The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1911-12-15

Continued From Page one.
be free from all check on corruption
and the labor leaders who desired TO
be free from all check on lawless vio-
Ience struck hands and elected their
ticket; and this proved in the end to
be a lasting misfortune to San Fran
cisco, to the cause of honest business,
and to the cause Of honest labor.
Since the startling outcome of the
Mcnamara trial certain apologists OF
these men have made themselves con-
spicuous by asserting that these de-
PRAYED criminals. who have on their
scared souls the murder of so many
innocent persons-all Of them labor
ing people, by the way are victims
or at worst fanatics who should re-
ceive sympathy because they were act
ing in what they regarded as war
on behalf of their class. The plea is
monstrous in its folly and its wicked
ness.
TT is precisely the kind of plea
sometimes advanced on behalf of a
crooked man Of great wealth caught
bribing a legislature--that he has to
do it to protect his business We are
not here dealing with any Of the kinds
OF offenses incidental to q sudden and
sweeping changes brought about by
modern industrial conditions in to
which capitalist or laboring men are
sometimes. drawn without any very
great conscious moral turpitude on
their part.
We are dealing with crimes as old
as the lawgiving from Sinai, with
crimes-murder and theft-that have
been prohibited ever since the deca-
logue was formulated. The murders
committed by men like the McNamar-
as although nominally in the inter-
est OF organized labor, differ not one
whit in moral culpability from those
committed by the Black Hand, or by
any band of mere cutthroats. and are
| fraught with an infinitely heavier
menace to society.
"Yet, great though the menace is to
| the community, the menace to the
cause of honest organized labor is
still greater, and no duty is more i'm
peratively laid on the leaders of la
Dor than the duty of affirmatively
freeing themselves and their followers
from the faint of responsibility fol
such criminals and such crimes.
Meyer and Haywood.
The labor leaders, who by their loud
championship Of the McNamaras--as
previously of Meyer and Haywood
have succeeded in identifying them
with the cause Of labor In the eyes OF
the public. have rendered an evil serv-
/ ice to that cause. Mr. Debs and the
extremists of his type among the SO
called political socialists say
SO called because Debs and his
followers of the Emma Goldman kind
are not socialists at all in any true
sense Of the word, but mere meters K
murder and preachers of applied anar-
chy--and the labor leaders affiliated
with them, have always boosted OF
| the part they played in the trial Of
Meyer and Haywood; and in this case
they repeated their familiar tactics
and held mass meetings, and scatter
ed broadcast papers and addresses in
which they furiously denounced the
effort to bring wrong-doers to justice,
and sought to arouse every evil class
| instinct against all who upheld the
cause Of law or sought to put a stop to
assassination and murderous violence
'It is worth noting that since Nc
namara confessed his guilt Mr.. Meyer
| the head of what purports to be a la
Dor organization, is reported in the
press as commenting upon it, not by
| denouncing Mcnamara for having
committed the murder, but by de-
nouncing him for having confessed It!
Such denunciation is significant.
/ Murder is murder. and the foolish
sentimentalists or sinister wrong
doors who try to apologize for it as an
incident of labor warfare are not only
morally culpable but are enemies OF
| the American people, and above all,
are enemies Of American wage-w work