"It was estimated yesterday by an insurance official that the incendiary loss in 1916 was easily $25,000,000, or $15,000,000 above normal. And these figures take into consideration only fires where the origin was proved to be incendiary. On the books of the underwriters the Black Tom munitions fire is not listed as incendiary, because it was never legally proved that a German spy set it going.
"This increase in losses for 1916 when the big munition explosions occurred, derives significance in the discussion of losses by spy fires since this country entered the war, because the figures of fire losses in the United States for 1917 may reach $300,000,000, or a larger increase over 1916 than 1916 losses showed over 1915. An estimate made yesterday by the head of a fire insurance company shows that if the average of the losses in the first seven months of the year is maintained until Jan. 1 the total would reach well above $250,000,000, and with the increases of the past few months might easily total $300,000,000 as the cost of the American ash heaps for 1917."
How did the Germans know where munitions were being manufactured? Rumor fled swiftly through the labor districts, and the news was reported through the regular channels of espionage, cleared through the consulates and German business offices, and forwarded to the attachés and the Embassy. But the collection of information did not stop there; it was verified from another source—a serviceable factor in the general system of espionage.
The American manufacturer shared his nation's predilection for talking at meal-time. As the war contracts were distributed about the country, every machine shop worthy of the name became a "munitions plant" and the romance of having a part in the war strained the discretion of most of America's war bridegrooms; they simply "had to tell some one"; not infrequently this some one was a reliable intimate, sitting across a restaurant table at lunch.
There was in America an organization bearing a title which suggested a neutral origin, but whose officers' names, down even unto the official physician, were undeniably German. It was ostensibly for the mutual benefit of the foreign-born waiters, chefs and pantrymen who composed its membership. But its real significance was indicated by the location of its branches (its headquarters were in New York). Trenton, New Jersey, for example, was not a "good hotel town," and foreign waiters usually are to be found in a town which boasts a hotel managed by metropolitan interests, and supplied with a foreign staff; but Trenton was a munitions center, and there was a branch of this association there. Schenectady, the home of the General Electric Company, had no first-class hotel; there was a branch of the association in Schenectady. Conversely, numerous cities whose hotels were manned by foreign waiters and cooks had no branches. The organization was founded in Dresden in 1877.
Many a confidence passed across a table was intercepted by the acute ears of a German spy. Members of the Anglo-French Loan Commission who were staying at the Biltmore in 1914 were served by a German agent in a waiter's uniform. It would have gone well for America and the preparations of supplies for her later Allies if there had been posted in every hotel dining-room the French admonition,
"Taisez-vous! Ils s'ecoutent!"