The session saw a prolonged altercation between Judge Thayer and the usually quiet-spoken Thomas McAnarney.
“I understand Your Honor to say that after a night of discussion we decided not to open up the issue of radicalism,” Judge McAnarney challenged Judge Thayer, his voice hard. “That is not so.”
“It is so,” Thayer announced bluntly, a tawnier shade creeping into his parchment cheeks.
McAnarney struck back. “All I ever said to my client was to tell the truth and tell all the truth at all times. It didn’t take me five minutes to decide that.” He turned away from the bench and walked toward his chair, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief.
Thayer’s voice pursued him. “Mr. McAnarney! Three times you opened up this subject, and three times it was stricken out.”
McAnarney’s voice trembled a little. “Three times it had to be opened up. There was no safe course for the defendants to pursue excepting to tell the truth and all the truth.”
“I know what took place here,” Thayer insisted.
At the end of the session he reluctantly postponed the hearing until October 25 to allow both sides to file additional affidavits. On that day the Andrews and Pelser affidavits and counteraffidavits were read. The next day Moore took over with his old vitality and argued all day on the Goodridge motion, insisting again and again that the district attorney had intimidated the man and shaped his evidence by the threat of revoking his Massachusetts probation.
Judge Thayer was once more living at the University Club. Each morning he and a group of reporters took the same train from the Back Bay Station. Among them was a pretty young woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Bernkopf, from the International News Service, to whom the senescent but still gallant judge took a particular fancy. At first he merely waited until she had taken her place in the car and then asked if he might sit with her. Later he took to joining her on the platform before the train arrived.