The Northwest worker. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1915-1917, 1917-01-18
SHOWS F2AMEUP
IN FRISCO BOMB
PROSECUTION
Investigator for Industrial Relations
Board Gives Complete Report
of Conspiracy by Capital
Against Labor Leaders.

(The following report on the strug-
gle now being waged in San Fran
cisco between organized labor and the
| Chamber Of Commerce has been sub
mittedto the Committee on Industrial
Relations by George P. West, who has
returned from San Francisco after
completing field investigations
Supported by the greatest financial
interests in America, powerful
group of capitalists and employers in
San Francisco has undertaken a cam
paign to crush trade unionism in the
Pacific coast metropolis.
Within a few weeks there will be
issued by the law and order commit
tee of the San Francisco Chamber Of
Commerce an deliberately bound and
illustrated book, graphically setting
/ forth the sins of organized labor and
/ nferentially charging trades unionism
with responsibility for the most ter
rible outrage recently perpetrated in
America-the preparedness" day
bomb explosion of July %, last, when
| 10 men and women were killed and SO
injured in the streets of San Francisco.
A Nationwide Campaign.
Copies Of this book, containing grue-
some photographs Of the bombs vic
tins, and listing the outrage among
the crimes of unionism, will be dis
tributed broadcast throughout the
| United States as part of a great ma
tionwide publicity campaign.
The object Of the campaign is not
only to "break" the unions in San
Francisco and to attract non-union
and anti-union capitalists and en-
ployers to the city, but, on the part
of some of the larger interests in
volVed, to strike blow at the entire
organized labor movement of Amer
lea by discrediting and defeating the
unions in the one city where they have
been supposedly strongest.
Four active trade unionists and the
wife of one of the four have been ar
rested and thrown into jail charged
with the preparedness" day bomb
outrage, and the Chamber of Com
merce is doing it's utmost to convince
the city, the state and the nation that
the bomb horror was "the logical,
natural and spontaneous outcome" of
trade union activities.
Cause of Enmity.
The accused men were the particu-
lar target of the enmity of the great
public service corporations of San
Francisco and more especially the
Pacific Gas and Electric company Of
the United Railroads. Thomas
Mooney, Warren K. Billings, Edward
Nolan and Israel Weinberg have been
thorn in the side of these anti-union
corporations for years. They had
been active during strikes, and had
recently attempted to organize the
car service employees of the United
Railroads. This is the corporation
which employed Abe Ruef in the
bribery Of city officials, and it's Of
ficers were the chief defendants dur
ing the famous graft prosecution.
The district attorney of San Fran
cisco, Charles M. Fickert, was put in
office by the United Railroads. He
has the hearty Endorsement and full
confidence of the law and order COM
mittee. This was expressed to me
verbally by Hugh Webster, the COM
mittee's executive secretary.
Should Mooney, Nolan, Weinberg
and Mrs. Mooney be sent to the gal
lows for murder there is not the
slightest question that their conviction
will be heralded throughout the United
States as additional proof that organ
lied labor or the union shop cannot
! be tolerated in a law-abiding COM
munity.
Scantiest of Evidence.
Ny investigation leaves not the
slightest doubt that Mooney, Mrs.
Mooney, Nolan, Billings and Weinberg
are being prosecuted primarily be-
cause of their activity in conducting
strikes and attempting to organize the
unorganized. Further, it has estab-
lished the fact that they are being
held and prosecuted on the scantiest
of evidence, that the district attorney
today is desperate in his endeavor to
build up a case and that there is grave
danger of an appalling miscarriage of
justice unless labor comes to the aid
of the defendants with adequate funds
for their defense.
Ito be continued next week.