The League was born in March, last year, two weeks before we declared war. The idea originated with Mr. A. M. Briggs of Chicago. Mr. Briggs is now Chairman of the National Board of Directors of the American Protective League. He secured authority to establish it as a volunteer auxiliary of the Department of Justice on March 22, 1917. Within a month he had the League in operation with several thousand members. With him, Captain Charles Daniel Frey and Mr. Victor Elting were responsible for its development and the organization of the work. Mr. Frey is organizer and First Chief of the Chicago District, the original working unit of the American Protective League. The plan, the policies, and the methods developed in the Chicago District, which includes 280 cities and towns, were approved by the Department of Justice, and have been generally followed throughout the country as the model and standard for subsequent organizations. Mr. Elting, as Assistant Chief at Chicago, has from the inception of the League been active in the development of its policy. These three, now national directors with headquarters at Washington, are modest about taking any credit for the amazing extension of the League and its extraordinary present usefulness. They insist that the first great response was due to the general recognition of a national crisis, the impulse to do something to meet it, and the patriotic and unselfish coöperation of every local chief and individual operative in the country. At all events, it was knowledge of how widespread and unscrupulous was the German spy system, and how seriously it was affecting the temper and loyalty of aliens and naturalized citizens, that launched the League. Proposal was made to the Department of Justice that a volunteer auxiliary of simon-pure Americans be formed to keep watch for the Government in every neighbourhood and to make most of the Department’s investigations for it. The service would be without pay. No inquiries would be undertaken without reference of the case to the Department first. And no expense accounts would be presented for money spent. Doubts may have existed regarding the feasibility of the plan. Such men as were needed would be hard to interest in the drudgery of police investigation. But Mr. Briggs was confident that there were thousands of business and professional men past service age and necessary to their families and communities who still were fired with patriotism and filled with wrath at the progress of German propaganda and plotting in this country. They were successful men of affairs--men of proved judgment, intelligence, initiative, and energy. The Department could not buy their full time at any price, but it could command their spare time, plus as many work-hours, on occasions, as were necessary to complete any task. There were also men of service age, eager to fight but held at home by obligations or other causes, who would not stint either time or energy in the League’s service.