The charge has been made that the Molly Maguires episode was deliberately manufactured by the coal operators with the express purpose of destroying all vestiges of unionism in the area ... There is some evidence to support the charge ... the "crime wave" that appeared in the anthracite fields came after the appearance of the Pinkertons, and ... many of the victims of the crimes were union leaders and ordinary miners. The evidence brought against defendants, supplied by James McParlan, a Pinkerton, and corroborated by men who were granted immunity for their own crimes, was tortuous and contradictory, but the net effect was damning ... The trial temporarily destroyed the last vestiges of labor unionism in the anthracite area. More important, it gave the public the impression ... that miners were by nature criminal in character ...