Following the Supreme Court’s decision, District Attorney Wilbar asked for imposition of sentence, and a special session was called at the Dedham courthouse for Saturday, April 9. In Charlestown, meanwhile, Warden Hendry transferred Vanzetti to the state prison’s grim and ancient Cherry Hill section “to protect him from the unwelcome attention of curious visitors.”
Outside Massachusetts the protests were immediate. A Committee for the Defense of Victims of Fascism and the White Terror sent a wire from France to President Coolidge, signed by Henri Barbusse, Romain Rolland, and Albert Einstein, requesting the liberation of Sacco and Vanzetti. From Berlin the International Red Aid cabled Governor Fuller demanding “pardon and release in the name of half a million members.” The Regional Federation of Labor in Buenos Aires called a forty-eight-hour strike to protest the court’s decision. Letters, telegrams, and cables poured in on Governor Fuller, at whose ornate wrought-iron gate the problem had now been left. Privately, Fuller considered that the court’s word should be the last word, but publicly he announced that the evidence in the case had never been presented to him and that consequently he had not formed any opinion. On April 7, as if to emphasize his detachment, he bought another Gainsborough portrait, “Master Heathcote,” from Sir Joseph Duveen.
The day of the sentencing broke cold and damp and gray. At Charlestown, Vanzetti was waked at five o’clock. He ate his breakfast of frankfurts, baked potatoes, bread, and coffee, then—since he would not be returning immediately to the state prison—wrapped his belongings in brown paper. After he had finished he went to the rotunda where he sat calmly smoking his pipe until the car came to take him to Dedham. As he left he waved a friendly good-by to Warden Hendry.
He rejoined Sacco in the library of the Dedham jail. Again they embraced gravely. Shortly before ten a bus took them to court. They left surrounded by a dozen deputies and three policemen with shotguns.
The courthouse was again surrounded by police with rifles. Admission was by ticket, obtainable only by those connected with the defense or the prosecution, plus the curious-minded with political pull. Felicani, Mary Donovan, and Mrs. Evans’ secretary Anna Bloom arrived at the courthouse a little after nine only to find the iron gates locked. A janitor refused to let them in until ordered to by a state trooper. Mrs. Evans, who had broken her ankle recently, limped up the steps in the company of Sarah Ehrmann and Mrs. Gertrude Winslow, the secretary of the Community Church. Rosina Sacco did not appear. The prosecution was represented by Albert Brouillard and state detectives Fleming and Ferrari.
When Sacco and Vanzetti stepped from the bus they were handcuffed together, and Vanzetti was handcuffed to Deputy Sheriff Caldwell. Both prisoners wore shabby overcoats with velvet collars. Sacco had on a dark suit, a dark necktie, and a felt hat. Vanzetti was wearing a bow tie and a full light-brown cap that seemed to exaggerate the droop of his mustache. They stood for a few minutes by the granite steps, smiling and self-possessed in spite of the guards. At the request of the photographers and newsreel men they took off their hats and faced in various directions. The two men had aged much in six years.
After several minutes they were marched through the iron gate and upstairs. At the door to the courtroom the jail chaplain, William Beal, chatted with them briefly. Just as their handcuffs were being removed before they entered the cage, Mrs. Evans caught their eye and tried to get to her feet. A deputy ordered her to sit down. The quiet in the waiting courtroom was broken only by the ticking of the marble-faced clock. One of the reporters had the feeling that everyone present was holding his breath.
Judge Thayer got out of his car just as the clock of the First Church across Court Street was striking ten. He was wearing a derby, as was the ham-faced state detective who accompanied him, and though he skipped up the steps briskly enough he looked frail. The years, culminating in this moment, had brought about a curious transposition that was sensed by everybody in the waiting room. For it was as if somehow the defendants had become the prosecutors and the judge the defendant. Thayer himself seemed to sense it as he strode into the courtroom, preceded by a deputy and Clerk Worthington’s warning cry. He sat down, smoothed his gown, but did not look at the men in the cage thirty feet in front of him. The preliminaries were so brief that they were over before they could make an impression. District Attorney Wilbar in an almost inaudible voice asked that sentence now be imposed on the two defendants convicted of murder in the first degree, the sentence to be executed during the week of July 10. Clerk Worthington then asked: “Nicola Sacco, have you anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed on you?”
Sacco stood up, stared at Judge Thayer, then began slowly to speak:
“Yes, sir. I am not an orator. It is not very familiar with me the English language, and as I know, as my friend has told me, my comrade Vanzetti will speak more long, so I thought to give him the chance.”