On going to war with the great masters of spy craft last year, the United States had only a handful of secret service men to guard its internal frontier. Within our borders were a million and a half men and youths who were enemy aliens. Not all of them hostile, it is true; but all potentially dangerous because great national organizations existed—even shooting societies—through which German influences might reach in a few hours or days. And in every centre of population there were captains and field marshals of German intrigue, supplied with unlimited money, to appeal to their feelings and to lead them should a chance come to strike.

Yet America, during the first year of war, has been singularly peaceful. No serious disturbance has hampered war preparations conducted on a gigantic scale. Even the Selective Service Act, inconsistent with all our volunteer traditions and pride, was accepted almost without opposition. Instead of a red reign of conflagration and civil strife, there have been no outbreaks worthy of the name; and, according to the Underwriters’ Association, not a single fire in our munitions plants of a clearly established incendiary character.

Attorney-General Thomas W. Gregory, in fact, had solid grounds for declaring to the executive committee of the American Bar Association recently: “I do not believe that there is to-day any country which is being more capably policed than is the United States.” He added that for every man engaged in detecting and investigating violations of federal laws in April, 1917, there are at least one thousand to-day; while reports on new cases are coming in at the rate of fifteen hundred a day!

That sounds like a miracle of organization, doesn’t it? Even the army, with its pride-compelling record of expansion, is a slow coach beside these legions of “plain-clothes” soldiers who hold our inner lines. Let’s see how it happened.

When the war broke, the only secret service work done by the Government was handled by five small organizations. The Department of Justice had its Bureau of Investigation, charged with the discovery of offenses against the federal statutes—not a large force, but quite adequate to its peace-time job. The Treasury Department maintained a secret service with two definite functions—to protect the President’s life and person, and to prevent counterfeiting. The Army and Navy had each a few officers detailed to its intelligence service—the gathering of military and naval information and the protection of our own plans and operations. And finally the State Department possessed a small intelligence section of its own. But by comparison with the territory to be covered and the number of active German and Austrian agents in the country, there were few experienced men available for counter-espionage. And there in the background were that million and a half enemy aliens who would bear a lot of watching.

The declaration of war, then, instantly brought an emergency. Part of it the Department of Justice met by striking swift and hard at all who were unquestionably enemy agents. Because of their propaganda and other activities against the Entente Allies, these agents had been under observation for some time. Within forty-eight hours the more dangerous had been rounded up—under the hoary old act of 1798, which gave the President power to intern enemy aliens when their being at liberty might constitute a menace to the public safety.

There remained the urgent need of an immense increase in the Government’s counter-espionage forces. It would take thousands of trained and intelligent operatives to keep watch of the German agents and German sympathizers who swarmed throughout the country. As a class, such operatives did not exist: to draft the right kind of raw material from civil life would involve delays, great personal sacrifices on the part of the men drafted, and an enormous yearly budget. Thousands of business and professional careers would be interrupted at critical stages. Most of the men who accepted the call would be risking after-the-war failure in their chosen callings. The work simply couldn’t be done that way.

Then it was that the American Protective League found a way to do it.

The League is a volunteer body of 250,000 patriotic Americans, organized with the approval and operating under the direction of the Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation. It cross-cuts every commercial, industrial, professional, social, and economic level in American life. Bank presidents and bell hops, judges and janitors, managers and mechanics—all ranks meet on its common platform of loyalty and service. It has woven a net of discreet surveillance across more than a thousand American cities and towns; and the meshes are so small that few active German agents slip through. It reaches out into the country as well. More than 52,000,000 people—about half the population of the United States—live in communities where the League has active and effective organizations; where too, propaganda, or sedition, sabotage or plain slacking are neither popular nor healthy.

The League was born in March, last year, two weeks before we declared war. The idea originated with Mr. A. M. Briggs of Chicago. Mr. Briggs is now Chairman of the National Board of Directors of the American Protective League. He secured authority to establish it as a volunteer auxiliary of the Department of Justice on March 22, 1917. Within a month he had the League in operation with several thousand members. With him, Captain Charles Daniel Frey and Mr. Victor Elting were responsible for its development and the organization of the work. Mr. Frey is organizer and First Chief of the Chicago District, the original working unit of the American Protective League. The plan, the policies, and the methods developed in the Chicago District, which includes 280 cities and towns, were approved by the Department of Justice, and have been generally followed throughout the country as the model and standard for subsequent organizations. Mr. Elting, as Assistant Chief at Chicago, has from the inception of the League been active in the development of its policy. These three, now national directors with headquarters at Washington, are modest about taking any credit for the amazing extension of the League and its extraordinary present usefulness. They insist that the first great response was due to the general recognition of a national crisis, the impulse to do something to meet it, and the patriotic and unselfish coÖperation of every local chief and individual operative in the country.

At all events, it was knowledge of how widespread and unscrupulous was the German spy system, and how seriously it was affecting the temper and loyalty of aliens and naturalized citizens, that launched the League. Proposal was made to the Department of Justice that a volunteer auxiliary of simon-pure Americans be formed to keep watch for the Government in every neighbourhood and to make most of the Department’s investigations for it. The service would be without pay. No inquiries would be undertaken without reference of the case to the Department first. And no expense accounts would be presented for money spent. Doubts may have existed regarding the feasibility of the plan. Such men as were needed would be hard to interest in the drudgery of police investigation. But Mr. Briggs was confident that there were thousands of business and professional men past service age and necessary to their families and communities who still were fired with patriotism and filled with wrath at the progress of German propaganda and plotting in this country. They were successful men of affairs—men of proved judgment, intelligence, initiative, and energy. The Department could not buy their full time at any price, but it could command their spare time, plus as many work-hours, on occasions, as were necessary to complete any task. There were also men of service age, eager to fight but held at home by obligations or other causes, who would not stint either time or energy in the League’s service.

Given authority to go ahead March 22, 1917, the League was organized on military lines. The plan was that each city and its tributary country should be broken up into divisions, in charge of inspectors. Divisions were cut up into districts, with captains in command. And each captain recruited as many working squads, under lieutenants, as the size and character of his district demanded. Reinforcing this territorial organization was another which treated every important industry, trade, and profession, and even large business establishments and office buildings as individual organization units. The territorial organization was known as the Bureau of Investigation; the classified trade, professional, and industrial force as the Bureau of Information. As a matter of fact, they were just the right and left arms of the League. Each had its specialized work to do, but the big jobs in each case were the same.

From the start, the two main functions of the League stood out boldly. The first was “to make prompt and reliable report of all disloyal or enemy activities and of all infractions or evasions of the war code of the United States.” The second followed naturally: “to make prompt and thorough investigation of all matters of similar nature referred to it by the Department of Justice.” Close coÖperation with the local agent of the Department was essential in both instances.

Because the plan had been carefully worked out, the League made a flying start in a great Western city. Inspectors, captains, lieutenants were commissioned and assigned to their units. “Operatives,” picked with equal caution, were sworn in and given their credentials. By May first, there were a thousand men engaged in the absorbing new game.

Thousands of investigations taxed the young ardour and endurance of the League—suspected spy activities, seditious speeches, lying reports about the Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., and Knights of Columbus, pro-German propaganda, suspected treasonable conspiracies, sabotage cases and, later, organized and individual efforts to evade the draft. But every member was under pledge to run down to the end any case assigned to him, whether it took a day or a week, and results came speedily.

Though lacking in experience, most of the members had unusual equipment as investigators. Nearly all had imagination and logical, work-trained minds. Many of them were men of means and could devote all of their time to urgent cases. Instead of waiting for an O. K. on a requisition for a motor car, they had machines of their own to use. Without considering how an item would strike a government auditor, they could and did spend their own money to get the facts they sought. Without having to finesse approaches to necessary sources of information, they could usually draw on a wide circle of friends for inside facts which a professional detective might require days to secure.

The League’s rule in assigning cases, indeed, is to choose as investigator the man whose social, professional, or business connections are such that he can “clean up” with the least effort and in the shortest space of time. When there are many places to visit, the case goes to a man owning a motor car. If it is complex in character, with lines extending into various industries, clubs, trades, and so on, the work may be divided and several members assigned to it. The main idea is to get the work done, and done quickly—the secondary purpose to make it as easy as may be for the members.

League members knew little about methods of investigation. But they had that priceless gift, intelligence, and they learned by doing. There was such a mass of complaints, tips, and wild guesses concerning enemy activities waiting to be handled, that no extensive schooling could be attempted. The cleverest government operatives available and experienced city and private detectives talked to groups of captains and lieutenants, and these passed along the information to their men. A. Bruce Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, was quick to recognize the possibilities of the League. Everywhere his organization gave invaluable aid and coÖperation in training League members.

Able lawyers made brief but comprehensive digests of the laws involved and the rules of evidence to be observed. Methods of work and problems of authority and conduct were explained at length in a handbook. Supplementing the handbook and the law digest, bulletins were published at intervals to suggest better methods, to report fresh evidence of German plans and propaganda, or to sum up and interpret the new laws which Congress was enacting for the punishment of espionage and sedition.

Close touch was kept at every step with the Department of Justice. Forms for reports and records were adopted, conforming to the system in use by the Department. Carbons of all reports and records were made for the files of the Bureau of Investigation. Eventually a complete record of each case found its way to the master file in Washington. In this way duplication of effort was avoided, complete coÖperation assured, and the exact status of any inquiry could be learned in a moment by any one needing the information.

Far from running wild in its enthusiasm to corral all enemy agents, the League tried to give every alien it investigated an American square deal. Perhaps the finest paragraph in the handbook is this one urging the right of aliens to considerate treatment until their unfriendly attitude is revealed:

“Many aliens resident in this country are absolutely loyal to its institutions and its laws, and many individuals having the legal status of alien enemies are not only conducting themselves with due respect to our laws, but are of great value in industry and business. Great care must be exercised by members to avoid unnecessary alarm to aliens and to avoid causing apprehension upon their part as to the fairness and justice of the attitude of the Government toward them. In this regard members will be called upon for the exercise of judgment and discretion of a high order. They should protect citizens and aliens from unjust suspicion, but must fearlessly ascertain and report treason and disloyalty wherever found.”

All this has to do with the investigation of specific cases after they have been brought to the League’s attention by the report of a member, an outside complaint, or a request from the Department of Justice for an inquiry into the facts. Quite as important in discouraging disloyalty or pro-German activities is the service of League members as eyes and ears for the Government in detecting and making first reports on offenses or intended offenses against the war code of the United States.

This means that every League member is always on the lookout for any word or act that smacks of sedition or espionage. It is here that the classified organization by industries, trades, professions, and individual business establishments develops its full value. When a factory making munitions, clothing, motor trucks, or any other war necessity has been organized as a League unit, the members are on the alert for signs of disturbance. They can quickly report to their supervisor what they have seen or heard, and, after comparing notes, can take precautions against the threatened trouble. If they need outside help in checking up a suspect after working hours, the territorial organization is ready to coÖperate. The suspect need never know that he is under suspicion until his guilt or innocence is pretty well established.

Such a factory unit is typical of the League organization in the larger cities. Besides the strictly industrial group, there are usually eight broad divisions, any one of which may be important enough to have an assistant bureau chief, and several captains, lieutenants, and individual units. These divisions take in the real estate, financial, insurance, and professional groups, the hotels, transportation companies, public utilities, and merchandising interests—wholesale, retail, and mail-order. And the industries alone may be numerous and powerful enough to call for separate divisions—munitions, packers’ products, food stuffs, war equipment, metal trades, lumber, motor cars, electrical machinery and supplies, chemicals and paints, and so on. It all depends on how numerous and how large are the establishments in each line. Outside the larger cities territorial organization is the rule. When the district is identified with some industry of special value in war, like mining, lumbering, or cattle raising, protection of that industry may be the chief function of the League.

Not only does the classified method of organization help each trade and profession to police itself; it greatly facilitates important inquiries. For example, suppose that the Government wants to find and learn the local errand of a visiting electrical engineer with a German name and considerable cash whom it has had under surveillance elsewhere. On being asked for a report, the League’s local Chief assigns the case to one of his deputies. The latter notifies the supervisors of the various hotel units to watch out for the stranger, report his arrival, and keep watch of his letters and telephone calls. He also communicates with the head of the professional division and asks that an electrical engineer be detailed on the case.

When the suspect has been located and the hotel supervisor has transmitted any other information he has been able to get, the engineer member begins work. Going to the hotel he finds or makes a way to become acquainted with the stranger, offers him the usual professional courtesies, and gives him a chance to suggest why he is in town or whom he wants to see. Direct questions are not asked, of course, since they would put the stranger on his guard. After he has carried the inquiry as far as he can, the engineer member quietly and casually goes his way, unless the stranger has accepted his offers of help or hospitality.

If the suspect has “covered up” more than an honest engineer should, he is systematically shadowed by other League operatives during the remainder of his stay. Walking out or staying in his room, travelling in taxicabs or in street cars, making business calls or social calls, one or more of his two “shadows” would probably keep him in sight and make memoranda regarding every person he met and spoke with and every significant circumstance that took place. Only when in a private house or in his hotel room would he escape observation—and even then a fairly close tab would be kept on what he was doing.

A record would be made of every telephone call, every telegram, every letter received, with particular reference to the postmark, dates, and the return cards on the envelopes. His baggage would be inventoried and described, even to its hotel labels, its character, and its probable price and origin. When he finally departed, if the porter bought his tickets for him or whether he purchased them himself at the station, his route, and his first destination—all would be matters of history. One of his “shadows” would even see him safely past the last suburban stop from which he might double back to the city or to a waiting confederate.

This seems a mighty pother to make about an apparently innocent traveller. But the League prefers to work overtime and play safe. The narratives of some of the “tailings” would make marvellous reading if they only led up to the proper dramatic climax. Many of them do—but those are not to be talked about yet awhile. And the others are significant only because they are the records of uninteresting tasks as faithfully executed as though the sheltering doorway or hotel lobby chair were a listening post in France.

Remember that these tasks were made both complex and difficult by the lack of laws defining espionage, disloyalty, and sedition as punishable crimes. That ancient act of 1798 could be invoked for the internment of dangerous enemy aliens. But an American citizen, native or naturalized, could spit treason and plot trouble unchecked so long as he did not run foul of the civil or the criminal code. That is all changed now; the amended Espionage and Sedition Law, signed by the President in June, 1917, is so broad and has such a fine set of serviceable teeth that no disloyal citizen or unfriendly alien can escape the penalty if his guilt can be proved.

For more than a year, however, the League was compelled not only to prove a citizen’s pro-German activities; it had also to find a way to punish them, or at least to discourage them. Every inquiry into such a case, therefore, had to be supplemented by an effort to find evidence of an offense against the civil or criminal statutes. And where this failed, a good old-fashioned “talking to” often had the desired effect.

Hatred of “Prussian militarism” and pretended allegiance to the United States were the favourite pose of many propagandists whom the League rounded up and secured billets for in various internment camps. Most of these had taken out their first naturalization papers; except in a few middle and western states like Nebraska, where “first papers” and six months of residence confer the right to vote, this was no protection when evidence of disloyalty or pro-German activity was adduced against them.

Typical of this class was the case of an Austrian officer of reserves who was six months under investigation before he was arrested. Like so many other interned Teutons, his entry into the United States had been by way of the Argentine. Traced back, it was discovered that he had reported to the Austrian Consul in Buenos Aires as an officer of reserves at the first mobilization call, July 27, 1914; and again when he sailed for the United States with a false Swedish passport in 1915. Then, in succession, he had registered at the San Francisco, St. Louis, and Chicago consulates—at the last on September 30, 1915.

In less than six months, however, he had applied for naturalization papers and was arranging to return to Buenos Aires as selling agent for several American houses. When the State Department denied him a passport, he devised another means of keeping watch of American efforts to supplant German houses in the South American markets. This was an export information bureau, but his information was not live enough to hold his clients long. Next he projected a $2,000,000 corporation to take over and operate the German interned steamships at New York. By turns also he was advertising solicitor and automobile salesman.

The occupation he followed always allowed him maximum freedom in moving about and a plausible excuse for approaching almost any one he wanted to reach. Very early in the inquiry, his defenselessness appeared; he had entered the country under a false passport and could be arrested whenever the Department of Justice chose to move. Because he had arrived in San Francisco eighteen months before our declaration of war, he was given the benefit of the doubt. Not until his character as a dangerous enemy alien had been established was he interned. He will be deported at the end of the war.

Different in detail, but similar in character and outcome, was the Odyssey of a missionary of German culture, whose earnings were as nominal as his expenditures were excessive. Arriving in New York in 1912, also by way of the Argentine, he had spent the intervening time travelling about the country in various rÔles which would bring him in contact with rich Americans of German birth or blood. At various times he was a dealer in pictures, in stocks and bonds, and in subscription editions of the German classics.

As a side line, he seems to have been checking up American efforts to develop sources of potash, Germany’s one great monopoly in minerals. He even engaged himself as stock salesman for an Eastern company organized to extract potash from the Pacific kelp fields and made at least one trip to the coast to study that new industry. Always his scale of living was far in excess of his earnings from such sources of income as could be traced. After a long and patient inquiry—covering nearly eight months from the time the man’s pro-German utterances were first reported—he was finally interned for the duration of the war.

Enemy aliens have not been alone in keeping League members up at night. Far more numerous have been the investigations bearing upon the character and loyalty of American citizens, particularly candidates for commissions in the Army and Navy and applicants for civilian service in positions of trust. Still a third class of inquiries which have lacked the thrill of espionage cases have been the thousands of investigations made of claims for exemption or deferred classification under the selective service law.

Anything like a divided allegiance, of course, would destroy the usefulness of an army or naval officer—if, indeed, it did not make him a positive menace to his country. Every character and loyalty inquiry, therefore, has this background of danger, especially when the subject is of German or of Austrian ancestry. And sometimes the League operative must have a keen scent for significant minor details to detect the danger signal.

For instance, one of the candidates for a recent special officers’ training camp was a young Cincinnati man with a German name. He was a citizen, of draft age, of such intelligence, experience, and physique that his acceptance was a foregone conclusion if his loyalty were assured. Investigation showed him to have been pro-German in his sympathies before our declaration of war, and practically silent on war subjects since. His attitude was correct; and his application for training was a positive count in his favour. But the League investigator, digging around for information, learned that his man had been a contributor to a fund raised by a Gaelic newspaper for the defence of Sir Roger Casement, when that famous Irish rebel was on trial in London.

If the man had been of Irish blood, such a contribution would have had little significance; natural sympathy for a compatriot in trouble might have prompted it. Such an act by a German or an American, however, suggested more than a passing interest in the violent pro-German, anti-English propaganda which this particular weekly exploited. Verifying the story by reference to the files of the newspaper, the investigator called attention to the fact in his report, and gave it as his opinion that the candidate wanted a commission to escape the draft and that he lacked the whole-hearted loyalty and enthusiasm an Army officer must have to be successful. And, as the final decision coincided with the investigator’s, the application was refused.

Another incident—double-barrelled in its effect—has also its humorous side. One of the Chicago League officials picked up two deserters on Michigan Avenue early one evening last December. Neither had an overcoat, one had evidently “hocked” his blouse to provide food or drink. The League man knew he must turn them over to the police, but the boys were so cold and wretched that he determined to give them a good dinner before surrendering them.

At his club, his “guests” created a certain amount of stir—and seemed to enjoy it. They “didn’t miss a station from soup to cigarettes,” as one of them expressed it. They were finishing up when a young man in a captain’s uniform came over and interjected himself into the feast.

“Excuse me,” he began as the host arose, “may I ask what your interest in these men is?”

His tone was a shade too crisp, even for so young a captain.

“May I ask yours?” the League man countered.

“I’m in command of the provost guard in Chicago,” the other declared. “It’s my business to look after deserters.”

It was a fatal bit of brag. The League man knew the provost marshal—knew this fellow was an imposter. But one job at a time.

“I know these chaps and I’m looking after them,” he answered. “Come along, boys.” And they departed in the olive splendour of a taxicab. Then it pulled up a little later before a red light, and a policeman opened the door. The lads were crestfallen but game.

“It was bully while it lasted,” they declared. “Anyway, they’d have got us sooner or later.”

Before noon next day the youthful pseudo-captain was wiping his tears away and explaining why he had been impersonating an officer. There was a group of musical comedy girls in the foreground and a trail of forged checks and unpaid club and hotel bills in the background. He is learning in Leavenworth prison, now, that the lion’s skin is dangerous apparel and that discretion is the better part of a masquerade.

The League files are crammed with reports which have blacker themes—or the scarlet motive which stands for constructive treason. There are folders that deal with reported graft in the purchase of materials for Army camps and subsequent fires which covered up the scanting of buildings. There are others on cases of undue influence brought to bear on members of exemption boards; and sickening instances of “quacks” who have ruined strong but cowardly young bodies for blood money. There are tales of extortion by shyster lawyers for filling out questionnaires—and other tales of money paid by enemy aliens to disreputable “fixers” for pretended protection against the draft.

The mere classified index of the master file at Washington intrigues the imagination. Just a glance at the main “guides” will indicate the range:

In making these investigations the League has coÖperated, not only with the Department of Justice, but also with Army Intelligence, Navy Intelligence, the Alien Property Custodian, the Food Administration, the Shipping Board, the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., and with various other offices at Washington.

The number and variety of cases handled have not constituted the major service of the League, however. Rather, it has been the character and intelligence of the membership—the ability to enter and comb any social, professional, or business circle for information without betraying that an inquiry was afoot. From this angle alone the original idea was pretty close to an inspiration, since it improvised in the hour of need such an organization as not even a generation of effort and many million dollars could have built up.

Just because it was improvised and its personnel kept secret, the League could meet the most dangerous German agents on their own ground and paralyze their efforts by keeping them guessing. Propaganda dies on the lips of the man who can’t be certain that his listener is not making mental notes for an official report of the conversation. And the most subtle scheme of spying or sabotage is bound to drag when the plot master is harassed by doubts of the native-born or naturalized accomplices he must enlist for its execution.

One instance to show how much a local organization must depend upon its specialists. Last summer it became necessary to know beyond question whether or not a prominent young German-American in a seaboard city was supplying the funds for the local agitation against the draft. Suspicion attached to him because he spent many evenings aboard his fast-racing schooner in the yacht club harbour, and could not be induced, in any polite and casual way, to invite any of the League’s yachting members aboard. His crew, two Scandinavians, were as voluble as oysters.

The schooner was being tuned up for the annual club cruise late in July. Two extra sailors would be needed for the race. The League provided one of them. An upstanding young American, too young for the first officers’ training camp but in line for the second, was taken into the League, carefully coached, and turned loose in the harbour with a loaned cat-boat to impress the German-American skipper with his sailing skill. The boy finessed his approach successfully and was asked to train with the crew. But he found nothing material to report until the schooner had actually won the big race.

That night after the victory had been celebrated in a flood of champagne, which he alone avoided, he quietly went through all the private papers in the owner’s cabin, made notes, or copied all that referred in any way to pro-German activities and returned by rail to the home port next morning. It turned out that the owner had been guilty of no real disloyalty, though he had skirted the edge more than once; but his papers pointed straight to the real source of the propaganda and the latter was speedily apprehended.

Another interesting case was that of a noted pro-German “pacifist” who for months was kept under surveillance without evidence being secured which would bring a conviction under the existing law. He had declared again and again that nine out of ten Americans were opposed to the war; that thousands of armed men in Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas were only waiting for the signal to rise against the Government; that another thousand in New York City were watching for the same signal and a leader. He even intimated that he had been asked to be that leader. And though the League could account for every hour of his time, knew every citizen and Congressman he had conferred with and most of the folk he had written to, it was December before an indictment could be secured against him.

That this man is still at liberty, on bail, until the courts reach the hearing of his case is only a detail. The compensating facts are that he served the League for some time as a stalking horse for other citizens and aliens of doubtful loyalty—that ultimately the close watch on him cut down his activities—and that under the amended espionage law any one of a hundred things he did or said would land him quickly in a Federal prison.

In the application of the Selective Service Act the League has taken off the shoulders of the Government one of its heaviest and most important tasks. The draft was and is a favoured field of German agents, who have played upon ignorance and prejudice, religious and union labour fears, racial antipathies, and the baser emotions of cupidity and cowardice. They have utilized every device to persuade men to avoid their military obligations to the country. To the League is assigned the task of checking up all claims for exemptions and all failures to appear before exemption boards. This work, especially in the cities, has entailed enormous labour.

Space forbids a complete review of the League, but at least a paragraph may be inserted about its organization, which is a model of simplicity and flexibility. The League creates and is responsible for its own organization in all of its branches. Executive control of the organization is centred in a Board of National Directors operating from National Headquarters at Washington, D. C., in coÖperation with the Attorney-General and the officials of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice, and through the latter with other departments and agencies of the Government.

In each local office the chief is supreme. He investigates his own men, invites them to join, and directs their work. As already stated, there is a double organization of the local field—a classified organization of trades, professions, industries, hotels, large individual establishments, and office buildings; and a Bureau of Investigation whose organization is territorial. Uniform blanks for reports and records are made up after models supplied by national headquarters, and uniform methods of making investigations are adopted. This simple plan allows each local organization to select the types of men that best suit its needs and to adapt itself entirely to local conditions, while maintaining at the same time complete touch and coÖperation with other communities, with the national organization, and with the Government.

The success of the League is attested by Attorney-General Thomas W. Gregory himself. In his annual report to the Congress of the United States he said of the League: “It has proved to be invaluable and constitutes a most important auxiliary and reserve force for the Bureau of Investigation.... This organization has been of the greatest possible aid in thousands of cases.... Its work has been performed in a thoroughly commendable manner with a minimum of friction and complaint and with motives of the highest patriotism. It is a self-supporting organization, and it would be difficult to exaggerate the value of its service to the United States Department of Justice.”