by Michael D. Robbins
Director, Public Safety Project, PublicSafetyProject.org
Eighty-seven labor union bombings of non-unionized construction projects and businesses were recorded between 1906 and 1911. The Los Angeles Times and its owner and publisher, Harrison Gray Otis, were outspoken opponents of the labor movement and the closed shop. The Los Angeles Times downtown plant was bombed early in the morning of October 1, 1910, murdering 20 people. On the same day, a bomb exploded just outside a bedroom window at Otis’s home. Another bomb consisting of 15 sticks of dynamite was planted at the house of F. J. Zeehandelaar, the secretary of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association (M&M), but did not go off.
Labor union leaders denied that these bombings were union related, even while the union headquarters contained “100 pounds of dynamite, several yards of fuse and twelve clocks similar to those with which bombs are discharged.”
Read more about this in the following book:
Bombers Bolsheviks and Bootleggers – A Study in Constitutional Subversion
by Leon F. Scully, Jr.
Read the first three chapters of this book online.
Learn about the labor union bombing and murder attacks against open shop
construction projects and against the Los Angeles Times newspaper for
criticizing the union thug tactics during the early 1900’s.
The main purpose of this book is to present a case that the evidence exclusionary rule was the result of collusion among lawyers to undermine the American criminal justice system. However, the historical material on labor union bombings, murder, and violence is educational and enlightening. Note that there are compelling arguments both for and against the evidence exclusionary rule, where evidence illegally obtained, whether intentionally or unintentionally due to nonsubstantive technical procedural errors, may not be admitted as evidence during a criminal trial.
Here is a verbatim sample from the online book free sample chapters 1 – 3:
http://www.PubliusBooks.com/1chap.html
In 1905 a labor dispute arose in the structural steel industry, affecting all those engaged in the enterprise of erecting buildings, bridges, and steel-framed structures. The dispute was originally between the Bridge and Structural Iron Workers Union (BSIW) on one side and the American Bridge Company on the other. The union demanded a closed shop contract under which the company would not be permitted to use nonunion labor or to use or deliver materials made by nonunion labor. The company refused, and a strike was called. Shortly thereafter there was a change in the union’s leadership. Frank M. Ryan was elected president of the BSIW and John J. McNamara, a lawyer, was elected secretary-treasurer. Both men were considered to be militants.
The strike spread and by 1906 had become nationwide. The employers banded together and formed an organization called the National Erectors’ Association, adopting the open shop as their fixed policy. By this they meant that workmen would be employed irrespective of membership in any organization, except that preference would be given to those who had accepted employment in defiance of the striking union.
http://www.PubliusBooks.com/2chap.html
The strike was a failure. Despite all the union could do, the construction of buildings and bridges continued unabated. In all major cities except Chicago and San Francisco the open shop prevailed. The contest was not without incident, however, and steel-framed structures erected by nonunion labor had a way of blowing up in the middle of the night. Eighty-seven such bombings were recorded between 1906 and 1911.
Nowhere was the struggle more fierce than in Los Angeles, which remained an open shop city despite the most determined efforts of organized labor. The Los Angeles Times and its owner and publisher, Harrison Gray Otis, were outspoken opponents of the labor movement in general and the closed shop in particular. The Times and its editorial policy were anathema to organized labor.
Early in the morning of October 1, 1910, a bomb placed in an area used to store inks and flammable liquids exploded at the downtown plant of the Los Angeles Times, killing 20 people.1 An improvised, four-page edition appeared the next day with the headline: “Must Blame The Unions.” A year later a monument was dedicated to those “who fell at their posts in the Times Building on the awful morning of October 1, 1910 – victims of conspiracy, dynamite and fire: The Crime of the Century.”2
http://www.PubliusBooks.com/3chap.html
Labor involvement in The Times catastrophe was denied indignantly by the unions. A panel of experts named by the California Federation of Labor, after making an investigation, attributed the explosion to a gas leak caused by faulty pipes and fixtures. Others took a different tack. Socialist Eugene Debs accused Otis of dynamiting his own newspaper, comparing him to Nero burning Rome and blaming the Christians. “The Crime of the Century” polarized American society … .
. . .
http://www.PubliusBooks.com/4chap.html
On the same day as The Times disaster, a bomb exploded just outside a bedroom window at Otis’s home, but no one was hurt. Another bomb was planted at the house of F.J. Zeehandelaar, the secretary of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association (M&M), but did not go off. It consisted of 15 sticks of dynamite attached by electric wires to an alarm clock; the clock had been wound too tightly and had stopped. The apparatus was dismantled and kept for evidence.
. . .
http://www.PubliusBooks.com/7chap.html
On Saturday, April 22, six months after The Times bombing, William J. Burns and local policemen walked in on a meeting of the BSIW executive board at the union headquarters in Indianapolis with a warrant signed by the governor of Indiana for the arrest of John J. McNamara. Less than an hour later, after a snap arraignment, McNamara was on his way to Los Angeles. That night the two McNamara brothers and Ortie McManigal were in a closely guarded railway car headed for California.
The raiders also held a warrant issued by a local judge to search the BSIW offices or headquarters, a three-room suite on the fifth floor of the American Central Life Building in downtown Indianapolis. While this search was going on, one of the officers talked to the building superintendent, who told him he had given John J. McNamara permission to use a recessed area of the basement for storage space. The warrant could not have described this as a place to be searched since the police did not know of its existence until after the search was under way.
In the basement the police found a small room made of rough pine boards which had been constructed in an alcove. The door was secured by a padlock to which McNamara was said to have the only key. Breaking the lock, the police entered and found shelves on which lay “100 pounds of dynamite, several yards of fuse and twelve clocks similar to those with which bombs are discharged.”6 Also found were files and account books to which the hierarchy of the BSIW attached considerable value. According to the Indianapolis Star, they were evidence of a most incriminating character:
Among them are receipts showing that money had been paid out by the iron workers organization to the men charged with actual part in the blowing up of the Los Angeles newspaper plant. Other receipts prove, the detectives say, that the organization paid money to men suspected of having had part in other explosions. The dates of the receipts and those of the explosions correspond, they say.7
RELATED REFERENCE MATERIAL:
University of Minnesota Law Library – The Clarence Darrow Digital Collection – The McNamara Brothers Trial web page with photos and linked document scan PDF files.
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/trials.php?tid=2
First Posted: Friday, July 27, 2001 - 11:35 p.m. Pacific Time
Updated: Friday, July 27, 2001 - 11:45 p.m. Pacific Time
Last Updated: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - 11:11 a.m. Pacific Time
El Segundo Police Officers' Association (ESPOA) Exposed