he is mentally weakening) has no scruple in attempting to swear away the LIVES of three innocent men. But the comparison does not end here. McKinney's mind was worked upon by Detectives Scott and Sterling of the Mine Owners' Association and the Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad, while Orchard, who is now the pliable tool of McParland, is believed, on pretty good grounds, to have been employed as a spy by these very same men during the Cripple Creek strike, in 19031904.
The Florence and Cripple Creek derailing case proved fairly what a precious pair of rascals Detectives Scott and Sterling were. It stands to reason that if Orchard learned his business under their tutelage, and to the best of our knowledge and information he did, then he must have graduated as a master-liar, perjurer and all-around villain; in fine, a fit tool to execute the plans and plots of the DEAN of BLACK SLEUTHDOM— JAMES McPARLAND.
In the Florence and Cripple Creek case the plot of the mine owners failed because of the gross carelessness of Detectives Scott and Sterling, and the too apparent degeneracy of their tool, McKinney.
In the Steunenberg case we find a somewhat different state of affairs, although the result is the same. Orchard, the conscience-struck, repentantly-confessing scoundrel, seems to stand pat. But James McParland, in his extreme anxiety to tie the noose securely around the necks of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, overreached himself so badly, that the entire plot of the Pinkerton Agency was laid bare. And now let us see how it came about that Manager McParland exposed his villainous duplicity in this case to an even greater
212 The Pinkerton Labor Spy.
extent than did Detectives Scott and Sterling in the Florence and Cripple Creek derailing case.