Thayer Flayed

Did Webster Thayer, trial judge in the case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, held under death sentence (TIME, Sept. 27, Nov. 1, April 18, April 25) in the Dedham (Mass.) jail, refer during the trial to Messrs. Sacco and Vanzetti as "those bastards"'? Did he say "a bunch of parlor radicals are trying to get those guys off," but that he "would show them and would get those guys hanged"? Did he add that "no Bolsheviki could intimidate Web Thayer," that he "would also like to hang a few dozen radicals"?

According to an affidavit of Robert C. Benchley, dramatic editor of Life, Judge Thayer said all these things to Mr. Loring Goes, of the Goes Wrench Co., Worcester, Mass., at the Worcester Golf Club. Mr. Goes, said Mr. Benchley, repeated Judge Thayer's remarks to him (Benchley). But Mr. Goes last week "flatly denied" the truth of Mr. Benchley's affidavit; recalled no conversation in which Judge Thayer flayed Messrs. Sacco and Vanzetti; said: "I have known Judge Thayer since 1908. I have never heard him use language that he could not repeat in mixed company and I have played golf with him."

Mr. Benchley's affidavit formed, with four other affidavits, part of a petition sent last week to Governor Fuller of Massachusetts by Mr. Vanzetti. Mr. Sacco refused to sign the petition, calling it inconsistent with his anarchistic principles. Dr. Abraham Myerson, Boston psychiatrist, said that Mr. Sacco's seven years of confinement had "brought about an abnormal state in which his [radical] fanaticism has been intensified into an obsession." In spite of Mr. Sacco's refusal to sign, the petition was presented as a joint plea from both the condemned.

It asked "not for mercy, but for justice," not for pardon but for a public investigation to "set us free." Reviewing the trial, it listed a long series of incidents to show prejudice on the part of Trial Judge Thayer. Its most vital new evidence came in the attached affidavits.

Affidavits:

Frank P. Sibley, Boston reporter, said that during the trial Judge Thayer repeatedly discussed the case with reporters, that Judge Thayer said: "I'll show them that no long-haired anarchist from California can run this court." The "long-haired anarchist" was Fred H. Moore, defense attorney, who had a reputation for defending radicals. Mr. Sibley added that Judge Thayer often called defense attorneys "those damn fools."

Mrs. Lois B. Rantoul, who reported the trial for the Greater Boston Federation of Churches, said that after the prosecution in the trial had rested, Judge Thayer asked her what she thought of the case. She said she was not convinced that the defendants were guilty. The judge said she would "feel differently" after hearing his charge to the jury.

John Nicholas Beffel, newspaper correspondent, said that Judge Thayer gave newspapermen advance copies of his charge to the jury (as is often done) but that the charge as delivered in advance differed from the charge actually given.

Mrs. Elizabeth R. Bernkopf, who covered for the International News motions made in 1923 for a retrial, said that Judge Thayer presented her with an unsolicited autographed photograph of himself and referred to Attorney Moore as a "long-haired anarchist." He said he could not be "hoodwinked" and that nobody "could put anything over" on him.

Besides affidavits, the petition contained a statement from George U. Crocker, onetime Boston Treasurer. Mr. Crocker is a member of the University Club where Judge Thayer stayed during the trial. His statement said: "At this time I did not know that I had ever met Judge Thayer. He approached me one evening, however, called me by name and began to talk to me about the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and I soon was able to gather that he was the Presiding Judge, but even then I did not know his name. . . . One morning at breakfast I particularly remember because it seemed to me that Judge Thayer at that time exhibited his prejudice and bias in the most notable manner. On this morning he either came to the table where I was sitting and asked if he could have breakfast with me, or he called me to his table and asked me to have breakfast with him. He immediately began to talk again about the case and pulled out of his pocket a portion of the charge which he was to deliver, as I understood it, on that day. He read parts of it to me with comments like this: 'Counsel for defense said so and so yesterday, and this is my reply.' He then read a part of the charge and said, 'I think that that will hold him, don't you?' "I tried my best to avoid these conversations and I told the head waiter at the club to see to it that I was not put with him again at meals." From Judge Thayer came only silence. He was said to be on a vacation, perhaps at his Maine summer home. Commenting on the new disclosures in the Sacco-Vanzetti petition, the New York World said: "What comes out of all these statements is a picture not of a judge but of an agitated little man looking for publicity and utterly impervious to the ethical standards one has the right to expect of a man presiding in a capital case." Governor Alvan Tufts Fuller studied the Sacco-Vanzetti petition, said his mind was not made up on what procedure to follow. He received from Chicago a lurid deaththreat. It read: "Hon. Alvin: "If you will execute Sacco and Vanzetti, we are going to murder you, all of your family and turn your home into ashes; the same we do with your judge and Chief Justice as they got our note last week. "Our airplanes had a wonderfull success over your home and the home of your barbars [barbarous?] Judge and Chief Justice. Nobody has not away from us and nobody cannot. "This is the oath of thousands and uiousands that will fight to death. The French spirit never die--as to tell you again, if you, your judge and Chief Justice will execute Sacco-Vanzetti, we going to destroy all of your fellows.

"The French American bankers and unions cooperation. Ad. K. K. K."

Last week many Sacco-Vanzetti pleas were pouring in from highly reputable sources. Among the voices added to the Sacco-Vanzetti cause were those of:

Paul Loebe, President of the German Reichstag

Author Will Irwin

John F. Moors and Charles P. Curtis of the Harvard Corporation

Attorney Roland W. Boyden

Dr. Morton Prince

Central Federation Union of Providence

Attorney Samuel Orr

Proletarian Party of America

Faculty and 650 students of the University of California

Executives of the National Federation of Trade Unions, Sweden

Majority of the Wisconsin legislature

Executive Council of the Massachusetts Branch of the American Federation of Labor.