IS THE "GET TOGETHER" MOVEMENT IN LOS ANGELES TO FAIL?
Steffens, Lincoln
Is the "Get Together" Movement in Los Angeles to Fail? By LINCOLN STEFFENS (In the Kansas City Star.) THE HATE of old feuds, the rancour, personal spite and the small side generally of a small...
...The instinct to jump on the fellow that is down was strengthened by the sense of security...
...The question is being raised as to the part they played in the McNamara case and its settlement...
...so did Thomas E. Gibbon, who nearly ran his own legs off in the matter...
...Judge Bordwell is right when he says that I did not bring about the reversal of the pleas in the McNamara cases...
...The worst side is illustrated by the statement which Judge Bordwell put out yesterday...
...and why the law is falling into contempt...
...Samuel Gompers knew nothing of the negotiations for settlement...
...Would Like to See a Test THE JUDGE has done his best to spoil this plan, but I do not despair...
...THE HATE of old feuds, the rancour, personal spite and the small side generally of a small city, were all turned up here today by the utter rout of the Socialist party and the final disposition of the McNamara cases...
...I was present, I believe when Nockel heard the whole story for the first time...
...Bordwell Statement the Worst Side THIS is the best side of it...
...At any rate, Nockel asked questions which indicated that there was a good deal he didn't know, and, as reported Saturday, Nockel protested the settlement at first...
...So unless Nockel wired early Friday morning after the conference broke up, he could hardly have got the news to Gomper» that same day...
...He neither answered it nor did he act upon it...
...I can throw some light on that...
...Asked how he liked it, he said he didn't like it at all...
...to find out what he wanted, and, if it was really important, to go and see him...
...They meant all generously, of course, these men, but they were mistaken both in fact and in policy...
...But I couldn't...
...But he is wrong when he says that I claimed the credit (or the blame) for it...
...Jim will think so and J. J., too...
...how such men as the McNamaras are unmade...
...It was on Thanksgiving night at Darrow's house, when Mr...
...I will repeat that it would be unfortunate if a fine, big, public experiment which, rightly carried out, might have spread understanding and a better feeling over a very sore spot in our civilization, should be dragged into a personal controversy as to whom the credit (or the blame) for it is due...
...Meyer Lissner gave it out in an interview...
...I acted as messenger...
...Then, when he began to talk with them and the outlook improved, he wired Gompers at Atlanta but only to ask him to send here one of half a dozen leaders he named...
...Another leader wired to Nockel at Chicago that Darrow wanted somebody out in Los Angeles...
...As to whether Gompers was aware of the guilt of the Mc-Namara boys, all that I know is that I heard some of his own associates who did know the truth, discuss the same question with no little humor...
...Angry and injured, it seeks somebody to blame and kill...
...Since he attacked me in it, I made reply which was sent out by the Associated Press...
...I should like to put it to a nobler test...
...It was only after Darrow, Scott and Davis, the attorneys, had showed him the whole situation that he came eround and said that "under the circumstances it had to be done...
...I had conversa-with him along that line and about the big things that have been done by taking a statesmanlike course in this matter...
...So Nockel came and Darrow started to tell him all about it...
...I shall not contend for the laurels...
...It would explain how Judge Bordwell came to mistake my theoretic Christianity for professed Anarchism...
...The committee appointed to see if the big business men here and the employers of labor could find some labor leaders who would be willing to teach them to see some things as labor sees them, had a meeting, and, though it was a discouraged session, these gentlemen desired to go and make a trial...
...He was interrupted and the conversation was postponed...
...I did not do it...
...not charity, but—the very impulse that impelled him to put the dynamite in Ink Alley, wasn't it...
...I wanted them to say that Los Angeles did it, and that is what I was working for, not to get these prisoners to plead guilty but to get this city through its judge, its officials and the representative body of its citizens, to unite in a generous act toward these agents of labor and so start a movement which I proposed myself to carry across the country toward a better understanding of the troubles and the desires of labor...
...And I tried to make the judge it as I had his prisoners...
...When Nockel wa* Told NOCKEL WIRED, as ordered, to Darrow, whose reply was a brief message to take the next train...
...I found it possible persuade them otherwise, however, and J. J. thought that and I and some others might possibly be able to convert more of the direct action men from the gospel of an eye an eye...
...Darrow didn't have enough faith in the outcome to talk about it, even with his colleagues, for nearly a week...
...He has released those interviews now and I may report them later, at my leisure, with care and some grim satisfaction...
...Earl's paper, the Tribune, printed a story to that effect...
...Some of the men who worked the hardest for the settlement said that I did it...
...Harry Chandler put it so in his paper, the Times...
...Samuel Gompers and Ed Nockel are getting this, I see...
...He said the business was urgent bud did not tell Gompers that it was to confer with some one representing the A. F. L. about the settlement of the McNamara case...
...Their conclusion was "that Sam didn't want to know," which isn't quite so bad as a certain railroad president I know who gave a lobbyist some instructions and money, then passed the unclean creature out of the door saying: "Now, remember, I don't know anything about this...
...and my friends named above will all remember and say, they assure me, that from the beginning I cautioned them against the jealousy that would arise if any individuals or individual were to be named...
...Gompers evidently did not realize the importance of the call...
...Davis returned from seeing Captain Fredericks and reported the agreement he had arrived at with the district attorney...
...so did Dar-row...
...Say* Gompers is "The Goat" LABOR is showing the same disposition as the judge and 'the rest of human nature, to look for what a labor leader called "a goat...
...I talked with them in the jail and know that they think the law of civilized life is...
...and some of the reporters and correspondents took it up and put me on the wire...
...Feelings held in check before the election are released now when it is safe to express them, and the fighting may go on...
...But this surface exhibition is evidently not the whole truth about Los Angeles...
...I would rather go to the penitentiary with the McNamara 'heroes,' as I said labor called them, not I, than share with Judge Bordwell and District Attorney Fredericks the responsibility for the disgraceful scene in court today, when they represented the state and a Christian civilization as saying that not mercy but wisdom and the saving of money kept them from killing James B. McNamara...
...ome good might have been got out of those boys, some real ice, if the judge had helped...
...But there are individuals and groups of men and women who declare that this shall stop...
...And I asked nothing improper of him, only that he would say and show that he understood...
Vol. 3 • December 1911 • No. 50
