CHAPTER III
THE STORY OF PHILADELPHIA
Splendid Record of a Ship-Shape Office—A Model Organization and the Way it Worked—Stories of the Silent Soldiers—A Banner Report.
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 millions of typewritten words, some hundreds of thousands of pages of typewritten copy, might be called one of the largest and one of the best histories of America ever written. It offers no pretense at deductions, but only an abundance of facts, objective and not subjective, concrete and not abstract. Popular impression hath it that the city founded by good William Penn is a simple and quiet sort of community, where life goes on lawfully and all is ease and comfort, peace and content. The facts do not seem to bear out this supposition. Philadelphia was as lawless as the next city during war times, possessed of as many undesirables and offering as many urgent problems in national defense. Tucson, Arizona, reports peace. Philadelphia is bad and borderish!
Among the many hundreds of reports coming in during the closing days of the American Protective League, there are some which run forty, fifty, or seventy-five pages of single space type. A very few of such reports would make a book the size of this one in hand. It has been, let it be repeated, with a most genuine regret that such work had to be condensed by the press. The Philadelphia report, for instance, covers ninety pages, and is an absolute model in every way. Indeed, a visit to the Philadelphia A. P. L. offices would have left any visitor certain of the high level of efficiency which has been attained by that division in every phase of its work. There was not a neater, better-systematized or smoother-running division in all the League than that in bad and borderish Philadelphia. The installation in that city was not so large as some. A Swiss watch is not so large as a Big Ben clock, but the latter does not keep any better time and makes much more noise about it.
It being impossible to print all of the Philadelphia report, it is quite in order to give rather a full summary of it, that we may correct the old impression regarding Philadelphia as a place of peace. The tabulated records cover only eleven months, from December 26, 1917, to November, 1918. In that period, 18,275 persons were examined, not counting those who were released in the big slacker raids. In order that the lay reader may have a perfect idea of the many different heads of activity in any one of these great offices, the Philadelphia table is offered in full, precisely as sent in:
_Department of Justice Cases._
Alien Enemy Activities. a. Male 1,575 b. Female 177 1,752 ------ Citizen disloyalties and sedition. (Espionage Act) 880 Treason 1 Sabotage, bombs, dynamite, defective manufacture of war material 78 Anti-Military activity, interference with draft, etc. 91 Propaganda. a. Word of mouth 509 b. Printed matter and publications 75 584 ------
Radical organizations.
I. W. W., Peoples’ Council, League of Humanity, and all other radical organizations, including pacifist and radical “socialists” 377 Bribery, graft, theft, and embezzlement 66 Miscellaneous, including naturalization and jury panel 350 Impersonation of U. S. or foreign officers 21 371 ------
_War Department Cases._
Counter-Espionage for Military Intelligence. Selective Service Regulations. a. Under local and district boards 5,384 (All individual investigations of delinquents and deserters and of those charged with any violation of selective service regulations.) b. In Slacker raids 3,726