EFFORTS TO OUTWIT THE BRITISH BLOCKADE
Varied and important as were these various duties, already mentioned, still the paramount task to which Dr. Albert devoted himself was a scheme to outwit England’s blockade of Germany. This tall, silent man, working in his little office, was concerned with the purchase of millions and millions of dollars’ worth of supplies—cargo after cargo—for shipment to Germany, direct or through neutral countries. In this campaign he used every means of deceiving the enemy that were in his power.
Let it be said that this is meant as no reflection on Dr. Albert. In war one nation may establish a blockade and the other nation will attempt to run it. International lawyers agree that one nation has a right to establish such a blockade. If the shipowner obtains ingress to the port he makes big profits by the sale of his goods, but if he is caught by the other belligerent he loses his ship and cargo. It is a gamble.
It has already been established as a part of international law, through decisions of Lord Stowell in England more than a century ago and of the United States Supreme Court during the Civil War, that if it can be shown that shipments of supplies to a neutral country are really designed for transhipment to a belligerent, then the enemy has a right to seize and confiscate those goods.
After the Orders in Council were issued by England, Dr. Albert sought first to make the embargo unpopular in America. Letters and other documents in his dossier show that plans were submitted to him for stirring up sentiment in this country against what was denounced by pro-Germans as arbitrary seizures on the part of Great Britain. For instance, Edward D. Adams of 71, Broadway, New York, who for many years was a representative in that city of the Deutsche Bank, sent a letter to Dr. Albert in which he makes the following suggestion:
“The South politically is of very great importance to the Democratic Party and to the re-election of its representatives at our next Presidential election. The Cabinet and Congress have represented in them Southern men to a considerable number who are keenly alive to the importance of keeping the Democratic Administration in close touch with the Southern voters, and it takes such action from time to time as will secure their sympathy and support.”
Likewise plans were worked out for the arousing of the meat packers in Chicago to protest to Washington over the seizure of meat ships bound for Germany by way of neutral ports.
German representatives studying public sentiment in this country also suggested to Dr. Albert that indignation against Great Britain could be aroused by making it appear as if the British blockade was hurting America in preventing the receipt here of various non-contraband articles from Germany. One associate wrote to Dr. Albert:
“From a German standpoint, the pressure on the American Government can be strengthened by the interruption of deliveries from Germany even if the British Government should permit exception. Those shipments especially should be interrupted which the American industries so badly require; withholding of goods is the surest means of occasioning the placing before the Administration in Washington of American interests. Those protests have the most weight which come from American industries which employ many workmen.”
In the early months of the war Dr. Albert was a buyer of enormous supplies of cotton, wheat, copper, lubricating oil and other articles needed by Germany for the prosecution of the war. He signed contracts for meat and other supplies amounting to millions of dollars and he made payment the moment the ships were loaded here so that the American seller got his money regardless of what happened to the cargo while on the high seas. Of course, after the German Government seized all food supplies, the British Government took the attitude that all food supplies bound for Germany were intended for the Government and were therefore contraband. In the next place all purchases of food or other material by Dr. Albert as the official representative of the German Government made them Government supplies and therefore contraband of war. The moment the British Government discovered that these articles were purchased by Albert, no matter whether they were bound for neutral countries, or not, England argued she was justified in seizing the ships and confiscating them. But as a fact, England paid the American shippers in most instances.
All the facts in the vast scheme mapped out by Dr. Albert for outwitting John Bull’s blockade, have been developed by the Attorney-General of England and set forth in the prize courts there. It has been shown that Albert backed the purchase of cotton by the shipload, that he acquired vessels under neutral flags for carrying these cargoes to neutral countries. He spent millions of dollars in the purchase of meat. For instance, Dr. C. T. Dumba, Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, writing to Baron Burian from New York, tells of an interview in Chicago with a beef packer.
“No fewer than thirty-one ships, with meat and bacon shipments from his firm to Sweden, with a value of $19,000,000, have been detained,” he says, “in British ports for months under suspicion of being ultimately intended for Germany. The negotiations have been long drawn out, because Mr. Meagher and his companion will not accept a lame compromise, but insist on full compensation or release of the consignments in which the bacon may still remain sound.”