ARREST OF A MILLIONAIRE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 56, 30 October 1912, Page 7

ARREST OF A MILLIONAIRE.

ALLEGED PLOT TO SMASH TRADE UNIONS. Mr William M. Wood, the millionaire president of the American Woollen Company, and prominent on the diioctorate of other manufacturing companies in Massachusetts, was arrested on August 30th (writes the Boston correspondent of the Daily Chionicle) on an indictment charging him with complicity in an alleged conspiracy of Massachusetts mill-ounois against the trade unions in the recent strike at Lawrence and with instigating dynamite outrages, with a view to throwing discredit on the'strikers. The indictment is the direct outcome of certain revelations which are said to have been (riven in a confession made hy Mr E. W. Pitman, the millionaire woollen manufacturer, who committed suicide on August 28th. In his confession it will lie remembered that Mr Pitman implicated the leading textile manufacturers in the State in the attempt to break down organised labour.. The 'American Woollen Company owned the mills where the strike broke out at Lawrence, and during the labour contest, which lasted nearly four months, one of the mills was blown up by dynamite. The authorities at the time were particularly severe on he strikers, who were charged with the outrage, and for months 30,000 millhands were in the direst poverty and distress. Mr Pitman’s alleged confession and subsequent suicide created a groat sensation, which has-cul-minated in the arrest of Mr Wood. The latter and his associates deny their complicity in any acts of violence, and arc preparing to defend themselves with all the resources at their command. Mr Pitman’s confession was extorted by the police, so it was alleged, hy the application of “third degree” methods, and as soon as he was released Air Pitman shot himself rather than face Ids associates. The' confession is said to have disclosed the workings of a powerful organisation, including most of the leading textile manufacturers of Massachusetts. Most of the acts of incendiarism, dynamiting, and violence were instigated, it is stated, by the employers, who hired ruffians for the purpose.