- rect classifications. In the slacker raids which New
Orleans had in common with practically every other big city of the country there were sometimes as many as three hundred operatives employed, and it is estimated that more than 20,000 slacker investigations were made in all.
New Orleans was a "wet town," in close proximity to two Naval stations, three aviation fields, and two cantonments. It is easily seen what this meant in the way of activities for the A. P. L. There was a special liquor bureau put in charge of a captain and assistants. The division Chief and his aids made an agreement with all the local breweries and all the wholesale and retail liquor dealers that no intoxicating liquor should be sold in bottles after 7:00 p. m. This cut off a great deal of bootlegging and much of the heavier drinking which could not be controlled by the local police. This bureau was most efficient, as is demonstrated by the fact that Colonel Charles B. Hatch, U. S. Marines, who was in charge of the police forces of Philadelphia, was sent down to New Orleans by Secretary Daniels of the Navy to make an investigation of the New Orleans situation, and reported that so long as the A. P. L. was on the job there was no need for the establishment of a military police in New Orleans, or of extending any other law-enforcing organization. A. P. L. has rarely had a better compliment than this.
This bureau had chemists making analyses of several alleged soft drinks, and caused a cessation in their sale when they were of a suspicious character. In general, it locked up the town in a manner entirely satisfactory to the military and naval authorities. Anyone going to New Orleans in war times would have found it anything but a wide-open place.
Yet, but lately, New Orleans was called rather an "open town" in other ways: hence the vice bureau, established under the constant personal supervision of the division Chief. There were squads kept out all the time in control of the "district" and uptown sections of the city, this patrol being kept up day and night. It was not in the least infrequent that A. P. L. men would be out many nights on service of this sort.
In order that the operations of this vice bureau might
