Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee Collection,
1917-1942
Processed by Julia Bazar
Southern California Library for Social Studies and
Research
6120 South Vermont Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90044
Phone: (323) 759-6063
Fax: (323) 759-2252
Email: archives@socallib.org
URL: http://www.socallib.org/
© 2001
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. All
rights reserved.
Register of the Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee
Collection,
1917-1942
Collection number: MSS 055
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
Los
Angeles, California
Contact Information:
- Southern California Library for Social Studies and
Research
- 6120 South Vermont Avenue
- Los Angeles, CA, 90044
- Phone: (323) 759-6063
- Fax: (323) 759-2252
- Email: archives@socallib.org
- URL: http://www.socallib.org/
- Processed by:
- Julia Bazar
- Date Completed:
-
April 2001
- Encoded by:
- Julia Bazar
© 2001 Southern California Library for Social Studies and
Research. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee
Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1917-1942
Collection number: MSS 055
Creator:
Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee,
Eliazer, Ralph H.
Extent:
1 half-box and 1 oversize
box
1 linear foot
Repository:
Southern California Library for Social Studies and
Research
Abstract: This collection consists primarily of
pamphlets, posters and other printed materials created or collected by the Tom
Mooney Molders Defense Committee, in their work to free Tom Mooney, a labor
activist wrongfully convicted of bombing the 1916 Preparedness Day Parade in
San Francisco. There are also a small number of documents pertaining to Tom
Mooney and his estate.
Language:
English.
Administrative Information
Provenance
Donated to the Library on March 30, 1999, by Ralph Eliazer. His
mother, Sara Eliazer, ran the Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee office in
San Francisco.
Access
The collection is available for research only at the Library's
facility in Los Angeles. The Library is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday
through Saturday. Researchers are encouraged to call or email the Library
indicating the nature of their research query prior to making a visit.
Publication Rights
Copyright has not been assigned to the Southern California Library
for Social Studies and Research. Researchers may make single copies of any
portion of the collection, but publication from the collection will be allowed
only with the express written permission of the Library's director. It is not
necessary to obtain written permission to quote from a collection. When the
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research gives permission
for publication, it is as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be
obtained by the reader.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee
Collection, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los
Angeles, California.
Organizational History
The Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee was founded to raise money
and work for the release and pardon of Thomas J. Mooney, a member of the
International Molders' Union, charged and convicted of bombing the 1916
Preparedness Day Parade in San Francisco, July 22, 1916. The Parade had been
organized by a right-wing, pro-war group, and was also being used to champion
the anti-union, "open shop" system. Pro-union, pro-German and pro-Mexican
groups and individuals protested the holding of the parade. Mooney had been
spearheading an attempt to unionize the San Francisco street car lines, which
were controlled by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company and other utility
interests. Mooney and fellow defendant Warren Billings, both labor union
activists, were tried for murder and convicted on the basis of the testimony of
several contradictory witnesses. Mooney's wife, Rena Mooney, who was described
by the same witnesses, was found innocent. Billings was sentenced to life in
prison and Mooney was sentenced to death in 1917; the sentence was commuted to
life after the intercession of President Woodrow Wilson in 1918. Wilson had
tried to get Mooney and Billings new trials after it became clear that Frank C.
Oxman's testimony was perjured. Oxman was not even in San Francisco at the time
of the bombing. Eventually all the witnesses' testimony was disproved.
The Scripps-Howard newspaper chain championed Mooney's innocence in
the twenties, and several defense committees sprang up around the country
including the National Mooney-Billings Committee out of New York, and the
Mooney Defense Committee of Southern California (Los Angeles). The Tom Mooney
Molders' Defense Committee, headquartered in San Francisco, appears to have
been the most active and radical of the committees. Besides calling for a
pardon, the Defense Committee championed Mooney as a "Labor Martyr" and
published exposés charging that California politicians had been buying
union endorsements. The Defense Committee charged labor leaders with blocking
the pardons of Mooney and Billings. In 1931 Billings asked that his name be
removed from Mooney Defense Committee literature, especially those attacking
labor leaders. He suggested letting the American Federation of Labor (AFofL)
run the Defense Committee. The defense committees separated.
The Defense Committee applied for pardons from each, successive
governor of California. In the early 1930s the California Supreme Court
reviewed the conviction and word was leaked that they had found in favor of
Mooney and would recommend a pardon. The ruling was not released for over a
year and ended up negative. In 1937, the United States Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee held hearings into the Mooney case, and passed a resolution
(S.J.Res. 127) asking Governor Frank. F. Merriam of California to grant Mooney
a pardon. The House Judiciary Committee passed a similar resolution in 1938.
Mooney was finally given a "full and unconditional pardon" by Governor Culbert
L. Olson in 1939. Mooney died in a San Francisco hospital on March 6, 1942,
just 3 years after his release, of gastric problems that were blamed on the
poor food and medical treatment received in prison.
Following Mooney's death, the Defense Committee (Sara Eliazer) oversaw
the donation of Mooney's papers to the University of California and the
distribution of duplicate pamphlets and books to Columbia, the Library of
Congress and other institutions around the country. Roger Baldwin of the
American Civil Liberties Union was part of this process.
Scope and Content
This collection consists mainly of pamphlets, posters and other
printed materials pertaining to the Preparedness Day Parade bombing, Tom Mooney
and the Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee. The non-published documents
consist of some correspondence, a few photographs (of Mooney and of Sara
Eliazer), a copy of the Governor's pardon, and the deed for Mooney's burial
plot. Some of the materials were signed by Tom Mooney, during his imprisonment,
with both his name and his prisoner identification number. Of special interest
are the posters. One includes a poem dedicated to Mooney and the other several
photographs. Both are signed by Mooney.
Related Material at the Southern California Library for Social
Studies and Research
Title:
Tom Mooney, by Theodore Drieser,
Date (inclusive): n.d.,
Location: Pamphlet Collection
Title:
Capital in Lithographs, Lithographs by Karl Marx,
illustrated by Hugo Gellert, New York: Ray Long and Richard R. Smith,
Date (inclusive): 1934.
Note
Inscribed by Tom Mooney, with an extensive note to Alice
Barnsdall, March 12, 1936, also later autographed by illustrator to Alice
McGrath (donor).
Location: Rare Books Collection
Longshoremen and Mooney,
Physical Description:
silent, b&w,
8
minutes,
Location: Film Collection [SCL Videotape
1]
Tom Mooney in San Francisco,
Physical Description:
silent, b&w,
15
minutes,
Location: Film Collection [SCL Videotape
2]
Tom Mooney in Los Angeles,
Physical Description:
silent, b&w,
Location: Film Collection [SCL Videotape
2]
Tom Mooney Rallies from 1930s,
Physical Description:
silent, b&w,
10
minutes,
Location: Film Collection [SCL Videotape
2]
A copy of the collection register is kept in the first box of the
collection (1/0).
The oversize material labeled Box 2 is filed in the joint Oversize Box
for collections MSS 055-MSS 061.
Box-folder 1/1
Roger Baldwin, ACLU,
1942
Box-folder 2/2
Full and Unconditional Pardon for Thomas J. Mooney
(reproduction of formal pardon, Autographed by Tom Mooney),
1939
Box-folder 1/4
Burial Plot Certificate,
1943
Box-folder 1/5-1/10
Congressional Record - reprints
Box-folder 1/5
Speech of Hon. Caroline O'Day of New
York,
March 29, 1937
Box-folder 1/6
Remarks of Hon. Jerry J. O'Connell of
Montana,
July 6, 1937
Box-folder 1/7
United States Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee Hearing on Thomas J. Mooney (S.J Resolution 127),
December 15, 1937
Box-folder 1/8
United States House Judiciary Subcommittee
Hearing on Tom Mooney (H.J. Resolution 297),
May 11 and 17, 1938
Box-folder 1/9
'Tom Mooney and American Justice,' a Radio
Address by Hon. James. E. Murray of Montana,
May 17, 1938
Box-folder 1/10
'Tom Mooney Should be Pardoned
Immediately,' Radio Address and Remarks of Hon. Emanuel Celler of New
York,
June 1, 1938
Box-folder 1/12
Reply of Thomas J. Mooney to Brief Filed by District
Attorney of City and County of San Francisco Against Petition for
Pardon
by Maxwell McNutt (Attorney for T.J. Mooney),
c. 1918
Box-folder 1/13
The Story of Mooney and Billings, National
Mooney-Billings Committee (New York),
June 1929
Box-folder 1/14
Justice is Waiting, Mooney Defense Committee of
Southern California,
August 1930
Box-folder 1/15
Tom Mooney(A Member of the International Molders Union for
29 Years) Betrayed by Labor Leaders,
Tom Mooney Molders' Defense
Committee, 2nd Edition,
May 1931
Box-folder 1/16
The Amazing Frameup of Mooney and Billings: How California
Has Stolen 13 Years from these Labor Leaders,
by Marcet
Haldeman-Julius, Haldeman-Julius Publications, Girard, Kansas [Signed by Mooney
1936],
1931
Box-folder 1/17
A Review of the Facts in the Case of Thomas J. Mooney: for
Consideration by His Excellency, Honorable James Rolph, Jr., Governor of
California,
by James J. Walker, Aaron Sapiro, Cyrus B. King, &
Frank P. Walsh,
December 1, 1931
Box-folder 1/18
Our American Dreyfus Case: A Challenge to California
Justice,
by Lillian Symes, Harper & Brothers, Published for Special
Circulation by the Inter-Religious Committee for Justice for Thomas J. Mooney
(Los Angeles) [Signed by Mooney 1936],
1935
Box-folder 1/19
We Accuse! by Vito Marcantonio, International
Labor Defense Pamphlet No. 1,
1938
Box-folder 1/20
Tom Mooney's Message to Organized Labor, His Friends and
Supporters, and all Liberal and Progressive Voters of California on the 1938
California Elections,
Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee,
August 1938
Box-folder 2/1
Book -
What Happened in the Mooney Case, by Ernest Jerome
Hopkins, New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam,
1932
Box-folder 2/3-2/5
Posters - Printed and Distributed by the Defense
Committee
Box-folder 2/3
Labor's Champion, - Text and
photograph - 28x34 inches [Signed by Mooney 1936],
c. 1935
Box-folder 2/4
Labor Martyr Immortalized in Poem
- includes
Stone Face by Lola Ridge published
in
The Nation, September 14, 1932 and 1928 photograph
of Mooney - 28x34 inches, [Signed by Mooney 1936],
c. 1932
Box-folder 2/5
Tom Mooney Should be Pardoned, Say 64% of
Voters in National Poll,
Reprint from the January 20, 1938,
Washington Post - 20x13 inches,
c. 1938
Box-folder 2/6
The Bulletin (Clipping sheet) and
San Francisco News (Reprint),
1917, 1938
Box-folder 2/7
Labor Herald - Issue on Mooney's Funeral,
March 13, 1942