Montana labor news., 1936-08-06
Tom Mooney - Twenty
Years After

a. VA N4AaA6kA wan having oGA
the bomb which exploded among spec
tators OF the san Francisco Prepared
ness parade on July Y, 1910. That
bomb killed ten people and wounded
forty others. 1t wa also the direct
cause, or possibly, even, the chief act
-ot a conspiracy On the part OF big
business in San Francisco, which has
manned the lives OF two men and would
even have brought Tom Mooney death
by hanging had moi a Worldwide pro-
test on the part Of the working class
moved President Wilson to intervene
IN his behalf.
The Mooney-Billings frame-up was
part OF the ruthless warfare which big
business in California has been con
Quoting for the open shop ever since
the Mcnamara confessions in the Los
Angeles Times case broke the militancy
OF the A. +. OF L. and sent its leaders
scrombling into the shelter OF re
speetability'-that is, due difference to
the interests OF the owning classes. As
Louis Adamic has phrased it in "Dyna-
mite" Mooney and Billings in Jail
are IN advertisement to the exploiters
OF labor that capital in California is
able to keep labor in its place" This
is why the State Supreme Court, with
the honorable exception OF Justice
William II. Langdon, has steadily re-
fused, when these cases have come up
before it to recognize the incontro-
vertible evidence OF perjury and con-
spiracy. This is why no governor OF
California has had the courage to court
his W political and economic destruc-
ton at the hands OF the exploiting class
by granting a pardon to Tom Moo
ney. And this is why the financial and
industrial overlords of San Francisco
maintain the attitude lately voiced in
private conversation by a prominent
banker when he said, Yes, Tom Moo
ney ought to be released SO that he
can be shot as he walks out OF the
prison gates"
Thanks to this intransigence OF Cali
fornia capitalists, Mooney and Billings
stand before the workers OF the world
to day as victims OF capitalist oppres-
sion. Tom Mooney especially has be-
come, in his prison cell, a focus for all
the violent emotions which class-war
releases ON both sides. For Mooney,
before his arrest, was an energetic left
wing labor leader. He belonged to the
Socialist party. He had introduced, at
the 1912 convention of the Interna-
tional Molders' Union, to which he be-
longs, a resolution calling for the in
dustrial organization Of labor. And at
the time Of his arrest he was attempt
ing to organize the employees of the
San Francisco Street Car company.
This record accounted for the con-
spiracy against him. 1t also largely ac-
counts for his international fame as a
symbol Of the proletarian cause.
What sort of man have twenty years
OF unjust Imprisonment made OF Tom
Mooney? Five years ago Lincoln
Steffens wrote,
Tom Mooney was stating his
case, proving his (undoubted) in
nocence, and as he talked we all
felt that he was not only innocent;
he had become a righteous bore,
an offense with his rights and his
wrongs.
Jay Lovestone, writing this week in
the Workers Age, says of Mooney:
Twenty years of continuous dun
geon life have not broken his
body or his spirit. What was to
me the most welcome surprise of
all was Toms mind, his intelligence,
his keenness and variety of interest,
the extent Of his keeping up with
the kaleidoscope changes in the
American and world labor 0 V
ments.
OF these two pictures neither, prob
ably, is complete without the other.
If Lovestone's were the whole truth,
the fact would diminish not the injus-
tice but the horror Of MONEYS plight.
And how could any man, unjustly i'm
prisoned for twenty years, help becom-
ing obsessed with resentment against
the injustice that has wrecked his life
Granted that Mooney retains his inter-
est in the labor movement. Granted
that his knowledge of his innocence,
the support Of workers all over the
world, have sustained his courage to
keep up the fight for release, and his
energy to direct it from his prison
cell. There is also ample evidence
that injustice has embittered his mind
and made him capable Of suspecting
and turning against those very people
who have sacrificed most for him.
This is but human, and deepens his
tragedy in the eyes Of sympathetic peo-
pie.
Twenty years after his arrest, Tom
Mooney is appealing once more to the
Supreme Court Of California, which will
almost certainly deny him justice as it
has before. If it does, the case will be
carried to the Supreme Court Of the
United States. Whatever the outcome
may be, Mooney and Billings have
taken their place on the roll of martyrs
to the cause of American labor, along
with the Haymarket victims, Sacco and
Vanzetti, and so many others. And
American labor, with all its backward
ness, does not forget its sacrifices in
the class war.
MISSOULA-The regular meeting