Given authority to go ahead March 22, 1917, the League was organized on military lines. The plan was that each city and its tributary country should be broken up into divisions, in charge of inspectors. Divisions were cut up into districts, with captains in command. And each captain recruited as many working squads, under lieutenants, as the size and character of his district demanded. Reinforcing this territorial organization was another which treated every important industry, trade, and profession, and even large business establishments and office buildings as individual organization units. The territorial organization was known as the Bureau of Investigation; the classified trade, professional, and industrial force as the Bureau of Information. As a matter of fact, they were just the right and left arms of the League. Each had its specialized work to do, but the big jobs in each case were the same. From the start, the two main functions of the League stood out boldly. The first was “to make prompt and reliable report of all disloyal or enemy activities and of all infractions or evasions of the war code of the United States.” The second followed naturally: “to make prompt and thorough investigation of all matters of similar nature referred to it by the Department of Justice.” Close coöperation with the local agent of the Department was essential in both instances. Because the plan had been carefully worked out, the League made a flying start in a great Western city. Inspectors, captains, lieutenants were commissioned and assigned to their units. “Operatives,” picked with equal caution, were sworn in and given their credentials. By May first, there were a thousand men engaged in the absorbing new game. Thousands of investigations taxed the young ardour and endurance of the League--suspected spy activities, seditious speeches, lying reports about the Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., and Knights of Columbus, pro-German propaganda, suspected treasonable conspiracies, sabotage cases and, later, organized and individual efforts to evade the draft. But every member was under pledge to run down to the end any case assigned to him, whether it took a day or a week, and results came speedily. Though lacking in experience, most of the members had unusual equipment as investigators. Nearly all had imagination and logical, work-trained minds. Many of them were men of means and could devote all of their time to urgent cases. Instead of waiting for an O. K. on a requisition for a motor car, they had machines of their own to use. Without considering how an item would strike a government auditor, they could and did spend their own money to get the facts they sought. Without having to finesse approaches to necessary sources of information, they could usually draw on a wide circle of friends for inside facts which a professional detective might require days to secure.