AMERICA GOES TO WAR
Bernstorff's request for bribe-money--The President on German
spies--Interned ships seized--Enemy aliens--Interning German
agents--The water-front and finger-print regulations--Pro-German
acts since April, 1917--A warning and a prophecy.
On January 22, 1917, President Wilson set forth to the Senate of the
United States his ideas of the steps necessary to secure world peace.
On the same day Count von Bernstorff sent his Foreign Office this
message:
"I request authority to pay out up to $50,000 (Fifty thousand
dollars) in order, as on former occasions, to influence Congress
through the organization you know of, which perhaps can prevent
war. I am beginning in the meantime to act accordingly. In the
above circumstance a public official German declaration in favor
of Ireland is highly desirable in order to gain the support of
Irish influence here."
The money did not have the desired soothing effect. Nine days later
Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare as her immediate
future policy and the head of the German spy system in America received
his passports for return to Germany. He was succeeded by the head of
the German spy system in America.
The real name of this successor is not known to the authorities at
this date. If it were he would be arrested, and punished according to
whatever specific crime he had committed against a set of American
statutes created for conditions of peace. Then, with the head of the
German spy system in America in prison, he would be succeeded, as
Bernstorff was, by the head of the German spy system in America.
And so this absurd progression would go on, until finally there would
be no more spies to head the system on the American front. How much
the system would be able to accomplish during the painstaking pursuit
and capture of its successive heads would depend upon America's
swiftness in pursuit and capture. Who the individual in authority over
the system is, and what is his structure of organization, cannot be
answered here. But it is vitally necessary for every citizen who has
the free existence of this republic at heart to decide, basing his
judgment on certain events since the declaration of war, what measure
of accomplishment the German spy system shall have, and what it has
already effected against a nation with which it is now openly and
frankly at war.
Let him first recall that in his Flag Day speech of June 14, 1916,
President Wilson said in part:
"There is disloyalty in the United States, and it must be absolutely
crushed. It proceeds from a minority, a very small minority, but a very
active and subtle minority.... If you could have gone with me through
the space of the last two years and could have felt the subtle impact
of intrigue and sedition, and have realized with me that those to whom
you have intrusted authority are trustees not only of the power but
also of the very spirit and purpose of the United States, you would
realize with me the solemnity with which I look upon the sublime symbol
of our unity and power."
Let him then refer to the President's Flag Day address of one year
later (quoted at the beginning of the book). With those admirable
expressions in mind, let him recapitulate the activities of German
sympathizers or agents since February, 1917.
Ninety-one vessels flying the German flag were in American harbors.
Their displacement totalled nearly six hundred thousand tons--the
equivalent of a fleet of seventy-five of the cargo carriers on which
the United States later began construction to offset the submarine.
Months in advance of the severance of diplomatic relations, orders had
been issued from the Embassy to the masters of all these vessels in
case of war between Germany and the United States to cripple the ships.
With the break in relations imminent, German agents slipped aboard
the vessels and gave the word: the great majority of the ninety-one
ships were then put out of commission by the 368 officers and 826
men aboard. The damage was performed with crowbars and axes. Vital
parts had been chalk-marked weeks in advance, so that the destruction
might be effected swiftly: delicate mechanisms were mashed beyond
recognition, important parts removed and smuggled ashore or dropped
overboard, cylinders cracked, emery dust introduced in the bearings
of the engines, pistons battered out of shape, and the machinery of
the ships generally destroyed as only skilled engineers could have
destroyed them. Out of thirty ships in New York harbor, thirty ships
were damaged--among them the liners, _Vaterland_, of 54,000 tons,
the _George Washington_, of 25,000 tons, the _Kaiser Wilhelm_, the
_President Lincoln_, and the _President Grant_, of about 20,000 tons
each. In the harbor of Charleston, S. C., lay the _Liebenfels_, of
4,525 tons; her crew, led by Captain Johann Klattenhoff, scuttled
her on February 1, in the navigating channel of Charleston Harbor;
Klattenhoff, with Paul Wierse, a Charleston newspaper man, and eight
of the _Liebenfels'_ crew were tried and convicted of the crime, fined
and sentenced to periods averaging a year in Atlanta. The discovery
of the damage forced the Government to take over the vessels at once.
The Department of Justice hastened on February 2 to notify all of its
deputies "to take prompt measures against the attempt at destruction or
sinking or escape of such ships by their crews" which those crews had
already done; and the customs authorities who boarded the ships in San
Francisco, Honolulu, New York, Boston, Manila, and every other American
port came ashore with rueful countenances. The combined damage served
to tie the vessels up for at least six months more, and to require
expensive repair. To return to the comparison: a fleet of seventy-five
8,000 ton cargo vessels, such as have since been built, would have been
able to make, during those six months, at least four round trips to
France each, or 300 voyages.
When the German fleet put into neutral American ports of refuge in
1914 the personnel of its ships totalled 476 officers and 4,980 men.
When the ships were seized in 1917, there were 368 officers and 826
men aboard. Of those who had been discharged or allowed indefinite
shore leave a considerable number were active German agents, by far
the great majority were German citizens, and the United States was
on the horns of a dilemma: either each of the sailors ashore must be
watched on suspicion, or else each was free to go about the country as
he pleased. Thus more than 4,000 potential secret agents from an active
auxiliary arm of the German navy were dumped on the hospitality which
our neutrality entailed. When war was declared those men came within
the troublesome problem of the status of the enemy alien.
What was an enemy alien? The United States, on April 6, declared war
against Germany. "Meanwhile," reads the report of the Attorney-General
for 1917, "prior to the passage of the joint resolution of Congress
of April 6, 1917, elaborate preparation was made for the arrest of
upward of 63 alien enemies whom past investigation had shown to
constitute a danger to the peace and safety of the United States if
allowed to remain at large." These "alien enemies" were male Germans.
Not Austrians, for the United States did not go to war with Austria
until December 7. Not Bulgars, nor Turks, for the United States has not
declared war upon Bulgaria or Turkey. Not female Germans, in the face
of the full knowledge of the predilections of Bernstorff, Boy-Ed, and
von Papen for employing women in espionage. Of the thousands of Germans
in the United States whose sympathies were presently to be demonstrated
in numerous ways against the successful prosecution of America's war,
sixty-three had been deemed worthy of arrest. By June 30 this number
had risen to 295, and by October 30 to 895. "Some of those, interned,"
continues the report, "have been paroled with the necessary bonds and
restrictions." Although the United States went to war on April 6, Karl
Heynen, who managed the Bridgeport Projectile Company for Bernstorff
and Albert, and who had previously earned the good will of the United
States by gun-running in Mexico, was not arrested until July 6, in his
offices in the Hamburg-American Line at 45 Broadway. At the same time
F. A. Borgemeister, former adviser to Dr. Albert, and latterly Heynen's
lieutenant, was arrested. Both were interned at Fort Oglethorpe and
during December, Borgemeister was allowed three weeks' liberty on
parole. Rudolph Hecht, confidant of Dr. Albert, who had sold German
war loan bonds for the Kaiser, and who had also been interned, was
released for a like period of liberty in December. G. B. Kulenkampf,
who had secured false manifest papers for the supply-ship _Berwind_ in
August, 1914, was arrested on May 28, 1918, more than one year after
America had entered the war; on the same day Robert J. Oberfohren, a
statistician employed by the Hamburg-American, was arrested and in
his room were captured compiled statistics covering the exports of
munitions from the United States during the two years past: Oberfohren
said he expected to turn the figures in to the University of Munich
after the war.
Bernstorff himself left an able alien enemy in the Swiss Legation in
Washington. He was Heinrich Schaffhausen, and had been one of the
brightest attachés of the German Embassy. As a member for three months
of the Swiss Legation he might readily have sent (and no doubt did
send) information of military value to his own people in code, under
protection of the Swiss seal. The State Department on July 6 ordered
his deportation. Adolph Pavenstedt was arrested on January 22, 1918,
in the Adirondacks, after having enjoyed nine months' immunity; Otto
Julius Merkle was not interned until December 7; Gupta, the Hindu, was
finally caught in New York in 1917, gave bail, and escaped; Dr. John
Ferrari, alias F. W. Hiller, a German officer who had escaped from a
British detention camp in India and had joined the German intrigue
colony, was interned in January, 1918; Baron Gustave von Hasperg was
arrested only after he had displayed undue interest in the National
Army cantonment at Upton in the same month; Franz Rosenberg, a wealthy
German importer, convicted in 1915 of having attempted to smuggle
rubber in cotton bales into Germany, and fined $500 for that offense,
was allowed at liberty until February 9, 1918; in a round-up which
took place in January, 1918, the Federal authorities collected such
celebrities as Hugo Schmidt, Frederick Stallforth, and Baron George von
Seebeck (the son of General von Seebeck, commander of the Tenth Corps
of the German army).
The cases cited are picked at random out of a mass. They illustrate
the breathing periods given to Germans who had been active under
Bernstorff in disturbing America's peace and defying her laws. They
serve also to illustrate the contrast between the methods employed
by the United States, and those adopted by her Allies, from whom she
has taken other lessons in the business of warfare. France gave alien
enemies forty-eight hours in which to leave the soil of the country,
and any such person found at large after that date was to be interned
in a detention camp. To have interned all of the Germans in the United
States would have been impossible and the Government took some time to
find a second best method. By May 2 the Department of Justice was in a
position to announce that it had plans for internment camps for three
classes of aliens: prisoners of war, enemy aliens, and detained aliens,
and it announced on that date there were some 6,000 in those classes
already detained. By February 17, 1918, however, there were actually
no more than 1,870 aliens interned under the war department and under
military guard at Forts McPherson, Oglethorpe and Douglas, and some
2,000 at Hot Springs, North Carolina, in the Department of Labor's
detention camp.
At both camps the prisoners were fed and housed at the expense of the
Government, and it was not until the early spring of 1918 that they
were put to work.
From April 6 to July 10, 1917, an enemy alien could be employed by any
shipbuilder, tug-boat captain, lighterage firm or steamship line; he
could go about any waterfront at will, provided he did not enter the
so-called "barred zones" in the vicinity of Government military or
naval property, and he could make unmolested such observations as his
eyesight afforded of the shipping upon which the United States depends
for its share in this war. After that date he was forbidden such
employment, and denied approach to all wharves and ships. On July 9 the
Government discharged from its employ 200 German subjects who for weeks
past had been loading transports at the docks in an "Atlantic port." A
raid on the Hoboken waterfront in the following winter rounded up 200
more enemy aliens who had calmly ignored the "barred zone" regulations.
The Government was confronted with a stupendous problem. How to handle
with its normal peace-time police force the great unwieldy flow of
the alien population presented a constantly baffling question, yet it
was absolutely essential to the control of internal affairs that the
Government know the comings and goings of the enemies within its gates.
The date of February 13, 1918, was eventually set as the last on which
citizens of enemy countries living in the United States might set down
their finger prints and names and file their affidavits of residence
and condition.
What facilities had the United States provided for transacting this
great volume of additional protective duty? There existed, first of
all, the Department of Justice, whose chief function in peace-time
had been the enforcement through its investigators and prosecutors
of acts of Congress, such as the so-called Mann "White Slave" Act,
and the Sherman "Anti-Trust" Act. There was the United States Secret
Service, a bureau of the Treasury Department, whose chief function had
been the detection of smuggling and counterfeiting and the protection
of the person of the President. There was the Intelligence Bureau
of the War Department, and a similar Bureau of the Navy Department,
both undermanned, as was every other branch of our military forces
at that time. The advent of war brought a complicated necessity for
coordination of these four branches and of several other Federal
investigating bureaus.
The German did not wait for coordination. He inspired food riots among
the poorer classes of the lower East Side in New York. He opposed the
draft law, rallying to his support the Socialist, the Anarchist, and
the Industrial Worker of the World, under whose cloak he hid, not too
well concealed. He celebrated the declaration of war by blowing up a
munitions plant at Eddystone, Pa., on April 10, 1917, and killing 112
persons, most of whom were women and girls. He sneaked information into
Germany through the Swedish legation. He tried to promote strikes in
Pittsburg, but his agent, Walter Zacharias, was arrested. He tried
to dynamite the Elephant-Butte dam on the Rio Grande, but his agent,
Dr. Louis Kopf, was caught. He caused a serious revolution in Cuba
until his agents were expelled. He tried to block the Liberty Loans,
in vain. He tried to obstruct the collection of Red Cross funds. He
caused strikes in the airplane-spruce forests of the Northwest. He
assisted Lieutenant Hans Berg of the captured German prize _Appam_ to
escape from Fort McPherson with nine of his crew in October, 1917. He
erected secret wireless stations at various points, to communicate to
Berlin via Mexico, whither thousands of his army reservists had fled
on false passports at the outbreak of war. He smuggled information
of military importance in and out of the country in secret inks, on
neutral vessels, and even wrote them (on one occasion) in cipher
upon the shoulder of a prima donna. He burned warehouses and shell
plants. He sawed the keel of a transport nearly through. He placed a
culture of ptomaine germs in the milk supply of the cadets' school
at Fort Leavenworth. He invented a chemical preparation which would
cause painful injury to the kidneys of every man who drank water in a
certain army cantonment. He received Irish rebellionists and negotiated
with them for further revolution. He made his way into our munitions
plants and secured data which he forwarded to Berlin; he worked in our
aeroplane plants and deliberately weakened certain vital parts of the
tenuous construction so that our aviators died in training; he kept
track of our transports, and of the movements of our forces, and passed
them on to the Wilhelmstrasse. He sold heroin to our soldiers and
sailors. He supplied men for the motor boat _Alexander Agassiz_ which
put to sea from a Pacific port to raid commerce. In short, he continued
to carry out, with multiplied opportunity, the same tactics he had
employed since August, 1914.
The German spy in America continues to attack our armies in the rear.
He is here in force. A word to him may mean that within twenty-four
hours Kiel will know of another transport embarking with certain forces
for France. He is here to take the lives of Americans just as certainly
as his kinsman is firing across a parapet in Lorraine for the same
purpose. Whatever provision will save those lives must be made swiftly.
The Departments, already overtaxed with the magnitude of their task,
ask simply that they be given the weapons to make their splendid battle
on the American front successful.
Whatever aid and comfort the enemy may find in this recitation of
his disgraceful achievements and graceless failures, he may have and
welcome. He has imposed upon the hospitality of the United States, has
dragged his clumsy boots over the length and breadth of their estate,
has run amuck with torch and explosive, and has earned a great deal of
loathing contempt, hardly amounting to hatred. But no fear--and that
is what he sought. The spectacle of what the disloyalists of America
have done, and the easily conjurable picture of what they would do if
Germany should win, are graphic enough for loyal America. The United
States must proceed with incisive vigor to cut out this poisonous
German sore. And the United States will remember the scar. It is so
written.
APPENDIX
A GERMAN PROPAGANDIST
In 1915 Fritz von Pilis came to America. He had been a member of the
colonization bureau of the German Government maintained to Prussianize
Poland, and later an emigration agent of the North German Lloyd.
He posed here as an anti-German Austrian who desired to give the
American public the "true facts" of Germany's intentions in the war.
He approached the _Sun_, offering it the following brief of a volume
written in late 1914 by a Prussian Pan-German, provided he (von Pilis)
be allowed to write a commentary to accompany the outline. His offer
was not accepted, for the _Sun_ saw him in his true light of Prussian
propagandist sent here to spread the gospel of might which is preached
in the book.
The brief is offered here as an authoritative platform of Germany's
aims by conquest as the Pan-German party saw them after a few months of
war. Many of these aims have already been achieved.
(The phraseology and spelling is von Pilis'.)
_Denkschrift, etc._
_General War Goal._ Weakening of foes: discard all "world citizen"
sentiment and dangerous objectivity in favor of strangers. We want
peace terms based solely on our interests.
Severity: Let's hear no more of "considerations of humanity,"
"cultural demands." Must impose indemnities on foes and take land in
Europe and overseas to lessen political power:
(a) In Europe for healthy colonization.
(b) Colonial: to supply raw materials and take finished products.
(c) Indemnities to be devoted to common social betterment of German
people.
_Internal._ Rehabilitation of farmer class by providing ample land.
Combat city evils.
(1) Opportunity provided by fate in this attack by our foes.
(2) France and Russia must cede land near our gates as punishment;
estates to German farmers.
(3) City evils to be remedied by better housing conditions; by war
indemnities, not single tax. (Cheap rents, tenants become owners.)
(Gift of fate through foes.) Old age pensions larger and at lower
period of age (65 years instead of 70).
_Overseas._ Take over colonies and settle by Germans to give economic
independence for imports and exports. This will give opportunities to
eliminate "intelligent proletariat" by use elsewhere.
_Belgium._ Conspiracy and conduct of people and Government show Belgium
not entitled to independence.
(1) All well-informed people in Germany say: "Belgium must cease to
exist."
(2) Impossible to take into German people with equal rights.
Rather leave with indemnity which must pay anyway. But we need the
coast against England.
Belgium to be property of Empire, Kaiser its Lord:
Belgium to lose its name.
Belgium to be divided into 2 parts: Walloons and Flemish.
Kaiser's officials to govern as dictators of province.
Belgians taken into Empire to have no political rights. All who object
may emigrate. Walloons unworthy of being "Germanized."
_France._ Must "bleed it white" so as never to be attacked again:
(1) i.e., indemnity and land. Land from Switzerland via Belfort,
Moselle, Epinal, Toul, Meuse, Verdun, Sedan, Charleville, St. Quentin
to Somme and Channel at Cayeux.
(2) France to take over and indemnify the present inhabitants. We get
the land sans dangerous people. Such expulsion immoral? Retribution.
Not bricht eisen! France'll be thankful for the population. Needs it.
(3) Ceded area to become military frontier, administered by dictator.
To be settled by Germans: discharged soldiers or war veterans' families.
(4) Toulon and environs to be made impregnable fortress on land and
seaside for base on the Mediterranean.
Rather forego all French territory than take with it the hostile
French population. Walloons to be kept in land only to furnish mass of
laborers, lest new German settlers become industrial laborers again.
_England._ Its world-rule must be ended! Can't formulate demands until
naval warfare decided. _Build ships with all your might!_
_Japan._ Must be punished for white race. Revenge.
_Russia._ Must be put _hors de combat_ by permanent weakening. We must
forcibly once more turn Russia's face towards East by curtailing its
frontiers as before Peter I's time. Then its pressure vs. Asia.
(1) A new Poland (off G. territory) including Grodno, Minsk and part
of Mohilen to Dnieper. Probably a kingdom with personal connection to
Hapsburg House.
(2) G. to seize hegemony of Baltic; take Kniland, Livona, Esthonia and
Lithuania safeguarded by territories to rivers that were frontiers of
R. before Peter.
(3) To take Suwalki and military strip of Poland to strengthen Thorn
and Silesia, Soldau, Wloclanek Kolo.
(4) Finland to be independent or go to Sweden?
(5) R. to lose most of Black Sea coast.
(6) Ukraine Empire under Hapsburg for "Small Russia." Bessarabia to
Rumania. Austria to get good part of Serbia and Montenegro.
How avoid clash of nationalities in newly formed territories? Ans.: By
forced migration. No home feelings in Russian farmer; R's precedents
Siberia. Exchange of G. settlers in New Russia for R's in new G.
(several years). Possibly so exchange Poles in Posen too? Lithuanians
may readily be incorporated into Poland and Letts and Esthonians to be
left or transferred to Russia according to treatment of G's in this
war. R. Jews unthinkable in G. Empire: Bar their migration westward.
Remedy (1) Bind R. to remove restrictions vs. Jews and then Jews back
there.
(7) Zionism: Palestine to be ceded through G. and A-Hung. influence.
This--safe wall vs. Jews and stimulate migration of Jews to Russia.
Prussia to get New Territory in East or else form "Marks" for
Germanization.
Tenants to be settled by public grant in return for enhanced realty
values.
We must never be without enemies strong enough to compel defensive
militia. Fr. and Eng. made powerless, let R. always threaten us and be
our foe; that'll be our luck.
_The Colonies._ French Morocco, Senegambia & Congo.
Egypt freed from England; England's colonies in Africa depend on
developments.
Tunis to Italy.
Bizert and Damietta (with Italy's and A-H's consent), Djibuti, Goa,
Ceylon, Sabang, Saigon, Azores, Caperdon (?), Isls, Madagascar.
_Austria-Hungary._ Heavy indemnity from Russia.
New Poland and Ukraine Empire personally united to A-H. North half
of Serbia. South 1/2 to Bulgaria. Guarantees to be given to Germanic
minority by Slavs. West Galicia to Poland. East Galicia to Ukraine
Empire. German to be Reichsprache?
_The Neutrals._ Luxemburg to win G. Statehood (too weak to control B.
Luxemburg).
Holland. Avoid pressure politically. Not to receive Flemish Belgium.
These need strict masters.
Italy, if neutral, Corsica, Lower Savoy, Nizzia, Tunis.
Rumania: Bessarabia (Odessa, if she joins G. in war).
Bulgaria: South 1/2 of Serbia (more if she joins G. in war).
Turkey, if enters war, heavy indemnity and land in Caucasus. Integrity
guarantees by G. and A-H: spheres of influence economically.
Sweden may get Finland if both willing.
Economic unity of territories and G. and A-H., Switzerland, Holland,
Italy, Scandinavia, Rumania and Bulgaria probably join.
Offensive and Defensive Germanic Alliance: Scandinavia. Maybe and
voluntarily restore settlements of N. Schleswig to Denmark, if
necessary. New Germanic blood needed to make good war losses.
_Special Demands._ Exclusion of all East people from G. soil; rights to
expel Letts, Esthonians and Lithuanians for 25 years.
No colored person on G. soil.
G. high schools for G's and foreigners of G. descent; special
exceptions.
Only allied officers to be in G. army.
Only mature and fortified G. youth to study abroad.
Only G. language, G. fashions, G. Geographical names.
Steady supply of grain.
Subsidies to married officers out of war indemnity.
G. nobles to marry only Germans.