The Web : $b The Authorized History of the American Protective LeagueHough, Emerson
History
The Web : $b The Authorized History of the American Protective League
Hough, Emerson
American Protective League; Propaganda, German; World War, 1914-1918 -- Secret service -- United States
This, coupled with the evidence of strikes, and the prospect of
paralysis in many essential government activities, was going too far.
It was known that the I. W. W. intended to get at the marine workers,
then all allied industries. That would have meant the end of the war,
or of our activity in the war.
Now, therefore, these arrogant and lawless men, never else than
malcontents, became traitors. In order to work out to the quotient
of ruin these vague theories about the “rights of man,” they cast
aside what shred of patriotism they ever may have had to cover their
nakedness of manhood, and declared themselves ready to cripple and
leave helpless before her merciless foe this republic of America, whose
whole theory from the foundation has been that of the rights of man,
who fought in all her wars for the rights of man and has asked only in
this peace the recognition of the rights of man. Ah, they were so wise,
these ruffians!
But now they ran against our espionage law and its new teeth. Secretly
watched for months by the many agents of the Government and its
auxiliaries, the I. W. W. was at last found with sufficient goods on it
to warrant the movement of the law’s forces. The charges were made that
I. W. W. members had violated the espionage act; that they had fostered
strikes to delay the output in war munitions; that they had spoiled
industrial material; that they had been guilty of acts of violence
against men not of their views; that they had violated the postal laws;
that they had violated the statutes against conspiracy. The indictments
were framed on those general lines, and the long arm of Uncle Sam, not
that of any state or county or city, reached out for the accused.
By this time the agitations of the I. W. W. had covered Montana,
Arizona and Colorado, were reaching into Utah and Nevada, and had
Minnesota and Michigan next on the list. But _pari passu_ with the
I. W. W. activities had gone on those of certain other alphabetical
organizations, to wit, D. J. and A. P. L.
Mr. Clabaugh, the storm center of the Chicago Bureau of Investigation,
worked long months with the Government attorneys. Mr. Frank Nebeker,
the trial lawyer, was an assistant U. S. Attorney General of Salt Lake
City, and he was on this case for over a year. It was he who directed
the raids. He was assisted by Mr. Claude Porter, of Des Moines,
Iowa, U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa—now Assistant
to the U. S. Attorney General in Washington. Mr. Porter came on as
Special Assistant in place of Mr. Frank C. Dailey of Indianapolis,
who had resigned. These men and their aids brought together, as has
been said, the most elaborate legal records ever known. _That they
had the evidence_ is proved by the results of the trial—ninety-seven
convictions out of the ninety-nine accused and tried. The A. P. L. _got
the evidence_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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