00:00:02.279 - 00:00:18.799

20s, or actually it would be in the late teens. George, since you worked as the legal counsel for Mooney in the 30s and since you did a thorough study of what happened in the teens and in the 20s, maybe you could describe from your own memory

00:00:18.799 - 00:00:42.360

some of the national events leading up to Mooney's commutation by Governor Stevens. Well, I think I would have to generalize on that in this way. Mooney was convicted. In 1917, he was arrested in 1916 in July and uh his trial, his case went to trial in

00:00:42.360 - 00:01:07.050

1917 and at that time the formation of defense committees for Tom Mooney. Began not only in the California and in San Francisco and in the United States but in many, many places all over the world, especially in Russia. This was a period of time during which

00:01:07.050 - 00:01:29.779

there was a great deal of foment and disturbance. The revolutionary spirit was uh abroad and uh it was even developing. In this country, the industrial revolution in a sense had reached a kind of a climax, and many of the things that are commonly attributed to capitalism

00:01:30.099 - 00:01:48.470

were beginning to happen. Uh, even those who think it's the best system in the world agree that there's a great deal of unemployment, that people are out of jobs that machines are taking over. There was a a tremendous amount of labor union organization. The labor unions

00:01:48.470 - 00:02:12.179

were just beginning to come into their own and they were beginning to develop a strength uh the combination of all these things together with uh uh a very carefully and well orchestrated campaign on behalf of Tom Mooney for his freedom. was beginning to show in spots

00:02:12.179 - 00:02:32.580

in Mexico and as I said, in Russia, in France and in Germany there were gatherings, there were meetings. It was something like what we're seeing today. We're seeing the Iranians just marched down the street half an hour ago protesting against the Shah, the The Chinese from

00:02:32.580 - 00:02:51.220

Taiwan are going to have marches on New Year's Day at the same time and about the same place that the People's Republic groups. It was that kind of thing. Now because of the war, World War One, and because of our international situation at that time, which

00:02:51.220 - 00:03:09.179

I, I won't try to go into in detail, it became a matter of concern to the President of the United States. And it was finally came to a head when President Wilson called the governor of California. And told the governor that there was a national interest

00:03:09.479 - 00:03:29.080

in the commutation of Mooney's sentence from death to life, and that did take place. Now this was that was Governor Stevens. That's right. And of course that took the the edge off as far as the death sentence was concerned, but the agitation for Really on a

00:03:29.080 - 00:03:49.960

worldwide basis for Mooney's release continued and even mounted after that because it was an outstanding example of a case in which there had been a complete and total frame up. It had begun to develop within a within a year of the day that Mooney was arrested.

00:03:50.300 - 00:04:09.130

And the problems, the legal problems and the meaning of that kind of thing uh just took people and uh they were interested in right now during the 20s, uh the 20s was a difficult period, but it was a post-war period. The Palmer raids had been initiated

00:04:09.130 - 00:04:24.779

in 1919. And wasn't the the cause for Mooney on the wane in the early twenties due to the fact that people had been harassed. There it was a period of economic change, there was a lot of tension in the country in the period plus it was

00:04:24.779 - 00:04:44.489

a period of prosperity and what happened to the Mooney defense during the twenties. Well, I, I don't really feel qualified to answer that in any specific detail. I know that there was a period when things kind of, uh, there was a wane as you say. Uh,

00:04:44.529 - 00:05:06.290

other things became important and it didn't really, the, the agitation, as I see it didn't really revive until the depression began to come about in the uh in the early late 29s and the early 30s. Now, there were constant attempts at all during this time to

00:05:06.290 - 00:05:28.190

bring about Mooney's freedom. Either by getting him a pardon or a commutation of sentence which he refused absolutely wouldn't accept. And by other, um, what I would call legal and quasi-legal efforts, uh, people from all over the country, all over the world would visit California and

00:05:28.190 - 00:05:46.309

they would go to mass meetings. They would visit the governor, they would send telegrams, lawyers came out, there were all kinds of approaches made to new trials and the district attorney in San Francisco, the new district attorney Matt Brady. was a very very friendly to the

00:05:46.309 - 00:06:08.339

Mooney cause, and he tried to get a new trial for Tom Mooney and there were just uh endless, endless things of what I call a quasi-legal and sort of half political nature that were going on. But they began to develop an intensity in the period I'd

00:06:08.339 - 00:06:34.584

call it the late 20s when um when um Upton Sinclair ran for governor and made a big point about the uh Unfairness and the, the injustice of the Mooney case as a part of his campaign. That was during 33 and 34, uh yeah, that's right, because

00:06:34.584 - 00:06:56.809

it was picked up by Culbert Olson in 1934, uh or rather after 1934 because Olson's campaign came to a head in 1938 and what had been started and was developing. During the Upton Sinclair period, the epic period, the end poverty in California period, and the period

00:06:56.809 - 00:07:15.410

of the Great Depression and the terrible labor unrest, what had begun then as a sort of a political issue became a real political issue during the Olsen campaign, but that's another story in a way that parallels the legal story about what was happening at that time.

00:07:15.529 - 00:07:36.290

Now you first stepped into the case in what period? I came into the case at in approximately 19, the year 1934. I had been graduated from law school in 1931. I've been very busy, uh, in, and I've been a deputy district attorney in San Francisco for

00:07:36.290 - 00:07:57.809

about a year. I was in private practice and then through a a combination of circumstances that were almost freakish in their nature, I became involved in the case very simply, what happened was that uh Frank Walsh, a very famous attorney from New York, and John Finnerty,

00:07:58.179 - 00:08:20.690

another very famous attorney from Washington DC. Had put together a new theory to approach the Mooney case in law, and that was to go to the federal courts and to present the theory that if a man is convicted entirely on perjured testimony or false testimony, that

00:08:21.010 - 00:08:38.219

kind of a conviction ought to be set aside. On the theory that it really is no conviction at all, it was theoretically claimed that there was no due process, that as a matter of fact, that kind of a conviction wouldn't be much different than a conviction

00:08:38.219 - 00:08:53.979

at, let's say, at the point of a shotgun, somebody holding a shotgun at the heads of the jury and saying, uh, convict the man or we'll shoot you. Now that was a novel theory to be used in the Mooney case. And these two very famous lawyers

00:08:54.260 - 00:09:09.770

were on their way to California to discuss it with Tom Mooney, and they wanted a local lawyer to be working with them, which is not an uncommon thing and is an intelligent thing, and they had made arrangements through Fremont Older, who was the editor of the

00:09:09.770 - 00:09:28.869

Call Bulletin and a very, very ardent Mooney supporter. To meet another very famous lawyer in San Francisco, a man named John Taf. John Taft, to those of us who knew him, was probably one of the finest criminal lawyers that ever came out of this area, and

00:09:28.869 - 00:09:45.429

there are many fine criminal lawyers who've come out of this area, but he was one of the best, and arrangements had been made. The men were to meet, but just at the time they were coming from the east, Mr. Taft went from San Francisco to New

00:09:45.429 - 00:10:04.299

York to represent Graham and McKay, the two Nevada gambling uh barons. Who had been indicted in New York on a stock fraud case. And so when Walsh and Finnerty arrived, Taft was not here, and it was by another quirk then they went to see Fremont Older

00:10:04.299 - 00:10:19.909

and asked him to recommend someone. Older said, I don't know what to do, but I'll go and see my friend Judge Denman or Bill Denman, who was not a judge then but later was the chief judge of the Federal Court of Appeals. Denman uh was sort

00:10:19.909 - 00:10:34.349

of known as a kind of a radical lawyer and he said, well, I, I couldn't tell you, but if you want uh a young, a young man, I'll ask my partner Lyman Henry if he has anybody in mind. And since Lyman Henry and I were good

00:10:34.349 - 00:10:53.869

friends, uh, it just happened that my name was recommended. I met with Walsh and Finnerty. We got along just famously. I was excited about the opportunity to share in the excitement of that case and to meet those two fine men, and I became associated with the

00:10:53.869 - 00:11:14.969

case. And I stayed with it until Mooney was released from by the act of the governor in 1939. Now you also were involved in the, uh, of course, the case was Mooney and Billings and and the everything was aimed at both of them. We all agreed.

00:11:15.875 - 00:11:32.565

Early in the period that I came into the case that we should concentrate on Tom Mooney because his was the name that was known throughout the world and it was a kind of a of a of a an a a PR name that meant something to

00:11:32.565 - 00:11:46.859

everyone. Billings was lesser known. But never was there any thought that anything done for Mooney wouldn't also be done for Billings, and it so worked out. It just took a little longer to get Billings out than it did to get Tom Mooney out. Now what role?

00:11:46.950 - 00:12:06.270

I understand that Roger Baldwin of the ACLU was involved at least momentarily in the case in the sense that didn't he help you? In the habeas corp habeas corpus hearings, Baldwin never had anything to do with the legal end of the case during the period of

00:12:06.270 - 00:12:26.719

time that I was on the case. There were no other lawyers on the case except Frank Walsh, John Fennerty, and myself, but Baldwin was very active in the uh in the peripheral activities of organizing meetings. Of holding meetings in New York, of coming to address meetings

00:12:26.719 - 00:12:46.599

in other parts of the country, and just as as Morris Ernst was also very active at that time and many others, but Baldwin did, he did have an outstanding role in what I would call the PR phase of the Mooney case what happened in the the

00:12:46.599 - 00:13:05.890

series of habeas corpus hearings that took place. Well, what happened was this the petition for habeas corpus was filed and it was processed through the courts in the way that everybody then knew it would have to be processed. It first went through the California courts. It

00:13:05.890 - 00:13:25.719

was denied, and the theory of the petition was very simple. It was, it was to this effect that a conviction based entirely upon perjured. Testimony known to the prosecution to be perjured was a denial of due process of law and should be reversed. Now that's all

00:13:25.719 - 00:13:41.280

there was to it. Well, the California courts denied it right up to the state Supreme Court. Then it went into the district federal district court. It was denied there into the federal Court of Appeals. Denman was sitting at that time. There it was denied by a

00:13:41.280 - 00:13:58.659

2 to 1 vote with Denman dissenting. Then it went to the United States Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court in 1937 after the matter was argued there and that was my first case to argue in the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme

00:13:58.659 - 00:14:19.969

Court unanimously held that such a conviction would be a denial of due process and should be reversed, but sent the case back to California with instructions to the Supreme Court of California. To hold hearings or to designate someone to hold hearings to determine factually whether whether

00:14:19.969 - 00:14:41.250

Mooney had actually been convicted solely on perjured testimony, etc. just as I've indicated. Now the California Supreme Court in due course appointed a referee named AE Shaw, who was a former PG&E attorney who had retired as of that time. And Mr. Shaw, who was paid $50

00:14:41.250 - 00:15:01.219

a day for his services, conducted hearings to determine the facts which I just indicated. And those were uh those hearings were held in San Francisco. Some of them were held in Illinois, some were held in New York, uh, for instance, uh, Regal, one of the witnesses

00:15:01.219 - 00:15:20.130

lived in Illinois, and the court, the Shaw and counsel and the clients, everybody went back to Illinois to take a deposition. And uh there were uh other depositions taken that was then McDonald's deposition was taken in Baltimore. We all went up to Baltimore to take his

00:15:20.130 - 00:15:36.849

deposition. There were some witnesses up in state of Washington. We went up to Washington to take their depositions. Oxman had come from that part of the country and uh we went out into eastern Oregon to take depositions of some cowboys and cattlemen out there who knew

00:15:36.849 - 00:15:58.780

Oxman. And uh he had died by that time and so uh the case was conducted as though it was a regular lawsuit, but there were some very interesting overtones that began to develop. Um, for one thing, as a convenience to the court and to uh the

00:15:58.780 - 00:16:18.820

counsel in the case, Mooney was transferred from the custody of San Quentin Prison. To the custody of the sheriff of San Francisco who at that time was Dan Murphy. Now this was a was a very one of the bizarre twists in the case. Murphy was known

00:16:18.820 - 00:16:40.500

generally as the first person to organize a free Tom Mooney defense committee. Murphy was very active in labor unions back in 16 and 17, and in 1917, he organized the first defense committee for Tom Mooney, and he was on record from that day on. As being

00:16:40.500 - 00:16:56.580

in favor of the freedom of Tom Mooney and uh and he was on record. That in his opinion that it was a the conviction was a false conviction. Now Murphy was a pretty important man. He was not only at that time, he was a sheriff of

00:16:56.580 - 00:17:17.005

San Francisco. He had been president of the San Francisco Labor Council. He'd been a state senator from San Francisco. He was a sheriff. He. that he was a vice president of the Bank of America and in 1938, he was a candidate for governor. He had the

00:17:17.005 - 00:17:36.329

Democratic, uh, well, he was one of two Democrats running for governor of California in the primary. He was and. One of the first memories, one of the strongest memories I have of the case at that time is that when Mooney was moved to San Francisco, an

00:17:36.329 - 00:17:52.069

order was made by the sheriff to bring him out to the city hall to the sheriff's office. Now when you say he moved to San Francisco, he had been over in Alca. No, he'd been in San Quentin. He'd been. This is from 1917. He'd been. In

00:17:52.069 - 00:18:11.329

San Quentin, now this order to move him from San Quentin was made in 1935, I think it was 35 or 1936, and he, in other words, I had, I prepared an order for the Chief Justice to sign, which I never thought he would sign, but he

00:18:11.329 - 00:18:28.209

did sign, uh, in which he ordered that the custody of Tom Mooney. Be taken from San Quentin Prison and from the warden and given to the sheriff of San Francisco who was Dan Murphy. So as I say, about the next day after Tom arrived in San

00:18:28.209 - 00:18:44.020

Francisco, there was an order for him to come out to the to be brought out to the City Hall. I went there with him. He and Murphy met in Murphy's office, the sheriff's office. Uh, I could see these two Irishmen now. They both threw their arms

00:18:44.020 - 00:18:59.314

around each other. There were tears in their eyes, and Murphy was saying, Tom, uh, uh, you know, you're, you're my prisoner now and I'm going to give you as much freedom as I can. I don't think the courts are ever gonna free you, but I can

00:18:59.314 - 00:19:16.229

tell you that as long as you're in my custody, you'll have as much freedom as is possible within the law. You just have to promise me you won't run away and you won't betray my trust. And Tom, uh, in his fashion, uh, uh, put his arms

00:19:16.229 - 00:19:31.630

around Dan Murphy and promised Dan that he'd never do anything to betray his trust. And then Dan had a deputy sheriff who he called in named Archie McDonald, and he said to Archie McDonald, he said, uh, Archie, I want you to be personally in charge of

00:19:31.630 - 00:19:45.420

Tom. I want you to let him do anything he can. Give him a few days or a few weeks of of of comparative freedom because I don't think the courts will ever release him and I think you'll have to go back, but he'll at least have

00:19:45.420 - 00:20:06.359

that at my hands. Well, when that happened, A whole new ball game developed within a matter of days, uh, the Mooney Defense Committee rented a small house on Polk Street. It was in the 1800 block on Polk Street and uh they began to they formed a

00:20:06.359 - 00:20:25.410

committee and they had lunches out there every day from then on and it was for the next 18 months, and the way it worked out was this. The habeas corpus proceeding would go on like say at 9:30 or 10 in the morning. Uh, usually everybody would

00:20:25.410 - 00:20:40.530

appear in front of Judge Shaw and then after the court was called in session, would ask for a continuance to the next day to study the records. Uh, Shaw didn't object because he, as soon as he called the court to order, he was entitled to his

00:20:40.530 - 00:20:55.819

$50 for that day, and he had some tooth problems. He had a whole set of teeth that had to be made, and he wanted to keep the case going long enough to pay for his teeth, and we all understood that. So, uh, we proceeded from then,

00:20:56.060 - 00:21:11.469

then we'd go from his court out to the apartment house on Polk Street. Where Tom and Billings would spend the rest of the day. Oh yeah, Billings was there too. I thought he was in Folsom. No, no, no, no, he'd been brought down also for the

00:21:11.469 - 00:21:33.209

hearings. So Tom and Billings would go out to the Polk Street address and Tom would discuss the campaign politics and whatnot with his committee. Arrangements would be made for groups, for labor union groups and groups of all kinds from all over the country to come and

00:21:33.209 - 00:21:49.810

have lunch with Tom. He had a secretary who did nothing but set up the dates for the meetings and for a year and a half there never was a day that 30, 40, 50, or 60 people didn't come to Polk Street. Anxious to meet Tom Mooney,

00:21:49.979 - 00:22:07.500

it was like the king holding court, and Tom would talk to them about his case and about the necessity for political action, because even Tom never really believed he was going to get any relief from the courts. He did feel that he had an opportunity to

00:22:07.500 - 00:22:24.599

use the time for political purposes, and he did it. And so the case would drag on and the meetings would go on and I went to so many of them I couldn't even count them and I can tell you there were some pretty Prominent and pretty

00:22:24.599 - 00:22:39.640

famous people who came to those meetings to meet Tom Mooney. He was a true celebrity, right now, was this the period when Jimmy Walker came out? No, no, Jimmy Walker came out a few years earlier. That was one of those areas that I mentioned that kept

00:22:39.640 - 00:22:56.790

coming up from time to time in the Mooney case when some famous personage, somebody like Jimmy Walker, would come out to California to make a plea to the governor to give Tom Mooney a pardon. Uh this happened many times and of course Walker, it was good

00:22:56.790 - 00:23:12.949

publicity for Walker, but I think it was genuinely, uh, he genuinely felt that it was the right thing to do and it was this kind of thing happening again and again over the years that kept the Mooney case alive. I know that as I went through

00:23:12.949 - 00:23:34.380

uh uh uh grammar school, high school, uh, university and law school. The greatest, the most important case on the in the whole world, it seemed, was the Mooney case, and I remember reading about it, not in depth in those days, but constantly wondering what was happening

00:23:34.380 - 00:23:54.750

in that case. It was sent back, uh, you wanted to know what happened. Well, the case came back to the California Supreme Court, as I indicated, and they appointed a referee. And then after this period of 18 months during which An enormous amount of testimony was

00:23:54.750 - 00:24:13.300

put into the record. In fact, it reached a strange point. The the attorney general at that time, the deputy, was a, uh, a man named Cleary, and he apparently had been instructed, no matter what you do, you be sure that he can't complain he didn't have

00:24:13.300 - 00:24:31.609

a hearing. So when we got to what the hearings and we began to ask about the evidence about limits on the evidence and what their attitude was, meaning the attorney general, uh, he made the statement in court at one time, we don't care if you put

00:24:31.609 - 00:24:47.660

the library of Congress in, if you want to put it in because we're never going to have Mr. Mooney in a position where he can say that he didn't get a fair hearing. Well, of course we took that literally, but for another reason. We, we knew

00:24:47.660 - 00:25:03.540

at that time that we were fighting a political fight as well as a legal fight, and we wanted to continue the hearings as long as possible so that we'd have Tom available to people so that he could really do the organizing. And as a consequence, we

00:25:03.540 - 00:25:23.459

really did begin to put everything but the Library of Congress in. We put newspaper articles in, we put books in, we put magazines in. We had witnesses who testified to the history of before the case, and it just everything that we thought could possibly have any

00:25:23.459 - 00:25:40.359

bearing on it, no matter how remote, it went into that record. The record actually turned out to be a record of uh. Oh, I think it was 25 or 30 thick volumes of testimony, and of course when it was all over and the matter was argued

00:25:40.359 - 00:25:59.270

and submitted to the referee, he said that there were no facts to indicate that Mooney had been framed, and it then was referred back to the Uh, state Supreme Court for because it was their referee and the matter was argued there and that was, oh no,

00:25:59.359 - 00:26:19.229

that's much later now, that's around 38 or thereabouts. That's just about the time of the political campaign. The Supreme Court decided they decided at that time that they would adopt the referee's findings, and they held that in accordance with his findings there was no finding of

00:26:19.229 - 00:26:37.755

the use of perjured testimony in the way I've indicated, and then the matter was taken back up to the United States Supreme Court and it was turned down. By them because they followed the findings of the state court, but that period coincided practically day for day

00:26:38.045 - 00:27:03.989

with the election of Culbert Olson in California. No, actually, actually at that time I was, uh, you might call it a lone operator. I was Tom Mooney's attorney and I became The organizer of the Culbert Olson for Governor campaign, uh, I, that was, I was the

00:27:03.989 - 00:27:26.880

state manager of that campaign. Now I was operating independently of, but in, in, in, in collusion with you might say the state Democratic committee, but the Olson uh committee, the Olson organization was independent and it just happened. That as the campaign began to come to a

00:27:26.880 - 00:27:46.479

head, the primaries came to a head, Dan Murphy, who was the choice of the Democratic state Central Committee and the Democratic, you might call it the the party choice, was a candidate for governor in the primary, and Olson, the independent candidate, was also a candidate and

00:27:46.479 - 00:28:06.630

that campaign actually reached the point where the decision, and everybody knew it at that time. The decision as to who was going to get the Democratic nomination depended on which of those two candidates Mooney would choose or put his hand on as his favorite candidate, and

00:28:06.630 - 00:28:23.270

it was a it was a terrible choice because as I've already indicated, the closeness of Mooney and Dan Murphy, all the things that Dan Murphy had allowed Mooney to do, and yet on the other hand, There was Culbert Olson, who was gathering tremendous strength. He was

00:28:23.270 - 00:28:42.040

a Los Angeles lawyer and as is so important in statewide campaigns now, and it was then, you have to have a base in Los Angeles if you expect to make it. But it reached a point where the decision, the final decision was coming. Who was Mooney

00:28:42.040 - 00:29:00.199

going to support? If Mooney said one or the other of these men, it was a certainty that politically that that man would get the Democratic nomination, and it was equally certain that year that whoever got the Democratic nomination would be the governor of California. So the

00:29:00.199 - 00:29:15.709

big decision came, and uh I had some part in that. In this way, um. Uh, Olsen kept calling me and coming up to see me, and I kept going down to see him and he kept saying, Now what more can I do? I say that I'm

00:29:15.709 - 00:29:30.209

going to free Mooney. I tell you, I've told you that you can tell him that it's going to be my first act in office. I'm going to give him a full and unconditional pardon. What more can I say? Why can't he come out and support me

00:29:30.469 - 00:29:46.640

so that I don't have to worry about getting his support but can finish up the other sides, the other areas of my campaign? Uh, Murphy was in effect saying the same thing, but Murphy would not say that it was part of his campaign that he wouldn't

00:29:46.640 - 00:30:01.930

make it a campaign promise to free Tom Mooney. Now I think, well, I think Murphy felt that he was a little more conservative in his thinking than Olson, and I think he felt that if he made that kind of a choice, it might alienate some more

00:30:01.930 - 00:30:20.849

conservative Democratic votes and he might lose the nomination. Whereas Olsen was willing to take the chance. Now, in the final analysis, it got down to where I was talking to Tom daily about it, and, uh, by this time, Tom was back in San Quentin, and Tom

00:30:20.849 - 00:30:37.810

said to me on one occasion, well, he said, if you can get Murphy, uh, Olsen rather to put his promise to me in writing. I'll back him and you can tell him he doesn't have to think about it again. Well, I didn't have to tell Tom

00:30:37.810 - 00:30:54.010

that for him to put that in writing would be the commission of a felony under the election laws, and I certainly didn't have to tell Olson that, but I did tell Olson what Tom wanted, and he was at the Whitcomb Hotel at the time, and I,

00:30:54.130 - 00:31:10.469

I think I don't want to say any more about it now except to say that that uh about 2 days later after I left Olson and saw Tom and And told him what had transpired with Olson. And let's, I'll go this far. Let me say I

00:31:10.469 - 00:31:25.229

showed him what transpired with Olson. Tom Mooney said, OK, he has my uh my uh uh support, and I was saying was that that Mooney was satisfied that Olson.