THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES VS. PINKERTON*S NATIONAL DETECTIVE AGENCY.
No one has any just ground for complaint against detectives, public or private, so long as they confine themselves solely to detecting crime and criminals. Labor detectives are SO in name only; but as, in reality, they are merely perjured and treacherous spies, they should not be tolerated in an honest community.
Is it the tool who sells his soul for eighteen dollars a week and expenses, who is most to blame? Or should we not rather hold that person as principally guilty, who persuades him to make this shameful barter?
So we say: We do not blame the labor detective any the less for being a knavish wretch, but we blame the institution all the more which makes him one. And in directing our statements against Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, we sdso refer to all similar institutions.
Volumes could be filled with the charges which the Pinkerton Agency has made against the "Inner Circle" of the Western Federation of Miners. True, we have proven that this infamous lie originated in the brain of Manager James McParland; and we have also proven that there is no more truth in this slanderous accusation than there is in the most impossible tale in the Arabian Nights.
But, we have often wondered, where did Manager McParland get this "Inner Circle" idea? What suggested to his mind even the possibility of* the existence of such a secret murder-hatching committee? And after devoting considerable thought to this somewhat intricate question, we have arrived at a conclusion