ncoln, Illinois, Or;
 
 XI B R.AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 331.B9 
 C73p 
 
 Jk '. T: J . 
 
 '* A-***
 
 * 
 
 Plea of 
 
 Frank Comerford 
 
 In Defense of jp- ' if 
 
 Carl E. Person 's Life 
 
 ^"^~~^fc 
 
 /***** <^*^1j t 
 
 Made at Lincoln, Illinois, October 
 Fourth, Nineteen Hundred Fourteen
 
 Stand Up and Fight 
 
 You're sick of the game ; well now that's a shame, 
 
 You're young and you're brave and you're bright; 
 
 "You've had a raw deal/" "I know--but don't squeal, 
 
 Buck up/ Do your damndest and fight. 
 
 It's the plugging away that will win you the day, 
 
 So don't be a piker, old pard! 
 
 Just draw on your grit; it's dead easy to quit; 
 
 It's keeping your chin up that's hard. 
 
 It's easy to cry that you're beaten and die; 
 
 It's easy to crawfish and crawl ; 
 
 But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight 
 
 Why that's the best game of them all! 
 
 And though you come out of each gruelling bout 
 
 All broken and battered and scarred, 
 
 Just have one more try it's dead easy to die, 
 
 It's the keeping on living that's hard. 
 
 Robert W. Service 
 
 Copyrighted by 
 
 The Person Defense League of Chicago, Cook 
 County, Illinois 
 
 1915
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 An injury to one, is the concern of all, 
 United we stand, divided we fall. 
 
 These two lines constitute an epitome of Americas' Organized 
 Labor Movement. 
 
 Pessimistic critics may seek to disprove this claim, by citing in- 
 stances wherein the unity of action so clearly and forcibly expressed 
 was apparent by its absence ; inquiry into such evasions and flagrant 
 violations of Labors' fundamental principles will invariably disclose 
 the fact, that such a contemptible proceeding was never due to any 
 change of heart or thought on the part of the rank and file, but 
 emanated from the self-centered minds of aspiring individuals whose 
 temporary investure with an official title and representative author- 
 ity, filled them with a mistaken sense of self-importance that distorted 
 law into license and made the needs and wants of the many a matter 
 of minor consideration when they clashed with pjersonal ambition and 
 schemes of self-aggrandisement. 
 
 Every mile-stone on the road of industrial progress stands as an 
 enduring monument commemorating deeds of unconscious heroism, 
 uncomplaining sacrifices and the endurance of inexpressable misery 
 and privations, in a common cause, by the common soldiers in the 
 vast army of over-worked and under-paid toilers. 
 
 For years unscrupulous employers of labor, under the hypo- 
 critical guise of paternal solicitude, benificent purpose and various 
 other forms of sophism, kept the credulous workers hopelessly divided 
 i and in ignorance of their own powers ; they robbed the defenseless 
 employes with impunity, they harried them with skilfully devised 
 * plans, intended to increase production while decreasing the cost, until 
 
 the limit of physical endurance was not only reached but passed. 
 
 <tf 
 
 ^ Disheartened and broken spirited, Labor despairingly sought re- 
 
 lief and through bitter experience gradually awoke to a realization 
 of the truth, that divided it was helpless and that practical organiza- 
 tion of its units was an essential preliminary to the emancipation of
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 America's bread-winners from a condition of bondage, more repug- 
 nant in nature than the chattel slavery, wiped out by the floods of 
 human blood that stained the battle fields of the American Civil War. 
 
 As the signs of revolt on the part of Labor became more evident, 
 the pusillanimous business aristocracy of America, composed of rail- 
 road KINGS, merchant PRINCES, coal BARONS, CAPTAINS of 
 industry and the lesser sprigs of DOLLAR NOBILITY, through 
 their vassals in the various branches of Governmental service, sought 
 and obtained extraordinary privileges, intrenched themselves behind 
 special legislation and by use of the military forces of the country, 
 aided by the private mercenaries their wealth could command, de- 
 cided to either suppress or destroy the forces of Organized Labor. 
 
 Unafraid and undismayed, inspired by victory and learning wis- 
 dom through occasional defeat, the army of organized toil, under 
 difficulties innumerable and apparently insurmountable, kept con- 
 sistently at its self-appointed task of humanizing the existing policy 
 of commercializing want and the trading upon human misery, re- 
 storing to the Nation's babies, the childhood of which they had been 
 robbed; giving back to the young girls their youth and beauty, taken 
 from them by business greed; replacing woman's crown of feminine 
 virtues and glory, lost in the enforced struggle for bread; returning 
 to the boys the opportunities for an education and a broader life, so 
 long denied them ; renewing man's waning strength and faltering 
 independence almost destroyed by the demands of profit. How well 
 Trades Unionism has succeeded in its efforts, history is ready to ad- 
 vise the interested. 
 
 This never ending struggle between the contending employers 
 and employes, is based upon the employer's desire to either rule or 
 ruin and the employes' refusal to tamely submit to the deliberate 
 draining of their vitality by enforced competition with the tireless 
 energy of machinery and the destructive and debasing tendency of 
 the modern efficiency systems in vogue and the further knowledge 
 that when exhausted they will be cast upon the scrap-heap as a 
 profitless commodity, none care to burden themselves with and whose 
 only refuge is a suicides' grave. 
 
 Like the war of Nations, the industrial war consists of many 
 battles, fought at different times, in different places and by different
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE * 
 
 troops, with this distinction, that among nations both sides occupy a 
 plane of comparative equality, as regards the use of publicity agencies, 
 information bureaus and the use of an organized and efficient spy 
 system, while in an industrial conflict, such advantages are the sole 
 perogative of BIG BUSINESS AND ITS REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 Encounters, if of enough importance in either killed or wounded, 
 losses sustained or victories gained, may eventually find a place in 
 history, otherwise all information not favorable to the LORDS of 
 HIGH FINANCE is religiously eliminated and forgotten, except in 
 the hearts and minds of those who actually fought and bled at the 
 front, or endured war's sorrows and sacrifices in the homes. 
 
 Among the many conflicts that have taken place and are being 
 waged, none have been or are more spectacular in character, more re- 
 plete with evidence of the venomous hatred and malign influence of 
 the corporate interests involved, than the fight of the Illinois Cen- 
 tral and Harriman Railroad Lines, to prevent the shop craftsmen in 
 their employ, from following the example set by the roads themselves, 
 by forming and maintaining a System Federation through the medium 
 of which these Trade Unions could act jointly on all matters affecting 
 their common interests, in the same manner that the railroads employ- 
 ing them transacted their business. 
 
 All the ancient and modern tactics of war were put into practice, 
 every advantage that unlimited dollars could purchase or procure ; 
 from legal persecution and the use of a prostituted press, to mislead 
 the public, to the employment of cheap crooks, professional gun men, 
 thugs and strike-breakers was resorted to in a desperate effort to 
 insure a quick and decisive victory. 
 
 Though illy equipped financially for an engagement of such mag- 
 nitude, the shop craftsmen involved met every corporate move with 
 such determined and intelligent resistence, that the easy triumph 
 expected by the Railroad Kings has failed to materialize even up to 
 date. 
 
 The campaign of malicious misrepresentation conducted by the 
 subsidized press, not only failed to blind the public, but also opened 
 the eyes of the strikers and from their ranks came one, who both saw 
 and understood the need of the hour.
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 Carl E. Person, one of the striking Machinists, located at Clin- 
 ton, Illinois, undertook with the sanction and aid of the strikers, the 
 establishment of a Union Publication, to be known as the "Strike 
 Bulletin," the columns of which were dedicated to the telling of the 
 truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, without fear or 
 favor. 
 
 Under Person's able management the Bulletin turned the search- 
 light of uncompromising honesty upon the lawless methods of Big 
 Business and sent a pencil of blinding light along the slimy trail of 
 the hell spawned reptiles crawling on the deadly mission entrusted 
 to them by organized and conscienceless dollars. 
 
 Rascality always stands in dread of publicity, its blatant self- 
 assuarnce shrinks to a feeble and whining denial of its guilt, it re- 
 alizes that the truth signifies ruin, utter and complete; the Strike 
 Bulletin in the hands of courageous and incorruptable Carl E. Person 
 became, not an instrument of vengeance, but a safe guide for a long 
 lost, blind and bewildered JUSTICE, it imbued the railroad corpora- 
 tions with terror and spread consternation in their camp, while it 
 animated the ranks of the strikers with renewed zeal and vigor by 
 replacing despondency with hope and joy and carried to the Trades 
 Union world, as a whole, a weekly message of good cheer. 
 
 The Strike Bulletin and Carl E. Person were in time regarded 
 by the railroad plunder-bund as a Nemesis, composed of twin evils 
 that had to be silenced by fair means if possible, by foul means if 
 necessary. 
 
 It logically followed that the abortive attempts to suppress the 
 Bulletin and destroy the printing plant, together with the murderous 
 assaults made upon Carl E. Person, were not entirely unexpected, 
 each failure to accomplish the end sought, rendered these business 
 buccaneers more desperate in their next venture and ultimately cost 
 the life of Tony Musser, chief of the Illinois Strike Breakers, in 
 his endeavor to carry out orders to get Person. Though acting in 
 self defense Person was treated as a desperate character unworthy 
 of any consideration. While penniless, Person was not friendless, 
 for upon notification of his plight, the Chicago Federation of Labor 
 established an institution known as The Person Defense League. of 
 Chicago, consisting of a delegate body, representing the various Chi-
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 5 
 
 cago Trades Unions. This league later received the unqualified en- 
 dorsement of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, The Railway 
 Employes Department of the American Federation of Labor and its 
 affiliated International Unions. 
 
 To the Person Defense League was assigned the duty of solic- 
 iting funds to defray the expenses, incidental to securing a fair and 
 impartial trial for Carl E. Person, on the various indictments and 
 charges in the Federal and other courts, ranging from murder to 
 damage suits. 
 
 As the Person Defense League was aware of Carl E. Person's 
 desire to voice his appreciation of the efforts of those laboring in his 
 behalf, in the preparation of this pamphlet, space was reserved and 
 tendered to Person in which to express such sentiments. Person 
 embraced the opportunity offered and his statement is herein pre- 
 sented, together with the eloquent and soul stirring address of the 
 talented attorney Frank Comerford of Chicago, Chief Counsel for 
 Person at the murder trial, held at Lincoln, Logan County, Illinois. 
 
 This speech not only embodies a complete recital of all the 
 incidents and details of the System Federation strike up to and in- 
 cluding the killing of Tony Musser, with all the human interest 
 features presented in a manner that compels attention and main- 
 tains to its very end an absorbing interest that never flags and as 
 a whole, constitutes the most masterful presentation of Labor's bill 
 of grievances ever voiced in a court room. 
 
 The Person Defense League of Chicago in presenting this booklet 
 to the Trades Unionists of America and their friends, makes no pre- 
 tense of offering, either a brilliantly cut and polished literary gem, 
 or a typographically perfect production, it is tendered as a plain and 
 simple statement of facts in connection with the age old struggle 
 of humanity to retain their birth right of freedom, the liberty to 
 organize not only into Unions, but also into Federations, or any 
 other method of obtaining that unanimity of action which will serve 
 as a key to unlock the door that bars Labors' entrance into the land 
 of promise, where honesty and justice reign, real freedom exists, 
 want and misery are unknown, truth and happiness is the rule and 
 not the exception. 
 
 S^erson 3)efense JCeague of Chicago.
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 There is little for me to say. Mine has been a small part in 
 this struggle. To others has been the larger accomplishment. I 
 can only send out my gratitude. Had I the eloquence of all the 
 tongues that ever spoke or the skill of all the pens that were ever 
 wielded, the depth and strength of that gratitude would still be un- 
 told. 
 
 Alone I would have gone down. You, my brothers in Organ- 
 ized Labor, shouldered the burden. It matters not whether you 
 gave me heartfelt good wishes or the needed mite, my gratitude 
 cannot be measured. 
 
 I feel unworthy of it all. Yet from my experience one Truth 
 flames. When he is made target in the service of organized labor, 
 the humblest card carrier has back of him all unionism. 
 
 This has been my strength and my comfort. 
 
 I am helpless when I try to tell how I feel. So many helped. 
 They helped generously, unselfishly and were untiring. To them 
 alone, in the ranks and otherwise, is the credit due. 
 
 A book could not tell what the Person Defense League, organ- 
 ized by the Chicago Federation of Labor and indorsed by the Illinois 
 State Federation of Labor, has accomplished in my behalf. Repeti- 
 tion of my gratitude in special mention is surely allowable here. 
 
 And mention, too, brief as it must be, of my brothers in the 
 Railway Department of the American Federation of Labor. 
 
 To you all I send my gratitude and my greetings.
 
 CARL. E. PERSON 
 Editor, System Federation Strike Bulletin 
 
 Victim of Corporate Hatred
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 Epitome of Events 
 
 In the history of law, the trial of Carl Person is a notable one. 
 He was accused of murdering Anton Musser in Clinton, Illinois, on 
 the afternoon of December Thirtieth, 1913. The tragedy was the 
 outcome of a strike on the Illinois Central and Harriman lines in which 
 thirty-five thousand men were involved. Person was strike secretary 
 for the men and up to the time of the killing of Musser, underwent a 
 remarkable series of systematic persecutions that have perhaps, been 
 unequaled in the history of the labor movement. His trial ended in 
 an acquittal on the grounds of self defense. 
 
 Following is an epitome of the principal events connected with 
 the case: 
 
 September 30, 1911, thirty-five thousand employees of the two 
 railroads were locked out because they refused to disband their System 
 Federation. 
 
 Soon afterward Person was elected Strike Secretary and launched 
 the Strike Bulletin, a newspaper in which the facts concerning the 
 strike were given to the public. 
 
 Result, the stock of the Illinois Central dropped from 160 to 110. 
 Dividends from 7% to 5%. 
 
 In May, 1913, Editor Person was slugged by Illinois Central gun 
 men. 
 
 In May, 1913, the Strike Bulletin office was raided by Illinois 
 Central detectives and United States marshals. Person was arrested 
 and a federal indictment was returned against him. The charge was 
 that he used the United States mails to reflect injuriously upon the 
 conduct of the Illinois Central Railroad. Conviction carried a penalty 
 of thirty-five years in a federal prison and a fine of $35,000.00. 
 
 June, 1913, Editor Person was again attacked by Illinois Central 
 gun men on the streets of Decatur, 111. He was le'ft insensible on the 
 street.
 
 CARL, E. PERSON IN HIS CELL IN THE CLINTON JAIL 
 
 Preparing copy for the Strike Bulletin and conferring with 
 Attorney Comerford standing on other side of cell door
 
 10 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 December 30, 1913, Editor Person was decoyed from his office, 
 by a fake telephone call. The call was from Anton Musser, former 
 chief of police of Clinton, 111. At that time he was chief strikebreaker 
 for the Illinois Central. Waylaid and beaten, Editor Person shot 
 and killed Musser. 
 
 Charged with murder, Person was put in jail. Remained there 
 for five months. He was denied hearing for bail in De Witt County 
 and he was finally released on $12,000.00 bail by Chief Justice Charles 
 M. Walker, of the criminal court of Cook county, sitting in the city 
 of Chicago. A writ of habeas corpus was used to take Editor Person 
 out of the custody of the De Witt county officials. 
 
 Application for a change of venue in the case was made in June, 
 1914. The prosecution bitterly contested the application, filing 467 
 affidavits against change of venue. The defense filed 512 affidavits 
 and were granted change of venue to Lincoln, Logan County, Illinois. 
 
 An attachment suit was started against Person for $10,000.00. 
 The Strike Bulletin property was seized by the sheriff. 
 
 The murder trial was set for September 22, 1914. 
 
 On September 3, 1914, Editor Person was again arrested and 
 thrown in jail. This charge was criminal libel. 
 
 The murder trial began September 22, 1914. The case went to 
 the jury on October 4, 1914. The jury was out twenty-four hours and 
 returned a verdict of "not guilty." 
 
 In November, 1914, Editor Person was again arrested, charged 
 with criminal libel. 
 
 Carl Person is still on the job at Clinton. The Strike Bulletin is 
 issued weekly. 
 
 The other criminal prosecutions against Person are still pending 
 and will be tried soon. So will the attachment suit.
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 11 
 
 Following is a List of All Witnesses Sworn in the Case of 
 The People vs. Carl E. Person 
 
 L. W. Lemon 
 
 Joseph Barnett 
 
 Harry Osborne 
 
 Louis Edward Nicholson 
 
 Asa Rudlsell 
 
 Clarence Reed 
 
 W. B. Rundell 
 
 Weldon Ward 
 
 C. G. Oakman 
 
 George Kane 
 
 Myrtle Hinkle 
 
 Geo. Cavanaugh 
 
 Charles Rowsey 
 
 Frank Meadors 
 
 Edna Matthews 
 
 Julia Duckworth f 
 
 Florence Stuart 
 
 Joachim Willson 
 
 Dr. John J. Condon 
 
 Homer Short . 
 
 Ira Davenport 
 
 George W. Harrison 
 
 Philo J. Crum 
 
 George Surcamer 
 
 Oliver Lane 
 
 Li. E. Stone 
 
 H. A. Campbell 
 
 B. F. Wasson 
 
 Mrs. E. J. Flatt 
 
 Albert Jones 
 
 Andrew Hall 
 
 Bert Simmons 
 
 A. Duckworth *" 
 
 M. Monahan 
 
 William Petard 
 
 Charles Garrett 
 
 K. K. Moreland 
 
 E. J. Spick 
 
 Bert Foist 
 
 Frank Minch 
 
 Dr. U. Davis 
 
 Harry Scott ' 
 
 John Cox 
 
 J. J. Rolofson ' 
 
 Charles A. Cline 
 
 John T. Hand 
 
 Thos. C. Wampler 
 
 W. H. Armstrong 
 
 Roscoe Williams 
 
 Fred Ball 
 
 George Ferryman 
 
 Dr. G. S. Edmonson 
 
 H. A. Moore 
 
 H. D. Griffith 
 
 Sam Hagler 
 
 Bert Foist 
 
 Helen McCann 
 
 Fred Kirk 
 
 Clarence Thorpe 
 
 Philip Johnson i/' 
 
 S. A. Early 
 
 Don Maxfleld 
 
 Rebecca Fry 
 
 Helen Jones / 
 
 John C. Gray 
 
 O. F. Burr 
 
 Leland Lawrence 
 
 August Duesing 
 
 Geo. Marvel 
 
 Joseph Bordenkeckker 
 
 Patrick Raleigh 
 
 Harry Mehan 
 
 Sam Sullivan 
 
 George Potter 
 
 John Matthews 
 
 Geo. Delbridge 
 
 Lewis Bridgewater 
 
 William McCord 
 
 C. Duckworth 
 
 Carl Person 
 
 Emmet Glenn 
 
 Harry Weene 
 
 John T. Greene 
 
 Geo. Thorpe 
 
 Logan Merida 
 
 C. C. Brown 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 Philip Wolf 
 
 Geo. H. Brown 
 
 L. F. Slick 
 
 Delmer Bryant 
 
 Joe Moore 
 
 Fred Wade 
 
 G. W. Hughes 
 
 Dr. S. A. Graham 
 
 Chas. Dickerson 
 
 Douglas Scott 
 
 Jas. Meagher 
 
 Arthur Rathburn 
 
 Ellis Baker 
 
 Claude Bush < 
 
 Ernest Mitchell 
 
 W. H. Armstrong 
 
 James Jordan 
 
 Jesse Newcomb 
 
 John Taylor 
 
 Dr. B. M. Pugh 
 
 Mrs. Len Barnett 
 
 George Seigman 
 
 Mrs. Hattie Porter-Wilson 
 
 Charles Robbins 
 
 J. R. Bosserman 
 
 Edward Bowles 
 
 John Murphy 
 
 Geo. Houchins 
 
 Sam Dunbar 
 
 William Geer 
 
 B. E. Conley 
 
 William Holland 
 
 Alva Trogle 
 
 Geo. Shore 
 
 Frank Duey 
 
 Samuel Bowman 
 
 Dick Bryant 
 
 Joe Ives 
 
 Pete Burk 
 
 Bart Cox 
 
 Henry Van Orsden 
 
 John A. Freeman 
 
 HETTIE MARTIN SHEETS. 
 Court Reporter.
 
 12 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 Plea of Frank Comerford, of Chi- 
 cago, Illinois, in defense of 
 Carl Person's Life 
 
 MADE OCTOBER FOURTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED FOURTEEN 
 
 May it please the court and -gentlemen of the Jury; 
 
 I rise to protest against the methods used by conscienceless 
 dollars in their warfare upon the toiler. I speak for man not alone 
 for this defendant but for the cause he represents. Carl Person is 
 but one. The struggle of which he is part is the struggle of man- 
 kind. Organized Labor has its honor to maintain. Because this 
 young defendant undauntedly took and kept his place on the firing 
 line in a great battle for Human Rights between a Greed Captained 
 corporation, the Illinois Central Railroad Company, and thirty-five 
 thousand men; fathers, sons, husbands, citizens, Union card carriers, 
 he stands today in the prisoners dock accused of murder. 
 
 The bringing of a defendant to the bar is called a prosecution. 
 It is brought in the name of the people of the State. Of 
 this powerful plaintiff Carl Person is one. He is a citizen, not a 
 subject. You are asked to take a free man's blood in the name of 
 your state and in the name of his state. You, Gentlemen of the 
 Jury, are his fellow citizens. The judge himself, is not more. We 
 are in the House of Justice builded by the hands of free men. Here, 
 if nowhere else in the land, equality must be undefiled if Freedom is 
 to live. Inconsistent with the spirit of this place is the riotous in- 
 justice and flagrant blood lust which have made of this trial a man 
 hunt. The conscience of the people of the State of Illinois is moved 
 neither by maudlin malice nor by cruel cunning. The case of Carl 
 Person has been something less than a trial. It has been some- 
 thing more than a prosecution. 
 
 My responsibility in this case has been a large one. I have 
 devoted myself to its discharge with every ounce of courage and 
 ability that I possess. I have vigorously disagreed with the court 
 as to the law that should govern this case. I have dissented from 
 rulings made by the court that I, in good faith, believed denied to 
 the defendant the full measure of Justice awarded to him by the law.
 
 FRANK COMERFORD, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW 
 
 Chicago, Illinois 
 
 Chief Counsel for Carl E. Person
 
 14 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 If I have been vigorous in my vigilence I am justified in the light of 
 my own conscience for I have been fighting for the life of an innocent 
 man. I have acted in good faith in my disagreement with the court 
 as to the law. I have nothing to retract. I reaffirm every position 
 I have taken. If there may have been some sting in my words, some 
 evidence of impatience at his Honor's rulings, I now make the 
 apology that one gentleman makes to another and I say that while 
 I am still firm in the conviction that the court erred in a way costly 
 to my client's cause, I bear the Judge no ill will. Nor does the de- 
 fendant bear him ill will. 
 
 Of special prosecutor Judge Herrick and States Attorney Smith 
 of Logan County and States Attorney Williams of De Witt County, 
 I have but one thing to say. They have been untiring, resourceful 
 and enthusiastic in seeking the conviction of Carl Person. For nine 
 months past they have been eager and energetic in their pursuit of 
 this defendant. 
 
 Conduct of State's Attorney Williams 
 
 I regret that Mr. States Attorney Williams was so stimulated 
 by ambition for victory in this case that in his closing address to this 
 jury he slandered a neighbor and a brother attorney, Mr. Arthur 
 Miller, of Clinton, Illinois. By innuendo and slur, Mr. Williams sug- 
 gested that Mr. Miller and myself were guilty of bad faith in present- 
 ing this defendant's cause. For myself, I can truthfully say that I am 
 indifferent to Mr. Williams' opinion of me. Had his attack been 
 directed at me alone I assure you it would have passed unnoticed. 
 But in view of the fact that I have directed the case from the beginning 
 and assume undivided responsibility for what has been done, I feel 
 it my duty to comment for a moment upon the Honorable States At- 
 torney's assault upon my associate, Mr. Miller. Had Mr. Williams 
 been specific and pointed to a single act showing bad faith upon the 
 part of any one connected with this defense, he would have at least 
 shown himself to be an enemy in the open, using the honorable 
 methods of warfare. Then we could and would have made answer. 
 I want to remind the prosecutor of De Witt County that a general 
 attack unsupported by truth, unwarranted by occasion, marks its 
 maker an assassin of character. There are some who prize character 
 even more than life. Honor is to the right thinking, well bred man, 
 the chiefest of possessions. Reputation makes man one with his
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 15 
 
 fellows. He who would strike it down in a court room by ruffianly 
 innuendo is guilty of an offense that cannot be excused by his enthu- 
 siasm and ambition to win glory in a law suit which involves the life 
 of a man. I measure Prosecutor Williams' conduct by his enthusiasm 
 and ambition. In this I am merciful to him. I am reminded that 
 Brutus slew his dearest friend in the name of ambition. Judas sold 
 his Master in the same agony of vanity. Benedict Arnold betrayed 
 his country when this poison seethed through his brain. It is not 
 strange that in our day, a man of smaller stature, Williams by name, 
 eager and greedy with ambition should attempt to coat with slime 
 the names of those whose only offense has been loyalty to a cause 
 representing the life, liberty and honor of a human being. 
 
 Reasons for Accepting Jury of Farmers 
 
 I am a stranger to you. My home is in the city of Chicago. We 
 are not near neighbors. The occupation of this defendant is a very 
 different one from yours. Your problems are {hose of the farm. His 
 are those of the Industrial Struggle. I make no apology for not living 
 in your neighborhood. I make no excuse for the defendant's part in 
 the struggle for Industrial Justice. 
 
 When you took your seats in this jury box, I questioned you. I 
 learned that you were all farmers. I knew of the rumor current that 
 a jury of farmers would not do justice to a Labor Union leader. I 
 knew, too, that Person would stand forth as that militant type of 
 uncompromising labor leader who is often branded anarchist by the 
 newspapers. You read the newspapers and have no doubt read the 
 dollar inspired slanders upon organized labor which are printed in 
 the newspapers. I was not ignorant of the effect that this poisoned 
 publicity has had upon the public opinion of the country. I knew 
 your life problems were not the problems of the men who work in 
 the factories and in the mines and in the shops. It was easy for me 
 to comprehend how you might fail to understand and appreciate the 
 real motive and purpose of organized labor. Understanding begets 
 intelligent sympathy. Not understanding, you might be moved to 
 withhold from this defendant the degree and quality of justice 
 guaranteed to him under our law. 
 
 You live in God's great out of doors. You have a place in the 
 sunshine. Your lives are natural. You put your brain and your 
 brawn into partnership with the ground and with the rain and the
 
 16 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 sunshine, and you live an independence unknown to your brothers who 
 toil and sweat and starve in the great industries of our country. 
 Occupation, after all, is only incidental and accidental to life. Occupa- 
 tion does not make the man. When I accepted you as jurors, I had 
 faith that back of occupation and entirely unaffected by it, there lives 
 in each of you a sense of fair play and an openmindedness that makes 
 your vision straight, your hearing sensitive to truth and your judg- 
 ment responsive to conscience. I felt that the humblest in our state 
 could petition you for justice and' not be denied. I knew that the 
 lowliest among men could bring truth to you and you would accept 
 it. This is America. We are living in the Twentieth Century. Two 
 thousand years have come and gone since the Nazarene died in the 
 name of the Brotherhood of Man. One hundred and thirty-four years 
 ago the social brotherhood of man was written in the Declaration of 
 American Independence. As Americans these things are your in- 
 heritances and they are living parts of you. Therefore my faith in you. 
 
 I believe now as I believed, when with the full realization of my 
 responsibility, I accepted you to try Carl Person for his life, that you 
 will accord to him the same kind of justice that you would if he were 
 a farmer boy. The fellow who works in a factory, the man who 
 sweats for a railroad company, the man who writes a nation's sonnets, 
 he who lives for his art, the farmer whose plow is back of it all, all 
 are kin! Our destinies unite us. Our common feelings, our common 
 ambitions and our common ideals bind us together. Only misunder- 
 standing separates us. The separation is not real, it is not lasting. 
 It is but a mist, a fleeting mist that hides from us our true relations 
 to each other. With better understanding it disappears. The "Our 
 Father" message of Him, first called anarchist will be remembered 
 last by the last called Christian. Our government will be a failure 
 when the workers in the field and in the factory forget that both are 
 workers, that both are citizens, that both are human beings destined 
 to live and succeed in brotherhood. Prosecutor Williams is Person's 
 brother even as you are, though he may have forgotten it. His for- 
 getfulness does not change the fact. 
 
 Before accepting you as jurors in this case, I asked you question 
 after question. You all made answers, gentlemen of the jury. The 
 law writes down my purpose in questioning you by saying it was to 
 determine your competency to serve as jurors. My object was wider 
 than the law defined purpose. You remember that I said in the be-
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 17 
 
 ginning of this case that men live on hill tops. While each man has 
 eyes like the eyes of his brothers, strangely enough, men see the same 
 things from different angles. Each man views the thing that he sees 
 from his height. A farmers' experiences, his joys, his sorrows, his 
 sufferings, his struggles, his problems, his contact with life and life's 
 contact with himthese build the elevation from which he views the 
 subtle thing called a fact. The fellow in the mines, in the railroad 
 shops, in the pulpit, in the studio, in the lawyer's office, each has his 
 experiences which fashion his attitude of mind toward life. This hill 
 top residence of mind we commonly call man's "point of view." The 
 many, many questions I asked each of you were neither idle nor curi- 
 ous inquiries. I was searching for your point of view. I wanted 
 acquaintance with the real YOU in each of you. Your answers to 
 my questions gave me the addresses of your hill tops. 
 
 I placed Carl Person's life in your hands. You made a contract 
 with me a contract you are going to keep, the consideration for this 
 contract is the best and biggest that can make a contract binding. It 
 was sealed with character. The law recognizes the binding quality 
 of this contract. This court will instruct you that the answers you 
 made to my questions were the consideration which moved the de- 
 fendant to place his life in your hands and that it is your solemn duty 
 to stand by those answers now and in the jury room as much as when 
 you made them. 
 
 Presumption of Defendant's Innocence 
 
 You were asked if you could and would presume the defendant 
 innocent. You were told that the law commanded you to so regard 
 him. I explained to you that the Mosaic law, the bulwark of an 
 ancient justice, laid down the doctrine of revenge, "an eye for an eye, 
 a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life." The Mosaic doctrine was born 
 of hate, and was administered appropriately by persecution rather than 
 by prosecution. It had its day it ran its course. There came upon 
 the plains of Galillee the Lonely One. He brought to Life a bigger, 
 nobler, more beautiful conception of Justice. By His life and teach- 
 ings He repealed the pagan law of hate and set in its place one of love. 
 From the tablets He erased the monstrous doctrine of vengeance and 
 behold the world was kin a new Justice was born. 
 
 In our country the administration of criminal justice is touched 
 every place with the tenderness of the Christ's teachings. Thus it is
 
 18 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 that we inherit the doctrine of law that commands you to presume 
 the defendant innocent. The court will instruct you that it is your 
 duty to listen to the evidence, to listen to the arguments of counsel, 
 listen to the instructions of the court, march to the jury room and 
 there take up the consideration of the evidence, always bearing in 
 mind that the defendant is presumed to be innocent. Even more, that 
 you must weigh the evidence in the light of this presumption and re- 
 concile it if possible upon any reasonable hypothesis consistent with 
 the innocence of the defendant. 
 
 Doctrine of Reasonable Doubt 
 
 The law is that you must not find the defendant guilty if you 
 have a single reasonable doubt as to his guilt. The court will in- 
 struct you that this is the law. This does not command you to find 
 the defendant guilty if you believe that the evidence establishes his 
 guilt by a preponderance or greater weight of the evidence. Think 
 on the words as I repeat them; If you have one single reasonable 
 doubt as to Carl Person's guilt, you must acquit him. Give that 
 thought room in your minds now and let it live in your verdict later. 
 This splendidly human provision of our law is not an accident. Lo! 
 these many years it has been written and accepted everywhere that it 
 were better a thousand times that a thousand men, aye, ten thousand 
 men who are guilty, should go free than that one innocent man should 
 be convicted. This, too, is an inheritance from Him who drove the 
 money changers from the temple and preached of love and brother- 
 hood. It is not strange that a free country applies this wisdom in 
 its law. The prosecution is brought in the name of the people. If 
 Carl Person should be found guilty by a jury which entertains a rea- 
 sonable doubt as to his guilt, it would be a crime on the part of the 
 great State of Illinois. The jury would make criminals of five and a half 
 millions of citizens who live within the state. Think of the illegal 
 hanging of one man in the name of all the people and by all of the 
 people ! 
 
 A "reasonable doubt"! What meaning lives in the phrase? 
 There is not a jurist or a lawyer in Illinois who can fix in words the 
 exact mental attitude labeled "reasonable doubt" ! Every man must 
 define it for himself. The inner man, the better man, the real man in 
 you, knows its meaning exactly. It is an infinite knowledge that
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 19 
 
 cannot be expressed in finite words. Measure it by conscience. View 
 it with love in your eyes. 
 
 American Law of Self Defense 
 
 The court will instruct you as a matter of law that we in America, 
 have abandoned the antiquated theory of self defense. In England 
 there was a time when man was the plaything of property. Those 
 were the days of the feudal lords. Then a man was compelled to re- 
 treat to the wall before the right of self defense arose. The common 
 law of that day, when the few were landed barons and the many were 
 tenant serfs, read, "that the right of self defense did not arise until 
 every effort to escape, even to retreating until an impassable wall or 
 something of that nature had been reached." 
 
 Today, in our country when all men are equals, the law is that 
 a man, if unlawfully assaulted, in a place where he has a right to be 
 and put in danger, real or reasonably apparent, of losing his life, or 
 receiving great bodily harm, is not required to endeavor to escape 
 from his assailant but may stand his ground and repel force with force, 
 even to the taking of the life of his assailant, if necessary or in good 
 reason, apparently necessary for the preservation of his own life or 
 to protect himeslf from receiving great bodily harm. I will not urge 
 upon you the appropriateness and the wisdom of this rule of law. 
 Were you less than free men, it might be necessary. To the free man 
 it is only common sense. Had it not been proclaimed by the courts 
 it would have been invoked by the juries. 
 
 After you were sworn to try this case I addressed you. My first 
 words were and I now call upon you to bear me witness, "That a 
 promise made is a debt unpaid." The words are those of a young 
 poet, Mr. Robert Service. At that time no evidence had been pre- 
 sented. Under the rules of practice the State's Attorney for the 
 prosecution and I for the defendant, addressed you and made promise 
 of the proof we would offer. I have before me the promise made by 
 the prosecution. All the evidence is now before you. Have they 
 kept faith? 
 
 Prosecution's Offer of Proof 
 
 "I am going to be fair." With this promise, prosecutor Williams 
 began his offer of proof. Alas ! It was only a promise ! A promise 
 like the promise of a politician, frequently repeated, seldom kept. I
 
 20 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 did not dare promise you that I could be fair. My loyalty, my affec- 
 tion for the defendant and my responsibility as his counsel, make me 
 incapable of absolute fairness. I make no claim that I can free my 
 vision from the influence of my heart feeling, but if I have erred and 
 if I have been prejudiced, thank God it has been on the side where is 
 balanced a human life and the honor of a name! To err on the side 
 of mercy is at least human, to err in ambition's cause and become a 
 man hunter, is quite a different matter. Mercy has excused many 
 sins, ambition has never justified one. 
 
 In this same offer to prove the prosecutor thundered out, "Not 
 only you should not have a reasonable doubt, but you will have no 
 doubt from the evidence, but that this defendant did kill and murder 
 Anton Musser in cold blood." This they promised to prove murder, 
 cold blooded murder. The charge came from the responsible officer 
 of this court charged under the law with the duty of representing the 
 people of the State of Illinois. He must have been conscious of its 
 terrible meaning. He offered to prove, beyond every doubt, that 
 Carl Person was a murderer. He made it after nine months of in- 
 vestigation. He made it after having used the grand jury as a clear- 
 ing house in which he gathered, examined and arranged the facts. 
 He made it in the name of the people of the State of Illinois. I accept 
 the challenge. I accept it with the full permission of the defendant, 
 whose life is at stake and now solemnly declare to court and jury 
 that if that promise of proof has been fulfilled, then Carl Person should 
 pay with his life the full penalty for his crime. 
 
 We demand an unconditional vindication or a conviction for 
 murder. This is not the time for compromise. This is not the place 
 to compromise. We stand on the battle line they drew. If Person 
 is guilty of cold blooded murder, I make no plea for him in the name 
 of mercy. If he is not guilty of murder then with all my soul, I 
 protest against a compromise in the name of conviction. That Person 
 shot and killed the deceased Tony Musser, we have not denied. That 
 he was compelled to do it in defense of his life is our defense. 
 
 In his offer of proof, the prosecutor further said, "The prosecution 
 will show that the defendant rushed at the deceased"; "That Person 
 fired nine shots into the back of the deceased." 
 
 These two promises of proof represent the vital and essential 
 elements of proof necessary to the conviction of the defendant. We
 
 CARL, E. PERSON AND HIS COUNSEL,, ATTORNEY PRANK 
 
 COMERFORD, WITH CLINTON COUNTY 
 
 JAIL, IN BACKGROUND 

 
 22 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 accept the issue tendered. We address the issue to you, gentlemen 
 of the jury. 
 
 With the positions of the defense and of the prosecution sharply 
 defined and clearly before you, come with me to a brief and hurried 
 consideration of the arguments submitted by the prosecution after 
 the evidence was all before you and the time had arrived for the 
 summing up of the case. 
 
 Prosecutor Williams' Closing Argument 
 
 Prosecutor Williams said in his closing argument, and I quote 
 him literally, using a transcript prepared by the court reporter, "There 
 is a sharp conflict in the evidence. I apprehend you will have to de- 
 termine which class of witnesses you will believe and which you will 
 not believe." 
 
 I agree with the prosecutor, that there is a sharp conflict in the 
 evidence. It is as distinct as a battle line. It runs through the entire 
 case. I reply to the prosecutor that the very clash and conflict which 
 you argue is found in the testimony is the best and most conclusive 
 reason for this jury's finding the defendant not guilty. This con- 
 flict compels a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt and there- 
 fore under the law, commands a "not guilty" verdict from the jury. 
 The states attorney has unwittingly served justice. When a cunning 
 man's mouth is open truth sometimes escapes! If a single witness 
 here, an eyewitness to the tragedy, testified in direct opposition to 
 the witnesses for the prosecution concerning matters material to the 
 issue here, then you, gentlemen of the jury, must on your oaths as 
 jurors, say that that witness was guilty of perjury before you can in 
 good conscience and under the law, vote the defendant guilty. For 
 should you believe there might be truth in the testimony of a single 
 witness to the tragedy whose testimony made out a case of self de- 
 fense, that belief is a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant. 
 To remove all reasonable doubt you must annihilate all evidence con- 
 sistent with the innocence of the defendant. You must brand all evi- 
 dence consistent with the defendant's innocence with the ugly mark 
 of perjury before you can say that you are without a reasonable doubt 
 as to the defendant's guilt. You must believe that every witness who 
 testified for the defendant, whose evidence clashed with the testimony 
 offered by the prosecution is a perjurer, or it follows as truly as the 
 night follows the day that such testimony disturbs the moral certainty 
 of your conviction that the defendant is guilty.
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 23 
 
 We have two kinds of law suits civil and criminal. In a civil 
 suit money and property rights are in issue. In the criminal case 
 life, liberty and honor are involved. The law protects dollars and 
 property. It is wise and just that it does. Law is human. It does 
 more than protect life, liberty and honor. It safeguards them. In a 
 civil case where dollar values alone are at stake, the prosecution is 
 entitled to a verdict under the law when it establishes its side of the 
 case by a greater weight of the evidence, even though the preponder- 
 ance be ever so slight. In a criminal case the prosecution must go 
 further. The law recognizes human values as of more importance 
 than dollar values. In a criminal case the prosecution must prove 
 its charge to the point that you, sir, and you, conscientious citizens 
 that you are, can say in the presence of your God, that the defendant 
 is proved guilty to a moral certainty and that no reasonable doubt 
 disturbs your peace of mind in uttering your verdict of terrible con- 
 demnation. The State's Attorney has tried to make it appear that 
 you are here to decide which side has the greater weight of the evi- 
 dence. That is not your duty. If you followed the prosecutor's lead 
 it would be your crime. When the time comes in America that the 
 lives and the honor and the liberties of those who inherited freedom 
 from Valley Forge and Gettysburg, are placed on the same plane with 
 dollars, we will turn the hands of the clock back and set the civiliza^ 
 tion of the New World in the hour of the Feudal Baron and the Tenant 
 Serf. We will have driven the Christ out of the temples and set the 
 money changers in His place. 
 
 Life Story of Carl Person 
 
 In Sweden twenty-five years ago a child was born to an honest, 
 hard working couple. He was named Carl Person. His parents had 
 heard of the larger freedom, the greater opportunity, beyond the ocean. 
 Here they came. At the age of nine Carl was drafted into the great 
 army of toil. Poverty drove him into the world of work in his very 
 childhood. A great steel wire factory made him its slave. Ten hours 
 a day they worked him a dollar and a half a week they paid him. 
 Exactly three months and three days was Carl Person allowed to go 
 to school. This was the extent of his education in schools the rest 
 was work, work, work! 
 
 Carl Person never had a play time. He has never known the 
 joys of boyhood. As a child the world placed upon him the duties
 
 24 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 and cares and responsibilities of a man. From the wire factory he 
 went to the machine shop of a railroad company at Joliet, Illinois. 
 There he learned his trade. To get his job he was compelled to lie 
 about his age. Since that day he has been compelled to repeat the 
 lie. It was not Carl Person's lie, it was the sin of poverty. Mr. 
 Herrick and State's Attorney Williams have made much out of the 
 fact that Carl Person lied about his age in securing employment. The 
 lie is that he said he was older than he in fact was. They would have 
 you think that he is untruthful because conditions compelled him to 
 lie to get bread. 
 
 We have many, many laws upon the statute books in the State 
 of Illinois. For many years we have had laws prohibiting the em- 
 ployment of children under a certain age. Carl Person's poverty 
 compelled him to starve or go to work, the statute to -the contrary, 
 notwithstanding. If he told the truth about his age the statute pro- 
 hibited his employment. There was but one course open to him. 
 That was to lie about his age lie to get a chance to sweat and 
 struggle for bread and shelter. I have often wondered if those who 
 pass statutes prohibiting child labor think that by so doing they 
 abolish child slavery. As long as conditions prevail that compel 
 children to be bread winners, child labor will flourish. Two reasons 
 make unassailable this truth. First, greed will willingly despoil child 
 life in the making of profits. Second, poverty compels child life to 
 offer itself victim. What could child slave Person do? Or any of 
 his kin in poverty? Except go to work. 
 
 We have other statutes. One makes stealing a crime. Person 
 and his kind must have bread and clothes and a place to sleep. The 
 law commanded him not to steal but nowhere do I remember the 
 law's punishing for larceny those who steal the playtime and school 
 time of the children of our country. Nowhere do I recall a law 
 which orders punishment of those who rob from young bodies the 
 strength of youth. Yes, Person lied about his age. Sinned against, 
 you now call him sinner. 
 
 35,000 Men Locked Out 
 
 On September thirtieth, nineteen hundred eleven, thirty-five 
 thousand American citizens, plain, honest working men, of whom 
 Carl Person was one, were commanded to surrender a free man's 
 right or give up their jobs. Two powerful railroad companies sent
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 25 
 
 out the order. It was unconditional. The right to organize was the 
 right involved. Organization meant everything to the workers. 
 Through it they had bettered the conditions of their homes, the lives 
 of their children and of their wives and of themselves. No question 
 of wages or terms of employment was involved. The railroad com- 
 panies challenged the right of the men to organize into a logical, 
 economical and efficient union, through which, as workers, they could 
 compel reasonable treatment and living terms of employment. 
 
 These men made answer. They laid down their tools and faced 
 the starvation of the empty pay envelope rather than surrender a right 
 necessary to their freedom and existence. These men are men even 
 as you and I are men. They live and hope and love and dream. They 
 are blood and brawn and brain. They have souls. They are the 
 doers of work, the makers of prosperity, the strength of society, the 
 builders of civilization, the makers of homes, the sons of mothers, the 
 fathers of children. They are free men in a free country. The spirit 
 that made our nation a free land and gave us our inheritance of citizen- 
 ship rather than the slavery of subjection, still lives! It lived in these 
 men when they welcomed sufferings for themselves and for their 
 families rather than surrender a single free man's right. 
 
 Partnership Between Railroad and State 
 
 One of these masters, a heartless thing was born in Illinois. 
 It was named at birth, the Illinois Central Railroad Company. 
 The law of the state of Illinois gave it being. Its right to 
 existence is a charter. From the state of Illinois it got that charter. 
 Under the terms of the charter the state of Illinois receives a per cent- 
 age of the earning of the railroad company. This is direct participa- 
 tion by the state in the earnings of the company. Under the terms 
 of the charter, the governor of the state is a director of the Illinois 
 Central Railroad Company. The participation by the state of Illinois 
 in the management and earnings of this railroad constitute a partner- 
 ship within the meaning of both common sense and law. 
 
 A corporation is in fact an organization of dollars as truly as a 
 Labor Union is an organization of men. On the thirtieth day of 
 September, nineteen eleven, the railroad company took away from 
 men the right to organize although the right to organize dollars was 
 the very essence of its own life. Even more, the state of Illinois, 
 as the partner of the railroad company and the creator of its corporate
 
 26 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 identity was placed in the position of sanctioning and consenting to 
 a command that stripped citizens of the state of a right that the law 
 of the state freely and cheerfully gives to dollars. 
 
 Carl Person left his bench in the Illinois Central shops at Clinton, 
 Illinois in protest against the corporation command that the men tear 
 up their union cards. He had traveled some since the day when at 
 the age of nine, he entered the struggle to earn his living. It had 
 been a rough journey. Experiences were many and the hurts and 
 knocks were hard. He was now twenty-two. Life had robbed him 
 of many things but it had given him a mind. Person had treasured 
 the gift and taken good care of it. While others spent time and money 
 unwisely, Person used what little of both he had in getting an educa- 
 tion. Carl Person could think. What is more he did think. What 
 is still more important, he thought unselfishly. 
 
 Birth of Strike Bulletin 
 
 Paid advertisements began to appear in the daily newspapers 
 throughout the entire strike zone. The railroad paid for them. These 
 advertisements told a story as unfair to the men as it was untrue. 
 The cost was large, the purpose was plain. It was a publicity cam- 
 paign designed to poison the public mind against the men and their 
 cause. Idle, hungry men, who earned their daily bread by the sweat 
 of their faces, who have families to clothe and feed and shelter, cannot 
 buy space in the daily newspapers. Person saw the paid adverties- 
 ments libeling the cause of himself and his union brothers. He read 
 statements branding himself and his brothers as anarchists and agita- 
 tors. He read bold falsehoods placing the men and their loved cause 
 in a bad light before the public. He realized the power of public 
 opinion. He knew the poverty of the cause the poverty in dollars, 
 although rich in faith and loyalty. The public must have the truth 
 the facts! Person thought hard. He had an idea a justice serving 
 idea. He had the stuff in him to put the idea to work. He started 
 a newspaper and called it the "Strike Bulletin." Person was its first 
 as he has been its only editor. He printed the truth; printed it fear- 
 lessly, intelligently and effectively. The pickets on the firing line 
 were made reporters. Each was armed with a camera. Paid publicity 
 began to find a foeman worthy of its steel. Truth was the weapon 
 Person used and he used it mightily. The reporters and the cameras 
 bega.i to get in their work. The circulation of the Bulletin went up
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 27 
 
 in leaps. One edition reached a hundred thousand copies. Another 
 went into the million class. The cameras were at work. So were 
 the reporters. Whenever there was a wreck due to bad equipment 
 und incompetent employees, the cameras clicked and the reporters 
 wrote it down. Maybe it wasn't literature, but it was TRUTH, 
 spelled in big letters. No one could gainsay or deny- it. No one 
 tried. Person had been at first a bit of a joke to the corporation. 
 Now he became a menace. From that time he was a marked man. 
 
 Person Hurts Business Becomes Target 
 
 The Strike Bulletin's exposure of the Illinois Central hurt that 
 railroads business. A corporation is without a heart but it has in 
 its anatomy one vital organ its pocketbook. The labor editor struck 
 deadly blows. He struck them right and left. Never for an instant 
 were the cameras and the picket reporters asleep on the job. Through 
 a corporations veins flows in place of red blood, a curious yellow fluid 
 gold they call it. Where Person hit, it gushed forth in a mighty 
 hemorrhage. Dividends shriveled from seven to five percent. The 
 reporters and the cameras were mighty busy in those days. Stock 
 tobogganed from one sixty to less than a hundred and ten. And still 
 the cameras clicked, the picket reporters stuck to their task and Person 
 published it all. The injury measured in dollars amounted to millions. 
 The corporation began to writhe in frantic spasms of revenge. In- 
 stead of a joke and a harmless but irritating crank, Carl Person, 
 twenty-two years old, labor editor, had become a dangerous man. 
 
 There is but one fate for a really dangerous man. He must be 
 put out of the way. The "Strike Bulletin" must be silenced. "Get 
 Person," was the command that was sent out. 
 
 An injury to dividends is seldom forgiven. Never forgotten. 
 To attack the value of a corporation's stock is to commit mortal sin. 
 It has been written by the mammon worshipers that of all sins, the 
 greatest is the dishonoring of dollars. In the religion of greed this 
 is the law and the prophets. Most grievously had Carl Person broken 
 this commandment. 
 
 Who was this Person mere working man and by grace of what 
 God or law, dared such a lowly one oppose and expose respectable 
 dollars? Soiled by toil, he now soiled by speech that which he hath 
 not and that which all the world is commanded to worship GOLD ! 
 Where and when have dollars been less than respectable? So much
 
 28 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 have dollars been termed respectable in our day that many men take 
 all the respectability they have from their dollars. The dollarless 
 only, seem outside the pale of respectability as the world too often 
 measures the meaning of the word. 
 
 Pioneers sometimes become trail makers. Carl Person was blaz- 
 ing trails for a movement so worthy that should it ever hit the right 
 road, every wrong before it is doomed. The divine right of GOLD 
 was menaced by Person's pioneering, therefore Person must be "got!" 
 The wound that caused the yellow hemorrhage must be revenged. 
 
 Certain ones who live and work in the shadows were set to work. 
 To them was assigned the job of disposing of the young editor and 
 silencing the "Strike Bulletin." It was figured an easy job. The 
 marked victim was a youth, he was of no particular consequence. 
 Others had withered in fear of the gun man and the murder agent. 
 
 Threats Against Person 
 
 Person began to receive ugly threats. Some were anonymous. 
 Others were brought to him by his fearful friends. All of these 
 came from the Illinois Central Railroad shops. Murmurings and 
 rumors that Person had better depart from Clinton if he wished to 
 escape the ignominy of being tarred and feathered, persisted. Men 
 with the mark of the gun man on their low brows hung around the 
 Bulletin office where Person worked during the day and where he 
 slept on his narrow cot at night. At length some of his most courage- 
 ous friends became alarmed. Not so, Person. Unafraid he refused 
 to leave his post. The Bulletin was issued each week regularly and 
 each week continued its assault upon the pocketbook heart of the 
 railroad companies. Its blows were direct and telling. Each one was 
 harder and truer than the last. 
 
 Threats failed. Person could not be scared. He could not be 
 bulldozed, nor browbeaten, nor intimidated. Person knew himself. 
 He trusted himself. He was cool of head. He had never taken a 
 drink of intoxicating liquor in his life. His nerves were steady. He 
 had never had a fight in his life. By fight I mean that he had never 
 been mixed up in a brawl. His whole life has been a fight and one 
 against great odds a fight to survive individually and a part in the 
 fight for the betterment of his brother workers.
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 29 
 
 Person Slugged 
 
 In the month of April, 1913, Person was in Decatur, 111., a city 
 just twenty miles from Clinton. He was there in the interest of the 
 cause. Evening came and his work done, he started for the station 
 to take the car home. Under cover of the darkness thugs set upon 
 him and brutally assaulted him. The attack came from the rear. 
 The beating was without warning. It was a surprise. It was un- 
 provoked. As they beat and kicked Person to the ground they cursed 
 into his ears a promise of death if he did not quit Clinton and stop 
 the publication of the Bulletin. To make binding their promise they 
 gave him a final kick and left him prostrate upon the street. 
 
 With his face discolored and swollen from the bruises, and his 
 head and body aching, Person got back to his office and the next issue 
 of the Bulletin came out on time. 
 
 Person Slugged Again 
 
 Two months later, in June of 1913, Person was again in the city 
 of Decatur and for a second time he was struck down on the public 
 streets and battered and beaten and threatened. Again the assault 
 was made under cover of darkness. Again the cowardly assailants 
 had struck him from the rear. Again he was commanded to leave 
 Clinton and threatened with death if he disobeyed. 
 
 This second attack failed of its purpose. The Strike Bulletin 
 came out on time. 
 
 Person Buys Revolver 
 
 They had threatened Person. They failed to drive him from his 
 duty. They had emphasized the good faith of the threats by admin- 
 istering to Person two terrible beatings. Calmly and coolly Person 
 made up is mind that he would not quit the firing line and further that 
 he would not be driven from it. Up to this time Person had never 
 in his life owned or carried a revolver. The last beating in Decatur 
 brought him to a decision. Quietly he went to a hardware store in 
 Clinton and openly and without comment purchased a thirty-two 
 caliber magazine gun and a box of cartridges. He went back to his 
 newspaper office, loaded the revolver and put it in his pocket. This 
 was all done so quietly that James J. Meagher and Lewis Nicholson, 
 who were in daily association with him, did not know that Persof
 
 30 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 had taken steps to protect his life against gunmen. This was in July, 
 1913, just six months before the tragedy. The first time Person ever 
 shot this revolver (or any other) was on the afternoon of December 
 30th, 1913, when he sent nine of its steel bullets into the body of 
 "Tony" Musser. 
 
 Musser Assigned "To Get" Person 
 
 Anton Musser, terror of Clinton, formerly its chief of police and 
 later chief strikebreaker for the Illinois Central Railroad company, 
 took personal charge of the "getting" of the daring editor of the Bul- 
 letin. Musser's reputation as a bully and fighter was honestly won. 
 He was a muscular giant a man of enormous physical strength. He 
 towered above ordinary men. He measured a good six feet two. He 
 weighed two hundred and twenty pounds. In complexion he was 
 dark and wore a long black mustache which intensified his fierce 
 look. In his veins ran riot the hot blood, of the Portuguese. Musser 
 sent word to Person a day or two after Christmas to leave town before 
 the first of the year or dreadful things would happen to him. 
 
 Person made no move to obey. He gave no evidence that he 
 feared the threat. 
 
 Oil December twenty-ninth, 1913, Musser canvassed the situation 
 concerning Person out at the Illinois Central shops. Rousey was one 
 of the strikebreakers with whom Musser conferred on the evening of 
 December twenty-ninth. From him Musser learned that Person ate 
 his meals at the Interurban Cafe. Musser arranged to have Rousey 
 come with him that evening at supper time to the restaurant. Rousey 
 and Musser went to the cafe at least this much of truth we wrung 
 from the unwilling lips of Rousey. Musser stayed outside. Rousey 
 went in to reconnoiter. Person missed dinner that night because the 
 work in the office was too pressing to permit of his leaving. If he 
 had not who doubts but he would have been lured by Strikebreaker 
 Rousey from the restaurant and under cover of night, murdered in 
 the alley adjoining the station. 
 
 Musser Decoys Person 
 
 December thirtieth was cold. The year was coming to an end. 
 The Bulletin was growing in circulation and power. Person was still 
 on the job. The promise that Person would be "gotten" and put out
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 31 
 
 of business before the beginning of the New Year had not been made 
 good. The Illinois Central was still bleeding its yellow drops of gold. 
 
 Shortly before two o'clock, the great hulk of Tony Musser could 
 have been seen entering the saloon of Bryant & Cackley on the north- 
 west corner of North Monroe and East Main Streets. One block north 
 was the office of The Strike Bulletin. One block to the south was 
 the Interurban station. Just between the two, on North Monroe 
 Street is Bryant & Cackley's saloon, into which Musser had just en- 
 tered. Musser asked if he might leave his overcoat in the saloon. 
 The privilege was granted him. He took his overcoat off and hung 
 it on the wire fence adjoining the bar. At the other end of the bar 
 is a telephone. The number of this telephone is 687. Musser walked 
 to the telephone, took down the receiver and called 736. The sub- 
 scriber to telephone 736 is Carl Person. Telephone 736 is in the office 
 of The Strike Bulletin. The operator made the connection. Telephone 
 bell 736 rang. Person answered the call. The voice at the other end 
 of the line was the voice of "Tony" Musser. He said to Person: 
 
 "This is Fred Kirk, from Decatur. Come down to the Interurban 
 station. I have some important strike news to give you. I have only 
 a few minutes between cars or I would come up." 
 
 I have shown you, gentlemen of the jury, how carefully thought 
 out and planned the "getting" of Person was. You remember that 
 Fred Kirk testified here. Fred Kirk was one of the men who had 
 gone on strike with Person. Kirk was working at Memphis at the 
 time. He was raised in Clinton and Musser knew that Kirk knew 
 Person and that Person knew Kirk. Thus he used the name of Fred 
 Kirk as an alias. Musser, in luring Person to his trap, baited him 
 with a friend's name. 
 
 Person put on his overcoat and hat, left the office of the Bulletin 
 and walked south on Monroe Street toward the station two blocks 
 away. 
 
 Musser having set his trap by the fake telephone message, left 
 Bryant & Cackley's saloon overcoat-less and ready for action. Quickly 
 he moved to the Interurban cigar store which adjoins the station. 
 There he waited in ambush for his victim. 
 
 Person reached the interurban station and made a search for 
 Kirk, who was nowhere to be seen. After waiting four or five minutes
 
 32 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 on the platform, Person turned his steps toward his office and his work. 
 
 In the cigar store the murder agent waited. To make sure of his 
 decoyed game he asked Ernest Mitchell, the clerk, if the little fellow 
 coming down the platform was Carl Person. The clerk assured him 
 that it was. 
 
 In appearance Person is mild and gentle. He looks younger even 
 than his twenty-five years. In height he measures scarcely five feet 
 four inches and he weighs only one hundred and twenty pounds. 
 
 Musser Attacks Person 
 
 On to his doom walked Person, unsuspecting the foul plan that 
 lured him from his office in the name of his friend. Musser concealed 
 himself in the recess of the door. He could see Person as he came. 
 Person could not see him and did not suspect that he was being way- 
 laid. As Person passed the door the crouching Musser sprang from 
 his place of hiding, pounced upon Person from the back, dealt him a 
 terriffic blow upon the head and felled him to the pavement. Musser 
 jumped upon him. He dug his great hard knees into Person's chest. 
 His strong left hand seized Person's throat. The fingers tightened 
 around Person's windpipe. Person gasped for breath. Musser an- 
 swered the gasps with curses. He beat Person's head against the 
 brick pavement. With his great right clenched fist Musser rained 
 blow after blow upon Person's upturned face. Blood flowed. It was 
 the warm blood of this defendant. His scalp was broken. The white 
 bone of his skull showed plainly. A woman in front of the interurban 
 station screamed and fainted. Jack Taylor, the big honest farmer, 
 cried out: 
 
 "He is killing that little fellow !" and rushed over to Musser and 
 seized him by the shoulders. You saw Taylor on the stand. He is a 
 powerful man. He tussled with and pulled at the giant Musser, but 
 he could not budge him. Other strong men rushed to his assistance. 
 Four of them struggled fiercely with Musser to keep him from killing 
 Person. A voice from the crowd cried : 
 
 "Let him kill the s of a b ." 
 
 Musser continued to choke and batter the almost insensible Per- 
 son. Finally the combined strength of four able-bodied men, straining 
 themselves to the last ounce, brought Musser to his feet. The big 
 brute still clung to Person. He held the young man's throat in a 
 grip of steel and when he was unwillingly pulled to his feet, he brought
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 33 
 
 the half dead Person to his feet. Musser demanded of his holders 
 that he be released. He had work to do. His job was not finished. 
 He still held at arm's length by the throat the collapsed Person. With 
 renewed energy, shocked by the sight of Person, these men fought 
 to compel Musser to release his death grip upon Person's throat. 
 They succeeded. Person stood there, a pitiful sight. His 
 face was swollen and discolored. A stream of blood flowed from a 
 great ugly wound in the head. The white bone of his skull showed 
 ghastly where the scalp had been laid open. His neck and throat 
 were discolored and there were the imprints of fingers which were 
 silent evidences of the choking. He gasped for breath. His tongue 
 hung out of his mouth loosely. His body drooped ; his knees trembling 
 and bent under him, scarcely upheld him. His eyes looked out 
 wearily, weakly. They looked pain. Person stood a moment. Then 
 he wabbled backward, slowly and weakly. Musser's appetite for 
 blood had been whetted. In the back of his head was the order to 
 "get" the editor of The Strike Bulletin. Musser threw his whole 
 strength into a final effort to free himself. He swore lustily. He 
 bellowed madly language too vile to repeat. Time after time he 
 cried out: 
 
 "Get out of town before night or I'll 'get' you." 
 
 Person was backing away. He had been struck from behind. 
 The decoy, the ambush, the surprise of the assault all confused him. 
 It was not a fight. There never was a fight so far as Carl Person was 
 concerned. He had never had a chance from the moment he left his 
 office, betrayed by the fake telephone message. 
 
 Person Shoots Musser 
 
 As Person moved away, slowly and weakly, Musser followed him 
 with glaring eyes and terrible threats and ugly oaths. Musser 
 wrenched mightily with his great shoulders. He swung his strong 
 arms fiercely. He fought madly, desperately, superhumanly, to throw 
 off those who were restraining him from the fulfillment of his master's 
 orders. The strength of the big man triumphed. He threw off his 
 holders. He rushed toward Person. Person heard and saw. He 
 stopped. He stood there, slight, pale, weak, weary, dripping with 
 blood. Into his whirling senses nearer and nearer came the shouted 
 curses and threats "I'll 'get' you! I'll get you! I'll get you! I'll 
 get you!"
 
 34 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 Through a curtain of his own red blood he saw the giant Musser 
 coming. The meaning of it all broke on him in an instant the 
 threats of the last two years the brutal assaults in Decatur in April 
 and in June the oath worded order that he leave Clinton by the first 
 or he would be taken out feet forward. Shots nine of them in 
 rapid succession, rang out. At Person's feet in the streets of Clinton 
 fell Musser. The murder agent was dead but his master still lived ! 
 
 Evidence Bottled by Prosecution 
 
 Hundreds of people witnessed the shooting, many of them live 
 in Clinton. Others had come to the city to shdp and were waiting for 
 the interurban cars which were to leave in ten minutes. The law 
 seized Person, dragged him to jail, threw him into a steel cell and 
 locked the door. While he lay in a heap, his body racked with pain, 
 the law was busy outside. In jail Person could do nothing for him- 
 self. Nor at that time was there any one on the outside to help him. 
 He was at the mercy of the officers of the law whom he was to learn 
 later were neither just nor merciful. He was alone. Even his pre- 
 sumption of innocence did not companion him. In the name of the 
 people of the state of Illinois, the sheriff's office, the states attorney's 
 office and the police department moved through the crowd interview- 
 ing witnesses and securing their names and addresses. If in doing 
 this, they had remembered that Person, too, was one of the. people of 
 the state of Illinois, there would have been no injustice in the pro- 
 ceeding. The defendant was entitled to know the names and ad- 
 dresses of the witnesses so he could be on an equal footing with the 
 prosecution. 
 
 A coroner's jury was impanelled. The state's attorney, the 
 coroner and the jury held an unusual session. From the hundreds of 
 names of witnesses that they had obtained, they called five to testify. 
 This was to keep Person in the dark as to whom the witnesses were. 
 It was a bottling up of the evidence. The five witnesses called gave 
 no evidence except that Person shot and killed Musser. The shooting 
 and killing of a man is not murder unless it is done with deliberation 
 and with malice. A shooting may be an accident or it may be justi- 
 fiable. Yet without any evidence this coroner's jury verdicted Person 
 murderer and directed that he be held in jail without bail. A grand 
 jury was convened which returned an indictment against the defend- 
 ant charging him with murder. The defendant is not allowed to
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 35 
 
 appear before the grand jury, neither is he allowed to be represented. 
 Its sessions are directed by the state's attorney. The law makes it 
 the duty of the prosecutor and the grand jury to indorse upon the 
 indictment the names of the witnesses upon whose testimony the 
 grand jurors found the indictment. It is only fair that the defendant 
 know the names of the witnesses who have testified against him. 
 In this case justice to Carl Person demanded that the law be strictly 
 complied with because he was in jail and helpless. The prosecutor 
 deliberately failed in his duty. The law was ignored. Person was 
 not given a complete list of the witnesses. I charge that this was an 
 effort to send Person to the gallows blindfolded. While it was done 
 in the name of the people of the State of Illinois, I deny that the people 
 wanted it done. 
 
 Person Denied Bail 
 
 Finally these tactics on the part of the state's attorney's office 
 became a state-wide disgrace. We sought a hearing for Person in 
 the circuit court of De Witt county but were unable to obtain it. We 
 knew that on a hearing Person was entitled to be admitted to bail. 
 We knew that his liberty was necessary for the proper preparation 
 of his defense. For over five months he was kept in jail. Finding 
 that justice was not available in De Witt county, we were compelled 
 to resort to an extreme measure a precedent making measure. We 
 invoked the aid of the criminal court of Cook county by means of a 
 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The court issued the writ com- 
 manding the sheriff of De Witt county to bring the body of Carl 
 Person before the bar of the Cook county criminal court that he might 
 be dealt with according to law and justice. After hearing testimony, 
 Chief Justice Charles M. Walker, of the criminal court of Cook county, 
 ordered that Person be released on bond. This decision amounted 
 to a judicial finding that Person had been in jail for five and a half 
 months without warrant in law. 
 
 Fight for Fair Trial 
 
 A fair trial is every free man's right. On this rock we have built 
 our justice. A trial by a jury of one's peers is a blood purchased 
 American right. None is so low that to him this right should be 
 denied. None so powerful that he should secure more. Person 
 charged with the most capital of crimes murder facing the most
 
 36 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 horrible of punishments if found guilty : death on the gallows 
 petitioned for a trial by a jury of his peers drawn from a county un- 
 prejudiced toward him. De Witt county was inflamed with base, 
 low, coarse passion in part revenge, in part hate, in part misunder- 
 standin. The strike situation of over two years duration had 
 made bitter the feeling against organized labor. The Illinois Central 
 was undisputed master of the politics of Clinton. The officials were 
 its political creatures. 
 
 For months the great struggle between the Illinois Central rail- 
 road and its striking employes made tense the situation in Clinton. 
 The town had been turned into a strike breakers' camp. Person re- 
 mained almost alone on the firing line, fighting for what many thought 
 was a lost cause. The railroad had seen to it that he was not popular. 
 Its surgeon one of its payroll patriots was mayor of the city. And 
 yet the state's attorney wanted to try Person in De Witt county. The 
 prosecution fought the defendant's demand for a change of venue. 
 Illinois beheld the sad spectacle of a county wide election to determine 
 whether or not a man about to be tried for his life should be given a 
 chance to present his cause to an open minded jury free from pre- 
 judice. Thirty days the court solemnly gave for the gathering of 
 affidavits in which the citizens of the county voted either to give 
 Person a chance for his life by granting him a change of venue to 
 another county or condemning him to be tried in De Witt county. 
 The people's time and money were spent. It was a wild fight. Five 
 hundred and twelve voted to give him a chance for his life. Four 
 hundred and sixty-seven voted to support the state's attorney in his 
 demand that Person be tried in De Witt county. And by the in- 
 dustry of our electioneering in this strangest of all elections, we, 
 gentlemen of the jury, are here in Logan county asking for justice. 
 
 Spectacular Attempt to Defeat Justice 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, each of you promised me that you would 
 not be swayed by sympathy, that you would be unaffected by passion 
 in the making up of your verdict. I told you that the defendant 
 whose life blood is the issue here, did not ask for mercy, that he 
 wanted only justice. Surely the people of the State of Illinois are not 
 crying for the defendant's blood with a passion so lawless that they 
 would wring from a jury a verdict of "guilty" based upon passion and
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 27 
 
 sympathy. Mercy always pleads for the defendant. She never seeks 
 revenge. 
 
 Did I not ask you if the old father of the defendant came here, 
 might not his presence stir within you emotions unfair to justice? 
 You answered that you would render justice unmoved and unswayed 
 by passion. Each of you so answered. At that time, in the begin- 
 ning of this trial, no one was here except the lawyers and officers of the 
 court. You were selected and sworn to try the case. Instantly the 
 stage was set ! The prosecution brought inside the rail a lonely woman 
 in widow's weeds accompanied by three sweet faced children. It was 
 a brutalization of justice; it was a cold-blooded attempt to so move 
 your hearts that your heads might be controlled against your reasons. 
 It was cruel, cruel to the widow, it was worse than cruel to the children 
 it was ghoulish. It chilled my heart this unholy parade. The 
 bringing in of the children of the deceased's blood and the widow of 
 his bed and compelling them to listen to the terrible story, shocked 
 every finer sense of my manhood. You recall when the first eyewit- 
 ness to the tragedy placed on the witness stand by the prosecution, 
 reached the point in his testimony that dealt with the terrible oaths 
 which Musser shouted at Person, I could stand it no longer and I 
 rose and moved the court to order those tender minded children from 
 the court room. My motion was not based on law. It was an act 
 of simple humanity. The children had not done any wrong. Their 
 lives before them, I did not want burned into their souls memories of 
 their father that might mar their peace of mind during all of their to- 
 morrows. The prosecution was silent, the court caught the meaning 
 in an instant and he directed the sheriff to remove the little ones at 
 once. Inside the rail at your feet the sad faced, black garbed silent 
 woman still sat, alone in her grief, an unwilling spectator at an inqui- 
 sition that must have wrung blood from her heart as it did tears from 
 her eyes. Oh cowardly ambition, that would so mutilate and torture 
 the grief stricken one and so violate justice in her own temple. There 
 have been times in the trial of criminal cases when those representing 
 the life at stake have in their zeal to save it brought to the bar of the 
 court in the presence of the jury, the loved ones of the living defend- 
 ant, but when and where has an honorable prosecution so made a show 
 place of the court room and sought by foul and unworthy means to 
 wring from the emotions of men a verdict that their unmoved con-
 
 38 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 science and brains could not justify. I did not blame the unhappy 
 widow nor the fatherless children. They did not leave their home and 
 come here of their own free will. Who will dare say that they wel- 
 comed the parts they were compelled to play? They served a purpose 
 unknown to them; they came when they were commanded, led by the 
 prosecutor and placed within the rail there held hostages to unfair- 
 ness. 
 
 It was thought that because you are red blooded men, with fire- 
 sides at which are children and wives, for whom you are now lonely, 
 that you would rush blindly into the pitfall and in passion vote away 
 the life of this defendant. How little, Oh how little, of the human heart 
 do some men know. How small do they set down the minds of men ! 
 Love begets love and your very devotion to your firesides makes you 
 stand aghast at this play upon the sympathies. 
 
 Comerford Declines Unfair Advantage 
 
 Our solicitude for the widow and children has been genuine. I 
 closed the door when it was unwittingly opened by the prosecution. 
 The door they opened was one of advantage to us. It was an oppor- 
 tunity to place upon the records of this court that all the world might 
 see, the story of the private life of the deceased. The blunder of States 
 Attorney Williams opened the door. You will remember a line of 
 questions started by Prosecutor Williams when he asked whether or 
 not the widow was at the time of the tragedy living with the deceased. 
 She and her children were sitting here when the question was asked. 
 I objected and the court sustained the objection. I said we would not 
 let the door be opened upon the private life of the deceased. Special 
 Prosecutor Herrick knows that I know the awful story which I might 
 have forced into this record, dealing with the private life of the dead 
 man, had I been willing to take advantage of the opportunity thus 
 thrust upon me through the blunder of his associate. There are some 
 things more important than winning a law suit even when the winning 
 of that law suit means the saving of a life. 
 
 Fair Deal Denied Person 
 
 Immediately after the tragedy Carl Person was dragged to jail. 
 He was covered with blood. He lay in a heap, torn by pain. He had 
 been beaten almost to death. Attorney Miller visited him within a 
 half hour. Miller realized that one of the important things which
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 39 
 
 should be done was to preserve the evidence of Person's physical con- 
 dition. This evidence would show the murderous assault made on 
 Person and would be material and essential in justifying the shooting 
 and killing of Musser. Miller knew that months would go by (just as 
 nine of them have have gone by) before the trial. In the meantime the 
 wounds, the bruises and discolorations would yield to time and med- 
 ical treatment and disappear. He knew that the prosecution would 
 make light of the injuries Person received. Miller resolved to pre- 
 serve the truth. You have heard the prosecution deny that Person 
 was brutally and murderously assaulted. Miller made a demand 
 that a photograph be taken of Person immediately after the tragedy. 
 A camera would be neither a witness for the defense nor for the 
 prosecution. A camera preserves accurately and without prejudice 
 or partizanship, that which comes within its focus. Its truth-seeing 
 eye sees and its sensitized film records with integrity. The photo- 
 graph would have taken the stand for justice. It would have been 
 truth in the witness chair. The sheriff of DeWitt County denied the 
 defendant this important and necessary legal right. We were not 
 allowed to take the photogarph. The sheriff is part of the legal ma- 
 chinery of the county. The States Attorney who sits here at the 
 head of counsel for the prosecution, was and is the legal adviser of 
 the sheriff. As a lawyer he knew that it was only a right we asked 
 and that it was a necessary and important right a justice making 
 right. Is this a prosecution or a persecution? 
 
 Criminal Misuse of Subpoena 
 
 Scores of witnesses were subpoenaed here by the States Attor- 
 ney. They were compelled to report to the prosecutor every morn- 
 ing at the opening of court. All of them had been interviewed by the 
 States Attorney before they were brought here. Many of them had 
 testified before the grand jury which returned this indictment. The 
 writ of subpoena served on them by the prosecutor commanded them 
 to appear and testify on behalf of the prosecution. These witnesses 
 were kept in the corridor of the court room day after day. Finally 
 the prosecution closed its case without calling dozens of them to 
 the stand. I ask why? Why this misuse of power? Was it acci- 
 dental? Nine months have come and gone. A coroner's jury and a 
 grand jury have acted in this case. The prosecution has had the 
 police department, the sheriff's office and the great power of the
 
 40 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 office of States' Attorney to learn what the testimony of these wit- 
 nesses would be. After all of this scores of witnesses are subpoenaed 
 by the State. You are promised that they will testify for the state. 
 Was it the purpose of the prosecutor to intimidate and brow beat 
 these witnesses? Was it a campaign of terrorization? Maybe these 
 witnesses refused to testify in accordance with the views of the state's 
 attorney. Then you, the jury are to be given only the testimony of 
 witnesses who fit in with the prosecutor's scheme of conviction. You 
 are to be denied the truth and the denial comes from the man who 
 represents the people of the State of Illinois. Or were these wit- 
 nesses people whose testimony the prosecutor knew would clear the 
 defendant and notwithstanding this fact, were subpoenaed by him? 
 If so the writ of subpoena was criminally used. By its use the 
 prosecution promised witnesses they did not expect to call. The only 
 purpose such conduct could serve would be to place in the control of 
 the state the witnesses for the defense. Remembering the power of 
 the legal machinery under the control of the state's attorney, its in- 
 fluence over citizens living within DeWitt county, the fear of the 
 law entertained by the humble, the limit to which a conscienceless 
 prosecutor might go should his ambition be thwarted, we have the 
 measure and meaning of this indefensible move. 
 
 ] 
 Testimony of City Physician Pugh 
 
 Doctor Pugh is the city physician of Clinton, 111. The tragedy 
 took place on the street immediately in front of his office. Dr. Pugh 
 was in his office and saw the entire lamentable affair. He it was wtyo 
 came to Musser and applied medical aid. Dr. Pugh went to the 
 hospital in the ambulance and on the way examined the gunshpt 
 wounds in the body of Musser. Dr. Pugh it was pronounced Musser 
 dead when the ambulance reached the hospital. Returning to his 
 office, he was called by the sheriff to wait on Carl Person at the 
 County jail. He responded and examined Person within thirty min- 
 utes after the shooting. Dr. Pugh testified before the coroner's 
 jury. Dr. Pugh testified before the grand jury. Dr. Pugh was 
 officially engaged by DeWitt County and paid out of the county funds 
 to make a post mortem examination upon the body of Tony Musser. 
 Dr. Pugh made the only post mortem examination, probing the nine 
 bullet wounds, determining and fixing the cause of death. Dr. Pugh 
 was subpoenaed by the prosecution to testify in the name of the
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 41 
 
 people of the State of Illinois. Surely his testimony was important 
 to truth and justice. He had accurate and direct knowledge of the 
 tragedy as an eyewitness. As a physician he had examined Person at 
 the request of the sheriff and could tell scientifically and accurately 
 the nature and extent of Person's injuries. Having made the 
 post mortem for the people of the state of Illinois he alone knew the 
 course the bullets took upon entering the body of Tony Musser. He 
 along knew the exact medical cause of death. Now Doctor Pugh is an 
 honorable gentleman, a physician of the highest standing. He comes 
 here with official confirmation of his honesty and skill as a physician. 
 He is, as I have observed, the city physician of Clinton, Illinois. He 
 was, as you know, selected and paid by the county to officially make 
 the autopsy. He has been kept in the corridors of this court house for 
 five days. Finally, to the amazement and wonder of every one, the 
 prosecution rested its case without calling Dr. Pugh to the witness 
 stand. Was the prosecution serving truth in this concealment of evi- 
 dence? Were they playing fair with you in keeping his testimony from 
 you? Were they giving the defendant the square deal the shiboleth 
 of our criminal jurisprudence? Is this the application of the golden 
 rule to your fellow man whose life is in the balance? Men of Illinois, 
 I fear to dwell more upon this point. Brazen injustice, such as this, 
 inflames the honest man's mind too much. I want a dispassionate 
 verdict. 
 
 We called Dr. Pugh. We had no fear of truth. Truth is our de- 
 fense. He who should have been called by the prosecution 
 took the witness stand at our request, after the prosecution had 
 subpoenaed him and refused to place him on the stand. Without 
 previous conference with him, we, the defendant and his counsel, heard 
 for the first time, Dr. Pugh's story at the same time you did. No 
 word of attack did the prosecution dare direct at the evidence of the 
 fearless and truth telling physician. Had he been guilty of the slight- 
 est misstatement of the facts they had his testimony taken before the 
 grand jury and could have impeached him by calling the grand jurors. 
 Had his reputation for truth and veracity in the community in which 
 he has lived not been the very highest, they could and would have 
 brought witnesses here to attack him. 
 
 Assault on Truth Telling John Taylor 
 
 John Taylor was subpoenaed by the state's attorney and com-
 
 42 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 pelled to wait around Lincoln day after day when he would have pre- 
 ferred being at his work and with his family. Taylor had testified 
 before the grand jury. Taylor was the man who shouted "My God! 
 that big man is killing the little man under him!" Tayor was the 
 first man who went to the rescue of Person. He was in the best posi- 
 tion to give you the whole truth. He did not know either Musser or 
 Person. He was not placed on the stand by the prosecution although 
 subpoenaed to testify for the state. ,We put him on the stand. He 
 told the truth in his simple, homely way. It aggravated the prosecu- 
 tion. Taylor is only a tenant farmer. This fact seemed to give the 
 prosecution consolation and courage. It seems that from their point 
 of view the weight to be given to the testimony of a witness should be 
 determined by his material prosperity. Of course this is not the law 
 in the state that gave to the Union the first citizen of our civilization, a 
 rail splitter sprung from the loins of tenant country people. For 
 his service to justice Taylor was marked for the most bitter attack I 
 have ever known to be made upon a witness in a court room. Failing 
 to trap him into a single inconsistency they resolved to annihilate 
 Taylor. A dozen scandal mongers, neighborhood gossips, cheerfully 
 came to the witness stand and swore Taylor's reputation for truth and 
 veracity was bad. They were not only willing witnesses but they were 
 eager witnesses. They seemed to enjoy their part in the cruel and 
 dastardly attempt to destroy Taylor's character. On cross examina- 
 tion, I asked each of these character assassins by whom they heard 
 Taylor's general reputation for truth and veracity assailed. Each of 
 the dozen named the eleven others. It was an infamous round robin 
 of willing breakers of the commandment. "Thou shalt not bear false 
 witness against thy neighbor." I next sought to find the motive for 
 this unthinkable attack upon Taylor. By questions I learned that 
 these men were grocers and butchers and storekeepers to whom 
 Taylor at one time or another in his life had been indebted. I sought 
 to find out what form and" style of lies Taylor had told upon which 
 they based the merciless slander. From the very lips of the witnesses 
 you learned and I learned that Taylor, having become their debtor, 
 made promises of payment that he could not, because of his poverty, 
 fulfill. Adversity and the human impulse to feed his children had 
 wrecked Taylor's reputation with these ghouls who now enjoyed the 
 chance to publicly brand him a liar. For his poverty I sympathize 
 with Taylor as I do with all those who are poverty stricken. On this
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 43 
 
 attack they rely and will ask you to disregard Taylor's testimony. 
 Why didn't they bring the grand jurors here and impeach Taylor's 
 testimony given before the grand jury? Taylor testified to the truth 
 before the grand jury just as he did here. If there had been a single 
 variance between Taylor's testimony before the grand jury and his 
 evidence here, the grand jurors would have been brought here and 
 Taylor would have been impeached. 
 
 Grand Jury Used Against Witness Foist 
 
 Bert Foist, a bartender, worked for Dick Bryant. It was to this 
 saloon that Musser came on the afternoon of the tragedy. Foist 
 testified before the grand jury. There he said, in response to ques- 
 tions, that Musser came into the saloon shortly before the tragedy and 
 asked to be allowed to leave his overcoat there. Before the grand 
 jury he had not been asked about the telephone conversation and as 
 a consequence did not volunteer the information. The state went 
 after him on cross examination and asked him why he did not testify 
 about the telephone conversation before the grand jury. Foist, with 
 straightforwardness said that after the tragedy he was told by the 
 owner of the saloon, his boss, not to say anything about the fact that 
 Musser had used the phone in the saloon to decoy Person to the scene 
 of the tragedy. The saloon keeper's desire to keep the saloon out of 
 the affair after the terrible results that followed the telephoning does 
 not require any comment from me. Did you not hear the prosecution 
 defend the saloon keeper and attack the bar keeper? Then, too, you 
 will remember that they brought no witnesses to attack the reputation 
 of Dr. Pugh as a truth teller. Neither did they bring grand jurors 
 to impeach him. In the case of John Taylor they did not bring grand 
 jurors to impeach him but they brought forth a dozen men to attack 
 his reputation for truth and veracity. Now that Foist was to be at- 
 tacked, injustice plays still another role. No witnesses are brought 
 forth to question Foist's reputation for truth and veracity, but the 
 entire grand jury are solemnly paraded before you and each testified 
 from memory, months old, that Foist did not tell of the telephone 
 message in his testimony before them. 
 
 A Blind Chief of Police 
 
 Chief of Police Burr, of Illinois Central-owned Clinton, took the
 
 44 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 witness stand. He testified that he went to the saloon of Dick Bryant 
 after the shooting and got the overcoat and kept it in his possession 
 until the present time. I asked him whose overcoat it was. His 
 answer still echoes in my ears. "I haven't the slightest idea." This, 
 though a small link in the chain, coming as it did from the chief of 
 police of Clinton, like the proverbial straw, shows the way of the wind. 
 Did that wind blow from a prosecution or from a persecution? 
 
 Person's Good Character Established 
 
 That you might know the kind and manner of man this defendant 
 has been and is, I called from stores and shops, from the banks and 
 from the professions, witnesses to speak the truth concerning Person's 
 character. The first, I believe, was a banker. He said that Person's 
 reputation for peacefulness and good citizenship could not be better. 
 The malignancy and the unkindness of the prosecution hissed out on 
 cross examination a question : "Even so, you wouldn't associate with 
 him, would you, Mr. Marvel?" Special -Prosecutor ex-Judge Herrick 
 was the interrogator. Ah, Herrick, I wonder if you- fully appreciate 
 the meanness of your tone and your words. Maybe the motive for 
 your course is the retainer that made you special prosecutor. 
 
 Vicious Cross Examination of Person 
 
 There is an old saw that any fool can ask questions that a wise 
 man cannot answer. Cross examination exemplifies the truth of this 
 proverb. It takes a bitter questioner, with a superlatively vindictive 
 motive to be willing to put a defendant whose life is at stake on the 
 rack of questions double in form. One can ask a witness on cross 
 examination whether he has stopped beating his wife yet and then 
 command the witness to answer yes or no. If the witness says "yes," 
 it means he used to beat his wife, but doesn't any more. If he answers 
 "no," it means he is still a wife-beater. Question after question was 
 shot at Carl Person on cross examination, followed by a shout demand- 
 ing that the defendant answer yes or no. Even the court was touched 
 by the unfairness of the prosecution toward a man on trial for his life. 
 This court has been a stern one and a severe one and yet the humanity 
 of the judge broke through the judicial veneer and he expanded the 
 rule he almost in a technical sense, violated it, he said : "Yes, Carl,
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 45 
 
 you can explain." In passing observe the language of the court, the 
 man whom the prosecution styled coldblooded murderer, pursued 
 even to the witness stand, is addressed by the presiding judge as 
 "Carl !" He did not call him "the defendant" nor the "prisoner." It 
 was an unconscious bit of human feeling, slipping out from under the 
 judicial mask. Carl Person won it from the court, not by the words 
 of his counsel, but by the calm and dignified way he has stood up 
 under the most terrific strain a human being can undergo. 
 
 Prosecutor's Effort to Suppress Evidence 
 
 In the story of Helen Jones, who testified here the other day, 
 we find the most disgraceful disclosure that ever marred the fairness 
 and justice of a prosecution begun in the name of the people of the 
 state of Illinois. Helen Jones is a young newspaper woman of 
 Clinton. She lives with her father and mother and brothers and 
 sisters. She witnessed the shooting. The prosecutor sent for her. 
 She told her story. It was j;he truth. It vindicated the defendant. 
 It justified Carl Person in killing Tony Musser. The thought of 
 being called upon to testify in a sensational murder case frightened 
 her. She asked the prosecutor to excuse her from testifying. He 
 said he would hear her story first. She told it to him. She was in 
 the office of State's Attorney Williams at the time. After hearing 
 her story he told her that he would excuse her. He kept his word. 
 She was not subpoenaed. He did more. He gave her some advice. 
 She was told not to tell Attorney Comerford what she knew about 
 the case, that if she did the defense would call her as a witness. He 
 advised her to be silent if she wanted to escape the ordeal of attending 
 court as a witness. A rumor brought to my ears the name of Helen 
 Jones. I went out in an automobile with Attorney Miller to find her. 
 It was in the afternoon. We came upon her on the public street 
 about two blocks from her home. Mr. Miller introduced me to her. 
 I asked her to step into the car and ride to her home. She did. There 
 I met her father. I talked to her. She told me the full story as you 
 heard it on the witness stand. I told her it was her duty to bear wit- 
 ness to the truth that a life was at stake. I advised her to counsel 
 with her father and assured her that he would agree that it would be 
 unwomanly to shirk a responsibility so important to justice for 
 another human being. We subpoenaed her. On the witness stand,
 
 46 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 with the candidness of a girl and the courage of a woman she told 
 the truth. From her lips came not only a vindication of the defendant, 
 but a terrible indictment against Prosecutor Williams. She charged 
 State's Attorney Williams with the unpardonable crime of trying to 
 suppress evidence in a murder.trial. Special Prosecutor Herrick was 
 assigned to the task of breaking down her statement. He failed 
 utterly, miserably. Truth in the mouth of a girl baffled the astuteness 
 and cunning of the cross examiner. Defeated in his efforts to confuse 
 Helen Jones, Judge Herrick took another tack. After consultation 
 with State's Attorney Williams and State's Attorney Smith, Mr. Her- 
 rick began to lay the foundation for the impeachment of Helen Jones. 
 He asked her who was present besides State's Attorney Williams and 
 herself in the state's attorney's office at the time Mr. Williams told 
 her not to disclose her evidence to the attorneys for the defense. She 
 answered promptly and directly. Her answer was, "Mr. Pierpont 
 Wright, the state's attorney's stenographer." The telling of truth 
 on her part was fraught with danger. She not only laid herself open 
 to impeachment, but to an indictment and conviction for the crime 
 of perjury. If she falsified it was obvious that there were two wit- 
 nesses who could assail her, one State's Attorney Williams, the other 
 his stenographer, Mr. Wright. Both were in the court room when 
 Mi s Jones gave her testimony. From the moment Helen Jones left 
 the stand until this case was closed I waited expectantly for the state's 
 attorney and Mr. Wright to take the stand. Both have been here 
 every day. The charge of Helen Jones stands uncontradicted. Those 
 who could have challenged it if it were untrue have been silent. What 
 is the deduction? Helen Jones told the truth. I confess that I am 
 not quite able to grasp, to the fullness, the meaning of this conduct 
 on the part of the prosecution. It staggers my understanding. Moral 
 turpitude is the unit by which we measure crime. This act, measured 
 by its moral turpitude, is too terrible to contemplate calmly. I say 
 to you, sir, State's Attorney Williams, that if you had succeeded in 
 silencing Helen Jones and keeping from the jury the truth as she 
 told it here and this jury had found the defendant, Carl Person, guilty 
 and sentenced him to die, then sir, in the judgment of God, you would 
 have been a murderer! If justice had miscarried through the success 
 of your efforts, on your death bed the angel of truth would have 
 dangled before your eyes the swinging corpse of Carl Person. I for- 
 give you, but I am sorry for you.
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 47 
 
 Barnet a Modern Ananias 
 
 In football they have used these many years a formation known 
 as the flying wedge. Somewhere I have read that this idea comes out 
 of a military maneuver known to the ancient Greeks. The plan is 
 to put your strength at the apex of a V and make your attack by 
 battering through the enemy's line. The prosecution designed a 
 flying wedge and put at the point of attack its strongest witness. J. 
 A. Barnet is the name of the wedge man. He said he was a farmer. 
 I know you are farmers. Farmers haven't any copyright on truth any 
 more than other people have. You know that. So do I. I say that 
 J. A. Barnet in his testimony, out-Ananiased Ananias. His testimony 
 hasn't a single symptom of truth about it. He it was who swore that 
 Person struck at Musser. One hundred and thirty witnesses have 
 testified here and Barnet alone makes this statement. This might 
 be a mistake an honest mistake, if it were the only statement made 
 by Barnet planned to hang Person and designed in falsehood. But 
 Barnet went further. He said that when Musser and Person were 
 on the pavement, Person had his legs wrapped around Musser's and 
 his hands in Musser's hair. One hundred and thirty witnesses testified 
 and not one of them corroborated Barnet. He let his disguise slip. 
 He went too far, even for a perjurer. He said that Person was not 
 hurt, that there was but a slight pin scratch upon his face and that 
 just before the shooting Person deliberately smeared the few drops 
 of blood over his face to make it appear that he had been badly beaten. 
 Barnet would have you believe that Person, in the moment just before 
 he shot Musser, was preparing his defense. No other witness at the 
 trial corroborated Ananias Barnet. Dozens of witnesses for both the 
 state and the defense, including doctors, swore to the terrible beating 
 Person received. 
 
 Witness Moore Trapped 
 
 Joseph Moore followed Barnet on the witness stand. He testi- 
 fied on behalf of the prosecution. A week after the shooting he made 
 an affidavit to Mr. George Kavanaugh in which he completely exon- 
 erated the defendant. Nine months after the tragedy he comes here 
 and brazenly and boldly tries to hang this defendant. On cross ex- 
 amination I produced the affidavit. I compelled Moore to admit that 
 it bore his signature ; that he read it before he signed it, that he was
 
 48 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 sworn to its truth by Mr. Kavanaugh. Strange how truth and memory 
 change ! I am wondering what influences have been at work that so 
 completely changed Mr. Moore's version of the shooting. Surely it 
 was fresher in his mind a we^k after it happened than it is now. 
 Moore makes no explanation. He sullenly insists that he is telling 
 the truth now. Mr. Moore must remember that to be a good liar one 
 must have a good memory. He should cultivate the latter before he 
 practises the former. 
 
 I put Mr. Kavanaugh on the stand. He told you how he had 
 come to Chicago to attend the New Year's celebration at the Press 
 Club, of which both Mr. Kavanaugh and myself have the honor of 
 being members, that out of friendship for me he consented to investi- 
 gate this case. Mr. Kavanaugh is a newspaper man of training and 
 experience. I did not want to employ a detective. I wanted a man 
 free from the suspicion under which the detective works. I wanted a 
 man of rugged honesty and possessed of a clear head. Such is George 
 Kavanaugh. By innuendo and slurring reference the prosecution have 
 tried to cheapen and belittle my friend, George Kavanaugh. Mr. 
 Kavanaugh is in the court room. I call upon him to stand up that 
 you may the better remember him. He wears the nasty scar made 
 by 'a bolo knife on the firing lines when in the service of news he 
 marched with the American Army in the Philippines. He followed 
 the flag in Cuba. He was at the Boxer uprising in China. He carried 
 back a mauser bullet in his shin. The late Dr. Nicholas Senn, who 
 served in Cuba as a United States surgeon, removed it in Chicago after 
 the war. There is a story connected with the operation that I think 
 should be told. Kavanaugh's sense of duty caused him to carry the 
 bullet until the war was over. When he returned to Chicago it 
 bothered him. He went to the Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Senn was 
 back from the field. He operated. During Kavanaugh's convales- 
 cence a bill was presented to him while he was still in bed. It was a 
 charge of $500.00 for the operation. When Dr. Senn next visited him, 
 Kavanaugh told him of the bill and asked that he be patient until 
 Kavanaugh was discharged from the hospital. Senn was surprised 
 that a bill had been presented. He asked to see it. Kavanaugh 
 brought it forth from under his pillow. Dr. Senn looked at it, took 
 his fountain pen from his pocket and wrote across the face of it, "Paid 
 in full in Cuba." This is the George Kavanaugh who under my direc- 
 tion investigated this case for the defense.
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 49 
 
 Illinois Central Conspiracy 
 
 Tony Musser was chief strikebreaker. The uncontradicted evi- 
 dence is that he lured Person from his office by a fake telephone mes- 
 sage. The unquestioned testimony is that the telephone message came 
 from the saloon of Bryant & Coakley at about two o'clock. Joaquin 
 Wilson, son of Deputy Sheriff Wilson of De Witt county, swore that 
 he passed this saloon at about five minutes after two on the afternoon 
 of December thirtieth, 1913; that he saw George Cain, an Illinois 
 Central strikebreaker and Charles L. Dickerson, a traveling engineer 
 for the railroad, standing in the doorway of the saloon. 
 
 At this very moment Musser was decoying Person from his office 
 by the telephone message. Cain and Dickerson testified for the prose- 
 cution. They tried to tie a noose around the defendant's neck. Does 
 it not seem strange that Cain and Dickerson were in the doorway of 
 the saloon at the same time that their fellow strikebreaker, Musser, 
 was inside trying to inveigle Person into a death trap; that both of 
 them saw the tragedy and yet pleaded under oath that they did not 
 know Musser was in the saloon; that they had not seen him or talked 
 to him on that day before the shooting. It is significant that other 
 Illinois Central strikebreakers were present and saw the tragedy. 
 Were they there by accident or by design? Were they there to see 
 Musser carry out the job of "Getting" Person, to be used later, to 
 supply the evidence that would vindicate Musser if he succeeded in 
 killing Person? Musser failed in his plan to "get" Person and he paid 
 the price with his life. Now we find the witnesses that would have 
 vindicated him if he had succeeded, testifying desperately to send 
 Person to the gallows. 
 
 Not one of the Illinois Central strikebreakers who was present 
 made an effort at any time, to pull Musser off of Person. They wit- 
 nessed the assault and although four disinterested onlookers inter- 
 fered to prevent Musser from killing Person, not one of them was 
 an Illinois Central strikebreaker! The relative sizes of Musser and 
 Person would have commanded any red blooded man to interfere in 
 Person's behalf. 
 
 A half dozen witnesses said that while Musser was on top of 
 Person, choking and beating him, they heard a voice cry out : 
 "Let him kill the s of a b !"
 
 50 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 Two witnesses, Ira Davenport and Homer Short, positively identi- 
 fied strikebreaker George Cain as the author of this murderous phrase. 
 This is the same George Cain who stood in the front door of the saloon 
 of Bryant & Coakley while Musser was telephoning to Person from 
 the saloon. This is the same George Cain who testified for the prose- 
 cution and went to such terrible lengths in his efforts to send Person 
 to the gallows. You remember how I put the question to him, how 
 confused he became, how he hung his head and stammered. The 
 question was "Did you say, 
 
 "Let him kill the s of a b ?" 
 
 "No, but I heard it come over my shoulder." 
 
 Dwell for a moment on the picture ! A young man, slight of 
 frame five feet four, weighing one hundred and twenty-five pounds, 
 prostrate on the brick pavement. On him a powerful man, six feet 
 two, weighing over two hundred and twenty. The young man is 
 being beaten and choked to death. His face is covered with blood. 
 He is utterly helpless. What attitude of mind must have moved the 
 lips that urged murder in that horrible oath-framed phrase? I say 
 that the same malice must have been in that man's mind and the same 
 poison in his heart that were in the mind and heart of the man who 
 was doing the deed ! It was a twinship of infamy ! A conspiracy in 
 motive and thought. Only a previous understanding and an agree- 
 ment between Musser and Cain can explain it. Who will dare assert 
 that Cain's words were those of a disinterested bystander, moved to 
 speech by the scene before him? It is unthinkable. It is unbeliev- 
 able. It is impossible. Once in another day there was a Cain who 
 slew his brother. Of his blood and stock is the George Cain of this 
 case, inheriting all the qualities of murder from his notorious ancestor 
 but lacking the courage of the first Cain to do the deed. He acted 
 as a coach and spur in the conspiracy. 
 
 Defendant on Stand Challenges Prosecution 
 
 Person on the witness stand told the story of his life calmly and : 
 frankly. No technical objections were used as a shield to protect 
 him from the carefully prepared and planned cross examination to 
 which he was subjected. Herrick went through his life with a fine 
 tooth comb. He plotted to trip and trap Person but there are no
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 51 
 
 pitfalls for the truth teller. Herrick asked Person about the first 
 slugging in Decatur in April, 1913. He wanted to know if Person 
 could give him the names of those who slugged him. Person an- 
 swered, 
 
 "Yes," and added, "I can give you their addresses, Mr. Herrick, 
 too." 
 
 Every one in the courtroom framed the question which should 
 have been the next asked by the prosecutor. The expected question 
 was, 
 
 "Who were the men you claim slugged you in Decatur in April, 
 1913?" 
 
 That question was not asked. There was a reason. Herrick 
 didn't dare ask the question. We had no right to ask the question. 
 Herrick could have asked the question and could have brought the 
 sluggers into court and put them on the stand. Their evidence would 
 have been competent for the prosecution in the impeachment of the 
 defendant. Herrick knew that these sluggers would have been shown 
 to be Illinois Central sluggers and the bringing of them into court 
 would have brought into this record another link in the evidence 
 establishing the conspiracy of the railroad to "get" the defendant. 
 
 Then Herrick devoted himself at length to a cross examination 
 of Person concerning the slugging in June, 1913. You recall how 
 he shouted at Person. 
 
 "Do you know who slugged you in June in Decatur?" 
 Person's answer is still ringing in my ears. 
 
 "Yes, an Illinois Central Gun Man and I'll give you his name, 
 Mr. Herrick, if you want it!" 
 
 Here was a direct charge made under oath. The defendant had 
 challenged from the witness stand the integrity of the entire prosecu- 
 tion. There was a pause. Herrick had trapped himself again. I tried 
 to taunt Herrick into asking the name of the railroad gun man. He 
 dodged and ducked in confusion. He didn't want to know. He 
 didn't want you to know. If Person was building a defense out of 
 falsehood, here was a chance to undo him ! The record before you
 
 52 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 stands with the sworn charges of the defendant uncontradicted, that 
 he was slugged by Illinois Central gun men. 
 
 Railroad's Hand in Prosecution 
 
 The Illinois Central was drawn upon at every angle. Failing to 
 "get" Person by threats, failing to drive him from his post by the 
 beatings in Decatur, and finally Musser's failing to "get" him on 
 December thirtieth, the man hunt is not abandoned. Even now they 
 are reaching into this court to "get" him in the name of the law. Dr. 
 George Edmonson, the mayor of Illinois Central owned Clinton, on 
 the payroll of the road as one of its district surgeons, abandoned all 
 professional ethics and decency when he took the witness stand and 
 testified. He said that he and his brother, who is also a doctor, a 
 resident of Peoria and also a district surgeon for the Illinois Central, 
 attended the post mortem examination on the body of Musser. He 
 tried to make it appear that all of the nine shots had entered Musser's 
 back. On cross examination we were all surprised to learn that City 
 Physician Pugh had done the autopsy and that the two district sur- 
 geons for the railroad merely witnessed it. Why were they there? 
 Dr. Pugh, you remember, was not called by the state. The city 
 physician who performed the autopsy could not be depended upon. 
 The Edmonsons, being on the railroad's payroll, were usable and de- 
 pendable. Mayor Edmonson's answers were pitiful. He was com- 
 pelled to admit that his answers were guesses. He was willing to 
 guess away the life of a human being. He was doing it in the service 
 of the Illinois Central railroad. Mayor Edmonson, in his eagerness 
 to serve, let the mask fall. He admitted that he had said Person was 
 "a dangerous man, a red shirted anarchist." These things he con- 
 fessed he had said to many people in Clinton. I asked him to name 
 a single act in the life of Carl Person upon which he, as mayor of 
 Clinton and as a man, based his slander of the defendant. He 
 hummed, he hawed, he adjusted his diamond scarf pin. Finally he 
 answered, 
 
 "His attacks upon the Illinois Central and his participation in , 
 this strike." 
 
 Struggling truth was liberated. The story was out. The last 
 link in the conspiracy was unwittingly confessed to by a salaried agent 
 of the railroad company, the mayor of a city. Person was an un-
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE "3 
 
 desirable citizen in the opinion of this man because he dared to protest 
 against the infallible Illinois Central railroad. It is a sin to be a man. 
 It is a crime to question the right of organized dollars to enslave men. 
 
 It has been written down in the records of this case that all of 
 these things were done in the name of the people of the State of Illi- 
 nois, but I say to you that these injustices have come to pass in the 
 name of the Illinois Central railroad. 
 
 It was the Illinois Central railroad that said to citizens of the 
 state : 
 
 "Surrender your union cards or give up your jobs!" 
 
 It was the Illinois Central railroad that "locked out" the men when 
 they refused to obey its command. 
 
 It was Carl Person who struck at the pocket book heart of the 
 railroad. 
 
 It was the Illinois Central that started to "get" Carl Person. 
 Essentials Versus Non-Essentials 
 
 Tolstoi, sage and teacher, philospher and humanitarian, voiced 
 for modern humanity one mighty truth when he laid down the rule 
 that before wise judgments can be rendered, there must be clear dis- 
 tinction between "essentials" and "non-essentials." Your judgment, 
 to be just, must be based upon the essential facts which have come 
 to light in the testimony given in this case. The little discrepancies 
 in the testimony accentuate the truthfulness of the witnesses. These 
 bits of conflict and contradiction represent the fallibility of honest 
 minds. The human mind seizes upon the great vital facts of a trans- 
 action and remembers and reports such facts relatively accurately. 
 The mind as observer and reporter cannot be depended upon when 
 called upon to present details. A systematic attempt has been made 
 by the prosecution in this case to magnify the importance of small and 
 natural discrepancies and contradictions in the evidence presented 
 in behalf of the defendant. They would have you make up your judg- 
 ment upon the "non-essentials" in this case. By collecting together 
 and parading before your minds "non-essentials" they would take 
 your attention from the real and important facts. When I have fin- 
 ished this argument the last word will have been said for and in behalf 
 of Carl Person. Under our practice the prosecution has the great
 
 54 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 advantage of addressing you last. I warn you against what I am 
 sure will be the method used by special prosecutor, Judge Herrick, 
 who will close this case for the state. 
 
 You remember the testimony of Roscoe Williams, the brother 
 of State's Attorney L. O. Williams. He was an eye witness to the 
 tragedy. Mr. Williams is a man of education. He is a school 
 principal by profession. His daily duties tend to develop and make 
 acute, accuracy of observation and memory. He came to the witness 
 stand and testified. On cross examination, you recall, I asked him 
 whether or not Carl Person wore an overcoat at the time Williams 
 said he saw Person pull from his coat pocket a revolver and shoot 
 Tony Musser. Mr. Williams, without hesitation, answered in posi- 
 tive and direct manner and word : "Mr. Person did not have an over- 
 coat on. I saw him pull the revolver from the coat pocket of his 
 suit." I asked him if he were as positive about that fact as he was 
 about the other matters to which he testified and he unquivocally 
 answered: "Yes!" 
 
 I take this single illustration to point out to you the danger of 
 building your judgment upon "non-essentials." Mr. Williams was 
 not guilty of an intentional falsehood. It was the honest error of 
 his mind in reporting a detail of what happened. I will not further 
 emphasize the danger of this pitfall. As thinking conscientious men 
 I am sure that you would have avoided it without any alarm from me. 
 
 From the cross examination by the prosecution it is plain to me 
 that Judge Herrick will analyze and argue adroitly and astutely con- 
 cerning the direction which Musser and Person faced and moved 
 during every instant up to and including the fraction of a second 
 when the last shot was fired. Mr. Herrick will partition seconds and 
 measure movements in fractions of inches in his effort to destroy the 
 evidence offered on behalf of the defendant. He is compelled to re- 
 sort to this method of argument or be without anything to say. In 
 no essential was Mr. Herrick able to attack the truth as it came from 
 the witnesses whose sworn testimony has so completely established 
 the innocence of this defendant. 
 
 We freely admit that witnesses for the defense told varying 
 stories as to the direction Musser faced and the cardinal point toward 
 which Person moved varying stories as to the number of feet and 
 inches separating Musser and Person at different times varying
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 55 
 
 stories as to the number of shots Person fired varying stories as to 
 the number of seconds in which the shooting occurred. This, we 
 argue confidently, is the proof of the absolute truthfulness of our wit- 
 nesses. Had their testimony been nicely exact and uniform in every 
 particular, it would have conclusively shown one of two things ; either 
 that our witnesses were blessed with infallibility of observation and 
 memory or were schooled in their evidence. Honest testimony carries 
 with it all of the failings and inaccuracies of mortal mind. 
 
 If you, my friend, were to go to a theatre to witness a drama you 
 would be able the next day or the next week to recall accurately the 
 essentials in the play. Your memory would serve you faithfully as 
 to the essentials of the plot and the essentials in the dramatic presen- 
 tation of it by the actors. I venture the guess that you would not 
 even attempt to tell with a profession of accuracy how many feet the 
 villain was from the hero when the fatal shots were fired. Neither 
 would you do anything more than guess at the directions in which 
 the principals moved immediately prior to the tragedy in the play. In 
 the opera house you would be a witness sitting in a comfortable chair 
 enjoying repose and peace of mind, viewing the spectacle on a per- 
 fectly lighted stage, elevated and without anything obstructing your 
 view. Then, too, the drama would only be a make believe tragedy. 
 How different the position and condition of the witnesses to this real 
 tragedy ! Excited, suddenly brought face to face with a terrible strug- 
 gle between a giant man and a young man who is a mere boy in size, 
 a crowd quickly collected, the sight of blood,, the terrible roar of the 
 assailant's curses and threats, everything moving rapidly, tensely ; 
 shrieking women, excited men, would you under such circumstances 
 give weight and consideration to testimony that mathematically 
 divided seconds and measured in inches. 
 
 All of the witnesses who testified here, both for the state as well 
 as for the defense, showed a failing common to humanity. It is the 
 disposition of the human being to try to answer any question that is 
 put to him. We are all disinclined to say, "I do not know." Our 
 egotism makes us so. Each witness, unconscious of the fact that he 
 was guessing, made some answer to every one of the many questions 
 addressed to the minutest details of the tragedy of December 30, 1913. 
 While in neighborly conversations the indulgence in guessing under 
 the respectable apology that it is our best recollection, may be toler-
 
 56 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 ated, yet in a court room, where a brother's blood, a man's honor, a 
 name, are at stake, twelve men of blood and honor and good name 
 will not take from the defendant the things they themselves hold most 
 dear on testimony as light and unvaluable as these non-essential 
 measurings and guessings. May I reaffirm my own humble position 
 by citing a great living authority whose experiments and whose writ- 
 ings upon the psychology of evidence are standard. Hugo Munsterburg, 
 savant, who holds the chair of psychology at Harvard University, has 
 exposed the unreliableness of the human mind in reporting details of 
 observation. He has shown the meets and bounds of our mental 
 limitations and the danger of forming judgments on testimony pre- 
 tending to accurately represent with minuteness the movements of 
 men and the measuring of time and distance. I willingly leave with 
 you the task of determining the guilt of Carl Person undisturbed by 
 the fear that you will not be able to judge between the "essentials" 
 and the "non-essentials" in this case undisturbed by the fear that 
 flyspecks of error will blind your eyes to mountains of truth. 
 
 Innocent or Guilty? 
 
 The days of this trial have been long and many. One hundred 
 and thirty witnesses have taken the stand. Out of the facts that all 
 of them have told has been spun a skein. Week by week, day by day, 
 hour by hour, minute by minute, Truth's strong and busy fingers have 
 woven from the tangled threads a fine fabric. Deftly she wields her 
 shuttle. Long has she been a weaver in the House of Justice. A 
 robe for the innocent, she fashions. And ever as her fingers gleam 
 white and strong, while her shuttle flies in and out, close beside her 
 sits Hunchback Falsehood and strives with evil patience to so entangle 
 the threads that gentle wondrous Truth shall despair of her labor, 
 lay aside her shuttle and leave her fabric unfinished. Haggard eyed, 
 crooked bodied, ghastly faced, the tresspasser Falsehood twists and 
 snarls the yarn. Endlessly and enviously busy are her claw like hands 
 calloused and cruel from their sinful labor. And as the days and hours 
 and minutes pass, she braids and braids and braids a hangman's 
 noose ! A monstrous hag is Falsehood and as she braids, a lie song 
 is the music in her heart. Now gentlemen of the jury, the weaver's' 
 work is done. Has Truth woven her robe for innocence or has False- 
 hood braided her hangman's noose? Every answer from the witness 
 stand has been a thread either in the hands of Falsehood or of Truth!
 
 Reading from left to right Standing, John T. Smith, Deputy Sheriff of Cook County; 
 John Fitzpatrick, President, Chicago Federation of Labor; Seymour V Cohen, Attorney 
 at Law, Chicago, III.; Arthur F. Miller, Attorney at I, aw, Clinton, 111.; Frank Comerford, 
 Attorney at Law, Chicago, 111. Sitting Carl E. Person, Editor Strike Bulletin, Clin- 
 ton, 111.
 
 58 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 Case Given to Jurors 
 
 On the memorable day and date of Saturday, October 3, 1914, ex- 
 actly at 3 :08 p. m.., the various jury addresses, which followed Attor- 
 ney Comerford's brilliant oration, were concluded and the case was 
 given to the jury to render decision in the name of the people of the 
 State of Illinois. 
 
 The Jury Reports 
 
 On Sunday afternoon at 2:15 o'clock, one of the jurors came to 
 the window and shouted "We win." This was the signal for a demon- 
 stration by the crowd around the court house such as has never been 
 heard before in Logan county. 
 
 At 2:30 p. m. Circuit Judge Harris of Lincoln ordered the jury 
 brought before him. The court room was crowded. At 2:35 p. m. 
 Attorney Comerford and Editor Person arrived at the court room. 
 The verdict of not guilty was returned amid a demonstration that 
 lasted for ten minutes. 
 
 After the verdict was read and the jury polled Attorney Com- 
 erford, chief counsel for the defense, arose and said: "Gentlemen of 
 the jury, you are farmers and yet you have vindicated by your verdict 
 the cause of organized labor. Your acquittal of the defendant finds the 
 Illinois Central guilty of a man hunt. You have taken your stand 
 on the side of man in his struggle against organized dollars. Carl 
 Person, the defendant, desires to address you. 
 
 Person Thanks the Jury 
 
 A hush fell over the court room. The people surged forward. The 
 editor-defendant arose to his feet. In tones of earnestness he said: 
 "I thank you for my vindication. Even more I thank you for your 
 vindication of the thirty-five thousand men that I represent. Your 
 verdict is not as important to me as it is to organized labor. You men, 
 a jury of farmers, have by your verdict marked the end of the murder 
 agent and the gunman. This is significant. It means that the farmer 
 who is being farmed and the worker who is being worked have joined 
 forces against their common enemy, organized greed." 
 
 % 
 Life Saved, Liberty Threatened 
 
 Volumes would be required to chronicle the details of the huge 
 conspiracy of the Plunderbund and its agents in this man hunt. Their 
 duplicity had failed of expected results, their intrigues and chicanery
 
 60 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 had availed them nothing. UNVEILED TRUTH, using the farmers' 
 jury as its medium, proclaimed the innocence of Carl E. Person and 
 the cause he served and in no uncertain manner voiced the guilt of the 
 railroads involved. 
 
 Chagrined at its failure to intimidate Organized Labor through 
 the legal murder of one of its representatives, the Plunderbund and 
 its agents invoked the aid of the courts once more and brought sev- 
 eral new charges against Person, hoping that among a multiplicity of 
 cases, their wealth purchased influence might enable them to secure the 
 coveted conviction to be utilized as a soothing balm and a healing 
 lotion that would ease the smarting and pain of the Bulletins' expos- 
 ure of the hideous purification that befouled their corporate bodies. 
 
 Attorney Comerford's public statement of the latest move on the 
 legal chessboard, as printed in the columns of the Strike Bulletin, 
 tells the story in so plain and brief a fashion, that it cannot be im- 
 proved upon and is therefor without alterations or comment. 
 
 United States versus Carl E. Person 
 
 The effort of the Illinois Central to send Carl Person to the Fed- 
 eral penitentiary for 35 years has failed. 
 
 Indictments number 15244 in the United States District Court, 
 Southern District of Illinois, was called up for trial in the Federal 
 Court in Springfiefild, Illinois, by Judge J. Otis Humphrey, on Tues- 
 day, January 5, 1915. The title of the case was "The United States 
 versus Carl Person." 
 
 In the month of May, 1913, Illinois Central detectives and United 
 States marshals raided the office of the Strike Bulletin, and Carl Per- 
 son was taken before a United States commissioner, who bound him 
 over to await the action of the Federal Grand Jury on the charge of 
 having mailed libelous, scurrilous and defamatory matter through the 
 United States mails, in violation of section 212 of the United States 
 criminal code. Person gave bond and was released from custody. 
 
 Subsequently, the Federal Grand Jury returned an indictment 
 against Carl Person. The indictment contained seven counts. In it 
 Person was charged with sending through the mails matters of a 
 libelous and defamatory character, calculated and intended to reflect 
 injuriously upon the conduct of the ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAIL- 
 ROAD. The matter upon which the counts were based was : 
 
 THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL KILLED OLD MAN HARRI-
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 61 
 
 HAN AT KINMUNDY. WHERE WILL THEY KILL YOU? 
 BIG STRIKE ON. WHEN YOU ARE ABOUT TO TRAVEL, 
 BEAR IN MIND THAT THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL IS THE 
 GRAVE YARD LINE. BIG STRIKE ON THE ILLINOS CEN- 
 TRAL AND HARRMAN LINES. HUMAN BLOOD FLOWS, 
 AND FLESH AND BONES HAVE NO PROTECTION. FIVE 
 KILLED IN THE BALKAN WAR, AND FORTY-FIVE KILLED 
 ON THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL. I DO NOT RIDE THE ILLI- 
 NOIS CENTRAL. DO YOU? 
 
 The penalty clause of section 212 of the United States penal code 
 reads : 
 
 SHALL BE FINED NOT MORE THAN FIVE THOUSAND 
 DOLLARS, OR IMPRISONED FOR NOT MORE THAN FIVE 
 YEARS, OR BOTH. 
 
 There were seven counts against Carl Person. He was facing a 
 possible maximum penalty of 35 years in the penitentiary and a fine 
 of thirty-five thousand dollars. Carl Person assumed the full respon- 
 sibility for his act. There was no plea for mercy and no attempt to 
 escape by a technicality. 
 
 The court heard the story, a plain story of facts, and those who 
 were there to send Carl Person to the penitentiary failed. The struggle 
 to get Person must have cost thousands of dollars. It began with a 
 raid on the "Strike Bulletin." This took the time of the Illinois Cen- 
 tral detectives and United States marshals. It occupied the time and 
 attention of a United States commissioner sitting as an examining 
 magistrate, and of a United States Grand Jury, and a United States 
 District Attorney's office. And the United States Court made the fine 
 ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. 
 
 Still the beast is on Person' trail. Person is under bond to an- 
 swer to the charge of criminal libel in the county court of DeWitt 
 county, for calling a scab a scab in the columns of the Strike Bulletin. 
 In another indictment Person is charged with criminal libel for pub- 
 lishing a poem and a cartoon of a humorous nature which poked fun 
 at some of the friends of the ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD. 
 
 In a trumped-up civil suit, Person is sued for $10,000.00 by the 
 Musser estate. As a result of this suit, the equipment of the Strike 
 Bulletin and the funds of the Illinois Central System Federation are 
 attached. 
 
 In the trials that are to come Person will be vindicated, as he has
 
 62 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 been vindicated in those of the past. He has violated no law, but has 
 been the victim of the Illinois Central railroad because of his efforts 
 in behalf of the striking shopmen. 
 
 The cost of it all in dollars and cents will be much less than that of 
 any criminal trial or trials of like magniture in the history of the labor 
 movement. The money subscribed up to this time has all been spent 
 in the preparation of Person's defense. I have spent over a year of 
 my time in this fight. Up to the present time, I have used every dol- 
 lar contributed to the defense of Person to protect him and the labor 
 movement against the larger piles of dollars in the hands of the 
 Illinois Central Raillroad company. Not one cent has been appro- 
 priated to my own use as a fee. 
 
 Appreciation of Illinois Trades Unionists 
 
 The enemies and pessimistic critics of Organized Labor being 
 prone to contend that the besetting sin of the organized forces of toil 
 is INGRATITUDE. 
 
 The Person Defense League of Chicago, animated by an earnest 
 desire to refute in some convincing manner so slanderous an assertion, 
 after consultling with the organized workers in city and state, ten- 
 dered to Frank Comerford, in the name of the Trades Unionists of the 
 State of Illinois and the City of Chicago, the self-explanatory resolu- 
 tion in engrossed form, as illustrated on the pages following: 
 
 Person Defense League of Chicago, Chicago Federation of 
 
 Labor and Illinois State Federation of Labor to 
 
 Frank Comerford 
 
 WHEREAS, The Commercial spirit which largely governs hu- 
 manity in this age of gold, is responsible for the general belief, that 
 money can and does constitute a fair exchange for any and every form 
 of service in the entire field of human endeavor, and 
 
 WHEREAS, The history of human evolution, particularly that 
 portion dealing with the advancement of the World's toilers is replete 
 with instances that clearly demonstrate that the zealous and unremit- 
 ting labors of many who have immolated themselves on the altar of 
 self sacrifice, is a type of service that cannot be adequately compen- 
 sated by the payment of mere dollars and cents, and 
 
 WHEREAS, The brilliant, skillful and successful defenes of 
 CARL E. PERSON, the Machinist Editor of the System Federation
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 63 
 
 Strike Bulletin by ATTORNEY FRANK COMERFORD of Chicago, 
 from the charge of having murdered the thug, Tony Musser, who 
 sought to take Editor Person's life at Clinton, 111., on December 30, 
 
 
 
 mum 1 '' 1 ' 1 '- 
 
 p j tnVnitiuii of jjulmr. tinft 
 Ill-iiHiii&hih' 1 WmiHiHi iii 
 
 1913, involved work of body, mind and soul, that can never be paid 
 for by the usual commercial standards, regarded as an equitable squar- 
 ing of labor accounts, therefore, be it 
 
 RESOLVED, By the delegates of the PERSON DEFENSE 
 LEAGUE OF CHICAGO in regular session assembled, that the 
 League's conception of ORGANIZED LABOR'S obligation to Attor- 
 ney Frank Comerford, for his masterful presentation of the fairness of 
 Organized Labor's position in its life and death struggle with the
 
 64 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 predatory forces of corporate wealth that sought the life of Person 
 at Lincoln, Logan County, Illinois, as a warning to other courageous 
 leaders, be prepared in resolutio'n form ; that though crudely express- 
 ing Labor's appreciation of Attorney Comerford's herculean efforts to 
 serve both Person and the cause of organized labor would indicate 
 in some measure the Trades Unions' recognition of the value of such 
 labors, for which the wage paid, even though accompanied by a heart- 
 felt prayer of thanks, seems but small remuneration when compared 
 with the value of the services rendered, and, 
 
 RESOLVED, That copies of this resolution be presented to the 
 Chicago Federation of Labor and the Illinois State Federation of 
 Labor so that the indorsement of these resolutions by those two Cen- 
 tral Labor Bodies, representing the organized labor forces of the whole 
 State of Illinois, will constitute a declaration, by the Trades Unionists 
 of Illinois, of their grateful appreciation of the task performed by 
 Frank Comerford, both as man and attorney in saving the life of 
 Carl E. Person and forcing a respect for the cause he represented that 
 will prompt humanity to see and understand the aims and objects of 
 Organized Labor with a clearer vision and mind than ever before, 
 and be it further 
 
 RESOLVED, That upon concurrence of these resolutions by the 
 Illinois State Federation of Labor and the Chicago Federation of 
 Labor, that the Person Defense League of Chicago have same suitably 
 engrossed and after being signed by the proper officials of the above 
 named organizations, together with the League Committee, same be 
 tendered to 
 
 Frank D. Comerford 
 
 as an enduring testimonial from Organized Labor acknowledging the 
 value of the service rendered by him to suffering humanity. 
 
 COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 L. P. STRAUBE, I. J. CUNDIFF, GEO. L. GRIFFIN. 
 WM. McINERNEY, GEORGE PHELPS, 
 
 Financial Secretary, Person De- Sec'y Person Defense League of 
 
 fense League of Chicago. Chicago. 
 
 JOHN C. FLORA, T. L. RIORDAN, 
 
 Pres., Person Defense League Treasurer, Person Defense League 
 
 of Chicago. of Chicago. 
 
 VICTOR A. OLANDER, JOHN H. WALKER, 
 
 Sec'y Illinois State Federation Pres., Illinois State Federation of 
 
 of Labor. Labor. 
 
 EDWARD N. NOCKELS, JOHN J. FITZPATRICK, 
 
 Sec'y Chicago Federation of Pres., Chicago Federation of Labor. 
 
 Labor.
 
 HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 65 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 In conclusion the Person Defense League of Chicago, while re- 
 iterating its previously expressed thanks to those who have con- 
 tributed to the Leagues appeals for financial aid, desires to impress 
 upon the readers of this little booklet, that Labor's past victories in the 
 legal arena, in behalf of Carl Person, has but made the Plunderbund 
 more viciously determined than ever it was to strike Labor a stagger- 
 ing blow that may prove its undoing; to avoid such a contingency, 
 requires funds, and these funds must be furnished by organized labor, 
 for even in the game of matching dollars with the monopolistic pow- 
 ers of America, by virtue of its numerical strength, labor need feel 
 no cause for alarm if its members will exhibit the same degree of 
 solidarity which has won for them whatever progress has been at- 
 tained in the industrial field. 
 
 In contributing to the Person Defense League of Chicago, and 
 helping to make a fair trial for Carl E. Person in the still pending 
 cases a possibility, trades unionists are but paying an insurance prem- 
 ium that will afford them a degree of industrial protection procurable 
 by no more effective or cheaper method. Organized Labor's motto 
 reads, 
 
 An Injury to One, is the Concern of All 
 
 Does this say what it means, or mean what it says as regards the 
 relationship supposed to exist among the rank and file of organized 
 labor? If it does, Carl E. Person's troubles are your troubles, his 
 dangers are shared by you, the loss of his liberty will jeopardize your 
 own freedom and to properly safeguard your own welfare all assist- 
 ance rendered to Person in this, his time of trial, will be converted 
 into the magical bread cast upon the waters that will return to you 
 magnified a thousand fold. 
 
 "United We Stand, Divided We Fall" 
 
 Labor's success will be measured by your response to this call. 
 "As we sow, so shall we reap," is a scriptural quotation as true as it 
 is brief, therefor fairness to SELF and justice to the CAUSE sug- 
 gests a literal compliance with the safe guidance of the GOLDEN 
 RULE.
 
 6f HISTORY OF THE CARL E. PERSON CASE 
 
 "Do Unto Others, as You Would Have Others 
 Do Unto You" 
 
 For, as the well known author Berton Braley, aptly describes it in 
 verse 
 
 Well, after all, the whole thing's up to us, 
 However we may try to shift the shame, 
 It's you and I that really are to blame 
 If things are tangled up and in a muss. 
 
 If might is right, if goodness yields to greed, 
 If mammon thrives, and God is quite forgot, 
 If evil reigns in many a beauty spot, 
 It is because We have not taken heed. 
 
 The wrongs that live are those we tolerate 
 Because we have not tried to make them right; 
 If darkness is where justice calls for light, 
 If love is trampled out by wrath and hate ; 
 
 If little children toil and women slave , 
 If some men starve while others feast and waste, 
 If truth is lost and liberty disgraced, 
 If millions fast from childhood to the grave, 
 
 It is because, for all our noise and fuss, 
 We stay content with matters as they are, 
 We have the final chance to make or mar 
 Well, after all the whole thing's up to us!
 

 
 Authorized by the Chicago Federation of Labor. Endorsed by the Illi- 
 nois State Federation of Labor 
 
 The Person Defense 
 
 League 
 
 OFFICERS 
 
 JOHN C. FLORA, President 
 L. P. STRAUBE, Rec. Secretary 
 RAYMOND J. KENNEDY, Asst. Sec'y 
 WM. McINERNEY, Fin. Secretary 
 T. L. RIORDAN, Treasurer 
 JOHN WHITE, ' Sergeant-at-Arms 
 
 Executive Committee 
 
 JOHN C. FLORA 
 GEO PHELPS 
 
 I. J. CUNDIFF 
 
 A. C. ANDERSON 
 WM. ROSSELL 
 
 R. HALLBURG 
 
 E. ARNOLD TONY \VETH 
 
 C. D. WHEELER 
 GEO. GRIFFIN 
 T. L. RIORDAN 
 
 WM. McINERNEY 
 
 RAYMOND J. KENNEDY 
 FRED A. LOHN 
 
 L. P. STRAUBE 
 
 Publicity Committee 
 
 L. P. STRAUBE E. ARNOLD 
 
 Office and Headquarters 
 166 West Washington Street, 6th Floor 
 
 Room 608
 
 156 (TRADES 
 
 COUNCIL^ ise
 
 i