Page:The web (1919).djvu/294

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or fight order, 300; character and loyalty, (a) civilian applicants for overseas, 500, (b) applicants for commissions, 400, total 900; camp desertions and absent without leave, 600; total, 18,356.

Other branches of the Government: Food and Fuel Administrations, 200; Treasury Department, War Risk insurance allotments, etc., 500. Grand total of investigations listed January 1, 1919, 30,056.

Detroit Division assisted the Bureau of Delinquents and the Police Department in several raids for slackers at which about 5,000 or 6,000 men were examined for registration cards. Those who had registered and qualified are not included above. They would number about 5,000 more. The division also gave material assistance to the police and fire departments, especially during the armistice days, when from four hundred to five hundred operatives were on special duty.

It would be rather bootless to delve deep into the individual records of a city where the totals are so large, but a few of the Detroit cases might be given in passing. One of these had to do with an alleged attempt of a draft board official to obtain money from a registrant for keeping him out of the service. That complaint came in at noon. By four o'clock of the same afternoon Lieutenant No. 610 had the facts. That was Saturday, and Monday was Armistice Day. Tuesday morning the matter came up before a judge of the Federal Court. A thirteen months' sentence at Leavenworth penitentiary was imposed the third day after the complaint came in.

This accuation was that a clerk, S. W—— (the name is unpronounceable) of Board No. 6 had told a registrant, G——, apparently of the same nationality as himself, that for a certain sum he would keep him out of the draft. He was to appear between noon and one o'clock on November 9 and make the payment. Operative says he told G——'s employers to pay him the nine dollars due him, and he took the numbers of the bills. "I told G—— to come with me to Local Board No. 6," he says, "and see this clerk whose name I did not know, and if he took the money to report to me on the first floor of the building. In the meantime I informed one of the members of our Delinquent Board of