This was the first real big work successfully undertaken by Cincinnati Division of the American Protective League. It was carried out with thoroughness and dispatch, and nothing was left undone that was necessary to make the cases complete. It was wonderful training for the men who had come from their business to the work of the League, and it developed some of Cincinnati Division’s best operatives, who from that time on approached every assignment with enthusiasm and understanding.
Cincinnati Division supervised the parole of enemy aliens from Fort Oglethorpe and the Federal jail in this district. These paroled men, being released from prison, were ordered to report at the office of Cincinnati Division once each week. The day selected for them to report was Saturday morning. Failure on the part of a paroled man to report on the date set resulted in a prompt investigation. So thorough was this supervision that Cincinnati Division could at any time put its hands on these paroled men, whose ranks included actors, draughtsmen, electrical engineers, art glass designers, chefs, waiters, barbers, bakers, auto experts, laborers, machinists, farmers, and merchants.
Only one man refused to mend his ways and live up to the regulations. He is now at Fort Oglethorpe. When he first was released, he tried to induce the Federal authorities to give him permission to talk pro-German so he could “find others who were against this country,” as he put it. He was informed by the Special Agent in charge of the Cincinnati office, Department of Justice, that he could do better work by telling all his former associates how foolish they were, trying to work for the Kaiser in this country. He had claimed that his prison term had changed his opinion and that now he was “for the United States.” He was instructed to tell this to his friends as he would thereby be doing more good. His term of freedom did not last long, for he was soon at his old tricks again. He was interned for the “duration of the war.”
After the German campaign against conscription in this country had fallen flat, the active propagandists looked for new fields for their malicious and insidious work. The notorious German propaganda alliance known as “The People’s Council,” newly formed in New York, was in its infancy when word of its activities was brought to Cincinnati by an advocate of the single tax, who up to that time had been considered an extremist, but honest in intention. He became associated with a certain Cincinnatian, American born of German descent, an attorney of some reputation. These two men contemplated organizing in Cincinnati a branch of The People’s Council.
From the beginning, the League was represented at both the private and secret meetings of the Council, which, for a time, were held in the attorney’s office, where four or five gathered; but as new recruits were enrolled by the Council and larger quarters were required, they were transferred to an office in Odd Fellow’s Temple occupied by a former minister, a Socialist radical, a man whose career marked him as an advocate of extreme measures, and who carried with him a considerable following which he had organized several years before. Pacifism was the big keynote of its original platform. Without interference, however, the speakers became bold. The intellectuals who enlisted under its banner included a leading Sinn Feiner, a professor of a well-known college of Cincinnati, who was chairman, a pastor of the Lutheran Church, and, of course, the attorney and organizer.
It was the day of the original Espionage Act, and it was difficult under this unamended Act to find violations; but some of the speeches rang with treasonable utterances. After months of this sort of thing, the Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, decided it was time to act. A meeting had been called for Friday night, at the office of the former pastor, at which many things were expected to happen, and on that night it was decided to make a search, not only of the meeting place, but of the homes of the leaders. The District Attorney asked every man present—League operatives, agents of the Department of Justice, deputy United States Marshals, and local police detectives who had been assigned to the work, to set their watches with his. At 8:30 o’clock prompt, the search, under due warrant of law, was made in all parts of the city, and the papers and documents which were brought to the office of the United States Attorney made it impossible forever after for The People’s Council to carry on its nefarious activities.
From that day Cincinnati was rid of openly organized anti-government activities. Some of the papers found, proved of great value to the Government. A special solicitor from the office of the Attorney General at Washington was assigned to Cincinnati to go over these papers, and the information which he gathered was of great use in many other cities. As a result of this search, the professor who had taken such an important part in the work of The People’s Council was censured by his Board, and eliminated from the local theatre of activities.
The case of The People’s Council was one of the high spots in the work of Cincinnati Division, American Protective League, and the record in this case is one of which it can well be proud. Later, the former pastor, much to the regret of Cincinnati Division, was taken in hand by citizens of Kentucky for special treatment. His experience on that dark night in the foot-hills of Kentucky evidently broke his spirit enough to dishearten him. He is no longer a factor in Bolshevism in Cincinnati.
After the reorganization of Cincinnati Division had been effected, to conform to the new plan of the National Directors, Chief Gerson J. Brown decided that it would be good policy to keep in close touch with the fifteen hundred male enemy aliens in Hamilton County. Accordingly, after fully considering the matter, he organized the Enemy Alien Bureau. The operatives were instructed as to all regulations governing these aliens, so that they could give advice whenever called upon by their charges, who did not know just what the Government expected of them. All delinquents were taken to the office of the Marshal by American Protective League members and made to complete their registration. Following out their instructions, American Protective League members fully explained to the aliens the object of their visit and just what their privileges were under the regulations. In a majority of the cases, it was found that the alien really had never fully understood what the Government regulations were.
Many peculiar situations were found. In several cases it developed that aliens, who had passes issued by the Marshal permitting them to go to their places of employment and return by the most direct route, lived above the store in which they worked. Arrangements were made with the Marshal whereby these men, when found worthy, were given permits entitling them to enjoy more privileges. Others were found who went direct to their work, and on returning in the evening, feared to go out of the house. Others would not go to church, fearful that they would be arrested and interned.