The daily progressive-miner., 1918-08-03
JAMES BRENNAN FINED $1,000 AND
 GIVEN ONE YEAR
Appeals from Decision of Judge To District Court. Charged
 With SeditiOn

having made seditious utterances and laid hands on officials of the United States government while in the lawful discharge of their duty, tried yester- day, the following jury was impaneled J. w. Mckay, V. A. Peterson, c. M. Taylor, J. M. Peterson, c. H. Black, R. H. Gribben, c. c. Collens, V. l. Cheney. Stanley Adams, Ray Hall, A. Adkins. and John Lhote
 Steve Ragan, assistant District At torney, one of the witnesses, acted for the government, Judge Plumley being retained by the defendant.
 MT. Ragan, after having made short statement to the jury on the case, took the stand and gave out the following story. It appears that the restricted district of Petersburg had been closed about a week before the July 23, by MT. Ragan, acting upon in structions from the Department of Justice. By arrangement both sub- chasers 309 and BIO arrived in Peters burg about that time to investigate certain persons suspected of having valuable information regarding pro- Germans. While said officers from both subchasers, in company with the assistant district attorney were visit ing house in the district known as the Prairie" occupied by Georgie Waldon and Ora Gordon, for the pur- pose of obtaining statements regard ing utterances having been made in their presence by pro-Germans, the de- fendant is alleged to have burst in the house after knocking loudly and to have asked in insulting language what business they had there and that he was going to look into the matter. Ensign Geo. Ragan, of s. c. 309 then asked the defendant what his business was there stating that his uniform was his authority, to which Brennan is al- l leged to have made slighting remark about the uniform. Brennan then left the house, returning in few minutes with the night policeman or maj shal and told him to "see who was there." The marshal replied he knew they were there and that it was none of his business what they were doing. District Attorney Ragan then told the marshal to take Brennan away and both men left together.
 | Upon cross questioning by Judge Plumley, MT. Ragan admitted the fact that there was a barrel Of whisky aboard s. c. BIO which had been seiz- ed by the Petersburg authorities from Scow Bay a. day or so previous to this time. Mir. Ragan stated he had SUD- erintended the transferring of the liquor on board but denied the ale gation that he had any liquor what 1 ever to drink or that he had visited the dance hall in town where dance was being given in honor of the men l from the sub-chasers, or that he had | house in the district when MT. Bren- man made his appearance. MT. Ragan stated that numerous other houses were visited that night for the purpose of obtaining statements and that it was about 230 when the scene occur ared.
 Ensign George kagan Intelligence of | ficer stationed aboard 309 and Ensign Botkin performing the same duties aboard S. c. BIO, were called to give brief account of the nights happenings and told the same story as MT. Ragan practically word for word, also admit ting that the work in the district had been arranged for by the two boats before meeting at Petersburg, and was part of their duty as intelligence off cers to run down all rumors of pro- German utterances.
 No witnesses were called and no testimony given in behalf of the de- fendant by Judge Plumley. After a brief resume by Assistant District Attorney Ragan the jury re- tired, returning verdict of guilty in four and half minutes.
 Judge Wm. T, Mahoney told the prisoner he was not going to get half of what he deserved, the law provid ing only fine of $1,O0O and year i'm prisonment as limit, which he was given, and that had he been there when Brennan uttered these remarks, the case would never have come to trial
 An appeal to the District Court was made and the defendant allowed to re- turn under a s5.OOO bond. The case will probably come up at the fall term of the District Court, here.
 MT Brennan said last evening that he had no intention of presenting his side of the case at the trial, prefer ring to take the matter up before the district court.