Pinkerton Cunning

     What a big hullabaloo there is raised over anarchism. Robert Pinkerton, of the infamous Pinkerton detective agency, has an article on Anarchism in the current issue of the North-American Review, in which he suggests that spies should “insinuate themselves into the anarchist communities, as James McParland insinuated himself into the Molly Maguires.” It seems to us that the talk of anarchist associations existing for the purpose of blowing buildings into eternity and shedding the blood of mankind is silly in the extreme. We know anarchists who are highly educated men, and gentleness itself. We know some men who condemn anarchists to be brutes in human form. Men who would not hesitate, and have not hesitated, to be the means by which innocent wage workers were massacred as if they were so many beasts.
     It is questionable if Czolgosz was an anarchist, notwithstanding the fact that he claimed to be one. Even if he were an anarchist this would not mean that the school of economic thought represented by him was composed of murderers any more than that the Republican party was composed of murderers, because one of its members assassinated President Garfield.
     No doubt Mr. Pinkerton’s article was a play for patronage from the millionaires, who are usually as ignorant of the principles of economics as a mud turtle is of the rules of base-ball. An article like Pinkerton’s might have the effect of ensnaring a bunch of millionaires to pay tribute to the Pinkerton agency by having the latter employ men to become members of some pseudo anarchist groups.
     This is not, and must not be construed as an argument in favor of anarchy. It is meant as an argument in favor of common reason and common sense.