TRACING TRAIN WRECKERS.
REVIEW OF A CRIME WHICH RANKS WITH THE LOS ANGELES
DYNAMITING CASE FOR HEINOUSNESS—HOW CON-
FESSION WERE OBTAINED.
What many of my friends, who are familiar with the case in all of its details, believe to have been my best piece of real detective work during my long career at the business, was done on what is known as "The Wyandotte Wrecking Case" in 1886. While much has been written about this case, yet all the real facts have never appeared in print. The crime, which was the aftermath of the Knights of Labor strike on the Gould Southwest System that spring, occurred on the early morning of April 26th. Freight train No. 38 on the Missouri Pacific was pulling slowly into Wyandotte, now Kansas City, Kansas, and on reaching a point near the north depot on the banks of the Kaw River, the engine and several cars suddenly left the track, rolling down the embankment and some of them into the river. The fireman, Benjamin F. Horton, and the head brakeman, George Carlisle, who were on the engine, were pinioned beneath the wreckage and were dead when taken out. The engineer, J. H. Fowler, was severely injured, dying within a few months from his injuries. The conductor, A. Spaulding, who was in the cupola of the caboose, was thrown from his seat to the floor and painfully bruised and badly shaken up. The rear brakeman, whose name I do not now remember, was the only one of the crew to escape either death or injury.
The discovery immediately after the wreck of unmistakable evidence that it had been caused by wreckers, and because of the prominence of the men who had lost their lives thereby, caused a great sensation and much indignation. The dead fireman was a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Firemen and the brakeman a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen. All of the newspapers, not only of Kansas City, but of the entire country, denounced the wreckers in no uncertain terms, as did all decent and law-abiding citizens. I will add right here that the facts brought to light at the trial of the men charged with this crime, more than to any other one thing, caused the disintegration or dissolution of the Knights of Labor. In other words, it was the beginning of the end of that once powerful organization. For the benefit of those readers who are not familiar with the history of this order, I will state that it had in 1886 something over a million members. It had a veritable mushroom growth. No class of people were ineligible to membership; all trades and professions, as well as races and tongues, provided they were males over 18 years of age, and had the price of the initiation fee, usually one dollar, could join. The color line was not even drawn, as it is in most secret societies. Of course, some good honest men were on its roster rolls, but it was dominated by a brazen gang of mountebanks, agitators and crooked politicians and others seeking power and prominence. To gain a point the officers of the organization would stop at nothing. If coercion failed in its purpose, the boycott and more harsher methods were substituted. In short, a veritable reign of terror existed throughout the Middle West. To illustrate their methods better, I will state that if a merchant or other person in business, through a slip of the tongue or otherwise, made even the slightest remark reflecting on the order, or even one of its leaders, he was a marked man thereafter, his business ruined, and he, of course, driven from the country. Business men were often subjected to this treatment—and worse—for simply refusing to join the order. In many of the Western cities it was impossible for a man who did not "jine" the order to be elected to office, however deserving or competent he might be.
Scene at the Wyandotte wreck, a crime only paralleled by the Los
Angeles dynamiters.
At the time the wreck occurred, I was very busy in St. Louis looking after cases that had grown out of the great strike on the Gould System, of which I was Chief Special Agent. The strike, which had been over but about a month, was a long, bitter struggle, entailing much work on my department, and had resulted in a victory for the company. I could not get to Wyandotte to investigate the wreck until nearly a month had elapsed. In the meantime the railroad company had offered $2,500 reward for the arrest and conviction of the guilty parties, and $1,000 for any information which would lead up to such conviction. After looking the ground over, I became satisfied that this diabolical crime had been committed by some member, or members, of the Knights of Labor, either out of revenge or to harrass the company and divert traffic from the road. After satisfying myself on this point, I returned to St. Louis and requested Vice-President Hoxie to withdraw the offer of a reward for the conviction of the criminals, as I was then, and am now, opposed to offering rewards in such cases. Mr. Hoxie was in bed sick at the time, but he issued the order as requested, and I promised him that I would personally go to work on the case. A few days later, while I was engaged in laying plans for working out a solution of the case, a bold attempt was made to wreck another train near Tampoo, a short distance north of where the first wreck had occurred. A couple of guards were on this train and these men and some of the crew, who saw the wreckers, gave chase and succeeded in arresting one of them. This man proved to be O. J. Lloyd, a member of the Executive Board of the Knights of Labor, in charge of the late strike. Prior to the strike he had been employed by the Missouri Pacific Company as a switchman and had been a very active member of the committee.
About this time my department was badly in need of a thoroughly trained criminal lawyer to prosecute the cases growing out of the big strike, and at my earnest solicitation, Marshall F. McDonald, former Circuit Attorney of St. Louis, one of the best criminal lawyers of his time, was retained by the company for the purposes named, and given authority by Vice-President Hoxie to employ all other counsel needed. Mr. McDonald accordingly employed Ex-Judge Laughlin and Judge R. S. McDonald to assist him. A few days later, these three lawyers and myself met the Hon. Bailie P. Waggoner, General Attorney for the State of Kansas for the company, by appointment at Kansas City. We visited the scene of the crime. As we were on the bank overlooking the place where the engine and cars had left the rails, I told the lawyers that I was satisfied that Lloyd, the man in jail for the Tampoo affair, was also implicated in the Wyandotte crime, and that I proposed to get a confession from him.
"How are you going to go about it, Tom?" asked Judge McDonald.