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 “I now object to your Honor’s statement as prejudicial to the rights of the defendants and ask that this statement be withdrawn from the jury.”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.” A lengthy dispute ensued, Katzmann defending his cross-examination as “tending to attack the credibility of this man as a witness.” Over Moore’s loudly voiced objections Judge Thayer decided to let the district attorney question Sacco further as to what he meant by loving a free country. Frank Sibley, writing with the afternoon deadline only a few minutes away, pricked up his ears at the “interest of the United States.” He could scarcely believe it when he heard the judge’s caustic voice ask about preventing crimes from being committed “by the authorities.” Before he had a chance to think twice, the telegraph boy had taken away the yellow sheet of paper with the phrase on it. The phrase appeared in the evening _Globe_. When Sibley wrote his more extended story for the next morning’s edition he omitted it. “I couldn’t credit my remembrance, and so did not use the vicious sentence,” he wrote Attorney General J. Weston Allen a few months later. His colleague Shea of the _Post_ had also picked up the remark and used it. The next day Judge Thayer summoned Sibley to his chambers and angrily insisted that he said no such thing. Sibley, having consulted with Shea, refused to back down even when shown that the transcript of the court stenographic notes did not contain the phrase. Just then a bailiff appeared to announce the arrival of the jury, and Thayer huffily broke off the conversation.