Imperial Valley press., 1911-12-04

with Clarence F. Darrow, chief coun-
sci for the defense, to visit for a day,
and we talked, all three of us, about
everything under the sun, and finally
about the Mcnamara case. We all
three regretted that it couldn't be
| tried out On it's merits, that ii would
be good for the world to know that
there was a group of labor which not
only blew up buildings but killed hu-
man beings And something was said
about this fact being an indictment
against society. Mr.. Scripps read
letter ne had in his possession, which
was a complete statement OF the phi
losophy of direct action. | shall write
something about this phrase in later
letter Ali the readers need to know
at the present is that it covers the be-
l lief that force and violence are the
, only weapons labor has to fight with.
| We could all see that if this case could
be tried SO as to develop that theory
as defense, this terrible, true fact
could be brought out into the light
and dealt with Some one else sug-
gested that another way to accom-
plish the same enc was to settle the
Mcnamara cases on the basis OF
plea OF. guilty. Such plea would give
US all a chance to assume that a part
of organized labor had actually adopt
ed the policy of force.
am not clear as to the next drift
of the conversation, but ] remember
that Darrow said that the cases, espe
cally that against Jim Mcnamara,
was dead cinch' He thought We
would have not only conviction TO
base our assumption on, but that the
boy would be hanged"
This idea worked in my mind and
the next day, on Monday, decided to
see if any men on the capitalist side
in Los Angeles would consider a set
| tlenent of the cases. / called first on
Meyer Lissner, a man who is one of
the leaders in Southern California of
the progressive Republican party. He
looked astonished at the suggestion, but
/ went on to remind him of the class
line and the wound left in San Fran
cisco by the prosecution OF the busi-
ness criminals UP there. Then l re-
ferred to the condition of European
cities, where the class line has been
drawn SO hard and sharp that the class
war is the principal thing in the life
of people.
You have 1t here, l said.
You have Socialists and labor men
lined up against the other class, you
have hate all through your system.
That's bad. 1t may be that the class
fight is never to end, but why not try
some other way than fighting it out?'
And we talked about the rare oppor-
tunity he and his friends had of TAX
ing the first step in Los Angeles. They
could begin with an act of generosity
toward two heroes of labor who were
in trouble with all men looking and
watching Why not let them go? That
was the question. The next step was
to see men who would be in position
either to help or hinder. Mr.. Lissner
suggested calling on Thos. E. GibbOn.
Mr.. Gibbon baked like everybody else
at first, but he saw it, and seeing it,
he thought he could make anybody
see it. He went out and he saw first.
believe, Harry Chandler, who first
said we were all crazy, but then he
self, so to speak. And l want to say
right here that in all the interviews S
with all the men We all saw, there
was not one that took small or a
narrow view of it, 1t was the big idea
of getting the class war out of their
city that appealed to them all. Mr..
Chandler, for example, declared at
first that he couldn't help US, because
of the special interest of the Times in
the matter: 1--WE should be misunder-
stood" he said, land would do you
more harm than good" But the next
thing we knew, he was out on the job
and from that time on he worked day
and night.
Then Went to Darrow
When it appeared that the men on
that side were willing to make conces-
sions, went to Darrow The question
| put to him was whether he would
consider proposition to compromise,
Like everybody else, he declared ii
was impossible, and he meant that il
was impossible both from his side and
from the other side, But when | told
him how generously the opposition re-
garded the proposition. he said that il
might be a way out and he thought
that both his clients, the McNamaras
!, and organized labor could be made to