Word: gowen
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Agent Provocateur. The man who broke the Molly Maguires was Franklin Benjamin Gowen, president of the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co., whose ancestors had come from Ireland's Protestant north; and he used another Irishman to penetrate the Mollies. His choice for the job was James McParlan, a gifted, gabby little Pinkerton detective who was as ready with his fists as with his wits...
...denounced by their Roman Catholic priests, shunned by decent citizens, swamped in a new wave of supposedly more docile immigrants from eastern Europe. The trials were swift and of doubtful legality. No Roman Catholic was allowed on a jury, and the prosecution was headed by Mine Owner Franklin Gowen himself. Several of the condemned men were almost certainly innocent; one was hanged while the courier bearing a reprieve from the Governor hammered on the prison door...