ARREST OF A MILLIONAIRE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 137, 28 October 1912, Page 2

ARREST OF A MILLIONAIRE.

ALLEGED PLOT TO SMASH TRADE UNIONS. Mr \\ illiam M. Wood, the millionaire president of the American Woollen Company, and prominent on the directorate of other manufacturing companies in Massachusetts, was arrested on August 30 (writes the l'.osfon correspondent of the Daily Chronicle) on an indictment charging him with complicity in an alleged conspiracy of Massachusetts millowners against the trade unions in the recent strike at Lawrence with instigating dynamite outrages, v.'ith a view to throwing discredit on the strikers. The indictment is the direct outcome of certain revelations which are .--aid to have been given in a confession made bv Mr E. W. Pitman, the millionaire woollen manufacturer, who committed suicide on August, 28. In his confession it will be remembered that Mr Pi I man implicated the leading textile manufacturers in the State in the attempt to break clown organised labor. The American Woollen Company owned the mills where the strike broke out at Lawrence*, and during this labor contest, which lasted nearly four month!*, one of Pie mills was blown up by dynamite. The authorities at the time were particularly severe on the strikers, who wen' charged with the outrage, and for months 0,01)0 mill hands were in the d )' and disMr Pitman a:: ■ d confession and subsequent suiente created a great sensation, which ha > t i red in the arrest of Mr Wood. !>< 1 M>»r and his associates deny their complicity in any act of violence, and are preparing to defend themselves with e : ! th ■ resources at their command. Mr !'itmini's confession was extorted In- ill" police, so it is alleged, by the application of "third degree" methods, and as «>n as he was released Mr Pitman «ls») lvirself rather than face liis asswn■ o 1 lie confession is stated to lent di 1 ' l'i workings of a powerful oiji i including most of the leading texiHc manufacturers of Massachussetls. '!<>■-( if llie acts of incendiarism, dvnamiti::: f , and violence were instigated, it is stated, bv the «mIployers. who hired ruffians for the pur-