The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-12-15
Capitalists and LabOring Men
Are on Equal Footing
When They Defend the Crimes
of Their Glass.
MURDER is MURDER
Declares Col. Theodore Roosevelt
i'm an Editorial
Devoted to a Review of the Nc
Namara Case.

New York, Dec. 15.-Theodore
Roosevelt has an editorial article in
the current issue of The Outlook relat-
ing to the Mcnamara case. entitled
Murder Is Murder" The article says:
mot only laboring men. but busi-
ness men, capitalists, have at times
shown the worst form of class con-
sciousne ess-that of sinister and brutal
class selfishness in standing by crimi-
nails simply because they were of their
own class. This has been done by cap
| italistS 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 muir
derOus violence. The two offenses
stand par from the standpoint of
damage to the community.
I'm San Francisco 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 all check on lawless vio-
lence struck hands and elected their
ticket; and this proved in the end to
be lasting misfortune to San Fran
cisco. to the cause of honest business
and to the cause of honest labor.
Monstrous in Its Folly.
tSince the startling outcome of the
Mcnamara trial certain apologists of
these men have made themselves con-
SDlCuOuS asserting IhaT LneS6 de-
praved 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 re-
ceive sympathy because they were act
ing in what they regarded as a war
on behalf of their class! The plea is
monstrous in its folly and its wicked
ness. Tt is precisely the kind of plea
sometimes advanced on behalf of a.
oh ~.F ~rI,fi
bribing a egislature-that he has TO
do it to protect his business.
I'VE are not here dealing with any
of the kinds of offenses incidental to /
the sudden and sweeping changes
brought about by modern industrialt
conditions into which capitalists or
labor men are sometimes drawn with
out any very great conscious moral
turpitude on their part We are deal /
ing with crimes as old as the laWgiv-1
ing from Sinai, with Grim mes-murder
and theft-that have been prohibited |
ever since the decalogue was formu-
lated. The murders committed by
men like the McNamaras although /
nominally in the interest of organized |
labor, differ not one whit in moral cul-
pability from those committed by the
Black Hand, or by any band of mere
cutthroats. and are fraught with an
infinitely heavier menace to society.
Menace to Labor.
= ct, great though the menace is to the /
community, the menace to the cause of I
honest organized labor is still greater,
and no duty is more imperatively laid on .
the leaders Of labor than the duty of I
affirmatively freeing themselves and their /
followers from the taint of responsibility |
for such criminals and such crimes The |
labor leaders who by their loud champion |
ship of the McNamaras-aS previously of
Meyer and Haywood-have succeeded in |
Identifying them with the cause of labor I
in the eyes of the public have rendered I
an evil service to that cause.
Mr.. Debs and the extremists of his |
type among the so-ca1led political Social I
ists-I say so-called because Debs and /
his followers of the Emma Goldman kind I
are not Socialists at all in any true sense
of the word, but mere inciters to murder
and preachers of applied anarchy-and
the labor leaders affiliated with them,
have always boasted OF the part they
played in the trial Of Meyer and Hay
wood; and in this case they repeated
their familiar tactics and held mass meet
ings, and scattered broadcast papers and
addresses in which they furiously de-
nounced the effort to bring wrong-doers
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 McNa-
mara confessed his guilt Mr.. Meyer, the
head Of what purports to be a labor or
ganization, is reported in the press as
commenting upon it, not by denouncing
Mcnamara for having committed the
murder, but by denouncing him for hav-
ing confessed it, Such denunciation is
significant
Apologists for Murder.
Murder is murder. and the foolish SEN
or sinister wrong-doers who
try to apologize for it as incident of
labor warfare are not only morally Gull
pable but are enemies of the American |
people. and, above all, are enemies of
American wage-workers. In honorable
contrast to these men stand the various
labor leaders who have never asked for
more than a fair trial for the McNamaras,
whose purpose has only been to get jus
tice, and who now sternly demand that
murder shall be punished when commit
ted in the nominal interest of labor pre-
cisely under any other circumstances
Il believe with all my heart in the
American workingman; I believe with all
my heart in organized labor, for labor
must be organized in order to protect and
secure its rights and therefore with all
my strength I 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 law, and to set their
faces like flint against any effort to iden-
tify the cause of organized labor, directly
or Indirectly, with any movement which
in any shape OF way benefits by the com
mission of crimes of lawleSs and murder
0us violence /