Again, with the kind permission of Ted Meehan, after forwarding this interesting note. The name of the Molly Maguire defendant who placed his hand on the prison cell wall and declared his innocence, before going out to be hung in the courtyard of the Mauch Chunk prison, was Tom Fisher. In the 1970s I was working on a book on the labor organization of the Pennsylvania coal fields and I had run across this anecdote in several old newspaper reports. I drove out to see for myslef. The prison is still in use, but that particular cell is not used. As I entered the cell, there was a very clear imprint of a man's hand which had come through several layers of paint, and even perhaps some layers of plaster. I actually took a picture. It was quite amazing. As far as the bias question, I would say that the more one studies the question, the more one will understand the human impulses on both sides. The minors were certainly treated unfairly - whether one likes unions or not. The poor souls were forced to buy their food, tools, clothing, and supplies from company stores which charged exhorbitant prices. Meanwhile, there was an apparent systematic effort to shortchange the minors for their work by having checkweighman declare large portions of their loads to be useless rock and gravel. Even if the entire load were properly counted, the minors never made enough money to actually pay their bills to the Company. At the end of each month, the minors would receive a script showing how much their debt to the Company had increased over that period. If a minor attempted to organize a labor union for collective bargaining, he was automatically blackballed - which was intended as a sentence of death. Often such a minor would have to travel thousands of miles away and change his name in order to get work at all. In defense of the Mine Operators, one must recognize that these powerful men - even if they had unjustly exploited the miners - were faced with a growing problem of escalating violence against them. The Molly Maguires methods called for outside men to come into an area for a "clean job". Once their work had been done, whether beating a man or shooting him in his home, the culprits left and went back to their own towns. If they were ever questioned or arrested, numerous other members of the secret society (Ancient Order of Hibernians) would swear under oath that they were with the defendants on the evening in question and engaged in some innocent activity. The process made it almost impossible to get a conviction Thus, the Mine Operators contracted Alan Pinkerton's detective agency to get to the bottom of the illegal activities. Pinkerton sent James McPartland, who was a young Irish immigrant. Most reports indicate that he was gregarious, and had a wonderful ability to tell a story and sing songs from Ireland. He quickly won the confidence of those who ran the A.OH., and was sworn in. Before long, he was sent on a few "clean jobs" himself. After a while, when he believed he had enough information to incriminate the leadership of the organization, he went to the authorities and became a state witness against the Molly Maguires. The trials which followed were hardly classic examples of jurisprudence. In most cases, all that was actually established was that a particular defendant might have been connected to the AOH. That seemed to be enough for the judges and juries to sentence the men to death by hanging. In the not too distant past (I'll say the year 2000), the Pennsylvania legislature passed a resolution indicating its acknowledgement that the conviction of "Black Jack" Kehoe - the alleged ring leader of the Molly Maguires - was seriously flawed enough that he was postumously exonerated, and his name cleared. The episode was a tragic one, probably not more or less tragic than many others that occured in Ireland and America in this period. But it is also interesting and instructive. Bail o Dia ar an obair! Ted Meehan > Original Message: > ----------------- > From: jbdiv@aol.com > Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 23:15:43 EST > To: drumkeeranfolk@yahoogroups.com > Subject: Re: [drumkeeranfolk] Re: White Boys and Mollie Maguires > > > Molly Maguires > > This is one of those things about which people differ. Were they poor, > innocent Irish coal miners trying to form a union or were they terrorists? > My recollection is that a number of coal miners (terrorists) were hung based > on McPartland's testimony. > > Who knows, but I remember reading that one man (Carrol, I think) said he was > innocent and put his hand print into the dry, hard cement of his cell wall. > The print was visible until a WPS project in the 1930s plastered over the > wall. I have no way of knowing if this is true. > > If one's bias is pro-union, I think one could say a Mr. Kehoe, a saloon > owner, was hung because he could read and write and therefore was considered > very dangerous to the mine owners. If one's bias is the other way, one > would conclude that his ability to read and write made him a key organizer of > the terrorists. > > In 1906, in Idaho, another group of union organizers or terrorists was on > trial. The prime witness against them was again Mr. McPartland. At this > trial, (I think it was called Haywood-Moyer-Pettibone), McPartland's > testimony was thrown out and the judge said he was a pathological liar. > > I think few could dispute that Alan Pinkerton had little love of labor > unions, but that does not mean McPartland was or was not an honest man. Jim Durkin > > > > > > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > mail2web - Check your email from the web at > http://mail2web.com/ . > > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > >