After S—— went to Washington last fall, and after he had received his commission in the United States Army, he wrote a letter severely criticising the United States War Department for inefficiency. His strictures were of such a nature that B—— said to R—— that he was very sorry that he had read it. S—— and B—— burned the letter. This letter criticised the methods of the War Department, stated that things were badly handled, and that our preparations for war were inadequate and inefficiently managed. This letter was written after S—— had received his commission as First Lieutenant in the United States Army and was stationed in Washington. A German friend admitted that S—— was violently pro-German before our country entered the war. He said that Germany had a right to sink our ships after giving us warning of the restricted zone in which German submarines were operating. He justified the sinking of the Lusitania, and expressed no sympathy for the people who lost their lives, stating that they got what they deserved as they had no business on the ship. He justified the invasion of Belgium as a war necessity, and condoned Germany’s violation of her pledge to preserve the integrity of Belgium because it was a war measure. S—— regarded the Germans as a superior people, and admired the Kaiser greatly. He was much opposed to the entry of the United States into the war, said that he was so sorry that we had gotten into it, and that it was not our affair but England’s. It has been thought advisable to take these widely separated cases and to give them in detail rather than to present summaries of a large number of cases which may or may not have resulted in sentences or internments. An examination of these instances will show the fairness and shrewdness with which the League’s Chiefs and Operatives worked, as well as their unflagging interest in the work offered them. It also will be apparent that a single investigation might involve a great deal of patient, hard work. CHAPTER X THE GREAT I. W. W. TRIAL Story of the Greatest Criminal Prosecution Known in the Jurisprudence of America—The Lawless Acts Leading up to the Arrests—Methods of Violence Used by Members of the I. W. W.—Sabotage and Terror—Chief Figures of the Trial—Incidents from the Inside. The greatest trial with which the American Protective League was identified was the genuine _cause celébrè_ known all over the world as the I. W. W. trial. It began in the Federal Court for Chicago, presided over by Judge Kenesaw M. Landis (the same of fame in the Standard Oil case), on April 1, 1918, and ended with ninety-seven convictions and sentences in one lot. The case was concluded at two in the afternoon of August 30, 1918.