Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, passed early in our war progress, an Alien Property Custodian took charge of properties and businesses belonging to enemy aliens in this country or operated for the benefit of enemy subjects elsewhere. The investigations which uncovered these business operations, many of them deeply and cleverly concealed, revealed startling facts as to the extent to which German subjects had gained commercial and industrial footholds in the United States, the methods which they had used and the purposes to which they had applied their resources and their knowledge of the nation’s business and industrial life. More than thirty thousand cases of enemy owned business were handled by the Custodian, while enemy owned stock, ranging in the several cases from fifteen to one hundred per cent of the total, was found in nearly three hundred corporations. He seized enemy owned property in the first year of his work to the value of more than $700,000,000, the businesses in which it was engaged running the whole gamut of American industry in mining, manufacturing, buying and selling. Frequently the enemy ownership was so cleverly and persistently concealed that months of investigation were necessary to uncover the truth. A great many of these German owned industrial establishments were used as spy centers and were filled with the agents of Germany plotting for political and industrial domination. In order to protect the country in the future and prevent a repetition of this attempt to conceal a knife meant for her heart, the Alien Property Custodian was authorized by Congress to sell to American citizens all enemy owned businesses, the proceeds to be deposited in the United States Treasury to await decision concerning it by the Peace Congress which should settle the problems growing out of the war. Not only did the volunteer organization of the American Protective League undertake to uncover and stop enemy and disloyal activities, but a large percentage of the American people individually endeavored to aid the authorities in the same way. So intense was the general indignation against Germany and the Germans because of their insidious methods and the extent to which they had abused the friendly attitude of America and so high was the spirit of loyalty that young and old, rich and poor, were everywhere on the watch for signs of disloyal sentiment. Sometimes this eagerness overstepped common sense and degenerated into unthinking persecution of people of German birth or extraction who were good and loyal citizens. It resulted also in the circulation of many wild rumors of spy activity without basis of truth. But it also had undoubted good result in the discouraging of the underground activities of the enemy.