The Pinkerton Labor Spy. 179
eyed Pinkerton operatives watching every move of the miners, especially those who are suspected of having anything to do with the Western Federation of Miners. The officials of the San Francisco and Los Angeles offices have been so zealous in slandering this union that now, thanks to the Agency, if a miner should confess his affiliation with it, a California mine owner would refuse him employment. The members of that order are presumably cut-throats, assassins and dynamiters.
One California mining company, in particular, seems to have got this false impression from Pinkerton officials, and the result was a strike. We do not intend to describe this strike, which was of small consequence in comparison with the strikes in Colorado. But it is worth while to describe the Pinkerton spy who is the central figure of the episode.
In Shasta County, Cal., there is a flourishing mining camp named Keswick. The inhabitants of this camp are chiefly miners in the employ of the Mountain Copper Company, Limited. At the time of our story, in the early part of 1903, Lewis T. Wright was the general manager of the company. Manager Wright apparently became imbued with bitter animosity toward the Western Federation of Miners, which led him to hire a Pinkerton operative to discover which, if any, of his employees, belonged or wished to belong to that union.
The operative engaged on this work was Frank E. Cochran, No. 31 as he was known at the San Francisco office. No. 31 combined in his person traits which justify us in comparing him to Operative Crane of Colorado City, Operative Gratias of Denver, and Operative Smith of Trinidad.
Operative Cochran, like Operative Crane, furnished the company with the names of all those who secretly belonged to the Federation. This information re-