Spies, Slackers, and Aliens: The American Protective League
Organized in Chicago, IL in 1917 by citizens who believed the United States Department of Justice was understaffed and not up to the task of fighting against espionage. Working as a volunteer force of more than 250,000 members the APL was given absolute power to stop ordinary citizens in the streets by checking whether men were legally registered for draft, or were sympathetic to the Germans, or those unregistered aliens living in the United States. Long believed to be a pseudo-patriotic organization, it was in truth a paranoid extremist group setup to counter anti-war activism and left-wing labor and politics.
MICHAEL L. STRAUSS, AG is a professional Accredited Genealogist® and a nationally recognized speaker. A native of Pennsylvania and a resident of Utah, he has been employed as a Forensic Investigator for more than 25 years. Strauss has a BA in History and is a United States Coast Guard veteran. He is a qualified expert witness in the courts in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and is a faculty member at SLIG, GRIP, and IGHR where he is the Military Course Coordinator