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The Story of Civil Liberty in the United States

The Story of Civil Liberty in the United States - Civil Liberty and Labor (1870-1917) - Page 219

dissuaded … joining the strikers … on picket duty. Immediately, he commenced advising violence of almost every description; advised the making of assaults on Vallens' family … to lay for Vallens and maim and disfigure him; he advised clubs, acids, hot irons … even the burning of the plant. In the presence of other strikers he got into a fight with a Mooney and Boland detective, and when apparently getting the worst of it, he called to the strikers for help and got none. In fact, the only violence or attempt at violence shown upon that trial was the pretended fight between two detectives, the one in uniform, the other pretending to be a striker.

These private and mercenary agents have produced “the plant,” “the frame-up,” the “fake confession” and other devices for manufacturing evidence which may convict workers of crime or bring about violence to discredit organized labor. The “labor spy” is essential to many of these achievements, … a detective who joins the union, to secure a knowledge of its plans, and who often attains in the union an office of considerable power. Thus James McParland, first of this profession secured the conviction of the Molly Maguires. He is also credited with securing the “confession” of one Harry Orchard, used in the attempt to convict Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone of murdering the Governor of Idaho. This was picturesque enough to be printed, but the workers declared it was concocted simply to convict the union officials.16 The methods of a “plant” were well revealed in the strike at Lawrence, Mass., 1912.17

Dynamite was discovered in a house on Oak Street, in the Syrian quarter, by the police. Five men and two women were arrested…. Later, dynamite was found in a cobbler shop on Lawrence Street and in a sand-bank…. The cobbler was arrested. The strikers emphatically declared the innocence of those arrested and claimed that the dynamite had been “planted” by some one who wanted to discredit the strikers and make them lose public sympathy…. All cases arising directly from

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