t attended meetings for a long time. A temporary committee was
chosen to handle the work of the defense of the imprisoned men, and this
committee acted until November 16th, at which time at a mass meeting of
I. W. W. members Herbert Mahler was elected secretary of the Everett
Prisoners' Defense Committee, Charles Ashleigh, publicity agent, and W.
J. Houser, Morris Levine and Thomas Murphy as the committee. Richard
Smith was afterward chosen to take the place vacated by Levine. This
committee functioned thruout the case and up until the final audit of
their account on June 12, 1917.

Within the jail a process of selection had gone on. One by one the free
speech prisoners were taken from their cells and slowly led past a
silent and darkened cell into whose gloomy depths the keenest eye was
unable to penetrate. Again and again they were marched past the
peephole, first with hats on and then with them off, while two sinister
looking fingers were slid out of a narrow opening from time to time to
indicate those who should be held.

"I'd give two of my fingers," muttered one of the prisoners bitterly,
"to know the skunk that belongs to those two fingers."

Little did he and his fellow workers realize that they were to learn
later, thru the development of the trial, that the principal person
engaged in the despicable work was George Reese, a member of the I. W.
W. and of the I. L. A. It was on learning this that many of the actions
of Reese were made clear; his connection with dock riots during the
longshoremen's strike, his establishment of a "flying squadron" to beat
up scabs on the waterfront, his open boast on the floor of I. L. A.
meetings that his pockets were lined with money gained by robbing the
strike-breakers after they had been beaten up and his advice to other
strikers to do likewise, his activities just prior to the various dock
fires, his seemingly miraculous escape in every instance when strikers
were arrested, his election as delegate from the longshoremen to the
Seattle Central Labor Council, his requests of prominent I. W. W.
members that they purchase various chemicals for him, his giving of
phosphorus to members of the I. L. A. and the I. W. W. with instructions
as to how and where to use it, his attempts to advocate violence at an
Everett street meeting, his gathering of "souvenirs" on the Verona--all
actions designed either to aid the employers in their fights against the
workers or to furnish an excuse