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San Francisco Examiner

Sacco and Vanzetti finally find their streets of gold

Executed immigrants who never got fair trial receive tribute

By Bill Porter ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOSTON - Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti have finally found the friends they needed 70 years ago.

The men were executed here after a murder trial widely regarded as unfair, partly because of anti- immigrant sentiment.

But much has happened since then: One governor issued a proclamation acknowledging a miscarriage of justice. And now Thomas Menino, the city's first Italian American mayor, is doing what his predecessors have refused to do: pay tribute to the two Italian anarchists' plight.

In a ceremony that was to take lace Saturday at the Boston Pub lic Library, Menino planned to formally accept a bronze sculpture acknowledging that - guilt or innocence aside - Sacco and Vanzetti came to America looking for justice and did not find it.

The ceremony reflects a belief that has survived and grown since the men died in the electric chair Aug. 23, 1927.

"We will never know whether they were guilty or innocent," said Peter W. Agnes Jr., presiding justice of Charlestown District Court. "But to the question: Did they get a fair trial? The answer is no," said Agnes, who is also chairman of the Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts, a center for the promotion of Italian culture based in Cambridge. "And were they unjustly executed? Yes."

In April 1920, a paymaster and his guard were gunned down during a $16,000 heist. Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested shortly afterward as they went to pick up a car authorities linked to the crime.Vanzetti had a prior conviction for attempted robbery.

Many believe the two were as good as dead even before the trial began.

During the height of Italian immigration and against a backdrop of bombings and other atrocities committed by militant anarchists of the day, Sacco and Vanzetti were held until September before being charged with the killings.

Statements by Judge Webster Thayer, known for his anti-anarchist sentiments, would disqualify a judge today, Agnes said.

A few days after Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted, Thayer was quoted as saying, "Did you see what I did with those anarchist bastards the other day?"

Other questionable elements included eyewitnesses who were brought face-to-face with the accused in jail while Sacco and Vanzetti were made to assume various poses aping the movements the killers were seen to make.