The Era of Corporate Thugs
A look back at the private, armed detective agencies hired by corporations to break strikes and terrorize workers in Washington mining towns.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Representative Watson of Georgia recently presented a resolution to investigate the Pinkerton agency and their methods of operating as a private militia for capitalists. It is a matter of regret that congress has no power to control the growing evil of these detective agencies. For corporations to arm and equip a standing army to settle the difficulties with laborers by war is reducing the government to anarchy. Twice in her history has Washington experienced the curse of having a non-resident armed force within her borders. I was at Franklin last spring when the army of laborers was brought to those mines by the Oregon Improvement company accompanied by nearly one hundred heavily armed men hired from M. C. Sullivan of Portland. The 'detectives'—more properly called 'thugs'—were a dirty low set, with no regard for the rights or life of others. Two white men were murdered, several women shot, and two women had premature births to dead children in the woods into which they were driven by the heartless fusillade poured upon their homes.
“For corporations to arm and equip a standing army to settle the difficulties with laborers by war is reducing the government to anarchy and the wage earner to a condition of serfdom.”
The violent history of corporate security firms in Washington state—often functioning as de facto law enforcement against labor—remains a dark chapter that complicates the state's industrial history.
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