The Western news., 1907-06-12
ORCHARDTESTIMONY
WITNESS FOR STATE In GREAT
TRIAL AT BOISE.
He Has Confessed to Every Known
Crme-His Testimony Ends This
Week-Steve Adams in Boise to
Testify-One of Orcahrd's Wives
Will Not Testify in Noted Case.

Boise, Idaho, June 9.-Slowly but
surely the defense is developing the
lines by which it hopes to break down
the story of Harry Orchard, so far as
it affects Haywood, now on trial, and
Moycr or Pettibone, who are yet to
be tried on the same charge-com-
plicity in the murder Of Ex-Governor
Frank Steunenberg at Caldwell. Idaho.
Ii it is possible to heap further
ONiquy on the witness they have done
so by proving him capable of petty
crimes. By his own admission he is
bigamist, a thief, a liar and an in
cendiary. He has played traitor to
his employers. He has deserted two
wives and his child. To all these Of
fenses he has been forced to- confess,
but under a grueling cross-eXamina-
ton by the defense he has stuck to
his story and given chapter and verse.
Possible witness after witness has
been named and counsel for the de-
fense state most positively that the
pile of sworn testimony they will
bring to contradict Orchard must con
vince the jury of the entire falsity of
his testimony.
By their questions they have plain.
| ly indicated their intention to prove
| that Orchard was the hired agent OF
the mineOwners, who, harassed by the
Western Federation of Miners, deter
mined to wipe union labor from the
mines of Idaho and Colorado, planned
| assassination, train wrecks and mine
| explosions that could be laid to the
door of the Western Federation OF
| Miners and would keep militia on the
| ground while nOnunion men worked
in the mines.
| 1t has been shown under the cross
| examination that Orchard traftickeC
with railroad detectives in the mining
| region of Cripple Creek during the
great strike there, while almost at the
| same time he was in the confidence O
| the leaders of the Western Federation
of Miners, and led by Mr.. Richardson
| Orchard stated that he was hiret
| by Meyer, the president of the fedora
ton, to act as his guard against thu
thugs alleged to have been hired b,
the mine owners.
From half dozen states witnesse
| will be called to deny Orchards as
sertions. Already two men accused b.
Orchard of completely in the plots h
says were hatched by the ''inner cil
Gle" of the Western Federation haV
been called upon the stand in Opel
court, where they sat as spectators
Orchard identified them as the men h
named, and Billy Easterly and Owne
Barnes have openly sneered their dc
nial Of the testimony.
The cross-eXamination Of Harr
Orchard, by his own confession tn
slayer of 18 men by bullet and bom(
is likely to last through Monday an
Tuesday of this week, and possibl
longer.
He has told what appeared to be a
Incredible story spread Fover the 4
years of his life, the first 80 years be
ing merely commonplace, the story c
a poor Canadian farmer, but begi1
ming with the year 1895, he unfolde
a career IN which, to use the words {
| Ille leduluS COullSel lol tHo SIdIe, d'
{ sasSinatiOn was a trade and murder
: means of livelihood
Orchard spared no incident of hi
more recent life, under the question
ing of the state, that might prove
the jury his readiness to slaughter fC
low wage, and how Indifferent he ha
been G sto the number or conditio
of his victims. This story, brougt
out by counsel for the state was, hov
ever, merely a synopsis of the pla
whose acts cover the years since 1879
In every act the climax sent shudde
through a crowded courtroom.