Page:The web (1919).djvu/392

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

A quite usual form of report comes from Washington Courthouse, Ohio—and it is one of the best sorts of reports: "Assisted in the sale of Liberty Bonds and Stamps to the amount of $150,000; rounded up slackers, and did investigation work for the Red Cross. We had much automobile travel. In the eight hundred cases that we investigated, our men traveled more than twenty-five thousand miles by auto, half of this mileage being covered by one man."


INDIANA

Indianapolis, Indiana, attributes much of its success to the care with which its membership was selected. All new members were brought in by other members who were acquainted with them, and were in a position to know of their loyalty. The Chief says: "Our men conducted themselves with dignity, tact and discretion, bearing in mind at all times that they were representing the Government and the League. We believe that much of our success in keeping down propaganda, sabotage and other Hun depredations was due to the secrecy which guarded the identity of our officers. Indianapolis had a total of 209 cases of disloyalty and sedition."

Indianapolis caught one deserter 1,200 miles from home. He deserted from the Rainbow Division at the port of embarkation and headed west. He was found, working under an alias, in a camp forty miles from Casper, Wyoming. This case was started within fifty feet of the Indianapolis headquarters, through overhearing a chance conversation in which a woman said that a friend of hers was corresponding with a man she thought to be a deserter. The suspect at first denied he was the man wanted, but finally confessed, and was delivered to the proper authorities. The whole case was finished inside of two hours, the order for the man's arrest going by wire to Casper from the Department of Justice. Another man deserted from Camp Sherman, Ohio, and without coming back home to Indianapolis, went to Hastings, Michigan. Here, through a woman who passed as his wife, he had gotten a novelty concession at the County Fair. Indianapolis A. P. L. got in touch with M. I. D. of Washington. Everything was waiting for the gentleman on his