THE MISSION OF PINKERTOn's NATIONAL DETECTIVE AGENCY.
The detective is a very interesting personality, both because of the secret nature of his calling and the mystery surrounding his movements. However, stripped of all the glamour which fiction has so skilfully woven around his profession, he becomes another character.
It is commonly believed that it is the meritorious object of the detective to arrest those who commit crime and also to gather evidence that will help the State secure a conviction. But a proper analysis and study of the subject will demonstrate that this impression is not based upon ALL the facts in the case, and has been very profitably exploited by clever private individuals who were quick to take advantage of a public which trusted, and still trusts, them so blindly.
Allan Pinkerton, who in 1850 founded Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, was undoubtedly a very talented detective, and far above the ordinary person in foresight and intelligence. His personal exploits as a detective won fame and reputation for his agency, and shortly after the close of the Civil War, during which he served as Chief of the United States Secret Service, his superior intelligence and intimate knowledge of human nature enabled him to discover an inexhaustible gold mine in man's jealousy and suspicion of his fellow-man.
It was Allan Pinkerton who first drew the attention of employers of labor to the benefit they would derive from having detectives among their employees who would keep the firm postea as to the manner in which their employees performed their work, what the men
2 The Pinkerton Labor Spy.