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In 1875, a writer of
the time observed, there came from the coal-mining district of
Pennsylvania "an appalling series of tales of murder, of arson, and of
every description of violent crime." Mine company superintendents
and bosses "could all rest assured that their days would not be long in
the land." As John Morse reports in his account of the Molly
Maguire Trials, mining officials "everywhere and at all times were
attacked, beaten, and shot down, by day and by night,...on the public
highways and in their own homes, in solitary places and in the
neighborhood of crowds." Largely through the efforts of one man,
James McParlan, working undercover and gaining the trust of the
secretive organization's leaders, the fearful grip over the anthracite
region was broken, and one Molly after another led to his date with the
gallows....[CONTINUED]
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