Evening star., 1927-08-28

J tatons of dsapproval over the fate
~ of Sacco and Vanzett is repetition
of efforts at the coming session of Congress
to "do something about the situation winch
permits utra-radicas in this country TO preach
without hindrance their doctrines and spread
\ propaganda inimioable to recognized and
existing institutions Even now there are heard
some demands that there ought to be a law.
The memory of the red reign of terror OF
1919.19c0 is fresh. there is an outraged puphc
feeling acts of violence and the popular
impression prevails that the Government, leo
bv the Department of Justice should at this
moment be ferretng out the radicals and
either deportng them forthwith or casting
them into prison.
Many intelligent citizens interested them
selves in an effort to avert capital punishment
for Sacco and VanZetti on the strength of their
belief that the evidence which they were
convicted for murder did not justify the death
penalty. The sum total of their efforts linked
with the widely advertised political philosophes
of the two condemned men, was the launching
of q movement which gathered emotional force
and became unique propaganda of anarchy
and radicalism. the end of which is not in
sight The result today is the belief, probably
held hv millions of persons in the United States
and throughout the world, that Sacco and VAN
zetti ware put to death because they were an
archsts. AS a matter of fact and aside from
the assumption that the law took no recosn-
tion of the statements that these men were
anarchists, the incident has served chiefly to
emphasize condition which has been and
probably will continue to exist in the United
States-where the anarchist, the violent Com
munst and the destructive theorist may hide
behind and find his safest refuge in the Con-
stitution which he would overthrow by force
and outrage.
Exposures of radical activities" in the United
States have come A>e regarded more OF less
as commonplace. A may excite COM
ment for few days. but it dies down and is
soon forgot Certainly the Sacco-Vanzetti DEM
onstratons so far have failed to create any.
thing approaching the hysteria which seized
the country during the 'red outbreak" of 1919.
1920. There has been nothing hysterical in
precautions taken to guard public buildings and
public men, but only wise recognition of the
high tension to which none too stable intellects
have been subjected by highly dramatic type
of publicity. There always the possibility
that the tension might break and a moron
would throw a bomb But there have been no
wholesale raids, simultaneously executed in
dozens of cities, with changing patrol wagons
emptying public halls of their audiences and
escorting them en- masse to Jail Instead of
threatening the radical rats with deportation
and shouting the menace of Red Russia" from
the housetops. tie Attorney General of the
United States has been spending a peaceful
vacation in the green hills of Vermont, fishing
ii Dll, TeduInS tHe EDle ana perhaps tneHuInS
a clock two Only cabinet officer has
chosen to issue anything resembling warn.
ing" and Secretary of Labor Davis merely
asked Army officers and industrial establish.
ments to keep their eyes open and to that
no aliens unlawfully entering the country were
given employment.
With the base ball season approaching a
close, with another amateur golf champion
chosen, and with the new Ford threatening to
roll out of the shops in Detroit any day, the
country is too busy now to bother a great deal
about radicals" But if insane acts of violence
continue, il the saturation point is reached
again as it was in 1919, there may be another
story. In a few months Congress will reassem-
BILE and the hopper be opened to receive the
nual legislative grst to grind. Then the de.
mand may be expected for more stringent
laws to deal with the radicals" and then the
proponents of such laws will end themselves
facing still the two obstacles which heretofore
have stood solidly in their way-the first and
fourteenth amendments to the Constitution
* X x x
For as far legislative action goes the Fed
eral Government has about gone to the limit
in it's ability to deal with those who advocate