{{Short description|American political activist and labor leader (1882–1942)}} {{other people|Thomas Mooney}} {{More citations needed|date=March 2015}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2021}} {{Infobox criminal | honorific_prefix = | name = Thomas Mooney | honorific_suffix = | image = Thomas Mooney July 1916 (cropped).jpg | caption = Mooney in 1916 | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pronunciation = | birth_name = Thomas Joseph Mooney | birth_date = {{birth date|1882|12|08}} | birth_place = Chicago, Illinois, US | death_date = {{Death date and age|1942|03|06|1882|12|08}} | death_place = San Francisco, California, US | body_discovered = | resting_place = {{unbulleted list|Cypress Lawn Memorial Park|Colma, California}} | resting_place_coordinates = {{coord|37.6735|-122.45519|type:landmark|display=inline}} | monuments = | residence = | nationality = | other_names = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | occupation = {{unbulleted list|Labor Leader|Militant|Social Reformer|Socialist Activist}} | years_active = | era = | employer = | organization = | known_for = Wrongful conviction for 1916 Preparedness Day bombing | notable_works = <!-- produces label "Notable work"; may be overridden by |credits=, which produces label "Notable credit(s)"; or by |works=, which produces label "Works"; or by |label_name=, which produces label "Label(s)" --> | style = | home_town = | height = <!-- "X cm", "X m" or "X ft Y in" plus optional reference (conversions are automatic) --> | weight = <!-- "X kg", "X lb" or "X st Y lb" plus optional reference (conversions are automatic) --> | criminal_penalty = Death, commuted to life imprisonment | criminal_status = Pardoned in 1939 | partners = {{unbulleted list|Rena Hermann|Israel Weinberg|Edward Nolan|Warren K. Billings}} | apprehended = July 26, 1916 | imprisoned = San Quentin State Prison | spouse = Rena Hermann | partner = <!-- (unmarried long-term partner) --> | children = | relatives = | family = | conviction = First degree murder }} '''Thomas Joseph Mooney''' (December 8, 1882 – March 6, 1942) was an American political activist and labor leader, who was convicted with Warren K. Billings of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916. It quickly became apparent that Mooney and Billings had been convicted based on falsified evidence and perjured testimony; and the Mooney case and campaigns to free him became an international cause célèbre for two decades, with a substantial number of publications demonstrating the falsity of the conviction. These publications and the facts of the case are surveyed in Richard H. Frost, The Mooney Case (Stanford University Press, 1968). Mooney served 22 years in prison before being pardoned in 1939.
==Early life== [[File:International Socialist Review May 1910 Page 1052.jpg|thumb|left|A page from the ''International Socialist Review's'' May 1910 issue, lauding Mooney for his work in the 1908 election]] The son of Irish immigrants, Mooney was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 8, 1882. His father, Bernard, had been a coal miner and a militant organizer for the Knights of Labor in struggles so intense that after one fight he was left for dead. Bernard Mooney died of "miner's con" (silicosis) at the age of 36, when Tom, the eldest of three surviving children, was ten years old. Tom's sister Anna told neighbors that the family had originated in Holyoke, Massachusetts, not Chicago.
Thomas held many jobs as an industrial worker before developing a career as a labor leader and socialist activist. As a young man, Mooney toured Europe, where he learned about socialism. After arriving in California, he met his wife Rena, and found a place in the Socialist Party of America and the presidential campaign of Eugene V. Debs. Mooney also became a member of the militant industrial union the Industrial Workers of the World.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tom-Mooney|title=Tom Mooney|date=December 4, 2024|website=Britannica|language=en-US|access-date=January 3, 2025}}</ref> In 1910, Mooney won a trip to the Second International Conference in Copenhagen by selling a huge number of subscriptions to the socialist ''Wilshire Magazine''. On his way home, he visited the British Trades Union Congress in Sheffield, England.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Hoboed Over Eight Thousand Miles |journal=International Socialist Review |date=May 1910 |volume=X |issue=11 |pages=1052–1053 |url=https://archive.org/details/international-socialist-review_1910-05_10_11/page/1052/mode/1up |access-date=28 May 2025}}</ref>
==Preparedness Day Bombing== Ten deaths and forty injuries resulted from the explosion in the midst of the Preparedness Day parade. The bombing took place at the height of anarchist violence in the United States, especially the ''Galleanist'' anarcho-communist movement of Luigi Galleani.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/today-in-labor-history-labor-radical-tom-mooney-freed/|title=Today in labor history: Labor radical Tom Mooney freed|date=January 7, 2013|website=People's World|language=en-US|access-date=January 31, 2019}}</ref>
==Trial== Mooney and Billings were convicted in separate trials. Mooney was sentenced to be hanged and Billings to life imprisonment. Rena Mooney and Weinberg were acquitted.
==In prison== thumb|left|Thomas Mooney protest in Manhattan in Union Square on March 9, 1918 In 1918, Mooney's sentence was changed to life imprisonment by Governor William Stephens. Mooney quickly became one of the most famous political prisoners in America. A worldwide campaign to free Tom Mooney followed. During that time his wife Rena, ''Bulletin'' editor Fremont Older, anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, Lucy Robins Lang, heiress Aline Barnsdall, Hollywood celebrities, international politicians, and many other well-known people campaigned for his release.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Walker|first=Richard|date=2008|title=San Francisco's Haymarket: A Redemptive Tale of Class Struggle|url=https://geography.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/walker_87.pdf|journal=ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies|volume=7|issue=1|pages=45–58}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kennedy|first=Kathleen|date=January 2000|title=In the Shadow of Gompers: Lucy Robins and the Politics of Amnesty, 1918-1922|journal=Peace & Change|volume=25|issue=1|pages=26|doi=10.1111/0149-0508.00140}}</ref> Caroline Decker, a labor activist who later became active in California agricultural unionism, first went to California as part of a "Free Tom Mooney" delegation.<ref name="loftis">{{cite book |author=Anne Loftis |year=1998 |title=Witnesses to the Struggle: Imaging the 1930s California Labor Movement |publisher=University of Nevada Press |location=Reno, Nev. |page=46 |isbn=978-0874173055 |oclc=37213510 |url={{google books|HOZ9AAAAMAAJ|plainurl=y}}}}</ref> While imprisoned, Mooney corresponded with fellow union leader Ned Cobb of the Alabama Sharecroppers' Union.<ref>Rosengarten, Theodore. ''All God's Danger's: The Life of Nate Shaw'' (University of Chicago Press, 1974) at 335.</ref>
During his time at San Quentin, Mooney was a highly dependable orderly in the prison hospital. Dorothea Lange went to the prison to photograph him, and one of the photographs she took was used in a poster published by the Tom Mooney Defense Committee.<ref name=gordon>{{cite book | author=Linda Gordon |year=2009 |title=Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits | url=https://archive.org/details/dorothealangelif0000gord | url-access=registration |publisher=W W Norton |location=New York, NY |page=[https://archive.org/details/dorothealangelif0000gord/page/134 134] |isbn=978-0-393-05730-0}}</ref>
In 1931, New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker made a solidarity visit to Tom's sister Anna's house in San Francisco's Mission District.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1931/11/20/archives/walker-off-tonight-to-fight-for-mooney-his-decision-brings-flood-of.html ''WALKER OFF TONIGHT TO FIGHT FOR MOONEY''] in NYT on November 20, 1931 (subscription required)</ref>
==Release and later years== thumb|right|Mooney disembarking from a plane shortly after being pardoned, 1939 Mooney filed a writ of habeas corpus which was heard by the United States Supreme Court in 1937. Even though he presented evidence that his conviction was obtained through the use of perjured testimony and that the prosecution had suppressed favorable evidence, his writ was denied because he had not first filed a writ in state court. Nevertheless, his case is important because it helped establish that a conviction based upon false evidence violates due process. Mooney was pardoned in 1939 by liberal Democratic governor Culbert Olson.
He was old from years in prison, sick with ulcers and jaundice. He had not worn his martyrdom well; he broke with modest Billings, who was convicted with him but somehow was never regarded as a martyr; he was estranged from his wife; his former colleagues in the labor movement often found him to be selfish and conceited.<ref name= "ReferenceA">{{cite magazine |date=March 16, 1942 |title=U.S. At War: Death of Tom Mooney |url=https://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601420316,00.html |magazine=Time |volume=39 |issue=11}}</ref>
Mooney then campaigned for Billings's release although the two men had become estranged. He traveled around the country making speeches. He drew a full house at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Billings was released in 1939 and pardoned in 1961.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/Library_Bulletin/Nov1989/LB-N89-VClose2.html|title=Thesis Topics: Ready-Made: The Mooney Case|last=Close|first=Virginia L.|website=Dartmouth College Library Bulletin|access-date=January 31, 2019}}</ref>
==Death and legacy== After attempting a lecture tour, Mooney collapsed from illness. The California Federation of Labor turned down a resolution to pay his bills, as his politics were deemed too radical.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> While dying in a San Francisco hospital, Mooney, at 59, had only a few visitors, and only a few letters from friends. From his bed he helped advance a campaign to free Communist Earl Browder as Chairman of the "Citizens' Committee to Free Earl Browder."<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
Mooney died at Saint Luke's Hospital in San Francisco on March 6, 1942. A large funeral celebration was held at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. He is interred at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FOHgDAAAQBAJ&dq=Cypress+Lawn+thomas+mooney&pg=PA526|title=Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.|first=Scott|last=Wilson|date=August 19, 2016|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9781476625997 |accessdate=August 25, 2022|via=Google Books}}</ref>
==See also== thumb|The Alibi Clock in Vallejo is City Landmark #5. It once sat at Market Street in San Francisco, and is considered the clock in the photograph that exonerated Mooney. * Arthur E. Briggs, Los Angeles City Council member, 1939–41, supported Mooney pardon * California courts of appeal * Charles Fickert * Communists in the United States Labor Movement (1919–37) * Labor spying in the United States * Labor unions in the United States * List of wrongful convictions in the United States * Sacco and Vanzetti * Union violence in the United States * Wickersham Commission
==Footnotes== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * ACLU, [http://debs.indstate.edu/a505s766_1928.pdf ''The Story of Mooney and Billings.''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160626091140/http://debs.indstate.edu/a505s766_1928.pdf |date=June 26, 2016 }} New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 1928. * {{cite web |url=http://debs.indstate.edu/c666h4_1917.pdf |title=A Heinous Plot: An Exposé of the Frame-up System in the San Francisco Bomb Cases Against Billings, Mooney, Mrs. Mooney, Weinberg and Nolan |last1=Cockran |first1=William Bourke |location=Chicago |publisher=Chicago Federation of Labor |year=1917 |access-date=March 5, 2010 |archive-date=April 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180404084618/http://debs.indstate.edu/c666h4_1917.pdf |url-status=dead }} * {{cite web |url=http://debs.indstate.edu/m666f5_1917.pdf |title=Fickert Has Ravished Justice: Story of So-Called Bomb Trials in San Francisco |author=Robert Minor |author-link=Robert Minor |location=San Francisco |publisher=Tom Mooney Molders Defense Committee |year=1917 |access-date=March 5, 2010 |archive-date=August 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807064544/http://debs.indstate.edu/m666f5_1917.pdf |url-status=dead }} * {{cite book |title=The Frame-up System: Story of So-called Bomb Trials in San Francisco |last1=Minor |first1=Robert |location=San Francisco |publisher=International Workers' Defense League |year=1917|hdl = 2027/uc1.31175035184137}} * {{cite book |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4428836;view=1up;seq=1021 |date=August 6, 1917 |title=People v. Mooney - Crime No. 2079 - 175 Cal. 666 |volume=166 |trans-title=Pacific Reporter |pages=999–1000 |via=HathiTrust Digital Library |publisher=West Publishing Co.}} * {{cite book |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4428837;view=1up;seq=724 |date=September 11, 1917 |title=People v. Mooney - Crime No. 2079 - 176 Cal. 105 |volume=167 |trans-title=Pacific Reporter |pages=696–697 |via=HathiTrust Digital Library |publisher=West Publishing Co.}} * {{cite book |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4428841;view=1up;seq=718 |date=March 1, 1918 |title=People v. Mooney - Crime No. 2079 - 177 Cal. 642 |volume=171 |trans-title=Pacific Reporter |pages=690–696 |via=HathiTrust Digital Library |publisher=West Publishing Co.}} * {{cite book |title=Federal Commission Condemns Frame-Up |location=San Francisco |publisher=International Workers' Defense League |year=1918|hdl = 2027/uc1.31175035182883}} * {{cite book |title=Mooney Case a War Issue |location=San Francisco |publisher=International Workers' Defense League |year=1918|hdl = 2027/uc1.31175035182875}} * {{cite book |title=Justice and Labor in the Mooney Case |location=San Francisco |publisher=International Workers' Defense League |year=1919|hdl = 2027/uc1.31175035157265}} * {{cite book |last1=Mooney |first1=Thomas J. |last2=Billings |first2=Warren K. |last3=Chafee, Jr. |first3=Zechariah |last4=Pollak |first4=Walter H. |last5=Stern |first5=Carl S. |year=1932 |title=The Mooney-Billings report: Suppressed by the Wickersham Commission |location=New York |publisher=Gotham House |pages=1–243 |oclc=808312546 |url={{google books|C8Q-AAAAIAAJ|plainurl=y}}}} * {{cite book |author=Curt Gentry |author-link=Curt Gentry |year=1967 |title=Frame-up: The Incredible Case of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company |location=New York |oclc=231139 |url={{google books|Z_JCAAAAIAAJ|plainurl=y}}}} * {{cite book |last=Frost |first=Richard H. |year=1968 |title=The Mooney Case |publisher=Stanford University Press |pages=1–564 |isbn=978-0804706513 |oclc=832345137 |url={{google books|S5GrAAAAIAAJ|plainurl=y}}}} * {{cite book |author=Estolv Ethan Ward |year=1983 |title=The Gentle Dynamiter: A Biography of Tom Mooney |publisher=Ramparts Press |location=Palo Alto, Cal. |pages=1–302 |isbn=978-0878670895 |oclc=9082943 |url={{google books|o4MdAAAAMAAJ|plainurl=y}}}} * "San Francisco Newspaper Man," [http://debs.indstate.edu/s1952t6_1918.pdf ''Tom Mooney, a Miner's Son.''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303170321/http://debs.indstate.edu/s1952t6_1918.pdf |date=March 3, 2016 }} San Francisco, CA: Tom Mooney Molders Defense Committee, n.d. [c. 1918]. * {{cite book |author=John C. Ralston |date=November 19, 2013 |title=Fremont Older and the 1916 San Francisco Bombing: A Tireless Crusade for Justice |publisher=The History Press |location=Charleston, S.C. |pages=1–192 |isbn=978-1626192676 |url={{google books|QVqACQAAQBAJ|plainurl=y}}}} * {{cite book |author=Ernest Jerome Hopkins |year=1932 |title=What Happened in the Mooney Case |publisher=Brewer, Warner & Putnam |location=New York |pages=1–258 |isbn=978-0306718915 |oclc=76206 |url={{google books|1wFonQAACAAJ|plainurl=y}}}} * {{cite book |last=Johnson |first=Jeffrey A. |date=August 24, 2017 |title=The 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing: Anarchy and Terrorism in Progressive Era America |publisher=Routledge |pages=1–198 |isbn=978-1317204008 |url={{google books|h_0wDwAAQBAJ|plainurl=y}}}}
==External links== * {{Commons-inline}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20051216025058/http://www.shapingsf.org/ezine/labor/mooney/main.html Mooney's story] shapingsf.org * {{cite web |url=http://spartacus-educational.com/USAmooneycase.htm |title=Mooney-Billings Case |last=Simkin |first=John |date=September 1997 |publisher=Spartacus Educational}} * {{cite web |url=http://www.spartacus-educational.com/USAmooney.htm |title=Tom Mooney |last=Simkin |first=John |date=September 1997 |publisher=Spartacus Educational}} * [http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/ridge/mooney.htm Modern American Poetry website's essay on Mooney] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704193638/http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/ridge/mooney.htm |date=July 4, 2008 }} (with pictures) * {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20090605000923/http://www.cresswellslist.com/ballots2/mooney.htm Free Tom Mooney!]}}. Brief history illustrated with campaign buttons. * {{cite web |url=http://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Tom_Mooney_Is_Free.htm |title=Tom Mooney Is Free |last=Guthrie |first=Woody |year=1939 |website=Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.}} * {{LCCN|2016651585|Ferry Building Tom Mooney and wife are shown in picture on roof top indicated by arrows|long=yes}} * {{cite book |title=Mooney Pamphlet Collection : Miscellaneous Material on Tom Mooney ~ 1916-1940 |oclc=20410576}} * [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0f59r8q2/?query=Thomas%2520Mooney Finding Aid to the Thomas J. Mooney Papers, 1887-1949, bulk 1930-1942], The Bancroft Library * {{cite web |url=https://calisphere.org/collections/25500/ |title=1916 Preparedness Day Parade Bombing, 1916-1933 - Photographs |website=California Digital Library |publisher=Bancroft Library}} * {{cite web |url=http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search?/dMooney%2C+Thomas+J.+1882-1942./dmooney+thomas+j+1882+1942/-3,-1,0,E/2exact&FF=dmooney+thomas+j+1882+1942&1,13, |title=Thomas J Mooney Portraits ~ 1916-1939 |website=San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection |publisher=San Francisco Public Library}} * {{cite web |url=http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search/X?SEARCH=%22thomas%22+Mooney+evidence |title=Thomas J Mooney Evidence Portraits |website=San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection |publisher=San Francisco Public Library}} * {{YouTube|LWdvQh_-6Uo|Alcatraz Prison Scenes (1920) & Tom Mooney Rally (1938)}} * {{YouTube|gskGkPXEffg|Tom Mooney Set Free (1939)}} * {{Vimeo|id=138838984|title=The Alibi Clock}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mooney, Thomas J.}} Category:1882 births Category:1942 deaths Category:Trade unionists from California Category:Industrial Workers of the World members Category:American people convicted of murder Category:American prisoners sentenced to death Category:American trade unionists of Irish descent Category:Members of the Socialist Party of America Category:Activists from Chicago Category:Wrongful convictions Category:Trade unionists from Illinois Category:Burials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park Category:People convicted of murder by California Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by California Category:Recipients of gubernatorial clemency in California Category:Recipients of gubernatorial pardons in California Category:California socialists Category:Illinois socialists Category:20th-century American people