Pinkerton’s Great Detective

by Beau Riffenburgh

  67. JM, letter to WAP, Dec. 24, 1899, LoC, box 27, folder 13.

  68. GDB, letter to WAP, Sept. 13, 1901, LoC, box 27, folder 13,

  Chapter 25: The Long Good-bye

  1. The details of the robbery and the subsequent investigation are taken from Thompson, “The Great Omaha Train Robbery”; Folsom, The Money Trail, pp. 20–23.

  2. The Omaha Daily News, May 24, 1908.

  3. The details of the crime and the early investigation are taken from The Salt Lake Herald-Republican, Sept. 3, 4, 6, 11, 1910; The Salt Lake Tribune, Sept. 3, 4, 8, 1910.

  4. The Salt Lake Herald-Republican, April 7, 1910.

  5. Details of these incidents are taken from The Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 17, 1910; The Salt Lake Herald-Republican, Oct. 26, 28, 1910; quote from The Salt Lake Herald-Republican, Dec. 10, 1910.

  6. The New York Times, Dec. 11, 1910; The Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 15, 16, 1910.

  7. The Evening Standard, March 14, 1911.

  8. The Salt Lake Tribune, Feb. 21, March 5, June 3, 1911.

  9. The Salt Lake Herald-Republican, June 9, 1911; The Salt Lake Tribune, June 9, 1911.

  10. Details of the robbery, investigation, and trial are taken from The Evening Standard, March 9, 18, April 8, 9, 20, 21, 25, 27, May 8, 22, 23, 1911.

  11. The Salt Lake Tribune, May 25, 1911.

  12. Duke, Celebrated Criminal Cases of America, facing page 63.

  13. Doyle, The Valley of Fear.

  14. This version of the story was told by Ralph Dudley, later the agency’s general manager (see Horan, The Pinkertons, p. 499). A different version of how Conan Doyle heard the tale is given in Costello, The Real World of Sherlock Holmes (pp. 131–33). Costello claims that famed detective William J. Burns told Conan Doyle the story when he visited the author in 1913, and Conan Doyle thereafter obtained more details from Allan Pinkerton’s The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives. However, Costello failed to give a proper source for this version, and the fact that Dudley was on very friendly terms with William Pinkerton suggests that it is more likely to be the accurate account.

  15. For example, The Washington Herald, Oct. 26, 1911.

  16. The Washington Herald, Nov. 19, 26, Dec. 10, 1911; for other printings of the articles, see, for example, The San Francisco Call, The Denver Republican.

  17. JM, letter to GDB, Oct. 4, 1910, LoC, box 91, folder 1.

  18. Ibid., Feb. 10, 1914, LoC, box 140, folder 8.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Quoted in The Daily Miners’ Journal, May 9, 1876.

  21. For example, during the second trial of Steve Adams, Darrow asked McParland about the organization he had joined in the anthracite region. McParland denied that he had joined the AOH and insisted that the name of the organization was the Molly Maguires (see SIA, vol. 2, pp. 875–76).

  22. The Intermountain Catholic, Jan. 1, 1910.

  23. Denver Catholic Register, Dec. 3, 1914, Oct. 19, 1916.

  24. For details of McMahon’s career, see LoC, box 30, folder 7.

  25. JM, letter to Allan Pinkerton, Oct. 26, 1915; JM, letter to GDB, Aug. 17, 1916, LoC, box 30, folder 7.

  26. JM, letter to Allan Pinkerton, Oct. 23, 1915, LoC, box 30, folder 7.

  27. Allan Pinkerton, letter to JM, Oct. 26, 1915, LoC, box 30, folder 7.

  28. E. E. Prettyman, letter to GDB, July 22, 1916; JM, letter to GDB, July 28, 1916, LoC, box 30, folder 11.

  29. E. E. Prettyman, letter to GDB, July 22, 1916.

  30. Ibid., July 24, 1916.

  31. Ibid., Aug. 1, 1916.

  32. The Ogden Standard, March 20, 1914; The Logan Republican, March 24, 1914.

  33. The Ogden Standard-Examiner, March 7, 1922, Jan. 13, 1923; Davis County Clipper, July 24, 1925.

  34. WAP, letter to Allan Pinkerton, Sept. 28, 1916, LoC, box 30, folder 11.

  35. WAP, letter to GDB, March 18, 1918, LoC, box 30, folder 11.

  36. McParland’s devotion to his bulldogs never waned. During the run-up to the first Adams trial he had written to Governor Gooding: “I have often discussed with you how highly I appreciated a bulldog for his faithfulness, courage and tenacity”; see JM, letter to FRG, Dec. 4, 1906, ISA, folder 17.

  37. WAP, letter to GDB, March 18, 1918, LoC, box 30, folder 11.

  38. C. V. Hatter, letter to Allan Pinkerton, March 26, 1919, LoC, box 30, folder 11.

  39. C. V. Hatter, letter to GDB, May 1, 1919, and C. V. Hatter, letter to WAP, May 9, 1919, LoC, box 30, folder 11.

  40. C. V. Hatter, letter to GDB, May 14, 1919, LoC, box 30, folder 11.

  41. Ibid.; State of Colorado, Certification of Vital Record, Death Certificate, file 5404, May 18, 1919. Apoplexy was the term used at the time of McParland’s death for a sudden and acute impairment or loss of neurological function brought about by—among other causes—what today is called stroke, cerebral or intracranial hemorrhage, or cerebral embolism.

  42. McMenamin, The Pinnacled Glory of the West, p. 174.

  43. The Denver Post, May 20, 1919.

  44. C. V. Hatter, letter to GDB, May 19, 1919; WAP, letter to GDB, June 5, 1919, LoC, box 30, folder 11.

  45. Denver Catholic Register, May 22, 1919.

  46. The Rocky Mountain News, May 20, 1919.

  47. The Minneapolis Journal, June 8, 1919.

  48. Horan, The Pinkertons, p. 502.

  49. For Siringo’s death, see Pingenot, Siringo, p. 149. The three books about which he fought with Pinkerton’s were A Cowboy Detective, Two Evil Isms, and Riata and Spurs.

  50. There has been a debate as to exactly when Doc Shores died. The editor of his manuscript stated that his death was on October 18, 1934 (Rockwell, Memoirs of a Lawman, p. 374). An obituary in a local newspaper stated that it was on “last Friday morning,” which would have been Oct. 19, 1934 (Gunnison News-Champion and the Gunnison Republican, Oct. 25, 1934). And the date on his tombstone is Oct. 12, 1934.

  51. Colorado Springs Evening Telegraph, July 4, 1926.

  52. G. A. Fuller, letter to H. H. Lintner, Nov. 21, 1928, LoC, box 30, folder 11; Certificate of Death, Nov. 19, 1928, Illinois Department of Public Health Deaths Index, Cook County.

  53. White, Illinois Blue Book, p. 394; Certificate of Death number 6036768, Dec. 15, 1928, Illinois Department of Public Health Deaths Index, Cook County.

  54. Carlson, Roughneck.

  55. U.S. House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress 1774–2005, p. 1133.

  56. Ibid., pp. 679–80.

  57. The New York Times, May 8, 1911.

  58. Farrell, Clarence Darrow.

  59. Coleman, The Molly Maguire Riots, pp. 169–71. The essence of Coleman’s flawed appraisal of McParland was that he and Orchard had created a web of lies to convict Haywood, but that Darrow had shown them to be lies, as validated by the not-guilty verdict. Further, the fact that McParland lied about Haywood was evidence that he had lied during the Molly Maguire trials, thereby indicating their innocence. Although this argument was historically inaccurate, Coleman’s judgments about how this part of McParland’s career reflected on the Molly Maguires trials were carefully followed by Broehl, Kenny, and others in making determinations both about the trials and the detective himself. Unfortunately, Coleman made basic mistakes that have since been accepted unquestioningly and have led to faulty assessments of McParland.

  Coleman stated that McParland had instructed Orchard daily as to what to say during the trial, including orchestrating his requests for changes in the record of his testimony. Haywood had earlier suggested this (Bill Haywood’s Book, p. 210), but there is no evidence whatsoever for such a conclusion. The Haywood trial transcript (which Coleman did not use) shows that Orchard denied such an accusation, and it, as well as the press accounts of the Haywood and Pettibone trials, suggests that Orchard had a remarkable memory for detail, and that he was abl
e to make such corrections whenever inaccurate reporting was made through the day, not just after he had supposedly met with McParland.

  More important, the essence of Coleman’s argument was that “the task of the defense lay in refuting [Orchard’s] statements, a task which was rendered easier because the overzealous witness had accused himself of crimes which were actually mere accidental deaths. Orchard was contradicted in so many particulars by apparently disinterested and reputable persons that his testimony was not considered credible and Haywood was acquitted” (Coleman, The Molly Maguire Riots, p. 171).

  This argument was picked up by later authors virtually verbatim (for example, Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, p. 283). However, it is simply inaccurate. Although some of Orchard’s stories—particularly those about the explosion in the Vindicator mine and the assassination attempt of Bradley—were disputed in the rebuttal section of the trial, holes were found in the testimony of the defense witnesses. More to the point, Judge Wood and most of the reporters covering the trial found Orchard’s testimony quite credible, and the majority of the jury clearly indicated that the verdict was not indicative of a lack of belief in his testimony but was related to Wood’s instructions about corroboration and the state’s burden of proof.

  A common extension of Coleman’s argument is that Darrow, “[b]y exposing McParlan’s underhand tactics in his treatment of both the Molly Maguires and Harry Orchard, . . . won the case and secured Haywood’s freedom.” Kenny claimed that Darrow “compelled Orchard to tell the court about the role that McParlan played in the whole affair” and showed Orchard’s testimony “to be inconsistent and incredible” (Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, p. 283; see also Broehl, The Molly Maguires, pp. 355–57, for Darrow’s closing argument proving a case against McParland). Darrow did not, of course, compel Orchard to do anything in the Haywood trial, as it was Richardson who cross-examined him. But such specifics aside, it has been shown that McParland’s “tactics” had little to do with the verdict, nor was Orchard’s testimony considered inconsistent. In fact, the remarkable consistency of his testimony was commented upon by many individuals involved, particularly Judge Wood (see Wood, The Introductory Chapter to the History of the Trials, pp, 34–36).

  Thus, the basis of Coleman’s arguments about the “meaning” of the verdict of the Haywood trial—as it applied to McParland—is inaccurate. The jury’s verdict did not affirm either an overriding belief in Haywood’s innocence or a condemnation of McParland’s investigative or interrogative behavior. Taking no heed of these facts, the final stage of Coleman’s thesis was that if McParland’s behavior was shown to be corrupt in the Haywood trial, it is not unreasonable to think that it also was in the trials of the Molly Maguires. Therefore, their convictions were of dubious validity.

  However, as the supposed facts underlying the essence of Coleman’s argument were wrong, this final step in the defense of the Molly Maguires is not a logical progression, nor is any assessment based on comparing Coleman’s misunderstanding of McParland’s role in the Haywood trial to his earlier involvement in other trials. Nevertheless, Coleman’s lack of accuracy has tended to be ignored in recent negative assessments of McParland, while his flawed analysis continues to be used as “proof” of the Great Detective’s villainy.

  60. “Brief History of James McParland, Famous Detective,” LoC, box 31, folder 2.

  61. Sigal, Going Away, p. 168.

  62. Farrell, Clarence Darrow, p. 156.

  63. Aurand and Gudelunas, “The Mythical Qualities of Molly Maguire,” p. 101.

  64. For example, JM, letter to GDB, Dec. 5, 1908, LoC, box 27, folder 13.

  65. The Minneapolis Journal, Feb. 20, 1906.

  66. JM, letter to GDB, Dec. 5, 1908, LoC, box 27, folder 13.

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