Warren Knox Billings was a labor leader and political activist, who was convicted with Thomas Mooney of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916.
16 Facts About Warren Billings
1.
2.
Warren Billings's mother was of German ancestry and his father, William Billings, was born in Massachusetts.
3.
William Warren Billings died in 1895, he left his wife and nine children without financial backing.
4.
Warren Billings moved in with his older sister whose husband would make Warren work until exhaustion, Warren would protest against the unfair treatment.
5.
In March 1913, Warren Billings went to an employment agency for work.
6.
Warren Billings was told there was an opening for a shoe liner at a shoe company that was on strike.
7.
Warren Billings was invited to be a spy for IWW and accepted.
8.
Warren Billings was found with 60 sticks of dynamite, but testified that he was just ordered to bring a suitcase to a location but had no idea what was in it.
9.
Warren Billings's association with Mooney, who was a well known socialist and militant, strengthened the prosecution's connection between Billings and the Preparedness Day bombing, which took place on July 22,1916 in San Francisco.
10.
Warren Billings was arrested along with Thomas Mooney and his wife Rena and a driver named Israel Weinberg.
11.
Warren Billings was active in prison as an assistant foreman in the prison shoe factory.
12.
Warren Billings was in constant contact with a woman named Josephine Rudolph.
13.
Warren Billings had served twenty three years, two months and twenty days in prison.
14.
Warren Billings went on to become chairman of Northern California Citizens Committee to Free Earl Browder in 1941.
15.
Warren Billings was the chairman of the Vern Smith Defense Committee from 1947 to 1949.
16.
Warren Billings owned a watch repair shop and died in Redwood City California on September 4,1972.