"You bet I meant it!" asserted the witness positively.
The two reporters proved to be better witnesses for the defense than for the prosecution.
Sanford Asbury, T. N. Henry, Ronald Johnson, John S. Donlan, and J. E. Gleason, then testified regarding the movements of the men who left Seattle on the Verona and Calista on the morning of November 5th. They uniformly agreed that the crowd was in no way disorderly, nor were their actions at all suspicious. The defense admitted that the Verona had been chartered but stated that there were passengers other than I. W. W. members on board.
The first witness from the Verona was Ernest Shellgren, the boat's engineer, who testified that he was in the engine pit when the boat landed and heard crackling sounds telegraphed down the smoke stack that he knew an instant later were bullets. He was struck by a spent bullet and ran to various places on the boat seeking shelter from the hail of lead that appeared to come from all directions, finally returning to the boiler as the safest place on the boat. He stated that he saw one man firing a blue steel revolver from the boat, only the hand and revolver being in his line of vision. The only other gun he saw was one in the hands of the man who asked him to back the boat away from the dock during the firing. He also stated that the I. W. W. men on the way over to Everett comported themselves as was usual with any body of passengers.
Shellgren was asked if he could identify John Downs or Thomas H. Tracy as being connected with the firing in any way and he stated that he could not do so. The defense objected to the use of Downs' picture, as it did on every occasion where a picture of one of the prisoners was used, on the grounds that the photographs were obtained by force and in defiance of the constitutional rights of the imprisoned free speech fighters.
Seattle police detectives, Theodore Montgomery and James O'Brien, who made a search of the Verona upon its return to Seattle, testified to having found a little loose red pepper, two stones the size of a goose egg tied up in a cloth, and a few empty cartridges. These two witnesses also developed the fact that in no case were regular bandages used on the wounded men, thus establishing the fact that no serious trouble was anticipated.
James Meagher, occupation "home owner," member of the Commercial Club and citizen deputy, testified that a hundred shots were fired from the Verona before a gun was pulled on the dock, one of the first shots striking him in the leg. This witness was asked:
"Did you see a single gun on the boat?"
"No sir," was his mumbled response.
The prosecution witnesses disagreed as to the number of lines of deputies stretched across the back and sides of the open space on the dock, the statements varying from one to four files.