Matters did not go so gently in the vice operations so far as they had to do with the older and more persistent offenders. There were raids on some of the more notorious resorts, and several of them closed their doors entirely. There was a general cleaning up in New Orleans which was good for the city whether or not it remained a center of military activities.
A common practice of New Orleans taxicab drivers was to meet all trains coming in from the cantonments and to offer the sights of the city, liquor and taxicab included, to any enlisted man for a net sum varying from five to ten dollars. The League practically wiped out this pernicious practice by putting on the trains A. P. L. men in uniform as soldiers. When they got off the train and were thus accosted by taxicab drivers, they had all the evidence which was necessary. The taxicab practice was seriously interfered with.
A neighboring city was alleged to have examined incorrectly before its draft board a certain young man, giving him a classification to which he was not entitled. Investigation was set on foot by the A. P. L., who uncovered the fact that the man’s father conducted a sanitarium patronized by drug and liquor patients. He had treated several members of the board in his sanitarium, and had likewise had the Federal district judge as a patient, as well as several other influential citizens of the community. Thus, having rather confidential information, A. P. L. had very little difficulty in framing up its case. It will perhaps not be necessary to go into the usual series of narratives of interesting cases in the instance of the Crescent City. The report, as outlined above, is so different in its general phases from that of the average division that it may be allowed to stand, with the addition of its tabulated totals, which cover all the forms of assistance to the Government in which A. P. L. has participated throughout the United States.
| Alien enemy activities | 292 |
| Citizen disloyalty and sedition | 1,626 |
| Sabotage, bombs, dynamite, defective manufacture | 24 |
| Anti-military activity, interference with draft | 34 |
| Propaganda—word of mouth and printed | 1,326 |
| Radical organizations—I. W. W., etc. | 43 |
| Bribery, graft, theft and embezzlement | 82 |
| Naturalization, impersonation, etc. | 827 |
| Counter-espionage for military intelligence | 2 |
| Selective Service Regulations under boards | 2,194 |
| In slacker raids, estimated | 20,000 |
| Of local and district board members | 4 |
| Work or fight order | 254 |
| Character and loyalty—civilian applicants | 103 |
| Applicants for commissions | 57 |
| Training camp activities—Section 12 | 2,919 |
| Training camp activities—Section 13 | 2,843 |
| Camp desertions | 140 |
| Collection of foreign maps, etc. | 3,500 |
| Counter-espionage for Naval Intelligence | 206 |
| Collection of binoculars, etc. | 8 |
| Food Administration—hoarding, destruction, etc. | 453 |
| Fuel Administration—hoarding, destruction, etc. | 964 |
| Department of State—Miscellaneous | 7 |
| Treasury Department—War Risk Insurance, etc. | 625 |
| United States Shipping Board | 15 |
| Alien Property Custodian—Miscellaneous | 7 |
| Red Cross loyalty investigations | 400 |
The decision to demobilize the American Protective League was arrived at somewhat suddenly, for reasons more or less obvious to all members of the League. As recently as November 13, 1918, Mr. Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau of Investigation of the U. S. Department of Justice, wrote to Chief Weinberger, expressing the assurance that the American Protective League by no means ought to disband, since peace was not yet declared, and since need for the League’s services still existed. He said, “I am entirely satisfied that the need for this organization will continue for some time to come, entirely without regard to the progress of peace negotiations. The tremendous machines which have been organized by the Government for the prosecution of this war cannot be stopped abruptly, and must continue to operate for many months under any circumstances. The American Protective League has a large share of the work in this country which has made possible the united support and the full success of our arms abroad, and I am sure that your organization will continue to play its full part until the Department is willing to say that it has no further need for its services.”
Now, a few months after these expressions, the League is dissolved and its work declared ended. Is it ended? New Orleans thinks not, and points at least to one instance of civic betterment which has not yet demobilized—its “Amproleague Farm.” The officials found there an old sugar plantation which dated back to 1857. The old residence was built over as a modern home, equipped with forty windows, a dormitory with fifty beds, a room with six sewing machines, also ample galleries and well-fitted kitchens. Here the League has built a little community home which it is not yet ready to see die. It is a home where an erring person is given a chance to begin over again. And after all, has not that been a part of all the work of A. P. L. in all the country? From time to time in other reports we have seen it stated: “We tried to show this or that pro-German where he was wrong”; “We tried to change rather than to punish”; “We endeavored to improve our citizenship rather than penalize those who had made mistakes.” So, therefore, we may say that New Orleans has added a good chapter to the good history of this body of thoughtful citizens—it has helped make the world and the country better than it was before.
CHAPTER XV
THE STORY OF CALIFORNIA
A Series of Graphic Case Stories from All Over the Golden State—Stirring Romances from the Capital of Romance—The A. P. L. in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Everywhere Between—the Pacific Coast in War Times.
Time was when there were just two really cosmopolitan towns in the United States. Merely being mixed in population does not mean cosmopolitanism; but San Francisco and New Orleans were two towns which could offer any American something to see. The fire changed San Francisco to a certain extent, and the North has ruined New Orleans all it could; but the soul of each of these two towns still goes marching on, incapable of destruction. If sudden wealth could not make San Francisco avaricious, nor solid prosperity leave her sordid; if earthquake, fire and famine could not daunt her unquenchably buoyant heart—what reason have we to believe that a small matter like a world war would much disturb her poise?
‘Frisco by the Golden Gate—that last viewpoint where America faces the Orient and her own future as well—took her war philosophically, allowed her Hindu conspiracies to run their course, and viewed with none too great agitation the flood of disloyalty which inevitably was caught by the western shore, just as once a better sort of material was caught in the sluices of her old Long Toms. San Francisco knows she is here to stay, and believes that this Republic also is here to stay.