The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1911-03-04

ability, judgment and integrity are
everywhere recognized, in an article
entitled War on Labor Unions: re-
Gently published in THE Coming Ma
tion," writes as follows of the situa-
tion in Los Angeles.
I advise all men and women that
believe in organized labor and all that
do not believe in a Cossack autocracy
maintained in big business to- take
good heed of what is going on in
California. They will learn some
things that will be quite new to them,
l think Most of us have been ac-
customed to view with derision the
idea Of commercial tyranny that
would openly interfere with elemental
rights. To any one that will i'm
partially examine the situation in
California the idea will not seem in
the least improbable, but actual and
impending. +,
Slogan of Union Haters.
I'VE will crusl, the labor unions in
Los Angeles first: then we will wipe
them out in San Francisco"
Many times since I came upon the
coast that remark has been repeated
to me as coming from some leaders
in the business contingent. At first
I thought it was mere verbal eX-
travagance; can see now that it has
a sinister meaning and indicates an
actual determination.
City of Los Angeles.
First take a look at Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is a very handsome,
prosperous and rapidly growing city.
1t is believed to be blessed with
and progressive. Residents and visi-
it's excellences as samples of Amer
ican achievement and all that sort
Of thing: "A typical l-A1nerican -city'A
they like to call it.
Yet. In this typical American com-:
'munity men do not dare to say what
they think. Newspapers do not dare
to print the news, detectives throng
the hotels listening at the visitors
elbow. Men and women are thrust
into Jail and suffer the third degree
to extort from them false confessions,
the machinery Of local government
is used to further a conclusion, and
the organs of public opinion help
to spread it over the country, and
all al the dictation of business de-
terinined to crush the labor unions.
All in "a typical American CITY,"
How do you suppose these things
come about
Personnel of the Enemy.
There is in Los Angeles an institu-
ton called the Merchants and Manu-
facturers' association. 1t is composed
of certain business men that hate
the labor unions and are determined
to destroy them. 1t is the real gov
ernment Of the city, absolute, supreme
and unquestionable. Whatever it de-
sires, that the administration must go.
Times Building Explosion.
For years this association has
p'anned and hoped to destroy or
ganized labor in Los Angeles because
organized labor: increased the ex--
penses and reduced the profits of
business.
Its opportunity came with the ex-
plosion in the office of the Los An
geles Times, October /.
The Times had long been the open,
determined, and vicious enemy of the
unions. AsHsoon as the explosion oc-
cured the. Times and the association
created the belief, practically: univer-
sal in the country now, that the explo-
sion was "a labor union outrage"
For this belief there was not one
particle Of justification or basis or
excuse, except the one fact that the
Times had attacked the unions.
Opposed to it we're the following
facts:
!. The preponderance of testimony
was that the explosion was Of illum-
mating gas and entirely accidental
.. The PROPRIETOR of the Times