Gutman|293by on meager factory wages, and it still took Bogigian three months to locate an
informant. Perhaps Khatchadourian was one of the few Armenian migrants for
whom a relatively modest bump in income was sufficient to overcome the pangs
of conscience and personal risks that came with serving as an informant for the
Ottoman government.
By hiring an Armenian migrant as an informant, Mavroyeni had hoped to
obtain detailed information on the activities of Armenian political organizations
that would be off limits to even the best-trained Pinkerton agent. In fact, Mav -
royeni was optimistic enough about Khatchadourian’s potential that he built
into his salary enough money for travel to Athens, the Hunchak’s base of opera-
tions. He believed that once Khatchadourian infiltrated the highest echelons of
the Hunchakian Revolutionary Party in the United States, he would eventually
be sent to the Greek capital and could provide invaluable information to the Ot-
toman government on the party’s central operations. Much to Mavroyeni’s dis-
appointment, over the next several months, Khatchadourian provided only very
general information that differed little from the reports he was receiving from his
Pinkerton agent. At one point, Bogigian alerted Mavroyeni that Khatchadourian
was so incompetent that in his few close contacts with suspected Hunchaks, he
had nearly revealed himself as an informant. Indeed, in the same letter, Bogi-
gian apologized for having recommended Khatchadourian in the first place.
Although Khatchadourian’s original term of service was one year, by January
1895 Mavroyeni had let him go.
One month before he was fired, however, Khatchadourian provided informa-
tion that would further frustrate Mavroyeni’s efforts. In a report he revealed that
Bogigian had signed a petition circulating in Boston that accused the Ottoman
government of committing massacres against Armenian civilian populations in
the empire. Iasigi’s office soon corroborated Khatchadourian’s claim; Bogigian
had in fact signed the petition. As a prominent member of the community with
significant ties to Boston’s business and political elite, Mavroyeni knew that Bo-
gigian’s decision to sign the petition was significant. It was not clear what moti-
vated this action, but it certainly threatened his relationship with the Ottoman
government. Perhaps the grim news about the state of affairs in Anatolia in the
region of his birth caused him to rethink his collaboration with Mavroyeni. Or
maybe his volte-face was triggered by pressure coming from fellow Armenians
in the United States. Bogigian’s recent and very public defense of the Ottoman
government in an August 1894 article in the Boston Globe doubtless troubled
many of his compatriots. Perhaps he was the target of menacing threats similar
to ones he would receive two and a half years later, in early 1897, prompting cover-
age in the New York Times.
Regardless of what drove Bogigian to sign the petition, this was not the only
issue that encouraged Mavroyeni to rethink his relationship with the wealthy