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Sydney's Burning
The real conspiracy
By Ian Turner
There is no doubt that some members of the IWW were
incendiarists or
would-be incendiarists. Tom Barker says as much in his recently
published reminiscences:
warehouses and big places did go up in fire. It was very
easy for anyone who got in with the stuff. After all, there was nothing
new about fire-dope. It was just a mixture of phosphorus and calcium
[sic] bi-sulphide. It was a well-known method of making fire, wrapping
these components together in a wet rag and then, by and by, when it
dried out, the phosphorus set up spontaneous combustion. There was no
secret about it. It had a long history behind it in Ireland, where they
called it "Fenian fire". It had been used in Australia by shearers over
many generations to get rid of faulty accommodation.[1]
If the owner wouldn't put in decent buildings and sleeping quarters,
when the boys left to go onto the next station they took some of this
stuff, rolled it up in wet newspaper or cloth, and about two days after
they had gone something happened. When they came back next year there
were brand new buildings waiting for them. That was a method of
cajoling the cocky into doing what the law required him to do.
We had many little groups amongst us who were doing various
things,
and those things were deadly secret and they kept them to themselves,
so that you might be God Almighty in the organisation, but you wouldn't
know half a dozen things that were going on. There was a chemist,
Scully, who ratted on the IWW, who made the mixture. Others, there was
no doubt at all about it, had some knowledge of it.
This was known to the labour movement at the time. The
People,
the paper of the Socialist Labor Party, wrote on December 14, 1916,
immediately after the conviction of the Twelve: "Once more the tactics
of the Chicago faction of the IWW has led the members of the working
class to jail." Yet the labour movement came to the defence of the
Twelve — at first only a minority, but gradually the defence campaign
came to embrace the whole movement.
It was partly the belief that, as the People said,
"Even
admitting that these men were guilty of the act of which they were
convicted, the penalties imposed were out of all proportion to the
deeds alleged to be committed ... It was partly that the labour
movement believed that the Twelve had been prejudged by "certain
sections of the Public, Press, Pulpit, and especially Politicians", and
crucified by war hysteria and the propaganda needs of the conscription
campaign.
And it was partly the belief that the case against the Twelve
was a frame.
Of this last, there can be little doubt. But how was the frame
accomplished? And precisely who was framed?
Firstly, who was framed? In one sense every one of the Twelve,
for,
as Henry Boote wrote: "the evidence on which these men were convicted
was rotten through and through". But some of them were involved in
incendiarism, or at least in preparation for incendiarism.
If we take the confessions of Scully and Davis Goldstein to
Judd as
bearing some relation to the truth, this is the picture: Grant:
exonerated by Scully and Goldstein. Larkin: exonerated by Scully and
Goldstein. King: exonerated by Scully and Goldstein. Moore: exonerated
by Scully and Goldstein. Reeve: exonerated by Scully and Goldstein.
Besant: exonerated by Scully and Goldstein. McPherson exonerated by
Goldstein. Beatty: exonerated by Goldstein. Glynn: exonerated by
Scully. Fagin: incriminated by Scully. Teen: incriminated by Scully.
Hamilton: incriminated by Scully.
(Goldstein's statutory declaration named only those whom he
believed
to be "absolutely innocent of the crimes upon which they are
convicted". The presumption was that he believed the others — that is,
Fagin, Teen, Hamilton, and Glynn, against all of whom he had given
evidence — to be guilty. Scully's statement to Mutch and Connolly
exonerated the six listed above and incriminated Fagin, Teen, Hamilton,
Besant, and "Morgan [probably Mahony], and the others". However, Besant
was included in Scully's list of those who "did it" in error, as Scully
later pointed out; it is probable that the name should be Beatty,
against whom he did give evidence. Whether Scully's "others" was meant
to include McPherson is unexplained, but it seems unlikely, in view of
his comments about the way in which the evidence against McPherson was
rigged.)
That leaves a hard core of Fagin, Teen, and Hamilton, and the
possibility of some degree of participation or knowledge on the part of
Beatty, Glynn and McPherson. The others are definitely out. And now we
are getting closer to the truth.
How was the frame-up organised? I believe what happened was
this.
Detective Moore was the police expert on subversive activities. In
July, he hired Joe Brown to spy on the IWW for him; early in August,
Brown reported talk of arson in IWW circles. About August 21, Detective
Fergusson was assigned to assist Moore — Moore said "in inquiries about
the IWW"; Fergusson said "on military inquiries and German inquiries",
and denied that he was investigating "fires or anything like that".
Despite Fergusson's disclaimer, it seems likely that Moore
told him
about the whispers reported by Joe Brown. Fergusson thought of his
friend, Mac McAlister, whom he knew to be a wharfie of strong left-wing
sympathies (although he denied that he knew McAlister to be an IWW
sympathiser). Fergusson asked McAlister for information; McAlister said
that there were rumours around the waterfront about IWW incendiarism;
Fergusson asked for more — and perhaps at this point offered to put
McAlister on the payroll as an informer. McAlister was already on the
IWW rolls, although he was unfinancial; but he was not a particularly
active member, and was certainly not a trusted member of the inner
circle. However, he liked grog and money, and, in Scully's phrase, he
was "tired of hard work". He fell in with Fergusson's proposal.
McAlister obliged with a story about a mysterious Russian
named
"Androvitch" who was allegedly the source of supply for fire-dope.
("Androvitch" was never found, and probably never seen, despite the
police stories about hunting for him night and day.)
McAlister may also have said at this time, as he and the
police
claimed, that a man named "Andrew" had first promised him, and then
supplied him with, some fire-dope. But this cannot be taken as
established. So far as I can discover, there is no documentary evidence
for the existence of "Andrew" before September 17; nor is there any
document to establish the existence of the bottle of fire-dope which
McAlister was said to have received from "Andrew" on September 4 before
the Government Analyst's report of September 21. Unfortunately, as
discussed earlier, all the documents which might have provided
contemporary support for these vital pieces of evidence had been lost.
Whatever the truth of this, the police certainly wanted more
evidence, and McAlister set out to provide it. He produced the story of
the drawing of lots, which introduced the fictitious character of
Mahony. The police said that he gave them this story on September 7,
but once again there was no independent documentary evidence for this —
it was missing. However, the police provided confirmatory evidence with
Detective Leary's story of shadowing McAlister and Tom Moore away from
the IWW rooms on September 7, and overhearing Moore say to McAlister
that "twelve of the bastards must be let go together". This story was
concocted by McAlister and the police. There is absolutely no evidence
to connect any one of the Twelve — or indeed anyone else `51; with any
of the twelve unsuccessful fires which occurred between September 8 and
12. It seems unlikely that the successful fires of June, July and
August and these unsuccessful attempts could all have been the work of
the same men, for why should the arsonists have lost their skill? What
then had happened?
The fact that, of all the business premises in Sydney, the
police
warned only four of the danger of arson, and that of these two were the
scenes of unsuccessful fires, suggests that this whole series may have
been a police provocation, designed to bolster a case that was still
lacking in substance. However, Mr Shand argued persuasively before Mr
Justice Street that this would have involved a grave risk of serious
fires, and provocation could therefore not be considered.
The evidence of Harry Scully suggested another explanation. He
claimed that Joe Fagin had told him that fifty or more lots of
fire-dope had been distributed among trusted members of the IWW on
Sunday, September 3. It is possible that this was a defective batch of
dope, and that the dope so distributed was planted without effect on
various premises the following weekend. (It is also possible that
McAlister's concoction about “Androvitch”, and perhaps “Andrew”, was
designed to provide an acceptable explanation for a bottle of fire-dope
which he had acquired with guilty intent on September 3.)
However this may have been, the forgery case gave the police
their first real lever.
Davis Goldstein financed the forgeries and the police had
evidence
of this. He had been an official of the IWW and was still a supporter;
he was well known to and trusted by the leading members of the
organisation. His brother Louis was not a Wobbly, but could be used to
put pressure on Davis. The police let it be known that a deal was
possible. Louis cracked easily; he was ready to give evidence, but knew
nothing. However, he persuaded his reluctant brother to talk. Davis
provided the first solid evidence of incendiarism: he acquired a bottle
of fire-dope from Jack Hamilton. (In order to strengthen his evidence
on this, the police later concocted a story that Hamilton had handed
the dope over in the street.)
By now, the conscription campaign was well under way. The
Prime
Minister had been informed of what was going on (that is, that arson
was suspected, not that a frame-up was being prepared), and was
pressing for quick action. So was the New South Wales Government.[2]
The turning point seems to have been September 20, the day on which
McAlister finally agreed that he would give evidence. It was on this
day that McAlister's evidence was tidied up — and perhaps “Andrew” was
created, although the Crown Solicitor still had “Andrew” and
“Androvitch” confused two days later.[3]
On the next day, September 21, the police sent the McAlister-“Andrew”
dope (which allegedly had been in their hands since September 5) and
the Goldstein-Hamilton dope (which they had received on September 15)
to the Government Analyst.
On the following day, the Crown Solicitor drew a warrant for
the
arrest of Hamilton (the only one against whom there was any strong
evidence — but Davis Goldstein had not yet agreed to become a witness),
Glynn (accused by Goldstein of confessing IWW responsibility), Moore
(framed by McAlister), Larkin, Reeve and Grant (included presumably
because they were prominent members of the organisation; the police
evidence of demonstrations of fire-setting by Larkin and Reeve was
concocted, and there was no other serious evidence against them);
Morgan (no-one had ever named him as an arsonist; he was presumably in
as a bail-jumper); and — for good measure — the fictitious Androvitch
and Mahony (although not “Andrew”). The IWW rooms were raided the next
day, and Glynn, Reeve, Larkin and Hamilton were arrested. Among the
papers seized were the membership lists and the incriminating letters
which Reeve had written to Morgan in 1915. McPherson was arrested on an
entirely different charge, and Besant because there was some cotton
waste about in the print-shop where he was working.[4]
Moore and Grant were picked up some days later. The cotton
waste
allegedly found in Moore's box is of doubtful validity; it may well
have been planted. Grant was arrested in Broken Hill; the indictment
suggests that the police hoped to tax him with the burning of some
wheat stacks.
On the same day that this warrant was issued, Davis Goldstein
provided the police with their second strong piece of evidence: Fagin's
admission that he was involved in the fires, and that Scully had been
supplying the chemicals.
Davis and Louis both reported admissions by Teen; Davis'
evidence
may have been in part true, but there is grave doubt about Louis.
With Scully on the hook, the frame was almost complete. Scully
was
vulnerable because he was an accomplice in arson. He learned from his
employer, Cole, that he was under observation, and he decided to turn
King's evidence. At the same time he warned Fagin of the danger they
were in and tried to recover the phosphorus he had supplied to Fagin.
The police picked him up on the morning of September 30, and he made a
statement implicating Hamilton, Fagin, Teen and Beatty. (The police
were already getting ready to move against Fagin and Teen: now they had
a warrant issued for these two, and added Beatty.) But the case still
needed expanding. An unidentified person was instructed to plant some
fire-dope on Teen and Davis Goldstein was instructed to lead Teen to a
spot where he could be arrested.[5]
And someone was instructed to plant some dope in Fagin's gladstone bag.[6] The dope was
planted, the arrests were made, and the case was complete.
The conscription campaign was moving towards its climax, and
it was
important to get the case into court so as to secure the maximum
propaganda effect. McAlister and Scully had already agreed to give
evidence, but the Goldsteins were holding out. Louis Goldstein had been
discharged on the forgery charge at the preliminary hearing, but Davis
was still in jeopardy. Louis was demanding that the Crown should
withdraw the proceedings against Davis, too, but the Crown wanted their
evidence first. Finally Goldstein gave in several days after the
preliminary hearing opened. The Crown rewarded him with a nolle
prosequi.
In gaol, while the trial was on, Jack Hamilton blamed himself
for
the plight of his fellow workers. He offered to confess and take the
whole responsibility. But solidarity triumphed, and the other men
refused.
It was a good frame. The conscriptionists got their propaganda
triumph (but they did not win their referendum). The Crown got its
conviction. The prisoners got their five to fifteen years.
It was a good frame — too good for the defence to crack — and
it
would have stuck but for the consciences of Scully and Davis Goldstein.
Neither was happy about his part in the affair. Scully had a grievance
over the distribution of the reward. Goldstein had a grievance over
Morgan's bail and his failure in the Wyong pub.
Ernie Judd had been appointed by the New South Wales Labor
Council
to investigate the whole affair; when be approached Scully, Scully
opened up. The case had been framed, and six at least of the Twelve
were innocent. From there, Judd went to Davis Goldstein, who said that
eight of the Twelve were innocent and provided more details of the
frame.
Scully had also told Judd that his friend Detective Surridge
was
prepared to talk, and Judd actually interviewed Surridge (though
without result). It may have been from Surridge that the police learned
what was afoot, or they may have had Judd under observation.
They did a deal with Scully, and smuggled him out of the
country.
But Judd got wind of this, and spilled the story through Brookfield, in
the New South Wales Parliament. The Government was caught flat-footed,
and agreed to the Opposition demand for an inquiry, but limited its
terms to the allegations against the police. They arranged for Scully
to be brought back from San Francisco to Sydney.
Meanwhile, the police commissioned Louis Goldstein to find out
what
his brother was up to. Louis reported that Davis, too, had “sung” to
Judd. So Detective Pauling went to work on Davis and, at the last
minute, convinced him that he would have to recant. The impression one
gets of Davis Goldstein is that he was afraid of the police, and it is
likely that he was threatened with a charge of perjury if he did not
repudiate his confession. However this may have been, the police
pressure was successful. Before the Street Commission, Davis Goldstein
repudiated every part of his confession, and swore that he had
concocted it out of malice against the detectives and a desire for
revenge. Similarly with Scully — just how and when the detectives
prevailed upon him on his return from San Francisco is unknown, but
they succeeded. He did not repudiate his confession completely but he
qualified it almost out of existence.
Mr Justice Street found himself quite unable to believe that
the
police would frame a case — or even that they would embroider a good
case to make it better. He ruled out completely the confessions of
Scully and Davis Goldstein, and side-stepped all the other evidence of
police corruption that the defence had so painstakingly amassed. The
frame stood. Of the Twelve, three, perhaps four, had been involved in
arson or preparations for arson (although the Crown case against the
Twelve was largely faked and bore little resemblance to anything that
these three or four had done); the other eight or nine had certainly
not been involved and probably had no knowledge of what their
fellow-workers had been planning and doing. But all twelve remained in
gaol.
There is little more to tell. Davis Goldstein had left
Australia
before the Ewing Commission; after it, Louis Goldstein dropped quietly
(and one imagines gratefully) out of sight. Harry Scully resisted
further police pressure to leave the country, and finally succeeded in
finding another job as a chemist; he died of meningitis two months
before Charlie Reeve was freed. Henry Boote lived a long and honourable
life as poet, labour journalist and radical propagandist; he died some
years after the Second World War.
The dogmas which had hobbled Ernie Judd as a leader of the
Socialist
Labor Party, in the days before he was swept up in the great mass
campaigns for the One Big Union and the Release of the Twelve, returned
in even greater strength; he ended his days as a cantankerous stump
orator, preaching the truths of De Leonism to a dwindling handful of
the converted. Tom Mutch late in life became interested in history and
genealogy; unfortunately, his papers in the Mitchell Library contain
few reminders of the days when his world was wide. Jock Garden became a
leading propagandist for Jack Lang in the hectic years of the
depression and the "Lang Plan"; later, he was discreditably involved
(when acting as secretary to a Federal Labor Minister) in a scandal
involving timber leases in New Guinea. Tom Barker worked for some time
for various Soviet agencies; eventually he settled in London. After
World War II he became a Labour councillor in the borough of St Pancras
(and, aged 77, still was at the time of writing). He was the only Lord
Mayor to refuse to wear the mayoral robes, and on one occasion
scandalised the Labor Party by flying the Red Flag over the St Pancras
Town Hall. On the morning of March 22, 1921, while King and Reeve were
still in gaol, Jack Brookfield stepped off the Broken Hill express at
Riverton, where the train had stopped for breakfast. A Russian named
Tomayev ran amok on the platform and fired off forty-one shots from a
revolver, scattering the crowd. Brookfield and a police constable
rushed Tomayev; Brookfield got two bullets in the stomach, and died
that evening in Adelaide hospital. Tomayev later said — probably
falsely — that he had been paid £100 to kill Brookfield. The poet
Mary
Gilmore wrote:
Tell it abroad, tell it abroad,
Tell it by chapel and steeple,
How, in the height of his manly prime,
Brookfield died for the people.
Of the Twelve, most had had their fill of notoriety, and were
happy
to abandon public life. They once more became workers, and probably
active unionists, but they left no further mark on the history of
Australian labour. There were three exceptions. A Communist Party was
formed in Australia in October 1920, three months after the first ten
of the IWW men were freed. Jock Garden was a leading member. The
Communist International at the time was seeking to draw the syndicalist
revolutionaries of the IWW into its ranks. Tom Glynn and J.B. King
became Communists, and Glynn the first editor of the party's paper. But
the ideological differences were too great; a year later, Glynn and
King broke with the Communists, formed the Industrial Union Propaganda
League, and began to republish Direct Action. A temporary
rapprochement followed a “unity conference” at which the Communists
agreed to recognise the IUPL as the Australian section of the Red
International of Labor Unions, a Comintern affiliate. But this did not
last either, and Glynn and King finally broke with the Communist Party
in March 1922. Their syndicalist venture did not prosper. King worked
for a time in Russia, but returned disillusioned with the failure of
the Bolsheviks to realise their earlier slogan of "industry to the
toilers who work therein".
Donald Grant, too, threw himself into revolutionary politics.
Three
weeks after his release from gaol, he was back on the Sydney Domain,
preaching with all his old fire that he "hoped before long to establish
a big organisation of rebels in the country, an organisation that would
revolutionise the present social system”. He said Mr Justice Pring, Mr
Lamb and others were true to their class but the workers were not. ...
“A class war would have to be fought the world over, and it would have
to be fought to the bitter end, even if the streets of the cities of
the world were drenched with the blood of the workers".
He continued to agitate for the revolution for some years, but
finally he made his peace with parliamentary politics, and became a
Labor Senator. The last of the Twelve, Donald Grant, at the time of
writing was living in quiet retirement in Sydney. There was still the
clear blue gaze into the future, the Scots burr and the fiery turn of
phrase, the pride of bearing — that made him a hero of his time, but
his voice was no longer raised.[7]
What made the men who played their parts in these
extraordinary events — the police and the Wobblies — act as they did?
It is almost impossible to dig through a pile of police
documents to
the minds of the individual men behind them. Policemen are trained to
report in formal officialese, and there is little in the police reports
of anything else. In the IWW files, those reports which concerned
political activities showed little sense of discrimination about the
finer distinctions of political ideas and organisations. There were
only the broad divisions — the conservatives, who were beyond
observation and above suspicion, for it was only change which was
suspicious; the Labor Party, whose public propagandist activities
sometimes came under police survey and some of whose members might fall
into the category of “doubtfuls”; and the radicals and revolutionaries,
who were one big bundle of sinister and dangerous elements who must be
watched. The reports lacked human understanding, they were not
concerned with situations or motives, but with acts.
None had the slightest touch of humour; they were all deadpan.[8]
What then does emerge from these files? A conservatism that was quick
to suspect radical agitation and anti-“patriotism”, and to associate
these with moral turpitude and crime. A moralism that was quick to
denounce criminality in conventionally loaded phrases. It is no wonder
that the police were alarmed and affronted by the IWW.
How did this conservatism and moralism get along with the
corruption
and malpractice which undoubtedly existed in the force? Once again,
there are no direct clues. One must assume that many members of the
force applied a double standard — that they thought of themselves not
only as law-enforcers for the community at large, but as law-makers for
themselves. For even when they were clearly in the wrong they showed no
sign of recognising it. And, with a strong sense of solidarity, when
one was accused his fellows covered up.
Perhaps this came from a sense of embattlement, of the
law-enforcers
in continuous war with those who break the law. War is a dirty
business: the opponent respects no rules; so he must be fought with his
own weapons. If he is guilty, then he must pay — even if his guilt
cannot be established by untainted evidence. And if a crime has been
committed, but no guilt can be established, then someone must pay.
There is a potential criminal for every crime. The preservation of
society demands no less. The police are forced by their situation to do
wrong that right may come.
Nevertheless, to frame a complicated case demands careful
thought
and meticulous planning. This is not something that can be done every
day — it must be kept for important occasions, as was the trial of the
IWW Twelve. Here personal distaste and political environment combined
to encourage the police to act. The hope of personal gain was probably
not a major motive; rather this was seen as a job that, in the
situation, had to be done.
Between the police force and those who supervised and directed
their
work in the Government and those who judged it from the bench, there
was a complex relation. It was the job of the police to do what they
had to do and then conceal it; it was the job of their political and
judicial superiors to pretend that this was not done. But this was an
unacknowledged agreement. Law enforcement is based on violence; it
almost necessarily involves malpractice; and many of those who take
part in it are touched by corruption. Yet none of this can be admitted
by Government or Bench, because to do so would be to undermine an
institution on which the power of judges and politicians depends.
Between the police and the Wobblies, there was that strange
love-hate relationship of which Dostoyevsky wrote. They were in such
close contact, they knew one another so well, each side was preoccupied
with the other's plans and motives and actions: this very intimacy made
hate impossible. Yet they started from opposite premises, they served
different gods. And so there was a nexus between them which could not
be dissolved, for there is nothing more central to thought and emotion
than one's closest enemies. Each man destroys those whom he loves — and
loves those whom he must destroy.
What of the Wobblies? Like the police, they were their own
law-makers, but from more clearly defined premises. For the
revolutionary, society is something that is external to him, operating
against him in an oppressive and exploitative way. The law has no
sanctity in its own right; it is not divinely ordained, and anything
that is made by man may be unmade. Yet most revolutionaries live within
the law — perhaps because they fear the personal consequences; perhaps
because they accept that even an unjust society is better that no
society at all, and that change must come by persuasion rather than
personal defiance.
But some do not, and among these were the Wobblies. They made
contempt for the law a way of life; for them, this kind of direct
action was the essence of revolutionary behaviour. Yet it was still a
long step from striking, or speaking from a street corner soapbox or
selling newspapers in defiance of the law, to the physical destruction
of property or life.
What makes a man a nihilist? — for there was a handful of
nihilists
in Australia. Anger, impatience, lack of faith — whatever it is, it
bites deep into men's souls, and leads them to destroy the symbols of
injustice they see around them, believing that by destroying the
symbols they are destroying injustice itself.
Yet they were not ordinary criminals. They destroyed not for
themselves but for all men, not for greed or spite but for a dream.
That is why men came to their defence — even men who knew that they
were wrong — for beneath their error and their destruction were human
hearts. The tragedy of the Australian nihilists was that what they
finally destroyed was themselves and the cause they sought to advance.
The Wobblies harboured this element of nihilism because they
were a
loosely disciplined organisation with an undeveloped ideology, because
they repudiated the law in theory and could not see why it should be
respected in practice, because the syndicalist Utopia they preached had
much in common with anarchism, and because the “propaganda of the deed”
has always been one part of anarchism.
The Wobblies had been born of violence — the naked, brutal
violence
of the war of the American classes. They had lived under the torment of
injustice and bitter hate. And a few of them had come to live by
violence and hate. But their movement was much more than this, and
although it was as abhorrent to respectable trade union leaders and
Labor politicians as to employers and conservatives, it was enormously
attractive to many. Its members had a courage, a dedication, and a
humour that were rare in the labour movement. Its promise of a future
in which working men ended their exploitation and alienation by taking
to themselves the industries they worked, and deciding among themselves
the distribution of their product, gave hope to many minds and hearts.
So that when entrenched conservatism and the whole power of the State
sought to crush this movement by assimilating it to the actions and
plans of its tiny nihilist minority, there were tens of thousands who
came to its defence. Conservatism, by over-reaching itself, succeeded
in doing what nihilism was unable to do — to convert criminality into
the class war; for what radical spirit could resist the cry from the
depths of a movement whose members sang as if they meant it:
When the Union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall
run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?
But the Union makes us strong.
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left for us but to organise and fight?
For the Union makes us strong.
They have taken untold millions that have never toiled to earn
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn,
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the Union makes us strong.
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand fold,
We can bring to birth the new world from the ashes of the old,
For the Union makes us strong.
Notes:
1. The ingredients were common enough in
the
bush: phosphorus was used for poisoning rabbits, and carbon bi-sulphide
in tanning hides. As evidence that the tactic of incendiarism was not
unknown in the bush, compare this couplet from a bushranger ballad of
the 1880s: "If poor Dan Morgan is cold in the clay, He has two friends
called Bryant and May"; and this description of "the present social
system of pastoral Australia", from Joseph Furphy’s Rigby's Romance:
"a patriarchal despotism, tempered by Bryant and May".
2. There is some-though not very
satisfactory-evidence for this. Demanding an inquiry in Parliament in
July 1918, T.D. Mulch said: “The trials were hurried on; and I ask that
the Royal Commission shall ... ferret out the telegrams which passed
between the State Crown Law Department and the Federal
Attorney-General's Department with a view to bringing on these trials
at an earlier period than would otherwise be the case. ... we want
produced the telegram that Mr Hughes sent, and the telegram which, I
understand, the Attorney-General sent.” The Attorney-General denied any
such exchange. Mutch retorted: “I have it on the authority of a man who
is in a public office. ... I am informed that telegrams did pass
between Sydney and Melbourne.”
And Davis Goldstein, in his statutory declaration of July 18,
1918,
said that, when he had expressed doubts about the wisdom of the
projected raid on the IWW headquarters on September 23, 1916, “Turbet
... replied that instructions, coupled with requests from Melbourne,
were to the effect that the raid was to take place immediately and that
"something must be done".
I did not discover any such exchanges or instructions in the
New
South Wales files I examined; this, however, does not prove
conclusively that no exchanges took place. Goldstein denied that Turbet
had told him about any instructions coming from the Commonwealth
Government; however Mr Boyce, Goldstein's counsel, recalled that at one
conference — probably on September 25 — Goldstein had complained “that
the police bad acted too quickly; that if they could have waited a
little longer they would have bagged the lot”.
The Prime Minister's interest might perhaps be established by
an
entry in Detective Leary's diary for October 1: “Interviewing the Prime
Minister who was desirous of communicating with the Inspector-General
of Police”. Leary said in evidence that his visit to the Prime Minister
had nothing to do with the IWW case — but it was recorded in his
notebook in the middle of the pages dealing with the case.
3. The fact that the first mention of the
name
“Andrew” seems to have appeared in some of the detectives' diaries a
couple of days before this does not necessarily invalidate the
suggestion — all the detectives agreed that they often wrote up their
diaries days after the event. On the other hand, “Andrew” was first
mentioned in Fergusson's diary on this day.
4. Besant was suspected of participation in
the
forgeries. Perhaps he was picked up because the police had been unable
to make this stick.
5. This could have been done by Davis
Goldstein, Tom Pope, or one of the police.
6. This could have been done by Tom Pope or
one
of the police. (I should make it clear that I am not accusing Pope of
framing Teen or Fagin; I am merely stating that, on the face of the
evidence, it was a possibility which bore investigation. To the
contrary, Pope's demeanour before Mr Justice Street was that of a
genuine members of the IWW, and it was he who took responsibility for
supplying the prisoners with their meals while they were awaiting
trial.)
7. After this was written, I learned from
Messrs
W. Sutton and J. Harris of the Queensland branch of the Labor History
Society that Bill Beatty was also alive and living in Brisbane. Messrs
Sutton and Harris recorded Bill Beatty's reminiscences; these appear in
Labour History, November 1967, but add little to this
record.
8. Almost the only exception was a side
comment in Detective Leary's notebook, dated October 9, 1916: “Good
stuff for a novel.”
From Sydney's Burning (Alpha Books, Sydney, 1969)
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