Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Organizational History
Scope and Content
Related Material at the Southern California Library for Social
Studies and Research
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]