The Supreme Court had in effect reaffirmed that it had no jurisdiction, that once sentence had been passed, a motion for a new trial came too late. And a motion for revocation was the same thing as a motion for a new trial. As for the prejudice of Judge Thayer:
The judicial conduct of the trial judge in hearing and deciding the motion based on his own alleged bias or prejudice need not be discussed because neither the judge nor any of his associates had jurisdiction to entertain the motion.
In brief there was nothing more to be expected from the courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. When Hill and Evarts asked Chief Justice Hall for a stay of execution until the United States Supreme Court might decide whether the law of the land had been observed in the case, he coldly refused.
Musmanno went at once to Charlestown to tell the prisoners. Sacco merely said it was what he expected, and continued the letter he was writing to Dante.[34] But when Vanzetti heard the news the discipline of his mind suddenly snapped. “Get the million men!” he shouted. He demanded a radio transmitter in his cell so that he could tell the whole world his story. All that morning he remained standing behind the bars, calling out for the million men. That night he wrote a letter to Thompson dating it “New Era year I”:
My enemies make me to aim their cannons, shoting at me every night to kill me.
Please, send this instruction to the Boston Defense Committee—as quickly as possible.
Dear Friends of the Committee.
I hope you have radiocasted at once my order of mobilization to all the nations of the world. Big corps of men are in march, if I perceived well last night. Take all the protective measure to the crossing of Rio Grande and Panamal Canal; lent me the coasts most you can. Renew my notes to the King of Italy and the Pope. I want all my witnesses as well. Informe me by wireless, and immediately, of each move and particular. I wait for you and Mr. Thompson as soon as possible for a general council. Recur to Mr. Thompson for legal matters.
In spite of Vanzetti’s seizure, the prisoners were taken back to the death house that afternoon.
At almost the same time Luigia Vanzetti arrived in New York on the Aquitania. She was met on the dock by Felicani, Rosina, Carlo Tresca, Mrs. Henderson, Dorothy Parker, Ruth Hale—Heywood Broun’s wife—a corps of newsmen, and several hundred supporters carrying signs and banners. Rosina embraced her solemnly as a sister in sorrow, then the reporters pressed in. The crowd made Luigia shrink. She was a frail, plain, dark woman, plainly dressed, who even at the age of thirty-six had the withered appearance of an autumn leaf. Her large eyes were shadowed by a helmet hat, her mouth permanently sad, her chin receding. She was of that Latin type, sexless and compassionate, ordained from adolescence either to be a maiden aunt or a nun. As she talked through an interpreter to reporters, she fingered a gold medallion of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin. What she said was embarrassing to all but Rosina. “I am here,” she told them, “to guide my brother back to the religion from which he has fallen, so that he may be prepared to meet his Maker. He was brought up in the church and he used to be a good Catholic. I have prayed continually that he return to the church and see a priest.”