The Springfield herald., 1907-06-21
What is PROVEN?
ONE CORRESPONDENT SAYS Or
cHARD PROVED NOTHING.
WARRlNG FOR A HUMAN SOUL
The Vivid coloring of Saul in Awful
Travail Shown in Orchards
Confession.

that we have not been dreaming
Orchard has come and Orchard has
gone, and since his going we have
been building in grain by grain, atom
by atom, as coral insects build in the
southern seas. the white walls of fact
which are to fill in the steel frame Of
evidence his incredible story riyeted
beam to beam to breastwork.
orchard has come and Orchard has
gone. and he went as he came that
breathless morning week ago, a
81 Ill., short, thick-Set. inscrutable man
in a gray tweed suit, looking right be
fore him with fathomless, fearless,
wide-set eyes. believing. as he said, in
the Everlasting God, and thinking, also
as he said. that life here might be sold
well and cheaply if it brought indem-
nifty throughout eternity.
He told his tale to Hawlcy. briefly
and without gestures, and it drained
into our ears as Il dream might.
dream of prodigious inhuman impossi'
bility. He told his tale again TO Rich
ardsun the pouderous and patient ana
particular Richardson. and 10! 1t was
a dream no more. but biting, vivid,
poignant story of fathomless sin and
black murder; and we knew that we
were watching the first fires of hell.
Defense Was Skeptical.
Before Orchard came the defense
told us that he never would say on the
stand what he had said to Mcfarland.
He was mad, they said, or half mad,
or diseased. They doubted whether he
had ever killed Steunenberg. They de
MED that he has ever even tried to kill
~ No
further and said that lie had never
even been in San Francisco.
They laughed at the story that he
had ever blown up the Independence
depot.
They did not know he was going to
charge himself with the murder OF
Iyte Gregory. They sneered at the
attempted assassination of Goddard
and Gabbert and Peabody and Sherman
Bell
They said he was a degenerate, &
craven. covering fugitive. with no
heart for any fight and no faith in any
God.
They predicted immediate and final
annihilation of Mcfarland. They said
MCFARLAND had grown old and foolish
gibbering of vain things, mouthinS OF
his past
They were prepared to sweep away
the whole case of the state in less than
twenty-four hours. They were pre-.
pared TO prove that the whole thing
was a foolish and vain and wicked con.
spiracy. They were prepared for any.
thing. They were prepared for every
thing.
But they were not prepared for Or.
chard, the man who said he believed
in al
make his peace with God and wanted
to tell the truth. He was for them a
problem in the fourth dimension. and
they left him quite unsolved. And so
did We
He admitted arson: he admitted big,
amy: he admitted murder: he admitted
burglary: ne admitted assassinations
attempted and assassinations accom-
plished; he admitted lying; he admit.
ted poisoning; hS was vague as to the
mere dates of his offending, but scrupu.
lous to point as to the verbiage of his
confession He evaded no crime
charged against him. He charged him
self with many that were not supposed
He made not one solitary statement in
his evidence in chief that was smirched
in the least by the labored cross-eXam.
ination of Richardson. and the story OF
his last wanderings before he did his
last killing had some touch of final
human tragedy in it: the passing cry
of human soul.
Richardson drew it from him clums-
ily drip by drip, word by word. episode
by episode. But it seemed somehow
to eclipse the court room and darken
the world. and left only the vague,
moving picture Of two shadows trail
ing each other OBVIOUSLY through the
night, until in the end one smote and
the other fell and was left writhing,
and Orchard sat in that chair again
answering monotonously. Yes, sir,
or "No. sir. did not say that exactly.
What said was" 1t was all out OF
focus, unbelievable. And the man had
admitted again and again that he was
liar.
1t was wonderfully graphic, dra-
matte, blood freezing; a story to listen
to with parted lips, breathless.
And yet it wasn't evidence.
1t proved nothing; it did not even
prove that Orchard killed Steunenterg.
Not even that. There has been evil
dence that a bomb killed him. But
there has been no evidence-not at all
that Orchard even placed that bomb
no evidence other than Orchards own
statement.
1t has been the same with the blow
ing up of the NindiCator mine, and the
blowing up of the Independence depot
and the killing of Lyte Gregory and
the attempt on the life of Bradley. So
far we have come nearer to bringing
the Bradley affair home to Orchard
than any OF the others. 1t is a preg-
nant situation. And it must be remem-
bered that Orchard is not on trial here.
II is William d. Haywood. And against
Haywood so far no evidence has been
produced that any system of jurispru
dence will accept as connecting him
with the Steunenberg murder. 1t would
be taken as evidence by no law, Ro
man or English or Dutch.
So far William d. Haywood stands
clear. There is no case against him.
There is no case against Pettibone
There is no case against Meyer There
is no case even against Orchard him
self. Not yet
We have mad the vivid coloring of a
human soul in awful travail; a victory
of the eternal God warning with Satan
for the soul of a man; palpitating
tragedy; a ponderous. large person
cross-examining tediously where no
crossexamining should have been done