“Better conditions, yes.”
“Better country to make money, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Sacco, that is the extent of your love for this country, isn’t it, measured in dollars and cents?”
Jerry McAnarney kept objecting to such questioning. “You opened up this whole subject,” Judge Thayer told him.
When McAnarney continued his objections, Thayer asked, “Is it not your claim that the defendant wanted the automobile to prevent people from being deported and to get this literature all out of the way? Does he not claim that this was done in the interest of the United States, to prevent violation of the law by the distribution of this literature?”
The amazed McAnarney replied that the defense had taken no such position. All they claimed was “that this man and Vanzetti were of the class called socialists, that riot was running a year ago last April, that men were being deported, that twelve to fifteen hundred were seized in Massachusetts.”
Thayer returned to the theme. “Are you going to claim that what the defendant did was in the interest of the United States to prevent further crimes from being committed by the authorities?”
“Your Honor please,” Jerry McAnarney replied. “I now object to your Honor’s statement as prejudicial to the rights of the defendants and ask that this statement be withdrawn from the jury.”
Thayer denied any such effect. “There is no prejudicial remark made that I know of, and none were intended. I simply asked you, sir, whether you propose to offer evidence as to what you said to me.”