page_title: Brooke Hart
section_title: Warning signs
hierarchical_section_title: Brooke Hart / Lynching of Thurmond and Holmes / Warning signs
caption_attribution_description: English: Official portrait of California Governor James Rolph
context_page_description: Brooke Hart was the eldest son of Alexander Hart, the owner of the L. Hart & Son department store at the southeast corner of Market and Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose, California, United States. His kidnapping and murder were heavily publicized, and the subsequent lynching of his alleged murderers, Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M. Holmes, sparked widespread political debate.
  The lynchings were carried out by a mob of San Jose citizens in St. James Park across from the Santa Clara County Jail, and were broadcast as a "live" event by a Los Angeles radio station. The killings of the suspects were tacitly endorsed by Governor James Rolph, Jr., who said he would pardon anyone convicted of the lynching. Scores of reporters, photographers, and newsreel camera operators, along with an estimated 3,000 to 10,000 men, women, and children, were witness to it. When newspapers published photos, identifiable faces were deliberately smudged so that they remained anonymous; the following Monday, local newspapers published 1.2 million copies, twice the normal daily production.
context_section_description: Because of lynch threats, Sheriff Emig moved Thurmond and Holmes to the Potrero Hill police station in San Francisco for safekeeping soon after their arrest. A San Jose newspaper ran a front-page editorial branding Holmes and Thurmond "human devils" and called for "mob violence." Upon their return to the San Francisco jail from questioning, cries of "lynch them" were heard from the crowd surrounding that jail. On November 21, Holmes and Thurmond remained in the jail, and fear of vigilantism led authorities to announce they would be held "indefinitely." Reportedly, "20 influential friends of the socially prominent Hart family" had formed a committee to "insist on immediate and drastic punishment for the prisoners." Prosecutors declined to seek grand jury hearings in the fear that an indictment would incite vigilantes. 
  Despite these fears, the pair were indicted on charges of extortion, using the mails for extortion, and conspiracy, and were returned to the San Jose jail the night of November 22. On November 23, California Governor James Rolph announced to shocked reporters that he would refuse to dispatch the National Guard to protect Thurmond and Holmes.
  Upon payment of $10,000 (equivalent to $198,000 in 2019) cash—an astonishing sum in 1933—by the father of Jack Holmes, San Francisco attorney Vincent Hallinan agreed to represent his son. Thurmond was defended by J. Oscar Goldstein of Chico. With a volatile mob growing day and night outside the jail on November 24, Hallinan called Rolph and asked that he call out the National Guard should an effort be made to lynch his client. Rolph retorted that he would "pardon the lynchers".
caption: Gov. "Sunny Jim" Rolph
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