Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1907 — IS AND WICKED [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IS AND WICKED

Story Told on the Witness Stand by Alfred Horsley, Alias - A Harry Orchard. Hl CONFESSES MARY CHIMES But Declares That William D. Hay* wood Was Partioeps Crimiaia Witness Assassinated Men for Pay, Hl u Admits, and Names Haywood, tL Moyer and Pettibone as His Paymasters. Boise, Ida.. June 6. —Alfred Horsley, alias Harry Orchard, the actual assassin of Frank Steunenberg, went on the stand a witness against William D. Haywood and made public confession of a long chain of brutal, revolting crimes, done, he said, at the Inspiration and for the pay of the leaders

of tlie Western Federation of Miners. An undertaking by the special prosecutors for the state that they would by later proof and connection legitimize his testimony opened the way like a floodgate to the whole diabolical story, and throughout the entire day Orchard went on from crime recital to crime recital. Confessions Made by Orchard.

Orchard confessed that as a member of the mob that wrecked the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill in the Couer d'Alene* he lighted one of the fuses that carried fire to the giant explosion; confessed that he set the death trap In the Vindicator mine at Cripple Creek that blew out the lives of Su■perintendent McCormick nnd Foreman Beck; confessed that because he had not been paid for ids first attempt at -violence in the Vindicator mine he had t>een treacherous to his associates by .warning the managers of the Florence and Cripple Creek railway that there was a plot to blow up their trains; confessed that he cruelly fired three charges of buckshot Into the body of Detective Lyte Gregory, of Denver, killing him instantly; confessed that for days he stalked Governor Peabody about Denver, waiting a chance to kill him; confessed that he and Steve Adams set and discharged the mine under the station at Independencethat instantly killed fourteen men. and confessed that failing in an attempt to poison Fred Bradley, of San Francisco, he blew him and his house up with a bomb of gelatin.

. WEIRD STORY OF MURDER Eyes of Prisoner and Witness Meet Several Times. Orchard retained control of himself almost from the moment he took the stand, and if he suffered much he did not show it. His eyes met those of Haywood several times, and the two gazed fixedly at each other in teqts with honors even. Haywood’s mother, Mrs. Carruthers, of Salt Lake City, and her daughter sat beside the prisoner and his wife, they having arrived here from Salt Lake City. Mrs. Carruthers is a handsome woman of middle age, and her daughter Is a pretty girl of 20. The prisoner's two daughters were absent. Before Orchard was called half a dozen witnesses testified to the presence together of Orchard as “Hogan” and Simpkins, member of the executive of the W. F. M„ as “Simmons,” at Caldwell. Nampa and Silver City, and identified hotel registers wherein they had signed their false names. When Orchard took the stand there were a few preliminaries as to his * birthplace and real name and his first days In the north Idaho country, and then Hawley led him down to the deatructlen of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine. He told the story of the blowing up of the property, In which he said that W. F. Davis, later the president of the union ot the Western Federation of Miners at Cripple Creek, bad command of the mob. He told of the seizure of the train, the theft of |be giant powder, the attack upon the

mines, and concluding, said: “I lit one of the fuses myself.** Horsley then told of his flight into Montana and of various journeys In the western country until he turned up |n Cripple Creek in 1902, Went to work in the mines and joined the Western Federation of Miners again. Under Are of objection from the defense, all of which was overruled by the court on the strength of a repeated promise by the state to show the connection of the defendant later, the witness told of the plot to blow up the Vindicator mine. HE ENGAGED IN ‘HIGH GRADING* Tells of the Infernal Machine at the

Vindicator Mine. He confessed that after the strike began he went down into the mine “high grading,” and there discovered a quantity of powder. He reported this to Davis, and there, he said, began the plot to do violence in the mine. He said the first attempt was a failure because the cage man discovered him and his pal and drew their fire, but later a contrivance was successfully fixed by which a discharged pistol set off a bomb and killed Superintendent McCormick and Foreman Beck. Five hundred dollars, he said, was the reward for the murderer. Then came the journey to Denver, where the witness said he met Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone and entered their employ as assassin. He swore that Haywood paid him S3OO for blowing up the Vindicator mine.

Then came the making of two bombs that were tossed into the coal heap at the Vindicator mine, but were never heard from again, and then a digression to confess that before the successful attempt at the Vindicator mine he had informed the railway management of a plot to blow up its trains carrying non-union meh. Next the prisoner related how he journeyed to southern Colorado as a guard to Moyer, and thep proceeded to tell of his return to Denver, where it was suggested, ho said, that he kill Governor Peabody. He said he picked Steve Adams to aid him, and together they stalked the governor between the capital building and his home, trying for a shoot at him with cut-off shotguns. Haywood and Pettibone were in the plot, and furnished the witness with money from time to time. The plot failed because Hotsley and Adams followed a carriage containing three women to the Peabody home ami excited suspicion. Next eame a plot to dynamite Peabody, and Horsley said thqy made a bomb, but gave the plan up at the suggestion of Haywood, who was in fear that they would all be arrested. He said he and Adams wer& told to lay off for a time, but meantime Pettibone suggested that they kill Lyte Gregory, who had been a deputy sheriff and had given testimoriy against some of the members of the Federation. The witness then detailed the relentless trailing of Gregory and his final murder. “Gregory turned and backed up against a fence,” said the witness, “as if to draw a gun, and T shot him three times. I certainly killed him.” It was the only place xvhere a victim had been actually faced. The others had been done to death by mechanical and chemical contrivances.

Then came the frightful tragedy at Independence, followed by' the flight to Wyoming and after that the trip to San Francisco for the purpose of killing Bradley. Orchard swore that after his visit to Denver, when he got money for the killing of McCormick and Beck, he was constantly in communication with and in the pay of either Haywood, Moyer, Pettibone. Simpkins or Davis; that one or all of them suggested his various crimes, and that at all meetings held after each crime his actions had been warmly commended. He was still on the stand when court adjourned at 3 p. m., because Attorney Hawley complained of a splitting headache.

SCHMITZ JURY IS OBTAINED Sheriff Is Again Disqualified and an Elisor Appointed. San Francisco, June 5. The jury has been completed for the trial ot Mayor Eugene Schmitz on the first of the five indictments returned against him by the grand jury. Judge Dunne, upon motion of the prosecution, and over the determined and spirited objections of the defense, formally dis qualified Sheriff Thomas O’Neill and Coroner William Walsh as unfitted by personal bias to perform any court functions in connection with the trial, and appointed William J. Biggy as elisor to have charge of the jury until a verdict has been rendered or a disagreement reached. The personnel of the trial panel follows: L.,Weil, department store buyer; Paul Bancroft, real estate dealer; Charles H. Gish, contractor; James Feltelberg, furniture dealer; George de Urioste, commission merchant; John O’Mara, blacksmith; Theodore Dellwig, retired broker; Charles 8. Capp, real estate broker; James El P. Benson, pressman; Thomas Elrickr haberdasher; Hugh Burns, retired coal merchant; Royal W. Cd3worth, coal dealer. The state hopes to put in all of its evidence this week.

HARRY ORCHARD. ALIAS HORSLEY.