of his sins upon these men to save his life,” he told the jurors. “If you men can kill my client on his testimony, then peace be with you.”
As for Haywood, “I don’t claim that this man is an angel. The Western Federation of Miners could not afford to put an angel at their head. Do you want to hire an angel to fight the Mine Owners’ Association and the Pinkerton detectives and the power of wealth? Oh, no gentlemen; you better get a first class fighting man who has physical courage, who has mental courage, who has strong devotion, who loves the poor, who loves the weak, who hates iniquity and hates it more when it is with the powerful and the great,” said Darrow. “An angel would not be fitted for that place and I make no claim of that.
“But he is not a demon. If he were a demon or a bad man he would never be working in this cause, for the prizes of the world are somewhere else,” Darrow said.
He had been speaking, over two days, for eleven hours. He was almost sobbing now and his cheeks, and those of many in the courtroom, including some jurors, were tracked with tears. He grasped the edge of the table for support.
I have known Haywood—I have known him well and I believe in him. I do believe in him. God knows it would be a sore day to me if he should ascend the scaffold …
But … other men have died in the same cause in which Bill Haywood has risked his life. Men strong with devotion, men who love liberty, men who love their fellow-men have raised their voices in defense of the poor, in defense of justice, have made their good fight and have met death on the scaffold, on the rack, in the flame, and they will meet it again and again until the world grows old and gray.
Bill Haywood is no better than the rest. He can die, if die he needs. He can die if this jury decrees it; but, oh, gentlemen, don’t think for a moment that if you hang him you will crucify the labor movement of the world; don’t think that you will kill the hopes and the aspirations and the desires of the weak and poor.
You people who are anxious for this blood, are you so blind as to believe that liberty will die when he is dead? Do you think there are no other brave hearts and no other strong arms, no other devoted souls who will risk all in that great cause which has demanded martyrs in every age of the world? There are others and these others will come to take his place; they will come to carry the banner where he could not carry it.
Gentlemen, it is not for him alone that I speak. I speak for the poor, for the weak, for the weary, for that long line of men who, in darkness and despair, have borne the labors of the human race. The eyes of the world are upon you—upon you twelve men of Idaho tonight. Wherever the English language is spoken or wherever any foreign tongue known to the civilized world is spoken men are talking and wondering and dreaming about the verdict of these twelve men that I see before me now.
If you kill him your act will be applauded by many. If you should decree Bill Haywood’s death in the great railroad offices of our great cities men will sing your praise. If you decree his death, amongst the spiders of Wall Street will go up paeans of praise for these twelve good men and true who killed Bill Haywood. In every bank, almost, in the world, where men wish to get rid of agitators and disturbers, where men hate him because he fights for the poor and against the accursed system upon which they live and grow rich and fat—from all those you will receive blessing and praise, that you have killed him.
[But] there are still those who will reverently bow their heads and thank these twelve men for the life and character they have saved. Out on our broad prairies where men toil with their hands, out on the wide ocean where men are sailing the ships, through our mills and factories, down deep under the earth, thousands of men and of women and children—men who labor, men who suffer, women and children weary with care and