Chapter V: The Story of Pittsburgh

Another Storm Center—Greatest Concentration of War Work in the
United States—The Tower of Babel and How it was Held Safe—No I. W.
W. Need Apply.

Pittsburgh also was expected to be an alien storm center when the United States declared war upon Germany. This uneasiness was natural and to be expected. Most of our great iron and steel plants were located there, and numerous other important industries as well. These plants were vital to our success in the war, as were the great coal mines in the adjacent districts. It was felt on every side that the enemy would strike here if he struck at all. But the main cause for apprehension lay in the fact that Pittsburgh had an enormous foreign population, especially from countries of the central allies, and the presence of this element in its industries was feared as a source of dynamite, sabotage and labor troubles. The fact that Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania throughout the war remained practically free from labor disturbances and war munition destruction, so troublesome in other sections, was due to the splendid intelligence service rendered by the American Protective League, in close coöperation with the United States Department of Justice and Naval and Military Intelligence Bureaus. The Smoky City sends in a very clean report.

Pittsburgh operated the highest percentage on war work of any district in the United States. It filled over sixty-five per cent of all the steel contracts placed by the Ordnance Department, in addition to the tremendous output of munitions and other war materials for the Entente Allies. It was estimated that the district was running from sixty to seventy per cent on war work at the time of the Armistice, that at least 5,000 plants, many of them mammoth in size, were filling Government orders, and over one million employees were engaged in large part in helping win the war. During the latter part of hostilities the daily labor shortage was over 16,000. It was vital to the United States and to the Entente Allies that the Pittsburgh District should be permitted to conduct unmolested its great industries of the war, and that this was possible was due in a large measure to the American Protective League.

A few days after the war was declared, John W. Weibley, a well known Pittsburgh business man, was asked to organize a Division of the American Protective League in the twenty-seven counties of Western Pennsylvania, comprising the United States Western Judicial District. Mr. Weibley conferred with Mr. Robert S. Judge, Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, to learn if the Government was in need of such an organization. When assured that it was, Mr. Weibley began the formation of a branch for this district.

Representatives of the railroads and other important corporations were called into conference and were asked to coöperate, and within an amazingly short time the American Protective League had active agents in every county, township, city, town and village in the entire district. In the case of Pittsburgh, the operating headquarters, this plan of organization was worked out so minutely that an active agent representing the League, and in constant communication with it, was located in every voting precinct, and where there were concentrations of the foreign element, these agents were to be found in practically every city block.

Mr. Weibley personally perfected and maintained from Pittsburgh this network throughout the District. Mr. Ralph B. Montgomery directed the work in Pittsburgh, each ward being placed in charge of a captain who reported to him, and each captain having his separate lieutenants with agents in every election precinct. Mr. Raymond H. Allen, assisted by Mr. William S. Masten, directed the operation of the intelligence activities in the outlying counties.

Frequent meetings of ward captains and district lieutenants were held to hear suggestions from representatives of the Government. They were thus kept familiar with the latest happenings and knew what precautions to take to make their work effective.

The story of the Pittsburgh Division, as it is related in these pages by its Chief, is the story of a program of action, thoughtfully conceived, carefully and efficiently executed, and successful beyond all expectations. Mr. Weibley says in his report:

A splendid _esprit de corps_ was maintained, as the organization
in Pittsburgh was limited to the least possible number in
membership, and all members were kept busy. Great care was
used in the selection of the men enrolled, and each applicant
was subjected to a rigid investigation. If he did not meet the
requirements, his application was rejected or placed on file to
provide material for future replacements when urgency demanded
it. As a result, the highest interest in the work was maintained
throughout the war period.

The Pittsburgh district being the most important manufacturing,
munition, fuel and chemical center in the country, was largely
dependent for its labor upon foreigners, many of whom came from
countries at war with us. It therefore was imperative that many
of our operatives should be of diverse nationalities and able to
speak many tongues. As an illustration, it was estimated that at
the beginning of the war fully fifty per cent of the Austrians
in the United States were at work in vital coal mines, coke
works, steel mills and other industrial plants within a radius
of 50 miles of Pittsburgh. This naturally made the alien menace
a grave one, but so intensive was the organization of the League
that not an important industrial operation in the great district
was without one or more of the League agents as active employes.
In fact, intimate connection was maintained with every alien
gathering or meeting place, and nothing of moment was planned that
the League officials were not soon familiar with. In fact, in one
of the largest industrial concerns, the principal official was
chief of a league unit, and many of his trusted employes were his
active associates.

Pittsburgh industrial concerns, vitally interested in meeting
the Government’s demands for constantly increasing output of war
material, quickly solved the question of finances, and the League
had ample funds to meet every requirement. This made possible a
highly efficient office organization and a suite of offices on the
fourth floor of the St. Nicholas Building, which permitted the
Department of Justice and Army and Navy Intelligence Bureaus also
to locate quarters there, giving a compact working organization
reaching every branch of the service and promoting that intimate
contact and close coöperation which assured success. This
reciprocal arrangement was especially effective in the case of the
Department of Justice, which, under the operation of Mr. Judge,
rendered and was rendered assistance on all occasions.

Director Charles B. Prichard, of the Pittsburgh Department
of Public Safety, recognized the possibilities of effective
coöperation at the beginning, and there was not a moment when the
patrolmen and municipal detectives did not do everything possible
to promote the success of the League’s activities. This spirit of
patriotic coöperation on the part of the municipal authorities
was constantly maintained through the friendliness and enthusiasm
of Robert J. Alderdice, superintendent of police; Magistrate
Walter J. Lloyd and Commissioners of Police Dye, Kane, Johnson and
Calhoun. Pittsburgh certainly was well policed. In all, the League
maintained constantly throughout the trying period over 2,000
active operatives.

The effectiveness of this far-reaching organization was revealed
in the complete absence of those disturbances which had been
feared. At the outbreak of war, troops had been located at bridges
and important public works, but the thorough manner in which the
League ferreted out those who were willing to foment trouble
soon rendered unnecessary the guarding of industrial plants by
soldiers or police. There were no interruptions to the enormous
output of munitions and manufactured material, nor were there any
accidents, explosions or labor troubles traced to agents of the
enemy. In the Pittsburgh division alone, over 25,000 cases were
investigated, and every person upon whom the least suspicion had
been cast was soon rendered powerless to do harm. Every effort
was made to eliminate troubles by preventing alien sympathizers
from perfecting their plans. No meetings where incendiary talk
could be fostered were permitted to continue, and it was not long
before those who had trouble in mind realized that to continue
their purpose would only lead to their own downfall and also that
of their followers. The record of the League is a tribute to the
wisdom of this preventive policy.

It was feared that because of the large proportion of
foreigners in the Pittsburgh district, the wide diversity of
languages spoken, and the great illiteracy among certain of the
nationalities, there would be great difficulty in securing proper
observance of the Selective Service registration regulations.
During the Civil War, there had been serious draft riots in
Pittsburgh, when the percentage of foreigners and of illiteracy
was much less. The American Protective League, in coöperation with
Mr. Judge, gave the widest publicity in every possible way to the
plans for the registration and the penalty for failure to comply.
The result of this work of preparation was that the registration
was effected without disorder, and there were no occasions for
wholesale arrests to bring evaders or possible evaders to justice.
In fact, the League’s policy was to prevent trouble by advising
those inclined to resent the Government’s call, and to make no
arrests until other means failed. It was only necessary for an
American Protective League operative to appear in open court on
one occasion.

I. W. W. propaganda was never permitted to take root. Work to
eliminate this menace occupied a large amount of the League’s
attention. A well organized scheme of the Socialists to evade the
Selective Service Law was broken up when a prominent radical and
anarchist, a ringleader in the movement, was taken from a meeting
he was about to address and compelled to register. The facts that
the plans of the scheme were so well known to the League cooled
the ardor of the malcontents.

The division had considerable trouble with a Jewish family which
used every artifice to protect a lad of selective service age and
prevent his being taken into the army. They finally succeeded in
spiriting him away, but he was convicted of evading the draft, and
by pressure on his family, who were placed under bond to return
him, he was brought back to Pittsburgh, sent to jail for six
months and then inducted into the army.

A number of Italians, through one of their societies, conceived a
plan to make money by filling in questionnaires to enable evasion
of selective service. Two ringleaders were arrested, and the chief
of the society afterward rendered the League valuable service
in preventing labor disturbances. The League also uncovered a
scheme of a few unscrupulous lawyers to extort money from men on
the ground that their advice would permit them to evade the law.
Arrests were not necessary, as the warning of the League of the
consequences of any continuance of the practice was sufficient.

The League was able to break the backbone of a dangerous plan of
German propaganda through an international organization known
as the Geneva Association, whose members were principally alien
enemies. The officers were arrested and placed under bond for
trial.

One very dangerous draft evader and conscientious objector was
arrested and court-martialed after considerable trouble. He was
Walter L. Hirschberg, a student at the University of Pittsburgh.
He registered for selective service, but wrote and sent to his
draft board his “declaration of rights,” as he viewed them, and
maintained such an attitude of defiance toward the Government that
it was decided to investigate him. In the meantime he disappeared
and was traced to New York, where he was placed under observation.
He was detained in a locked room in a hotel until sufficient
evidence could be obtained against him, but was so shrewd and
resourceful that he outwitted his captors and made his escape.
It was suspected that he had gone to Chicago, and a Pittsburgh
operative went there to find him. The use of commendable strategy
secured his arrest and his return to Pittsburgh at the point of
a revolver. Although he condemned war as organized murder, he
carried a loaded revolver and blackjack for emergencies! The
details of his escape and flight read like a thrilling story of
Sherlock Holmes. As an instance of his resourcefulness and quick
wit, he related that when he arrived at the depot in Chicago,
he picked up a newspaper to learn quickly the lay of the land.
In flaming headlines he discovered that Chicago police that
morning were making wholesale arrests of all young men without
registration cards. He had none. He espied a woman with a babe
and a large traveling case, and politely offered to assist her
by carrying the valise. When he was approached by an officer and
requested to show his card, he quickly retorted, “Oh, you are too
late. You can see that this is my wife and child.” He was allowed
to leave the depot and go unmolested. He went into hiding until
the scare was over. Hirschberg was sent by a court-martial at Camp
Lee to the Atlanta prison for twenty years.

“Pittsburgh had some amusing incidents,” says the Chief who has been so freely quoted, and he has included several of them in his report:

There was little bootlegging as liquor dealers endeavored to
comply with the law forbidding the sale of intoxicants to soldiers
in uniform or within restricted areas adjacent to army camps. One
negro was suspected, and upon being approached by an operative,
readily agreed to sell a quart of “cold tea” for $9.00. The
operative bought—and then arrested the negro. When the “cold
tea” was tested, it was found to be just what the negro said it
was—cold tea!

An alien enemy refused to register and was taken to the League
headquarters for intensive examination. The operative was
called to the telephone on an urgent message just as he entered
headquarters. He hastened to the telephone, leaving his prisoner
where he could not escape. When he had finished, he discovered his
prisoner missing. It transpired that another operative had come
into headquarters, and the prisoner had asked him where aliens
registered. The operative asked “Why?” and when he was informed
that the man wished to register, he obligingly agreed to accompany
him to the United States Marshal’s office. He was chagrined to
find that he had deprived his fellow operative of a case.

A peculiar case came under the notice of the League. A Russian of
draft age, whose father and brothers and sisters were naturalized,
claimed exemption on the ground that the father had not taken out
his citizenship papers until after he, the subject, had passed
his majority, and he had never lost his Russian citizenship. The
objector was sent to jail, but the decision was rendered that his
point was well taken and he was released.

The League did a wonderful work in reconstructing families,
returning wayward sons to sorrowing mothers, and in rehabilitating
young men whose patriotism and fidelity to duty were lukewarm. In
correcting and preventing trouble the American Protective League
performed a splendid service to the Government.