About Tom Mooney Essay, Research Paper
Dan Georgakas
Thomas J. Mooney ( 1892-1942 ) was the cardinal figure in the most ill-famed labour
setup in the early half of the 20th century. He and Warren K. Billings ( 1893-1972 )
served 23 old ages ( 1916-1939 ) in California prisons for the decease of 10 individuals
killed when a bomb exploded during the 1916 Preparedness Day Parade in San Francisco.
Mooney & # 8217 ; s existent discourtesy was that he had been de facto leader of the left wing of the
California Federation of Labor and his activities had alarmed some of the most powerful
forces in the province. One of his closest associates was Warren Billings.
Mooney had been raised in a Socialistic household. At age 15, he won a competition
sponsored by a Socialist magazine and as his award enjoyed a free trip to a conference of
the Second International in Switzerland. He would shortly be an active national candidate
for Eugene V. Debs and an fervent leftist Socialist. He became editor of the diary Revolt
in 1912 and won celebrity as a hawkish author and talker. He did non fear association with
nihilists and was non inauspicious to the philosophy of & # 8216 ; propaganda of the deed. & # 8217 ; At one point
he was charged with dynamiting the belongings of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in San
Francisco, but he was acquitted after three tests. By 1916 he was a dynamic force in San
Francisco labour circles. His two major involvements that twelvemonth were resistance to U.S.
engagement in World War I and a thrust to form the auto work forces of the United Railroads
of San Francisco. The acrimonious unionizing thrust, although unsuccessful, took up most of his
energies that twelvemonth every bit good as those of this married woman, Rena, and Warren Billings.
When the fatal bomb went off on 22 July, the Mooneys were blocks off, but both Tom and
Rena, Warren K. Billings, Israel Weinberg, and Edward D. Noland were arrested for the
title. The common nexus was association with Tom Mooney. Billings, convicted antecedently for
transporting dynamite on a rider train, had a repute for basking direct action.
Weinberg was a bus driver who on occasion chauffered the Mooneys, and his boy was a
student of Rena Mooney, who earned a life as a music instructor. Nolan was a Mooney angel in
the trade brotherhoods. Uracil
ltimately merely Tom Mooney and Warren Billings were convicted, Mooney
for first-degree slaying and Billings for second-degree slaying.
In less than a twelvemonth, solid grounds began to come up that the testimony against Mooney
and Billings had been perjured. Other grounds substantiated their ain history of where
they had been. One of the look intoing organic structures was the federal Wickersham Commission,
composed chiefly of conservativists. The committee concluded that the instance & # 8217 ; s sole intent
was to set Mooney and Billings behind bars. Even the test justice and
jurymans finally made public statements that they had erred. National protests flooded
the Statehouse, including a supplication for clemency from President Woodrow Wilson. Mooney & # 8217 ; s decease
sentence was commuted to life but no other alleviation was given. In the two decennaries that
followed, Mooney and Billings came to be viewed as labour sufferer. Their predicament remained a
major concern of labour, civil libertarians, progressives, and groups. But it was non until
1939 that Governor Culbert Olson released them. Mooney was officially pardoned at that
clip, but Billings would non be officially pardoned until 1961.
Mooney tried to restart his activities but his wellness was gone. Eighteen months after
his release, Mooney was bedridden, and on 6 March 1942 he died in San Francisco at age
50. Billings went to work as a horologist after his release. He avoided extremist
political relations but became frailty president of the Watchmakers Union.
Further Reading
Frost, Richard H. The Mooney Case. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University
Imperativeness, 1968.
Gentry, Curt. Frame-Up. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967.
Hunt, Henry Thomas. The Case of Thomas J. Mooney and Warren K. Billings. New
York. Da Capo Press, 1971.
Ward, Esolv Ethan. The Gentle Dynamiter. A Biography of Tom Mooney. Palo Alto,
Calif. : Ramparts, 1983.
OTHER RESOURCE
Mooney, Tom. Film ( available at Tamiment Library, New York University ) consisting of
Mooney giving a R? amount? of his instance, 1936.
from Encyclopedia of the American Left, Second Edition. Ed. Mari Jo Buhle,
Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Copyright? 1990,
1998 by Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas.
