powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 25, 1917
San Francisco, California – Powerful Coterie Determined to Crush Labor
From the United Mine Workers Journal of September 20, 1917:
Victims Demanded
—–
A community shocked and enraged because of the perpetration of a heinous crime; a powerful coterie determined to crush organized labor; a venal district attorney, and newspapers owned and their news columns and editorial policy controlled by those interested in destroying organized labor as an economic and political power; that is the present situation in San Francisco and the other cities on the Pacific coast.
The terrible crime committed by some deranged alien enemy served as an opportunity. Tom Mooney, Rena Mooney, Billings, Weinberg and Nolan were selected as the readiest victims at hand. The order is, “Condemn those people, and through them the organized labor movement.”
In the case of Tom Mooney the main witness, upon the strength of whose evidence the verdict of guilty is based, it is generally conceded is a perjurer for price; also that the prosecuting attorney instructed this witness and attempted to suborn another and instruct him as to what evidence would best serve to convict.
When first the evidence of subornation of perjury became known, and be it remembered that this evidence is irrefutable, that no attempt has been made to deny the authenticity of the letters in Oxman’s handwriting that plainly admit the plot and the perjury, the prosecution threw up both hands, practically admitted the plot to convict innocent men and its almost providential defeat. The judge that tried Mooney demanded that the prosecutors confess error; admitted that the conviction of Mooney was based upon the perjured evidence of Oxman.
Then the kept press began to prove its value to the masters. Faked items appeared in the news columns; the proof of the perjured evidence was denied publicity; the editorials cried out for the blood of the accused men.
—–
The creatures of the financial interests who had served by procuring the perjured evidence were reassured; began to see hope to fulfill their allotted tasks. Rena Mooney was acquitted by a jury in spite of the fact that attempts to pack the jury against her were proven. She could not have been guilty of any of the indictments that had been charged against her were she not guilty of the one from which she has been acquitted. But if Rena Mooney is innocent, then it follows that the others accused could not be guilty. And so she is still being held in jail.
The attorney-general of the State of California, on petition of the judge that tried Tom Mooney, and after reviewing the evidence that brought about his conviction, and also the indisputable evidence of the perjury and subornation of perjury upon which the verdict of guilty is based, petitioned the California Supreme Court for a reversal of judgment and a new trial for Tom Mooney.
What influence was brought to bear possibly only the Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco can disclose, but the State Supreme Court has refused a new trial. Unless some great influence is brought to bear the State of California will prove its subserviency to the money lords of the State, who believe they can crush the cause of the workers by convicting individuals among them by hanging this man Mooney, whose only proven offense is that he was active in the fight against the public service corporations, the street railroad company that today is striving to dominate the city of San Francisco by its private army of notorious gunmen.
Labor will not permit this crime to be consummated. Labor protests its horror of and indignation at this cold-blooded attempt to murder innocent people to satisfy the malice of proven criminals, suborners of perjury and of every other crime denounced by God and man.
Is proven perjury, concocted and paid for by the officials of what is supposed to be a court of justice, not sufficient reason for retrial when the lives of men and of a woman are at stake? To what depths of infamy have our courts sunk! How further can they prove their utter subserviency to economic power entrenched behind ill-gotten wealth?
[Photographs added.]
SOURCE
The United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 28
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-May 3, 1917 to Oct 25, 1917
https://books.google.com/books?id=3wpOAAAAYAAJ
UMWJ Sept 20, 1917
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=3wpOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT518
“Victims Demanded”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=3wpOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT522
IMAGES
Mooney-Tom & Rena, Billings, Weinberg, 1916, Nolan, 1917
From:
Tom Mooney, Wife, Billings, Weinberg, Reno Gz Jr, Aug 4, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/147490633/
Mooney Billings Case, Bro Ed Nolan, Machinists, May 1917
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=9vHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA449
Building Gallows Mooney by Minor, ISR, July 1917
https://archive.org/stream/ISR-volume18#page/n11/mode/1up
See also:
Machinists’ Monthly Journal, Volume 28
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Jan-Dec 1916
International Association of Machinists, 1916
https://books.google.com/books?id=FfHNAAAAMAAJ
MMJ Sept 1916
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=FfHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA837
Machinists Support Ed Nolan
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=FfHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA888
MMJ Nov 1916
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=FfHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA1039
“Edward Nolan Tells His Own Story”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=FfHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA1122
Machinists’ Monthly Journal, Volume 29
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Jan-Dec 1917
International Association of Machinists, 1917
https://books.google.com/books?id=9vHNAAAAMAAJ
MMJ May 1917
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=9vHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA373
“The San Francisco Bomb Case” by Ed Nolan
-with photo of Brother Ed Nolan
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=9vHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA449
“A Plea for Justice” by Tom Mooney
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=9vHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA451
Ed Nolan Defense Fund, Cartoon
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=9vHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA455
Workers of the World Awaken
Words and Music by Joe Hill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletarian_poetry#/media/File:Workers_of_the_World_Awaken!.jpg
http://politicalfolkmusic.org/files/Joe_Hill/Workers_of_the_World_Awaken.pdf
https://archive.org/stream/SongsOfTheWorkersToFanTheFlamesOfDiscontent/LRSB#page/n8/mode/1up
I think the singer here is also the poster: Ariana Eakle. She states that she made up the tune for this version of Joe Hill’s song. I like her plain and simple performance very much.