The Titanic Plan (39 page)

Following that page was a series of reports detailing Mick’s experiences in Ireland. Though the language was dry and matter of fact, the reports read like adventure stories. Mick had allied himself with rebels that were conspiring to fight England for Irish home rule. Because his activities put him in danger, Mick sent his pregnant wife to America in 1906. One of the reports noted, “Shaughnessy leads his life recklessly, drinking and womanizing as he pursues his radical activities.”

Mick was arrested by the Irish Provincial police in a room above Davy Byrne’s public house in Dublin. He was found next to a printing press and a stack of pamphlets promoting Irish revolution. He attempted to escape by breaking a window and was shot in the shoulder. Ireland deported Shaughnessy back to the United States in March of 1907. The Justice Department official who wrote the reports signed it with the same tight handwriting:
Agent Stanley Finch
.

Archie peered at the ticking clock on Finch’s desk: 4:13. He was exhausted, yet compelled by Mick’s story. He pulled out the last folder. In the first report, Finch wrote of visiting Mick in an Ellis Island detention cell. “The detainee was offered the Justice Department’s conditions for non-prosecution. It was made clear to him that if he did not cooperate, he would be remanded for trial. The detainee said that he did not break any laws of the United States then stated, ‘You bloody go to hell.’”

After several more contentious encounters in the detention cell, Finch tried a new tactic. “I showed the detainee documents written by radicals and subversives that advocated a violent revolution in America. I pointed out that he could save countless lives by working with us.”

Mick refused at first, and then had a sudden change of heart. “Shaughnessy indicated that he was willing to cooperate with the Justice Department’s request if certain requisites for his collaboration were met. His terms included autonomy within the parameters of the Justice Department’s assignments, a specified time limit in which he would carry out his assignments, resettlement after this time limit, and a pension for his wife and child should he be disabled or killed while carrying out his assignments.”

According to Finch’s report, Mick Shaughnessy went to work as a spy to “infiltrate the anarchist circles of the United States” on October 27, 1907. His reputation as an Irish revolutionary allowed him to gain entrance into the inner world of the radical movement. He began by going to meetings in Greenwich Village and was immediately accepted as a compatriot. Mick submitted short reports to Finch, which were included in the file. “There appears to be no coherent plan within the movement for the overthrow of the government,” Mick wrote in an early report. “Each separate organization within the radical circles has its own agenda with their own schemes and strategies, ranging from peaceful political protest to violent confrontation. Not only is there no coordination between the organizations, but there is continual dissension, jealousies and animosities that render a significant threat against the U.S. government minimal.”

Finch had scribbled in the margins,
Could this be misleading?
noting his suspicion of Mick’s information.

Captivated, Archie turned to the next report and was shaken when he saw a new person profiled in the pages: “Captain Archibald Butt, the Chief Military Aide to the President, is Shaughnessy’s former commanding officer. This office believes that Butt could gain Shaughnessy’s trust and would be an ideal person to observe and convey Shaughnessy’s activities back to us. Butt is a loyal and rather innocuous functionary.”

Archie grew distressed as he continued to read. The report gave a detailed account his life – his upbringing, his parents, his close relationship with his mother, his life in the Army, his friendship with Mick and his service in the White House with Roosevelt and Taft. It even recounted every type of wild rumor and gossip about him. Archie read a rumor that had him as an agent of the Freemasons who wanted to subvert the worship of the Christian God in America; another bit of hearsay reported that Archie was unmarried because he was actually a homosexual.

Archie began shaking with anger, trying to make some sense of it all when he heard a sharp rap. He looked up and saw the backlit silhouette of a short man pointing a revolver at him from the doorway. “What the hell are you doing, Butt?” Stanley Finch spat, his voice full of contempt. Stunned, Archie couldn’t utter a word. “The guard called me after you’d been shooting guns off in my office,” Finch continued. “You’ve just thrown your career away, you know that? You’re done.”

“
I don’t think so,” Archie said hoarsely, finding his voice.

“
I’m seeing a list of criminal charges right in front of me. Forcible entry of federal property, theft of confidential documents. You’re looking at years of prison.”

“
I think you may be speaking about yourself,” Archie said, his speech growing steadier.

“
What are you talking about?” Finch snorted.

“
The files in your cabinet. You’re spying on Americans.”

“
Don’t be ridiculous. They’re just standard background portfolios. We’re fulfilling the mandate of this agency.”

“
Is that so?” Archie said aggressively. “Standard background portfolios are not filled with every sort of personal information.”

Finch’s lips moved into a wry smile. “My agency does a good job. That’s why the files are confidential and locked in my office. It is part of this agency’s responsibilities.”

“
To invade people’s privacy? I believe that right is protected in the Constitution, sir.”

“
This agency’s mandate is to uphold the Constitution and protect America from its enemies. And we have a right to do whatever is necessary to carry out the agency’s mandate. This office is the last line of defense of those who would destroy our republic,” Finch said, his hand gripping his gun tighter. “And as you have illegally broken into this office and shot your way into these classified files, that makes you a criminal and an enemy of the republic.”

“
You’re crazy!” Archie blurted.

Finch bit his lower lip, trying hard to restrain himself. “I’m perfectly in my rights to put an end to you right now. Who’s to say you didn’t try firing at me?”

Archie saw in Finch’s agitated face the real possibility that he could pull the trigger. “You wouldn’t do that,” Archie said calmly. “It would be a mess to kill me in your office. There would be publicity. An investigation. In fact, even arresting me would be messy. I would reveal everything about the files. My career would be finished, you’re right about that. But so would yours. Everything you worked so hard to create would be gone in a sensational, scandalous mess.”

Finch cast his eyes down and chewed on Archie’s words. He knew Archie was right and he wasn’t happy about it. “Okay, Butt,” Finch grumbled. “You’ll just have to resign and go quietly into the night.”

“
I don’t think so. I have the President’s ear.”

“
You don’t know whose ear I have,” Finch trumpeted with chilly bravado. The two stared at each other like gunslingers from the old west – Finch clutching his pistol; Archie trying to remain calm in the face of the gun barrel. “I’d get rid of all these files if I were you,” Archie said.

“
But you’re not me,” Finch growled. “And we both must be patriots. I won’t say a word about what happened here tonight and neither will you. Now get the hell out of here.”

Archie continued to stare down Finch for a long, defiant moment before slowly turning to leave.

Opening the heavy door of the building and stepping outside, Archie was surprised by the freezing morning that greeted him. He entered the building in darkness and expected darkness when he exited. Instead, he was met by the brightening light of the rising winter sun. He felt weary and took a gulp of the bracing air. Gazing across the city’s horizon, he was struck by the sight of the Washington Monument. Sunlight shimmered along one side of the white obelisk so that a long morning shadow was cast over the city. It struck Archie that the towering monolith was like the gleaming blade of a giant sundial cutting into the boundless sky. The monument that Archie always felt was oddly useless, now seemed to gain a purpose: it was a reminder to the powerful men who inhabited the city below that they were strutting across this seeming momentous stage for only a brief instant of time and that their importance would evaporate as quickly as the shadow the monument cast.

CHAPTER 42

A
s 1911 drew to an end, the labor movement suffered a significant setback. In Los Angeles, the McNamara brothers, who were held up as brave (and innocent) warriors in the labor struggle, suddenly plead guilty to the bombing of the
L.A. Times
and the deaths of 14
Times
workers. Reaction to the plea reversal was strong and swift. Newspaper editorials proclaimed the labor movement dangerous to the country. Labor leaders were portrayed as unrepentant radicals whose real goal was the violent overthrow of the government.

In Big Bill Haywood’s case, it was true. His goal was a workers uprising, violent or not, he really didn’t care as long as it was successful. As public sentiment turned away from the worker’s movement, Haywood became even more obsessed with igniting the fire of revolution any way he could. Barnstorming the country, Haywood delivered one incendiary speech after another, speeches that denounced the capitalist system and offered a militant socialist vision as the only alternative. He stopped short of publicly calling for revolution in the streets, knowing that would get him a quick trip to prison.

Haywood spoke 5 times a week, 52 weeks a year, to any size crowd that would listen. He spoke to coal miners and shoe cobblers, textile laborers and farmers, steelworkers and printers, preaching the gospel of radical change. All during his travels Haywood was on the lookout for another event that would swing the country’s sympathies back behind working men and women.

He found that event when the Massachusetts State legislature passed a mild labor reform bill that cut the work week for women and children from fifty-six hours to fifty-four hours. The mill owners were infuriated. “Government interference!” they protested and looked for ways to retaliate against the new law.

On Friday, January 12 – payday – the women workers at the
Everett Cotton Mills
saw their checks and realized the mill owners cut their wages. Shouts of “short pay” spread through the mill. The women stopped their looms and walked out. It was a spontaneous uprising. They met later that day and realized they had no idea how to organize an effective strike, so they sent a telegram to the only labor leader they ever heard of, Big Bill Haywood, and asked for help and guidance. Haywood’s organization, the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
, quickly dispatched organizers to Lawrence, Massachusetts, the center of the budding protest. The
IWW
organizers were greeted by a simple message from Lawrence’s mayor: “We will break this strike.” Within a day, Eugene Foss, the governor of Massachusetts – who was also a mill owner – sent five hundred state militiamen to Lawrence to “keep order.”

On Monday, January 15, one thousand men, women and children set up picket lines at Lawrence’s mills. They were met by the state militia who opened fire hoses and sprayed freezing water at the protesters. The strikers then threw snowballs at the guardsmen who, in turned, charged the crowd with rifles that had fixed bayonets. Thirty-four strikers were arrested. They were tried that evening by a judge. Three were sentenced to two years in prison; the rest got a year’s sentence. The judge said, “The only way we can teach them is to deal out the severest sentences.”

By the end of the first week, fourteen thousand mill workers were on the picket line. The mill owners, inspired by the bombing of the
L.A. Times
, hatched a plot to dynamite one of the mills and blame it on the strikers. They anonymously tipped off the police, who discovered an unexploded bundle of dynamite. When the initial story got out, there was nationwide outrage. A
New York Times
editorial stated, “The strikers display a fiendish lack of humanity which ought to place them beyond the comfort of religion until they have repented.”

However, the mill owners’ plot was exposed by a foolish error – the dynamite bundle was wrapped in a magazine cover addressed to a political figure tied to the owners. Newspapers began retracting their harsh words and shifted their sympathy to the strikers. Each side dug in and became more militant. On the third week of the strike, violence broke out between police and the demonstrators. A young woman striker, Anna LoPizzo, was shot dead. A young Syrian boy, John Ramy, was stabbed by a bayonet and died later that night. The Governor declared marshal law. The
IWW
organizers were arrested for incitement that led to the killings, even though they were three miles away.