THE PUBLIC MIND
Dr. Bertling--The _Staats-Zeitung_--George Sylvester
Viereck and _The Fatherland_--Efforts to buy a press
association--Bernhardi's articles--Marcus Braun and _Fair
Play_--Plans for a German news syndicate--Sander, Wunnenberg,
Bacon and motion pictures--The German-American Alliance--Its
purposes--Political activities--Colquitt of Texas--The
"Wisconsin Plan"--Lobbying--Misappropriation of German Red Cross
funds--Friends of Peace--The American Truth Society.
Some one has said that America will emerge from this war a gigantic
national entity, a colossus wrought of the fused metal of her scores
of mixed nationalities. That is naturally desirable, and historically
probable. If such is the result, Germany will have lost for all time
one of her most powerful allies--the German population in the United
States. Nearly one-tenth of the population of the United States in 1914
was of either German birth or parentage. Ethnic lines are not erased
in a generation except by some great emergency, such as war affords.
Germany is doomed to a deserved disappointment in the loss of her
American stock--deserved because she tried so hard to Germanize America.
She wasted no time in injecting her verbal propagandists into the
struggle on the American front. On August 20, 1914, Dr. Karl Oskar
Bertling, assistant director of the Amerika Institut in Berlin,
landed in New York, and went at once to report to von Bernstorff. The
Amerika Institut had of recent years made considerable progress in
familiarizing Germany with American affairs; its chief director, Dr.
Walther Drechsler, had been master of German in Middlesex, a prominent
boys' school in Massachusetts; he returned to Berlin in 1913 and was
attached, upon the outbreak of war, to the press office. All who were
associated with it knew something of America. It is characteristic of
the convertibility of German institutions to war that another executive
of this organization, employed in peace times to cement the friendship
between the two nations, should be sent on the day war was declared to
America to establish a German press bureau.
Dr. Bertling went about delivering pro-German speeches, and prepared
articles for the press on international questions. These he submitted
to Bernstorff himself for approval--one such story was to be published
in a Sunday magazine supplement to a long "string" of American
newspapers. Although every editor was on the lookout for any "war
stuff" which was written with any apparent background of European
politics, he found small market for his wares among the New York
newspapers, and some of his speaking dates were cancelled. He proposed
to publish, with one of his stories, a set of German military maps of
Belgium, but to this von Papen wrote him on November 21: "I entirely
agree with you in your opinion in regard to the maps--it is a two-edged
sword," and he added: "One observes how very ill-informed the average
American is." Bertling's lack of accomplishment drew censure, however,
from several sources: the head of the German-American Chamber of
Commerce in Berlin chided him for not having carried out his "special
mission to supply a cable service to South America and China," and the
late Professor Hugo Muensterberg of Harvard waxed righteously indignant
over the fact that Bertling opened and read a letter entrusted by the
psychologist to him for safe delivery to Dr. Dernburg. Bertling applied
to the Embassy for special employment, and on March 19, 1915, the
ambassador's private secretary wrote him:
"His Excellency is entirely agreeable to giving you the desired
employment, but he considers the present conditions too uncertain, as
his departure for Germany in the near future is not impossible."
Excellent testimony to the subtle iniquity of his task lies in
the names of the men whose pro-Ally utterances he was striving to
counteract. In a letter written December 20, 1914, to Bertling by C. W.
Ernst, a Bostonian of German birth and American naturalization, appears
this passage:
"Is it prudent to defend the German cause against such men as C. W.
Eliot and other Americans who consider themselves artistocratic and
important?... Who, apparently, was of more importance than Roosevelt,
to whom now even the dogs pay no attention?... The feeling of men like
Eliot, C. F. Adams, etc., is well understood. German they know not.
They understand neither Luther nor Kant, nor the history of Germany....
Tactically it is a mistake to be easy going with England, or in
discussion with her American toadies. By curtness, defiance, irony one
can get much further...."
His friend in the German-American Chamber of Commerce wrote again
to Berlin in a vein which showed how closely Germany herself was
watching publicity in America. "Viereck has sent me a letter," he
said, "and _Harper's_ printed some matter by way of Italy.... The
Foreign Office and the War Department urgently want more reports sent
here. If cables through neutral countries are not feasible, could
not Americans travelling be called upon? More steam, please.... The
exchange professors should get busy.... One is quite surprised here
that with the exception of Burgess and possibly Sloan, nobody seems
to be doing anything.... Nasmith's article, 'The Case for Germany,'
in the _Outlook_ is very good--inspired by me. The same of Mead's in
_Everybody's_."
And again: "We will dog Uncle Sam's footsteps with painful
accuracy--his sloppy, obstinate, pro-English neutrality we utterly
repudiate. When God wishes to punish a country he gives it a W. J. B.
as Secretary of State."
(When Bryan resigned, German rumors were circulated from time to time
that Secretary Lansing, who succeeded him, had had a falling out with
President Wilson, and was himself on the point of resigning. What Herr
Walther thought of "W. J. B."'s successor is a matter of conjecture.)
The documents found in Dr. Bertling's possession, and the method of
securing them, brought forth a sharp editorial from Bernard Ridder of
the _New Yorker Staats-Zeitung_, then one of the stanch members of
the foreign language press engaged in defending Germany. Dr. Bertling
remained unmolested in the United States until April, 1918, when he
was arrested as an enemy alien in Lexington, Mass., and interned.
Dr. Bernhardt Dernburg, to quote the words of a German associate,
"had some propaganda and wrote some articles for the newspapers" ...
and was "certainly in connection with the German Government," gave
Adolph Pavenstedt $15,000 in early October, 1914. To this Pavenstedt
added $5,000, and on October 12 paid the sum of $20,000 to the
_Staats-Zeitung_, to tide the newspaper over a rough financial period.
"I expected," said Pavenstedt," that if the business were bankrupt it
would be lost to the Ridders, who have always followed a very good
course for the German interests here."
[Illustration: Photographs of checks signed by Adolf Pavenstedt]
Soon after the war began George Sylvester Viereck brought out his
publication, _The Fatherland_, a moderately clever attempt to appeal
to intelligent readers in Germany's behalf. On July 1, 1915, the
publication having stumbled along a rocky financial path--for no
publication distributed gratis can make money--Dr. Albert wrote Viereck:
"Your account for the $1,500--bonus, after deducting the $250 received,
for the month of June, 1915, has been received. I hope in the course of
the next week to be able to make payment. In the meantime, I request
the proposal of a suitable person who can ascertain accurately and
prove the financial condition of your paper. From the moment when we
guarantee you a regular advance, I must
"1. Have a new statement of the condition of your paper.
"2. Practise a control over the financial management.
"In addition to this we must have an understanding regarding the course
in politics which you will pursue, which we have not asked heretofore.
Perhaps you will be kind enough to talk the matter over on the basis of
this letter, with Mr. Fuehr." Fuehr's office was across the hall from
Viereck.
Viereck had assembled about him among others a staff of contributors
which included Dr. Dernburg, Frank Koester, Rudolph Kronau, J. Bernard
Rethey, a writer who affects the _nom de plume_ of "Oliver Ames,"
Edmund von Mach (whose brother is an official of some prominence
in Germany), and Ram Chandra (the editor of a revolutionary Hindu
newspaper published in California). Viereck, in his paper, forecasted
the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and later gloated over it as well as
over the murder of Edith Cavell. His father is the Berlin correspondent
of his paper. They are both "naturalized" citizens of the United
States. One of his contributors, as late as 1918, wrote for Viereck a
peculiarly suspicious essay on his conversion to Americanism, setting
forth in exhaustive detail the pro-German convictions which he had
previously held, and the justification for them, and winding up with
a pallid renunciation of them, the document as a whole intended
ostensibly to stimulate patriotism, while in reality it would have
rekindled the dying German apology. The pernicious Viereck, whose
mental stature may be judged by the fact that he treasured a violet
from the grave of Oscar Wilde, sought to interest the Embassy in his
merits as a publisher of German books, and was supported, as pro-German
volumes were issued from the Jackson Press which he controlled. He
suggested, too, to Dr. Albert names of American publishing houses as
excellent media for bringing out propaganda books on account of their
obvious innocence of German sympathies.
A more patent attempt to influence the public originated in the German
Embassy itself. Dr. Albert, through intermediaries, schemed to obtain
for $900,000 control of a press association. The sale was not made. One
of Dr. Albert's agents, M. B. Claussen, formerly publicity agent for
the Hamburg-American Line, established in the Hotel Astor, New York,
the "German Information Bureau" for disseminating "impartial news about
the war" and "keeping the American mind from becoming prejudiced," and
he issued many a red-white-and-black statement to the newspapers.
The German interests also had designs on buying an important New York
evening newspaper, the _Mail_. One of von Papen's assistants, George
von Skal, a former reporter (and the predecessor as commissioner of
accounts of John Purroy Mitchel, New York's "fighting mayor"), entered
the negotiations in a letter written by Paul T. Davis to Dr. Albert at
the embassy. This letter, dated, June 21, 1915, set forth that--
"In November, 1914, my father, George H. Davis, conceived the idea
that Germany ought to be represented in New York by one of the papers
printed in English. He spoke to a number of German-Americans about
the scheme and finally through Mr. George von Skal got in touch with
Ambassador Count von Bernstorff. Mr. Percival Kuhne acted as the
head of the movement until it was found that he could not devote the
necessary time to the matter in hand and at father's suggestion Mr.
Ludwig Nissen was substituted.... We decided upon the _Mail_ as the
only paper that was not too expensive.... We opened negotiations with
the proprietors of the _Mail_ and proceeded until Ambassador Count von
Bernstorff notified both Mr. Kuhne and Mr. Nissen that at that time
nothing further should be done in the matter...."
The _Mail_ was sold, however, to Dr. Rumely.
Dr. Albert collected for General Franz Bernhardi the proceeds of the
publication in American newspapers of the latter's famous "Germany and
the Next War." Bernhardi wrote von Papen on April 9, 1915:
"I have now written two further series of articles for America.
The Foreign Office wanted to have the first of these, entitled
'Germany and England,' distributed in the American press; the other,
entitled 'Pan-Germanism,' was to appear in the Chicago _Tribune_.
They will certainly have some sort of effect, this is evident from
the inexpressible rage with which the British and French press have
attacked those _Sun_ articles."
[Illustration: _Copyright, International Film Service_
George Sylvester Viereck, founder and Editor of _The Fatherland_ a
pro-German propaganda weekly known later as _Viereck's Weekly_]
Bernstorff and Papen, under orders from Chancellor von
Bethmann-Hollweg, in May, 1915, had under consideration the payment of
from $1,000 to $1,200 for the expenses of a trip to Germany for Edward
Lyell Fox, a newspaper writer, who "at the time of his last sojourn in
Germany" (in 1914) "was of great benefit to us by reason of his good
despatches."
Von Bernstorff himself wrote on March 15, 1915, to Marcus Braun, a
Hungarian, and editor of a review called _Fair Play_:
"_My dear Mr. Braun_:
"In answer to your favor of the 12th instant, I beg to say that I
have read the monthly review _Fair Play_ for the last 3 years, and
I can state that this publication is living up to its name, and
that it has always taken the American point of view. During the
last 7 months _Fair Play_ has, in its editorial policy, treated
all belligerents justly and thereby rendered great services to
the millions of foreign born citizens in this country, especially
to those of German and Austro-Hungarian origin. _Fair Play_
has fought for the rights of the latter and for truth, always
maintaining an American attitude and showing true American spirit.
"You are at liberty to show this letter to anybody who is
interested in the matter, but I beg you not to publish it, as to
(do) this would be contrary to the instructions of my government,
who does not wish me to publicly advertise any review or newspaper.
"Very sincerely yours,
"J. BERNSTORFF."
On May 28, 1915, J. Bernstorff signed another gratifying document for
the same Braun--a check for $5,000 payable to the Fair Play Printing &
Publishing Company. Such was the reward of "true American spirit."
When Germany embarked upon an enterprise she usually followed charts
prepared by trained surveyors. Her attempts at newspaper and magazine
propaganda in the first ten months of war had been hastily conceived
and not altogether successful. One of the most comprehensive reports
which has come to light is a recommendation, dated July, 1915, in
which the investigator discusses the feasibility of a strong German
news-syndicate in America.
It was to be operated by two bureaus, one in Berlin as headquarters for
all news and pictures from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and the
Balkans, one in New York for distribution of the matter to the American
press. Correspondents from America were to be given the privileges of
both Eastern and Western fronts, from 3,000 to 4,000 words a day were
to be sent by wireless from Nauen to Sayville, secret codes were to be
arranged so that the cable news might be smuggled past the enemy in
the guise of commercial messages. The bureau in New York was to gather
American news for Germany, and the service was eventually to extend
over the whole world.
[Illustration:
GERMAN EMBASSY
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Washington, D.C., March 15, 1915.
J.Na 4344
My dear Mr. Braun,
In answer to your favor of 12th instant I beg to say that I have read
the monthly review "Fair Play" for the last 3 years, and I can state
that this publication has been living up to its name and that it has
always taken the American point of view. During the last 7 months
"Fair Play" has, in its editorial policy, treated all belligerents
justly and thereby rendered great services to the millions of foreign
born citizens of this country, especially to those of German and
Austro-Hungarian origin. "Fair Play" has fought for the rights of the
latter and for truth, always maintaining an American attitude and
showing true American spirit.
You are at liberty to show this letter to anybody who is interested
in the matter, but I beg you not to publish it, as to this would be
contrary to the instructions of my Government, who does not wish me to
publicly advertize any reviews or newspaper.
Very sincerely yours,
_J. Bernstorff_
Marcus Braun, Esq.,
Editor of "Fair Play"
New York City.
Fac-simile of a letter from Count von Bernstorff to the editor of "Fair
Play"]
"In fact," said the report, "it will be particularly desirable to
inaugurate the Chinese service at once, so that the American public
is informed about that which really happens in order to create an
effective counter-weight against the Japanese propaganda in the
American press."
The New York bureau was estimated to cost $6,640 per month, the bureau
in Berlin about half that sum; two years' effort would have cost
about $200,000. The writer proposed to establish a lecture service as
auxiliary, the total expenses of which, covering the Chautauquas of one
summer, he estimated at $75,000. The investigator concluded:
"Hoping that my proposals will lead to a successful result, I will take
the liberty of advising in the interest of the German cause--aside from
the fact whether my proposals will be carried out or not--that the
following should be avoided on the part of Germany in the future:
"1. The Belgian neutrality question as well as the question of the
Belgian atrocities should not be mentioned any more in the future.
"2. It should not be tried any more in America to put the blame for
the world war and its consequences alone on England, as a considerable
English element still exists in America, and the American people hold
to the view that all parties, as usual, are partly guilty for the war.
"3. The pride and imagination of the Americans with regard to their
culture should not continually be offended by the assertion that
German culture is the only real culture and surpasses everything else.
"4. The publication of purely scientific pamphlets should be avoided in
the future as far as the American people are concerned, as their dry
reading annoys the American and is incomprehensible to him.
"5. Finally it is of the utmost importance that the authorities as well
as the German people cease continually to discuss publicly the delivery
of American arms and ammunition, as well as to let every American feel
their displeasure about it."
The Foreign Office never saw fit to act upon the investigator's
proposals, for less than a month after he had written his report, it
appeared, verbatim, in the columns of a New York newspaper. Axiom: The
most effective means of fighting enemy propaganda is by propaganda for
which the enemy unwittingly supplies the material.
[Illustration: Copy of a check from Count von Bernstorff to the Fair
Play Printing and Publishing Company]
Motion pictures appealed to the Germans as a practical and graphic
means of spreading through America visual proof of their kindness
to prisoners, their prodigious success with new engines of war, and
their brutal reception at the hands of the nations they were forced
in self-defence to invade. So Dr. Albert financed the American
Correspondent Film Company, two of whose stockholders were Claussen
and Dr. Karl A. Fuehr, a translator in Viereck's office. As late as
August, 1916, Karl Wunnenberg and Albert A. Sander, of the "Central
Powers Film Company," which was also subsidized to circulate
German-made moving pictures, engaged George Vaux Bacon, a free-lance
theatrical press agent, to go to England at a salary of $100 a week,
obtain valuable information, and transmit it in writing in invisible
ink to Holland, where it would be forwarded to Germany. The two
principals were later indicted on a charge of having set afoot a
military enterprise against Great Britain, and were sentenced to two
years in prison; Bacon, the cat's-paw, received a year's sentence.
(Sander, a German, had been involved in secret-agent work on a previous
occasion when he assaulted Richard Stegler for not disavowing an
affidavit explaining his acquisition of a false passport.) The secret
ink they gave Bacon was invisible under all conditions unless a certain
chemical preparation, which could be compounded only with distilled
water, was applied to it.
At the start of the war there began in Congress a vehement debate
over the question of imposing a legislative embargo on the shipment
of arms and ammunition to the Allies. In these debates participated
men who undoubtedly were sincere in the convictions they expressed.
Nevertheless, in the late winter and early spring of 1915, a hireling
of the Germans began to seek secret conferences with congressmen in a
Washington hotel and to outline to them plans for compelling an embargo
on munitions. His activities bring us to the affairs of the National
German-American Alliance, Germany's most powerful and least tangible
factor of general propaganda in the United States.
The organization had a large membership among Germans in America;
it has been estimated that there were three million members, who
constituted a great majority of the adult German-American population.
It received a Federal charter in 1907. The Alliance, to quote Professor
John William Scholl, of the University of Michigan, (in the New York
_Times_ of March 2, 1918), "strives to awaken a sense of unity among
the people of German origin in America; to 'centralize' their powers
for the 'energetic defense of such justified wishes and interests' as
are not contrary to the rights and duties of good citizens; to defend
its class against 'nativistic encroachments'; to 'foster and assure
good, friendly relations of America to the old German fatherland.' Such
are its declared objects.
"All petty quibbling aside, this programme can mean nothing else than
the maintenance of a Germanized body of citizens among us, conscious
of their separateness, resistant to all forces of absorption. It is
mere camouflage to state in a later paragraph that this body does not
intend to found a 'State within the State,' but merely sees in this
centralization the 'best means of attaining and maintaining the aims'
set forth above.
"All existing societies of Germans are called upon as 'organized
representatives of Deutschtum' to make it a point of honor to form a
national alliance, to foster formation of new societies in all States
of the Union, so that the whole mass of Germans in America can be
used as a unit for political action. This league pledges itself 'with
all legal means at hand unswervingly and at all times to enter the
lists for the maintenance and propagation of its principles for their
vigorous defense wherever and whenever in danger.'"
Professor Scholl, himself a teacher of German, continues: "A little
attention to the context of the sentences quoted shows that these
Germans demand the privilege of coming to America, getting citizenship
on the easiest terms possible, while maintaining intact their alien
speech, alien customs, and alien loyalties. That is 'assimilation,'
the granting of equal political rights and commercial opportunities,
without exacting any alteration in modes of life or 'Sittlichkeit.'
'Absorption' means Americanization, a fusing with the whole mass of
American life, an adoption of the language and ideals of the country,
a spiritual rebirth into Anglo-Saxon civilization, and this has great
terrors for the members of a German alliance.
"A glance back over the whole scheme will show how cleverly it was
made to unite the average recent comeoverer with his beer-drinking
proclivities, with the professor of German, who had visions of
increased interest in his specialty, and the professor of history,
who hoped for larger journal space and ampler funds, and the readily
flattered wealthy German of some attainments, into a close league
of interests, which could be used at the proper time for almost any
nefarious purpose which a few men might dictate.
"Add to this the emphatic moral and financial support of the
German-language press as one of the most powerful agencies of the
organization, and we have the stage set for just what happened a little
over three years ago."
The Alliance, long before the war, had been active in extending German
influence. Among other affairs, it had arranged the visit of Prince
Henry of Prussia. Its president, Dr. C. J. Hexamer, whose headquarters
were in Philadelphia, had received special recognition from the Kaiser
for his efforts--efforts which may be briefly set forth in a speech
addressed to Germans in Milwaukee by Hexamer himself:
"You have been long-suffering under the preachment that you must be
assimilated, but we shall never descend to an inferior culture. We are
giving to these people the benefits of German culture."
The outbreak of war made the Alliance an exceedingly important, if
unwieldy, instrument for shaping public opinion. It promoted and
sponsored a so-called National Embargo Conference in Chicago in 1915,
working hand-in-glove with Labor's National Peace Council in an
attempt to persuade Congress to pass a law forbidding the export of
munitions. At every congressional election, particularly in such cities
as Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, the hand of Prussia
was stirring about. When O. B. Colquitt, a former governor of Texas,
decided to run for the Senate in late 1915, he corresponded with the
editors of the _Staats-Zeitung_ and a New York member of the Alliance
for support from the German press and the German vote in his state.
The next year saw the approach of a presidential campaign, and the
Alliance established a campaign headquarters in New York to dictate
which candidates for United States offices should receive the solid
German-American vote. Such candidates had to record themselves as
opposed to the policies of the Administration. An effort was made to
further the nomination of Champ Clark as the Democratic candidate,
succeeding Wilson. A German professor, Leo Stern, superintendent
of schools in Milwaukee, after a conference with Hexamer there,
wrote to the New York headquarters approving the "Wisconsin plan"
(Hexamer's) for swaying the Republican national convention. This plan
set forth that "it is necessary that a portion of the delegations to
the ... convention--a quarter to a third--shall consist of approved,
distinguished German-Americans." The Alliance was bitterly opposed
to Wilson, it hated the lashing tongue and the keen nose of Theodore
Roosevelt, it distrusted Elihu Root, and deriving much of its income
from the liquor business, it feared prohibition.
Politically the Alliance was constantly active. It supported in
early 1916, through its friendly congressmen, the McLemore and Gore
resolutions, the latter of which, according to Hexamer, deserved
passage because it would--
"1. Refuse passports to Americans travelling on ships, of the
belligerents.
"2. Place an embargo on contraband of war.
"3. Prohibit Federal Reserve Banks from subscribing to foreign loans."
The Alliance's lobbyist called on Senators Stone, Gore, O'Gorman,
Hitchcock (all of whom he reported as "opposed to Lansing"), Senator
Smith of Arizona, Senators Kern, Martine, Lewis ("our friend"),
Smith of Georgia, Works, Jones, Chamberlain, McCumber, Cummins,
Borah and Clapp. Borah, he said, had "a fool idea about Americans
going everywhere." In the House of Representatives he canvassed the
Democratic and Republican leaders, Kitchin and Mann, and a group "all
of whom want the freedom of the seas," which included Dillon of South
Dakota, Bennett of New York, Smith of Buffalo, Kinchloe of New York,
Shackleford of Missouri, and Staley and Decker of Kentucky. "I saw
Padgett, chairman of the house naval affairs committee," he continued,
"he will fall in line after a while.... I am working with Stephens of
the House and Gore of the Senate to put their bills in one bill as a
joint resolution. I have told them that my league would aid them in
getting members of the House and the Senate, as well as helping them
with propaganda (this was their suggestion)."
The resolutions failed.
All these activities cost money. The German Embassy through Dr. Albert
furnished the headquarters of the Alliance with sufficient funds for
its many purposes. Count von Bernstorff is alleged to have handled a
large fund for bribery of American legislators, but the fact has never
been established, beyond his request in January, 1917, for $50,000, for
such purposes. It is a fact, however, that the National German-American
Alliance collected a sum of $886,670 during the years 1914-1917 for
the German Red Cross; this was turned over to von Bernstorff for
transmission to Germany, and officers of the Alliance have admitted
that of this sum about $700,000 was probably employed in propaganda
by Dr. Dernburg and Dr. Meyer-Gerhardt, who posed as the head of the
German Red Cross in America. Contributions to the German and Austrian
relief funds came in as late as October, 1917, although no part of them
were forwarded to Europe after the entrance of America into the war.
This last event occasioned further activity on the part of the
Alliance; during the period which followed the break in diplomatic
relaxations, and while Congress was debating the question of war,
members of Congress were deluged with an extraordinary flood of
telegrams from German-Americans cautioning them against taking such a
step. These telegrams were prepared by the Alliance and the "American
Neutrality League" and circulated among their members and sympathizers,
to be sent to Washington. The Alliance then issued to its branches
throughout the states a resolution of loyalty to be adopted in case war
was declared. This resolution, after making a hearty declaration of
loyalty to the United States, went on to belie its promise with such
pacifist utterances as this:
"Our duty before the war was to keep out of it. Our duty now is to get
out of it."
So earnest were the efforts of the Alliance to keep out of war that
some ten months after its declaration of loyalty was promulgated,
Congress decided to investigate the organization, with a view to
revoking its charter. The investigation wrote into the archives certain
characteristics of the Alliance which had long been obvious to the
truly American public; its deep-rooted Teutonism, its persistent
zeal, and its dangerous scope of activity. The courageous legislators
who initiated and pursued the investigation, in the face of constant
opposition of the most tortuous variety, had their reward, for on
April 11, 1918, the executive committee of the National Alliance met
in Philadelphia and dissolved the organization, turned the $30,000 in
its coffers over to the American Red Cross, and uttered a swan song of
loyalty to the United States. The body of the octopus was dead. One
by one, first in Brooklyn, then in San Francisco, then elsewhere, its
tentacles sloughed away.
A word for the pacifists. One pacifist constitutes a quorum in any
society. There were in America at the outbreak of war one hundred
million people who disliked war. As the injustices of Germany
multiplied, the patriotic war-haters became militarists, and there
sprang up little groups of malcontents who resented, usually by German
consent, any tendency on the part of the Government to avenge the
insult to its independence. Social and industrial fanatics of all
descriptions flocked to the standard of "Peace at Any Price," and for
want of a dissenting audience soon convinced themselves that they had
something to say.
Many of the peace movements which were set going during the first three
years of the war were sincere, many were not. A mass meeting held at
Madison Square Garden in 1915 at which Bryan was the chief speaker, was
inspired by Germany. In the insincere class falls also the "Friends
of Peace," organized in 1915. Its letterhead bore the invitation:
"Attend the National Peace Convention, Chicago, Sept. 5 and 6," and
incidentally betrayed the origin of the society. The letterhead stated
that the society represented the American Truth Society (an offshoot
of the National German-American Alliance), The American Women of
German Descent, the American Fair Play Society, the German-American
Alliance of Greater New York, the German Catholic Federation of New
York, the United Irish-American Societies and the United Austrian and
Hungarian-American Societies. Among the "honorable vice-chairmen"
were listed Edmund von Mach, John Devoy, Justices Goff and Cohalan (a
trinity of Britonophobes), Colquitt of Texas, Ex-Congressman Buchanan
(of Labor's National Peace Council fame), Jeremiah O'Leary (a Sinn
Feiner, mentioned in official cables from Zimmermann to Bernstorff as a
good intermediary for sabotage), Judge John T. Hylan, Richard Bartholdt
(a congressman active in the German political lobby), and divers
officers of the Alliance.
The American Truth Society, Inc., the parent of the Friends of Peace,
was founded in 1912 by Jeremiah O'Leary, a Tammany lawyer later
indicted for violation of the Espionage Act, who disappeared when his
case came up for trial in May, 1918; Alphonse Koelble, who conducted
the German-American Alliance's New York political clearing house;
Gustav Dopslaff, a German-American banker, and others interested in
the German cause. In 1915 the Society, whose executives were well
and favorably known to German embassy, began issuing and circulating
noisy pamphlets, with such captions as "Fair Play for Germany," and "A
German-American War." O'Leary and his friends also conducted a mail
questionnaire of Congress in an effort to catalogue the convictions of
each member on the blockade and embargo questions. Their most insidious
campaign was an effort to frighten the smaller banks of the country
from participating in Allied loans, by threats of a German "blacklist"
after the war, to organize a "gold protest" to embarrass American
banking operations, and in general to harass the Administration in its
international relations.
[Illustration: THE FRIENDS OF PEACE
Attend the National Peace Convention, Chicago, Sept. 5 and 6, 1915
_Representing_
American Truth Society
American Independence Union
American Humanity League
American Women of German Descent
American Fair Play Society
Continental League
German-American Alliance of Greater N. Y.
German Catholic Federation of New York
United Irish-American Societies
United Austrian & Hungarian-American Soc's
Upholsterers' International Union
and other American Societies.
_National Convention Committee_
JOHN BRISBEN WALKER,
of New York, Chairman
ALEXANDER P. MOORE,
of Pittsburgh, Pa, Secretary
_Publicity Committee_
RUTLEDGE RUTHERFORD. Chairman
HENRY SCHAEFFER, }
RICHARD M. McCANN, } Secretaries
HUGH MASTERSON. }
GENERAL OFFICES: 150 NASSAU ST., NEW YORK, N. Y.
Tel. 2888 Beekman
New York, ____________ 1915
_Hon. Vice-Chairman of Convention Committee_
Michael J. Ryan
Robert E. Ford
Edmund von Mach
John Devoy
Jeremiah B. Murphy
Henry Weismann
Horace L. Brand
Paul Mueller
Prof. Wm. I. Shepherd
Joseph Frey
Judge T. O'Neill Ryan
Richard Bartholdt
Jeremiah O'Leary
Judge John J. Rooney
Ferd Timm
E. K. Victor
Hon. John W. Goff
Hon. Daniel Cohalan
Joseph P. McLaughlin
Judge John T. Hylan
Judge J. Harry Tiernan
Patrick O'Donnell
James T. Clarke
Hugh H. O'Neill
Frank Buchanan
O. B. Colquitt
Daniel O'Connell
Col. Wm. Hoynes
Stephen E. Folan
John F. Kelly
Hon. James K. McGuire
A. L. Morrison
Miss Annie C. Malia
Ellen Ryan Jolly
Thomas O'Brien
J. B. Murphy
Thomas H. Maloney
T. J. Corrigan
Marry F. McWhorter
P. J. Reynolds
Frank J. Ryan
J. P. O'Mahony
Thomas F. Anderson
Letter-paper of "The Friends of Peace"]
So with their newspapers, rumor-mongers, lecturers, peace societies,
alliances, bunds, vereins, lobbyists, war relief workers, motion
picture operators and syndicates, the Germans wrought hard to
avert war. For two years they nearly succeeded. America was under
the narcotic influence of generally comfortable neutrality, and a
comfortable nation likes to wag its head and say "there are two sides
to every question." But whatever these German agents might have
accomplished in the public mind--and certainly they were sowing their
seed in fertile ground--was nullified by acts of violence, ruthlessness
at sea, and impudence in diplomacy. The left hand found out what the
right hand was about.