THE CABINET: Fuses

Still conscious of a golf-ball bruise inflicted on his ankle by his son, Ambassador Myron T. Herrick returned from a vacation in the U. S. to his post at the U. S. embassy in Paris. In the Gare St. Lazare he was surprised to see that unusually elaborate police arrangements had been made for his arrival. At the embassy it was the same. From Sheldon Waterhouse, his charge d’ affaires, Mr. Herrick soon gathered details.

The night before in Paris there had been a Communist mass-meeting, and a deputation of Communists had just called, in a high state of excitement, to present resolutions demanding that Ambassador Herrick intercede to prevent the “assassination” of Comrades Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti of Massachusetts. Mr. Waterhouse had engaged the leaders of the deputation in thoughtful conversation and pointed out:

1) That Mr. Sacco and Mr. Vanzetti were convicted of murdering two men in South Braintree, Mass., six years ago, at a trial prosecuted not by the U. S. Government but by Massachusetts Commonwealth.

2) That their trial had been a fair trial, and that even had it not been fair, the U. S. Ambassador to France could hardly ask his Government to do something about it; that under the U. S. judicial system, intercession is unjustifiable.

3) That the refusal of the prisoners’ motion for a new trial (TIME, Nov. 1), which precipitated the Paris mass meeting, was based on legal reasoning and evidence, and not, as inflammatory reports said, on a determination to execute the two men, innocent or not, for their anarchistic beliefs.

In Berlin, Rome, Madrid and other capitals, other U. S. diplomats prepared similar explanations for irate Red Callers. Everywhere police protection was strengthened about U. S. envoys. With only a bill of exceptions and the Massachusetts Supreme Court, or the Governor’s pardon, between them and death, Comrades Sacco and Vanzetti were more than ever the potential fuses for bombs* under the chairs of unwary U.S. dignitaries, whose safety was not increased by comment such as the opening editorial sentence of last week’s Nation: “Judge Webster Thayer is a disgrace to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

*In 1921, Ambassador Herrick’s valet was hurt opening an infernal package sent by Sacco-Vanzetti sympathizers.