[Marxism] A note on Pinkerton [Was: Our Favorite Communist Films]

[Mark Lause]

Pinkerton's connection to John Brown was through Dick Hinton, another
former Chartist, commander of black troops in the Civil War, and
leader of the postwar International and socialist organizations.
Pinkerton's work in the underground, heolping runaway slaves get to
Canada established a reputation that moved railroad officials in
Illinois to hire him to solve some robberies.  On this basis, his
reputation grew.  When George B. McClellan, a railroad executive here
in Cincinnati, took volunteers into the Civil War, he hired Pinkerton
to come with him.

One of Pinkerton's agents, prominent in infiltrating Confederate
Richmond was Seth Paine.  I haven't been able to find out whether this
was the same Seth Paine I mentioned in YOUNG AMERICA, the radical land
reformer involved in the underground railroad or not. It might have
been his son, who had the same name.

Pinkerton wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last serious radical
drawn by the logic of events into police work or one sort or another.

It'll prove a fruitful field for serious research and thought.

ML