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THE OLDEST ANARCHISM 295
either among the mercenaries or their employers, has
yet been apprehended or convicted. With such equality
of justice do we treat these agents of the two anarchies!
However, if Berkman spent seventeen years in prison,
the other anarchists were mildly rebuked by the Committee
of Investigation appointed by the Senate. "Your
committee is of the opinion," runs the report, "that the
employment of the private armed guards at Homestead
was unnecessary. There is no evidence to show that the
slightest damage was done, or attempted to be done, to
property on the part of the strikers. . ." (18)
.
"It was claimed by the Pinkerton agency that in all cases
they require that their men shall be sworn in as deputy
sheriffs, but it is a significant circumstance that in the
—
only strike your committee made inquiry concerning
that at Homestead— the fact was admitted on all hands
that the armed men supplied by the Pinkertons were not
so sworn, and that as private citizens acting under the
direction of such of their own men as were in command
they fired upon the people of Homestead, killing and
wounding a number." (19) "Every man who testified,
including the proprietors of the detective agencies, admitted
that the workmen are strongly prejudiced against
the so-called Pinkertons, and that their presence at a
strike serves to unduly inflame the passions of the strikers.
The prejudice against them arises partly from the
fact that they are frequently placed among workmen, in
the disguise of mechanics, to report alleged conversations
to their agencies, which, in turn,
is transmitted to the
employers of labor. Your committee is impressed with
the belief that this is an utterly vicious system, and that
it is responsible for much of the ill-feeling and bad blood
displayed by the working classes. No self-respecting
laborer or mechanic likes to feel that the man beside