How often have court rooms served as undertaking parlors
for the aspirations of rebellious workers?
-Harrison George
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday August 18, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – “Guilty Is Verdict Against I. W. W.”
At 5:30 p. m. on Saturday August 17, 1918, the Federal Trial of the leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World ended when the jury announced its verdict:
Guilty as charged in the indictment.
Asked for his response to the verdict, Fellow Worker Harrison George stated:
If America can stand it, I am sure the I. W. W. can.
Report from Harrison George:
NEBEKER concluded his speech at 10:33 a. m. [August 17th], and the crowded courtroom listened expectantly for Vanderveer to open the floodgates of oratory. Nebeker had used less than one hour of the two allotted to the prosecution, and his assistant, Claude R. Porter, was to finish the presentation of their side with a flag-waving broadside of denunciatory eloquence that was not only to sway the jury, but was intended to elect him governor of Iowa. For, thoughtful of his campaign in that state, he had on the previous day sent advance copies of his speech to a great many of his partisan papers in Iowa for release on that day, when he intended to talk himself into immortality.
Judge, oh, ye gods! how deeply he was wounded when Vanderveer forbore to orate, only rising to thank the jury for their patience during the long trial and asking their consideration for a “Christian judgment.” The spectators were nonplussed at such an unusual situation, while Porter, pale and stunned, sat voiceless, trying to grasp the fact that Vanderveer, by refusing to address the jury, had cut off further argument, and that he, Porter, was up against wiring those Iowa papers to kill his oration, already going into the presses.
