A solid blue line of police extended along the cobbled paving in front of the Charlestown prison. Prison police, State Police, Metropolitan Police, Boston and Cambridge police, had all been called out—the largest force ever assembled in Boston’s history. On Prison Point Bridge a platoon of firemen uncoiled hoses and stood ready to water down any mob trying to force the barriers. Below the bridge, in the slimy tidal inlet known as the Miller River, the police launch Argus chugged up and down with a machine gun at its bow.
Inside the blank-walled death house Madeiros and Sacco lay on their cots in listless inanition. Some days earlier Sacco had begun a letter to his son, but he no longer felt the strength to continue with it. Vanzetti wrote brief farewell notes to Mrs. Winslow, Mrs. Codman, Mrs. Henderson, and Mrs. Evans, whom he now addressed as “Comrade.” His one enduring regret as the hours slipped away was that he would not be able to see his sister Luigia again. Late in the afternoon Madeiros’ mother and sister arrived from Providence, but he received them indifferently. The old Portuguese woman collapsed on the threshold of the death house and had to be helped from the building.
At the cluttered Hanover Street rooms there was the same penumbral atmosphere that there had been the night of Fuller’s decision, but with the tenseness giving way by almost imperceptible degrees to lassitude. Mary Donovan answered the telephone, the shaggy Jackson scribbled notes, Felicani bent forward under the poster proclaiming JUSTICE IS THE ISSUE, Rosina Sacco sat in a corner, silent except for an occasional dry cough while from time to time she abstractedly crumpled bits of paper. During the evening Frankfurter bustled in and out on obscure errands, his eyes deep and compassionate behind his rimless oval pince-nez. Hill and Joseph Moro appeared briefly and spoke a few encouraging words.
After spending the afternoon with his council, Fuller broke off for a meal, then resumed the sitting at 7:30. An hour later Hill appeared in the Council Chamber and pleaded and argued for two hours, begging the councilors and the governor not to destroy the subject matter of litigation while it was still in the hands of the courts. After he left, the councilors buzzed among themselves. Still the governor could not make up his mind.
Meanwhile the slim, gray-haired, twisted-mouthed executioner arrived at the prison with the official witnesses. As usual, refreshments had been prepared. The prison officers’ clubroom now held the largest group of reporters ever assembled in Massachusetts for an execution. By ten o’clock the three prisoners had been notified that they were to die at midnight.
At defense headquarters Rosina suddenly fell forward in a faint. Mary Donovan picked her up, took her away in a taxi, and left her at a friend’s house in the neighborhood. When she returned she sat down again by the telephone, and, as if she were thinking aloud, suddenly said: “What if the finger of God should stay this execution tonight!” Then she picked up the receiver and in a broken voice called Thompson to ask what steps should be taken to claim the two men’s bodies.
It was 11:24 before Fuller finally made up his official mind. With the concurrence of his council he decided to grant the prisoners a twelve-day respite “to afford the courts an opportunity to complete the consideration of the proceedings.” Captain Charles Beaupré of the State Police gave the word to the reporters outside the council chamber. Secretary William Reed telephoned the news to Warden Hendry. Hendry was pleased, and showed it. Despite his meaty butcher’s face, he was a good-hearted man who hated executions. With the copied reprieve in his hand he hurried down the long cement corridor to the death house, calling out as he reached the threshold: “It’s all off, boys!” The three men rose from their cots. Vanzetti gripped the bars of the cell until his knuckles turned white. “I’m damn glad of that,” he said shakily. “I’d like to see my sister before I die.”
Back at his office Hendry passed around cigars to the reporters and witnesses while an unheeded assistant read out the formal wording of the respite with all its whereases and know-ye-alls.
Not until a few minutes before midnight was the news of the respite telephoned into the Hanover Street offices, yet when the announcement came it caused no tremor, no babble of voices, only a relieving quiet. Mary Donovan left without saying a word to go to Rosina. Someone, who seemed to speak for everyone in the room, remarked: “We have until the twenty-second. Well, that is something.”
Across the ocean it seemed for a moment as if the protesting voices had won. Pravda proclaimed: