Robert A. Pinkerton was the originator of a system of extra-legal police agents that has gradually grown to be one of the chief commercial enterprises of the country. According to his own testimony,[3] he began in 1866 to supply armed men to the owners of large industries, and ever since his firm has carried on a profitable business in that field. Envious of his prosperity, other individuals have formed rival agencies, and to-day there exist in the United States thousands of so-called detective bureaus where armed men can be employed to do the bidding of any wealthy individual. While, no doubt, there are agencies that conduct a thoroughly legitimate business, there are unquestionably numerous agencies in this country where one may employ thugs, thieves, incendiaries, dynamiters, perjurers, jury-fixers, manufacturers of evidence, strike-breakers and murderers. A regularly established commerce exists, which enables a rich man, without great difficulty or peril, to hire abandoned criminals, who, for certain prices, will undertake to execute any crime. If one can afford it, one may have always at hand a body of highwaymen or a small private army. Such a commerce as this was no doubt necessary and proper in the Middle Ages and would no doubt be necessary and proper in a state of anarchy, but when individuals are allowed to employ private police, armies, thugs, and assassins in a country which possesses a regularly established State, courts, laws, military forces, and police the traffic constitutes a menace as alarming as the Black Hand, the Camorra, or the Mafia. The story of these hired terrorists and of this ancient anarchy revived surpasses in cold-blooded criminality any other thing known in modern history. That rich and powerful patrons should be allowed to purchase in the market poor and desperate criminals eager to commit any crime on the calendar for a few dollars, is one of the most amazing and incredible anachronisms of a too self-complaisant Republic.