Neillsville, Wisconsin, apparently, was up on its toes. It reports the investigation of an alien German Lutheran minister; utterances against the President and the Government, and the discovery of socialistic campaign literature for evidence in the Socialist trial at Chicago. It searched the community for the Socialist paper called “The Voice of the People”; investigated the Russellite sect and looked up the record of 118 petitioners for naturalization; investigated juries in the trial of a murder case growing out of an attempt to evade the draft, in which several people were wounded and two killed, and investigated a Socialist candidate for sheriff who made contributions to a fund for printing radical literature. The foregoing civil activities were done in the interest of the Department of Justice. Neillsville, for the War Department, investigated a woman who was trying to get information about the Edgewood Arsenals; assisted the U. S. Marshals in arresting draft dodgers, and investigated civilian applicants for overseas service and applicants for commissions. The Chief apologizes for not having done more!
Oshkosh, Wisconsin, had one hundred and eleven men—lawyers, doctors, bankers, manufacturers and workmen—on her A. P. L. rolls. The investigations throughout the war period totalled 343. There was much outspoken Germanism in this district before the United States went into the war, but after that, it died down. One old German, when confronted by the operatives, said: “Vel, I dell you vat I dink; it is so; I dink vat I dink. How can I helb id? But I say not von dam vord—nefer!” A safe rule. “Since the war ended,” says the Chief, “known sympathizers with Germany have been as quiet as oysters here. When Germany has been a republic for twenty years or so, I hope some of these imported old bigots will soften.”
Racine, Wisconsin, has a population of 50,000. In a slacker raid it gathered in 3,000, including a number of real dodgers and deserters. Two companies of State guards and Spanish war veterans, organized into thirty-five squads, carried out the League’s orders to perfection.
Berlin, Wisconsin, reports: “Berger carried this county for Congress. We had some German propagandists who said that America could not win the war. We quieted them. Most of our work had to do with Liberty Bond campaigns, Red Cross, exemption claims, and Food Administration matters.”
Eau Claire, Wisconsin, makes a clean-cut report on the activities of that division, being in touch constantly with the Agents of the Department of Justice and ready to act at once at all times. D. J. complimented this division on its compilation of evidence. The Chief says: “Among our cases are several which proved vexatious. We succeeded in silencing such disloyalists as we had. Notwithstanding the fact that the war is over, we know there yet lies ahead of all good citizens an enormous work of education in righting and keeping right the obligation of the individual to the Government.”
MINNESOTA
The City of Duluth, at the head of the Great Lakes, lies close to the edge of the great Northern wilderness whose fastnesses might well beckon the evader as well as the explorer or the discoverer. Her geographical situation makes Duluth a sort of Mecca for dodgers, drifters and deserters, and a good part of the A. P. L. work at that point—and hard work it often was—consisted in running down these unwilling patriots who preferred the seclusiveness of a logging camp, trapper’s shack, or even a logging drive, to bearing arms under their country’s flag.
Olsen is a name somewhat indefinite in the upper Minnesota country, but it was claimed by a deserter from Camp Dodge who originally registered from Ely, Minnesota. The entire Olsen genealogical tree was combed over, and many shacks housing Olsens here and there in the woods were examined, but the right Olsen was not found. At last an operative hit upon the expedient of spreading word that this particular Olsen was wanted to sign a receipt for some property that had been left to him. The proper Olsen came into town, was arrested at once, and sent to Fort Snelling—the victim of several kinds of misplaced confidence.
There came into Duluth a rather pitiful story of a young girl of East Texas engaged to a U. S. soldier who was taken prisoner and sent to the interior of Germany. The prisoner sent out a letter to his sweetheart which stated that he was well treated. He also said that he was sending her his watch as a souvenir, lest she might never see him again. The girl took the watch to a jeweler. Inside of the works there was a note which said that everything the prisoner had written in the letter was not true, that his nose and ears had been cut off by the Germans, so that he felt himself unfit even to be seen by her again. The girl herself lived at Nacogdoches and had met her Northern sweetheart in a Southern camp.
From Ashland, Wisconsin, there was reported to the Duluth office the name of one J——, a deserter. He was traced out into the woods, found in the garret of a shack whose owner disclaimed all knowledge of him, hauled down and out and sent to Fort Snelling, all in jig time.