The Web

CHAPTER I
THE STORY OF CHICAGO

The unvarnished story of the growth and accomplishments of this League is the greatest proof in the world of the ability for self-government of intelligent, educated and thinking men. The American Protective League was made up of sober citizens who had something to protect. It was no one man, no one set of men, no one city, which makes it great. The real credit belongs to the unclassified and unsegregated Little Fellow.

We had in this war the usual amount of self-seeking. Our first pages abounded in pictures and praises of our great men, born of God to do wonders in ships, supplies, aeroplanes and armies. Some of them worked for a dollar a year. Some of them earned that much, many a great deal less. The scandals of this war are as great as the scandals of any war, when you come to know the truth about them. But there is no scandal attached to the plain, average citizen in this war. It was he, the real democrat and the real American, who won this war for us.

There is no charge of vain-glory, no charge of inefficiency and self-seeking attached to the story of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood and the Argonne, where died thousands of Little Fellows become great in making good. Neither is there any scandal attaching to the unknown men, the unnamed Little Fellows who “made good” back home behind the lines—the men who usually get lost after any war when the glory is being passed around by the politicians and paid historians.

There is, in a work such as this, no such thing as dividing or apportioning personal or local credit or approbation. Names, portraits, credits, praises—nothing of these is desired or may be begun, for there could be no end; and besides, one man is as big and as good as another in A. P. L. The League existed in countless communities all over the country—so many, it is not possible even to name a fraction of them. There is not even the possibility of mentioning more than a few of the greater centers of the work, and that in partial fashion only.

In this plan, perhaps, the city of Chicago naturally may come first, because, as we have seen, it was there that the League began. Besides, in this great Western hive of all the races, there are far more Germans than there are Americans. Have you not heard that astounding utterance of a sitting Mayor to the effect that Chicago is “the sixth greatest German city on the earth”? One also has heard an earlier Mayor of Chicago say that in his political plans he cared nothing at all for the American vote. “Give me the Austrian and the Italian and the Polish vote,” he said; “but above all, give me the German vote!” Perhaps he would not be so outspoken to-day.

Among the unassimilated rabble who make a certain portion of Chicago’s polyglot politik-futter, there are perhaps more troublemakers than in any other city of America. It is our own fault that they make so much trouble, but they do make it and they have. Bolsheviki, socialists, incendiaries, I. W. W.’s, Lutheran treason-talkers, Russellites, Bergerites, all the other-ites, religious and social fanatics, third-sex agitators, long haired visionaries and work-haters from every race in the world—Chicago had them and has them still, because she has invited them, accepted them and made them free of the place. Cheap politicians have done the rest; mayors who care nothing for the American vote.

This was the situation when we declared war. We then heard less about the “duty” the foreign-born had reserved when they swore (and then forgot) their solemn Delbrücked oaths of renunciation of all other allegiance, and of loyalty to America alone. But underneath this smug oath of faith to America, all too often the Teuton and his kin, the Kaiser’s friend and sympathizer, still hid unchanged. To-day, as thousands of them read these lines, they know that this is the truth.

When we went to war, the militant Chicago Germans did not change—they simply submerged, German fashion; that was all. Then Chicago dropped her paravanes—spread down her WEB—to guard against under-surface attacks.

Once firmly established, the Chicago Division grew by leaps and bounds. On March 22, 1917, the first definite steps were taken toward the formation of a compact organization. Captains were appointed by Mr. Briggs, and these in turn organized their own working squads. Mr. Clabaugh was now beginning to get some of the assistance he so sorely needed.

Then, on April 6, came war. Followed the days of swift expansion and organization which have been covered in the preceding pages. Every day saw new men enrolled, big men, men eager to contribute time, money, experience, brains, energy and faithfulness. This is the story of the whole League, and this is Chicago’s story, too.

On April 10, Mr. Charles Daniel Frey was appointed a captain in the Chicago Division, and shortly afterward, Mr. Victor Elting came into the organization as an appointee of Mr. Frey. Two months had now passed since the first Chicago operative had gone forth on an official mission. Chicago Division was demonstrably a success. Yet something more was needed. Work was piling up faster than personnel. It was now patent that Chicago must have a larger, stronger organization—an organization under direct executive control which would do its work with efficiency and business-like despatch. System was needed; speed was needed—and men. On May 22, as a first step in the reorganization, Mr. Briggs appointed Mr. Frey as Chief of the Chicago Division and Mr. Elting as Assistant Chief.

Mr. Frey and Mr. Elting thereupon developed a comprehensive plan of organization for the Chicago Division—a plan which was adopted in its main outlines by almost all of the large cities. Chicago was divided into zones, and an Inspector was appointed to direct and supervise the work in each zone. Bureaus were established covering the whole range of League operations. Bankers, railroad men, merchants, professional men—leading men from every sphere of activity were placed in charge of bureau work for which they were especially fitted.

The League was now a going concern in Chicago. That it should become national in every sense of the word was inevitable. In October, 1917, Mr. Frey and Mr. Elting joined Mr. Briggs in Washington and, in conference with the Attorney General of the United States, it was decided to establish National Headquarters in the Capital. The three men who were responsible for this great step became the national directors of the League. Pending the appointment of a Chief and Assistant Chief for the Chicago Division, Mr. R. A. Gunn, who had made a most efficient record as an Inspector, was appointed Acting Chief.

On January 26, 1918, Mr. John F. Gilchrist was appointed Chief of the Chicago Division, a position which he continued to hold until September 21, 1918, six weeks before the Armistice. Under his wise leadership, the organization gained in strength and numbers and influence, and handled, in wholly admirable fashion, the many difficult problems which arose during nine of the most trying months of the war. The Chicago unit, at the close of 1917, numbered 4,500 active members and about 2,000 industrial members. At the time of the Armistice, these numbers had been increased to 6,142 active members and over 7,000 members in the industrial division.

Upon the resignation of Mr. Gilchrist, a committee plan of executive control was adopted, and Mr. R. A. Gunn was appointed Chief. Mr. Gunn’s report to D. J., covering the work of the Chicago Division almost to the period of the Armistice, will give at least a partial notion of what was accomplished, and should, therefore, be summarized:

Chief Gunn concludes his simple and convincing narrative with a few division figures:

Follows the statistical record of the work accomplished by the Chicago division of the American Protective League up to January 21, 1919:

Neutrality cases investigated.	43,026
War Department-all branches.
Character and loyalty investigations	3,739
American Red Cross.
Character and loyalty investigations	115
Illinois Volunteer Training Corps.
Character and loyalty investigations.	141
War Risk Insurance cases	230
U. S. Bureau of Naturalization cases	3,905
Draft investigations	30,440
Food Administration cases.
Food investigations	12,637
Sugar investigations[3]
	179
Fuel Administration cases.
Coal investigations	3,263
Lightless Night investigations	1,500
Total investigations[4]	99,175
Number of men temporarily detained for examination of Registration and Classification Cards during the Slacker Drive of July, 1918	200,000
Delinquents apprehended and forced to appear at local Draft Boards	44,167
Deserters apprehended and sent to Military Camps	1,900
Record compiled for the U. S. Marshal for Alien Enemies; number of entries	18,000
Escaped criminals apprehended and turned over to Police Department	38
Blue Slip Summons issued	726
Automobile license numbers registered on first Gasless Sunday	129,204
Photographs, maps, postal cards of views of Germany sent to War Department	9,525

But it is from the notebooks of the operatives, recording varied activities all in the day’s work, that we get the real reflex of the A. P. L. We cannot forego giving a few extracts from the stories of Chicago captains.

Let us take at random the summary from S——, captain of District No. 11, where there were fifty-six members—forty active operatives, under a captain, two lieutenants and a legal advisor. This district covers a large portion of the most German section of Chicago, part of which is loyal and part very much otherwise. In six months, during the last year of the war, there were 512 cases assigned to the district by headquarters, and the district turned in to headquarters 298 complaints. Character and loyalty investigations to the number of fifty-three were made, necessitating from five to fifteen interviews each. In the slacker drive, July 11-13, a total of 1,744 individual cases were interviewed and disposed of in this district. Between 9:00 p. m. and 4:00 a. m. one night, eighty-one I. W. W. investigations were handled.

The total number of cases on record in this district for the six months is 3,842, which, if averaged, gives sixty-eight cases to each operative, but as only forty were active, the average should be figured as nearly eighty cases per capita. There is not figured in the foregoing about one thousand interviews which were necessary in making up reports to different departments of the Government on factories, saloons, garages and other buildings and structures, which might come under the head of miscellaneous services.

The activities of the operatives of District No. 11 were not confined to the boundaries of their own district. An illustration will show what is meant. A deserter was being protected by all branches of his family. Operatives spent nights interviewing every ascertainable relative and friend. Nothing could be learned except that the various members of the family, male and female, were so mixed in their sex relations that apparently no two of the opposite sex were living together in a legally permissible way. A chance lead pointed to a couple living in the country ten miles beyond the city limits. An hour’s interview with the man and his consort, the two being examined separately, resulted in the chance mention of Norfolk, Virginia. Being pressed on this remark, the man hesitatingly declared he had had letters from Norfolk from the suspect who was working there and that he, the witness, would himself write to Norfolk at once and get definite information. The operatives agreed cheerfully to the proposition. On their return to the city, a telegram was immediately dispatched to Norfolk. By the time the letter from the “loyal” relative reached Norfolk, word was received that the deserter was located and taken into custody. The action of this little drama was staged entirely outside of District No. 11.

During the “heatless days” two operatives from the same district entered a saloon. They found it warm, the heat coming from a large radiator in the middle of the room covered by a table. The proprietor claimed he was unable to shut off this heat without shutting off the heat from rooms above where he had lodgers. The operatives went to the cellar and found no attempt had been made to shut off the heat from the saloon. Returning to the saloon, they investigated a back room, which was also heated, and where they found four men playing cards. The proprietor claimed these men were his lodgers and that this was their sitting-room. A search was made and evidence found which proved these men to be conducting a regular clearing-house of information for the enemy’s use. Leads were discovered that spread in many directions and made the case one of the most important handled by the District. A camouflaged saloon radiator was the starting point.

Each operative discovered that the badge he wore bred a feeling of respect or fear for the authority of Uncle Sam which was quite marked. Seldom was an attempt made to dispute its meaning or to take exception to the request or direction made under its authority. The most desperate characters showed a meekness and a docility that was surprising. The only explanation reasonable is that the United States has from the start of the war shown the world and its own people that it meant business, and that in playing with the authorized agencies of the Government, criminals were not playing with politicians or officials who might be influenced, but with the newly and sternly roused sense of American loyalty which would brook no traitor or near-traitor under the Star and Stripes.

District No. 13 had an interesting case handled by Lieutenant McR—— and Operative L——. They searched the room occupied by the suspect and found two handbags and several suit-cases filled with clothing and some chemicals. They interviewed the subject. His registration card gave his serial and order number, and draft board status which was Class No. 5 Austrian. The operatives went back to report this to the Inspector, and upon returning found that the subject, his wife and sister had fled. By calling upon the different taxicab companies in the neighborhood, it was found that they had used a yellow taxicab to move their effects to an apartment several miles distant. A raid was immediately organized. Four men and two detective sergeants went to the new address, and the apartment was surrounded. One of the men saw a figure which appeared to be a woman, attempting to cross the area between the two buildings from one third story window to another, and he called to her to stop. One of the men inside the building, hearing the call, put his head out and found the subject on the window sill of the adjoining building in a very embarrassing position. It was not a woman, but the suspect, in woman’s clothes! He was hauled in and put under arrest. In the meantime an analysis of the chemicals had been made and they were found to consist of materials for the manufacture of enough explosives to blow out another end of the postoffice building. Information was received from the League at New York to the effect that he was a very dangerous enemy alien.

This same District landed another good case. One morning a traveling man heard a little girl say to a small boy playmate, “We have a fine piano in our flat,” and the boy finally answered, “That’s nothing, we’ve got a German spy in ours.” The traveling man turned a complaint in to the Department of Justice and in due course it came back to our district to be investigated. The operative had little to start with. Finally he asked a little girl if she had ever heard any boy make such a remark. By merest chance, she happened to be one of the children who had overheard the boy, and at once pointed out where he lived. The operative then went to the apartment and questioned the boy’s mother, telling her that he was getting a list of boarding-houses in that district for directory purposes and, of course, asking her the names and occupations of all lodgers. He noticed that one of the names was German and after he had finished his list he asked her if he might see the accommodations. When he reached the German’s room, he saw a trunk of foreign make. He opened it and found lying inside on top of the clothing a cartridge belt filled with loaded cartridges. This he noticed had seen much use and was worn smooth. He also found papers, drawings, a Lueger pistol and several other things which an alien enemy is not supposed to enjoy during war times. The landlady stated that the man was a draftsman in the Federal Building. It was subsequently found that the drawings were plans of the Municipal Pier and the Federal Building. About five o’clock the next morning, several Federal officers took the man down to the Bureau of Investigation and found that he was an enemy alien in the employ of the German Government. Within twenty-four hours he was on his way to Leavenworth under an order of internment.

Women are not enlisted in espionage work for M. I. D. and were not employed as operatives in the Chicago A. P. L.—with one exception. Many a suspect has found “Mrs. B” fatally easy to look at and listen to—even easy to talk too much to!

Here is a “Mrs. B” case. The subject, Miss W——, during the year 1912, met a Mr. and Mrs. M——, Americans, who were in Paris with their two children, a boy ten and a girl twelve. Miss W—— told them a story of having quarreled with her family, who were quite wealthy, and said she was seeking a position that would bring her to America. She produced unquestionable references, and returned with the M—— family to the United States. After remaining in their employ for six months, she took a course in nursing in B—— Hospital in Indianapolis. She graduated from this hospital, came to Chicago with letters of introduction from the faculty, and became engaged here as governess in the home of a wealthy family on Lake Shore Drive. In April, 1917, she applied to the Chicago Telephone Company for a position, asking to be sent to France in their next unit. She told a confusing story in reference to her age, brought about a suspicion, which was followed by an investigation. “Mrs. B.” was given the assignment. Miss W—— gave up her position as governess, took a room on the north side of Chicago near Wilson Avenue. She was closely shadowed night and day, and was found to be in continual communication with doctors and nurses. During the time she was waiting to hear from the Chicago Telephone Company in reference to the application she had filed, she also filed an application with the American Red Cross. Here she gave practically the same references, and told the same story. Investigators from the American Red Cross were advised by the Department of Justice that they drop their investigation for the time being. “Mrs. B” proved that this woman was the medium through which tetanus germs were being delivered to certain doctors and nurses, who in turn were to spread them through our cantonments and hospitals.

District No. 8 lies in the extreme southern part of Chicago. “The Gold Coast” of this territory, lying along “The Ridge,” is a strictly residential district, but a veritable melting-pot of foreigners has sprung up in the neighborhood of the mammoth factories and mills in the suburban towns of Kensington, West Pullman, Roseland, Riverdale and South Chicago proper, east of the Southern Division Gold Coast. In this modern Babel there are fifty or sixty different nationalities. Even a short season with such a racial hodge-podge as exists in and around Kensington is almost equivalent to a trip around the world. Practically the only work in this community (Districts 41 and 47) consisted of draft evasions and pro-Germans. The last named were kindly but positively reminded that our country was at war. The operatives in this Gold Coast district were practically all business men, being recruited from banks, business houses, schools and the ministry. It was no uncommon thing to have two ministers, one of them a leading “dry exponent,” go out with a squad of men through saloons and pool-rooms, picking up suspects and evaders. During the four-day raid in July, one of the captains working out of Draft Board No. 22 remarked: “I just sent out the vice-president of our bank. I commanded him to look up one of these draft cases and he went right to it without question. That man holds the mortgage on my home, and I am bossing him around as though he were my office boy!”

Another captain tells something more of this foreign part of the city, Districts 39, 40, 42, 46 of the South Division. This comprises the large territory on the lake, at the extreme southern end of the city, and has in it a large harbor and river which is lined with elevators, shipyards, and important steel industries of all kinds. The population is mostly of foreign origin, anything from a descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers to a Tartar from Siberia. Poles, Austrians, Serbs, Swedes, Germans and Italians predominate, and many of the A. P. L. operatives were recruited from this source, thereby giving access to all tongues. This division captain says:

This same captain, in closing his report, makes the following observation:

Central District of Chicago is that important region covering the great business district, out of which some four hundred men, under four captains, regularly worked all over the city. This is not one of the residence districts, so that the squad of operatives who reported to this branch were far scattered throughout the city for most of the twenty-four hours. The personnel of this district embraced lawyers, doctors, bankers, printers, dry goods merchants, insurance men, mechanics, railway trainmen, traveling salesmen, actors, and all kinds of employed persons. A great many members belonged to the prominent clubs of Chicago. There were interpreters who understood all of the continental languages. There were both rich men and poor men included in this membership. There were boys in the twenties and men of sixty-five. It had come to be the practice of all the interlocking branches of our Governmental defensive organizations to call up Central District for men needed on some particular work. It had been the headquarters squad, and had sent men all over Northern Illinois, and sometimes out of the State.

There was a school of instruction for new operatives in this district in which new men are taught the elements of the League work, the elements of espionage laws, and other war measures. They were instructed, also, in the fundamentals of shadow work; the details of the selective service regulations; the principles of law and evidence, and other subjects proper to the activities of the League. There were seven words taught to every operative, applying equally well to complaints and to reports—guide words in investigations. If these seven words were borne in mind at the time of making complaint or investigations, or in writing up the report, an operative would be fairly well assured of embodying the information desired. These words are: “Who,” “Which,” “What,” “Why,” “When,” “How,” and “Witnesses.”

Every care was exercised by the operative not to approach the subject himself or to allow him to know he was being investigated. There were countless Chicago Germans and pro-Germans investigated, ticketed, tabulated, and filed away, who to this day do not know that they ever told anybody anything about themselves. Many of these Prussianized Chicagoans to-day wear heavy frowns and look aggrieved.

In order to save his time, each operative was taught how to use the regular city channels of information. If he got a name without any address, he was taught to go to the nearest telephone directory or city directory. Sometimes a telephone number was known and the name of the party unknown. Reference to the numerical telephone directory sometimes covered this. Sometimes the business of the subject might be known and his address unknown, in which case it might be found by reference to the classified business telephone directory, or the city directory. A subject might be doing business in the city and living in the suburbs. Countless suburban telephone directories were always in the central office for such reference.

In every great city a directory gives a concise arrangement of the personnel of the various departments of the U. S. Government; state and federal officials, their titles, their room numbers, their buildings, can be found in this way. In this way, also, all the officers of the city government can be found; the rooms where the court of this or that judge are located, etc. The state offices, including hospitals, etc., can be found in these directories.

A wide range of useful information concerning the city and its environs was given to novitiate operatives in this Central District. This information was of incalculable benefit to new members of the League when once their active investigating work began. The A. P. L. training school was a very important cog in the Chicago machine, and made it possible for the district to do more work per capita and better work than would otherwise have been possible. Indeed, the training for an operative was not bad training for a newspaper reporter. What is said regarding this work in the Chicago district might apply in very considerable part also to the work in other large communities.

Operatives were obliged to take all sorts of roles. At times they acted as waiters or clerks, and sometimes they impersonated lawbreakers themselves. One of them succeeded in impersonating an I. W. W. so well that at a meeting he was covering he was asked to contribute to the I. W. W. cause—and did so! Another ingratiated himself into the good offices of the I. W. W.’s so well that he was permitted to take notes at one of their meetings with the understanding that he was a newspaper man representing one of their own papers.

The Southwest Division in Chicago is only another corner of darkest Europe. In this section, however, were located a good many foreign-born operatives, who affiliated well in that region and did their work thoroughly until the closing days of the war. Their grist included some curious and interesting cases.

There was, for instance, a certain person called Panco, the Fry Cook, long wanted by the Department of Justice for anarchistic and seditious utterances. The Department had been hunting Panco for months but could not find him. Four Southwest A. P. L. operatives went after Panco. Two of them became members in a waiters’ union in which Panco was known to belong. They could not find their man, who did not seem to report often at the headquarters of that union; so they gave out reports everywhere that Panco was a dead beat and would not pay his union dues! This came to Panco’s ears. He showed up at headquarters to deny this impeachment. He got thirty years.

A Lithuanian lecturer was described as about to deliver a seditious harangue in the village of Cicero, near Chicago. The Southwest Division sent out several motor cars with picked men ready for trouble. They found a hall crowded with foreigners who were listening to a much bewhiskered man, clad in shabby tweeds, who was demonstrating at a blackboard on a platform, and was speaking in some unknown tongue. At last one of the operatives who had been taken along as an interpreter began to laugh and said, “Let’s go home, fellows; we’ve got the old bird wrong. He ain’t talking anarchy; he’s giving a lecture on sex control!”

An unusual amount of shrewdness should be credited to some of these operatives. It was a mere guess, for instance, on the part of such a man that the figure “8”—the final figure on a foreign birth certificate—had been changed to a “5”. If this were true, it meant that the suspect would come within the draft age, although otherwise his story was perfectly straight. Suspicion is not evidence, so the Department of Justice was about to release this man. The latter had remarked to someone that his father lived in Indiana. The operative went to the phone and pretended to call up the father in this town personally, with the intention of inducing the suspect to eavesdrop on the phone conversation in the next room. After a while the operative turned to the suspect, his hand over the receiver, and said: “Well, we’ve got the information we wanted. What have you got to say?” Completely fooled, the suspect confessed! He was inducted into the army.

A certain colored draft dodger was discovered to belong to a staff of colored waiters in a certain hotel. The head waiter, very pompous and very shiny, refused to allow a search. The A. P. L. declared that if the suspect was not forthcoming he would arrest every waiter in the place and carry them off in the wagon. This brought out the suspect. He’s in the Army now.

A certain Mrs. L—— called the Red Cross a bunch of grafters and crooks, said Ambassador Gerard was a traitor and a liar, said the President was the greatest traitor since Jefferson Davis and made other interesting remarks. She repeated these statements before a U. S. Marshal and was held in $5,000 bond. Then she became more abusive and was held in $5,000 additional. She kept on until her bond amounted to $25,000, and was then asked if she did not think it was time to stop talking. She did. As she could not raise the bail, she was sent to Cook County jail, where she remained till the Armistice was signed.

Chicago at times handled other live stock than that commonly seen in the stockyards. On August 5, 1918, the sixth enemy alien special to Fort Oglethorpe carried fifteen persons for internment. The train was to pick up eight more at Indianapolis. On the following day, it seems, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had seven members who groaned while they were playing the Star Spangled Banner. They explained their frame of mind before a judge, who taught them very much better manners. On August 7, Lieutenant Friederick Walter S—— of the German army, who for a month had worn a United States uniform at Camp Grant, had his naturalization papers revoked, and got interned for the period of the war. On September 1, among ten aliens shipped to Fort Oglethorpe, one was a munition manufacturer who had been just at the point of receiving a very fat United States order. He had been filling contracts for Germany before we went to war.

On November 17, 1918, the radicals and socialists of Chicago held a great meeting in the Coliseum. There were about 12,000 present. It is not necessary to go into details regarding their action beyond saying that they gave over the Chicago Socialist party, body and breeches, to Bolshevism. Here in Chicago, one of our centers of the civilization of America, these men declared themselves in sympathy with Russian anarchy. In America, the land of hope, they declared themselves in sympathy with hopelessness, despair and destruction. Some of the speeches were made in the German language—a tongue which we ought to forbid to be used in public, on our streets, in our printed pages, and over our telephone wires to-day. These speakers, in the Hun tongue, openly deplored contributions to our War funds. They hailed with much applause such speakers as Victor Berger, who publicly gloried in the four indictments pending over him. In short, the meeting came dangerously close to being disloyal. We shall be so mild as this in comment, since being a member of the Socialist party is not per se a disloyal act, and not all Socialists are of the radical wing.

Much pleased with the sound of their own voices, these gentlemen now concluded to hold a public street parade, with red banners and the usual Bolshevist appurtenances. They went to Acting Chief of Police Alcock, and asked for a permit to parade in the streets. They said they wanted to carry the red flag, and they asked police protection. Note the reply the Chief of Police made to them:

The representatives of the proposed parade could not get back to their headquarters fast enough. They cut out the parade.

As late as November 21, Chicago was still running enemy alien specials for Fort Oglethorpe. This consignment included a cook, also a Highland Park riding master who had been over-curious in regard to matters adjacent to Fort Sheridan. Twenty others were to be picked up later down the line—all after the Armistice had been signed.

On November 23, Fred I——, said to resemble the Crown Prince very much in his personal appearance, was fined five thousand dollars, whether for seditious utterances or for his resemblance to the Crown Prince does not appear, and is immaterial. Either would be enough.

On November 26, nine men were given free transportation from Chicago to Fort Leavenworth. One of these was a Dunkard preacher who got ten years for saying, “I’d kill a man rather than buy a Liberty bond.” He will have time to think that proposition over.

These straws will show well which way the wind blew in Chicago for the last year or so. Much to the disappointment of the Kaiser and one or two mayors, Chicago seems to be but very imperfectly Germanized after all. As for setting down the full tale of the A. P. L. activities in this city, it would be a thing impossible of accomplishment. The world knows how Chicago does the things she considers proper to have done. The American Protective League in Chicago worked in the well-known and well-accredited Chicago way. To thank the men who did this work, or even to mention their names, would cheapen them and their work. They did not ask thanks. They were Americans and were citizens.