Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: BALZER ON JANUARY 12, 1916, in a Los Angeles courtroom, accused dynamiter and avowed anarchist, Matthew Schmidt, took the stand to address the court.On trial for murder and conspiracy in the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times Building in which 20 people died, Schmidt had eluded capture for four years despite thousands of wanted posters and offers of massive rewards.Now the evidence was in, the jury about to go out for deliberation.Schmidt stood up to speak.In the audience sat the prosecution's chief witness against him, the man who had befriended him only to turn him in to authorities: Donald Vose from the anarchist community of Home Colony, Washington.Witty, articulate and self-assured, Schmidt began slowly, delivering an impassioned appeal on behalf of the oppressed workingmen of America.Then, his voice full of scorn, he turned to the jury."Let me ask you-do you believe Donald Vose?You would not whip your dog on the testimony of a creature like Vose.No honest man would.Any man who would believe Vose would not deserve to have a dog." 1 The object of this outburst, a pale, wirey young man known to the jury as Donald Meserve, would be called much worse in the months and years ahead by his former associates.He was a "rat," a "cur," a "stool pigeon," a "liar, traitor, spy," a "Judas Iscariot."The son of an anarchist, raised among radicals at the famous anarchist community of Home Colony, he had been imbued since infancy with the teachings of his elders in the movement.Now he had committed the unforgivable.In betraying Anitra Balzer is a writer and historian living in Albany, California.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the first annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Chapter of the National Historic Communal Societies Association at Halcyon, California, in May 1988, and is part of a larger research project on the anarchist connection with the Los Angeles Times bombing of 1910.
Source: Communal Societies
Author: Anitra Balzer
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7128790465
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