CHAPTER IITHE WEBMethods of Work—Getting the Evidence—The Organization in Detail—The Multifold Activities of the League.It is to Mr. A. M. Briggs of Chicago that credit should go for the initial idea of the American Protective League. The first flash came many months before the declaration of war, although, for reasons outlined, it long was obvious that we must eventually go to war.The Department of Justice in Chicago was in a terribly congested condition, and long had been, for the neutrality cases were piling up.“I could get ten times as much done if I had men and money to work with,” said Hinton G. Clabaugh, Superintendent of the Bureau of Investigation. “There are thousands of men who are enemies of this country and ought to be behind bars, but it takes a spy to catch a spy, and I’ve got a dozen spies to catch a hundred thousand spies right here in Chicago. They have motor cars against my street cars. They’re supplied with all the money they want; my own funds are limited. We’re not at war. All this is civil work. We simply haven’t ways and means to meet this emergency.”“I can get ten or twenty good, quiet men with cars who’ll work for nothing,” said Mr. Briggs one day. “They’ll take either their business time or their leisure time, or both, and join forces with you. I know we’re not at war, but we’re all Americans together.”In that chance conversation—only we ought not to call it chance at all, but a thing foreordained—began the greatest society the world ever saw,—an army of men equipped with money, brains, loyalty, which grew into one of the main legions of our defense. That army to-day probablyknows more about you and your affairs than you ever thought anyone could know. If you were not and are not loyal, those facts are known and recorded, whether you live in New York or California or anywhere between.Once started, the voluntary service idea ran like wildfire. It began as a free taxicab company, working for the most impeccable and most dignified branch of our Government—that branch for which our people always have had the most respect.The ten private cars grew to two dozen. As many quiet-faced, silent drivers as were necessary were always ready. Word passed among reliable business men, and they came quietly and asked what they could do. They were the best men of the city. They worked for principle, not for excitement, not in any vanity, not for any pay. It was the “live-wires” of the business world that were selected. They were all good men, big men, brave and able, else they must have failed, and else this organization never could have grown. It was secret, absolutely so; clandestine absolutely, this organization of Regulators. But unlike the Vigilantes, the Klu Klux, the Horse-Thief Detectors, it took no punishments into its own hands. It was absolutely nonpartisan. It had then and has now no concern with labor questions or political questions. It worked only as collector of evidence. It had no governmental or legal status at all. It tried no cases, suggested no remedies. It simplyfound the facts.It became apparent that the City of Chicago was not all America. These American men had America and not Chicago at heart. Before long, five hundred men, in widely separated and sometimes overlapping sections, were at work piling up evidence against German and pro-German suspects. These men began to enlist under them yet others. The thing was going swiftly, unaccountably swiftly. America’s volunteers were pouring out. The Minute Men were afoot again, ready to fight.This was in March of 1917. Even yet we were not at war, though in the two years following the Lusitania murders, the world had had more and more proof of Germany’s heartless and dishonorable intentions. The snake was now out of the leaves. The issue was joined. We all knewthat Washington soon would, soon must, declare war. The country was uneasy, discontented, mutinous over the delay.Meantime, all these new foci of this amateur organization began to show problems of organization and administration. The several captains unavoidably lapped over one another in their work, and a certain loss in speed and efficiency rose out of this. The idea had proved good, but it was so good it was running away with itself! No set of men could handle it except under a well-matured and adequately-managed organization, worked out in detail from top to bottom.We may not place one man in this League above another, for all were equal in their unselfish loyalty, from private to general, from operative to inspector, and from inspector to National Directors; but it is necessary to set down the basic facts of the inception of the League in order that the vast volume and usefulness of its labors properly may be understood. So it is in order now to describe how this great army of workers became a unit of immense, united and effective striking power, how the swift and divers developments of the original idea became coordinated into a smooth-running machine, nation-wide in its activities.Now at last, long deferred—too long—came April 6, 1917. The black headlines smote silence at every American table.WAR!We were at War! Men did not talk much. Mothers looked at their sons, wives at their husbands. Thousands of souls had their Gethsemane that day. Now we were to place our own breasts against the steel of Germany.The cover was off. War—war to the end, now—war on both sides of the sea—war against every form and phase of German activity! America said aloud and firmly now, as, in her anguish, she had but recently whispered, “I need you, my children!” And millions of Americans, many of them debarred from arms by age or infirmity, came forward, each in his own way, and swore the oath.The oath of the League spread. Not one city or state, but all America must be covered, and it must be done at once. The need of a national administration became at once imperative.In this work on the neutrality cases Mr. Clabaugh andhis volunteer aids often were in Washington together. The Department of Justice, so far from finding this unasked civilian aid officious, gladly hailed it as a practical aid of immeasurable value. It became apparent that the League was bound to be national in every way at no late day.All this meant money. But America, unasked, opened her secret purse strings. Banks, prominent firms, loyal individuals gave thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars for a work which they knew must be done if America was to be safe for decent men. And so the silent army of which you never knew, grew and marched out daily. Your house, your neighbor’s, was known and watched, guarded as loyal, circled as disloyal. The nature of your business and your neighbor’s was known—and tabulated. You do not know to-day how thoroughly America knows you. If you are hyphenated now, if you are disloyal to this flag, so much the worse for you.It early became plain to manufacturers and owners of large industrial plants of all sorts that they were in immediate danger of dynamite outrages. Many plants agreed to present to the League monthly a considerable checque to aid the work of safeguarding. Many wealthy individuals gave additional amounts. A very considerable sum was raised from the sale of badges to the operatives, it being explained to all that they were sold at a profit for the benefit of the League. At all times large amounts came in, raised by State or local chiefs, each of whom knew his own community well. On one day in October, 1917, a call went out to 6700 members of the League to meet on a certain evening at Medinah Temple in Chicago, admission to be by credentials only. That meeting was addressed by Chiefs and others. In a short time $82,000 was raised. Later on, certain bankers of national reputation—F. A. Vanderlip of New York, George M. Reynolds of Chicago, Festus Wade of St. Louis, Stoddard Jess of Los Angeles, and others—sent out an appeal to the bankers of America in the interests of the League. This perhaps would of itself have raised a half million more, but it came among Liberty Loan activities, and before it was fully under way, the news of the Armistice broke, whichautomatically ended many things. But the American Protective League had money. It can have all the money it may need in any future day.It was not until fall of 1917 that, in answer to the imperious demands of the swiftly grown association, now numbering thousands in every State of the Union, and in order to get into closer touch with the Department of Justice, the League moved its headquarters from Chicago to Washington. Mr. Charles Daniel Frey of Chicago, who had worked out with his associates the details of a perfectly subdivided organization, was made Captain U. S. A. and liaison officer for the League’s work with the Military Intelligence Division of the Army, a division which itself had known great changes and rapid development. The three National Directors were now A. M. Briggs, Chairman; Captain Charles Daniel Frey, and Mr. Victor Elting, the latter gentleman, an attorney of Chicago, having before now proved himself of the utmost service in handling certain very tangled skeins. Mr. Elting had been Assistant Chief in Chicago, working with Mr. Frey as Chief. Then later came on, from his League duties in Chicago, Mr. S. S. Doty, a man successful in his own business organization and of proved worth in working out details of organization. Many others from Chicago, in many capacities, joined the personnel in Washington, and good men were taken on as needed and found. It would be cheap to attempt mention of these, but it would be wrong not to give some general mention of the men who actually had in hand the formation of the League and the conduct of its widely reaching affairs from that time until its close at the end of the war. They worked in secrecy and they asked no publicity then or now.One thing must be very plain and clear. These men, each and all of them, worked as civilian patriots, and, except in a very few necessary clerical cases, without pay of any sort. There was no mummery about the League, no countersigns or grips or passwords, no rituals, no rules. It never was a “secret society,” as we understand that usually. It was—the American Protective League, deadly simple, deadly silent, deadly in earnest. There has been no glory, no pay, no publicity, no advertising, no rewardin the American Protective League, except as each man’s conscience gave him his best reward, the feeling that he had fulfilled the imperative obligations of his citizenship and had done his bit in the world’s greatest war.By the time the League was in Washington, it had a quarter-million members. Its records ran into tons and tons; its clerical work was an enormous thing.The system, swiftly carried out, was unbelievably successful. An unbelievable artesian fountain of American loyalty had been struck. What and how much work that body of silent men did, how varied and how imperatively essential was the work they did, how thrillingly interesting it became at times as the netted web caught more and more in its secret sweeping, must be taken up in later chapters.As to the total volume of the League’s work, it never will be known, and no figures will ever cover it more than partially. It handled in less than two years, for the War Department alone, over three million cases. It spent millions of dollars. It had a quarter million silent and resolute men on its rolls. These men were the best of their communities. They did not work for pay. They worked for duty, and worked harder than a like number in any army of the world. Some of the things they did, some of the astonishing matters they uncovered, some of the strange stories they unearthed, will be taken up in order in the pages following, and in a way more specifically informing than has hitherto been attempted.The League totals are tremendous, but the trouble with totals is that they do not enter into comprehension. A million dollars means little as a phrase, if left barren of some yard-stick for comparative measurement. Thus, when we say that long ago the number of suspect cases investigated by the American Protective League had passed the three-million mark, we hail the figures as grandiose, but have no personal idea of what they mean, no accurate conception of the multitude, the nature and the multiplicity in detail of the three million separate and distinct cases. It is when we begin to go into details as to the work and its organization from unit to block, from operative to chief, that we begin to open our eyes.The government of this country had had thrown on it all at once a burden a thousand times as great as that of times of peace. We had to raise men and money, munitions, food, fuel for ourselves and all the world. We were not prepared. We had to learn all at once the one and hardest thing—one which America never yet had learned—economy. We had to do all the active and positive material things necessary to put an Army in the field across seas—build ships, fabricate ordnance, arm large bodies of men, train them, feed them, get their fighting morale on edge.Yes, all these things—but this was only part. Our negative defense, our silent forces also had to be developed. We had to learn economy—and suspicion. That last was hard to learn. Just as delay and breakdowns happened in other branches of the suddenly overloaded government, so a breakdown in the resources of the Department of Justice—least known but most valuable portion of our nation’s governmental system—was a thing imminent. That was because of the swift multiplication of the list of entirely new things that had to be looked into with justice, and yet with speed. It is not too much to say that without the inspired idea of the American Protective League, its Web spread out behind the lines, there could not long have been said in the full confidence of to-day, “God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives.”Besides being an auxiliary of the Department of Justice, the League was the active ally also of the Department of War, of the Navy, of the State, of the Treasury. It worked for the Shipping Board, the Fuel and Food Administrations, and the Alien Property Custodian. It ran down, in its less romantic labors, sugar-allowance violators, violators of the gasless-Sunday laws, the lightless-day laws, violators of the liquor laws, as well as the large offenders—the spies who got internment or the penitentiary as the penalty of getting caught. All these large and small activities may be understood by a glance at the report-sheet of any division chief. The heads and sub-heads will show the differentiation. The chart following this chapter will show the method of organizing the League’s personnel which was used in practically all the great cities. The table of dates whichimmediately follows, sets forth in outline the League’s early history, and indicates the rapidly broadening character of the League’s work.EARLY DATES OF THE AMERICANPROTECTIVE LEAGUEJanuary 25, 1917First Call by Mr. Clabaugh.February 2, 1917Second Call by Mr. Clabaugh (for automobiles).February 2 to 25, 1917Automobiles and Plans.February 25, 1917Submitted Plan.March 1, 1917Plan Endorsed and Forwarded to Washington.March 15, 1917Invited to Washington.March 22, 1917League Authorized.March 22, 1917New York Division Started.March 22 to 26, 1917Organizing in Chicago.March 26, 1917Chicago Division Started.March 27, 1917Milwaukee Division Started.March 29, 1917St. Louis Division Started.April 6, 1917State of War with Germany Acknowledged.April 9, 1917Philadelphia Division Started.November 1, 1917Board of National Directors Organized.November 15, 1917National Headquarters Established in Washington.This will close a brief and necessarily incomplete review of the widely ramified nature of that Web which America made over night in her time of need.There was also a confidential pamphlet, originally sent only to members, which elaborates and makes clear the basic purposes of the League, whose personnel and methods already have been covered. It is given in full asAppendix B. A great historic interest attaches to this document, which tells the complete inside story of the League and the manner in which it first was organized for its work. It is not necessary to say that this now appears before the eyes of the general public for the first time.Lastly, there is for the first time made public the solemn oath taken by each member of the American ProtectiveLeague. Years hence, this page will have historic value. It records one of the most singular phenomena of the American civilization.THE OATH OF MEMBERSHIPI, ...,a member of the American Protective League, organized with the approval and operating under the direction of the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation, do hereby solemnly swear:That I am a citizen of the United States of America; and that I will uphold and defend the Constitution and Laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and will bear true faith and allegiance to the same at all times as a true and loyal citizen thereof.That I will give due time and diligent attention to such service as I shall undertake to render; and that I will execute promptly and to the best of my ability the commands of my superiors in connection therewith.That I will in all respects observe the rules and regulations, present and future, of this organization; and that I will promptly report to my superiors any and all violations thereof, and all information of every kind and character and from whatever source derived, tending to prove hostile or disloyal acts or intentions on the part of any person whatsoever and all other information of any kind of interest or value to the Government.That I will not, except in the necessary performance of my duty, exhibit my credentials or disclose my membership in this organization; and that I will not disclose to any person other than a duly authorized Government official or officer of this organization, facts and information coming to my knowledge in connection with its work.That the statement on the opposite side hereof, by me subscribed, is true and correct.That I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties, as a volunteer for the defense and preservation of the United States of America.SO HELP ME GOD
Methods of Work—Getting the Evidence—The Organization in Detail—The Multifold Activities of the League.
Methods of Work—Getting the Evidence—The Organization in Detail—The Multifold Activities of the League.
It is to Mr. A. M. Briggs of Chicago that credit should go for the initial idea of the American Protective League. The first flash came many months before the declaration of war, although, for reasons outlined, it long was obvious that we must eventually go to war.
The Department of Justice in Chicago was in a terribly congested condition, and long had been, for the neutrality cases were piling up.
“I could get ten times as much done if I had men and money to work with,” said Hinton G. Clabaugh, Superintendent of the Bureau of Investigation. “There are thousands of men who are enemies of this country and ought to be behind bars, but it takes a spy to catch a spy, and I’ve got a dozen spies to catch a hundred thousand spies right here in Chicago. They have motor cars against my street cars. They’re supplied with all the money they want; my own funds are limited. We’re not at war. All this is civil work. We simply haven’t ways and means to meet this emergency.”
“I can get ten or twenty good, quiet men with cars who’ll work for nothing,” said Mr. Briggs one day. “They’ll take either their business time or their leisure time, or both, and join forces with you. I know we’re not at war, but we’re all Americans together.”
In that chance conversation—only we ought not to call it chance at all, but a thing foreordained—began the greatest society the world ever saw,—an army of men equipped with money, brains, loyalty, which grew into one of the main legions of our defense. That army to-day probablyknows more about you and your affairs than you ever thought anyone could know. If you were not and are not loyal, those facts are known and recorded, whether you live in New York or California or anywhere between.
Once started, the voluntary service idea ran like wildfire. It began as a free taxicab company, working for the most impeccable and most dignified branch of our Government—that branch for which our people always have had the most respect.
The ten private cars grew to two dozen. As many quiet-faced, silent drivers as were necessary were always ready. Word passed among reliable business men, and they came quietly and asked what they could do. They were the best men of the city. They worked for principle, not for excitement, not in any vanity, not for any pay. It was the “live-wires” of the business world that were selected. They were all good men, big men, brave and able, else they must have failed, and else this organization never could have grown. It was secret, absolutely so; clandestine absolutely, this organization of Regulators. But unlike the Vigilantes, the Klu Klux, the Horse-Thief Detectors, it took no punishments into its own hands. It was absolutely nonpartisan. It had then and has now no concern with labor questions or political questions. It worked only as collector of evidence. It had no governmental or legal status at all. It tried no cases, suggested no remedies. It simplyfound the facts.
It became apparent that the City of Chicago was not all America. These American men had America and not Chicago at heart. Before long, five hundred men, in widely separated and sometimes overlapping sections, were at work piling up evidence against German and pro-German suspects. These men began to enlist under them yet others. The thing was going swiftly, unaccountably swiftly. America’s volunteers were pouring out. The Minute Men were afoot again, ready to fight.
This was in March of 1917. Even yet we were not at war, though in the two years following the Lusitania murders, the world had had more and more proof of Germany’s heartless and dishonorable intentions. The snake was now out of the leaves. The issue was joined. We all knewthat Washington soon would, soon must, declare war. The country was uneasy, discontented, mutinous over the delay.
Meantime, all these new foci of this amateur organization began to show problems of organization and administration. The several captains unavoidably lapped over one another in their work, and a certain loss in speed and efficiency rose out of this. The idea had proved good, but it was so good it was running away with itself! No set of men could handle it except under a well-matured and adequately-managed organization, worked out in detail from top to bottom.
We may not place one man in this League above another, for all were equal in their unselfish loyalty, from private to general, from operative to inspector, and from inspector to National Directors; but it is necessary to set down the basic facts of the inception of the League in order that the vast volume and usefulness of its labors properly may be understood. So it is in order now to describe how this great army of workers became a unit of immense, united and effective striking power, how the swift and divers developments of the original idea became coordinated into a smooth-running machine, nation-wide in its activities.
Now at last, long deferred—too long—came April 6, 1917. The black headlines smote silence at every American table.
WAR!
We were at War! Men did not talk much. Mothers looked at their sons, wives at their husbands. Thousands of souls had their Gethsemane that day. Now we were to place our own breasts against the steel of Germany.
The cover was off. War—war to the end, now—war on both sides of the sea—war against every form and phase of German activity! America said aloud and firmly now, as, in her anguish, she had but recently whispered, “I need you, my children!” And millions of Americans, many of them debarred from arms by age or infirmity, came forward, each in his own way, and swore the oath.
The oath of the League spread. Not one city or state, but all America must be covered, and it must be done at once. The need of a national administration became at once imperative.
In this work on the neutrality cases Mr. Clabaugh andhis volunteer aids often were in Washington together. The Department of Justice, so far from finding this unasked civilian aid officious, gladly hailed it as a practical aid of immeasurable value. It became apparent that the League was bound to be national in every way at no late day.
All this meant money. But America, unasked, opened her secret purse strings. Banks, prominent firms, loyal individuals gave thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars for a work which they knew must be done if America was to be safe for decent men. And so the silent army of which you never knew, grew and marched out daily. Your house, your neighbor’s, was known and watched, guarded as loyal, circled as disloyal. The nature of your business and your neighbor’s was known—and tabulated. You do not know to-day how thoroughly America knows you. If you are hyphenated now, if you are disloyal to this flag, so much the worse for you.
It early became plain to manufacturers and owners of large industrial plants of all sorts that they were in immediate danger of dynamite outrages. Many plants agreed to present to the League monthly a considerable checque to aid the work of safeguarding. Many wealthy individuals gave additional amounts. A very considerable sum was raised from the sale of badges to the operatives, it being explained to all that they were sold at a profit for the benefit of the League. At all times large amounts came in, raised by State or local chiefs, each of whom knew his own community well. On one day in October, 1917, a call went out to 6700 members of the League to meet on a certain evening at Medinah Temple in Chicago, admission to be by credentials only. That meeting was addressed by Chiefs and others. In a short time $82,000 was raised. Later on, certain bankers of national reputation—F. A. Vanderlip of New York, George M. Reynolds of Chicago, Festus Wade of St. Louis, Stoddard Jess of Los Angeles, and others—sent out an appeal to the bankers of America in the interests of the League. This perhaps would of itself have raised a half million more, but it came among Liberty Loan activities, and before it was fully under way, the news of the Armistice broke, whichautomatically ended many things. But the American Protective League had money. It can have all the money it may need in any future day.
It was not until fall of 1917 that, in answer to the imperious demands of the swiftly grown association, now numbering thousands in every State of the Union, and in order to get into closer touch with the Department of Justice, the League moved its headquarters from Chicago to Washington. Mr. Charles Daniel Frey of Chicago, who had worked out with his associates the details of a perfectly subdivided organization, was made Captain U. S. A. and liaison officer for the League’s work with the Military Intelligence Division of the Army, a division which itself had known great changes and rapid development. The three National Directors were now A. M. Briggs, Chairman; Captain Charles Daniel Frey, and Mr. Victor Elting, the latter gentleman, an attorney of Chicago, having before now proved himself of the utmost service in handling certain very tangled skeins. Mr. Elting had been Assistant Chief in Chicago, working with Mr. Frey as Chief. Then later came on, from his League duties in Chicago, Mr. S. S. Doty, a man successful in his own business organization and of proved worth in working out details of organization. Many others from Chicago, in many capacities, joined the personnel in Washington, and good men were taken on as needed and found. It would be cheap to attempt mention of these, but it would be wrong not to give some general mention of the men who actually had in hand the formation of the League and the conduct of its widely reaching affairs from that time until its close at the end of the war. They worked in secrecy and they asked no publicity then or now.
One thing must be very plain and clear. These men, each and all of them, worked as civilian patriots, and, except in a very few necessary clerical cases, without pay of any sort. There was no mummery about the League, no countersigns or grips or passwords, no rituals, no rules. It never was a “secret society,” as we understand that usually. It was—the American Protective League, deadly simple, deadly silent, deadly in earnest. There has been no glory, no pay, no publicity, no advertising, no rewardin the American Protective League, except as each man’s conscience gave him his best reward, the feeling that he had fulfilled the imperative obligations of his citizenship and had done his bit in the world’s greatest war.
By the time the League was in Washington, it had a quarter-million members. Its records ran into tons and tons; its clerical work was an enormous thing.
The system, swiftly carried out, was unbelievably successful. An unbelievable artesian fountain of American loyalty had been struck. What and how much work that body of silent men did, how varied and how imperatively essential was the work they did, how thrillingly interesting it became at times as the netted web caught more and more in its secret sweeping, must be taken up in later chapters.
As to the total volume of the League’s work, it never will be known, and no figures will ever cover it more than partially. It handled in less than two years, for the War Department alone, over three million cases. It spent millions of dollars. It had a quarter million silent and resolute men on its rolls. These men were the best of their communities. They did not work for pay. They worked for duty, and worked harder than a like number in any army of the world. Some of the things they did, some of the astonishing matters they uncovered, some of the strange stories they unearthed, will be taken up in order in the pages following, and in a way more specifically informing than has hitherto been attempted.
The League totals are tremendous, but the trouble with totals is that they do not enter into comprehension. A million dollars means little as a phrase, if left barren of some yard-stick for comparative measurement. Thus, when we say that long ago the number of suspect cases investigated by the American Protective League had passed the three-million mark, we hail the figures as grandiose, but have no personal idea of what they mean, no accurate conception of the multitude, the nature and the multiplicity in detail of the three million separate and distinct cases. It is when we begin to go into details as to the work and its organization from unit to block, from operative to chief, that we begin to open our eyes.
The government of this country had had thrown on it all at once a burden a thousand times as great as that of times of peace. We had to raise men and money, munitions, food, fuel for ourselves and all the world. We were not prepared. We had to learn all at once the one and hardest thing—one which America never yet had learned—economy. We had to do all the active and positive material things necessary to put an Army in the field across seas—build ships, fabricate ordnance, arm large bodies of men, train them, feed them, get their fighting morale on edge.
Yes, all these things—but this was only part. Our negative defense, our silent forces also had to be developed. We had to learn economy—and suspicion. That last was hard to learn. Just as delay and breakdowns happened in other branches of the suddenly overloaded government, so a breakdown in the resources of the Department of Justice—least known but most valuable portion of our nation’s governmental system—was a thing imminent. That was because of the swift multiplication of the list of entirely new things that had to be looked into with justice, and yet with speed. It is not too much to say that without the inspired idea of the American Protective League, its Web spread out behind the lines, there could not long have been said in the full confidence of to-day, “God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives.”
Besides being an auxiliary of the Department of Justice, the League was the active ally also of the Department of War, of the Navy, of the State, of the Treasury. It worked for the Shipping Board, the Fuel and Food Administrations, and the Alien Property Custodian. It ran down, in its less romantic labors, sugar-allowance violators, violators of the gasless-Sunday laws, the lightless-day laws, violators of the liquor laws, as well as the large offenders—the spies who got internment or the penitentiary as the penalty of getting caught. All these large and small activities may be understood by a glance at the report-sheet of any division chief. The heads and sub-heads will show the differentiation. The chart following this chapter will show the method of organizing the League’s personnel which was used in practically all the great cities. The table of dates whichimmediately follows, sets forth in outline the League’s early history, and indicates the rapidly broadening character of the League’s work.
This will close a brief and necessarily incomplete review of the widely ramified nature of that Web which America made over night in her time of need.
There was also a confidential pamphlet, originally sent only to members, which elaborates and makes clear the basic purposes of the League, whose personnel and methods already have been covered. It is given in full asAppendix B. A great historic interest attaches to this document, which tells the complete inside story of the League and the manner in which it first was organized for its work. It is not necessary to say that this now appears before the eyes of the general public for the first time.
Lastly, there is for the first time made public the solemn oath taken by each member of the American ProtectiveLeague. Years hence, this page will have historic value. It records one of the most singular phenomena of the American civilization.
THE OATH OF MEMBERSHIP
I, ...,a member of the American Protective League, organized with the approval and operating under the direction of the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation, do hereby solemnly swear:That I am a citizen of the United States of America; and that I will uphold and defend the Constitution and Laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and will bear true faith and allegiance to the same at all times as a true and loyal citizen thereof.That I will give due time and diligent attention to such service as I shall undertake to render; and that I will execute promptly and to the best of my ability the commands of my superiors in connection therewith.That I will in all respects observe the rules and regulations, present and future, of this organization; and that I will promptly report to my superiors any and all violations thereof, and all information of every kind and character and from whatever source derived, tending to prove hostile or disloyal acts or intentions on the part of any person whatsoever and all other information of any kind of interest or value to the Government.That I will not, except in the necessary performance of my duty, exhibit my credentials or disclose my membership in this organization; and that I will not disclose to any person other than a duly authorized Government official or officer of this organization, facts and information coming to my knowledge in connection with its work.That the statement on the opposite side hereof, by me subscribed, is true and correct.That I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties, as a volunteer for the defense and preservation of the United States of America.SO HELP ME GOD
I, ...,a member of the American Protective League, organized with the approval and operating under the direction of the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation, do hereby solemnly swear:
That I am a citizen of the United States of America; and that I will uphold and defend the Constitution and Laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and will bear true faith and allegiance to the same at all times as a true and loyal citizen thereof.
That I will give due time and diligent attention to such service as I shall undertake to render; and that I will execute promptly and to the best of my ability the commands of my superiors in connection therewith.
That I will in all respects observe the rules and regulations, present and future, of this organization; and that I will promptly report to my superiors any and all violations thereof, and all information of every kind and character and from whatever source derived, tending to prove hostile or disloyal acts or intentions on the part of any person whatsoever and all other information of any kind of interest or value to the Government.
That I will not, except in the necessary performance of my duty, exhibit my credentials or disclose my membership in this organization; and that I will not disclose to any person other than a duly authorized Government official or officer of this organization, facts and information coming to my knowledge in connection with its work.
That the statement on the opposite side hereof, by me subscribed, is true and correct.
That I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties, as a volunteer for the defense and preservation of the United States of America.
SO HELP ME GOD