9 Responses to On Assignment – Times Bombing

1. Doug Payne says:

   September 20, 2010 at 8:00 am

   Have you considered the possibility that it was a plot by management, a la the 1912 Lawrence, Mass textile strike? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Madison_Wood

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2. lrh says:

   September 20, 2010 at 8:18 am

   We don’t do Wikipedia at the Daily Mirror, but the theory you suggest has a long history, going back to Eugene Debs and other labor leaders.
   –lrh.

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3. jeff prescott says:

   September 20, 2010 at 8:58 am

   How did city government stand on the issue previous to the bombing?
   Were they supportive of the unions…..or The Times for not being a union shop.
   Also, I noticed that The Times was printed after the bombing, on it’s “auxiliary presses.” Was that the forerunner of the Times Mirror press operation?
   Was General Otis invited to discuss this on the Larry King program?

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4. lrh says:

   September 20, 2010 at 10:20 am

   Good questions!
   To briefly state the city’s position: In the months before the bombing, there were strikes by brewery workers and iron workers. The brewery workers’ strike was relatively weak, but the iron workers were far more aggressive.
   In response, the City Council passed an anti-picketing ordinance written by attorney Earl Rogers on behalf of the Merchants & Manufacturers Assn. imposing a jail sentence for anyone picketing. The LAPD was called upon to enforce the ban and is it any wonder what ensued?
   Long-established lore and the front page of the extra brought out that day say that The Times quickly switched to its auxiliary plant.
   They wish.
   In truth, it looks like the extra was published by the Herald and vanity prevented The Times from making more than a tacit acknowledgment. (You’ll see the Herald — and the Examiner– listed in its front page acknowledgments later that week).
   There was an auxiliary plant in what is now Chinatown but it was being used as a warehouse for rolls of paper and utterly unusable as a printing plant until all the paper was cleared out and the equipment was brought into service. A massive job. The bombing occurred on Friday night/Saturday morning, so the Saturday extra was published by the Herald, but the Sunday edition of The Times was printed at the auxiliary plant, which was serviceable by that time.
   I’m sure Gen. Otis would have been on Larry King if they had TV or radio in 1910.

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5. Ronald Emmis says:

   September 20, 2010 at 4:14 pm

   Wikipedia? Wikipedia? Does anyone use that site with any semblance of belief? The whole site is based on hallucinations and political ignorance.
   Wikipedia! Sheesh.

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6. Mary mallory says:

   September 20, 2010 at 11:51 pm

   What was the state of unions in Los Angeles at that time? The public’s beliefs about them? What happened to the building at that site? Was anything saved? Did the men receive a fair trial? Was the trial reported fairly in the press?

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7. lrh says:

   September 21, 2010 at 6:11 am

   All good questions, Mary… Books have been written about the history of organized labor in California and in Los Angeles, so I won’t try to outdo them.
   Based on the transcripts of jury selection in the McNamara trial, people generally supported the right of workers to organize, and several jurors had belonged to unions. However, they had tended to drift away from the unions and didn’t care for the way unions were run. In other words, they generally supported unions in theory but didn’t care for their tactics, such as the violence surrounding strikes.
   The ruins of the building were leveled and another was built in its place, which survived until The Times moved to its present location in the 1930s. The site is now a vacant lot.
   The iron and other metal from the building was salvaged as scrap. The ashes and other rubble were buried near 37th and Santa Fe in Vernon. A few artifacts survived, like The Times Eagle, which was on the roof.
   Of the five men involved in the bombings that included The Times explosion, James B. McNamara and his brother John pleaded guilty so they were never tried and they had a “dream team” of attorneys.” Ortie McManigal testified as an informant in the federal trial and I don’t recall him ever serving time. Matthew Schmidt and Dave Caplan, who were with James B. McNamara when he bought the dynamite to blow up The Times, weren’t arrested until several years after the bombing and they were both sent to prison.
   As for news coverage, I have been lucky enough to get access to thousands of pages of trial transcripts and I find them much more interesting than the news stories.

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8. Mary Mallory says:

   September 21, 2010 at 3:03 pm

   Were there any papers or artifacts from any of the people involved that survived?
   How did the jury/legal system differ back then from now? What interesting tidbits are you finding regarding legal matters?

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9. Dave says:

   October 2, 2010 at 6:29 pm

   Larry, my wife’s grandfather was William Joseph Ford, an assistant DA and member of the prosecution teams for the bombing and subsequent Darrow trials. We’ve been delighted as his role in LA history has been slowly emerging in recent books. The family has only a few mementos (we have his old Kodak and his wife’s china at our home), so any light you can shed on him would be very welcome–especially documentary stuff of his career, trial transcripts, etc. Feel free to contact me at my email address. Thanks.

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