456
THE GREEN BAG
could not be fair to the state or the defense because of their prejudices for or against labor unions, some going so far as to say that under no circumstances, whatever might be the evidence, would they convict, and some that they believed the men guilty before evidence of any kind was introduced and that nothing could change their minds. On the second or third day of the trial, George Meller, president of the union, withdrew his plea of not guilty and entered a plea of guilty to the indictment. On the nine teenth day of the trial a petition for a change of venue was filed in behalf of the defendant, Newman alleging that a fair trial could not be had in Cook County because of the pre judice of the inhabitants thereof, which petition was denied by the court. Pre vious to the trial and during the same all of the arrested defendants were admitted to bail with the exception of Gilhooley, Looney, and Feeley. After weeks of alter nate patient and impatient toil a jury was finally selected of twelve men, each of whom was committed to the following propositions : First. That they had no prejudices against either organized labor' or capital. Second. That they believed in the right of the labor ing man to strike when it was necessary to do so to obtain their end. Third. That the members of a union or others acting for them had the right to picket a struck house providing only peaceable measures were employed. Fourth. That business agents, executive committees, and other officers of the union were to be as fairly tried as any other members of the community. Fifth. That unless the defendants were shown to be guilty by evidence satisfying the minds of the jurors beyond any reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that they would acquit the defendants. Sixth. That they would fairly view the testimony of an ac complice, and if they believed it to be true, they would act upon it as being true, even though they might view the testimony of such an one with suspicion. On the day that the last juror was chosen
there was great rejoicing in the court room, particularly in the jury box, as the selected jurymen were not permitted to separate nor communicate with any person other than a fellow-juror, outside of the presence and hearing of a sworn officer. Some of the jurors had at that time been for weeks con fined in a nearby hotel, save for the time that they were in the court room, and patience had long ceased to be a virtue, and here let me say that sacrifices such as were made in this case by these men who be lieved that they owed it to their country, their families, and themselves to serve as jurymen, even under such conditions, should be met with the praise it deserves, more particularly when it early in the selection of the jury appeared that a great number of the prospective jurors had stretched the truth beyond all bounds in their efforts to be excused from service. However, the jury being complete, the state fired its first gun by calling as a witness the union's president, George Meller, who on the second or third day of the trial had entered a plea of guilty. He told of the calling of the strike by the union against the manufac turers of the city, of the meeting of the executive committee on April;th at the union's headquarters, of the report of Casey, the union's business agent, of the voting of the $50 by the executive committee, to be paid to the slugging committee, of the gen eral discussion by the different members of the committee as to how they were to know that the men were slugged, and the like, of how he (Meller) O.K.'d a voucher for $15 for Newman and Case}- and saw Casey give the money to Gilhooley, Looney, and Feeley in a saloon on the West Side; how at the time he had heard Gilhooley say that he got that fellow, Carlstrom, that he hit him in the jaw and kicked him, and that the only thing they didn't do to him was to leave him hanging on the fence, how Looney said that he (Carlstrom) was a tough bastard, that when he kicked him he must have broke his ribs, as he damn near broke his toe; how
