Pinkerton’s Great Detective

by Beau Riffenburgh

  These details led the investigators to the same conclusion held by Governor Gooding, Steunenberg’s brother Will, and many of the newspapers around the nation that were giving extended coverage to the murder: Steunenberg had been assassinated, probably with the backing of the WFM, because of his actions in the Coeur d’Alenes in 1899.16

  • • •

  That a former typesetter for a small Iowa newspaper had been in a position to influence events in the Idaho mining wars was rather surprising. Steunenberg was born in Iowa in 1861 and left school at sixteen to apprentice as a printer at the Knoxville Journal, where he stayed for four years before going to Des Moines. He returned to his hometown as the publisher of The Knoxville Express before moving to Caldwell in 1887 to help his brother A. K., who had purchased a declining paper named The Caldwell Tribune. The Steunenbergs turned it into a success, and writing about aspects of Idaho life, culture, and affairs of state led Frank to politics. In 1889 he was one of sixty-eight delegates to the Territory’s constitutional convention, and the next year he was elected to the Idaho Legislature.17 Only six years later, running on a “fusion” ticket that joined the Democrats and the Populists, he was elected Idaho’s fourth governor. He lost much Populist support during the next two years, but with the backing of the “Silver Republicans”—who had split from the Republicans over the issue of “free silver”18—he was reelected.

  Steunenberg’s opportunity to show that he was truly the friend of the masses and unions who helped elect him came in 1899. Problems had been bubbling in the Coeur d’Alenes ever since 1892, and a U.S. House of Representatives investigation determined: “A secret organization controlled the civil authorities in Shoshone County. The mandate of the ‘dark lantern’ order was more powerful than the law of the State. Whatever was the desire of the secret clan became the law of the community.”19

  The organization referred to was the WFM, which had overseen an improvement in the pay rate of most mine workers, a notable exception being those at the vast Bunker Hill and Sullivan operation in Wardner and Kellogg. In late April 1899, Wardner union representatives demanded wages matching those of other local mines and recognition of the union. The acting manager of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan immediately granted the pay, but acceptance of the union was flatly refused. Three days later a large group of armed union men seized the Bunker Hill tramway, shutting down most mining and milling operations. At the same time, others forcibly turned away nonunion workers.

  On April 29, after a tense week, about 250 miners from Burke—some armed and masked—commandeered the train that ran down Canyon Creek to Wallace.20 Stops at Black Bear and Frisco mines and at Gem added hundreds of miners to the train, as well as eighty boxes of dynamite. Although the train normally terminated at Wallace, the engineer was forced to drive on another company’s tracks to Kellogg, by which time almost a thousand miners were involved. A phalanx of armed union men marched on the Bunker Hill concentrator, where shots were exchanged. One man was killed and another mortally wounded before the guards fled. The raiding party placed sixty boxes—three thousand pounds—of dynamite in three different locations and lit the fuses. Within moments one of the world’s largest concentrators had been reduced to rubble.

  Despite being in the hospital, Steunenberg flew into action. With the Idaho National Guard in the Philippines in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, he asked President William McKinley to “call forth the military forces of the United States to suppress insurrection in Shoshone County.”21 McKinley did not delay, and troops of the Twenty-fourth Infantry Regiment were ordered to the region. Under the command of Brigadier General Henry Clay Merriam—working with Steunenberg’s representative, Bartlett Sinclair—they swept into the county. A massive program of arrests, starting with 128 men in Kellogg and Wardner, began shortly thereafter.22

  Troops from the Fourth Cavalry next made a sweep through Burke, searching every house and breaking down doors if no one answered. They arrested “the entire male population of that town, consisting of about 300 persons; among them were clergymen, school teachers, druggists, merchants.”23 Men were taken at work, at home, at dinner. Although some were released within hours, 243 were herded into boxcars and held in a barn in Wardner, which became known as the “old bullpen” in reference to the structure built in 1892. When about 350 more men were arrested two days later at Gem and Mullan, the lack of space meant that they were kept in the boxcars until a new bullpen was built.24

  The bullpens were cramped, uncomfortable, and unhealthy, but it was more than that which engendered the inmates’ undying hatred for Steunenberg. Most were held for months without being charged. Those who were released found it difficult to obtain jobs, because Sinclair instituted a permit system that required each man to sign a declaration before he could return to work that he had had nothing to do with the events of April 29, and that he did not belong to any organization that had incited or approved of the crimes.25 The system proved so effective that it was later instituted in the aftermath of the Colorado Labor Wars.26

  Even more significant for many miners was the use of the Twenty-fourth Infantry—one of the nation’s “colored” regiments. Few occupations were more xenophobic than mining, and in the Coeur d’Alenes the white miners, whose ethnic bigotry never lay far beneath the surface, were united in their hatred of Chinese and blacks. “Not only did the miners share the turn-of-the-century American view of ‘niggers’ as second-class citizens,” wrote J. Anthony Lukas, “they regarded them as pawns of the mine owners.”27 That loathing was intensified by the knowledge that the Twenty-fifth Infantry, another colored regiment, had been used to suppress the 1892 uprising.

  Now bitter complaints were made about the Twenty-fourth. Its soldiers were accused of brutality in making arrests and transporting prisoners, harassing and abusing incarcerated men, and making sexual advances toward the miners’ wives.28 Such charges came even from the highest union levels—Haywood claimed that while his brothers-in-arms were held illegally, “black soldiers were at home insulting, outraging, ravishing their wives, mothers, sisters and sweethearts.”29

  Steunenberg also generated union hatred because it was believed he had betrayed his supporters. An honorary member of the International Typographical Union, he had nonetheless determined to break the WFM, while concurrently throttling anything he saw as insurrection. As his attorney general, Sam Hays, said: “We have taken the monster by the throat and we are going to choke the life out of it. No halfway measures have or will be adopted. It is a plain case of the state or the union winning, and we do not propose that the state shall be defeated.”30

  Steunenberg’s decisions severely damaged the WFM, but it was obvious that the personal consequences for him might be equally disastrous. Socialists, the labor press, and union sympathizers vilified him, and he met with strong labor opposition throughout the remainder of his term as governor. There were also those who wanted more than the end of his political career. In 1899, he told his wife that he thought his actions would eventually cost him his life.31 Through the following years, his concerns about assassination apparently decreased,32 but someone had not forgiven him. The question now became: was that simply Harry Orchard or was there something darker and more dangerous looming behind the scenes?

  • • •

  Despite Swain’s progress with Orchard, the Thiel operatives soon annoyed many people in Caldwell, including Sheriff Nichols and Frank J. Smith, the judge of the Seventh Judicial District. None liked the way Swain had pushed in to take over the operation with what Smith called “a gang of the dirtiest low lived sons of bitches . . . he ever saw congregated in one place.”33 With nine agents in town and more in the surrounding region, the Thiel men were also running up high bills—without much to show for it.

  On January 4, in a colossal error of judgment, one of Swain’s assistants phoned Edwin Taber, the superintendent of Pinkerton’s office in Spokane, to request that he “take this matter up
in conjunction with the Thiel Agency.”34 Assuming that such a request had already been passed through Pinkerton’s hierarchy, Taber sent assistant superintendent Gus J. Hasson to Caldwell to discover how the investigation stood. What Hasson learned was that not only were the Thiel agents inept, but that Swain expected him to share information without returning the favor—something Hasson was unwilling to consider.

  Seeing how poorly the Thiel investigation was progressing, Hasson called on Governor Gooding to discuss hiring Pinkerton’s, with the understanding that they would report directly to him and would not share information with other investigators. Gooding agreed, and the result was an accord between the State and the agency that Taber tailored so that the payment rate would be the regular eight dollars per day for the first thirty days, and six dollars thereafter. Most likely “done so for the purpose of meeting any rate Thiel would give,” this nevertheless led to McParland censuring Taber for agreeing to it without consulting him.35

  On the afternoon of January 7, Taber telegraphed McParland: “Gooding desires see you Boise immediately.” McParland was “highly pleased” not only to be taking charge of a high-profile case but because of its potential impact on company business in the region: “[I]t means a great deal to the Spokane office so far as the mine operators of Idaho are concerned and in fact all mine operators in the whole district.”36

  Met by Stockslager and Hasson at the Boise train station on the evening of Wednesday, January 10, McParland was taken to the Idanha, the city’s finest hotel, where he settled in to suite 35 and, after dinner, was joined by Stockslager and Gooding. “The Governor wanted us to work in conjunction with Swain,” McParland noted. “This I refused to do.”37 At this point, Stockslager interjected: “Governor, I told you that you might as well try to remove Plymouth Rock as to change the established rules of the Pinkerton’s, their plans are right, look at the information you have got from the fine reports of Mr Hasson who has only got on the ground as it were.” After some consideration, Gooding acquiesced, noting that Swain—whom he had not personally employed—was waiting in the hotel, as he had expected to bring him to the meeting. Now he could be dismissed for the night, which was presumably done when the chief justice departed shortly thereafter, undoubtedly leaving McParland extremely gratified.

  McParland and Gooding continued their discussions until midnight, after which the detective met with Hasson. In a report produced only a few hours after arriving in Boise, McParland wrote: “I am satisfied that there were other people in this plot besides Orchard and feel almost sure that Orchard was the tool of the others.” He noted particularly that Orchard and Simpkins had not only visited Caldwell and nearby Nampa multiple times, but had shared a hotel room. “I think we will be able to convict the man [Orchard], but this conspiracy is so wide spread and so well and secretly conducted that it would not surprise me to find out that the W.F. of M. has one or more men posing in Caldwell as bona fide residents, for the purpose of proving an alibi.”38

  Swain had said much the same, but confirming his rival’s analysis did not mean McParland’s attitude toward him had mellowed. Instead, in the following days he began elbowing him out. His cause was given a boost when it turned out Swain expected the county to pay the daily charge per detective—already around two thousand dollars—when he had been brought aboard in great part because the commissioners had understood they would not have to pay. Gooding supported McParland: “I can see now why you could not work with a crowd of bunco men,” he exclaimed, bursting into the detective’s room. “I have sent for Swain and will order him to discontinue all his men. . . . I will be damned if I like to be buncoed in this way . . . and will tell him that he must not in future incur a dollar for time or expense without getting my participation.”39

  Swain was not ousted at once because McParland “wanted this man Simpkins badly,” and Swain claimed “he could lay his hands on Simpkins at any moment.”40 However, McParland had clearly achieved a victory for both Pinkerton’s and himself. “I have done what I could to overthrow Swain never letting an opportunity pass,” he crowed smugly to Fraser, who now was head of the San Francisco office as well as assistant manager of the Western Division. Further, he noted, he had “done it in such a way that I am not suspected.”41

  Meanwhile, McParland focused on Orchard and quickly decided that he should be moved from the Canyon County jail to an isolated cell on death row in the state penitentiary in Boise—partly to wage psychological warfare, but also for greater security, as “his friends would not hesitate to remove him by poison or even dynamiting the jail.”42 The problem with the plan was that Nichols, supported by Judge Smith—whose position on the bench made him the man who would preside over any trial of Orchard—insisted there was no legal authority to remove him.

  Facing a stalemate, Gooding set up a meeting with Smith and McParland, for which he arranged to be “unexpectedly” called out, to avoid being seen taking sides.43 On the night of January 12, they met in McParland’s suite, where the governor raised the issue of a transfer, thereby allowing the detective to give his reasons for it. The judge “agreed with us that our reasons for desiring such a step taken were good ones . . . but at the same time he was not sure whether or not the action would be legal, and he did not wish to jeopardize the state by making an illegal move, which might result in getting the prisoner free on a writ of habeas corpus.”

  At that point, Gooding was called from the room, and the judge, studying McParland’s carefully placed lapel pin, said, “I see that you are an Elk?” Smiling, McParland replied, “So is the Governor but I never allow myself to so far forget my obligation to the Order to use it in any way to forward my plans in any case.” But that is just what he did, for, having identified their bond, the two men forged an agreement. By the end of the meeting four hours later Smith had agreed to “use his influence with the Sheriff to have him transfer the prisoner to Boise further he would not issue a writ of habeas corpus except so directed by the [Idaho] Supreme Court.”

  The latter possibility was put to rest the next morning, when McParland visited Stockslager and Associate Justice Isaac N. Sullivan, who “both agreed that it was perfectly legal to remove the prisoner to the Pen. and would sustain Judge Smith in denying a writ of habeas corpus.”44

  Nichols, however, was inflexible and stuck by his position that Orchard could not be taken. But Gooding personally brought him to see McParland several nights later. Faced by the governor and the country’s most famous detective, the small-town law officer backed down. After two days Orchard was transferred to the state facility, where he was put in a cell on death row, the only people near him being two convicted murderers awaiting execution and a set of guards who watched him day and night, without uttering a word.45

  Now, McParland had Orchard right where he wanted him.

  • • •

  Having patiently waited for the isolation to do its work on Orchard, at 2:15 on Monday, January 22, McParland took a streetcar to the eastern end of the line, where he met state penitentiary warden Eugene L. Whitney, who accompanied him to the facility. After setting up in Whitney’s private office, McParland—without identifying himself—became the first person to speak to the inmate in more than three days, during which Orchard had not been allowed to bathe, shave, or exercise.

  “Orchard has about as determined a countenance as I have ever seen on a human being,” McParland recorded, “with the most cold, cruel eyes I remember having seen.”46 Undeterred, the detective explained to Orchard how, if he admitted his part in the murder, gave up any conspirators, and testified for the prosecution, he could reasonably expect the State to consider his cooperation as mitigation for his sentence.

  After twenty-five minutes, Orchard interrupted, saying: “You speak your piece very well, but I don’t know what you are getting at. I have committed no crime. I have heard and read over forty times just such talk as you have made, and there are instances where such talk has o
nly made innocent men confess to crimes that they never committed and to implicate others who were also innocent. Talk about acting square with the state! I never heard tell of a man that did but what he afterwards paid the penalty.”

  But McParland had not been obtaining confessions for thirty years for nothing. He waited calmly while Orchard added that his lawyer—Fred Miller, at that moment in Denver collecting a fifteen-hundred-dollar retainer from the WFM—had told him not to say anything. Then, although “during my conversation with Orchard I did not for a moment intimate that by turning states evidence he would be granted immunity,” he cited “cases in which the state witnesses went entirely free . . . [including] the Mollie McGuire state witnesses who saved their own necks by telling the truth, and more especially Kelly, who, although he swore on the witness stand that he fired the first shot into Alexander McKee, exclaiming ‘Dead dogs tell no tales,’ went free.”47

  Still skeptical, Orchard responded that “McParland had that all fixed, and he saw to it that whatever promises he made were kept.”

  “I then asked the man if he had ever seen McParland,” the detective wrote, “to which he replied that he had not, but added ‘McParland would go to any extreme to convict a man, but as a rule he kept his word.’” McParland looked the prisoner in the eye, and “I then told Orchard who I was and stated that my main reason for interceding for the men who turned states evidence was not because they were innocent but because they had allowed themselves to become the tools of the men of the inner circle of the Mollie Maguires, who were more guilty than they who actually committed the crimes, . . . that they did the biddings of the inner circle of the Mollie Maguires just as he had done the biddings of the inner circle of the W.F. of M.”

  Here was McParland again drawing on the model he had long before developed about the AOH—that criminal organizations had an elite inner circle comprising the worst of the lot, with the rest consisting of drones unquestioningly obeying orders. Certainly he was providing reasons for Orchard to confess and to implicate the WFM leaders, but at the same time McParland believed implicitly in this overworked scenario.48 Nor was the theory of an inner circle unique to him, as it was expressed in newspapers around the country, which were giving the case extensive coverage, referring to it as “the crime of the century.”49