Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-11-29
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Sacramento, Cal, Nov. 2S.-In giV- ing the announcement of the gover- nors decision to the Associated Press his private secretary, Martin Madsen. said that the communication was signed early this evening, but that further than the governors written statement there would be no comment
 Sacramento. Calf, Nov. 2S.-Goev- nor William D. Stephens, commuted tonight to life Imprisonment, the sentence of death imposed on Thomas J. Mooney, for murder growing out of the preparedness day bomb eXplos- ion in San Francisco, in July 22nd, 1916, when ten persons were killed and forty others injured. Tn lengthy statement given to the public Outln- ing his reasons for committing the sentence, Governor Stephens said Moneys case largely paralleled that of Warren K Billings another bomb case deefndant, who is now serving a life sentence in the Folsom, California penitentiary.
 Sacramento, Calif., Nov. 2S.-The governors statement reviews the case fully and quotes in their entirety their two messages from President Woodrow Wilson, in which the action 1 now taken by the governor was sug gested The communication, says the governor, reduces the case to the status of that of Warren K. Billings. "I refuse to recognize this case as in any fashion representing a clash between capital and labor" the gov ernor says, and he characterized as absurd the propaganda that would l make Mooney appear as Martyr to the cause of labor In support of this statement he quotes letter from Alexander Berkman outlining the plan afterWard adopted for the Mooney campaign. He denies that Mooney is i true friend of labor and characterizes his previous record as such that it does not enlist faith in him law abid- ing citizens, but says in conclusion i that this particular case has been de- cided upon it's merits.
 "The case aS presented to the Cali l fornia courts was that of murder, without further evidence of motive than the impossible tenets of anarch- ists, whose sympathies for the Ger
 
 Their wild pacifist theories fitted into 1 ers agent in this country
 "A number of persons of pronounced anarchistic tendencies were arrested | shortly after the explosion and of | these Warren K. Billings was convict ed and sentenced to life Imprisonment and Thomas J. Mooney found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.
 "SO long as avenues of appeal to the courts remained opened to Mooney and he was availing himself there of, I deemed it improper for executive authority to interfere. Although the constitution of California clothes the governor with power to exercise elem ency at any time after conviction, it is important, so far as practicable, not to intrude into any criminal case until the judicial branch has finally dispos- ed of it. Only recently has final act ion been taken by the United States Supreme Court, and the case of the People vs. Thomas J. Mooney placed squarely before me.
 ! "In considering the Mooney case l have had before me the urgent appea! of the President of the United States that I grant communication.
 l Originally, in January of this year l received letter from the president asking me if 1t would be possible to postpone the execution of Mooney un- til he could be tried upon one of the other indictments against him. "Inasmuch as an appeal already had been taken to the Supreme Court of California which appeal itself acted as stay of the execution, there was at that time no occasion for action o my part. take it that the president was not correctly informed as to the status of the case"