... we must notice a suggestion made by the Government that because of impertinent and scandalous passages contained in the brief of the appellant the brief should be stricken from the files. Considering the passages referred to and making every allowance for intensity of zeal and an extreme of earnestness on the part of counsel, we are nevertheless constrained to the conclusion that the passages justify the terms of censure by which they are characterized in the suggestion made by the Government. But despite this conclusion which we regretfully reach, we see no useful purpose to be subserved by granting the motion to strike. On the contrary, we think the passages on their face are so obviously intemperate and so patently unwarranted that if as a result of permitting the passages to remain on the files they should come under future observation, they would but serve to indicate to what intemperance of statement an absence of self-restraint or forgetfulness of decorum will lead and therefore admonish of the duty to be sedulous to obey and respect the limitations which an adhesion to them must exact.
In all the operations of Labour’s National Peace Council, including its convention, Lamar kept in the background, as he knew labour had no reason to own him or to love him. Buchanan and the rest supplied the proper colour of propriety. From his retreat in the Willard Hotel in Washington, Lamar was sending ecstatic telegrams, reporting progress, signing the name of David H. Lewis, and receiving in reply approving messages from Rintelen, who used Jones, Miller, and Muller as aliases. The convention seemed a great success. And its preparation and operation had got the German’s money. Of the $547,000 that Rintelen brought, Lamar got more than $300,000. It looked so good to Rintelen that he was ready to get more—from Germany or from his limitless sources of credit here.
But all was not well with Rintelen. He had other lines out besides Lamar’s, and he caught some disquieting fish—some of which he did not identify until later. First, he was playing the social game not wisely but too well. He gave dinner parties; was a guest at others. He should have been more politic than he was. The Lusitania was sunk on May 7th. Instead of adopting the manner of a man deep enough in intrigue to know that he should speak of this crime as a lamentable blunder of his country’s, he justified it. His words gave the gravest offense to his guests. He went further, and threw out hinted threats of other perils that would confront ships carrying munitions—hints that he himself had had a hand in the mysterious fires on ships that were almost a daily occurrence. Some dinner guests in New York took him seriously and reported him to the Government, which had been suspicious of him almost from the day of his arrival in this country.
Also, Rintelen undertook to get newspaper publicity favourable to an embargo on the shipment of munitions. He got himself introduced to “Jack” Hammond, an old newspaper man in New York, and closed with him a contract for syndicate articles in a chain of papers across the country. He met Hammond as one Fred Hansen, a ship captain. (Hammond later testified that Rintelen told him that he “killed” Hansen the day after the Lusitania was sunk.) After sizing Hammond up as worthy of trust, he re-introduced himself as E. V. Gibbons, a purchasing agent, with offices in the building occupied in part by the Transatlantic Trust Company. And at length he confided to Hammond his real importance in the scheme of things German.
Early in this relationship Hammond became sure that this man was planning to violate the laws of the United States, and he reported the matter to the Department of Justice. The Department, already suspicious, asked Hammond to keep up his connection with Rintelen, and through this means it learned a great deal about him. Not enough to cause his arrest—Rintelen never confided that much in any American but Lamar, who had his own reasons for silence.
Out of Rintelen’s multifarious activities arose many of the mysterious fires and explosions in munitions plants, the burning of ships at sea, the attempts on the Welland Canal in Canada, strikes in war industries, and the like. The discovery of Dr. Walter A. Scheele’s part in the incendiary bombs matter, and his connection with Rintelen, began to make the ground fairly warm under Rintelen’s feet. And the Government was taking an uncomfortable interest in Labour’s National Peace Council. Rintelen became uneasy.
His fears were now fed from a new quarter. Andrew D. Meloy became a confidant of his, and Meloy had his own axe to grind. Rintelen had taken an interest in the German activities in Mexico, and almost from the day of his arrival had been intimate in this work with Federico Stallforth, a German banker of Mexico City who joined Rintelen in New York. Stallforth had offices with Meloy at 55 Liberty Street, and when the Transatlantic Trust Company became embarrassed by Rintelen’s presence, Stallforth persuaded Meloy to rent Rintelen desk room. Their acquaintance started there, about July 1st.
Meloy was a well-known engineer and promoter. He had exploited concessions in Mexico—railroad rights of way and gold mines—and in his home state of New Jersey had floated some real-estate “developments.” Meloy saw in Rintelen exactly what Lamar had seen—a lot of real money and an eagerness too great for caution. He began to belittle Lamar’s scheme. Labour’s National Peace Council would never do. It looked good on paper, but it would never stop the shipment of munitions. He even hinted that Lamar had been “playing” Rintelen. Now, if Rintelen wanted a real scheme, certain to succeed, he knew the very thing. Direct action—stop the bluffing and the dangerous intrigues. Buy the whole munitions output of the country. Bid high enough to get it, pay for it outright, and store it. That would cost money, lots of it: but what was money in comparison with the certainty of German victory which this plan would insure?
Rintelen was dazzled. Here was the authentic voice of American big business speaking. A magnificent scheme. He would take it to Germany, take Meloy with him, and get his Government to O. K. it.