The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-03-16
INSTALLMENT Z.
p. HI. McCarthy--TraitOr.

ONE of the dominant personalities on the Metal
" Trades Strike Committee was P. H. Mccarthy,
president of the State Building Trades Coun-
Gil, president of the San Francisco Building
Trades Council Gear" of the labor movement of
California, and Mayor of San Francisco when
the Committee of 26 was organized. McCarthy's
campaign slogan for reelection as Mayor was: II
promised industrial peace-I have made good"
He was willing that strikes be called in Los An
gees, Oakland, or any other part of the state,
but not in San Francisco, for the majority of
lesser labor leaders" held remunerative jobs
under him and he, as all these job holders, was
very much concerned lest the big Business" in
terests of the city be harmed by militant labor
movement.
Tom Mooney did not know that Mccarthy had
told Mcnamara and Schmidt to agitate and con-
duct strikes anywhere but in San Francisco.
Mooney mitantly tried to arouse the workers of
San Francisco, and became the foremost dis
turber on the labor leaders horizon after the
Los Angeles Times case was settled to their
satisfaction. 1t was very much to the advantage
of P. H. Mccarthy and his friends to have Tom
Mooney, who had already taken part in series
of strikes and threatened to capsize the top
heavy political machinery that these traitors
had erected on the backs of the workers, out of
the way.
under the rule of Mccarthy, in convention at
Marysville, March 81 1917, refused to give any
consideration to the Mooney Billings cases, de-
spite the urgings OF many of the delegates. 1t
was only in 1921, four years after the Mooney
Billings arrest, that The Building Trades Council
passed resolution requesting Governor Stephens
to arrange new and fair trial" Even this
weak resolution was passed solely through pres
sure from the rank and file, and over the pro-
test of the labor leaders.
Two years later, in 1923, P. Fl. Mccarthy the
mighty GEAR" of California labor was thor
oughly exposed as Shiny enemy of the workers.
1t was proven he accepted $4,000 bride from
the Pacific Gas and Electric Company-whose
private detective, Swanson, was the Corporations
evil genius in the frame-up of Mooney and
Billings.
Advocates of Public Ownership had succeeded
after great efforts to have the State Legislature
submit an amendment to the voters which, if
passed, would have given the People of Cali
forna the right to develop the vast hydro-eectric
power of the state The privately owned power
companies would have lost millions of dollars
had the amendment carried and as usual they
resorted to bribery in order to defeat this law.
The entire labor movement supported the amend
ment; the State Building Trades Council was
especially active in its denunciation of the utin-
.ieS wiz tlieo W ueieaC IL, put MCCARTHY for
the sake Of alfew thousand dollars was willing
to betray The interests of labor. On the eve
OF the election. an article appeared in the Off
cial paper of the Building Trades Council OR
ganized Labor" condemning the Water and
Power Act and urging all the members Of the
Council to vote against it. OF course, this as
founding reversal Of policy was brought about
by Mccarthy. but the rank and file could not
know that their leader had become . Judas,
and so they followed his advice and helped d.