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Victor
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The Labor Spy
A Survey of Industrial Espionage
By Sidney Howard
V. Recruiting and Training
How the spy is recruited, how he is trained and what manner of man he is—these facts are all essential to a complete picture of the industrial spy system.
You will find such an advertisement as the following (taken from the New York World) in almost any paper during a period of labor difficulty:
*Boiler Makers
Molders
Metal Workers
And Polishers
We want smart, up-to-date men who are skilled in the above mechanical lines to represent us permanently as efficiency workers, but those who make application must be able and willing to absent themselves from their homes whenever they are required to do so because our work extends all over the country. Mechanics who can qualify as tradesmen will be taught how to do our work as they go along and will receive better pay than they have been earning right from the start and will be allowed all their living and traveling expenses as well, thus being in a position to save all their wages. In replying do not fail to state all your qualifications as to how much mechanical experience you have, whether you are American or foreign born, what languages you speak beside the languages of this country and be sure to give your phone number, if you have one, and your correct address, because you are assured that your application will be considered and answered.
This is the typical agency advertisement for employes. It is invariably to be recognized by the assortment of trades, the phrase "up-to-date," and the information desired on the linguistic ability of the applicant.
A Paterson silk weaver, for the moment became an industrial investigator, answered a similar advertisement. His experience, although not dramatic, nevertheless provides an accurate account of the spy recruiting system.
I am a silk worker and a member of the Paterson local of the Amalgamated Textile Workers.
During the slump season in the spring of 1920, I was thrown out of work and decided I would have to look for a job elsewhere if I could.
One morning in May I saw an ad in the New York World which read: "Wanted experienced men on broad silk and ribbon. State age, experience and nationality. . . ."
I wrote to the box indicated and received a reply from the Eastern Engineering and Contracting Company,** 291-295 Broadway, New York City. It enclosed my letter answering the ad and told me to bring this letter, as well as the one from him to me, to his office.
I went to the address given the next day. It was a fine office with about ten stenographers and looked very efficient. I handed both letters to the man at the door and found that "they were glad to give an interview." . . .
While waiting in the outer office I talked with a negro who was also answering an ad for workers. His ad called for wood workers and he was a wood worker.
Finally my turn came and I found myself facing ... a quiet-looking business man somewhat kindly in appearance.
He looked over the letters carefully. Then he asked: "Where did you work last?" I told him I had worked most of the time in the New England States.
"Did you ever work in Paterson, Passaic or Allentown, Pennsylvania?"
I replied that I had never worked in either Passaic, New Jersey or Allentown, Pennsylvania, but that I had worked in Paterson.
"Where did you work last?"
I told him. . . .
He seemed to be sizing me up and thinking very hard. Then he said: "We want to send you to a job to work at your trade. Besides working at your trade you will be there to investigate the sentiment of the workers toward the employer, what they say is unsatisfactory in the shop, their attitude towards radicalism, Bolshevism and such things. You will be expected to make a report in writing every night and send it to me."
I asked him how much I would get for the job.
"... We will send you into a shop. You will receive the regular wages the workers are earning there. Besides that you will get fifty dollars a month from the office."***
"Where will you send me?" I asked, keeping as calm as I could.
"Either to Paterson or Passaic. Did you ever work like this before? Do you think you would like to try it? Do you think it would suit you?"
I told him I thought I would try it.
He then told me to go home and write him a sample daily report, putting down the best I could on paper what I had done that day. "Mail this to me," he said, "and from that I will be able to determine whether you will be the one suited to do the work I have outlined. As soon as we have received this report from you we will let you know what we want you to do and where we want you to begin your work."
I promised I would send him a report that night which I did. However. I have not yet heard from him.****
It can not be said that all spies are recruited through newspaper advertising. The United States Steel Corporation recruits its secret service chiefly from the ranks of its inspection force, the railroads largely from the railroad police. A worker will oftentimes find himself tricked to espionage through a reward which is given him by the boss for some little information he has given, perhaps unwittingly. A check presented and endorsed by the worker is a lever of blackmail for the corporation, which can threaten an exposure before the union. This practice is quite common. More common still is the bribery of the union official. It is impossible to state to what lengths this may go. It is certain that the labor movement is too often and too reasonably distrustful of its officers.
The worker who answered the advertisement quoted above was more fortunate than the silk worker of Paterson, and, without becoming a spy, took the complete correspondence course of training for the Sherman Service. The text of this course is very long and extremely un-instructive. A man might have followed it completely through without so much as suspecting what the actual meaning of this work would be. Only a few parts are of any interest and they seem significant only as illustrating the pains with which the industrial dectective disguises both aims and methods even to his own initiates.
The preliminary eloquence makes espionage seem almost altruistic.
There is nothing about your relationship with your fellow-craftsmen which can be considered underhanded or deceitful. Your mission is to aid and assist such men and not to spy upon them and try to find out something about them or their doings which would get them into disfavor or disrepute with the employer. . . .
Your purpose in going among your own class of mechanics or fellow workmen in any line where it seems your work can be most effective, is to build up the morale of whatever plant you are assigned to, to set a good example to the workmen in that plant both by your individual actions and your spoken words.
You are given an assignment for the purpose of making observations as to the individual and collective habits of the employes, but are certainly not assigned to mingle with them for the purpose of tattling or spying upon any of them.
Follows the application blank:
What are your sentiments toward Socialism? Toward Bolshevism? Toward Labor Unions? If a member of any Labor Union or Socialistic Order, give the name and address. Did you ever, or do you now, hold any office in same? How often do you attend meetings? If not now a member, why did you leave? Do any of your relatives belong to any such organizations? Give relationship and name of Order. What is their attitude? What do you believe to be the underlying causes of industrial misunderstanding? What could be done by the employer or employes to remedy this? Would you be willing to work hard, faithfully, and do more than an ordinary day's work to help Americanize or Canadianize the foreign workers and establish friendly relations between employer and employes?
Applicant's Signature.
But, in the instructions to the operative, the melodrama again becomes the thing.
As our employe you will be known and called "representative." . . .
You will be designated by a number under which you will be known to us only and which you will employ when signing communications, expense accounts, and all other documents excepting telegrams.
As your mission is to be considered confidential absolutely you must follow our directions relative to divulging your real vocation or business to any one.
The rules and regulations of our organization exclude even one's closest friends and families from any knowledge as to the details of any assignments a representative may receive.
All necessary expense on an assignment will be advanced by us.
When actively engaged on an assignment it will be your duty to make up and mail in a detailed written account for each day, in which you will set forth the time you began work, when you discontinued, what you actually did, what you saw, and what you heard in connection with the particular assignment you were engaged on. . . .
If you are assigned to work in a factory, you will be treated the same there as any other worker, and you will be placed on the factory payroll in accordance with the work which you do there. The money which you receive as salary by the factory will be charged to your account. . . .
In referring to any worker or person give that person's name or working number, if you know it, otherwise, give a detailed description of him so as to aid us in identifying him.
You will receive frequent instructions from us relative to the work you are doing, which instructions you are to mail back to us together with envelope in which it was sent you as soon as you have carefully read them over and understand what they mean. You are not to destroy them or keep them on your person over twelve hours. . . .
You are not, under any circumstances, to use the telephone in connection with this business from the town or city in which you may be employed, unless it has over 50,000 population, otherwise you are to proceed to a nearby city or town of reasonable size, and at least five miles beyond the outskirts of the town in which you are employed.
Should it be necessary for you to phone frequently, you arc not to use same telephone station, and at no time are you to talk over an open phone, and if out of town, you are to have charges reversed. Do not give the name of the organization.
In mailing your daily communications to us, you are to take care that no one observes you and that the post-office clerks do not see the specific letter which you yourself deposit in the mails. . . .
The rules and regulations of our organization forbid you to make known to "any one" your connection either with us or in this business unless under specific directions from any official of the organization.
Our system of carrying on our work frequently requires that many representatives, unknown to each other, are engaged in the same factory at the same time. Therefore, you are not to approach or speak to any of them regarding your business, should you know them to be representatives, unless specifically directed to do so by your official. YOU MUST NOT INDICATE THAT YOU KNOW WHO THEY ARE, NEITHER MUST THEY INDICATE THAT THEY ARE AWARE OF WHO YOU ARE. The best Way to do is to ignore them entirely. Do Not Violate THIS RULE AT ANY TIME.
The employer, to whose plant we send you, and who pays us to represent him, is known as the client. You must never communicate with the client, even if his identity is known to you, unless definitely instructed to do so by your officials.
Act naturally, employ common sense with relation to anything you do, and live strictly in accordance with your apparent earnings. You would not show much common sense in claiming to be a worker and yet live at a good hotel and spend money freely. Such Actions Would AtTract ATTENTION AT ONCE AND WOULD RUIN YOUR CHANCES OF MAKING YOUR WORK SUCCESSFUL. . . .
Get a rooming place the same as any other worker would, but be sure and get a room for yourself. Do not share it with others, as the presence of an outsider would materially interfere with the writing of your confidential communications, and the making up of your expense accounts.*****
In all this secrecy there is exactly one mention of any policy on labor unionism.
It is not their (The . . . Company's) desire to promote unionism or non-unionism, but it is their purpose to create and maintain an open-mindedness among the working class relative to the relationship between capital and labor.
Nothing, it would seem, makes the conscious position of' the industrial detective so clear as this disguise of his business to the very men he is seeking to employ and to train. It is more complete than his disguise of method from the prospective client.
One axiom of recruiting may be established. Whatever the method, the basis must be corruption. The most useful quality the industrial detective has to offer in his personnel must necessarily be dishonesty.
We quote from the testimony of Tobias Butler given during the same Philadelphia hearings from which we have gleaned so much already:
They told their clients they employed skilled representatives which it took them months to educate, whereas, as a matter of fact, they took these individuals from the street, put them in men's plants and charged them full rate of service. Many of them were found to be loafers and to commit crimes while assigned to operations.
This would seem to deny the course of training. It is the record of an emergency; the same witness continues:
In the Philadelphia Cigar Manufacturers' job I had to pick nineteen men off the street through advertisements in the newspapers out of a total of twenty-two who went on the operation. . . . The A. D. Kirschbaum operation was on at the same time and we couldn't get representatives for that. We were getting them through advertisements in the newspapers. There were supposed to be twenty well-trained men and out of the twenty we could get only four.
A damaging description of the spy not easily to be denied. We shall look more closely yet into the character of the men who do the actual work of this business.
—The New Republic, March 16, 1921.
*This particular advertisement proved, upon investigation, to be that of the National Manufacturers' Syndicate, an alias for the employment department of the Sherman Service Inc., which is also known as the National Mutual Service Co.
**Really the Corporations Auxiliary Co. under alias.
***The usual rate of payment is the difference between a set sum guaranteed by the agency and the wages paid to the spy by the client for the work he actually does as an ordinary worker. The ordinary operative is guaranteed $125 a month for service in an unskilled trade.
****To the credit of the agency's psychological astuteness be it said that although this worker's first report was carefully supervised by the officers of his union, the ruse had not, in this instance, any effect whatever. This is a ruse often employed by labor unions to gather espionage information. The worker, however, having come once into contact with the spy system, is not often trusted afterwards by the union.
*****Summary of instructions to an operative of the Corporations Auxiliary Company: Try at all times to find out who is a member of a labor organization. Report the same at once in your daily report. Be a good mixer. Mingle with the fellows in the noon hour, in the factory and in the street car. Try to find out if they urge other fellows to join their organization. Be always on your guard. Do not display too much money, but don't be a miser. Be willing to spend a few cents for a drink if it will make a man talk. In the organization where you are a member, try to get as popular as you possibly can. Try to hold as many and as high offices as you can. Try always to keep in close touch with other officers of your organization, in particular with the business agents.—Affidavit of Philip Schaeffer, one time operative of the Corporations Auxiliary Company.