A History of Organized Felony and Folly - The Clarence Darrow ...

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A History of Organized Felony and Folly the first time that the hour of the parade had been changed. Knowing that the timing device would explode the charge before the carmen could arrive, they descended to the street and left the suitcase by the side of a building. It followed that most of the deaths and injuries occurred among innocent by- standers. Now, as to the union affiliations of these anarchists: Thomas J. Mooney was a member of the Molders' Union. A few weeks before the explosion, he and his wife were arrested on the streets for circulating a pamphlet which de- plored in inflammatory language the non-union character of the traction operatives. Previously, during a strike of employes, towers of the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. were blown up in Contra Costa county. Near the scene, Mooney was arrested in a row-boat containing nitroglycerine, caps and a small arsenal of firearms. Warren K. Billings was not only a union man but a union official. He had held the office of president of the Boot & Shoe Workers' Union of San Francisco. Before his participation in the San Francisco atrocity, he had been apprehended on the streets of Sacramento with an infernal machine in liis possession and sentenced to a tenri in Folsom prison. Mrs. Mooney, Edward Nolan and Israel Weinberg were arrested with Mooney and Billings, but there was not sufficient evidence to connect them with the Preparedness Day murders. However, there was plenty of evidence of their asso- ciation with the murderers. Nolan was a member of the Machinists' Union, and in the very month of the explosion was a delegate from the San Francisco local to the international convention at Baltimore. Weinberg was a member of the Carpenters' Union, but was driving a jitney at the time of the crime and was then a member of the executive board of the Jitney Drivers' Union. For the purpose of defending the prisoners, obtaining new trials, securing executive clemency, provoking federal interference, investigating the prosecution and the witnesses of the prosecution, the International Workers' Defense League was organized, and it enlisted in its undertakings the support
A History of Organized Felony and Folly of all the radicals from the communists of Russia to Cabinet officials of the United States, One of the first union bodies to come to the defense of the murderers was the San Francisco Labor Council, which, with the Building Trades Council, controls the union movement in that jurisdiction. At its conventions in 1917 and in 1918 the American Fed- eration of Labor adopted resolutions of sympathy with the criminals. Daniel C. Murphy, a delegate from the San Francisco Labor Council to the convention, said: "Every move we have made, every influence we have exerted, at least outside the state of California, has been in cooperation with the officers of this Federation of Labor ." The resolutions recommending executive clemency for Mooney adopted at St. Paul were transmitted to the President and the Governor by Samuel Gompers. In spite of all the cooperation, the International Workers' Defense League attacked the Federation of Labor for its want of active sympathy, to which Secretary Frey replied: "It has been trade union money that has enabled the International Workers' Defense League to carry on its work." It was not a small undertaking of which Frey boasted, because $108,000 was raised for defense, and $300,000 for propaganda. The extra allowance to aid the prosecution and punish wholesale murder that San Francisco, in the generosity of its heart, appropriated was $4,500. One of Gompers's pet unions, organized by him to offset the unaffiliated United Mine Workers, is the International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers. The following resolution is taken from Page 62 of its official proceedings: "Resolution: To the Officers and Delegates of the Twenty- fourth Consecutive and Fourth Biennial Convention of the International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers: "Whereas; Within the past few weeks new revelations have developed within the jurisdiction of the court that con- victed Tom Mooney and Warren K. Billings, which should receive the attention of all law-abiding citizens; therefore, be it 27
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