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
From the beginning, the League was represented at both the private
and secret meetings of the Council, which, for a time, were held
in the attorney’s office, where four or five gathered; but as
new recruits were enrolled by the Council and larger quarters
were required, they were transferred to an office in Odd Fellow’s
Temple occupied by a former minister, a Socialist radical, a
man whose career marked him as an advocate of extreme measures,
and who carried with him a considerable following which he had
organized several years before. Pacifism was the big keynote
of its original platform. Without interference, however, the
speakers became bold. The intellectuals who enlisted under its
banner included a leading Sinn Feiner, a professor of a well-known
college of Cincinnati, who was chairman, a pastor of the Lutheran
Church, and, of course, the attorney and organizer.
It was the day of the original Espionage Act, and it was difficult
under this unamended Act to find violations; but some of the
speeches rang with treasonable utterances. After months of this
sort of thing, the Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice,
decided it was time to act. A meeting had been called for Friday
night, at the office of the former pastor, at which many things
were expected to happen, and on that night it was decided to make
a search, not only of the meeting place, but of the homes of the
leaders. The District Attorney asked every man present—League
operatives, agents of the Department of Justice, deputy United
States Marshals, and local police detectives who had been assigned
to the work, to set their watches with his. At 8:30 o’clock
prompt, the search, under due warrant of law, was made in all
parts of the city, and the papers and documents which were brought
to the office of the United States Attorney made it impossible
forever after for The People’s Council to carry on its nefarious
activities.
From that day Cincinnati was rid of openly organized
anti-government activities. Some of the papers found, proved of
great value to the Government. A special solicitor from the office
of the Attorney General at Washington was assigned to Cincinnati
to go over these papers, and the information which he gathered was
of great use in many other cities. As a result of this search, the
professor who had taken such an important part in the work of The
People’s Council was censured by his Board, and eliminated from
the local theatre of activities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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