CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, GERMAN ARCH-PLOTTER
But von Rintelen had still bigger projects afoot. While his precise,
swiftly moving mind supervised the Mexican conspiracy, and carefully
watched over shipments of supplies to the Fatherland, _he was launching
a series of concerted conspiracies designed to cut off this country
almost entirely from Europe_. His vivid imagination had led him to
picture a Utopian fantasy wherein Americans who believed so absolutely
in universal peace—despite the war raging abroad—that the labourers
would refuse to make munitions of war, the farmers would decline to sell
food to warring nations, and the Government would take over all the war
factories. _Von Rintelen, accordingly, determined to bring such a dream
into real life, not for altruistic purposes, but to help Germany conquer
the Allies._
He had made his plans before he left Germany, and he had sent ahead for
information concerning Americans as his aids, who were skilled in
finesse and underground work. _He wanted men who, while men of brains,
might be led by lust for gold or hatred of England to espouse the
criminal schemes which he had originated. He sought leaders whose logic
and oratory could sway the rank and file._ The man of whom he had heard
while in Berlin as a likely assistant was David Lamar, now serving a
term of imprisonment for having impersonated a Congressman, whose
craftiness and ingenious methods in using politicians in his stock
operations had won him the title of “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The two
men were brought together.
One can see von Rintelen, enthusiastically speaking in millions of
dollars, as he outlined his schemes to Lamar, his equal in grace of
manner and deceit, and Lamar cloaking his avarice with smiles and
sophistry.
BEFUDDLING THE PACIFISTS
_Von Rintelen’s first step_, as he outlined it to Lamar, _was to use the
horrors of the European War as an appeal for universal peace, and to
enlist the labouring men and the farmers of America in raising their
united voice against the exports of arms and ammunition. And thus a
great labour peace propaganda_ was originated by a German whose
patriotism had driven away his scruples, and an American who had gone
money-mad. The details of the organization were set forth, and soon von
Rintelen had a staff of workers at his command, though they all may not
have known he was paying their salaries. His agents, in secret
interviews with labour leaders, were soliciting their aid, flashing
rolls of gold-tinted certificates. The men who guiltily handled the
money which von Rintelen drew from the bank had only one complaint,
namely, that the denominations of the bills were entirely too large.
_Two of von Rintelen’s agents following Samuel Gompers, president of the
National Federation of Labour, to Atlantic City one day, offered him
$500,000 for his services in endorsing the peace propaganda and
participating in the work. Mr. Gompers scorned the offer. Other big
labour leaders, whose aid was solicited, began immediately to warn their
associates against the anti-American activities of German agents._
By June, 1915, von Rintelen’s schemes were moving apace. A big
advertising campaign had been started in the early spring with von
Rintelen’s cash. Newspaper propaganda picturing the glories of universal
peace began to appear.
By the aid of Lamar, who kept von Rintelen in the background, the German
soon had many persons working and talking in the interest of universal
peace. It has been stated that the services of Frank Buchanan,
Representative in Congress and former labour leader, and of H. Robert
Fowler, ex-Congressman, were obtained. Whether they were aware of von
Rintelen and his motives is a question for a jury to answer, for they
have been indicted in connection with the alleged activities of the
Labour’s National Peace Council.
Within a short time, thousands of invitations were scattering throughout
the country to labour leaders, small and large, and to heads of farmers’
granges, to attend the national convention of the peace propaganda at
the expense of the organization. All railroad fares, hotel expenses and
a liberal allowance for spending money were promised.
Under the fostering financial auspices of von Rintelen, who hovered
conveniently near the New Willard Hotel, the members of a peace movement
gathered in Washington, expenses paid. They adopted resolutions saying
they desired “to promote peace.” _The resolutions demanded the enactment
of laws that would enable the Government to take over as exclusive
government business the manufacture of all arms, instruments and
munitions of war; demanded an immediate embargo upon shipments of war
supplies to the belligerents; denounced the maintenance of military and
naval forces, and called for a special session of Congress to promote
“peace universal.”_ The executive board went immediately into executive
session.
PAYING THE HIRELINGS
“How is this movement to be financed?” one of the newly-elected
executive board asked another. He and one of the vice-presidents waited
for an answer. They got none, he says, and the question was repeated by
another. Then one of the officers answered:
“This thing is big enough, so that I do not care where the money comes
from to finance it.”
Another member asked:
“What, after all, does this council want to do?”
“We want,” was the answer, “to stop the exportation of munitions to the
Allies. Germany can manufacture all the munitions she wants.”
Von Rintelen’s deposit in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company meantime was
growing smaller by jumps of $100,000. It was drawn by cheques payable to
cash, placed in another bank, quickly withdrawn, and on one occasion the
money in bills was taken to the headquarters of a peace organization in
a suit-case. _Bank accounts of von Rintelen’s peace propagandists began
to jump._
The executive board was busy. One of the first moves was a statement
filed with Secretary of State Lansing alleging that nine ships in
various American ports were taking on cargoes of ammunition in violation
of the neutrality laws. That charge, undoubtedly prepared with von
Rintelen’s aid upon information gathered by German spies, showed an
accurate knowledge of the merchantmen loading with supplies for the
Allies. _There was, however, no violation of law_, because the vessels
were officered and manned by ordinary seamen who had no connection with
the Allied governments.
The second step was the preparation of a complaint charging as a
violation of law the issuance of Federal Reserve notes by national banks
on the ground that the New York banks had lent money to the Allies which
was being used in payment for war supplies, and that some of those banks
had rediscounted notes with the Federal Reserve Bank. Here again was
displayed a remarkably detailed knowledge of the business of the Federal
Reserve Banks. _This charge also fell flat._
A third move was against Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of
New York. Resolutions were adopted accusing him of exceeding his
authority in having granted clearance papers to the steamship
_Lusitania_ when that vessel was ladened with munitions, and authorizing
an action to be started against him. No suit, however, was begun. In
this connection, it may be mentioned that one member of the peace
committee was attorney for a woman of Chicago, who, months afterwards,
started suit for $40,000 against Collector Malone and Captain Turner, of
the _Lusitania_, on the ground that the ship illegally carried
explosives.
CONSPIRACY GROWS BOLDER
These public acts mentioned above, however, are stated by the Federal
Government to have been merely a cloak, covering a more extensive
conspiracy financed by von Rintelen. By a series of strikes in munition
factories, humming with the Allies’ war orders; on railroads carrying
the articles to the seaboard, and on steamships, von Rintelen, it is
alleged, sought to cut off commerce among the United States and the
Allied countries. Von Rintelen and several others are accused in the
Federal indictment of doing six different acts in a conspiracy in
restraint of foreign commerce. They are charged with conspiring to use
“solicitation, persuasion and exhortation” to influence the workers to
go on strike or to quit work, to bribe officers of labour unions to get
the men to strike, and “by divers other means and methods not
specifically determined upon by the defendants, but to be decided as the
occasion arose.”
Von Rintelen was busy now jumping from town to town, sending orders
under one name, then another, and paying out money. _There took place in
June and July, 1915, many strikes which, the national labour leaders of
the respective trades said, were absolutely unauthorized by the national
bodies._ The German agent was delighted to read in the newspapers of
strikes at the Standard Oil plant in Bayonne, N. J.; of strikes at the
Remington Arms Company in Bridgeport, Conn., and in the General Electric
Plant in Schenectady, N. Y. His agents would approach him gleefully with
the newspapers containing these accounts, and immediately would receive
another bundle of bills with the exhortation, “That is fine. Go out and
start some more.”
Another projected strike in connection with which Germans were mentioned
in correspondence, but in which von Rintelen is not named, is presented
here because it fits in the general scheme of the German plotting. That
is the conspiracy on part of moneyed representatives of Germany in May
and June, 1915, to start a strike simultaneously among the 23,000
‘longshoremen on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. _Such a walkout would
absolutely have paralysed American shipping, completely stopped the
movement of explosives to the Allies at a most critical moment._ A
leader of the big ‘Longshoremen’s Union told Chief William J. Flynn, of
the United States Secret Service, that $1,035,000, or $45 for every man,
was offered to keep the men out on strike for four weeks. After the
sinking of the _Lusitania_, the man who approached the ‘longshoremen
wrote under the name of “Mike Foley,” asking if an “S.” (strike) was to
be called, that because of the “L. (_Lusitania_) affair,” his people
were not going to do anything at present, and because the “Big Man” (who
preceded von Rintelen) was going away. It will be recalled that after
the sinking of the _Lusitania_, Dernburg was dismissed from the country
because of his comments concerning the attitude of Germany towards
submarine warfare.
CRIMINALS SET TO WORK
While von Rintelen was reaching out in so many directions in his frantic
endeavour to build a barrier between the United States and the Entente
Powers, he did not hesitate to resort to criminals. Keeping his quick
eyes on the progress of the peace propaganda, he had schemes which,
while distinctly separated from that organization, were designed to work
in harmony with the developments in the strike propaganda. Von Rintelen
planned by aid of reservists and crooks to take other measures in
munition factories to stop, delay, injure the production of materials
destined for the Allies’ battle fronts.
_He sent trained German reservists to get employment in factories with
orders to collect information and do what they could to cause trouble._
Resorting again to the well-developed system of German secret agents in
New York, under new aliases, he got in touch with organized bands of
criminals in New York, and, the authorities say, hired them _to start
depredations on the ships being loaded with supplies_ for the Allies in
New York harbour. To von Rintelen or some other person associated with
him is attributed the origin of a plot for widespread attacks by thieves
on cargoes being lightered from railroad piers to merchantmen. These
thefts of sugar, automobile tyres and magnetos have amounted to millions
of dollars. For instance, one of the sugar thieves stealing bags of
sugar from a lighter said to a comrade:
“Take some more bags. The ship won’t ever reach the other side, anyway,
and nobody will know.”
To the persons who doubt these varied, reckless and extensive activities
of von Rintelen, it may be suggested that von Rintelen asserted
frequently to his associates that he had come to America to take every
step, including peaceful or violent measures, to stop the shipment of
munitions.
The doubter must not overlook the supervision which von Rintelen
exercised over the manufacturer of fire bombs which German reservists
are accused of hiding on the Allies’ merchantmen, and the fact that von
Rintelen’s aid visited a bomb man in his Hoboken laboratory frequently;
that on one occasion he scored him roughly because the fire bombs were
not proving effective. Furthermore, Fay, after his arrest, and long
before the indictment of the bomb plotters, told Captain Tunney of a
wealthy German, then a prisoner of war in England, who had paid $10,000
to a Hoboken chemist to make fire bombs.
Though von Rintelen, during the months of June and July, was exuberant
over the reports—most of them false—which were carried to him concerning
the progress of peace, the strikes and other schemes, and though he was
kept drawing money from the bank until the $800,000 in the
Trans-Atlantic Trust Company was reduced to $40,000, he began to have
doubts about Lamar and about the effectiveness of the latter’s
management of some of the projects. He knew that Lamar and his
associates were planning for a second rousing meeting in Washington,
but, becoming suspicious, he suddenly cut off the money. He had received
estimates of activities that required more money. After deliberation he
finally decided to slip away to Berlin, get away from Lamar entirely and
after making a report to the War Office return to America to broaden his
scope of work.
All told, von Rintelen had failed to perceive any falling off in the
exports to the Allies. They were, in fact, rapidly increasing, and von
Rintelen’s schemes thus far had proved ineffective, though he still was
optimistic that eventually he would have all his forces working in
unison and thus accomplish his aims.
He did not go to Washington when a second peace convention was in
session, and the word had slipped out to some of the workers that von
Rintelen was about to sail. Still, the meeting with the members claiming
a representation of 8,000,000 voters, was more denunciatory and
enthusiastic over its aims, than ever. There were attacks on President
Wilson and demands for an embargo on war munitions. There was an intense
pro-German feeling.
Differences, meantime, began to arise among the members of the executive
board. One of the vice-presidents resigned just before the second
session convened, saying emphatically that the financing of the
organization was under suspicion. Another quietly quit, not making the
fact public until weeks afterwards. Lamar flitted away to a magnificent
country home which he had bought in Pittsfield, Mass. There was no money
left. The propaganda died.
EXIT VON RINTELEN
Von Rintelen was on the high seas. He had left $40,000 in the bank in
charge of his friends, and some of the plotters tried to get that on the
strength of a promise to stop the Anglo-French bond sale of
$500,000,000. Before sailing he had applied for a passport as an
American citizen named Edward V. Gates, of Millersville, Pennsylvania.
But whisperings concerning von Rintelen’s activities had reached the
White House from society folk who had heard von Rintelen’s rash talk and
who knew of some of the unscrupulous things he had attempted. The State
Department ordered an investigation and finally sent his passport on to
New York the day before the sailing of the _Noordam_, in care of Federal
agents; but von Rintelen did not claim it. Though he had bought a ticket
on the boat under the name of Gates, and had obtained drafts payable on
that name, he did not occupy the Gates cabin but at the last minute
engaged passage under the name of Emil V. Gasche, a Swiss citizen.
On board ship, he set to work preparing for the close scrutiny of
British naval officers when the ship neared Falmouth. He handed over
many of his documents to Andrew D. Meloy, his travelling companion, and
Meloy’s secretary. He dictated a long document about financial
conditions of Mexican railways purporting to be the report of himself as
commissioner for a group of English bondholders. He sought to make it
appear that he had been sent to the United States as a representative of
the bondholders’ committee of Mexican railways. When the British
officers came on board and searched him, von Rintelen put up a skilful
bluff, but finally surrendered as a prisoner of war. Meloy, who had
aided von Rintelen in his application for the American passport, was
sent back to this country by the British authorities.
A VALUABLE PRISONER
While von Rintelen, after his strenuous days in America, was resting
comfortably in a luxurious prison camp at Donington Hall, England, the
American authorities were busily delving into his record. Mr. Sarfaty
presented witness after witness and thousands of documents to the
Federal Grand Jury. Von Rintelen and Meloy were indicted, first, for the
fraudulent passport conspiracy; and Meloy finally made a confession to
the Government authorities. Von Rintelen’s agent, called before the
Grand Jury and refusing to answer, was adjudged in contempt of court and
spent a night in the Tombs prison. Another agent, summoned before the
Grand Jury and asked about his dealings with von Rintelen, refused to
answer on the ground that it might tend to degrade and incriminate him,
but he afterwards was arrested on a firebomb charge.
Von Rintelen was indicted on the charge of forgery on the passport
application, and upon that as a basis, application was made to the
English authorities for his extradition. After months of investigation,
indictments finally were filed against von Rintelen, Lamar, and his
associates on a charge of conspiring to restrain foreign trade.
The moment a United States District-Attorney, equipped with a mass of
documentary evidence, telegrams, letters, minutes of secret meetings,
and the statements of hundreds of witnesses, laid facts before the Grand
Jury who brought an indictment against a Congressman, the House of
Representatives, without waiting for the trial of the defendant,
immediately ordered an inquiry which in substance amounted to a fishing
expedition by the sub-committee to ascertain just what evidence Mr.
Marshall and Mr. Sarfaty had dug up against one of their members.
Congress did not take any action, and finally, after a spectacular play,
decided to let the matter drop.
A COSTLY FAILURE
From the viewpoint of picturesqueness, fantastic conceptions,
recklessness, extravagance, and a remarkable mastery of detail, von
Rintelen stands forth as the most extraordinary German agent sent to
America. Boy-Ed and von Papen are now telling their friends in Berlin
that their recall was due not to what they did but to what von Rintelen
did and said.
The energetic nobleman had hoped to cause an absolute cessation of
exports from this country to the Allies and to create a political
situation where the United States would be powerless to make any protest
on Germany’s submarine warfare. To bring these conditions about _he had
not hesitated to try to foment war between the United States and Mexico,
to violate various American neutrality laws, to attack American
institutions and American ideals with the aim of causing an industrial
stagnation_. Yet how little he actually accomplished!
His Mexican plans were a failure. His schemes to influence legislation
came to naught. While a few strikes were started and quickly settled,
the activity of the Germans proved hurtful to the working men. Von
Rintelen did get a few supplies over to Germany; but many of his ships
were seized by the English. His enterprises are said to have cost many
millions of dollars, and the supplies which he shipped are about the
only thing that Germany got out of his gigantic schemes. U. S. Attorney
Marshall has a passport issued to Edward V. Gates which von Rintelen can
have any time he wishes to come and get it. Should he ever step upon
American shores, he will face charges which upon conviction furnish a
total sentence of anywhere from fifty to sixty years. _Never did Germany
aim through one man to accomplish so much yet effect so little as
through Franz von Rintelen, the Crown Prince’s friend._