thought and said of the management, and also whether there was any danger of a strike.
The Agency first won national fame through the operations of James McParland, one of their detectives, among the Molly Maguires in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania, many of whom were hanged or sentenced to the penitentiary. This operation which the Agency concluded so successfully for their clients, and which will subsequently receive further attention, paved a truly royal road to wealth and power for the Pinkerton family, a power which now extends across the entire length and breadth of the land.
But it remained for the sons to complete the noble work begun by the father. William A. and Robert A. Pinkerton, the sons and successors of Allan Pinkerton, who died in 1884, were fully equal to the task, and under their able leadership Pinkerton's National Detective Agency has become renowned for something it might have been once upon a time, but is not now, and never can be, namely, the greatest thiefcatching institution in the world.
Under the impenetrable cover of a reputation gained by a skilful and systematic misrepresentation of facts, the Agency meanwhile established and up to the time of the writing of this work has perfected a system of espionage, calumny and persecution of labor of all crafts and classes which is, if possible, even more intolerable and pernicious than the universally detested and infamous Secret Police of Russia.
Most people remember the great wave of excitement which swept the country at the time of the Homestead riots in July, 1892, where several hundred Pinkerton watchmen clashed in deadly conflict with the striking employees of the Carnegie Steel Company, there being a number of persons killed and wounded on both sides. It will also be remembered that Congress took cognizance of these disturbances, and that the
The Pinkerton Labor Spy. 3