The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-04-25
Life and Death of Z
Strikebreaker
BY LABOR RESEARCH ASSN.


Ills obituary has been written by the capitaliss
newspapers extolling his life of sensational
sIeuChlng. But part Of the record is not given in
tneSe accounts. Here is part of it,
First as g. strike breaker, Burns was a leader
IN his profession. He offered his strike breakine1
services quite frankly In a typical letter to al
prospective client he would tell how he was preo
pared TO furnish skilled mechanics and crafts.
men, trainmen, switchmen telegraph and teIe
phone hnemen and operators, who will keep yo,a
INFORMED at all times relative to labor agitation.
- In event of strike among your EMPLOYEES
we are prepared to furnish strike breakers and
guards for your property"
Hundreds OF individual companies and em.
ployers associations hired him to break strikes
Inc manufacturers association of Erie Pa, paid
burns Szs'0l711 to break single strike of the
nolderS union. In Joliet, ILL., in 1925 a Burns
man was caught throwing a bomb at nom
union garage In an attempt to discredit strike
OF members Of the machinists union A union
picket was tricked into accompanying Burns
man 10 the struck garage where the Burns pro.
vocaCeT lit bomb and told the strike to run
1lllI1leoiately the picket was set upon by four
Burns operatives who shot him in the leg.
Burns agents, in 1929, attempted to provoke
violence in connection with a strike of workers
at the Allentown Silk Hosiery Co. Strong arm
men and guards were sent to Allentown Pa and
efforts made to frame up the strikers by pro-
voking them into fight.
Newspaper, accounts, at the death of Burns
say That "on his acceptance of the post Director
OF the Bureau Of Investigation Of the DEPART
1nenC Oh JuStlce) he resigned his position as head
Oh the Burns agency" But he continued to direct
the operations Of this private agency A docu-
ment reproduced III the International Pamphlet
spying on Workers. page 20, shows Burns writ
ing on the stationary OF the Department of JUS
uce IN 1923, directing his Los Angeles manager
IN connection with a big job being done for a
group OF copper companies in the west This
ana file of letters and reports relating to the
same oeraton were lated extracted from the
Burns files by friend of the 1WW The docu-
ments show Burns ordering Department of Jus
tlce investigators out on his own private Jobs.
using them INTERCHANGEABLE with his own dicks
to fight the unions.
Burns was, OF course, always a loud opponent
OF the Reds, though his confusion of shades in
the movement was notorious as that of the
Fish Committee. He prophcsied in 1924 he.
fore House Committee that unless the coun-
try became thoroughly aroused concerning the
oanger OF this radical element in this country
we Will have very serious situation These par
Tor Bolsheviks have sprung up everywhere. as
evidenced by the Civil Liberties Union OF New,
York" He officially stated the same year. That
there were cover 100000 Reds affiliated with
Moscow in the United States ready to overthrow
the government"
AS Red sleuth, Burns opened his files to-
all the professional patriots and was particularly
intimate with officials of the National Civic
Federation, now presided over by Matthew VOL,
vice president of the A. F. of L. Ralph Easey,
Secretary OF the National Civic Federation, is
taken for the
OF Burns to the dictatorship of the Bureau Of.
Investigation of the Department of Justice
Burns was strong for non-mitant unions, and
in 1920 sent a circular to his employer clientele
throughout the country stating, according to a
confidential pamphlet Of the National Civic Fed
Grafton, that "it is important at this time that
the employers of the country uphold the hands
of Samuel Gompers"
AS q friend of Easley and Conn eys Burns wss
particularly energetic il hiss prose- e:ions of Cos
munists. His stool pigtons Morg>ys and Spokea.
sky, the latter still We IN the anti-Red Inns
around Detroit-havina been called in to testify
after the Ford maSsacrS-Were the main provoca-
tive agents in the famous Bridgeman raid Of
1922 and the subseque.at indictment of leading
members of the Communist movement Easley
and his friends of the Civic Federation raised
part of the funds to back up Burns in this prose-
cution.
When the Wall Street bomb explosion occurred
in 1920 Burns Immediately charged prominent
radicals with the crime. But one of his own
agents testified about the same time that he
had written and mailed bomb threats at the
behest Of Burns officials and stated that an
other Burns agent had offered him bombs to
plant in radical offices Later, when certain
Lndenthal was arrested in Warsaw, charged
with the Wall Street explosion, Burns stated
that there was mo question that his arrest
solved the plot" But at the same time Burns
stated that Lindenthal had been one of his own
under-cover men Nothing ever came of the
Lndenthal story.
Burns naturally backed his pal Harry Daugh-
erty, then head of the Department OF Justice
and when Senator Wheeler began probing into
the oil scandals and the other dirt of the Hard
ing administration Burns promptly sent three
Of his special federal agents to Montana, in
structed to "get something on Wheeler
AS jury fixer Burns showed such skillful
hand that in the Oregon land fraud case even
such reacSonary as President Taft pardoned
the defendants, stating that the Burns work WIS
the most barefaced and unfair use of all the
~ for drawing jury disclosed to me-
In all my experience In the federal s."
- ~. .44 49, ~~.veI h-40+I l-a-ry o4nc all Gil
fraud case in 1927, it vas oioU AC cut t@&t Z
Burns detectives Swallowed ana tamq..4d Il
members OF the jury. Sinclsirs only de- Z
was that he had done for Sinclair things he h@3
done dozens of times for the government. lis