You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday April 3, 1917
Seattle, Washington – Prosecution Calls Ex-Sheriff Don McRae
Everett Defense News Letter of March 30, 1917:
SEATTLE, Wash., March 30th, 1917,-The case of the Prosecution in the trial of Thomas H. Tracy is drawing to a close. It is probable that the Prosecution will rest its case tomorrow, Saturday the 31st.
THE SHERIFF TESTIFIES.
EX-Sheriff Donald McRae, famous leader of the Commercial Club vigilantes, was one of the star witnesses for the Prosecution. His appearance and demeanor, however, were not calculated to impress the jury very favorably. McRae showed that he did not belie his reputation for toughness. His callous admissions of brutality in the affair of the launch “Wanderer” on Sept. 22nd, when Capt. Mitten and several passengers were taken off the boat and severely beaten up and jailed, aroused nothing but a keen sense of loathing in the court.
In the matter of the Beverly Park atrocity, McRae also claimed ignorance. He admitted that he had helped to kidnap 41 workingmen and drive them in autos to Beverly Park but, when questioned about the gauntlet-running that took place there, he maintained that he had driven straight back after unloading his human freight, and therefore had witnessed nothing.
WEIRD CONCEPTION OF
SHERIFF’S DUTIES.The hot cross-examination of Attorney George Vanderveer, for the Defense, disturbed the ex-sheriff a good deal. There were some startling revelations of the manner in which the County officials had taken up the government of the City of Everrett, probably because the Sheriff and his deputies were more willing to carry out the mandates of the lumber barons than were the city officials. The arbitrary jailing of men for no earthly reason other than that they were union men or believed in Free Speech, the beating-up and deportation of others,-all this without any formal charging or commitment-these things were painfully drawn from the enraged but helpless ex-Sheriff by the persistent cross-examination.
TRACY ACCUSED OF FIRING FIRST SHOT.
It was McRae who stated first that he had seen Tracy on the boat. He pointed out the defendant as being one of the men he alleged he had seen on the boat shooting. Two other “identification witnesses” were produced, one of whom stated that Tracy fired the much-disputed first shot! Slowly the net of the Prosecution has been woven about our fellow worker. Now comes the side of the Defense which will endeavor to prove that, even if a shot were fired from the boat, it was fired in self-defense after a carefully prepared and most cold-blooded attack upon the “Verona’s” passengers by the deputies.
A WORKINGCLASS JUDAS.
The much-heralded testimony of Charles Auspos, one of the 74 men charged with murder, who turned State’s evidence, was proffered on Wednesday, the 28th. This man, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World and as black-hearted and reptilian a competitor of Harry Orchard as ever lived, did not do his masters much good by the torrent of slimy lies which flowed from his foul mouth. He stated that there were guns in the possession of some men on the boat and that he had seen one man on the boat firing. Questioned as to what he was getting from the Prosecution, Auspos replied that he had been promised a safe get-away from the country. He is evidently suffering from apprehension and wishes to be as far from the American Labor movement as possible when all is over. He did not mention the exact price of his treachery, but we know that McDowell was offered $5,000 and a ticket to Honolulu for the same dirty service,-although McDowell had the manhood to turn it down.
WITNESSES MUST BE CHEAP.
It does not seem that the Prosecution is in the hands of persons of a particularly generous character. It would seem that Messrs. Vietch and McLaren should have acquired the spending habit during the McNamara days, but maybe this is a period of retrenchment. The Prosecution introduced a witness, one Leo Wagner, a youth described as a maker of skirt-hangers, who started to Everett on the “Calista,” the steamer on which were 38 Free Speech Fighters and which was turned back by the “Verona” half-way. Mr. Wagner admitted to the Defense Attorneys that he had been working at Monroe, Wash., for $7 a week until he made his statement to the Prosecution. He broke down completely on the stand and admitted that he had received money from Assistant Prosecutor Cooley, once five dollars and, another time, three dollars. O Cheapness, they name is Snohomish County! Dishwasher witnesses at eight dollars apiece,-talk about the High Cost of Living! It is compensated for by the Low Cost of Lying.
RESULT OF TRIAL DEPENDS ON WORKERS.
Whether or not YOU give YOUR support to the Defense of the Everett Free Speech Fight prisoners is the thing that will make for success or failure. The Tracy case is the most important because it is the first. Funds are not coming in as they should although they are needed now as never before. If the Defense becomes now crippled for funds it will mean the condemnation of Tracy! It is up to every working man with any sense of loyalty to rally at once to the aid of the Defense! Soon it will be too late! Act now workers, and defend your own!
Funds are urgently needed. Send all donations to Herbert Mahler, Sec’y-Treas., Everett Prisoners’ Defense Committee, Box 1878 Seattle, Wash.
Protests and resolutions should be sent to President Wilson and to Gov. Lister, Olympia, Wash. Mass meetings should be held and publicity given to this case. Demand of your congressmen and senators that there be a Federal investigation into the tragedy of Everett, Nov. 5th. ACT NOW!
[Photograph added.]
SOURCE
Everett Defense News Letter No. 18
(Seattle, Washington)
-Mar 30, 1917, (052)
(Also source for images of header and footer.)
http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/search/collection/pnwlabor
IMAGES
Everett Massacre, Sheriff McRae, Stt P-I, Nov 6, 1916, crpd
http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/pnwlabor/id/102/rec/70
Everett Prisoners 1916-1917, #4857 Traitor Charles Auspos alias Austin
http://www.nw.epls.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/EvrtMassacre/id/27/rec/2
See also:
The Everett Massacre
A History of the Class Struggle in the Lumber Industry
-by Walker C. Smith
IWW, 1918
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001106557
Page 165-“Former Sheriff Donald McRae took the stand on Tuesday, March 27th:”
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002672635;view=2up;seq=170
Page 168-“Charles Auspos, alias Charles Austin, followed McRae as the state’s witness second in importance only to the ex-sheriff:”
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002672635;view=2up;seq=174
Page 172-“The next witness after Auspos was Leo Wagner, another poor purchase on the part of the prosecution.”
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002672635;view=2up;seq=178
THE EVERETT COUNTY JAIL
(Tune: “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching”)
By Wm. Whalen
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Songs_of_the_Workers_(15th_edition)
In the prison cell we sit
Are we broken hearted—nit
We’re as happy and as cheerful as can be,
For we know that every wob
Will be busy on the job,
Till they swing the prison doors and set us free.
CHORUS
Are you busy Fellow Workers
Are your shoulders to the wheel?
Get together for the cause
And some day you’ll make the laws.
It’s the only way to make the masters squeal.
Though the living is not grand,
Mostly mush and coffee and,
It’s as good as we excepted when we came.
It’s the way they treat the slave
In this free land of the brave
There is no one but the working class to blame
When McRea, and Veitch, and Black
To the Lumberyards go back
May they travel empty handed as they came.
May they turn in their report
That the wobs still hold the fort
That a rebel is an awful thing to tame.
When the 65 per cent
That they call the working gent
Organizes in a Union of its class
We will then get what we’re worth
That will be the blooming’ earth.
Organize and help to bring the thing to pass.
———-