employ. In-
6 The Pinkerton Labor Spy.
deed, the rules of the Agency require every office to have at least two or three general operatives on the staff at all times, whether there is work for them or not.
The following incident will illustrate the work which a good general operative can perform.
About three years ago the Amalgamated Copper Company was engaged in a battle royal with F. Augustus Heinze over the possession of the Minnie Healey Mine. As the issue of the contest was very doubtful, the Amalgamated Copper Company through Capt. D. Gay Stivers, its general attorney, appealed to the Pinkerton Agency for expert assistance.
The Portland and Seattle offices of the Agency, in whose territory Butte, Montana, is located, did not have a single experienced general operative in their employ at that time. Division Manager James McParland instructed the Denver office to loan one of its general operatives to the Portland office. In compliance with these instructions, Supt. J. C. Fraser, of the Denver Agency, sent general operative J. N. Londoner.
Mr. Londoner proceeded to Butte, registered in the finest hotel in the city, and assumed the role of an Eastern capitalist. As he spent, money lavishly, his story was credited, and in a short time the operative became a familiar and popular figure in the highest mining circles of Butte.
The operative was careful to circulate the story that he vas hostile to the Amalgamated Copper Company, and in an incredibly short time he succeeded in worming himself into the confidence of Mr. Heinze's lieutenants, who thereafter did not hesitate to confide to him the nature of every move contemplated by Mr. Heinze against the Amalgamated Copper Company.