Omaha daily bee., 1898-06-10
TIE PLNKERTON CuTTLEFISH.

THE PTNKERTON CUTTLEFISH.
conspiracy of Chief Gallagher, backed
by the Infamous police board, to play
into the hands of thieves and crooks has
driven the gang into desperate straits.
Instead of meeting the charges of col
fusion with the criminal classes ~squarely
the police board fence tries to play cut
fetish by raising n howl about Pinker-
ton merccnaries. In its anxiety to dis
tract public attention from the outrage
perpetrated by the chief in causing his
police to arrest the detectives employed
by the exposition to spot pickpockets
and thieves, it even goes so far rs to
charge The Bee with deliberately sup
pressing an Associated Press dispatch
from Washington declaring that the
secret service of the government had not
been farmed out to the Pinkerton
agency, but vas being carried on by the
regular government force. The shame
less mendacity of the fence is conclu-
sively proved by the fact that the dis
patch about the Pinkerton detectives
which it says was purposely suppressed
appeared in full in Il conspicuous posi-
tion on the second page of The Bee of
the same morning in which it appeared
in the World-Hcrald.
The howl about Pinkcrton ~mercenaries
will deceive nobody. In the first place
it can be proved by at least three unim-
peachable witnesses that Chief Gal
lagher expressed his willingness to have
PinkertOn detectives employed by the
exposition management and that he
agreed to have the local.police co-opela e
with them. The only condition he tried
to impose upon the exposition manage
ment was that Martin White and his
detectives should. be barred u of the
competition for detective service.
But even if Chief Gallagher had from
the first opposed the employment of the
PinkertOn agency detectives, his course
can find no valid justification. The pre-
tense that the law prohibiting the i'm,
portation of armed mcrcenarieS was in
tended to prevent the employment of de-
tectiveS from other states to ferret out
criminals is absolutely baSeleSS. The
law cited has reference only to the i'm
portation of bands of armed men for the
purpose of overawing and subduing
Workingmen engaged in labor contro-
vcrSies. 1t was placed on the statute
books of Nebraska after much agitation
in its favor by The Bee. 1t was recon-
mended by Governor Thayer In his mes
sage and enacted by a republican legis-
lature. 1t is II thing to bring a hire
ling army to terrorize citizens and an
other thing to employ expert detectives
to protect citizens of all classes from
raids by professional thieves gathered
from all over the country.
The working men and women of
Omaha have nothing in common with
but on the contrary are as much con-
cerned in being safe in person and prop
erty night or day, at home or
at the exposition, Is the wealth
lest and most influential. No
amount of ink shed by the cuttletish
fence will deceive the people into con
dOning the reign of outlawry which has
been forced upon Omaha by the Herd
man gang. The town would scarcely be
habitable today by decent people were
it not for the searchlight of publicity
kept focused by The Bee upon the
rogues and rascals who have sought to
convert the attractions offered by the
exposition into an excuse for police-pro-
tected outlawry.
All the cuttletishing and all the
howl about Pinkerton will not
obscure the glaring flood of light which
The Bee will continue to throw into the
dark corners and crooked ways of the
police officials who are banded together
for blackmail and plumber.