WAS VANZETTI INNOCENT?

Shannon News, 21 January 1929, Page 4

WAS VANZETTI INNOCENT?

NEW EVIDENCE. The New York correspondent of the “Manchester Gardian” says, new evidence strongly supporting the contention that Bartolomeo Vanzetti, one of the principals of the famous Sacco* Vanzetti case, was an innocent man has been made public by the “New York Outlook,” a weekly magazine. As a result of their own independent investigation, lasting many months; the editors of the “Outlook” are convinced that Vanzetti had nothing to do with the unsuccessful attempt at rob- , b«ry at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He had been tried and convicted for this before he wasAried, together with Sacco, for the unsuccessful robbery and the murder at South Braintree, Massachusetts, because of which he and Saeco were executed. The “Outlook” publishes a sworn affidavit from a man named Frank Silva that the Bridgewater crime was committed by himself and three com* panions, Joe San Marco, * ‘Doggy Bruno, and “Guinea” Oates. He says that Vanzetti was not a member of the "ang and was unknown to the Boston underworld. The “Outlook” also publishes an. affidavit by James Mede, who confesses that he planned the crime though he did not take part in it. He says that some time later he had a conversation with San Marco, who told him the story of what happened and did not mention Vanzetti as a member of the gang. Mede says that during the course of the Sacco-Vanzetti trial their attorneys sought to get m-’ , formation from him, and he was ordered to keep silent aud threatened by one Joseph Ross, the chauffeur for Judge Webster Thayer, who presided at both of Vanzetti’s trials. Mede was on parole from prison for still another crime,, and a throat was made that.the parole would be cancelled if he talked. Tears later, and only a few days before the execution, Mede says he told ai. he knew to Governor Fuller, who seems to have ignored his confession. ■ If, as now seems virtually beyond doubt, Vanzetti was innocent of tne Bridgewater crime, the justice of the conviction in ‘the South Braintree case, for which he was executed, is thrown under the gravest suspicion. It will be remembered that Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested .simultaneously and charged with both crimes. Saoco wad able to prove that 1 he was elsewhere on the date of the attempted robbery at Bridgewater, and he was held only on the other charge. The authorities have never explained why they chose to try Vanzetti for the lesser crime first when the murder charge was pending. He came into court for the secondt trial with a sentence of twelve to fifteen vears hanging over him, and was trie. 'by the same judge. The jury was different, but it is common knowledge, shared, for instance, by all the journalists who reported the case, that tne mrors knew he had been found guilty in the similar but less serious ease. When Governor Fuller reviewed the case, he laid the greatest weight on Vanzetti’s previous conviction. lie •, said: “I believe with the jury that Vanzetti was guilty and that the trial was fair.” The Advisory Committee, headed bv President A. Lawrence Lowell, of Harvard University, leaned still more heavily on the Bndgcwatei conviction, saying in their report that, the actions of Vanzetti when arrested “may be accounted for by consciousness ‘of guilt of the attempted robbery and murder at Bridgewater, of which he has been convicted.” - The information published in tne “Outlook” was gathered in the underworld of several cities by Mr. Jack Callahan, for the past fourtceryears a writer but before that a bank burglar. Callahan’s contacts among desperate criminals rendered this feat possible, though even so it was performed at grave risk to himself. Callahan states that criminals in a position to know assert that Sacco and. Vanzetti are also innocent in the South Braintree case, though as yet no definite proof is ad-