American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century Read Online Free PDF Page B

No orator, no editorial writer, no essayist could so strongly and effectively present the thoughts conveyed in this picture. It is another demonstration of the force and power of motion pictures as a means of conveying ideas. It is a daring step for the Biograph producers to take.”
     
    This “daring step” had one immediate consequence. D.W. had suggested to Henry Marvin, the president of the Biograph Company, that he be allowed to take the troupe to sunny California to shoot during the winter months. With the success of A Corner in Wheat, the front office agreed. Reservations were booked for the Alexandria Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

FOUR
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    A S D.W. WAS shooting A Corner in Wheat, a new union offensive began in Los Angeles. The opening target was Hamburger’s, the city’s largest department store, with over thirty acres of floor space and two hundred employees. It was also the Times ’s biggest advertiser.
    The union tactics this time were mischievous, not violent. Telephone sales were shipped to homes whose residents insisted they had never placed the orders. Customers strolled through the store and made expensive selections, but after the goods were wrapped, they would inquire, “By the way, you don’t advertise in the Times, do you?” When the salesperson answered yes, they would walk out in an indignant huff, without their packages and without paying.
    Hamburger’s response was inspired. The store announced a sale: “At Extremely Low Prices: A Large Supply of Strictly Non-Union-Made Clothing, Scab Overalls, and Women’s Apparel.” It was a huge success, and the store sent a list of all the names and addresses of the bargain-hunters to the Times. The paper gleefully reported that many of the customers were union men or their wives. A good deal, it observed with malicious relish, was apparently more important than supporting the cause.
    The M&M countered the Hamburger’s boycott with one of their own. Their target was the McCan Mechanical Works, one of the state’s busiest foundries. David McCan, the independent-minded owner, had declared he would hire both union and nonunion men, asking “no questions other than whether the man is competent to do the work.” The M&M decided that such a sentiment was reason enough to ruin him. And with a diligent campaign to persuade McCan’s clients to take their business elsewhere, they came close to succeeding.
     
    With grim inevitability, both sides within months escalated their activities. A new series of strikes rolled out. Carpenters, plumbers, plasterers, laundry workers, brewers—they all walked off. Life in Los Angeles was a nasty, politicized struggle. Then it got worse.
    In the spring of 1910 a determined group of hard-edged San Francisco labor leaders—Olaf A. Tveitmoe, Anton Johannsen, Tom Mooney, and A. J. Gallagher—traveled south. They were the men who had transformed San Francisco into a city where the unions made their demands and employers had little choice but to accept or go out of business. Tveitmoe, called “the Viking,” was as fierce and formidable as his nickname. He was six feet tall, weighed over three hundred pounds, and used a heavy cane to get about. He was also an intellectual, reading Greek, playing the violin, and translating plays from his native Norwegian into English. But above all else he was a dedicated union man, prepared to do whatever was required to help the cause. He arrived in Los Angeles with his associates, as Tveitmoe ominously promised, to give the Labor Council “some backbone.” Their first strategic move was to bring the Structural Iron Workers into the conflict.
     
    The ironworkers were tough men, familiar with danger. Their workday was spent on narrow girders hundreds of feet above the ground. They would not run or back down if attacked by scab armies. The council was certain it could count on them.
    A letter, drafted by the council, was delivered to foundries throughout Los