As Americans, we sometimes tend to forget or ignore the past, which leads us to believe that events unfolding around us are new and unique to us now. This is hardly ever the case, as students of history can attest. To give examples: Labor relations and media bias are hotly debated issues today, but they have been controversial in the United States for generations.
So controversial, in fact, that they sometimes turned deadly. In a violent media- and labor-related incident that has been lost to history for many, even those who call Los Angeles home, the Los Angeles Times building was bombed on October 1, 1910.
When the smoke cleared after the powerful explosion, 21 Times employees were dead and 100 were injured.
The early 1900s were a challenging time for organized labor. Professional strikebreakers met unions head-on in violent confrontations across the country. As unions won more and more fights, inside and outside the boardroom, industry moguls fought back as hard as they could.
Much like cable news stations today, newspapers frequently aligned themselves with a political party or a cause. Lines were drawn in the sand, and unions and corporations sided with whatever newspaper painted their organization in the most favorable light. This was the situation the Los Angeles Times found themselves in in 1910.
In 1906, the Iron Workers Union embarked on a campaign of terror. The union had been significantly weakened and driven out of many manufacturing plants in the first years of the new century, and officials believed a dynamite campaign would force companies to negotiate.
It was never the union’s goal to destroy plants or kill people, just a tactic to force negotiations. Union leaders organized and funded hundreds of bombings between 1907 and 1911.Los Angeles fought tooth-and-nail against organized labor, and it was mostly successful. The LA Times‘ publisher, Harrison Gray Otis, was staunchly anti-union, so the Times reflected his views on a daily basis.
Otis’ well-known mantra was, “You’re either with me, or against me.” The Iron Workers Union, it turns out, was against Otis and his newspaper.
By 1910, the Iron Workers Union was one of the few unions in Los Angeles that still…
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