POLITICS
Scapegoating Immigrants: An American Tradition
How the strange case of Sacco and Vanzetti relates to the immigration debate
On April 15, 1920, in Braintree, Massachusetts, Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter were performing an ordinary task: moving the payroll of the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company from its offices to the main factory building. Back in those days, this meant transporting a huge amount of cash, locked up in two heavy boxes.
Someone must have known the company’s money-moving routines, because burglars approached Berardelli and Parmenter once they and the money were out on the street. Berardelli reached for his gun, but the criminals shot first, hitting him four times and stealing his pistol. Parmenter was unarmed, but he wasn’t spared — the gunmen shot him in the back and killed him too.
The criminals seized the payroll — over $15,000 in cash, the equivalent of over $200,000 today — and hauled it into a waiting car. The getaway vehicle tore away from the crime scene as the thieves shot at bystanders who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As police investigated this crime, they connected it to a similar unsuccessful attempt to seize another shoe company’s payroll (this one in Bridgewater…
