Vincent Hallinan (December 16, 1896 – October 2, 1992) was an American lawyer and candidate for
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
in the
1952 election on the
Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to:
Active parties
* Progressive Party, Brazil
* Progressive Party (Chile)
* Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus
* Dominica Progressive Party
* Progressive Party (Iceland)
* Progressive Party (Sardinia), Ita ...
ticket.
Early life and education
Hallinan was born into a large immigrant
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the British ...
family in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. The son of Elizabeth (Sheehan) and Patrick Hallinan, he was raised in the city and in
Petaluma, California
Petaluma (Miwok languages, Miwok: ''Péta Lúuma'') is a city in Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County, California, located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 a ...
.
His father was said to be a member of the
Irish National Invincibles
The Irish National Invincibles, usually known as the Invincibles, were a freedom fighter organization based in Ireland active from 1881 to 1883. Founded as splinter group of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the group had a more radical agenda, ...
, a revolutionary organization that, among other activities, was reputed to have assassinated the
Chief Secretary for Ireland
The Chief Secretary for Ireland was a key political office in the British administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant, and officially the "Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant", from the early 19th century un ...
and his secretary in 1881 (the infamous
Phoenix Park Murders
The Phoenix Park Murders were the fatal stabbings of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke (civil servant), Thomas Henry Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin, British rule in Ireland, Ireland, on 6 May 1882. Cavendish was the newly appoint ...
). Allegedly, the elder Hallinan had fled to the U.S. after the murders. The elder Hallinan became a
streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
conductor in San Francisco, and was one of the leaders of the Great Front Strike of 1899–1900.
Trained by
Jesuits
The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
in high school, Hallinan passed the
California Bar Examination
The State Bar of California is California's official attorney licensing agency. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate disciplin ...
at the age of 22, after studies at
Saint Ignatius College and Law School, (now the University of San Francisco). He passed the bar exam on the first attempt and before he had graduated from law school.
Career
Hallinan's early successes in court included personal injury actions against the powerful
Market Street Railway Company
The Market Street Railway Company was a commercial streetcar and bus operator in San Francisco. The company was named after the famous Market Street (San Francisco), Market Street of that city, which formed the core of its transportation network ...
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 partner James Martin McInnis, to defend
Harry Bridges of the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii, and in British Columbia, Canada. The union was established in 1937 after the 1934 Wes ...
on
perjury
Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...
charges arising from accusations that he had once been a Communist but had denied it. Hallinan received a
contempt of court
Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...
citation during the high-profile trial, and afterward spent six months in
McNeil Island
McNeil Island is an island in the northwest United States in south Puget Sound, located southwest of Tacoma, Washington. With a land area of , it lies just north of Anderson Island; Fox Island is to the north, across Carr Inlet, and to the ...
federal prison in
Washington state
Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...
. He was subsequently
disbarred
Disbarment, also known as striking off, is the removal of a lawyer from a bar association or the practice of law, thus revoking their law license or admission to practice law. Disbarment is usually a punishment for unethical or criminal conduct ...
by the State Bar of California but appealed his disbarment after his release from jail.
Hallinan ran for
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
in the
1952 election, as the candidate for
Henry Wallace's
Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to:
Active parties
* Progressive Party, Brazil
* Progressive Party (Chile)
* Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus
* Dominica Progressive Party
* Progressive Party (Iceland)
* Progressive Party (Sardinia), Ita ...
and was the
third highest polling candidate in the election receiving more than 140,000 votes.
His running mate,
Charlotta A. Bass, was the first
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
chosen by a party as a vice-presidential candidate.
In 1953, Hallinan and his wife, Vivian (Moore),
were indicted on 14 counts of
tax evasion
Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the taxp ...
. After a three-week trial, on November 14, 1953, Hallinan 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.
"Three-Time Loser"
''Time'', New York, March 21, 1953. His wife was acquitted.
Hallinan visited U-2 pilot Gary Powers
Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 i ...
in Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
soon after Powers’ conviction in the Soviet Union for espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...
. He encouraged Powers 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 Powers "would learn a great deal."
In his 1963 autobiography, Hallinan claimed that he was prosecuted by the IRS
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...
for his political views, and that the government did not differentiate between tax avoidance
Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdict ...
(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.
Personal life
Hallinan was the father of six sons, including writer Conn M. Hallinan, San Francisco attorney Patrick Hallinan, and politician Terence Hallinan
Terence Hallinan (December 4, 1936 – January 17, 2020) was an American attorney and politician from San Francisco, California. He was the second of six sons born to Progressive Party presidential candidate Vincent Hallinan and his wife, Vivian ...
. He had several grandchildren.
Despite his Jesuit education, Vincent Hallinan was a militant atheist.
References
Sources
*
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
Records of the Progressive Party
Archive maintained by University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department. 1940—1969. Accessed May 29, 2006.
(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
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
The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863.
Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...
'' March 17, 1999. Read into the Congressional Record
The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Inde ...
by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia Pelosi (; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who has served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives since 2019 and previously from 2007 to 2011. She has represented in the United States House of ...
. March 25, 1999. Accessed May 29, 2006.
* . Excerpted from the eulogy of Vincent Hallinan by his son, Conn M. Hallinan. Accessed May 29, 2006.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hallinan, Vincent
1896 births
1992 deaths
20th-century American politicians
American atheists
American people convicted of tax crimes
American people of Irish descent
Candidates in the 1952 United States presidential election
Disbarred American lawyers
Lawyers from San Francisco
Progressive Party (United States, 1948) politicians