The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1911-01-20

presented. | said to the city council:
You are about to pass an ordinance. BY
this you are about to make criminals.
The very men to whom the ordinance
applies have paved the street, but they
have gone without pavemcnts in their
own vicinity. They have woven your
broadcloth, they wear overalls; they
have built your palaces, they live in
novels; they feed You on porterhouse
while they live on bacon and onions.
You men will pass an ordinance to pro
vent them from feeding their children
better, from clothing their wives bet
ter. They are caught in the great
economic vice and held there. They
must fight. Your ordinance will not
give clothing, it will not provide food,
it will not relieve their necessity. They
must fight tomorrow as well to today.
Pass your ordinance. Do you thinl;
they will be criminals? No, not one of
them. You will make martyrs, not
criminals They passed the ordinance
unanimously in Long Beach.
"The next day sixty men were ar
rested and thrown into jail. We tried
one and the jury hung; we tried anoth-
er and the jury let him loose; then
they turned the whole sixty out and
they are pcketing today in Long
Beach and being fed by the money that
was being sent from San Francisco and
other parts of the state. In Los An
geles the jurors were hard to get. We
have tried for days at a time to get a
jury. As high as 140 men have been
examined. and as many as fifty out of
seventy-siX have said they could not
give trade union man. fair and i'm
partial trial. We got a jury and some
radical man on it hung the jury. They
have convicted three men and we have
hung all the rest of the iures.
"Since that ordinance was passed the
energies of the trades unionists in Los
Angeles have been spent fighting the
courts. Men were arrested everywhere
They had their blooming old iails so
full they could not 90 any further, the
boys could not put up the bail so they
turned them out upon their own re-
ognizance, and every man without eX-
ception, although without bail, has gone
back on the day of his trial to stand
the test.
"They could not convict, they were
failing, the injunction had failed, their
the bankers of the country, represent
ing billions of dollars they had stolen
from the very muscles of the working
people, We're meeting therp to ron
trive means by which they might still
reap larger harvests. a convention OF
the mine owners was there, represent.
ing millions of Western capital. That
night we had arranged for a parade oil
! 10000 men and had arranged for Z
great audience of over 10000 people
While these momnntous things were
pending an explosion took place onc
night and the Times building wa,
burned to the ground. The parade was
called off. Within three hours tho
Times printed its paper in its own sub
sidiary plant. The first paper charged
labor unions with blowing up the Times
building and numbering the twenty ODD
men, a crime hideous in the extreme
crime the merchants and manufact
urers had subscribed million dollar
to fasten upon the trades union move
ment of the coast. A grand jury i,
now in session; they are gathering the
men at the head of the movement, anC
it is aimed to hang the best men OF
the Pacific slope.
Il am telling you men that you hav,
a fight there. figh, to save the only
movement that stands between the sor
did, Unsuitable greed of the capitalist
class and the woN,ing class of the
Pacific slope, The attorney of the
Merchants and Manufacturers Associa
ton is at this time standing before the
grand jury presenting the evidence
sneering at what he dislikes, approving
of what he likes and endeavoring will
all his might and all his money to gel
an Indictment from the grand jury.
AS a protest the trades unions con
Guided to hold a parade about fou
weeks after the calamity. They go
all the trades unions out, One unior
with 1900 members had 400 of then
in line. That night $4,000 mel
marched in the streets of Los Angeles
They started on Wall street, marched
five blocks west to Main, a mile nortl
to Temple street, mile and a quarter
\ L.