There came to [Boise] an array of
defense witnesses full of health and spirits,
brawny, frank-eyed men and cheerful, resolute women.
-John R. McMahon
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday February 9, 1908
Remembering the Haywood Trial: Witnesses for the Defense
From Wilshire’s Magazine of August 1907:
While reviewing the coverage of the Haywood Trial by Wilshire’s Magazine, we came across a particularly compelling photograph of the many witnesses who came to Boise in order to testify on behalf of Big Bill Haywood.
The photograph was from an article by John R. McMahon entitled “Story of the Famous Trial” wherein he had this to say about the witness:
In refreshing contrast to the State’s array of official scamps, deputy sheriffs, policemen, clerks, et al., there came to town an array of defense witnesses full of health and spirits, brawny, frank-eyed men and cheerful, resolute women. They did not have to be dragooned into comming; they rejoiced that they could be of service to their imprisoned comrades; their faces beamed with the hope and inspiration of a new day for the united workers of the land. They greeted one another affectionately and with crushing hand grips. It seemed that all the known and unknown veterans of the labor war of Colorado were gathered together. Nearly every man had been causelessly persecuted, jailed, bullpenned, deported, shot at or assaulted by mine owners’ thugs; every woman had been insulted, threatened, arrested or starved out for the crime of sheltering the homeless and giving food to the hungry. If this is the stuff that the western working class is made of, we need have never a fear. These people thrive on persecution.
There were broad-shouldered, sun-tanned miners from Arizona and Nevada with yellow nuggets of gold linked together for watch chains; keen-featured Federation officials, past and present, from Montana, British Columbia and California; quiet, neatly dressed women, one with a prankish baby; a jolly, very red-faced fighting parson, Rev. T. S. Leland, who is said to have preached with two six-shooters on the pulpit; a short Scotchman, who used to be a mine scab but is now a Socialist; a former Attorney General of Colorado, Eugene Engley, bald and philosophic looking, who would rather talk for the co-operative commonwealth than eat; a former Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, short and spry, familiarly known as “Dave” Coates and inclined to burlesque fisticuffs with a young defense lawyer; Captain Wallace of the Colorado militia, athletic and alert, singing camp-meeting songs with some of the men he helped to deport.
There was ex-labor Commissioner Brake of Colorado, tall, with iron-gray hair and mustache, ready to give his testimony in behalf of Haywood. Morris Friedman, whom you ought to know by this time, and Edward L. McParland, tall, bald, gray-mustached and of clear gray eyes. He was a detective fifteen years ago, “but I became ashamed of it,” he says, and earning an honest living as a shoemaker in the Cripple Creek district. He was deported as a union sympathizer; he came to Boise to testify and do what he could to checkmate the nefarious effort of his brother, James McParland. In this judicial outcome of a labor war, brother is arrayed against brother; an honest soldier comes forth to defend innocent workingmen; anti-Socialists, union men, plain radicals and red hot Marxians stand shoulder to shoulder. Everybody fights and works for Haywood. I guarantee that within six months every non-Socialist who has come here for the defense will be carrying a red card. Some of the witnesses have told me they were only waiting a chance to study up the doctrine before turning missionaries…
If the prosecution expected to scare the defense by the wholesale implications of Orchard’s testimony, they were sadly mistaken. Orchard accused many living men and a good many dead. Practically all except the dead came here to take the witness stand and give Orchard the lie. I imagine that guilty men would have gone to Europe rather than to Boise. Among those accused that came here were Marion W. Moor, William Easterly, W. F. Davis, Tom Foster, Owen Barnes, Joseph Mahalich, Max Malich, Patrick Moran, Jacob Wolff, William Aikman, Joseph Scholta. Knowing the chances that innocence takes in Idaho, it must have required some little courage for these men to come here. Since their arrival the prosecution has made feeble efforts to frighten them by hints of arrests for perjury…
Close-Ups of the Witness
F. C. Clifford, J. Wolff, Paul Corcoran, F. R. Red, and Henry Macki-
C. W. Aller, Chas. A. Sullivan, Chas A. Collins, and George Breon-
Pat Moran, Will B. Easterly, John M. O’Neill, and M. E. White-
George Hooten, James A. Baker, L. F. Taylor, and John Dennis-
Tom Foster, A. H. Floaten, Tom Woods, and Morris Friedman-
Max Malich, Mrs. Sadie Cox, Mrs. Chas. H. Moyer, Mrs. T. Noggle, Marion Moor, and V. C. Barnes-
Mrs. George Hooton, Mrs. Mark H. Morrison, and Rev. T. S. Leland-
W. F. Davis, Mrs. Steve Adams, Mrs. George Pettibone, Alex. Paul, Mrs. Nellie M. Joyce, and Miss Anna M. Saunders-
Frank Aikens, D. C. Copley, and William Amole-
“Owney” Barnes, Chas. A. McKinnon, and Joseph Mahalich-
SOURCE
Wilshire’s Magazine 1904-1910/1915
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100696755
Wilshire’s Volumes 11-13
(New York, New York)
-Jan 1907-Dec 1909
Pub’d by Gaylord Wilshire
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858037309105;view=2up;seq=8
Wilshire’s Aug 1907
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858037309105;view=2up;seq=186
Pages 5, 7-8: “Story of the Famous Trial”
by John R. McMahon
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858037309105;view=2up;seq=190
IMAGES
Boise Witnesses for the Defense in the Haywood Trial, Wilshires Aug 1907
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858037309105;view=2up;seq=192
See also:
More information on many of those mentioned above can be found by searching the following source with their names:
The Cripple Creek Strike: A History of Industrial Wars in Colorado, 1903-4-5; Being a Complete and Concise History of the Efforts of Organized Capital to Crush Unionism
-by Emma Florence Langdon
Great Western Publishing Company, 1905
Note altho 1905 is given as date of publication, this edition contains the appendix, and therefore must have been pub’d in 1908.
https://books.google.com/books?id=olgpAAAAYAAJ
The Cripple Creek Strike
By Emma Florence Langdon
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/wfmhall/langdon00.html
Rev. Leland Arrested
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/wfmhall/langdon24.html
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday February 8, 1908
From Wilshire’s Magazine: Photographs from the Haywood Trial