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Pastimes : Let’s Talk About Our Feelings about the Let’s Talk About Our -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: average joe who wrote (4645)	3/21/2008 3:20:14 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5290

Say it aint so joe... "the impression... that miners were by nature criminal in character..." McParland protested: Now I wake up this morning to find that I am the murderer of Mrs. McAlister. What had a woman to do with the case—did the [Molly Maguires] in their worst time shoot down women. If I was not here the Vigilante Committee would not know who was guilty and when I find them shooting women in their thirst for blood I hereby tender my resignation to take effect as soon as this message is received. It is not cowardice that makes me resign but just let them have it now I will no longer interfere as I see that one is the same as the other and I am not going to be an accessory to the murder of women and children. I am sure the [Molly Maguires] will not spare the women so long as the Vigilante has shown an example. Eventually enough evidence was collected on reprisal killings and assassinations that arrests could be made and, based primarily on McParland's testimony, ten Molly Maguires were sent to the gallows. Some writers declare unequivocally that justice was done. Others have argued that, ...punishment had gone too far, and that the guilt of some of the condemned was that of association more than participation and but half established by other condemned men seeking clemency for themselves. Joseph G. Rayback, author of A History of American Labor, has observed: The charge has been made that the Molly Maguires episode was deliberately manufactured by the coal operators with the express purpose of destroying all vestiges of unionism in the area... There is some evidence to support the charge... the "crime wave" that appeared in the anthracite fields came after the appearance of the Pinkertons, and... many of the victims of the crimes were union leaders and ordinary miners. The evidence brought against [the defendants], supplied by James McParlan, a Pinkerton, and corroborated by men who were granted immunity for their own crimes, was tortuous and contradictory, but the net effect was damning... The trial temporarily destroyed the last vestiges of labor unionism in the anthracite area. More important, it gave the public the impression... that miners were by nature criminal in character... en.wikipedia.org