Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-12-16
The Former President Saws
Murder Is Murder.
Incidentally Pays Respects TO
Debs, Goldman and Others.


Roosevelt has an editorial article in
the current issue of The Outlook re-
lating to the Mcnamara case, en-
titled Murder is Murder" The arti-
Gle says:
Not only laboring men, but bust
ness men, capitalists, have at times
shown the worst form Of class con-
sciousness-that of sinister and
brutal class selfshness in standing by
criminals simply because they were
of their own class This has been
doEe by capitalists in the case of
capitalists who have been guilty of
brazen corruption, and by laborers in
the case of labor leaders who have
been guilty of murderous violence. The
two. offences stand on a par from the
standpoint of damage to the com
munity. In San Francisco in one mu-
nicipal contest the capitalists who de-
sired to be free from all check on
corruption and the labor leaders who
desired. to he free from all check on
lawless violence struck hands and
elected their ticket; and this proved
In The end to be a lasting misfortune
70 San Francisco, to the cause Of
honest business. and to the cause OF
honest labor.
since the startling outcome of the
McNamara trial certain apoogists 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
receive sympathy because they were
acting In what they regarded as "a
war on behalf of their class, The
plea is monstrous in its folly and its
wickedness. 1t is precisely the kind
OF plea sometimes advanced on be-
half Of a crooked man of great wealth
caught bribing a legislature-that he
has 10 do il TO protect his business.
We are not here dealing with any
of the kinds of offenses incidental to
the Sudden and sweeping changes
brought about by modern industrial
conditions into which capitalists OF
labor men are sometimes drawn with
out any very great conscious moral
turp!tude on their part. We are deal
ing with crimes as old as the law
giving from Sinai, with crimes-mur-
der and theft-that have been pro.
hibited ever since the decalogue was
formulated. The murders committed
by men like the McNamaras, al
though nominally in the interest OF
organized labor. differ not one whit
in moral cnlpability from those com
mittcd by the Black Hand, or by any
hand of mare eutthroats, and are
fraught with an infinitely heavier
menace To society. Yet, great though
the menace is 10 the community, the
menace TO the cause of honest or
ganized labor Is still greater. and no
duty Is more imperatively laid on the
leaders of labor than the duty of af-
firmatively freeing themselves and
their followers from the faint of re-
sponsibiiity for such criminals and
such crimes. The labor leaders who
ny their loud championship of The Me
NaRiaras-as previously of Meyer and
Haywood-have succeeded in identi-
flying them with the cause of labor in
the eyes OF the public. have rendered
an evil service To that cause. MIR
Debs and lie extremists Of his type
among the so-called political Social
ists--I say so-called because Debs
and his followers of the Emma Gold
man kind are not Socialists al all In
any true sense of the word, but mere
meters to murder and preachers OF
applied anarchy--and the labor lead
ers 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 IA
miliar tactics, and held mass-meet-
ings, and scattered broadcast papers
and addresses in which they furious
1y denounced the effort to bring
wrong doors 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. 1t is worth
noting that since Mcnamara con-
fessed his guilt Mr.. Meyer, the head
OF what purports to be labor organ
ization, is reported in the press as
commenting upon it, not by denounc-
ing Mcnamara for having committed
the murder, but by denouneing him
for having confessed it, Such de-
nunciation 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. ere enemies of American wage
workers. In honorable contrast to
these men stand the various labor
leaders who never asked for more
than a fair trial for the McNamaras,
whose purpose has only been to get
justice, and who now sternly demand
that murder shall be punished when
committed in the nominal interest of
labor precisely as under any other
circumstances. / believe with all my
heart in the American workingman:
believe with all my heart in or
ganized labor for labor must be or
ganized in order to protect and Sc
cure its rights; and therefore with all
my strength urge my fellow-citizens.
the American men and women who
earn their livelihood as wage-workers
to see that their leaders stand for
honesty, and obedience to the low.
and to set their faces like, fin.
against any effort to identify tar
cause OF. organized labor. directly or
Indirectly, with any movement which
in any shape or way benefits by the