This closed the case for the defense.
Only one witness was called by the commonwealth in rebuttal, and his evidence was valueless.
Mr. Marshall, for the defense, submitted a number of points, among which was the contention that, when it is certain that one or more persons committed a crime, but it is uncertain which, all must be acquitted.
Mr. D. F. Patterson responded for the prosecution, taking special exception to the plea against individual liability.
Four hours were allowed to each side for the closing arguments.
Mr. Robb, for the commonwealth, arraigned the defense in scathing language for seeking to belittle the laws of the commonwealth in the eyes of the jury. "There is, gentlemen," he said "some mysterious power that comes from the blue sky above the clouds that leads us away from the law; we have been told this by an attorney from the other side. Has it come to this, as we are told, that there is not law enough in Allegheny county or Pennsylvania for a plain cause? We have been told, but thank God those who made the statement are not citizens of our state, that we are all, from the man who sits on the supreme bench to the district attorney, corrupt. We have been told that in their cause there has been a mysterious, swimming atmosphere, something that would develop in this cause. But when you hear his honor you will know how plain is your duty and how plain is the law."
And again:
"The Carnegie company may have done wrong; we all do wrong, but is that any reason why our laws and our great flag, which was referred to so eloquently by the gentleman on the other side in his opening address should be trampled underfoot by rioters? My forefathers were not so high as the forefathers of the gentleman who addressed you yesterday; mine were only privates; his were away-up officers. But if I were not a better citizen of Allegheny county than to advise a jury to disregard its solemn oath I should hope that I should be stricken dead."
Mr. Erwin, who, since the delivery of his fiery speech of Monday, had come to be known among the members of the bar as the "Northwestern Whirlwind," followed Mr. Robb. There was dead silence in the court-room when he began. Surely he would respond in kind to Mr. Robb's virulent attack on him! But no. The Westerner was too shrewd to let himself be drawn off into the mere by-ways of argument, and with but a passing contemptuous allusion to Mr. Robb's onslaught, he proceeded calmly and impressively with the discussion of the main issue. As one of the newspapers put it, "The strategy of the prosecution to lead into a by-path had failed, and he stuck to the high road and tramped defiantly along the highest part of it."
After a few preparatory remarks, including his brief reference to Mr. Robb's speech, which he characterized as a "gauzy affair," Mr. Erwin plunged into his subject as follows: