Face to Face with Kaiserism

by James W. Gerard

There is no question but that, just as in Argentina, the Swedish diplomatic pouch was in all countries at the service of Germany, and that the orders to the German spies in Russia were sent by this means. In fact, it is believed German prisoners in Russia found their way to Petrograd, there to participate in revolution and counter-revolution under orders sent through the Swedish officials.

Smuggling is winked at and at Lullia on the Swedish coast near the head of the Gulf of Bothnia great quantities of rubber, block tin and oil arrive from Russian Uleaborg across the gulf.

The French wanted to send a consul to Lullia, but their request was refused, doubtless because the Swedish authorities did not care to have any official foreigners see this traffic.

Cleverest of all has been the work of the German financial agents. Warburg, the Hamburg banker, is attached to the German legation in Stockholm. So skilfully has he managed his task, that Swedish firms and Swedish banks have been induced to take German paper money, commercial paper and securities instead of gold, in return for copper, rubber, tin, food, fats, wool and supplies and in this way the Swedish business men, by the touch of self-interest, have been made to favour Germany.

I confess that it is hard to bring about, but as each nation has the right to choose with whom its citizens shall do business, we must mercilessly blacklist those firms which assist Germany by accepting, in lieu of the gold which would thus be drained from Germany, what amounts to the promise of Germany to pay if successful in war.

The Queen of Sweden, herself a German and an admirer of the German Emperor, has great influence over her husband and the Court.

At a time when she was visiting her family in Karlsruhe (for she is a Princess of Baden) a reprisal attack made by Allied aeroplanes narrowly missed the royal palace and, consequently, the Queen. This has added to her prejudice against the Allies. The Crown Princess of Sweden was a Princess of Connaught, the sister of "Princess Pat," but she does not dare take any stand against the anti-ally propaganda.

I am sure that President Wilson appreciates the gravity of the situation and that means are being taken to place our position not only before the Swedish people but those of Swedish birth and descent in the United States whose influence should be brought to bear on their friends and relatives in the old country.

The crew of every Swedish ship that lands here should be given our viewpoint; every Swede who returns to Sweden should go as a missionary—we must not permit Sweden, whose people are bound to us by ties of blood and friendship, by the hospitality which we offered to every Swedish immigrant, to be ranged among our enemies by the German-admiring aristocrats of Sweden who by birth, training and education are opposed to democracy, who hope, if Germany wins, to gain as great an ascendancy in the government as the Prussian Junkers possess in Germany.

The Finns who occupy that part of Russia nearest to Sweden have quite a sympathy for the Swedes, Finland having been at one time a part of Sweden. The races, however, are not the same. The Finns are a Mongolian race and certain similarities of language make it plain that the Finns and the Hungarians came from the same mysterious place of origin somewhere in the great mountains and highlands of Central Asia.