USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 33
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 33
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 33
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Under a code adopted in 1636, new laws, or changes in the laws, were to be made by freemen in town meeting. Petty crimes and offences were left to the decisions of the magistrates. Laws were added yearly thereafter, and in 1671 a digest was made and the laws were printed.
The First General Court was held October 19, 1630, in which it was enacted that those only should be made freemen who belonged to some church in the colony, and that freemen alone should have power to elect the governor and his assistants. This law was repealed in 1665.
By 1634 the number of freemen had increased to such numbers that it was not desirable to assemble them to transact business in person, and it was accordingly ordered that they should meet only for the elec- tion of magistrates, who, with the representatives chosen by the several towns, should have the power of enacting laws. This was the beginning of democratic representation in the colony. It was ten years later that the magistrates or assistants and the deputies were organized into sep- arate branches in the government.
The colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut and New Haven entered into a confederation in 1643, but under the provision that each colony should retain its own distinct and separate government. The idea of the confederation was to unite forces against the Indians and the Dutch, for mutual defense.
In 1648 the laws of the colony were collected, ratified and printed. That same year Margaret Jones of Charlestown was tried and executed as a witch. In 1652 a mint was established for coining money. That same year the Province of Maine was made a county of Massachusetts, under the name of Yorkshire.
In 1667 cider was added to other spirituous liquors concerning which
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restrictive laws were provided. In 1638 the smoking of tobacco was forbidden out of doors within a mile of a dwelling house or while at work in the fields, but, unlike England and the Massachusetts Bay Col- ony, Plymouth never had a law regulating wearing apparel.
Provision was made against exceeding the speed limit in a law of the colony in 1636 which provided: "that whatsoever person shall run a race with any horse kind in any street or common road shall forfeit five shillings in money forthwith to be levied by the constable or set in the stocks one hour if it be not paid."
In 1633 there was a legal provision which reminds us of the first planting of corn by the Pilgrims under the instruction of Squanto who showed them how to plant with the seed a herring for purposes of fertil- ization. The law read: "That whereas God by his providence hath cast the fish called alewives or herrings in the middest of the place ap- pointed for the towne of Plymouth; and that the ground thereabout hath been worne out by the whole to the damage of those that inhabite the same; that therefore, the said herrings, alewives or shadd comonly used in the setting of corne be appropriated to such as doe or shall in- habite the towne of Plymouth aforesaid, and that no other have any right or propriety in the same only for bait for fishing, and that by such an orderly course as shall be thought meet by the gov'r & Councell."
By 1638 both colonies had adopted a representation of towns in Gen- eral Court made up of two bodies, the governor and councillors, called the Bench; and the town members, called Deputies. The two branches sat as one body and made laws. The freeman continued to meet annu- ally in town meeting and had the power to repeal any of the laws adopted by the General Court and enact others.
By more than two hundred and fifty years the Plymouth colony an- ticipated the initiative and referendum of recent times.
The first republican government of America started in Plymouth County and it has been well expressed by an able writer as follows:
"The institutions, civil, literary and religious, by which New England is distinguished on this side of the Atlantic, began here. Here the man- ner of holding lands in free socage, now universal in this country, com- menced. Here the right of suffrage was imparted to every citizen, to every inhabitant not disqualified by poverty or vice. Here was formed the first establishment of towns, of the local legislature, which is called a town meeting, and of the peculiar town executives, styled the select- men. Here the first parochial school was set up, and the system origi- nated for communicating to every child in the community the knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Here, also, the first building was erected for the worship of God; the first minister called and settled
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by the voice of the church and congregation. On these simple foundations has since been erected a structure of good order, peace, liberty, knowl- edge, morals, and religion, with which nothing on this side the Atlantic can bear a remote comparison."
Blue Laws Purely Imaginary-Much has been said about the "blue laws" and the impression has become widespread in every generation that the early settlers of the Massachusetts seaboard, Pilgrim or Puritan, enacted and enforced them. No ons seems to have heard of any such laws until Rev. Richard Peters published in 1829 "A General History of Connecticut." With blithesome disregard of the truth, the eminent divine apparently drew upon his imagination regulations for the citizen- ry of Connecticut which no one had ever met. Using his vivid imagina- tion the writer averred that the laws included the following :
No one to cross a river but with an authorized ferryman. No one shall run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting. No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath or fasting day. No one shall read Common Prayer, keep Christmas or Saints-days, make minced pies, dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of music, except the drum, trumpet, and jews-harp. Married persons must live together or be imprisoned. Every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap.
The towns were accustomed during the Revolutionary period to give definite and minute instructions to their representatives to the General Court and some of these instructions, as they appear on the records of the various towns, show the feelings of the inhabitants clearly. The town of Dedham, at a meeting in 1786, instructed Nathaniel Kingsbury to attempt the reduction of taxes by reducing the salaries of public officers, by lopping off unnecessary departments of government, by abolishing the Courts of Quarter Sessions, by regulating the practice of lawyers or totally abolishing them ; also to use his utmost efforts to pro- cure a division of the county, to oppose the emission of a paper currency, to encourage manufacturers, and to prevent the introduction of foreign luxuries.
A writer might go on indefinitely chronicling interesting facts con- cerning the bench and bar, laws and causes in Norfolk County and in adjacent territory affected by the same causes and experiences. It would be especially interesting to tell of the lives and contributions to the community, state, nation and even internationally of those who have practiced law in Norfolk County, but it cannot be done within the limita- tions of this volume and could not adequately be done and placed upon a traditional five-foot shelf. There was, however, a trial in Norfolk County of recent date which aroused the entire world, and brief mention Plym-61
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must be made of it as the most conspicuous trial and most far-reaching in the interest which was aroused by propaganda concerning it of any occurrence in Massachusetts.
Sacco-Vanzetti Trial and Execution-A crime committed in Norfolk County, April 15, 1920, was a circumstance which, through propaganda and the unleashing of human passion largely instigated thereby, aroused hatred and violence of people all over the world. Frederick A. Par- menter and Allesandro Baradelli were killed at South Braintree in a pay- roll robbery and the thieves and murderers made their escape in a motor car. It was a spectacular as well as brutal and cold-blooded murder and the criminals, in escaping, fired additional shots at persons who at- tempted to block their progress, notably a crossing tender at the South Braintree railroad crossing, who was in the act of lowering the gates in their path when they fired upon him.
Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fish peddler, were arrested, charged with the murder and, after a trial, found guilty and sentenced to be put to death in the electric chair, the means of exe- cuting the death penalty according to the laws of Massachusetts. Neither man had been especially popular among his associates but an organiza- tion developed, calling itself the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee. This committee seemed to be able to secure plenty of financial support to hire noted legal talent and experts and keep the case hanging fire for seven years. Appeals were made in many countries and the contention was made that the condemnation of the men "did not rest solely upon the submitted evidence but was an example of the unfairness that is in- evitable when an individual is judged not by his own acts but upon his group and racial affiliations which are grossly misunderstood."
Rev. Roland D. Sawyer, a member of the Massachusetts General Court, sought an investigation of the trial. He said: "The case is a tragedy. If these men die the reaction will be a blow against the fair name of Massachusetts justice from which we can never entirely re- cover, and worse than that, it will be a blow at the very stability of or- ganized society. The killing of Sacco and Vanzetti in July will do more harm to organized society than all the froth and bluster of all the radicals in all the world could do in a century."
The case was compared with the Dreyfus affair in a letter sent to Governor Alvan T. Fuller of Massachusetts by Miss Jane Addams, so- cial worker, and her associates in the Illinois Branch of the Woman's International League.
Professor Felix Frankfurter of the Harvard University Law School became the author of a comprehensive analysis of the case in the "At- lantic Monthly." He followed the case step by step through its complete
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history, and devoted much space to the trial and to what he considered the conflicting evidence introduced by the fifty-nine State witnesses and the ninety-nine defense witnesses. He discussed the cooperation be- tween the district attorney and the Federal Department of Justice, which he characterized as a collusive effort to rid the country of Sacco and Vanzetti because of their alleged radical activities. Judge Webster Thayer's refusal of a retrial Professor Frankfurter characterized as fol- lows : "In modern times Judge Thayer's opinion stands unmatched for discrepancies between what the record discloses and what the opinion conveys."
As an answer to this contention, Judge Thayer's charge to the jury, delivered at the close of the trial at Dedham, July 14, 1921, was recalled. He told the jury :
You must fully realize that into your sacred keeping have been committed the gravest responsibilities, responsibilities that affect the rights of both parties, the Commonwealth on one hand and these defendants on the other. And why are these responsibilities so grave and important? Because the life of each defendant is in jeopardy and to them nothing in the world can be dearer and more precious. . ..
In the administration of the law, criminal and civil, there is and should be no distinction between the parties. Therefore under our law all classes of society, the poor and the rich, the learned and the ignorant, the most powerful citizen as well as the humblest, the unbeliever, the radical as well as the conservative, the for- eign born as well as the native born, are entitled to and should receive in all trials under our laws the same rights, privileges and consideration as logic, law, reason, sound judgment, justice and common sense demand. I further beseech you not to allow the fact that the defendants are Italians to influence or prejudice you in the least degree. They are entitled to the same rights and consideration as though their ancestors came over in the "Mayflower."
As the time for the execution neared Governor Fuller made a long and careful investigation and said he was convinced that the two men were guilty of murder, that no evidence had been produced that war- ranted a new trial, and that their previous trial was fair and without prejudice. He could find no ground on which clemency could be claimed or granted.
Governor Fuller was aided in coming to these conclusions by the advice of President A. Lawrence Lowell, of Harvard University, President Samuel W. Stratton of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology and Former Probate Judge Robert Grant, who had been ap- pointed by him as a commission. It was the unanimous decision of these men, as well as the governor, that no pains had been spared in the inquiry and that the condemned had been convicted after a fair trial and were guilty. Sacco and Vanzetti, witnesses, jurymen and Judge Thayer had been interviewed.
Governor Fuller had also talked with Celestino Madeiros, a con-
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demned murderer who had murdered, in cold blood, an aged banker in Wrentham who had refused to pass over the bank's funds. Mad- eiros had made a confession that was designed to clear Sacco and Van- zetti and the governor was convinced that the confession was false.
An appeal was made to President Coolidge, but the latter held that the case belonged wholly within the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts courts.
During the investigation, Governor Fuller was bombarded with peti- tions and telegrams from radicals on both sides. Nothing less than hurrying the condemned to the electric chair would suit one group. One manufacturer contended that the "execution was needed forthwith to stop the prevalent undercurrent of hellishness."
Extreme radicals on the other side demanded that Sacco and Van- zetti be pardoned outright and threatened riots and industrial warfare if they were not immediately released. It was evident that many agi- tators used Sacco and Vanzetti as a means to arouse class hatred and assail the government and this was true abroad as well as in this country. There were many violent demonstrations abroad. The "Spec- tator," a British weekly with pretentions to conservatism and literary merit, said, in its issue of August 13, 1927: "In the case against Sacco and Vanzetti, heard before Judge Webster Thayer, it seems as though the politics of the prisoners were as much a crime as the murder. They were required to explain why they ran away from war service, what their politics were, what they thought of the war, and so on."
The facts were that the political beliefs of the defendants were in- troduced into the trial by counsel for the defendants and against the advice, privately given to these lawyers, of Judge Thayer. It is equal- ly true that the judge instructed the jury to disregard the fact that the defendants were anarchists.
The "New Statesman," another British weekly, said: "The trial re- solved itself into a perfectly simple and straightforward appeal to racial and political prejudices. .. The judge invited a verdict of guilty because the defendants were Tolstoyan Socialists and 'conscientious objectors' who during the war had fled to Mexico to escape military service!" If the "New Statesman" had been informed sufficiently to presume to write of the case at all, it should have been in possession of Judge Thayer's instructions to the jury as quoted above. So should have the "Nation" and "Athenaeum," which stated that "Judge Webster Thayer ... directed the jury to the verdict of guilty."
A fourth British weekly, supposed to be of equally "high class" as the others quoted, "The Saturday Review," concluded an article with the words that the execution would be an act of "injustice and in- humanity."
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These were results in conservative prints, of the propaganda that was sent forth for years by agitators in America and eagerly taken up abroad.
A house in West Bridgewater, in which a family concerned in bring- ing Sacco and Vanzetti to justice, lived, was dynamited. Another house, the home of one who served on the jury, was dynamited in Quincy.
Upton Sinclair, radical writer, addressed a communication to Gov- ernor Fuller from his home at Long Beach, California, one of forty- seven letters and ten telegrams which arrived in the governor's mail by the same delivery. In his long letter, Sinclair said that "Literally tens of millions of people all over the world have their eyes fixed upon this case as a test of American justice. .. If you permit these two poor Italians to be executed, you will put a blot upon the good name of the State of Massachusetts, and of America, which all history will not rub out. .. More than anything else in this world, the propertied classes of America need to maintain a belief in the even-handed justice of the courts; but next July you are planning to strap that belief in the electric chair and turn on the current."
Charles L. Burrill, former State treasurer, and later a member of the Governor's Council, wrote :
"The lord chief justice of Nova Scotia, in an interview I had with him at the tenth anniversary of the settlement of Kentville, Nova Scotia, where I had the honor to represent Massachusetts, said: 'I have the highest opinion of the decisions of the Massachusetts courts and of its eminent lawyers, but the delayed justice of the courts of the States is a source of wonder and concern to English and Canadian jurisprudence.'
"The Sacco-Vanzetti case is an aggravated example. The delay has been accomplished by the immense sums of money contributed by Reds and Bolshevists, all over the world; with assistance of American sympathizers who are indirectly aiding propaganda to destroy our American institutions."
While able and conscientious men in Massachusetts, with every fact before them, taking the time and using all necessary authority to learn the truth in every particular, were trying their best to leave no stone unturned to promote justice, letters and telegrams, representing pre- judice inflamed by insidious propaganda and snap judgment from in- dividuals and organizations of all kinds who could not possibly know the facts, continued to pour in.
Never in the history of the world was a case given such thorough revision, and the case was tried on its own merits. When news of the adverse verdict for Sacco and Vanzetti was published, it was received so quietly that it was evident that it was expected and that the great
-
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majority of the people at large had believed that the two men were guilty or, at least, that, if there was any real possibility of mistaken evidence, the men had the benefit of full and impartial investigation.
Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in July, 1927, for the murder of Frederick A. Parmenter and Allesandro Baradelli at South Braintree. Celestino Madeiros was executed the same night for the murder of the aged banker in Wrentham. The murders were as foul as any which had taken place in Norfolk County since that of Miss Fales by Jason Fairbanks a century and a half before.
Governor Fuller received during his personal investigation approxi- mately 10,000 letters, 5,000 post cards, 4,000 newspaper clippings, 2,000 telegrams and cablegrams, and two clemency petitions totalling nearly a mile in length. After the execution, communications, except those commending him for his courage and thorough investigation, were negligible.
Vaccination Interfered With God's Plan-There is in the Brookline Cemetery a headstone on which is chiselled the following epitaph : "Sacred to the memory of Zabdiel Boylston, Esq., and F. R. S., who first introduced the practice of inoculation into America. Through a life of extensive benevolence, he was always faithful to his word, just in his dealings, affable in his manners, and after a long sickness, in which he was exemplary for his patience and resignation to his Maker, he quitted this mortal life in a just expectation of a happy immortality, March 1, 1766."
The man whose mortal dust lies beneath that stone died at the age of eighty-seven. Forty-five years before men patrolled the streets of Boston with ropes in their hands, seeking to find a middle-aged doctor that they might hang him to the nearest tree, for Dr. Boylston had at- tempted to check the fearful ravages of smallpox. Boston clergymen argued that the smallpox was a judgment from God for the sins of the people, and that to try to check it would only "provoke Him the more."
Strangely enough it was a Boston clergyman who first interested Dr. Boylston in the matter. Rev. Cotton Mather brought to his at- tention an account of the transactions of the Royal Society respecting in- oculation as practiced in Turkey. It was especially strange that Cotton Mather, of all the clergymen of his time, should countenance doing any- thing to interfere in what was called "an act of God." He had been frantically against the use of lightning rods because they interfered with what he professed to believe was a means employed by the Al- mighty to smite with fire those who came under His displeasure. Nevertheless, Cotton Mather, who was responsible for getting more people into trouble than most men of his day, was a crusader for in-
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oculation at a time when it was most unpopular. The following ac- count is quoted in Barber's "Historical Collections" without informa- tion as to whose writing it is :
"The inoculation of smallpox was first performed in the English dominions in April, 1721, upon a daughter of the celebrated Lady M. W. Montague, who had become acquainted with inoculation as prac- ticed by Turkish women, during her residence in Constantinople.
"About this time Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, of Boston, was induced to adopt the same expedient, from reading an account of inoculation, and made his first experiment by inoculating his only son and two negro servants, on the 27th of June, 1721.
"Probably there never was greater opposition to any measure of real public utility than was exhibited on this occasion. Dr. Boylston was execrated and persecuted as a murderer, assaulted in the streets, and loaded with every species of abuse. His house was attacked with vio- lence, so that neither himself nor his family could feel secure in it. At one time he remained fourteen days in a secret apartment of his own house, unknown to any of his family except his wife. The enraged inhabitants patrolled the town in parties, with halters in their hands, threatening to hang him on the nearest tree, and repeatedly entered his house in search of him during his concealment.
"Such was the madness of the multitude, that, even after the excite- ment had in some measure subsided, Dr. Boylston only ventured to visit his patients at midnight, and then in disguise. He had also to encounter violent opposition from most of the members of his own pro- fession, and notwithstanding he invited them all to visit his patients, and judge for themselves, receiving nothing but threats and insults in reply. Indeed, many sober, pious people were deliberately of opinion, when inoculation was first commenced, that, should any of his patients die, the doctor ought to be capitally indicted.
"He was repeatedly summoned before the selectmen of Boston, and received their reprehension. His only friends were Dr. Cotton Mather and other clergymen, most of whom became zealous advocates for the new practice, and consequently drew upon themselves much odium from the populace. Some of them received personal injury; others were insulted in the streets, and were hardly safe in their own dwel- lings; nor were their services acceptable on Sunday to their respective audiences.
"A bill for prohibiting the practice of inoculation, under severe pen- alties, was brought before the legislature of Massachusetts, and actu- ally passed the house of representatives, but some doubts existing in the senate, it failed to become a law.
"Dr. Boylson lived to see the cause he espoused triumphant, and its
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utility generally appreciated. So prone are mankind to vacillate from one extreme to the other that, on a subsequent appearance of the small- pox in Boston, in the year 1792, the whole town was inoculated in three days, to appease the infatuation of the inhabitants respecting the danger apprehended from this deadly pestilence. Persons were inoculated in- discriminately, to the number of 9,152; and such was the hurry and confusion with which it was done, and such the impossibility of render- ing proper assistance and attention to so large a number, that 165 deaths were the consequence."
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