I believe ... Sacco and Vanzetti ... had a fair trial.
The telegraph operator was still holding the wire open to the Times city room. “Bulletin,” Stark shouted as he reached the door of the press gallery. “They die!”
The words flashed across the world from the ten telegraph wires. Within minutes they were chalked up on the Globe bulletin board, broadcast to New England by the waiting WEEI announcer, headlined on the morning editions that would shortly whip off the presses.
The morning papers carried the full text of the decision. Fuller announced that he had set himself three tasks: to see whether the jury trial was fair, whether the accused were entitled to a new trial, and whether they were guilty or not guilty. Of Thayer he wrote:
I see no evidence of prejudice in his conduct of the trial. That he had an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused after hearing the evidence is natural and inevitable.
The governor did not consider that any of the supplementary motions presented valid reasons for granting a new trial. He gave no weight to Madeiros’ confession, nor was he impressed with the latter’s knowledge of the South Braintree crime. His conclusion and, he added, the unanimous conclusion of his advisory committee was that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty.
Warden Hendry kept the news from the prisoners until the next morning when Thompson arrived with Rosina and Felicani. While the other two stood behind him with bent heads, Thompson quietly told the prisoners that they must die. Sacco appeared unruffled. “I told you so,” he called to Vanzetti in the next cell. Vanzetti seemed stunned. “I just can’t believe it,” was all he said. Madeiros said nothing at all.
After Rosina had left, Sacco sat down and wrote an open letter to his “Friends and Comrades.” Over the years his neat script had become increasingly stylized, and in this moment the copperplate regularity of his lines could have served for a formal invitation:
From the death cell we are just inform from the defense committee that the governor Fuller he has desede to kill us Ag. the 10th we our not suprised for this news because we know the capitalist class hard without any mercy the good soldiers of the rivolutions. We are proud for death and fall as all the good anarchist can fall. It is up to you know o, brothers comrades! as I have tell you yesterday that your only that can save us because we have never had faith at the governor for we have always know that the gov. Fuller—Thayer and Katzmann are the murders.
Vanzetti’s blasting reaction found its outlet in a scarcely legible scrawl, the direct opposite of Sacco’s passive acceptance: