America had a monopoly of the so-called high-class spies, according
to this authority. The average German spy was described as a man who
has one or more convictions hanging over his head—an unsentenced
criminal—and these men were paid only about $250 a month. The statement
continues:
“‘The last spy we caught was only a day or so ago. We had been after
him for some time and he was traveling with a perfectly good American
passport.
“‘The high-class spies with you are responsible for the sabotage, for
the strikes on the docks and in the factories. They are pacifists,
anticonscriptionists. It is a situation terribly serious for you. They
are going to delay what they can not prevent. Don’t flatter yourselves
that the important spies have been driven out. If I had been a spy in
America and the warning had been given to me so long in advance, I
would have laid my lines very well. Look out for those lines; you may
trip.
“‘What should be done with a spy in America? He should be shot as soon
as his espionage has been proved. No weakness should be permitted
because he has many affiliations there.
[Illustration: French Peasants Sent to the Front by Germans
In certain areas in France the German commanders feared that the
inhabitants would give information to the French armies, and so moved
all the population either into concentration camps near the front or
to points a long way in the rear of the lines. Here is shown a wagon
train filled with peasants who had been forced to leave their homes
with only the few necessities these civilian heroes could carry.]
“‘I was in Germany eight years ago. Everywhere I was asked, “Are you
ready to fight America?” That was the pretty little German game.
Even then they were dying to rub into us the fact that America was our
enemy. In the beginning, when the commercial party—Herr Ballin and
his clique—were in power, they pretended a great affection for you.
It was contrary to their desire that the submarine warfare became so
terrible—not because they hated its brutalities, don’t make any mistake
about that, but because they thought it a diplomatic blunder. Then and
now they have a press which harps on the unfriendly feeling that exists
between you and us. That often reiterated phrase that “America is
fighting Great Britain’s battles for her” was made in Germany.
“‘I’m not such a fool as to think that America loved us in the past,
but that she ever hated us as the Germans have said and that we have
hated her as they still say in subtle, indefinable ways in some of your
papers, is unbelievable by either of the parties concerned. Nations
have faults as do individuals. We’ve made mistakes. We may have talked
a little too much about the _Shannon_ and _Chesapeake_ and you too much
about Bunker Hill and that tea-party in Boston Harbor. Let’s have an
end to it—it all helps Germany too much. Take away the text-books from
your children which teach them to hate us. If you try it, the German
school-teachers will try to keep them, see if they don’t.
“‘America ought to love us now if she has not in the past, if national
love is founded on respect, as it should be. We can point to ourselves
with pride. We have given up in this war the thing we most believed
in—personal freedom. We have made untold sacrifices and we are ready to
give up everything—everything. Anything in your press that makes you
see these facts in a distorted way is false, spy-work of the subtle,
underground, submarine mentality sort that the Germans excel in.
“‘Look out for it. It isn’t the work of the “lovely lady spy” or that
of the man with a conviction suspended while he does their dirty work
that you are in danger from. It is just where I have pointed out.
“‘You asked me a while ago what England would do in case Germany won.
I will tell you and you can draw from it the lesson of spy—and other
German effort.
“‘If Germany should win, there won’t be any one here when it happens to
know anything about it.’”