The case of the McNamara brothers that shook the Socialist and labor movements, exposing existing divisions and creating new ones. John J. and James B. McNamara were accused of the bombing of the anti-union Los Angeles Times building on October 1, 1910 resulting in at least 20 deaths. At first they pleaded innocent, with luminaries such as Samuel Gompers, Clarence Darrow, and L.A. Socialist Job Herriman defending them, while many in the radical left denounced them as provocateurs–the brothers were fairly conservative, craft union Democrats. With just days to go until an election in which Job Herriman was making a strong run for Los Angeles mayor, the McNamaras changed their plea, admitting their guilt in a campaign of bombings, Many ‘respectable’ leaders abandoned the brothers immediately. John was sentenced to fifteen years; James to life. He would grow politically in prison, becoming a champion of all political prisoners. And prison is where he died, on March 8, 1941.

‘J.B. McNamara–the Oldest Political Prisoner in the World’ by Lawrence Emery from Labor Defender. Vol. 10 No. 5. May, 1934.

“I’ll Get Out When the Workers Come and Take Me Out”

When twenty-three years in one of the worst of the capitalist prisons can’t dim the fighting spirit of a militant son of the working class like Jim McNamara, then you know that the working class itself can’t be whipped. Twenty-three years is a long time; it covers the life-span of most of us youngsters who are learning of the life and struggles of Jim McNamara for the first time. And when we become acquainted with that story, we see this old fighter who will never give up as the embodiment of all the qualities that make the working class itself invincible. Jim is as solid, as steadfast, as unwavering as the working class from which he draws his strength and courage, and because of this, he becomes an inspiration to all of us and is a source of strength and courage himself.

It took guts to do what Jim did. And it takes guts to carry on as he does today, with his head high and with a magnificent contempt for those “labor leaders” who betrayed him for the bosses they serve. He’s able to do it because he has boundless faith in the working class; a burning conviction that the conquest of power by the working class is inevitable.

When Jim fought in the front ranks of the class war twenty-five years ago, he didn’t wear silk gloves. The class struggle raged with an acute fury. America was expanding. Fortunes were piled up overnight. The bosses were swollen with power, mad with greed, ruthless. They rode roughshod over obstacles: “To hell with the workers. Sweat ’em; if they won’t be sweated, shoot ’em…”

Labor was a lusty young giant. It suffered from growing pains. Its vision was not clear, but it was strong in its aspirations, impatient. The workers organized; they came into unions to fight. They wanted a work-day that gave them leisure; a pay-day that gave them comforts. The labor movement was undeveloped–and trade union. leaders were already being bought up in the service of the bosses. There was little theory to light the path of the workers’ struggles; strategy and tactics were crude, fashioned in the white hot battles provoked by a capitalist class growing fat on blood. The workers fought back with the weapons at hand, weapons determined by the historical conditions of the period.

Expanding industry was pushing west, and out on the Pacific Coast the class struggle reached a bursting point with the explosion that wrecked the Los Angeles Times building. Los Angeles was the battlefield on which the war for the open shop centered at the time; and the Los Angeles Times was the mouthpiece for the open-shoppers. That explosion blasted straight into the heart of the class struggle of twenty- five years ago. It was an ultimatum; it was a climax to a distinct period pictures on these pages were taken 23 in the history of the American labor movement.

The working class and the bosses both girded for the fight that was to center around the murder trials of Jim McNamara and his brother, trials that were to last for a year. The outcome of those trials would determine the course of the labor movement for years to come, and both sides knew it.

It looked as though the working class would win. Clarence Darrow, fresh from the celebrated victory in the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone frame-up in Idaho, was engaged as the trial lawyer. The whole trade union movement backed the defense, and a fighting fund of over $200,000 was raised and spent before the trials were over. The Socialist Party ran their candidate for Mayor in Los Angeles, and on the background of the McNamara case, it promised to be a landslide. It was the greatest defense movement ever waged in the United States. The lusty young giant Labor was showing its strength, and it looked pretty strong indeed. But the working class was beset by enemies from within, as well as from without.

The bosses, too, were strong. They began to put pressure on J.B. McNamara. They bought off one of Jim’s closest co-workers, who became a witness for the state; they bought one of Darrow’s confidential investigators, arrested Darrow and charged him with bribing jurors (he was later freed from the charges); labor “leader” after labor “leader” came to Jim, coaxed, begged, cajoled, threatened they wanted him to plead guilty, to “save the labor movement.” Everyone told Jim the game was up. Even his mother was prevailed upon to plead with him.

Jim told them all to go to hell. He’d fight through to the end; and he knew the workers would be with him.

The pressure on him was increased. Labor “leaders” were getting panicky; they were seeing now very clearly, more clearly than before, how things were lining up, and they were ready to play the bosses’ game; the bosses’ cash felt good in their pocket, and the bosses’ esteem swelled their pride.

But Jim still believed in them, retained his faith, he still thought they were for the working class.

Finally they convinced him. They made him believe that it was in the best interests of the labor movement for him to plead guilty–all would be lost otherwise.

When they made Jim believe that by sticking his head into a noose, he was serving the working class, he didn’t hesitate a moment. He was ready to give his life for his class. He changed his plea to guilty.

It was a mistake. But it wasn’t Jim’s mistake. He was honest and fearless, and true. He was a man, surrounded by cowards and traitors and scoundrels–labor “leaders” who led the working class to the hang-man’s noose.

The guilty plea was the second explosion in the Times case. From Sam Gompers down, the “leaders” began to howl for blood. The workers were confused, bewildered. The defense movement collapsed. The Socialist election campaign in Los Angeles, on the eve of elections, with victory assured, burst like a pricked bubble. The open shoppers had won–they had bought their victory, and one of the finest fighters ever produced by the working class was ready to march to his death because he had been betrayed.

Today Jim McNamara has spent more time in prison than any other political prisoner in the world. And his case has been neglected long enough. The working class must at once come to his defense, must at once build up a powerful movement for his freedom, exposing the betrayals and the ruling class viciousness which has taken the life of one of our best and most loyal fighters.

Jim McNamara belongs to the working class. He must be returned to its fighting ranks.

Labor Defender was published monthly from 1926 until 1937 by the International Labor Defense (ILD), a Workers Party of America, and later Communist Party-led, non-partisan defense organization founded by James Cannon and William Haywood while in Moscow, 1925 to support prisoners of the class war, victims of racism and imperialism, and the struggle against fascism. It included, poetry, letters from prisoners, and was heavily illustrated with photos, images, and cartoons. Labor Defender was the central organ of the Scottsboro and Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaigns. Editors included T. J. O’ Flaherty, Max Shactman, Karl Reeve, J. Louis Engdahl, William L. Patterson, Sasha Small, and Sender Garlin.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n05-may-1934-orig-LD.pdf