California's Witness

Fortnight ago the California Supreme Court, which has jurisdiction over the pardon petitions of second offenders, refused to approve the release of Warren Billings, onetime labor agitator jailed for life for bombing San Francisco's Preparedness Day parade 14 years ago. Thomas Mooney, another agitator sentenced with Billings, was only a first offender. He could and did petition Governor Clement Calhoun Young directly (TIME, July 14). Last week the Governor shattered Mooney's immediate hope, refused him a pardon also.

The petitions had been filed following long investigation by sympathetic laborites the world over, who declare the guilt of Mooney & Billings never had been established. They say the State's evidence was falsified by officials who wanted to get the agitators out of the way. This evidence rested entirely on the testimony of two men, one F. C. Oxman and one John MacDonald, who presented themselves after huge rewards were offered for witnesses of the bombing, and after police already suspected Mooney & Billings.

Since the trial, State's Witness Oxman is proved to have been at Woodland, Calif, at the time of the explosion he said he saw. State's Witness MacDonald, whose testimony was garbled to say the least, went to Trenton, N. J., became a waiter there. In 1921 he signed an affidavit that he had seen the bombing but not Mooney & Billings, that he only identified them when told to by the police. After the trial, the presiding judge, Frank Griffin, declared the conviction of Mooney was "one of the dirtiest jobs ever put over." The foreman of the convicting jury said the decision depended on the testimony of Oxman and MacDonald. This being discredited, he believed Mooney innocent.

Governor Young reported last week that he and the Supreme Court did not credit MacDonald's affidavit that he had perjured himself. He said he believed MacDonald signed it out of pique at not reaping the huge rewards. The Governor's statement, however, made no attempt to close further action in the case, gave this encouragement: "Should John MacDonald . . . appear before [the Supreme Court] for the purpose of proving [his] repudiations as trustworthy ... it may be only just and right to consider . . . such witnesses in the case of Billings, just as I should desire to do in the case of Mooney. ... If [Mooney] was innocent of this particular crime, to keep him in prison would be an ineffaceable blot upon the good name of the State."

Immediately last week the countless partisans Mooney has attracted since his imprisonment began a nationwide search for State's Witness MacDonald. The Scripps-Howard San Francisco News offered $500 for his apprehension, advertised: "He is 5 ft. 7 in. tall. . . . His hair ... is probably gray now and thinner. His eyes are black. He had a thin face and a slight body."

Result of this old-style manhunt: discovery of MacDonald, now a telephone operator in a Baltimore apartment house. A Baltimore couple recognized the Scripps-Howard picture as their onetime boarder, "Mr. Mac," who night after night sleeplessly paced the floor. He was arrested, held at a police station "for investigation, suspected of being wanted by the California authorities." Then he summoned a lawyer, issued a statement: "I never saw Mooney until . . . told by an officer that this was [he]. . . . My testimony in the various cases was untrue and false. I desire to undo the wrong done by me in sending Mooney to prison, regardless of personal consequences." He repeated his story of being kept and entertained by the San Francisco police at a hotel prior to testifying.

Lawyer Frank P. Walsh, onetime joint chairman of the War Labor Board and volunteer counsel for Mooney & Billings, last week rushed to Baltimore and prepared to take Witness MacDonald to California, despite the danger that MacDonald will be indicted for his confessed perjury there.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.