American Protective League
The American Protective League (1917–1919) was an organization of private citizens sponsored by the United States Department of Justice that worked with federal law enforcement agencies during the World War I era.
Its mission was to identify suspected German sympathizers and to counteract the activities of radicals, anarchists, anti-war activists, and left-wing labor and political organizations.
[4] APL assistance was welcomed by the BOI, which in 1915 had only 219 field agents, without direct statutory authorization to carry weapons or to make general arrests.
The government had been receiving complaints of disloyalty and enemy activities, and while the Bureau of Investigation was doing its best to contain the situation, the letter continued, the Protective League served as an auxiliary force to put a stop to corruption within the borders of the United States.
[10] In addition to its regular geographically based network, the APL attempted to organize secret units inside factories producing clothing and war materiel, with a view to identification of those advancing "discouraging disloyalty" or engaging in pro-German activities.
[12] Teams of APL members conducted numerous raids and surveillance activities aimed at those who failed to register for the draft and at German immigrants who were suspected of sympathies for Germany.
Attorneys and BOI agents, assisted by cadres of volunteers from the APL and other similar patriotic auxiliaries, pursued suspects of disloyalty on their own initiative and in their own manner.
[4] APL members "spotted violators of food and gasoline regulations, rounded up draft evaders in New York, disrupted Socialist meetings in Cleveland, broke strikes, [and] threatened union men with immediate induction into the army.
[15] APL agents, many of them female, worked undercover in factories and attended union meetings in hope of uncovering saboteurs and other enemies of the war effort.
[16] APL members were accused of acting as vigilantes, allegedly violating the civil liberties of American citizens, including so-called "anti-slacker raids" designed to round up men who had not registered for the draft.
[18] Other groups included the Knights of Liberty, Sedition Slammers, Terrible Threateners, Boy Spies of America, National Security League, and American Defense Society.
"[25] In March 1919, when some in Congress and the press were urging him to reinstate the Justice Department's wartime relationship with the APL, he told reporters that "its operation in any community constitutes a grave menace.
That volume by Emerson Hough, an author of Western novels, called for a program of "selective immigration, deportation of un-Americans, and denaturalization of 'disloyal' citizens and anarchists."
