There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 18, 1918
Duluth, Minnesota – Mass Meeting Supports Tom & Rena Mooney
From The Labor World of December 14, 1918:
DULUTH LABOR IS FOR MOONEY
—–
Mass Meeting Held By Metal Trades Council
-Telegram Sent to Gompers.
—–
Mrs. Mooney, wife of Tom Mooney, whose death sentence has been commutated to life, has worked since her acquittal to secure a new trial for her husband.
A mass meeting to protest against the incarceration of Tom Mooney was held at Woodman hall last Wednesday evening. The meeting was largely attended by representative union men from nearly every organization in the city.
Sentiment for Mooney was strong and the meeting lasted until nearly midnight.
William E. Towne, president of the Typographical union, and one of the best known trade unionists at the Head of the Lakes, was the first speaker. He touched upon Mooney’s life and described his earnest efforts to organize the workers, and how the money power had been used against him. Mr. Towne also gave a brief history of Rena Mooney, wife of Tom Mooney.
Duty of Labor.
Following Mr. Towne’s address, W. D. Croker, printer, touched upon the duties of every member of union labor and what was expected of labor in the nation.
[Said Mr. Croker:]
If by December 9, the governor doesn’t grant Mooney a new trial or an unconditional pardon, it is labor’s duty to hold the wheels of production until some one thing or the other is granted this man Mooney.
There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Monday August 5, 1918
Duluth, Minnesota – Workingmen Demand Freedom for Mooney
Labor mass meetings, demanding justice for Tom Mooney, were held across the nation on Sunday July 28th. The labor unions of Duluth, Minnesota, joined the nationwide protests, listened to speeches, and passed resolutions.
From The Labor World of August 3, 1918:
DULUTH WORKINGMEN ASK
“TOM” MOONEY’S FREEDOM
—–
Declare Condemned Man Was Convicted
on Perjured Evidence and Demand
He Be Granted New Trial Without Delay.
—–
Rena and Tom Mooney
Duluth workingmen, at a largely attended meeting held at Owls’ hall last Sunday evening [July 28th], joined in the nation-wide protest against the proposed legal murder of Thomas J. Mooney at San Francisco. A. G. Catlin of Duluth Typographical union served as chairman and speeches were made by W. E. Towne of Duluth and Arthur Le Sueur of St. Paul.
Mr. Towne reviewed the history of the Mooney case, pointing out that all other persons charged with being participants in the alleged conspiracy had been acquitted by juries, including Mrs. Mooney, wife of the condemned man. He revealed the fact that since Mooney was tried it has been conclusively proven and admitted by the attorney general of the state that two of the witnesses against him were self-confessed perjurers and had been so found in other cases where they seemed to have served as professional witnesses.
There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday March 10, 1918
From San Francisco to Petrograd, Workers Fight for Life of Tom Mooney
From The Liberator of March 1918:
The Peril of Tom Mooney
By Robert Minor
THE story of the manner in which Tom Mooney’s death sentence was procured is stock conversation in American working-class homes. It has gone as far as the trenches of the European armies. There is hardly a Russian village where the name of “Tom Muni” has not been heard. Actually, the names of the witnesses in the case are spoken in Siberian villages, and a certain California district attorney is regularly cursed around the samovar.
The only evidence against Tom Mooney that a sensible man would listen to, was that of an Oregon cattleman, Frank C. Oxman, who came into the trial at the last moment, took the stand like a breeze from the prairie, swore that he was a country gentleman, loved his wife, and had seen Israel Weinberg drive Tom Mooney, Mrs. Mooney, Billings and an unidentified man to the scene of the crime in Israel Weinberg’s jitney bus, of the number of which car he had made a note on a telegraph envelope which he had in his pocket at that moment. He never made a mistake in his life in the identity of a person, as he was used to identifying cattle on the range….Mooney was condemned to die on the gallows.
Don’t worry, fellow-worker,
all we’re going to need from now on is guts.
-Frank Little
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Friday August 31, 1917 Spokane, Washington – Local Leaders of I. W. W. Held by Military
From the Great Falls Daily Tribune of August 30, 1917:
Spokane, Aug. 29.-[…..]
James Rowan, district secretary of the I. W. W. for the northwestern states, who ordered a general strike, is still held as a military prisoner in the county jail with 11 other alleged I. W. W. They were arrested here by Major Wilkins August 19, the day before the strike was to have become effective.
—–
From the International Socialist Review of August 1917:
—–
General Strike of Lumber Workers
AS we go to press a telegram brings the news of a general strike of all lumber workers west of the Mississippi river. It reads as follows:
Seattle, Wash., July 17. General strike has been called by Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union No. 500 of the I. W. W. Thousands responding to call. Solidarity fine. No scabs so far. John Martin.
The lumber trust and its henchmen, the state officials, county and city officials, with the aid of the militia, are resorting to the most ruthless methods to break the strike. Halls have been closed, strikers by the hundreds arrested and thrown in jails, or herded in stockades, but still the spirits of resistance grows. The lumber jacks have made up their minds that they are tired of the rotten conditions, and the long hours, and they will simply not tolerate them any longer. They are out to win this fight, and the $500,000 defense fund raised by the Lumbermen’s Association will not stop them. If the Lumbermen’s Association can raise half a million dollars to defend their profits, then the “jacks” say that the Lumbermen’s Association can raise half a million more dollars to increase the pay of the lumber jacks. Late reports state that the authorities are backing down and the halls are being reopened. The September Labor Day edition of the REVIEW will have an illustrated article covering the strike which we hope to call—How the Lumber Jacks Won!
You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday July 3, 1917
San Francisco, California – Report on Tom Mooney Frame-Up
From the International Socialist Review:
—–
IT HAS been proven that Tom Mooney was framed up. We who are interesting ourselves in his case were glad, after our long and terrible struggle, when we were able to offer the public the absolute and unquestioned proof that Mooney’s conviction was the result of perjury bought and paid for. We were glad to be able to silence arguments with actual letters in the handwriting of the chief perjury conspirator, which letters tell in black and white that Mooney’s death is sought by false testimony. We have silenced argument.
Franklin A. Griffin, the judge who pronounced the death sentence upon Mooney, has angrily demanded that Mooney be given another trial, free of perjury. The newspapers which formerly demanded his blood have now ceased to call for Mooney’s death, and two of them are demanding that the disgraceful conviction be undone.
All of California and American Labor has ceased to discuss personal differences and has demanded in one tremendous voice that Mooney, Mrs. Mooney, Billings, Weinberg and Nolan be freed. Every national figure in the labor movement of the United States is active now in behalf of the humble labor unionists in the jail of San Francisco.
You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday May 8, 1917
From the International Socialist Review: The Mooney Case
TO THE SHAME OF LABOR
By ROBERT MINOR
W. Bourke Cockran is a democratic leader, as well as the most noted lay orator in expounding the doctrines of the Catholic Church. Bourke Cockran is known internationally for his remarkable mentality and almost unequaled oratory in Congress and upon the democratic platform. He cannot be accused of being prejudiced in favor of violent overturners of society. Cockran spent six weeks in San Francisco as volunteer chief counsel for Tom Mooney, and at that time steeped himself in every detail, confidential or otherwise, of the entire story of the prosecution of Mooney, Billings, Nolan, Weinberg and Mrs. Mooney on the charge of blowing up the preparedness parade. One of the highest-priced attorneys in the world, he charged for his services—nothing.
When a cynical jury of twelve business men and retired derelicts sentenced Tom Mooney to hang, Cochran told me that he had never received so heavy a blow in his life. He said that if such things could be, the nation was rotting at its foundation.
Comrades, the red blood in you
must now prove itself.
I pledge myself to you
in this fight to its finish.
-Eugene Victor Debs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Friday April 13, 1917
From the International Socialist Review: Debs Fights for Life of Tom Mooney
TOM MOONEY SENTENCED TO DEATH
An Appeal to the Organized Workers of America!
By EUGENE V. DEBS
A TELEGRAM just received from San Francisco announces the sentence of Tom Mooney. He is to hang by the neck until he is dead. The day set for his murder is May 17th. The capitalist jury and judge have done their foul work, and it is now up to us to do ours.
Tom Mooney is an absolutely innocent man and his conviction an infamous crime. We, the workers of America, are duty bound to challenge the verdict of the capitalists’ jury and set aside the sentence of the capitalist judge. We constitute a court, a jury and a judge of our own.
We sat thru this case from the hour the vile conspiracy was concocted and we knew beyond doubt that Mooney was framed and that he is to be murdered for no other reason than that the corporation criminals, the big capitalist thieves and their official highbinders could not buy him, or silence his agitation.
More than twenty reputable witnesses not only testified to Mooney’s innocence but proved it beyond even the shadow of a doubt. His alibi was without a flaw. He was miles away from the bomb when it exploded in the preparedness parade. He had absolutely no connection with and no knowledge of the affair. Bourke Cockran, the eminent New York lawyer who defended him, is positively convinced of this and so is every other man or woman who attended the trial and is not in the pay or under the influence of the United Railroads, the Manufacturers’ Association, and other red-handed bandits who have for years been plundering San Francisco and have now set themselves up as the autocratic rulers of the Pacific coast.
There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, January 12, 1917
San Francisco, California – Frame-Up of Tom Mooney Examined
Writing in this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review, Robert Minor, Treasurer of the International Workers’ Defense League, exposes a few interesting details in the ongoing frame-up of the San Francisco labor leader, Tom Mooney:
The Suitcase Ghost
By ROBERT MINOR
LIKE the giant trees that astonish the eye of the traveler, like the wonderful climate and other marvels of the state, California produces the most amazing manifestations of the Labor Struggle.
Since the McNamara plea of guilty, there has been a ghost in nearly every labor dispute. That ghost is “the Suitcase.” There is a suitcase in every strike. Sometimes made of yellow leather, some times of black morocco, the suitcase is more often built of nightmares—pure imagination. But the suitcase, in one form or another, is a California institution.
When made of more than imagination, the suitcase has usually been (since the McNamara case) in the hand of an agent of the corporations, and loaded with dynamite.
In Stockton, three years ago, Anton Johannsen, labor organizer, “got the drop on” a gunman who came to his hotel room to kill him for the Merchants,’ Manufacturers’ and Employers’ Ass’n. The trapped gunman confessed that it was his intention, after killing Johannsen, to place a suitcase of dynamite in his room, another suitcase of the same explosive in the Santa Fe station checking room, with the check slipped into the pocket of the Secretary of the Building Trades Council. One of the other plotters, J. J. Emerson, was caught by a bungling policeman with a suitcase of dynamite, confessed to the plot to “plant” it so as to blame the strikers, but was, of course, acquitted in spite of the confession. (What are courts for?) Ed Nolan and Tom Mooney were instrumental in the expose.
In the same strike, Warren K. Billings, then 19 years of age, out of a job, was accosted by strangers who offered him $50 to carry a suitcase to Sacramento, to be delivered to two men whom he was to meet in a saloon. The boy accepted the offer. The men waiting for him in the saloon in Sacramento proved to be detectives, the suitcase contained dynamite, and Billings was given a two-year sentence.
When an explosion occurred in the San Francisco preparedness parade and killed ten persons, the blame was laid upon labor organizers with a suitcase. This in spite of the fact that the most reliable witness, a prominent physician, and several others whose names the police promptly lost, stated that they had seen a large, cylindrical bomb thrown.
There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Monday December 18, 1916
San Francisco, California – The Closed Shop Fight and Frame-Up
From the December edition of the International Socialist Review:
Will Labor Stand for Another
Haymarket?
By THEODORA POLLOK
SAN FRANCISCO in 1916; Chicago in 1886. The closed shop fight now; the 8-hour fight then. In both cases, a crime of violence occurs and is tied around the necks of innocent labor men in the hope of helping to crush the spirit of labor.
In Chicago in 1886 a slavish press and an inflamed public mind, and the labor and radical groups, too weak to save the chosen victims. Today in San Francisco a slavish press, but a public mind open to conviction. Yet young Billings, first of the San Francisco Preparedness Day explosion defendants to be tried, has been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, and only the fighting working class of the country can save him—by saving his four co-defendants.
Tom Mooney’s trial, the second trial, is set for the 27th of November. It is Tom Mooney’s life that is desired above all others by this gang of ruffians, the “gentlemen” of the Chamber of Commerce, the United Railroads, and the Pacific Gas & Electric, and their tools in the District Attorney’s office. For Mooney, helped by his little music teacher wife, Rena, who is one of his co-defendants—Mooney recently dared actually try to organize the carmen of the United Railroads, who have been beaten down, spied upon and “weeded out” since the great car strike before the earthquake.
The tactics of the prosecution are such as might rather be expected in some backwoods lumber baron’s camp than in a great urban center. Indeed, with the “Law and Order” Committee from the Chamber of Commerce censoring all the press, the truth is even harder to get to the people than in a small town where it flies from mouth to mouth.
