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
On December 1, 1917, Dorothy A——, a nice Cleveland girl, was selling
Liberty Bonds for the Y. W. C. A. on a partial payment basis, which
did not seem quite right. Dorothy was hard to find, but she admitted,
when found, that she was selling these bonds because she needed the
money herself. The mortgage on the old home was about to be foreclosed,
and she had taken this method of getting what money she could. It was
in truth the case of a young girl driven desperate by circumstances.
The A. P. L. first got her a good position; second, advanced the money
to pay off the mortgage on the home, she to pay them back in monthly
installments; and third, found the people to whom she had sold the
bonds, and returned the money of which she had fraudulently deprived
them. This girl remained clean and straight, and as a culmination of
the case she married a young soldier, whom she met through the A. P.
L., who later did his bit in France. We do not know of a prettier bit
in the history of the A. P. L. than this.
On March 2, 1918, A. P. L. ran down another one of those cruel rumors
against the Red Cross which have been started by pro-German women
for the most part. This rumor was first circulated by a young woman,
and is of a nature which can not be put into print. The girl, when
found, confessed that she was guilty. She also confessed that she was
hitting the high spots in the city, having left a country home to get
acquainted with the bright lights. The A. P. L. did not kick this woman
down and out, either, but gave her a hand-up. Two weeks later she came
to the Division Office with tears in her eyes, apologized for the false
rumors which she had set going, and implored that she might be allowed
to do something for the office of the division.
A war plant making aeroplane parts kept turning out defective work.
The A. P. L. put a woman operative in the factory. She chanced to
be a young woman of a wealthy family, accustomed to the luxury of a
beautiful home, but she took to the overalls and dirty work as a duck
does to water. She was in the factory three weeks, located the trouble,
and it was adjusted.
A telephone call reported that a house was being burglarized. An A. P.
L. man at the phone remembered that a deserter had been sought for at
that number. In thirty minutes the house was surrounded. They did not
catch the deserter, but they did get the burglar.
A dangerous type of service was the raiding of I. W. W. headquarters.
Sometimes these were boarding houses where thirty or forty of these
people would be gathered together. When such a place was surrounded,
the suspects would pour out of the windows into the arms of the
operatives. This meant occasional fights, and there was danger in the
work, but there was no case where loss of life was experienced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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