^1
IN! 1
. m
|P& DETECTION OH
THE GERMAN AND AKARC
BOMB PLOTTERS
IN THE UNITED STA
iiiTf iiiJ- vi^ii^Jr/ ^i-n-
fnspector of thg Neiv York Police
19--
THROTTLED!
Inspector Thomas J. Tunney
THROTTLED!
THE DETECTION OF THE GERMAN
AND ANARCHIST BOMB PLOTTERS
BY
INSPECTOR THOMAS J. TUNNEY
Head of the Bomb Squad of the New York
Police Department
AS TOLD TO
PAUL MERRICK HOLL1STER
Author, with John Price Jones, of "The German
Secret Service in America"
ILLUSTRATED
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BOSTON
SMALLL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1919
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
TO
ARTHUR WOODS
Formerly Police Commissioner of the
City of New York, now colonel in the
United States Army, whose vision and
cooperation made the work of the
Bomb Squad possible, this volume is
respectfully dedicated
INTRODUCTION
Inspector Tunney s Squad was formed early in
August, 1914, to specialize in organized crimes of
violence. It did some radically effective work
against Black Handers, and handled several cases
against domestic enemies of law and order, but as
time wore on and war developed, the Squad s
energies became directed solely against the ne
farious activities of Germans among us.
Inspector Tunney is a most skilful detective, re
sourceful, persistent, understanding human nature,
a good leader. He picked a squad of fearless,
tireless men, who not only worked long and hard,
but showed marked skill and tact. They proved
themselves to be Americans all the way through,
aggressive, loyal, bound to put the job through, no
matter what the difficulties might be. They were
occupied in hunting out Germans who were out
raging our neutrality; and then after we finally
started to make war against those who had so long
been warring against us, on the high seas and in
our very midst they set to work to thwart and
capture active German enemies. The results they
vii
viii INTRODUCTION
got went far toward making it possible to maintain
order in New York during those months and years
which were full of such menace to the safety of
the city, when the national danger seemed so plain
so increasingly plain and the national mili
tary strength was so woefully weak. In many
cases the Inspector worked in cooperation with one
or more of the Federal Secret Service forces. The
Federal work was seriously hampered, however,
at first by hopelessly inadequate organization, and,
later, by the existence of several entirely distinct
forces, instead of one powerful, unified body.
Inspector Tunney has written a most interesting
book. Much of what he tells I knew about at the
time, from conference with him, or with Major
Scull, Colonel Biddle, or Major Potter, and some
of the events described I had intimate knowledge
of because of personal attention to the cases.
Some, however, I personally know nothing about,
as they have taken place since I left the Depart
ment on January i, 1918. And a vast amount of
good work, of real public service, was done by In
spector Tunney and his men that is not touched
upon in this book, that probably will never be writ
ten, since, though of great value to the public
peace, it lacks some of the dramatic features which
characterize the tales that are told.
INTRODUCTION ix
No one can read the book without seeing how
brutally active our enemies were here in this coun
try, even while we w r ere at peace with them, how
they flouted our neutrality brazenly and con
temptuously, how they busied themselves through
their accredited officials and their many secret
agents in trying to paralyze our industrial life.
Their deliberate effort was to prevent the ship
ment of all vital supplies to the Allies, and they
sought this end by fomenting labor troubles, by
burning factories, by blowing up ships. It mat
tered not the slightest to them that in this kind of
activity they destroyed the property of a people at
peace with them, nor did they give a deterring
thought to the fact that they were maiming and
killing human beings with their burnings and blast
ings. It did concern them, however, to keep
things dark, to work under cover, so that they
might continue this underhanded war against us
without being found out. It was the warfare of
the savage, who knows not fair play, who is guided
by no rules or customs, who strikes down his enemy
in the dark, from behind.
The lessons to America are clear as day. We
must not again be caught napping with no adequate
national Intelligence organization. The several
Federal bureaus should be welded into one, and
x INTRODUCTION
that one should be eternally and comprehensively
vigilant We must be wary of strange doctrine,
steady in judgment, instinctively repelling those
who seek to poison public opinion. And our laws
should be amended so that while they give free
scope to Americans for untrammeled expression
of differences of opinion and theory and belief,
they forbid and prevent the enemy plotter and
propagandist.
There was another part of the Squad s work,
which had to do not with foreign, but with domes
tic, enemies. The industrial condition of unem
ployment, which was so sharp in 1914 and 1915,
was exploited by those who believed in propaganda
by violence, hoping to find eager and bitter listen
ers in the thousands who could not get work. To
ameliorate the hardships of the situation the police
in New York tried several plans which were at
that time rather new as police methods. They
found jobs for people; they afforded relief in cases
of distress from funds, more than half of which
were subscribed by policemen. When street meet
ings were held and excitement ran high, they held
unswervingly to the line of conduct mapped out
for them. They not merely permitted free as
semblage but protected meetings so long as they
kept the laws; and the law was kept if the meeting
INTRODUCTION xi
did not incite to violence or obstruct the highways.
In case of threatened violence, action, prompt and
strong, was taken to prevent it. Order must be
maintained. Inspector Tunney s Squad were ac
tively engaged here, not in trying to bottle up the
preachers of any particular doctrine, but simply in
finding out who were the plotters of violent deeds
and bringing them to justice.
I believe the police methods in these times were
wholesome and effective, and are the right ones to
follow in times of public excitement and industrial
disturbances. They make it clear in practice that
leeway will be given to all for the full exercise of
their lawful rights; and equally clear that adequate
means will be taken to prevent recourse to unlaw
ful measures. In many places in this country
where serious disorder and bloodshed have come
to pass, the trouble seems to have been fostered, at
least, by the denial to groups of people of some of
their lawful rights.
I hope this book will help to teach another les
son also: the need in our police forces of brains
and high morale; the need of cultivating the pro
fessional spirit in them, that shall dignify the work,
shall banish political influence and all other in
fluences that go to break the heart of the police
man who tries to do his plain duty; the need of
xii INTRODUCTION
having the public take an intelligent interest in
police methods and results, doing away with the
smoke-screens of mystery and concealment which
are traditionally employed to cover dishonesty or
incompetency.
ARTHUR WOODS
February, 1919.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE BOMB SQUAD ....... i
II WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY ..... 8
III PLAYING WITH FIRE ....... 39
IV THE HiNDu-BocHE FAILURES .... 69
V A TRUE PIRATE TALE ...... 108
VI ALONG THE WATERFRONT: SUGAR AND
SHIPS AND ROBERT FAY . . . . .126
VII ALONG THE WATERFRONT (II): "DAMN
HIM, RINTELEN!" 156
VIII MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS . . . . . .183
IX THE NATURE FAKER . . . . . .217
X THE PRUSSIAN, THE BOLSHEVIK, AND THE
ANARCHIST 246
ILLUSTRATIONS
Inspector Thomas J. Tunney . . . Frontispiece
PAGE
Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Biddle, Military
Intelligence 4
Paul Koenig 10
Random Pages from "P. K. s Little Black Book"
22, 23, 26, 27, 36, 37
Alexander Dietrichens and Frederick Schlemdl . 30
Carmine and Carbone in Court .... 46
Pages from the bomb-thrower s textbook . . 52
A postcard received by Commissioner Woods after
the arrest of the Anarchists .... 60
Detectives in Disguise George D. Barnitz, Pat
rick Walsh, James Sterett, Jerome Murphy . 64
Threats to Polignani 66
Frank Abarno and Carmine Carbone . . .66
A Handbill, printed in Hindu, used by the
Hindu-Boche Conspirators . . . .72
The Hindu-Boche Conspirators .... 76
The Annie Lars en s Cash Account ... 80
Gupta s Code Message 80
How the Hindus used Price Collier s " Germany
and the Germans" as a cryptogram . . 90
Alexander V. Kircheisen and his application for
a certificate as able seaman .... 106
xv
xvi ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Lieutenant George D. Barnitz, U. S. N. . 118
Robert Fay and Lieut. George D. Barnitz . . 130
Fay, Daeche and Scholz arraigned in Court. . 130
The Fay Bomb Materials 138
Lieutenant Fay s Motor Boat . . . .150
Rudder Bombs 154
Franz Rintelen 160
Henry Barth, who posed as the German Secret
Service Agent 164
Ernest Becker 168
Captain Charles von Kleist and Captain Otto
Wolpert 168
Sergeant Thomas Jenkins, U. S. Army, who lo
cated part of one of the bombs in the German
Turn Verein in Brooklyn . . . .174
Norman H. White, of Boston, a civilian attached
to the Military Intelligence, who unearthed
numerous German intrigues . . . .180
Mrs. Holt s Mysterious Letter .... 208
The First Word from Texas .... 208
Fritz Duquesne prepared for a Lecture Tour as
Captain Claude Stoughton .... 224
From Fritz Duquesne s Past .... 230
Papers found in Fritz Duquesne s effects . . 236
Lieutenant Commander Spencer Eddy . . 248
Major Fuller Potter, Military Intelligence . .252
Lieutenant A. R. Fish, Naval Intelligence . . 260
Captain John B. Trevor, Military Intelligence . 268
THROTTLED !
THROTTLED
THE BOMB SQUAD
For the past twenty-three years I have been a
member of the police department of the City of
New York. It is a long time, in any single job.
The department is comparable in size to a manu
facturing establishment of the first magnitude it
employs more than ten thousand men and its oc
cupations are varied enough to suit the inclina
tions and ambitions of any man. And so I went
through the mill, graduating from one duty to an
other until in 1914 I was an acting captain, and
had been in charge of various branches of the De
tective Bureau in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
My duty was the detection of crime, my spe
cialty, meaning by that the special branch of crime
with which I had been most often thrown into con
tact, was bomb-explosions. As far back as 1904
there were a number of mysterious explosions in
New York which caused considerable property
2 THROTTLED
damage, and there I made the acquaintance of the
bomb itself. It was an interesting subject for
study, and a wicked weapon in use. I managed
to pick up information of bomb-manufacture in
several ways : Black-Handers, in prison, told me
how they had made their missiles; at the New
York office of the Du Pont explosives company I
had an opportunity to study blasting; the publica
tions of the Bureau of Mines furnished more in
formation, the practice of the Bureau of Combus
tibles of our own department proved interesting
and instructive, and I found myself before long
forced to become something of a student of chem
istry.
The difference between our work and the work
of the laboratory chemist, however, was that in
our case there was no time to make an explosive
mixture and test it some criminal usually had
done that for us, and we were called to the scene
to find out, from such clues as the wreckage af
forded, the name and address of the criminal.
The laboratory chemist mixes ingredients and
counts his work done at the moment of explosion;
the detective begins at that moment a stern chase,
and a long one, back to the ingredients and the
man who mixed them.
By the early part of 1914! had seen a good deal
THE BOMB SQUAD 3
of experience in tracing bomb outrages to certain
of the anarchistic and Black Hand elements in the
population of the city. As the year wore on these
occurrences became so numerous as to warrant spe
cial attention, and on August i, the approximate
date of the outbreak of war in Europe, Police
Commissioner Arthur Woods created in the police
department the Bomb Squad. I was in command,
and reported direct to the Commissioner. As the
volume of work increased, and more men were
taken on, the Commissioner delegated his super
vision of the Bomb Squad to Guy Scull, who was
then Fifth Deputy Police Commissioner, and who
is now a major in the United States Army. That
supervision was later passed on to Nicholas Bid-
die, a Special Deputy Commissioner, who, as I
write this, is lieutenant-colonel in the United States
Army, in charge of the Military Intelligence
Bureau in New York; and following Mr. Biddle,
Fuller Potter, another special Deputy Commis
sioner, and now a major in the Military Intel
ligence, directed the policies of the Squad.
Within a few months the personnel of the Bomb
Squad included the following picked men:
George D. Barnitz, Amedeo Polignani, Henry
Earth, George P. Gilbert, Edward Caddell,
Patrick J. Walsh, Jerome Murphy, James J.
4 THROTTLED
Coy, Valentine Corell, James Sterett, Henry
Senff, Michael Santaniello, Joseph Fenelly,
Joseph Kiley, Charles Wallace, William Ran
dolph, Thomas Jenkins, and Anthony Terra
all detective sergeants, and George Busby, a lieu
tenant. To this list were added the names of
James Murphy, Robert Morris, Thomas J. Ford,
Walter Culhane, Vincent E. Hastings, Thomas
J. Cavanagh, Louis B. Snowden, Thomas M.
Goss, Daniel F. Collins, Frederick Mazer, Ed
ward J. Maher, Walter Price, William Mc-
Cahill, and Cornelius J. Sullivan. It made a list
of fine material for the work which we were called
upon to do, and no one will begrudge me here a
word of tribute to their aptitude, their courage
to all of the qualities which made them such
able and vigilant guardians of the neutrality of
our country during the years preceding our en
trance into the war. Many of the Bomb Squad
went to war later: Barnitz became a junior
lieutenant in the United States Navy, in intelli
gence work of a high order. Barth, Caddell,
Corell, Fenelly, Jenkins, Walsh, Sterett, Santani
ello, Randolph, James Murphy, Morris, Ford,
Culhane, Hastings, Cavanagh, Snowden, Goss,
Collins, Price, Mazer, Maher, McCahill and Sul
livan became sergeants in the Corps of Intelli-
Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Biddle, Military Intelligence
THE BOMB SQUAD 5
gence Police of the National Army. And after
I became connected with the Military Intelligence
Branch of the War Department, I had frequent
occasion to deal during the war in cooperation
with the men whom I have mentioned in service.
My first desire in taking charge of the Squad
was to suppress the activities of persons using
explosives to destroy life and property. What
knowledge of the physics and chemistry of ex
plosives my experience had accumulated I passed
on to the men. These periods of instruction went
into considerable detail. We discussed the kinds
of explosives used, their relative strength, their
ingredients, the methods of detonating them, the
containers into which they were loaded, and the
use of clockwork, fuses, acids and gas-pressure
to explode them. Special and explicit instruc
tion was given for the handling of unexploded
bombs a bomb bearing an electrical attach
ment should not be placed in water, for example, as
water is a conductor of electricity; it is wise never
to smoke in the presence of explosives, even if
you think you know that certain kinds of explosives
" never explode by fire." The only thing you
can depend on explosives to do one hundred times
out of one hundred, is what you don t expect them
to do. The Bomb Squad was told never to
6 THROTTLED
and why never to carry bombs on passenger
trains, cars or ferries, or anywhere near where
metals were being shipped. The Bomb Squad
was instructed not to remove a bomb found in a
position where its explosion would not endanger
life and property, but to send for an expert and
wait until he arrived on the scene, and was told
which positions were dangerous and which were
not. Altogether we conducted a rather thorough
course in explosives.
As the war grew in proportions, and the in
terest of America in the conflict became more
and more intimate, the activities- of the Bomb
Squad became somewhat diverted from the ob
ject for which it had been primarily organized,
and its title was changed to the u Bomb and Neu
trality Squad." We had not expected in August
that the German would try to tip over our neu
trality with bombs, but that is what he did, and
that is what kept us grimly busy for three years,
until our own nation had gone to war with those
who had so long been waging war upon her.
And that is how the stories which follow come to
be told.
Not that the entrance of the United States into
the war put a stop to the activities of the Squad.
I have already cited those who entered the na-
THE BOMB SQUAD 7
tional service. Their presence in the Naval and
Military Intelligence, their close relations with
those whom they left behind in headquarters, with
such men as Commander Spencer Eddy and Lieu
tenant Albert Fish of the Navy, Colonel Biddle
and Major Potter of the Army, and with the
Corps of Intelligence Police, made possible a
degree of cooperation in spy-hunting in New York
which would have been impossible to develop
within a short time with any other set of men, and
which went far towards preserving our domestic
security.
II
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY
The trend of events in early 1915 made it
apparent that the Bomb Squad would be called
upon to handle more and more cases of attempted
violation of neutrality. Anyone who remembers
our national mind at that time will recall that
it was not yet made up and very liable to attacks
of brainstorm. Every person was seeing events
of unheard of violence and magnitude pass him
pell-mell, giving no warning, and not waiting for
comment, and he was too dazed to watch any
single event with any high degree of balanced
judgment or reasoning partisanship. It was a
troubled hour, and one in which it behooved us
of the Police Department to keep our heads cool
and our eyes open. The Bomb Squad had to
act as a safety valve.
By the summer of 1915 war orders placed by
the Allied governments in the autumn and winter
of 1914 were being filled and shipped overseas in
8
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 9
great quantities. By this time, too, the German
navy showed no more sign of coming out of Kiel
in force than it had shown for a year past. The
task of delaying, diverting or destroying those
shipments devolved upon the Germans in Amer
ica. It took no superhuman amount of reasoning
to combine the abnormal destruction of property
in New York with the strong suspicion of German
activity and to arrive at a decision to check up
wherever it was humanly possible the sources and
agencies of destruction.
Late in the autumn, in our work on the water
front, we found a man who, we decided, was
worth watching. We learned gradually that Paul
Koenig was a pretty well-known figure along both
banks of the Hudson, and that he carried, as
chief detective for the Hamburg-American Line,
a certain amount of authority. That steamship
line, which within a week of the outbreak of war
had attempted to send ships to sea under false
cargo manifests to supply the German naval raid
ers, now had more time than business on its hands
as its entire fleet was tied up in Hoboken. And
yet in spite of the dull times which we knew had
been thrust upon them, their man Koenig was
curiously busy, and we became busily curious to
find out why.
io THROTTLED
We were more curious than successful at first.
We assigned men to follow him and observe his
habits and haunts. This was not as easy as it
might have been with another man, for the De
partment of Justice had already tried it and had
come to the conclusion that he was not worth fol
lowing.
Now a good shadow is born, not made. The
moment the man followed realizes or even sus
pects that he is being followed, he becomes a
problem and either gets away or conducts himself
in a way which disarms suspicion and sometimes
embarrasses the pursuit. Koenig, a man of keen
animal senses, was unusually quick in discover
ing his shadower. It used to confuse certain
agents considerably to have him disappear around
a corner, and when the agent quickened his pace
and swept around the same corner after him, to
have Koenig pop out of a doorway with a laugh
for his pursuer which meant that the day s work
had gone for nothing. I have known men who
were excellent detectives and poor shadows.
Sometimes they were too large and conspicuous,
sometimes they were over-zealous, sometimes they
excited suspicion by being over-cautious; rare
enough was the combination of artlessness and
skill which made a man a good shadow, told him
Copyright, International Film Sgi
Paul Koenig, the Hamburg-American employe, who supplied
and directed agents of German violence in America
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY, n
when to saunter away in the opposite direction,
when to pass his man, and how to efface himself.
It is, I think, the instinct of the good fisherman
who knows just how much line to run out, and
just when to exert the pressure. For Koenig was
a slippery fish.
By a new method of " tailing " or shadowing,
we learned that he frequented several popular
German places in the city, such as Pabst s in
Columbus Circle, the German Club, in Central
Park West, where Dr. Albert, Boy-Ed and von
Papen frequently went, Luchow s restaurant in
1 4th Street, as well as the good American hotels
Belmont and Manhattan. Both of the hotels are
centrally situated, and have several entrances, in
cluding direct connection from the basement with
the Subway one of the easiest places to lose
oneself in the city. (A murderer not many
months ago avoided arrest for two days by rid
ing back and forth in Subway trains.) But such
places as these were no more than the natural
points towards which any German might gravi
tate, and we could never pick up a scrap of con
versation to give us a lead in any specific direction.
The fact remained that he was busy, going and
coming, and that he conducted a good deal of his
business from his office in the Hamburg-American
12 THROTTLED
building at 45 Broadway. We might as well
have tried to penetrate to Berlin with a brass band
as to have entered the building for information.
But there was one advantage we could take: we
could u listen in " on his telephone wire.
When the men tailing him reported in that he
was in the Hamburg-American Building, and
probably in his office, we cut in on his wire, and
posted an officer at our receiver to take down all
conversations which passed. The outgoing calls
were disappointing. Koenig was no fool or
rather was a highly specialized fool and was
not careless enough to give information of aid
and comfort to the enemy through such a gregari
ous medium as a public telephone wire. We lis
tened for a long while, in vain. . . .
Then came a call which offered possibilities. A
man s voice told Paul Koenig that it thought Paul
Koenig was a " bull-hedded Westphalian Dutch
man/ and added other more lurid remarks. The
conversation was short, but while it lasted indi
cated that someone was not pleased with Mr.
Koenig. Within the next few days the same voice
called u P. K." again and told him several things
it had forgotten to mention, all pointing to the
fact that the owner of the unknown voice had been
misused.
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 13
We hunted up the number from which the dis
gruntled calls had been made. It was a public
telephone pay-station in a saloon. Crucial events
can almost always be traced to some trivial cir
cumstances the poem " for the want of a nail
the battle was lost " is an illustration of what I
mean. We are not dealing here with possibilities
but with facts, yet I cannot sometimes help specu
lating on the extent to which German atrocities
might have been carried in New York and Canada,
if we had not found a bartender with a good
memory in that saloon. Yes, he remembered a
fellow who had come in there at certain times to
telephone. Yes, he came in once in a while.
Didn t know his name, but thought he lived around
the corner at such and such a number. At that
number we found out the man s name the bar
tender s description had been accurate. The
name was George Fuchs.
So to George Fuchs we mailed a letter, typed
on the stationery of a wireless telegraph company,
suggesting that we had a position for which we
believed he was the proper man, and that we
would be pleased to have him call at the office of
the company, at an appointed hour, to discuss the
work and wages. Fuchs did not show up at the
appointed hour, which disturbed the plans mo-
H THROTTLED
mentarily, but when he did arrive, he was greeted
cordially by an executive of the " company " who
proceeded to get acquainted with the applicant.
The manner of the wireless person was so disarm-
ing r his German was so good, and his certainty
that Fuchs was the man for the job so taken for
granted that the two adjourned to a nearby
restaurant. (Detective Corell had a very good
working knowledge of German.)
u Who did you say you were working for? 1
Corell asked, across the crater of Fuchs s glass of
beer.
"That bull-headed Westphalian Dutchman,"
Fuchs sputtered. " He is some relative of my
mother s. She was a Prussian, though, Gott sei
dank! "
Corell laughed at the right time, and in the
conversation which ensued drew out the man s
grievance against Koenig. In September Mr. and
Mrs. Koenig had paid a visit to the Fuchs house
hold in Niagara Falls, N. Y., where Fuchs lived
with his mother in the Lochiel Apartments. The
wonders of the Falls had received proper attention
from the strangers, and Koenig showed some in
terest in the Welland Canal, the channel through
which shipping circumnavigates the Falls. He
said that the waterway was closely guarded, other-
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 15
wise he would like to go over and have a look
at it, and suggested, as a convenient substitute,
that Fuchs go over to Canada and take some
snapshots of the locks for him.
"Why don t you go yourself?" Fuchs asked.
" They would probably pick me up if I did,"
Koenig replied.
4 Well, that s just why I won t take any camera
over there with me," Fuchs rejoined. " But I ll
go if you want a report."
The bargain was closed. Fuchs, Koenig said,
was the very man, as he was known on the Canad
ian side as George Fox, was an American by birth,
and would not excite suspicion. So at 7 p. M. of
September 30 slightly more than a year since
Horst von der Goltz and Captain von Papen had
made their first abortive attempt to destroy the
Canal " Fox " registered at the Welland House
in Welland, close by the waterway. There he
spent the night. The next morning he went to
Port Colborne, the Lake Erie mouth of the Canal,
and during the balance of the day followed its
course northward, making mental notes of the
shipping and the construction and guarding of the
locks. By night he had reached Thorold, where
he found a room, jotted down his observations,
and spent the night. The next day he covered the
i6 THROTTLED
balance of the 27 miles to Lake Ontario, noting
the number of locks, and the fact that there were
two or three armed soldiers on guard at each.
With his head full of good ideas for bad plans he
reached Niagara Falls again that night Oc
tober 2.
Koenig was enthusiastic over his report, but
when Fuchs had written it down he decided that
it would be hazardous to have such a document
found on his person. " Mail it to me at Post
Office Box 840 in New York. Sign it just
4 George nobody would know who that was
even if they did find it." He went back to New
York. Fuchs heard nothing from him for a few
days, except that action had been deferred. Then
the country cousin began to importune the city
cousin, and Koenig suggested that he come down
to New York to work for him. Which Fuchs did,
and on October 8 was placed on the payroll of the
" Bureau of Investigation " at eighteen dollars a
week. Koenig arranged that Fuchs was to hire
men who would row a boatload of dynamite across
the upper Niagara River to smuggle it into Canada,
and he had meanwhile arranged with two others,
Richard Emil Leyendecker, his chief assistant, and
Fred Metzler, his secretary, to carry out a definite
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 17
plan to sever the main artery of lake traffic by
blowing it to pieces.
By Sunday, November 7, Fuchs had been oc
cupied in several odd jobs for Koenig, such as
spying on outward-bound cargoes along the water
front, doing special guard duty at Dr. Albert s
office, and going over to Hoboken to frighten a
poor German agent named Franz Schulenberg,
who had come on from the west to collect money
from von Papen. On that Sunday he was sick and
did not report for duty. He asked for his regular
pay, however, and Koenig refused it, doubting
that Fuchs had really been too ill to report, and
holding that illness should never interfere with
service to the Fatherland. This created bad
blood between the two. On November 22 Koenig
discharged him for " constant quarrelling with an
other operative, drinking, and disorderly habits,"
and announced that he would not be paid for his
services of the previous day, when he had refused
to go on duty in a river-launch. That $2.57
due Fuchs had poisoned his soul against Koenig,
and he had grown so bitter that the result we al
ready know evidence was at last in our hands
for an arrest.
It was a case for federal prosecution, obviously,
1 8 THROTTLED
so we called in Captain William Offley and Agent
Adams, an able operative of the Department of
Justice. A few hours later Koenig was placed
under arrest. He resented the intrusion, and
snapped to Barnitz: " Anyone who interferes
with Germans or the German Government will be
punished!" His house up-town was searched
and that search disclosed, among other matters,
an item which is unquestionably one of the richest
prizes of the spy hunt in America.
It was Paul Koenig s little black memorandum
book a loose-leaf affair, scrupulously typewrit
ten, and brought down to within a day of his
arrest. A fanatic on office efficiency might have
conceived it, but none but a German would have
kept it posted up. For it told the story of his
Bureau of Investigation with a devotion to detail
almost religious.
The Hamburg-American Line probably never
thought that when they assigned a shrewd ruffian
named Paul Koenig to investigate an alleged case
of wharfage graft in Jersey City away back in
1912 they had established a " Bureau of Investi
gation." But Paul Koenig knew better. He sur
rounded his lightest activities with an air of mys
tery and efficiency true to the best of amateur-de
tective tradition. He called his first case by a
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 19
mystic number, he conferred the ominous alias of
" xxx " upon himself, hired a man named Fred
Metzler as his secretary, and convinced himself
that he and Metzler were a bureau. In the light
of the all-absorbing importance which his bureau
held for him, we are not surprised (and we must
not smile), when we see chronicled neatly in
his little black book that on May 13, 1913, he
rented a room at 45 Broadway for " new offices,"
on May 24 his first private telephone was installed,
on Nov. 19 a steel cabinet was purchased for the
files of the department, on May 28 of 1914 the
adjoining room was added to Room 82, and
Room 82 was converted into a private office for
the chief, and on July 14 a new safe was purchased
and placed in the office. It may be that the as
sassination of the Archduke Ferdinand had some
thing to do with that last item, for it is certain
that the Hamburg-American Line knew that war
was coming well in advance of the declaration.
At any rate, we find that on July 31, 1914, be
fore England and Germany had actually gone to
war, and on the same day that the director of
the Hamburg-American in New York received in
structions from Berlin that war was coming and
that he was expected to supply German naval
vessels in American waters on that day Paul
20 THROTTLED
Koenig began his war duties by placing a special
guard on all the piers and vessels of the Line in
New York Harbor.
Up to this time the cases Koenig had handled
were matters of shipping stowaways, fires,
steerage rates, charges against ships officers. On
August 22 he became a German military spy. We
fined it entered in his own words :
\
" Aug. 22. German Government, with consent
of Dr. Buenz, entrusted me with the handling of
a certain investigation. Military attache von
Papen called at my office later and explained the
nature of the work expected. (Beginning of
Bureau s services for Imperial German Govern
ment.)"
The " certain investigation " consisted in sending
two men to Canada to spy on the Valcartier train
ing camp where the first Canadian Expeditionary
Force was being mobilized, and to report to the
military attache their state of readiness, in order
that he might try some means of keeping them at
home if it were not already too late. What von
Papen had in mind was dynamiting the Welland
Canal; it failed, but the case is of momentary in
terest to us here because it marked the beginning
of a service on Koenig s part which grew very fast
and extended in manv and diverse directions.
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 21
The Bureau was divided into three parts, the
pier division, the special detail division, and the
secret service division, or " Geheimdienst." No
one was allowed to forget that P. K. was head of
all three. In his rules and regulations he records,
among other gems, these:
" #2. In order to safeguard the secrets and
affairs of the department prior to receiving a
caller, hereafter my desk must be entirely cleared
of all papers excepting those pertaining to the
business in hand.
" #9. All persons related to me, however dis
tant, will be barred from employment with the
Bureau of Investigation. This does not apply to
my wife.
" #6. It has been found detrimental to the
discipline of the Office to invite direct employees
of the Bureau to my residence or other place so
cially, or to accept their invitations, therefore this
practice must cease. This ruling does not apply
to agents of the Secret Service Division nor to
direct employees if engaged with me on an opera
tion which requires either social entertainment or
travelling."
He had an elaborate and complicated outlay of
badges, shields and photographic identification
cards for each operative, for which each operative
stood the expense. His meticulous attention to
detail, and the diligent caution which he observed
22 THROTTLED
at all times is indicated in a list of aliases which
he set forth in the memorandum book. In 26
cases listed he used 26 different names none of
them his own. For example, in what he called
" D-Case 250," in dealing with an operative
named " Sjurstadt " Koenig was known to
Sjurstadt only as "Watson"; in D-Case 316,
when he negotiated with his agent von Pilis (a
propagandist who was later interned, by the way)
Koenig was " Bode." He devised a new name
for himself for every new case, and sometimes
used two or three names in dealing with different
individuals in the same case. Naturally a man
of as many identities as Koenig had to keep a
record of who he was, and so his list of aliases
furnished the government with an excellent cata
logue of the pies in which he had his tough fingers.
Each of his own employees in the Secret Service
Division was known to him in three ways : by his
Christian (or rather, his German) name, by a
number, and by a special pair of initials. Thus
Richard Emil Leyendecker, the art-woods dealer
associated with him in the Welland Canal affair,
was Secret Agent Number 6, known as " B. P.";
Otto Mottola, a member of the New York Police
Department was Secret Agent Number 4, known
as "A. S. (formerly A. M.)." The connections
Random Pages from "P. K. s Little Black Book"
o o
3EORST SERVICE DIVISION.
SAFETY BLOCK SYSTEM
Operatives of the S. S. Division,
when receiving instructions from me or
through the medium of ray secretary as
to designating meeting places, will un
derstand that sxich instructions must "be
translated as follows:
For week Nov. 28 to Deo. 4 (midnight)
A street number in Manhattan named
over the telephone means that the meety
ing will take place 5 blocks further
uptown than the street mentioned.
Pennsylvania R. R. Station means
Grand Central Depot.
Kaiserhof means General Post Of
fice, in front of P. 0. Box 840.
Hotel Ansonia means Cafe in Hotel
Manhattan (basement).
Hotel Belmont means at the Bar in
Pabst 1 Columbus Circle.
Brooklyn Bridge means Bar in Unter
den Linden.
For week Dec. 5 to Dec. 12 (midnight)
Code to remain the same as previ
ous week.
For week Deo. 12 to Dec. 19 (midnight
A street number in Manhattan named
over the telephone means that the meet
ing will take place 5 blocks further
dovmtown than the street mentioned. ,
O .0
3BCRET SERVICE DIVISION.
(Qeheimdienst)
Rules and Regulations .
- 1915 -
#1. Beginning with Bovember 6th, no blue
copies are to be made of reports
submitted in connection with D-Caae
#343, and the original reports will
be sent to H.M.8. instead of the da-
pi ioates, as formerly,
#S. In order to accomplish better results
in connection with D-Case #343, and
to shorten the stay of the inform
ing agent at the place of meeting,
it has been decided to discontinue
the former practice of dining with
this agent prior to receiving his
report. It will also be made a rule
to refrain from working .on other mat
ters until the informant in this case
has been fully heard; and all data
taken down in shorthand. (11-11-15)
#3. Beginning with November 28th, 1915,
all operations designated as D-Cases
will be handled exclusively by the
Secret Service Division, the Head
quarters of which will not be at the
Central Office, as heretofore. This
change will result in discontinuing
utilizing operatives or employees
attached to the Central Office, Divi
sion for Special Detail end Pier
Division. On t}ie other hand, great
Random Pages from "P. K. s Little Black Book"
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 23
of the bureaus were mentioned in his reports by
numbers, the Imperial German Embassy being
5000, von Papen being 7000, Boy-Ed 8000, and
!Dr. Heinrich Albert, the commercial attache of
the embassy, 9000.
In the same way he disguised his meeting places.
In his instructions to the Secret Service Division
we find this :
" Operatives of the S. S. Division when receiv
ing instructions from me or through the medium of
my secretary ?s to designating meeting places will
understand that such instructions must be trans
lated as follows:
" For week Nov. 28 to Dec. 4 (midnight).
" A street number in Manhattan named over
the telephone means that the meeting will take
place 5 blocks further uptown than the street
mentioned.
" Pennsylvania R. R. Station means Grand Cen
tral Depot.
" Kaiserhof means General Post Office, in front
of P. O. Box 840.
" Hotel Ansonia means cafe in Hotel Manhat
tan (basement).
" Hotel Belmont means at the bar in Pabst s
(Columbus Circle.
" Brooklyn Bridge means bar in Unter den
Linden."
Each week he rearranged this code, so that any-
24 THROTTLED
one who thought that cutting in on a telephone call
meant knowing where Koenig was bound was not
likely to find him there. The man knew his Ger
man New York, and had numerous convenient
meeting places where he could meet an agent and
converse undisturbed, such as a German hotel at
Third Avenue and 42d Street, or a German bar
at Broadway and i loth Street, or a lodging house
at South and Whitehall Streets, near the lower
tip of the island, or a saloon connected with a
Turkish bath in Harlem. He not only made it
almost impossible to trace him by tapping his own
wire, but his operatives were instructed to call him
from pay-station telephones in locations where
there was not one chance in a million of identify
ing the person who had called. Fuchs, of course,
was the one-millionth chance, but Fuchs was no
longer obeying Koenig s orders, was persistent,
and careless. Altogether Koenig had built up a
system of caution on paper which almost beat the
game, and which enabled him to conduct a large
volume of business.
The functions of his departments were clearly
defined. The pier division guarded the piers and
vessels of the Line, and furnished him informa
tion of sailings from the New York waterfront,
which he in turn passed on to the naval attache,
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 25
Boy-Ed. Through this division he was able to
keep in touch with the waterfront element for
whatever service of violence might be necessary,
and to keep a fairly complete record of shipping.
The special detail division was assigned to the
guarding of von Bernstorff s summer place at
Cedarhurst, Long Island, Dr. Albert s office in
the Hamburg-American building, von Papen s
office at 60 Wall Street, and the Austrian con
sulate in New York. This division conducted
every week a test to determine whether or not
Dr. Albert was being shadowed. We find entered
in his notes on his operatives this :
" H. J. Wilkens is commended by me for good
service rendered thus far as attendant on Dr. Al
bert. This commendation is based on a note re
ceived from the latter under date of November
12, reading as follows:
" Dear Mr. Koenig:
1 The service rendered by your bureau s opera
tive, H. J. Wilkens, have proven entirely satis
factory.
" Yours truly,
" (Signed) H. T. ALBERT. "
Apparently Koenig s performance of his duty to
the German cause encouraged the high officials of
the German government in the United States to
rely upon him, for these posts were gradually
26 THROTTLED
placed under his direction during the summer of
1915, the Embassy at Cedarhurst on July 3, Dr.
Albert s office on Sept. i, von Papen s office on
Oct. 26, and the Austrian Consulate on December
15 - three days previous to Koenig s arrest, and
less than a week after Captain von Papen, who
was returning to his own country by the request
of our country, had called P. K. to the German
Club to " express his thanks for the services this
Bureau have rendered to him." " At the same
time," the little notebook confides, " he bid me
Good-Bye." We find these functions mentioned
with a suggestion of reverence.
But the autobiography of Paul Koenig resumes
its dark shroud of mystery when it turns to the
functions of the division of secret service. There
he is the dominating figure, a sort of cross between
a Dr. Moriarity and a gorilla, a slippery conniver
one minute and a pugnacious bully the next, con
victed by his own complimentary reports. It was
in handling the " D-cases " already mentioned
that he employed his many false names, his secret
numbers, his elusive places of appointment, and
his essentially Teutonic discipline. The nature
of the work of this division may best be suggested
by citing a case which appears rather often in
his records Case 0-343.
o
o
are to be known as Central Office
men, and do not come under the
Jurisdiction of the Pier Division.
(11-E3-15)
#12. Beginning with today, specific plana
have been decided upon as to the
best manner in which to keep news
papers and clippings dealing with the
war and political subjects. Clip
pings that refer to D-Cases of this
Bureau will continue to be placed in
the private files, together with
their respective reports. An excep
tion to this particular rule may be
made in the event that there are too
many clippings at hand, in which case
they may be bound together and kept
separate, as is being done in the
case of operation D-$332. Other clip
pings are to be mounted on cardboard,
and the name of the newspaper and
date typewritten thereon. Articles
of interest that cover an entire page
or more will not be clipped, but will
be kept whole in a temporary folder
in view of binding same later. This,
also applies to copies which deal
with matters on which reports have
been rendered. (12-7-15)
o
o
may not be in my interest. The sten
ographer of the Central Office, how
ever, will continue to write out
checks as heretofore, but the check
book itself, will always be kegt
under lock and key. (11-23-15)
#11. Operatives of the Pier Division in
future will carry as their means of
identification only the Bureau f s
identification card, on the reverse
side of which a photograph of the
bearer will be pasted, with my sig
nature written above and l>elo* the
photo. The front side of the card
will also bear ray signature. These
men will not carry any more shields,
as in the past. Any changes in the
personnel of the Pier Division, such
as attachments and detachments, will
be brought to the attention of the
Marine Superintendent or other Super
intends at whose piers they are sta
tioned. There will be special opera
tives selected to check up operatives
of the Pier Division and employees of
the piers, who will not be named to
anyone in advance, but who will, at
Intervals, make their inspect ions, car
rying with them as their means of i-
dentification, a commission consisting
of a letter on Company s stationery,
satting forth their authority, which
will be duly signed by me and counter
signed by one of the Company s Vio
Directors. These special operatives
Random Pages from "P. K. s Little Black Book"
o
- 10 -
o
covering G.G. Station #3 on Sunday,
November 21st. from 10 A.M. until 5 P.
It. Contrary to the list of assignments
for the Pier Division he did not do
guard duty at the Hoboken Piers during
the night of November 20th to 21st. In
order to be at his new post, G.G. Sta
tion #3, he was given this night off
with pay, to be charged to Case #242.
Wages while on duty at G.G. Station #3
will be the same as heretofore.
. v. 3 tad en on November 22d, at 10 A.
., reported to Central Office duty
as instructed. He will work jointly
with Opt. W.H.M., his salary to remain
unchanged.
H. Pearsall. on Saturday, November EOth
upon being instructed by Opt f H.J.W.
that he was to be assigned to the Pier
Division, declared that he refused to
accept this post, and tendered his
resignation. According to a written
report submitted by Opt. H.J.W., H.-P.
acted insolently, and belittled this
Bureau s service. As tf. P. did not
tender his resignation to me person
ally or by mail, I did not take cog
nizance of what he told Opt. H.J.W. re
garding leaving the department, but
discharged him at once upon .hearing of
hia conduct. His services ended on
November 21st at 10 A. II. While he has
been an alert watchman, he has often
proven to be a oranky, quarrelsome em
ployee, who was the cause of a great
deal of trouble while on the piers.
o
- 11 -
o
+v? 0n fl atulate m y self o* havin? ridden
thi a Bureau of an ignorant, stubborn
and hot-headed man of the caliber of
Pearsall, whoae last words to stenog
rapher F.Metzler were that he would not
at me for a dollar. While it is un
derstood that this former employee is
disbarred from reinstatement, he will
never be given any sort of a recommend
ation, nor will I receive him. He is
to be kept out of the office entirely.
George Pucha was dismissed from the Su
re au^saervTces on November 22d at 4.30
P.M. The reason for his discharge is
general conduct displayed on Company s
piers, constant quarreling with another
operative, drinking and disorderly hab-
J 8 ^ E + !? U recelve ho P^ for the
Jiight of November 31st to 22d during
-which he refused to Join Opt. j.P.C. in
his duties on Company s Launch #4.
William MbCulley. on November 16th at
3 A.M., was appointed Chief of the Se-
oret Service Division, hia duties to
commence on Sunday, November 28th at
9 A.M. Salary $28. per week. Upon his
word he promised to remain 4n this cap
acity for at least six months and to be
at my disposal at all hours. He is to
SIR v re f ldence in New York City, and
will be known as "William
-t.E.Leyendeoker, on November 23d at
r.iu. was appointed Assistant to the
Random Pages from "P. K. s Little Black Book"
.WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 27
Rule number I of the division stated:
" Beginning with Nov. 6 (1915) no blue copies
are to be made of reports submitted in connection
with D-Case 343, and the original reports will
be sent to H. M. G. instead of the duplicates, as
formerly."
" H. M. G." we learned from the key to spe
cial personages for whom the division was con
ducting investigations, was yon Papen himself.
Rule 2 reads:
" In order to accomplish better results in con
nection with D-Case 343, and to shorten the stay
of the informing agent at the place of meeting, it
has been decided to discontinue the former prac
tice of dining with this agent prior to receiving
his report. It will also be a rule to refrain from
working on other matters until the informant in
this case has been fully heard, and all data taken
down in shorthand."
The book revealed that in D-Case 343 Koenig s
alias was Woehler, and his agent s name Schleindl.
In his notes on operatives Koenig had written that
" Friedrich Schleindl . . . who was first known
as Operative #51, and later as Agent C. O., be
ginning with October 2ist will be called Agent
B. I." This enabled us to interpret a further
regulation of the division, to this effect.
28 THROTTLED
" Agent B. L has been requested not to call
again at the Central Office, this ruling to take
effect immediately. Other arrangements will be
made to meet him elsewhere. Whether or not
the stenographer of the Central Office will con
tinue to write reports covering D-Case 343 will be
determined later."
Rule 4 read:
" Supplementing Rule 2, it has been decided that
I refrain from drinking beer or liquor with my
supper prior to receiving Agent B. L, for the rea
son that I wish to be perfectly fresh and well
prepared to receive his reports."
And Rule 3 contained this passage:
". . . great care is to be taken that operatives
and agents of the Secret Service Division remain
entirely unknown to members of the Central Of
fice and other divisions. These regulations do
not apply to D-Case 343, which has been handled
since the beginning of July (1915) with the knowl
edge of employees not belonging to the Secret
Service Division. Until more favorable arrange
ments can be made this practice may be con
tinued."
Here clearly was an unusually important case.
The notes indicated that Koenig was receiving
frequent reports of great value from this Schleindl,
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 29
had been receiving them for at least five months,
was reporting them to von Papen, and intended to
safeguard his obtaining further information.
When a German voluntarily forswears his beer,
something serious is on foot.
Lieut. Barnitz, with Detectives Walsh and Fen-
elly, arrested Schleindl the same day we closed
in on Koenig. In his pocket was a cablegram
referring to Russian munitions. He was a Ger
man reservist, born in Bavaria. At the outbreak
of war he was a clerk in the National City Bank
of New York, and lived away up in the Bronx,
and in the first reaction to war he reported at the
German Consulate for duty. Months passed, and
he had not been called upon, when one night he
met a German who told him to report at the Hotel
Manhattan to meet another German named
Wagoner. " You ll find him in the bar," added
his informant.
Wagoner," who was Paul Koenig himself,
met the youth, and playing on his patriotism drew
from him the information that he had access to
many cablegrams to and from the Allied govern
ments through the bank concerning the purchase
and shipment of war supplies. Offering Schleindl
a retainer of $25 a week, Koenig told him to steal
from the files all such messages he could lay his
30 THROTTLED
hands on, together with copies of express-bills
showing when the goods were delivered to the
piers for shipment, all data relating to the prices
paid, detailed descriptions of the purchases, and
any other particulars which would help the Ger
man Government to complete its knowledge of
what supplies America was shipping abroad.
Schleindl grew quite enthusiastic in the work.
Starting with light thefts, he gradually grew
bolder, until he was in a position to steal docu
ments night after night, take them to his ap
pointment with Koenig, have them copied, and
arrive at the Bank early enough the following
morning to put them back where they belonged.
Friday night was the regular appointment, but
often messages of big shipments came in and he
relayed the news at once to his chief. The ex
tra $25 a week practically doubled his earning
power, and made devotion to the Fatherland very
attractive so much so that he began to be
afraid that Koenig, who was merely the receiving
station for his reports, and who took no risks him
self, would receive more than his share of credit.
If there were any iron crosses to be given out,
or any ribbons for foreign service, Schleindl felt
that he had earned his, so he forwarded to his
brother in Austria from time to time stenographic
Alexander Dietrich ens
International Film Service, In<
Frederick Schleindl
Schleindl and Dietrichens at a German party
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 31
notes written in the Bavarian dialect which would
be especially difficult of translation. In order to
evade the censor he tore them into scraps and
sifted them into the folds of newspapers which
went unmolested through the British mail censors
at Kirkwall. These scraps, pieced together and
translated into reports, were forwarded by his
brother to German officials.
Schleindl s zeal had led him into other chan
nels of German activity. At college in Germany
he had had a friend named Alexander Dietrichens,
later known variously as Willish, Sander, Glass,
and Lizius one of those Riga Russians of Ger
man parentage who have served Bolshevism so
eminently in Russia. In 1915 Dietrichens was in
America, and the two renewed their friendship.
He said he was eager to serve the Fatherland, and
that he only wanted to know who was supplying
munitions to the Allies to start a campaign of
destruction against them. He suggested the Du
Pont factories at Wilmington, and asked the young
bank clerk to come along. Schleindl, impression
able and emotional, had not the courage. He
confessed to me that he wept at the thought, and
that he asked Dietrichens whether any harm could
come to him if the explosion killed anyone.
" Very likely," Dietrichens answered cheerfully.
32 THROTTLED
Schleindl then declined, but he helped the dyna
miter to the extent of keeping an occasional bomb
or a package of dynamite for him during the day
in his locker or under his desk at the bank. The
main cache where Dietrichens stored his explo
sives was near Tenafly, New Jersey, but when
Schleindl and I visited it, in a deserted spot al
most a mile from the nearest building, the shanty
was empty.
Schleindl was tried, convicted and sentenced to
an indeterminate term in the penitentiary, for the
theft of documents. Koenig pleaded guilty to the
charge, but sentence was suspended on him owing
to the greater importance of the Welland charges.
The Schleindl and Dietrichens cases are only
two examples of many to which the little black
book gave clues. It suggested investigations into
many others, for it was a real storehouse of names,
and knowing Koenig s close relationship with the
highest German authorities in the United States,
it contributed a large number of items to the bill
of complaint against Germany which provoked
the President s Flag Day warning of 1916.
Koenig s mere mention of the name of " Horn "
in D-Case 277 gave evidence of the German spon
sorship of the attempt of Werner Horn to blow
up the Vanceboro bridge in February, 1915; the
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 33
name " Stahl " in D-Case 328 indicated by
Koenig s own hand that it was he who paid
Gustave Stahl for the false affidavits that the
Lusitania had carried guns; the name " Kienzle "
in D-Case 316 was the name of a man who was
involved in trying to blow up vessels sailing for
France and England; the name " Hammond " in
D-Case 357 led to the disclosure that the Bureau
of Investigation, although chiefly engaged in spy
ing and destroying plots, sometimes ran other and
more delicate errands for von Bernstorff.
Posing this time as " W. H. Becker " Koenig
called on one J. C. Hammond, a writer and pub
licity man who had offices at 34th Street and
Broadway. To Hammond he stated that from
the standpoint of the Germans in America two
newspapers were taking irritating and unfriendly
attitudes. These were the New York World and
the Providence Journal. Both papers had taken,
soon after the outbreak of war, definite stands
on the American issues involved, and both pur
sued the subject in a typically thorough fashion,
the Providence paper obtaining much of its in
formation from sympathetic British sources, and
the World having an influential position politically
which led it across the trail of what the news-<
paper men call " big stories." The Providence
34 THROTTLED
Journal in fact emerged from comparative ob
scurity during the early months of war with start
ling charges against German agents both here and
abroad, supported by evidence which seemed in
credible though of sound origin. These stories
were republished widely through the country. It
was undoubtedly having a powerful effect upon
the public, for the country, dazed with the fact
of war, was ready to take sides against the na
tion which was apparently guilty of the worst
acts. Some of those charges were true, and al
though they seemed at that time so fantastic as
to be almost impossible, the members of the Ger
man Embassy knew they were true and squirmed
inwardly every time a fresh one burst out. The
World had a habit of not only spreading excit
ing news articles over its front page, but lending
color to them by publishing photographs of sup
porting documents to prove their authenticity. So
von Bernstorff and the attaches, after having tried
to bring influence to bear in many subtle ways to
curb the publications, called in Koenig, and he
made his little pilgrimage to Hammond s office.
He offered the publicity agent a large sum of
money to find out what exposures the two papers
had still in the ice-box, ready to release. Later,
he increased this to a blanket offer of any sum
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 35
which Hammond should name, provided the lat
ter could induce the papers to turn over to him
the articles and affidavits in their possession. The
offer was not accepted. Hammond did not bite
at the offer of a later reward of $100,000 which
Koenig hung up to silence the publication of anti-
German news in certain other large newspapers in
the country, nor did he, as Koenig requested, go
to England to visit Rintelen, to find out where
Rintelen had left a trunk full of valuable papers
when he fled the United States.
The name " Lewis " mentioned in the citation
of another case in the little black book revealed a
further variation of the services of the Secret
Service Division. The United States owned a
large quantity of Krag-Joergensen rifles for which
in that year of peace it had no use, but which sev
eral foreign governments would have been glad to
buy. Commercial bachelors who were looking
for war brides all took turns paying court to the
rifles, and all without success. Readers of the
newspapers may recall a small tempest which
raged around the alleged sale of the rifles, and the
charges levelled at one after another German
of the attempt to purchase. Each new charge was
denied by its victim, and it finally developed that a
Mrs. Selma Lewis had been involved in the nego-
36 THROTTLED
tiations, and was willing to pose as the purchaser.
The " man behind " was Franz Rintelen, acting
for the German Government, and the name
<c Lewis " here in Koenig s notes, amplified by
the full name and address of Mrs. Lewis in a
small address book which we also captured, indi
cates that Koenig worked for Rintelen as well as
the abler and more authentic members of the em
bassy of destruction which Germany kept in Amer
ica.
I think I have made it clear that when the
United States interned Paul Koenig it made
prisoner one of the busiest men of the German spy
system, and one of the strangest. He was
physically powerful and mentally quick with a
German sort of quickness. He had the most su
preme self-confidence it has been my pleasure to
meet, and that caused his downfall. If he had
administered his bureau in a manner calculated
to breed loyalty in his employees he would have
been more successful, but he conceived his work
as a one-man job, and made his subordinates goose-
step to his tune. It is certain that had he not
set down with such care every item which would
be useful to the United States in unearthing his
actions, no one can say how long they would have
continued. Napoleon had his Waterloo, how-
o
o
HEALTH RULES.
#1. I have decided to refrain from chew
ing tobacco in the office, as it dis
agrees with my health, thereby inter
fering with my work. (1E-1-15)
#2. I shall drinfc no more whiskey. (12-6)
o
o
9-12-14-1T-17-21-83-E4-25-88-28-
XXX.
Random Pages from "P K. s Little Black Book"
o o
safeguarding of the Imperial
Serroah Embassy at Cedarhurst,
L. I,
Sept.l. Bureau was entrusted with the
safeguarding of the offices of
Commercial Attache Dr. Albert.
Got. 26. Bureau was entrusted with the
safegiia rdlng of the offices, of
the military Attache.
Nov. 12. Began first Investigation for
Austro -Hungarian Government,
Deo. 13. It 6.30 P.M. Captain von Papen,
German Jtilitary Attache, re
ceived me at the German Club
to express his thanks for the
services which this Bureau have
rendered to him. At the same
time he bid me Good-Bye.
Deo. 16. Bureau was entrusted with the
safeguarding of the offices of
the I. & R. Austro-Hungarian
Consulate General.
O
O
LIST OP
EPOHTAHf GASES HAJTDLEP.
C.#17. Investigation Re: Jersey City
Wharfage Graft.
C.#24. Investigation of Baggage Depart
ment, Hobolcen.
C.#32. Chinese Stowaways on S.S. "PRINZ
JOACEIM", Voy. 77.
C.#40. Investigation Re: Thefts of Cargo
on Atlas Pier, New York City,
C.#41. S.S."FRIEDRICH DKR GR03SB", Ar
rival at New York July E, 1913.
C.#49. Charges Made Against ff. Barbe,
Chief Officer, S.S. "CARL SCHURZ".
C.#64. Investigation Re; S.S. "PRINZ
FRIEDRICH WILHELM", Arrived at
New York on June 3.
C.#67. Fire on Board* S.3."IlPERATOR t on
August 28,
C.#69, Pire Patrol on S.S. n IMPERATOR".
& eto.
C.#70. liax Ludwlg Thomson, Alias Thomp
son.
C.#95. Charges Against Paul Hoenig.
Random Pages from <4 P. K/s Little Black Book"
WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 37
ever, and Paul Koenig had his notebook, and with
the same scrupulous foresight the indomitable
" xxx " left that notebook where we would be
most likely to find it.
It is a rare treat, aside from its now past in
formative value. And it contains one real mys
tery which the Westphalian himself can alone clear
up. The page headed " Health Rules " reads as
follows :
" #i. I have decided to refrain from chewing
tobacco in the office as it disagrees with my health
thereby interfering with my work. (12-1-15.)
" #2. I shall drink no more whiskey.
1(12-6.)"
Which leads one to believe that he saw the prac
tical value of an exemplary life. But we must
wait for him to explain the page headed " Health
Table," which reads:
"XI
" 9-12-14-17-17-21-23-24-28-28
11 XII
" 1-3-5-8-9-11-13-1 6."
The " XI " is evidently November, of 1915, the
" XII " December. What did he do on those
dates so accurately mentioned? Did temptation
lead him twice from the path on the i7th and
38 THROTTLED
28th of November? If so, what could this temp-
tation have been? Is it possible that the same
conscience which made him typewrite his rules of
conduct weakened, and then remorse turned about
and forced him to set down his lapses from grace?
Is it further possible that each of the dates cited
means that Paul Koenig broke his brand new
health rules ten times in November and eight
times in December, and chewed tobacco in office
hours?
We must wait in patience some day his
Westphalian conscience may answer.
Ill
PLAYING WITH FIRE
The business of crime prevention and detection
depends largely on the confidence one man has in
another. That is one reason why a " stool-
pigeon " is an uncomfortable ally on a case. You
can not be sure that a man who associates with
criminals and is giving them away is not giving
the case away at the same time. His gang hates
him for squealing, his evidence is the evidence of
a traitor, and he is a good person not to depend
on. I make that point here because I have al
ways tried to avoid using stool-pigeons, and be
cause the story to follow will illustrate what can
be accomplished by a dependable man.
The story really starts about twenty years ago.
In the spring of 1900, an Italian from Paterson,
N. J., Brescia by name, attended a meeting of
anarchists in a house in Elizabeth Street, New
York. The group was composed of two parties,
one which we may call the progressives, and one
39
40 THROTTLED
the inactives. Brescia assailed the inactives, de
nounced them as cowards, and stirred up so much
dissension that the meeting broke up for fear of
a police raid, and several of the members retaliated
at Brescia by accusing him of being a police spy.
He sailed for Italy, and on July 29, in the little
Lombard! town of Monza, murdered King Hum
bert the Good. When the news was cabled to
America it was hailed with proper grief by the
public and with great joy by the anarchists who
had called Brescia a traitor. His execution,
which followed swiftly, made him a martyr. So
to do him honor, the group was named the Brescia
Circle.
By 1914 the membership of the circle was
nearly 600. A cosmopolitan lot: Italians,
Russians, Russian Jews, Germans, Austrians,
Spaniards and Americans, of both sexes. The
leaders were agitators whose speaking ability had
lifted them out of the ranks and who found an
easier living by their wits than by their hands.
The Bomb Squad knew something of their activi
ties and habits, for the past history of anarchist
cases linked up certain names in a pointed way.
We knew their fondness for bombs, and the
records of the police department contain many
instances of anarchists inspired to violence by the
PLAYING WITH FIRE 41
inflammatory speeches of such agitators, as their
idol, Francisco Ferrer, had preached violence in
Spain. The outbreak of war in Europe, from
which so many of the group had migrated to
America, and the promise of social confusion
which it held for them had stirred the Brescia
Circle more than a little. The active members
met regularly in the basement of a building at
301 East io6th Street, a shabby house in a shabby
district east of the New York Central tracks.
These meetings, which occurred usually on a Sun
day, as many of the members were working during
the week, were addressed by such notorious
anarchists as Emma Goldman, Becky Edelson,
Frank Mandese, Carlo Tresca and Pietro Allegra
names probably unfamiliar to the general pub
lic, but names with which the Police Department
had " auld acquaintance. " Occasionally an editor
of an anarchist newspaper in Lynn, Massachusetts,
Gagliani by name, came to speak in the cellar, and
Plunkett, Harry Kelly, and Alexander Berkman
were usually to be found in the group.
The winter of 1913-1914 was one of indus
trial depression. Many of the radical labor ele
ment rallied to the I. W. W. and the unemployed
readily joined them. The methods of the anarch
ists and I. W. W. s were similar, and the advo-
42 THROTTLED
cates of unrest were enlisted under both standards.
In the late winter demonstrations began and mul
tiplied until in March a youth named Frank Tan-
nenbaum, to whom Emma Goldman later took a
fancy, led a mob of I. W. W. s into St. Alphonsus
Church demanding food. The police waited un
til they had passed inside, then locked the doors,
and arrested the whole lot. This was but one
instance of a number which promised more trouble.
Whatever nice distinctions of creed separated the
Industrial Workers from the anarchists were
paper distinctions; the performances of both bod
ies made it fairly plain that if you scratched
an anarchist you found an I. W. W. under
neath.
There may have been some intimation from
abroad of the impending war, among the anarch
ists, for in July certain of them began to grow
demonstrative. On Independence Day Mandese
was arrested in Tarrytown, in uncomfortable
proximity to the estate and person of John D.
Rockefeller. Carron, Berg and Hansen, three
members of the Brescia Circle, were engaged on
that same day in perfecting a bomb in their rooms
at Lexington Avenue and iO4th Street, when the
machine exploded prematurely and killed them.
That bomb had been intended for the Rockefeller
PLAYING WITH FIRE 43
family. Naturally everyone with a shred of re<
spect for order who read of these episodes* re
coiled from them, but it was necessary to judge
them from the anarchist s own standpoint to see
that while one of the cases had resulted in death,
and the Mandese incident in arrest, both had been
successful in creating a disturbance. The anarch
ist likes disturbance as well as he dislikes order,
for unrest is contagious, and means new recruits
to the cause. It became our duty, therefore, to
make a careful investigation of these disturbances
at their source, and we insinuated a detective into
the Brescia Circle itself.
He spoke only English a good language for
social intercourse, but not the key to the affairs
of the group in the io6th Street basement.
Whenever the more prominent agitators had a
really important matter to discuss they used the
Italian tongue, and it was impossible for our
man to eavesdrop. Perhaps he was over-eager,
for twice he was brought to trial by the Circle
charged with spying. Twice he was acquitted.
But when his enemies had him formally charged
a third time with treachery, the anarchists de
cided that although they had no evidence against
him beyond a powerful suspicion, he would be
better outside. Outside he went.
44 THROTTLED
On October 3, the anarchists gave a grand ball
at the Harlem Casino in honor of Emma Gold
man, and at that affair announcement was made
that October 13 would be observed by those of the
cause with a celebration at Forward Hall, in East
Broadway, fitting to the anniversary of the " assas
sination " of Francisco Ferrer. The orator,
Leonard Abbott, also reminded the gathering that
u the Catholic Church had been responsible for
Ferrer s death." At five o clock in the afternoon
of October 12 a vicious explosion occurred in the
north aisle of St. Patrick s Cathedral. It was an
anarchist s bomb. The nave of the church held
numerous worshippers, who were panic-stricken,
but who fortunately escaped injury with the ex
ception of a young man struck in the face by a
flying splinter from one of the altars. Shortly
after midnight of the next day a bomb placed in
the front area of the priests house of St. Alphon-
sus exploded with violence enough to break every
window in the house and every window in the
house across the street. Ferrer s " assassina
tion " had evidently been appropriately observed.
The situation was disturbing. We had to put
a stop to bombing before the anarchists grew
bolder and began to kill someone beside them
selves. Of course we wanted all the evidence we
PLAYING WITH FIRE 45
could lay hands on, and yet the evidence we had
been able to obtain had not prevented two out
rages. We felt that undoubtedly the best place
to look for it was still the Brescia Circle, as it
constituted the chief organization and headquar
ters for the element which we believed guilty.
And we now return to the question of the stool-
pigeon.
It would have been possible to employ one of
the Circle, perhaps. It is certain that I should
have been uneasy with only his evidence to de
pend upon, for a bomb does not wait to be in
vestigated. Planting a man in the Brescia Circle
had not been successful, but I felt that it could
be made successful. So out of five or six can
didates from the department I chose Amedeo
Polignani for the work.
He was a young Italian detective who kept his
own counsel, short, strong, mild-mannered and un
obtrusive. And he knew Italian. " Your name
from now on is Frank Baldo," I said. " For
get you re a detective. You can get a job over
in Long Island City, so as to carry out the bluff.
You are an anarchist. Join the Brescia Circle
and any other affiliated group, and report to me
every day. The older members may be suspicious
of you, and they ll probably follow you, so we had
46 THROTTLED
better arrange when you are to telephone and
I ll let you know whenever and wherever I want
to see you." We discussed every possible angle
of the work in order to anticipate and forestall
whatever accident either of omission or commis
sion might occur to make Polignani s position
suspicious. He was instructed to call me by tele
phone at certain hours, using a private number,
telephoning from a public pay-station in a store in
which there was not more than one booth, so that
no one might follow him and hear his conversa
tion through the flimsy walls of a booth adjoin
ing. He was to deport himself in a retiring man
ner, and to throw himself earnestly into the part
he was to act. I felt sure that his quiet, agreeable
nature would disarm any suspicion of him as a
newcomer, and that complete concentration upon
the spirit of the masquerade would gradually draw
out important information. First and foremost,
he was to be on the watch for evidence of the man
who had committed the two bomb outrages in
October; secondly, he was to cover the activities
and intentions of the anarchists in general; thirdly,
he was to keep his eyes and ears open and his
mouth shut, and to deal with any emergency which
might arise.
It often happens in fiction that a man journeys
Copyright, by International News Se
Carmine and Carbone in Court
PLAYING WITH FIRE 47
to a far country and somewhere on the voyage
sheds his identity like an old suit of clothes to
proceed through years of adventure as another
individual; in the movies it is no feat at all for a
girl to disguise herself as a man and hoodwink
the rest of the actors through several hundred
feet of film; but it remained for a New York de
tective to discard his name and his associations
for six months, and without once stirring outside
his jurisdiction, without any diguise, and without
miraculous power, to add to the records and
consequently to the efficiency -of his depart
ment a store of information of one of the most
troublesome groups of anarchists in the United
States.
He bade his little family in the Bronx good-
by, got employment at manual labor in a Long
Island City factory, and hired a cheap room at
1907 Third Avenue. Throughout November he
attended meetings of the Brescia Circle, listening
to bitter speeches full of wild plans to overthrow
the government, and the organized church, and
getting the lay of the land. To such members as
chose to speak to him he was courteous and
friendly, but they were not many. The more im
portant members had a way of gathering in cor
ners and whispering to each other, and the new
48 THROTTLED
member was not invited to join the charmed innei
circle. So he held his peace, and memorized
names and faces, and presently his opportunity
came.
Polignani had noticed on November 30 a young
Italian cobbler, named Carbone, who seemed to
have influence in the Circle, and he confirmed this
judgment on the next two Sunday evenings as
he saw Carbone in whispered conversation with
Frank Mandese and one Campanielli. The next
Sunday night the same trio was in star-chamber
session when a good-natured wrestling match
started in another part of the room, and Carbone
turned to watch it. Polignani was tossing vari
ous members to the floor, and as he was smooth
ing his ruifled hair after a short bout, Carbone
tapped him on the shoulder and said, " You re a
strong fellow I m glad to see you a member of
the Brescia Circle! " The detective smiled, and
the two fell into conversation, which continued as
they left the society s rooms and strolled up Third
Avenue.
" The trouble with those fellows," said Car-
bone, " is that they talk too much and don t act
enough. They don t accomplish anything."
" That s right," Polignani agreed.
" What they ought to do is throw a few bombs
PLAYING WITH FIRE 49
and show the police something," Carbonc con
tinued. Wake them up ! Look - " he held up
the stumps of five fingers of his right hand " I
got that making a bomb. Some day I ll show you
how to make em."
That arrangement suited Polignani perfectly.
He had a lead, after tedious " watchful waiting,"
which had been punctuated by the explosion of a
mysterious bomb at the door of the Bronx County
Court House on November n. He had listened
to reams of oratory against the ruling classes,
law, order and the churches, had heard his fellow
members chided because the bombs at St. Patrick s
and St. Alphonsus had been too weak, and had
heard speakers advise any members who con
templated the use of dynamite not to take too
many people into their confidences. Carbone was
deliberately confiding in " Baldo," and the de
tective made up his mind to cultivate him.
This extract from his notebook will illustrate
how the acquaintance ripened:
" I did not see Carbone again until Sunday the
27th. On this day he spoke to me of a friend
named Frank and said that if all anarchists were
like his friend they would be all right. He
thinks nothing of making and throwing a bomb.
On January ist about 1.45 P.M. Carbone met
me as per appointment. We went to where the
50 THROTTLED
meeting of the unemployed was being held and
both of us shook hands with Louise Berg, Man-
dese, and Bianco. . . . He introduced me to his
friend Frank. . . ."
Enter the third conspirator, Frank Abarno, 25
years old, and a native of San Velle, Italy. Al
most on the heels of his introduction to the promis
ing new member, the new member began to take
a new interest in life, for on January 3 Car-
bone drew Polignani out of the meeting after the
speeches and said quietly, " Come on up to the
1 25th Street Station. It s warm up there, and
we won t be bothered. Til tell you something
about making bombs." And on the way up Lex
ington Avenue Carbone explained that he needed
some caps about two inches long. All the dyna
mite he wanted he could get from his uncle, a con
tractor " out in the country." :< We ll get some
dynamite, and then you and Frank and me will
blow up some churches, see? "
" Sure," the detective answered. " What
church?"
" St. Patrick s is the best. This time it ll be a
good one too not like before."
" Did you hear what Mandese was saying the
other night? " Polignani asked. " He was scrap
ping with another fellow and the fellow says, 4 If
PLAYING WITH FIRE 51
they wouldn t give me no work I d throw bombs.
And Mandese said to him, The only kind of
bombs you shoot are the kind you shoot with your
mouth, and he says, * What kind of bombs do
you shoot then? And Mandese says, The kind
that went off at Madison Square and the two
churches, see ! "
Carbone apparently did not care for the re
sults of the previous explosions, for he said:
" Well, they were no good. That bomb that
killed Carron and Berg and Hansen wasn t made
right. It was wound too tight that s why it
went off too soon. I can make a bomb from a
brass ball off a bed-post that will start some
thing."
A fortnight passed, and Carbone turned up at
the Brescia meeting-place in company with Abarno.
They beckoned to Polignani and the three walked
down Third Avenue, Abarno mouthing anarchy,
and suddenly suggesting that he would like to
go into St. Patrick s, find Cardinal Farley alone,
and choke him to death. The gentle soul then
remarked: " Carbone, you make some bombs! "
" If I can get those caps I ll make a bomb that
will destroy the Cathedral clear down to the
ground, but if I can t get the caps then I ll have to
make the other kind."
52 THROTTLED
" Well, you make two bombs," said Abarno.
" We ll set them off on the outside of the church
about six o clock some morning and then we can
get away clean and get to work on time and no
body will know the difference."
Carbone asked Abarno to get him some sulphur,
and turned to Polignani a slip pencilled, " Col-
lorate di Potase, i Ib." and " Andimonio."
" You get that at a drug store, Baldo," he said.
" Baldo " complied, and a few weeks later the
materials were assembled. Carbone instructed
Polignani to call on Abarno for a booklet on
bomb manufacture, and about six in the evening of
February 4 Abarno gave the detective the
pamphlet to read while he went out to get some
spaghetti, as the two had an appointment with
Carbone at 7.30. Polignani was hardly out of
Abarno s sight when he sprinted to a telephone
and called me. I met him at once, at head
quarters, and turned the booklet over to the pho
tographer, who got to work immediately pho
tographing the pages. Our time was short, and
before we had the job done I had to restore the
book to Polignani. On Lincoln s Birthday Car-
bone gave the book to our man again, to study, and
this gave us time to finish the photographic copy
ing.
ISTRUMENTI
Una bilancia usata L. 8.
tin termometro ; ,, 2.50
Misure . . . ; . ....,, 3.
Matracci di vetro ,, 5.
Tre imbuti di vetro e tre bacchette
di vetro ..-.....,, 2.
Lampada a spirito ,, i. -
Un mastello di leguo di 30 o 35 litri ,, 3.
Spese varie e impreviste . . . ,, 20-50
TOTALE L. 46.
Racconiandiamo a coloro che si vogliono
mettere a questi lavon, di procurarsi prima
di tutto il denaro necessario; altrimenti arri-
schiano di doversi fermare a mezza strada,
di tirar le cose in lungo ed esporsi inutilmente.
Racconiandiamo agli stessi di non trascu-
rare nessuna delle precauzioni necessarie per
non attirare 1 attenzione della polizia, di non
mettersi in vista colla propaganda pubblica,
di non farsi vedere coi compagni conosciuti,
e di non lavorare mai nelle case soggette ad
essere perquisite.
Sopratutto raccomandiamo non mettersi a
fabbricare esplosivi per il gusto di fabbricarli.
Tutto ci6 che si pu6 avere bello e fatto, e
inutile, e stupido il volerlo fare da se, quando
turn si ha la pratica ed i mezzi che hanno
quelli del mestiere. Nei posti in cui si pud
avere la dinamite e oggi la si pub avere
quasi dappertutto perche mettersi a fab-
bricarla?
Bisogna poi che fra i doversi esplosivi, le
diverse bombe, ecc., ognuno scelga le cose
che per lui sono piu facili e piu pratiche ri-
cordaudosi sempre che: E meglio una cosa
piccola fatta, che una grande restata in
proposito.
13
stessa: si legano bene con fil di ferro intorno
alia rotaia, si mette capsula e miccia, si co-
pre con terra e la mina e pronta. Questa
produce una rottura di mezzo metro Per
avere rotture piu estese non v e che prepa-
rare parecchie di queste mine, a debita di-
stanza e munirle di miccie di eguali qualita
e lunghezza; e raccogliere insieme i capi delle
miccie,, in modo che dando f uc~o alle miccie
10 scoppio e contemporaneo in tutti i punti.
Spesso e vantaggioso per far saltare gli SCAM-
BII, cioe i punti dove s incrociano diverse
linee. Per mettere f uori d uso una locomo-
tiva o una macchina a vapore qualsiasi, ba-
sta far scoppiare 3 o 4 petardi in un tubo
interne della caldaia.
BOMBE
Sono recipient! di metallo pieni di materia
esplosiva, che scoppiando si rompono in pezzi
e feriscono i circostanti. Possono avere qua-
lunque forma, ma la sferica e piu efficace.
Per farle scoppiare si pu6 adoperare una cap
sula con miccia che brucia rapidissimameute
tanto da aver giusto il tempo per accenderle
e lanciarle. Si pu6 anche applicant tutto a
1 intorno dei luminelli con capsufle o altri ap-
parati, in modp che per 1 urto della caduta il
fulminato scoppi e faccia scoppiare la carica
della bomba, come in quelle all Orsini.
La bomba fa tanto piu effetto quauto piu
11 metallo e resistente, sempre che la carica
abbia la forza di farla scoppiare. Quindi il
miglior metallo e il ferro o 1 acciaio, poi il
rame, 1 ottone, il bronzo, quindi la ghisa ed
infine lo zinco solo o legato con stagno; il
piombo non serve. Lo SPESSORE DELLE PA-
39
P^ges from the bomb-thrower s textbook
PLAYING WITH FIRE 53
I realized when I saw the translation how Car-
bone knew so much about making bombs.
" La Salute e in voi ! " read the cover, or
" Health is in you!" Evidently a toast to the
brotherhood for which it was prepared. It was
a pamphlet of some sixty pages, measuring about
four by eight inches, and cleanly printed in Ital
ian. It was nothing less than a text-book on how
to go about making bombs a sort of guide to
anarchist etiquette. It would be unwise to re
produce its instructions here in detail, as they
were too accurate for the general peace, but the
index which follows will give a conception of the
thoroughness with which the anonymous writers
in far-off Italy covered their subject.
" Index
First principles I
Instruments 7
Manipulation . ., 8!
Explosive material 1 1
Powder 14
Nitroglycerine . . . .-. 14
Dynamite . t 20
Fulminate of mercury 23
Gun cotton . 27
Preparation of fuses ........ 31
Capsule and petard 34
Application of explosive mate
rials i u. 35
54 THROTTLED
Bombs . 39
Incendiary materials 44 "
Yes, it was accurate and very practical. To
quote from its advice to struggling anarchists :
44 We recommend most earnestly that if you
wish to engage in this line of work, you procure,
before all else, a sufficient amount of money,
otherwise you risk being put out in the middle of
the street, only to find your long work and trouble
all in vain. We recommend at the same time
that you do not omit any precaution necessary
to avoid attracting the attention of the police,
and avoid mixing with the public, nor be seen with
known companions. And do not work at it in
the house except when necessary. . . .
44 The work should be done in a well ventilated
room provided with a good chimney place and
furnished in such a way that you can hide things
if anyone enters, and this room ought to be on the
top floor of the house on account of the odors
that are always being produced. . . .
44 Above all we recommend that you never make
explosives for the mere pleasure of making them.
All you do beyond enough is useless and stupid
especially so when you have neither the prac
tice nor the proper means for making them. As
to the place to keep the dynamite, why make it
until it is needed? Take heed that among the
various kinds of explosives, bombs, etc., always
choose the one that will be most easily used and
PLAYING WITH FIRE 55
most practical, remembering always that it is
better to do a little thing well than to leave a big
thing half done. . . ."
The little booklet contained a list of the neces
sary tools with their estimated costs, and said of
the chemicals to be used, " The materials to be
employed should be sufficiently pure. They may
be had of dealers in chemical and pharmaceutical
products, and it is well not to buy all the stuff from
the same merchant, in order that he may not
know what you wish to make. . . ." It explained
the relative forces of explosives in this way:
" The relative force which the various explosives
have is as follows: Shot-gun powder has a force
of i ; an equal amount of Panclastite has the
force of 6; of dynamite 7; of dry gun-cotton 9
(if with 50% of salts of nitre, 5) ; of nitroglycer
ine 9; of fulminate of mercury 10 or 3^; of
nitromannite n. . . . All the other explosives of
which we speak, such as melenite, etc., have ni
troglycerine for their bases, therefore have no
greater force than that of nitroglycerine."
After an exposition of the method of making
nitroglycerine the mere reading of which would
make your hair bristle the compilers conclude
". . . it is not very dangerous to use when cold,
notwithstanding all that has been said. It would
56 THROTTLED
be a great work if some American manufacturer
would devise some means of congealing it so that
it would be less sensitive to shock, so that it
might safely be carried on the railways. " Of
fulminating cotton they remark, " As it ignites
with instantaneous rapidity it is best to use a fuse
that burns the most quickly; for example, when
for use in bombs made to throw at a person, it
will be enough to twist the cord, etc., etc." Mi
nute directions are given for the home-laboratory
manufacture of the explosives listed, and the
experimenter who cared to attempt their manu
facture was warned in the simplest and most
emphatic terms of the caprices of the different
materials. He was told how to make cord-fuses
that would burn at the rate of 8 hours to the
yard, and of 6 hours to the yard; paper fuses
which would reach the explosive two hours after
a spark had touched the corner of a sheet of
prepared paper; thread fuses which would sparkle
fifteen seconds to the metre, or three minutes to
the metre; and, finally, an instantaneous fuse
which " Because it will burn with all the speed of
electricity . . . may be made to serve many im
portant purposes: to fire a mine under a passing
train, under gatherings, or troops of cavalry."
If the bomber wished to blow up a wall, he
PLAYING WITH FIRE 57
was told how to compute by simple mathematics
the quantity of explosive required. A bridge
" will require twice the charge needed for a wall "
and the vulnerable points of the bridge were
indicated. Telephone and telegraph poles and
wires, street gratings, street railways, locomo
tives, steam-boilers, all came in for their share
of attention. u It is very easy to find suitable
receptacles for bombs," the writer went on.
" For example, large inkwells, brass handles such
as are used on letter-presses. . . . For certain
purposes a bottle may be made to serve as a bomb
they are suitable for throwing from a window.
. . . Fragile glass bottles when filled with this
solution (an incendiary mixture) make handy
incendiary bombs to hurl among troops, official
gatherings, etc. ; also to pour from windows upon
troops, or to throw from a drinking glass or
pail. . . ." I have wondered whether Gavrio
Prinzip of Sarajevo ever saw this book, and
whether it may not have been translated into Ital
ian from the original German.
Mere possession of this wicked treatise would
suggest that the owner was up to no good, espe
cially if the owner, as in this case, was known to
be a volatile member of an anarchistic circle who
had already declared his intentions of wrecking
58 THROTTLED
something. It was reasonable to assume that
there must be such a book of instruction in ex
istence, that the bombers had not been handling
delicate explosives with no better knowledge than
word-of-mouth, hearsay chemistry, but I am free
to confess that my first sight of the pamphlet
brought the plots of the men we were watching
very close to grim reality. I never knew just
when we would get an ambulance call and have
to go and pick Polignani out of the wreck of
a premature explosion, and I never heard him
report in on the telephone that I didn t experi
ence a momentary apprehension of his latest news.
The detective himself was calm enough, and en
thusiastic over the fact that the trail was grow
ing hotter all the time. The question of evidence
of the previous explosions was in the background
now, and the activities of the Brescia Circle as a
political unit did not concern us nearly as much
as the activities of three of its members with their
" andimonio, collorate di potase " and their
pamphlet, and their hatred of the Catholic
Church.
Polignani had seen this hatred demonstrated
many times by Carbone. They passed two Sis
ters of Charity one chilly evening near the Harlem
station, and the anarchist spat, and cursed them.
PLAYING WITH FIRE 59
So the detective was not surprised by Abarno s
proposal on the night of St. Valentine s Day that
the three conspirators plant their bombs in St.
Patrick s Cathedral. " We ll go over there some
day soon and look for a good place to set them.
And then we ll plant the bomb on some good
holiday say on March 21, eh?"
" What s that day?" Polignani inquired.
" The Commune!" Abarno answered.
Polignani bought the antimony and the chlorate
of potash, and at a subsequent meeting watched
uneasily while Carbone tried to pulverize the anti
mony with a hammer. It was too hard work,
however, and " Baldo " was directed to buy a
small quantity of the pulverized substance. This
he did. The three had meanwhile been trying
to pick out a good room in an English-speaking
lodging house in 2gth Street, but finally gave it
up and hired a furnished room at 1341 Third
Avenue. There they brought their materials, con
sisting of twelve yards of copper wire, a trunk
full of odds and ends, tools, fuse cord, and vari
ous ingredients. To this supply they wanted to
add some hollow iron balls, but the hollow iron
ball market was sparse, and they finally substi
tuted three tin hand-soap cans. On February 27
Polignani and Abarno made a tour of inspection
6a THROTTLED
of St. Patrick s, and as they were descending the
steps Abarno remarked that when he had de
stroyed the Cathedral they would turn their at
tention first to the Carnegie residence at goth
Street and Fifth Avenue, and then to the Rocke
feller home. u We won t wait till March 21,"
he observed impatiently. " Let s get this job
done soon. Say Tuesday morning."
High noon of the following day saw the three
plotters cheerfully at work in the furnished room.
Abarno and Carbone measured carefully the pro
portions of sulphur, sugar, chlorate of potash and
antimony; Carbone filled the tins with the mixture,
and led the fuses into the heart of the mass,
glancing up from time to time to the detective
with real pride, as if to say: " See, Baldo?
That s how an expert works!" "Baldo" had
contributed his share of the materials a few
lengths of iron rod. Carbone bound these to the
outside of the cans with cord, and added a few
bolts which he found in a bureau drawer, and a
coat-hanger, twisted out of shape. Round and
round this shapeless tangle of metal he wove
copper wire, and so produced two heavy, compact
bombs. Polignani had grown almost gray when,
after boring the fuse holes in the can-tops, Car-
bone casually picked up a hammer and began to
>Att<j
A postcard received by Commissioner Woods after the arrest
of the Anarchists
The message reads :
"MR. WOODS
My Dear Sir
Your police Espionage may go as far as you like for the promotion of
your Bankrupt Law & Order of Society. The Anarchists of New York
have but one Life to give for the Ideal of Humanity and absolute Freedom
of mankind the world over, yours The Society for the Propagation of
absolute Liberty and Human Freedom. . ."
PLAYING WITH FIRE 61
tattoo the cans. The detective promptly took
refuge behind the bed, near the floor.
" No use to hide there, Baldo ! " This with a
laugh from Carbone. " If she goes off she ll blow
the whole house down. How s that, Frank? "
he added, showing the finished product to Abarno.
44 I ll throw that one and you can throw the
other, Carbone," Abarno said. " Now listen.
We will meet here Tuesday morning at six o clock
to the minute. We will get to the Cathedral just
at 6. 20. Then we ll light the bombs, and the fuses
will burn slow for twenty minutes, so as we can
get over to the Madison Avenue car and then we
can all get to work on time, and we will have a
good alibi all right. Then we ll get together
Tuesday night and go some place and have a good
time to celebrate throwing a scare into Fifth
Avenue, boys ! Tuesday morning, six o clock
sharp?"
Carbone and Polignani assented, and Abarno
left.
Polignani kept in close touch with me from
that moment forward. Ever since the day when
Carbone had sent him to the drug store for black
antimony, with instructions to bribe the drug clerk
if he could not easily obtain it, we had had a
double check on the conspirators, for I had as-
62 THROTTLED
signed two men to shadow them constantly. The
case was building towards a climax. Polignani
had shrewdly kept the slip on which Carbone
wrote the prescription for the explosives, and when
Carbone asked where it was he said, " I tore it
up. I didn t want it to be found on me. It
would get me into trouble." The anarchist
praised the detective for his forethought. The
two men from the Bomb Squad never let Abarno
and Carbone out of their sight, so that for a
month we had not only the direct evidence of
Polignani of what the conspirators said and did
in his presence, but evidence from the two shadows
which accounted for their time more fully, prob
ably, than they could have recalled themselves.
And so when Polignani who did not know he
was being observed told me of the final plans,
I passed the information on to the two shadows,
and we formulated a counter-campaign for Tues
day morning.
Shortly after sunrise on Tuesday, Polignani
tumbled out of bed and into his clothes. He ate
a hasty and nervous breakfast at a cheap lunch
room around the corner, and hurried to the side
walk before 1341 Third Avenue, arriving a
few minutes after six. Abarno joined him at
6.30.
PLAYING WITH FIRE 63
" Where s Carbone isn t he here?" he said
by way of greeting.
"No," replied " Baldo."
u Well, we can t wait for him. We can t lose
any time. I got to be at work at 7.30. Come up
and get the bombs with me. We ll probably meet
him on the way down the street. Or maybe he s
at the shoe-shop."
The two men went upstairs and into the third-
floor-back. " Give me the key," Abarno mut
tered. Polignani did so. Abarno opened the
trunk and took out the two bombs. 4 You take
one and I ll take the other," he whispered.
u Come on. Put it under your coat."
When they started down Third Avenue the
two shadows who had also risen early disen
gaged themselves from the doorways where they
were idling and proceeded at an even pace down
the Avenue behind the men. A few hundred
yards or so in the rear of the procession was a
limousine, and I was in the limousine. I could
spot the men distinctly, and I had to chuckle when
I saw them catch sight of a uniformed officer a
block or so ahead and hastily cross the street.
The same thing occurred twice again in the course
of the march. Our parade continued. No one
but ourselves paid any attention to the two labor-
64 THROTTLED
ers who were carrying lumpy bundles under their
coats.
At Fifty-third Street my chauffeur turned west
and slipped into high speed. We were at the
Cathedral in a minute more, and I jumped out and
hurried into the vestibule. No one there but three
or four scrub-women, puttering around in the half-
light with their mops and pails. Several hundred
worshippers were already gathered in the front of
the nave, where Bishop Hayes was conducting
early mass. As I passed into the body of the
church there was no one near except an elderly
usher, with white hair and beard. I stepped into
a dark corner and waited.
A matter of two or three minutes passed, though
it seemed much longer. Then I saw Abarno and
Polignani enter the vestibule, cross it and enter
the church itself, taking their cigars out of their
mouths as they turned towards the north aisle.
Abarno led the way. At the tenth pew he mo
tioned to Polignani to sit there, and Polignani
obeyed, dropping to his knees in prayer. Abarno
continued to the sixth pew ahead. Two of the
scrub-women had deserted their mops, and were
dusting the pews along the north aisle near the
newcomers. Abarno rested for a moment in his
pew, with his head and body bent as if in prayer,
1. Detective George D. Barnitz 2. Detective Patrick Walsh
3. Detective James Sterett
4. Left to right : Patrick Walsh, Jerome Murphy and James Sterett
PLAYING WITH FIRE 65
then rose and rejoined Polignani. Again he rose,
and this time moved toward the north end of the
altar, where he crouched for several seconds, plac
ing his bomb against a great pillar. With his
other hand he flicked the ashes from the coal of
his cigar and touched the glowing end to the
fuse. He had taken perhaps three steps down
the aisle again when the scrub-woman stopped
plying her dust-cloth. She fastened an iron grip
on Abarno s arms and hustled him down the
aisle so swiftly that no one remarked the affair.
The scrub-woman was Detective Walsh, disguised.
The elderly usher passed the two and hurried to
the spot where Abarno had crouched by the pillar.
He saw the lighted fuse and pinched it out with
his fingers. The elderly usher, underneath his
makeup, was Lieutenant Barnitz. Polignani was
promptly placed under arrest and led to the vesti
bule with Abarno for the evidence was not yet
all in.
Abarno immediately suspected Carbone of
treachery. He protested violently that the
missing conspirator had instigated the whole af
fair, that it was his idea, that he had made the
bombs, and that he could be found living with a
Hungarian-Jewish family on the fourth floor of
a house at 216 East 6?th Street. He was fluent
66 THROTTLED
in the accusations he made against Carbone, and
he grew more fluent as he recovered from the
fright of his arrest. So while we escorted the
two bombs and the two prisoners to headquarters,
other members of the Bomb Squad visited Carbone
and placed him under arrest.
From them at headquarters we verified the
story as we already knew it. Each man accused
the other. Both men exonerated Polignani of
any part in suggesting the plot or in making the
bombs for several days after their arrest. But
Polignani s true identity could not be unknown to
them indefinitely, of course, and when they found
out that they had been confiding in a full-fledged
detective ah, then the storm broke ! Prompted,
I suspect, by pseudo-legal advice, they cried
" Frame-up I " until they grew hoarse, but it was
too late, for in the possession of Assistant Dis
trict Attorney Arthur Train w r as already a sworn
statement which fixed their guilt by their own
confession.
The anarchists rushed to their rescue, but their
efforts were chiefly verbal. At the Brescia Circle,
and at I. W. W. headquarters at 64 East 4th
Street, it was common gossip that counsel for the
defendants were going to supply 45 or 50 wit
nesses to swear that Polignani had invited them to
1. The Dagger Threat to Polignani
2. The Black Hand Threat 3. Frank Abarno
4. Carmine Carbone
PLAYING WITH FIRE 67
make bombs. This I had enjoined him strictly
not to do, as a newcomer who talks bombs is a
suspicious character in anarchist circles. I know
he obeyed. There was organized a " Carbone ed
Abarno Defence Committee " with headquarters
at 2205 Third Avenue, which solicited other neigh
boring Italian clubs with anarchistic tendencies
for support of the two. Polignani s photograph
appeared presently in a New York Italian news
paper with this caption:
" The filthy carrion w r ho by order of the Police
of New York devised the bomb plot which led up
to the arrest of Abarno and Carbone, now before
the Courts. All of us comrades will keep this in
mind."
He received several threatening anonymous let
ters, some bearing the familiar u black hand,"
others sketching on newspaper photographs of
him the point in his anatomy at which he might
expect to feel the dagger of revenge; others mere
bombastic defiance. (The anonymous letter-
writer is very often a courageous soul who spells
out his messages with letters and words clipped
from newspapers, so that his handwriting will
not betray him.)
What was the reward of those five months in
vested in patience? The two prisoners con-
68 THROTTLED
victed and sentenced to terms of from six to twelve
years, was one result But a far greater one was
a sharp decrease in bomb-throwing in New York,
and perhaps the most gratifying was the discord
which grew in the Brescia Circle. The group
was frightened, and the members began to sus
pect each other of espionage. One former
anarchist was quoted as saying that he wouldn t
even trust himself he had been dreaming the
night before that he was a spy. The Brescia
Circle became disorganized, and several other
similar groups in the city suffered the same fate.
Their leaders drifted away and got into more
trouble, as we shall see later.
We never found the original of the treatise on
bombs. Carbone said he had destroyed it. But
there are probably other copies from the same
press in the hands of accredited bomb-throwers.
If not, they may apply to the New York police
department.
IV
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES
Bret Harte said that " the heathen Chinee "
was peculiar. The British have learned long
since that the Hindu, being an Oriental, cannot
help being equally " peculiar," and it is a great
tribute to British persistence that it has labored
so hard and so successfully in the good govern
ment of a people so temperamentally complex.
They have studied the Hindu, and have under
stood him as well as may be. Understanding
him they have watched him. When war broke
out, this great Oriental empire presented to
Britain a grave problem, for as a Hindu editor
in the United States phrased it, " England is
Germany s enemy. England is our enemy. Our
enemy s enemy is our friend."
It is not in my intention or power to discuss the
methods which England employed to maintain
strict loyalty in the Indian peninsula, but to out
line here the part we played in uncovering a plot
69
yo THROTTLED
which threatened seriously to complicate her ef
forts around on the other side of the earth.
Scotland Yard told us in February, 1917, that
Hindus were conspiring in bomb plots with cer
tain Germans in the United States. If it was
true, it was against the laws of our country. They
supplied us with a few names, but tactfully sug
gested that inasmuch as it was our country and
our laws which the plotters were attempting to
disturb, we would prefer to develop the case
ourselves. Various authorities in this country had
already had strong suspicions of the British
claims, but as yet those suspicions had not grown
to proof of any specific act. So we went to
work.
Among other names which were furnished us
was that of one Chakravarty, whose address was
364 West i2Oth Street, New York. For more
than a fortnight men of the Bomb Squad under
Mr. (now Lieut-Col.) Nicholas Biddle, as spe
cial aid to the commissioner, watched that house.
They hired a room opposite, where through a
slit in the window shade they could keep the door
way under observation. At the hours when work
ing New York leaves its home to make money,
and comes home at night having made it, the
door was rarely used, but sometimes at mid-
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 71
forenoon, sometimes in the small hours of the
morning, the men on watch saw several dark-
skinned individuals pass in and out of the house.
The building itself gave no sign of suspicious ac
tivity. We were on the brink of war, and as
was the case in most of the other houses in the
block, an American flag hung draped in the front
window. What went on behind the camouflage
screen we did not know. Now and then our men,
hiding in the shadow of the areaway, would go
quietly up into the dark doorway and listen, but
the house never gave out a sound. There was
certainly no indication that these Hindus were
conspiring with the Imperial German Government
in dynamite plots.
We knew certain East Indians who could be de
pended upon, and told them to call upon Chak-
ravarty. This ruse failed because Chakravarty
never presented to the callers anything but a guile
less reception. So far as they could learn his
occupation was that of manufacturer of pills; he
and a certain Ernest Sekunna constituted the Omin
Company, which company packed in aluminum
boxes and sold to a limited clientele pills which
like most patent remedies were recommended for
any ailment from indigestion up or down if
the pill sold, then it was a success. This news did
72 THROTTLED
not quiet our impatience, and we decided on a
raid.
On the night of March 7, 1917, Detectives
Barnitz, Coy, Randolph, Murphy, Jenkins, Walsh,
Sterett and Fenelly called at the house, Sterett,
pretending to be a messenger, and carrying a
dummy package, presenting himself at the front
door, and the rest of the party covering other
avenues of escape. The portal was opened by a
little Hindu who looked up innocently to Sterett
and said that Dr. Chakravarty was not in he
had gone to Boston. The detectives announced
their intention of searching the house. The little
man protested, and was given certain short rea
sons why the search was in order. Surprise, in
jured innocence, and irritation crossed his olive-
drab face, and he announced that he was a patri
otic American and that he had never done anything
to break the laws of the United States. If we
wanted Dr. Chakravarty, he said, we should go
and get him, and not disturb a peaceful household
in this way, and he added that Chakravarty had
left for New England months before, leaving no
address. In this the little Hindu was borne out
by the answers which the other occupant of the
house gave to our questions this was Sekunna, a
German of thirty-five or so. We searched the
te.i
rfr
<")? r-VfT br E f? ^ S?rl
^P F fe hr ^ I*" FT Jr fc
||%^|^1
fc
fex
"y
&
IfT d
I
I
*&ir
3 o o
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 73
house, and took the two prisoners and considerable
material to headquarters.
The search disclosed a supply of literature of
the Omin Company describing the properties of
its pills, a photograph of Sekunna and Chakra-
varty as the turbaned benefactors of an unhealthy
world, and a number of express money-order re
ceipts, deeds and a bank book which showed the
missing Chakravarty to be one who had acquired
a good deal of money during the past two years.
The photograph on closer inspection revealed that
the little prisoner was Dr. Chakravarty himself.
Sekunna verified this, and Chakravarty, con
fronted by it, admitted it.
We asked the prisoner how he had suddenly
come by the $60,000 which his books showed.
He said that it was his inheritance from the
estate of his grandfather in India, and that no
less a personage than Rabindranath Tagore, the
Indian poet, had paid him, in December, 1916,
$25,000 of the $45,000 due from the estate.
About $35,000 had been given him, he added, by
a lawyer named Chatterji, from Pegu, Burma, in
March, 1916.
So far as he gave us his history, it related
that he had graduated from the University of
Calcutta, and had lived for a time in London, and
74 THROTTLED
later in Paris, before coming to the United States.
He had heard that there was a warrant out for
his arrest in India for sedition, probably due, he
suggested, to his having written several articles
on the subject of British Rule.
" Have you been to Germany recently ?" I
asked.
" Of course not," he answered. " How could
I get there, with the British watching for me?
They would arrest me if I tried to go. Why do
you ask that? "
" Because I wanted to know," I answered. I
had good reason to believe that he had been there
because among his effects we found several ex
hibits which pointed toward such a trip. A letter
from a woman in Florida dated December 13,
1915, said:
" I would never for one moment try to deter
you from the effort or achievement of your lofty
ideals and noble aims, for in this as in many other
things my spirit accords with yours. Brother
dear, do nothing, say nothing, trust nobody, with
out extreme caution. God speed you. God
hasten your return to those who are interested in
you, and in all in which you are interested. Bless
you, precious brother."
This indicated a journey, clearly. A cablegram
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 75
dated Bergen, Norway, Dec. 23, 1915, addressed
to Sekunna, read, u Safe arrival here," and took
him as far as the Continent, at least. Three post
cards supplied the rest of the information; they
were addressed by Sekunna to himself at a Berlin
address, and bore the instructions, " Return to
Sender, E. A. Sekunna, Omin Company, 417 E.
I42nd Street, New York City "; postmarked Ber
lin in December and January, they suggested
that Chakravarty had used them as part of a
pre-arranged system of communication with
America in which he did not wish his own name
used.
I found among the papers a photographic print
of Chakravarty wearing a fez, which I knew was
not an orthodox head-dress for a Bengalese.
Furthermore, it struck me that the print was of
the size and finish usually used on passports for
identification of the bearer. I showed it to him,
with the remark:
4 Why do you tell me you haven t been in Ber
lin, when you used this photograph so you could
get a passport as a Persian? "
He bit. u I see you got me," he replied. " I
lied to you. I want to tell you a different story
the real one. I did go to Germany."
"Why?"
76 THROTTLED
" To see Wesendonck. He is a secretary for
India of the German foreign office. He wanted
to make plans for propaganda for the liberation
of India from British rule."
Chakravarty sat there and unfolded an amaz
ing story. He touched gingerly upon his own
part in it at first, then evidently sensed the fact
that there were others in the plot guilty of per
haps no less reprehensible but more violent
crimes, and the little doctor s capture and con
fession not only gave clues to the authorities
which enabled them to follow up the outstanding
German-Hindu plots in America, but developed
prosecutions of the first magnitude and the keen
est general interest.
The enterprises must be recounted out of their
actual sequence. The first he claimed to have had
little part in the project of an uprising in India
which its sponsors hoped would repeat the Mutiny
of 1857 but with a more successful outcome.
Captain Hans Tauscher, the New York agent of
the Krupp steel and munitions works, was in Ber
lin when war broke out. He reported for active
duty to Captain von Papen, in New York, as soon
as he could cross the Atlantic, and one of his
earliest services was the purchase of a large quan
tity of rifles, field guns, swords and cartridges,
1. Franz Schulenberg 2. Ram Chandra
3. Ram Singh (on the left)
4. Dr. Chandra Chakravarty and Dr. Ernest Sekunna
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 77
which he stored in 200 West Houston Street, New
York. On January 9, 1915, he shipped a train-
load of arms and ammunition to San Diego, Cali
fornia. There it was loaded into a little vessel,
the Annie Larsen, which had been chartered by
German interests, and the Annie Larsen put to
sea, ostensibly for Mexico, where revolutionary
arms were in demand. Her real destination was
a rendezvous off Socorro Island with the Maver
ick, a tank-ship which had been bought in San
Francisco with German money. The Maverick
was to trans-ship the arms, flood them with oil in
her cargo tanks in case she might be searched, and
proceed by way of Batavia and Bangkok to Kar
achi, a seaport in India which is the gateway to
the Punjab. There she would be met by friendly
fishing vessels who would land her cargo, and if
all went well, there would be a massacre of the
garrison of Karachi, and hell would break loose
over India. The effect of such an uprising upon
Great Britain s sorely tried military condition of
early 1915 would have been incalculable. The
native troops in France who were helping to stop
the breach until England s great armies could be
trained would have to be recalled, the semi-loyal
tribes would have seen their opportunity, Germany
would hardly have hesitated to throw a Turkish
78 THROTTLED
1
force at the northern passes, and altogether it
would not have been pleasant for the integrity of
the British Empire.
The Maverick and the Annie Larsen missed
connections at Socorro. The Annie Larsen wan
dered about the Pacific for some weeks and eventu
ally put into Hoquiam, Washington, where the
United States seized the arms. The Maverick
blundered from Socorro to San Diego, to Hilo,
Hawaii, to Anjer, Java, by way of Johnson Island,
then to Batavia, Java, where she was received
with disappointment by a German agent and
where she was finally sold. The filibuster ended
in flat and costly failure: the arms cost not less
than $100,000 and probably $150,000, the freight
to the Pacific Coast some $12,000, the charter of
the Annie Larsen $19,000, the purchase of the
Maverick involved hundreds of thousands, not to
mention the individual fees of the numerous agents
employed.
We knew in a general way of this plot, though
it remained for the tireless efforts of United
States District Attorney John W. Preston in San
Francisco to unearth the details. In a raid which
had been made on the office of Wolf von Igel,
von Papen s secretary, at 60 Wall Street, New
York, agents of the Department of Justice had
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 79
found von IgeFs memoranda of correspondence in
arranging the expedition through the San Fran
cisco consulate. But Chakravarty said that the
revolutionary end of the project had been handled
by another Hindu, Ram Chandra, and denied that
he was guilty of any part in it Ram Chandra
had negotiated with the German consuls in Seattle
and San Francisco, and through them with
Tauscher and von Papen. Chakravarty supplied
the names of Hindus who had sailed on the Annie
Larsen, said that there had been Filipinos and
Germans aboard as well, and added that the
Filipinos had been transferred to a German ship,
and had later escaped from her in a motorboat
while she was being pursued by a Japanese cruiser.
But, he said, he had nothing to do with it it
was Ram Chandra who was the real agent.
It was this Ram Chandra who was editor of
the Hindu revolutionary newspaper Ghadr
(Mutiny) published at Berkeley, California. He
succeeded to the editor s chair in 1914 when his
predecessor, Har Dayal, out on bail after an ar
rest for ultra-free speech, had fled across the con
tinent and the Atlantic Ocean to Berlin. There
Dayal established the Hindustani Revolutionary
Committee, collaborating with, taking orders
from, and financed by the German Government,
go THROTTLED
under the direction of Herr Wesendonck of the
Foreign Office. Ten million marks had been
placed to their credit, and German consulates
throughout the neutral world had instructions
through their parent-embassies to render all possi
ble assistance to the revolutionary project, and
to spend whatever money might be necessary,
charging it to the account of the Indian Nationalist
Party. Three hundred thousand dollars was in
vested in China and Java. Hindus were sent
through Persia and Afghanistan into India with
German credit to foster unrest, and Afghanistan
itself was full of spies trying to break the Amir s
promise, given to the British Government at the
outbreak of war, that he would maintain strict neu
trality. It was this same Har Dayal who con
ferred with Chakravarty when the latter made
his visit to Berlin in December, 1915. The rea
son for this visit to Berlin came out very soon, and
that will lead us in turn to the second of the Ger
man-Hindu plots hatched in America,;
Chakravarty got bail from a surety company
without much trouble. Two or three days after
his arrest he called me up on the telephone and
said that a man named Gupta had threatened him.
" He says I must give him $2,000. And there
is another man named Wagel. He is a Hindu.
<fc 2 In 2 Si
i)r&&&
g *j*"o* u
{JltttWW
ta *^ **v ^a. "^ "
<*> ^ N> *>
I \
\ I J * * ^
f&* \ i
> i .1^,
. 1
^
5.
:t^li r n 1
^ X <si c> .(> ^
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 81
He wants $10,000 from me, otherwise he will do
me harm. He already has had $7,000 from the
German Government in Mexico. He has de
manded $20,000,000 of Count von Bernstorff to
finish up the revolution in India."
" Wait a minute, now," I suggested. The fig
ures were going to my head. " Where is
Wagel?"
" I do not know," Chakravarty answered.
"Well, where is Gupta?"
" He is a student at Columbia," replied the lit
tle man.
" All right, doctor," I said, " we ll not let any
harm come to you."
Detectives Coy and Walsh at once got on the
trail of Gupta. They found him in his dormitory
room at 73 Livingston Hall, Columbia, and
brought him to headquarters. " I saw of Chak-
ravarty s arrest in the paper," he said, " and I
thought I might be arrested if he implicated me."
Gupta knew full well he would be arrested, for
there was jealousy between the two, and he went
on to reveal why.
Heramba Lai Gupta was then thirty-two years
old. Since his boyhood in Calcutta he had been
all over the world, and had studied in the United
States. In the spring of 1915 he had several
82 THROTTLED
conferences with Captain von Papcn in the city
in which the military attache conceived such con
fidence in the young Hindu that he gave him $15,-
ooo for expense money and sent him to Chicago
to confer with Gustav Jacobsen, an ex-German
consul. With him went Jodh Singh, another
Hindu who had migrated from Brazil to Berlin
and thence to Captain von Papen, and an art
collector named Albert H. Wehde. They were
joined by George Paul Boehm and a German
named Sterneck, and two plans were arranged.
Gupta, Singh and Wehde were to proceed to
Japan to establish connections and obtain assist
ance for fomenting Indian revolt. Boehm and
Sterneck were to go to the Philippines, pick up
a third plotter, Chakravarty s lawyer-friend
Chatterji, proceed thence to Java to meet two
escaped officers of the destroyed German cruiser
Emden, and thence to the Himalayan hills north
of India, where Dr. Frederick A. Cook, the
Arctic romancer, was on an expedition. There
they were to overpower the Cook party, Boehrn
was to assume the explorer s identity and travel
about the hills spreading sedition among the na
tive tribes. This wild plan failed completely, as
the Germans never kept their appointment in Java.
(Gupta believed in preparedness to the extent of
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 83
taking Boehm to several shooting galleries in
Chicago and practising pistol firing with him.)
Gupta, Singh and Wehde set sail from San
Francisco in the Mongolia and landed in Yoko
hama, September 16, 1915. Gupta immediately
got in touch with various prominent Hindus. Al
though their conferences were enthusiastic and the
prospect of obtaining Japanese arms for the revo
lution was good, his work was hampered by the
discovery on the part of British agents that Gupta
was in Japan. He was notified within a week of
his arrival that he must leave by the next steamer:
the next steamer was bound for Shanghai, a
British port; the order was equal to delivery into
the hands of the British, and death. A Japanese
friend came to his rescue. He took him to his
house, followed by the police. By a subterfuge
the police were distracted long enough to allow
the Hindu to slip out the back door, jump into an
automobile, and flee to the interior of the coun
try. There he was hidden for six months, be
tween the flimsy walls of his friend s house. It
was May of 1916 before he could escape, smug
gled out in an eastbound vessel, and it was June
before he returned to New York. There he
found that the following order had been issued
from Berlin:
84 THROTTLED
" Berlin, February 4, 1916. To the German Em
bassy, Washington.
" In future all Indian affairs are to be exclu
sively handled by the committee to be formed by
Dr. Chakravarty. Dhirendra Sarkar and Her-
ambra Lai Gupta, the latter of whom has mean
while been expelled from Japan, thus cease to be
representatives of the Indian Independence Com
mittee existing here.
"( Signed) ZIMMERMANN."
Gupta, in short, found himself displaced. His
expedition had been a failure. Chakravarty had
had his job for nearly six months. He tried to
negotiate with Chakravarty for a restoration of
some of his lost prestige, but the little man would
not have much to do with him. In January, 1917,
the French secret service intercepted at the Swiss
border a letter postmarked New York, Novem
ber 1 6, 1916, and addressed as follows:
" Mr. Albourge
" Hotel Des Alpas
" Territel
" Montreau, Switzerland."
The letter was in cipher, and was seized and re
turned to French agents in the United States, and
by them turned over to the American authori
ties for investigation, at about the time when
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 85
diplomatic relations were broken off with Ger
many. Search here disclosed little. The letter
was typewritten, and the only clue to its message
was a hint suggested by a sub-address on the back
of the envelope:
"Mr. Chatterjee"
who was apparently a Hindu. (This, by the way,
was the same Chatterji who persists in cropping
up in the wings of this story from time to time).
Now there is no " Hotel Des Alpas " in Mon-
treux; the name of the inn referred to is the
u Hotel des Alpes." Again, the name " Terri-
tel " was apparently a misspelling of u Territet,"
and " Montreau " probably meant " Montreux."
When we captured Gupta we found in a memo
randum book not only the address cited above, but
the same misspellings pretty conclusive proof
that he was the author of the letter. This ad
dress was later found with the same misspellings,
in the mailing list of Ghadr, the revolutionary
paper published in California. Thus little errors
combined to forge important links.
The code of the Gupta letter was a popular and
scholarly volume by an American author: Price
Collier s " Germany and the Germans," published
in New York in 1913. The letter was so written
86 THROTTLED
that the words which contained the meat of each
sentence were carefully enciphered. The letter
said, for example:
"... I do
not believe there
are very many men
including
98-5-2
98-1-1
98-1-9
98-4-1
98-5-8
98-3-3
" Who can show much
better results a-
long the line of
97-1-3
97-i-n
97-6-5
97-8-4
132-1-1
" Undertook "
Turning to page 98 of " Germany and the Ger
mans," we see that the second letter of the fifth
line is b; the first letter of the first line is h; the
ninth letter of the first line is u; the first letter of
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 87
the fourth line is p; the eighth in the fifth line is e;
and the third in the third line n. Sum total:
B-h-u-p-e-n a Hindu name. On page 97, the
first few lines read:
" am willing to concede that perhaps even an em
peror
has been baptized with the blood of the martyrs,
and feels himself to be in all sincerity the instru
ment
of God; if we are to understand this one, we
must
admit so much.
" In certain . . ." etc.
Thus 9713 is w, 97111 is o, 9765 is r,
97-8-4 is K; total w-o-r-k. 132-1-1 is 7. Our
translation reads therefore:
"I do not believe that there are very many men
including Bhupen, who can show much better
results along the line of work I undertook"
Four columns to the typewritten page it ran on
over seven sheets of foolscap, and wound up with
a plea in plain English which showed that Gupta
was angry:
" Seems no action taken yet. If want work,
change methods completely. I insist the man in
charge is not only useless but spoiling the work;
88 THROTTLED
important workers wasting time for want of co
operation and funds while that man is squandering
money. Do not care what you decide, I inform
you as it is my duty but you don t seem to pay any
attention. This is my last warning for the cause.
Again I appeal to you to think more seriously and
not spoil the work by leaving it in the hands of
irresponsible and insane person. I again tell you
that no one is willing to work with him because he
does not understand anything, secondly he spends
money in a ridiculous way, thirdly he does not do
any work. Think seriously and reply."
In order to show why Gupta was upset and also
in passing to show how innocently he had coded his
letter, we shall quote it in full, with those words
in italics which had to be decoded months later:
" Dear Chatto: Am back from Japan. Had
lots trouble. Thakur, real name Rash Behari
Ghose, splendid worker in India still in Japan.
Sent report twice, besides messages through Ger
man sources. Went to Japan as planned. Am
surprised to hear from Tarak you said I had no
right to go to Japan. See my reports submitted
to the committee. Before leaving Berlin Shang
hai authorities also wanted me for important
work. This I was told at German Embassy so
cannot understand why you failed to know any
thing about me. Have sent two reports since
my return. Hope you got them. Tarak said
you were not satisfied with my work and Bhufen
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 89
Dutt said that such incapable men as I should
not have been sent to America. Bhupen be
fore leaving America said to Chakravarty Gupta
nothing but adventurer; should not have been
sent/ and as usual everybody knew and it nat
urally prejudiced men / had to work with. What
right had Bhupen to make such remarks ? I don t
claim to be a very capable man. You remember
I did not want to come here. But how Bhupen
measured my abilities? If no report was received
how could anybody pass an opinion on unknown
things? You may criticize my reticence. I do
not believe there are very many men including
Bhupen who can show much better results along
the line of work I undertook. Results of such
work cannot be shown in black and white but I
challenge anybody who dares ignore the solid work
done through our agencies. Time alone can
prove it. You cannot compare the work lately
undertaken with the program we started with. If
we failed to start a revolution in Bengal as asked
by you it has been for the best. If we failed land
arms it was due more to Germans than anybody
else. Our men worked, suffered. Still suffering.
The whole plan under the direct supervision of
Germans of more capable brains failed too. We
have succeeded in laying foundation for future
work. Our work in Japan has been unique.
Even Lajpat Rat who slights our work y quite often
admits in three months more solid work done there
than any other part of the world outside India in
number of years. I understand Chakravarty has
90 THROTTLED
charge of affairs. Met him. Tarak Harish says
he was given instruction to form a committee oi
five including myself. He did not agree. Said
all depended on his discretion. Fact is he has
grudge against me and the fault lies with you.
Report went to Berlin concerning his relations with
Mrs. Warren. You told him I did it. I did not.
Even if I did you had no business to mention my
name. I like also to know how did the com
mittee satisfy itself as to the charge being false.
From Chakravarty s letters only? He wanted
me to apologize. I did not: will not. First
I did not report; secondly suppose I did, in the in
terest of the cause. I was of opinion he had
connection with Mrs. Warren. She came to know
many things about work through him. Am still
of same opinion. I do not care how many women
man enjoys but he has no right to talk about seri
ous work to women. I do not know what work
he doing. Does not give me any information.
The house he took with princely furniture shows
at once German connection. Some of his
pamphlets nothing but German propaganda. It
may be your policy. We have centres in Japan,
Burmah, Manila; regular communication with
India through Japanese sources. Working but
badly in need of funds. Started work with im
pression balance of funds credited to my account
would be forthcoming but no sign of it. For
better work need send at least one more man to
Japan. Tarak going China, Chakravarty told
118-3-1
83-1-2
83-1-11
83-1-25
83-1-1
83-1-8
83-1-13
83-1-18
83-1-3
83-1-1
85-1-6
83-1-3
83-1-6
82-2-5
82-2-6
82-3-4
83-1-4
82-2-3
82-1-10
As asked by you
It has been for
The best. If we
119-1-3
119-2-3
119-1-2
118-2>-9
118-2-3
118-5-3
THE INDISCREET
rmany and America politically,
be left out of our calculations. Such
:h rights as the German citizens
:hem by their rulers. The people
raria, or of Wurtemberg, have
ers to. and placed certain limi-
FAILED
AND THE GERMANS
or a moment in Germany that
ic into real power, their vote
heir representatives in the
away in one single elec-
leader of men, no lover
colonist, and
B
FREDERICK TO BISMARCK
noted are far from
IaT three hundred and
two hundred and
for five years,
,th with the
MANY AND THE GERMAN!
l council, or Bundesrath, or upper
pire, consists of delegates ap-
nting the rulers of the vari-
Prussia has 17,
WurlfciQberg 4, Baden 3,
How the Hindus used Price Collier s Germany and the
Germans" as a cryptogram
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 91
him his men would watch Tarak for a month. If
behaves well will be helped, given facilities.
What grand diplomacy! Chakravarty told me
committee not sure of Tarak so sent him away.
Tarak said large funds have been sanctioned.
He can draw without receipt. Will you blame
me (if this be true) if I fail to understand the
policy? Ram Chandra working in his own way.
I did not interfere for fear of creating divisions.
Only helped getting funds. Have now influence
over him but as Chakravarty gone San Francisco
I consider my duty keep quiet until hear from you.
Have worked to best abilities and shall work but
cannot do so at the instance of people who I am
sure do not know the exact nature of work done
last year and half. Am surprised at mean jeal
ousies, even sacrificing work. Am shocked at
your faith shaken in me and my work. Hope to
hear soon all regarding work. Remember me to
all. Did not mail the first letter as waiting for
information from Berlin."
Followed the postscript in English already cited.
The reader will probably be interested, even at
the cost of interrupting the narrative, in the way
in which this cipher code was discovered and the
letter translated. By a partial decipherment by
common methods of deduction, it was found to
be almost sure that on a certain page of the code
book the name of which was of course not
92 THROTTLED
then known the phrase " foreign legation "
would appear. The cipher experts deduced, too,
that the phrase " rush to a newspaper " must ap
pear in a certain line of another page of the
volume, and working further they assembled some
twenty-five fragmentary words and phrases of
whose position in the missing volume they were
certain. The problem was to find the volume.
The nature of the words and phrases suggested
that the work was a recent one, probably dealing
with history and perhaps with the nature of a
people. These limitations reduced the field of
possibility to a minimum of 100,000 volumes, and
the cipher experts set agents at work searching
for such books. The caption of the letter, " Hos-
sain s Code," threw them off the scent and they
spent some time in scouring Allied Europe and
America for such a code. There was none, for
" Houssain " was merely a Hindu agent in Trini
dad. Then, one of the agents hunting for the
needle in the haystack found it Mr. Collier s
book.
Gupta, it is evident, was a prejudiced judge
of Chakravarty s ability. Even when Gupta was
arrested Chakravarty wiped out past scores, and
went bail for the man who had blackmailed and
traduced him. But Gupta was definitely in
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 93
trouble this time. The evidence supplied of his
trip to Japan, its purpose, and his collusion with
Germans brought him to trial in Chicago with
Jacobsen, Wehde, and Boehm. (Mr. Chatterji
was a witness for the prosecution.) The three
Germans, after a trial in which the State s case
had been admirably handled by U. S. District At
torney Clyne, were convicted and sentenced to
serve five years in prison and pay fines of $13,000.
Gupta was sentenced to two years, fined $200,
and released on bail, pending an appeal. He
jumped his bail and escaped to Mexico in May,
1918, while a number of his countrymen were be
ing tried in San Francisco.
His escape was probably due to fear. The
Hindus are a vengeful lot, and it is no more than
possible that the " grapevine cable " had informed
him that friends of the men on trial in San Fran-
cisca were planning to get even with him for hav
ing supplied part of the evidence used against
them. Some of that evidence we found in his
room at Columbia, and more in his safety deposit
box in a Columbus Avenue bank. Among other
items was the list of addresses in Switzerland al
ready mentioned, and this was amplified by a let
ter which we found in Chakravarty s house, from
Sekunna to the little doctor, which read:
94 THROTTLED
" My dear boy,
" Enclosed please find addresses from Wesen-
donck. Send your reports to: Mr. Director Karl
Hirsch, Kreuzlingen, Switzerland."
Chakravarty, in turn, furnished us with two
more codes which were used in writing to these
addresses: One which cited pages and word-
numbers in a certain German-English dictionary,
and a second, based on an entirely different prin
ciple. The second and third were often used in
the same letter, as this fragment from one of
Chakravarty s reports will show. The letter
reads, in part:
497-2, 337-io-3> 335-14. 77-"-"
The first series of figures is written in the third
code mentioned, and must be deciphered by using
the following square:
1234567
/ ABCDEFG
2 H I J K L MN
3 OPQRSTU
4 V WX Y Z
Each letter is indicated first by the digit marking
the horizontal row in which the letter falls, second
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 95
by the number of the vertical column. Thus
" A " is i-i, or 1 1 : " K " 2-4, or 24, and so on.
But if the Hindu wished to transfer a message in
cipher, he would not stop with this simple designa
tion of the letters, for they would recur too often
and fall too readily under the " laws of repeti
tion " by which most ciphers can be untangled.
So after he had his word translated by this square
chart, he added four key numbers to it, those key
numbers being fixed and permanent, and being
added in rotation. In order that we may find out
what this word is, we must therefore subtract the
key number thus :
Message 50337069403847695228 (or divided
into letters)
5 33 7 69 40 38 47 69 52 28
Key numbers 25 n 26 32 25 n 26 32 25 n
Result 25 22 44 37 15 27 21 37 26 17
Consulting our chart again, we see that 25 is
" L," 22 is u I " 44 is " Y," and that the message
deciphers thus:
LIYUENHUNG
The line we quoted above read:
" Li Yuen Hung Is now the president of China "
96 THROTTLED
After transmitting the proper-name in the second
cipher (as the name of course would not have ap
peared in the dictionary code), Chakravarty had
lapsed back into the first code, as being swifter.
Gupta, we observed, was harshly critical of
Chakravarty. Let us see whether he was justi
fied. Chakravarty said he had been commissioned
to deal only with the broader propaganda. From
captured reports which he transmitted through the
German embassy as well as through the mails to
Switzerland, he had been delegated to form a com
mittee of five, with Ram Chandra as one of the
other members, to handle Indian affairs here.
They were to send an agent to the West Indies to
stir up the Hindu coolies there, of whom there
were estimated to be 100,000, and to send back to
India all who would volunteer for revolution.
The same policy was to be followed in British
Guiana, Java, and Sumatra. From Ram Chan
dra s Ghadr press were to be issued reams of
propaganda in the various Indian dialects for
circulation throughout the East and West Indies,
in Hindustan itself, and even for German aviators
to drop upon Hindu troops in France. Chakra
varty was to procure letters of introduction to
parties in Japan which would assure a safe wel
come to an emissary to be sent there to carry out
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 97
what Gupta had failed to do, and an envoy was
to be sent to China for a similar purpose. It was
a broad program, and the doctor set to work im
mediately upon his return to organize his staff.
In all his work he had the cooperation of von
Bernstorff and the embassy at Washington. Cha-
kravarty organized a Pan-Asiatic League as a
blind, so that Hindus posing as its members could
travel without exciting suspicion. His work was
somewhat handicapped in the early spring by an
automobile accident which took him to the hos
pital, and by the seizure of the military attache s
papers in von Igel s office. He hired a Chinaman
named Chin as the delegate to China, and shipped
him off on a Greek vessel from New York. Re
ferred by Berlin to Houssain, the spy in Trinidad,
Chakravarty established contact with him, and
supervised the formation of an organization there.
In July Chakravarty started for a tour of the
West, in the course of which he visited two dis
loyal Hindus in Vancouver and determined upon
a plan of action for that section. Then he swung
down to San Francisco, where he called upon Ram
Chandra, the western head of the committee. He
conferred with friendly agents of Japanese news
papers who proposed to attack the Anglo-Japa
nese treaty. He conferred with W. T. Wang,
98 THROTTLED
private secretary to the new president of China,
as the secretary was leaving for Peking, and
learned that " some of the prominent people are
quite willing to help India directly and Germany
indirectly on three conditions, those conditions
being a secret treaty with Germany for military
protection, to last five years after peace had been
declared, and to be secured by giving China one-
tenth of all the arms and ammunition which she
would undertake to smuggle across the Indian
frontier." By the late autumn of 1916 Chakra-
varty was acting as the master-wheel in a most
elaborate and complicated machine for disturbing
British rule in almost all of her colonial holdings,
and it is safe to say that if the Maverick affair
had not roused shipping inspectors to unusual
vigilance to prevent filibustering, the United
States might have seen the bloody result of his
work by March of 1917, when we arrested him.
Even as it was, he was the general manager of a
going concern.
It may be wondered how he was able to per
fect an organization. The answer to that we
found in Gupta s safety deposit box a list of
two hundred or more members of an Indian so
ciety in the United States, a large proportion of
whom were students in American colleges, sent
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 99
here for education on scholarships, in the hope
that they would return to their native country and
uplift it. Some of them were influential agents,
and they were scattered conveniently about the
country. Add to this force the cooperation of
almost innumerable German agents and pay it
with a share of the $32,000,000 which Chakra-
varty said had been set aside in Berlin for
anarchistic, race-riot and Hindu propaganda in
the western world, and you have a real factor
for trouble. It is perhaps surprising that the
organization worked undiscovered as long as it
did, but it is more surprising that having worked
under cover for more than fourteen months it
did not break out into a grave demonstration.
Chakravarty s arrest, however, came in time, and
the authorities were on the whole satisfied that
so much time had elapsed because it gave them
more clues to work on and a larger group to
round up.
And Chakravarty himself was pleased, I think.
When he confessed his trip to Berlin, he was on
the horns of a dilemma, for he feared the Brit
ish would revenge themselves on him. I assured
him that he would be protected as an American
prisoner. He said, " Well, if I tell you about
what I have done for the Germans, and they hear
ioo THROTTLED
about it, they will kill me. And in any case my
own people will kill me. You don t know them ! "
I again quieted him and suggested that he tell
me now where he got the money which he said
had come to him from his estate in India.
Von Igel gave it to me," he answered. " I
could not go to his office downtown, so I sent
Sekunna. In all I got $60,000. I spoke of the
poet, Tagore, because he won the Nobel prize,
and I thought he would be above suspicion." He
had bought tht house at 364 West I2oth Street
and equipped it comfortably as a residence. He
bought a house in yyth Street to open a Hindu
restaurant. He bought a farm at Hopewell Junc
tion to use as a rendezvous for the plotters. And
when he had given us valuable information, and
had appeared at the trial, and had been himself
convicted and had served his sentence (a short
term) in jail, and the smoke had cleared away, he
was the owner of three nice parcels of real estate
and a comfortable income. Dr. Chakravarty, al
though a failure as a Prussian agent, fared pretty
well as an investor of Prussian funds.
After a series of digressions which I hope have
not led us too far from the path, we may return
to the third of the Hindu-German projects in
which we of the Bomb Squad were especially in-
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 101
terested. Ever since Captain von Papen s check
book had been captured by the British at Fal-
mouth in January, 1916, students of the German
plots in the United States had wondered why two
of the stubs bore the entries:
" Feb. 2, 1915, German Consulate, Se
attle (Angelegenheit) ....$1,300.
" May n, 1915, German Consulate,
Seattle
(for Schulenberg) ........ 500."
In December, 1917, Barnitz, Randolph and I had
gone to San Francisco to testify in the Annie Lar-
s en-Maverick case. It so happened that a Ger
man who was unable to give a satisfactory account
of himself had just been picked up at San Jose.
His name was Franz Schulenberg, and at the in
vitation of the San Francisco authorities we as
sisted in the examination of the prisoner. He
testified that in the early months of 1915 he had
met Lieutenant von Brincken, of the San Fran
cisco Consulate, who had sent him to the consul
at Seattle. There von Papen in person paid him
$4,000 to buy fifty guns, fifty Maxim silencers, a
ton of dynamite, and deliver it to one Singh, at
the border between Sumas, Washington, and
Canada. There Singh was to deliver it to a small
102 THROTTLED
army of coolies, who would start a reign of terror
in the Canadian northwest, dynamiting bridges,
railways and shipping, and shooting guards.
Schulenberg had actually bought some of the muni
tions when he received a letter from von Brincken
telling him to break off relations with the Hindus.
After some time he tried to get more money from
von Brincken, but Franz Bopp, the consul, spurned
him, and von Brincken sent him to New York, to
get it from von Papen. Von Papen refused to
pay him further. While Schulenberg was in Ho-
boken, three men from Paul Koenig s staff ap
proached him and posing as United States agents
offered him $5,000 for any information which
would incriminate Count von Bernstorff. Von
Papen had had Koenig send them although
Schulenberg did not know this to test him.
One of the three was George Fuchs. The air was
getting thick around von Papen s head at the mo
ment, and he could not afford to have a dis
gruntled and unpaid henchman gabbling about the
saloons in Hoboken. But Schulenberg believed
that the three were really American secret service
men, and refused to divulge what he knew. The
next morning a German whom he had not seen
before appeared at his lodging house and gave
him a railroad ticket to Mexico. " They re after
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 103
you the secret service," he said. " Here s a
ticket. Use it." Schulenberg was half sick any
way, and evidently it did not enter his mind to
squeal. He fled to Mexico, and von Papen thus
disposed of a troublesome source of information.
When we talked to Schulenberg, two years later,
he was a sorry reminder of another German fail
ure.
Although we three members of the Bomb Squad
had made the trip to San Francisco to testify to
the circumstances of Chakravarty s arrest, and to
the statements which he and Gupta had made,
we were not in at the death of the Hindu hunt.
The trial was a long affair, with more than a
hundred defendants. Aided by the revelations of
the little doctor, the Government had presented
to the Grand Jury a picture of violation of Sec
tion 13 of the Federal Code which caused indict
ments to be returned against the entire German
consulate of San Francisco, its accomplices among
the shipping men who chartered the Annie Larsen
and bought the Maverick, its Hindu agents from
the nucleus of Berkeley and Ram Chandra s edi
torial rooms, and a list of other notorious char
acters which included von Papen and von Igel,
both of whom were by this time safe in Germany.
We did, however, have opportunity to observe the
104 THROTTLED
Indian prisoners, and we noticed that they did
not seem altogether fond of each other. They
were forever whispering, wagging their heads,
stuffing notes down each other s necks and when
the testimony of one of their number grew too
truthful they squirmed and scowled. Chakra-
varty s life was threatened during the trial. The
officials in charge of the case all had more than
their usual share of responsibility to maintain or
der. The trial lasted more than six months.
The Germans upbraided each other in the court
room: von Brincken, who had been jealous of
Bopp, and had accused him of indifference to his
duties, openly showed his independence of his
chief, and ill feeling spread among the defendants.
Its climax came on April 24, 1918, the day when,
with the testimony all in, Judge Van Fleet ordered
a recess preparatory to delivering his charge to
the jury. Ram Singh, one of the defendants, sud
denly rose in the court room and fired two shots
at Ram Chandra from a revolver. Ram Chandra
fell dead, and as he did so, a bullet from the
revolver of United States Marshal Holohan broke
Ram Singh s neck. The jury then received its
charge, retired, and returned convictions of the
great majority of the conspirators.
So, just as Holohan s bullet broke Ram Singh s
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 105
neck, Chakravarty s statements had broken the
neck of the Hindu plot. But there was one more
incident related to it in store for us; it will con
clude our story. The men in charge of the Annie
Larsen were a spy named Alexander V. Kircheisen
and a Captain Othmer. Kircheisen s name had
appeared in several German secret service reports
as " K-iy." As late as 1917 he was arrested in
Copenhagen, Denmark, and on his person was
found a letter addressed to another agent, La
Nine by name. The letter advised La Nine that
if he arrived in the United States before Kirchei
sen, he was to call for the former s mail at " Kot-
zenberg s, 1319 Teller Avenue, in the Bronx."
When this information reached us, Detectives
Randolph and Senff called at Mr. Kotzenberg s
house. He knew nothing of Kircheisen, he said,
except that he was a friend of his cousin s.
" Who is your cousin?" asked Randolph, in
German.
" His name is Othmer," Kotzenberg replied.
" He escaped from San Francisco, and he came
back across the whole country, half by train and
half in automobile. He stayed here for a while.
One morning he put on some overalls and he left
and he went away on a Norwegian boat, and I
guess now he is back into Germany."
106 THROTTLED
Randolph and Senff searched the house. They
found among other papers, an application which
Kircheisen had filled out in New York on January
9, 19 17, for a certificate of service as an able sea
man. In order to be granted such a certificate he
had to swear that he was a naturalized citizen of
the United States, and that he would " support and
defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies . . . and . . . bear true faith
and allegiance to the same," which he swore with
out any qualms of conscience. Furthermore, his
character was attested to by one Charles A.
Martin, who also wanted a seaman s certificate.
The records of the office show that Kircheisen
obligingly turned about and swore to Martin s
good character. I have often wondered who
Martin was. . . . We found in Kotzenberg s
house an expense account which the fugitive
Othmer had submitted to von Papen after he had
left the unfortunate Annie at Hoquiam. And
finally, we found two scraps of a memorandum
book, which constituted the log of Annie herself.
It reads:
" Mar.8. left S.D.
Mar. 1 8. arr Soc.
Apr.5. Start Digg.wells.
Apr.9 boat Emma arrived.
APPLICATION FOR CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE AS ABLE SEAMAN FitE No. S
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
s Ahie> Seaman on thi>
JURAT, OR OATH.
Alexander V. Kircheisen and his application for a certificate
as able seaman
THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 107
2 sailors.
Apr.io. Emma arrived.
two crews working on well
April 1 6. Well 22 feet struck
hard rock bottom no water gave up
Apr. 1 7. left for Mex. coast
" 22 went ashore in boat
look for water
Apr.24th. arr at Acapulco
U. S. S. Yorktown Nansham( ?)
N.Orleans Annapolis
April 27 left Acapulco
May 19 gave up Socorro
made for coast
June 7 (two illegible words)
got provisions
June 29 arr. Hoquiam
July i arr. W.
i arr. Investigator
Jul. 4 aus "
So, in a word, Othmer summed up all the efforts
of the Hindus and the Germans to hatch revolu
tion in America. All, all " aus "1
V
A TRUE PIRATE TALE
Of all the stories of the sea to which the war
has given rise, here is one that is certainly not the
least entertaining. It is not a story of hunting a
criminal. The only part which the Bomb Squad
played in it was bringing the prisoner back to
justice. It called for no service on our part save
that of examining the prisoner, and returning
him, with his statements and the statements of
others who had dealings with him, to New York.
And I think those statements themselves had best
tell the story.
(From Detective Corell to the Commanding Offi
cer of the Bomb Squad, April I, 1916)
Sir: In compliance with orders received 1
went to Lewes, Delaware, to investigate and if
possible bring back one Ernest Schiller, an alleged
German spy. . . .
108
A TRUE PIRATE TALE 109
(From a statement taken by Corell at Lewes, Del.,
March 31, 1916)
My name is Ernest Schiller. I am a native of
Russia, 23 years of age. . . . My occupation is
that of textile engineer. I arrived in New York
in April, 1915, in the steamship Colorado from
Hull, England, as a member of the crew, my as
signment on the ship being greaser. My name on
the ship was Frank Robertson. When I arrived
at New York the captain gave me some of my
money and I left the ship. I worked all told
about eight or nine months, in Pawtucket, R. L,
Lawrence, Mass., Whitinsville, Mass., Newton
Upper Falls, Mass., and finished erecting a fac
tory in Salem, Mass. . . .
(From the examination of Clarence Reginald
Hodson, alias Ernest Schiller, Robinson, Robert
son, A. Henry, New York, April i, 1916)
Question. What is your full name?
Answer. Clarence Reginald Hodson.
Q. What other names are you known by?
A. Robinson, Robertson, A. Henry, and
Ernest Schiller.
Q. Where were you born?
A. Petrograd, Russia.
Q. Where were your father and mother born ?
no THROTTLED
A. My father in Russia, my mother in Ger
many. We lived in Petrograd until I was about
10 or ii. Then we went to England. My
father and mother left me in Chatham House
College, in Ramsgate. I stayed there three
years. . . .
Q. What is the name of the head of that col
lege?
A. A. Henry.
Q. Did you graduate?
A. No. I was put on a Cadet a Marine
ship named Conway, to train as a marine
officer. I was on that ship two years. I left
when I was 17 and went to work in a machine shop
in Oldham, outside Manchester, and learned the
trade of machinist there. I left there in August,
1914, and I joined the English Army. ... I
was asked to leave the job was told that they
would not have any young fellows on the job.
. . . My boss said that sooner or later I should
have to leave and that it would be better to go
now, and that there would be a better opportun
ity.
Q. At that time were your sympathies with the
English?
A. They were never with England. I just
wanted to see what it was like to be a soldier. I
A TRUE PIRATE TALE in
didn t intend to fight against Germany. I did
not think the war would last long only a few
months and I knew all the time I could run
away if I wanted to. So in December I left.
Q. What was the occasion of your leaving?
A. I commenced to discriminate the soldiers
and make them out as to what they really were,
and I found them a lot of rats. I saw that I
was not a Britisher in my ideas, and that I favored
the cause of Germany. I used to stay away from
the other soldiers all I could, and go out with a
newspaper and read in the fields. They were al
ways bullyragging me, and one time I almost
killed two soldiers for it. They chastised me
for a German spy. I got away, and worked in
Bath for a week, and then the police caught me
and brought me back, and I was later discharged
by my colonel when I explained that I could not
agree with their theory of the war. . . .
(From the statement of "Schiller" to Corell)
A few months ago I received a letter from my
mother and she wanted me to go back to Russia.
I came down to New York to get my passport, but
it did not arrive, so I waited a month. My money
was gradually going down, so I borrowed some
money, I won t say from whom. . . ."
ii2 THROTTLED
(From the examination of Hodson)
Q. While in Lawrence, Mass., where did you
stop?
A. At the Saxsonia House, with Germans. . . .
Q. What are the names of any other people
that you met at the Saxsonia House ?
A. Met a gentleman named Gruenwald at a
German party. He invited me to come to his
saloon in Lawrence. . . .
Q. While up in his saloon was there anybody
else you were acquainted with there?
A. Nobody, but I knew a young lady who
stopped at the same house. . . .
Q. You were quite friendly with her?
A. Yes, platonic friendship.
Q. Did she loan you any money?
A. She loaned me money from her own
will. Two hundred dollars. ... I only asked
for $30, but she brought $200 in gold, all in
gold. . . .
Q. How long after that before she loaned you
any more?
A. About a month later. . . . Telegraphed
to her " Want money immediately." I received
by 12 o clock $40. She said some more money
coming tonight. Next morning I went to the
address in Hoboken and there was a letter and
A TRUE PIRATE TALE 113
there was another $40 in the letter. Then I re
ceived $10 another time from her.
Q. That s $290.
A. Yes, all I can think of.
(From the "Schiller" statement)
... so I borrowed some mpney, I won t say
from whom. I went to Boston again and was
looking for work. I could not get the work
I wanted, so I returned to New York, and in
Hoboken I ran across a few fellows, I do not
know their names, and we made a plan to get
some money. . . .
(From the Hodson examination)
Q. Now where did you meet the Germans?
A. When I arrived in New York, in a saloon
near the Cunard Steamship Company in West
Street about I2th, I met a man who I thought
was a German, and I talked to him about blow
ing up ships, and we then went to Hoboken where
I met the man Haller in a saloon. . . . Then we
proposed which ship to blow up. That was the
Cunard liner Pannonia. . . .
Q. And how did you come to decide upon
that boat?
A. Because I knew perfectly well that all were
ii4 THROTTLED
carrying plenty of ammunition. ... I went down
to the piers, and I saw this boat, and I thought
that would be the right kind of a boat. ... I
met the three men in the vicinity of Pier 54. I
bought them their suppers. ... I then told the
unknown man to get some dynamite . . . and
I gave him $6. Becker said that he had a boat,
and I gave Becker $8 to buy gasolene, then to
buy" two revolvers out of a pawnshop. ... I
bought Haller a revolver and 100 cartridges. . . .
Q. Did you see them after that?
A. Yes, I saw them Saturday morning and
asked Becker about his motorboat and he said
that he did not expect it would be frozen up,
and acted as if he would have been willing to go
into the plot only that the boat was frozen up.
Becker said that the boat could be launched in
two hours, and although I do not know anything
about running a motorboat it is my belief that
it would have taken six hours to launch this boat
the boat we were supposed to use to go over in
to blow up the Pannonia and this would be too
late to get to the ship before she sailed. . . .
Since that time I have not seen any of these
men. . . .
(From the " Schiller " statement)
. . but the other fellows left me, so I went on
A TRUE PIRATE TALE 115
my own accord. I saw the steamship Mattoppo
was going to leave, so I stowed away on her, in a
life boat, where I remained for five days. The
sixth day we left. . . .
(From the statement of Captain R. Bergner, of
the British S. S. " Mattoppo ")
At 3 130 p. M. on the 29th March, the British
S. S. Mattoppo sailed from I2th Street pier,
Hoboken, destined to Vladivostock, Russia.
(From the " Schiller " statement)
That night ... I came out from my hiding
place and walked towards the captain s cabin. . . .
(From Captain Bergner s statement)
At about 7 :45 p. M. . . . when at a point about
twenty miles from Sandy Hook Lightship, I was
talking to the Chief Engineer in his room, and
at 8 105 P. M. left and went to my own cabin,
and as I entered my bedroom, which was adjoin
ing, I was held up at the point of two revolvers
by one Ernest Schiller, who said to me : " Hands
up I I am a German. I am going to sink your
ship." He then made me turn round and gave
me a frisk. He found nothing on me. He or
dered me to shut my cabin door; then stood me in
a corner and kept me covered with the two re
volvers. Then he said: "Where is the safe?
ii6 THROTTLED
You have two thousand pounds aboard, and I
want the money! " He told me he had placed
bombs aboard the ship and was going to blow
her up.
At 8 :2O p. M. the Second Engineer knocked at
my door, and receiving no reply opened it. Schil
ler instantly covered him with one of the revolvers
and ordered him to come into the room, which
he did. He then locked and bolted the doors on
the inside and asked me for my keys. . . . He
got them and proceeded to go through all the
ship s papers and my private effects. He opened
my cash box and took four pounds in gold and
five pounds in silver and said it was the first time
he had ever robbed anyone but he needed the
money. On seeing from the ship s papers that she
had barbed wire in her, he said: " That is con
traband, and I am going to sink her." He then
inquired where I was bound for, and on my tell
ing him she was going to Russia he seemed to
hesitate about sinking her as he said he loved
Russia. The conversation continued until about
midnight. . . .
(From the "Schiller" statement)
While I was in the Captain s room the Second
Engineer came up, and after searching him to
A TRUE PIRATE TALE 117
see if he had any revolvers on him, I told him to
sit down and make himself comfortable. I asked
the Captain if he had any whiskey, as I was cold
and had not had much to eat for five days, so
the Captain gave me a bottle of whiskey and
biscuits. After wishing one another good health
we sat there for a couple of hours. . . .
(From Captain Bergner s statement)
At midnight he said that he was going to dis
able the wireless, and on hearing someone in
the chart room he bound me on my honor not to
leave the cabin saying that if I did he would shoo^
me on sight. . . .
(From the statement of the Second Officer Allen
Maclurcom)
When I came on watch at midnight I passed
someone outside the chart room, but it being dark,
and thinking it was the Captain, I walked on into
the chart room, where this party followed me,
and told me to throw my hands up. He told
me the ship was under German command, and not
attempt to make any resistance as it would mean
the sacrifice of the Captain s and Second En
gineer s lives. He said if the ship had been go
ing to England he would have destroyed her im-
ii8 THROTTLED
mediately, but as she was bound for Russia he
would probably spare her. Then he told me to
walk ahead of him to the port-after-lifeboat, and
get the axe, which was in the forward end of it.
He then took me back to the Marconi room. . . .
(From the statement of the wireless operator,
Alexander Dunnett)
I was on watch in the wireless room when this
man came along with the Second Officer. He
held me up with two revolvers, and brought me
along to the apprentice s room, together with the
Second Officer. The latter told the apprentice,
who acts as second operator, to come out. Schil
ler held him up, and told us both to go up to the
chart room. . . .
(From the Second Officer s statement)
He then took me back to the Marconi room, and
proceeded to demolish the installation, holding
the revolver against my ribs. From there he went
to the Chief Engineer s cabin and demanded his
rifle, I accompanying him, and after obtaining
it, threw it overboard. From there he made me
walk ahead of him to the Chief Officer s cabin,
who he disarmed whilst he was asleep. He then
ordered me to the bridge to steer south-west by
compass, and as I was going on the bridge the
Lieutenant George D. Barnitz, U. S. N.
A TRUE PIRATE TALE 119
Third Officer came down and he held him up, I
going on the bridge in the meanwhile.
(From the Wireless Operator s statement)
Schiller came back again, and took us into the
Captain s room. Some time later he came back
again and brought me down to the wireless room
to see if I could repair the wireless installation,
which he said he had smashed. I told him it
might be possible to repair one instrument, and he
said, " We will leave it until morning," and then
brought me along the deck to the Fourth and Fifth
Engineers cabins and I opened the door and he
went in. Both engineers were asleep and he made
me search all the drawers; he brought out a re
volver and a box of cartridges, which he made me
throw over the side. He then took me to the
Third Engineer s cabin, and searched all the
drawers there. He brought out of there a bottle
of whiskey, and asked me if I had any money.
Then he marched me up to the Captain s cabin and
ordered me to remain there until 6 A. M.
(From " Schiller s " statement)
I went into the various officers rooms and took
all the revolvers from them. From the Steward
I took ten dollars, and a two-dollar bill from the
Second Mate.
120 THROTTLED
(From the Second Officer s statement)
At 1 130 A. M. he returned to the bridge and
ordered me to steer south by compass.
(From the "Schiller" statement)
Then I went to the Captain s cabin again, and
told him I should sink the ship, but the Captain
said he has worked since a boy on ships for a few
shillings a week and he has worked himself up to
this and surely it has not come to this. He said
he has a wife and a child a girl and showed
me on the wall the portrait of the child, and I
asked him suppose the ship went down would he
get another job, and he said he would have to
work as a longshoreman. He said it was too
rough for the boats to be lowered, so I did not
want to commit murder. And knowing that the
Captain would lose his position, and as I am a
young man and can always find work, I asked the
Captain if he will put me ashore in the morning.
He gave me his word of honor that he would. . . .
(From Captain Bergner s statement)
At 5 130 A. M. ... he let me take charge of
the ship, and I made for Delaware Break
water. . . .
(From the Wireless Operator s statement)
At 6 A. M. he told me I could go below, but
A TRUE PIRATE TALE 121
not to go into the wireless room. I was along
near the carpenter s room when he was searching
it, and he made me bring out an axe and took me
to the wireless room again; there he told me
to smash up one of the instruments, and he stood in
back of me threatening me. I asked him then if
that would do, after I had partly demolished the
instruments, and he told me to leave the axe
and lock the door, which I did. He then left
me.
(From " Schiller s " statement)
When we sighted shore the Captain said that
we would have to go straight towards the light
house, or else, if we went the other way (the way
I wanted to) we should run ashore, so I left it
to the Captain and trusted to his word, as he said
he would land me. . . .
(From Captain Bergner* s statement)
On approaching land he ordered one of the
ship s boats to be manned, and said that he was
going to take two of the ship s officers along as
hostages to guarantee that I should not run him
down, and he wanted three Chinese from the crew
to row him ashore.
122 THROTTLED
(From the statement of John S. Wingate, Keeper
of the Cape Henlopen Coast Guard Station)
At about 11:30 A.M. I noticed a steamship
coming in from off shore. I said to the crew that
it was a war vessel coming but I didn t know
whether it was German or British. At n 145 the
lookout reported to me that the steamer was
headed direct for Hen and Chicken Shoal. I im
mediately ordered the signal " J. D." hoisted on
the pole, which means, " You are standing into
danger." When we supposed the ship saw our
signal, he stopped, and laid to for about ten min
utes, when he hard a-port and went clear of the
shoal.
A few minutes later he lowered a boat we
thought to take soundings, for the poat pulled
away from the ship and headed direct for the
beach.
(From the Second Officer s statement)
At approximately 1 1 145 A.M. ... I got into
the small boat at his command, with four of the
crew, and we proceeded toward shore, but were
stopped by the pilot cutter Philadelphia who told
us that if we attempted to land we would be
drowned. The Philadelphia then towed us into
smooth water. . . .
A TRUE PIRATE TALE 123
(From Captain Wingate s statement)
Meanwhile the pilot boat was heading down on
the ship, blowing her whistle to warn the ship
of her danger. By this time the ship hoisted a
signal " K. T. S.," which means "Piracy" I or
dered my boat made ready at once when I saw the
"Piracy" signal; five minutes later he started
for the ship. At 12:20 I had called Keeper
Lynch of the Lewes station telling him what I
was going to do, and to meet me off the Point.
(From the statement of Captain John S. Lynch of
the Lewes Coast Guard Station)
I and my crew launched our power lifeboat and
started for the steamer. Before I could get to
the steamer I saw the pilot boat towing in the
steamer s skiff. The pilot boat let go of the
skiff right off the Capes, and the occupants of
the skiff started to row for shore. I called to
them and they stopped. We went alongside, and
I told them I would take the man ashore and
save them the trouble. So he got into our boat.
I then run off and picked up Captain Wingate,
whose boat is a rowboat, and we went alongside
the steamer. I asked for the Captain of the
steamer, and they told me he was going ashore in
the sail pilot boat, so we run alongside the sail
i2 4 [THROTTLED
pilot boat, and I asked the Captain of the steamer
to come along with me. He says, " I will not.
Not with that man in your boat. He s got five
guns on him! " I then told him that I did not
care how many guns he had as I was not afraid
of him and he requested me to take the man
ashore myself. Then this man Ernest Schiller
began to throw his guns overboard: Schiller
throwed one gun overboard, Captain Wingate,
who had come aboard my boat throwed two over
board, and C. A. Jenkins throwed another one
overboard, Schiller having thrown them into the
bottom of the boat. He, Schiller, throwed a lot
of cartridges overboard, and when we came ashore
we searched him and took the balance of the car
tridges which he had on him and throwed them
overboard. I then brought him up to the Customs
Office and left him there.
(From " Schiller s " statement)
I am willing to go back to New York . . . im
mediately, and confess my guilt. I swear on
oath that there are no bombs placed on the ship, to
my knowledge. I simply made that statement
to the Captain as a bluff.
Thus this venturesome Russian, Hodson by
birth, Schiller by preference, and German by con-
A TRUE PIRATE TALE 125
viction, who single-handed captured a steamship,
returned to New York, thirty-six hours after he
had left port. He walked the plank to the United
States Penitentiary at Atlanta for life, for
" piracy on the high seas."
VI
ALONG THE WATERFRONT
Sugar and Ships and Robert Fay
Anyone familiar with the waterfront of a great
port can appreciate its difficulties as an area to be
policed. One of the busiest sections of the com
munity during the daytime, it is little frequented
at night. In districts where you find few people
you will rarely find lights, and where there are
no lights you may well expect crime. The con
tours of the shoreline are irregular, following
usually the original margins of solid ground lin
ing the natural harbor, and for every thorough
fare which can pass as a street there are a dozen
or two alleys, footpaths, shadowy recesses and
blind holes. Locks and keys and night watchmen
will protect the land side of the piers, but from
the water side entrance to any pier is easy, conceal
ment still easier, and flight no trick at all.
If New York harbor in 1914 had presented
126
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 127
the aspect of the same harbor of twenty years be
fore, I could hardly estimate the confusion which
would have resulted from the coming of war.
But there is probably no port in the world which
handles New York s volume of shipping with
greater orderliness I speak now from the stand
point of " law and order " rather than of the
terminal facilities of the port. Its waterfront
was physically clean and its longshore population,
thanks to a competent police force, manageable.
And yet, as Shakespeare said, " there are land rats
and water rats "
From August, when war was declared and the
Bomb Squad formed, through the fall of the year
1914, certain changes came over the waterfront.
Great German liners of the Hamburg-American
and North German Lloyd Lines, freighters of
the Atlas Line, and a miscellany of other vessels
flying the red-white-and-black lay idle in port when
England s fleet blockaded the seaward channels.
Some eighty German vessels were tied up at their
piers. They dared not move, for Germany s only
available convoys were in southern waters trying
to dodge the British and prey upon shipping.
The Hamburg-American Line and Captain
Boy-Ed made several abortive attempts to supply
the raiders, but the considerable merchant fleet
128 THROTTLED
caught in port by the war stayed in port This
dumped on the longshore population some thou
sands of ardent Boches. Meanwhile the great
steamship lines owned by neutral and allied capi
tal entered on a period of activity such as they
had never seen before. The first ships from
abroad brought purchasing agents and European
money to barter for American supplies, for imme
diate delivery. Any man who owned anything
that bore a speaking likeness to a cargo-boat sud
denly found himself potentially wealthy. The
whole United States began to pour into the New
York waterfront a huge volume of supplies for
the Allies and for a time for Germany, via
neutral Holland and Scandinavia and out of
the Hudson and East rivers flowed a steady,
swelling current of this overseas trade.
By the arrival of the year 1915 the current was
well under way. The piers were extremely busy
and the facilities for trouble were multiplying.
On January 3 there was an explosion on the steam
ship Orton in Erie Basin for which there was no
apparent explanation. A month later a bomb
was discovered in the cargo of the Hennington
Court, but no one could say how it came there.
Toward the end of February the steamship Carl-
ton caught fire at sea mysteriously. Two
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 129
months passed, then two bombs were found in
the cargo of the Lord Erne. We might have had
a look at them, for that was the business of the
Bomb Squad, if those who had found the bombs
had not dumped them overboard rather hastily.
A week later a bomb was found in the hold of
the Devon City. Again no explanation. Nor
any reasonable cause why the Cressington Court
caught fire at sea on April 29. Our attention
had been directed to each of these instances, and
we had investigated, and folders waited in the
files for the reports which properly developed
would lead to an arrest, and the sum total of
those reports was nothing. Then our luck
turned for a moment.
The steamship Kirkoswald, out of New York,
laden with supplies for France, docked at Mar
seilles, and in four sugar-bags in her hold were
found bombs. The French authorities com
mandeered them, and removed and analyzed the
explosive charge. The police commissioner
cabled at once to Marseilles requesting the re
turn of one of the bomb-cases, together with the
bag in which it had been found, and an analysis
of the contents. No answer. So he cabled again.
The bomb-case then began a journey back to the
United States, presented with the compliments of
130 THROTTLED
the Republic of France by M. Jusserand to the
State Department at Washington, and forwarded
in turn to Mayor Mitchel of New York. Our
study disclosed that it was of a new type: a
metal tube some ten inches long, divided into two
compartments by a thin aluminum disc. One
compartment had held potassium chlorate, a
powerful explosive, and the other had contained
sulphuric acid. The acid had been expected to
eat through the thin disc separating the compart
ments, and explosion was to have followed, but
for some reason it had failed. The metals were
of good quality, and the workmanship was thor
ough.
Here was our first clue on the case. Many
policemen work on theory so determinedly that
they exclude really important facts which do not
fit comfortably into the theory. I have always
believed in taking the evidence, building a theory
upon it, and then trying to confirm or reject that
theory as new facts appear. It was well that
we followed such a policy here, for we had noth
ing but the bomb-tube itself to build our theory
upon. What did it offer? First, we were for
tunate in having a bomb to study, for usually the
fire following an explosion leaves no trace of its
origin. We had its construction and ingredients
Copyright, h Underwood and Undtrwood. N. Y.
Lieut. Robert Fay (on right) and Lieut. George D. Barnitz
after Fav s arrest
Copyright, by Underwood and Undtrwood
From left to right: Fay, Daeche and Scholz, arraigned
in Court
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 131
as real, if vague, clues. Second, we knew that
the Kirkoswald had carried supplies to France,
and that all of the vessels on which bombs had
been found or fires had broken out, had also been
carrying supplies to the Allies. The list, by this
time, had grown, for there were three more ship
cases of fires or bombs in May, one in June, and
five in July. Our primary theory was, therefore,
that the bombs were made and placed on the
vessels either by Germans or their paid agents-
The Kirkoswald carried sugar. By examining
the cargo-records of the other ships which had
suffered near or actual mishaps, we found that
they had also carried sugar, and that in the in
stances when fire broke out, the highly inflam
mable sugar gave a lot of trouble to the fire crew.
The vigilance of the waterfront and harbor police
had of course been keyed up to detect anything
suspicious, but a bomb-planter does not often
carry his bomb under a policeman s nose, and
it seemed not unreasonable to suspect that the
bombs had gone aboard with the sugar. So I
went to a sugar refinery to see how sugar was
made.
I followed the process from the entry of the
raw sugar to the bagging and shipping of the
finished product. All of the sugar shipped
132 THROTTLED
abroad went in bags, which were sewn tight either
by hand or by machinery. After considerable
testing I found that it was fairly easy to open a
hand-sewn bag and sew it up again without leav
ing evidence of what I had done; the machine
stitches, however, resisted any intrusion, and were
hard to duplicate once they had been taken out.
I put that fact away for future reference and
looked in on the shipping department, to learn
there that the only two persons who could know of
the destination of a consignment of sugar before
it was actually loaded into a vessel s hold were
the shipping clerk of the refinery and the captain of
the lighter who took the sugar from the refinery to
the ship.
So we first paid court to the lighter captains
and their aids. We followed shipments of sugar
from the refinery doors to the lighters, saw the
shipping clerk hand over his bill to the captain,
saw the lighter pull out for a pier somewhere
about the harbor, followed him to the pier, and
watched the transfer of the cargo into the vessel s
hold. If a lighterman knew that hand-sewn bags
could be ripped open, and wished to insert a bomb
and close the bag again, he would have to do it
on the way from the refinery to the pier of
that we were confident, for as soon as the lighter
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 133
pulled up to the vessel s side the stevedores rushed
the cargo into the hold, the hatches were sealed,
and the cargo-checker, employed by the vessel,
turned over to the lighter captain his receipt for
the consignment. There was apparently no other
time for tampering with the bags.
How to watch the bags themselves from the
refinery into the vessel was a troublesome problem.
The river, during the daytime, is in constant traf
fic, and navigation for a cumbersome lighter in
the river-paths is about as comfortable as crossing
Fifth Avenue on foot at rush hour. The river
at night was comparatively free, and it was then
that most of the lightering was done. A water
man can identify the uncouth shapes of queer craft
on dark waters, a landsman cannot, but we had
to make the best of a bad bargain and chase the
lighters in a motorboat, often diligently follow
ing a blinking light through the mist for hours to
discover finally that it was on the wrong ship.
Ships on a dark river are like timid spinsters in a
dark street they exhibit, perhaps through fear
of collision, perhaps because ships are feminine,
a strong suspicion of anything that approaches.
Our barking motorboat advertised itself half a
mile away. If we drifted we lost our quarry.
We tried to smuggle men aboard the lighters,
134 THROTTLED
but there were so many, and they were bound in
so many different directions, that we were not
manned for this.
So passed June and July. It was a thankless
task, and one which had its risks. Detective Senff
fell into the river one night when he was chasing
a suspicious character around under a pier at the
foot of West 44th Street and nearly drowned be
fore he could be pulled out. The case seemed
to be getting no further than abstractions.
Ashore, however, we learned that most of the
lighter captains in the harbor were Germans,
and in an effort to reduce the field we learned the
names of the captains of the lighters which had
most frequently visited the vessels on which fires
had occurred. This took time and an exhaustive
study of lighterage receipts, but it brought out
the fact that in every case of a delivery of sugar
to an outward bound vessel, the captain of the
lighter had returned a full receipt which ex
ploded the possibility that a lighterman might
take a bag from one shipment, put a bomb in it,
and add it to the next.
I am happy now to say that we did not give up.
We couldn t, for the ship fires were going right
on, increasing in frequency, and somebody was
making bombs, for they continued to be found.
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 135
On the assumption that a lighter captain who
would place a bomb in a sugar-bag must first get
the bomb, we began to shadow the captains, not
only afloat but ashore, and then suddenly the case
took a queer twist and our theory of German in
trigue got badly balled up.
We followed certain lightermen to their homes,
their drinking haunts, and their other places of
business, and among their other places of busi
ness found the residence on the lower West
Side of Manhattan of a man known to be a
river pirate. That was enough for an arrest,
and on August 27 we brought Mike Matzet,
Ferdinand Hahn, Richard Meyerhoffer and Jene
Storms, Germans, and John Peterson, Swede,
to headquarters for examination. Matzet con
fessed that he, and " all the rest " of the lighter
captains, as he expressed it, had been regularly
stealing sugar from the consignments, and selling
it to river pirates for % the market price, which
allowed the pirates to re-sell it at % the market for
400 per cent, clear profit. The pirates in a motor-
boat would steal into the shadow of a lighter as
she lay at her anchorage, take off a few bags, and
slip away. We had seen such boats, but had
never been able to close in and see what they
were doing. The checkers who were supposed to
136 JHROTTLED
render a true and just account of the number of
bags which later passed into the hatches of the
ocean vessels were merely accomplices who shared
in the profits when the stolen sugar was sold.
There were no bombs on the captains (who
presently went to jail) but they were all fully
aware of the conditions along the waterfront, for
one said to a pirate who was " buying " sugar:
Take all you want the damn ship will never
get over anyway!" No bombs and what if
there had been? We were reasonably certain
that the ships were being fired, but we did not
know now whether it was for German reasons, or
merely to efface the sugar thefts before the car
goes reached the other side of the ocean and were
discovered by the consignees. The conviction of
the thieves was not much consolation for the slow
development of the case, and it fixed no guilt for
bombs.
But when you are bound on a long trip, and
you have mislaid your ticket, it is second nature
to go through your pockets one by one, know
ing full well that it is not in any of them, for you
" just looked there." Then you find it in one
of the pockets where you knew it could not be.
Acting on a not dissimilar instinct we began to
retrace our steps from June to September, and
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 137
to follow again the progress of sugar from the
refinery to the hold of the outward bound steamer.
Our theory that the bombs had some connection
with the sugar was either to be proven or de
stroyed this time. It was in this more or less dull
review that we made the acquaintance of the
Chenangoes.
They were nothing more romantic than fly-
by-night stevedores whom the lighter companies
engaged at the sugar wharves to load cargoes.
They worked by the day, or by the job, there
were always plenty loitering around to be hired,
and they drew their pay and went their way. No
one ever had to wonder who they were or where
they came from, for a stout body was all the
recommendation a Chenango required. They
were a nondescript type of common labor, the
same, I suspect, that carried materials for the
Tower of Babel, and speaking almost as many
tongues. The same face rarely appeared a sec
ond time to be hired not that there was any
thing particularly unpleasant about the work, but
rather that all work is repulsive to a Chenango.
He is the hobo of labor and if the same man had
been re-hired, no one would have noticed or cared.
We paid such attention to them as their variety
permitted followed them to all the points of
138 THROTTLED
the compass, and watched them closely while they
worked, to see whether any of them seemed to
linger aboard in the cargo, or carried any sus
picious package. , The wickedest thing we found
was an occasional pint flask on the hip, which was
no proof of any special criminal affairs.
Ever since we had examined the Kirkoswald
bomb we had had lines out to follow the sale of
chlorate of potash and sulphuric acid the in
gredients of the bomb. We examined reams of
sales records submitted by explosive and chemical
manufacturers, traced dozens of reports from
drug stores, and found nothing of consequence.
Those two substances are widely and harmlessly
used, and rarely purchased in small quantities by
any individual whose intentions might excite sus
picion. Under our rigid city explosives laws in
vestigation of purchases was facilitated for us,
but all the facility in the world could not help the
case without anything to investigate. So passed
September and a part of October, and just about
the time when the bomb case was growing dull
and the ship fires which were constantly occurring
had almost found us calloused, the French Gov
ernment, with traditional courtesy, helped us out
again, and blew our sugar theory into many and
small pieces.
The Fay Bomb Materials
Suit cases containing an atlas, two maps of the harbor, drawing instru
ments, tools, a wig and two false mustaches, a telescope
bomb, and several packages of ingredients
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 139
Captain Martyn, the French military attache
in New York, telephoned to say that he thought we
would be interested in a man who he believed was
trying to buy some explosive. What kind?
Trinitro-toluol, or " TNT," one of the most
violent propellants used in modern shell. Yes,
we would be interested.
A war exporter, Wettig by name, had told Cap
tain Martyn that a fellow with whom he shared
office space had asked him to obtain a quantity of
TNT a small quantity, for trial purposes.
The purchaser, who was known both as Paul Siebs
and Karl Oppegaarde, and who lived at the Hotel
Breslin, directed Wettig to deliver the material
to a Jersey address and said he would then receive
payment. On the axiom that a bomb in the hand
is worth two in someone else s, we were introduced
to Wettig, and formulated with him a plan to
follow the explosive. So on Thursday, October
21, Detective Barnitz accompanied Wettig to a
" dynamite store " at Perth Amboy, New Jersey,
where the latter bought some 25 pounds of TNT.
The two returned to New York with their pack
age. We looked up Mr. Oppegaarde and asked
him what he proposed to do with his purchase.
He said he really hadn t the slightest idea : an ac
quaintance of his, a wa,r broker named Max
1 40 THROTTLED
Breitung, had referred a certain Dr. Herbert
Kienzle, a German clock-maker, to him as a likely
person to obtain explosives. Dr. Kienzle had
placed the order, had wanted it delivered at a
garage in Main Street, Weehawken, to a man who
bore the name of Fay, and who had assured
Siebs that when he had it delivered he would be
paid for his services. Further than that he knew
nothing. Nobody seemed to know anything, al
though here was a considerable amount of vicious
explosive in which five men were very much inter
ested. We spent the rest of that day in looking
up what we could of the players in this little game
of " passing the TNT " from Kienzle to Brei
tung to Siebs to Wettig to Fay.
Six men were assigned to the case: Murphy,
Walsh, Fenelly, Sterett, Coy and Barnitz, and
they most admirably stayed on the job. On Fri
day Detectives Barnitz and Coy took the explosive
to the Weehawken garage. Fay was not there,
but a man who was there told the detectives he
lived at 28 Fifth Street, so the men from the Bomb
Squad and their package called at the boarding
house where Fay lived. Again he was not to be
found, but our men had a chat with the landlady,
who told them that Mr. Fay was a real nice gen
tleman who had lived there with his friend Mr.
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 141
Scholz for a month, always paid his bills, sub
scribed to a magazine, and was working on inven
tions, or at least so she thought, because he used
a table to draw plans on. Sociable, too
They left the TNT for him. I ought to re
mind the reader that it is harmless unless confined
or heated, and cannot be properly exploded with
out a proper detonating charge. It may have
been a bit rough on the boarding house, but we
had gone to deliver the goods to Fay; Wettig had
told him they would be delivered (though not by
whom) and we had to carry out the plan even
though Fay was not at home.
At the same hour, across the Hudson Detec
tives Coy, Walsh and Sterett learned why Fay had
not been receiving visitors, for they found him
in Siebs s company in the Hotel Breslin. Effacing
themselves until the interview was over, they
tailed Fay to the West 42nd Street ferry, then
across the river to Weehawken, up the long hill to
the town, and to his garage at 212 Main Street.
In the early evening an automobile emerged from
the garage, driven by Fay and containing another
passenger, and wound out of town in a northerly
direction along the Palisades. Behind it was a
police car. North of Weehawken a few miles
where the country is inhabited by installment-plan
142 THROTTLED
" villas," moving-picture studios and scrub-oak
trees, Fay stopped his car at the roadside and dis
appeared with the other man into the underbrush
and then into the deeper woods. The police car
waited until they returned, and followed them back
to their boarding house, where the detectives took
up a vigil outside.
A New York policeman has not the power of
arrest in another state, and it began to look as
though we might have to make an arrest in Jersey,
so Chief Flynn assigned Secret Service Agents
Burke and Savage to the case and they joined
forces with us Saturday morning. Detectives
Barnitz, Coy, Walsh, Sterett, Fenelly and Murphy
were watching the house in Weehawken. About
noon Fay and his companion appeared, and got
aboard a Grantwood street-car. The Bomb
Squad followed at a discreet distance to the point
where the men had dodged into the woods the
night before. Barnitz, who was in command, sent
Sterett and Coy in after them. But nature was
against us, for the fallen leaves carpeting the
woods crackled under foot, and to snap a twig
was to shout one s presence through the clear air.
Twice Fay turned sharply around and peered
through the trees. The two detectives were
nearly discovered on both occasions. They
AJLONG THE WATERFRONT 143
finally decided that it would be impossible to ap
proach their men without alarming them, so they
returned to the waiting automobile. The police
party waited an hour or more, and then realized
that Fay and his companion had evidently gone
out the other side of the woods and so worked
their way back to civilization.
Barnitz thought and acted swiftly. He sent
Sterett and Coy at once to New York to cover
Dr. Kienzle, on the chance that Fay might get into
communication with him it was a long chance,
but the only one that offered, for the men were
now lost to us. Barnitz, Murphy, Fenelly and
Walsh returned to Weehawken to watch Fay s
house. For two hours nothing happened to in
terest them, and Barnitz was beginning to won
der whether he would ever see his quarry again
when an express wagon drove up and stopped at
28 Fifth Street. The driver presently trundled
a trunk out of the house, swung it up into his
wagon and drove off. The police car idled along
behind him for a mile or so through the Wee
hawken streets, and the wagon stopped at another
house. While the driver was indoors this time,
Fenelly, who was roughly dressed and light of
foot, slipped up behind the wagon, vaulted into
the back of it, took one look at the trunk and
i 4 4 THROTTLED
rejoined the others. " There s a plain calling-
card on the trunk. It reads * Walter Scholz,
he said. Again the expressman headed a small
parade, which terminated when the detectives saw
him leave the trunk in a storage warehouse. Bar-
nitz dared not follow it there for fear of arous
ing suspicion, and he figured that the trunk would
probably not be removed during the week-end at
least. The detectives once more returned to the
boarding house and resumed their tedious watch.
The evening passed, and there was no word
either from Coy and Sterett or the lost men.
Late fall evenings in Weehawken are cold.
Some time after midnight two figures came up
the street, and as they turned in to the boarding
house we saw they were Fay and Scholz. Out
of the shadows a moment later Sterett and Coy
slipped up to the car " I could have kissed em
both," Barnitz said afterward. They had cov
ered the office of the Kienzle Clock Company at
41 Park Place, picked up Dr. Kienzle as he left
the office, tailed him until five in the afternoon,
and then saw him enter the lobby of the Equitable
Building at 120 Broadway where he met Fay
and Scholz ! The men conversed for a few mo
ments, and Fay excused himself. He went to a
telephone booth and closed the door. Sterett
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 145
went into the next booth. Through the thin parti
tion he heard Fay call the garage, ask whether a
package had been delivered to him there, then
say "it hasn t, eh?" and hang up the receiver.
He rejoined Scholz and Kienzle and the three
went to a Fulton Street restaurant to dine. The
detectives went to the restaurant but did not dine,
and when the Germans left, and Kienzle parted
from the others, they tailed Fay and Scholz to
Grand Central Palace, saw them appropriate two
young women, dance with them, pledge them in a
few drinks, and finally leave them and return to
Weehawken.
That trunk episode made us uneasy. It might
have meant that they had been frightened and were
going to disappear, and it certainly signified their
intention of moving. We decided to force the
issue, and accordingly in the small hours of Sun
day morning we directed Wettig, of whom, of
course, Fay had no suspicions, to call at Fay s
house later in the forenoon to arrange to test
the TNT. From the automobile, which was
parked at the street-corner some distance from the
house, the detectives saw Wettig enter, and in a
few moments saw him come out-of-doors with Fay
and Scholz. They strolled to the street-car line,
allowed two cars to pass unsignalled, and then,
146 THROTTLED
suddenly, hailed a third. It had closed doors, and
when Murphy, Fenelly, and Coy, seeing the men
climbing aboard, tried to reach the car themselves,
the doors had slammed in their faces and the car
was on its way. Somewhere in the shuffle Walsh
had been mislaid he had been last seen up the
block covering an alley which led back of the
boarding house. There was no time to pick him
up, and the automobile followed the car to Grant-
wood and the now familiar woods. At times the
car was out of sight of the pursuers, and they fully
expected to lose their men again. But from far
in the rear they saw the car stop opposite the
woods. The doors snapped open, and the first
person to set foot on the ground was Walsh. The
second and third were Fay and Scholz, and the
last, Wettig. Walsh had seen them climb aboard
in Weehawken, and had promptly sprinted for the
next corner ahead, where he caught the carl
That was good shadowing technique.
The Germans slipped into the protection of the
underbrush immediately. Barnitz was not dis
posed to let them get away again, so he spread
out his forces so as to follow the party and finally
surround it, and the Bomb Squad, the Secret Serv
ice and two members of the Weehawken police
entered the wood and wove a circle about their
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 147
victims. As they closed in they saw Fay enter a
little shack in the depth of the brush, and bring out
a package, from which he took a pinch of some
material and placed it on a rock. With a nice new
hammer he dealt the rock a sharp blow, there was
a loud report, and the handle snapped in his
hand. The detectives closed in at once, and
Barnitz said, " You re under arrest! "
" Who is in charge of you all? " Fay asked.
" I am," Barnitz replied.
" Well, I will tell you that I am not going to be
placed under arrest," Fay announced. " If I
am, great people will suffer ! You will surely have
war. It cannot be it is impossible. I will
give you any amount of money if you will let me
go."
This was good news, not for its financial con
tent but because we had no previous evidence
against this man Fay save that he had TNT in his
possession. Here he was, trying to confirm our
suspicions.
" How much will you give me? " Barnitz par
leyed.
u All you want any amount! "
44 Fifty thousand?"
4 Yes, fifty thousand, if you want it."
" Got it with you? " Barnitz asked instantly.
148 THROTTLED
" No, I haven t got it all, but I can get it.
I ll pay you a hundred dollars now as a guaran
tee, and I ll give you the balance at noon to
morrow."
Barnitz called two of the other men. " Get
this," he said, and turning to Fay: " All right,
where s your money? " Fay paid him. Then
they took him to the Weehawken headquarters,
guilty at least of attempted bribery, and Barnitz
turned in the cash as Exhibit A.
We suspected that he had something more than
the possession of explosives to conceal, and so
he had, for a search of his rooms and the garage
brought to light the parts for a number of thor
oughly ingenious mechanical contrivances which,
although they were of a new type, we immediately
recognized as bombs. In a packing case at the
storage warehouse were four bombs finished and
ready to fill. He had apparently intended to
manufacture them on a large scale, for in addi
tion to his trial quantity of TNT Fay had twenty-
five sticks of dynamite, 450 pounds of chlorate
of potash, four hundred percussion caps, and two
hundred bomb cylinders. Apparently, too, he had
German sympathies, for we found in his rooms a
regulation German army pistol, loaded. The dis
covery of a chart of New York harbor, and the
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 149
information, which we soon got, that he had a
motorboat in a slip opposite West 42nd Street,
pointed the finger of guilt toward the waterfront
which after all those months of waiting was the
direction in which we were most interested.
Fay told his story. He was a lieutenant of
the German Army, detached for special secret
service. He ascribed his detachment from his
command to his own brilliant realization, as he
was on the fighting front in France, that if all the
American shells that were being fired at him from
French seventy-fives and British eighteen-pounders
could be sunk before they reached France they
would not cause his countrymen so much annoy
ance, and also that pushed to its capacity that
idea would probably influence the outcome of the
war. The fact is that Fay s career, training, edu
cation, languages and character were well known
to the secret service in Berlin, and that when they
wanted to assign a reliable and desperate man to
Captain von Papen in New York, they sent him.
They knew that Fay had spent years in America,
and that he was trained in mechanics. They gave
him $4,000 and a plan of campaign, and said:
" Go west."
It was natural that when he landed he should
seek out his brother-in-law, Walter Scholz, who
150 THROTTLED
was working as gardener on an estate in Con
necticut. It was natural, too, that when he set
about getting supplies for his bombs he should
call on Dr. Kienzle, who made clock machinery,
for Dr. Kienzle had already written to the Ger
man secret service in Berlin recommending just
such work as Fay had come to undertake. When
he came to require explosives, it was only natural
that Kienzle should refer him to his friend Max
Breitung, with the result which we have seen,
and naturally Paul Daeche, who was a good friend
of both Kienzle and Breitung (he had tried to
return to Germany with both of them on the
Kronprmzessin Cecilie when she put out of New
York and put in to Bar Harbor in late July, 1914)
naturally Daeche was interested in Fay s pro
jects and devices, and helped him with them.
Daeche was one of those doubtful Germans who
had come to America to u study business meth
ods " in short a commercial spy, willing to
make a living.
Fay was crestfallen after his arrest. He wor
ried, first, over what his government would think
of him when he had left home promising that not
a single munitions ship would leave New York
and reach the Allies; second, because revealing his
commission to destroy those ships would place
Copyright, by Undtrweod and Underwood. N. Y.
Lieutenant Fay s Motor Boat
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 151
Germany in a bad light with other neutral na
tions; third, for fear he might implicate the Im
perial German Embassy at Washington. He pro
tected the Embassy for a time, and then admitted
that his plans had only been waiting a word from
von Papen and Boy-Ed for consummation. His
mines were all ready to be set, and the attaches,
whom he had met, had not given the word. All
his clever craftsmanship had gone for nothing.
The bombs were so constructed that they might
be attached under water to the rudder-post of a
vessel as she lay at her pier. Inside the bomb case
was a, clockwork, so poised as to fire two rifle
cartridges into a chamber of ninety pounds of
TNT. Lieut. Robert S. Glasburn, of Fort Wads-
worth, who testified at Fay s trial, is my author
ity for the statement that the government requires
only 100 pounds of TNT, exploded at a depth of
fifteen feet under water, to destroy a dreadnought;
Fay s ninety pounds would have torn the rudder
out like a toothpick and ripped away the entire
after part of the vessel. The helmsman of the
vessel himself was unconsciously to have set the
bomb off, for the clockwork was geared to a wire
attached to the rudder itself in such a way that each
normal swing of the rudder would wind up the
mechanism until it fired the cartridge. The
i 5 2 THROTTLED
bomb chamber was fitted with rubber gaskets so
that no water would be admitted before the charge
had done its work. Fay was a skilful hand, and
had done the assembling himself. Scholz bought
the materials at various machine shops about New
York, Kienzle supplied the mechanisms and ap
proved the finished product. Breitung contri
buted 400 pounds of chlorate of potash to make
a German holiday, and Daeche just hung around
and helped everybody.
Fay knew it was easy to approach a pier from
the water-side, for he had spent hours fishing idly
in the river to determine that very fact. Just as
soon as the military attache said the word, he and
Scholz were to put out into the darkness of the
river in their fast motorboat and visit ten ships
sailing for England and France, donning a diver s
suit, and attaching a bomb to each rudder. He
would first slip alongside the police patrol boats,
whose haunts he knew, and steal the guns from
them, counting on the swiftness of his own craft
-to get away from pursuers. He even entertained
the possibility of visiting the British patrol cruis
ers outside the harbor to fix bombs to them
though hardly seriously, I suspect. He had made
a different type of bomb, resembling a telescope,
in which the carefully timed dissolution of a white
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 153
powder would release a firing pin on a large quan
tity of potassium chlorate. This type he pro
posed to smuggle into the cargo. When he haid
created such a reign of terror in New York har
bor that no ship dared leave, he would go to
Boston and Philadelphia and do likewise, then to
Chicago and Buffalo to paralyze lake shipping, and
thence to New Orleans and San Francisco and
home by way of New York or Mexico. It was a
great pity, he said, that he had been arrested, for
this program had been cancelled. He wished he
had got word to start sooner. He had had a
few bombs ready for some time. Then there
came a slack period, and he sent Daeche to Bridge
port on a little side mission for Germany: to get
some dum-dum bullets. These Fay intended to
forward to Berlin through von Papen to support
a protest from Germany to the United States that
we were shipping dum-dum bullets to the Allies.
We were not, naturally, but that did not prevent
his bringing back a few bullets with the jackets
carefully notched by a German agent in Bridge
port.
We had heard enough of what he had in
tended to do, and of his disappointment. What
had he accomplished? What ships had he blown
up ? Was he responsible for the five fires in the
154 THROTTLED
hold of the Craigside on July 24? No. Did he
make the bombs found on the Arabic on July 27 ?
Did he cause the fires on the Assuncion de Lar-
rinaga, the Rotterdam or the Santa Anna, and
did he put a bomb aboard the Willis ton? He did
not, he assured me.
I showed him the Kirkoswald bomb.
" Did you ever see that? "
" No," he answered.
" Didn t you make that?"
" I did not," he replied, and laughed. " That s
a joke. I see now why they sent me over to this
country they wanted someone to make bombs
that would do some damage. That s crude
work."
His answer was truthful. We had to admit it
for there was absolutely no evidence to connect
him with any specific act outside his confession,
and we had to find comfort in the fact that he
was guilty at least of having intended to con
tinue the reign of terror along the wharves.
Bombs had been found or fires had broken out
on no less than twenty-two vessels bound out of
New York up to the time we closed on Fay and
not one was his prey. He was tried with Scholz
and Daeche. The only law then applying to
his case, and the one under which he was tried,
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 155
charged him with " conspiracy to defraud the in
surance underwriters " who had insured cargoes
on certain ships. When the charge was read to
him, Fay innocently asked: What are under
writers? " He found out. Fay went to Atlanta
for eight years, Scholz for six, and Daeche for
four. Kienzle and Breitung were not brought to
trial and after we went to war were invited to
join various other Germans in an internment
camp. Fay had been at Atlanta a month when
he escaped. German friends gave him clothes
and helped him to Baltimore, where Paul Koenig
met him and paid him $450, with injunctions to
go to San Francisco and get more. For some
reason the fugitive feared that there was a plot
against his life in San Francisco, although he had
protected the " great people," so instead of going
west he fled immediately to Mexico. From there
he fled to Spain, and it was not until the sum
mer of 1918 that he was caught there.
He was a bold and important criminal in his
field, and we were glad to have brought him in.
He was not the one we wanted most, not if our
sugar theory was sound. The pursuit of Fay had
certainly scared that theory up an alley. It was
high time we got out of the alley and back into
Main Street
VII
.*
ALONG THE WATERFRONT
II
"Damn Him, Rintelen!"
The pursuit of Robert Fay unearthed what
trial lawyers delight in calling " not one scintilla
of evidence " that he had actually set fire to a
ship. Fay was punished for what he intended
to do and not for any real achievement for the
German cause.
Yet the thought persisted in our minds that
he knew who was making and placing ship bombs.
He professed ignorance. " I do know this
much," he said, after a long session of futile
questioning, " I do know that a certain man paid
another man $10,000 to make those bombs. I
won t tell you who he is, because I think he is now
a prisoner in the Tower of London, and he might
get into more trouble. You can make what you
like out of that."
We made this out of it that the prisoner
156
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 157
then in the Tower to whom Fay referred was
probably Franz Rintelen. He was a German of
prominent station who had had a vision quite
like Fay s a vision of interrupting American
shipping, and so damming the flood of war sup
plies. In early 1915 he had come to America
equipped with plenty of authority and a bank
credit limited only by the resources of the Ger
man Empire, and had spent six months here try
ing to exercise that authority and spend the money
in numerous ways. He had tried to buy rifles of
the American government, he had fostered peace
demonstrations, promoted strikes, lobbied for an
embargo on munitions and made himself busily
useless in numerous other ways, only to sail for
home in the fall of the year and fall into
the hands of the British.
But the charges which I have just cited, and
which are now fully confirmed against this man,
were not then known to us, and Fay s tip was
too ambiguous to help us at the moment. In
stead of ceasing after his arrest, the fires con
tinued. The day after we caught Fay in the
woods the steamer Rio Lages which had sailed a
few days previously took fire out at sea. A week
later a blaze started in the hold of the Euterpe.
The Rochambeau, of the French line, caught fire
158 THROTTLED
at sea on November 6, and the next day there was
an explosion aboard the Ancona. The Tyning-
ham suffered two fires on her voyage east during
early December. There was a maddening cer
tainty about it all that suggested that every ship
that left port must have nothing in her hold ex
cept hungry rats, parlor matches, oily waste and
free kerosene. Never in the history of the port
had so many marine fires occurred in a single
year. Marine insurance was away up and our
patience was away down.
The steamship companies put on special de
tails of guards to watch the vessels from the mo
ment they entered port until they sailed again.
We resumed patrolling the river in various dis
guises. Fay s swift motorboat had disappeared,
but there were plenty of others, and the men of
the Bomb Squad suffered real hardship in all
sorts of inclement weather. It seemed as though
every item of cargo was watched as it passed
into the hold, and every stranger about the piers
carefully followed, but there was absolutely noth
ing to excite suspicion. So we returned to our
sugar theory and the Chenangoes.
I mentioned the fact that they were a floating
tribe in more senses than one, and that the same
man rarely came back twice for employment. A
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 159
few familiar faces, however, could occasionally be
spotted in the crowd at work loading the lighters.
We made it our business to study these steady
workers and found them for the most part a harm
less lot of Scandinavians.
Those who came, worked once, and vanished,
were of all nationalities, with a considerable Ger
man representation. Some of them used to come
from Hoboken, and by a process of elimination
we found that certain of the Hoboken delega
tion were sailors from the idle North German
Lloyd and Hamburg-American ships. We fol
lowed them and asked enough questions about
them to learn the entire history of any civilized
people, but nothing in the form of legal evidence
resulted. A friend who knew the methods taught
in the Wilhelmstrasse for destroying property said
it would be futile for us to follow those men
anyway, for the destroying agent himself rarely
knows the men higher up, the real conspirators.
So it began to look as if even the arrest of a
guilty Chenango would not supply the background
necessary to picture the bomb system in its en
tirety.
On one of the early days of 1916 Detectives
Earth, Corell and Senff reported for duty and
were assigned to Hoboken. They were in-
160 THROTTLED
structed to hang about the restaurants, saloons and
hotels where the officers and petty-officers from
the German ships were accustomed to gather, and
posing as confidential German agents they were to
fish about for whatever might take their bait. All
three men are fine Americans of German descent,
with an excellent command of the German lan
guage, so they got on well with the longshore
folk they met in the " stubes " of Hoboken.
They occasionally suggested in a vague way that
they were the picked servants of the Kaiser, and
aroused some interest and no suspicion among
their new acquaintances. Every man has more
or less desire to be a " secret service man " and
in looking back on the German antics in Amer
ica during the war I think one may attribute as
much of their activity to the dramatic instinct, as
to their cupidity or their real patriotic zeal.
(Paul Koenig is an exaggerated example of what I
mean.) And so it was with those to whom the
three Bomb Squad men talked: a nod here, and
a wink there, a whisper and a wag of the head,
and they took on some importance.
Their reward came when a German whom
Earth had picked up suggested quietly that he
knew a man who had been doing work for the
government (German) and wouldn t Earth like
Copyright, by International Film Service, Inc.
Franz Rintelen
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 161
to meet him? Earth would. So with some cere
mony Barth was introduced as one of von Bern-
storffs special agents to a funny little old man
who looked like a cartoon of the late Prussian
eagle. He was Captain Charles von Kleist of
Hoboken. The three lunched together in Hahn s
restaurant, in Park Row, New York, and von
Kleist found Barth agreeable. He was very glad
to meet a real agent, for he had a grudge
against a fellow over in Hoboken who said he
was a member of the German secret service.
4 You can t be too careful of those fellows,"
Barth said. " There are a lot of fakes around.
What s he done to you? "
" This Scheele, he has a laboratory, where
he has been doing work, making some things. I
was his superintendent now for a long time, and
he owes me several hundred dollars, but he does
not pay me. I think von Igel ought to know
about it, and perhaps Captain von Papen him
self."
" So do I," said Barth. " I ll see that it gets
to him. What was it you were doing over
there?"
Von Kleist was a chemist. Dr. Walter T.
Scheele had been employing him in his laboratory
at 1133 Clinton Street, Hoboken, in a factory
1 62 THROTTLED
which was ostensibly for the manufacture of agri
cultural chemicals. The real business they tran
sacted was the manufacture of bombs. Ernest
Becker, the chief electrician of the North Ger
man Lloyd liner Friedrich der Grosse, and Carl
Schmidt, her chief engineer, had made the con
tainers out of sheet metal. These Becker had
delivered to Scheele, and up in the laboratory the
containers had been filled with explosive. Becker
would come then and take them away, and the
bombs had been used to great advantage, von
Kleist continued, in harassing the shipping. But
what good did it do him, he asked Earth, if he got
no pey for it?
" You wait," returned the " secret agent."
" I ll get you fixed up. I know a man who is
close to von Igel, and I ll have him meet you.
If what you say is true, you certainly have some
thing coming to you. Wait till I get this other
man."
A few days passed. Then von Kleist came
again to Hahn s restaurant, and was introduced to
u Herr Deane," who Barth said spoke no German,
but was a good man in spite of the handicap. A
trace of suspicion crossed the old chemist s face,
and Barth hastened to add: " We have to use
all kinds of people to fool these stupid Yankees,
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 163
see?" This bit of heavy satire reassured von
Kleist, and he found Deane a likable person, who
seemed interested in his case against Scheele.
He went over the ground again. " If you want
any more proof I ll show you," he concluded.
" Come to my house." " Deane " (who votes
under the name of George D. Barnitz, of the
Bomb Squad) joined Barth and accompanied von
Kleist to his house at 1121 Garden Street, Ho-
boken, and out of the muddy back yard the old
man dug up an empty bomb container, almost an
exact duplicate of the " Kirkoswald " bomb!
" There is one of them and I have filled dozens
like that," he said.
" Let s go for a ride," Barth suggested. " We
can go down to Coney Island and have supper
the hotel has opened up and we ll talk things
over." The old man felt very amiable towards
his new friends, and was a talkative and appre
ciative guest. They dined at the Shelburne and
later Barnitz wrote out a statement of von Kleist s
services as the latter outlined them. " This is
just for the sake of regularity, you understand.
I have to have a written report to give to the
chief, or else you won t get yours. You can sign
this as your formal statement."
" All right," von Kleist agreed, and signed.
1 64 THROTTLED
" How long do you think it will be before I could
get some money? "
u Oh, don t worry about that part of it," Earth
said. " I tell you what we ll do. We ll all three
go up to see the chief now I want him to meet
you anyhow, and you can supply any more facts
that we may not have down."
So they came up to my office not von Igel s.
Barnitz and Earth said his expression changed
when he entered headquarters and knew he had
been betrayed. He said, " I see now why you
have been so good to me."
The prisoner was docile. He said he knew he
was caught and he wanted to help us round up the
rest. I showed him the Kirkoswald bomb, and
told him where it had been found. " Yes," he
said, " Captain Steinburg and Captain Bode came
to the laboratory after they saw in the paper
that the bomb had been found in Marseilles and
they gave Dr. Scheele the devil because it had
not gone off. It was supposed to explode within
four days, but it didn t explode in twelve."
" How many did you make? " I asked. " I don t
know how many," the prisoner answered. The
ones that were put on the Inchmoor and the Lank-
dale went off all right, and there were two fires
on the Tyningham. " I gave one box of thirty
Henry Earth, U. S. Army, who posed as the German Secret
Service agent in the von Rintelen ship bomb cases
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 165
of them to two Irishmen from New Orleans,
O Reilly and O Leary. They took them down
there to set fire to ships with them."
" Did you give the rest to Becker? "
" Yes. And he gave them to Captain Wol-
pert Wolpert is superintendent of the piers of
the Atlas Line over in Hoboken. Captain Bode,
he is also a superintendent, for the Hamburg-
American Line. Captain Steinburg I don t know
much about, but he is in Germany now."
I thanked him for his information, and asked
him if he would tell me everything about the plot,
from its beginning up to the moment. He said
he would; that he was going to help the United
States now. I excused myself for a moment and
left the room.
Von Kleist saw an electrician in a rough shirt
and overalls repairing the lights in the room, and
struck up a conversation with him. The elec
trician s English carried a slight German accent,
and von Kleist said:
" Sie sind deutsch, nicht wahr?" (You re
German?)
" Ja," replied the workman.
Still using the mother tongue the prisoner asked
the workman to do him a favor. " Deliver these
notes for me, will you? I can t go out of here,
1 66 THROTTLED
and I would like to send word to some people."
And he wrote on two messages, one addressed
to Wolpert and Bode, the other to Schmidt and
Becker. The substance of both was the same:
" Beat it I m pinched/ Detective Senff had
been disguised as an electrician and stationed in
the room for the express purpose of getting any
statement the prisoner made a practice not
usually necessary, but this was a serious case.
Evidently von Kleist s profession of transferred
loyalty to the United States was only a scrap of
paper. We locked him up.
That night Walsh and Murphy watched Cap
tain Bode s house in a New Jersey suburb, while
Sterett and Fenelly covered Wolpert s house
nearby. Both men reported at their respective
piers for work the next morning, and both were
invited by the detectives to come over to head
quarters " to consult with us in a little water
front investigation we were carrying on." Senff
went to the North German Lloyd piers to call on
Becker. The guard at the pier-head put through
a telephone connection, and Senff told Becker he
wanted to see him on an urgent matter. Pres
ently Becker appeared at the pier gates, and
through the bars Senff whispered: " Von Kleist
wants to see you. Trouble " Becker returned
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 167
in an instant with his hat and came to headquar
ters. A little later in the day the net caught
Schmidt, and after a year and a half of waiting
we had rounded up in twenty-four hours five prom
ising prisoners.
Von Kleist, we knew, was not altogether relia
ble; Bode was positively robust in his denial of any
knowledge of the affair. Becker, a thin blond
youth, made a complete confession. Yes, he had
made the bomb containers several hundred of
them, under Schmidt s orders. He had filled
them with chlorate of potash and sulphuric acid
at the Scheele laboratory and had seen Captain
Wolpert take them away. At that moment Wol-
pert, a hulking red figure, who had been convers
ing fairly freely, shut up tight, and refused to an
swer further questions. Becker acknowledged
that he had made the Kirkoswald bomb, and
added that the later cases were larger than that
" Captain Wolpert," I said, " don t you think
you re doing Germany more harm than good by
doing this sort of thing? "
" Damn it! " he exploded. " I gave it up June
first. But you ve got to do what those bull-headed
fellows tell you, haven t you? "
" Did you know Robert Fay, Captain?" I
asked.
1 68 THROTTLED
1 Yes I met him one time in SchimmePs office
with Rintelen," he replied.
4 You mean von Rintelen? " I asked, using the
aristocratic prefix which Rintelen had assumed.
" No! " bellowed Wolpert. " Not von, damn
him Rintelen! "
The result of our first examination of the four
was the arrest of Carl Schmidt, chief engineer of
the Friedrich der Grosse, and three of his assist
ants, Georg Praedel, William Paradies and Fried-
rich Garbade. We covered the laboratory, but
Dr. Scheele had fled, to Florida. There he re
ceived a telegram telling him it was safe for him
to return to New York. He had traveled as far
as Baltimore when another telegram informed him
of the arrests, and he fled to Cuba, and it was
March of 1918 before he was arrested by the
Havana police and extradited to New York.
The laboratory was in a secret room on the top
floor of the factory, accessible only through a
trap door, and the trap itself was pierced with
eyeholes so that anyone at work inside could see
who was outside. We found a rich store of ex
plosive and incendiary chemicals all the in
gredients of the bombs, which Lieutenant Busby
brought back as evidence. Scheele was a finished
chemist, and a German spy of 23 years standing.
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 169
It had never occurred to him that von Kleist
would squeal for want of money. " How good
a German are you?" he had asked von Kleist
when he engaged him in March, 1915. (The
first project of the two was to saturate fertilizer
with lubricating oil and thus smuggle the oil into
Germany.) " I m as good a German as you ever
pretended to be," von Kleist answered. " You
are not," said Scheele, " or you wouldn t have
taken out naturalization papers here. I didn t
do that." " Well, I couldn t have got my cap
tain s sailing license if I hadn t," said von Kleist.
Loyalty to Germany alone had not satisfied the
appetite of von Kleist, for he had caught a glimpse
that night of the check for $10,000, signed " Han-
sen " which Scheele proudly waved as evidence of
what Germany thought of his ship-destroying abil
ity. In the Austrian-subsidized Transatlantic
Trust Company, where von Rintelen had deposited
a large amount of money on his arrival from
Germany, he had an account in the name of Han-
sen. Here then was the explanation of Fay s re
mark about his friend who was a prisoner in Eng
land.
So far, so good. We knew that Becker,
Schmidt and the other engineers had made the
bombs, and that Becker and Scheele had filled
i yo THROTTLED
them. On the evidence the four were convicted;
Becker and von Kleist were sent to Atlanta for
two years, and the other four to the penitentiary
for six months. We were satisfied, but could not
prove, that Wolpert and Bode had disposed of
the bombs where they would do the most damage.
They refused naturally to convict themselves, were
admitted to bail of $25,000, which was provided
by friendly Germans, and were interned when we
went to war. The four assistants served their
terms and then were extended the privileges of
internment camps as dangerous enemy aliens.
So far, so good, but the snake was not yet
dead we had only cut off a section of his tail.
To be sure, he could not get about with his former
vigor. The ship fires, w r hich had continued
through February, stopped, and one can count on
his fingers the fires that broke out on ships after
that date. Our theory had served its purpose
but who were the men higher up?
When Paul Koenig had been taken into custody
in late December, 1915, we had found in his house
in West 94th Street an address book containing
some hundreds of names of folk with whom he
apparently did business. The memorandum book
is mentioned elsewhere in this volume in detail,
but the present case may show just what specific
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 171
use we made of the catalogue of spies which the
obliging Koenig had left in our hands. Among
other entries was this :
" Boniface during the day 3396 Worth
ask for
Boniface at night 1993 Chelsea Never
home until 10:30 p. M. n
We had gone systematically through the book,
checking up our knowledge of each person men
tioned, in order to see whether the trail of Koenig,
von Papen, Boy-Ed and the Hamburg-American
interests might not lead us to other unexpected
outrages, and so we were seeking this Boniface
who was " never home until 10:30 P.M." For
months he proved elusive, but not long after the
arrest of the Hoboken bomb-manufacturers we
located a certain Bonford Boniface.
He had only a single room for lodgings, and
we called there one day while he was known to
be elsewhere and made a careful examination of
its contents. Our first signal that Boniface might
be oft-color was the discovery of a file of clippings
from newspapers describing the arrest of von
Kleist and his crew. Apparently he was inter
ested in German bombs. There was no evidence
of the reason for his interest, however, and the de-
172 THROTTLED
tectives were about to leave the room as they
had found it when they ran across two letters
signed " Karl Schimmel," one postmarked Buenos
Aires and one from Holland. Both were color
less messages asking how fortune was treating
Boniface.
Now a cat may look at a king, and a man may
receive friendly notes from the Argentine and
Holland without molestation, but I recalled some
thing of this name Karl Schimmel. He had
come under suspicion before, first, when the so-
called " Do-Do Chemical Company " of 395
Broadway had applied to the fire department for
permission to store dynamite on the premises of
its executive, Karl Schimmel, at 127 Concord Ave
nue, the Bronx. The application had been de
nied, and the fire department had asked the Bomb
Squad to look up the Do-Do Chemical Company
and its officers. It had no factory, no visible busi
ness, and as we presently found out no Karl Schim
mel, for he became alarmed at our investigations
and fled to Mexico, and South America, and then,
with the aid of Count Luxburg he made his way
back to Germany. Again, Wolpert had spoken
of having met Fay in Schimmers office with
Rintelen but Wolpert would not talk. There
jvas a reasonable margin of doubt in our minds
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 173
of Schimmers behavior enough to warrant
Earth s going to Boniface and asking him to come
to headquarters.
Schimmel, Boniface told us, had employed him
for a time at $25 a week. And what had he done
in return? Nothing more than provide Schim
mel with a list of weekly sailings of all steam
ships leaving New York for Europe, together
with a description of their cargoes. Why had
Schimmel, a lawyer, been interested in sailings and
cargoes? Boniface said he did not know. How
had Boniface compiled the list? At first, he said,
by scouting along the waterfront, picking up scraps
of conversation here and there and keeping an
observant eye on the trucks bound for the piers.
Pier-guards began to notice him a trifle too at
tentively, the waterfront was too many miles long,
twenty-five dollars a week was only twenty-five
dollars a week, and Boniface, it must be remarked,
was racially thrifty. So he adopted the much
simpler expedient of buying each morning a copy
of the New York Herald, a newspaper which pays
some attention to shipping, net cost in those days
one cent, copying sailing dates, hours and destina
tions from its columns, and conjuring the cargoes
out of his imagination.
Where had he delivered his reports? To
174 THROTTLED
Schimmel in his office at 51 Chambers Street.
Whom had he seen there? Why, Rintelen, once,
but he didn t know what his business there was.
Another time a man named Herman Ebling.
(Ebling, it developed later, had been directed by
Wolpert, who had had his orders from a Cap
tain Steinburg, to take a tube of glanders germs
and a dipping stick, seek out the wharves where
horses were being shipped abroad for artillery
and transport, and insert the germ-soaked stick
into the nostrils of every third horse he could
reach, in order that a serious epidemic might
presently break out. Ebling claims he threw the
tube overboard without fulfilling his mission.)
Where was Ebling? Boniface professed not to
know. Whom else had he seen? Well, there
was another German lawyer, Martin Illsen, coun
sel for the New Yorker Herold, a German daily.
We sent for Illsen and questioned him of his
dealings with Schimmel. He had written an
article which he sent to the newspapers protesting
against the shipment of arms and ammunition to
the Allies, for which Schimmel had paid him $100.
That he said was the extent of his service.
" Did you ever see this man Ebling there?"
I inquired, feeling that in Ebling we might find
the missing link between the bomb-makers and the
Sergeant Thomas Jenkins, U. S. Army, who successfully
located a part of one of the bombs in a locker in
the German Turn Verein in Brooklyn
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 175
fires. "Yes," Illsen replied. " Where is he
now? " Illsen did not know. " Do you remem
ber meeting anyone else in the office ?" Yes,
there was a lithographer. His name is Uhde.
He comes, I think, from Brooklyn but I do not
know where he is."
It is our business to find out where people are,
and as the reader may already have observed,
to follow a case through from one man to an
other if we have to question a thousand individuals
on the way to our goal. We took up the search
for Uhde, and investigated everyone of that name
in Greater New York. More months had passed
before we finally found the man we were after
Walter Uhde. We pounced on him without the
formality of an examination, and searched his
room, to find some correspondence with Schimmel
and more newspaper accounts of the arrest and
trial of the Hoboken gang. It was this evidence
and the pressure which it brought to bear upon
his conscience that made Uhde give up evidence
enough to picture the bomb plot in its entirety.
It began, as the outbreak of the ship fires al
ready had indicated, in the early months of 1915.
One winter night there was a secret meeting in
the restaurant of the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum.
In a private dining-room sat Dr. Scheele, the
176 THROTTLED
chemist, Captain Wolpert, the dock-superintend
ent, Karl Schimmei, the lawyer, Uhde, the litho
grapher, Eugene Reistert, the proprietor of the
restaurant, and a certain Captain Steinburg. This
man was particularly dangerous to the welfare of
the United States. His real name was Erich von
Steinmetz, and he was a captain in the German
navy. At that time he had just come to America
by way of Vladivostock, dodging the immigration
examiners by travelling in woman s dress, and
evading the quarantine authorities by concealing
in the fold of the dress the same tubes of glanders
germs with which he sent Ebling to inoculate the
horses for the Allies. Steinmetz was Rintelen s
first and ablest assistant, and Schimmei was his
second. The two men outlined to the dinner
party a plan to manufacture and plant the bombs.
The sailors would make the containers, Scheele
would see that they were filled and would act as
paymaster for the group, Schimmei and Wolpert
would keep in touch with the sailings and cargoes,
and Wolpert, Uhde and Reistert would deliver
them to the small fry who could be hired to place
them in sugar-bags and other freight.
How well the plan succeeded we already know.
Wolpert distributed the bombs to several local
points of German operation in the greater city,
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 177
and even Scheele had on one occasion carried a
box full of bombs packed only in sawdust from the
laboratory over to the Labor Lyceum. Reistert
and Uhde tested a few of the infernal machines
in the rear of the building, and Uhde fancied
them so much that he kept one as a souvenir,
stowed away in the toe of an old boot in his
locker at the Turn Verein, where Detectives Earth
and Jenkins found it. The conspiracy had or
iginated in March; the first day of May, Wolpert
gave a bomb to a Chenango who smuggled it
aboard the Kirkoswald, with the result which we
have followed. On May 7, 1915, the glorious
Lusitania was torpedoed, and on the following
morning, Karl Schimmel, coming into his office and
finding Illsen and Boniface there, exclaimed:
" Ah that U-boat commander has done well
enough, but he has stolen all the glory away from
me. I had nine cigars on the Lusitania." (For
"cigars" read "bombs.") "If they had not
torpedoed her the cigars would have done the
work!"
He may have told the truth. His secret is at
the bottom of the Atlantic now, along with what
shreds of respect the civilized world might other
wise have had for Germany. It is certain that
Schimmel tried to place his " cigars " aboard the
178 THROTTLED
vessel, for Reistert had given Uhde $100 and a
little man named Klein a package of bombs with
instructions to go to a saloon in West Street near
the White Star piers. There they were to meet a
third man, to whom they would deliver the pack
age, and that man would see them safely aboard
the ship. The man did not appear at the ap
pointed hour, so they left the package with the
bartender, and went to the missing man s house
in Harlem, where they paid him his fee. It was
the same Klein who had been carrying a bomb
in his pocket one afternoon when Schimmel had
sent him to South Ferry to place it aboard a ship.
But the bomb caught fire, and before he could
rid himself of it it had burned through his cloth
ing, so Schimmel magnanimously gave him $20
for a new suit and his trouble. And it was the
same Klein whom we found dead of disease in a
hospital, beyond the law s reach, when we finally
were tracing him for arrest.
The stories of the culprits combined to lay at
their door the origin of most of the ship fires with
which we had been afflicted for the past two years.
If nothing else had proved it, the cessation of the
fires would have been enough. We were anxious,
after our twisting, winding search, rather to have
the guilty men convicted and placed in safe-keep-
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 179
ing than to fix definitely upon them the guilt for
all of the fires that would have been practically
impossible but the very fact that the fires
ceased is sufficient evidence of their complete guilt.
It was not until October 17, 1917, six months
after the United States had gone to war, that orr
long hunt came to an end, and we arrested Boni
face, Reistert, Uhde and one Peter Zeffert It
was Zeffert who confessed to having gone to
Schimmel s office one afternoon to help him fill
the bomb containers with chemicals. Reistert was
there, and the three took the bombs away in a
taxi-cab to meet a destroying agent in a waterfront
saloon. The agent did not show up, and Messrs.
Schimmel, Reistert and Zeffert thereupon returned
to the Chambers Street office and unloaded the
tubes.
I am sorry that our laws were not at that time
drastic enough to punish the men as they deserved.
James W. Osborne, the assistant United States
Attorney who tried the case, wove an admirable
prosecution, and Judge Harland B. Howe turned
a stern face upon the prisoners. Wolpert had
been haled from Atlanta to answer to the new
charge, as had von Kleist and Becker. The
engineers were brought out of their internment
camps. And last, and foremost of all, Franz
i8o THROTTLED
Rintelen was there returned to us by the Brit
ish to answer to a series of charges which he had
tried hard and expensively to conceal. The best
our laws of the moment could do for these men
who had defiled our hospitality and destroyed mil
lions of dollars worth of property on our soil
was to sentence them to one-and-one-half years
in Atlanta. It is to the everlasting credit of Judge
Howe that Rintelen, Wolpert, von Kleist, Becker,
Praedel, Paradies and Garbade received the maxi
mum prison term, and the maximum fine of $2,000
each. Under the espionage act later adopted each
of them could be sentenced to twenty years and
fined $10,000.
Popular consent would have made short work
of these men s lives. Justice had to preside over
their trials, however, and they were punished to
the full extent of an inadequate law. A more
drastic criminal code would probably have fright
ened the German spies in the United States, and
it is equally true that German agents who were
caught in the net of the law laughed up their
sleeves as they made use of one after another of
the law s technical provisions and privileges to
avert what would have been certain and swift
death had they worn the field-gray uniforms of
their nation. They have not suffered in propor-
Norman H. White, of Boston, a civilian attached to
the Military Intelligence, who unearthed
numerous German intrigues
ALONG THE WATERFRONT 181
tion to their crimes. But their nation is paying
the price.
There is something in the spectacle of Rintelen
serving his sentence at Atlanta a long sentence,
which he tried numerous tricks to evade that
is peculiarly German, and that comes more nearly
satisfying our popular desire for retribution than
the plight of any of his wretched employees. He
came to America arrogant, rich, defiant, cruel,
and sly to wage war upon us. One of his first
acts was to sign his check for $10,000 to manu
facture bombs to destroy our shipping. When
certain Americans crossed his reeking trail he
ran away in terror. By great good luck he was
captured, discovered, and returned and by con
siderable persistence and patience on the part of
the Bomb Squad one of his trails was laid bare.
(He had many others.) He suffered great in
dignity, as he thought, at being tried with the
manual laborers whom he had employed and left
in trouble. He was convicted and sent to prison.
He pleaded ill-health, though he was a strong
man, and he tried to be transferred to a more
lenient prison. He invoked the aid of his crum
bling government, who informed Washington that
unless he were surrendered to Germany that na
tion would t^ke the lives of American soldiers cap-
1 82 THROTTLED
tured in battle. Every trick failed, and Franz
Rintelen, tried not as a prisoner of war for what
morally were acts of war against the United
States, but by our peace courts, and under our
lenient peace laws, must now serve out his term
in an American prison, although his nation has
given up the war and begged for clemency.
Rintelen used to suggest that he was an illegiti
mate relative of the late Kaiser. It may be true:
the two have something in common. The Kaiser
has become plain Hohenzollern, and the chief
German bomb-plotter in the United States, is, as
Wolpert angrily said that day at headquarters,
" not von Rintelen, damn him Rintelen! "
VIII
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS
The facts were apparently unrelated to each
other. Only a flight of imagination would have
connected them, and imagination, though it is
often valuable in speculating on what probably
happened, is not court evidence of what did hap
pen. In the order of their occurrence, the facts
were these :
i. On April 16, 1906, Leone Krembs Muenter,
wife of Erich Muenter, an instructor in German in
Harvard College, died, soon after the birth of
her second baby. The circumstances of her death
were suspicious, and the Coroner directed that
the stomach of the body be taken to the Harvard
Medical School for examination. Dr. Muenter,
on the following day, requested that he be allowed
to escort the remains from Cambridge to Chicago
for burial, and this permission was granted.
With the children he made the gloomy pilgrimage
west. The body of the dead wife was cremated.
Dr. Muenter wrote at once from Chicago to the
New York Life Insurance Company directing that
183
1 84 THROTTLED
the policy on his wife s life be made payable to her
sister, instead of to himself. The examination of
the lining of the stomach had indidated slow
arsenical poisoning and a warrant was issued at
once for the husband. But it reached Chicago to
find him gone no one knew where.
2. In a corridor of the main floor of the Senate
wing of the United States Capitol at Washington
used to stand a telephone switchboard. On the
night of Friday, July 2, 1915, an explosion near
it blew fragments of the board through the walls
of the telephone booths adjoining. No one was
about, which was lucky, for the wrecked switch
board was not the only damage done: plaster
rained from the walls and ceilings, every door
nearby was blown open (one was a door into the
Vice-President s office which had not been in use
for forty years), the east reception room was
wrecked, a gaping hole was torn in the stonework
of the wall, and fragments of windows, mirrors,
crystal chandeliers and telephone apparatus flew
in every direction.
3. In his country home on East Island, where
Long Island reaches out into the Sound to form
Glen Cove, John Pierporit Morgan was having
breakfast on the morning of Saturday, July 3,
1915. It was nearly half past nine, and the
MR. HOLTS FOUR DAYS 185
members of his family, together with several holi
day guests, were in the breakfast room, which is
on the eastern side of the house. An automobile
drove up to the front door, and the butler was
confronted by a man of dingy appearance who
asked, in an accent suggesting German, to see Mr.
Morgan. He presented a card bearing the
legend " Society Summer Directory: represented
by Thomas C. Lester." The butler wanted bet
ter credentials and asked for them. The stranger
pulled a revolver from his pocket, covered the
butler with it and stepping inside the door de
manded, u Where is Morgan? "
With good presence of mind the butler an
swered, " In -the library," the library being in
the west wing of the house, and away from the
breakfast room and stepped toward the library
door. Unfortunately it was open, and the in
truder, who was following with his gun aimed,
saw that the room was empty, and that the butler
had lied. At the same moment Physick, the but
ler, realized that his ruse had not worked. He
shouted, u Upstairs, Mr. Morgan! Upstairs!"
hoping by the urgency of his cry to convey to the
banker a warning that something was distinctly
wrong and at the same time to get him out of
range. Mr. Morgan at once hurried up a rear
1 86 THROTTLED
stairway and began to search for the trouble. A
moment later Mrs. Morgan joined him. They
proceeded from one room to another, found noth
ing, and asked a nurse what was wrong. As the
little search party reached the head of the main
staircase, with Mrs. Morgan in the lead, she
caught sight of a strange man with a revolver in
each hand. Lester had come up the front stair
case. Mr. Morgan saw his wife between him
self and the guns, brushed her aside, and charged.
The man fired twice as the two went to the floor,
grappling, and the hammer of his revolver clicked
twice more on caps that did not explode. Two
wounds, one in the front of the abdomen, and
the other in the left thigh, did not prevent Mr.
Morgan, from overpowering his assailant: he lay
with the full weight of his 220 pounds on the
man s body, pinning down the revolvers to the
floor. One of the guns Mrs. Morgan and the
nurse wrenched from the man s hand; the other
Mr. Morgan captured. Physick had meanwhile
roused the servants, and he stunned the intruder
with a lump of coal as he lay on the floor. Les
ter s unconscious form was then trussed up and
taken to the Glen Cove jail.
There, briefly, were the facts. The Morgan
shooting I have recounted in some detail to show
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 187
the desperation with which the stranger tres
passed, and attempted murder. It was not an
affair which suggested a motive of robbery, but
apparently a cold attempt at assassination. The
Capitol explosion had been fruitless in its results
so far as the loss of human life was concerned,
and its origin was at that time a complete mystery.
The Muenter affair had long since passed out of
my memory. How to get evidence to establish
motives for the crimes, fix the entire responsibility,
and punish the offenders?
Never, probably, has long-distance communica
tion played a swifter or more helpful part in a
case. In order to show just how a nation which
has been called to the hunt can enter into the
pursuit, let us follow the developments in their
strict chronological order.
At seven o clock Saturday morning, before
Lester had appeared at the door of the Morgan
house, the newspapers in Washington received a
typewritten form letter, signed " R. Pearce," pro
testing in excited terms against the shipment of
munitions to the nations at war. Its second para
graph read:
" In connection with the Senate affair would
it not be well to stop and consider what we are
doing? "
1 88 THROTTLED
The writer stated further:
" Sorry, I, too, had to use explosives (for the
last time I trust). It is the export kind, and
ought to make enough noise to be heard above
the voices that clamor for war and blood money.
This explosion is the exclamation point to my
appeal for peace."
Again he wrote :
" By the way, don t put this on the Germans or
Bryan. I am an old-fashioned American . . ."
And he added, in a penned postscript:
" We would, of course, not sell to the Germans
if they could buy here, and since so far we only
sold to the Allies, neither side should object if we
stopped."
At half-past nine o clock the shooting oc
curred at Glen Cove. About the same time Dr.
Charles Munroe, consulting expert of the Bureau
of Mines, was called to the Capitol to make an
examination of the wreckage of the explosion.
He soon arrived at the conclusion that the shock
had been caused by no spontaneous combustion,
but by a fair quantity of high explosive.
While he was prying about among the debris,
MR. HOLTS FOUR DAYS 189
Lester was being lodged in the Glen Cove jail.
His bonds were loosened, leaving him a very
sore set of ankles and wrists, his cut forehead
was bound up, and when he was questioned, he
gave out the following statement:
" I, Frank Holt, of Ithaca, N. Y., and lately
professor of German at Cornell, do hereby freely
make to William E. Luyster, justice of the peace,
the following statement of the facts concerning
my visit to the home of J. P. Morgan at East
Island, Glen Cove, N. Y.
" I have been in New York City about ten
days and had made a previous trip to the home
of Mr. Morgan last week. My motive in coming
here was to try to force Mr. Morgan to use his in
fluence with the manufacturers of munitions in
the United States, and with the millionaires who
are financing the war loans, to have an embargo
put on shipments of war munitions, so as to
relieve the American people from complicity
in the death of thousands of our European
brothers.
" If Germany should be able to buy munitions
here we would of course positively refuse to sell
to her. The reason that the American people
have not as yet stopped the shipments seems to
be that we are getting rich out of this traffic, but
do we not get enough prosperity out of non-
contraband shipments? And would it not be
190 THROTTLED
better for us to make what money we can with
out causing the slaughter of Europeans?
" I am very sorry that I had to cause the
Morgan family this unpleasantness, but I believe
that if Mr. Morgan would put his shoulder to the
wheel he could accomplish what I have endeavored
to do. I wanted him to do the work I could not
do. I hope that he will do his share anyway.
We must stop our participation in the killing of
Europeans, and God will take care of the rest."
Lester, then, was not Lester at all, but Frank
Holt.
Meanwhile I knew nothing of what had trans
pired. I had risen that Saturday morning looking
forward to a day of relaxation and pleasure, for
there was to be a field day for the police at
Gravesend Bay. On the way down to the track I
read with some interest of the explosion in the
Capitol, and then dismissed it from my mind:
the newspapers, which had been printed about
one o clock of that morning, carried no news ex
cept a description of the effects of the explosion.
Furthermore, it was a holiday, with another to
follow, and I proposed to enjoy it.
About noon Police Commissioner Woods called
me to the telephone, told me hurriedly that Mr.
Morgan had been " shot by a German," and
told me to get down to Glen Cove as fast as
MR. HOLTS FOUR DAYS 191
possible. " Find out the man s motives and any
accomplices he had," the commissioner said.
" Keep in touch with me." And hung up. I
found Detective Coy of the Bomb Squad, and a
patrolman who knew German in case we should
need an interpreter, and after some delay in get
ting a car, we hastened to the little Glen Cove
jail.
Then, at four o clock, for the first time, I was
told the facts as Glen Cove knew them. A search
of Holt s person had disclosed two revolvers,
three sticks of dynamite, a number of loose car
tridges, a cartoon clipped from a Philadelphia
newspaper, an express receipt, and a scrap of
paper bearing the names in pencilled handwriting
of Mr. Morgan s children. Frank McCahill,
the constable in charge, showed me the statement
Holt had made, and supplied the further informa
tion that Holt had been identified by some of
Mr. Morgan s employees as a man who had been
seen on the estate two days before on Thurs
day. Glen Cove had been in a turmoil since
the shooting. Newspaper reporters and photog
raphers had flocked to the jail, had taken photo
graphs of the prisoner, and already prints of the
photographs were on their way to every large
newspaper in the country. His statement, as well
192 THROTTLED
as a description of the man, had been telegraphed
over the Associated and United Press wires in
every direction. So I decided to have a talk
with the prisoner himself.
He was brought out of his cell, and we sat in
comparative privacy on two camp-stools in the
corridor. He was a frail, slight fellow, with
deep eye-sockets, a prominent hook-nose, and a
retreating chin. His accent was certainly Ger
man. His name, he said, was Frank Holt, and
he was born in the United States. He told me
he was forty years old, that his father and mother
had been born in America, although they had
both French and German ancestors, and that his
wife and two children were in Dallas. For sev
eral years, he said, he had taught in Vanderbilt
University, and during the year just past had been
instructor in German in Cornell University, at
Ithaca. He had left Ithaca two weeks before,
and had stopped at a Mills Hotel in New York
before coming down to Glen Cove.
" What did you try to kill Mr. Morgan for? "
I asked.
" I didn t intend to kill him. I want to per
suade him to use his influence to stop the ship
ment of ammunition to Europe."
"Well, you chose a pretty strong means of
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 193
persuading him, didn t you? What was the
dynamite for? "
" I was going to show him what was causing
all the trouble explosives."
He answered frankly, but not completely. The
scrap of paper bearing the names of the Morgan
children, he said, was only a memorandum; he
had intended to hold them hostage until Mr.
Morgan promised to exert himself to stop the
export of supplies to the Allies. No amount of
questioning would bring an answer as to where
he had bought the dynamite, but he readily volun
teered the approximate addresses of the shops
where he had purchased the revolvers and car
tridges. These facts gave me something to work
on, and I went outside to a telephone while he was
locked up again.
Meanwhile the whole United States had been
taking a keen interest in the case. Holt s state
ment had reached Washington on the Associated
Press wire, and was delivered to Captain Board-
man of the Washington Police. Captain Board-
man had been busy all morning throwing out lines
on the Capitol case, and attempting to trace the
author of the R. Pearce letters, which had been
mailed in the city about nine o clock of the previ
ous evening. He read the Pearce letter over
i 9 4 THROTTLED
several times in search of some clue to the writer.
Presently the Holt statement came in. From the
two communications these sentences met the Cap
tain s eyes:
Pearce Holt
" We would, of " If Germany should
course, not sell to the be able to buy munitions
Germans if they could here we would, of
buy here, and since so course, positively re-
far we only sold to the fuse to sell to her."
Allies, neither side
should object if we
stopped."
Captain Boardman s next move was to wire to
his chief, Major Pullman, who happened to be in
New York to attend that same field day that Coy
and I had missed. His message, dated 2 p. M.
(while we were on the way to Glen Cove), read:
" Ascertain from F. Holt, in custody at Glen
Cove, N. Y., for shooting J. P. Morgan, his
whereabouts Thursday and Friday, as he may
have placed the bomb in the Capitol here Friday
night"
This message, sent in care of Inspector Faurot,
was relayed to us at Glen Cove by Guy Scull,
deputy commissioner, but not until after the Asso-
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 195
elated Press man at the jail had had a tip tele
graphed from his Washington office to ask Holt
the same question. Holt denied that he had been
in Washington, flatly. But McCahill knew he
had been in Glen Cove Thursday, so at 5 p. M. he
telegraphed Captain Boardman:
" F. Holt was in Glen Cove Thursday, July
I, P.M."
I telephoned headquarters the numbers of the
revolvers, and the neighborhood in which Holt
said he had bought them. Several members of
the squad started out from headquarters to iden
tify the pawnshops, and to find out what they
could of the history of three sticks of dynamite
marked " Keystone National Powder Company.
60 per cent. Emporium, Pa."
Holt had proved obstinate to all questions of
the source of his supply of dynamite. The man
was getting tired: he had had a hard day, had
been considerably battered, had been interviewed,
photographed, harried with questions, his ankles
and wrists ached, his head throbbed, and his mind,
which though alert and active, was none too
stable, was showing signs of exhaustion. His
condition suggested that he might be in a mood
to supply some of the further information we
196 THROTTLED
needed, so I suggested that we take an automobile
ride and he could show me where he had been
the day before. He protested at once.
" No ! My head is aching, and you want to
take me on a ride and make a show of me to the
morbid crowd. I will not tell you not until
later. Later perhaps, but not now! "
" All right," I answered. " Later."
Then I decided we had better get our informa
tion down on paper in a formal examination.
The meeting convened at once, with Coy, Mc-
Cahill, a county detective from Mineola, two
deputy sheriffs, two patrolmen, a stenographer
and myself as board of inquiry. It may serve
to describe the fellow s manner, as well as to
bring out what the examination further disclosed,
if we make use here of extracts from the proceed
ings:
Question. Where were you born?
Answer. Somehow my brain is in such a shape
that I can t remember Wisconsin, I know. I
don t know what it is that affected me some
thing inside of me maybe it is the shock I got
from that.
Q. You speak with a German accent. Were
you born in Germany, or in any of the European
countries tell me the truth.
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 197
A . Now listen. That has been said before
that I speak with a foreign accent. That is be
cause I speak several languages. I speak French,
German, Spanish, and all that. That is the cause
of that, you see?
Q. We will eliminate the trouble of asking
you questions if you will tell us the town or city
in which you were born.
A. Yes. Now I am trying to think (a pause)
I will have to disappoint you.
Q. Your memory is very clear on other things.
A. As I told you, I have been lying there,
thinking, thinking.
I took up the matter of the express receipt
found on him :
Q. On June n, 1915, you shipped a box by
the American Express Company to D. F. Sensa-
baugh, 101 South Marsalis Street, Dallas, Texas.
What did that box contain?
A. It evidently must have been a typewriter.
I would not be sure now, I think it was a type
writer.
And then the cartoon, clipped from the Phil
adelphia paper, brought out a very unexpected
fact:
Q. How many times have you been in Phil
adelphia ?
198 THROTTLED
A. No time.
Q. You came to New York from Ithaca?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you mean to truthfully answer my ques
tion by saying that you have not been to Philadel
phia at any time since you left Ithaca?
A. At no time.
Q. You have a clipping of a Philadelphia
newspaper in your possession. Where did you get
that?
A. I think I got that out of a Philadelphia
paper of course, that I found lying around. I
think it was a cartoon.
Q. Were you not in Philadelphia when you
purchased that paper?
A. I did not purchase that. I saw that lying
around somewhere, probably in the Mills Hotel.
Q. Where did you sleep last night?
A. Now, I will tell you. A reporter from the
Associated Press asked me about this Washing
ton business, and he was trying to connect me
with that. I suppose that is what you are trying
to do.
Q. I am not trying to connect you with any-
thii ^. I want truthful answers. I am very frank
and honest with you. I will fairly investigate
every answer that you make.
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 199
T A. Yes, I thought that over since he was here,
and I think it is just as well to say that I wrote
that R. Pearce letter. I was in Washington yes
terday and came back on the train. I think it is
just as well to say.
Here was news ! McCahill slipped out of the
room, and sent this telegram to Captain Board-
man:
" Holt was in Washington Friday. Will wire
full particulars later," and returned for the par
ticulars, which Holt continued to unfold.
He had gone to Washington early Friday, ar
riving at 2 p. M., hired a furnished room near the
Union Station, and two hours later walked over
to the Capitol and found the Senate wing de
serted. He placed a bomb near the telephone
booth, timed so as to explode in eight hours.
He idled away the evening, mailed the R. Pearce
letters, took a midnight train to New York,
stopped at the Mills Hotel for mail, and took an
early train to Glen Cove Saturday morning.
What his activities had been since then we well
knew. But while the confession of his respon
sibility for the Washington outrage was a really
surprising bit, it did not conclude our work, for
he had pointed out several new alleys of possi
bility which we must search.
200 THROTTLED
By seven o clock we had, first, a sketch of Holt s
recent career as a teacher. This we proceeded
to verify by telephone to New York and by tele
graph thence to Ithaca, Dallas, Nashville, and
Philadelphia. His account of the Washington
bombing Mr. Scull telephoned to Washington, and
Major Pullman left at once for Long Island to
secure a more complete confession. We had the
numbers of his revolvers and were already at
work upon that clue. We had no information
except the trade-mark of where he had got his
dynamite, and knowing the strict city restrictions
on its sale, I felt confident that he had accomplices
who supplied it to him. The chances were, too,
that Holt had more dynamite than the three sticks
which he said had made up the Capitol bomb, and
the three on his person. We knew he had called
at the Mills Hotel, and we sent a man to search
his room. We had a wholly unsatisfactory state
ment of his birthplace, which he had already con
tradicted once, and which lent color to the Ger
manic origin of his accent. And finally, Holt had
given a description of the methods he used in mak
ing his bomb which I cannot detail here for obvi
ous reasons, but which from my acquaintance with
explosives I knew to be untrue. By no means
all the particulars of his acquaintance with dyna-
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 201
mite had been explained, and the fact that this
remarkable teacher of foreign languages, a man
apparently of fair intellect, had committed one
major crime and confessed to another all in the
same day, made the motive all the more obscure.
But we had learned that he talked freely, and that
meant that he would give us more information,
either consciously or unconsciously.
Holt was moved about half past seven that
night to safer keeping in the county jail at Mi-
neola, and we reconvened there an hour later for
further examination. Major Pullman joined us
in the course of the evening and took part in the
questioning. By that time I had word from New
York that a telegram had arrived for Holt at
the Mills Hotel signed by D. F. Sensabaugh, and
inquiring for particulars. Thinking that this was
a clue to possible accomplices I tried, taking sev
eral different angles of attack, to find out whether
Holt had told Sensabaugh (who he said was his
father-in-law), what he was going to do, and why
he had written that evening to his wife. The re
sult of this questioning was nil. Then we went
over his course in Washington, step by step, and
brought out nothing of significance; then returned
to the topic of his views on the shipment of muni
tions, and tried to draw out any talks which he
202 THROTTLED
might have had with friends on that subject.
His answer to this was :
" I have not talked to my friends about it, be
cause my friends, in my position, they are not the
kind of people who would talk on such things.
Do you suppose that a university professor would
undertake that sort of thing? I think that can
be easily figured out that I could not have any
body else with me."
That was the conclusion which we were being
forced to accept. But the mystery of the dyna
mite purchase was still unsolved. Holt said we
could not guess the reason why he was with
holding the answer to it. I was inclined to agree
with him just then. I couldn t guess. But he
betrayed in one of his replies the real factor
which was to solve the mystery. Major Pullman
asked:
" Why did you decide to go to the Capitol? "
" Merely," replied the thin figure in the chair,
" to get the most prominent place in the country.
You see I wanted to call attention to my appeal."
In this he had succeeded. The whole country
was working on the case. If our feeling that
Holt had bought more explosives was no more
than a theory at first, it was strengthened when
he admitted that he had spent nearly $275 in two
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 203
weeks, had only six sticks of dynamite to show
for it, and was able to account for only $50. He
denied that he had ever been in the German Club
in New York, reiterated that he was born in the
United States, dodged the exact city, then sug
gested Milwaukee, said that the name of the col
lege he had attended in Texas " wouldn t come,"
and sidestepped cleverly any admission which
might allow us to trace the dynamite purchase.
Thus ended Saturday, July 3, which had started
out as a holiday. I left two men to watch Holt,
and went home, tired out, and not at all satisfied.
While we had been busy with the prisoner, the
wires to Boston and the trains to Chicago had been
carrying out their routine tasks of syndicating
news. A police officer in Cambridge in reading
the description of Holt which had flashed out to
the newspapers detected a familiar ring to the
natural phrase " shambling walk " which had been
used to describe Holt s gait. Thousands of men
whom we encounter in daily life have shambling
walks, but to this officer only one man had a
shambling walk in which he was interested, and
that man was Erich Muenter, a Harvard instruc
tor, whom he had suspected of wife-murder nine
years before. Nine years is a long time, and
the average person cannot recall offhand the gait
204 THROTTLED
of anyone whom he last saw nine years ago, but
those two words had evidently typified to the
Cambridge officer the murderer who got away.
When the news photographs followed the de
scription to Boston and the Cambridge police saw
them, they were not so sure, for Muenter had had
a beard, and in his Cambridge days his head was
not bandaged. But suspicion had been aroused,
and that was enough to issue the news throughout
the country during the night. Reporters in Ithaca
tried to verify it from Holt s associates at Cornell,
and failed, reporters two thousand miles away in
Dallas tried to verify it from Holt s confused
father-in-law, and failed. Dallas, however, sup
plied the particulars of his previous life so far
as anyone seemed to know them, and these par
ticulars were again relayed, verified, and amplified
in every city in which Holt had ever been known in
recent years.
Sunday morning, Independence Day, I went
early to Mineola and questioned Holt again, with
little result. Meanwhile the Bomb Squad at work
in New York had found one of the shops in Jersey
City where Holt had purchased a revolver. He
gave his name to the proprietor as " Henderson,"
and his address as Syosset, Long Island a little
station not far from Glen Cove. I asked him
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 205
why he gave this fictitious name and address; he
replied he had happened to see Syosset on a time
table, and that the name Henderson popped into
his head. We then returned to my favorite sub
ject, dynamite, and Holt finally said that he would
tell me on the following Wednesday, July 7, where
he had bought it. Why Wednesday, July 7?
He would not answer, and no amount of question
ing served any end except that of further con
fusion.
The day was not without developments, how
ever. During the afternoon District Attorney
Smith of Nassau County paid a visit to the jail,
and identified the wretched Holt as a former
acquaintance in Cambridge, Erich Muenter. At
almost the same hour the Chicago authorities
came into possession of the news photograph of
the man mailed from New York the day before.
They hurried with it to the home of two spinsters,
known to be sisters of the missing Muenter, and
obtained from them an unqualified identification:
it was their lost brother, and " the news would kill
their mother." This Pearce-Lester-Holt-Hen-
derson-Muenter was becoming more interesting
every minute. Wife-poisoner, dynamiter, gun
man what next?
" Next " was Monday. The second revolver-
206 THROTTLED
shop had been discovered, and again the use of
the alias Henderson and the address Syosset.
Holt, when I called on him in the morning, re
peated only what he had told the day before, and
reiterated, " Wednesday I will tell you/ until it
became almost a refrain. He denied that he was
Muenter, and that he had ever heard the name.
I returned to New York to spend the rest of the
daylight in investigation among the explosives
manufacturers. From the records of the ^Etna
Company, of which the Keystone was a subsidiary,
we learned during the afternoon that one Hender
son had telephoned an order for 200 sticks of
dynamite to be delivered at Syosset. I was just
ready to start for Syosset with Commissioner Scull
when, as if we had not already had enough to in
terest us, our friends the anarchists exploded a
bomb in Police Headquarters itself. Curiously
enough, although it was a delay, this did not prove
the disturbing incident which one might believe.
We had had anonymous threats of it some weeks
before; it was one year and a day after the acci
dental death of the anarchist Berg, who was killed
making a bomb, and it seemed to have no connec
tion whatever with the Holt case. No one was in
jured, and after steps had been taken to follow the
MR. HOLTS FOUR DAYS 207
case, I went home to sleep what was left of the
night.
Tuesday arrived.
I went to Syosset, and interviewed the station
agent, George D. Carnes. Carnes said he knew
a man named Henderson. Henderson had seen
him first about three weeks before when he came
to the little station to claim a new trunk which
had been shipped down from New York, appar
ently empty, as it weighed only thirty-six pounds.
Henderson had signed for the trunk, and gone
away. He reappeared some days later and asked
Carnes whether he had received two boxes of
dynamite and two boxes of fuses and detonating
caps he had to blow up some stumps and he
expected the explosives. They had not arrived.
Henderson made inquiries for several days, and
when the boxes came, claimed them, signed the
name of Frank Hendrix to the receipt, and drove
away in a Ford. At last we seemed to be on the
right trail.
He had received the material, we knew, but
where was it? In the trunk, perhaps. Had the
trunk been shipped out of Syosset? No, Carnes
said. We telephoned several stations in the vi
cinity, and finally at Central Park, a few miles
208 THROTTLED
west, we struck the trail again. The baggage
records there revealed that a Henderson had
checked a trunk to the Pennsylvania station, New
York, on July 2 Friday. That was enough to
take us to Central Park.
The check number I telephoned to New York
for detectives to trace from the station if they
could. Information of a stranger is freely offered
in a village, and we found shortly that Holt had
employed a small boy with a wheelbarrow to con
vey his trunk from a shanty in the woods to the
station, and to the shanty we went. Near it lay
a charred dynamite-box, and there were a few wax-
paper wrappers from sticks of dynamite which the
weather had left for our information. No ex
plosive was to be seen, but there was evidence
that he had burned some of it nearby.
If he had not burned it all, the balance of those
two hundred sticks were in the trunk. The day
was growing old. Carnes and I sped back to
Mineola, and the station agent identified Holt
as the dynamite man. I repeated my questions;
Holt replied, " I will tell you Wednesday."
" Look here," I said. " I have the number
of that check. That dynamite is in the trunk.
It s liable to go off any minute and kill a lot of
people. I can trace that check, but it will take
fe
a;
I
o
K
E
s
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 209
time, and you better tell me quick where you left
the trunk."
" All right," Holt answered, and said that he
had sent it to a storage warehouse whose office was
somewhere near 4Oth Street and Seventh Avenue.
Two minutes later Lieut. Barnitz and I were out
of the jail and in a motor bound for New York.
It took just 28 minutes to cover the 20 miles
to Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue, and we
turned south to the section around Fortieth Street.
We found the office of the storage company
empty. The warehouse itself was at 342 West
38th Street, and we hurried over there, arriving
simultaneously with the detectives who had been
tracing the check number from the Pennsylvania
station. An old watchman was in charge who
knew nothing whatever of the records of the office,
but who turned bright green when we told him
what we were after. While Detectives Barnitz,
Coy, Murphy, Sterett, Walsh and Fenelly went
up into the recesses of the warehouse to hunt for
the trunk, I called headquarters.
" Commissioner Woods just called and wants
you to call him at the Harvard Club," the office
said. I did so, and reported our progress.
" Get that trunk as fast you can and find out
exactly what s in it," said the Commissioner.
210 THROTTLED
" Washington just called me to say that Governor
Colquitt down in Dallas just wired them. He
says Holt s wife got a letter from Holt dated
July 2 saying that he s put dynamite on a ship
now at sea, and that it will sink on the seventh! "
On the fifth floor of the great dark barn they
discovered the trunk, with a dozen others on top
of it. There were no lights, and it was necessary
to roll it over, haul it out, snake it across other
piles, and carry it down four flights of steep
stairs in the dark to the office. Barnitz picked
up an axe and hacked the lock away. He lifted
the cover, and there we found one hundred and
thirty-four sticks of dynamite one hundred in
their original box, and the rest packed in small
spaces between hammers, nails, bolts, and other
tools, several bottles of sulphuric and nitric acid,
and 197 detonating caps a pretty package to
trundle down four flights of dark stairs and open
with an axe !
Fifty sticks of the original 200 were unac
counted for. I telephoned the report to the Com
missioner, and followed it to the Harvard Club, in
44th Street, while Barnitz telephoned for the in
spector of combustibles to come and take posses
sion of the explosives. The Commissioner, with
Guy Scull, were sitting in the lounge, and I was
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 211
i
reporting in greater detail when the Commissioner
was called to the telephone. He returned a mo
ment later, and his first remark was this:
" Holt is dead at Mineola! "
And there went our case.
The first wild report from Mineola had it that
Holt had been shot by a German. The inter
national consequences of the case, which had been
hovering just out of reach for the past four days,
now seemed certain. A nation which was still
bitterly angry over the recent Lusitama sinking
would certainly not brook the violation of its
Capitol and the attempted assassination of one
of its chief figures by a German agent, and if
Holt had been shot by a German, it was more
than likely that he had been killed to prevent a
further confession which would implicate the Im
perial German Government. These thoughts
passed through our minds as we motored back
across the Queensboro Bridge, and retraced the
route Barnitz and I had just traveled.
Holt was not shot by a German. Holt was not
shot at all. An aged guard had been left to
watch him that evening, just after Barnitz and
I had left, for the prisoner, despairing over the
Muenter identification, had already made one at
tempt with a bit of tin from a lead pencil to cut
212 THROTTLED
the arteries of his wrists, and we did not want him
to try again. The old bailiff who sat outside the
cell cage had not only left the cage door unlocked,
but had been careless enough to leave Holt s cell
door ajar. The prisoner seemed quiet enough,
and the bailiff fell asleep. He woke to find Holt s
body in a twisted heap in the center of the floor
of the cell corridor. Holt had evidently been
feigning sleep and while the bailiff dozed had
crept out, climbed to the top of the cage, and
dived headforemost to the concrete floor.
There we found him. The man s skull was
crushed from the impact of his -dive. Rumors
that he was shot by a mysterious rifle bullet from
outside notwithstanding, Holt bore no wound ex
cept the bruise Physick gave him with the lump of
coal, and the wound which was the result of his
fall. If Holt was a German agent, he died with
his secret.
We had no time to analyze the question. We
knew that Holt had written his wife he had placed
dynamite aboard a ship which was at sea, and
that July 7, the date on which he had promised
an explosion, was less than two hours away. On
the theory that he might have shipped an express
parcel containing a bomb overseas from some
nearby station, Mr. Scull and I spent the night
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 213
in an exhaustive canvass by telephone and motor
of every station in Nassau County. Many of the
station agents were asleep, but we woke them, and
searched until dawn. The net result was record
of two shipments to Europe since the day Holt
received the dynamite: One from Syosset the
other from Oyster Bay. Back to New York
again we raced, and at the office of the Adams
Express Company found the Syosset package,
opened it, and found no dynamite at all. The
Oyster Bay package had already been shipped to
Europe; we telephoned the consignor, and learned
that it contained clothes for a poor relative in
England.
Apparently Holt had not shipped a bomb.
While we were opening his trunk at the ware
house the night before, the government was issu
ing from Washington a wireless bulletin to all
ships at sea, warning them to search the cargo
thoroughly for a bomb. One by one the vessels
which had sailed during the past week reported
that they had investigated with no result, and as
these reports came in we began to rest easier in
our minds. Yet he had so persistently refused to
tell us of the dynamite " until Wednesday " that
we could not ignore the prophecy he had made to
his wife " With God s help, a ship that sailed
214 THROTTLED
from New York July 3 will sink on July 7." At
noon, of Wednesday, July 7, an explosion oc
curred in the hold of the steamship Minnehaha,
in mid-ocean, so strong as to blow out a section of
the upper decks. The Minnehaha had left New
York on July 3. Happily there was no loss of
life, and she reached port safely.
Two and two make four, but we must not add
them for a moment. Holt or Muenter, as he
was fully and finally identified may have placed
a bomb in the Minnehaha. His promise may
have been valid, but there is another possible
origin for that explosion, namely, the activities of
Paul Koenig s little group. He may have placed
a bomb on the Minnehaha which was exploded by
a bomb placed there by another. He may have
placed a bomb on quite another ship which did
not explode, and which may have traveled harm
less to its consignee in England. That consignee
may have been fictitious, or he may have been an
accomplice; if an accomplice he may have been
German. We must not add two and two until we
have gathered up the loose threads as they were
gathered up during those last active days, and
begin to sort them out.
If we do, we shall see that the Ithaca police
found in Holt s rooms a scrapbook curiously re-
MR. HOLT S FOUR DAYS 215
plete with newspaper reports of crimes, fratricides,
patricides and plain murders. But no cases of
wife-murder, nor of arsenical poisoning. And
no clippings dating back of 1906; for all the evi
dence of the scrapbook, Holt had never existed
before 1907. His wife, who, by a queer coinci
dence, bore the same maiden name, Leona, as the
one whom he had poisoned, apparently knew
nothing of Holt s life before she met him in Texas
in 1909, loved him, and married him. She did
not know that he was born in Germany, and edu
cated in Germany or that he had fled from Chicago
to Mexico in 1906 and had then worked back into
Texas as a student. He probably wrote to her
from Ithaca in September, 1914, that he had just
had the pleasure of meeting Professor Ernest
Elster, of Marburg, Germany, who was visiting
Cornell, and that Elster had highly commended
him for his articles on Goethe- but if he did
write to her, what then? Perhaps Herr Profes
sor Elster had commended Holt for some other
past or projected service to Kultur. There is a
queer development of the story in the fact that on
September 4, 1915, Mrs. Frank Holt, writing
from Dallas, Texas, to Griffithe s warehouse, en
closed one dollar to pay for storage on a trunk
left there by her husband July 2, and signed her
216 THROTTLED
name: " F. H. Henderson/ Perhaps the
rumor is true that a woman appeared at the
offices of J. P. Morgan and Company in New
York on July 2, 1915, and attempted to warn Mr.
Morgan of " something that was going to hap
pen the next day " and perhaps she was a friend
of von Rintelen s. Mr. Morgan never saw her.
But it is a fact that Rintelen had said to an Amer
ican with whom he was dealing: " Morgan and
Root ought to be put out of the way! "
Probably not perhaps speculation has al
ready carried this story too far. The facts are
that Mr. Morgan recovered from his wounds,
and that two and two make four.
IX
THE NATURE FAKER
Richard Harding Davis could have done justice
to this story.
In December of 1917 we had been eight months
at war. We would be an innocent and purposely
ignorant nation if we did not acknowledge that
even after we had been eight months at war there
were German spies in the United States practising
their quiet trade in order to make our waging of
war as difficult as possible, just as for three years
they had practised to keep us out of the war en
tirely. It would be as absurd to assume that there
are not German spies in America to-day who have
been here throughout our part in the war, and
who have done their utmost to cripple us.
But there is one who will not be here indefi
nitely. . . .
In December, 1917, I received a complaint that
valuable papers had been stolen from a certain
Captain Claude Staughton, who lived at 137 West
75th Street, Manhattan. The Captain himself
said that the lives of thousands of American sol-
217
2i8 THROTTLED
diers were in jeopardy, and that neither they nor
he would rest in conscious security until those
papers were found. So two other Thomases of
the Bomb Squad, Sergeant Thomas J. Ford and
Detective Thomas J. Cavanagh, were sent to in
vestigate the theft.
They found that Captain Staughton lived in an
apartment on the second floor of the premises at
137 West 75th Street and that his rooms were
shared by a Captain Horace D. Ashton. Staugh
ton, they learned, was a captain of West Australia
Light Horse or was supposed to be and a
photograph they found of the captain in his uni
form revealed four gold wound-stripes on his
sleeve, which suggested an interesting and heroic
experience overseas. The detectives first assump
tion was that the missing papers had had to do with
British war work on which the captain was de
tailed to the United States. Then they found sev
eral photographic prints in which he was dressed
in the uniforms of other nations than Great Brit
ain, and their second assumption was that he
might be another of the nervy little band of coun
terfeit officers which had done all its fighting in
the restaurants and sympathetic check-books of
New York during the war.
The detectives learned that Ashton had his
THE NATURE FAKER 219
mail forwarded to the " Argus Laboratories "
at 220 West 42d Street. They -called upon Ash-
ton, and inquired about hisiroom-mate. Duquesne
was all right, Ashton said was employed by an
engineering company downtown as an inspector of
airplanes, was in Pittsburg at the-moment, but was
expected shortly to return. Duquesne returned,
and was placed under arrest on the charge (we
had no better one at the moment) of unlawfully
masquerading in the uniform of one of our allies,
a uniform to which he had no title. A thousand
questions sprang up in our minds about the man :
why was he in disguise, how long had he been
posing, how could he carry out the bluff without
being discovered, especially by the highly reputable
firm which employed him? those were a few.
We began to investigate, and from Ashton and
other sources we pieced together the checkered
pattern of his career. Many of the fragments are
missing, and some of them are probably in the
wrong places, but this is the picture we found.
He had applied for work at the J. G. White
Engineering Company on September 18, 1917,
and in his rather detailed application for employ
ment set forth that his name was Fred du Quesne.
He stated further that he was 39 years old, mar
ried, and a United States citizen, though born in
220 THROTTLED
a British colony. His nearest relative was " A.
Jocelyn du Quesne," in Los Angeles, and he had
evidently had some trouble in parting the name
in the middle, for it was written over an erasure.
His next nearest relative was set down as %< Vis
count Francois de Rancogne, Prisoner of War,
Germany, an address safe enough from prompt
investigation. Last of all his relatives was cited
Edward Wortley, " Colonial Secretary, Jamaica,
B. W. I." The three names were impressive,
and with the possible exception of Los Angeles,
the addresses were too remote to enable the J. G.
White Company to find out quickly what sort of
man this du Quesne might be.
He described himself as a graduate of St. Cyr,
the French West Point, as master of French and
English (not German or Portuguese or Spanish),
and as having lived in England, France, Africa,
Australia, Central America, Brazil, Argentine,
and the United States (but not Germany) . Pres
ent position he had none, but he would like one as
" Inspector of military devices, purchasing agent
for same, or army supplies transportation." You
or I, were we working for the Kaiser, would have
liked just such a position. He gave as refer
ences the name of Thomas O Connell, a relative
employed by the J. G. White Company in Nica-
THE NATURE FAKER 221
ragua; Ashton, Senator Robert Broussard of
Washington, and the Marquis (not " viscount "
this time) de Rancogne, " Lieutenant General of
Cavalry, France."
He then set forth his previous experience, which
I may quote direct in the light of later events:
" 1898 to 1899. Secretary to board of selec
tion on military devices and contracts. South
Africa reporting Genr. de Villiers. (salary) 10
weekly.
" 1899 to 1902. South African War. Was
inspector of military communication and reported
secretary of war." (He does not state which sec
retary of war) 12.2.6 weekly.
" 1902 to 1903. Lived in United States to
start residence. Had an experience job in the
subway looking on. $25.00.
l< 1903 to 1904. Went on tour of Congo Free
State in the interests of making favorable pub
licity in this country for King Leopold. Gerard
Harry in charge of campaign for the King. Re
ceived $10,000 for the job, with expenses.
" 1904-5-6. Headed Eldu expedition and in
dustrial research party in Australia. Sir Arthur
Jones financed me. Received 2,000 yearly.
" 1907-8. Toured Russia for Petit Bleu.
Publicity. 1,000 florins weekly.
222 THROTTLED
" 1908-9-10. Organized and built string of
theatres in British West Indies. Financed and
erected hydro-electric plant for S. S. Wortley &
Co., Kingston, Jamaica. Made percentages.
" 1911-12. Lived in Nicaragua and Guate
mala. Was with Mr. Thomas O Connell in
Nicaragua for one year. Made industrial and
investment investigations, especially ore, fibre, rub
ber. $5,000 and expenses yearly. Mr. Hite
financed. Address New Rochelle.
" 1913-14-15-16. Explored and travelled in
South America, Brazil, Argentine, Peru, and
Bolivia, on own account. Also conducted special
expedition for Horace Ashton of 220 W. 42d St.,
New York."
An eventful record, certainly. We asked Ash-
ton to cast a little light on it. Captain Fritz
Joubert Duquesne, he said, was a scout in the
Boer war " the leading scout" were his exact
words but not for the British, but the Boers.
There may have been a touch of irony in Du-
quesne s description of himself as " inspector of
military communications " for he had been cap
tured eight or nine times in his migrations through
the British lines and had escaped each time
until the last, when he was made a prisoner of war
at Cape Town, and according to an entry in the
THE NATURE FAKER 223
records of Scotland Yard, " was sent to Bermuda,
whence he escaped after the declaration of Peace."
The same records say: " The man Duquesne
was acting as correspondent for a Belgian paper,
the Petit Bleu; he was however in reality working
for the Boers. . . ." Duquesne fancied pho
tographs of himself, as he made up rather dash
ingly, and an old print which the Bomb Squad
men found in his effects bore out the fact of his
imprisonment, for there he stood in his Bermuda
jail with the shackles on his ankles and a grim,
martyred expression on his face.
The lure of Africa called to him, evidently,
and he went back. We need not take too seri
ously his statement that he made a junket for
King Leopold through the Belgian Congo, but
anyone who remembers the uproar over the slav
ery by which the depraved old monarch was turn
ing his colony into gold to pay for his excesses
will also recall the international complications
which the Congo threatened. It was a likely spot
for an international spy. During his survey of
the publicity possibilities of the jungle Duquesne
conceived a few publicity possibilities for himself,
and he came to America as a mighty hunter of
big game.
" I ran across him first," said Ashton, " in 1909.
22 4 THROTTLED
At that time he was writing an article for
Hampton s Magazine called ( Hunting Big Game
in Africa. In publishing his articles he needed
photographs, and he came to me. I was inter
ested in his conversation and I said to him:
4 Why don t you lecture? So he went down to
the Pond Lyceum Bureau. He went on a lecture
tour for the Lyceum and later on a tour of the
Keith circuit. . . ."
We found in his effects a program of the lec
tures he gave, its cover decorated with a small
round photograph of Colonel Roosevelt in hunt
ing costume and a large studio photograph of
Duquesne in khaki, wearing boots and a revolver,
and looking sternly out of the picture as tradi
tion says a lion-hunter should look. Page two
carried a synopsis of his lecture, of which one
topic was " Hunting with Roosevelt," and a re
production of a number of newspapers which were
then publishing his " Hunting Ahead of Roose
velt," an article written for Hampton s Magazine.
On page three Captain Duquesne figured again
in effigy, this time standing beside the prostrate
form of " A Rare Specimen the White Rhi
noceros, " and we are to believe that he killed
the beast. Page four (and last), reproduced a
cartoon from the Washington Star of January 26,
Fritz Duquesne prepared for a Lecture Tour as Captain
Claude Stoughton
THE NATURE FAKER 225
1909, which portrayed President Roosevelt point
ing to a picture of an elephant, and enthusiastically
inquiring of a hairy hunter labelled " Duquesne " :
" I want to know his vital spot ! "
A quotation from Hampton s Magazine, also
printed in this program, gives a new vision of
the man s life from 1900 to 1909. It is probably
as truthful as any here it is :
" When the British succeeded in cutting cable
communications between the Boer Republic and
the rest of the world, Duquesne carried the news
of the Boer victories over the Mozambique bor
der, and from there he wrote his despatches to the
Petit Bleu, the official European organ of the Boer
Government. He was once captured by the
Portuguese and thrown into prison at Lorenzo
Marques 1 . Later he was taken a prisoner to
Europe at the request of the British Govern
ment. When the ship that conveyed him and
his guard touched at Naples, he was suffering
from a fever and in consequence was placed in an
Italian hospital. On his recovery he was allowed
to go free. He went to Brussels and was sent
back to the front by Doctor Leyds, with plans
for the seizure of Cape Town by the Boer com
mandos then mobilized in Cape Colony.
" Everything was ready for the taking of the
226 THROTTLED
city when, a traitor having revealed the plot,
Duquesne and a number of others were captured
in Cape Town inside the British defenses. This
was the climax of what has come to be known
as the Cape Town Plot. Some of the prison
ers were shot and some sentenced to death who
later had their sentences changed to life imprison
ment. Captain Duquesne was among the latter.
Ten months later he escaped from the Bermuda
prisons, got aboard the American yacht Margaret
of New York while she was coaling at the dock,
and was conveyed to Baltimore.
" Back to Europe he went again, as war cor
respondent and military writer on the Petit Bleu;
thence to Africa, where he took a commission on
the Congo. In East Africa he hunted big game
for sport and profit, and finally he came to New
York to do newspaper and magazine work."
He cut a figure in America as a hunter. Back
in 1910, when Congress amused itself with light
diversions, when President Taft was in the White
House and when President Roosevelt was in
Africa, the eyes of the nation were turned per
force toward that great preserve of wild game.
On March 24, 1910, the House of Representa
tives Committee on Agriculture went into session
with the Honorable Charles F. Scott in the chair.
THE NATURE FAKER 227
Late March in Washington has a hint of spring,
and that Thursday was probably an off-day, with
nothing much to do, for the committee s business
was the consideration of H. R. 23261 a bill " to
import into the United States wild and domestic
animals whose habitat is similar to government
reservations and lands at present unoccupied and
unused. . . . Provided, that such animals will
thrive and propagate and prove useful either as
food or as beasts of burden, and that two hun
dred and fifty thousand dollars ... be appro
priated for this purpose." The bill was Repre
sentative Broussard s, of Louisiana; he had in
mind the re-population of the unyielding back
waters of his constituency with happy families of
what? Foreign sheep, or parrots, or egrets,
or fish? Not at all. Families iof hippopota
muses.
The Gentleman from Louisiana addressed the
meeting briefly, saying that he had brought to
the hearing three distinguished specialists in the
matter of wild beasts, Dr. Irwin of the Bureau of
Plant Industry, Major Frederic Russell Burnham,
a fine old pioneer whom Richard Harding Davis
did describe in his " Real Soldiers of Fortune,"
and " Captain Fritz Duquesne, formerly in the
Boer army, who is lecturing and writing on this
228 THROTTLED
subject. . . ." Dr. Irwin spoke earnestly for the
introduction of the hippo, Major Burnham made
an absorbing address on the habits of wild ani
mals he had known and a herd of camels he
once pursued in Texas and our bright and
voluble Captain Fritz then told the committee
extraordinary things of the home of the hippo
potamus, the delicacy of its flesh, the amiability of
its temperament, and the carelessness of its ap
petite. " During my boyhood," he said at one
stage of the proceedings, " the French soap manu
facturers used to come down there and pay us all
sorts of prices, competing with one another, to
get the fat of the hippopotamus; and we made a
considerable amount of money from saving the
fat when we killed a hippo. The Boers were in
the habit of going down to the river and killing a
hippo and bringing it in and dividing it among the
different families in the district. It is pretty hard
to get rid of four and a half tons of meat. In
the case of the bones of the animal, we would take
an ordinary wood saw and saw them in halves, and
make a great big pot of soup for a large number
of the people, including the Kaffir servants on
the ranch, or the farm, as we call it." Again:
" My father was instrumental in sending the camel
to Australia from Africa, and also in introducing
THE NATURE FAKER 229
it into the Kalahari desert. The German Gov
ernment now uses the camel exclusively for its
cavalry in the Kalahari desert, which is practically
the counterpart of the deserts in this country.
My father had the contract to take them over to
Australia for the West Australian Government
and I took them over there. To-day camels and
ostriches from Africa are being raised in Aus
tralia;
Mr. Chapman asked: " Do you think animals
such as you have mentioned would become ac
climated here without difficulty? " Duquesne re
plied: " Yes, I was over there recently in one
place where Colonel Roosevelt passed through,
and the frost was that thick (indicating about one
inch) . That is where he went to get some of his
best animals. . . ." In discussing the zebra he
said: " There is nothing wrong with the animal.
The English in Africa want to get percentage,
you know. They put an animal out and they
want to break it in right away, and they want to
get some money for it right on the spot. That
is what they are in Africa for. They want to
take on the animals and break them in at once.
The Germans are more scientific than the Eng
lish. In German East Africa they are making
a great success of domesticating these animals I
230 THROTTLED
have spoken of, and crossing the zebra. . . .
The Germans in Germany, France, and Belgium,
not to mention those in the United States, tried
scientifically to make the leopard change his spots,
too."
The man really exhibited an unusual acquaint
ance with wild beasts, and he summed up the
picturesque argument for the bill when he said:
" If there is vegetation in a river, the hippo
potamus will never leave the river. If you had
the hippopotamus in Louisiana and it ate up all
your water plants you would be quite willing to
let the hippo live down there. You see the water
plants have to live on a certain amount of air,
and the fish live on a certain amount of air.
Neither the plant nor the fish can live on air that
is not there. As the plant is the stronger, and is
able to take the air from above, it will draw it
at the bottom and draw it from the top, and the
fish is suffocated in the water. Then when a storm
comes and blows the water plants, which are
floating, all to one side, the fish are netted up
against them and kept in one place until they die.
These plants exhaust the air in the water that is
passing through the fishes gills and that destroys
the fish." I wish there were space here to re
produce all the proceedings of that hearing it
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THE NATURE FAKER 231
is historic vaudeville: a German spy teaching a
class of American congressmen about the hippo,
and suggesting subtly that when they purchase a
fleet of the great beasts for the Louisiana bayous,
they let him round them up. He would have
done it if there had been American money in it.
American money appeared from another
source, however, in 1911. Duquesne had been
working in a desultory way for the moving pic
tures, and he interested one Hite, a functionary
in the Thanhouser Film Company, in a plan to
explore Central America with a moving-picture
camera. Ashton said he also obtained financial
support from Frank Seiberling of the Goodyear
Rubber Company of Akron, a great patron of
sports, and the financier of the ill-fated balloon
" Akron " in which Walter Wellman once tried
to cross the Atlantic. He set sail in 1911 for
Jamaica, where he enlisted the finances of his
father-4n-law, Wortley, in the project, and then
moved on to Guatemala. There he was sus
pected of revolutionary activities, and after cabling
Washington and receiving a satisfactory report
from the state department, he was released, and
made his way through Honduras to Nicaragua.
There he spent some time, and saw something of
O Connell, the railroad man enough to re-
232 THROTTLED
ceive a pass over all lines of the Nicaraguan rail
road.
In 1913 he returned to the United States.
Among the papers which we discovered was a
record of an insurance policy for a maximum of
$80,000 worth of moving picture film at $4 a
foot, which Duquesne took out with the Mann
heim Insurance Company in New York on De
cember 17. He was setting out on another ex
pedition, and he wished to insure his reels of
film on shipboard from
" seas, fires, pirates, rovers, assailing thieves,
jettison, barratry of the master and mariners,
and all other perils, losses and misfortunes
that have or shall come to the hurt, detri
ment or damage of the said goods and mer
chandise or any part thereof."
By a separate certificate the company also in
sured Duquesne against further risk, thus:
" It is agreed that this insurance covers only
the risk of capture, seizure or destruction by
men-of-war, by letters of marque, by taking
at sea, arrests, restraints, detainments or acts
of kings, princes and people authorized by
and in prosecution of hostilities between bel
ligerent nations. , . ."
THE NATURE FAKER 233
and off to the Spanish Main and the pirates and
the assailing thieves sailed Fritz Duquesne.
His migrations during the years of 1914 and
1915 are not clear. This much is certain: that
on June 16, 1915, Sir C. Mallet, the British min
ister at Panama, wrote to the foreign office in
London the following note, setting forth an ob
servation he had made that day in the Zone :
" Through a Canal Zone detective I learnt
confidentially that a passenger named Captain F.
Duquesne, travelling with a passport issued by the
United States Consul at Mafiaos, Brazil, had em
barked for Trinidad on the R. M. S. Panama on
the 1 4th instant.
" My informant stated that Captain Duquesne
poses as an American officer but in reality is an
intelligence officer in the service of the German
Government.
" I have warned the Governor of Trinidad by
telegraph so that a watch may be kept on Cap
tain Duquesne s movements."
The wily captain had been cruising rather busily
through the Caribbean, over the Isthmus, and into
South America. His passport connected him with
Mafiaos, the British message established his pres
ence at Panama and Trinidad, a German war com-
234 THROTTLED
munique dated " December 20," and signed by
the German consul, Lehmann, in Guatemala,
showed that he was an acceptable guest at the out
posts of the German Empire. And he had visited
Nicaragua before he entered Panama in 1915,
for we found in his possession this letter :
" Managua, May 5, 1915.
" Imperial German Consulate
for Nicaragua:
" It is a pleasure for me to recommend to you,
my countrymen, the bearer of this, Mr. Fritz
Duquesne, Captain of Engineers to the Boer
army, very warmly.
4 The same gentleman has on many occasions
given many notable services to our good German
cause.
" The Imperial German Consul,
u UEBERSEXIG."
Enclosed in the envelope was Uebersexig s per
sonal card, reinforcing his recommendation of
Duquesne as an accredited German agent.
Trinidad is a good jumping-off place into the
far tropics, and it is quite possible that as Ashton
said Duquesne disappeared into the interior of
Brazil, and " explored the unknown regions of
Brazil and the Amazon/ It is not hard to find
unknown regions of Brazil within a few miles of
the coast. He probably did not penetrate far into
THE NATURE FAKER 235
the interior, for in January of 1916, he showed up
in lower Brazil.
He emerged from the interior as a valiant ex
plorer, preceded by native carriers whom he had
hired to transport his precious movie-film. As
he approached the port of Bahia Duquesne s per
sonality underwent a perceptible change. Du-
quesne suddenly became George Fordham.
Among his papers we found an application for
shipment by a Brazilian broker which read as
follows :
" Honorable Superintendent.
" Francisco Figuerado requests a permit to ship
for New York via steamer Verdi to sail on Jan
uary 28, 1916, a case as described below:
" Bahia, January 27, 1916.
" Raul E. de Oliveira, Custom House
Broker.
" i case weighing 80 kilos. . . :\. . . . oo$5OO
" One case of potter s earth in dust (sam-
pies)"
Potter s earth may have been included in the
materials in the case, but that is doubtful, for on
October 4, 1916, " Mrs. Alice Duquesne being
duly sworn deposes and says that she accom-
2 3 6 THROTTLED
panied her husband, Captain Fritz Duquesne, dur
ing his trip through Central America in the Spring
and Summer of 1914. That in the baggage was
an iron trunk used to carry moving picture films
and negatives which she presumes to be the same
trunk that was subsequently shipped by Capt.
Duquesne per the S. S. Tennyson from Bahia to
New York sailing in January, 1916. That the
said trunk was about T / 2 inch thick, and made of
iron about 45 inches in length by 30 inches in
height by 26 inches in depth . . . had a hinged
cover that overlapped the sides of same, and
fastened down with two thumb screws and a lock.
That two iron bands went around the trunk and
were riveted to same. That the cover was lined
with packing where it overlapped the sides of the
trunk. That the said trunk was of very solid con
struction, painted a dark green, almost black, and
that two men were required to lift same."
Hardly a suitable receptacle for potter s earth.
Furthermore, George Fordham, whose handwrit
ing is identical with that of Fritz Duquesne for the
simple reason that the two men were the same,
on February 1 1 signed an invoice at the American
consulate in Bahia stating that he solemnly and
truly declared that the 28,000 feet of moving pic
ture film and the 4100 negatives which he was
IN THE LUGGAGE
iCTED PASSENGER
rSO AT SANTOS.
J* ?erftm.T.mt J<M4,eapt*io Claa 1!iihtSn,V>if]* 3<tr
3y i,iu*.Ba8^,y<>r *oa^08TRjsgh,I, ajaj.J^^ iojij FoX!
t:_ ^
I/O
Invoice of Returned American Goods at.d Declaration of Foreign Exp
AMERICAN CONSULAR SERVICE
BniUa. Brasil ,
1. A significant clipping found in Duquesne s effects
2. A German Communique found on Duquesne
3. The United States Customs invoice by which Duquesne,
as "George Fordham," shipped his "Films *
THE NATURE FAKER 237
shipping back to the United States were to the
best of his knowledge and belief of the manu
facture of the United States and had been ex
ported from the United States in 1913.
The Tennyson sailed quietly out of the river-
mouth into the Atlantic and Duquesne vanished
just as quietly. On February 26, when the ship
was coasting along the Brazilian forest toward
the Equator, a terrific explosion occurred in her
hold, and three sailors were killed. The iron
trunk never reached New York. The news of
the catastrophe set fire to the British in South
America and the English press seethed with such
paragraphs as this which we found in Du-
quesne s papers, clipped from an Argentine news
paper:
" Rio de Janeiro.
" The confession of the clerk Bauer, arrested
in connection with the Tennyson outrage, which
led to the discovery of the papers and funds of
the band of German bombers in an English safe
deposit institution reveals a plot of far-reach
ing consequences fraught with danger to the neu
trality of a number of South American repub
lics, as well as peril to the lives of their citizens.
" Besides a number of important documents,
the police seized $6,740 in American bills, which
were in an envelope marked On His Majesty s
Service and addressed : 4 Piet Naciud. When
238 THROTTLED
this name was published it caused quite a shock in
the Allied circles here, as this man always cul
tivated their society and even recited at their
benefits. He was ever loud in his denunciations
of the Germans, and as he was a Boer, or pre
tended to be one, was doubly liked for his seem
ingly praiseworthy attitude. Little did the Eng
lish dream that they were harbouring a black
hearted spy in their midst whom they now know
as one of the leading plotters whose audacity is
beyond belief. The safe deposit was in his own
name, and he gave his home address as Cape
Town. Neither he nor the agent Niewirth and
his fellow conspirators have yet been arrested.
It is believed that they left with Naciud in a
powerful motorboat that he owned."
How Captain Fritz Duquesne, alias Fordham,
alias Naciud, must have chuckled as he sat safely
in the neutral Argentine and read this flattering
tribute to his audacity. For he did turn up pres
ently in Buenos Aires, and embarked on a new
audacity nothing less than collecting the in
surance of $80,000 for the loss of the film which
he claimed to have shipped in the iron box!
Let Ashton take up the story :
". . . his wife . . . tried to collect the insurance,
but was advised that she would have better
chances ... if he would disappear. He then
assumed the name of Fredericks. In 1916 a re-
THE NATURE FAKER 239
port was published in the New York Evening Post
and the New York Times that he had been assas
sinated by Indians in the interior of Bolivia, and
being interested I called at the office of the N. Y.
Post and asked Mr. A. D. H. Smith, editor, to
look this report up, and he found that the report
came from the Associated Press, the same being
signed Fredericks. They also had a cablegram
signed, Captain Duquesne, and it said: * I am
still alive. The report also said that he was
the sole survivor of an attack from the Indians
and that he was somewhere in Bolivia recovering
in a hospital, the location being unknown. He
sent the message signed Fredericks himself from
Buenos Aires.
" He then became connected with the Board
of Education of the Argentine, supplying films for
the schools, and a certain politician in Buenos
Aires claims he gave him $24,000 with which to
purchase films (certain educational films). He
claims to have come to New York with a man
named Williamson and purchased the films, pay
ing $24,000 in cash."
Mrs. Duquesne was already in New York, hav
ing a hard time collecting her claim against the
German-owned Mannheim Insurance Company
for the " sympathy verdict " for damage to the
240 THROTTLED
films. He stored the new films he claims to have
purchased in the Fulton and Flatbush Warehouse,
437 Carlton Avenue, Brooklyn stored them
as " statuary," and used to visit the warehouse
frequently. On one occasion he arrived after
hours, and tried unsuccessfully to bribe the watch
man to admit him. He moved to a small hotel in
Elizabeth, New Jersey, and about two weeks after
the storage of the cases of " statuary " in the
Brooklyn warehouse, the warehouse mysteriously
caught fire.
By a queer coincidence the " films " Duquesne
has never proved that he did buy them which
of course were destroyed in this fire too, had been
insured by their purchaser, " Mr. Frederick
Fredericks," for $33,000 by the Stuyvesant In
surance Company, and he set out to collect the
$33,000 for the total loss of his property. If
both claims proved successful, he and his wife
would have gathered in some $i 13,000. But they
found it one thing to be insured and another thing
entirely to get the money. Times were not treat
ing Duquesne well.
Along in July, 1917, when the United States
was in the throes of buckling down to the busi
ness of war, and Washington was sweltering un
der its increased load of war-time population and
THE NATURE FAKER 241
business, Ashton, Duquesne s old friend, hap
pened to have business in the capital. He
dropped in to call on Robert F. Broussard, of New
Iberia, Louisiana, who in 1915 had been elected
senator from this state . . . the same Broussard
who had been the author of the hippopotamus
bill. Ashton asked the United States Senator
from Louisiana if he had heard from Captain
Duquesne. Ashton continues: " his secretary
overheard the conversation (his secretary is a
charming young lady) and I took her out to din
ner, and about five days later she wrote me and
said, You may be interested to know that Cap
tain Duquesne is in Washington, but does not
want it known/ I immediately became interested
and concluded that if Captain Duquesne was in
Washington and did not want it known, especially
to me, I ... would investigate. So I went to
Washington . . ." and learned something of
Duquesne s whereabouts and circumstances.
u After hearing this story in Washington,"
Ashton continues, " I learned that this man was
in desperate need of assistance and I offered to
help him in any way that I could. . . . Senator
Broussard was trying to secure a position for him
with General Goethals, . . . also at this time he
had plans on file with the Secretary of the Navy,
242 THROTTLED
of an invention to destroy mines in harbors, and
was hoping that he might secure a position with
the Navy Department. I had been offered a posi
tion with George Creel, and I also introduced
Duquesne to him, and I then got in touch with
Major Kendall Barnelli. I advised him to listen
to Duquesne and to give him a position. I also
advised Barnelli that I was investigating Du-
quesne s story."
Damon Ashton then brought Pythias Duquesne
back to New York and put him up in the apart
ment in which the Bomb Squad men had first been
called to investigate the theft of papers. Du
quesne begged his friend not to make him known
under his own name, as the insurance case for the
warehouse fire was still pending. So Duquesne
continued to masquerade as " Fredericks/ His
health was poor, and he did not go to work at
once. At times Ashton s charity seemed to irk
Duquesne, and he even went to the telephone and
called up an agency to discuss a lecture tour. The
lecture agents told him that only war lectures
were making money. There was a real inspira
tion, and after working for several days to as
semble a uniform of the West Australia Light
Horse, correct in every detail, he dressed up in
it and called at the lecture bureau as Captain
THE NATURE FAKER 243;
Claude Staughton. His Australian experience as
chaperone to the camels stood him in good stead,
and he went about town mixing with British Army
officers without arousing suspicion. He even got
on famously with the late Sir George Reed, prime
minister of Australia, whom he met one night at
the Hotel Astor.
The Pond lecture folk took him up and ar
ranged a tour for him. Consciously or uncon
sciously, they swallowed Duquesne whole. They
had him photographed in his new uniform, with
the ribbons of three decorations over his heart,
and they reproduced the natty figure on the cover
of a publicity folder announcing the subjects on
which Captain Claude Staughton was prepared to
talk. " Captain Staughton," read the folder,
" has perhaps seen more of the war than any man
at present before the public. . . . He wears rib
bons showing that he has received five medals : two
of these the King s and Queen s for service in the
Boer war, carrying seven clasps; one is for service
in Natal, and two for bravery in saving lives. A
sixth French medal for which he has been cited
is yet to be awarded. At the outbreak of the Boer
war, Captain, then Lieutenant, Staughton, was an
officer in one of Australia s crack horse regiments,
the Mounted Rifles, He went with his regiment
244 THROTTLED
to Africa, and served in Cape Colony, Orange
Free State, Transvaal, Natal and Basuto Land.
He was with Kitchener at the Battle of Paarde-
burg when General Cronje was captured; was
with Lord Roberts at the Capture of Bloemfon-
tein; at the fall of Johannesburg and the seizure
of Pretoria. Later, in pursuit of DeWet s army,
he was attached to General Knox s flying column
as intelligence officer and commandeering officer
for the Australian Bushmen. He later entered
the Cape forces and took active part in the clear
ing up of Basuto Land, and in the last Natal insur
rection he fought with the Natal forces."
That is a mere fragment of the fighting in which
this eulogy proceeded to sketch Captain Staugh-
tonX modest part. New Guinea, Gallipoli,
Flanders, the Somme, Arras (illustrated by mo
tion pictures), four times gassed, three times bay
oneted, once pronged by a German trench-hook
those were the high lights of the career which, the
folder assured the public, had finally brought him
face to face with the most fearless lecture audience
in the world the United States. He would be
pleased to lecture on the story of the Anzacs,
underground warfare or, on " German Spy
Methods," of which " he had learned much in
Egypt"
THE NATURE FAKER 245
One of the sub-topics in this lecture on German
spy methods was this: " Germany pays nothing
for its spying on us. We pay it all. How long
will we stand it? "
Well, we stood it for a long time too long
a time by half. But not long enough to permit
Captain Staughton to lecture before many audi
ences, nor to ask this question too frequently. He
gulled a few suburban Sunday schools, but his ar
rest put an end at least to his attempt to pick up a
bit of odd change by collecting insurance.
For the steamship Tennyson was British terri
tory, and, as this is written, the report comes that
this picturesque charlatan is going back across the
Atlantic, to be tried for the murder of a British
sailor. So begins the last chapter in the story of
Fritz Duquesne.
X
THE PRUSSIAN, THE BOLSHEVIK, ANtf THE
ANARCHIST
We caught a glimpse, in the chapter describing
the attempt to wreck St. Patrick s Cathedral, of
the peace-time game of the anarchist group; we
looked into their meeting places and their dis
orderly minds ; and those of us who are familiar
with the localities which were their haunts in New
York City will have been enabled to visualize with
some clearness the squalid surroundings in which
they worked. War gave them new opportuni
ties, and possibly a few high-lights which the Bomb
Squad caught of the anarchist, I. W. W., and
Russian activities since 1914 may prove to be
readable. If they are readable the author should
be content, but he will not be unless he has put
before his people something which may serve as a
warning for the period of readjustment which
the end of war has opened.
An anarchist publication appeared in New York,
dated November 15, 1918, four days after Ger-
246
THE PRUSSIAN 247
many had signed the armistice, with this legend
on its front page, in large type:
"The War Is Dead: Long Live the Revolu
tion I"
It reflects the joyful frame of mind with which
orthodox anarchists received the news of peace,
and hailed the beginning of what they thought
would be unrestrained guerilla warfare on law and
class. They had done very little to help the war,
and their two chief figures, Emma Goldman and
Alexander Berkman, were in prison for obstruct
ing the draft of America s army. Yet the anarch
ists as a class were extremely happy. Let us re
view some of the reasons why.
On October 25, 1915, Har Dayal, who had
fled at the outbreak of war to the protection of
Berlin, where he was placed in charge of the In
dian Nationalist Committee, wrote from Amster
dam, Holland, to Alexander Berkman in New
York. The letter follows:
" Dear Comrade:
" I am well and busy and sad. Can you send
me some earnest and sincere comrades, men and
women, who would like to help our Indian revolu
tionary movement in some way or other? I need
the cooperation of very earnest comrades. Per
haps you can find them in New York or at Pater-
son. They should be real fighters, I. W. W. s or
248 THROTTLED
anarchists. Our Indian party will make all neces
sary arrangements.
" If some comrades wish to come, they should
come to Holland. We have a centre in Amster
dam, and Dutch comrades are working with us.
If some comrades are ready to come, please tele
graph me from New York to the following ad
dress :
" 4 Israel Aaronson, c/o Madame Kercher,
444 n6 Oude Scheveningerweg,
" Scheveningen, Holland.
" My assumed name is 4 Israel Aaronson/
Kindly don t telegraph in your own name. The
word i yes will suffice. The Rotterdam-Amer-
ika Line will receive instructions from us here to
give tickets, etc., to as many persons as you recom
mend. All financial arrangements will be made
by our party.
" News from India is good. We have lost ( ?)
some very brave comrades in the recent skirmishes.
" It would be better if you could intimate in
your telegram how many comrades wish to come.
For instance, put the number in some sentence.
I shall understand, e. g., Five months holiday
coming. Etc., etc.
44 The need for the services of comrades is
urgent. Please do come to our help. We are
fighting against heavy odds.
" With love and respect.
44 Your for the Fight,
4< HAR DAYAL."
Lieutenant Commander Spencer Eddy
THE PRUSSIAN 249
" P. S. Kindly be very careful in keeping every
thing secret and confidential. When comrades
arrive they should go and see Domela Nieuwen-
huis, 20 Burgmestre Schooklaan, Hilversum (near
Amsterdam). He will tell them where to meet
me. Please also write a letter to the above ad
dress in Scheveningen, in addition to the telegram.
Telegram may be intercepted.
" H. D."
Not satisfied apparently that this letter would
reach Berkman, Har Dayal wrote another a week
later, which read as follows:
" Address : Israel Aaronson,
" c/o Madame Kercher,
" 116 Oude Scheveningerweg,
" Scheveningen.
" Dear Comrade:
" I am well and busy. Can you send me some
earnest and sincere comrades men and women, to
help our Indian revolutionary party at this junc
ture? They should be persons of good character.
If Tannenbaum is free, would he like to come?
" Please keep this matter strictly secret and con
fidential. Kindly don t discuss it with too many
people.
" This is a great opportunity for our party. I
need the cooperation of earnest comrades for very
important work. Several of our comrades have
come from India with encouraging news and mes
sages.
250 THROTTLED
" If some comrades can come, please wire anu
write to the above address to my assumed name,
4 Israel Aaronson. I shall send you money im
mediately to the name which you telegraph. Let
it be a name beginning with a B. I shall under
stand. Please don t telegraph in your own name.
" Kindly also word the telegram in such a way
that I can understand how many comrades are
coming. If five comrades wish to come, please
wire :
" * Five hundred dollars job vacant come.
[Just put the number of comrades before the hun
dred/ Or use any other device.
" Kindly also send me names and addresses of
the prominent anarchist comrades in Denmark,
France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Ger
many, Austria, and other European countries.
Please also send letters of introduction for me
to them from Emma or yourself, if you know
them. 11
And so on. There is enough to show the com
pany the Hindu-German intriguers kept, and to
show that the Hindu committee in Berlin had
enough money to buy mercenaries from the Ameri
can anarchist group, for which the American
brokers would hardly go unrewarded. Rintelen,
within a week of his arrival in the United States
in May, 1915, had tried to hire anarchists to blow
up shipping and start strikes in munitions plants.
THE PRUSSIAN 251
It further shows that during that week in October
of 1915, Har Dayal had a bright thought that if
he could only get letters from Emma Goldman or
Berkman introducing him to the anarchists of
Europe, and could perhaps introduce to them in
turn his lieutenant, Frank Tannenbaum, from
America the same who stormed St. Alphonsus
church with a gang of I. W. W. s in 1914, de
manding food he could hoodwink the anarch
ists into believing that he was playing their game,
and really make good use of them in playing his
game which of course was Berlin s.
As it happened, Tannenbaum was busy. So
was Emma. So was Berkman, who received the
letter. He was just formulating plans to go to
San Francisco and become an editor not a new
avocation, for he had for ten years helped Emma
Goldman issue a publication known as " Mother
Earth " and to carry out certain radical and
novel ideas. Before we sketch the way in which
he put those ideas on paper, it may be well to see
what experiences he had had to generate ideas,
and just what promise his career contained that he
would be of guiding benefit to these United States.
Alexander Berkman was a Russian by birth, and
was then about 44 years old. When he was
a youth of 20 he became involved in the famous
252 THROTTLED
Homestead strike in Pennsylvania, and on July 22,
1892, he burst into the office of Henry Frick, a
steel manufacturer, in the Carnegie Building in
Pittsburg and shot that gentleman in the neck.
He then went to the Western Penitentiary and
served fourteen years. This qualified him as a
rare martyr among anarchists. After he got out
of prison he was occasionally arrested in various
cities, for wherever he appeared among advocates
of violence there was pretty certain to be trouble.
The long prison term had given him a chance to
develop his mind, and he had written 512 pages
on " The Prison Life of an Anarchist, which the
" Mother Earth Publishing Company " brought
out, and which sold for $1.15 a very interest
ing book indeed.
So he went to San Francisco in the fall of 1915.
A short time before he left New York his friend
Bill Shatoff gave him a farewell dinner. As the
evening wore on the diners adjourned to the
neighborhood of Second Avenue and Fifth Street
for a frolic, and Berkman and Shatoff playfully
mauled a policeman, and took his club away, for
which both men were arrested. But that did not
interfere long with Berkman s departure for the
Coast, and the purpose and fruit of his journey
appeared within a short time.
Major Fuller Potter, Military Intelligence
THE PRUSSIAN 253
It was called The Blast. According to its own
description The Blast was a revolutionary labor
weekly, which meant that it preached revolution
every so often to those who had a grievance
against their employers and to those who had
no employers but who had a deep contempt for
anything of the sort. Alexander Berkman ap
peared as editor and publisher, E. B. Morton
as associate editor, and M. E. Fitzgerald as man
ager. It sold for five cents a copy, unless you
bought it in bundles, in which case you paid half
that price.
In the first issue, dated January 15, 1916, the
title of the paper is explained by the editor. " Do
you mean to destroy? " he asks. " Do you mean
to build? These are the questions we have been
asked from many quarters by inquirers sympa
thetic and otherwise. Our reply is frank and
bold: We mean both: to destroy and to build.
For socially speaking, Destruction is the begin
ning of Construction. . . . The time is NOW.
The breath of discontent is heavy upon this wide
land. It permeates mill and mine, field and fac
tory. Blind rebellion stalks upon highway and
byway. To fire it with the spark of Hope, to kin
dle it with the light of Vision, and turn pale dis
content into conscious social action that is the
254 THROTTLED
crying problem of the hour. It is the great work
calling to be done. To work, then, and blasted
be every obstacle in the way of the Regenera
tion! " In a congratulatory telegram in the same
issue, Emma wrote to Alexander : " Let The
Blast re-echo from coast to coast, inspiring
strength and courage into the disinherited, and
striking terror into the hearts of the craven enemy,
now that one more of our brothers has fallen a
victim to the insatiable Moloch. May The Blast
tear up the solidified ignorance and cruelty of our
social structure. Blast away ! To the daring be
longs the future."
A sample of the methods by which The Blast
proposed to begin its regeneration of the disin
herited is this delicate editorial paragraph:
"Judas Made Respectable.
" Judas Iscariot delivered the Nazarene agita
tor into the hands of the Roman District At
torney. This base betrayal incensed the people
against the mercenary stool-pigeon. Judas had
enough decency to go and hang himself."
A slap evidently at the person whom Emma re
ferred to in her telegram, who had just sold out to
Moloch.
It was a cardinal principle of the paper to be
THE PRUSSIAN 255
scurrilous and direct in its attacks upon the enemies
of anarchy. General Harrison Grey Otis, a Los
Angeles publisher whose newspaper building was
bombed in 1912 after labor trouble, was referred
to as " General Hungry Growl Otis," Colonel
Roosevelt as " The Human Blowout/ The
leading cartoon of the second issue, drawn and
well drawn by Robert Minor, showed a huge
figure of a laborer bearing on a tray the figure
of a tiny though corpulent judge, its mouth open
in speech, and its chair guarded by three stolid
elephantine policemen. The laborer is bearing
the dish to a feast of anarchists, the title of
Minor s contribution is " The Court Orders ."
The court had evidently ordered in the direction
of The Blast, and Berkman did not like the order.
In the same issue he wrote editorials against con
scription in England, against the convention of
the American Federation of Labor which had just
been held in San Francisco, against its president,
Samuel Gompers, and against national prepared
ness.
I have quoted these extracts not because they
are specially interesting or readable, but because
they will give one who is not wholly familiar with
the practical platform of anarchy a suggestion of
256 THROTTLED
anarchy s tone of voice. It is not friendly, but is
on the contrary quite snobbish. Selig Schulberg,
in an article on Mexico, gently suggested : " Toil
ers of America, if the Hearsts, Otises and Rocke
fellers have property, for which they want protec
tion, in Mexico, let them protect it! " The editor
says: " The Fords, the Bryans, the Jane Ad-
dams may be sincere. If so they are blind lead
ers of the blind." A writer signing himself " L.
E. Claypool," wrote, under the title " Prepared
ness is Hell," this tribute to our tortured Ally in
Europe : " Most of you gents that yell (i. e., yell,
What about Belgium? ) never heard of Belgium
till this war broke out. A lot of you probably
don t know that the language of the Belgians is
French. Further, you don t know that Belgium
had a treaty with England and France which
placed the little nation in the war before the Ger
man invasion. You may not know that French
and English engineers and military experts had
surveyed the land and were preparing to make it
a battle ground long before the Germans did so."
That statement was typical German propaganda
of a very crude sort, calculated to appeal by its in
sinuation to the class of readers who affected The
Blast. The platform of the paper, in a word, was
Against.
THE PRUSSIAN 257
Berkman was in a rich field for labor unrest.
California is a strong labor state. The whole
country, outside as well as inside California, had
been excited over the Los Angeles Times bomb
affair in 1912, and it revived that excitement
when two of the culprits were prosecuted three
years later. One finds constant reference to the
case in the files of The Blast, and to the strikes
at Lawrence, Mass., and Ludlow, Colorado, and
Youngstown, Ohio. Anti-capitalistic rough-house
in any corner of the continent was good copy for
Berkman. If it flagged for a moment he took
up the cudgels for his friend Emma, who had
just been arrested in New York and sentenced to
the workhouse for distributing birth-control litera
ture. Or he dove into international relations,
comparing in one instance Villa and President Wil
son, with little mercy for the latter. The issue
of April Fool s Day, 1916, carried a leading edi
torial directed against the Pacific Coast Defense
League, just organized to bring the national guard
of the Pacific and Mountain states into a condi
tion of higher efficiency and to start a program
of " healthy physical and military training " in the
public schools. This editorial was signed by Tom
Mooney, who soon appeared in the columns of
the paper in another capacity.
258 THROTTLED
The publication did not go unheeded by the
Post Office department. On May i Berkman
burst out with an article headed, " To Hell With
The Government," in which he used language that
would make any ordinary head of hair curl up.
He was angry because the Government had issued
an order holding up all succeeding issues of the
paper. In an editorial he said he welcomed the
uprising in Ireland the Easter Day affair in
Dublin which cost several Sinn Feiners their lives.
Other anarchistic publications in the country were
meeting the same fate. The Alarm, in Chicago,
Revolt of New York, Regeneration, a Mexican
revolutionary sheet issued in Los Angeles, and
Foluntad, a Spanish paper in New York, were
closed up. But Berkman went on publishing, and
howling about the constitutional freedom of the
press. Back in New York other friends of his
had been making more trouble: Mrs. Max East
man and Bolton Hall were arrested for circulat
ing birth-control pamphlets, and Bouck White was
jailed for distributing an effigy of the American
flag bearing a dollar-mark. Berkman took up
their cases and howled. He sent appeals for help
in his fight against the Post Office department, and
raised a little money. One of his liberal contribu
tors was a writer named John Reed, who sent him
THE PRUSSIAN 259
five dollars from New York. Then a strike broke
out, fostered by the I. W. W., on the iron ranges
in Northern Minnesota, and William M. Hay-
wood wrote Berkman an appeal for help which
the latter published in The Blast with a eulogy.
He found no dearth of subjects to fill his pages,
and then suddenly came an interruption.
San Francisco turned out in a great prepared
ness parade on July 22. Someone threw a bomb
into the ranks of the marchers. Nine people were
killed. The next issue of The Blast said sub
stantially: "Well, they might have expected
it," and said actually: "To try to connect the
Anarchists, the I. W. W., the Labor elements or
the participants in the peace meeting with the
bomb tragedy is stupid. The act was obviously
the work of an individual who evidently sought
to express his opposition to Preparedness for
Slaughter by using the ammunition of Prepared
ness. Terrible as it is, it is merely a foretaste
in miniature of what the people may expect mul
tiplied a million times, from the Preparedness
insanity." When two men, Nolan and Tom
Mooney, were arrested and charged with the
crime, The Blast rushed to their defense. When
Warren Billings and Israel Weinberg were added
to the list of accused, The Blast ran sketches of
260 THROTTLED
the defendants by Minor, the staff artist. The
case was of consuming interest to the anarchist
group, and they rubbed their hands, in The Blast
office, over their good luck that it had happened
right in their own little circle. The Blast ceased
firing random shots and focussed on the bomb
case in salvos, followed the course of the. trials,
drew a parallel between the condition of the San
Francisco suspects and that of Fielden, Neebe and
Schwab, three of the anarchists who were impli
cated in the Haymarket bomb outrage in Chicago
in 1886 and pardoned.
The business of being an anarchist became sur
rounded with more and more difficulty as the year
drew toward a close. Caplan, the fourth Los
Angeles bomb suspect to be tried, was convicted
and sentenced to ten years; a group of laborers
who had engaged in violence in strikes against the
United States Steel Corporation were under sen
tence in a Pittsburg prison; Carlo Tresca (whom
we recall as a speaker at the Brescia Circle in
1915), and ten others were in jail in Duluth
charged with murder in the I. W. W. strike on the
Mesaba Iron range; the Magon brothers, two
Mexican revolutionary anarchists, were in prison,
and the days of The Blast were numbered. Berk-
man came back to New .York in the fall. While
Lieutenant A. R. Fish, Naval Intelligence
THE PRUSSIAN 261
he was absent, The Blast sputtered once more in its
issue of January, 1917, with a venomous cartoon
by Minor, and went out, for wanf of funds.
Berkman found Emma Goldman well and pros
perous. She had visited him in March in San
Francisco, and again in June and July had de
livered two series of birth-control lectures there.
After her first visit, The Blast had blossomed
out with a book advertisement, which included the
list of volumes sold by the Mother Earth Publish
ing Company in New York. There were the
usual texts on anarchy, revolution, and syndicalism,
and it is interesting to note among the books sent
to Berkman for review the following titles : " A
Few Facts About British Rule In India. Pub
lished by the Hindustani Gadar, San Francisco,
" India s Loyalty to England. Published by
The Indian Nationalist Party," and " The Meth
ods of the Indian Police in the Twentieth Century.
Published by the Hindustan Gadar." Har Dayal
had been the editor of Ghadr until 1914; ap
parently his acquaintanceship with Berkman was
being kept fresh by his successors at the nest of
Hindu intrigue in Berkeley.
But when Berkman got back to New York he
found that birth-control was no longer the thing.
A new development had taken place, half-way
262 THROTTLED
around the earth, and it looked promising for the
anarchistic interests. So we must leave the two
for a moment.
On January 9, 1917, the Russian premier re
signed. A fortnight later the newspapers an
nounced that the Germans had recaptured con
siderable important ground on the Riga front.
On February 3, the United States severed diplo
matic relations with Germany, gave Bernstorff his
papers, and sent him home two weeks later. On
March 1 1 a revolutionary demonstration broke
out in Petrogradj and the next day the Czar of
All the Russias abdicated his throne. A new
cabinet was formed, its foreign minister told the
Allies that Russia would continue to fight, and
the United States recognized the new regime.
The news was hailed with a good deal of fraternal
spirit in America, and with special cordiality in
New York, where there were great numbers of
Russians who had left Europe to escape the per
secution of the old regime.
Many of the New York Russians knew what
was going to happen in Petrograd. The Bomb
Squad made friends with an anarchist as early
as February i, 1917. On that day at a spot
not far from where Shatoff and Berkman had
attacked the policeman a year before, a certain
THE PRUSSIAN 263
Mr. Plotkin met a Mr. Bogdanovitch. Plot-
kin urged Bogdanovitch to call a special confer
ence of all the revolutionary organizations in the
city to protest against militarism. " No," said
the conservative Bogdanovitch. u Our group will
either have to pass a resolution as a single unit, or
else go over to Group 2 and see what they are
doing about this news that we are going to have
war. Don t be too ready to jump to conclusions."
So the two went to call on Group 2, which was in
session some 50 Russians and Russian Jews,
who spent the evening harmlessly reading the war
prospects from American newspapers. No reso
lution was passed.
The next night, however, there was a lecture at
Beethoven Hall, at 210 East 5th Street. The
speaker was introduced as " Mr. Bornstein," who
had just returned from Russia. " Mr. Born-
stein " was Leon Trotzky.
Trotzky, using the Russian language, told of
the plans that were being developed for revolution.
" You anarchists here," he said, " don t want any
militarism or any government which is of no help
to the working class, and is always ready to fire
on the workman. It s time you did away with
such a government once and forever ! " After his
speech, the chairman, Comrade G. Chudnofsky,
264 THROTTLED
rose and addressed the crowd of 300 in the hall,
to this effect:
" Comrades, some of you can t read English.
You don t know what is going on until you see it
in the Russian papers. Only to-day I noticed that
the Police Commissioner is going to call out all the
reserves he can get to handle the situation, since
Germany notified America what she would do.
The capitalistic government is afraid of us!
They are afraid of the working class. Remember
that, for in case of war, we can protest against
militarism and start our own war. Here is a
resolution which I propose to prevent any of our
loyal number joining the army. I will read it."
And he read it.
The next day Bill Shatoff was scheduled to
speak at a meeting at Number 9 Second Avenue,
but he was suddenly called to Boston, and a sub
stitute took the platform. He was howled down
because he made a speech which reflected loyalty
to the United States. The audience consisted of
75 Russians, of whom some 30 were anarchists
known to the Bomb Squad. The United States
severed diplomatic relations with Germany that
night.
On February 4 the representatives of several
of the Russian anarchist groups were to meet at
THE PRUSSIAN 265
534 East 5th Street and pass the resolution against
militarism, but they could not agree upon it, and
the session ended by postponing the matter.
Most of the delegates present adjourned to 64
East yth Street (almost within earshot of the
Washington Arch), to hear Chudnofsky rave
against enlistment, the police, the government and
the war.
Those little meetings were typical of the erup
tions which occurred throughout the poorer dis
tricts of the great city during the remainder of
the month of February. Such propagandists as
Chudnofsky and Trotzky, uttering their exhorta
tions to a multiplication of such groups as gath
ered in the Fifth Street house, spread among the
gossipy East Siders and into the remotest slums
the news that great things were about to happen
in Russia, and rumor and expectancy set the stage
for the arrival of the news of the revolution on
March 12. The leaders then began to mobilize
their forces and act quickly. Under Shatoff,
Schnabel and Rodes the revolutionary fire was
passed along from one to another. The story
was that Russia was free, reclaimed from Czar-
dom and all that it had meant of oppression.
The lid was off, and it was a case of first come,
first served. The Provisional Government was
266 THROTTLED
no better than any other, /these men said. " Rus
sia shall be ours." "How?" asked the eager
disciples. " By helping yourselves," answered
Shatoff and Schnabel and Rodes. " That s all
very well," said the proletariat, " but we haven t
the price." " Oh, in that case, come to the fare
well meeting on March 26 for Leon Trotzky, at
Harlem River Casino, and all will be made clear
to you."
Some 800 people were at Trotzky s farewell
party, which was held under the auspices of the
German Socialist Federation. Alexander Berk-
man and Emma Goldman were among those pres
ent. A blond Russian made a speech in which he
said: " Comrades, some of us are going back to
Russia to push the revolution as we think it ought
to be pushed, and those who remain here must get
ready to do their share of the work as it ought to
be done." Trotzky then rose and speaking first
in German, then in Russian, repeated the advice
the previous speaker had given, and added:
" You who stay here must work hand in hand with
the revolution in Russia, for only in that way
can you accomplish revolution in the United
States." He was cheered to the echo.
(There are still those who wonder why we have
not recognized the Bolsheyiki.)
THE PRUSSIAN 267
The pier of the Norwegian-American line the
next morning was a strange sight. Trotzky, with
his wife, Chudnofsky, Plotkin, and a group of
fifty more Russians, including such names as Mu-
hin, Rapaport, Dnieprofsky, Yaroshefsky and
Rashkofsky, sailed for Norway. An undersized,
wild-eyed, fanatic little plucked-bantam of a Rus
sian expatriate literally set out from Hoboken
to upset the Provisional Government of Russia,
prevent the formation of a republic, stop the war
with Germany and prevent interference from
other governments that was his open boast.
And, if such a mission can be crowned with suc
cess, he succeeded.
The leaders of the groups left behind began
that very afternoon to examine recruits for the
return to Russia. They met at 534 East 5th
Street and elected a committee of five to serve as
examining board for applicants for the $20 to
$50 free passage money extended by the Provi
sional Government to help Russians who had fled
the persecutions of the old days to repatriate them
selves. It is unnecessary to state that the Provi
sional Government hardly knew how thoroughly
these homing pigeons were going to re-establish
themselves. All those who passed muster were
put down for a sailing date.
268 THROTTLED
The Norwegian ship bearing Trotzky and his
party put into Halifax and the British detained
the entire passenger list. On April 15 a mass
meeting of anarchists, socialists, and Industrial
Workers of the World was held at Manhattan
Lyceum to make a formal protest to the Brit
ish government against their detention. Ker-
ensky asked for their release, and they were al
lowed to go on. By this time a second consign
ment had left, -but by a different route. On April
3 George Brewer, H. Gurin, Mr. and Mrs. David
Rohlis, one Kotz, one Schmidt, one Nemiroff and
27 others left the Pennsylvania Station for Chi
cago, Vancouver, Japan and Siberia. On April
23 Comrades Bogdanovitch, Bendetsky, Albert
Greenfield, John (or Ivan) Stepanoff, Michael
Smirnoff, Henry Shklar and 89 more left on the
Erie Railroad for Seattle, Japan and Siberia. On
the 1 2th day of May, " Dynamite Louise " Berg,
sister of the anarchist who was killed July 4,
1914, by the accidental explosion of a bomb,
boarded the steamship United States of the Scan
dinavian-American Line in Hoboken for Chris-
tiania and Russia. On that ship sailed nearly
a hundred others of the anarchist and revolu
tionary element. Ninety more, including Soko-
loff, a prominent I. W. W., left for San Francisco
Captain John B. Trevor, Military Intelligence
THE PRUSSIAN 269
and Japan two days later. On May 26 Mrs. Bill
Shatoff, with Alexander Broide, J. Wishniefsky,
and 1 8 more members of the Cooperative An
archist Organization sailed from Hoboken on
the Oskar II. Two days passed and Meyer Bell,
an anarchist who had seen the inside of many an
American jail for revolutionary agitation, and
Mrs. Meyer Bell, with no others took their de
parture for San Francisco and the Orient. The
last consignment but one, a group of 90 more po
tential Bolsheviki, followed them on June 24.
Shatoff and Wolin waited until their flock had
been herded out of the country, and then vanished
themselves. No one knew their route, but they
were heard from in Seattle. Altogether some
600 anarchists made the pilgrimage. Some never
reached Russia. Others who did get back found
that conditions offered slim picking, and the Chi
nese and Manchurian ports are sprinkled with
them to-day men without a country, who cannot
live in Russia, and who may not return to the
United States.
Those who did get through to the capital of
Russia straightway joined the organization.
Trotzky had found Lenine there with plans al
ready well advanced. The Provisional Govern
ment superficially was adequate to handle the sit-
270 THROTTLED
uation, and during June it gave some slight promise
of being able to prosecute its share of the war, but
a breach was coming. A Council of Workmen
and Soldiers had sprung up to oppose the Duma
and the government when the Duma voted for
an immediate offensive in Galicia, the Council
voted for a separate peace. Kerensky swung him
self back into balance for a month, and led a
military offensive. It turned into a retreat, the
retreat into a rout Korniloff took command of
the army on August 2, and the following day the
military governor of Petrograd was assassinated.
The deposed Czar was taken to Siberia. On
September 2 Kerensky tried the expedient of ar
rest against his rising enemies in Moscow. On
September 16 he proclaimed a new republic, but
political structures could not keep out the terrify
ing German military advance that already was
threatening Petrograd nor the German propa
ganda which was already there. Mid-October
saw the government in flight to Moscow. On the
2 ist of October Leon Trotzky, at the head of
the Bolshevik! in the Council, declared his party
for an immediate democratic peace, and left the
hall at their head, cheering. Municipal elections
on November i rejected the Bolsheviki, but they
would not be rejected, and on November 7 the
THE PRUSSIAN 271
Maximalists deposed Kerensky and took posses
sion of the Government. Lenine became premier,
Trotzky minister of foreign affairs.
The New York delegation won influential posi
tions under the new regime. A United States
senator has described the current Russian govern
ment as nothing but " Lenine and a gang of anarch
ists from New York, Philadelphia and Chicago."
Wolin took charge of a branch of the press a
sort of commissioner of public misinformation.
Shatoff, in America a humble syndicalist and
I. W. W., rose to the eminence of chairman of
the u Extraordinary Commission for the Strug
gle Against Speculators and the Counter Revolu
tion " in Petrograd, a commission whose activi
ties are perhaps better described by its common
title in the capital. It is called the " Blood and
Murder " or the " To the Wall " committee. He
has filled in his spare time as Commissioner of
Railroads, and has been commonly credited in
Petrograd with the murder of the Czar and his
family. Ouritzky, Shatoffs predecessor at the
head of the Committee, had amassed a fortune
of some four million roubles during his tenure
of office. He died a violent death. Shatoff, in
October of 1918, had not followed suit. The
same John Reed who contributed to the support
272 THROTTLED
of the Blast appeared in Petrograd as a sympa
thetic correspondent, and was made consul to
New York a portfolio which he was unable
to use when he returned to New York because
of his indictment, along with Max Eastman and
several other editors of a paper known as The
Masses, for attempting to obstruct the draft.
The balance of the New York anarchists who
made up the expeditionary force of 1917 found
their way, such of them as escaped the rigors
of Petrograd life, into positions of influence in
the government of one hundred or more mil
lions of Russian people. To be sure, their hold
is not too secure, but they are enjoying for the
moment a sense of power which is intoxicating.
Nothing seems to please a Bolshevik of the New
York City group more than power the same
thing he tried to overthrow. I suppose it makes
a difference whose power it happens to be.
Neither Goldman nor Berkman returned to
Russia. Their publishing and bookselling busi
ness kept them here, and both were always in de
mand as lecturers. Both had pictured themselves
for many years as the champions of anarchy in
the United States, and it is conceivable that they
did not wish to pass over their sceptres to any less
well qualified successors. Unlike the ringleaders
THE PRUSSIAN 273
of the I. W. W., these anarchists did not dodge
real work. Both had active minds, and were hap
piest when they were busy. Berkman s writing
at times shows a certain cheerful tenderness under
neath its bombast, and Emma Goldman had a
rather good-natured sarcasm at times as a speaker.
The two cast their lot in with the pacifists, the
anti-conscriptionists, and the factions whose chief
aim was to interfere with America s going to war.
Emma began to lecture on the subject. On the
night of May 18 she spoke to a meeting in the
Harlem River Casino. After a preamble ad
vising the audience that government agents were
present and that violence would be out of order,
she drew what she probably considered a logical
conclusion from this advice and shouted:
14 And so, friends, we don t care what people
will say about us. We only care for one thing,
and that is to demonstrate to-night, and to demon
strate as long as we can be able to speak, that
when America went to war ostensibly to fight for
democracy, it was a dastardly lie. It never went
to war for democracy! ... It is not a war of
economic independence, it is a war for conquest.
It is a war for military power. It is a war for
money. It is a war for the purpose of trampling
underfoot every vestige of liberty that you people
274 THROTTLED
have worked for, for the last forty or thirty or
twenty-five years, and therefore we refuse to sup
port such a war. . . .
4 We believe in violence and we will use vio
lence. . . . How many people are going to refuse
to conscript? I say there are enough. I could
count fifty thousand, and there w r ill be more. . . .
They will not register ! What are you going to
do if there are 500,000? It will not be such an
easy job, and it will compel the government to
sit up and take notice, and therefore we are going
to support, with all the money and publicity at our
hands, all the men who will refuse to register and
who will refuse to fight.
" I hope this meeting is not going to be the last.
As a matter of fact we are planning something
else. . . . We will have a demonstration of all
the people who will not be conscripted, and who
will not register. We are going to have the larg
est demonstration this city has ever seen, and no
power on earth will stop us. ... If there is any
man in this hall that despairs, let him look across
at Russia . . . and see the wonderful thing that
revolution has done. . . .
" What is your answer? Your answer to war
must be a general strike, and then the governing
class will have something on its hands. . . ."
THE PRUSSIAN 275
She wound up her speech with an appeal for
funds, and said that her paper, Mother Earth,
was going to support the rebellion against the
draft law which had been signed by the president
that very day. Mother Earth spoke, in her next
issue, which appeared shortly before registration
day, June 5, and spoke in fairly disapproving
terms toward conscription. But the sun went
down into New Jersey on registration day with
out having witnessed the greatest demonstration
New York City ever saw, or any demonstration
whatever save the quiet, cheerful enrollment of
what later became a heroic national army.
On June 15 Emma Goldman and Alexander
Berkman were arrested in the office of Mother
Earth at 20 East I25th Street. On June 27 they
were arraigned for trial. On July 9 the jury
pronounced them guilty of having attempted to
obstruct the draft. Judge Mayer thereupon sen
tenced Berkman to two years in the Federal peni
tentiary at Atlanta, Goldman to the state peniten
tiary at Jefferson City, Missouri for two years,
and fined each of them $10,000. It was a stiff
blow to organized anarchy the maximum sen
tence possible, and the judge followed it by direct
ing the District Attorney, Harold A. Content, to
notify the Commissioner of Labor of the convic-
276 THROTTLED
tion, in order that when the two emerged from
prison, they might be deported as aliens convicted
of two or more crimes to the country from which
they came, bringing uplift to down-trodden Amer
ica.
Their work has since been carried on in a more
or less desultory way. They, too, have become
official martyrs to the cause, whose names will be
inscribed along with those of Brescia, the Hay-
market murderers, and a score of others, on the
anarchist service flag. The undercurrent of op
position appeared spasmodically during the war
and it became necessary for an Alabama Judge, sit
ting in the District Court of New York, on Oc
tober 25, 1918, to impose maximum sentences
under the espionage act upon three more ad
vocates of unrest, Jacob Abrams, Samuel Lip-
man and Hyman Lachnowsky, the ringleaders of
a group who circulated leaflets denouncing armed
intervention in Russia and advocating a general
strike. They were sentenced to twenty years
apiece; a fourth member got three years and a
$1,000 fine. A woman in the group, Mollie
Steiner, was sentenced to fifteen years.
The efforts at u demonstration " which the im
ported anarchists in America have employed are
neither as picturesque nor as popularly received
THE PRUSSIAN 277
as those of their comrades in the old world.
Anarchy is out of tune in America. Prussianism
has already had its answer from the United
States. Bolshevism is not for a well-educated,
deep-breathing nation like ours. And anarchy,
the poorest wretch of the three, must make terri
fying faces through some other window than that
of a country full of people who are going to con
tinue to make this democracy safe for itself.
THE END
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