Though Thomas J. Mooney, accused and convicted of complicity in the San Francisco Pre-poredness Day bombing, in 1916, nearly obtained his freedom, through action of the Californian Representatives in deciding to grant him a legislative pardon the Senate has again denied it. On the afternoon of July 22, 1916, a bomb was thrown at Preparedness Day paraders, killing ten and wounding 40. Mr. James Ralph was mayor of the city at the time and was taking part in the p@rade, the vane unions having refused to participate. Mooney, Mrs. Mgoney, Warren K. Billings, a shoe worker, Israel Weinberg and Edward D. Nolan were arrested and indicted for the murder of one of the victims. Mooney was sentenced to death, and Billings to life imprisonment, Mrs. Mooney and Weinberg were acquitted and Nolan was liberated without ever being brought to trial. Mooney appealed to the California Supreme Court against his sentence asking for a new trial, but the appeal was rejected and it was only through the personal intercession of President Wilson, who like so many other people all over the world had grave doubts as to Mooney's guilt, that the sentence was commuted in 1917 to imprisonment for life. Throughout the whole of his prison Xife Mooney strenuously protested his innocence and made several endeavours to secure freedom, but Mayor- Ralph who in the meantime hàd become Governor of California steadfastly refused to pardon the man, who has actually served twenty-two years. The case during all this tine has attracted quite as much interest as the Sedttsboro case and that of Sacco and Vanzetti, and there is a very sharp division of opinion as td whether Mooney received a really adequate trial and as to Whether some of the evidence adduced against him was not in fact perjured. What Mooney will do, now that the S. has killed the resolution passed by the House of Representatives, remains to be seen, but\it may be anticipated that he will prosecute his campaign with all the greater ardour, nw that at the eleventh hour his hopes have again been dashed to the ground. Having served twánt; it would seem that he should be how, though probably politics will still succeed in keeping him in jail.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.