In addition to the foregoing, the reports from local divisions indicate that they have made a large number of investigations of a general character for the War Department, including a variety of subjects. Mention should also be made of a considerable amount of service rendered to the Foreign Recruiting Missions in locating slackers and deserters and in making miscellaneous investigations of individuals.
On March 18, 1918, the Military Intelligence Branch of the War Department requested the American Protective League to procure for that Department, for immediate use for intelligence purposes, photographs, drawings and descriptions of bridges, buildings, towns and localities, then occupied by the German forces in France, Belgium and Luxemburg, and likewise in that portion of Germany lying west of a line running north and south through Hamburg. In compliance with that request, National Headquarters issued a bulletin to all Local Divisions, calling upon the entire organization of the League throughout the country to engage in the work, and prescribing a detailed method for carrying it on. The result of the work, and the appreciation of the Military Intelligence Branch, was expressed to the League in a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Coxe, under date of June 11, 1918, in which he quotes a letter from Colonel Nolan, chief of the Military Intelligence Force abroad, to the effect that the material contained much information of value and that "the citizens of the United States who donated the above articles and the League which collected them have done something which definitely helps toward the success of the operations of our army."
Summing up the actual investigations made by the American Protective League in the one hundred local divisions referred to, the grand total of cases reported by these divisions is 448,950. As has been shown, the jurisdiction of these divisions embraces approximately one-seventh of the whole population of the country covered by all of the local divisions of the League, and while some of the work reported by the one hundred divisions is not duplicated elsewhere, yet the reverse is true, and it may fairly be said that the entire number of cases handled by the League for the War Department throughout the country is seven times the above figure, or more than three million.
In conclusion, we beg to state that it has been the policy to coöperate with all local, State and Federal departments in enforcing the war laws of the United States. Our Local Chiefs have been able to establish cordial relations with all local police, sheriffs, fish and game wardens, fire wardens,
