An alien enemy refused to register and was taken to the League headquarters for intensive examination. The operative was called to the telephone on an urgent message just as he entered headquarters. He hastened to the telephone, leaving his prisoner where he could not escape. When he had finished, he discovered his prisoner missing. It transpired that another operative had come into headquarters, and the prisoner had asked him where aliens registered. The operative asked “Why?” and when he was informed that the man wished to register, he obligingly agreed to accompany him to the United States Marshal’s office. He was chagrined to find that he had deprived his fellow operative of a case.
A peculiar case came under the notice of the League. A Russian of draft age, whose father and brothers and sisters were naturalized, claimed exemption on the ground that the father had not taken out his citizenship papers until after he, the subject, had passed his majority, and he had never lost his Russian citizenship. The objector was sent to jail, but the decision was rendered that his point was well taken and he was released.
The League did a wonderful work in reconstructing families, returning wayward sons to sorrowing mothers, and in rehabilitating young men whose patriotism and fidelity to duty were lukewarm. In correcting and preventing trouble the American Protective League performed a splendid service to the Government.
CHAPTER VI
THE STORY OF BOSTON
Massachusetts Somewhat Mixed in Safety Measures—Early Embarrassment of Riches—Brief History of A. P. L.—Organization and Its Success—Stories of the Trail.
After A. P. L. began to reach out into a wide development by reason of the hard work of the National Directors at Washington, D. J. in that town began to cry for more. It sent out to all its special agents and local offices a circular explaining the great assistance which the League was capable of rendering the Government, and asked the assignment of a special agent as an A. P. L. detail in each bureau locality. This circular went out on February 6, 1918, and Boston received a copy duly, as well as the request of the Provost Marshal General to the Governor of Massachusetts for aid in selective service matters. At that time there was no division of A. P. L. organized in Boston. A few days later the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety, which had been organized and active ever since the beginning of the war, was asked to interest itself to the extent of having some good man start a Boston division of A. P. L. The latter matter was slow in development because of the extent and thoroughness of the earlier state organization. The latter had been taking care of the food, fuel and other administrative work in assistance to the Government. The feeling was that it might be better to enlarge the Committee of Public Safety than to start any new body which might be a source of misunderstanding and friction.
The Department of Justice work in Boston during the early days of the war had not been satisfactory. Boston, so far from being all Puritan, has in reality one of the most mixed populations in the country. There was some feeling against the Department of Justice in Boston, and some feeling also against any new body which proposed to link up closely with that arm of the Government. D. J. had been handling for itself the alien enemy, anti-military and propaganda work. Yet very early in the game D. J. was overworked in Boston, as it had been in every other great city in America, and it really needed help. There were a great many thinking men who believed that it could be much relieved by the well-organized support of the banking, real estate, industrial and commercial activities of the city, as had been the case all over the United States where A. P. L. divisions had been created.
Still another embarrassment, however, slowed up the early activities of A. P. L. in Boston. That city having in its population many French Canadians, Irish, and so forth, of the Catholic faith, had developed a sort of Church problem, and there had become somewhat active the organization known as the “A. P. A.”—whose initials are somewhat close to those of A. P. L. Many thought that confusion between the two organizations would result. There had been, moreover, in this state of independent thought, a great many other “Leagues” of this, that and the other sort; so that many felt that Boston had about enough leagues as matters then stood.
At about this time Mr. W. Rodman Peabody of the Committee of Public Safety pointed out to Washington the efficient manner in which Mr. Endicott had organized that committee throughout the State. There was a local committee of safety in every town, and also a state-wide machine organizing the banking, real estate and other important business activities. He suggested that instead of a division of A. P. L., there ought to be a sub-organization “organized by the Committee of Public Safety at the request of the Department of Justice.” It was understood that this minor organization should have the general features of A. P. L. and should act as the Massachusetts branch of A. P. L. A list of good names was suggested of persons suitable for the organization as thus outlined.
Mr. Elting of the National Directors, however, made the point that an arrangement of this kind would have a tendency to discredit or to disintegrate the League in other cities. The Attorney-General also was opposed to any organization which did not show the exact status of a purely volunteer body, as had been done in all other parts of the United States.