Page:The web (1919).djvu/250

 CHAPTER VI

THE STORY OF BOSTON

Massachusetts Somewhat Mixed in Safety Measures—Early Embarrassment of Riches—Brief History of A. P. L.—Organization and Its Success—Stories of the Trail.

After A. P. L. began to reach out into a wide development by reason of the hard work of the National Directors at Washington, D. J. in that town began to cry for more. It sent out to all its special agents and local offices a circular explaining the great assistance which the League was capable of rendering the Government, and asked the assignment of a special agent as an A. P. L. detail in each bureau locality. This circular went out on February 6, 1918, and Boston received a copy duly, as well as the request of the Provost Marshal General to the Governor of Massachusetts for aid in selective service matters. At that time there was no division of A. P. L. organized in Boston. A few days later the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety, which had been organized and active ever since the beginning of the war, was asked to interest itself to the extent of having some good man start a Boston division of A. P. L. The latter matter was slow in development because of the extent and thoroughness of the earlier state organization. The latter had been taking care of the food, fuel and other administrative work in assistance to the Government. The feeling was that it might be better to enlarge the Committee of Public Safety than to start any new body which might be a source of misunderstanding and friction.

The Department of Justice work in Boston during the early days of the war had not been satisfactory. Boston, so far from being all Puritan, has in reality one of the most mixed populations in the country. There was some feeling against the Department of Justice in Boston, and some feeling also against any new body which proposed to link up