ARKANSAS
Cotter, Arkansas, reports that it is a community with very few foreigners, the population being American for generations back. The Chief says: “We had two deserters who lived for two weeks in an inaccessible camp in the mountains. They finally got hungry, came in and surrendered. We also had one draft-dodging case of a peculiar sort. This young man, according to his marriage license, should have registered in June, 1917. He did not. We traced him to Oklahoma, and from there to Springfield, Missouri. He was taken into custody by the Chief of Police at that point on our order. We sent a certified copy of his marriage license, but he had enough of his relatives on hand to swear to his true age, to secure his release.”
Helena, Arkansas, also comes into court with very clean hands. Its report shows a membership of 127, which proved to be none too large, as all hands found work to do. Investigations were handled all over Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Fort Smith, Arkansas, found its slacker raids more interesting than anything else. It conducted two of them, a slacker or two being apprehended each time. One stranger, who was sufficiently indiscreet as to fail to register, was unceremoniously hauled out of bed and turned over to the local war board. No alien enemy activities came to the attention of this division.
OKLAHOMA
The State of Oklahoma does not submit a wealth of material for this history of the A. P. L., and indeed the evidence seems to indicate that there was comparatively little material to submit. Chickasha, Oklahoma, sends in a little report, covering three alien enemy investigations; four cases of disloyalty and sedition; one case of sabotage; five cases of word-of-mouth propaganda; two deserter cases, and seven character and loyalty investigations.
There are numerous reports at hand, which are made in the form of figures only, but it is impossible to print these in detail.
CHAPTER IV
THE STORY OF THE WEST
Under the caption of The West, we arbitrarily are grouping all of the states lying west of a line running north and south from the western borders of the Dakotas to the eastern edge of New Mexico. This excludes part of that great region long known in America as the Great West,—a country that is no more, and never again can be on the face of this earth, unless war and pestilence one day shall quite remove our present human population. What we retain as the West for A. P. L. classification purposes still has some distinct characteristics. It still is largely unknown land to Eastern citizens, still holds the flavor of a romantic past, as well as that of a great and unknown future.
The region thus set off comprises more than a third of the acreage of the United States. It is the most thinly settled portion of the United States and, made up as it is in large part of arid lands or mountainous regions, no doubt on the average it always will remain so. Yet here lie the richest remaining forests of America, and no one may know how much of additional mineral wealth. Here also, our country halts at the shore of the Pacific and looks westward at the future. In the march of King Charles, his knights paused at Rockfish Gap, and those merry gentlemen carelessly claimed possession of all those unknown lands that lay to the westward, “as far as the South Sea.” Well, we have made the crossing of the continent. We are at the South Sea now.