WORST TERRORIST ATTACK IN SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY

By the summer of 1916, the war in Europe (WWI) was at a stalemate. On the 1st of July, the Battle of the Somme had claimed 19,000 British lives on its first day. Pressure from the allies called upon the United States to revaluate their neutrality, in what was coined Isolationism. This was the belief that the war in Europe did not concern the US; many did not want to send their children to die in a foreign land. Nevertheless, with German U-Boat aggression, which had claimed innocent American lives, like the twelve hundred killed in the sinking of RMS Lusitania, it was clear that this sentiment was wrong – the war was coming to America.

 

The Preparedness Day March in San Francisco was an attempt to drum up patriotism and support for the United States’ entry into World War One. The three-and-a-half-hour procession deployed 51,000 marchers, 52 marching bands, and featured 2134 organisers, from military, civic, judicial, state, and municipal divisions, to newspaper journalists, telephone companies, and streetcar unions.[1] The noise, the scale, the pomposity – anyone would have thought that the march was a victory lap over an already crippled enemy.

 

This wasn’t the case.

 

In fact, whilst San Francisco clamoured for war, it was engaged in a losing battle with itself. The rise of Bolshevism and labour unrest had led to nervousness within the business community. The Golden City had always had a history of protest – the population was diverse, and it was a place of the avant-garde – but in 1916, tensions between labour unions, under the International Workers of the World (known as “wobblies”), and businessmen were at their highest.[2] Strikes were a constant reminder of the repression of the working class, and the fractious relationship could easily spark into violence. In early July, for example, the International Longshoreman Strike claimed two lives.[3] The fishermen were merely asking for better pay. Such was the volatility, that many companies moved their practices to Los Angeles, a conservative city that refused to kowtow to any union demands. This anti-union sentiment led to the biggest miscarriage of Justice in San Franciscan history.

 

Thirty minutes into the Preparedness procession, a suitcase bomb detonated on Stueart Street, just off Market Street. Ten innocent bystanders were killed. Forty more injured. Labour workers Thomas Mooney and Warren K. Billings were arrested and charged in a hasty trial. Hundreds of people gathered outside the courtroom in San Quentin, adding to the lynch-mob atmosphere. Mooney was sentenced to the death penalty for murder, and Billings, his accomplice, to life imprisonment. This was despite the prosecution having no hard evidence and several false witnesses.[4]

 

In 1918, Mooney’s sentence changed to life imprisonment, due to a Mediation Commission, set up by President Woodrow Wilson, which found insufficient evidence to prove Mooney’s guilt. In 1939, twenty-three years after the false conviction, Mooney was given a full pardon by California Governor Culbert L. Olson. Billings was not released until 1942.

 

It has since been speculated that the major companies in San Francisco, United Railroads and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), framed Mooney and Billings to make an example of protestors and quash future protests before they begun.[5] It was also an attempt to align people with the war effort. Peace would be undermined as violent; war would be viewed as heroic. Former US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, however, accused the Preparedness Day organisers of self-interest, as they would benefit the most from an increase in munitions production.[6] This interest was supported by the parade’s executive committee including PG&E General Manager John Britton, and Thomas Mullally, the United Railroads’ executive, as the general marshal. Both men had previously been confronted with strikes.[7]

 

Thomas Mooney was chosen as the fall guy because of his prior history of organising strike action. He was seen as disruptive and dangerous by United Railroads and PG&E. In fact, Martin Swanson, who became the utility detective of the Preparedness bombing, had spent months prior to the attack trying to blame Mooney for a bombing of a PG&E pipeline.[8]

 

With Swanson on the investigation committee was District Attorney Charles Fickert. Fickert had been elected in 1909 with a secret fund of $100,000 put up by United Railroads.[9] He was effectively their puppet. One of his first acts as District Attorney was to dismiss corruption charges against Patrick Calhoun, founder of United Railroads. It would not be a far stretch to suggest that Fickert later supported the company in their endeavours to convict Thomas Mooney. However, there is no hard evidence.

 

Antithetically, Thomas Mooney, despite being charged, did have evidence of his innocence. A photograph taken by Wade Hamilton at 2:01pm placed Mooney and his wife, Rena, on the roof of the Eilers building at 975 Market Street at the time they were allegedly placing the bomb a mile away on Stueart Street. The prosecutors had possession of this image but did not present it at the trial.[10]  

 

Whilst the charges were eventually reverted, Mooney and Billings lost a great portion of their lives locked behind bars. They knew they were innocent, but they were ignored. Meanwhile, the industrialists had their way, and the United States joined World War One on April 7th, 1917, after the Zimmerman Telegram gave evidence of a proposed alliance between Germany and Mexico in exchange for parts of the US.

 

I chose to write about the Preparedness Day Procession because we live in a time of misinformation and scapegoating. Social Media has made it easy to “authenticate” perspectives with little evidence. It makes it easy for groups of people to promote themselves as everyman’s, when in reality they are self-indulgent. The organisers of the Preparedness Day Procession used this narrative. Us against Them. The “heroes” versus the “villains”. All so that they could line their pockets.

 

It makes me recall (at a slight tangent) the recent Fallout TV series on Amazon Prime, based on the popular video games. In the later episodes we discover that the huge American conglomerates, RobCo, Vault-Tec, Big MT, General Atomics, dropped the first nuke that sparked the nuclear annihilation of 2077, despite peace talks between China and the US. The Preparedness Day Procession was a contest between pro-war and pro-peace – it ended in violence. This is a scary parallel and showcases that, no matter how ludicrous the world of something like Fallout is, it is not impossible. It is grounded in real historical parallels.

 

And whilst the Preparedness Day bomber will probably never be identified, there is some part of our mind which will forever conjure the possibility that perhaps Charles Fickert, Martin Swanson, John Britton, Thomas Mullally “dropped” the bomb themselves.  

 

[1] History.com Editors, ‘Preparedness Day Bombing in San Francisco’, History.com, (Nov. 5th, 2009)

[2] Hearst, P. A., Rodiester, C., Rolph, J. & Afi/Post. San Francisco's future. [United States: s.n, 1916] [Video] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/00694431/

[3] IWW History Project Database, https://depts.washington.edu/iww/strikes.shtml

[4] Chris Carlsson, ‘Tom Mooney’, FoundSF, https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=TOM_MOONEY

[5] ‘The Big Frame Up’, IBEW 1245, https://ibew1245.com/chapter-22-the-big-frame-up/

[6] History.com Editors, ‘Preparedness Day Bombing in San Francisco’, History.com, (Nov. 5th, 2009)

[7] ‘The Big Frame Up’, IBEW 1245, https://ibew1245.com/chapter-22-the-big-frame-up/

[8] Ibid

[9] Chris Carlsson, ‘Tom Mooney’, FoundSF, https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=TOM_MOONEY

[10] Ibid