The beneficiary of the pardon, however, resisted these efforts. “I have done nothing to be pardoned for,” she told a reporter for the Oakland Tribune in May of 1927. “I have no intention of asking for a pardon.” And then, in allegiance to her ideological comrades, she declared: “I have nothing to complain of in comparison with Sacco and Vanzetti.”[136] The editors of the Los Angeles Times were so taken aback by her response that they remarked: “If Anita Whitney will not sign her own petition for leniency, there isn’t much reason why anyone else should.”[137]
While this campaign was building momentum, Ms. Whitney was still out on bail on her $10,000 bond. She probably would have been rearrested and ordered to start her prison time at San Quentin had it not been for the hesitancy of the Alameda District Attorney, Earl Warren.[138]
On June 20, 1927, Governor Young pardoned Anita Whitney. His reasons for issuing the pardon:
· “Because I do not believe under ordinary circumstances this case would have ever been brought to trial.”
· “Because the abnormal conditions attending the trial go a long way toward explaining the verdict of the jury.”
· “Because I feel that the criminal syndicalism act was primarily intended to apply to organizations actually known as advocates of violence, terrorism, or sabotage, rather than to such organizations as the Communist Labor Party,” and
· “Because the judges who have been connected with the case as well as the authors and some of the strongest advocates of the law under which Miss Whitney was convicted unite in urging that a pardon be granted.”[139]
The pardon apparently won the approval of Louis Brandeis. Shortly after it was issued, the Justice wrote to his friend, Harvard Law Professor Felix Frankfurter: “The pardon of Anita Whitney was a fine job.”[140] A few weeks later, Whitney celebrated her 60th birthday. She was now a free woman, thanks largely to conservative capitalists. [141]
