Collection Summary
Information for Researchers
Administrative Information
Biographical Information
Chronology
Scope and Content of Collection
Collection Summary
Collection Title: Thomas J. Mooney papers
Date (inclusive): 1887-1949,
Date (bulk): bulk 1930-1942
Collection Number: BANC MSS C-B 410
Creators :
Mooney, Thomas J.
Extent:
Number of containers: 70 cartons, 5 boxes, 25 oversize boxes, 16 oversize folders, 37 scrapbooks and 91 volumes
Linear feet: circa 120
Repository: The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California, 94720-6000
Phone: (510) 642-6481
Fax: (510) 642-7589
Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
Abstract: The Thomas J. Mooney Papers document the attempts to free and vindicate Thomas J. Mooney who was wrongfully convicted of bombing
the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade of 1916. Although the collection does include personal papers of Mooney and his
wife Rena Mooney, the bulk of the collection consists of the records of the Tom Mooney Molder's Defense Committee (TMMDC),
an organization run by Mooney from his jail cell for the duration of his incarceration.
Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information
on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Information for Researchers
Access
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in these collections may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction
of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions,
privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond
that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for
any use rests exclusively with the user.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the
Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html .
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Thomas J. Mooney Papers, BANC MSS C-B 410, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Alternate Forms Available
There are no alternate forms of this collection.
Related Collections
Fremont Older Papers (BANC MSS C-B 376)
McDevitt papers (BANC MSS 89/86)
Austin Lewis papers (BANC MSS C-B 467)
George T. Davis collection of legal documents related to Thomas J. Mooney and Warren K. Billings (BANC MSS 2003/327)
An interview with Mary Gallagher on the I.W.W., Tom Mooney (BANC MSS C-D 4011)
Carl Hoffman papers (BANC MSS C-B 377)
Photographs from the Thomas J. Mooney papers (BANC PIC 1945.003-PIC)
Austin Lewis papers (BANC MSS C-B 467)
George T. Davis papers (BANC MSS 2003/320)
Collection of material relating to the I.W.W. and various labor and Socialist leaders (BANC MSS C-R 90)
BANC PIC 1905.02830
Tom Mooney Molders Defense Committee presents the Mooney case [videorecording]: as told to the camera by Tom Mooney (Motion
Picture 1188 E)
The strange case of Tom Mooney. Reel 2 [videorecording] (Motion Picture 1189 E)
Separated Material
Most photographs have been transferred to the Pictorial Collections of The Bancroft Library.
Film has been transferred to the Microforms Collection of The Bancroft Library.
Many printed materials have been transferred to the book collection of The Bancroft Library.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Mooney, Thomas J., 1882-1942--Archives
Mooney, Thomas J., 1882-1942--Trials, litigation, etc
Bombings--California--San Francisco
Trials (Murder)--California--San Francisco
Trials (Terrorism)--California--San Francisco
Mooney, Rena
Mooney Molders Defense Committee
Billings, Warren K., 1893-1972
Labor movement--San Francisco (Calif.)--History
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
The Thomas J. Mooney Papers were given to The Bancroft Library by the estate of Thomas J. Mooney on May 31, 1943. Additions
were made by Sara H. Eliaser, former Chair of the Tom Moony Molders' Defense Committee, in 1958.
Accruals
No additions are expected.
System of Arrangement
Arranged to the folder level.
Processing Information
Processed by Teresa Mora in 2008-2011.
Biographical Information
Mooney, Thomas Joseph (8 Dec. 1882-6 Mar. 1942), labor leader, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Bryan Mooney (also
called Bernard), a coal miner, and Mary Hefferon (or Heffernan). Mooney lived in Washington, Indiana, until he was ten, when
his father died. The family then moved to Holyoke, Massachusetts, where his mother found work in a paper mill as a ragsorter.
Mooney left school at fourteen for a job in a local factory and in 1898 entered the iron molding trade. He joined the molders'
union, a membership he maintained the rest of his life. With opportunities for employment scarce, he began traveling around
the country, doing whatever work he could find. In 1907 his journeys took him to Europe, and there he discovered socialism.
Returning home, he began drifting again, this time traveling as far west as Stockton, California. There he joined the Socialist
party, worked for the presidential campaign of Eugene V. Debs, and spent a winter in Chicago learning more about the party.
In 1909 Mooney set off again, this time seeking to win a round-the-world trip in a subscription-selling contest sponsored
by a socialist magazine. He lost, but so narrowly that the magazine paid his way to attend the International Socialist Congress
in Copenhagen in 1910. He then returned to California, this time settling in San Francisco. He belonged briefly to the Industrial
Workers of the World, but, finding them too sectarian, he aligned himself with the radical minority of the local Socialist
party and served as circulation manager for their short-lived newspaper,
Revolt. He ran on the Socialist party ticket for superior court judge in 1910 and for sheriff in 1911. He also helped organize molders
for the tiny left-wing Syndicalist League of North America. He was married in 1911 to Rena Ellen Brink Hermann; they had no
children.
In 1913 Mooney and Warren Knox Billings, another young radical, became involved in a bitter electrical workers' strike against
the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Billings was caught with a suitcase full of dynamite, and although Mooney does not appear
to have been involved, he heard that he too was about to be arrested. He went underground for several months, then tried to
slip away by boat, but was caught and charged with illegal possession of explosives. Three trials followed, the first two
ending in hung juries and the third (1914) in his acquittal. Once released, Mooney resumed his labor activism.
By 1916, with World War I in Europe nearly two years old, many Americans were calling for a military build-up. Others, including
many labor leaders and radicals, opposed the idea, arguing that it would only hasten the country's entry into what they saw
as a corrupt and imperialist war. On 22 July 1916, during the period when Preparedness Day parades were being held throughout
the country, a bomb exploded in the midst of San Francisco's parade, killing ten people and wounding forty more. Although
there was almost no physical evidence, the press immediately blamed political radicals, while District Attorney Charles M.
Fickert concluded that the bomb had been brought to the scene in a suitcase. With encouragement from the private detective
at Pacific Gas and Electric who had tracked down Mooney and Billings in 1913, Fickert quickly arrested both men, along with
Mooney's wife and several other people.
Billings, who was tried first, was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mooney's trial
for first-degree murder followed in January 1917. A rancher named Frank Oxman, who had not appeared in the Billings trial,
testified that he had seen both men carrying a suitcase near the bomb scene, and although his statement contradicted other
prosecution testimony, Mooney was convicted and sentenced to the gallows. Subsequent investigations discredited Oxman's testimony,
but under pressure from local business interests and the Hearst press, Fickert refused to reopen the case. In the meantime,
Mooney's wife was tried (without Oxman's testimony) and acquitted.
Until Mooney's conviction, most of his support came from fellow radicals, in addition to a few public-minded lawyers, led
by Bourke Cockran. Once the trial was over, however, Mooney's circle of supporters expanded to include a wide array of mainstream
labor leaders, civil libertarians, reformers, public officials, and members of the general public. The case attracted worldwide
attention, and when mobs in Petrograd stormed the American embassy to protest Mooney's conviction, President Woodrow Wilson
urged the governor of California to consider giving Mooney a new trial. Some months later, at the suggestion of Colonel Edward
House (Wilson's closest adviser), the case was reviewed by the Wickersham National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement,
which was studying labor strikes. On the basis of questions raised by the commission, Mooney's sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment in November 1918.
Mooney was saved from execution, but he was still in San Quentin Prison, with no new trial on the horizon. For the next twenty
years his supporters struggled to maintain public interest in the case and to win his freedom. They encountered innumerable
political and legal obstacles, however, and Mooney's irascibility and distrust made their task more difficult. Nevertheless,
they persevered; Frank Walsh, Mooney's attorney from 1923 to 1939, is said to have spent $50,000 of his own money in pursuing
various appeals. In 1934 Upton Sinclair, running for governor, promised to set Mooney free if elected; this ray of hope disappeared
when Sinclair was defeated. A U.S. Supreme Court decision on one of Mooney's appeals (Mooney v. Holohan, 1935) set important
new precedents in federal habeas corpus proceedings, but Mooney remained a prisoner.
Mooney failed in a personal appeal to the California state legislature in 1938 and shortly thereafter was rejected for the
last time by the U.S. Supreme Court. Finally, in January 1939, Governor Culbert L. Olson granted Mooney a pardon. (Billings
was released from prison when his sentence was commuted ten months later, and he was officially pardoned in 1961.) Mooney
had a brief tour as a labor hero and then sank into obscurity, burdened with debts, estranged from his wife, and suffering
from bleeding ulcers. He died in San Francisco.
Mooney did not become a dissident hero by choice; there is no evidence that he had anything to do with the bombing that sent
him to prison. Nor was he a hero by nature; his complaints and resentment strained the loyalty of his supporters almost to
the breaking point. Nevertheless, his experience forced him into a hero's role, providing the beleaguered labor movement with
a martyr and leading many ordinary citizens to conclude that the American system could be very unjust.
Sandra Opdycke. "Mooney, Thomas Joseph";
http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00485.html;
American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
Access Date: Tue Mar 29 2011 13:50:12 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Copyright (c) 2000 American Council of Learned Societies. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Privacy
Policy.
Chronology
1882 December 8 |
Birth of Thomas J. Mooney, Chicago, Illinois |
1911 |
Marriage to Rena Hermann |
1916 July 22 |
Preparedness Day Bombing, San Francisco |
1916 July 27 |
Tom and Rena Mooney arrested |
1916 August 2 |
Tom and Rena Mooney, Billings, Nolan, and Weinberg each indicted on eight counts of murder |
1916 September 11 |
Billings trial begins |
1916 September 23 |
Billings convicted of murder, sentenced to life in prison |
1917 January 3 |
Start of Tom Mooney trial |
1917 February 9 |
Tom Mooney convicted of murder |
1917 February 24 |
Tom Mooney sentenced to death |
1917 April 6 |
Oxman letters published in
San Francisco Bulletin
|
1917 May 11 |
Mooney death sentence stayed by Governor Stephens |
1917 July 27 |
Rena Mooney acquitted, remains jailed |
1917 September 21 |
Oxman tried and acquitted of subornation of perjury |
1917 November |
Weinberg tried and acquitted, remains jailed |
1917 December 17 |
Election to recall Fickert fails |
1918 March 30 |
Weinberg and Rena Mooney freed |
1918 November 28 |
Governor Stephens commutes Mooney's sentence to life in prison |
1919 |
National Mooney Congress convenes in Chicago |
1932 September 28 |
Paul Callicotte confesses to Preparedness Day bombing |
1939 January 7 |
Official pardon granted by Governor Culbert L. Olson |
1942 |
Tom Mooney dies in San Francisco |
Scope and Content of Collection
The Thomas J. Mooney Papers document the attempts to free and vindicate Thomas J. Mooney who was wrongfully convicted of bombing
the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade of 1916. Although the collection does include personal papers of Mooney and his
wife Rena Mooney, the bulk of the collection consists of the records of the Tom Mooney Molder's Defense Committee (TMMDC),
an organization run by Mooney from his jail cell for the duration of his incarceration.
The collection has been divided into five series: Tom Mooney Molders Defense Committee; Personal Papers; Legal Materials;
Other Organizations; and Correspondence to Governor Olson. The most comprehensive of which is the records of the Defense Committee.
More detailed descriptions of each series precede the listing.