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 CHAPTER III

EARLY DAYS OF THE LEAGUE

"D. J." and "A. P. L."—The Personal Statement of the Chicago Division Superintendent of the U. S. Bureau of Investigation—Early Days of the League—The Nation Unprepared—Swift Rallying of the Minute Men.

"Without exaggeration, I think the Chicago Division of the American Protective League did seventy-five per cent of the Government investigating work of the Chicago district throughout the period of the war. It seems to me that this one sentence covers the situation."—Hinton G. Clabaugh, Chicago Agent, U. S. Department of Justice.

In previous pages a general outline of the birth and growth of the American Protective League has been given, with a general statement also as to its wide usefulness in the exigencies of the tremendous days of the world war. There will be, however, many thousands of the members of the League, and a like number of the lay public, who will be curious as to the specific and more personal facts surrounding the early days of the organization. Such facts are part of the country's history as well as that of the League, and therefore ought to be recorded, and recorded accurately and indisputably.

Mr. Hinton G. Clabaugh, division superintendent of the Bureau of Investigation of the U. S. Department of Justice, was asked for a written brief, historically covering the joint activities of the Department of Justice and its A. P. L. auxiliary in Chicago during the early period of the war. The admirably comprehensive record which Mr. Clabaugh has furnished appears in this volume as Appendix A.

No statement of facts and figures, however, or of dates and details, can really cover the story of the American Protective League. It has a character and a history which