Desperate Efforts Fail

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 202, 10 August 1927, Page 5

Desperate Efforts Fail

To Save Sacco and Vanzetti. JUDGE TRAYER UNMOVED. EXECUTIONS TO-MORROW. [By Cable —Press Assn. — Copyright.] (Received 10, 9.20 a.m.) New York, Aug. 9. Another desperate effort to save Sacco and Vanzetti failed at Boston when Judge Thayer, who presided at the original trial, denied a motion for the revocation and stay of sentence after giving the matter consideration overnight. The defendants’ only recourse is to Governor Fuller and the Federal Court, neither of which is likely to stay the execution. Meanwhile, in Washington, State Department officials have taken extraordinary precautions against possible bombing. The six entrances to the departmental building are barred, leaving only two open and these are under heavy guard. A special guard is also stationed at the diplomats’ private entrance. Thousands of New York police concentrated on <3O protest meetings which were scheduled to assemble for the purpose of joining in a monster gathering later in the day.—(A. and N.Z.) SYMPATHETIC STRIKE. 145,000 WORKERS OUT. (Received 10, 9.20 a.m.) New York, Aug. 9. Sacco and Vanzetti were denied a stay of execution in the Superior Court at Denham, Massachusetts. It is claimed that 145,000 workers are out on a sympathetic strike. A thousand policemen are posted in Union Square and smaller detachments are placed throughout the city to preserve order. Four thousand clothing workers are out on strike in Rochester, New York. At Boston the riot squad of detectives raided the capmakers’ headquarters on the eve of the strike and it is understood the police are considering the placing of machine guns on the walls of the prison in Charlestown, the Boston suburbs, where the execution takes place on Thursday. Many arrests are being made throughout the country as a result of disturbances.—(A. and N.Z.)

After six years in prison since their trial, Nicolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, cobbler and fish merchant respectively, were last month condemned to death for the murder of a shoe factory paymaster and his guard at Braintree, Massachussetts. It was held t>y many that the men were condemned on insufficient evidence, and this, together with the fact that the case has never been permitted to go before the Appeal Court and that Judge Thayer, who presided at the original trial, is the only one who has judicially reviewed the evidence, accounts for' the demonstrations. The murder was committed at a time when America was full of rumours about Communists and some believed the trial was hurried through on that account. Five years after the trial a certain Medeiros, then in prison, made a written confession of the murder and exculpated Sacco and Vanzetti.