But when war came, New York realized that she was not only a metropolis but a commercial center and a place where human beings lived. She had tall buildings. A brick shot off the top of the Woolworth Building would certainly jar a man below if it fell upon him; and the Woolworth or other buildings might easily be hit by naval guns of a hostile fleet lying comfortably off shore. The funk of New York and other eastern cities was never felt at all in the central portion of the country. When the submarines began to show what they could do, New York awoke to a sense of real danger. She faced the fact that, although she was foreign in population, she must become American if America was to endure. Then New York turned her face no longer toward Europe, but toward America and since that time has been more beloved by America than ever she was before. It was imperative that the vast protective agencies of the national Government should focus here at the gateway to the Atlantic. Military Intelligence, Naval Intelligence, Cable Censorship, Mail Censorship, the Department of Justice, War Trade Intelligence—each of these and all the various war boards and branches of war activities must center in the metropolis inevitably. The machinery for protecting the invaluable shipping of men and munitions was as elaborate and perfect as the Government could make it. Every force was rushed to the danger line in New York. In so complicated and overburdened a series of Government enterprises it early became obvious that there was need for an auxiliary such as the American Protective League. The organization was duly made and widely extended. It was natural none the less that it should be very much overshadowed by the greater volume and greater importance of the agencies of the Government’s judicial and war work, which were massed in the great city. But the A. P. L. was there, active as elsewhere, and perhaps more useful than in any other city in the country, because it had to do there with larger risks than offered in any other city. In the period of its work in New York up to the time of the Armistice, the A. P. L. division was thought to have covered some 300,000 cases in all, which is far and away the record for America. Such figures as these mean, of course, that to single out any one case or a few cases would be only to repeat cases the like of which already have been described for other points; and besides, it would not in any sense give an idea of the extent of the data handed over to the United States departments on A. P. L. initiative or on government request. It seems wiser to let the great national or international cases, which have become publicly prominent through Government activity, stand for the minor story of New York.