Mooney Case

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MOONEY CASE

MOONEY CASE. On 22 July 1916 a bomb killed ten and wounded forty during a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco. Thomas J. Mooney and Warren K. Billings, labor leaders who had been accused of unlawful possession of explosives in 1913, were among those charged. Mooney was sentenced to death, and Billings received a life sentence. Some evidence was so questionable that even the presiding judge became convinced the trial had been unfair. In 1918, at President Woodrow Wilson's request, Gov. William Stephens of California commuted Mooney's sentence to life imprisonment. Governor after governor received petitions for pardon until 1939, when Gov. Culbert L. Olson pardoned Mooney and released Billings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ward, Estolv. The Gentle Dynamiter: A Biography of Tom Mooney. Palo Alto, Calif.: Ramparts Press, 1983.

Alvin F.Harlow/c. w.

See alsoBombing ; Labor ; Terrorism .

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