Vanzetti admitted he had been in West Bridgewater once, six years before his arrest, but said he had never been there again until May 5. He had never been to East Braintree, had never asked directions of a stranger on the South Shore train, and he had not been in South Braintree on April 15, 1920. When Jerry McAnamey asked him why he had lied to Chief Stewart in the Brockton police station he answered: “Because I was scared to give the names and addresses of my friends as I know that almost all of them have some books and some newspapers in their house by which authority take a reason for arresting them and deport them.” The direct examination continued until midafternoon. Then the district attorney took over with a cross-examination that was to last through the following morning. For this climax Katzmann pushed Williams aside and took full command. His first question was barbed. “So you left Plymouth, Mr. Vanzetti, in May 1917, to dodge the draft, did you?” All that Vanzetti could answer was “Yes, sir.” Katzmann made him admit that he had run away so that he would not have to be a soldier. “If I refused to go to war,” the nettled Vanzetti told his interrogator, “I don’t refuse because I don’t like this country or I don’t like the people of this country. I will refuse even if I was in Italy and you tell me it is a long time I am in this country, and I tell you that in this country as long time I am, that I found plenty good people and some bad people, but that I was always working hard as a man can work, and I have always lived very humble and—” Katzmann, who had allowed him to go on that far, now demanded that the answer be stricken out. Vanzetti’s story shaped itself awkwardly through the counterpoint of questions and answers. Katzmann hinted that when he was working on the railroad at Springfield he had driven a truck. Vanzetti agreed that there were trucks used, but denied he had ever driven one—he did not know how to drive, still did not know. The district attorney then asked him what he had really intended to do the night he and Sacco had gone to West Bridgewater. To John Dever the answer did not seem very cohesive: “We want to take the automobile, and then my intention is to take the automobile with Boda, because I do not know how to drive the automobile, to go to Bridgewater and if we will be able to find the party, because I do not remember the address of the party. I do not know exactly where he lived. We will tell to Pappi about telling the Italian people of Bridgewater to come in Brockton next Sunday at the speech, and after I found Pappi, and speak to Pappi, go toward Plymouth and speak with my friends if I can find some friends who want to take the responsibility of receiving such books in their house, in his house.”