The Washington times., 1936-06-20


out for them.
They NAV start Edwin Z. Hill
off with the pureSt Of motives,
but always they wind up as
criminal, murderouS gangs.
The Black Legion recalls to
me the black hand which for
SIS years disfigured the wall OF a
cell in the jail at Mauch Chunk,
Pennsylvania. The mark was left
by a convicted member Of the
Black Legion Of his day, an
organization of cut-throats and
terrorists which went by the
name of the Molly Maguires.
The man was a miner, and the
story went that as he was being
dragged from his cell to the gal.
lows. he wrenched his right hand
free, rubbed it on the floor with
coal dust and slapped it high on
the wall, saying;
"That mark Is the handprint
Of an innocent man. 1t never
can bo washed away"
It wasn't for more than half a
century. Then, in 1881, Sheriff
Robert L. Bowman grew tired OF
the legend of the curious who
would come to the jail to look on
the hand in the cell Of the Molly
Mcguire.
'WeU have no moro Of the
hand" said the sheriff, and with
a penknife he cut out the plaS-
ter.
MOLLY MAGUIREs
The Molly Maguires brought
racketeering to the United States.
They followed the same methods
as the 'mobs," such as AL Ca
pone'S which have graced our own
day. They begun as philan-
thropic society among the Irish
miners in the Pennsylvania an
thracite fields.
They got their name from a
secret band which was organized
in Ireland in 1843 among the lower
class tenant farmers for the pur-
pose Of preventing eviction and Of
terTorizing the agents of absentee
landlords. The nickname came
from their practice Of disgusting
themselves as women.
The Pennsylvania Molly Ma
guires were notorious for 20 years
for their outrages on English,
Welsh and German mine owners.
They became dominant in the
labor circles in the anthracite
fields and in political circles as
we'll.
Assault and murder were COM
monplace, the mine bosses were
terrorized, the police were help
less and it was worth mans
life to walk the streets of Mauch
Chunk, Scranton or Wilkes
Barre after dark.
At last Franklin B. Gown,
president Of the Philadelphia g.
Reading Railroad and Coal and
Iron Company, determined to
call in the Pinkertons, and they
sent to him young Irishman
who had been running a saloon
in Chicago until Mrs. O'Leary's
COW kicked over the lantern to
destroy the saloon and the rest
OF the city by fire. His name
was James MCFARLAND.
He went into the anthracite
fields in 1873 under the name Of
James McKenna.
In the three years that fol.
lowed, MCFARLAND lived in the
expectation that each succeeding
minute would be the last for him
on this earth.
He began his detective work as
a miner, but soon learned that
the big guns Of the Molly Ma
guireS either we're holding politi.
cal jobs or running saloons, and
not working in the pits.
END OF THE GANG
An old Saloonkeeper himself,
MCFARLAND wormed his way into
the confidence of Pat Dormer, a
Molly, who kept a saloon in Mauch
Chunk. Slowly and carefully, for
the least false step meant his life.
MCFARLAND edged into the high
council Of the Mollies until he was
made their secretary.
The 20-year campaign of
terrorism came to a climax in 1875
with the murder of a policeman
and mine boss. Thereupon Nc
Parland sprung the trap, rather he
sprung IL traps for that was the
number of the ringleaders of the
Molly MaguireS who went to the
| galloWS in the space Of a wear.
Forty-five others went to pris-
son, and the Molly Maguires were
no more.
James MCFARLAND was the J.
Edgar Hoover of the 1870'S. His
work in Pennsylvania alone would
have given him a place second to
none in our detective annals.
Yet he was to duplicate it in
Idaho in 1906 when he broke up
the ring of thuggery and asSassina-
ton, instituted by the Timer
Circle" of the Western Federation
Of Miners, which came to an end
when MCFARLAND convicted Harry
orchard Of the murder Of ex-Gover-
nor Steuenberg and got Orchard
to iInplicate the miners officials
in 25 other murders.
MCFARLAND used the same tao
tics as in Pennsylvania and broke
up this gang Of terroriSts whose
chief weapon was dynamite, with
which they had killed 13 men at
one clip by blowing up the railroad