Essex, Connecticut, says something which will meet general agreement: "We firmly believe that the A. P. L. has done an inestimable work in the protection of our country. Every man in this division is glad of the opportunity afforded to be enrolled as an A. P. L. member."
MASSACHUSETTS
Springfield, Mass., had only nineteen members in its division. That we may know the nature of the League membership as a whole, let us look at the qualifications of these nineteen men. They included a lawyer, a physician, a broker, a private secretary, a social service worker, an advertising manager, a college president, a bank president, a furniture buyer, a merchant, a superintendent of the Bradstreet Company, a traveling salesman, a life insurance agent, a masseur, a surgeon, a musician, a shipping foreman, a bank teller and a high school teacher. The work of the Springfield division had to do largely with character and loyalty investigations, which ran all the way from nobody at all to a bishop in the Episcopal Church. Some male and female applicants for Y. M. C. A., K. of C. and Red Cross were found unfit "either because of immoralities or bad habits." Once in a while a case of disloyalty and sedition came up which would cause a smile. An applicant for a commission whose father was a Belgian and whose mother was a German was investigated and was found to be a loyal American. When questioned, he said he was for the United States of America, but that "father would never forgive mother for the invasion of Belgium."
A more spectacular Springfield case hung on a letter sent by the War Department to the A. P. L. reading as follows:
Will you please have your agents investigate a man living
at 71 Catherine Street, Springfield, Massachusetts, known as
August X, and report the result of their investigation
to me?
The final result of this investigation was that the subject
was interned, having been proved to have been a former soldier
in von Kluck's army of invasion in 1914, who had been
