held in jail for three years, entirely upon the basis of perjured testimony. Even the trial judge has written that he is satisfied that Tom Mooney is innocent—but still Tom Mooney stays in jail!
I am doing what I can to get this book to the people. I intend to go on doing what I can to that end. Meantime I say to you, my readers, what I said to my wife when I went out to Colorado on behalf of the coal-strikers: "Whatever you read about me, don't worry. If there is any scandal, pay no attention to it, for that is the way they fight in Denver."
That is the way Big Business fights all over America.
The above was written in August. In November I am reading the page proofs of the book, and "Big Business" steps forward to prove me a prophet. A plot is laid against me, so wanton and so utterly without basis of truth that no less than an assassin could have planned it. I escaped—but by a margin so narrow that it is unpleasant to think about it. Literally by a minute or two of time I missed having printed on the front page of every big newspaper in America convincing evidence that I am a secret German conspirator, contriving underhand plots for the undermining of my country! My wife remarks: "I have been watching the radical movement for seven or eight years, and I have heard much about 'frame-ups.' I always thought it was foolish talk, cheap melodrama; but now I know that the 'frame-up' is a real thing, and it has changed my whole view of the class struggle."
I have mentioned on page 399 how I made a speech before the City Club of Los Angeles, exposing the dishonesty of the "Los Angeles Times," whereupon the "Times" opened up a furious attack upon me, demanding that I should be put in jail. I have quoted one sample of its ravings. Every day or so for a week it printed similar abuse, and it continues the attack, both editorially and in its news columns. I have stated publicly in the "Appeal to Reason" that I am collecting evidence against the "Times," and preparing a book exposing it; so the "Times" proclaims me as "the trumpet of Bolshevism," and will be satisfied with nothing short of a life sentence for me.
There is in Los Angeles a returned soldiers' paper, the "Dugout." The editor, Sydney R. Flowers, is an American
