When the trial was resumed on Monday morning, Detective Malley was again placed on the stand and swore to having seen Critchlow on the river bank with a gun in his hands and to have heard him called by name. Photographs of the burning barges, the barricades and the mill yard, taken by order of the Carnegie Company on July 6, were put in evidence, and here the commonwealth rested.
Attorney George W. Argo made the opening speech for the defense. He explained that he and his colleague, Mr. Irwin, had been sent by the laboring element of the Northwest to assist in the defense of the Homestead men. "As far as I am concerned," he said, "I was not selected on account of any extraordinary ability, but because for years I have been in touch with labor. At one time I was a barge builder near this city. My parents resided in Washington County."
In setting forth the reasons for demanding an acquittal, Mr. Argo enlarged upon the enlistment of armed men to invade Homestead "within two days of the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence" and, after describing the expedition of the Pinkertons went on to say:
"These men were not laboring men. It was an invasion of armed men employed by a man named Frick; it was an assault upon this grand old commonwealth; it was an assault upon the state in which the Declaration of Independence was signed; this armed body of men who invaded this state and trampled upon the soil made sacred by the feet of Washington; these men were not under the command of any regular officer of this county; they were men who could not be sworn in as deputies or special officers. Under the evidence in this case these men made an attack upon the people of Homestead; there is not any evidence that Frick owned one dollar's worth of property in Homestead. These men sneaked in on a dark, foggy night; they were met, not by strikers, for there is no evidence that there was a strike, but by the good people of the town, who, when the armed foe attempted to land told the latter not to come ashore; begged of them not to interfere with their rights, begged of them not to attempt to land. Not a particle of evidence has been given that these foreign emissaries had any right there. The men, the peaceable citizens, attempted to defend their rights. A young man named Foy went down to the gang-plank to plead with the men not to come ashore. He was met by a lot of armed men. Becoming alarmed he turned to go back, when he slipped and fell across the plank. As he fell he was shot in the back by some one on the barges. That was the beginning of the terrible battle. It will appear in evidence in this case that the first shots were fired from the barges and not by the people on shore. We will show you that preparations had been made for this trouble one month before it occurred. We will show that a stockade or high fence had been built around the works, a fence like that built in the west to repel Indian attacks. This fence was full of portholes, and resembled the outer wall of a fort. There is no evidence that the people who were on the banks on the morning of the invasion were strikers. They were peaceable citizens of Homestead. Every man in that crowd had a right to defend himself with arms; the law gives to every man the right to defend himself, to defend his family; to defend his neighbors and his friends; this right is given every man by a power higher than the law of man. The people were attacked by an armed foe and they had the right to use weapons in self-defense. The evidence shows that the men on the barges were in command of officers whose names are known, who have testified in this case, yet your honorable district attorney has made no effort to bring these men to justice. Thus he becomes a defender of these armed invaders of your county."
Mr. Argo further outlined the plan of defense as showing that the Critchlow who was seen behind the barricades was another Critchlow and that the prisoner was not present when Connors met his death.
W. M. Erwin followed with a spirited address in which he said that the prosecution rested entirely on the theory that there had been a riot, which he characterized as a "doubly damned fiction." "Is there," he asked, "another such hard-hearted, villainous man within the limits of the land as this man Frick, whom we find hob-nobbing with the leaders of the Republic. This man Frick, whose name will be more notorious than that of the man who fired the Ephesian dome, did not apply to your courts or your legislature, but violated the agreement with his men, and assumed, like a tyrant, to act as arbiter; this most brutal tyrant of all tyrants tried to force his men to bow to his will by an armed force of invaders. Thus have these scoundrels defied the laws of the commonwealth. Carnegie bent the eternal laws of God and the poorer imitations by man. We will show that the defendants only tried to straighten these laws. If there is no Judas Iscariot among you, gentlemen of the jury, you will plant the flag of independence on your hills."
Captain O. C. Coon, of Homestead, was the first witness called by the defense. He testified that he was at the mill landing when the Pinkerton barges arrived, and described the opening of the battle as follows:
"When the plank was thrown out my attention was called to a man on the barge; he had a gun in his hand; there was a boy on the shore; he was tantalizing the man; the latter raised his gun to shoot the boy; I said to him: 'For God's sake don't shoot that boy, for he is only a boy.' I asked him if he was a deputy sheriff, he said no; I asked him if he was a guardsman, he said no; I then said 'you are a Pinkerton'; he replied that he was, and, holding up his gun, said his party was going to enter the mill in fifteen minutes; the boy on shore continued to call the man on the barge; the latter raised his gun and aimed at the boy, but someone pushed his gun down; when he raised it again he had it drawn on me; about that time a boy came running down to where we were, slipped and fell across the gang plank; a minute later there was a shot from the barge, and I heard afterward that the boy on the plank was shot in the side; the first shot fired after the landing was fired by either the second or third man on the plank; I do not know who he was; I went there to try and preserve order; I never saw Critchlow to know him until I saw him in court to-day."
Charles Mansfield, of Homestead, effectually offset the evidence of Charles Reese. He swore that he had been in the mill yard and conversed with Reese. Asked as to the nature of the conversation, he said:
"I was in a cupola with Mr. Reese. I saw a man named Critchlow go into the pump-house. I said to Reese, 'There goes Critchlow into the place where Morris was killed. He will be killed sure. You had better get a good sketch of him.'"