Director Charles B. Prichard, of the Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety, recognized the possibilities of effective coöperation at the beginning, and there was not a moment when the patrolmen and municipal detectives did not do everything possible to promote the success of the League’s activities. This spirit of patriotic coöperation on the part of the municipal authorities was constantly maintained through the friendliness and enthusiasm of Robert J. Alderdice, superintendent of police; Magistrate Walter J. Lloyd and Commissioners of Police Dye, Kane, Johnson and Calhoun. Pittsburgh certainly was well policed. In all, the League maintained constantly throughout the trying period over 2,000 active operatives.
The effectiveness of this far-reaching organization was revealed in the complete absence of those disturbances which had been feared. At the outbreak of war, troops had been located at bridges and important public works, but the thorough manner in which the League ferreted out those who were willing to foment trouble soon rendered unnecessary the guarding of industrial plants by soldiers or police. There were no interruptions to the enormous output of munitions and manufactured material, nor were there any accidents, explosions or labor troubles traced to agents of the enemy. In the Pittsburgh division alone, over 25,000 cases were investigated, and every person upon whom the least suspicion had been cast was soon rendered powerless to do harm. Every effort was made to eliminate troubles by preventing alien sympathizers from perfecting their plans. No meetings where incendiary talk could be fostered were permitted to continue, and it was not long before those who had trouble in mind realized that to continue their purpose would only lead to their own downfall and also that of their followers. The record of the League is a tribute to the wisdom of this preventive policy.
It was feared that because of the large proportion of foreigners in the Pittsburgh district, the wide diversity of languages spoken, and the great illiteracy among certain of the nationalities, there would be great difficulty in securing proper observance of the Selective Service registration regulations. During the Civil War, there had been serious draft riots in Pittsburgh, when the percentage of foreigners and of illiteracy was much less. The American Protective League, in coöperation with Mr. Judge, gave the widest publicity in every possible way to the plans for the registration and the penalty for failure to comply. The result of this work of preparation was that the registration was effected without disorder, and there were no occasions for wholesale arrests to bring evaders or possible evaders to justice. In fact, the League’s policy was to prevent trouble by advising those inclined to resent the Government’s call, and to make no arrests until other means failed. It was only necessary for an American Protective League operative to appear in open court on one occasion.
I. W. W. propaganda was never permitted to take root. Work to eliminate this menace occupied a large amount of the League’s attention. A well organized scheme of the Socialists to evade the Selective Service Law was broken up when a prominent radical and anarchist, a ringleader in the movement, was taken from a meeting he was about to address and compelled to register. The facts that the plans of the scheme were so well known to the League cooled the ardor of the malcontents.
The division had considerable trouble with a Jewish family which used every artifice to protect a lad of selective service age and prevent his being taken into the army. They finally succeeded in spiriting him away, but he was convicted of evading the draft, and by pressure on his family, who were placed under bond to return him, he was brought back to Pittsburgh, sent to jail for six months and then inducted into the army.
A number of Italians, through one of their societies, conceived a plan to make money by filling in questionnaires to enable evasion of selective service. Two ringleaders were arrested, and the chief of the society afterward rendered the League valuable service in preventing labor disturbances. The League also uncovered a scheme of a few unscrupulous lawyers to extort money from men on the ground that their advice would permit them to evade the law. Arrests were not necessary, as the warning of the League of the consequences of any continuance of the practice was sufficient.
The League was able to break the backbone of a dangerous plan of German propaganda through an international organization known as the Geneva Association, whose members were principally alien enemies. The officers were arrested and placed under bond for trial.
One very dangerous draft evader and conscientious objector was arrested and court-martialed after considerable trouble. He was Walter L. Hirschberg, a student at the University of Pittsburgh. He registered for selective service, but wrote and sent to his draft board his “declaration of rights,” as he viewed them, and maintained such an attitude of defiance toward the Government that it was decided to investigate him. In the meantime he disappeared and was traced to New York, where he was placed under observation. He was detained in a locked room in a hotel until sufficient evidence could be obtained against him, but was so shrewd and resourceful that he outwitted his captors and made his escape. It was suspected that he had gone to Chicago, and a Pittsburgh operative went there to find him. The use of commendable strategy secured his arrest and his return to Pittsburgh at the point of a revolver. Although he condemned war as organized murder, he carried a loaded revolver and blackjack for emergencies! The details of his escape and flight read like a thrilling story of Sherlock Holmes. As an instance of his resourcefulness and quick wit, he related that when he arrived at the depot in Chicago, he picked up a newspaper to learn quickly the lay of the land. In flaming headlines he discovered that Chicago police that morning were making wholesale arrests of all young men without registration cards. He had none. He espied a woman with a babe and a large traveling case, and politely offered to assist her by carrying the valise. When he was approached by an officer and requested to show his card, he quickly retorted, “Oh, you are too late. You can see that this is my wife and child.” He was allowed to leave the depot and go unmolested. He went into hiding until the scare was over. Hirschberg was sent by a court-martial at Camp Lee to the Atlanta prison for twenty years.
“Pittsburgh had some amusing incidents,” says the Chief who has been so freely quoted, and he has included several of them in his report:
There was little bootlegging as liquor dealers endeavored to comply with the law forbidding the sale of intoxicants to soldiers in uniform or within restricted areas adjacent to army camps. One negro was suspected, and upon being approached by an operative, readily agreed to sell a quart of “cold tea” for $9.00. The operative bought—and then arrested the negro. When the “cold tea” was tested, it was found to be just what the negro said it was—cold tea!