The Everett massacre Part 29

Veitch."

Mr. Veitch: To which I take an exception, if the court please.

The Court: Exception allowed.

Mr. Veitch: On a matter of personal privilege, I have a right to characterize that statement as a deliberate misstatement of the fact.

Mr. Moore: Mr. Veitch has not seen fit to explain why he was here.

Mr. Veitch: I am employed by friends of Mr. Jefferson Beard. If that is not enough--

Mr. Moore: That is outside of the record.

The Court: Both of you are outside of the record. Proceed Mr. Moore.

"Suffice it to say that we are here as the frank and honest representatives of the defendant and of the defendant's organization. We do not have behind us the power of the State, or the power of any interest other than the defendant himself and of his organization.

"Mr. Black complained that the State had been hampered in this cause. Is it fair to say that the state has been hampered when on the fatal November the 5th. Judge Bell and Mr. Cooley were both on the dock? Judge Bell would have us believe that he was unarmed, and so far as we know Mr. Cooley was unarmed. Then why were they on the dock? Judge Bell was there as the representative, as he himself has testified, of a number of lumber mills, and Mr. Cooley was there likewise; both citizen deputies; both there; both unarmed if their testimony is to be believed. Again Mr.

Cooley was, in the matter of a few hours, down here at the Seattle jail.

Certainly he was not there to represent the defendant Tracy. Who was he there to represent? He was either there in a private capacity, representing private clients, or he was there in a public capacity representing a public client, namely, Snohomish County. Wherein do you find the evidence of the State being hampered, sir? From the beginning to the end the State has moved majestically, exercising all the power that it had. Mr. Black has had able a.s.sistance in this cause, the able a.s.sistance of Mr. Cooley, the able a.s.sistance of Mr. Veitch, the able a.s.sistance of the man behind Mr. Cooley and Mr. Veitch, Mr. McLaren.

Yet, all the resources of the State have failed to produce one scintilla of evidence against the defendant Tracy here so far as tending to indicate that he did counsel, aid, incite, abet, or encourage anyone to fire any shot, except the testimony of George Reese produced at the eleventh hour on reb.u.t.tal. I intend to treat of our friend Mr. Reese later.

"It is significant that out of all that ma.s.s of testimony that has been introduced in this case up to this time not one single bit of testimony has been introduced or any argument had upon that testimony dealing with the object and principles and purpose of the Industrial Workers of the World. Mr. Black did not refer to it. Mr. Cooley has the final say. I antic.i.p.ate his argument for the State. They have that old reliance, that old faith, if you will, in the trial of a case of this character, namely conspiracy; hallowed by age.

"Way back in the sixteenth century the tub women on the banks of the river Thames were indicted for conspiracy in attempting to raise wages.

The chandlers in London were likewise later indicted. The stonebreakers in New York, the carpenters in Boston. From time immemorial the charge of conspiracy has been leveled against the ranks of labor. Indeed, it was only in the reign of Queen Victoria that labor unions became other than simple conspiracies. Up to that time labor unions were within a cla.s.sification themselves of criminal conspiracy.

"Knowing that under the charge contained in the information we might be called upon to meet evidence of conspiracy, we then commenced a careful survey of all the facts in connection with the Everett tragedy. And what did we find? We found not a hint of conspiracy!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dead body of Abraham Rabinowitz.]

"James Rowan had come into Everett without knowledge at the time that there was any trouble there. He had not been advised that there was any possibility of trouble. From all the prior history of Everett he had no reason to antic.i.p.ate trouble. Thompson had spoken there and many others had spoken there. Rowan was charged with a violation of the peddling ordinance. He had been given an arbitrary floater out of town and had exercised his right to come back, was seized again and taken to the city jail; the sheriff goes there and arbitrarily demands Rowan from the Chief of Police. These things happened prior to any acts that by any remote possibility could be charged to us. There was no literature in the town at that time other than the Industrial Relations report. What at that time did we have to conspire about? We had no object.

"And as with Rowan so it was with Thompson, Remick and others. If there was a conspiracy to violate a city ordinance why did not the city officials make arrests and charge the men with such violations? The record is silent. Why wait until Tom Tracy is on trial for murder, and then at the eleventh hour spring this delightfully specious argument?

"I can almost hear ringing in my ears the impa.s.sioned plea of Mr. Cooley in closing this case. He is going to read this, 'The question of 'right'

and 'wrong' does not concern us.' He is going to say that is the I. W.

W. philosophy. My G.o.d, did it ever concern the sheriff of Snohomish County? Does it seem very much to concern others who are attempting this prosecution?

"We were told in connection with the argument of counsel that Hickey was not on trial. They might have said that sheriff McRae was not on trial; they might have said that Bill Pabst was not on trial; they might have said that Joe Irving was not on trial; they might have said that the Commercial Club was not on trial; they might have said that all the men that have been guilty of all the brutality in that County during the months of August, September and October were not on trial. We know it!

Why are they not on trail?

"Deprivation of due process of law and confiscation of property! And yet Mr. Cooley is going to urge that the I. W. W. does not believe in government; he is going to urge that the I. W. W. does not respect the law. That kind of law never gets the respect of anyone. I hang my head in shame before such a history of usurpation and seizure of public authority as has been shown in this case.

"Are you going to give the stamp of your approval to this sort of thing?

When you bring in a verdict in this case for the State you give your approval to Donald McRae. I beg of you to not put the seal of your approval upon lawlessness, official lawlessness, the kind of lawlessness that is worse, tenfold worse, than any private lawlessness.

"You are asked to stamp with your endors.e.m.e.nt, to give your approval, to a man; a public official, the chief executive officer of a munic.i.p.ality, Mayor Merrill, who admits on the witness stand that he allowed a little group of members of the Commercial Club to take the power of the police department out of his office and turn it over to the sheriff of the county.

"Had the State put on Governor Clough and others on their side of the case we might have wrung from their reluctant lips the evidence of what occurred at the meeting on August 30th at the Commercial Club. But the State was careful not to put him on. Indeed, the most significant and outstanding thing in all this case is not who they put on, but who they did not put on. Neil Jamison did not testify in this case for the State; Governor Clough did not testify in this case for the State; Joe Irving did not testify in this case; Colonel Hartley did not testify in this case; Captain Ramwell did not testify. Why didn't Kelly, Chief of Police, take the stand? You might go down the line and you will find that the a.s.sets of all the witnesses for the State combined would total but a few thousand dollars, while you could take the remaining witnesses for the State who did not testify and you could build up an enormous fortune, running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We didn't call them because we cannot cross-examine our own witnesses.

"Is the administration of the law to be made a farce? Shall the State be allowed to blow hot and cold; one minute hot on the enforcement of the law, the next minute cold when the shoe pinches, and then hot again when they can use the law for the advancement of the interests of their prosecution? They say McRae and Hickey are not on trial; there is no promise that they shall ever be on trial!

"Let me say to you that no one violates the law, I care not who it is, just for the fun of violating the law. Jails are not pleasant places to abide in. People who violate the law and go to jail do so either because they are deliberately criminal or because they want to focus attention on some public issue. However, Mr. Black is too kind and considerate when he gives all this credit to the I. W. W.

"The facts are, if you go back into the history of the Revolutionary Days, that our forefathers urged and banded together and combined and federated, and if you will, conspired to violate the Stamp Act of the British Government, and were willing to go to jail if necessary. They went even further! They threw the British tea into Boston Harbor.

Violation of the law? Yes, if you want to call it such, but the indignant protest of a people as against the enforcement of an unjust law.

"I might urge upon you that the State at that time wanted to absolutely suppress any speech whatsoever, because they had const.i.tuted the chief of police, the sheriff, the arresting officer, as the executive, the legislative and the judicial department of our government. The sheriff executed the law in person, the sheriff declared the question of guilt himself, the sheriff ordered deportations, and the sheriff took physical charge of the deportations. Isn't it impossible to avoid a fight when someone usurps unlawfully and illegally the legislative and judicial functions of government? Isn't it time to fight? If it isn't then we may as well cease any attempt to administrate the law!

"In the phraseology of these boys 'Fight' means a moral adherence to principle, a firm determination to face the authorities in the administration of the law, and if necessary to be arrested. But the State would have you put into it now a more sinister meaning, entirely new and foreign to its former use.

"The State brought in the death of Sullivan of Spokane in their opening and abandoned it in their close. One of the exploded hopes of the State!

They counted on North Yakima and Wenatchee to show violence and arson, and they failed most miserably. They have failed in their identification of the defendant. Now, their forlorn and bankrupt plea here is the charge of conspiracy.

"The court has told you that this is a murder case. Why then has the State c.u.mbered the record with the I. W. W. preamble and const.i.tution?

Why with two pamphlets on sabotage? Why with an I. W. W. song book and such matters? Why?

"Because out of some of the phraseology here, phraseology far removed from you and me, they may build up a condition of prejudice which may result in your returning a conviction on a smaller degree of evidence than you would otherwise require. Mr. Cooley is going to stand here and read little, short, listed extracts from the context of the whole. The pamphlets he has introduced on the question of patriotism and the worker is the foundation from which Mr. Cooley will appeal to your prejudices and pa.s.sions.

"We are not afraid of the evidence. We are afraid of this deep-grained interest that goes down into men's conscience and that reached back a thousand years.

"Remember that behind this case are many women and children whose cause these boys represent; whose cause these boys are attempting to fight for. They fight because they must! They fight because to do anything else is suicide. You could not have stopped the American Revolution with all the powers of the British government. Since this jury was empaneled you have had the collapse of one of the greatest powers of modern times.

I refer to Russia. It has pa.s.sed from an absolute monarchy to a stage of a republic.

"The trial of this cause is the presentation of a great social issue, the greatest issue of modern times, namely, what are we going to do today with the migratory and occasional workers? These migratories, they are the boys who have told their story on the stand.

"If there is one principle that is ground into Anglo-Saxon thought it is that of liberty of the press and freedom of speech. Those two things stand as the bulwark of our liberty. They are the things for which the Anglo-Saxon has fought from time immemorial. Away back in the eighteenth century Charles Erskine, a member of the British bar, defended Thomas Paine for having written the 'Rights of Man'. Case after case was fought out during that period when English thought was budding into fruition; when English thought was being tremendously influenced by the French Revolution and when those thoughts were bearing fruit in England. Time and time again the British crown attempted to throttle freedom of speech and liberty of the press. Time and time again Charles Erskine's voice was raised in the House of Lords in protest. Time and time again the British courts and finally the British jurors, gave voice to the doctrine that freedom of speech and liberty of the press may not be invaded except insofar as that subject, that doc.u.ment, is accompanied with acts; that you may not convict men for what they think; you may convict men only for what they do. Freedom of discussion thru the press and thru the public forum are the mainstay and the backbone of social development and social evolution. Only in that way, thru freedom of thought and freedom of discussion, may you fan the wheat from the chaff.

"Why, if this I. W. W. literature is all the State claims it is, why doesn't the State act in the way the law says they should act, prefer charges, arrest someone, bring the literature before a duly qualified body, a court with jurisdiction, and try the matter out? The State has not done that; the State will not do that; and we are in the position of a man fighting in the dark, without knowledge of what character of argument the State proposes to make.

"I do know that the name of Joe Hill is going to be paraded in front of this jury. The I. W. W. song book dedicated to Joe Hill, with the inscription 'Murdered by the authorities of the State of Utah, November 19th, 1915.' I cannot go into the conditions that surround that tragedy, but I can call your attention to one or two things that bear upon the question of the type of the man. Before he died, written in his cell on the eve of the execution, was Joe Hill's last will:

My will is easy to decide, For there is nothing to divide.

My kin don't need to fuss and moan-- Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.

My body? Ah, if I could choose, I would to ashes it reduce, And let the merry breezes blow My dust to where some flowers grow.

Perhaps some fading flower then Would come to life and bloom again.

This is my last and final will.

Good luck to all of you, JOE HILL.

"This is the type of man you are asked, because he was honored, because some odd hundred thousand workers who suffer and who wander and who live in the jungles of labor as he did, and because he wrote songs that they understood, songs that because their songs, to judge as the author of the songs and bring in a verdict against Tom Tracy. Mr. Cooley will parade the songs one by one. Remember that behind any words he voices, any thought he expresses, behind it all was a human soul, a human soul pa.s.sed, a human soul that lived as you and I, a human soul that had rights that had been trampled upon, and who attempted to voice those things.

"With all the oratory he can display Mr. Cooley will read the song, 'Christians at War.' A song that Mr. Thompson designated as a satire.

You recollect that when the European war broke out both parties in that conflict called to their aid and said they were acting under divine guidance; that the Kaiser was fighting under the name of G.o.d, and that the British and French governments were allied with the Almighty. It is not for me to attempt a settlement of that dispute. History will say that of all the tragedies of the Twentieth Century, the most tragic thing of our modern life is that we of different nationalities, but bound together by all other ties, should be engaged in a death grapple.

But that is not the issue here. But I cannot at this time antic.i.p.ate wherein and how this literature presented by the State helps you to decide the question of who was the aggressor on November 5th.