CHAPTER VIII INCENDIARISM
Increased munitions production—The opening explosions—Orders from Berlin—Von Papen and Seattle—July, 1915—The Van Koolbergen affair—The autumn of 1915—The Pinole explosion.
A bomb is an easy object to manufacture. Take a section of lead pipe from six to ten inches long, and solder into it a partition of thin metal, which divides the tube into two compartments. Place a high explosive in one compartment and seal it carefully (the entire operation requires a gentle touch) and in the other end pour a strong acid; cap it, and seal it. If you have chosen the proper metal for the partition, and acid of a strength to eat slowly through it to the explosive, you have produced a bomb of a type which German destroying agents were fond of using in America from the earliest days of their operation.
When the first panic of war had passed, the Allied nations took account of stock and sent their purchasing agents to America for war materials. Manufacturers of explosives set to work at once to fill contracts of unheard-of size. They built new factories almost overnight, hired men broadcast, and sacrificed every other consideration to that of swift and voluminous output. Accidents were inevitable. Probably we shall never know what catastrophes were actually wrought by German sympathizers, for the very nature of the processes and the complete ruin which followed an explosion guarded the secret of guilt. No doubt carelessness was largely to blame for the earlier explosions, but instead of diminishing as the new hands became more skillful, and as greater vigilance was employed everywhere, the number of disasters increased. The word "disaster" is used advisedly. Powder, guncotton, trinitrotoluol (or TNT, as it is better known), benzol (one of the chief substances used in the manufacture of TNT) and dynamite were being produced in great volume for the Allies in American plants within a comparatively short time—all powerful explosives even in minute quantity.
At sea the German navy was losing control daily. It therefore behooved the German forces in America to stop the production of munitions at its source. It may be well, for the force which such presentation carries, to recount very briefly the major accidents which occurred in America in the first few months after August, 1914.
On August 30 one powder mill of the du Pont Powder company (strictly speaking the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company) at Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, blew up. In September a guncotton explosion in the Wright Chemical Works caused the death of three people, and a large property damage. In October the factory of the Pain Fireworks Display Company was destroyed, and several people were killed. In the same month the fireworks factory of Detwiller and Street in Jersey City suffered an explosion and the loss of four lives. These explosions were the opening guns.
Throughout August and September most of these accidents may be attributed to the inexperience and confusion which followed greatly increased production in the powder mills. But a circular dated November 18, issued by German Naval Headquarters to all naval agents throughout the world, ordered mobilized all "agents who are overseas and all destroying agents in ports where vessels carrying war material are loaded in England, France, Canada, the United States and Russia."
Followed these orders:
"It is indispensable by the intermediary of the third person having no relation with the official representatives of Germany to recruit progressively agents to organize explosions on ships sailing to enemy countries in order to cause delays and confusion in the loading, the departure and the unloading of these ships. With this end in view we particularly recommend to your attention the deckhands, among whom are to be found a great many anarchists and escaped criminals. The necessary sums for buying and hiring persons charged with executing the projects will be put at your disposal on your demand."
Equally incriminating proof that the "destroying agents" were active in and about the factories lies in a circular intercepted by the French secret service in Stockholm, in a letter addressed by one Dr. Klasse in Germany to the Pan-German League in Sweden, in which he said:
"Inclosed is the circular of November 22, 1914, for information and execution upon United States territory. We draw your attention to the possibility of recruiting destroying agents among the anarchist labor organization." This circular was signed by Dr. Fischer, Councillor General of the German Army.
In the first six months of 1915 the du Pont factories at Haskell, N. J., Carney's Point, N. J., Wayne, Pa., and Wilmington, Del., experienced explosions and fires; a chemical explosion occurred in a factory in East 19th Street, New York; the Anderson Chemical Company, at Wallington, N. J., was rocked on May 3 by an explosion of guncotton which cost three lives; five more lives were flashed out in a similar accident in the Equitable powder plant at Alton, Ill. On New Year's Day, the Buckthorne plant of the John A. Roebling Company, manufacturers of shell materials, at Trenton, was completely destroyed by fire, the property loss estimated at $1,500,000. And on June 26, the Ætna Powder plant at Pittsburgh suffered a chemical explosion which killed one man and injured ten others.
Most of these "accidents" had taken place near the Atlantic seaboard. Yet Germany was active in the far West. On May 30 a barge laden with a large cargo of dynamite lay in the harbor of Seattle, Washington. The dynamite was consigned to Russia and was about to be transferred to a steamer, when it exploded with a shock of earthquake violence felt many miles inland, and comparable to the explosion in the harbor of Halifax in December, 1917. Two counterfoils in von Papen's check-book cast some light on the activities of the consulate in Seattle, the first dated February 11, 1915, the amount $1,300, the payee "German Consulate, Seattle," the penned notation. "Angelegenheit" (affair) preceded by a mysterious "C"; the second dated May 11, 1915, for $500, payable to one "Schulenberg"[2] through the same consulate.
The month of July was a holocaust. A tank of phenol exploded in New York, the benzol plant of the Semet Solvay Company was destroyed at Solvay, N. Y.; on the 7th serious explosions occurred at the du Pont plant at Pompton Lakes and at the Philadelphia benzol plant of Harrison Brothers (the latter causing $500,000 damage); on the 16th five employees were killed in an explosion and fire at the Ætna plant at Sinnemahoning, Pa., three days later there was another at the du Pont plant in Wilmington; on the 25th a munitions train on the Pennsylvania line was wrecked at Metuchen, N. J.; on the 28th the du Pont works at Wilmington suffered again; and the month came to a fitting close with the destruction of a glaze mill in the American Powder Company at Acton, Mass., on the 29th. (The British army in Mesopotamia had just entered Kut-el-Amara at this time, and far to the northward Germany was prosecuting a successful campaign to force a Russian retirement from Poland.)
Each incident raised havoc in its immediate vicinity. Each represents a carefully worked-out plan involving a group of destroying agents. There is not space here to describe the plots in detail, nor to picture the horror of their results. But the affidavit of Johannes Hendrikus Van Koolbergen, dated San Francisco, August 27, 1915, may serve to show typical methods of operation, as well as to provide a story more than usually melodramatic.
Van Koolbergen was a Hollander by birth, and a British subject by naturalization. In April, 1915, he met in the Heidelberg Café, in San Francisco, a man named Wilhelm von Brincken, who lived at 303 Piccadilly Apartments, and who asked Van Koolbergen to call on him there. The latter, however, was leaving for Canada, and it was not until some five weeks later that he returned and found that in his absence von Brincken had twice telephoned him to pursue the acquaintance.
Van Koolbergen called. Von Brincken explained that he was a German army officer, on secret service, and employed directly by Franz Bopp, the German consul in San Francisco. His visitor's identity and personality was apparently well known to him, for he offered Van Koolbergen $1,000 for the use of his passport into Canada, "to visit a friend, to assist him in some business matters." Van Koolbergen refused to rent his passport, but volunteered to go himself on any mission. This offer was discussed at a later meeting at the consulate with Herr Bopp, and accepted, after, as Koolbergen said, "I became suspicious, and upon different questions being asked me ... I became very pro-German in the expression of my sentiments."
He was shown into an adjoining office, and von Brincken popped in, and "asked me if I would do something for him in Canada ... and I answered: 'Sure, I will do something, even blow up bridges, if there is any money in it.' (This struck my mind because of what I had read of what had been done in Canada of late—something about a bridge being blown up—) And he said: 'If that is so, you can make good money.'"
Von Brincken made an appointment with his newly engaged destroying agent for the following day. On the window-sill of 303 Piccadilly Apartments sat a flower pot with a tri-colored band around its rim. If the red was turned outward towards Van Koolbergen as he came along the street, he was to come right upstairs. If he saw the blue, he was to loiter discreetly about until the red was turned; if the white area showed, he was to return another day.
The red invitation signaled him to come up, and the two bargained for some time over Van Koolbergen's Canadian mission, without coming to an understanding. Once safely out of von Brincken's sight, the "destroying agent" pattered to the British Consulate and betrayed to Carnegie Ross, the consul, what was afoot. Ross urged him to advise Canada at once, so Van Koolbergen retold his story in a letter to Wallace Orchard, in the freight department of the Canadian Pacific Railway at Vancouver, B. C.
Orchard telegraphed back demanding Van Koolbergen's presence at once, and furnished money and transportation. Meanwhile the latter had pretended to accept von Brincken's commission to go to Canada and blow up a military train, bridge, or tunnel on the Canadian Pacific line between Revelstoke and Vancouver, for which he was to receive a fee of $3,000. The German exhibited complete maps of the railroad, told when a dynamite train might be expected to pass over that section of the road, and outlined to Van Koolbergen just where and when he could procure dynamite for the job. So on a Sunday morning in early May Van Koolbergen arrived in Vancouver, and lost no time in getting in touch with Orchard and the British Secret Service, with whom he framed the following plan:
Van Koolbergen was to send a letter to von Brincken warning him that something would happen in a day or two. The Vancouver newspapers would then carry a prepared story to the effect that a tunnel had caved in in the Selkirk mountains, whereupon Van Koolbergen was to collect for his services, and to secure incriminating evidence in writing from von Brincken if possible.
The plot worked well. The news story appeared, and cast a mysterious air over the accident. Van Koolbergen at once wrote a postcard to von Brincken:
"On the front page of Vancouver papers of (date) news appears of a flood in Japan. Our system may be in trouble, so wire here at the Elysium Hotel."
A few days later Van Koolbergen returned to San Francisco and met von Brincken, who told him that he had replied to the postcard by telegram:
"Would like to send some flowers to your wife but do not know her address,"
which meant simply that he had wished to communicate with Van Koolbergen through the latter's wife. (These messages, by the way, were despatched from Oakland by Charles C. Crowley, who will appear again.) And von Brincken paid Van Koolbergen $200 in bills, and asked him to come to the consulate for the balance of his fee.
Franz Bopp was skeptical. For some reason he mistrusted Van Koolbergen. He produced a map of British Columbia and asked him to describe what he had accomplished. Van Koolbergen, confused for a moment, suggested that he would be unwise to go into detail before three witnesses (Bopp, von Brincken, and von Schack, the vice-consul). Bopp rose indignantly and said that his secret was safe with three who had been sworn to serve the Vaterland. So Van Koolbergen invented and related the story of The Dynamiting That Never Was, supporting it with copies of the Vancouver newspapers. Bopp wanted more proof; at Van Koolbergen's suggestion, he wrote one Van Roggenen, the Dutch vice-consul at Vancouver, asking him to "inquire of the General Superintendent of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company why a car of freight which I expected from the East had not arrived yet, and to kindly wire me at my expense." Van Roggenen happened to be a friend of Van Koolbergen's, and of course any inquiry made of the railroad for Van Koolbergen's car of freight would have been tactfully construed and properly answered. But to make assurance doubly sure, Van Koolbergen wired Orchard in Vancouver to send him the following telegram:
"Superintendent refuses information. Found out however that freight has been delayed eleven days on account of accident. Signed V. R."
Armed with this fictitious reply, which Orchard soon sent him, Van Koolbergen called at the consulate, and was paid $300 more in cash. In order to get as much money as possible as soon as possible, the "destroying agent" agreed to cut his price from $3,000 to $1,750, and was promised the money the next day. The next day came, but no money. Van Koolbergen sent a sharp note to the Consul, suggesting blackmail, and the German Empire in San Francisco capitulated; von Brincken met Van Koolbergen at the Palace Hotel and paid him $1,750, (of which he extracted $250 as commission!). He made Koolbergen sign a receipt for $700, as he said a payment of $1,750 would look bad on the books, was much too high—even seven hundred was high, but could be justified if any one higher up complained. "And," concluded the thrifty Van Koolbergen in his affidavit written August 27, "I have some of the greenbacks given me by von Brincken now in my possession."
The San Franciscan participants in the episode were finally brought to justice. Bopp, Baron Eckhardt, von Schack, Lieutenant von Brincken, Crowley, and Mrs. Margaret Cornell, Crowley's secretary, were indicted, tried, and convicted. The men received sentences of two years and fines of $10,000 each; Mrs. Cornell was sentenced to a year and a day. The three members of the consulate, thanks to their other activities, involved themselves in a series of charges for which the maximum punishment was something more than the average man's lifetime in prison. Certain of their adventures will appear in other phases of German activity to be discussed. They may be dismissed here, however, with the statement that the California consulate also planned the destruction of munitions plants at Ætna, Indiana, and at Ishpeming, Michigan.
The State Department released on October 10, 1917, a telegram from the Foreign Office in Berlin, addressed to Count von Bernstorff, which established beyond question the chief's familiarity with these operations, and more especially the continued desire of the Foreign Office to interrupt transcontinental shipping in Canada. It is dated January 2, 1916. Its text follows:
"Secret. General staff desires energetic action in regard to proposed destruction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad at several points, with a view to complete and protracted interruption of traffic. Captain Boehm, who is known on your side, and is shortly returning, has been given instructions. Inform the military attaché and provide the necessary funds.
"Zimmermann."
The factory explosions continued. The Midvale Steel Company suffered incendiary fires; a Providence warehouse containing a consignment of cotton for Russia was burned; there were fires in the shell plant of the Brill Car Company, in the Southwark Machinery Company, and in the shell department of the Diamond Forge and Steel Company. For August the ghastly recitation proceeds somewhat as follows: Bethlehem Steel Company, powder flash, ten killed; League Island Navy Yard, Philadelphia, fire on battleship Alabama; Newport News Navy Yard, three fires in three weeks. In September an explosion in the aeroplane factory of the Curtiss plant at Depew, New York, a German suspected; explosions in the shell factory of the National Cable and Conduit Company at Hastings, New York; an explosion of benzol and wax in the plant of Smith and Lenhart, New York, in which two people were seriously injured; an explosion in a fireworks factory at North Bergen, N. J., in which two people were killed; an explosion which cost two lives in the shell factory of the Westinghouse Electric Company at Pittsburgh. Scarcely a week went by during the autumn without an explosion and fire which wiped out from one to a dozen lives, and from one hundred thousand to a million dollars. Munitions plants were blown to atoms in a moment, and hardly before the charred ground had cooled, were being rebuilt, for the guns in France were hungry.
Out of the mass of munitions accidents in the year 1915 stands sharp and clear the Bethlehem Steel fire of November 10—of which all Germany had had warning, and on which the German press was forbidden to comment—when 800 big guns were destroyed. The du Pont and Ætna organizations suffered again and again; a chemical plant had two fires which cost three-quarters of a million dollars; two explosions in the Tennessee Coal and Iron Works at Birmingham, Alabama, did considerable property damage, and assisted Germany further by frightening labor away from work. Suspects were arrested here and there, and always their trails led back to German or Austrian nationality or sympathy.
Their chiefs were elusive. Captain von Papen sauntered out of the Ritz-Carlton into Madison Avenue, New York, one afternoon. He idled down to Forty-second Street, and paused, as if undecided where to promenade. He turned east, walked a block, and turned again down the ramp into the Grand Central Station. Quickening his pace—he had only a minute more—he crossed the great waiting-room, presented a ticket at the train gate, and a moment later was in the Twentieth Century Limited, the last passenger aboard. He was seen next day in Chicago. And for a month thereafter he was completely lost to the authorities, while, as they found out later, he made a grand tour of the country, going first to Yellowstone Park, then down the Pacific Coast to Mexico, where he joined Boy-Ed, and finally returning to New York through San Francisco. He had ample opportunity to confer with his consular deputies, and his destroying agents. In August a train loaded with 7,000 pounds of dynamite from the du Pont works at Pinole, California, was destroyed; in the evidence against von Papen is this letter concerning the price to be paid for the Pinole job:
"Dear S.: Your last letter with clipping today, and note what you have to say. I have taken it up with them and 'B'" (who was Franz Bopp) "is awaiting decision of 'P'" (who was von Papen) "in New York, so cannot advise you yet, and will do so as soon as I get word from you. You might size up the situation in the meantime."
Glancing back over the record of 1915—which was hardly mitigated in the succeeding years of war—one is inclined to marvel at the hardy perennial pose of the deported attaché, who said as he left the United States:
"I leave my post without any feeling of bitterness, because I know that when history is once written, it will establish our clean record despite all the misrepresentations and calumnies spread broadcast at present."