Dynamite Telegram Produced In Court.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 10, 1912:
First Day's Testimony Brings Out Message Said to Relate to Los Angeles Explosion.
MANY TELEGRAMS ARE LOST
Originals Not Now Available for Prosecution — Accused Lovers of Peace, Says Counsel.
    INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 9.— Telegrams signed "Ping," alleged to have been an alias of Herbert S. Hockin and sent to Ortio E. McManigal, directing him where to "drop" dynamite bombs on his trips about the country, were sought by the Government through the examination of the first witnesses called in the dynamite trial to-day.
    Managers of telegraph of fices in Buffalo, Detroit Toledo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Evansville, Ind., and Salt Lake City testified. With one exception they asserted that the originals of telegrams asked for by the Government, covering a period as far back as 1908, had been destroyed in the ordinary course of business. The Government asserted it had possession of the telegrams as received, and it called the witnesses to show the reason why the original messages as sent could not be produced. It was during this period that McManigal and the McNamaras formed the "flying squadron of dynamiters," the Government charges, often sending McManigal out alone and equipped with a suitcase filled with explosives to await orders by telegraph as to what he should blow up.
    When James W. Noel, one of the counsel for the Government, asked why the telegrams were not produced, Senator J. W. Kern, counsel for the defendants, asked the witnesses: "You don't know that any such telegrams ever existed, do you?" The witnesses replied that they could not remember individual messages.
    The telegrams, Mr. Noel said, were often sent by Hocking, now acting Sectary-Treasurer of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers and at present on trial, to McManigal's home in Chicago. They shifted him at times, the attorney asserted, from Chicago to St. Louis, from Cincinnati to Indianapolis, and from Chicago to Holyoke, Mass.
    H. A. Knight, manager of a telegraph office at Salt Lake City, was the first witness to produce a telegram. The telegram was dated Oct. 10, 1910, and was purported to have been signed by J. K. Munsey, known as "Jack Bright," one of the defendants. According to the Government's charges, J. B. McNamara, after blowing up The Los Angeles Times building on Oct. 1. 1910, hid for two weeks in places secured by Munsey. J. J. McNamara, then Secretary of the ironworkers' headquarters in Indianapolis, was anxious about his brother after the Los Angeles explosion, and this telegram, it is said, was sent to reassure him.
    The telegram as identified by Knight and by Mrs. Charles McCarthy, who was the counter clerk at Salt Lake City, was as follows:

J. J. McNamara, Indianapolis:
    Everything is O. K. Glad C. is coming. Patient is out of danger and will get well. He is improving right along. You can depend on me to handle matters carefully. Will wire you if there is any change.
    J. E. MUNSEY, 2,225 Southwest Temple Street.

    It would be shown, the Government Attorney said that the "C" referred to was Eugene A. Clancy, of San Francisco, now on trial here, who was in Boston when the Times disaster occurred and who was about to start on a fishing trip with Michael J. Young of Boston, also a defendant, when the news of the loss of life at Los Angeles induced him to change his mind. After sending a telegram to San Francisco, "to clean out the office," he decided to hurry West.
    The examination of telegraph managers had not been ended when court adjourned until to-morrow.
    Attorneys for the defense continued to outline their case before the jury this morning.
    "These forty-five men," asserted William N. Harding, "were not dynamiters, but were, as the evidence will disclose, lovers of peace and quiet. Witnesses will be brought from many cities to show the good reputations the defendants enjoy. Now, Jurors, look at that gray-haired man over there."
    One by one, Frank M. Ryan, President of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, John T. Butler of Buffalo, Vice President, and other defendants were required to stand up so the jury might become acquainted with their faces.
    M. C. Tifft, of Minneapolis, counsel for Fred Mooney of Duluth, and Charles N. Beum of Minneapolis, said it would be 'proved' that photograph's of non-union work under construction were taken not for the use of the "dynamite gang," but to enlighten the union as to where more employment might be had.
    The Government had charged that Beum, former member of the Iron Workers' Executive Board, visited Frank K. Painter at Omaha about a "job" to be done there; that at Winnipeg he bought an alarm clock to be used for setting off bombs, and that he voted to supply money to carry out dynamiting operations at Los Angeles.
    Mooney was also accused of writing a letter about "real dynamiters" in reference to "jobs."