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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 30, 1918
Pacific Coast, Nation-Wide, and World-Wide, Labor Organized for Mooney
In advance of the commutation by the Governor of California of the death sentence of Tom Mooney, Labor was organizing on his behalf, even to the extent of considering a General Strike. The Governor’s opinion that this case does not represent a clash between Capital and Labor is not shared by the millions of working men and women around the world who have organized and are yet organizing against the frame-up of Brother Mooney.
From The Seattle Star of November 28, 1918:
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SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., NOV. 28.-Desperate but not united plans by Pacific coast labor to initiate a national protest strike, together with the federal Densmore dictaphone report exposing the methods of District Attorney Charles Fickert of San Francisco, where two sensational developments that sent the internationally known Mooney case into double quick time as it approached its crisis.
The general strike to which scores of federated bodies pledged themselves as the date for the hanging of Tom Mooney drew near, was regarded by a great portion of organized labor as the only effective means left to protest against the widely assailed prosecution methods used in the Preparedness day bomb cases.
With the execution date for Mooney set for December 13, his fate rests today with Governor Stephens of California, to whom President Wilson has three times addressed pleas to reopen the case.
Excluding presidential intervention, a pardon by Governor Stephens in Mooney’s only chance-that or provisional pardon, which would demand a retrial on one of several bomb indictments still standing against Mooney and his co-defendants.
Appeals to every court in the land had been denied before the agitation for a general strike began.
Strike Idea Grows
Just what effect John B. Densmore’s eleventh-hour espionage report upon Fickert’s secret activities in the Mooney case might have upon this contemplated protest remained speculative as labor digested its revelations.
After reading it, San Francisco labor council delegates, in violent disagreement, refused to sponsor a general strike, but instead decided to send a protest committee to the governor.
Meantime a number of big labor organizations thruout the country had already decided upon a general stoppage of industry to focus public attention upon the “persecution and unfair trial” of Thomas Mooney and the sentence of Warren Billings to life imprisonment.
This list has been added to from day to day.
Alameda, Seattle, Tacoma, Dallas, the mine districts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, Birmingham, and certain unions in San Francisco had already taken independent action for a general walk-out during the first week in December.
Mooney meetings had also been held and others are scheduled in New York, Washington, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Boston, Hartford, New Haven, Springfield, Newark, Philadelphia, Lowell and Providence.
Appeals to Henderson
Appeals had been sent to Arthur Henderson of the British labor movement, and from Australia and Holland had come assurances that protests would also be launched there.
The report made by Densmore as the strike plans were being co-ordinated and extended charged that, among other things, District Attorney Fickert had been:
In constant association with men and interests of such nature as to render it incredible that he should be either impartial or honest in the conduct of a case of this nature (the Mooney case).
That he is and has been for some time past co-operating with notorious jury and case fixers, and,
That Fickert and his associates have conspired to fabricate evidence with which to convict Mrs. Mooney (wife and co-defendant with Tom Mooney and once acquitted); and that to this end they have attempted in the grosses manner to intimidate and blackmail a perspective woman witness.
This and a great deal of other purported evidence, throwing light on political and sinister influences in San Francisco, had been gathered by means of a dictaphone installed in District Attorney Fickert’s private office, and corps of government operatives…..
Brother Beckmeyer of San Francisco Machinists for General Strike:
Tom Mooney, Awaiting Governor’s Decision,
-Thankful for Organized Labor’s Support:
Rena Mooney:
Rena Mooney’s Message:
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SOURCE & IMAGES
The Seattle Star
(Seattle, Washington)
-Nov 28, 1918
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093407/1918-11-28/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093407/1918-11-28/ed-1/seq-4/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 29, 1918
Sacramento, California – Life of Brother Mooney to be Spared
Tom Mooney’s Death Sentence Commuted to Life in Prison by Governor Stephens of California
Rena Mooney
https://spartacus-educational.com/USAmooneyR.htm
Tag: J. H. Beckmeyer
https://weneverforget.org/tag/j-h-beckmeyer/
Tag: International Association of Machinists
https://weneverforget.org/tag/international-association-of-machinists/
Congressional Serial Set
Reports, Documents, and Journals of
-the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919
https://books.google.com/books?id=Mq4qAAAAYAAJ
The Complete Densmore Report, pages 1-76
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Mq4qAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA1
Exhibits C, D, E, G, & H, pages 76-90
-(Exhibit A not shown; Exhibit B, see below; Exhibit F, unable to find, but see below.)
Exhibit F re Koenig, unable to find, but see bottom page 43-49
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Mq4qAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA43
Exhibit B re Oxman, with separate letter of intro by WBW & separate numbering: 1-68.
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Mq4qAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.RA1-PA1
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Joe Hill on The General Strike