|
Preston, Morris Rockwood and Joseph William Smith |
 |
 |
|
Nevada State Prison Inmate Case Files
Morris "Morrie" Rockwood Preston
and Joseph William Smith
 |
 |
| Morrie Preston |
Joseph William Smith |
Morrie Preston and Joseph William Smith were convicted of the 1907 murder of Goldfield, Nevada restaurant owner John Silva. Preston was convicted of murder, and Smith was convicted of manslaughter. The trial of Preston and Smith was one of the sensations of the time, it pitted union radicals against the corporate establishment in Goldfield, which is located in southern Nevada. Preston and Smith were both Socialists and mining company barons used the killing to discredit the burgeoning Industrial Workers of the World union movement in the Nevada mines. The trial has historical importance because the establishment tried to influence public attitudes and suppress the radical labor movement. Federal troops entered Goldfield a little more than six months after the Preston-Smith trial, and that was a serious defeat for radical labor in the Intermountain West.
Smith was paroled in 1911 and died in 1935. Preston was paroled in 1914, and tried in vain to win a pardon, but was denied and died in 1924. While in prison Preston was nominated as a candidate for President by the Socialist Labor party. He declined the nomination, but he remains the only Nevadan nominated for President by any political party. In May of 1987 the Nevada Pardons Board gave posthumous pardons to Smith and Preston after 80 years. It was only the second time posthumous pardons were granted by the state of Nevada. The pardons were given after the publication of a book on the trial of Smith and Preston.
For more information see The Ignoble Conspiracy: Radicalism on Trial in Nevada, by Sally Zanjani and Guy Louis Rocha (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1986).
|
|