Considering the increasing turbulence prevailing in the coal country, and the rapid accumulation of crime since the dullness in the mining business had set in, I, at this time, deemed it advisable to visit Philadelphia, and hold a consultation with Mr. Franklin and McParlan, _alias_ McKenna. This was, therefore, accomplished on the 28th of April, 1875. After talking the matter over with Mr. Franklin, and fully exchanging views as to the future, Mr. F. B. Gowen, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, and of the Coal and Iron Company of the same name, was sent for. He was ill at the time, but came promptly, and we held a long and absorbing talk with him in my private parlor. The work of the past two years was passed in review, supported by copies of the reports from the Philadelphia Agency, and much said about the task remaining to be performed, having in sight the early breaking up of the powerful Mollie organization. From all we had heard, the society was now more powerful than ever before. Its numbers were rapidly increasing, its work becoming more desperate. Evidently something must be entered upon that would have the effect of reducing the latter, and ending the bloody deeds of the monsters who were deliberately planning to sacrifice human life and millions of property. Mr. Gowen was disposed to defer to my judgment in the business, knowing that, for many months, I had made a study of the society, its rules and _modus operandi_ in accomplishing its sanguinary purposes. He believed that I could best suggest the plot for the coming campaign, which everything portended was to be a bitter one. “Mr. Gowen,” said I, upon receiving this information, “I wish, in this connection, to ask you a legal question. Should I bring to the State a number of my operatives, and have them sworn in as Coal and Iron Police, under General Pleasants, and if they, in consequence of reports received through detective McParlan, were to go to a certain locality and there make the arrest of persons in the act of committing crimes, would they be compelled subsequently to reveal the source of their knowledge? That is, can such service be performed without at present uncovering McParlan to the Mollie Maguires?” I was anxious that McParlan—otherwise the good Mollie, James McKenna—should remain _incognito_ for as great a length of time as possible, and when no longer useful in this way, to be secretly removed to some safe place, as I was aware of the fact that, without his voluntary consent, his testimony in convicting the Mollies could not be used. I had pledged him my word for that, and was not the man to change, whatever consequences might impend. Mr. Gowen replied: “It will not be actually necessary to disclose our source of information!”