assassination, had a personal as well as public motivation to win the battle against the radical left and those preaching violence. [4] After his close calls at the hands of the Galleanists, he appears to have grouped all those identified with the radical left as enemies of the United States. He stated his belief that Communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman," and that socialists were responsible for most of the country's social problems.

Calls from the press and a worried public quickly escalated for the federal government to take action against those perpetrating the violence. Pressure to take action intensified after anarchists, communists and other radical groups called on draft-age males to refuse conscription and/or registration for the army, and for troops already serving to desert the armed forces. President Wilson ordered Attorney General Palmer to take action.

At the time, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Luigi Galleani were in the forefront of the anti-conscription movement. Valdonoci, the Palmer house bomber, was later identified as a militant follower of Luigi Galleani. Attorney General Palmer requested and received a massive supplementary increase in Congressional appropriations in order to put a stop to the violence. Palmer then ordered the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Investigation to prepare for what would become known as the Palmer Raids.

Raids
In 1919, J. Edgar Hoover was put in charge of a new division of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, the General Intelligence Division. By October 1919, Hoover's division had collected 150,000 names in a rapidly expanding database. Using the database information, starting on November 7, 1919, BOI agents, together with local police, orchestrated a series of well-publicized raids against suspected radicals and foreigners, using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Palmer and his agents were accused of using torture and other controversial methods of obtaining intelligence and collecting evidence on radicals, including informers wiretaps.

Victor L. Berger was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a charge of sedition, although the Supreme Court of the United States later overturned that conviction. The radical anarchist Luigi Galleani and eight of his adherents were deported in June 1919, three weeks after the June 2 wave of bombings. Although authorities did not have enough evidence to arrest Galleani for the bombings, they could deport him because he was a resident alien who had overtly encouraged the violent overthrow of the government, was a known associate of Carlo Valdonoci and had authored an explicit how-to bomb making manual titled La Salute é in Voi (The Health is Within You), used by other Galleanists to construct some of their package bombs.

In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 people of Russian origin, including well-known radical leaders such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and placed them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union (The Buford, called the Soviet Ark by the press). In January 1920, another 6,000 were arrested, mostly members of the Industrial Workers of the World union. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 individuals were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported, with no requirement that there be any evidence against them, under the provisions of the Anarchist Act. All in all, by January 1920, Palmer and Hoover had organized the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, rounding up at least 10,000 individuals.

Louis F Post, then Assistant Secretary of Labor,[5] canceled more than 2000 of these warrants as being illegal.[6] Of the many thousands arrested, 550 people were actually deported.[7]

For most of 1919 and early 1920, much of the public sided with Palmer, but this soon changed. Palmer announced that an attempted Communist revolution was certain to take place in the U.S. on May 1 1920 (May Day). No such revolution took place, leading to widespread derision of Palmer. Once seen as a likely presidential candidate, he lost the nomination of the Democratic Party to dark horse candidate James M. Cox.

On September 16, a violent blast rocked Wall Street. The Wall Street bombing killed 38 people and wounded over 400; it was never solved but was widely attributed to radical anarchists.(See here)

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Red Scare

The term "Red Scare" has been retroactively applied to two distinct periods of strong anti-Communism in United States history: first from 1917 to 1920, and second from the late 1940s through the late 1950s. These periods were characterized by heightened suspicion of Communists and other radicals, and the fear of widespread infiltration of Communists in U.S. government.

'First Red Scare' (1917–1920)
Main article: First Red Scare
The 'First Red Scare' began during World War I in which the United States fought from 1917-1918. Tensions were further elevated during this time frame owing to a widespread campaign of violence by various groups inspired by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the ensuing Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Historian Levin B. Murray described the First Red Scare as "a nation-wide anti-radical hysteria provoked by a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent--a revolution that would destroy property, church, home, marriage, civility, and the American way of life."[1]

In April 1919, a large-scale plot to mail thirty-six bombs to a variety of prominent Americans was uncovered. The intended recipients included immigration officials, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the chairman of a Senate committee investigating Bolsheviks, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. On June 2 of the same year, bombs exploded in eight different cities within the same hour. One of the intended targets was again Attorney General Palmer, whose Washington, D.C. home was bombed. The man planting the bomb at Palmer's home was killed in the explosion, and evidence indicated that he was an Italian alien living in Philadelphia.

This occurred during a time of heightened xenophobia in America. Various brands of radical anarchism were acquiring some notoriety, and their advocates were often recent immigrants to the U.S. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was responsible for several prominent strikes in 1916 and 1917, and this too was seen as a threatening form of radicalism largely inspired by foreign born "agitators". By 1919, hundreds of strikes were occurring every month nation-wide, and the conservative press was commonly referring to strikes as "crimes against society," "conspiracies against the government," and "plots to establish communism."[2]

As a result, even before the bomb plots of 1919, a series of immigration, anti-anarchist, and sedition laws (including the Sedition Act of 1918) were passed and widely exercised as a means to remove undesirable elements from the country. In the words of David D. Cole, "the federal government consistently targeted alien radicals, deporting them[…] for their speech or associations, making little effort to distinguish true threats from ideological dissidents."[3]

After the bombings, Attorney General Palmer initiated what came to be known as the Palmer Raids. These were a series of mass arrests and deportations of immigrants who were suspected of being leftists or radicals. A total of between 4,000 and 10,000 individuals were arrested over two years. Palmer placed J. Edgar Hoover, then 24 years old, in charge of this operation. At Hoover's specific direction, prisoners were questioned without access to attorneys and their bail was set prohibitively high.[4] Many were beaten during their arrest or questioning.

The raids were initially highly praised by the public and press. The Washington Post proclaimed "There is no time to waste on hairsplitting over infringement of liberty," and the New York Times referred to the injuries inflicted on a group of suspects as "souvenirs of the new attitude of aggressiveness which had been assumed by the Federal agents against Reds and suspected Reds"[5] Eventually there was criticism of the raids. A group of twelve prominent lawyers that included future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter published "A Report on the Illegal Practices of The United States Department of Justice," citing violations of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution and accusing Palmer of "illegal acts" and "wanton violence." Palmer then issued a series of warnings that a revolutionary plot to overthrow the government was to be launched on May 1, 1920. When the date passed without incident, Palmer was widely ridiculed. Adding to the criticism was the fact that evidence sufficient for deportation could be found for less than six hundred of the thousands who were arrested. In July 1920, Palmer's once-promising bid for presidential office was squelched when he failed to win the Democratic nomination.[6]

As a result of the fear and oppression around the First Red Scare, membership in the Communist Party of the United States and similar Marxist/Communist groups was reduced by some 80 percent.[7]

In 1919-1920, a number of states passed criminal syndicalism laws that made the advocacy of violence to secure social change unlawful. Traditional American ideals of free speech were restricted.[8]

'Second Red Scare' (1947–1957)...(More see here)

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Palmer in the movie-1 (Still 00:07:59)

Palmer in the movie-2 (Still 00:08:35)

Alvan Tufts Fuller was a United States Representative from Massachusetts. He was born in Boston on February 27, 1878. He attended the public schools, and engaged in the bicycle business. Fuller was founder and owner of the Packard Motor Car Co. of Boston. He was elected a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1916.

He was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-fifth Congress, reelected to the Sixty-sixth Congress and served from March 4, 1917, to January 5, 1921. Fuller served as Lieutenant Governor 1921-1924, and was elected Governor in 1924. He was reelected to a second term. After leavng office, he became chairman of the board of Cadillac-Oldsmobile Co., of Boston. He did not accept compensation for services while in public office. Fuller died in Boston on April 30, 1958. He was interred in East Cemetery in Rye Beach, New Hampshire.(WIKI)

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The Report of Governor Fuller
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (AUGUST 3, 1927).

(All see here)

.....This crime was committed seven years ago. For six years, through diiatory methods, one appeal after another, every possibility for delay has been utilized, all of which lends itself to attempts to frighten and coerce witnesses, to influence changes in testimony, to multiply by the very years of time elapsed the possibilities of error and confusion.

..........

This task of review has been a laborious one and I am proud to be associated in this public service with clear eyed witnesses, unafraid to tell the truth, and with jurors who discharged their obligations in accordance with their convictions and their oaths.

As a result of my investigation I find no sufficient justification for executive intervention.

I believe with the jury, that these men, Sacco and Vanzetti, were guilty, and that they had a fair trial. I furthermore believe that there was no justifiable reason for giving them a new trial.

Fuller in the movie-1 (Still 01:51:40 and 01:53:58)

Webster Thayer (Born 1857, died 1933) was an 1879 graduate of Worcester Academy and Dartmouth College and a former newspaper man. He was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts in 1917. He is best known as the trial judge for the Sacco and Vanzetti trial

Sacco and Vanzetti
In 1920, Sacco and Vanzetti, followers of Luigi Galleani and avowed anarchists, were arrested and charged with payroll robberies and murder. At their Dedham trial, Sacco and Vanzetti were both convicted of murder for the killing of two employees during a payroll robbery.

Thayer made clear his opinion in and outside of the courthouse. Referring to Sacco in his jury instructions, he said, "Although this man may not have committed the crime attributed to him, he is nonetheless culpable because he is the enemy of our existing institutions." The judge also told a friend during the trial, "Did you see what I did with those anarchist bastards the other day?"

Thayer denied a post-trial motion for a new trial, an act for which he was condemned by various left-wing and civil liberties groups, along with some legal critics, such as Felix Frankfurter. Others alleged that Thayer was biased against the two men because of their radical political beliefs. In 1920 he rebuked a jury for acquitting anarchist Sergie Zuboff of violating a criminal anarchy statute.

Personal Accounts
Boston Globe reporter said of Judge Thayer’s behavior at the trial that "[He] was conducting himself in an undignified way, in a way I had never seen in thirty-six years." The reporter continued by saying that, "I have seen the judge sit in his gown and spit on the floor."

Jurors in the Sacco-Vanzetti trial, however, were almost unanimous in praising Thayer for the way he conducted the trial. Reading the transcript, one sees few signs of obvious bias. What is most striking, perhaps, is Thayer's oratory, as in his charge to the jury: "Let your eyes be blinded to every ray of sympathy or prejudice, but let them ever be willing to receive the bountiful sunshine of truth...."

For their part, both Sacco and Vanzetti expressed their feelings towards Judge Thayer in unmistakable terms. Vanzetti stated I will try to see Thayer death [sic] and asked fellow anarchists for revenge, revenge in our names and the names of our living and dead. In a signed article for their defense committee, both men made a pointed reference to Luigi Galleani's explicit bomb-making manual covertly titled La Salute è in voi! (Health is in You!) in response to those who had arrested, prosecuted, or convicted them.

Aftermath
Fellow Galleanists did not wait for retaliation, instituting a campaign of bombing and attempted assassinations that lasted a full five years after Sacco and Vanzetti's execution. Court officials, a juror who had served in the Dedham trial, a police witness, and even Thayer himself were all targeted for assassination by bombs planted at their residences. After a Galleanist bomb destroyed Thayer's home in Worcester, Massachusetts, he lived for the remainder of his life at his club in Boston, guarded 24 hours a day by his personal bodyguard as well as police sentries. He died in 1933 of a cerebral embolism, aged 75.(See here)

Thayer in the movie (Still 01:46:57)

Moore was the original lead defense attorney for Sacco during the Dedham trial.  He was a Californian who had a reputation for successfully defending radicals. Moore was not, however, well versed with Massachusetts law or procedure.  In fact, he had never before tried a case in Massachusetts and would never do it again.  He withdrew from the case shortly after the trial, which pleased Rosa Sacco, who disliked him from the beginning.  In 1983, it was revealed by the son of one of the original group of four that hired him as defense lawyer that Moore was a cocaine addict, and had to be constantly supplied with the drug throughout the course of the trial.

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Fred Moore (attorney)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fred H. Moore was a socialist lawyer and the defense attorney of the controversial Sacco and Vanzetti case. He had collaborated in many labor and Industrial Workers of the World trials and was noted for his role in the celebrated Ettor-Giovannitti case, which came out of the 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile strike.

Sacco and Vanzetti case
Main article: Sacco and Vanzetti
During the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, many had noted how Judge Webster Thayer seemed to loathe defense attorney Fred Moore. Thayer frequently denied Moore's motions, lecturing the California-based lawyer on how law was conducted in Massachusetts. On at least two occasions out of court, Thayer burst into tirade. Once he told astonished reporters that "No long-haired anarchist from California can run this court!"(See here)

Moore in the movie-1(Still 00:39:17)

Moore in the movie-2 (Still 01:25:15)

Thompson took over Sacco and Vanzetti’s defense after Fred H. Moore withdrew from the case. Thompson, by most accounts, was a conservative and prominent Boston attorney who had been a council member of the Boston Bar Association. Some in the Defense Committee had wanted Thompson to handle the case in trial court rather than Moore. Thompson argued the post-trial motions before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in January of 1926.

Thompson in the movie-1(Still 01:29:00)

Thompson in the movie-2 (Still 01:41:48)

....我是一个不善于讲话的人，唯其不善于讲话，有思想表达不出，有感情无法倾吐，我才不得不求助于纸笔，让在我心上燃烧的火喷出来，于是我写了小说。

我不是文学家，但是我写作了五十多年。每个人从不同的道路接近文学。我从小就喜欢读小说，有时甚至废寝忘食，但不是为了学习，而是拿它们消遣。我做梦也想不到自己会成为小说家。我开始写小说，只是为了找寻出路。

我出身于四川成都一个官僚地主的大家庭，在二三十个所谓“上等人”和二三十个所谓“下等人”中间度过了我的童年，在富裕的环境里我接触了听差、轿夫们的悲惨生活，在伪善、自私的长辈们的压力下，我听到年轻生命的痛苦呻吟。

我感觉到我们的社会出了毛病，我却说不清楚病在什么地方，又怎样医治，我把这个大家庭当作专制的王国，我坐在旧礼教的监牢里，眼看着许多亲近的人在那里挣扎，受苦，没有青春，没有幸福，终于惨痛地死亡。他们都是被腐朽的封建道德、传统观念和两三个人一时的任性杀死的。我离开旧家庭就像摔掉一个可怕的黑影。我二十三岁从上海跑到人地生疏的巴黎，想找寻一条救人、救世，也救自己的路。说救人救世，未免有些夸大，说救自己，倒是真话。当时的情况是这样：我有感情无法倾吐，有爱憎无处宣泄，好像落在无边的苦海中找不到岸，一颗心无处安放，倘使不能使我的心平静，我就活不下去。一九二七年春天我住在巴黎拉丁区一家小小公寓的五层楼上，一间充满煤气和洋葱味的小屋子里，我寂寞，我痛苦，在阳光难照到的房间里，我想念祖国，想念亲人。在我的祖国正进行着一场革命与反革命的斗争，人民正在遭受屠杀。在巴黎掀起了援救两个意大利工人的运动，他们是沙柯（N．Sacco）和樊宰底（B．Vanzetti），他们被诬告为盗窃杀人犯，在美国麻省波士顿的死囚牢中关了六年，在我经常走过的街上到处张贴着为援救他们举行的“演讲会”、“抗议 会”的海报。我读到所谓“犯人”之一的樊宰底的“自传”，里面有这样的话：“我希望每个家庭都有住宅，每个口都有面包，每个心灵都受到教育，每个人的智慧都有机会发展。”我非常激动，樊宰底讲了我心里的话。

我的住处就在先贤祠（Pantheon）旁边，我每天都要经过先贤祠，在阴雨的黄昏，我站在卢梭的铜像前，对这位“梦想消灭压迫和不平等”的“日内瓦公民”诉说我的绝望和痛苦。回到寂寞冷静的屋子里，我坐下来求救似地给美国监狱中的死刑囚写信（回信后来终于来了，樊宰底在信中写道：“青年是人类的希望。”几个月以后，他给处死在电椅上，五十年后他们两人的冤案才得到昭雪。我在第一本小说《灭亡》的序上称樊宰底做我的先生）。就是在这种气氛、这种心情中我听着巴黎圣母院（NotreDamedeParis）报告时刻的沉重的钟声，开始写下一些类似小说的场面（这是看小说看多了的好处，不然我连类似小说的场面也写不出），让我的痛苦，我的寂寞，我的热情化成一行一行的字留在纸上....(See here or here)

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Translate (Part of red): ....A motion of save two Italian workers was started in Paris, they are N.Sacco and B.Vanzetti, they was brought a false charge into theft and murderer and had been put in a jail of criminal awaiting for execution in Boston of America for 6 years. I often pass the streets pasted posters of speech meeting, demurral meeting for save them. I read Vanzetti's "Autobiography" who is one of so-called "prisoners", there is this word in it:" I hope that every family have house, every mouth have bread, every heart will get education, everyone's brightness will get a opportunity to developmen." I am very excite. Vanzetti said the word in my heart.

I live in near the Pantheon. I always pass the Pantheon every day. In the dusk of rainy, I stand front bronze of Rousseau, face to the "Genevese citizen" who dreams to annihilate oppress and imparity, pour out my despair and pain. When I return to loneliness room, I sit down and write to the capital prisoner in American prison like for ask come to the rescue (The reply letter came at last, vanzetti wrote in the letter: "Youth is expect of human." After a few months, he was executed in a electrical chair, their wrong was just righted after 50 years. I called Vanzetti my teacher in the preface of my first novel "Perdition")....