by Glenn Beck
I faced the most difficult ethical problem of my life at this point. I had come to Boston with the announcement that I was going to write the truth about the case. If I had dropped the project it would have been universally said and believed that it was because I had decided the men were guilty. I had, of course, no first hand knowledge of the framing of their guilt, but I did have first hand knowledge of the framing of testimony. I decided that I would write the story on the basis of telling exactly what I knew. I could portray all sides, and show all the different groups and individuals telling what they knew and what they believed. I would take my stand on the point that the men had not been proved guilty, and that their trial had not been fair. That was all that the law required in order to prevent the execution, and it was all that my thesis required.
I put the problem up to Floyd Dell who happened to come out here, and he read the chapters which I had so far completed, and said that what I was doing was exactly correct. Of course, word spread among the committee in Boston what I was doing, and they flew into a panic, and I had a long string of horrified and indignant letters and telegrams. They strenuously denied that there had ever been any perjury in the case—which, of course, I knew to be perfectly absurd. They also denied that Sacco had ever been a terrorist—though on this point I was finally able to back Gardner Jackson down. I saw him in New York before the book went to press, and we went all over various scenes line by line, and argued for hours. Gardner admitted that I was all right about Sacco, but he claimed that I was doing Vanzetti an injustice. Charles Boni had listened to our discussion. I asked him his opinion, and he said that Gardner had admitted everything that I was claiming, and a little more. Vanzetti as a pacifist was a perfect absurdity, because I talked with a Socialist whom he had chased with a revolver, and young Brini told me of having witnessed a similar scene as a child in his home.
The rumors of Sacco’s guilt were very general in the Italian colonies in Boston, and there is no possible question that these rumors, brought to Thayer and Fuller and Lowell in a thousand forms by the police, were the real reason for the execution. When I was in New York last fall I made another effort to satisfy my own mind about the problem. I asked Roger Baldwin, who is, himself, an anarchist, and knows the whole crowd. He told me there was no possible doubt of the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti, and that the militant anarchists had financed themselves that way for years, both here and abroad. They never took the money for themselves, but only for the movement, and this constituted them idealists and heroes from the point of view of extreme class war theories.
I then took this proposition to Robert Minor, who was an anarchist up to the time of the Russian revolution, and who knows the whole movement. Bob said that he had heard these rumors from the beginning, and had investigated them carefully, and was convinced that they were not true about Sacco and Vanzetti. He said he has never known a class war case of this sort in which there were not similar rumors, and people who will tell you all about it from the “inside.” Sometimes they are started by police agents and sometimes by a certain type of weak mined person who takes a pleasure in having the real inside story about a sensational mystery.
So you see that in the end I don’t really know any more about the thing than I did in the beginning, and can only take my stand as I did in “Boston,” upon the thesis that men should not be executed upon anybody’s rumors.
This letter is for yourself alone. Stick it away in your safe, and some time in the far distant future the world may know the real truth about the matter. I am here trying to make plain my own part in the story, and the basis of my seemingly contradictory moods and decisions.
Sincerely,
Upton Sinclair
GLENN BECK, the nationally syndicated radio host and founder of TheBlaze television network, is a twelve-time #1 bestselling author and is one of the few authors in history to have had #1 national bestsellers in the fiction, nonfiction, self-help, and children’s picture book genres. His recent fiction works include the thrillers Agenda 21, The Overton Window, and The Eye of Moloch; his many nonfiction titles include Conform, Control, Miracles and Massacres, and Being George Washington. For more information about Glenn Beck, his books, and TheBlaze TV network, visit www.glennbeck.com and www.theblaze.com.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Glenn-Beck
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ALSO BY GLENN BECK
Conform: Exposing the Truth about Common Core and Public Education
Miracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America
The Eye of Moloch
Control: Exposing the Truth about Guns
Agenda 21
Cowards: What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say
Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man, as You’ve Never Seen Him
The Snow Angel
The Original Argument: The Federalists’ Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure
The Overton Window
Idiots Unplugged: Truth for Those Who Care to Listen (audiobook)
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government
Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine
America’s March to Socialism: Why We’re One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades (audiobook)
The Christmas Sweater
An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World’s Biggest Problems
The Real America: Early Writings from the Heart and Heartland
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About the Writing of This Book
This is a work of historical fiction—meaning that we’ve combined real history with fictional scenes to create compelling, readable stories that hopefully help readers connect with key facts and understand the characters as more than simply names from history books.
Our research process involved teams of people combing through books, oral accounts, court transcripts, biographies, and interviews. It probably won’t come as much of a surprise that many of these accounts differ from each other. Our job was to review all the evidence and decide what was most likely to be true. I am certain that we probably got it wrong in some instances, and it’s possible that relatives or friends of those depicted in these stories may have compelling evidence that disputes some of our narrative.
This section is meant to help you better understand the research and writing process for each story, including any key decisions we made regarding major facts, characters, or scenes. A chapter-by-chapter accounting is below, but there are also a few things that apply to the entire book that I want to point out.
1. We sometimes modified quotations for clarity, especially if we felt that they left the reader confused. We tried to be as delicate as possible and we never changed the meaning of any direct quotations.
2. In some cases we imagined characters and scenes in order to tell the story in a new way. Whenever we did this we were careful to ensure that nothing we created would contradict anything that we knew to be true from the record.
3. Dialogue and character thoughts were often imagined based on the historical record. None of this dialogue contradicts anything about the characters or story that we know to be true.
4. Specific dates were occasionally imagined if they
were not available from the record.
Chapter 1: Grover Cleveland: The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing President
Most of the facts used to create this story came from the following source:
Algeo, Matthew. The President Is a Sick Man. Chicago Review Press, 2011.
Much of the dialogue in this chapter was imagined, but the following quotations were taken in whole or in part from the historical record.
• “A dark chapter in a public man’s history.” (Algeo, 35)
• “Write this down, and send it to all my friends . . .” (Algeo, 35)
• “He is an honest man.” (Algeo, 136–37)
• “The falsehoods daily spread before the people . . .” (Algeo, 48)
• “The enormous power of the modern newspaper . . .” (Algeo, 48)
• “I have nothing to say for publication.” (Algeo, 84)
• “What does Holland say today?” (Algeo, 139)
• “A delegation of starving miners.” (Algeo, 141)
• “Mr. Benedict says that Mr. Cleveland is as impatient . . .” (Algeo, 141)
• “If you hit a rock . . .” (Algeo, 89)
• “Inasmuch as the boat has not been reported . . .” (Algeo, 97)
• “No Sign of the Oneida.” New York Times, July 4, 1893.
• “He was suffering from a slight attack of rheumatism.” (Algeo, 105)
• “That is all.” (Algeo, 106–7)
• “The president is absolutely free from cancer.” (Algeo, 107)
• “ ‘Incurable’ disease.” (Algeo, 42)
• “To Walter Q. Gresham . . .” (Algeo, 109)
• “Likely to recover in a few days.” (Algeo, 112)
• “The assertion that President Cleveland . . .” (Algeo, 112–13)
• “The persistent attempts to misrepresent . . .” (Algeo, 113)
• “A pity if a president cannot have a ‘touch of rhoumatix’ ” (Algeo, 113)
• “Some of the physicians who were aboard the yacht must have.” (Algeo, 143)
• “Mr. Cleveland recovered from the shock . . .” (Algeo, 145–48)
• “The very depth of despicable journalism.” (Algeo, 159–61)
• “The only element of truth in the latest story of President Cleveland’s illness.” (Algeo, 159–60)
• “There was no question of cancer or of sarcoma.” (Algeo, 160)
• “Tumor—Specimen removed . . .” (Algeo, 223)
• “Was substantially correct . . .” (Algeo, 214)
Some scenes in this chapter were imagined or expanded beyond the basic historical record, including:
• The scene in Albany on July 21, 1884, is imagined. The quotations from the newspaper are from the historical record. Cleveland’s command to his friends to “tell the truth” is from the record.
• In the scene in New York on July 1, 1893, there is no record of Elisha Jay Edwards being on the ferry with Cleveland.
• In the scene on the Oneida at 12:05 P.M. on July 2, 1893, the dialogue is imagined.
• In the scene in New York on July 3, 1893, the opening sentence says that Elisha Jay Edwards was midway through the New York Times when he noticed a dispatch. This is imagined, although the words of the dispatch are real.
• The scene in New York on July 4, 1893, is imagined.
• In the scene in New York on July 7, 1893, E. J. Edwards’s thoughts are imagined. The quotations of Lamont and the United Press interview with Bryant are from the historical record.
• In the scene at Gray Gables on July 7, 1893, much of the dialogue is imagined, although it is inspired by the historical record of Lamont’s press conference. See Algeo, 108–9 for more.
• In the scene in New York on July 8, 1893, E. J. Edwards’s actions and thoughts are imagined.
• In the scene in Greenwich on August 27, 1893, the dialogue is imagined.
• In the two scenes in New York on August 28, 1893, much of the dialogue and some of the details are imagined. The text from the article Edwards dictated is, however, from the record.
Chapter 2: “I Did Not Kill Armstrong”: The War of Wills in the Early Days of Radio
It’s said that history is written by the winners, and at least while he was alive, Edwin Howard Armstrong didn’t win. Consequently, a number of credible but conflicting accounts exist and describe the battle between Armstrong, de Forest, and Sarnoff from differing points of view.
For the foundation of this story, we chose an excellent, meticulously researched book:
Lewis, Tom. Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio. Edward Burlingame Books, 1991.
Additional material was derived from:
Lessing, Tom. Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong, a Biography. J. B. Lippincott, 1956.
Even before the United States entered World War I, there was an effort by the Wilson administration to establish significant regulation, and possibly even total government control, over radio technology and broadcast content. Many thought leaders in the private sector—including a young David Sarnoff, representing Marconi—vehemently opposed this idea of control of broadcast media by the government. More reading on this subject can be found at http://bit.ly/1tj5UdJ.
Among other great advances, Howard Armstrong’s work led to the trouble-free, one-touch controls of later consumer-friendly radio receivers. The terms “tune in” and “stay tuned” are still used today in radio and TV promos, but much like the idea of “dialing” a telephone number, the original context is lost on many people today. Tuning in a radio station was once quite an involved process, and to “stay tuned” required frequent adjustments of multiple knobs and controls. For more on how complicated even these early sets were to use, read this great Wikipedia article: http://bit.ly/1tj644L.
As a wedding present to Marion MacInnes, Armstrong built her the first portable superheterodyne receiver. Historic though it was, this set was “portable” only in the sense that a strong man could manage to carry it for a short distance before resting. A photograph of this receiver with the happy couple on their honeymoon can be found here: http://bit.ly/1tj69W5.
The tale of Howard Armstrong, John Shepard III, and the turbulent founding of the first FM radio network (the Yankee Network) is a story unto itself. To read more about the Yankee Network, visit http://bit.ly/1tj6Dvp.
The essence of David Sarnoff’s court testimony in Armstrong’s FM patent suit has been paraphrased for dramatic purposes. On the subject of who invented FM, Sarnoff stated that “[RCA] and [NBC] have done more to develop FM than anybody in this country, including Armstrong.”
If this story has motivated you to take a more hands-on approach to learning about the work and legacy of Edwin Howard Armstrong, there’s a kit available that allows you to build your own one-tube, Armstrong-inspired regenerative receiver. See http://bit.ly/1tj7egv.
There is a wealth of resources available for further reading on David Sarnoff, Lee de Forest, and Edwin Howard Armstrong. As a starting point for more in-depth reading on these men, see:
de Forest: http://fla.st/1tj7BI0
Sarnoff: http://bit.ly/1tj7Dzy
Armstrong: http://bit.ly/1tj7Hzk
Chapter 3: Woodrow Wilson: A Masterful Stroke of Deception
Most of the facts used to create this story came from the following sources:
Berg, Scott. Wilson. Putnam Adult, 2013.
Chandler, Michael. “A President’s Illness Kept Under Wraps.” Washington Post, February 3, 2007.
Cooper, John. Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Deppisch, Ludwig. The White House Physician: A History from Washington to George W. Bush. McFarland, 2007.
Grayson, Cary T. Woodrow Wilson: An Intimate Memoir. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960.
Levin, Phyllis Lee. Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House. Scribner, 2001.
Pestritto, Ronald J. Woodrow Wilson and the Ro
ots of Modern Liberalism. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
Most of the dialogue in this chapter was imagined, but the following quotations were taken in whole or in part from the historical record.
• “I should regard it as my duty . . .” (Berg)
• “You know him and he is devoted to you . . .” (Deppisch)
• “President Wilson is a great man with his heart torn out.” (Levin, 49)
• “. . . Easily outrank any other American that has yet lived.” (Levin, 119)
• “Omnipotence might be her middle name.” (Levin, 165)
• “Use this.” (Levin, 179)
• “Universal suffrage is at the foundation of every evil . . .” (Pestritto)
• “I have my own diagnosis for my ailment . . .” (Levin, 277)
• “He’s got the servants acting as spies . . .” (Levin, 295–96)
• “. . . I have caught the imagination of the people. They are eager to hear what the League stands for . . .” (Berg)
• “If you feel that way about it, I will surrender.” (Levin, 331)
• “Please convey our sympathy to the president . . .” (Levin, 348–49)
• “. . . Must have information that I do not possess.” (Levin, 354)
• “I thought it wise to record this interview . . .” Kati Marton, Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our Recent History, Pantheon, 2001, 40.
• “Edith emerges as the master of the cover-up.” (Levin, 13)
Notes on specific scenes, facts, and characters:
• Grayson had recommended the president take long walks and horseback rides. (Chandler)
• Edith Galt had a severe preoccupation about her shoes. (Levin, 50)
