The Web

CHAPTER XIV
THE STORY OF NEW ORLEANS

There is not in all the United States a more lovable city than that founded by Iberville, in an earlier century, above the Delta of the Mississippi. At first French, then part Spanish, part American, all Southern and yet all cosmopolitan, New Orleans has what we may call a personality not approached by any other community on this continent. Up to the time when, a decade or so ago, the once self-contented South began to reach out for a commercial future, so-called, New Orleans was the true Mecca on this continent of the Northern tourists. No need to go to Europe if one wanted different scenes. Here existed always the glamour of old-world customs, an atmosphere as foreign as it was wholly delightful. As the home of easy living and good cooking, as the place of kindly climate and gentle manners, all flavored with a wholesome carelessness as to life and its problems, New Orleans was, to use a very trite expression, in a class quite by herself. She never has had a rival, and more is the pity that the old New Orleans has succumbed to the modern tendency towards utilization and change which has marked all America.

Of such a community it might be expected that none too rigid a view of life and law would obtain. This would not be true of the better elements of New Orleans, yet it was in part true of all the life along the old Gulf Coast, where Lafitte and all his roisterers once lived, and where all the gentleness and ease of nature tended toward what we might call loose living—or at least joie de vivre. The soul of New Orleans came out annually in her Mardi Gras—the exuberant flowering of a spirit perennially young and riante.

And yet to New Orleans came the sobering days of the war, as to all the rest of America. The conscription fell upon her as upon every other city in America; and she also was asked to open her purse for the furtherance of the war and its purposes. How she responded need not be asked, and need not really be recorded, for New Orleans has always maintained beneath her laughing exterior as stern a sense of duty as may be found anywhere in all the world. To be French is to smile—but to be firm. Indeed, New Orleans showed one of the strange phenomena of American life which is not always known in the North—the truth that the South is more Puritan than ever New England was. Texas, supposed to be a bad border state, to-day has stronger laws regarding vice and liquor than New England ever has had since the time of the Blue Laws, and more strictly enforced. Louisiana also, gentle and kindly, has a stiffer code of morals than any commonwealth of the stern and rockbound coast. She smiles—but stands firm.

These reflections become the more obvious as one reads the main story of the activities of A. P. L. in New Orleans. The division does not pride itself ever so much upon its promptness with Liberty Loans, its activity in slacker drives, its firmness as to sabotage and propaganda, as it does upon other phases of work which at first were incidental to the prosecution of the Government war activities. The great boast of the New Orleans division is that it has kept young soldiers away from bad women, and kept women, once evil, away from themselves and gave them a chance to reform and to live a different life. So, therefore, one who shall study all the manifold activities of the American Protective League in this country will see that it had many ways in which it rendered service to the people. Perhaps, long after the League shall have been dissolved, in part forgotten, the New Orleans rehabilitation home, ten miles out from the city, will remain as a monument to the activities of that singular organization which, like King Rex himself, ruler of the Carnival, came from some mysterious region and vanished thence again, leaving behind only good memories.

On January 29, in 1918, the New Orleans division of A. P. L. had only thirty-eight members. At that time Mr. Charles Weinberger became manager, there being associated with him as assistant chief Mr. Arthur G. Newmyer. There were at first but limited office quarters, but in a very short time new headquarters were established and the plant installed covering approximately ten thousand square feet of space. This was on April 1, 1918. On February 1, 1919, the total membership was 2,097.

League operations were distributed under a Bureau of Investigation and a Bureau of Information, each in charge of an assistant chief. The investigation work was divided by Special D. J. Agent Beckham as follows: Headquarters bureau, handling enemy alien activities, disloyalty, sedition, propaganda, etc., had two units, a staff of eighty-three headquarters lieutenants, and also a ward organization. In each of the seventeen wards of New Orleans there was a lieutenant who had enough operatives under him to cover his neighborhood thoroughly.

The second bureau, that of Information, took up on its part the trades classification rather than that which we may call the geographical classification into city districts. There was a captain in each of the seventy-eight commercial lines of the city, and each captain had lieutenants and operatives in his particular line of business. In this way there was what might be called a double covering of the city, both as to information and investigation. For instance, in each hotel there would be a captain, lieutenant and operatives. The Bureau of Information had entire charge of the financial end of the League, and it supplied men to the Investigation Division for the purpose of raids, or for whatever matter required special assistance.

In the War Department work, the selective service bureau was in charge of a captain with proper assistants, who handled all violations under Section 6 of the Act. A member of this bureau was detailed with each exemption board, and this division handled all the draft investigations. It made a great many searches of this sort, prevented a great many evasions, and corrected many incorrect classifications. In the slacker raids which New Orleans had in common with practically every other big city of the country there were sometimes as many as three hundred operatives employed, and it is estimated that more than 20,000 slacker investigations were made in all.

New Orleans was a “wet town,” in close proximity to two Naval stations, three aviation fields, and two cantonments. It is easily seen what this meant in the way of activities for the A. P. L. There was a special liquor bureau put in charge of a captain and assistants. The division Chief and his aids made an agreement with all the local breweries and all the wholesale and retail liquor dealers that no intoxicating liquor should be sold in bottles after 7:00 p. m. This cut off a great deal of bootlegging and much of the heavier drinking which could not be controlled by the local police. This bureau was most efficient, as is demonstrated by the fact that Colonel Charles B. Hatch, U. S. Marines, who was in charge of the police forces of Philadelphia, was sent down to New Orleans by Secretary Daniels of the Navy to make an investigation of the New Orleans situation, and reported that so long as the A. P. L. was on the job there was no need for the establishment of a military police in New Orleans, or of extending any other law-enforcing organization. A. P. L. has rarely had a better compliment than this.

This bureau had chemists making analyses of several alleged soft drinks, and caused a cessation in their sale when they were of a suspicious character. In general, it locked up the town in a manner entirely satisfactory to the military and naval authorities. Anyone going to New Orleans in war times would have found it anything but a wide-open place.

Yet, but lately, New Orleans was called rather an “open town” in other ways: hence the vice bureau, established under the constant personal supervision of the division Chief. There were squads kept out all the time in control of the “district” and uptown sections of the city, this patrol being kept up day and night. It was not in the least infrequent that A. P. L. men would be out many nights on service of this sort.

In order that the operations of this vice bureau might be facilitated, Chief Weinberger was named U. S. Commissioner by Federal Judge Foster. Women apprehended under Section 13 of the Conscription Act were brought before Commissioner Weinberger, their cases investigated and affidavits made. When necessary, they were sent to the isolation hospital for investigation as to their physical status.

In order to prevent sending these unfortunate women to jail with criminals, the American Protective League at New Orleans engaged in the enterprise earlier referred to—its “Amproleague Farm.” Here there were ample dormitories, fully equipped, and a garden was maintained. There was a matron in charge. The place was kindly and helpful in every way, and every attempt was made to change the women spiritually as well as physically during their stay. Thus the League went a step further than acting simply as a merciless police force. It took care of young men who ought to have taken better care of themselves, but it did more. It took care not of one sex alone, but of both sexes, and in the truer and more lofty sense of the word.

In this operation of the liquor and vice bureaus, local Army and Navy camps detailed men to help the A. P. L. The local organization of the Home Guard, to the number of about a hundred, were admitted to membership in the League also. This organization, which was under military discipline, could be quickly assembled for night service. Transport of the League was cared for by the automobile division of the Bureau of Information. The latter men rendered special service to prevent the shipment of liquor into dry territory, whether in violation of the Reed Amendment or in violation of Section 12 of the Conscription Act. The New Orleans district had one neighboring cantonment which was in dry territory.

In brief, New Orleans showed what all the divisions of A. P. L. did throughout the country—good judgment and common sense. It did the thing necessary to be done, the most obvious and most useful thing. That duty was the caring for the personnel of the soldiers and sailors grouped in such numbers in or close to New Orleans. Human nature was accepted as human nature, and dealt with as such. These are the conditions which perforce colored the work of A. P. L. in New Orleans. They do not reflect the average community life of that city in any ordinary sense of the word, although many of the cases most valued by the Division itself have had to do with that manner of work.

For instance, the vice bureau apprehended two young women under Section 13 of the Conscription Act. Brought before the U. S. Commissioner, they were released upon their personal recognizance, but failed to appear on the next morning. Later they were located in Houston, Texas, and brought back to New Orleans. They were not kicked down. They found homes at the “Amproleague Farm.”

Matters did not go so gently in the vice operations so far as they had to do with the older and more persistent offenders. There were raids on some of the more notorious resorts, and several of them closed their doors entirely. There was a general cleaning up in New Orleans which was good for the city whether or not it remained a center of military activities.

A common practice of New Orleans taxicab drivers was to meet all trains coming in from the cantonments and to offer the sights of the city, liquor and taxicab included, to any enlisted man for a net sum varying from five to ten dollars. The League practically wiped out this pernicious practice by putting on the trains A. P. L. men in uniform as soldiers. When they got off the train and were thus accosted by taxicab drivers, they had all the evidence which was necessary. The taxicab practice was seriously interfered with.

A neighboring city was alleged to have examined incorrectly before its draft board a certain young man, giving him a classification to which he was not entitled. Investigation was set on foot by the A. P. L., who uncovered the fact that the man’s father conducted a sanitarium patronized by drug and liquor patients. He had treated several members of the board in his sanitarium, and had likewise had the Federal district judge as a patient, as well as several other influential citizens of the community. Thus, having rather confidential information, A. P. L. had very little difficulty in framing up its case. It will perhaps not be necessary to go into the usual series of narratives of interesting cases in the instance of the Crescent City. The report, as outlined above, is so different in its general phases from that of the average division that it may be allowed to stand, with the addition of its tabulated totals, which cover all the forms of assistance to the Government in which A. P. L. has participated throughout the United States.

The decision to demobilize the American Protective League was arrived at somewhat suddenly, for reasons more or less obvious to all members of the League. As recently as November 13, 1918, Mr. Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau of Investigation of the U. S. Department of Justice, wrote to Chief Weinberger, expressing the assurance that the American Protective League by no means ought to disband, since peace was not yet declared, and since need for the League’s services still existed. He said, “I am entirely satisfied that the need for this organization will continue for some time to come, entirely without regard to the progress of peace negotiations. The tremendous machines which have been organized by the Government for the prosecution of this war cannot be stopped abruptly, and must continue to operate for many months under any circumstances. The American Protective League has a large share of the work in this country which has made possible the united support and the full success of our arms abroad, and I am sure that your organization will continue to play its full part until the Department is willing to say that it has no further need for its services.”

Now, a few months after these expressions, the League is dissolved and its work declared ended. Is it ended? New Orleans thinks not, and points at least to one instance of civic betterment which has not yet demobilized—its “Amproleague Farm.” The officials found there an old sugar plantation which dated back to 1857. The old residence was built over as a modern home, equipped with forty windows, a dormitory with fifty beds, a room with six sewing machines, also ample galleries and well-fitted kitchens. Here the League has built a little community home which it is not yet ready to see die. It is a home where an erring person is given a chance to begin over again. And after all, has not that been a part of all the work of A. P. L. in all the country? From time to time in other reports we have seen it stated: “We tried to show this or that pro-German where he was wrong”; “We tried to change rather than to punish”; “We endeavored to improve our citizenship rather than penalize those who had made mistakes.” So, therefore, we may say that New Orleans has added a good chapter to the good history of this body of thoughtful citizens—it has helped make the world and the country better than it was before.