SACCO AND VANZETTI

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 129, 22 August 1927, Page 8

SACCO AND VANZETTI

NEVER before, perhaps, has /-the world taken such intense interest in the fate of two men of little personal worth. The names of Sacco and Vanzetti are to-day as well-known as those of any film star or virtuoso. Seven years ago they were known only to the underworld of a city in Massachusetts, and possibly to the police of that State, who were shortly to arrest them in connection with the robbery and murder of a paymaster and his guard at a place called South Brainlee. These men were tried for murder, found guilty and sentenced to death. The electric chair has haunted their dreams for years; but it may be imagined that the many delays to the carrying out of the sentence had conferred upon the condemned men a more than reasonable belief that they were not to die at the hands of the law. It is not usual for men to be allowed to languish in prison for years, finally to be put to death. It is true that the unusual delay in the carrying out of the death sentence has been due to processes of the law set in motion by the friends of the men whom the law has branded as assassins, and that Saceo and Vanzetti would long since have -been dead—and the world would long since have ceased to bother about them —but for the unremitting efforts to have them reprieved. But, even so, there are few people who will not think that these men have not already been punished very terribly by suspense alone, and that the carrying out .of the prescribed last dread penalty at this late stage will be more than punitive. It may be taken for granted that this is the British view of it, in any case.