His story of the trip to West Bridgewater and the subsequent arrest and questioning did not differ greatly from Vanzetti’s, although Sacco told in more detail of the identification witnesses coming to the Brockton station. In the conclusion of his direct examination he maintained that he had not been in South Braintree on April 15, 1920, and that he had never made an attack on anyone or participated in any crime, then or at any other date. “Did you say you love a free country?” was Katzmann’s first rapier question. And when Sacco answered yes, the district attorney thrust again. “Did you love this country in the month of May 1917?” “I do not say,” Sacco told him, “I don’t want to say I did not love this country.” The other insisted. “Did you love this country in the month of May 1917?” “If you can, Mr. Katzmann, if you give me that—I could explain—” The district attorney had the Italian in the corner. “Do you understand that question? Then you will please answer it.” “I can’t answer it in one word,” Sacco insisted. Katzmann’s voice was crusty with disbelief. “You can’t say whether you loved the United States of America one week before the day to enlist for the first draft?” “I can’t say in one word, Mr. Katzmann,” Sacco replied. “Did you,” the district attorney finally asked him, “go away to Mexico to avoid being a soldier for this country that you loved?” Sacco breathed deeply before he said “Yes.” “And is that your idea of showing your love for this country?” The other hesitated. He knew what he wanted to say but there was no way for him to say it, no means to surmount the barrier of this alien tongue. “Is that your idea of showing your love for America?” the contemptuous voice persisted. “Yes,” Sacco said, and again he found himself saying what he had not meant, what he did not want to say, to the courtly, smiling district attorney. It was question and answer, cat and mouse: “Do you think it is a brave thing to do what you did?” “Yes.” “Do you think it would be a brave thing to go away from your own wife when she needed you?” “No.” “Why didn’t you stay down in Mexico?” “Well, first thing, I could not get my trade there. I had to do any other job.” “Why didn’t you stay down there, down in that free country, and work with a pick and shovel?” “I don’t think I did sacrifice to learn a job to go pick and shovel in Mexico.” “Is it because—is your love for the United States of America commensurate with the amount of money you can get in this country per week?” “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.