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.