Black tried to interrupt the witness and also endeavored to have his answer stricken from the testimony but the judge answered his objection by saying:
"I told you to withdraw the question and you didn"t do it."
Vanderveer asked Billings the question:
"Why did you carry a gun on the fifth of November?"
"I took it for my own personal benefit," replied Billings. "I didn"t intend to let anybody beat me up like I was beaten on October 30th in the condition I was in. I was in bad condition at the time."
Harvey E. Wood, an employe of the Jamison Mill Company, took the stand and told of a visit made by Jefferson Beard to the bunkhouse of the mill company on the night of November 4th and stated that at the time there were six automatic shot guns and three pump guns in the place. These were for the use of James B. Reed, Neal Jamison, Joe Hosh, Roy Hosh, Walter S. Downs, and a man named McCortell. This witness had acted as a strikebreaker up until the time he was subpoenaed.
Two of the defendants, Benjamin F. Legg and Jack Leonard, fully verified the story told by Billings.
Leland Butcher, an I. W. W. member who was on the Verona, told of how he had been shot in the leg. When asked why he had joined the I. W. W. he answered:
"I joined the I. W. W. to better my own condition and to make the conditions my father was laboring under for the last 25 years, with barely enough to keep himself and family, a thing of the past."
Another of the defendants, Ed Roth, who had been seriously wounded on the Verona, gave an unshaken story of the outrage. Roth testified that he had been shot in the abdomen at the very beginning of the trouble and because of his wounded condition and the fact that there were wounded men piled on top of him he had been unable to move until some time after the Verona had left the dock. This testimony showed the absurdity of McRae"s pretended identification of the witness. Roth was a member of the International Longsh.o.r.emen"s a.s.sociation and had joined the I. W. W.
on the day before the tragedy.
John Stroka, a lad of 18, victim of the deputies at Beverly Park and a pa.s.senger on the Verona, gave testimony regarding the men wounded on the boat.
The next witness was Ernest P. Marsh, president of the State Federation of Labor, who was called for the purpose of impeaching the testimony of Mayor Merrill and also to prove that Mrs. Frennette was a visitor at the Everett Labor Temple on the morning of November 5th, this last being added confirmation of the fact that Clyde Gibbons had committed perjury on the stand.
To the ordinary mind--and certainly the minds of the prosecution lawyers were not above the ordinary--the social idealist is an inexplicable mystery. Small wonder then that they could not understand the causes that impelled the next witness, Abraham Bonnet Wimborne, one of the defendants, to answer the call for fighters to defend free speech.
Wimborne, the son of a Jewish Rabbi, told from the witness stand how he had first joined the Socialist Party, afterward coming in contact with the I. W. W., and upon hearing of the cruel beating given to James Rowan, had decided to leave Portland for Everett to fight for free speech. Arriving in Seattle on November 4th, he took pa.s.sage on the steamer Verona the next day.
Prosecutor Black asked the witness what were the preparations made by the men on the boat.
"Don"t misunderstand my words, Mr. Black," responded Wimborne, "when I say prepared, I mean they were armed with the spirit of determination.
Determined to uphold the right of free speech with their feeble strength; that is, I never really believed it would be possible for the outrages and brutalities to come under the stars and stripes, and I didn"t think it was necessary for anything else."
"Then when these men left they were determined?" inquired Black.
"Yes, determined that they would uphold the spirit of the Const.i.tution; if not, go to jail. There were men in Everett who would refuse the right of workingmen to come and tell the workers that they had a way whereby the little children could get sufficient clothing, sufficient food, and the right of education, and other things which they can only gain--how?
By organizing into industrial unions, sir, that is what I meant. We do not believe in bloodshed. Thuggery is not our method. What can a handful of workers do against the mighty forces of Maxim guns and the artillery of the capitalist cla.s.s?"
"Did you consider yourself a fighting member?" questioned Black.
"If you mean am I a moral fighter? yes; but physically--why, look at me!
Do I look like a fighter?" said the slightly built witness.
"Did you or did you not expect to go to jail when you left Portland?"
asked the prosecutor.
"My dear Mr. Black, I didn"t know and I didn"t care!" responded Wimborne with a shrug of his shoulders.
Wimborne joined the I. W. W. while in the Everett County Jail.
Michael J. Reilley, another of the defendants, testified as to the firing of the first shot from the dock and also gave the story of the death of Abraham Rabinowitz. Vanderveer asked him the question:
"Do you know why you are a defendant?"
"Yes, sir," replied Reilley, "because I didn"t talk to them in the city jail in Seattle. I was never picked out."
Attorney H. D. Cooley was recalled to the stand and was made to admit that he was a member of the Commercial Club and a citizen deputy on the dock November 5th. He was asked by Vanderveer:
"Did you see any guns on the dock?"
"Yes sir."
"Did you see any guns fired on the dock?"
"Yes sir."
"Did you see any guns fired on the boat?"
"No sir."
"Did you see a gun on the boat?"
"I did not."
"You were in full view of the boat?"
"I was."
Yet the ethics of the legal profession are such that this attorney could justify his actions in laboring for months in an endeavor to secure, by any and all means, the conviction of the men on the boat!
Defendant Charles Black testified that McRae dropped his hand to his gun and pulled it just as one of the deputies fired from a point just behind the sheriff. Black ran down the deck and into the cabin, pa.s.sing in front of the windows from which the deputies had sworn that heavy firing was going on.
Leonard Broman, working partner with Abraham Rabinowitz, then took the stand and told his story. When asked what were the benefits he received from having joined the I. W. W., the witness replied:
"They raised the wages and shortened the hours. Before I joined the I.
W. W. the wages I received in Ellis, Kansas, was $3.00 for twelve hours and last fall the I. W. W. got $3.50 for nine hours on the same work."
Ex-deputy Charles Lawry told of various brutalities at the jail and also impeached McRae"s testimony in many other particulars.
Dr. Grant Calhoun, who had attended the more seriously injured men who were taken from the Verona on its return to Seattle, told of the number and nature of the wounds that had been inflicted. On eight of the men examined he had found twenty-one serious wounds, counting the entrance and exit of the same bullet as only one wound. Veitch conducted no cross-examination of the witness.
Joe Manning, J. H. Beyers, and Harvey Hubler, all three of them defendants, gave their testimony. Manning told of having been seated in the cabin with Tracy when the firing commenced, after which he sought cover behind the smokestack and was joined by Tracy a moment later.
Beyers identified Deputy Bridge as having stood just behind McRae with his revolver drawn as tho firing when the first shot was heard. This witness also corroborated the story of Billings in regard to demanding that the engineer take the boat away from the dock. Hubler verified the statements about conditions on the Verona and also told of being taken from his jail cell by force on an order signed by detective McLaren in an attempt to have him discharge the defense attorneys and accept an alleged lawyer from Los Angeles.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS H. TRACY]
Harry Parker and C. C. England told of injuries sustained on the Verona, and John Riely stated there was absolutely no shooting from the cabin windows, that being impossible because the men on the boat had crowded the entire rail at that side.
Jerry L. Finch, former deputy prosecuting attorney of King County, gave impeaching testimony against Wm. Kenneth and Charles Tucker. Cooley asked this witness about his interviews with the different state"s witnesses: