The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1911-12-07
MAKE COMPLETE CONFESSION OF
LOS ANGELES DYNAMITE
OUTRAGES.
James B. A MURDERER
For Causing the Deaths of Twenty-one
Employees Of the Times When He
Dynamited the Plant, Oct.
I, 1911.

pleaded guilty to murder in the first
degree in Judge Walter Bordwell's
court. His brother, John ]. McNama-
ra, secretary Of the International AS
ISOLATION of Bridge and Structural Iron
Workers, entered a plea of guilty to
having dynamited the Llewellyn Iron
Works in Los Angeles on Christmas
day, 1910.
James B. McNamara's confession :
clears up absolutely the tragedy of
the explosion and fire which at 1
o'clock on the morning of Oct. /,
1910, wrecked the plant of the Los
Angeles Times at First and Broad
way and caused the death of 81 per-
sons. For nineteen of these deaths
the Mcnamara brothers were indicted. !
J. B. Mcnamara was on trial spe-
officially for the murder of Charles J. |
Haggerty, a machinist whose body
was found nearer than that of any
other to the spot where the dynamite
was supposed to have been placed.
1t is expected District Attorney
John D. Fredericks will ask for life
Imprisonment for James B. McNa.
mara, the confessed murderer, and
probably fourteen years for his
brother. The mems lives are con
sidered saved. The great contention
that the Los Angeles Times was not
dynamited is dead beyond resurrec-
ton or argument.
HE was counciled to confess be-
cause that was the best thing he
could do, in the opinion of counsel"
said Attorney Clarence S. barrow,
chief counsel. 81 will say now that
there was no other reason or motive
in it. I've studied this case for
months. 1t presented a stone wall"
Darrow's statement was made as
looking squarely in the faces of the
charges that the recent arrest of
Burt H. Franklin, an Investigator en-
ployed by the defense, and two 9TH
ers with him, might have precipitated
a situation untenable save by con-
fession of the prisoner.
barrow also denied that external
pressure was eXerted from union Ia
Dor socialist sources as General
Harrison Gray Otis charged in a for
NAL statement, or that the municipal
election to be held next Tuesday in
which Job Hartman, one of the de-
fense's counsel, is candidate for
mayor, carried any weight. 1t was
learned that Hartman vas not con-
suited at all in the deliberations.
A brotherly affection bordering on
, worship, it became known, brought
about James McNamara's confession
, A desire to save his brother from the
, necessity of confessing anything at
all held back day after day the word
that would end the trial.
Artie E. McManigal, the confessed
dynamiter whose admissions are said
u, to have been a big factor in the Nc
Namaras pleading guilty, will go vir
tually free, if the plans of the state
in his behalf do not go wrong.
The chief crime charged against
the McNamaras and the one which
finally led to their undoing was the
> destruction of the Los Angeles Times
building. Organized labor opposed
this paper because of it's successful
fight against the unions. There was
much talk of a "gas explosion" at the
y time, and Socialist and labor unior
papers discussed the theory serious
ly, but men on the inside invariably
= smiled when they attributed the de
j. struction of the Times to gas.
Shortly after the big presses In tn
y basement had commenced rumbline
l. on he morning of October 1, 1910
the Los Angeles Times building
9 which was one of the landmarks o.
the southern California metropolis
. was destroyed by an explosion which
Q startled the city. Twenty-one lives
8 were lost. The property loss was es
a timated at 100000.
Twenty minutes after the explosion
which shattered windows and BROKE
l. glass in houses many blocks away
L the seven-story brick and stone build
ing was a mass of ruins, under which
Q the score of victims lay. with the an
cry flames licking up every bit OF IN
4 fammable material in sight, includin'
t. several carloads of print paper storet
st in the basement. 1t vas believed tn
I explosion together with two other un
8 successful attempts, by which it wa
IT sought to destroy the homes of tn
/ owners of the Times, General Harrl
D. son Gray Otis, and Harry Zechande
iaar, secretary of the Merchants an
q. Manufacturers association, was tn