Easy Aces!

The believers in the innocence of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti could have asked no more than that all the pleas, objections, exceptions or motions of any sort in behalf of these convicted men should be heard, considered and duly weighed by the tribunals of this Commonwealth. These pleas or motions have been so heard, or are yet to be heard. The proceedings in the case have occupied our courts in one way or another since Sept. 14, 1920, when the Grand Jury of Norfolk County returned indictments charging the two men with the murder of Allesando Beradelli and Frederick A. Parmenter. The Supreme Judicial Court has heard pleas and has denied them. Still other motions for a new trial were made in the present year, based on the ground of newly discovered evidence--these motions supported by the affidavit of a condemned murderer named Madeiros. The motions have in their turn been denied by Judge Thayer in the Superior Court. In denying them, Judge Thayer has gone over the whole ground very thoroughly and voluminously, omitting no question or point of evidence. There is no phase of the Madeiros affidavit which he has not examined in this exhaustive decision. The fatal inconsistencies in the Madeiros story are pointed out. The details which Madeiros alleges are shown to be contradicted not only by his own evidence but by evidence in the main case which the defense did not question. After studying the Madeiros testimony for several weeks, and all the records in the trial, Judge Thayer is forced to the conclusion that the affidavit is "unreliable, untrustworthy and untrue," and that to set aside a verdict of a jury affirmed by the Supreme Judicial Court on such ground would be a mockery upon truth and justice.

If there is any virtue in the legal institutions of this Commonwealth, citizens of Massachusetts cannot but admit that these accused men have very thoroughly had their day in court. Their day, for that matter, is not yet over, for their counsel are at liberty to appeal once more to the Supreme Judicial Court for a reversal of the present decision. Absolutely no one can urge that there has been any suppression of evidence, or any turning of deaf ears to the pleas of the defense.

We have so means of determining the guilt or innocence of persons accused of crime except our constitutional tribunals. These tribunals are deliberate careful. It is safe to say that no greater care was ever exercised than has been exercised in this case. And the answer of our tribunals must be final and unquestioned. Boston Transcript, Oct. 25.