DYNAMITE TERRORISM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1388, 14 March 1912, Page 5

DYNAMITE TERRORISM.

MORE ARRESTS IX AMERICA

By T«lcer»Dh-Prcsß AssoclatlM-CopyriiiSt New York, March 12. At Indianapolis, Indiana, forty-sis Labour leaders are being charged with unlawful transportation of dynamite from ono State to another. The dynamite, it is alleged, was used in a five-years' terroristic campaign throughout the United States. In the cour.se of an article on "Terrori.Mn in America" in th? New York "Outlook" of February l<, Walter V. YAcehlke says :— Ninety per cent of the union leaders are fully aware of the criminal acts committed;'ninety per cent either take an active part in organised violence or give it at least a tacit, perhaps unwilling, acquiescence—according to the estimate of a man in the very heart of the labour movement. But how about the great mass of the men who toil with their hands? What about the attitude of the rank and file? Does the man who collects your'fare and mine, does the driver who 'delivers your packages, does the man who, peacefully smoking his pipe, builds your house-do all the« men participate in the violence? Do they know.' Do they approve? No, emphatically no; they do not approve of murder by dynamite. They are sound at the core; but Hie ferocitj : of the feud has left its mark upon them and their wnys of thinking. It would be flying in Hip face of the facts to place the responsibility for all Hie violence exclusively upon the shoulders of the union officials. A year end a half bro a non-union machinist, during n strike in Los Angeles, was assaulted by three union men and brutally beaten. Tlin assailants were caught, tried, convicted despite the aid of able counsel, and sentenced, ono to the penitentiary, two to servo terms in gaol. The case was aired in the newspapers for weeks. When the recent municipal campaign began, one of the convicted assailants was nominated for the City Council by the Hocialist-Union Labour coalition. There arc seventeen thousand union members in I.os Angeles. The candidate convicted of assault received tho full strength (if the union vote at tho primary. At tho final election nearly thirty thousand votes were cast for him. . , . ■ Is it reasonable to surmise that the fifteen thousand members of the IronWorkers* Association knew nothing of tho purpose of the hundred-odd explosions which wrecked the structures of their adversaries only? If a non-union firm, after a costly "explosion, gave in to the Iron-Workers' Association and was granted the "protection of tho union," is it unreasonable to assume that the workers at least had an inkling of the dynamiters' purpose and probable connection? Of course, they had no knowledge that would render them criminally liable for the lawless acts, nor did they even suspect their officers of oompicity in the "Times" murder. J. E. Timmoas, Pacific Coast organiser of the iron-workers, a six-footer endowed with remarkable physical strength, broke '.'.own and cried like a child for hours after ho heard of his chief's plea of guilty. Nevertheless, there must nave been very few members of tho organisation, considering the extent and frequency of tho dynamitings, who weve absolutely ignorant of the culprits' probable identity, who had no grounds to suspect tho Indianapolis officers of complicity. AVas it in spito of or because of tho numerous explosions that damaged the property of their enemies that the iron-porkers year after year returned their "resourceful" officers to power ? In this condition, in forcing large bodies of men, by appealing to their selfinter?st, to become silent, passivo partners in crimes that seem to benefit them, lies tho greatest gulf, the heaviest responsibility, of those union leaders who believed that illegal means were justified by the end to bo attained. By appealing to the self-interest of untutored men the lawless leaders hardened the moral fibre of their adherents, calloused their conscience;, surrounded criminal acts with the halo of pseudo-justification.