"Let me say to you that no one violates the law, I care not who it is, just for the fun of violating the law. Jails are not pleasant places to abide in. People who violate the law and go to jail do so either because they are deliberately criminal or because they want to focus attention on some public issue. However, Mr. Black is too kind and considerate when he gives all this credit to the I. W. W.
"The facts are, if you go back into the history of the Revolutionary Days, that our forefathers urged and banded together and combined and federated, and if you will, conspired to violate the Stamp Act of the British Government, and were willing to go to jail if necessary. They went even further! They threw the British tea into Boston Harbor. Violation of the law? Yes, if you want to call it such, but the indignant protest of a people as against the enforcement of an unjust law.
"I might urge upon you that the State at that time wanted to absolutely suppress any speech whatsoever, because they had constituted the chief of police, the sheriff, the arresting officer, as the executive, the legislative and the judicial department of our government. The sheriff executed the law in person, the sheriff declared the question of guilt himself, the sheriff ordered deportations, and the sheriff took physical charge of the deportations. Isn't it impossible to avoid a fight when someone usurps unlawfully and illegally the legislative and judicial functions of government? Isn't it time to fight? If it isn't then we may as well cease any attempt to administrate the law!
"In the phraseology of these boys 'Fight' means a moral adherence to principle, a firm determination to face the authorities in the administration of the law, and if necessary to be arrested. But the State would have you put into it now a more sinister meaning, entirely new and foreign to its former use.
"The State brought in the death of Sullivan of Spokane in their opening and abandoned it in their close. One of the exploded hopes of the State! They counted on North Yakima and Wenatchee to show violence and arson, and they failed most miserably. They have failed in their identification of the defendant. Now, their forlorn and bankrupt plea here is the charge of conspiracy.
"The court has told you that this is a murder case. Why then has the State cumbered the record with the I. W. W. preamble and constitution? Why with two pamphlets on sabotage? Why with an I. W. W. song book and such matters? Why?
"Because out of some of the phraseology here, phraseology far removed from you and me, they may build up a condition of prejudice which may result in your returning a conviction on a smaller degree of evidence than you would otherwise require. Mr. Cooley is going to stand here and read little, short, listed extracts from the context of the whole. The pamphlets he has introduced on the question of patriotism and the worker is the foundation from which Mr. Cooley will appeal to your prejudices and passions.
"We are not afraid of the evidence. We are afraid of this deep-grained interest that goes down into men's conscience and that reached back a thousand years.
"Remember that behind this case are many women and children whose cause these boys represent; whose cause these boys are attempting to fight for. They fight because they must! They fight because to do anything else is suicide. You could not have stopped the American Revolution with all the powers of the British government. Since this jury was empaneled you have had the collapse of one of the greatest powers of modern times. I refer to Russia. It has passed from an absolute monarchy to a stage of a republic.
"The trial of this cause is the presentation of a great social issue, the greatest issue of modern times, namely, what are we going to do today with the migratory and occasional workers? These migratories, they are the boys who have told their story on the stand.