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

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.

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.

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.