Has applicant at any time expressed his approval of (a) the invasion of France and Belgium? (b) the sinking of the Lusitania? and (c) the general conduct of the war by Germany? If so, when, where and in whose hearing? Has applicant been opposed to (a) the United States’ entry into the war? (b) acts of the United States in conducting the war (c) shipping munitions to France and England? (d) the draft? (e) Liberty loans? Can all the foreign-born or foreign-descended citizens of the United States swear before God that they are fit to gain or to retain their citizenship under a test like that? A St. Louis journal, in commenting on the work of the American Protective League in that city, gave a rather interesting summary of the growth of the espionage idea in the United States, for which place not inappropriately may be found here. The dangers that hung upon the flanks of the nation, the adroit moves of detective forces which set at naught the plotters, and the manner and means adopted to nip in the bud the creeping plans of Pan-Germanism, is one of the most fascinating and in many respects one of the most thrilling chapters in the recital of America’s first months in the great war. Previous to the Civil War, the United States had no secret service. It came into being when reports were brought to Samuel H. Felton, president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, that President Lincoln would be assassinated while traveling by special train from the West to his inaugural at Washington. Felton sent for Allan Pinkerton, who was then conducting a small detective agency in Chicago. It is interesting to note that Pinkerton, in taking the task of protecting Lincoln’s life, outlined the method which is the keynote of the secret service system. In describing the work he wrote: “I resolved to locate my men at the various towns along the road where it was believed dissatisfaction existed. I sent the men to their posts with instructions to become acquainted with such men as they might, on observation, consider suspicious, and endeavor to obtain from them, by association, a knowledge of their intentions.” Later, Pinkerton, under the name of “Maj. E. J. Allen,” directed the intelligence department of Gen. McClellan’s Ohio army. Brig. Gen. Lafayette C. Baker was the organizer of the military secret service that performed the detective duty of the Civil War. At the outbreak of hostilities, a national detective bureau was an idea entirely new, and was regarded as contrary to republican institutions. The service went out of existence with the close of the war.