Page:The web (1919).djvu/30

 Women naturally did not like the thought of casting their sons into that brutal hell. And then arose the female-men, the pacifists, forgetting their sex, forgetting their country, forgetting the large and lasting game of humanity's good, which cannot count present cost, but must plan for the long game of the centuries.

With the pacifists suddenly and silently rose the hidden army of German espionage and German sympathy in our own country, quick to see that here was their chance! Millions of German gold now came pouring across to finance this break in America's forces. Her high ministers to our Government began their treachery, forgetful of all ambassadorial honor, perjuring themselves and their country. The war was on, on both sides the Atlantic now.

And still America did not know, and still America did not go to war. We dreaded it, held back from it, month after month—some, as it seems to many, wrongly and unhappily even did what they could to capitalize the fact that we were not at war. But the hidden serpent raised its head and began to strike—to strike so openly, in so long a series of overt acts, that now our civil courts and the great national machinery of justice in Washington became literally helpless in their endeavors at resistance.

We were not at war, but war was waged against us in so many ways—against our lives and property—that all sense of security was gone. We offered as our defense not, as yet, our Fleet or our Army, but our Department of Justice. Day and night that department at Washington, and its branches in all the great cities, in New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Francisco, labored to clear the constantly increasing dockets, to keep down the constantly increasing heaps of suspect cases. It was evident that America was hearing from the Kaiser's million Germans in America. But where were the lamp posts?

The Department of Justice found itself flooded and submerged with work in the Bureau of Investigation, collecting evidence against German spies and German lawbreakers. It was plain what efforts now were making to undermine America. But the truth was, the grist was too much for the mill. We had never organized a system to