Wayne G. Broehl published The Molly Maguires (1964) in the midst of this revisionism, incorporating the most wide-ranging primary research then done and using important sources not consulted previously. This was far and away the most evenhanded history of the Molly Maguires, and Broehl was not kind to McParlan in his final assessment, when Coleman’s argument was incorporated. Because of its neutrality, it has been harshly criticized by recent, less balanced accounts; for example, Campbell, A Molly Maguire Story, p. 38; Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, p. 5. An article that took a similar neutral position was Quinn’s “Of Myths and Men,” but it did not use any primary sources and so is of considerably less value.
Perhaps the most important article about the Molly Maguires is “The Mythical Qualities of Molly Maguire,” by Harold Aurand and William Gudelunas (1982). Like Broehl’s work, it was restrained in its assessments and showed that, other than a handful of basic facts, little can be unequivocally demonstrated about the episode, which therefore “permits the assignment of motives and roles according to a predetermined scheme” (p. 102).
The Aurand and Gudelunas thesis of preexisting bias has been demonstrated numerous times in recent books that are highly critical of McParlan. This is true of even the most scholarly work on the subject, Kevin Kenny’s Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, which was carefully argued, extremely detailed, and pioneering in placing the Molly Maguires in the context of Irish and American social history as well as showing the cultural, ethnic, religious, and ideological influences acting upon them. However, it ignored a great deal of evidence that was not hostile to or critical of McParlan, Pinkerton’s, and Gowen while seemingly accepting without any skepticism clearly biased criticisms of them, resulting in a strongly negative assessment of each. The McParlan appraisal was admittedly based on the Coleman argument without research into McParlan’s career that would have shown the weaknesses of such a position. Therefore, although extremely significant in understanding the Molly Maguires, the account is much less so in gaining a comprehension of McParlan.
Several books written by enthusiasts and giving more personal accounts than Kenny’s (for example, Campbell, A Molly Maguire Story; Crown, A Molly Maguire on Trial; McCarthy, The Great Molly Maguire Hoax) also appear to have conformed to a predetermined judgment of unfair treatment of the Molly Maguires, as well as to McParlan’s wickedness.
Although not emphasizing the Molly Maguires, three books have been published about the Haywood trial and its associated investigations and trials, which are linked to the Molly Maguires through the participation of McParlan. The first major account, Grover’s Debaters and Dynamiters (1964), was well researched, impartial, and thought provoking in its assessments and conclusions. Along with Broehl’s and Kenny’s books, it is the most scholarly and just work relating to McParlan. Two books published in the last fifteen years about these later events (Lukas, Big Trouble; Martin, The Corpse on Boomerang Road) each gave a fuller picture of McParlan at that stage than had been produced previously, and neither was kind to him. However, it was not in either’s remit to attempt a serious study of him, and although Lukas’s book achieved a reasonable balance, Martin’s did not. The only attempt to combine McParlan’s two major cases into one work was made in an unpublished manuscript entitled “The Great McParland” by the mystery writer Zelda Popkin. Sadly, it not only ignores the rest of McParlan’s career but is unreliable due to numerous errors of fact.
Thus, assessments found in most of the previous works about the Molly Maguires or McParlan should be treated with care, as they tend to suffer from heavy and obvious biases.
57. The biographical material about Gowen and his early career has been drawn from several sources, including: Bowen, Coal and the Coal Trade, pp. 24–33; Broehl, The Molly Maguires; and Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading.
58. Cardenas, The Crime Victim in the Prosecutorial Process, pp. 357–60; Krent, Executive Control Over Criminal Law Enforcement, pp. 290–92; Train, The Prisoner at the Bar. Presentments represented the findings of a grand jury without any involvement from an attorney general or district attorney, who could thereafter produce an indictment from the presentment, binding the defendant for trial.
59. Roots, “Are Cops Constitutional?” pp. 689–91; Train, The Prisoner at the Bar.
60. Ireland, “Privately Funded Prosecution of Crime,” p. 43; McConville and Mirsky, Jury Trials and Plea Bargaining; Van Alstyne, “The District Attorney.”
61. Aurand and Gudelunas, “The Mythical Qualities of Molly Maguire,” p. 91.
62. Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading, p. 10.
63. Statistics from Popkin, “The Great McParland,” p. 16.
64. FBG, in Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, Verbatim Report of Proceedings at a Meeting of Share and Bond Holders; also see Yearley, Enterprise and Anthracite, p. 201.
65. In 1870, the WBA was renamed the Miners’ and Laborers’ Benevolent Association, but the old initials continued in popular use. The original name or initials are therefore used throughout this book. See Bimba, The Molly Maguires, p. 44; Schlegel, “The Workingmen’s Benevolent Association.”
66. AP, General Principles and Rules, pp. 6–10.
67. Ibid., p. 8.
68. Broehl, The Molly Maguires, pp. 144–45.
69. BF, report to FBG, Oct. 9, 1873: HML, box 1001.
70. Ibid., Oct. 24, 1873.
71. The account of the meeting between Pinkerton and Gowen comes from: AP, The Molly Maguires and the Detectives, pp. 13–18.
Chapter 2: The Molly Maguires
1. The background material about the secret societies of Ireland owes much to several key sources: Beames, “The Ribbon Societies”; Garvin, “Defenders, Ribbonmen and Others”; Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires; Lee, “The Ribbonmen”; Wall, “The Whiteboys”; and Williams, Secret Societies in Ireland.
2. For example, Bergin, History of the Ancient Order of Hibernians; Milroy, “History of the AOH,” p. 5; O’Dea, History of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, vol. II, pp. 771–72; Rushe, History of Monaghan, p. 278.
3. Dawson, Nicknames and Pseudonyms, p. 202.
4. Foster, Letters on the Condition of the People in Ireland, p. 23; Trench, Realities of Irish Life, pp. 63–83. It would be surprising if the Foster claim were accurate, based on a search of the nineteenth-century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, conducted through the University of Southampton’s Enhanced Parliamentary Papers on Ireland project, which indicated that the first time the Molly Maguires were referenced in Parliament was in 1846, for activities in 1845. Perhaps the earliest known use of the name in print was in Dublin’s daily newspaper Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, which, on Dec. 10, 1844, stated: “They called themselves the ‘Molly Maguires’, a fantastic name, but they assembled at night, and committed outrages of every kind.”
5. For example, JM, report for AP, Oct. 10, 1873, HML, file B-979, p. 3.
6. Trench, Realities of Irish Life, p. 82.
7. Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, p. 19.
8. For example, Broehl, The Molly Maguires, p. 1; JM, report for AP, Oct. 10, 1873, HML, file B-979, pp. 4–5.
9. Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, pp. 13–44.
10. Ibid., p. 80.
11. For background on Bannan, see Kenny, “Nativism, Labor, and Slavery.”
12. The Miners’ Journal, and Pottsville General Advertiser, Oct. 3, 1857. There were other newspapers in the state that also used the term “Molly Maguires” around the same time, when looking at the Irish Catholic role in the state election.
13. Gudelunas and Shade, Before the Molly Maguires, p. 83.
14. For background on the history of the anthracite industry, see Binder, “Anthracite Enters the Home”; Davies, The Anthracite Aristocracy; Haine, Anthracite Coal; History of Schuylkill County; Itter, “Early Labor Troubles in the Schuylkill Anthracite District�
�; Powell, “The Pennsylvania Anthracite Industry, 1769–1976”; Wallace, St. Clair; and Yearly, Enterprise and Anthracite.
15. For background on the geography of the anthracite region, see Haine, Anthracite Coal; History of Schuylkill County; Knies, Coal on the Lehigh; and Powell, “The Pennsylvania Anthracite Industry, 1769–1976.”
16. For an overview of the railroads that were major players in the anthracite region, see Bogen, The Anthracite Railroads.
17. Wiley, Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Schuylkill County, p. 127.
18. Broehl, The Molly Maguires, p. 87; Rayback, A History of American Labor, p. 109.
19. As in any other profession, mining included men who developed methods for cheating at their work. According to Yearley (Enterprise and Anthracite, p. 179), until checking each car became regular practice, some miners loaded the bottom with useless slate and dirt and then topped them with coal. And until weighing became prevalent, the cars were loaded loosely to avoid having to put as much coal in each one.
20. Kehoe, John Kehoe, Plaintiff in Error, vs. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Defendant in Error, p. 12; Kehoe v. The Commonwealth, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, p. 82.
21. The New-York Times, Dec. 26, 1888, indicated that the Buckshots used cudgels and billy clubs until one day a man named Donolan “picked up a large frozen potato and began digging the inside out of it with his pocketknife. As he dug, the fact that the interior of the potato could be fashioned into all sorts of shapes suggested to him a new and more appropriate mold for casting a Buckshot billy. He cut the inside of the potato into irregular forms and, pouring it full of molten lead, produced a string of knots and knobs and jagged corners. . . . In the hands of an expert wielder of the cat it became a weapon that could either cut, bruise, or smash, as the operator willed.”
22. Shankman, The Pennsylvania Anti-War Movement, pp. 147–49; Shankman, “Draft Resistance in Civil War Pennsylvania.”
23. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, vol. I, p. 545. Similar assessments were also made in Carbon County by the deputy provost marshal, E. H. Rausch, who wrote, “An organization exists throughout the Middle Coal Field, of Irishmen, known as ‘Buckshots,’ for the avowed purpose of resisting the draft” (Rausch, letter of Nov. 16, 1863, quoted in Bulik, “American Gothic”). This emphasizes the lack of certainty whether the Molly Maguires and the Buckshots were the same or just similar organizations.
24. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, vol. I, pp. 548–9; McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 91.
25. Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading, p. 10; Long, Where the Sun Never Shines, p. 93.
26. General James Fry, letter to General William Whipple, Aug. 3, 1863, quoted in U.S. War Department, War of the Rebellion, series III, vol. III, p. 620.
27. Colonel Charles Albright, letter to President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 9, 1863, quoted in Ibid., pp. 1008–9.
28. The Miners’ Journal, and Pottsville General Advertiser, Jan. 10, 1863; The New-York Times, Nov. 7, 1863. Thugs or Thuggee were members of a vast and well-organized confederacy of professional assassins who were located in India for hundreds of years, at least as far back as 1356. Worshipers of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, they made a practice of getting to know travelers and then garroting or strangling them and plundering the bodies. The Thugs were finally suppressed in the 1830s by the efforts of governor-general Lord William Bentinck and his chief agent, William Henry Sleeman. See Wagner, Thuggee.
29. Rausch, letter of Nov. 16, 1863, quoted in Bulik, “American Gothic”; The Miners’ Journal, and Pottsville General Advertiser, Nov. 11, 1863.
30. Henry Ward Beecher, 1877, quoted in Babson, The Unfinished Struggle, p. 7.
31. The Miners’ Journal, and Pottsville General Advertiser, March 30, 1867; list reproduced in Dewees, The Molly Maguires, pp. 372–75.
32. Lebanon Courier, Jan. 20, 1866.
33. Hester et al.. v. The Commonwealth, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, p. 214. For accounts of other attempts at highway robbery, see The Miners’ Journal, and Pottsville General Advertiser, March 23, 1867; The Sunbury Gazette, Feb. 23, 1867.
34. Quote from Shalloo, Private Police, p. 61. Before 1865, law enforcement in Pennsylvania existed at only the county, city, or lower levels. When the railroad and mining companies argued that they required additional protection for their property, the private Coal and Iron Police were given powers not only to safeguard their holdings and assets, but also to investigate, arrest, and imprison. The numbers in these forces grew steadily, until there were more than seven thousand. Many were relatively untrained men who were essentially hired guns enforcing the will of the mining companies. Eventually the Coal and Iron Police largely supplanted official municipal or county police in the handling of industrial disturbances. There were numerous documented abuses by the officers, and they were accused of assault, kidnapping, rape, and murder. The violence between the striking miners and the Coal and Iron Police was so intense during the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 that it helped lead to the formation of the Pennsylvania State Police three years later. However, the Coal and Iron Police continued in force until Governor Gifford Pinchot revoked all of the commissions on June 30, 1931, effectively ending the organizations; see Norwood, Strikebreaking and Intimidation.
35. For background on the WBA, see Chandler, “Anthracite Coal and the Beginnings of Industrial Revolution”; Pinkowski, John Siney; Schlegel, “The Workingmen’s Benevolent Association”; and Yearley, Enterprise and Anthracite.
36. For more detailed information about the dangers faced by the miners, see Aurand, “The Anthracite Mine Workers”; Hudson Coal Company, The Story of Anthracite; Long, Where the Sun Never Shines; Miller and Sharpless, The Kingdom of Coal; and Wallace, St. Clair.
37. For background on John Siney and details of his strategies, see Killeen, “John Siney”; Pinkowski, John Siney; Schlegel, “The Workingmen’s Benevolent Association”; and Yearley, Enterprise and Anthracite.
38. Yearley, Enterprise and Anthracite, p. 184.
39. The Anthracite Monitor, June 12, 1869.
40. Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading, pp. 49–50.
41. For the proposed package, see Killeen, “John Siney,” p. 157; Schlegel, “The Workingmen’s Benevolent Association,” pp. 246–48.
42. For the background and outcome of the “Gowen Compromise,” see Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading, pp. 20–21; Schlegel, “The Workingmen’s Benevolent Association,” pp. 249–50.
43. Broehl, The Molly Maguires, pp. 112–13.
44. FBG, letters to John Siney, Dec. 30, 31, 1870, quoted in Pennsylvania General Assembly, Report of the Committee, 116–17.
45. Pennsylvania General Assembly, Report of the Committee, pp. 43, 53–59; Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading, pp. 24–25.
46. Broehl, The Molly Maguires, p. 114.
47. State Journal, March 10, 1871.
48. Pennsylvania General Assembly, Report of the Committee.
49. FBG, March 1871, quoted in Ibid., pp. 18–19; emphasis in the original.
50. John Siney, March 1871, quoted in Pennsylvania General Assembly, Report of the Committee, p. 33.
51. The Daily Miners’ Journal, March 11, 1871.
52. Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading, pp. 34–35.
53. Broehl, The Molly Maguires, pp. 126–27.
54. FBG, quoted in Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading, p. 39.
55. Thomas, The Coal Monopoly.
56. Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading, p. 44; Schlegel, “America’s First Cartel.” A cartel is marked by a formal agreement among otherwise competing firms, in which the members concur on such courses of action as price fixing, controlling total output, allocation of customers or territories, and the division of profits in order to increase the profits of each member of the cartel by reducing competition. Each of these types of collusion increased in the latter decades of the
nineteenth century, particularly after C. T. Dodd, an attorney for the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, developed a new form of trust agreement to bypass state prohibitions against corporations owning stock in other corporations. Such business activities—which, according to Senator John Sherman, reduced competition and were therefore “designed, or which tend, to advance the cost of goods to the consumer”—were prohibited by Congress with the 1890 passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies. See: Sherman Antitrust Act of July 2, 1890. Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, Record Group 11, General Records of the United States Government. National Archives. Washington, D.C., 1789–1992.
57. Jones, The Anthracite Coal Combination, pp. 40–41; Schlegel, “America’s First Cartel,” p. 7.
58. Roy, A History of the Coal Miners, p. 77.
59. For example, The Mauch Chunk Coal Gazette, Dec. 8, 1871; The Anthracite Monitor, Dec. 9, 1871.
60. Springfield Daily Union, March 17, 1877.
Chapter 3: A New Identity
1. AP, The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives, p. 17.
2. Ibid., pp. 20, 23.
3. RAP, “Detective Surveillance of Anarchists,” pp. 611–12.
4. Dewees, The Molly Maguires, p. 79; RJL, quoted in CAC, p. 1322; Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, History of Detectives: James McParlan, Oct. 16, 1880: LoC, box 30.
5. AP, The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives, p. 23.
6. The beginning of the end for Pinkerton’s testing program was a freak accident that occurred outside of Jersey City, New Jersey, in November 1872. An undercover operative stuck his head out a window as a train of the Erie Railroad crossed a bridge and was struck by a girder and knocked out of the car, into the river. When his body was found, papers on it revealed him to be a Pinkerton’s operative assigned to test employees. Other information gave away the location of the secret Pinkerton’s testing offices in Jersey City and Dayton, Ohio, that had been set up for agents to obtain their instructions and write their reports. Using this information, representatives of the conductors’ unions began spying on the Pinkertons, who discreetly moved their offices in the middle of the night. The resulting difficulties led Pinkerton to cut back permanently on his testing program. See Morn, The Eye That Never Sleeps, p. 63.
Pinkerton’s Great Detective Page 57