The Clarksburg telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1874-1926, 1911-12-21
LABOR;LEADERS
SHOULD STAND
ALWAYS
Former President Denounces
in Characteristic Terms
Lawless Violence.
ADVISES THE WORKERS
To See That Their Leaders
Stand for Obedience
to the Law.

to the Law.
NEW York, Dec. 15-Theodor
Roosevelt has an editorial article ii
the current issue of The Outlook
,relatiye to the Mcnamara case. en-
5ttled Murder is Murder" The
Iarticle says
Not only laboring men, but bust.
ness men, capitalists, have at time.
shown the worst form of class con
sciousness-that of sinister and
brutal class seldshness in standing
by crimanls simply because they
We're one Of their own class. This
has been done 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 offenses stand on
par from the standpoint of dam
age to the community. IN san Fran
cisco in one municipal contest the
capitalists who desired to be free
from all check on corruption and
the labor leaders who desired to be-
free from al check on lawless vo-
leace struck hands and elected
their ticket; and this proved in the
end TO be a lasting misfortune to
san Francisco, to the cause of hon
lest business, and to the cause Of
honest labor
Since the .start1 ng outcome of
the Mcnamara trial certain apollo
eists of these men have made them
selves conspicuous by asserting that
these depraved criminals, who have
ION their scared souls the murder Of
so many innocent persons-all Of
them laboring people, by the way
ARE victims, or at worst, fanatics.
who should receive sympathy be-
cause they were acting in what
they regarded as a war on behalf
Of their class The plea Is mon
strous in its folly and its wicked
ness. 1t is prec sely the kind OF
plea sometimes advanced on behalf
of a crooked man of great wealth
caught bribing egislature-tE1t
he has to do II to protect his bust
ness. We are not here dealing III
any Of the kinds OF offenses incl
dental to the sudden sweeping
changes brought about by modern
industrial conditions into which
capitalists Or laborng 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
S!ani, with crimes.-murder and
theft that have been prohibited
ever since the decalogue was for.
INFLATED The murders committed
Iby men like the McNamaras al
though nominally in the interest OF
Organized labor, differ not one whit
in moral culpab.lity 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 com.
munity, the menace to the cause d
honest organized labor IS still
greater, and no duty is more lmpera
lively laid on the leaders Of labct
than the duty Of aTrmatively free
ing themselves and their follower.
from the faint Of responsibility "a,
such criminals and such crimes
The labor leaders who by their lou
championship Of the McNamaras
as previously OF Meyer and Hay
.wood-haye succeeded in identifyin.
them with the cause Of labor in til
eyes Of the public, have rendere
m evil service 10 that cause. MI
Debs and the extremists OF his typ
among the so-called political Social
ists--I say so-cailcd because Deb
and his followers of the Emma Gold
man kind are not Socialists at all /
any true sense Of the word, bu
mere meters 10 murder an
preachers of applied anarchy-an
the labor leaders affiliated with thel
.. have always boosted OF the pa,
they played in the trial of Moyt
and HAYWOOD, and in this case the
d, repeated their familiar tactics, an
Il held massmeetings, and scatterc
g broadcast papers and addresses
y z-=.
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