The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1910-11-11

ihCh
g. About the middle of August the
city council passed a special ordinance
designed to prevent the strikers from
doing anything in furtherance of the
strike, even though thy did it peace
ably This in face of the fact that the
city attorney advised that no such or
dinance was necessary to preserve the
peace. During all this time The Times
villified the unionists in the foulest
terms, repeatedly charging crime when
no evidences of crime existed.
6. The union men continued to con.
duct their strike peaceably and in con.
formity with the state laws. Never.
theless the "anti -picketing ordinance
was employed to put over two hundred
of their number in Jail.
7. The ordinance provided failure,
in acquittal or hung juries. The last
trial before the catastrophe psuted
in vote of eleven for acquittal and
one for conviction, which The Times
falsified to read one for acquitta and
eleven for conviction.
g. The strike was winning. More
men were out than ever before. There
was more strike money coming in than
ever before. The efforts of the police
to stir the strikers into riot had failed.
The injunction and the ordinance had
failed
o. Finally, the annual convention of
the State Federation of Labor was
about to be held in Los Angeles. That
convention was to be opened by a
monster mass meeting preceded by
parade in which no fewer than 10000
union men would have taken part. A
national convention of the American
Bankers association was in session in
Los Angeles. A national convention of
Mine Owners was also in session in Los
Angeles The Times and the leading
spirits of the NJ & M. were aroused
to point of frenzy over the coming
demonstration of organized labor. Long
had Otis boosted that Los Angeles was,
industrially, the "freest" city in Amer
lea. Certainly, from the point of view
of the union-haters, the crisis was ex-
treme.
The crisis preceding the blowing up
of The Times presents a strange par
allel with the crisis which preceded the
blowing up of the Independence Depot
by the agents of the Colorado Mine
Owners Association.
And yet we are not charging General
Otis with perpetrating similar out
rage. We are not charging Otis with
dynamiting and murder, but We are
charging him with crimes scarcely less
heinous. Summing up, finally, in our
Judgment the facts indicate:
i l. That the explosion was not by
dynamite-that it was gas.
i g That General Otis knows that The
Times was destroyed by gas, but that
he is deliberately exploiting the dyna-
hitting theory, first, in order that he
may escape the just consequences OF
criminal negligence; and, second, in or
der to further conspiracy to launch
an indiscriminate persecution against
the 10000 union men and women OF
Los Angeles, and the 100000 members
of labor organizations throughout thu
state of California.
3. That the fabulous rewards Offered
for the apprehension of the fictitious
criminals were Offered primarily fol
the purpose OF turning the public mind
entirely away from the facts pointinl
to a gas explosion, in order that or
ganized labor might forever bear thu
odium of the supposed crime; that {
secondary purpose of these rewards i
to tempt INSCRIPTIONS detectives t.
manufacture case against some promi
nent member or members of labol
unions. For one fiftieth the rewari
that has been offered in this east
Pinkertons have plotted and perjuret
away the lives of innocent men many
many times.
l We have diligently hunted down th'
facts and as diligently have weighed
them, and such are our conclusions. W.
believe that any unprecedented person go
ing over the situation will draw thu
same deductions as we have drawn.
Respectfully submitted,
II. hartley, Chirman;
A. @. ELLSEN, Secretary;
EDWARD CROUCH,
HARRY wELTON,
f. +. TANNING,
:. f. F. MASON,
F. ID. WARWICK.