DYNAMITE CRIMES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8355, 15 February 1913, Page 2

DYNAMITE CRIMES

. 'AMERICAN LABOUR LEADERS sentenced. ; ' HARROWING SCENES. • ENSATIONAL ENDING TO GREAT CONSPIRACY TRIAL. . NEW YORK, January S. '. . dentences were passed on Monday at (Indianapolis upon the thirty-eight Labour Union oihuials who were convicted at participation in dynamite conspiracies on Saturday. The streets, werethronged to see the handcuffed men brought by a strong guard from the gaol to tho courthouse. -Many of these men have enjoyed for some years prominent .positions in'the Indiana capital. They keenly felt theif humiliation at being 1 paraded in manacles before their ■fellow-townspeople, and some of them made futile efforts to avoid being photographed by tho newspaper reporters. Judge Anderson, after a brief ad- -- dress -in which ho stated that all the "prisoners .wore intelligent/ educated mem and should have been fully cogr ■ nisant of tho enormity of their crime, proceeded to pass sentence. F. / JVI. Ryan,' president of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Ironworkers, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, while H. S. Hoc- ’ kin, the treasurer, and directors Dial Tveitmoe, of Sau Francisco, E. A. Clancy, of San Francisco, J. E. Mun*y, of Salt Lake City, and Michael ; Young, of Boston, were sentenced to •ix years. Others received sentences of one, two, and three ; years each. All tho prisoners will bo sent to the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas/ 1 " MUL..anigal > ' tho informer, was not sentenced, and it is not known yet what disposition the authorities will .moko of Ills case. . J. T, Butler, the i vice-president of tho Indianapolis . Union, also remains unsentenced, because he is to be tried "on the further Charge of perjury. There is Considerable surprise that the dynamiters did not receive more severe sentences, as v each was convicted on the fifty-one ' .counts in the indictment, for which tho maximum penalty is thirty-nine years. .Application for a new trial being refused, appeals wore entered, which will delay the carrying out of tho sentences. SOBBING WOMEN. The prisoners were taken back to gaol, accompanied by a host of sobbing women and children relatives. Otheriviso there were no demonstrations, though there were many hostile cries from the crowd as the- handcuffed men were hurried along to the gaol by a strong force of guards. . Tho verdict of guilty was returned by tho jury after three months spent in the jury box, guarded night and day, ■ and unable even at Christmas to join uicir families. Their task was a gigantic one, for ' they had to return separate verdicts on < tuo guilt or- innocence of forty pnuuuciti, all of whom are prominent -ruao union leaders. Each prisoner vaa charged on twenty-sis counts with *. complicity in a series of over one hunit red dynamite outrages committed in ail parts' of the United States since 1905, and culminating in the' blowing . op of the “ Los Angeles Times ” building and the death of a score of people, "it is alleged that the prisoners organised tho ’ systematic destruction of ' buildings constructed by contractors who refused to employ exclusively union labour. Since the trial began tho jury have listened to the evidence, of-■ 499 witnesses for tho prosecution and 165 for the, defence—66l in all. Many witnesses came From such faraway places ns Hawaii and Panama. ■ Tho evidence fills 17,000 typewritten pages. Tho jury have also been com- - Tpellcd to examine seventy-five hotel registers and to digest and compare * copies of tho official organ of tho union for the last six years as well as 13,000 - typewritten -pages ■ of arguments by counsel, • The exhibits in the case form an

enormous collection of trade union and postal records, telegrams, bills of lading, which, together with infernal machines, nitro-Slyceriiio cans, fuses, photographs, dynamite alarm clocks, and other contrivances, have all been offered.in evidence. The trial alone has cost the Government £15,000. Over 100 Government employee? have been engaged in the vicinity of the courtroom, including twenty court shorthand writers. Tho trial, which is considered to ho tho most remarkable in the history of American criminal jurisprudence, has been marked with great bitterness. The speech of the prosecuting counsel lasted for five hours. TRADE UNIONISM NOT ON TRIAL. In summing upj the judgq emphasised two facts—one. that trade unionism, as such, was not oii trial, and tho other that tho prisoners were not accused oi being the actual dynamiters but witn conspiring to promote the illegal trane portation of the dynamite and iaferna machines used in the outrages. Tho prisoners were convicted of en toring into a gigantic conspiracy tr fight their battles with dynamite and nitro-glycerine. Wherever non-union labour lias been employed during the past dozen years or more, explosions occurred, and not uut : ! the “Los An •teles Times” building was blown up were the authorities able to fix any of these crimes upon the union officials. At that time Detective Burns, working up a certain lino of information, suspected tho Labour unionists, and presently arrested in Chicago a member of the Ironworkers’ Union, named Ortie McManigal. He turned .informer, ami implicated not only John and James McNamara, who are serving respectively a life sentence and fifteen years’ imprisonment for tho Los Angeles crime, but dozens of other prominent members of the Federation of Labour. , , Burns, by tho use of the newly-inven-ted dictograph, discovered the complicity in these crimes of Ryan and his associates in Indianapolis. This dictograph was placed in a desk where Ryan and his associates conferred, and wires were run to a, room below to enable shorthand writers to record tho Labour leaders’ conversations. These conversations, tgocther with the letters seized at tho same office, showed how extensively tho conspiracies were, and proved that tho union’s officials were directing them. Dynamite and nitroglycerine were illegally transported from State to State, large quantities of those explosives being contracted for, and all this work carried on quite openly through the post. So hardened I to crime were these leaders that they wed to send congratulations to each other whenever a “successful” explosion at non-union works was accomplished. “Successful” meant tho murder of “blacklegs.”