Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-05-01
Let the Guilty Pay for Their Crimes.

murderers can be brought to justice
without the risk of the officers and
courts being blown into eternity, the
fair minded people of this country Will
accept kidnapping as the lesser OF two
evils When officials have spent
months in hunting down the insti-
gators of a plot that cost more than
score of lives and hundreds of thou
sands of dollars in property, and in
capturing believed to-be criminals,
what right has any man to bob up and,
as a first word of defense of tine ac-
cused, send cry around the world
that the government and others are
in league to ruin a brotherhood?
1t is not denied that acts which are
a disgrace to humanity have been
committed: that some one must have
committed them; that threats had been
made against the plant and the peo-
pie destroyed, but the moment the Of
ficers say they have found some one
connected with the crime they are de-
nouneed as in league with the devil
and the mob is invoked.
IL Gompers or any other labor lead
er believes that the men accused are
innocent they would do well to assist
in every way to bring about speedy
trial If, as claimed. these men are
innocent and can easily prove that
1t would have been physical impossi-
in the crime, that is all that is neces
sary. The general public would be
happy to believe that no labor union
man had hand in the crime charged
The people of this country have no
strong prejudices against sect or or
ganization unless there has been cause
for it. If the people have any hard
and fast aversion to society or cult.
they have had reason to entertain it,;
If they suspect the leaders of any par
ty or group, there has been some
foundation on which to build it.
Samuel Gompers cannot stir up the
rabble of this country to the riot pitch
on the sentimentality play. because it
looks to the public as il that game
were pretty we'll played out in under
handed. private use.
There have been so dynamite ex-
plosions. in the past six years, on
structural steel edifices on which non
union labor was employed. Lives and
property have been destroyed ruth
lessly. The crimes committed in these
explosions make long. gruesome list
of outraged laws. Unless these crimes
are cleared up. public opinion is in
evitably certain to conclude that those
most likely to profit by explosions
which deter and terrorize non union
workers and those who employ them,
are most likely to be responsible The
particular labor organizations to which
these men belong must be deeply pref
udiced throughout the country If these
crimes are not cleared up.
One thing seems to have been made
clear in the dynamite cases, and that
is that the men arrested were closely
connected with the dynamite industry.
If Gompers and other labor union Of
ficiais suggest that enemies of labor
had planted the 100 lbs. or so of this
explosive found in the building in
which the Iron Workers Association
had its offices, they only make them
selves ridiculous. The dynamite was
not planted in the barn which was
rented by Mcnamara. Enemies of
labor did not plant the dynamite that
was found in the baggage of Nc
Namara's brother when he was ar
rested in Detroit, after having been
trailed to that city from his brothers
Office in Indiana. Nor was the dyna-
mite planted at Tifiin. The large
quantities OF dynamite discovered to-
gether with the internal machinery
the sawed off shot guns and the slune
shots. make it perfectly clear that some
ones mission was to destroy. Being
SO closely connected with the above
related incidents, it is quite natural
to suppose that the McNamaras and
McManigle could tell something furth-
er in regard to these explosives and in
fernal machines If they were disposed
to give evidence. If they refuse tina
much, the next most natural thing t,
believe is that they withhold such in
formation as the public desires be
cause it would be self convicting
The most dangerous enemies of or
ganized labor are not the ones wht
are openly and honestly opposing it
but the ones nhos eondone such Crime.
as have disskSsd aiAs acountry ak IRE
Gent years following hideous threats