of the labor movement, and a new appreciation of the hazards and obstacles to be overcome in the fight for economic betterment and social uplift." The statement of Mr. Gompers is made in moderate language, though its bias is evident, but he cannot or does not keep out of his conclusion the inference that the accused men are guilty, ahead of trial, and that the alleged transaction proves "previous criminal conspiracies". One would think that Mr. Gompers would remember how recently it was that many men high in the ranks of the American Federation of Labor were accused of complicity in the use of dynamite and that two such men confessed to murder in connection with the employment of dynamite and are now in prison; or, if he has forgotten, that his recollection would be refreshed by the trials now in progress at Indianapolis. Mr. Gompers, who left to William D. Haywood and other Industrial Workers of the World the conduct of the textile strike at Lawrence, now seems, in his article, to be in full sympathy with the textile workers, though he makes no allusion to their I. W. W. affiliations. Instead, he says they were "without organization". Disrespectful to the President Leaders of organized labor grow hysterical over the limitations of the right of free speech and the freedom of the press. It would be interesting to know how far labor thinks such freedom should extend. The country will be lucky if it does not awake some day to a very evil affect resulting from unchecked license of free speech and free publication. The Industrial Worker, in its issue of Oct. 3, 1912, says: We herewith present in full a petition issued by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers to "Injunction Bill Taft, the fat office boy of plutocracy. We know too well the class character of the state to have even the remotest idea that 'Cincinnati Fatty' or any other politician for that matter would intervene." One can faintly conjecture what would happen to the editor of a German paper who would allude to "Injunction Bill" Hohenzollern or the guiding spirit of an English journal who would refer to King George as "Buckingham Fatty". It is safe to say that neither would remain out of jail twenty-four hours after the publication or be permitted to quit jail for at least a year or two. We realize that William Howard Taft has been a private citizen and will one day again be a private citizen. Certainly, we have no interest, in discussing the divine right of kings. But every good citizen must realize that President Taft equally with Emperor William and King George, as the present head of a great nation, while open to criticism, is entitled to respect. Such language as that contained in The Industrial Worker is almost treasonable. Organized Labor's Harmony The cartoon on the opposite page aptly depicts the situation in organized labor today. Wm. D. Haywood and the other Industrial Workers of the World are fighting the American Federation of Labor, and particularly, Samuel Gompers at all times and in all places. The Western Federation of Miners, with which William D. Haywood was once associated, is especially bitter against Haywood and can say nothing too bad about him. Incidentally, it does not like the I. W. W. as an institution. Its organ, The Miners' Magazine, denounces Haywood at every turn. Gompers is being assailed with bitter criticism by the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, the charter of which he and his executive council revoked in the American Federation of Labor. There are two factions in the I. W. W., the Chicago faction and the Detroit faction, and a recent issue of The Cleveland Citizen draws attention to the fact that a split seems imminent in the Chicago faction between the followers of Trautman and those of St. John. The Knights of Labor have two factions, the headquarters of one being at Washington and the other at Boston. The employers of labor and the public at large, whenever they occupy the position of peacemakers in connection with labor organizations are almost certain to receive the ungrateful treatment that is usually accorded to those who attempt such a role. The Old Cry Again A correspondent of The Typographical Journal, with great satisfaction, draws the attention of that publication to an editorial in The Los Angeles Tribune, in which the following paragraph occurs: That crimes have been committed in the names of organized labor have no more relation to the question than the crimes that have been committed in the name of organized capital. It is as foolish to say that union labor men organize to maim and murder as it is to say that capitalists are leagued together for the commission of like crime. Against the McNamaras may be placed the woolen manufacturers of Lawrence, who planted dynamite. One is no more representative than the other. Hear the cry again. The textile manufacturers have not been found guilty of planting dynamite, but The Los Angeles Tribune constitutes itself a court to decide that they have planted dynamite. Then the editor offsets them against the McNamaras, who confessed that they not only planted dynamite, but employed dynamite to blow up a building and kill twenty-one men. would think that the editor of a paper like The Los Angeles Tribune would leave such silly slush to some illy-informed editor of an anarchistic paper, One ful and in good demand. Prices steady. Booze, Bibles and bludgeons, cannon and rifles, embalmed beef and bullets, religion, delirium tremens and shoddy, all in wholesale consignments for heathen export trade, in heavy demand by missionaries, Bible societies and Big Biz. Profits large and trade. reported brisk. General poverty still continues to exist among the ones that create the wealth and wealth still continues to flourish among those who create all the poverty. Next November the president will issue his regular Thanksgiving proclamation for this prosperous condition of society and ask that the people in general assemble in their respective places of worship and pray Almighty God for the thing to continue. Fear is expressed in high trading circles that the Socialist movement is likely at some future date to interfere with the present divinely ordained system of the human trade market. Outside of this fear, conditions are fair to middling. Dynamite Trials in Progress Edward Clark, Former Cincinnati Agent of the Iron Workers, Changes His Plea to Guilty Forty-five union labor men were placed on trial in Indianapolis about the first of October, on charges connected with dynamiting work in the handling and transportation of dynamite between states. This constituted a federal offense and brought the defendants within the jurisdiction of the United States court. United States Judge Albert B. Anderson is presiding at the trial. Originally fifty-four officers and agents of labor unions were indicted, but by reason of imprisonment in the San Quentin, Cal., penitentiary, inability to find certain of the defendants and other things, the number of those actually on trial is reduced to forty-five. Delay and difficulty were experienced in obtaining the jury, because a number of the veniremen called had become convinced from reading the papers and learning about the McNamara-Los Angeles Times building dynamiting outrage that the defendants were guilty. Several of them said it would take evidence to remove their conviction that the defendants were guilty. Joseph A. Spaugh was excused because he said he had decided views against labor unions dictating to employers who should be employed. Several veniremen asked to be excused because they feared violence. An early surprise, and one which was distinctly displeasing to the defendants, judging from their scowls and lowering looks, was that Edward Clark, a defendant, pleaded guilty to all the charges against him. Clark was the Cincinnati agent of the Iron Workers, from January, 1908, to July, 1911. He is said to have been frightened by the arraignment of himself on the part of District Attorney Miller in the district attorney's opening speech to the jury. Miller told a circumstantial story of Clark's leadership in twelve dynamiting explosions. in and about Cleveland, and declared that Clark, single-handed, blew up a bridge at Dayton, O., and left his umbrella, marked "E. C.", on the ground. Miller said he intended to prove that John J. McNamara called in his brother, Jas. B. McNamara, and also Ortie McManigal and proposed that McManigal go to Panama and blow up the canal locks with dynamite. The work at Panama was being done by the McClintic-Marshall Construction Co., an open shop concern. McNamara was said to have told his associates that if they blew up the canal locks, it would make people sit up and take notice and would take their minds off the Los Angeles affair. McManigal refused to go at that time, and soon afterwards all hands were arrested. Olaf A. Tveitmoe, of San Francisco, was accused in the government statement to the jury of being the man who pointed out how the Los Angeles Times building and the Llewellyn iron works at Los Angeles could be blown up. Tveitmoe was editor of a trade paper and secretary of the Building Trades Council of California. Miller charged that J. B. McNamara offered to employ a citizen, whose name was not divulged, regularly at dynamiting, saying: "There's lots of money in it. We are going to Los Angeles and blow the whole town to h We have unlimited money back of us, and if we ever get into trouble, we will have the best lawyers that money can buy." Miller told in detail of the Los Angeles Times explosion, and denounced James B. McNamara as "one of the bloodiest murderers in history." H. E. Pearce, of Kansas City, a hotel clerk, identified Ortie McManigal as having registered at a Kansas City hotel as J. W. McGraw three days before McManigal blew up a part of the $1,500,000 bridge across the Missouri river. R. J. Quigley, of Duluth, identified him as having been at a Duluth hotel in July, 1910, shortly before the explosion at Superior, Wis. F. W. Gates said McManigal was the J. G: Brice, who frequently registered at a hotel at Rochester, Pa., near which, later, was discovered quantities of nitro-glycerine hidden in a shed. At The name of Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, was brought into the trial. when a St. Louis hotel clerk was asked if Gompers was not at a St. Louis hotel at the same time that Olaf A. Tveitmoe, Frank M. Ryan, J J. McNamara, M. J. Young and others were registered there when the American Federation of Labor convention of 1910 was in progress. torneys for the defense objected to this testimony, but upon the prosecution saying that he would show that Gompers had something to do with the defense of the conspiracy in California, the court allowed the evidence to stand, saying at the same time that if further testimony proved it irrelevant, he would so instruct the jury and tell them to disregard it. Paul J. Stuparich, who owns a cafe seven miles from San Francisco, testified that James B. McNamara, F. A. Schmitt and David Caplan made their appearance in a gasoline launch near his cafe Sept. 20, 1910, and had a big package in the boat, which they nearly lost in the water. While near his place, they changed the name of their boat from the "Pastime" to the "Peerless". The government will try to tie up the canvas on this boat to that which was found later in a house which McNamara rented in San Francisco, and in which a quantity of nitroglycerine was found. The package, which was nearly lost in the ocean, will be asserted by the government to have been the explosive. A number of checks were identified to show that the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers allowed McNamara $1,000 monthly. This money, the government asserts, was for the purpose of buying explosives. A large number of letters were produced in evidence, bearing upon the transactions of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers. Upon a basis of the contents of these, Ortie McManigal will be thoroughly examined at the close of the trial. In cross-examination of witnesses, the defense indicated that it would undertake to narrow down all responsibility of dynamiting to the two McNamaras and Ortie McManigal. "When you have heard all the testimony," said Attorney Harding to the jury, "we think you will have concluded that about three men were engaged in the nefarious work of dynamiting. Attorneys for the defense also indicated that it would be shown that when "jobs" were referred to in correspondence between officials and members of the Structural Iron Workers union, that the word did not mean dynamiting jobs, but only opportunities for union men to obtain employment. President Ryan, of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, is undertaking to discount the proceedings in the trial of 50 or more of his membership at Indianapolis with the other members of his organization, in a letter which appears in the October, 1912, number of The Bridgemen's Magazine. When that issue of the magazine appeared. the trial of the fifty men on the charge of being concerned in the transportation of dynamite between states, and like transactions, was already in progress. Ryan says in part: Our members should not lose sight of the fact that it is the steel trust |