"Sergeant" J. J. Keenan, who had become a familiar figure because of his "police" duty in the outer court corridor from the inception of the trial, then took the witness stand and recounted his experiences at Snohomish and Maltby, his every word carrying conviction that the sheriff and his deputies had acted with the utmost brutality in spite of the advanced age of their victim. John Patterson and Tom Thornton corroborated Keenan's testimony.
A surprise was sprung upon the prosecution at this juncture by the introduction on the witness stand of George Kannow, a man who had been a deputy sheriff in Everett and who had been present when many of the brutalities were going on. He told of the treatment of Berg after the "Wanderer" arrests.
"He was struck and beaten and thrown down and knocked heavily against the steel sides of the tank, his head striking on a large projecting lock. He was kicked by McRae and he hollered 'My God, you are killing me,' and McRae said he didn't give a damn whether he died or not, and kicked him again and then shoved him into the tank."
The gauntlet at the county jail was described in detail and the spirit of the free speech fighters was shown by this testimony:
"Yes, I heard some of them groan. They all took their medicine well, tho. They didn't holler out but some of them would groan; some of them would go down pretty near to their knees and then get up, then they would get sapped again as they got up. But they never made any real outcries."
The witness stated that "Governor" Clough was a regular attendant at the deportation parties and so also were W. R. Booth, Ed Hawes, T. W. Anguish, Bill Pabst, Ed Seivers, and Will Taft. He described McRae's drunken condition and told of drunken midnight revels held in the county jail. His testimony was unshaken on cross-examination.
Mrs. Fern Grant, owner of the Western Hotel and Grant's Cafe, testified that Mrs. Frennette was in her place of business in Everett on the morning of the tragedy, thus adding to the evidence that Clyde Gibbons had perjured himself in testifying for the prosecution.
A party of Christian Scientists, who had attended a lecture in Everett by Bliss Knapp, told of the frightful condition of the eight men who had taken the interurban train to Seattle following their experience at Beverly Park. Mrs. Lou Vee Siegfried, Christian Science practitioner, Thorwald Siegfried, prominent Seattle lawyer, Mrs. Anna Tenelli and Miss Dorothy Jordan were corroborated in their testimony by Ira Bellows, conductor on the interurban car that took the wounded men to Seattle.
Another break in the regular order of the trial was made at this point by the placing on the stand of Nicholas Conaieff, member of the I. W. W., who was to leave on the following day with a party of Russians returning to their birthplace to take part in the revolution then in progress. Conaieff stated that the first shot came from the dock. His realistic story of the conditions on the Verona moved many in the courtroom to tears. In his description Conaieff said: