Untitled

286 VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
was corroborated."
He spoke of ex-convicts being employed,
and alleged that the manager of one of the large
agencies "was run out of Cincinnati for blackmail." (n)
Similar statements were made by another detective,
named Le Vin, to the Industrial Commission of the
United States when it was investigating the Chicago labor
troubles of 1900. He declared that the Contractors' Association
of Chicago had come to him repeatedly to employ
sluggers, and that on one occasion the employers
had told him to put Winchesters in the hands of his
men and to manage somehow to get into a fight with
the pickets and the strikers. The Commission, evidently
surprised at this testimony, asked Mr. Le Vin whether
it was possible to hire detectives to beat up men. His
answer was : "You cannot hire every man to do it."
"O. 'But can they hire men' A. 'Yes, they could hire
men.'
"Q. 'From other private detective agencies' A.
'Unfortunately, from some, yes.'" (12)
In the hearing before a Subcommittee of the Committee
on the Judiciary, United States Senate, August 13,
1912, lengthy testimony was given concerning a series of
two hundred assaults that had been made upon the union
molders of Milwaukee during a strike in 1906. One of
the leaders of the union was killed, while others were
brutally attacked by thugs in the employ of a Chicago
detective agency. A serious investigation was begun by
Attorney W. B. Rubin, acting for the Molders' Union,
and in court the evidence clearly proved that the Chicago
detective agency employed ex-convicts and other criminals
for the purposes of slugging, shooting, and even killing
union men. When some of these detectives were arrested
they testified that they had acted under strict instructions.
They had been sent out to beat up certain