Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1907-06-06
ORCHARDS STARTLING COMES.
SION.

4
ed Ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg, o.
Idaho, a year ago last November, snt
who says that William ID. Haywood,
Charles II. Meyer and George A. Petit
bone, respectively, secretary, president
and executive board members OF the
Western Federation of Miners, planned
the murder and hired him to do 1t, be-
gan in Boise City, Idaho, yesterday,
what is probably the most extraordinary
recital of crime ever made in court
room.
! Orchard occupied the stand three hours
and a-hslf, and before his story had
been in the course of telling for an hour
it was clear that il it can be corrOborated d
in its essential features the State will be
able to establish beyond doubt the
charges OF conspiracy to do wholesale
murder upon the chief opponents Of the
methods of the Western Federation OF
Miners.
Orchard first told the jury that he
touched of the fuse when the Bunker
Hill and Sullivan Mill was blown up
at Wardner in 1899, but his story did
not touch Haywood and his co-defend-
ants until it came to deal with the Cripple
Greek troubles, on and after 1908.
In Cripple Greek, he said, he planted
the powder aud arranged the trap by
which Supt. Mccormick and Foreman
Beck, of the Indicator Mine, we're blown
to death, and was hired to do it by w.
f. Davis, president of one of the Cripple
Greek miners unions. Davis promised
him $500, and later on, in Denver,
Haywood paid him $500. Meyer, he
said paid him smaller sums. Haywood,
he said, told him that it was good job,
and that he was glad to get some OF the
bosses instead of ordinary scabs.
Later on, Orchard said he met Hay
wood and Pettibone again at the head
quarters OF the federation, and that they
told him that they wished he would work
up some scheme to assassinate Governor
Peabody. They said that they could
not get justice in the courts, that Meyer
was being held under martial law, aud
that the only way to get justice was to
take the law into their own hands.
"They told me where the governor
lived" added the witness, ''and told me
to watch him and learn his habits aud
see what the chances would be Of being
able to sssassinate him."
Orchard said Haywood got Steve
Adams to help him, and the pair watch
ed the governors house and found ont
that he often came home in the evening
in a carriage.
Pettibone gave them some sawed-ofi
shotguns aud some shells loaded with
tuckshot. This was early in the sum-
mer of 1904. Adams and Orchard hid
across the street from Governor PeabOdy's
one night waiting for the governor to
come home in carriage as usual. They
saw a carriage coming, and as 1t stop
ped in front of the governors house they
ran up behind it ready to shoot.
"Then," said Orchard, "three women
got out, but theigovernor wasn't there"
One of the women was the governors
daughter. They next planned to kill
the governor with bomb, but, accord
ing TO Orchard, Haywood said they had
better lie low for a while, as the execu-
tive board Of the federation wss 10 ses-
sion and they might all get arrested.
Thus Peabody escaped.
The killing of Lyte Gregory, who
worked for the Mine Owners Associs.
ton, was not detailed. Orchard said that
PettibODe put him up to that, saying
that Gregory had been active sgainst the
union and that it would be good thing
to make an example ofhim.
Orchard told how he and Adams track
ed Gregory from one saloon to another
in Denver in May, 1904, until they met
him face to face in the street.
"He sort of reached into his pocket as
if for a gun," said Orchard, "and shot
him three times with shotgun. 1 got
500 the next day, after | talked with
Haywood, Pettibone, aud Jack Simp-
kins."
The blowing up Of the station at Iu-
dependence, when fourteen non-union
men were killed, was described in great
detail by Orchard. He said that he and
Adams did the job together. There
was a convention of Western Federation
OF Miners going on in Denver at that
time, and there was so much fighting in
the organization that Orchard said Hay
wood told him he feared it would be
broken up.
Haywood said," declared the wit
ness, ''that if we pulled of something in
the Cripple Creek district he believed
the convention would finish up its bust
Dess promptly and go home"
Haywood, Pettibone, and Simpkins
were all present when the Independence
outrage was planned. The witness said
he told how he and Adams planted the
powder under the plstform and arranged
a contrivance by which acid would set
off the explosive when the cork wss
pulled out of bottle in the bomb.
he and Adams concealed themselves
st a distance from the station, and when
the train bearing the nonunion mine
workers approached, together pulled on
wire that released the cork from the
acid bottle aud set of the explosive.
: ssVbat was the effect" asked Mr..