Editing Clarence Darrow (section)

===From corporate lawyer to labor lawyer===

Darrow soon became one of America's leading labor attorneys. He helped organize the [[People's Party (United States)|Populist Party]] in Illinois and then ran for U.S. Congress as a Democrat in 1895 but lost to [[Hugh R. Belknap]]. In 1897, his marriage to Jessie Ohl ended in divorce. He joined the [[American Anti-Imperialist League|Anti-Imperialist League]] in 1898 in opposition to the [[Governor-General of the Philippines#United States Military Government (1898–1901)|U.S. annexation of the Philippines]]. He represented the woodworkers of Wisconsin in a notable case in Oshkosh in 1898 and the [[United Mine Workers of America|United Mine Workers]] in Pennsylvania in the [[coal strike of 1902|great anthracite coal strike of 1902]]. He flirted with the idea of running for mayor of Chicago in 1903 but ultimately decided against it. The following year, in July, Darrow married Ruby Hammerstrom, a young Chicago journalist.<ref>Passport application, accessed through familysearch.org</ref> His former mentor, Governor [[John Peter Altgeld]], joined Darrow's firm following his Chicago mayoral electoral defeat in 1899 and worked with Darrow until his death in 1902.<ref name="Stone 1919">{{Cite book |last=Stone |first=Irving |url=http://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.462663 |title=Darrow For The Defence |date=1919}}</ref> From 1903 to 1911, Darrow was partners in the firm of Darrow, Masters and Wilson with [[Edgar Lee Masters]], who later became a famous poet, and [[Francis S. Wilson]], who later served as Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Association |first=American Bar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C_SGU6gJEgIC&dq=%22darrow%2C+masters+and+wilson%22&pg=PA1084 |title=ABA Journal |date=July 1979 |publisher=American Bar Association }}</ref><ref name="Stone 1919"/>

[[File:ClarenceDarrow1902.PNG|thumb|Clarence Darrow in 1902<ref>{{cite web|last1=Donovan|first1=Henry|title=Chicago Eagle|url=http://idnc.library.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/illinois?a=d&d=CHE19021220&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------#|website=Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections|access-date=July 2, 2015}}</ref>]]
From 1906 to 1908, Darrow represented the [[Western Federation of Miners]] leaders [[William "Big Bill" Haywood]], [[Charles Moyer]], and [[George Pettibone]] when they were arrested and charged with conspiring to murder former Idaho Governor [[Frank Steunenberg]] in 1905. Haywood and Pettibone were acquitted in separate trials, and the charges against Moyer were then dropped.{{citation needed|date = July 2021}}

In 1911, the [[American Federation of Labor]] (AFL) called on Darrow to defend the [[McNamara brothers]], John and James, who were charged in the [[Los Angeles Times bombing|''Los Angeles Times'' bombing]] on October 1, 1910, during the bitter struggle over the [[open shop]] in Southern California. The bomb had been placed in an alley behind the building, and although the explosion itself did not bring the building down, it ignited nearby ink barrels and natural gas main lines. In the ensuing fire, 20 people were killed. The AFL appealed to local, state, regional and national unions to donate 25 cents per capita to the defense fund, and set up defense committees in larger cities throughout the nation to accept donations.{{citation needed|date = July 2021}}

In the weeks before the jury was seated, Darrow became increasingly concerned about the outcome of the trial and began negotiations for a plea bargain to spare the defendants' lives. During the weekend of November 19–20, 1911, he discussed with pro-labor journalist [[Lincoln Steffens]] and newspaper publisher [[E.W. Scripps]] the possibility of reaching out to the ''Times'' about the terms of a plea agreement. The prosecution had demands of its own, however, including an admission of guilt in open court and longer sentences than the defense proposed.<ref name="Darrow">Darrow, Clarence. ''The Story of My Life'', 1932. [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500951h.html Project Guttenberg.]</ref><ref name="Foner">Foner, Phillip S. ''History of the Labor Movement in the United States: The AFL in the Progressive Era, 1910–1915'', 1980.</ref>

The defense's position weakened when, on November 28, Darrow was accused of orchestrating to bribe a prospective juror. The juror reported the offer to police, who set up a sting and observed the defense team's chief investigator, Bert Franklin, delivering $4,000 to the juror two blocks away from Darrow's office. After making payment, Franklin walked one block in the direction of Darrow's office before being arrested right in front of Darrow himself, who had just walked to that very intersection after receiving a phone call in his office. With Darrow himself on the verge of being discredited, the defense's hope for a simple plea agreement ended.<ref name="Farrell">Farrell, John A. "[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Clarence-Darrow-Jury-Tamperer.html Darrow in the Dock] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121011202214/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Clarence-Darrow-Jury-Tamperer.html |date=October 11, 2012 }}". ''Smithsonian Magazine'', December 2011, Volume 42, Number 8, pp. 98–111.</ref><ref name="Cowan">Cowan, ''The People v. Clarence Darrow: The Bribery Trial of America's Greatest Lawyer'', 1994</ref> On December 1, 1911, the McNamara brothers changed their pleas to guilty, in open court. The plea bargain Darrow helped arrange earned John fifteen years and James life imprisonment. Despite sparing the brothers the death penalty, Darrow was accused by many in organized labor of selling the movement out.{{citation needed|date = July 2021}}

====From defense lawyer to defendant====
Two months later, Darrow was charged with two counts of attempting to bribe jurors in both cases. He faced two lengthy trials. In the first, defended by [[Earl Rogers]], he was acquitted. Rogers became ill during the second trial and rarely came to court.<ref>{{cite book|last=Cowan|first=Geoffrey|title=The People V. Clarence Darrow: The Bribery Trial of America's Greatest Lawyer|year=1993|publisher=Random House|location=New York}}</ref> Darrow served as his own attorney for the remainder of the trial, which ended with a [[hung jury]]. A deal was struck in which the district attorney agreed not to retry Darrow if he promised not to practice law again in California.<ref>see in "Clarence Darrow: A Sentimental Rebel" by Arthur and Lila Weinberg.</ref> Darrow's early biographers, [[Irving Stone]] and Arthur and Lila Weinberg, asserted that he was not involved in the bribery conspiracy, but more recently, Geoffrey Cowan and John A. Farrell, with the help of new evidence, concluded that he almost certainly was.<ref name="Farrell" /><ref>Farrell, John A., "[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/clarence-darrow-jury-tamperer-109085/ Clarence Darrow: Jury Tamperer?]" ''Smithsonian Magazine,'' December  2011. Retrieved 22 December  2021.</ref> In the biography of Earl Rogers by his daughter [[Adela Rogers St. Johns|Adela]], she wrote: "I never had any doubts, even before one of my father's private conversations with Darrow included an admission of guilt to his lawyer."<ref>Adela Rogers St. Johns: ''Final Verdict'', (Doubleday, 1962) 457.</ref>