DISLOYAL CITIZENS
“The subtle and active minority” to which the President made such a sensational reference is a group of Americans—German-Americans swayed by sentiment for Germany and Americans influenced by gold—who have been following the dictation of Teutonic agents in America. They have received orders and sought to carry them out. They have been puppets that worked and argued in the interest of the Central Powers when certain men pulled the strings. They have been active workers in carrying out clever political policies and agitations that were part of schemes devised in Berlin to benefit Germany against her enemy. True, there have been faithful American citizens who have sided with Germany’s arguments—and their loyalty cannot be questioned—but there have been citizens who knowingly worked with German agents against the best interests of the nation. When a man strives and schemes with foreign agents against the honest endeavours of an American official, who is seeking to execute the law, he is guilty not only of disloyalty but of sedition.
From the outset of the war Teutonic agents intrigued to get their clutches upon the Federal legislative body. They schemed to use it as an obstacle to any move by the President. They sought legislation that would prevent the shipment of munitions from this country, that would have prevented the Allies from floating any war bonds in America, and that would have stopped Americans from sailing on passenger vessels of Allied merchantmen. Their aim was to make Congress vote and the President act just as the Emperor of Germany deemed most suitable to the interests of the Fatherland.
To that end they tried to manipulate sentiment among the voters by means of insidious propaganda. They hired lobbyists to work among Representatives and Senators at the National Capitol, and so thoroughly and accurately did these men do their work that the line-up of the House of Representatives and of the Senate was reported almost daily to Berlin on any important legislation bearing on Germany’s interests in the war. They reported the change from day to day of any Congressman’s attitude and the reason therefore. They strove to create a sentiment among the voters so that appeals would pour in upon Congressmen, filling them with fear of defeat at the polls if they did not obey what amounted to the Kaiser’s dictation.
At the start of the European War there began in Congress a vehement debate over the question of imposing a legislative embargo on the shipments of arms and ammunition to the Allies. In these debates men participated who undoubtedly were sincere in the convictions they expressed. Nevertheless, they were button-holed by Americans working for German agents, but all the flowery oratory in favour of “universal peace” proved unavailing.
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. Money was mentioned and offers were made to seven or eight different Congressmen. It is charged by Government officials that a large amount of money was spent—but the project was in vain.