Here the speaker discussed at length the testimony offered to establish an alibi for the prisoner and begged the jury to weigh carefully in the balance the statements of the opposing witnesses bearing on the subject.
In conclusion he said:
"The life and liberty of Jack Clifford are as dear to him as yours are to you. There may be some one who looks to him with an interest. There may be a gray-haired mother depending upon him, and there is no love like a mother's. That mother is waiting for your verdict. It is better that ninety-nine guilty escape than one innocent shall suffer. I ask at your hands justice for Jack Clifford. I ask it upon the oath you have sworn faithfully to fulfill and I ask it in the tears of his mother. Gentlemen, I leave Jack Clifford in your hands."
Judge Stowe's charge was a plain statement of the law in the case, without the least tincture of bias one way or the other.
The jury occupied less than two hours in deliberation and brought in a verdict of acquittal. Clifford was then remanded to jail to await trial on the other indictments found against him.
PROPOSED MONUMENT TO THE HEROES OF HOMESTEAD.
The import of the verdict was unmistakable. It meant that, for the second time, the people of Allegheny County, speaking through their representatives in the jury box, refused to be governed by the letter of the law in the matter of punishing the men of Homestead as rioters and murderers, and that the continuance of the prosecutions would be a waste of time, energy and money. Such was the construction generally put upon it, and most probably the Carnegie Company and its counsel formed the same judgment. Nevertheless, the district attorney announced that every one of the Homestead cases would be brought to trial and as an earnest of sincerity, Hugh O'Donnell was brought forward to face a jury of his peers on February 13, the fifth day after Clifford's safe deliverance.
The young leader looked pale and thin as a result of his imprisonment, but his eye was as clear and his voice as firm as on the day when he marshaled the fighting men at the barricades, and there was no sign of flinching in his demeanor as he stood up to enter his plea of "not guilty."
The attorneys engaged in the case were the same that served in the preceding trials, excepting that Major E. A. Montooth and Mr. John F. Cox relieved the counsel who had previously taken the most active part for the defense. The following jurors were selected: Fred Vogel, William Richardson, Charles Beuchler, John Sproul, M. J. Byrne, Henry Brooker, A. C. Flood, Henry Eisenhauer, John McGann, John Geisler, Peter Stragen and William Dramble.