League's later activities. This summarization of the Espionage Act is printed as Appendix C in the present volume.
Up to the close of 1917, we had had, duly amended, many national statutes covering treason and sedition, foreign and hostile connections, pretending to be an officer, enticing to desertion or strikes, trespassing at military places, falsely claiming citizenship, aiding or counseling offense, wearing uniform unlawfully, conspiracy, neutrality, counterfeiting seals, use of mails, trading with the enemy, censorship, foreign language news items, sabotage, etc., as well as many specific enactments controlling persons liable for military service, and covering the increase of the army, the questions of evasion, desertion, etc. These powers, broad as they were already, were extended under the blanket power of the Articles of War, to cover fraud, desertion, mutiny, insubordination, misbehavior before the enemy, traitors and spies, murder, rape and other crimes, and the general conduct and dicipline of those in military service.
Not even all these laws, however, were found to stand the extreme demands put on the country by thousands of new and wholly unforeseen exigencies. As a matter of fact, one of the most useful of all our laws against enemy aliens and spies was one not up-to-date at all, but dating back to Revolutionary times; that is to say, July 6, 1798![1]
This old law was unearthed by the agents of the Department of Justice. It gave almost blanket powers to the President of the United States, and it was under the President's proclamations, based on that old law, that most of the early internment arrests were made. The old law, long disused, was found to work perfectly still! It was extended in force by the regulations controlling enemy aliens.[2]
It became the duty of the newly organized League to take on the accumulation of testimony under all these new laws; and what that was to mean may be forecast from the comment of the Attorney General of the United States in his annual report for 1918:
The so-called Espionage Act contains a variety of provisions
on different subjects, such as neutrality, protection of
