American Lightning

by Howard Blum

  If quotation marks bracket any dialogue, then at least one of the principals was the source. Of course, I was not able to conduct any interviews with the participants. I had to settle for other first-person accounts: memoirs, articles written by the principals, or interviews they had given. Burns, for example, wrote a biased, rambling, yet often compelling account of his hunt for the McNamaras, The Masked War (George H. Doran, New York, 1913), which I was able to track down on the Internet from an antiquarian bookseller. He also wrote several revelatory articles about the case in publications as diverse as Popular Mechanics, The Saturday Evening Post, and True Detective. Griffith started an autobiography that was edited by James Hart and published after Griffith’s death (The Man Who Invented Hollywood, Touchstone, Louisville, Kentucky, 1972). Griffith also gave numerous interviews (two that appeared in Moving Pictures World were particularly candid) and wrote several articles for the Los Angeles Citizen. His wife, Linda Arvidson, wrote her own memoir (the front cover credited her as “Mrs. D.W. Griffith” despite her ex-husband and her having been separated for decades when the book was published), When the Movies Were Young (E.P. Dutton, New York, 1925). So did Mary Pickford: Sunshine and Shadow (Doubleday & Co., Garden City, New York, 1954). And Richard Schickel’s seminal biography (D.W. Griffith, An American Life, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1984) quotes many of the director’s conversations with friends and several of his letters. Darrow, too, wrote an autobiography, The Story of My Life (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1932) and gave hundreds of interviews, and his wife cooperated with Irving Stone on the very readable Clarence Darrow for the Defense (Doubleday & Co., Garden City, New York, 1941). Then there are Darrow’s letters to Molly and her letters to him. This treasure trove of information was unearthed and first published by Geoffrey Cowan. Cowan’s The People v. Clarence Darrow (Times Books, New York, 1993) is a monumental work of writing and research, and I often was inspired and guided by this groundbreaking effort. I owe Cowan’s book a large literary debt. Ortie McManigal also published his account of the case. And there are the thousands of pages of depositions and testimony from both the McNamara trial and then Darrow’s in government archives in Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and Stanford, California. The directly quoted conversations that led to Darrow’s indictment, for example, were taken from testimony in these transcripts. As I’ve said, when dialogue is directly quoted, at least one of the participants is the source.

  Also, when I share what an individual is thinking or feeling, it is no casual narrative device but a reporter’s using the facts as he discovered them to describe a scene as accurately and completely as possible. For example, Burns’s thoughts when he first went to the scene of the Los Angeles Times bombing were found in his memoir about the case. Darrow’s feelings about Molly were revealed in the letters Cowan discovered and first published. And Griffith’s initial reluctance to give up playwriting for the more dubious business of making movies was recalled by his wife in her memoir.

  Yet while there were, as I’ve stated, many books and articles that were used as sources for this book, readers interested in learning more about the era might want to consult the books I found myself relying on most frequently. Morrow Mayo’s Los Angeles (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1933) is a witty and insightful history of the city. Steven J. Ross’s Working-Class Hollywood (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1998) is a particularly insightful documentation of the political roots in American film. Professor Ross’s thesis that much of Griffith’s early work was shaped by political sentiments is at odds with Schickel’s analysis. Yet I found myself persuaded by Ross, and his view fueled and inspired this book. Those wanting more of a feel for Burns’s career should consult Gene Caesar’s Incredible Detective (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1968) and Alan Hynds’s In Pursuit (Thomas Nelson & Sons, Camden, New Jersey, 1968). An elucidating view of the period and its various labor disputes can be found in the archives of the Cleveland Public Library, the Chicago Historical Society, and the Los Angeles Times History Center at the Huntington Library. The website of the Iron Workers Union as well as the official History of the Iron Workers Union (Mosaic, Cleraly, Maryland, 2006) gives a subjective but still informative account of the events surrounding the McNamara case and trial. And I originally found great inspiration for the writing of this tale of intersecting lives and ideas in Louis Menand’s wonderfully erudite The Metaphysical Club (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2001).

  Finally, while I don’t feel it’s necessary in this sort of nonacademic history to give a full account of all the sources I consulted (for example, the many books on anarchism I delved into to write with some authority about Burns’s time in the Home Colony), let me share the major sources of information for each chapter of this book:

  Prologue

  William J. Burns, The Masked War (MW); Alan Hynd, In Pursuit (IP); Gene Caesar, Incredible Detective (ID); New York Times; Asbury Press; Richard Schickel, D.W. Griffith: An American Life (RS); Museum of Modern Art Archives, D.W. Griffith Collection (MOMA); Linda Arvidson, When Movies Were Young (WMWY); Tom Grunning, D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1991 (ANF); Geoffrey Cowan, The People v. Clarence Darrow (PvCD); Clarence Darrow, The Story of My Life (SML); Irving Stone, Clarence Darrow for the Defense (CDFD).

  Chapter One

  MW; Iron Workers’ Official History (IW); ID; Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, International Publishers, NY, 1964 (HLM).

  Chapter Two

  Morrow Mayo, Los Angeles (LA); Huntington Library archives; PvCD; Robert Gottlieb and Irene Wolf, Thinking Big: The Story of the Los Angeles Times, GP Putnam, NY, 1977 (TB); IW.

  Chapter Three

  Steven J. Ross, Working-Class Hollywood (WCH); MOMA; RS; WHWY; ANF; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library (AMPAS).

  Chapter Four

  LA; Huntington Library archives (HL); HLM; TB; LA Times archives.

  Chapter Five

  Indianapolis Public Library; PvCD; MW; IW; ID; IP.

  Chapter Six

  SML; CDFD; TB; MW; HL.

  Chapter Seven

  HL; PvCD; IW; New York Times; LA Fire Dept Official History.

  Chapter Eight

  MW; TB; William J. Burns, “My Greatest Cases,” True Detective, October 1951; October 1952 (TD).

  Chapter Nine

  TB; MW; PvCD; ID; LA; HL.

  Chapter Ten

  New York Times; RS; Mary Pickford, Sunshine and Shadows (S&S); WHWY; Kenneth S. Lynn, “The Torment of D.W. Griffith,” American Scholar, Spring 1990.

  Chapter Eleven

  CDFD; Chicago Historical Society; PvCD; HL; MW.

  Chapter Twelve

  MW; TD; ID; IP; Los Angeles Times; LA; PvCD.

  Chapter Thirteen

  RS; WHWY; LA; PvCD; Daniel J. Johnson, “The Socialist Municipal Campaign in Los Angeles,” Labor History, vol. 41, 2000 (LH); HL; MW.

  Chapter Fourteen

  WHWY; MW; ID; TD; IP.

  Chapter Fifteen

  SML; CDFD; PvCD; HL.

  Chapter Sixteen

  MW; TD; ID; IP; trial transcripts; Ortie McManigal, The National Dynamite Plot, The Neal Company, LA, 1913 (NDP).

  Chapter Seventeen

  RS; WHWY; MOMA; PvCD.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ID; MW; trial transcripts; TD.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Home Colony, Its Philosophy and Beginnings,” www .Redlandsfortnightly.org; “A Nest of Vipers in This Country,” Tacoma Press; MW; trial testimony.

  Chapter Twenty

  MW; trial testimony; ID; NDP.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  ID; New York Times; MW; IP; NDP; trial testimony.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  MW; trial testimony; TD; RS; WHWY; Karl Brown, Adventures with D.W. Griffith, Da Capo Press, NY, 1974 (KB).

  Chapter Twenty-three

  MW; ID; IP; NDP; trial testimon
y; TD.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  MW; RS; ANF; MOMA; IP; NDP.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  MW; TD; ID; RS; WHWY.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  NDP; MW; CDFD; IW; TD; PvCD.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  MW; NDP; trial testimony; IP; ID; IW.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  MW; PvCD; Chicago Historical Society; IW; Los Angeles Examiner; LA.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Los Angeles Times; IW; HLM; MW; Los Angeles Examiner; trial transcript.

  Chapter Thirty

  MW; LA; IW; Chicago Historical Society; PvCD; Eugene Debs, “The McNamara Case and the Labor Movement,” International Socialist Review, February 1912; HLM.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  CDFD; PvCD; SML; IW; HLM; Huntington Library.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  IW; WCH; MW; Sam Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, E.P. Dutton, NY, 1935; ANF; RS; MOMA; MW.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  New York Call; Los Angeles Citizen; RS; WCH; S&S; WHWY; ANF; MOMA.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  CDED; PvCD; WCH; Huntington Library; Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles Examiner.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  LA; Johnson, in Labor History; WCH; SML; PvCD; IW; MW; Justin Kaplan, Lincoln Steffens, Touchstone Books, NY, 1974 (LS).

  Chapter Thirty-six

  MW; ID; IP; TD; trial testimony; Dictaphone Company website; PvCD; RS; WHWY; KB.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Trial transcripts; CDFD; SML; PvCD; Los Angeles Examiner; LS.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  ANF; WCH; RS; MOMA.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  LS; LA; PvCD; Lincoln Steffens, various articles collected as “Explosion of the McNamara Case,” Stanford University; E.W. Scripps Papers; E.W. Scripps, Damned Old Crank: A Self-Portrait, Charles McCabe, ed., Harper & Brothers, NY, 1951; CDFD; MW; IW.

  Chapter Forty

  LA; Los Angeles Examiner; PvCD; MW; trial testimony; Los Angeles Times; Johnson in Labor History; TB; CDFC; SML.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Los Angeles Times; trial transcript; LS; Steffens articles; PvCD; CDFD; HLM; RS; WHWY.

  Chapter Forty-two

  PvCD; Huntington Library; MW; TD; S&S; RS.

  Chapter Forty-three

  SML; CDFD; PvCD; Adela Rogers St. Johns, Final Verdict, Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1962 (FV); trial transcripts; Los Angeles Examiner; MW; TD; ID; IP.

  Chapter Forty-four

  PvCD; CDFD; FV; trial transcript; Los Angeles Times; Huntington Library.

  Chapter Forty-five

  WCH; RS; MOMA; KB; WHWY; S&S; NY Dramatic Mirror.

  Epilogue

  MW; TD; LA; PvCD; CDFD; SML; ID; IP; trial transcripts.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ____________________

  From my desk, I can look out through a wall of windows toward a helix-shaped pond. I was writing this book one winter’s day when I lifted my head up from my computer, gazed absently toward the frozen pond, and noticed something in the distance making its unhurried way across the ice. Anchored to my desk for months, I’d become accustomed to animal sightings; beyond two grassy rectangular fields fronting the wooden house, deep, dark woods stretched on and ominously on. A variety of creatures—foxes, turkeys, deer, even coyotes—would emerge, and I’d admire them with the fascinated scrutiny of someone who’d been raised in the Bronx. But this animal was something I hadn’t seen before. It was bigger, mangy, and walked leisurely but with a confident air of menace. Curious, I got up from my chair and headed out to the weathered deck that faced the pond. I looked, and in an instant I was certain: My visitor was a gray wolf. I watched him anxiously for a while. When at last he’d slunk back into the woods, I sighed with relief and returned to my desk.

  I never saw the wolf again. Months passed, and soon the frogs were once again croaking and lily pads blanketed the pond. The seasons had changed, but I was still sitting at my desk struggling to write this book. As I worked, the image of the wolf making his slow way across the ice would often pop into my mind. In fact, I’d begun to feel there was a bond of sorts between the two of us. In my self-imposed isolation, in the midst of grappling with the challenges I faced daily while trying to tell the meandering story that would become American Lightning, I’d decided he wasn’t so much a frightening apparition as an appropriate visitor: one lone wolf calling on another.

  But now that the book is done I realize I was being more than a bit indulgent. I was never really alone while writing this book. In fact, I was constantly buoyed by the wisdom and friendship of others; and without their help, I, like my solitary wolf, most probably would’ve slunk without a trace back into some deep and foreboding woods. So with gratitude, I want to acknowledge their aid.

  From the first days when I began seriously thinking of writing about the bombing of the Los Angeles Times, my agent, Lynn Nesbit was a voice of encouragement. I’ve worked with Lynn on eight books, and over the years she’s become a friend, an advisor, and a model of how one should conduct one’s self in the often rough-and-tumble world of publishing. I count on her wisdom enormously. Also at Janklow-Nesbit, I was helped by the ever gracious Tina Simms, the tenacious Richard Morris, and my friend Cullen Stanley.

  This is my first book with Crown and with Rick Horgan as my editor, and it’s been a pleasure. Not only is Rick insightful, but he’s also a gentleman: someone who actually does what he says he’ll do—and throws himself into the task with intelligence and energy. Julian Pavia, Rick’s assistant, was always helpful, smart, and, perhaps most astonishing, never once told me he was too busy to answer one of my anxious questions. And Tina Constable’s enthusiasm for the book, as well as the support of the entire Crown team, has been the sort of response of which an author dreams. They have made the process fun, and I am very grateful.

  Bob Bookman, of CAA, has been a friend for many years, and his help in shepherding the manuscript through Hollywood has been invaluable. Alan Hergott, too, has been a wise Hollywood advisor, and, no less important, a valued friend. And at Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter’s early interest in the story and Dana Brown’s skilled editorial touch were much appreciated.

  I was also helped by my researchers. Mark Wind was able to ferret out the most fascinating bits of information. And Andrea Scharf was indefatigable; I gave her the slimmest of leads and yet she would manage to track everything down.

  And I owe a lot of people for their friendship and support as I toiled (with often grim self-absorption) on this book. My sister Marcy was, as ever, the best: funny, smart, and always there when I needed her. As also were Beth DeWoody, whose generosity of spirit, kindheartedness, and unique, vivacious involvement in the bustling world around her were invaluable gifts; Jane and Bob Katz, who rushed to the rescue when it was needed; Sarah and Bill Rauch, whose hospitality allowed me to escape and whose friendship was a rock I clinged to; Susan and David Rich, with whom I shared many meals, many laughs, and too many drinks; Lacey Bernier, who has a knack for putting things into perspective; Pat and Bob Lusthaus, who were always there to help; and Gary Cohen, a very smart man and a generous friend. My children, Tony, Anna, and Dani, are a blessing; their accomplishments fill me with pride and our time together is a heartfelt joy. And, not least, Ivana, who helped to keep things interesting, and wonderful.

  ALSO BY HOWARD BLUM

  Nonfiction

  The Eve of Destruction

  The Brigade

  The Gold of Exodus

  Gangland

  Out There

  I Pledge Allegiance: The True Story of the Walkers:

  An American Spy Family

  Wanted!: The Search for Nazis in America

  Fiction

  Wishful Thinking

  Copyright © 2008 by Howard Blum

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Portions of this book appeared in slightly altered form in Vanity Fair.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Blum, Howard.

  American lightning : terror, mystery, movie-making, and the crime of the century / Howard Blum. —1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Bombings—California—Los Angeles—History—20th century.

  2. Terrorism—California—Los Angeles—History—20th century.

  3. Otis, Harrison Gray, 1837—1917. I. Title.

  HV6440.B58 2008

  364.152'3097949409041—dc22 2008002974

  eISBN: 978-0-307-41026-9

  v3.0