CHAPTER IV
THE STORY OF NEWARK
Big Division of Northern New Jersey—Hot-Bed of Spydom and Anarchy—Cases from the Files—Guarding the Gate to the Sea.
Northern New Jersey was recognized as one of the riskiest regions of the United States. Time out of mind, American readers have noted, with the short-lived American anger, the many newspaper tales of Paterson and anarchy, of New Jersey and New Thought, of socialistic ranters hailing from this or that semi-foreign community, in one of the oldest states in the American union, whose battlefields in our first war for freedom are spread on many glorious pages of our country’s history. The battlefields of Jersey are different now, and are not so glorious. Still, a few men, as patriotic as those in Revolutionary days, have done their best during this war to keep their country safe. The work of the Northern New Jersey Division, which has been in charge of Mr. W. D. McDermid, as State Inspector, is reassuring.
It is proper to point out that the Northern New Jersey Division, being one of the first of the A. P. L. to be organized, operated on lines different from those of almost any other territory. Its district covers one-half of the state, including the vitally important Port of Embarkation. Under a single central office, it combined over one hundred municipalities, most of which would ordinarily have had a separate headquarters organization, but which for local reasons had all been consolidated in one division.
There was abundance to do, and there were plenty to be watched. There could, for example, be furnished several hundred instances of sabotage in this manufacturing district of Northern New Jersey—sabotage either detected in advance, or thoroughly investigated afterwards. This was so common in the hundreds of plants in that District that it became for the Northern Division, for the most part, a matter of routine. A great deal of the work of this character ultimately was handled by the Plant Protection Division of the War Department.
In upper New Jersey, as in the State of New York, the Governmental departments reached out and rather overshadowed, in glory at least, the patient and less known efforts of the A. P. L. Newark frankly complains that quite often sufficiently vigorous action was not to be had by the officers of the Department of Justice, even after full evidence had been handed to it by the A. P. L. Some A. P. L. men even go so far as to claim that D. J. would not only crab an act, but claim a glory! Our State Inspector voices this in occasional comment:
In particular reference to two cases of ours, it is a source of great disappointment and a great deal of harsh criticism that the Department of Justice has seen fit to take the position toward our evidence that it has. Their indifference has led us to secure a number of clean-cut convictions in state courts under local laws. These, of course, have not the scope of Federal laws, under which these cases might very much better have been prosecuted. We feel that in common justice to the work of the A. P. L., some such comment as this should be made.
There was abundant fire behind some of these New Jersey smokes, be sure of that, and many rumors of the class commonly pooh-poohed at by M. I. D. and D. J. were made good. Three actual samples of powdered glass in food were found; two actual cases of Red Cross bandages containing deleterious substances also were found; there was one instance of insidious printed propaganda distributed by means of knitted work; and there was a very distinct trail of Sinn Feiners working in conjunction with the enemy. To these may be added such instances of investigation as are given below.
Mr. X, a minister of the gospel, was very offensive in his pacifism. He refused permission for the display of an American flag in his church, or even a service flag, and would not allow the church to be used for Red Cross work. He was forced to resign, his particular brand of piety not seeming to track with the creed of his congregation. The quality of his pacifism may be judged from the fact that he excused the Germans for their atrocities, saying that if France and Belgium had not resisted, there never would have been any atrocities! This man applied for a position to go to France in Government war work. His application was refused.
It is, of course, well known that the U. S. troops in large part sailed from the vicinity of the City of New York, or upper New Jersey. Of course, also, all the preparations for this war, all of the expense of it, all the time and trouble of it, focused exactly on the number of troops we actually could get on the way. The utmost secrecy was maintained by our Government as to the number of troops, the ships that carried them, and the time and place of sailing. The mother of a boy on his way to France did not know he had sailed until a curt card from the other side of the water told her that he was in France. Practically all the people of the United States, however, accepted this secrecy as a necessary war measure—that being obviously and permanently necessary in this war, where the risks of the sea included the danger of the German submarine.