Part 19 (1/2)

”I made a mistake there,” remarked Smith.

”I know you did,” responded Vanderveer, ”and I want the jury to know it.”

The witness had picked out a photograph of John Downs and identified it as the defendant.

The prosecution then called S. A. Mann, who had been police judge in Spokane, Wash., from 1908 into 1911, and questioned him in regard to the Spokane Free Speech fight and the death of Chief of Police John Sullivan. Here attorney Fred Moore was on familiar ground, having acted for the I. W. W. during the time of that trouble. Moore developed the fact that there had been several thousand arrests with not a single instance of resistance or violence on the part of the I. W. W., not a weapon found on any of their persons, and no incendiary fires during the entire fight. He further confounded the prosecution by having Judge Mann admit that in the Spokane fight a prisoner arrested on a city charge was always lodged in the city jail and one arrested on a county charge was always placed in the county jail--a condition not at all observed in Everett.

Moore also brought out the facts of the death of Chief Sullivan so far as they are known. The witness admitted that Sullivan was charged with abuse of an adopted daughter of Mr. Elliott, a G. A. R. veteran; that desk officer N. V. Pitts charged Sullivan with having forced him to turn over certain Chinese bond money and the Chief resigned his position while under these charges; that the Spokane Press bitterly attacked Sullivan and was sued as a consequence, the Scripps-McRae paper being represented by the law firm of Robertson, Miller and Rosenhaupt, of which Judge Frank C. Robertson was the head; that the Chronicle and Spokesman-Review joined in the attack upon the Chief; and that when Sullivan was dying from a shot in the back the following conversation occurred between himself and the dying man: ”I said to him 'John, who do you suppose did this?' He says, 'Judge F. C. Robertson and the Press are responsible for this.' I said, 'John, you don't mean that, you can't mean it?' He says, 'That is the way I feel.'”

Judge Ronald prevented the attorneys from going very deeply into the Spokane affair, saying:

”I am not going to wash Spokane linen here; we have some of our own to was.h.!.+”

C. R. Schweitzer, owner of a scab plumbing shop, aged 47, yet grey-haired, brazenly admitted having emptied a shotgun into the unarmed boys on the Verona. It was the missiles from the brand-new shotgun--probably furnished by Dave Oswald--that riddled the pilot house and wounded many of the men who fell to the deck when the Verona tilted. Schweitzer fired from a safe position behind the Klatawa slip.

Why the prosecution used him as a witness is a mystery.

W. A. Taro, Everett Fire Chief, testified regarding the few incendiary fires that had occurred in Everett during the year 1916, but failed to connect them with the I. W. W. in any way. D. Daniels, Everett police officer, testified to a phosphorous fire which did no damage and was in no way connected with the I. W. W.

Mrs. Jennie B. Ames, the only woman witness called by the prosecution, testified that Mrs. Frennette was on the inclined walk at the Great Northern Depot, at a point overlooking the dock, and was armed with a revolver at the time the Verona trouble was on. Police officer J. E.

Moline also swore to the same thing, but was badly tangled when confronted with his own evidence given at the preliminary hearing of Mrs. Frennette on December 6th, 1916.

Never was there a cad but who wished himself proclaimed as a gentleman; never a bedraggled and maudlin harlot but who wanted the world to know that she was a perfect lady. The last witness to be called by the prosecution was John Hogan--”Honest” John Hogan if prosecutor Lloyd Black was to be credited.

”Honest” John Hogan was a young red-headed regular deputy sheriff, who was a partic.i.p.ant in the outrage on the City Dock on November 5th.

”Honest” John Hogan claimed to have seen the defendant, Thomas Tracy, firing a revolver from one of the forward cabin windows. ”Honest” John Hogan had the same difficulty as the other ”identifying” witnesses when he also was asked to state whether it was possible to see a man firing from a cabin window when the stern of the boat was out and the witness in his specified position on the dock. ”Honest” John Hogan was sure it was Tracy that he saw because the man had a week's growth of whiskers on his face.

And this ended the case for the prosecution.

As had been predicted there were hundreds of witnesses who were endorsed and not called, and almost without an exception those who testified were parties who had a very direct interest in seeing that a conviction was secured. But thru the clever work of the lawyers for the defense what was meant to have been a prosecution of the I. W. W. was turned into an extremely poor defense of the deputies and their program of ”law and order.” From the state's witnesses the defense had developed nearly the whole outline and many of the details of its side of the case.

When the state rested its case, Tracy leaned over to the defense lawyers and, with a smile on his face, said:

”I'd be willing to let the case go to the jury right now.”

CHAPTER VII.

THE DEFENSE

The case for the defense opened on Monday morning of April 2nd when Vanderveer, directly facing the judge and witness chair from the position vacated by the prosecution counsel, moved for a directed verdict of not guilty on the ground that there had been an absolute failure of evidence upon the question of conspiracy, any conspiracy of which murder was either directly or indirectly an incident, and there was no evidence whatever to charge the defendant directly as a princ.i.p.al in causing the death of Jefferson Beard. The motion was denied and an exception taken to the ruling of the court.

Fred Moore made the opening statement for the defense. In his speech he briefly outlined the situation that had existed in Everett up to and including November 5th and explained to the jury the forces lined up against each other in Everett's industrial warfare. Not for an instant did the attention of the jury flag during the recital.

Herbert Mahler, secretary of the I. W. W. in Seattle during the series of outrages in Everett, was the first witness placed upon the stand.

Mahler told of the lumber workers' convention and the sending of organizer James Rowan to make a survey of the industrial situation in the lumber centers, Everett being the first point because of its proximity to Seattle and not by reason of any strikes that may have existed there. The methods of conducting the free speech fight, the avoidance of secrecy, the ardent desire for publicity of the methods of the lumber trust as well as the tactics of the I. W. W., were clearly explained.

Cooley cross-examined Mahler regarding the song book with reference to the advocacy and use of sabotage, asking the witness: