"Investigate Everything": Federal Efforts to Ensure Black Loyalty During World War I

337 Pages·2002·6.152 MB·English

by  Theodore Kornweibel Jr.

“INVESTIGATE EVERYTHING”

“INVESTIGATE
EVERYTHING”
FEDERAL EFFORTS TO COMPEL
BLACK LOYALTY DURING WORLD WAR I
indiana university press
bloomington and indianapolis
Theodore Kornweibel, Jr.
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© 2001 by Theodore Kornweibel, Jr.
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No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kornweibel, Theodore.
"Investigate everything" : federal efforts to compel Black loyalty
during World War I / Theodore Kornweibel, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-253-34009-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. World War, 1914–1918—African Americans. 2. World War,
1914–1918—United States. I. Title.
D639.N4 K67 2001
940.4′03—dc21 2001001891
1 2 3 4 5 06 05 04 03 02 01
For Daniel and James

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments • ix
Prologue. “Patriotism and Loyalty Presuppose Protection
and Liberty” • 1
1. “It became necessary to investigate everything”: The Birth of Modern
Political Intelligence • 10
2. “Very full of the anti-war spirit”: Fears of Enemy Subversion during
World War I • 37
3. “Slackers, Delinquents, and Deserters”: African Americans and Draft
Enforcement during World War I • 76
4. “The most dangerous of all Negro journals”: Federal Efforts to Silence
the Chicago Defender • 118
5. “Every word is loaded with sedition”: The Crisis and the NAACP
under Suspicion • 132
6. “I thank my God for the persecution”: The Church of God in Christ
under Attack • 149
7. “Rabid and in®ammatory”: Further Attacks on the Pen
and Pulpit • 164
8. “Spreading enemy propaganda”: Alien Enemies, Spies,
and Subversives • 188
9. “Perhaps you will be shot”: Sex, Spies, Science, and the
Moens Case • 199
10. “Negro Subversion”: Army Intelligence Investigations during
World War I • 226
Epilogue. “The Negro is ‘seeing red’”: From the World War into
the Red Scare • 270
Notes • 277
Index • 317

Acknowledgments
This book is truly the result of collaboration between the author and numer-
ous archivists, librarians, and colleagues, as well as the support and encouragement
of friends and family members. Over the course of a decade of research I have
amassed debts to many individuals and institutions. I ¤rst discovered this topic in
the National Archives, and was greatly assisted by the staff of what are today
called the Civil Reference and Military Reference Branches. The amount of rec-
ords was staggering, but navigating them was made much easier with the assistance
particularly of Susan Rosenfeld and Mike McReynolds. Ms. Rosenfeld continued
to broaden my understanding of the federal intelligence bureaucracy after she be-
came the FBI’s of¤cial historian. While working in the National Archives, I hired
several Howard University students to scan a hundred reels of micro¤lm contain-
ing hundreds of thousands of index cards for the purpose of identifying black sus-
pects, who were designated with a “(c)” following their names. This tedious work
was especially useful in compiling a list of draft suspects, and I want to acknowl-
edge with thanks the students’ labor. I also received assistance in locating docu-
ments from archivists at the following regional branches of the National Ar-
chives and Records Administration: Suitland, Maryland; Bayonne, New Jersey;
Fort Worth, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; and Laguna Niguel, California. The staff of
the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Division was similarly helpful. Although the
FBI’s Of¤ce of Public and Congressional Affairs processed several of my Freedom
of Information Act requests, it unfortunately balked at releasing other ¤les.
Librarians at a number of special collections likewise provided assistance as
I probed their archival collections: State University of New York, Buffalo; the
Hoover Institution; University of Texas; the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
at Howard University; Yale University; the New York Public Library; East Caro-
lina University; and the A. M. Aiken Regional Archives of the Texas State Library.
I also want to express my appreciation to the interlibrary loan staff at San Diego
State University.
Each documentary search in the National Archives seemed to lead to new case
¤les. Eventually I amassed approximately twenty-¤ve thousand pages of federal
documents. I bene¤ted much from Randy Boehm’s great familiarity with the Na-
tional Archives, and it was he who shepherded the publication of most of those
ix