At the beginning of 1916, there was in the United States no single German organization which merited the name of "propaganda." Thus no activities which could compromise us in any way ensued henceforward.
The political situation had become so serene that we had no need for propaganda. The pacifist elements in the United States did this work for us. The only question was as to whether we would remain really at one with them, or whether we meant to persist in submarine warfare, which must inevitably lead us into war.
President Wilson opened Congress on 7th December, 1915, with a message, in which he set forth the new programme for national defence. "Preparedness" became the order of the day in the United States. The message demanded that the Army and Navy should be increased, and added:
"The urgent question of our mercantile and passenger shipping is closely connected with the problem of national supply. The full development of our national industries, which is of such vital importance to the nation, pressingly calls for a large commercial fleet. It is high time to make good our deficiencies on this head and to restore the independence of our commerce on the high seas."
In this message may be recognized the second important point in the Presidential programme for the next election. "Peace and Preparedness" was to be the battle-cry of the Democratic Party. The Mexican imbroglio of 1913-14 had proved that the armed forces of the United States were unequal even to the demands of a comparatively small campaign; and the American Government, for lack of means, had been unable to impose its will on Mexico. Now the European War stirred all imaginations and offered a favorable occasion for overcoming the prejudices of the pacifist section against military armaments. It was not so long since the song "I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier," was sung with fervor all the land over; but now events had too clearly proved the powerlessness of any but well-armed nations even to follow their own lines of policy; and the necessity of a mercantile marine of their own grew daily clearer to the people of the United States. Hitherto the Americans had always found enough of foreign vessels for the transport of their goods, had found it cheaper to make use of these facilities than to supply their own under the conditions existing in the States. Now, however, the shortage of merchant tonnage was acute, and American goods were piled roof high in all the warehouses of New York harbor. It was clear that now or never was the time to seize the chance afforded by the war of persuading Congress to sanction the provision of a strong Army and Fleet.
The Presidential message also touched on the "conspiracies," but without any mention of the German Embassy's supposed share in them. The period of these so-called "conspiracies" thus closed with a sharp reprimand addressed by Mr. Wilson to the German-Americans, and with my official recommendation to the Germans in the United States to abstain from all forms of illegal action. The after-effects of this period, however, may be traced in the subsequent lengthy trials of the various offenders. I cannot be sure that since the beginning of 1916, not one single incident which could be comprised under the term "conspiracy" came to light; but these trials and Entente propaganda kept the recollection of such affairs alive, and the American war propaganda service had no difficulty subsequently in retelling the old tales which, but for the entry of the United States into the war, would have passed into oblivion.
The paragraphs of the message dealing with this subject ran as follows:
"We are at peace with all the nations of the world, and there is reason to hope that no question in controversy between this and other Governments will lead to any serious breach of amicable relations, grave as some differences of attitude and policy have been and may yet turn out to be. I am sorry to say that the gravest threats against our national peace and safety have been uttered within our own borders. There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags, but welcomed by under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue. Their number is not great as compared with the whole number of those sturdy hosts by which our nation has been enriched in recent generations out of virile foreign stocks; but it is great enough to have brought deep disgrace upon us and to have made it necessary that we should promptly make use of processes of law by which we may be purged of their corrupt distempers.
"But the ugly and incredible thing has actually come about and we are without adequate federal laws to deal with it. I urge you to enact such laws at the earliest possible moment, and feel that in doing so I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out. They are not many, but they are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power should close over them at once. They have formed plots to destroy property, they have entered into conspiracies against the neutrality of the Government, they have sought to pry into every confidential transaction of the Government in order to serve interests alien to our own. It is possible to deal with these things very effectually. I need not suggest the terms in which they may be dealt with."
The message, up to a point, maintained an impartial attitude, for it not only blamed the German-Americans but continued in the following words, aimed solely at the many Americans in London and Paris who disapproved of Wilson's policy of peace and neutrality: