“We Never Sleep” -Company slogan of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency
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This is some cool history that I wanted to put out there. The Pinkertons were a major part of the history of the US, and certainly contributed greatly to the security of this nation. These guys were private investigators, but they were also security providers that actually protected President Lincoln. They were also Lincoln’s ‘goto’ guys for intelligence. Not to mention that they also protected stage coaches and wagon trains during the days of the wild west and participated in many significant labor disputes as striker breakers. They are very much a part of American history.
Matter of fact, I look at these guys the same way I look at today’s security contractors in the war. The best visual example of what I am talking about was the modern film version of 3:10 to Yuma, starring Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. Peter Fonda stars in this movie as well, and he plays a crusty old Pinkerton ‘convoy leader’. I call him a convoy leader, because that is what he was doing in this fight scene. Even the Gatling gun mounted on the back of the stage coach reminded me of today’s ‘trunk monkey‘ in a convoy or PSD operation.
The history of the Pinkertons is a reminder to all Americans that security contractors are and will always be a necessary component of the security of this great nation. And the controversies surrounding this industry are nothing new either.
I put up the Homestead Strike story, along with the Anti-Pinkerton Act (APA) story as a reminder of some hard core American history. The Pinkertons were contracted to do some tough strike breaking, and I can only imagine how crazy that must have been for those agents back then. I am sure the Pinkertons were also pretty miffed that they got sucked into the politics of the incident, and eventually paid a price with the APA.
Going from being the President’s personal body guards and intelligence service, to being singled out with a law that made it illegal for the government to contract with the Pinkertons for strike work, must have been a hard pill to swallow. As crappy as that must have been, the Pinkertons drove on and are still in existence today.
I will end this with another quote. President Obama said after his trip to Afghanistan during his campaign trail and obligations as a Senator, that “Blackwater is getting a bad rap”. He said this, because this was the company contracted to protect him at the time. Hmmm. I think the same statement could be said about the entire security contracting industry, both in the past and present. –Matt
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Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln, and Major General
John A. McClernand, 1862, photo by Alexander Gardner.
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The Pinkerton Detective Agency -Operating For 150 Years
From the Legends of America Website
Founded by Allan Pinkerton, a Scottish immigrant in 1850, the Pinkerton Agency quickly became one of the most important crime detection and law enforcement groups in the United States. Born in Scotland on August 25, 1819, Allan Pinkerton worked as a barrel maker before immigrating to the United States in 1842. Settling near Chicago, Illinois, he went to work at Lill’s Brewery as a barrel maker. However, Pinkerton soon determined that working for himself would be more profitable for his family and they moved to a small town called Dundee, some forty miles from Chicago.
Making barrels once again, he quickly gained control of the market due to the superior quality and low prices of his product.
Always thrifty, Pinkerton thought that he could save some money by not paying someone else for poles to make barrel hoops. Before long, he found a small deserted island in the middle of the Fox River and rowed out to cut down a supply of his own. However, when he got to the island he found signs that someone had been there and knowing that counterfeiters had been working in the area, he wondered if the island might be their hideout.
When he returned, he notified the local sheriff of his suspicions and the two teamed up to stake out the island which soon led to the arrest of the counterfeit band. However, they failed to catch the ringleader. Soon, Pinkerton found himself involved in the search for the leader and soon tracked him down, as well.
This accidental involvement in justice led to Pinkerton’s appointment as a deputy sheriff for Kane County and in 1850 he became Chicago’s first police detective. That same year, he, along with Chicago attorney, Edward Rucker, founded, the North-Western Police Agency.
In the meantime, Allan’s brother, Robert, had his formed his own business called “Pinkerton & Co” as early as 1843. Robert’s organization was originally established as a railroad contractor, but somewhere along the line, he began to work as a railroad detective. Through his contacts in the railroad business, Robert had also secured a number of contracts with Wells Fargo to provide guards on stage coaches. Robert’s business grew so rapidly that he hired several men as railroad and stage coach detectives and guards.
When Allan and Rucker’s business dissolved a year after it was formed, Allan joined his brother Robert in his already established company and the name was changed to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. The “new” company provided a variety of detective services, from private military contractors to security guards, but specialized in the capture of counterfeiters and train robbers. Though there were a few other detective agencies at the time, most had unsavory reputations and the Pinkerton Agency was the first to set uniform fees and establish practices which quickly earned respect for the organization.
In 1861, while investigating a railway case, the agency uncovered an assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln, where conspirators intended to kill Lincoln in Baltimore during a stop on his way to his inauguration. However, with Pinkerton’s warning, Lincoln’s itinerary was changed. During the Civil War, President Lincoln hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to organize a “secret service” to obtain military information on the Confederates and sometimes act as Lincoln’s bodyguard. Working diligently, Allan Pinkerton traveled under the pseudonym of “Major E.J. Allen.”
After the war, Allan Pinkerton returned to his duties at the detective agency, which was often hired by the government to perform many of the same duties that are now regularly assigned to the Secret Service, the FBI, and the CIA. The agency also worked for the railroads and overland stage companies, playing an active role in chasing down a number of outlaws including Jesse James, the Reno Brothers, and Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch.
On their three story Chicago building, their logo, a black and white eye, claimed “We Never Sleep.” This was the origin of the term “private eye.”
When Robert Pinkerton died in 1868, Allan assumed full control of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. However, just a year later, in the autumn of 1869, Allan suffered a paralyzing stroke which nearly killed him. Both Robert and Allan’s sons then took on most of the responsibilities of running the business. However, there was rivalry between them, and the agency struggled without leadership. At the same time, the agency began to suffer financially.
Despite the challenges, by the early 1870s, the agency had the world’s largest collection of mug shots and a “criminal database.” During the height of its existence, the Pinkertons had more agents than the standing army of the United States of America, causing the state of Ohio to outlaw the agency, due to the possibility of its being hired out as a “private army” or militia.
Fortunes were to decrease once again for the agency when, in 1871, Chicago suffered the Great Fire which began on the evening of October 7th. Before it burned itself out three days later, the entire business district was destroyed, including the Pinkerton buildings and many of their records. When the fire was finally extinguished, martial law was declared in Chicago and guards from the Pinkerton Detective Agency were hired to prevent looting. Robert’s widow, Alice Isabella Pinkerton, and his dependents were also left homeless. When she approached Allan for assistance, he encouraged them to return to Great Britain. Offering to pay for the journey, Alice and her sons accepted his offer and sailed for Liverpool, leaving the agency entirely in the hands of Allan and his sons.
When Allan Pinkerton passed away in 1884, the agency was taken over by his sons, Robert and William. They soon became involved in the labor unrest of the late 19th century when they were hired by a number of businesses to keep strikers and suspected unionists out of their factories.
However, the rapidly expanding agency soon became known for less admirable activities as they often became the “law” in of themselves. Accused of using heavy handed tactics, such as firebombing Jesse James’ mother’s home and using intimidation against union sympathizers, the public support began to turn away from the agency.
Many labor sympathizers accused the Pinkertons of inciting riots and their reputation continued to suffer. The most notorious example of this was the Homestead Strike of 1892, when Pinkerton agents killed 11 people while enforcing strikebreaking measures. In order to restore order, two brigades of state militia had to be called out.
Continuing their involvement against the labor movement into the 20th century, their reputation was harmed for years in the public consciousness.
However, the agency endured. In 1907, the agency was inherited by the founder’s grandson, Allan Pinkerton II and his great-grandson, Robert II, in 1930. However, when Robert Pinkerton II died in 1967, without a male heir, family direction of the corporation came to an end.
However, Pinkerton’s Inc. has since grown to a $1.5 billion organization that provides a wide range of security services. The company has its U.S. headquarters in Westlake Village, California, and is a subsidiary of the Securitas Group of Stockholm, Sweden, a world leader in the security industry.
Story link here.
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The Anti Pinkerton Act and the Pinkerton Agency
By Marquis Canaday
The renowned Pinkerton National Detective Agency was founded by Allan Pinkerton (August 25, 1819 – July 1, 1884), a noted spy and Scottish Detective. He was a veteran of the American Civil War fighting on the side of the Union Army. He offered his assistance as head of the Union Intelligence Service (now called the U.S Secret Service) in 1861 – 1862 in order to protect the president. He was mainly responsible for smashing to smithereens an assassination plot which was going to take place in Baltimore, Maryland while guarding Abraham Lincoln on the way to his presidential inauguration.
The Pinkerton Agency was very proficient with how it went about its business. The agency was often contracted as private security and also private military contract work for leaders of nations. One example is when the Spanish hired the Pinkerton Agency to end an anti – slavery rebellion in the nation of Cuba during the 1880s. In addition to that, the Pinkerton agents were also hired in as intermediaries to break strikes, such as lumber disagreements which happened in Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York. They were also hired to end railroad disputes during the 1870s.
Sometimes, the Pinkerton Agency would resort to using force when needed in order to disrupt striking workers would use it as their only means to a solution. My case in point, the prominent entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie hired the Pinkerton Agency to put an end to an infamous strike known as the Homestead Strike in 1892. This was one strike of many that the Pinkerton Agency was well experienced in dealing with. The Pinkerton Agents were hired to break the strike and were pulled into an intense shoot – out with the Homestead strikers lasting days. Men died from violent exchanges of gunfire on both sides in what this was called one of the worst striking conflicts ever seen in American labor history.
Ultimately, that would lead to laws being made which would affect the Pinkerton Detective Agency called the Anti Pinkerton Act of 1893 passed by United States Congress to limit the government’s ability to hire strikebreakers, especially members of the Pinkerton firm and anything which was similar to it. Included was the fear that Pinkerton would be capable of overthrowing a state militia, particularly the Ohio militia, because there were more agents employed by Pinkerton than there were Ohio militiamen.
Pinkerton Detective Agency, as it once was called, now exists today as Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations, a division of a Swedish security company.
Link here.
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Homestead Strike 1862 and the Battle on July 6 (wikipedia)
After consultations with Knox, Frick in April 1892 had contracted with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to provide security at the plant. His intent was to open the works with nonunion men on July 6. Knox devised a plan to get the Pinkertons onto the mill property. With the mill ringed by striking workers, the agents would access the plant grounds from the river. Three hundred Pinkerton agents assembled on the Davis Island Dam on the Ohio River about five miles below Pittsburgh at 10:30 p.m. on the night of July 5, 1892. They were given Winchester rifles, placed on two specially-equipped barges and towed upriver.
The strikers were prepared for them. The AA had learned of the Pinkertons as soon as they had left Boston for the embarkation point. The strikers blew the plant whistle at 2:30 a.m., drawing thousands of men, women and children to the plant. The small flotilla of union boats went downriver to meet the barges. Strikers on the steam launch fired a few random shots at the barges, then withdrew—blowing the launch whistle to alert the plant.
Pinkertons attempt to land
The Pinkertons attempted to land under cover of darkness about 4 a.m. A large crowd of families had kept pace with the boats as they were towed by a tug into the town. A few shots were fired at the tug and barges, but no one was injured. The crowd tore down the barbed-wire fence and strikers and their families surged onto the Homestead plant grounds. Some in the crowd threw stones at the barges, but strike leaders shouted for restraint.
The Pinkerton agents attempted to disembark, and shots were fired. Conflicting testimony exists as to which side fired the first shot. According to unnamed and unidentified witnesses,[citation needed] Pinkertons shot first. According to witnesses who gave their names and identities, unionists shot first.
Frederick Heinde, captain of the Pinkertons, and William Foy, a worker, were both wounded. The Pinkerton agents aboard the barges then fired into the crowd, killing two and wounding 11. The crowd responded in kind, killing two and wounding 12. The firefight continued for about 10 minutes.
The strikers then huddled behind the pig and scrap iron in the mill yard, while the Pinkertons cut holes in the side of the barges so they could fire on any who approached. The Pinkerton tug departed with the wounded agents, leaving the barges stranded. The strikers soon set to work building a rampart of steel beams further up the riverbank from which they could fire down on the barges. Hundreds of women continued to crowd on the riverbank between the strikers and the agents, calling on the strikers to ‘kill the Pinkertons’.
The Carnegie Steel Works. Showing the shield used by the strikers when firing the cannon and watching the Pinkerton men.
The strikers continued to sporadically fire on the barges. Union members took potshots at the ships from their rowboats and the steam-powered launch. The burgess of Homestead, John McLuckie, issued a proclamation at 6:00 a.m. asking for townspeople to help defend the peace; more than 5,000 people congregated on the hills overlooking the steelworks. A 20-pounder brass cannon was set up on the shore opposite the steel mill, and an attempt was made to sink the barges. Six miles away in Pittsburgh, thousands of steelworkers gathered in the streets, listening to accounts of the attacks at Homestead; hundreds, many of them armed, began to move toward the town to assist the strikers.
The Pinkertons attempted to disembark again at 8:00 a.m. A striker high up the riverbank fired a shot. The Pinkertons returned fire, and four more strikers were killed (one by shrapnel sent flying when cannon fire hit one of the barges). Many of the Pinkerton agents refused to participate in the firefight any longer; the agents crowded onto the barge farthest from the shore. More experienced agents were barely able to stop the new recruits from abandoning the ships and swimming away. Intermittent gunfire from both sides continued throughout the morning. When the tug attempted to retrieve the barges at 10:50 a.m., gunfire drove it off. More than 300 riflemen positioned themselves on the high ground and kept a steady stream of fire on the barges. Just before noon, a sniper shot dead another Pinkerton agent.
After a few more hours, the strikers attempted to burn the barges. They seized a raft, loaded it with oil-soaked timber and floated it toward the barges. The Pinkertons nearly panicked, and a Pinkerton captain had to threaten to shoot anyone who fled. But the fire burned itself out before it reached the barges. The strikers then loaded a railroad flatcar with drums of oil and set it afire. The flatcar hurtled down the rails toward the mill’s wharf where the barges were docked. But the car stopped at the water’s edge and burned itself out. Dynamite was thrown at the barges, but it only hit the mark once (causing a little damage to one barge). At 2:00 p.m., the workers poured oil onto the river, hoping the oil slick would burn the barges; attempts to light the slick failed.
Calls for state intervention
The AA worked behind the scenes to avoid further bloodshed and defuse the tense situation. At 9:00 a.m., outgoing AA international president William Weihe rushed to the sheriff’s office and asked McCleary to convey a request to Frick to meet. McCleary did so, but Frick refused. He knew that the more chaotic the situation became, the more likely it was that Governor Robert E. Pattison would call out the state militia.
Sheriff McCleary resisted attempts to call for state intervention until 10 a.m. on July 7. In a telegram to Gov. Pattison, he described how his deputies and the Carnegie men had been driven off, and noted that the mob was nearly 5,000-strong. Pattison responded by requiring McCleary to exhaust every effort to restore the peace. McCleary asked again for help at noon, and Pattison responded by asking how many deputies the sheriff had. A third telegram, sent at 3:00 p.m., again elicited a response from the governor exhorting McCleary to raise his own troops.
Burning of barges
At 4:00 p.m., events at the mill quickly began to wind down. More than 5,000 men—most of them armed mill hands from the nearby South Side, Braddock and Duquesne works—arrived at the Homestead plant. Weihe urged the strikers to let the Pinkertons surrender, but he was shouted down. Weihe tried to speak again. But this time, his pleas were drowned out as the strikers bombarded the barges with fireworks left over from the recent Independence Day celebration. Hugh O’Donnell, a heater in the plant and head of the union’s strike committee, then spoke to the crowd. He demanded that each Pinkerton be charged with murder, forced to turn over his arms and then be removed from the town. The crowd shouted their approval.
The Pinkertons, too, wished to surrender. At 5:00 p.m., they raised a white flag and two agents asked to speak with the strikers. O’Donnell guaranteed them safe passage out of town. As the Pinkertons crossed the grounds of the mill, the crowd formed a gauntlet through which the agents passed. Men and women threw sand and stones at the Pinkerton agents, spat on them and beat them. Several Pinkertons were clubbed into unconsciousness. Members of the crowd ransacked the barges, then burned them to the waterline.
As the Pinkertons were marched through town to the Opera House (which served as a temporary jail), the townspeople continued to assault the agents. Two agents were beaten as horrified town officials looked on. The press expressed shock at the treatment of the Pinkerton agents, and the torrent of abuse helped turn media sympathies away from the strikers.
The strike committee met with the town council to discuss the handover of the agents to McCleary. But the real talks were taking place between McCleary and Weihe in McCleary’s office. At 10:15 p.m., the two sides agreed to a transfer process. A special train arrived at 12:30 a.m. on July 7. McCleary, the international AA’s lawyer and several town officials accompanied the Pinkerton agents to Pittsburgh.
But when the Pinkerton agents arrived at their final destination in Pittsburgh, state officials declared that they would not be charged with murder (as per the agreement with the strikers) but rather simply released. The announcement was made with the full concurrence of the AA attorney. A special train whisked the Pinkerton agents out of the city at 10:00 a.m. on July 7.
Arrival of the state militia
On July 7, the strike committee sent a telegram to Gov. Pattison to attempt to persuade him that law and order had been restored in the town. Pattison replied that he had heard differently. Union officials traveled to Harrisburg and met with Pattison on July 9. Their discussions revolved not around law and order, but the safety of the Carnegie plant.
Pattison, however, remained unconvinced by the strikers’ arguments. Although Pattison had ordered the Pennsylvania militia to muster on July 6, he had not formally charged it with doing anything. Pattison’s refusal to act rested largely on his concern that the union controlled the entire city of Homestead and commanded the allegiance of its citizens. Pattison refused to order the town taken by force, for fear a massacre would occur. But once emotions had died down, Pattison felt the need to act. He had been elected with the backing of a Carnegie-supported political machine, and he could no longer refuse to protect Carnegie interests.
The steelworkers resolved to meet the militia with open arms, hoping to establish good relations with the troops. But the militia managed to keep its arrival in the town a secret almost to the last moment. At 9:00 a.m. on July 12, the Pennsylvania state militia arrived at the small Munhall train station near the Homestead mill (rather than the downtown train station as expected). More than 4,000 soldiers surrounded the plant. Within 20 minutes they had displaced the picketers; by 10:00 a.m., company officials were back in their offices. Another 2,000 troops camped on the high ground overlooking the city.
The company quickly brought in strikebreakers and restarted production under the protection of the militia. Despite the presence of AFL pickets in front of several recruitment offices across the nation, Frick easily found employees to work the mill. The company quickly built bunk houses, dining halls and kitchens on the mill grounds to accommodate the strikebreakers. New employees, many of them black, arrived on July 13, and the mill furnaces relit on July 15. When a few workers attempted to storm into the plant to stop the relighting of the furnaces, militiamen fought them off and wounded six with bayonets.
Desperate to find a way to continue the strike, the AA appealed to Whitelaw Reid, the Republican candidate for vice president, on July 16. The AA offered to make no demands or set any preconditions; the union merely asked that Carnegie Steel reopen the negotiations. Reid wrote to Frick, warning him that the strike was hurting the Republican ticket and pleading with him to reopen talks. Frick refused.
Company legal retaliation
Frick, too, needed a way out of the strike. The company could not operate for long with strikebreakers living on the mill grounds, and permanent replacements had to be found.
Legal retaliation against the strikers proved to be the most promising avenue for the company. On July 18, 16 of the strike leaders were charged with conspiracy, riot and murder. Company lawyer Knox drew up the charges on behalf of state authorities. Each man was jailed for one night and forced to post a $10,000 bond. The union retaliated by charging company executives with murder as well. The company men, too, had to post a $10,000 bond, but they were not forced to spend any time in jail. The same day, the town was placed under martial law, further disheartening many of the strikers.
National attention became riveted on Homestead when, on July 23, Alexander Berkman, an anarchist, gained entrance to Frick’s office, shot him twice in the neck and then stabbed him twice with a knife. Berkman was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
The Berkman incident prompted the final collapse of the strike. Hugh O’Donnell, without consulting his colleagues on the strike committee, offered what amounted to unconditional surrender to the company. He then leaked his proposal to the press. When confronted by angry co-workers and surprised reporters, he feigned ignorance—but then told the press he agreed with the plan. O’Donnell was removed as chair of the strike committee. The perceived betrayal by one of their own threw the committee into despair. On August 12, the company announced that 1,700 men were working at the mill and production had resumed at full capacity. Dismayed, the strike committee largely ceased to function.
Additional legal ammunition against the strikers was levied in the fall. Knox had engaged in ex parte communication with Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Paxson. Knox submitted charges to Paxson which accused all 33 members of the strike committee with treason under the state’s Crimes Act of 1860. In Pittsburgh for the court’s fall term, Paxson (after conferring with Knox once more) issued the treason charges himself on August 30. A $500,000 bond was required. Most of the men could not raise the money, and went to jail while awaiting trial; a few simply went into hiding. Legal scholars were outraged by clear abuse of the law, and deeply concerned by Paxson’s apparently biased behavior. State prosecutors, worried by the flimsy nature of the charges, declined to prosecute.
The strike’s conclusion
Support for the strikers evaporated. The AFL refused to call for a boycott of Carnegie products in September 1892. Wholesale crossing of the picket line occurred, first among Eastern European immigrants and then among all workers. The strike had collapsed so much that the state militia pulled out on October 13, ending the 95-day occupation. The AA was nearly bankrupted by the job action. Nearly 1,600 men were receiving a total of $10,000 a week in relief from union coffers. With only 192 out of more than 3,800 strikers in attendance, the Homestead chapter of the AA voted, 101 to 91, to return to work on November 20, 1892.
In the end, only four workers were ever tried on the actual charges filed on July 18. Three AA members were found innocent of all charges. Hugh Dempsey, the leader of the local Knights of Labor District Assembly, was found guilty of conspiring to poison nonunion workers at the plant—despite the state’s star witness recanting his testimony on the stand. Dempsey served a seven-year prison term. In February 1893, Knox and the union agreed to drop the charges filed against one another, and no further prosecutions emerged from the events at Homestead.
The striking AA affiliate in Beaver Falls gave in the same day as the Homestead lodge. The AA affiliate at Union Mills held out until August 14, 1893. But by then the union had only 53 members. The union had been broken; the company had been operating the plant at full capacity for almost a year, since September 1892.
Aftermath
The Homestead strike broke the AA as a force in the American labor movement. Many employers refused to sign contracts with their AA unions while the strike lasted. A deepening in 1889 of the Long Depression led most steel companies to seek wage decreases similar to those imposed at Homestead.
An organizing drive at the Homestead plant in 1896 was crushed by Frick. In May 1899, 300 Homestead workers actually formed an AA lodge, but Frick ordered the Homestead works shut down and the unionization effort collapsed. Carnegie Steel remained nonunion for the next 40 years.
De-unionization efforts throughout the Midwest began against the AA in 1897 when Jones and Laughlin Steel refused to sign a contract. By 1900, not a single steel plant in Pennsylvania remained union. The AA presence in Ohio and Illinois continued for a few more years, but the union continued to collapse. Many lodges disbanded, their members disillusioned. Others were easily broken in short battles. Carnegie Steel’s Mingo Junction, Ohio plant was the last major unionized steel mill in the country. But it, too, successfully withdrew recognition without a fight in 1903.
AA membership sagged to 10,000 in 1894 from its high of over 24,000 in 1891. A year later, it was down to 8,000. A 1901 strike against US Steel collapsed. By 1909, membership in the AA had sunk to 6,300. A nationwide steel strike of 1919 also was unsuccessful.
The AA maintained a rump membership in the steel industry until its takeover by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in 1936. The two organizations officially disbanded and formed the United Steelworkers May 22, 1942.
Link to wiki here.
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Blackwater Got the Gig Securing Obama in Afghanistan
July 25, 2008
Sen. Barack Obama has not been a fan of private police like Blackwater in war zones, and some news outlets even reported that they were spurned for his trip last week to Afghanistan and Iraq. But Whispers confirms that Blackwater did handle the Democratic presidential candidate’s security in Afghanistan and helped out in Iraq. What’s more, Obama was overheard saying: “Blackwater is getting a bad rap.” Since everything appeared to go swimmingly, maybe he will take firms like Blackwater out of his sights, the company’s supporters hope.
Link here.