H 



The Review of Reviews. 



pose of driving tiiree persons out of two mills. 

 The ofTence of these persons was that they 

 had left the Union to which they had previously 

 belonged, alleging that they received no benefits 

 commensurate with their subscriptions. The masters 

 refused to obey the edict of the Union that rio non- 

 unionists should be employed, and ordered a general 

 lockout as a protest against the tyranny which denied 

 the right to work to any man or woman who refused 

 to contribute to the funds of the Union. The year, 

 therefore, closes with nearly a quarter of a million 

 men and women laid idle in order that three non- 

 unionists may be punished by loss of employment for 

 refusal to join the Union. While this is deplorable 

 in itself, it is doubly deplorable for the prejudice it 

 excites against trade unions, which, with all their 

 shortcomings, have not only done great things for 

 labour, but are our chief hope for the ultimate solution 

 of our labour difficulties. 



Dynamite The sensational confession of the 



as a McNamaras, the chiefs of one of 



Method , ' . , . 



of the greatest American trade unions, 



Persuasion. that of the National Erectors 



Association, that they had deliberately used dynamite 



as a weapon of persuasion, brings out into clear light 



a^urvival of the criminal practices which fifty years 



ago gave Sheffield so bad a name. The particular 



outrage to which the McNamaras pleaded guilty 



" In the Silence of His Cell.' 



was the blowing up of the printing office of the Los 

 Angeles Times, a non-union office, by which twenty 

 non-unionist workmen lost their lives. Within the 

 last few years there have been nearly a hundred 

 disasters caused by dynamite explosions which were 

 all more or less closely connected with disputes 

 between the National Erectors Association and their 

 employers. The Los Angeles Times office was blown 

 up on October ist, 1910. Mr. AV. J. Burns, the 

 famous American sleuth hound, a Transatlantic 

 Sherlock Holmes, was placed on the trail, and on 

 April 22nd, 191 1, John McNamara was arrested in 

 Indianapolis and taken to Los Angeles to be tried 

 for the crime. Organised labour rallied to his 

 support, and every eftbrt was made to postpone his 

 trial, first by challenging jurors, and then by corrupt- 

 ing them. At last, however, when all the resources 

 of obstruction and corruption had failed, John 

 McNamara and his brother pleaded guilty. One was 

 sentenced to life-long imprisonment, the other to 

 fifteen years. The effect of their confession has 

 been profound, and it is not unnatural that suspicion 

 of complicity in similar outrages attaches to other 

 labour leaders It is to be hoped that the lesson will 

 not be thrown away upon leaders nearer home, whose 

 methods of peaceful picketing often come danger- 

 ously near organised terrorism. 



After a period of comparative 



Resurrection obscurity spent in 'the editorial 



of office of the Outlook Mr. Roose- 



^' velt is once more to the front in 



American politics. He has taken the field against 



President Taft's Arbitration policy — a nice thing for a 



Nobel prize winner to do — and men are beginning to 



talk of him once more as the probable Republican 



candidate for the Presidency. Dr. Shaw, who is Mr. 



Roosevelt's personal friend and confidant, writing on 



this subject in the January number of the Review of 



Reviews of New York, says : — 



Mr. Roosevelt is a well-known citizen now in private life, 

 enjoying perfect healtli and the full vifjour ofa man in his prime. 

 Thi-ie is no ]).^ssil)le reason why he should nol accept the 

 Republican nomination, if tlic parly desires lo confer it upon 

 him. He has no machine behind him, whether local or 

 national. He is not holdini^ out liis hat asking" for anything ; 

 and if he were seckiny; the ndniinalion his very solicitude for it 

 would bea good reason for refusing to let him have it. It is 

 presumable that neither Mr. Roosevelt nor Justice Hughes 

 desires lo be nominated. But either man is strong enough to 

 take the responsibility if conferred. Men who are eagerly 

 pushing their own claims for the Presidency show bad 

 taste and douhilul fitness. Mr. Roosevelt never pushed himself 

 for any high oflicc. The nomination would have come lo him 

 again in 1908 if he h.ad not resisted il in every possible way. If 

 it should come lo him in 1912 it will not be through any 

 intiiguing on liis part, or through anything else except a yield- 

 ing to the will of the Republican party. There can be no 



