The Red Cloud chief., 1918-01-31

the foreign government experts.
Inc story of how this menace was met can as
yet be told only in part. But not the least in
teresting part concerns the men who have
done the work.
Chier or the weapons which were at hand was
the secret service Of the department of justice.
Its agents were an unobtrusively efficient lot, but
woefully small In numbers and, for the most
part, inexperienced in international affairs.
white slaves" and predatory business had been
their chief game. The even smaller force of
the treasury secret service was almost fully oc-
cupied with its routine duties of guarding the
currency and the presidents life. 1t, too, has
rendered amazing service against the spies, but
upon the department of justice agents fell the
chief burden. .
They were called upon to match the craft,
the experience and the ruthlessness of the keen.
est of German spies, who were backed by a
renowned secret service organization and unlim-
ited funds.
Their chief, the man who had developed the
government detective force, who had laid the
foundation for an extensive, loosely geared, even
running mechanism, and who promptly assem-
bled 1t when the need came, is Alexander Bruce
Bielask C"Home Rum Bielaski they called him
IN his high school days.. He entered the depart
ment a dozen years ago, when the development
Of a bureau of Investigation to handle secret
work for which no other provision had been made
was started.
This bureau was commissioned to wrestle with
VIOLATIONS OF neutrality, with tnOSe or the nation
al banking laws, with antitrust cases, bucket
shop cases, "white slave cases; II was to prose-
cute those who impersonate an officer of the
government, to pursue those who flee the coun-
try and seek to evade the long arm Of the federal
law.
There were already ssveral detective agencies
in the government, each created for a specific pur-
pose and limited by law In its operations. For in
stance, there was the secret service In the treas
ury department. There were customs agents to
prevent smuggling, land agents to protect the
public domain, post Office inspectors to make
difficult the misuse of the mails. But the special
agents Of the department of justice had a field
many times as broad as that occupied by any other
detective agency. One phase Of its work alone
that of circumventing violations Of neutrality
became q herculean task when the war broke.
The department of justice refused to follow
precedent In its creation Of a detective agency. 1t
built q staff Of operatives that was a new thing in
the field Of detective work. In doing SO 1t made
brains its first requisite of selection of men and
held that education was a developer of brains.
The youngsters of this service have succeeded
where veteran police have failed. Every case an
operative undertakes Is an entirely new problem,
In which his past experience is by no means an
infallible guide. 1t needs brains and initiative.
A young agent Of the bureau of investigation,
formerly a salesman for a wholesale grocer, went
into the Alleghenies on his first case and cleaned
up q nest of moOnshiners that had defed local
8uVnOTIlleS unu OultCu otatCo ~ JSb'"
Another of these men worked as a laborer on the
docks of New Orleans and found out the meth
DDS employed by the sugar samplers In so grad
ing imported cargoes that the loss to the govern
ment was hundreds of thousands In duties every
year. Still another "roped In with Mexican
revolutionists In Ell Paso.
The importance of the work of these special
agents may be measured by an account or the
circumstances back of the seizure of the port OF
Vera Cruz In April, 1914, and the part played In
that event by one of those ingenious men. IL
was some months before that event that a huge,
bearded Russian attracted the attention OF u
house detective In a New York hotel by the dis
play of a draft for 100000 signed by President
Huerta Of Mexico. The house detective teie-
phoned the special agents, VINO watcheu the opera-
tons of the Russian.
That individual bought firearms and ammuni-
tion I'm sufficient quantities to load a ship. 1t
was the business Of the government to see 70
II that he did not send this to, Mexico, as there
was an embargo on firearms to that country. the
shin, however, cleared for Odessa, Russia, ana the
snecial agents traced 1t to that point and wit
messed the refusal of the Russian government 10
allow the ammunition TO be landed, because or
n fear that 1t was to be used by revolutlonists.
They saw the ship again traverse the Mediterra-
mean and unload its cargo at Hamburg. Inc
snecial agents noted, however, that the RUSSIAN
had disappeared, and suspected that he was more
lovoI IN his own pocket than to the Mexican
government.
The ammunition was r~eshipped from Hamburg
IN Vera Cruz. As II approached the latter port
the United States, under the influence or the IN
formation furnished by its special agents, entered
and seized the port that Huerta might not get