Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, was a vehement foe of labor unions. In his editorial page and through the Los Angeles Merchants and Manufacturers Association, Otis fought unionism effectively for twenty years; during this period, Los Angeles industry maintained open shops. The AFL Convention of 1907 denounced Otis as “the most unfair, unscrupulous, and malignant enemy of organized labor in America.” In 1910, AFL leaders decided to try once more to bring unionism to Los Angeles. Aided by skilled labor organizers from San Francisco, funds from the national office, and by the guidance of a General Strike Committee, strikes were started in a large number of industries employing skilled workers.
In response, Otis and the Merchants and Manufacturers Association persuaded the City Council to outlaw picketing, and the police began to arrest strikers. After the strikes failed, the unions turned to politics, allied themselves with the Socialist party, and supported the Socialist leader, Job Harriman, for Mayor. Harriman scored a dramatic upset in the Democratic primary, and labor confidently looked forward to victory in the mayoral election.
Then, shortly after midnight on October 1, 1910, the Los Angeles Times building was dynamited. Twenty persons were killed. Otis immediately blamed the dynamiting on the unions, and said bombs had also been found at his home and that of the Secretary of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association. The union denied his charges, and in the absence of proof their political chances still seemed promising. Private detective William J. Burns was hired by the incumbent Mayor to find the bomber. Noticing a similarity in pattern between the Los Angeles attack and a series of bombings initiated elsewhere by the Bridge and Structural Iron Workers Union against United States Steel, Burns investigated the activities of John J. Mc-Namara, Secretary-Treasurer of the Bridge and Structural Iron Workers Union. Burns found incriminating evidence, and, using means of dubious legality, sent McNamara and his younger brother James to Los Angeles for trial. Labor organizations mobilized to defend the McNamara brothers; Samuel Gompers called the trial a “capitalist conspiracy,” and Clarence Darrow was retained for the defense. Millions believed the McNamaras were innocent.
On December 1, to the shock of the labor movement, Darrow announced that his clients were reversing their pleas and admitting their guilt. This disclosure halted the labor drive in Los Angeles and Harriman lost by a wide margin. James B. McNamara, who had set the bomb, (“I did not intend to take the life of anyone,” he said) was sentenced for life to San Quentin; J. J. McNamara was sentenced to fifteen years, served ten, and was released in May, 1921.
The following account of the bombing is from the issue of the Los Angeles Times printed on the day of the bombing, October 1, 1910. (The paper had an auxiliary printing plant, and the other journals of the city lent assistance.) See Graham Adams: Age of Industrial Violence (1966); Louis Adamic: Dynamite (rev. edn. 1934); Clarence Darrow: The Story of My Life (1932); and Grace H. Stimson: Rise of the Labor Movement in Los Angeles (1955).
Many lives were jeopardized and half a million dollars’ worth of property was sacrificed on the altar of hatred of the labor unions at 1 o’clock this morning, when the plant of the Los Angeles Times was blown up and burned, following numerous threats by the laborites.
Not quite as many of the employees were on duty as would have been the case earlier in the night, when all departments were working in full blast, but even so the murderous cowards knew that fully one hundred people were in the building at the time. With the suddenness of an earthquake, an explosion, of which the dry, snappy sound left no room to doubt of its origin in dynamite, tore down the whole first floor of the building on Broadway, just back of the entrance to the business offices. In as many seconds, four or five other explosions of lesser volume were heard.
In the time it took to run at full speed from the police station to the corner of First and Broadway, a distance of less than half a block, the entire building was in flames on three floors. Almost in the same instant flames and smoke filled the east stairway on First Street, driving down in a frenzied panic those employes of the composing room who had been so fortunate as to reach the landing in time.
Elbowing past the last of these fugitives, men fought their way up to the first floor with flash lights and handkerchiefs over their faces. There efforts were unavailing, the blistering hot smoke and the lurid light of the flames almost upon them and licking down at them fiercely, drove the would-be rescuers back, hurriedly.
Although they could hear clearly the cries of distress, the groans and screams of the men and women, who, mangled and crippled by flying debris from the explosion, lay imprisoned by the flames, about to be cremated alive.
Along the shadows of the editorial and city rooms, on the south side of the building, through a choking volume of black smoke, could be seen men and women crowding each other about the windows of the third floor. The cries for ladders went up, frantic.
A fire wagon drove up at full speed. Groans greeted it when it was seen that it was but a hose wagon instead of the hook and ladder truck. “Nets; get nets, nets!” was the yell.
A policeman came running up from headquarters, carrying a short ladder, pathetically inadequate. Someone called him a fool. But the ladder saved the live of Lovelace, the country editor, who jumped upon it and escaped with a broken leg and some minor burns.
Other fire apparatus thundered up. The nets were jerked out in less time than it takes to tell, but by that time the fire had surged through the building with such rapidity that it was impossible to approach the reddening walls with them, and those unfortunates who had not jumped with Lovelace were doomed.
In less than four minutes from the time the explosion was heard the entire building was ablaze.
The Work of Demons
It recked little to the man who placed the bombs which wrecked a splendid newspaper that one hundred men were at work on the various floors, busily engaged in getting out the great newspaper. That the instant that the bombs were exploded their lives were in peril; that as a result of the hellish work lives were probably lost and other lives precious to wives, children and relatives were in deadly peril.
The bombs were planted by experienced hands. They did the work for which they were intended, at least temporarily, to cripple a great newspaper.
At 1 o’clock the Times plant was humming in every department. Forms were being closed up, stereotyped and sent down to the press room. An hour later the great presses would run at lightning speed to print the many thousands of papers which carriers were waiting to serve to their customers.
A second later hell broke loose. A deafening detonation, a sickening uplift of men’s hearts and lungs, then vivid tongues of flames, dense, stifling smoke which obscured the electric lights on every floor.
One instant busy occupation, lights, the whirr of machinery, the next, black midnight, smoke that overpowers, flames that shot their wicked tongues from basement to roof.
Trapped on all floors, the men of the Times, picked men they were, preserved their coolness in the midst of this appalling scene.
But it would seem that there was no escape. The murderers had planned with hellish cunning. The broad stairways were filled with deadly smoke almost as soon as the echo of the dynamite bomb had died away. The building was on fire on every side. But there was a way out for brave men, and they took the desperate chance.
The explosion caught the working force unawares and many were buried in the ruins, while others jumped from windows, fell through the elevator chutes or climbed down fire escapes after receiving terrible injuries from flying timbers and debris.
A few in the building escaped uninjured.…
The explosions were heard throughout the business district, and scores of persons going home in the 1 o’clock cars jumped out and joined the thousands of citizens who were pouring from downtown houses and hurrying to the fire.
Within five minutes the scene of the explosion presented a terrible spectacle, as the big building had burst immediately into flame and was doomed. Great excitement seized the multitude and word quickly passed that scores of doomed persons were within the seething furnace. Desperate attempts were made by policemen, firemen and citizens to rescue those within, but the flames drove them back. The terrible spectacle of persons attempting to escape from windows in the upper stories was turned to a horror when they were seen to jump to the ground. One man was seen framed in a window casing; he threw up his hands and fell backward into the seething cauldron behind and beneath him.
Men poured from doors dragging broken limbs and holding battered heads and bodies. Those who tottered forth were seized by eager hands and borne to places of safety.
Men begged to be permitted to dash into the burning building, but officers with drawn revolvers and riot guns forced them back and cleared the streets. A few moments later the flames licked up the woodwork of the structure, the walls began to fall and electric wires fell, sputtering to the pavements, and endangered those in the vicinity.…
For those in the wreck there was no aid; God only could care for their souls. Human agencies were of no avail.