New York Times 100 years ago today, October 2, 1912:
Two years ago yesterday the building of The Los Angeles Times was wrecked by a dynamite explosion, and twenty-one persons were killed. There is evidence that a conspiracy to destroy buildings and public works by dynamite had been formed by labor unionists more than six years before, and between 1905 and 1910 nearly 100 such outrages were perpetrated in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, and other States. On Christmas Day in the year the Los Angeles newspaper office was blown up the Llewellyn Iron Works, also at Los Angeles, were destroyed.
James B. McNamara and Ortie E. McManigal were arrested in Detroit, April 12. 1911, and ten days later John J. McNamara, one of the arch-conspirators, Secretary and Treasurer of the International Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, was caught in Indianapolis. Having pleaded guilty, when placed on trial at Los Angeles, the McNamara brothers are now in San Quentin Prison, California, while McManigal, having turned State's evidence, is the chief witness of the State in the trial of the other dynamite conspirators, which began yesterday at Indianapolis. The accused men include Frank M. Ryan, President of the International Bridge Workers; Herbert S. Hockin, McNamara's successor as Secretary of the organization, and most of the forty-nine others are or have been labor union officers."
It is believed that the Government has left nothing undone in the way of accumulating evidence against these culprits, while the most careful preparations have been made for an orderly trial. Senator Kern of Indiana, as chief counsel for the defendants, is opposed by District Attorney Charles W. Miller. The trial will doubtless last many weeks. That public interest may not be so keen as it might have been a year or so ago is likely, but the charges are definite, many witnesses will appear, and there is little doubt that exact justice will be meted out. That every prisoner who is found guilty shall be duly punished will be the hope of all honest citizens, whether or not they are members of a labor union. Union labor has been the chief sufferer from the acts of the dynamiters.
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