He also told
me that there had been formed in Los Angeles a secret committee of
fifty of the most active rich men of the town; that he could not
find out what they were doing, but they came to his offices and
demanded the secret records of the government; and that when he
refused to prosecute Flowers they had influence enough to have the
governor of California telegraph to Washington in protest.
Questioned on the witness stand, I repeated these statements, and
the deputy United States attorney was called to the stand and
attributed them to my "literary imagination."
In the old Russian and Austrian empires the technique of trapping
agitators was well developed, and the use of spies and "under cover"
men for the purpose of luring the Reds into crime was completely
worked out. We have no English equivalent for the phrase "agent
provocateur," but in the last four years we have put thousands of
them at work in America. In the case against Flowers three witnesses
were produced who had been active among the I. W. Ws., trying to
incite crime, and were being paid to give testimony for the state.
One of these men admitted that he had himself burned some forty
barns, and was now receiving three hundred dollars a month and
expenses.
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