(2 of 3)
They telephoned Chief Justice William Howard Taft of the U. S. Supreme Court. Mr. Taft was in Canada. The wire connection was faint. He asked them to telegraph. They telegraphed and Chief Justice Taft telegraphed back explaining that he could not act, being out of the U. S., could not reach the U. S. in time. He referred them to three Associate Justices of the U. S. Supreme Court then in the northeastern part of the U. S.
They went to Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, at Beverly Farms, Mass. He said he felt unauthorized to meddle with a state case.
They went to Associate Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis at Chatham, Mass. He said he must decline to act because of his pei-onal relations with people (his wife included) actively interested in the case.
They went to Associate Justice Harlan Fiske Stone at Isle au Haut, off the Maine coast. He e'choed the reply of his colleague, Justice Holmes, "as to the merits of the application and the action of counsel in presenting it."
They waited on U. S. Attorney General Sargent at Ludlow, Vt. Mr. Sargent listened attentively for three hours to their account of the relation of the U. S. Department of Justice to the case. He said it was the first time he had ever understood this relation, but later announced that he would not act, that Department of Justice affairs were for the' time being in the hands of his subordinates in Washington, D. C.
They went to Acting Attorney General George E. Farnum in Washington, D. C. He said that Department of Justice confidential records would be furnished for inspection to no one save at the request of Governor Fuller or the latter's advisory committee headed by President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University. Neither Governor Fuller nor President Lowell would make the request.
They asked the Massachusetts Superior Court again; were refused. They asked the Federal District Court again; were refused.
They returned to Justice Holmes for a writ of Habeas Corpus. He wrote no writ.
They asked Governor Fuller again, in six petitions. He did not reply. On the execution Monday he showed himself not to have been unnerved by his trying position and said to newsgatherers in front of his office. "Good morning, gentlemen. It is a beautiful morning, isn't it?" Governor Fuller received insistent callers up to two hours before the execution. He could not change his mind.
They wired President Coolidge. Silence answered.
Appeals. Among the joint signatories of an eleventh-hour telegram to President Coolidge were David Starr Jordan, Oswald G. Villard, Glenn Frank Alexander Meiklejohn, Benjamin B. Lindsey, Arthur Garfield Hays, Ida M. Tarbell, Rockwell Kent, Carl Van Doren, John F. Hylan, Floyd Dell, Otto Soglow.
Colonel Alfred Dreyfus, innocent victim-survivor of the most notable similar case in recent history, lying sick at Houlgate, France, said: "When doubt exists, it is fighting providence to commit the irreparable."
The New York World kept up a steady hammering on the point that doubt did exist in so many minds that no public interest could possibly suffer if sentence were commuted.
Editor Waldo Cook of the much-venerated Springfield, (Mass.) Republican, was among those who called on Governor Fuller in person to be'g clemency.