The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1921-02-25
BALTIMORE SUN
ON MOONEY CASE

The Federated Press gives its
newspapers the following interest
ing news in the Mooney case:
Washington, Feb. p. - Likening
the Mooney case to the Dreyfus
case in France, the Baltimore Sun
asks, in an editorial, Can nothing
be done to end this travesty and
wipe out this blot ?"
The oldest, most influential news
paper in Maryland, and the fore
most liberal-conservative journal of
the Atlantic seaboard, gives this
editorial evidence of it's own con-
Germ:
tom Mooney was convicted on
the testimony of four witnesses.
They were Frank Oman, Mrs.
Nellie Edeau and her daughter, Sa-
die, and John Mcdonald. 1t has
long been known that Oman, the
most important of these witnesses,
doubtless perjurer himself. The
testimony Of the Edeaus has been
thoroughly discredited. And now
Mcdonald confesses that he per-
iurcd himself at the trial.
Judge Franklin K, Griffin, who
presided at the trial, long ago stat
ed that the revelations concerning
Oman alone demanded that Moo
ney should receive a new trial. The
attorney general of California con-
CURED in this recommendation. A
federal commission appointed by
President Wilson, after an eXhaus-
tive investigation, reached the same
conclusion. So did J. B. Densmore,
director general of the United
States employment service, who
was appointed. as a special inves-
tigator by the secretary of labor.
A few weeks ago Patrolman Hand,
who was member of the bomb
bureau that arranged the evidence
in the cases against Mooney and
the other persons charged with
completely in the crime, made fur
Lher revelations regarding the
'frame-up.' There can exist at this
time, in the mind of no reasonable
man, the slightest doubt that Moo
ney was unjustly convicted
yet he lies in a California pris-
on under sentence of life impris-
onment. The supreme court of
Ce'ilAOl ma lilo oetINl JIlCC IL 10 WlIl-
out power to grant a new trial.
The attorney general confesses him
self helpless. The governor of the
state refuses to pardon him and
order a trial on other indictments.
Only by a mere chance did he es-
cape execution. He was sentenced
to death, the date . of execution
was first postponed and then the
sentence was committed to life i'm
prisonment. judge Griffin said that
if the death sentence were carried
into execution it would be ira
vesty upon justice and a blot upon
/ the administration of Justice Those
; words apply with equal pertinence
to the sentence of life imprison-
ment.
Can nothing be done to end this
travesty and wipe out this blot :?
The Mooney case has been likened
not inaptly, to the Dreyfus case in
France. Dreyfus was miserably
prosecuted there, but, to the glory
of the French nation, the outrage
1 brought to the front such figures
as lola and Picquart, who espoused
persecution themselves that justice
might be done. No man of lola S
eminence here has emerged as a
champion of Mooney, though Frank
P. Walsh, Bourke Cochran and FIRE.
mont Older have acted in the case
with equal disinterestedness and
nobleness.
But the disquieting thing is that
the people of the United States as
a whole have not arisen in wrath
ItN loo,oO1
The governor of California is the
only official, apparently, who can
now act in the matter, and there
ought to be such a storm of pro-
test throughout the country, and
particularly in his own state, as
will make him realize his response
bility and his duty"
Nor is The Sun the only channel,
outside the labor press. through
which the truth about the Mooney
frame-up is reaching the public in
Baltimore. The Maryland Women's
News, a weekly independent politi-
cal journal, edited by and for wo-
men, devoted most of it's February
y issue to two articles on the
Mooney case by the Rev. Mercer
Green Johnston, former rector of
the richest Episcopal parish in New
Jersey, and who was awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross and the
Croix de Guerre for his heroism in
the war in France. Through the
Church League for Industrial De-
mocracy, and as an individual, Mr..
Johnston is carrying the moral de-
mand for justice to Mooney through
out the east.
1T is a cause of humiliation to
me-" he says in the Women's News,
that organized labor in Europe
and South America and Australia
learned the true facts in this case,
and the significance of them and
passed az right moral judgment on
them, before | did / had no right
to be so long ignorant of facts so
vital to the well being of society.
In this matter the labor movement
has not only been my tutor, but has
led the conscience Of the nation in
arriving at a moral conclusion that
must be concurred in and acted
upon if the nation is to endure.
"The bodies Of Mooney and Bill
ings must be freed unless the soul
of America is to be enslaved"
Case Before Grand Jury
San Francisco, Feb. 22-The Tom