the miners had seen and passed through enough to convince them that the entire Colorado State Administration was in
112 The Pinkerton Labor Spy.
an alliance with the mine owners, smelter trust and coal operators, and would do anything, whether lawful or unlawful, to break the strength of both the Federation and the United Mine Workers of America.
The miners had already had the bitter experiences that quiet, orderly behavior was no protection from the insults and attacks of the State militia. They had seen how their leaders were accused of every crime, and mercilessly persecuted, even after the proper courts had cleared and vindicated them. They had seen how the Mine Owners' Association, in their hatred of the Federation, stooped to conspire with a degenerate in a desperate effort to fasten the crime of attempted train-wrecking upon the union.
The miners were too well aware that they were under constant surveillance by the military, the mine owners, the Citizens' Alliance, and by private detectives. The miners knew that any acts of violence on their part would be revisited a thousandfold by the militia on their heads and on the heads of their families.
Knowing these facts as they did, and assuming Manager McParland's estimate of the Federation to be correct (that the terrible Molly Maguires were but children in comparison with the Federation), can we for a moment believe it possible that an organization so ably led would' jeopardize the outcome of a long and bitter struggle so far successful, and imperil the immense interests of their order, by wrecking a petty railroad station, and slaughtering a small number of non-union men?
Is it not safe to assume that the leaders of the Federation knew the conditions in the Cripple Creek district well enough to understand that