The Web

The “Neutral Cases”—First Realization of the German Spy System in America—Overcrowding of the Department of Justice—The Birth of a New Idea—Formation of the American Protective...

as Germany had done. We had fought in the open when, rarely, we had fought at all. The great mill of Justice clogged up and broke down, not from any inefficiency or inadequacy i...

It is to Mr. A. M. Briggs of Chicago that credit should go for the initial idea of the American Protective League. The first flash came many months before the declaration of war...

“D. J.” and “A. P. L.”—The Personal Statement of the Chicago Division Superintendent of the U. S. Bureau of Investigation—Early Days of the League—The Nation Unprepared—Swift Ra...

Facts now may be made public property which until lately might not have been divulged. We therefore shall find profit now in studying the central organization by means of which...

Insufficiency of the Espionage Laws at the Outbreak of the War—Getting Results—The Amended Espionage Act—The Law of 1798 Revived—Statement of the Attorney General of the United...

Germany made two mistakes—one in beginning the war, the other in losing it. The world has reckoned with her far otherwise than as she hoped. Now she learns what it is to feel de...

conscious, continuous plan to obstruct the country’s military efforts. What has been said in this courtroom by the defendants is but an apology by them for obstructing the count...

To gain any adequate idea of the amount of the activities which centered in New York would mean the following out of countless concealed threads leading all over the world and c...

The Perverted German Mind—Stories of Brutal Indifference to Innocent Victims—Treason, Treachery, and Unmorality Hand in Hand—The Authentic Story of Dr. Scheele—Twenty-one Years...

In the early days of the A. P. L., Mr. Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau of Investigations of the Department of Justice, issued an explicit letter of warning and advice to all Leagu...

Story of the Greatest Criminal Prosecution Known in the Jurisprudence of America—The Lawless Acts Leading up to the Arrests—Methods of Violence Used by Members of the I. W. W.—S...

Even had Mr. Bryan’s famous prophecy come true, that a million armed men would spring up over night and so end at once any trouble America might presumably experience in going t...

Hunting Bad Men—Deserter-Catching in the Southern Mountains—Tricks of the Slacker’s Trade—Running Down Unwilling Patriots—Some A. P. L. Adventures—Death of a Deserter—How a Sout...

It already has been stated that the American Protective League had no governmental or legal status, though strong as Gibraltar in governmental and legal sanction. The mails are...

The Birthplace of the American Protective League—Center of Enemy Alien Activities—Focus of German Propaganda and Home of Pro-German Cults and Creeds—Story of the League’s Work a...

The Focus of German International Espionage—Center of Foreign Population—The Great Plots—Governmental Concentration—How the A. P. L. Web Helped Collect Traitors—Details of the O...

The City of Brotherly Love gives us pause. Is it indeed the truth that Americans do not know their own country? The story of the American Protective League, covering some millio...

Character and Loyalty. a. Civilian applicants for oversea service 1,013 b. Applicants for Commissions 61 1,074 ------ Training camp activities 6 (Under Sections 12 and 13 of Sel...

Northern New Jersey was recognized as one of the riskiest regions of the United States. Time out of mind, American readers have noted, with the short-lived American anger, the m...

Pittsburgh also was expected to be an alien storm center when the United States declared war upon Germany. This uneasiness was natural and to be expected. Most of our great iron...

After A. P. L. began to reach out into a wide development by reason of the hard work of the National Directors at Washington, D. J. in that town began to cry for more. It sent o...

Once more we find occasion to revise the popular estimate of a supposedly well-known American community. No one would think of staid, steady, even-going Cleveland as anything bu...

That Cincinnati had a vast population of German descent and of pro-German sympathies was known throughout the United States. It would be folly to say otherwise. Had open riots o...

The thriving city of Dayton, Ohio, is one of the best known towns of the size in the Union. In some way the idea has gone abroad that Dayton is up-to-date, modern and advanced a...

It often has been said that the shipping of the Great Lakes, all of which passes through the Detroit River, is greater in annual tonnage than that which goes through the Suez Ca...

The summaries for St. Louis tell the same story of patient and indefatigable loyalty, resolved to hold America strictly American. The St. Louis story is modest, straightforward...

The Gate City of the Great West in the War—If K. C. Ever was Wild and Woolly, That was Long Ago—Let Us Have Peace, if We Have to Get It With a Gun—All Quiet Along the Missouri.

Clean-Cut Work of One of the North-West’s Capitals—Straightaway Story of a Good Division—Many Anecdotes Showing How Operatives Worked—The Dignified and Sober Side of Saving the...

The A. P. L. in the Sunny South—Strong Division of the Crescent City—How the League was Organized—Rapid Growth and Wide Activities—Curbing of Vice—Cleaning Up a City.

A Series of Graphic Case Stories from All Over the Golden State—Stirring Romances from the Capital of Romance—The A. P. L. in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Dieg...

How Manufactures, Munitions and Agriculture were Protected—Briefs of Cases from All Over the Country—Chips from the Little Fellow’s Axe—Odds and Ends from the Files—The Far-Flun...

In deplorably skeletonized fashion, we have offered a brief story of the League’s growth, its purposes and its methods, and the stories of some of its great centers. But how abo...

Nature has not put upon the face of the globe any region more fit or more inviting for human occupancy than the temperate zone of North America. The soil is fertile, producing w...

The South is, in its percentage as to population, the finest, cleanest, truest and most loyal part of the United States to-day. It holds more of the native born Americans, fewer...

Under the caption of The West, we arbitrarily are grouping all of the states lying west of a line running north and south from the western borders of the Dakotas to the eastern...

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky That larks still bravely singing fly, Scarce heard amid the guns below....

Our Duty to the Soldier—Our Lasting Quarrel With the Foe—The Story of the Census—No More Traitors—Shutting the Gates Against the Huns—The New Patriotism for All Americans.

To the merely morbid mind, the white faces of the starved, the moans of the maimed, the black habiliments of those who mourn, may be thought parts of a drama whose terrible appe...