Some of the most sensational testimony was that brought out by Alfred L. Becker, Deputy Attorney General of New York, who had in charge a great many of the big espionage and treason investigations in that city, which was the American home and headquarters of the German spy army.
Mr. Becker told of his own investigations, at the instance of the French Government, in the case of Bolo Pacha. The latter was executed as a French traitor, but was shown to have gotten Germany money in this country to the extent of $1,683,000. As is well known, Bolo had raised this money to purchase the Paris Journal. This paper, however, did not change its loyalty to France, so there was a loud wail on the part of Germany’s head spies that they had been swindled once more.
Mr. Becker produced many British secret service documents showing the elaborate governmental arrangements in Berlin to establish and maintain spy systems, both before and after the war. These documents listed, as agents, journalists, college professors, bankers, business men, consular attaches, and others of all ranks. Mr. Becker showed that a former German reservist, later an auditor of accounts in New York City, was told as early as 1909 that he would be valuable in case of war as a German propagandist in the United States. It was intended to get a good system of distribution of German “kultur” established in America. Then there could at once be put before American readers such stories as that systematic attempt made in 1917 to advance the idea that Germany was on the verge of revolt and that the Kaiser soon would be overthrown. The German censor was back of the dissemination of these reports, it being maintained to paralyze the prosecution of the war in this country, where we had the pleasant theory that the German Kaiser and the German people were not at one as to the war.
Mr. Becker also went into many transactions of Ambassador von Bernstorff, showing him to have been quite willing to buy the Paris Journal with German money if need be. He placed in the record correspondence which showed that when Dr. Dernburg left Germany for the United States in August, 1914, the German government deposited 25,000,000 marks with M. M. Warburg & Company of Hamburg, which Mr. Becker stated was for propaganda purposes in the United States. Dr. Dernburg brought to this country a power of attorney from the Imperial Secretary of the Treasury, which gave him the distribution of the fund. Of this fund, $400,000 was turned over to Dr. Albert, head of German finances in New York, by Dr. Dernburg.
Mr. Becker gave a long list of banks which had participated in the sale of German bonds in this country, these banks being located in the principal cities of the east and west. He named as well the chain of banks in which the German government opened accounts for certain purposes. He showed the credentials brought from the German chancellor by Dr. Dernburg to large financial institutions in New York, which were made repositories of German funds. The letter to one such banking firm in New York, from Warburg & Company of Hamburg, establishing the German credit of 25,000,000 marks, was made a part of the record, also the power of attorney enclosed by Dr. Dernburg to the New York repository.
Mr. Becker mentioned the underwriting of German bonds by a New York concern to a total amount of $9,908,000. The proceeds were deposited with a trust company in New York to the order of the Imperial German Government, and were checked out by von Bernstorff and Albert for deposit in the chain of banks above referred to. It was the intention to make these banking institutions favorable to the German ideas, and unfavorable to the American bond sales. An initial deposit was made with the Equitable Trust Company of $3,350,000; the Columbia Trust Company had an initial deposit of $750,000; the Chase National Bank was alleged to have had an initial deposit of $125,000. As the proceeds of the German war loan notes accumulated, the deposits in certain of these New York financial institutions were increased. In order to avoid any legal complications, the German government opened a blind account so that Dr. Albert could go on with his operations without any fear of detection by anyone desiring to bring legal action against him. These figures will give the reader some idea of the extent of the German finances. All this money—and many times the amounts above mentioned—was spent for the one and only purpose of German propaganda and spy work in the United States.
Major Humes took Dr. Edmund von Mach over the jumps in his cross-examination before the Overman Committee. Von Mach came in for a gruelling by Senator Nelson and others of the Committee when he attempted to speak in justification of German practices in war. He did his best to carry water on both shoulders, but had a very unhappy quarter of an hour. He was followed and preceded on the stand by certain literary gentlemen, college professors and others, who undertook to explain to the Committee utterances they had made in print or elsewhere which were charged to show disloyalty to the interests of the United States. It is impossible to give in any sort of detail the vast extension of the testimony before this Committee, or to mention the many widely extended forms of the German activities that ran in this country during the war. Perhaps we may summarize the German attitude, as well as in any other way, by citing the opinion of that delectable gentleman, the Count von Bernstorff, ambassador of the Imperial German Government at Washington, in his communication to the Foreign Office in Berlin, in explanation of his activities in the United States:
It is particularly difficult in a hostile country to find suitable persons for help of this sort, and to this fact, as well as the Lusitania case, we may attribute the shipwreck of the German propaganda initiated by Herr Dernburg. Now that opinion is somewhat improved in our favor, and that we are no longer ostracized, we can take the work up again. As I have said before, our success depends entirely upon finding the suitable people. We can then leave to them whether they will start a daily, weekly, or a monthly, and the sort of support to be given. In my opinion, we should always observe the principle that either a representative of ours should buy the paper, or that the proprietor should be secured by us by continuous support. The latter course has been followed by the English in respect of the New York ——, and our enemies have spent here large sums in this manner. All the same, I do not think that they pay regular subsidies. At least, I never heard of such. This form of payment is moreover inadvisable, because one can never get free of the recipients. They all wish to become permanent pensioners of the Empire, and if they fail in that, they try to blackmail us.
I, therefore, request your Excellency to sanction the payment in question.
By way of general summary, it may be said that a well-defined organization long existed in our country, districted with the usual German exactness. German Naval Intelligence had charge of destruction of our shipping, naval sabotage, etc. Boy-Ed, naval attache at Washington, was to have handled this. The notorious Rintelen, who seemed to have operated independently in New York, confined his activities rather to the making of bombs to be concealed on ships, to the incitement of strikes, munition embargoes, etc. Dr. Scheele, one of the three most prominent spies in America, was relied on to devise means of burning ships at sea. His method of bomb manufacture is spoken of later.