The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1919-06-05

tHe uleu WIZ udIeu W OppOSe llltlIl
The Stranger at Port Clinton.
one night in 1873 common look
ing man swung himself off a train in
the station at Fort Clinton, Pa. He
was dressed a little better than a
tramp; he carried his luggage in a
bag over his shoulder. he was evil
IDENTIFY miner out of luck. This man
when he was asked his name replied
that it was James McKenna.
Tramping away from the little sta
ton McKenrfh went to the village
tavern and asked to be kept for the
night. Instead the drunken landlord
and his drunken companions from the
mines knocked him down, sought
through his luggage for money in vain
and then threw him out He found
shelter in a railway boarding house
and his treatment by the miners,
rough and scurvy as it was, getting
noised about served as his best Gre
Dental. If the tramp was what he
seemed he could not be an enemy of
the Maguires.
Thus it was easy for James McKen-
ma, alias James Mcfarland, to be-
come a member of the society He
was Of the proper material to make
one of the members of it, desperate,
down and out men, who feared Meth
er God nor devil.
McKenna got job running train
in the mines and he learned to use a
pick for defensive and offensive pur-
poses. He was a good fellow. He
liked to get drunk. oh, the vile whis-
ky that poor MCFARLAND was forced to
swallow to live up to his part. He
could tell a good story. He could
dance an Irish jig. The Maguires did
not wait for him to seek them, they
sought him.
Pat" Dormer an Irishman and an
officer Of the Maguires, kept a saloon
at Pottsville, and he stood as good
friend to the stranger McKenna. He
was asked to attend the wedding of
Dormers sister, and Dormer began to
initiate him into the secrets of the
society that bloomed here as it never
did on the "oud sod
Dormer sent McKenna to "Muff"
LAWYER agent of the society in Shen-
andoah, who took him in as a board
er and finally initiated him with the
gang He was elected secretary of
that local a little afterward and told
to tramp through the mining districts
to help the common cause. In this
way he became intimate with most
of the Mcguire leaders, including Jack
Kehoe and yellow Jack Donahue,
both of whom suffered the final pen
atty of this innocuous intimacy.
McKenna's popularity grew. The
Maguires wondered how they ever got
on before such a resourceful man
came to help their schemes. He led
the fights; he conducted a gang of
golfers to a place where detectives
were in ambush to "get" a gang of
Maguires and helped put the law
keepers to flight; he did everything
to appear as a staunch and trusty
friend of the downtrodden but re-
vengeful working man.
And every day this friend of the
Maguires, this local agent, this lead
err of mobs, this hearty, devl-may-
care "Jim' McKenna, friend of the
lawless element, was sending back re-
ports to Pinkerton. He wrote them
in blueing that his landlady saved
from wash day to wash day; he wrote
them in lampblack and water, for he
did not dare to buy ink; he kept post
age stamps glued to the inside Of his
bootleg, but not day passed with
out a letter going to Pinkerton re-
vealing another secret of the Ma
CURES.
Maguires Pay the Penalty.
Three years of this life and then
McKenna disappeared and McPar-
land came to life again. The work
was done, the net set wherein these
lawbreakers were to be ensnared.
Wholesale arrests were made. Twelve
Maguires were found guilty of murder
in the first degree, four of murder in
the second degree four of being ac-
cessory to murder, sixteen to con-
spiracy to murder, six to perjury one
OF assault with intent to kill, eight of
abetting and aiding murder, one of
assault another of helping a murderer
to escape and several others Of lesser
crimes In all there were seventy ar
rests. Eleven men were hanged and
more were sent to prison.
In order to prove the case against
them MCFARLAND went boldly on the
witness stand and told his story. He
struck terror to the Maguires. The
members of the society who had elud-
ed arrest fled to foreign countries.
The society was wrecked. Mcfarland
had done his work thoroughly.
But the Irish Javert was not the
man in 1875 he had been in 1873. He
had grown old, his stomach was de-
ranged by the bad liquor he had been
forced to swallow, his nerves had gone
back on him. Although not an old
man, he seemed to have arrived at the
superannuated age. So. it would seem