And on August 4th it declared:
“O Warriors! The opportunity that you have been searching for years has come ... there is hope that Germany will help you.”
In all this the United States had no interest. We were neutral, and what Germany did to England was (we thought) England’s lookout. Also, we were “the asylum of the oppressed” and “the home of free speech”—and if the Hindus thought they ought to talk revolution we were not concerned. It was not until the Hindus and the Germans started “gun running” from our West Coast that we took a hand.
Har Dayal, nevertheless, was too ferocious even for the home of free speech. Early in 1914, he made speeches so villainously offensive to common decency and order that he was arrested and held for deportation on the ground of being an undesirable alien. He jumped bail in March and fled—to Berlin. He arrived there about the time the war clouds began to darken the skies of Europe, and found a sympathetic haven in the German Foreign Office. In company with other Hindu revolutionists, and under the fostering care of Von Wesendonck, he organized that “Indian Independence Committee existing here” of which Zimmermann spoke affectionately in his cable to Bernstorff, already quoted.
In Har Dayal’s place in San Francisco arose another Hindu revolutionary leader, one Ram Chandra. He succeeded to the management of the Hindu Pacific Coast Association, to the editorship of the Ghadr, and to the sympathetic understanding with the German agents in San Francisco. These German agents were Bopp, the consul-general, and his staff, of whom Von Brincken, the military attaché, was the agent with whom all personal dealings were carried on. Of the scores of Hindus with unpronounceable names and of their noisy speeches and noisome writings, there is no need to make record. But the warlike activities of the Hindus and their German friends were important, dangerous, and interesting.
On January 9, 1915, W. C. Hughes, of 103 Duane Street, New York, shipped ten carloads of freight to San Diego, Cal. The freight bill was heavy—$11,783.74—and it was prepaid by a check on the Guaranty Trust Company, signed by a German named Hans Tauscher. This German was the well-known American agent of Krupps, and it later developed that the ten carloads of freight were eight thousand rifles and four million cartridges. They were sent to “Juan Bernardo Bowen,” in care of M. Martinez & Company, ship brokers of San Diego.
This same “Bowen,” whose home address was given as Topolobampo, Mexico, acting through the same Martinez & Company, on January 19th, chartered a sailing vessel for a round trip from San Diego to Topolobampo. This vessel was the Annie Larsen. The charter price was $19,000, and this money was paid by J. Clyde Hizar, of San Diego, “Bowen’s” attorney. Hizar got the money by wire from a bank in San Francisco, which in turn got it from a woman depositor, who in turn got it from Von Brincken, who in turn got it from the German Consulate’s funds. This roundabout method was, of course, designed to conceal the German source of the money.
At about the same time, a company was organized in San Francisco to buy the oil tanker Maverick from the Standard Oil Company. Fred Jebsen, former lieutenant in the German Navy, put up the money. The Maverick was commanded by Captain H. C. Nelson, and her movements were directed by a young American adventurer, J. B. Starr-Hunt, whom Jebson put aboard as super-cargo (“super-cargo” is an agent put aboard ship by the owner of the merchandise to have charge of the cargo). Parts of a statement subsequently made by young Starr-Hunt tell the rest of the story of the Maverick and the Annie Larsen:
“I was born in San Antonio, Texas, in November, 1892. I went to a German school in Mexico for nine years. Then I was at Dr. Holbrook’s school for four years at Ossining-on-Hudson, New York. I was then for a year at the University of Virginia; three months at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. Besides this I always had private tutors. After leaving the last-named college I joined my father’s law office in Mexico City. This was in the latter part of 1912. My father is one of the leading foreign lawyers in Mexico. In December, 1912, I started for San Francisco to join F. Jebsen & Co., a German firm of shipping agents. I worked in Jebsen’s office from February, 1913, to April, 1915; that is, up to the time I joined the Maverick. I was not actually in Jebsen’s office all this time; I made several trips to various parts of the U. S. A. and Mexico.
“About 1st April, 1915, while I was at Chihuahua, I got a telegram from Jebsen asking me to proceed at once to Los Angeles. I met Jebsen there. He asked me if I cared to proceed to San José del Cabo on the Maverick and then transfer to another ship, the Annie Larsen, either at San José del Cabo or at any other point on the Mexican coast. He told me that the Annie Larsen’s cargo consisted of war material, which was to be transhipped to the Maverick at whatever point they should meet in Mexican or Central American waters; that a man named Page (I do not remember his initials, but perhaps they were A. W.) who would be on the Annie Larsen, was to take charge of the Maverick, and that I myself was to take over the Annie Larsen and proceed to trade with her in whatever manner I might wish to, for six months, between Mexican or Central American ports, but I was not to return to any American port until after the expiration of six months. He did not tell me why the Annie Larsen was not to return to an American port for six months, but the reason was quite clear to me. As a matter of fact, I had heard while I was in Chihuahua that the Annie Larsen had departed from San Diego with a cargo of war material, presumably for some belligerent faction in Mexico. She had cleared from San Diego for Topolobampo. This fact had given rise to considerable comment and notoriety. American papers had taken the matter up, and the several arrests of Americans and Mexicans made by the Government in San Diego at the time were popularly believed to have been in connection with the Annie Larsen and her cargo. Evidently Jebsen, therefore, thought that, if the Annie Larsen returned immediately to an American port, complications might arise. Jebsen was not explicit as to either the destination, or the purpose, of the cargo. One thing I was, however, sure of was that it was not intended for the Mexican rebels. All that Jebsen told me was that the cargo was intended for the Orient, and in the course of conversation he once mentioned Borneo.