The pecuniary interest of the detective agencies in provoking crime is immense. It is obvious enough, if one will but think of it, that these detective agencies depend for their profit on the existence, the extension, and the promotion of criminal operations. The more that people are frightened by the prospect of danger to their property or menace to their lives, the more they seek the aid of detectives. Nothing proves so advantageous to detectives as epidemics of strikes and even of robberies and murders. The heyday of their prosperity comes in that moment when assaults upon men and property are most frequent. Nothing would seem to be clearer, then, than that it is to the interest of these agencies to create alarm, to arouse terror, and, through these means, to enlarge their patronage. When a trade or profession has not only every pecuniary incentive to create trouble, but when it is also largely promoted by notorious criminals and other vicious elements, the amount of mischief that is certain to result from the combination may well exceed the powers of imagination. And it must not be forgotten that this trade has developed into a great and growing business, actuated by exactly the same economic interests as any other business. 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 as an explosion of dynamite or an assault, help to make 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