The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1916-06-23
JUSTICE AND FREEDOM IN AMERICA
Pittsburg Workers Jailed on Trumped Up CHARGES

- ON'CAhODllt w SEE Iu6 eDul0R
OF the parade to North Braddock. She
was arrested and tried, but acquitted.
The two workingmen who rode with
her went on the stand as witnesses
TO prove that Bridget Kenney was not
IN the crowd that day, but was in the
motor car-and they were indicted
and must stand trial as "rioters" and
meters to riot" They had simply
disclosed their identity as strike
sympathizers, and that was enough for
the dragnet.
The ten policemen, constituting the
entire police force of North Braddock
exercised their liberty to refuse to
guard" the Steel Trust plant against
their neighbor workmen who were
striking. Those ten policemen were
indicted and will be tried and, if pos
sible, branded as felons for refusing
to perform their duty"
The Pittsburg politico-legal criminal
process is perfectly devised machine
for the perversion Of justice. The jury
in Pittsburg is hand-picked thing
the pickers being the two politicians
who. happen to be highest in the dem
ocratic and republican votes for jury
commissioners, the politician who hap
pens to be elected sheriff and the
| judge who CHANGED to be delegated
from the common pleas court to sit
and act with the jury commissioners.
prominent" men, bankers, lawyers,
politicians and others, are asked by
these jury controllers to suggest
names for the jury wheel. 1t can be
imagined what a fat chance men of
real labor sympathies have of getting
their names in the jury wheel. The
commissioners and their associates
can reject any names submitted They
pick where to go for suggestions.
From 5000 to 5000 names get into
the wheel each year, out of 100000
or so of men who live in Allegheny
County
The political machine which directs
the legal administration of injustice
in the Pittsburg industrial district is
directed, owned and controlled by the
Steel Trust and it's associated finan-
cial interests. The officeholders in
this political machine, whose family
trees grew in London, Limerick, Beth
lehem Paris and Berlin, foster and
play upon a prejudice against "for-
eigners" whose family trees grew in
Croatia, Lithuania, Sicily and Poland
They resort to this and every other
sort of political trick and intellectual
fraud to cover both the methods of
their prosecutions and the animating
motives of their practices.
Out of this mess of legalized in
justice one good extra-legal thing is
coming. This good thing is the per-
ception by all groups (and hitherto
factions) of the workers of their mu-
tual interests, their mutual necessities
of standing together Representatives
of organized and unorganized workers
in the Pittsburg district have been
victims together and have resented
the injustiees together. AS union and
non-union, socialist and other workers
have been prosecuted and tried to-
gether, so lawyers for the American
Federation of Labor, for the socialist
or,tx co. t1N4 cod
ton called the American Industrial
Union. and lawyers individually en-
ployed or volunteering their services
have worked together in court, throw
ing the fortunes of all the defendants
into a common pot. The American
Federation of Labor Cor it's affiliated
chinists) has sent from Toledo its
regular attorney, Frank l.. Mulholland.
The socialist party has sent from Chi
cago it's attorney, Seymour Stedman
The local attorney of the A. F. of L.,
John w. Gloeckner, and William ].
Brennan, also a Pittsburg labor law
SOi, hoNS WI hCu WIFI INC III 81 I"o
national lawyers and with William H.
Pratt for the American Industrial
Union. The defense work of the trial
lawyers reflects the union for defense
that all workers are beginning to feel
the vital need of, against such private
o Nnershp of public law and justice
as this Pittsburg persecution of work
erS has examined