VOLUME XXXVIII

Wine and Spirit Bulletin Union. A telegram from the label committee of Louisville Typographical Union was received at headquarters on April 24, announcing that the Wine and Spirit Bulletin, Louisville, Ky., had been unionized. The telegram stated further that a two-year contract had been signed with the Smith & Dugan Printing Company, of that city, and that the first issue of the Bulletin under union conditions will appear in August. Thus ends one of the most persistent fights to unionize a publication in the history of the International Typographical Union. The winning of the Bulletin is not alone the fruit of the victory, as the National Model License League's printed matter was unionized about a year ago. Beyond question, the untiring efforts of our label committees throughout the jurisdiction have brought about this result. Our committees have worked unceasingly in the campaign against the Bulletin, and the unionizing of this publication is another instance of what can be accomplished through an aggressive label campaign.

A MEMBER of the International Union of many years' standing writes the editor of THE JOURNAL of his unpleasant experiences in Jonesboro, Ark., after answering an advertisement and accepting a position as linotype operator with one of the publishers of that city. The letter to the editor was for the purpose of warning our members of the conditions that would probably confront them were they to answer similar advertise

ments.

"The Crime of a Century."

In a series of weekly articles, under the above heading, the Los Angeles Citizen has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that gas may have been the element which caused the terrible explosion in the Los Angeles Times building. This statement is made in spite of the fact that persons holding such views will be ridiculed in certain quarters since the occurrence on April 22, when the detectives and others in the pay of the union-hating employers claim to have the perpetrators of the alleged crime in custody. Whether or not the theory that a gas explosion destroyed the Times will finally prevail, the Citizen should be commended for the searching investigation it has conducted and for the comparisons made of the results of dynamite and gas explosions. Opinions were secured from the best experts in the handling of explosives, and eye-witnesses to the disaster were interviewed. These latter were mostly those who had volunteered to testify before the coroner's jury and the grand jury and been refused because they had publicly expressed themselves too positively against the dynamite theory. A noted civil engineer, on being questioned by a representative of the Citizen, expressed himself thusly:

There is no theory about it. It was not dynamite or nitro-glycerin. It is a physical impossibility for the effects produced to have been caused by either of these things. But assuming, for the sake of argument, that it was, it would have required about 330 pounds of 80 per cent dynamite or 300 pounds of nitro-glycerin to have produced the results caused by this explosion.

Another civil engineer, who had not had

a personal opportunity of examining the Times wreck, and who accepted the report of the so-called investigating committee as being expert testimony, on being shown photographs of the ruins taken by the Citizen, said:

On studying the photographic copies of the building I was surprised to see the walls, where the dynamite was supposed to have been placed, were not demolished. The action would have been down more than in any other direction. It is all funny to me, inasmuch as I had supposed myself, after reading the report of the committee, that it was dynamite which did the damage. But from the photos, which are not optical illusions, as they are front and side views, and not perspectives, I am inclined to change my views.

Much similar testimony has been gathered by the Citizen to show that the explosion may have been caused by gas, and a point especially emphasized is that in all dynamite explosions walls and floors in immediate proximity to the place where the explosive was located have been ground to dust. In the case of the Times disaster flames immediately enveloped all parts of the building and it was entirely consumed. The report of the mayor's "expert" investigating committee is criticized in that it did not go into detail as to the condition of the building as it found it after the explosion, but is phrased in generalities, and nowhere mentions any pulverization, the natural result of dynamite or nitro-glycerin explosions. The Citizen, in discussing the report of the mayor's committee, says:

The report of the committee would be entitled to greater consideration had the mayor appointed as one of the committee a solitary, single person who in any measure represented the workingmen charged as being responsible for the alleged crime. But this phase introduces another story, which will be taken up later. The thing we want to emphasize now is this: No one except the seven men representative of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association business interests and the city administration were allowed an opportunity to discover any indications of the effect of the. alleged dynamite explosion at the time. Those most interested were either hindered or debarred from getting at the truth for themselves. Therefore, to take as conclusive the opinion of these men-one a real estate dealer, another a lawyer, and only a minority of the committee with any experience of explosives-would be only in a slight degree different from convicting a man on cir

cumstantial evidence who was refused by the judge a jury of his peers (as guaranteed by law). And for this and other reasons people now want to be shown-want it proven to them that it was a high explosive-"nitro-glycerin or a product of nitro-glycerin"-and they are the more insistent upon this because the alleged dynamite explosion was absolutely lacking in many of the positive features that always accompany the use of dynamite or nitro-glycerin.

The people who have patiently waited and remained silent under the brutal attacks of the advocates and beneficiaries of the dynamite "theory" will not longer submit to the inaction or failure on the part of the Times to prove their case. Too much of the public money has been spent to bolster up a "theory" born of a hellish desire to convict without evidence not three men-the so-called suspects but organizations hated for their independence.

Failing, as they have, with all the financial resources of a great city at their command; with a city council more than willing to lend assistance, and a mayor authorized and given large amounts of public money to use, for which no report has yet been forthcoming, but will soon be most respectfully requested; with a district attorney the tool and catspaw of the Times and its editor, failing with all these things to help them, the people are now disposed to seek the real and true cause of the disaster and will take up the investigation. The truth and not "theories"-is what they want, and to aid them in their quest is our busi

ness.

Another publication touches a different phase of the subject which we believe will be of interest to readers of THE JOURNAL. Avarice and greed, as is well known, are the component parts of the character of Harrison Gray Otis. These characteristics, coupled with his mendacity and hostility toward any movement for the general welfare of the people, have made him many enemies in his own community. We will add to these attributes Otis' well-known hatred of trade unionism, and quote from a writer in the California Outlook as to another quality that has evinced itself since the catastrophe of last fall-the Times publisher's bid for sympathy:

For some reason the Los Angeles Times has lately sought to renew public interest in the disaster that befell that paper last fall. It has presented a number of articles, editorial and local, on this subject, in which the lost dollars of the owners contend with the passing lives of faithful employes for precedence of emotion. "My daughter, O my ducats!" The question of gas or dynamite is brought up for fresh discussion; and a desperate effort is made to rouse again the sentiment

of friendly sympathy that the public felt and openly displayed at the time of the catastrophe.

The Times' motive in attempting this revival of interest is neither obscure nor complex. The prime forces that usually guide its course are two in number: First, to make money, and, second, to injure those that it hates. The disaster has already shown itself highly serviceable to these ends, and we must expect that it will be worked and re-worked and then worked again as long as there is an atom of strength left in it.

Besides the $50,000 set aside by the city council of Los Angeles to pay for the discovery and prosecution of the dynamiters, and for other expense in connection with the disaster, the people of Los Angeles subscribed $70,000 and the people of San Francisco $10,000 to provide for those dependent upon the twenty-one employes of the Times who perished in the explosion. Had a similar disaster occurred in a mine, or in a packing establishment, or a foundry, the public before putting its hand to its pocket would have asked: "Is not the employing company able to take care of its own?" If the answer had come, as it must in the case of the Times, that it was an enormously rich concern, paying larger dividends in proportion to investment than any industrial establishment in this part of the state, dividing half a million dollars a year among a small group of men, most of them already multi-millionaires, the answer must inevitably have been, "Let us keep our subscriptions for the many, many places where they will be more needed." But because the employing company was a newspaper publisher which gave it access to general public attention, and because the other papers through chivalry refrained from comment, the bid for sympathy was worked to the limit and a golden harvest garnered-all of it good money saved for the enormous dividends of the succeeding year; for had the public not subscribed, the paper must, in common decency, have made up the sum from its own exchequer.

The original prosperity of the Times was founded on the self-evident propositions that employers have more money to spend than employes, and that there is more profit in the favor of the powerful than in the gratitude of the weak. Strict adherence to these canny principles had given it high standing with all captains of industry, with big business, the men higher up, the get-rich-quicklies and the free spenders of the great white way of commerce. Its status was that of the hired bully and swashbuckler, who is entitled to protection whenever he gets into trouble. The Times demanded that its patrons make good its loss, and the advertising flowed in, as it always has and always will, so long as the world of business is knit together with selfishness and greed. The day may come when the Los Angeles business community will discover that it is not to its advantage to pour its offerings into the jaws of a reactionary Moloch that stands for the ruin of industrial independence and fair dealing: but it has not come yet. Under such conditions the destruction of the Times' plant, which the public natutally and reasonably connected up with that pa

per's "fight" with the labor unions, was turned to immediate profit by increased levies on the Los Angeles advertisers.

It was easy enough to make the disaster subserve the other object of the Times' existence: to get even with its enemies. The affair could be used to feed fat a thousand ancient grudges. Anyone who through independence and honesty in politics, or for any business or personal reason, had incurred the enmity of the Times was likely to be charged directly or by innuendo, by name or by recognized nickname, with responsibility for the dynamite outrage. As an example of how far the practice is carried, we may instance an editorial in the Times of March 18, in which the governor of the state is called a "red," and it is asserted that the criticisms of the Times uttered in his speech in Los Angeles early in August were the cause of the dynamiting of that paper on the first day of October. An outgiving of that nature will not surprise the people of Los Angeles. They are we are sorry to record it-long since calloused to the heaping of insults by this paper on honest and patriotic men, who do not chance to be included in the narrow circle of its flunkey admirations. But this must be something of a shock to people in other parts of the state.

The speech of Hiram Johnson to which the Times refers in this frenzied fashion was made several days before the primaries of August 16. It contains only a few sentences of reference to the Times, or rather to the proprietor of that paper, but they were carefully studied and were alive with the deepest feeling. It would be difficult to conceive of any more complete denunciation of a human being, in terms of decent speech, than was conveyed in the candidate's utterance, and many of his supporters feared the effect on the vote so soon to be taken. It seemed incredible that such a violent attack could be made by an outsider on a man who had been for over thirty years one of the most prominent figures in the city without some resentment being shown. The Times was quick to see the point, and called on all its friends to come to the rescue. But the answer of the voters was unmistakable. Hiram Johnson had more votes than all his party opponents put together, and the Times' candidate cut a miserable figure. This was not done by the outraged working people, for they had their own candidate. The verdict came from the republican party as a whole. Thus when that paper accuses Johnson of causing the dynamite disaster it is attempting to indict a great majority of the voters of the very city where it lives and makes its money.

The Times' drafts on the sympathy of the people will not be honored. The account is already badly overdrawn.

THE rebuff that union officials received when they called on the management of the Lewis Medicine Company, of St. Louis, in all likelihood will result to the disadvantage of that concern. President Hertenstein, of

No. 8, and Secretary Warrington, of the allied printing trades council, endeavored to have the company employ union help in its printing department, and were met with a flat refusal to their request. In fact, the medicine people went so far as to declare that if any of their employes joined a trade union they would be discharged immediately. The product of the Lewis company is a proprietary medicine known as "Nature's Remedies," which is on sale throughout the country.

The McNamara Case.

When the facts are considered from an unbiased point of view, there can be no question but that the constitutional rights of a citizen were denied in the removal of J. J. McNamara, secretary-treasurer of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, from his home in Indianapolis to Los Angeles.

On Saturday afternoon, April 22, a requisition for McNamara was presented to the governor of Indiana, for return to California as being a fugitive from justice, on an indictment charging complicity in the alleged dynamite explosions which occurred in Los Angeles some months ago.

At 6:45 o'clock of the same afternoon McNamara was taken into custody by the Indianapolis police, assisted by private detectives, rushed before the police judge of the city, denied the assistance of legal advice after demanding time to consult an attorney, and turned over to the Los Angeles authorities, the entire court proceedings consuming less than five minutes' time. It should be here noted that the regular state courts had adjourned some hours previous to the time that the questionable methods used for the removal of McNamara were begun. Under the Indiana statute only fugitives from justice can be extradited, and inasmuch as the prisoner's accusers do not claim that he was in California at the time the alleged crime was committed, McNamara was not a fugitive. The statute is especially strong on this point, which is as follows:

No citizen or resident of this state shall be surrendered under pretense of being a fugitive from

justice from any other state or territory, where it shall be clearly made to appear to the court or judge holding such examination that such citizen or inhabitant was in this state at the time of the alleged commission of the offense, and not in the state or territory from which he is pretended to have fled.

It should be borne in mind that SecretaryTreasurer McNamara was not in California at the time the alleged crime was committed. This much has been admitted by his accusers. And the law plainly states that the judge must "ascertain if the person apprehended is the 'fugitive' demanded." If McNamara was not a fugitive, how could he be legally extradited?

After being placed in the custody of Los Angeles officials, with the assistance of the Indianapolis police, McNamara was hurried out of Indiana as fast as a high-powered automobile could carry him. The chauffeur, together with three attorneys from New York and California, who are in the pay of employers' associations, and the head of the private detective agency active in the case, at the time of writing are under heavy bond charged with kidnaping.

One procedure of the police and private detectives that has been condemned on all sides is their actions after the spectacular arrest of McNamara had been accomplished. When the office of the structural iron workers was invaded by the police and private detectives, under the leadership of William J. Burns, among the onlookers were the foreign attorneys representing the union-hating employers' associations. So great was their influence with the arresting officers that President Ryan and the members of the executive board of the union, which happened to be in session at the time, were forcibly detained in their rooms until it was known that the accused secretarytreasurer was well beyond the precincts of the city, and consequently were unable in any manner to render assistance in a legal way to the man who was being kidnaped by officers of the law.

But their high-handed methods did not stop here. One Walter Drew, of New York, attorney for the National Erectors' Association, began inspecting the books and official correspondence of the union with no