Pinkertons Agents - Good or Bad?

[Pukin Dog]

Please give reasons if you have positive or negative feelings about Pinkerton Agents. 

[Silver Creek Slim]

Are ya tryin' ta stir the pot? 

Slim

[Four-Eyed Buck]

Hey, My wife was a Pinkerton! No, really. She worked for them in their security division back in the late '80's-early '90's. By the way, Pinkerton's is gone now. Bought out by Burns, I believe.............Buck

[Second Creek Sam]

Pinkertons were armed company thugs, who killed unarmed men and women much like the hired gunmen working for the large western cattle ranchers who shot down innocent homesteaders. ( Ever see Shane?)

"...The world renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency, founded by Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton in 1850, pioneered both in providing armed guards during strikes, to protect company property and strikebreakers, and in supplying labor spies. During the quarter century from 1866, when Pinkerton agents served as guards in a Braidwood, Illinois, miners' strike, through the 1892 strike against Carnegie Steel's mammoth plant at Homestead, Pennsylvania, Pinkerton guards were involved in about seventy labor disputes.

Pinkerton had few scruples about whom it hired as guards, nor did the multitude of detective agencies that later emulated it. It recruited them by placing newspaper advertisements, by roaming the waterfront in search of men desperate enough to go to sea, and by combing army and navy recruiting offices for men not accepted for military service.

In 1892 the role of corporate mercenaries received significant public attention for the first time when 300 Pinkerton agents, hired by Carnegie Steel to guard its Homestead works, became involved in a bloody gun battle with strikers and their supporters, after the river barges on which they had been transported were fired upon. In defeating the Homestead strike, with Pinkerton assistance, Carnegie Steel for all intents and purposes destroyed the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers (AAISTW), which had called it, and eliminated trade unionism from the steel industry for almost half a century.

...By the turn of the century, drawing its spies in part from the Pinkerton agency, the Carnegie Steel Company under Henry C. Frick, who had broken the 1892 Homestead strike, had established such an elaborate labor espionage network that the United Mine Workers (UMW) union compared it to the "3rd degree of the Russian police system." Introduced immediately after the strike, it was so well concealed that the UMW's journal found it impossible to describe: "If it has a head, he is not known. It must have many branches or sections." The journal noted, "Time after time, men have been called to the office and told they were [fired] because they had become union men." Iron and steel workers in towns along the Monongahela lived in fear of a spy system that "lurks in the village store . . . reaches the preachers of their churches . . . searches the hearts of their children . . . hears the gossip of the old men and women [and] knows the mutterings of [the] half drunken." The constituent companies of the U.S. Steel Corporation all introduced labor espionage modeled on Carnegie's "perfect spy system." The infiltrators compiled files so extensive that corporate offices in Pittsburgh held lists of the leading union activists in all the large and small towns of Indiana. An investigator helping to conduct the "Pittsburgh Survey," a highly regarded sociological study of urban-industrial working-class life, in 1908 noted that fear of spies in Homestead was so pervasive that workers immediately terminated any conversation outside their homes when the steel company was mentioned..."

http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/norwood_strike.html


"...The Kanawha strike greatly affected Chaplin. He not only reported on and wrote poems about it ("Paint Creek Miner," and "Mine Guard") but was part of the strike committee. He was once beaten unconscious as he traveled to deliver a speech for Mother Jones, who had been jailed. Chaplin witnessed an armored train opening fire on the striking miners' shacks where women and children also slept. These were commonplace attacks on workers in an America that had not yet recognized the power and rights of organized labor.

Chaplin repeatedly witnessed beatings, jailings, and the murder of working men and women as they fought for their rights..."


http://washingtonhistory.org/wshs/columbia/articles/0201-a1.htm

Another group as despicable as the Pinkerton trash were the The Baldwin-Felts:

The Baldwin-Felts [detectives] built iron and concrete forts that they equipped with machine guns throughout the strike districts and then evicted the striking miners from their company houses.... Later... [they] rigged a train ... with iron-plate siding and machine guns, and then at night, with its lights turned out... they drove the monster through the valleys, machine-gunning the people in the tent colonies on the sides of the hills.

My grandfather was witness to some of these and similar atrocities.  It is common knowledge in Appalachia.

[Pukin Dog]

Are ya tryin' ta stir the pot?

Slim

Who?  Me??

[Silver Creek Slim]

Are ya tryin' ta stir the pot?

Slim

Who?  Me??

Wait 'til Will sees this. 

Slim

[Wymore Wrangler]

Any you wonder why we call them low down skunks to start with....

[Ol Gabe]

Just for the sake of discussion...
The initial poster asked the question "Ever see (the movie) Shane?"
A similar question regarding Strike-busters and the 'Agencies' hired to do so can be asked of the movie THE MOLLY MCGUIRES wherin the miners associations are infiltrated by an Agency man who later exposes the organizers. Subsquently they were all detained, 'tried' and punished. 
Our American labor history is strewn with just, unjust and questionable acitivities from the beginning, it was dollar-driven then and still is today. All one need do is watch any newscast to see what is changing on a daily basis. In a 'perfect' society the company owner would treat his workers and associates as his best assets, rewarding them for a job well done and above-and-beyond hard work instead of what has become the norm in today's corporate environs, a culture where the rules are made up as the day goes on and the common worker as well as the longtime staffer are as prone to be RIF'd today as they are their jobs are to be outsourced on the morrow. No position, rank or job description is safe or secure farther than it can be written down and erased.
It is interesting to see what has happened across the globe in the past 50 years where our American concepts of business management were instituted in post-WWII countires such as Germany and Japan. Mr. E. Demmings, a highly respected businessman and a true patriotic American, developed a set of guidelines for operating a successful business called 'Total Quality Management',  he was called to Japan to instruct and train the recovering Japanese business leadership in the ways of the 'new world'. His '14 Principles' were readily accepted and instituted immediately. To see how well the Japanese industrial leadership learned, simply look at what Japan has done in the past 30 years and the answer is more than obvious. With the exception of garage-based dot-coms and PC inventors, would that it were so here.
During the 1980s his '14 Priniciples' again became the buzz word of young American corporate gurus, but far too many other up and coming concepts such as 'Quality Circles', 'Critical Thinking', 'Management by Objective' and other 'feel good' formats became the bi-monthly der riguer of Yuppies everywhere attending this seminar or that teleconference. Alas, the glut of knowledge was generally lost in the shuffle to gain it and the overseas manufacturers 'we' had taught to make money became the basis and foundation we now use to stay in business ourselves. And so it goes...
Unions serve a purpose, in a prefect world they should never have been needed to provide the protection and services for the workers, but greed and societal conditioning, the 'us vs. them' concept of commercialism and corporate ownership deemed it necessary simply for the rich to get richer and the poor to simply survive.
The Pinkerton Agency provided a service to those owners and companies that could afford it, wether right or wrong, good or bad, in the eyes of those studying the Agency history today, it did serve a purpose then. One wonders what future students of history will have to say about the same or similar types of 'services' provided by like-minded Agencies today such as Halliburton, DynCorp, Custer-Battle and all the others that are active in today's worldwide commercial and corporate marketplace? Does give a guy pause for thought doesn't it?
From a historical reenactors perspective, the role-playing of a Pinkerton Agent is no different than that of a Bank Robber, Horse Thief, Rustler, Card Shark or the Butcher who puts his thumb on the scale to 'up' the weight a bit and make a quick nickel more. All played a part in our history and we as reenactors try to emulate some of the associated attributes, albeit those that draw attention to the personnae more readily than the norm.
I have no opinion on this topic other than as a student of history and would like to finish these observations with a quote we are quite familiar with that seems to say it all, we all know it but few know how old it really is...
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
It was written by Alphonse Karr, France, in his 1849 book titled 'Les Guepes' (The Wasp).
Maybe Karr had it right, mess with somebody and you might just get stung!
Best regards and good researching!
'Ol Gabe

[Pukin Dog]

Great comments so far!  To tell the truth, I didn't know that much about them involved in strike breaking so I learned something.  I always thought they did more stuff like track down bank or train robbers.

Anyway, hope this brings up some good discussions.  I really wasn't trying to "stir the pot" as my good pal Slim is implying

[Ol Gabe]

Again, from a historical perspective and for the sake of discussion only...
As we in the CAS community make the decision to assume or adapt an alias or personnae of one of the myriad of Old West characters, we generally move in the direction that seems to 'fit' what we think THAT definitive Old West character did and how he/she handled themselves at the time. What information we may be able to access may actually be skewed by history itself as the 'bad' does not always end up being written as such and instead comes out as the 'good'. This is a given in any culture that decides what is proper and isn't and which 'heroes' are actually that due to local folkways and mores, ie, whatever the Preacher and Teacher and your Ma says is good for you!
It is only in recent history that the 'bad guys' have become 'heroes' via the movies and multitudinous TV dramas and/or comedies. Whoever thought that we'd see an Old West Desperado surface as a comedic Hero in BILL & TED'S MOST EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, truly a Hollywierd invention of tongue-in-cheek history, but readily-accepted as such!
The same applies to the Pinkerton Detectives, we see a few CAS folks portraying them as a Law Enforcement Officer/entity, and they tend to come off as a Pinkerton being 'one of the good guys'. This is due in large part to the Hollywood connection in BUTCH CASSIDY & THE SUNDANCE KID, in TV documentaries as seen on the HISTORY CHANNEL and any number of Old West articles and books. I'm sure if the info posited in the earlier posts was more generally known it would be a personnae less pleasing, except to that small number of affecienadoes that seek out characters with a seedy and despicable past for their own specific interpretation. This is good as it gives others in search of a personnae something to compare their own character with.
Now, with that in mind, wouldn't it be interesting to have some historically-correct scenarios written specifically with the Pinkertons actions as part of the plot?
I, of course, have no opinion one way nor the other regarding the Pinkertons except as a student of history, hopefully we will soon see a definitive portrayal of one at an event.
Best regards and good researching!
'Ol Gabe

[Will Ketchum]

As with any group there are bad and there are not so bad

The Pinkertons filled a need in the 19th Century before there was an FBI or Secret Service.  During the Civil War they provided security for President Lincoln.  Many of the detectives who went after kidnappers, embezzlers, train robbers and other wrong doers did not participate in strike breaking.  If you will read my profile here on cas-city you will note that is where I parted ways with the agency.

Funny how we look at things.  Most feel that the vigilantes in San Francisco and Colorado were justified in what they did but feel it was wrong for Cattleman's Associations to hire stock detectives to bring stock thieves to justice when their just wasn't any other means to do so.  To men like Tom Horn they were doing a job that had to be done.  Shooting an innocent boy is another matter.  As posted on another thread I don't think Horn shot the Nickles boy.  He just was hanged for it.

Will Ketchum

[Delmonico]

I think to many of us think that things were black and white in the "Old West", maybe it's the old movies and the pictures.  If I lost all my money when the local back was robbed (no FDIC remember) and a Pinkerton Detective caught up with those who did it and shot them in the back and recovered the banks money, I would sing their praises.

As for the stirkers and what happened in many parts of the country with such problems, one must remember the strikers, no a "few" of the strikers killed innocent folks also.  The troubles that happened with labor are much more complicated than most believe.   

Myself I think most have little understanding of the true history of the "Old West" and let the Hollywood image creep in more often than we think.  Like Custer, most folks either like the Pinkertons or hate them.  One must really study both in depth before forming an opinion of them.

To do this we must look at the true criminals in the light that they were, often brutal and out to help no one but themselves.  To many have been Idolized by Hollywood and cheap novels. 

Put yerself in this place for fun.  $25,000 of yer money has been stolen by wire and is in an offshore bank and there is nothing you can do to get it back legaly, even though it was stolen.  Do you want it back if I could do something illeagal to get it?   The choice is yours.

[RIO DEL RIO]

I am watching OUTLAWS AND LAWMEN on the Discovery Times Channel.  The Pinkerton's are a part of the show.  It is very interesting.  Historically, they are the good guys.

[Second Creek Sam]

Whether Pinkerton's , lynch mobs, assasins, etc. were good or not; I'd guess it'd depend on what side of the issue you were on.  If you were a railroader in the 19th century, shooting 'coolies' wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

If you lived in the post Civil War South, the KKK wasn't a bad thing, either.

As has been stated, there are two sides to everything.

[Delmonico]

Well if I was one of the innocent folks that was killed by a striker, train robber or back robber should I feel honored.    If I found out some as yet unborn movie maker was gonna do a piece makin' the 9-11 terrorists just mis-understood heroes, should I be happy.

The Pinkertons were not always perfect, far from it.  But a bank robber or train robber is just that, a serious criminal.  Lots a inocent folks died in the dynamitings during the strikes in Idaho as well as other strikes.

[Second Creek Sam]

Well if I was one of the innocent folks that was killed by a striker, train robber or back robber should I feel honored.    If I found out some as yet unborn movie maker was gonna do a piece makin' the 9-11 terrorists just mis-understood heroes, should I be happy...

Agreed pard!

As to whether one's a villain or a hero, it depends on which side of the fence you're on.

Law enforcement, especially on the frontier, wasn't always carried out by the most virtuous; but by the toughest meanest SOBs that could be hired. Actually my CAS character is based on an Earp-like like character, you know...part outlaw, part lawman.

[Delmonico]

Will is retired so he can admit that he was a Pinkerton, however if he wants to write a book he'll have to change the names.   As a Cosinero, ya never know, I just might be, but since the opertives never carried ID and tried to keep from havin' to testify in court, ya just never know fer sure.

[Will Ketchum]

Del's right, I work free lance these days.  Case has to be interesting and be worth my while.

I was thinking of writing a book about the years I worked with Tom Horn err,r I, um mean Tom "Corn", that's it Corn not that other fella

Will Ketchum

[Uncle Eph]

Will Ketchum, it might have been discussed earlier, but have you read "Big Trouble" by J, Anthony Lukas?

[Will Ketchum]

Uncle Eph, can't say I have ever heard of it.  Tell us about it.

Will Ketchum