ORCHARD'S ORDEAL WILL CLOSE TODAY
Richardson Spends Another Fruitless Day in His Detailed Cross-Examination
PLANNED A KIDNAPPING
Only Thing That Saved Gen. Sherman Bell Was Barking of a Small Dog
BOISE, June 12--This was the fifth day of the trial of the Haywood case. Mr. Richardson was occupied entirely at the continued examination of Harry Orchard. At its close, he told the court that he expected to be able to conclude tomorrow, and said that he had been asking the questions as rapidly as possible to hurry through.
Today's work produced no material change in the position of either Orchard or Richardson. The lawyer hammered away all day, in the same old way without making the least perceptible effect on the witness, except for a momentary show of some feeling once or twice when telling details of the hunt for Steunenberg. In giving the details, Orchard told of coming to Boise and finding his victim registered at the hotel. He took a room at the same place and got into Steunenberg's room by means of a skeleton key. He was contemplating placing a bomb under Steunenberg's bed and setting it off by clockwork. He had in his trunk in the station at Nampa the bomb he had made for the murder of Gov. Peabody, at Canon City, but had not used. That was the one he thought of using to kill Steunenberg. Richardson brought out that he realized the fact that a bomb of this size would possibly destroy the hotel and kill a good many others besides Steunenberg, including women and children. Orchard said he thought of that, but did not care much what happened then, however. As he was on the train going over to Nampa he made up his mind to abandon the Steunenberg plan, at least for the time being, and go on to Portland to the exposition then running there, so Steunenberg escaped at that time.
Attempts That Failed
Richardson devoted the morning session to going over Orchard's movements in Denver and vicinity in the forepart of 1905. That was when Orchard was employed at different times in attempts on the lives of Judges Gabbert and Goddard, of Gov. Peabody, and Gen. Sherman Bell, all of which failed. Richardson commented on these numerous failures, and Orchard said that Haywood had talked about them too. Haywood, however, took a philosophic view of them. "He said he guessed I was out of line and had better lay off for a while," said Orchard.
Richardson made several moves during the general preparation for the explanation of Orchard's actions which the defense will try to make when the time comes. For instance, when Orchard told of going to Canon City to dynamite Peabody, where he had the insurance agent's contract. Richardson intimated by his questions that Orchard had been sent to that place by the general agent at Denver because it was a good field to work for insurance.
A suggestion of greater importance which Orchard declared to be false on each of the occasions when Richardson made it, was that Orchard always took pains to have a Federation man somewhere near him when he was about to commit a crime, in order that he might thus implicate the Federation. That, of course, is part of the Mine Owners' Association detective explanation, on the foundation for which Richardson has worked at intervals before. He got in this suggestion twice this afternoon. The first time was when Orchard told of having telephoned from Nampa to Bill Easterly, who was then at Silver City, asking him to come over and help out on a "contract." The "Contract" was the murder of Steunenberg, and Orchard had to go it alone. So he tried to get Easterly to help him, but Easterly refused.
Orchard Not Trapped
"You calculated to have Easterly or some other union man around near you when you committed that murder, didn't you?" asked Richardson. "No," said Orchard. "I wanted Easterly to help me." Again when Orchard was telling of coming down from Wallace that Fall with Jack Simpkins at the time they went to Caldwell and began work on the Steunenberg murder Richardson brought out the same suggestion. "Didn't you go to Wallace just for the purpose of finding out when Simpkins would be gong to visit the locals, which he had to inspect as a member of the Executive Board, so as to have him near you when you tried to kill Steunenberg?" Orchard denied this as vigorously as ever and repeated his assertion that Simpkins came down to help in that murder.
Then Richardson submitted a new and personal motive for the Steunenberg murder, which he imputed to Orchard. The witness had been telling about his stay to Wallace, and of meeting some of his old partners in the Hercules mine there. Richardson named them one by one and asked if Orchard had not seen each of them there at that time, and if they were not all rich then, made so out of the mines, a share in which he had lost. Orchard admitted the fact about each of them and then Richardson said: "Now, isn't it a fact that you told Paulson that if you had not been driven out of the Coeur d'Alenes by Gov. Steunenberg you might have been rich, too, and that then and there you made up your mind to go down to Caldwell and kill him?" "No, Sir. That's not true," said Orchard, leaning forward in his chair to lend emphasis to the answer. "I did nothing of the kind."
Richardson seemed to have forgotten or else he ignored, in asking this question, the fact that he had himself brought out the fact, in his earlier cross-examination, that Orchard had parted with all his interest in the Hercules Mine before he joined the Western Federation at Burks and took part in the blowing up of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mines, which led to his departure from the Coeur d'Alenes.
Defense Obscure
There have been so many places which the lines of Richardson's statements have crossed that it is impossible to knew whether another of those that have been indicated is to be the only really relied upon to explain Orchard's story, and if so which one of them it is. The scheme of general denial is the one that has been indicated most often, but there was one incident today which it is difficult to make compatible with the plan. That was when Richardson brought out and emphasized the fact that Orchard lived for a month in the Summer of 1903 at Pettibone's and Mrs. Pettibone's invitation as Pettibone's guest, and with Pettibone. Mrs. Pettibone went East on a visit that Summer, and when she went away her husband asked Orchard to stay with him for company, until she returned. Orchard did so, and did not leave until the evening when Mrs. Pettibone came home, when he started on the trip that ended in the killing of Steunenberg.
Richardson also brought out the fact that during several months of that time Orchard's trunk was kept at Pettibone's store, and that when Pettibone went to the federation convention that Summer at Salt Lake City Orchard had a key to the store. Orchard said, in telling of the efforts to kill Sherman Bell, Pettibone went with him to lie in wait for the opportunity with the shotgun, Orchard tried two or three times to get into a position near the house, where he could shoot Bell, but was driven away by the commotion made by a watch dog which Bell had.
They got into a snarl once over Richardson's efforts to wring an admission from Orchard, and Orchard fell back on his declaration that he was telling the truth. "Why is it necessary for you to keep saying to the me that you are telling the truth?" asked Richardson. "Because you are trying to make out that I am not?" replied Orchard.
Gov. Peabody's Bomb
There was a lot of talk about the Canon City trip and the effort to kill Gov. Peabody with a bomb. Orchard kept to the line of his story as told on direct examination, but gave more details. Richardson went into his insurance work at the time, and brought out the fact that the hall insurance which Orchard wrote was a fake. "And your victims were all farmers!" he exclaimed. "They were farmers who took the insurance." replied Orchard.
Richardson started into the Steunenberg killing in the afternoon, but did not get further than the departure of Orchard and Jack Simpkins from Wallace for their trip through the St. Joe country. He brought out in full Orchard's story of the plot to kidnap two children of August Paulson, one of his old partners in the Hercules Mine. Hawley objected to this, on the ground that it had not come out in the direct examination, but was overruled by the court as mistaken.
Orchard involved in this story David Coates, once Lieutenant Governor of Colorado and now editor of a labor paper in Wallace. Coates was elected on the ticket with Governor Orman when the Democrats and Socialist Laborites fused. He was then running a labor paper in Denver. Coates was in the courtroom to-day, and when Orchard told his story Richardson called on him to stand up and be identified. Orchard swung around in his chair and looked at Coates as coolly and steadily as he did at Easterly and Owney Barnes the other day. "Yes, Sir," he said, "that's the man." Coates sat down with a grin as if it were a good joke to be accused of plotting and kidnapping. Orchard's account of the scheme was that while in Denver in the Summer of 1905 he met Coates, whom he had known in the Coeur d'Alenes, and they got to talking of old times there. The fact that Paulson had become so rich out of the Hercules Mine was mentioned, and Coates said there was a chance to get some easy money by kidnapping two of Paulson's children. "He said we could make fifty or sixty thousand dollars," said Orchard. ' "I asked him what part of it he would do, and he said he would take the money. I asked Pettibone about him and he said Coates was all right, and would undertake what he said he would do." "Did anybody ever suggest any crime to you that you were not ready to commit?" interrupted Richardson. "I don't remember," replied Orchard. "Thee were a great many crimes talked about by Moyer and Haywood and Pettibone the we never attempted to carry out."
A Kidnapping Plan
Going on with the kidnapping story, Orchard said that when he went back to the Coeur d'Alenes that fall he thought of this proposition of Coates' and went to Wardner to find Jack Simpkins and talk it over with him. Simpkins thought it was a good scheme, and they went up to Wallace where Coates was then established as editor of the paper started by the sovereign Grand Master of the Knights of Labor. Simpkins talked with Coates about it, and then all three discussed it. Paulson had a little boy of three or four and a girl a little older. The plan was to kidnap them both and hold them for a heavy ransom. Coates was to arrange the receipt of the ransom and to divide with Orchard and Simpkins after the children were returned.
Richardson brought out the fact that Orchard was very hard up in Wallace and robbed a cash register, getting $35 or $40. He also broke into the railroad station with Jack Simpkins and stole a trunk. They thought it was full of jewelry, but when they got into it they found only what Richardson called "left-handed boots." "Why didn't you wire to Pettibone for money?" asked Richardson. "Because I had had a hundred dollars from him and I knew I wasn't up there for what they wanted me to do, and I thought I would wait until I got down where they wanted me," replied Orchard.
--OSCAR KING DAVIS