running machinery of the Department of Justice, whose governmental mission it was to do detective work on the largest scale this country ever knew. We heard the voice of the War College through the official liaison therewith; also those of the General Staff, the War Department, the Post Office Department, the cable censors, the censors of the Expeditionary Forces. It all worked as an interlocking, vast, silent machine—a solemnly, almost mournfully silent machine, of which America knows almost nothing, the rest of the world nothing at all.
Day by day, in ghostly silhouette, passed sinister figures, themselves silent; those who plotted against America. All the deeds that can come from base and sordid motives, from low, degenerate and perverted minds; all the misguided phenomena of human avarice and hate and eagerness to destroy and kill—such were the pictures on the walls of "M. I. D."
I have spoken of certain essential liaisons against espionage and propaganda. More often seen than any other initials in the desk algebra of "M. I. D." were three initials—"A. P. L." This or that information came from A. P. L. This was referred to A. P. L. for more light. Every questionnaire of a man applying for a commission in the Army was referred back to A. P. L., and A. P. L. took up the question of his unswerving and invincible loyalty. A. P. L. found slackers and deserters in thousands. A. P. L. found this or that spy, large or little. A. P. L., obviously, had a busy mind and a long arm.
Yet if you should look in the Governmental Blue Book for this powerful branch of our Government, you could not find the initials there at all. Very many Americans never heard the name of this wholly unofficial organization which passed on so many governmental questions, was of so much aid in so many ways to the Government. A. P. L. is not and never was a part of any state or national arm, service, department, or bureau. But openly and proudly it has always been definitely authorized to carry on all its letter-heads, "Organized with the Approval and Operating under the Direction of the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation." These are its credentials.
A. P. L., the mysterious power behind our Government, was no baseless fabric of a vision, as hundreds of Germans
