Page:The web (1919).djvu/410

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to be butchered. Duly interviewed about it. O. W. S——, cashier of a bank, wrote a letter in which he stated his bank would not take any Government certificates. He gave as his reason that he was short of help, as one of his men was being held in the army against his will and "against the wishes of the community." He was spoken to.

Neillsville, Wisconsin, apparently, was up on its toes. It reports the investigation of an alien German Lutheran minister; utterances against the President and the Government, and the discovery of socialistic campaign literature for evidence in the Socialist trial at Chicago. It searched the community for the Socialist paper called "The Voice of the People"; investigated the Russellite sect and looked up the record of 118 petitioners for naturalization; investigated juries in the trial of a murder case growing out of an attempt to evade the draft, in which several people were wounded and two killed, and investigated a Socialist candidate for sheriff who made contributions to a fund for printing radical literature. The foregoing civil activities were done in the interest of the Department of Justice. Neillsville, for the War Department, investigated a woman who was trying to get information about the Edgewood Arsenals; assisted the U. S. Marshals in arresting draft dodgers, and investigated civilian applicants for overseas service and applicants for commissions. The Chief apologizes for not having done more!

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, had one hundred and eleven men—lawyers, doctors, bankers, manufacturers and workmen—on her A. P. L. rolls. The investigations throughout the war period totalled 343. There was much outspoken Germanism in this district before the United States went into the war, but after that, it died down. One old German, when confronted by the operatives, said: "Vel, I dell you vat I dink; it is so; I dink vat I dink. How can I helb id? But I say not von dam vord—nefer!" A safe rule. "Since the war ended," says the Chief, "known sympathizers with Germany have been as quiet as oysters here. When Germany has been a republic for twenty years or so, I hope some of these imported old bigots will soften."

Racine, Wisconsin, has a population of 50,000. In a slacker raid it gathered in 3,000, including a number of real