Chapter V: Preface (5)

The sheriff said he thought there was a lot of boiling water in the jail kitchen, as it was just after dinner. We went to the jail kitchen where we found a large amount of hot water on hand. We secured a tin wash boiler and put about five gallons of boiling water into it. I also obtained a large tin dipper with a long handle. We carried the boiler of water to the door of Watt's cell. I also armed a big, burly deputy sheriff named Clover Smith, with an axe handle, and as Smith was left-handed I placed him at the right hand side of the cell door, while I placed the boiler of hot water on the left side. I then dipped up a dipper full of boiling water (about two quarts) and with the long handle I could reach any part of the cell with the hot water. I threw the first dipper full at Watts, which struck his breast and upper part of his body. As he was lightly clad, and the water struck him squarely, he yelled like a mad lion. I threw two more dippers of scalding water at him in quick succession, each time the water striking him fairly, and after I had thrown the third dipper, he made a lightning-like spring for the open door. As he was obliged to stoop so low that his head almost touched his knees, Smith, whom I had instructed, struck him with the axe handle, on the head, felling him to the floor, unconscious. Thereupon, the sheriff, Smith and myself picked him up and carried him into the courtroom and laid him on a table before the Judge's stand. There were a number of doctors present who applied restoratives and brought him to his senses in a few minutes.

He was scalded slightly in spots on his neck and body, but otherwise uninjured, except a good sized bump on the back of his head where Smith had struck him.

He showed no further signs of obstinacy and was perfectly easy to control and handle thereafter until he was landed safely in the state prison at Allegheny. He pleaded guilty of having made a criminal assault on a school girl of about sixteen years of age. She was returning to her home from school between 4 and 5 o'clock in the evening, her home being on a mountain on the outskirts of Brookville. Watts met her in a lonely spot on the road and committed a violent and criminal assault. The girl knew him by sight. He left her by the wayside in an unconscious condition, from which she partly recovered and managed to reach her home a few hours later. She told her parents what had happened and that Wess Watts was her assailant. Whereupon, the father immediately saddled a horse and rode rapidly to the sheriff's office, and informed that officer of the crime.

William P. Steele was sheriff at the time, and immediately summoned a posse of seventeen men. These men hastily armed themselves with rifles, shotguns, and pistols and, headed by the sheriff, went to the home of the Watts', and surrounded the house, which stood on a country road in the outskirts of Brookville. After the house had been surrounded the sheriff and one of his men went to the front door where they rapped for admission. The door was opened by Wess' mother. The sheriff addressed her as follows: "Mrs. Watts, I have a warrant for Wess' arrest. I am satisfied that he is here, and your house is surrounded. He had better give himself up, peaceably, at once."

Mrs. Watts was about to reply, but before she had time to do so, the large bony hand of her son Wess was ruthlessly placed upon her shoulder and she was pulled back into the house, he taking her place in the doorway. He had a belt about his waist in which could be seen two Colts navy revolvers. He also had a Colts navy in each hand, and as he stepped into the doorway he said, "Mother, you need not lie to shield me. I will take care of myself."

And turning around he addressed the sheriff thus: "Bill, I counted your men as they surrounded the house. There are eighteen of you, and I want to say to you that I have got twenty-four shots right here (referring to the four six-shooters he was carrying). I know all of you fellows and, Bill, you know as well as your men know, that I never miss a mark that I shoot at. Now, I am going to leave this place at once and I will not bother Brookville again, unless you or any of your men attempt to stop me. If you do I will kill every man of you and will still have shots left." Whereupon he extended his hands in front of him so as to brush Sheriff Steele and his assistant to one side, and suddenly sprang forward, ran to the gate in front of the house and then across the road to where there was a high rail fence. He placed one hand on the top rail and vaulted over the fence and disappeared into a patch of laurel brush and timber.

In the meantime the sheriff and his posse, or at least a portion of them who were in sight of Watts, quietly stood and watched the proceedings without raising a gun, or attempting to do so. It was after this escape that Wess and his father, Brooks and the others made their notorious voyage down the Ohio river to Paducah.

In conclusion, I will add that on the morning that I arrested Watts at Shawneetown, I had not the remotest idea of either arresting or attempting to arrest him, as I was alone and in a strange state and had no papers authorizing me to make the arrest, as Sheriff Steele had retained the papers when he became ill at St. Louis. I knew that Watts had never seen me, therefore, he could not possibly know me or my business; but, then the terrible reputation he bore in Pennsylvania would preclude the possibility of almost any sane man attempting to arrest him without what might be considered proper assistance. Knowing that he did not know me, and having an irresistible desire to see this terrible criminal, as I had heard him called, I ventured into his shop merely to get a look at him, believing that I could give him a plausible excuse for my early visit; but when I saw him and that he was entirely unarmed, and he did not really look to be as desperate, or even as powerful a man as he had been described to be to me, I, being armed, instantly concluded I could never expect a more favorable opportunity to arrest him than right then and there, and, as a matter of fact, I found myself carrying out this resolution really before the resolution had been fully formed in my mind. I saw before me the man who was much wanted by the Pennsylvania authorities and believed I could get him then and there, which I did.

SOLVING A TRUNK MYSTERY.

A VERY SLENDER CLUE FASTENS A ROBBERY UPON A BOSOM FRIEND OF THE VICTIM--THE LOOT RECOVERED.

Early in 1872, while I was Chief of Police of Oil City, Pennsylvania, I was sitting in my office in the City Hall one morning, talking to Col. E. A. Kelley, who was at that time City Comptroller. His office adjoined mine. The colonel was a jolly, good-natured gentleman, middle-aged, very portly, scholarly, and of military bearing. He was a graduate of Annapolis Naval Academy, and had spent a portion of his early life in the United States navy. He had traveled a great deal, and was generally well-informed. He had formed a great liking to me, and took an interest in the police department, and especially in the detection of criminals and the capture of them, and loved to talk with me during our leisure moments relative to that portion of my duties as chief of the department.

We were thus engaged in a pleasant conversation, when two young men, who were probably from twenty-five to twenty-eight years of age, entered the office and inquired of the Colonel for the Chief of Police. Colonel Kelley pointed to me saying, "There is the Chief," and arose to leave the office. I knew that there was no cause for his leaving at the moment, so asked him to remain, feeling that he would be interested in the young men's business with me.

The spokesman of the two said to me that his name was William Brewer, and that he was the superintendent of an oil company which was operating a large number of oil wells on the Blood farm, which was located on Oil Creek, Venango County, Pennsylvania, and about six miles north of Oil City. He stated that his home was in the state of Ohio, near Cleveland, where he had bought a small farm for a home for his parents, who were getting old, and who were now living on this farm. He said that he was earning a fairly good salary, and that he had been saving his money so as to make the annual payment on the farm, as he had made the purchase on the installment plan. His next annual payment of seven hundred dollars, including the interest, would be due in about a week from that date. He had been laying his money away in a trunk, which he kept in his room in the boarding-house. He stated that he had nine hundred dollars in bank notes, which he kept in a large, leather wallet, and which he placed in this trunk. He said that he kept the trunk locked, and on that morning he had occasion to unlock his trunk to take out some clothing, and to his dismay discovered that the wallet and its contents were missing. In answer to my question, he stated that he had found the trunk locked, and apparently intact. I believe I only asked him the one question. He did all the talking, clearly and distinctly, had a good face, and his general manner impressed me very much.

His companion, who looked near enough like him to be a brother, which in fact, I at first judged him to be, had nothing to say. After listening attentively to his story, I was silent for a few moments, and finally asked him how long it would take him to go to his boarding-house and bring his trunk to my office, in exactly the same condition in which he had found it. He replied that as the roads were quite bad he thought he could have the trunk in my office in about four hours. I then explained to him that as his boarding-house was outside of my jurisdiction as Chief of Police, that I really would have no right to go there, but that I would be glad to aid him to the best of my ability; to which he replied that he would bring the trunk to my office as requested, and thanked me for my trouble.

The boys then left the office, and I noticed that they had a horse and buggy, in which they departed. While this conversation was going on between myself and Brewer, Col. Kelley was sitting with his arms folded, intently interested, but silent. When they had gone I returned to my office, and sat down, where the colonel was waiting for me. After I had seated myself and lighted a cigar the colonel said to me, "Tom, why did you ask those boys to bring that trunk here to your office?" I unhesitatingly replied, "Colonel, I don't know." Right here I want to assure the reader that my reply was absolutely the truth. I really had no idea at the time that I asked the young fellow to bring his trunk to my office why I did so, other than that I had seen, while in the company of other Chiefs of Police and detectives, that they, as a rule, invariably cast as much mystery as possible about their work when dealing with people outside of their departments. Neither did I feel at liberty to admit to these young men that I felt incapable of solving the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the money. All of which I explained to the colonel. He laughingly shook his head and said, "Tom, you are a detective, sure enough. You are not candid in this explanation that you have given to me, but I beg your pardon, as it is really presumptuous on my part to ask you such questions. However, I will just wait and watch the outcome, which I believe will be all right." I tried to answer the colonel that I had been candid with him, but it was in vain.

In due time, during the afternoon of the same day, the boys returned to my office, carrying the trunk between them. Col. Kelley was on hand, as he had evidently been watching for them and had seen them as they entered my office. I asked him to be seated, and said to Brewer, "I wish that you would place that trunk in this room in as near the same position as it was in your room at the boarding-house."

Brewer said, "Our room is square and nearly the shape of this office, but not so large. There are two windows in the west side of our room. They are about five feet apart." And he placed the trunk against the wall of the office between two windows, which were farther apart than the windows in his room. After he had placed the trunk, I said to him, "Now, I want you to approach the trunk just as you did this morning, when you missed your money, unlock the trunk, and go through the same motions that you did until you discovered the loss."

He approached the trunk, got down on his right knee, unstrapped the trunk, produced a key, unlocked it, turned the lid back against the wall, then removed the tray which covered the portion of the trunk below the lid. This trunk was a cheap one, covered with an imitation of leather, and was comparatively new. The trunk and tray were lined with a delicate blue paper. The tint was of such a color that it would easily soil. The tray had sides and ends which were perhaps two inches deep, and slid down into the lower half of the trunk from the lid, where it rested upon two cleats at either end. It fitted the trunk snugly. There were two straps of light colored tape, which were about an inch wide and were fastened with carpet tacks to the center of each end of the tray. These tapes acted as handles by which the tray could be lifted from the trunk. Brewer had to work for some time to get the tray up out of the trunk, for the reason that one of the tape straps had evidently been recently jerked from its fastenings. As stated before, these tapes had been fastened to the tray by means of four large-sized carpet tacks. When the one strap had been jerked off the tack remained firm in the tray, but the heads of the tacks had been pulled off. This left a sharp point on one of the tacks, which projected from the wood about one-sixteenth of an inch, and like a needle point.

While Brewer was trying to remove the tray I was kneeling down at one end of the trunk and noticed the sharp point on the tack. I also noticed the mark of a thumb, which had been greasy and dirty, and which had been pressed over the tack as the light paper plainly showed.

Meanwhile, the young man whom I supposed was the brother, was standing at the other end of the trunk opposite me, when I happened to look up just as he turned around towards me, with his hands by his side. I noticed that the thumb on his right hand, which was calloused and dirty, had been cut diagonally across, leaving the cut about three-quarters of an inch long, and about a thirty-second of an inch deep. The cut was fresh and was beginning to gape open, although not deep enough to bring blood. The hands of all men employed around oil wells become more or less saturated with oil, and are rough and calloused. Generally they present a dirty and greasy appearance. As the fellow turned and I got a glimpse of the cut in the thumb, I rose from beside the trunk, faced him, and instantly seized his right hand. I carefully examined the cut, then looked at the imprint on the end of the tray, and pointing to the stain, said to him in a sharp, commanding tone, "Where is this man's money?"

He began to cry, and said, "If you will let me go I will get the money."

I asked him where the money was, and he said, "I hid it yesterday under the carpet in the hall at the boarding-house."

Meanwhile, Brewer had turned ashy pale, and burst into tears, exclaiming, "My God, Chief, I am sorry to learn that he, above all other men, has taken my money. He knew all about it. He was the only person who knew that I kept the money where I did. We have been raised together. He was my schoolmate and is now my room-mate. His father and mother live in Ohio and are our nearest neighbors. It would kill them to know that Jim would do a thing like this. His name is Jim Davis."

I said to Davis, "Will you go with Brewer and get that money and turn it over to him, intact?" He promised that he would do so, but he said, "Chief, I cannot get the money from its hiding place unobserved until after the people in the house have gone to bed, tonight."

"That will be all right," said Brewer, "I know Jim will do as he promises. Now, Chief, if you will not arrest him I will gladly pay you anything that you may charge me, but please do not arrest him. I could not appear against him in court, for if I did so it would kill his mother, and probably my mother too."

I replied that I would make no charges for my services, and if he was satisfied it did not matter to me. I said, "You may take charge of him, and if he does not turn the money over to you at once, I will take the matter up and have him punished according to law."

The boys left with the trunk, and the next day Brewer called upon me and told me that Davis had turned all the money over to him, and had then attempted to commit suicide. He had gone to a near-by drug store and purchased a quantity of poison with suicidal intent. Suspecting that Davis had contemplated ending his life, Brewer had detailed a trusted and mutual friend to watch him, unknown to Davis, and who seized him and took the poison away from him before he could use it.

Davis and Brewer were friends afterwards and became inseparable, as they had been before that time. If the parents of either of them ever heard of the occurrence I am not aware of it.

After the boys had left, Col. Kelley, who had taken in the entire proceedings in silence, came to me with moisture in his eyes, and said, "Chief, you are a brick."

THE GLENCOE TRAIN ROBBERY.

ARREST AND CONVICTION OF BILLY LOWE AND GEORGE EBBERLING.--A PIECE OF QUICK WORK.

Glencoe is a small station on the Missouri Pacific Railway, twenty-nine miles west of the city of St. Louis. An east bound train which carried both mail and passengers was boarded on the night of February 21, 1910, by two men, who climbed on the front end of what is known by railroad men as the blind baggage, next to the tender of the engine. These men were unobserved until the train had passed Glencoe station, when they climbed over the top of the tank to the engine and covered the engineer and fireman with drawn revolvers. They were both masked with handkerchiefs tied over the lower portion of their faces, which entirely concealed their features below the eyes. They wore slouch hats and were described by the engineer and fireman and other members of the train crew who saw them--one as a short, stout built man with very black hair; the other as a tall, square-shouldered fellow with light-brown hair, and apparently younger than his stout partner. The stout man was described as having handled and carried his revolver in his left hand, while his right hand was bandaged and appeared to have been injured. He also was reported as having acted as chief and to have given all orders, and to have handled the locomotive as though he was as perfectly familiar with the work as an experienced locomotive engineer. These men compelled the engineer to bring the train to a full stop. They then made the engineer and fireman accompany them back to the rear end of the last mail car, when the engineer was forced to disconnect the two mail cars from the rest of the train. Then the engineer and fireman were marched back to the engine, and after all four men had again entered the cab, the short man took charge of the engine, and pulled the express and two mail cars to a point about three miles east of where the rest of the train had been left with the crew. They stopped at this point on the main track and began rifling the sealed mail pouches in one of the mail cars, continuing this for several minutes, cutting open the sealed pouches and taking therefrom all the registered mail. They finally concluded that they were consuming too much time, as trains were liable to approach from the east. They, therefore, seized a number of large mail pouches filled with registered mail, and, after instructing the engineer and fireman to back the engine to Glencoe and take up the rest of the train again, the men left the railroad on foot, each of them being loaded down with the registered mail pouches, which they had taken from the car. They hid these mail bags in a stack of corn-shucks in a cornfield near the bank of the Meramec River. They had previously stolen a skiff, or rowboat, which they had hidden in a clump of bushes on the bank of the river near the cornfield. They took this rowboat and made their way down the Meramec River a few miles, where they left the boat and made their way overland back to St. Louis.

On the morning of February 22, I happened to be in New York City and upon picking up a morning paper I read the account of the train robbery and the description that had been given by the train crew of the robbers. I immediately telegraphed to the manager of my office in St. Louis to go and tell Mr. Dixon, of St. Louis, Postoffice Inspector in charge of the district of Missouri, that I knew who the train robbers were, and where they could be found, and that I would be in St. Louis the following Saturday and that I would get the guilty men and turn them over to him or to his assistants in case he, Mr. Dixon, and his force had not succeeded in locating and arresting the guilty men before I returned to St. Louis.

On my return the following Saturday I found Mr. Dixon awaiting me. I told him that I was satisfied, from the description of the robbers, that Billy Lowe was the leader in the Glencoe Train Robbery. I told about having arrested Lowe eleven years before for having taken part, with others, in the Leads Junction Train Robbery, which had occurred on the Missouri Pacific Railroad just east and south of Kansas City. He with the others had held up the train and had blown the express car to pieces with dynamite. I also told him that I had finally succeeded in obtaining from Lowe a complete confession as to the part he had taken in the Leads Robbery, and also the names of his associates in the crime.

Some of his other companions were also arrested at the time. Lowe took the witness stand and by his testimony fully substantiated the confession that he had made to me in the presence of John Hayes, who was then Chief of Police of Kansas City, Missouri, and D. F. Harbaugh, one of my men at that time. Lowe afterwards reiterated this confession to the prosecuting attorney of Kansas City. The prosecutor's name I do not now remember.

Lowe having taken the witness stand and having promised the Chief of Police and Prosecuting Attorney and myself that he would thereafter lead an honest life, the prosecuting attorney annulled the proceedings against him and after the trial of his associates Lowe was dismissed. He was a thorough railroad man. He came to St. Louis and obtained employment as a switchman in the yards of the Iron Mountain Railroad, where he met and formed the acquaintance of one George Ebberling, also a switchman. He and Ebberling became fast friends and continued to work for the Iron Mountain for several years, when they left the company's service and went to St. Paul, Minnesota, where they obtained employment in the train service of the Great Northern Railway Company, and finally worked their way to Spokane, Washington.

In the meantime I kept track of them, believing that it would be only a question of time until Lowe would become a train robber again. During the years of 1908 and 1909 a number of trains were held up and robbed in the vicinity of Spokane, and I, knowing that Lowe was there, wrote the officers of the Great Northern Company that I believed that I knew who the guilty parties were and where they could be found. But these officers apparently did not deem the information I had sent them worth answering, as I did not hear from them.

I knew that both Billy Lowe and Ebberling were in St. Louis prior to the Glencoe Train Robbery. They had returned early in January and I immediately had placed a shadow on their movements, and when I read the description of the men who had robbed the train at Glencoe I at once became satisfied that Lowe was the man who had handled the engine. He had visited my office the day preceding the Glencoe affair, and his right hand was bandaged by reason of boils that he had on his wrist just above the hand; and then the description in the New York papers was almost a perfect description of Lowe, and also the description of the tall man given in the paper was that of Ebberling.

As soon as they arrived in St. Louis, Lowe had rented an office room on the upper floor of the Granite Building, on the southwest corner of 4th and Market streets. Lowe furnished his office and had a number of maps and charts of mining lands in Alaska, and offered mining stocks for sale in that country. Ebberling left St. Louis immediately after the Glencoe robbery.

A day or so after the robbery, a country merchant, who resides in a small town near Kansas City, furnished the postoffice inspector with a clue which afterwards proved that I was right in suspecting Lowe and Ebberling of the crime. This merchant owed a St. Louis wholesale house a bill in the neighborhood of $100.00. He had, on the day before the robbery, remitted the amount by registered letter, keeping a memorandum of the size, series and numbers of the bills. When he first heard of the robbery, and knowing that his package was probably a part of the loot, the merchant sent a copy of the memorandum to the postoffice inspector. The inspector had several hundred copies of the memorandum printed and forwarded to the officials of the banks within a radius of five hundred miles of St. Louis. Within twenty-four hours after the distribution of these circulars, one of the bills, a ten-dollar gold certificate, was presented at the receiving teller's window of a Hot Springs National Bank, by one of its lady depositors--the keeper of a rooming house in that city. On being questioned as to where she had obtained the bill, the lady told the teller one of her roomers, Mr. George Ebberling, had given it to her in exchange for a week's room rent.

In the meantime, I having learned that Ebberling had gone to Hot Springs and his address there, notified Inspector Dixon, who immediately sent one of his assistants to Ebberling's lodging place, where he secured an adjoining room to enable him to keep a closer watch on the suspected mail robber. The teller of the bank reported the finding of the bill to Inspector Dixon promptly, and we immediately planned the arrest of Lowe.

Train robber and thief now doing a long sentence for robbing a mail train near St. Louis.]

Train robber and thief who assisted Lowe in many of his robberies, also doing time.]

The following morning accompanied by two of Mr. Dixon's postoffice inspectors, James Smith, Chief of Detectives of St. Louis, and two of his men, and my Assistant Superintendent, J. S. Manning, I went to Lowe's office in the Granite Building, having previously been advised by Mr. Manning that the man under suspicion was in his office. I pointed Lowe out to the city officers, who arrested him promptly. He was locked up and after his arrest, Mr. Dixon telegraphed his inspector at Hot Springs to arrest Ebberling immediately and bring him to St. Louis. After Ebberling had been arrested at Hot Springs, when he was asked how he got possession of the ten-dollar note, before mentioned, he confessed that he had gotten it from Billy Lowe and made a further and full confession as to how he and Lowe had robbed the train at Glencoe.

Lowe did not make a confession, nor did he make any admission as to his connection with the robbery; on the contrary, he strenuously denied everything.

In his confession, Ebberling stated that Jimmy Lowe, a younger brother of Billy's, knew all about the robbery, and would have taken part in it but for the fact that he became intoxicated on the evening the robbery was scheduled to take place and could not make the trip. Ebberling also stated that James Lowe had visited the cache in South St. Louis where the guns and masks had been hidden, and brought them to St. Louis and delivered them to Billy Lowe at his mother's house.

The amount of money secured from the rifled mail pouches, according to Ebberling, was between six and seven hundred dollars, but the pouches which had been "stashed" in the cornfield by the robbers, and afterwards recovered by the officers, contained a great deal more than this amount.

Ebberling and Lowe were tried in the April term of the Federal Court at St. Louis and were convicted--Lowe being sentenced to forty-three years at Leavenworth, United States Penitentiary, and a fine of $3,000.00, or the equivalent of two years in prison. Ebberling was sentenced to eighteen years in Leavenworth Prison, and fined $3,000.00. Jimmy Lowe, who had laid in jail for months and had taken the witness stand for the Government, was released and is now leading an honest life, so far as I know.

After arriving at the penitentiary Ebberling made a further confession in which he stated that he and W. W. Lowe had held up and robbed eleven trains at different points on the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific Railway lines in the vicinity of Spokane, during 1908 and 1909, and in this statement he described so accurately the places at which he and Lowe had hidden certain property they had secured in these robberies that the United States authorities went to the places designated and recovered the property. Lowe and Ebberling have since been indicted for these robberies, proving conclusively that I was right when I wrote the officers of the roads named that I believed I knew who the parties were who had been holding up and robbing their trains.

The Great Northern and the Northern Pacific had offered rewards for the arrest and conviction of the parties who had committed these depredations, which aggregate, I understand, $20,000.00; but, as I have always strictly adhered to a rule that I formed early in my career, never to work for or receive rewards that might be offered for the arrest and conviction of any person, I did not claim the rewards offered by the two railroads. My reason for not accepting rewards is fully explained in another portion of this book.

RUNNING DOWN THE REVOLUTIONISTS.

DIFFICULT PIECE OF DETECTIVE WORK PERFORMED FOR THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT--SENSATIONAL SCENES ATTENDING THE ARREST OF THE LEADERS.

Early in the Twentieth Century a movement, which had for its object the overthrow of the Diaz government in Mexico, crystalized. The revolutionists went about this work very quietly at the beginning, but later became more bold, and finally the majority of the leaders in the movement were driven from that country. Headquarters were first established at Laredo, across the border, but afterwards at El Paso and at Tombstone, Arizona.

As this was a violation of the neutrality laws, at the instance of the Mexican government the El Paso and Tombstone junta were broken up, and its officers disappeared. Within a few months the Mexican government learned that the revolutionists had again gotten together, and were once more flooding that country with inflammable literature. I was employed in 1907 by Enrique C. Creel, at that time Governor of Chihuahua, to locate the new headquarters of the junta, and find out what was going on. I soon went to work on the case, and found that the new headquarters of the revolutionists had been established in St. Louis, in the 900 block on North Channing avenue. Ricardo Flores Magon was the president, Antonio I. Villerreal, Vice-President, and Labardo Rivera, Secretary, of the junta. I also learned that Ricardo Flores Magon was editing and publishing a scurrilous and inflammatory paper in St. Louis under a fictitious name. The paper was supposed to be published monthly, and was called the Mexican Regeneracion. Magon's staff consisted of his brother, Enrique Flores Magon, Antonio I. Villerreal, Labrado Rivera, and a number of lesser lights, among them Munwell Lo Pez, Manuel Sarabia, Tomaso Sarabia, and a number of women, two of whom were sisters of Villerreal.

Villerreal's father, who was a very old man, sold newspapers on the streets of St. Louis for a living. Villerreal's sisters were named Andrea, the elder, and Teresa, the younger.

Antonio de P. Araujo used the following aliases, German Riesco, Alberto M. Ricaurte, Joaquin P. Calvo, Luis F. Carlo, and A. G. Hermandez. Tomaso S. Labrado was a protege, a sort of a "man Friday" for Antonio de P. Araujo. Araujo made his headquarters at Austin, Texas, for quite a while, but finally established his permanent abode at McAlester, Oklahoma, and was a live wire.

Villerreal's sisters lived in a basement with their old father for a while. Their place of residence was East Convent street, St. Louis. It was the basement of a rickety old tenement house, and besides themselves and their father, there was a woman who represented herself to be the aunt of Ricardo Flores Magon, and gave her name as LoPaz. I never heard of her claiming any relationship with Enrique Flores Magon, who was Ricardo Flores Magon's brother. The old mother of Juan Sarabia, and the wife and two children of Labrado Rivera, also lived in the same place. Juan Sarabia was the cousin of Manuel and Tomaso Sarabia, who were brothers. The entire furnishings of this hovel could have been moved in two good wheel barrow loads. The whole outfit was very poor and lived in what appeared to be abject poverty and filth. None of the members of the junta were in any way connected with the first families of Mexico.

To write up the characteristics, ideas, habits and the practices of the members of the St. Louis junta, I have material enough to cover reams of foolscap, much of which would be uninteresting to the American people. I will, therefore, confine myself to the final locating of Magon, Villerreal and Labrado Rivera, the originators and the ringleaders of the conspiracy, their arrest in Los Angeles and their extradition to Tombstone, Arizona, after they had been in jail for nearly two years, during which time they exhausted all legal resources in attempting to avoid extradition to Arizona, where they stood charged with having violated the United States neutrality laws. A large sum of money was raised and contributed by sympathizing Mexicans who resided in and about Los Angeles, as well as by the different labor organizations, to assist them in their defense. The laboring classes in California and throughout the United States sympathized with these so-called revolutionists, Magon and his party, as much as though they had been respectable, honest working people. If the Magons, or any of his followers, mentioned heretofore, ever did a noble or patriotic act in their lives, either in the United States or Mexico, I have never succeeded in learning of the fact, and from the information I obtained I am satisfied that none of them ever attempted to earn a living by honest labor.

I succeeded in locating Magon, Villerreal and Rivera in a cabin in the western part of Los Angeles, where they were entire strangers and their real identity was known to but two people in the city. Magon had made it a rule to never trust his fellow countrymen, or any one else. Many Mexicans in Los Angeles knew Magon was in or near the city, and knew him as the leader of the Mexican rebellion, but did not know him personally, nor would he permit them to know him.

There was a man there by the name of Modeska Diaz, who knew Magon and his party was in the city and visited him in his sanctum, always between midnight and daylight. Magon used this man's name, Modeska Diaz, as the editor of his paper in Los Angeles. There was also a married woman, a Mexican, fairly good looking, thirty-eight or forty years of age, light complexioned and an admirer of Ricardo Flores Magon, and this admiration was reciprocated. She visited him occasionally, always at late hours. She and the man Diaz were the only persons in Los Angeles who were aware of Magon's place of abode. They were also the only people in Los Angeles who knew him personally.

After I had succeeded in locating the cabin where these men were living, I was fortunate in securing rooms just across the street and from my window was able to watch everything that went on in the retreat of the Magon party. I kept them under surveillance, day and night, for a month before making the arrests. They left in the day time and did all their work at night, beginning as soon as it got dark and keeping up their work until daylight.

I soon discovered that Villerreal was absent. He had been arrested by the United States authorities the year before at El Paso, Texas, and placed in jail, where he remained for months, and was finally put in charge of a deputy United States marshal, who started to escort him across the line, as an undesirable citizen, but en route he obtained permission from his guard to enter a telegraph office at El Paso, claiming that he wished to notify his sisters, by telegraph, that he was being deported. He left the officer standing at the front door of the telegraph office and passed through the place and escaped by the rear door, and thereby established a great reputation for himself among the lower classes of his fellow countrymen. The newspapers made a great sensation of the affair, and referred to it as a hair-breadth and miraculous escape from the United States authorities. The facts are, that his escape was from one deputy United States marshal, a half-breed Mexican, who was almost immediately after Villerreal's escape dismissed from the service. It was afterwards rumored around El Paso that the deputy had been bribed. For this reason I decided not to arrest the others until Villerreal appeared on the scene. I felt sure that it would be only a question of time when he would join his master, Magon, in Los Angeles, as it would be necessary for him to make his report to Magon on the progress in the mission that had been assigned to him in Arizona.

Finally, on the night of August 22nd, about midnight, Villerreal was seen to enter the cabin. Satisfying myself as to his identity, I decided to arrest them the following day, August 23rd.

We had discovered that the inmates of the cabin used large coal-oil lamps, and, as I expected Magon and his companions would resist arrest, there was a chance that the lamps might be upset and explode. This would set fire to the place, and thereby destroy papers and documentary proofs, and for this reason I decided to make the arrests in daylight.

At five o'clock on the evening of the 23rd, we surrounded the cabin. I had with me two Los Angeles police officers and two of my own men. We found Villerreal and Magon asleep, and Rivera sitting in a chair, also in slumberland, although he was supposed to be on guard at the back door. Our appearance had been so quietly arranged that the parties were completely taken by surprise and did not have time to reach their arms. They fought hard, however, and continued to struggle all the way from the cabin to the jail, a distance of at least three miles. A wagon happened to pass the place at the time and I pressed it into service, and it kept us busy to keep the prisoners in the wagon, as they struggled and fought the entire distance, and kept up a continual squawking, which reminded one of a flock of wild geese. None of them spoke English, and the only things they could say were that they were being kidnapped and the words "help" and "Liberales."

It was just the time in the evening when people were leaving their places of work and going home, and the streets were thronged with people. We had to go north on Spring street, the principal street of the city. By reason of the continual uproar created by the prisoners it proved to be the most sensational arrest that had ever been made in Los Angeles up to that time.

We landed them safely in the city prison, and without any one sustaining serious injury, except a few teeth knocked out, bruised faces and black eyes. To my great surprise Villerreal, who had been so much lauded for his undaunted courage, was the easiest one of the party to subdue, and seemed to possess the least courage of anyone in the party.

A remarkable feature of this affair was that this party of agitators appealed to the sympathy of the working element. The laboring classes, nearly to a man, were in sympathy with them. I know that none of them had ever been connected with the working man's interests, nor were they laboring men themselves. They were simply agitators and people who were always trying to obtain something for nothing.

Guiterrez de Lara posed as a Mexican novel writer, and claimed to have been admitted to the bar as a lawyer in Mexico, and fled from there, going to Los Angeles, California, where he sought refuge. He obtained a meal ticket by marrying the proprietress of a lodging house, who was an American old enough to be his mother. He was not known to be connected with the revolutionary movement in Mexico, and was entirely unknown to the Magon faction until he broke into the limelight after Magon and his party had been arrested. De Lara was tall, inclined to be slender, had long, black, wavy hair, which he kept carefully parted in the middle, had some education, spoke no English, and was a typical agitator, and opposed to all law, order or government. However, he was not suspected by the people of Los Angeles as having either moral or physical courage.

Manuel Sarabia, one of their number, was a printer by trade. He had gone to Chicago during the printers' strike and took a position with M. A. Donahue, Hammond, Ind. He was a "scab" printer for one whole winter. I had him under surveillance all the time. Magon and the others all knew he was a strike breaker, as he had been in communication with them from time to time.

Rivera, after leaving his wife and children, started west to join Magon. He worked his way from Kansas City by stealing rides on freight trains, and in the same way from there to Denver, Colorado. Here he stayed around the Union depot, playing porter until the regular porters drove him away. He next made his way to Leadville and worked there, also as a "scab" porter. He was continuously on the lookout for detectives, and imagined that every person who looked at him was one, when, as a matter of fact, we knew his whereabouts continuously from the time he left St. Louis until he joined Magon in Los Angeles. In fact, it was by following him that we finally located Magon's place of abode.

Munwell LoPaz was commissioned by Magon as general organizer for the so-called revolutionary army. He went from St. Louis to San Antonio, Texas, where he commenced organizing volunteers for the "army," and had considerable success, until he received orders to go to Monterey, Mexico, for the same purpose. On receiving these orders he secured the services of Tomaso Labrada, and left him in charge of his affairs in San Antonio, while he went to Monterey.

One of our operatives, who was shadowing him, informed me of LoPaz's movements. I was in San Antonio at the time. I arrived in Monterey twelve hours after LoPaz reached there, and the following day I succeeded in capturing him at the postoffice in Monterey. I turned him over to the authorities, and some credentials and other papers found on him caused the authorities to send him immediately to the City of Mexico.

During the four years that I was employed by the Mexican Government to look after the Magon faction, I came in contact with a number of the leading officers of that government, among them President Diaz, Vice-President Corral, and Ambassador to the United States, Enrique C. Creel, and his successor, Senor De La Barra. I found them all gentlemen, good business men, honest, high-minded, and, I believe, thoroughly loyal to the people of Mexico. I found that the people of Mexico seemed to have great confidence in and respect for President Diaz. All the officials were very popular with the exception of Vice-President Corral. He was the most unpopular officer connected with the Mexican government, and I have no doubt that the dislike the people of Mexico bore for him was a great factor in creating the disfavor that finally caused the overthrow of Diaz's administration.

Ricardo Flores Magon was a man of brain, well mannered, inclined to be courteous, and educated and undoubtedly intended for a leader of men, but he was unscrupulous and irresponsible, and was an anarchist at heart.

Enrique Flores Magon, his younger brother, was educated, with a disposition and manners similar to those of his brother, inclined to be timid, verging on cowardice.

Lebrada Rivera was forty years of age, small of stature, light weight, and from his appearance might have been mistaken for a Japanese. He was well educated in Spanish and was at one time connected with the university or school at San Luis Potosi. It was claimed by some of his friends that he had been a professor of this school, but, by his appearance and subsequent actions he was more like a janitor or assistant janitor.

Villerreal was about the medium height, well built and rather good looking, about thirty-odd years of age, had some education, and took great care of a luxurious head of black, kinky hair, and a pretentious mustache, which were, in my opinion, his most valuable assets.

Juan Sarabia was between thirty and thirty-five years of age, and fairly well educated, was quite an orator, thoroughly disloyal to his country and a violent agitator, although he possessed more courage than any of his associates.

Munwell LoPaz, Manuel Sarabia and Tomaso Sarabia, represented themselves as important factors in the revolutionary movement. They pretended to hold official positions of great importance in the junta, when, as a matter of fact, the importance of their positions in the junta would compare favorably with that of a bellboy in a first-class hotel to that of the manager, who was Magon.

Magon, Villerreal and Rivera were finally extradited to Tombstone, Arizona, where they were tried in the United States court, convicted and sentenced to the Arizona state prison at Yuma for a term of eighteen months each for having violated the United States neutrality laws, by having organized an armed body of revolutionists at Douglas, Ariz., from where this expedition was sent to the Cannanea copper mines, in Mexico, about thirty miles from the south border of Arizona, with the intention of exterminating all Americans and other foreigners who were employed in and about the Cannanea mines.

Fortunately for the foreigners around these mines, the Arizona rangers, who were then an active body, pursued this mob of revolutionists, but did not overtake them, until they had reached there and began what might have been a massacre, but for the timely appearance of the Arizona rangers. They put the so-called revolutionists, but who should have been called bandits, to flight, capturing a few of the participants. It should be remembered that the Magons, Villerreal and Rivera, while not taking an active part in this raid, guided their adherents from a long, and what they considered a safe, distance.

In my judgment the penalty for the violation of the neutrality laws of the United States are not as severe as they should be.

Just as soon as these men had served their time out and were released (within two months) they had reorganized and started the rebellion in Mexico, that finally resulted in the overthrow of President Diaz's administration. However, this was not accomplished by Magon or his followers. It was accomplished by parties who were enemies of the Magon faction. They quietly organized and stepped in at the opportune time to reap the benefit of the turmoil, disruption and dissension that had been created by the Magon faction. This faction was headed by Madero, who had financial means and a somewhat better class of followers than Magon.

Madero's victory over the federal army was a comparatively easy one, as the government army had become completely honey-combed with disloyalty. When President Diaz became aware of existing conditions there was nothing left for him to do but leave his country to save his life.

It is to be hoped that the newly formed administration of Madero will bring peace and prosperity to the people of Mexico. However, at the present time, the writer has some doubts as to the fulfillment of this hope.

While the arrest and capture of Ricardo Flores Magon and his associates at Los Angeles, California, on the 23rd of August, 1907, may not interest the American reader very much, I want to say that by reason of the shrewdness of Ricardo Magon and the secrecy that he engendered into his followers, the fact that none of them spoke English, and each and every one of them had many aliases, and did all of their important corresponding in various systems of cipher, and the further fact that the Magon brothers continually kept their Mexican followers from getting to know them personally, and from the secret methods employed by them on all occasions, I consider the final location and capture of these parties, under all of the foregoing circumstances, the most difficult, as well as one of the most important, cases I have ever handled.