derivation, antecedents, convictions, assertions and beliefs of practically every man and woman of German name in America. But close to the foot of this mass of the archives, lay down upon the ground a book, a volume of ordinary size; let us say, this book now in your hand. How small it seems! It is small. It is no more than a fraction, a mite. It is not enough. Some man's loyal, unpaid, patient labor went into every one of these records.
There came, curiously, cumulatively, the feeling that this was not merely a mass of quasi-public documents, but an assemblage of the most valuable human documents ever collected in America. This was massed proof, not of work, but of patriotism. Then we did have, we do have, a country; there is a real America? Yes, and let no man doubt it ever again. It is a great and splendid country. These hundreds of thousands of pages which have been read—and every report sent in has been read—make the greatest reflex of America it ever has been the privilege of any man to know. Talk no more of a merely material America—it is not true. The real America at least is a noble, a splendid, a patriotic country, eager to do its share, determined to take its place.
The bewildering amount of material from all over the United States made condensation and classification alike difficult. It was therefore decided to separate the country into four loosely divided sections, the North, the East, the West, the South, and to throw into each division just so many condensed reports, taken at random from the whole as might be possible within the existing space limitations.
In the East and Northeast were located many or most of the great munition works and embarkation points as well as many centers of war work, manufacturing and shipping. This meant one form of work for the A. P. L. In the great middle section of the country—the semi-industrial, semi-agricultural central and north-central states—the activities of the League were slightly more varied. This cluster of inland states we have grouped as North. The South is known almost traditionally; and the West may arbitrarily be made to cover the far lands to the Pacific Coast itself, the state of California, with its great cities, alone being given sub-*classification in another section of this volume. Into these several hoppers the grist was thrown.
