If we will look into this matter a little, we shall discover certain sinister motives back of this work of the detective agencies. It is well enough understood by them that violence creates a state of reaction. One very keen observer has pointed out that "the anarchist tactics are so serviceable to the reactionaries that, whenever a draconic, reactionary law is required, they themselves manufacture an anarchist plot or attempted crime."[43] Kropotkin himself, in telling the story of "The Terror in Russia," points out that a certain Azeff, who for sixteen years was an agent of the Russian police, was also the chief organizer of acts of terrorism among the social revolutionists.[44] Every conceivable crime was committed under his direct instigation, including even the murder of some officials and nobles. The purpose of the work of this police agent was, of course, to serve the Russian reactionaries and to furnish them a pretext and excuse for the most bloody measures of repression. In America "hireling assassins," ex-convicts, and thugs in the employ of detective agencies commit very much the same crimes for the same purpose. And the men on strike, who have neither planned nor dreamed of planning an outrage, suddenly find themselves faced by the military forces, who have not infrequently in the past shot them down. That the lawless situations which make these infamous acts possible, and to the general public often excusable, are the deliberate work of mercenaries, is, to my mind, open to no question whatever.