New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1912-12-29
THE DYNAMITE VERDICT.

The conviction Of thirty-eight OF the
forty union labor officials charged with
conspiracy to promote the illegal trans
portation of dynamite to be used IN the
Mcnamara dynamiting plots is one or
the severest blows the courts OF the
United States have ever struck at pro
fessional labor intimidators. The cam
paign of intimidation rested upon the
assumption that labor union leaders
could safely supply the funds with the
aid of which outrages on the employers
Of non-union labor were to be COM
mitted. It was supposed to be easy
enough to profess In public horror OF
violence but in secret TO support the
agents who did the dynamiting.
Modern methods Of uncoverlng crime
have taken the plausibility out of that
assumption The introduction OF the
dictagraph made oral communications
with or about the dynamite handlers
almost as perilous as written ones, and
the refinement Of secret service actlv-
tiles planted witnesses to conspiracy
acknowledgements even In the councils OF
the wariest promoters Of 'jobs." The
evidence against the men tried at In
dianapolis was ample. The confessions
obtained after the indictment OF the
/ McNamaras in Los Angeles uncovered
the whole trail of the conspirators who
had been operating to destroy the prop
erty of contractors and owners unwill-
ing to yield to the demands Of the
Bridge and Structural Iron Workers
Association. It was manifest that the
elaborate scheme of wreckage In which
the McNamaras were the chief agents
could not have been contrived and car
ried through except with the knowledge
and financial assistance Of many
higher up officials The actual
dynamiters were like mercenaries,
whose growing demands had to be met
out of union funds, and as the account
expanded more and more accomplices
were brought into the fatal circle.
Having once embarked on the policy OF
violence the leaders could not retreat,
and each new outrage only brought
nearer the necessary exposure Of their
farreaching and vulnerable conspiracy.
The defendants convicted yesterday
were the victims Of their own vicious
theories. They tried 10 apply on a
large scale to modern industrial con-
ditions practices Of savagery inherited
from the crudest era Of labor uniOnism.
They sinned against the light Of all
the progress made in recent years in
the promotion Of mediation as a means
Of settling labor disputes. Intelligent
! labor nowadays needs no such weapon
as dynamite TO force a hearing or 10
| defend its interests. 1t has learned in
large measure that it has everything
to gain by seeking TO settle all contro-
versies to which it is a party by pacific
means. The leaders in the dynamite
conspiracy were doubly guilty in re-
verting deliberately to barbarism in in
dustrial strife. They could not even
plead that they were organizing some
sort Of general warfare against social
conditions. as the zealots and extrem-
lists of the Industrial Workers of the
World movement do. They were simply
trying TO advance their own interests
through criminal violence. Their pur-
pose was selfish, not socialistic or
anarchistic, and they can expect TO
public sympathy, even from the most
misguided apoogist Of industrial revo-
luton, now that they are called upon
to pay the penalty for being caught
financing and abetting a series Of cold
blooded and cowardly crimes.