Historian and McParland biographer Beau Riffenburgh wrote that McParland's supposed connection with McLaughlin was the invention of sensational journalist George Shoaf and two colleagues at the Kansas socialist publication "Appeal to Reason". Shoaf hated McParland passionately for working undercover in the employ of rich capitalists, and launched an "all-out smear campaign" connecting McParland with McLaughlin. Riffenburgh noted that following McLaughlin's trial, two witnesses were convicted of perjury and McLaughlin's lawyer was disbarred, but the report of the three-member commission appointed by the court to investigate the perjury contained no mention of McParland. Riffenburgh concluded: