Page:The web (1919).djvu/252

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volunteer body, as had been done in all other parts of the United States.

Mr. Peabody still wanted the Committee of Public Safety to appear as the parent or controlling body, and a lot of valuable time was wasted over this tweedle-dee argument. A compromise was effected, and on April 15, 1918, the National Directors had advice that the Massachusetts organization was hiring offices, and assumed that the work had begun and that Boston would copy as nearly as possible the form of letterhead used by A. P. L., putting the names of the National Directors on the left-hand side and substituting the words "Protective League." Underneath that was to appear the legend: "Organized by the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee under the Direction of the U. S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation." Boston expressed the belief that Washington would not be able to tell the difference between this organization and any other so far as loyalty and efficiency were concerned, although sensible of the Washington feeling that Massachusetts was starting a year late and might be suspected of lack in coöperation.

All concerned having thus been satisfied, Massachusetts began A. P. L. work a trifle late in the game, but none the less proceeded to show that it could produce as effective an organization as any other in the country. Assistant Chief H. E. Trumbull makes his report on the regulation A. P. L. blanks and letterheads, and adds the following data as to the later organization of A. P. L.:


Mr. Samuel Wolcott was appointed Chief, and we took two offices at 45 Milk Street, in the same building with the Department of Justice. Mr. Trumbull, then a volunteer operative with the Department proper, consented to help with the new organization, and Mr. John B. Hanrahan was appointed by the Department of Justice as a special agent to oversee the work of the new organization.

A few weeks later we found that the work was too great to handle in such small quarters, and about the first of May contracted for half of the eighth floor of the building, the Department of Justice taking the other half. At this time Mr. Trumbull was appointed Assistant Chief.

As a nucleus of the state organization, we took the names of the men who had been doing volunteer work for the United