Los Angeles Times Bombing - Conviction and Aftermath

Conviction and Aftermath

On December 1, 1911, the McNamara brothers changed their pleas in open court to guilty. James B. McNamara admitted to murder by having set the bomb that destroyed the Los Angeles Times building on October 1, 1910. John J. McNamara, setting foot for the first time in court, admitted to having set the bomb that destroyed the Llewellyn Iron Works on December 25. J.J. McNamara later told an interviewer that Darrow had kept the McNamara brothers isolated from public opinion. Had they known how strongly the public was on their side, they would not have agreed to the plea deal, he claimed.

Samuel Gompers was traveling by rail in New Jersey when the change in plea was made. A reporter with the Associated Press boarded his train, woke him, and handed him the dispatch regarding the guilty verdicts. "I am astounded, I am astounded", he said. "The McNamaras have betrayed labor."

The Socialist Party, however, refused to condemn the McNamara brothers, arguing that their actions were justified in view of the employer- and state-sponsored terror their union had faced for the last 25 years. Haywood and Debs echoed that sentiment. Wrote Debs:

It is easy enough for a gentleman of education and refinement to sit at his typewriter and point out the crimes of the workers. But let him be one of them himself, reared in hard poverty, denied education, thrown into the brute struggle for existence from childhood, oppressed, exploited, forced to strike, clubbed by the police, jailed while his family is evicted, and his wife and children are hungry, and he will hesitate to condemn these as criminals who fight against the crimes of which they are the victims of such savage methods as have been forced upon them by their masters.

On December 5, the court sentenced J.B. McNamara to life in prison and J.J. McNamara to 15 years in prison. The two brothers entered San Quentin State Prison on December 9. J.B. McNamara's post-trial conclusion was: "You see? . . . The whole damn world believes in dynamite."

Harriman was narrowly defeated by Mayor Alexander in the race for mayor on December 5. Although Harriman had been mentioned as a possible governor, the verdict ended his political career.

The labor movement in Los Angeles collapsed. Employers refused to honor additional terms of the plea agreement, which required the convening of a meeting of labor union and employers and an end to the open shop campaign. Instead, employers redoubled their efforts to break the labor movement in Los Angeles. The Central Labor Council suffered severe membership losses in the early months of 1912, and the labor movement in the city did not begin to show signs of growth until the 1950s.

Another 55 members and officers of the Iron Workers were arrested on charges of conspiracy and the interstate transportation of explosives to conduct the dynamite campaign. Hockin testified against his colleagues in order to avoid prison himself. In all, 38 of the 55 were convicted, including President Frank Ryan (who served a 7-year prison term). The Iron Workers suffered severe membership losses, and appealed to the AFL for funds. The AFL declined to offer financial assistance or permit Gompers to speak at the next Iron Workers convention. The heads of a number of AFL unions did speak, however, and Iron Worker delegates re-elected Ryan president.

Darrow was indicted on two charges of jury tampering. His chief investigator turned state's evidence, and even implicated Samuel Gompers in the bribery attempt. Darrow was in financial difficulty, and asked for AFL assistance in raising funds for his defense. Gompers declined to give it. When the presidents of the United Mine Workers of America and Western Federation of Miners issued an appeal for donations, the AFL Executive Council postponed consideration of a donation until the issue was moot. Darrow was acquitted in his first trial. When charges were brought in the second bribery case, the trial ended in a hung jury.

Steffens was so troubled by the vituperation heaped on the McNamara brothers that he began a campaign to ease economic and class differences in the United States. By mid-1912, a number of prominent individuals — including social workers Jane Addams and Lillian Wald, industrialist Henry Morgenthau, Sr., journalist Paul Kellogg, jurist Louis Brandeis, economist Irving Fisher, and pacifist minister John Haynes Holmes — had asked President Taft to appoint a commission on industrial relations to ease economic tensions in the country. Taft requested that Congress approve a commission, and it did so on August 23, 1912. The reports of the Commission on Industrial Relations, led by Frank P. Walsh, helped establish the eight-hour day and the World War I-era War Labor Board, and profoundly influenced most New Deal labor legislation.

Ortie McManigal served two and a half years in prison before being released on parole.

James B. "J.B." McNamara died of cancer in San Quentin on March 9, 1941. Despite repeated attempts by left-wing labor leaders and certain politicians to win his release, J.B. McNamara refused to file any parole requests. His brother John died in Butte, Montana on May 8, 1941. At the time, J.J. was an international organizer for the Iron Workers.