Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday July 8, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Trial of I. W. W. Leaders Continues
Fellow Workers Embree and Rogers for the defense:
Court was adjourned for the Fourth of July, and those defendants still confined in Cook County Jail were kept locked in their cells for that entire sweltering summer day. On the 5th of July, Defendant A. S. Embree resumed the testimony begun July 3rd regarding the Arizona deportations. Harrison George, also one of the defendants, picks up the story:
The law of Arizona was but the plaything of the Copper Trust, he said, in giving a long and explicit account of how he and 1,185 other men were deported from Bisbee by gunmen under direction of Sheriff Harry Wheeler and company officials. Embree was examined by Attorney W. B. Cleary, himself a deportee, and his story of that memorable 12th of July, 1917, when all law was set aside in the interest of industrial autocracy, was backed by many photographs of the deportees and their deporters. On the morning of that day five men with rifles came out of the office of Postmaster Bailey, and more guns came from the Y. M. C. A., Embree stated.
—–Of those deported, 40 percent. were members of the I.W.W., 25 percent. were members of the A. F. of L. and 35 per cent. were unorganized workers or business and professional men. Fred Brown, state organizer of the A. F. of L., was deported. Several grocery men were deported; also the proprietors of two restaurants with all their employees. Registered men, 400 of them, were sent away and forbidden to return, even for draft examination; many holders of Liberty Bonds, one a cash purchaser of $15,000 of these bonds-everyone who would not bow to gunman rule and Copper Trust law-400 married men with families dragged from homes and sent into the desert-
Vanderveer [Defense Attorney] read to the jury a letter sent by Embree to President Wilson from the deportee’s camp at Columbus, New Mexico. It set forth the facts and cited several sections of the United States Constitution violated by the Copper Trust and Arizona officials. Embree asked for legal redress. The reply he got was dated from Washington, D. C., September 29, 1917, and was signed by William C. Fitts, Assistant United States Attorney General. It said that the Department of Justice had looked into the matter and could not see where there was any law broken! An official O. K. to the Prussianization of industry. Nebeker did not trifle much with Embree.
Joseph Akin an I. W. W. witness for defense, gave a clear statement of what the union was worth to migratory workers. Akin was one of the many beaten up at Aberdeen, South Dakota. He was followed by Meyer Friedkin, defendant. All the prosecution has against Meyer is that he gathered subscriptions for Solidarity during July, 1917.
An important witness was Frank Rogers, a Butte miner, appearing on July 5th. He told of conditions in the mines, of the “rustling card” blacklist system, of the strike and the independent miners’ union he helped to organize following the Speculator Fire. An anti-draft circular charged to the I. W. W. was issued by the Pearse-Connolly Club, he said, which also had planned the parade on June 5th to protest against war and conscription.
Rogers spoke of Frank Little’s funeral and told how the funeral procession was five miles in length. He referred to one man whose name was called as “one of the men who killed Little.” He had seen Frank Little’s body at the undertaker’s.
—–VANDERVEER: Do you know a man who has one hand cut off, and a hook where his hand ought to be?
A. Yes, that is the famous gunman of the A. C. M. [Anaconda Copper Mining] Company.
Q. What is his name?
A. Billy Oates.
W. What kind of hook is this on his arm?
A. Well his arm is cut off about here (indicating) and it is just like a baling hook that you use in lifting bales of hay; nothing but the wrist and a hook on the end.
Q. Did you see the back of Frank Little’s neck? What did you see there?
A. There was a bruise there as though this hook had been stuck in there.
Q. A bruise or a hole?
A. A sort of hole.Nebeker [Prosecutor] here made an objection as “immaterial, etc.” The day session was adjourned just then and Rogers took the stand the next morning-the 6th of July. He proceeded over Nebeker’s objection and told how he had seen Billy Oates attack a miner’s wife and threaten her with his terrible hook-hand. Judge Landis here got interested and took up the witness-“did you see this personally?” Rogers answered, “Yes, sir.” Landis turning to the clerk of the court said-“Issue forthwith subpoena for William Oates of Butte, Montana.”
A. L. Sugarman testified that he went to Haywood last summer to try to get some circulars criticizing the Draft Act printed. Haywood had refused, he stated.
On July 6th, the defense scored heavily when it convicted the prosecution of concealing papers that were seized because they were those favorable to the defense. The concealing was proved, but of course, the intent to deceive was denied.
[Photographs added.]
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SOURCE
The I.W.W. Trial
-Story of the Greatest Trial in Labor’s History
-by one of the Defendants
-by Harrison George
—-with introduction by A. S. Embree.
IWW, Chicago, 1919
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100663067
Note: First ad I can find for this book:
Butte Daily Bulletin -page 3
-Mar 5, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/176048912/
Testimony of A. S. Embree
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951d01368761a;view=2up;seq=84
Testimony of Frank Rogers
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951d01368761a;view=2up;seq=86
IMAGES
Bisbee Deportation, White Arm Band Gunthug, libcom
https://libcom.org/gallery/images-1917-bisbee-deportation
Frank Little Martyr, Truth About Butte Tompkins, 1917
http://cdm16013.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p267301coll1/id/4294
See also:
Tag: IWW Federal Trial Chicago 1918
https://weneverforget.org/tag/iww-federal-trial-chicago-1918/
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