CHAPTER I

THE WEB

_The Authorized History of

The American Protective League_

The Web

By

Emerson Hough

Author of

“The Mississippi Bubble,” “54-40 or Fight,”

“The Magnificent Adventure,” etc.

_A Revelation of Patriotism_

_The Web is published by authority of the National Directors of the

American Protective League, a vast, silent, volunteer army organized

with the approval and operated under the direction of the United States

Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation._

The Reilly & Lee Co.

Chicago

Copyright, 1919

By

The Reilly & Lee Co.

_Made in U. S. A._

_The Web_

_To

THE UNKNOWN AMERICANS

unnamed, unhonored

unrewarded

who made this history possible_

THE CALL OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE

UNITED STATES

“It is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen of the Congress,

which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be,

many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful

thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most

terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to

be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we

shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our

hearts.... To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes,

everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of

those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to

spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth

and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her,

she can do no other.”

THE ANSWER OF THE CONGRESS OF THE

UNITED STATES

“WHEREAS, The Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts

of war against the Government and the People of the United States of

America; therefore be it

“_Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the

United States of America, in Congress assembled_, That the state of

war between the United States and the Imperial German Government

which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally

declared; and that the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and

directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United

States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the

Imperial German Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful

termination all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the

Congress of the United States.”

STATEMENT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE

UNITED STATES

_February 1, 1919_

On the occasion of the dissolution to-day of the American Protective

League and the final termination of all of its activities, I take the

opportunity to express to its National Directors and all other officers

and members my personal thanks for their assistance to me and to my

Department during the period of the war. I am frank to say that the

Department of Justice could not have accomplished its task and attained

the measure of success which it did attain without the assistance of

the members of the League.

Your reward can only be the expressed thanks of your Government. As the

head of the Department of Justice, under which the American Protective

League operated, I render you such thanks with sincere pleasure.

Upon the occasion of a request from a member of the Committee on the

Judiciary of the House of Representatives for an expression of opinion

by me as to the adoption of a joint resolution by the Congress of the

United States, extending the thanks of Congress to the members of the

League, I have urged in strong terms the adoption of such a resolution,

as one justly earned by the organization during an extended period of

devoted and effective service.

The work of your organization will long be an inspiration to all

citizens to render their full measure of service to their country

according to her need, without reward, and with abundant zeal.

Respectfully,

T. W. GREGORY

_Attorney General_

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

“Signed!”

The one word, spoken by a young officer of the U. S. Army, a strip

of paper in his hand, confirmed to his associates the greatest news

the world has ever known. It was the corrected foreword of peace. The

armistice had validly been signed by Germany.

In these first days of peace, the streets were full of shouting,

laughing, weeping men and women gone primitive. The sane and sober

population of America, engaged in sending a third of a million men a

month to join the two millions on the front in France, turned into a

mob. Their frenzy was that of joy. The war was over.

On the day following the confirmation of the armistice, some who

had sat together in a certain room in Washington were scattered.

Six thousand resignations of Army officers were handed in within

twenty-four hours. The room in which the news of the war’s end was

thus received was one in the Military Intelligence Division of the

General Staff in Washington. There lie the secrets of the Army. All

in that room were officers of the Army, or soon to be such. All were

volunteers. I may with propriety say that for a time I had sat with

those who had ear to the secret voices of the world, in the tensest

atmosphere I ever knew.

It was whispers that “M. I. D.” heard—the whispers of perfidious

men, communicating one with the other, plotting against the peace of

America, the dignity of our Government, the sacredness of our flag, the

safety of American lives and property. Here sat the authorized agents

of the Army, employed to hear such whispers, enlisted to catch the most

skilled and unscrupulous spies the world has ever known, the agents of

a treacherous and dishonorable enemy.

All those connected with the Military Intelligence Division daily

felt also the touch of this great, silent, smooth-running machinery

of the Department of Justice, whose governmental mission it was to do

detective work on the largest scale this country ever knew. We heard

the voice of the War College through the official liaison therewith;

also those of the General Staff, the War Department, the Post Office

Department, the cable censors, the censors of the Expeditionary Forces.

It all worked as an interlocking, vast, silent machine—a solemnly,

almost mournfully silent machine, of which America knows almost

nothing, the rest of the world nothing at all.

Day by day, in ghostly silhouette, passed sinister figures, themselves

silent; those who plotted against America. All the deeds that can come

from base and sordid motives, from low, degenerate and perverted minds;

all the misguided phenomena of human avarice and hate and eagerness to

destroy and kill—such were the pictures on the walls of “M. I. D.”

I have spoken of certain essential liaisons against espionage and

propaganda. More often seen than any other initials in the desk algebra

of “M. I. D.” were three initials—“A. P. L.” This or that information

came from A. P. L. This was referred to A. P. L. for more light.

Every questionnaire of a man applying for a commission in the Army

was referred back to A. P. L., and A. P. L. took up the question of

his unswerving and invincible loyalty. A. P. L. found slackers and

deserters in thousands. A. P. L. found this or that spy, large or

little. A. P. L., obviously, had a busy mind and a long arm.

Yet if you should look in the Governmental Blue Book for this powerful

branch of our Government, you could not find the initials there at all.

Very many Americans never heard the name of this wholly unofficial

organization which passed on so many governmental questions, was of

so much aid in so many ways to the Government. A. P. L. is not and

never was a part of any state or national arm, service, department, or

bureau. But openly and proudly it has always been definitely authorized

to carry on all its letter-heads, “Organized with the Approval and

Operating under the Direction of the United States Department of

Justice, Bureau of Investigation.” These are its credentials.

A. P. L., the mysterious power behind our Government, was no baseless

fabric of a vision, as hundreds of Germans and pro-Germans can testify

through their prison bars; but it passes now and soon will “leave not a

wrack behind.” As these pages advance, the word issues for its official

demobilization. It was honorably encamped on a secret and silent

battlefield, but now, once more to use a poet’s word, it has “folded

its tents like the Arab, and silently stolen away.” It was, and is not.

You never have known what it was. You never will see its like again.

“A. P. L.” means the American Protective League. It means a silent,

unknown army of more than a quarter million of the most loyal and

intelligent citizens of America, who indeed did spring to arms over

night. It fought battles, saved lives, saved cities, saved treasures,

defended the flag, apprehended countless traitors, did its own

tremendous share in the winning of the war. It saved America. It did

protect. It was a league.

It did all this without a cent of pay. It had no actual identification

with the Government. Yet it has won scores of times the written and

spoken thanks of our most responsible Government officials. Its aid in

the winning of the war can not be estimated and never will be known.

Not even its full romance ever can be written. May these hurrying

pages save all these things at least in part, though done in the full

consciousness that their tribute can be but a fragment of the total due.

The American Protective League was the largest company of detectives

the world ever saw. The members served without earlier specialized

training, without pay, without glory. That band of citizens, called

together overnight, rose, grew and gathered strength until able to

meet, and absolutely to defeat, the vast and highly trained army of the

German espionage system, which in every country of the globe flooded

the land with trained spies who had made a life business of spying.

It met that German Army as ours met it at Chateau-Thierry, and in the

Argonne, and on the Vesle and on the Aisne. Like to our Army under

arms—that Army where any of us would have preferred to serve had it

been possible for us to serve under arms—it never gave back an inch of

ground. Growing stronger and better equipped each day, it worked always

onward and forward until the last fight was won.

A. P. L. has folded its unseen and unknown tents. It will bivouac

elsewhere until another day of need may come. Then, be sure, it will

be ready. On the day that the American Protective League disbanded,

it had no money in the treasury. It had spent millions of dollars,

and had brought to judgment three million cases of disloyalty. There,

obviously, unwritten and unknown, scattered in every city and hamlet

of America, was a tremendous story, one of the greatest of all war

stories, the story of the line behind the guns.

When the men of long or of transient connection with M. I. D. had

shaken hands and said good-bye, the National Directors of the American

Protective League asked me to stop on and write the history of the

American Protective League. And so, in large part, as a matter of

loyalty and duty, with millions of pages of records at hand, with a

quarter of a million friends I have never seen, who never have seen one

another, who never otherwise would know the identity of one another,

I began to do something which most obviously and certainly ought to

be done. This book is written alike that these quarter million unpaid

soldiers may know of one another, and that a hundred million Americans

may also know of them accurately, and thank them for what they did.

Before I had done the last page of the strange history, I knew that I

had felt an actual reflex of the actual America. I knew that I had been

in touch with one of the most astonishing phenomena of modern days, in

touch also with the most tremendous, the most thrilling and the most

absorbing story of which I ever knew.

EMERSON HOUGH

_Washington_

_District of Columbia_

_United States of America_

_February 14, 1919._

CONTENTS

BOOK I: THE LEAGUE AND ITS WORK

CHAPTER PAGE

I THE AWAKENING 19

II THE WEB 29

III EARLY DAYS OF THE LEAGUE 38

IV THE LEAGUE IN WASHINGTON 44

V THE LAW AND ITS NEW TEETH 55

VI GERMAN PROPAGANDA 62

VII THE GERMAN SPY CASES 82

VIII THE SPY HIMSELF 107

IX HANDLING BAD ALIENS 120

X THE GREAT I. W. W. TRIAL 133

XI THE SLACKER RAIDS 141

XII SKULKER CHASING 148

XIII ARTS OF THE OPERATIVES 163

BOOK II: THE TALES OF THE CITIES

I THE STORY OF CHICAGO 179

II THE STORY OF NEW YORK 199

III THE STORY OF PHILADELPHIA 210

IV THE STORY OF NEWARK 226

V THE STORY OF PITTSBURGH 239

VI THE STORY OF BOSTON 246

VII THE STORY OF CLEVELAND 256

VIII THE STORY OF CINCINNATI 267

IX THE STORY OF DAYTON 276

X THE STORY OF DETROIT 285

XI THE STORY OF ST. LOUIS 293

XII THE STORY OF KANSAS CITY 303

XIII THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 310

XIV THE STORY OF NEW ORLEANS 324

XV THE STORY OF CALIFORNIA 332

BOOK III: THE FOUR WINDS

I THE STORY OF THE EAST 363

II THE STORY OF THE NORTH 381

III THE STORY OF THE SOUTH 418

IV THE STORY OF THE WEST 438

BOOK IV: AMERICA

I THE RECKONING 453

II THE PEACE TABLE 473

APPENDICES 483

BOOK I

THE LEAGUE AND ITS WORK

THE WEB

CHAPTER I

THE AWAKENING

The “Neutral Cases”—First Realization of the German Spy System in

America—Overcrowding of the Department of Justice—The Birth of a

New Idea—Formation of the American Protective League, Civilian

Auxiliary—Astonishing Growth of the Greatest Semi-Vigilante

Movement of the World.

We Americans have always been disposed to peace. We have not planned

for war. Our Army has never been a menace to ourselves or to any other

nation; our Navy, though strong and modern, never has been larger than

a country of our extent in territory and industry admittedly ought to

have. No one has feared us, and there has been none of whom we have had

any fear. We have designedly stood aloof from entangling alliances.

The two great oceans traditionally have been our friends, for they

have set us apart from the world’s quarrels. An America, far off,

new, rich, abounding, a land where a man might be free to grow to his

natural stature, where he might be safe at his own fireside, where he

might select his own rulers and rest always secure under his own form

of government—that was the theory of this country and of this form of

government. That was the reason why this country, naturally endowed

above any other region of the world, has grown so marvelously fast.

There was reason for America’s swift stature. She was a land not of

war, but of peace. Rich, she threw open her doors. Frank, free, honest,

generous, she made welcome all who came. She suspected none, trusted

all, and to prove this, offered partnership in her wealth to any man

of the world, under a system of naturalization laws whose like, in

broadness and generosity, does not exist. Peace—and the chance to grow

and to be happy. Peace—and a partnership in all she had. Peace—and a

seat free at the richest table of the world. That was what America

offered; and in spite of the pinch and the unrest of growing numbers,

in spite of problems imported and not native to our long-untroubled

land, that was the theory of American life up to a date four years

earlier than this.

In that four years America has changed more than in any forty of her

earlier life. But yesterday, young, rich, laughing, free of care,

Homerically mirthful and joyous, America to-day is mature, unsmiling,

grave, dignified—and wise. What once she never suspected, now she

knows. She has been betrayed.

But America, traditionally resourceful, now suddenly agonized in the

discovery of treachery at her own table, has out of the very anguish

of her indignant horror, out of the very need of the hour, suddenly

and adequately risen to her emergency. She always has done so. When

the arms of the appointed agents of the law ever have wearied, she has

upheld them. She has done so now, at the very moment of our country’s

greatest need.

The story of how that was done; how the very force of the situation

demanded and received an instant and sufficient answer; how the

civilians rallied to their own flag; how they came out of private

life unasked, unsummoned, as though at spoken command of some central

power—that is a great and splendid story of which few ever have known

anything at all.

It is a great and splendid story because it verifies America and her

intent before all the high courts of things. These men did obey the

summons of a vast central power. But it was no more than the soul of

America that spoke. It was no more than her theory of the democracy of

mankind which issued that unwritten order to assemble the minute men,

each armed and garbed in his own way and each resolved to do what he

could in a new and tremendous day of Lexington.

It was not autocracy which gave the assembly call to these silent

legions. They mobilized themselves, so rapidly as to offer one of

the most curious psychological problems of history. Why did these

men leave their homes almost all at once, each unknown at first to

the other, in large part each unknown to the other even now? How did

it come about that an army of a quarter of a million men enlisted

themselves and then offered their services to a government which needed

them but never had asked for them? How did it come that—contrary to

all European traditions—this tremendous striking-power began at the

bottom in our democratic war-born instinct, and worked upward into the

Government itself, as a new institution, wholly unrecognized in the

constitution of state or nation? Usually the Government issues the

order for mobilization. But here the greatest band of minute men ever

known in the world mobilized as though unconsciously, as though to

some spiritual trumpet call. Having done so, it offered itself to the

Nation’s heads, saying, “Here we are. Take us and use us. We ask no

pay. _We enlist till the end of the war._”

It was the spirit voice of anguished America which mobilized the

American Protective League. There never was a time when America could

lose this war. The answer was always written in the stars. Somewhere,

high up in the heavens, blind Justice let fall her sword in a gesture

of command; and that was all. The issue of the war was determined from

that moment. It was certain that Germany, brutal, bloody, autocratic,

destructive, would be defeated beyond the sea. Yes, and on this side of

the sea.

On this side, much was to be done, more than we had dreamed. Troubled

but unparticipating, we stood aloof and watched the soil of all Europe

redden with the blood of men—and of women and children. Even we still

stood aloof, hands clenched, gasping in an enraged incredulity,

watching the sea also—the free and open highway of the world, redden

with the blood of men—and of women and children. But still we took no

part, though indeed some of our young men could no longer stay at home

and so enlisted under some Allied flag.

We held in mind our ancient remoteness from all this. We heard still

the counsel against entangling alliances. And, quite aside from the

idea of material profit, we tried to be fair and impartial in a fight

that was not yet ours, though every American heart bled with France and

Belgium, ached in pain with that of Britain, locked in death grapple

in her greatest war—that which must name her still free or forever

enslaved. And from Washington came admonition to be calm. President

Wilson’s appeal went out again and again to the people, and whether or

not it ever once seemed to all of us a possible thing for the United

States to keep out of this war, at least we sought to do so and were

advised and commanded to do so by the chief of our own forces.

Whether or not we all wished to be neutral so many years, we officially

and nationally were neutral. Therefore we retained our commercial

rights under neutrality. Doing no more than Germany always previously

had done, we made and sold arms and munitions in the open markets of

the world.

But Germany could not come and get her arms and munitions had she

wished to do so. Great Britain had something to say about that.

Wherefore Germany hated us, secretly and openly—hated us for doing what

she once had done but could no longer do.

The enforcement of blockade made Germany hate us. Germany’s psychology

has always been double-faced—one face for herself and one for the

rest of the world. The Austrian double-headed eagle belongs of right

also on the German coat of arms. “What I do not wish to have done

to me is Wrong; what I wish to do to others is Right!” That is the

sum and substance of the German public creed and the German private

character—and now we fairly may say we know them both. The German is

not a sportsman—he does not know the meaning of that word. He has not

in his language any word meaning “fair play.” Nothing is fair play to

a German which does not work to his advantage. The American neutrality

in combination with the British blockade did not work to his advantage.

Hence—so he thought—it was all wrong.

The Germans began to hate America more and more. We did not know,

at that time, that Germany had been planning many years for “diesen

aufunsangehängten Krieg”—“this war forced on us!” We did not have any

idea that she had counted upon two million German-Americans to help her

win this war; that she knew every nook and cranny of the United States

and had them mapped; that for years she had maintained a tremendous

organization of spies who had learned every vulnerable point of the

American defenses, who were better acquainted with our Army than we

ourselves were, and who had extended their covert activities to a

degree which left them arrogantly confident of their success at war,

and contemptuous of the best that America ever could do against her.

Germany never doubted that she would win this war. It was charted

and plotted out many years in advance, move by move, step by step,

clear through to the bloody and brutal end which should leave Germany

commander of the world.

Now, in the German general plan of conquest, America had had her place

assigned to her. So long as she would remain passive and complaisant—so

long as she would furnish munitions to Germany and not to England or

France or Russia, all well, all very good. But when, by any shift of

the play, America might furnish supplies to Germany’s enemies and not

to Germany—no matter through whose fault—then so much the worse for

America! It never was intended that America should be anything but

expansion ground for Germany, whether or not she remained complaisant.

But if she did not—if she began in her own idea of neutrality to

transgress Germany’s two-headed idea of “neutrality”—that meant

immediate and positive action against America, now, to-day, and not

after a while and at Germany’s greater leisure.

“I shall have no foolishness from America!” said William Hohenzollern

to the accredited representative of this country in his court—William

Hohenzollern, that same pitiable figure who at the final test of defeat

had not the courage of Saul to fall on his sword, not the courage of a

real King to die at the head of his army, but who fled from his army

like a coward when he saw all was lost—even honor. His threat of a

million Germans in America who would rise against us was not ill-based.

They were here. They are here now, to-day. The reply to that threat,

made by Gerard, is historic. “Majesty, let them rise. We have a million

lamp-posts waiting for them.” And this herein tells the story of how

the million traitors at America’s too generous table were shown the

lamp-posts looming.

The German anger at America grew to the fury point, and she began

covertly to stir herself on this side of the sea. The rustling of

the leaves began to be audible, the hissing grew unmistakable. But

America, resting on her old traditions, paid no attention. We heard

with sympathy for a time the classic two-faced German-American’s wail,

“Germany is my mother, America my wife! How can I fight my mother?” The

truth is that all too many German-Americans never cared for America

at all in any tender or reverent way. Resting under their Kaiser’s

Delbrueck injunction never to forget the fatherland, they never were

anything but German. They used America; they never loved her. They

clung to their old language, their old customs, and cared nothing for

ours. They prospered, because they would live as we would not live.

It would be wrong to call them all bad, and folly to call them all

good. As a class they were clannish beyond all other races coming

here. Many who at first were openly pro-German became more discreet;

but of countless numbers of these, it is well known that at their own

firesides and in supposed secrecy they privately were German, although

in public they were American. Of Liberty bond buyers, many of the

loudest boasters were of this “loyal German-American citizenship.” They

really had not earned even the hyphen.

Open and covert action was taken by Germany on both sides of the

Atlantic to bring America into line. Not fearing America, nor knowing

the real America at all, Germany did much as she liked. Outrages on the

high seas began. All international law was cast aside by Germany as

fully as in her invasion of Belgium. She counted so surely on success

and world-conquest that she was absolutely arrogant and indifferent

alike to law and to humanity. The militaristic Germany began to

show—brutal, crafty, bestial, lacking in all honor, ignorant of the

word “fair play,” callous to every appeal of humanity, wholly and

unscrupulously selfish. We began now to see the significance of that

“efficiency” of which our industrial captains sometimes had prated

over-much. Yes, Germany was efficient!

The strain between the two countries increased as the blockade

tightened, and as the counter-plot of the German submarines developed.

Then came the Lusitania.... I can not write of that. I have hated

Germany since then, and thousands of loyal Americans join in hatred

for her. All of good America has been at war with her at heart from

that very day, because in America we never have made war on women and

children. We are bound by every instinct to hate any nation that does,

Turk, German or ignorant savage.

The Lusitania was Germany’s deliberate action. She arrogantly commanded

us in a few newspaper advertisements not to sail on the Lusitania—as

though she owned us and the sea. After the deed, she struck medals in

commemoration of it. German church bells rang to glorify it. A German

holiday was created to celebrate it. German preachers there and in

America preached sermons lauding it. It was a national act, nationally

planned, nationally ratified. From that day we were at war. Let those

who like, of whatever station, say “We are not at war with the German

people.” That is not true. The German people, the German rank and file,

not their leaders alone, were back of all these deeds and ratified them

absolutely on both sides of the Atlantic.

From that day, too, the issue might really have been known. I went into

the elevator of a building in my city, a copy of a newspaper in my hand

with the black headline of the Lusitania across the page. The German

operator of the elevator saw it as I turned it toward him silently.

“Vell, they vere varned!” he said, and grinned.

That incident shows Germany in America, then and now, covert, sinister,

sneering, confident, exultant. You could not find an answer you would

dare speak to such a man. There is no deed that you could do. I pulled

together, and only said, “It will cost Germany the war.” And so it did.

But we did not go to war; we tried to keep out of the war. The daily

page of red horrors fresh from Europe taught us what war meant at this

day of the world. Women naturally did not like the thought of casting

their sons into that brutal hell. And then arose the female-men, the

pacifists, forgetting their sex, forgetting their country, forgetting

the large and lasting game of humanity’s good, which cannot count

present cost, but must plan for the long game of the centuries.

With the pacifists suddenly and silently rose the hidden army of German

espionage and German sympathy in our own country, quick to see that

here was their chance! Millions of German gold now came pouring across

to finance this break in America’s forces. Her high ministers to our

Government began their treachery, forgetful of all ambassadorial honor,

perjuring themselves and their country. The war was on, on both sides

the Atlantic now.

And still America did not know, and still America did not go to war. We

dreaded it, held back from it, month after month—some, as it seems to

many, wrongly and unhappily even did what they could to capitalize the

fact that we were not at war. But the hidden serpent raised its head

and began to strike—to strike so openly, in so long a series of overt

acts, that now our civil courts and the great national machinery of

justice in Washington became literally helpless in their endeavors at

resistance.

We were not at war, but war was waged against us in so many

ways—against our lives and property—that all sense of security was

gone. We offered as our defense not, as yet, our Fleet or our Army, but

our Department of Justice. Day and night that department at Washington,

and its branches in all the great cities, in New York, Chicago, Boston,

Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Francisco, labored to clear the constantly

increasing dockets, to keep down the constantly increasing heaps

of suspect cases. It was evident that America was hearing from the

Kaiser’s million Germans in America. But where were the lamp posts?

The Department of Justice found itself flooded and submerged with work

in the Bureau of Investigation, collecting evidence against German

spies and German lawbreakers. It was plain what efforts now were making

to undermine America. But the truth was, the grist was too much for the

mill. We had never organized a system to handle covert and hidden war

as Germany had done. We had fought in the open when, rarely, we had

fought at all. The great mill of Justice clogged up and broke down, not

from any inefficiency or inadequacy in average times, but because it

never could have been predicted that “Neutrality Cases” such as these

ever would be known in our history. In this war, giant figures only

have ruled. The world was not prepared for them.

The outrages went on. Germany, confident of the success of ruthless

submarine warfare, told us when we could sail, how we must mark our

ships—said, sneeringly, “Vell, you vas varned!”

It had very early become plain to all Americans that we could not

always submit to this. More and more now we were browbeaten and

insulted. More and more also our hearts were wrung at the sight of

splendid France, fighting gamely and proudly and silently for her

life; at the lists of the gallant British dead; the whole story of the

staggering lines of Liberty. It was plain that the great prize of free

institutions, of human liberty itself, was about to be lost to the

world forever. It became plain that the glorious traditions of America

must perish, that her answer to humanity must be forever stilled, that

she, too, must be included in the ruin of all the good things of the

world. It began also to be said more and more openly that America would

come next—that we must fight; if not now, then at some later day, and

perhaps without these Allies.

So our war spirit began in the total to outweigh and overtop our peace

spirit and our pacifist spirit and our hesitant spirit. We knew we

would be at war. Many of us deplored and do still deplore the fact that

we waited so long in times so perilous. We lost two precious years;

billions in treasure, and what is immeasurably worse, millions in

lives. So much for hesitancy.

But now, as bearing upon the purpose of this account of the American

Protective League, it is to be kept in mind that for months and years

the Department of Justice had been at war with the hidden German army

here. And, as the Germans were pushing back the Allies over there, they

were pushing us back here, because we were not ready for so unforeseen

a situation.

What saves a country in its need? Its loyal men. What reinforces an

army called on for sudden enlargement? Its volunteers. What saved San

Francisco in its days of riot and anarchy in 1850? Its Volunteers for

law and order. What brought peace to Alder Gulch in 1863 when criminals

ruled? Its Volunteers for law and order. America always has had

Volunteers to fight for law and order against criminals. The law itself

says you may arrest without warrant a man caught committing a felony.

The line between formal written law and natural law is but thin at best.

There was, therefore, in the spring of 1917 in America, the greatest

menace to our country we ever had known. Organized criminals were in

a thousand ways attacking our institutions, jeopardizing the safety,

the very continuity of our country. No loyal American was safe. We did

not know who were the disloyal Americans. We faced an army of masked

men. They outnumbered us. We had no machinery of defense adequate to

fight them, because we foolishly had thought that all these whom we

had welcomed and fed were honest in their protestations—_and their

oaths_—when they came to us.

So now, we say, an imperious cry of NEED came, wrung from astounded

and anguished America. It was as though this actual cry came from the

heavens, “I need you, my children! Help me, my children!”

That cry was heard. How, it is of small importance to any member of

the American Protective League, whose wireless antennæ, for the time

attuned, caught down that silent wireless from the skies. No one man

sent that message. Almost, we might say, no one man answered it, so

many flocked in after the first word of answer. No one man of the two

hundred and fifty thousand who first and last answered in one way or

another would say or would want to say that he alone made so large an

answer to so large a call. None the less, we deal here with actual

history. So that now we may begin with details, begin to show how those

first strands were woven which in a few weeks or months had grown into

one of America’s strongest cables of anchorage against the terror which

was abroad upon the sea.

CHAPTER II

THE WEB

Methods of Work—Getting the Evidence—The Organization in

Detail—The Multifold Activities of the League.

It is to Mr. A. M. Briggs of Chicago that credit should go for the

initial idea of the American Protective League. The first flash came

many months before the declaration of war, although, for reasons

outlined, it long was obvious that we must eventually go to war.

The Department of Justice in Chicago was in a terribly congested

condition, and long had been, for the neutrality cases were piling up.

“I could get ten times as much done if I had men and money to work

with,” said Hinton G. Clabaugh, Superintendent of the Bureau of

Investigation. “There are thousands of men who are enemies of this

country and ought to be behind bars, but it takes a spy to catch a spy,

and I’ve got a dozen spies to catch a hundred thousand spies right

here in Chicago. They have motor cars against my street cars. They’re

supplied with all the money they want; my own funds are limited. We’re

not at war. All this is civil work. We simply haven’t ways and means to

meet this emergency.”

“I can get ten or twenty good, quiet men with cars who’ll work for

nothing,” said Mr. Briggs one day. “They’ll take either their business

time or their leisure time, or both, and join forces with you. I know

we’re not at war, but we’re all Americans together.”

In that chance conversation—only we ought not to call it chance at

all, but a thing foreordained—began the greatest society the world ever

saw,—an army of men equipped with money, brains, loyalty, which grew

into one of the main legions of our defense. That army to-day probably

knows more about you and your affairs than you ever thought anyone

could know. If you were not and are not loyal, those facts are known

and recorded, whether you live in New York or California or anywhere

between.

Once started, the voluntary service idea ran like wildfire. It began

as a free taxicab company, working for the most impeccable and most

dignified branch of our Government—that branch for which our people

always have had the most respect.

The ten private cars grew to two dozen. As many quiet-faced, silent

drivers as were necessary were always ready. Word passed among reliable

business men, and they came quietly and asked what they could do. They

were the best men of the city. They worked for principle, not for

excitement, not in any vanity, not for any pay. It was the “live-wires”

of the business world that were selected. They were all good men,

big men, brave and able, else they must have failed, and else this

organization never could have grown. It was secret, absolutely so;

clandestine absolutely, this organization of Regulators. But unlike

the Vigilantes, the Klu Klux, the Horse-Thief Detectors, it took no

punishments into its own hands. It was absolutely nonpartisan. It

had then and has now no concern with labor questions or political

questions. It worked only as collector of evidence. It had no

governmental or legal status at all. It tried no cases, suggested no

remedies. It simply _found the facts_.

It became apparent that the City of Chicago was not all America. These

American men had America and not Chicago at heart. Before long, five

hundred men, in widely separated and sometimes overlapping sections,

were at work piling up evidence against German and pro-German suspects.

These men began to enlist under them yet others. The thing was going

swiftly, unaccountably swiftly. America’s volunteers were pouring out.

The Minute Men were afoot again, ready to fight.

This was in March of 1917. Even yet we were not at war, though in the

two years following the Lusitania murders, the world had had more and

more proof of Germany’s heartless and dishonorable intentions. The

snake was now out of the leaves. The issue was joined. We all knew that

Washington soon would, soon must, declare war. The country was uneasy,

discontented, mutinous over the delay.

Meantime, all these new foci of this amateur organization began to

show problems of organization and administration. The several captains

unavoidably lapped over one another in their work, and a certain loss

in speed and efficiency rose out of this. The idea had proved good,

but it was so good it was running away with itself! No set of men

could handle it except under a well-matured and adequately-managed

organization, worked out in detail from top to bottom.

We may not place one man in this League above another, for all were

equal in their unselfish loyalty, from private to general, from

operative to inspector, and from inspector to National Directors; but

it is necessary to set down the basic facts of the inception of the

League in order that the vast volume and usefulness of its labors

properly may be understood. So it is in order now to describe how this

great army of workers became a unit of immense, united and effective

striking power, how the swift and divers developments of the original

idea became coordinated into a smooth-running machine, nation-wide in

its activities.

Now at last, long deferred—too long—came April 6, 1917. The black

headlines smote silence at every American table.

WAR!

We were at War! Men did not talk much. Mothers looked at their sons,

wives at their husbands. Thousands of souls had their Gethsemane that

day. Now we were to place our own breasts against the steel of Germany.

The cover was off. War—war to the end, now—war on both sides of the

sea—war against every form and phase of German activity! America

said aloud and firmly now, as, in her anguish, she had but recently

whispered, “I need you, my children!” And millions of Americans, many

of them debarred from arms by age or infirmity, came forward, each in

his own way, and swore the oath.

The oath of the League spread. Not one city or state, but all America

must be covered, and it must be done at once. The need of a national

administration became at once imperative.

In this work on the neutrality cases Mr. Clabaugh and his volunteer

aids often were in Washington together. The Department of Justice, so

far from finding this unasked civilian aid officious, gladly hailed it

as a practical aid of immeasurable value. It became apparent that the

League was bound to be national in every way at no late day.

All this meant money. But America, unasked, opened her secret purse

strings. Banks, prominent firms, loyal individuals gave thousands

and hundreds of thousands of dollars for a work which they knew must

be done if America was to be safe for decent men. And so the silent

army of which you never knew, grew and marched out daily. Your house,

your neighbor’s, was known and watched, guarded as loyal, circled as

disloyal. The nature of your business and your neighbor’s was known—and

tabulated. You do not know to-day how thoroughly America knows you. If

you are hyphenated now, if you are disloyal to this flag, so much the

worse for you.

It early became plain to manufacturers and owners of large industrial

plants of all sorts that they were in immediate danger of dynamite

outrages. Many plants agreed to present to the League monthly a

considerable checque to aid the work of safeguarding. Many wealthy

individuals gave additional amounts. A very considerable sum was raised

from the sale of badges to the operatives, it being explained to all

that they were sold at a profit for the benefit of the League. At all

times large amounts came in, raised by State or local chiefs, each of

whom knew his own community well. On one day in October, 1917, a call

went out to 6700 members of the League to meet on a certain evening at

Medinah Temple in Chicago, admission to be by credentials only. That

meeting was addressed by Chiefs and others. In a short time $82,000

was raised. Later on, certain bankers of national reputation—F. A.

Vanderlip of New York, George M. Reynolds of Chicago, Festus Wade of

St. Louis, Stoddard Jess of Los Angeles, and others—sent out an appeal

to the bankers of America in the interests of the League. This perhaps

would of itself have raised a half million more, but it came among

Liberty Loan activities, and before it was fully under way, the news

of the Armistice broke, which automatically ended many things. But the

American Protective League had money. It can have all the money it may

need in any future day.

It was not until fall of 1917 that, in answer to the imperious demands

of the swiftly grown association, now numbering thousands in every

State of the Union, and in order to get into closer touch with the

Department of Justice, the League moved its headquarters from Chicago

to Washington. Mr. Charles Daniel Frey of Chicago, who had worked out

with his associates the details of a perfectly subdivided organization,

was made Captain U. S. A. and liaison officer for the League’s work

with the Military Intelligence Division of the Army, a division which

itself had known great changes and rapid development. The three

National Directors were now A. M. Briggs, Chairman; Captain Charles

Daniel Frey, and Mr. Victor Elting, the latter gentleman, an attorney

of Chicago, having before now proved himself of the utmost service in

handling certain very tangled skeins. Mr. Elting had been Assistant

Chief in Chicago, working with Mr. Frey as Chief. Then later came on,

from his League duties in Chicago, Mr. S. S. Doty, a man successful

in his own business organization and of proved worth in working out

details of organization. Many others from Chicago, in many capacities,

joined the personnel in Washington, and good men were taken on as

needed and found. It would be cheap to attempt mention of these, but it

would be wrong not to give some general mention of the men who actually

had in hand the formation of the League and the conduct of its widely

reaching affairs from that time until its close at the end of the war.

They worked in secrecy and they asked no publicity then or now.

One thing must be very plain and clear. These men, each and all of

them, worked as civilian patriots, and, except in a very few necessary

clerical cases, without pay of any sort. There was no mummery about the

League, no countersigns or grips or passwords, no rituals, no rules. It

never was a “secret society,” as we understand that usually. It was—the

American Protective League, deadly simple, deadly silent, deadly in

earnest. There has been no glory, no pay, no publicity, no advertising,

no reward in the American Protective League, except as each man’s

conscience gave him his best reward, the feeling that he had fulfilled

the imperative obligations of his citizenship and had done his bit in

the world’s greatest war.

By the time the League was in Washington, it had a quarter-million

members. Its records ran into tons and tons; its clerical work was an

enormous thing.

The system, swiftly carried out, was unbelievably successful. An

unbelievable artesian fountain of American loyalty had been struck.

What and how much work that body of silent men did, how varied and

how imperatively essential was the work they did, how thrillingly

interesting it became at times as the netted web caught more and more

in its secret sweeping, must be taken up in later chapters.

As to the total volume of the League’s work, it never will be known,

and no figures will ever cover it more than partially. It handled in

less than two years, for the War Department alone, over three million

cases. It spent millions of dollars. It had a quarter million silent

and resolute men on its rolls. These men were the best of their

communities. They did not work for pay. They worked for duty, and

worked harder than a like number in any army of the world. Some of the

things they did, some of the astonishing matters they uncovered, some

of the strange stories they unearthed, will be taken up in order in

the pages following, and in a way more specifically informing than has

hitherto been attempted.

The League totals are tremendous, but the trouble with totals is

that they do not enter into comprehension. A million dollars means

little as a phrase, if left barren of some yard-stick for comparative

measurement. Thus, when we say that long ago the number of suspect

cases investigated by the American Protective League had passed

the three-million mark, we hail the figures as grandiose, but have

no personal idea of what they mean, no accurate conception of the

multitude, the nature and the multiplicity in detail of the three

million separate and distinct cases. It is when we begin to go into

details as to the work and its organization from unit to block, from

operative to chief, that we begin to open our eyes.

The government of this country had had thrown on it all at once a

burden a thousand times as great as that of times of peace. We had to

raise men and money, munitions, food, fuel for ourselves and all the

world. We were not prepared. We had to learn all at once the one and

hardest thing—one which America never yet had learned—economy. We had

to do all the active and positive material things necessary to put an

Army in the field across seas—build ships, fabricate ordnance, arm

large bodies of men, train them, feed them, get their fighting morale

on edge.

Yes, all these things—but this was only part. Our negative defense, our

silent forces also had to be developed. We had to learn economy—and

suspicion. That last was hard to learn. Just as delay and breakdowns

happened in other branches of the suddenly overloaded government, so a

breakdown in the resources of the Department of Justice—least known but

most valuable portion of our nation’s governmental system—was a thing

imminent. That was because of the swift multiplication of the list of

entirely new things that had to be looked into with justice, and yet

with speed. It is not too much to say that without the inspired idea of

the American Protective League, its Web spread out behind the lines,

there could not long have been said in the full confidence of to-day,

“God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives.”

Besides being an auxiliary of the Department of Justice, the League

was the active ally also of the Department of War, of the Navy, of the

State, of the Treasury. It worked for the Shipping Board, the Fuel and

Food Administrations, and the Alien Property Custodian. It ran down, in

its less romantic labors, sugar-allowance violators, violators of the

gasless-Sunday laws, the lightless-day laws, violators of the liquor

laws, as well as the large offenders—the spies who got internment or

the penitentiary as the penalty of getting caught. All these large and

small activities may be understood by a glance at the report-sheet

of any division chief. The heads and sub-heads will show the

differentiation. The chart following this chapter will show the method

of organizing the League’s personnel which was used in practically all

the great cities. The table of dates which immediately follows, sets

forth in outline the League’s early history, and indicates the rapidly

broadening character of the League’s work.

EARLY DATES OF THE AMERICAN

PROTECTIVE LEAGUE

_January 25, 1917_ First Call by Mr. Clabaugh.

_February 2, 1917_ Second Call by Mr. Clabaugh (for

automobiles).

_February 2 to 25, 1917_ Automobiles and Plans.

_February 25, 1917_ Submitted Plan.

_March 1, 1917_ Plan Endorsed and Forwarded to

Washington.

_March 15, 1917_ Invited to Washington.

_March 22, 1917_ League Authorized.

_March 22, 1917_ New York Division Started.

_March 22 to 26, 1917_ Organizing in Chicago.

_March 26, 1917_ Chicago Division Started.

_March 27, 1917_ Milwaukee Division Started.

_March 29, 1917_ St. Louis Division Started.

_April 6, 1917_ State of War with Germany

Acknowledged.

_April 9, 1917_ Philadelphia Division Started.

_November 1, 1917_ Board of National Directors

Organized.

_November 15, 1917_ National Headquarters Established in

Washington.

This will close a brief and necessarily incomplete review of the widely

ramified nature of that Web which America made over night in her time

of need.

There was also a confidential pamphlet, originally sent only to

members, which elaborates and makes clear the basic purposes of the

League, whose personnel and methods already have been covered. It is

given in full as Appendix B. A great historic interest attaches to

this document, which tells the complete inside story of the League and

the manner in which it first was organized for its work. It is not

necessary to say that this now appears before the eyes of the general

public for the first time.

Lastly, there is for the first time made public the solemn oath taken

by each member of the American Protective League. Years hence, this

page will have historic value. It records one of the most singular

phenomena of the American civilization.

THE OATH OF MEMBERSHIP

I, ..., _a member of the American Protective League, organized

with the approval and operating under the direction of the United

States Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation, do hereby

solemnly swear_:

That I am a citizen of the United States of America; and that I

will uphold and defend the Constitution and Laws of the United

States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and will bear

true faith and allegiance to the same at all times as a true and

loyal citizen thereof.

That I will give due time and diligent attention to such service

as I shall undertake to render; and that I will execute promptly

and to the best of my ability the commands of my superiors in

connection therewith.

That I will in all respects observe the rules and regulations,

present and future, of this organization; and that I will promptly

report to my superiors any and all violations thereof, and all

information of every kind and character and from whatever source

derived, tending to prove hostile or disloyal acts or intentions

on the part of any person whatsoever and all other information of

any kind of interest or value to the Government.

That I will not, except in the necessary performance of my

duty, exhibit my credentials or disclose my membership in this

organization; and that I will not disclose to any person other

than a duly authorized Government official or officer of this

organization, facts and information coming to my knowledge in

connection with its work.

That the statement on the opposite side hereof, by me subscribed,

is true and correct.

That I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation

or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully

discharge my duties, as a volunteer for the defense and

preservation of the United States of America.

_SO HELP ME GOD_

CHAPTER III

EARLY DAYS OF THE LEAGUE

“D. J.” and “A. P. L.”—The Personal Statement of the Chicago Division

Superintendent of the U. S. Bureau of Investigation—Early Days of the

League—The Nation Unprepared—Swift Rallying of the Minute Men.

“_Without exaggeration, I think the Chicago Division of the

American Protective League did seventy-five per cent of the

Government investigating work of the Chicago district throughout

the period of the war. It seems to me that this one sentence

covers the situation._”—Hinton G. Clabaugh, Chicago Agent, U. S.

Department of Justice.

In previous pages a general outline of the birth and growth of the

American Protective League has been given, with a general statement

also as to its wide usefulness in the exigencies of the tremendous days

of the world war. There will be, however, many thousands of the members

of the League, and a like number of the lay public, who will be curious

as to the specific and more personal facts surrounding the early days

of the organization. Such facts are part of the country’s history as

well as that of the League, and therefore ought to be recorded, and

recorded accurately and indisputably.

Mr. Hinton G. Clabaugh, division superintendent of the Bureau of

Investigation of the U. S. Department of Justice, was asked for a

written brief, historically covering the joint activities of the

Department of Justice and its A. P. L. auxiliary in Chicago during the

early period of the war. The admirably comprehensive record which Mr.

Clabaugh has furnished appears in this volume as Appendix A.

No statement of facts and figures, however, or of dates and details,

can really cover the story of the American Protective League. It has

a character and a history which refuse to classify or to run parallel

with other organizations. It was an idea born out of a vast necessity,

and its growth seemed to be a thing apart from ordinary business

methods. Indeed, it sprang into such rapid stature that in large part

its officers followed it rather than led it. It was almost sporadic in

a thousand towns, so quickly did the achievement of organization follow

the realization of the need. Thereafter came the days of national

organization, of system, patience, perseverance, and efficiency, which

made it a well-knit power in all parts of the country.

It was Mr. Clabaugh’s privilege to have lent aid and encouragement in

the days when the League was not yet a reality, the early days when all

was nebulous, when no one knew anyone else, and when cases were pouring

into D. J. that had to be handled in the best way possible and at the

first moment possible.

The A. P. L. has always served the regular organization of the law, has

always worked with or under the supervision of the D. J. bureau chief

nearest at hand, and, indeed, never pretended to do more than that. But

this coöperation and interlocking of forces was an easier thing for D.

J. superintendents elsewhere, later in the game, after A. P. L. had

become an accepted success all over the country.

It was at the very beginning that the greatest difficulties had to be

met, and it was during these early troubled days of the League that

its history became inseparably linked with that of the Chicago bureau

of the Department of Justice. Set down in a seething center of alien

activity—for so we may justly call Chicago in the early days of this

war—with only a handful of men to rely on, with no laws, no precedents,

no support, no help, no past like to the present, and no future that

could be predicated on anything that had gone before, Mr. Clabaugh’s

bureau was the first to get swamped with the neutrality cases—and the

first to be offered counsel, friendship, support, help, money, men and

methods, all in quality and amount fitted to win the day for him at

once. The Clabaugh story, therefore, is the most important one told by

any bureau chief, and it is historically indispensable.

It is all very well to have confidence in our government and to believe

in a general way that it cannot err and cannot fail, but government

in peace and government in war times are two distinct and separate

propositions. The sheer truth is that there was absolutely no arm

or branch of our government which was prepared for war. In part, we

never did get prepared for it, so far as essential equipment of a

military sort is concerned. In artillery, in aeroplanes, in various

sorts of munitions and of equipment, we were not ready for war when

the Armistice was signed. We had no adequate military or intelligence

system, and the splendid force built up as M. I. D. was built after

the war was begun and not before. In the same way—although, of course,

we had the American faith and respect for our courts, believing them

to be in some way supernal institutions which could not err and which

needed no attention on the part of the people—our judiciary also was

unprepared for war. It never would have been prepared for war—never in

the world—had it not been for the American Protective League. It is

certainly a most curious, almost an uncanny story, how the Minute Men

of America once more saved the day, responding instantly to a great

national need, not knowing overmuch of this new game, but each resolved

to fight—each, if you please, resolving in unheroic and undramatic

way—in much the same frame of mind of those men at Verdun who wrote on

the page of martial history the clarion phrase, “They shall not pass!”

The enemy did not pass in Chicago, nor in New York, nor in San

Francisco, nor in any place between. Not prepared—a whole nation in

shirtsleeves at the plow—we became prepared. We fought with one hand,

while, with the other, we buttoned on the new tunic for which we had

not yet been measured, and in Army, Navy, Aviation, Intelligence,

Supply, Motor Transport and Department of Justice, we learned as we

fought—and won. The organization of the American Protective League

reveals a curious phase of life in this republic. It could not have

taken place in any other country of the world.

“A word as to the Chicago organization is in order,” says the writer

of this first report of D. J. on A. P. L. “The work of the League was

presumed to be to report matters of a disloyal nature that came to

the attention of the members and to see that they were brought to the

attention of the proper Government officials. However, the work of the

agents of the Bureau itself increased so rapidly at this time that it

was a physical impossibility for the small number to handle the same,

and by degrees members of the League who showed aptitude for the work

were called upon to assist the agents of the Bureau. _Gradually, more

and more work was thrown on the League until practically all complaints

coming to the Bureau by mail were turned over to the League for them to

investigate._”

If, during the later months of the war, you had visited the Department

of Justice in the Federal Building in Chicago, you would have found

extensive and well-equipped offices, ably manned and humming with

activity. Yet the Chicago department, though large in personnel and

efficient in administration, was greatly overworked in this hotbed of

pro-German and enemy spy activity.

After leaving the Federal Building, let us say, you had also decided

to visit the headquarters of the volunteer organization in Chicago.

Less than a block away from the federal offices, in a stately building

given over entirely to the housing of organizations whose sole aim

and purpose was the winning of the war, you would have found a set

of offices as large, as well equipped, as full of filed records, and

of as able a personnel as those of the U. S. bureau. There would be

this difference: the latter offices—those of the American Protective

League—were run by men who got no pay—and there were almost one hundred

times as many of them as there were of the D. J. workers. Yet the two

great organizations are parts of the same system, and have worked

together in perfect harmony and mutual benefit. Together, they have

held German crime and espionage helpless in Chicago all through the war.

Of course, the tremendously expensive operations of so large a secret

service organization could be met only by large-handed voluntary giving

on the part of private citizens. For instance, the office rent alone

of the A. P. L. in Chicago ran into thousands of dollars monthly.

It was all carried by one public utility concern, the Commonwealth

Edison Company, which turned over the needed space in a building which

formerly housed its own offices. It is a part of the private history of

the Department of Justice, scarcely if ever mentioned, that long before

the idea of the American Protective League was broached—indeed, at the

time when we had just severed diplomatic relations with Germany—Mr.

Samuel Insull, afterward Chairman of the State Council of Defense for

Illinois, called on Mr. Clabaugh and offered financial aid to the

Bureau of Investigation. He said: “I know how meager your resources

are, and I believe there is a lot of trouble not far ahead. Let me know

if you need men or money, and I’ll see that you get both.” This, of

course, had nothing to do with the later organization of the League,

nor with the idea on which it is based, but Mr. Clabaugh always has

said that Mr. Insull was the first private citizen to his knowledge to

offer financial aid to the U. S. Government.

The public has heard more of “D. J.” than it has of “A. P. L.” for

obvious reasons. Of the two great office systems, one has been running

for many years as a known part of the Federal Government. The other

was two years old, and was always secret in its work and personnel.

If it ever were a question of credit or “glory,” the palm must go and

has gone to the Federal arm, because that is where the dénouements of

cases had their home, and where publication of the printable facts

originated. A. P. L. carried the evidence to the door of D. J. and

stopped. It started cases, but did not finish them.

The public never had more than a very vague idea of the workings of

the vast duo-fold machine which held life and property in America so

safe in the dangerous days of the war. For instance, the average man

reading newspaper mention of Mr. Clabaugh’s activities as bureau head,

usually thought of him as public prosecutor. He was not that. It was

his duty, as it was the League’s duty, only to procure testimony.

His work was not of the legal branch, and he himself never has been

admitted to the bar, although he—with his auxiliary, A. P. L.—has won

the largest and most stubbornly fought criminal cases in the history of

the country, and is devoutly feared to-day by countless I. W. W.’s not

yet arrested.

The story of all these curiously interactive agencies, official and

amateur, is indeed the greatest detective story in the world, and it

is very difficult to measure it in full, or to visualize it in detail,

so simply did it all happen, so naturally, so swiftly and so much as a

matter of course. There is no like proof in history of the ability of

the American people to govern itself and to take care of itself. Mr.

Clabaugh’s vivid and accurate story will bear out all these statements,

and it is requested that it be read by all who wish a clear and

consecutive acquaintance with the history of the American Protective

League. Attention is again called to it as printed in full in Appendix

A.

CHAPTER IV

THE LEAGUE IN WASHINGTON

Summary of the League’s Results Throughout the United States—Report of

the National Directors—Facts, Figures and Totals for All the Divisions.

Facts now may be made public property which until lately might not

have been divulged. We therefore shall find profit now in studying the

central organization by means of which the aroused Americans combined

to fight the hidden forces of their unscrupulous enemy. The origin

and growth, the general plans and methods of the American Protective

League, have been explained; and it will now be well, before we pass on

to the specific story of the League’s activities, to give some idea of

the wide-reaching consolidation of those activities which followed upon

the establishment of the National Headquarters.

The report of any official may seem dry and formal, but the records

should be made to show how America’s amateur Scotland Yard organized

to fight the forces of Germany all over America. This portion of the

League’s story is therefore of great value to anyone desirous of

knowing the logical steps by which the League developed into a truly

national institution.

The liaison officer of the National Directors, Captain Charles Daniel

Frey, made his report and summary of November, 1918, to Colonel K. C.

Masteller of the General Staff, Chief of the negative branch of the

Military Intelligence Division. This report was a general assembling

of the national activities of the League up to the time of the signing

of the Armistice. Certain extracts are made in consonance with

the general outline above indicated. It should be noted that this

report covers only a portion of the League’s work in Washington. The

Department of Justice figures, as was to be expected, exceeded those

of any other branch of the League’s work. The War Department totals

were also very high—evidence of service rendered by the League which

the War Department always has been very courteous and grateful in

acknowledging. Captain Frey’s report reads:

SIR: In compliance with your request, we beg to submit the

following statement of service rendered the War Department by the

American Protective League. As you know, local divisions of the

League are in operation in practically all towns and cities of

substantial size throughout the United States, and the League has

been extended, through a plan of county organization, generally

throughout the rural communities. It is not possible to submit to

you an accurate classified statement of the aggregate of all of

the work done throughout the country. We are able, however, to

present a general statement of the activities of the League for

the War Department of the United States, with a detailed report

of the work of the local divisions in one hundred communities

of the country. The total population of these communities is

approximately one-seventh of the population of the entire country.

The work of the American Protective League for the Military

Intelligence Division of the War Department began soon after

the entry of the United States into the war. When the National

Headquarters of the League were established in Washington in

November, 1917, the National Directors conferred with Colonel R.

H. Van Deman regarding a plan for wider service throughout the

entire country. One of the National Directors was commissioned

in the army, assigned to the Military Intelligence Division and

detailed to the work of the League. In April, 1918, a department

of the League was installed in the Military Intelligence Division,

and since then the work has constantly grown in volume. A Captain

in the Military Intelligence is now in charge, and at the present

time thirty-six employes are working in the Section.

The increase in the volume of work is clearly shown by the

records. Investigations directed by the Section in May, 1918,

numbered 819; in June, 1777; in July, 2382; in August, 3617;

in September, 6736; and in October, 6604. These investigations

were of applicants for overseas service for the Y. M. C. A., Red

Cross, Knights of Columbus, Jewish Welfare, Salvation Army, and

other civilian organizations; of applicants for commissions and

employment in various Departments of the Army, including the

Quartermaster Department, Surgeon General’s Office, Department

of Aeronautics, Ordnance Department, Signal Corps, Army Chaplain

Service, Chemical Warfare Service, etc. They also included

investigations on counter-espionage matters, German propaganda,

deserters, slackers and various other miscellaneous cases, all of

which was made at the direct request of the heads of the different

sections of the Military Intelligence Division at Washington.

The character of this work differs in no way from that of the

Department of Military Intelligence having to do with Negative

Intelligence. In the one hundred local divisions referred to,

the number of cases investigated and reported upon were 62,888,

and upon the percentage basis, the number handled throughout the

country would be 440,216.

The League has likewise exerted itself in enlisting the aid of the

public in reporting enemy activities, disloyalties and evasions of

the war statutes. In various cities, bulletins have been posted

in prominent places, including street cars, office buildings and

places of public gathering, requesting citizens to report to

the American Protective League all such cases coming to their

knowledge. Much important information resulted from this practice.

Because of the fact that the members of the League continue to

follow their daily vocations and maintain their normal connections

with the community, they are afforded unusual opportunities for

the investigation of radical organizations of all kinds. The

League has been able to introduce members into all of the more

important organizations, and to report upon their policies and

activities as well as upon the activities of individual members.

The number of investigations of this character carried on in

the one hundred divisions referred to were 3,645; or 25,515 for

the entire country. As most of these were extended, and in many

cases involved a complete report upon the local organization as

a whole, the figures represent a very considerable amount of

work. Under this heading are included investigations of the I. W.

W., the W. I. I. U., pacifist organizations of many kinds, the

Peoples Council, the League of Humanity, the Non-Partisan League,

the Russellites and certain Socialistic movements. Sabotage

investigations and conscientious objectors are also included.

In connection with the development of the overseas service

of the Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., Knights of Columbus, Jewish

Welfare, Salvation Army and other civilian organizations of like

character, the necessity arose for the careful investigation of

the character, history and connections of civilian applicants to

such service. Fortunately, the Military Intelligence finally took

over the entire work of passing upon the character and loyalty

of applicants, and relieved the League of the responsibility of

directly advising the organizations concerned of the outcome of

the investigations. The Military Intelligence then called upon the

League as its agent to make the larger part of the investigations.

By this method the name of the investigator and of the individual

responsible for the decision remains undisclosed, and the judgment

is in that sense impersonal.

The League likewise made investigations of a large number of

applicants for commissions in various Divisions of the War

Department, including applicants for Chaplaincies.

Investigations as to character and loyalty reached a very

large total. The number aggregates 30,166, including certain

investigations made prior to the establishment of the League

section in the Military Intelligence Division at Washington.

On January 12, 1918, the National Directors issued a bulletin

calling upon all local divisions to make full report upon the

rumors, current in their communities, which were harmful to

the interest of the United States in the prosecution of the

war. As a result of this inquiry, a large amount of information

was gathered, complete copies of which were turned over to the

Military Intelligence Division for its files.

In view of the fact that a large number of members of the American

Protective League enlisted in the military service or were

inducted into the draft, the League was requested by the Military

Intelligence Division to procure the names of all such men, with

their record, in order that the Military Intelligence might avail

itself of their services within the military forces if it so

desired.

In addition to the foregoing, miscellaneous investigations for

the Military Intelligence were carried on in considerable volume.

These included cases of impersonation of army officers, visé of

passports, bribery, theft and embezzlement, and a variety of other

cases. These miscellaneous investigations in the local divisions

referred to aggregate 19,556, or 136,892 for the country at large.

On June 5, 1917, the date of the first registration,

approximately eighty thousands of members of the League throughout

the country assisted at the registration polls, giving advice and

assistance to registrants under the law and aiding the officials

in all possible ways. In the larger cities, particularly those

with large foreign born populations, great congestion resulted

because of the ignorance of the law and its provisions on the part

of registrants, and because of the difficulty in ascertaining and

transcribing correctly their names and other information regarding

them. The number of places for registration proved insufficient

because of the shortness of the hours, and in many places great

confusion resulted. Acting under proper instructions, members of

the League in large numbers served as volunteer registrants under

the direction of the officials.

On February 6, 1918, the Provost Marshal General and the Attorney

General of the United States united in a request to the American

Protective League to coöperate with all local and district

exemption boards throughout the United States in locating

and causing to present themselves to the proper authorities

delinquents under the Selective Service Regulations, including

those classed as deserters. Thereupon each local division assigned

certain members to the Local and District Boards within its

jurisdiction. These activities are of many varieties and include

the investigation of Board Members, conspiracies and bribery,

conspiracies to obstruct the draft, draft evasion in all forms,

fraudulent attempts at deferred classification, false claims for

exemption, failures to report for examination, failures to report

for mobilization, failures to file questionnaires, failures to

register, failures to secure final classification, failures to

notify local boards of changes in address, failures to ascertain

present status from the Local Board, failures to entrain, and all

other alleged infractions of the regulations. These investigations

made by the one hundred local divisions total 323,349. Upon a

percentage basis, the cases handled throughout the country would

total 2,263,443, and including the slacker raids, an enormous

figure which cannot well be estimated.

Many investigations under the Local Boards were made with extreme

difficulty because of the confusion in the spelling of names,

inaccurate records and constantly shifting addresses due to the

roaming character of the individual. We believe that the Provost

Marshal General’s office will confirm the statement that the

number of delinquents and deserters of this character is very

great, possibly exceeding two hundred thousands, a group recruited

mostly from laborers, harvesters and the other ranks of homeless

unskilled labor. Members of the League have given a great amount

of time and energy to these cases.

During the two or three months following the day of first

registration, a general effort was made by local divisions of

the League in the principal cities to run down those individuals

within the draft age who had failed to register on June 5,

1917. In Chicago, a city-wide drive was made during which all

stations of the railroads entering Chicago were covered by

League operators, and the downtown or loop district was likewise

patroled. This was the first organized effort on a large scale to

enforce the regulations. Subsequently similar action was taken in

other cities.

In the early summer and fall of 1918 many slacker drives were

conducted throughout the country. They were made under the

direction of the officials of the Department of Justice with

the active assistance of the Local Divisions of the American

Protective League. Effective drives occurred in Cleveland,

Detroit, St. Louis, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis,

St. Paul, Davenport, Dayton and many cities of lesser size

throughout the country.

As a result of a single drive in one city, according to the report

of the Division Superintendent of the Bureau of Investigation of

the Department of Justice, approximately five hundred men were

sent to camp as deserters and four thousand delinquents were

apprehended. These drives as a whole were carried on with the

acquiescence and with the general satisfaction of the public at

large, and with the minimum of embarrassment to the individuals

concerned. The New York city drive presented an exception where

certain difficulties arose.

As a result of these drives, several hundred thousand men were

examined throughout the country; tens of thousands who had

failed to comply with the requirements of the Selective Service

Regulations were compelled to go to their District Boards to

make good their delinquencies, and many thousand delinquents and

deserters were inducted into the army who otherwise might have

escaped service.

Members of the League have apprehended many camp deserters and

soldiers absent without leave. They have investigated thousands of

requests for furloughs where the soldier claimed illness at home

or made other claims. Many fraudulent requests were uncovered by

these investigations. These investigations, in the one hundred

divisions referred to, number 3,478.

Early in April, 1918, the National Directors conferred with Mr.

Fosdick and other officials of the Department of Training Camp

activities, and with the officials of the Department of Justice,

with regard to developing a plan for the successful enforcement

of Section 13 of the Selective Service Act and the regulations

thereunder,—the section referred to having to do with the

protection of the military and naval forces of the United States

from the evil influences of vice and prostitution in the vicinity

of the camps. In the one hundred divisions referred to, the number

of investigations was 5,866, or in the country at large, 41,062.

In addition to the foregoing, the reports from local divisions

indicate that they have made a large number of investigations of a

general character for the War Department, including a variety of

subjects. Mention should also be made of a considerable amount of

service rendered to the Foreign Recruiting Missions in locating

slackers and deserters and in making miscellaneous investigations

of individuals.

On March 18, 1918, the Military Intelligence Branch of the War

Department requested the American Protective League to procure

for that Department, for immediate use for intelligence purposes,

photographs, drawings and descriptions of bridges, buildings,

towns and localities, then occupied by the German forces in

France, Belgium and Luxemburg, and likewise in that portion of

Germany lying west of a line running north and south through

Hamburg. In compliance with that request, National Headquarters

issued a bulletin to all Local Divisions, calling upon the entire

organization of the League throughout the country to engage in

the work, and prescribing a detailed method for carrying it on.

The result of the work, and the appreciation of the Military

Intelligence Branch, was expressed to the League in a letter from

Lieutenant Colonel Coxe, under date of June 11, 1918, in which

he quotes a letter from Colonel Nolan, chief of the Military

Intelligence Force abroad, to the effect that the material

contained much information of value and that “the citizens of the

United States who donated the above articles and the League which

collected them have done something which definitely helps toward

the success of the operations of our army.”

Summing up the actual investigations made by the American

Protective League in the one hundred local divisions referred to,

the grand total of cases reported by these divisions is 448,950.

As has been shown, the jurisdiction of these divisions embraces

approximately one-seventh of the whole population of the country

covered by all of the local divisions of the League, and while

some of the work reported by the one hundred divisions is not

duplicated elsewhere, yet the reverse is true, and it may fairly

be said that the entire number of cases handled by the League for

the War Department throughout the country is seven times the above

figure, or more than three million.

In conclusion, we beg to state that it has been the policy

to coöperate with all local, State and Federal departments in

enforcing the war laws of the United States. Our Local Chiefs have

been able to establish cordial relations with all local police,

sheriffs, fish and game wardens, fire wardens, and other officials

whose assistance has been invaluable in many cases, and have

likewise gained the friendly interest and support of County and

State officials generally as well as of the Judicial Departments.

We have not attempted to set forth in this communication the

volume of work done for the Department of Justice.

A very prominent phase of work in which the A. P. L. was of use to the

War Department is covered very well by the comment of the Department of

Justice regarding the law under which the American Army was raised:

The most important of the war laws is the selective-service

act. Cases under this act are of three general kinds—first, the

violation of the act by the military eligibles themselves; that

is, the failure to register in accordance with the registration

system under the draft, the failure to file a questionnaire,

the making of false exemption claims, the failure to report

for examination, etc. As soon as a man becomes a deserter, he

comes under the jurisdiction of the military authorities and is

turned over to them. Up to that point, however, if he does not

fully comply with the law and the Selective-Service Regulations,

he is subject to prosecution by this department. As the main

object of the law is the raising of an army and not the filling

of a prison, the department seeks to deliver to the military

authorities for military service all offenders subject to military

service and physically fit therefor, except those who willfully

and rebelliously refuse military service and can be subjected to

substantial punishment.

The second class of cases concerns the acts of those who, not

themselves subject to military service, induce violations of

the act, such as making false exemption claims for others,

inducing others to resist military service or evade the law. This

classification also includes violations of duty on the part of

members of the exemption boards.

The third class of cases relates to the violation of those

sections which aim to protect training and mobilization camps

from the evil influence of the liquor traffic or prostitution

within the neighborhood of the camp. The first class of cases has

thrown upon the representatives of this department throughout the

country an immense amount of work. This work has consisted in part

of prosecuting deliberate violations of the law. In far larger

measure, however, it has consisted in locating, apprehending, and

delivering to local boards or Army officials many thousands of

men who for various reasons have failed to appear for physical

examination, failed to file questionnaires, etc. _Down to July 1,

1918, the department had thus investigated 220,747 cases of this

character and caused induction into military service of 23,439

men._

A curious personal quality attaches to the study of the work of the

American Protective League, which is perhaps attributable to the

fact that all the members were amateurs only and altogether unpaid.

No doubt, did space and formal limitations permit, a very widespread

comment on the personal relations of the members of the League to the

League itself would be acceptable to many readers. Within the limits

available, however, a certain martial severity and impersonality must

be employed. None the less, there ought to be some brief mention made

of the work of the National Directors after the establishment of the

Washington office. In this connection it is fitting that the names of

those men should be mentioned who labored so earnestly and so well to

make the work of A. P. L. of vital importance in the winning of the war.

NATIONAL DIRECTORS AND OFFICERS OF ADMINISTRATION

OF THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE LEAGUE

A. M. Briggs, _Chairman_

Charles Daniel Frey

Victor Elting

_National Directors_ _November, 1917_

S. S. Doty

_In charge Bureau of Organization_ _February, 1918_

Captain George P. Braun, Jr.

_In charge Bureau of Investigation_ _June, 1918_

Charles F. Lorenzen

_In charge Bureau of Investigation_ _September, 1918_

James D. Stover

_In charge Bureau of Administration_ _September, 1918_

Daniel V. Casey

_Editor of The Spy Glass_ _May, 1918

Lieutenant Urban A. Lavery

_In charge A. P. L. branch at Military

Intelligence_ _April, 1918_

Captain John T. Evans

_In charge A. P. L. branch at Military

Intelligence_ _September, 1918_

The enormous growth of the American Protective League in so short

a time is sufficient evidence in itself that a vast, pressing need

existed for the service it rendered. Indeed, the great local activity

of the League became a national activity in record time. Reports piled

in from all over the country; the detail of correspondence became

enormous; the filing of records an endless task. All at once the

National Directors of the American Protective League found they had

taken over a business—one of the largest businesses with which any one

of them had ever been identified. It would not be too much to say that

they worked day and night for a long period. Their task was a very

heavy one, but they brought to it a knowledge of large business affairs

and a quality of perseverance which saw them through.

The original headquarters of the League were at 1537 Eye Street,

Northwest, an old Washington residence—a quaint and none too convenient

business home. All the directors lived in the upper part of this

building, and such was the crowded and impractical form of Washington

life at the time that they were glad to sleep and sometimes cook their

meals in the same building where they did their work. Such a thing as

rest or leisure were unknown for two years’ time. No one who has not

been in part acquainted with Washington in war times knows the handicap

under which all such work needed to be done. Transportation, living

accommodations, clerical help—everything, in that period of the war,

became a problem or an obstacle of a very considerable sort. It was

faith and enthusiasm which carried these men through, as was the case

with their associates all over America.

So, gradually, from this central office, the web of the American

Protective League was extended until it reached into every state and

territory of the Union, and until each line of communication was one of

interchange of intelligence from and to the central headquarters. It is

only by reference to the portion of this history marked as “The Four

Winds”—showing briefs of reports from all over the Union—that any just

knowledge can be gained of the tremendous volume of work done by the

central headquarters. Nor does the assemblage offered give more than

a mere indication of that volume, because thousands of reports have,

for reasons of space, received no notice whatever, unfair as that must

always seem to everyone identified with the compilation of this history.

In the fall of 1918, headquarters were moved from 1537 Eye Street to

1719 H Street, Northwest, another old time Washington residence of

stately sort, which remained the home of the National Headquarters

until the signing of the Armistice and the dissolution of the League

itself. Here Mr. Briggs, Captain Frey and Mr. Elting remained until the

end of the game in charge of a loyal band of workers. For all of these

men, and those associated with them, there remain the recollection of a

hectic two years of high speed work, in connection with financial loss

to everyone engaged in it.

CHAPTER V

THE LAW AND ITS NEW TEETH

Insufficiency of the Espionage Laws at the Outbreak of the War—Getting

Results—The Amended Espionage Act—The Law of 1798 Revived—Statement of

the Attorney General of the United States.

If predisposed to alien enemy sympathy, a critic might declare that the

League was made up of individual buccaneers, who did high-handed things

and escaped punishment therefor only because of the general confusion

due to a state of war. Nothing could be more unjust or farther from

the truth than such a belief. On the contrary, the League and the

Department of Justice as well felt continually held back and hampered

by respect for laws admittedly inadequate.

We had matured a great system of jurisprudence, sufficient for ordinary

needs. Moreover, when war began, we had passed more laws adjusted to

the new needs; but it is a curious fact that, threatened as we were

by Germany’s perfected system of espionage and propaganda, we had no

actual statute by which we adequately could cope with it until May,

1918—more than a year after we went to war, and less than six months

before the end of the war.

In the spring of 1918, the National Directors began, under the

editorship of Daniel V. Casey, the issue of a League organ or

confidential bulletin, called “The Spy Glass.” The first number of

the publication, in June of that year, took up the amended Espionage

Act, which was the base of practically all of the A. P. L. and D. J.

work during the war. This amendment rebuilt and stiffened the original

Espionage Act of June 15, 1917, which had been found insufficient,

and “put teeth in the law,” as the Attorney General’s office phrased

it. “The Spy Glass” printed a digest of the new enactment, which

is of essential interest at this point of the League’s story as it

determined the whole character of the League’s later activities. This

summarization of the Espionage Act is printed as Appendix C in the

present volume.

Up to the close of 1917, we had had, duly amended, many national

statutes covering treason and sedition, foreign and hostile

connections, pretending to be an officer, enticing to desertion or

strikes, trespassing at military places, falsely claiming citizenship,

aiding or counseling offense, wearing uniform unlawfully, conspiracy,

neutrality, counterfeiting seals, use of mails, trading with the enemy,

censorship, foreign language news items, sabotage, etc., as well as

many specific enactments controlling persons liable for military

service, and covering the increase of the army, the questions of

evasion, desertion, etc. These powers, broad as they were already,

were extended under the blanket power of the Articles of War, to

cover fraud, desertion, mutiny, insubordination, misbehavior before

the enemy, traitors and spies, murder, rape and other crimes, and the

general conduct and discipline of those in military service.

Not even all these laws, however, were found to stand the extreme

demands put on the country by thousands of new and wholly unforeseen

exigencies. As a matter of fact, one of the most useful of all our

laws against enemy aliens and spies was one not up-to-date at all, but

dating back to Revolutionary times; that is to say, July 6, 1798![1]

This old law was unearthed by the agents of the Department of Justice.

It gave almost blanket powers to the President of the United States,

and it was under the President’s proclamations, based on that old law,

that most of the early internment arrests were made. The old law, long

disused, was found to work perfectly still! It was extended in force by

the regulations controlling enemy aliens.[2]

It became the duty of the newly organized League to take on the

accumulation of testimony under all these new laws; and what that was

to mean may be forecast from the comment of the Attorney General of the

United States in his annual report for 1918:

The so-called Espionage Act contains a variety of provisions on

different subjects, such as neutrality, protection of ships in

harbor, spy activities, unlawful military expeditions, etc. Most

of the cases which have arisen, however, presenting the most

complex problems, have been under the third section of Title I of

this act, which is aimed at disloyal and dangerous propaganda.

This section 3 was amended by a law which became effective May 18,

1918, commonly called the Sedition Act, which greatly broadened

the scope of the original act and brought under its prohibitions

many new types of disloyal utterance. The use which our enemies

have made of propaganda as a method of warfare is especially

dangerous in any country governed by public opinion. During the

first three years of the war, the period of our neutrality, the

German Government and its sympathizers expended here a vast

amount of money in carrying on different types of propaganda,

and these activities are a matter of public knowledge. During

our participation in the war, section 3 and its later amendment

have been the only weapons available to this Government for the

suppression of insidious propaganda, and it is obvious that no

more difficult task has been placed upon our system of law than

the endeavor to distinguish between the legitimate expression of

opinion and those types of expression necessarily or deliberately

in aid of the enemy. The number of complaints under this law

presented to the Department of Justice has been incredibly large.

Such, then, was the ultimate machinery of our national laws when, late,

but with such speed as a willing Congress could give after the gauntlet

was flung and the issue joined, we began to face in dead earnest the

peril of the times. We now had at last a full set of laws with teeth in

them. But it was a tremendous burden that the older institutions of our

administrative machinery had to carry. In sooth, the load was too much.

The machinery buckled under it. We could not do the work we had to get

done.

That work was more than ever had been asked of any nation of the

world. We had a mixed population of wholly unknown disposition. Some

said we delayed going to war for so long because we were not sure

our people would back the Government. That, surely, could be the

only reason for the delay. All the races of the world were seething

in rage and jealousy. We had racial war within our borders. We could

not count on our own friends. We could not predict as to what percent

of men would be loyal to our flag. We had two million men of German

blood inside our borders, guaranteed by their Kaiser to be loyal to

Germany. And long before we had gone to war, we had had abundant proof

of their disloyalty to us, of their hatred for Britain and France,

and their discontent with our own neutrality. We had openly been

warned by the German Kaiser that he counted on the loyalty to Germany

of many or most of these men. Fear alone held the average pro-German

back. But it did not hold back their seasoned spies and the agents who

worked under cover. The sudden cessation of pro-German talk which fell

when we declared war deceived none but the pacifists. The boasts of

German-Americans as to their holdings in Liberty Bonds deceived not at

all the men who had sat and listened on the inside; for even at this

time the records were piling up—records of private acts and words of

treason to America which had been noted by the A. P. L. The full record

of German craft and duplicity, of treachery and treason to America,

never will be made public. It was alike a loathsome and a dangerous

thing.

Obviously, the hands of our Government sorely needed upholding. Who was

to do that? Who would apply all these laws now that we had them? Who

should watch two million tight-mouthed men whose homes were here but

whose hearts were still in Germany? Who could cope with 300,000 spies,

in part trained and paid spies, many of whom were sent over to America

long before Germany declared the war which was “forced” on her?

That was what the American Protective League already was doing when war

was declared; it is what it has done ever since, loyalty, patiently,

indefatigably, to an enormous and unknown extent, in an unbelievable

variety of detail. If ever you have held its members irresponsible

or deemed them actuated by any but good motives, cease to do so now.

Beyond all men of this generation they have proven that patriotism is

not dead.

The enforcement of the President’s proclamation governing the conduct

of enemy aliens in this country entailed a tremendous amount of D.

J. work, the larger part of which devolved upon the agents of the

League. Thousands of investigations of alien Germans were made under

its provisions. Numerically speaking, however, the work in that

imperatively necessary line yielded to the more thankless labor of

slacker and deserter hunting.

The function of the League in all these matters is obvious. No case at

law will “stick” unless supported by competent testimony. We have seen

that the League was organized for the collection of evidence, and for

nothing else. Limited as its power was, it really saved the day for

our hard-pressed country. It increased our Army by many thousands of

evaders whom it found and turned over to the military authorities. It

put hundreds of aliens into internment. It apprehended plotters and

prevented consummation of conspiracies beyond number. It kept down the

danger of that large disloyal element, and held Germany in America safe

while we went on with the open business of war in the field. It is by

no means too much to say that much of the Kaiser’s disappointment over

his German-American revolt was due not so much to any loyalty to the

American flag—for of all of our racial representatives, the Germans are

the most clannishly and tenaciously loyal to their own former flag—as

it was to fear of the silent and stern hand searching out in the dark

and taking first one and then another German or pro-German away from

the scenes that erstwhile had known him. It was _fear_ that held our

enemy population down—_fear_ and nothing else. It was the League’s

silent and mysterious errand to pile up good reason for that fear.

At the crack of war, certain hundreds of dangerous aliens were interned

at once. They simply vanished, that was all, behind the walls of

camps or of prisons. It will be mistaken mercy if we shall not deport

thousands more when we shall have the time deliberately to do that.

_Fear_ is the one thing such men understand. Honor and loyalty, terms

interdependent and inseparable, are unknown to them. Too many Germans

loved America only because they made money easily here. Their real flag

still was across the sea, except as they had raised it here in their

churches and their schools.

It was sometimes rumored that many spies were shot secretly in

America. That would have been done in Germany—as witness the deaths

of Edith Cavell and others. It was not done here. We did not kill a

single spy, a single traitor,—more is the pity. By reason of the fact

that we had outspied Germany’s vaunted espionage, we nipped in the bud

none knows how many plots and conspiracies which otherwise would have

matured in ruin to life and property. We did not shoot known spies, but

we garroted them in the dark and hurried them to jail. That agency of

the law is best, after all, which keeps crime from becoming crime. We

did not wait for overt acts—we filled our prisons before the acts were

done! That is why the public was obliged to romance as to German spies.

They are in jail. The report of the Department of Justice itself, of

June, 1918, on these war activities will in this connection prove

interesting reading:

During the period of American neutrality many persons were

prosecuted for criminal acts connected with efforts to aid the

belligerents. Some of these cases were still pending when the

United States declared war on Germany. A very satisfactory

standard of success was attained in the ante-bellum prosecutions.

Almost before the ink had dried on the proclamation of April 6,

1917, a select company of dangerous Germans were gathered in by

the United States Marshals. These prisoners were believed to be

potential, and in some cases actual leaders of pro-German plots

and propaganda. Subsequent discoveries have quite fully confirmed

this belief. Recently a most authoritative document was found

to contain among other matters the names of several gentlemen

whom the German Government trusted to carry on its work here

unofficially after the withdrawal of the official representatives.

Of these, all were arrested on April 6, 1917, save one who had

already left the country. This disposal of the German leaders had

effects which have been continually reflected in the disjointed

and sporadic character of hostile outbreaks.

One of the most recent, most novel, and most important of the

Department’s efforts is the denaturalization of disloyal citizens

of foreign origin. Many natives of Germany or Austria, sheltered

from summary internment by their acquired citizenship and clever

enough to avoid the commission of actual crime, have insulted and

injured this government at every opportunity. _Fortunately the

naturalization law contains a clause permitting the cancellation

of citizenship papers obtained by fraud._ Without waiting

for further legislation, which is apparently on the way, the

Department has assailed a number of defendants believed to have

made fraudulent mental reservations of loyalty to their native

countries. Several of these cases have already ended victoriously

for the government. More than one defeated defendant has been

interned.

Meanwhile the summary arrests have continued. From week to week

through 1917 their numbers steadily increased. Since about the

beginning of 1918, the rate has been more nearly constant.

Extremists have advocated the universal internment of alien

enemies, somewhat after the English practice. Now, Great Britain

interned permanently rather fewer than seventy thousand alien

enemies. _The United States would be compelled to intern at

least eight hundred thousand Germans and more than twice as many

Austrians._ The colossal expense of maintaining this horde in

idleness—civilian prisoners of war are far more useless than

convicts, because they may not be forced to work—is too obvious to

need discussion.

More temperate critics say that there have been too few arrests,

too low a proportion of internments, and too high a proportion of

paroles. As to the first and second charges, it is a sufficient

answer that conditions have improved instead of becoming worse. A

policeman’s record should not be judged by the number of people he

has put in jail, but by the kind of order maintained on his beat.

In his annual report, issued December 5, 1918, subsequent to the

signing of the armistice, the Attorney General stated that six thousand

alien enemies had been arrested on presidential warrants, based on the

old law of 1798. Of these, a “considerable number” were placed in the

internment camps in charge of the Army. The majority of these were

German men and women, with a certain number of Austro-Hungarians. He

concludes: “I do not want to create the impression that there is no

danger from German spies and German sympathizers. There are thousands

of persons in this country who would injure the United States in this

war if they could do so with safety to themselves. However, they are no

more anxious to be hanged than you are.”

The foregoing will show, to any student of the strange and complex

situation which has confronted America at home these last four years,

the main facts as to the emergencies we met and the means by which we

met them.

The surprising thing is that we Americans have not known ourselves!

A thoughtful study of the American Protective League is not a mere

yawning over phrases of the law any more than it is a mere dipping

into exciting or mystifying experiences. It is more than that. It is

an excursion into a new and unexplored region in America—into the very

heart of America itself.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Appendix D for text of this law.

[2] See Appendix E for text of the President’s proclamation for the

regulation of alien enemies.

CHAPTER VI

GERMAN PROPAGANDA

How the Poison was Spread—The Press—The Pulpit—The Word-of-Mouth

Rumor—Various Canards Directed Against American Morale—Stories and

Instances of the Hun’s Subtlety.

Germany made two mistakes—one in beginning the war, the other in losing

it. The world has reckoned with her far otherwise than as she hoped.

Now she learns what it is to feel defeat. Shrewd as the shrewdest,

more patient than the most patient, not lacking courage while victory

was with her—yet always showing that peculiar German clumsiness of

intellect—Germany fought with trained skill on both sides the sea. The

world knows the story of the battles in France. Let us now study the

battles fought in silence in America.

In actual practice the various secret methods which the Germans

employed in America could not always be defined one from the other.

A certain confusion and over-lapping existed between the spy systems

and those of propaganda and sabotage. Often one man might practice all

three. The purpose of this chapter is to take the humblest form of

German secret work in America, that practiced by the least skilled and

most numerous branch of her spies—the sort of thing which usually is

classified as propaganda.

Let no one undervalue the work of propaganda. No army is better than

its morale, and no army’s morale is better than that of the people

which send it to the front. The entire purpose of enemy propaganda is

to lessen the morale either of an army or a people; and that precisely

was Germany’s purpose with us.

Anything is good propaganda which makes a people nervous, uneasy or

discontented. Many of the stories which Germany spread in America

seemed clumsy at first, they were so easily detected. Yet they did

their work, even though sometimes it would have seemed that the rumors

put out were against Germany and not for her. These rumors, repeated

and varied, did serve a great purpose in America—they made us restless

and uneasy. That certainly is true.

One of the favorite objects of the German propaganda was the Red Cross

work. Hardly any American but has heard one or other story about the

Red Cross. The result has been a very considerable lessening of the

public confidence in that great organization. The average man never

runs down any rumor of this sort. At first he does not believe what

he hears. At the fourth or fifth story of different sorts, all aiming

at one object, he begins to hesitate, to doubt. Without any question,

the Red Cross has suffered much from German propaganda. Not that this

organization should be called perfect, for such was not the case with

any war organization. Not that the Y. M. C. A. work was perfect, for it

was far from that. But the point is that all of these organizations,

all the war charities, all the war relief organizations, were more

nearly perfect than German propaganda has allowed us to believe. The

most cruel and malicious statements against the Red Cross, wholly

without foundation, were made, with apparent feeling of all lack of

responsibility, by German-loving persons in all parts of the country.

A complaint came to Washington Headquarters all the way from Portland,

Oregon. Comment is unnecessary:

I am informed that one Bertha A——, who is in the Government

service, Bureau of Aircraft Production, Executive Department,

Cable Section, office in “D” Building, 4½ Missouri Avenue,

Washington, D. C., has written a letter to a friend of hers

here that a ward in one of the hospitals in Washington had been

set aside for some seventy-five girls who were working in the

different bureaus in Washington and had become pregnant since

arriving in Washington; and that it was rumored that there were

about three hundred in addition to the above who had been sent

home for the same reason. Would suggest that she be interviewed.

We will look up her antecedents here and if possible secure the

letter which she has written or copy thereof. Upon being advised

that such a letter had been written, I interviewed the husband of

the lady to whom the letter was written, he being bailiff in one

of the circuit courts here, and he stated that the quotation as

made above was substantially correct.

Nearly everyone has heard the story of the Red Cross sweater which had

a five-dollar bill pinned to it for the lucky unknown soldier who might

be the recipient. This sweater is always reported to have been sold and

to have turned up in some part of America with the proof attached to

it. In no instance has there been any foundation for this rumor. A like

baselessness marks the stories of Red Cross graft and misappropriation

of funds and waste of money. No doubt there was a certain amount

of inefficiency in this work; but that the Red Cross was looted or

conducted by dishonest persons was never believed to be true even by

the German agents who started the stories.

During the time of the influenza epidemic, a common story was that

doctors had been found spreading influenza germs in the cantonments. It

was reported, as no doubt every reader will remember, that two doctors

had been shot in one post. Sometimes the story would come from a man

who got it from an enlisted man who had been one of the firing squad

who had executed several doctors in this way. There was not a word of

truth in any of this. The inoculation propaganda was German propaganda,

pure and simple. It might not seem clear how such mendacity could be of

direct help to Germany; but it had this result—it made American mothers

and fathers more uneasy about their sons. It made them want to keep

their boys at home.

The powdered glass rumor was one of the most widely spread instances

of German propaganda. Who has not heard it divulged in secrecy by some

woman, with the injunction that not a word must be said about it? A

German nurse had been detected putting powdered glass in the rolled

surgical bandages in the Red Cross work rooms. She had disappeared

before she could be arrested, and she had not left her name. That

mysterious German woman who worked with the Red Cross is still absent.

The rumors of powdered glass in bandages have been practically

groundless—only one division, that in upper New Jersey, reports

any case of that sort actually run down. The charges of powdered

glass in food sent to the soldiers or put in tinned goods have been

found equally baseless. Two cases of glass found in food stuffs are

authentically reported,—both accidents, and the glass was broken and

not powdered.

The charges of poisoned wells around cantonments was another canard.

Rumors came out that horses, and men also, had been killed by the

poisoned water. The entire investigating force of the United States has

found one case of poisoned water in a horse trough in West Virginia—and

no horse drank of it. The charges about poisoned court-plaster were

proved to be equally groundless—indeed, they would seem to be of

small reason in any case, because, if Germany was putting out the

court-plaster, why should she speak of it; and why should America put

it out at all? The psychology of it is this: anything which makes the

people feel uneasy or anxious is good propaganda for the enemy.

Stories were spread very widely at one time that Canada and England

were not practicing food conservation—that we were shipping our food

to England and she was eating it without reservation, whereas we were

denying ourselves sugar and butter. Perhaps you had best talk with

someone who lived in England during the war as to the truth of that. It

was one of the many German lies. There was the charge that the price of

gasoline was due to the fact that the Standard Oil Company was dumping

and wasting large quantities of gasoline. There was nothing in that, of

course.

The report of Polish pogroms, general Jew killing expeditions by the

Poles, were magnified and distorted, all with the purpose of making

both the Poles and Jews dissatisfied with the conduct of the war.

Continually these anti-Ally stories got out, and always they were hard

to trace.

This form of propaganda, spread by word of mouth, was the most

insidious and most widely spread of all forms. It was of course, made

the more easy by the excited state of mind of the people during war

times. You will remember that you yourself bought more newspapers than

you ever did in your life—you looked for new headlines, new sensations,

all the time. At home, your wife also was eager for sensations, for

the news, for the gossip. It was ready for her and every member of her

family, and her neighbors and neighbors’ families. The spread of a

rumor is not governed by the laws of evidence; and hearsay testimony

rarely is given twice the same—it always grows.

Into this form of German propaganda came spite work against

German-Americans who themselves were loyal. A great deal of League

activity had to do with running down rumors against persons declared to

be pro-German. Sometimes these things were found baseless; and again

enough pro-Germanism was found to warrant a stern rebuke.

Sometimes, public speakers, well trained in their tasks, put out

propaganda which at the time seemed an innocent statement of facts.

To the Lake Placid Club of New York came a certain “Belgian officer”

who spoke very good English, and who purported to be able to tell all

about the war. He made a long speech, regarding which many members of

the local Red Cross complained bitterly to the American Protective

League. This man’s talk, while purporting to be that of an ally of this

country, was really German propaganda. He denied or justified German

atrocities, deplored Red Cross knitting, declared it would take ten

million Americans to beat the Germans; that they were going into a hell

of vermin, dirt and disease; that our army as yet was difficult to

find. There was a German orchestra at the Club, supposed to have come

from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They all applauded vociferously

when the speaker made such statements as, “After the war there will be

a day of reckoning.” Further details, which proved that this speaker

really was spreading German propaganda, led to his being traced to New

York. He was found to have worked at different times in Iowa, Kansas,

and elsewhere. The last report was that he was supposed to have sailed

for his native country.

There was no way, shape nor manner in which Germany did not endeavor

to embarrass us. She had, besides her carefully trained public

speakers, her secret workers who had assigned to them definite

objectives. For instance, it was known that the negro race would

furnish a considerable number of soldiers for our army. A very wide

German propaganda existed among the negroes in Georgia and Carolina,

and in such northern cities as Indianapolis, where large numbers of

that race were located. A certain German was indicted under seven

counts for this manner of activity. It was proved that he had told a

great many negro privates in the army that they would be mutilated

if captured, and that they were going to starve to death in France

if they ever got across. The horrors of war with the American forces

were pointed out to these simple people; but, on the other hand it was

explained to them that if they would work for the German interests,

they would be allowed to set up a government of their own in America

if Germany won the war! They were told Germany loved the negroes and

believed in their equality with the white race in every way, and

would support their government when once her war was won! One such

secret German worker among colored soldiers and civilians was M. F——

of New York, indicted under seven counts in June, 1918, under the new

Espionage Law. F—— put out much the same story to frighten the negroes

and make them discontented—wholesale mutilation at the hands of Germans

if they were captured in France. He declared that their eyes would

be gouged out and their ears cut off. He also said that Germany was

allowing our transports to reach Europe unharmed because she wanted a

lot of Americans in France, where, after cutting off their supplies,

she intended to starve them all to death.

This looks like making out a bad case for Germany—but softly. F—— also

said that, on the other hand, Germany did not want to kill the negroes

if they would not fight; that if only they would work for Germany’s

interests, they should have their own country and their own government.

Stories like this were circulated in the South and among cities in the

North with a heavy negro population. F—— was the first propagandist to

be caught with the goods. He was talking much with colored privates in

the draft army.

Of course, a prime object of propaganda was to obstruct the draft and

to prevent the shipment of munitions. It largely failed, as everyone

knows. But still it cannot be said that Germany did not invest such

money well as she spent on her secret pro-German propaganda in America.

She knew that she had ruined Russia by propaganda. We might further

have learned the danger of propaganda as a weapon had we heard the

rumor that Germany herself had her collapse hastened by propaganda

which Great Britain managed to spread among her people. It is a matter

of history that German propaganda caused the Italian debacle in the

first Austrian advance into Italy.

Nor is it to be believed that Germany has ceased in her propaganda.

She does not believe herself defeated even now. The undying occult

spirit of the old Teutonic Knights still lives to-day in America. Now,

you will begin to hear attempts to make us dislike England, attempts to

incite Ireland to revolt against England, attempts to make us dislike

France, stories that England and France owe us much for everything they

gave us in the way of equipment, aeroplanes, munitions; stories that we

will never get back any of the moneys we loaned to the Allies; stories

of how simple and innocent the German people are, how anxious they are

to be friendly to America. That is all propaganda. By this time we

ought to know how to value it.

Of course, the German language papers in this country were hotbeds

of propaganda and sedition. Some of them were suppressed by the

censorship, some by the indignant American people who informed the

courts of justice. Most of them by this time have become tame since

they have seen the penitentiary sentences imposed upon the more

outspoken of these German editors living in America. These foreign

language papers were prominent in New York, Chicago, Milwaukee,

Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other cities. They show the strength

of German sentiment in America. Every one of them was a center of

propaganda, at first outspoken, then more careful. The great majority

of these papers, in order to protect their business investments,

tried to cover up when they found which way the wind was setting. The

censorship officers were flooded with complaints against these papers.

For instance, there came all the way from Indianapolis a complaint

against a paper printed in Baltimore, Maryland, “The Bavarian Weekly.”

A. P. L. had many extended translations of articles printed in this

paper, the general tenor of which was a laudation of Germany and German

methods. One wonders what Germany would have done to any American

newspaper printed within the confines of Germany which might have

expressed such hostile sentiments against the country harboring it.

In addition to these, there were, of course, the English language

papers which for one reason or another were covertly or outspokenly in

favor of Germany. Papers all the way from New York to Pueblo, Colorado,

were bought or were attempted to be bought outright by German capital.

The most sensational scandals of this sort came out of New York.

It is known that in many towns the German element undertook to sow

seeds of discontent in the minds of savings bank depositors. Rumors

got out—no one could tell where they started—to the effect that the

United States Government was going to confiscate all the savings of the

people; that the bonds would never be paid off. Of course, all this was

absurd, but it had its effect upon servant girls and others who were

loyally putting their savings into the securities of the government. It

cost a great deal of time and expense to run down such rumors.

The pulpit was a recognized part of the German system of spy work

in America, as has elsewhere been noted. It is not just to accuse

all Lutheran ministers of desecrating the cloth they wore. There are

good Lutheran ministers who are loyal Americans without question. At

the same time it is true that more charges have been brought against

pastors of the Lutheran church, and charges of more specific nature,

than against any other class or profession in our country. There are

scores and hundreds of such reports which came into the National

Headquarters of the A. P. L. from all parts of the country, more

especially those parts which have heavy German settlements. These

are so numerous that one cannot avoid calling the Lutheran pulpit in

America one of the most active and poisonous influences which existed

in America during the war. A sample report comes in from the Chief of

the A. P. L. at Armour, S. D.:

I have reported on five German Lutheran preachers of this

vicinity. They are all of the same stripe—profess loyalty, but

actions speak otherwise. It seems strange to me that they have

such an anxiety to get into active war work in the army and navy.

In yet another and longer specification, the same chief states:

I am becoming concerned about the large number of reports I get

locally regarding German Lutheran ministers in this part of South

Dakota. They are attempting to obtain positions of trust in

Government work in the army and navy. _I would not trust one of

them in this part of the State. We have had trouble continually

with the German communities where these ministers are located._

Twenty-nine were convicted from Tripp.... Our Government might as

well choose men from Berlin as to select German Lutheran ministers

from this part of South Dakota. It seems to me that the A. P.

L. should investigate and see what is inducing all these German

Lutheran ministers to apply for Government positions. If even one

succeeds in obtaining an appointment, it would be an opening.

This matter went before the Military Intelligence Division in

Washington and received proper handling there.

A report from Osage, Iowa, came in against a certain priest in another

Iowa town. The entire record of this man is given, besides other

details regarding his parentage, his education, and his conduct of his

church. “Previous to the entry of the United States into the war, he

upheld Germany in all particulars. Since war has been declared, he has

been more careful in his speech. A service flag was dedicated in our

village, which consists of but one street. The ceremonies were held in

front of this man’s house. He did not attend the services. The next

Sunday he roasted his congregation for giving money toward the flag and

told them they should give quite as much to the church. A committee of

five men visited him and invited him to subscribe to the Third Loan.”

One of these clerical gentlemen who have remained loyal to the

Kaiser, though not to Christ, is the Reverend John Fontana, Lutheran

clergyman of New Salem, North Dakota. He was convicted for preaching

sedition, and got a three-year sentence in a Federal Court. This did

not deter his likewise loyal Kaiserliche congregation. By a vote of

fifty-seven to twenty-two the members decided to continue him as their

beloved pastor. Yet this is what Judge Amidon said to Fontana when he

was arraigned,—words which ought to be printed in large letters and

displayed prominently in every street of every city of every portion of

America. The Judge said to the prisoner:

You received your final papers as a citizen in 1898. By the oath

which you then took, you renounced and abjured all allegiance to

Germany and the Emperor of Germany, and swore that you would bear

true faith and allegiance to the United States. What did that

mean? That you would set about earnestly growing an American soul,

and put away your German soul.

Have you done that? I do not think you have. You have cherished

everything German and stifled everything American. You have

preached German, prayed German, read German, sung German. Every

thought of your mind and every emotion of your heart through all

these years has been German. Your body has been in America, but

your life has been in Germany. You have influenced others who have

been under your ministry to do the same thing.

There have been a good many Germans before me in the last month.

They have lived in this country, like yourself, ten, twenty,

thirty, forty years, and they have had to give their evidence

through an interpreter. It has been an impressive part of the

trial. As I looked at them and tried, as best I could, to

understand them, there was written all over every one of them,

“Made in Germany.” American life had not dimmed that mark in the

least.

I do not blame you and these men alone. I blame myself. I blame

my country. We urged you to come; we welcomed you; we gave you

opportunity; we gave you land; we conferred upon you the diadem of

American citizenship—and then we left you.

When we get through with this war, and civil liberty is made safe

once more upon this earth, there is going to be a day of judgment

in these United States. Foreign-born citizens and the institutions

which have cherished foreigners are going to be brought to the

judgment of this Republic. That day of judgment looks more to me

to-day like the great Day of Judgment than anything that I have

thought of for many years. There is going to be a separation on

that day of the sheep from the goats. Every institution that has

been engaged in this business of making foreigners perpetual in

the United States will have to change—or cease. That is going to

cut deep, but it is coming.

It must be pointed out that in spite of this charge of the judge, and

in spite of the sentence of this minister of the gospel, his flock

remained loyal to him and invited him back to preach when he got out of

jail!

It has always been charged against the Germans in America that they

were the most clannish of all the foreigners coming to settle in

this country. They, longer than any other people, retain their own

institutions, their own language, their own customs. In parts of

the country there are schools which teach the German language more

than they do the English—a practice which, in all likelihood, will

be discontinued when the troops come back from France and Germany.

Without any doubt or question, pro-German school teachers were German

propagandists, usually of the indiscreet and hotheaded sort.

From Terre Haute, Indiana, comes a complaint regarding Miss Lena

Neubern—that is what we will call her—a hot socialist and worse, who

was a school teacher. Miss Neubern had two brothers in that city who

refused to allow an American flag to be placed in front of their

store, or to allow their clerks to attend the parade of the Third

Liberty Loan. A committee of citizens called on them and told them

“in strong term what was expected of them.” Miss Neubern taught her

school children, Americans, that the “Kaiser was just as good a man

as President Wilson; that the United States was in this war, not for

democracy, but for commercial supremacy; that the United States was as

greedy as Germany; that we were controlled by England, always the enemy

of the United States.” Miss Neubern refused to allow the Star Spangled

Banner to be sung in her room, and did all she could to hinder the sale

of Thrift Stamps among the children, though in other schools large

numbers of stamps had been sold. This active and intelligent young

woman pleaded guilty of this charge and was dismissed by the school

board. One wonders whether the German Government would have stopped at

the dismissal in a similar instance!

Another form of German propagandist might have been found higher up

in educational circles. The faculties of our great universities have

always been made up in part of a class of men who are of the belief

that intellect and scholarship are best shown by eccentricity and

radicalism. More than that, we had a number of actual Germans in our

university faculties in America. Since it is the proposition here to

deal in concrete facts and not in mere general assertions, let us

print something which came in, embodied in the report from Champaign,

Illinois.

Champaign, Illinois, is the home of the University of Illinois, and

for some reason university towns seem to act as chutes for all sorts

of independent thought. There are two strong German settlements in

Champaign County, and a very strong German settlement in the city,

where many residents have shown very pro-German tendencies. These

German settlements have their own German schools, taught by their

German Lutheran ministers under the pretense of teaching religion.

Sentiment became so intense that the local A. P. L. Chief was requested

by the Government to close these schools if possible. Some of them have

reopened since the armistice. In such localities the Germans have been

very independent and often quite outspoken, so that it was necessary

in many cases for the A. P. L. to use influence to prevent violence to

them. There were only one or two cases where the citizens got out of

control, although many citizens of German descent refused to buy bonds

and made disparaging remarks regarding the war.

The A. P. L. Chief says: “We were confronted with the problem of

ousting five alien enemies at the University of Illinois, two of

them regarded as dangerous. We also had to handle a cook at the

aviation barracks, an alien enemy who was deliberately wasting food.

We convicted the wife of a German minister in the Federal Court for

making disloyal remarks. We had some difficulty with Russellites,

Mennonites, and radical Socialists, but all have been kept in hand. Our

organization consists of seventy-five members, but about twenty-five of

us have done most of the active work.” A good and worthy twenty-five.

The reference to Russellites and Mennonites covers two regions of

great A. P. L. activity. Pastor Russell, as he was known, passed

away from this scene some time ago, but he left behind him seeds of

discord. He was perhaps not so much disloyal as he was eccentric and

fanatical in his mental habit. His book, “The Finished Mystery,” was

so open a plea against war that it was proscribed by the United States

Government. A. P. L. operatives ran down a great deal of so-called

pro-German talk which originated in the Russellites. An instance of

this comes from Coloma, Michigan, which reports: “Radical socialists

became active during August, 1917. Acting under instructions from the

Department of Justice, we put all of these meetings out of business in

the territory of our jurisdiction. No more socialist meetings of any

kind here. We got information which resulted in my calling upon certain

Russellites. Collected five books of ‘The Finished Mystery,’ and some

copies of the ‘Kingdom News.’ Russellites were watched, and they

promised to discontinue activities until after the war. They have done

so.”

It is not to be denied that the following of the radical banner among

all nations of the world is an increasing one and one which will

demand great care on the part of the governments on both sides of the

Atlantic. Bolshevism is the great threat of the day, and we shall have

to meet it in America as it must be met in Germany and Russia before

there can be any lasting peace.

At times some of these radicals have got caught in the jaws of the

amended Espionage Act, as for instance, Eugene V. Debs, the veteran

Socialist candidate for the presidency, who was given three concurrent

sentences of ten years each. Early in the fall of 1918, Dr. Morris

Zucker, a well known Socialist in Brooklyn, was arrested on a charge of

sedition and locked up. He is said to have declared that the stories

of German atrocities committed by German army officers were not true

and that they were circulated by capitalists in this country to further

their own purposes. Dr. Zucker was of the belief that American soldiers

are “make believe” soldiers. On September 6, 1918, in Philadelphia,

Joseph V. Stillson, secretary of the “Kova,” a Lithuanian newspaper,

was caught by the Espionage Act and sentenced to three years’

imprisonment at Atlanta.

In Chicago, in December, 1918, there began the trial of Victor

L. Berger, Congressman-elect from Milwaukee, for violation of the

espionage act and conspiracy to obstruct the United States in

prosecuting the war with Germany. With Berger, four other Socialist

co-defendants were arraigned: Adolph Germer, National Secretary of the

Socialist party; J. Louis Engdahl, Editor of the _American Socialist_;

William F. Kruse, Secretary of the draft-evading organization of the

anti-war Socialists, and Irwin St. John Tucker, a radical Episcopalian

rector.

The trial before Federal Judge Kenesaw M. Landis lasted for more

than a month and resulted in a verdict of guilty against all of the

defendants. On February 20, 1918, Judge Landis sentenced the convicted

men to twenty years’ imprisonment in the federal penitentiary at Fort

Leavenworth, Kansas. In sentencing the men, Judge Landis said:

Their writings and utterances fairly represent the consistent,

personal campaigns they conducted to discredit the cause of the

United States and obstruct its efforts. By no single word or

act did they offer help to the country to win the war. It was a

conscious, continuous plan to obstruct the country’s military

efforts. What has been said in this courtroom by the defendants is

but an apology by them for obstructing the country’s effort.

The convicted men were granted an appeal to the United States Circuit

Court of Appeals by Judge Samuel Alschuler. In the upper court the

defendants were compelled to give their personal pledge to Judge

Alschuler that neither by word or act would they do any of the things

for which they have been convicted, pending the final disposition

of the case. It should be understood and remembered that these men

were convicted not for their personal or political beliefs, but for

violation of a law of the United States.

A. P. L. reports show that Lake Mills, Iowa, had a state senator who

advised young men that they could not be forced to cross the water to

fight, nor forced to buy Liberty bonds. He also was alleged to have

obstructed the United War Work campaign by telling a client that he did

not need to assist. He was connected with the Non-Partisan League and

promised the farmers that they would secure control of the Legislature.

Affidavits to this effect were handed to “D. J.” The Non-Partisan

League was well investigated in that neighborhood. The organizer of the

local chapter was forced to buy bonds and stamps and to remain inactive

until Peace was declared. “He moved away and never came back,” says the

local chief.

In another Lake Mills office, there was found by American Protective

League operatives a picture drawn by a rather good amateur artist

depicting a single German blowing to pieces the head of an American

column of troops. Investigation showed that this picture was drawn by a

clerk in a local store. He was drafted and is in France, and the report

regarding him is filed with “D. J.” His original drawing is in the

possession of the National Directors of the A. P. L.

A League report, simple and direct, which comes from Todd County,

Minnesota, is one of the best and freest expositions of our system

of government and the character of our citizenry that may be seen in

many a day. The college professor would be valuable who could write a

clearer or more useful paper. Says the report:

The Germans of the country are about evenly divided between the

Catholic and Lutheran faiths. The Scandinavians are practically

all Lutheran. The German Catholics, in general, allied themselves

with loyal element; but a majority of the Lutherans, both German

and Scandinavian, gave evidence of pro-German sympathies.

To complicate matters at this time, a political movement under

socialist leadership showed great activity. The movement was

organized under the name of the Non-Partisan League, with its

platform built of essentially socialistic planks. The League

attained a membership of approximately 1,200 in the summer of

1918. Its representatives and organizers held meetings in every

neighborhood and solicited memberships. In the early days of our

entry into the war, they demanded the cessation of hostilities;

declared that it was a rich man’s war; denounced conscription,

and were guilty of numberless seditious utterances. Many of the

greater lights of the League came into the country and delivered

addresses, among whom were Townley, Lindbergh, Bowen, Randall and

others. The burden to the cry of these men was the iniquity of

“Big Business” and the wrongs of the farmers. As a remedy for all

these economic evils, the socialistic schemes of the League were

offered, and found acceptance among a greater number than would

have been thought possible.

In June, 1917, the Todd County Public Safety Commission was

organized. The loyalist element began to assert itself. A system

of education was inaugurated to offset the propaganda of the

Bolshevists. The better newspapers lent their aid, and the Red

Cross and other war activities were pushed. Many public meetings

were held, and many outside speakers assisted in the work. The

Public Safety Commission made itself felt by many arrests. Some

were fined for seditious utterances, and some were held to the

Grand Jury. Conditions in the county were such that, while

indictments were preferred by the Grand Jury in the state courts,

it was impossible in some flagrant cases to secure a conviction by

the petit jury. Such relief as was secured was through the state

courts. So far as this county was concerned, the federal courts

were useless.

Just how far the war is going to affect American politics in the future

is something that many a politician in America would be exceedingly

glad to know. It may be that there will be some public men, unworthy

to be called representatives of the American people, who will cater

now, as before the war, to the German vote. We should beware of such

men, for all they can do will be to advocate that very propaganda which

to-day is matter of execration all over the country.

There have not lacked men, who, more especially before we declared

war, have boasted of their German birth and openly made that their

main argument for office. In a large Ohio city such a man ran for the

mayoralty and polled a very considerable vote. He said many times

publicly that he would not subscribe to any Liberty Loans and was not

in accord with our government. He was very bitter in his denunciation

of all who did not side with him. He proclaimed himself a hyphenated

German proud of his native origin. He spoke before the German

Sängerbund of his city and before delegates of the German-American

Alliance—and he spoke in German—a democratic candidate for mayor in an

American city of the second class! He uttered that old and familiar and

useless plea—dangerous in America to-day—“One can’t forget the blood

that flows in one’s veins.” Part of his campaign argument was this: “I

personally hope that the war in Europe will be a draw; but if there

must be a victory, if I must choose between intelligent Germany and

ignorant Russia, there is but one place for me to cast my lot, and that

is with the Kaiser. If I felt otherwise, I would not be human.” What he

should have said was, if he had felt otherwise, he would not have been

German. He concluded his remarks with the statement that if he became

mayor, “Whatever interference there has been in the past with such an

organization as I am now addressing, there will be no such interference

when I become mayor.” But he did not become mayor.

It is only of late that we have heard much of the Non-Partisan League

in America, even in this day of leagues, societies and alliances,

but it has had growth and political significance in certain of the

Northwestern States. It would not be true to charge the Non-Partisan

League with disloyalty as a body, but certainly it would be yet more

foolish to say that all its members, in the North-European part of

the United States, had been loyal to America in this war, or free of

sympathy with Germany. Read the A. P. L. reports—they are not all

shown in these pages—of its manifold activities in sections where the

Non-Partisan League is strongest. Draw your own inferences then, for

then you will have certain premises and need not jump at any conclusion

not based on premises.

We may take its reports from Dakota and Iowa as fairly good proof of

the accuracy of the foregoing statements. Let us, for instance, examine

as a concrete proposition the report from Mason City, Iowa. It is done

simply; yet it leads us directly into the heart of the problem of

America’s future and face to face with the basic questions of courage

in business and social life which must underlie the future growth of

our country. A story? It is all the story of America.

This report, quite normal in all ways, would represent the usual type

of report from a nice, average agricultural city, were it not for

certain phases of the work it represents. There were 24 alien enemy

cases; 97 disloyalty and sedition cases; 21 cases of propaganda, and

eleven I. W. W. cases and other forms of radicalism. The state of

society reflected by these figures is best covered in the words of the

report itself:

In ante-bellum times there existed a more or less well-grounded

opinion that in this vast western farming region the melting pot

had most nearly accomplished its task and that here, if anywhere,

was a truly American community. The citizen might be of English,

Irish, Scotch, Scandinavian, German or French birth or ancestry,

but he was primarily an American. This belief was based upon the

fact that here all American institutions and customs received

hearty support, that the people encouraged to the limit the

American liberty of thought and action. American politics in

our region was relatively free from the corruption encouraged

by a large percentage of ignorant or apathetic voters. In fact,

the population of this region is enlightened, temperate, and

prosperous—a condition most favorable if not essential to the

proper and full development of a real Americanism.

What did the war bring out? Previous to the advent of America

into the war there was, on the whole, a true neutrality. There

were sympathizers and partisans of both sides and there was an

even greater class of interested spectators who marveled at

the stupendous feats of the armies of both sides. The American

declaration of war was gladly acclaimed by the pro-Allies,

cheerfully accepted as a call to duty by the great mass of

interested spectators. It immediately engaged the support of the

majority of those previously pro-German, leaving a very small

minority of pro-Germans to carry on the propaganda against the

American and Allied cause.

It was to deal with this small minority that we organized in May,

1917, and began to select and swear in A. P. L. operatives.

Among matters which called for constant vigilance, the

Non-Partisan League came in for a share of our attention. At the

time of the entry of the United States into the war, Iowa was

being covered with literature for and against this movement,

the leading force against the Non-Partisan League being the

Greater Iowa Association. The State Council for National Defense

considered that it was not for the good of Iowa for this fight

to continue, and passed resolutions asking both factions to

discontinue their efforts until after the war. The Greater Iowa

Association readily acceded to the request, but the Non-Partisan

League persisted in its propaganda, and the Council for Defense

deemed it wise to take a hand in fairness to the Greater Iowa

Association.

But the foregoing mild report does not tell the full story in all of

its acrimonious vehemence. A local agricultural journal came out in

red head-lines across its cover page, “Iowa’s Reign of Terror!” The

editor, in that and subsequent issues, printed perhaps 50,000 words

of condemnation of those not included among his own constituents,

sidetracking alfalfa and Holsteins wholly for the time. He says:

To-day in Iowa there is a veritable reign of terror, which has

been encouraged among ignorant and irresponsible people, by men

and organizations who should and do know better, but who are

playing upon passion and prejudice for ulterior purposes. More

harm is resulting from this assumption of authority by private

individuals, without the shadow of moral or legal right, than by

all the pro-German propaganda or real disloyalty in the state.

And the worst of it is that it defeats the very purpose which

is used to excuse it—the purpose of uniting all our citizens

whole-heartedly and sincerely behind the Government’s war aims.

Already this rule of passion, freed from legal restraint, has

resulted in the excess of mob violence, of injustice and wrongs

towards loyal and patriotic citizens, whose whole lives will be

embittered by the brutal intolerance of a few. Our boasted freedom

and liberty and love of fair play are being made the victims of

methods no better than those of the despoilers of Belgium, from

which they differ not in quality but only in degree.

Right to-day in Iowa, men in positions of leadership and

responsibility are fomenting and encouraging this spirit of mob

rule and terrorism, which is wholly outside the pale of law, and

which will result in such a spirit of lawlessness that we will

all pay dearly for it in the years to come. The Greater Iowa

Association and its allied organizations are among those which

are helping to create this atmosphere of dangerous suspicion and

distrust, especially towards farmers’ organizations in Iowa, which

is bound to result in bloodshed and lynch-law if it is not quickly

checked. The Greater Iowa Association boasts in its monthly

publication that it has already spent $20,000 in helping to put

down the Bolsheviki of Iowa (its usual expression for the loyal

and conservative farmers of this state) and that it will spend

$180,000 more (a total of $200,000) for this purpose if necessary.

Its sentiments are approved and applauded by its sycophant

organizations, such as the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, in its

official monthly bulletin, which it proclaims is “the mouthpiece

for Des Moines.”

Tut, tut! Obviously, Mason City leads directly into a pretty political

mess. Willy-nilly, friends of the A. P. L., if not members of the

Non-Partisan League, are pushed into ranks assigned to enemies. We

may mildly animadvert on the fact that it is the members of the

Non-Partisan League who largely buy the journal from which the

foregoing quotation is made. It has had a long and honorable history,

but is perhaps not so disinterested as the A. P. L. It does not,

however, go to war with the A. P. L. so much as with the Greater Iowa

Association, which presently voted the editor out of membership. The

American Protective League might have been drawn into politics if it

had lived much longer—perforce would be and ought to be drawn. One

thing is sure, if a man must cater in business to a class which has

disloyalty inborn and ingrained, that man is not catering to America

and a great future for her.

It is all a question of the high heart of the gentleman

unafraid—individual courage, clear-headedness, honest self-searching.

That is as true for the native born as for the naturalized citizen.

Perhaps for all these warring Iowans, some of whom were zealous and

interested, there might very well, in these grave, troubled days of our

country and of all the world, be put on the wall of our house the old

Bible motto: “Blessed are the pure in heart.”

You ask, indeed, what shall we do with all these chameleon

propagandists, these foreigners? How shall we classify them—as

Americans or as enemies? Who is the American?

It is simple to answer that. It is he who himself knows in his own

soul whether or not he is done with the damnable hyphen which has

almost ruined America, and yet may do so. Liberty Bonds and public

speaking do not prove Americanism. Not even service stars in a window

make a man American. Blessed are the _pure in heart_, of Mason City

or of Des Moines, of the Greater Iowa Association or the Non-Partisan

League, of the Peoples’ Council, of the A. P. L., or of German or

American birth. And when individual American courage is common enough

to make a man fight pro-Germanism until it is dead forever, one thinks

we shall indeed see God manifested again in the great civilization

which once was promised for America. It can be had now in only one

way, and that way will cost dear. If you are interested in your son’s

future, see to it that he—and you yourself—shall be pure in heart. We

want and will have no others for Americans to-day or to-morrow.

CHAPTER VII

THE GERMAN SPY CASES

The Great Spy Cases—Details of German Propaganda—Finances and Personnel

of German Forces in America—The Diplomatic Fiasco—Notorious Figures of

Alien Espionage Uncovered—The Senate Judicial Investigation.

To gain any adequate idea of the amount of the activities which

centered in New York would mean the following out of countless

concealed threads leading all over the world and covering the United

States like a net. We never knew until we were well into this war

that, long before we dreamed of war, our country was infested by

vast numbers of the paid spies of Germany; that these worked under a

well-established, and now well-known, organization; that the highest

German diplomatic representatives were a part of the system; that

leading financial figures of New York were figures in it also, and

that the whole intricate machine was differentiated like a great and

well-ordered business undertaking. It was an elaborate organization for

the betrayal of a country; and that organization, like the armed forces

of Germany in the field, was beaten and broken only by the loyal men of

America, resolved once more that a government of the people should not

perish from the earth.

Let the scene shift from New York—whose defensive organization has

been outlined—to the national judicial center at Washington, the seat

of our intelligence system and of those courts of law which have in

charge the national affairs. There, for many months, a few men have sat

and watched pour into their offices such proofs of human perfidy and

depravity as can never have been paralleled in the most Machiavellian

days of the Dark Ages.

The daily press of the United States acted under a voluntary

censorship during the war, even while it saw pass by such news as never

before had it seen in America. Now and again something of this would

break which obviously was public property and ought to be known—the

notorious transactions of von Bernstorff, von Papen, Dr. Albert,

Boy-Ed, Bolo; such crimes as the blowing up of the international

bridge in Maine; the mysterious fires and explosions whose regularity

attracted attention; the diplomatic revelations regarding Dumba and

Dernburg and their colleagues, which finally resulted in the dismissal

of the clique of high German officials whose creed had been one of

diplomatic and personal dishonor.

The stories of German attempts to control several New York newspapers;

their efforts to buy or subsidize some thirty other journals in all

parts of the country; the well-known subsidizing of certain writers to

spread propaganda in the press—all these things also necessarily got

abroad to such an extent that the United States Government could not

fail to take cognizance of it. At length, charges came out linking up

a Washington daily with wealthy commercial interests of a supposedly

pro-German nature, and a great deal of acrimonious comment appeared

in all parts of the country. Washington resolved to investigate these

charges. The process took the form, in the late fall of 1918, of the

appointment of a sub-committee of the great Senate Judiciary Committee,

which popularly was known as the Overman Committee.

The work of this committee, which summoned before it officers of the

Attorney General’s establishment in New York, agents of the Bureau of

Investigation in Washington, of Military and Naval Intelligence in

Washington, and all the larger figures of the accused or suspected

persons implicated in what now had become a wide-reaching national

scandal, was continued over many weeks. The proceedings were made

public regularly, and at last the readers of America began to get, at

first hand, authentic ideas of what menace had been at our doors and

inside our doors. It was before this Overman Committee that many of the

great New York cases in which A. P. L. assisted passed to their final

review.

Perhaps the most important single witness called before this

Senate committee was Mr. A. Bruce Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau of

Investigation of the Department of Justice at Washington. Mr. Bielaski

was on the stand for days at a time, and his testimony came as a

distinct shock to those of us who heretofore had known little or

nothing about the way in which our covert forces of espionage were

combating those of Germany. It will not be needful to follow the

records of the committee from day to day throughout the long period of

its sittings, but some of the more important revelations made by Mr.

Bielaski first may be brought to notice.

It was brought into the record, for publication later by the State

Department, that there was a regular system of secret messages between

Count von Bernstorff of the Imperial German Embassy at Washington, and

the Berlin Foreign Office, by way of South America and Stockholm. All

this time the Imperial German Ambassador was posing as a great friend

of America, while in reality he was the chief of the German spy system

in America—an example of all that a nobleman should not be.

It was shown by Mr. Bielaski that the German consul in Chicago,

Reiswitz, suggested as long ago as 1915 that German interests ought to

buy the Wright aeroplane factories in Dayton, Ohio, in an attempt to

stop the shipment of aeroplanes to the Allies. Something stopped the

shipment—let us suppose that it was not the efficiency of Germany so

much as our own inefficiency, deplorable as that admission must be.

Nothing came of this attempt, nor of the attempt to control the

Bridgeport Projectile Works, in any very conclusive and satisfactory

fashion for Germany. A year later von Bernstorff begins to complain

that German propaganda has not been producing much result. He cuts free

from the German publication, “Fair Play,” and declares that he would

be glad to be well quit of George Sylvester Viereck’s “Fatherland.”

He asks his imperial government to give him $50,000 more, with which

he would like to start a monthly magazine in the United States. This

was the beginning of those general revelations which exposed alike the

clumsiness of German diplomacy, and the endeavor of German espionage as

against our own.

Reiswitz was declared by Mr. Bielaski to have advised the continuance

of the “American Embargo Conference,” which was set on foot to create

opposition to our shipment of munitions to the Allies. He signified

that this ought to be used as an influence to swing German voters

in presidential elections. Mr. Bielaski brought into the record the

“Citizens’ Committee for Food Shipments,” which was supported by Dr.

Edmund von Mach of Cambridge. It had been organized in the home of a

prominent New York citizen.

There was brought in the record also the name of a newspaper

correspondent—more is the pity for that—who had letters from Count von

Bernstorff and Captain von Papen, military attache, declaring that this

man was in the service of Germany and Austria. The syndicate employing

this man, as is well known, cancelled his contract as soon as his real

character and his pro-German attitude were revealed.

The record also declared that a former correspondent of the _Cologne

Gazette_ in Washington, notified by the State Department to leave this

country, had been in close wireless communication with a German paper

in Rotterdam.

All of these revelations began to implicate certain Americans prominent

in business and in politics, so that at once the transaction by the

Senate Committee became the biggest news of the time, one recrimination

following another and one explanation another in rapid sequence. The

Committee, none the less, ground on, and produced original papers which

proved German methods beyond a doubt. Two code dispatches from von

Bernstorff to the Berlin Foreign Office were put into the evidence, one

of which was dated November 1, 1916, and stated: “Since the Lusitania

case, we have strictly confined ourselves to such propaganda as cannot

hurt us if it becomes known. The sole exception is perhaps the peace

propaganda, which has cost the least amount, but which also has been

the most successful.”

Again von Bernstorff states that it would not seem desirable for him

to be held responsible for any articles in the subsidized newspaper,

“when, as now, we are in a campaign of the bitterest character which is

turning largely upon foreign policy.”

Mr. Reiswitz of Chicago was on hand with estimates for his excellent

master at all times. In regard to the Embargo Conference, he wrote

in the first year of the war: “It would require an estimated amount

of $6,000 or $7,000. The contemplated continuation of the enterprise

would, in accordance with my opinion, be favorable to the entire German

vote, and would facilitate influencing German voters.” So we have at

once the first indication of the truth that the great German population

of America is to be handled for the particular purpose of advancing

Germany’s interests, not only in America but all over the world.

Mr. Bielaski read into the record documents alleging that the American

Press Association was contemplated as desirable for German control. A

memorandum by Dr. Albert, financial expert, stated that he would obtain

a thirty day option on the American Press Association for the price of

$900,000, with an additional $100,000 for news service. The memorandum

in full was introduced before the Committee.

Professor von Mach was stated by Mr. Bielaski to have been active in

behalf of interned prisoners, largely by way of his press agent, whom

he supplied with inspiration. Von Mach was later brought before the

Committee to explain in person as best he might certain publications

which he had put out in other form.

Mr. Bielaski stated that German interests advanced to the Bridgeport

Projectile Company $3,400,000, and that these interests got back

$1,000,000 of this money by selling a large part of the company’s

product to Spain.

Mr. Bielaski mentioned a society known as the “American Truth Society,”

organized in 1910 and reported to have been financed by the German

government, to what extent was undetermined. One record of a transfer

of $10,000 was shown.

Records which had been taken from the office of Wolf von Igel showed

that scarcely a ship sailed for a neutral country which did not carry

a German agent. There were at least two American newspaper men who

had been bought outright by Germany. Blackmail was not above the

consideration of some of these fellow-conspirators. Amounts of $1,000

to $5,000 had been paid to subsidize one paper which was dropped by the

embassy. The owner then threatened the embassy that if he did not get

any more money he might allow the paper to go into bankruptcy, and the

ensuing publicity would show the subsidy. Dr. Albert was authorized to

settle with this man to keep him quiet—he paid something over $3,000 in

this instance. Continually there rose a loud wail from Dr. Albert and

von Bernstorff, “Stung!”

There were some recriminations between journals in America as to

the nature of the “news” sent in by American foreign correspondents

located in Germany. It was sometimes offered in explanation of the

pro-German attitude of certain of these correspondents that it was

natural that a man resident in Germany should hear one side only of

the case. Others, more especially after the Senate revelations, were

disposed to think there might be other valuable considerations moving

correspondents thereto. Indeed, names and dates and prices of perfectly

good correspondents are now on record with the Overman Committee.

The Bielaski testimony was strengthened by that of Major Humes and

Captain Lester of Military Intelligence. Incidentally, the attempts

of Germany to embroil us with Mexico were shown. Very interesting

testimony was brought out from Carl Heinen, an interned German,

formerly a member of the Embassy staff, and a former consul general at

Mexico City. Major Humes of M. I. D. put in the record the relations

of Felix A. Somerfeld, an alien enemy who was an alleged Villa agent

in New York, showing that in eight months Villa had received nearly

$400,000 worth of rifle cartridges from Somerfeld, who was closely

associated with the German agents, Carl Rintelen and Friedrick

Stallforth, a prominent German banker in Mexico. The drafts on certain

trust companies were produced as part of the evidence.

Heinen’s deposition was subscribed to by F. A. Borgermeister, Dr.

Albert’s confidential secretary, before he was interned at Fort

Oglethorpe. This disclosed the disposition of $33,770,000 that passed

through German hands. This money was obtained in loans from New York

banks, or through the American agents of banks in Germany.

Secretary of War Baker had commanded Captain Lester of Military

Intelligence to make public some of the secrets of this division which

heretofore had been reposing in the silence of the tomb. Captain

Lester testified to the confession of a former German officer, who

admitted having been sent here as a propagandist. This man told the

federal officials that in June, before the Archduke Francis Ferdinand

of Austria was assassinated, the German government was plotting the

war. Captain Lester quoted this man as saying that in the middle of

June, 1914, Bethmann-Holweg sent out inquiries to various scientists,

professors and other intellectual persons to learn whether they were

ready for foreign service in the event of war. There were one hundred

and thirty of these who were told to be ready for instant call to

service in North and South America, Japan and China, as directors of

propaganda. They met in the Foreign Office in Berlin, July 10, 1914,

and three weeks later sailed from Copenhagen for New York under charge

of Dr. Heinrich F. Albert. In order not to arouse suspicion, most of

them traveled steerage.

Captain Lester, after a long day of testimony, referred to the “Golden

Book”—a book in which German-Americans wrote their names after they had

contributed to a German War Relief fund. This book was to have been

presented to the Kaiserin. The purpose of this book, in the belief of

Captain Lester, was to get certain prominent German-Americans signed up

as loyal to the fatherland, without letting them know they were doing

it.

Captain Lester, in later testimony before the Overman Committee,

said that of the one hundred and thirty trained and educated German

propagandists sent out nearly a month before the war started,

thirty-one landed in the United States two weeks after hostilities had

started in Europe. They became the starting point of an organization

comprising between 200,000 and 300,000 volunteers, in large part

German-Americans, who were secret spies in this country and who

reported regularly to German consuls and agents in widely scattered

centers of the German spy system in the United States.

It may cause a certain horror and revulsion in the hearts of the

American public when they realize that a quarter of a million secret

German agents were working here in America all the time against us—just

about as many as existed of loyal Americans under the unseen banner

of the American Protective League. The American public now can begin

to understand something of the bitter battle which was fought between

these two secret organizations—the quarter million German spies who

lived here, and the quarter million loyal American citizens who made

this their home and this their country.

Captain Lester showed that the group sent to America had definite

instructions. One was to deal with commercial matters, another with

political, and a third leader was to take up the South American and

Mexican relations. General headquarters in New York were at 1123

Broadway, arrangements having been made for these quarters in advance.

The Hamburg-American Company, whose status toward us in the war is now

notorious, took charge of the first work of the German Press Bureau.

The original artist in this labor was replaced by a newspaper man,

whose salary from Germany was later discovered to have been $15,000. A

former major of the United States, once a newspaper man, was declared

to have been hired at $40 a week to report to these German headquarters

any confidential interviews he might have with Washington officials.

The Lutheran church propaganda was brought definitely before the

Overman Committee. Dr. Albert and Dr. Fuhr had this form of propaganda

in charge. Captain Lester said that there are about six thousand

Lutheran congregations in the United States, with a membership of

nearly 3,000,000, and that the propaganda was directed through pastors

who had been born in Germany, or were alien enemies, or were of German

parentage. There were over one thousand two hundred individual cases

investigated. Readers of these pages will recall a few instances of

the work of the American Protective League in looking into these

many instances of disloyalty. Captain Lester said: “We have found in

localities that the word had gone down the line to groups of clergymen

that they were to preach sermons in favor of Germany, and that this

had been done. I investigated a case in New York where the clergyman

admitted to me he had received instructions to preach such a sermon.

From August, 1914, to April, 1917, in hundreds of Lutheran churches,

the continuous preaching was in favor and hope of German victory.”

It transpired that British Military Intelligence had in possession a

great mass of documents taken by General Allenby in the capture of

Nazareth. These were found among the effects of that Major Franz von

Papen who once had been military attache in Washington, and whose

name has become more or less familiar through some of the disclosures

regarding von Bernstorff and his activities.

These papers, added to those taken by our own Intelligence officers

from prominent Germans this side the water, go to build up the

tremendous and tragic story of a nation’s shame. Germany had a widely

spread and elaborate plan to ruin this country. She failed. The proofs

of her failure are now before the public, and they run very wide. They

do not leave us feeling any too comfortable or any too sure regarding

our own country. It is not pleasant to have listed, as part with the

German records, those of our great newspapers which, in the German

belief, might be classed as “neutral or favorable to Germany.” It is

not pleasant to see the names of newspaper men once held honorable

and loyal, but now condemned to have had the itching palm and to have

received German gold. There is nothing pleasant about the whole sordid,

abominable story, nothing clean, nothing satisfying, nothing honorable.

But it shows that when we had this sort of work to do, we did it

thoroughly and accomplished the mission on which our men were sent out.

Some of the most sensational testimony was that brought out by Alfred

L. Becker, Deputy Attorney General of New York, who had in charge a

great many of the big espionage and treason investigations in that

city, which was the American home and headquarters of the German spy

army.

Mr. Becker told of his own investigations, at the instance of the

French Government, in the case of Bolo Pacha. The latter was executed

as a French traitor, but was shown to have gotten Germany money in this

country to the extent of $1,683,000. As is well known, Bolo had raised

this money to purchase the Paris _Journal_. This paper, however, did

not change its loyalty to France, so there was a loud wail on the part

of Germany’s head spies that they had been swindled once more.

Mr. Becker produced many British secret service documents showing the

elaborate governmental arrangements in Berlin to establish and maintain

spy systems, both before and after the war. These documents listed,

as agents, journalists, college professors, bankers, business men,

consular attaches, and others of all ranks. Mr. Becker showed that a

former German reservist, later an auditor of accounts in New York City,

was told as early as 1909 that he would be valuable in case of war as a

German propagandist in the United States. It was intended to get a good

system of distribution of German “kultur” established in America. Then

there could at once be put before American readers such stories as that

systematic attempt made in 1917 to advance the idea that Germany was on

the verge of revolt and that the Kaiser soon would be overthrown. The

German censor was back of the dissemination of these reports, it being

maintained to paralyze the prosecution of the war in this country,

where we had the pleasant theory that the German Kaiser and the German

people were not at one as to the war.

Mr. Becker also went into many transactions of Ambassador von

Bernstorff, showing him to have been quite willing to buy the Paris

_Journal_ with German money if need be. He placed in the record

correspondence which showed that when Dr. Dernburg left Germany for

the United States in August, 1914, the German government deposited

25,000,000 marks with M. M. Warburg & Company of Hamburg, which Mr.

Becker stated was for propaganda purposes in the United States. Dr.

Dernburg brought to this country a power of attorney from the Imperial

Secretary of the Treasury, which gave him the distribution of the fund.

Of this fund, $400,000 was turned over to Dr. Albert, head of German

finances in New York, by Dr. Dernburg.

Mr. Becker gave a long list of banks which had participated in the

sale of German bonds in this country, these banks being located in

the principal cities of the east and west. He named as well the chain

of banks in which the German government opened accounts for certain

purposes. He showed the credentials brought from the German chancellor

by Dr. Dernburg to large financial institutions in New York, which were

made repositories of German funds. The letter to one such banking firm

in New York, from Warburg & Company of Hamburg, establishing the German

credit of 25,000,000 marks, was made a part of the record, also the

power of attorney enclosed by Dr. Dernburg to the New York repository.

Mr. Becker mentioned the underwriting of German bonds by a New York

concern to a total amount of $9,908,000. The proceeds were deposited

with a trust company in New York to the order of the Imperial German

Government, and were checked out by von Bernstorff and Albert for

deposit in the chain of banks above referred to. It was the intention

to make these banking institutions favorable to the German ideas, and

unfavorable to the American bond sales. An initial deposit was made

with the Equitable Trust Company of $3,350,000; the Columbia Trust

Company had an initial deposit of $750,000; the Chase National Bank was

alleged to have had an initial deposit of $125,000. As the proceeds

of the German war loan notes accumulated, the deposits in certain of

these New York financial institutions were increased. In order to

avoid any legal complications, the German government opened a blind

account so that Dr. Albert could go on with his operations without any

fear of detection by anyone desiring to bring legal action against

him. These figures will give the reader some idea of the extent of

the German finances. _All this money—and many times the amounts above

mentioned—was spent for the one and only purpose of German propaganda

and spy work in the United States._

Major Humes took Dr. Edmund von Mach over the jumps in his

cross-examination before the Overman Committee. Von Mach came in

for a gruelling by Senator Nelson and others of the Committee when

he attempted to speak in justification of German practices in war.

He did his best to carry water on both shoulders, but had a very

unhappy quarter of an hour. He was followed and preceded on the

stand by certain literary gentlemen, college professors and others,

who undertook to explain to the Committee utterances they had made

in print or elsewhere which were charged to show disloyalty to the

interests of the United States. It is impossible to give in any sort

of detail the vast extension of the testimony before this Committee,

or to mention the many widely extended forms of the German activities

that ran in this country during the war. Perhaps we may summarize the

German attitude, as well as in any other way, by citing the opinion

of that delectable gentleman, the Count von Bernstorff, ambassador of

the Imperial German Government at Washington, in his communication to

the Foreign Office in Berlin, in explanation of his activities in the

United States:

It is particularly difficult in a hostile country to find

suitable persons for help of this sort, and to this fact, as well

as the Lusitania case, we may attribute the shipwreck of the

German propaganda initiated by Herr Dernburg. Now that opinion

is somewhat improved in our favor, and that we are no longer

ostracized, we can take the work up again. As I have said before,

our success depends entirely upon finding the suitable people. We

can then leave to them whether they will start a daily, weekly, or

a monthly, and the sort of support to be given. In my opinion, we

should always observe the principle that either a representative

of ours should buy the paper, or that the proprietor should be

secured by us by continuous support. The latter course has been

followed by the English in respect of the New York ——, and our

enemies have spent here large sums in this manner. All the same,

I do not think that they pay regular subsidies. At least, I never

heard of such. This form of payment is moreover inadvisable,

because one can never get free of the recipients. They all wish

to become permanent pensioners of the Empire, and if they fail in

that, they try to blackmail us.

I, therefore, request your Excellency to sanction the payment in

question.

By way of general summary, it may be said that a well-defined

organization long existed in our country, districted with the usual

German exactness. German Naval Intelligence had charge of destruction

of our shipping, naval sabotage, etc. Boy-Ed, naval attache at

Washington, was to have handled this. The notorious Rintelen, who

seemed to have operated independently in New York, confined his

activities rather to the making of bombs to be concealed on ships, to

the incitement of strikes, munition embargoes, etc. Dr. Scheele, one

of the three most prominent spies in America, was relied on to devise

means of burning ships at sea. His method of bomb manufacture is spoken

of later.

What is equivalent to our Military Intelligence Department in Germany,

in turn took up the question of sabotage in our ammunition works, and

of getting contraband stuff into Germany. Scheele, who was taken in

custody by the United States, declared that this country was divided

into military districts, and that supplies of arms and ammunition were

gotten together. He even declared at one time that he knew of 200,000

Mauser rifles stored in a German club in New York City. He was taken

there by Government officials and located the place where the rifles

probably had been stored, although they had in the meantime been

removed.

Von Papen, military attache at Washington, had much the same work

for the army that Boy-Ed had taken on for the navy. He often appears

in the revelations of the German spy system, as in the plot against

the Welland Canal, and the Vanceboro bridge, for which Werner Horn

was arrested. Von Papen had the charge of the Bridgeport Projectile

Company, which was intended to disorganize our manufacture of

munitions. He had some sort of charge of Scheele, the German chemist

spy, who is, perhaps, the best known example now remaining on American

soil of the German espionage system.

Special commissions to spread disease germs were sent to this country,

as perhaps A. P. L. reading will have indicated. A good deal of this

work failed because so many of the German spies were interned early in

the war, and there has been no good opportunity since to replace these

men properly, the war having traveled too fast when once America was in

it.

But what, perhaps, has shocked and horrified Americans more than

anything else (and it cannot be too often iterated) was the knowledge

that long before this war Germany had a vast system of spies all

through America. This system of international spies was originated

almost a generation ago by the Prussian War Office. There were supposed

to have been about 30,000 spies in France before this war was declared.

England also was well sown with such persons in every rank of life. We

had our share.

Dr. Scheele told the Department of Justice when he was taken in charge

that for twenty-one years before the outbreak of the European war

he had been stationed in Brooklyn as a representative of the German

government. His “honorarium,” as he called it, was $125 a month. He had

been a German major, yet owned a drug store in Brooklyn. A couple of

months before war was declared by Germany, he was told to get rid of

his drug store—that is to say, to mobilize in America for the German

purposes in the coming war. He said the drug store was doing very well.

Others of these fixed spies got salaries about like that of Scheele,

a retainer of $1,000 nominal salary being more frequent. In charge of

all these lesser regular spies, who had been absorbed in the American

citizenship, were the consuls and the high diplomatic officials of the

Imperial German Government in our country. It would be a very great

deal to hope that this system has been actually extirpated. That it did

exist is true without any doubt or question.

Any A. P. L. man whose work was identified with the larger eastern

cities will note many points of contact of the A. P. L. with D. J. and

M. I. D. in the testimony brought before the Overman Committee. It is,

of course, not too much to say that A. P. L. was at the foundation of

much of that testimony itself. Many of the facts above brought out are

of record in the A. P. L. files.

In yet another line of Government work, the League has been very

useful—that of coöperating with Mr. A. Mitchell Palmer, Custodian of

Alien Property, whose statements, made elsewhere than in the committee,

constitute a rather valuable extension of the committee’s information.

Reference was made before the committee to the Bridgeport Projectile

Company. Mr. Palmer some time ago announced that he had taken over

19,900 of the 20,000 shares of the capital stock of that concern, and

that there had been reported to him other property of approximate value

of $500,000 held by it for and in behalf of Germany.

In a statement accredited to him, Mr. Palmer again bared the efforts of

that malodorous quartet, Count von Bernstorff, Dr. Albert, Dr. Dernburg

and Captain von Papen. It was the obvious intent of these to use the

Bridgeport Projectile Company to prevent the manufacture and shipment

of arms and ammunition to the Allies. The taking over of the stock of

the Bridgeport Projectile Company, and the report by the company of the

property owned by the German government, with the disclosures incident

thereto, followed many months of persistent investigation.

It was planned to have this corporation buy up all the available

supplies of powder, antimony, hydraulic presses, and other supplies

and materials essential to the manufacture of munitions. The plan also

involved the negotiation of contracts with the allied Governments to

supply them with materials of war, apparently in good faith but in

reality with no intention of fulfilling them. The ultimate expenditure

of approximately $10,000,000 for this purpose was contemplated.

In a cable from London printed in the American press on the morning of

January 15, 1919, a statement was given from a German newspaper quoting

Dr. Dernburg, the German propagandist who was expelled from America

some years ago. Now Dr. Dernburg comes out in the Vienna _Neue Freie

Presse_ and states that Germany is depending upon “a certain drawing

together of Germany and the United States.” He believes that nothing

should be done which will “give foundation for a lasting alienation of

the two peoples.” He finds the Allies in victory somewhat difficult

in their terms, so that Germans turn their eyes and expectations

toward America, “and feel sure that their expectations will not come

to grief.” He goes on to say that Germany needs raw materials for the

revival of her industries, needs credit, and also a market. He looks

to America for all these, and says: “A fear of German competition does

not exist in America in the same degree as in France and England. The

hatred against the German people does not exist since the dynasty has

been overthrown, and it is quite possible that America will transfer

English and French debts to Germany in order to give her money, for

America seeks not destruction but justice. Our two countries will

be brought together, and as rivalry is out of the question, this

coöperation will take a more tolerable form than in the case of our

neighbors.” He goes on to say: “A careful economic policy, I think,

will secure Germans sympathy, thereby providing economic help for

our German industries, now in collapse, and possibly awaken stirring

echoes in two million Americans of German origin.... America will have

other interests in Germany allied with her by interest and by service

rendered to Germany; so taking all these points of view together, one

may well consider that the earliest possible reconciliation between

Germany and America will be good for the future of the world and will

be welcomed by the German people.”

The human mind with difficulty can conceive of anything indicative of

more brazen effrontery than the foregoing. That is the statement to-day

of one of the arch-traitors planted in this country by Germany. No

doubt, it may awaken a “stirring echo” at least in the hearts of the

quarter million of German spies who worked with Dernburg here.

The great danger to America is her unsuspiciousness. Having lived half

a century cheek by jowl with these men, although in ignorance of their

real quality, we are expected to go on living with them on the same

terms that existed before the war. Great Britain, sterner than we,

definitely has announced her intention of deporting German aliens—she

intends to take no chances. What the French will do is a foregone

conclusion. German “kultur” is begging at the doorsteps of the world.

Mr. Palmer, custodian of alien enemy property, can complete the story.

For instance, there was loose talk around New York in the early days

of the war that under one tennis court in New Jersey there was a gun

emplacement from which New York could be bombarded. It was said that

a German-owned factory building had a gun emplacement built into its

floor with the same amiable intention. Custodian Palmer points out that

there really was a concrete pier in the port of St. Thomas, Virgin

Islands, with a concealed base suitable for heavy gun mounts. That pier

now belongs to the United States Government. Before the war it was the

property of a steamship company organized by wealthy Germans, of whom

Emperor William was one. Its office was in the headquarters of the

German spies in New York. After the United States went to war, the pier

was sold to a Dane to cover the ownership. The Dane could not meet his

note when it came due, and Mr. Palmer confiscated the pier immediately

as German property.

Mr. Palmer stated, long before the Overman Committee began its

testimony, that Germany, years before she started this war, had

undertaken to plant on American soil a great industrial and commercial

army. She believed she could keep America out of the conflict, for she

had her organization in every state of the Union. It reached across the

Pacific to Hawaii and the Philippines and up to Alaska; in the Atlantic

it was found in Porto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Panama. Industry

after industry was built up, totaling probably two billion dollars in

money value, and billions more in potential political value.

“Germany had spies in the German-owned industries of Pittsburgh,

Chicago, New York and the West,” says Mr. Palmer. “She fought the war

when we were neutral on American soil by agents sent here for that

purpose.”

St. Andrew’s Bay, not far from Pensacola, Florida, is a very fine

harbor, the nearest American harbor, indeed, to the Panama canal.

Mr. Palmer shows that this was wholly controlled by Germans, who

were organized in the form of a lumber company and who had purchased

thousands of acres of timber nearby. The wealthy owner of the German

property never saw it. A concealed fort had been constructed there, and

right of way on the shore had been purchased. Not even the Government

of the United States could have obtained a terminal on St. Andrew’s Bay

unless it did business with the owner in Berlin. Such being the case,

Custodian Palmer did not buy it at all—he simply took it in and added

it to his list of more than two billion dollars’ worth of German-owned

property taken over since the war began.

There were German spies in our chemical works, metal industries,

textile concerns, and in every line of our commerce. They had a fund,

mentioned at different times in the Overman Committee testimony,

which was somewhere between thirty millions and sixty millions of

dollars—all of it to be used in propaganda, subsidizing, subornation

and destruction.

There were three or four German firms in America which had much to do

with the German declaration of war. They were instrumental in piling up

the gigantic quantities of American metals, to prepare that country for

its onslaught in 1914. There were great stocks of copper accumulated

in America to be sold to Germany after the close of the war. The

actual ownership of these things was so very carefully concealed by

a masquerading interchangeable personnel that it required months of

investigation to get at the real facts and to discover that the real

owner was Germany itself. In taking over these metal businesses,

Alien Property Custodian Palmer broke the German control of the metal

industry of America. It has been intended to wipe out these industries

so completely that they cannot get a start again.

The New York _Times_ of November 3, 1918, printed a quarter-page story

in regard to some of these revelations which should be made not only

a part of the record of the Senate Committee but of the records of

America itself:

When on April 6, 1917, America declared war on Germany, there

was in New York as American representative of the Deutsche Bank

of Berlin, a German by the name of Hugo Schmidt. As the world

now knows, it was the Deutsche Bank which financed the von

Bernstorff-Bolo Pacha plot to debauch France, which formulated a

scheme to corner the wool market of the world, a plot the object

of which was to gain control of the after-the-war trade in South

America, and which, through its agents in this country and South

America, was keeping tab on the political situation in this

hemisphere for the Foreign Office in Berlin. How these plots and

numerous others were planned and how they were to be carried out,

was disclosed in a great mass of documents which will go down in

history as the “Hugo Schmidt Papers.”

Despite the fact that he was one of the first of the Kaiser’s

subjects to be arrested after this country entered the war, and

despite the fact that he knew the all-important nature of the

papers, Schmidt failed to destroy the documents. He acted on the

theory that the United States Government would not take them, and

so he catalogued them and stored them away in his private office

at Broadway and Rector Street, and in his living quarters in the

old German Club in West Fifty-ninth Street.

It was the plotting of Bernstorff and Bolo Pacha, with Adolph

Pavenstedt, the enemy alien banker of New York, acting as a

go-between, that caused the seizure of Schmidt’s papers, with the

unmasking of scores of German political and trade plots, involving

financial backing mounting into the hundreds of millions of

dollars.

The revelations which have followed the seizure of these papers

have filled pages in the newspapers of the United States and the

rest of the world, and yet the story has not yet been half told.

The new chapters in a story, which has been pronounced by Federal

officials among the most interesting of all the disclosures

brought about as a result of the great war, will be issued by

Deputy Attorney General Alfred L. Becker, the man who exposed Bolo.

The seizure of millions of dollars worth of German-owned property

in this country has been made possible, to a large extent, by

Mr. Becker’s seizure of Schmidt’s papers. But for its conclusive

evidence of the true ownership of certain great properties,

the Government of the United States would have had an almost

impossible job in ferreting out the trade footholds of the Hun

in America. To-day the Government is in control of great woolen

mills, of huge plants now engaged in the manufacture of munitions

of war, of splendid ocean-going steamships (not those of the

Hamburg-American and North German Lloyd lines), which, until

Schmidt’s papers were studied, were supposed to be neutral or

American owned; not to mention numerous other important plants,

all of which were proved to be of enemy ownership and of which a

majority have already been auctioned off to bona fide American

ownership and control.

Aside from what the future may disclose as a result of a further

study and investigation of Schmidt’s papers, the following

summary, prepared in the office of Mr. Becker, shows in a

condensed form the results obtained to date as a result of the

seizure of the German banker’s books and other data:

1. Part of documents that helped in the conviction of Bolo Pacha.

2. Furnished evidence upon which Hugo Schmidt and Adolph

Pavenstedt were interned.

3. Furnished evidence disclosing German plot to hoard wools and

other textiles for German account; furnished evidence enabling the

Government to take control of Forstmann & Huffmann Company, and

proving conclusively the German ownership of the Botany Worsted

Mills.

4. Furnished evidence upon which Eugene Schwerdt was interned.

5. Furnished key of the secret telegraphic code of the Deutsche

Bank, which since has been used by all the intelligence bureaus

throughout the world to decode wireless and cable messages as well

as correspondence.

6. Furnished information to compile an index showing approximately

32,000 subscribers in America for war loans of the Central Powers.

7. Disclosed payments of moneys made by the German Foreign Office

to their diplomatic representatives abroad, notably to the German

Minister in Buenos Aires, about 8,000,000 marks ($1,600,000); to

the German Minister in Mexico, about $178,000; to the Minister at

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, $120,000, etc.

8. Disclosed the payments made by the German Foreign Office,

through the Deutsche Bank, to its diplomatic representatives

in the United States, von Bernstorff, Boy-Ed, von Papen and

Albert, to carry on different methods of German propaganda and

frightfulness, as well as commercial aggression.

9. Disclosed extensive plans for the control of South American

trade by German interests, and showed German methods of keeping

a close scrutiny on the political situation of the several South

American republics.

10. Disclosed means adopted for carrying on German business in

enemy as well as in neutral countries, and gave to the authorities

the names of the German agents in every neutral country in the

world.

The arrest and internment of Schmidt and Pavenstedt was a direct

result of the exposure of Bolo Pacha. Pavenstedt is the former

head of the banking house of G. Amsinck & Co., and for years was

among the best known of the Kaiser’s subjects in New York. The

Schmidt papers disclosed him as an intimate of von Bernstorff,

Dr. Albert, Boy-Ed, and von Papen, and as the man to whom Bolo

went immediately on arrival in this country in the late winter of

1916. Pavenstedt negotiated for Bernstorff the financial part of

the conspiracy which resulted in the payment to Bolo out of the

funds of the Deutsche Bank in this country a sum totaling about

$1,700,000.

It was also disclosed that immediately following the outbreak of

the war, Boy-Ed and von Papen hurried to New York to establish

propaganda and plot headquarters as per instructions received from

Berlin. Boy-Ed, like Bolo, first sought Pavenstedt, who found

room for the German naval attache in his own office in the bank

building. Later, when the newspapers began to print stories of the

questionable operations of the German naval and military attaches,

they moved to other headquarters, the transfer being made “for

reasons of policy,” at the suggestion of Pavenstedt.

The story of Bolo is known to every one, and it is not necessary

to point out how the Schmidt papers led to that traitor’s arrest

and subsequently to his execution by a French firing squad.

Here is an A. P. L. case which is recommended to the attention of those

who write short stories of a detective nature: It has to do with a

beautiful adventuress, who among other things was known as a countess.

Let us not give the real name. We will call her Mrs. Jeannette Sickles,

alias Countess De Galli, alias Mrs. Dalbert, alias Rose La Foine,

alias Jeannette McDaniels, alias Miss Ellen Hyde, alias Jeannette La

Foine—we need not give more of her names. The records of this case

show that she was entangled with an employe of the Adjutant General’s

office, a night clerk, whose duties were to sort the mail. This clerk

under examination admitted that he knew this lady, admitted that he had

become very fond of her—was, indeed, in love with her; said she had

kissed him and given him divers manifestations of her affection; said

he had met her often at hotels in the presence of others; said she came

to him for advice about certain unfair treatment which she thought the

Department of Justice had given her; said he was going to marry the

lady if he had a chance, as he had found her a very congenial woman.

The writer of fiction can easily fill out the details. The adventuress

was intelligent, beautiful and accomplished. She was working close to

many of our Government secrets; it would be her fault if she did not

learn a great many things about this country and its government.

It was stated that this particular Government clerk was known to be a

socialist; was corresponding with Emma Goldman. Other charges were made

against him, not redounding to the credit of his moral character. He

was rated as being a man slovenly in his looks and “with no moral and

mental stamina.” In short, the field was pretty good for the purposes

of German espionage. Pages could be written covering the activities

of this particular emissary. She was one of a certain type who will

work anywhere for money. During the Red Cross drives in Washington,

she was suspected by some of the operatives who were working for the

United States Shipping Board. It was discovered that she was working

in that department, also, as a welfare worker “under very mysterious

circumstances.” She was cared for.

There was a certain gentleman by the name of Dr. Frederick August von

Strensch, who was arrested by the Department of Justice on testimony

furnished by operatives. The worthy doctor might have been regarded

as practically innocent—all he planned was the invasion of Canada and

Mexico by German reservists located in the United States. This man had

long made America his home. He was arrested on a presidential warrant.

Along with him, there was arrested a certain dazzling stage celebrity

represented to have been a countess in her more private life in Europe.

A mass of correspondence was taken with these people, revealing the

fact that 150,000 German reservists were to be sent to Canada, about

the same number into Mexico. Definite plans were mentioned referring

to the assemblage of 25,000 men on the Canadian border. This one plot

alone, if mentioned here in detail, would give all the data necessary

for a sensational thriller in detective fiction. But it is not fiction.

This sort of work actually went on within our country. Not only in this

instance, but in many others, a deliberate and extremely dangerous

attempt was made to embroil us with other countries.

When the merchant submarine “Deutschland” arrived in this country on

its celebrated voyage, a part of its cargo consisted of thirty-three

thousand pounds of tungsten, scarce in this country, but of value in

making certain high grades of steel. After considerable sleuthing

on the part of operatives, this tungsten was traced to a concern

ostensibly American, but really owned altogether by Germans. The way in

which the identity of these steel manufacturers was concealed is proof

of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the master criminal minds of

the world. As showing the thoroughness with which Germany works, one

of the accused stated that when he came out of Germany to confer with

his associates, the German censors destroyed all his papers, examined

all his clothing, and stripped him and washed him with a solution of

alcohol to eradicate any message which he might have painted on his

skin! They were not above a suspicion on their own part. The Alien

Property Custodian took over, as a result of these investigations, the

Becker Steel Company, whose plant was located at Charleston, W. Va. The

details of this case are extremely voluminous.

The passport frauds have long been “old stuff” in the American

journals, and need be no more than referred to here. At the time German

reservists were needed in the Old Country (there were more than a

thousand very useful officers here who were much needed in the German

army), the question of passports came up. These men could not get U.

S. passports, so a general system of forged passports was set on foot

in which the highest diplomatic officials of Germany in America did

not scorn to take a hand. It was their idea of honorable service, one

supposes. Certainly, von Bernstorff—whom we kept in this country long

after he should have been kicked out—employed a go-between who arranged

and carried on a very considerable traffic in foreign passports. The

ordinary price was about twenty dollars,—small business, truly, for an

ambassador, but von Bernstorff, von Papen, von Weddell, von Igel and

others worked together in this thing until the Department of Justice

men got too hot upon their trail. A long and intricate story hangs

upon this. It is enough to say that the frauds were unearthed and

the lower and middle class operatives in the frauds were put away.

Von Weddell, the most important of these conspirators, took ship for

Norway. However, the ship on which he sailed was sunk by a German

U-boat,—tragic justice in at least one instance.

Another of the well known German enterprises against England and her

Indian empire was brought to light in the so-called Hindu Plot—also

very well known through newspaper publication. It came to a focus in a

trial in San Francisco, in which one Hindu leader shot another and was

himself shot the next instant in the court room by a deputy marshal in

attendance—a fact which perhaps lingers in the public memory even in

these exciting days. The Hindu plot, reduced to its simple and banal

lowest common denominator, consisted in a more or less useless intrigue

with certain more or less uninfluential citizens of Hindu birth. One

phase of the activities was the purchase with German money in New York

of several hundred thousand rifles and several million cartridges,

which were to be shipped in a vessel from the Pacific Coast to meet a

certain other vessel far out in the Pacific for transfer of the cargo.

That cargo was to be delivered where it would do the most good to

any Hindu gentleman disposed to rise against the British authority.

It is a long and rather dull story—how everything miscarried for our

friends the Germans and the Hindus. The rifles never were delivered;

the conspirators were brought to trial; the conspiracy was ended. And

at the end, in a court room, and because he himself had a weapon in his

hand, we got one Hindu Hun at least.

As a mere trifle, it may be mentioned that Joseph W——, an Austrian

subject, was arraigned in the Enemy Alien Bureau at New York, charged

with having in his possession a United States navy code book. W—— was

said to be a “collector of stamps.” He had in his possession a map of

South America, and a list of warships of the Brazilian navy. He had

also certain sheets of paper carrying mysterious characters made up of

letters and dashes. He said he had been a piano player and was taking

music lessons by mail.

Lt. Christian S—— was before the Enemy Alien Bureau at the same time.

He was once six years in the German army as an officer of the Uhlans.

One day S—— called on United States Marshal McCarthy and asked him to

help him get a job. He returned to find out if the marshal had found a

place for him, and when the marshal said he had not, the German showed

anger and remarked: “This is what makes us disloyal!” Marshal McCarthy

arrested S—— and arraigned him before Perry Armstrong, assistant chief

of the Enemy Alien Bureau. In answer to questions, S—— said he did not

approve of German-Americans, that he approved of the sinking of the

Lusitania and endorsed what the Germans had done in Belgium. He was

committed to Ludlow Street jail pending further investigation.

Last May there was arrested in New York one Gustave B. K——, of whom it

was said: “Not only is he an officer of the German army and an intimate

friend and adviser of von Bernstorff, von Papen, and Boy-Ed, but he

is also a confidant, it is said, of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince.

Though he has lived in the United States twenty years, he is still a

German subject and is said to have paid out large sums of German money

on Boy-Ed’s account, having had as much as $750,000 for that purpose in

one New York bank at one time.”

It is enough! Further details would be revolting. Enough has been

shown to develop some idea of the tremendous centralization of these

international spy activities on the eastern seaboard of America. It was

with these that the cities of New York and Washington had the most to

do.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SPY HIMSELF

The Perverted German Mind—Stories of Brutal Indifference to

Innocent Victims—Treason, Treachery, and Unmorality Hand in

Hand—The Authentic Story of Dr. Scheele—Twenty-one Years a German

Spy in America—The “Honor of a German Officer.”

Comment has been made elsewhere in these pages on the curiously

perverted nature of the German intellect. It would not be truthful to

call all Germans unintellectual or unscientific, for the reverse of

this is in part true. But continually in its most elaborate workings,

the German mind displays reversions to grossness, coarseness, and

bestiality. Perversions and atrocities seem natural to their soldiers.

These restrictions apply often to men in high authority. The German

officer was perhaps even more a brute than the German private.

Take the case of the man Thierichens, Captain of the _Prinz Eitel

Friedrich_, which was interned at Norfolk in March, 1915, after a

successful career of six months as a commerce raider. For a long time

Captain Thierichens was hailed in this country as a sort of naval

hero; he received the admiration not only of men but of women. It was

only after a considerable career in adulation that the tide of public

estimation turned in regard to this man. His private correspondence was

investigated, and it was found that he was carrying on correspondence

with women in this country which showed a depth of human depravity on

his part which cannot be understood and may not be described.

This phase of German mentality was manifested also in the highest

diplomatic representatives that that country sent abroad. These men

had no sense of honor or morality, but curiously enough, they were

not aware of their own lack. They performed the most pernicious acts

of treason, and yet were never conscious they were committing any

crime. Von Bernstorff, Dumba, von Papen, Boy-Ed, Bolo Pacha, Rintelen

and Dr. Scheele—such a record of treachery never has been known in

all the history of diplomacy; such a wholly devilish ingenuity, such

an intellectual finesse in conspiracy, such a delicate exactness and

such a crude brutality in destruction, never have been manifested on

the part of any other nation in the world. The flower of centuries

of civilization in Germany’s case had been merely a baneful,

noisome bloom, and not the sweet product of an actual culture. The

efflorescence of the German heart is the fungus of decay. Feed them?

Why should we feed them? Trust them? Why should we trust them? Spare

them? Why should we spare them? Receive them? Why should we receive

them? Believe them? Why should we ever believe them?

A fine band of conspirators was uncovered by investigations of

attempted atrocities against our eastern shipping. There was a man

named Robert Fay who had invented a ship bomb, and who had all the

German money he needed back of him. His machine was a sort of tank

which he fastened to the rudder post just below the water line of a

ship which was being loaded and which stood high in the water. As the

vessel was loaded, it would submerge the tank and leave everything out

of sight under water. Fay had worked out one of the most ingenious

devices which any of the investigating Government engineers had ever

seen.

His scheme, as Mr. Strothers describes it in his book, “Fighting

Germany’s Spies,” was to go under the stern of an ocean steamer in a

small boat and to affix to the rudder post this little tank. Of course

every reader will know that in steering a ship the rudder turns first

this way, then that. Fay had a rod so adjusted that every time the

rudder moved it turned a beveled wheel within the bomb just one notch.

A certain number of revolutions of that wheel—which of course would be

very slow and gradual—would turn the next wheel of the clock one notch.

This would gear into the wheel next beyond it. The last wheel would

slowly unscrew a threaded cap at the head of a bolt which had, pressing

upon its top, a strong spring. When the cap was loose the bolt would

drop and it would act like a firing pin in a rifle, its point striking

upon the cap of a rifle cartridge which was adjusted just above a small

charge of chloride of potash. Below the potash there was a charge of

dynamite, and below that again a charge of the tremendous explosive

trinitrotoluol—the explosive known as “T. N. T.”

Suppose the device adjusted to the rudder of a steamship on some dark

night in New York harbor. The cargo is loaded on the ship; inch by inch

the ship sinks down, and this contrivance, spiked on the rudder post,

is lost to sight. The ship steams out to sea. Every time she swings to

change her course, every time the rudder is adjusted gently, a notch

in the leisurely clock trained below her stern slips with a little,

unheard click. Far out at sea—for what reason no one can tell—without

any warning, the whole stern of the ship heaves up in the air. The

water rushes in; the boilers explode. The ship, her cargo, her crew,

her passengers, are gone.

Well, it cost but little. A few dollars would make such a bomb. Von

Papen looked it over. He did not object to the cost; indeed, Germany

did not scruple to spend any sum of money of the millions she sent

to America, provided it would produce results. But von Papen was not

sure of this; he did not think much of it. He declined it. As to the

immorality of it, the frightfulness of it—that never came into his mind

at all.

One recalls reading the other day that Great Britain had shot only

fourteen spies. We did not shoot one in America.

The Federal grand jury in New York on December 6, 1918, returned

indictments charging treason against two men who already were in the

Tombs awaiting trial on an earlier charge of conspiracy. This was the

first actual treason trial since we entered the war. The men were

Paul Fricke of Mt. Vernon and Hermann Wessells, an Imperial German

Government spy, former officer of the German navy, then domiciled in

America. Their co-defendants in the conspiracy trial were Jeremiah

A. O’Leary, the Sinn Fein agitator; John T. Ryan, a Buffalo lawyer;

Mme. Victorica, also an alleged German spy; Willard J. Robinson, an

American, and the late Dr. Hugo Schweitzer, one of the best known

German business men in New York.

It was alleged that the activities of Wessells had to do with “ways

and means of secretly placing explosives, or securing other persons

secretly to place explosives, on wharves located in the United States,

on ships and vessels in ports of the United States, and plying between

ports of the United States and other countries; to blow up, injure,

and destroy the same, and cause fires thereon, and thereby hinder and

hamper the prosecution of the war by the United States against Germany.”

The final overt act charged was that in July, 1917, Wessells requested

“information as to ways and means of importing toy blocks from

Switzerland,” his purpose being to find “ways and means of secretly

and clandestinely introducing into the United States explosives and

ingredients of explosives concealed in toy blocks.”

Had any of these toy blocks come into the hands of innocent children,

what matter to a mind which would regard the Lusitania sinking as

justifiable war? What difference would it make to a man hiding T. N. T.

in a child’s toys whether he killed babies in Flanders or on the high

seas or in American homes? Such men are unmoral. One would call treason

one of their lesser crimes.

There was in New York City a certain German whom we will call von S——.

He was an inventor of a machine called an aeromobile, which, however,

he said he would not sell to any government but that of Germany. He was

arrested by agents of the Department of Justice, charged with uttering

disloyal, scurrilous and profane remarks against the Government and

military forces of the United States. He is a German-born citizen of

the United States. Enter now another citizen of the United States who

spoke as good German as von S—— did and who posed as “an official

representative of the German Imperial Government in the United States.”

This latter gentleman said he wanted to buy the S—— invention for the

Fatherland. S—— turned himself inside out, saying among other things:

“Everything is fair in war—gas, poison, the bomb, the knife—we must

stop at nothing. Germany must triumph over her enemies. I would not

hesitate to destroy a whole city for the good of the German cause.”

After S—— had been allowed to talk sufficiently, his new friend, who

proved to be an A. P. L. operative in disguise, caused his arrest by an

agent in the Military Intelligence Division. S—— was struck speechless

when he found he had been trapped. He was held in ten thousand dollars

bail at the examination and committed to the Tombs in default of

surety. Would he have been admitted to any bail at all in Germany in

similar circumstances?

Out in a great city on Puget Sound, the Minute Men Division of the

American Protective League, after an exhaustive investigation covering

several months, arrested a certain man whom we will call Johnson. He

was charged with conspiracy to doctor steel and iron in the Seattle

ship-yards with a powerful chemical, intending to commit wholesale

murder by wrecking troop trains. He was a pattern-maker employed in

a ship-building plant when the Federal officials arrested him as an

alleged German spy. At the time of his arrest, he had in his pocket a

bottle containing a violent explosive. His scheme was to apply a strong

acid to steel and iron in the shipyards, which would destroy these

metals by eating them away. He planned to place acid on iron about to

be melted, so that the resulting steel products would be valueless and

the ship-building program delayed. He was charged with undertaking to

damage the more delicate bearings of the ships, so that they would

be useless after putting out to sea. It was part of his scheme, as

developed by the operatives, to place acids in the journal boxes of

cars, with the intent of destroying them while they were under way. The

A. P. L. operatives claimed to be conspirators with him. When one of

them pointed out that such a wreck would cost a large amount of life,

the accused is said to have replied: “Well, what’s the odds how we kill

them, and what’s the difference whether we kill them over here or over

there?” That man, like many now behind bars, had no moral sense at all.

Not all of these agents of Germany were men of the mental shrewdness

of their great spy leaders. Johnson picked out a fellow worker and felt

him out for a long period of time as to whether he would be safe as a

confidant. This particular fellow happened to look like a German, and

to talk like one. He also happened to be an A. P. L. operative. The

accused, who is charged under the Espionage Act, does not yet know the

identity of the man who informed against him.

“There was one old German in my district,” says the report of a New

York state chief, “who had spent thirty years in our region, surveying.

He had been an officer in the Franco-German war, and was a recognized

expert in real estate values, appraisals, etc. When we went into the

war, he made public a little statement telling of his German origin

and of his American citizenship. He came under the suspicion of some,

and I looked into the matter. One of his men remembered hearing the

German say, twenty years ago, when under the influence of liquor, that

he had been a German spy in the war with France; he also remembered

the German’s story of a horse he had used, which he had trained to

run, trot or walk at certain definite paces. By keeping track of the

different gaits, as he jogged along in his buggy over France, he would

measure certain localities and compute distances—information which

proved valuable later. It was need of such information that made

Germany send out secret surveying forces when she was preparing to

attack France. We put this man under surveillance but could get nothing

on him except that he tried to learn when transports sailed. Apparently

he had done all his work before the war began, just as he had in France

before the other war.”

An ingenious and dastardly instance of spy work and sabotage was

recently uncovered in Detroit. Anton G——, a skilled workman employed in

a factory making airplane fuel tanks, deliberately planned an aviation

accident. He took a tank which had been condemned because the bottom

sump casting had been riveted into the wrong position, cut the rivets,

properly adjusted the casting and soldered it in place, replacing the

cut rivets so that the tank appeared O. K. for use. It passed the

plant’s inspection, and was installed in a plane before its dangerous

character was detected. G—— has given up the making of airplane tanks

for the duration of the war—and longer.

Of all the individual spies located in America, one of the most

noted and most able was that Dr. Scheele elsewhere mentioned as a

Brooklyn druggist. Dr. Scheele was taken in Cuba by the United States

Government after he had fled the country just ahead of the hounds. This

accomplished student and practitioner of villainy was one of the finest

chemists Germany ever produced—a descendant of a family of chemists. He

was a major in the German army. That this man had intellect is beyond

any question—he had more than that; he had genius. He was one of the

finest examples of the great development in Germany of commercial

chemistry. Men such as he have rendered services valuable beyond any

price in almost all ranks of commerce, and Germany’s military orders

were to get them at any price, all of them, for German-controlled

concerns. Such men have helped give Germany her tremendous and powerful

place in the commerce of the world. This unique genius in research,

this ability to divine elemental secrets, allied with the hard working,

abstemious, thrifty, free-breeding traits of the German people, made

that nation very strong in her position among the world forces.

But here again comes in the proof of the assertion made in regard to

the debased activities of the German nature, not only in its emotional

manifestations but in its intellectual processes at well. Perhaps the

one thought which will awaken the bitterest resentment and the most

long-lived suspicion in the American mind against the German citizen is

the revelation of the fact that German spies lived among us so long as

accepted citizens, made their business successes here, profited by our

free-handed generosity, while all the time they were agents of Germany

and traitors to the United States.

In the preceding chapter, reference was made to some of these

long-term spies, as they may be called—men who were sent out on their

iniquitous missions even in time of peace. The best known of these men

is Scheele, who, when apprehended, was trying to get to Europe. Now he

is hugging the deputy U. S. marshal in whose custody he is, for fear

some German will kill him for turning state’s evidence and revealing

the whole secret German spy system in the United States. This man is

the most interesting of all the known spies.

In brief, Scheele came over to this country quietly, a man quite

unknown, just twenty-five years ago. For twenty-one years, up to

the outbreak of the war, he received regularly $125 a month as his

“honorarium” from the German Government. He was one of the fixed

location spies—one of very many. He went into business, opening a

drug store in a New York suburb, and he prospered there. He was not

alone. There were many of his people about. He met more than one

prominent German living in New York City—most of whom now live in Fort

Oglethorpe. In these influential circles, in continuous close touch

with Berlin, supplied all the time with money from Berlin, Scheele was

appraised at his true worth as a possible agent of destruction.

Came to him, therefore, one day, a captain in the service of the North

German Lloyd Steamship Company. This man carried a card. From whom? No

less than von Papen, a man accepted as bearing the credentials of a

foreign government, entitling him to courtesy in our own country—von

Papen, one of the master plotters located on this side of the sea.

Scheele was asked to invent some sort of infernal machine by which

ships could be set on fire after they had left port and were on the

high seas. That was all. If innocent persons died, what matter? It must

be a secret sort of thing, this machine, which could be distributed

without creating a suspicion. It must be efficient. It must be small.

It must work without much mechanism. And it must be deadly sure. This

was the sort of warfare—allied to bestiality in France and Belgium, and

red ruthlessness on the high seas—that was to make Germany loved and

revered in the whole world, as now, amazingly enough, she asks us to

be—we, her American brothers “with whom she has no quarrel.”

Very well, the order was accepted by Scheele. It was simple for this

man, a mechanical and chemical genius. Of course, he needed some

materials. Where should he get them except among fellow Germans? And

were not the entire interned crew and corps of officers of the interned

German steamships, which were lying in the Hudson, available for his

purposes? Scheele got all the lead and tin and like material he needed

there. The Scheele cigar bomb, as it came to be called, was only three

or four inches long and an inch or two in diameter. Inside of it was a

thin partition made of tin. In a cavity at one end was placed a certain

chemical; in the other end, divided from it for the time being by a

partition sheet of tin, was a strong corrosive acid. When the ends were

sealed the work was done.

It was relatively simple to put two or three of these in a pocket and

casually go aboard a ship, or through the influence of simple and

kindly German neighbor people, have someone else go aboard the ship and

drop such a bomb into a coal bunker; or better, among the cargo. The

bomb needed absolutely no attention on the part of anyone. Scheele, a

competent, thorough, painstaking German scientist of Germany’s highest

and best type, left nothing to chance. He experimented from time to

time, and verified his experiments. He knew how thick to make that

partition of tin. He could make it of just such a thickness that the

acid could eat through it in two or three or four days, so that if a

certain steamship carried that bomb on the high seas for two or three

or four days, in the course of time the acid would eat through the tin.

Then, in the combination of the chemicals, heat would be generated and

a fire was absolutely certain.

These things sound like the invention of a diseased mind—like the

romance of some excited intellect concerning itself with unreal and

impossible events belonging in another age—another world than ours.

But they are true, actually true. Scheele, backed by these influential

Germans in New York, backed by the diplomatic representatives of

the German Government itself—we might as well say by all Germans

also—actually did these things in this country.

Not one, but many ships broke into flames in mid-Atlantic. Sometimes

the damage was not complete, but quite frequently the loss of a

merchant ship was absolute. We cannot tell how many millions of dollars

of the world’s property were lost in this way through the activities

of this one perverted mind. Our censorship took care of some of that.

Those losses of foodstuffs, of fuel, of clothing, had to be paid for

by someone. They were subtracted from the world’s useful supplies.

Who paid for them? You and I and all the taxpayers of America paid

for the losses. One does not know how much Scheele himself got out

of it—not very much; for, two months before this war was “forced” on

Germany, Scheele was ordered to sell his drug store, and did so—though

he complained he was doing very well in it. His salary is not known to

have been raised.

One of the astonishing and disgusting developments of this war had

been the knowledge gained of the unspeakable depravity and degeneracy

of the German mind. There are in the Government records at Washington

countless cases of German officers who, over their own signatures,

have written things so foul and filthy, so low, lewd and bestial, that

no pen on earth ever would rewrite them save one of their own sort.

The Huns were not clean-minded fighting men, but in large percent

animal-like, low, cruel, cunning, unscrupulous, unchivalrous even in

their most arrogant ranks. This explains out of hand the atrocities in

Belgium and France and shows what atrocities were waiting for America

had this war been won by Germany.

Germany fell because she was rotten in heart and in soul. That was

why she fought foul—because she _was_ foul, foul to the core. It was

an amazing and an abhorrent “kultur,” this which she offered to the

world. It is no wonder that her ways of warfare were cruel, merciless,

unchivalrous; no wonder that she crucified men and tortured women and

children until there is no human way ever of squaring the account with

her. She no longer belongs on the clear avenues of the world, and the

one epitaph she has earned is the one word, “Unclean!” History has not

usually recorded such statements. No. And history has not usually been

in the way of discovering such truths.

It was this Dr. Scheele, an upper class German who lived here

twenty-five years as a spy, who, under German Government order, started

this friendly plan against America. You cannot call that military

genius. You cannot call such a man a soldier. His is simply an instance

of perverted intellect. It is not even to be dignified by the term

malicious. It is unmoral, base, intellectually obscene, as Thierichens

was emotionally obscene.

But Scheele himself, now grown old—for he was a major when he came

to America twenty-five years ago—is to-day a pleasant man of genial

manner. He used to visit the home of one of his guards—to whom he stuck

very close in his walks on the street, the guard having told him he

would kill him on his first step toward escape—and there he always

was kind to the children. “He was such a nice man,” said the guard’s

wife—“so courtly.” He is a very egotistical man, and it requires a

certain playing up to his vanity to get him to talk freely. Yet he has

talked freely, and has given much valuable information to the United

States. The men who accompany him in his city walks would dearly love

to drop him out a high window or see him try to escape. They do not

love him.

But Scheele loves himself. Asked one time as to some statement he had

made, he took offense at suspicion of his veracity. He, twenty-five

years a spy in America, a state’s-evidence man at last against his

original country which he thus betrayed in turn, at this imputation

slapped himself on the chest and said: “On my honor as a German

officer!” Great God!

In his statements he was not often found tripping. For instance, when

he said that 200,000 rifles for German revolutionists were stored

in a German club in New York, its searchers did find evidence that

rifles had earlier been stored there, but later removed. Scheele was

taken from Washington to New York to point out these rifles. He would

not go with less than four men as a guard. He is always afraid some

German will kill him. Oh, yes, he is still alive. The secret men of the

United States know where he is. He can be seen. He will talk. He is an

elderly, kindly-looking man now—a man who speaks of his “honor as a

German officer!”

The story of Scheele’s ferreting out is of itself a strange and

absorbing tale, which shows how our own men were on their guard. To

begin with, his cigar bombs did not work infallibly—perhaps the motion

of the ship would slop the acid away from the tin partition so it

would not cut through quite on schedule. One or two bombs were found

on shipboard. One or two were found unexploded in the coal when ships

were unloading at Bordeaux. The bombs were traced back to New York.

Dock laborers had been bribed to put them aboard ships sometimes—and

sometimes were ashamed to do so and dropped them into the water

instead. Men who can decipher code can run a trail like this. Scheele

soon was located.

But Scheele had fled long before. Why? Whither? The Imperial German

Government knew Scheele was going to be caught. The large spies of

the German embassy promised to pick Scheele up at Cuba—where he had

taken temporary residence under the practically German custody of a

Spaniard who kept him in a castle which also was a prison. And so it

came to pass that when the embassadorial train of the Imperial German

Government was kicked out of America and all these big spies were named

openly, and all the news of that big spy system began to break, von

Bernstorff, von Papen and company sailed for Germany—but they did not

take any chances. They did not stop at Cuba.

Scheele was abandoned by his people—he was an actual prisoner in Cuba.

He was bitter. He might talk under a third degree. An A. P. L. man of

New York Division, Richmond Levering, now Major Levering, U. S. A.,

went to Cuba, got access to Scheele, took him to Key West, took him

back again to Cuba—but took him back to an actual prison. Then, finding

he had no place in the world, and no friend whose protection he could

not buy, he sold his “honor of a German officer” to the United States,

and in return, he is still alive, having paid as the price of life the

full story, so far as he knows it, of the German Imperial spy system

from Wilhelmstrasse to Brooklyn Bridge.

And there you have a spy, a real one, a man who planned murder and

arson on the high seas, death to unknown hundreds of men, women and

children; the man who invented the mustard gas that tortured and killed

our boys and those of our allies on the line in France, and whose

perverted intellect did none may know what else of subtle crime “on the

honor of a German officer.”

Scheele made many revelations which never heretofore have been made

public, because they were humiliating and shocking to us, and showed

how completely we had been befooled for years. He said: “We knew

all you had, everything, and we used all you had. You invented the

submarine—and we used it, not you. You invented the airplane—and we

used it, not you.” (Which is true, as our boys in the Argonne battle

would testify.) “If you had had new gases, we’d have got them. We had

four men for years in your Patent Office, and you never knew it. We

knew every invention useful to us. We had a man in your army secrets,

one in your navy.”

“But how could you do such things—how could you have men inside of our

Government in that way?” interrupted the man to whom he was unburdening

himself.

“Good God!” said Scheele, “we’ve got them in your Congress, haven’t we?”

It is enough. And now comes Dernburg and believes that Americans will

hail the “new understanding” between Germany and America! He believes

that we shall be very good friends, now that the war is over.

CHAPTER IX

HANDLING BAD ALIENS

Dealing with Dangerous Propagandists—High and Low Class

Disloyalists—The Alleged Americanism of the Kaiser’s Kultur-Spreaders—A

Few Instances of A. P. L. Persuasions.

In the early days of the A. P. L., Mr. Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau

of Investigations of the Department of Justice, issued an explicit

letter of warning and advice to all League members as to their conduct

regarding aliens. The Attorney General often publicly denounced

lynchings. The Bureau of Investigation always counseled prudence

and full justice to all. Surely, the aliens, the unnaturalized, the

strangers and visitors of other races than our own, caught in this

country with or against their will by the declaration of war, can offer

no complaint regarding the fairness and generosity of the treatment

accorded them. These enemies of ours, these spies, propagandists and

pro-Germans, had better treatment than they deserved then and better

than they deserve now. We have been too temperate, too fair, too

lenient with them. The moderation of the A. P. L. work, indeed, all our

Government work, with traitorous persons living in America, has been a

matter of astonishment to all the European nations, who perhaps knew

more of the alien enemy type than we did ourselves.

A reference to the table of reports of all division chiefs will

show that investigations for “disloyal and seditious utterances” far

outnumber those under any other head. The truth is that Germans and

pro-Germans generally were mighty cocky in their talk in this country.

Arrogant and assured that Germany was going to win this war—for which,

as most of her amateur and all of her special spies knew, she had been

preparing for many years—they talked as though they owned America and

might say or do what they liked at any time or place they pleased. As

against this offensive conduct, the A. P. L. showed two phases. First,

it saved many a German life, perhaps of little worth, by preventing

large and free-handed lynchings; and in the second place, it exercised

so potent an influence on openly sneering and boasting pro-Germans

that very soon they ceased to talk where they might be heard. That any

such persons ever changed very much in loyalty, that they ever gained

any more love for our institutions or felt any less love for those of

Germany, the author of this book, after reading some thousands of A.

P. L. reports of investigations, frankly does not believe. That it

was _fear_ of justice in one or another form which quieted them, this

author frankly does believe. And that _fear_ only is going to hold down

such citizens in the future, he believes with equal frankness. In their

hearts, these people have learned no new principles, although in their

conduct they may have learned new counsels.

America handled her racial war problem as though she were afraid of

it. There is small ultimate benefit in that. The only reconstruction

policy—political, commercial or industrial—by which America really can

gain, is one which is going to say: “This country is America. It has

but one flag.” It is time we laid aside our old vote-catching methods,

our old business timidities, and quit ourselves like men. Indeed, it

is impossible to get in touch with the mass of the A. P. L. testimony

and not to feel bitter and more bitter toward the traitors who have

been left immune under our flag—not to feel sure and more sure that

we have handled them too gently and to our own later sorrow. All

this is written in absolute deliberation, with a certain feeling of

authoritativeness. It has been given to few men to read the mass of

testimony which the writing of this book necessitated. To do so was to

sit in touch of the greatest reflex of the real America that perhaps

ever has existed. We deal here not with theories, but with actual,

concrete facts.

We do not give authorized figures as to the alien enemies interned,

but it is sometimes said that we interned only about five thousand

aliens, that we paroled a very large number, deported a few, and

revoked citizenship for only two. It was said that the close of the

war would set free a great many of these persons who will resume their

residence, if not their former activities, in America. It is true

that we have not executed a single German spy. That is an astonishing

commentary on our laws and our Government in times such as these. Let

those who are wiser than the writer of this book can claim to be after

the extraordinary experience of studying the real America, pass on the

wisdom of such leniency in its bearing on later Bolshevism in America.

Other nations certainly have acted otherwise. Sometimes they have

smiled at us as the easy mark of all the nations.

Certainly, however, whatever may be the personal belief of many

citizens of this country, our public documents prove the wish of our

Department of Justice, all its Bureaus and all its auxiliaries, to be

just and more than just, generous and more than generous, to those not

in accord with our laws and institutions,—a strange contrast for the

reflection of those “simple and kindly” folk who for four years have

exulted in the outrages Germany has wrought upon the world, and who

for four years have given the world the most detestable examples of

treacherous espionage.

At times we did teach some of those gentry that there was a God in

Israel. If as yet we have deported few or none of those interned

aliens—all of whom, and a hundred thousand more, surely ought to be

deported—if we have received back into our tolerant friendship those

who have been for some time warned out of our Government zones, at

least we have trailed down certain of the more active cases of Kultur

spreading in America. Space confines us to very few of those, chosen

almost at random from the thousands at hand in the records.

The chief centers of alien enemy activity in this country, as might

have been expected, were the great industrial towns and cities. It

was in these places that the A. P. L. fought its hardest fights and

achieved its greatest triumphs.

The great city of Seattle was no exception. The report of the splendid

work it did all through the far Northwest ought by every right to

appear in full. We must be content, however, to extract from the

Seattle record a couple of interesting incidents of trailing aliens.

The first suspect was a German who had changed the spelling of his

name. Outer appearances were in his favor. He resided in a good part

of Seattle, in a good bungalow, and showed all the insignia of the Red

Cross, Liberty Loans, etc., in his windows. He was unassuming in his

manner and openly talked patriotism. However, as the case proceeded,

it was found that he associated with a domestic of a citizen, and that

this domestic collected Canadian bills and sent them to Canada. Tracing

this clue, the suspect C—— was found to have come from Canada where he

had been interned. He had made his escape and come to the United States

without permission. He had a covert postoffice box in the name of Joe

M—— (his real German name was K——), and he had been an alien enemy

agent of Germany. He was arrested by an A. P. L. man, brought before

Federal officials and later was interned for the period of the war.

In the possession of this man there was found a long list of names of

Germans, all of whom were afterwards found to have served in the German

Army, but who were now corporals or privates in the American Army.

These men were stationed mostly in forts on Puget Sound. Through these

men, C—— had a well established system leading into the Navy Yard of

Puget Sound and the forts protecting the harbors. There was taken into

custody a photographer, T——, who had in his possession photographs of

nearly everything in and about Fort Worden. T——, who was associated

with C—— in some manner, was given a hearing and released on ten

thousand dollars bail. The money was immediately put up by Germans then

under suspicion at Fort Townsend. At about this time, T——’s house took

fire and burned down. One trunk was saved, of which he quickly took

charge when released on bail. There were other arrests made in this

case, regarding the final issue of which nothing can be said at this

writing. So much at least for the gentle and unassuming Mr. C——, quiet

citizen.

Seattle had another case which ended in an internment, that of Gus

S——, whose story is succinctly covered in the words of the Seattle

Chief:

Early in January, 1918, our organization was requested by the

Department of Justice to get a line on one Gus S——, generally

believed to be a German who worked along the water front

dismantling boats and storing the material, which he afterwards

sold for junk. Operatives H—— and B—— were detailed on this

case, and confirming the suspicions of the authorities, it was

established that S—— had a cache in a remote district of the Sound

where he buried the stolen articles until they had accumulated in

sufficient quantity that he could sell them wholesale.

It was found that he had four points established on the Sound as

headquarters; one of them situated about forty miles north of

Seattle where he could dodge in and out among the numerous islands

on the Sound and evade the authorities.

On the morning of January 9, 1918, one Dr. W—— voluntarily

appeared at the office of the American Protective League, 615 Lyon

Building, stating that he was a German and had done considerable

intricate work in the Government and that he was anxious to serve

our organization. W—— was immediately placed under investigation,

and it developed that he was a German alien enemy, and was in the

habit of violating his alien enemy permit. It was also discovered

that he owned and occupied a houseboat on the East Waterway in

the ship-building district, in the prohibited zone on the water

front. This place was visited and examined. Our operatives found

documents proving that W—— was an alien enemy and a Reserve

Officer in the German Army. He had on board the houseboat an

extensive chemical laboratory and a complete chemical library in

the German language; also technical books on wireless and other

matters of military importance. The chemicals were seized, sent

to the Immigration Department and examined by a chemist. W—— was

placed under arrest, given a hearing, and ordered interned for the

duration of the war.

It developed that W—— had communicated with S—— and warned him

of his approaching arrest, and that S—— had departed north in his

boat. The League officers immediately got in touch with their

organization in Skagit County, and operatives were detailed to

watch for S——. When he came into the Flats, they apprehended and

placed him under arrest and seized his boat. On board was found

quite an arsenal of assorted makes of guns. The examination took

place at the time an opportunity was being given alien enemies

to register as such, and this opportunity was given S—— at the

Immigration Station. S——, however, maintained that he was an

American citizen; he could not produce papers but his explanation

was as follows: That he had filed his declaration to become an

American citizen and that, by reason of his activities against

the law, he had been arrested and sentenced to serve six years

in the penitentiary at Walla Walla; that while he was serving

out his sentence, the date for him to appear for examination and

acquire his second papers had expired, and that on account of

his inability to appear, this automatically made him an American

citizen. Therefore, he refused to register as an alien enemy. At

the conclusion of the hearing, S—— was ordered interned and sent

to Utah.

S—— had, for the previous six weeks, been hovering around the

depot tanks of the Standard Oil Company. From the association

of W—— and S—— and the facts that were disclosed in the

investigation, there is no question in the minds of the officers

of the organization but that they were about to cause an explosion

at this plant as well as at one of the shipyards.

Yet another good report from the Seattle Chief covers the case of M. J.

B——, alias W. J. H——, who apparently was unable to keep all his life as

secret as he might wish. We cannot improve upon the report of the Chief

as it was written:

B—— appeared in Seattle early in December, 1917, and took rooms

at the P—— Hotel. From his acts it was immediately noted by our

operatives at the hotel that B—— was receiving packages under the

assumed name of W. J. H——, which name he explained to the clerk

was used as a code. He received no visitors except two persons of

foreign birth, and it developed that upon going to the hotel he

was without ready money to sustain his expenses. Within a short

time, however, B—— was found to have not only sufficient funds to

maintain his daily expenses, but quite a surplus, which he was

using lavishly. He claimed to be a working man, but his hands,

dress and facial appearance were certainly those of a man who was

accustomed to appearing in society, and taking life rather easy.

Following certain suspicious activities on the part of B——,

an investigation thereof disclosed the fact that he was having

considerable correspondence with Germans in the United States, and

that he had the names and addresses apparently of every German

in the United States. It further developed that he had cards

made in Seattle, representing himself as being connected with

a bank in Detroit. He was placed under arrest and sent to the

Detention Station in the Department of Immigration to establish

his nationality and status. He claimed to have been taking orders

for a toy balloon concern on W—— Avenue, the proprietor of which

stated that B—— had worked for him on a commission basis, but

that his total commissions for the first year would amount to

about $86.00, approximately. This was the merest trifle compared

to the totals believed to have been spent by the subject, and he

evidently had some other source of income than that derived from

toy balloons.

The subject was well educated, spoke four or five languages,

and it developed that he had formerly held a commission of

lieutenant in the Austrian army. B—— was a sketch artist, very

clever, and in passing through the country, was accustomed to make

landscape scenes of various places of interest from a military

standpoint—which sketches, together with certain puzzle sketches,

were believed by the officers of the organization to be for the

purpose of furnishing information to the enemy.

The specific charge was thought by him to be that he was an I. W.

W., and he requested the permission of the Immigration authorities

to address a letter to a friend, which permission was given.

This letter, which, of course, was censored by the authorities,

addressed a German at Bremerton, close to the Navy Yard, and

complained of his arrest as an I. W. W. He informed this friend

that he had done a great many things which he “had been ordered to

do,” but that he was not, nor had he been, requested to be an I.

W. W., and he requested aid for his release.

A very complete examination was made of B—— and his entire

movements since arriving in this country. It developed that he was

born at Frankstock, Moravia, in Austria; that he was twenty-four

years of age, had had military training, had just completed same

prior to departing for this country, and was a Second Lieutenant

in the 54th Royal Imperial Infantry. He was in Hamburg and Paris

during 1914, and just prior to the outbreak of the war, he came

to New York, passing through England on this trip, since which

time it developed that he had been receiving money from Germany,

and had been operating in the cities of Hoboken, Pittsburgh,

Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, Helena and Spokane. Regardless of the

fact that he was heir to an estate in Austria and was supposed to

have reported to the consul (Austrian) in Seattle, he claimed he

had not done so.

In explanation of the alias, W. J. H——, he claimed to have adopted

that name simply because his name was funny. It developed that

B—— had been previously arrested and released, and had in his

possession documents covering his entire experiences, as well as

information concerning his particular case. Certain documents,

undoubtedly codes, were taken from B——, and the only information

or explanation he would give concerning them was that they were

puzzles. The subject was well acquainted with the German element

in each of the towns he had visited, many of whom were held under

suspicion by the authorities. It further developed that he had

made frequent visits to the ship-yards and to the Navy Yards, and

that he was intimately associated with certain leaders of the

order of the I. W. W. He was ordered interned, and sent to Utah.

It never was urged against Seattle that she displayed anything but

live wire characteristics, and it is too bad that we may not delve

deeper into the Seattle files. The Chief adds: “We have many other

cases, perhaps of more importance.” The existing records bear out the

assertion. But we must dismiss this big center of activity with only

a brief summary of tables showing six months’ work of the Minute Men

Division of the American Protective League for Seattle. The situation

revealed by this summary, astounding as it is, and humiliating as it

must be to make the admission, is one that finds a parallel in the

experience of every great industrial center in America during the war.

TABLE OF CASES INVESTIGATED BY THE SEATTLE

DIVISION OF THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE LEAGUE

_Report for Six Months, May 1 to

November 1, 1918._

Alien Enemies 399

Aliens and Citizens Living in Luxury Without Visible

Means of Support 36

Anti-Military Activities 23

Bomb and Dynamite Cases 14

Passport Applications 1,114

Loyalty Reports to Government 707

Alleged Deserters 93

Destruction of Foods 8

Disloyal Citizens 677

Disloyal Government Employees 35

Draft Evaders 86

Incendiarism 4

Food Regulation Violators 239

Liberty Bond and Red Cross Slackers 938

I. W. W. Agitators 1,198

Pro-German Radicals 990

Sale of Liquor to Soldiers and Sailors 64

Alleged Spies or German Agents 451

Seditious Meetings 91

Seditious Publications 53

Seditious Utterances 449

Wireless Stations 21

Naturalization Cases 386

Jurors 542

Miscellaneous 624

------

Total 10,042

Total number of arrests made 1,008

There came up in the Birmingham, Ala., Division the character

investigation of R. E. S——, a lieutenant in the United States Army,

reported to be in the Military Intelligence Department, foreign

service. This man lived in Birmingham several years before the

declaration of war, and moved with the best people. He always seemed

to have enough money for the demands of society, although his business

was limited in its earning capacity. He attended a training camp and

received a commission, but after he had arrived in France, the War

Department requested an investigation through the League. The result

shows that danger existed at all times from German explosives even in

the most jealously guarded places. Below is given the substance of the

investigation. The first operative reported:

I have known S—— for several years, and have always been impressed

with his pro-German tendencies. He lived in comparative comfort,

belonged to all of the clubs and moved in the best society. He

never appeared to be lacking in funds in spite of the fact that

the income from his position, and later his business, did not

warrant his living in this manner. It was understood that he had

no investments producing income. I have thought for the past four

years that he received money from the German Government, and have

so expressed myself on many occasions.

Before we entered the war, S—— was very bitter in his denunciation

of England for going into it. He claimed Russia and France were

responsible and that Germany was fighting for her life. He stated

that England would rue the day she went in, and that nothing could

stand against the Kaiser and his great war machine. He considered

the Kaiser the greatest man on earth and the German people

superior to all others. He justified the invasion of Belgium as

a war necessity and the ravages of that country and of invaded

France on the same grounds. He gloried in the sinking of the

Lusitania, and stated that all who lost their lives on it deserved

to do so. He criticised the general policy of our government and

President Wilson.

When we entered the war, S——’s whole attitude changed and

immediately he was anxious to fight for his country. He attended

the first Officer’s Training Camp at Ft. McPherson, Georgia, but

was discharged in a short time. He was bitter about this and

stated he had not gotten a square deal.

I have discussed S—— on many occasions with a great many of my

friends, and the consensus of opinion is that he is entirely too

pro-German to be in our Army in any capacity. Many think he is an

agent of the German Government. Personally, I feel that he is an

extremely dangerous man. I would not care to serve in the Army

under him as an officer, and I would like to see him placed in

such a position that he could not possibly do us harm.

Another operative said he did not think S—— a safe man to have in

the United States Army. In his presence, S—— approved the sinking

of the Lusitania, and said that the people who lost their lives had

no business on the ship. He also stated that he had two brothers

in business in Germany before the United States entered the war.

Operative said that S—— was strongly pro-German in his sympathies. He

regarded him as a dangerous man—particularly dangerous if he was in the

Intelligence Department. Operative stated that he had no confidence

whatever in S——’s loyalty. He stated that S—— admired Germany and

thought the Germans were the greatest people on earth.

A third operative prefaced his statement with the remark that he was a

warm personal friend of S—— and did not want to do him an injustice.

He did say that S——, before the entry of the United States into the

war, was intensely pro-German. On being asked if he would like to be

a private in a company commanded by S—— and pressed for an answer,

he said: “Well, I would like to know my captain hated the Germans a

whole lot more than S—— does.” He further said that if S—— were to be

captured, he would very soon be on friendly terms with his captors.

Follows a statement of an operative who had known S—— for twenty-five

or thirty years, and had been on the terms of the best friendship for

several years past:

Prior to the entry of the United States into the war, S—— was

rabidly pro-German and expressed himself freely on any and all

occasions. He thought that Germany was all-powerful and had

nothing to fear from the United States. He favored the German

U-Boat policy, and said: “I am damn glad of it!” when he read

the newspaper notice of the sinking of the Lusitania. He said

furthermore that the people on the ship got just what was coming

to them, and they had no business being on it. S—— seemed to be

thoroughly imbued with the idea that the Germans are supermen,

and that they could do anything. He regarded the Kaiser as the

greatest man on earth. He took all the German papers in the

country, and received German propaganda from some source unknown.

When he went to the Officer’s Training Camp in Atlanta, he wrote

a card to one of his friends here asking him to forward his mail

but not to forward any newspapers. He was a constant reader of

papers of German tendencies. He stated in conversation that the

United States had no Navy, and that the safest place for its ships

was in our harbors; that there was more danger to our sailors from

our own ships than from anything else. He seemed to have a great

deal of information concerning the armament and equipment of the

United States as regards cannon, small arms and vessels, together

with the number of men in our Army and Navy. Mr. R—— did not know

where he got the information nor what he did with it. S—— knew all

the local anarchists and wild-eyed citizens of German and Russian

nationality. One day S—— was talking on the street with a friend

when a rough, unkempt, hobo-like man passed them. S—— asked his

friend to excuse him a moment as he wanted to speak to that man.

He conversed in German with the man for several moments, and on

his return said: “He is a Russian anarchist, and he told me that

a revolution is brewing in Russia and that the Germans will not

have to fight the Russians much longer.” He always expressed great

pleasure at any news which was favorable to Germany. He did not

think the United States had any business entering the war. He has

relatives in Germany now.

When asked the direct question if he thought it advisable for S—— to be

in the Intelligence Division of the Army, operative said:

I would not want to be in a company which he commands, and I

believe it highly dangerous for him to be in the Intelligence

Department. I believe if he was captured by the Germans, he would

have nothing to fear.

The report of this operative further says:

S—— had a twin brother engaged in the tea importing business

in New York. In July, 1917, the twin brother referred to said

that he would not fight the Kaiser, that he was a German. He was

even more rabid than the subject of this report. It was rumored

here for some time that S—— was a German spy but there was never

anything definite to verify the rumor, though he was very active

in gathering all sorts of information regarding the material

resources of the United States. He cultivated the acquaintance

of the amateur wireless operators here, and was a fairly expert

telegraph operator himself. Mr. R—— stated: “If S—— is in the

Intelligence Department in France, it is an extremely dangerous

thing and might cause a terrible disaster.”

After S—— went to Washington last fall, and after he had

received his commission in the United States Army, he wrote a

letter severely criticising the United States War Department for

inefficiency. His strictures were of such a nature that B—— said

to R—— that he was very sorry that he had read it. S—— and B——

burned the letter. This letter criticised the methods of the War

Department, stated that things were badly handled, and that our

preparations for war were inadequate and inefficiently managed.

This letter was written after S—— had received his commission

as First Lieutenant in the United States Army and was stationed

in Washington. A German friend admitted that S—— was violently

pro-German before our country entered the war. He said that

Germany had a right to sink our ships after giving us warning of

the restricted zone in which German submarines were operating.

He justified the sinking of the Lusitania, and expressed no

sympathy for the people who lost their lives, stating that they

got what they deserved as they had no business on the ship. He

justified the invasion of Belgium as a war necessity, and condoned

Germany’s violation of her pledge to preserve the integrity of

Belgium because it was a war measure. S—— regarded the Germans as

a superior people, and admired the Kaiser greatly. He was much

opposed to the entry of the United States into the war, said that

he was so sorry that we had gotten into it, and that it was not

our affair but England’s.

It has been thought advisable to take these widely separated cases

and to give them in detail rather than to present summaries of a large

number of cases which may or may not have resulted in sentences or

internments. An examination of these instances will show the fairness

and shrewdness with which the League’s Chiefs and Operatives worked,

as well as their unflagging interest in the work offered them. It also

will be apparent that a single investigation might involve a great deal

of patient, hard work.

CHAPTER X

THE GREAT I. W. W. TRIAL

Story of the Greatest Criminal Prosecution Known in the

Jurisprudence of America—The Lawless Acts Leading up to the

Arrests—Methods of Violence Used by Members of the I. W.

W.—Sabotage and Terror—Chief Figures of the Trial—Incidents from

the Inside.

The greatest trial with which the American Protective League was

identified was the genuine _cause celébrè_ known all over the world as

the I. W. W. trial. It began in the Federal Court for Chicago, presided

over by Judge Kenesaw M. Landis (the same of fame in the Standard Oil

case), on April 1, 1918, and ended with ninety-seven convictions and

sentences in one lot. The case was concluded at two in the afternoon of

August 30, 1918.

The trial lasted for five months. The preparation for it covered two

years or more. The record is said to be the most elaborate and complete

ever prepared in any case at law. The case was by no means a Chicago

or Illinois case, but was a national and indeed an international one.

The documentary and other evidence preserved in the rooms of the Bureau

of Investigation in Chicago is so voluminous as to pass belief, and it

includes more proof of the depravity of the human mind than any like

assemblage of written and printed material known to man. It is the

record of the attempted ruin of this republic.

With this great case, the American Protective League had been

connected practically all the time from the date of its own inception.

It had men shadowing the suspects, men intercepting their mail, men

ingratiating themselves into their good graces, men watching all their

comings and goings, men transcribing and indexing the reports, men

looking into the law in all its phases as bearing on these cases. No

one knows how many A. P. L. operatives, in all the states from Michigan

westward, worked on this case for months before an arrest was made.

There were fifteen lawyers, all of them members of the League, not

one of whom got a cent of pay, who worked for a full year helping the

Bureau of Investigation to brief the evidence. There you see the A. P.

L. in action.

For months and years before the arrests, the Industrial Workers of the

World, as they call themselves, had been notorious for their anarchy

and violence. Countless acts of ruthlessness had marked their career;

millions and perhaps billions in property had been destroyed by them;

their leader had been tried for the murder of a governor of a Western

state, though acquitted. Nothing lacked in their record of lawlessness

and terror, and they were inspired by a Hun-like frightfulness as well

as a Hun-like cunning which for a time both excited and baffled the

agents of the law in a dozen Western States.

The I. W. W. as an organization began, according to their Secretary

and Treasurer, W. H. Haywood, in 1904, in an amalgamation agreed to by

officers of the Western Federation of Miners and the American Labor

Union. The theory of the band, reduced to its least common denominator,

was that of striking terror by secret acts of violence. Their ethics

were precisely those of the barnburner, who works in the dark. What was

their reason for their acts? None. They all had had their fair chance

in America—more than a fair chance. But, because some men had wealth,

they thought they also should have, and if it was not offered them

free, then they would show their resentment by destroying wealth and

injuring those who had it. Their plea was the wish to “aid the laboring

man.” God save the mark! They did more to hurt the cause of labor than

could have been done in any other way in the world. They stained the

name of this republic so black that the most rabid labor unions in

Europe protested and disowned them. And they got their reward for that;

or at least some of them have, and more will have before the tale is

told.

Sabotage and strikes were the common methods of the I. W. W.

organization, which at the time of the trial numbered over 100,000

members, mostly scattered in the West in many trades. They managed

strikes in widely scattered parts of the Union, and as they grew

bolder, they planned in war times a general strike of all branches of

labor, all over the United States. They first began work among the

lumber-jacks, then among the miners. They meant to include all harvest

hands in harvest time, all agricultural labor, indeed, labor of every

sort. It was the plan to demand a six hour day and $6.00 a day, even

for all farm labor; which, as all Americans now carrying the war prices

of living can see, would inevitably have raised the price of food

unspeakably had it succeeded. When opposed, they wrecked and burned and

ruined, maimed, murdered.

“Big Bill” Haywood, the I. W. W. leader, execrated “military

preparedness.” He called sabotage—that is to say, secret industrial

wrecking—the “weapon of the disinterested.” Perhaps in peace times our

fatuousness as a people would have caused us to pay small attention

even to the series of I. W. W. outrages. We would have absorbed the

discomforts and the crimes in our old careless, cowardly way. But now

we were at war. We were making ships and airplanes, cannon and small

arms and munitions and clothing and equipment. We needed the labor

of every loyal man as much as we needed money and soldiers. And it

was about this time that Frank H. Little (an I. W. W. leader who was

lynched in Butte, Montana, soon after) wrote a letter to the general

board of the I. W. W., demanding that the board should take action

against the draft law requiring service in the Army.

This, coupled with the evidence of strikes, and the prospect of

paralysis in many essential government activities, was going too far.

It was known that the I. W. W. intended to get at the marine workers,

then all allied industries. That would have meant the end of the war,

or of our activity in the war.

Now, therefore, these arrogant and lawless men, never else than

malcontents, became traitors. In order to work out to the quotient

of ruin these vague theories about the “rights of man,” they cast

aside what shred of patriotism they ever may have had to cover their

nakedness of manhood, and declared themselves ready to cripple and

leave helpless before her merciless foe this republic of America, whose

whole theory from the foundation has been that of the rights of man,

who fought in all her wars for the rights of man and has asked only in

this peace the recognition of the rights of man. Ah, they were so wise,

these ruffians!

But now they ran against our espionage law and its new teeth. Secretly

watched for months by the many agents of the Government and its

auxiliaries, the I. W. W. was at last found with sufficient goods on it

to warrant the movement of the law’s forces. The charges were made that

I. W. W. members had violated the espionage act; that they had fostered

strikes to delay the output in war munitions; that they had spoiled

industrial material; that they had been guilty of acts of violence

against men not of their views; that they had violated the postal laws;

that they had violated the statutes against conspiracy. The indictments

were framed on those general lines, and the long arm of Uncle Sam, not

that of any state or county or city, reached out for the accused.

By this time the agitations of the I. W. W. had covered Montana,

Arizona and Colorado, were reaching into Utah and Nevada, and had

Minnesota and Michigan next on the list. But _pari passu_ with the

I. W. W. activities had gone on those of certain other alphabetical

organizations, to wit, D. J. and A. P. L.

Mr. Clabaugh, the storm center of the Chicago Bureau of Investigation,

worked long months with the Government attorneys. Mr. Frank Nebeker,

the trial lawyer, was an assistant U. S. Attorney General of Salt Lake

City, and he was on this case for over a year. It was he who directed

the raids. He was assisted by Mr. Claude Porter, of Des Moines,

Iowa, U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa—now Assistant

to the U. S. Attorney General in Washington. Mr. Porter came on as

Special Assistant in place of Mr. Frank C. Dailey of Indianapolis,

who had resigned. These men and their aids brought together, as has

been said, the most elaborate legal records ever known. _That they

had the evidence_ is proved by the results of the trial—ninety-seven

convictions out of the ninety-nine accused and tried. The A. P. L. _got

the evidence_.

These men and Mr. Clabaugh were all in conference with U. S. Attorneys

all over the country from Detroit west, and in conference with the

governors of many states as well. Everything was kept secret. Then, one

day, a wire flashed across the country which set the law afoot. At the

same moment, two o’clock, Central time, on the afternoon of September

5, 1917, one hundred I. W. W. offices were raided. The Web had done its

work! One hundred and sixty-five frightened insects struggled where

but now a like number of arrogant and boastful traitors had strutted

free. At one time Mr. Clabaugh took down to the Department of Justice

in Washington a large trunk full of papers—incriminating documents

once property of the I. W. W. It would take such reading of these

unspeakable documents by all the American public as these officers of

the law gave them, before America ever could know what foul sort of

traitors she has been welcoming here at her own table.

Some of these arrested suspects were bailed out, others held in

prison. Of the total arrested, ninety-nine were brought to trial. The

case began before that staunch fighting man, Judge Landis—who had a

son in the U. S. aviation corps himself—on Monday, April 1, 1918,

and a month was spent in selecting a jury. In all this work, the

A. P. L. was active, and more than once its men choked off alleged

illegal enterprises—for the defendants were desperate now. The

opening statement was made by Mr. Nebeker on May 2, and examination

of witnesses followed for six weeks, when the Government rested till

Wednesday, June 19. Mr. George Vandever, for the defense, made the

opening statement on Monday, June 24. Judge Landis charged the jury

Saturday, August 17. The jury brought in its verdict in fifty-five

minutes and on one ballot. The statements of the prisoners were taken

on Thursday, August 29, and sentence was passed by Judge Landis at 2:00

P. M., August 30, 1918.

The jury had needed but little time for deliberation. The judge in

reading his instructions, dismissed the fifth count of the indictment,

charging a conspiracy to violate the postal laws of the United

States. After telling the jury that it had exclusive domain over the

determination of the facts of the case, while it must take the law from

the Court, Judge Landis said it was within the province of the court to

give his opinion regarding the evidence.

“But in this case I shall not do so,” said the court. “I shall submit

it to you free from expression of my own judgment. Your decision shall

be the last and only one on the question of fact.”

He then explained the law of conspiracy at considerable length,

after presenting a brief digest of the substance of the indictment.

He announced that it was unnecessary to prove explicit agreement to

enter a conspiracy against the defendants if there was circumstantial

evidence that such a conspiracy existed, judged by the facts and the

actions of the defendants.

“Mere passive knowledge of the criminal activities of other persons

is not sufficient to establish a conspiracy,” he instructed. “Some

participation, coöperation, must be shown to establish the connection

of any defendant, and by evidence of fact and circumstances independent

of the declarations of other people,—that is, by evidence of the

defendants’ own acts. Until such evidence is introduced, the defendants

are not bound by the declaration or statements of others. But after it

is shown he is a member of the conspiracy, he is so bound, providing

the acts are in furtherance of the common purpose.”

The court also instructed that if any defendants entered the conspiracy

after it started, knowing its purpose, they were equally guilty as

if they had been of those who originally conspired, but he tempered

this by suggesting that they might all have been guilty of minor

conspiracies in different places, and he stated that if these were not

related to a common purpose, they were not guilty under the indictment.

He also announced that they might all be guilty of the acts of violence

set forth in the indictment, and yet, if these were not related to a

common conspiracy, they were not guilty in the charge in the case.

Both sides professed satisfaction with the instructions. The sentences

of the Court sent Haywood and fourteen others, his principal aids, to

the penitentiary for twenty years. Thirty-three men got ten years,

the same number got five years; twelve men got a year and a day, two

men got off with two days in jail, and two had their cases continued.

There was well nigh a train load of them that started for Leavenworth

federal penitentiary the next day. The Department of Justice could not

find handcuffs enough in the city of Chicago to accommodate all the

prisoners on that train!

The total time covered by these I. W. W. sentences amounts to eight

hundred and seven years and twenty days. The world is deprived of that

much-too-independent work in a time when the world needs honest labor.

Haywood’s boast that there are 100,000 uncaught and unrepentant I. W.

W.’s in the United States alone is all the proof needed of the nature

of the men thus put away.

These men, like most under-cover criminals, were cowards. Haywood’s

face went white when he heard sentence passed on him. The prisoners,

but lately sneering and arrogant, now sat overwhelmed. Their friends

and adherents also were stunned. The court room was filled with armed

U. S. Marshals and A. P. L. men, all unknown and all ready for trouble.

There was no trouble. Dead silence was in the room. All bail was

cancelled, of course, and the march to jail began.

What did the Government prove against the I. W. W.’s? That they had

been guilty of almost everything a depraved mind could invent in the

way of crime. The public is already conversant with the argot of the

band. The “sab cat,” or worker of sabotage—secret destruction of

property—was a title of pride among them. “Wobblies,” “high jacks,”

“scissor-bills,” “bundle-stiffs”—all were part of the personnel put in

evidence. A “clock” was divulged to mean a phosphorus bomb, intended to

be fired by the sun and set a wheat stack ablaze.

These men spiked a great many spruce trees so that mill saws were

ruined on the logs. They killed vineyards in California, and claimed

to have burned $2,000,000 worth of wheat in that state alone. They not

only burned wheat in the stack, but sowed spikes to damage reapers.

They dropped matches and bits of metal in threshing machines. They put

emery in delicate machine bearings. In canning factories they mixed

the labels, so that grades were vitiated for the vegetables sent out.

They polluted or poisoned canned goods with dead rats and the like in

factories where they worked. No doubt also they set forest fires, and

beyond doubt caused explosions that destroyed hundreds of thousands of

dollars in property. They did this to terrorize their own country in

its day of peril. They were not worth the name of men. You can not make

citizens out of such creatures. _Fear_ is all they understand.

Their literature was a continuous blasphemy. Cursing the name of the

Savior was nothing to their writers. They put lime in men’s shoes and

burned their feet to the bone. They had a special sort of club they

used in attacking “scabs.” It had short, sharp nails driven along it,

painted the color of the club so they could not easily be seen. The

victim would catch at the club to wrest it from his assailant. It was

then jerked through his hands, often tearing out the sinews, always

scarring and often maiming him forever. Always they were cowards. To

injure and not destroy was part of their religion. “Strike while you

work” meant to disable a machine for a while and so to stop work for

the crew or for the whole plant. “Feed the kitty more cream” meant to

use more emery on bearings, to do more dirt in factories, to wreck and

mar and mutilate more cunningly and covertly—and to escape by feigning

the innocent laboring man. If they were not all Huns, they had the foul

Hun imagination, and also the methods of the Hun.

By December of 1918, the trial of a half hundred more alleged I. W.

W. men was progressing at Sacramento, California. The attempt of

the prosecution there was to show a nation-wide plot against the

Government of the United States. And again, A. P. L. had the evidence

ready, ticketed and tabulated, for A. P. L. covers all of the United

States and not merely one part. On January 16, 1919, forty-six of the

defendants were convicted.

If we have 100,000 I. W. W. members such as these yet among us, and

internment camps full of Germans and pro-Germans, would there not seem

need for a house cleaning? It is time now for a new American point of

view. We are not going to allow America to be used as it has been by

these men. _Fear_ at least they shall understand.

CHAPTER XI

THE SLACKER RAIDS

How the A. P. L. Made Patriots—Chasing the Slacker—Teaching the

Love of the Flag—Incidents of Western Raids.

Even had Mr. Bryan’s famous prophecy come true, that a million armed

men would spring up over night and so end at once any trouble America

might presumably experience in going to war, there still would have

existed a vast deficit in our Army, which at the time of the Armistice

had more than two million men armed and on the soil of France, almost

as many in training, and ten times as many listed as army material if

needed—although, to be sure, they had not sprung up either armed or

equipped, as perhaps France or Great Britain could testify. The new

draft ages of 18 to 45 swept in a vast additional army under the latest

conscription act, although the first registration, those of 21 to 31,

had set on foot our first American forces—as fine soldiers as ever

stood on leather.

A great many phrases are made in time of war about war itself, and

most of these come around to the ancient recruiting sergeant’s inviting

motto recounting the glory of dying for one’s country. The Napoleonic

wars were fought on the death-or-glory basis; but Napoleon got his

troops by rigid conscription. We fought this war on a more sober basis

of necessity. Most of us who are old enough and wise enough to study

human nature and world politics knew that commercial jealousy, and

not any abstract theories about democracy and the rights of man, lay

basically under this war, as they have lain under most other wars. And

the boys of the world—youth being resilient, of high pulse and low

blood pressure, and believing, as youth always does, that nothing wrong

can happen to youth and hope—were called on once more to fight the wars

of the world, as the boys always have been asked to do.

Youth and middle age volunteered, old age itself volunteered, but the

truth became obvious that our volunteer army would not spring armed

over night in sufficient numbers. In fairness, we passed our draft

acts, euphonically termed “Selective Service Acts,” it being intended

that this action should bring America to its focus, and should put

under arms warm and lukewarm lovers of our flag alike. As it seems

to this writer, that originally was unfair only in that it made the

maximum service age too low. It cast the burden of the war on the boys,

the young men, most of whom had never felt hate against any country,

and knew little about the causes of this war; for soldiers often do not

really know why they fight.

Under the weak American pacifist propaganda, there lay much human

nature and very much more of shrewd German propaganda. Germany always

has had this country sown with spies and secret agents, as we have

shown, and always has counted very largely on the German-American

loyalty to the flag of Germany. That very able spy, Prince Henry of

Prussia, brother to that now very contemptible but once very arrogant

coward, William Hohenzollern, carried back to his royal brother the

most confident reports regarding potential German forces in America. He

was especially well received in Milwaukee and Chicago, where he was met

and welcomed by officials not unmindful of the value of the German vote.

We find all these influences enlisted to aid and abet any natural

reluctance of boys to go to war, boys of the noblest and bravest

souls, who none the less had mothers to weep over them, sisters and

sweethearts to hold them back. So there became apparent, in more cities

than one, the truth that a great many young men had not registered,

had not filled out questionnaires, were deserting, or were in some way

evading the draft.

Very naturally, an intense feeling grew up against these draft-dodgers

and slackers, a feeling based on the fair-play principle. If one man’s

son must go, why not the next man’s, especially as that next man might

be a secret pro-German trying to protect his blood as well as his

property? But the blood had really nothing to do with the real question

between the government and the man needed with the colors. The law was

the law, and it played no favorites after the exemption boards were

done. The fit man of proper age must show himself.

Orders went out, in the summer of 1918, from the Department of Justice

to throw the net for slackers. That meant the immediate mobilization

for police duty not only of many soldiers and sailors, many policemen

and all the force of the Bureau of Investigation, but also of the

entire personnel of the American Protective League. With the exception

of the I. W. W. cases, the aid the Chicago division of the League gave

in the great raids of July 11, 12, 13 and 14, in 1918, was its most

important single contribution to the welfare of the country. The New

York slacker raids (of a certain publicity), those carried on also in

Philadelphia, San Francisco, and many other cities, were all so similar

in method, that the story of the Chicago raids will describe them all.

The big slacker drive in Chicago meant the mobilization of the

entire League membership, and over 10,000 men were enlisted from this

organization alone as operatives in the slacker search. These men

interrogated over 150,000 suspects, and seized over 20,000; and they

inducted into the army, as willing or unwilling patriots, around 1,400

young men of that one city who otherwise would not have served. At one

time they had herded on the great Municipal Pier over 1,100 men, all

of whom had to pass the night there. Countless motor cars and wagons

carried loads under guard. A big tourist motor-bus was requisitioned

also, and all the street cars were packed. Hundreds of men were crowded

over night in the rooms of the Bureau of Investigation in the Federal

Building. The courts and jails were jammed. Vacant store-rooms were

filled with prisoners. Mothers, wives, sweethearts, sisters, brothers

and babies made the Federal Building an actual bedlam when they rallied

to the attempted rescue. But the grist ground on through, and the

guilty were found and dealt with. Most of the young men were glad

enough to exchange a bed on a stone floor for one in an Army tent. No

doubt, most of them made good soldiers afterwards. They were rather

passively than actively disloyal—and all of them were young.

No announcement was made of the plans of the Government. The word was

passed silently that at a certain hour the hunt would be on. Once

begun, it was prosecuted with energy and system. All the current ball

games were visited, and the crowds were told to file out at a gate,

where each suspect was asked to show his registration card. Motion

picture shows were treated in the same way, the perfect districting

and subdividing of the League’s force making all this synchronous and

smooth. Cabarets and all-night places of all sorts were combed out.

All the city parks were patrolled at night, and many a young man was

taken from his young woman companion in that way. Members of the League

even donned bathing costumes, and swimming out among the bathers at the

beaches, plied their questions there! They took in over one hundred

slackers out of the wet in that way.

At a thronged boulevard crossing in the loop district, every motor

car was stopped. A. P. L. operatives met every incoming railway train

and were at the gate of every train leaving the city. Countless homes

and shops were visited. Sunday picnics in the suburbs were inspected,

every theater and public building, every “L” road station and steamboat

landing was investigated and guarded by men who made but one remark:

“Show me!” On one night of the four, 7,000 men in a short time were

gathered, held and taken to the police stations. Factories, stores,

saloons, the open streets, all yielded up their toll—many innocent,

many loyal, many negligent, many culpable and many disloyal evaders who

were trying to dodge the draft.

In a vast wave, the vigilantes of Chicago, whose existence was

suspected by almost none of these, swept out into the open. The guilty

and the lukewarm alike, the innocent and ignorant conscript and the

veiled enemy alike, got the largest and swiftest lesson in Americanism

this country ever had had up to that hour. It showed a certain element

that under the careless American character there are vast capacities

for self-government and a stern respect for law and government. Many a

pro-German has known in his soul since last July that about the most

uncompromising autocrat he ever met was a simple man bearing not a

scepter but a little badge.

In general, the raids met with no resistance, and though there was

confusion there was no disorder. The people took it well, as might

have been expected. Loyal Americans would not object, disloyal ones

dared not. The general working out of the widely-scattered raids was

admirable. As to the rapidity and thoroughness of the League’s work,

it never has done better anywhere, because by this time it had grown

into a well-drilled and perfectly-organized body of constabulary. As

covering the public attitude of this city towards the raids—similar

raids were met with worse receptions in other cities—a great daily, the

_Chicago Tribune_, printed the following editorial comment:

The object of the roundup of draft registrants was, of course,

to find those who are evading the law and bring them into the

service. But the results of the drive go considerably beyond that.

It has proved the splendid spirit of the community.

Americans do not like to be interfered with by officials.

They are not accustomed to it, and they resent it in normal

times, even when it is quite justifiable. But though it has

been by no means convenient to be stopped on the way to work,

interrogated, sent back home for credentials, or taken in custody

pending investigation, there has been in this roundup a general

good-natured acceptance of the process, and in the vast majority

of cases, a cordial co-operation with the authorities.

A part of the credit for this undoubtedly belongs to the tact and

good sense shown by the draft authorities and the volunteers of

the American Protective League, who deserve congratulation upon

the skill with which they have accomplished a by no means easy

task with a minimum of friction and a maximum of thoroughness.

But if the authorities showed good spirit, the public met them

half way, and the total experience proves the excellent morale now

existing. Whatever is necessary to get on with the war is accepted

without complaint. Virtually everybody wants to help. Furthermore,

the number of slackers found in proportion to the number of men

questioned is gratifyingly small.

The young manhood is sound. As it is called on for service small

or great, it will respond promptly and spiritedly.

There are two distinct points of view as to the slacker raids, so

called, and criticisms as well as praise have come to the A. P. L.

for its part in them all over the country. Naturally, no miracle was

wrought in human nature. The families of the men who were hid or

shielded were no more loyal after their men were taken than they had

been before. The conscientious objector experienced no stiffening of

fiber in his flabby soul. But even these would have felt otherwise

towards the slacker drives had they known all the truth. Ask the men

themselves who were inducted into the army what they think about it

now. Nine-tenths of them will say that they are ashamed that they had

to be asked twice to go into the army. The other one-tenth is the

better for having gone, whether or not they will confess so much. As

a saving influence, a mere reclamation enterprise, the slacker raids

were a vast agency for the public good. They were not man-hunters, but

man-savers, these men who conducted the raids.

Just one instance of this truth must serve for all the many communities

who engaged in this work and who caught, in all, perhaps, a half

million men for examination, and held a tenth of all they caught. It is

only a little anecdote, but it makes the best answer possible to all

the critics of the Selective Service Act.

A gentleman came into the National Headquarters with certain papers in

the way of reports, and announced that he was the Chief of the Akron,

Ohio, Division. He offered the usual apologies—by this time more or

less familiar at the book desk—that he had been able to do so little

when he had wanted to do so much in the work of the A. P. L. “But there

is one thing that I wish you would put in this book,” he said, “to show

people what this League has done in the remaking of men. I don’t care

whether you say another thing for Akron, but I want to tell this story

of a man we saved.

“A young woman came to my office and complained of her husband. ‘I am

almost desperate about Joe,’ she said to me. ‘He drinks and drinks, and

hangs around the saloons. He hasn’t given me a cent in eight months,

and I don’t know what to do. I—I love him. I don’t want him to go. But

do you think the army would do him any good. He doesn’t do anything for

me and our baby.’

“‘The army will see,’ I said to her. So I went and found her husband—in

a saloon, drunk, shabby, dead to all pride and all ambition, about as

poor-looking material for a soldier as you ever saw. ‘That’s Joe,’ said

his wife, when I brought them together in my office.

“Well, I sent Joe to jail to think things over. When he was in his

cell, his wife took him in a tray full of good things to eat, some hot

coffee, and all that sort of thing. I went with her. ‘You see,’ I said

to him, ‘how much your wife is doing now for your support—more than you

have done for her in a year. What do you think about it now?’

“Well, he was inside the draft age, and we sent him into the Army. We

saw to it that his wife got her share of his pay—the first support he

had given her in many months.

“I forgot about this case, so many others came in. The days went

by until not so long ago. After the armistice was signed and just

before I came down here, some one knocked at my door. There came in

a smiling young woman, neatly dressed, a neatly dressed baby in her

arms. And with her was a tall, grinning, brown-faced, hard-bitten,

well-set-up young man, in the uniform of the United States Army. He had

a sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeve. I did not know any of these people.

“‘That’s Joe,’ said the young woman. Then I remembered it all. It made

me feel rather funny—I couldn’t really quite believe it.

“‘He does not drink,’ said the wife. ‘I am so glad he went into the

Army.’

“Well, maybe you think I’m not glad of my share in remaking a man like

that. It paid me for all my work and worry in the League. I believe

that our Division would have made good if it had not done anything more

than just what it did for Joe.”

One does not know of any better summary of the slacker raids than that

conveyed by this simple little story from one chief out of very many

hundreds.

CHAPTER XII

SKULKER CHASING

Hunting Bad Men—Deserter-Catching in the Southern Mountains—Tricks

of the Slacker’s Trade—Running Down Unwilling Patriots—Some A. P.

L. Adventures—Death of a Deserter—How a Southern Ranger Brings

Them In.

One of the earliest recollections of the writer’s boyhood is that of

seeing his father busily engaged in molding bullets for his rifle on a

certain Sunday morning—at that time the old muzzle-loading rifle was

still in use. The old gentleman was with the Army Recruiting Service

in the Civil War, in a branch which at times was obliged to look after

men who were evading the draft or unduly prolonging their furloughs,

or who belonged to that detested group of conscientious objectors and

obstructionists who at that time bore the local name of “Copperheads.”

Some of these men had ambushed and killed two of the Army men sent out

to bring them in, and as others of the force then took up the matter,

it was deemed wise to be alert and well armed. The murderers were duly

apprehended and dealt with.

At that time we had a United States Secret Service whose annals make

interesting reading to-day—as, for instance, the burial by Secret

Service men of the body of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President

Lincoln. That final resting place to this day is known to very few

men. There was, however, in Civil War times no Military Intelligence

Division, no censorship of the mails or cables, no real system of

espionage, and certainly no A. P. L. We had less need then than now

for such extensions of the arm of Justice, because then each army was

fighting an honorable foe—though both were mistaken foes—and because

our country then was not populated so largely with unassimilated and

treacherous foreigners. There was some spy work in that time on both

sides, as in any war; but for the most part, clean, straightaway

fighting was the main concern of both sides; and that war was so

fought that such a thing as honor did exist and could survive for both

combatants.

The Civil War had as one of its worst results the fact that the rich

new West and Northwest, then opening up with the early railroads, came

to be largely settled soon after the war by a heavy foreign population,

instead of by young Americans who must otherwise have marched out at

the head of the rails, and not at the head of armies from which so

many of them never returned. Had there been no Civil War, there would

have been less of loose immigration. Without that war, there would be

no Non-Partisan League in the Northwest, no German Alliance in the

Middle West, no Bolshevism in the cities of the East. Nevertheless,

even in that day of honorable warfare, when men met foemen worthy of

their steel and not cowardly assassins, there existed men who had the

craven heart. There were deserters then as there always are in war,—and

sometimes they were sought out by men who molded bullets of a Sunday

morning, and who, having started out after their men, did not come back

until they had found them.

To-day also we have deserters and slackers—let us say, perhaps, with

better color of excuse than in the old days, because in some of the

more remote districts of the United States, far from the confusion of

the crowded city life, in sections where the world runs smoothly and

quietly and men are content, there existed no definite and concrete

local reasons for a man to go to war with a foe across the sea of whom

he knew little or nothing. Secure in the only American part of America,

sometimes the Southern mountaineers, for instance, resented the draft

because they did not understand it. The bravest of the brave, ready to

fight at the drop of the hat, and natural soldiers, there were among

them many whose fathers joined the Federal Army in the Civil War. They

volunteered for that—but they would not be drafted for this foreign

war. They made a brand of conscientious objectors—rather, say, ignorant

objectors—who were dangerous to go up against in the laurel thickets or

the far-back mountain coves. Very often, these men, when they learned

how the flag of this country had been insulted, how our women and

children had been murdered on the sea, were eager to join the colors,

and never again were they deserters or slackers—only fighting men.

To this form of military evader among the simple outlying people of the

southern hills, there must be added a great many deserters of foreign

descent all over the country, caught in the Selective Service Act.

Some of these had imbibed no real loyalty to America in their home

associations; much too often their environments were those of other

countries and not this. They heard another speech than ours used as a

“mother tongue”; daily saw customs of the old world maintained, and

not those of the new world taken on. They had small heart for the war

because their loyalty to this country still was crude and unformulated.

Many of the foreign-born troops who fought so well in France first

joined our colors, not because they wished to, but because they had to,

the law leaving no option. After that, they learned the fierce love

of a real soldier for the real flag of a real country. Perhaps their

wounds and their deaths may teach their surviving relatives in America

not to remain foreigners, but to become Americans—and not foreigners

masquerading as Americans. Some of our best soldiers had fathers who

had taken the German oath never to renounce fealty to that famous “War

Lord,” chiefest coward of them all, who had not courage to die at the

head of his army.

There was also in this war, as in all other wars, a certain percentage

of the sullen and rebellious, of the weak and cowardly, men of no mark

and no convictions in any cause, men who never rise above themselves

and their selfish concerns in any situation. Beyond these, again, was

a small class whose natural home longings or home bewailings or home

pleadings led them to desert. Because of many reasons, then, a certain

percentage of deserters marked this war as every war.

In the eyes of the law this was every man’s war, and all must get

under and back of it with no exceptions. A deserter was a deserter.

Some were dangerous men, and some no more than yellow slackers. We

could not in these pages give a great many instances of either type.

One A. P. L. report, however, that comes from Birmingham, Alabama, is

peculiar in that it gives details regarding several investigations and

arrests of deserters.

One of the most remarkable cases handled by the Birmingham Division was

that of Dan D—— of Tuscaloosa County, who deserted from the regular

army of the United States on November 27, 1917, and was not captured

until September 1, 1918. Information having been received by the Chief

on the 23rd of August, 1918, that Dan was hiding near Reno Mines, he

immediately ordered a number of his men under Special Agent M—— to go

after the deserter. The trip was taken in automobiles on the afternoon

of August 23, and through very heavy mist. Arriving at Reno Mines, some

information was given the party as to the location of the man’s home,

which proved to be a four-room boxed house in front of which and about

sixty feet away was a small frame barn about twenty by thirty feet,

built of rough plank, with four horse stalls in the main building and

some cow stalls in the lean-to shed.

A careful search of house and barn failed to show any signs of the

missing man, his parents and sister denying any knowledge of his

whereabouts. The mother said, “The last I hear’n of Dan was a letter

from Long Island two months or more ago,” and she remarked, “Of course,

you’uns know he was home on a furlough last November.” A request to

produce the letter was met with the reply, “The chillun tore it up.”

The search of the barn was again renewed by the men, and the loft was

searched with the aid of a ladder from the outside. It was found to be

filled with fodder, hay and grass, and prodding with poles and forks

convinced the parties that there was no chance for any one to be hiding

under same.

Very much mystified, and yet satisfied by the demeanor and sullen

manner of the father, mother and sister that Dan was somewhere close,

the Special Agent divided his men, leaving part of them to watch, while

the others sought for outside information.

Mr. W——, a Deputy Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, had been trying to

locate Dan for ten months, and had watched continuously as much as

ten days at one time, both house and barn. A number of searches prior

to the arrival of the A. P. L. squad, made in and around the mines of

the different operating companies, had given no clue. One thing was

certain, however: nearly everybody in the district was related to him,

due to the intermarriage during several generations of the people, and,

as usual, there were some of his own kin-folks who would “shore like to

see him pulled.”

At last, the patience of the party being exhausted, and feeling

sure that Dan was somewhere, either about the house or barn, the

father, William D——, and the mother, and a sister, who had denied any

relationship to Dan, were told positively either to surrender him or go

to jail. They asked for time, and it was refused. They pleaded for the

officers to come again to-morrow. This also was refused. After pleading

again to give them till afternoon, they finally asked one of the League

operators to a conference behind the house with the mother and father.

They then renewed their pleadings for time, but finally agreed to show

the hiding place of their son and deliver him to the party, as they now

realized that the “U. S. was a blame sight stronger than kin-folks who

were liable to split on you at any minute.”

The father was then accompanied to the barn. He knocked on the wall of

the barn and said, “Come down, son!” Almost immediately a wide plank

in the floor of the barn loft, almost over the heads of the astonished

men, mysteriously arose from its resting place, revealing the most

unique and simple hiding place imaginable. It was nothing more or less

than a box, about as large as a good sized coffin, in which there were

bed clothes, food and water. The box was cut to fit the joists, hiding

all joints, and being apparent from below as a part of the loft floor.

It was covered with fodder and hay above, the occupant using one loose

plank of the box as his trap door. When occupied, it would naturally

be as tight as any other part of the floor. Later, the party saw a

hole dug out under the cow stall which he had occupied until his more

palatial quarters in the coffin box had been provided.

The District was noted in years gone by as the “favorite stamping

ground of Jim Morrison and kindred outlawed spirits.” Most of the

inhabitants of the surrounding country are employed in the mining of

brown iron ore, which is taken out of large open cuts and washed by

machinery and shipped to the furnaces of the Birmingham district.

Nearly all of the labor, black and white, are the descendants of small

farmers of Tuscaloosa County and the southern part of Jefferson County.

Many of them still carry on farming in a small way, and the region

has long been famous for its smooth and creamy “moonshine,” which in

some mysterious way still continues to be made. It was for many years

a favorite pastime of old Judge Shackelford, who lived and died in

sight of the D—— home, to mix his corn juice in an old sugar bowl

while dispensing justice in the good old way. Shortly after the events

narrated here, the sheriff of the county was murdered in cold blood on

the village street by one of the outlaws of the section.

Two other interesting cases handled by the Birmingham Division

concerned two brothers, S—— and R——. S—— deserted from Camp Pike,

Arkansas, October 5, 1917, and R—— from Camp Mills, N. Y., September

25, 1917. The peculiar part of the case was that while S—— was listed

as a deserter, the War Department had no record of R—— deserting,

though they were advised that he was in this section of the country and

efforts were made to check the records. While their desertions took

place the latter part of 1917, it was not until August, 1918, that

Operative No. 202 of the Birmingham Division received confidential

information that both men were in Shelby County, Alabama, making

moonshine whiskey, which they were selling to the miners and also to

citizens in Bessemer, Alabama, a town thirteen miles southwest of

Birmingham.

A party was organized to go after them, but unfortunately missed them

by four days, the brothers and their family having moved elsewhere.

Operative continued giving the case active attention, and finally

information was secured that the brothers were in Coosa County,

Alabama. Arrangements for automobiles having been made over long

distance, a party of A. P. L. men, six in number, headed by Agent

Crawford of the Department of Justice, left Birmingham at 3:50 P. M.

Thursday, November 7 (the day made famous by the premature Armistice

celebration), arriving at Goodwater about 6:00 P. M.

After supper they were met by two 100 per cent American volunteers

with automobiles, and were driven about five miles beyond Goodwater.

The latter informed them of the danger of arousing these parties by

going over the regular road, on account of dogs barking, so they left

the machines about two miles away from the cabin they were seeking and

detoured over a large hill, in the dark and cold, to get to the cabin.

The report says:

The humorous part of it was that, in spite of our precautions, the

“hound dawgs” treed us about a mile from the place and certainly

let forth unearthly baying. By the time we reached and surrounded

the cabin, the entire household was aroused. Again we seemed

doomed to disappointment, for we were informed that the parties

we sought had left there just four days before—the same length of

time by which we missed them in Shelby County.

After exploring the country in the immediate vicinity we finally

secured a tip that the brothers were near another town about forty

miles away, so we regained the machines and returned to Goodwater,

arriving there about 10:30 p. m. Feeling that perhaps some word

might reach the parties that we were after them, if we postponed

the trip, our drivers, after much discussion finally agreed to

drive us to Kellyton, Alabama, about ten miles from Goodwater, to

a man who ran a jitney line. It was the coldest night of the year,

with only the stars as light. Finally we reached Kellyton, shortly

after midnight, and while two of us were arousing the jitney man

the others collected leaves and firewood and in a few minutes had

a roaring fire by the roadside to warm our frozen extremities.

Until we acquainted the jitney man with the urgency of the matter,

he demurred about getting out in the cold, saying he had only two

Ford cars and would have to depend on a thirteen-year-old son to

drive the second car of the two. He was persuaded to take us over

the thirty miles of rough country roads, with our drivers rather

uncertain of the correct route.

We reached Wadley, Alabama, about five o’clock in the morning.

Some coffee filled a long-felt want and in a few minutes we were

ready again. Further investigation, at Abanda, developed the fact

that the two suspects were with their family, who had just moved

in a country house about a mile distant from the town. This house

was in a hollow, off the road, well shielded from view, and the

surroundings made it an ideal place for those seeking seclusion.

Bearing in mind the fact that in the rural districts most every

one is suspicious of strangers, we duly surrounded the house about

6:30 A. M. At a signal the house was rushed and the men were in

the center passage of the house before the occupants were aware

of their presence. Hearing the noise, the mother opened the door

to one of the rooms and looked out. Seeing these strange men, she

tried to close the door, but was prevented from doing so by one of

the men who stuck his foot in the opening. On being questioned the

mother denied that the boys were there.

The house was the usual country cabin, with rooms on each side and

a hall down the middle, so while the two members were forcing the

door where the mother was, Agent Crawford broke in the door across

the hall and discovered the two brothers on pallets on the floor.

They were promptly covered before they had a chance to use their

pump guns, though search revealed three of the guns fully loaded

and placed for convenient use. Also, an extra box of cartridges

was found with the top off. Had it not been for the quickness

with which we worked, trouble would doubtless have ensued, as

the reputation of these men was that they shot first and asked

questions afterward. One member of the family had the reputation

of killing at least two men and had they been given a chance they

would have resisted.

The boys were ordered to dress and placed under arrest. Both of

these men were big, strapping fellows, weighing about 175 pounds

apiece, and each of them six feet tall. They had no dependents,

so there was absolutely no excuse for their failure to serve

their country. It usually is the case in the rural districts of

the South that nearly everyone is related to everybody else, and

all are “quick on the trigger” if they think their relatives are

being sought. It is interesting to mention that the house where

we captured the brothers had new barbed wire fencing almost

completely surrounding it, as if they expected a little trench

warfare of their own. Though we have handled numerous other cases,

I believe the circumstances surrounding this particular one will

long linger in the memory of those composing the party.

The Local Agent of the Department of Justice at Birmingham had many

times received information that there were a number of deserters and

delinquents in the swamps of Pickens County, Alabama. The local office

there being unable to cope with the situation, on Monday, December

10, a D. J. man, Robert B——, went to Gordo to secure information as

to the location of these men. The information was secured. Mr. B——

then proceeded to Tuscaloosa where he called the Special Agent over

long distance phone asking that eight A. P. L. men be sent to join him

in Tuscaloosa. Eight picked men of the A. P. L. assembled, and with

three high power automobiles, left Birmingham at 9:00 A. M., December

11, arriving in Tuscaloosa at noon. At four o’clock the party left

Tuscaloosa, going to a point two miles from Gordo where deputy sheriff

D—— met the party. D—— was thoroughly familiar with the surrounding

country.

Leaving the automobiles about two miles from the first house that

was to be covered, the party very quietly surrounded the house, not

overlooking the barn and out houses. They had been informed that the

alleged deserter had been staying at this house, the owner being his

step father. The whole place was searched, no evidence being found. The

step father and young brother were put under arrest. This, however,

failed to accomplish the desired result. The mother was in her bed,

an old-time, worn-out umbrella beside her. Before the Assistant Chief

could catch her hand, a heavy blow was accurately placed on his head,

the old lady remarking, “I am damn tired of all this foolishness!” She

was gently relieved of the umbrella and convinced that the bed was the

place for her.

A younger daughter, about the age of fifteen, left the house at this

time by a back entrance and ran a mile to another step brother’s house,

with the evident intention of notifying her step brother who was

wanted. This was the undoing of the A. P. L., as far as this deserter

was concerned. Another step brother of the deserter, however, was

placed under arrest, handcuffed and brought to jail for harboring a

deserter. Operatives discovered notices that had been put on different

houses in the locality of this deserter, one of them reading: “You are

talking too damn much. The first thing you know the sun will rise under

your house.”

The party then proceeded to the house of another deserter. The house as

usual was surrounded. One of the operatives discovered an open window

with a blind, the window being about two feet square. While a search

light and a good gun guarded the entrance, Agent B—— and an A. P. L.

operative crawled through this opening in the room. After awakening the

occupants, a deserter and the mother of another deserter were found.

The deserter was forced to dress. The mother was closely questioned

regarding her son, and finally agreed that if she would be allowed

to go alone, she would bring him to us. This was agreed to. She was

watched and in about fifteen minutes she brought her son, who was a

deserter, and also her husband. It was discovered that the son and

father were sleeping in a ditch about one hundred yards from the house.

They had bed clothing, and slept in the open air with the sky for a

roof. These two also were handcuffed and brought to jail.

The most interesting case on this trip was the capture of another

deserter who had been away from camp for over a year. He and his wife,

it is alleged, had sworn that he would never be taken alive. The

information was that they had bought a lot in the community cemetery

where they were to be buried together. Arriving at the house of the

deserter at 2:15 A. M., the house was covered and each operative

given detailed instructions. The deserter was called to the open

door, and was warned not to offer resistance, as his house was fully

surrounded. When told he was wanted by Uncle Sam’s men, he opened his

door and offered no resistance, stating that he had made up his mind

to surrender to government officers, but not to the local officers.

Judging from the weapons that he had by his bed, he evidently meant

what he had said. He too was handcuffed and brought to jail. The total

mileage of this trip was two hundred and sixteen miles, all without a

scratch to car or man.

Lexington, North Carolina, was in this same mountain country which

furnished so considerable a number of deserters during the war. It is

a strange thing to say, but perhaps the largest numbers of deserters

were found in the most American and most loyal part of the country—that

is to say, the South, where there was almost no alien population. The

only pure-bred American population in the United States was the very

element which seemed unwilling to support the war! This, however, is a

statement which needs full explanation. Let the Chief of Lexington make

that explanation in the story of one case.

Tom B—— was a Tar-Heel tie hacker and lived in the mountains of North

Carolina, twenty-six miles from a railroad. He could neither read nor

write, but was straight and strong, and to see him swing a broad-axe

was worth a trip into the mountains. When Tom heard of the draft he

did not understand it. He had led a life of peaceful seclusion. There

were two old Germans over at the railroad that ran a store, but Tom

could work up no enthusiasm about crossing the Atlantic to kill people

of that sort. But the draft came and many of Tom’s meantime friends

disappeared. It seemed inexplicable to him. He did not want to go to

war with anybody and did not understand why there was any war. The

solution of his problem at last came to him.

His people had come to these mountain fastnesses because there they

found that liberty of thought and action which all our early Americans

longed for; but now into that freedom of action there came some

intangible influence which he could not understand. Tom simply resolved

to march into the forest as his great-grandfather had done. He “stepped

back into the brush” for the duration of the war. For him this was the

only natural solution for a problem he did not understand. In this

way he could escape what seemed to him oppression and impairment of

the liberty which he held more dear than life. So he made the usual

arrangements. Food would be left for him at a certain spot by his

people. If anyone came in looking for Tom, his people would put up

a smoke signal so he would understand. Meantime, Tom continued his

work in a tie camp, his squirrel rifle leaning against a tree. When

he finished his work, he “stepped back” into deep laurel and was lost

as though he had gone up into smoke. His decision, having been taken,

would remain unshakable even unto death. He said, “I reckon I made up

my mind, and I’d ruther die here than in Germany.”

Let us consider the situation. Here is Tom B——, an American of native

blood, afraid of nothing that rides, walks or swims, willing to fight

his weight in wildcats to defend the freedom and liberty of his native

hills—and he is a fugitive from justice. Now, how can the A. P. L. save

that man from the consequence of his folly?

He was saved. As soon as the Chief heard of Tom B——’s disappearance,

he packed his timber cruising kit and went out into Tom’s country. At

night he reached the cabin of Uncle John Coggins, who knew everybody

in that neck of the woods and whose word was law. Uncle John knew what

was up, but he said nothing—only kept his small blue eyes fixed on the

visitor. After they had finished their meal, the two went out and sat

on a log in the sun, in the middle of a clearing where no one could

approach without being seen in time.

“I understand,” remarked the Chief casually, “that Tom has stepped back

into the brush.”

No sign from Uncle John that he had heard anything. Tom’s name was not

mentioned again.

Then the talk was shifted to the war and other things. The chief tried

to explain to Uncle John the problem of raising the army. He tried to

bring home the war, across the thousands of miles of sea and land, to

this old man sitting on a log in the western North Carolina mountains.

He pointed out the purpose and the manifest fairness of selective

service, taking all alike from all ranks.

Then they talked about the weather and the crops and the soaring price

of corn “likker” and the growing scarcity of good white oak timber.

The Chief went away. Uncle John, when he said good-bye, understood

perfectly why the visitor had come to his cabin.

Several days later Uncle John appeared in the office of the Chief. He

drew up a chair and remarked, “Howdy,” and sat gazing at the other

man with about as much animation as an Egyptian mummy. Only his

little snappy eyes under the bushy brows told of his alertness. The

conversation was again about the weather, the crops, the soaring price

of corn “likker” and the growing scarcity of good white oak timber. At

length Uncle John hitched his chair closer.

“I kinda tho’t you all mought wanter know ’bout Tom B——,” he said.

“I’ve done been out whar Tom is a-settin’ back, an’ he seed how hit

is—an’ he’s a-comin’ in!” The Chief of the A. P. L. nodded. The thing

was settled. They smoked for a time, discussed the weather, the crops,

the soaring price of corn “likker” and the growing scarcity of good

white oak timber. Tom’s name was not mentioned again. The Chief spoke

quite casually of a few details that would naturally attend Tom’s

“comin’ in.” Uncle John said he would attend to those matters. A little

later he went away. And by and by Tom B—— came in and joined the Army.

These Southern leaders understood the mountain people. Their method

of work was infinitely more simple than sending a posse out into the

brush to round up a desperate man who knew how to shoot to kill. There

were characters who needed other methods; but among the boys in the

mountains, ignorance and aloofness were the common causes of their

“stepping back into the brush.” To have called any one of them afraid

to fight would have been the deepest insult possible to men of their

race. Once in the army, they did fight—the records of the Army will

speak as to that. There never were better or braver soldiers in the

world, nor men more loyal and devoted to their country.

Olympia, Washington, had an interesting case of a deserter named G——,

whose father made the statement that anyone who took the boy would have

to come shooting. The house was searched but the boy was gone. The A.

P. L. operative later became a game warden, and while traveling in

the country ran across an empty cabin. As it was known that the boy’s

father had taken out a trapper’s license, they thought that perhaps

this cabin might be occupied by the deserter. It was in a swamp, built

under overhanging trees, so it was almost impossible to find. There was

no trail to the cabin, as the boy did not go in and out in any regular

way but took different paths to avoid discovery. The operative and an

associate went into the woods, found G——’s line of traps, followed them

up and captured him in the woods. This deserter’s family would not buy

Liberty bonds but said they would save their money for ammunition.

The prompt and vigorous action of A. P. L. closed a case which was

notorious in the vicinity.

A study of the reports of operatives engaged in League activities at

the busy Birmingham Division, and indeed all over the country, shows

an astonishing lack of anything like personal violence. It never could

be told, however, where such an instance might break out. Only two

or three cases of killing in the course of duty are recorded in the

thousands of cases handled. One of these comes from a quiet little

farming village, Morris, Illinois, about the last place in the world

where anything of the sort might have been expected. It resulted in

the shooting down, in the uniform of our Army, of Private A. J. K——,

Company D., U. S. Infantry, a deserter from Rock Island arsenal. K——

had escaped from confinement at Rock Island with Corporal George S——.

Acting Sheriff S——, who also was Chief of the A. P. L. at Morris,

accompanied by Chief of Police A——, had been advised to be on the

lookout for two deserters who were reported to be bad men.

The two men were on top of a box car when a train pulled into town, and

were accosted by the Sheriff. They claimed to be government guards, and

were asked to show their papers. A weapon was seen in S——’s pocket. The

other man, still on the top of the car, covered the two peace officers

and ordered them to keep away or he would shoot. At last the Sheriff

managed to get the drop on him before he fired, but meantime the train

began to pull out, so no shooting ensued at that time.

Morris wired Joliet to arrest the soldiers when the train got in. The

man hunt now was on, because other officers down the valley reported

the men wanted for desertion. The two fugitives left the train at

Durkee’s Crossing and hid in the woods near the tracks. The Sheriff got

a posse and following down the track, located the men and surrounded

the wood where they were concealed. The chief got up to S—— unnoticed,

covered him with a rifle and told him to come along, which he did. He

then asked S—— where the other man was.

Just then, K——, who had not been seen, called to the officer to drop

the gun or he would shoot. Some threatening talk ensued on both sides

and K—— advanced, the officer still commanding him to drop his gun as

he was under arrest. K——, in turn, demanded that the chief should drop

his rifle, holding him covered fair all the time. The Chief then called

for his men to fire. Patrolman Wm. M—— fired on K—— with his rifle, and

K——dropped. He did not die immediately, and was taken to the hospital

in Morris that night. The patrolman’s bullet passed through his left

shoulder, cut through the lung, and lodged near the heart. K—— refused

to talk. His companion talked more freely, and said that K—— was bad

and had had a shooting difficulty in West Virginia. They had both been

in confinement, and had escaped with the intention of going back to

West Virginia. He said that K—— “was the best shot in the regiment,

and was a ‘killer.’” That the A. P. L. Chief was not himself killed is

nothing less than a marvel.

CHAPTER XIII

ARTS OF THE OPERATIVES

The Midnight Camera—The Way of a Man and a Maid and a

Dictagraph—Secret Inks and Codes—Stories of the Trail—How Evidence

Was Secured.

It already has been stated that the American Protective League

had no governmental or legal status, though strong as Gibraltar

in governmental and legal sanction. The mails are supposed to be

sacred—the Postmaster General has sworn they always shall be sacred.

They are sacred. But let us call the A. P. L. sometimes almost

clairvoyant as to letters done by suspects. Sometimes it clairvoyantly

found the proofs it sought!

It is supposed that breaking and entering a man’s home or office place

without warrant is burglary. Granted. But the League has done that

thousands of times and has never been detected! It is entirely naïve

and frank about that. It did not harm or unsettle any innocent man.

It was after the guilty alone, and it was no time to mince matters or

to pass fine phrases when the land was full of dangerous enemies in

disguise. The League broke some little laws and precedents? Perhaps.

But it upheld the great law under the great need of an unprecedented

hour.

A man’s private correspondence is supposed to be safe in his office

files or vault. You suppose yours never was seen? Was it? Perhaps.

It certainly was, if you were known as a loyal citizen—a true-blood

American. But the League examined all of the personal and business

correspondence of thousands of men who never were the wiser.

How could that be done? Simply, as we shall see. Suppose there was a

man, ostensibly a good business man, apparently a good citizen and a

good American, but who at heart still was a good German—as hundreds of

thousands of such men living in America are this very day. This man has

a big office in a down-town skyscraper. He is what the A. P. L. calls a

“suspect.” Let us call him Biedermacher.

About midnight or later, after all the tenants have gone home, you

and I, who chance to be lieutenants and operatives in the League,

just chance in at the corridor of that building as we pass. We just

chance to find there the agent of the building—who just chances also to

wear the concealed badge of the A. P. L. You say to the agent of the

building, “I want to go through the papers of Biedermacher, Room 1117,

in your building.”

“John,” the agent says to the janitor, “give me your keys, I’ve

forgotten mine, and I want to go to my office a while with these

gentlemen.”

We three, openly, in fact, do go to Biedermacher’s office. His desk is

opened, his vault if need be—it has been done a thousand times in every

city of America. Certain letters or documents are found. They would be

missed if taken away. What shall be done?

The operative takes from his pocket a curious little boxlike instrument

which he sets up on the table. He unscrews a light bulb, screws in

the plug at the end of his long insulated wire. He has a perfectly

effective electric camera.

One by one the essential papers of Biedermacher are photographed,

page by page, and then returned to the files exactly—and that means

_exactly_—in the place from which each was taken. The drawers and doors

are locked again. Search has been made _without a search warrant_. The

serving of a search warrant would have “queered” the whole case and

would not have got the evidence. The camera film has it safe.

“Pretty wife and kids the fellow has,” says the agent of the building,

turning over the photographs which the simple and kindly Biedermacher,

respected Board of Trade broker, we will say, has in his desk. He turns

them back again to exactly—_exactly_—the same position.

“Good night, John,” he yawns to the janitor, when they meet him on the

floor below. “Pretty late, isn’t it?”

The three men pass out to the street and go home. Each of them in

joining the League has sworn to break any social engagement to obey

a call from the League headquarters at any hour of the day or night.

Perhaps such engagements have been broken to-night by some or all of

these three men. But no one has “broken and entered” Biedermacher’s

office.

In Central office some data are added to a card, cross-indexed by name

and number also, and under a general guide. Some photostats, as these

pictures are called, are put in the “case’s” envelope. Nothing happens

just yet. Biedermacher still is watched.

Then, one morning, an officer of the Department of Justice finds Mr.

Biedermacher in his office. He takes from his pocket a folded paper

and says, “In the name of the United States, I demand possession of a

letter dated the 12th of last month, which you wrote to von Bernstorff

in New York. I want a letter of the 15th of this month which you wrote

to von Papen in Berlin. I want your list of the names of the United

Sängerbund and German Brotherhood in America which you brought home

from the last meeting. I want the papers showing the sums you have

received from New York and Washington for your propaganda work here

in this city. I want the letter received by you from seven Lutheran

ministers in Wisconsin telling of their future addresses to the

faithful.”

“But, my God!” says Biedermacher, “what do you mean? I have no such

letters here or anywhere else. I am innocent! I am as good an American

as you are. I have bought a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Liberty

bonds, some of each issue. My wife is in the Red Cross. I have a

daughter in Y. W. C. A. I give to all the war charities. I am an

American citizen. What do you mean by insulting me, sir?”

“John,” says the officer to his drayman, “go to that desk. Take out all

the papers in it. Here’s the U. S. warrant, Mr. Biedermacher. Rope ’em

up, John.”

John ropes up the files, and the papers go in bulk to the office

of the U. S. attorney on the case. Now, _all_ the evidence is in

possession of the Government, and the case is clear. Biedermacher is

met quietly at the train when he tries to get out of town. Nothing gets

into the papers. No one talks—secrecy is the oath. But before long,

the big Biedermacher offices are closed. Biedermacher’s wife says her

husband has gone south for his health. He has—to Oglethorpe.

You think this case imaginary, far-fetched, impossible? It is neither

of the three. It is the truth. It shows how D. J. and A. P. L. worked

together. This is a case which has happened not once but scores and

hundreds of times. It is espionage, it is spy work, yes, and it has

gone on to an extent of which the average American citizen, loyal or

disloyal, has had no conception. It was, however, the espionage of a

national self-defense. It was only in this way that the office and the

mail and the home of the loyal citizen _could_ be held inviolate. The

web of the A. P. L. was precisely that of the submarine net. Invisible,

it offered an apparently frail but actually efficient defense against

the dastardly weapons of Germany.

It must become plain at once that secret work such as this, carried on

in such volume all across the country—three million cases, involving an

enormous mass of detail and an untold expenditure of time and energy,

were disposed of—meant system and organization to prevent overlapping

of work and consequent waste of time. It meant more than that—there was

needed also good judgment, individual shrewdness and of course, above

all things, patience and hard work.

For instance, John Wielawski is a deserter reported to National

Headquarters missing from Camp Grant, Illinois, possibly hiding in

Chicago. The order goes to the Chief in Chicago, who hands it to the

right district lieutenant. The latter finds in his cards the name of an

operative who speaks Wielawski’s native tongue. The latter goes to the

neighborhood where Wielawski lived, inquires especially in regard to

any sweetheart or sweethearts Wielawski may have had. It is certain he

left some ties somewhere, that he has been seen, that he has written at

least a line, or will write. His running down is sure. The League has

found thousands of deserters, located thousands of men who had refused

to take out their second naturalization papers, thousands who were

skulkers and draft evaders. They could not escape the Web which reached

all across America, unseen, but deadly sure.

The great average intelligence of the League members alone made the

extraordinary results possible. These were no ordinary hired sleuths of

the mysterious detective type, gum-shoe artists with a bent for masks

and false eyebrows. On the contrary, the officers and operatives were

men of standing, of great personal intelligence and sober good sense.

They dropped their private affairs, in which they had been successful,

to obey the League call at any time. They studied their new duties

regularly and faithfully, as best they could—and they learned them.

The methods of such men varied widely. They had attended no outside

school, had no special governmental training. Their success depended

on the natural alertness of the American character. For instance, one

gentleman prominent in the work, we will say in New York, was sent

after a draft evader whose name, racially considered, did not tally

with his personal description. The operative found his case originated

in a foreign part of the city. His man had originally lived in a

certain flat. Some boys played ball near by. The operative strolled by

to watch, engaged two or three in conversation. Yes, a dark man—some

said he was a Turk—had lived there. He had moved, they didn’t know

where. He used to work in a laundry, they thought. Very well, a Turk

and a laundry-man would naturally be found in some other laundry,

possibly near his own people. The case was carried on until, in a

laundry in another part of the same city, a new man was found—he had a

new name, but the same face. Eventually he was put where he belonged.

The psalmist of old voiced his complaint that there were three things

in the world which he did not know, three things which he could not

find out: the way of a ship upon the sea, the way of the serpent on a

rock, and the way of a man with a maid. The trouble with Solomon was

that he seems not to have owned either a geometry, a microscope or a

dictagraph. These used respectively in connection with the problems

described above might have helped him out considerably.

A. P. L. operatives at Nyack, New York, had Solomon beaten by a city

block. They installed a dictagraph in a room frequented by one A. L——,

who was impersonating an officer, declaring that he was “Chief of the

Secret Service from New York to Boston.” His game was to advertise for

women to engage in espionage work, saying that the Government would pay

a big price and would also buy clothes and hats for the operatives and

put them up at the best hotels. It was suspected very keenly that Mr.

A. L—— was neither employed by the Government nor acting as an officer

and a gentleman ought to act. He did not know anything about the deadly

dictagraph which A. P. L. had placed in this apartment. Hence, he

conversed quite freely with a certain Mrs. U——, who had answered his

advertisement and at whose apartment he was paying a call. They seem

first to have talked about the apartment itself, the conversation going

as follows:

_Mrs. U._—: Isn’t it nice? I’m crazy about it. He is a curio

dealer, the owner of the apartment. Here is the dish closet. Here

is the kitchen. Look and see the bedroom. I haven’t got my bed

linen yet. Sit down and I’ll talk to you. Oh, I’ve got to get rid

of this hat; my head aches.

_Mr. L_—: Oh, what a nice lamp.

_Mrs. U_—: Isn’t it lovely? See, you can turn the lights on here.

Look, this is the telephone downstairs. There’s one thing; they

are very strict here. You have to be careful. Sit down there.

(_Pause of a minute._)

_Mrs. U_—: I can’t swallow a pill to save my life. Now, I’ll tell

you what I have to say. Do you know I like that picture? I think

it must have been a calendar. You know he said he would buy me

anything I wanted. He is some kid, that boy. This is just like

the headache I had two weeks ago. I had such a headache. All day

Sunday I was in bed and I couldn’t get any relief. It’s just the

same old way all along. It is so trying. Now, I want to hear all

about your trip. I am terribly interested. Tell me all about it.

_Mr. L_—: Now, tell me exactly what you told him.

_Mrs. U_—: Sit down. Here’s what I told him.

_Mr. L_—: What’s his name and all about him?

_Mrs. U_—: Well, the first time I met him he told me all about

the story of his life. Then, some time after that I met him again.

“Hey, kid,” he said, “you know a lot of people in Wall Street;

take me down there and introduce me to some of them.” I said: “I

have a friend who is very well connected.” Well, I saw him again

and I told him that I had met you, and that you were right close

to the Government and were in touch with the Government offices

and you got inside news. Of course, I didn’t tell him that you

were in the Secret Service of the Government. You don’t want me to

tell him that, do you?

_Mr. L_—: No, not at all. I’ll decide what I want to tell him.

_Mrs. U_—: Do you think he could be a spy?

_Mr. L_—: Yes, he could be. He acts just like one. He acts like a

perfect damn fool.

_Mrs. U_—: Well, how do they act?

_Mr. L_—: They act just this way. That’s their game.

_Mrs. U_—: Oh, I get so excited about your work.

_Mr. L_—: Yes; you know, if you were to catch a spy like that, it

would be worth $5,000 to you.

_Mrs. U_—: $5000! Would it really? Who would pay that?

_Mr. L_—: The Government.

_Mrs. U_—: Oh, it’s so exciting! You must think me silly, but I

can’t help getting all excited about this Secret Service work! And

you’re the head of it, too, aren’t you?

_Mr. L_—: I am not the head of it all. I am only the head of

certain branches. You know there are different branches.

_Mrs. U_—: Which are you in?

_Mr. L_—: In the Treasury Department.

_Mrs. U_—: In the Treasury Department?

_Mr. L_—: Yes, I’m the head of the Treasury Department and three

other Departments besides. Four of them altogether. There are

seventeen different branches, you know; I have full charge of this

one.

_Mrs. U_—: No wonder you’re so busy! Well, have you caught any

spies lately?

_Mr. L_—: Oh, yes. We get them right along. I got forty last week.

_Mrs. U_—: You know, we have known each other a long time now,

haven’t we? You know, it’s funny how you meet people through

advertisements. Nearly everybody that I met in a business way I

met through advertisements. And everybody that I met that way

turned out to be a factor in my life! I met a good friend of

mine, a girl, through an ad. And then, I have got some very good

positions through advertisements. And then, I met you through that

ad in—let’s see—was it the “Times”?

_Mr. L_—: No, the “Herald.”

_Mrs. U_—: Tell me about that girl that you said you had that was

so good. Is she still catching spies?

_Mr. L_—: Yes; she got fourteen last week.

_Mrs. U_—: Gee! She must have worked overtime.... Did she have to

do what you wanted me to do?

_Mr. L_—: Oh, yes, you see she was crazy about the work.

_Mrs. U_—: Gosh, you know that is very interesting to me. How many

girls did you get from that advertisement? I guess you think I am

a fool, but I get so interested, and I like to have you tell me

all these things.

_Mr. L_—: Oh, I don’t remember. You know, I think the spies would

take to you and I don’t blame them. I know I would.

_Mrs. U_—: Do you think they would like a red-head? Is there any

demand at all for them?

_Mr. L_—: Oh, I couldn’t see all of them.

_Mrs. U_—: I guess you’re busy now with all these German

submarines around, aren’t you?

_Mr. L_—: Oh, yes, indeed; very busy. They are very dangerous

people.

_Mrs. U_—: Do you always have to teach those girls that you have

in the Secret Service? You know I have been reading all about this

spy work and this Secret Service thing since I saw you. I am so

much interested. They go by numbers, don’t they, instead of names?

Well, if I was in the service, would you look up all about where I

was born, and who my people were, and everything like that? Would

you do that to see if I had any German blood? I’ll tell you why

I ask it, because the Y. M. C. A. people told me that they would

have to look me up very carefully and that they would have to find

out if any of my people were born in Germany.... How long have you

been in the Government Secret Service?

_Mr. L_—: Twenty-five years.

_Mrs. U_—: Twenty-five years! Oh, dear, and no one would ever know

that you were in it.

_Mr. L_—: Come here—oh, you’re just a little kiddie.

_Mrs. U_—: Oh, now, wait a minute, just wait a minute!

The operatives who were listening to this partially reported

conversation in the janitor’s room did not wait even a minute. They

broke down the door and arrested Mr. L——. He was turned over to the

United States Secret Service and arraigned before the Assistant

District Attorney. His activities as an employer of espionage agents

thereupon ceased abruptly. He was a cheap and dirty imposter.

It was found in hundreds of cases—and the knowledge was invariably

suppressed—that an alien suspect’s sudden and mysterious shifts and

changes, his suspicious and watchful conduct, his evasive acts, all

had to do with nothing more than the fact that the man had a mistress

or so in another part of the city. The woman in his case very often

was not the woman in the case at all, for there was no case, so far

as the League was concerned. But countless men were quietly warned.

Often with tears they implored the secrecy which was given them. There

are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men in America whose private lives

are known to the League and not known in their own families. There

is yet to be known the first case where any advantage ever was taken

of the unintended victim caught in the general meshes of the Web;

but it may be interesting for any of those of guilty conscience who

by chance may read these lines, to know that their lives are filed

away, cross-indexed, for future reference in the vast archives of the

Department of Justice at Washington!

The extent of these “woman cases,” as they were known, is very

considerable, and the per cent of suspect spy cases which simmered down

to a petticoat basis is a very large one. A great part of the work of

the League was done in finding the woman, if not in searching for her

specifically. The League brought up from the deep-sea soundings of its

steel meshes all the sordid and unworthy phases of human life on the

part of both men and women. But while combing out the discards of human

intrigue, the League often found the evidence it really sought. This

was without fail used mercilessly and coldly.

One case, handled by the Central Division in Chicago, we may call the

Otero case. Word came from El Paso that a certain prominent Mexican,

a revolutionary and political leader with aspirations for a very high

office in that republic, had come into the United States and was headed

north, probably for Chicago. Nothing was known about him and his

purpose excepting that his name was given. The League at once began

making inquiries about Senor Otero. It was found that he was traveling

in a special car. Obviously, therefore, he was a man of money. Ergo, he

would go to a good hotel, and he probably would make a reservation in

advance. Inquiries were made by telephone at all the leading hotels in

Chicago, which in practically all cases were members of the American

Protective League. Senor Otero was found to have reserved a large suite

at the Blackstone, and had made the time of his arrival known. From

that time on, he was in the hands of the American Protective League,

although he never knew it. The boy who took his bag at the door was

an A. P. L. operative, the bellhop who responded to his summons was

an A. P. L. operative, his waiter at table was A. P. L., his night

taxicab driver was A. P. L. In fact, the A. P. L. put Senor Otero to

bed and woke him up in the morning, followed his activities during the

day and knew what he was doing all night. It was not discovered that

he was engaged in any plot against the peace of the United States,

but was apparently active in the more pleasant task of spending some

money he had gotten hold of in Mexico. If relatives or friends of the

Senor Otero would be pleased to know how he spent it, the nature of

his associations in Chicago by day—or night—and if they can persuade

the Department of Justice to advise them, they can find the entire

record of his stay in Chicago. Had he been engaged in any suspicious

acts against this country, his return to Mexico might not have been so

peaceful.

If an A. P. L. man knew the chemistry of any synthetic or invisible

ink, he would not make the secret public any more than would M. I.

D. Many devices for making and using these inks, however, are very

generally known, although it is believed that Great Britain and France

have gone farthest in classifying and developing them. A piece of a

necktie has been taken from one German, a corner of which, snipped off

and put in a glass of water, would make an invisible ink. A shoestring

has been known to do the same thing, a small piece of it making enough

for a letter or more. A shirt-stud has been described by a foreign

operative, which, when unscrewed and dropped into a glass of water,

would do the same thing and leave no trace. With what chemicals were

these articles treated in order to make the ink? Ah, that is another

matter. If the author knew, he could not tell. One thing is sure, it is

not likely that the most inventive writer of “detective” stories could

imagine anything more ingenious or more baffling than some of these

well-known methods in use by our own men.

Mr. Byron R. Newton, collector at the port of New York, gave out a

curious story on the work done by the Customs Intelligence Bureau,

created as a lookout for smugglers and others. This service was

employed in searching ships, examining baggage, looking out for

explosive bombs, invisible writing, and so forth. Mr. Newton’s story

appeared in the New York _Herald_ of July 14, 1918, and from it one

incident may be taken.

Through the Boarding Officials, a passenger who arrived the other

day has furnished interesting material for the Intelligence

Bureau investigators. The passenger, who for some time had been

a resident of Germany, although an American citizen, said he had

been approached in Dresden by German agents and asked if on his

return to the United States he would obtain military and other

information of interest to the Imperial German Intelligence

Bureau. He was furnished with a code to be used by him for

forwarding information to Germany and also with a formula for

manufacturing an _invisible ink_, and with paper to be treated by

a special process for correspondence. The passenger, in evidence

of what he stated, offered four collars to the customs officials.

They appeared to be ordinary negligee collars of cream-colored

material—double, turn-over collars, medium height, such as

many men wear with sport shirts or for informal occasions. The

passenger explained the purpose of these collars as follows:

“I take a soup plate and I put boiling water in it and let it

stand for about a quarter of an hour, after which I throw away the

water. The plate being warm, I place one of these collars in it.

I pour over the collar one hundred grams of boiling water and let

it stand for half an hour. Then I wring out the collar, and the

water that remains is my invisible ink. They call it ‘pyrogram.’

It looks like water, it is not poisonous and it can be drunk.

“I wash my hands, since they are wet with this ink, and take the

paper and fold it crosswise and begin the letter, writing two

fingers from the edge. I let it dry, and then take a glass of

water and put about one teaspoonful of ammonia in it. With a piece

of wadding dipped in this solution of ammonia and water, I rub the

paper both ways, and thus prepare it on both sides. After this I

place the paper in this wet condition between blotting paper and

under heavy books or a trunk for three hours. You will not be able

to recognize the paper any more. It looks like foreign writing

paper, very thin and glazed. I can write anything I choose on this

letter now. When they get the letter and develop it the writing

appears positively black. I head the letter ‘Dear Bob’ and they

know it is a code letter. When I am through with the letter I use

the word ‘Schluss,’ because in developing it, they want to know if

they have the entire letter, and that word ends it up.”

This passenger also told the examining officials that in carrying

addresses without an address book, the German agents usually take

a bone button of an overcoat or a large button of some sort and

on the reverse side scratch the address with a diamond, sometimes

also scratching instructions which they cannot carry in their

heads. After this they treat the button with shellac, or, as they

call it in Germany, “spitituslak.” That fills the crevices and

dries rapidly. On reaching the destination, they use pure alcohol

to wash off the shellac. They also write addresses on this paper

and work them into leather buttons.

Cipher and code are part of the education of certain intelligence

officers, but into a discussion of these matters we may not go, as

they are secrets of the American Government. Our own experts were able

to decipher and decode all the secret messages bearing on the great

German plots in this country, but this was not usually A. P. L. work.

Of course, the lay reader, or more especially the A. P. L. member,

may know that a cipher means the substitution of some symbol, or some

number, or another letter, for each letter of the alphabet. Or the real

letters may be transposed, one to stand for another, in such a way that

only the sender and receiver may understand. That looks hard to read?

Not at all. It is easier than code. It is said that any cipher message

can be unriddled in time.

A code is a scheme agreed on by which the two parties substitute

certain whole words for the real words of the message. A code message

might seem wholly innocent—let us say, just a simple comment on the

weather. But suppose “bright and fair” meant in code “The Leviathan

sailed this morning,” and suppose the _Leviathan_ were a transport

carrying twelve thousand troops to France! Unless the de-code artist

is indeed an artist, he cannot know what interchange in ideas had

been agreed upon for interchanged words; and there are not twenty-six

letters, but 26,000 words which may be transposed in meaning. The big

German spy work—that is, the chain of messages that passed between the

German Embassy in America and the Imperial Headquarters in Berlin—was

done in enciphered code. They had first been written in German before

coding, and after coding, the code was put in cipher. None the less, we

read them, and von Bernstorff, Dr. Albert, et al., are no more on our

soil.

This is specialized, expert work of the most delicate and difficult

sort, and is not for the average amateur. Sometimes the latter had more

enthusiasm than knowledge in his ambition to be a real sleuth, and in

such cases, perhaps something amusing might happen, where zeal did not

jump with discretion.

BOOK II

THE TALES OF THE CITIES

CHAPTER I

THE STORY OF CHICAGO

The Birthplace of the American Protective League—Center of Enemy

Alien Activities—Focus of German Propaganda and Home of Pro-German

Cults and Creeds—Story of the League’s Work and Workers.

The unvarnished story of the growth and accomplishments of this League

is the greatest proof in the world of the ability for self-government

of intelligent, educated and thinking men. The American Protective

League was made up of sober citizens who had something to protect. It

was no one man, no one set of men, no one city, which makes it great.

The real credit belongs to the unclassified and unsegregated Little

Fellow.

We had in this war the usual amount of self-seeking. Our first pages

abounded in pictures and praises of our great men, born of God to do

wonders in ships, supplies, aeroplanes and armies. Some of them worked

for a dollar a year. Some of them earned that much, many a great deal

less. The scandals of this war are as great as the scandals of any war,

when you come to know the truth about them. But there is no scandal

attached to the plain, average citizen in this war. It was he, the real

democrat and the real American, who won this war for us.

There is no charge of vain-glory, no charge of inefficiency and

self-seeking attached to the story of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

and the Argonne, where died thousands of Little Fellows become great

in making good. Neither is there any scandal attaching to the unknown

men, the unnamed Little Fellows who “made good” back home behind the

lines—the men who usually get lost after any war when the glory is

being passed around by the politicians and paid historians.

There is, in a work such as this, no such thing as dividing or

apportioning personal or local credit or approbation. Names, portraits,

credits, praises—nothing of these is desired or may be begun, for there

could be no end; and besides, one man is as big and as good as another

in A. P. L. The League existed in countless communities all over the

country—so many, it is not possible even to name a fraction of them.

There is not even the possibility of mentioning more than a few of the

greater centers of the work, and that in partial fashion only.

In this plan, perhaps, the city of Chicago naturally may come first,

because, as we have seen, it was there that the League began. Besides,

in this great Western hive of all the races, there are far more Germans

than there are Americans. Have you not heard that astounding utterance

of a sitting Mayor to the effect that Chicago is “the sixth greatest

German city on the earth”? One also has heard an earlier Mayor of

Chicago say that in his political plans he cared nothing at all for the

American vote. “Give me the Austrian and the Italian and the Polish

vote,” he said; “but above all, give me the German vote!” Perhaps he

would not be so outspoken to-day.

Among the unassimilated rabble who make a certain portion of Chicago’s

polyglot politik-futter, there are perhaps more troublemakers than in

any other city of America. It is our own fault that they make so much

trouble, but they do make it and they have. Bolsheviki, socialists,

incendiaries, I. W. W.’s, Lutheran treason-talkers, Russellites,

Bergerites, all the other-ites, religious and social fanatics,

third-sex agitators, long haired visionaries and work-haters from

every race in the world—Chicago had them and has them still, because

she has invited them, accepted them and made them free of the place.

Cheap politicians have done the rest; mayors who care nothing for the

American vote.

This was the situation when we declared war. We then heard less about

the “duty” the foreign-born had reserved when they swore (and then

forgot) their solemn Delbrücked oaths of renunciation of all other

allegiance, and of loyalty to America alone. But underneath this

smug oath of faith to America, all too often the Teuton and his kin,

the Kaiser’s friend and sympathizer, still hid unchanged. To-day, as

thousands of them read these lines, they know that this is the truth.

When we went to war, the militant Chicago Germans did not change—they

simply submerged, German fashion; that was all. Then Chicago dropped

her paravanes—spread down her WEB—to guard against under-surface

attacks.

Once firmly established, the Chicago Division grew by leaps and bounds.

On March 22, 1917, the first definite steps were taken toward the

formation of a compact organization. Captains were appointed by Mr.

Briggs, and these in turn organized their own working squads. Mr.

Clabaugh was now beginning to get some of the assistance he so sorely

needed.

Then, on April 6, came war. Followed the days of swift expansion and

organization which have been covered in the preceding pages. Every day

saw new men enrolled, big men, men eager to contribute time, money,

experience, brains, energy and faithfulness. This is the story of the

whole League, and this is Chicago’s story, too.

On April 10, Mr. Charles Daniel Frey was appointed a captain in the

Chicago Division, and shortly afterward, Mr. Victor Elting came into

the organization as an appointee of Mr. Frey. Two months had now

passed since the first Chicago operative had gone forth on an official

mission. Chicago Division was demonstrably a success. Yet something

more was needed. Work was piling up faster than personnel. It was

now patent that Chicago must have a larger, stronger organization—an

organization under direct executive control which would do its work

with efficiency and business-like despatch. System was needed; speed

was needed—and men. On May 22, as a first step in the reorganization,

Mr. Briggs appointed Mr. Frey as Chief of the Chicago Division and Mr.

Elting as Assistant Chief.

Mr. Frey and Mr. Elting thereupon developed a comprehensive plan of

organization for the Chicago Division—a plan which was adopted in its

main outlines by almost all of the large cities. Chicago was divided

into zones, and an Inspector was appointed to direct and supervise the

work in each zone. Bureaus were established covering the whole range

of League operations. Bankers, railroad men, merchants, professional

men—leading men from every sphere of activity were placed in charge of

bureau work for which they were especially fitted.

The League was now a going concern in Chicago. That it should become

national in every sense of the word was inevitable. In October,

1917, Mr. Frey and Mr. Elting joined Mr. Briggs in Washington and,

in conference with the Attorney General of the United States, it was

decided to establish National Headquarters in the Capital. The three

men who were responsible for this great step became the national

directors of the League. Pending the appointment of a Chief and

Assistant Chief for the Chicago Division, Mr. R. A. Gunn, who had made

a most efficient record as an Inspector, was appointed Acting Chief.

On January 26, 1918, Mr. John F. Gilchrist was appointed Chief of the

Chicago Division, a position which he continued to hold until September

21, 1918, six weeks before the Armistice. Under his wise leadership,

the organization gained in strength and numbers and influence, and

handled, in wholly admirable fashion, the many difficult problems which

arose during nine of the most trying months of the war. The Chicago

unit, at the close of 1917, numbered 4,500 active members and about

2,000 industrial members. At the time of the Armistice, these numbers

had been increased to 6,142 active members and over 7,000 members in

the industrial division.

Upon the resignation of Mr. Gilchrist, a committee plan of executive

control was adopted, and Mr. R. A. Gunn was appointed Chief. Mr. Gunn’s

report to D. J., covering the work of the Chicago Division almost to

the period of the Armistice, will give at least a partial notion of

what was accomplished, and should, therefore, be summarized:

The greater part of the work of the organization is, of course,

the work assigned from the Bureau of Investigation, with such

complaints as are received from our own members, both active and

industrial, and a number that come through the mail. We receive

an average of 175 D. J. cases daily. Our reports when turned in

are vised by the Chief of our Bureau of Investigation, and those

deemed ready for prosecution are turned over to the Special

Agent assigned, and by him are taken to the District Attorney

for active prosecution. I believe that our co-operation with the

Bureau has been active and I think, helpful, at all times. We have

furnished A. P. L. men used for special work, such as under-cover

investigations in the County Jail and in the Internment Camps.

Through our organization, which covers practically every banking

institution, mercantile, industrial and manufacturing plant,

every profession and trade, in the entire Chicago district, we

have furnished special and specific information from among our

own members, which the Bureau of Investigation has generously

intimated could hardly have been secured from any other source.

At its own expense, A. P. L. furnished three competent

stenographers for a period of three months to systematize, card

and index the 18,000 male German alien enemies, registered by the

United States Marshal. During the “drives” of the Red Cross, many

rumors and derogatory statements concerning the work of the Red

Cross were spread broadcast through the country. A. P. L. ran down

hundreds of complaints, secured many convictions, and handled the

entire investigation of the Red Cross until quite recently, when

they added a Bureau of Investigation of their own. The propaganda

has practically ceased.

Work in co-operation with the Local Fuel Administrator was always

active. Beginning with the fuelless Mondays, A. P. L. placed at

his disposal some 3,500 men for checking up violations. On the

lightless Monday and Tuesday night, A. P. L. had out the entire

active organization checking violations of this sort. Again, on

the order of the Administrator that no gasoline should be used on

Sundays for pleasure, the entire organization was called on for

service. During the wheatless and meatless days, also, the entire

organization was called on to check and report violations among

the restaurants, hotels and other places.

Chicago received daily from M. I. D. at Washington an average

of twenty-five cases for character and loyalty investigations

of civilians and officers going into foreign service. This work

alone required the services of a Bureau Chief and five clerical

assistants at headquarters.

Following the bomb explosion at the Federal building (where, by

the way, A. P. L. mobilized within half an hour 1,700 men for duty

if called upon), the officials of the United States War Exposition

called on the organization for help. For eight days, an average

of two hundred and fifty A. P. L. men mingled with the crowd both

afternoon and evening with a view of preventing panics and of

detecting and forestalling any outrage.

Next in volume to the work from D. J. was that which came in

under the Selective Service Act in connection with the draft

problem. In addition to the locating of registrants, the division,

on request, conducted investigations on a number of Local Boards,

and also investigated thousands of cases involving deferred

classifications, where the result of the investigation placed

the registrant in Class 1-A and made him available for immediate

service.

At the specific request of the commanding officer of the local

branch of the Ordnance Department, Chicago division conducted

a total of 536 investigations of officers and employees of the

Ordnance Department in Chicago. Similar work was done for the

Bureau of Investigation.

Chief Gunn concludes his simple and convincing narrative with a few

division figures:

In conclusion I would say that at the headquarters of our units

we employed sixty-six stenographers and clerks who were directed

by thirty-one able men who gave their entire time, days, nights,

and often Sundays, without one penny from our Treasury, to the

direction of this work. In addition to this, we maintained

eighteen captain’s offices, the average monthly expenditure of

each being in the neighborhood of $300. Exclusive of this, our

average monthly expenses were about $7,000, which money was raised

both from our own membership and from subscriptions of individuals

and commercial houses.

We have been insistent at all times that our men should set a

patriotic example to all others in accepting active service

when liable or able. This is evidenced by the fact that five

hundred and fifty of our members are now in the service. I have

no hesitancy in saying that for loyalty, ability, judgment,

and willingness to serve their country, I do not know, nor do

I believe there can exist, a more splendid body of men than is

contained in the membership of our Division of the American

Protective League.

Follows the statistical record of the work accomplished by the Chicago

division of the American Protective League up to January 21, 1919:

Neutrality cases investigated. 43,026

War Department-all branches.

Character and loyalty investigations 3,739

American Red Cross.

Character and loyalty investigations 115

Illinois Volunteer Training Corps.

Character and loyalty investigations. 141

War Risk Insurance cases 230

U. S. Bureau of Naturalization cases 3,905

Draft investigations 30,440

Food Administration cases.

Food investigations 12,637

Sugar investigations[3] 179

Fuel Administration cases.

Coal investigations 3,263

Lightless Night investigations 1,500

------

Total investigations[4] 99,175

Number of men temporarily detained for examination

of Registration and Classification Cards during the

Slacker Drive of July, 1918 200,000

Delinquents apprehended and forced to appear at

local Draft Boards 44,167

Deserters apprehended and sent to Military Camps 1,900

Record compiled for the U. S. Marshal for Alien Enemies;

number of entries 18,000

Escaped criminals apprehended and turned over to

Police Department 38

Blue Slip Summons issued 726

Automobile license numbers registered on first Gasless

Sunday 129,204

Photographs, maps, postal cards of views of Germany

sent to War Department 9,525

But it is from the notebooks of the operatives, recording varied

activities all in the day’s work, that we get the real reflex of the

A. P. L. We cannot forego giving a few extracts from the stories of

Chicago captains.

Let us take at random the summary from S——, captain of District No.

11, where there were fifty-six members—forty active operatives, under

a captain, two lieutenants and a legal advisor. This district covers

a large portion of the most German section of Chicago, part of which

is loyal and part very much otherwise. In six months, during the

last year of the war, there were 512 cases assigned to the district

by headquarters, and the district turned in to headquarters 298

complaints. Character and loyalty investigations to the number of

fifty-three were made, necessitating from five to fifteen interviews

each. In the slacker drive, July 11-13, a total of 1,744 individual

cases were interviewed and disposed of in this district. Between 9:00

p. m. and 4:00 a. m. one night, eighty-one I. W. W. investigations were

handled.

The total number of cases on record in this district for the six

months is 3,842, which, if averaged, gives sixty-eight cases to each

operative, but as only forty were active, the average should be

figured as nearly eighty cases per capita. There is not figured in the

foregoing about one thousand interviews which were necessary in making

up reports to different departments of the Government on factories,

saloons, garages and other buildings and structures, which might come

under the head of miscellaneous services.

The activities of the operatives of District No. 11 were not confined

to the boundaries of their own district. An illustration will show what

is meant. A deserter was being protected by all branches of his family.

Operatives spent nights interviewing every ascertainable relative

and friend. Nothing could be learned except that the various members

of the family, male and female, were so mixed in their sex relations

that apparently no two of the opposite sex were living together in a

legally permissible way. A chance lead pointed to a couple living in

the country ten miles beyond the city limits. An hour’s interview with

the man and his consort, the two being examined separately, resulted in

the chance mention of Norfolk, Virginia. Being pressed on this remark,

the man hesitatingly declared he had had letters from Norfolk from the

suspect who was working there and that he, the witness, would himself

write to Norfolk at once and get definite information. The operatives

agreed cheerfully to the proposition. On their return to the city, a

telegram was immediately dispatched to Norfolk. By the time the letter

from the “loyal” relative reached Norfolk, word was received that the

deserter was located and taken into custody. The action of this little

drama was staged entirely outside of District No. 11.

During the “heatless days” two operatives from the same district

entered a saloon. They found it warm, the heat coming from a large

radiator in the middle of the room covered by a table. The proprietor

claimed he was unable to shut off this heat without shutting off the

heat from rooms above where he had lodgers. The operatives went to the

cellar and found no attempt had been made to shut off the heat from

the saloon. Returning to the saloon, they investigated a back room,

which was also heated, and where they found four men playing cards.

The proprietor claimed these men were his lodgers and that this was

their sitting-room. A search was made and evidence found which proved

these men to be conducting a regular clearing-house of information for

the enemy’s use. Leads were discovered that spread in many directions

and made the case one of the most important handled by the District. A

camouflaged saloon radiator was the starting point.

Each operative discovered that the badge he wore bred a feeling

of respect or fear for the authority of Uncle Sam which was quite

marked. Seldom was an attempt made to dispute its meaning or to take

exception to the request or direction made under its authority. The

most desperate characters showed a meekness and a docility that was

surprising. The only explanation reasonable is that the United States

has from the start of the war shown the world and its own people that

it meant business, and that in playing with the authorized agencies

of the Government, criminals were not playing with politicians or

officials who might be influenced, but with the newly and sternly

roused sense of American loyalty which would brook no traitor or

near-traitor under the Star and Stripes.

District No. 13 had an interesting case handled by Lieutenant McR——

and Operative L——. They searched the room occupied by the suspect and

found two handbags and several suit-cases filled with clothing and some

chemicals. They interviewed the subject. His registration card gave his

serial and order number, and draft board status which was Class No. 5

Austrian. The operatives went back to report this to the Inspector, and

upon returning found that the subject, his wife and sister had fled. By

calling upon the different taxicab companies in the neighborhood, it

was found that they had used a yellow taxicab to move their effects to

an apartment several miles distant. A raid was immediately organized.

Four men and two detective sergeants went to the new address, and the

apartment was surrounded. One of the men saw a figure which appeared

to be a woman, attempting to cross the area between the two buildings

from one third story window to another, and he called to her to stop.

One of the men inside the building, hearing the call, put his head out

and found the subject on the window sill of the adjoining building in

a very embarrassing position. It was not a woman, but the suspect, in

woman’s clothes! He was hauled in and put under arrest. In the meantime

an analysis of the chemicals had been made and they were found to

consist of materials for the manufacture of enough explosives to blow

out another end of the postoffice building. Information was received

from the League at New York to the effect that he was a very dangerous

enemy alien.

This same District landed another good case. One morning a traveling

man heard a little girl say to a small boy playmate, “We have a fine

piano in our flat,” and the boy finally answered, “That’s nothing,

we’ve got a German spy in ours.” The traveling man turned a complaint

in to the Department of Justice and in due course it came back to our

district to be investigated. The operative had little to start with.

Finally he asked a little girl if she had ever heard any boy make such

a remark. By merest chance, she happened to be one of the children who

had overheard the boy, and at once pointed out where he lived. The

operative then went to the apartment and questioned the boy’s mother,

telling her that he was getting a list of boarding-houses in that

district for directory purposes and, of course, asking her the names

and occupations of all lodgers. He noticed that one of the names was

German and after he had finished his list he asked her if he might

see the accommodations. When he reached the German’s room, he saw a

trunk of foreign make. He opened it and found lying inside on top of

the clothing a cartridge belt filled with loaded cartridges. This he

noticed had seen much use and was worn smooth. He also found papers,

drawings, a Lueger pistol and several other things which an alien enemy

is not supposed to enjoy during war times. The landlady stated that the

man was a draftsman in the Federal Building. It was subsequently found

that the drawings were plans of the Municipal Pier and the Federal

Building. About five o’clock the next morning, several Federal officers

took the man down to the Bureau of Investigation and found that he

was an enemy alien in the employ of the German Government. Within

twenty-four hours he was on his way to Leavenworth under an order of

internment.

Women are not enlisted in espionage work for M. I. D. and were not

employed as operatives in the Chicago A. P. L.—with one exception. Many

a suspect has found “Mrs. B” fatally easy to look at and listen to—even

easy to talk too much to!

Here is a “Mrs. B” case. The subject, Miss W——, during the year 1912,

met a Mr. and Mrs. M——, Americans, who were in Paris with their two

children, a boy ten and a girl twelve. Miss W—— told them a story of

having quarreled with her family, who were quite wealthy, and said she

was seeking a position that would bring her to America. She produced

unquestionable references, and returned with the M—— family to the

United States. After remaining in their employ for six months, she took

a course in nursing in B—— Hospital in Indianapolis. She graduated

from this hospital, came to Chicago with letters of introduction from

the faculty, and became engaged here as governess in the home of a

wealthy family on Lake Shore Drive. In April, 1917, she applied to the

Chicago Telephone Company for a position, asking to be sent to France

in their next unit. She told a confusing story in reference to her age,

brought about a suspicion, which was followed by an investigation.

“Mrs. B.” was given the assignment. Miss W—— gave up her position

as governess, took a room on the north side of Chicago near Wilson

Avenue. She was closely shadowed night and day, and was found to be in

continual communication with doctors and nurses. During the time she

was waiting to hear from the Chicago Telephone Company in reference to

the application she had filed, she also filed an application with the

American Red Cross. Here she gave practically the same references, and

told the same story. Investigators from the American Red Cross were

advised by the Department of Justice that they drop their investigation

for the time being. “Mrs. B” proved that this woman was the medium

through which tetanus germs were being delivered to certain doctors and

nurses, who in turn were to spread them through our cantonments and

hospitals.

District No. 8 lies in the extreme southern part of Chicago. “The

Gold Coast” of this territory, lying along “The Ridge,” is a strictly

residential district, but a veritable melting-pot of foreigners has

sprung up in the neighborhood of the mammoth factories and mills in

the suburban towns of Kensington, West Pullman, Roseland, Riverdale

and South Chicago proper, east of the Southern Division Gold Coast. In

this modern Babel there are fifty or sixty different nationalities.

Even a short season with such a racial hodge-podge as exists in and

around Kensington is almost equivalent to a trip around the world.

Practically the only work in this community (Districts 41 and 47)

consisted of draft evasions and pro-Germans. The last named were kindly

but positively reminded that our country was at war. The operatives

in this Gold Coast district were practically all business men, being

recruited from banks, business houses, schools and the ministry. It was

no uncommon thing to have two ministers, one of them a leading “dry

exponent,” go out with a squad of men through saloons and pool-rooms,

picking up suspects and evaders. During the four-day raid in July, one

of the captains working out of Draft Board No. 22 remarked: “I just

sent out the vice-president of our bank. I commanded him to look up one

of these draft cases and he went right to it without question. That man

holds the mortgage on my home, and I am bossing him around as though he

were my office boy!”

Another captain tells something more of this foreign part of the city,

Districts 39, 40, 42, 46 of the South Division. This comprises the

large territory on the lake, at the extreme southern end of the city,

and has in it a large harbor and river which is lined with elevators,

shipyards, and important steel industries of all kinds. The population

is mostly of foreign origin, anything from a descendant of the Pilgrim

Fathers to a Tartar from Siberia. Poles, Austrians, Serbs, Swedes,

Germans and Italians predominate, and many of the A. P. L. operatives

were recruited from this source, thereby giving access to all tongues.

This division captain says:

The magnitude of the shipping and the enormous steel industries,

together with a population of from ten to twenty thousand aliens,

has rightly given this district the reputation of being one of

the most difficult in Chicago. Thousands of these people speak

no English, and are living here under foreign customs. Two local

draft boards are in this district, 19 and 20, and naturally

many cases of draft evasion were found. After the first general

registration, we were called upon to investigate about 1,200 cases

under this head, a large percentage of them being cases of men who

were really willing to comply with the regulations, but who had

been badly advised by their more erudite countrymen. As we always

have a large “floating population,” we naturally experienced much

trouble in tracing this class.

That small things often lead to large affairs, we discovered many

times. One night a Pole came home, went over to the side of the

room, took a large crucifix from the wall, broke it across his

knee, and told his wife who stared at him big-eyed with horror,

that that —— thing was no good any more and that he had no place

for it. The woman, who like most of her nationality, was intensely

religious, was quick to see that her man was not drunk, and was

shrewd enough to determine to find the cause of his action. On

quizzing him, she found he had joined a new Polish Church which

taught many new things, so she asked if she could not go to that

church. He took her there, and she learned of the notorious Pastor

Russell and his teachings, heard the doctrines of non-resistance

preached, and learned of a service to be held to persuade young

men never to fight or shed blood under any circumstances. She

reported what she learned, and made such a positive and specific

affidavit, that we resolved to see how much truth it contained.

So, when we discovered that services were being held in their

church, and that the congregation contained a great many young men

of draft age, evidently Poles, we took a chance and called the

wagon.

We arrested the entire congregation during the services,

confiscated copies of “The Finished Mystery,” a proscribed book,

and practically moved the contents of the church to the police

station. Here we found much seditious literature, and obtained

statements from many of the congregation, which were sufficient

to cause quite a stir. At present, seven of the leaders of this

church from Brooklyn are sojourning at Fort Leavenworth. We feel,

here in southern Chicago, that the breaking of that crucifix led

to a nation-wide investigation of a dangerous propaganda.

This same captain, in closing his report, makes the following

observation:

Some of the striking phases of this work are the real friendships

engendered by our associations with each other. Here the measure

of a man is his loyalty and sincerity, his judgment, his grit,

and his personal sacrifice. When you can find as many real and

true Americans as this organization contains, you need never have

worries as to whether this country is going to be safe.

Central District of Chicago is that important region covering the

great business district, out of which some four hundred men, under

four captains, regularly worked all over the city. This is not one

of the residence districts, so that the squad of operatives who

reported to this branch were far scattered throughout the city for

most of the twenty-four hours. The personnel of this district embraced

lawyers, doctors, bankers, printers, dry goods merchants, insurance

men, mechanics, railway trainmen, traveling salesmen, actors, and

all kinds of employed persons. A great many members belonged to the

prominent clubs of Chicago. There were interpreters who understood all

of the continental languages. There were both rich men and poor men

included in this membership. There were boys in the twenties and men

of sixty-five. It had come to be the practice of all the interlocking

branches of our Governmental defensive organizations to call up Central

District for men needed on some particular work. It had been the

headquarters squad, and had sent men all over Northern Illinois, and

sometimes out of the State.

There was a school of instruction for new operatives in this

district in which new men are taught the elements of the League work,

the elements of espionage laws, and other war measures. They were

instructed, also, in the fundamentals of shadow work; the details

of the selective service regulations; the principles of law and

evidence, and other subjects proper to the activities of the League.

There were seven words taught to every operative, applying equally

well to complaints and to reports—guide words in investigations. If

these seven words were borne in mind at the time of making complaint

or investigations, or in writing up the report, an operative would be

fairly well assured of embodying the information desired. These words

are: “Who,” “Which,” “What,” “Why,” “When,” “How,” and “Witnesses.”

Every care was exercised by the operative not to approach the subject

himself or to allow him to know he was being investigated. There were

countless Chicago Germans and pro-Germans investigated, ticketed,

tabulated, and filed away, who to this day do not know that they ever

told anybody anything about themselves. Many of these Prussianized

Chicagoans to-day wear heavy frowns and look aggrieved.

In order to save his time, each operative was taught how to use the

regular city channels of information. If he got a name without any

address, he was taught to go to the nearest telephone directory or city

directory. Sometimes a telephone number was known and the name of the

party unknown. Reference to the numerical telephone directory sometimes

covered this. Sometimes the business of the subject might be known and

his address unknown, in which case it might be found by reference to

the classified business telephone directory, or the city directory. A

subject might be doing business in the city and living in the suburbs.

Countless suburban telephone directories were always in the central

office for such reference.

In every great city a directory gives a concise arrangement of the

personnel of the various departments of the U. S. Government; state and

federal officials, their titles, their room numbers, their buildings,

can be found in this way. In this way, also, all the officers of the

city government can be found; the rooms where the court of this or that

judge are located, etc. The state offices, including hospitals, etc.,

can be found in these directories.

A wide range of useful information concerning the city and its environs

was given to novitiate operatives in this Central District. This

information was of incalculable benefit to new members of the League

when once their active investigating work began. The A. P. L. training

school was a very important cog in the Chicago machine, and made it

possible for the district to do more work per capita and better work

than would otherwise have been possible. Indeed, the training for

an operative was not bad training for a newspaper reporter. What is

said regarding this work in the Chicago district might apply in very

considerable part also to the work in other large communities.

Operatives were obliged to take all sorts of roles. At times they acted

as waiters or clerks, and sometimes they impersonated lawbreakers

themselves. One of them succeeded in impersonating an I. W. W. so well

that at a meeting he was covering he was asked to contribute to the

I. W. W. cause—and did so! Another ingratiated himself into the good

offices of the I. W. W.’s so well that he was permitted to take notes

at one of their meetings with the understanding that he was a newspaper

man representing one of their own papers.

The Southwest Division in Chicago is only another corner of darkest

Europe. In this section, however, were located a good many foreign-born

operatives, who affiliated well in that region and did their work

thoroughly until the closing days of the war. Their grist included some

curious and interesting cases.

There was, for instance, a certain person called Panco, the Fry Cook,

long wanted by the Department of Justice for anarchistic and seditious

utterances. The Department had been hunting Panco for months but could

not find him. Four Southwest A. P. L. operatives went after Panco. Two

of them became members in a waiters’ union in which Panco was known to

belong. They could not find their man, who did not seem to report often

at the headquarters of that union; so they gave out reports everywhere

that Panco was a dead beat and would not pay his union dues! This came

to Panco’s ears. He showed up at headquarters to deny this impeachment.

He got thirty years.

A Lithuanian lecturer was described as about to deliver a seditious

harangue in the village of Cicero, near Chicago. The Southwest Division

sent out several motor cars with picked men ready for trouble. They

found a hall crowded with foreigners who were listening to a much

bewhiskered man, clad in shabby tweeds, who was demonstrating at a

blackboard on a platform, and was speaking in some unknown tongue. At

last one of the operatives who had been taken along as an interpreter

began to laugh and said, “Let’s go home, fellows; we’ve got the old

bird wrong. He ain’t talking anarchy; he’s giving a lecture on sex

control!”

An unusual amount of shrewdness should be credited to some of these

operatives. It was a mere guess, for instance, on the part of such

a man that the figure “8”—the final figure on a foreign birth

certificate—had been changed to a “5”. If this were true, it meant

that the suspect would come within the draft age, although otherwise

his story was perfectly straight. Suspicion is not evidence, so the

Department of Justice was about to release this man. The latter had

remarked to someone that his father lived in Indiana. The operative

went to the phone and pretended to call up the father in this town

personally, with the intention of inducing the suspect to eavesdrop on

the phone conversation in the next room. After a while the operative

turned to the suspect, his hand over the receiver, and said: “Well,

we’ve got the information we wanted. What have you got to say?”

Completely fooled, the suspect confessed! He was inducted into the army.

A certain colored draft dodger was discovered to belong to a staff of

colored waiters in a certain hotel. The head waiter, very pompous and

very shiny, refused to allow a search. The A. P. L. declared that if

the suspect was not forthcoming he would arrest every waiter in the

place and carry them off in the wagon. This brought out the suspect.

He’s in the Army now.

A certain Mrs. L—— called the Red Cross a bunch of grafters and

crooks, said Ambassador Gerard was a traitor and a liar, said the

President was the greatest traitor since Jefferson Davis and made other

interesting remarks. She repeated these statements before a U. S.

Marshal and was held in $5,000 bond. Then she became more abusive and

was held in $5,000 additional. She kept on until her bond amounted to

$25,000, and was then asked if she did not think it was time to stop

talking. She did. As she could not raise the bail, she was sent to Cook

County jail, where she remained till the Armistice was signed.

Chicago at times handled other live stock than that commonly seen in

the stockyards. On August 5, 1918, the sixth enemy alien special to

Fort Oglethorpe carried fifteen persons for internment. The train was

to pick up eight more at Indianapolis. On the following day, it seems,

the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had seven members who groaned while

they were playing the Star Spangled Banner. They explained their frame

of mind before a judge, who taught them very much better manners. On

August 7, Lieutenant Friederick Walter S—— of the German army, who

for a month had worn a United States uniform at Camp Grant, had his

naturalization papers revoked, and got interned for the period of the

war. On September 1, among ten aliens shipped to Fort Oglethorpe, one

was a munition manufacturer who had been just at the point of receiving

a very fat United States order. He had been filling contracts for

Germany before we went to war.

On November 17, 1918, the radicals and socialists of Chicago held a

great meeting in the Coliseum. There were about 12,000 present. It is

not necessary to go into details regarding their action beyond saying

that they gave over the Chicago Socialist party, body and breeches, to

Bolshevism. Here in Chicago, one of our centers of the civilization

of America, these men declared themselves in sympathy with Russian

anarchy. In America, the land of hope, they declared themselves in

sympathy with hopelessness, despair and destruction. Some of the

speeches were made in the German language—a tongue which we ought to

forbid to be used in public, on our streets, in our printed pages, and

over our telephone wires to-day. These speakers, in the Hun tongue,

openly deplored contributions to our War funds. They hailed with

much applause such speakers as Victor Berger, who publicly gloried

in the four indictments pending over him. In short, the meeting came

dangerously close to being disloyal. We shall be so mild as this in

comment, since being a member of the Socialist party is not _per se_ a

disloyal act, and not all Socialists are of the radical wing.

Much pleased with the sound of their own voices, these gentlemen now

concluded to hold a public street parade, with red banners and the

usual Bolshevist appurtenances. They went to Acting Chief of Police

Alcock, and asked for a permit to parade in the streets. They said they

wanted to carry the red flag, and they asked police protection. Note

the reply the Chief of Police made to them:

My friends, I won’t give you police protection at all, nor try to

do so. Do you know what you are up against? There are 12,000 A. P.

L. men in this village who are opposed to this sort of thing, and

my men don’t want to get in wrong with any 12,000 A. P. L. men. We

work with those people and not against them. They work with us and

not against us. Believe me, the best thing you folks can do is to

cut out the parade.

The representatives of the proposed parade could not get back to their

headquarters fast enough. They cut out the parade.

As late as November 21, Chicago was still running enemy alien specials

for Fort Oglethorpe. This consignment included a cook, also a Highland

Park riding master who had been over-curious in regard to matters

adjacent to Fort Sheridan. Twenty others were to be picked up later

down the line—all after the Armistice had been signed.

On November 23, Fred I——, said to resemble the Crown Prince very much

in his personal appearance, was fined five thousand dollars, whether

for seditious utterances or for his resemblance to the Crown Prince

does not appear, and is immaterial. Either would be enough.

On November 26, nine men were given free transportation from Chicago to

Fort Leavenworth. One of these was a Dunkard preacher who got ten years

for saying, “I’d kill a man rather than buy a Liberty bond.” He will

have time to think that proposition over.

These straws will show well which way the wind blew in Chicago for the

last year or so. Much to the disappointment of the Kaiser and one or

two mayors, Chicago seems to be but very imperfectly Germanized after

all. As for setting down the full tale of the A. P. L. activities in

this city, it would be a thing impossible of accomplishment. The world

knows how Chicago does the things she considers proper to have done.

The American Protective League in Chicago worked in the well-known and

well-accredited Chicago way. To thank the men who did this work, or

even to mention their names, would cheapen them and their work. They

did not ask thanks. They were Americans and were citizens.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] A direct result of the sugar investigations was the saving of

millions of pounds of sugar, and the donation to the American Red Cross

of thousands of dollars by violators.

[4] In addition to the above, hundreds of jewelry store investigations

were made for the purpose of obtaining information regarding alleged

price discrimination against soldiers and sailors; also, hundreds of

investigations of tailors, clothing stores and department stores in the

interest of Army uniform regulations.