Face to Face with Kaiserism

by James W. Gerard

Even then a clever spy can open the letter, read the contents and seal it again. This is done by cutting through the seals with a hot razor—the divided seals are then united by pressing the hot razor against each side of the cut and then pressing the two parts of the cut seal together. This is, however, a very delicate operation and doesn't always work.

From the outbreak of war we sent and received our official mail through England, and couriers carried it between Berlin and London through Holland via Flushing and Tilbury.

On account of the great volume of correspondence between Ambassador Page and myself on the affairs of German prisoners in England and English prisoners in Germany, there were many pouches every week. These were leather mail bags opened only by duplicate keys kept in London and Berlin and, for the American mail, in Berlin and Washington. Our couriers did their best to keep the numerous bags in their sight during the long journey but on many occasions our couriers were separated, I am sure with malicious purpose, from their bags by the German railway authorities and on some occasions the bags not recovered for days.

Undoubtedly at this time the Germans opened and looked over the contents of the bags. Later in the war our courier while on a Dutch mail boat, running between Flushing and England, was twice captured with the boat by a German warship and taken into Zeebrugge. Undoubtedly here, too, the bags were secretly opened and our uncoded despatches and letters read.

German spies were most annoying in Havana and one of them, a large dark man, followed me about at a distance of only six feet, with his eyes glued on the small bag which I carried from a thick strap hanging around my shoulder. I brought it from Germany in that way. I never let it out of my hands or sight.

What was in that bag? Among other things were the original telegrams written by the Kaiser in his own handwriting, facsimiles of which appear in my earlier book, "My Four Years in Germany," and the treaty which the Germans tried to get me to sign while they held me as a prisoner. Under the terms they proposed the German ships interned in America were to have the right in case of war, to sail for Germany under a safe conduct to be obtained from the Allies by the United States. Somewhat of a treaty! And quite a new, bright and original thought by some one in the Foreign Office or German Admiralty. There were also in this mysterious bag many other matters of interest that may some day see the light.

Poisonous propaganda and spying are the twin offspring of Kaiserism.

There is in Mexico, for instance, one force that never sleeps,—the German propaganda. It is the same method as that used by the Teutons in every country, the purchase or rental of newspaper properties, bribing public men and officers of the army and the insidious use of Germans who are engaged in commerce. This propaganda is backed by enormous sums of money appropriated by the German government which directs how all its officers and agents, high and low, shall participate in the campaign.

In the long run a paid propaganda always fails. It is like paying money to blackmailers. The blackmailer who has once received money becomes so insatiable that even the Bank of England will not satisfy him in the end. Sometimes the newspapers which are not bought, but are equally corrupt, become vehement in their denunciation of the country making the propaganda in the hope of being bought and in the hope that their bribe money will be in proportion to their hostility. Corrupted public men who are not bribed often become sternly virtuous and denunciatory with a similar hope. Those who have received the wages of shame, on the other hand, become more insistent in their demands, crying, "Give! Give!" like the daughter of the horse-leech.

The blows of war must be struck quickly. Delays are dangerous and the temporary paralysis of one country by propaganda may mean the loss of the war. The United States has been at a great disadvantage because our officials have not had the authority, the means or the money to fight the German propaganda with effective educational campaigns, both offensive and defensive.