ueger, Kaufmann,
Peukert, Haupt, Von Ehrenberg, Friedeman, Weiss, Schmidt, and
Ihring-Mahlow. In addition we find Andre, Andrieux, Pourbaix, Melville,
and scores of other high police officials directing the work of these
agents. In America, McPartland, Schaack, and Orchard--to mention the
most notorious only--have played infamous roles in provoking others, or
in undertaking themselves, to commit outrages. There were and are, of
course, thousands of others besides those mentioned, but these are
historic characters, who planned and executed the most dastardly deeds
in order to discredit the trade-union and socialist movements. The space
here is too limited to go into the historic details of this commerce in
violence. But he who is curious to pursue the study further will find a
list of references at the end of the volume directing him to some of the
sources of information.[46] He will there discover an appalling record
of crime, for, as Thomas Beet points out, hardly a strike occurs where
these special officers are not sent to make trouble. There are sometimes
thousands of them at work, and, if one undertook to go into the various
trials that have arisen as a result of labor disputes, one could prepare
a long list of murders committed by these "hireling assassins."

The pecuniary interest of the detective agencies in provoking crime is
immense. It is obvious enough, if one will but think of it, that these
detective agencies depend for their profit on the existence, the
extension, and the promotion of criminal operations. The more that
people are frightened by the prospect of danger to their property or
menace to their lives, the more they seek the aid of detectives. Nothing
proves so advantageous to detectives as epidemics of strikes and even of
robberies and murders. The heyday of their prosperity comes in that
moment when assaults upon men and property are most frequent. Nothing
would seem to be clearer, then, than that it is to the interest of these
agencies to create alarm, to arouse terror, and, through these means, to
enlarge their patronage. When a trade or profession has not only every
pecuniary incentive to create trouble, but when it is also largely
promoted by notorious criminals and other vicious elements, the amount
of mischief that is certain to result from the combination may well
exceed the powers of imagination.

And it must not be forgotten that this trade has developed into a great
and growing business