"Just on general principles you blame it on the I. W. W.?"
"Sure!" replied the witness, "I got their reputation over in Wenatchee from my brother-in-law who runs a big orchard there."
Lewis Connor, member of the Commercial Club, and his friend, Edwin Stuchell, university student, both of whom were deputies on the dock on November 5th, then testified, but developed nothing of importance. Stuchell's father was part owner of the Eclipse mill and was said to have been on the board of directors of the Commercial Club. These witnesses were followed by Raymond E. Brown, owner of an Everett shoe store, a weak-kneed witness who had been sworn in as a deputy by W. W. Blain, secretary of the Commercial Club.
One of the greatest sensations in this sensational trial was when former sheriff Donald McRae took the stand on Tuesday, March 27th.
McRae was sober!
The sheriff was fifty years of age, of medium height, inclined to stoutness, smooth-shaven, with swinish eyes set closely on either side of a pink-tinted, hawk-like nose that curved just above a hard, cruel and excessively large mouth. The sneering speech and contemptible manner of this witness lent weight to the admissions of his brutality that had been dragged from reluctant state's witnesses thru the clever and cutting cross-examination conducted by Moore and Vanderveer.
McRae told of his former union affiliations, having once been International Secretary of the Shingle Weavers' Union, and on another occasion the editor of their paper—but he admitted that he had never in his life read a book on political economy.
He detailed the story of the arrests, deportations and other similar actions against the striking shingle weavers and the I. W. W. members, the recital including an account of the "riot" at the jail, the deportation of Feinberg and Roberts, the shooting at the launch "Wanderer" and the jailing of its passengers, and the seizing of forty-one men and their deportation at Beverly Park. McRae's callous admissions of brutality discounted any favorable impression his testimony might otherwise have conveyed to the jury.
He admitted having ordered the taking of the funds of James Orr to pay the fares of workers deported on August 23rd, but denied the truth of an account in the Everett Herald of that date in which it was said that I. W. W. men had made some remarks to him "whereupon Sheriff McRae and police officer * * promptly retaliated by cracking the I. W. W.'s on the jaw with husky fists."
Regarding the launch "Wanderer" the sheriff was asked: