THE DYNAMITERS.
True Detective Story of Thrilling Interest —How the McNamaras Were Run to Earth.
Tl j sentencing the other day nt I.os Angeles. / of James McNamara to life for the murder of Charles Haggerty, a printer's machinist, and John McNamara Io fifteen years' imprisonment for placing dynamite in the Llewellyn ironworks, closes one of the most astounding chapters in the criminal annals of America. The crimes of these fiends were perpetrated in the name of Unionism, but there is not a trades unionist—at least a British one—who trill not execrate such -act's. There was a third man implicated —McManigle—who made a full confession, and was pardoned, but, according to the cablegrams, the Detroit authorities arc considering whether he shall not be charged with a dynamiting offence alleged to hare been committetd several years ago in Tacoma. The man mainly responsible for the running to earth of these scoundrels was a private detective named William J. Burn#, and the story of how he tracked them down is more fascinating} than one of Sherlock Holmes' advent u res, with the added all r'acl ion that it is perfectly true. Harvey J. O'Higgins tells the laic in "McClure's Magazine.'
®URNS had slipped the catch on the door of the Pullman stateroom. He had taken oil' his coat and thrown it up on a hook. He had drawn an unexpected revolver from nowhere, slapped it down on the seat opposite him. and covered it with a pillow. Now, in his shirtsleeves, with his legs outstretched, at his ease, he looked out of the window at the world from which he had momentarily eseaped. Here he was, then—the ‘•great” detective, who had proved himself cleverer ■than the cleverest counterfeiters that the country could produce, who had come out of the Government Secret Service with the name of being the best operative that the department had ever known, who had made possible the success of the graft investigation in San Francisco, and ferreted out the evidence of the public land frauds in Oregon and California, and pitted himself against
public corruptionists and ••yeggmen’’ and railroad thieves and bribe-taking legislators and murderers and dynamiters, successfully, without a failure, year after year. He had been for three days in Indian apolis, “cleaning up” the evidence against the men whom he had arrested for dynamiting the Los Angeles ’’Times” building in California. When he began to talk about the case of the Los Angeles dynamiters, it was amusedly, with the pleasure of a business man relating the intricacies of some ’’deal” that he had just closed successfully. ‘‘You see,” he said, “we began on this investigation away back in September. a month before the explosion in Los Angeles. September the fourth, 1910. Sunday night. “At least, that was the night of the dynamiting that we were first called in on. “On Sunday night. September 4th, about half-past ten, there were two ex-
plosions in a foundry belonging to I.mas and Sims in Peoria. Illinois. One wreck e<l the foundry and the other damaged a big hoisting-crane in the yard; and the night watchman would have been killed if he hadn't been met just outside the building by some friend who was going by and stopped to talk to him. “Almost at the same minute another
explosion blew up some bridge-girders that were lying in the yards of the Peoria and Pekin Union Railway, about four miles away, in East Peoria, across the Illinois . River. The explosive was evidently nitroglycerin: it had gone through a big. solid girder like a paper hoop, and fused the edges of the hole in a white heat. “There had been rain around ten o’clock, and some of Hie yard watchmen had taken shelter in an empty box-ear. They came out again at ten-twenty. Ten minutes later tbe explosion broke up their box-car. so there wasn't enough
of it left to dear away. If the;, hadn't got back on their job a> m»oii as the rain stopped, they would never have punched another time-clock. He laughed good naturedly. “The girders belonged to Mai in tic, Marshall and Company. <»f Pittsburg, one of the largest concerns of this kind in the world. They were building the bridge
across the. river for the railway. They wired mv Chicago. oiliee, and I sent out one of our best operatives to get on tho ground and begin.” THE CAMI’AIRX OE DYNAMITE. He put out an explanatory hand, arr<*stingl\’. “Now. let me tidl you. first, that These Peoria explosions weren’t anything new in their line. Ihe International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workms had called a national strike against the American Bridge Company. in August. 1905, because a subcontractor was hiring non-union men. Two or three attmnpts were made dur-
ing the summer ami fall of 1905 to dynamite works that the company were en*>ag«*d on; ami some non-union workmen were asnaulted—one blinded on a Buffalo job by having acid thrown in his face, and a timekeeper was beaten unconscious; and twice dynamite was found in the boxes of hoisting-engines—and that sort of thing. Then in May 1, I!MMi, most of the large structural iron roni|>anies got together, under the name of t’he “National Erectors’ Association,’ and declared tor the ‘open ship’— for the right to employ union and non-union workmen as
they pleased, and for the power to protect their com panics and investments from the absolute and irresponsible dictation of walking delegates, such as the notorious Sam Parks. So tin* tight for the ‘closed shop,’ which the unions weretrving to force on the coinpaiwes, naturally spread all over the country.” '•There were many serious outrages in mini and 1907, and in 1908 the dynamitings amounted to a ‘reign of terror.’ We wen* given a record for that year of I wenty big explosions on different works, besides four attempted explosions and three eases of tampering with machinery. “The thing got so bad that a war wouldn’t have been much worse. Fot 1909 and down to the time of the Peoria a Hair in September. 1910, we made a list of thirty five destructive explosions, three other unsuccessful attempts, and seven assaults on workmen. “The explosions at the Lucas foundry hadn’t left any clue to anything there; but in the railroad yards at East Peoria, among the bri(lge ; girders, a watchman had picked up an unexploded < lockwork Iwunb. Now. then!” lie plucked up his shirt sleeves to (dear his wrists for explanations. “They had sawed out a piece of board about the width of a barrel-stave and, say, nine incdies long, and they had fastened a small dry battery to it with wires that held the battery lying on its side. In front of the battery they had fastened a little alarm-clock. There was the usual thumb-key <»n the back of Hie clock to wind the alarm, and they had soldered to the Hap of this thumbkey a thin strip of metal bent down in sinh a way that if the key were turned the strip would make a contact with another strip that had been attached to one of the poles of the battery. A telephone wire* led from the clock to a ten-cpiart can of nitroglycerine; and there was. a fulminating-cap on the eml of it. in the glycerine. Another wire* completed the circuit from Hie battery into the cap. " That’s a clockwork bomb. Now, suppose von set the alarm for tenthirty. At ten-thirty the mechanism of the bell will be released. the alarm goes off. and the thumb key of the alarm revolves backwards- the way the key does in these (docks. In its first revolution the metal strip on the key strike's against the metal strip on the batterv pole, and the current of electricity explodes the cap in the* nitroglycerine. and everything in the vicinity goes to glory in little bits. There is nothing left to show what touched off the explosion. And the mon who set the alarm are miles away, establishing an alibi. "Well here we had their machine, find we wen J, over it and over jt- with-
out finding anything that we could lead out from, it had been made as prettily as a toy, and it was evident that the man who had made it was expert with his tools and took joy in his work. The soldering was ‘professional.’ The wiring was neat. The clock was small enough to be a size for the battery, and the wooden base had been sawed down to be an exact fit. It was all new and bright. You could imagine the man who made it holding it off on the palm of his hand, and putting his head on one side, and being proud of it. "The trouble with it was that everything about it was common hardware stock. There was no home-made evidence to start a suspicion from. It was like trying to identify a man by a new pair of shoes that he had made himself ami never worn; all you could tell by them was that he must have been a cobbler. And yet, as the case turned out, that elock-and-battery contrivance made ‘the rope to hang him.’ “At first sight the nitroglycerine can looked more important for- us. It had evidently been made especially for its purpose, out of an extra heavy tin. On the metal was stamped—with the letters reversed so that they wotrld read correctly only from the inside of the can: ‘X Pennsyl old method, IX., Open Hearth, X Cummy McFarland and Co.’ But here again there was no label. The stamp in the tin was obviously put there by the maker of the metal. And there was nothing to show where the glycerine had been purchased. "In a field beside the railway yards one of our operatives found a wooden box, in which the glycerine can had beer; packed in sawdust. He gathered a sample of the sawdust, and put it aside. All sawdust looks alike to you, probably. But that sample of sawdust proved to be another ‘clincher.’ “We had been finding out some things about nitroglycerine. It can’t lawfully be shipped on the railroads. If it's delivered at all, it goes by horse and wagon, from the factory. It seldom travels very far from the place of its manufacture, because of the danger of handling it. Besides, there, is no standard can for the trade. Every manufacturer makes his own cans, and the cans arc more or less distinctive. "These apparently unimportant facts proved highly determinative. THE FIRST CLUE. “There was a man named M. I. Morehart, agent for the Independent Torpedo Company, in Portland, Indiana, about two hundred miles from Peoria. He read the description of the can. as circulated in the newspapers, and' he suspected that it might be one of his. He was brought to Pporia. and he at once recognised the can as one that had come from his factory. "That was our beginning. Things began at once to unravel. We found that on Augllst 20 a man calling himself ’.I. W. McGraw’ had seen Morehart in Portland, and asked wholesale prices on nitroglycerine, and arranged for the purchase of one hundred quarts, to be used, he said, in a quarry owned by ‘G. W. Clark,’ of Indianapolis, on rock that was ‘too hard to dynamite.' He met Morehart on the country road, in the appointed spot, with a light express wagon containing two packing-cases, some sawdust, and a long-handled shovel; and Morehart helped him pack the. ten ten-quart tins in his boxes, with the sawdust around them. He paid Morehart 130 dollars for the ’ hundred quarts, giving him about half of a roll of bills from his pocket to make up that amount: and he explained, at parting, that he was going to drive to Muncie and transfer tin- explosive to an automobile and take it on to Peoria. That was the lasi Morehart saw of him. "Our operative. Detective Allen, who had opened the trail in Peoria, went to Indianapolis to search for ‘G. W. Clark,’ an owner of stone quarries. There wasn’t any such man to be discovered in Indianapolis. But there were traces of two men. one of whom answered the description of ‘McGraw.’ in certain quarters in Indianapolis: and these two men had been overheard talking familiarly of a John J. McNamara, secretary-treasurer of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Ironworkers. "This was the labour union that had been fighting the Erectors’ Association to compel a ‘closed shop,’ you understand. Its headquarters are in In-
dianapolis. If its funds were being used to pay for a campaign of dynamite outrages, .the secretary -treasurer would probably hamlie the money. “We had learned in Peoria that some time before the explosion in the railway yards. John J. McNamara, the secretary-treasurer, and 11. S. Hoekin, a member of the executive committee, had called on a railroad official in Peoria and warned him that unless the work On the bridge were unionised there would be trouble. I detailed a number "of our operatives to watch the Union's headquarters in Indianapolis,
to shadow John J. MeNamara, and to 'run out’ everyone with whom he connected.’’ THE LABOUR WAR IN LOS ANGELES. "At one o’clock on the morning of October I—while the printers and stereotypers and the office staff of the "Times” were getting out the morning issue of the paper —there was a terrific explosion in an interior alley la-hind the building. It blew down almost the whole of the south wall. Some of the more heavily-weighted iloors collapsed. Fire sprang up from the basement, and before help could arrive from the fire department, the wrecked building was in flames. Twenty-one bodies were taken from the ruins—bodies of men who had been either killed by the explosion or burned to death. All of them were beads of families, with wives and children depending on them. Some of them were union men. and none of them, as far as I have been able to learn, had been guilty of any offence against union labour or anything else. "While the police were still holding back the hysterical wives and relatives outside the fire lines. later in the morning. word came that another bomb had been found in the basement of General Otis’ home—Harrison Gray Otis, the owner of the newspaper. The
gardener had found it —a suit-case—-and telephoned to the police. A couple of detectives went up. and carried the suit-case into the road, and started to eut it open with a knife. They heard the alarm whir, and they ran. The thing exploded, and left nothing but a hole in the ground. "Then a third bomb was found beside the house of the secretary of the .Merchants ami Manufacturers’ Association of Los Angeles. A police officer went there and cut the wires that connected the battery with the ful-minating-cap in the dynamite, and
this bomb was saved. It proved to be an exact duplicate of the one that we had found in Peoria —battery, clock, and all. The alarm had been set for one o’clock—the same as on the "Times” building—but I understand that it had been wound too tight. lON THE TRAIL OF “J. B. BRYCE.” “The trail was as plain as the lines in the palm of your hand. The dynamite in the bomb was a high-explosive —BO per cent—gelatin. And dynamite of that grade is little used and is invariably made to order. We soon found the office of a powder company in San Francisco, where the order for it had been taken. On September 24 a man giving the name of ‘Leonard’ had called there to purchase dynamite for his employer, ‘J. B. Bryce,’ and he had asked for the 80 per cent. They asked him what he wanted it for. He said he wanted it to blow up stumps with. They objected that it was too powerful and dangerous an explosive to be used for that purpose. He replied that there were some boulders to be blasted, too, and that anyway ‘Bryce’ wanted the 80 per cent, and he had to get it. “Later ‘Leonard’ and ‘Bryce’ called together and paid for one thousand pounds of 80 per cent, and took a receipt. and were told that the explosive would be delivered to them at the com-
pany’s works in Giant, California. The officials of the powder company had been made suspicious by the actions of the men, and they warned the secret service department of the Southern Pacific Kailroad of the purchase of the dynamite—because they thought it might be used to wreck a train. When the dynamite was ready for delivery, they warned the railroad detectives again, but no attention was paid to them. "The men called to get the dynamite at the factory in Giant; but they came without the proper order for delivery from the San Francisco office. A third man, giving the name of ‘Morris,’ was sent to get the order. Then the three arrived together in a small power boat, to carry away the explosive from the Giant works, and no more was seen of them. “We traced several men interested, but of course, they had all disappeared, and I can’t tell you how far we trailed them, nor where we lost them—for reasons of policy. There's some of this story that can’t be told till it’s told at the trial. We don’t want anybody arranging any alibis in advance. “One thing that puzzled us was the fact that no one answering the description of ‘McGraw’ of the Peoria explosion had been working on the Los Angeles explosion; yet the two bombs were exactly alike. Then there was a difficulty that never arises in the detective stories of fiction: the money wasn’t readily forthcoming to carry on our investigation. The Mayor of Los Angeles had been paying me, as he had promised, for the work; but there were others in authority who did not trust me any more than they trusted other private detectives. “The end of it was that I had to go ahead and finance the investigation myself. It cost me $14,000 liefore I landed the McNamaras and McManigle, but I
knew that I could get them and I was not worrying. 1 knew' that our operatives in Indianapolis were watching the right rat-hole, and I intended to keep them there as long as I could raise the money to pay their wages. “Now see how simple my ‘theory’ worked out. 'McGraw’ hadn’t been concerned in the Los Angeles affair, and he didn’t know that everyone hadn’t forgotten about the Peoria explosions, so he came bavk to Indianapolis to get into touch with John J. McNamara, the sec retary-treasurer, and our men recognised
him as answering the description that we had of ‘McGraw,’ and they proceeded to ‘tail’ him. They ‘took him’ back to Chicago, where he had his wife and family. His real name proved to be McManigle—Ortie McManigle—and we investigated him and put another squad of operatives to watch him and his house. “One day he took a train to a place called Kenosha, in Wisconsin, and our men followed him and saw him meet a
man who answered the description of ‘J. B. Bryce’ of the Loe Angeles trail. ‘Bryce’ turned out to be Jim McNamara, a brother of the secretary-treasurer, living with his mother in Cincinnati. And after that, wherever those men went, night or day, singly or together, they had a body-guard of operatives tailing them. “TAILING” THE SUSPECTS. “And there’s the trick that solves most of the detective mysteries in these days—the ‘tailing.’ It’s what good
palming is to sleight of hand. It’s the thing the operative has to learn before he can more on a case at all. He has to learn to follow a man on the street, in railroad trains, on street cars, in hotels, picking him up and dropping him and picking him up again, without ever really losing sight of him and without ever being seen or susjieeted himself. We kept track of McManigle and Jim McNamara, in that way. for months. Our men even followed them on a hunting trip, and ‘roped’ them, as we say—made friends with them and camped and hunted with them. We got a wholesome respect for Ortie MeMainigle’s and Jim McNamara's ability with a gun. too. They could stand off at a good distance and roll a tomato can along the ground with revolver shots. “McManigle has told us, since, that they never saw a sign of any one shadowing them. Ami they were always ‘testing’ themselves. They would turn a corner and then hide, and watch to see if any one was following. They would go long distances on unfrequented streets, watching behind them. They would jump on a street ear and ride a while, and get off again and go in another direction in another car. and watch all the time to see lif any one got on or off after them. They did that sort of thing on the night that they dynamited the Iroquois Iron Company’s plant in
Chicago. They both had parcels in their hands, and we eould guess that these were bundles of dynamite by the respect they had for them. But they dodged and doubled altoul so inu-.li that our men had to drop them. Our men had orders to drop them always, rather than betray theinevlves. We were deter mined to find out t<> whom they were res|H>nsible from whom they were get ting money and orders for their work - and it would have been fatal to let them suspect that they were lieing watched. DYNAMITE CARRIED OX PASSENGER TRAINS. “McManigle disappeared from Chiieago for ten or twelve days at one time, and we find that he went to Los Angeles to blow up the auxiliary plant of tli“ ‘Times'—not satisfied with the original outrage! But this auxiliary plant was too well guarded, so he dynamited the Llewellyn Iron Works as an evidence of good faiith, and value -hack home again. He carried the dynamite and fulminat ing-eaps from Chicago, on the train, in a hand-satchel. Imagine what would have happened to the passengers on that train if a. little accident had exploded the satchel!
“Well, so it went on, until 1 decided that we laid all the evidence we needed and couldn't get any more without an expenditure that I couldn’t afford to make. We determined to arrest the dynamiters the next time they went on a ‘job,’ and we planned to take MeManigle and the two McNamaras together, or simultaneously, so that no one would be able to warn the others, or remain free' to destroy the evidence that wo we’d find if we could get to it first. “In a campaign of this sort, the arrest is as important a piece of detective work as anything in the whole business. “On April 11 our operatives, following MeManigle and Jim MeNamara, from < likago and Cincinnati, met in Toledo and wired us: ‘Number one met number two? That was our signal to begin. I went to Chief of Detectives Captain Stephen B. Woods at Chicago Police Headquarters to get assistance, and I sent my son Raymond, the manager of our Chicago office, with more of our men and two Chicago officers, to Toledo, with instructions to seize the dynamiters, if possible, with the bombs in their hands. Our jrarty registered at a hotel opposite the one in which McNamara and MeManigle were stopping, and watched them all day. It became apparent that they were not going to’do any dyna-
uniting in Toledo. Next morning they went to the railroad station and bought tickets for Detroit. They watched till the last moment before they got on the train—to be sure that they were not followed! “They sat in a day-eoaeli full of women and children, and they had suitcases that presumably ■contained dynamite—besides being fully armed, of course—and our detectives decided not to tackle them where a blunder might cause a great loss of life. Coming into Detroit, they showed a good deal too much interest In several bridges that they passed. It became plain that Detroit was to be their objective point. As a matter of fact, we learned later that they had five ‘Jobs’ to do there!
“When the train stopped, they got off and scrutinised every one who eaine out of the rare, and then they wandered around tlie streets rather aimlessly until they came to the Oxford Hotel. Our men watched them register and argue with the elerk —who wasn't able to give them a room right away—and then they checked their suit-cases. That was the cue for the arrest. The lobby was crowded with a theatrical troupe, and McNamara elbowed his way through towards the door, with MeManigle following. -MeManigle was in handcuffs before McNamara missed him. We grabbed MeNamara at the door. As it happened, they had left their revolvers in the satchels —along with a rifle that was fitted with a Afaxim ‘silencer for picking off night wati-hmen, six cloek batteries of the Ims Angeles and Peoria pattern slightly improved, caps, wires, tools, and even a battery-tester. ‘Well, what the hell's the matter!’ McNamara kept demanding. 'What’s this for?* OUTWITTING THE DYNAMITERS. “We had arranged to take them on a charge of safe-blowing, because wo were arresting at tlie same time some twelve yeggmen who were wanted for eracking safes in -banks belonging to the American Bankers’ Association; and we made the -charge to them that they had blown open a safe in Chicago on tli« previous Saturday night—knowing that McManigle had been down on State-street, in Chicago, on Saturday night, ehopping with his wife and children, and believing that he would think he could easily
prove, an alibi on the charge. We took them to the -Detroit police station and made this charge against them. JIM MeNAMARA WOULD BLOW UB TH E WHOLE COUNTRY TO GET HLS RIGHTS. Burns remained a long time silent, musing blankly, and thoughtfully lingering his moustache. “They were both frightened,” lie said at last. “They didn't know what they were reallywanted for, anil they didn't know how to find out. McNamara said: ‘You don’t want me for a Chicago job. You want mo for a Los Angeles job? Our men didn't enlighten him, but he guessed it. He tried to buy them off. After some -talk to the effect that they were not ‘fools’ and knew good money when they saw it, he offered them twenty thousand dollars to let him get away. My son- Raymond objected that this was not enough—that it would ‘have to go too many ways? Then he offered thirty thousand. Raymond asked where -he would get so much money. He answered: ‘From tho higher-ups? When he found that he .was merely being played, he gave up that attempt. “He talked a good deal on the train, justifying himself in what he had doue, because lie had done it, he said, to further the cause of union labour. When one of our men objected that the killing of innocent printers would not advance the cause of union labour, he replied: ‘l'd blow the whole damn country up if T thought it would get us our rights. I did not see him until ho arrived in Chicago. I told him -what Hie charge against him was. I warned him that lie was in a serious situation. I advised him that, of course, whatever be Baid would be used against him, and ad-
vised him not to -make a statement ■nili-r any anautacn. He replied that he hadn't anything to say. “MeManigle, when I saw him, was rolling cigarettes and smoking nervously. I warned him as to his rights, aS I had warned McNamara; and then I went over the rase with him. telling him where he had been and what he had been doing for months past and proving to him that we had a perfect and clear ease against him, and left him, saying that if he concluded he wanted to see me he could send for me. A few hour*! later lie sent for me, anil gave me the truth about the whole conspiracy. There was no ‘third degree’ need. I have never used it in my Me. Tt was necessary to wait for tins extradition papers fYoni California fliefore we could proceed with our arrests. MeManigle and Jim McNamara had boon caught red-handed—but John J. McNamara wan another sort of game. Wfl knew that we could not fex-peet to find him carrying 'bombs in a hand-bag. We knew that if we arrested him prematurely, without the papers from Los Angeles technically perfect to bold him, he would get out of gaol on a lx>ml and destroy any evidence of his complicity, and finally escape ns. THE ARREST OF THE UNION’S SECRETARY TREIYSIT:ER. “When Hie papers arrived, the Chief of Police of Indianapolis “-detailed tw<> of bis nwn to take McNamara into custody. I accompanied them to the headquarters »>f the Iron-Workers* Union,, where the executive committed had been in session all week. We knew from our men that John J. McNamara -was still there. An Indianapolis officer knocked at the door and asked for. McNamara. Tlie man who had answered the knock said, ‘I am that gentleman? The ollieer replied: ’Die Chief of Police wants to see you? “He looked over at us and turned pale, hut said nothing. He was rather tall, well built, neatly dressed, smoothshaven, with grey hair and good features. I saw that we were going to have no trouble with him. He prepared silently to accompany us. Every formality was complied with strictly, and after llosick had departed witli McNamara for the Pacific coast I started out, with Indianapolis officers, armed with search warrants, to find whether Mjeesteeettao taoi taoiaoin aoin taoi tatt Manlglo in his confession had told n? the truth about where the men hart their explosives hidden and their clockwork bom-be. We rode out in an automobile to the farm-house of a man named D. Jones.
“UNION RECORDS” THAT WERE PACKED TN SAWDUST. “Jones answered our summons at the door. He was in appearance a meebanid, as he was in fact, for he was an Ironworker and a member of the union. We asked him to take us to his barn. It was now seven o’clock in the evening and growing dark. Jones brought a lantern and the 'barn key. When wq entered the barn we saw a piano-box id one corner of it, 'beside tlie grain-bins, opposite the stalls. “The -box was locked with a lieavy; padlock. We opened it witli one of tha keys that we had found on Jinn McNsp mara in Detroit. In -the sawdust with which the box was packed were forty! pounds of dynamite and a small tin of nitroglycerine. I asked Jones: sort of books did you think they were going to pack in the sawdust?’ “He replied that John J. Mc-Namara, the secretary of the union, had hired storage-room, in the barn to keep old books and records, paying a year’s rent of sixty dollars in advance; that McNamara had bought the piano-box at Baldwin's music store in Indianapolis, ana the smaller box that went inside it; that McNamara bad hired him to buy the sawdust and haul it and the boxes to the barn; and that there his part in th<£ affair had ended. His wife corroborated him. The statements were taker! down in due form by the police. DYNAMITE IN THE UNION'S VAULT, “Our next step was to make speed back to the American Central Life builiL ing, where the. police officers were still on guarji at the doors of the executive committee a eonncil-room. There Wd found a safe which the union's declared themselves unable to open; The superintendent of police, sent for art expert safe cracker. When the safe, had been drilled and forced, the book#
were taken from it for examination. And all this was done by authority of search warrants, in a criminal case. ‘■Then we proceeded to the basement, where the union bad a sort of ‘vault’ that had been 'built by Secretary McNamaraS orders —for the storage of more ‘books’, apparently.' None of the keys in my possession would open it. A police officer forced the hasp of the padlock, and we found on the floor inside four packages containing, in all, about eighty pounds of dynamite, each package wrapped in newspapers, and a corner of each torn open as if to make a hole for the insertion of a fuse. . We found also fourteen of the little alarmclocks that, were used to explode the ibombs, a box of fiilininating-caps, some yards of insulated wire, a number of the anetal strips that were to be attached to the thumb-keys of the alarm-clocks, and some odds and ends of electrical apparatus to lie used in the manufacture of ‘infernal machines? Also we found a sort of valise of ‘fiber-board’, specially anade to fit exactly one of Morehart’s ten-quart tins of nitroglycerine so that it might be carried handily. “We found on the bureau of John J. McNamara’s bedroom, in his hoardinghouse, another of the little alarm-clocks; and the police of Cincinnati found tools, wire, a battery-tester, and a lot of interesting correspondence in Jim McNamara’s house. THE CHARGE THAT BURNS .“PLANTED” EVIDENCE. “They’re saying I ‘planted’ these things before I found them. Well, if I were the most fiendish murderer that ever drew the breath of life, I might have ‘planted’ dynamite in the piano-box in Jones’ barn. But how would I persuade John J. McNamara to buy the box and have it placed there for me and have the sawdust hauled to pack it with? What sort of records does a labour union pack in sawdust in a country barn? How did I get a lock on the box to fit James McNamara’s keys? How ■did I arrange it so that McManigle's keys would duplicate them? How did I get all the materials of clock work Ibombs placed in the labour union’s Vault, built by its secretary’s orders—materials that were the same as those in the bombs found in Peoria months 'before, and in T.os Angeles months before, and in the suit-eases that McManigle and Jim McNamara were carrying when they wore arrested in Detroit? The thing is not worth discussing. It is not only humanly incredible; it is humanly impossible. “Next we wont to Tiffin, Ohio, and found a cache of five hundred and forty pounds of dynamite in a shed on property that belonged to McManigle’s father. We found the quarry ffom which this dynamite bad been stolen. and the liveryman from whom MeManigle and Jim McNamara bad hired the horse and wagon that they used to haul the explosive from the quarry to the shod in Tiffin. We found a suit-case soaked with the nitroglycerine from dynamite in the railway station in Toledo where McNamara had left it. Tn short, having rounded up the throe men together, wo were aide to find all the evidence we needed to support every detail of our «*se against them, even without McManigle’s confession."
i i... i coovoOii v Tre isurer of the Iron-Workers’ I nion, in the centre, and Jaine> • on’ ’the left.' Hogan McNamara, on the right, was not implicated in the dyiianut ng ca-'
It is fitted with a Maxim silencer —for shooting night watchmen without raising an alarm.
During the past year he has been constantly before the public in a series of sensational eases, such «s the bribery investigation in the Ohio Legislature and the arrest of the Los Angeles dynamiters.
On the left is a battery-tester, used to make sure that the current of the clockwork bomb would be.strong enough to explode the fulinluatlng-enp.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZGRAP19111220.2.55
Bibliographic details
New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 25, 20 December 1911, Page 33
Word Count
5,985THE DYNAMITERS. New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 25, 20 December 1911, Page 33
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Acknowledgements
This material was digitised in partnership with Auckland Libraries. You can find high resolution images on Kura Heritage Collections Online.