March 1--Indictments are returned by the Federal Grand Jury in New York
against the Hamburg-American Steamship Company and against officials of
the line on the charge of conspiring against the United States by making
out false clearance papers and false manifests in connection with
voyages made by four steamships to supply German cruiser Karlsruhe and
auxiliary cruiser Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse with coal and provisions;
indictments are returned by the Federal Grand Jury in New York against
Richard P. Stegler, a German, Gustave Cook and Richard Madden on the
charge of conspiracy to defraud the Government in obtaining a passport.
March 2--Three indictments charging the illegal transportation of
dynamite in interstate commerce are returned by the Federal Grand Jury
in Boston against Warner Horn, a German, who tried to destroy the
international railway bridge at Vanceboro, Me., last month; extradition
proceedings by Canada, officials state, will probably have to be halted
until this indictment is disposed of.
March 7--Horn is made a Federal prisoner in Maine.
March 8--Carl Ruroede, who was arrested in January with four Germans to
whom he had issued spurious American passports, pleads guilty in the
Federal District Court to charge of conspiring to defraud the United
States Government, and is sentenced to three years' imprisonment; the
four Germans who bought passports are fined $200 each; the Department of
Justice is still investigating in belief there are other conspirators.
March 16--Stegler turns State's evidence and testifies against Cook and
Madden in the Federal District Court.
March 18--Cook and Madden are found guilty, the jury making a strong
recommendation for mercy; before the United States Commissioner at
Bangor, Me., Horn claims that his act was an act of war and contests
right of the courts to try him.
March 19--Stegler is sentenced to sixty days' imprisonment, and Cook and
Madden to ten months; United States Commissioner at Bangor decides that
Horn must stand trial in Boston.
March 24--Major General Hughes, Minister of Militia and Defense for
Canada, states in the Canadian Parliament that two dozen Americans with
the first Canadian contingent have fallen in battle, and that "hundreds
more are in the Canadian regiments fighting bravely."
March 25--Horn is taken to Boston from Portland, after two unsuccessful
attempts to obtain a writ of habeas corpus.
March 31--Leon C. Thrasher of Hardwick, Mass., an American by birth,
was among the passengers lost on the Falaba; American Embassy in London
and the State Department are investigating; the Thrasher family appeals
to Washington for information about his death; Raymond Swoboda,
American, a passenger on the French liner Touraine, which was imperiled
by fire at sea on March 6, has been arrested in Paris charged with
causing the fire.