Champaign, Illinois, is the home of the University of Illinois, and for some reason university towns seem to act as chutes for all sorts of independent thought. There are two strong German settlements in Champaign County, and a very strong German settlement in the city, where many residents have shown very pro-German tendencies. These German settlements have their own German schools, taught by their German Lutheran ministers under the pretense of teaching religion. Sentiment became so intense that the local A. P. L. Chief was requested by the Government to close these schools if possible. Some of them have reopened since the armistice. In such localities the Germans have been very independent and often quite outspoken, so that it was necessary in many cases for the A. P. L. to use influence to prevent violence to them. There were only one or two cases where the citizens got out of control, although many citizens of German descent refused to buy bonds and made disparaging remarks regarding the war.
The A. P. L. Chief says: "We were confronted with the problem of ousting five alien enemies at the University of Illinois, two of them regarded as dangerous. We also had to handle a cook at the aviation barracks, an alien enemy who was deliberately wasting food. We convicted the wife of a German minister in the Federal Court for making disloyal remarks. We had some difficulty with Russellites, Mennonites, and radical Socialists, but all have been kept in hand. Our organization consists of seventy-five members, but about twenty-five of us have done most of the active work." A good and worthy twenty-five.
The reference to Russellites and Mennonites covers two regions of great A. P. L. activity. Pastor Russell, as he was known, passed away from this scene some time ago, but he left behind him seeds of discord. He was perhaps not so much disloyal as he was eccentric and fanatical in his mental habit. His book, "The Finished Mystery," was so open a plea against war that it was proscribed by the United States Government. A. P. L. operatives ran down a great deal of so-called pro-German talk which originated in the Russellites. An instance of this comes from Coloma, Michigan, which reports: "Radical socialists became active during August, 1917. Acting under instructions from
