COVER OF THE PAMPHLET FEROCIOUSLY ABUSIVE OF PRESIDENT WILSON. ISSUED BY THE EX-TRAVEL LECTURER, JOHN L. STODDARD
Letters, codes, etc., for Bernstorff and individuals are sent to America as follows: the letters are photographed on a reduced scale so that a letter a foot square appears as an inch and a half square. These little prints are put in the layers of a shoe heel of a travelling American or elsewhere, book cover, hat band, etc., and then rephotographed and enlarged in America. Also messengers travel steerage and put things in the mattress of a fellow passenger and go back to the ship after landing in New York and collect the stuff.
A German friend, just returned from Austria, says the feeling there against America is very strong on account of the Dumba incident.
Yesterday I was told by a German that the German army had aeroplanes which develop 300 H. P., and would soon have some of 1000 H. P.
July, 1916. Every one in this Embassy is getting to the breaking point. Nerves do not last forever, and the strain of living in a hostile country is great. The Germans, too, are on edge. They are going to take away our privilege of speaking to prisoners alone; this because they think I learned of the shooting of the second Irishman at Limburg from prisoners. As a matter of fact I did not, but cannot, of course, say how I did learn.
The Russian prisoners are being slowly starved, the French and English get packages from home.
There are rumors that a Bavarian regiment which was ordered a second time to take a position, which the Prussians lost at Verdun, refused and was ordered to be decimated, and that then the Crown Prince of Bavaria threatened to march all the Bavarian troops home unless the order to decimate was rescinded. I do not believe the rumour, but its circulation and other events such as the refusal of the Bavarians lately to adopt a common postage stamp, shows there is a little irritation growing between Prussia and Bavaria. For years before the war the Bavarian Comic papers cartooned the Prussians, common and royal, but like every other movement nothing will result.
There is much underground work for the resumption of reckless submarine war going on, all part of a campaign to upset the Chancellor. Von Bülow, Ex-Chancellor, is working hard. He, however, since his row with the Emperor over the "Telegraph" interview, which he passed as correct, will never be accepted by His Majesty. Nevertheless, he is becoming a focal point for opposition.
The Chancellor and his party are very timid about attacks. For instance, they will do nothing against Emerson, Mueller and that crew, which insults indiscriminately our flag, our President, the Chancellor, Zimmermann and me, because, as Zimmermann frankly told me, they are afraid of attacks. Mueller on the 4th of July hung out the American flag in mourning and circulated copies of the Declaration of Independence charged with a bloody hand and a black cross. I have filed in vain affidavits with the Foreign Office, by people who say he has threatened to shoot me at sight.