DEATH HOUR NEARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 129, 22 August 1927, Page 1

DEATH HOUR NEARS

Last Frantic Efforts Made to Save Sacco and Vanzetti

CONDEMNED ITALIANS’ FATE

TO-DAY the whole world waits to learn the fate of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Italians who were sentenced by the Massachusetts Courts to die on the electric chair. At the eleventh hour their counsel was making desperate efforts to save them.

By Cable. —Press Association. —Copyright

NEW YORK, Sunday. /i TELEGRAM from Washington says that as the hour for the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti rapidly approaches their counsel is making last desperate efforts to save their lives. He lodged petitions with the clerk of the United States Supreme Court, one asking for a review of the case as it had developed before the Massachusetts Supreme Court and another asking for a review of the original trial. These petitions cannot formally be filed because the records accompanying them are insufficient, but counsel undertook to complete the formalities by Monday. However, as these proceedings themselves are not sufficient to stay the execution, and as the hearing of the applications would not come on before October, other members of the firm of counsel for the defence are endeavouring to obtain a stay of execution. VANZETTI’S MIND UNSETTLED Many “death watches” have been arranged for the night of the execution. Fifteen Sacco-Vanzetti sympathisers were arrested while they were picketing the State House at Boston. Large delegations from New York and other cities have arranged to assemble outside the prison if the sentence is carried out. Sacco remains calm despite his weakened condition due to his hungerstrike. Vanzetti talks wildly as the hour of death approaches. It is feared the long strain is beginning to unsettle this man’s mind. The New York newspapers, some of which have so far refrained from comment, all devote leading articles to the case to-day. The majority express the hope that the death penalty will not be exacted.

rifles before they could disperse the demonstrators. Ten persons were wounded and 12 were arrested. The police have now been reinforced. Squads of plain-clothes men have also been placed inside the Embassy and patrols in the neighbouring streets.—A. and N.Z.