Facing the Chair

John Dos Passos turns the Sacco and Vanzetti case into a furious political indictment, beginning with the 1920 arrest of two immigrant laborers in a climate of anti-radical fear and ending with a plea for public resistance before the state can kill them. The book frames the South Braintree robbery and murder as a miscarriage of justice shaped by prejudice, capitalist power, and official manipulation, while gathering voices from Anatole France, Eugene V. Debs, labor unions, and government insiders to challenge the verdict. Alongside the courtroom record, it builds vivid portraits of the condemned men: Sacco as a hardworking Italian immigrant, anarchist, husband, and father whose life of poverty, blacklisting, and labor struggle reflects the experience of many workers; and Madeiros as a frightened young criminal whose confession points toward the Morelli gang and away from the defendants. The hearings, Thayer's refusal of a new trial, and the documentary affidavits all deepen the sense of a system more interested in repression than truth. This is a book about class struggle, immigration, state violence, and the urgent demand that working people act in solidarity. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.