The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-09-04
STRIKERS FORM PICKET LINES
As A.F.L. CHIEFS DODGE ISSUES
OfMOOney
Dead at IS
Tour on Behalf of Son,
Framed by Bosses,
Weakened Health

SAN FRANCISCO, Calf,
Sept. 3.-Tom MONEYS 49,
year-old mother died here
suddenly last night at the
Mission Emergency Hospital
Of a heart attack.
Mother" Moon y, as she
had become known to millions of
workers throughout the world as a
result of her years of activity in the
fight for her sons release, was
stricken at her home. Neighbors
telephoned the hospital where she
died a short time after her ar
rival.
When her son, John, street.
car conductor, and her daughter,
Anna, arrived at the hospital they
found their mother dead.
Tom Mooney UnnOtified
Tom Mooney, locked for the
night in his cell in San Quentin
prison, was not notified by Warden
Holohan of his mothers death, and
prison authorities indicated that
he would not be permitted to leave
the prison to attend her funeral.
Ever since the frame-up and inn
prisonment of her son 10 years
ago, Mother Mooney has worked
day and night in the defense cam
paign to force his releasee. In 1882
she made a national tour on her
sons behalf, and later spoke in
scores Of European cities in Eng
land, Germany, France and the So
Wet Union. All these activities
weakened her waning health.
Earlier that year she made an
effort to place the facts regarding
her sons frame-up before Presi
dent Roosevelt, but he refused the
aged woman an interview. One of
Roosevelt's secretaries informed
Mother Mooney that he would in
form the president she had called.
Mother Mooney Stricken
1t was during this tour that she
was stricken with blindness while
in Chicago She later recovered
her eyeSight.
Late in 1882, when Mother Mooney
was chosen a delegate to the con-
gress of the International Red Aid
in Moscow, the State Department
refused to grant her a passport.
Following a storm of protests, how
ever, the State Department reversed
its stand and granted the passport,
and Mother Mooney sailed for the
congress on october % of that year.
While in Europe, she stirred large
masses of workers by her moving
appeal for the freedom of her son,
Almost daily during the past 1S
years, Mother Mooney has made the
trip from San Francisco to San
quentin prison in Raphael to visit
her son. During these years she
was able to see her son only over
the barriers of prison reception
room.
She was a real proletarian mother,
one whose life was a continuous
struggle, even before the frame-up
of her courageous son during the
height of his organization activities
in San Francisco.
Mother Mooney came to the Uni
ted States from County Mayo in
Ireland while yet girl and settled
with her folks in Mt. Holyoke, Mass
Later she married Bryan Mooney
a coal miner, and they moved to
Indiana.
Worked in Mills
When her husband died an
Mother Mooney was left with three
children, she raffled off her dead
husbands mining tools in order to
bury him. Then, leaving Indiana
she returned with her children to
Mt. Holyoke and went to work there
in the paper mills, sorting rags in
order to support her little family.
Besides her work in the mills, she
did washings in her "off hours" II
was in Mt Holyoke that Tom, hel
Oldest son, learned the trade of iron
molding. His fathers death cut his
schooling short, and Tom was IS
years old when his mother helped
him get a job in foundry as ar
iron holders apprentice.
Tom MONEYS love for his ole
mother was knowingly expressed in q
letter which he sent her on Septem-
Der q, 1882, just before she left fol
Moscow as a delegate to the World
Congress of the International Rec
Aid. In this letter Mooney. wrote:
my Dear Mother:
Bless your dear old Irish heart
You're game to the core. You're a
diamond in the rough. What you
are doing for me, you do not fully
realize, but I do want you to know
this much from my own heart; !