Immoral Methods in Detective Work
The Seattle Sunday "Times" of November 3, with a lot of bold-face type, brings some very serious charges against the great detective William J. Burns, and contends that it was by illegal methods and packing of jury-boxes that United States Senator John H. Mitchell was convicted in 1911 in Portland, Oregon. It declares that the jury that tried these men were undoubtedly examined, prepared, and tried out by Burns's employees. There is no question at all that in detective work the detective himself must sometimes, according to modern methods, resort to deception and really criminal means. It is for this reason that one noted detective contends that detectives are themselves often criminals, and that in the place where men are placed under great temptation, he does not place one man alone upon the job, but two or more. The detectives, of course, in adopting the methods of deception and illegality, contend that that is the only way by which the criminal can be convicted. But to the Christian such methods as that are immoral — we can not do evil that good may come.