The Sentinel=record., 1912-11-24
ETTOR AND GlOvANNITTI GIVEN PRIVILEGE OF ADDRESSING
 JURY IN THEIR TRIAL.
BOTH MAKE ELOQUENT PLEAS
Ettor Makes Splendid Appeal and Asks Only for Simple Justice Giovannitti Declares Charges
 Are Preposterous.

Salem, Mass, Nov. 23.-If you
 think us guilty of murdering our sis :.
 ter, give us deauh History will re-
 cord our end. We will go to higher
 Judgment seat and millions of work
 CTS will take up our flag of labo.
 when we drop it in the ditch"
 That, in substance was the clos
 ing theme of two of the most remark
 able pleas ever heard in court room when Jos J. Ettor and Arturo Gio-
 yannitti. leaders in the textile strike
 at Lawrence, last winter, arose in the prisoners cage today in the Es.
 sex county court to speak for them selves and their comrade. Jos. Cary uso, accused of the murder of Anna Lopizzo who fell in a strike riot last
 January.
 | Ettor, the labor leader and Clio. var~'tti. socialist writer held the
 court room, crowded with spectators, i spellbound for more than an hour District Attorney Attwell had just finished. He had spoken the last
 word for the commonwealth, charging that the utterances of Ettor and
 Gioyannitti to the Lawrence strikers
 were reasonable, that such as they
 were not needed in the common
 wealth of Massachusetts to aid in
 the solution of it's problems, that
 instead of being philanthropists and apostles of peace and workers for the
 betterment of humanity, they we're a menace to free government. | The defendants lawyers informed
 Judge Quinn of the desire of the prisoners to speak. The judge an
 nounced that under the law of Mas.
 sachusetts they could speak to the
 jury but he warned them not to dis-
 cuss anything outside the bounds of
 the evidence that had been int-oduc-
 ed in the case.
 1 Ettor. nodded assent and then rose | to his feet. In clear, bell-like voice,
 he began to speak. Deliberately and
 cooly he analysed his case. declar-
 ing that he had been tried, not upon his acts but upon his views. Once | In his statement, he hesitated, say | ing, perhaps his honor, the court will not let me say what I am about 1 to say-it is in <Ine with what have said about the agents of the mill owners planting the dynamite n
 Lawrence and causing the street car
 riots to discredit rhe strikers" You may proceed" said the court
 and then Etto- declared with em- phasis that his sister, Giovannittl sister, Caruso's sister Anna Lopiz- ! zo" had been killed, as he believed. as a result of another plot of the
 mill owners to break the strike. 1 EttoT protested innocence of muf-
 der. or melting tQ riot, not only for himself, but for shis comrades. He urged that if the jury thought them gullty, they should be given the death Tenalty not shut up in prison where
 s.-ey could not continue their work for the betterment of the working class and ultimate attainment or their ideal, a condition where lab their labor. He pictured the cross. the guillotine, the gallows and. the electric chair as unable, through all history to choke righteous cause, and ended ill plea for simple justice | As Ettor sat down, scores of wo
 men were weeping Even men were in tears among them, leaders asso- ciated with the defendants in the Lawrence strike.
 Then Giovannitti rose from his place beside his comrade. His face seemed swollen with emotion, his eyes swelling with tears. He said
 he was about to make the first pub i lie speech he ever had uttered in your beautiful language" MT. Att well the district attorney Giovannitti said:
 So solemn is this moment, so full with clashing emotions am I now that l don't know whether 1 ever will conclude what l Ihave to say" Then he strengthened up in the | cage and for twenty minutes he talk ed. He did not discuss the evidence. but what he caned the preposteS- l ousness of the idea" that such as he and his comrades could have been guilty of murderous though
 "Whirling around with violent ges- ture, he said:
 'lf there is a man in the court room who has murder in his heart he is not ill this cage"
 Then he went on to tell of his life story, his ambition, his seizure upon
 the cause of socialism as the soiu- ton of human ills. and ended with | a fearful plea. Life was sweet, he said, a wife loved him, a mother loved him. and he had ideals thai he loved. He felt the passion of liv I ing and did not want to die martyr,
 but to live for the betterment of men If he could live. he would go