Vincent Hallinan

Vincent Hallinan (December 16, 1896 – October 2, 1992) was an American lawyer and candidate for President of the United States in the 1952 election on the Progressive Party ticket.

Vincent Hallinan
Personal details
Born	December 16, 1896 San Francisco, California
Died	October 2, 1992 (aged 95) San Francisco, California
Citizenship	United States
Political party	Progressive
Children	6, including Terence
Alma mater	Saint Ignatius College
Occupation	lawyer

Early life and education

Hallinan was born into a large immigrant Irish Catholic family in San Francisco. The son of Elizabeth (Sheehan) and Patrick Hallinan, he was raised in the city and in Petaluma, California.[1] His father was said to be a member of the Irish National Invincibles, a revolutionary organization that, among other activities, was reputed to have assassinated the Chief Secretary for Ireland and his secretary in 1881 (the infamous Phoenix Park Murders). Allegedly, the elder Hallinan had fled to the U.S. after the murders. The elder Hallinan became a streetcar conductor in San Francisco, and was one of the leaders of the Great Front Strike of 1899–1900.[2]

Trained by Jesuits in high school,[3] Hallinan passed the California Bar at the age of 22, after studies at Saint Ignatius College and Law School, (now the University of San Francisco). He passed the California Bar Exam on the first time and before he had graduated from law school. He was a militant atheist.[4]

Career

Hallinan's early successes in court included personal injury actions against the powerful Market Street Railway Company which ran most of the trolley lines on the streets of San Francisco and was a subsidiary of northern California rail interests. The rail company also owned the system whereby jurors' lists were kept and consulted by an appointed jury commissioner, in Hallinan's time an official of the railway, and he fought against this system for years before state law made the voter rolls the sole source of jurors.

Hallinan's years as a lawyer led to his selection in 1949, with a partner James Martin McInnis, to defend Harry Bridges of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on perjury charges arising from accusations that he had once been a Communist but had denied it.

After the trial, Hallinan spent six months in McNeil Island Prison for a contempt citation during the high-profile Bridges trial. He was subsequently disbarred by the State Bar of California but appealed his disbarment after his release from jail.

Hallinan ran for President of the United States in the 1952 election, as the candidate for Henry Wallace's Progressive Party and was the third highest polling candidate in the election receiving more than 140,000 votes.[5] His running mate, Charlotta A. Bass, was the first African American chosen by a party as a vice-presidential candidate.[5]

In 1953, he and his wife, Vivian (Moore),[6] were indicted on 14 counts of tax evasion. After a three-week trial, on November 14, 1953, Vincent was convicted on five counts of tax evasion, for evading $36,739 in federal income taxes after he reported only 20% of his income from 1947 to 1950. On December 8, 1953, he was sentenced to 18 months and a fine of $50,000 plus costs.[7] Vivian was acquitted.

Vincent visited U-2 pilot Gary Powers in Moscow soon after Powers’ conviction in the Soviet Union for espionage. He encouraged Gary to "study the Communist form of government, stating it was a "remarkable system...realizing the American system had grave flaws", and if he were to study it Gary "would learn a great deal."[8]

In his 1963 autobiography, Hallinan claimed that he was prosecuted by the IRS for his political views, and that the government did not differentiate between tax avoidance (legal) and tax evasion. Also in his autobiography he argued for prison reform and in favor of treating drug addiction as a medical condition and providing clean maintenance drugs to addicts, and legalizing prostitution; and against laws forbidding private consensual sex, contraception and abortion, and against imperialism and American foreign policy.[9]

Personal life

Hallinan was the father of six boys,[10] including writer Conn M. Hallinan, San Francisco attorney Patrick Hallinan,[10] and politician Terence Hallinan.[10] He had several grandchildren.

References

1. "Current Biography Yearbook". H. W. Wilson Company. August 14, 1953. ISSN 0084-9499. OCLC 1565606 – via Google Books.
2. "Vincent Hallinan, December 16, 1896 - October 2, 1992". uissf.org. January 1993. Archived from the original on November 2, 2009. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
3. Hallinan 1963, pp. 27–29.
4. Reed, Christopher (October 6, 1992). "Obituary: Vincent Hallinan, A Brawler for Justice". The Guardian. London. p. 33. He also served a two-year sentence for tax evasion in the 1950s, ran for US president for the Progressive Party, made a great deal of money, and as a militant atheist once pinned down a Catholic archbishop during cross-examination, forcing him to confess he could not prove Heaven existed.
5. Karimi, Faith (August 14, 2020). "More than half a century before Kamala Harris ran for Vice President, this Black woman did". CNN. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
6. Lambert, Bruce (October 4, 1992). "Vincent Hallinan Is Dead at 95; An Innovative Lawyer With Flair" – via NYTimes.com.
7. "Three-Time Loser", Time, New York, March 21, 1953.
8. Powers, Francis Gary; Gentry, Curt (2004) [1970]. Operation Overflight: A Memoir of the U-2 Incident. Washington, DC: Brassey's. pp. 162–163. ISBN 9781574884227. OCLC 755584088.
9. Hallinan 1963, pp. 183–198.
10. Talbot, David (2012). "Prologue: Wild Irish Rogues". Season of the Witch: enchantment, terror, and deliverance in the City of Love. New York: Free Press. pp. 10–13. ISBN 9781439127872. OCLC 893105426.

Sources

• Hallinan, Vincent (1963). A Lion in Court. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. OCLC 602255904.

Further reading

• Hallinan, Vivian; Hallinan, Vincent (1960). A clash of cultures; some contrasts in American and Soviet morals and manners. San Francisco, CA, US: American Russian Institute. OCLC 4398714.
• Hallinan, Vivian (1952). My wild Irish rogues. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. OCLC 1497753.
• Walsh, James P. (1982). San Francisco's Hallinan : toughest lawyer in town. Novato, CA, US: Presidio Press. ISBN 9780891411673. OCLC 778287858.

External links

• Records of the Progressive Party. Archive maintained by University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department. 1940—1969. Accessed May 29, 2006.
• "Shoes on the Stand" (a partial account of Harry Bridges's trial). Time, New York, December 12, 1949.
• Photos of Vincent Hallinan (1953) and Vivian Hallinan (1962). San Francisco Sheriff's Department: Notable Jailbirds of San Francisco Photo Gallery. Accessed May 29, 2006.
• Crowd with C.B. Beanie Baldwin greeting Vincent Hallinan on his release from McNeil Island prison, 1952. University of Washington Libraries, Special Collection Division. Accessed May 29, 2006.
• Obituary of Vivian Hallinan from the San Francisco Examiner March 17, 1999. Read into the Congressional Record by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. March 25, 1999. Accessed May 29, 2006.
• Vincent Hallinan December 16, 1896 – October 2, 1992 at the Wayback Machine (archived January 7, 2005). Excerpted from the eulogy of Vincent Hallinan by his son, Conn M. Hallinan. Accessed May 29, 2006.
• Lambert, Bruce (October 4, 1992). "Vincent Hallinan Is Dead at 95; An Innovative Lawyer With Flair". The New York Times.