Note 380 — Chapter XXIII · The Defense Becomes Arrogant.

The Chronicle took advantage of the dynamite outrage to voice its condemnation of Gallagher. “There is,” said that paper in its issue of April 24, “no more undesirable citizen on earth than the contemptible boodler James L. Gallagher, who is living on the profits of the shame which he brazenly flaunts in the face of mankind, but the effort to discover the miscreant who dynamited the house where he was living should be pushed as vigorously as if the intended victim was the most estimable citizen of California. Society despises such boodlers as Gallagher, but it does not seek their destruction by dynamite. The dynamiter is a coward who is even more contemptible than a boodler. He sneaks up in the dark, fires his explosive and runs, because in his craven soul he dare not stand up and meet his enemy. The punishment of the dynamiter—successful or unsuccessful—should be severe, but it should be solemnly inflicted after due process of law.

“It is, of course, possible that some of the wretches with whom he was associated during his career of crime have taken that method of getting rid of his testimony, but it is not probable. Among those against whom he has not yet given the testimony which he will give are the only persons who can be conceived of as having a motive to get Gallagher out of the way, but no one that we hear of suspects any of them of having resorted to that atrocious method of defense, in which six persons besides Gallagher himself came near being murdered. In the absence of any conceivable sufficient motive the dastardly act must be assumed the work of a wicked man gone crazy.”