CHAPTER XV 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."
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."
George Sylvester Viereck, founder and Editor of The Father-
land 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.
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.
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.
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.