A NOBLE EFFORT.
Kerrigan, Doyle, and Kelly were already convicted of the murder of John
P. Jones, and on the fourth of February, 1876, Alex. Campbell, the
originator of the plan and the man for whom the assassination had been
committed, was lodged in prison at Mauch Chunk. His trial commenced the
twentieth of June ensuing. By the twenty-first the following jury had
been obtained: Adam Meeker, Elias Berger, R. J. Koch, Charles Horn,
William Williams, Harrison Heinbach, and Charles Zelner. A verdict of
“murder in the first degree” was returned July 1st. An attempt was
subsequently made to secure a new trial, an argument was heard on the
twenty-fourth of July, and a second trial granted, which occurred on the
twenty-first of January, 1877. He was a second time found guilty of
murder in the first degree and sentenced by the court to be executed. He
was also found guilty in the Morgan Powell murder.
In June, 1876, at Pottsville, occurred the trial of Thomas Munley and
Charles McAllister, arrested Feb. 10th, in the same year, for the Sanger
and Uren murder. This capture was made on the affidavit of R. J. Linden.
The prisoner was taken at his house in Gilberton. McAllister demanding a
separate trial, Geo. R. Kaercher, Esq., the District Attorney, elected
to try Munley first, and the case commenced June 28th, before Judge D.
B. Green, a jury having been found on the preceding day, composed of the
following named persons: John T. Clouse, I. W. White, John Springer,
Benj. H. Guldin, Thomas Fennell, Sr., Emanuel Gehris, Solomon Fidler,
Daniel Zerbe, Frederick Alvord, Charles Brenneman, Jefferson Dull, and
Daniel Donne. A verdict of “guilty of murder in the first degree” was
returned on the twelfth of July. It was in this case that Hon. F. B.
Gowen, assisting in the prosecution, made his memorable address against
the Mollie Maguires, which I give almost entire. After alluding to the
importance of the cause, the gravity of the case, a man being on trial
for his life, and disclaiming any reflections as against the talented
legal gentlemen engaged in the defense, Messrs. Lin. Bartholomew, John
W. Ryon, M. M. L’Velle, and S. A. Garrett, he entered upon a minute
history of the crime, not differing materially from that furnished in
these pages, calling attention to the utterances of Mr. Sanger, while
dying, and then said:
“What is the first defense? An _alibi_. That which comes most readily at
the beck and call of every criminal who knows himself to be guilty; for,
when every other defense fails, the ever-ready _alibi_ is always on hand
to be proved by a crowd of relatives and retainers, who come forward to
say that a man charged with the commission of a particular offense, at a
particular time, and in a particular place, was, on that very day,
engaged in some lawful and legitimate calling many miles away. When
established to the satisfaction of a jury, an _alibi_ is the very best
defense that can be offered, but, as it is always the defense that is
resorted to by the guilty, and as it is the defense that is most easily
manufactured, it becomes the duty of a jury most carefully to scrutinize
and examine its truth; and in this case I am glad to say that I think
you will have no trouble in disposing of it. By whom is this _alibi_
proven? In the first place by Edward Munley, the father of the prisoner,
and by Michael Munley, the prisoner’s brother.”
After showing how signally the _alibi_ had failed, he said:
“I dismiss these two witnesses from the case. There is no palliation for
such testimony, for there can be no palliation for perjury; and it has
become too serious an offense in this county to be passed over,
hereafter, in silence. But if there ever was a palliation for perjury,
if there should be at the last great day, before the final Judge, any
excuse for the enormity of this crime, it will be urged on behalf of a
father who has striven to save his son from the gallows, and on behalf
of one brother, who seeks to shield another from infamy and from shame.”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Addressing himself to the Mollie Maguires, he continued:
“I may say, however, before leaving this branch of the case, that now
that the light of day is thrown upon the secret workings of this
association, human life is as safe in Schuylkill County as it is in any
other part of this Commonwealth; that as this association is broken down
and trampled into the dust, its leaders either in jail or fugitives from
the just vengeance of the law, the administration of justice in this
court will be as certain as human life is safe throughout the whole
length and breadth of the county. The time has gone by when the
murderer, the incendiary, and the assassin can go home reeking from the
commission of crimes, confident in the fact that he can appear before a
jury and have an _alibi_ proved for him to allow him to escape
punishment. There will be no more false _alibis_ in this county; the
time for them has gone forever. No more false _alibis_. No more
confident reliance upon the perjury of relatives and friends to prove an
_alibi_ for him who was seen in the commission of the act. No more dust
thrown in the eyes of juries to blind them from looking directly at the
facts of a case; and I do say that if there ever was anything to be
proud of, to be glad of, after the fact that we are enfranchised and
disenthralled from this despotism and this tyranny that has been hanging
over us, it is that the administration of justice will no longer be
polluted and disgraced by perjury and false swearing, for the purpose of
rescuing a criminal from the just vengeance of the law.
“I now come to the testimony of McParlan. Many of you know that some
years ago I was the District Attorney of this county. I am, therefore,
not very much out of my old paths, and not very much away from my old
moorings, when I am standing on behalf of the Commonwealth, in the Court
of Pottsville, demanding the conviction of a guilty man. It was when I
was District Attorney of this county, a young man, charged with the
prosecution of the pleas of the Commonwealth, that for the first time I
made up my mind from what I had seen, in innumerable instances, that
there then existed in this county a secret organization, banded together
for the commission of crime, and for the purpose of securing the escape
or acquittal of any of its members charged with the commission of an
offense.
“That conviction forced itself indelibly upon my mind. A man, who for
two years acts as District Attorney in this county, prosecuting
criminals who are brought before the court, must be either very obtuse
or wilfully blind, if he could close his eyes to the existence of a fact
as perceptible as this was then to me. I left this county with that
settled conviction, and circumstances that occurred time and again, long
after I withdrew from the prosecution of criminals, still more deeply
fastened this conviction in my mind. Murder, violence, and arson,
committed without detection, and apparently without motive, attested the
correctness of that belief, and when the time arrived that I became so
much interested in the prosperity of this county, and in the development
of its mineral wealth, that I saw that it was a struggle between the
good citizen and the bad citizen as to which should obtain the
supremacy, I made up my mind that if human ingenuity, if long suffering
and patient care, and toil that stopped at no obstacle, and would
confront every danger, could succeed in exposing this secret
organization to light of day, and bringing to well-earned justice the
perpetrators of these awful crimes, I would undertake the task.
“I knew that it could only be done by secret detectives, and I had had
enough experience, both as a lawyer, and as the head of a very large
corporation, to know that the public municipal detectives employed by
the police authorities of the cities, who operate only for rewards, are
the last persons to whom you could trust a mission and an enterprise
such as this. It was as important for us to know who was innocent as it
was to know who was guilty.
“The detective who operates for rewards, who is only paid upon his
conviction of the offender, has a motive to incite him to action which I
would be the last man in the world to arouse. I knew, for I had had
experience before of the National Detective Agency of Allan Pinkerton,
of Chicago, which was established by an intelligent and broad-minded
Scotchman, established upon the only basis on which a successful
detective agency can be established, and I applied to Mr. Pinkerton. His
plan was simply this: ‘I will secure an agent, or an officer,’ said he,
‘to ferret out the existence of this society. Whoever I get is to be
paid so much a week, no matter if he finds out nothing. He is bound to
me, never, under any circumstances, to take a reward for his services,
from anybody, and, if he spends five years and obtains nothing in the
way of information, he must have every month or every week exactly the
same compensation as if every week he had traced a new murder and every
month had discovered a new conspiracy. He is never to gain pecuniarily
by the success of his undertaking; but as a man who goes into this
organization, as a detective, takes his life in his own hands, I will
send no man on this mission of yours, Mr. Gowen, unless it be agreed,
beforehand, and I can tell him so, that he never is to be known in
connection with the enterprise.’ Upon these terms this man, James
McParlan, was selected. A young Irishman and a Catholic, but six or
seven years in this country, eminently qualified by his peculiar Irish
accomplishments to ingratiate himself with those to whom he was sent, he
came here in the fall of 1873, and within six months he had so far won
the confidence of the class of people who constituted this order that he
was admitted as a member. Remember, now, here—and I advert to it lest I
might forget it—that he came here pledged that he should not be used as
a witness. Therefore, the only object of his coming was to put us upon
the track, so that we could discover the crime when it was being
perpetrated, and this is the best answer that can possibly be made to
the charge that he wilfully withheld his knowledge when he might have
saved human life. His only object here was to get knowledge. He never
was to be used as a witness. His only desire was to find out when a
murder was to be committed, to be with the perpetrators if he could, and
to give notice to Captain Linden, who had an armed police force ready,
so that they might be waiting at the very spot, and not only save the
life of the intended victim, but arrest every man engaged in the
perpetration of the offense, in order that there could be abundant
evidence of their guilt. That was his whole object. Almost every night
he made his report; and how well he has performed his duty, the security
of human life and property in this county, to-day, as compared with what
it was six months ago, is the best commentary I can make upon the
subject.
“But Mr. L’Velle tells you that from the advent of Mr. McParlan into
this county have all these crimes been committed. Remember the words:
‘From the advent of McParlan into this county have all these crimes been
committed.’ I fear that Mr. L’Velle has not been long among you, or, if
he has, his memory is sadly deficient, when he says that all these
crimes have been committed since the advent of Mr. McParlan in
Schuylkill County.
“MR. L’VELLE.—I antedated you in coming to Schuylkill County.
”MR. GOWEN.—Then your memory is very defective. Does the gentleman
forget Dunne, who was murdered within two miles of this town? Does he
forget Alexander Rae, who was stricken down near Mt. Carmel? Does he
remember the assassination of William Littlehales? If he does not I am
very sure that his colleague, Mr. Bartholomew, will not forget it, for I
remember that I stood here, just where I stand now, some years ago,
defending a couple of men for murder, who, with other good citizens,
when the house of a boss had been attacked at Tuscarora by a mob intent
upon murder, had behaved, not like some of those at Raven Run, but had
sprung to arms, and had taken their old muskets, their rusty rifles,
their pistols and their swords, some of them with no time to load their
muskets save with the marbles with which their children had been
playing, and had sprung to arms to defend the house that was attacked,
and had shot down one of the assailants in his tracks, and were arrested
and brought here charged with the crime of murder; my friend, Mr.
Bartholomew, who was my colleague, joined with me in contending that our
clients had done that which they ought to have done to protect
themselves, and, as I was standing here, arguing that case, there came
over from Coal Castle the news that William Littlehales had been
murdered.
“Does the gentlemen forget all this? Does he forget George K. Smith and
David Muir? Does he forget the assassins who made the attack upon Claude
White? Does he forget Morgan Powell, and Langdon, who were killed, and
Ferguson, who was beaten almost to death? Does he forget Patrick Barry,
who, living with his wife and children in the house by the tunnel, when
a band of assassins attacked him at night, placed his wife and little
ones in the middle of the house and piled all the mattresses and
blankets and pillows around them, and, when he had sheltered them as
best he could, fought an angry horde of two or three hundred men,
keeping them at bay until daylight, when they fled, leaving the long
tracks of their blood behind them to show how well he had avenged
himself upon his assailants?
“These coal fields for twenty years, I may say, have been the theatre of
the commission of crimes such as our very nature revolts at. This very
organization that we are now, for the first time, exposing to the light
of day, has hung like a pall over the people of this county. Before it
fear and terror fled cowering to homes which afforded no sanctuary
against the vengeance of their pursuers. Behind it stalked darkness and
despair, brooding like grim shadows over the desolated hearth and the
ruined home, and throughout the length and breadth of this fair land
there was heard the voice of wailing and of lamentation, of ‘Rachel
weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they were
not.’ Nor is it alone those whose names I have mentioned—not alone the
prominent, the upright, and the good citizen whose remains have been
interred with pious care in the tombs of his fathers; but it is the
hundreds of unknown victims, whose bones now lie mouldering over the
face of this county. In hidden places and by silent paths, in the dark
ravines of the mountains, and in secret ledges of the rocks, who shall
say how many bodies of the victims of this order now await the final
trump of God? And from those lonely sepulchres, there will go up to the
God who gave them the spirits of these murdered victims, to take their
places among the innumerable throng of witnesses at the last day, and to
confront with their presence the members of this ghastly tribunal, when
their solemn accusation is read from the plain command of the Decalogue,
‘Thou shalt not kill.’
“But we are told that in the commission of these crimes, although Mr.
Bartholomew admits that they existed long years before McParlan came
into the county, this man abandoned his duty as a detective, and became
an accomplice in the crime. And upon whose testimony does this charge
rest? My friend invokes from you a careful attention to the facts of
this case, and properly endeavors to exclude from it an examination of
any other circumstances or any other facts than those which have been
proved in the case.
“But upon whose testimony is McParlan an accomplice? Upon whose
testimony is the charge made that McParlan engaged deliberately in the
commission of offenses and secreted the offenders? Upon Ned Monaghan’s
and Patrick Coyle’s, alone. Upon Ned Monaghan, for whom the doors of
your jail open wide to-day, never probably to reopen until he comes out
in company with Jack Kehoe, and the other murderers, to stand his trial
for his life. Upon Monaghan, the Molly Maguire, the man who was on the
Ringtown Mountain helping to select the committee to kill William
Thomas. Edward Monaghan, who, to-day, is as guilty of murder in the
first degree as any other man now confined within the walls of your
prison.
“And who is Patrick Coyle? A man who saw McParlan drawing a pistol and
never heard him say or saw him do anything else, and because he did not
see him do and did not hear him say anything, he swears he believes that
McParlan was inciting to murder.
“What need I say further? An accomplice! McParlan an accomplice! Mr.
Bartholomew tells you that he permitted Thomas Hurley to escape, and
that he permitted Michael Doyle to escape. Neither Thomas Hurley nor
Michael Doyle have escaped; but the excoriating denunciation which Mr.
Bartholomew hurled against Thomas Hurley will effectually prevent him
from defending Hurley, when he comes before this court for trial for
murder. It will not be long before he comes here. It is simply a
question between the Mollie Maguires on the one side and Pinkerton’s
Detective Agency on the other, and I know too well that Pinkerton’s
Detective Agency will win. There is not a place on the habitable globe
where these men can find refuge and in which they will not be tracked
down. Let them go to the Rocky Mountains, or to the shores of the
Pacific; let them traverse the bleak deserts of Siberia, penetrate into
the jungles of India, or wander over the wild steppes of Central Asia,
and they will be dogged and tracked and brought to justice, just as
surely as Thomas Munley is brought to justice to-day. The cat that holds
the mouse in her grasp sometimes lets it go for a little while to play;
but she knows well that at her will she can again have it secure within
her claws; and Pinkerton’s Agency may sometimes permit a man to believe
that he is free who does not know that he may be traveling five thousand
miles in the company of those whose vigilance never slumbers and whose
eyes are never closed in sleep.
“They may not know that the time will come, but I say that so surely as
I am standing before you to-day, the time will come, be it short or be
it long, be it months or be it years, when every single murderer then
living on the face of the earth, who has committed a crime in this
county, since April, 1874, will answer for that crime before the
presence of this court. ‘The race is not always to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong.’ Those who see what we are doing now have seen but
little; for it is only the opening of the book of this vast conspiracy,
and behind the meaner men who shot the pistol there stand others far
more guilty than they who, with them, at some time will be brought to
justice—
“‘For Time at last sets all things even,
And if we do but wait the hour,
There never yet was human power
That could evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long
Of him who treasures up a wrong.’
“And now some words about this secret organization of Mollie Maguires.
My friend, Mr. Bartholomew, is not correct in his statement of their
history. If, after this case is over, and when you are permitted to
read, you will get a little book called Trench’s _Realities of Irish
Life_, written by a relative of that celebrated Dean Trench, whose name
is well known wherever English literature is read, you will find the
history of this organization. It was known as the Ribbonmen of Ireland.
It sprang up at a time when there was an organized resistance in Ireland
to the payments of rents. The malcontents became known as Ribbonmen, and
they generally made their attacks upon the agents of the non-resident
landowners, or upon the constables or bailiffs who attempted to collect
the rents. Their object was to intimidate and hold in terror all those
to whom they owed money or who were employed in its collection. As a
branch of this society, and growing out of it, sprang the men known as
Mollie Maguires, and the name of their society simply arose from this
circumstance, that, in the perpetration of their offenses, they dressed
as women, and generally ducked or beat their victims, or inflicted some
such punishment as infuriated women would be likely to administer. Hence
originated the name of the Mollie Maguires, which has been handed down
to us at the present day; and the organization of the Mollie Maguires,
therefore, is identical with that of the Ribbonmen in Ireland, who have
terrorized over the Irish people to so great an extent.
“How this association came into this county we do not know. We had
suspected for many years, and we know now, that it is criminal in its
character. That is proved beyond peradventure. It will not do to-day to
say that it was only in particular localities in this county that it was
a criminal organization, because the highest officer in the society in
this county, the County Delegate, Jack Kehoe, the man who attended the
State Convention, and was the representative of the whole order in this
county, is at present, as you hear from the testimony, in prison
awaiting his trial for murder. Whether this society, known as the
Ancient Order of Hibernians, is beyond the limits of this county a good
society or not I cannot tell; but I have believed at some times that it
was, and I am willing to be satisfied of that fact now, if there is any
evidence of it. But there has been an attack made upon this
organization, and up to this time we have not had furnished to us any
evidence that in any place its objects were laudable or commendable.
Criminal in its character, criminal in its purpose, it had frequently a
political object. You will find the leaders of this society the
prominent men in the townships. Through the instrumentality of their
order, and by its power, they were able to secure offices for
themselves. You see here and now know that one of the Commissioners of
this county is a member of this order. You know that a previous
Commissioner of this county was a member of this order, convicted of a
high offense, and pardoned by the Governor. You know that another County
Commissioner, before that, was a member of this order, convicted of an
offense, and pardoned by the Governor. High constables, chiefs of
police, candidates for associate judges, men who were trusted by their
fellow-men, were all the time guilty of murder.
“But in addition to the criminal and the political motives, these people
claim national characteristics. They claim that they were, _par
excellence_, the representatives of the Irish of this country. They
claim more than that, that they represent the Irish Catholics of this
country. I shall say but little about the Irish, except that I am myself
the son of an Irishman, proud of my ancestry, and proud of my race, and
never ashamed of it, except when I see that Ireland has given birth to
wretches such as these! These men call themselves Irishmen! These men
parade on St. Patrick’s Day and claim to be good Catholics! Where are
the honest Irishmen of this county? Why do not they rise up and strike
down these wretches that usurp the name of Irishmen? If a German commits
an offense, and engages in murder, do all the other Germans take his
part and establish a false _alibi_ to defeat the ends of justice? If an
American becomes a criminal, do the Americans protect him? Do they not
say, ‘Away with you! You have disgraced the country that bore you?’ If
an Englishman becomes an offender, do the English nation take him to
their arms and make him a hero? Why, then, do not the honest Irishmen of
this county come together in public meeting, and separate themselves
widely from and denounce this organization? Upon what principle do these
men, outcasts from society, the dregs of the earth, murderers and
assassins, claim to be Irishmen and arrogate to themselves the national
characteristics of the Irish people? It is a disgrace to Ireland that
the honest Irish of this county, probably five or ten thousand in
number, should permit a few hundred wretches like these to say that they
are the true representatives of the Irishmen of Schuylkill County.
“Does an Irishman wonder why it is sometimes difficult to get a job in
this county? Does he wonder why the boss at a colliery hesitates to
employ him, when these people have been allowed to arrogate to
themselves the Irish character and have been permitted to represent
themselves to the people of this county as the proper representatives of
Ireland? The time has come when there must be a line of demarcation
drawn. The time has come when every honest Irishman in this county must
separate himself from any suspicion of sympathy with this association.
He must denounce its members as outcasts from the land that gave them
birth. He must denounce them as covered with infamy and blackened with
crime. He must say that they are not true Irishmen and that they are not
representatives of Ireland.
“But far beyond this attempt to invoke your sympathy on account of their
nationality is the attempt to invoke that sympathy on the ground that
they belong to a persecuted religion. Was there ever such sublime, such
tremendous impudence in the world, as that a member of this secret
society, a society which has been denounced by its own Church, and each
member of which has been excommunicated by the Archbishop of
Philadelphia, and by the Pope himself, outcasts from society, and from
the communion of their own religion, the door of the Church shut in
their faces and the gates of heaven closed against them by the
excommunication of their priests—these men, infidels and atheists,
caring for no church, and worshiping no God, set themselves up in this
community as the representatives of the Catholic faith.
“‘Just Allah! what must be thy look?
When such a wretch before thee stands,
Unblushing, with thy sacred book,
Turning its leaves with blood-stained hands,
And wresting from its page sublime
His creed of lust and hate and crime.’
“A few words more upon this subject of Irish Catholics. I was born and
am a Protestant, but I was partially educated among the Catholics, and I
have always had a kindly feeling for them, and when these assassins,
through their counsel, speak of being Catholics, I desire to say to you
here, in the first place, that they have been denounced by their Church
and excommunicated by their prelates, and that I have the direct
personal authority of Archbishop Wood himself to say that he denounces
them all, and that he was fully cognizant of and approved of the means I
took to bring them to justice. And, for myself, I can say that for many
months before any other man in this world, except those connected with
the Detective Agency, knew what was being done, Archbishop Wood, of
Philadelphia, was the only confidant I had and fully knew of the mission
of the detective in this whole matter. So much, then, for the assumption
of Mr. L’Velle that these men claim sympathy on account of their being
Catholics. I can hardly reply calmly to such an argument. I believe that
there must be different sects in this country, as there are in all
countries, and I am one of those who believe that a good Catholic is
better than a bad Protestant.
”MR. L’VELLE.—I repel that remark.
“MR. GOWEN.—Mr. L’Velle repels the remark! I cannot help it, and I
reiterate the fact that although I am a Protestant, I have been taught
to believe that a good Catholic is better than a bad Protestant.
“I have been taught to believe that the eyes of Justice are closed not
only against individuals and corporations, but against nationalities and
sects. I have been taught to believe that he is the good citizen who is
truthful and honest, who is kind-hearted and affectionate, who lives in
charity with all men, who gives freely of his means to the poor, and,
whether he kneels before an altar or worships God in his own chamber, he
is entitled to the favorable consideration of his fellow-men. And I do
know, oh! so well, that when our lives draw toward their close, and the
opening portals of the tomb reveal to our eyes some glimpses of the
boundless waters of that vast eternity upon which we will all embark,
that then, at that dread moment, it will be to the recollection of the
possessions of these simple virtues, this pure morality, this
unostentatious charity that I have named, that we will all cling, in the
sublime confidence that it will avail us most, when the time shall come
that each one of us, Catholic and Protestant, Lutheran and Calvinist,
Gentile and Jew, shall be stripped of the thin garb of the sectarian,
and stand in equal favor before the great white throne of God.
“And now one word more upon this subject, and I dismiss it. Whenever you
hear a complaint made against a man because he is an Irishman, or
because he is a Catholic; whenever you hear any one, no matter who he
may be, say that the outrages of this county are due to the Irishmen, or
due to the Catholics do not, I beg of you, forget, in your secret
hearts, that the highest prelates of that Church have cursed and
excommunicated this order. Do not forget that whatever little credit may
be due to him who has conceived the plan of exposing this association is
due to one who is the son of an Irishman; and do not forget that a
greater honor and a greater meed of praise than is due to any other is
due to Detective McParlan, who is an Irishman by birth, and a Catholic
by religion; and if those who profess to be Irish Catholics in this
county have brought their nationality and their religion into disrepute,
I beg of you to remember that both have been gloriously and successfully
vindicated by an Irishman and a Catholic, in the person of James
McParlan.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“And now let us look to society in this county, as it was three months
ago, when men retired to their homes at eight or nine o’clock in the
evening and no one ventured beyond the precincts of his own door; when
every man engaged in any enterprise of magnitude or connected with
industrial pursuits left his home in the morning with his hand upon his
pistol, unknowing whether he would again return alive; when the very
foundations of society were being overturned, when the administration of
justice, which should always be regarded with reverence, had almost sunk
into contempt; when men doubted whether it was in the power of organized
society to protect their lives and to secure their property; and then
reflect upon the change which a few weeks has brought forth. To-day I
give you notice that there is no part of this county that is not as safe
as the aisle in which I stand here now.
“Is there a man in this audience, looking at me now, and hearing me
denounce this association, who longs to point his pistol at me? I tell
him that he has as good a chance here as he will ever have again. I tell
him that it is just as safe to-day to murder in the temple of Justice as
it is in the secret ravines of the mountains, or within the silent
shadows of the woods. I tell him that human life is safe. I tell him
that the members of his society, whom we desire to convict, all, save
one or two, are either safely lodged within the walls of your prison or
are fugitives from justice, but almost within the grasp of the
detectives, who are upon their heels. I tell him that if there is
another murder in this county, committed by this organization, every one
of the five hundred members of the order in this county, or out of it,
who connives at it, will be guilty of murder in the first degree, and
can be hanged by the neck until he is dead, not by vigilance committees,
but according to the solemn forms of justice, after being defended by
able and experienced counsel; and I tell him that, if there is another
murder in this county by this society, there will be an inquisition for
blood with which nothing that has been known in the annals of criminal
jurisprudence can compare. And to whom are we indebted for this
security, of which I now boast? To whom do we owe all this? Under the
Divine Providence of God, to whom be all the honor and all the glory, we
owe this safety to James McParlan, and if there ever was a man to whom
the people of this county should erect a monument, it is James McParlan,
the detective.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“McParlan is a detective, engaged in the performance of a professional
duty, who enters upon his quest with the avowed purpose of trying to
make all those with whom he was brought in contact believe that he is
one of them. He is not an accomplice. He went there for the purpose of
aiding the officers of the law in discovering and punishing guilt, and
even were he an accomplice, even if every particle of testimony we have
had during the last two weeks from the lips of James McParlan had fallen
on that stand from the lips of Friday O’Donnell, or from the lips of
Michael Doyle, it would have been not only corroborated, but
strengthened and attested by the evidence of identification alone.
“But suppose there was no evidence of identification, I desire now to
show you what corroborative testimony beyond that of identification we
have of the facts proved by McParlan himself. I have taken the trouble,
during the time Mr. L’Velle was speaking yesterday, to go over, with one
of my colleagues, nearly the whole of the testimony in this case, so
that I might be able to point out to you the various places in which and
the manner by which McParlan is corroborated by other witnesses. I will
now call your attention to this testimony, in detail, in the order in
which it was given, and, having done so and fixed it upon your mind, I
will endeavor to make some few arguments based upon this corroborative
testimony, if any such were needed to enable a jury of intelligent men
to determine whether they will give credence to the testimony of
McParlan.
“McParlan says that Munley told him that McAllister and O’Donnell,
called for him, Munley, on the evening of the thirty-first of August.
Remember, McParlan says that Munley told him at Michael Lawler’s that
McAllister and O’Donnell called for him the previous evening. How could
McParlan have known this if Munley did not tell it to him? Weigh that in
your minds for one instant. How could McParlan have found this fact out,
if Munley had not told him? Oh! but our friends may say that McParlan
swears that Munley said so, but the statement is not true, and here
comes in the corroborative testimony. Frederick Hunniken, a witness
produced by the Commonwealth, says that on the evening of the
thirty-first of August a stranger came to Wiggan’s Patch and talked with
the O’Donnells, and that James O’Donnell and the stranger went toward
Gilberton together. Then James Patton says that on the evening of the
thirty-first of August, Darcy and Munley joined a party near Gilberton,
and Luke Richardson says that on the evening of the thirty-first, Darcy
and Munley joined a party from Wiggan’s Patch; and Sarah Ann Gessford
and George Gessford both testified that they saw Munley with Darcy and
some other men between eight and nine o’clock on the evening of the
thirty-first, at the Cross Roads, by the old Flour Barrel, near
Gilberton. There are now one, two, three, four, five witnesses, in
different parts of the county, who have testified to a state of facts of
which McParlan could have had no knowledge whatever, unless informed by
Munley. Where can you find better corroborative evidence than this? How
did McParlan know, if he made up this story to tell, that the O’Donnells
came for Munley in the evening, and that they went off together? Did
McParlan know Luke Richardson or Mr. or Mrs. Gessford? Had he ever
communicated with either of them? And yet James McParlan comes forward
and gives us a statement which was told to him by Munley, and we produce
five witnesses to prove that when Munley made that statement he told the
truth.
“Again, McParlan says that Munley had on dark pantaloons of a grayish
color. How could McParlan describe Munley’s pantaloons, if he had not
seen him on that morning? If he attempted to make up a story, is it
likely that he would have discovered exactly the proper kind of
pantaloons? James Williams and Roberts say that on that day Munley was
dressed in gray pantaloons; Robert Heaton describes them as darkish;
Melinda Bickelman says that they were pepper and salt, and Munley’s
family, themselves, have to admit that they were of a grayish color—one
of them said of a brownish color, and still another said that they were
gray, but had a kind of a dark stripe in them. Here is corroborative
testimony again.
“Further on in his testimony McParlan says that Munley told him that
after O’Donnell began the attack, he ran up and shot Sanger near the
fence at the house, and that Charles O’Donnell, Doyle, and McAllister
fired shots to intimidate the crowd. That is exactly as Patrick Burns
describes it, and as Melinda Bickelman describes it. The two men that
followed Sanger down the road and killed him were Friday O’Donnell and
this prisoner, Thomas Munley. McAllister ran around to intercept Sanger,
and the other two men fired shots to intimidate the crowd. How, under
heaven, did McParlan know this, unless Munley told him. Where can there
be stronger corroborative testimony than this?
“Again, McParlan swears that after some conversation at Lawler’s, when
these five men came in on the morning of the first of September, the two
O’Donnells and McAllister left for home. How did McParlan know that,
unless he saw it? Our friends may say, where is the evidence of that? We
answer by saying that Edward Fox, a witness produced by the
Commonwealth, says that James O’Donnell, with two men, came to his
engine-house, on a path between Wiggan’s Patch and Shenandoah, dusty and
thirsty as if from traveling, at eleven o’clock on the morning of the
first of September. It seems to me as if there was some almost
supernatural or divine agency pointing out to the officers of justice
and the agents of the Commonwealth the evidence that would corroborate
the testimony of this man McParlan. How could McParlan make up a story
of this kind, unless he had seen the men? He swears these three men left
together, and these three men are found together, and separated from the
other two.
“Again, McParlan goes further, for he tells you what became of the other
two. He says that after Doyle had gone to his boarding-house and changed
his clothes, Doyle, Hurley, Munley, and himself went to Tobin’s
ball-alley, in Shenandoah; and Philip Weissner and William J. Fulton,
two witnesses produced by the Commonwealth, testified that they met
Munley in Shenandoah, with some other men, at ten o’clock on the morning
of the first of September, at the corner of Coal Street and Chestnut
Street.
“McParlan also says that Munley left Shenandoah for home about one
o’clock in the afternoon on the first of September, and Mrs. Smith, Mrs.
Richardson, Mrs. Lambert, and Mrs. Hayes, all saw Munley coming home to
his house at Gilberton between two and three o’clock, just about the
time at which he would have arrived if he left Shenandoah at one
o’clock.
“McParlan also swears that Munley returned to Shenandoah in the evening,
and attended a meeting of the Mollie Maguires, when men were selected to
murder John P. Jones. Philip Weissner swears that he met Munley on the
evening of the first of September, about five o’clock, on his way to
Shenandoah, and Mrs. Smith saw him leave his home, after changing his
clothes, on the evening of the first of September, in company with
Darcy, who was one of the Mollie Maguires, and who was one of the men at
the meeting in the bush on the evening of the first of September. Where
can you have stronger corroborative testimony than this? Ask yourselves
the question: how could James McParlan have known this? It is true, and
it is proved by fifteen or twenty witnesses who have placed these men
just at the spot and just at the time. How did McParlan know this,
unless Munley told him? Ask yourselves that question, and then ask
yourselves whether, if this man McParlan was Friday O’Donnell himself,
and had testified to this state of facts, would you as jurors require
any other corroborative evidence than that which has been laid before
you?
“The only other portion of the defense to which it is necessary for me
now to revert is the testimony of the men around Raven Run, who saw some
of this occurrence, but could not recognize Thomas Munley. In the first
place, we believe, though we have no right to make charges, but we do
believe that there were a number of men on this stand, who, from the
manner in which they gave their testimony, revealed the fact that they
knew a great deal more than they intended to tell; and when an Irishman
from the same county as this prisoner so testifies on cross-examination
that you must believe, notwithstanding his denial of the fact, that he
was a member of the same organization, and always prefaces his testimony
as to the prisoner’s being one of the murderers by saying, ‘Not to the
best of my opinion,’ you will see the easy way by which he bargained
with his conscience for getting over the obligation of the oath which he
had taken to tell the truth.
“What does all this testimony amount to? Here were four days taken up
with the examination of forty or fifty witnesses, and at the utmost all
that each or any of them could say was that Friday O’Donnell was not
Thomas Munley. Why, we knew that before. Friday O’Donnell was the leader
of this gang. Friday O’Donnell was the man who had the principal hand in
it; he was the man who took the prominent part in the murder; he was the
man whom nearly all the witnesses saw and described by his clothing and
by his stature; and every one of them swore, with great vehemence, that
Friday O’Donnell was not Thomas Munley. God knows, gentlemen, we knew
this before; we knew that Friday O’ Donnell was not Thomas Munley, but
when they were questioned, they either had to admit that they could not
tell whether the prisoner was one of the other four men, or that they
had not seen the other four men sufficiently to enable them to identify
them thereafter.
“I have said to you before that it seems to me as if there had been a
divine interposition for the investigation and punishment of crime in
this county. Remember that McParlan came here pledged that he should not
be used as a witness. We placed no reliance upon him as a witness. We
could not arrest a man because he told us anything about him, because he
was protected by the pledge we had given him that he was not to be
exposed, and was never to be known in the investigation; and I tell you
that, no matter what the consequence would have been, when I became an
instrument to lead him into the danger to which he was subjected when he
took his life into his own hand and entered into the secret councils of
this order, I would have been the last man in the world to have asked
him to relieve me from the pledge which had been made to him. You have
heard that his mission became known to this order, how or by what manner
I am not at liberty to tell you to-day, for it is not in evidence. We
have the fact, though, that his mission became known to this society,
and we have the fact that those from whose vengeance he was to be
protected, by ignorance of his true character, acquired information that
enabled them to know that he was playing a false part in their
organization, and that he was in reality a detective; and he was
compelled to leave the county. And then I saw before me my path as clear
as day. Then I saw that some miraculous interposition of providence had
been vouchsafed to permit us to use the testimony and the knowledge of
this man McParlan. Then I breathed freer, and trod with elate step; then
I knew that I had within my hands the power to crush these villains;
then, and on the day when he took his place upon the witness stand, I
took my seat at this table as counsel for the Commonwealth, and the
warrants were executed which consigned to the prison every one of these
criminals, with the exception of one or two and of those who had run
away when Jimmy Kerrigan turned State’s evidence. When, in all the
history of criminal jurisprudence, did ever such a change of society
come over a county as that which came over this county on the morning
that McParlan first became a witness, and on the morning when Jack
Kehoe, the County Delegate, with twelve or fifteen other men, handcuffed
to a chain, were marched from the high places they had occupied to take
their solitary cells as felons within the walls of your prison?
“When I came to this court-house, on that memorable day, the court-room
was crowded with the sympathizing friends of these criminals, but where
are they to-day? They may be here, but they give no sign, and we know
nothing of them, and we care not if they are here. The whole county
sprang up like a giant unbound, and never, except in dramatic
literature, has there been revealed such an awakening and such a change.
“There is an old drama called the ‘Inconstant,’ in which the hero of the
play is beguiled into a den of infamy, and when he is confronted by
miscreants he for the first time realizes the danger in which he is
placed. He feels that his money is to be taken and that his life will be
sacrificed. He has with him, however, a faithful page, and turning
toward the outlaws he addresses them as if he was unaware of their true
character. He shakes them by the hand, presents one with his watch, and
another with his purse; he is ‘hail fellow well met’ with them, and he
invites them to join him in a carouse, and offers to send his page for
wine. The outlaws hear it and consent, and he says to his page: ‘Bring
me the wine—the blood-red wine marked 100.’ The page departs, well
knowing that the message refers not to wine but to a company of soldiers
numbering one hundred and wearing a red uniform. After breathless
suspense the page returns, and in answer to the frantic demand, ‘The
wine, boy, the wine!’ answers: ‘Coming, sir,’ and the tramp of armed men
is heard. Then the entrapped man grows bold. He pulls one outlaw by the
nose, and cuffs another on the ear, and the soldiers enter and march
them off to jail. So it was with us when McParlan came upon the stand.
He was the blood-red wine marked 100. Then we knew we were free men.
Then we cared no longer for the Mollie Maguires. Then we could go to
Patsy Collins, the Commissioner of this county, and say to him: ‘Build
well the walls of the new addition of the prison; dig the foundations
deep and make them strong; put in good masonry and iron bars, for, as
the Lord liveth, the time will come when, side by side with William
Love, the murderer of Squire Gwyther, you will enter the walls that you
are now building for others.’ Then we could say to Jack Kehoe, the high
constable of a great borough in this county: ‘We have no fear of you.’
Then we could say to Ned Monaghan, chief of police, and murderer, and
assassin: ‘Behind you the scaffold is prepared for your reception.’ Then
we could say to Pat Conry, Commissioner of this county: ‘The time has
ceased when a Governor of this State dares to pardon a Mollie
Maguire—you have had your last pardon.’ Then we could say to John
Slattery, who was almost elected judge of this court: ‘We know that of
you that it were better you had not been born than that it should be
known.’ Then all of us looked up. Then at last we were free, and I came
to this county and walked through it as safely as in the most crowded
thoroughfares of Philadelphia.
“There is one other dramatic illustration which I remember and to which
I cannot help adverting, as it so clearly paints the scene which has
been enacted so lately in this county. It occurs in Bulwer’s drama of
Richelieu. You remember that Richelieu, the Prime Minister of Louis
XIII. was threatened by a secret conspiracy, led by a great noble man,
dramatized as De Baradas, and headed in the army by the very brother of
the King himself. You will remember that the statesman, realizing that
his power over the King was gone, and that the conspirators had acquired
absolute control over the mind of the monarch, set a page upon the track
to discover the evidence of the conspiracy, so that he could lay it
before the monarch in the presence of the conspirators themselves. You
will also remember, if you have read the drama, the thrilling
description of the manner in which the page, at the point of the
poniard, wrested the parchment evidence of this conspiracy from one of
the chief conspirators, at a time when the monarch was holding court,
and when the prime minister, almost dead with rage and chagrin, fear and
disappointment, had almost ceased to hope for success. It was at this
moment that the page, wearied, bleeding, and breathless, rushes in
behind Richelieu and hands him the parchment, which is laid before the
monarch, who, for the first time, learns that he has been betrayed, and
that the army of Spain is on the march to Paris. He says: ‘Good heavens,
the Spaniards! Where will they be next week?’ And Richelieu, rising up,
exclaimed: ‘There, at my feet!’ and issuing his orders for the arrest of
the conspirators, turns to the chief, and exclaims: ‘Ho, there, Count De
Baradas. thou hast lost the stake,’ and that stake was his head.
“So when we discovered the criminal nature of this organization, and
when the evidence of this conspiracy was brought forward to us by
McParlan, we issued our warrants for the arrest of the conspirators, and
we turned to these men, with the Commissioner of the county at their
head, and we said to them: ‘Ha! you have lost the stake.’ They played a
deep game, and they played for a great stake. They played to secure the
property of this county, by endangering the lives of their
fellow-citizens. They had agents as chiefs of police, and as constables
and commissioners, and they had one of their number almost on the bench
itself. God alone knows what would have happened to us if they had
gotten him there, and then elected a jury commissioner besides. With
Mollie Maguires as judges, and Mollie Maguires as constables, and Mollie
Maguires as commissioners, and Mollie Maguires as witnesses, what would
have been the history of this good old county? Think of this for a
moment! Can you think where then we would have drifted, and to what it
would have led us? Can you imagine the condition of the people of this
county, with murderers upon the bench, and in the jury box, and in
control of all the principal offices of the county. I lived in the
apprehension of all this for two years and a half alone, and God knows
that when the time comes that all I know may be told to the world, it
will reveal a history such as will make every American citizen hang his
head with shame. I have seen a society of murderers and assassins having
its members in the highest places of this county. I have seen them
elected to fill the positions of constables and police officers. I have
seen a trusted member of that band of murderers a Commissioner of the
county. I have seen this organization wield a political power in the
State which has controlled the elections of a great Commonwealth. I have
received the information of meetings between some of the highest
officers of the State, and the chief of the murderers, at which large
sums of money were paid to secure the votes of this infernal association
to turn the tide of a State election. God knows, if ever in the world
there was a revelation as deep and as damning as that now laid open to
the people of this Commonwealth for the first time.
“I have one other allusion to make to a remark made by my friend Mr.
L’Velle in his argument yesterday. At some time or other I thought it
would be dragged into the case. Mr. L’Velle, acting for the prisoner,
and defending him as his counsel, has said to you that it is the old
story of capital against labor. I think I have shown to you how impudent
is the claim that these men set up to be the representatives of the
Irish race. I am sure I have shown to you the unblushing audacity of
their claim that they are the representatives of the Catholic religion;
but I now stand here on behalf of the laboring people of this county,
the people who have suffered more throughout the length and breadth of
this land by the actions of these men than any other—I stand here to
protest, with all the power that God has given me, against the monstrous
assumption that these villains are the representatives of the laboring
people of Schuylkill County. You know very well in what estimation in
the public prints the laboring people of this county have been held in
consequence of the acts of this society. Two or three hundred assassins
have given a name to the whole people of this county, and now, when they
are put upon trial for murder, they say it is the old story of capital
against labor. On behalf of every honest laboring man in this county, on
behalf of every man subjected to the primeval curse of the Almighty,
that by the sweat of his face he shall earn his daily bread, I protest
with indignation against the assumption that these men are the
representatives of labor. It is too early in the history of what I have
done in this county to say aught of myself in connection with labor, but
those who know me well will bear witness that on every occasion in which
I had to take any public part in the conflicts between capital and
labor, I have taken pains to assert my belief that the laboring people
of this county were as upright, as honest, as law-abiding, and as moral
as those of any other community in the State. I took the pains to show
that there was a secret association banded together for the purpose of
committing outrages which had given a notorious character not only to
the laboring people of the county, but to the whole county itself. Look
abroad upon this great county, diversified by a thousand industries and
beautified by nature to an extent such as few counties in the
Commonwealth enjoy. Why is not this a hive of industry, and the chosen
seat of the investment of capital? Why do not people from all parts of
the country come to these mountains to enjoy the salubrity of the
climate, and to revel in the beauties which nature has spread before us?
Why is it that a curse and a blight has rested for so long upon this
county? Why is it that mothers and wives in far-distant cities have
shuddered when their sons and husbands have told them that business led
them to the mining regions of Pennsylvania?
“Because, fostered and protected here in the mountains of this county,
was a band of assassins and murderers that brought reproach upon the
whole county itself. For the first time now they are exposed, and we
know where were their secret places, and who were their chosen leaders,
and knowing this, we can stand up before the whole country and say, ‘Now
all are safe in this county; come here with your money; come here with
your enterprises; come here with your families, and make this country
your residence; help us to build up this people and you will be safe,’
and by your aid, gentlemen, we will show to the world that not by
vigilance committees, and not by secret associations, but by open,
public justice the name of the law has been vindicated, and the foul
stain that had rested upon us has been wiped out forever.
“A few words more, and I am done. I feel that I have occupied more of
your time than I ought to have taken, but ‘out of the fullness of the
heart the mouth speaketh,’ and if I have said aught which some of you
might think had better have been left unsaid, you must remember the
strong provocation that I have had. You must remember what I have been
doing for nearly three years. You must remember what a seal I had to put
upon my lips. You must remember that it was only when Mr. McParlan
consented to become a witness that I could speak of that, the weight of
which was enough to crush me to the dust.
“I feel, indeed, that if I failed in my duty, if I should shrink from
the task which was before me, that if I failed to speak, the very stones
would cry out. Standing before you now with the bright beams of victory
streaming upon our banners, how well I can recall the feelings with
which I entered upon the contest which is now so near the end. Do not
think it egotism if I say, with the hero of romance, that
“‘When first I took this venturous quest,
I swore upon the rood,
Neither to turn to right nor left,
For evil or for good.
My forward path too well I ween,
Lies yonder fearful ranks between;
For man unarmed ’twere bootless hope
With tigers and with fiends to cope.
Yet if I turn, what wait me there,
Save famine, dire and fell despair?
Other conclusion let me try,
Since, choose howe’er I list, I die.
Forward lies faith and knightly fame,
Behind are perjury and shame;
In life or death, I keep my word.’
“And when all had been discovered, and McParlan consented to become a
witness, I said that I would come up into this county, where I first had
learned to practice law, that I would take my place among the ranks of
the counsel for the Commonwealth, and that I would stand side by side
with him in the prosecution of these offenses until the last one was
wiped from off the calendar of your criminal courts. And let it take
weeks, or let it take months, or let it take years, I have buckled on my
harness and entered for the fight, and, God willing, I shall bear it out
as bravely and as well as I can, until justice is vindicated, and the
county of Schuylkill is free.
“My friend, Mr. L’Velle, makes a plea to you for mercy. He pleads to you
for the mother and the wife of this prisoner, and he asks you to let
mercy enter into your hearts, and to restore this prisoner to his home.
Are there no others who plead for mercy? Have I no clients asking mercy
at your hands? Why is this young woman made a widow in the early morning
of her life? What crime had her husband committed that he was shot down
like a dog? Oh, she pleads to you for mercy, more eloquently, even if
more silently, than any one on behalf of the family of this prisoner. I
plead to you on behalf of the whole people of this county. I plead for
mercy on behalf of the whole people of this State. On behalf of the
orphans, the fatherless, and the widows, whose protectors have been
stricken down before you, I plead to you for mercy. I invoke the spirits
of the dead, and ask them silently to pass before you in this
court-house. I invoke the spirits of Dunn, of Littlehales, of Muir, of
Smith, of Rae, and the many victims of this foul conspiracy, to aid me
in pleading for mercy. I ask you to listen to the cries of the wounded,
to the shrieks of the dying, and the mournful funereal wailings over the
bodies of the dead. If I close my eyes I hear voices against which you
cannot close your ears, and which are pleading for mercy, oh! so
strongly, that my poor words are but as the empty air.
“‘I hear the dying sufferer cry,
With his crushed face turned to the sky;
I see him crawl in agony
To the foul pool, and bow his head into its bloody slime, and die!’
“Oh! think once more upon your own county, almost one vast sepulchre,
where rest the half-buried bodies of the victims of this infernal
order—victims whose skeleton hands, bleached by the sun and by the wind,
are stretching up from out the thin covering of earth that wraps their
bodies in all the eloquence of silent prayer, beseeching you to have
mercy upon your fellow-men.
“Oh! gentlemen, I beg to you for mercy, but to this prisoner let it be
such mercy as the father, whose slaughtered infant lies beside him,
gives to the wolf that has mangled the corpse; such mercy as the seed of
the woman bestows upon the serpent whose head is crushed beneath its
heel; and when you yield such mercy to assassins such as these, you
yield a mercy and grant a protection to society at large, which looks to
you now as its only refuge.
“And now the duty which I owe to this case is almost performed, and I
commit it to your hands. For three years I have been engaged in an
investigation, the result of which has now become known to the
community. Two or three days after the commission of this offense I
believed, from the information which came to me, that Thomas Munley was
one of the assassins of Sanger. I had no evidence that I could use, for
it was not until McParlan consented to become a witness that I could
furnish the information that led to the arrest of this prisoner. I
believe I have done my duty; for God’s sake, let me beg of you not to
shrink from doing yours. Solemn judges of the law and of the
facts—august ministers in the temple of justice—robed for sacrifice, I
bring before you this prisoner and lay him upon your altar, bound and
fastened by such cords of testimony as all the ingenuity of counsel
cannot unloosen, and, trembling at the momentous issues involved in your
answer, I ask you, will you let him go? If you perform your duty without
favor and without affection, if, in the pursuit of what appears to me to
be your plain and bounden duty, you will say, almost without leaving the
box, that this man is guilty of murder in the first degree, you will do
that which I believe to be just, and you will do that which will protect
society and save the lives of hundreds and thousands of your fellow-men.
But if you should falter—if, from any false sympathy, you should unbind
this prisoner and let him go, I tremble for the consequences to society.
Who then would be safe? For you to do this would be to hold up this
prisoner’s hands, and the hands of all his fellows and associates, to
place the dagger and the pistol in their grasp, and with the torch of
the incendiary, to send them again throughout this land to play their
part of murder, of arson, and of crime.
“I have done all that I could to expose the criminal character of this
organization. Laying aside all other duties, giving up everything else
that I had to do, I have tried to devote myself to this cause, for I
believe it to be the highest duty that I could be called upon to
perform. I am glad, at the conclusion of this case, to return my thanks
to the able gentlemen who have been associated with me, and especially
to the District Attorney, under whose administration these crimes have
come to light. He was an old student of mine when I was in this county,
and I was glad to know that it was he who filled the office when this
conspiracy was first brought to light. He has done his duty faithfully
and nobly, in the face of danger, without fear, or favor, or affection.
I know that we have a Court that will not shrink from whatever duty may
be imposed upon it, and I believe, from what I have seen of you, that
you will walk unshrinkingly in the plain paths of duty that are opened
before you. Do this, gentlemen, and I am sure that, linked together with
that of McParlan and of others who have aided in this _glorious
crusade_, your names will be enshrined for long coming years in the
grateful recollections of an enfranchised and redeemed people.”
This remarkable address had its effect upon the jury and upon the public
feeling in the State, and such a demand was there for it that a very
large edition in pamphlet form was quickly exhausted. It was read with
avidity and greatly commended wherever circulated. With Mr. Kaercher and
Mr. Gowen in this case were associated Hon. F. W. Hughes, Gen. Chas.
Albright, and Guy E. Farquhar, Esq.
Before the conclusion of the Munley case a jury was impaneled, on the
sixth and seventh of July, to try over again the case against Hugh
McGehan, James Carroll, James Roarty, James Boyle, and Thomas Duffy, in
the matter of the Yost murder, the other defendants in the same cause
demanding separate trials. After a full and careful hearing the jury
rendered a verdict of “guilty of murder in the first degree,” against
the prisoners. The speeches of Gen. Albright and Hon. F. W. Hughes—both
very able and eloquent—were also published and very widely read, the
interest in the trial as well as their own intrinsic value having
created a demand for them. The counsel for the defense and prosecution
was the same as in the Munley case. All the defendants named above were
sentenced to be hanged on the sixteenth of August. Their cases were
carried to the Supreme Court, arguments held, and a _nol. pros._ finally
entered, confirming the sentence of the court below.
[Illustration: “The trial for conspiracy attracted the gentleman of the
bar from all parts of the State.”]
John Kehoe, Michael O’Brien, Chris Donnelly, John Donahue, _alias_
“Yellow Jack,” James Roarty, Dennis F. Canning, Frank McHugh, John
Gibbons, and John Morris were arrested on the sixth of May, 1876,
charged with conspiracy, at the famous Mahanoy City Convention of the
first of June, 1875, to kill Wm. M. Thomas and Jesse Major. They were
tried at Pottsville before President Judge Pershing and Associates Green
and Walker, commencing August 9 and ending August 14, 1876. The trial
for conspiracy attracted the gentleman of the bar from all parts of the
State, and during its continuance the court-room was daily crowded to
the point of suffocation with ladies and gentlemen, some of them having
traveled hundreds of miles to have a view of the Mollies, the jury, the
court and officials, and the witnesses for the prosecution. McParlan’s
testimony was intensely interesting, and such a public call for its
particulars was there among the legal fraternity and the general reading
public, that the entire evidence of the trial was printed in a pamphlet
of nearly three hundred pages, and a very large edition quickly
exhausted. The newspapers had special correspondents on the ground, and
the illustrated journals of New York sent their artists to Pottsville to
make drawings of the court and surroundings. The leading facts contained
in this extraordinary suit have been given in the course of the
preceding narrative. With the exception of the young man, Frank McHugh,
who gave evidence for the Commonwealth, the defendants were all found
guilty according to the counts in the several indictments, and sentenced
to seven years’ confinement each in the penitentiary. McHugh has not
been sentenced, having been recommended to the mercy of the court by the
jury.
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