Montana labor news., 1938-01-20
Open Shop Employers
Used Labor Spies
To Frame Mooney
BY HAROLD COY

By HAROLD COY
The same sort of economic royal
lists and hired stoolpigeons who were
lately exposed in hearings of the
LaFollette Senate civil liberties com
mittee were responsible for framing
Tom Mooney and Warren X. Billings
and bear the guilt for keeping the
two innocent labor men entombed
these past 81 years.
Mooney and Billings were militant
and fearless labor organizers in the
San Francisco of two decades ago
1t was for this they were framed.
It was not the first time that agents
of the utilities and big financial in
terests had tried to get them.
No one who has examined the
record of the case really believes
Mooney and Billings guilty of bomb
ing the 1916 Preparedness Day
parade. In California big business
circles, among those who have most
cause to hate and fear labor organ
zers, n hears, not that Mooney and
Billings are guilty, but that they are
dangerous men who are better off
in prison.
eve got the right men-on the
wrong evidence" the formula runs.
Commenting on this Fascist sort
Of reasoning, Judge Franklin A.
Griffin, who once sentenced Mooney
to hang and later became aware of
the true circumstances of the frame
up and did everything he could to
get justice, wrote a former governor.
"Such a doctrine is more danger
Gus and pernicious than any Mooney
has been accused of preaching"
That San Franchises open shop
interests actually engaged in the
dangerous and pernicious practice OF
framing innocent men because they
did not want them around organic
ing their employees is not just a
one-sided belief of persons sympa-
thetic to Mooney. Not only is a
frameup frankly conceded in off
the-record comments of the Cali
fornia business community, but as
long ago as Pres. Wilson's second
term, a federal investigation, con-
Quoted by J. B. Densmore, former
federal director general of employ
ment for the Department of Labor,
reported:
THE basic motive underlying all
the acts of the prosecution spring
from a determination on the part OF
certain employer interests in the city
of San Francisco to conduct their
various business enterprises upon
the principle Of the open shop.
There has been no other motive
worth talking about. To blame
the outrage on certain agitators in
the labor world seemed not only
possible but, owing to various con-
comitant Probabilities, doubtless APP
pealed to the foes of organized labor
as possessing all the elements of a
stroke of genius"
What was the labor record of Tom
Mooney and Warren K. Billings that
the open shop interests were ready
to pull wires, hire stools, subvert
justice and corrupt administrations
to put them-and keep them-be-
hind bars?
To answer this question, it is
necessary to pull back the curtains
and not only take a glimpse at the
early activities Of Mooney and Bill
lings, but endure for a moment the
stencil of that morass of double
dealing which the district attorneys
office became under the late UNI
lamanted Charles M. Fickert. The
traction interests put Fickert in
to office to fix certain embarras-
sing graft indictments and found
him handy for unsavory strike
breaking and frameup jobs. An i'm
portant link between the interests
and the D. A. was Martin Swanson.
ex-Pinkerton, labor spy and expert
planter of dynamite. But Swan
son and his employers are an in
statement in themselves.