Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-10-21
Detective Armies.

One of the most dangerous and dis
quieting products Of the harassing strife
between capital and labor going on in
this country is the development and
employment of private detective prop
erty protectors and peace conservators.
No thoughtful citizen can contemplate
the phenomenon without forebodings;
and yet no thoughtful citizen can take
in the full measure and effect of it un-
less he views it from the ranks of those
against whom the ill-timed menace is
directed-the working classes. A few
days ago there was strike among the
laborers in the Chicago packing-houses.
1t was an orderly movement, unat-
tended with violence or threats of vio-
lence But the premises of the pack
lighthouses were Immediately garrison
ed with an army-not United States
troops, nor Illinois militia, nor Cook
county deputy sheritfs and constables,
nor city policemen, but hired Pinkerton
detectives, paid for their services by
the owners Of the packing-houses. A
man has right to defend his property,
certainly; and in emergencies he may
summon assistance. But the rapid
growth and expansion of the detective
standing army, hired at so much day
at headquarters and armed with revolt
vers and Winchester rifles to protect
railroad yards and factory grounds from
possible attacks by discontinued work
men, ID q different and very serious
matter. When the Lake Shore rail-
road strike at Chicago took place a few
months ago, the railroad corporation
actually made to the state of Illinois
the impudent proposition that it would
pay the militia for their services if the
state would send them to protect its
property, and even a worse thing still
has been seen in the coke and mining
districts of Pennsylvania-gar
the premises with armed men, hired
and paid by the corporations, but
sworn into the service of the state as
special constables.
There is no telling what this lawless
and dangerous perversion of the right
of property defence, if allowed, will end
in. The medieval cattle-stealing and
barons were accustom
ed to construct their dwellings with
meats, draw-bridges and bastions, and
in and near them an army of
retainers to defend them against as
saults; and the French kings of hun
bred and fifty years ago were 10 the
habit of hiring trained and mercenary
Swiss guards to defend their palaces
against the possible attacks of their
own oppressed and distrusted subjects. |
It is to DE hoped that we are not about |
TO take lesson from these historical |
of baronial and royal fear of
The people.
The detective business is carried too
ar and it had better be dropped en-
irely unless the persons and corpora
ions who resort to it with such flip
pant alacrity desire to aggravate the
abor disorder and provoke the very
attacks they apprehend. The plain eff
ect of detective property-defenders is
o exasperate, not only a particular
,ody of strikers, but the whole mass of
people. Society may protect
tself against violence and disorder
hrough the regularly constituted and
awful agencies, and il these are not
numerous and strong enough for the
york they may be increased and
but if we permit power
III corporations to keep standing
rmies Of hirelings, paid out of their
wn exchequer, with money taken
'om the people, there is some danger
hat the practice will mature into a
ystem of domination too strong even
,r the people themselves to resist
'ithout revolution.-Repnblicdn.