The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 22, 1933, Page 5

Fate of Warren Billings Tied Up with Tom Mooney Imperial Valley Prisoner Gives Portrait of! . By CARL SKLAR. ‘OLSOM PRISON, where Warren Ki: Billings is confined, is lo- cated'iin the Sacramento Valley, California; about 100 miles inland fror& ‘the’ Pacific Coast. A heavy stone. wall, clamped like a horse- shoewfigainst the side of the rocky American. River, encloses the cell- blocs of Folsom which holds 3,000 prisoners. Billings entered the prison at the age ‘of ‘23, and there he has spent 17 ofthe best years of his life. Or June 18, 1930, T. Horiuchi, a Japanese worker, and I, both of us | convicted for our efforts to organize a union of agricultural workers in the Imperial Valley, and sentenced to serve three to forty-two years in Folsom, were taken through the same prison gates which Billings had entered so many years before. About. the same time six of our comrades. in the Imperial Valley case .were entering the San Quen- tin prison to become fellow-prison- | ers with, Tom Mooney. We_were, of course, eager to meet Prisoners told us that he was jvorking in the prison laundry, We ciime-up to the fence which en- closes, the laundry yard and asked one Of the convicts to call Billings. A few'minutes later, on the other side of:'the fence, stood Warren K. Billing’;.whom we immediately rec- ognized “from the many photo- graphs’we had seen. WARREN. K. BILLINGS In fron} of us stood a short, sturdy man,“abeut 5 feet, 5 inches in. height, with blond hair and blue.. eyes,:Beaming good nature. .In the two yeats we spent with Billings. we found this good nature and in- domitable spirit to be one of his outstanding characteristics. . His. quick: firm movements and ready speech mmediately stamped him | as a mam.of great energy, and this impression, was also confirmed as we cafeé to know him better in the montisg and years that followed. IGHTS "tor political prisoners are ndé“Yecognized in Folsom prison, as théyAre not recognized any- whert’“else in the prisons of the | But the prison it- | States. uch as to impose special and restrictions upon the United self Fokgm, (is a prison for “second timers’—those who had been con- victed ‘two or more times. Prison regulations are especially stringent, and ‘Billings has been no excep- tion. = Thes¢-circumstances have greatly restricted. his contact with the out- side -world, and have, in effect, practically isolated him from his . friends’.and the fighters for his freedom.in the labor movement. _Not only. the established prison rules, ;ptit.also the very character of thg.,prigon itself is such as to greatly. increase the effects of {so- lation. SE F. C. OXMAN, the honest cattle- man, >was ninety miles from San Francisco-but he got paid to say he saw Mooney place the bomb. ‘The prison population is com- posed mostly of those who had served in prison two or more times. Those who enter Folsom, come in to stay for a minimum of two years, These factors, in my opinion, have had a great bearing on the views and opinions which Billings has held in the course of these years. Billings associates himself wholeheartedly with the working ee oe | TOM MOONEY, when he was or- | | ganizing in San Francisco in 1916 | and the power trust was ‘out to | “get” him. | class, But, unlike Tom Mooney, he | is not yet convinced that the key | to his freedom is to be found only in militant and well organized mass pressure of the working class, to- gether with those intellectuals, lib- erals and others who sincerely sup- | port the struggle for the release of Mooney and Billings. This is the reason why Billings has not yet associated himself with the courageous and militant appeal issued to all working class organiza- tions by Tom Mooney—an appeal for a united front of struggle which alone can break the determination of the California bosses to hold Mooney and Billings in prison. When told about the new trial which Tom Mooney had won, Bill- angs did not immediately declare his intention to ask for a new trial | for himself. But there can be no doubt as to his intense interest’as | “to the outcome ‘of that trial: and the effect it will produce. Neither will Billings fail to notice the de- | velopments which brought about this new trial for Tom Mooney. | FREE TOM MOONEY CONGRESS It is not~an* accident that Tom Mooney was granted this trial on the remaining indictment against him, shortly after he had issued Kis call for the “Free Tom Mooney Congress” -to- be -held in- Chieago, | and at a time when hundreds of | organizations and tens of thousands | of workers rallied in response to | local united front conferences in preparation for. this Congress. The struggle for the release” of Mooney and Billings is now being developed on the most extensive, the broadest and most militant basis in the history of the case. Hundreds of thousands of work- ers, veterans, and farmers, fighting against the Roosevelt-Wall Street hunger program, know that the is- sues involved in the case of Mooney and Billings are inseparably linked with their own interests, and with | the entire struggle of the toiling | masses against capitalist terror, op- pression and exploitation. This is exactly the reason why, despite Governor Rolph’s declara- tion that the Mooney case was | “closed’—the California courts | have been compelled to grant a | new trial for Tom Mooney, | wouLp BAR NEW TRIAL { | If mass pressure is strong enough | | to block the present efforts of the | | | | | | prosecution to bar the new trial for Mooney, if this mass pressure is increased «o such an extent as | to make this new trial a means for | mobilizing additional millions for | the struggle to free Mooney and | Billings—then a new trial for Bill- ings can also undoubtedly be re- alized, as another step for the com- | plete smashing up of the frame-up. | One thing is certain. The name of Billings has become inseparable from the name of Tom Mooney and the entire case. The fight to free Mooney is the fight for Billings as well. | . The working class will not relax | its efforts in this fight until both are free. Labor Sports Union in Street Runs for Scottsboro-Mooney NEW NORK. — Scores of athletes ali over the United States will come out intd*the streets in Free Tom Mooney—Stottsboro Boys Street Runs throughout many cities of the United States, the Labor Sports Union na- tional oifice announced here. Ath~- letes willrun with the slogans pinned on theff’jerseys: Free Tom Mooney! Free the Scottsboro Boys! Probably the most dramatic of the street runs will be that scheduled for Harlem,, {he densely-populated Negro section,of New York, This run, tak- ing placé Saturday the 29th, exactly the same.date as the opening of the Free Mooney Congress in Chicago, will incltidé some of the best run- ners itt the city. Athletes from Amateur Athletic Union clubs and Labor Sports Union clubs will com- pete. Ifar Prim, former national AA.U, 600°meter champ, will prob- | ably take part. The run is being held undexythe auspices of the East- ern District of the Labor ‘Sports Onion and will start from the Vesa AC, clits house, 15 W. 126th St. R. L. Doherty, sports editor of the! “Amsterdam News,” has pledged his cooperation with the L.S.U. in this) run. | Pea ge Residents of Worcester, Mass. will) see the issue of Mooney and the Scottsboro Boys again dramatized on | | the streets when the worker athletes | of New England run through the} on April 22nd in their Free Mooney- | | Scottsboro Boys Street Run. In | Brownsville, a workingclass section of | ‘another of these runs on the 22nd. | BRONX COLISEUM MEET | | NEW YORK—A mass-send off to | the delegates to the Free Tom Moo- | ney Congress in Chicago will be held | in Bronx Coliseum, Thursday, April) 27, at 8 p.m., it was announced to- auspices of the New York Free Tom) Mooney organization set up by the} Free Tom Mooney United Front Con- | ference, | | The Chicago Conference opens} April 30, and will last over Maw May} to May 2. ~ ' | | streets of this old New England town! % Brooklyn, athletes will compete in| # day. The send-off will-be under the | 3 DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1933 Page Five MOONEY, SON OF MILITANT MINER, LEARNED Father Fled Mine After Defending Himself By LAWRENCE EMERY. (Lawrence Emery, one of the eight Imperial Valley prisoners, originally sentenced to 42 years for | organizing agricultural workers in Southern California, spent three years in San Quentin with Tom Mooney. He tells here from in- . formation obtained from Mooney’s | own lips, the story of the latter's frame-up.) ea ee IM MOONEY the son of a worker. His father was a coal miner, a militant, clas: | conscious worker who for years. be- | fore his death was an organizer for the old Knights of Labor. He died of tuberculosis when Tom was eight years old. Tom’s boyhood in the grime and dirt of an Indiana company coal town is typical of the lives of mil- lions of workers’ children. Even when his father was alive and working, he was often hungry and cold, and learned early what it meant to be the child of a proletar- | jan in capitalist America. After the death of his father, | Tom was taken with his brother and sister to Holyoke, Mass., where his mother went to work for twelve hours a day in a paper mill to sup- port her family. She even took in washing in those early days in a@ heroic effort to feed and clothe her growing children. ‘Tom and his brother John sold papers and ran errands or went down to the railroad tracks to pick up coal, while their little sister Anna stayed at home and did the house work. BEGINS WORK AT 12 Tom got only about four years of school. When he was twelve he was big enough to go to work in a foundry where he served his four years’ apprenticeship. It is im- portant to know that as soon as | he became a journeyman in his trade, he joined the International Molders’ Union and has been a member in good standing ever since. Before he was twenty he was nominated a delegate to the National Convention of his union, which is held every five years. Since he has been in prison, he has been elected an honorary delegate to every convention. i ‘gee a Ue 3 HEN his brother and sister had grown up and gone to work, Tom felt that he was free to start out and have a look at the world. He felt that perhaps he could make up & little for all that he had mis- sed in his boyhood and youth. But in Europe he met an American del- egate to the International Socialist Congress who traveled with him and talked to him, it ee Beak LEARNS OF CLASS STRUGGLE When Tom left this acquaintance, his class-consciousness, was def- nitely awakened, and when-he com- pleted his tour of Europe he un- derstood fully and completely that there was no way out of hunger and oppression except through rev- olutionary struggle against capital~ ism. He ianded in Boston {fi thé win- ter of a crisis year. There were no jobs; hundreds of thousands of workers were on the streets, un- employed. Tom started out to look | for work, and his search took him | through New Orleans, into old Mexico and back north again to Stockton, Cal., where he found = job at his trade. With his first pay-check he joined the Socialist Party and sub- scribed to the old “Appeal to Reason”. Within a few months he had become one of the most active workers in the party, and was sent to the State Nominating Convention in the campaign year of 1908. He was at the station in San | Jose to greet the famous “Red Special”, and made such an im- pression on Eugene Debs with his youthful vigor and enthusiasm that he was asked to accompany the Red Special as literature agent. CLASHES WITH A. F. L. MISLEADERS The tour stimulated his interest in the revolutionary movement, and when the campaign came to an end, Tom went to Chicago where he studied all winter at the famous Marshall Field Research Library under the tutorship of A. M. Simons. On his way home once more to California he entered a’ subscrip- tion contest for Wilshire’s Month- | ly, @ socialist review, and staged a whirlwind sub campaign all through the West. He won second prize: a free trip as a spectator to the International Socialist Con- | gress, held that year in Denmark. He landed back in California in 1910, with a deep understanding of the labor movement and a broad international outlook which imme- “San Quentin Warden . ; JAMES B. HOLOHAN, warden of San Quentin, who keeps Mooney peeling onions and potatoes as pun- ishment for his militancy. working class is a worker and | presidential | | Dade Bax | Gree Vozeet_ Llece ta: Cary © \ : os, How “Honest Cattleman” Lied Closeted with Fickert and Cunha, Oxman ws HOTEL TERMINAL ne wen Ae er STREET SAN Francisco “re JRL Qeaeds. PeaL— : fhe Geae OF pape ~ Belaicax Au alot Ea SF preset q euZPe ss | he was 90 miles away. | bribed by the frame-np crew, | Mr. Ed Rigall, Grayville, MH. Dear Ed: you on them. Please keep this confidential. Has been a long time since I herd for you te cum to San Frise as 8 expurt witness in a very important case. You will only hafte answer 8 or 4 questiones and I will Post You will get mileage and all that a witness can draw probly a 100 in the clear se #f you will come ans me quick in care of this Hotel and I will mange the Balance it is a!1 O. K. but I need a witness. Let me know if you cam come Jan. 3 is the dait set for trike. Answer hear. Yours Traly ¥F. C. OXMAN. he Aha F. C. OXMAN, leading witness against Mooney, toki how he saw Mooney place a bomb on the corner of the explosion, though it was later proved This letter sent to » friend shows how he was The letter reede: n. ¥ kewe # chance | diately brought him into conflict not only with the reactionary, graft-ridden bureaucracy of the American Federation of Labor, but also with the conservative, middle | class leadership of the Socialist Party. He soon dropped out of the | last organization, and devoted him- | Self to trade union activity. The bosses of California at the time were engaged in a vicious onslaught against the working | class; it was the California open- shop war, and it was being fought by the bosses with a bitterness and a fury that was to come to a grim climax six years later with a death | sentence for Mooney. LEADS MILITANT | SHOE STRIKE. The A. F. of L, officialdom was working hand in hand with the bosses. Tom went into the unions as an agitator and an organizer of the left wing. He built up or- ganized opposition groups and cre- ated a network of contacts with militants not only in the state but nationally as well. Gradually all the revolutionary elements began to crystallize around Mooney as the central leader. @ monthly paper, began to appear. * . . ARREN K, BILLINGS, ‘a young Mooney, and when the San Fran- cisco shoe workers went on strike them, Billings became his closest co-worker, The shoe strike was fought with a militancy that in- spired the workers of the entire city, and when it was won, Mooney emerged as the outstanding figure in_the local labor movement. The electrical workers, employees of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., went on strike next and asked Mooney to lead them, which he did gladly. The P. G. and E. was one of the most vicious of the open- Under his direction _ “The Revolt”, | shoe worker, was drawn towards , in 1911, he called on Tom to lead | A shoppers and had bought with cold cash the “leaders” of the A. F. L, electrical workers’ union. The strike | was fought not only against the employers, but also against these traitors in the labor movement. During the course of this strike, OF CLASS WAR IN YOUTH TWas Crack ‘Sub’ Agent for Debs’ ‘Red Special’ fund of one million dollars sub~ scribed for the battle. A number of strikes were in progress at the time; the city was overrun with hordes of imported strike-breake: and armed thugs. Violence and terror against the workers was the special function of the “Law and Order Committee”. Captain Rober Dollar, steamship magnate, set the if at public meeting he screamed the bosse challenge ‘The way to break these strikes fill the hospitals with strik- 1916, Day designaied with a was was ordered to march on pain of losing his job MOONEY yAR CHALLE It was a challenge to Mooney recognized it with characteristic he and m courage workers He went straight to the heart of the open shop forces of the c organized the workers of the l Railways, a subsidiary of th ous Pacific Gas and Electric pany. He led them out on a but matic strike less th menth before the Preparedness Parade The strike failed. But it threw the employers into a fury of hate The command went out: “Get Tom Mooney. And this time don’t fail!” Martin Swanson, special detec- tive and strike-breaker for the util- ities corporations, tried in vain to bribe Billings and other of Moo- ney’s co-workers to frame him. On July 22, 1916, the Prepared- ness Day Parade was bombed, ki ling ten persons and wounding fifty others. The same day Martin Swanson moved into the office of Demonstrate on May Ist for the Release of Tom Mooney! — “We Knew Tom Mooney in San Quentin Prison” Class-War Prison-Mate Tells of Torture of Frame-Up Victim OUR, of landed jan Quen ad = organ workers League been mor ent were to Folsom, wh 2 in the V ¥, after 17 mn. ing sentence on of criminal syn the same charges icalism We saw Mooney that first day, as we were waiting to be finger | printed and given a prison number, District Attorney Charles Fickert. | | Were still bushy and black. He had Tom and Rena Mooney, Warren K Billings, Israel Weinberg, and Ed Nolan, all close to Mooney, were arrested, held incommunicado, and charged with the crime. No at- tempt was made to follow down clues or seek evidence. Instead, the Fickert-Swanson frame-up clique. acting on orders, set about framing Tom Mooney. RANK AND FILERS ON JOB. How they bribed and coached syphiletics, prostitutes and other shady characters to “identify” Mooney; how they suppressed e¥ dence destroying their frame-up— in short the whole rotten frame-up story is known to workers through- out the world today. Though the A. F. of L. officials condemned Mooney, the rank and filers began immediately agitating for his release. How under their insistent demand for Mooney’s free- dom the frame-up was exposed and crumbled is # well-known story today. IME and again when the capi- talists thought they had Modney | stowed again permanently and the cesspool of corruption and bribery covered over, it was worker-protest that raised the issue of Mooney’s freedom again. Yielding unc>r the weight of this protest, California has been forced to grant a new trial to Mooney on April 26 on the basis of one of the unused indictments for murder in connection with the bombing. If Mooney ever gets on the stand, California officials and big indus- trialists know that the whole of the frame-up story will have to be told on the front pages of every newspaper in the country. SEEK TO BAR TRIAL They will try to prevent this with every weapon in their hands, Al- } ready one maneuver after another in 1912, the first attempts of the | bosses to frame Tom Mooney were | made. They succeeded in planting @ suitcase full of dynamite on Bil- lings, and railroaded him to Fol- som prison for two years. But at- tempts to frame Mooney in the same manner failed. redoubled their efforts him, | PIONEER IN MASS DEFENSE Clumsy attempts were made to frame Mooney in 1913 and 1914, when he was active not only as strike-leader, but was also the oustanding figure in the old Work- ers International Defense League. Mooney did pioneer work in build- ing up a working-class defense or- ganization in this country to protect militants from the class justice of to “get” capitalist courts. He was in the | lead in the defense of Joe Hill, | framed and executed in Utah; Ei- tor and Giovanniti, leader of the Lawrence textile strike; Ford and Suhr, railroaded to prison in Cali- | fornia for their activities agricultural workers’ strike. But all attempts to frame Mooney failed until 1916, In the early part of that year the employers of Cali- fornia mobilized all their forces tor what they hoped would be a final smashing drive against the in an unions in general and the militants | in particular, They were preparing for war, and they saw as their first task the crushing of all working class resistance to the imperialist slaughter. p « of Commerce of California was called, a so-called “Law and Or- der Committee” was set up, and a again | specikl meeting of the Chamber | The bosses | is being made to quash the indict- ment. As once the order was: “Get Tom Mooney because he is dangerous to us,” so now the capi- | talist cry is: “Keep Tom Mooney off the witness stand.” Workers, will you permit Then support the International Labor Defense in its fight to smash the Mooney frame-up and the whole frame-up system. Attend the free Tom Mooney Conference in your city and help elect delegates to the Free Tom Mooney Congress in Chicago, April 30 to May 2. Demand by wire of District At- torney Matthew Brady of Francisco that Mooney be given this chance to clear himself. this? | San | Flood Governor Rolph of Cali- | fornia with wires Mooney's freedom! demanding THE CLOCK IN THIS PICTURE points to almost exactly the time when the bomb exploded a mile awag, while Mooney and his wife, Rena, were watching the parade from the roof of this building, We recognized him from his pic ture; of medium height and well knit. His hair was thinning and turning gray, but his eyebrows been behind bars then for four- teen years, and we had expected to find him broken in health, be- cause we knew even before we got there that prison beans and stew and prison labor didn’t make for physical well-being But Mooney surprised us, Still robust, he walked with a firm, springy step. His back was as straight as a rod, and he Tied himself with s bold confidence which was ample proof that four- teen years had only strengthened his determination to fight against the frame-up system of capitalism. WHY BOSSES HATE MOONEY This was our impression from afar. When we met him, and shook his hand, and talked with him, we understand more fully why the bosses of California hate this worker with « bitterness and a fury that only a dying class fearful of its. existence can display. The forcefulness and vigor of Tom Moo» ney, his dynamic personality, his courage and audacity, make him @ natural leader, a leader of such integrity, steadfastness and power that the bosses hate him with ar intensity born of fear and despera~ tion HE qualities for which the bos- s hate Tom Mooney are the yery ones which inspire the work- ers’ admiration for t victim of class justice. His militancy conscientiousness and his uns ing loyalty to the kK) more than qualify him for thi he has come to pla e of the onary its as and—its oppression. cting us, saw us When we came e great steel front gate flan! guards and covert 1 gun towers, the same gate that had clanged be hind him so many years before He greeted us with mingled pleasure and sorrow: glad to see militant workers with whom he could talk, yet sorry to see them behind prison walls. WARNS OF STOOLPIGEONS He took us around, introduced us to Jim Mi ara and Schmidt, serving life sentences fol- lowing the Los Angeles Times e plosion, McNamara with one years in a prison cell, still fie and confident of the ultimate v tory of the working class For each of us Mooney had a | box with razor, soap and tobacco —things that knew we would need and d collected for us before we h rived, And he gave us 90d advice, about stoolpigeons, etc. After the first few days we did not see him very often; his work years of Matt | twenty- during the day. He was up be ked w wo! He'd 9» for punish- issued @ fiery » his jailors when boss- ad denied ually on Sundays would come the big see friends and walk with. us. Sometin would be jolly, with More nm he spoke grim Mooney yard. to 1etimes he ith the aid_of e A. PF. of L. leadership 1 to fashion e for his Sc And neyer did he tire of describing how the workers of the world, particularly the revolution- masses of old Russia, rose im ary mighty protest demonstrations and lied the capitalist class .of to commute his sentence-to imprisonment H TOOL OF BANKERS »stly he talked of the work- movement today, its prob- d tasks, its failures and And always, persistently, urned to one central theme: The workers must unite, ot them, socialist, Communist, trade unionists, unorganized. They must come together, solidly welded into 8 fighting united front, based on & common program of struggle That's the way to victory . ; all |, heetieda was not surprised when Governor Rolph denied his par- don. He had known Rolph and his connections for a long time He remembered how Rolph, as Mayor of San Francisco, posted the first reward for the capture of those responsible for the bomb ex- plosion”; how Rolph had silently approved of every step taken..in the frame-ups; how Rolph had been forced to listen to a first- hand account of all the details of that frame-up from the lips -of policeman Draper Hand, who had been the chief coacher of the per- jured witnesses. Rolph had done nothing. ~Aiso he knew how Rolph as ® banker, businessman and Politician was pagt and parce) of the corrupt and vicious Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the corpora- tion which had taken the lead in the bosses’ war against the work- ers, & long standing war in Cali- fornia in which the frame-up of Mooney and Billings had been a major campaign. No, Rolph’s «e= cision was no surprise to Mooney? he had no illusions. His answer was sharp and clear: ‘his decision,” he said, “is a chal- lenge thrown into the teeth of the | working class. And the workers will accept the challenge . . .” Mooney was right. The workers did accept it. Everywhere they held giant protest meetings, mass demonstrations. Brave 84-year old Mother Mooney traveled half-way round the world and back, raliying the masses to the defense of her y”. It was a hard trip for her, but it was just as hard for Tom— T know that there were many nights when he could not sleep, worrying for the safety of his mother. “MY CONFIDENCE WITH WORKERS’ But Mother Mooney came back, and she brought with her the pledge of hundreds of thousands of workers to fight with greater de» termination than ever before. TOM issued his “call Tor a unitet Tuggle a short time before ¥ released from San Quentit: We shook hands the day I left, and I said, “Tom, it won't be so very long before we'll be meeting again, outside these walls.” “Perhaps you're right,” he re- plied slowly, “ if the workers will unite. They must come together and fight together. They can; and I think they will. My com fidence is with the workers” }\ Less than a month later, the workers proved that Mooney’s con~ fidence was not misplaced. ‘Their response to Tom’s call for unity’ was 50 , their mass pressure sO pow that the bosses of Californi compelled to gran€ &@ new trial to Mooney. ty It is no doubt a victory, and thé first step to freedom. Bi h egun, must da hundred-fold. The m Mooney Con¥ 30 to May 2, must be gigantic living mani- the united front of b made festa struggle. to a of Ficker ann aN Rew RS