People Are Important: A Mathematician's Faith

Abstract

I had been participating in the struggle for the freedom of Sacco and Vanzetti in the Netherlands, and then in 1927 was in Boston, right near the prison where they were kept. And so I struggled with the protesters during the last months. I remember on the day of the execution I was in New York, where I had an assignment in the Bell Telephone Laboratories, and we went to a large mass meeting addressed by Norman Thomas, the socialist. Then news came by telephone that the execution was taking place, first Sacco and then Vanzetti. Many people cried and sobbed and shouted, "Justice is dead." That is my personal recollection of the Sacco-Vanzetti case. But now I have to say that Sacco and Vanzetti were common people, a simple shoemaker and a poor fishpeddler, and yet they were heroic. Their faith is still inspiring us.

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