McParland therefore launched a secret investigation, code-named Vatwood. What he discovered was that large deposits had been made to a certain bank account, commencing in September 1906, just as Adams “had gone over to the Defense” and McParland “had left for Idaho to try and get him to come back to the State.” There was also a deposit made around the time that Operative 21 was uncovered, and still more prior to each of the trials, at points when the defense was desperate to discover the prosecution’s plans. The holder of the account into which these funds had been paid was Denver superintendent H. Frank Cary.
Cary had first been employed by Pinkerton’s in 1899 to investigate pilfering in Denver’s Brown Palace Hotel. He performed well, and was hired as a full-time operative.67 Two years later, in a surprisingly swift ascent, he was promoted to assistant superintendent,68 and in 1905, when Fraser moved to San Francisco, Cary took over the Denver office.
On December 4, 1908, McParland called Cary into his office. He first raised the question of several fraudulent expense bills that Cary had submitted—Cary had claimed payment for expenses not incurred and for money owed to other operatives. He also asked about charges that Cary had submitted for train travel that the railroad company had provided for free. Demanding to see Cary’s bankbook, McParland confirmed the information he had received about the deposits. “I asked him how much of this he had done,” McParland reported, “and he said, well, he would admit what I could prove and that was all.”
When Cary refused to comment on a deposit of $594 made when Operative 21 was exposed, McParland “told him I was satisfied that he was loyal to the Agency up to the time he was approached in Sept, 1906 . . . from that time he had been loyal neither to the Agency, nor myself.”
“Well, so far as regards that $594.00 . . . that did not come from the funds of the Western Federation, but it came about in a way which I could never discuss while I am in the Agency,” Cary said.
“Well, you are no longer in the Agency,” McParland replied, “you are discharged and I wish you right now to deliver up to me your keys.”
“What! Am I discharged?” said Cary, shocked. “Won’t you allow me to resign?”
McParland looked coldly through his thick glasses. “No, I do not allow a man to resign who has admitted himself to be a thief and a forger and when conclusive evidence proves him to be a traitor. You are not fit for the company of a dog. A man of your character should be killed and your carcass thrown to the dogs and if I killed you, Mr Cary, in this room this minute I would not consider I would have to ask the forgiveness of God Almighty for doing so.”
Cary handed over his keys, but “swore by high and low that, while he was guilty of everything else of which I had accused him, he was not guilty of giving away secrets to the Western Federation and never received a dollar from them. I told him I would not believe him under oath, or otherwise, that his bank book gave the lie to what he said.” When Cary returned a short while later and asked for his salary for the first four days of the month, McParland “told him I was not surprised at his request because a man who was such an infernal scoundrel as he had admitted himself to be was capable of making such a request as he had made. I told him . . . to get out of my office and never show his face here again.”
CHAPTER 25
THE LONG GOOD-BYE
The failure to convict Haywood, Pettibone, or Adams had little impact on McParland’s public reputation, and he was still deeply admired by many and detested by others. In the short term, he remained not far from the public eye—even his minor cases were mentioned in the press simply because of his participation.
On May 22, 1909, in a tip of the hat to the tactics of the Wild Bunch, five bandits held up the Union Pacific Overland Limited in the outskirts of Omaha.1 Two men already on the train came over the tender and, pointing pistols at the conductor, ordered him to stop in an area known as the Mud Cut, which was hidden by high embankments. Ignoring the passenger compartments, they shot out a window of the mail car, forcing its clerks to open the door. Firing more shots to keep crew and passengers cowed, the robbers took seven mailbags and disappeared. Within hours, local police and county sheriffs, U.S. marshals, postal agents, and “Pinkerton’s shrewdest operatives” were on the case,2 the last of these under the charge of McParland. The major break in what became known as the Mud Cut case, however, was not due to detection but to happenstance—some schoolboys found the guns, hats, and handkerchiefs used as masks by the robbers. Within days, three of the robbers had been arrested, and the other two were caught not long thereafter. All five were convicted and sentenced to prison.
Not all McParland’s cases ended with a guilty verdict. The next year he oversaw a sensational investigation that began after pretty seventeen-year-old Gladys Whitney induced traveling salesman J. D. Diehl to go to the Metropole Hotel in Salt Lake City with her. There she served him a drugged drink and made off with an estimated $10,500 worth of uncut diamonds.3 Superintendent W. I. Willsie of Pinkerton’s Salt Lake City office—which had opened under McParland’s auspices only five months before4—was contacted.
It quickly became apparent that Whitney had an accomplice named Walter Perry, who had disappeared at the same time. Willsie and McParland oversaw a search that led operatives from Idaho to Nevada to California before, in mid-October, the couple was discovered at Hot Springs, Arkansas. The local authorities attempted to make the arrest before the Pinkertons could, and getting wind of the plan, Perry and Whitney skipped south. A week and a half later they were arrested in Huntsville, Texas, but again disappeared after “something happened which no one could fully understand and since then the police of Huntsville have been held under suspicion.”5 Finally, in mid-December, Whitney gave herself up in Memphis, and several days later Perry was taken in Pueblo, Colorado.6
Suspecting the pair had not operated alone, McParland hunted down W. C. Douglas, “said to have a bad record as a confidence man and gambler all over the United States.”7 Douglas admitted during an interrogation in Denver that he had received some of the diamonds and sold them. In March, McParland took him to Salt Lake City, where he testified at the preliminary hearing for Whitney and Perry. Released on bond, Douglas promptly disappeared.8 Without his testimony, and with his wife claiming the couple had never come to their house—for which she was later prosecuted for perjury—Whitney was acquitted on June 9, following which Perry was released.9
McParland had no more success in a concurrent case. On January 2, 1911, the Overland Limited was robbed near Rees, Utah; one porter was killed, another wounded, and two thousand dollars taken from passengers.10 McParland’s investigation identified Bryan O’Hara as “the tall man” in the holdup, and Victor Clore as “the short man.” McParland sent agents to Michigan, where O’Hara was visiting his mother, and they were put under surveillance. Satisfied that these were the culprits, McParland ordered them arrested and returned to Ogden, Utah, for trial. However, the magistrate dismissed the case at a preliminary hearing, leading law enforcement officers to complain bitterly. The press reported, “Evidence of a convincing nature which the Pinkerton detectives led local officers to believe was in their possession, failed to materialize at the preliminary hearing, and after the two men were brought back to Ogden the Pinkerton detectives effaced themselves from the case, . . . leaving all of the responsibility of gathering evidence and prosecuting the case to the local officers.”11
Yet McParland’s reputation remained intact, and was even enhanced in his later years by publications such as a book about famous criminal cases by the captain of the San Francisco police. Six photographs in that volume—of the greatest detectives in history—featured McParland along with Allan and William Pinkerton.12 But the greatest paean to McParland and his career came in 1914, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published The Valley of Fear, a tale based on the Molly Maguires, in which detective Birdy Edwards, going under the name John McMurdo, infiltrates the Scowrers, a violent group that has been
terrorizing the coal fields for years. After bringing down the Scowrers and their leader, Jack McGinty—based on Kehoe—Edwards is forced to flee for his life under another name, and it is only after a mysterious murder in England that Sherlock Holmes discovers that his fellow detective is still alive.13
Virtually no one in America needed to be told that Birdy Edwards was McParland. Yet although the novel portrayed him as a hero, it nevertheless created great ill feeling between the agency’s management and the author. Conan Doyle was reportedly first told the tale of the Molly Maguires by William Pinkerton in the smoking lounge of an ocean liner during a transAtlantic crossing. Fascinated, Conan Doyle spun his own version, which infuriated Pinkerton, because Conan Doyle had not shown the courtesy of asking his permission to use a confidential discussion for his work, even in a fictional account. The two men had previously been on friendly terms, but their relationship thereafter was not particularly warm.14
At the same time, Pinkerton and McParland were promoting their own—and thus the agency’s—public image. In late 1911, The Washington Herald ran a series of seven lengthy articles that, the newspaper claimed, “without adornment . . . relate experiences that dim the most imaginative fiction, including the inside history of the great Molly Maguire case.” Told in theory by Pinkerton and McParland, the stories were, according to the principal, “the last of this class of publications that will ever come from our agency.”15 Three of the articles recounted McParland’s investigations into the Molly Maguires and were subsequently republished in other papers across the country, producing a remarkable amount of free publicity and advertising and reintroducing McParland to a whole new generation of hero worshippers.16
Alternatively, McParland could be downright hostile about publications that did not mesh with his memories or follow his agenda. Referring to an article about Harvey Logan in 1910, he wrote: “[T]he article in the Wide World Magazine referred to is simply a fake written up from extracts gleaned from time to time from newspaper stories to which is added the imagination of the writer.” He pointed out several inaccuracies, but was particularly annoyed that it seemed to be “an advertisement for Mr Swain,” who, “I have concluded [is] the real power behind this article. Swain is now running a Private Detective Agency on his own hook in Spokane, and at no time was he ever employed to effect the arrest of any of the ‘Wild Bunch.’”17
Four years later, McParland was still vehemently criticizing viewpoints that did not conform to his own. “Would say that I have concluded that the Menace is well named,” he wrote to Bangs. “As a publication it is indeed a menace to good citizenship and common decency, but to cover up the falsehoods that it sets forth it states a few facts which are true, but leaves out the main facts in each case.”18
That said, McParland made his own errors in the same letter—confusing his “facts” about his greatest investigation: “One of the reasons why the Ancient Order of Hibernians did not defend themselves or show to the public that they had no connection with the Molly Maguires, was the fact that there was no evidence during the trial of these defendants which in any way connected the Ancient Order of Hibernians with the Molly Maguires. . . . During the first trials . . . Mr Gowen asked me a question, namely: if I had investigated, or knew to my own knowledge as to whether or not the Molly Maguires were a branch of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, or had any affiliation with that Order. My reply was that I had fully investigated that part of the case and was prepared to swear that the Ancient Order of Hibernians had no affiliation, pro or con, with the Molly Maguires.”19 It is a stunning statement from a man who had said repeatedly during the trials, “the Ancient Order of Hibernians, more commonly called the Molly Maguires.”20 Moreover, it was not the only time he “misremembered” what he had so staunchly claimed over and over years before.21
Was he going senile, was he just forgetful, was he lying yet again, or did he have some other agenda? With McParland’s increasing age and subtle makeup, one cannot discount any of those options.
• • •
As much as McParland could be an implacable opponent, he could be an equally generous benefactor, particularly to the Denver Catholic community. “The ball to be given Monday evening, January 3, at Knights of Columbus hall for the benefit of St Vincent’s orphanage, promises to be, as usual, the most brilliant event of the year in Catholic society,” a newspaper stated. “It will be given under the auspices of St Vincent’s Aid society,” it continued, noting that the five-man arrangements committee included McParland, as did the committee in charge of the supper.22 McParland was also noted for donations of money and time to the Cathedral and the Knights of Columbus, including organizing a benefit play for an Italian orphanage.23
McParland also had a tender spot for loyal employees. One of these was Philip McMahon, who had joined the agency’s New York bureau at age fifteen as an office boy and worked his way up to stenographer, and then to Robert Pinkerton’s personal clerk.24 He resigned after ten years due to ill health, but later returned to the Boston and Montreal offices, before being committed to a sanitarium with tuberculosis. In 1915, he sought a job in a healthier environment, and Allan Pinkerton asked McParland to provide him with a position. Despite balking initially, McParland took McMahon under his wing, personally escorted him to a lung specialist and paid his bill, and then gave him a position as a clerk. When McMahon again became ill, McParland spent time with him and his wife, and also reprimanded E. E. Prettyman—Cary’s replacement as Denver superintendent—for working McMahon too hard when he wasn’t healthy.25 He continued to look out for the frail younger man for the rest of his career.
In a letter about McMahon to Allan Pinkerton, McParland revisited an issue that had long annoyed him. “I see that our New York office from time to time spells my name McPartland,” he wrote. “I have called the attention of the New York office and some of our other offices to the fact that the name McPartland was given to me in derision by the Appeal to Reason and I do not take very kindly to having my name spelled in that way . . . and would respectfully request that addressing me as McPartland be discontinued.”26 An embarrassed Allan Pinkerton wrote back that “the error of incorrectly addressing you is mine and entirely unintentional.”27
Such issues paled, however, compared to his growing health concerns. As he approached seventy, McParland’s eyesight became poorer than ever, and his excess weight was even more problematic. In the middle of an exceedingly hot summer in 1916, he was temporarily out of commission following complications due to the extraction of a wisdom tooth. He bled profusely, and the doctors were unable to stop it for five hours.28 He thereafter returned to work too quickly, and as a result his “entire nervous system has sustained a severe shock. He was unable to eat or sleep for several days and nights.” His wife told Prettyman that “his heart is very weak and that his legs do not appear to be able to carry his weight—that today he walked to the barber shop, only a block away, and when he returned he was exhausted.”29
In the following days, Mary McParland continued to express her concerns, but her husband refused to listen. Two days after Prettyman urged her “to prevent his coming to the office until he is stronger and [hopefully] for a week or ten days,”30 he was back. “She realizes that his age makes it impossible for him to recover quickly,” Prettyman reported to Bangs, “but he thinks he is just as strong and well as he was when a young man.”31
Even when he was in the office, McParland could not accomplish as much as he once had. The last case in which he was heavily involved was in March 1914, when Milton Joseph, a Salt Lake City stockbroker, disappeared from Ogden, Utah, with about $54,000 from a stock transaction.32 Joseph was charged with embezzling, and McParland took over the investigation, but despite a nationwide search, the broker could not be found. It was not until 1922—after McParland’s death—that Joseph was finally arrested in Miami, tried, and convicted.33
In September 1916, William Pinkerton raised an uncomfortable s
ubject with his nephew, writing, “McParland has been an old and faithful servant, at all times loyal and trustworthy, but he has become old and, in a way, a little superannuated. I realize we must make the change, still in view of past services I would like to be as liberal with him as possible and would like to have your ideas as to what amount of pension we allow him during his life time. . . . I would not object if you decide to pay him his salary in full. As you know, I am very much attached to the old fellow and it is going to be a painful task to sit down on him, no matter what we do for him.”34
McParland did not want to give up his lifetime’s occupation, but he had slowly become aware that he no longer had the energy and vigor to continue the job full time. The Pinkertons were extremely accommodating, and within a short while he was able to take what was in effect a retirement, although he was given the title of assistant to the general manager, was allowed to maintain an office at the Denver headquarters, and remained on a generous salary of two thousand dollars per year.35 He continued to do enough to feel that he was still a part of the organization, but he gracefully kept out of local decision making and spent more and more time at home with Mary, his beloved bulldogs,36 and part of the time, his niece Kittie.
Unfortunately, the added rest did not help him to regain his health. By early 1918, he was suffering from diabetes and kidney troubles.37 In 1919, he faced new problems with his feet, and in March a seriously ingrown toenail was removed, but the infection it caused was accompanied by the onset of gangrene.38 On April 30, at Mercy Hospital, the big toe on his left foot was amputated, but doctors soon discovered that the gangrene “had set in further and that it is now necessary to amputate the second toe and possibly the foot.”39
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