One thing that the defense had in abundance and did not have to pay for was publicity. Socialist and labor newspapers and magazines throughout the country were joined by many more centrist publications in condemning the way the WFM leaders were whisked into Idaho and the subsequent habeas corpus decisions in court.47 In addition, demonstrations and public meetings were held in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and many smaller cities.
One such event reputedly focused on McParland. According to Appeal to Reason, at a meeting in Parsons, Kansas—chaired by the treasurer of the city’s socialist local—McParland was noted to be “of infamously bad character, being associated while here with the notorious McLaughlin, of Grand Central fame.” McParland was, it claimed, “engaged in the commission of almost all crimes known to criminal law,” and although he had disappeared twenty years before, upon hearing of his involvement in the Steunenberg investigation, those at the meeting voted to “warn the courts and law officers of Idaho to be watchful of every move made by James McPartland, as we unhesitatingly declare that where there is a money consideration, he will do anything no matter how low or vile, to accomplish his purpose. . . . [T]here is not today in the United States, outside prison walls, a more conscienceless and desperate criminal.”48
That a meeting dominated by socialists condemned McParland is not surprising, as he, Pinkerton’s, and the prosecution were vilified nationwide in a well-organized propaganda campaign. Yet the report is too extreme to accept, as McParland had evidently not used his own name in Parsons—it was too recognizable—so linking him with the WFM trio would not have provoked civic outrage. Moreover, there is no evidence that at the time he had been considered an undesirable character. It is more likely that the report was simply part of Appeal to Reason’s ongoing attempt to discredit McParland.
Even when they did not become personal, such events drew McParland’s ire. When socialist meetings were proposed to be held in Caldwell, he wrote, “Now these meetings have been stopped in Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver and other places, and I see no reason why they should be given so much rope in the City of Caldwell. . . . They are a gang of cut-throats and murderers and have no right to parade the streets and air their grievances or their imaginary grievances. . . . I think something should be done to stop them. . . . It is no use to lie down and let these fellows trample on good citizens that are prosecuting these murderers.”49
With that in mind, he must have been delighted by the actions of his old friend Doc Shores, then a special agent for both the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and the Utah Fuel Company. McParland noted that: “[W]hen the socialists commenced to flood the Utah Coal camps with the Appeal to Reason, Toledo Socialist and other anarchistic literature he conferred with the postmasters at the different camps and got a list of the company’s employees that subscribed. . . . [then], to use his own expression, he had them ‘walk down the canon.’ He simply had them discharged and gave them to understand . . . that neither an anarchist nor a socialist could work in any of the camps. . . . He said his action had had a wholesome effect.”50
More worrisome than the rhetoric, however, was that it was being followed up by violence. At the end of April a fire was started in the barn of the editor of a pro-prosecution newspaper in Parma in Canyon County.51 Shortly thereafter, an editor at The Caldwell News received a threatening letter. “It looks to me as though they [socialists and anarchists] are going to inaugurate a reign of terror not only in Caldwell but in Canyon County in general,” McParland wrote. “I would like to be Sheriff of Canyon County for one week or for twenty-four hours and this gang . . . would either be in the County jail, run out of town or as a last resort there would be a job for the Coroner.”52
Others hoped that last resort would apply to McParland himself. On May 9, he received an unsigned letter addressing him as “McPartland,” threatening that “we are after you. . . . be on the lookout you are the man that killed the exGov and not the three innocent men which you put the blame on . . . remember if those men aint freeded mighty quick we will drop on you and the Gov. yous people has gone far enough its got to be stoped or we will have a war with you. . . . if Haywood Moyer & Pettibone are hanged we will tear you and all to small bitts.”53
• • •
Months of travel, late-night conferences, tense interrogations, overseeing every detail of covert operations, and constantly trying to outwit intelligent men—as well as being subject to personal attacks, and even threats on his life—must have told significantly on McParland, who was, after all, about sixty-two years old. In late July he joined William Pinkerton in Chicago for three days of meetings, after which, “I told Principal W.A. Pinkerton that I had never taken a vacation excepting ten days about two years ago and that I would like to take a vacation at this time, to which he agreed.” McParland and Mary stayed in Chicago, where they were able to visit relatives on both sides of their family, but McParland still felt obliged to check his business mail each day. “Correspondence comes from yourself, referring me back to certain documents on file here and some at Denver, so, in point of fact, I am not having any vacation at all,” he wrote to Bangs. “Not being familiar with what a vacation might be, I would state if this is called a vacation, then I do not want any more of it.”54
As it turned out, McParland did not return to Denver until August 15, more than three weeks after his departure, and he was then overwhelmed by the work that had accumulated. He told Gooding and Hawley that, even after being in the office for more than a week, “owing to a pressure of business it will be impossible for me to go to Boise before the middle or latter part of next week.”55 Exactly what McParland was working on so diligently is unknown, although he did visit the Kansas City office for two days. Part of the time might have been used to help his niece settle in with Mary and him. McParland had spent a good deal of time in Chicago with his brother Charles, and at some point before Christmas 1906, Charles’s youngest daughter—Kittie, age eleven—moved to Denver, and for McParland was a sort of replacement for Eneas and his family.56 The exact timing of her move is unknown, but it is logical that she would have traveled with her uncle and aunt in August.
McParland had not, of course, forgotten about the case, and more than once he encouraged an idea Orchard had first presented in June: to write “a short history of his life up to the time he became connected with the Western Federation of Miners, and then detail every outrage that he had been connected with and that he knew of.” McParland was extremely supportive, as doing so would not only keep the inmate busy, but “will refresh his memory on the events of the past and make him still a better witness than he would be otherwise.”57 Orchard finished his manuscript by late August, and McParland suggested that both Hawley and Borah go over it carefully, as “Orchard having written this biography it will simply be impossible for any counsel to shake his testimony.”58
McParland wanted Adams to do the same, as he “has a poor memory of dates and places, in fact has a poor memory upon some facts, and while he will tell the truth on the witness stand and has told the truth in his confessions, still I am afraid he will not make a first-class witness.” Therefore, he wanted Hawley and Borah to “get him to write out a history of his life covering everything from childhood just as Orchard has done. . . . [I]t will impress him so that it will be very hard to confuse him in the cross-examination. We know that Adams is telling the truth, but his memory is deceptive. . . . [I]f Adams had as good a memory as Orchard he would stand on the same ground but he is not to blame for not being as bright as Orchard.”59
When McParland finally returned to Boise on September 9, he was accompanied by an old friend—Charlie Siringo. McParland had recently received a report stating that Guy Caldwell, a “slugger [hit man] for the Socialist members of the Western Federation [had] claimed he had been looking out to get a chance to assassinate me.”60 As a result, “Principals W.A. and R.A. Pinkerton will not allow me under any circumstances to go up in that country any more w
ithout having somebody to accompany me, and while . . . I am not in any way afraid of those people that are making threats . . . I have a man that I can depend upon to be constantly on the lookout in Opt Siringo.”61
He was back, but little did McParland know how much his delay—and the concomitant lack of foresight by other members of the prosecution—was going to cost the State’s case.
CHAPTER 22
THE FIGHT FOR ADAMS
While the prosecution dithered in Idaho, Darrow—who from the beginning had considered Adams’s confession the key1—made his move. Gooding had thought the case secure, because neither Darrow nor Richardson was allowed to see Orchard or Adams, the latter of whom had been placed with his wife and two stepchildren in a small cottage on the penitentiary grounds. But in August, with McParland still in Denver, Adams’s brother Joe was granted permission to visit several times. Hawley immediately expressed concern to Fillius that Joe was “working on the other side,” yet nothing was done to find out what was discussed, a point that alarmed McParland.2
A meeting in Boise of Darrow, Richardson, Miller—who had been brought onto the defense team—and spymaster Dickson should have set off alarm bells when the prosecution’s operatives reported its occurrence, but still the team in Idaho did not understand the danger. Meanwhile, Darrow began to maneuver, twice traveling to Oregon to see James W. Lillard, Adams’s “Uncle Warren.” Darrow soon convinced Lillard to visit his nephew and persuade him to renounce his confession. As part of the arrangement, Darrow agreed that he and the union attorneys would defend Adams if he were brought to trial.
Lillard traveled to Boise and had dinner with Adams on the night of September 3. Although it would have been difficult to prevent Lillard from seeing Adams, the prosecution team still should have been more aware of the meeting’s negative possibilities. As far back as April McParland had pointed out that Lillard had “talked about giving a bond for Adams’ release” and had noted that they could “take no chances of allowing him out on bond. There is too much money on the other side for us to take any chances.”3
Lillard later maintained that Adams told him he was being detained against his will and asked for assistance in gaining his freedom. But Adams was already prepared for the specifics of such a discussion, because on the morning of September 7, his wife, Annie, managed to sneak a message out of the prison that changed the course of the trial—and she knew exactly where to take it. Like her husband, she had been confined—without charge—to the prison grounds. Claiming that her new baby had diaper rash, she received permission to go into town for ointment. Once on her own she hurried to the law office of John T. Morrison, Gooding’s predecessor as governor of Idaho and an attorney engaged by Darrow to represent Lillard and Adams. Annie gave Morrison a handwritten note that stated: “This is to certify that the statement that I signed was made up by James McParland, detective, and Harry Orchard, alias Tom Hogan. I signed it because I was threatened by Governor Gooding, saying I would be hung if I did not corroborate Orchard’s story against the officers of the Federation Union of Miners. Stephen Adams. Witness: Annie Adams.”4 Within hours, Morrison filed a habeas corpus petition to force Adams’s release.5 The next afternoon, Judge George Stewart ordered him discharged.
But the defense had not planned on such quick reactions from McParland, who, the night before Adams’s release, was briefed about the situation over the telephone. He flew into action and had a Colorado warrant issued that evening for Adams’s arrest for his involvement in the murder of detective Lyte Gregory. The Denver sheriff then telegraphed his counterpart in Ada County, in which Boise is located, as well as the district attorney, asking them to hold Adams while the warrant was brought to Idaho. Therefore, moments after Adams was released on September 8, he was rearrested and placed in the Ada County jail.
The next morning, McParland arrived in Boise to explain to Gooding and Hawley that the Colorado charges were simply a delaying tactic. At that very moment, Shoshone County Sheriff Angus Sutherland was on his way there to charge Adams with the 1904 murder of two Idaho claim jumpers, Fred Tyler and Ed Boule. Orchard had tied Adams and Simpkins to these killings, and Adams had thereafter confessed to them.6 If McParland could lay enough of a smoke screen, he could have Adams taken to Wallace without any legal ructions. Once there, McParland would try to convince him to recant his recantation, after which the threat of being tried for a capital offense would keep him on the prosecutorial straight and narrow.
The next day, Darrow hit back with equal cunning, paying a surprise visit to Borah and tearfully confiding that “Adams had deceived him in not telling him that he had committed the two murders. . . . If he had known this he would never have made this move as it now put him in a hole if Adams were convicted . . . for he would always feel that he had caused Adams’ conviction.”
Darrow asked Borah “to see to it that Sheriff Sutherland . . . not leave for a day at least as he (Darrow) was going down the road for a day and wanted to be here in Boise before Adams was taken away.”7
McParland immediately suspected that Darrow would take that day to arrange a habeas corpus petition, which would be presented when the train to Wallace entered Oregon—which it had to do before returning to northern Idaho. He must have smiled to himself, because he was still a step ahead of Darrow, but he nevertheless assigned a man to shadow him.8 More concerning to McParland was how Darrow had learned of his plans and activities.
On September 11, the Colorado deputies were missing when Adams was arraigned. The charge was dismissed, but once again Adams was not out of the courtroom before he was arrested—this time on the Shoshone County charges—and turned over to Sutherland, who promptly put him back in the state penitentiary for safekeeping. McParland was already waiting there—having arrived “unseen by the numerous Thiel detectives who were shadowing me, three hours before”—and when Adams saw him, “I thought he would faint.”9
McParland talked—harangued according to Adams—for two or three hours.10 “These lawyers will do anything for money,” McParland reputedly said. “You will be tried and convicted and they will still pat you on the back and tell you the case will be reversed. They will appeal and still pat you on the back and tell you that you will be all right until the case will be affirmed and you will stand on the scaffold a doomed man with the rope around your neck and all to save the lives of three of the worst cut throats, sons of bitches that ever breathed, and then where will your wife and babies be and where will you be.”
Every so often McParland paused to allow Adams to speak, but he refused. Then the detective told him “of a number of cases of horrible deaths where the lawyers patted their clients on their back until they had been swung into eternity at the ropes end. Among other cases he mentioned was that of Tom Horn and he said he could have saved him if he only could got to him. He said that they sung a cow boy song for fear he would say something when he got on the scaffold.”
Still Adams would not talk to McParland, so two days later, early in the morning, Sutherland, Whitney, and prosecution detective Eugene Johnson sneaked him out of the prison, past Darrow’s Thiel detectives, and headed north. After five days of dodging efforts to track them down, they reached Wallace, much to the frustration of Darrow, who grudgingly acknowledged McParland as “the greatest detective in the West.”11
McParland was less complimentary to Darrow. From the beginning he suspected that the defense had bribed Lillard, writing that Darrow had admitted “he didn’t give a d—n what happened to Adams, he simply had him placed where he wanted him.” Similarly, Lillard “did not seem to care whether Steve was convicted or not. He seems to think it would be much better to see Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone go free whereby he would receive the thirty pieces of silver like Judas of old, which no doubt has been promised him if he will keep Adams from testifying.”12
Five years later, McParland still believed this, writing that Lillard had received seventy-five thousand dollars, two-
thirds earmarked for “Uncle Warren” and the rest for Adams. “Lillard at that time was trying to defend himself . . . in the matter of some 14,000 acres of land that the United States Government claimed that he had got unlawfully,” McParland wrote. After the trial, “Adams raised hell, demanded of his lawyers and old man Lillard the $25,000.00 that was promised him if he denied his confession, and also claimed that Lillard held that money. . . . [I]t looks as though old man Lillard got the $75,000.00 and used it and left Stevie, as he called him, to hold the bag.”13
It was not the first time McParland accused jurors, witnesses, or detectives of accepting bribes. However, he was not the only one who doubted Darrow’s ethics in this particular case. John Nugent, who accompanied Darrow to Lillard’s farm, later called Darrow “Old Necessity,” because, “necessity knows no law.”14 Even Darrow’s closest friends were skeptical, such as the author, soldier, and lawyer Colonel Charles E. S. Wood, who noted the “crooked methods” by which “the defense was manufactured.”15
But the most damning evidence suggesting Darrow bribed Lillard was the attorney’s own behavior. In October 1910, a suitcase holding 16 sticks of dynamite was set off in the alley behind the building housing The Los Angeles Times, the publisher of which, Harrison Gray Otis, was one of the nation’s most powerful antiunion voices. The explosion started a devastating fire that killed twenty-one workers. Then, on Christmas Day that year, the Llewellyn Iron Works in Los Angeles was bombed, causing significant damage.16 The famed detective William J. Burns took charge of the investigation,17 which led to the arrests of James and John “J.J.” McNamara, brothers active in a campaign of violence by the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers.
Pinkerton’s Great Detective Page 41
