The remarkable full speech before the judge who would decide his fate from one of our political prisoners that should be better known. Able to elude police for several years despite $25,000 on his head, Matthew Schmidt was arrested in September, 1914 for the Los Angeles Times bombing of 1910 for which the McNamara brothers were serving time. Noted for dignity and selfless defense after his capture, he was deeply respected by his comrades, Sentenced to life for providing the explosives, ‘Schmiddie’ was released after a long campaign in August, 1939 after twenty-five years at San Quentin.

‘Address of Mathew A. Schmidt’ from Mother Earth. Vol. 10 No. 12. February, 1916.

ADDRESS OF MATHEW A. SCHMIDT before his Executioner in the court of Los Angeles, Cal., January 12th, 1916:

“If the Court please, I will avail myself of this opportunity to say a few words—not that anything that I can say will affect this Court, but for the reason that, if this verdict stands, this will in all probability be the last opportunity I ever will have to say anything in public.

“If I shall perchance for a moment travel afield, or in any way diverge from the path, I hope I may be accorded the same courtesy which I have given throughout this trial when matters foreign to the question of my guilt or innocence of this charge were brought into Court; matters which were brought in here to overcloud the issue and to overwhelm the none too well developed minds of the jurors.

“I have very carefully listened here to a recital of detailed violence and dynamiting done throughout the East, and asked myself what could have been the cause for all this trouble.

“I remember that for every effect there is a cause, and I know that very frequently we mistake the harvest for the seed. About one year ago, J.P. Morgan, in testifying before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, was asked if he considered $10 per week enough for a longshoreman’s wage. He replied that he did not know, but he presumed it was if that was all a longshoreman could get and took it.

“If in connection with that we remember that Mr. Morgan is the chairman of the finance committee of the Steel Trust, and if we keep in mind a statement of young McClintock that they would like to run ‘closed shop,’ but if they were to do that they could not get steel, in my opinion, we find the key to the whole difficulty. That was the condition which confronted the Ironworkers at every turn; that was and still is the motive back of the ‘open shop’ policy; that is the spirit which is the origin of the Labor wars; and it is these forces which insist that they must deal with the workers individually, and not collectively. They demand that the workers enter the industrial arena unprotected and disarmed and there meet the trained forces of greed and gold.

“In the industries of this country, more than 35,000 workers are killed and 700,000 injured each year—and all in the name of BUSINESS. Who ever heard of a district attorney attempting to protect these victims or to obtain for them redress, unless perchance the employer happened to be a political enemy?

“If we for the moment grant that all of the explosions recited here were caused by the Ironworkers, what do we find? For every ounce of steel and iron destroyed, I can show you a score of crippled and maimed toilers, and for each broken bolt or rivet, I can show you a dozen lives snuffed out, that dividends and profits might not be disturbed.

“And to whom, pray, could the workers go for redress—to a Woolwine, or to a Noel, or to a Judge Anderson? Not likely. Their sympathy for the sweat that drops from the brows of the toilers is only shown during political campaigns. After election, neither the sweat nor the blood of the toilers can command their attention or assistance.

“Labor has often made the charge that it did not get a square deal in the Courts. The Zeehandelaar letter to the special prosecutor regarding the drawing of the grand jury which indicted me seems to prove this charge.

“Your Honor ruled that such a letter was not material in the case; nor could you well do otherwise. The forces back of my prosecution would have pulled you from this bench and besmirched your name, even as they secured my conviction. Your Honor has before you the example of Altgeld, Tanner, Darrow, Lindsay, and various other men who have had the temerity to insist that Labor get a square deal.

“And this movement toward right and justice has been aided during the last fifty years chiefly by the forces of Organized Labor. Every measure for the welfare of the great majority has had the backing of the Labor movement. I need only call your attention to the fight for the abolition of child labor; better working conditions for women workers; workmen’s compensation for the victims of industry; safety appliance laws, and public ownership of public utilities.

“I want to call your attention to a curious coincidence. The same forces back of the prosecution of my case have opposed at each and every turn each and every measure for the relief of the toilers. They have always been able to buy their Woolwines, Noels and kindred self-made creatures who for a mess of pottage would not only sell their own birthright but the birthright of all the citizens of their country.

“The Mulhall letters which were published recently in the New York World prove my contention.

“I have said that my case was not a case of murder. No one really believes that it is. I want to give you some facts not brought out in the evidence. A few days after I arrived here from New York, Guy Biddinger, formerly a Burns man, came to me and asked me why I did not get in and get some of the reward money. He said: ‘They don’t want you, nor do they want Caplan; they want to hang Tveitmoe and Johannsen, and you can help them, and then you will be free.’ That, in connection with the report that Otis has promised to finance Woolwine’s political campaign provided he secured a conviction, will give you the key to the activities of Woolwine and Noel. That also gives you the reason for all the evidence from across the plains. That also explains the testimony of Phillips, who has always been a scab and union hater ever since he was a boy employed in the foundry of Fox & Jones at Troy, N.Y.—more than forty years ago. That also explains why Donald Vose says, I made a confession of guilt to him. Let me ask you—do you believe Donald Vose? You would not whip your dog on the testimony of a creature like Vose. No honest man would. Any man who would believe Vose would not deserve to have a dog.

“I do not know what happened to the Times building, but I do know that blowing up the Times is not going to help people acquire an ideal. And it is only when the great mass of people realize that life and light and service to our fellow men are the only things that are worth while that such creatures as Otis, Woolwine and Noel will cease to exist.

“And if it should finally come to pass that I must live the remainder of my life behind prison walls, then I shall say with Lovelace:

“Stone walls do not a prison make—
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That as a heritage.’

“I understand the despair and horror that haunt the poor victims of the rotten industrial centers of the East, and I know the sacrifice made by their families and friends that they may bring their shattered lungs and wasted bodies to this land of BALM and BLOSSOM, only to find that they must pay tribute to men who have capitalized their misfortune, and it was almost wholly from this class of vultures that I was compelled to select a jury.

“I feel very deeply the suffering of those who lost their relatives and friends in the Times disaster, and I feel this more keenly than do any of the men back of my prosecution, for I cannot rid my memory of such cases as Ludlow, Colorado, Lawrence, Bayonne, Cour de Alene, and hundreds of other places where the workers have been slaughtered by the vassals of capital.

“If all of this misery and suffering shall hasten the lifting of the curtain of darkness and superstition, so that men and women may be free and that children may not be robbed of their childhood, so that ‘Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men’ may be something more than an empty phrase; then who shall say that the victims of the Times disaster died, or that the men who are colloquially spoken of as the ‘DYNAMITERS’ shall have lived in vain?”

Mother Earth was an anarchist magazine begin in 1906 and first edited by Emma Goldman in New York City. Alexander Berkman, became editor in 1907 after his release from prison until 1915.The journal has a history in the Free Society publication which had moved from San Francisco to New York City. Goldman was again editor in 1915 as the magazine was opposed to US entry into World War One and was closed down as a violator of the Espionage Act in 1917 with Goldman and Berkman, who had begun editing The Blast, being deported in 1919.

PDF of full issue: https://archive.org/download/mother-earth/Mother%20Earth%20v10n12%20%281916-02%29%20%28c2c%20Harvard%29.pdf