Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1918-02-01


~1'anaaHH1@-@@ who had ever matched wits with
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.
Chief of the weapons which were at hand
the secret service of the department of justice.
Its agents were an unobtrusively efficient lot but
Woeful1y 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 It's routine duties of guarding the
currency and the presidents life It, 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 ruthessness of the keen
est of German spies, who were backed by
renowned secret service organization and unlim-
tied 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 it when the need came is Alexander Bruce
Bielaski (''Home Rum Belaski 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
started
This bureau was commissioned to wrestle with
violations of neutrality with those of the nation
al banking laws, with antitrust cases, bucket
shop cases. white slave cases; it to prose
cuse those who Rnpersonate an officer of the
government, to pursue those who flee the coun-
try and seek to evade tle dong arm Of the federal
law
There were already several detective agencies
In the government, each created for a specific pur-
mos and nv n
stance there was the secret service in the treas
ury department. There 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 field
many times ss broad as that occupied by any other
detective agency. One phase of it's work alone
that of ciTcumyenting violations of neutrality
became a herculean task when the war broke.
The department of justice refused to follow
precedent in its creation of detective agency. 1t
built STATE Of operatives that was new thing in
the field Of detective work In doing so it made
brains It's 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
lucrative undertakes is an entirely 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 investigator,
formerly a salesman for wholesale grocer, went
into the AIleghenies on his first case and cleaned
up nest of moonshners that had defed local
authorities and United States marshals for years.
Another of these 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
revolutionsts In Ell Paso
The Importance of the work OF these special
agents may be measured by an account OF the
circumstances back Of the seizure OF the port Oh
Vera Cruz in April 1914, and the part played IN
+bo+ event nv one of those ingenious men. 1t
WINS some months before that event that a huge,
hnorded Russian attracted the attention OF a
bouse detective In New York hotel by the aus
NAV of draft for So 100000 signed by President
Iuerta of Mexico. The house detecuVe leie-
nboned the special agents. who watched the opera
tions of the Russian.
That individual bought firearms ana aminunl
+ion in sufficient quantities to load snip II
nos +he business of the government to see TO
It that he aid not send this to Mexico as ',ele
,vas an embargo on firearms to that country. Ihe
shin however cleared for Odessa Russia, and the
rnacial agents traced it to that point ana W.T.
passad the refusal of the Russian government TO
allow the ammunition to be landed, because u
fear that 1t was to be used by revoiuuonsts.
They saw the ship again traverse the ieui'e
moan and unload its cargo at Hamburg. lhe
anocial agents noted however, that the RUSSIAN
had disanpeared and suspected that he was more
loval to his own pocket than to the Mexican
government. rYL.
- Vera Cruz. AS 1t approached the latter port
4he Tinted States under the influence OF the ln-
formation furnished by it's special agents, entered
ana sn;zed the port that Huerta might not get