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
The jury found him guilty. He was sent to
prison for three years. He ought by all means to be deported when he
gets out of jail, and so ought any German in this country who has been
found at any time to be guilty of any such talk. We do not need that
sort of “citizens” in America, and we are not going to have them here.
There was another case, No. 300, in peaceful San Diego, in which the
suspect seemed anxious to spread broadcast every manner of pro-German
propaganda. He had been a naturalized citizen of this country for
twenty years, and through his position in one of the city banks, he
had been closely associated with many of San Diego’s leading business
men. Yet, still deep in his heart was that love for the Fatherland
which made him willing to fight this free country where he claimed
citizenship and where he had all the benefits of our too weakly-lenient
Government. It finally dawned on the minds of some of the customers
of the bank that this man was not right. A. P. L. was called on to
investigate him and worked on the case for months. The man was finally
taken into custody, and the issue was joined between the United States
Government on the one hand and this suspect and his influential friends
on the other. A long trial was had and the jury disagreed. A second
trial came off and A. P. L. had fifty witnesses ready to testify. The
result was a conviction and a sentence of four years at McNeill’s
Island. Truly, anyone reading the San Diego cases must agree that that
division did not lack in energy and diligence.
_The A. P. L. in Pasadena_
Life is so idyllic in Pasadena—roses—oranges—that sort of thing that
you would not suspect that anything evil could happen there, or that
anyone ever could suspect anyone else in those select surroundings.
But Pasadena had her A. P. L., and they were not in the least above
suspecting the right people once in a while, as a brief tale or so
may prove. In short, Pasadena had more than 100 cases of alien enemy
activities, 321 cases of disloyalty and sedition, of which thirty-six
were concerned with persons not citizens of the United States.
These totals show distinctly the amount of investigation required
of transients, for the War Department cases, having to do with the
Selective Service Act, came to only 155 investigations.
The B—— family of Pasadena were known as prominent pacifists. They
held some very pleasant pacifist meetings in their houses until the
Home Guards and the A. P. L. got after them. After that their meetings
were neither so pacifistic nor so pleasant. There was a professor of
languages at Throop College, who was always a German sympathizer and
who always was very outspoken for Germany. He was reported a number of
times to the Pasadena A. P. L. Throop was made over into a military
training school, and that was about all for Professor B——. He did not
last.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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