1 The old Confederate States were stripped bare of United States troops, yet they vied in peace and order with New England, these two sections contrasting strangely in their tranquillity with the rest of the country. Moreover it was said that General Schofield was assured that 100,000 men in the South were ready to come at the call of the President to protect the government or any State from insurrection.2 The States in which the troubles occurred or were threatened learned the valuable lesson that their militia must be reorganized. In all but New York it was found defective and in the improvement that was at once begun, the New York Seventh was taken as a model. All that Godkin says about the effectiveness of regulars is true but there are points of superiority in a first-class militia regiment like the Seventh. Made up of men of good physique, character and social standing, owners of property or presumably inheritors of it such a body, when it acquires the discipline of regulars, has behind it, in dealing with an insurrection, an invincible moral force. Moreover, in ordinary times, they are pursuing peaceful occupations and are not withdrawn from the industrial life of the community, while the rank and file of garrisons 1 With the exception of Texas. 2 Dacus, 166. -- 3 "Regulars the mob knows to be a machine - the most terrible of all the machines invented by man, by which the wills of a thousand are wielded, even unto death, by the will of one and which knows nothing of single shots, which feels every blow through its whole mass, and, when it strikes, strikes like the flail of destiny, without remorse, or pity, or misgiving. Killing by militia is apt to arouse a thirst for vengeance, like the killing in a street-fight, while a volley from regulars has the terrors of legal execution. . . . Means of prompt and effectual prevention must be provided, either by an increase of the standing army or some change in the organization of the militia which will improve its discipline and improve its mobility." The Nation, Aug. 2, 1877, 68. of regulars are not, in a time of order and security, a welcome addition to the population of any city. A curious circumstance, which throws some light on the personnel of the Seventh is that during their term of service in New York City they made arrangement for their meals with Delmonico.1 Macaulay wrote that the use of the word, cabal, in 1671, "by a whimsical coincidence" was made "so infamous" that it has never since been employed "except as a term of reproach." Similarly, in reviving a meaning attributed to the word in Philadelphia between 1794 and 1806, "scab" was employed in July 1877 to denote a workman who supplants a striker. The leader of the strike at Allegheny City said that "if the railroad could get scabs to run the trains, all right, let them." 1 The meals were not to cost over $1.25 per day per man. While this in comparison with an à la carte repast at Delmonico's is low, yet good rations could be furnished at that price. During the strike and after the riot in Stark County, Ohio, in 1876, when a number of militia companies were sent thither by Governor Hayes, his Adjutant-General arranged with a hotel in Massillon to furnish three meals per day at a cost of either 50 cents or 60 cents per man. (I think the price was between the two as the result of a compromise, the hotel wanting 60 cents, the AdjutantGeneral holding for 50 cents.) 2 I, chap. ii. 3 New Princeton Rev., July 1886, 54; Lippincott's Magazine, March 1876, 386. CHAPTER II My relation of the occurrences at Reading and Scranton has taken us amongst the population of the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania. No history of the time can be complete without some reference to the Molly Maguires whose activity caused a profound sensation in the coal region and attracted considerable attention from the rest of the country. The field of that most useful of domestic fuels, anthracite coal, embraces an area of 472 square miles 1 all contained in the counties of Dauphin, Northumberland, Columbia, Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne, which had in 1870 a population of 436,437 and produced in 1876 more than twenty million tons of coal. The operations of the Molly Maguires which I shall relate centre in Schuylkill and Carbon counties, north of Reading and south of Scranton. The name and organization of this hide-bound secret order came from Ireland: no one but an Irish Roman Catholic was eligible for membership.3 The authorities differ as to the exact time when the real outrages of the Molly Maguires began and, during the Civil War, there is some confusion between them and 1 The annual report of Pa. Sec. of Internal Affairs, 1876-1877, pt. iii., Industrial Statistics. 2 Geological Survey. In 1876, 20,351,000; in 1877, 22,910,000. In 1880, the population of these counties was 545,911. 3 "The applicant must be an Irishman or the son of an Irishman." Dewees, 97. the "Buckshots" whose main idea was resistance to the draft; but a review of the specific character of their work leaves no doubt that, from 1865 on, the Mollies were MF in full swing. The time and place could hardly have been more favorable. During the war there had been an enormous demand for anthracite coal at high prices and this had caused a large influx of foreigners, Irish, English, Welsh, Scotch and Germans, so that the colliery towns were under their control; and the Irish from their number and aggressiveness were the most important single factor.1 Many of the Mollies were miners and the Fell mode of working the mines lent itself to their peculiar policy. Miners were paid by the cubic yard, by the mine car, or by the ton, and in the driving of entries by the lineal yard. In the assignment of places which was made by the mining boss there were "soft" jobs and hard. If a Molly applied for a soft job and was refused, his anger was aroused and not infrequently in due time the offending boss was murdered. If he got employment, there was constant chance for disagreement in measuring-up the work and in estimation of the quality of the coal mined, for it was the custom to dock the miners for bad coal with too much slate and dirt, and a serious disagreement was apt to be followed by vengeance. Little wonder was it that, as the source of the outrages was well understood, mining bosses refused to employ Irishmen, but this did not insure their safety as they might then be murdered for their refusal. A good Superintendent of any colliery would, in his quality of superior officer, support an efficient mining boss and would thus fall under the ban himself. John T. Morse, Jr., who made a contemporaneous study of the Molly Maguires, wrote in his vivid account of their operations: "The superintendents and 'bosses' in the collieries could all rest assured that their days would not be long in the land. Everywhere and at all times they were attacked, beaten, and shot down, by day and by night; month after month and year after year, on the public highways and in their own homes, in solitary places and in the neighborhood of crowds these doomed men continued to fall in frightful succession beneath the hands of assassins." 1 The murders were not committed in the heat of sudden passion for some fancied wrong: they were the result of a deliberate system. The wronged individual laid his case before a proper body demanding the death, say, of a mining boss and urging his reasons. If they were satisfying, as they usually were, the murder was decreed but the deed was not ordered to be done by the aggrieved person or by any one in his and the victim's neighborhood. Two or more Mollies from a different part of the county or even from the adjoining county were selected to do the killing because, being unknown, they could the more easily escape detection. Refusal to carry out the dictate of the conclave was dangerous and seldom happened, although an arrangement of substitution, if properly supported, was permitted to be made. The meeting generally took place in an upper room of a hotel or saloon and, after the serious business, came the social reunion with deep libations of whiskey. 1 Amer. Law Review, Jan. 1877, 233. |