should he be believed and suffer death when he confesses one crime and not be believed when he confesses another of the same character? Is not his own statement in accordance with the motives even of a murderer?

I seen Sacco's wife come up here with the kids and I felt sorry for the kids.

Let us compare the two hypotheses. The Morelli theory accounts for all members of the Braintree murder gang; the SaccoVanzetti theory for only two, for it is conceded that, if Madeiros was there, Sacco and Vanzetti were not. The Morelli theory accounts for all the bullets found in the dead men; the Sacco-Vanzetti theory for only one out of six. The Morelli explanation settles the motive, for the Morelli gang were criminals desperately in need of money for legal expenses pending their trial for felonies, whereas the Sacco-Vanzetti theory is unsupported by any motive. Moreover, Madeiros's possession of $2800 accounts for his share of the booty, whereas not a penny has ever been traced to anybody or accounted for on the Sacco-Vanzetti theory. The Morelli story is not subject to the absurd premise that professional holdup men who stole automobiles at will and who had recently made a haul of nearly $16,000 would devote an evening, as did Sacco and Vanzetti the night of their arrest, to riding around on suburban street cars to borrow a friend's six-year-old Overland. The character of the Morelli gang fits the opinion of police investigators and the inherent facts of the situation, which tended to prove that the crime was the work of professionals, whereas the past character and record of Sacco and Vanzetti have always made it inherently incredible that they should spontaneously become perpetrators of a bold murder, executed with the utmost expertness. A good mechanic, regularly employed at his trade, but away from work on a particular day which is clearly accounted for, and a dreamy fish peddler, openly engaged in political propaganda, neither do nor can suddenly commit an isolated job of highly professional banditry.

Can the situation be put more conservatively than this? Every reasonable proba

bility points away from Sacco and Vanzetti; every reasonable probability points toward the Morelli gang.

How did these facts appear to Judge Thayer?

VIII

At the outset the scope of Judge Thayer's duty toward the motion for a new trial based upon this new evidence must be kept in mind. It was not for him to determine the guilt of the Morellis or the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti; it was not for him to weigh the new evidence as though he were a jury, determining what is true and what is false. Judge Thayer's duty was the very narrow one of ascertaining whether here was new material fit for a new jury's judgment. May honest minds, capable of dealing with evidence, reach a different conclusion, because of the new evidence, from that of the first jury? Do the new facts raise debatable issues? Could another jury, conscious of its oath and conscientiously obedient to it, be sufficiently impressed with the new evidence to reach a verdict contrary to the one that was reached on a record wholly different from the present, in view of evidence recently discovered and not adduceable by the defense at the time of the original trial? To all these questions Judge Thayer says, 'No.' This amazing conclusion he reached after studying the motion 'for several weeks without interruption' and set forth in an opinion of 25,000 words! We wish for nothing more than that every reader who has proceeded thus far should study the full text of this latest Thayer opinion. Space precludes its detailed treatment here. To quote it, to analyze it, adequately to comment upon it would require a book. Having now put the materials for detailed judgment at the disposal of readers, we are compelled to confine ourselves to a few brief observations. By what is left out and by what is put in, the uninformed reader of Judge Thayer's opinion would be wholly misled as to the real facts of the case. Speaking from a considerable experience as a prosecuting officer, whose special task for a time it was to sustain on appeal convictions for the Government, and whose scientific duties since have led to the examination of a great number of records and the opinions based

thereon, I assert with deep regret, but without the slightest fear of disproof, that certainly in modern times Judge Thayer's opinion stands unmatched for discrepancies between what the record discloses and what the opinion conveys. His 25,000-word document cannot accurately be described otherwise than as a farrago of misquotations, misrepresentations, suppressions, and mutilations. The disinterested inquirer could not possibly derive from it a true knowledge of the new evidence that was submitted to him as the basis for a new trial. The opinion is literally honeycombed with demonstrable errors, and a spirit alien to judicial utterance permeates the whole. A study of the opinion in the light of the record led the conservative Boston Herald, which long held the view that the sentence against these men should be carried out, to a frank reversal of its position.

Dr. Morton Prince writes that any expert psychologist reading the Thayer opinion 'could not fail to find evidences that portray strong personal feeling, poorly concealed, that should have no place in a judicial document.' One or two illustrations must suffice. William G. Thompson is one of the leaders of the Boston bar. Yet Judge Thayer thus characterized Mr. Thompson's activities in behalf of these two Italians:

Since the trial before the jury of these cases a new type of disease would seem to have developed. It might be called 'lego-psychic neurosis' or hysteria, which means: 'A belief in the existence of something which in fact and truth has no such existence.'

And this from a judge who gives meretricious authority to his self-justification by speaking of the verdict which convicted these men as 'approved by the Supreme Judicial Court of this Commonwealth.' The Supreme Court never approved the verdict; nor did it pretend to do so. The Supreme Court passed on technical claims of error, and, 'finding no error, the verdicts are to stand.' Judge Thayer knows this, but laymen may not. Yet Judge Thayer refers to the verdict as 'approved by the Supreme Judicial Court.'

No wonder that Judge Thayer's opinion has confirmed old doubts as to the guilt of these two Italians and aroused new anxieties concerning the resources of our law to avoid grave miscarriage of justice. The courageous stand taken by the Boston Herald has enlisted the support of some of the most distinguished citizens of Massachusetts. The Independent has thus epitomized this demand:

Because of the increasing doubt that surrounds the question of the guilt of these men, springing from the intrinsic character of Judge Thayer's decision, and instanced by the judgment of the Herald editorial writer and other observers whose impartiality is unquestioned, we strongly hope that a new trial will be granted. It is important to note that the appeal is being made on the basis of new evidence never passed on before the Supreme Court.

No narrow, merely technical, question is thus presented. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts will be called upon to search the whole record in order to determine whether Judge Thayer duly observed the traditional standards of fairness and reason which govern the conduct of an AngloAmerican judge, particularly in a capital case. This court has given us the requirements by which Judge Thayer's decision is to be measured and the tests which it will use in determining whether a new trial shall be granted:

The various statements of the extent of the power and of limitations upon the right to grant new trials. . . must yield to the fundamental test, in aid of which most rules have been formulated, that such motions ought not to be granted unless on a survey of the whole case it appears to the judicial conscience and judgment that otherwise a miscarriage of justice will result.

Nor must a new trial be withheld where in justice it is called for because thereby encouragement will be given to improper demands for a new trial. For, as the Chief Justice of Massachusetts has announced, courts cannot close 'their eyes to injustice on account of facility of abuse.'

With these legal canons as a guide, the outcome ought not to be in doubt.

September 9, 1923

Now I must tell you of a plan which we have made, the Eldest and I, and which my husband approves of. All we have left, from the sale of the boat and so on, cannot last us long with the size of our family and the growing cost of life, but at present it may still just cover the purchase of one hectare of land and a cottage such as the peasants here live in two or three rooms and a kitchen which is also dining and sitting room, an outhouse or two, a well, a strip of land, and a clump of old trees if possible. By working one hectare very intensively, a peasant here lives quite decently and rears his family. The one condition is to have no hired labor except for the ploughing once a

year.

I think I have told you that for twelve years we lived both summer and winter in our country home. The older boys were country-bred, and this kind of thing is familiar to us all. The call of the soil is instinctive and very strong. The Eldest is best fitted for work when living in sea air, and is free from headaches and all the other consequences of his wound received in the war. He says he prefers being a laborer at home to being a well-paid chauffeur in livery or without it, either in another man's service. He and I can manage one

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hectare, and in the holidays we should have the assistance of the other boys of assorted sizes. As for myself, I quite realize how hard such work will be, but I am not sure that teaching in Lille as I was, tramping day by day in all weathers from house to house for the lessons, living in cheap town lodgings, was not more tiring. I can go to town, now and then, to church and to see the youngsters at school, and make myself small holidays. Having a healthy country home of our own, however small, near the sea, for them to spend their summers in, is a most serious advantage. Altogether, the plan seems wise as well as attractive, and we are waiting for my husband to see what can be done and take the final decision. Whether he works in Paris and runs down to see us, or settles down with us and turns into a peasant too, will depend on circumstances.

I quite understand that for me, personally, this is something of a break, almost a betrayal. It is a change from the state of a refugee, which is being only a rolling stone, to that of a settler or emigrant. But for the young ones I believe it is the best and most stabilizing thing to do. When the day of deliverance comes these roots will not hold them, but in the meantime it is best to have roots somewhere.

November 26 We have actually bought our hectare of land near the bay, where we mean to breed ducks: a strip of grazing land beyond the dike, a mile or more distant from the village. It is fenced in, but devoid of buildings of any description, and as we cannot afford to build a house, we have bought two small baraquements de guerre - the army barracks that are being sold so cheaply all over France. These must have been built at the outset of the war, and are not in good repair, but they were the last which remained for sale at Etaples. They are to be brought over here in sections on a motor truck and set up on foundations which we are to prepare. It is too late in the season for stone and cement foundations to go in, so they will stand on wooden supports for the present. By next winter they will probably be quite comfortable, when we have coated them with cement and filled in the interstices between the supports with stone; in the meanwhile, we are quite ready for temporary discomfort cramped up here, for the time will be full of interest and excitement!

Hired labor is the one thing to be avoided here as much as possible, it is so expensive; but fortunately we have plenty of this commodity in the family. The Eldest and my nephew, with the help of the younger boys next summer, must get through the work unaided and make most of the furniture. With time and patience we shall be comfortable, I trust. We are busy and happy, and mean to move into our shanty as soon as it is possible, for now the boys lose so much time going back and forth.

No- never lend us any books! The boys are too intimately in contact with Mother Earth just now to keep them clean. And don't buy books for us; but any old English book destined to be thrown away would be a pleasure to four greedy boys.

Winter

I must confess that I am doing my housework with extraordinary inefficiency, though with unabated good will. I never have learned to cook decently, and the boys succeed far better than I do at it, but they care less about keeping things tidy than I do. Coal dust, kerosene oil, grease, and muddy boots are my perpetual unconquered enemies. I am afraid I do a lot of grumbling and scolding, but a sense of humor always comes to our rescue. Still, I wonder sometimes, as I scrub, about the speckless beeswaxed floors of our dream farm; clogs will certainly have to be worn about the place and left at the door, like the row of slippers in front of a mosque do you remember that familiar sight?

The boys drove one hundred and twenty tarred stakes into the ground old railway sleepers sawed in two- by way of a temporary foundation. Then the weather broke, and sheets of rain came down unceasingly and flooded the road leading to our meadow. The motor truck could get no nearer than two miles or more from the foundation, and all the material was left in a field at the spot where the highway ended. A cart and two strong horses were hired to move the stuff to its destination. It took a week to get through that job, as the horses could do no more than two or three trips a day, and during that week the rain never stopped. The boys would load the cart with great heavy sections of wall, flooring, or ceilings, which loomed gigantic through the rain and fog, and then the cart would start ploughing its way through the mud, sinking axle-deep into loose sticky clay, horses straining, men and boys shoving and supporting the top-heavy contrivance, and making very slow progress. Dim, who is not old and strong enough to be of much use, accompanied the rest, and sank nearly to his waist in the

holes! Then the cart had to be unloaded and the horses rested. When I went out to watch proceedings, the driver told me it was a job for eight strong men. It strained our men's strength and endurance to the breaking point. They came home after dark dogtired, drenched to the bone, and hardly able to eat their suppers. I felt rather anxious during that week, but in due time it was over, and I was taken out to see Our House standing upright on its black stakes, like a giant centipede.

It was not raining that afternoon, but the meadow looked bare and desolate; a gale was blowing from the sea, bending the scraggy trees and bushes, disporting itself through the barrack, and tearing off strips of tarred paper and playing with them. It had been a black barrack at best; now the paper or cardboard which had covered its outer walls came off in patches, giving the impression of some sort of skin disease. There were gaps and chinks and crevices in every wall, the roof leaked, and the rain had run through cracked ceilings and floors. The wind got under the floor and tried to raise it bodily. One corner seemed inclined to gape open. The north wall threatened to cave in, and it was a hard job to prop it up and make it solid. It looked, on the whole, like the dilapidated booth of a wandering circus. The two carpenters from Étaples had not even tried to join the sections of wall properly, and remarked that these buildings never stood being moved. I dare say they had done their best, but we were glad to be rid of them.

February 1924

It seems evident that a poultry farm is the best thing we can think of. The Eldest has visited the best-known élevage industrialisé, got in touch with specialists, and is reading furiously and learning all he can on the subject, and drawing up careful estimates of what

can be done. Books and pencil and paper seem to prove conclusively that a well-regulated poultry farm is very profitable, and that this part of France is propitious for breeding ducks. The two conditions to success are artificial hatching and the complete absence of hired labor. My nephew will throw in his lot with ours, which will make two men and two boys to do the work, with me to keep house. It seems feasible.

When the first three hundred ducklings are hatched out we shall have no warm enough shelter for them, I fear, and yet we cannot put off their appearance and their sale! We were all thankful when the sun came out at last, and some clear, frosty weather is promised.

March

The boys have papered one large room with old newspapers to keep out the wind, and have set up an iron stove in it, four large incubators, and their own beds! Also some packing cases by way of tables. There is a watering trough at the farther end of the meadow, holding some muddy water and a number of frogs-still, it is water. The Eldest and my nephew, with one hundred hens and sixty ducks, are hoping to settle down there next week. I cannot risk it with the youngsters yet; our future dwelling still has so many cracks in floors, ceilings, and walls that it is like a sieve and needs a lot of time and work still to be really habitable. It settled on its stakes and all its joints gape open a bit. I shall wait till April before I move in, as for a time it will mean camping out amid many ducklings and few comforts. The Eldest asked me if I would mind having half the ducklings put into my room for a week or two if things grew critical. I gasped and firmly refused, so the question remains open. I never bargained for this: one hundred and fifty ducklings and myself in one room! The