Germany, The Next Republic?

by Carl W. Ackerman

A NEW DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE Seven score years have elapsed since those great words were forged that welded us into a nation upon many fiery battlefields. In that day the strong voices of strong men rang across the world, their molten words flamed with light and their arms broke the visible chains of an intolerable bondage. But now in the red reflex of the glare cast from the battlefields of Europe, the invisible manacles that have been cunningly laid upon our freedom have become shamefully apparent. They rattle in the ears of the world. Our liberty has vanished once again. Yet our ancient enemy remains enthroned in high places within our land and in insolent ships before our gates. We have not only become Colonials once again, but subjects,--for true subjects are known by the measure of their willing subjection. We Americans in the heart of this heroic nation now struggling for all that we ourselves hold dear, but against odds such as we were never forced to face, perceive this truth with a disheartening but unclouded vision. Far from home we would to-day celebrate, as usual, the birthday of our land. But with heavy hearts we see that this would now seem like a hollow mockery of something solemn and immemorial. It were more in keeping with reality that we burnt incense upon the altars of the British Baal. Independence Day without Independence! The liberty of the seas denied us for the peaceful Commerce of our entire land and granted us only for the murderous trafficking of a few men! Independence Day has dawned for us in alien yet friendly land. It has brought to us at least the independence of our minds. Free from the abominations of the most dastardly campaign of falsehood that ever disgraced those who began and those who believe it, we have stripped ourselves of the rags of many perilous illusions. We see America as a whole, and we see it with a fatal and terrible clarity. We see that once again our liberties of thought, of speech, of intercourse, of trade, are threatened, nay, already seized by the one ancient enemy that can never be our friend. With humiliation we behold our principles, our sense of justice trodden underfoot. We see the wild straining of the felon arms that would drag our land into the abyss of the giant Conspiracy and Crime. We see the foul alliance of gold, murderous iron and debauched paper to which we have been sold. We know that our pretenses and ambitions as heralds of peace are monstrous, so long as we profit through war and human agony. We see these rivers of blood that have their source in our mills of slaughter. The Day of Independence has dawned. It is a solemn and momentous hour for America, It is a day on which our people must speak with clear and inexorable voice, or sit silent in shame. It is the great hour in which we dare not celebrate our first Declaration of Independence, because the time has come when we must proclaim a new one over the corpse of that which has perished. Berlin, July 4th, 1915. AN ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA DOCUMENT

The League of Truth, however, was but one branch of the intricate propaganda system. While it was financed almost entirely by German-Americans living in Germany who retained their American passports to keep themselves, or their children, out of the army, all publications for this bureau were approved by the Foreign Office censors. Germans, connected with the organisation, were under direction of the General Staff or Navy.

In order to have the propaganda really successful some seeds of discontent had to be sown in the United States, in South America and Mexico as well as in Spain and other European neutral countries. For this outside propaganda, money and an organisation were needed. The Krupp ammunition interests supplied the money and the Foreign Office the organisation.

For nearly two years the American press regularly printed despatches from the Overseas News Agency. Some believed they were "official." This was only half true. The Krupps had been financing this news association. The government had given its support and the two wireless towers at Sayville, Long Island, and Tuckerton, N. J., were used as "footholds" on American soil. These stations were just as much a part of the Krupp works as the factories at Essen or the shipyards of Kiel. They were to disseminate the Krupp-fed, Krupp-owned, Krupp-controlled news, of the Overseas News Agency.

When the Overseas despatches first reached the United States the newspapers printed them in a spirit of fairness. They gave the other side, and in the beginning they were more or less accurate. But when international relations between the two countries became critical the news began to be distorted in Berlin. At each crisis, as at the time of the sinking of the Arabic, the Ancona, the Sussex and other ships, the German censorship prevented the American correspondents from sending the news as they gathered it in Germany and substituted "news" which the Krupp interests and the Imperial Foreign Office desired the American people to believe. December, 1916, when the German General Staff began to plan for an unrestricted submarine warfare, especial use was made of the "Overseas News Agency" to work up sentiment here against President Wilson. Desperate efforts were made to keep the United States from breaking diplomatic relations. In December and January last records of the news despatches in the American newspapers from Berlin show that the Overseas agency was more active than all American correspondents in Berlin. Secretary of State Zimmermann, Under-secretaries von dem Busche and von Stumm gave frequent interviews to the so-called "representatives of the Overseas News Agency." It was all part of a specific Krupp plan, supported by the Hamburg-American and the North German Lloyd steamship companies, to divide opinion in the United States so that President Wilson would not be supported if he broke diplomatic relations.

Germany, as I have pointed out, has been conducting a two-faced propaganda. While working in the United States through her agents and reservists to create the impression that Germany was friendly, the Government laboured to prepare the German people for war. The policy was to make the American people believe Germany would never do anything to bring the United States into the war, but to convince the German public that America was not neutral and that President Wilson was scheming against the German race. Germany was Janus-headed. Head No. 1 said:

"America, you are a great nation. We want your friendship and neutrality. We have close business and blood relations, and these should not be broken. Germany is not the barbaric nation her enemies picture her."

Head No. 2, turned toward the German people, said:

"Germans, President Wilson is anti-German. He wants to prevent us from starting an unlimited submarine war. America has never been neutral, because Washington permits the ammunition factories to supply the Allies. These factories are killing your relatives. We have millions of German-Americans who will support us. It will not be long until Mexico will declare war on the United States, and our reservists will fight for Mexico. Don't be afraid if Wilson breaks diplomatic relations."

The German press invasion of America began at the beginning of the war. Dr. Dernburg was the first envoy. He was sent to New York by the same Foreign Office officials and the same Krupp interests which control the Overseas agency. Having failed here, he returned to Berlin. There was only one thing to save German propaganda in America. That was to mobolise the Sayville and Tuckerton wireless stations, and Germany did it immediately.