The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, July 28, 1919, Page 5

frequent intervals. These spéeches ostensibly were " directed at the court, but in reality they were in- tended for the jury and it was highly improper that such remarks should have been made in this man- ner. Judge Dean, however, not only allowed these prejudicial statements, but frequently indorsed the sentiments expressed in a manner that plainly in- dicated he believed Townley and- Gilbert guilty and earnestly desired their conviction. On the other hand, when the attorneys of Townley and Gilbert addressed the court, they were constantly inter- rupted by both the judge and prosecuting attorney, frequently rebuked by the court, and on more than one occasion the judge made hlS unfair rulings without allowing the defendant’s counsel to com- plete his arguments. Even under these unfair rulings, which restncted them to denying the allegations of the ‘state, the defendants succeeded in establishing their inno- cence to the satisfaction of all fair-minded per- sons who attended the trial. The overwhelmmg preponderance of evi- dence clearly disproved the flimsy charges on which the indictment was based. For instance, an editor -testified he - — thought - Mr. Town- ley’s speech disloyal..~ The account published in his own paper two days after the speech was very favor- able and it was shown that the editor himself had written to Non- partisan league headquarters after the speech offering to publish League mat- ter in his paper. Evidently his opinion that™ the speech was disloyal was an afterthought or the-result of political pressure. AUDIENCE HOLDS TALK PATRIOTIC tng Av-r.xu L0 H l\vnus 8. 4 ™| ylosoph Gilbert, of the Nonpartisan |- The 800 persons in the audience adopted resolutions declaring the speech one of the large Red Cross collection was taken. Also a typewritten transcript of the speech failed to reveal any disloyalty. But the officials of Jackson county had done their work so well, that the poisoned jurymen offset all this convincing evidence with the opinion of one man who evidently had changed his own mind. The entire case against the defendants was of the same weak character. The indictment hinged on the alleged seditious statements made by Gilbert and Friday. Only two men came forward to swear that Fri- day made seditious remarks. One of these wit- nesses was flatly contradicted by a farmer present at the conversation. The other witness said Fri- day spoke to him alone, so it was impossible to directly refute this evidence. The defense did produce mearly a dozen fine-appearing farmers who had been organized by Friday or gone with him . when he was organizing others and all of them swore he had never made disloyal remarks or- even discussed the war. Evidently -Nicholas himself knew he had no case against Friday, but -the young man never was indicted or arrested, yet it was on unproved and improbable remarks al- leged to have been made by him that President Townley and Mr. Gilbert were convicted. It .also was necessary for the state to prove that Gilbert made seditious remarks to make out a case. To do this the state produced several poli- ticians who repeated the language of the indict- ment like a chorus of parrots. These men could not remember what Mr. Gilbert had said either before or after the remarks in question, but they professed to be able to remember the exact words he used in the passage alleged to be seditious. Gilbert himself denied making these statements and nearly a dozen farmers, some of them not members of ‘the League, swore that he had not used the language charged in the indictnient. These farmers, quite in contrast to the politicians who - appeared for -the state, could remember the rest of the speech and it is difficult to see how even a Jackson county jury could have had any honest doubt as to which set of witnesses were telling the truth. Indeed, nothing in the trial stood out so clearly as the contrast between the witnesses offered by . the state and those who came forward for the defense. Practically all the witnesses for the state were politicians or it could be shown that they had a direct connection with politicians. It was shown that the state’s witnesses who testified N A S T 5 D A I A T2 0 € T V8 Y M T RS aboui; four of the speeches made by the defendants were the same men who had tried to break up these meetings by heckling. Several of these men were furtive-eyed and plainly hostile, while. the splendid looking farmers who appeared for the de- fense faced the jury with level glances and spoke with the ring of truth in their voices. But the rottenest feature of the whole frame up was the testimony of Ferdinand A. Teigen, ad- mitted by Attorney Nicholas to be his star witness and the one-whose testimony was absolutely neces- sary to show® conspiracy. Teigen was formerly -a League organizer who was discharged from the League because of disloyal statements. He afterwards was indicted by the United States government and the charge is still pending against him. Later Teigen was employed by Charles Patterson, the St. Paul capitalist, to fight the League and wrote a book purporting to’ “expose” the organization. money from the League foes, but none of them were permitted to give their damaging testimony. This. protection of prejudiced witnesses, the re- fusal of the right to show acts of loyalty, the prevention of proving. that a conspiracy existed to “railroad” the defendants, all tended to make the trial a travesty, but the final and most flagrant injustice was Judge Dean’s ‘denial of Mr. Town- ley’s constitutional right to address the jury in his own behalf. The evidence was closed and for nearly four hours Prosecuting Attorney Nicholas had delivered a violent harangue to the jury in which he went way outside the evidence and made the basest appeals to prejudice and passion. Not once had he been interrupted. Then Mr. Townley quietly arose and asked for permission to address the jury in his own behalf. He told the court the Nonpartisan league was his .life work #nd that he felt better qualified to dis- cuss the case than any attorney, however cap- able. “The Nonpartisan league is my life work and this matter is of supreme importance not only to me but to 250,000 farmers and their wives and families. Therefore, your honor, I ask that I Istate Rests Césé Gilbert On Stand :: For Past Few Wecks Jackson has Been Scene for Famous Townley — Gilbert Trial. be plainly seen by the jurors. \ Town Being Visited by NonPartisan Leaguers, Red Card Socialists and Pro Germans. League Attorneys lnsult Court "% | Court Rulex Out Most of Defense Teshmony Becawe a Man Steals a Horee onfmt .a|Monday and Does Not on Tuesday is No Sign That He is Innocent of Horse Stu!mg. PO “uco i hsq was two telegrams, that v ke ¢ ~tocome seu[was & ber l_.l. a = ta come. | mittes. Gty On this page is reproduced part of the front page of the Jackson Republic, which was found by attorneys for the defemnse on the sheriff’s table, 30 feet from the jury box, where the headlines could This action was only one of many similar actions designed to mislead the jury. The story was written and the paper edited by C. F. Mallahan, a close personal friend of County Attorney Nicholas. Teigen was in a Wisconsin jail on a charge of forgery when he was subpoenaed by the state. The charge against him was dropped and Prosecut- ing Attorney Nicholas sent him $50 to get to Jack- son. It also was shown that Teigen was a wife deserter and that his reputation in his own com- munity was bad. This was the witness on which the state relied for a conviction and Judge Dean, in a series of un- fair rulings, refused to allow the defense to prove Teigen had received. large sums of money from Charles Patterson of St. Paul and a group of Min- ~ neapolis bankers and politicians. * Teigen denied receiving such money on the stand, and the proof offered by the defense not only would have shown his bias, but impeached his veracity and discredited the rest of his testimony. Judge Dean, however, refused to permit the in- troduction of such evidence and his rulings pro- tected Teigen from impeachment. VITAL WITNESS BARRED ON LEGAL TECHNICALITY + William A. Anderson, a reputable attorney of Minneapolis, member of the park board and reg- istrar of a law school, swore that Teigen told him he was to receive $10,000 out of.a slush fund of $275,000 raised by Patterson and others to fight the League. Teigen previously had denicd ever talking to Mr. Anderson, but the Minneapolis.lawyer was not allowed to testify as to this conversation because during part of the cross-examination Mr. Hoke, chief attorney for the defense, re- ferred to him as “William B. Anderson.” Mr. Hoke afterwards corrected this to “William Anderson,” but the court held the witness had “not been sufficiently identified” and so barred, out all this important evidence which not only impeached Teigen but proved this witness was in the employ of a group of financiers who were fighting the League. The defense produced five other men who could swear that Teigen had told them he was receiving PAGE FIVE e A Nicholas was asked by Mr. Hoke |fbu Renirer. ‘Telgen exhibited the signed Jo- i League, upou cross examination this|could produce the correspondence ho comrut in the court house today. ot foréhooo, declared that he stood solidly | had with F. A. Teigen, the state's star for every statement coatained in the wlmu He »tated 1hat the only corres- l\une‘ continued Mr. Hoke. war pamplilet by the leagae. most patriotic-they ever had heard and a . Gllbert - ot La* “What body had control of the|was he “Tho cxecntive committes, 1 never|oity « o exocativef- wains 1 T T A AL S AL T S W —: may exercise my constitutional right not1 of speaking to‘the jury in my own be- Befy half ” torneys 4 ripctad Judge Dean promptly refused this re- wee w quest on the ground that Townley was not such ¢ an attorney and therefore could not speak weoha for his co-defendant, Gilbert. st “Mr. Gilbert waives the right to address the jury in his own behalf,” one of his at- torneys said. RIGHT TO PLEAD OWN Moo CASE DENIED TOWNLEY Jllyb This left Mr. Townley representing only himself, but the judge . still stubbornly re- fused to allow him his constitutional right, although he intimated the question was doubtful in his own mind and should be set- tled by the supreme court. He was then asked if he would postpone his decision until the supreme court could be consulted. He refused to- do this and adhered to his original ruhng that Townley could not speak to the jury. ‘ Finally, seeing he had no hope of getting even this elemental justice, Mr. Townley. declared that if he could not address the jury he would rest his case. The judge im- mediately started reading his charge and the case actually went to the jury without the defense being given the right to present its argu- ment. taken Oath ‘While Mr. Townley was making his argu- ment to the court, Teigen, the state’s star wit- ness, told a group of rcporters in the hall’ that “If Townley is allowed to talk to the jury there surely will be a dlsagteement and there is likely to be an acquittal.” Judge Dean’s charge to the jury was in keepmg’ with his attitude throughout the trial. It subtly conveyed to the jury a strong intimation that the defendants were guilty and in view of the fact that the jurors had heard only one side of the evidence and had not been permltted to hear Mr. Townley in his own defense, it is mot surprising that they returned a verdict of guilty in two hours. The surprising fact is that three of the jurors, including the foreman, voted for an acquittal on the first ballot. Nothing shows the flimsy charac- ter of the charges more clearly than that three prejudiced jurors, after an unfair trial, had been brought to believe the defendants not guilty. Of course it is not known what arguments were used to win these three men to agree with the majority, but in view of the pre,.udxced state of the public mind and the previous mob violence directed against the League, it is not unreasonable to as- sume that these men were at least partially co- erced into abandoning their position. The farce at Jackson is a matter of history. The special interests who misgovern Minnesota finally have obtained their long-prayed for and secretly schemed “conviction” against A. C. Townley. The plunderbund .wanted that “conviction” to “destroy the League.” / No better testimonial could be given ‘the presi- dent of the Nonpartisan league than the fact that his enemies have perjured themselves to place him behind the bars and nothing will do so much to arouse all decent citizens to the true sit- uation in Minnesota and the crying necessity for. a state administration that will not ald and abetr ‘such abuses of the law. .