Page:The web (1919).djvu/247



Pittsburgh, when the percentage of foreigners and of illiteracy was much less. The American Protective League, in coöperation with Mr. Judge, gave the widest publicity in every possible way to the plans for the registration and the penalty for failure to comply. The result of this work of preparation was that the registration was effected without disorder, and there were no occasions for wholesale arrests to bring evaders or possible evaders to justice. In fact, the League's policy was to prevent trouble by advising those inclined to resent the Government's call, and to make no arrests until other means failed. It was only necessary for an American Protective League operative to appear in open court on one occasion.

I. W. W. propaganda was never permitted to take root. Work to eliminate this menace occupied a large amount of the League's attention. A well organized scheme of the Socialists to evade the Selective Service Law was broken up when a prominent radical and anarchist, a ringleader in the movement, was taken from a meeting he was about to address and compelled to register. The facts that the plans of the scheme were so well known to the League cooled the ardor of the malcontents.

The division had considerable trouble with a Jewish family which used every artifice to protect a lad of selective service age and prevent his being taken into the army. They finally succeeded in spiriting him away, but he was convicted of evading the draft, and by pressure on his family, who were placed under bond to return him, he was brought back to Pittsburgh, sent to jail for six months and then inducted into the army.

A number of Italians, through one of their societies, conceived a plan to make money by filling in questionnaires to enable evasion of selective service. Two ringleaders were arrested, and the chief of the society afterward rendered the League valuable service in preventing labor disturbances. The League also uncovered a scheme of a few unscrupulous lawyers to extort money from men on the ground that their advice would permit them to evade the law. Arrests were not necessary, as the warning of the League of the consequences of any continuance of the practice was sufficient.

The League was able to break the backbone of a dangerous plan of German propaganda through an international organization known as the Geneva Association, whose members were principally alien enemies. The officers were arrested and placed under bond for trial.

One very dangerous draft evader and conscientious objector