In the great struggle between capital and labor, each side has expended large sums of money in employing confederates to secure secret information as to the plans and doings of the enemy.  Almost every labor union has its Judas, and less often a secretary to a capitalist is in the secret employment of a labor union.  The railroads must be kept informed of what is going on, and, if necessary, they import a man from another part of the country to join the local organization.  Often such men, on account of their force and intelligence, are elected to high office in the brotherhoods whose secrets they are hired to betray.  Practically every big manufacturing plant in the United States has on its payrolls men acting as engineers, foremen, or laborers who are drawing from $8o to $100 per month as detectives either (1) to keep their employers informed as to the workings of the labor unions, (2) to report to the directors the actual conduct of the business by its salaried officers, superintendents, and overseers, or (3) to ascertain and report to outside competing concerns the methods and processes made use of, the materials utilized, and the exact cost of production.

There are detectives among the chambermaids and bellboys in the hotels, and also among the guests; there are detectives on the passenger lists and in the cardrooms of the Atlantic liners; the colored porter on the private car, the butler at your friend’s house, the chorus girl on Broadway, the clerk in the law office, the employee in the commercial agency, may all be drawing pay in the interest of some one else, who may be either a transportation company, a stock-broker, a rival financier, a yellow newspaper, an injured or even an erring wife, a grievance committee, or a competing concern; and the duties of these persons may and will range from the theft of mailing lists, books, papers, and private letters, up to genuine detective work requiring some real ability.

Detective work of the sort which involves the betrayal of confidences and friendships naturally excites our aversion —­yet in many cases the end undoubtedly justifies the means employed, and often there is no other way to avert disaster and prevent fiendish crimes.  Sometimes, on the other hand, the information sought is purely for mercenary or even less worthy reasons, and those engaged in these undertakings range from rascals of the lowest type to men who are ready to risk death for the cause which they represent and who are really heroes of a high order.  One of the latter with whom I happened to be thrown professionally was a young fellow of about twenty named Guthrie.