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Show M CONFESSION OP THE McNAMARAS. ' H When the Times building in Los Angeles was blown up, this H paper said the unions had a great duty to perform ; that an awful H crime had been committed and an accusing finger pointed at union H labor; that, while the men who might be charged with the atrocious H deed were entitled to a vigorous defense, when the final decision H was rendered, if it reflected on the leadership of the unions, there H should be a house cleaning. H Friday afternoon the McNamaras confessed. One of them was H! head of the International Association of Bridge and Structural H Iron Workers at the time of the disaster in Los Angeles and had H been devoting his time to dynamiting the property of employers of H labor unfriendly to the unions. Hl The odium, of this outrage will cling to organized labor until H the rank and file begin to repudiate ever' man in high position R within their organizations whose record is not clean and above re- R proaoh. R A reign of terror will not be tolerated by the American people; H neither will tjhe best element within the unions long remain mem- H bers of those organizations, if lawlessness is countenanced. R The labor unions are a tremendous power and they can win H their honest demands by fair methods. Hl This country owes much to the influence of the labor unions. H Labor has been dignified and merciless employers have been Hl '-"vcked in their ruthless disregard of the rights of the toiler. But R vj good they are doing, and t,hc greater good they are aiming H 10 achieve, does not license the unionist to burn, blow up and destroy H human lives and valuable property. R There is surprise expressed that the McNamaras should M escape with sentences so light. The radical opponents of unions R would execute both James B. and John J. McNamara, instead of H allowing one to receive only 10 years and the other to bo spared H from death on the gallows. The cry for blood and vengeance is the R cry of the brute that is in us. To execute the two men would not H bring back the twenty-one lives sacrificed to the fanaticism of a R labor leader, nor would the extreme penalty deter any other des- M perate fellow from following out his misguided sense of. right and H wrong. The moral, effect is the thing desired and the open con- M fession will prove a greater factor in eliminating crime from the R leadership of the unions of the United States than the hanging of H 1 thousand McNamaras. R Had the trial gone on and the McNamaras been convicted and finally H executed, with an uncertainty in the niinds of all union .men as to H their guilt, a wave of resentment and bitterness would have swept M over this country and retaliation have become the shibboleth of the H working classes. A war of classes would have been on and the end H be more terrible than the Paris commune. R The McNamaras must not be viewed as common criminals. They M were men possessed of an inordinate desire to advance the cause M of unionism. They went to war for others, under the blood red Rj banner of anarchy. They murdered, not out of personal hatred, but H that unionism might overawe the capitalistic. They were fanatics H such as in the dark ages, in the name of religion, crucified men, M outraged women and beheaded children. There is no place for that M form of mental excitement and moral obliquity in this day of en- M lightenment and every symptom of the disease should call for the H application of a stringent cure. The remedy in this particular case M is a house-cleaning by the strong moral, upright, fair-minded men H who hold allegiance to unionism. |