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
Cleveland Division was organized in May, 1917, with a personnel
of 1,008—Mr. Arch C. Klunph, Chief, six Assistant Chiefs, seven
Departmental Inspectors, an office staff and eighteen companies.
There were also one women’s company and about five hundred unattached
operatives; a total personnel of 1,551.
As the type of A. P. L. service varied in different cities, it may be
interesting to other cities to note the character of work the Cleveland
division was called upon to do. The list of investigations covers many
heads: Failure to register, failure to entrain, and deserters from
service, 5,356; failure to submit questionnaire, 2,100; failure to
report for physical examination, 3,100; claims for exemption, 2,500;
seditious literature, 50; seditious and treasonable utterances or
pro-German cases, 7,113; loyalty investigations for Army, Navy, Red
Cross, Y. M. C. A., etc., 1,746; wireless outfits, 40; enemy agents or
spies, 363; I. W. W., Socialist, W. I. I. U. and Bolsheviki, 1,529;
industrial sabotage, 318; Liberty Bond slackers, 500. Total number
of men apprehended and examined on slacker raids, estimated, 36,000.
Total—60,715.
In addition to the foregoing, the Cleveland division has rendered a
large amount of service in investigating cases of violations of food,
fuel, electric light and gasless Sunday regulations; cases for the
National Council of Defense; registration of male and female enemy
aliens (approximately 5,000); work of U. S. Marshal’s office; work
of Naturalization Bureau by secret investigations of applicants for
citizenship; Red Cross overseas work; Socialist cases; details for
War Work plants. There also were regular weekly details of volunteer
workers with automobiles to assist the Police Department.
As to definite preventive measures, the Chief points out several
instances: the stopping of manufacture of a fountain pen which would
explode on being opened; the choking off of the establishment of a
high-power wireless plant on the shore of Lake Erie; the discharge of
countless German workmen in factories producing food for the Army;
the confiscation of models and plans of American battleships and
submarines, and literature found in the hands of German propagandists.
In May, 1918, an express company notified Cleveland A. P. L. that
they were called upon to issue money orders to an unusual number of
Germans, who claimed that they were returning to their homes in Russia.
The League captured twenty-three men, all claiming to live in Russia,
although plainly German in appearance, and speaking that language
in talking with one another. Three men left for Chicago, but were
apprehended by wire at the railroad terminal in Chicago. This was a
concerted movement to get as many Germans as possible back into Russia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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