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Victor
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The
Pinkerton Labor Spy
by
Morris Friedman
CHAPTER XIV.
NO. 36, GEORGE W. RIDDELL.
Telluride, the county seat and largest city of San Miguel County, plays an interesting part in the stirring events which have made Colorado famous for other things than its climate and mountains.
The occurrences in Telluride are of more than ordinary interest, because of the desperate efforts which Pinkerton's National Detective Agency made to discover here the Inner Circle that directed the outrages alleged to be perpetrated by the Telluride Local of the Western Federation.
The Pinkerton operative who worked on this case was a practical quartz miner, uncommonly shrewd, and far better qualified than the ordinary secret operative to handle the task which had been assigned to him. But as the reader is as yet unaware why the mine owners of this county engaged the services of the Pinkerton Agency, a little explanation will not be out of place.
One day, along toward the end of 1902, Manager Arthur Collins, of the Smuggler Union Mine, was sitting in his home at Telluride when a heavy charge of buckshot was fired at him through an open window, inflicting a wound which soon proved mortal. The identity of the assassin was not known, and has remained a mystery to this day.
Mr. Collins was unpopular with the miners, yet the union disavowed the murder and roundly condemned it. But, despite this action, the mine owners suspected that Mr. Collins had been killed by order of the Western Federation of Miners.
Shortly after, a deputy sheriff named Barney disappeared mysteriously; and, as his whereabouts was never discovered despite a thorough search, the idea gained ground that he had met with foul play and been thrown into some neglected prospect hole.
Here was meat for the Pinkerton people. A representative of the Agency at once proceeded to Telluride, interviewed the mine owners, and took up with them the assassination of Manager Collins, and the probable murder of Barney.
He explained to them that these outrages were undoubtedly the doings of the Inner Circle of the Federation, as the latter organization was, if anything, even worse than the Molly Maguires ever had been. Talking of the Mollies, the Pinkerton agent told his credulous and interested listeners how, some thirty years ago, these banditti had things all their own way in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania; and how James McParland, at the risk of his own life, ran down and broke up this gang of cut-throats and murderers. He gave the Telluride mine owners to understand that they would never be safe either in person or property, so long as the Federation had a foothold in San Miguel County, and that their only recourse was to hire a Pinkerton operative who would do to the Federation what James McParland had done to the Mollies.
The plausible talk of the Pinkerton drummer or assistant superintendent convinced the members of the Telluride Mine Owners' Association; they instructed him to furnish their association with an operative who would hunt down the murderers of Collins and Barney, and also expose the Inner Circle of the union.
As previously stated, the Agency got the services of a very intelligent quartz miner for this work. This second James McParland was George W. Riddell, or, as he was known at the Agency, No. 36.
No. 36 found it an easy matter to secure work at one of the mines near Telluride, and also found it easy to become a member of the union. He did his level best to accomplish the work he was sent to do at Telluride, but, after working on the case for two years, at an expense of over $7,000 to the Telluride Mine Owners' Association, he retired without bringing to light any evidence of importance or value. So far as the Inner Circle was concerned, No. 36 found no trace of any such secret group, although he was on terms of great intimacy with Vincent St. John and all the other leaders of the union at Telluride.
This was the only operation which the Pinkerton Detective Agency ever undertook for the avowed purpose of discovering the Inner Circle of the Western Federation of Miners, and despite the fact that No. 36 worked for two years under the most favorable conditions, he could not bring to light anything that would tend to incriminate any member of the Western Federation, nor could he substantiate the libelous charge of the Agency that the Federation had any such secret committee as an "Inner Circle" whose business it was to plan murders and other crimes.
Chapter XV. A Reign Of Terror.