Fremont
Older was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1856. He moved to California
in 1873 and two years later became managing director of the San
Francisco Bulletin. When he took over the newspaper it
had a circulation of 9,000 and was losing $3,000 a month.
In
the he San Francisco Bulletin
Older waged a campaign against political corruption and played a leading
role in the attempt to free Tom
Mooney and
Warren Billings. Fremont Older, who
also edited the San Francisco Call,
died of a heart attack in 1935.
(1)
William Randolph
Hearst had used his newspapers to campaign for the conviction
of Tom
Mooney. However in 1918 he changed
his mind about his guilt and stated in the New York American
that Mooney should not be executed. Fremont Older responded to this
decision in an article published in the San Francisco Bulletin
(21st March, 1918)
The public tolerated the trial methods because the lies knowingly
given currency by the Hearst papers had convinced it that Mooney and
his fellow prisoners were guilty. When Hearst denounces those methods
he denounces himself. When he asks clemency for Mooney he asks that
a wrong be undone which could never have been done without his conscious
aid.
There can be no excuse or evasion for Hearst. All that he or his New
York editor knows now about the trial of Mooney he and his San Francisco
editors knew a year ago. If it appears now that Mooney has been unjustly
treated it appeared so then.
The only difference is that a year ago it took courage and a willingness
to make sacrifices, to demand justice for Mooney and that now it is
dangerous for a newspaper to stand out against that demand.
Fickert's ship is going down. And the rats are leaving it.
(2)
Cora Miranda Baggerly Older, San Francisco Call-Bulletin (10th
October 1955)
Fremont’s last crusade was to free Tom Mooney. He had been sentenced
to death for alleged participation in bombing the Preparedness Day
parade, but his sentence had been commuted by President Woodrow Wilson.
For several years Fremont
devoted much energy to collecting evidence that Mooney was innocence.
Sometimes Fremont was discouraged
about Mooney’s unpleasant letters from prison, but he never showed
them to me. “If I were imprisoned for a crime I hadn’t committed,”
he said “I suppose I’d be bitter too.”
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