In previous pages a general outline of the birth and growth of the American Protective League has been given, with a general statement also as to its wide usefulness in the exigencies of the tremendous days of the world war. There will be, however, many thousands of the members of the League, and a like number of the lay public, who will be curious as to the specific and more personal facts surrounding the early days of the organization. Such facts are part of the country’s history as well as that of the League, and therefore ought to be recorded, and recorded accurately and indisputably.
Mr. Hinton G. Clabaugh, division superintendent of the Bureau of Investigation of the U. S. Department of Justice, was asked for a written brief, historically covering the joint activities of the Department of Justice and its A. P. L. auxiliary in Chicago during the early period of the war. The admirably comprehensive record which Mr. Clabaugh has furnished appears in this volume as [Appendix A].
No statement of facts and figures, however, or of dates and details, can really cover the story of the American Protective League. It has a character and a history which refuse to classify or to run parallel with other organizations. It was an idea born out of a vast necessity, and its growth seemed to be a thing apart from ordinary business methods. Indeed, it sprang into such rapid stature that in large part its officers followed it rather than led it. It was almost sporadic in a thousand towns, so quickly did the achievement of organization follow the realization of the need. Thereafter came the days of national organization, of system, patience, perseverance, and efficiency, which made it a well-knit power in all parts of the country.
It was Mr. Clabaugh’s privilege to have lent aid and encouragement in the days when the League was not yet a reality, the early days when all was nebulous, when no one knew anyone else, and when cases were pouring into D. J. that had to be handled in the best way possible and at the first moment possible.
The A. P. L. has always served the regular organization of the law, has always worked with or under the supervision of the D. J. bureau chief nearest at hand, and, indeed, never pretended to do more than that. But this coöperation and interlocking of forces was an easier thing for D. J. superintendents elsewhere, later in the game, after A. P. L. had become an accepted success all over the country.
It was at the very beginning that the greatest difficulties had to be met, and it was during these early troubled days of the League that its history became inseparably linked with that of the Chicago bureau of the Department of Justice. Set down in a seething center of alien activity—for so we may justly call Chicago in the early days of this war—with only a handful of men to rely on, with no laws, no precedents, no support, no help, no past like to the present, and no future that could be predicated on anything that had gone before, Mr. Clabaugh’s bureau was the first to get swamped with the neutrality cases—and the first to be offered counsel, friendship, support, help, money, men and methods, all in quality and amount fitted to win the day for him at once. The Clabaugh story, therefore, is the most important one told by any bureau chief, and it is historically indispensable.
It is all very well to have confidence in our government and to believe in a general way that it cannot err and cannot fail, but government in peace and government in war times are two distinct and separate propositions. The sheer truth is that there was absolutely no arm or branch of our government which was prepared for war. In part, we never did get prepared for it, so far as essential equipment of a military sort is concerned. In artillery, in aeroplanes, in various sorts of munitions and of equipment, we were not ready for war when the Armistice was signed. We had no adequate military or intelligence system, and the splendid force built up as M. I. D. was built after the war was begun and not before. In the same way—although, of course, we had the American faith and respect for our courts, believing them to be in some way supernal institutions which could not err and which needed no attention on the part of the people—our judiciary also was unprepared for war. It never would have been prepared for war—never in the world—had it not been for the American Protective League. It is certainly a most curious, almost an uncanny story, how the Minute Men of America once more saved the day, responding instantly to a great national need, not knowing overmuch of this new game, but each resolved to fight—each, if you please, resolving in unheroic and undramatic way—in much the same frame of mind of those men at Verdun who wrote on the page of martial history the clarion phrase, “They shall not pass!”
The enemy did not pass in Chicago, nor in New York, nor in San Francisco, nor in any place between. Not prepared—a whole nation in shirtsleeves at the plow—we became prepared. We fought with one hand, while, with the other, we buttoned on the new tunic for which we had not yet been measured, and in Army, Navy, Aviation, Intelligence, Supply, Motor Transport and Department of Justice, we learned as we fought—and won. The organization of the American Protective League reveals a curious phase of life in this republic. It could not have taken place in any other country of the world.
“A word as to the Chicago organization is in order,” says the writer of this first report of D. J. on A. P. L. “The work of the League was presumed to be to report matters of a disloyal nature that came to the attention of the members and to see that they were brought to the attention of the proper Government officials. However, the work of the agents of the Bureau itself increased so rapidly at this time that it was a physical impossibility for the small number to handle the same, and by degrees members of the League who showed aptitude for the work were called upon to assist the agents of the Bureau. Gradually, more and more work was thrown on the League until practically all complaints coming to the Bureau by mail were turned over to the League for them to investigate.”
If, during the later months of the war, you had visited the Department of Justice in the Federal Building in Chicago, you would have found extensive and well-equipped offices, ably manned and humming with activity. Yet the Chicago department, though large in personnel and efficient in administration, was greatly overworked in this hotbed of pro-German and enemy spy activity.