You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Wednesday September 15, 1915
Trinidad, Colorado - John R. Lawson Remains in Jail as Attorneys Seek Release on Bail
John R Lawson, Mother Jones, and Attorney Horace N. Hawkins
A round-up of recent news regarding the plight of Colorado labor leader, John R. Lawson, reveals that his attorney's, Horace N. Hawkins and Edward P. Costigan, have filed briefs on his behalf with the Colorado Supreme Court in Denver. It comes as no surprise that Attorney-General Farrar objects and seeks to keep Lawson behind the bars of
the filthy Trinidad jail.
In other news we find that a member of the jury which convicted Lawson of first degree murder is now under arrest in Trinidad. The juror, Grover Hall, is charged with perjury in connection with the affidavit he signed that was then incorporated into Lawson's motion for a new trial. We are left to wonder if the arrests of Lawson's attorneys will soon follow.
Colorado miners continue to agitate for the arrest of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. for the part he played in the slaughter of miners and their families during the coal strike last year.
These stories can be found in full below the fold.
From Everett, Washington, of September 10, 1915
Judge Granby Hillyer
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LAWSON JUROR ARRESTED
TRINIDAD, Colo.-Grover Hall, a member of the jury which convicted John R. Lawson, has been arrested on a charge of perjury. The complainant is State Attorney General Farrar, who bases his action on the affidavit made by Hall and incorporated in Lawson's motion for a new trial, in which Hall swore that he had been coerced in voting Lawson guilty by a court bailiff and by Judge Hillyer, who ordered that no food should be furnished the jury until it agreed. The arrest of Hall indicates the straits Lawson's prosecutors are in. In an attempt to weaken Hall's affidavit when the court was considering Lawson's appeal for a new trial, other jurors swore that they looked upon Judge Hillyer's order as a "joke," although they agreed on a verdict shortly afterwards. Hall took the order seriously and in an attempt to weaken his position he is charged with perjury.
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PRAISE COLORADO DECISION
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CHICAGO.-The Tribune of this city editorially applauds the Colorado supreme court's order debarring Judge Hillyer from further consideration of strike cases. The Tribune says:
If property rights are not regarded in Colorado, they would be less so if confidence in the courts were weakened. If violence were substituted for orderly process, it would be more so substituted if it were proved that capital could command even the judiciary.
If it be the intent to break down all restraints which protect a man in the possession of his own, no better way to go about it could be imagined than to give an unfair trial to men who have fought against conditions they do not like.
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BOSTON.-The Globe of this city, in discussing the Colorado supreme court's decision in the Lawson case, says "it would seem that the train is at last on the right track in Colorado."
The Globe makes this comment on the court's action in debarring Judge Hillyer from presiding at the future trials of miners:
A judge, charged with having been in the employ of the coal operators, ought never to have presided at the trial of a labor leader. The country does not feel entirely satisfied as to the personnel of the jury which found Lawson Guilty.
A first step toward the course demanded by justice has been taken. Lawson is at least entitled to a trial of which the fairness cannot be doubted.
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More from The Labor Journal:
COLORADO MINERS ARE
AFTER JOHN D.
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SEEK CRIMINAL PROSECUTION
OF OIL HEAD AND HIS AIDS
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DENVER. Colo.-Miners are after John D. Rockefeller, Jr., tooth and nail.
A militia board of inquiry is probing charges in connection with reorganization of the state militia, and it is indicated, the federal government is taking a hand.
It leaked out here that as a result of this case, and as an outgrowth of the John R. Lawson conviction, a concerted effort is under way to get criminal prosecution of Rockefeller and others in connection with the death of more than 15 strikers in the recent coal strikes.
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[Photograph added.]
From The Wichita Daily Eagle of September 14, 1915:
ATTORNEY GENERAL OBJECTS
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Refuses Bail to Lawson,
Convicted of Murder.
John R Lawson and Attorney Edward P Costigan
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Denver. Sept. 13.-Briefs were filed in the Colorado supreme court today regarding the proposal to admit to bail John R. Lawson, former strike leader, now in jail in Trinidad under penitentiary sentence on a charge of first degree murder. Since Lawson's conviction the supreme court has granted a supersedeas in his case and also has issued a writ of prohibition barring Barney Hilyer [Granby Hillyer], the trial judge from presiding in future labor trials. In granting the supersedeas the court left the amount of bail to be decided after the summer recess.
Attorney-General Farrar, in a brief resisting the admission of Lawson to bail held that as the defendant had been convicted of first degree murder he should be kept in confinement pending action by the supreme court when he reviews the case on its merits.
The brief on behalf of Lawson was prepared by Horace N. Hawkins and Edward P. Costigan. It declared that the supreme court has authority to grant bail, where the defendant has not been condemned to death and that in the past it has been customary to admit to him bail when a supercedeas has been granted.
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[Photograph added.]
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SOURCES
The Labor Journal
(Everett, Washington)
-Sept 10, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The Wichita Daily Eagle
(Wichita, Kansas)
-Sept 14, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
John Lawson, Mother Jones, Attorney Horace Hawkins
http://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/...
Judge Granby Hillyer, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
John Lawson Denied New Trial,
Coshocton Morning Tribune, OH, July 14, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
John R Lawson and Edward P Costigan, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
See also:
Tag: John R Lawson
http://www.dailykos.com/...
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Dig The Devil's Blood by Gray
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