As the perfectly interlocking system of intelligence of the A. P. L. in the great city became known, the agents of the Department of Justice and the officers of the various Military Intelligence services got in the habit of calling on headquarters at A. P. L. for all sorts of information. Quite often they would call regarding some case which needed looking into at a town a long distance away. The name of an A. P. L. division at that point would be given, and the case turned over to the latter by telegraph. Thus it is easy to see that the web of New York, expanded into the web of A. P. L. all over America, was of almost incalculable benefit to all of the U. S. Departments concerned in any way with the war.
The New York office has conducted some part of the investigation of almost every alien enemy that has been interned in that part of the country. Just how much value the work of the League has had in these various internment cases, it is difficult to tell. Department of Justice has sometimes been rather haughty and lofty in regard to its humbler auxiliary. When New York A. P. L. has inquired of D. J. as to the outcome of a certain case, sometimes the answer would be that “proper action will be taken in due time,” the inference being that D. J. did not want to be bothered by questions. A like vagueness quite often enshrouded cases turned over to Military Intelligence. A. P. L. might investigate fifty men for commissions and never know even whether any of them got a commission.
The offices of the United States Attorneys in both the Southern and Eastern districts of New York were greatly overworked, and had a very inadequate staff of assistants. It was necessary, in many instances, for A. P. L. to take cases that should have gone to a Federal Court, before some local magistrate on a disorderly conduct charge.
In brief, the story of A. P. L. in New York City is very satisfying indeed. How fortunate for Military Intelligence, the Draft Boards, the Department of Justice and other war branches that they had an A. P. L. to help them out, and to do that for nothing! Had this not been the case, it is not too much to say that these branches of our war activities would also have broken down as so lamentably did other portions of our war work—ordnance, equipment, airplane work, etc., all of which suffered from not having a quarter million of men at hand to do the work for nothing and do it right. The truth about this war never has been known and never will be printed. A lot of it lies in the files of the A. P. L.
In the course of the last ten months, according to the Military Intelligence Bureau, New York Division probably had more investigations entrusted to it than would in peace times be made throughout the entire country. Since the A. P. L. men were of the highest type, with all the advantage of education and wide experience, their ready adaptability can be taken for granted. But even with the high average of ability of the League officers and operatives, the notably fine record of the New York Division would not have been possible had there not been a most thorough and up-to-date business system. And such was actually the case.
A full series of blanks, the use of special cover sheets, of different colors, and the employment of case covers corresponding to the cover sheets, so simplified the filing system and the record of the case itself as to save a great deal of time and eliminate a great many mistakes. For instance, the case card would be buff in a case of a “commission” investigation, green in an “overseas” investigation and pink for special cases. The card is kept clipped to its cover sheet until a case is assigned. When it has been assigned, notation is made on the card and cover sheet, and the individual record card of the man to whom assigned. The case is then sent to the operative, and the case card filed alphabetically under his name in the “out” box. A separate record card is maintained for each investigator or district officer. It is thus possible to locate a case at once, by looking up a name of the subject in the “out” box of case cards, and to locate what cases are in the hands of any investigator by looking up his record card. An equally thorough system was employed in the handling of reports as they came in.
Without a most efficient system for transacting the business of the League, the most hopeless confusion must have obtained among that seething mass of conflicting human activities. Mere bulk of paper is an incomprehensible thing, and no one who has not seen the masses of reports coming in, even to the minor offices of the League, can understand what the handling of the three million A. P. L. investigations really meant in office work alone.
The Army is divided into the Staff and the Line; otherwise, the Office and the Field. A similar division may be made in the American Protective League. The men handling the records in the central office are more or less unhonored and unsung. Upon the other hand, the operative who puts on false eyebrows and a beard and goes out to stalk a suspect is apt to seem far more the heroic figure, although what he really is doing is no more than getting something for the office to file. Neither branch of the activity ought to be overlooked.
The New York A. P. L. conducted investigations for the Department of Justice under three heads; the State Department under two heads; the War Department under five heads; and also the Navy Department, the Alien Property Custodian, the Civil Service Commission, the War Trade Board and the U. S. Shipping Board, as well as the Treasury Department under three different heads.
When one pauses to reflect on these different classifications of the work and the different ramifications of the League’s operative forces, one is pretty nearly ready to admit that without a perfect office system the whole thing would have been jolly well messed up inside of a week. This amateur organization sprang into being almost over night, a smooth-working, modern business machine, which rendered invaluable services at no cost at all. When you stop to think of it, this is one of the most wonderful phenomena of American business life.