Manager McParland insists that he worked singlehanded in this case, and we are willing to take his word for it.
Manager McParland further states "THAT THE MOST FIENDISH WORK CARRIED ON BY THE MOLLY MAGUIRES WAS BUT CHILD'S PLAY COMPARED TO THE PLOTS HATCHED BY THE OFFICERS OF THE WESTERN FEDERATION OF MINERS AND CARRIED INTO EFFECT BY THEIR TOOLS."
Manager McParland may have exterminated the Molly Maguires single-handed, as he says, or he may have been assisted by others in this task; that is immaterial. What is MATERIAL, is the fact that it took Mr. McParland AT LEAST THREE YEARS to get damaging information against them. Now, then, if, as he claims, the most fiendish work of the Molly Maguires was but child's play as compared with the plots and outrages of the Federation, it follows
The Pinkerton Labor Spy. 217
that it should have taken a detective fully as talented as Manager McParland at least three times as long to get at th£ innermost workings of this awful gang, as it took him to unravel the mysteries of the Molly Maguires. That is to say, it should have taken Manager McParland nine years to discover tHe alleged Inner Circle.
But we are willing to concede that Manager McParland is entitled to a reasonable credit for his age and experience. In giving him this credit, however, we must hold him to his own words. Thus, if we concede, for the sake of argument, that he is a better detective to-day than he was thirty years ago, he must not deny that IF, according to his words, THE WESTERN FEDERATION ARE GIANTS COMPARED WITH THE MOLLY MAGUIRES, THEN, IN AN INVERSE RATIO, HIS ACHIEVEMENTS AGAINST THE MOLLY MAGUIRES WERE BUT PUNY AND TRIFLING AS COMPARED WITH HIS