The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-03-11
SENATOR WHEELER
HAS THE GOODS
ON ". J. B U R N S
Rival Fink Agency Is
Mentioned
BY CARL HAEssLER

(StaM Correspondent Of The Federated Prsssl
Proof positive that William j.
Burns, Attorney General Daugherty's
chief spy and Trainer against labor
men and radicals, lied to the senate
Teapot Dome committee is expected
to be uncovered here in short order.
Burns had told the COMMITTEES at
Washington that he has had no con-
nection with the private detective
agency that bears his name since be-
coming a government detective.
But documents now in Chicago in
hostile hands show, some of them
over Burns own signature, that he
has been directing the agency, ar
ranging for new business and using
the department of justice, the post
Office department and perhaps the de-
partment Of labor in protecting the
ccpper mining companies of the
southwest against A. F. Of L. and /.
W. w. organization attempts. Even
the BARRIERS union in Arizona drew
his fire. in his double capacity Of
government and private sleuth.
Dick In Tolls.
Senator Wheeler of Montana, who
Is collecting evidence for another
senate committee, is understood to
have this stuff on Burns well in hand.
Burns Is also active in California,
particularly in Los Angeles and in
Pasadena where he interfered with
a talk by Upton Sinclair before bust
ness men about year ago. But he
does not like the layout. His Los
Angeles manager, G. P. Pross, thinks
the merchants and manufacturers
there are ''the cheapest bunch of
skates calling themselves business
men in southern California that l or
any other human has ever come in
contact with" This was because the
Burns rate Of $40 day was cut by
other detective agencies to 81 or So.
How the evidence came into Chi
cago hands Is not known except that
the Burns Los Angeles Office was
robbed of its files some time ago, pre-
sumably by a rival agency, which
sent the material where it might be
used against Burns. The Thiel service
is mentioned in some Of the CORE
spondence.
Just as Washington underlings re-
ferred to President Coolidge as the
principal" in their messages about
him in the Teapot affair, so Burns
private subordinates write of him as
the governor"
d. of ]. Burns & Co.
Over 80 copper mining companies
engaged the Burns agency to spot
union organizers and boosters in Ari-
iona. Burns himself obligingly trans
ferred department of justice agent
frorss Butte. another copper mining
center, to Arizona to cooperate with
his private men and the companies.
At the same time the Burns private
agent had asked the department of
justice to step over to the postofice
and stop mail going to active union
men so that it might be investigated.
A little later the department Of labor
was to be enlisted to deport an Amer
lean active in the metal workers
union who thinks he would be shot
if sent back to his own country. This
ought to be a good chance to get rid
of one red"
These anti-labor revelations show
ing how Burns used government re-
sources to help employers in their
private fight on the unions will prob
ably hurt Hiram Johnson's cam
paign for president. He claims to be
a progressive but he is the man who
urged Attorney General Daugherty
to make Burns chief sleuth and stood
by Burns during the attempt in the
house Of representatives last year to
impeach Daugherty.