from the dire straits and legal bankruptcy into which
Snohomish County had fallen. It is summarized in the following:

"We are at the close of a great trial. A great deal of evidence has been
introduced; practically two million five hundred words. From the
standpoint of the attorneys who have tried this case the evidence has
been very complicated because it had in it a great mass of evidence that
was only remotely connected with the real issue at bar. You as jurors
have a very simple question to decide in this case.

"Thomas H. Tracy is charged with the crime of murder in the first
degree, not that he himself killed Jefferson Beard, but that he, Thomas
H. Tracy, aided, incited and encouraged some unknown one to kill
Jefferson Beard of Everett, on last November 5th.

"I repeat first that some person on the boat unlawfully killed Jefferson
Beard; secondly that this defendant, aided, incited and encouraged such
shooting.

"I come before you as the prosecuting attorney of Snohomish County.
Owing to the exigencies of politics I was elected to office a few days
after November 5th, the time of this catastrophe. Two months and a few
days after, I took office and found a man charged with a crime that I
did not have the power of prosecution over up to that time. Mr. Webb,
then prosecuting attorney, who had started the action and initiated and
seen fit to collect some of the evidence, was not able to complete the
prosecution on account of the size of the trial.

"I am a young man without the experience that any man ought to have in
the prosecuting of a case like this, a case the size of which has never
been experienced in the State of Washington, and in many ways an
absolutely pioneer case in criminal trials the world over.

"So the State has been hampered in that at the outset a young man, a new
prosecuting attorney, has come into office and to him there has come a
case that no man could read up concerning, and a large piece of
battle--it is the State's contention, a battle between hundreds of men
on the boat and a large number of deputies on the dock, a battle
absolutely and surely initiated by firing from the boat, but still a
battle;--a case without parallel in the criminal history of this State
or of the United States.

"It happens that fortunately the State has had assistance in this case.
The State of Washington, thru its county commissioners, requested the
assistance in this case of Mr. Cooley, whom you have all gr