Vanzetti’s friends agreed. They and Govoni went down to the Brockton station the following evening with a declaration of discharge. They explained to Vanzetti that they would do everything they could for him, but that they needed a lawyer they had confidence in. Vanzetti, though he had come to like Callahan, signed the declaration.
Meanwhile Sacco’s comrades had engaged a Boston lawyer, James Graham. An Irish Catholic, Graham had built up a large practice in the Italian North End, where he was noted for his ability to get on with politicians and to get his clients off. The latters’ guilt or innocence did not concern him. He assumed that most of the Italians who came to him in trouble were troublemakers.
Harding’s positive identification of Vanzetti as the Bridgewater shotgun bandit had been enough to convince Chief Stewart, and on May 11 he filed a complaint in the Brockton police court charging that Vanzetti “being armed with a dangerous weapon did assault Alfred E. Cox with intent to rob him.” That same afternoon, to Stewart’s disgust, Orciani had to be released, since his time card showed that he had been at work in Norwood on the date of both crimes.
The preliminary hearing on the Bridgewater charge against Vanzetti was held in the Brockton police court before Judge Herbert Thorndike on May 18, 1920.[4] Graves, the truck driver, who had thought the bandit car a Hudson, had died in the interim, but Cox the paymaster, Bowles the guard, and Slip Harding appeared as witnesses for the Commonwealth. The three still described the man with the shotgun as having a cropped mustache but picked out the droop-mustached Vanzetti as the man. Bowles and Cox, who had been vague when they first saw Vanzetti in the police station, had by this time become much more positive. “I think he looks enough like the man to be the man,” Cox told the court, although under cross-examination he admitted that he was still not completely sure. Bowles was sure. “That is the man who had the shotgun that morning,” he said.
Harding remained as certain about Vanzetti as he had been at the station, but the car he had originally described as a Hudson Six had now firmly become a Buick. In addition to the three repeaters the Commonwealth had a new witness, a Mrs. Georgina Brooks, who a few minutes before the Bridgewater attempt had been walking down Broad Street with her five-year-old son. She had crossed just in front of the bandit car and had noticed the four men inside. The driver had followed her with his eyes as she passed. Now she picked Vanzetti as the man she had seen behind the wheel of the car. “I am positive,” she said.
Vahey having not bothered to produce any defense witnesses, Judge Thorndike held Vanzetti for action by the grand jury, and on June 11 two indictments were found against him: for assault with intent to rob, and assault with intent to murder. At the conclusion of the May preliminary hearing Assistant District Attorney Kane told the court that he had witnesses who would positively identify Vanzetti in connection with the South Braintree murders. On learning this, Judge Thorndike refused to admit Vanzetti to bail and remanded him to the Plymouth county jail. His trial was scheduled for June 22.
In the intervening weeks Vanzetti continued to insist that he had spent December 24, the day of the Bridgewater attempt, delivering eels to his customers in North Plymouth. Among Catholics the day before Christmas is a fast day, and among Italians it ends in a feast that always includes eels. Even the poorest or the most free-thinking of Italian families manages to have eels on that traditional day. Brini rounded up several dozen witnesses to testify that they had bought eels from Vanzetti or seen him with his pushcart the day before Christmas.
Sacco’s lawyer, Graham, became associated with Vahey in Vanzetti’s defense. Six years afterward, while in Charlestown State Prison, Vanzetti wrote a pamphlet, “Background of the Plymouth Trial,” denouncing both his Plymouth lawyers. One of his chief complaints was that Vahey had refused to allow him to testify in his own behalf. Vanzetti wrote that when they discussed the matter,
He asked me how I would explain from the stand the meaning of Socialism, or Communism, or Bolshevism, if I was requested by the district attorney to do so. At such a query, I would begin an explanation on those subjects, and Mr. Vahey would cut it off at its very beginning.
“Hush, if you will tell such things to the ignorant, conservative jurors, they will send you to State prison right away.”