Respite

It was 36 minutes before midnight. Straps of the electric chair in the Massachusetts state prison had been oiled, adjusted, inspected by the executioner. Machine guns had been placed along the prison walls to prevent violence. Radio station WSOM in Manhattan was hooked up ready for the broadcasting of the execution by the Eugene V. Debs Memorial Radio Fund. In adjoining death cells Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Celestino Madeiros/- were waiting for a man to slit their trouser legs, make them ready for metal strips through which would pass a current of electricity.

That man did not appear. Instead came Warden William Hendry with the words: "Well, boys, it's all off. ... Buck up. Be men and start eating."

Warden Hendry then informed the three prisoners that Governor Alvan Tufts Fuller of Massachusetts had granted them a 12-day respite from death to allow the courts to consider petitions for a new trial.

Mr. Sacco was too weak and too gloomy to say anything. He continued his hunger strike which had then reached its 24th day. Mr. Vanzetti said: "Well, I'm damned glad. I'd like to see my sister before I die." (His sister sailed last week for the U. S. on the Aquitania from Cherbourg.) Soon Mr. Vanzetti began to swallow liquids and, later, salads. Mr. Madeiros who had been eating heavily sat in a stupor.

New Trial, Mercy or Death? The possibility of a new trial for Messrs. Sacco & Vanzetti rested chiefly on the appeal which Arthur D. Hill, their head counsel, prepared to make before the supreme judiciary court of Massachusetts on the grounds that Judge Webster Thayer exhibited prejudice during the murder trial. But it was on the mercy of Governor Fuller that many a Sacco & Vanzetti sympathizer pinned his hopes. Leading U. S. newspapers, even the most conservative Foreign Journals, urged clemency. An example--the venerable Spectator in England said: "Certain facts make us feel that justice in the strict sense of the word would be truly served either by the release of the prisoners or by a further term of imprisonment the greater part of which might be taken as having been already satisfied by the six years under which the prisoners have lain under sentence of death."

Boston Disturbers. Before Governor Fuller granted a respite to Messrs. Sacco & Vanzetti the streets of Boston contained a number of persons who annoyed the police. Edward Holton James, nephew of the late famed Philosopher William James and Novelist Henry James, attended a Sacco & Vanzetti mass meeting on the Boston Common. Smartly dressed, neatly barbered, looking more like a distinguished professor emeritus than a boisterous radical nephew, James shouted: "Down with the police!*, assaulted a bluecoat, was promptly arrested. Refusing to plead the charges against him he told the court that he would not stand up "before murderers whether they are judges, police officers or governors." He was fined $75. After being graduated from Harvard in 1896 Mr. James practiced law in Seattle, grew discontented, went to Paris to edit the Liberator, radical journal. He has long been a Sacco & Vanzetti sympathizer, attempted last April to re-enact the crime in South Braintree, Mass., was arrested.

John Dos Passos, author of Manhattan Transfer and Dorothy Parker, humorous poet, were part of a little parade carrying Sacco & Vanzetti placards in front of the State House, where an officer informed them: "Loitering and sauntering is against the law. You have seven minutes in which to disperse. Move on." The little parade continued and soon two patrol wagons arrived. Mr. Dos Passos began to sprint from the scene, awkwardly, at his top speed; bumped into a policeman. On being collared Mr. Dos Passos insisted that he was hurrying to his newspaper office not running away from patrol wagons. He and his friends were bailed out by Ruth Hale, President of the Lucy Stone League and wife of Heywood Broun (see p. 32), and by Seward Collins, one of the new owners and editors of the Bookman (see p. 24). They were fined $5 apeice.

Hot Beef Tea. Later when Mr. Sacco was on the thirtieth day of his hunger strike he was ordered to go into the prison barber shop where he found Dr. Joseph I. McLaughlin, Warden William Hendry, Mr. Vanzetti, Mrs. Sacco and others. Dr. McLaughlin spoke first: "The time has come, Sacco, when you must eat."

"I don't want to eat," said Mr. Sacco.

Dr. McLaughlin pointed to a rubber bag, tube and funnel; held Mr. Sacco's nose; said firmly: "You know we used these on a fellow a couple of weeks ago. You know I can use them on you if I want to."

Soon Mr. Sacco drank a quart of hot beef tea slowly, morosely, without the aid of a funnel.

/-Twice convicted murderer who had con fessed also to the South Braintree murders of which Messrs. Sacco & Vanzetti had been found guilty. *Mr. James later rebuked a policeman who testified that he said: "Down with the cops."