In the early days of the participation of the United States in the war, and when the people of this country did not even know of the departure of our war vessels for the other side of the Atlantic, the fact of their departure was published in Berlin, four days before they actually arrived in Queenstown. This was a serious leak, to say the least. The American newspapers scrupulously observed the request of the Secretary of the Navy to avoid publishing the date of the departure or arrival of any vessel. Where did the Berlin authorities obtain their information? That was a question which agitated many persons. It was solved when the Secret Service, early in July, of 1917, arrested three men in New York, for conducting a private postal service, in the interest of Germany. It was claimed that for months they had been sending “mail” to Scandinavian countries for transmission to Germany. These letters were entrusted to the sailors on the ships, and ordered to be handed to certain persons in Norway and Sweden, and by them sent to their destination in the German Capital.
Several bundles of these letters were seized by the representatives of the American Government. It is a significant fact that many of them were in code. They came from all parts of the United States, and from Mexico and South and Central America. The letters were written in English, Spanish and German. Some of them were business communications, and were admittedly harmless. It was proven that this novel “mail service” worked in both directions, letters going to and from Germany. It was also shown that remote parts of Mexico were in wireless communication with Berlin. Significance was also attached to the fact that parts of wireless outfits had been brought in on some of the Scandinavian boats, and that these were afterward erected in Mexico. None of the men were subjected to any pressure on the part of United States officials, and all were told that they had the right to be represented by counsel, if they so desired.
But these arrests in different sections of the country, almost simultaneously, and the varied character of the activity of the men involved, helps to confirm the statement, made on the floor of the Senate, that during and before the war, we had thousands of German spies in the United States.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.
Redundant Chapter titles have been removed from this eBook.
Page [163]: “exclaimed Tandy” was printed as “explaimed Tandy”.