The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-02-02

the war. Bielaski, in Washington. sat of the
center OF the web which covered the nation. In
other important cities, such as New York. Chi
caso' NE" orleans' there were lesser web CEN
tiers. In the federal building in each imnortant
city was an office of special agents with a group
Of operatives which revolyed about r. Tn tho
smaller centers were single representatives
VINO could call for re-enfOrcements whenever an
emergency developed. Then there were the free
iances of the service, those who could be shut
tied to whatever point required the attention of
especially skilled men.
Bielaski is the silent man with every mesh of
the web In his sensitive fingers. His career is
one that might well be an inspiration to any am
bilious youngster. He entered the department
OF Justice II years ago as a laborer and for a
compensation of $500 a year. Soon he was a
clerk of special agents, then an examiner, a spe-
clal examiner, an assistant to the attorney gen.
eral, acting chief and chief of special agents.
This latter post he has held since 1912. These
have been the years during which the newest and
greatest of the governments detective agencies
has been taking definite form. Bielaski has been
molding 1t.
Then the great war came, and the United States
found itself a non-participant faced with the ne
cessity of maintaining neutrality within its Dor
ders. Finally this country was itself In war and
must combat the much vaunted secret service
of the Germans, and must watch those millions
of people living within its borders that had been
born in enemy countries and whose allegiance
was sufficiently In doubt to make their surveil-
lance necessary.
During the period Of neutrality scores of I'M
pleasant situations arose because of the insist
ence of Germany upon abusing the hospitality of
the United States. Almost the first of these
resulted from a plan laid by Capt. Franz Won Pa
pen, military attache to the German embassy, for
obtaining false passports for the use of German
reservists. First through Lieut.. Hans Won Wedell
and later through one Ruroede he operated an
office in New York which sought to get vagabonds
around the wharfs and cheap boarding houses
and to induce these men to apply to Washington
for passports, which he purchased and used in
returning reservists to Europe. The plan had not
been working long when a special agent from the
New York Office was on the trail. He succeeded
in lepresenting himself as the proper sort of man
to secure fraudulent passports, and was soon
deep in the confidence of the Germans. Ruroede
was sent to prison; Won Wedell fled, but was in
tercepted by the British and imprisoned, and the
whole scheme was broken up. Van Papen was
recalled at the request of the state department
because of Improper activities" of which this
vas but one.
The watchfulness of the special agents was evil
denced by the fact that they knew the exact hour
when, on April 10, 1916, Wolf Won Igel had taken
20 pounds of secret papers out of various hiding
places and m them for transfer to Wash
ington. Won Igel operated from an office at co
Wall street. Though he was an employee of the
German embassy, there was a question as to
whether his papers were immune from seizure,
as they would be in the embassy. So he was
making ready to transfer them to unquestioned
safety. He claimed that his papers were exempt
from the right of seizure. The German ambas-
sador backed his claim. The special agents adj
mitted that If they were official papers of the
embassy they should be returned. They took
them to Washington, where, at the state depart
, ment, they met the German ambassador. Through
long hours of night that official dug through
those papers. They placed him in a most en-
barrassing position. If he claimed them as state
papers he admitted an official part in their reve-
lations. If he failed to claim them he left this
discriminating evidence in the hands OF the Amer
lean authorities. He decided that the latter
course was the less embarrassing. Practically
all the papers were left with the special agents.
These papers revealed a degree of scheming and
intrigue against a neutral country that Is almost
rGyond conception.