son of insane parents." (I knew his mother, an excellent old lady, as sane as I am.) On every stage of this journey Lindsey was accompanied by his young wife, to whom he had been married only a few months; nevertheless, it was plainly stated in the Colorado papers, and generally believed by Denver "society," that the three strikers' wives constituted part of a harem. If only you could have seen them—three pathetic, bedraggled poor women, two of them in deep mourning! And when Mrs. Lindsey, owing to the strain of the journey, suffered a miscarriage, and had to be carried from the train to a hospital in Chicago, several Colorado newspapers reported that this was owing to mistreatment by her husband! At a meeting of the Denver Real Estate Exchange, it was proposed to appoint a committee to "spit on Lindsey's shoes" when he returned; and this was the kind of news that was thought worth forwarding out of Denver!
I write to Judge Lindsey, so that you may have these incredible incidents upon his authority, not upon mine. He confirms every statement I have made. He tells of a woman detective, employed by the Scandal-Bureau—
The Lewis woman circulated the story that my wife came out of
a house of prostitution, and that her mother was a "madame"; and
the corporations paid the woman for it. There is no doubt about this,
and it can be proved.
Judge Lindsey goes on to narrate the extraordinary circumstances
under which these proofs became available. One
of the members of the State legislature, a man named Howland,
was caught receiving a bribe in the legislature. He had
introduced a "strike bill" against the Tobacco Trust, and a
messenger-boy had handed him an envelope of money, said
to be from an agent of the Tobacco Trust. In order to save
this man Howland, the head of the Scandal-Bureau, Dr. Mary
Elizabeth Bates, came forward and testified before the legislative
committee that she had sent this money to Howland in
order to pay detectives to "get Lindsey." Says Lindsey in
his letter to me:
Mind you, she testified to her part in the infamy, and was backed
up by some of our rich citizens, feeling that she was quite safe from
prosecution—as she was. But Howland was found guilty of perjury
in this case, having sworn that the money came for an entirely different
purpose. Because of the general belief of the legislators that the
whole thing was part of a frame-up against me, and the fear that it
