New Britain herald., 1929-11-13
STUFFED JU ST1CE IN MOONEY CASE

u was OH July -E, l91o, dui ihS " preparedness day parade in San Francisco, that a bomb which had been placed in a suitcase exploded. killing ten persons and injuring 40. Thomas J. Mooney and Warren K. Billings, both radical labor agitators, were arrested, charged with the crime, and convicted. Two others also arrested were acquitted. Billings was sentenced to life imprisonment and Mooney was sentenced to be hanged. Late in 1917 President Will son sent a special commission to California to investigate, and in March, 1918, he wrote letter to the governor Of California in which he said he believed it advisable that Mooney's sentence be commuted. The communication of Mooney's sen- tence took the case out of the lime light to some extent, but not alto- gether.
 After Moneys trial evidence was produced to show that witnesses for the prosecution had perjured them selves, Six witnesses who had testi- fled against Mooney at the trial lat CT admitted publicly that they had testified falsely. All living members Of the jury have expressed their be- lief that he is innocent. The trial judge. Franklin A. Griffin. also has given it as his belief that Mooney and Billings are innocent.
 This in short is the background Of the celebrated Mooney case.
 Now the nation has been treated to a new angle in the case: That one Lewis Smith, who died in Cleveland seven years ago, told his kin around his deathbed that he had placed the suitcase containing the bomb upon the highway and that he and not Mooney was guilty of the crime. The kinsmen have been traced and all tell the same story regarding the deathbed confession.
 It is clear to any thinking person that Mooney and Billings were the victims Of postwar hystcra. They were seized and convicted more be- | cause they were labor agitators than ! because they had anything in con- mon with the crime. Probably had 1 they not been seized, some other labor agitators looking at the parade would have been given theM fate. The lust to convict somebody, prefer 1 ably somebody not standing high in ! public estimation at the time, appar- entity actuated the prosecuting authorities, and witnesses who testi- 1 fled falsely and whose consciences since pricked them to admitting i their terroristic activities in court, 1 have not been punished for perjury: ! the living members Of the jury and the judge who now agree upon the . innocence of the agitators, get sCant consideration from the authorities of a state who seem reluctant to be- i levc anything they dislike to believe.
 Governor Young Of California, who is said to have been studying the evidence for months, still fails to take final action. The latest develop ments have been referred 10 At torney General Webb for an ''in- vcstgation" and advice on the pro- cedure 10 take.
 Meanwhile almost everyone agree:
 with the Jury, the perjured witnesset and the trial judge. all of whom know
 more about the case than the pres. ent authorities. They heard and gave the evidence and are sorry for theil
 part in the qualification of justice
 that resulted.
 Lewis Smith, whose deathbed con
 fession is the object of the investiga
 ton, appears to have been the typ