The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1898-04-07
A NOTED DETECTIVE.

g equally meager and lorn. In the frs
: quarter of this century the head O
one Of the families occupying th,
ramshackle habitation. was a poo
handlOom weaver, who, in his dis
), tress to provide for his family, saw nc
9 recourse during strikes and labor
troubles which deprived him of work
than to enlist as soldier in the Brit
lsh army. After serving for several
years, he returned to Glasgow, luck
lily secured the position of a police
man; IN time became a turnkey in
the old Glasgow Jail; and finally at an
outbreak Of prisoners was SO savagely
set upon that the poor man was dis
abled for life. 1t was the same sad
story of poverty a-d suffering with
this striver's family as is everywhere
wrought among the lowly; but out
of the dolor of these days came soul
OF wondrous bravery and genius in
his final vocation, as we estimate the
achievements Of men.
That one was the turkeys bov,
Allen Pinkerton, who, / believe, from
years of OCCIDENTAL association with
him, and complete knowledge of his
work and motives, to have been the
greatest detective who ever lived, as
well as one of the most noble honest
and generous of men. Nor should
the appalling detective literature of
the day and the just adherence the
world holds for the average criminal
ass"clating detective be allowed to
hide from the just admiration of pIen
SO luminous an example of real great
ness under the conditions and envir-
onment which make many of similar
calling little less than infamous.
Allen Flnkerton was the trusted friend
of many of the greatest men our
country has produced-of Yates, Of
Logan, of Judd, of Washburne. of
Tom Scott, Of the Carrots, of Simon
Cameron, Of Grant, of Salmon p.
Chase, of Mcclellan, of Stager, of
Trumbull, of Oglesby, and Of the i'm
mortal Lincoln. whose life he saved
to nation when that life was almost
It's single salvation-all of whom, as l
can personally attest, regarded him,
his sturdy and pleasant personality.
his to them intimately known person
al achievements, and above al the
| grandeur of his matchless integrity,
With precisely the same degree of real
hero worship as was accorded the
highest of this coterle by the American
people But most of these eminent
figures have been housed in the realm
of silences. They have been enshrin-
ad Fherfe - tstatneS l. and rmonupeeettss
love of, and respect for, this one al
most unrecorded name has not been
told. therefore. standing where his
life and struggles began, no one will
begrudge the brief and true words
here said, while | recall, not his al
most incredible conquests over the
accursed forces allied against human
order and society, but some of the les
ser, humber things in the stormy pre-
lude to his later days and sterner life
activities.
The eccentric and rugged old fell
low never told anything "to order"
but there were repeated opportunities
in my travel and constant association
with him, as when off duty he was the
sunniest of men for delicious cOntden-
ces and "reminiscences; SO that count
less incidents of his real life came in
to my possession, which, L am free to
confess, were at the first opportunity
set down pretty nearly as got them.
SO | came to know of the little things
we all love to know of great men; how
bitterly the family struggled for bare
existence from the time of his birth in
1919; of the rough treatment they all
knew at this old tenament house at
the Gorbels of the fathers struggles
and deadly hurt; the mothers brave
fight for her home; the proud hour
when Neil Murphy, the Glasgow pat
tern-drawer, took the boy Allen as
an apprentice, and the prouder mo
ment when he put the first self earned
pence into his brave mothers hands i;
of his eventual impatience in his
dreary progress apd transfer of his
boundless boyish energies to the Ia
bors of a cooper's apprentice club,
and then, as he told me, came to him
the grandest triumph of his life. when,
on the 26th of December, 1887, The
Coopers of Glasgow ard suburbs
Protective Association" John Glass,
Secretary. admitted him to full mem
bership, and gave him tie only Jour
neymans card" he ever possessed,
which is before me, long, ago gift
from the owner, as | write these words
and then of his fierce toll and struggle
! in Glasgow, and as tramp cooper"
) throughout Scotland and England in
his efforts to take the load from his
sturdy old mother in keeping the low
ly home together.
But, faith" he told me, ''those
were sad times for laboring men in
Great Britain. Wages went down.
Living went up. Strikes came, and
riots, too: and, with a merry twinkle
In his blue gray eyes, Il wasn't on
the side O. the law then We were all
chsrtists-to the government that was
worse than communism in America.
Whenever we showed our heads the
police clubbed us. But England has
since granted far more than what we
fought for in the peoples charter of
1885, Anyhow, l became ali outlaw
with price on my head that way"
The fact is, during Pinkerton's
youth, Hardie. Balm, and others, in
Scotland, and Horne Tooke, in Eng
land, paid the price of their lives for
loving liberty and constitutional free
! dom. As little lad in his mothers
arms he saw Hardie and Balm perish
for their fellow men-the only execu
ton this greatest of criminal taker.
ever witnessed. When, as a result o
these executions, the masses demand
ed universal suffrage. voting by ballot
annual parliaments, and an abolitio.
of the property qualification for mem
' bership in Parliament, the who'll
relentless force of the British Govern
ment was hurled upon those identitie
4 with the Just movement, precisely a