The Everett Massacre: A history of the class struggle in the lumber industrySmith, Walker C.
History
The Everett Massacre: A history of the class struggle in the lumber industry
Smith, Walker C.
Industrial Workers of the World; Lumbering -- Washington (State); Lumbermen -- Washington (State)
"The state has told you why this case is one of grave responsibility for
them. Allow me to tell you why this is one of grave responsibility for
you. One hundred and ninety-six witnesses have appeared for the
defendant in this case. Yesterday, counsel brought home the fact that
many of these witnesses were not residents of this community, were
without homes, without any permanent places of abode. All true. The
responsibility that you have in this case is commensurate with the fact
that the case reveals to you, as it were, a cross-section of our lives.
You who are property-qualified have a responsibility to pass upon the
liberties and the lives of a body of men who are propertyless. If there
is any change in men's thoughts and views as they acquire a home, as
they settle down, as they marry, as they bring into the world children,
then I ask you in all fairness to attempt to put yourselves in the
places of this defendant and of this defendant's witnesses who have
taken the stand, and to realize that your responsibility here is
commensurate with the fact that the testimony reveals, as it were, a
most deplorable condition of modern life. In other words, your
responsibility here is that of measuring out absolute and complete
justice between warring elements in our modern life, not for one moment
allowing your judgment to be swerved by the fact that one class of
witnesses here are witnesses of social position, are witnesses of
property qualifications, are witnesses with homes, while, on the other
hand, the witnesses called by the defense were witnesses from the four
parts of the earth, witnesses whose only claim to your consideration is
that they have built the railroads, that they have laid the ties, that
they have dug the tunnels, that they have harvested the crops, that they
have worked from one end of the country to the other, in season and out,
floating from job to job.
"In most jurisdictions, the defendant has the opportunity of either a
grand jury investigation or of a preliminary; in other words, he is in
some degree advised of what evidence he is going to be called upon to
meet. In this case, we came in here on the 5th day of March with no
information whatsoever relative to the State's case other than that
given us from the four corners of the instrument on file here, known as
the information, together with the fact that on that information there
were the names of some three hundred or more witnesses. That was all we
had. We were further handicapped in view of the fact that we did not
have behind us all the resources of the State of Washington and the
county of Snohomish, neither did we have behind us all of the resources
of various business interests, neither did we have behind us all the
resources of allied business on this west coast, as represented by Mr.
Veitch."
Mr. Veitch: To which I take an exception, if the court please.
The Court: Exception allowed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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