Bisbee daily review., 1903-07-28
MILLIONS EXTRACTED
MAKES A FULL CONFESSION.
Declares Committee Forced Employ. CTS to Pay Large Sums to Prevent Strikes and they Divided the Booty. Among Themselves.

New York July 2S.-Secrets of union methods of assessments" whereby large sums have been collected by the Journeyman Stone Cutters Union were disclosed today in the trial of Lawrence Murphy. former treasurer of the union. who is accused of embez- zling more than s12,000.
 The district attorneys office has re- ceived Information from various sources that a band of unprincipled men, whose object is to blackmail em- ployes in the name of labor organiza- tions to which they have succeeded in attaching themselves. exists in this city.
 Facts brought out in the trial of Murphy loosened the tongues of many startling stories of how they have been blackmailed and forced to pay large sums of money to dishonest members of the labor unions during the last few years.
 A well-known builder said he cou! l produce list of cases within the last year showing more than s2,00e, 900 ob- tained from employers under threats of strikes He said that more than s50,O00 was obtained by extortion on the Ansonia hotel alone.
 "On that contract" he said. mat ters reached a state where two or three labor leaders would walk into the contractors office and say to him We are short $500 this morning and must have the cash"
 It was learned today that there arg now in the hands of the district attor ney between fifty and sixty affdavitS charging extottion against walking delegates. These cases alone repre-. sent more than s4O0,oO0 alleged to have been obtained from builders and contractors since 1900.
 MT. Mcintyre, Murphy's attorney will put his client on the stand to tes. tify that, with the assistance of a Sc cret committee of the Stone Cutters Union. he. himself, practically black. mailed the stonemasons of Brooklyn into giving up the cash which he is charged with stealing, and that the money was the property of the indi. cidual blackmailers, and not of the organization.
 Mir. Mcintyre said tonight that Mur- phy had confessed to him that. during the eight years in which he was con nected with the union, from s200 900 to s250. .000 had been extorted in this way.
 AS the trial progresses sensational assertions follow one another thick and fast, and the indictment of at least four. men for. extortion- seems inevft: able.
 Lawrence Murphy is accused of hay ing stolen $12y000 from the union, and his counsel Is trying to save him with a defense that the money never right fully belonged to the union, but was extortion money wrung from builders and contractors.
 Bitter at his fellows for prosecuting him. Murphy has agreed to go on the stand and tell all he knows of the unions alleged methods of forcing the payment of large sums from employers under constant threats of strikes.
 Colonel Andrew D. Blair, once repub- Iican candidate for mayor of Brook lyn, says he gave a check for 10000 in settlement of a demand for s56,010. This $50, 0,000 was demanded after the men who had been cutting stone for Brooklyn contractors had at last been induced to poin the Journeymen Stone Cutters Union. in March, 1902. They were then ordered out on strike, be- cause. as nonunion men, the contract, ors had employed them
 John McKeon, former secretary of the union. who resumed the stand al the opening of today's session, ad. mitted to MT. Mcintyre that. for time, he was a member of the ''se cret committee" and that the com. mittee met in Moser's saloon, at Nine, ty-second street and First avenue.
 The witness then told of various troubles between the Brooklyn stone cutters and their employers. extend. ing over a period of several years. In July, 1899, he said, the Brooklyn men joined the New York union. which took over their accounts.
 In 1894, the witne said. the Brook. lyn employers had locked out their men and this was considered in fixing the fine eight years later in 1902 !.
 McKeon was asked:
 Did the treasurer of the union pay out the following sums from the s1O,- GOO collected from the S'one Dealers Association; Donald, s1 ScS.G7; John Boyle, s1,60S.07; J. B. Smithson, s1.. 602.5O; Walter Pudney. s1.515; John Fitzpatrick, s1,502?"
 "If the records show it, yes" he re piled.
 Were they members of the union when they received the money?"
 Yes"
 "why did you compel the Stone Dealers Association to pay that $1O.' OO0?"
 "It grew out of lockout of the