Four Against Mooney

"Thomas J. Mooney was guilty of the offense charged against him. He was justly convicted by the jury. . . . [91;His] application for a pardon is hereby denied."

Thus last week did James ("Sunny Jim") Rolph Jr. take his stand beside three previous Governors of California in denying executive clemency to the labor agitator who was convicted of bombing ten persons to death during San Francisco's 1916 Preparedness Day parade.* In a slow firm voice, chubby Governor Rolph read his decision before officials, newsmen and newsreel cameras packed into his office in the Capitol at Sacramento.

What reopened the case was the spectacular dash across the continent of New York's publicity-loving little Mayor James John ("Jimmy") Walker last November to make an emotional appeal to his good friend Governor Rolph for Mooney's release. To Matt Sullivan, his legal adviser and onetime chief justice of the State Supreme Court, Governor Rolph turned over the Mooney record for recommendations. After five months Mr. Sullivan advised the Governor to refuse Mooney a pardon for the following reasons:

"Since his conviction there has been no evidence discovered indicating Mooney's innocence. . . . Mooney and the radicals publicly and privately opposed the Preparedness Day parade. .Their insensate hatred of our present form of government and a desire to substitute the Red flag for the Stars & Stripes impelled them to commit the deed. Mooney and [Warren K.] Billings entered into a conspiracy to terrify the citizens by exploding a bomb. Billings, tool and agent of Mooney, carried the bomb in a suitcase. . . . Mooney has not presented any facts in support of his petition which have not heretofore been presented. . . . The 'frame-up' story has been exploded as was the suitcase containing the bomb. . . . The apotheosis of Tom Mooney by the oratorical Mayor of New York brought tears to the eyes of many of his auditors who failed to realize that he was merely indulging in forensic hyperbole."

At San Quentin, Prisoner Mooney left his potato-peeling to hear the decision in the warden's office. Sixteen years behind its grey walls have warped his perspective on the world at large and rendered him ''stir daffy."* Hoping for nothing from Governor Rolph, Mooney declared: "This makes me the outstanding figure in the world's labor movement and a symbol of the struggle of Labor for its rights." In San Francisco his defense committee exclaimed that he "had no chance whatever of receiving a fair and impartial hearing from representatives of as unprincipled a bunch of pirates--Herbert Fleishhacker, Harry Chandler. Robert Dollar, Frederick Koster and William Crocker--as ever scuttled a ship." that against him "the cards were stacked and the dice loaded."

*Governors Stephens, Richardson and Young refused to pardon Mooney. Four times the California Supreme Court reviewed the Mooney case which was once carried to the U. S. Supreme Court. President Wilson's personal intervention secured a commutation of Mooney's death sentence to life imprisonment. Three Federal investigations of the Mooney case were made, the last being by a subcommittee of the defunct Wickersham Commission.

*Underworld slang. "Stir'' = prison. "Daffy" = crazy.

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