The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-10-23

I'VE do not approve of them. you
you do not approve of your fathers
books?"
"Of what I might call detective liter
ature,' he replied. I'VE believe it
hurts the dignity of the profession. 1t
creates an entirely false impression
concerning 1t and exerts a bad influ-
ence on young minds"
Mr.. Pinkerton passed a strong hand,
on which the handsome emerald
glowed greenly, across his brow.
My fathers name has been used"
he continued, by number of unscru-
pulous men to sell books which were
in every sense unreliable and PERM
cious. The name is. of course. widely
known, and we endeavored to bring
persons who were trading on 1t. to JUS
tice, but on questioning several firms
which sold the so-called Pinkerton
books we found they had purchased the
right to use the name Pinkerton from
some obscure newspaper man in the
South. He may be Pinkerton as he
claims to be, but we never heard Of
him"
Mr.. Pinkerton paused You see.
he went on gravely, I'VE have extended
the business greatly since my fathers
death and it is carried on now on prin-
ciples that am sure he would approve,
but which were not possible in his
time. We are now very large con-
Germ, with offices in the principal Amer
lean cities, and correspondents every
where. We particularly dislike and
avoid anything approaching sensation
alism. We handle no scandals. We
accept no family cases"
Family cases %
Divorces and such matters. When
a divorce case requires detective work
it argues scandalous details We do
not care to lend our name to histories
of that nature. We are practically the
agents in our line OF all the large
banks, mercantile houses and jewelers.
esta Adjustments in America. Our bust
ness Is almost exclusively in that d.
rection. We do the work of three
thousand banks alone"
That, of course, means big bank
robberies2'
'Robberies, forgeries, confidence
games and" Mr.. Pinkerton smiled,
preventing them. / presume you have
heard of the jewelers. Protective AS
ISOLATION? No? Well, that was formed
for the protection of travelling men
travelling for large jewelry houses, you
understand. They used to be the great
est sufferers from hotel and railway
thieves. You see a jewelry drummer
has his fortune, or good bit belonging
to his firm, in his trunk or whatever
baggage he carries-aH the way from
five hundred to twenty-five thousand
dollars worth of stock. The minute he
takes his eye or his hand off his bag
gage he's running a risk. Well! they
used to be robbed right and left. So
all the big jewelry houses entered into
a Protective Association with us. The
firms pay an initial fee and every drum
mer has to belong and pay his fee; then
If he's robbed on the road he imme-
diately notifies our nearest agent and
we act under instructions from that
office, so that there's hand out every
where for that jewelry thief. Luck
went with us from the first We got
the men and the jewelry the first three
cases running. Then of course the
word got round that 1t wasn't safe
lead, and now jewelry drummers
pretty secure When you hear of one
being robbed to-day you can be pretty
sure it's the work of an amateur. Reg
ulars don't want to touch 1t. That's
what I meant when / said we prevented
crime. The success of this work led to
the establishment Of the jewelers. Sc
eurfty Alliance. That is about the
same thing for the protection of jew
elers' safes You see a jewelers. capt.
tai is in his safe. Then there's the
American Bankers Union. They're all
on the same order and all In our hands.
We've been wonderfully successful. We
lose some few cases, but we usually get
both the men and the property"
(which do you want to get most?" 1
asked out Of a desire to know.
eve want the men" replied Mr.. Pin