LABOR AND DYNAMITE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 229, 15 February 1913, Page 1 (Supplement)

LABOR AND DYNAMITE

UNION LEADERS FOUND GUILTY.

NATION-WIDE CONSPIRACY,

San Francisco, January 8,

The verdict of the Indianapolis jury convicting 38 union Labor leaders of complicity in dynamite plots confirms in its entirety the grave charge of the prosecuting officials that for at leasts six years a concerted and organised system of destruction by explosives has been carried on with the object of compelling the employment of none but union men in the iron trades. No fewer than 89 explosions occurred between February, 1907, and November, 1910, culminating in the destruction of the Los Angeles Times plant and the murder of "21 men. While the brothers McNamara, Ortie McManigal and Herbert S. Hoskin were the active heads of the gang of conspirators, guilty knowledge of and more or less personal participation in the crimes. was sheeted home to many other union officials.

The union of the iron trades is known as the International Association of Bridge ard Structural Iron Workers. Almost the entire executive staff of this organisation was included amongst the 38 men convicted. Only two officials of the union remain out of gaol. At the head of those convicted stands Frank M. Ryan, the president. In sentencing the prisoners the Judge gave Ryan the heaviest penalty, namely, seven years in gaol. Letters written by Ryan show that the head of this union of 12,000 members was well aware that the secret funds of the organisation were being used in a nation-wide dynamite campaign against non-union employers. The most prominent of the convicted Labor leaders unconnected with the ironworkers' trade is Olaf Tveitmoe, of San Francisco. This man was once a member of the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, political adviser to Mayor P. H McCarthy, and probably the most intellectual as well as the most unscrupulous union Labor official on the Pacific Coast. Tveitmoe, the jury found, supplied the money with which the expenses of destroying the Los Angeles Times plant were defrayed. The dynamite was purchased near San Francisco, and McManigal, the informer, testified that the dynamiters congratulated themselves that there was little danger in this because Tveitmoe's influence with McCarthy, the Mayor, would prevent the police from interfering. E. A. Clancy, another San Francisco Labor leader, was found, by the jury to have aided in the Times plot. That the evidence "showed some of the defendants to be guilty of murder" was stated by Judge Anderson in imposing sentence. The crime of which they were convicted was that of illegally transporting dynamite from one State to another. Each man was found guiltr of 26 separate offences, and each could have been sentient to gaol for 31 years, with cumulative sentences. The Judge held, however, that he had no right to take into consideration the crime on murder, which he said had been proved against some of the defendants; and, as stated, he imposed seven years as the maximum, the others receiving various shorter terms. It is not unlikely that charges of murder will be preferred against some of the defendants; and, as j stated, he imposed seven years as the i maximum, the others receiving various shorter terms. Tt is not unlikely that charges of murder will be preferred against the men directly involved in the Times explosion, and tried in the Californian courts.

In sentencing the dynamiters, Judge Anderson summed up in very moderate language what the evidence in the case had demonstrated. "The evidence in this case shows," he said, "that almost 100 explosions, damaging and destroying* structures in process of construction by, and machinery of. open-shop concerns took place, culminating on Otcober 1, 1910, in the destruction of 'the Los Angeles Times building and the murder of 21 people The evidence discloses in appalling list of crimes besides those charged in the indictments. These crimes were all committed in the name of organised Labor. 1 mrf not believe that organised Latwr approves of such practices." The Federal Appeal Court has admitted the imprisoned men to bail pending appeal in the sum of 10,000 dollars for each year of imprisonment. The total bail monev will exceed 1,000.000 dollars. The dynamiters are now confined in the Leavenworth penitentiary, in the State of Kansas, and their f">ends are endeavoring to raise the Tiail money.