Once more we find occasion to revise the popular estimate of a supposedly well-known American community. No one would think of staid, steady, even-going Cleveland as anything but a place of prosperity and peace. At a rough estimate, before the Cleveland report came in, one would have said that possibly that city might report a total of ten or fifteen thousand cases of A. P. L. investigations. As a matter of fact, the Cleveland total is over sixty thousand! And yet, the Cleveland Chief in his report calls attention to the large amount of war supplies manufactured in his district, and says: “We were a hot-bed of Socialism and pro-Germanism, but not one dollar’s worth of material was lost.”
Cleveland Division was organized in May, 1917, with a personnel of 1,008—Mr. Arch C. Klunph, Chief, six Assistant Chiefs, seven Departmental Inspectors, an office staff and eighteen companies. There were also one women’s company and about five hundred unattached operatives; a total personnel of 1,551.
As the type of A. P. L. service varied in different cities, it may be interesting to other cities to note the character of work the Cleveland division was called upon to do. The list of investigations covers many heads: Failure to register, failure to entrain, and deserters from service, 5,356; failure to submit questionnaire, 2,100; failure to report for physical examination, 3,100; claims for exemption, 2,500; seditious literature, 50; seditious and treasonable utterances or pro-German cases, 7,113; loyalty investigations for Army, Navy, Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., etc., 1,746; wireless outfits, 40; enemy agents or spies, 363; I. W. W., Socialist, W. I. I. U. and Bolsheviki, 1,529; industrial sabotage, 318; Liberty Bond slackers, 500. Total number of men apprehended and examined on slacker raids, estimated, 36,000. Total—60,715.
In addition to the foregoing, the Cleveland division has rendered a large amount of service in investigating cases of violations of food, fuel, electric light and gasless Sunday regulations; cases for the National Council of Defense; registration of male and female enemy aliens (approximately 5,000); work of U. S. Marshal’s office; work of Naturalization Bureau by secret investigations of applicants for citizenship; Red Cross overseas work; Socialist cases; details for War Work plants. There also were regular weekly details of volunteer workers with automobiles to assist the Police Department.
As to definite preventive measures, the Chief points out several instances: the stopping of manufacture of a fountain pen which would explode on being opened; the choking off of the establishment of a high-power wireless plant on the shore of Lake Erie; the discharge of countless German workmen in factories producing food for the Army; the confiscation of models and plans of American battleships and submarines, and literature found in the hands of German propagandists.
In May, 1918, an express company notified Cleveland A. P. L. that they were called upon to issue money orders to an unusual number of Germans, who claimed that they were returning to their homes in Russia. The League captured twenty-three men, all claiming to live in Russia, although plainly German in appearance, and speaking that language in talking with one another. Three men left for Chicago, but were apprehended by wire at the railroad terminal in Chicago. This was a concerted movement to get as many Germans as possible back into Russia.
Cleveland, being one of the largest cities of the United States, and having also one of the largest percentages of foreign population, naturally indeed was a hot-bed for Socialism, I. W. W. work and Bolshevism, although such had not been the general reputation of the city. These organizations held regular meetings, often with speeches of the most dangerous character. At most of them, there was an A. P. L. operative noting all that was done and said.
Cleveland Division covered a population of over a million, and that in one of the four largest war working centers in the nation. It is a very proud claim to say that not one dollar was lost to the nation. The Chief points out that this statement is the more astonishing because there were made in Cleveland a long list of military supplies: Air-planes, wings and parts; ammunitions, clothing, trucks, and the hundred other materials for use in the Army and Navy. There were three hundred and eighty-six plants in Cuyahoga County engaged in ordnance work, and there were employed in these plants 1,218 workmen. These ordnance plants had contracts amounting to $175,000,000. Motor transportation plants, making trucks, trailers, axles, forms, etc., had a series of contracts totaling $88,000,000. There were fifty plants engaged in air-craft production, and twenty making clothing, not to mention three large shipyards, all busy practically day and night. That means work! Figures like this are serious. It is no cheap flattery to say to the men who are responsible for the safety of these vast industrial concerns that their record is a more than marvelous one. It is no wonder that there is the best of feeling between Cleveland Division and the Department of Justice, Police Department and all the allied administrations of the law. It is not necessary to print the letters of appreciation from any of these.
The Chief says that the most of the active work covered a period of about fifteen months. The cases handled monthly approximated four thousand. Obviously it is impossible to report sixty thousand, or four thousand, or one thousand cases, but some of the Cleveland specials are too interesting to leave aside. It is regrettable that they must be abbreviated.
On December 1, 1917, Dorothy A——, a nice Cleveland girl, was selling Liberty Bonds for the Y. W. C. A. on a partial payment basis, which did not seem quite right. Dorothy was hard to find, but she admitted, when found, that she was selling these bonds because she needed the money herself. The mortgage on the old home was about to be foreclosed, and she had taken this method of getting what money she could. It was in truth the case of a young girl driven desperate by circumstances. The A. P. L. first got her a good position; second, advanced the money to pay off the mortgage on the home, she to pay them back in monthly installments; and third, found the people to whom she had sold the bonds, and returned the money of which she had fraudulently deprived them. This girl remained clean and straight, and as a culmination of the case she married a young soldier, whom she met through the A. P. L., who later did his bit in France. We do not know of a prettier bit in the history of the A. P. L. than this.