guaranteed by their Kaiser to be loyal to Germany. And long before we had gone to war, we had had abundant proof of their disloyalty to us, of their hatred for Britain and France, and their discontent with our own neutrality. We had openly been warned by the German Kaiser that he counted on the loyalty to Germany of many or most of these men. Fear alone held the average pro-German back. But it did not hold back their seasoned spies and the agents who worked under cover. The sudden cessation of pro-German talk which fell when we declared war deceived none but the pacifists. The boasts of German-Americans as to their holdings in Liberty Bonds deceived not at all the men who had sat and listened on the inside; for even at this time the records were piling up—records of private acts and words of treason to America which had been noted by the A. P. L. The full record of German craft and duplicity, of treachery and treason to America, never will be made public. It was alike a loathsome and a dangerous thing.
Obviously, the hands of our Government sorely needed upholding. Who was to do that? Who would apply all these laws now that we had them? Who should watch two million tight-mouthed men whose homes were here but whose hearts were still in Germany? Who could cope with 300,000 spies, in part trained and paid spies, many of whom were sent over to America long before Germany declared the war which was "forced" on her?
That was what the American Protective League already was doing when war was declared; it is what it has done ever since, loyalty, patiently, indefatigably, to an enormous and unknown extent, in an unbelievable variety of detail. If ever you have held its members irresponsible or deemed them actuated by any but good motives, cease to do so now. Beyond all men of this generation they have proven that patriotism is not dead.
The enforcement of the President's proclamation governing the conduct of enemy aliens in this country entailed a tremendous amount of D. J. work, the larger part of which devolved upon the agents of the League. Thousands of investigations of alien Germans were made under its provisions. Numerically speaking, however, the work in that imperatively necessary line yielded to the more thankless labor of slacker and deserter hunting.
