Gutman|289By authorizing funds to hire an undercover agent to infiltrate the Hunchaks
without prior approval, Mavroyeni knew he risked censure. He felt the situa-
tion warranted such decisive action, and although unmentioned in his letter, he
did not want to miss an opportunity to reach a deal with the Pinkerton Detec-
tive Agency, the most respected private police force in the United States. After
eight years living in the United States, Mavroyeni was quite familiar with the
Pinkertons. Over the course of several decades in the late nineteenth century,
they gained fame and notoriety in the United States both as skillful undercover
detectives and guns for hire regularly employed by owners of factories and mines
to disrupt, often violently, the labor-organizing efforts of their workers. Indeed,
by the mid-1890s, the Pinkertons were central players in the efforts of Ameri-
can business elites to quell, often through any means necessary, the increasingly
vocal and radical demands of the labor movement. For Mavroyeni, there was
little difference between the political activities of the Hunchaks and those of
organized labor, so often the topic of discussion among his guests at those late-
afternoon summer yacht parties in Bar Harbor. Thus, by hiring the Pinkertons,
he was merely adopting what had been a tried-and-true strategy for dealing with
such issues.
Within a few days of contacting the Pinkertons, an agent was assigned to the
case. By the end of January 1894, the agent presented Mavroyeni with his initial
findings. Over the next several months, Mavroyeni’s office received numerous
reports on the activities of known and alleged Armenian political activists in
the Boston area. The anonymous agent provided surprisingly detailed reports
on the activities of several suspected prominent members of the Hunchakian
Revolutionary Party. At one point, he broke into the room of one such individual
in a Boston boarding house, providing Mavroyeni with a thorough account. His
reconnaissance effort was frustrated, however, by his inability to read the many
documents written in Armenian he found strewn about the room. The agent also
widened his net to include several prominent native Bostonians who, in the inter-
est of raising awareness about the plight of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire,
had recently formed an organization called the United Friends of Armenia. Pos-
ing as a reporter, the agent interviewed several members of this organization,
providing Mavroyeni with detailed information on the issues discussed. Indeed,
in one report, the agent advised Mavroyeni that more attention should be paid
to monitoring the activities of the United Friends of Armenia, whose members
included many wealthy and politically connected individuals. From the agent’s
perspective, the efforts of this organization posed a much greater threat to his cli-
ent’s interests than the activities of a few Hunchaks. Mav royeni, however, la rgely
brushed off the agent’s recommendation. He was aware that newspaper reports
of ongoing massacres against Armenian civilians in the Ottoman Empire were