A code is a scheme agreed on by which the two parties substitute certain whole words for the real words of the message. A code message might seem wholly innocent—let us say, just a simple comment on the weather. But suppose “bright and fair” meant in code “The Leviathan sailed this morning,” and suppose the Leviathan were a transport carrying twelve thousand troops to France! Unless the de-code artist is indeed an artist, he cannot know what interchange in ideas had been agreed upon for interchanged words; and there are not twenty-six letters, but 26,000 words which may be transposed in meaning. The big German spy work—that is, the chain of messages that passed between the German Embassy in America and the Imperial Headquarters in Berlin—was done in enciphered code. They had first been written in German before coding, and after coding, the code was put in cipher. None the less, we read them, and von Bernstorff, Dr. Albert, et al., are no more on our soil.
This is specialized, expert work of the most delicate and difficult sort, and is not for the average amateur. Sometimes the latter had more enthusiasm than knowledge in his ambition to be a real sleuth, and in such cases, perhaps something amusing might happen, where zeal did not jump with discretion.
BOOK II
THE TALES OF THE CITIES
CHAPTER I
THE STORY OF CHICAGO
The Birthplace of the American Protective League—Center of Enemy Alien Activities—Focus of German Propaganda and Home of Pro-German Cults and Creeds—Story of the League’s Work and Workers.
The unvarnished story of the growth and accomplishments of this League is the greatest proof in the world of the ability for self-government of intelligent, educated and thinking men. The American Protective League was made up of sober citizens who had something to protect. It was no one man, no one set of men, no one city, which makes it great. The real credit belongs to the unclassified and unsegregated Little Fellow.
We had in this war the usual amount of self-seeking. Our first pages abounded in pictures and praises of our great men, born of God to do wonders in ships, supplies, aeroplanes and armies. Some of them worked for a dollar a year. Some of them earned that much, many a great deal less. The scandals of this war are as great as the scandals of any war, when you come to know the truth about them. But there is no scandal attached to the plain, average citizen in this war. It was he, the real democrat and the real American, who won this war for us.
There is no charge of vain-glory, no charge of inefficiency and self-seeking attached to the story of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood and the Argonne, where died thousands of Little Fellows become great in making good. Neither is there any scandal attaching to the unknown men, the unnamed Little Fellows who “made good” back home behind the lines—the men who usually get lost after any war when the glory is being passed around by the politicians and paid historians.
There is, in a work such as this, no such thing as dividing or apportioning personal or local credit or approbation. Names, portraits, credits, praises—nothing of these is desired or may be begun, for there could be no end; and besides, one man is as big and as good as another in A. P. L. The League existed in countless communities all over the country—so many, it is not possible even to name a fraction of them. There is not even the possibility of mentioning more than a few of the greater centers of the work, and that in partial fashion only.
In this plan, perhaps, the city of Chicago naturally may come first, because, as we have seen, it was there that the League began. Besides, in this great Western hive of all the races, there are far more Germans than there are Americans. Have you not heard that astounding utterance of a sitting Mayor to the effect that Chicago is “the sixth greatest German city on the earth”? One also has heard an earlier Mayor of Chicago say that in his political plans he cared nothing at all for the American vote. “Give me the Austrian and the Italian and the Polish vote,” he said; “but above all, give me the German vote!” Perhaps he would not be so outspoken to-day.