powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Friday June 21, 1907
Boise, Idaho – Orchard Breaks Down Under Cross-Examination
Ida Crouch-Hazlett, editor of the Socialist Montana News, is on the scene in Boise covering the Haywood murder trial, and gives the following account of the cross-examination of the prosecution’s star witness, Harry Orchard, by Edmund Richardson, Attorney for the Defense:
Orchard Weeps
—–Breaks Down on Witness Stand-
McParland’s Methods Exposed
Under Richardson’s Fire
Boise, June 15.
The attitude of the Boise press towards this trial is a disgrace to the name of human freedom. The way the defense has riddled Orchard and shown his utter incompetency and reliability as a witness is potent to all observers. Even the judge looks disgusted at the revelations of this abandoned wretch, as he reluctantly makes admission after admission on the cross-examination to crimes be had not mentioned before. It is common comment that no jury could convict a man on such contaminated evidence. Yet the local papers, notably the “Statesman” [Idaho Daily Statesman of Boise] comes out with flaring articles about Richardson’s “blundering” ways, and his utter failure with the witness, how the friends of the defense are disgusted, and how the socialist reporters throw down their pencils in despair over his stupid efforts. It is needless to say that this is all fiction, pure and simple. Richardson’s work has been magnificent. He has held the strong, aggressive from the very beginning. Orchard has had to put forth a terrible defensive against him in order to bear up at all, and the tactics of the famous attorney have laid bare the very soul of the cringing and cowering murderer.
