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 CHAPTER XI

THE STORY OF ST. LOUIS

How the Pro-German Was Kept Mild—Sober and Well-Considered Methods—A Big Secret Code Puzzle—Business As Usual.

The summaries for St. Louis tell the same story of patient and indefatigable loyalty, resolved to hold America strictly American. The St. Louis story is modest, straightforward and convincing. It is given in substance as written by the Chief, Mr. G. H. Walker.

The St. Louis division was organized on April 3, 1917. The initial organization was composed of sixteen companies, organized each under a captain and lieutenants, divided into professional, commercial and industrial groups, so as to embrace all fields of activity. Only dependable and loyal men were taken into these companies, which ranged in size numerically from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five each. The business and financial interests of St. Louis responded generously to the plan and made possible the marked success that always attended the division.

Captains, lieutenants and operatives from the outset were required only to use their eyes and ears and to send in their reports, through their appropriate superiors, to Mr. G. H. Walker, the Chief of the division, who in turn submitted such reports to the Special Agent in Charge, Department of Justice, at St. Louis. It became evident in the summer months of 1917, from the increasing number and variety of reports sent in, that the facilities of the Bureau of Investigation were wholly inadequate, and that the investigating forces of the Bureau would require enlargement unless the St. Louis Division of the American Protective League itself undertook active investigation of its reports, thus relieving the Bureau to that extent. It was the same old story of the breaking down of a most important branch of the Government, and