Page:The web (1919).djvu/434

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trouble-making products, but there seems to have been very little trouble. Only eighty-nine cases of disloyalty and sedition are reported, and 308 under the selective service regulations.

Mr. George T. Ragsdale, the first Chief of Louisville Division, instructed his men to keep under cover, so that the personnel of the division was very little known. More than 700 reports were made in all, and nine men were sent to the penitentiary. Local business men furnished most of the working capital. Upon Mr. Ragsdale's resignation, Mr. J. V. Norman was appointed Chief, taking over about 400 members. The city was divided into nine districts and the County in three, with the usual subdivisions of captains and lieutenants as operatives. The membership was up to about 700 at the time of the signing of the Armistice.

Most of the investigations handled by the Louisville Division were on requests coming from local draft boards, although the several branches of the government's legal organization frequently asked for aid. Several thousand men were questioned in the slacker raid of August 3. Thirty-five men were taken to jail and fourteen inducted; among these, several deserters. Sometimes at a race track a quiet investigation would be put on without any open raid.

Among the list of delinquents turned in was a man named Lyle D. B——. An intercepted letter resulted in an examination of the man's mother, who refused to tell where he was. Portland, Oregon, was suspected as his present residence. The case came to an end when it was found that the delinquent had been committed to the Federal penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington. His questionnaire was forwarded by the local board to the penitentiary and returned properly filled in. The man had a fairly good alibi. The usual cases of religious fanatics, loud talkers and bearers of false witness were uncovered in the League's work. Many of the best citizens of Louisville were engaged in these somewhat undignified and often thankless tasks of ferreting out such matters.

Lexington, Kentucky, as might easily be expected, reports in American fashion: "The sentiment of our entire population is hard against the Germans and their allies. Our people are almost unanimous in their opposition to showing