The
Pinkerton Labor Spy
by
Morris Friedman

CHAPTER XXI.

PINKERTONS AND COAL MINERS
IN WYOMING NO. 15.
THOMAS J. WILLIAMS.

While the events we have described in the foregoing chapters were transpiring in Colorado, a battle as fiercely contested was being fought between Pinkerton's Agency and the United Mine Workers in the State of Wyoming. Here, as in Colorado, the union fought absolutely in the dark, neither seeing nor suspecting the real source of all their astonishing defeats.

Wyoming is rich in mineral deposits of different varieties; but the production of coal is one of the leading industries of the State. The biggest coal-producing mines in Wyoming are at Rock Springs, Carbon and Hanna, and most of them belong to the Union Pacific Coal Company.

The Union Pacific Coal Company bears the same relation to Wyoming that the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company does to Colorado; and Pinkerton's Agency has served the former in exactly the same manner that it has served the latter.

It is now strongly suspected that the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company has for many years accepted huge rebates from different railroad companies, in gross and open violation of the laws, for the purpose of destroying competition, and it is possible that the Federal Government may put a stop to this practice. It is now also strongly suspected that the Union Pacific Coal Company has been guilty of stealing immense tracts of valuable government coal lands. It also seems to be the common belief that no searching investigation of this gigantic steal will ever be made, because persons "very high up" on Wyoming's political ladder are parties to this transaction.

In Colorado a corporation which helped to blight competitive business in violation of the law, was able, with the help of the Pinkertons and of the law, to reduce its coal miners to a condition amounting to slavery.

And in Wyoming we find that while those high up in State and national politics are permitted to steal coal lands worth millions of dollars, nevertheless, a coal miner working for the corporation thieves is not permitted by the latter to say that his life is his own.

If the truth be told, the Union Pacific Coal Company is probably worse than the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, in that it not only treats its miners as badly as does the latter corporation, but in addition the Wyoming concern has even tried, with fairly good success, to supplant American with cheap, foreign labor.

The first great fear of the Union Pacific Coal Company very like'y is, that the Federal Government may pry too closely into its questionable land manipulations. To guard against such an outrage, the righteous company has hired a multitude of lawyers, highly skilled in getting around the law.

The second great fear of the Wyoming coal corporation is that its poor, under-paid, miserably-housed, half-starved miners might be organized into locals of the United Mine Workers of America. To prevent such a calamity, the company has done two things. First, it has employed as miners but a minimum of Americans. The majority of their men are Italians, Chinese and Japanese, who are accustomed to such ridiculously small wages in their home countries that the wages they receive from the Union Pacific Coal Company seem to them a princely sum. Again, as very few of these workers understand any language outside of their respective native tongues, an organizer would have to be an expert linguist to unionize them.

As a second measure of protection against the coal miners' union, the company has on and off employed Pinkerton detectives for many years. At the time of which our narrative treats, the Pinkerton operative discharging his laudable functions in behalf of the Union Pacific Coal Company was Thomas J. Williams, No. 15.

This operative worked as a bona fide coal miner in the company's mines at Rock Springs, located in the southwestern part of Wyoming.

When the coal miners of Colorado went out on strike, the Union Pacific Coal Company became apprehensive lest the strike wave should extend to Wyoming, and, in order to prevent such an event, they redoubled their usual vigilance, and instructed Operative Williams to be more than ever on the alert.

From their standpoint, the Union Pacific Coal Company was not altogether foolish in taking these precautions. President Mitchell of the United Mine Workers had for a number of years made efforts to organize the coal miners of Rock Springs, and he thought that now, as the Colorado miners had dared to make a stand, the time was ripe to make a successful effort to bring the Wyoming miners into the fold of his organization.

True, the time was ripe, and the employees of the Wyoming coal trust were in such a discontented frame of mind that they could have been easily persuaded to join the union. But President Mitchell reckoned without Operative No. 15.

Mr. Mitchell sent organizer after organizer to Rock Springs. As quickly as an organizer came, Operative Williams took charge of him, told him confidentially that he was an old, good-standing member of the United Mine Workers, and offered to assist him to the best of his ability. Naturally, the organizer was glad and happy to avail himself of such a generous, unexpected offer, and quite naturally, too, the spy was the organizer's right hand in arranging and preparing for secret meetings and in secretly inviting miners to be present.

Once or twice the organizers attempted to rent halls at Rock Springs, but as the company, through No. 15, knew hours in advance what the next move was to be, the union leaders would find that the owners of the different halls strangely refused to let them out. Several times meetings were arranged to take place after midnight; but, scarcely would the meeting be opened, when either the superintendent or some of the foremen of the mines would put in an appearance, and the poor, timid miners, on beholding their employers and foremen, would fly from the gathering as though from a pestilence. Perhaps two dozen such secret meetings were thus invaded and broken up by Superintendent Black or some of his lieutenants, to the utter consternation, confusion and bewilderment of the organizers, who wrathfully declared to the operative that never in their careers had they met with such misfortune in organizing a coal camp.

The operative was also highly indignant at their lack of success, and told the organizers he did not believe, from the apparent look of things, that Rock Springs could be unionized. It certainly did appear to the veteran agents of John Mitchell that the officials of the Union Pacific Coal Company had a stand-in with the devil; otherwise they could not understand how their well-laid, secret plans were so speedily and effectually checkmated by the company. Of course, had they known, or even suspected the real identity of "BROTHER THOMAS J. WILLIAMS," the mystery would have been quickly solved.

But neither President Mitchell nor his agents for one moment suspected the devotion of Operative No. 15 to the cause of his oppressed brothers. They ascribed their continuous checks to the inexplainable, supernatural ingenuity of the coal company.

Chapter XXII. The Pinkertons In California—No. 31, Frank E. Cochran.