As the next to the last witness on its side of the long-drawn out case the defense placed on the stand the defendant, Thomas H. Tracy. The witness told of having been one of a working class family, too large to be properly cared for and having to leave home and make his own way in the world before he was eleven years old. From that time on he had followed farming, teaming and construction work in all parts of the west, his bronzed appearance above the prison pallor giving evidence of his outdoor life.
Tracy told of having been secretary of the I. W. W. in Everett for a short time, that being the only official position he had ever held in the organization. He explained his position on the boat at the time it docked, stating that the first shot apparently came from the dock and struck close to where he was sitting. Immediately the boat listed and threw him away from the window, after which he sought a place of safety behind the smokestack. He denied having been in any way a party to a conspiracy to commit an act of violence, or to kill anyone.
"You are charged here, Mr. Tracy," said Vanderveer, "with having aided and abetted an unknown man in killing Jefferson Beard. Are you guilty or not guilty?"
"I am not guilty," replied Tracy without a trace of emotion.
The cross-questioning of the defendant in this momentous case was conducted by citizen-deputy Cooley. His questions to the man whom he and his fellow conspirators on the dock had not succeeded in murdering were of the most trivial nature, clearly proving that arch-sleuth McLaren had been unable to discover or to manufacture anything that would make Tracy's record other than that of a plain, unassuming, migratory worker.
"Where did you vote last?" asked Cooley.
"I never voted," responded Tracy.
"Never voted in your life?" queried Cooley.
"No!" replied the defendant who for the time represented the entire migratory class. "I was never in one place long enough!"
Then, acting on the class theory that it is an honor to be a "globe-trotter" but a disgrace to be a "blanket-stiff," the prosecutor brought out Tracy's travels in minute detail. This examination of the railroad construction worker brought home to the listeners the truth of the little verse: