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
In the fall of 1918, headquarters were moved from 1537 Eye Street to
1719 H Street, Northwest, another old time Washington residence of
stately sort, which remained the home of the National Headquarters
until the signing of the Armistice and the dissolution of the League
itself. Here Mr. Briggs, Captain Frey and Mr. Elting remained until the
end of the game in charge of a loyal band of workers. For all of these
men, and those associated with them, there remain the recollection of a
hectic two years of high speed work, in connection with financial loss
to everyone engaged in it.
CHAPTER V
THE LAW AND ITS NEW TEETH
Insufficiency of the Espionage Laws at the Outbreak of the War—Getting
Results—The Amended Espionage Act—The Law of 1798 Revived—Statement of
the Attorney General of the United States.
If predisposed to alien enemy sympathy, a critic might declare that the
League was made up of individual buccaneers, who did high-handed things
and escaped punishment therefor only because of the general confusion
due to a state of war. Nothing could be more unjust or farther from
the truth than such a belief. On the contrary, the League and the
Department of Justice as well felt continually held back and hampered
by respect for laws admittedly inadequate.
We had matured a great system of jurisprudence, sufficient for ordinary
needs. Moreover, when war began, we had passed more laws adjusted to
the new needs; but it is a curious fact that, threatened as we were
by Germany’s perfected system of espionage and propaganda, we had no
actual statute by which we adequately could cope with it until May,
1918—more than a year after we went to war, and less than six months
before the end of the war.
In the spring of 1918, the National Directors began, under the
editorship of Daniel V. Casey, the issue of a League organ or
confidential bulletin, called “The Spy Glass.” The first number of
the publication, in June of that year, took up the amended Espionage
Act, which was the base of practically all of the A. P. L. and D. J.
work during the war. This amendment rebuilt and stiffened the original
Espionage Act of June 15, 1917, which had been found insufficient,
and “put teeth in the law,” as the Attorney General’s office phrased
it. “The Spy Glass” printed a digest of the new enactment, which
is of essential interest at this point of the League’s story as it
determined the whole character of the League’s later activities. This
summarization of the Espionage Act is printed as Appendix C in the
present volume.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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