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Sunday December 12, 1915
From The Washington Times: People of Paterson, New Jersey, Praised for Acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

In a section of the Times reserved for editorials on subjects of interests to women, there was expressed in the December 9th edition, high praise for the "law-abiding and law-reverencing good people of Paterson." The topic at hand was the acquittal of Miss Gurley Flynn on charges of inciting to rioting:

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The law-abiding and law-reverencing good people of Paterson are to be congratulated on the acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. They are to be congratulated because the effort of the Paterson police, responsive to suggestions from lawless elements in the community, to substitute Russian for American government has failed. The greatest winner by the verdict is Paterson.

The verdict is important as vindicating free speech, freedom of orderly assemblage, and freedom of orderly and legal organization. It is also important as tending strongly to shift the burden of presumption when lawlessness occurs in connection with industrial disputes. Formerly, when violence occurred during a strike, or bombs exploded, or labor agitators were charged with having incited to riot, the public assumed that the strikers were responsible. But it now appears that in many cases things are not as they seem. Private detective agencies are used and public police forces permit themselves to be used to arrange for crimes.

In Lawrence, it was established in open court that dynamite was planted by employers to discredit the strikers. In Colorado and West Virginia arms were hidden by private guards in the strikers homes and then "found." In Paterson it was deemed necessary for the labor pickets to walk with their hands in their pockets in order to prevent stones for weapons being placed there. The comfortable assumption that such wickedness is impossible can no longer be made. In Paterson members of the police force, in their eagerness to fasten crime on an innocent person did not hesitate to commit perjury.

If legitimate police work is to be effectively done there must be a removal of the general belief that "framing up" has been systematized into a regular industry. The only way to remove this shadow is to give swift and terrible punishment to any employer or police officer who is a party to the practice. Think of the criminal mind a man must have who is willing to father or to enter into a conspiracy to swear away the liberty or the life of an innocent person!

The principles of old-fashioned Americanism, if honestly and sincerely applied, suffice to give us reasonable industrial peace. Men should be in fact as well as in theory equals before the law, with one man's right as sacred as any other man's right. It is as vital to protect Elizabeth Flynn in her right to speak in a lawful manner as it is to protect a silk manufacturer in the lawful enjoyment of his property.

The I. W. W. organization did not come into existence until "bull-pen" government was exemplified-not until men saw that they could not rely on the law for protection. It is not strange that "Bill" Haywood became a direct actionist when he beheld that the mine owners of Colorado had become direct actionists and getting results. The protest of the discontented is not so much against the theory of our institutions, but against the way they are worked.-New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser.

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[Paragraph breaks and photograph of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn added.]

SOURCE
The Washington Times
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Dec 9, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/image/79981188/

IMAGES
Text heading, Washington Times, Dec 9, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/image/79981188/

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Fort Wayne (IN) News of Mar 20, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/image/34702894/

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