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, being one of the largest cities of the United States, and
having also one of the largest percentages of foreign population,
naturally indeed was a hot-bed for Socialism, I. W. W. work and
Bolshevism, although such had not been the general reputation of the
city. These organizations held regular meetings, often with speeches of
the most dangerous character. At most of them, there was an A. P. L.
operative noting all that was done and said.
Cleveland Division covered a population of over a million, and that
in one of the four largest war working centers in the nation. It is a
very proud claim to say that not one dollar was lost to the nation.
The Chief points out that this statement is the more astonishing
because there were made in Cleveland a long list of military supplies:
Air-planes, wings and parts; ammunitions, clothing, trucks, and the
hundred other materials for use in the Army and Navy. There were
three hundred and eighty-six plants in Cuyahoga County engaged in
ordnance work, and there were employed in these plants 1,218 workmen.
These ordnance plants had contracts amounting to $175,000,000. Motor
transportation plants, making trucks, trailers, axles, forms, etc., had
a series of contracts totaling $88,000,000. There were fifty plants
engaged in air-craft production, and twenty making clothing, not to
mention three large shipyards, all busy practically day and night. That
means work! Figures like this are serious. It is no cheap flattery
to say to the men who are responsible for the safety of these vast
industrial concerns that their record is a more than marvelous one.
It is no wonder that there is the best of feeling between Cleveland
Division and the Department of Justice, Police Department and all the
allied administrations of the law. It is not necessary to print the
letters of appreciation from any of these.
The Chief says that the most of the active work covered a period of
about fifteen months. The cases handled monthly approximated four
thousand. Obviously it is impossible to report sixty thousand, or four
thousand, or one thousand cases, but some of the Cleveland specials are
too interesting to leave aside. It is regrettable that they must be
abbreviated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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