"I was."
Yet the ethics of the legal profession are such that this attorney could justify his actions in laboring for months in an endeavor to secure, by any and all means, the conviction of the men on the boat!
Defendant Charles Black testified that McRae dropped his hand to his gun and pulled it just as one of the deputies fired from a point just behind the sheriff. Black ran down the deck and into the cabin, passing in front of the windows from which the deputies had sworn that heavy firing was going on.
Leonard Broman, working partner with Abraham Rabinowitz, then took the stand and told his story. When asked what were the benefits he received from having joined the I. W. W., the witness replied:
"They raised the wages and shortened the hours. Before I joined the I. W. W. the wages I received in Ellis, Kansas, was $3.00 for twelve hours and last fall the I. W. W. got $3.50 for nine hours on the same work."
Ex-deputy Charles Lawry told of various brutalities at the jail and also impeached McRae's testimony in many other particulars.
Dr. Grant Calhoun, who had attended the more seriously injured men who were taken from the Verona on its return to Seattle, told of the number and nature of the wounds that had been inflicted. On eight of the men examined he had found twenty-one serious wounds, counting the entrance and exit of the same bullet as only one wound. Veitch conducted no cross-examination of the witness.
Joe Manning, J. H. Beyers, and Harvey Hubler, all three of them defendants, gave their testimony. Manning told of having been seated in the cabin with Tracy when the firing commenced, after which he sought cover behind the smokestack and was joined by Tracy a moment later. Beyers identified Deputy Bridge as having stood just behind McRae with his revolver drawn as tho firing when the first shot was heard. This witness also corroborated the story of Billings in regard to demanding that the engineer take the boat away from the dock. Hubler verified the statements about conditions on the Verona and also told of being taken from his jail cell by force on an order signed by detective McLaren in an attempt to have him discharge the defense attorneys and accept an alleged lawyer from Los Angeles.
