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Entered as second class matter March 1, 1811, at the port offlce at
•tome, ■ Alassa, under the Act of March I, 1878.
“To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as
aearly as possible, Is a worthy object of any good government."—
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Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 184.
Nome, Alaska, November 14, lbl<>.
WAUItlvS K. 151 !<!,!N'GS.
Warren K. Billings was convicted
by a professional jury of being guil
ty of the bomb outrage upon the
preparedness parade and lias been
sentenced to life imprisonment.
Billings is an American who has
been identified with labor union ac
tivities. but it i.s almost admitted
that he was not the man whom the
authorities were after, hut Mooney
and others whose unionist activities
had gi them in had with the cham
ber of Commerce in San Francisco,
'•’her ar • several ext raor-linary fea
tures connected with th • trial t ud
convicty n nf Billings that threw an
extraordinary light upon modern le
gal methods when a prosecution
converts it..-'1 : u> a persecuting
a get y in the ic-r-st of those w ho
control the economic power.
First of ail this professional jury,
hardened to rot as di-ired. returned
a verdict of grille and accompanied
the same with a strong plea for
mercy for the at cm *d. This astound
ed no one more than Billings him
self. Billings surely was accused ot
a heinous < rime. Every element
within it is of an atrociously cold
blooded nature. It was deliberate,
cruel, malicious and senseless. If
ever there were absent any factors
which could possibly call for merci
ful sentencing of the guilty one,
surely it was in the bomb outrage
on this preparedness parade. As
Billings said, if he was guilty he de
served to pay the full penalty. It
innocent he should be acquitted.
Only because the jury brought in
its decision against its own belief in
the innocence of the man did they
add that rider to their verdict. Such
a conclusion is inevitable: it is in
controvertibly the only explanation
of it.
And with good reason. Not a
single witness of the prosecution but
did contradict the other. Three diff
erent persons: John M’DQnald, John
Crowley and Estelle Smith testified
to seeing Billings at three different
places during the same periods of
time when the outrage was com
mitted, and going in opposite direc
tions. One swore he went north
with Mooney, another swore he
went south with a tall gentleman
who positively was not Mooney, and
still another swore that lie was on
the roof of a building where he re
mained. Two ladies were definite
about Billings being on the roof, but
Al De-Caceia the so-called Billings
double, swore that it was lie who
on the building at the time, and his
testimony was fully coroborated.
.Mrs. Hammerberg swore on the
stand that the District Attorney (in
direct examination at that) had in
sisted that he had to get somebody
or they would get him “You told me
that you had to get somebody or
they would get you”, “Who said
that”, asked Brennan. “You" and
swered the lady, "Where?” “In my
house. It was not in the office ot
the office of the Police Department?
It was in my house”. “Who was
present when I made that state
ment?” “Mr. Swanson and Mr. Ham
merberg”. M’Donald was the star
witness for the Prosecution. This is
what witness Logan testified:
“M’Donald just said the Chief patted
him on the back and said, ‘Mac, If
you stick to tliis story you can go
hack to Baltimore or Detroit oil the
cushions-—that is where you want to
go with a nice piece of change in
your pockets”. Colonel Requa ot
the Salvation .army testified that
he was getting his pay right along
and "would get his divvy out of the
conviction”: there is a seventeen
thousand dollar reward for the con
viction of anyone, guilty or inno
cent: Any one!
The prosecution suppressed deli
berately sworn testimony by eye
witnesses of tlie bomb tragedy. Here
is William H. Taylor with an affida
vit who swears positively that it was !
not Warren K. Hillings that depo- |
sited the suit case. A Sergeant oi i
Police asked him if he had seen the I
man who put it there he said he did |
-‘l was never taken by the police or
anybody to see Warren K. Billings.
Captain Matlieson then put me in
charge of Officer Desmond who
brought me down to the Stockton
boat, the J. D. reters”, actually rail
roading and deporting the man who
had unfavorable evidence for the j
prosecution, out of town.
Then here is Elmer E. Kimberlin I
who was actually wounded by the j
flying pieces of the bomb who give:
a precise . definite and most positive
description of the man with the suit
case and whose affidavit conclude.- j
with the testimony "that affiant ci: |
tlu> 22nd day of July, 191(1. did not '
see Warren K. Billings at or near j
the scene of the explosion at all
Finally here was Dan Donaldson
who was being treated and paid for
dental work, and received a receipt
from Estella Smith who swore that
she saw Billings and that herselt
was elsewhere than in the dental
office at that time. One witness
was promised a pardon for her
father being in the penitentiary: an
other witness was proved to have
perjured himself when Mr. and Mrs.
Mooney were shown to have been
miles away and not where Brennan
had had hint say they (the Mooneys)
were; proved up to the hilt in per
jury by photographs which M’Nutt
compelled the District Attorney,
after a bitter fight, to surrender to
the court. Nothing could be more
infamous than the methods of the
prosecution and the trial itself was
literally a travesty upon justice.
Now comes Bourke Cochran, a
lawyer with an international repu
! tion. This man after reading the
transcript of the evidence in the
Billings case volunteers to defend
the defendants charged with the
bomb plot free of charge. Perhaps
the most infamous infamy of the
whole proceedings is an offer of a
pardon to Billings if he will only
aid in convicting Mooney. Could
legal depravity reach more abysmal
depths? Here is a man innocent of
a crime, convicted against the evid
ence and then In the grip of the
law the Eaw would force him to
testify against his fellow defendants
who. it is admitted by the- prosecu
tion are the men wanted.
The person who has not subjected
the evidence in the Billings ease to
some consideration will say that
the men were tried by a jury ot
their peers and found guilty. That
Is the trouble. They were not tried
by a jury of their peers. They were
tried by professional jurors who
could be relied upon to bring in the
verdict required and their vacillat
ing plea for mercy shows that they
were acting not as the evidence but
as the District Attorney desired.
It is in such cases that the jury
system is subjected to the most sev
ere test and invariably fails under
it. But it is not a fair test. The
test for the jury system is to ue
found as the jury system was first
recognized in the Anglo-Saxon juris- j
prudence: in the Magna Charta.
Men are not tried by their peers.
Their peers mean their equals in
class, socially, and their present
standing. When are workingmen
tried by workingmen? Never at all.
When have workingmen been asked
to try millionaires? -Never at all.
Politically all men are supposed to
he peers in the United States, and
| before the law, but that is because
the law takes no cognizance of the
fact of a definite, well defined eco
nomic class distinction existing here,
just as surely as the nobles and the
commons and the yeomen and the
hinds were distinguished under the
rule of John Lackland in the days
of Runnymede’s famous foregather
ing.
We see evidence on many sides,
near and far, of an infamous effort
to abuse the jury system. The re
gularly drawn juries are dismissed
that a hand picked jury which may
better afford the verdicts desired may
be called: in many cases efforts are
made to dispense with regular pa
nels on one pretext or another, often
so highly technical that even judges
and lawyers cannot explain its me
taphysical depths, and special ven
ires substituted.
It is in the abuse of the jury
system that the most of the judicial
and legal infamies are accomplished,
and public sentiment should be
roused against any such condition.
Now take this Billings case. It is
a case of railroad pure and simple.
Everything points to the innocence
of the man. The government did
not put on a single witness whose
testimony was uncontradicted by
other government witnesses. Yet
this combined contradiction of evid
ence: given in one case by a crim
inal’s relative whose pardon was the
price of testimony, in another by a
notorious dope fiend and profession
, al witness, is sufficient to warrant
' Judge Dunne sentencing Billings to
jan tor me:
It is a peculiar thing that the
trial and conviction of Billings so
closely resembles the victims of the
Haymarket tragedy in Chicago in |
the later eighties. The execution of
the anarchists then as Governor Alt
geld in his pardon to the imprisoned
men has shown beyond peradventurc
was nothing but a legal murder.
There was absolutely nothing to
show that a single one of the de
fendants who appeared before Jjdge
Garey was the one who threw the
bomb in the Haymarket rioting. On
the contrary Governor Altgeld in hts
pardon of those whose sentences
were commuted, shows cleaily that
the guilty one was never apprehend
ed and that innocent men were exe
cuted.
The trouble with the anarchists
who were punished was that they
were taking quite a leading pdrt in
the eight hour agitation, and the
trouble with Billings and Mooneys
and the rest is that they are threat
ening the power of Big Business to
control California. •
California is now in the throes of
a great struggle between the classes.
In that struggle men are being sac
rificed by legal means. Billings is
not the first, the hop-pickers ot
Wheatlands were not either. Nor
will these be the last. The struggle
between the classes of which the
Billings conviction is but an inei
dent, is a pretty red trail and the
crimson is from wliat was once ha
man blooci.
There is no reason other than an
economic one why Warren K. Hill
ings should not have faced with per
fect confidence a trial by a jury of
his peers. There is no reason why ^
testimony favorable to him should
have been supprersed as so much
was suppressed by the prosecution.
There is no reason why any attempt .
should have been made to accept at
its fictitious value the perjury oi
M’Donald or why a law odicvr
should have fought so bitterfy the
introduction by M’Nutt of evidence
which showed palpably that M Ton
aid was swearing falsely. Yet that
is what was done and that is what
marked the actions of the district
attorney, throughout the entire case.
He acted not with a view of estab
lishing the guilt or innocence of Bil
lings, but fought for his conviction
' whether guilty' or innocent.
That atrocious standard which
| prosecuting lawyers have set before
liieill ab tile mfeiicoi
their office: to establish a record for
convictions was before Brennan all
the time. “I hiust get him or ihey
will get me”, he said and doubt les.
so he felt.
But with an economic interest in ;
effecting a conviction the entire ma
chinery of the law, in this as in so
many other instances, was directed
not to establishihg the guilt or in
nocence of Billings, but tabards
getting him convicted.
CONSCRIPTION iX IRELAND.
DUBLIN, Nov. 12.—The papers
here say that it is certain that con
scription will be enforced. Many
thousand troops have been moved;
into the country to prevent any j
trouble. >
LONDON, Nov. 3 2.—The wisdom
of enforcing conscription in Ireland
is doubted. It is inflaming public
sentiment tremendously against
Great Britain and trouble is feared
in consequence.
The troops are not likely to fight
very strenuously in any position
which they may be placed.
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