CHAPTER XIII
THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS
Clean-Cut Work of One of the North-West’s Capitals—Straightaway Story of a Good Division—Many Anecdotes Showing How Operatives Worked—The Dignified and Sober Side of Saving the State and Making Over Citizens—A Model Report.
The great city of Minneapolis is one of the foci of the agricultural and industrial realm of the vast Northwestern country for which the Twin Cities make the gateway. It was not to be supposed that its staid and sober population would cause any great amount of trouble. None the less, trouble did develop in Minneapolis as elsewhere, and A. P. L. cases and figures mounted steadily upward, just as they did in other large centers of industry the country over.
Alien enemy cases for the Department of Justice ran 127; disloyalty and sedition, 1,222; sabotage, 17; interference with draft, 44; propaganda, 392; I. W. W. and other radicals, 70. War Department cases had 5,725 investigations under the selective draft: 997 slackers; 507 work-or-fight cases; character and loyalty, 337 cases; liquor, vice and prostitution, 593 cases. The Treasury Department had 1,129 cases on war risk and allowance grounds. The Fuel Administration turned over 2,356 cases for investigation; the gasoline work, 427. The grand total of cases handled by Minneapolis division men, November 26, 1917, to December 16, 1918, was 15,415.
Minneapolis had a very thorough organization, and has reported the results in so thorough and explicit a fashion as to leave small option in matter of handling the report. It could not well be amended or improved upon, and is given in substance in the following pages.
Entries on the case cards include every conceivable offense against the wartime laws and orders of the Federal Government. Each card contains the condensed history of an investigation important in the prosecution of the war, and, collectively, the 15,415 cards represent uncountable hours, days and nights of devoted service to the Government during a period of thirteen months. They record adventures as thrilling as any of the detective stories of Monsieur Lecocq or Sherlock Holmes, although these form a minority of the experiences encountered.
The Minneapolis Division of the American Protective League entered upon active service November 27, 1917. An organization with a limited membership had been effected in Minneapolis previously, but its members served principally as observers, and it was not until Charles G. Davis, a Minneapolis contractor, had been induced by H. M. Gardner, Vice-President of the Civic & Commerce Association, in charge of war activities, to accept the position as Chief of the Minneapolis Division, that the American Protective League became an active local agent for the apprehension of anti-war activities. Mr. Davis entirely abandoned his private business to enter upon this important Government service. After having established relations with Mr. T. E. Campbell, Chief Special Agent in charge of the Bureau of Investigation U. S. Department of Justice in the Northwest, he opened headquarters and immediately began recruiting a force of operatives. He continued in this position through the thirteen months without salary.
Under the plan of organization, a captain was appointed in each district and operatives assigned in the numbers required to meet the conditions encountered. Lieutenants also were provided, each having charge of groups of operatives up to ten men. Headquarters held each captain responsible for all operations in his district.
The jurisdiction of the Minneapolis Division extended throughout Hennepin County. In the principal county centers outside of Minneapolis, special operatives were appointed to take instruction direct from headquarters. Another group of picked operatives composed a headquarters squad operated directly under the chief and handling emergency cases.
Because of the importance and confidential nature of the business entrusted to the League, extreme care was exercised in the selection of the operatives. They were men of proved loyalty as well as of ability and influence. As the work of the division increased, the personnel was enlarged until a total of more than four hundred operatives from all lines of business, trades and professions had finally been called to service. All served without pay or expense allowances. Some of them gave practically their entire time to the work of the League. Most of them definitely pledged and gave from six to twenty hours of service every week.