July 22, 1916: 107 years ago, July 22 1916, a bomb exploded at the San Francisco [...]
107 years ago, July 22 1916, a bomb exploded at the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade, which called for the US to enter World War 1, leaving 10 dead and 40 injured. Prominent local labor leaders Tom Mooney and Warren Billings were framed for the bombing and sentenced to death
The march, organized by the Chamber of Commerce, was intended to drum up support for the war, which was staunchly opposed by radicals in the labor movement. The bombing is still the worst terrorist attack in San Francisco history; the identity of the bomber remains unknown
The parade took place against a backdrop of labor unrest, particularly in the railroads. 12 days before the event, the Chamber of Commerce had organized a “Law and Order Committee” to “rid San Francisco of anarchistic elements” in an attempt to quell radical labor agitation
Undeterred by the lack of evidence, prosecutors quickly pinned the bombing on Tom Mooney, a prominent radical who had been organizing railroad workers, and Warren K. Billings, a friend of Mooney’s and member of the Industrial Workers of the World. Both men were sentenced to death
Due to pressure from President Wilson, Mooney and Billings’ sentences were commuted to life in prison. For the next two decades, the Free Tom Mooney campaign, organized largely by the Communist Party, was a cause célèbre of the American left
Mooney was freed with a full pardon in 1939, and was joined by a “surging, irrepressible mass of jubilant humanity” as he walked home along the same route that the Preparedness Day Parade had traversed in 1916. Billing was also released later that year
Here, Communist Party member Al Richmond describes the feeling of seeing Mooney go free in 1939:
