MOONEY, THOMAS J. 1882-1942

Labor radical and prisoner

The Bombing

In the early afternoon of 22 July 1916 a powerful bomb exploded among a group of onlookers who had gathered to watch a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco. Ten people were killed and many more injured by the detonation that echoed through the streets of the downtown district. The bombing was thought to be the work of unknown anarchists opposed to the nation's preparation for war in the face of an armed conflict that had engulfed the nations of Europe.

Suspects

There were no witnesses to the planting of the bomb and virtually no hard evidence that could be used in the identification of the bomber, but the public's outraged insistence on some form of retribution placed considerable pressure upon the authorities. Suspicion soon focused upon five radical labor unionists, among them Warren Billings, a laborite who had been previously convicted of a conspiracy in which a bomb was to have been used, and his good friend Thomas Mooney, an iron molder and labor organizer. Arrests soon followed.

The Trial

From the very beginning of Mooney's trial, there were indications of a frame-up. Testifying against Mooney were two witnesses whose truthfulness and motives for testifying became highly questionable. Evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and the manipulation and distortion of the evidence produced by police investigators began to surface even before the trial ended. In response to the prosecution's accusations, the defense called witnesses who had occupied the building overlooking the site of the explosion and who could testify that Mooney had not been observed in that area. An alibi witness, an amateur photographer, produced photographic evidence that Mooney and his wife were standing one and a half miles away from the site of the explosion only moments before the bomb detonated. Nonetheless, Mooney was convicted, the jury voting for the death penalty. Not until years later did it become known that the principal witness against Mooney had perjured himself and that the foreman of the jury had been a close personal friend of the prosecutor, with whom he had continued to meet during the course of the trial.

The Prisoner

Mooney's conviction was as much a product of the times as it was the result of a concerted effort to skirt the law. Even before the trial had begun, there had been an ominous shift in public opinion away from the liberalism of the progressive era toward a more conservative view of the world. The threat to deeply held notions of democratic ideals seemed very real to most people. The possibility of becoming embroiled in a war had intensified feelings of patriotism while creating greater antagonism toward anything that smacked of a foreign or radical influence. This fear, which would peak in the postwar years, affected judge and jurors alike in Mooney's case, giving them ample reason, they believed, to ignore evidence of misconduct on the part of the police and the prosecutors. The prosecution's theory, which found no support in the evidence, was that Mooney had intended to start a revolution In California, and the jury seemed disposed to believe it.

Reaction

Mooney's case was propelled into a cause celebre by the verdict and his sentence of death. Labor organizations in the United States and throughout the world sponsored rallies and otherwise protested the outcome of the trial. President Wilson was moved to appoint a commission, chaired by the secretary of labor, to conduct an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Mooney's conviction. The subsequent report condemned the atmosphere in which the trial had been held and suggested that there had been a concerted effort on the parts of certain commercial interests to ensure that a conviction resulted regardless of whether It was supported by sufficient evidence. Mooney's trial judge, troubled by the report and other disclosures made during the course of the commission's investigation, prevailed upon the state's attorney general to reopen the case. The state supreme court, however, refused to take any action. The law of the state of California at the time made no provision for the introduction of newly acquired evidence after the conclusion of a trial, and the court refused to allow an exception. Finally, at the request of President Wilson, the governor commuted Mooney's sentence to life imprisonment.

The Case That Would Not Die

Mooney's cause was not helped by events that occurred in the ensuing years. His close identification with radical labor and the Socialist Party became reason enough in the public's mind for his incarceration. At the height of the red scare public attitudes in California hardened against him, and the chances of securing his release or a new trial diminished with each affirmation of his conviction on appeal. Numerous appeals were prepared and raised in his behalf and helped to keep the case in the public's eye well into the 1930s. With each appeal, however, interest In the case grew and the public came to feel considerably more sympathetic toward a man whose case seemed to resemble so closely that of France's Dreyfus Affair. In July 1931 Sherwood Anderson wrote, "He should be turned loose. They should quit it. There should be a limit, even to our human cruelty."

Habeas Corpus

California's officialdom was not entirely impervious to mounting criticism of its handling of the matter. In 1933 Gov. James Rolph convened a pardon hearing. The committee that was to deliberate on the matter debated the issues for three months before concluding that Mooney was in fact guilty and not deserving of a pardon. This time interest in the case did not wane. With the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, a new team of lawyers was formed to pursue a writ of habeas corpus on a ground never before tried—a violation of due process based upon perjured testimony. The petition was denied at the federal district court level, then brought directly to the attention of the United States Supreme Court by means of an appeal of the lower court's refusal to consider the petition for a writ. In January 1935 the Supreme Court, with Justice Charles Evans Hughes speaking for the majority, reversed the district court's ruling in a momentous decision (Mooney v. Holohan) but determined that the petition would first have to be pursued in the state courts before it could again be considered in the federal judicial system.

A New Hearing

Mooney's petition for a writ of habeas corpus was, as he expected, denied at both the trial and the intermediate appellate levels, but the California Supreme Court did act on his petition and scheduled what was to become one of the lengthiest habeas corpus hearings in the nation's history. In October 1937 the Court denied the writ in a lengthy opinion in which it detailed the record before it and concluded that in the absence of any proof of fraud, perjury, or suppression of evidence, it lacked any authority to overturn the jury's verdict. In yet another extraordinary move, Mooney obtained permission to appear before the state assembly to plead his case and won from the legislators a resolution supporting a full pardon. That resolution, however, was defeated in the state senate, and Mooney was returned to San Quentin prison. One of the senators who had heard Mooney, however, was Culbert Olson. Olson was convinced of Mooney's innocence. Two years later, after he was elected governor, Olson summoned Mooney to his office and conducted a parole hearing, which resulted in Mooney's exoneration and complete pardon. Warren Billings was also released that same year, but not in time to participate in the demonstrations, including a parade through San Francisco, celebrating Mooney's release. Labor's aging and ailing martyr soon slipped back into obscurity.

Source:

Richard H. Frost, The Mooney Case (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968).

Thomas J. Mooney 1883–1942, American labor agitator, b. Chicago. He was an active leader in several violent labor struggles in California before 1916 and was convicted as a participant in the bomb killings at the San Francisco Preparedness Day parade in 1916 and sentenced to death. His case aroused international interest because of the widely held belief in his innocence and the confessions of perjured testimony at his trial. In 1918 his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Many organizations and individuals sought unsuccessfully to obtain a new trial until Jan., 1939, when Gov. Culbert L. Olson of California pardoned him unconditionally.

Bibliography: See the Mooney-Billings Report (1932, repr. 1968); E. J. Hopkins, What Happened in the Mooney Case (1932, repr. 1970); R. H. Frost, The Mooney Case (1968); E. E. Ward, The Gentle Dynamiter (1983).