Tower played a role in the characterization of Irish Catholic Miners as "Molly Maguires", a term first used by Benjamin Bannan of the Pottsville Miner's Journal and now applied to the draft resisters. Tower was also a friend with mine owners, who conflated labor activism with treason, and were able to break up groups organizing in the mines by shipping them out to war, and by smearing them as members of the "Bucks"ots” or Molly Maguires out to subvert the Union. At Tower's suggestion, the mine operators in Cass Township filed affidavits attesting to intimidation by groups of miners to stop work or drive off obnoxious bosses and enforce a closed shop, which is presented as an antiwar conspiracy.