Soon after the forming of the A. P. L. in Boston, a man came in with a carrier pigeon which he was sure was a mysterious messenger of some sort. It was a beautiful white bird that had dark dots and dashes all over the inside of both wings. The chief was all wrought up about this and regretted that he had not been taught the Morse code in early life. He therefore took the man and the bird over to the office of Military Intelligence, where they unravel, decipher and decode all sorts of things. The Major in command was very cordial, and he also examined the bird carefully. In his belief the dots and dashes on the wings were of importance, but he could not quite read them all. He sent for the code expert of the Signal Corps. Who shall say that A. P. L. cannot run down any sort of clew? The code expert of the Signal Corps also examined the bird carefully, but at first could not make it out. Then he touched one of the dots with the point of his pencil. It turned out to be a perfectly good cootie, which still possessed powers of locomotion. Throughout the war, New England was, always, one of the nerve centers of the United States. A great many munition factories were at work there day and night. The atmosphere was tense all the time; war was in the eyes and ears of the people. But let no man believe New England anything but American. Whatever her population to-day, her leadership is American and only American and always will be such. Boston and her environs, the entire state of Massachusetts, the entire section of New England, went into the war from the first word. No part of America is saner or safer; no part was better guided and guarded by local agencies of defense. A. P. L. was accepted as one of these, certainly not to the regret of any man concerned. CHAPTER VII THE STORY OF CLEVELAND Astonishing Figures of A. P. L. Activities in a Great Manufacturing City—Sabotage, Bolshevism and Treason—I. W. W. and Kindred Radical Propaganda—The Saving of a City. Once more we find occasion to revise the popular estimate of a supposedly well-known American community. No one would think of staid, steady, even-going Cleveland as anything but a place of prosperity and peace. At a rough estimate, before the Cleveland report came in, one would have said that possibly that city might report a total of ten or fifteen thousand cases of A. P. L. investigations. As a matter of fact, the Cleveland total is over sixty thousand! And yet, the Cleveland Chief in his report calls attention to the large amount of war supplies manufactured in his district, and says: “We were a hot-bed of Socialism and pro-Germanism, but not one dollar’s worth of material was lost.”