A certain colored draft dodger was discovered to belong to a staff of colored waiters in a certain hotel. The head waiter, very pompous and very shiny, refused to allow a search. The A. P. L. declared that if the suspect was not forthcoming he would arrest every waiter in the place and carry them off in the wagon. This brought out the suspect. He’s in the Army now.
A certain Mrs. L—— called the Red Cross a bunch of grafters and crooks, said Ambassador Gerard was a traitor and a liar, said the President was the greatest traitor since Jefferson Davis and made other interesting remarks. She repeated these statements before a U. S. Marshal and was held in $5,000 bond. Then she became more abusive and was held in $5,000 additional. She kept on until her bond amounted to $25,000, and was then asked if she did not think it was time to stop talking. She did. As she could not raise the bail, she was sent to Cook County jail, where she remained till the Armistice was signed.
Chicago at times handled other live stock than that commonly seen in the stockyards. On August 5, 1918, the sixth enemy alien special to Fort Oglethorpe carried fifteen persons for internment. The train was to pick up eight more at Indianapolis. On the following day, it seems, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had seven members who groaned while they were playing the Star Spangled Banner. They explained their frame of mind before a judge, who taught them very much better manners. On August 7, Lieutenant Friederick Walter S—— of the German army, who for a month had worn a United States uniform at Camp Grant, had his naturalization papers revoked, and got interned for the period of the war. On September 1, among ten aliens shipped to Fort Oglethorpe, one was a munition manufacturer who had been just at the point of receiving a very fat United States order. He had been filling contracts for Germany before we went to war.
On November 17, 1918, the radicals and socialists of Chicago held a great meeting in the Coliseum. There were about 12,000 present. It is not necessary to go into details regarding their action beyond saying that they gave over the Chicago Socialist party, body and breeches, to Bolshevism. Here in Chicago, one of our centers of the civilization of America, these men declared themselves in sympathy with Russian anarchy. In America, the land of hope, they declared themselves in sympathy with hopelessness, despair and destruction. Some of the speeches were made in the German language—a tongue which we ought to forbid to be used in public, on our streets, in our printed pages, and over our telephone wires to-day. These speakers, in the Hun tongue, openly deplored contributions to our War funds. They hailed with much applause such speakers as Victor Berger, who publicly gloried in the four indictments pending over him. In short, the meeting came dangerously close to being disloyal. We shall be so mild as this in comment, since being a member of the Socialist party is not per se a disloyal act, and not all Socialists are of the radical wing.
Much pleased with the sound of their own voices, these gentlemen now concluded to hold a public street parade, with red banners and the usual Bolshevist appurtenances. They went to Acting Chief of Police Alcock, and asked for a permit to parade in the streets. They said they wanted to carry the red flag, and they asked police protection. Note the reply the Chief of Police made to them:
My friends, I won’t give you police protection at all, nor try to do so. Do you know what you are up against? There are 12,000 A. P. L. men in this village who are opposed to this sort of thing, and my men don’t want to get in wrong with any 12,000 A. P. L. men. We work with those people and not against them. They work with us and not against us. Believe me, the best thing you folks can do is to cut out the parade.
The representatives of the proposed parade could not get back to their headquarters fast enough. They cut out the parade.
As late as November 21, Chicago was still running enemy alien specials for Fort Oglethorpe. This consignment included a cook, also a Highland Park riding master who had been over-curious in regard to matters adjacent to Fort Sheridan. Twenty others were to be picked up later down the line—all after the Armistice had been signed.
On November 23, Fred I——, said to resemble the Crown Prince very much in his personal appearance, was fined five thousand dollars, whether for seditious utterances or for his resemblance to the Crown Prince does not appear, and is immaterial. Either would be enough.
On November 26, nine men were given free transportation from Chicago to Fort Leavenworth. One of these was a Dunkard preacher who got ten years for saying, “I’d kill a man rather than buy a Liberty bond.” He will have time to think that proposition over.