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Newspaper Page Text
"We were the men who had come to Lawrence, organized the strikers in the most effective capitalism-resisting body that the world has ever seen. With us shut up in jail, it was figured the workers could be reduced to sub mission. , "If we hadn't been 'nibbed' for 'Annie La Pizza's death, we would have been gotten another way. Perhaps like the Emerson lum ber workers' case in the south, some one listening to us as we spoke would suddenly have been shot down and then we could, have been gathered in for incit ing to murder by our inflaming talk. "Even without us, the strike went on to victory. OUR organ ization stood the test. Even the shadow of the electric chair could not make me downcast. "Jail isn't such a bad place- I had rather be here than in the senate, for here I am only sur rounded with little thieves ! We will be freed now, I think. The connection of the interests with dynamite and sequentially with our arrests, sedms to me to be too obvious even for Massachusetts to allow to pass unnoticed.' o- LAWRENCE DYNAMITING CONSPIRACY FACTS Basttjanuary the striking tex tile, workers at Lawrence, Mass., apparently had the mill owners the American woolen trust, chief ly dn the run. Public sympathy thecountry over was with the strikers. On Jan. 15, John J. Breen, well-to-do? undertaker and school com mitteeman at Lawrence, appeared at police headquarters in Boston and tbld of dynamite,being hid in Lawrence. He asked that In spector Rooney, with whom he was upon particularly intimate terms, be. put on the case. Roo ney went down to Lawrence and was surprised to learnthat only J one of the Lawrence police force had heard about the concealed dyijamite; that 4 was Inspector Keiiher, also a friend of Breen's. Rooney and Keliher headed a bunch of cops and started out to "find" the dynamite. Brpen tola them that it would be found in the home of Farris Marade, in the cobbler shop of Umberto di Pra"to, and at a spot between two cemeteries. Breen drew a map showing the exact spot Dynamite was found in those three places. Several strikers and the cobbler were arrested Jan. 19. They were acquitted. Eleven days later JBreen was arrested for planting the dyna mite in those three places "to in jure the cau'se of the strikers, by, making the public think they were dangerous and that martial law should be declared." Breen refused to go on the wit ness stand. He was found guilty and fined $500. "He should have been sent to prison for ten years," says- Dis trict Attorney Pelletier. Pelletier got busy. He sent for Breea and put him through a "third degree." Later he sent for ErnesJ $K Pitman, the wealthy