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THE OLDEST ANARCHISM 315
With the agencies making so much per day for each man
employed, the way to improve business is to get more
men employed. Rumors of trouble or actual deeds, such
to make
as an explosion of dynamite or an assault, help
the detective indispensable to the employer. It is with
an eye to business, therefore, that the private detective
creates trouble. It is with a keen sense of his own material
interest that he keeps the employer in a state of
anxiety regarding what may be expected from the men.
And, naturally enough, the modern employer, unlike a
trained ruler such as Bismarck, never seems to realize that
most of the alarming reports sent him are masses of lies.
Nothing appears to have been clearer to the Iron Chancellor
than that his own police forces, in order to gain
favor, "lie and exaggerate in the most shameful manner."
(47) But such an idea seems never to enter the
minds of the great American employers, who, although
becoming more and more like the ruling classes of Europe,
are not yet so wise. However, the great employer,
like the great ruler, is unable now to meet his employees
in person and to find out their real views. Consequently,
he must depend upon paid agents to report to him the
views of his men. This might all be very well if the returns
were true. But, when it
happens that evil reports
are very much to the pecuniary advantage of the man
who makes them, is it likely that there will be any other
kind of report Thousands of employers, therefore, are
coming more and more to be convinced that their workmen
spend most of their time plotting against them. It
seems unreasonable that sane men could believe that their
employees, who are regularly at work every day striving
with might and main to support and bring up decently
their families, should be at the same time planning the
most diabolical outrages. Nothing
is rarer than to find