American Lightning

by Howard Blum

  Darrow wired Fremont Older, the crusading editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, and asked him to come “to an important conference at Hotel Alexandria here tomorrow.”

  Over lunch at the hotel, Darrow asked for the editor’s help in persuading labor leaders to accept a settlement.

  A settlement? Fremont was astonished. But after listening to Darrow’s pained recitation of the evidence Burns had collected, he came around. “I’ll do what I can to make them understand,” he said without enthusiasm.

  Next, Darrow sent a wire to Gompers. He needed to speak with someone in authority in the AFL’s heirarchy. The union was paying his fee, bankrolling the defense. It was only proper that he inform them of his intentions. But the union was conducting its annual meeting in Atlanta; and the telegram, if it ever found its way to Gompers, was ignored.

  Regardless, the time had come for Darrow to speak to his two clients. It was a very difficult meeting. But Darrow knew from long experience that hedging would not dull the blow; and swiftness had its own mercy. So he came out with it: He wanted Jim to plead guilty.

  Without waiting for a response, Darrow plowed on. He wanted the brothers to appreciate what they’d be getting—winning!—if Jim admitted his guilt. He recited a carefully rehearsed list: Jim would escape the hangman; he’d avoid having to make the sort of detailed confession that would implicate other union leaders; the state could be convinced, Darrow felt assured, to give up its pursuit of the two anarchists still at large, Caplan and Schmitty; and J.J., after pleading guilty, would probably receive only a light sentence.

  Jim interrupted: J.J. would also have to plead guilty?

  Yes, said Darrow.

  And serve some time? Jim asked.

  Perhaps, Darrow conceded.

  Then no deal, said Jim with authority.

  At the same time as Darrow’s meeting with the two brothers was collapsing, LeCompte Davis was sitting down with Harrison Otis. Otis was an unpleasant mountain of a man, by nature and habit both rude and aggressive. But Davis paid no attention, or he was too much a southern gentleman and too good a lawyer to show his dismay. Which was why, of course, he rather than Darrow had been chosen for this delicate mission.

  “Take the bird while you’ve got it in your hand, General,” he told the Times owner. “By his plea of guilty McNamara will give you a complete victory and prove that everything you have been claiming is right.”

  Otis stared at Davis with a stony belligerence. It was as if he wanted to reach across the table and wring the audacious lawyer’s neck.

  But Davis simply continued on with a smooth cordiality. “If you take a chance and force them into trial,” he blithely suggested, “lightning might strike . . . An accident might happen. They might get off.”

  Otis had heard enough. “I want those sons of bitches to hang!” he bellowed.

  And with that declaration, the possibility for a settlement was smashed into pieces. But then again, after Jim rejected Darrow’s terms, there really hadn’t been much of a chance left anyway.

  Billy knew nothing about these talks. If he had, it’s doubtful that he would have let them play out even as far as they went.

  On the day that Darrow met with the McNamaras, Billy was in New Orleans. He had come to the city to make a speech about the case, and he delivered it with such heated passion that he might as well have been preaching from an evangelical pulpit.

  “I will tell you,” the detective roared to the overflowing crowd, “they have the money and have endeavored to buy our witness. They have offered some of the prosecution witnesses their own price. And when these witnesses refused to accept the offers, they have been threatened with death.”

  It would’ve been impossible for Billy to support a settlement. In fact, after the way the defense had been skulking about, he didn’t just want the two brothers executed. He wanted to see their lawyers hanging from ropes, too.

  FORTY

  ____________________

  YET JUST WHEN it seemed a settlement of the case was an impossibility, three unexpected and seemingly unrelated events conspired to move the discussions rapidly forward. The first was an attempt on the president’s life.

  There are many rolling rivers and rushing streams in southern California, clear fresh water perfect for trout fishing, swimming, or simply skimming stones on a pleasant day. The El Capitan Creek did not suggest this sort of diversion. It was a flat brown muddy stream that twisted through the countryside near Santa Barbara. Its only significance was that it lay directly in the coastal route that the Southern Pacific Railroad had staked out. So the railroad engineers had constructed a sturdy gray steel bridge across the forlorn creek.

  On the morning of October 16, 1911, a railroad watchman was out walking across the El Capitan Bridge, on duty, eyes alert. In the bright sunshine, something caught his attention. A brown package stood near the base of a heavy steel girder. He hurried over to inspect.

  It was not a package. It was a bomb. Thirty-nine sticks of dynamite, fuses attached, had been tied into a bundle.

  The watchman’s instinct was to run, but he restrained himself. He knew he had to work quickly. There was not much time. In his mind he was already hearing the tooting whistle of the approaching Southern Pacific. With great caution and a silent prayer, he began to detach the fuses from the explosives. The work was agonizing. But he managed to get it done.

  Not long after that the train carrying President William Howard Taft crossed the El Capitan Bridge, then continued on without incident toward Los Angeles.

  It was never determined who had planted the dynamite. Was it the work of anarchists? Perhaps embittered railroad workers hoping to dramatize their grievances? Some even speculated that capitalist goons had left the device: The death of a president would be a small sacrifice for a grieving nation’s unrestrained backlash against labor.

  But although the identity of the would-be assassins remained unknown, the consequences of the dynamite plot to kill the president were both swift and definitive. The next day an angry President Taft conferred with Attorney General George Wickersham and issued an order: The federal government would join the legal fight against the Structural Iron Workers union. Two weeks later an Indianapolis federal criminal grand jury began to investigate the charge that officials connected to the union had unlawfully conspired to transport dynamite across state lines. The evidence that Billy had gathered against the leadership would finally be put to use.

  While in Los Angeles, there was a growing anxiety. If forces lurking nearby were prepared to initiate a dynamite attack on the President of the United States, it seemed only a matter of time before they would target the McNamara trial. Perhaps a bomb would go off on the day a key prosecution witness was scheduled to testify. Or maybe a slew of bombs, a tattoo of fiery explosions, would detonate if there was a guilty verdict, the resulting deaths dwarfing the Times Building disaster.

  Either way many people throughout the city—largely the middle class and the rich; they had the most to lose—found themselves coming to the earnest conclusion that the bitter war between capital and labor in Los Angeles had to end. Now that the U.S. government was going after the Structural Iron Workers, the bombing of the Times Building would be avenged, and the city of Los Angeles should discreetly remove itself from the line of fire.

  The second mobilizing event was no less influential to the course of the settlement and in its public way was even more dramatic. It began, however, with a small moment. After still another group of potential jurors failed to satisfy either Darrow or the district attorney, the court clerk went down his list and matter-of-factly began filling in the names on service papers for new jury candidates. One of the names he wrote that Friday, November 24, was George Lockwood.

  Two days later Bert Franklin showed up at Lockwood’s ranch. Now that Lockwood had been selected as a jury candidate, Franklin told his old friend, he needed an answer: Would he accept the $4,000 and vote for acquittal?

  The wind was howling, and
Lockwood suggested they could talk more easily in the barn. He led the way, the unanswered question still a wall between them. When Lockwood closed the door, the two men stood facing each other in nearly total darkness.

  This could go either way, Franklin realized. But all he could do was wait.

  “If I go into this, I want no mistake about the money,” Lockwood said firmly at last. “I want to be sure of it.”

  Franklin ignored the challenge in the old cop’s voice and instead celebrated with a silent cheer. Lockwood was hooked. He would be another vote for acquittal.

  But there were still the details to agree on, and Franklin had already given them some thought. He proposed to pay $500 down. The remaining $3,500 would be held by Captain White, a county jailer they both knew from their days in the sheriff’s office. After the verdict was announced, Lockwood could collect the money from the captain.

  Lockwood didn’t object, and the next afternoon the two friends talked again to finalize the arrangements. They would meet at nine on Tuesday morning on the corner of Third and Los Angeles Street. Captain White would be there, too. The captain would give Lockwood his $500 down payment and a look at the roll of bills he’d be holding until the trial’s end.

  On Tuesday, Lockwood took a streetcar into town and arrived promptly at nine at the rendezvous. Captain White was waiting for him. Franklin, though, had gone into a nearby saloon; he needed a shot to wash down his breakfast. And in position on the streets surrounding the busy downtown intersection were six Los Angeles police detectives.

  It was a trap. After Franklin’s first visit to his ranch, an indignant Lockwood had rushed to the district attorney’s office. He had been cooperating with them ever since, coolly stringing Franklin along. And now they were going to catch one of Darrow’s men in the act of bribing a potential juror.

  Only there was a problem. “Where’s Franklin?” Lockwood asked the captain. He didn’t want to take the money until Franklin was present. He needed the detectives to be able to testify that they had witnessed Darrow’s investigator taking part in the scheme. Lockwood realized that his only hope was to buy time. He didn’t know how long he could delay without the captain growing suspicious. But he was determined to try.

  He improvised with frantic invention. First, he insisted the captain re-count the money in the thick roll. Then once he was satisfied the $4,000 was all there, Lockwood began complaining about the denominations of the bills. “It should have been in twos and fives,” he argued. He’d attract too much attention spending big bills. Could the money be exchanged?

  The captain had heard enough. He peeled $500 from the roll and handed it to Lockwood.

  And as Lockwood took the money, Franklin strolled out of the saloon, walking in a happy tipsy strut toward him.

  When he got closer, Franklin was seized with a sudden panic. He had glanced up the block and recognized LAPD Detective George Home. “The sons of bitches,” he cursed. “Let’s get out of here,” he told Lockwood.

  Setting a quick pace, he led Lockwood down Third Street, away from the officer.

  And straight into Clarence Darrow. The head of the McNamara defense team was walking toward them.

  “Wait a minute,” Franklin told Lockwood. “I want to speak to this man.”

  He never got the chance. Detective Home rammed his automatic into Franklin’s side and ordered, “Keep your hands in your pockets.” Across the street another detective arrested Captain White.

  Darrow stood mute, stunned into silence. His investigator had just been arrested after passing a bribe to a potential juror. And the police had witnessed that he was there, too.

  That afternoon extras hit the stands, headlines shouting “Jury Bribery Charged in McNamara Trial.” None of the first stories reported that Darrow had been present when the bribe occurred.

  But the attorney knew it would not be long before this became a story. He might even be charged. He now had more reason than ever to push for a settlement. A bribed juror wouldn’t help his clients’ case at all. Nor, for that matter, would the suspicion that the McNamaras’ lead counsel had been part of the scheme.

  But it was still another arguably even more memorable occurrence that was to bring the most recalcitrant opponents of a settlement rushing back into the discussion. On October 31—Halloween—the L.A. mayoral primary election was held. Socialist candidate Job Harriman had polled 20,183 votes to 16,790 for the incumbent Alexander and an additional 8,191 for the independent Mushet. The plurality was insufficient to avoid a runoff election. But it was, as the Los Angeles Citizen rejoiced, “a momentous spectacle.” And on December 5—just five short weeks—the runoff would be held between Harriman and Alexander. Los Angeles, it was expected, would soon elect a Socialist mayor.

  Many powerful people in the city anticipated Harriman’s victory with genuine fear. “Protect Los Angeles Homes!” shouted the Times. “Socialism in the saddle will mean less civic and private credit, less building, less industry, and thereby less work and wages.”

  Los Angeles had been growing at a gallop, but businessmen worried that Harriman’s election would put a sudden end to the city’s hope to become a metropolis. “Can Los Angeles sell $17,000,000 of its bonds in the next year if Harriman is elected mayor?” the Times wondered doubtfully. “If Los Angeles fails to sell bonds in that sum it cannot carry on the great undertakings on the success of which its continued growth and prosperity alike depend. Failure in those undertakings means municipal disaster!”

  But another clique of influential citizens was concerned not just about the effects of Harriman’s election on the city. They knew his victory would cost them millions, perhaps even wipe them out.

  For years they had nurtured their scheme. It had been a masterpiece of patience and deliberate misdirection. They had moved to control the water in Owens Valley. They had audaciously persuaded the city taxpayers to build a $23 million aqueduct to bring the water to Los Angeles. They had purchased tens of thousands of seemingly worthless acres in the bleak desert of San Fernando Valley. Now with the completion of the aqueduct, they would siphon off the surplus water and irrigate the valley. A desert would be reclaimed, miraculously transformed into a green suburban paradise. The Los Angeles Suburban Home Company—and its principals, Otis, Chandler, and their circle of wealthy friends—would start building and selling subdivisions. And at last reaping their pile of millions.

  But if Harriman was elected, if the Socialists were in control, the scheme would fall apart. The Socialists would insist that city water belonged to the city. They would not allow it to be sold to the Suburban Home Company.

  Harriman must not be elected on December 5.

  Otis, Chandler, and the other businessmen understood this. Their own fortunes were at stake.

  And the only way to put a certain stop to Harriman was to end any talk of vengeance, any talk of a war between capital and labor. The time had come to deal rationally and reasonably, like businessmen, with the fate of the McNamaras.

  Darrow had thought it a shrewdness to entwine his defense so tightly with the Socialist candidates. Their popularity, he had reasoned with sly delight, would reflect on his clients. But the attorney had never given any thought to the converse: If the McNamaras went down in defeat, so would the Socialists.

  Otis, however, grasped this negative logic. He realized with total certainty that if the McNamaras pleaded guilty, the Socialists would be tarred, too. Harriman would never be elected.

  At the start of his investigation, Billy had followed the money, and it had led him to a motive. He had been wrong. Still, his detective’s intuition had perceptively focused on the conspiracy that would ultimately play a role in determining the course of the case.

  The McNamara trial had to be settled, Otis decided. It would have been a blessing to see the brothers hang. But business was business, after all.

  _____

  And so, the product of these different events and sentiments, a firm desire for a settlement took hold. But it w
as also a race. Everything had to be efficiently resolved before the election on December 5. Or else there might as well be a hanging.

  FORTY-ONE

  ____________________

  DISTRICT ATTORNEY JOHN FREDERICKS liked to think of himself as a military man. He had commanded a cavalry troop during the Spanish-American War and had led gallant charges. In civilian life a hard-driving martial spirit continued to infuse all his activities. His hobbies were no exception. He rode with abandon, tearing over the steeplechase and galloping toward every jump. On the golf course—his other passion—he was no less of a phenomenon. Making towering drives at every hole and brisk, mechanical putts, he’d routinely charge through the eighteen holes in a flash.

  But today—November 30, 1911, Thanksgiving Day—Fredericks played the course with leisure. For once he was in no rush. He wanted to walk the fairways for hours; and he wanted to be unreachable. He did not want to offer the defense any opportunity to open up new negotiations. He had told Darrow to telephone his home by three. Either the attorney had obtained an acceptable agreement from his clients for a settlement by then, or they had nothing to discuss. The trial would proceed. And in five days so would the election.

  As Fredericks enjoyed his day of golf, Darrow and his co-counsels were at the county jail meeting with the McNamaras. The discussion was a misery, both for the brothers and for their lawyers.

  Jim was full of calm resolve. “I am willing to go before the court and take the blame. I will plead guilty,” he said.

  However, he would not allow J.J. to do the same. In a steady voice he told the lawyers, “I am willing to save my brother for he knew nothing of this, and is as guiltless as you are.”