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THE GERMAN SECRET

SERVICE IN AMERICA

1914-1918

Cotfrjihu Jn»tr^«tunai Film Service

Cftu'nt JoHann.vpn Bernstorff, the
;:;>^^j)onsibie di/ector of Ger-
• *•' mafiy'S secret policies
in America

THE GERMAN SECRET

SERVICE IN AMERICA

1914-1918

BY
JOHN PRICE JONES

AUTHOR OF "AMERICA ENTANGLED"
AND

PAUL MERRICK HOLLISTER

BOSTON

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

By small, MAYNARD & COMPANY
( incorporated)

"It is plain enough how we were forced into the war.
The extraordinary insults and aggressions of the Imperial
German Government left us no self-respecting choice but
to take up arms in defense of our rights as a free people
and of our honor as a sovereign government. The mili-
tary masters of Germany denied us the right to be neu-
tral. They filled our unsuspecting communities with
vicious spies and conspirators and sought to corrupt the
opinion of our people in their own behalf. When they
found they could not do that, their agents diligently
spread sedition amongst us and sought to draw our own
citizens from their allegiance — and some of these agents
were men connected with the official embassy of the Ger-
man Government itself here in our own capital. They
sought by violence to destroy our industries and arrest
our commerce. They tried to incite Mexico to take up
arms against us and to draw Japan into a hostile alliance
with her — and that, not by indirection but by direct sug-
gestion from the Foreign Office in Berlin. They impu-
dently denied us the use of the high seas and repeatedly
executed their threat that they would send to their death
any of our people who ventured to approach the coasts
of Europe. And many of our own people were cor-
rupted. Men began to look upon their neighbors with
suspicion and to wonder in their hot resentment and
surprise whether there was any community in which hos-
tile intrigue did not lurk. What great nation in such

38633b

circumstances would not have taken up arms? Much as
we have desired peace, it was denied us, and not of our
our own choice. This flag under which we serve would
have been dishonored had we withheld our hand."

— WooDROW Wilson, Flag Day Address

June 14, 1917

INTRODUCTION

A nation at war wants nothing less than com-
plete information of her enemy. It is hard for
the mind to conceive exactly what "complete in-
formation" means, for it includes every fact
which may contain the lightest indication of the
enemy strength, her use of that strength, and her
intention. The nation which sets out to obtain
complete information of her enemy must pry into
every neglected corner, fish every innocent pool,
and collect a mass of matter concerning the indus-
trial, social and military organization of the
enemy which when correlated, appraises her
strength — and her weakness. Nothing less than
full information will satisfy the mathematical
maker of war.

Germany was always precociously fond of in-
ternational statistics. She wanted — the present
tense is equally applicable — full information of
America and her allies so as to attack their vul-
nerable points. She got a ghastly amount of it,
and she attacked. This book sets forth how se-
cret agents of the Teutonic governments acting
under orders have attacked our national life, both
before and after our declaration of war ; how men
and women in Germany's employ on American

INTRODUCTION

soil, planned and executed bribery, sedition, ar-
son, the destruction of property and even mur-
der, not to mention lesser violations of American
law ; how they sought to subvert to the advantage
of the Central Powers the aims of the Govern-
ment of the United States; how, in short, they
made enemies of the United States immediately
the European war had broken out.

The facts were obtained by the writer first as
a reporter on the New York Sun who for more
than a year busied himself with no other con-
cern, and afterwards in an independent investi-
gation. Some of them he has cited in a previous
work. This book brings the story of Germany's
secret agencies in America up to the early months
of 19 1 8. Because the writer during the past six
months has devoted his entire time to the Lib-
erty Loan, it became necessary for him to leave
the rearrangement of the work entirely in the
hands of the co-author, and he desires to acknowl-
edge his complete indebtedness to the co-author
for undertaking and carrying out an assignment
for w^hich the full measure of reward will be de-
rived from a sharper American consciousness of
the true nature of our enemy at home and abroad.

So we dedicate this chronicle to our country.

John Price Jones.

New York, June i, 19 18.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Organization i

1 he economic, diplomatic and military aspects of
secret warfare ni America — Germany's peace-time or-
ganization— von Bernstorff, the diplomat — Albert, the
economist — von Papen and Boy-Ed, the men of war.

II The Conspirators' Task 19

The terrain — Lower New York — The consulates —
The economic problem of supplying Germany and
checlving supplies to the Allies — The diplomatic prob-
lem of keeping America's friendship — The military
problem in Canada, Mexico, India, etc. — Germany's
denial.

III The Raiders at Sea 28

The outbreak of war — Mobilization of reservists —
The Hamburg-American contract — The Berzvind — The
Marina Qticzada — ^The Sacramento — Naval battles.

IV The Wireless System 43

The German Embassy a clearing house — Sayville —
German's knowledge of U. S. wireless — Subsidized
electrical companies — Aid to the raiders — The Einden
— The Ceier — Charles K Apgar — The German code.

V Military Violence 60

The plan to raid Canadian ports — The first Welland
Canal plot — Von Papen, von der Goltz and Tauscher
— The project abandoned— Goltz's arrest — The
Tauscher trial — Hidden arms — Louden's plan of inva-
sion.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

VI Paul Koenig 73

Justice and Metzler — Koenig's personality — von Pa-
pen's checks — The "Httle black book"— Telephone codes
— Shadowing — Koenig's agents — His betrayal.

VII False Passports 82

Hans von Wedell's bureau — The traffic in false
passports — Carl Ruroede — Methods of forgery —
Adams' coup — von Wedell's letter to von Bernstorff —
Stegler — Lody — Berlin counterfeits American passports
— von Breechow^.

VIII Incendiarism 100

Increased munitions production — The opening ex-
plosions— Orders from Berlin — Von Papen and Se-
attle— July, 191 5 — The Van Koolbergen affai*- — The
Autumn of 1915 — The Pinole explosion.

IX More Bomb Plots 117

Kaltschmidt and the Windsor explosions — The Port
Huron tunnel — Werner Horn — Explosions embarrass
the Embassy — Black Tom — The second Welland affair
— Harry Newton — The damage done in three years —
Waiter spies.

X Franz Von Rintelen 138

The leak in the National City Bank — The Minnehaha
— Von Rintelen's training — His return to America —
His aims — His funds — Smuggling oil — The Krag-
Joergensen rifles — Von Rintelen's flight and capture.

XI Ship Bombs 154

Mobilizing destroying agents— The plotters in Ho-
boken — Von Kleist's arrest and confession — The Kirk
Oszvald trial — Further explosions — The Arabic — Robert
Fay — His arrest — The ship plots decrease.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XII Laror 171

David Lamar — Labor's National Peace Council — The
embargo conference— The attempted longshoremen's
strike — Dr. Dumba's recall.

I XIII The Sinking OF THE LusiTANiA . . . . 190

The mistress of the seas — Plotting in New York —
The Lusitania's escape in February, 1915 — The adver-
tised warning — The plot — May 7, 1915 — Diplomatic
correspondence — Gustave Stahl — The results.

XIV Commercial Ventures 203

German law in America^Waetzoldt's reports — The
British blockade — A report from Washington — Stop-
ping the chlorine supply — Speculation in wool — Dye-
stuffs and the Dcutschland — Purchasing phenol — The
Bridgeport Projectile Company — The lost portfolio-^
The recall of the attaches — A summary of Dr. Albert's
efforts.

XV The Public Mind 225

Dr. Bertling — The Staats-Zeitung — George Sylves-
ter Viereck and The Fatherland — Efforts to buy a press
association — Bernhardi's articles — Marcus Braun and
Fair Play — Plans for a German news syndicate — San-
der, Wunnenbcrg, Bacon and motion pictures — -The
German-American Alliance — Its purposes — Political
activities — Colquitt of Texas — The "Wisconsin Plan"
— Lobbying — Misappropriation of German Red Cross
funds — Friends of Peace — The American Truth So-
ciety.

XVI Hindu-German Conspiracies .... 252
The Society for Advancement in India — "Gaekwar

Scholarships" — Har Dyal and Gadhr — India in 1914 —
Papen's report — German and Hindu agents sent to the
Orient — Gupta in Japan — The raid on von Igel's of-
fice— Chakravarty replaces Gupta — The Annie Larsen
and Maverick filibuster — Von Igel's memoranda — Har
Dyal in Berlin— A request for anarchist agents —
Ram Chandra — -Plots against the East and West In-
dies— Correspondence between Bernstorff and Berlin,
1916 — Designs on China, Japan and Africa — Chakra-
varty arrested — The conspirators indicted.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XVII Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 228

Huerta arrives in New York — The restoration plot
— German intrigue in Central America — The Zimmer-
mann note — Sinn Fein — Sir Roger Casement and the
Easter Rebellion — Bolo Pacha in America and France
— A warning.

XVIII America Goes to War 320

Bernstorff's request for bribe-money — The Presi-
dent on German spies — Interned ships seized — Enemy
aliens — Interning German agents — The water-front and
finger-print regulations — Pro-German acts since April,
1917 — A warning and a prophecy.

Appendix 335

A German Propagandist.

List of Illustrations

Count Johann von Bernstorff

Frontispiece

The German Embassy in Washington
Captain Franz von Papen .
Captain Karl Boy-Ed
William J. Flynn ....
Thomas J. Timney ....
Dr. Karl Buenz ....

Passport given to Horst von der Goltz
Paul Koenig .....
Hans von Wedell and his wife
Franz von Rintelen ....
Robert Fay .....
Dr. Constantin Dumba . ,
The Liisitania .....
Advertisement of the German Embassy
Checks signed by Adolf Pavenstedt .
George Sylvester Viereck .
Letter from Count von Bernstorff
Check from Count von Bernstorff
Letter-paper of " The Friends of Peace "
Dr. Chakravarty ....

Jeremiah A. O'Leary
Paul Bolo Pacha ....

22
26
32
64

74
84
138
166
184
190
194
230

234
236
238
250
284
302
310

THE GERMAN SECRET

SERVICE IN AMERICA

CHAPTER I

THE ORGANIZATION

The economic, diplomatic and military aspects of se-
cret warfare in America — Germany's peace-time organi-
zation— von Bernstorff, the diplomat — Albert, the econ-
omist— von Papen and Boy-Ed, the men of war.

When, in the summer of 1914, the loaded dice
fell for war, Germany began a campaign over-
seas as thoughtfully forecasted as that first head-
long flood which rolled to the Marne. World-
domination was the Prussian objective. It is
quite natural that the United States, whose in-
fluence affected a large part of the world, should
have received swift attention from Berlin.
America and Americans could serve Germany's
purpose in numerous ways, and the possil)le
assets of the United States had been searchingly
assayed in Berlin long before the arrival of *'Der
Tag."

The day dawned — and German}^ found herself

2 The German Secret Service in America

hemmed in by enemies. Her navy did not con-
trol the oceans upon which she had depended for
a large percentage of her required food and raw
materials, and upon which she must continue to
depend if her output were to keep pace with her
war needs. If surprise-attack should fail to
bring the contest to a sudden and favorable con-
clusion, Germany was prepared to accept the
more probable alternative of a contest of eco-
nomic endurance. Therefore, she reasoned, sup-
plies must continue to come from America.

Of importance scarcely secondary to the eco-
nomic phase of her warfare in the United States
was the diplomatic problem. Here was a nation
of infinite resources, a people of infinite resource.
This nation must be enlisted on the side of the
Central Powers; failing that, must be kept
friendly; under no circumstances was she to be
allowed to enlist with the Allies. One funda-
mental trait of Americans Germany held too
lightly — their blood-kinship to Britons — and it
is a grimly amusing commentary upon the con-
fidence of the German in bonds Teutonic that he
believed that the antidote to this racial 'Sveak-
ness" of ours lay in the large numbers of Ger-
mans who had settled here and become Americans
of sorts. But the German was alarmingly if not
absolutely correct in his estimate, for upon the

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The Organization 3

conduct and zeal of Germans in America actually
depended much of the success of Germany's dip-
lomatic tactics in America.

The war, then, so far as the United States
figured in Germany's plan, was economic and
diplomatic. But it was also military. German
representatives in the United States were bound
by oath to cooperate to their utmost in all mili-
tary enterprises within their reach. With a cer-
tain few notable exceptions, no such enterprises
came within their reach, and if the reader antici-
pates from that fact a disappointing lack of vio-
lence in the narrative to follow, let him remember
that "all's fair in war," and that every German
activity in the United States, whether it was eco-
nomic, diplomatic or military, was carried on
with a certain Prussian thoroughness which was
chiefly characterized by brutal violence.

We have come to believe that thoroughness is
the first and last word in German organiza-
tion. Any really thorough organization must be
promptly convertible to new activities without
loss of motion. If these new activities are unex-
pected, the change is more or less of an experi-
ment, and its possibilities are not ominous. But
truly dangerous is the organization which trans-
fers suddenly to coping with the expected. Ger-
many had expected war for.fortx-y£ars>

4 The German Secret Service in America

Her peace-time organization in America con-
sisted of four executives : an ambassador, a fiscal
agent, a military attache, and a naval attache.
Its chief was the ambassador, comparable in his
duties and privileges to the president of a cor-
poration, the representative with full authority to
negotiate with other organizations, and respon-
sible to his board of directors — the foreign office
in Berlin. Its treasurer was the fiscal agent.
And its department heads were the military and
naval attaches, each responsible in some degree
to his superiors in matters of policy and finances,
and answerable also to Berlin.

The functions of the chief were two-fold. Con-
vincing evidence produced by the State Depart-
ment has placed at his door the ultimate responsi-
bility for executing Germany's commands not in
the United States alone, but throughout all of the
world excepting Middle Europe. Under his
eyes passed Berlin's instructions to her envoys
in both Americas, and through his hands passed
their reports. He directed and delegated the
administration of all German policy in the west-
ern world and the far east, and of course directed
all strictly diplomatic enterprises afoot in the
United States.

Germany could hardly have chosen an abler
envoy than this latest of all the Bernstorffs, Jo-

The Organizatwn 5

hann, a statesman whose ancestors for genera-
tions had been Saxon diplomats. A glance at
the man's countenance convinced one of his pow-
ers of concentration: the many lines of his face
seemed to focus on a point between his eyebrows.
And yet his expression was hardly grim. The
modeling of his head was unusually strong, his
features sensitive, with no trace of weakness. If
there had been weakness about his mouth, it
was concealed by the conventional ferocity of a
Hohenzollern moustache, and yet those untruth-
ful lips could part in an ingratiating smile which
flashed ingenuous friendliness. His frame was
tall and slender, his mannerisms suggested care-
fully bridled nervous activity. The entire ap-
pearance of the man may best be described by a
much-abused term — he was "distinguished."

Count von Bernstorff, once his nation had de-
clared war upon France and England, went to
war with the United States. As ambassador,
diplomatic courtesy gave him a scope of observa-
tion limited only by the dignity of his position.
A seat in a special gallery in the Senate and
House of Representatives was always ready for
his occupancy; he could virtually command the
attention of the White House ; and senators, con-
gressmen and office-holders from German- Amer-
ican districts respected him. Messengers kept

6 The German Secret Service in America

him in constant touch with the Hne-up of Con-
gress on important issues, and two hours later
that line-up was known in the Foreign Office in
Berlin. As head and front of the German spy
system in America, he held cautiously aloof from
all but the most instrumental acquaintances : men
and women of prominent political and social in-
fluence who he knew were inclined, for good and
sufficient reasons, to help him. One woman,
whose bills he paid at a Fifth Avenue gown house,
was the wife of a prominent broker and another
woman of confessedly German affiliations who
served him lived within a stone's throw, ^of the
J\Ietropolitan Museum and its nearby phalanx of
gilded dwellings (her husband's office was in a
building at 1 1 Broadway, of which more anon) ;
a third woman intimate lived In a comfortable
apartment near Fifth Avenue — an apartment se-
lected for her, though she was unaware of It, by
secret agents of the United States. During the
early days of the war the promise of social spon-
sorship which any embassy in Washington could
extend proved bait for a number of ingenues of
various ages, with ambition and mischief In their
minds, and the gracious Ambassador played them
smoothly and dexterously. Mostly they were not
German women, for the German women of Amer-
ica were not so likely to be useful socially, nor as

The Organization 7

a type so astute as to qualify them for von Berns-
torff's delicate work. To those whom he chose
to see he was courteous, and superficially frank
almost to the point of naivete. The pressure of
negotiation between Washington and Berlin be-
came more and more exacting as the war pro-
gressed, yet he found time to command a cam-
paign w^hose success would have resulted in dis-
aster to the United States. That he w^as not
blamed for the failure of that campaign when
he returned to Germany in April, 19 17, is evi-
denced by his prompt appointment to the court
of Turkey, a difficult and important post, and in
the case of Michaelis, a stepping-stone to the
highest post in the Foreign Office.

Upon the shoulders of Dr. Heinrich Albert,
privy counsellor and fiscal agent of the German
Empire, fell the practical execution of German
propaganda throughout America. He was the
American agent of a government which has done
more than any other to cooperate, with business
towards the extension of influence abroad, on the
principle that ''the flag follows the constitution."
As such he had had his finger on the pulse of
American trade, had catalogued exhaustively the
economic resources of the country, and held in
his debt, as his nation's treasurer in America,
scores of bankers, manufacturers and traders to

8 The German Secret Service in America

whom Germany had extended subsidy. As such
also he was the paymaster of the Imperial secret
diplomatic and consular agents.

You could find him almost any day until the
break with Germany in a small office in the Ham-
burg-American Building (a beehive of secret
agents) at No. 45 Broadway, New York. He
was tall and slender, and wore the sombre frock
coat of the European business man with real
grace. His eyes were blue and clear, his face
clean-shaven and faintly sabre-scarred, and his
hair blond. He impressed one as an unusual
young man in a highly responsible position. His
greeting to visitors, of whom he had few, was
punctilious, his bow low, and his manner alto-
gether polite. He encouraged conversation
rather than offered it. He had none of the ''hard
snap" of the energetic, outspoken, brusque
American man of business. Dr. Albert was a
smooth-running, well-turned cog in the great
machine of Prussian militarism.

Upon him rested the task of spending between
$2,000,000 and $3,000,000 a week for German
propaganda. He spent thirty millions at least —
and only Germany knows how much more — in
secret agency work, also known by the uglier
names of bribery, sedition and conspiracy. He
admitted that he wasted a half million or

The Organization 9

more. He had a joint account with Bernstorff
in the Chase National Bank, New York, which
amounted at times to several millions. His re-
sources gave weight to his utterances in the quiet
office overlooking Broadway, or in the German
Club in Central Park South, or in the consulates
or hotels of Chicago and New Orleans and San
Francisco, to which he made occasional trips to
confer with German business men.

His colleagues held him in high esteem. His
methods were quiet and successful, and his par-
ticipation in the offences against America's peace
might have passed unproven had he not been en-
gaged in a too-absorbing conversation one day in
August, 1915, upon a Sixth Avenue elevated
train. He started up to leave the train at
Fiftieth Street, and carelessly left his portfolio
behind him — to the tender care of a United States
Secret Service man. It contained documents re-
vealing his complicity in enterprises the magni-
tude of which beggars the imagination. The
publication of certain of those documents awoke
the slumbering populace to a feeling of chagrin
and anger almost equal to his own at the loss of
his dossier. And yet he stayed on in America,
and returned wnth the ambassadorial party to
Germany only after the severance of diplomatic
relations in 19 17, credited with expert general-

10 The German Secret Service in America

ship on the economic sector of the American
front.

Germany's military attache to the United
States was Captain Franz von Papen. His mis-
sion was the study of the United States army.
In August, 1 9 14, it may be assumed that he had
absorbed most of the useful information of the
United States army, which at that moment was
no superhuman problem. In July of that year
he was in Mexico, observing, among other mat-
ters, the effect of dynamite explosions on rail-
ways. He was quite familiar with Mexico. Ac-
cording to Admiral von Hintze he had organized
a military unit in the lukewarm German colony
in Mexico City, and he used one or more of the
warring factions in the southern republic to test
the efficacy of various means of warfare.

The rumble of a European war sent him scur-
rying northward. From Mexico on July 29 he
wired Captain Boy-Ed — of whom more presently
— in New York to

*'. . . arrange business for me too with Pavenstedt,"

which referred to the fact that Boy-Ed had just
engaged office space in the offices of G, Amsinck
& Company, New York, which was at that time
a German house of which Adolph Pavenstedt
was the president, but which has since been

The Organization 11

taken over by American interests. And he
added :

"Then inform Lersner. The Russian attache ordered
back to Washington by telegraph. On outbreak of war
have intermediaries locate by detective where Russian and
French intelligence office."

The latter part of the message is open to two in-
terpretations : that Boy-Ed was to have detectives
locate the Russian and French secret service offi-
cers; or that Boy-Ed was to place German spies
in those offices.

Captain von Papen reported to his ministry of
war anent the railway explosions :

"I consider it out of the question that explosives pre-
pared in this way would have to be reckoned with in a
European war . . ."

a significant opinion, which he changed later.

What of the man himself? He was all that
^'German officer" suggested at that time to any
one who had traveled in Germany. His military
training had been exhaustive. Though he had
not seen "active service," his life, from the early
youth when he had been selected from his gym-
nasium fellows for secret service in Abteilung
HI of the great bureau, had been unusually ac-
tive. He had traveled as a civilian over various
countries, drawing maps, harking to the senti-

12 The German Secret Service in America

ment of the people, and checking from time to
time the operations of resident German agents
abroad. His disguises were thorough, as this
incident will illustrate: In Hamburg, at the
army riding school where von Papen was trained,
young officers are taught the French style. Yet
one fine morning in Central Park he stopped to
chat with an acquaintance who had bought a
mare. V'on Papen admired the mount, promptly
named its breed, and told in what counties in Ire-
land the best specimens of that breed could be
found — information called up from a riding tour
he had made over the length and breadth of Ire-
land. It is commonly said that horsemen trained
in the French style cling to its mannerisms, but
a cavalier revealing those mannerisms in Ireland,
where the style is exclusively English, would have
attracted undue attention. So he had disguised
even his horsemanship !

A man who moves constantly about among
more or less unsuspecting peoples seeking their
military weakness becomes intolerant. Toler-
ance is scarcely a German military trait, and in
that respect Captain von Papen was consistently
loyal to his own superior organization. 'T al-
ways say to those idiotic Yankees they had better
hold their tongues," he wrote to his wife in a
letter which fell later into the hands of those same

Captain Franz von Papen

The Organization 13

"bloedsinnige" Yankees. He was inordinately
proud of his facility in operating unobserved, ar-
rogant of his ability, and blunt in his criticism
of his associates. He telegraphed Boy-Ed on one
occasion to be more cautious. The gracious col-
league replied, in a letter:

"Dear Papen: A secret agent who returned from
Washington this evening made the following statement:
'The Washington people are very much excited about von
Papen and are having a constant watch kept on him.
They are in possession of a whole heap of incriminating
evidence against him. They have no evidence against
Count B. and Captain B-E (!).'"

And Boy-Ed, a trifle optimistically, perhaps,
added :

*Tn this connection I would suggest with due diffidence
that perhaps the first part of your telegram is worded
rather too emphatically."

Von Papen was a man of war, a Prussian, the
Feldmarschal of the Kaiser in America. In ap-
pearance he bespoke his vigor : he was well set up,
rawboned, with a long nose, prominent ears, keen
eyes and a strong lower jaw. He was energetic
In speech and swift In formulating daring plans.
In those first frantic weeks after the declaration
of war he reached out In all directions to snap
taut the strings that held his organization to-

14 The German Secret Service in America

gether — German reservists who had been peace-
ful farmers, shopkeepers or waiters, all over the
United States, were mobilized for service, and
paraded through Battery Park in New York
shouting "Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles !"
to the strains of the Austrian hymn, while they
waited for Papen's orders from a building near
by, and picked quarrels with a counter procession
of Frenchmen screaming the immortal "Marseil-
laise." Up in his office sat the attache, summon-
ing, assigning, despatching his men on missions
that were designed to terrorize America as the
spiked helmets were terrorizing Belgium at that
moment.

And he, too, failed. Although von Papen mar-
shaled his consuls, his reservists, his thugs, his
women, and his skilled agents, for a programme
of violence the like of which America had never
experienced, the military phase of the war was
not destined for decision here, and there is again
something ironical in the fact that the arrogance
of Captain von Papen's outrages hastened the
coming of war to America and the decline of Cap-
tain von Papen's style of warfare in America.

The Kaiser's naval attache at Washington was
Karl Boy-Ed, the child of a German mother and
a Turkish father, who had elected a naval career
and shown a degree of aptitude for his work

The Organization 15

which qualified him presently for the post of chief
lieutenant to von Tirpitz. He was one of the
six young officers who were admitted to the chief
councils of the German navy, as training for high
executive posts. In the capacity of news chief
of the Imperial navy, Boy-Ed carried on two
highly successful press campaigns to influence
the public on the eve of requests for heavy naval
appropriations, the second, in 1910, calling
for 400,000,000 marks. He spread broadcast
through cleverly contrived pamphlets and through
articles placed in the subsidized press, a national
resentment against British naval dominion. His
duties took him all over the world as naval ob-
server, and he may be credited more than casu-
ally with weaving the plan-fabric of marine su-
premacy with which Germany proposed in due
time to envelop the world.

So he impressed diplomatic Washington in
191 1 as a polished cosmopolite. Polished he was,
measured by the standards of diplomatic Wash-
ington, for rare was the young American of
Boy-Ed's age who had his cultivation, his wide
experience, and his brilliant charm. He was
sought after by admiring mothers long before
he was sought after by the Secret Service; he
moved among the clubs of Washington and New
York making intimates of men whose friendship

16 The German Secret Service in America

and confidence would serve the Fatherland, cloak-
ing his real designs by frivolity and frequent
attendances at social functions. His peace-time
duties had been to study the American navy; to
familiarize himself with its ship power and per-
sonnel, with its plans for expansion, its theories
of strategy, its means of supply, and finally, with
the coast defenses of the country. He had
learned his lesson, and furnished Berlin with
clear reports. On those reports, together with
those of his colleagues in other countries, hinged
Germany's readiness to enter war, for it would
have been folly to attempt a war of domination
with America an unknown, uncatalogued naval
power. (It will be well to recall that the sub-
marine is an American invention, and that Ger-
many's greatest submarine development took
place in the years 1911-1914.)

And then, suddenly, he dropped the cloak.
The Turk in him stood at attention while the
German in him gave him sharp orders — com-
mands to be carried out with Oriental adroitness
and Prussian finish. Then those who had said
lightly that "Boy-Ed knows more about our navy
than Annapolis itself" began to realize that they
had spoken an alarming truth. His war duties
were manifold. Like von Papen, he had his
corps of reservists, his secret agents, his silent

Coff'i^ht, Jnttrnational i^evus Seruict

Captain Karl Boy-Ed (on the right)

The Organization 17

forces everywhere ready for active cooperation
in carrying out the naval enterprises Germany
should see fit to undertake in Western waters.

America learned gradually of the machinations
of the four executives, Bernstorff, Albert, Papen
and Boy-Ed. America had not long to wait for
evidences of their activity, but it was a long time
before the processes of investigation revealed
their source. It was inevitable that they could
not work undiscovered for long, and they seem
to have realized that they must do the utmost
damage at top speed. Their own trails were cov-
ered for a time by the obscure identities of their
subordinates. The law jumps to no conclusions.
Their own persons were protected by diplomatic
courtesy. It required more than tv/o years of
tedious search for orthodox legal evidence to
arraign these men publicly in their guilt, and
when that evidence had finally been obtained, and
Germany's protest of innocence had been de-
flated, it was not these men who suffered, but
their country, and the price she paid was war
with America.

A hundred or more of their subordinates have
been convicted of various criminal offenses and
sent to prison. Still more were promptly in-
terned in prisoai camps at the outbreak of war in
1917. The secret army included all types, from

18 The German Secret Service in America

bankers to longshoremen. Many of them were
conspicuous figures in American public life, and
of these no small part were allowed to remain
at large under certain restrictions — and under
surveillance. Germany's army in the United
States was powerful in numbers ; the fact that so
many agents were working destruction probably
hastened their discovery; the loyalty of many so-
called German-Americans was always question-
able. The public mind, confused as it had never
been before by the news of war, was groping
about for sound fundamentals, and was being
tantalized with false principles by the politicians.
Meanwhile Count von Bernstorff was watching
Congress and the President, Dr. Albert was busy
in great schemes, Captain von Papen was com-
manding an active army of spies, and Captain
Boy-Ed was engaged in a bitter fight with the
British navy.

CHAPTER II

THE conspirators' TASK

The terrain — Lower New York — The consulates — The
economic problem of supplying Germany and checking
supplies to the Allies — The diplomatic problem of keep-
ing America's friendship — The military problem in Can-
ada, Mexico, India, etc. — Germany's denial.

The playwright selects from the affairs of a
group of people a few characters and incidents,
and works them together into a three-hour plot.
He may include no matter which is not relevant
to the development of his story, and although in
the hands of the artist the play seems to pierce
clearly into the characters of the persons in-
volved, in reality he is constructing a framework,
whose angles are only the more prominent
salients of character and episode. The stage
limits him, whether his story takes place in the
kitchen or on the battlefield.

The drama of German spy operations in Amer-
ica is of baffling proportions. Its curtain rose
long before the war; its early episodes were
grave enough to have caused, any one of them, a

20 The German Secret Service in America

nine-days' wonder in the press, its climax was
rather a huge accumulation of intolerable disas-
ters than a single outstanding incident, and its
denouement continued long after America's decla-
ration of war. In the previous chapter we have
accepted our limitations and introduced only the
four chief characters of the play. It is neces-
sary, in describing the motives for their enter-
prises, to appreciate the problems which their
scene of operations presented.

The world was their workshop. Plots hatched
in Berlin and developed in Washington and New
York bore fruit from Sweden to India, from Can-
ada to Chili. The economic importance of the
United States in the war needs no further proof
than its vast area, its miles of seacoast, its vol-
ume of export and import, and its producing
power. As a diplomatic problem it offered,
among other things, a public opinion of a hundred
million people of parti-colored temperament,
played upon by a force of some 40,000 publica-
tions. As a military factor, the United States
possessed a strong fleet, owned the only Atlantic-
Pacific waterway, was bounded on the south by
Mexico and the coveted Gulf, and on the north
by one of Germany's enemies. There was hardly
a developed section of the nation which did not
require prompt and radical German attention, or

The Conspirators' Task 21

one which did not receive it in proportion to its
industrial development. Washington, as the
governmental capital, and New York as the real
capital became at once the headquarters of Ger-
man operations in the western world.

Count von Bernstorff directed all enterprises
from the Imperial Embassy in Washington, and
from the Ritz-Carlton in New York. An ambas-
sador was once asked by an ingenuous woman at
a New York dinner whether he often ran counter
of European spies. "Oh, yes," he replied. ''I

used to stop at the , but my baggage was

searched by German agents so often that I moved

to the . But there it was just as bad."

"Didn't you complain to the management?" — the
lady wanted particulars. "No," the diplomat an-
swered naturally, "for you see every time Berns-
torff stops at the I have his baggage

searched, too!"

The strands of intrigue focussed from every
corner of America upon the lower tip of Man-
hattan. In a tall building at 1 1 Broadway, which
towers over Bowling Green and confronts the
New York Custom House, Captain Boy-Ed had
his office. A long stone's throw to the northward
stood the Hamburg- American building; there Dr.
Albert carried on much of his business. Captain
von Papen had offices on the twenty-fifth floor

22 The German Secret Service in America

of No. 60 Wall Street. If we regard 11 Broad-
way as the tip of a triangle, with Wall Street and
Broadway forming its right angle and 60 Wall
Street as its other extremity, we find that its
imaginary hypotenuse travels through the build-
ing of J. P. Morgan & Company, chief bankers
for the Allies ; through the New York Stock Ex-
change, where the so-called "Christmas leak"
turned a pretty penny for certain German sym-
pathizers in 191 6; through the home of the Stand-
ard Oil Companies, as well as through several
great structures of less strategic importance.
There is more than mere coincidence in this geo-
metrical freak — Germany held her stethoscope as
close as possible to the heart of American busi-
ness. Fortunately, however, the offices of Chief
William J. Flynn — until January, 1918, head of
the United States Secret Service — were in the
Custom House near by.

After business hours these men met their sub-
ordinates at various rendezvous in the city; the
hotels were convenient, the Manhattan was fre-
quently appointed, and the Deutscher Verein at
112 Central Park South was the liveliest ganglion
of all the nerve centers of a system of communi-
cation which tapped every section of the great
community.

In the lesser cities the German consulate served

|m. "^^'^ '^i

1^^

>9h^^h

■

tmj^^^^r^^

William J. Flynn, chief of the United States Secret Service
until 19 18, who led the hunt of the German spy

The Conspirators' Task 23

as the nucleus for the organization. That in San
Francisco is conspicuous for its activity, for it
prosecuted its own warfare on the entire Pacific
coast. Wherever it was necessary German sym-
pathizers furnished accommodations for offices
and storage room. Headquarters of every char-
acter dotted the country from salons to saloons,
from skyscrapers to cellars, each an active control
in the manipulation of Germany's almost innum-
erable enterprises.

Those enterprises may be best outlined per-
haps, by recalling the three phases of warfare
which Germany had to pursue. America had
shipped foodstuffs and raw materials in enormous
quantities for many years to Germany. Dr. Al-
bert must see to it that she continue to do so.
The Imperial funds were at his disposal. He
had already the requisite contact with American
business. But let him also exert his utmost influ-
ence upon America to stop supplying the Allies.
If he could do it alone, so much the better ; if not,
he was at liberty to call upon the military and
naval attaches. But in any case ''food and arms
for Germany and none for the Allies" was the
economic war-cry.

American supplies must be purchased for Ger-
many and shipped through the European neutral
nations, running the blockade. If capital proved

24 The German Secret Service in America

obstinate and the Allies covered the market, it
would be well to remember that labor produced
supplies ; labor must therefore be prevented from
producing or shipping to the Allies. If labor re-
fused to be interfered with, the cargoes should be
destroyed.

His enormous task would depend, of course,
very much upon the turn of affairs diplomatic.
The State Department must be kept amicable.
The Glad Hand was to be extended to official
America, while the Mailed Fist thrashed about
in official America's constituencies. Thus also
with Congress, through influential lobbying or
the pressure of constituents. Count von Berns-
torff knew that the shout raised in a far-off state
by a few well-rehearsed pacifists, reinforced by a
few newspaper comments, would carry loud and
clear to Washington. Upon his shoulders rested
the entire existence of the German plan, and he
spent a highly active and trying thirty months in
Washington in an attempt to avoid the inevitable
diplomatic rupture.

The military problem quickly resolved itself
into two enterprises ; carrying war to the enemy,
and giving aid and comfort to its own forces —
in this case the German navy. As the war pro-
gressed, and the opportunity for strictly military
operations became less likely, the two Captains

The Conspirators' Task 25

occupied their time in injecting a quite military
flavor into the enterprises Bernstorff and Albert
had on foot. As a strategic measure Mexico
must divert America's attention from Europe and
remove to the border her available forces.
Meanwhile, German reservists must be supplied
to their home regiments. Failing that they must
be mobilized for service against Germany's near-
est enemy here — Canada. German raiders at sea
must be supplied. German communication with
her military forces abroad must be maintained
uninterrupted.

Long after the departure of the principals for
their native land the enterprises persisted. It
may be well here to extend to the secret agents of
the United States the tribute which is their due.
To Chief Flynn, of the United States Secret
Service of the Treasury Department, to A. Bruce
Bielaski, head of the special agents of the De-
partment of Justice, to W. M. Offley, former
Superintendent of the New York Bureau of Spe-
cial Agents, to Roger B. Wood, Assistant United
States District Attorney, to his successor, John C.
Knox, (now a Federal judge), to Raymond B.
Sarfaty, Mr. Wood's assistant who developed the
Rintelen case, to former Police Commissioner
Arthur Woods of New York, his deputy, Guy
Scull, his police captain, Thomas J. Tunney, and

26 The German Secret Service in America

to the men who worked obscurely and tirelessly
with them to avert disasters whose fiendish inten-
tion shook the faith if not the courage of a nation.
Those men found Germany out in time.

Germany was fluent in her denials. When the
President in his message to Congress in Decem-
ber, 1915, bitterly attacked Germans and German-
Americans for their activities in America, accus-
ing the latter of treason, the German government
authorized a statement to the Berlin correspond-
ent of the New York Sun on December 19, 191 5,
to the effect that it

"naturally has never knowingly accepted the support of
any person, group of persons, society or organization
seeking to promote the cause of Germany in the United
States by illegal acts, by counsels of violence, by contra-
vention of law, or by any means whatever that could
offend the American people in the pride of their own
authority. If it should be alleged that improper acts
have been committed by representatives of the German
Government they could be easily dealt with. To any
complaints upon proof as may be submitted by the Amer-
ican Government suitable response will be duly made.
. . . Apparently the enemies of Germany have succeeded
in creating the impression that the German Government
is in some way, morally or otherwise, responsible for
what Mr. Wilson has characterized as anti-American
activities, comprehending attacks upon property in viola-
tion of the rules which the American Government has
seen fit to impose upon the course of neutral trade. This

Inspector Thomas J. Tunney of the New York PoHce Depart-
ment, head of the "Bomb Squad" and foremost in
apprehending many important German agents

The Conspii'ators' Task 27

the German Government absolutely denies. It cannot
specifically repudiate acts committed by individuals over
whom it has no control, and of vv^hose movements it is
neither officially nor unofficially informed."

To this statement there is one outstanding an-
swer. It is an excerpt from the German book
of instructions for officers:

"Bribery of the enemy's subjects with the object of
obtaining military advantages, acceptances of offers of
treachery, reception of deserters, utilization of the dis-
contented elements in the population, support of the pre-
tenders and the like are permissible ; indeed international
law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the crimes
of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery and
the like) to the prejudice of the enemy. Considerations
of chivalry, generosity and honor may denounce in such
cases a hasty and unsparing exploitation of such advan-
tages as indecent and dishonorable, but law, which is less
touchy, allows it. The ugly and inherently immoral as-
pect of such methods cannot affect the recognition of their
lawfulness. The necessary aim of war gives the bel-
ligerent the right and imposes upon him, according to
circumstances, the duty not to let slip the important, ii
may be decisive, advantages to be gained by such means."

("The War Book of the German General Staff," trans-
lated by J. H. Morgan, M.A., pp. 113-114.)

CHAPTER III

THE RAIDERS AT SEA

The outbreak of war — Mobilization of reservists — The
Hamburg-American contract — The Bcrzvind — The Ma-
rina Queaada — The Sacramento — Naval battles.

A fanatic student in the streets of Sarajevo,
Bosnia, threw a bomb at a visiting dignitary, and
the world went to war. That occtirred on the
sunny forenoon of June 28, 1914. The assassin
was chased by the poHce, the newspaper men, and
the photographers, who reached him almost simul-
taneously, and presently the world knew that the
Archduke Francis Ferdinand, of Austria, was the
victim, and that a plain frightened fellow, strug-
gling in the shadow of a doorway, was his assail-
ant.

Austria's resentment of the crime mounted
during July and boiled over in the ultimatum of
July 23. Five days later, with Germany's per-
mission, Austria declared war on Servia. By
this time continental tempers had been aroused,
and the Central Empires knew that "Der Tag"

The Raiders at Sea 29

had come. Austria, Russia, Germany, England,
France and Belgium entered the lists within a
fortnight.

By mid- July Germany had warned her agents
in other lands of the imminence of war and a
quiet mobilization had begun of the more impor-
tant reservists in America. Captain von Papen,
after dispatching his telegram from Mexico via
El Paso to Captain Boy-Ed, hurried to Washing-
ton, arriving there on August 3. He began to
weld together into a vast band the scientists, ex-
'perts, secret agents and German army-reservists,
who were under German military oaths, and were
prepared to gather information or to execute a
military enterprise ''zu Befehl!" How rapidly
he assembled his staff is shown in testimony given
on the witness stand by "Horst von der Goltz,"
alias Bridgeman Taylor, alias Major Wachen-
dorf , a German spy who had been a major in a
Mexican army imtil July.

A German consul in El Paso had sounded out
Goltz's willingness to return to German service.
"A few days later, the 3rd of August, 1914,
license was given by my commanding officer to
separate myself from the service of my brigade
for the term of six months. I left directly for
El Paso, Texas, where I was told by Mr. Kueck,
German Consul at Chihuahua, Mexico, who

30 The German Secret Service in America

stayed there, to put m3^sel£ at the disposition of
Captain von Papen." This was two days before
the final declaration of war.

All German and Austro-Hungarian consulates
received orders to coordinate their own staffs for
war service. Germany herself supplied the
American front with men by wireless commands
to all parts of the world. Captain Hans
Tauscher, who enjoyed the double distinction of
being agent in America for the Krupps and hus-
band of a noted operatic singer, Mme. Johanna
Gadski, chanced to be in Berlin when war broke
out, reported for duty and was at once detailed to
return to the United States and report to von
Papen, as Wilhelmstrasse saw the usefulness of
an ordnance expert in intimate touch with our
Ordnance Department and our explosives plants.
Two German officers detailed to topographical
duty, who had spent years mapping Japan, and
were engaged in the same work in British Colum-
bia, jumped the border to the United States,
taking with them their families, their informa-
tion and their fine surveying and photographic in-
struments, and in the blocking out of the country
which the wise men in the East were performing,
were assigned to the White Mountains. Rail-
roads and ships to the Atlantic seaboard bore
every day new groups of reserve officers from the

TJie Raiders at Sea 31

Orient and South America to New York for sail-
ing orders.

They found von Papen already there. He
established a consultation headquarters at once
with Boy-Ed in a room which they rented in the
offices of G. Amsinck & Co., at 6 Hanover Street.
From that time forward, New York was to be his
base of operations, and it was at that moment
especially convenient to von Bernstorff's summer
establishment at Newport.

The naval situation at once became active. In
the western and southern Atlantic a scattered
fleet of German cruisers was still at large. The
British set out eagerly to the chase. Security lay
in southern waters, and the German craft dodged
back and forth through the Straits of Magellan.
From time to time the quarry was forced by the
remoteness of supply to show himself, and a battle
followed ; in the intervals, the Germans lay perdu,
dashing into port for supplies and out again to
concealment, or wandering over seldom traveled
ocean tracks to meet coal and provision ships sent
out from America.

Captain Boy-Ed received from Berlin constant
advices of the movements of his vessels. On
July 31, Dr. Karl Buenz, the American head of
the Hamburg-American Line, had a cable from
Berlin which he read and then forwarded to the

32 The German Secret Service in America

Embassy in Washington for safekeeping. Until
191 2 Buenz had had no steamship experience,
having been successively a judge in Germany, a
consul in Chicago and New York, and minister to
Mexico. When at the age of 70 he was appointed
Hamburg-American agent, one of the first mat-
ters which came to his attention was the consum-
mation of a contract between the Admiralty Divi-
sion of the German government and the steam-
ship line, which provided for the provisioning,
during war, of German ships at sea, using Amer-
ica as a base. This contract was jealously
guarded by the Embassy.

The cablegram of July 31 called on Dr. Buenz
to carry out this contract. There was consulta-
tion at once with Boy-Ed for the location of the
vessels to be supplied, merchant ships were char-
tered or purchased, then loaded, and despatched.
The first to leave New York harbor was the Ber-
wind. There was hesitancy among the conspira-
tors as to who should apply for her clearance
papers — documents of which Dr. Buenz pro-
tested he knew nothing. They finally told G. B.
Kulenkampff, a banker and exporter, that the
Bcrzvind was loaded with coal, and directed him
to get the clearance papers. He swore to a false
manifest of her cargo and got them. The Ber-
wind carried coal to be sure — but she also carried

Ctfyriiht. Intemationul Film S>;

Dr. Karl Buenz, managing director of the
Hamburg-American Line

The B aiders at Sea 33

food for German warships, and she was not
bound for Buenos Aires, as her clearance papers
stated. Thus the United States, by innocently
issuing false papers, made herself, on the third
day of the war, a party to German naval opera-
tions.

The steamship Lorenzo dropped down the har-
bor, ostensibly for Buenos Aires, on the follow-
ing day, August 6, cleared by a false manifest,
and bearing coal and food for German sailors.
On these ships, and on the Thor (from Newport
News for Fray Bentos, Uruguay), on the Heine
(from Philadelphia on August 6 for La Guayra),
on the /. S. Mozvinckel and the Nepos (out of
Philadelphia for Monrovia) and others Boy-Ed
and Buenz had placed supercargoes bearing secret
instructions. These men had authority to give
navigating orders to the captains once they were
outside the three-mile limit — orders to keep a ren-
dezvous with German battleships by wireless
somewhere in the Atlantic wastes.

The Berwind approached the island of Trini-
dad and Herr Poeppinghaus, who was her super-
cargo, directed the captain to lie to. Five Ger-
man ships, the Kap Trafalgar, Pontus, Elinor
Woerman, Santa Lucia and Eher, approached
and the transfer of supplies started. It was in-
terrupted by the British converted cruiser Car-

34 The German Secret Service in America

mania. She engaged in a brisk two-hour duel
with the Kap Trafalgar which ended only when
the latter sank into the tropical ocean. The Ber-
wind meanwhile put the horizon between herself
and the Carmania.

Few of the chartered ships carried out their
intentions, although their adventures were vari-
ous. Hear the story of the Unit a: Her skipper
was Eno Olsen, a Canadian citizen born in Nor-
way. Urhitzler, the German spy placed aboard,
made the mistake of assuming that Olsen was
friendly to Germany. He gave him his "orders,"
and the skipper balked. '' 'Nothing doing,' I
told the supercargo," Captain Olsen testified later,
with a Norwegian twist to his pronunciation.
"She's booked to Cadiz, and to Cadiz she goes!
So the supercargo offered me $500 to change
my course. 'Nothing doing — nothing doing for
a million dollars,' I told him. The third day out
he offered me $10,000. Nothing doing. So,"
announced Captain Olsen with finality, "I sailed
the Unita to Cadiz and after we got there I sold
the cargo and looked up the British consul."

One picturesque incident of the provisioning
enterprise was the piratical cruise of the good
ship Gladstone, rechristened, with a German bene-
diction, Marina Quezada. Under the name of
Gladstone, the ship had flown the Norwegian flag

The Raiders at Sea 35

on a route between Canada and Australia, but
shortly after the outbreak of war she put into
Newport News. Simultaneously a sea captain,
Hans Suhren, a sturdy German formerly of the
Pacific coast, appeared in New York, called upon
Captain Boy-Ed, who took kindly interest in him,
and then departed for Newport News. Here he
assumed charge of the Marina Quezada.

**I paid $280,000 in cash for her," he told First
Officer Bentzen. After hiring a crew, he hur-
ried back to New York, where he received mes-
sages in care of "Nordmann, Room 801, 11
Broadway, N. Y. C." — Captain Boy-Ed's office.
Captain Boy-Ed had already told him to erect a
wireless plant on his ship — the equipment having
been shipped to the Marina Quesada — and to hire
a wireless operator. He then handed Suhren a
German naval code book, a chart with routes
drawn, and sailing instructions for the South
Seas, there to await German cruisers. Food sup-
plies, ordered for the steamer Unit a (which at
that time had been unable to sail) were wasting
on the piers at Newport News and Captain Boy-
Ed ordered them put in the Marina Quezada.
Two cases of revolvers also were sent to the
boat.

Again Suhren went back to the ship and kept
his wireless operators busy and speeded up the

36 The German Secret Service in America

loading of the cargo, which was under the super-
vision of an employee of the North German Lloyd.
Needing more money before sailing in December,
1914, he drew a draft for $1,000 on the Hamburg-
American Line, wiring Adolf Hachmeister, the
purchasing agent, to communicate with ''Room
801, II Broadway."

Then trouble arose over the ship's registry.
Though Suhren insisted that he owned her, a
corporation in New York whose stockholders
were Costa Ricans were laying claim to owner-
ship, for they had christened her and had se-
cured provisional registration from the Costa Ri-
can minister in Washington. Permanent regis-
try, however, required application at Port Limon,
Costa Rica. So hauling down the Norwegian
ensign that had fluttered over the ship as the
Gladstone, Captain Suhren ran up the Costa
Rican emblem. He had obtained false clearance
papers stating his destination as Valparaiso.
They were based upon a false manifest, and he
sailed for Port Limon. The Costa Rican au-
thorities declined to give Suhren permanent
papers, and he found himself master of a ship
without a flag, and in such status not permitted
under international law to leave port. He waited
for a heavy storm and darkness, then quietly
slipping his anchor, he sped out into the high seas.

The Haiders at Sea 37

a pirate. Off Pernambuco he ran up the Nor-
wegian flag, put into port and got into such diffi-
culties with the authorities that his ship and he
were interned. His supphes never reached the
raiders and Boy-Ed learned of another fiasco.

The Lorenzo, Thor and Heine were seized at
sea. The Bangor was captured in the Straits of
Magellan. Out of twelve shiploads of supplies,
only some $20,000 worth were ever transshipped
to German war vessels. This involved a consid-
erable loss, as the following statement of expendi-
tures for those vessels made by the Hamburg-
American Line will show :

Steamer Total payment

Thor $1 13,879.72

Berwind 73,221.85

Lorenzo 430,182.59

Heine 288,142.06

Nepos 1 19,037.60

Mowinckel 113,367.18

Unita 67,766.44

Somerstad 45,826.75

^^c^m 55,053-23

Craecia 29,143.59

Macedonia 39,139-98

Navarra 44,133.50

Total $1,419,394.49

Where did the money come from ? The Ham-

38 The German Secret Service in America

burg-American Line, under the ante-bellum con-
tract, placed at Captain Boy-Ed's disposal three
payments of $500,000 each from the Deutsches
Bank, Berlin; the Deutsches Bank forwarded
through Wessells, Kulenkampff & Co., credit for
$750,000 more. ''I followed the instructions of
Captain Boy-Ed," Kulenkampff testified. "He
instructed me at different times to pay over cer-
tain amounts either to banks or firms. I trans-
ferred $350,000 to the Wells-Fargo Nevada Na-
tional Bank in San Francisco, $150,000 to the
North German Lloyd, then $63,000 to the North
German Lloyd. The balance of $160,000 I
placed to the credit of the Deutsches Bank with
Gontard & Co., successors to my former firm.
That was reduced to about $57,000 by payments
drawn at Captain Boy-Ed's request to the order
of the Hamburg-American Line."

The North German Lloyd was serving as the
Captain's Pacific operative, which* accounts for
the transfer of the funds to the West. (The same
line, through its Baltimore agent, Paul Hilken,
was also cooperating at this time, but not to an
extent which brought the busy Hilken into promi-
nence as did his later connection with the mer-
chant submarine, Dcutschland.) Following the
course of the funds, federal agents eventually
uncovered the operations of Germans on the Pa-

The Raiders at Sea 39

cific coast, and secured the arrest and convictions
of no less personages than the consular staff in
San Francisco.

The steamship Sacramento left San Francisco
with a water-line cargo of supplies. A firm of
customs brokers in San Francisco was given a
fund of $46,000 by the German consulate to pur-
chase supplies for her ; a fictitious steamship com-
pany was organized to satisfy the customs offi-
cials; on September 23 an additional $100,000
was paid by the Germans for her cargo ; a false
valuation was placed on her cargo, and she was
cleared on October 3. Two days later Benno
Klocke and Gustav Traub, members of the crew,
broke the wireless seals and got into communica-
tion with the Dresden. Klocke usurped the posi-
tion of master of the vessel, and steered her to a
rendezvous on November 8 with the Scharnhorst,
off Masafueros Island, in the South Pacific; six
days later she provisioned and coaled the German
steamship Baden. She reached Valparaiso
empty. Captain Anderson said he could not help
the fact that her supplies were swung outboard
and into the Scharnhorst and Dresden.

Captain Fred Jebsen, who was a lieutenant in
the German Naval Reserve, took out a cargo of
coal, properly bonded in his ship, the Mazatlan,
for Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico. Off the mouth

40 The German Secret Service in America

of Magdalena Bay the Ma:;aflan met the Leipzig,
a German cruiser, and the cargo of coal was
transferred to the battleship. One of Jebsen's
men, who had signed on as a cook, was an expert
wireless operator, and he went to the Leipzig with
three cases of "preserved fruits" — wireless ap-
paratus forwarded by German agents in Cali-
fornia. Jebsen, after an attempt to smuggle
arms into India, which will be discussed later,
made his way to Germany in disguise, and was
reported to have been drowned in a submarine.
The Nurnberg and Leipzig lay off San Francisco
for days in August, the former finally entering
the Golden Gate for the amount of coal allowed
her under international law. The Olson and
Mahoney, a steam schooner, was laden with sup-
plies for the German vessels and prepared to sail,
but after a considerable controversy with the cus-
toms officials, was unloaded.

Perhaps the most bizarre attempt to spirit sup-
plies to the Imperial navy was that in which the
little barkentine Retriever figured as heroine.
Wide publicity was given the announcement that
she was to be sailed out to sea and used as the
locale of a motion picture drama. The Govern-
ment found out, hov/ever, that her hull was well
down with coal, which did not seem vital to the
scenario, and she was not permitted to leave port.

The Raiders at Sea 41

The major portion of Germany's naval strength
lay corked in the Kiel Canal, where, except for a
few indecisive sorties, Germany's visible fleet was
destined to remain for more than three years.
At the outbreak of war, the Emden, Dresden,
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Nurnberg were at
large in the southern oceans. On November i
the German cruisers met the British Monmouth,
Good Hope, Glasgow and Otranto off Coronel,
the Chilean coast. The Monmouth and Good
Hope were struck a mortal blow and sunk. The
Glasgow and Otranto barely escaped. In a battle
off the Falkland Islands on December 7, as the
German army was being thrown back from Ypres,
the Scharnhorst, Leip::ig, Gneisenau and Nurn-
berg were sunk by a reinforced British fleet.
(Walter Peters, one of the crew of the Leipzig,
floated about for six hours after the engagement,
was picked up, made his way to Mexico, and for
more than three years was employed by a German
vice-consul in Mexico in espionage in the United
States. Peters was arrested as a dangerous en-
emy alien in Crockett, California, in April, 1918.)
The Dresden and Karlsruhe escaped, and the for-
mer hid for two months in the fjords of the Straits
of Magellan. On February 26, 1915, an Ameri-
can tourist vessel, the Kroonland, passed east
through the Straits and into Punta Arenas har-

42 The German Secret Service in America

bor, while out of the harbor sneaked the Httle
Glasgow, westward bound. The Dresden, after
the American had passed, had run for the open
Pacific; the Glasgow, hot on her trail, engaged
her off the Chilean coast five days later and sank
her, leaving only the Eniden and Karlsruhe at
large. The Karlsruhe disappeared.

The last lone member of the pack was hunted
over the seas for months, and finally was beached,
but long before her activities became public the
necessity for supplying the German ships expired,
from the simple elimination of German ships to
supply. Captain Boy-Ed's first enterprise had
been frustrated by the British navy and he turned
to other and more sinister occupations. Buenz,
Koetter and Hachmeister were sentenced to eight-
een months in Atlanta, and Poeppinghaus to a
year and a day — terms which they did not begin
to serve until 1918.^

1 Dr Buenz' case is an enlightening example of the use made
by German agents in America of the law's delays. He was
sentenced in December, 1915, for an offence committed in Sep-
tember, 1914. He at once appealed his case to the higher courts,
going freely about meanwhile on bail furnished by the Ham-
burg American Line. In March, 1918, the Supreme Court of
the United States, to which his case had finally been pressed,
denied his appeal. His attorneys at once placed before Presi-
dent Wilson, through Attorney-General Gregory, a request for
a respite, or commutation of his sentence, which the Presi-
dent, on April 23, 1918, denied. Buenz pleaded the frailty of
his 79 years — which had not prevented him from keeping his
social engagements while his appeal was pending.

CHAPTER IV

THE WIRELESS SYSTEM

The German Embassy a clearing house — Sayville —
Germany's knowledge of U. S. wireless — Subsidized elec-
trical companies — Aid to the raiders — The Eniden — The
Geier — Charles E. Apgar — The German code.

The coordination of a nation's fighting forces
depends upon that nation's system of communica-
tion. In no previous war in the world's history
has a general staff known more of the enemy's
plans. We look back almost patronizingly across
a century to the semaphore which transmitted
Napoleon's orders from Paris to the Rhine in
three hours; we can scarcely realize that if the
report of a scout had ever got through to Gen-
eral Hooker, warning him that a suspicious
wagon train had been actually sighted a few miles
away, Stonewall Jackson's flanking march at
Chancellorsville would have been checked in its
first stages. In this greatest of all wars a Brit-
ish battery silences a German gun within two
minutes after the allied airman has ''spotted" the
Boche. The air is "Any Man's Land." What

44 Tlie German Secret Service in America

lies beyond the hill is no longer the great hazard,
for the wireless is flashing.

If the Allied general staffs had been provided
with X-ray field-glasses, and had trained those
glasses on a certain brownstone house in Massa-
chusetts Avenue, between Fourteenth and Fif-
teenth Streets, in Washington, they would have
been interested in the perfection of the German
system of communication. They would have ob-
served the secretarial force of the Imperial Em-
bassy opening and sorting letters from confeder-
ates throughout the country, many so phrased as
to be quite harmless, others apparently meaning-
less. The Embassy served as a clearing-house
for all German and Allied air messages.

Long before the war broke out the German
government had seen the military necessity for a
complete wireless system. Subsidies were se-
cretly granted to the largest of the German elec-
trical manufacturers to establish stations all over
the globe. Companies were formed in America,
ostensibly financed with American funds, but on
plans submitted to German capitalists and
through them to the German Foreign Office for
approval. Thus was the Sayville station erected.
As early as 1909 a German captain, Otto von
Fossberg, had been sent to America to select a
site on Long Island for the station. "The Ger-

The Wireless System 45

man government is backing the scheme," he told
a friend, although the venture was publicly sup-
posed to be under the auspices of the "Atlantic
Communication Company," in which certain
prominent German-Americans held stock and of-
fice. In 191 1 an expert, Fritz von der Woude,
paid Sayville a visit long enough to install the
apparatus; he came under strict injunctions not
to let his mission become generally known.

Boy-Ed watched the progress of the Sayville
station with close interest and considerable au-
thority, and his familiarity with wireless threw
him into frequent and cordial relationship with
the United States naval wireless men and the De-
partment of Commerce. On one occasion the
Department requested a confidential report from
a radio inspector of the progress made by foreign
interests in wireless; the report prepared went
to Germany before it came to the hands of the
United States government. Again : the German
government was informed in 1 914 by Boy-Ed in
Washington that the United States intended to
erect a wireless station at a certain point in the
Philippines; full details, as the Navy Department
had developed them, were forwarded, and the
German government immediately directed a large
electrical manufacturer in Berlin to bid for the
work. The site the United States had selected

46 The German Secret Service in America

was not altogether satisfactory to Germany, for
some reason, so the German government added
this deHcious touch: a confidential map of the
Philippines was turned over to the electrical
house, with orders to submit a plan for the con-
struction of the American station on a site which
had been chosen by the German General War
Staff!

The Providence Journal claims to have discov-
ered an interesting German document — probably
genuine — which reveals the scope of the Teutonic
wireless project. It was a chart, bearing a rect-
angle labeled in German with the title of the Ger-
man Foreign Office. From this "trunk" radiated
three "branches," each bearing a name, and each
terminating in the words "Telefunken Co." The
first branch was labeled "Gesellschaft fiir Draht-
lose Telegraphic, Berlin"; the second, "Siemens
& Halske, Siemens-Schuckert-Werke, Berlin";
the third, "Allgemeine Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft,
Berlin."

From each branch grew still further subdivi-
sions, labeled with the names of electrical firms or
agents all over the world, and all subject to the
direction of the German government. These
names follow:

From No. i : Atlantic Communication Co.
(Sayville), New York; Australasian Wireless

The Wireless Systeiri 47

Co., Ltd., Sydney (Australia) ; Telefunken East
Asiatic Wireless Telegraph Co., Ltd., Shanghai;
Maintz & Co. (of Amsterdam, Holland), Batavia
(Java) ; Germann & Co. (of Hamburg), Manila;
B. Grimm & Co., Bangkok; Paetzold & Eppinger,
Havana; Spiegelthal, La Guayra; Kruger & Co.,
Guayaquil; Brahm & Co., Lima; E. Quicke, Mon-
tevideo; R. Schulbach, Thiemer & Co. (of Ham-
burg), Central America; Sesto Sesti, Rome; A.
D. Zacharion & Cie., Athens; J. K. Dimitrijievic,
Belgrade.

From No. 2: Siemens Bros. & Co., Ltd.,
London; Siemens & Halske, Vienna; Siemens &
Halske, Petrograd; Siemens & Halske (K. G.
Frank), New York; Siemens-Schuckert-Werke,
Sofia ; Siemens-Schuckert-Werke, Constantino-
ple; Siemens-Schuckert-Werke (Dansk Aktsiel-
skab), Copenhagen; Siemens-Schuckert-Werke
(Denki Kabushiki Kaishe), Tokio; Siemens-
Schuckert-Werke (Companhia Brazileira de
Electricidade), Rio de Janeiro; Siemens-Schuck-
ert, Ltd., Buenos Ayres; Siemens-Schuckert,
Ltd., Valparaiso.

From No. 3: A. E. G. Union Electrique,
Brussels ; Allgemeine Elektrizitats-Gesellschaf t,
Basel; A. E. G. Elecktriska Aktiebolaget, Stock-
holm ; A. E. G. Electricitats Aktieselskabet, Chris-
tiania; A. E. G. Thomson-Houston Iberica, Ma-

48 The German Secret Service in America

drid; A. E. G. Compania Mexicana, Mexico; A.
E. G. Electrical Company of South Africa, Jo-
hannesburg.

The German manufacturers evinced a keen
interest in the project of a wireless plant in Nica-
ragua, laying special stress on the point that "per-
manent stations in this neighborhood" would be
valuable "if the Panama Canal is fortified."
From Sayville station the German plan projected
powerful wireless plants in Mexico, at Para,
Brazil; at Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana; at Carta-
gena, Colombia, and at Lima, Peru. A point in
which Captain H. Retzmann, the German naval
attache in 191 1, was at one time interested was
whether signals could be sent to the German fleet
in the English Channel from America without
England's interference. German naval wireless
experts supervised the construction, and although
the stations were nominally civilian-manned, and
purely commercial, in reality the operators were
often men of unusual scientific intellect, whose
talents were sadly underpaid if they received no
more than operators' salaries.

Gradually and quietly, Germany year by year
spread her system of wireless communication
over Central and South America, preparing her
machinery for war. Over her staff of operators
and mechanics she appointed an expert in the full

The Wireless System 49

confidence of the Embassy at Washington, and in
close contact with Captain Boy-Ed. To the sys-
tem of German-owned commercial plants in the
United States he added amateur stations of more
or less restricted radius, as auxiliary apparatus.

When the war broke out, and scores of German
merchantmen were confined to American ports
by the omnipresence of the British fleet at sea, the
wireless of the interned ships was added to the
system. Thus in every port lay a source of infor-
mation for the Embassy. The United States
presently ordered the closing of all private wire-
less stations, and those amateurs who had been
listening out of sheer curiosity to the air con-
versation cheerfully took down their antennae.
Not so, however, a prominent woman in whose
residence on Fifth Avenue lay concealed a pow-
erful receiving apparatus. Nor did the in-
terned ships obey the order : apparatus apparently
removed was often rigged in the shelter of a fun-
nel, and operated by current supplied from an
apparently innocent source. And the secret
service discovered stations also in the residences
of wealthy Hoboken Germans, and in a German-
American "mansion" in Hartford, Connecticut.

The operators of these stations made their re-
ports regularly through various channels to the

50 The Germa7i Secret Service in America

Embassy. There the messages were sorted, and
it is safe to say that Count von Bernstorff was
cognizant of the position of every ship on the
oceans. He was in possession of both the French
and British secret admiralty codes. In the Hght
of that fact, the manoeuvres of the British and
German fleets in the South Atlantic and Pacific
became simply a game of chess, Germany follow-
ing every move of the British fleet under Admiral
Cradock, knowing the identity of his ships, their
gun-power, and their speed. When she located
the Good Hope, Monmouth, Glasgozv and Otranto
off Coronel, Berlin, through von Bernstorff, gave
Admiral von Spec the word to strike, with the
results which we have observed: the sinking of
the Monmouth and Good Hope, and the crippling
of the Glasgozv and Otranto.

Throughout August, September and October,
1 9 14, the system operated perfectly. Bernstorff
and Boy-Ed were confronted with the problem of
keeping the German fleet alive as long as possible,
and inflicting as much damage as possible on en-
emy shipping. Allied merchantmen left port al-
most with impunity, and were gathered in by Ger-
man raiders who had been informed from Wash-
ington of the location of their prey. But the
defeat off Chile apparently was conclusive proof
to England that Germany knew her naval code,

The Wireless System 51

and the events of November and December indi-
cate that England changed her code.

It was while engaged in escort duty to the first
transport fleet of the Australian Expeditionary
Force that the Australian crusier Sydney re-
ceived wireless signals from Cocos Island shriek-
ing that the Emden was near by. The Emden,
having been deprived for some time of news of
enemy ships, had gone there to destroy the wire-
less station, having in the past three months sunk
some $12,500,000 of British shipping. Even
while the island's distress signals were crashing
out, the Emden had her own wireless busy in an
effort to drown the call for help, or "jam" the air.
On the following morning, November 9, the Syd-
ney came up with the enemy. A sharp action
followed. The Sydney's gunfire was accurate
enough to cause the death of 7 officers and 108
men; her own losses were 4 killed and 12
wounded ; the Emden fled, ran aground on North
Keeling Island, one of the Cocos group, and ulti-
mately became a total wreck.

In the same month the cruiser Geier fled the
approach of the British and found refuge in
Honolulu harbor. Her commander. Captain
Karl Grasshof, made the mistake of keeping a
diary. That document, which later fell into the
hands of the Navy Intelligence Service, revealed

52 The German Secret Service in America

a complete disrespect for the hospitality which the
American government afforded the refugees.
The Geicr's band used to strike up for an after-
noon concert, and under cover of the music, the
wireless apparatus sent out messages to raiders
at sea or messages in English so phrased as to
start rumors of trouble between Japan and the
United States. The Geier was the source of a
rumor to the effect that Japanese troops had
landed in Mexico; the Gcier gave what circula-
tion she could to a report that Germans in the
United States were planning an invasion of Can-
ada and was ably assisted in this effort by George
Rodiek, German consul at Honolulu; the Geier
caught all trans-Pacific wireless messages, and in-
tercepted numerous United States government
despatches. Captain Grasshof also spread a re-
port quoting an American submarine commander
as saying he would "like to do something to those
Japs outside" (referring to the Japanese Pacific
patrol) provided he (the American commander)
and the German could reach an agreement. This
report Grasshof attributed to von Papen, and
later retracted, admitting that it was a lie.
Grasshof's courier to the consulate in San Fran-
cisco was A. V. Kircheisen, a quartermaster on
the liner China, a German secret service agent
bearing the number K-17. Kircheisen frequently

The Wireless System 53

used the China's wireless to send German mes-
sages.

On December 8 occurred the engagement off
the Falklands, which resulted in the defeat of the
German fleet. The Karlsruhe within a short
time gave up her aimless wanderings and disap-
peared. In February the Glasgow avenged her-
self on the Dresden, and the Prins Eitel Fried-
rich and the Kronprins Wilhelm fled into the se-
curity of Hampton Roads for the duration of
war.

The United States' suspicions had been aroused
by the activity of the German wireless plants, but
the arm of the law did not remove at once the
German operators at certain commercial stations.
They were the men who despatched communica-
tions to Berlin and to the raiders. Interspersed
in commercial messages they sprinkled code
phrases, words, numbers, a meaningless and inno-
cent jargon. The daily press bulletin issued to
all ships at sea was an especially adaptable vehi-
cle for this practice, as any traveler who has been
forced to glean his news from one of these bulle-
tins will readily appreciate. There were Ameri-
cans shrewd enough, however, to become exceed-
ingly suspicious of this superficially careless send-
ing, and their suspicions were confirmed through
the invention of another shrewd American,

54 The German Secret Service in America

Charles E. Apgar. He combined the principles
of the phonograph and the wireless in such a way
as to record on a wax disc the dots and dashes
of the message, precisely as it came through the
receiver. The records could be studied and ana-
lyzed at leisure. And the United States govern-
ment has studied them.

At three o'clock every morning, the great wire-
less station at Nauen, near Berlin, uttered a hash
of language into the ether. It was apparently
not directed to any one in particular, nor did it
contain any known coherence. Unless the oper-
ator in America wore a DeForest audian detector,
which picks up waves from a great distance, he
could not have heard it, and certainly during the
early part of the war he paid no attention to it.
The United States decided, however, that it
might be well to eavesdrop, and so for over two
years every utterance from Nauen was tran-
scribed and filed away, or run off on the phono-
graph, in the hope that repetition might reveal
the code. Until the code was discovered else-
where, the phonographic records told no tales,
but then the State Department found that it had
a priceless library of Prussian impudence.

The diplomatic code was a dictionary, its pages
designated by serial letters, its words by serial
numbers. Thus the message

The Wireless System 55

"12-B-15-C-7"

signified the twelfth and fifteenth words on the
second page, and the seventh word on the third
page. This particular dictionary was one of a
rare edition.

To complement the diplomatic code the
Deutches Bank, the German Foreign Office, and
their commercial representatives, Hugo Schmidt
and Dr. Albert, had agreed upon an arbitrary
code which proved one of the most difficult which
the American authorities have ever had to deci-
pher. Solution would have been impossible with-
out some of the straight English or German con-
firmations which followed by mail, but as most
of these documents were lost or destroyed, the
deciphering had to be done by astute construction
of testimony taken from Schmidt as late as the
fall of 191 7. He had made the work doubly dif-
ficult by burning the cipher key and most of his
important papers in the furnace of the German
Club.

Simple phrases, such as might readily pass any
censor without arousing suspicion, passed fre-
quently through Sayville station. The message
"Expect father to-morrow" meant *'The political
situation between America and Germany grows
worse. It is imperative that you take care of

56 The German Secret Service in America

your New York affairs." "Depot" meant "Se-
curities"; "Depot Pritchard" meant "Securities
to be held in Germany"; "Depot Cooper" meant
"Securities to be forwarded to some neutral coun-
try in Europe." Schmidt himself had the follow-
ing aliases: "John Maley," "Roy Woolen,"
"Sidney Pickford," "George Brewster," "175
Congress Street, Brooklyn," "James Frasier," or
"Andrew Brodie." Dr. Albert was mentioned
as "John Herbinsen," "Howard Ackley," "Leon-
ard Hadden," or "Donald Yerkes." James W.
Gerard, the American ambassador at Berlin, was
"Wilbur McDonald"; America was "Fremessi"
or "Alfred Lipton." To throw any suspicion off
the scent, the phrase "Hughes recovered" was
translatable simply as "agreed," whereas "Percy
died" meant "disagreed." Amounts of money
were to be multiplied by one thousand.

This cipher code, so far as it had any system
at all, showed a skilful choice of arbitrary proper
names, than which there is nothing less sugges-
tive or significant when the name is backed up by
no known or discoverable personality. These
names met two requirements: they carefully
avoided any names of personages, and they
sounded English or American. Following is a
table of the commoner symbols used:

The Wireless System

Code
Alcott
Andeo

John Hazel : Chapman ;
Thos. Hadley
Pythagoras Errflint

Lawrence McKay

John Hastings ; Fred
Holden; Wm. Lounsbury
Flagside ; Chas. Hall
Henry Galloway
Frenchlike ; Blake
Flammigere
Percy Bloomfield
Gobber Milbank or
John Childs
George Mallery

Charles Thurston :
Caffney Richard
Ernest Whiskard
Frederick Chappell,
Walter Harris ; Edmund

Hutton
Mills Edgar
Albert Hardwood
Herbert Hastings,
Langman Howard,
Luckett Ernest
Eversleigh

Sidney Farmer and others
Francis Hawkins
Francis Manuel;
Edward Gary
Fleshquake
Clarence Hadden
Floezanbel
Floezuise
Wm. Gerome
Fluitkoker

Translation
Hugo Reisinger
Payments are

G. Amsinck & Co.
Argentine Finance

Minister
Austrian Ambassador at

Washington.

Bankers Trust Co.

Belgium

Berlin

Bethlehem Steel Co.

Reichsbank

Capt. Boy-Ed

British Ambassador at Wash-
ington

British Government
Central Bank of Norway
The Submarine Dcutschland

Chase National Bank
Dr. Dernberg
Empire Trust Co.

Equitable Trust Co.

New York

Speyer & Co.

Farmers Loan & Trust Co.

German Government
Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
First National Bank
George J. Gould
J. P. Morgan
J. P. Morgan & Co.
Wm. Barclay Parsons

58 The German Secret Service in America

Code

Translation

Fleuxerimus

High Official of Bethlehem

Steel Co.

Fogarizers

Chas. M. Schwab

John Hayward

Norwegian Government

Franklin Giltrap

Hamburg- American

Line

Theodore Hooper

Capt. von Papen

15 Code names represented

the

Guaranty Trust Co.

Paul Overton; Robt.

Hopkins

Hanover Nat. Bank

George Hedding

Standard Mercantile

Agency

Hugh Sturges

Paul Hilken (Deutschland)

Clarence Marsh

Japanese Ambassador at

Washington

Howard Howe

Irving Nat. Bank

Herbert Miller

President of U. S.

Andrew Mills

Secretary of Commerce and

Labor

Theodore Mitchell

Secretary of Agriculture

Robert Moffatt

Secretary of State

Frank Monroe

Secretary of Treasury

Walter Montgomery

Secretary of Navy

Dolling

London

Robert London

North German Lloyd

Steven Morgan

United States Congress

Frank Mountcastle

The name of the Deutsches

Bank is not to be mentioned

Steven Lawson

Royal Bank of Canada

Gafento

Toluol (High explosive)

The chief significance of the discovery of the
two codes is their conclusive proof that while von
Bernstorff was protesting to the American gov-
ernment that he could not get messages through
to Berlin, nor replies from the foreign office, he
was actually in daily, if not hourly, communica-

The Wireless System 59

tion with his superiors. Messages were sent out
by his confidential operators under the very eyes
of the American naval censors. After the break
of diplomatic relations with Berlin, in February,
19 1 7, the authorities set to work decoding the
messages, and the State Department from time to
time issued for publication certain of the more
brutal proofs of Germany's violation of Ameri-
can neutrality. The ambassador and his Wash-
ington establishment had served for two years
and a half as the "central exchange" of German
affairs in the western world. After his depart-
ure communication from German spies here was
handicapped only by the time required to forward
information to Mexico ; from that point to Berlin
air conversation continued uninterrupted.

CHAPTER V

MILITARY VIOLENCE

The plan to raid Canadian ports — The first Welland
Canal plot — Von Papen, von der Goltz and Tauscher —
The project abandoned — Goltz's arrest — The Tauscher
trial — Hidden arms — Louden's plan of invasion.

Underneath the even surface of American life
seethed a German volcano, eating at the upper
crust, occasionally cracking it, and not infre-
quently bursting a great gap. When an eruption
occurred, America stopped work for a moment,
stared in surprise, sometimes in horror, at the
external phenomena, discussed them for a few
days, then hurried back to work. More often
than not it saw nothing sinister even in the phe-
nomena.

Less than ten hours from German headquar-
ters in New York lay Canada, one of the richest
possessions of Germany's bitter enemy England.
Captain von Papen had not only full details of all
points of military importance in the United
States, but had made practical efforts to utilize

Military Violence 61

them. He knew where his reservists could be
found in America. When the Government,
shortly after the outbreak of war, forbade the
recruiting- of belligerents within its boundaries,
and then refused to issue American passports for
the protection of soldiers on the way to their com-
mands, Captain von Papen planned to mobilize
and employ a German army on American soil in
no less pretentious an enterprise than a military
invasion of the Dominion.

The first plan was attributed to a loyal German
named Schumacher, whose ambiguous address
was "Eden Bower Farm, Oregon." He outlined
in detail to von Papen the feasibility of obtaining
a number of powerful motor-boats, to be manned
by German-American crews, and loaded with
German-American rifles and machine guns.
From the ports on the shores of the Great Lakes
he considered it practicable to journey under
cover of darkness to positions which would com-
mand the waterfronts of Toronto, Sarnia, Wind-
sor and Kingston, Ontario, find the cities defense-
less, and precipitate upon them a fair storm of
bullets. A few Canadian lives might be lost,
which did not matter ; an enormous hue and cry
would be raised to keep the Canadian troops at
home to guard the back door.

Von Papen entertained the plan seriously, and

62 The German Secret Service in America

submitted it to Count von Bernstorff, who for
obvious diplomatic reasons did not care to sponsor
open violence when its proponent's references
were unreliable, its actual reward was at best
doubtful, and when subtle violence was equally
practicable. Von Papen then produced an alter-
native project.

Cutting through the promontory which sepa-
rates Lake Erie from the western end of Lake
Ontario runs the Welland Canal, through which
all shipping must pass to avoid Niagara Falls.
This waterway is one of Canada's dearest proper-
ties, and is no mean artery of supply from the
great grain country of the Northwest.

Its economic importance, however, was second-
ary in the German mind to the psychological effect
upon Canada which a dynamite calamity to the
Canal would certainly cause. The first expedi-
tionary force of Canadian troops was training
frantically at Valcartier, Quebec. They must be
kept at home. Whether or not the idea origin-
ated with Captain von Papen is of little conse-
quence (it may be safely assumed that Berlin had
long had plans for such an enterprise) ; the fact
is that it devolved upon him as military com-
mander to crystallize thought in action. The
plot is ascribed to ''two Irishmen, prominent
members of Irish associations, who had both

Military Violence 63

fought during the Irish rebelHon," and was to
include destruction of the main railway junctions
and the grain elevators in the vicinity of Toronto.
The picturesque renegade German spy com-
monly known as Horst von der Goltz is respon-
sible for the generally accepted version of inci-
dents which followed his first interview with von
Papen on August 22 at the German Consulate in
New York. He was sent to Baltimore under the
assumed name of Bridgeman H. Taylor, with a
letter to the German Consul there, Karl Lued-
eritz, calling for whatever cooperation Goltz
might need. He was to recruit accomplices from
the crew of a German ship then lying at the North
German Lloyd docks in the Patapsco River.
With a man whom he had hired in New York,
Charles Tucker, alias "Tuchhaendler," he visited
the ship and selected his men. He then returned
to New York, where Papen placed three more
men at his disposal, one of them being A. A.
Fritzen, of Brooklyn, a discharged purser on a
Russian liner; another Frederick Busse, an "im-
porter," with offices in the World Building, New
York; and the third man Constantine Covani, a
private detective, of New York. After a few
days the sailors from Baltimore reported for
duty, but were sent back, as Goltz noticed that his
movements were being watched.

64 The German Secret Service in America

Papen sent Goltz to Captain Tauscher's office
at 320 Broadway for explosives. On September
5, Captain Tauscher ordered 300 pounds of 60
per cent, dynamite to be delivered by the E. I.
du Pont de Nemours Company to Mr. Bridgeman
Taylor. In a motor-boat Goltz applied at a du
Pont barge near Black Tom Island and the Statue
of Liberty and took away his three hundred
pounds of dynamite in suitcases. The little craft
made its way up the river to 146th Street. The
conspirators then carried their burden to the Ger-
man Club in Central Park South and later in a
taxicab to Goltz's home, where it was stored with
a supply of revolvers and electrical apparatus for
exploding the charges.

A passport for facile entrance into Canada had
been applied for by one of Luederitz's henchmen
in Baltimore in the name of "Bridgeman Taylor,"
and had been forwarded in care of Karl \V. Buck,
who lived at 843 West End Avenue, New York.
With this guerdon of American protection Goltz
set out for Buffalo about September 10 — the last
day of the Battle of the Marne — Busse and Frit-
zen carrying the dynamite and apparatus, and
Covani, as Goltz naively related, ''attending to
me." He found rooms at 198 Delaware Avenue,
in the heart of Buffalo. He learned of the ter-
rain for the enterprise from a German of myste-

^//////r^/- //fz/rj /'/ -^ ////rr/r//.
_ y //////■/////■/// r/- ////A

/n//>/Mi ' y, /:■■/■■„:,/,/ //,!/,

(J /

liESKHEN. BBBLlKi '^^■<^'^' '^^V
ACSWlRTIOfis AWT

?y)!iESDEiTsrnr.M'f::a's
i'Asr>-i:(:.;:' .1'

I,.

\m^

Passport given to Horst von der Goltz under the
alias of Bridgeman H. Taylor

Military Violence 65

rious occupation, who had Hved in Bufifalo for
several years. Within a few days Gohz and his
companions moved on to Niagara Falls — a move
made easier by an exchange of telegraphic com-
munications between Papen and himself. It is
only necessary to quote, from the British Secret
Service report to Parliament, those messages
which Goltz received from the attache, or "Stef-
fens," as Papen chose to sign himself:

New York, N. Y. Sept. 15, 14
Mr. Taylor, 198 Delaware Ave. Buffalo

Sent money today. Consult lawyer John Ryan six
hundred thirteen Mutual Life Building Buffalo not later
than seventeenth.

Steffens, 112 Central Park South

12.45 P-

New York, N. Y. Sept. 16-14
Mr. Taylor, 198 Delaware Avenue, Bflo.
Ryan got money and instructions.

Steffens,
1. 14 p.

Goltz and Covani ''consulted" Mr. Ryan, who
had received $200 on September 16 from Papen
through Knauth, Nachod & Kuhne.

Then Goltz claimed that he made two aeroplane
flights over Niagara Falls, and "reconnoitered
the ground." Something went wrong, for after
a week arrived the following telegrams :

66 The German Secret Service in America

New York, N. Y. Sept. 24-14.
John T. Ryan, 613 Mutual Life Bldg. Buffalo.

Please instruct Taylor cannot do anything more for
him,

Steffens.
12:51 p.

New York, N. Y. Sept. 26-14.
Mr. Taylor, care Western Union, Niagara Falls, N. Y.

Do what you think best. Did you receive dollars two
hundred

Ryan
945 A.

These messages are open to several construc-
tions. They do not contradict Goltz's claim that
he "learned that the first contingent of Canadian
troops had left the camp." They could indicate
that his chief was not fully satisfied with his tech-
nique. Perhaps the most intriguing feature of
the telegrams is their presence in a safe-deposit
vault in Holland when Goltz was captured months
later. It may be assumed that if (as he main-
tained) he was being watched constantly in Buf-
falo by the United States Secret Service, one of
the first things he would have done is to destroy
any messages received. We leave the reader to
decide — after he has traced Goltz's history a step
or two further.

Whatever the occasion, the Welland enterprise

Military Violence 67

was dismissed; the dynamite was left with an
aviator in Niagara Falls; Fritzen and Busse were
discharged from service, and Covani and Goltz
left for New York. In a letter dated December
7, from Buffalo, poor Busse wrote to Edmund
Pavenstedt, at 45 William Street, New York,
pleading that he had been left without any money
in Niagara Falls; that he had written to von
Papen and had been compelled to wait two weeks
before he got $20. His expenses had accumu-
lated during the fortnight, he could not find work,
he even had sold his overcoat, and he begged
Pavenstedt to send him money to come back to
New York. ''My friend Fritzen," he added,
''was sent back some weeks ago by a gentleman
in the German-American Alliance. ... I would
appreciate anything you can do for me, especially
since I enlisted in such a task . . . Von Papen
signs himself Stevens."

The military attache was frankly disgusted at
the failure of the undertaking. Goltz claims to
have explained everything satisfactorily, and to
have been given presently a new commission —
that of returning to Germany for further instruc-
tions from Abteilung III of the General Staff,
the intelligence department of the Empire.

On October 8 Goltz sailed for Europe, armed
with his false passport, and a letter of introduc-

68 The German Secret Service in America

tion to the German Consul-General in Genoa.
He reached Berlin safely, received his orders,
returned to England, and was arrested on Novem-
ber 13. The public was not informed of his ar-
rest, yet in Busse's letter from Buffalo of Decem-
ber 7, he mentioned Goltz's capture in London.
News traveled fast in German channels.

Examination of his papers resulted in a pro-
tracted imprisonment, which daily grew more
painful, and finally Goltz agreed to turn state's
evidence against his former confreres. It was
not until March 31, 19 16, that Captain Tauscher
was interrupted at his office by the arrival of
agents of the Department of Justice, who placed
him under arrest. He was held in $25,000 bail
on a charge of having furthered a plot to blow up
the Welland Canal.

Meanwhile Goltz's confession had implicated
him in something more than a casual acquaint-
ance with the plot; stubs in the check-book of
Captain von Papen established payment made by
the latter to Tauscher of $31.13, which happened
to be the exact total of two bills from the du Pont
Company to Captain Tauscher for dynamite and
hemp fuses delivered on September 5 and 13 to
"Bridgeman Taylor." Prior to the trial in June
and July, 191 6, Tauscher offered to plead guilty
for a promise of the maximum fine without im-

Military Violence 69

prisonment, but his offer was rejected by the
United States attorneys. A letter was intro-
duced as testimony to his good character from
General Crozier, the then head of the Ordnance
Department at Washington. Goltz made an un-
impressive witness, and Captain Tauscher, pro-
testing his innocence as a mere intermediary in
the affair, was acquitted of the charge.

Of the smaller fry Fritzen was arrested in Los
Angeles in March, 1917. He stated then to of-
ficers that he had made trips to Cuba after the
outbreak of war in 19 14, had traveled over
southern United States in two attempts to reach
Mexico City, and had finally found employment
on a ranch. He was sentenced to 18 months in
prison. Tucker and Busse were witnesses at the
Tauscher trial and were treated leniently. Co-
vani turned from his previous occupation as
hunter to that of quarry, and was not appre-
hended.

Information gathered by the Federal authori-
ties and produced in court proved that Captain
von Papen and reservist German army officers in
the country planned a second mobilization of Ger-
man reservists to attack Canadian points. That
the project was seriously considered for a time is
evidenced by a note in the diary found on the
commander of the Geier, in Honolulu, in which

70 The German Secret Service in America

he said that the German consul in Honokilu,
George Rodiek, had had orders from the San
Francisco consulate to circulate a report to that
effect. Hundreds of thousands of rifles and hun-
dreds of rounds of ammunition that were to be
available for German reservists were stored in
New York, Chicago and other cities on the bor-
der. Many a German-American brewery con-
cealed in the shadows of its storehouses crates of
arms and ammunition. Tauscher stored in 200
West Houston Street, New York, on June 21,
1915, 2,000 45-calibre Colt revolvers, 10 Colt
automatic guns, 7,000 Springfield rifles, 3,000,000
revolver cartridges and 2,500,000 rifle cartridges.
When the New York police questioned him about
this arsenal, he said he had purchased them in
job lots, for speculation. As a matter of fact
they had been intended for use in India, but had
been diverted on the Pacific coast and returned
to New York.

A bolder version of the plot of invasion came
from Max Lynar Louden, known to the Federal
authorities as ''Count Louden." He was a man
of nondescript reputation, who had secret com-
munications with the Germans in the early part
of the war. He confessed that he was party to
a scheme for the quick mobilization and equip-
ment of a full army of German reservists. Lou-

Military Violence 71

den was consistently annoying to the Secret Serv-
ice in that he refused openly to violate the neu-
trality laws, but the moment the authorities
learned of the fact that he was supposed to have
two or three wives they made an investigation
which resulted in his imprisonment. His story,
if not altogether reliable, is interesting.

Through German-American interests, the
plans were made in 1914, he said, and a fund of
$16,000,000 was subscribed to carry out the de-
tails. Secret meetings were held in New York,
Buffalo, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, and
other large cities, and at these meetings it was
agreed that a force of 150,000 reservists was
available to seize and hold the Welland Canal,
strategic points and munitions centers.

"We had it arranged," said Louden, "to send
our men from large cities following announce-
ments of feasts and conventions, and I think we
could have obtained enough to carry out our
plans had it not been for my arrest on the charge
of bigamy. The troops were to have been divided
into four divisions, with six sections. The first
two divisions were to have assembled at Silver-
creek, Mich. The first was to have seized the
Welland Canal. The second was to have taken
Wind Mill Point, Ontario. The third was to s;o
from Wilson, N. Y., to Port Hope. The fourth

72 Tlie German Secret Service in America

was to proceed from Watertown, N, Y., to Kings-
ton, Ontario. The fifth was to assemble near
Detroit and land near Windsor. The sixth sec-
tion was to leave Cornwall and take possession of
Ottawa.

''It had been planned to buy or charter eighty-
four excursion and small boats to use in getting
into Canada. All of the equipment was to have
been put aboard the boats, and when quarters for
120,000 men had been found it would have been
easy to continue the expedition. The German
government was cognizant of the plan and maps,
etc., were to have been furnished by the German
government. A representative of the British
Ambassador offered $20,000 for our plans."

But none of the first German-American expe-
ditionary forces left for their destinations.
Their project was innocently foiled by Amelia
Wendt, Rose O'Brien and Nella Florence Allen-
dorf. These ladies were Louden's wives.

CHAPTER VI

PAUL KOENIG

Justice and Metzler — Koenig's personality — von Pa-
pen's checks — The "httle black book" — Telephone codes
— Shadowing — Koenig's agents — His betrayal.

In a narrative which attempts so far as possi-
ble to proceed chronologically, it becomes neces-
sary at this point to introduce Paul Koenig. For,
on September 15, 1914, he sent an Irishman, ,
named Edmund Justice, who had been a dock
watchman, and one Frederick Metzler to Quebec
for information of the number of Canadian
troops in training. On September 18 Koenig left
New York and met Metzler in Portland, Maine.
He received his report, and on September 25 was
in Burlington, Vt., where he conferred with Jus-
tice, and learned that the two spies had inspected
the fortifications in Quebec, and had visited the
training camps long enough to estimate the num-
ber and condition of the men. (Their informa-
tion Koenig reported at once to von Papen, and
it is possible that it dictated Papen's recall of
Goltz from Buffalo the next day.)

74 The German Secret Service in America

Who was Paul Koenig? His underlings knew
him as 'T. K.," and called him the ''bull-headed
Westphalian" behind his back. He had a dozen
aliases, among them Wegenkamp, Wagener,
Kelly, Winter, Perkins, Stemler, Rectorberg,
Boehm, Kennedy, James, Smith, Murphy, and
W. T. Munday.

He was a product of the ''Kaiser's Own" — the
Hamburg-American Line. He had been a detec-
tive in the service of the Atlas Line, a subsidiary
of the Hamburg- American, and for some years
before the war was superintendent of the latter
company's police. In that capacity he bossed a
dozen men, watching the company's laborers and
investigating any complaints made to the line.
His work threw him into constant contact with
sailors, tug-skippers, wharf-rats, longshoremen,
and dive-keepers of the lowest type, and there
was little of the criminal life of the waterfront
that he had not seen.

He had arms like an ape, and the bodily
strength of one. His expression suggested craft,
ferocity, and brutality. Altogether his powerful
frame and lurid vocabulary made him a figure
to avoid or respect. W^aterf ront society did both
— and hated him as well.

Von Papen saw in Koenig's little police force
the nucleus of just such an organization as he

Paul Koenig, the Hamburg- American emlpoye, who supplied
and directed agents of German violence in America

Paul Koenig 75

needed. The Line put Koenig at the attache's
disposal in August, 1914, and straightway von
Papen connected certain channels of information
with Koenig's own system. He supplied reserv-
ists for special investigations and crimes, and
presently Koenig became in effect the foreman
of a large part of Germany's secret service in the
East. As his activities broadened, he was called
upon to execute commissions for Bernstorff, Al-
bert, Dr. Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian ambas-
sador, and Dr. Alexander von Nuber, the Aus-
trian consul in New York, as well as for the at-
taches themselves. He acted as their guard on
occasion, served as their confidential messenger,
and made himself generally useful in investiga-
tion work.

The guilt-stained check-book of the military
attache contained these entries:

March 29, 191 5. Paul Koenig (Secret Service Bill)

$509.11

April 18, Paul Koenig (Secret Service Bill) $90.94

May II, Paul Koenig (Secret Service) $66.71

July 16, Paul Koenig (Compensation for F. J. Busse)

$150.00

August 4, Paul Koenig (5 bills secret service) $118.92

Those entries represent only the payments made
Koenig by check for special work done for von
Papen. Koenig received his wages from the

76 The German Secret Service in America

Line. When he performed work for any one
else he rendered a special bill. This necessitated
his itemizing his expenditures, and this Germanly
thorough and thoroughly German system of petty
accounting enabled our secret service later to
trace his activities w^ith considerable success.
Koenig and von Papen used to haggle over his
bills — on one occasion the attache felt he was
being overcharged, and accordingly deducted a
half-dollar from the total.

"P. K." also had an incriminating book — a
carefully prepared notebook of his spies and of
persons in New York, Boston and other cities
who were useful in furnishing him information.
In another book he kept a complete record of the
purpose and cost of assignments on which he sent
his men. He listed in its pages the names of
several hundred persons — army reservists, Ger-
man-Americans and Americans, clerks, scientists
and city and Federal employees — showing that
his district was large and that his range for get-
ting information and for supervising other pro-
German propaganda was broad. For his own
direct staff he worked out a system of numbers
and initials to be used in communication. The
numbers he changed at regular intervals and a
system of progression was devised by which each
agent would know when his number changed.

Paul Koenig 77

He provided them with suitable aliases. These
men had alternative codes for writing letters and
for telephone communication to be changed au-
tomatically by certain fixed dates.

Always alert for spies upon himself, Koenig
suspected that his telephone wire was tapped
and that his orders were being overheard. So
he instructed his men in various code words. If
he told an agent to meet him "at 5 o'clock at South
Ferry" he meant: "Meet me at 7 o'clock at
Forty-second Street and Broadway." His sus-
picions were well-grounded, for his wire was
tapped, and Koenig led the men who were spying
on him an unhappy dance.

For example: he would receive a call on the
telephone and would direct his agent, at the other
end of the wire, to meet him in fifteen minutes,at
Pabst's, Harlem. It is practically impossible to
make the journey from Koenig's office in the
Hamburg- American Building to 125th Street in
a quarter of an hour. After a time his watch-
ers learned that "Pabst's, Harlem" meant Bor-
ough Hall, Brooklyn.

He never went out in the daytime without one
or two of his agents trailing him to see whether
he was being shadowed. He used to turn a cor-
ner suddenly and stand still so that an American
detective following came unexpectedly face to

78 The German Secret Service in America

face with him and betrayed his identity. Koe-
nig would laugh heartily and pass on. Thus he
came to know many agents of the Department
of Justice and many New York detectives.
When he started out at night he usually had
three of his own men follow him and by a pre-
arranged system of signals inform him if any
strangers were following him.

The task of keeping watch of Koenig's move-
ments required astute guessing and tireless work
on the part of the New York police. So elusive
did he become that it was necessary for Captain
Tunney to evolve a new system of shadowing him
in order to keep him in sight without betraying
that he was under surveillance. One detective,
accordingly, would be stationed several blocks
away and would start out ahead of Koenig.
The "front shadow" was signaled by his confed-
erates in the rear whenever Koenig turned a cor-
ner, so that the man in front might dart down
a cross-street and manoeuvre to keep ahead of
him. If Koenig boarded a street car the man
ahead would hail the car several blocks beyond,
thus avoiding suspicion. In more than one in-
stance detectives in the rear, guessing that he
was about to take a car, would board it several
blocks before it got abreast of Koenig. His

Paul Koenig 79

alertness kept Detectives Barnitz, Coy, Terra,
and Corell on edge for months.

It was impossible to overhear direct conversa-
tion between Koenig and any man to whom he
was mvinof instructions. Some of his workers
he never permitted to meet him at all, but when
he kept a rendezvous it was in the open, in the
parks in broad daylight, or in a moving-picture
theatre, or in the Pennsylvania Station, or the
Grand Central Terminal. There he could make
sure that nobody was eavesdropping. If he met
an agent in the open for the first time he gave him
some such command at this:

''Be at Third Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street
at 2:30 to-morrow afternoon beside a public tele-
phone booth there. When the telephone rings
answer it."

The man would obey. On the minute the tele-
phone would ring and the man would lift the
receiver. A strange voice told him to do cer-
tain things — either a definite assignment, or in-
structions to be at a similar place on the follow-
ing day to receive a message. Or he might be
told to meet another man, who would give him
money and further orders. The voice at the
other end of the wire spoke from a public tele-
phone booth and was thus reasonably sure that
the wire was not tapped.

80 The German Secret Service in America

And Koenig trusted no man. He never sent
an agent out on a job without detailing another
man to shadow that man and report back to him
in full the operations of the agent and of any
persons whom he might deal with. He was bru-
tally severe in his insistence that his men do ex-
actly what he told them without using their own
initiative.

Koenig had spies on every big steamship pier.
He had eavesdroppers in hotels, and on busy
telephone switchboards. He employed porters,
window-cleaners, bank clerks, corporation em-
ployees and even a member of the Police Depart-
ment.

This last, listed in his book as ''Special Agent
A. S.," was Otto F. Mottola, a detective in the
warrant squad. The notebook revealed Mottola
as "Antonio Marino," an alias later changed to
Antonio Salvatore. Evidence was produced at
Mottola's trial at Police Pleadquarters that Koe-
nig paid him for investigating a passenger who
sailed on the Bcrgensfjord; that he often called
up Mottola, asked questions, and received an-
swers which Koenig's stenographer took down
in shorthand. Through him Koenig sought to
keep closely informed of developments at Police
Headquarters in the inquiry being made by the
police into the activities of the Germans. Mot-

Paul Koenig 81

tola was dismissed from the force because of
false statements made to his superiors when they
questioned him about Koenig.

Koenig's very caution was the cause of his
undoing. The detectives who shadowed him
learned that he "never employed the same man
more than once," which meant simply that he
was careful to place no subordinate in a position
where blackmail and exposure might be too easy.
To this fact they added another trifling observa-
tion; they noticed that as time went on he was
seen less in the company of one George Fuchs,
a relative with whom he had been intimate early
in the war. They cultivated the young man's
acquaintance to the extent that he finally burst
out with a recitation of his grievances against
Koenig, and betrayed him to the authorities.

"P. K." was defiant always. 'They did get
Dr. Albert's portfolio," he said one day, "but
they won't get mine. I won't carry one."

CHAPTER VII

FALSE PASSPORTS

Hans von Wedell's bureau — The traffic in false pass-
ports— Carl Ruroede — Methods of forgery — Adams' coup
— von Wedell's letter to von Bernstorff — Stegler — Lody
— Berlin counterfeits American passports — Von Bree-
chow.

Throughout August, 1914, it was compara-
tively easy for Germans in America who wished
to respond to the call of the Fatherland to leave
American shores. A number of circumstances
tended swiftly to make it more hazardous. The
British were in no mind to permit an influx of
reservists to Germany while they could block-
ade Germany. The cordon tightened, and soon
every merchant ship was stopped at sea by a
British patrol and searched for German suspects.
German spies here took refuge in the protection
afforded by an American passport. False pass-
ports were issued by the State Department in
considerable quantities during the early weeks
of war — issued unwittingly, of course, for the

False Passports 83

applicant in most cases underwent no more than
the customary peace-time examination.

We have already seen that von der Goltz easily
secured a passport. The details of his applica-
tion were these: Karl A. Luederitz, the Ger-
man consul at Baltimore, detailed one of his men
to supply Goltz with a lawyer and an application
blank (then known as Form 375). The lawyer
was Frederick F. Schneider, of 2 East German
Street, Baltimore. On that application Goltz
swore that his name was Bridgeman H. Taylor,
his birthplace San Francisco, his citizenship
American, his residence New York City, and his
occupation that of export broker. Charles
Tucker served as witness to these fantastic sen-
timents. Two days later (August 31) the State
Department issued passport number 40308 in
the name of Taylor, and William Jennings Bryan
signed the precious document.

It was not necessary at that time to state the
countries which the applicant intended to visit.
Within a few weeks, however, that information
was required on the passport.

Each additional precaution taken by the Gov-
ernment placed a new obstacle in the way of un-
limited supply of passports. The Goltz method
was easy enough, but it soon became impossible
to employ it. The necessity for sending news

84 The German Secret Service in America

through to BerHn by courier was increasingly
urgent and it devolved upon Captain von Papen
to systematize the supply of passports. The
military attache in November selected Lieutenant
Hans von Wedell, who had already made a trip
as courier to Berlin for his friend, Count von
Bernstorff. Von Wedell was married to a Ger-
man baroness. He had been a newspaper repor-
ter in New York, and later a lawyer. He
opened an office in Bridge Street, New York, and
began to send out emissaries to sailors on interned
German liners, and to their friends in Hoboken,
directing them to apply for passports. He sent
others to the haunts of tramps on the lower East
Side, to the Mills Hotel, and other gathering
places of the down-and-outs, offering ten, fifteen
or twenty dollars to men who would apply for
and deliver passports. And he bought them!
He spent much time at the Deutscher Verein, and
at the Elks' Club in 43rd Street where he often
met his agents to give instructions and receive
passports. His bills were paid by Captain von
Papen, as revealed by the attache's checks and
check stubs; on November 24, 19 14, a payment in
his favor of $500; on December 5, $500 more and
then $300, the latter being for "journey money."
Von Wedell's bills at the Deutscher Verein in
November, 1914, came to $38.05, according to

Cefrrlnht, Intrrnuttonul bilrn Heriu

Hans von Wedell and his wife. He was an important member
of the false-passport bureau and she a messenger
from von Papen to Germany

False Passports 85

another counterfoil. The Captain in the mean-
time employed Frau von Wedell as courier, send-
ing her with messages to Germany. On Decem-
ber 22, 1914, he paid the baroness, according to
his check-book, $800.

The passports secured by von Wedell, and by
his successor, Carl Ruroede, Sr,, a clerk in Oel-
richs & Co., whom he engaged, were supplied by
the dozens to officers whom the General Staff
had ordered back to Berlin. Not only American
passports, but Mexican, Swiss, Swedish, Nor-
wegian and all South American varieties were
seized eagerly by reservists bound for the front.
Germans and Austrians, who had been captured
in Russia, sent to Siberia as prisoners of war,
escaped and making their way by caravan through
China, had embarked on vessels bound for Amer-
ica. Arriving in New York they shipped for
neutral European countries. Among them was
an Austrian officer, an expert aeroplane observer
whose feet were frozen and amputated in Siberia,
but who escaped to this country. He was or-
dered home because of his extreme value in ob-
servation, and after his flight three-fourths of
the way round the world, the British took him
off a ship at Falmouth to spend the remainder of
the war in a prison camp.

Captain von Papen used the bureau frequently

86 The German Secret Service in America

for passports for spies whom he wished to send
to England, France, Italy or Russia. Anton
Kucpferle and von Breechow were two such
agents. Both were captured in England with
false passports in their possession. Both con-
fessed, and the former killed himself in Brixton
Jail.

Von Wedell and Ruroede grew reckless and
boastful. Two hangers-on at the Mills Hotel
called upon one of the writers of this volume one
day and told him of von Wedell's practices, re-
lated how they had blackmailed him out of $50,
gave his private telephone numbers and set forth
his haunts. When this and other information
reached the Department of Justice, Albert G.
Adams, a clever agent, insinuated himself into
Ruroede's confidence, and offered to secure pass-
ports for him for $50 each. Posing as a pro-
German, he pried into the inner ring of the pass-
port-buyers, and was informed by Ruroede just
how the stock of passports needed replenishing.

Though in the early days of the war it had not
been necessary for the applicant to give more
than a general description of himself, the cry of
"German spies!" in the Allied countries became
so insistent that the Government added the re-
quirement of a photograph of the bearer. The
Germans, however, found it a simple matter to

False Passports 87

give a general description of a man's eyes, color
of hair, and age to fit the person who was actually
to use the document; then forwarded the pic-
ture of the applicant to be affixed. The appli-
cant receiving the passport, would sell it at once.
Even though the official seal was stamped on the
photograph the Germans were not dismayed.

Adams rushed into Ruroede's office one day
waving a sheaf of five passports issued to him by
the Government. Adams was ostensibly proud
of his work, Ruroede openly delighted.

**I knew I could get these passports easily," he
boasted to Adams. ''Why, if Lieutenant von
Wedell had kept on here he never could have done
this. He always was getting into a muddle."

''But how can you use these passports with
these pictures on them?" asked the agent.

"Oh, that's easy," answered Ruroede. "Come
in the back room. I'll show you." And Ru-
roede, before the observant eyes of the Depart-
ment of Justice, patted one of the passports with
a damp cloth, then with adhesive paste fastened
a photograph of another man over the original
bearing the imprint of the United States seal.

"We wet the photograph," said Ruroede, "and
then we affix the picture of the man who is to
use it. The new photograph also is dampened,
but when it is fastened to the passport there still

88 The German Secret Service in America

remains a sort of vacuum in spots between the
new picture and the old because of ridges made
by the seal. So we turn the passport upside
down, place it on a soft ground — say a silk hand-
kerchief— and then we take a paper-cutter with
a dull point, and just trace the letters on the seal.
The result is that the new photograph dries ex-
actly as if it had been stamped by Uncle Sam.
You can't tell the difference."

Adams never knew until long afterward that
when he met Ruroede by appointment in Bowling
Green, another German atop 1 1 Broadway was
scrutinizing him through field-glasses, and ex-
amining every one who paused nearby, who might
arouse suspicion of Adams' ingenuous part in
the transaction.

Through Adams' efforts Ruroede and four
Germans, one of them an officer in the German
reserves, were arrested on January 2, on the
Scandinavian-American liner Bergensfjord out-
ward bound to Bergen, Norway. They had pass-
ports issued through Adams at Ruroede's request
under the American names of Howard Paul
Wright, Herbert S. Wilson, Peter Hanson and
Stanley F. Martin. Their real names were Ar-
thur Sachse, who worked in Pelham Heights, N.
Y., and who was returning to become a lieutenant
in the German Army; Walter Miller, August R.

False Passports 89

Meyer and Herman Wegener, who had come to
New York from Chile, on their way to the Father-
land.

On the day when Ruroede, his assistant, and the
four men for whom he obtained passports were
arrested, Joseph A. Baker, assistant superintend-
ent of the Federal agents in New York, took pos-
session of the office at 1 1 Bridge Street. As he
was sorting papers and making a general inves-
tigation, a German walked in bearing a card of
introduction from von Papen, introducing him-
self as Wolfram von Knorr, a German officer
who up to the outbreak of the war had been naval
attache in Tokio. The officer desired a passport.
Baker, after a conversation in wdiich von Knorr
revealed von Papen's connection with the pass-
port bureau, told him to return the next day.
When the German read the next morning's news-
papers he changed his lodging-place and his name.

Von Wedell himself was a passenger on the
Bergensfjord, but when he was lined up with the
other passengers, the Federal agents, who did not
have a description of him, missed him and left
the vessel. He was later (January ii) taken
off the ship by the British, however, and trans-
ferred to another vessel for removal to a prison
camp. She struck a German mine and sank, and
von Wedell is supposed to have drowned.

90 The German Secret Service in America

A few days before he sailed, he wrote a letter
to von Bernstorff which fixes beyond question
the responsibility for his false passport activities.
The letter, dated from Nyack, where he was hid-
ing, on December 26, 1914, follows:

"His Excellency The Imperial German Ambassador,
Count von Bernstorff, Washington, D. C. Your Excel-
lency : Allow me most ohediently to put before you the
following facts : It seems that an attempt has been made
to produce the impression upon you that I prematurely
abandoned my post, in New York. That is not true.

"I — My work was done. At my departure I left the
service, well organized and worked out to its minutest
details, in the hands of my successor, Mr. Carl Ruroede,
picked out by myself, and, despite many warnings, still
tarried for several days in New York in order to give
him the necessary final directions and in order to hold in
check the blackmailers thrown on my hands by the Ger-
man officers until after the passage of my travelers
through Gibraltar ; in which I succeeded. Mr. Ruroede
will testify to you that without my suitable preliminary
labors, in which I left no conceivable means untried and
in which I took not the slightest consideration of my
personal weal or woe, it would be impossible for him, as
well as for Mr. von Papen, to forward officers and 'as-
pirants' in any number whatever, to Europe. This merit
I lay claim to and the occurrences of the last days have
unfortunately compelled me, out of sheer self-respect, to
emphasize this to your Excellency.

"11 — The motives which induced me to leave New

False Passports 91

York and which, to my astonishment, were not communi-
cated to you, are the following:

"i. I knew that the State Department had, for three
weeks, withheld a passport application forged by me.
Why?

"2. Ten days before my departure I learnt from a
telegram sent me by Mr. von Papen, which stirred me up
very much, and further through the omission of a cable,
that Dr. Stark had fallen into the hands of the English.
That gentleman's forged papers were liable to come back
any day and could, owing chiefly to his lack of caution,
easily be traced back to me.

"3. Officers and aspirants of the class which I had to
forward over, namely the people, saddled me with a lot
of criminals and blackmailers, whose eventual revelations
were liable to bring about any day the explosion of the
bomb.

"4. Mr. von Papen had repeatedly urgently ordered
me to hide myself.

" 5. Mr. Igel had told me I was taking the matter alto-
gether too lightly and ought to — for God's sake — dis-
appear.

"6. My counsel . . . had advised me to hastily quit
New York, inasmuch as a local detective agency was or-
dered to go after the passport forgeries.

"7. It had become clear to me that eventual arrest
might yet injure the worthy undertaking and that my
disappearance would probably put a stop to all investi-
gation in this direction.

"How urgent it was for me to go away is shown by
the fact that, two days after my departure, detectives,
who had followed up my telephone calls, hunted up my

92 The German Secret Service in America

wife's harmless and unsuspecting cousin in Brooklyn, and
subjected her to an interrogatory.

"Mr. von Papen and Mr. Albert have told my wife
that I forced myself forward to do this work. That is
not true. When I, in Berlin, for the first time heard of
this commission, I objected to going and represented to
the gentleman that my entire livelihood which I had
created for myself in America by six years of labor was
at stake therein. I have no other means, and although
Mr. Albert told my wife my practice was not worth
talking about, it sufficed, nevertheless, to decently sup-
port myself and wife and to build my future on. I have
finally, at the suasion of Count Wedell, undertaken it,
ready to sacrifice my future and that of my wife. I have,
in order to reach my goal, despite infinite difficulties, de-
stroyed everything that I built up here for myself and
my wife. I have perhaps sometimes been awkward, but
always full of good will, and I now travel back to Ger-
many with the consciousness of having done my duty as
well as I understood it, and of having accomplished my
task.

"With expressions of the most exquisite consideration,
I am, your Excellency,

"Very respectfully,
"(Signed) Hans Adam von Wedell."

Ruroede was sentenced to three years in At-
lanta prison. The four reservists, pleading
guilty, protested they had taken the passports out
of patriotism and v^^ere fined $200 each.

The arrest of Ruroede exposed the Nev^ York
bureau, and made it necessary for the Germans

False Passports 93

to shift their base of operations, but it did not
put an end to the fraudulent passport conspira-
cies. Captain Boy-Ed assumed the burden, and
hired men to secure passports for him. One of
these men was Richard Peter Stegler, a Prussian,
33 years old, who had served in the German
Navy and afterward came to this country to
start on his life work. Before the war he had
applied for his first citizenship papers but his
name had not been removed from the German
naval reserve list.

''After the war started," Stegler said, "I re-
ceived orders to return home. I was told that
everything was in readiness for me. I was as-
signed to the naval station at Cuxhaven. My
uniform, my cap, my boots and my locker would
be all set aside for me, and I was told just where
to go and what to do. But I could not get back
at that time and I kept on with my work."

He became instead a member of the German
secret service in New York. "There is not a
ship that leaves the harbor, not a cargo that is
loaded or unloaded, but that some member of this
secret organization watches and reports every
detail," he said. "All this information is trans-
mitted in code to the German Government." In
January, 191 5, if not earlier, Stegler was sent
by the German Consulate to Boy-Ed's office,

94 The German Secret Service in America

where he received instructions to get a passport
and make arrangements to go to England as a
spy. Boy-Ed paid him $178, which the attache
admitted. Stegler immediately got in touch with
Gustave Cook and Richard Madden, of Hoboken,
and made use of Madden's birth certificate and
citizenship in obtaining a passport from the
American Government. Stegler paid $100 for
the document. Stegler pleaded guilty to the
charge and served 60 days in jail; Madden and
Cook were convicted of conspiracy in connection
with the project, and were sentenced to 10
months' imprisonment.

"I was told to make the voyage to England on
the Lusitania/' continued Stegler. ''My instruc-
tions were as follows : 'Stop at Liverpool, exam-
ine the Mersey River, obtain the names, exact
locations and all possible information concerning
warships around Liverpool, ascertain the amount
of munitions of war being unloaded on the Liver-
pool docks from the United States, ascertain their
ultimate destination, and obtain a detailed list of
all the ships in the harbor.'

"I was to make constant, though guarded in-
quiries, of the location of the dreadnought squad-
ron which the Germans in New York understand
was anchored somewhere near St. George's
Channel. I was to appear as an American citi-

False Passports 95

zen soliciting trade. Captain Boy-Ed advised
me to get letters of introduction to business firms.
He made arrangements so that I received such
letters and in one letter were enclosed some rare
stamps which were to be a proof to certain per-
sons in England that I was working for the Ger-
mans.

"After having studied at Liverpool I was to
go to London and make an investigation of the
Thames and its shipping. From there I was to
proceed to Holland and work my way to the
German border. While my passport did not in-
clude Germany, I was to give the captain of the
nearest regiment a secret number which would
indicate to him that I was a reservist on spy duty.
By that means I was to hurry to Eisendal, head
of the secret service in Berlin."

Stegler did not make the trip because his wife
learned of the enterprise and begged him not to
go. He too had run afoul of the vigilant Adams,
and was placed under arrest in February, 191 5,
shortly after he decided to stay at home. In his
possession were all the letters and telegrams ex-
changed between him and Boy-Ed, and one tele-
gram from "Winkler," Captain Boy-Ed's serv-
ant.

Stegler also said that he had been told by Dr.
Karl A. Fuehr, one of Dr. Albert's assistants,

96 The German Secret Service in America

that Boy-Ed previously had sent to England
Karl Hans Lody, the German who in November,
191 5, was put to death as a spy in the Tower of
London. Lody had been in the navy, had served
on the Kaiser's yacht and then had come to this
country and worked as an agent for the Ham-
burg-American Line, going from one city to an-
other. Shortly after the war started Lody had
gone on the mission of espionage which cost him
his life.

Captain Boy-Ed authorized the commander of
the German cruiser Geier, interned in Honolulu,
to get his men back to Germany as best he could,
by providing them with false passports. Still
another of Boy-Ed's proteges was a naval re-
servist, August Meier, who shipped as a hand on
the freighter Evelyn with a cargo of horses for
Bermuda. On the voyage practically all of the
horses were poisoned. Meier, however, was ar-
rested by the Federal authorities on the charge of
using the name of a dead man in order to get an
American passport. In supplying passports and
in handling spies. Captain Boy-Ed was more sub-
tle than his colleague, von Papen. Nevertheless
the Government officials succeeded in getting a
clear outline of his activities. The exposure of
Boy-Ed's connection with Stegler made it neces-

False Passports 97

sary for the German Government to change its
system once more.

The Wilhelmstrasse had a bureau of its own.
Reservists from America reported in Berhn for
duty in Belgium and France, and their passports
ceased to be useful, to them. The intelligence
department commandeered the documents for
agents whom they wished to send back to Amer-
ica. Tiny flakes of paper were torn from the
body of the passport and from the seal, in order
that counterfeiters might match them up. On
January 14, 191 5, an American named Reginald
Rowland obtained a passport from the State De-
partment for safe-conduct on a business trip to
Germany. While it was being examined at the
frontier every detail of the document was closely
noted by the Germans. Some months later Cap-
tain Schnitzer, chief of the German secret service
in Antwerp, had occasion to send a spy to Eng-
land. He chose von Breechow, a German whom
von Papen had forwarded from New York, and
who had his first naturalization papers from the
United States. To Breechow he gave a facsimile
of Rowland's passport identical with the original
in every superficial respect except that the spy's
photograph had been substituted for the original,
and the age of the bearer set down as 31 — ten
years older than Rowland.

98 The German Secret Service in America

Von Breechow passed the English officials at
Rotterdam and at Tilbury. He soon fell under
suspicion, however, and his passport was taken
away. When the British learned that the real
Rowland was at home in New Jersey, and in pos-
session of his own passport, they sent for it, and
compared the two. B reecho w's revealed a false
watermark, stamped on in clear grease, which
made the paper translucent, but which was soluble
in benzine. The stamp, ordinarily used to coun-
tersign both the photograph and the paper in a
certain way, had been applied in a different posi-
tion. With those exceptions, and the suspicious
Teutonic twist to a "d" in the word "dark," the
counterfeit was regular.

The Rosenthal case was the first to bring to
light the false passport activities in Berlin. Ro-
senthal, posing as an agent for gas mantles, trav-
eled in England successfully as a spy under an
emergency passport issued by the American Em-
bassy in Berlin. Captain Prieger, the chief of a
section in the intelligence department of the Gen-
eral Staff, asked Rosenthal to make a second trip.
The spy demurred, doubting whether his pass-
port might be accepted a second time. The Cap-
tain turned to a safe, extracted a handful of false
American passports, and said: *T can fit you
out with a passport in any name you wish." Ro-

False Passports 99

senthal decided to employ his own. He was ar-
rested and imprisoned in England.

As the State Department increased its vigil-
ance the evil began to expire. It was further
stifled by concerted multiplication by the Allies
of the examinations which the stranger had to
undergo. But during its course it made per-
sonal communication between Berlin and lower
Broadway almost casual.

CHAPTER VIII

INCENDIARISM

Increased munitions production — The opening explo-
sions— Orders from Berlin — Von Papen and Seattle —
July, 191 5 — The Van Koolbergen affair — The autumn of
191 5 — The Pinole explosion.

A bomb is an easy object to manufacture.
Take a section of lead pipe from six to ten inches
long, and solder into it a partition of thin metal,
which divides the tube into two compartments.
Place a high explosive in one compartment and
seal it carefully (the entire operation requires a
gentle touch) and in the other end pour a strong
acid ; cap it, and seal it. If you have chosen the
proper metal for the partition, and acid of a
strength to eat slowly through it to the explosive,
you have produced a bomb of a type which Ger-
man destroying agents were fond of using in
America from the earliest days of their opera-
tion.

W^hen the first panic of war had passed, the

Allied nations took account of stock and sent

their purchasing agents to America for war ma-

100

Incendiarism lOt

terials. Manufacturers 6f explosives set to work
at once to fill contracts of unheard-of size. They
built new factories almost overnight, hired men
broadcast, and sacrificed every other considera-
tion to that of swift and voluminous output.
Accidents were inevitable. Probably we shall
never know what catastrophes w^ere actually
wrought by German sympathizers, for the very
nature of the processes and the complete ruin
which followed an explosion guarded the secret
of guilt. No doubt carelessness was largely to
blame for the earlier explosions, but instead of
diminishing as the new hands became more skill-
ful, and as greater vigilance was employed every-
where, the number of disasters increased. The
word ''disaster" is used advisedly. Powder, gun-
cotton, trinitrotoluol (or TNT, as it is better
known), benzol (one of the chief substances
used in the manufacture of TNT) and dynamite
were being produced in great volume for the
Allies in American plants within a comparatively
short time — all powerful explosives even in mi-
nute quantity.

At sea the German navy was losing control
daily. It therefore behooved the German forces
in America to stop the production of munitions
at its source. It may be well, for the force which
such presentation carries, to recount very briefly

102 The German Secret Service in America

the major accidents which occurred in America
in the first few months after August, 1914.

On August 30 one powder mill of the du Pont
Powder company (strictly speaking the E. I. du
Pont de Nemours Company) at Pompton Lakes,
New Jersey, blew up. In September a guncotton
explosion in the Wright Chemical Works caused
the death of three people, and a large property
damage. In October the factory of the Pain Fire-
works Display Company was destroyed, and sev-
eral people were killed. In the same month the
fireworks factory of Detwiller and Street in Jer-
sey City suffered an explosion and the loss of
four lives. These explosions were the opening
guns.

Throughout August and September most of
these accidents may be attributed to the inexpe-
rience and confusion which followed greatly in-
creased production in the powder mills. But a
circular dated November 18, issued by German
Naval Headquarters to all naval agents through-
out the world, ordered mobilized all ''agents who
are overseas and all destroying agents in ports
where vessels carrying war material are loaded
in England, France, Canada, the United States
and Russia."

Followed these orders :

'Tt is indispensable by the intermediary of the

Incendiarism 103

third person having no relation with the official
representatives of Germany to recruit progres-
sively agents to organize explosions on ships
sailing to enemy countries in order to cause de-
lays and confusion in the loading, the departure
and the unloading of these ships. With this end
in view we particularly recommend to your at-
tention the deckhands, among whom are to be
found a great many anarchists and escaped crim-
inals. The necessary sums for buying and hir-
ing persons charged with executing the projects
will be put at your disposal on your demand."

Equally incriminating proof that the ''destroy-
ing agents" were active in and about the fac-
tories lies in a circular intercepted by the French
secret service in Stockholm, in a letter addressed
by one Dr. Klasse in Germany to the Pan-German
League in Sweden, in which he said :

"Inclosed is the circular of November 22, 1914,
for information and execution upon United
States territory. We draw your attention to the
possibility of recruiting destroying agents among
the anarchist labor organization." This circular
was signed by Dr. Fischer, Councillor General of
the German Army.

In the first six months of 191 5 the du Pont
factories at Haskell, N. J., Carney's Point, N. J.,
Wayne, Pa., and Wilmington, Del., experienced

104 The German Secret Service in America

explosions and fires; a chemical explosion oc-
curred in a factory in East 19th Street, New
York ; the Anderson Chemical Company, at Wal-
lington, N. J., was rocked on May 3 by an explo-
sion of guncotton which cost three lives; five
more lives were flashed out in a similar accident
in the Equitable powder plant at Alton, 111. On
New Year's Day, the Buckthorne plant of the
John A. Roebling Company, manufacturers of
shell materials, at Trenton, was completely de-
stroyed by fire, the property loss estimated at
$1,500,000. And on June 26, the ^tna Powder
plant at Pittsburgh suffered a chemical explosion
which killed one man and injured ten others.

Most of these "accidents" had taken place near
the Atlantic seaboard. Yet Germany was active
in the far West. On May 30 a barge laden with
a large cargo of dynamite lay in the harbor of
Seattle, Washington. The dynamite was con-
signed to Russia and was about to be transferred
to a steamer, when it exploded with a shock of
earthquake violence felt many miles inland, and
comparable to the explosion in the harbor of
Halifax in December, 191 7. Two counterfoils
in von Papen's check-book cast some light on the
activities of the consulate in Seattle, the first
dated February 11, 1915, the amount $1,300, the
payee ''German Consulate, Seattle," the penned

Incendiarism 105

notation "Angelegenheit" (affair) preceded by a
mysterious "C"; the second dated May ii, 1915,
for $500, payable to one "Schulenberg" ^ through
the same consulate.

The month of July was a holocaust. A tank
of phenol exploded in New York, the benzol plant
of the Semet Solvay Company vv^as destroyed at
Solvay, N. Y. ; on the 7th serious explosions oc-
curred at the du Pont plant at Pompton Lakes
and at the Philadelphia benzol plant of Harrison
Brothers (the latter causing $500,000 damage) ;
on the 1 6th five employees were killed in an ex-
plosion and fire at the ^tna plant at Sinnema-
honing, Pa., three days later there was another
at the du Pont plant in Wilmington ; on the 25th
a munitions train on the Pennsylvania line was
wrecked at Metuchen, N. J. ; on the 28th the du
Pont works at Wilmington suffered again; and

1 Franz Schulenberg was a deserter from the German army
who advertised in the Spokane newspapers in February, 1915,
for land on which to colonize a number of Spanish families.
These families turned out to be Hindus, whom he proposed
to employ in obtaining information of Canadian shipping, to be
relayed by secret wireless to German raiders in the Pacific.
Schulenberg was captured on December 5, 1917, in an auto-
mobile on the road from Santa Cruz to San Francisco, two
days after he had left a woman spy who was associated with
von Papen's ofBce, and who directed Schulenberg's movements
in the United States. He admitted having bought, in 1915, a ton
of dynamite, fifty Maxim silencers, fifty rifles, and a quantity
of fuse for shipment to Hindus near the Canadian border, be-
tween Victoria and Vancouver.

106 The German Secret Service in America

the month came to a fitting close with the de-
struction of a glaze mill in the American Powder
Company at Acton, Mass., on the 29th. (The
British army in Mesopotamia had just entered
Kut-el-Amara at this time, and far to the north-
ward Germany was prosecuting a successful cam-
paign to force a Russian retirement from Po-
land.)

Each incident raised havoc in its immediate
vicinity. Each represents a carefully worked-out
plan involving a group of destroying agents.
There is not space here to describe the plots
in detail, nor to picture the horror of their re-
sults. But the affidavit of Johannes Hendrikus
Van Koolbergen, dated San Francisco, August
27, 1915, may serve to show typical methods of
operation, as well as to provide a story more than
usually melodramatic.

Van Koolbergen was a Hollander by birth, and
a British subject by naturalization. In April,
191 5, he met in the Heidelberg Cafe, in San Fran-
cisco, a man named Wilhelm von Brincken, who
lived at 303 Piccadilly Apartments, and who
asked Van Koolbergen to call on him there. The
latter, however, was leaving for Canada, and it
was not until some five weeks later that he re-
turned and found that in his absence von Brincken

Incendiarism 107

had twice telephoned him to pursue the acquaint-
ance.

Van Koolbergen called. Von Brincken ex-
plained that he was a German army officer, on se-
cret service, and employed directly by Franz
Bopp, the German consul in San Francisco. His
visitor's identity and personality was apparently
well known to him, for he offered Van Kool-
bergen $i,ooo for the use of his passport into
Canada, "to visit a friend, to assist him in some
business matters." Van Koolbergen refused to
rent his passport, but volunteered to go himself
on any mission. This offer was discussed at a
later meeting at the consulate with Herr Bopp,
and accepted, after, as Koolbergen said, "I be-
came suspicious, and upon different questions be-
ing asked me ... I became very pro-German in
the expression of my sentiments."

He was shown into an adjoining office, and von
Brincken popped in, and "asked me if I would
do something for him in Canada . . . and I an-
swered: 'Sure, I will do something, even blow
up bridges, if there is any money in it.' (This
struck my mind because of what I had read of
what had been done in Canada of late — some-
thing about a bridge being blown up — ) And he
said : Tf that is so, you can make good money.' "

108 The Get^man Secret Service in America

Von Brincken made an appointment with his
newly engaged destroying agent for the follow-
ing day. On the window-sill of 303 Piccad'.lly
Apartments sat a flower pot with a tri-colored
band around its rim. If the red was turned out-
ward towards Van Koolbergen as he came along
the street, he was to come right upstairs. If
he saw the blue, he was to loiter discreetly about
until the red was turned ; if the white area showed,
he was to return another day.

The red invitation signaled him to come up,
and the two bargained for some time over Van
Koolbergen's Canadian mission, without coming
to an understanding. Once safely out of von
Brincken's sight, the "destroying agent" pattered
to the British Consulate and betrayed to Carnegie
Ross, the consul, what was afoot. Ross urged
him to advise Canada at once, so Van Koolbergen
retold his story in a letter to Wallace Orchard,
in the freight department of the Canadian Pacific
Railway at Vancouver, B. C.

Orchard telegraphed back demanding Van
Koolbergen's presence at once, and furnished
money and transportation. Meanwhile the latter
had pretended to accept vonBricken's commission
to go to Canada and blow^ up a military train,
bridge, or tunnel on the Canadian Pacific line be-
tween Revelstoke and Vancouver, for which he

Incendiarism 109

was to receive a fee of $3,000. The German ex-
hibited complete maps of the raih'oad, told when
a dynamite train might be expected to pass over
that section of the road, and outlined to Van
Koolbergen just where and when he could pro-
cure dynamite for the job. So on a Sunday
morning in early May Van Koolbergen arrived
in Vancouver, and lost no time in getting in touch
with Orchard and the British Secret Service,
with whom he framed the following plan :

Van Koolbergen was to send a letter to von
Brincken warning him that something would hap-
pen in a day or two. The Vancouver newspapers
would then carry a prepared story to the effect
that a tunnel had caved in in the Selkirk moun-
tains, whereupon Van Koolbergen was to collect
for his services, and to secure incriminating evi-
dence in writing from von Brincken if possible.

The plot worked well. The news story ap-
peared, and cast a mysterious air over the acci-
dent. Van Koolbergen at once wrote a postcard
to von Brincken:

"On the front page of Vancouver papers of (date)
news appears of a flood in Japan. Our system may be
in trouble, so wire here at the Elysium Hotel."

A few days later Van Koolbergen returned to
San Francisco and met von Brincken, who told

110 The German Secret Service in America

him that he had rephed to the postcard by tele-
gram :

"Would like to send some flowers to your wife but do
not know her address,"

which meant simply that he had wished to com-
municate with Van Koolbergen through the lat-
ter's wife. (These messages, by the way, were
despatched from Oakland by Charles C. Crow-
ley, who will appear again.) And von Brincken
paid Van Koolbergen $200 in bills, and asked him
to come to the consulate for the balance of his
fee.

Franz Bopp was skeptical. For some reason
he mistrusted Van Koolbergen. He produced a
map of British Columbia and asked him to de-
scribe what he had accomplished. Van Kool-
bergen, confused for a moment, suggested that
he would be unwise to go into detail before three
witnesses (Bopp, von Brincken, and von Schack,
the vice-consul). Bopp rose indignantly and
said that his secret was safe with three who had
been sworn to serve the Vaterland. So Van
Koolbergen invented and related the story of The
Dynamiting That Never Was, supporting it with
copies of the Vancouver newspapers. Bopp
wanted more proof; at Van Koolbergen's sug-
gestion, he wrote one Van Roggenen, the Dutch

Incendiarism 111

vice-consul at Vancouver, asking him to "inquire
of the General Superintendent of the Canadian
Pacific Railway Company why a car of freight
which I expected from the East had not arrived
yet, and to kindly wire me at my expense." Van
Roggenen happened to be a friend of Van Kool-
bergen's, and of course any inquiry made of the
railroad for Van Koolbergen's car of freight
would have been tactfully construed and prop-
erly answered. But to make assurance doubly
sure, Van Koolbergen wired Orchard in Van-
couver to send him the following telegram :

"Superintendent refuses information. Found out
however that freight has been delayed eleven days on
account of accident. Signed V. R."

Armed with this fictitious reply, which Orchard
soon sent him, Van Koolbergen called at the con-
sulate, and was paid $300 more in cash. In order
to get as much money as possible as soon as possi-
ble, the ''destroying agent" agreed to cut his price
from $3,000 to $1,750, and was promised tlie
money the next day. The next day came, but no
money. Van Koolbergen sent a sharp note to
the Consul, suggesting blackmail, and the Ger-
man Empire in San Francisco capitulated; von
Brincken met Van Koolbergen at the Palace Hotel
and paid him $1,750, (of which he extracted $250

112 The German Secret Service in America

as commission ! ) . He made Koolbergen sign a re-
ceipt for $700, as he said a payment of $1,750
would look bad on the books, was much too high
— even seven hundred was high, but could be
justified if any one higher up complained.
"And," concluded the thrifty Van Koolbergen in
his affidavit written August 27, "I have some of
the greenbacks given me by von Brincken now in
my possession."

The San Franciscan participants in the epi-
sode were finally brought to justice. Bopp,
Baron Eckhardt, von Schack, Lieutenant von
Brincken, Crowley, and Mrs. Margaret Cornell,
Crowley's secretar)^, were indicted, tried, and
convicted. The men received sentences of two
years and fines of $10,000 each ; Mrs. Cornell was
sentenced to a year and a day. The three mem-
bers of the consulate, thanks to their other ac-
tivities, involved themselves in a series of charges
for which the maximum punishment was some-
thing more than the average man's lifetime in
prison. Certain of their adventures will appear
in other phases of German activity to be dis-
cussed. They may be dismissed here, however,
with the statement that the California consulate
also planned the destruction of munitions plants
at y^Ltna, Indiana, and at Ishpeming, Michigan.

The State Department released on October 10,

Incendiarism 113

191 7, a telegram from the Foreign Office in Ber-
lin, addressed to Count von Bernstorff, which
established beyond question the chief's familiar-
ity with these operations, and more especially
the continued desire of the Foreign Office to in-
terrupt transcontinental shipping in Canada. It
is dated January 2, 19 16. Its text follows :

"Secret. General staff desires energetic action in re-
gard to proposed destruction of the Canadian Pacific
Railroad at several points, with a view to complete and
protracted interruption of traffic. Captain Boehm, who
is known on your side, and is shortly returning, has been
given instructions. Inform the military attache and pro-
vide the necessary funds.

"ZiMMERMANN."

The factory explosions continued. The Mid-
vale Steel Company suffered incendiary fires; a
Providence warehouse containing a consignment
of cotton for Russia was burned; there were fires
in the shell plant of the Brill Car Company, in the
Southwark Machinery Company, and in the shell
department of the Diamond Forge and Steel
Company. For August the ghastly recitation
proceeds somewhat as follows : Bethlehem Steel
Company, pov/der flash, ten killed; League Island
Navy Yard, Philadelphia, fire on battleship Ala-
bama; Newport News Navy Yard, three fires in
three weeks. In September an explosion in the

114 The German Secret Service in America

aeroplane factory of the Curtiss plant at Depew,
New York, a German suspected; explosions in
the shell factory of the National Cable and Con-
duit Company at Hastings, New York ; an explo-
sion of benzol and wax in the plant of Smith and
Lenhart, New York, in which two people were
seriously injured; an explosion in a fireworks fac-
tory at North Bergen, N. J., in which two people
were killed ; an explosion which cost two lives in
the shell factory of the Westinghouse Electric
Company at Pittsburgh. Scarcely a week went
by during the autumn without an explosion and
fire which wiped out from one to a dozen lives,
and from one hundred thousand to a million dol-
lars. Munitions plants were blown to atoms in a
moment, and hardly before the charred ground
had cooled, were being rebuilt, for the guns in
France were hungry.

Out of the mass of munitions accidents in the
year 191 5 stands sharp and clear the Bethlehem
Steel fire of November 10 — of which all Ger-
many had had warning, and on which the Ger-
man press was forbidden to comment — when 800
big guns were destroyed. The du Pont and
yEtna organizations suffered again and again ; a
chemical plant had two fires which cost three-
quarters of a million dollars; two explosions in
the Tennessee Coal and Iron Works at Birming-

Incendiarism 115

ham, Alabama, did considerable property dam-
age, and assisted Germany further by frighten-
ing la])or away from work. Suspects were ar-
rested here and there, and always their trails led
back to German or Austrian nationality or sym-
pathy.

Their chiefs were elusive. Captain von Papen
sauntered out of the Ritz-Carlton into Madison
Avenue, New York, one afternoon. He idled
down to Forty-second Street, and paused, as if un-
decided where to promenade. He turned east,
walked a block, and turned again down the ramp
into the Grand Central Station. Quickening his
pace — he had only a minute more — he crossed the
great waiting-room, presented a ticket at the
train gate, and a moment later was in the Twen-
tieth Century Limited, the last passenger aboard.
He was seen next day in Chicago. And for a
month thereafter he was completely lost to the
authorities, while, as they found out later, he
made a grand tour of the country, going first to
Yellowstone Park, then down the Pacific Coast
to Mexico, where he joined Boy-Ed, and finally
returning to New York through San Francisco.
He had ample opportunity to confer with his con-
sular deputies, and his destroying agents. In
August a train loaded with 7,000 pounds of dyna-
mite from the du Pont works at Pinole, Cali-

116 The German Secret Service in America

fornia, was destroyed; in the evidence against
von Papen is this letter concerning the price to
be paid for the Pinole job :

"Dear S. : Your last letter with clipping today, and
note what you have to say. I have taken it up with them
and 'B' " (who was Franz Bopp) "is awaiting decision
of 'P' " (who was von Papen) "in New York, so cannot
advise you yet, and will do so as soon as I get word
from you. You might size up the situation in the mean-
time."

Glancing back over the record o£ 191 5 — which
was hardly mitigated in the succeeding years of
war — one is inclined to marvel at the hardy
perennial pose of the deported attache, who said
as he left the United States :

"I leave my post without any feeling of bitterness,,
because I know that when history is once written, it will
establish our clean record despite all the misrepresenta-
tions and calumnies spread broadcast at present."

CHAPTER IX

MORE BOMB PLOTS

Kaltschmidt and the Windsor explosions — The Port
Huron tunnel — Werner Horn — Explosions embarrass the
Embassy — Black Tom — The second Welland affair —
Harry Newton — The damage done in three years —
Waiter spies.

In the check-l3ook of the military attache was
a counterfoil betraying a payment of $i,ooo made
on March 2y, 191 5, to "W. von Igel (for A.
Kaltschmidt, Detroit)." That stub was part of
a bomb plot.

A young German named Charles Francis Respa
was employed in 1908 by Albert Carl Kaltschmidt
in a Detroit machine shop. Seven years later
Kaltschmidt had occasion to hire Respa again.
To a group which included Respa, his brother-
in-law Carl Schmidt, Gus ;Stevens and Kalt-
schmidt's own brother-in-law, Fritz Neef, he out-
lined a plan for destroying factories in Canada.
Neef was the Detroit agent for the Eisemann
magneto, and had a machine shop of his own.

"We are not citizens of this country," Kalt-
117

118 The German Secret Service in America

Schmidt reiterated to his accomplices. "It is our
duty to stand by the Fatherland. The Americans
would throw us out of work after war started."
(The Americans, on the contrary, gave the ring-
leaders of the conspiracy plenty of hard labor
after the war started.) To seal the bargain
Kaltschmidt paid the men a retainer, and sent
Stevens and Respa to Winnipeg to see whether
it might not be feasible to blow up the railroad
bridge there.

Respa reported back. His next assignment
was to go to Port Huron and determine whether
enough dynamite might be attached to the rear
of a passenger train bound through the interna-
tional tunnel under the St. Clair River to de-
stroy the tube. Respa came to the conclusion
that it was not practicable, for the authorities
were taking precautions against just such an
operation. Respa and Stevens were then des-
patched to Duluth, where they met Schmidt and
a fourth member of the group, each carrying a
suitcase containing numerous sticks of dynamite,
and the quartette returned with its explosives to
Detroit.

Kaltschmidt then hired him for $i8 a week.
Respa had left Germany before his term of mili-
tary service came due; Kaltschmidt used this in-
formation as a club over his head, for he knew

More Bomb Plots 119

the young man could not return to the Father-
land. On June 21 Kaltschmidt called Respa to
his office in the Kresge Building, and showed him
two elaborate time-clock devices which could be
so set as to fire bombs at any specified hour, and
Respa, at Kaltschmidt's command, carried the
clocks across the Detroit River to Windsor, On-
tario, late that afternoon. His sister, Mrs.
Schmidt, went with him, and together they wan-
dered about until the hour when they knew that
William Lefler, the night watchman of the Pea-
body Overall Company factory in Walkerville,
would go on duty.

Under cover of darkness, the brother and sis-
ter met Lefler, who gave Respa tv/o suitcases full
of dynamite which Kaltschmidt had smuggled
piecemeal into Canada under the front seat of
his automobile. Respa attached the clocks to the
charges, set one of the infernal machines near
the factory, and planted the other in the rear of
the Windsor armory, in which Canadian troops
were asleep, and near which was a Catholic girls'
school. Then he and Mrs. Schmidt scurried
back to the ferry and took the last boat to Detroit.
At three o'clock in the morning they heard a
mufiflled roar from the Canadian side ; the factory
bomb had "^one off. The other charsre failed to

o o

explode : Respa said he deliberately set the per-

120 The German Secret Service in America

cussion cap at the wrong angle, because he knew
that soldiers were sleeping in the armory, and
he had no stomach for murder.

One of the gang was presently arrested, and
Respa w^as spirited away to the retirement of a
mechanic's job in a West Hoboken garage. But
he grew restless, and spent his money, and Kalt-
schmidt refused him more. He pawned his
watch and his ring, bought a ticket to Detroit,
and presented himself before Kaltschmidt with
a demand for money, in default of which Respa
proposed to "squeal." He was immediately re-
turned to the payroll.

The Canadian provincial detectives had be-
gun to search for the night watchman, Lefler.
They found him, and from him they extracted a
full confession. Respa's arrest was easy, and
the United States willingly returned him, al-
though Kaltschmidt did attempt to establish a
false alibi for his underling. Respa was sen-
tenced to life imprisonment, Lefler to ten years,
for the destruction of the factory.

The dragnet closed in on Kaltschmidt. Wil-
liam M. Jarosch, a German-born, who later en-
listed in the United States Army, had been intro-
duced to Kaltschmidt in Chicago in 191 5 by a
former German consul there, Gustav Jacobsen.
Jacobsen recruited two other men, and Kalt-

More Bomb Plots 121

Schmidt took the three to Detroit. Jarosch was
directed to secure employment at the plant of the
Detroit Screw Works, but he was rejected, so
Kahschmidt told him to watch the plant for a
good opportunity to set a bomb there. In the
course of his sojourn in Detroit he went to the
Respa home in the placid little village of Romeo
and returned with a generous quantity of dyna-
mite. This he delivered to Neef, and in a con-
ference at the magneto shop Kaltschmidt ex-
plained the operation of the time-clock, and or-
dered Jarosch to set the device at the Detroit
Screw factory that night. He and his Chicago
confederates set out for the scene, but there were
guards about, and Jarosch had no desire for ar-
rest, so he took the bomb to his hotel room, dis-
engaged the trigger, and calmly went to sleep.
Next morning Kaltschmidt reproached him, and
Jarosch resigned, to return months later to show
Federal officers where he had buried some 80
pounds of dynamite, nitroglycerine, and a bomb.
Kaltschmidt also conspired to destroy the Port
Huron tunnel. For this enterprise he contrived
a car which he proposed to load with dynamite
set to explode with a time fuse. Fritz Neef, the
Stuttgart graduate and expert mechanical en-
gineer, was his able assistant and adviser in this
project. The car was of standard railway

122 The German Secret Service in America

gauge. It was to be set on the Grand Trunk
tracks at the mouth of the Port Huron end of
the tunnel and released, to roll down into the
darkness under the river. At the low point in
the tunnel's curve the charge would explode,
bursting the walls of the tube, and completely in-
terrupting the heavy international freight traffic
at that point.

The "devil car" never was released. Kalt-
schmidt was arrested, and finally, in December,
191 7, tried and convicted on three counts. He
was given the maximum sentence, of four years'
imprisonment and $20,000 fine. His sister, Mrs.
Neef, who had been an active intermediary, was
sentenced to three years' imprisonment and was
fined $15,000; Carl Schmidt and his wife were
each condemned to two years in prison, and as-
sessed a fine of $10,000 each, and only old Franz
Respa, the father of the dynamiter, was ac-
quitted.

The activities of this group received tangible
approval from the German Embassy. Even be-
fore von Papen drew the check on March 27 for
Kaltschmidt, the attache's secretary, von Igel,
had transferred $2,000 to the Detroit German
from the banking firm of Knauth, Nachod
and Kuhne (January 23). On October 5, long
after the Walkerville explosion, but while the

3Iore Bomb Plots 123

Port Huron venture was still a possibility, the
Chase National Bank of New York transferred
to Knauth, Nachod and Kuhne $25,000 from the
joint account maintained there by Count von
Bernstorff and Dr. Albert, and next day the
money was placed to Kaltschmidt's credit.

The Port Huron tunnel was the object of Ger-
man attentions from the active San Francisco
consulate. Crowley, who had been von Brinck-
en's messenger in the Van Koolbergen affair, and
one Louis J. Smith, were hired by Herr Bopp
to go east on a destroying mission. They ran
out of money in New York, and called at the New
York consulate for assistance. They were told
that the New York consulate had nothing to do
with Pacific coast activities, so they wired von
Schack for funds. He replied, chiding them for
not having called on von Papen.

Late in June Smith left New York and joined
Crowley at the Normandy Hotel in Detroit.
"Then we went to Port Huron," he said, "where
we planned to dynamite a railroad tunnel and a
horse train. We didn't do it, though.

"Then we went to Toronto, and Crowley told
me to plant a bomb under a horse train in the
West Toronto yards. But I saw a policeman,
and I got out quick. Then we took some nitro-
glycerine, cotton, sawdust, and a tin pan and

124 The German Secret Service in America

some other things to Grosse Isle, Ontario, and
went out back of a cemetery and made some
bombs.

''Well, we got back to San Francisco late in
July, and Crowley and I cooked up an expense
account of $1,254.80, and took if up to the con-
sulate. Von Schack locked the door behind us,
and then he said: 'I don't want any statement.
Tell me how much you want ?' We told him, and
he said he would get it the following day. Then
all of a sudden he asked : 'How do I know you
fellows did any jobs in Canada?'

" 'Wire the mayor of Toronto and ask him !'
Crowley answered."

On one occasion at least the Germans respected
American property, for the protection America
might afford. Werner Horn, a former lieuten-
ant in the Landwehr, was in Guatemala when
the war broke out. He made an attempt to re-
turn to his command, but got no farther than
New York, where he placed himself at the dis-
posal of Captain von Papen. On January 18 the
military attache paid him $700. On February
2 Horn exploded a charge of dynamite on the
Canadian end of the international bridge at
Vanceboro, Maine, spanning the St. Croix River
to New Brunswick. The explosion caused a
slisfht damaofe to the Canadian half of the bridsre.

More Bomb Plots 125

A few hours later Horn was arrested in Vance-
boro, and admitted the crime.

When the Canadian authorities appHed for his
extradition, the warrant which Judge Hale issued
was not executed, the United States Marshal for
Maine having received word from Washington
that a well-preserved treaty between Great Brit-
ain and the United States would cover just such
a case, and Horn was indicted on a charge of
having transported explosives from New York
City to Vanceboro. His attorneys naively at-
tempted to secure his liberty by casting a pro-
tective mantle of international law about his
shoulders : Werner Horn, they said, was a First
Lieutenant of the West Prussian Pioneer Bat-
talion Number 17, and as such was sworn by His
Royal Majesty of Prussia to

". . . discharge the obligations of his office in a becom-
ing manner, . . . execute diligently and loyally whatever
is made his duty to do and carry out, and whatever is
commanded him, by day and by night, on land and on sea,
and . . . conduct himself bravely and irreproachably in
all wars and military events that may occur ..."

Yet he was tried, and that without much delay,
and convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment.

Although the destruction of railways was an
attractive means of stopping the progress of mu-
nitions to the seaboard, and although it was a

126 The German Secret Service in America

recognized practice during 191 5, it made the Em-
bassy at Washington uneasy. Bernstorff pro-
tested to the Foreign Office in BerHn that if a
German agent should be caught in the act of
dynamiting a raih'oad it would be exceedingly
embarrassing for him, and increase the difficulties
of his already ticklish role of apologist and ex-
plainer-extraordinary. The Foreign Office ac-
cordingly sent a telegram to von Papen :

"January 26 — For Military Attache. , . . Railway em-
bankments and bridges must not be touched. Embassy
must in no circumstances be compromised."

(Signed) "Representative of General Staff."

And thereafter American railway bridges and
embankments were safe, though their owners
may not have been aware of the fact at the
time.

It is no mere metaphor to say that during 191 5
and 1 91 6 the smoke of German explosions in fac-
tories in the United States was spreading across
the sun, casting the deepening shadow of war
over America. There was dynamite found in
the coal tender of a munitions train on the Bal-
timore and Ohio Railroad at Gallery Junction,
Pa., on December 10, 1915, the day on which
enormous quantities of wheat were destroyed by
fire in grain elevators at Erie. A few hours

More Bomb Plots 127

earlier a two-million-dollar explosion had oc-
curred at the Hopewell plant of the du Pont
works. Shortly before Christmas a ton and a
half of nitrogl3^cerine exploded at Fayville, Illi-
nois.

During 191 6 there were a dozen major explo-
sions in the du Pont properties alone and liter-
ally dozens of lives were lost. Two arms plants
at Bridgeport, Conn., were blown up. An ex-
plosion in May wiped out a large chemical plant
in Cadillac, Michigan. A munitions works of
the Bethlehem Steel Company at Newcastle, Pa.,
was destroyed. The climax in violence came,
however, in the sultry night of August 1-2.
Shortly after midnight the rocky island of Man-
hattan trembled, and the roar of a prodigious
blast burst over the harbor of New York. Two
million pounds of munitions were being trans-
ported in freight trains and on barges near the
island of Black Tom, a few hundred yards from
the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty. Some one,
somehow, supplied the spark. The loss of life
was inconsiderable, for that neighborhood was
not inhabited, but the confusion was complete.
Heavy windows in the canyons of lower Manhat-
tan were shivered, and for a few moments many
of the streets rained broken glass. Shell-laden
barges near the original explosion set up a scat-

128 The German Secret Service in America

tering fire which continued for some time, most
of the projectiles losing their power through lack
of a substantial breech-block. But the immigra-
tion station on Ellis Island was in panic, and its
position became more unpleasant as one of the
blazing barges drifted down upon it. The shock
was felt far out in Jersey, and northward in Con-
necticut. An estimate of damage was placed at
thirty millions of dollars, probably as accurate
as such an estimate need be; the event was ut-
terly spectacular, and from the point of view of
the unknown destroying agent, effective.

Exactly one year after von Papen gave up the
first attempt upon the Welland Canal, a second
enterprise began with the same objective. Cap-
tain von Papen felt that von dcr Goltz had bun-
gled. This time he intrusted the mission to the
doughty and usually reliable Paul Koenig. On
September 27, 191 5, Koenig, with Richard Emil
Leyendecker, a "hyphenated American" who dealt
during the daytime in art woods at 347 Fifth
Avenue, New York, and Fred Metzler, of Jersey
City, Koenig's secretary, went to Buffalo and
Niagara Falls, accompanied by Mrs. Koenig.
They had no trouble in crossing the border and
making a thorough investigation of the canal, its
vulnerable points, its guards and the patrol routes
of those guards. Koenig selected men whom he

More Bomb Plots 129

detailed to watch the guards, and he fixed on sat-
isfactory storage places for his explosives. The
party then returned to Niagara Falls and later
to New York.

They did not know that they were being trailed.
All three men had been under surveillance for
nearly a year, and after their migrations near the
canal, the guard was reenforced. It became im-
possible to carry out the plan. A few weeks later
the detectives who were shadowing Koenig no-
ticed that George Fuchs, a relative whom he em-
ployed at a meagre salary, was seldom seen in
his company. They sought Fuchs out and plied
him with refreshment. A few glasses of beer
drew out his story: Koenig owed him $15, and
he therefore bore no affection for Koenig. The
detectives turned him over to Superintendent Off-
ley of the Department of Justice, who sympa-
thized with Fuchs to such an extent that the lat-
ter retailed enough evidence of the Welland plot
to secure Koenig's indictment on five counts.
Thus did a debt of thirty pieces of silver — in this
case half-dollars — rob the Hamburg-American
Line of a six-foot, 200-pound detective, and the
German spy system in America of one of its
roughest characters, for, thanks to Fuchs' revela-
tions, Koenig was indicted for a violation of Sec-
tion 13 of the Penal Code.

130 The German Secret Service in America

Herald Square, New York, was the center of
open-air oratory every evening until after Amer-
ica entered the war. Those who had stood and
fought their verbal battles during the day about
the bulletin board of the Nezv York Herald re-
mained at night to bellow to the idle passersby
along Broadway, and one night Felix Galley, a
leather-lunged contractor, gave an impassioned
discourse justifying Germany's entrance into the
war. When the meeting broke up he was fol-
lowed home by one who rather passed his ex-
pectations as a convert.

The stranger was Harry Newton. He had
been employed in a munitions plant in St. Cath-
arine's, Ontario. He suggested to Galley that he
would take any orders for arson which the Ger-
mans had in mind, and recommended that as proof
of his ability he would oblige with a dynamiting
of the Brooks Locomotive Works at Dunkirk,
N. Y., for a retainer of $5,000. Or, he said, he
could arrange to destroy the Federal building or
Police Headquarters. This was more than the
German had bargained for, and assuring Newton
that he would first have to consult the ''chief," he
ran straightway to the police and in great agita-
tion told what had happened. Captain Tunney,
of the Bomb Squad, assigned Detective Sergeant
George Barnitz to the case.

More Bomb Plots 131

The detective, posing as a German agent,
found Newton at Mills Hotel No. 3, and opened
negotiations with him. After several talks, they
met on the afternoon of April 19, 1916, at Grand
Street and the Bowery. Barnitz said: "Now,
I'm in a hurry — haven't much time to discuss all
this. You say you're in the business strictly for
the money. The chief is willing to pay you
$5,000 if you will smash the Welland Canal or
blow up the Brooks Locomotive Works or burn
the McKinnon, Dash Company's plant at St.
Catharine's. But how do we know you won't de-
mand more from us after you are paid? Maybe
you'll want more cash for your assistants."

Newton was quick to reply that he worked
alone and wouldn't trust any assistant. He was
anxious to start with the Brooks ''job" at Dun-
kirk and told Barnitz he had left in the baggage-
room of the New York Central Railroad at Buf-
falo a suitcase containing powerful bombs. (The
suitcase actually contained a loaded 4-inch shell,
with percussion cap and fuse.) It would be nec-
essary only for him to go to Buffalo, get the suit-
case, hasten to Dunkirk and blow up the locomo-
tive works.

"Fine," said Barnitz. "You are under arrest."

Newton stared a moment, then laughed. "You
New York cops are a damned sight smarter than

132 The German Secret Service in America

I ever thought you were," he said, "and you made
me think you were a German!"

At Pohce Headquarters he described his plan
for blowing up the Welland Canal. Having
worked in a town located on the canal, he was
familiar with the position of the locks. "It would
be a simple matter," he said. "You see these
buttons I am wearing on my watch chain and in
my coat lapel. The plain gilt one reads 'On His
Majesty's Service.' The blue and white one
reads 'McKinnon, Dash Company, Munitions.
On Service.' Those buttons are passes that
would let me into any munitions plant in Canada
or this country. They would pass me through
the guards of the canal. It would be easy for me
to pretend to be a workman, get a boat and, car-
rying a dinner pail, filled with explosives, to pick
out a weak spot in the canal works and destroy
the whole business.

"It would be a cinch to burn the McKinnon,
Dash plant. I could go back to work there as
foreman. Any Saturday night I could be the last
to leave. Before going I could saturate flooring
with benzine and put a lighted candle where
within a half hour or so the flame would reach
the benzine."

Newton also suggested his willingness to dyna-
mite the banking house of J. P. Morgan & Co.,

More Bomb Plots 133

at 27, Wall Street, or to dynamite the banker's
automobile. He had a series of postcards in his
own handwriting, which, in case he was hired
for a dynamiting, were to be mailed from distant
points every day while he was on the assignment,
in order to establish an alibi.

He was an irresponsible person, and one who
could not be said to be under orders from the
attaches in lower Broadway. Yet he is typical
of the restless and lawless floating population of
which the Germans made excellent tools. When
he heard Galley he promptly offered his services ;
his boldness would have made him a capital de-
stroying agent, and it was fired by the speech in
Herald Square, a speech inspired from Berlin.
Here was his opportunity to make money. Thus,
by a word of encouragement, by the whisper of
"big money" to discharged, dissatisfied or dis-
loyal employees of munitions plants, the seed of
German violence was sown everywhere. Men
who were well dressed and of good appearance
would be remarked if they prowled about fac-
tory districts ; men must be employed who would
fade into the drab landscape by the very common-
placeness of their clothing and action. They
could be hired cheaply and swiftly disowned,
these Newtons!

The New York Times on November 3, 19 17,

134 The German Secret Service in America

recapitulated the damage wrought by German
incendiarism as follows:

''A graphic idea of what the fire losses in the
. United States owe to the work of war incendia-
ries may be gained from consideration of the fact
that the total fire insurance paid in the United
States in 1915, according to the figures of the
National Board of Fire Underwriters, was
$153,000,000. It is estimated that 60 per cent,
of the loss by fires in this country is represented
in insurance. Therefore, the total fire loss in the
United States in 191 5 was something over $200,-
000,000. Of the $1 53,000,000 paid out by the in-
surance companies, $6,200,000 was represented
by incendiary fires. A total of $62,000,000 was
charged to fires from unknown causes.

"In 191 6 the total jumped by 20 per cent.,
meaning an increase of about $40,000,000. The
biggest items in this loss were those sustained in
munition fires and explosions. Black Tom holds
the record with a loss of $11,000,000; there was
the Kingsland explosion, the Penn's Grove explo-
sion, and others, all generally admitted to be the
work of spies, which caused losses running into
millions.

'Tt was estimated yesterday by an insurance
official that the incendiary loss in 1916 was easily
$25,000,000, or $15,000,000 above normal. And

More Bomh Plots 135

these figures take into consideration only fires
where the origin was proved to be incendiary.
On the books of the underwriters the Black Tom
munitions fire is not listed as incendiary, because
it was never legally proved that a German spy set
it going.

"This increase in losses for 191 6 when the big
munition explosions occurred, derives significance
in the discussion of losses by spy fires since this
country entered the war, because the figures of
fire losses in the United States for 191 7 may reach
$300,000,000, or a larger increase over 19 16 than
191 6 losses showed over 191 5. An estimate
made yesterday by the head of a fire insurance
company shows that if the average of the losses
in the first seven months of the year is maintained
until Jan. i the total would reach well above
$250,000,000, and with the increases of the past
few months might easily total $300,000,000 as
the cost of the American ash heaps for 1917."

How did the Germans know where munitions
were being manufactured? Rumor fled swiftly
through the labor districts, and the news was re-
ported through the regular channels of espionage,
cleared through the consulates and German busi-
ness ofiices, and forwarded to the attaches and
the Embassy. But the collection of information
did not stop there; it was verified from another

136 The German Secret Service in America

source — a serviceable factor in the general system
of espionage.

The American manufacturer shared his na-
tion's predilection for talking at meal-time. As
the war contracts were distributed about the coun-
try, every machine shop worthy of the name be-
came a "munitions plant" and the romance of hav-
ing a part in the war strained the discretion of
most of America's war bridegrooms ; they simply
"had to tell some one" ; not infrequently this some
one was a reliable intimate, sitting across a res-
taurant table at lunch.

There was in America an organization bearing
a title which suggested a neutral origin, but
whose officers' names, down even unto the official
physician, were undeniably German. It was
ostensibly for the mutual benefit of the foreign-
born waiters, chefs and pantrymen who com-
posed its membership. But its real significance
was indicated by the location of its branches (its
headquarters were in New York). Trenton,
New Jersey, for example, was not a "good hotel
town," and foreign waiters usually are to be
found in a town which boasts a hotel managed
by metropolitan interests, and supplied with a for-
eign staff; but Trenton was a munitions center,
and there was a branch of this association there.
Schenectady, the home of the General Electric

3Iore Bomb Plots 137

Company, had no first-class hotel; there was a
branch of the association in Schenectady. Con-
versely, numerous cities whose hotels were
manned by foreign waiters and cooks had no
branches. The organization was founded in
Dresden in 1877.

Many a confidence passed across a table was
intercepted by the acute ears of a German spy.
Members of the Anglo-French Loan Commission
who were staying at the Biltmore in 1914 were
served by a German agent in a waiter's uniform.
It would have gone well for America and the
preparations of supplies for her later Allies if
there had been posted in every hotel dining-room
the French admonition,

"Taisez-vous ! lis s'ecoutent!"

CHAPTER X

FRANZ VON RINTELEN

The leak in the National City Bank — The Minnehaha
— Von Rintelen's training — His return to America — His
aims — His funds — Smuggling oil — The Krag-Joergensen
rifles — Von Rintelen's flight and capture.

There was a suggestion in the newspapers of
dates immediately following Paul Koenig's arrest
that the authorities had been lax in allowing the
Germans to have later access to the safe in his
private office in the Hamburg- American building.
As a matter of fact the contents of the safe were
well known to the authorities — how, it is not nec-
essary to say. The multitudinous notes and ref-
erence data kept by the industrious 'T. K." un-
covered a plentiful German source of information
of munitions.

They knew the factories in which war materials
were being turned out. They knew the numbers
of the freight cars into which the materials were
loaded for shipment to the waterfronts. They
knew the ships into which those cargoes were
consigned. How they knew was revealed by

138

Franz Von Rintelen 139

Koenig's secretary, Metzler, after he had been
arrested in the second Welland episode.

Down in Wall Street, in the foreign depart-
ment of the National City Bank, there was a
young- German named Frederick Schleindl. He
had been in the United States for several years,
and had been employed by various bankers, one
of whom recommended him to the National City
Bank shortly after the outbreak of war. In the
foreign department he had access to cables from
the Allies concerning the purchase of munitions.
It was customary to pay manufacturers for their
completed orders when the bank received a bill of
lading showing their shipment by railroad or
their delivery at points of departure. Close
familiarity with such bills of lading and cable-
grams gave Schleindl an up-to-the-minute survey
of the production of supplies.

In late 1914 Schleindl registered with the Ger-
man consul in New York, setting down his name
and address as liable to call for special service.
In May, 191 5, he was directed by the consul to
meet a certain person at the Hotel Manhattan;
the unknown proved to be Koenig, who had been
informed of Schleindl's occupation by the alert
German consul. Playing on the youth's patriot-
ism and greed, Koenig agreed to pay him $25 a
week for confidential information from the bank.

140 The German Secret Service in America

From that time forward Schleindl reported regu-
larly to Koenig. Nearly every evening a meet-
ing occurred in the office in the Hamburg- Ameri-
can building, and Koenig and Metzler would
spend many hours a night in copying the letters,
cables and shipping documents. In the morning
they would return the originals to Schleindl on
his way to work — he made it his custom to arrive
early at the bank — and the papers would be re-
stored to their proper files when the business day
began.

On December 17, 191 5, Schleindl was arrested.
In his pocket w^re two documents, enough to
convict him of having stolen information: one a
duplicate of a cablegram from the Banque Beige
pour Etrangers to the National City Bank relat-
ing to a shipment of 2,000,000 rifles which was
then being handled by the Hudson Trust Com-
pany; the other a cablegram from the Russian
Government authorizing the City Bank to place
some millions of dollars to the credit of Colonel
Golejewski, the Russian naval attache and pur-
chasing agent. From a German standpoint, of
course, both were highly significant. Schleindl's
arrest caused considerable uneasiness in Wall.
Street, and other banking houses who had been
dealing in munitions "looked unto themselves"
lest there be similar cracks through which infor-

Franz Von Bintelen 141

mation might sift to Berlin. There had been
many such. Koenig was tried on the charge of
having bought stolen information, and convicted,
but sentence was suspended, although the United
States already looked back on two years of water-
front conspiracies to destroy Allied shipping.

The City Bank episode gave a clue to the source
of those conspiracies, by the white light which it
cast upon an explosion in hold number 2 of the
steamship Minnehaha on July 4, 191 5. Thou-
sands of magnetos were stored there destined for
automobiles at the front. The only person be-
sides the officers of the bank and of the magneto
factory who could have known of the ship in
which they were transported was the man who
wrote the letter to the bank enclosing the bill of
lading for the shipment. Naturally the officers
were not suspected of circulating the news; the
leak therefore must have occurred in handling the
letter. That theory was a strong scent, made no
less pungent by the activities in America of one
Franz von Rintelen.

Rumor has credited Franz von Rintelen with
relationship to the house of Hohenzollern. Back-
stairs gossip called him the Kaiser's own son — a
stigma which he hardly deserved, as his face bore
no resemblance to the architecture of the Hohen-
zollern countenance. It was one of strong aqui-

142 The German Secret Service in America

line curves; with a coat of swarthy grease paint
he would have made an acceptable Indian, except
for his tight, thin lips. The muscles of his jaws
were forever playing under the skin — ^he had a
tense, nervous habit of gritting his teeth. From
under his pale eyebrows came a sharp look; it
contrasted strangely with the hollow, burnt-out
ferocity and fright which peered out of the tired
eyes of his fellow prisoners when he was finally
tried. He had a wiry strength and easy carriage.
If he had not been a spy, von Rintelen would have
made an excellent athlete.

Like Boy-Ed he had a thorough gymnasium
training. He specialized in finance and econom-
ics, entered the navy, and became captain-lieuten-
ant. At the end of his period of service he went
to London and obtained employment in a banking
house. He then went to New York, where he
was admitted to Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co., and
found time during his first stay in America to
serve as Germany's naval representative at the
ceremonies commemorating John Paul Jones.
The German Embassy gave him entree wherever
he turned. He was a member of the New York
Yacht Club, was received at Newport and in Fifth
Avenue as a polished and agreeable person who
spoke English, French and Spanish as fluently as
his native tongue, and he acquired a broad first-

Franz Von Rintelen 143

hand knowledge of American financial principles
and methods. He left New York long before the
war, saying he was going to open Mexican and
South American branches of a German bank.
When he returned to Berlin in 1909, he was well
qualified to sit in council w^ith Tirpitz and the
navy group and advise them on the development
of the German Secret Service in America.
American ac([uaintances who visited Berlin he
received with marked hospitality, and some he
even introduced to his august friend, the Crown
Prince.

In January, 191 5, von Rintelen, then a director
of the Deutsche Bank, and the National Bank fiir
Deutschland, and a man of corresponding wealth,
was commissioned to go to America, to buy cot-
ton, rubber and copper, and to prevent the Allies
from receiving munitions. So he went to Amer-
ica. And from his arrival in New York until his
departure from that port, he threw sand in the
smooth-running machinery of the organized Ger-
man spy system.

He eluded the vigilance of the Allies by using
a false passport. His sister Emily had married
a Swiss named Gasche. Erasing the "y" on her
passport he journeyed In safety to England as
''Emil V. Gasche," a harmless Swiss, who ob-
served a great deal about England's method of

144. The German Secret Service in America

receiving munitions. Then he evaporated to
Norway. His arrival in the United States was
forecast by a wireless message which he addressed
from his ship on April 3, 191 5, asking an Ameri-
can friend of his to meet him at the pier. The
American owned a factory in Cambrai, France,
which had been closed by the German invasion on
August 29, 1 9 14. The American had hastened to
Berlin in late 1914 and asked his friend Rintelen
to see that the plant be opened. Rintelen had
succeeded, and was come now to break the good
news, knowing perfectly well that the American
would be under deep obligation and would secure
any introductions for him which he might need.
When the ship docked, the friend was not there,
for some casual reason. But Rintelen, always
suspicious, hired a detective, who spent a week
investigating; then the friend was discovered, and
became Rintelen's grateful assistant.

So it happened that "Emil V. Gasche," the
harmless Sw^iss, dropped out of sight for the time
being, and von Rintelen assumed the parts of "Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." "Dr. Jekyll" visited the
Yacht Club and called upon wealthy friends, prov-
ing a more charming, more delightful von Rin-
telen than ever. He met influential business men
who were selling supplies to the Allies. He was
presented to society matrons and debutantes

Franz Von Rintelen 145

whom he had use for. To these he was Herr von
Rintelen, in America on an important financial
mission. "Mr. Hyde" sought information from
von Bernstorff, Dr. Albert, von Papen, Boy-Ed,
Captain Tauscher and George Sylvester Viereck
about the production of war supplies. Astounded
by what he learned from them and had corrobo-
rated from other sources, he began to realize how
utterly he had misjudged America's potential re-
sources and what a blunder he had made in his
predictions to the General War Staff. He saw
with a chilling vividness the capacity of America
to hand war materials to the Allies, and her rap-
idly increasing facilities to turn out greater quan-
tities of ammunition and bullets. The facts he
obtained struck him with especial force because
of his knowledge of the greater strategy. It is
upon a basis of the supplies of munitions in the
Allied countries, particularly Russia, as von Rin-
telen knew them, that his acts are best judged
and upon this basis only can sane motives be as-
signed to the rash projects which he launched.

When he arrived in New York the German
drive on Paris had failed because in two months
the Germans had used up ammunition they con-
fidently expected to last three times as long; the
English and French in the west could not take up
the offensive because ammunition was not being

146 The German Secret Service in America

turned out fast enough; the Russian drive into
Germany and Austria would soon fail for lack of
arms and bullets. In the winter and spring of
1915 the Russians had made a drive into Galicia
and Austria, hurling the Austro-German armies
back. They advanced victoriously through the
first range of the Carpathian mountains until
May. Meantime the German General Staff, as
von Rintelen knew, was preparing for a retaliat-
ing offensive. The War Staff knew Russia's
limited capacity to produce arms and ammunition,
knew that during the winter, with the port of
Archangel closed by ice, her only source for new
supplies lay in the single-track Siberian railway
bringing materials from Japan. Rintelen real-
ized that by spring the Russian resources had been
well nigh exhausted and he resolved that they
must be shut off completel}^ He knew that Eng-
land and France could not help. But spring had
already come, and the ships were sailing for Arch-
angel laden with American shells.

Von Rintelen's reputation was at stake. The
work for which he had been so carefully trained
was bound to fail unless he acted quickly. He
exchanged many wireless communications with
his superiors in Berlin — messages that looked like
harmless expressions between his wife and him-
self, messages in which the names of American

Franz Von Rintelen 147

officers who had been in BeHin were used both as
code words and as a means to impress their genu-
ineness upon the American censor. He received
in reply still greater authority than he had on the
eve of his departure from Germany. In his
quick, staccato fashion he often boasted (and
there is foundation for part of what he said) that
he had been sent to America by the General Staff,
backed by ''$50,000,000, yes $100,000,000"; that
he was an agent plenipotentiary and extraordi-
nary, ready to take any measure on land and sea
to stop the making of munitions, to halt their
transportation at the factory or at the seaboard.
He mapped out a campaign, remarkable in its
detail, scope, recklessness and utter disregard of
American institutions.

Germany made her first mistake in giving him
a roving commission. Germany was desperate,
or she would have restricted von Rintelen to cer-
tain well-defined enterprises. Instead he ran
afoul of the military and naval attaches on more
than one occasion, offended them, and did more
to hinder than to help their own plans.

In early April he made his financial arrange-
ments with the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company,
where he was known by his own name. Money
was transferred from Berlin through large Ger-
man business houses, and he deposited $800,000

148 The German Secret Service in America

in the Trans-Atlantic and millions among other
banks. He rented an office in the trust company
building, and had his telephone run through the
trust company switchboard. He registered with
the county clerk to do business as the "E. V. Gib-
bon Company; purchasers of supplies" and signed
his name to the registry as "Francis von Rinte-
len." In the office of the E. V. Gibbon Company
he received the forces whom he proceeded to mo-
bilize; he was known to them as "Fred Hansen."
If he wanted a naval reservist he called on Boy-
Ed ; if an army reservist was required von Papen
sent him to "Hansen." Boy-Ed gave him data
on ship sailings, von Papen on munitions plants,
Koenig on secret service.

His first task was to buy supplies and ship them
to Germany. He boasted that there was no such
thing as a British blockade. Using his pseudo-
nyms of Gibbon and Hansen he made large pur-
chases and with the aid of Captain Gustave Stein-
berg, a naval reservist, he chartered ships and dis-
patched them under false manifests to Italy and
Norway, where their cargoes could be readily
smuggled into Germany. Through Steinberg he
importuned a chemist, Dr. Walter T. Scheele, to
soak fertilizer in lubricating oil for shipment to
the Fatherland, where the valuable oil could be
easily extracted. Through the same intermedi-

Franz Von Rintelen 149

ary von Rintelen gave Dr. Scheele $20,000 to ship
a cargo of munitions under a false manifest as
"farm implements"; Dr. Scheele kept the $20,000
and actually shipped a cargo of farm machinery.
Rintelen's-next venture attracted some unpleas-
ant attention. The United States Government
had condemned some 350,000 Krag-Joergensen
rifles, which it refused to sell to any of the bellig-
erents. Rintelen cast a fond eye in their direc-
tion. President Wilson had told a banker:
"You will get those rifles only over my dead
body." Rintelen heard, however, that by bribing
certain officials he could obtain the guns, so he
sent out agents to learn what they would cost,
and found a man who said he could buy them for
$17,826,000, part of which was to be used for
effective bribery. "So close am I to the Presi-
dent," said the intermediary, "that two days after
I deposit the money in the bank you can dandle
his grandchild on your knee!" But just when
the negotiations were growing bright, Rintelen
was told that the man who proposed to sell him
the rifles was a secret agent from another govern-
ment. A certain "Dr. Alfred Meyer" was known
to have been groping for those rifles, and the
newspapers and government officials became sud-
denly interested in his real identity. A dowdy
woman's implication reached a reporter's ears;

150 The German Secret Seixice in America

presently the newspapers burst out in the "dis-
covery" that "Dr. Alfred Meyer" was none other
than Dr. Meyer-Gerhardt, a German Red Cross
envoy then in the United States. Like the pop-
ping of a machine gun, ''correct versions of the
facts" were published: "Dr. Meyer-Gerhardt
denied vigorously that he was 'Dr. Alfred
Meyer/ " then " 'Dr. Alfred Meyer' was known
to have left the United States on the same ship
with Dr. Meyer-Gerhardt," then "an American
citizen came forward anonymously and said that
he had posed as 'Dr. Alfred Meyer' in order to
test the good faith of the Government."

This last announcement may have been true.
It was made to a New York Sun reporter by a
German, Karl Schimmel, who professed his alle-
giance to the United States, and by the "Ameri-
can citizen" who said he had posed as ''Dr. Al-
fred Meyer." It may have been made to shield
Rintelen himself, for the "American citizen" was
an employe of a German newspaper in New York,
a friend of Rintelen's, a friend of Schimmel's and
Schimmel himself was in von Rintelen's pay.

Let a pack of reporters loose on a half dozen
tangents and they will probably scratch the truth.
A Tribune man heard a whisper of the facts and
set out on a hunt for "two Germans, Meyer and
Hansen, who have been acting funny." He

Franz Von Rintelen 151

frightened the personnel right out of the office of
the E. V. Gibbon Company. Captain Steinberg
fled to Germany with a trunkful of reports on
the necessity of concerted action to stop the ship-
ment of munitions to the Allies, and Rintelen mi-
grated to an office in the Woolworth Building.
Some one heard of his activities there and he was
evicted, taking final refuge in the Liberty Tower,
in the office of Andrew M. Meloy, who had been
in Germany to interest the German government
in a scheme similar to Rintelen's own. In Me-
loy's office Rintelen posed as "E. V. Gates" —
preserving the shadow of his identity as "Emil
V. Gasche." So effective was his disappearance
from the public view, that he was reported to
have gone abroad as a secretary, and he sat in
the tower and chuckled, and sent messages by
wireless to Berlin through Sayville, and cable-
grams to Berlin through England and Holland,
and enjoyed all the sensations of a man attending
a triple funeral in his honor. ''Meyer," "Han-
sen" and "Gasche" were all dead, and yet, here
was Rintelen!

Although his sojourn in New York covered a
period which was the peak of the curve of Ger-
man atrocities in the United States, Rintelen was
a fifth wheel. No man came to America to ac-
complish more, and no man accomplished less.

152 Tlie German Secret Service in America

No German agent had his boldness of project, and
no German executive met a more ignominious
fate. Whatever he touched with his golden wand
turned to dross. He was hoodwinked here and
there by his own agents, and frustrated by the
vigilance of the Allied and the United States gov-
ernments. He has been introduced here because
of his connection with subsequent events, and yet
this picturesque figure played the major part in
not one successful venture.

Four months he passed in America, until it be-
came too small for him. In August the capture
of Dr. Albert's portfolio and the publication of
certain of its contents frightened Rintelen, and
he applied for a passport as "Edward V. Gates,
an American citizen of Millersville, Pa.," but he
did not dare claim it. Though he had bought
tickets under the alias, and had had drafts made
payable in that name, he did not occupy the
''Gates" cabin on the Noordam, but at the last
minute engaged passage under the renascent
name of "Emil V. Gasche," the harmless Swiss.
He eluded the Federal agents, and sailed safely
to Falmouth, England, where, after a search of
the ship, and an excellent attempt to bluff it
through, he finally surrendered to the British au-
thorities as a prisoner-of-war. Meloy and his
secretary were captured with him.

Franz Von Eintelen 153

Rintelen was returned to the United States in
1916. He was convicted in 1917 and 1918 on
successive charges of conspiracy to violate the
Sherman Anti-Trust law, to obtain a fraudulent
passport, and to destroy merchant ships — which
combined to sentence him to a year in the Tombs
and nine years in a Federal prison.

CHAPTER XI

SHIP BOMBS

Mobilizing destroying agents — The plotters in Hoboken
— Von Kleist's arrest and confession — The Kirk Oszvald
trial — Further explosions — The Arabic — Robert Fay —
His arrest — The ship plots decrease.

The reader will recall a circular quoted in
Chapter VIII, and issued November i8, 1914,
from German Naval Headquarters, mobilizing
all destroying agents in harbors overseas.

On January 3, 191 5, there v^^as an explosion on
board the munitions ship Orton, lying in Erie
Basin, a part of New York harbor. On Febru-
ary 6 a bomb was found in the cargo of the Han-
nington. On February 27 the Carlton caught
fire at sea. On April 20 two bombs were found
in the cargo of the Lord Erne. One week later
the same discovery was made in the hold of the
Devon City. All of which accounts for the fol-
lowing charge :

"George D. Barnitz, being duly sv/orn, deposes and
says ... on information and belief that on the first day

154

Ship Bombs 155

of January, 1915, and on every day thereafter down to
and including the 13th day of April, 1916, the defendants
Walter T. Scheele, Charles von Kleist, Otto Wolpert,
Ernst Becker, (Charles) Karbade, the first name Charles
being fictitious, the true first name of defendant being
unknown, (Frederick) Praedel . . . (Wilhelm) Paradis
. . ., Eno Bode and Carl Schmidt . . . did unlawfully,
feloniously and corruptly conspire ... to manufacture
bombs filled with chemicals and explosives and to place
said bombs . . . upon vessels belonging to others and
laden with moneys, goods and merchandise. . . ."

Ninety-one German ships were confined to
American harbors by the activities of the British
fleet, ranging from the Neptun, of 197 tons, in
San Francisco Bay, to the Vaterland, of 54,000
tons, the largest vessel on the seven seas, tied up
to accrue barnacles at her Hoboken pier, and
later, as the Leviathan, to transport American
troops to France. Every one of the ninety-one
ships was a nest of German agents. Only a mod-
erate watch was kept on their crews, and there
were many restless men among them. Every
man aboard was liable to command from Captain
Boy-Ed, for the German merchant marine was
part of the formal naval organization. The in-
terned sailors found shortly that they could be
of distinct service to their country without stir-
ring from their ships.

Not far from the North German Lloyd piers

156 The German Secret Service in America

in Hoboken lived Captain Charles von Kleist, 67
years old, a chemist and former German army-
officer. One day there came to him one who
spoke the German tongue and who said he came
from Wolf von Igel, in von Papen's office. Those
were good credentials, especially since the gentle-
man was inquiring on von Igel's behalf whether
Kleist needed any money in the work he was
doing. The polite caller returned a few days
later with another man, who spoke no German.
Von Kleist asked whether he was also from the
Fatherland, and was told no, but "we have to use
all kinds of people in our business — that's how we
fool these Yankees !" Von Kleist laughed heart-
ily, and wagged his head, and went out in the
garden and dug up a bomb-case and showed the
visitors how it had been made. The visitors were
Detectives Barth and Barnitz.

They assured Kleist that von Igel wanted to
know precisely what he and his associates were
doing, so no money might be paid to the wrong
parties. The aged captain wrote out a memo-
randum of his activities, which he signed, and the
detectives proposed a trip to Coney Island as an
evidence of good faith, so the three had a pleas-
ant afternoon at the Hotel Shelburne, and the
officers then suggested : ''Let's go up and see the
chief." "Chief" to von Kleist meant von Igel;

Ship Bombs 157

he agreed, and was taken gently into the arms of
the chief of detectives.

He implicated, as he sat there answering
questions, Captain Eno Bode, pier superintendent
of the Hamburg-American Line, Captain Otto
Wolpert, pier superintendent of the Atlas Line,
and Ernst Becker, an electrician on the North
German Lloyd liner Friedrich dcr Grosse, tied up
at Hoboken. The other conspirators were in-
duced to come to New York, and were arrested
at once. Bode and Wolpert, powerful bullies of
Paul Koenig's own stamp, proved defiant in the
extreme. Becker, knowing no word of English,
was pathetically courteous and ready to answer.
But it remained for von Kleist to supply the nar-
rative.

Becker, working on the sunny deck of the
Friedrich der Grosse, had made numerous bomb
cases, rolling sheet lead into a cylinder, and in-
serting in the tube a cup-shaped aluminum parti-
tion. These containers he turned over to Dr.
Walter Scheele at his "New Jersey Agricultural
Company," where he filled one compartment with
nitroglycerine, the other with sulphuric acid.
Scheele supplied the mechanics with sheet lead
for the purpose. The borribs were then sealed
and packed in sand for distribution to various
German gathering places, such as, for example,

158 The German Secret Service in America

the Turn Verein in the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum.
Wolpert appeared there at a meeting one night
and berated the Germans present for talking too
much and acting too little ; he wanted results, he
said. Eugene Reister, the proprietor of the
place, said that shortly afterward Walter Uhde
and one Klein (who died before the police reached
him) had taken away a bundle of bombs from the
Turn Verein and had placed them on the Lusi-
tania, just before lier last voyage, and added that
Klein, when he heard of the destruction of the
ship, expressed regret that he had done it. Karl
Schimmel — the same who had negotiated for the
Krag rifles — said later to Reister: 'T really put
bombs on that boat, but I don't believe that fellow
Klein ever did."

Following Kleist's information, agents of the
Department of Justice and New York police in-
spected the Friedricli der Grosse, and found cjuan-
tities of chlorate of potash and other chemicals.
They brought back with them also Garbode (men-
tioned in the charge as "Karbade"), Paradis and
Praedel, fourth engineers on the ship, who had
assisted in making the bombs, and Carl Schmidt,
the chief engineer. All of the group were impli-
cated in the plot to the complete satisfaction of
a jury which concluded their cases in May, 1917,
by convicting them of ''conspiracy to destroy ships

Ship Bombs 159

through the use of fire bombs placed thereon."
Kleist and Schmidt received sentences of two
years each in Atlanta Penitentiary and were each
fined $5,000; Becker, Karbade, Praedel and Para-
dis were fined $500 apiece and sentenced to six
months in prison. Dr. Scheele fled from justice,
and was arrested in March, 19 18, in Havana. A
liberal supply of vicious chemicals and explo-
sives discovered in his "New Jersey Agricultural
Company" implicated him thoroughly, if the evi-
dence given by his fellows had not already done
so. When he was finally captured he faced two
federal indictments : one with Steinberg and von
Igel for smuggling lubricating oil out of the coun-
try as fertilizer, under false customs manifests;
the other the somewhat more criminal charge of
bombing.

On April 29, 191 5, the Cressington caught fire
at sea. Three days later, in the hold of the Kirk
Oswald^ a sailor found a bomb tucked away in a
hiding place where its later explosion would have
started a serious fire. So it came about that
when the four lesser conspirators of the fire-bomb
plot had served their six months' sentences, they
were at once rearrested on the specific charge of
having actually planted that bomb in the Kirk
Oswald. The burly dock captains, Bode and
Wolpert, who had blustered their innocence in

160 The German Secret Service in America

the previous trial, and had succeeded in securing
heavy bail from the Hamburg-American Line
pending separate trials for themselves, were
nipped this time with evidence which let none slip
through. Rintelen was haled from his cell to
answer to his part in the Kirk Oswald affair, and
the jury, in January, 19 18, declared the nine plot-
ters "guilty as charged" and Judge Howe sen-
tenced them to long terms in prison. Rintelen,
alone of the group, as they sat in court, had an
air of anything but wretched fanatic querulous-
ness. He followed the proceedings closely, and
once took the trial into his own hands in a flash
of temper when the State kept referring to the
loss of the Lusitania. It went hard with the
nobleman to be herded into a common American
court with a riff-raff of hireling crooks and
treated with impartial justice. In Germany it
never could have happened!

If those trials had occurred in May, 191 5, the
history of the transport of arms and shells would
not have been marred by such entries as these :

May 8 — Bankdale; two bombs found in cargo.
May 13 — Samland; afire at sea.
May 21 — Anglo-Saxon; bomb found aboard.
June 2 — Strathway; afire at sea.

July 4 — Minnehaha; bomb exploded at sea. (The
magnetos.)

Ship Bombs 161

July 13 — Toiiraine; afire at sea.
July 14 — Lord Dozvnshire; afire.
July 20 — Kn lit ford; afire in hold.
July 24 — Craigside ; five fires in hold.
July 2"/ — Arabic; two bombs found aboard.
Aug. 9 — Asuncion de Larrinaga; afire at sea.
Aug. 13 — Williston; bombs in cargo.
Aug. 27 — Lighter Dixie; fire while loading.

On August 31 the White Star liner Arabic, nine-
teen hours out of Liverpool was torpedoed by a
German submarine and sank in eleven minutes,
taking 39 lives, of which two were American.
Germany, on September 9, declared that the
U-boat commander attacked the Arabic without
warning, contrary to his instructions, but only
after he was convinced that the liner was trying
to ram him; the Imperial Government expressed
regret for the loss of American lives, but dis-
claimed any liability for indemnity, and sug-
gested arbitration. On October 5, however, the
government in Berlin had changed its tune to the
extent of issuing a note expressing regret for
having sunk the ship, disavowing the act of the
submarine commander, and assuring the United
States that new orders to submarines were so
strict that a recurrence of any such action was
"considered out of the question." If the cargoes
could be fired at sea, no submarine issue need be

162 The German Secret Service in America

raised. And so fires and bombs continued to be
discovered on ships just as consistently as before.
The log, resumed, runs thus :

Sept. I — Rotterdam ; fire at sea.

Sept. 7 — Santa Anna; fire at sea.

Sept. 29 — San Giiglielmo; dynamite found on pier.

Now von Rintelen's handiwork was revealed in
the adventures of Robert Fay, or "Fae," as he
was known in the Fatherland. In spite of the
imaginative quality of the enterprise, and the
additional guilt which it heaped upon the execu-
tives of the spy system, it was not successful.
There were vibrant moments, though, when only
the mobilization of police from two states and
special agents from the Secret Service and De-
partment of Justice averted what would have
developed into a profitable method of destroying
ships.

Lieutenant Robert Fay was born in Cologne,
where he lived until 1902. In that year he mi-
grated to Canada, where he worked on a farm,
and later to Chicago, where he was employed as
a bookkeeper until 1905. He then returned to
Germany for his military service, and went to
work again in Cologne, in the office of Thomas
Cook & Sons. After a period in a Mannheim
machine shop he went home and devoted himself

Ship Bombs 163

to certain mechanical inventions, and was at work
upon them when he was called out for war serv-
ice on August I, 1 914.

His regiment went into the trenches, and the
lieutenant had some success in dynamiting a
French position. Conniving with a superior of-
ficer, he deserted his command, and was sent to
America by a German reputed to be the head of
the secret service, one Jonnersen, Jonnersen
gave Fay 20,000 marks for expenses in carrying
out a plan to stop shipments of munitions from
America, and Fay arrived in New York April 23,
191 5, on the Rotterdam.

Dr. Herbert Kienzle, a clock-maker, of 309
West 86th Street, had written to his father in
Germany bitterly assailing the United States for
shipping munitions, and enclosed in his letters
information of certain American firms, such as
Browne & Sharp, of Providence, and the Chal-
mers Motor Car Company, of Detroit, who were
reputed to be manufacturing them. These let-
ters had been turned over to Jonnersen, who
showed them to Fay as suggestions. Upon his
arrival in New York, then. Fay called on Kienzle,
who, though he was friendly enough, was reluc-
tant to know of the details Fay had planned. Dr.
Kienzle introduced Fay to von Papen, and later

164 The German Secret Service in America

to Max Breitung, from whom he purchased a
quantity of potassium chlorate.

The deserter found his brother-in-law, Walter
Scholz, working as a gardener on an estate near
Waterford, Connecticut, and brought him to New
York on a salary of $25 a week. The two crossed
the Hudson to Weehawken, N. J., and set to work
to make bombs. Fay had a theory that a bomb
might be attached to the rudder of a ship, and so
set as to explode when the rudder, swinging to
port, wound a ratchet inside the device which
would release a hammer upon a percussion cap.
Their plan was to have the parts manufactured
at machine shops, assemble and fill them them-
selves, and then steal up the waterfront in the
small hours and attach the infernal machines to
outward bound vessels. Fay even counted on
disarming the police boats before setting out.

It took the two some three months to get the
parts made and properly adjusted. Meanwhile
they employed their spare hours in cruising about
the harbor in a motor-boat. A machinist in West
42nd Street, New York, made the zinc tank which
they used as a model, and the two conspirators
shortly opened a garage in Weehawken where
they could duplicate the bomb cases unmolested.

There came a time when the devices were satis-
factory, and Fay actually attached one to the

Ship Bombs 165

rudder of a ship to make sure that his adjust-
ments were correct. The next move was to
obtain explosives. Fay's prejudice against
bombs placed in a ship's hold was that they rarely
succeeded in sinking the craft; seventy or eighty
pounds of high explosive detonated at the stern
of a vessel, however, would blow the rudder away
and not only cripple the ship but would probably
burst a hole in the stern, mangle the screw, and
split the shaft.

Captain Tunney, of the Bomb Squad, heard in
October that two Germans were trying to buy pic-
ric acid from a man who stopped at the Hotel
Breslin, and who called himself Paul Seib and
Karl F. Oppegaarde, as the occasion demanded.
Tunney's men located the two Germans, and some
days later learned that they had placed an order
for fifty-two pounds of TNT, to be delivered at
the Weehawken garage. The delivery was inter-
cepted, a similar but harmless substance substi-
tuted for the explosive, and two detective-truck-
men took the package aw^ay on their truck to de-
liver it to Fay and Scholz. While they were in
New Jersey, Detectives Coy, Sterrett and Walsh
found Fay at the Breslin, and followed him back
to Weehawken. As he left the garage in the
evening in his automobile, the automobile of Po-
lice Commissioner Woods followed at a discreet

166 The German Secret Service in America

distance. Up the Palisades the two cars paraded,
until in a grove near Grantwood, Fay and Scholz
got out of their car and disappeared into the
woods with a lantern. After a time they re-
appeared, and returned to the garage, the police
following.

Next morning Chief Flynn was called into the
hunt — the morning of Saturday, October 23 — and
he assigned two special agents to the case. The
police department directed two detectives to
watch the woods at Grantwood where the con-
spirators had gone the night before. Detectives
Murphy and Fennelly, each equipped with line-
men's climbers, arrived at the wood-road about
noon, and spent the next eleven hours in the
branches of a great oak tree which commanded
the road. The perch was high and the night
wind chilly, but the watchers were rewarded at
last by the twin searchlights of an approaching
car. Out of it stepped Fay and Scholz. The
men in the branches saw by the light of the lan-
tern which Scholz carried that Fay placed a pack-
age underneath a distant tree, walked to a safe
distance, exploded a percussion cap, watched the
tree topple over and went away, apparently satis-
fied with the power of his explosives.

Meanwhile other detectives were watching the
rooming house at Union Hill where Fay and

Robert Fay, who made bombs with which he hoped to
cripple the shipment of munitions to Europe

Ship Bombs 167

Scholz lived, and they saw the two come in about
4 o'clock in the morning. Scholz had very little
sleep, for there was a ship leaving next day for
Liverpool. He left the house at 7 a. m. and went
to the garage. Thereupon three detectives re-
turned to the great oak tree at Grantwood.
About noon Fay and his brother-in-law drove up,
and unlocking the door of a rude hut in the wood,
took out a bag, from which they poured a few
grains of powder on the surface of a rock. Fay
struck the rock with a hammer; a loud report
followed, and the hammer broke in his hand. A
moment later he heard a twig snap behind him.
He turned, and saw a small army of detectives
with drav;n revolvers closing in on him. Fay
protested and pleaded, and offered to bribe the
detectives for his freedom, but he Vv^as locked
up with Scholz. The two had stored in a ware-
house several cases containing their completed
bomb mechanisms; the police confiscated from
their various caches five new bombs, 25 pounds of
TNT, 25 sticks of dynamite, 150 pounds of chlo-
rate of potash, two hundred bomb cylinders, 400
percussion caps, one motor-boat, one chart of
New York harbor showing all its fortifications
and piers, one foreign automobile, two German
automatic pistols and a long knife — a consider-
able arsenal.

168 The German Secret Service in America

Their confessions caused the arrest of Paul
Daeche, who had furnished them with explosives,
Dr. Kienzle, Breitung, and Engelbert Bronk-
horst. Fay received a sentence of eight years in
the penitentiary, but after America went to war,
Atlanta became too confining for his adventurous
spirit, and he escaped the prison, and is believed
to have crossed the Mexican border to safety.
Scholz was sentenced to four years, and Daeche
of three. Kienzle, Breitung and Bronkhorst were
not tried, their apparent ignorance of Fay's de-
signs outweighing in the jury's mind their obvi-
ous German sympathies. Kienzle, upon the dec-
laration of war of April 6, 1917, became an en-
emy alien, and was interned.

So Lieutenant Fay never qualified in active
service as a destroying agent. Yet he was profli-
gate in his intentions. He ofifered two men
$500,000 if they could intrigue among the ship-
pers in order that a ship laden with copper for
England might wander from the path of convoy
into German hands, and he even entertained the
fantastic hope, with his chart and his motor-boat
and his bombs, of stealing out of the harbor to the
cordon of British cruisers who hung outside the
three-mile limit and attaching his bombs to their
rudders, that the German merchantmen might
escape into the open sea.

SMp Bombs 169

On October 26 the Rio Lages caught fire at sea ;
fire broke out in the hold of the Euterpe on No-
vember 3 ; three days later there was fire aboard
the Rochambeau at sea; the next day an explosion
occurred aboard the Ancona. And so the list
runs on :

Dec. 4 — Tynninyham, two fires on ship.
Dec. 24 — Alston, dynamite found in cargo.
Dec. 26 — Inchmoor, fire in hold.

1916
Jan. 19 — Sygna, fire at sea.
Jan. 19 — Ryndam, bomb explosion at sea.
Jan. 22 — Rosebank, two bombs in cargo.
Feb. 16 — Dalton, fire at sea.
Feb. 21 — Tennyson, bomb explosion at sea.
Feb. 26 — Livingston Court, fire in Gravesend Bay.

April saw the round-up of the group who had
been working under the Hamburg- American cap-
tains, and although numerous fires occurred dur-
ing May, 19 1 6, in almost every case they were
traced to natural accidents. The number
mounted more slowly as the year advanced.
With the entrance of America into the war, and
the tightening of the police cordon along the
waterfront, the chance of planting bombs was
still further reduced, but waterfront fires kept re-
curring, and until the day of ultimate judgment in
Berlin, when each of Germany's arsonists in

170 TJie German Secret Service in America

America comes to claim his reward, none will
know the total of loss at their hands. It was
enormous in the damage it inflicted upon cargo,
but it is improbable that it had any perceptible
effect upon the whole export of shells for Flan-
ders and France.

CHAPTER XII

LABOR

David Lamar — Labor's National Peace Council — The
embargo conference — The attempted longshoremen's
strike — Dr. Dumba's recall.

Labor produced munitions. The hands of
labor could be frightened away from work by
explosions, their handiwork could be bombed on
the railways, the wharves, the lighters, and the
ships, but a surer method than either of those
was the perversion of the hearts of labor. So
thought Count von Bernstorff and Dr. Albert,
who dealt in men. So thought Berlin — the Gen-
eral Staff sent this message to America :

"January 26 — For Military Attache. You can obtain
particulars as to persons suitable for carrying on sabot-
age in the United States and Canada from the following
persons: (i) Joseph McGarrity, Philadelphia; (2)
John P. Keating, Michigan Avenue, Chicago; (3) Jere-
miah O'Leary, 16 Park Row^, New York.

"One and two are absolutely reliable and discreet.
Three is reliable, but not always discreet. These persons
were indicated by Sir Roger Casement. In the United

171

172 The German Secret Service in America

States sabotage can be carried out on every kind of
factory for supplying munitions of war,"

(Signed) "Representative of General Staff." ^

So too thought von Rintelen, who hired men —
usually the wrong ones.

Full of his project, he cast about for an inter-
mediary. No sly chemist or muscular wharf-rat
would do for this delicate task of anesthetizing
men with the gas of German propaganda while it
tied their hands and amputated their centres of
right and wrong; the candidate must be a man of
affairs, intimate with the chiefs of labor, skillful
in execution, and the abler the better. Von Rin-
telen would pay handsomely for the right man.
Whereupon David Lamar, the ''Wolf of Wall
Street," appeared on the scene and applied for
the job — an entrance auspicious for the United
States, for the newcomer's philosophy (if one
could judge from his previous career) was "Me
First."

In an attempt to defraud J. P. Morgan & Co.,
and the United States Steel Corporation Lamar
had once impersonated Representative A. Mit-
chell Palmer in certain telephone interviews.
(Palmer became custodian of alien property after

1 McGarrity, Keating, and O'Leary, upon the publication of
this despatch, uttered vigorous denials of any connection with
or knowledge of the despatch or the affairs mentioned.

Labor 173

the United States entered the war. ) He was con-
victed and sentenced to two years' imprisonment
in Atlanta Penitentiary. He appealed the case,
and while he was out on bail pending the appeal,
he fell in with Rintelen.

In April, 191 5, a New Yorker who dealt in pub-
licity was introduced to Rintelen, or "Hansen,"
by Dr. Schimmel. Rintelen offered the publicity
man $25,000 to conduct a campaign of propa-
ganda for more friendly relations with Germany,
to offset the commercial power Great Britain bade
fair to have at the end of the war, and assured
him that he would go to any extreme to prevent
shipments of munitions to the Allies. The war,
he said, would be decided not in Europe but in
America. There must be strikes in the munitions
factories.

When the publicity man heard also that Rin-
telen was trying to stir up trouble with Mexico,
he wrote on May 13 to Joseph Tumulty, Presi-
dent Wilson's secretary, informing him of the
German's intentions. He was referred to the
Department of Justice, and at their dictation con-
tinued in contact with Rintelen. Shortly there-
after David Lamar and his friend Henry Martin
took a trip to Minneapolis, where they met Con-
gressman Frank Buchanan and Ex-Congressman
Robert Fowler, both of Illinois. Out of that con-

174 The German Secret Service in America

f erence grew a plan for forming a labor organiza-
tion the object of which was ostensibly peace, and
actually an embargo upon the shipment of muni-
tions abroad, but whether Buchanan and Fowler
knew of von Rintelen's connection with the
scheme remains to be proved. It can be readily
seen that such a labor organization, if it had ac-
tually represented organized labor, could have
forced such a stoppage, either by its collective
potential voting power and influence, or by fos-
tering a nation-wide strike of munitions workers.

The nucleus formed in Chicago, about one
William F. Kramer. "Buchanan and Fowler
came to me in June here in Chicago," said
Kramer, "and told me about their plan to form a
council. We opened headquarters, and we en-
gaged two organizers, James Short and J. J. Cun-
diff, who got $50 a week apiece, a secretary, L. P.
Straube, who got $50 a week, and a stenographer.
I was a vice-president, but I didn't get anything.
We were known then as Labor's Peace Council of
Chicago, and we were supposed to be in it because
of our convictions against the shipment of muni-
tions. And I'll say that organized labor was
made the goat."

Buchanan had no idea of restricting the coun-
cil to one city. He called upon Samuel Gompers,
head of the American Federation of Labor, at

Labor 175

Atlantic City on June 9 and tried to induce him
to back a movement in Washington for an em-
bargo. Gompers refused flatly and completely
to have anything to do with the plan, especially
when Buchanan made known his associates.
Those associates were busy meanwhile lobbying
in Congress, representing themselves as friends
of organized labor, and pressing the embargo
question. About a week later Congressman Bu-
chanan inflated the Chicago organization into
Labor's National Peace Council, with headquar-
ters at Washington, to recommend the convoca-
tion of a special session of Congress at once to
"promote universal peace," which meant simply
"to promote the introduction and enactment of an
embargo." Its members met frequently, and an-
noyed the President and other important men, —
even Andrew Carnegie, — with their importunings
for attention, and got exactly what they wanted —
wide publicity.

About July 10 Andrew D. Meloy, whose office
in New York Rintelen was sharing at the time,
noticed that his German associate began to keep
a clipping-file of news of the Council. Meloy
learned of the project, and assured Rintelen that
he was foolhardy to attempt, by bribery of
labor officials, to divert common labor from earn-
ing high wages. To which Rintelen replied

176 The German Secret Service in America

brusquely : "Thanks. You come into this busi-
ness about 1 1 :45 o'clock."

Rintelen sent a telegram to Lamar in Chicago
on July 1 6, the text of which follows:

"E. Ruskay, Room 700 B, Sherman Hotel, Chicago.

"Party who receives $12,500 monthly from competi-
tors is now interfering with business in hand. Do you
know of any way and means to check him? Wire.

"F. Brown."

"Ruskay" was Lamar. Later in the day the
German sent this message:

"Twelve thousand five hundred now at capitol. Con-
ference here today plans to guarantee outsiders and settle-
ment possible within few days. New issue urgently
needed. Notify B."

The "party" mentioned in the first despatch
was the code designation for Gompers, and he
was indicated in the second message as "Twelve
thousand five hundred." "B" was Buchanan,
upon whose connection with labor Rintelen told
Meloy the success of the plan rested. Lamar
hurried to New York, arriving July 19, and met
Rintelen in a limousine at the looth Street en-
trance to Central Park; on the ride which fol-
lowed the "Wolf" told Rintelen that a strike then
going on among the munitions workers at Bridge-
port was "only a beginning of his efforts," and

Labor 177

that within thirty days the industry would be
paralyzed throughout the country. Meloy ad-
vanced the information that Gompers had just
gone to Bridgeport to stop the strike, to which
Lamar replied:

''Buchanan will settle Gompers within twenty-
four hours!"

The clippings kept coming in as testimony to
the vigorous work being done by the organiza-
tion's press bureau : the Council attacked the Fed-
eral Reserve Banks as "munitions trusts," it cited
on July 8 nine ships lying in port awaiting muni-
tions cargoes, and attacked Dudley Field Malone,
then Collector of the Port of New York, for per-
mitting such ships to clear; it claimed to repre-
sent a million labor votes, and four million and a
half farmers ; it listened eagerly to an address by
Hannis Taylor, a disciple of the late warm-
hearted Secretary of State, Mr. Bryan, in which
,Taylor criticized President Wilson and was
roundly cheered by the German-American ele-
ment in the audience. Semi-occasionally during
the midsummer heat Charles Oberwager, attor-
ney for the Council (whose firm had received
handsome fees from von Papen), rose to deny
any German connection with the organization.
The Council assailed Secretary Lansing as a man
*'whose radicalism was liable to plunge this nation

178 Tlie German Secret Service in America

into war." The Council assailed, in fact, any
project which furthered the interests of the
Allies. Rintelen began to have his doubts of the
effectiveness of Lamar's work. The bank ac-
count in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company had
dwindled from $800,000 to $40,000, and Rintelen
admitted that his transactions with Lamar cost
him several hundred thousand dollars. Labor's
National Peace Conference died quietly, Lamar
flitted away to a country estate at Pittsfield,
Mass., and Rintelen started across the Atlantic
Ocean.

August wore on. The Council was getting
ready for a second gaseous session, when Milton
Snelling, a representative of the Washington
Central Labor Union, who had been elected a first
vice-president of the Council, withdrew from its
membership, because he "discovered persons par-
ticipating in the meetings who have been hanging
on the fringe of the labor movement for their own
personal aggrandizement, men who have been
discarded . . . others never having been mem-
bers of any organization of labor," and because
Jacob C. Taylor, the cigar-making delegate from
East Orange, N. J., said, in answer to a query as
to the Council's purpose : *'We want to stop the
export of munitions to the Allies. You see Ger-
many can make all the munitions she wants."

Labor 179

Then — and it may be coincidence — about one
week later the Neiv York World began its pubH-
cation of certain of the papers found in the brief
case which Dr. Heinrich Albert, of the German
Embassy, allowed to escape him on a New York
elevated train; on August 19 Buchanan resigned
the Council, and Taylor was elected to succeed
him.

Indictments were returned against Rintelen, as
well as against Lamar, Martin, Buchanan and
their associates, on December 28, 191 5. Bu-
chanan at once exploded with a retaliatory de-
mand for the impeachment of United States Dis-
trict Attorney Marshall, upon which Congress
dared not take action. Marshall gracefully re-
tired from the trial in May, 191 6, lest he preju-
dice the Government's case, and Lamar, Martin
and Rintelen were convicted of infraction of the
Sherman Anti-Trust Law and sentenced to one
year each in a New Jersey prison. Thus ended
Labor's National Peace Council, thanks to David
Lamar.

The project for an embargo looked attractive
to the Embassy, however — so attractive that
while the Coimcil was at the height of its activ-
ity, Baron Kurt von Reiswitz wrote on July 22,
1915, from Chicago to Dr. Albert:

''Everything else concerning the proposed em-

180 The German Secret Service in America

bargo conference you will find in the enclosed
copy of the report to the Ambassador. A change
has, however, come up, as the mass meeting will
have to be postponed on account of there being
insufficient time for the necessary preparations.
It will probably be held there in about two weeks.

"Among others the following have agreed to
cooperate: Senator Hitchcock, Congressman
Buchanan, William Bayard Hale of New York
and the well known pulpit orator, Dr. Aked (born
an Englishman), from San Francisco.

"Hitchcock seemed to be very strong for the
plan. He told our representative at a conference
in Omaha: 'If this matter is organized in the
right way you will sweep the United States.'

"For your confidential information I would
further inform you that the leadership of the
movement thus far lies in the hands of two gen-
tlemen (one in Detroit and one in Chicago) who
are firmly resolved to work toward the end that
the German community, which, of course, will be
with us without further urging, shall above all
things remain in the background, and that the
movement, to all outward appearances, shall have
a purely American character. I have known both
the gentlemen very well for a long time and know
that personal interest does not count with them ;
the results will bring their own reward.

Labor 181

"For the purposes of the inner organization, to
which we attribute particular importance, we
have assured ourselves of the cooperation of the
local Democratic boss, Roger C. Sullivan, as also
Messrs. Sparman, Lewis and McDonald, the lat-
ter of the Chicago American. Sullivan was for-
merly leader of the Wilson campaign and is a
deadly enemy of Wilson, as the latter did not
keep his word to make him a Senator ; therefore,
principally, the sympathy of our cause."

One is inclined to wonder where Rintelen's
vast credits went, during his short visits in 1915-
Lamar took a goodly sum, as we have seen; the
negotiations for the purchase of the Krag rifles
cost him no small amount; his ship bomb activi-
ties required a considerable payroll. But as fur-
ther evidence of the high cost of causing trouble,
we must consider briefly the profligate methods
he employed in other attempts to inflame and
seduce labor.

A walkout by the longshoremen of the Atlantic
coast would cripple the supply of munitions to
Europe, and might be successful enough to cause
a shell famine in France of which the Central
Powers could readily take advantage. There
were 23,000 dock-workers in American ports;
they must be guaranteed a certain wage for five
weeks of strike; the cost in wages alone would

182 The German Secret Service in America

therefore amount to about $1,635,000, besides
service fees to intermediaries. He had the
money, and the first step was taken in the other-
wise placid city of Boston.

On May 7, 191 5, the day the Liisitania sank,
WilHam P. Dempsey, the secretary-treasurer of
the Atlantic Coast International Longshoremen's
Union, met Dennis Driscoll, a Boston labor
leader and former city office-holder, at the old
Quincy House in Hanover Street. Driscoll said
that Matthew Cummings, a wealthy Boston gro-
cer, had outlined to him the plan for the strike,
and said he was acting for parties who were will-
ing to pay a million dollars. Dempsey main-
tained his poise when the startling information
was recited, but he was frightened, and at the
conclusion of the interview he telegraphed at once
to T. V. O'Connor, the president of the union, re-
questing an interview. The two union men met
in Albany and discussed the affair pro and con,
arriving at the conclusion that they had best re-
veal the plot to the Government. O'Connor ac-
cordingly told of the negotiations to Secretary
Wilson of the Department of Labor, and then in
connivance with the Secret Service, went on deal-
ing with the grocer, constantly pressing him for
the identity of the principals who, he said, were
prepared to supply all the necessary money. He

Labor 183

implicated George Sylvester Viereck, the editor
of a subsidized German propaganda-weekly called
The Fatherland, and said that he had been in-
troduced to him by Edmund von Mach. Neither
of those men figured except as intermediaries,
and Cummings suggested that Dr. Bernhard
Dernburg, a loyal propagandist then in the
United States, was the director of the enterprises.
Owing to the high pitch of public feeling over the
Lusitania, Cummings could not receive permis-
sion from his superiors to go ahead with O'Con-
nor, but he did his best to keep O'Connor inter-
ested. The latter, fearing that German agents
were at work on the Pacific coast, took a trip to
the far West, and during his absence Cummings
telegraphed him twice. There the affair ended,
for O'Connor ignored the message, and on July 14
returned to New York to find that a German at-
tempt to force a walkout on the New York water-
front had failed, and that Cummings had stopped
playing with fire and had gone back to his gro-
cery in Boston.

When the Government turned the story over to
a newspaper to publish on September 13, the time
was not ripe to fix the responsibility for the at-
tempt. Dr. Dernburg was a popular scapegoat
at the time, and the implication of his authority
in the attempt was allowed to stand. Rintelen

184 The German Secret Service in America

was in Donington Hall, a prison camp in Eng-
land, and it was months thereafter before the
United States and British Secret Services had
fully compared notes on him. By that time there
were other charges lying against him which prom-
ised better cases than an abortive attempt to pro-
mote a strike 'longshore.

We have witnessed the cumulative influence of
newspaper reports in surrounding Labor's Na-
tional Peace Council with an almost genuine
atmosphere of national interest; w^e have been
able to picture the hostility which the publication
of the longshoremen's strike story aroused in
legitimately organized labor; and although as a
typical instance of newspaper influence we should
postpone the following incident, it is a temptation
too great to resist. It is the story of The Story
That Cost an Ambassador, and if any further
plea for its introduction be needed, let it be that
it is another subtle attempt upon labor in the
summer of 191 5.

James F. J. Archibald, an American corre-
spondent who had seen most of the wars of re-
cent years, and who wanted to see more, set sail
from New York on August 21, 191 5, for Amster-
dam, with his wife, his campaign clothes, and a
portfolio. At Falmouth, England, the usual

Dr. Constantin Dumba, Austrian ambassador to the United
States, recalled after the disclosures of the correspon-
dence captured on the war correspondent, Archibald

Labor 185

search party came aboard, and inspected the
papers in the portfoHo. Archibald proved to be
an unofficial despatch-bearer, upon whom his Ger-
man and Austrian acquaintances in the United
States placed great reliance — such men as Papen,
Bernstorff, and Dr. Constantine Dumba sent re-
ports to their governments in his care.

On September 5 the Nezu York World burst
forth with the text of one of the letters — one
from Dr. Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian ambas-
sador at Washington, to his chief in the foreign
office at Vienna, Baron Burian. It is worth re-
producing here intact :

"New York, August 20."
*' Your Excellency :

"Yesterday evening Consul-General von Nuber re-
ceived the enclosed aide memoire from the chief editor
of the local influential paper Sz'abadsag, after a previous
conversation with me in pursuance of his verbal propos-
als to arrange for strikes at Bethlehem in Schwab's steel
and munitions factory and also in the middle West.

"Archibald, who is well known to your Excellency,
leaves today at 12 o'clock on board the Rotterdam for
Berlin and Vienna. I take this rare and safe opportunity
of warmly recommending these proposals to your Ex-
cellency's favorable consideration. It is my impression
that we can disorganize and hold up for months, if not
entirely prevent, the manufacture of munitions in Beth-
lehem and the middle West, which, in the opinion of the

186 The German Secret Service in America

German military attache, is of great importance and
amply outweighs the comparatively small expenditure of
money involved.

"But even if strikes do not occur it is probable that we
should extort under pressure more favorable conditions
of labor for our poor downtrodden fellow countrymen in
Tethlehem. These white slaves are now working twelve
hours a day, seven days a week. All weak persons suc-
cumb and become consumptive. So far as German work-
men are found among the skilled hands means of leaving
will be provided immediately for them.

"Besides this, a private German registry office has been
established which provides employment for persons who
voluntarily have given up their places. It already is
working well. We shall also join in and the widest sup-
port is assured us.

"I beg your Excellency to be so good as to inform me
with reference to this letter by wireless. Reply whether
you agree. I remain, with great haste and respect,

"DUMBA."

The aide memoire, written by the editor of a
Hungarian weekly, proposed to create unrest by
a campaign in foreign language newspapers cir-
culated free to labor, muck-raking labor condi-
tions in Bethlehem, Youngstown, Cleveland,
Pittsburg, and Bridgeport, where there were
great numbers of foreign workmen, Hungarians,
Austrians, and Germans. This was to be sup-
plemented by a "horror novel" similar to the
bloody effort of Upton Sinclair to describe the

Labor 187

Chicago stockyards. Special agents of unrest,
roll-turners, steel workers, soapbox orators, pic-
nic organizers, were all to be insinuated into the
plants to stir up the workmen. This editor had
stirred them up a few weeks before at Bridge-
port— the strike which Lamar claimed as his own
accomplishment — and he presented to Baron
Burian a really comprehensive plan for creating
unrest through his well-subsidized foreign-lan-
guage press. And in passing it on, Dr. Dumba
stood sponsor for it.

The British government saw in the discovery of
the letter and the cool impudence of it, a rare
chance for propaganda in America. So, as has
been said, the World published the story, and at
once the wrath of the truly American people jus-
tified President Wilson in doing what he and Sec-
retary Lansing had already determined to do — to
send Dr. Dumba home. Perhaps Dumba's refer-
ence to the "self-willed temperament of the Presi-
dent" in another note found on Archibald had
something to do with the haste with which the
Ambassador's recall was demanded; it followed
on the heels of the publication of the letter :

"By reason of the admitted purpose and intent of Mr.
Dumba to conspire to cripple legitimate industries of the
United States and to interrupt their legitimate trade, and
by reason of the flagrant violation of diplomatic propriety

188 The German Secret Service in America

in employing an American citizen protected by an Ameri-
can passport as a secret bearer of official despatches
through the lines of the enemy of Austria-Hungary, the
President directs us to inform your Excellency that Mr.
Dumba is no longer acceptable to the Government of the
United States as the Ambassador of his Imperial Majesty
at Washington."

So went Dumba.

After his departure Baron Zwiedinek, his
charge d'affaires, and Consul von Nuber adver-
tised widely in Hungarian newspapers calling on
Austrians and Hungarians at work in munitions
plants to leave. If they M^rote the Embassy on
the subject, the reply they received read:

"It is demanded that patriotism, no less than fear of
punishment, should cause every one to quit his work im-
mediately."

But neither threats, nor walking delegates, nor
German spies could check the output of shells and
guns. An attempt made by Dr. Albert to buy,
for $50,000, a strike in Detroit motor factories
failed. The factories were making money as
they had never made money before, and labor
was buying luxuries. To the American muni-
tions-worker a comfortable supply of money
meant much more than the shrill bleat of the Cen-
tral Powers. And what was more, he w^as not
entirely satisfied that the right was all on Ger-

Labor 189

many's side. (Our space does not permit, nor
is definite information at present available, to dis-
cuss the anarchist, socialist, and I. W. W. ele-
ments of labor, and their relations to Germany.
These three factors, especially the last named, ef-
fected in the years 1914-1918 a sufficient amount
of industrial unrest to qualify them as allies, if
not actual servants, of the Kaiser. Whether
they were employed by Germany will be brought
out in a trial which began in Chicago in April,

1918.)

CHAPTER XIII

THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA

The mistress of the seas — Plotting in New York — The
Liisitania's escape in February, 1915 — The advertised
warning — The plot — May 7, 191 5 — Diplomatic corre-
spondence— Gustave Stahl — The results.

In the eyes of the German Admiralty the
Lusitania was the symbol of British supremacy on
the seas. There were larger ships flying the
Prussian flag, but one of them lay in her German
harbor, the other at her Little-German pier in
Hoboken, while the Lusitania swept gracefully
over the Western Ocean as she regally saw fit,
leaving only a thin trail of smoke for the sluggish
undersea enemy to follow. Time and again dur-
ing the early months of war the plotters in Berlin
had attempted her destruction, and every time
she had slipped away — until the last, when the
plot was developed on American soil.

Her destruction would carry home to Germany
news of heartening influence out of all proportion
to the mere sinking of a large single tonnage.
The German visible navy had, with the exception
of scattering excursions into the North Sea, and

190

The Sinking of the Lusitania 191

the swiftly quenched efforts of the South Atlantic
fleet, been of negligible — and irksome — conse-
quence. To sink the mistress of the British mer-
chant fleet would be to inform all the world that
Britain was incapable of protecting her cargo and
passenger vessels, to puncture the comfortable
British boast of the moment that business was
being performed "as usual," and to gratify the
blood-letting instincts of the Junkers. So von
Tirpitz, with his colleagues, undertook to sink the
Lusitania, and to warn neutrals to travel in their
own ships or stay ashore.

Early in December, 1914, the German agents
who met nightly at the Deutscher Verein in Cen-
tral Park South speculated on ways and means of
bringing down this attractive quarry. Commun-
ication between Berlin and New York at that
time was as facile as a telephone conversation
from the Battery to Harlem. There were new
iio-kilowatt transmitters in the German-owned
Sayville wireless station, imported through Hol-
land and installed under the expert supervision of
Captain Boy- Ed, and memoranda issued in Berlin
to the naval attache were frequently the subject of
guarded conversation in the German Club within
a few hours after they had left the Wilhelm-
strasse. Occasionally the conspirators found it
more tactful to drive through the Park in a

192 The German Secret Service in America

limousine during the evening, to discuss the pro-
ject. Spies had made several trips to Liverpool
and back again a1)oard the ship, under false pass-
ports, and Paul Koenig's waterfront henchmen
supplied all necessary information of the guard
maintained at the piers. All this was passed up
to the clearing-house of executives, and their
plans began to take shape.

Boy-Ed possessed a copy of the secret British
Admiralty code, which explained his frequent
trips to Sayville. He knew — and Tirpitz's staff
therefore knew — the position of any British ves-
sel at sea which had occasion to utter any mes-
sage into the air. But before he conceived a use
for this code other than as a source of informa-
tion, he decided to try out a code of his own.

He arranged with Berlin a word-system whose
theory was popular with Germany throughout the
earlier years of her secret war communication:
under the guise of apparently harmless expres-
sions of friendship, or grief, or simple business,
were transmitted quite definite and specific secret
meanings. A message addressed by wireless
from the Liisitania to a friend in England which
read for example "Eager to see you. Much love"
would scarcely arouse suspicion, especially as
there was no word in it which might suggest mili-
tary information. Yet in February, 191 5, a mes-

The Sinking of the Lusitania 193

sage of that type was despatched from the east-
ward-bound Lusitania to a British station ; it was
intercepted and interpreted by a German sub-
marine commander in the **zone" nearby, who
presently popped up in the ship's wake and fired
a torpedo. His information was better than his
aim. The Lusitania dodged the steel shark, and
fled to safety, her wireless informing the British
naval world meanwhile of the presence of the
U-boat.

The plotters had to reckon with her unequalled
speed. The Lusitania and her sister ship, the
Mauretania, had each rather prided herself in the
past on reducing the other's fresh, bright passage-
record from Queenstown to New York — a record
of four days and a few hours ! The submarine of
T915 knew no such speed, and it was necessary, if
the liner was to be torpedoed, to select out of the
vastness of the ocean one little radius in which the
submarine might lie in wait for a pot-shot. But
just how ?

Spies had reported that it was customary as the
Lusitania neared the Irish coast on her homeward
voyage for her captain to query the British Ad-
miralty for instructions as to where her convoy
might be expected. They reported that under
certain conditions German agents might be placed
on board. And they reported that the wireless

194 The German Secret Service in America

operator was susceptible to bribery. Those three
facts formed the nucleus of the final plan.

Audacious as they were in their use of Ameri-
can soil as the base for their plans, the German
Embassy had certain obligations to the United
States Government, which they felt must be ob-
served. The unspeakable falsifying which is
sometimes called expediency, sometimes diplo-
macy, required that official America must know
nothing of the intentions of which the Embassy
itself was fully conversant and approving. Fur-
ther, a palliative must be supplied to the American
people in advance. Consequently Count von
Bernstorff, under orders from Berlin, inserted in
the New York Times of April 23, 19 15, the fol-
lowing advertisement :

NOTICE

Travelers intending- to embark on the Atlantic voyage
are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany
and her Alhes and Great Britain and her AlHes ; that the
zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British
Isles ; that in accordance with formal notice given by the
German Imperial Government, vessels flying the flag of
Great Britain or any of her Allies are liable to destruc-
tion in these waters and that travelers sailing in the war
zone on ships of Great Britain or her Allies do so at their

own risk. -r ^ -c . ^^ ,

Imperial German Embassy.

Washington, D. C, April 22d, 191 5.

OCEAN TRAVEL

NOTICE!

TRAVELLERS intending to
embark on the Atlantic voyage
1 1 are reminded that a state of
war exists between Germany
and her allies and GreatBritain
and her allies; that the zone of|
war includes the waters adja-
cent to the British Isles; that,
I in accordance with formal no-
Itice given by the Imperial Ger-
man Government, vessels fly-
ing the flag of Great Britain, or
ofanyof her aliies,are liable to
destruction in those waters and
that travellers sailing in the
war zone on ships of Great
Britain or her allies do so at
their own risk. \

IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY

The newspaper advertisement inserted among
"ocean travel" advertising by the Im-
perial Genr.an Embassy prior to
the Lusitania's departure on
what proved to be her
last voyage

The Sinking of the Lusitania 195

Germans in New York who knew of the plot
dropped hints to their friends ; anonymous warn-
ings were received by several passengers who had
booked their accommodations; Alfred Gwynne
Vanderbilt received such a message, signed
"Morte." But such whispers were common, the
Lusitania had outrun the submarines before and
could presumably do it again; further, most
Americans at that moment had some confidence
left in civilization.

The plot was substantially this: when Captain
Turner, on the last day of the voyage, should send
his wireless query to the Admiralty, inquiring for
his convoy of destroyers, a wireless reply in the
British code directing his course must be sent to
him from Sayville. His query would be heard
and answered by the Admiralty, of course, but the
genuine reply must not reach him.

Berlin assigned two submarines to a point ten
miles south by west of the Old Head of Kinsale,
near the entrance to St. George's Channel. She
selected an experienced commander for the espe-
cial duty, and with him went a secret agent to
shadow him as he opened his sealed instructions,
and shoot him if he balked. And about the time
when the U-boats slipped out of the Kiel Canal,
and threaded their way through the mine-fields
into the North Sea, submerging as they picked up

196 Tlie German Secret Service in America

the smoke of British ships on the western horizon,
the Lusitania warped out of her pier in the Hud-
son River and set her prow for Sandy Hook, the
Grand Banks, and Ireland.

She carried 1,254 passengers and a crew of
eight hundred, a total of more than 2,000 souls,
of whom 1,214 were sailing to their death. Ger-
many had selected their graves ; von Rintelen had
two friends aboard who were detailed to flash
lights from the portholes in case the ship made the
submarine rendezvous at night. The Litsitania
carried bombs which Dr. Karl Schimmel placed on
board; she carried bombs which wretched little
Klein placed on board; she carried, too, the crea-
ture who was to betray her. Her company was
gay enough, and interesting; besides Mr. Vander-
bilt her passenger list included Charles Frohman,
the most important of theatrical managers; El-
bert Hubbard, a quaint and lovable writer-arti-
san; Charles Klein, a playwright; Justus Miles
Forman, a novelist ; and numerous others of more
or less celebrity, among them an actress who lived
to reenact her part in the tragedy for the benefit
of herself and a motion picture company. Ruth-
less as it was, the Lusitania also carried Lindon
W. Bates, Jr., a youth whose family had be-
friended von Rintelen. And there were the
women and children.

The Sinking of the Lusitania 197

Meanwhile, Sayville was in readiness, a trained
wireless operator prepared at any moment to hear
Captain Turner's inquiry, and to tiash a false re-
ply with a perfect British Admiralty touch. On
May 5 Captain Boy-Ed received word from Ber-
lin that he had been awarded the Iron Cross. On
May 7 the Lusitania spoke: Captain Turner's
request for instructions. Presently the reply
came, and was hurried to his cabin. From his
code book he deciphered directions to "proceed
to a point ten miles south of Old Head of Kinsale
and thence run into St. George's Channel, ar-
riving at the Liverpool bar at midnight." He
carefully calculated the distance and his running
time on the assumption that he was protected on
every side by the British fleet, and set his course
for the Old Head of Kinsale.

The British Admiralty also received Captain
Turner's inquiry, just as the Sayville operator had
snatched it from the air, and despatched an an-
swer : orders that the Lusitania proceed to a point
some 70 or 80 miles south of the Old Head of
Kinsale, there to meet her convoy. Captain
Turner never received that, message. The
British Government knows v/hy the message was
not delivered, though the fact has not, at this date,
been made public.

The Lnsitania headed northeast all mornine.

198 The German Secret Service in America

At 1 :20 o'clock she ran the gauntlet of two sub-
marines; a torpedo was released, and found its
target. The ghastly details of what followed
have been told so fully, so vividly, and so appeal-
ingly that they need not be repeated here. They
made themselves heard around a world that was
already vibrant with uproar. The first sodden
tremor of the ship told Captain Turner that he
had been betrayed. He described later at the Cor-
oner's inquest how he had received orders sup-
posedly from the Admiralty, and had set out to
o1)ey them. He produced the copy of those or-
ders, but of the genuine message from the Ad-
miralty he knew nothing. Asked if he had made
special application for a convoy, he said: ''No,
I left that to them. It is their business, not mine.
I simply had to carry out my orders to go, and I
would do it again."

America was in a turmoil. Germany nad
presumed too far; she — it is almost incongruous
to call Germany ''she" — had believed that her
warning declaration that the waters about the
British isles were a war zone would be respected,
or if not respected, would serve as an excuse, and
that the torpedoing would be accepted calmly by
America. She was not prepared for Colonel
Roosevelt's burning denunciation of this act of
common piracy, nor for the angry editorial re-

The Sinking of the Lusitania 199

monstrance of a people outraged at the loss of one
hundred and fourteen American lives. But Ger-
many recovered her presumptuous poise swiftly,
and while ugly medals were being struck off com-
memorating the German triumph over the ship,
and while destroyers were still searching British
waters for the bodies of the dead, she sent a note
of commiseration and sympathy to Washington,
Three days later — on May 13 — the United States
conveyed to Berlin a strong protest against the
submarine policy which had culminated in the
sinking of the Lusitania. Three days before
Germany replied on May 28, a submarine attacked
an American steamer, the Nebraska, and the Im-
perial government followed up its first reply with
a supplementary note justifying its previous at-
tacks upon the American vessels Gidflight and
Gushing. Germany's fat was in the fire.

A German editor in the United States had the
effrontery to announce that American ships would
be sunk as readily as the Lusitania. Secretary
Bryan, of the Department of State, at that time
a confirmed pacifist, resigned his post on June
8, thus drawing the sting of a second and sharper
protest which went forward to Germany the next
day. To this the Foreign Office replied on July 8
that American ships would be safe in the sub-
marine zone under certain conditions, and the

200 The German Secret Service in America

President on July 21 rejected this diplomatic sop
as "very unsatisfactory." Count von Bernstorff
finally announced, on September i, that German
submarines would sink no more liners without
warning, and his government ratified his promise
a fortnight later. The promise was at best a
quibble, and it in no way restricted undersea
depredations upon commerce and human life.
After the Liisitania affair followed the Leelanaw,
the Arabic, and the Hesperian and on February
16, 1 91 6, Germany acknowledged her liability for
the Liisitania' s destruction — the day after Secre-
tary Lansing declared the right of commercial
vessels to arm themselves in self-defense, and five
days before the Crown Prince began the ten-
months' battle of Verdun.

The published correspondence of the State De-
partment gives in detail the negotiations regard-
ing maritime relations, a record of Imperial hy-
pocrisy which indicates clearly the desire and in-
tention of the Germans to retain their submarine
warfare at any cost. There is not space here to
brief the papers, nor any great need, for it was
the Liisitania which dictated the tone and outcome
of the correspondence, and which brought the
United States rudely face to face with the cruel
facts of war.

In spite of these facts, Germany employed her

The Sinlwig of the Lusitania 201

agents in desperate, devious and futile attempts to
gloss over the crime. Relatives of those who had
drowned were persuaded by agents (one of them
was "a lawyer named Fowler, now under Federal
indictment on another count") to sue the Cunard
Line for damages for having mounted guns on the
liner, thus making her liable to attack. Paul
Koenig paid a German, Gustave Stahl, of Ho-
boken, to swear to an affidavit that he had seen
guns on the ship ; this affidavit was forwarded by
Captain Boy-Ed on June i, to Washington, and
had a wide temporary effect upon public senti-
ment until Stahl was convicted of perjury and
sentenced to i8 months in Atlanta. It was
Koenig who hid Stahl where neither the police
nor the press could find him after he made his
statement, and it was Koenig who, at the com-
mand of the Federal authorities, produced him.
It was Rintelen who dined on the night of the
tragedy at the home of one of the victims ; it was
Rintelen who received the news with a mild ex-
pression of regret because "he had two good men
aboard."

Tactically Germany had attained her objec-
tives ; her submarines had obeyed orders and sunk
a liner. vStrategically Germany had made a gross
miscalculation ; recruiting in England took a pro-
nounced rise, the Admiralty was shocked into re-

202 The German Secret Service in America

doubled vigilance, the United States instead of
swallowing the affront complicated the question
of the freedom of the seas beyond all untangling
except by force of arms, and beside the word
"Belgium" on the calendar of crime the w^orld
wrote the word ''Lusitania," as equally typical
of the warfare of the Hun.

CHAPTER XIV

COMMERCIAL VENTURES

German law in America— Waetzoldt's reports — The
British blockade— A report from Washington — Stopping
the chlorine supply — Speculation in wool — Dyestuffs and
the Deutschland — Purchasing phenol — The Bridgeport
Projectile Company — The lost portfolio — The recall of
the attaches — A summary of Dr. Albert's efforts.

In addition to the exercise of its diplomatic
functions, now more important than they had
ever been before, the German Embassy had as-
sumed the burden of large commercial enter-
prises. Their execution was entrusted to Dr. Al-
bert, the privy councillor and fiscal agent for the
Empire. There was apparently no limit, either
financial or territorial, to the scope of his efforts,
and the fact that he was able to administrate such
a volume of work is no small tribute to his zeal.
But that very zeal outran his regard for Ameri-
can law, so in one of his earlier ventures he set
out to substitute the law of the Empire for that
of the nation to which he was accredited.

Dr. Albert was informed on March lo, 191 5, by

203

204 The German Secret Service in America

a German lawyer, S. Walter Kaufmann of 60
Wall Street, that his clients, the Orenstein-
Arthur Keppel Company, had an order for 9,000
tons of steel rails to be shipped to Russia, despite
instructions from the company's home office in
Berlin that "no orders should be accepted for ship-
ment to any country at war with Germany, be-
cause of Paragraph 89 of the Gesetz Buch." The
Gesetz Buch is the German Penal Code. (One
of Kauf mann's law partners was Norvin R. Lind-
heim, legal adviser to Germany's agents in the
United States.) The manufacturers begged the
permission of the Embassy to accept the order and
pass the actual manufacture on to the United
States Steel Compan}^ in order to evade the let-
ter of Paragraph 89, and in order ''to delay the
order, if that would in any way be desirable."
The matter was neglected in the Embassy, and on
July 13 the Orenstein-Arthur Keppel Company
wrote from Keppel, Pa., to the German consul,
Philadelphia, Dr. George Stobbe, again asking
permission to accept the order. The consul re-
plied, denying permission, on the ground that the
shipment would facilitate the Russian transport
of troops, and that such action would be within
the meaning of Paragraph 89 of the Gesetz Buch.
''That you are in position to delay the delivery of
the order, to the prejudice of the hostile country

Commercial Ventures 205

ordering, in no way makes you less punishable,"
he continued. He forwarded a copy of his ruling
to the Ambassador for approval, and it in turn
was forwarded to Dr. Albert. The order was not
taken; the fear of punishment by Germany was
greater than the protection afforded by American
Law.

The foregoing episode reveals the nature of Dr.
Albert's chief problem — the financial blocking of
supplies for the Allies. Let Boy-Ed destroy the
ships, von Papen dynamite the factories and rail-
ways, Rintelen run his mad course of indiscrim-
inate violence — the smooth financial agent would
undertake only those great business ventures in
which his shrewdness and experience could have
play. He was receiving reports constantly on the
economic status, and the following extract from a
report from G. D. Waetzoldt, a trade investigator
in the Consulate in New York, will illustrate the
German frame of mind about midsummjcr of

*'The large war orders, as the professional
journals also print, have become the great means
of saving American business institutions from
idleness and financial ruin.

" The fact that institutions of the size and in-
ternational influence of those mentioned could not
find sufficient regular business to keep them to

206 The German Secret Service in America

some extent occupied, half at least, throws a harsh
light upon the sad condition in which American
business would have found itself had it not been
for the war orders. The ground which induced
these large interests to accept war orders rests
entirely upon an economical basis and can be ex-
plained by the above-mentioned conditions which
were produced by the lack of regular business.
These difficulties, resulting from the dividing up
of the contracts, are held to have been augmented,
as stated in business circles, by the fact that cer-
tain agents working in the German interest suc-
ceeded in further delaying and disturbing Ameri^
can deliveries. . . .

"So many contracts for the production of picric
acid have been placed that they can only be filled
to a very small part."

Dr. Albert also received a report from another
trade expert, who had had a long conference with
ex-Senator John C. Spooner of Wisconsin as to
whether or not there could be prosecutions under
the Sherman Anti-Trust Law against British rep-
resentatives because of the restrictions placed
by the British Government upon dealings by
Americans in certain copper, cotton and rubber.

Naturally one of the most vital problems that
stirred Dr. Albert was the British Orders in
Council blockading Germany, from which re-

Commercial Ventures 207

suited the seizure of meat and food supplies and
cotton by British war vessels. He was always
on the alert for information of the attitude of the
Administration and the people of the United
States toward the blockade. In another report
dated June 3, 191 5, Waetzoldt said:

'There can be no doubt that the British Gov-
ernment will bring into play all power and pres-
sure possible in order to complete the total block-
ade of Germany from her foreign markets, and
that the Government of the United States will not
make a strenuous effort to maintain its trade with
Germany. . . .

"It has been positively demonstrated during
this time that the falling off of imports caused by
the war in Europe will in the future be principally
covered by American industry. . . .

"The complete stopping importation of German
products will, in truth, to a limited extent, espe-
cially in the first part of the blockade, help the
sale of English or French products, but the dam-
age which will be done to us in this way will not be
great. . . .

"The Lusitania case did, in fact, give the Eng-
lish efforts in this direction a new and powerful
impetus, and at first the vehemence with which
the Anti-German movement began anew awak-
ened serious misgivings, but this case also will

208 The German Secret Service in America

have a lasting effect, which, unless fresh compli-
cations arise, we may be able to turn to the advan-
tage of the sales of German goods. . . .

"The war will certainly have this effect, that
the American business world will devote all its
energy toward making itself independent of the
importation of foreign products as far as pos-
sible. . . .

"If the decision is again brought home to Ger-
man Industry it should not be forgotten what po-
sition the United States took with reference to
Germany in this war. Above all, it should not
be forgotten that the 'ultimate ratio' of the United
States is not the war with arms, but a complete
prohibition of trade with Germany, and in fact,
through legislation. That was brought out very
clearly and sharply In connection with the still
pending negotiations regarding the Lusifania
case."

That Dr. Albert used secret and perhaps de-
vious means to secure his information is revealed
by an unsigned confidential report which he re-
ceived under most mysterious circumstances con-
cerning an Interview by a man referred to as "M.
P." with President Wilson and Secretary Lan-
sing. The person who wrote of "the conversa-
tion" on July 23, 191 5, with "Legal Agent" Levy

Commercial Ventures 209

and Mr. John Simon does not give his name. A
striking part of this conversation follows :

"hevy advises regarding a conference with
M. P. Thereafter M. P. saw Lansing as well as
Wilson. He informed both of them that an
American syndicate had approached him which
had strong German relations. This syndicate
wishes to buy up cotton for Germany in great
style, thereby to relieve the cotton situation, and at
the same time to provide Germany with cotton."
(Dr. Albert attempted, with a suitable campaign
of press and political propaganda, to inflame the
Southern planters over the British embargo on
cotton.) "The relations of the American syndi-
cate with Germany are very strong, so that they
might even possibly be able to influence the posi-
tion of Germany in the general political question.
M. P. therefore asked for a candid, confidential
statement in order to make clear not only his own
position, but also necessarily the political oppor-
tunity. The result of the conversation was as
follows :

"i. The note of protest to England will go in
any event whether Germany answers satisfactor-
ily or not.

"2. Should it be possible to settle satisfactorily
the Lusitania case, the President will bind him-

210 The German Secret Service in America

self to carry the protest against England through
to the uttermost.

"3. The continuance of the difference with Ger-
many over the Liisitania case is 'embarrassing'
for the President in carrying out the protest
against England. . . .

"4. A contemplated English proposal to buy
cotton in great style and invest the proceeds in
America would not satisfy the President as an
answer to the protest. . . .

"5. The President, in order to ascertain from
Mr. M. P. how strong the German influence of
this syndicate is, would like to have the trend of
the German note before the note is officially sent,
and declares himself ready, before the ansv/er is
drafted, to discuss it with M. P., and eventually to
so influence it that there will be an agreement for
its reception, and also to be ready to influence the
press through a wink.

"6. As far as the note itself is concerned, v/hich
he awaits, so he awaits another expression of re-
gret, which was not followed in the last note.
Regret together with the statement that nobody
had expected that human lives would be lost and
that the ship would sink so quickly.

"y. The President is said to have openly de-
clared that he could hardly hope for a positive

Commercial Ventures 211

statement th^.t the submarine warfare would be
discontinued."

Dr. Albert conferred with Captains Boy-Ed
and von Papen on all military and naval matters
having a commercial phase. Captain von Papen,
on July 7, 1915, submitted to Dr. Albert a memo-
randum for his consideration and further recom-
mendation, headed "Steps Taken to Prevent the
Exportation of Liquid Chlorine." He told of the
efforts made by England and France to buy that
chemical in America, estimated the output here,
and cited the manufacturers. He also enclosed a
plan for checkmating the Allies and concluded
with the following paragraph :

"It will be impossible, however, for this to go
on any length of time, as the shareholders wish
the profits to be derived therefrom. Dr. Oren-
stein therefore suggests that an agreement be con-
summated with the Electro Bleaching Company,
through the President, Kingslc}^, whereby the de-
livery of liquid chlorine by this country to France
and England will be stopped. A suggested plan
is enclosed herewith.

"From a military standpoint I deem it very de-
sirable to consummate such an agreement, in or-
der to stop thereby the further exportation of
about fifty-two tons of liquid chlorine monthly,

212 The German Secret Service in America

especially in view of the fact that in France there
is only one factory (Rouen) which can produce
this stuff in small amounts, while it is only pro-
duced in very small quantities, in England."

During 1914 and 191 5 German speculation in
wool was active. Early in the war von Berns-
torff summoned a German-American wool mer-
chant recommended by a business friend in Ber-
lin and directed him to buy all the wool he could
secure. Ele did so, using Deutsches Bank credits
for the purchases made for Germany, and mak-
ing his purchases of wool for Germany even in
Cape Town and Australia. The German-Amer-
ican, after following this practice for some
months, decided that his fmancial allegiance be-
longed to America, so he tried, through lingo
Schmidt, to induce the German interests in his
firm to sell out to him. On August 9, 191 5,
Schmidt wrote to Keswig, the Berlin principal :

''Your friend here has inquired in London, and
he offers no matter what price may be realizable
in London at that time to take over the wool from
you at the original price, in which case you would
naturally pay all the expenses, which are esti-
mated to be about 6 per cent. As you see, it is not
so simple to deal with your friends."

The German-American's offer meant a good
profit to him, as the London price of wool at that

Commercial Ventures 213

time had advanced nearly 15 per cent. Yet he
apparently fell into no ill favor with Berlin, for
in June, 19 16, the German Foreign office wrote
von Bernstorff :

"Interested parties here have repeatedly made
representations for preferential treatment of the
firm of Forstmann & Huffman in Passaic, N. J.,
in connection with shipment of coal tar dyes to
the United States of America. Since this pure
German firm, as is well known on your side, un-
dertook last year the wool supply for Germany,
and therefore claim it has been especially badly
treated by England, it is most respectfully recom-
mended to Your Excellency, should there be no
reason to the contrary, to arrange for the great-
est possible consideration for this firm in the later
distribution of the shipments to consumers which
now are in prospect."

Necessity, the mother of invention, had forced
America's production of coal-tar derivatives and
dyestuffs upward enormously during the first year
of war. As the British blockade tightened, the
German supply, which had long constituted the
world supply, was cut off completely. The value
of dyestuffs in America increased enormously
from 1914 to 1915. Germany witnessed this
growth with apprehension, and realized gravely
that export expansion would follow increased

214 The German Secret Service in America

and perfected production in America, which it
promptly did. German chemical interests in-
volved in a drug- house familiar with the German
market, have testified that their firm ''paid three
times the value" of a cargo of dyestufifs shipped
from Bremen to Baltimore in 1916 in the huge
undersea-boat Deutschland, "which paid for the
ship and cargo." Her sister ship, the Bremen,
which set forth for America, but never arrived,
was also "built with money furnished by the dye-
stuiT manufacturers," according to Ambassador
Gerard.

The Deutschland herself was 300 feet long,
with a cargo capacity of some 800 tons. She
docked at the Xorth German Lloyd piers in Balti-
more, and after loading a cargo of rubber and
nickel, took an opportune moment one foggy twi-
light to cast off and slip out to sea. She not only
returned safely to Germany but made another
round trip to America, putting in the second time
at New London. She was at sea about three
weeks on each crossing of the Atlantic.

Dr. Albert made plans for buying up carbolic
acid to prevent it from reaching the Allies. Dr.
Hugo Schweitzer, a German-American chemist
of New York, paid down $100,000 cash on June
3, 191 5, to the American Oil & Supply Company
in New Jersey as part payment of $1,400,000 for

Commercial Ventures 215

1,212,000 pounds of carbolic acid, of which the
American Oil & Supply Company had directed
the purchase from Thomas A. Edison. Dr.
Schweitzer said that he bought the liquid not to
prevent it from falling into the hands of the Al-
lies but to use in the manufacture of medical sup-
plies.

Not the least interesting of Dr. Albert's finan-
cial experiences is that which conceived and bore
the Bridgeport Projectile Company. In a con-
ference early in 191 5 in the offices of G. Amsinck
& Co., in New York, Count von Bernstorff came
to the conclusion that one way to prevent the ship-
ment of munitions to the enemy was to monopo-
lize the industry, or at least to control it financially
as far as possible. Dr. Albert made an unsuc-
cessful attempt to buy the Union Metallic Car-
tridge plant for $17,000,000. He chose as his
lieutenants for his next task Hugo Schmidt, the
New York representative of the Deutsches Bank,
and Karl Heynen, whose past record had been
auspicious, as agent for Mexico of the Hamburg-
American Line. Heynen it was who had smug-
gled a cargo of arms ashore for Huerta at Vera
Cruz, under the nose of the American fleet; he
had received some 40,000 pesos (Mexican) for
the coup, and he was regarded as a capable indi-
vidual. On March 31, 1915, the Bridgeport Pro-

216 The German Secret Service in America

jectile Company was incorporated for $2,000,000,
paid in, with Walter Knight as president, Heynen
as treasurer, and Karl Foster as secretary and
counsel.

Schmidt drew up a contract with the new-born
company calling for a large order of shells. On
May 17 Heynen reported to Albert that 534 hy-
draulic presses for making shells of calibres 2.95
to 4.8 had been ordered, and would cost $417,550.
These orders, with all others for tools and ma-
chinery which the Bridgeport company placed,
were so well concealed about the business world
that as late as August the impression was current
that Great Britain was financing the company.
On June 30 Heynen reported to Albert through
Schmidt that the first shell cases would be manu-
factured under United States government inspec-
tion, in order to create the impression that the
company was anxious for American contracts,
and so that immediate delivery could be made in
case such contracts were actually secured. "The
most important buildings, forges, and machine
shops, are almost under roof; the other buildings
are fairly under way ; presses, machinery and all
other materials are being promptly assembled,
and there is every indication that deliveries will
commence as provided in the contract; i. e., on
Sept. 1st, 1915."

Commercial Ventures 217

The Bridgeport Projectile Company contracted
with the /Etna Powder Company, one of the
largest producers of explosives in America, for
its entire output up to January, 191 6, and then
turned round and offered the Spanish government
a million pounds of powder. The Spanish repre-
sentatives may have suspected the identity of the
company, for they raised certain objections to the
contract, to which Heynen refused to listen, and
he also reported to his superiors that British and
Russian purchasing agents were going to call on
him within a few days. He made a contract with
Henry Disston & Co. for two million pieces of
steel, most of them tools, for which Schmidt ad-
vanced the money. He contracted with the Cam-
den Iron Works of Camden, N. J., for presses,
and posted a forfeit of $165,000 in case the con-
tract should l)e cancelled ; the contract was signed
and cancelled the next day by the Bridgeport
company, causing the Camden concern great busi-
ness difficulty.

Thus, by the manipulation of contracts, Dr. Al-
bert and his associates were accomplishing the
following ends :

I. Arranging to supply Germany with shells
and powder (as soon as smuggling could be ef-
fected) at a time when official Germany was at-
tempting to persuade the United States to place

218 TJie German Secret Service in America

an embargo on the shipment of war materials to
the AlHes.

2. Securing a monopoly on all powder avail-
able.

3. So tying up the machinery and tool manu-
facturers that all their production for months to
come was under contract to the Bridgeport Pro-
jectile Company, yet so wielding the cancellation
clauses in its contracts that delivery could be de-
layed and the date further postponed when the
manufacturers of machinery and tools could be
free to take Allied orders.

4. Arranging to accept contracts for the United
States and the Allies under such provisions that
there would be no impossible forfeit if the con-
tracts could not be fulfilled. This would have the
effect of making the Allies believe that they were
going to receive supplies which the Bridgeport
Projectile Company had no intention of furnish-
ing them.

5. Heynen, by the contract with the munitions
industry, which his work afforded, knew where
Allied orders for shells were placed, and he
learned to his pleasure that the Allies were being
forced to contract for shrapnel which was forged
— a less satisfactory process than pressing. He
also learned that the first two orders for forged

Commercial Ventures 219

shrapnel placed by the Allies had been rejected
because the product was inferior.

6. Paying abnormal wages with the unlimited
funds at its disposal, stealing labor from the
Union Metallic Cartridge Company in Bridge-
port, and generally unsettling the labor situation.

7. Offering powder to Spain, a neutral with
strong German aft'iliations.

The project was glorious in its forecast. But
we may well let a German hand describe how it
failed; among the papers captured by the British
on the war correspondent and secret messenger
Archibald at Falmouth in late August was a letter
from Captain von Papen to his wife in Germany,
in which he said:

*'Our good friend Albert has been robbed of a
thick portfolio of papers on the elevated road.
English secret service men of course." (Papen
was not altogether correct in this statement.)
"Unfortunately, some very important matters
from my report are among the papers, such as the
purchase of liquid chlorine, the correspondence
with the Bridgeport Projectile Company, as well
as documents relating to the purchase of phenol,
from which explosives are manufactured, and the
acquisition of Wright's aeroplane patents. I
send you also the reply of Albert, in order that you

220 The German Secret Service in America

may sec how we protect ourselves. This we com-
pounded last night in collaboration." ^

Dr. Albert could hardly have chosen a more un-
fortunate set of documents to carry about with
him and lose. "Pitiless publicity" was his re-
ward, and the statement which he and von Papen
prepared in refutation and denial was received by
those in authority as precisely the sort of denial
which any unscrupulous and able master of in-
trigue might be expected to issue under the cir-
cumstances— and no more. If there had been
any doubt of the perniciousness of his activities
— and there was none — it would have been dis-
pelled by the seizure of the Archibald letters, but
the result of the exposures of German activity
which made the Nezu York World, a newspaper
worth watching during August and September,
1915, was not the expulsion of Dr. Albert, but of
the military and naval attaches. Albert, while
he had been magnificently busy attempting to dis-
turb America's calm, had been cunning enough to
keep his hands free of blood and powder smoke ;

1 The captain added: "The sinking of the Adriatic" (by
whicli he meant the Arabic, which had been sunk without warn-
ing on August 19, with a loss of sixteen lives, two of them
American), "may be the last straw for the sake of our cause.
I hope the matter will blow over." On October 5 the German
Government, consistent with its assurance of September i that
no more ships would be sunk without warning, disavowed the
sinking of the Arabic, and offered to pay indemnities. So the
matter "blew over."

Commercial Ventures 221

Boy-Ed and von Papen had to answer for the
origination of so many crimes that it is ahnost
incredible in the light of later events that they
escaped with nothing more than a dismissal. On
December 4, Secretary Lansing demanded their
recall on account of their connection "with the
illegal and questionable acts of certain persons
within the United States"; Bernstorff made no
reply for ten days, and received a sharp reminder
for his delay; he then replied that the Kaiser
agreed to the recall. Four days before Christ-
mas von Papen sailed for England and Holland.
On January 2 and 3, 1916, his effects were
searched by the British at Falmouth and two
documents among others found may be cited here.
Boy-Ed sailed on New Year's Day, but with
no incriminating documents, for he had been
warned.

The first document found on von Papen was a
letter from President Knight of the Bridgeport
Projectile Company, dated Sept. 11, 191 5, ad-
dressed to Heynen at 60 Wall Street — the build-
ing in which von Papen had his office — giving
certain specifications for shells that were being
made in the new Bridgeport plant ; the second was
a memorandum of an interview on December 21,
between Papen, Heynen, G. W. Hoadley of the
affiliated American-British Manufacturing Com-

222 The German Secret Service in America

pany, and Captain Hans Tauscher. The four
men had discussed speciiications for a time, and
had agreed that firing tests of the projectiles
could be made "in a bomb-proof place by electri-
cal explosion." Delays in production at Bridge-
port are evident in the last sentence of the mem-
orandum :

"It was agreed that Mr. Hoadley, till date, has com-
plied with all the conditions of the contracts of the ist
April, with the exception of the commencement of the
delivery of the shells, which is due to force majeure, i. e.,
to failure to timely obtain the delivery of machinery and
tools occasioned by strikes in the machine factories."

A letter to von Papen from Dr. Albert, then in
San Francisco, undated but obviously written in
December, 191 5, contained these farewell senti-
ments :

"Dear Herr von Papen,

"Well, then ! How I wish I were in New York and
could discuss the situation with you and B. E. . . . So
Vv-e shall not see each other for the present. Shall we at
all before you leave? It would be my most anxious
wish ; but my hope is small. From this time, I suppose,
matters will move more quickly than in Dumba's case.
I wonder whether our Government will respond in a
suitable manner ! In my opinion it need no longer take
public opinion so much into consideration, in spite of it
being artificially and intentionally agitated by the press
and the legal proceedings, so that a somewhat 'stififer' at-

Commercial Ventures 223

titude would be desirable, naturally quiet and dignified !
. . . Please remember me to your chief personally. I
assume that he still remembers me from the time of the
'experimental establishment for aircraft,' and give my
best wishes to Mr. Scheuch, and tell him that the struggle
on the American front is sometimes very hard. . . .
When I think of your and Boy-Ed's departure, and that
I alone remain behind in New York, I could — well,
better not ! "

Perhaps Dr. Albert would have accompanied
the attaches had not the submarine situation been
so acute. For while the Government had in its
possession sufficient provocation for his dismissal,
and that of Count von Bernstorif as well, the
Government's desire at that time was peace, and
stubbornly, patiently, it clung to its ideal in a
dogged attempt to preserve its neutrality. Dr.
Albert had run the British blockade with his sup-
plies for Germany, and had roared protest when
Great Britain seized cargoes of meat intended for
Germany, although she paid the packers for them
in full. He had floated a German loan through
Chandler & Company, a New York house of
which Rudolph Hecht, one of his agents, was a
member ; he had sold $500,000,000 worth of Ger-
man securities ; to sum up his financial activities,
he had played every trick he knew, and his last
year in America was unfruitful of result, for he

224 TJie German Secret Service in America

was watched. He returned to Germany person-
ally enriched, for time and again, prompted by
stock tips from his German friends on stocks or
"September lard," and by diplomatic information
which he knew would influence the stock market,
he made handsome winnings for von Bernstorff
and himself.

CHAPTER XV

THE PUBLIC MIND

Dr. Bertling — The Staats-Zeitung — George Sylvester
Viereck and The Fatherland — Efiforts to buy a press asso-
ciation— Bernhardi's articles — Marcus Braun and Fair
Play — Plans for a German news syndicate — Sander,
Wunnenberg, Bacon and motion pictures — The German-
American Alliance — Its purposes — Political activities —
Colquitt of Texas — The "Wisconsin Plan" — Lobbying —
Misappropriation of German Red Cross funds — Friends
of Peace — The American Truth Society.

Some one has said that America will emerge
from this war a gigantic national entity, a colos-
sus wrought of the fused metal of her scores of
mixed nationalities. That is naturally desirable,
and historically probable. If such is the result,
Germany will have lost for all time one of her
most powerful allies — the German population in
the United States. Nearly one-tenth of the pop-
ulation of the United States in 1914 was of either
German birth or parentage. Ethnic lines are not
erased in a generation except by some great emer-
gency, such as war affords. Germany is doomed
to a deserved disappointment in the loss of her

225

226 The German Secret Service in America

American stock — deserved because she tried so
hard to Germanize America.

She wasted no time in injecting her verbal
propagandists into the struggle on the American
front. On August 20, 19 14, Dr. Karl Oskar
Bertling, assistant director of the Amerika In-
stitut in Berlin, landed in New York, and went
at once to report to von Bernstorff. The Amer-
ika Institut had of recent years made considerable
progress in familiarizing Germany with Ameri-
can affairs; its chief director, Dr. Walther
Drechsler, had been master of German in Mid-
dlesex, a prominent boys' school in Massachu-
setts; he returned to Berlin in 1913 and was
attached, upon the outbreak of war, to the
press office. All who were associated with it
knew something of America. It is characteristic
of the convertibility of German institutions to
war that another executive of this organization,
employed in peace times to cement the friendship
between the two nations, should be sent on the
day war was declared to America to establish a
German press bureau.

Dr. Bertling went about delivering pro-Ger-
man speeches, and prepared articles for the press
on international questions. These he submitted
to Bernstorff himself for approval — one such
story was to be published in a Sunday magazine

The Public Mind 227

supplement to a long "string" of American news-
papers. Although every editor was on the look-
out for any "war stuff" which was written with
any apparent background of European politics, he
found small market for his wares among the New
York newspapers, and some of his speaking dates
were cancelled. He proposed to publish, with
one of his stories, a set of German military maps
of Belgium, but to this von Papen wrote him on
November 21 : "I entirely agree with you in your
opinion in regard to the maps — it is a two-edged
sword," and he added : "One observes how very
ill-informed the average American is." Bert-
ling's lack of accomplishment drew censure, how-
ever, from several sources : the head of the Ger-
man-American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin
chided him for not having carried out his "spe-
cial mission to supply a cable service to South
America and China," and the late Professor Hugo
Muensterberg of Harvard waxed righteously in-
dignant over the fact that Bertling opened and
read a letter entrusted by the psychologist to him
for safe delivery to Dr. Dernburg. Bertling ap-
plied to the Embassy for special employment, and
on March 19, 191 5, the ambassador's private sec-
retary wrote him :

"Plis Excellency is entirely agreeable to giving
you the desired employment, but he considers the

228 TJie German Secret Service in America

present conditions too uncertain, as his departure
for Germany in the near future is not impossible."

Excellent testimony to the subtle iniquity of his
task lies in the names of the men whose pro- Ally
utterances he was striving to counteract. In a
letter written December 20, 1914, to Bertling by
C. W. Ernst, a Bostonlan of German birth and
American naturalization, appears this passage :

''Is it prudent to defend the German cause
against such men as C. W. Eliot and other Ameri-
cans who consider themselves artistocratic and
important? . . . Who, apparently, was of more
importance than Roosevelt, to whom now even
the dogs pay no attention? . . . The feeling of
men like Eliot, C. F. Adams, etc., is well under-
stood. German they know not. They under-
stand neither Luther nor Kant, nor the history
of Germany. . . . Tactically it Is a mistake to be
easy going with England, or in discussion with
her American toadies. By curtness, defiance,
irony one can get much further. . . ."

His friend in the German-American Chamber
of Commerce wrote again to Berlin in a vein
which showed how closely Germany herself was
watching publicity in America. "Viereck has
sent me a letter," he said, "and Harper's printed
some matter by way of Italy. . . . The Foreign
Office and the War Department urgently want

Tlie Public Mind 22d

more reports sent here. If cables through neu-
tral countries are not feasible, could not Ameri-
cans travelling be called upon? More steam,
please. . . . The exchange professors should get
busy. . . . One is quite surprised here that v/ith
the exception of I3urgess and possibly Sloan, no-
1)ody seems to be doing anything. . . . Nasmith's
article, 'The Case for German}^,' in the Outlook
is very good — inspired by me. The same of
Mead's in Everybody's."

And again: "We will dog Uncle Sam's foot-
steps with painful accuracy — ^his sloppy, obstin-
ate, pro-English neutrality we utterly repudiate.
When God wishes to punish a country he gives it
a W. J. B. as Secretary of State."

(When Bryan resigned, German rumors were
circulated from time to time that Secretary Lans-
ing, who succeeded him, had had a falling out with
President Wilson, and was himself on the point
of resigning. What Herr Walther thought of
"W. J. B." 's successor is a matter of conjecture.)

The documents found in Dr. Bertling's posses-
sion, and the method of securing them, brought
forth a sharp editorial from Bernard Bidder of
the Nezu Yorker Staats-Zeitimg, then one of the
stanch members of the foreign language press en-
gaged in defending Germany. Dr. Bertling re-
mained unmolested In the United States until

230 TJie German Secret Service in America

April, 1918, when he was arrested as an enemy
alien in Lexington, Mass., and interned. Dr.
Bernhardt Dernburg, to quote the words of a
German associate, "had some propaganda and
wrote some articles for the newspapers" . . . and
was ''certainly in connection with the German
Government," gave Adolph Pavenstedt $15,000
in early October, 1914. To this Pavenstedt
added $5,000, and on October 12 paid the sum of
$20,000 to the Staats-Zeitung, to tide the news-
paper over a rough financial period. ''I ex-
.pected," said Pavenstedt, ''that if the business
were bankrupt it would be lost to the Ridders,
who have always followed a very good course for
the German interests here."

Soon after the war began George Sylvester
iViereck brought out his publication. The Father-
land, a moderately clever attempt to appeal to in-
telligent readers in Germany's behalf. On July
I, 191 5, the publication having stumbled along a
rocky financial path — for no publication dis-
tributed gratis can make money — Dr. Albert
>vrote Viereck :

''Your account for the $1,500 — ^bonus, after
deducting the $250 received, for the month of
June, 191 5, has been received. I hope in the
Course of the next week to be able to make pay-
ment. In the meantime, I request the proposal

0)
■(->

The Public Mind 231

of a suitable person who can ascertain accurately
and prove the financial condition of your paper.
From the moment when we guarantee you a
regular advance, I must

'^i. Have a new statement of the condition of
your paper.

"2. Practise a control over the financial man-
agement.

''In addition to this we must have an under-
standing regarding the course in politics which
you will pursue, which we have not asked hereto-
fore. Perhaps you will be kind enough to talk
the matter over on the basis of this letter, with
Mr. Fuehr." Fuehr's office was across the hall
from Viereck.

Viereck had assembled about him among oth-
ers a staff of contributors which included Dr.
Dernburg, Frank Koester, Rudolph Kronau, J.
Bernard Rethey, a writer who afifects the nom
de plume of "Oliver Ames," Edmund von Mach
(whose brother is an official of some prominence
in Germany), and Ram Ch'andra (the editor of
a revolutionary Hindu newspaper published in
California). Viereck, in his paper, forecasted
the sinking of the Lusitania and later gloated
over it as well as over the murder of Edith Ca-
vell. His father is the Berlin correspondent of
his paper. They are both "naturalized" citizens

232 The German Secret Service in America

of the United States. One of his contributors,
as late as 1918, wrote for Viereck a peculiarly
suspicious essay on his conversion to American-
ism, setting forth in exhaustive detail the pro-
German convictions which he had previously
held, and the justification for them, and winding
up with a pallid renunciation of them, the docu-
ment as a whole intended ostensibly to stimulate
patriotism, while in reality it would have re-
kindled the dying German apology. The perni-
cious Viereck, whose mental stature may be
judged by the fact that he treasured a violet from
the grave of Oscar Wilde, sought to interest
the Embassy in his merits as a publisher of Ger-
man books, and was supported, as pro-German
volumes were issued from the Jackson Press
which he controlled. He suggested, too, to Dr.
Albert names of American publishing houses as
excellent media for bringing out propaganda
books on account of their obvious innocence of
German sympathies.

A more patent attempt to influence the public
originated in the German Embassy itself. Dr.
Albert, through intermediaries, schemed to ob-
tain for $900,000 control of a press association.
The sale was not made. One of Dr. Albert's
agents, M. B. Claussen, formerly publicity agent
for the Hamburg-American Line, established in

The Public Mind 233

the Hotel Astor, New York, the ''German Infor-
mation Bureau" for disseminating ''impartial
news al)out the war" and "keeping the American
mind from becoming prejudiced," and he issued
many a red-white-and-black statement to the
newspapers.

The German interests also had designs on buy-
ing an important New York evening newspaper,
the Mail. One of von Papen's assistants, George
von Skal, a former reporter (and the predecessor
as commissioner of accounts of John Purroy
Mitchel, New York's "fighting mayor"), entered
the negotiations in a letter written by Paul T.
Davis to Dr. Albert at the embassy. This letter,
dated, June 21, 1915, set forth that —

"In November, 19 14, my father, George H.
Davis, conceived the idea that Germany ought
to be represented in New York by one of the
papers printed in English. He spoke to a number
of German-Americans about the scheme and
finally through Mr. George von Skal got in touch
with Ambassador Count von Bernstorfif, Mr.
Percival Kuhne acted as the head of the move-
ment until it was found that he could not devote
the necessary time to the matter in hand and at
father's suggestion Mr. Ludwig Nissen was sub-
stituted. . . . We decided upon the Mail as the
only paper that was not too expensive. . . . We

234 The German Secret Service in America

opened negotiations with the proprietors of the
Mail and proceeded until Ambassador Count von
Bernstorff notified both Mr. Kuhne and Mr.
Nissen that at that time nothing further should
be done in the matter. . . ."

The Mail was sold, however, to Dr. Rumely.

Dr. Albert collected for General Franz Bern-
hardi the proceeds of the publication in American
newspapers of the latter's famous ''Germany and
the Next War." Bernhardi wrote von Papen on
April 9,1915:

''I have now written two further series of
articles for America. The Foreign Office wanted
to have the first of these, entitled 'Germany and
England,' distributed in the American press ; the
other, entitled 'Pan-Germanism,' was to appear
in the Chicago Tribune. They will certainly
have some sort of effect, this is evident from the
inexpressible rage with which the British and
French press have attacked those Sun articles."

Bernstorff and Papen, under orders from
Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg, in May,
191 5, had under consideration the payment of
from $1,000 to $1,200 for the expenses of a trip
to Germany for Edward Lyell Fox, a newspaper
writer, who "at the time of his last sojourn in
Germany" (in 1914)" was of great benefit to us
by reason of his good despatches."

Ctpjritht. Inttrnalicnal Fill

George Sylvester Viereck. founder and Editor of T/ie Father-
land a pro-German propaganda weekly known later
as Viereck' s Weekly

The Public Mind 235

Von Bernstorff himself wrote on March 15,
191 5j to Marcus Braun, a Hungarian, and editor
of a review called Fair Play :

"My dear Mr. Braun:

"In answer to your favor of the 12th instant, I beg to
say that I have read the monthly review Fair Play for
the last 3 years, and I can state that this publication is
living up to its name, and that it has always taken the
American point of view. During the last 7 months Fair
Play has, in its editorial policy, treated all belligerents
justly and thereby rendered great services to the millions
of foreign born citizens in this country, especially to those
of German and Austro-Hungarian origin. Fair Play
has fought for the rights of the latter and for truth, al-
ways maintaining an American attitude and showing true
American spirit.

"You are at liberty to show this letter to anybody who
is interested in the matter, but I beg you not to publish it,
as to (do) this would be contrary to the instructions of
my government, who does not wish me to publicly adver-
tise any review or newspaper.

"Very sincerely yours,

"J. Bernstorff."

On May 28, 191 5, J. Bernstorff signed another
gratifying document for the same Braun — a
check for $5,000 payable to the Fair Play Print-
ing & Publishing Company. Such was the re-
ward of "true American spirit."

When Germany embarked upon an enterprise

236 The German Secret Service in America

she usually followed charts prepared by trained
surveyors. Her attempts at newspaper and
magazine propaganda in the first ten month;; of
war had been hastily conceived and not altogether
successful. One of the most comprehensive re-
ports which have come to light is a recommenda-
tion, dated July, 191 5, in which the investigator
discusses the feasibility of a strong German news-
syndicate in America.

It was to be operated by two bureaus, one in
Berlin as headquarters for all news and pictures
from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and
the Balkans, one in New York for distribution
of the matter to the American press. Corre-
spondents from America were to be given the
privileges of both Eastern and Western fronts,
from 3,000 to 4,000 words a day were to be sent
by wireless from Nauen to Sayville, secret codes
were to be arranged so that the cable news might
be smuggled past the enemy in the guise of com-
mercial messages. The bureau in New York
was to gather American news for Germany, and
the service was eventually to extend over the
whole world.

'Tn fact," said the report, "it will be particu-
larly desirable to inaugurate the Chinese service
at once, so that the American public is informed
about that which really happens in order to create

OCRMAN eMBASSY

WASM.N0TOI..IXC. Washington, D.C., March 15, 1915.

My dear Mr. Braun,

In answer to your favor of i2th Instant I beg to
say that I have read the monthly review „Fair Play" for
the last 3 years, and I can state that this publication
has been living up to its name and that It has always
taken the American point of view. During the last 7
months „Fair Play" has, in its editorial policy, treataJ
all belligerents justly and thereby rendered. great
services to the millions of foreign born citizens of
this coontryjespecially to those of German and Austio-
Hungarlan origin. „Fair Play" has fought for the rights
of the latter and for truth, always maintaining an
American attitude and showing true American spirit.

You are at liberty to show this letter to anybody
who is interested in the matter, but I beg you not to
publish It, as to this would be contrary to the
instructions of my Government, who does not wish me
to publicly advertize any reviews or newspaper.
Very sincerely yours,

Marcus Braun, Esq.,
Editor of „Fair Play"

New York City.

0m ff

Fac-simile of a letter from Count von Bemstorff
to the editor of "Fair Play"

The Public Mind 237,

an effective counter-weight against the Japanese
propaganda in the American press."

The New York bureau was estimated to cost
$6,640 per month, the bureau in BerHn about half
that sum; two years' effort would have cost about
$200,000. The writer proposed to establish a
lecture service as auxiliary, the total expenses
of which, covering the Chautauquas of one
summer, he estimated at $75,000. The investi-
gator concluded:

''Hoping that my proposals will lead to a suc-
cessful result, I will take the liberty of advising
in the interest of the German cause — aside from
the fact whether my proposals will be carried
out or not — that the following should be avoided
on the part of Germany in the future :

"i. The Belgian neutrality question as well as
the question of the Belgian atrocities should not
be mentioned any more in the future.

"2. It should not be tried any more in America
to put the blame for the world war and its con-
sequences alone on England, as a considerable
English element still exists in America, and the
American people hold to the view that all parties,
as usual, are partly guilty for the war.

"3. The pride and imagination of the Ameri-
cans with regard to their culture should not con-
tinually be offended by the assertion that German

238 Tlie German Secret Service in America

culture is the only real culture and surpasses
everything else.

**4. The publication of purely scientific pam-
phlets should be avoided in the future as far as
the American people are concerned, as their dry
reading annoys the American and is incompre-
hensible to him.

"5. Finally it is of the utmost importance that
the authorities as well as the German people cease
continually to discuss publicly the delivery of
American arms and ammunition, as well as to let
every American feel their displeasure about it."

The Foreign Office never saw fit to act upon
the investigator's proposals, for less than a month
after he had written his report, it appeared,
verbatim, in the columns of a New York news-
paper. Axiom: The most effective means of
fighting enemy propaganda is by propaganda for
which the enemy unwittingly supplies the ma-
terial.

Motion pictures appealed to the Germans as a
practical and graphic means of spreading through
America visual proof of their kindness to prison-
ers, their prodigious success with new engines of
war, and their brutal reception at the hands of
the nations they were forced in self-defence to
invade. So Dr. Albert financed the American
Correspondent Film Company, two of whose

+-> c
fed a

CQ .5

a
o
U

The Public Mind 239

stockholders were Claussen and Dr. Karl A.
Fuehr, a translator in Viereck's office. As late
as August, 1916, Karl Wunnenberg and Albert
A. Sander, of the ''Central Powers Film Com-
pany," which was also subsidized to circulate
German-made moving pictures, engaged George
Vaux Bacon, a free-lance theatrical press agent,
to go to England at a salary of $100 a week, ob-
tain valuable information, and transmit it in
writing in invisible ink to Holland, where it would
be forwarded to Germany. The two principals
were later indicted on a charge of having set
afoot a military enterprise against Great Britain,
and were sentenced to two years in prison ; Bacon,
the cat's-paw, received a year's sentence. (San-
der, a German, had been involved in secret-agent
work on a previous occasion when he assaulted
Richard Stegler for not disavowing an affidavit
explaining his acquisition of a false passport.)
The secret ink they gave Bacon was invisible un-
der all conditions unless a certain chemical prepa-
ration, which could be compounded only with dis-
tilled water, was applied to it.

At the start of the war there began in Con-
gress a vehement debate over the question of im-
posing a legislative embargo on the shipment of
arms and ammunition to the Allies. In these de-
bates participated men who undoubtedly were

240 The German Secret Service in America

sincere in the convictions they expressed. Never-
theless, in the late winter and early spring of
191 5, a hireling of the Germans began to seek
secret conferences with congressmen in a Wash-
ington hotel and to outline to them plans for com-
pelling an embargo on munitions. His activities
bring us to the affairs of the National German-
American Alliance, Germany's most powerful and
least tangible factor of general propaganda in the
United States.

The organization had a large membership
among Germans in America; it has been esti-
mated that there were three million members,
who constituted a great majority of the adult
German-American population. It received a
Federal charter in 1907. The Alliance, to quote
Professor John William Scholl, of the University
of Michigan, (in the New York Times of March
2, 191 8), "strives to awaken a sense of unity
among the people of German origin in America ;
to 'centralize' their powers for the 'energetic de-
fense of such justified wishes and Interests' as are
not contrary to the rights and duties of good
citizens; to defend its class against 'natlvlstic en-
croachments' ; to 'foster and assure good, friendly
relations of America to the old German father-
land.' Such are Its declared objects.

*'A11 petty quibbling aside, this programme can

The Public Mind 241

mean nothing else than the maintenance of a
Germanized body of citizens among us, conscious
of their separateness, resistent to all forces of
absorption. It is mere camouflage to state in a
later paragraph that this body does not intend
to found a 'State within the State/ but merely sees
in this centralization the 'best means of attaining
and maintaining the aims' set forth above.

''AH existing societies of Germans are called
upon as 'organized representatives of Deutsch-
tum' to make it a point of honor to form a national
alliance, to foster formation of new societies in
all States of the Union, so that the whole mass
of Germans in America can be used as a unit for
political action. This league pledges itself 'with
all legal means at hand unswervingly and at
all times to enter the lists for the maintenance
and propagation of its principles for their vigor-
ous defense wherever and whenever in danger.' "

Professor Scholl, himself a teacher of German,
continues: "A little attention to the context of
the sentences quoted shows that these Germans
demand the privilege of coming to America,
getting citizenship on the easiest terms possible,
while maintaining intact their alien speech, alien
customs, and alien loyalties. That is 'assimila-
tion,' the granting of equal political rights and
commercial opportunities, without exacting any

242 The German Secret Service in America

alteration in modes of life or 'Sittlichkeit.' 'Ab-
sorption' means Americanization, a fusing with
the whole mass of American life, an adoption of
the language and ideals of the country, a spiritual
rebirth into Anglo-Saxon civilization, and this
has great terrors for the members of a German
alliance.

"A glance back over the whole scheme will
show how cleverly it was made to unite the aver-
age recent comeoverer with his beer-drinking pro-
clivities, with the professor of German, who had
visions of increased interest in his specialty, and
the professor of history, who hoped for larger
journal space and ampler funds, and the readily
flattered wealthy German of some attainments,
into a close league of interests, which could be
used at the proper time for almost any nefarious
purpose which a few men might dictate.

*'Add to this the emphatic moral and financial
support of the German-language press as one of
the most powerful agencies of the organization,
and we have the stage set for just what happened
a little over three years ago."

The Alliance, long before the war, had been
active in extending German influence. Among
other affairs, it had arranged the visit of Prince
Henry of Prussia. Its president. Dr. C. J.
Hexamer, whose headquarters were in Philadel-

The Public Mind 243

phia, had received special recognition from the
Kaiser for his efforts — efforts which may be
briefly set forth in a speech addressed to Germans
in Milwaukee by Hexamer himself :

''You have been long-suffering under the
preachment that you must be assimilated, but we
shall never descend to an inferior culture. We\
are giving to these people the benefits of German '
culture."

The outbreak of war made the Alliance an ex-
ceedingly important, if unwieldy, instrument for
shaping public opinion. It promoted and spon-
sored a so-called National Embargo Conference
in Chicago in 191 5, working hand-in-glove with
Labor's National Peace Council in an attempt to
persuade Congress to pass a law forbidding the
export of munitions. At every congressional
election, particularly in such cities as Chicago,
Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, the hand of
Prussia was stirring about. When O. B. Col-
quitt, a former governor of Texas, decided to
run for the Senate in late 191 5, he corresponded
with the editors of the Staats-Zeitiing and a New
York member of the Alliance for support from
the German press and the German vote in his
state.

The next year saw the approach of a presi-
dential campaign, and the Alliance established a

244 The German Secret Service in America

campaign headquarters in New York to dictate
which candidates for United States offices should
receive the soHd German-American vote. Such
candidates had to record themselves as opposed
to the policies of the Administration. An effort
was made to further the nomination of Champ
Clark as the Democratic candidate, succeeding
Wilson. A German professor, Leo Stern, super-
intendent of schools in Milwaukee, after a con-
ference with Hexamer there, wrote to the New
York headquarters approving the ''Wisconsin
plan" (Hexamer's) for swaying the Republican
national convention. This plan set forth that *'it
is necessary that a portion of the delegations to
the . . . convention — a quarter to a third — shall
consist of approved, distinguished German-
Americans." The Alliance was bitterly opposed
to Wilson, it hated the lashing tongue and the
keen nose of Theodore Roosevelt, it distrusted
Elihu Root, and deriving much of its income from
the liquor business, it feared prohibition.

Politically the Alliance was constantly active.
It supported in early 191 6, through its friendly
congressmen, the McLemore and Gore resolu-
tions, the latter of which, according to Hexamer,
deserved passage because it w^ould —

"i. Refuse passports to Americans travelling
on ships, of the belligerents.

The Public Mind 245

"2. Place an embargo on contraband of war.

"3. Prohibit Federal Reserve Banks from sub-
scribing to foreign loans." The Alliance's lobby-
ist called on Senators Stone, Gore, O'Gorman,
Hitchcock (all of whom he reported as "opposed
to Lansing"), Senator Smith of Arizona,
Senators Kern, Martine, Lewis ("our friend"),
Smith of Georgia, Works, Jones, Chamberlain,
McCumber, Cummins, Borah and Clapp. Borah,
he said, had "a fool idea about Americans going
everywhere." In the House of Representatives
he canvassed the Democratic and Republican
leaders, Kitchin and Mann, and a group "all of
whom want the freedom of the seas," which in-
cluded Dillon of South Dakota, Bennett of New
York, Smith of Buffalo, Kinchloe of New York,
Shackleford of Missouri, and Staley and Decker
of Kentucky. "I saw Padgett, chairman of the
house naval affairs committee," he continued,
"he will fall in line after a while. ... I am work-
ing with Stephens of the House and Gore of the
Senate to put their bills in one bill as a joint reso-
lution. I have told them that my league would
aid them in getting members of the House and
the Senate, as well as helping them with propa-
ganda (this was their suggestion)."

The resolutions failed.

All these activities cost money. The German

246 The German Secret Service in America

Embassy through Dr. Albert furnished the head-
quarters of the AlHance with sufficient funds for
its many purposes. Count von Bernstorff is al-
leged to have handled a large fund for bribery of
American legislators, but the fact has never been
established, beyond his request in January, 19 17,
for $50,000, for such purposes. It is a fact, how-
ever, that the National German-American Al-
liance collected a sum of $886,670 during the
years 1914-1917 for the German Red Cross; this
was turned over to von Bernstorff for transmis-
sion to Germany, and officers of the Alliance have
admitted that of this sum about $700,000 was
probably employed in propaganda by Dr. Dern-
burg and Dr. Meyer-Gerhardt, v/ho posed as the
head of the German Red Cross in America.
Contributions to the German and Austrian relief
funds came in as late as October, 19 17, although
no part of them were forwarded to Europe after
the entrance of America into the war.

This last event occasioned further activity on
the part of the Alliance ; during the period which
followed the break in diplomatic relaxations, and
while Congress was debating the question of war,
members of Congress were deluged with an
extraordinary flood of telegrams from German-
Americans cautioning them against taking such
a step. These telegrams were prepared by the

The Public Mind 247

Alliance and the "American Neutrality League"
and circulated among their members and sym-
pathizers, to be sent to Washington. The Al-
liance then issued to its branches throughout the
states a resolution of loyalty to be adopted in
case war was declared. This resolution, after
making a hearty declaration of loyalty to the
United States, went on to belie its promise with
such pacifist utterances as this:

"Our duty before the war was to keep out of it.
Our duty now is to get out of it."

So earnest were the efforts of the Alliance to
keep out of war that some ten months after its
declaration of loyalty was promulgated, Congress
decided to investigate the organization, with a
view to revoking its charter. The investigation
wrote into the archives certain characteristics of
the Alliance which had long been obvious to the
truly American public; its deep-rooted Teuton-
ism, its persistent zeal, and its dangerous scope of
activity. The courageous legislators who initiated
and pursued the investigation, in the face of con-
stant opposition of the most tortuous variety, had
their reward, for on April it, 1918, the executive
committee of the National Alliance met in Phila-
delphia and dissolved the organization, turned the
$30,000 in its coffers over to the American Red
Cross, and uttered a swan song of loyalty to the

248 The German Secret Service in America

United States. The body of the octopus was
dead. One by one, first in Brooklyn, then in San
Francisco, then elsewhere, its tentacles sloughed
away.

A word for the pacifists. One pacifist consti-
tutes a quorum in any society. There were in
America at the outbreak of war one hundred
million people who disliked war. As the injus-
tices of Germany multiplied, the patriotic war-
haters became militarists, and there sprang up
little groups of malcontents who resented, usually
by German consent, any tendency on the part of
the Government to avenge the insult to its inde-
pendence. Social and industrial fanatics of all
descriptions flocked to the standard of ''Peace at
Any Price," and for want of a dissenting audience
soon convinced themselves that they had some-
thing to say.

Many of the peace movements which were set
going during the first three years of the war were
sincere, many were not. A mass meeting held at
Madison Square Garden in 191 5 at which Bryan
was the chief speaker, was inspired by Germany.
In the insincere class falls also the "Friends of
Peace," organized in 191 5. Its letterhead bore
the invitation : "Attend the National Peace Con-
vention, Chicago, Sept. 5 and 6," and incidentally
betrayed the origin of the society. The letter-

The Public 3Hnd 249

head stated that the society represented the
American Truth Society (an offshoot of the
National German- American Alhance), The
American Women of German Descent, the Amer-
ican Fair Play Society, the German-American
Alliance of Greater New York, the German Cath-
olic P'ederation of New York, the United Irish-
American Societies and the United Austrian and
Hungarian-American Societies. Among the
"honorable vice-chairmen" were listed Edmund
von Mach, John Devoy, Justices Goft" and Co-
halan (a trinity of Britonophobes), Cokjuitt of
Texas, Ex-Congressman Buchanan (of Labor's
National Peace Council fame), Jeremiah O'Leary
(a Sinn Feiner, mentioned in official cables from
Zimmermann to Bernstorff as a good intermedi-
ary for sabotage), Judge John T. Hylan, Richard
Bartholdt (a congressman active in the German
political lobby), and divers officers of the Alh-
ance.

The American Truth Society, Inc., the parent
of the Friends of Peace, was founded in 1912 by
Jeremiah O'Leary, a Tammany lawyer later in-
dicted for violation of the Espionage Act, who
disappeared when his case came up for trial in
May, 1918; Alphonse Koelble, who conducted the
German-American Alliance's New York political
clearing house; Gustav Dopslaff, a German-

250 The German Secret Service in America

American banker, and others interested in the
German cause. In 191 5 the Society, whose ex-
ecutives were well and favorably known to Ger-
man embassy, began issuing and circulating noisy
pamphlets, with such captions as "Fair Play for
Germany," and "A German-American War."
O'Leary and his friends also conducted a mail
questionnaire of Congress in an effort to cata-
logue the convictions of each member on the
blockade and embargo questions. Their most in-
sidious campaign was an effort to frighten the
smaller banks of the country from participating
in Allied loans, by threats of a German "black-
list" after the war, to organize a "gold protest"
to embarrass American banking operations, and
in general to harass the Administration in its
international relations.

So with their newspapers, rumor-mongers,
lecturers, peace societies, alliances, bunds, vereins,
lobbyists, war relief workers, motion picture
operators and syndicates, the Germans wrought
hard to avert war. For two years they nearly
succeeded. America was imder the narcotic in-
fluence of generally comfortable neutrality, and a
comfortable nation likes to wag its head and say
"there are two sides to every question." But
whatever these German agents might have accom-
plished in the public mind — and certainly they

THEFRIEND S OF PEACE

Attend the National Peace Convention, Chicago, Sept. 5 and 6, 1915

Representing
an Truth Society
an Independence Union
nanity League
American Women of German Desce
American Fair Play Society
Continental League
German-American Alliance of Greati
German Cattiolic Federation of Ni
United Iristi-American Societies
United Austrian & Hungarian-Ai
UpJiolsterers' International Union
and other American Societ:

National Convention Committee
BR1S3EN WALKER.

Publicity Committee
DCF. RUTHERFORD. Chairman
HENRY SCHAEFFER. j

RICHARD .M. .McCANN. ' Secrelarits
HIGH MASTERSON. '

New York,.

.1915

Convention Comr,iittee

Michael J. Ryai
Robert E. Ford
Edmund von Macli
John Devoy '~

Murpl.y

' We

Horace L. (irand
Paul Mueller ^
ProL Wm. I. Shcpr.erJ

JudiieT. O'Neill Rvan
Richard Bartholil
Jeremiah O'Leaiy
Judge John J. Rooney
Ferd Timm
E. K. Vietor
Hon. John W. Goff
Hon. Daniel Cohalan^-
joseph P McLaughl'rn
Judge John T. Hylan
Judge J. Harry Tierna.i
Pa:rick O'Donnell
James T. Clarke-
Hugh H. O'Neill
Frank Buchanan
O. B. Colquitt
Daniel O'Connell
CoL Wm. Hoynes
Stephen E. Folan-
lohn F. Kelly
Hon.JamesK. McGuire
A. L. Morrison
Miss Annie C. Malia
Ellen Ryan Jolly-
Thomas O'Brien
J. B. Murphy
Thomas H. Maloney
T. J. Corri.gan
Marry F. McWhortef
P. J, Reynolds
Frank J. Ryan
J. P. O'Mahony

Thorn

i F. Anderson

Letter-paper of "The Friends of Peace"

The Public Mind 251

were sowing their seed in fertile ground — was
nullified by acts of violence, ruthlessness at sea,
and impudence in diplomacy. The left hand
found out w'hat the right hand was about.

CHAPTER XVI

HINDU-GERMAN CONSPIRACIES

The Society for Advancement in India — "Gaekwar
Scholarships" — Har Dyal and Gadlir — India in 1914 —
Papen's report — German and Hindu agents sent to the
Orient — Gupta in Japan — The raid on von Igel's ofiice —
Chakravarty replaces Gupta — The Annie Larscn and
Maverick filibuster — Von Igel's memoranda — Har Dyal
in Berlin — A request for anarchist agents — Ram Chandra
— Plots against the East and West Indies — Correspond-
ence between Bernstorfif and Berlin, 19 16 — Designs on
China, Japan and Africa — Chakravarty arrested — The
conspirators indicted.

As far back as 1907 a plot was hatched in the
United States to promote sedition and unrest in
British India. The chief agitators had the ef-
frontery in the following year to make their head-
quarters in rooms in the New York Bar Associa-
tion, and to issue from that address numerous
circulars asking for money. The late John L.
Cadwallader, of the distinguished law firm of
Cadwallader, Wickersham and Taft, was then
president of the Bar Association, and when he
learned of the Hindu activities under the roof of

252

Hindu-German Co7ispiracies 253

the association he swiftly evicted the ringleaders.
Their organization, chartered in November, 1907,
was called The Society for the Advancement of
India. One of its officers was a New York man
to whom the British have since refused permis-
sion to visit India. Its members included several
college professors.

The presence of several educators in the list
may be accounted for by the fact that the society
existed apparently for the purpose of supplying
American college training to selected Hindu
youths. Many of them were sent to the United
States at the expense of the Gaekwar of Baroda,
one of the richest and most influential of the
Indian princes; the Gaekwar's own son was a
student in Harvard College in the years 1908-
191 2. Considerable sums of money were so-
licited from worthy folk who believed that they
were furthering the cause of enlightenment in
India; others who sincerely believed that British
rule was tyrannical gave frankly to the society to
help an Indian nationalist movement for home
rule ; others contributed freely for the promotion
of any and every anti-British propaganda in
India. The source of the latter funds may be
suggested by the understanding which long ex-
isted between the Society for the Advancement
of India and the Clan-na-Gael, an understanding

254 Tlie German Secret Service in Arnerica

witnessed by the frequent quotation in the dis-
affected press of India of articles from the Gae-
lic-American. Another successful solicitor was
a contemptible Swami, Vivekahanda, who dis-
cussed soul matters to New York's gullible-rich to
his great profit until the police gathered him in
for a very earthly and material offense. But the
students were the best material for revolt,
whether it was to be social or military, and we
shall see presently how they were made use of.

The Gaekwar of Baroda came to America in
the first decade of the new century and expressed
freely at that time his dislike for the British. At
the time of the Muzaffarpur bomb outrage, in
which the wife and daughter of an English of-
ficial were killed, the police found in the outskirts
of Calcutta a Hindu who had been educated at an
American college at the Gaekwar's expense and
who was at that time conducting a school of in-
struction in the use of explosives and small arms ;
he even had considerable quantities of American
arms and ammunition stored in his house. The
youths who held "Gaekwar scholarships" in
America were under the general oversight of a
professor attached to the American Museum of
Natural History, and the accumulation of evi-
dence of the activities of the students finally
caused his removal.

Hindu-Gcrmati Conspiracies 255

The Society established branches in Chicago,
Denver, Seattle, and even in St. John, New Bruns-
wick, and it thrived on the Pacific Coast. With-
.--^in the purlieus of the University of California,
there lived in 191 3 one Har Dyal, a graduate of
St. John's college at Oxford. Har Dyal in that
year founded a publication called Gadhr, which
being translated means "mutiny," its main edition
published in Urdu, other editions published in
other vernaculars, and appealing not only to
Hindus, but to Sikhs and Moslems. The publi-
cation and the chief exponents of its thought
formed the nucleus of a considerable system of
.anti-British activity.

'^ Whatever was anti-British found a warm re-
ception in Berlin. England, in August and Sep-
tember, 1914, was wrestling heroically with the
problem of supplying men to the Continent before
the German drive should reach the Channel.
Her regulars went, and the training of that gal-
lant "first hundred thousand" followed. She
combed her colonies for troops, and having an
y appreciable force of well-trained native soldiers
under arms in India, she brought them to France,
and the chronicles of the war are already full of
stories of the splendid fighting they did, and the
annoyance they caused to the grey troops of
Germany. From the German standpoint it was

256 The German Secret Service in America

good strategy to incite discontent in India, both
as tending to remove the Hindu and Sikh regi-
ments from the fighting zone, and as distracting
England's attention from the main issue by mak-
ing her look to the preservation of one of her
richest treasure lands ; there was the further pos-
sibility, after the expected elimination of Russia,
of German conquest of India, and a German
trade route from the Baltic to the Bay of Bengal,
through the Himalayan passes. Germany seized
upon the opportunity. The Amir of Afghanistan
had trained his army under Turkish officers,
themselves instructed by Germany through the
forces of Enver Pasha. The Afghans were told
that the Kaiser was Mohammedan, and by the
faith prepared to smite down the wicked un-
believer, England. The Amir himself spoiled
Germany's designs among his people, however,
for upon the outbreak of the war he pledged his
neutrality to the British Government, and he kept
his word.

A report found on the war correspondent
Archibald and written by Captain von Papen to
the Foreign Office in the summer of 1915, outlines
the German version of the situation in India :
,- "That a grave unrest reigns at the present time
throughout India is shown by the various follow-
ing reports:

Hindu-German Conspiracies 257

"Since October, 1914, there have been various
local mutinies of Mohammedan native troops,
one practically succeeding the other. From the
last reports, it appears that the Hindu troops are
going to join the mutineers.

"The Afghan army is ready to attack India.
The army holds the position on one side of the
Utak (?) River. The British army is reported
to hold the other side of the said river. The
three bridges connecting both sides have been
blown up by the British.

"In the garrison located on the Kathiawar
Peninsula Indian mutineers stormed the arsenal.
Railroads and wireless station have been de-
stroyed. The Sikh troops have been removed
from Beluchistan; only English, Mohammedans
and Hindu troops remain there.
J' "The Twenty-third Cavalry Regiment at
Lahore revolted, the police station and Town
House were stormed. The Indian troops in
Somaliland in Labakoran are trying to effect a
junction with the Senussi. All Burma is ready to
revolt.

"In Calcutta unrest (is reported) with street
fighting. In Lahore a bank was robbed; every
week at least two Englishmen killed; in the north-
western district many Englishmen killed; muni-

258 The German Secret Service in America

tions and other material taken, railroads de-
stroyed; a relief train was repulsed.

"Everywhere great unrest. In Benares a bank
has been stormed.

"Revolts in Chitral very serious, barracks and
Government buildings destroyed. The Hurti
Mardin Brigade, under Gen. Sir E. Wood, has
been ordered there. Deputy Commissioner of
Lahore wounded through a bomb in the Anakali
Bazaar.

"Mohammedan squadron of the cavalry regi-
ment in Nowschera deserted over Chang, south-
west Peshawar. Soldiers threvv^ bombs against
the family of the Maharajah of Mysore. One
child and two servants killed, his wife mortally
wounded.

"In Ceylon a state of war has been declared."

In February, 191 5, Jodh Singh, a former
student of engineering in the United States, was
in Rio de Janeiro. He was directed by a fellow
Hindu to call upon the German Consul, and the
latter gave him $300 and instructions to proceed
to the German consul in Genoa, Italy, for orders.
Thence he was forwarded to Berlin, where he at-
tended the meetings of the newly formed Indian
Revolutionary Society and absorbed many ideas
for procedure in America. Supplied with more
German money he came to New York and was

Hindu-German Conspiracies 259

joined by Heramba Lai Gupta, a Hindu who had
been a student at Columbia, and Albert H.
Wehde, an art collector. The three went to
Chicago, and Singh called at once upon Gustav
Jacobsen, the real estate dealer who will be re-
called in the Kaltschmidt bomb plots in Detroit.
Jacobsen assembled a group of German sym-
pathizers which included Baron Kurt von Reis-
witz, the consul, George Paul Boehm (mentioned
in instructions to von Papen to attack the
Canadian Pacific Railway) and one Sterneck.
At the conference Jodh Singh, Boehm, Sterneck
and Gupta were detailed to go to the far East:
Singh to Siam, to recruit liindus for revolution-
ary service, Gupta to China and Japan to secure
arms; Boehm to the Himalayas, to attack the ex-
ploring party of Dr. Frederick A. Cook, the
notorious, to impersonate Dr. Cook, and thus
travel about the hills spreading sedition. V/ehde,
with v$2o,ooo of von Reiswitz's money, Boehm and
Sterneck sailed for Manila, and apparently es-
caped thence to Java, to meet two officers from
the Emden, for the three are at this writing fugi-
tives from justice; Jodh Singh was arrested in
Bangkok and turned over to the British authori-
ties.

In the diary of Captain Grasshof of the Ger-
man cruiser Gcicr, interned in Honolulu, appears

260 The German Secret Service in America

the followins: entrv, establishino- Wehde's call in
Hawaii, and the complicity of the Consulate there
in his plans:

"At the Consulate I met Mr. A. Wehde from
Chicago, who is on way to Orient on business.

"One of the Hindoos sent over by Knorr (naval
attache of German Embassy at Tokio) left for
Shanghai on the 6th. In Hongkong there are
500 Hindoos, 200 officers and volunteers, besides
one torpedo boat and tv^^o Japanese cruisers.

"K-17 (A. V. Kircheisen) was almost captured
in Kobe. The first officer of the China warned
him and he immediately got on board again as
soon as possible. K-17 informed me that the
Japs have sold 1)ack to the Russians all the old
guns taken from the latter during the Russo-
Japanese war."

Reiswitz in June added $20,000 more to the
fund for revolution in India. Gupta, to whom
von Papen had paid $16,000 in New York, went
on to Japan with Dhirendra Sarkar, a fellow con-
spirator.

The presence of the two plotters in Japan be-
came known to the authorities and soon there-
after to the public. They were shadovs^ed every-
where, and a complete record was kept of their
activities ; the newspapers discussed them, and it
was common property that they gave a banquet

Hindii-GerTrimi Consjnracies 261

on the night of November 9, 19 15, to ten other
Hindus, to toast a plot for revolution in India.
On November 28 they were ordered by the chief
of police to leave Japan before December 2, which
was tantamount to a delivery into the hands of
the British, as the only two steamers available
were leaving for Shanghai and Hong Kong, both
ports well supplied with British officers. On the
afternoon of December i the two plotters escaped
in an automobile to the residence of a prominent
pro-Chinese politician (a friend of Sun Yat Sen)
and were concealed there, between false walls,
until May, 19 16, when they stowed away on a
ship bound for Honolulu. Sarkar returned to
India, Gupta to America. When the round-up
came, in 19 17, Jacobsen, Wehde and Boehm were
each convicted of violation of section 13 of the
Federal Penal Code, and sentenced to serve five
years in prison and pay $13,000 fines; Gupta's
sentence was three years, his fine $200.

The scene shifts for a moment from the Orient
to the Occident, and the twenty-fifth floor of the
building at 60 Wall Street, New York, on the
morning of April 19, 1916. There von Papen
had had his office; there when he was sent home
in December, 191 5, he had left in charge a sharp-
eyed youth named Wolf von Tgel as his successor.
Von Tgel, at eleven o'clock, was surveying the re-

262 Tlie German Secret Service m America

suit of several hours' work in sorting and arrang-
ing neat stacks of official papers for shipment to
the German Embassy at Washington, for he had
got word that trouble was brewing, and that the
documents would be safer there. An attendant
entered. "A man wants to see you, Herr von
Igel," he announced. *'He won't tell his busi-
ness, except that he says it is important."

Von Igel was gruffly directing the attendant to
make the stranger specify his mission when the
door burst open, and in dashed Joseph A. Baker,
of the Department of Justice, and Federal Agents
Storck, Underbill and Grgurevich.

"I have a warrant for your arrest!" shouted
Baker. Von Igel jumped for the doors of the
safe, which stood open. Baker sprang simul-
taneously for von Igel, and the two went to
the floor in battle. The German was over-
powered, and the attendant cowed by a flash of
revolvers.

"This means war !" yelled von Igel. "This is
part of the German Embassy and you've no right
here."

"You're under arrest," said Baker.

"You shoot and there'll be war," said von Igel,
and made another frantic attempt to close the safe
doors. A second skirmish ended in von Igel's re-

Hindu-German Conspiracies 263

moval to a cell, while the agents took charge of
the documents. The collection was a rare catch.
It contained evidence which supplied the missing
links in numerous chains of suspected German
guilt, and the matter was at once placed in the
safe keeping of the Government.

One letter was dated Berlin, February 4, 1916,
and addressed to the German Embassy in Wash-
ington. It reads :

"In future all Indian affairs are to be exclusively
handled by the committee to be formed by Dr. Chakra-
varty. Dhirendra Sarkar, and Heramba Lai Gupta,
which latter person has meantime been expelled from
Japan," . . .

(Gupta was at that moment between the walls
of the Japanese politician's house.)

. . ."thus cease to be independent representatives of the
Indian Independence Committee existing here.

"(Signed) Zimmermann."

The Embassy on March 21, 19 16, wrote von
Igel as follows:

"The Imperial German Consul at Manila writes me :

" 'Unfortunately the captured Hindus include Gupta,

who last was active at Tokio. The following have also

been captured : John Mohammed Aptoler, Rulerham-

mete, Sharmasler, No-Mar, C. Bandysi, Rassanala. Ap-

264 The German Secret Service in America

parently the English are thoroughly informed of all indi-
vidual movements and the whereabouts at various times
of the Hindu revolutionists.'
"Please inform Chakravarty."

The name ''Chakravarty" occurring in these
two memoranda makes it necessary here to turn
back the calendar to 191 5, in order to outline an-
other conspicuous Hindu-German activity. Not
only were the East Indian students and sympa-
thetic educators in America prolific in their verbal
advocacy of revolt in India, but with German as-
sistance they attempted at least one clearly de-
fined bit of filibustering, which if it had been
successful would have supplied the would-be
mutineers in the Land of Hind with the arms
they so longed to employ against the British.

-^ The reader will recall the mention of a large
quantity of weapons and cartridges which Cap-
tain Hans Tauscher had stored in a building in
200 West Houston Street, New York, and which
. he said he had purchased for ''speculation."

'T^The speculation was apparently the project of
Indian mutiny, which in the eyes of the Indian
Nationalist party was to equal in grandeur the
infamous mutiny of 1857. For those arms were
shipped to San Diego, California, secretly loaded
aboard the steamer Annie Larsen, and moved to
sea. The plan provided for their transshipment

Hindu-German Conspiracies 265

off the island of Socorro to the hold of the steam-
ship Maverick, which was to carry them to India.

f^ The two ships failed to effect a rendezvous, and
after some wandering the Annie Larsen put in
at Hoquiam, Washington, where the cargo was at
once seized by the authorities. The Maverick
sailed to San Diego, Hilo, Johnson Island, and
finally to Batavia.

J>> Count von Bernstorff had sufficient courage, on
July 2, to inform the Secretary of State "con-
fidentially that the arms and ammunition . . .
had been purchased by my government months
ago through the Krupp agency in New York for
shipment to German East Africa." On July 22,
he wrote again, asking that the arms be returned
as the property of the German Government, and
offering to give the Department of Justice "sucli
further information on the subject as I may
have" if they cared to push an examination of
the cargo. On October 5 he threw all responsi-
bility for the movements of the Maverick upon
Captain Fred Jebsen, her skipper — by this time a
fugitive from justice — and stating "the German
Government did not make the shipment, and
knows nothing of the details of how they were
shipped" — which was a rather shabby way of dis-
crediting his subordinates. *

It developed later that the arms were purchased

26G The German Secret Service in America

yN — sixteen carloads of them — by Henry Muck,
Tauscher's manager, for $300,000, made payable
by von Papen through G. Amsinck & Co. to
Tauscher. A part of the shipment was sent to
San Diego ; the balance was to have gone to India
via Java and China, but never left on acount of
the protests of the British Consul. Instead, a
number of machine guns and 1,500,000 rounds
of ammunition were sold to a San Francisco
broker who was acting as agent for Adolphi Stahl,
financial agent in the United States for the Re-
public of Guatemala. When Zimmermann cabled
to von Bernstorff on April 30, 191 6 (through
Count von Luxburg in Buenos Aires), "Please
wire whether von Igel's report on March 27,
Journal A, No. 257, has been seized, and warn
Chakravarty," he had grave concern over the be-
trayal of German influences in the Hindu con-
spiracies. This was fully justified when a cor-
respondence notebook of von Igel's disclosed,
among other entries, the following transactions :
August 12, 19 1 5 — Captain Herman Othmer in-
closed documents about the Annie Larsen and von
Igel forwarded charter to Consul at San Fran-
cisco.

September 2 — The embassy forwarded papers
from San Francisco about the Annie Larsen and
von Igel returned them.

Hindu-German Conspiracies 267

September 7 — The embassy sent a telegram
from San Francisco about the Maverick.

September 9 — The consulate, San Francisco,
sent a letter for information and von Igel replied
with a telegram al)out Maverick repairs.

September 9, 19 15 — The Embassy sent a letter
from the consulate at San Francisco about ship-
ment and von Igel replied to embassy that the
proposals were impracticable.

October i — The embassy sent a cipher message
to Berlin about the Maverick.

October 9 — The Consulate, San Francisco, sent
a letter about the Maverick negotiations.

October 20, 1915 — Von Igel received a report
about a shipment of arms from Manila.

January 27, 191 6 — The embassy forwarded
copies of telegrams to San Francisco in the matter
of the Maverick.

August 28 — The Consulate, Manila, sent a
cipher letter about the transport of arms.

November 8, 191 5 — AAA 100 sent a report
from or concerning Ispahan arms.

The peaceful Har Dyal, Oxford graduate,
lecturer at Leland Stanford, denizen of the Uni-
versity of California, and editor of Gadhr, had
laid down the following rules for the guidance of
members of the group of revolutionaries which he
headed: each candidate for membership must

268 The German Secret Service in America

undergo a six months' probationary period before
his admission; any member who exposed the
secrets of the organization should suffer death;
members wishing to marry could do so without
any ceremony, as they were above the law. Un-
der such amiable rules of conduct he accumulated
a number of followers of the faith, and more
swarmed to the tinkle of German money. In
August, 1914, the "first expeditionary force" of
revolutionists set sail for India in the Korea. A
few months later, Har Dyal left for Berlin, where
he organized the Indian Revolutionary Society,
leaving Ram Chandra as his successor to edit
Gadhr in Berkeley.

' The avowed object of this society was to estab-
lish a Republican government in India with the
help of Germany. They held regular meetings
attended by German officials and civilians who
knew India, among them former teachers in In-
dia. At these meetings the Germans were ad-
vised as to the line of conduct to be adopted.
The deliberations were of a secret nature. Har
Dyal and Chattopadhay had considerable influ-
ence with the German Government and were the
only two Indians privileged to take part in the
deliberations of the German Foreign Office.
Besides these societies there were in Berlin

Hindu-German Conspiracies 260

two other associations known as the Persian and
Turkish societies. The ol^ject of the first named
was to free Persia from European influences in
general, and create ill feeHng against the British
in particular, and to assist the natives to form a
republic. The object of the Turkish society was
practically the same. They established an
Oriental translating bureau which translated
German news and other literature selected by the
Indian Revolutionary Society into various
Oriental languages and distributed the transla-
tions among the Hindu prisoners of war.

Har Dyal continued in close touch with Ameri-
can affairs. On October 20 and 26, 191 5, he
wrote to Alexander Berkman, a" notorious
anarchist imprisoned in 19 18 for violation of the
draft law, urging Berkman to send to Germany
through Holland comrades who would be valuable
in Indian propaganda, and asking for letters of
introduction "from Emma or yourself" (Emma
Goldman) to important anarchists in Europe;
these communications are unimportant except as
they betray the Prussian policy of making an ally
of anarchy, although anarchy as a social factor
is the force from which Germany has most, to
fear. ''Perhaps you can find them," wrote Dyal,
"in New York or at Paterson. They should be

270 The German Secret Service in America

real fighters, T. W. W.'s or anarchists. Our
Indian party will make all the necessary arrange-
ments."

Ram Chandra went on with the work until he
was stopped by the Foreign Office. He printed
anti-Britannic pamphlets quoting Bryan for cir-
culation in India; he printed and delivered to
Lieutenant von Brincken at the German Consul-
ate in San Francisco some 5,000 leaflets, which
were to be shipped to Germany and dropped by
the Boche aviators over the Hindu lines in
France: the handbills read, "Do not fight with
the Germans. They are our friends. Lay down
your arms and run to the Germans." Chandra
and his crew supplied the Maverick with quan-
tities of literature, but most of it was burned
when the Hindu agents aboard feared that there
were British warships near Socorro Island. In
the same group were G. B. Lai and Taraknath
Das, two former students at the University of
California, the latter a protege of a German pro-
fessor there himself engaged in propaganda work.

Throughout the fall of 191 5 the Hindus in
America awaited word of Gupta's success in
Japan. They heard nothing but news of his dis-
appearance. Accordingly in December, Dr.
Chakravarty, a frail little Hindu of light choco-

Hindu-German Conspiracies 271

late complexion, sailed from Hoboken for Ger-
many, traveling as a Persian merchant, on a false
passport. He made a good impression on the
Foreign Office, as may be judged by the foUow-
K ing letter, dated January 21, 191 6, addressed to
' L. Sachse, Rotterdam:

"Dr. Chakravarty will return to the United States and
form a working committee of only five members, one of
whom should be himself and another, Ram Chandra. Li
addition to sending more Indians home the new American
committee will undertake the following:

"i — An agent will be sent to the West India islands,
where there are nearly 100,000 Indians, and will organize
the sending home of as many as possible.

"They have not yet been approached by us and there are
no such difficulties in the way of their going to India as
are encountered by our countrymen from the United
States.

"2 — An agent will be sent to British Guiana with the
same object.

"3 — A very reliable man will be sent to Java and
Sumatra.

"4 — It is proposed to have pamphlets printed and
circulated in and from America. The literature will be
printed secretly and propaganda will be carried on with
great vigor.

"5 — An effort will be made to carry out the plan of the
secret Oriental mission to Japan. Dr. Chakravarty is in a
jjosition to get letters of introduction to important persons
in Japan, as well as a safe-conduct for himself and other
members of mission."

272 The German Secret Service in America

After conferring with Dyal, Zimmermann, and
Undep-secretary Wesendonk of the Foreign Of-
fice, he was given money and sent back to the
United States, arriving in February, 1916. He
at once sent H. A. Chen to China to purchase
arms and ship them to India.*' He then reported
to Wolf von Igel, who paid him $40,000 for the
purchase of a house in 120th Street and one in
17th Street. There he held forth for more than
a year, working in conjunction with von Igel, and
the latter with the Embassy in Washington. His
activities may be indicated, and the complicity of
the German Government again established, in the
following communications :

From von Igel to von Bernstorff

"New York. Ai)ril 7, 191 6 — A report has been received
here that Dr. Chakravarty was taken Monday, the 3d of
April, to the Providence Hospital with concussion of the
brain in consequence of an automobile accident. His
convalescence is making good progress. A certain Ernest
J. Euphrat has been here and he came from the Foreign
Office and had orders with respect to the India propa-
ganda. He could not identify himself, but made a very
good impression. He told us Herr von Wesendonk told
him to say that Ram Chandra's activity in San Francisco
was not satisfactory. This person should for the time
being suspend his propaganda activities."

"In re No. 303 : Euphrat was sent by me to India in
October of last year, and is so far as known here reliable.

Hindu-German Conspiracies 273

He was, indeed, recommended at the time by Marcus
Braun, Please intimate to him cautiously that he should
not speak too much about his orders he received in Berlin.
San Francisco is being informed."
"For Prince Hatzfeld."

From New York to von Bernstorff

"New York, April 15, 1916 — Mr. E. J. Euphrat has
asked that the inclosed documents be forwarded to his
excellency in a safe way. Ke asks for a reply as quickly
as possible, because if he does not receive the desired al-
lowance he will have to change the plans for his journey.

"(Signed) K. N. St."

To H. Eisenhuth, Copenhagen, from New York, and
unsigned

"May 2, 1916. We have also organized a Pan-Asiatic
League, so that some of our members can travel without
arousing any suspicion. Also everything has been ar-
ranged for the 'mission to Japan.' Please let me know
when your men can come, so that we can approach the
party more definitely. I had talks with one of the direc-
tors of the Yamato Shimhnn of Tokio and Chinvai
Dempo of Kyoto. It would not be necessary to buy ofif
these papers, as they understand it is to mutual interest.
But they ask for certain considerations to help their
financial status. They are also decided to attack Anglo-
Japanese treaty as antagonistic to national interest. To
carry on work it will be necessary to place at the dis-
posal of the committee here $25,000."

274 The German Secret Service in America

Cablegram from Zimmermann, Berlin, to von Bernstorff,
via von Luxhnrg, Buenos Aires

"To Bernstorff, May 19, 1916: Berlin telegraphs No.
28 of May 19. Answer to telegram 23. Your excel-
lency is empowered to give the Indians $20,000. No. 29
of May 19 in continuation of telegram No. 16. Please, in
making direct payments to Tarak Nath Das, avoid
receipts. Das will receipt own payment through a third
party as Edward Schuster.

"(Signed) Zimmermann."

Zimmermann to Peking, transmitted by Lu.xbiirg, to
Bernstorff for Peking legation

"The confidential agent of the Nationalists here, the
Indian, Tarak Nath Das, an American citizen, is leaving
for Peking by the Siberian Railway. Please give him up
to 10,000 marks. Das will arrange the rest.

"Zimmermann."

"Ambassador at Washington : Please advise Chakra-

"LUXBURG."

From Bernstorff, mailed at Mt. Vernon, N. Y., to Z. N. G.
OUfiers, a German agent in Amsterdam

"June 16, 1916 — Referring to my letter A275 of June 8,
Chakravarty reports: Organization has been almost
completed, and many of our old members are active and
free. " Only they are afraid if arms are not available soon
there may be premature uprising in Madras and the
Punjab as well as in Bengal. The work in Japan is going
tmusually well, more than our expectations."

Hindu-German Conspiracies 275

From Berlin to Chakravarty

"July 13, 1 91 6 — In organizing work in the United
States and outside, remember our primary object is to
produce revolutions at home during this war. Trinidad,
British Guiana and East Africa, including Zanzibar,
should be particularly tapped for men.

"We wired your name to Francis E. M. Hussain,
Bachelor of Arts, Barr. at Law, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Through messenger communicate full programme desired
in Trinidad to him, and mention the name 'Binniechatto.'
He can be trusted. If, after some secret work, you think
revolution can be organized in island itself, then we may
try to smuggle arms, and our men will seize Government
and set up independent Hindustani Republic. Do not let
such plan be carried out if our prospects for work at home
are likely to be ruined."

^ A report from Chakravarty, written July 26, 1916

"I am going to Vancouver next week to see Bhai Bal-
want Singh and Nano Singh Sihra, who have asked me
to go there to arrange definite plan of action for group
of workers there, and then to San Francisco to induce
Ram Chandra to plan our committee here, and to include
him and his nominees in the said committee, so that our
work does not sufifer in the East by placing enemies on
their guard and right track by his thoughtless, enthusiastic
writings. . . . Gupta is back in New York and has seen
me, but has not submitted any report' ^ We need $15,000
more for the next six months to carry out the new plan
and to continue the previous work undertaken."

276 The German Secret Service in America

From von Bernstorjf, at Rye, N. Y., to Olifiers, trans-
mitting Cliakravarty's report

"August 5, 1916 — Our organization has been well per-
fected in the West Indies and Houssain has been ap-
proached. We have also enlisted the sympathy of the
Gongoles party, a strong fighting body of colored people,
who have ramifications all over Central America, includ-
ing British Guiana and Guatemala. Arms can be easily
smuggled there and if we can get some of the German
officers in this country to go there and lead them there
is every possibility that we can hold quite a while. But
the question is — ask the Foreign Secretary whether it is
desirable, for it might simply create a sensation and noth-
ing more. As soon as we hold there the Governmental
power the island would be isolated by the British navy,
and the attitude of the United States is uncertain, and
we may be compelled to surrender sooner or later ; but if
it serves any purpose either as a blind or otherwise, and
after due consideration of its advantages and disadvan-
tages, wire at once the authorities here to give us a few
officers, as we need them badly, and other help necessary
to carry out the plan, and it can be done without much
difficulty. I believe if a sensation is desired something
also can be done in London, at least should be tried. If
we can get a few men from the Pacific Coast we can send

em easily as a crew with a Dutch passport.

"We are sending arms in small quantities through
Chinese coolies over the border in Burmah, but in big
quantities we do not find possibility. However, we are
on the lookout. We have been trying our best with a
Japanese firm who have a business affiliation in Calcutta,

Hindu -German Conspiracies 277

whether they will undertake to transmit sonic arms
through their goods.

"To complete the chain we are sending Mr. Chandra
to London as a medical student in the university, and he
will send men and other informations to you via Switzer-
land. We are also sending a few Chinese students to
China to help us in the work, and if you want it can also
be arranged they give you a personal report through
^ Russia and Sweden.

'\ "We need $15,000 more, as I return from the Pacific
Coast, to carry out these plans, excepting that of Trinidad
oi)erations, which, if you approve, wire at once the mili-
tary agent here to arrange to buy and ship arms to us,
before the enemy can be on guard."

To H. Elsenhuth, Copenhagen, in cipher

"September 5, 1916 — Arms can no more be safely sent
to India through Pacific, except through Japanese mer-
chandise or through China merchants, shipped to Chinese
ports and then to our border. Responsible men are will-
ing to take the risk and they are willing to send their
confidential agents to Turaulleur."

Chakravarty to Berlin, Foreign Office

"September 5, 1916 — Li Yuan Hung is now President
of China. He was formerly the southern revolutionary
leader. W. T. Wang was then his private secretary. He
is now in America and starting for China. He says Li
Yuan Hung is in sympathy with the Indian revolution and
would like English pov/er weakened. Some of the
prominent people are quite eager to help India directly.

278 Tlie German Secret Service in America

and Germany indirectly, without exposing themselves to
any great risk, on three conditions :

V "The first — Germany to make a secret treaty with
China, that in case China is attacked by any power or
powers, Germany will give her military aid. It will be
obligatory for five years after the discontinuance of the
present war and there will be an understanding that China
shall get one-tenth of all arms and ammunition she will
receive for and deliver to the Indian revolutionaries and

^ the Indian border.

Q. "In return, China shall prohibit the delivery of arms
and ammunition in the name of the Chinese Government
and from China through private sailing boats and by
coolies to any nearby jjoint or any border place as directed.
She will help Indian revolutionaries as she can, secretly
and in accord with her own safety.

^ : "But this is to be regarded as a feeler through a third
party, and, if it is acceptable to the German Government,
then they will send one of their trusted representatives to
Berlin to discuss the details and plan of operations, and
if it is settled, then negotiations should take place officially
and papers signed through the embassies in Berlin and
Peking. They want to know the attitude of the German
Foreign Office as soon as possible so that they can set
the ball rolling for necessary arrangements."

Von Bernstorff to Zimmermann

"October 13, 1916 — Chakravarty's reply is not sent; too
long. Require at end of October a further $15,000. Ac-
cording to news which has arrived here Okechi has not
received the $2000 and in the meantime left Copenhagen.

Hindu-German Conspiracies 279

Please withhold payment until Polish National Committee
provides therefor.

"Bernstgrff."

To O lifters, Amsterdam, postmarked Washington

"November 21, 1916 — Rabindranath Tagore has come
at our suggestion and saw Count Okuma, Baron Shimpei
Goto, Masaburo Suzuki, Marquis Yamanouchi, Count
Terauchi and others ; Terauchi is favorable and others
are sympathetic. Rash Behari Bose is still there to see
whether they can be persuaded to do something positive
for our cause. S. Sekunna and G. ]\Iarsushita are doing
their best. Yamatashimbun is strongly advocating our
cause. D. Pal has not come. Benoy Sarkar is still in
China. Lala is willing to go, but this passage could not
be arranged. As soon as Tilak arrives he will be ap-
proached. Bapat is still free and writes tlxit he has been
trying his best, but for want of arms they have not been
able to do anything. Received a note from Abdul Kadir
and Shamshar Singh from Termes-Buchare that they are
proceeding on slowly to their destination. Barkatullah
is in Kabul ; well received, lacks funds. Mintironakaono
is here. Isam Uhiroi is in Pekin. Tarak has safely
reached there. Our publication work is going on well.
We have brought out seven pamphlets and one in the
press. We are waiting for definite instructions as to the
work in Trinidad and Damrara.

"Wu Ting Fang has been now made the Foreign
Minister. He has always been sympathetic v/ith our
cause. But the influence of Sun Yat Sen still persists in
opposing us in that direction."

280 The German Secret Service in America

Zimnicrmann to Bcrnstorff

"December 20, 19 16 — According to Chakravarty, the
Indians were paid up to September 30 $30,000. Total
credit for Indians, $65,000.

"ZiMMERMANN."

Zimmermann to Bernstorff

"January 4, 1917 — very secret. The Japanese, Hideo
Nakao, is traveHng to America with imi)ortant instruc-
tions from the Indian Committee. He is to deal exclu-
sively with Chakravarty. Please, after consultation with
Chakravarty, inform Imperial Minister at Peking and the
Imperial Consulate at Shanghai that they are to send in
Nakao's reports regularly. I advise giving Nakao in in-
stahments up to fifty thousand dollars in all for the exe-
cution of his plans in America and Eastern Asia. Deci-
sion as to the utiHty of the separate payments is left to
your excellency and the Imperial Legation at Peking.
Despatch follows.

"(Signed) Zimmermann."

On March 7, 191 7, Guy Scull, deputy police
commissioner in New York, with eight detectives,
called at 364 West 120th Street, found Dr. Cha-
kravarty clad in a loin cloth, and arrested him on
a charge of setting afoot a military enterprise
against the Emperor of India. With Sekunna,
a German who had been writing tracts for him,
he was later transferred to San Francisco to stand
trial. The typewriter in the 120th Street house,
whose characteristics — all typewriters are as in-

Hindu-German Conspiracies 281

dividual and as identifiable as finger-prints — had
betrayed the conspirators, lay idle for many
months, but as late as March i8, 19 18, a Hindu,
Sailandra Nath Ghose, who had collaborated with
Taraknath Das in writing a propaganda work
called ''The Isolation of J^p^m in world politics,'"
yv'as arrested there in company with a German
>voman, Agnes Smedley. The two were accused
of violating the espionage act by representing
themselves to be diplomatic agents of the Indian
Nationalist Party, and of having sent an appeal
for aid in the establishment of a democratic fed-
erated republic in India to the Brazilian Embassy
in Washington, to Leon Trotzky in Russia, and to
the Governments of Panama, Paraguay, Chile
and other neutral nations.

In the course of the years 1916 and 1917 the
Government built up an unusually exhaustive and
troublesome case for nearly one hundred defend-
ants, including the personnel of the San Fran-
cisco consulate, the German consul at Honolulu
(who had supplied the Maverick in Hilo Har-
bor ^), a large group of Hindu students, a smaller
group of war brokers, and numerous lesser in-
termediaries. Their trial was one of the most
cumbersome and interesting cases ever heard in

iThe Maverick was lost in a typhoon off th» Philippines in
August, 19 1 7.

282 The German Secret Service in America

an American court. It began on Novemher 19,

1917, in San Francisco, with Judge Van Fleet on
the bench. Witness after witness recited his
story of adventure, each stranger than the last,
and all stranger than fiction. Lieutenant von
Brincken, one of the San Francisco consulate,
pleaded guilty within a few weeks ; his sentence
was long deferred by the prosecution on ac-
count, presumabably, of evidence which he sup-
plied the Government. George Rodiek, the Ger-
man consul in Honolulu, followed suit and was
fined heavily ; Jodh Singh turned state's evidence
and presently his mind became diseased and he
was committed to an asylum; the procedure
was interrupted from time to time with wran-
gles among the defendants, and on one occa-
sion Franz Bopp, the San Francisco consul,
shouted to one of his fellows, ''You are spoiling
the whole case!" When the Government,
through United States Attorney Preston, intro-
duced evidence from the Department of State,
the Flindus attempted to subpoena Secretary Lans-
ing; when Bryan's pacifist tracts were introduced
the defendants sought Bryan. On April t8,

1918, Chakravarty confessed, to the irritation of
the other defendants. The climax in melodrama
occurred on the afternoon of April 23, 19 18,
when, with the case all but concluded, Ram Singh

Hindu-German Conspiracies 283

shot and killed Ram Chandra in the courtroom.
A moment later Ram Singh lay dead, his neck
broken by a bullet fired over the heads of the at-
torneys by United States Marshal Holohan.
That afternoon Judge Van Fleet delivered his
charge to the jury; that night a verdict of guilty
was returned against twenty-nine of the thirty-
two defendants who had not been dismissed as
the trial proceeded.

Judge Van Fleet, on April 30, 1918, pronounced
tli£-iDllowing sentences :
j^ ' Franz Bopp, German consul in San Francisco,
two years in the penitentiary and $10,000 fine;
F. H. von Schack, vice-consul, the same punish-
ment; Lieutenant von Brincken, military attache
of the consulate, two years' imprisonment wnth-
out fine; Walter Sauerbeck, lieutenant comman-
der in the German navy, an officer of the Geier in-
terned in Honolulu, one year's imprisonment and
$2,000 fine; Charles Lattendorf, von Brincken's
secretary, one year in jail; Edwin Deinat, mas-
ter of the German ship Holsaiia, interned in
Honolulu, a term of ten months in jail and a fine
of $1,500; Heinrich Fell)o, master of the German
ship Ahlers, interned in Hilo, Hawaii, six months
in jail and a fine of $1,000^ These men may be
described as the loyal German group.|
Robert Capelle, agent in San Francisco of the

284) Tlie German Secret Service in America

North German Lloyd line, fifteen months' impris-
onment and a fine of $7,500; Harry J. Hart, a
San Francisco shipping man, six months in jail
and a fine of $5,000; Joseph Bley of the firm of
C. D. Blinker & Co., customs brokers, fifteen
months in prison and a fine of $5,000; Moritz
Stack von Goltzheim, a real estate and insurance
broker, six months in jail and $1,000 fine; Louis
T. Hengstler, an admiralty lawyer and professor
in the University of California and in Hastings
Law College, a fine of $5,000; Bernard Manning,
a real estate, insurance and employment agent in
San Diego, nine months in jail and a fine of
$1,000; and J. Clyde Hizar, a former city attor-
ney in Coronado and assistant paymaster in the
United States Navy, one year's imprisonment and
a fine of $5, 000.-^ These gentlemen constituted
the so-called "shipping group" which w^as inti-
mately concerned with the affairs of the Annie
Larsen and the Maverick^

Dr. Chakravarty, who had been delegated by
no less a personage than Zimmermann of Berlin
to handle all Indian intrigue in America, received
a crushing sentence of sixty days in jail and a
fine of $5,000. Bhagwan Singh, the "poet of the
revolution," was sentenced to eighteen months in
the penitentiary; Taraknath Das, the author and
lecturer, to twenty-two months' imprisonment;

Dr. Chakravarty (on the right) , the accredited agent of Ger-
many in the Hindu-German intrigues in America. With
him is Ernest Sekunna, also a German agent,
arrested with Chakravarty

Hindu-German Conspiracies 285

Gobind Behari Lai, the University of California
student, to ten months in jail. The smaller fry
of the University of Calif ornia-G" /lat/r group were
disposed of as follows: Nandekar to three
months in jail, Ghoda Ram to eleven months,
Sarkar, who had been in Japan wnth Gupta, to
four months, Munshi Ram (of the Ghadr staff)
to sixty days, Imam Din to four months, Nerajan
Das to six months, Singh Hindi to nine months,
Santokh Singh to twenty-one months in the peni-
tentiary, Gopalm Singh to one year and a day, and
Nidhan Singh to four months.

Those defendants who remained had not been
allowed at large on bail, thanks to the vigilance of
Preston. Yet in spite of all precautions, the pro-
ceedings frequently threatened to get out of con-
trolV^The United States had been at war for a
year; the Federal Court was trying both alien
enemies of military status and alien enemies who
had engaged in and stood convicted of conspiracy,
as well as conspirators against the rule of Britain
in India who had revolution quite definitely in
mind.^ Great Britain, for six months before the
trial began, had been our ally and, in spirit at
least, a traitor to Great Britain was a traitor to
the United States. In spirit, but not in the letter
of the law : the worst punishment which any ex-
isting statutes could impose on any single defend-

286 The German Secret Service in America

ant found wholly and completely guilty of the
charge was two years' imprisonment and a fine of
$10,000. For such conviction, and for such pun-
ishment of the United States' military enemies,
the prosecution clambered about through the
tangle of civil procedure; v;e had been six months
at war and laws had not been supplied to facilitate
the swift justice due such enemies, nor have laws
been supplied as this is written. More than
eighty "court days" were consumed, the short-
hand reporting alone cost more than $35,000. A
court commissioner released four important wit-
nesses ''for want of evidence." (One of them
was indicted in New York and the commissioner
was himself dismissed. ) Gupta, arrested in New
York, was released on bail and swiftly fled across
the Mexican border to continue his propaganda.
Trying as the case was to all who were con-
cerned in it, expeditiously as it was handled by
the authorities, and informative as it proved to
be, it was monumental in its confession that civil
courts cannot act with the warning vigor and
speed made necessary by war conditions.
-^ The evidence introduced pointed clearly to the
conclusion that the German-Hindu plot, complex
as it is to us as critics, was unfruitful even to
Berlin. Perhaps its very breadth made it awk-
ward to manage. Nearly four years of war

Hindu-German Consjnracies 287

passed, and there was no mutiny in India. The
stewards of the Indian domain knew anxious mo-
ments, but they found some solace in the reaHza-
tion that half way around the world, in the United
States, there was a pair of eyes to watch every
pair of mischievous hands, and that the conspir-
acy directed against the Orient could not take
effect while those eyes were open.

It requires no special gift of prophecy to pre-
dict that secret conspiracies will continue unless
those eyes are more vigilant than ever. The
United States Attorney announced as the con-
spirators were being sentenced that he felt that
the court might well instruct their dark associates
to "cut out their propaganda," and that their
Gahdr presses were even then turning out "bar-
rels and bales of seditious literature." To this
Judge Van Fleet gravely responded :

"The people are going to take the law into their
own hands, as much as we regret it. The citi-
zens of this country are going to suppress mani-
festations hostile to our allies."

CHAPTER XVII

MEXICO, IRELAND, AND BOLO

Huerta arrives in New York — The restoration plot —
German intrigue in Central America — The Zimmermann
note — Sinn Fein — Sir Roger Casement and the Easter
Rebellion — Bolo Pacha in America and France — A
warning.

Germany learned during President Roosevelt's
administration that the Monroe Doctrine was not
to be tampered with. The United States stood
squarely upon a policy of "hands off Latin Amer-
ica." But both commercial and diplomatic Ger-
many were attracted by the bright colors of the
somewhat kaleidoscopic political condition of the
Central and South American nations. In po-
litical confusion, Mexico, at the outbreak of w^ar,
led all the rest. This suited Germany's pur-
pose perfectly — provided that at least one fac-
tion in Mexico might be susceptible to her influ-
ence. The first three years of war proved to
the satisfaction of the most skeptical that Mexi-
can unrest would trouble the United States, and

288

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 289

it was upon this theory that Germany long before
1 9 14 baited her hook for Mexico.

Propagandists in our neighbor republic added
fuel to the already brisk flame of native hostility
to the Yankee. A considerable German commer-
cial colony grew up, assimilated the language and
customs of Mexico, and bade fair to be a strong
competitor in the development of the huge natural
resources waiting there for foreign capital. By
1914 Germany had evidently expected to be in a
position sufficient!}^ strong to enlist Mexico on
her side in case the United States gave trouble.
The reader will recall that Admiral von Hintze
in the summer of 191 4 had recommended Captain
von Papen for a decoration for having organized
a fair military unit of the Germans in Mexico.
That same summer, however, saw Mexico with
troubles of her own, and German eftorts against
the United States through Mexico had to be post-
poned.

Early in 1914 General Huerta, an unscrupu-
lous, powerful and dissolute factionist, had ex-
ecuted a coup d'etat which placed him in the
president's chair. Pie at once advertised for
bids. The United States had no intention of pro-
tecting him, and in order to stop at its source any
trouble which might prove too attractive to a for-
eign power, placed an embargo upon the shipment

290 The German Secret Service in America

of American arms into Mexico, The American
fleet was despatched to Vera Cruz to see that the
order was carried out. The steamship Ypiranga,
with a cargo of arms, succeeded in eluding the
fleet, and under orders from the German admiral,
and the direction of Karl Heynen, the arms were
landed.

Huerta had promised the presidency to Felix
Diaz. In order to get him out of the way he sent
Diaz to negotiate a Japanese understanding.
The United States gently diverted Seiior Diaz
from his mission. Huerta began to lose the grip
he held; three other factionists. Villa, Carranza
and Zapata, each at the head of an army, were
aiming at his head, and shortly before the world
went to war the old rogue fled to Barcelona.

There Rintelen negotiated with him in Feb-
ruary, 191 5, and out of their conferences grew a
plan to restore him to the Mexican presidency.
This plan would have meant war between Mexico
and the United States, which was precisely what
von Rintelen and his Wilhelmstrasse friends de-
sired: American forces would have to be mobil-
ized at the Rio Grande, and American munitions,
destined for the Allies, would have to be com-
mandeered and diverted to Mexico.

The aged general arrived in New York in
April, and was interviewed and photographed.

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 291

He told the public through the newspapers that
he proposed to acquire an estate on Long Island
and the public considered it not inauspicious that
the veteran warrior should have come to pass the
remainder of his stormy life in the world's most
peaceful country. Fortunately for the peace of
the United States not every one believed him.

Within a week of his arrival von Rintelen
slipped into New York. He placed in the
Havana branch of the Deutsches Bank and in
banks in Mexico City some $800,000 to Huerta's
credit, and within a short time the political jack-
als who lived on foreign subsidy began to prick
up their ears. Von Papen and Boy-Ed had made
trips to the Mexican border, arranging through
their consular agents in the Mexican towns
across the river the mobilization of Germans in
Mexico, the storing of supplies and ammunition,
and the deposit of funds in banks at Brownsville,
El Paso, San Antonio and Douglas. Not all
Mexicans in the United States were ELuertistas,
however, and one Raphael Nieto, Assistant-Secre-
tary of Finance to Carranza, was quite as eager
to follow Huerta's activities as were the agents
of the United States. The Carranzistas joined
forces with the Secret Service and found out that
the plot had already begun to develop.

During the month of May, Huerta frequently

292 Tlie German Secret Service in America

met a member of the German Embassy at the
Hotel McAlpin. Von Rintelen was clever
enough not to negotiate in person, but he dined
frequently with the Embassy member. Much of
what had occurred at these conferences in the
McAlpin was known to government agents, who
had been concealed where they could take notes
on the conversation. On June i, 191 5, General
Huerta, with Jose Ratner, his "financial adviser,"
held a conference in the Holland House with a
former Huertista cabinet minister, a son of the
Mexican general, Angeles, and certain other per-
sonages who purposed to take part in the revolu-
tion for the sake of this world. One of the men
present was a Carranza spy, and through him it
became known that Huerta outlined that he had
ten millions of dollars for immediate use in a plot
to restore him to his former position, twice that
sum in reserve, and that more would be forthcom-
ing if necessary. Arms and ammunition, he said,
would be shipped into Mexico secretly, supplies
would be accumulated at certain border towns,
and envoys had already been sent to incite deser-
tion from the armies of Carranza and Villa.

Rintelen did not know that the Carranzistas
had sold out to the authorities. Rintelen had al-
ready purchased some $3,000,000 worth of arms
and cartridges, and he was prepared to see the en-

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 293

terprise to a successful conclusion. Incidentally
he was quietly supplying- six other Mexican fac-
tions with funds in case Huerta's measure of suc-
cess should prove too intoxicating.

Because he was a figure of considerable inter-
national notoriety and indisputable news inter-
est, the press had been following Huerta's move-
ments with strict attention. Affairs at the
border were not reassuring and there persisted
the feeling that Huerta in the United States held
promise of Huerta once more in Mexico. In
July, his agent, Ratner, issued the following
frank though apparently ingenious statement:

''General Huerta and those of us associated
with him are confident that the whole Mexican
situation will be cleared up within ninety days.
We believe that to rule the country is a one-man
job. And in that time we expect that one man
to come forward and unite the country. General
Huerta does not care to indicate the man he has
in mind, but he is from our viewpoint a true pa-
triot, and naturally that excludes both Carranza
and Villa.

"General Huerta may or may not return to
Mexico some day, and may or may not hold office
there again. At present he is giving himself up
wholly to an agreeable and home life in this city
(New York)."

294 The German Secret Service in ^imerica

Whether or not General Huerta was to "return
to Mexico some day" depended upon the temper
of the United States. He knew that when he
authorized the statement. He did not know — or
else he was incredibly bold — that the Government
was in possession of the whole story, and that
orders had been issued from the highest source in
the country not to let him return. One day in the
late summer he slipped away, ostensibly to visit
the San Francisco Exposition. Government
agents shadowed him and let him make his own
pace. He took the southern route, and traveled
so quietly that his flight was not publicly marked
until he had passed through Kansas City. As he
approached the border he became as eager as a
boy at the prospect of his 'return from Elba';
then, as he was almost in sight of the soil from
which he had been exiled, he was arrested on a
technical charge and jailed.

In August Rintelen fled the country. The
Providence Journal had just published an irritat-
ing charge that Boy-Ed was carrying on negoti-
ations with Mexico; the German Embassy de-
nied the charge, although Boy-Ed with his
knowledge of Mexico had assisted ably in the
plot; and the excitement of official interest in
Huerta's recent connections made von Rintelen
nervous. When he was captured at Falmouth

Mexico, Irelmid, and Bolo 295

by the British, his man-Friday, Andrew V. Me-
loy, confessed that he had inadvertently tipped
over the plot when he had innocently telephoned
a Carranzista to find out, for safety sake, whether
the Carranza party suspected Huerta. It was
this Carranzista who made a few inquiries of his
own, and succeeded in planting the spy in the
Holland House meeting.

The aged general, although he was transferred
to a more comfortable prison, took his confine-
ment bitterly. His dream had been bright in-
deed, and it had been bluntly interrupted. As the
autumn came on his health showed signs of fail-
ing, and his career of dissipation began to total
the final reckoning. The illness became grave,
and after two surgical attempts to save his life,
he died in January, 1916, heartbroken.

Von Eckhart, the minister to Mexico City, was
to Mexico what Bernstorif was to the United
States and he employed faithfully the familiar
tactics of his superior : revolution, editorial prop-
aganda, filibustering and double dealing. In the
fall of 1 91 6 the fine German hand could be seen
prompting a note sent by Alexico to the United
States urging an embargo on the shipment on
munitions and foodstuffs to the warring nations
(Mexico had neither foodstuffs nor munitions to
supply). And in December, 191 6, Eckhart was

296 TJie German Secret Service in America

robbed of the achievement of a conspiracy of
fantastic proportions.

In order to appreciate the fantasy, one must
bear in mind the temperament of a Central Ameri-
can. Eckhart and his colleague, Lehmann, Ger-
man minister to Guatemala, proposed to harness
that temperament to a German wagon and drive
the Latin republics to the formation of "the
United States of Central America," which pre-
sumably would have borne a Prussian eagle in
the field of its ensign.

Carranza disliked Cabrera of Guatemala; so,
too, did Dr. Irias, a Nicaraguan liberal. Certain
factions in Honduras disapproved of their presi-
dent; certain factions in Guatemala could be
counted on to support revolution against Cabrera;
Dr. Irias, the defeated candidate, disliked Emili-
ano Chammorra, the President of Nicaragua,
enormously. What more natural than that they
combine forces and with German money and
arms kindle not one revolution but a series of
them, with an invasion thrown in for good meas-
ure? Accordingly they conferred with a Salva-
dorean politician, a Cuban revolutionist, and an
associate of the Costa Rican minister of war.
The cast complete, they planned to assemble revo-
lutionary forces, with German military advisers,
on the coast of Salvador. Using Salvador as a

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 297

base, attacks were to be made upon Nicaragua
and Guatemala, and at the proper time Carranza
was to invade Guatemala from the north. Co-
lombia's services were to be enlisted by the prom-
ise of restoration of the Republic of Panama —
originally a Colombian province. As soon as the
combined revolutionaries had succeeded in over-
throwing their governments, they were to form
the United States of Central America, with Irias
as president, and William of Hohenzollern as
counsel.

Our levity is pointed not at the Central Ameri-
can temperament and political instability, but
rather towards the grotesquely serious objective
of the German plotters. If their military forces
had been Prussian shock troops the}'' would cer-
tainly have succeeded. The use of a Mexican
gunboat to transport German officers with an air-
plane and wireless apparatus from Mexico to
Salvador exposed the plan. President Cabrera
of Guatemala had a small but effective force of
thirty thousand men, and a well-equipped artil-
lery, armed — and he was prepared for attack
from either frontier. He also enjoyed the con-
fidence of Washington, and he informed Wash-
ington at once what was afoot. The answer ar-
rived presently in the shape of the American
fleet, on a peaceful expedition to survey the Gulf

298 IVie German Secret Service in America

of Fonseca, its newly acquired Nicaragitan naval
base. The revolutions failed for want of revo-
lutionists, the German enterprise failed for want
of revolutions, and of the conspirators only one,
Tinoco of Costa Rica, succeeded in capitalizing
the unrest by a coup d'etat which made him presi-
dent. The plot never reached maturity in Co-
lombia or Panama.

Before dismissing it from consideration, how-
ever, it is worth a moment's analysis. With any
degree of success it would have distracted the
United States, and perhaps have involved her
marine corps as well as her navy. It contained
possibilities of war between Mexico and the
United States. It projected a blow at the Pan-
ama Canal. It concerned a territory in which
commercially as well diplomatically the United
States had definite concern and in which Ger-
many had already shown a greedy interest. In-
cidentally it reveals — in its offer to Colombia —
the same diplomatic technique as that which was
shortly to startle the United States into the last
step towards war, the so-called '^Zimmermann
note."

At 3 A. M. (Berlin time) on January 19, 1917,
the following message was sent by wireless to
Count von Bernstorff from the Foreign Office :

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 299

"Berlin, January 19, 19 17.

"On the first of February we intend to begin submarine
warfare unrestricted. In spite of this it is our endeavor
to keep neutral the United States of America.

"If this is not successful we propose an alliance on the
following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war
together and together shall make peace. We shall give
general financial support and it is understood that Mexico
is to recover the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas and
Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement.

"You are also instructed to inform the president of
Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as
it is certain there will be an outbreak of war with the
United States and suggest that the President of Mexico
on his own initiative should communicate with Japan sug-
gesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time
offer to mediate between Germany and Japan.

"Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico
that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now
promises to compel England to make peace in a few
months.

"(Signed) Zimmermann."

This document was decoded from the official
dictionary cipher and laid in the hands of Presi-
dent Wilson almost immediately following the
rupture of diplomatic relations. It was made
public on February 28, when the public temper
was at whitest heat. Mexico did not repudiate
the note at once, and four days later despatched
a denial of having received any such proposal

300 TJie German Secret Service in America

as Zimmermann had suggested. Eckhart \vas
forcing Carranza's hand with the lure of the pro-
jected Central American enterprise already out-
lined. ( Eckhart had had Carranza so completely
under his influence at one time that when the
United States despatched to JMexico a friendly
note warning her of the presence of German sub-
marines in the Gulf, Mexico retorted — at Eck-
hart's literal dictation — that the United States
might do v.ell to ask the British Navy why it did
not prevent German undersea craft from ap-
proaching the Americas.) The month of March
fled by, and America went to war ; since that date
no official expression except one of praise for
Mexico's attitude of amiable neutrality has is-
sued from Washington.

Just as the proximity of Mexico to the United
States had for a number of years past carried
with it the possibility, almost the certainty, of
differences between the two countries, rising out
of the temperamental differences of their peoples,
so for a longer period had Ireland and England
suffered for their contiguity. It is a truism to
remark that the Irishman cherishes his national
grievances, but that characteristic accounts for a
further phase of German intrigue on American
soil. Hatred of England sent many thousands
of Irish to the United States in the past fifty

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 301

years. They found it a country to their hking,
which England was not, and aUhough they had
become indissolubly attached to their adopted
land, there were in America in 1914 (and there
are in 1918) numerous Irish who had no dearer
wish than that England come off second best in
the great war. Allies after Germany's own
heart they were, therefore. They had been cul-
tivated long since: in 1909, when plans were be-
ing made for a centenary celebration in 1914 of
the peace that had reigned between the United
States and England, German-American and
Irish-American interests began to raise a struc-
ture of their own, exploiting the prominence
which certain Germans, such as Franz Sigel and
Carl Schurz, had enjoyed in the construction of
the nation. The programme of these interests
included the erection of elaborate memorials over
the graves of prominent German Americans, the
dissemination of legends of German heroes in
America, and more practically the frustrating of
the projected Peace Centenary.

Many of the organizations thus united for a
practical purpose found a clearing-house in the
American Truth Society, of which Jeremiah
O'Leary was the head. Although the Centennial
Celebration itself was rudely interrupted by the
advent of war, the German-Irish acquaintance-

302 The German Secret Service in America

ship was nourished by the German propagandists
in America. They observed with pleasure the
circulation by the Clan-na-Gael of cards inform-
ing the Irish in America that troops from Erin
were being assigned to the most dangerous posts
and the bloodiest attacks and subjected to the
most severe enemy fire in France, and that the
hated British were dragging Irish boys from their
homes to fill up the ranks. Between September,
1914, and April, 191 5, funds amounting to $80,-
000 for the purchase of arms and the printing of
seditious papers and leaflets were forwarded from
America to Dublin banks, and then mysteriously
were withdrawn. An inflammatory publication
known as Bull, published by O'Leary, and not
barred from the mails until September, 191 7, went
broadcast over the United States, inciting bitter-
ness against England, and found a greedy circle
of readers in the German-American population.
John Devoy, a Sinn Feiner of standing in Amer-
ica, fanned the flame Vv^ith a newspaper known
as the Gaelic American, published in New York,
and it is this American-printed sheet which fur-
nished the Irish revolutionists with material for
a part of the plot which they were preparing for
fruition in the year 19 16.

In 191 6 Sir Roger Casement, an Irish knight,
made his way into Germany. He was permitted

Copjrieht. Inttrnational Film Sen'i

Jeremiah A. O'Leary

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 303

to visit the prison camp at Limburg where some
3,000 Irish prisoners of war were quartered, and
he moved about among them attempting to ob-
tain enhstments in an army which was to effect a
coup in Dubh'n to overthrow the British govern-
ment in the Castle and to proclaim an Irish Re-
pu1)lic. He circulated numerous copies of the
Gaelic American to arouse the men. He was
variously received. Some of the prisoners held
their release worth treason — but only fifty-odd.
The greater majority rejected Sir Roger's offer,
and some even chose to curse and spit at the sug-
gestion that they break their oaths of allegiance
to Great Britain. He succeeded, hov/ever, in en-
listing German financial assistance, and in early
April, 1916, a cargo of captured Russian arms
and ammunition was forwarded to Kiel and
loaded into the German auxiliary steamship Aud.
Some 11,000 revolutionists were in a state of
mental if not martial mobilization in Ireland by
this time. There were in Dublin some 825 rifles.
But so cleverly were the volunteers' orders passed
from member to member, that Sir Matthew Na-
than, Under-Secretary of State for Ireland, testi-
fied later that he did not know until three days
before the outbreak occurred that German inter-
ests were cooperating. Evidently, however, sym-
pathizers in America knew it full well, for in

304 Tlie German Secret Service in America

the von Igel papers captured in von Papen's of-
fice in New York was found the following mes-
sage to von Bernstorff :

"New York, April 17, 1916.

"Judge Cohalan requests the transmission of the fol-
lowing remarks :

"The revolution in Ireland can only be successful if
supported from Germany, otherwise England will be able
to suppress it, even though it be only after hard struggles.
Therefore, help is necessary. This should consist pri-
marily of aerial attacks in England and a diversion of the
fleet simultaneously with Irish revolution. Then, if pos-
sible, a landing of troops, arms, and ammunition in Ire-
land, and possibly some officers from Zeppelins. This
would enable the Irish ports to be closed against England
and the establishment, of stations for submarines on the
Irish coast and the cutting off of the supply of food for
England. The services of the revolution may therefore
decide the war.

"He asks that a telegram to this effect be sent to Ber-
lin."

Presumably such a telegram was sent, although
on April 17 Sir Roger, with his recruits, was at
Kiel. Three days before the Berlin press bureau
had authorized the issuance of a despatch through
the semi-official Overseas News Agency that "po-
litical rioting in Ireland is increasing." On the
same day a news item was published in Copen-
hagen stating that Sir Roger had been arrested in

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 305

Germany to allay any suggestion that he was en-
gaged in any other enterprise. On the afternoon
of Thursday, April 20, a German submarine stuck
its conning tower out of water off Tralee, on the
Irish coast. Three men presently emerged, un-
folded a collapsible boat, and rowed ashore in it.
The three were Casement and two of his hench-
men, come home to Ireland to spread the news
that German arms and German aid were at hand.
Off the southwest coast the patrol ship Bluebell
of the British Navy sighted, on Good Friday
morning, a ship flying the Norwegian flag, and
calling herself, in answer to the Bluebell's hail,
the And, out of Bergen for Genoa. Under the
persuasive effect of a warning shot from the Blue-
bell the Aud followed her as far as Daunt's Rock,
where her crew of German sailors set fire to her,
hoisted the German naval ensign, abandoned ship,
and then surrendered under fire. The Aud sank,
carrying the arms for Irish revolution with her.
Sir Roger was arrested in hiding, and on Easter
Sunday Dublin broke out in revolt. On Monday
a cipher message reached O'Leary, telling him of
the uprising hours before the British censor per-
mitted the news story to cross the ocean. John
Devoy burst out in a heated charge in the Gaelic
American that —

"The sinking of the German ship loaded with

806 The German Secret Service in America

arms and ammunition . . . was the direct result
of information treacherously given to the British
Government by a member of the Washington
Administration . . . Wilson's officials obtained
the information by an act of lawlessness, a viola-
tion of international law and of American law,
committed with the deliberate purpose of helping
England, and it was promptly put at the disposal
of the British Government . . ."

This charge was denied at once from Washing-
ton. The specific ''violation of international law
and of American law" to which Devoy referred
was generally supposed to be the seizure of
the von Tgel papers, for the accusation is the same
as that which von Igel made when his office was
raided. How Devoy knew that the von Igel
papers contained information of the proposed ex-
pedition from Kiel to Ireland is a question which
Devoy has no doubt had to ansv/er to the Gov-
ernment of the United States since then. He and
O'Leary, with Dennis Spellisy, who had collected
large sums of money for the Sinn Fein cause,
were loud in their protests against the execution
of the ringleaders of the revolt on May 3rd,
which put a sharp end to the endeavors of the
revolutionists. That O'Leary was knovv^n to the
German system of secret agents in America
needs no further substantiation. To credit him

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 307

with generalship, however, would be doing
him too great honor and the Irish-American
population injustice; O'Leary was bitterly pro-
German, but so were hundreds of more prom-
inent and influential Irish-Americans: one could
find the names of several New York Justices
upon the roster of the Friends of Peace. Sir
Roger Casement petitioned for a Philadelphia
lawyer at his trial for treason, and Sir Roger's
sister attempted unsuccessfully to reach President
Wilson, through his secretary, Joseph P. Tu-
multy, in an effort to bring about intercession
in the doomed knight's favor. (Mr. Tumulty
was approached more than once by persons
whom he had reason to suspect of alloyed motives
who desired to "set forth a case to the Presi-
dent.") The link between the old country
and the new is close, the future of Ireland is one
of more than usual interest and concern to the
United States, and the fact that the great ma-
jority of Irish- Americans have subordinated their
insular convictions to the greater conviction of
loyalty to their adopted land is at once a fine
augury of ultimate solution of the Irish question,
and a dignified rebuke to the efforts which Ger-
man}- has made through America to exploit Ire-
land.

On Washington's Birthday, 1916, there came to

808 Tlie German Secret Service in America

New York one who posed as a French pubHsher
and pubhcist. He brought excellent letters of
recommendation, and was well supplied with
money. He was personable, and well sponsored,
and he was correspondingly Avell received.
Within a month he left the United States for
France, with appropriate expressions of his ap-
preciation of American hospitality.

In April, 19 iS, that same man faced a French
firing squad, guilty of having attempted to be-
tray his country, and of having traded with the
enemy.

He was Paul Bolo Pacha, Paul Bolo by com-
mon usage. Pacha by whatever right is vested in
a deposed Khedive to confer titles. Born some-
where in the obscurity of the Levant, he came as a
boy to Marseilles. He was successively barber's-
boy, lobster-monger, husband of a rich woman
who left him her estate, then cafe-owner and
wine-agent. Then he drifted to Cairo, and into
the good graces of Abbas Hilmi, the Khedive.
Abbas was deposed by the British in 1914 as pro-
German, and went to Geneva ; Bolo followed.

Charles F. Bertelli, the correspondent in Paris
of the Hearst newspapers, naively related before
Captain Bouchardon, a French prosecutor, the
circumstances of his acquaintanceship with Bolo,
which led to the latter's cordial reception at the

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 309

hands of Hearst when he arrived in New York.
". . . Jean Finot, Directeur of La Revue, . . .
had sent him a letter of introduction to Mr.
Hearst and had requested me to accredit him with
Mr. Hearst. He had said to me : 'Occupy your-
self with the matter, Bolo has very great political
power ; he is the proprietor of Le Journal and it
would be well that Hearst should know him.' . . .
I made the voyage with Bolo. ... I spoke of
Bolo to Hearst and the latter said to me, *If he is
a great proprietor of French newspapers, I should
he very glad to. . . .' As a compliment to
Hearst, Bolo gave a grand dinner at Sherry's.
. . . Bolo had two personal guests: Jules Bois
and the German, Pavenstedt. . . ." We need
draw on Bertelli no further than to introduce
the same Adolph Pavenstedt in whose offices
Papen and Boy-Ed had sought refuge at the out-
break of war in 1914; Adolph Pavenstedt, head
of the banking house of G. Amsinck & Co.,
through which the attaches paid their henchmen
for attempts at the Welland Canal, the Vanceboro
bridge, and at America's peace in general. Bolo
had made Pavenstedt's acquaintance in Havana
in 1913.

Four days after he landed in New York, and
before the Hearst dinner (which was incidental to
the plot) Bolo had progressed with his negotia-

310 The German Secret Service in America

tions to betray France to a point where von
Bernstorff sent the following message to the For-
eign Office in Berlin :

"Number 679, February' twenty-sixth.

"I have received direct information from an entirely
trustworthy source concerning a political action in one of
the enemy countries which would bring about peace. One
of the leading political personalities of the country in
question is seeking a loan of one million seven hundred
thousand dollars in New York, for which security will be
given. I was forbidden to give his name in writing. The
affair seems to me to be of the greatest possible import-
ance. Can the money be provided at once in New York ?
That the intermediary will keep the matter secret is en-
tirely certain. Request answer by telegram. A verbal
report will follow as soon as a trustworthy person can be
found to bring it to Germany.

"Bernstorff."

Herr von Jagow felt that even at that date
peace with any belligerent was worth $1,700,000.
He cabled back :

"No. 150, February twenty-ninth.

"Answer to telegram No. 679 :

"Agree to the loan, but only if peace action seems to
you a really serious project, as the provision of money
in New York is for us at present extraordinarily difficult.
If the enemy country is Russia have nothing to do with
the business, as the sum of money is too small to have

Ctf^rithl, InUrnulionu/ Film Serx'ict

Paul Bolo Pacha (on the right)

Meooico, Ireland, and Bolo 311

any serious effect in that country. So too in the case of
Italy, for it would not be worth while, to spend so much.

"(Signed) Jagow."

The plan approved, the next step was to pay
Bolo. Bernstorff's cablegram of March 5,
Number 685, pleaded for the money.

"Please instruct Deutsches Bank to hold 9,000,000
marks at disposal of Hugo Schmidt. The affair is very
promising. Further particulars follow."

The next day Hugo Schmidt, American repre-
sentative of the Deutsches Bank, sent the follow-
ing wireless through the station at Sayville to the
Deutsches Bank Direktion, Berlin:

"Communicate with William Foxley (the Foreign
Office) and telegraph whether he has placed money at my
disposal for Charles Gladhill (Count von Bernstorff)."

The reply came three days later. It read :

"Replying your cable about Charles Gladhill (von
Bernstorff) Fred Hooven (the Guaranty Trust Company
of New York) will receive money for our account. You
may dispose according to our letter of November 24,
1914, to Fred Hooven."

On March 1 1, Schmidt, who was working night
and day to consummate the deal, wirelessed again
to Berlin:

312 The German Secret Service in America

"Your wireless received. Paid Charles Gladhill (von
Bernstorff ) $500 (which signified $500,000) through Fred
Hooven (the Guaranty Trust Company). Gladhill re-
quires further $1,100 ($1,100,000) which shall pay
gradually."

Bolo's affairs were promising well. He had
brought with him from Paris a letter of intro-
duction to the New York manager of the Royal
Bank of Canada, stating that he was the pub-
lisher of Le Journal, which required a large
quantity of news print paper every day, and that
he had been commissioned by all of the other
large newspaper publishers in Paris to arrange a
contract for 20,000 tons monthly. Bolo con-
firmed his intention to perform this mission when
he deposited in the Royal Bank of Canada $500,-
000 which Hugo Schmidt had drawn from the
German government deposits in the National
Park Bank and had given to Pavenstedt, who in
turn checked it over to the French traitor. It
was not the purchase of print paper which in-
terested him, however, but the perversion,
through purchase, of as many French newspapers
as he could lay his slimy hands on; once in his
possession, they could be made to carry out a
sinister propaganda for a separate peace be-
tween France and Germany. Germany had
offered, through Abbas Flilmi, to yield Alsace-

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 313

Lorraine in return for certain French colonies,
and to evacuate the occupied portions of French
soil, and by painting such a settlement in bright
colors to the people of France Bolo could have
served Germany's ends effectively either by
actually accomplishing some such settlement, or
by weakening the morale which was so largely re-
sponsible for holding the German drive against
Verdun, then in the first stages of its fury.

On March 17, the Deutsches Bank wirelessed
to Schmidt :

"You may dispose on Fred Hooven (the Guaranty
Trust Company) on behalf Charles Gladhill (von Bern-
storff) $1,700 (which meant $1,700,000)."

Bolo had his million and three-quarters, which
he had asked. He had made disposition of it
through the Royal Bank, setting a portion aside
to his wife's credit, depositing another portion to
the credit of Senator Charles Humbert (part-
owner with Bolo of Le Journal) and holding a
reserve of a million dollars in the Royal Bank
subject to his call. Then he took ship for France.

Flis final arrangements with Pavenstedt
prompted von Bernstorff to send the following
message on March 20 to the Foreign Office :

"No. 692, March 20.

"With reference to telegram No. 685 please advise our

314s The German Secret Service in America

Minister in Berne that some one will call on him who will
give him the password Sanct Regis who wished to estab-
lish relations with the Foreign Of^ce. Intermeciiary
further requests that influence may be brought to bear in
France so far as possible in silence so that things may not
be spoiled by German approval.

"(Signed) Bernstorff."

Von Bernstorff had been cautious enough dur-
ing" Bolo's sojourn in the United States to
negotiate with him only through Pavenstedt, in
order that the Embassy might not be com-
promised in an exceedingly hazardous undertak-
ing if any suggestion of Bolo's real designs leaked
out. He was fully prepared in such an event to
repudiate Pavenstedt, and to state honestly that
he had never seen or heard of Bolo, for until the
day before he left, when Pavenstedt asked the
Ambassador for the telegram of introduction
quoted above, Bernstorff did not know Bolo's
name. That he did know it then, and that he
discussed Bolo with Berlin during April and May
is evident from the following cable, sent from
the Foreign Secretary to the Embassy at Wash-
ington on May 31 :

"Number 206. May 31st. The person announced in
telegram 692 of March 20th has not yet reported himself
at the Legation at Berne. Is there any more news on
your side of Bolo? ,,t »

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 815

There was not, although Bolo was keeping the
cables hot with messages directing the further
transfer of the nest-egg of v$i, 700,000 which he
had acquired in his month in New York. He
wanted the money credited to the account of
Senator Humbert in J. P. Morgan & Co., then
through Morgan, Harjes & Co. of Paris he di-
rected the remittance of his funds to Paris, then
cancelled those instructions and directed that his
million be credited to him in Perrier & Cie., in
which he was interested. What twists and turns
of fate occasioned the juggling of these funds
after he returned to France is not known, but cer-
tainly no bag of plunder ever passed through
more artful manipulation. The explanation of
its hectic adventures may lie in the fact that the
spectacle of Bolo, commissioned to go to the
United States to spend money for news print, and
returning with nearly two millions of dollars,
would have interested the French police.

For more than a year he covered his tracks.
wShortly after his return the Bonnet Rouge, the
declining publication which served ex-Premier
Joseph Caillaux as mouthpiece, began to attract
attention for its discussion of peace propaganda.
A strain of pessimism over the conduct of the
war began to make itself apparent in other
journals. The arrest of Duval and Almereyda

316 The German Secret Service in America

of the Bonnet Rouge disclosed certain of Bolo s
activities and a search of his house in February
revealed papers covering certain of his financial
transactions in America. The United States was
requested to investigate, and refused, as the affair
was considered political, and it was not until we
joined France in the v^^ar that the request was re-
peated, this time with better success.

Attorney-General Merton Lewis of New York
State conducted an investigation which revealed
every step of Bolo's operations in New York.
His search of the records of the l^anks involved
indicated that a fund of some $50,000,000 in cash
and negotiable securities lay on deposit in
America which the Deutsches Rank could place
at the disposal of von Bernstorff and his fellow
conspirators at any time for any purpose, and
which was adequate as a reserve for any enter-
prise which might present itself. The evidence
against Bolo was forwarded to Paris, and he was
arrested. On October 4, 19 17, Secretary Lan-
sing made public the correspondence which the
State Department had intercepted.

The French public became hysterically in-
terested in the case. Senator Humbert promptly
refunded the 5,500,000 francs which he had re-
ceived from Bolo for 1,600 shares in Le Journal.
Almereyda of the Bonnet Rouge committed

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 317

suicide in prison; his death dragged Malvy,
Minister of the Interior under Ribot, out of office
under suspicion of trading with the enemy; the
editor of a Paris financial paper was imprisoned
on the same charge; "Boloism" became a generic
term, and the French government, f eehng a grow-
ing restlessness on the part of the public, en-
couraged the new diversion of spy-hunting which
resulted in the exposure of negotiations between
Caillaux and German representatives in Buenos
Aires. Russia had been dissolved by similar
German propaganda, Italy, after vigorous ad-
vances into Italia Irridenta, had had her military
resistance sapped by another such campaign as
Bolo proposed for France, and had retreated to
the Po valley; the sum total of "Boloism" during
the autumn and winter of 191 7- 19 18 was an in-
creased conviction on the part of the Allied
peoples that the line must be held more firmly
than ever, while the rear was combed for prom-
inent traitors.

Thus, a year before she entered war, the United
States supplied the scene of one of the outstanding
intrigues of the war. How voluble was Adolph
Pavenstedt in confessing his services as interme-
diary for the Kaiser ; Pavenstedt was interned in
an American prison camp ... a rather comfort-
able camp. Hugo Schmidt, who on his own tes-

318 The German Secret Service in America

timony was the accredited manipulator of enor-
mous sums for the German government, was
ingenuous to a degree in his denial of any knowl-
edge of what the money paid Bolo was to be used
for ; Schmidt was interned. Bolo was shot.

Revolution in India, a battle royal on the
Central American isthmus, a revolution in
Mexico, uprisings in the West Indies, a separate
peace in France — these were ambitious under-
takings. For three years they were cleared
through Washington, D. C. We must accept
that fact not alone with the natural feeling of
chagrin which it evokes, but with an eye to the
future. We should congratulate our smug selves
that our country was concerned only with the
processes of these intrigues, and was not subject
directly to their results. And then we Americans
should ask ourselves whether It is not logical that,
our country having served as the most fertile
ground for German demoralization of other
nations, we should be on our guard for a similar
plot against ourselves.

That plot will not come noisily, obviously. It
will be no crude effort to suggest that ''American
troops are suffering at the hands of the French
high command." It will not be phrased In terms
which reek of the Wllhelmstrasse — earnest,
plodding, grotesque German polysyllables. The

Mexico, Ireland, and Bolo 319

German knows that an army must depend upon
the hearts of its people, and he reasons : "I shall
attack the hearts of the people, and I believe that
if it is a good principle to attack my enemy from
the rear through his people, it is also a good prin-
ciple to attack his people from the rear. The
heart is as near the back as it is the front, nicht
wahrf" The plot will seem, in its early stages,
part and parcel of our daily life and concern ; we
shall not see the German hand in it; the hand
will be so concealed as not even to excite the
enthusiasm of the German-American, often a
good danger-signal. It will involve institutions
and individuals whom we have trusted, and Vv^e
shall take sides in the controversy, and we shall
grow violently pro-this and anti-that. We shall
grow sick of the wretchedness of affairs, per-
haps, and we shall lose heart. That is precisely
what Germany most desires. That is what Ger-
many is striving for. That is why the nobility
of our citizenship carries with it the obligation
of vigilance. It is in the hope that each one of us
Americans may learn how Germany works
abroad, that we may be better prepared for her
next step here, that this narrative has been
written.

CHAPTER XVIII

AMERICA GOES TO WAR

Bernstorff's request for bribe-money — The President
on German spies — Interned ships seized — Enemy aliens
— Interning German agents — The water-front and finger-
print regulations — Pro-German acts since April, 1917 —
A warning and a prophecy.

On January 22, 1917, President Wilson set
forth to the Senate of the United States his ideas
of the steps necessary to secure world peace. On
the same day Count A^on Bernstorff sent his For-
eign Office this message :

"I request authority to pay out up to $50,000 (Fifty
thousand dollars) in order, as on former occasions, to
influence Congress through the organization you know
of, which perhaps can prevent war. I am beginning in
the meantime to act accordingly. In the above circum-
stance a public official German declaration in favor of
Ireland is highly desirable in order to gain the support
of Irish influence here."

The money did not have the desired soothing
effect. Nine days later Germany announced un-
restricted submarine warfare as her immediate

320

America Goes to War 321

future policy and the head of the German spy
system in America received his passports for re-
turn to Germany. He was succeeded by the head
of the German spy system in America.

The real name of this successor is not known
to the authorities at this date. If it were he
would be arrested, and punished according to
whatever specific crime he had committed against
a set of American statutes created for conditions
of peace. Then, with the head of the German
spy system in America in prison, he would be
succeeded, as Bernstorff was, by the head of the
German spy system in America.

And so this absurd progression would go on,
until finally there would be no more spies to head
the system on the American front. How much
the system would be able to accomplish during the
painstaking pursuit and capture of its successive
heads would depend upon America's swiftness
in pursuit and capture. Who the individual in
authority over the system is, and what is his
structure of organization, cannot be answered
here. But it is vitally necessary for every citi-
zen who has the free existence of this republic
at heart to decide, basing his judgment on cer-
tain events since the declaration of war, what
measure of accomplishment the German spy sys-
tem shall have, and what it has already efifected

322 The German Secret Service in America

against a nation with which it is now openly and
frankly at war.

Let him first recall that in his Flag Day speech
of June 14, 1916, President Wilson said in part:

"There is disloyalty in the United States, and
it must be absolutely crushed. It proceeds from
a minority, a very small minority, but a very
active and subtle minority. ... If you could
have gone with me through the space of the last
two years and could have felt the subtle impact
of intrigue and sedition, and have realized Avith
me that those to whom you have intrusted au-
thority are trustees not only of the power but
also of the very spirit and purpose of the United
States, you would realize with me the solemnity
with which I look upon the sublime symbol of
our unity and power."

Let him then refer to the President's Flag Day
address of one year later (quoted at the begin-
ning of the book). With those admirable ex-
pressions in mind, let him recapitulate the activ-
ities of German sympathizers or agents since
February, 19 17.

Ninety-one vessels flying the German flag
were in American harbors. Their displacement
totalled nearly six hundred thousand tons — the
equivalent of a fleet of seventy-five of the cargo
carriers on which the United States later began

America Goes to War 323

construction to offset the submarine. Months in
advance of the severance of diplomatic relations,
orders had been issued from the Embassy to the
masters of all these vessels in case of war between
Germany and the United States to cripple the
ships. With the break in relations imminent,
German agents slipped aboard the vessels and
gave the word: the great majority of the ninety-
one ships were then put out of commission by the
368 officers and 826 men aboard. The damage
was performed with crowbars and axes. Vital
parts had been chalk-marked weeks in advance,
so that the destruction might be effected swiftly :
delicate mechanisms were mashed beyond recog-
nition, important parts removed and smuggled
ashore or dropped overboard, cylinders cracked,
emery dust introduced in the bearings of the en-
gines, pistons battered out of shape, and the ma-
chinery of the ships generally destroyed as only
skilled engineers could have destroyed them.
Out of thirty ships in New York harbor, thirty
ships were damaged — among them the liners,
Vaterland, of 54,000 tons, the George Washing-
ton, of 25,000 tons, the Kaiser Wilhelm, the Pres-
ident Lincoln, and the President Grant, of about
20,000 tons each. In the harbor of Charleston,
S. C., lay the Liebenfels, of 4,525 tons ; her crew,
led by Captain Johann Klattenhoff, scuttled her

324 TJie German Secret Service in America

on February i, in the navigating channel oi
Charleston Harbor; Klattenhoff, with Paul
Wierse, a Charleston newspaper man, and eight
of the Liehenfels crew were tried and convicted
of the crime, fined and sentenced to periods aver-
aging a year in Atlanta. The discovery of the
damage forced the Government to take over the
vessels at once. The Department of Justice has-
tened on February 2 to notify all of its deputies
*'to take prompt measures against the attempt
at destruction or sinking or escape of such ships
by their crews" which those crews had already
done; and the customs authorities who boarded
the ships in San Francisco, Honolulu, New York,
Boston, Manila, and every other American port
came ashore with rueful countenances. The
combined damage served to tie the vessels up for
at least six months more, and to require expen-
sive repair. To return to the comparison : a fleet
of seventy-five 8,000 ton cargo vessels, such as
have since been built, would have been able to
make, during those six months, at least four
round trips to France each, or 300 voyages.

When the German fleet put into neutral Amer-
ican ports of refuge in 1914 the personnel of its
ships totalled 476 officers and 4,980 men. When
the ships were seized in 1917, there were 368
officers and 826 men aboard. Of those who had

America Goes to War 325

been discharged or allowed indefinite shore leave
a considerable number were active German
agents, by far the great majority were German
citizenSj.and the United States was on the horns
of a dilemma: either each of the sailors ashore
must be watched on suspicion, or else each was
free to go about the country as he pleased. Thus
more than 4,000 potential secret agents from an
active auxiliary arm of the German navy were
dumped on the hospitality which our neutrality
entailed. When war was declared those men
came within the troublesome problem of the
status of the enemy alien.

What was an enemy alien? The United
States, on April 6, declared war against Ger-
many. "Meanwhile," reads the report of the
Attorney-General for 191 7, "prior to the pas-
sage of the joint resolution of Congress of April
6, 19 1 7, elaborate preparation was made for the
arrest of upward of 6^, alien enemies whom past
investigation had shown to constitute a danger
to the peace and safety of the United States if
allowed to remain at large." These "alien ene-
mies" were male Germans. Not Austrians, for
the United States did not go to war with Austria
until December 7. Not Bulgars, nor Turks, for
the United States has not declared war upon Bul-
garia or Turkey. Not female Germans, in the

326 The German Secret Service in ^Lmerica

face of the full knowledge of the predilections of
Bernstorff, Boy-Ed, and von Papen for employ-
ing women in espionage. Of the thousands of
Germans in the United States whose sympathies
were presently to be demonstrated in numerous
ways against the successful prosecution of Amer-
ica's war, sixty-three had been deemed worthy
of arrest. By June 30 this number had risen
to 295, and by October 30 to 895. "Some of
those interned," continues the report, "have been
paroled with the necessary bonds and restric-
tions." Although the United States went to war
on April 6, Karl Heynen, who managed the
Bridgeport Projectile Company for Bernstorff
and Albert, and who had previously earned the
good will of the United States by gun-running
in Mexico, was not arrested until July 6, in his
offices in the Hamburg-American Line at 45
Broadway. At the same time F. A. Borge-
meister, former adviser to Dr. Albert, and lat-
terly Heynen's lieutenant, was arrested. Both
were interned at Fort Oglethorpe and dur-
ing December, Borgemeister was allowed three
weeks' liberty on parole. Rudolph Hecht, con-
fidant of Dr. Albert, who had sold German war
loan bonds for the Kaiser, and who had also
been interned, was released for a like period of
liberty in December. G. B. Kulenkampf, who

America Goes to War 327

had secured false manifest papers for the supply-
ship Berwind in August, 1914, was arrested on
May 28, 1918, more than one year after America
had entered the war; on the same day Robert
J. Oberfohren, a statistician employed by the
Hamburg-American, was arrested and in his
room were captured compiled statistics covering
the exports of munitions from the United States
during the two years past : Oberfohren said he
expected to turn the figures in to the University
of Munich after the war.

Bernstorff himself left an able alien enemy in
the Swiss Legation in Washington. He was
Heinrich Schaffhausen, and had been one of the
brightest attaches of the German Embassy. As
a member for three months of the Swiss Legation
he might readily have sent (and no doubt did
send) information of military value to his own
people in code, under protection of the Swiss
seal. The State Department on July 6 ordered
his deportation. Adolph Pavenstedt was ar-
rested on January 22, 191 8, in the Adirondacks,
after having enjoyed nine months' immunity;
Otto Julius Merkle was not interned until De-
cember 7; Gupta, the Hindu, was finally caught
in New York in 191 7, gave bail, and escaped; Dr.
John Ferrari, alias F. W. Hiller, a German officer
who had escaped from a British detention camp

328 The German Secret Service in America

in India and had joined the German intrigue
colony, was interned in January, 1918; Baron
Gustave von Hasperg was arrested only after he
had displayed undue interest in the National
Army cantonment at Upton in the same month;
Franz Rosenberg, a wealthy German importer,
convicted in 191 5 of having attempted to smug-
gle rubber in cotton bales into Germany, and fined
$500 for that offense, was allowed at liberty un-
til February 9, 1918; in a round-up which took
place in January, 19 18, the Federal authorities
collected such celebrities as Hugo Schmidt, Fred-
erick Stallforth, and Baron George von Seebeck
(the son of General von Seebeck, commander of
the Tenth Corps of the German army).

The cases cited are picked at random out of
a mass. They illustrate the breathing periods
given to Germans who had been active under
Bernstorff in disturbing America's peace and
defying her laws. They serve also to illustrate
the contrast between the methods employed by
the United States, and those adopted by her
Allies, from whom she has taken other lessons
in the business of warfare. France gave alien
enemies forty-eight hours in which to leave the
soil of the country, and any such person found
at large after that date was to be interned
in a detention camp. To have interned all of

America Goes to War 329

the Germans in the United States would have
been impossible and the Government took some
time to find a second best method. By May 2
the Department of Justice was in a position to
announce that it had plans for internment camps
for three classes of aliens: prisoners of war,
enemy aliens, and detained aliens, and it an-
nounced on that date there were some 6,000 in
those classes already detained. By February 17,
1918, however, there were actually no more than
1,870 aliens interned under the war department
and under military guard at Forts McPherson,
Oglethorpe and Douglas, and some 2,000 at Hot
Springs, North Carolina, in the Department of
Labor's detention camp.

At both camps the prisoners were fed and
housed at the expense of the Government, and it
was not until the early spring of 1918 that they
were put to work.

From April 6 to July 10, 191 7, an enemy alien
could be employed by any shipbuilder, tug-boat
captain, lighterage firm or steamship line; he
could go about any waterfront at will, provided
he did not enter the so-called "barred zones" in
the vicinity of Government military or naval
property, and he could make unmolested such
observations as his eyesight afforded of the ship-
ping upon which the United States depends for

330 The German Secret Service in America

its share in this war. After that date he was
forbidden such employment, and denied approach
to all wharves and ships. On July 9 the Govern-
ment discharged from its employ 200 German
subjects who for weeks past had been loading
transports at the docks in an "Atlantic port." A
raid on the Hoboken waterfront in the following
winter rounded up 200 more enemy aliens who
had calmly ignored the "barred zone" regula-
tions.

The Government was confronted with a stu-
pendous problem. How to handle with its nor-
mal peace-time police force the great unwieldy
flow of the alien population presented a con-
stantly baffling question, yet it was absolutely
essential to the control of internal affairs that the
Government know the comings and goings of the
enemies within its gates. The date of February
13, 1918, was eventually set as the last on which
citizens of enemy countries living in the United
States might set down their finger prints and
names and file their affidavits of residence and
condition.

What facilities had the United States provided
for transacting this great volume of additional
protective duty? There existed, first of all, the
Department of Justice, whose chief function in
peace-time had been the enforcement through its

America Goes to War 331

investigators and prosecutors of acts of Con-
gress, such as the so-called Mann "White Slave"
Act, and the Sherman ''Anti-Trust" Act. There
was the United States Secret Service, a bureau
of the Treasury Department, whose chief func-
tion had been the detection of smuggling and
counterfeiting and the protection of the person
of the President. There was the Intelligence
Bureau of the War Department, and a similar
Bureau of the Navy Department, both under-
manned, as Was every other branch of our mili-
tary forces at that time. The advent of war
brought a complicated necessity for coordination
of these four branches and of several other Fed-
eral investigating bureaus.

The German did not wait for coordination.
He inspired food riots among the poorer classes
of the lower East Side in New York. He
opposed the draft law, rallying to his sup-
port the Socialist, the Anarchist, and the Indus-
trial Worker of the World, under whose cloak
he hid, not too well concealed. He celebrated the
declaration of war by blowing up a munitions
plant at Eddystone, Pa., on April lo, 1917, and
killing 112 persons, most of whom were women
and girls. He sneaked information Into Ger-
many through the Swedish legation. He tried
to promote strikes In Pittsburg, but his agent,

332 The German Secret Service in America

Walter Zacharias, was arrested. He tried to
dynamite the Elephant-Butte dam on the Rio
Grande, but his agent, Dr. Louis Kopf, was
caught. He caused a serious revolution in Cuba
until his agents were expelled. He tried to
block the Liberty Loans, in vain. He tried to
obstruct the collection of Red Cross funds.
He caused strikes in the airplane-spruce forests
of the Northwest. He assisted Lieutenant Hans
Berg of the captured German prize Appam to
escape from Fort ]\IcPherson with nine of his
crew in October, 19 17. He erected secret wire-
less stations at various points, to communicate
to Berlin via Mexico, whither thousands of his
army reservists had fled on false passports at
the outbreak of war. He smuggled information
of military importance in and out of the country
in secret inks, on neutral vessels, and even wrote
them (on one occasion) in cipher upon the shoul-
der of a prima donna. He burned warehouses
and shell plants. He sawed the keel of a trans-
port nearly through. He placed a culture of
ptomaine germs in the milk supply of the cadets'
school at Fort Leavenworth. He invented a
chemical preparation which would cause painful
injury to the kidneys of every man who drank
water in a certain army cantonment. Fie re-
ceived Irish rebellionists and negotiated with

America Goes to War 333

them for further revolution. He made his way
into our munitions plants and secured data which
he forwarded to Berlin; he worked in our aero-
plane plants and deliberately weakened certain
vital parts of the tenuous construction so that
our aviators died in training; he kept track of
our transports, and of the movements of our
forces, and passed them on to the Wilhelmstrasse.
He sold heroin to our soldiers and sailors. He
supplied men for the motor boat Alexander
Agassis which put to sea from a Pacific port to
raid commerce. In short, he continued to carry
out, with multiplied opportunity, the same tactics
he had employed since August, 1914.

The German spy in America continues to
attack our armies in the rear. He is here in
force. A word to him may mean that within
twenty-four hours Kiel will know of another
transport embarking with certain forces for
France. He is here to take the lives of Amer-
icans just as certainly as his kinsman is firing
across a parapet in Lorraine for the same pur-
pose. Whatever provision will save those lives
must be made swiftly. The Departments, al-
ready overtaxed with the magnitude of their task,
ask simply that they be given the weapons to
make their splendid battle on the American front
successful.

334 The German Secret Service in America

Whatever aid and comfort the enemy may find
in this recitation of his disgraceful achievements
and graceless failures, he may have and wel-
come. He has imposed upon the hospitality of
the United States, has dragged his clumsy boots
over the length and breadth of their estate, has
run amuck with torch and explosive, and has
earned a great deal of loathing contempt, hardly
amounting to hatred. But no fear — and that is
what he sought. The spectacle of what the dis-
loyalists of America have done, and the easily
conjurable picture of what they would do if Ger-
many should win, are graphic enough for loyal
America. The United States must proceed with
incisive vigor to cut out this poisonous German
sore. And the United States will remember the
scar. It is so written.

APPENDIX
A GERAlAxX PROPAGANDIST

In 1915 Fritz von Pilis came to America. He had
been a member of the colonization bureau of the German
Government maintained to Prussianize Poland, and later
an emigration agent of the North German Lloyd.

He posed here as an anti-German Austrian who desired
to give the American public the "true facts" of Germany's
intentions in the war. He approached the Sun, offering
it the following brief of a volume written in late 1914 by
a Prussian Pan-German, provided he (von Pilis) be
allowed to write a commentary to accompany the outline.
His offer was not accepted, for the Sun saw him in his
true light of Prussian propagandist sent here to spread
the gospel of might which is preached in the book.

The brief is offered here as an authoritative platform
of Germany's aims by conquest as the Pan-German party
saw them after a few months of war. Many of these
aims have already been achieved.

(The phraseology and spelling is von Pilis'.)
Denkschrift, etc.

General War Goal. Weakening of foes : discard all
"world citizen" sentiment and dangerous objectivity in
favor of strangers. We want peace terms based solely on
our interests.

335

336 Appendix

Severity : Let's hear no more of "considerations of
humanity," "cultural demands." Must impose indemni-
ties on foes and take land in Europe and overseas to lessen
political power :

(a) In Europe for healthy colonization.

(b) Colonial : to supply raw materials and take finished
products.

Internal. Rehabilitation of farmer class by providing
ample land. Combat city evils.

( 1 ) Opportunity provided by fate in this attack by our
foes.

(2) France and Russia must cede land near our gates
as punishment ; estates to German farmers.

(3) City evils to be remedied by better housing condi-
tions; by war indemnities, not single tax. (Cheap rents,
tenants become owners.) (Gift of fate through foes.)
Old age pensions larger and at lower period of age (65
years instead of 70).

Overseas. Take over colonies and settle by Germans
to give economic independence for imports and exports.
This will give opportunities to eliminate "intelligent pro-
letariat" by use elsewhere.

Belgium. Conspiracy and conduct of people and Gov-
ernment show Belgium not entitled to independence.

(i) All well-informed people in Germany say: "Bel-
gium must cease to exist."

(2) Impossible to take into German people with equal
rights.

Rather leave with indemnity which must pay anyway.
But we need the coast against England.

Appendix 337

Belgium to be property of Empire, Kaiser its Lord :

Belgium to lose its name.

Belgium to be divided into 2 parts: Walloons and
Flemish.

Kaiser's officials to govern as dictators of province.

Belgians taken into Empire to have no political rights.
All who object may emigrate. Walloons unworthy of
being "Germanized."

France. Must "bleed it white" so as never to be at-
tacked again :

(i) i.e., indemnity and land. Land from Switzerland
via Belfort, Moselle, Epinal, Toul, Meuse, Verdun, Sedan,
Charleville, St. Quentin to Somme and Channel at
Cayeux.

(2) France to take over and indemnify the present in-
habitants. We get the land sans dangerous people. Such
expulsion immoral? Retribution. Not bricht evisen!
France'll be thankful for the population. Needs it.

(3) Ceded area to become military frontier, adminis-
tered by dictator. To be settled by Germans : discharged
soldiers or war veterans' families.

(4) Toulon and environs to be made impregnable fort-
ress on land and seaside for base on the Mediterranean.

Rather forego all French territory than take with it the
hostile French population. Walloons to be kept in land
only to furnish mass of laborers, lest new German settlers
become industrial laborers again.

England. Its world-rule must be ended! Can't
formulate demands until naval warfare decided. BuUd
ships with all your might!

Japan. Must be punished for white race. Revenge.

Russia. Must be put hors de combat by permanent

338 Appendix

weakening. We must forcibly once more turn Russia's
face towards East by curtailing its frontiers as before
Peter I's time. Then its pressure vs. Asia.

(i) A new Poland (off G. territory) including Grodno,
Minsk and part of Mohilen to Dnieper. Probably a king-
dom with personal connection to Hapsburg House.

(2) G. to seize hegemony of Baltic; take Kniland,
Livona, Esthonia and Lithuania safeguarded by terri-
tories to rivers that were frontiers of R. before Peter.

(3) To take Suwalki and military strip of Poland to
strengthen Thorn and Silesia, Soldau, Wloclanek Kolo.

(4) Finland to be independent or go to Sweden?

(5) R. to lose most of Black Sea coast.

(6) Ukraine Empire under Hapsburg for "Small Rus-
sia." Bessarabia to Rumania. Austria to get good part
of Serbia and Montenegro.

How avoid clash of nationalities in newly formed terri-
tories ? Ans. : By forced migration. No home feelings
in Russian farmer ; R's precedents Siberia. Exchange of
G. settlers in New Russia for R's in new G. (several
years). Possibly so exchange Poles in Posen too?
Lithuanians may readily be incorporated into Poland and
Letts and Esthonians to be left or transferred to Russia
according to treatment of G's in this war. R. Jews un-
thinkable in G. Empire: Bar their migration westward.
Remedy (i) Bind R. to remove restrictions vs. Jews and
then Jews back there.

(2) Zionism: Palestine to be ceded through G. and
A-Hung, influence. This — safe wall vs. Jews and stimu-
late migration of Jews to Russia.

Prussia to get New Territory in East or else form
"Marks" for Germanization.

Appendix 839

Tenants to be settled by public grant in return for en-
hanced realty values.

We must never be w^ithout enemies strong enough to
compel defensive militia. Fr. and Eng. made powerless,
let R. always threaten us and be our foe; that'll be our
luck.

The Colonies. French Morocco, Senegambia & Congo.

Egypt freed from England; England's colonies in
Africa depend on developments.

Tunis to Italy.

Bizert and Damietta (with Italy's and A-H's consent),
D Jibuti, Goa, Ceylon, Sabang, Saigon, Azores, Caperdon
(?), Isls, Madagascar.

Austria-Hungary. Heavy indemnity from Russia.

New Poland and Ukraine Empire personally united to
A-H, North half of Serbia. South I/2 to Bulgaria.
Guarantees to be given to Germanic minority by Slavs.
West Galicia to Poland. East Galicia to Ukraine Em-
pire. German to be Reichsprache ?

The Neutrals. Luxemburg to win G. Statehood (too
weak to control B. Luxemburg).

Holland. Avoid pressure politically. Not to receive
Flemish Belgium. These need strict masters.

Italy, if neutral, Corsica, Lower Savoy, Nizzia, Tunis.

Rumania: Bessarabia (Odessa, if she joins G. in
war).

Bulgaria : South ^^ of Serbia (more if she joins G. in
war).

Turkey, if enters war, heavy indemnity and land in
Caucasus. Integrity guarantees by G. and A-H : spheres
of influence economically.

Sweden may get Finland if both willing.

340 Appendix

Economic unity of territories and G. and A-H., Switzer-
land, Holland, Italy, Scandinavia, Rumania and Bulgaria
probably join.

Offensive and Defensive Germanic Alliance: Scan-
dinavia, Maybe and voluntarily restore settlements of
N. Schlesvvig to Denmark, if necessary. New Germanic
blood needed to make good war losses.

Special Demands. Exclusion of all East people from
G. soil ; rights to expel Letts, Esthonians and Lithuanians
for 25 years.

No colored person on G. soil,

G. high schools for G's and foreigners of G. descent;
special exceptions.

Only allied officers to be in G, army.

Only mature and fortified G. youth to study abroad.

Only G. language, G. fashions, G. Geographical names.

Steady supply of grain.

Subsidies to married officers out of war indemnity.

G. nobles to marry only Germans.

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