Detroit, Michigan, Sept. 14, 1917– In what has become a daily occurrence in any town USA the police, Detroit in this case, assisted by the Bureau of Investigation raided the movie houses, bowling alleys, pool halls and dance venues of Detroit last night to arrest “slackers” who have not signed with selective service for the military draft.
In total 45 men were arrested in the overnight raids many of them having been revealed to law enforcement through the efforts of the American Protective League. The volunteers of the APL are rooting out these men who refuse to serve their country in it’s time of need against the Germans.
The American Protective League was the idea of Chicago advertising executive Albert M. Briggs. In the early months of 2017 Briggs felt the shift in the United States away from nuetrality and wanted to be able to help if the U.S. entered World War One on the side of the allies.
Briggs felt that all reasonable and patriotic Americans would whole heartedly support the country if it entered the war and felt anyone who didn’t was immediatly suspicious, but he also knew due to his advertising contacts in the government that the miltary and Department of Justice were understaffed and would never be able to track all sabateours and traitors, and the average draft dodger. Briggs saw no difference between draft dodgers and spies and found like-minded individuals in U.S. Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory and President Woodrow Wilson.
Briggs felt it would be easy to develop a volunteer group that would, in his words, “enforce patriotism and stifle dissent.” So, in a cabinet meeting on March 30, 1917, Wilson approved Gregory’s proposal to develop the American Protective League. This was just days before Wilson requested a declaration of war on Germany by the U.S. Congress.
The APL was practically an off the books federal agency with broad responsibilities. It was not funded by the governement but by Briggs and several other like-minded businessmen in Chicago. While they had no arrest powers themselves the APL did carry badges and their influence was great. At the height of the organizations power in the Autumn of 1917 there were 250,000 volunteers in 600 cities to help the DOJ make arrests of spies and sabatons but mostly of men who had failed to sign up for Selective Service so were ignoring the draft.
Whether it was the patriotic drive of war and war propaganda or just some desire to turn gossip about neighbors into something more serious it’s hard to tell but Briggs was right, average Americans couldn’t wait to out their neighbors and coworker. It also might have been the nifty badges they could wear. While in no way official they looked official and cost 75 cents. A bit steep perhaps for just a token souvenir they did sell at almost the rate of people volunteering.
While it was said that the APL was primarily to look for spies and subversives under the authority of the 1917 Espionage act the APL kept their eye on hotels, restaurants, railroads, ports. They also kept close eyes on racetracks, boarding houses, fraternal associations and anywhere men might congregate without families. This was considered by the APL a certain sign or disregarding responsibilities.
The APL watched anyone who spoke against the war, wrote letters or stated they were “Conscientious Objectors”. To the public in 1917 war fever was high and to the members of the APL not being 100 behind the American Expeditionary Force was a sign of weak patriotism. The war propaganda machine worked well and was relentless.
Even though the APL had no official statutory standing they used their badges methodically. They would gather in groups for their “Slacker Raids” which were mostly like the Detroit example above. They would go where young men gathered, ball games, pool halls, faternal clubs and flash their badges demanding to see the men’s draft registration papers, which by law they were to be carrying, if not they were held until actual law showed up or were taken to a station house.
In New York City alone in 1917 60,000 men were held until they could prove they had registered. This resulted in the New York Times editorializing, “it is the duty of every good citizen to communicate to proper authorities any evidence of sedition that comes to his notice.” In Detroit over 30,000 men were arrested. In Cleveland 13,000 and in places west men were beaten and hospitalized for not being patriotic enough.
The numbers of course didn’t match up. The enthusiastic bands making citizens arrests or corralling men until law enforcement could pick them up never had time for explanations. Of those 60,000arrested in New York only 1,300 were actual draft dodgers, in Detroit 80 and in Cleveland 22.
Of course, the APL targeted the easiest target of all in this period the Industrial Workers of the World or “Wobblies”. The IWW was considered a radical movement by many and had been outlawed in Oregon and Arizona for organizing striking miners and lumber workers. The Wobblies were on the short list of anyone’s anti-American group. The APL busted up meetings, protests and even picnics. Women APL members were encouraged to work in factories to find IWW chapters to expose.
Even though IWW members brought charges of break ins, thefts, even blackmail against the APL these cases never went far. With few exceptions the APL and the Slacker Raids were not criticized. When the oldest news magazine in the U.S. “The Nation” asked if “Civil Liberties Were Dead” the post office began to censor it for the first time.
The western writer Emerson Hough wrote that the APL stood against the “sordid motives of the low, perverted, degenerate minds who feel the phenomena of avarice and hate and eagerness to destroy of the pro-Germans". Hough’s uncritical book on the APL was called “The Web: A Revelation of Patriotism”
Hough’s book was authorized by the Department of Justice and is a great work of propaganda praising the greatest detective force the world has ever seen. “A band of citizens called together overnight they served without pay, without specialized training, without glory to defeat the power of the vast and highly trained German espionage system.”
After the armistice in November 2018 the APL was without a mission but were not officially disbanded until April of 1919. Thomas Gregory wrote to the directors of the APL and chapter heads expressing a nation’s gratitude. In an odd turn of events Gregory’s creation with Briggs wasn’t considered strong enough to confront threats to America after the Bolshivik Revolution and America’s first Red Scare.
A. Mitchell Palmer replaced Thomas Gregory in the Spring of 1919because Wilson decided he need a man even more committed to spying on his own country. As Attorney General Mitchell got rid of the APL because he didn’t want “Amateurs” involved in protecting America from the new threat of Communism. Palmer later ordered future FBI head J. Edgar Hoover to raid places where it was believed radical labor activists, anarchists and communists lived as part of the infamous Palmer Raids.
The American Protective League didn’t survive long after World War One but it did create a model for future domestic spying that was used extensively by Hoover against labor and civil rights leaders, he believed to be anti-American, anti-Capitalists and anti-Religion.
Sources:
“The Web: A Revelation in Patriotism” by Emerson Hough, 1919 from a Google books upload.
Saturday Evening Post: Neighborhood Narcs Jan 24, 2022
Privacy 505: Private Citizens of the American Protective League
The American Protective League: Rosenberg Library Museum
The American Protective League and Where House Security: The White House Historical Association
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