ment of Justice agents in March and held prisoners in the offices of Chief William J. Flynn, head of the Division of Information, in the Park Row Building. Salsedo smuggled two letters out to Vanzetti. On receipt of the first letter Vanzetti sent money and on receipt of the second got up a meeting of Italian radicals at the Italian Naturalization Club in East Boston, on April 25. He told the story of Salsedo and was selected to go to New York to help him. Vanzetti went and came back about May 1; he reported at a second meeting, on May 2, attended by Boda. He said that Walter Nelles, a lawyer, advised that the Department of Justice agents were to make raids on their homes and arrest them. It was decided at that meeting to get Boda's car, notify the various "friends," and gather and conceal the radical literature. Sacco, Vanzetti, Boda, and Orciani were to meet at Johnson's garage in West Bridgewater the night of May 5.
Salsedo Falls to His Death
Salsedo was released from his strange prison in the Park Row building on May 3; his body came tumbling down fourteen stories to the street. Next day Vanzetti read of what had happened. He and Sacco prepared a poster announcing a meeting to be held in Brockton, a few miles away, on May 9. He finished writing the poster on the street car on the way to Bridgewater to meet Boda and Orciani.
So the four worried Italians appeared in West Bridgewater on the night of May 5, looking for Boda's car "to hide the literature and to notify the friends against the federal police." They presented themselves at the Johnson house—and sprung the trap set by Stewart. Johnson halted Boda with the warning that there was no 1920 number plate on the car. While Johnson kept them there arguing Mrs. Johnson went to a neighbor's house "to get some milk," and telephoned the police. When Mrs. Johnson came out after some ten minutes Sacco and Vanzetti became suspicious. They walked off to take the street car to Brockton. Boda and Orciani went off in Orciani's motorcycle. When the street car reached Brockton a police officer boarded it and arrested Sacco and Vanzetti. Orciani was arrested the next day. Boda was never seen again. He had had enough.
At the police station Sacco and Vanzetti were found to be carrying loaded revolvers and two or three shotgun shells were found on Vanzetti. To the police and to the District Attorney they told lies—where they got their weapons, what they were doing, and what they intended to do on the night of their arrest. In the trial these lies weighed heavily against them. They were the basis of the Commonwealth's assertion that they had exhibited a "consciousness of guilt." Later that night Stewart himself, now become master detective of payroll bandits and local inquisitor for A. Mitchell Palmer, came and questioned them. He found on Vanzetti the notice of the meeting to be held in Brockton on May 9, with Vanzetti set down for a speaker.
Finding his supposed payroll bandit a radical, Stewart got out his anarchist catechism: Are you a citizen? Are you an anarchist? Do you believe in the overthrow of this form of government by force or violence? To the question on anarchism Vanzetti answered mildly, and considering his predicament not unreasonably: "I like things a little different." To the "force or violence" question he answered: "If necessary." Sacco shared the same experience.
When Orciani was arrested the following day he was similarly catechized. He lied to the police also. He told them he did not know Sacco, whereas Sacco had affirmed his affection for his friend Orciani. Yet in the end—and despite the fact that witnesses "identified" him—he was released because it had been found he had been at work both on the day of the Bridgewater crime and on the day of the South Braintree murder.
When the police set about to get Sacco, Vanzetti, and Orciani identified, all usual procedure went by the board. The victims were not lined up to see if the witnesses could pick them out of a crowd. They were placed on exhibition in the station and witnesses came in and looked them over. Sacco's hair was rumpled, he was told to crouch down, to extend his arm as if shooting at somebody, his hat on and off—all to force a likeness to a bandit. Yet even then some of the witnesses did not identify them. The police forgot to take the names of those who declined to identify. As it was, in the murder trial there were more identification witnesses for the defense than for the State, despite the trickery of the prosecution.
The district attorney, having Sacco, Vanzetti, and Orciani on his hands, had to adopt the fantastic theory of Stewart, the Bridgewater policeman—and adopt Stewart with it, for only he could apply it to the realities. Accordingly, Stewart secured a leave of absence from the town of Bridgewater and became the chief investigator for the Commonwealth. Captain Proctor, head of the State Police, a man of thirty years' experience in hundreds of murder and robbery crimes, warned the prosecuting officials that he believed they had the wrong men—and stepped out.
The State's Theory
The State's theory of the crimes, as Frederick G. Katzmann, the prosecuting attorney, finally smoothed out the messages which Stewart had received from the spirit world, was as follows: The little house of Coacci, the radical and friend of Sacco, Vanzetti, and the others, near the Johnson garage, was the bandit headquarters. Boda was the leader of the gang. He was a salesman, knew the roads, and had a car. That at the time of the crime the car could not run mattered little. The four Italians had come back to Bridgewater to make a get-away. Coacci was the fifth man. There had been five bandits in the South Braintree crime. Boda disappeared after he found that Sacco, Vanzetti, and Orciani had been arrested. Coacci had taken the payroll with him to Italy in his trunk when the federal Government deported him from New York City three days after the South Braintree robbery. Coacci had worked for a short time at the White shoe factory in Bridgewater, prior to the attempted holdup of the payroll there, and also had worked at the Slater and Morrill shoe factory in South Braintree up to within a few days of the robbery at the place. Sacco worked in a shoe factory in Stoughton. Boda had been seen riding in a Buick car (the bandit car was a Buick) some weeks earlier and "waved his head" to a neighbor.
It was found that Sacco had been at work on the day of the Bridgewater crime, and the prosecution decided not to charge him with participation in that. Vanzetti stood alone as the defendant in the Bridgewater case, although there were four bandits in the holdup. The government's theory was beginning to leak. Sacco was held for the South Braintree crime because it was found that he was not at work on that day. He said he went to Boston to obtain a passport for Italy—and offered to prove it. He had been
