Thomas J. Mooney, 1883–1942, American labor agitator, b. Chicago. He was an active leader in several violent labor struggles in California before 1916 and was convicted as a participant in the bomb killings at the San Francisco Preparedness Day parade in 1916 and sentenced to death. His case aroused international interest because of the widely held belief in his innocence and the confessions of perjured testimony at his trial. In 1918 his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Many organizations and individuals sought unsuccessfully to obtain a new trial until Jan., 1939, when Gov. Culbert L. Olson of California pardoned him unconditionally.

See the Mooney-Billings Report (1932, repr. 1968); E. J. Hopkins, What Happened in the Mooney Case (1932, repr. 1970); R. H. Frost, The Mooney Case (1968); E. E. Ward, The Gentle Dynamiter (1983).