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 probably knows 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 simply found 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 knew that 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.