Part 30 (1/2)
”Who was the aggressor on July 31st when James Rowan was arrested and brought into the city court? McRae comes in and tells him to get out of town. An intervening series of events and Levi Remick is run out of town. Who was the aggressor? Sheriff McRae! On August 22nd Rowan and Remick were both in the union hall. McRae comes in and orders them out of town. Who was the aggressor? That night Thompson and others came up to Everett--who was the aggressor then? Next morning, with Kelly treating them half way white, along comes McRae and takes away one of the boy's money. Who was the aggressor? We come now to the deputies meeting at the Commercial Club on August 30th. Who was the aggressor?
Had any of their members been beaten up? Had anything happened to their members whatsoever? Not at all! Yet murderous blackjacks were put into the hands of the members.h.i.+p of the club. Was James Rowan the aggressor when he was railroaded out of town and beaten? Who was the aggressor at the time of the 'Wanderer' outrage? Old Capt. Mitten, old John Berg, Edith Frenette? Who was the aggressor with Henig? With Feinberg? With Roberts? You have the testimony of Cannow, you have the testimony of Schofield, you have testimony showing the instructions given to the deputies. No one denies it. Here is a series of acts leading up to October 30th, in which on each and every occasion McRae and his deputies, either regular or citizen deputies, were the aggressors. I said, who were the aggressors? Is there any question in your mind who was the aggressor up to Beverly Park? Any question in G.o.d's world who had done the dirty work up to that time? The State would have you believe that the I. W. W., with its members.h.i.+p coming from the four corners of the country, changed complexion practically over night, changed their whole ideas and their methods. I do not believe it and you do not believe it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Part of 78 prisoners of County Everett Wn. Released May 8, 1917.]
”The excuse the State gives for the actions of the deputies is that in the case of large numbers they could not give due process of law.
Gentlemen, I refuse to believe that the Government is bankrupt in its capacity to protect itself thru legal and lawful measures of law enforcement. I have yet to sit in a court room and hear a plea on social and governmental bankruptcy such as is the plea of counsel for the State.
”The machinery of the government was there but it was not the kind of machinery that McRae wanted to use. It was not the kind Clough wanted to use. It was not the kind of machinery the executive committee, whoever they were, sitting behind the closed doors of the Commercial Club, wanted to use.
”And these members and leaders of the Commercial Club pa.s.sed resolutions stigmatizing their own citizens, member of their own community, property owners in their own town, as well as the I. W. W., when they declared for an open shop. How do they stigmatize them? 'Professional agitators!'
Yes. Lloyd Garrison was a professional agitator. Wendell Phillips was a professional agitator. The men who fought the battle that lay the ground work that made Abraham Lincoln possible, the men who are at work to better American politics, those men have all been professional agitators.
”Now on the boat they were ninety-nine percent I. W. W.'s, just a few pa.s.sengers had bought their pa.s.sage before. On the dock they were all citizen deputies, persons interested therein, and persons satisfactory to the men who had been stationed there to see that n.o.body but the right ones got on the dock. That means that as far as the first shot was concerned the two cla.s.ses of witnesses are in some degree interested parties. The State put on a total of twenty-two witnesses, one of them not a deputy, all of whom testified that the shot came, or they thought it came from the dock, and of that number thirty-seven were I. W. W.'s, and twenty-four were not members at all but were Everett people from all walks of life.
”Now counsel is going to discount the value of the testimony of these citizens. Well, Mr. Cooley, we used the only kind of witnesses that you, in all of your care exercised in advance on November 5th, left for us.
In the exercise of the highest degree of judicial advance knowledge they saw to it that n.o.body got any closer to the end of the dock than the landing. We could not help that. You barred us from the dock; you barred us from access to the facts. We did all we could to get the facts, and if we couldn't get any closer it was not our fault. And the man who barred us from access to the facts is the man who is least qualified to come into court now and urge that our witnesses are disqualified in the face of the evidence that they disqualified them. But those witnesses could testify, and they did testify, to the very definite and specific facts--the first tipping of the boat, the rus.h.i.+ng of the men, the volley firing, all of those matters.
”At the eleventh hour there came into this case a man by the name of Reese, a member, if you will, of the I. W. W. Back in the Chicago stockyards they have a large pen where they keep the cattle which are to be driven to slaughter. In that place they have had for years a steer that has performed the function of going into the big pen where all the cattle are, and, after mingling with them, then walking out thru a gate.
He is trained to do it, he is skilled at it, this steer--and after walking around with the poor peaceful cattle that don't know they are about to be killed, this steer then goes up an incline, the gate is opened and the other cattle follow, and when he gets to the top of the incline there is a door and he turns to the right thru this door to safety and his followers turn to the left to death. That's George Reese!
Proud of him? George Reese, the man who reported day by day with his confederates! To whom? During one period to the Pinkerton agency in regard to the longsh.o.r.emen's union; during another period on behalf of the Pinkerton Agency to the Commercial Club in Everett. George Reese! A man who doesn't even come under the approximately dignified t.i.tle of a detective; a man whom Ahern, of his own agency says, 'Well, he wasn't a detective, we used him as an informer.' Informer! A human being that has lost its human color.
”In connection with the testimony of Reese let me call your attention to the Industrial Relations Commission Report, a report that our friends of the Commercial Club had read and knew all about:
”'Spies in the Union: If the secret agents of employers, working as members of labor unions, do not always instigate acts of violence, they frequently encourage them. If they did not they would not be performing the duties for which they are paid. If they find that labor unions never discuss acts of violence they have nothing to report to those employing them. If they do not report matters which the detective agencies employing them can use to frighten the corporation to cause their employment, they cannot continue long as spies. Either they must make reports that are false, in which case discovery would be inevitable, or they must create a basis on which to make a truthful report. The union spy is not in business to protect the community. He has little respect for the law, civil or moral. Men of character do not engage in such work, and it follows that the men who do are, as a rule, devoid of principle and ready to go to almost any extreme to please those who employ them.'
”That is the descriptive adjective, definition and a.n.a.lysis of the character of union informants made by the National Industrial Commission, appointed by President Wilson, and composed of nine men, all men of national standing, three representatives of labor, three representatives of capital and three representatives of the general public. That is their definition, description and cla.s.sification of that character of testimony.
”Mr. Vanderveer closed yesterday by saying that this struggle, whatever your verdict is, will win. If yours is a verdict of 'not guilty,' Tom Tracy must take up again the job of finding a job, the endless tragedy of marching from job to job, without home, wife or kindred. His offense consists of being a migratory worker. I beg of you to render a verdict that has due regard and consideration for the tragedy of our twentieth century civilization that does not as yet measure out economic justice.
”Your verdict means much. The wires tonight will carry the word all over this land, into Australia, New Zealand and thruout the world. Your verdict means much to the workers, their mothers, their children, who are interested in this great struggle. We are not in this courtroom as the representatives of one person, two persons or three persons; our clients run into five or six hundred thousand. We are here as the mouthpiece of the workers of America, organized and unorganized, and they are all behind our voices.
”Tom Tracy stands here in your control. You are the ones to determine whether or not he shall walk out free, whether or not he shall be branded for all times with the most serious felony known to the law, namely, that of a murderer. Can you find it in the evidence to bring in a verdict of guilty in this case?
[Ill.u.s.tration: Singing to the Prisoners.]
”In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, we want no compromise here. When you retire to your jury room I beg of you not to compromise with any verdict other than not guilty. We don't want manslaughter in this case, we don't want second degree murder in this case; it is either first degree murder or an acquittal, one or the other. Allow none of those arguments that we, as lawyers, know are made in the juryroom to influence your honest verdict in this case. We ask at your hands, and we believe with all the sincerity of our souls, that the evidence warrants it, we ask a verdict of not guilty for the defendant, Thomas H. Tracy!”
If the speech of prosecutor Black was a whine, that of prosecutor Cooley was a yelp and a snarl. Apologies, stale jokes, and sneers at the propertyless workers followed one another in close succession. The gist of his harangue was as follows:
”In this case I am going to try simply in the closing argument to select a few of the monuments that it seems to me stand out in this case and that point a way to a proper verdict.
”Now, in the first place, a whole lot has been said here as to the nature of the controversy that existed for a number of months before November the 5th, 1916, between two cla.s.ses of individuals there at Everett. Upon the one side were the people who were living in the city of Everett, who had made their homes there, who had come there for the purpose of carrying out their future destiny in that city. It was their home. Their interests were there. Their families were there. And upon the other side were a cla.s.s of people who did not claim Everett as their home, who did not come there for the purpose of amalgamating with the citizens.h.i.+p of the city of Everett. They were not coming there because they had work there, nor because they were seeking work there; they were not citizens of Everett, nor were they seeking to become citizens of Everett, and there arose a controversy between the citizens of Everett on the one hand and these people from the four corners of the earth upon the other. The first thing we want to inquire into to find out if we can from the testimony in this case exactly what was the nature of that trouble that existed between them. Why was it that upon the one hand there was a band of people congregated down here in the city of Seattle from all over the land and making one excursion after another, attempting to break into the city of Everett? Why was it that there were citizens of Everett up there seeking to do only one thing, asking only one thing, that these people keep away from Everett?
”Was it a fight to win the right of free speech on the one hand? Was it a fight on the other hand of a group of individuals who were simply seeking to force the open shop? Or was it a fight of a more serious nature on either hand?
”I grant you that the origin of the trouble arose because a man was seeking to speak upon the streets of Everett and he was stopped. But long before November 5th that original incident was lost sight of and forgotten. The controversy had grown to a magnitude that overshadowed the original incident. It was necessary in order that you might understand the situation with which the people of Everett were confronted that you should be apprised of the nature of the organization to which those people belong, that you should be apprised of the nature of the place in the world that they had attained, and that you should be apprised of the nature of their propaganda that they were seeking to inject into the city of Everett and that locality.
”I want to say right here and now that I have the highest regard for organized labor. Labor has the right to organize. There is not any question about it; there is not any dispute about it. Labor has organized and it has made a manful fight, and all down the pages of history you will find that labor, thru its organization and thru its lawful methods pursued under its organization, has gradually bettered its condition.
”It is not a question, and never has been in this case, as to the right of the labor men to organize; the right of the laboring man to use all of the lawful methods for the purpose of bettering his condition. The question in this case is as to whether any organization, whether it be a labor organization or any other, has the right to use unlawful methods; whether it has the right, because it may have the power, to use unlawful methods.