The Department of Justice in Chicago was in a terribly congested condition, and long had been, for the neutrality cases were piling up. “I could get ten times as much done if I had men and money to work with,” said Hinton G. Clabaugh, Superintendent of the Bureau of Investigation. “There are thousands of men who are enemies of this country and ought to be behind bars, but it takes a spy to catch a spy, and I’ve got a dozen spies to catch a hundred thousand spies right here in Chicago. They have motor cars against my street cars. They’re supplied with all the money they want; my own funds are limited. We’re not at war. All this is civil work. We simply haven’t ways and means to meet this emergency.” “I can get ten or twenty good, quiet men with cars who’ll work for nothing,” said Mr. Briggs one day. “They’ll take either their business time or their leisure time, or both, and join forces with you. I know we’re not at war, but we’re all Americans together.” In that chance conversation—only we ought not to call it chance at all, but a thing foreordained—began the greatest society the world ever saw,—an army of men equipped with money, brains, loyalty, which grew into one of the main legions of our defense. That army to-day probably knows more about you and your affairs than you ever thought anyone could know. If you were not and are not loyal, those facts are known and recorded, whether you live in New York or California or anywhere between. Once started, the voluntary service idea ran like wildfire. It began as a free taxicab company, working for the most impeccable and most dignified branch of our Government—that branch for which our people always have had the most respect. The ten private cars grew to two dozen. As many quiet-faced, silent drivers as were necessary were always ready. Word passed among reliable business men, and they came quietly and asked what they could do. They were the best men of the city. They worked for principle, not for excitement, not in any vanity, not for any pay. It was the “live-wires” of the business world that were selected. They were all good men, big men, brave and able, else they must have failed, and else this organization never could have grown. It was secret, absolutely so; clandestine absolutely, this organization of Regulators. But unlike the Vigilantes, the Klu Klux, the Horse-Thief Detectors, it took no punishments into its own hands. It was absolutely nonpartisan. It had then and has now no concern with labor questions or political questions. It worked only as collector of evidence. It had no governmental or legal status at all. It tried no cases, suggested no remedies. It simply _found the facts_.