The answer of Albert I am sending you herewith so you can see how we defend ourselves. The document we drew up together yesterday.
But the bright spot for the Americans whose hospitality he was abusing lies in this:
How splendid in the East! I always say to these idiotic Yankees that they should shut their mouths and better still be full of admiration for all that heroism. My friends from the Army are in this respect quite different.
Papen’s “friends from the Army” have, with a good many of “these idiotic Yankees,” organized an army and are looking for Captain Franz again, this time over the top in France, with the determination to settle the question with his government on the battlefield.
[CHAPTER VI]
A Tale Told in Telegrams
One day in October, 1915, a good-looking young fellow wandered into the office of the United States Attorney at Detroit and inquired if the office was making any investigations into dynamite cases. His inquiry was odd enough of itself, but coupled with his personal appearance and his entirely unexpected arrival on the scene, it was doubly mysterious. Lewis J. Smith, as his name turned out to be, looked like a handsome, big, farmer’s boy who had come to town and made a little money. He was well dressed in what he considered the style, and in conversation developed a winning smile and a very engaging and convincing personality. There was the fresh wholesomeness of country breeding about him that comported strangely with his guarded and mysterious talk of dynamite. The United States Attorney thought he must be a “little off,” but referred him to the local agent of the Department of Justice.
To this agent Smith told at first an incoherent story. But the agent was tactful and sympathetic and by asking a question now and then and even more by refraining from asking questions at embarrassing moments, he drew out from Smith most of the details of one of the most dangerous German plots, incidentally exposing the organization of the German spy system west of the Mississippi River.
The story revealed by Smith and by the corroborative testimony in the subsequent investigation was this: Consul-General Bopp discovered that the California Powder Mills at Pinole, across the bay from San Francisco, was manufacturing powder for the use of the Russians on the Eastern Front in Europe, and that this powder was being shipped from Tacoma and Seattle to Vladivostok. One particularly large shipment was under way and he wanted to stop it. He employed C. C. Crowley, who had been for many years head detective for the Southern Pacific Railroad but lately discharged for grafting, to undertake this job along with several others. Crowley lived in the Hotel Gartland in San Francisco, and bought his cigars at a little German stand across the street. Through this German, who was also patronized by Smith, Crowley learned that Smith had been employed recently in the California Powder Mills but was out of a job. Crowley introduced himself to Smith and first gave him the task of going back to the mill and finding out exactly how the powder for Russia was being routed. He gave Smith several hundred dollars, and the next day Smith’s former fellow employees were astonished to see him ride up to the works in an automobile, completely outfitted in new clothes and flourishing a roll of bills big enough to make them gasp. Smith soon found how the powder was packed and marked and also that it was being loaded on a big scow and would be towed by sea to Tacoma for loading there on ships for Vladivostok.