Molders' Union would not issue a transfer card to any member desiring to go to Pueblo. The Denver
194 The Pinkerton Labor Spy.
union took this step, the operative explained, at the request of the Pueblo union, as the latter suspected that "Pinkerton Spotters" might try to obtain a foothold in Pueblo in this manner.
The Denver officials wrote of their trouble to the Chicago Agency, and that office loaned the Denver branch one of tfieir operatives who was a union iron molder. The name of this operative was Walter E. Agate, No. 88.
Operative Agate proceeded to Pueblo, and at once made a round of the different foundries, applying for work at all of them ; but unfortunately for him, business in the foundry line was dull, and he could not get a job anywhere. A number of old Pueblo union molders were themselves out of work, and these men pointedly advised the operative to seek a job in some other city.
Operative Agate told the union boys that he came to Pueblo to get work, and that he would remain under any circumstances; that his wife was sick, and had to come to Colorado for her health, and that he simply had to get work at something in order to make a living for himself and his wife. No. 88 proved his apparent sincerity by accepting a position repairing the sewers of the City of Pueblo, in which position he worked as a common laborer for less than two dollars a day.
The operative's devotion to his sick wife won him the confidence of the Pueblo iron molders, with the result that soon No. 88 obtained a position at his trade at one of tiie large Pueblo foundries. As soon as he got employment, the Agency sent the operative's wife from Chicago to join her husband in Pueblo, in order to make good the fiction about her illness.