To the Editor of The Republican: --
The Republican has sustained its position in the Sacco-Vanzetti tragedy with so much dignity, ability and fairness in giving a hearing to both sides, as to make it seem hitherto unnecessary for one to enter the lists in its support. Now, however, that they seem to be thrown open for registering the strength of public sentiment behind the defense and prosecution in this internationally celebrated tragedy, continued silence savors of sloth or apathy in one who has followed the case with more or less intelligence and information for most of the seven years of its pitiful course.
As the letter of Miss Alice Stone Blackwell (August 10) most nearly of those I have seen presents my opinions, my position, to those who condemn that of the The Springfield Republican, the New York World and the St Louis Post Dispatch, falls under still blacker condemnation. I believe the accused to be wholly innocent of the crime laid to their charge, and might describe the position held by these journals as mercy tempered by discretion (due regard for the possibilities in securing mercy).
While those who are appalled by the frightful possibility of legalized murder (in case of the innocence of the accused) would almost surely be found to have eagerly read the reports of the governor and his committee, from questions asked and from conversations overheard in public places I should hazard the conjecture that a very small percentage of those who wish for the extreme penalty have read Felix Frankfurter's able study of the case in the March Atlantic (afterwards published in book form) in which is included an opinion given on testimony in the case by Dr Morton Prince, professor of dynamic psychology at Harvard University.
These two experts cannot be whistled down the wind as busybodies. Many good citizens will not be happy if Sacco and Vanzetti go to their death while testimony in their favor believed by so competent a legal authority to have weight has not been considered: while testimony accepted in identification, playing an important part in conviction, is held by a mental expert of such standing to be so impossible a feat of memory.
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