CHAPTER IX

HANDLING BAD ALIENS

Dealing with Dangerous Propagandists—High and Low Class Disloyalists—The Alleged Americanism of the Kaiser's Kultur-Spreaders—A Few Instances of A. P. L. Persuasions.

In the early days of the A. P. L., Mr. Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau of Investigations of the Department of Justice, issued an explicit letter of warning and advice to all League members as to their conduct regarding aliens. The Attorney General often publicly denounced lynchings. The Bureau of Investigation always counseled prudence and full justice to all. Surely, the aliens, the unnaturalized, the strangers and visitors of other races than our own, caught in this country with or against their will by the declaration of war, can offer no complaint regarding the fairness and generosity of the treatment accorded them. These enemies of ours, these spies, propagandists and pro-Germans, had better treatment than they deserved then and better than they deserve now. We have been too temperate, too fair, too lenient with them. The moderation of the A. P. L. work, indeed, all our Government work, with traitorous persons living in America, has been a matter of astonishment to all the European nations, who perhaps knew more of the alien enemy type than we did ourselves.

A reference to the table of reports of all division chiefs will show that investigations for "disloyal and seditious utterances" far outnumber those under any other head. The truth is that Germans and pro-Germans generally were mighty cocky in their talk in this country. Arrogant and assured that Germany was going to win this war—for which, as most of her amateur and all of her special spies knew, she had been preparing for many years—they