As a side line, he seems to have been checking up American efforts to develop sources of potash, Germany’s one great monopoly in minerals. He even engaged himself as stock salesman for an Eastern company organized to extract potash from the Pacific kelp fields and made at least one trip to the coast to study that new industry. Always his scale of living was far in excess of his earnings from such sources of income as could be traced. After a long and patient inquiry--covering nearly eight months from the time the man’s pro-German utterances were first reported--he was finally interned for the duration of the war. Enemy aliens have not been alone in keeping League members up at night. Far more numerous have been the investigations bearing upon the character and loyalty of American citizens, particularly candidates for commissions in the Army and Navy and applicants for civilian service in positions of trust. Still a third class of inquiries which have lacked the thrill of espionage cases have been the thousands of investigations made of claims for exemption or deferred classification under the selective service law. Anything like a divided allegiance, of course, would destroy the usefulness of an army or naval officer--if, indeed, it did not make him a positive menace to his country. Every character and loyalty inquiry, therefore, has this background of danger, especially when the subject is of German or of Austrian ancestry. And sometimes the League operative must have a keen scent for significant minor details to detect the danger signal. For instance, one of the candidates for a recent special officers’ training camp was a young Cincinnati man with a German name. He was a citizen, of draft age, of such intelligence, experience, and physique that his acceptance was a foregone conclusion if his loyalty were assured. Investigation showed him to have been pro-German in his sympathies before our declaration of war, and practically silent on war subjects since. His attitude was correct; and his application for training was a positive count in his favour. But the League investigator, digging around for information, learned that his man had been a contributor to a fund raised by a Gaelic newspaper for the defence of Sir Roger Casement, when that famous Irish rebel was on trial in London.