River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1911-12-07

and the Times existed a feeling of
intense bitterness. The state of Cali
fornia added $4,000 to the reward of.
fered for the capture of the dynamits,
Us, and the Los Angeles city coun-
Gil, at the urgent request OF Mayor
George Alexander, offered an add.
tional reward of $4,000.
General Otis had long been antici.
patfng this very thing in his warfare
with the labor unions, by maintains
ing fully equipped auxiliary plant
in duplicate in another part of the
city, OF which few people knew. By
this means the Times was enabled
to get out its regular editions within
AZ hours after the explosion.
The arrests marked the end of one
OF the most thrilling criminal hunts
ever recorded. Many times detec,
tives knew in advance that certain
explosions were to take place and
dared not prevent them lest they
warn the quarry of their presence,
For six months, during which more
than a dozen bomb outrages were
staged by the "wrecking crew." it's
members are said never to have been
out OF sight of detective. All this
time the men were being sought by
regular police in the cities in which
they were operating, but never once,
despite the omnipresence of posters
describing their appearance accurate
ly, were they molested by the au-
thorities.
A few weeks before the Times
was made to blow up a bridge at
Peoria, I'll. This was in the latter
part of September. 1910. An error
had been made in the adjustment of
the machine and it failed to explode.
1t was found by Waterman and
turned over to detectives employed
by the Erectors' association-the ma
tional body of open-shop contractors,
against whom the hand of the
"wrecking crew. had been turned.
The contractors who had been
forced to stand helpless while a prop
erty loss running over $5,000,000 had
been inflicted upon them, saw in the
Internal machine their first clew, and
soon swarm of detectives went to
work in Peoria. Some worked into
the confidence of labor men and
learned, it is said, that Chicago
man had "done the job
Comparison of the machine found
at Peoria and those picked up at Los
Angeles convinced the detectives the
dynamitings had been planned by the
same person and carried out by his
agent or agents. William j. Burns,
head of the Burns Agency and the
man who exposed the San Francisco
graft ring, CHANGED to be in Los AM
geles at the time of the explosion
and was called into conference with
Mayor Alexander, the chief of police.
other city officials and representa-
tives of the Merchants and Manufac-
turers' association.
He was offered a reward from the
state, city and private interests which
now totals 100000, in the event that
he undertook the case and his men
ran down the criminals.
Going back to the peoGIu plot, he
traced Mechanical to his Chicago
home, and then placed a special
squad of shadc&ss on McMapigal's
trail.
A connection wGs soon established
between McManigal and the McNa-
maras, and their connection with a
number of additional dynamite cases
established. Events came rapidly to
a head, James B. Mcnamara and Nc
Manigal being arrested at Detroit on
April IL, 1911, and his brother ten
days later at Indianapolis. The lat
ter was taken from an executive
meeting of the Iron Workers Rnion,
of which he was international secre-
tary, and a search of the union head
quarters revealed mine of dyna-
mite, bombs, etc., ready for use. The
men were taken to Los Angeles,
where they have since been in Jail.
McManigal's confession and corro-
borative evidence connected the
brothers with a series of over one
hundred dynamite outrages, extend
ing from May 81, 1906, until April 5.