PRESIDENT GOWEN AND THE LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION.
The Legislature of Pennsylvania, listening to the repeated demands of
the dissatisfied and the call of the Anti-Monopoly Convention,
heretofore alluded to, in 1875 appointed a committee to investigate the
affairs of the Philadelphia and Reading Company. That commission
convened at Atlantic City, New Jersey, the 29th of July, in the same
year, and heard such testimony as the complainants could bring before
it, as well as the pleadings of the able attorneys representing the
prosecutors of the inquiry. Mr. Gowen, the President of the Philadelphia
and Reading Railway Company, personally appeared before the committee
and made answer to the charges. I have deemed it necessary, in order
that the careful reader may fully comprehend this entire operation and
the extent to which it reached, to give a brief abstract of the
principal points in Mr. Gowen’s exhaustive, comprehensive, and
unanswerable argument, which is hereunto appended:
After furnishing a condensed history of the Reading Railroad Company,
which was chartered in 1833, and opened to the coal regions in
1842—enlarging gradually from a line of fifty-eight miles of single
track, in 1835, to over one thousand miles, in 1870—468 of these being
in the coal fields alone—Mr. Gowen alluded, in fitting terms to the
various trials the Company had had in the Legislature, while he was
counsel, opposing franchises to other companies securing liberty to mine
iron and coal. He succeeded, at one time, by an amendment, in preventing
an act, in favor of an antagonistic corporation, having any operation in
Schuylkill County. Then the Company bought up large quantities of coal
land and had the Franklin Coal Company incorporated. This was followed
by the strike of 1871, after which the Reading management determined to
enter the field as coal and iron miners and obtain a grant from the
Legislature for the formation of an auxiliary coal and iron corporation.
This gave rise to the Laurel Run Improvement Company. They bought one
hundred thousand acres of land, and it was conveyed to the Company.
Forty millions of dollars were thus expended.
Mr. Gowen subsequently traced, in brilliant and striking contrast, the
respective positions of New York and Philadelphia, showing the benefits
to be conferred upon Pennsylvania by preventing the grasping New York
associations from obtaining a monopoly of the southern, as they had of
the northern coal fields.
The Reading Company, now that Mr. Gowen’s plans have succeeded, ships
from the city of Philadelphia, alone, two millions five hundred thousand
tons of coal a year, in vessels, has shipped as much as ninety thousand
tons a week, and the commerce and prosperity of the port of
Philadelphia, as a shipping point, are much more dependent upon the
industry which it brings to it than upon all others put together. It can
now say to the manufacturer: “Here is a Company that owns lines of
railroad in the heart of a rich agricultural region, where labor is
plenty and always will be abundant; we own the coal mines, and you can
come here to locate your works, in the confidence that self-interest
alone, and the worship of the almighty dollar—generally supposed to be
implanted in the breast of a corporation, without regard to any
benevolent or philanthropic ideas in the minds of the gentlemen
connected with the Company—will induce us to let you have this fuel at
less than you can buy it from an individual.”
After giving some pertinent figures regarding the productiveness of the
coal region—alluded to in an opening chapter of this work—the President
went on to state that, at the end of the year, while the Schuylkill had
only increased, in 1870, to four millions eight hundred and fifty-one
thousand eight hundred and fifty-five tons, or twenty-nine per cent., in
the same time the Wyoming region increased from two millions nine
hundred and forty-one thousand eight hundred and seventeen tons, to
seven millions eight hundred and twenty-five thousand one hundred and
twenty-eight tons, or one hundred and sixty per cent. Here was an
increase of one hundred and sixty-six per cent., against twenty-nine,
due to the fact that the Wyoming region was controlled by large
corporations which could expend money in developing the lands, and who
were not liable to be prostrated by a monetary panic.
In the four years, from 1870 to 1874, the tonnage of the Schuylkill
region has increased thirty-three and twenty-three one-hundredths per
cent., and that of the Wyoming only eighteen and one one-hundredth per
cent.
The peculiar business transactions of factors in Philadelphia were then
ably discussed, and received at Mr. Gowen’s hands the exact treatment
they deserved, when he turned his attention to the retail dealers, and
some of the iniquities of their system, after which he examined,
_seriatim_, the four principal charges made against the Company, in the
following order: 1st, of detention of cars; 2d, of short weights, 3d, of
an unfair distribution of cars; and 4th, of a combination, or
conspiracy, to control production, which, if proven, renders it amenable
to the law, and which shows it to have been guilty of an abuse of its
corporate franchises.
As to detention of cars, Mr. Gowen explained the cause to be
unavoidable, at times, but said the Company always endeavored to deal
justly by its patrons. Detentions were principally from accidents to
trains and to cars. They employed a Missing Coal Agent, and did
everything in their power to be prompt.
The speaker made a complete demurrer to the charge of short weight, and
fairly turned the tables upon those fighting his corporation, exhibiting
the result of a test given the retail dealers in Philadelphia, greatly
to the discredit of the latter. In many cases these very honorable
retailers sold from thirteen to sixteen and eighteen hundred pounds of
coal for a ton, annually realizing a handsome percentage from their
villainy.
Unequal distribution of cars was equally well refuted. Then the
opponents of the company said: “Philadelphia is not the place to make
the investigation in. We must ‘beard the lion in his den.’ We must go
right up to Pottsville. The newspapers of Philadelphia are worth
nothing. They are all in the interest of the Company, and as for Mr.
Gowen, he will not venture ten miles out of Philadelphia; if he does, he
will be shot by the miners. We will take the committee where everybody
is opposed to the Company.” It was just where Mr. Gowen wanted to go.
His adversaries had two weeks, and then there was an adjournment of
nearly ten days more, in which to prepare for the Pottsville campaign.
Mr. Bronson moved his headquarters to Pottsville, and examined the
matter carefully. Mr. Gowen was present. Threats did not intimidate him.
What was the result? The allegations were abandoned. Even the discharged
employés of the Reading Company, when put on the witness’ stand, said
nothing to reflect upon its management.
As to the charge of unlawful confederation, the speaker was equally
felicitous. The object in entering into alliance with the New York
Companies was simply this—to announce as the future policy of the
Company that the price of coal should be lowest at the mines, and
increase with every mile of distance over which it was carried; that it
should be just that much higher in the city of New York than it was in
the city of Philadelphia as was due to the increased distance of the
former from the region where the coal was produced. It was so adjusted
that, instead of coal being a dollar a ton cheaper in New York, the
difference between the price of coal in the port of Philadelphia and in
the city of New York was exactly one dollar a ton in favor of
Philadelphia; and coal in Boston was exactly so much higher than coal in
Philadelphia as was due to the cost of carrying it from Philadelphia to
Boston—namely, about one dollar and sixty cents per ton.
After speaking of the loss from deterioration of coal, by exposure to
the atmosphere, the risk of capital invested, and faulty veins, Mr.
Gowen thus alluded to troubles in the coal region: “It will not do to
say that these troubles result from the inadequacy of the price paid for
labor, because, without exception, the rates paid are the highest in the
world. The high rates have had the effect of attracting to the coal
region a surplus of labor, more than sufficient to do the work required;
and it is the effort of this surplus to receive an employment which it
cannot really get that has led to all these disturbances.” He would not
be understood as reflecting in any manner upon the laboring class of the
community. He believed ninety-five out of every one hundred of the men
employed about the mines in the coal region to be decent, orderly,
law-abiding, respectable men; but there is among them a class of
agitators—a few men, trained in the school of the Manchester cotton
spinner—brought here for the purpose of creating confusion and to stir
up dissension between the employer and the employed. Mr. Gowen here grew
earnestly eloquent, and his language is quoted in full:
“I yield to no man living in the respect and admiration that I pay to
the workingman. Let him who will erect an altar to the genius of labor,
and, abject as an eastern devotee, I worship at its shrine,
“‘Gathering from the pavement crevice, as a floweret from the soil,
The nobility of labor, the long pedigree of toil.’
“I ask your attention, therefore, for a few moments to my advocacy of
the rights of labor. I stand here as the champion of the rights of
labor—as the advocate of those who desire to work and who have been
prevented from doing so. I stand here to arraign before you a class of
two or three men out of every one hundred, who, by their machinations
and by their agitation, have held in absolute idleness and starvation
thousands and thousands of men for months. Why, gentlemen, look at what
we have undergone. When people object to a profit of twenty-five or
thirty cents upon the ton of coal, I ask them to look at what those who
mine coal have had to submit to during the last six months. I have had
printed for your use a statement, from the daily reports coming to me
during the strike, of the outrages in the coal region. Here I want to
correct an impression that goes out to the public, that these outrages
are intended to injure the property of the employer. They are not. We do
not believe that they are. They are perpetrated for no other purpose
than to intimidate the workingmen themselves and to prevent them from
going to work. I shall not read the list; it is at your service; and you
can look over it and see the position we have occupied for months. But
let me mention a few of the glaring instances of tyranny and oppression.
At a colliery, called the Ben Franklin Colliery, the employés of which
were perfectly satisfied with their wages, had accepted the reduction
early in the season, and were working peacefully and contentedly, the
torch of the incendiary was applied to the breaker at night. These men,
having families to support, working there contentedly and peacefully,
were driven out of employment by a few dangerous men, simply for the
purpose of preventing them from earning their daily bread. I had some
interest in the subject of the amount of their wages, and I asked the
owner of the colliery what his miners were actually earning at the time
when they were prevented from working by the burning of the structure in
which they were employed, and he told me that the lowest miner on his
pay-list earned sixty dollars a month, and the highest one hundred and
thirty dollars; and yet, although these men were peaceful, law-abiding
men, they were driven out of employment by an incendiary fire. At
another colliery, within five or six miles of this, a band of twenty or
thirty men, in the evening—almost in broad daylight—went to the breaker,
and by force drove the men away and burnt the structure down. It
belonged to a poor man. It was a small operation. The savings of his
lifetime were probably gone, and his own employés, who had nothing
against him, and who were perfectly willing to work, were thrown out of
employment, and probably remain out of employment to this day.”
All schemes for causing the miner to provide for himself when sickness
and trouble came, having been found unavailing, from the improvidence of
the men themselves, the Company announced, in January, 1876, a rule
that, whenever a man was killed in its service, a certain sum should be
paid for his funeral expenses; that his widow should receive a fixed
payment each week, in money, for a definite period, or so long as she
remained a widow, and that every minor child of the deceased, unable to
work, should have a designated amount, weekly, all of which was to be
paid out of the treasury of the Company. Even this charitable and
beneficent plan was ridiculed by the people whose business it was to
destroy confidence and create trouble in the coal region.
When Mr. Gowen concluded, the committee made its report, showing that
there was no ground of action, and that was the last heard of
Legislative intermeddling with the Company.
The reader will observe that Mr. Gowen’s address appeals directly to the
workingman, and that his blows are mainly showered upon the Mollie
Maguires and their evil and violent associates. Wishing to show the good
the miner is capable of doing, he speaks plainly, and without
affectation, so that the illiterate can understand as clearly as the
learned. He also desires to point out, and is successful in depicting,
the benefits actually accruing to Philadelphia and the State of
Pennsylvania through action of the two great companies that he so ably
represents.
It was the sixth of July that the committee was in Pottsville, where
they supposed Mr. Gowen would not dare to show himself; but in this the
gentlemen prosecuting the case were entirely in error. Mr. Gowen was
there. Thinking, as excitement ran high, and outrages were being almost
daily and nightly perpetrated in all portions of the coal country, that
the threats of the Mollie Maguires to kill the President of the Company,
might, if unprevented, be carried out, I took precautions to block the
enemies of that gentleman in this regard. Detectives were sent from
Philadelphia, unknown to him, to watch over Mr. Gowen, and McParlan,
_alias_ McKenna, was ordered to Pottsville to see that the Mollies were
not allowed a chance of preparation to strike at the President without
the knowledge was communicated to others. It was during this excitement
that McKenna met with a mishap, which I must briefly describe.
He was, one fine morning, walking about the city, and came upon a
suspicious looking man, who, the detective thought, was throwing himself
more frequently than absolutely necessary in the presence of Mr. Gowen,
and determined to see who he was and what disposition he made of
himself. Informing Linden of this intention, he started. The person
under surveillance first entered Dormer’s Sheridan House, remained there
a short time and, coming out, went to Hughes’ drinking place, in Center
Street. In this way he consumed the time until ten o’clock at night,
McKenna keeping continually on his trail, but entirely unseen and
unsuspected by the visitor. This constituted some twelve hours of
continuous shadowing, and the operative had discovered nothing, except
that his man consumed a large quantity of liquor and walked very fast,
occasionally talking a short time with leading Mollies. He was well
tired of the business, but determined to see where the party made his
headquarters before he left him. It was surprising how many people that
comparative stranger knew in Pottsville, and equally miraculous how fast
he flew over the uneven ground, climbing the hills like a native, and
never stumbling or falling, even after imbibing whisky enough to kill an
ox. McKenna, meanwhile, had been unable to secure anything to appease
either hunger or thirst and was nearly prostrated.
Finally the man traveled, at a late hour, on a hurried walk, up
Mahantongo Street, and, after a long and toilsome pilgrimage, which the
operative thought would never end, paused before a small house in an
eastern suburb of the city, looked cautiously about, to see that nobody
observed him, and then, leaping the garden fence, entered the rear door
of the premises. A light still burned in the kitchen, and the detective,
assuring himself by actual observation that his party did not live in
the dwelling, but was courting the cook in the back apartment, secreted
himself in the shadow of a large tree, on the opposite side of the
street, and awaited results. The stranger stopped more than an hour.
McKenna, his patience and strength quite spent, still persevered in
maintaining his watch.
Presently he heard unsteady footsteps approaching, and, fearing
discovery, the operative sat down on the sidewalk, took off his boot,
and pretended to be very busily engaged in extracting some apocryphal
sand and gravel which had worked into it through an indefinite hole in
the upper-leather. To the surprise of McKenna, he was accosted by a
thick, lubberly, short-set city policeman, evidently a German. Seeing
the _pseudo_ Mollie, he rolled along toward his resting-place, and, in a
decidedly thick and drunken tone, demanded:
“What for you lofe about here, eh?”
McKenna examined his boot more attentively, and answered respectfully:
“Begorra! Me boot hurts me foot! Sure, an’ I am gittin’ some gravel
stones out of it, when I mane to start for home!”
“Py tam! I shows you what for you lounge around in der dark! Get away
from dis! Marsch along on der schtreets!”
Without waiting for McKenna to obey him, which he was preparing to do,
by drawing on his boot—meanwhile keeping a sharp eye upon the door of
the house in which his friend was concealed—the brutal and besotted
wretch struck the detective a savage blow on the head with his heavy
club. Although it was an entirely unprovoked attack, and the stroke
brought blood freely from his forehead and nostrils, the agent gave no
answer, and made no effort to retaliate. A second stroke, intended for
his head, was parried skillfully with his arm, and he walked away, down
the street. The vagabond policeman staggered along a few paces and fell
down upon the walk, in a state of drunken unconsciousness. Continuing
until he reached the shadow of the Catholic church, McKenna stopped,
bound up his head as well as he could, and, then seeing his man emerge
from the kitchen, he once more started in pursuit. It seems that the
fellow had been merely paying a visit to his sweetheart, as he took the
road for the country, and, after following him several miles, the
operative dropped the trail and returned to his boarding-house.
The next day McKenna was a horrible sight to look upon. With eyes clad
in mourning, scalp bound up in plasters, clothing torn and soiled, and
limbs bruised, he thought he had learned quite enough of Pottsville and
its policemen. And Pottsville had had enough of him, in his character of
a Mollie Maguire. It is fair to say that the particular watchman spoken
of did not remain on the force many weeks longer, his place having been
filled by worthier material.
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