Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1907-06-15
ORCHARDTESTIMONY
WITNESS FOR STATE In GREAT
TRIAL AT BOISE.
He Has Confessed to Every Known
Crime-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
Meyer 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.
If it is possible to heap further
obliquy on the witness they have done
so by proving him capable of petty
crimes. By his own admission he is
a bigamist, a thief, liar and an in
cendiary. He has played traitor to
his employers. He has deserted two
wives and his child. To all these Of
lenses 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-
tense state most positively that the
pile of sworn testimony they will
bring to contradict Orchard must con-
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 trafficked
with railroad detectives in the mining
region of Cripple Greek during the
great strike there, while almost at the
same time he was in the confidence of
the leaders of the Western Federation
of Miners, and led by Mr.. Richardson
Orchard stated that he was hired
by Meyer, the president of the fedora
ton, to act as his guard against the
thugs alleged to have been hired by
the mine owners.
From half a dozen states witnesses
will be called to deny Orchards as
sertions. Already two men accused by
Orchard of completely in the plots he
says were Matched by the elmer cir
Gle" of the Western Federation have
been called upon the stand in open
court, where they sat as spectators.
Orchard identified them as the men he
named and Billy Easterly and Owney
Barnes have openly sneered their de-
NAL of the testimony.
The cross-examination of Harry
Orchard, by his own confession the
slayer of Is men by bullet and bomb,
is likely to last through Monday and
Tuesday of this week, and possibly
longer.
He has told what appeared to be an
incredible story spread over the Al
years of his life, the first 80 years be-
ing merely commonplace, the story of
a poor Canadian farmer. but begin
ming with the year 1895, he unfolded
a career IN which, to use the words of
the leading counsel for the state, "as-
sassination was a trade and murder
means of livelihood"
Orchard spared no incident of his
more recent life, under the question
ing of the state, that might prove to
the jury his readiness to slaughter for
low wage, and how Indifferent he had
been a sto the number or condition
of his victims This story, brought
out by counsel for the state was, how
ever, merely a synopsis of the play
whose acts cover the years since 1899.
In every act the climax sent shudder
through a crowded courtroom.
Steve Adams, waiting his second
trial for the murder of Fred Tyler-the
Adams who was the pal of Harry Or
chard-was taken from the county Jail
at Rathdrum, Idaho, by two officers
from Boise and started on his way to
Boise to testify in the Haywood trial.
Mrs Orchard backs out and now re
fuses to go to Boise from Colorado to
testify in noted case.