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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday May 18, 1918
Mother Jones News for April 1918, Part II: Found in San Francisco
Mother Jones was the featured speaker at a mass meeting held at the Auditorium in San Francisco on Tuesday evening, April 16th. The next day the following telegram was sent to the Machinists’ Union headquarters in Washington, D. C.:
From the San Francisco Chronicle of April 17, 1918:
Mass Meeting Is Held by Partisans
Of “Tom” Mooney
—–President to Be Told New Trial Is
Favored by Large Audience
—–
Thousands of Thomas J. Mooney sympathizers gathered in the Auditorium last night to hear Mrs. Rena Mooney, Mrs. Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Israel Weinberg, Mother Jones and others discuss the Preparedness day bomb cases.
“Ten thousand persons in mass meeting in San Francisco favor unanimously a new trial for Mooney,” is the effect of a message they voted to send to President Wilson.
Many of the people left when they found they couldn’t hear Mother Jones, the first speaker, whose voice did not carry far enough to be of value to those in the back of the Auditorium. A burst of applause at a time when applause scarcely was necessary apprised Mother Jones of her audience’s difficulties, and she quit speaking shortly after 10 o’clock.
The meeting was opened with the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Everybody stood up except a man in the audience and Mrs. Sheehy-Skeffington. The man arose under pressure, but the woman on the speakers’ platform remained seated.
After Mother Jones spoke a collection was taken. John P. [H.] Beckmeyer of the machinists’ union presided. A large number of Mooney sympathizers from Alameda county marched to the Auditorium from the Ferry building.
In an open letter Mooney told his friends “organized labor is the one weapon that will bring us speedy justice.”
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[Photograph added.]
