The A. P. L. in San Francisco
That there would be an A. P. L. organization in San Francisco admitted of no doubt. The city was ably organized and certainly took able care of Fritz and his Boche-loving friends. But all California is divided into three parts: Northern California, Southern California—and all California! An offense to one means a fight for all, although each allows a certain amount of thumb-biting on the part of a native son. The A. P. L. in California followed precisely this ancient line of cleavage, so that there was established a Northern Division, a Southern Division—and a State Inspectorship! The State Inspector was Mr. Douglas White, who himself is a traveling man, and therefore cannot be accounted as belonging to either North or South. Mr. A. J. DeLamare had the division office in San Francisco, where the organization so closely followed the general lines already described in other cities that it perhaps is not needful to go into details here.
That California’s polyglot population meant potential trouble may be seen in the heads of the Frisco reports: a total of 1,612 cases of disloyalty and sedition, 277 cases of propaganda, and 105 of radicalism, such as that of I. W. W., etc. The work for the war boards—slackers, desertion, character and loyalty, etc.—footed up 2,415 cases in all, the grand total carried on the records as actual “cases” amounting to 5,691.
The Department of Justice labors, as usual in all the great cities, meant a vast amount of time and energy expended on the part of A. P. L. men, with the usual percent of win, lose, and draw—all offered in the infinite variety afforded by the California climate. Some of the cases were odd, some mysterious, and a good many of them big. Perhaps a few from the many turned in by Frisco may be found interesting, though chosen practically by chance. One of these is a wireless case. It should not be dismissed as another “mysterious signal” flivver until read quite through to its close.
Mrs. B—— and her mother had moved into a flat on Williard street. The persons who occupied the flat before them came back to get some plates and other material, which looked so strange that Mrs. B—— thought there had been a wireless plant there, so she reported it. They refused to give up the fixture material then in their possession. The place was on a high hill overlooking the bay and would have been an ideal locality for a wireless plant which might have given information to the enemy.
Operative No. 440 took over this case. He found that the house stood at the edge of a wood on a rocky hill. The two women explained that the place had been occupied by a man named G—— who seemed very mysterious. He would hang around the house all day and come home at different hours. He moved away suddenly. He used to make trips in the woods with people not known about there. Operative found in the house several base plates for electric light plugs, also electric wires grounded on the water and gas pipes, and also a hole cut in the side of the house, as is done when a high tension wire is passed through.
Mrs. B—— stated that at night sounds similar to those made by a wireless sending outfit often were heard, also that a sound representing rapping signals occurred at the rear of the house. The operative, making all allowances for a woman’s nervousness, returned that evening. Sure enough, he heard the sounds persistently as described. They did come from the rear of the house, and, although examination was made there at once and next day by daylight, he was unable to tell what made the sounds.
The case now looked promising, so the operative again went over the premises. He could not find any trace of wireless apparatus. He did find a pipe starting at the edge of the woods and tried to follow this. It led to the brink of a high bluff. Just at the edge of the bluff the operative almost stepped on a rattlesnake, and in attempting to escape he rolled to the bottom of the bank, carrying the pipe with him! When he came to, he was free of the snake. He looked at his pipe, but found it clogged with dirt. It therefore could not have been used lately as a wire conduit.
Nothing could be learned of the former occupant, G——, except that he was a musician. Inquiry among musical societies and unions finally located him as a player in a place called the “Hoffbrau”—since very patriotically changed to the “States Café.” Reports were that he had been born in the city of New York and served honorably in the United States Navy. His wife’s father had fought in the Civil War. After G—— had been found, the operative had a talk with him. Soon thereafter, light was offered on a very mysterious situation. G—— explained that he had to move very quickly as his wife had rented a new house without notifying him. When he moved he had forgotten those base plates—which were intended only for household use, percolators, etc. But when he went away the dog was not taken. He had come back a number of times to the old place trying to locate the dog. At last he had remembered these base plates and tried to secure them, as he had put them in himself. It looked like a clean bill of health for G——; but how about the mysterious noises?
The operative once more secreted himself at the edge of the woods at about ten o’clock that night and began to watch the house. At eleven o’clock he again heard the mysterious sounds at the rear of the house. He slipped up quietly and there found the solution of his really wireless mystery. The “signals” were made by the home-sick dog, which was trying to locate its former owner! He would come to the house in the night and scratch on the screen door, making sounds like a wireless discharge. His tail knocking on the boards made the rapping noise. When a strange person would open the door he would disappear in the darkness of the woods, so no cause for the sounds could be traced. So there you were—a perfectly beautiful mystery! It is told in the report in a very unagitated style, but really it is a pretty good case of A. P. L. work.