APPENDIX A
HISTORICAL STATEMENT OF HINTON G. CLABAUGH, DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT, U. S. BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Shortly after the severance of diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany on February 1, 1917, Mr. A. M. Briggs, then vice-president of a poster advertising company of New York, Chicago and elsewhere, whom I had met in connection with several official investigations, called at the office of the Bureau of Investigation, and made substantially the following statement: "Diplomatic relations have been severed and in all probability this country will be drawn into the European war. I am physically unable to join the active fighting forces, but I would like to help in some way, and it has occurred to me that a volunteer organization might be of great assistance to an investigating bureau such as the one with which you are connected. I hereby pledge all my time and all my resources. I am not a man of much wealth, but the Government is welcome to every dollar I possess, as well as my time, and I earnestly hope that if you can think of any way in which I can be of assistance to this Bureau you will command me."
In the meantime I had a conference with the late Herman F. Schuettler, then General Superintendent of Police of Chicago, and attended a meeting of prominent citizens of this community in the Federal Building.
Subsequently, or a few days after the first conversation, I told Mr. Briggs I had been thinking about his idea and believed that an organization of volunteers would be of very great help to the Department, and as a first step in connection with such organization we could use some automobiles, which would enable the agents to cover several times as much territory, to say nothing of the time thus saved, but that there was no appropriation from which the Government could pay for the upkeep of such cars. I also explained to him the substance of some telegrams which I had exchanged on the subject with Mr. A. Bruce Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau of Investigation at Washington.
