Many factors contributed to the party’s growth in the state: the devastation of the Great Depression, the rising specter of fascism, the widely shared perception (particularly among minorities) that other organizations were ill-equipped to combat racism, the upsurge by labor, the defense of immigrants. However, in terms of generating a grassroots response in the state, few events moved Californians as much as the campaign to free labor organizer Tom Mooney (and his comrade Warren Billings). The pair had been jailed after allegedly planting a bomb at a 1916 rally in San Francisco organized by conservative business interests to generate support for the United States’ entry into World War I. It was the Mooney case that provided an opening for Communists to work more closely with trade unionists, and this was a major step toward Red influence in Hollywood.30