The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, July 12, 1930, Page 2

; ceaverry a THE BISMARCK TRIBUNE, SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1980 . Wi tness Who Convicted Mooney and Billings Now Admits Perjury “MAN WHO ALMOST HANGED LABOR MEN BGS 10 UNDO DEED Arrest of John McDonald in Baltimore Brings Confession He Lied at Frisco Trial NEW EFFORTS AT PARDON Nearly All State’s Witnesses Now Have Admitted Deliber- ately Testifying Falsely Baltimore, July 12—(?)—John Mc- Donald, principal prosecution witness against Thomas Mooney and Warren K. Billings, serving life sentences for the Preparedness day parade bomb- ing in San Francisco in 1916, said to- day he had perjured himself at the trial and now desires to “undo the wrong.” Sought in connection with efforts of the Mooney defense league to ob- tain pardons for the two men, Mc~- Donald was taken into custody here after being recognized by a neighbor. He was held on a nominal charge of investigation. After his arrest he issued a state- ment through an attorney in which he said: “J, John McDonald, aged 58 years, résiding in Baltimore City, testified as a witness for the state of Califor- nia versus Thomas Mooney and War- ren K. Billings. I never saw Mooney until taken to the hall of justice in San Francisco and told by an officer that ‘this is Mooney’ (pointing him out to me). My testimony in the var- “fous cases was untrue and false. I desire to undo the wrong done by me in sending Mooney to prison, re- gardiess of personal consequences. The authorities got me to testify that I identified Mooney but this is an absolute falsehood.” Five years after the conviction of Mooney and Billings, McDonald made an affidavit at Trenton, N. J., in which he said he was not positive of his identification of either. The af- fidavit was used in an effort to ob- tain pardons. In refusing to grant the Levick pardon petition, a few days ago, Gov. emnor C. C. Young, of California, in- dicated his decision might be re- versed if McDonald were produced to repeat his repudiation before the gov- ernor and the supreme court. San Francisco, July 12.—(NEA)— A strange and famous case is this of Thomas Mooney and Warren K. Bill- ings. Its bare outlines are known in every corner of: the globe. Three governors have been importuned, a president has intervened and protest meetings and sympathy strikes have been*held-int far-away lands. Few are.there who do not know that two labor leaders, Mooney and Billings, have’ served 14 years as felons on perjured testimony. Yet few know the complete sequence of fantastic tvents in this case. x * * Mooney and Billings were working- men and union agitators. Mooney was’! born in Chicago of an humble family. He grew up as a molder and as a youth was an ardent socialist. After working in the east he came to Cal- {fornia in 1906. In 1908 he was on the “red special,” the train in which Eugene Debs toured the country in this campaign for president. Billings came of an upper middle class family in Brooklyn. He gradu- ted from high school there, and the itch for adventure brought him to California. He “hoboed” his way from St. Louis to San Francisco where he took up his trade as shoe-worker end his avocation as union organizer. During an electricians’ strike in Oak- land, Billings was arrested for pos- sessing dynamite, convicted and sent to Folsom penitentiary. After 18 months he was freed, maintaining that the explosive had been “planted” in his suitcase. Active in his convic- tion was the late Martin Swanson, private detective for the Pacific Gas ‘end Electric company. Climax of Big Labor Trouble ‘The year 1916 climaxed a decade of fntense industrial and political war- fare in San Francisco. The “graft prosecution” following the 1906 earth- quake had stirred the city’s hatreds to their depths. Prosecutor Francis J. Heney, “scourge, of the grafters,” hhad been shot, thwarted in his drive for the “higher-ups” and finally de- feated as district attorney by Charles M. Pickert, the corporation candidate. Fickert had dismissed all indictments against the “higher-ups.” Numerous strikes occurred. Business had the Law and Order committee and had raised an $800,000 fund to put over the “open shop.” Mooney, the irrepressible, had “pulled” an abortive strike of plat- form men against the street railway company. An electrical tower of the Sierra Light and Power company had been dynamited. The coming preparedness parade, denounced by pacifists as an attempt Folsom. His prosecutor was Fickert’s chief deputy, James Brennan, who re- Photograph Belies Mooney Conviction | Even the unusual photograph above failed to prevent the conviction of Tom Mooney. It was taken during the Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco in 1916. Arrows point to Mooney and his wife, Rena, as they watched the parade from a roof. The third arrow points to a jeweler’s clock across the street. Enlargements showed that the time was 2:01 p.m. The bombing oc- curred @ mile and a quarter from this building at 2:06, and yet in five min- utes the prosecution claimed Mooney went down to 721 Market street, picked up Billings and the bomb, and then drove back to Steuart and Market streets, where the explosion occurred. The picture below was taken just after the explosion and the inset shows Judge Franklin A. Griffin, who séntenced Mooney, but who is now taking a leading part in the effort to get a pardon for him. ney-bus driver and friend of the ‘Mooneys. It was the prosecution's “theory” that the quintet had driven down Market street from 721 Market in Weinberg’s jitney, that Hey arid Billings had gotten out, planted in the crowd the suitcase in which was a time bomb, and disappeared. Prosecutor Doubted Guilt Mooney was tried and sentenced to hang. Even in 1918 the suspicion of his innocence was so great that a mediation commission named by President Wilson and headed by Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson prevailed upon Governor Stephens to retry him or at least commute his tence to life. Stephens took the ‘tter course. Billings was sentenced to life at witness was Estelle Smith, “southern belle,” who later turned out to have been a lady with a record of numer- ous arrests in Los Angeles. She said she had seen “this gentleman Mr. Billings” with a ‘suitcase leaving the roof of an office building in which she worked at 721 Market street at’ nine minutes to 2 o'clock. Another Prosecution witness was John Mc- Donald, who testified he saw Billings at the scene of the crime, a mile away, at exactly this time. + Witnesses Blandly Lie His testimony at Mooney’s trial flatly contradicted that at Billings’ trial and later he confessed he had never seen either until they were in the jail cells. Other Billings witnesses were the eae women, Mellie and her deugh- ter Sadie, seamstresses in Oakland. Having boasted they had seen two men plant the bomb, they were brought to the San Francisco jail to identify Mooney and Billings. Seeing them, Mrs. Edeau denied they were the men she saw. “Nothing like the fellows I saw,” she declared. In spite of this failure to identify, on record on the Oakland police blotter, they were brought back to San Francisco and there coached by the prosecution. Their testimony was so conflicting and. self-incriminating ny it was fused to go on with the case if he were forced to ask for a hanging ver- dict and who since has admitted that had he sat as a juror he never would have rendered a guilty verdict. ‘Mrs. Mooney was tried and acquit- ted although the testimony against her substantially was the same as that against Billings. Nolan, after being held in jail for nine months, was released without trial. lent cu Wore to Chief Petersen of Oakland. When accused of wanton fraud by a fellow-employe, she re- plied: “What difference does it make if you get paid for it? They are only working people and there are too many working people now.” “Honest” Witness Wasn't Even ‘There Astounding as was the Billings trial, the Mooney trial was even more éc. ‘The Mooneys had an almost perfect alibi. More than 30 persons have since said they saw them during the parade on the roof of the Eiler’s building, a mile and a quarter from the scene of the explosion. Photo- graphs taken of the parade showed ‘Tom and Rena Mooney leaning over the edge of the building. A great street clock across the street showed in these photos that the time was 2:01 Pp. m—just five minutes before the explosion, as other witnesses claimed. How they could have been here, at 721 Market street, with Billings, and at the scene of the crime far down at | the foot of Market street, all within five minutes, never ‘has been ex- plained. Here also enters a new star in the Fickert case. He is Frank C. Oxman, hailed as “an honest cattleman” from Oregon and welcomed as the one un- impeachable witness against the la- borites Judge Franklin Griffin, before whom Mooney was tried; Inspectors Matheson and Goff, and jurymen, all say today that without Oxman and McDonald, Mooney never would have been ‘convicted. Oxman said he saw the defendants plant the suitcase across the street from where he stood. Since then it has been proved he was in Woodland, 90 miles to the north, waiting for the 2:15 train when the ‘bomb exploded, He arrived in San Francisco at 5:25. Invited Other “Witness” to Join in It was several years after Mooney had been sent on his way to the gale lows that F. E. Rigall, poolroom oper- ator in Grayville, Ill, revealed a letter from Oxman urging him to come to San Francisco to be an “expert wit- ness” in corroboration of his, Ox- man’s, claim to have been there when the bomb exploded. “You will only hafto answer three | or four questions,” he wrote, “and I will Post you on them. You will only hafto say you seen me in San Fran- cisco on July 22, and that will be easy dun.” Much was made of mileage and reward. Rigall came. He was wined, dined and coached, but after seeing the plot at close range he quietly took the train back to Gray- ville the day before the Rena Mooney trial. Oxman was arrested for suborna- | | tion of perjury in connection with the Rigall letter, but was freed after a farce trial. Cop Admits Framing Witnesses All this was more than a dozen years ago. Since then Patrolman Draper Hand, Fickert aide, has con- fessed he framed and coached wit- nesses. Fickert's chief assistant, Brennan, has resigned, and confessed he was blinded by prejudice. U. 8. Webb, state atorney general, has asked for a new trial for Mooney; President Wilson's has saved Mooney from the gallows. In- spectors Duncan Matheson and Chas. Goff, the two chief detectives on the cases, have urged three governors ei urging pardon. attorney, Matthew Brady, former chief deputy, Milton U’Ren, have biden freeing the laborites. Oxman is lonely, obscure, and lives alone on his Oregon farm. Fickert, diseredited and poor, is practicing law in Los Angeles. Two governors, Sté- phens and Richardson, who refused been defeated. Mooney is 47 and gray-haired as he waits on the guards’ mess table at San Quentin. Bikings at 36 works hard in the Folsom laundry and plays chess at night. The state supreme court and the state advisory pardon board ase delv- ing into the records. Final action on pardon is up to Governor C. C. Young, who is up for renomination in the August Republican primaries. versus the state of California is be- Weinberg was tried and acquitted after the jury delfberated three min- utes, promptly impeached. ingp pati eg eather and her daughter made to take her place. * * * When she had placed herself in two Billings, being an ex-convict and hence easier of conviction, came to trial first. The chief prosecution OUT OUR WAY ARIP! NO SON OF MINE 1S GOW! HELP IT 1 LOOK AT ME ~—Wwenty TAREE YEARS In A SHOP AN’ WHERE AM AT MUSTER FORO ANO PURSELL -AND “to Prussianize America,” was under boycott by union labor. Battle-lines were drawn, the atmosphere was sur- soaiged with class-feeling and pas- lon. Bomb Exploded On July ‘22 at 2:06 p. m. there was ,n explosion at Steuart and Market streets among a crowd of onlookers as the parade passed. Nine persons were killed and 40 injured. ek * ‘Threatening notes had been sent to the mayor, to newspapers, to union ‘oni nlleenonagl Le mens, Peres inrecl Weinberg. it ite THe “UPSTART. Edeau | courts, AHEAD ANDO |HE NEVER Boojum, second to Whichone last year in the two-year-old ranking, probably will not race again until next spring. AWEAO -| to heatken to the pardon pléas, have | 5 The case of Mooney and Billings Bu San Quentin penitent 'NEW TEXACO ETHYL CLAIMED SUPERIOR Company Embarks on Another Blend of Knockless Gaso- line for Motorists TRINITY LUTHERAN Avenue C at Seventh street. Op! pastor. Fourth €unday after Trinity. Church school, 9 . Morning worship 10. ‘The Rev. Henry Dralle wilt preach. F The Ladies’ Aid will attend the ‘Texaco New and Better Gasoline, of the same high quality which has tinguished this bberaaiae dor bdlnatel ciclngmnvace {Pooh a today, a waiter at the guards’ mess in will be able to identify stations selling Texaco Ethyl by means of the new sidewalk ‘signs and pumps. The sidewalk sign displays the Texaco Red Star with the Green T, linked with the yellow and black Ethyl trade-mark. The two inum-painted and is surmounted by lobe bearing the words “Texaco Ethyl” and the Texaco Red Star with the Green T. The pump also beara the name “Texaco” and the Ethy} trade-mark. Des Moines Policeman Ir Killed by Autoist Des Moines, Iowa, July reat hy Harry Ogilvie, 47, former captain of police department and a utility mem- ber of force, was fatally wounded early today. /R. G. Karlson, 31, Des Moines, a bookkeeper, was arrested. Police said Karlson drove around a corner in a reckless manner causing the former police captain to request him to halt. Police said when Ogilvie cautioned Karlson about his driving Karlson shot the officer four times. Rescue Negro from Maddened Texas Mob Shamrock, Tex. July 12—)— Peace officers told conflicting stories today as to the whereabouts of Jesse Lee, negro, hurried away from a mob that sought to lynch him for the al- leged slaying of Mrs. Henry Vaughan, dry./a white woman, yesterday. Sheriff Claude McKinney, who sped from the scene of the slaying with the negro, said he had taken him to the state reformatory at Granite, Oklahoma. Granite reformatory officiels de- nied this. Mrs. Vaughn was found slain in the yard of her farm home bys heavy iron pipe. A three-year-old daughter was witness. BACHELOR, 103, DIES San Francisco, July 12,—Antone ; to 1300 parts of gaso- knock compound, @ product of the] New and Better, may be listed briefly | Rengly, always a bachelor, is dead Sely Te actmonstration , Wednandsy” | Ereet Gasoting ‘The com-| se follows: 1, Quick starting. due to |at 103.” He was fatally hurt falling company’s offices. bination results.in a motor fuel which| the low boiling point and the high |down stairs. Often he said bd aes. if he is second to none in the markzt to-| percentage of volatile fractions in|had a nagging wife he wo have AvennaaST LUTHERAN 4, |day. ‘Texaco New and Better Gaso-| Texaco gasoline which ignite readily |been dead long ago. . Benzon, pastor. line without the Ethyl compound will | in a cold engine. 2. Fast acceleration ee o.Ggnday school and Bible’ class ‘at/ still be manufactured, making two because, be being ‘ary. gasoline,| Dance at Glen-Echo. Al's English service at 10:45 a. m. grades of Texaco gasoline available | Texaco feeds Sealy to the cylinders |band of Mandan playing. Fri lay eked i u Ribert Th ge eter of the riday ev Officials —- HE eR es Ganeal mceors tain the local mission’ society at the home of Mr. and Mrs, Albert Thomas, 423 Eleventh street. tors Research corporation. began a series of experiments to deter- mine the cause of engine “knocking.” FIRST EVANGELICAL Piel albae a m what hed been Kno n er com) wi wn Seventh street and Rosser avenue. | as “engine knock” is in reality # fuel ‘ Sunday” school, 10 @.'m., for. all de- | “knock.” aE EM OREA, It was shown in the laboratory that Tree ne Word ot Geis? °* +1 the knocking could be controlled by Evening service at % The juniors | adding iodine to the gasoline, but the Tiass ‘ot 12 will receive thelr certiti: | Use, OF this substance was seen. to be | commercially im due to cates for having completed the junior | Commercially | mpraetea ay : ‘Wednesday, '8 p. m.,'midweek:prayer service. knocking. The experiments continued and, after testing more than 33,000 chemical substances, the chemists de- veloped ethyl brand of anti-knock compound, a mixture of tetraethyl lead, ethylene bromide, halowax oil (known chemically as bone FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST (Sclentist) Fourth street and Avenue C. Sunday service at 11. a.m. Subject, “Sacrament.” Sunday school at 9:45 a. Wednesday . evening meeting at 8 o'clock. ‘A reading room maintained at 119% Fourth strect is open daily, except legal holidays, from 12 to ‘8. p.m. junday, 3 to 6 p.m. 1 “are welcome’ to’ attend ‘these services and to visit the reading room, “testimonial spark plug electrodes and valve stems. Accordingly there is added the ethy- |, Tene bromide, a colorless bromide ZION LUTHERAN (Missouri Synod) monary street at Avenue A. Richert, pastor. ‘There il be no local church serv ices on Sunday, as the congregat! is requested to’ join the mass service held in the auditorium at New Sal commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Augsburg confession. ' These services are sponsored by some eight congregations in the Slope, confer- Rev. aus oon dt tel who inten fo participate ed to bring their lunch ee the church at 9 a.m., in of 8:30 am, as was formerly an- nounced. netrect end Avenue By His L. Jackson, pastor. Church school, 10 a, m. with classes for ail, ages. ira, Howard McNutt, iss Barguerite Kennedy. “In Sapphire Seas” (Eix Ory se pamnnee” (Grunfeld). Special music. "s Story Book"—Mr. at 8. , Miss ‘gehts ‘Wilson. Prelude, “the Sweet Byertnd-Bye” (a preneciee tion by. ‘ebster). Qftertory, “Choral” (Schumann Bucteether and Rvelyn gacobson, : Ber haracti pon, “The Basis of “phere Will be no midweek rayer service, owing to the assembly” at ‘Valley ‘City. " coe anda WCABE METHODIST EPISCOPAL Walter B. Vater, pastor. Morning worship at 10: Organ prelude, Sharon “de Fete”. Anthem, “I Waited for the Lord” .” GMfendelssohn). Organ offertory, | “Reverte Inter- schompus, (Techaikowsk hanks Be to G walyorees pape Biri Preston. : Yater. of Adventure”— vate: Organ-portiude, “March” (Ashford). Prayer service’ Wednesday evening at 8 o'clock. FIRST PRESBYTERIAN Intermediate department of church school, 9: Morning ‘worship at 10:80, Organ prelude, “Sonatina” (Rogers) race Duryee Morris, Solo, “Rock of Ages” (Herbert John- |: son)—Walter * “Solitude ‘on the Moun- tain” (Ole Bull), Solo, “O Toving Father" (Del Riego) —Otto Bau Sermon, “Living by the Spirit.” Orpen bostiude, “Soldiers’ Chorus”: . pick-up, Chrysler smooth- ness,Cheysler flexibility, are things you can know and enjoy only in a Chrysler. Nursery, kindergarten, primary and Taner: Gepartments of church school, * Rrening serv Organ prelud aye er” (Wagner). 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WY M1»: the fact that Chryster performance’ is all other caré.near its price in perform. . aneneg ed jame I Adore” (£ ig ‘i ee i beauty, come “Orman 2 setteriory, “Melody” (Mas fax ahead of . “NEW CHRYSLER SIX FRIES visi a * - ; : performance. fort, in everything that contributes to value. i The answer is inevita- Coupe, $7953. Tonring, $8355 bie Nothing within bun- Royal Coupe, ; Roadster, Hijs: Repel Stiee, $545. dreds of dollars of the peice AM prices f. 0. b. factory can compare in val {special equipment extra} Bismarek, N. Dak. WEST PIED OAKS wonte r= ra =