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Undercover and Underground: Labor Spies and Mine Management in the Early Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Charles K. Hyde
Charles K. Hyde
Affiliation:
Charles K. Hyde is associate professor of history atWayne State University.
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Abstract

In this article Professor Hyde examines in detail the use of industrial spies at a large Michigan copper mine in the early twentieth century. While many historians have argued that labor spies were powerful weapons effectively used by employers in their struggles with workers, Hyde finds in his case study of the Quincy Mining Company that spies were seldom useful in providing important labor intelligence. Instead, they inadvertently provided top management with valuable information about underground working conditions and the performance of foremen and petty bosses.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , Spring 1986 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1986

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References

1 A recent exception is Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri, “Profits over Class: A Study in American Industrial Espionage,” Journal of American Studies 6 (1972): 233–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Violence and Reform in American History (New York, 1978); works on the detective agencies include Horan, James David, Desperate Men; Revelations from the Sealed Pinkerton Files (Garden City, N.Y., 1962)Google Scholar, and The Pinkertons: The Detective Dynasty That Made History (New York, 1968); Horan, James David and Swiggett, Howard, The Pinkerton Story (New York, 1951)Google Scholar; Morn, Frank. The Eye That Never Sleeps: A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (Bloomington, Ind., 1982)Google Scholar; Rowan, Richard W., The Pinkertons: A Detective Dynasty (Boston, 1931)Google Scholar; Burns, William J., The Masked War: The Story of the Peril That Threatened the United States by the Man Who Uncovered the Dynamite Conspirators and Sent Them to Jail (New York, 1913)Google Scholar; Caesar, Gene, The Incredible Detective: The Biography of William J. Burns (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968)Google Scholar; Pinkerton, Robert A., “Detective Surveillance of Anarchists,” North American Review 173 (1901): 609–17Google Scholar; Sheils, A. J., Industrial Unrest: Cause and Deterrent (Newark, N.J., 1919)Google Scholar; and Manning, Emmerson W., Practical Instructions for Detectives: A Complete Course in Secret Service Study (Chicago, 1921).Google Scholar

2 The massive literature includes Beet, Thomas, “Methods of American Private Detective Agencies,” Appleton's Magazine 8 (Oct. 1906): 439–45Google Scholar; McNamee, John F., “Spies and Traitors,” Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine 45 (Feb. 1909): 249–53Google Scholar; Howard, Sidney Coe, The Labor Spy (New York, 1924)Google Scholar; Shalloo, J. P., Private Police; With Special Reference to Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1933)Google Scholar; Palmer, Frank Loomis, Spies in Steel: An Exposé of Industrial War (Denver, 1928)Google Scholar; Jensen, Vernon, Heritage of Conflict: Labor Relations in the Nonferrous Metals Industry up to 1930 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1950)Google Scholar; Conlin, Joseph. R., Bread and Roses Too: Studies of the Wobblies (Westport, Conn., 1969)Google Scholar; Dubofsky, Melvin, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Chicago, 1969)Google Scholar; Adams, Thomas Sewall, “Violence in Labor Disputes,” Publications of the American Economic Association, 3d ser. 7 (1906): 176–206Google Scholar; and Hunter, Robert, Violence and the Labor Movement (New York, 1914).Google Scholar The extensive use of spies in the steel industry is documented in two publications of the Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919 (New York, 1920)Google Scholar and Public Opinion and the Steel Strike (New York, 1921). Insights into the lives of spies can be found in Friedman, Morris, The Pinkerton Labor Spy (New York, 1907)Google Scholar; Siringo, Charles. A., A Cowboy Detective: A True Story of 22 Years with a World Famous Detective Agency (Chicago, 1912)Google Scholar, and Two Evil Isms: Pinkertonism and Anarchism (Chicago, 1915); Spielman, Jean, The Stool Pigeon and the Open Shop Movement (Minneapolis, 1923)Google Scholar; and Levinson, Edward, I Break Strikes! The Technique of Pearl L. Berghoff (New York, 1935)Google Scholar. The use of spies for political espionage is documented in Hough, Emerson, The Web: The Authorized History of the American Protective League (Chicago, 1919)Google Scholar and Jensen, Joan, The Price of Vigilance (Chicago, 1968).Google Scholar

3 Officially the LaFollette probe was the “Investigation conducted by the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Pursuant to Senate Resolution 266 (74th Congress), A Resolution to Investigate Violations of the Right of Free Speech and Assembly and Interference with the Rights of Labor to Organize and Bargain Collectively.” The subcommittee eventually published a dozen reports between 1937 and 1943. In particular, see U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Education and Labor, Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor, Preliminary Report, 75th Cong., 1st sess., Senate Report 46, pt. 1 (1937), and 75th Cong., 2d sess., Senate Report 46, pt. 3 (1937), passim. The committee's hearings and supplementary exhibits include seventy-five separate parts which together fill twenty volumes. See U.S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, Hearings Pursuant to Senate Resolution 266, Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor, pts. 1–75, 74th-76th Cong., 1936–40. Testimony and other evidence primarily concerned with espionage comprise pts. 1–8 and 15. For LaFollette's life and work, see Maney, Patrick. J., “Young Bob” LaFollette: A Biography of Robert. M. LaFollette, Jr., 1895–1953 (Columbia, Mo., 1978).Google ScholarAuerbach, Jerold. S., Labor and Liberty: The LaFollette Committee and the New Deal (Indianapolis, 1966)Google Scholar details the work of the committee. Calkins, Clinch, Spy Overheard: The Story of Industrial Espionage (New York, 1937)Google Scholar and Huberman, Leo, The Labor Spy Racket (New York, 1937).Google Scholar

4 For the history of the Michigan copper industry, see Gates, William. B. Jr, Michigan Copper and Boston Dollars: An Economic History of the Michigan Copper Mining Industry (Cambridge, Mass., 1951).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The history of the Quincy Mining Company is found in Lankton, Larry. D. and Hyde, Charles. K., Old Reliable: An Illustrated History of the Quincy Mining Company (Hancock, Mich., 1982)Google Scholar; ibid., 58–61, 152.

5 Lankton and Hyde, Old Reliable, 152.

6 Ibid., 58–82, passim; Quincy Mining Company, Cost Sheets for 1893–1906 and Force Employed, 1908–20. All Quincy Company records cited in this article are located at the company offices in Hancock, Mich.

7 Lankton and Hyde, Old Reliable, 39, 85, and Quincy Mining Company, Payroll Accounts, June 1865 and June 1885.

8 Quincy Mining Company, Employee Record Cards, 1890–1909, by dates of first hire. The survey sample included 781 employees. The total number of new men hired during this period was about 3,000. Employee Record Cards, 1910–18; the sample includes 1,599 men, only about one-fifth of the large number of men hired during the strike of 1913–14 and the rest of the decade.

9 Gates, Michigan Copper, 114–15, discusses this problem at the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company.

10 Kolehmainen, John. I. and Hill, George. W., Haven in the Woods: The Story of the Finns in Wisconsin (Madison, Wis., 1965), 152–53Google Scholar, give a detailed breakdown of the occupational background of Finnish immigrants. For the history of Finnish migration and the Finnish experience in America, see Hoglund, A. William, Finnish Immigrants in America, 1880–1920 (Madison, Wis., 1960)Google Scholar; Jalkanen, Ralph. J., ed., The Faith of the Finns: Historical Perspectives on the Finnish Lutheran Church in America (Lansing, Mich., 1972)Google Scholar, and The Finns in North America: A Social Symposium (Lansing, Mich., 1969); Kolehmainen, John. A., The Finns in America: A Bibliographic Guide to Their History (Hancock, Mich., 1947)Google Scholar; Niemi, Clemens, The Americanization of the Finnish People in Houghton County, Michigan (Duluth, Minn., 1920)Google Scholar; Ross, Carl, The Finn Factor in American Labor, Culture, and Society (New York Mills, Minn., 1977)Google Scholar; and Wargelin, John, The Americanization of the Finns (Hancock, Mich., 1924).Google Scholar

11 Hoglund, Finnish Immigrants, 62–64. For the decade starting in 1900, we know the first jobs held by 127 Finns. Only 11 began as miners and I as a timberman, while 75 were underground laborers, 15 were trammers, and the rest began as general surface workers. For a discussion of this development throughout the Michigan copper district, see Gates, Michigan Copper, 114–15; for the Finnish experience with discrimination, see Hoglund, Finnish Immigrants, 58–64. Gates, Michigan Copper, 107, suggests that the mine owners consciously recruited a variety of new ethnic groups in the belief that the new immigrants would be tractable and that ethnic diversity would forestall unionism and labor unrest generally.

12 Quincy Mining Company, Payroll Accounts, June 1865; ibid., June 1885.

13 Lankton and Hyde, Old Reliable, 151.

14 Nelson, Daniel, Managers and Workers: Origins of the New Factory System in the United States, 1880–1920 (Madison, Wis., 1975), 4.Google Scholar

15 Chandler, Alfred. D. Jr, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), esp. 81–122.Google Scholar Contemporary management literature recognized these problems. See Litterer, Joseph. A., “Systematic Management: The Search for Order and Integration,” Business History Review 35 (Winter 1961): 469–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Quincy Mining Company, Cost Sheet, 1905.

17 Annual Report for 1912, 20; Annual Report for 1913, 19–20; Cost Sheet, 1905 and Salary List for 1916, all Quincy Mining Company.

18 Andrew J. Corey to William Rogers Todd, 11 June 1873; ibid., 20 Dec. 1873.

19 Samuel B. Harris to Thomas F. Mason, 16 April, 21, 23, 24, 25 June 1980; 23, 19 Aug. 1895.

20 Harris to Mason, 23, 24, 25, 27, and 28 April 1896; Mason to Harris, 30 April 1896; Harris to Mason, 4 May 1896.

21 Harris to William Rogers Todd, 8, 15, and 16 May, 7, 16 Sept. 1900.

22 Harris to Todd, 17, 18, 23, and 26 Jan. and 2 Feb. 1904; Quincy Mining Company, Directors' Minutes, 1904, “Memo Regarding Strike,” n.d. The author of this memo, probably William Rogers Todd, noted Harris's sins: he failed to inform the trammers about the original pay reduction; he took inconsistent stands once the strike began; he negotiated without authorization; and when bargaining broke off, he blamed the New York office for the failure.

23 John L. Harris to William Rogers Todd, 4 April 1905 and John L. Harris to A. W. Leonard, 7 April 1905.

24 The cave-ins were so important that Lawton discussed virtually nothing else in his four-page summary of operations in the company's Annual Report for 1906. For the overall history of the Western Federation of Miners, see Jensen, Heritage of Conflict. See also Poutinen, Arthur. E., Finnish Radicals and Religion in Midwestern Mining Towns, 1865–1914 (New York, 1979), 203–5.Google Scholar

25 Lawton to W. R. Todd, 23 July, 4, 10, and 11 Aug. 1906; list of demands, with the heading, “To the Quincy Mining Company,” dated “Hancock, Michigan, July 27, 1906.”

26 Lawton to Todd, 24 July 1906; Quincy Mining Company, Directors' Minutes, Directors' Meeting of 8 Aug. 1906. The strike chronology is taken from an undated summary prepared by the mine clerk, Frederick J. McLain. Quincy Mining Company, Annual Report for 1906 (New York, 1907), 8; Lawton to Todd, 19 July, 4, 14 Aug. 1906.

27 Lawton to Todd, 23, 26, 31 July, 1 Aug. 1906.

28 Quincy Mining Company, Annual Report for 1913 (New York, 1914), 11–14Google Scholar and Annual Report for 1914 (New York, 1915), 11, 12; Report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 13 April 1913. For the overall history of this strike, see Thurner, Arthur W., Rebels on the Range: The Michigan Copper Miners' Strike of 1913–1914 (Lake Linden, Mich., 1984).Google Scholar

29 Todd to Lawton, 7 Feb. 1916; Quincy Mining Company, Annual Report for 1917 (New York, 1918), 12Google Scholar; Lawton to Todd, 2, 4, 27 April, 23 June 1917; J. C. Vold to Lawton, 6 Oct. 1918.

30 John L. Harris to W. R. Todd, 5, 13 Feb., 14 March 1904; Todd to Harris, 8 Feb. and 30 March 1904; Samuel Diehl, General Superintendent, Chicago office of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, to W. R. Todd, 30 March 1904; G. A. Seagrove, Manager of the Chicago office of the Theil Detective Service Company, to Lawton, 6, 28 Aug., 6 Oct. 1906; O. O. Rindall, Manager of the St. Paul, Minn., office of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, to Lawton, 9 July 1906; Todd to Lawton, 13 Jan. and 4 April 1911; Lawton to H. H. Baldwin, Manager of the St. Paul office of the Theil Detective Service Company, 18 Jan., 4 March, and 23 May 1912; Baldwin to Lawton, 24 May and 9 Sept. 1912; and Todd to Lawton, 9 and 13 Nov. 1912.

31 W. R. Todd to Lawton, 16, 19, 24, 26, 30 Sept. and 1 Oct. 1913; W. Parsons Todd to Lawton, 17 Sept., 11, 15, 17 Oct., and 3, 5, 6 Nov. 1913; Lawton to W. R. Todd, 15 Oct. 1913; and J. H. Schumacher, Superintendent of the Chicago office of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, to Lawton, 25 Sept. 1913; W. R. Todd to Lawton, 16 March 1915; Lawton to W. R. Todd, 3 Feb. and 12 May 1920.

32 O. O. Rindall to Lawton, 9 July 1907 and H. H. Baldwin to Lawton, 13 March 1911; O. R. Hatfield (Pinkerton) to Lawton, 8 July 1913; H. H. Baldwin (Theil) to Lawton, 5 Aug. 1913; H. J. Carling (Employers) to Lawton, 11 Aug. 1913; and Frank F. Neal (Reed) to Lawton, 18 June 1913; H. J. Carling to Lawton, 26 Dec. 1917; Edward J. Hargreave to Lawton, 7 July 1919 and George Armstrong to Lawton, 25 Oct. 1919.

33 G. A. Seagrove to the Quincy Mining Company, 14, 15, 16, and 31 Aug., 7, 9, 15, 17, 21, 24, 27, and 28 Sept., and 15, 16, 22. and 25 Oct. 1906; report of AF to the Quincy Mining Company, 8 and 18 March 1914; report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 17 Feb., 25 March, and 12 July 1914; report of No. 84 to the Quincy Mining Company, 13, 20, 28, and 30 Jan., 2, 16, and 28 Feb., and 3, 4, and 6 April 1918.

34 Report of No. 5 to the Quincy Mining Company, 10, 25 Aug. 1906.

35 W. R. Todd to Lawton, 7 Jan. 1913 and Lawton to Todd, 9 Jan. 1913; F. W. Denton to Lawton, 15 Jan. 1915; D. R. Ortella to Lawton, 8 Aug. 1914; Lawton to W. R Todd, 2, 4, and 27 April 1917; J. C. Vold to Lawton, 6 Oct. 1918.

36 W. R. Todd to Lawton, 2 Jan. 1913 and Lawton to Todd, 25 Jan., 3 Feb. 1913; Todd to Lawton, 5 Feb. 1913.

37 Todd to Lawton, 8 Jan. 1912; Lawton to Todd, 12 June 1913 and Todd to Lawton, 16 June 1913.

38 John L. Harris to W. R. Todd, 5 Feb. 1904 and Quincy Mining Company, Directors' Minutes for 1904, “Memo Regarding Strike,” n.d.; W. R. Todd to Lawton. 26 Dec. 1913 and W. Parsons Todd to Lawton, 4 and 17 Feb. 1914.

39 Report of Operative No. 5 to the Pinkerton National Detective Service Company, 14 Aug. 1906 and G. A. Seagrove to the Quincy Mining Company, 14, 15, 16, and 31 Aug., 7 and 9 Sept. 1906; Lawton to Todd, 22 Feb. 1913 and H. H. Baldwin to Lawton, 5 Aug. 1913; report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 19, 20 March, 3, 17 April, and 13 June 1914.

40 G. A. Seagrove to the Quincy Mining Company, 1 and 8 Oct. 1906; report of AE to the Quiney Mining Company, 14 Feb. 1914.

41 Report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 20 Feb., 8, 12, 16, 20, 26, and 27 March 1914; ibid., 25, 26, 27, and 28 March 1914.

42 G. A. Seagrove to the Quincy Mining Company, 31 Aug., 9, 15, 17, and 21 Sept., 15 Oct. 1906; H. H. Baldwin to Lawton, 12 May 1912.

43 Report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 20 Feb. 1914; 12 June 1915.

44 W. R. Todd to Lawton, 7 Jan. 1913 and Lawton to W. R. Todd, 9 Jan. 1913; report of No. 84 to the Quincy Mining Company, 26 Jan., 2 Feb. 1918.

45 G. A. Seagrove to the Quincy Mining Company, 27 and 28 Sept. 1906.

46 Report of 211a to the Quincy Mining Company, 23 and 25 Dec. 1913; G. A. Seagrove to the Quincy Mining Company, 22 and 28 Aug., 15 Sept. 1906; report of AF to the Quincy Mining Company, 3 and 4 April 1914; report of BD to the Quincy Mining; Company, 26 June 1914.

47 Report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 12 Aug. 1915; report of AF to the Quincy Mining Company, 6 March 1914 (Laigetella); 3 and 4 April 1914 (Bennett); report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 13 July 1914, and Todd to Lawton, 27 July 1914 (Pelto). Those specifically criticized included Captains Jacobs, Whittle, Corn, Bennett, and Pascoe; trammer bosses Ameda and Koby; foremen Nichols, Thomson, Pelto, and Steiner; section boss Largetella; and two labor bosses identified only by badge number.

48 Lankton, Larry D., “Died in the Mines,” Michigan History Magazine 67 (Nov./Dec. 1983): 34Google ScholarPubMed; G.A. Seagrove to the Quincy Mining Company, 21, 24, 27 Sept., 16, 22, and 25 Oct. 1906.

49 Lawton to H. H. Baldwin, 23 May 1912; Baldwin to Lawton, 24 May 1912.

50 Report of AF to the Quincy Mining Company, 3 and 4 April 1914; report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 26 March 1914.

51 O. O. Rindall to Lawton, 9 July 1907; G. A. Seagrove to the Quincy Mining Company, 22 and 28 Aug., 15, 24 Sept., 6, 26 Oct., and 16 Nov. 1906; W. R. Todd to Lawton, 8 Jan. 1912, 2 Jan. 1913, and 17 July 1914; Lawton to W. R. Todd, 25 Jan, and 24 March 1913; report of AE to the Quincy Mining Company, 14 Feb. 1914; report of AF to the Quincy Mining Company, 4 April 1914; and report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 13 July 1914; report of AF to the Quincy Mining Company, 3 and 4 April 1914; report of BD to the Quincy Mining Company, 16 Feb., 4 and 5 March 1914; 18, 24, Aug. 1915; report of No. 15 to the Quincy Mining Company, 17 June, 31 Aug., and 3 Sept. 1915; and report of No. 84 to the Quincy Mining Company, 7 and 28 Jan. 1918.

52 Report of No. 5 to the Quincy Mining Company, 13 Aug. 1906.

53 Lankton, Larry. D., “The Machine Under the Garden: Rock Drills Arrive at the Lake Superior Copper Mines, 1868–1883,” Technology and Culture 24 (Jan. 1983): 30–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Lankton and Hyde, Old Reliable, 58–62.

54 Information compiled by Kenneth Hafeli.