“There is but one bargain which industrial workers will make with the employing class, complete surrender of all control of industry to the Organized Workers.”
So the companies were ground between the upper millstone of unionism and the nether millstone of syndicalism. But, when the shops were opened, the union men, under the protection of the police, disregarding the threats of their former companions in idleness, went back to work. The effort to prevent them by force from doing so was unsuccessful. There were some broken heads and bruised bodies, and the Industrialists retired from the conflict defeated, but sullen and revengeful. Then they picketed the plants, they waylaid workmen, they threatened destruction of property. Under the leadership of Gabriel and Kranich, they kept the laboring element of the community in a turmoil, the proprietors of the mills in a state of constant apprehension, the peaceful citizens of the community fearful lest at any moment the volcano rumbling and grumbling under the feet of industry should break out in violent eruption.
Such was the situation on the day that the court martial convened at Fairweather to try the charges against First Lieutenant Halpert McCormack.
The session was held in the large company room which was crowded to the doors with both Guardsmen and civilians.
The court consisted of five commissioned officers and a judge advocate, none of them under the grade of captain. The commissioned officers were in full dress, wearing their swords; the judge advocate was in undress uniform without his sword. It was his business to protect both the organized militia and the rights of the accused. The ranking officer present was Colonel Wagstaff, who presided.
The accused man, with his counsel, Lieutenant Brownell, sat at a side table, and the Barriscales, father and son, representing the complainants, sat with their counsel, Captain Flower of Company A, at another table. The scene was impressive, the atmosphere of the place was tense with suppressed excitement.
After the order convening the court had been read, and the members of the court had been duly sworn, the defendant was arraigned and the charges and specifications were read to him. He was, necessarily, the center of interest. Standing there in full dress uniform without his sword, pale, and somewhat haggard from loss of sleep, he nevertheless looked the soldier that he was. He knew that his case was hopeless. Brownell had told him so at the last. All that he expected now to do was to try to justify himself, so far as possible, in the eyes of the community. Beyond that he was ready to submit to the judgment of the court. So, when the time came for him to plead, he answered in a voice firm with the consciousness of innocence of the charges as drawn and brought against him:
“Not guilty.”
Then began the calling of witnesses. There were plenty of them indeed who had heard the defendant say that in his opinion the wage system was all wrong, that wealth obtained from the product of labor should be fairly divided between the capitalist and the workman, and that his sympathies in the present industrial conflict were entirely with the men, all of whom should be permitted to resume their old places on their own terms. There was more evidence to the effect that McCormack had declared that the President and the Congress were but pawns in the hands of wealth, and that the present political system was but an instrument for the exploitation of labor. It was all very crude, sophomoric and harmless, but it had about it an air of disloyalty that was distinctly damaging to the chances of the young defendant.
Then First Sergeant Ben Barriscale was called to the stand as a witness for the prosecution. He could do little more than to repeat, in substance, the evidence already given, but he made it stronger, more direct, more convincing. He laid especial stress on the attitude of the defendant toward the parties in the existing strike, his criticism of the owners of the mills, his sympathy with the idle workmen who were threatening revenge and disorder. While the animus of the witness was plain, his testimony was not to be lightly considered.