Detroit Division assisted the Bureau of Delinquents and the Police Department in several raids for slackers at which about 5,000 or 6,000 men were examined for registration cards. Those who had registered and qualified are not included above. They would number about 5,000 more. The division also gave material assistance to the police and fire departments, especially during the armistice days, when from four hundred to five hundred operatives were on special duty.
It would be rather bootless to delve deep into the individual records of a city where the totals are so large, but a few of the Detroit cases might be given in passing. One of these had to do with an alleged attempt of a draft board official to obtain money from a registrant for keeping him out of the service. That complaint came in at noon. By four o’clock of the same afternoon Lieutenant No. 610 had the facts. That was Saturday, and Monday was Armistice Day. Tuesday morning the matter came up before a judge of the Federal Court. A thirteen months’ sentence at Leavenworth penitentiary was imposed the third day after the complaint came in.
This accusation was that a clerk, S. W—— (the name is unpronounceable) of Board No. 6 had told a registrant, G——, apparently of the same nationality as himself, that for a certain sum he would keep him out of the draft. He was to appear between noon and one o’clock on November 9 and make the payment. Operative says he told G——’s employers to pay him the nine dollars due him, and he took the numbers of the bills. “I told G—— to come with me to Local Board No. 6,” he says, “and see this clerk whose name I did not know, and if he took the money to report to me on the first floor of the building. In the meantime I informed one of the members of our Delinquent Board of my intentions, with a view to forestalling any later accusation that the money had been ‘planted’ by the clerk. In a little while G—— appeared and said he had paid the money to the clerk, who demanded that he bring in some more money the following Monday, as that was not enough. I then went to Local Board No. 6 with G——, who pointed out this clerk as the one who had taken the money. I took this clerk into a side room, accompanied by the others. He acknowledged he had the money and that it had been given him by G——. I told him to turn it over to a member of the Board of Delinquents, and we verified the bills with the description and numbers on the list already made out. I then took the suspect to the Special Agent’s office, where we obtained a signed confession from him. He was taken before the District Attorney and held for the grand jury. The grand jury met November 11 at 2:00 P. M. and returned an indictment. On Tuesday morning he was arraigned before the judge, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to Leavenworth penitentiary.”
Detroit had an interesting alien enemy case in that of Fred G——, escaped petty officer of the Germany Navy who had been working in Detroit for six months under the name of Walter B——. He was an attendant in a sanitarium and somehow seemed a little worth suspicion, although nothing he said could be looked on as much out of the way. The man who reported the case was used as a stool pigeon. At length they met in a hotel under the pretense of an invention which would be useful to any one of the nations in the war. A dictaphone was put in the room where they were to meet, and four A. P. L. operatives were in the next room at the other end of the instrument. There were three such meetings, and finally sufficient evidence was secured to warrant D. J. in arresting the man. The final play was made the next Saturday night, when he was arrested at the hotel and locked up until Monday. This man had first papers issued to him under the name of Walter B——, as a Hollander, and when brought before D. J. on Monday, he maintained that he was a Hollander and had left home at an early age owing to brutal treatment from his father. After one and a half hours’ work he finally broke down and gave up his story. He admitted that his real name was Fred G——, that he was in the German Navy and had been on the commerce raider Emden when that ship was driven with several others into Guam by the Japanese fleet. He was taken sick and transferred to Mare Island, California, after internment. After his recovery in California he escaped, he said, by swimming the channel to the mainland. He began to beat his way on freight trains to various parts of the country. He was employed in New York for a time as messenger in a bank. Then he drifted to Detroit, worked at various occupations in automobile factories, etc., and was a motorman on the street cars. This man finally opened up and gave the Department of Justice a line of information which, had the war continued longer, would have proved of the greatest importance. He was ordered interned by the United States Government. In this case the division was able to see the actual results of its work. There have been many other cases which might have turned out as well in the dénouement, but this one seemed to begin with nothing and ended with good and visible results.
CHAPTER XI
THE STORY OF ST. LOUIS
How the Pro-German Was Kept Mild—Sober and Well-Considered Methods—A Big Secret Code Puzzle—Business As Usual.
The summaries for St. Louis tell the same story of patient and indefatigable loyalty, resolved to hold America strictly American. The St. Louis story is modest, straightforward and convincing. It is given in substance as written by the Chief, Mr. G. H. Walker.
The St. Louis division was organized on April 3, 1917. The initial organization was composed of sixteen companies, organized each under a captain and lieutenants, divided into professional, commercial and industrial groups, so as to embrace all fields of activity. Only dependable and loyal men were taken into these companies, which ranged in size numerically from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five each. The business and financial interests of St. Louis responded generously to the plan and made possible the marked success that always attended the division.
Captains, lieutenants and operatives from the outset were required only to use their eyes and ears and to send in their reports, through their appropriate superiors, to Mr. G. H. Walker, the Chief of the division, who in turn submitted such reports to the Special Agent in Charge, Department of Justice, at St. Louis. It became evident in the summer months of 1917, from the increasing number and variety of reports sent in, that the facilities of the Bureau of Investigation were wholly inadequate, and that the investigating forces of the Bureau would require enlargement unless the St. Louis Division of the American Protective League itself undertook active investigation of its reports, thus relieving the Bureau to that extent. It was the same old story of the breaking down of a most important branch of the Government, and the prompt, patriotic rallying of our American citizens in support.
The decision was made, involving the opening of a suite of offices and the enrollment of a number of competent volunteers who could give their time to this work. Concurrently with making this decision, which meant so much more work, the St. Louis division undertook the formation of a geographic organization distinct from the company organizations, members of which were not only required to report all matters of interest through immediate superiors, but were also called upon from time to time for auxiliary investigation work in their respective neighborhoods. The district organization embraced twenty geographical divisions within St. Louis proper, there being from twenty-five to fifty operatives in each division, all of them responsible to a deputy inspector, who in turn was responsible to an inspector presiding over four districts. Four districts constituted a zone. St. Louis County, on the west, was similarly organized, as were East St. Louis and adjoining towns and villages in Illinois. In the summer of 1918, East St. Louis and considerable adjacent territory were separated from the St. Louis division and created into a distinct division, continuing, however, in close coöperation with the St. Louis division.